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THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ISLAM

NEW EDITION

PREPARED BY A NUMBER OF
LEADING ORIENTALISTS

EDITED BY

C. E. BOSWORTH, E. van DON^ZEL, B. LEWIS and Oh* PELLA-TT

ASSISTED BY F. Th. DIJKEMA AND Mme S. NURIT (pp. 1-512)

C. E. BOSWORTH, E. van DONZEL, W. P* HEINRICHS and Ch* PELLA. T

ASSISTED BY F. Th. DIJKEMA AND Mme. S. NURIT (pp. 513-1044)

UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF
THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF ACADEMIES

VOLUME VI

MAHK—MID

<£

✓

‘ f 6 8 *

LEIDEN

E.J. BRILL

1991

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:

Members: G.E. Bosworth, J.T.P. de Bruijn, Cl. Cahen, A. Dias Farinha, E. van Donzel, J. van Ess,
F. Gabrieli, E. Garcia Gomez, W.P. Heinrichs, A.K.S. Lambton, G. Lecomte, T. Lewicki, B. Lewis,
F. Meier, Ch. Pellat, F.H. Pruijt, F. Rosenthal, F. Rundgren, A.L. Udovitch.

Associated members: Naji al-Asil, Halil Inalcik, Ibrahim Madkour, S.H. Nasr, M. Talbi, E. Tyan.

The preparation of this volume of the Encyclopaedia of Islam was made possible
in part through grants from the Research Tools Program of the National Endow¬
ment for the Humanities, an independent Federal Agency of the United States
Government; the British Academy; the Oriental Institute, Leiden; Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres; and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences

The articles in this volume were published in double fascicules of 128 pages, the dates of publication being:

1986: Fasc. 99-100, pp. 1-128
1987: Fascs. 101-104, pp. 129-384
1988: Fasc. 105-106, pp. 385-512

1989: Fasc. 107-112, pp. 513- 896
1990: Facs. 113-114a, pp. 897-1044

ISBN 90 04 08112 7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other

means without written permission from the Editors.

PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

For the benefit of readers who may wish to follow up an individual contributor’s articles, the Editors have decid¬
ed to place after each contributor’s name the number of the pages on which his signature appears. Academic
but not other addresses are given (for a retired scholar, the place of his last known academic appointment).

In this list, names in square brackets are those of authors of articles reprinted or revised from the first edition
of this Encyclopaedia or from the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam. An asterisk after the name of the author in the
text denotes an article reprinted from the first edition which has been brought up to date by the Editorial Com¬
mittee; where an article has been revised by a second author his name appears in the text within square brackets
after the name of the original author.

M. Abdesselem, University of Tunis. 911.

Z. Abrahamowicz, Cracow. 986.

Haleh Afshar, University of Bradford. 488.

I. Afshar, Tehran. 92.

Feroz Ahmad, University of Massachusetts, Boston.
74.

M. Ajami, Princeton University. 409.

Munir Aktepe, University of Istanbul. 58, 1004.
Hamid Algar, University of California, Berkeley.
225, 292.

C. H. Allen Jr., School of the Ozarks, Point
Lookout, Miss. 843.

E. Allworth, Columbia University, New York. 772.
Edith G. Ambros, University of Vienna. 967, 969,
1027.

Metin And, University of Ankara. 761.

Barbara Watson Andaya, University of Auckland.
214.

L. Y. Andaya, University of Auckland. 239.

P. A. Andrews, University of Cologne. 190, 457,
700.

Ghaus Ansari, Kuwait University. 490.

A. Arioli, University of Rome. 313.

R. Arnaldez, University of Paris. 571.
the late E. Ashtor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
121 .

R. W. J. Austin, University of Durham. 614.

A. Ayalon, Tel Aviv University, 262, 726.

D. Ayalon, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 321.

[F. Babinger, Munich]. 1000, 1023, 1024.

J. -L. Bacque-Grammont, French Institute of Anato¬
lian Studies, Istanbul. 993.

M. A. Bakhit, University of Jordan, Amman. 346.
[W. Barthold, Leningrad]. 420, 433, 942.

A. F. L. Beeston, Oxford. 88.

Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Universities of Bamberg
and Munich. 719.

Irene Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique, Paris. 278.

J. E. Bencheikh, University of Paris. 349, 626.

R. Bencheneb, Paris. 757.

N. Berkes, Hythe, Kent. 969.

[P. Berthier, Rabat]. 891.

E. Birnbaum, University of Toronto. 1020.

A. Bjorkelo, University of Bergen. 794.

W. Bjorkman, Uppsala. 195, 424, 1007.

J. R. Blackburn, University of Toronto. 72, 437,
912.

P. N. Boratav, Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, Paris. 421, 827.
the late J. Bosch Vila, Granada. 223, 577, 899, 927.

C. E. Bosworth, University of Manchester. 64, 66,
77, 87, 116, 152, 193, 270, 273,276,340, 419, 421,

498, 505, 539, 542, 557, 618, 621, 623, 628, 713,
726, 729, 780, 782, 783, 872, 901, 903, 912, 914,
915, 916, 918, 942, 966, 1024.

Yu. Bregel, Indiana University, Bloomington. 417,
418, 419, 420.

[C. Brockelmann, Halle]. 115, 869.

K. L. Brown, University of Manchester. 124.

J. T. P. de Bruijn, University of Leiden. 73, 86, 276,
633, 764, 835.

Fr. Buhl, Copenhagen]. 46, 575, 918.

M. Buret]. 137.

J. C. Burgel, University of Bern. 340.

R. M. Burrell, University of London. 358, 730.

J. Burton-Page, Church Knowle, Dorset. 61, 87,
122, 128, 269, 343, 370, 410, 534, 536, 537, 690,
815, 839, 867, 970, 1019, 1028, 1029.

P. Cachia, Columbia University, New York. 868.

Cl. Cahen, University of Paris. 141, 144, 1017.

J. Calmard, Centre National de la Recherche Scien¬
tifique, Paris. 518, 556.

G. E. Carretto, University of Rome. 1024.

[P. de Cenival, Rabat]. 598.

the late E. Cerulli, Rome. 129, 628.

J.-Cl. Ch. Chabrier, Centre National de la Recher¬
che Scientifique, Paris. 104.

P. Chalmeta, University of Zaragoza. 432, 521, 852.

J. Chelhod, Centre National de la Recherche Scien¬
tifique, Paris. 481, 491.

A. H. Christie, University of London. 702.

J. W. Clinton, Princeton University. 453, 783.

A. Cohen, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 544.

G. S. Colin, Paris]. 744, 774, 815, 1009.

C. Collin Davies]. 87, 780.

D. C. Conrad, Stinton Beach, California. 422.

R. G. Coquin, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes,
Paris. 144.

Chr. Correll, University of Konstanz. 309.

Nicole Cottart, Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, Paris. 283.

[A. Cour, Constantine]. 893.

Patricia Crone, University of Oxford. 640, 848,
882.

Yolande Crowe, London. 408.

E. Dachraoui, University of Tunis. 435, 728.

H. Daiber, Free University, Amsterdam. 639.

G. David, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest.
1030.

R. H. Davison, George Washington University,
Washington. 69, 1035.

G. Delanoue, French Institute of Arabic Studies,
Damascus. 602.

Anne-Marie Delcambre, Paris. 870.

A. Dietrich, Gottingen. 557, 641, 727.

AUTHORS

S. Digby, Rozel, Jersey. 784.

M. W. Dols, California State University, Hayward.
230.

F. M. Donner, University of Chicago. 917.

E. van Donzel, Netherlands Institute for the Near
East, Leiden. 434, 628, 644, 910, 933.

P. Dumont, University of Strasbourg. 96.

R. M. Eaton, University of Arizona, Tucson. 269,
273.

H. Eisenstein, University of Vienna. 1003.

T. El-Acheche, University of Tunis. 438.

N. Eliseeff, University of Lyons. 383, 456, 457, 546,
548, 583, 734, 792, 871.

G. Endress, University of Bochum. 846.

J. van Ess, University of Tubingen. 458.

T. Fahd, University of Strasbourg. 247, 349, 374,
924.

Suraiya Faroqhi, University of Munich. 232, 243,
342, 510.

W. Feldman, University of Pennsylvania, Phila¬
delphia. 1008.

C. V. Findley, Ohio State University, Columbus. 9,
11, 290, 341, 972.

Barbara Flemming, University of Leiden. 610, 837.
W. Floor, Bethesda, Maryland. 804.

J. Fontaine, Tunis. 712.

A. D. W. Forbes, University of Aberdeen. 207, 246,
703, 1022.

J. Fraenkel, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 360.

G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, York. 129, 203, 283,
370, 385, 704, 774, 965, 967, 1023.

Y. Friedmann, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 440,
968.

[H. Fuchs, Mainz]. 897.

C. L. Geddes, University of Denver. 371.

G. G. Gilbar, University of Haifa. 277.

F. Muge Goqek, University of Michigan, Ann Ar¬
bor. 133, 746, 1017, 1029, 1030.

O. Grabar, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
708.

W. J. Griswold, Colorado State University, Fort
Collins. 613.

A. H. de Groot, University of Leiden. 532, 992,
993, 994, 995, 996, 997, 998, 999, 1000, 1001,
1002, 1003, 1025.

[M. Guidi, Rome]. 952.

Adnan Guriz, University of Ankara. 498.

U. Haarmann, University of Freiburg-im-Breisgau.
414.

[T. W. Haig, London]. 310.

H. Halm, University of Tubingen. 440, 454.

W. L. Hanaway Jr., University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia. 609.

P. Hardy, Fulford, York. 536.

Angelika Hartmann, University of Wurzburg. 430.
Mohibul Hasan, Aligarh. 47, 52, 55, 62, 63.

A. T. Hatto, London. 371.

G. R. Hawting, University of London. 625.

J. A. Haywood, Lewes, East Sussex. 272, 612, 773,
827, 953.

G. Hazai, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Budapest. 75.

[W. Heffening, Cologne], 200, 558.

C. J. Heywood, University of London. 129, 291,
972.

D. R. Hill, Great Bookham, Surrey. 406.

Carole Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh. 244,

627, 932.

R. Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh. 368, 688.
the late G. M. Hinds, University of Cambridge. 140.

H. F. Hofman, Utrecht. 131.

P. M. Holt, Oxford. 331.

[E. Honigmann, Brussels]. 231, 508, 544, 779, 792,
901.

[M. Hidayat Hosain]. 131.

R. S. Humphreys, University of Wisconsin,
Madison. 782.

J. O. Hunwick, Northwestern University, Evanston,
Ill. 223.

C. H. Imber, University of Manchester. 72, 228.

H. Inalcik, University of Chicago. 5, 11, 813, 961,

978, 981, 1026.

Riazul Islam, Karachi. 310.

B. S. J. Isserlin, Leeds. 298.

Fahir Iz, Bogazi^i University, Istanbul. 373, 986,
989, 1003, 1016.

Penelope Johnstone, Oxford. 632.
the late T. M. Johnstone, Oxford. 85.

J. Jomier, Toulouse. 46, 361.

F. deJong, University of Utrecht. 88, 224, 454, 627,
888, 897.

G. H. A. Juynboll, The Hague. 717.

the late A. G. Karam, American University, Beirut.
307.

Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, University of Berlin.
989, 1016.

H. Kennedy, University of St. Andrews. 206, 345,
428.

M. Khadduri, Johns Hopkins University,
Washington. 740.

M. Kiel, Bonn. 1015.

D. A. King, University of Frankfort. 187, 598, 794,
840, 915.

M. J. Kister, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 107.
J. Knappert, Barnet, Herts. 613, 828, 897.

M. Kohbach, University of Vienna. 989.

[J. H. Kramers, Leiden]. 633, 634, 983.

P. Kunitzsch, University of Munich. 376.

E. Kuran, Hacettepe University, Ankara. 1004.
Gunay Alpay Kut, Bogazigi University, Istanbul.

803.

B. Kutukoglu, University of Istanbul. 971, 990, 991.
Ann K. S. Lambton, Kirknewton, Northumberland.

22, 485, 496, 529, 858.

[H. Lammens, Beirut]. 924.

I. M. Landau, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 197,
400, 750, 1013.

Ella Landau-Tasseron, Hebrew University,
Jerusalem. 269.

H.-P. Laqueur, Munich. 125.

J. D. Latham, University of Edinburgh. 405.

B. Lawrence, Duke University, Durham. 131.

A. Layish, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 25, 26,
28, 29, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 42.

Linda Y. Leach, Richmond, Surrey. 426.

O. N. H. Leaman, Liverpool Polytechnic. 220, 347,
903.

D. S. Lev, University of Washington, Seattle. 44.

G. Levi Della Vida, Rome]. 954.

E. Levi-Proven£al, Paris]. 132, 188, 340, 345, 568,
923, 969.

N. Levtzion, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 261.

A. Levy, Brandeis University, Waltham, Ma. 61.

T. Lewicki, University of Cracow. 311, 312, 453,

842, 948, 949, 1044.

B. Lewis, Princeton University. 725.

T. O. Ling, University of Manchester. 245.

O. Lofgren, Uppsala. 133.

[D. B. MacDonald, Hartford, Conn.]. 219.

D. MacEoin, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 720, 953.

K. McPherson, Western Australian Institute of
Technology, Bentley. 504.

W. Madelung, University of Oxford. 192, 219, 436,
439, 442, 847, 848, 917.

AUTHORS

VII

A. J. Mango, London. 984, 985.

G. Mar^ais, Algiers]. 427, 441.

D. S. Margoliouth, Oxford]. 883, 888.

J. N. Mattock, University of Glasgow. 87, 205.
[Th. Menzel]. 1027.

E. MER£iL, University of Istanbul. 1018, 1019.

[E. Michaux-Bellaire]. 136.

R. E. Miller, University of Regina, Canada. 466.
[V. Minorsky, Cambridge]. 203, 385, 503, 505, 541,

542, 717, 745, 929.

A. Miquel, College de France, Paris. 314, 720.

S. Moreh, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 617, 928.
M./Morony, University of California, Los Angeles.

634, 923, 952.

W. W. Muller, University of Marburg. 84, 567.

S. Munro-Hay, London. 575.

[M. Nazim]. 916.

Angelika Neuwirth, University of Munich. 189.
[R. A. Nicholson, Cambridge]. 614.

J. S. Nielsen, University of Birmingham. 935.

C. Nijland, Netherlands Institute for the Near East,
Leiden. 306, 308.

O. Nutku, University of Izmir. 865.

G. Oman, University of Naples. 799.

R. Orazi, Rome. 720.

Solange Ory, University of Aix-Marseille. 123.

M. M. Ould Bah, Unesco, Tunis. 313.

J. D. Pearson, Cambridge. 200.

[J. Pedersen, Copenhagen]. 677.

Ch. Pellat, University of Paris. 115, 143, 188, 196,
257, 267, 344, 357, 406, 608, 628, 636, 640, 709,
710, 738, 789, 829, 843, 895, 907, 916, 933, 943,
1042.

T. Philipp, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

220 .

the late G. F. Pijper, Amsterdam. 701.

[M. Plessner, Jerusalem]. 205, 344, 543.

I. Poona wala, University of California, Los Angeles.
191, 1010.

Munibur Rahman, Oakland University, Rochester,
Mich. 132, 271, 839.

[W. H. Rassers]. 117.

M. Rekaya, University of Paris. 339.

C. H. B. Reynolds, University of London. 247.

J. F. Richards, Duke University, Durham. 423.

J. Rikabi, Constantine. 539.

Chr. Robin, Centre National de la Recherche Scien-
tifique, Aix-en-Provence. 832.

F. C. R. Robinson, Royal Holloway College,
Egham, Surrey. 78, 874.

M. Rodinson, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes,
Paris. 587.

W. Rollig, University of Tubingen. 1023.

[Ph. van Ronkel, Leiden]. 240.

F. Rosenthal, Yale University, New Haven. 194,
403.

[E. Rossi, Rome]. 295, 613.

G. Rotter, University of Hamburg. 740.

A. I. Sabra, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
377.

J. Sadan, Tel-Aviv University. 360, 723.

A. Samb, University of Dakar. 707.

J. Sam so, University of Barcelona. 543, 602, 712.
Paula Sanders, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass. 520, 851.

Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, University of
Rome. 959.

[]. Schacht, New York]. 3, 25, 265, 926.

O. Schumann, University of Hamburg. 137, 733.

R. Sellheim, University of Frankfort. 635, 825, 914,
955.

Maya Shatzmiller, University of Western Ontario,
London, Ontario. 441, 574.

G. W. Shaw, British Library, London. 806, 807.

S. J. Shaw, University of California, Los Angeles.
973.

H. K. Sherwani. 68.

A. Shiloah, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 216,
262.

D. Shulman, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 960.

I. H. Siddiqui, Muslim University, Aligarh. 1031.

J. Siegel, Cornell University, Ithaca. 239, 240.
the late Susan A. Skilliter, Cambridge. 982.

P. Sluglett, University of Durham. 902.

S. Soucek, New York Public Library. 588, 1011,
1016, 1022, 1037.

the late O. Spies, Bonn. 80.

A. J. Stockwell, University of London. 242.

[M. Streck, Jena]. 716, 923.

Abdus Subhan, Calcutta. 270, 272, 295.

M. Talbi, University of Tunis. 713.

Nada Tomiche, University of Paris. 472, 599.

G. Troupeau, Institut National des Langues et
Civilisations Orientales, Paris. 130, 308.

M. Ursinus, University of Birmingham. 372.
Martine Vanhove, Paris. 303.

[R. Vasmer, Leningrad]. 942.

G. Veinstein, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales, Paris. 1006.

C. H. M. Versteegh, University of Nijmegen. 346.
Z. Vesel, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi-

que, Paris. 908.

Ch. Vial, University of Aix-Marseille. 77, 91, 415,
958.

F. V ire, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi-
que, Paris. 537, 913.

D. Waines, University of Lancaster. 809.

W. Montgomery Watt, Dalkeith, Midlothian. 147.
[A. J. Wensinck, Leiden]. 152, 632, 709, 726, 843,
874, 903.

G. M. Wickens, University of Toronto. 826.

J. C. Wilkinson, University of Oxford. 736.

the late R. B. Winder, New York University. 180.

J. J. Witkam, University of Leiden. 1031.

[A. Yu. Yakubovskii, Moscow]. 621.

F. A. K. Yasamee, University of Manchester. 90.

T. Yazici, Istanbul. 887.

H. G. Yurdaydin, University of Ankara. 844.

H. Zafrani, University of Paris. 294.

D. Zahan, University of Paris. 402.

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

VOLUME I

P. 56 b , C ABD al- c AZIZ, 1. 4, instead of 20 June read 26 June.

P. 75 a , C ABD al-M ADU D I, 1. 39, instead of 25 June read 26 June.

P. 106 a ' b , ABU ’l- c ARAB, add : One of the works of Abu ’l- c Arab Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Tamim b. Tam-
mam b. Tamim al-Tamlml (thus the full nasab) which has been preserved (in a unique Cambridge
ms.) is his Kitab al-Mihan, a work in the tradition of the makatil books. It deals with a wide range
of deaths in battle, by poisoning, persecution of c Alids, sufferings of Ahmad b. Hanbal in the mihna
[q.u.] of the early 3rd/9th century; see for an analysis of its contents, M. J. Kister, The “ Kitab al-
Mihan ”, a book on Muslim martyrology, in JSS, xx (1975), 210-18. The complete work has now been
edited by Yahya Wahlb al-Djabburl, Beirut 1403/1983.

P. 194 b , A DH RUHm add to Bibliography A. G. Killick, Udhruh and the early Islamic conquests, in Procs. of the
Second Symposium on the history of Bilad al-Sham during the early Islamic period (English and French papers),
Amman 1987, 73-8.

P. 279 a , AHMAD v. TULUN, end of penultimate paragraph, instead of March 884 read May 884.

P. 436 b , al- c AMILI, Muhammad b. Husayn Baba 5 al-Dln, add to Bibl.: A. Newman, Towards a reconsidera¬

tion of the “Isfahan school of philosophy": Shaykh Baha^iand the role of the Safawid ’ulama, in Studia Iranica,
xv_(1986), 165-98; C. E. Bosworth, Baha^ al-Dtn c Amill and his literary anthologies, Manchester 1989.

P. 847 b , BABIS, add to Bibl.: Abbas Amanat, Resurrection and renewal. The making of the Babi movement in Iran,
1844-1850 , Ithaca and London 1989.

P. 940 b , BAHRAM SH AH. al-MALIK al-AMDIAD. 1. 2, instead of Shahanshah read Turanshah.

P. 1007 b , BALUClSTAN, add to Bibl.: J. Elfenbein, A periplus of the “Brahui problem", in Stud. Iranica , xvi
(1987), 215-33.

P. 1030 b , BARADUST, 1. 37, instead of 395/1005 read 1005/1597.

P. 1300 a , BULANDSHAHR, 1. 30, in stead of 644/1246-665/1266 read 796-815/1394-1412.

P. 1345 a , BUST, add to Bibl.: T. Allen, Notes on Bust , in Iran JBIPS, xxvi (1988), 55-68, xxvii (1989), 57-66,
xxviii (1990).

VOLUME II_

P. 72 b , DABIK, paragraph three, 1. 2, instead of 15 Ra^jab 922 read 25 Radjab 922.

P. 809 a , FARRUKHAN, 1. 5 from bottom, instead of seventy years read thirteen years (90-103/709-21).

VOLUME III

P. 134 a , al-HAMIDI, 1. 24 from bottom, instead of 364/974-5, read 564/1168-9.

P. 293 b , HAWRAN, add to Bibliography M. Sartre, Le Hawran byzantin a la veille de la conquete musulmane, in
Procs. of the Second Symposium on the history of Bilad al-Sham during the early Islamic period (English and French
papers), Amman 1987, 155-67.

P. 367 a , HI DJ RA, add to Bibliography Z. I. Khan, The origins and development of the concept of Hijrah or migration
in Islam 2 Ph. D. thesis, Manchester 1987, unpublished.

P. 460 b , HINDU- SH AHIS. add to Bibl.: Yogendra Mishra, The Hindu Shahis of Afghanistan and the Punjab,
Patna 1972; Abdur Rahman, The last two dynasties of the Sdhis. An analysis of their history, archaeology,
coinage and palaeography , Islamabad 1979.

P. 1007 b , C ID, 1. 1, instead^ of sunset read sunrise.

P. 1196 a , IN SHA 5 ALLAH, 1. 2 from below, instead o/James, iv, 19 rW James, iv, 13-15.

VOLUME IV

P. 754 b , KATI C A, add to end : The term katTa is also used in the specific sense of “ransom” in the period of
the Crusades; cf. al-$afadl, Waft, xiii, 505.

P. 759 a , KATIB_, 1. 23 from below, instead o/Amlr Khusraw read Amir Hasan.

P. 834 a , KAYS AYLAN, add to Bibliography Chang-kuan Lin, The role of internecine strife and political struggle in

the downfall of the Umayyad dynasty, M. Phil, thesis, Manchester 1987, unpublished.

P. 1100 a , MA DJ MA C C ILMI, 1. 32, instead of statues read statutes.

VOLUME V

P. 39, KHOTAN. add :

The language of ancient Khotan was a Middle Iranian language, closely related to Soghdian. It is
now commonly called Khotanese, though, since it was the descendant of one of the languages of the
numerous, but ill-definable, pre-historic “Saka” tribes of Central Asia, it is sometimes called “Kho¬
tan Saka” (see e.g. H. W. Bailey, Dictionary of Khotan Saka, Cambridge, etc. 1979). E. Leumann,
one of the earliest decipherers of the language, thought that it was a separate branch of Indo-Iranian
and therefore called it “Nordarisch”, but this theory was shown to be untenable by scholars such
as S. Konow and Bailey. See Bailey, Indo-Scythian studies, being Khotanese texts volume IV. Saka texts from
Khotan in the Hedin collection, Cambridge 1963, introd. 1-18; R. E. Emmerick, Saka grammatical studies,
London 1968; idem, A guide to the literature of Khotan, Studia Philologica Buddhica. Occasional Papers
Series III, Tokyo 1979; idem, Khotanese, in Compendium linguarum iranicarum, ed. R. Schmitt, Wiesba¬
den 1989.

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

The following kings of Khotan are known from the Khotanese documents: Visya Vikrram, Visa 5
(Visya) Sl(m)hya, Visa 5 Dharma, Visa 5 Klrtti and Visa 5 Vaharp (all probably 8 th century A.D.);
Visa 5 Samgrama (? 9th century); Visa 5 Sa(ip)bhava/Sambhata (regn. 912-66), Visa 5 Sura (regn.
967-at least 971), Visa 5 D(h)arma (regn. 978-at least 988). See for useful surveys, J. Hamilton, Les
regnes khotanais entre 851 et 1001 , in M. Soymie (ed.), Contributions aux etudes sur Touen-Houang, Centre
de recherches d’histoire et de philologie de la IVe section de EEPHE II, Hautes etudes orientales
10, Geneva and Paris 1979, 49-54; idem, Sur la chronologie khotanaise au IX e -X e siecle , in Soymie (ed.),
Contributions aus etudes de Touen-Houang III, Pubis, de L’Ecole frangaise d’Extreme-Orient, cxxxv,
Paris 1984, 47-8; and see further, H. Kumamoto, Some problems of the Khotanese documents, in Studia
grammatica iranica , ed. R. Schmitt and P. O. Skjaervo, Munich 1986, 227-44, and Skjaervo, Kings
of Khotan in the 8th-10th centuries. .., in Acts of the colloquium on “Histoire et cultes deVAsie Centrale preislami-
que: sources ecrites et documents archeologiques", Paris 22-8 November 1988, CNRS Paris (forthcoming).

The islamisation of Khotan apparently took place already around 1006, at any rate before 1008,
since the Chinese annals for the year 1009 report the arrival of a huei-hu ( = Turk) sent by the hei-han
( = Khaghan) of Yu-t’ien ( = Khotan) with tribute to the Imperial Chinese court; the envoy had been
travelling for a year (see M. Abel-Remusat, Histoire de la ville de Khotan tiree des annates de la Chine et
traduite du chinois, Paris 1820, 86-7). The Muslim ruler at this time was the Karakhanid Yusuf Kadir
Khan of Kashghar (on whom see O. Pritsak, Die Karachaniden, in Isl., xxxi [1953-4], 30-3, repr. in
Studies in medieval Eurasian history, London 1981, xvi, and ilek-khans).

The conflict between Khotan and Kashghar must have started earlier, however, for in a letter
written in Khotanese by King Visa 5 Sura in 970, the ruler refers to “Our evil enemy the Tazhik
(Khot. TtasPka) Tcum-hyai:na [Ts’ung hsien?], who [is] there among the Tazhfks”, and in a letter
in Chinese from the ruler of Sha-chou (Tun Huang) to the king of Khotan. in the Pelliot collection,
from around 975 we read that “the prince of the west is leading Tadjik (Ta-shih) troops to attack
[your] great kingdom” (see Bailey, Saka documents, text vol. , Corpus inscr. iranicarum, ii, V, London
1968, 58-61, 11. 50-1; Hamilton, Sur la chronologie, 48-9). Hamilton has suggested that the “evil
enemy” may be Visa 5 Sura’s brother, another son of Visa 5 Sambhava (in Chinese, Li Sheng-t’ien),
two of whom are known to have borne the name Tcum/Ts’ung. Kumamoto, op. cit., 231, suggests
that this mother may have been a Karakhanid. The last known king of Khotan was Visa 5 D(h)arma
(still ruling in 988), whose name shows that he was not a Muslim. The definitive struggle over
Khotan must therefore have taken place during the ensuing two decades. See also M. A. Stein,
Ancient Khotan, 2. vols., Oxford 1907, repr. New York 1975, i, 180-1; W. Samolin, East Turkistan
to the twelfth century, The Hague, etc. 1964, 80-2.

P. 375 b , al-KUMAYT B. ZAYD al-ASADI, add to Bibl.: W. Madelung, The Hashimiyyat of al-Kumayt and
Hdshimi ShiHsm, in SI, lxx (1989), 5-26.

P. 1029 b , al-MA DJDTA WI. 1. 4, instead of Algiers, read Constantine.

P. 1135 b , MADRAS A, add. to the Bibl. : R. Brunschvig, Quelques remarques sur les medersas de Tunisie, in RT, new
ser., vi (1931), 261-85.

P. 1232 a , al-MAHDI: 11. 33-48. This passage was modified by the Editors without the author’s consent. The
author’s original should be restored as follows:

This hadith, whose first part is patterned upon the revolt of c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr, probably goes
back to c Abd Allah b. al-Uarith b. Nawfal b. al-Harith b. c Abd al-Muttalib, who appears in its isnad
and claimed to have heard it from Umm Salama, widow of the Prophet. c Abd Allah b. al-Harith
was chosen by the people of Basra as their governor in 64/684 after the death of the caliph Yazid
and the flight of his governor c Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad. He then recognised Ibn al-Zubayr as the caliph
and took the pledge of allegiance of the Basrans for him. The hadith was evidently proclaimed by
him in this situation with the aim of stirring up support for the cause of Ibn al-Zubayr.

VOLUME VI

P. 115 b , MAKAMA, add to Bibl.: Yusuf Nur c Awad, Fann al-makamat bayn al-mashrik wa ’l-maghrib 2 , Mecca
1406/1986; Samir Mahmud al-Durubl, Shark makamat Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti al-mutawaffa sanat 911,
2 vols. Beirut 1409/1989.

P. 125 b , MAKBARA, add to Bibliography: J.-L. Bacque-Grammont, H.-P. Laqueur, N. Vatin, Stelae Turcicae,
I: Kiifiik Ayasofya, in Istabuler Mitteilungen xxxiv (1984), 441-539.

P. 262 a , MALIK, at end of Bibliography add A. Ayalon, ‘ Malik * in modern Middle Eastern literature, in WI xxiii-
xxiv (1984), 306-19.

P. 334 a , MA C N, at end of Bibliography add Abu TWafa 5 al-Ur^I, Ma^adin al-dhahab ft \l-rididl al-musharrafa bi-him

Halab, MS B.M. Or. 3618.

P. 358 a , al- MAN AM A, 1. 3, instead of side read site.

Add to Bibliography Mahdi Abdalla al-Tajir, Bahrain 1920-1945, Britain, the Shaikh and the administration,
London 1987.

P. 374 b , al-MANAZIL, 1. 8 , after Ibn Kutayba insert a comma.

1. 27, after names insert became.

No. 5 of the list, instead of\i |> 12 . Orionis read X 9 1 ’ 2 Orionis.

No. 9 of the list, instead of S read x.

P. 375 a , No. 28 of the list, instead of al-hut read al-hut.

1. 23, instead 0^1800 read 180.

P. 453 b , MANUCIHRI, add to Bibl.: W. L. Hanaway, Blood and wine: sacrifice in Manuchihn’s wine poetry, in
Iran JBIPS, xxvi (1988), 69-80.

P. 459 a ’, MAPPILA, 1. 37, instead of 1948 read 1498.

P. 460 a , 1. 10, instead of ist read its.

1. 30, instead of or read of.

XVI

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

P. 461 a , 1. 13 from below, instead of wiser read wider.

P. 462 b , 1. 17, instead of nor read not.

P. 463 b , 11. 29-30 from below, instead of remaining read remains.

P. 464 a , 1. 16 from below, instead of wisely read widely.

Pp. 511 and 517, MAR c A SH IS. Owing to an unfortunate oversight Table A has been included twice.

P. 641 a , MASAR DJ AWAYH. 1. 10, instead of Tvxviyym read IlavSexTT)?.

1. 24-25, instead of p. 20, 1. 341 read p. 20, 1. 341.

1. 26, instead of p. 88, 11. 1860-3 read p. 88, 11. 1860-3.

P. 736 b , MASKAT, add to author’s signature “shortened by the Editors”.

P. 764 b , MASRAH, add at the end of the Bibliography: Modem Persian drama. Anthology, tr. G. Kapuscinski, Lan-
ham 1987; G. Kapuscinski, Modern Persian drama , in Persian literature , ed. E. Yarshater, Albany 1988,
381-402.

SUPPLEMENT

P. 127 a , BARIZ, DJABAL, add : One should note the present-day settlement of Pariz, in the northwestern
part of the Djabal Bariz, on the Ragsandjan-Sa c idabad (Slrdjan) road, which could possibly be the^
classical Parikdne polis, town of the Parikanioi. See A. D. H. Bivar, A Persian fairyland, in Acta Iranica
24: Hommages et opera minora X: Papers in honour of Professor Mary Boyce , Leiden 1985, 25-42, who here
derives the legends and romances around the peris or fairies of Iran (Av. pairikd, MP pang, NP part)
from indigenous Persian traditions connecting them with the Parikanioi, whose epigoni were suspect
in Sasanid times by Zoroastrian orthodoxy for their non-Zoroastrian local beliefs and customs, hence
ecjuated with demonic and supernatural beings.

P. 163 b , CaC—NAMA. The last item in the Bibliography has been published in Y. Friedmann, ed., Islam
in Asia, i: South Asia, Jerusalem 1984, 23-27.

P. 395 a , IBN NAZIR al- DJ AY SH . add to Bibl.: The Tathklf is now available in the edition of R. Vesely,
IFAO, Cairo 1987; see also on the author, D. S. Richards, The Tathqf of Ibn Nazir al-Jaish: the identity
of the author and the manuscripts, in Cahiers d y onomasticon arabe, iv (1985-7), 97-101.

CONTINUATION

MAHKAMA (a.), court. The subject-matter of
this article is the administration of justice, and the
organisation of its administration, in the Muslim
countries, the office of the judge being dealt with in
the art. KADI.

The following topics are covered:

1. General

2. The Ottoman empire

i. The earlier centuries

ii. The reform era ( ca. 1789-1922)

3. Iran

4. The Arab lands and Israel

i. Egypt

ii. Syria

iii. Lebanon

iv. c Irak

v. Palestine and Israel

vi. Jordan

vii. Saudi Arabia

viii. Yemen and the People’s Republic of
Southern Yemen

ix. The Gulf States

x. Morocco

xi. Algeria

xii. Tunisia

xiii. Reforms in the law applying in Shari c a
courts

5. The Indo-Pakistan subcontinent

6 . Indonesia

1. General

The judicial functions of the Prophet, which had
been expressly attributed to him in the Kur 5 an (IV,
65, 105; V, 42, 48-9; XXIV, 48, 51), were taken over
after his death by the first caliphs, who administered
the law in person in Medina. Already under c Umar,
the expansion of the Islamic empire necessitated the
appointment of judges, originally for the expedi¬
tionary forces, then, in the natural course of events,
also for the conquered territories; this institution of
army judges ( kadi’l-djund) remained in being down to
the Ottoman period as the kddi^askar [^.».]. The
source of jurisdiction in the Sharica is the caliph; the
judges act as delegates of the authority by which they
have been appointed, and are authorised to delegate
their powers in turn to other persons. The appoint¬
ment of a judge is made by contract consisting of offer
and acceptance in the presence of at least two
witnesses. The validity of the appointment does not
depend upon the legality of the appointing authority:
by this open-minded disposition, the Shari c a has ac¬
commodated itself even in theory to the actual facts.
On the other hand, the authorities are free to restrict
the competence ( wilaya ) of the judge with regard to

place, time and subject matter. In the early period,
there used to be judges only in the big towns, and the
judicial districts were accordingly large (the whole of
Egypt, for instance); under the Ottomans this came to
change, perhaps in consequence of the intense prac¬
tical application of the Shari c a in their territory. The
restriction with regard to subject-matter was original¬
ly intended to divide labour and alleviate the burden
of the chief judge, especially by erecting into indepen¬
dent offices some of his functions that were not purely
judicial; in modern times, the restriction with regard
to time and subject-matter is used in order to modify
or eliminate the application of provisions of the §hari c a
without interfering directly with its material disposi¬
tions (see section 4. xiii. Reforms in the law applying
in Sharica courts, below). Under the Umayyads, the
judges were as a rule appointed by the governors; the
c Abbasids made a point of assuming directly the exer¬
cise of this function of the sovereign; although they
had to delegate it more than once to practically in¬
dependent princes, they still tried to retain it, at least
in form, even when their power was in full decay. The
compromise between those tendenties, together with
the large size, and even the accumulation in one per¬
son, of judicial districts brought about a complicated
system of delegation to substitutes. The Fatimids, the
Umayyads in Spain and the Ottoman sultans likewise
appointed their judges directly; the latter continued to
exercise this privilege also in ceded territories such as
Egypt, of which the chief kadi was nominated in Istan¬
bul until 1914. The kadi could be deposed at any time
by the authority which had appointed him; a change
of the person in charge of this function very often
caused a re-filling of all the judicial posts dependent
on it. According to the theory of the fikh, only a
delegate, not an independent kadi, loses his office by
the death or dismissal of the person who appointed
him. Corresponding to this right of nomination is
something like a right of supervision, which manifests
itself in receiving complaints as well as in giving of¬
ficial directions. Another kind of higher instance was
represented by the unanimous opinion of the learned
men whom the judge ought to consult in cases of
doubt; these could come to form a sort of unofficial
court of appeal. A third kind of higher instance, the
most important in practice, was control by the suc¬
cessor, which was often exercised with the utmost
severity; every judgment of a kadi could be annulled
by any of his successors, a possibility which led to an
endless duration of some law-suits. All this affords
certain possibilities for the revision of judgments,
which in theory is not provided for at all. In theory,
the kadi acts as a single judge; this did not prevent
several judges, even if belonging to different juridical

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

MAHKAMA

schools, from being competent for one judicial
district, especially in the capitals. A judgment once
pronounced cannot be changed by the same ka<ji, even
if evidence to the contrary is brought in later or if the
original evidence is proved to be worthless; another
kadi can repeal it only if there was a serious fault in
law, i.e. if it is contrary to the Kurban, to a recognised
tradition or to unanimous opinion ( idjma °). The judg¬
ment should be given according to the opinion of the
law school ( madhhab ) to which the judge belongs; if he
diverges from it, the validity of the judgment is con¬
troversial. A kadi did not have to belong to the same
juridical school als the person who appointed him, nor
a substitute to the same school as the judge who
delegated his powers to him; but they could always be
directed to follow the opinions of a certain school. In
general, the authorities preferred kadis of their own
juridical school; under the c Abbasids this was at first
the HanafT and later on the Shafi c I one, under the Ot¬
tomans, most decidedly, the HanafT, whereas under
the Umayyads of Spain the Malik! school had a
jealously-guarded monopoly. The juridical school
allegiance of the judge was of greater importance for
the populace under his jurisdiction than for the ruler.
Many judges, especially in the early period, made
allowance for the people’s allegiance to a school dif¬
ferent from their own, but many difficulties arose, in
particular where the people of the country were divid¬
ed between several schools; to remedy this, recourse
was often had (for the first time in Cairo in 525/1131)
to the appointment of several kadis, one of whom
usually had official precedence over his colleagues,
but among whom the parties could choose freely. The
judge of the capital—not yet under the Umayyads but
from the very beginning of the c Abbasids—occupied
a prominent position and was given the title of Chief
Judge (kadi ’l-kujat), the first being Abu Yusuf [ q.v .]
in Baghdad (under Harun al-Rashid); in the western
lands of Islam he was called kadi ’ l-djamd^a . This at
first simply meant pre-eminence among his col¬
leagues, but soon imported a right of supervision over
them, which became still more pronounced when
under the system of delegations the other ka(lls were
only substitutes of the Chief Judge. The most impor¬
tant auxiliary officials were the secretary ( katib ) and
the witnesses (shahid [q . 0 .]), who at the same time
fulfilled the function of notaries; their duties were
often the first steps in a judicial career. Advocacy, i.e.
the representation of the interests of the parties by
specialists, was rejected by the theory and discouraged
by the practice of the early period; on the contrary,
the task of the learned in law was supposed to be to aid
the judge, as muftis [see fatwa], in the impartial ap¬
plication of the sacred law. Nevertheless, the fatwa is
often nothing more than a written pleading for one
party, and advising parties and representing them in
court have become a widely practised occupation of
experts (wakil, “representative”), who have
developed in modern times into the order of advocates
(muhaml) in the Shari c a courts. For the procedure, see
da c wa. Besides the administration of justice by kafis,
the Sharica knows the voluntary resort to arbitrators
(hakam).

Along with this religious jurisdiction, we find the
administrative jurisdiction of the nazar al-mazalim
(“investigation of complaints”) exercised by the
caliphs and their political organs: viziers, governors,
sultans, etc., or by judges appointed expressly for this
purpose, as well as a police-like supervision by the
muhtasib [q.v.] and the sahib al-shurta [see shurta].
Whereas down to the end of the Umayyad period all
jurisdiction was concentrated in the hands of the kadi

and occasional attempts at interference by the gover¬
nors were mostly frustrated, the early days of
c Abbasid rule saw a need for supplementing kadi
jurisdiction, which from now on was tied to the fully-
developed system of the Shari c a by the settling of com¬
plaints through the mazdlim procedure. A clear separa¬
tion of the competences of both spheres in no way
existed, notwithstanding the long lists of differences
presented by theorists. Those very representatives of
political authority who were anxious to assure a good
administration of justice by strict supervision were apt
to monopolise jurisdiction almost completely, the
more so as the kdfi possessed no executive organs of
his own but had to depend on those which the
authorities chose to place at his disposal. So nearly
everywhere in Islam, a secular jurisdiction evolved
beside the religious one [see EI l , sharUa. section 6].
It retained certain general principles of the Shari c a,
but based its judgments mainly upon equity and
custom and applied an elastic and often summary pro¬
cedure. This state of things was to some extent sanc¬
tioned by the Kur’anic injunction to obey those in
authority. In the sphere of secular jurisdiction, the last
and the present century brought the creation of courts
on the European pattern, controlled by the govern¬
ment, and the introduction of modern codes. The
final step was the reorganisation, again on European
lines, of the Shari c a courts in a number of Muslim
countries, resulting in the introduction of courts of ap¬
peal and of benches consisting of more than one
judge. All this derives from the power of the
authorities to restrict the competence of the kadis.

In the following, we shall briefly discuss the spheres
and organisation of shar c I justice in the Muslim coun¬
tries, its material law and procedure, the reforms in
the law applying in Sharica courts and their applica¬
tion by the kadis.

Bibliography: Snouck Hurgronje, Verspr.
Geschr., vi, index s. v. Kadi and Richter; Juynboll,
Handbuch, 309 ff.; idem, Handleiding 3 , 316 ff.;
Lopez Ortiz, Derecho musulman , 67 IT.; Schacht, G.
Bergstrdsser's Grundziige des islamischen Rechts , chs. i,
x, xi; Amedroz, in JRAS (1910), 761 ff.; (1911),
635 ff.; (1916), 287 ff.; Bergstrasser, in ZDMG,
lxviii (1914), 395 ff.; Gabrieli, in Rivista Coloniale,
viii/2 (1913); Probster, in Islamica, v, 545 ff. Much
material is to be found in the biographical works on
ka(lis, e.g. Wak! c , Kitdb Akhbar al-kuddt, ed. c Abd
al- c Az!z Mustafa al-Mara gh i. i-iii, Cairo 1947-50;
al-Kindi, The governors andjudges of Egypt, ed. Guest;
al-Khushanl, Historia de los jueces de Cordoba, ed.
Ribera; al-Fath b. Khakan. Kala^id al- c ikyan; al-
Suyut!, Husn al-muhddara ; and the works mentioned
in Schacht, A us Kairiner Bibliotheken (II), 27 ff. Also
the sources for political and administrative history,
e.g. Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima ; al-Kalkashandi,
Subh al-a c sha; further, the works on the history of
civilisation, e.g. Mez, Die Renaissance des I slams, 206
ff., Span. tr. El Renacimiento del Islam, 267 ff. Eng.
tr. Khuda Bakhsh., 216 ff.; Levi-Pro venial,
VEspagne musulmane, 79 ff.; R. Levy, The social
structure of Islam, Cambridge 1957, chs, ii-iv, vi; fur¬
ther, the works of Schacht: The origins of Muham¬
madan jurisprudence* , Oxford 1959; An introduction to
Islamic law 2 , Oxford 1966, chs. 1-11, with impor¬
tant bibliography; and Law and justice, in P. M.
Holt, A. K. S. Lambton and B. Lewis (eds.), The
Cambridge history of Islam, ii, Cambridge 1970,
539-68; E. Tyan, Histoire de iorganisation judiciaire en
pays d 1 Islam 2 , Leiden 1960; M. Khadduri and H. J.
Liebesny (eds.), Law in the Middle East, i,
Washington, D.C. 1955; N. J. Coulson, A history of

MAHKAMA

Islamic law , Edinburgh 1964, parts i-ii; Jeanette A.
Wakin, The function of documents in Islamic law ,
Albany 1972; H. J. Liebesny, The law of the Near and
Middle East, Albany 1975, chs. 1-2; Subhl
Mahmasani, al-Awdd c al-tashri*-iyya fi 'l-duwal
al- Q arabiyya madiha wa-hadiruha* , Beirut 1965, with
bibliography of Arabic works. (J. Schacht*)

2. The Ottoman Empire

i. The earlier centuries

As the official seat of the kadi [q v.\, the mahkama
was a fixed location within the bounds of a kadd 5 or
hukuma, the jurisdiction area assigned to a kaft. The
number of mahkamas in a particular jurisdiction area
was determined and fixed by the sultan, and their
locations could not be changed at the will of the kadi
(Kdnun-name, Turkish Hist. Soc. ms. Y4, f. 87b).
When the population of a district grew or when new
circumstances arose, the sultan could decide to divide
the existing kadah in order to create new ones. The
location of the mahkama was usually chosen for its easy
access to the commercial community, generally in the
bazar or somewhere within the precincts or near to the
congregational mosque of the town. For instance, one
of the mahkamas of Istanbul was in the courtyard of the
mosque of Dawud Pasha.

In the Ottoman Empire, mahkamas usually had their
own premises, at least in the 18th century, as appears
from the court records. The exact number of the
mahkamas within a jurisdiction varied according to the
population. In Istanbul, for example, there were five
mahkamas scattered in the kadd 5 of Istanbul, and in
993/1585 the kadi submitted a request for opening of
new mahkamas for the convenience of the population
(A. Refik, Istanbul hayati, i, 30). In other kada^s of
greater Istanbul, namely Eyiip (Khas$lar), Galata
(Pera) and Uskudar, there were other mahkamas. Bur¬
sa had seven mahkamas at various parts of the city in
the 11 th/17th century.

The jurisdiction of a mahkama and
abuses of power. Within a kddah boundaries, an
individual was free to choose which mahkama to use.
Some mahkamas developed a speciality in a certain
field; for instance, the mahkama of Eyiip became the
court specialising in cases of water rights ( c O. Nuri,
Madfalla, i, 1221). In the period before Suleyman's
reign, important cities had judges of both the Hanafi
and Sh.afi c T law schools. However, Suleyman ordered
that all courts in the Ottoman dominions should be
administered only according to the HanafT rite (Abu
’1-Su c ud, Ma c rudat , in MTM, i, 340-1). Despite this
rule, ShaffIjudges continued to function in the courts
of Antakya and all the cities in the Arab provinces (see
Ewliya Celebi, Seyahat-ndme , iii, 58). By a hukm of
928/1522 (ms. Veliyuddin 1969), the local begs were
authorised to appoint kadis of the Shafi c I school in the
province of Diyarbakr. In Radjab 981/October-
November 1573 a firman confirmed that the kadis in
the province of Tarabulus al-Gharb (Libya) could
follow the MalikT school in their decisions (Muhimme
defteri, xxiii, 153).

The kadi or hakim al-shar c of a court derived his
authority directly from the sultan and was responsible
only to him. A kadi once dismissed by the sultan had
no power to issue any document. In the Ottoman em¬
pire, the kadi administered, not only the religious law
but also the secular kanun [q.v.], a practice peculiar to
that regime. The hakim had the power to administer
ta^zir [q. v. ] punishments and to imprison debtors.
Local mahkamas , however, had to refer to the Porte all
cases concerning the military class, state interests and

public security, as well as those involving more than
a certain amount of money. Some cases concerning
the foreigners covered by the capitulations were also
to be referred to the diwan-i humayun [see imtiyazat,
ii]. The sultan could order a hakim not to hear certain
kinds of cases. The kadi\ decision was in principle
final, and there was no provision for appeal in the Ot¬
toman judicial system. However, if the interested par¬
ty complained directly to the sultan of injustice in a
decision, the imperial diwdn, while not capable of
reversing it, could order according to the cir¬
cumstances either a retrial by the same kadi, a transfer
of the case to a nearby hakim's court, or the dispatch
of the parties to the imperial diwdn for a new trial.
Governors were strictly forbidden to interfere in the
courts’ activities (for the sultan’s strong reaction in
such a case of interference, see Tashkoprii-zade,
Shaka^ik al-nu Q mdniyya , 216). In a fatwa, Abu ’1-Su c ud
equated such governors with infidels. If a governor-
general caught a kadi in a flagrantly illegal action, he
could put an end to his activities, but he had to notify
the sultan immediately, since a kadi could only be
tried in the imperial diwdn itself. The sultan could at
any time decide to remove a kadi from office. At the
beginning, the term of a kadi s office was unlimited.
Later, in 1001/1598-9, it was limited to three years,
and afterwards to two years. From the end of the
11 th/1 7th century onwards, the regular term of office
or muddat-i c urfiyya became one year. Originally an
outgrowth of the need to find appointments for the
muldzims or qualified candidates awaiting their turn
for a post, these frequent changings of office were seen
to be the prime factor in the deterioration of the Ot¬
toman judicial system and a cause of widespread cor¬
ruption (such criticisms made in the political
pamphlets are summed up by K. Rohrborn, Unter-
suchungen zur Osmanischen Verwaltungsgeschichte , Berlin
1973).

Local populations had the right to complain to the
sultan about their hakims' activities and behaviour,
this being a fundamental right enjoyed by the re c ayd
against any agent of the sultan. General inspections
were carried out from time to time to redress wrongs
attributed to the kadis (for punishments meted out
after such an inspection, see Topkapi Palace Library,
Revan, no. 1506; M. Cezar, Levendler , Istanbul 1965,
document no. 1 in the appendix). In Ottoman history,
popular discontent against abuses at the mahkama was
taken seriously by the sultans, and periodic reforms
were carried out from the time of Bayezld I onwards.
The principal subject of complaint was the collection
of court fees, considered to be contrary to Islamic
principles and actually denounced by the Ottoman
muftis. The government tried to regulate the rates at
various dates, as can be seen from the following table.

These fees constituted the principal source of in¬
come of the hakims. They were prone to raise the rates
or to force people to come to court unnecessarily for
cases such as inheritance division or kismet-i mirath.
Ewliya Celebi gives as the normal amount the income
for each kada including the income from abuses. It
was only in the period following the Tanzimdt [q.v.] f
when the kadis were assigned fixed salaries, that such
fees were finally abolished. In addition to this basic
source of abuse, the hakims were inclined to increase
the number of the mahkamas in their jurisdiction in
order to obtain extra revenues and then to farm them
out to the nd^ibs. This practice, forbidden under
Suleyman I in the regulations for Egypt of
931/1524-5, was included among the general abuses
in the c adalet-name of 947/1540-1 (H. inalcik, Adalet-
ndmeler , in Belgeler, ii, 76) and in a firman of 958/1551

MAHKAMA

♦

Table showing fees collected for certain types of cases for each of the agents officiating (in ak£af)

(ND = no data)

Type of case

884/1479

928/1522

1054/1644-5

Kadi

Nd 3 ib

Katib

Kadi

Nd 'ib

Katib

Kadi

Nd 'ib

Katib

Manumission of slaves

(iHak)

Registration of
marriage ( nikah )

together

Inheritance (mirath)

(fees for every 1,000

akdas of the estate’s
value)

Notary service
(hiididjet)

together

Signature ( imda •*)

together

Registration fee
{sidjill-i kayd)

together

Letters to authorities
(murasala)

together

the due for inheritance division was dramatically
reduced from 2.5% to 1.5% (see Munsha'at
madimu c asi , British Museum Or. 9503, f. 65b).
Another widespread subject of complaint was imposi¬
tions on the hospitality of the villagers during periodic
tours, usually every three months, by the kadi or his
ndHb throughout the jurisdiction.

Personnel. The mad^is al-shar c , or council of ex¬
perts on the religious law ( shar c ), used interchangeably
with mahkamat al-shar c in the documents, consisted of
a body of learned men who assisted the judge in
reaching a judgement in complete conformity with the
shar c (for the existence of such a council from early
Islamic times, see E. Tyan, Organisation judiciaire ,
213-36). However, a mufti is rarely mentioned as sit¬
ting regularly in Ottoman mahkamas , though local muf¬
tis were often referred to for the issue of fatwds [q. v. ]
on particular cases. In addition, the study of mahkama
records reveals that the judge summoned individuals
with knowledge and expertise on specific matters to
act as witnesses, or shuhud al-hal, in the court, and
these were registered as such at the end of the court
sidjills. The use of shuhud, an old Islamic practice [see
§hahid], was designed to check the kadi and to ensure
that a decision was reached in the presence of an un¬
biased and expert body. There is no evidence that in
the Ottoman Empire a permanent body was ap¬
pointed by the kadi as professional witnesses, who ex¬
isted as a kind of corporation in Egypt. For everyday
cases, persons in the court or court officials could be
employed as witnesses. We find that the shehir ket-
khuddsi was regularly present at the court and was
often included among the witnesses.

The personnel of a given mahkama changed in
number according to its importance, with a minimum
of a katib and a muhdir. In large mahkamas , the follow¬
ing additional officials were to be found: a ndHb or
ndHbs, katibs under a ba$h-katib, chief secretary, and a
mahkama emini, acting trustee. The kadi ’s staff included
in some places a mukayyid or recorder and a cukaddr or
messenger (see Q. Ulugay, 18. asirda Manisa , docu¬
ment 27). Under a muhdir-bashl (in other Islamic
states, sahib al-madflis or djilwdz), there were muhdirs
and yasakdjis (Janissaries), who acted as the court
police. The bash-kdtib could also function as nd Hb and
the muhdir-bashi as amin or emin. In some large
mahkamas were also found ddnishmends , college

graduates training to become kadis. Nd*ibs were
agents of the kadi appointed by him and authorised to
give legal decisions on his behalf in a certain mahkama
or on certain specific issues. Each mahkama was assign¬
ed to the control of a nd'ib. Nd y ibs, sometimes also
called simply kadis, were required to have the same
qualifications as kadis themselves. Although in princi¬
ple a nd 3 ib was appointed by the kadi and exclusively
responsible to him, the government imposed certain
restrictions in order to prevent some common abuses.
As early as Suleyman I’s time (926-74/1520-66), the
system of farming out the office of nd 3 ib was officially
abolished, and the practice of selecting nd Hbs from the
local population was also prohibited (see Inalcik,
Adaletndmeler , 76-7). Yet despite these measures, the
farming-out of the office of nd'ib became a well-
established practice, since in the 12th/18th century
most of the important kadi posts in the provinces were
administered by ndyibs appointed by the great kadis
who remained resident in Istanbul, or by those who
received their kadd 3 as arpalik [^.».]. Apparently the
real concern in this period became how to maximise
income deriving to a kadi from a jurisdiction area.
Another category was the itinerant nd 3 ibs who carried
out inspections within the jurisdiction, handing down
decisions on various offences, and determining the
niyabet resmi or fines. Besides these, there were ndyibs
appointed to deal with only a proportion of the cases
or with cases involving certain expertises in a busy
mahkama. Among these the kassdm-i baladi, in charge of
division of inheritances belonging to the non-military
classes [see kassam], may be mentioned. A separate
ndHb, the gedje nd^ibi, was appointed to hear cases at
night. An ayak nd^ibi, or wandering nd^ib, was in
charge of enforcing prescriptions against religiously-
forbidden things such as fraud by shop-keepers,
drinking of wine, etc. In the mahkama of Istanbul, the
most extensive in the empire (its record books,
numbering several thousands, are preserved today in
a special archive attached to the muftuluk of Istanbul),
there was a bdb nd *ibi, or judge for hearing ordinary
cases. Nd ^ibs were also appointed by the kadi of Istan¬
bul to oversee business at certain locations at the city’s
principal market places such as the flour, honey, and
butter warehouses, the candle works, the vegetable
market, and others. They were authorised to hear
cases and to issue decisions on disputes arising in these

MAHKAMA

particular locations. Na^ibs were also appointed to
make investigations for a mahkama , the keshif na^ibi,
and to decide disputes in connection with payment of
c awari4 taxes [q. v. ], the c awarid nd^ibi.

In the kanun-name s of the 10th/16th century, it is
repeatedly stressed that, without prior decision by a
hakim, no member of the military class could impose
any punishment, even a small fine, on the re c aya. The
enforcement of decisions, however, was left entirely to
the military. By accepting a bribe from the guilty par¬
ty, they quite often omitted to enforce a hakim’s deci¬
sion. This amounted in practice to a separate
settlement of the case by the military. The mahkama
could order detention of the criminal only as a precau¬
tionary measure.

The hakim based his decisions on shar c i texts, kanun-
name s, daftars [q.v.], imperial hukms and fatwas. In the
c addlet-name of 1004/1595-6 (see inalcik, Adaletndmeler,
105), it is asserted that under Suleyman I “imperial
kanun-name s were codified and deposited in the
mahkamas of kadis in every city”. Alongside a great
many unofficial copies of the general kanun-names used
by the kadis in their mahkamas, one official copy bear¬
ing the tughra [ q.v .] of the sultan has survived to our
day (Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Cod. mixt. 870).
Because regulations were constantly being amended
by imperial hukms, the hakims were not required to
follow a universally-applied official version. As to the
shar c t text to be used, the hakim was free to consult any
reference books, on condition that they belonged to
the HanafT school. In 1107/1695-6 Mustafa II ordered
that only shar c i texts be used in the mahkamas ( c O.
Nurl, Medyelle, i, 568), but this seems to have lasted
only a short period.

In principle, the Islamic judicial system does not
recognise the institution of attorney (Tyan, Organisa¬
tion judiciaire , 262). The system of legal representation
by wakils , widely used in Islamic mahkamas , including
those of the Ottoman empire (R. Jennings, The office
of Vekil , in SI, xlii [1975], 147-69), cannot be equated
with attorneyship. Nevertheless, it appears already
from 10th/16th century documents (see Inalcik,
Adaletndmeler, 99) that court suits of individuals were
pursued by their private representatives in return for
a fee, and these agents, sometimes called da^wd wekili,
formed a semi-professional group in Ottoman cities,
although the government tried to eliminate them from
the courts, objecting to their use of false witness and
other tactics to subvert the course of justice.

Cases concerning public security or injustices in¬
flicted upon the re c aya by the local authorities, the so-
called mazalim [q.v.] cases, could be heard by the local
bd$i\ s’ courts, by mufattishs or inspectors, by the diwdn
courts set up by one of the wezirs while on tour in a
province, or in the final resort, by the diwan-i hiimayun
[q.v.] itself. The beylerbeyis or governor-generals held
their own diwans to hear and decide on cases involving
sipahis and other ^mar-holders in their provinces, and
had the authority to inflict various disciplinary
punishments, including dismissal. In their diwans, the
beylerbeyis also heard complaints by the recaya of their
provinces against tfmar-holders, but in order to be able
to take action, the case and investigation had to be
referred to a toprak kaffisl , rural kadi, for a legal deci¬
sion. In order to save the re c dyd from hardships, a
sultariic decree forbade the /fmtzr-holders from taking
such cases to an urban kadi. Any non-disciplinary case
involving a /fmar-holder was to be referred to the
mahkama of the local kadi and to be decided according
to the shari c a and the kanun. The priority recognised
to the beylerbeyis for hearing cases involving people
under his command was also recognised to all military

regiments in the Empire whose commanding officers
had the responsibility to hold diwans and to give
disciplinary punishments. The heads of the communi¬
ty organisations, too, such as the guilds and the
DhimmI groups, were authorised to decide cases in¬
volving their internal regulations and security. Apart
from these cases, the mahkama was the sole place of
resort for justice, and preserved this characteristic up
until the 12th/18th century, when community courts
began to usurp some of its authority (see Pan-
tazopoulos, Church and law, 44-112).

The effects of imperial decline on the
courts of the ka41 s. Mahkamas became the target of
strong criticism from the writers of the late 10th/16th
century, and it was from this period that the character
and functions of the mahkama began to change. Apart
from its function as a law court, the mahkama served
as a town meeting-place to which the city notables,
representatives of the craft guilds, as well as imams
representing the people of their respective districts,
were invited periodically by the kdfi. Such meetings
were usually convened by the kdfi for the purpose of
explaining new orders issued by the sultan of concern
to the public at large. Beginning in the 11th/17th cen¬
tury, however, these meetings became more frequent
and assumed greater importance. The reason for this
was that in that century the c awarid-i diwaniyya (ex¬
traordinary levies in the form of provisions, services
or money) began to be collected on a regular basis,
and distribution among the population of such im¬
positions was decided in the town meetings held in the
mahkama. Also, at these meetings the city’s expenses
were discussed and written down in budgets. As a
consequence of this development, in their capacity as
representatives of the local population, town notables
began to assume leadership at such meetings, sup¬
planting the kddVs authority in various fields concern¬
ing community interests. (H. Inalcik)

ii. The reform era ( ca. 1 789-1922)

As the preceding discussion makes clear, the Ot¬
toman Empire traditionally relied mainly on the
courts of the kadis for performances of judicial func¬
tions, though it also attributed some measure of
judicial responsibility to other persons or organisa¬
tions, such as the diwans of the sultans and senior
military-administrative officials, the heads of the non-
Muslim subject communities, or the guilds. Ottoman
authorities recognised law based on custom ( c adet ) or
on the sultan’s decree {kanun), as well as the shari^a,
and expected those with judicial responsibilities, kadis,
as well as military-administrative officers (ehl-i c orf), to
apply both shar z i and non-j7iar c f law. The judicial
functions of the kadVs courts and the diwans of the
military-administrative authorities certainly differed
in a variety of respects (Heyd, 252-8), but there was
no formal distinction of shari^a and mazalim jurisdic¬
tion. In effect, Ottoman policy was to avoid such
distinction. Similarly, the remarkable development
among the Ottomans of regulatory acts {kanun, kanun-
name [q vv]) ancillary to the shari^a —a development
unmatched in other Islarpic states—did not in princi¬
ple signify neglect of the shari c a. Rather, the emphasis
on the kanun, an ideal means for assertion of the
sultan’s authority, coexisted with a larger pattern of
policy aimed at legitimating the state through appeal,
in law as in other matters, to Islamic values. As ex¬
pressed in legal and judicial systems, this larger policy
provided the basis for Schacht’s opinion that the Ot¬
toman Empire gave the shari c a “the highest degree of
actual efficiency ... it had ever possessed in a society
of high material civilization since early c Abbasid

MAHKAMA

times” (An introduction to Islamic law, Oxford 1964,
84).

Yet the equilibrium between sharica and kanun , and
that between tribunals of different types, did not re¬
main constant in every period. For example, the kdniin
went into decline after the 10th/16th century. One
consequence of this appears to have been an increase
in emphasis on the shart c a in certain respects (Heyd,
152-57; cf. inalcik, kanun, in EP, iv, 560, 561)-.
Simultaneously, the decay in the provincial military-
administrative hierarchy, and the alteration in local
power-relationships, seem to have enlarged and
altered the functions of the kadis’ courts, as indicated
at the end of the preceding section. Later, as the em¬
pire moved into its 19th century reform era, the
balance between shari c i and non -shariH legal systems
shifted in the opposite direction. The main reason for
this was that the regulatory powers of the sultans
began, from the time of Selim III (1789-1807) on¬
ward, to find a new use as the chief means for the pro¬
mulgation of innovative reforms. As this occurred, a
new body of law, and eventually a new system of
courts, began to emerge. This time, the jurisdictions
of the two types of courts did become differentiated,
with the result that it now became quite exact, in a
sense that had not obtained several centuries before,
to refer to the kadis' courts as sharica courts. The new
legal and judicial systems continued to grow in scope,
however, and the end result was the closing of the
shari c a courts and the creation of an exclusively
secular court system under the Turkish Republic.
Paradoxically, then, the same empire that had so im¬
pressed Schacht through its emphasis on the shari c a
ultimately evolved in such a way as to prepare the
legal and judicial foundations for the most secular
Islamic state of the 20th century.

For the sake of continuity with the discussion of Ot¬
toman tribunals of earlier periods, it will serve best, in
considering the 19th century, to look first at the sharica
courts. The succeeding discussion of what became
known as the nizdmiyye courts will then make clear
where the primary emphasis of judicial reform lay.

Reform of the shari c a courts. After earlier,
episodic attempts at reform of the judiciary, a serious
effort to restore standards occurred during the reign of
Selim III (Uzun£ar§ih, Hm ., 255-60). During the 19th
century, other such measures followed. Perhaps the
first was a penal code applying to the kadi- c askers,
kadis, and nd^ibs, issued at the same time as another
for civil officials, in 1254/1838 (Hifzi Veldet,
Kanunlaftirma, 170-1). Within another three years, the
first attempt to substitute salaries for compensation by
fees had occurred, and seemingly also failed (Inalcik,
Tanzimat'in uygulanmasi , 626, 686). Subsequently,
there were regulations defining conditions of service
for shar^i judicial officials, of whom all judges except
those in the greatest cities came ultimately to be
designated as na^ibs, their judgeships being termed
niydbets (a change presumably reflecting the increasing
tendency to use the term kadd 5 to refer to an ad¬
ministrative district; Heidborn, 260 n. 177). By the
1870s, these regulations covered subjects such as ap¬
pointment by examination, ranks, duration of terms
of service, maintenance of systematic service records,
and—once again—salaries. While some of these con¬
cepts, such as examinations and ranks, had long been
known among the c ulema 3 , others were new; and all
together signify the evolution, here as in other bran¬
ches of government service, of essentially modem pat¬
terns of personnel administration (Aristarchi, ii,
320-4; Young, i, 290-1; Heidborn, 260-6; Dslr. 1 , i,
315-24; ii, 721; Dslr. 2 v, 352-61). There were also ef¬

forts to upgrade medresc training; and in the second
half of the 19th century, new schools were founded in
Istanbul specifically for the training of nd -’ibs and kadis
(Ergin, Tirkiye maarif tarihi , i, 135-42; Dstr . 2 , ii,
127-38; ix, 598-600). Regulations were issued to
define the functions that could be performed in the
various sharica courts and the fees that were still to be
collected (Aristarchi, ii, 324-38; Dslr. 1 , 1, 301-14;
dheyl iii, 95; v, 1). The process of legal reform and
codification affected the shari c a courts, particularly
through the Medj_elle [q.v.], published between 1870
and 1876. Chiefly the work of Ahmed Djewdet Pasha
[q.v.] and based on Hanafi fikh, this dealt with civil
law and procedure and was intended for application in
both the religious and the secular ( nizdmiyye ) courts
(R. H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman empire,
Princeton 1962, 253-5; Heidborn, 283-6, 387-97).
Under the Medjelle, for example, the appeal of deci¬
sions from provincial sharica courts became a matter
of system (arts. 1838-40; Young, i, 287-89; Dstr. 1 , iv,
123; dheyl iii, 85-8; v, 728). Other acts regulated the
division (kismet) of estates in certain circumstances
(Young, i, 294-302; Dstr. 1 , 1, 289-97; dheyl, iii, 88-95;
vi, 394-96). As the secular courts developed, the types
of cases that were to go before the shari c a courts were
increasingly delimited (Young, i, 291-3; Dstr. 1 , iii,
165-6; EP, IV, 560, 561).

The Young Turk era produced more radical
changes. Under the influence of Ziya Gokalp’s
Western-inspired concept of religion, a number of
major reforms, aimed at restricting the role of the
Shaykh al-Islam to iftd 5 , were carried out in 1917. One
of these measure was the placing of the shari c a courts
under the authority of the Minister of Justice (Dstr. 2 ,
ix, 270-1). A new law on sharica court procedure ap¬
peared in October 1917 (Dstr. 2 , ix, 783-94), as did a
new code of family law, including provisions for
Christians and Jews as well as Muslims (Dstr. 2 , ix,
762-81; x, 52-57; Berkes, Secularism, 415-19). After
World War I, responsibility over the shari c a courts
was briefly returned to the Shaykh al-Islam (Pakalin,
Kadi, 125). But with the complete dismantling of the
traditional religious establishment under the Turkish
Republic, the shari c a courts were abolished in 1924
(B. Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey 2 , Oxford
1968, 265-74).

The nizdmiyye courts, The best way to under¬
stand the rise of the nizdmiyye courts is to begin by ex¬
amining how the reassertion of the sultans’
discretional legislative power stimulated a new
development in the tradition of the diwdns, which the
Ottomans used both as consultative and as judicial
bodies.

The decree-power of the sultan provided the essen¬
tial legislative sanction for all the reformist initiatives,
including the Gul-khdne Decree of 1839, the Reform
Decree of 1856, and the Constitution of 1876 (inalcik,
Padifah, in fA, ix, 495). Concluding with the promise
that new laws would be framed to elaborate its
egalitarian principles, the Gul-khane Decree
(Hurewitz, i, 271; Dstr. 1 , i, 6) was of particular
significance. For it provided the impetus for a flood-
tide of new legislation, much of it explicitly borrowed
from Western models (Veldet, Kanunlaftirma, 175 ff.;
Heidborn, 283-4, 320-54, 366-86, 416-41). The fact
that the terms nizam or nizam-name now often replaced
kanun or kdnun-ndme as designations for the new laws,
cannot obscure the continuity, at least as far as the
underlying legislative authority is concerned, between
the reformist legislation and the kanuns of earlier cen¬
turies. Rather, the two sets of terms are nearly
synonymous; and the designation of major political

MAHKAMA

periods of the reform era in terms of nizam or its
derivatives ( Nizam-l Dje did . Tanzimal [q. vv. ]) is sym¬
bolic of the new shift in the historic balance between
kanun and shari c a (Findley, Bureaucratic reform in the Ot¬
toman empire, ch. v). The practice of referring to the
new courts created in this period as nizamiyye courts
signifies that they were responsible for trying cases
under the new laws.

While some of the conciliar bodies most distinctive
of the “classic” Ottoman governmental system—such
as the imperial diwdn at the palace or the dtwans of the
leading military-administrative functionaries in the
provinces—had long since declined, the tradition of
the dtwans or councils (medjalis), as they were more
often termed during the reform era, responded to this
legislative reassertion in two respects. On one hand,
the Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances (Medjlis-i
Wala-yi Ahkam-i c Adliyye), a body which Mahmud II
created out of the diwdn of the Grand Weztr in 1838
and which evolved into the Council of State ( Shurd-yi
Dewlet, 1868), assumed the bulk of the work of prepar¬
ing the new legislation for the sultan’s sanction (Shaw,
Central legislative councils , 51-84). On the other hand,
simultaneous efforts to create a new kind of local ad¬
ministrative apparatus led to the creation in 1840 of
new local councils, referred to as Medjlis-i Muhassilin,
Miidhdkere Medjlisi, or Memleket Medjlisi. These were in¬
tended in part to supplant the role that the kadis'
courts had acquired in administrative affairs, though
not of course their judicial functions in shar c i cases.
Both the local councils and the Supreme Council of
Judicial Ordinances in Istanbul also served as judicial
bodies in certain types of cases arising under the new
legislation (Heidborn, 219). Including various of the
local administrative officials, the kadi and mufti , the
leaders of the local non-Muslim communities, and in¬
directly elected representatives of the local notables,
the local councils were found at various administrative
levels: liwa 3 or sandjak , kada 3 (a term used increasingly
in this period to refer to the administrative subdivision
of the liwa y ), and sometimes on a reduced scale in
lower-level subdistricts as well (Ortayli, Mahalli
idareler , 13 ff.; Inalcik, Tanzimal'in uygulanmast , 626,
633-5, 664-5; idem, Application of the Tanzimal and its
social effects, in Archivum Ottomanicum, v [1973], 100-1,
107-10; Kornrumpf, Territorialverwaltung , 44-57

passim).

The assignment of judicial functions to the local
councils marked the first step toward creation of the
nizamiyye courts, which continued to reflect their
origins in being collegial bodies. Decades were to pass
before a distinct hierarchy of nizamiyye courts emerg¬
ed, and—incidentally—before they were officially
referred to by the term mahkeme (in 1868 according to
Heidborn, 226, n. 57). Even then, the local ad¬
ministrative councils and—except for a few years dur¬
ing the Young Turk period—the Supreme Council of
Judicial Ordinances, later the Council of State, re¬
tained responsibility for administrative justice (Shaw,
Central legislative councils, passim; Findley, Bureaucratic
reform , 174-6, 248-9, 308-9).

Between the creation of the councils just described
(1838, 1840) and the first comprehensive attempt to
regulate and systematise the system of nizamiyye courts
(1879), a number of steps had to be taken. The 1840s
witnessed the development of a system of commercial
courts, beginning with a single one in Istanbul, where
cases between Ottoman subjects and non-Ottomans
were tried before a panel of judges, also of mixed na¬
tionality. A special commercial code was promulgated
in 1850 (Heidborn, 216-19; Young, i, 239-43). A
system of penal courts to hear cases between parties of

mixed nationality also came into existence, starting in
1847. The foreign consuls had the right to intervene
in these courts on behalf of their nationals and, by
withholding their assent, to prevent execution of judg¬
ment against such individuals. At any rate, according
to Heidborn (219-20), the jurisdiction of these courts
was eventually extended to cover cases to which only
Ottoman subjects were parties; in addition, for the
first time in Ottoman judicial procedure, the
testimony of non-Muslims was accepted before these
courts on a basis of equality with that of Muslims.

The reform decree of 1856 pointed toward a further
generalisation and elaboration of some of these
measures. It provided that commercial, correctional,
and civil cases between parties of different religions be
referred to mixed courts (that is, the judges were to be
of different faiths) and that the parties be allowed to
produce witnesses who could testify under oaths taken
according to their respective religions. Laws and pro¬
cedural rules for these courts were to be drafted and
codified as soon as possible and published in the
various languages of the empire ( DstrA, i, 11;
Hurewitz, i, 317). Changes of these types did gradual¬
ly occur in succeeding years.

In 1860, for example, there appeared an organic
law for the commercial courts. This provided for com¬
mercial courts of specified types, which were to have
one or more presidents and four or more members
(a c da 7 ), part of the latter being “permanent” and
part “temporary”. The presidents and permanent
members were to be officials, while the “temporary”
members were to be merchants, chosen by assemblies
including the prominent merchants of the locality, or
later, once such bodies had come into existence, by
the local chamber of commerce. Until 1879, the corn 1
mercial courts were subordinate to the Ministry of
Commerce, and there was a commercial appeals court
at the ministry in Istanbul. A code of commercial pro¬
cedure was adopted in 1861, and a maritime commer¬
cial code in 1863 (Heidborn, 222-3; Aristarchi, ii,
353-400; Young, i, 224-38; Dstr. 1 , i, 375-536,
780-810).

The beginning of a distinct hierarchy of provincial
nizamiyye courts occurred with the enactment of the
Law on Provincial Administration of 1864 (Dstr. 1 , i,
610-12, 615-18; Heidborn, 223-4). This established
courts of first instance and appeal at the top three
levels of the local administrative hierarchy: the kada 3
(i.e. the administrative subdistrict headed by the
ka^im-makarri), the liwa 3 or sandjak, and the wilayet or
province. These were to be presided over by judges
(hakim) from the sharica courts and were also to include
elected members (mumeyyiz). The number of these was
set first at six, then raised to eight at the kada 3 level
(Dstr. 1 , iii, 175). Half-Muslim and half-non-Muslim,
these were to be elected by the same procedure as the
elected members of the local administrative council
(medjlis-i idare) that became the successor, under the
1864 law, of the earlier memleket medjlisi. Under the
provincial administration law of 1864, the provincial
commercial courts, created in 1860, were also effec¬
tively integrated into the nizamiyye court system.
Numerous features of the system of 1864 reflect its in¬
cipient state of development. These include reliance
on shari c a court judges, as well as the fact that the
hierarchy of courts thus far had only two echelons. A
similar significance no doubt attaches to the fact that
these provisions appeared in a law dealing with pro¬
vincial administration; but this pattern proved short¬
lived. The new Law on Provincial Administration,
promulgated in January 1871, contained virtually
nothing on the courts (Dstr. 1 , i, 625-51; Aristarchi, iii,

MAHKAMA

♦

7-39; Young, i, 47-69); rather, they were dealt with in
a separate law that appeared a year later (DstrA, i,
352-6).

This fact reflects a new policy—separation of
powers—introduced into Ottoman practice with a
reform of the Supreme Council of Judical Ordinances
in 1868. The Supreme Council was then separated in¬
to two bodies, one intended to perform legislative, the
other judicial, functions. The new legislative body
was the Council of State (£ hura-yl Dewlet). This con¬
tinued, aside from the short-lived parliament, to func¬
tion as the main legislative body. The highest level of
nizdmiyye justice became the responsibility of what can
probably best be envisaged as a High Court of Justice
(actual title, Diwdn-i Ahkam-i c Adliyye). The organisa¬
tion and functions of this body underwent redefinition
a number of times over the next several years. The
various appeals courts already in existence in Istanbul
for criminal and commercial cases were gradually
brought together under the new agency, and it
became the nucleus from which a Ministry of Justice
'shortly emerged (Dstr. 1 , i, 325-42, 357-63; iii, 2-3;
Aristarchi, ii, 42-55; v, 26-8; Heidborn, 225-6).

This creation of the ministry, like the promulgation
of the Constitution of 1876, was essentially a response
to the crises of the late 1870s and to the need which
the Ottomans felt to demonstrate their ability to
manage their own affairs without European in¬
terference. The constitution itself contained a few pro¬
visions on matters related to the courts, such as the
independence of the judiciary, conditions of service in
it, and judicial procedure. The constitution also
asserted that the organisation and competence of the
courts and the duties of the judges must be defined by
law (DstrA, iv, 14-16; Aristarchi, v, 19-21). A series
of acts published in 1879, in the wake of the Congress
of Berlin (Heidborn, 228), attempted to meet these
demands.

The acts of 1879 in fact established the Ministry of
Justice and the nizdmiyye court system essentially as
they were to remain until the Young Turk period.
These acts included organic regulations for a Ministry
of Justice and Religious Affairs ( c Adliyye ve Medhdhib
Nezdreti ), the double mission of which gave it jurisdic¬
tion over judicial and other affairs of the non-Muslim
communities, as well as over the nizdmiyye courts
(DstrA, iv, 125-31; Young, i, 159-66). There was also
an organic law for the nizdmiyye courts. This included
provisions not only on the organisation and com¬
petence of the tribunals, but also on the organisation
of the judiciary and on the systems of public pro¬
secutors (miidde^i-yi (i umumi) and judicial inspectors
(DstrA, iv, 235-50; later amendments ibid. , vi, 81; vii,
171-2, 1080-1; viii, 136-7, 665-6; cf. Young, i,
166-80; Heidborn, 231-48). Also among the acts of
1879 were laws on the system for execution of the
judgments of the courts (DstrA, iv, 225-35; vi, 837;
viii, 752-3; Young, i, 197-210; Heidborn, 248-9), on
notaries (DstrA, iv, 338-44; 1065-8; Young, i, 193-7;
Heidborn, 249-50), and on judicial fees (DstrA, iv,
319-37; v, 582-96; vi, 456; viii, 744-7; Young, i,
210-23). There were also codes of civil and criminal
procedure (Dstr. 1 , iv, 131-224, 257-318; later

modifications ibid. , vi, 230-1; vii, 16-17, 31-3, 89-90,
114, 151, 1081; viii, 135-6, 751-2; cf. Young, vii,
171-300; Heidborn, 397-441). About the same time,
efforts were made to found a law school to train judges
and lawyers competent in the new legal system
(Ergin, Maarij tarihi, ii, 582-92; iii, 890-918; Heid¬
born, 280-3). Attempts to regulate the legal profession
began in 1878 (Dstr. l , iii, 198-209; dheyl iv, 35-8; v,
520-21; Young, i, 184-93; Heidborn, 250-1). Two
acts of 1888 then elaborated the system for the ex¬

amination and appointment of judges, who were no
longer to be elected, and prescribed the keeping of
systematic personnel records on all judicial officials
(DstrA, v, 1058-64; vi, 1367-8, 1476; Young, i,
182-4).

As defined in the organic regulations of 1879, the
nizdmiyye court system was supposed to include courts
of arbitration (sulh da 3 ireleri ) in the villages and ndhiyes ,
as well as courts of first instance (bidayet), appeal (isti-
*ndf), and cassation (temyiz). Heidborn (229-32) in¬
dicated that the courts of arbitration were never really
set up, although various acts of the reign of c Abd al-
Hamld make clear that official interest in them did
continue (DstrA, vi, 1155-68; vii, 27-38; viii, 712-28,
747, 753). The triple-tiered system of regular courts
was also not as fully developed as its nomenclature im¬
plied. The law of 1879 in fact began by stating that the
courts were of two levels, first instance and appeal.
There was only one court of cassation, located in
Istanbul; and even the functions of the courts of first
instance and appeal varied as much with the level of
the administrative hierarchy at which they were found
as with their ostensible placement in the judicial
hierarchy.

As prescribed in 1879, however, there was to be a
court of first instance in every kadd 3 In a normal
kadd 3 , the court of the first instance was empowered to
hear civil cases of all types. It could decide criminal
cases involving minor offences and misdemeanours
(kabahat ve dhunha) and carry out preliminary in¬
vestigation of major crimes ($indyet). It could also
hear commercial cases, if there was no separate com¬
mercial court in the kadd 3 . The kadd 3 court was
authorised to hear appeals from the courts of arbitra¬
tion at lower levels. It was also empowered to judge in
last resort in cases where the matter in question had
a monetary value that fell within stated limits, as well
as in minor criminal offences (kabahat).

In kadd 3 s that coincided with the centre of a higher-
level administrative circumscription, the court of first
instance took on additional attributes. In the “cen¬
tral” kadd 3 of a liwd 3 or sandjak, for example, the court
of first instance was to have two sections for civil and
criminal cases. These functioned separately as courts
of first instance for that kadd 3 and jointly to try major
crimes (djinayet) or hear appeals from the other kadd' s
of the liwd*.

There was also provision for a commercial court of
the liwd 3 , which functioned similarly as a court of first
instance for the central kadd 3 and as a court of appeal
for the other kadd 3 s of the liwd 3 The law of 1879 does
not specifically mention the courts of first instance
located in kadd 3 s that coincided with province capitals.
By 1908, however, these reportedly existed, serving as
courts of first instance for the kadd 3 in which they were
located and as an appeals instance for cases coming up
from the liwd 3 courts. There was also provision for
provincial commercial courts. These are reported to
have existed in most provinces, though only occa¬
sionally in lower-echelon administrative centres
(Heidborn, 234).

A tribunal expressly designated as an appeals court
(isti *naf mahkemesi) was supposed to be located in every
province capital. This court was to have separate civil
and criminal sections. These were empowered to hear
appeals from the courts of first instance located at the
centres of the various liwd 3 s of the province, as well as
from those in the kadah of the central liwd 3 . The
criminal section served the central liwd 3 of the pro¬
vince as a criminal court for the trial of serious of¬
fences (djindyet) and as a court of appeal in cases of
lesser gravity (djunha).

For Istanbul, the law of 1879 prescribed an

MAHKAMA

analogous organisation, allowing that the number of
sections and staff members could be increased in case
of need, as was in fact done ( DstrA, iv, 240). In addi¬
tion, there was an important deviation from the pro¬
vincial pattern in that the Istanbul commercial court
acquired three sections, one hearing only cases be¬
tween Ottoman subjects and foreigners, one only
cases between Ottoman subjects, and one only
maritime cases. The capital city also had an appeals
court with civil, criminal, and commercial sections
(Heidborn, 235-7).

At the apex of the nizamiyye court system, finally,
stood the court of cassation ( mahkeme-i temylz), also in
Istanbul. This, too, had three sections, the functions
of which were gradually defined in acts of the 1880s
and 1890s ( Dstr A, v, 853-4, 992; vii, 89-90; Young, i,
180-1; Heidborn, 237-8). The first section, that of
petitions (istid c a 5 da 5 iresi ), received all appeals to the
court. This section had power to decide directly in cer¬
tain matters, such as conflicts of jurisdiction, reassign¬
ment of cases from one court to another, or the
unacceptability of petitions on grounds of technical ir¬
regularity or lapse of the period set for cassation. The
petitions section referred the cases it accepted to either
the civil or the criminal section, which either rejected
the appeal or overtuned the lower court ruling on
ground of judicial error. In major criminal cases
(f ijinayet), judgments from the lower courts went
automatically to the criminal section of the court of
cassation, without need for appeal.

Under the system of 1879, all the nizamiyye courts
continued to be collegial bodies, including a presi¬
dent, or more than one in courts with several sections,
and varying numbers of members ( a c <Jd y ). At least un¬
til 1908, sharl c a court judges continued to play a major
role in the system, at least as far up as the province
level, where the nd^ib of the province normally also
functioned as the president of the civil section of the
court of appeal. The final article of the 1879 law on
the nizamiyye courts provided, for this reason, that a
representative of the Ministry of Justice should be
present at the meetings of the council that selected
judges for the sharica courts, the Medjlis-i Intikhab-l
Hiikkam-i £har c , when niiwwab were being chosen
(Dstr. 1 , iv, 250). The commercial courts were still to
include “temporary” members, chosen among the
merchants of the locality.

Under the conditions of the Hamidian era, the
system created in 1879 cannot have functioned very
effectively. The judicial inspectorate, for example, is
reported to have operated only intermittently (Heid¬
born, 231-2; Young, i, 177 n. 4). At least at the pro¬
vince and liwa 5 levels, for which the government
yearbooks record the appropriate information, it
nonetheless appears that by 1908 the system of courts
had been created and staffed in essentially all parts of
the empire, except the provinces of the Hidjaz and
Yemen and perhaps also the sandjak of Nedjd, where
the sharl c a courts remained the only ones (Sdl-name-i
Dewlet-i c Aliyye-i c Othmaniyye, 1326/1908, 692-962
passim; Heidborn, 228 n. 70).

The Young Turk Revolution opened the way for ef¬
forts at fundamental reorganisation in the Ministry of
Justice. New organic regulations for the central offices
of the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs were
issued in June 1910 (Dstr. 2 , iii, 467-79; later modifica¬
tions ibid. , iv, 367-8, 440-1; vi, 228-9; vii, 558-60,
634). The system for appointment of judges and other
officials of the ministry underwent revision with
regulations of June 1913 (Dstr. 2 , v, 520-9; vi, 738-43,
1273-4). There were a number of amendments to the
civil and penal procedure codes of 1879 (Dstr. 2 , iii,

261-77; v, 621-23; vi, 309-10, 651-4, 1352). Other
acts addressed questions such as the differentiation of
the jurisdiction of shar c l and nizdml courts (Dstr. 2 , i,
192-4; vi, 1334), the qualifications required for the
practice of law (Dstr. 2 , i, 751; Meyer, Rechtswesen,

148), and the reactivation of the system of judicial in¬
spectors (Dstr. 2 , ii, 33-7).

As concerns the nizamiyye courts proper, however,
the Young Turk reforms changed the pre-existing
system only at specific points. If it is correct that the
courts of arbitration (sulh da^ireleri), provided for in
1879, had not been widely instituted, one of the more
significant of these measures may have been the set¬
ting up, starting in April 1913, of a system of justices
of the peace (sulh hdkimleri). These were to be a kind
of circuit judges, possessing legal qualifications, and
holding court as individuals in the kadd 5 s, ndhiye s, and
villages to hear minor cases of various types (Dstr 2 , v,
322-48, 619, 775-7, 827, 869-75; vi, 156-7, 294-5,
342-3, 1353; vii, 561-2; Meyer, Rechtswesen, 138). The
patterns of organisation and staffing created in 1879
for the nizamiyye courts at the administrative levels of
the kadd 5 , liwa 5 , province (wildyet), and in Istanbul
were amended at several points, starting in August
1909 (Dstr. 2 , i, 665-6; ii, 180-1; v, 217-18, 793-5,
866). The abolition of the capitulations, effective from
1 October 1914, had important implications for the
court system, inasmuch as it required the abandon¬
ment of all courts and judicial procedures specifically
for the benefit of foreigners (Dstr 2 , vi, 1273, 1336,
1340; Meyer, Rechtswesen, 117-18, 135). The attack on
the traditional religious institutions in 1917 was of
comparable significance, since it resulted in the place¬
ment of the shar'-i courts under the Ministry of Justice
and the creation of a section for shar c l cases in the
Cassation Court in Istanbul (Meyer, Rechtswesen,
139-41). Though briefly reversed during the armistice
period, these changes in the status of the sharica courts
brought Ottoman judicial systems to a point very near
complete unification, which occurred with the
establishment of the secular, national court system
under the Ministry of Justice of the Turkish Republic.

(C. V. Findley)

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sicillerinin toplu katologuna dogru, in Istanbul Univer-
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Bosna $er’iyye sicillerine gore Viyana bozgunundan sonraki
harpyillannda Bosna, in Tarih Vesikalan , ii (1942-3),
178-87, 372-84; Izvoriza Balgarskata istoriya , xxi, ed.
Nikolai Todorov and Mariya Kalitsin, Sofia 1977;
R. C. Jennings The development of EvkdJ in a new Ot¬
toman province: Cyprus, 1571-1640, paper based on
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c Othman Nurl, Medjelle-yi umur-i belediyye, i, Istan¬
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arabes par leurs archives (XVI e -XX e siecles), Paris 1976,
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za istorijata na makedonskiot narod, Serija prva, 4 vols.,
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sicillerine dair bin araytirma, in Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi, x
(1953), 285-98; idem, XVII. asuda Saruhan’da
eykiyahk ve halk hareketleri, Istanbul 1944; idem, 18.
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Istanbul 1955, documents from Manisa law court;
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teykilati, Ankara 1965; Madeline C. Zilfi, Elite cir¬
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2. Dlwdns of Sultans, Grand Wezirs,
and military-administrative officials.
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XVI. asirlarda Osmanli imparatorlugunda zirai
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bahriye teykilati, Ankara 1948.

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l’Empire ottoman, 7 vols., Constantinople, 1873-88;
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dolayisile Turkiye maarif tarihi, 5 vols., Istanbul
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Vilayetsordnung (1864) bis zum Berliner Kongress (1878)
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Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey 2 , London
1968; Ahmed LutfT, Mir^at-i c adalet,yakhud taPnkhce-
i c adliyye-i dewlet-i c aliyye, Istanbul 1306/1889; F.
Meyer, Rechtswesen einschliesslich Rechtsverfolgung in
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ilber Ortayli, Tanzimattan soma mahalli idareler
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Tanzimat I: yuziincii yildoniimii miinasebetile, Istanbul

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1940, 139-209; G. Young, Corps de droit ottoman :

recueil des codes , lois, reglements, ordonnances et actes les

plus importants du droit interieur, et d y etudes sur le droit

coutumier de VEmpire ottoman, 7 vols., Oxford 1905-6.

(H. Inalcik and C. V. Findley)

3. Iran

Under the c Abbasids, as Schacht pointed out, the
office of kadi became permanently connected with the
sacred law, but, as he went on to say, the kadis very
soon lost control of the administration of criminal
justice. Ostensibly to supplement the deficiencies of
the tribunals of the kadis, , the mazalim [< 7 . 0 .] courts for
the redress of grievances, deriving from the ad¬
ministrative practice of the Sasanid kings, were set up
by the political authority and received theoretical
recognition {The law , in Unity and variety in Muslim
civilisation , ed. G. von Grunebaum, Chicago 1955,
74-5).

Al-MawardI recognising that the mazalim

court was the dominant court, attempts to bring it
within the general framework of the law. In a signifi¬
cant statement he explains that it was charged with the
enforcement of decisions made by kadis not sufficient¬
ly strong to see that their judgments were carried out
against defendants occupying high rank or powerful
positions, and with the suppression of evil-doing and
the enforcement of regulations within the jurisdiction
of the muhtasib but beyond his power to apply {al-
Ahkdm al-sultdniyya , Cairo 1386/1966, 83). In his ac¬
count of the origins of the mazalim court, he attributes
its emergence to the lapse into kingship after the
golden age of the Medinan caliphate. It was concern¬
ed with cases against officials, suits concerning in¬
justice in the levy of taxation, complaints by those in
receipt of stipends from official sources that these had
not been paid or had been reduced, and claims for the
restoration of property wrongfully seized. It was also
charged with the investigation of matters which con¬
cerned awkaf, the care of public worship and the due
performance of religious practices in general.
Whereas the kadi 's court was bound by strict rules of
evidence, the mazalim court was subject to no such
limits, although al-Mawardl states that in the hearing
and decision of disputes in general the rules of pro¬
cedure which governed cases that came before the
(cadis and judges were to prevail ( al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya ,
77 ff. See also R. Levy, The social structure of Islam ,
Cambridge 1957, 348-9). One of the most important
functions of the mazalim court was arbitration. In ex¬
ercising this the head of the court, the ndzir al-mazalim,
was, according to al-Mawardl, not to go outside the
limits of what was demanded by the law and his
decrees were to be in keeping with the rules expound¬
ed by the kadis ( al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya, 83). Al-
Mawardl further lays down that kadis and jurists, to
whom the ndzir al-mazalim might have recourse in case
of difficulty or doubt, were to be present when the
mazalim court sat {ibid. , 80). It was thus a channel
through which sanction was given to c urfi practices.

The lawbooks lay down the qualities demanded of
the kadi and the rules of procedure for his court. They
also lay down the method of his appointment; but in
this Sunni theory differs from Shl’T. Until the
$afawids imposed Imam! Shi c ism as the official
religion of their empire, Persia was, apart from cer¬
tain districts, predominantly Sunni. The dominant
rites were the ShaffI and the Hanafi and it was the
rules concerning kada? laid down in the lawbooks of
these schools which, for the most part, prevailed (for
these see especially al-Maward!, al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya
and idem, Adab al-kadi, ed. Muhyl Hilal al-Sirhan,

Baghdad 1391/1971). According to Sunni theory, it
was essential that there should be a valid delegation of
authority to the kadi in order that his decisions should,
in turn, have validity. As long as the caliphs held
political power they delegated authority to the kadis.
When they ceased to exercise power it was accepted
that the kadi should be appointed by the ruler. Al-
Ghazall, concerned for the legality of the life of the
community, held that any kadi nominated by one
holding power fahib shawkat) could give valid deci¬
sions {Wadfiz, ii, 143, quoted by E. Tyan, Histoire
d' organisation judiciaire, i, 258). Once instituted, the
kadi was regarded, not as the personal representative
of the one who had delegated authority to him, but as
the deputy or nd *ib of the caliph or the Prophet. With
the weakening of the power of the caliph and his over¬
throw by the Mongols, it became the normal theory to
regard the kadis as the deputies of the prophet. This
reinforced their independent status (see further Tyan,
i, 134-5, 147-8). The death of the imam (or that person
who had delegated authority to the kadi) did not result
in the revocation of the kadi *s appointment (thus rein¬
forcing his theoretical independence). On the other
hand, the death of the kadi resulted in the revocation
of the appointment of his deputies. If the inhabitants
of a town which had no kadi appointed one, this
designation was null and void if there was an imam in
existence. If there was no imam, the appointment was
valid and his judgments were to be executed {al-Ahkdm
al-sultdniyya, 76). This again emphasises the indepen¬
dent status of the kadi. But his independence was
relative: when a new imam was appointed, his agree¬
ment was required for the kadi to continue to exercise
his functions {ibid.). The fact that the law ad¬
ministered by the kadi was the shari c a, to which, in
theory, the ruler was subject and which was indepen¬
dent of his will, also contributed to the independence
of the kadis (cf. Tyan, i, 149-50)—an independence
which they continued to enjoy to a greater or lesser ex¬
tent over the centuries. Two factors in particular,
however, limited their independence. First, the ruler
who had nominated them could also dismiss them,
and secondly, they had to rely on the officials of the
government for the enforcement of their judgments.

The competence of the kadi might be general or
restricted. In the former case his functions were to set¬
tle disputes either by arbitration within the limits of
the sharica between the parties to the dispute or by en¬
forcing, after proof, liabilities by judgment in favour
of those entitled to them upon persons who disputed
them; to exercise control over persons who had not
charge of their property by reason of madness, infan¬
cy or insolvency; to oversee awkaf to execute wills and
testaments; to give widows and divorced women in
marriage; to apply the legal penalties; to supervise
public utilities in order to prevent encroachment upon
roads and public spaces; to make the necessary in¬
vestigations concerning legal witnesses; to judge be¬
tween the powerful and the weak; observing equality
between them; and to decide with equity cases be¬
tween the khdss and the c dmm. If he was invested with
authority for some specific purpose, i.e. if his authori¬
ty was restricted {khusus), he exercised his functions
within those limits only {al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya, 70 ff.).

Whereas the Sunnis considered the ultimate source
of the kadi's authority to be the Prophet, the Shi c a
held this to be the imams (see al-Kulaym, Usui al-kdfi ,
ch. on kadd 3 ). The Imam! Shi c a, perhaps because
their imams apart from c AiI b. Abl Talib did not hold
political power, were not concerned with the valid
delegation of authority by the holders of power to their
subordinate officials. They regarded all government

MAHKAMA

♦

in the absence of the imam as unjust (dja Hr). In their
discussions of kadd 3 they differentiate between the
time when the imam is present and the ghayba, i.e. the
period of occultation. However, they could not entire¬
ly escape the problem of cooperation with an unjust
government, the validity of whose title to rule they did
not recognise. They attempted to solve this problem
by permitting a limited degree of cooperation with the
adoption of takiyya dissimulation of one’s belief

in the event of danger.

Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tusi (d. 460/1067) sets
out, in a somewhat equivocal fashion, the Imam! Shi*!
doctrine concerning the execution of the legal
penalties and the exercise of the office of kadi as
follows: “No one has the right to execute the legal
penalties except the sultan of the time, who has been
appointed by God most High [i.e. the imam], or that
person whom the imam has appointed to apply the
legal penalties. It is not permissible for anyone except
those two to apply the legal penalties on any occasion.
But permission has been given for the people to apply
the legal penalties to their children, their own people
and their slaves in the time when the true imams, are
not in control and tyrants have usurped power, pro¬
vided that they do not fear that any harm will come
to them from the tyrants and are safe from harm from
them. If this is not the case, it is not permissible to
apply the legal penalties. If an unjust sultan makes
someone [who is an Imam! Shi* I] his deputy and ap¬
points him to apply the legal penalties, it is for him to
do so fully and completely, while believing that what
he does he does at the command of the true sultan;
and it is incumbent upon believers to cooperate with
him and to strengthen him as long as he does not
transgress what is right in that over which he is ap¬
pointed and does not go beyond what is legal accord¬
ing to the Sharica of Islam. If he does, it is not
permissible to assist him or for anyone to cooperate
with him in that, unless he fears for his own person,
in which case it is permissible to do so while practising
takiyya , as long as the killing of anyone is not involved.
In no circumstance is takiyya to be practised in the case
of killing anyone ( al-Nihaya ft mudjarrad al-fikh wa-'l-
fatawd, Beirut 1970, 300-1, Persian text, ed. Muham¬
mad Bakir Sabzawari, Tehran 1333/1954-6, 2 vols., i,
200 - 1 ).

Similarly, al-Tusi states that it not permissible for
anyone to give judgment between the people except
that person to whom “the true sultan” has given per¬
mission (ibid., 301, Persian text, i, 201). He con¬
tinues, “The true imams, upon them be peace, have
cast [the mantle of] judgment (hukumat) on the Jukahd 5
of the Sh i *a during such time as they themselves are
not in a position to exercise it in person” (ibid., Per¬
sian text, i, 201; the Arabic text omits the words
aHmma-i hakk and reads “They have entrusted this
(the function of judging) to the Jukahd 3 of their shi c a
during such time as they are not able to exercise it in
person”, 301). This statement, which would appear
to be one of the earliest occasions when it is stated that
the Jukahd 5 are in effect the successors or deputies of
the imams in the giving of judgment, does not provide
for any immediate source of authority for the kadis.
The ultimate source of their authority is the delega¬
tion by Dja c far al-Sadik related in two traditions
recorded by al-Kulaynl. The first, from Dja*far al-
Sadik, reads “Let not one of you call another to litiga¬
tion before the ahl al-djiwr. Rather look to one of your
number who knows something of our judgments and
set him up (to judge) between you. For I have made
him a kadi to seek judgment from him”. The second,
related from c Umar b. Hanzala, reads “I asked Abu

*Abd Allah (Dja*far al-$adik) concerning two of our
companions who are involved in a dispute over debt
or inheritance and who seek judgment before a sultan
or kadis. Is this lawful (haldl)? Abu *Abd Allah replied,
‘He who seeks judgment from tdghut (i.e. tyrants) and
obtains judgment receives only abomination, even if
his claim is valid, because he has accepted the decision
of tdghut. God has commanded that (such a one) be
considered an unbeliever (kafir)'. *Umar b. Hanzala
said, ‘What should they do?’ Dja*far al-Sadik replied,
‘Look to one of your number who relates our hadith,
who considers our halal and our haram and who knows
our ahkam. Accept his judgment for I have made him
a hakim over you. If he gives a decision in accord with
our judgment and (the litigant) does not accept it,
then it is God’s judgment he has scorned and us he
has rejected. One who rejects us rejects God and he is
subject to the punishment due for polytheism (Jala
hadd al-shirk)’ ” (Furu c al-kdji, i, 357-9).

The qualities required for the office of kadi were
wisdom and maturity, being learned in the Kur 5 an
and the sunna, and a knowledge of Arabic; it was also
a condition that he who undertook this office should
be devout and abstinent and much given to good
works, and that he should avoid sins and refrain from
lust and have an intense concern for piety. Only so¬
meone endowed with these qualities was permitted to
undertake the office and to judge between the people
provided that there was no fear for his life, his people,
his possessions or for any believers (al-Nihaya Ji muddar-
rad al-fikh wa'l-fatawd, 301, Persian text, i, 226). It
was permissible to take wages and subsistence from a
just sultan (i.e. the imam) for the exercise of the office
of kadi, but in the case of an unjust sultan it was only
permissible in the event of necessity or fear. It was,
however, better, in al-Tusi’s opinion, to refrain in all
cases from taking wages for the office of kadi (ibid .,
Arabic text, 367, Persian text, i, 246).

“If,” al-Tusi states, “anyone is able to carry out a
judgment or a settlement (sulh) between people or to
execute a decision between two litigants, as long as he
does not fear harm for himself or for anyone of the
faith and is safe from harm in so doing, he will receive
recompense and reward. But if he fears any of these
things, in no circumstances is it permissible for him to
undertake these matters. If someone calls upon one of
the Jukahd 5 of the people of the truth (i.e. the Imam!
Shl*a) to decide something between them (the ShI c aL
and that fakih does not agree to do so, preferring that
it should be referred to a person who is charged with
the matter on behalf of tyrants, he will have stepped
outside the truth and committed sin. It is not per¬
missible for a person who is charged with giving a
decision between two litigants, or judgment between
the people, to do so except in accordance with the
truth; it is not permissible to give judgment according
to one of the Sunni schools. If anyone undertakes
judgment on behalf of unjust persons, let him strive to
give judgments as demanded of him by the sharica of
the faith; but if he is constrained to give judgment ac¬
cording to the Sunni schools because he fears for
himself, his people or believers or for their property,
it is permissible for him to do so [while practising
takiyya] , provided it does not involve the killing of
anyone, because takiyya is not to be adopted in the case
of killing someone” (ibid. , 301-2, Persian text, i, 201).

Concluding his discussion of the application of the
legal penalties and the execution of judgment, al-Tusi
succinctly explains in what circumstances a fakih
might undertake these functions under an unjust ruler
and how the fakih was to believe while doing so that
he was, in fact, acting on behalf of the imam. He

MAHKAMA

states, “If a fakth exercises authority (wildya) on behalf
of a tyrant, let him think that in applying the penalties
of the law and in giving judgment he is acting on
behalf of the true imam and let him undertake (these
duties) according to the demands of the shari c a of the
faith; and whenever he is empowered to execute
punishment against a transgressor, let him do so, for
verily this is one of the greatest (forms) of djihad. If,
however, someone does not know the conditions in
which the penalties should be applied and cannot ex¬
ecute them [properly], it is not permissible, in any cir¬
cumstances, for him to apply them—if he does he will
be a sinner. But if he is compelled to do so, there will
be nothing against him. Let him endeavour to keep
himself apart from things which are illegitimate ( al-
abafil). It is not permissible for anyone to choose to ex¬
ercise oversight on behalf of tyrants unless he has
(first) determined that he will not transgress what is
obligatory and will only execute what is right and that
he will allocate such things as sadakdt and akhmas and
so on to their proper use. If he knows that he will not
be able to control these things, it is not permissible for
him voluntarily to undertake such work, but if he is
compelled to do so, it is permissible. Let him strive (to
act) as we have said” (ibid., 302-3, Persian text, i,
201 - 2 ).

Al-Tusl’s theory thus made it possible for ImamI
Shi c Is to accept the office of kaji from unjust rulers,
whether Sunnis or Shi c Is, although he did not provide
for any immediate source of their authority. His
theory was for the most part accepted by later jurists.
Hasan b. Yusuf b. al-Mutahhar al-Hilll (d.
726/1325), writing in the reign of Oldjeytii
(703-16/1304-16), who was converted to Shl c ism, is
somewhat less equivocal on the desirability of the ac¬
ceptance of the office of kada 3 by the fukaha 5 . When
finally Imam! §hl c ism became the official religion of
Persia under the Safawids, although the fukaha 3 , for
the most part, continued to regard the government, in
the absence of the imam, as unjust, the general body
of c ulamd 5 and fukaha 5 accepted office at their hands
and from the hands of succeeding dynasties. Muham¬
mad b. MakkI al- c Amill al-Shaml al-Shahid ahAwwal
(d. 786/1384-5), writing for Shams al-Dln al-Anl, one
of the ministers of c AlI b. Mu c ayyid, the ShI c I Sar-
badarid ruler of Sabzawar, had stated that it was the
duty of the imam or his nd Hb to judge and that in the
ghayba the fakih who was possessed of the necessary
qualification to give legal decisions ( al-fakih al-djami c
li-shara *it al-iftd *) carried out the functions of judg¬
ment. Whoever turned aside from such an individual
and referred to the kadi s of an unjust government
(kudat al-djawr) was a sinner and it was incumbent
upon the people to refer to him in what concerned the
ordinances of the shari c a\ whoever failed to do so was
a sinner. Zayn al-Dln b. C A1I al- c Amill al-Shahld al-
Thanl (d. 966/1559), writing in the Ottoman empire
at the beginning of the $afawid period, commenting
on this, states “If the mufti is endowed with these
qualities, it is incumbent upon the people to refer to
him and to accept his word and to make his decision
incumbent upon themselves because he is appointed
by the imam for a general purpose ( mansub min al-imam
c ala ’ l- c umum)” (Rawdat al-bahiyya fi sharh lum c at al-
dimashkiyya , lith. Tabriz 1271/1854-5, 94-5). He also
states with reference to the exercise of judicial func¬
tions on behalf of or under an unjust ruler that this is
incumbent provided that there is safety from the com¬
mission of what is forbidden and power to enjoin the
good and to forbid evil. He adds that the reason for
its not being incumbent (in other circumstances) was
perhaps because one who took judicial office under an

unjust ruler (zdlim) would in appearance (bi-sura) be
nd^ib to the unjust ruler (Masdlik al-ifhdm fi sharh
shardyi c al-islam, lith. 1314/1896-7, 2 vols., i, 167-8.
See further N. Calder, The structure of authority in ImamI
Shi c f jurisprudence, unpublished Ph. D. thesis, London
University 1979, 98 ff.).

Although there were changes in the position of the
kadi under the Kadjars, his position in theory was
substantially the same: the government continued to
be regarded as unjust and the authority of the kadi
derived from the imam, not the government from
whom he received his appointment. Shaykh Dja c far
Kashif al-Ghita 5 , the 19th century jurist, discusses the
question of kada 3 in his Kashf al-ghita 3 at the end of the
book on djihad. He follows al-TusI in the matter of the
acceptance of the office of kadi, but he makes a distinc¬
tion between the exercise of office by a mudjtahid and
one who was not mudjtahid. He permits a kadi to carry
out the ta c zir punishments but states that the execution
of the hadd punishments was the mudjtahid’s
prerogative, and in carrying out a hadd punishment
his inward intention (niyyat) must be that he was car¬
rying it out as the deputy, not of the temporal gover¬
nors (hukkdm), but of the imam. He also states that it
was not permissible for the leader of the Muslims to
appoint a kadi or shayUi al-islam except with the per¬
mission of a mudjtahid (Kashf al-ghita 5 , lith., pages un¬
numbered).

Under the Great Saldjuks there was a delicate
balance between shar^i and c urfi jurisdiction. The
sultan as judge and guardian of public order sat in the
mazdlim court. This function was delegated by him in
the provinces to the provincial governor or to the
mukfa c (see further A. K. S. Lambton, The internal
situation of the Saljuq empire, in Cambridge history of Iran ,
iv, ed. J. A. Boyle, Cambridge 1968, 247 ff.). Nizam
al-Mulk, discussing the mazdlim court, holds that it
was indispensable for the ruler to hold such a court
twice a week to hear personally, without an in¬
termediary, what the subjects had to say (Siyasat-nama,
ed. C. Schefer, Paris 1891, Persian text, 10). His
main concern appears to have been to strengthen the
authority of the ruler rather that to ensure that justice
was done to the individual. He continues, “A few
cases which are of greater importance shall be submit¬
ted [to the ruler] and he shall give an order (mithal)
concerning each one so that all tyrants will fear and
restrain their hands from oppression. When news
spreads abroad in the kingdom that the Lord of the
World summons to his presence those who have
grievances and those who demand redress twice a
week and listens to what they have to say, no one will
dare to commit tyranny or extortion for fear of
punishment” (ibid.). Nizam al-Mulk recommends
that the plaints of those who gathered at the court
should be dealt with expeditiously to avoid clamour or
commotion at the court, such that strangers and en¬
voys should be led to suppose that tyranny was rife in
the kingdom (ibid., 207).

A kadi al-kudat was appointed in the capital and in
a number of provincial cities, but there would seem to
have been a decline in the importance of the office.
The reasons for this—if it was indeed the case—are
not clear. It may have been connected with the in¬
creased centralisation of the administration in the
hands of the wazir during the reign of Malik-Shah
(465-85/1072-92). The influence and prestige of the
kadis, however, was apparently undiminished. The
immediate source of their authority was the sultan,
but its ultimate source was the Prophet (cf. Siyasat-
nama, 38)—in other words the sultan exercised con¬
stitutive authority with regard to the kadi, but the

MAHKAMA

functional authority of the kadi derived from the
sharica (see further Lambton, Quis custodiet custodes, in
SI, v [1956], 132-3).

A document issued by Sandjar’s diwdn appointing
Madjd al-Din Muhammad kadi of Gulpayagan states
that the office of kadi and hakim was the greatest
religious office (shughl) and the most delicate shar^i
charge ( c amai) (Muntadjab al-Din Badi c al-Djuwayni,
c Atabat al-kataba, ed. c Abbas Ikbal, Tehran 1329/1950,
45). Nizam al-Mulk also recognises that the office of
kadi was a delicate one “because they (the kadis) were
empowered over the lives and properties of the
Muslims” ( Siyasat-nama , 38. Cf. also al-Ghazali’s let¬
ter to Fakhr al-Mulk b. Nizam al-Mulk, Fada^il al-
anam, ed. c Abbas Ikbal, Tehran 1333/1954-5, 28). It
was no doubt partly on this account that care was urg¬
ed upon the kadis in the drawing up of testaments, title
deeds and other documents (cf. the document issued
by San^jar’s diwdn appointing c Imad al-Din Muham¬
mad b. Ahmad b. $a c id kadi of Nishapur, c Atabat al-
kataba, 12). It was recognised that the office of kadi
concerned both the people and the state (cf. the docu¬
ment issued by Sandjar’s diwdn for the kadi-yi lashkar,
ibid. , 58-9).

Ni?am al-Mulk states that the appointment and
dismissal of the kadi was the responsibility of the ruler,
and that the kadis were to be allocated a monthly
salary ( mushdhara ), sufficient to free them from the
need of peculation ( khiydnat) (Siyasat-nama , 38). They
were, thus, in some measure government servants.
Their function as such was probably to watch over the
religious institution on behalf of the government in
order to prevent the spread of unorthodox opinions
(which were in the eyes of the government inevitably
linked with sedition). Nizam al-Mulk also states that
the kadis were to be supported by other officials and
their prestige guarded. In keeping with the Sunni
principle, kull mudjtahid musib, he states that the
judgments of kadis , even if wrongfully given, were to
be executed by other officials. The latter were,
however, to report wrong judgments to the ruler so
that he might dismiss and punish a kadi guilty of such.
Anyone who behaved presumptuously and refused to
appear at the kadi' s court when summoned was to be
forced to do so, even if he was a great man (ibid.). In
some cases, the diploma appointing a kdtjli stipulates
that he was to judge according to a particular rite.
Cases are, however, recorded of kadis giving/<zftt>as ac¬
cording to more than one rite.

In Nizam al-Mulk’s theory there is a certain am¬
biguity in the position of the kadi. On the one hand he
was appointed by the ruler, but on the other he en¬
joyed a certain independence because of his relation¬
ship to the caliph. “The kadis ”, Nizam al-Mulk
states, “are all the deputies (naHban) of the king. It is
incumbent upon the king to support them. They must
be accorded full respect and dignity because they are
the deputies of the caliph, whose mantle has devolved
upon them” (ibid., 40-1). This statement is to be seen,
perhaps, in the light of the theory that the caliph
should be a mudjtahid and that the ruler, if he was not
a mudjtahid, required a deputy to act on his behalf in
certain matters. Nizam al-Mulk states that “when the
king is a Turk or a Persian or someone who does not
know Arabic and has not studied the decrees of the
sharica, he inevitably requires a deputy to conduct af¬
fairs in his place” (ibid., 40). Thus he foreshadows the
theory to be put forward in the late 9th/15th century
by Fadl Allah b. Ruzbihan Khundji, who states that
kings who were mudjtahids were few and far between
and that if a king was not a mudjtahid it was incumbent
upon him to appoint a mufti(Suluk al-muluk, B. L., ms.
Or. 253, ff. unnumbered).

The documents issued by Sandjar’s diwan collected
in the c Atabat al-kataba make clear the separation of
shar^i and c urfi jurisdiction and also the subordination
of the provincial kadi to the provincial governor. In a
taklid issued in favour of Tadj al-Din Abu ’1-Makarim
Ahmad b. al- c Abbas for the office of governor (ra^fr)
of Mazandaran, he is charged with the general super¬
vision of the kadis and is enjoined to appoint a deputy
over the kadi’s court and the madjlis-i-hakam (? the
court of arbitration) (fAtabat al-kataba , 24). He is also
enjoined “to inflict upon a thief or highway robber,
when caught, punishment and what is demanded by
the Shari c a, with the agreement of the kadis, imams and
notables of the province” (ibid. , 25. Cf. also ibid. ,28).
A diploma in the name of Abu ’1-Fath Marzban al-
Shark. b. c Ala :> al-Din Abi Bakr b. Kuma^y for the
governorship (aydlat wa shahnagi) of Balkh instructs
him to give judgment and to settle cases after con¬
sultation and according to the advice of experienced
and reliable persons and leaders (mukaddaman). £har c i
matters were to be referred to the kadi s court.
Rasmiyydt (matters concerning salaries and
allowances), mu c amalat (matters concerning mukafa c a
contracts) and diwdni affairs were to be referred to the
diwan-i riyasat. Abu ’1-Fath was given full powers in
the preservation of order and the punishment of
miscreants, but in the exercise of these powers he was
to consult the kadis (ibid. , 79). Another diploma in the
name of Abu 1-Fath Yusuf b. Kh w arazmshah for the
deputy-governorship (niydbat-i aydlat) of Ray enjoins
him to put down the corrupt, transgressors, thieves
and highway robbers and to consider the exaction of
the legal penalties (hudud), after consultation with the
kadis, imams and reliable persons, as being among
those things which are incumbent according to the
shari c a and upon which the well-being and good order
of religion and the world depend (ibid. , 43).

Among the duties of the kadi was the supervision of
the hisba. A document issued by Sandjar’s diwdn for
the office of kadi and khatib of Astarabad entrusts the
grantee with the execution of the requirements of the
hisba, such as the putting down of transgressors and
the corrupt, the prevention of evil by them, and the
adjustment of weights and measures and prices, as far
as possible (ibid., 52).

So far as the supervision of awkdf was concerned, in
the event of a mutawalli having been designated, the
kadi exercised general supervision only, otherwise he
administered the wakf. There was in practice probably
a certain conflict of jurisdiction between the fcddi and
the wazir in the matter of awkdf. The latter, as head of
the financial administration, also exercised general
supervision over awkdf, though exactly what form this
took is not entirely clear. In some cases the awkdf of
a district were placed exclusively under the kadi and
expressly removed from the control of the diwdn (cf.
ibid., 33).

In the period between the disintegration of the
Great Saldjuk empire and the Mongol invasion, the
chief official in charge of c urfi courts appears to have
been known as the dddbeg (see further H. Horst, Die
Staatsverwaltung der Grosselguqen und Horazmsdhs
(1038-1231), Wiesbaden 1964, 92-3. See also ibid., on
the term yuluk-i alia, which appears to have been some
sort of mazdlim court). Various local officials apparent¬
ly also exercised jurisdiction. A document probably
belonging to the latter half of the 6th/12th century,
appointing a certain Shams al-Din mi 'mar of
Kh w arazm and entrusting him with the agricultural
development of the province, enjoins him to chastise
and correct anyone who failed to further this or to ex¬
ert effort in this and if such reproach and censure did
not bring the culprit to see the error of his ways,

MAHKAMA

Shams al-Dm was to refer the matter to the supreme
dlwdn so that reproof might be administered to him
and he might be replaced by someone who would seek
to create abundance (Baha 3 al-DTn b. Mu c ayyad, al-
Tawassul ild ’l-tarassul , ed. Ahmad Bahmanyar,
Tehran 1315/1936-7, 113). That local officials had
certain powers of punishment would seem to be con¬
firmed by Nadjm al-DTn Razl. He states that bailiffs,
village headmen and landlords’ representatives should
“reprimand the corrupt and enjoin the people to do
that which is recommended and to forbid them from
doing that which is forbidden. If they saw presump¬
tion or corruption on the part of one of the peasants
(ra Hyyat ), they were to punish him and bring him to
repentance” {Mir$ad al-Hbad, ed. Husayn al-Husayn!
al-Ni c mat Allah!, Tehran 1312/1933-4, 296).

The distinction between c urft and sharci jurisdiction
was more sharply drawn under the Ilkhans prior to
their conversion to Islam. The Mongols brought with
them their own laws and customs, though it seems im¬
probable that the Great Yasa of Cingiz Khan existed
as a written code of laws (see further D. O. Morgan,
The Great Yasa of Chingiz Khan and Mongol law in the II-
khanate in J. M. Rogers (ed.), The Islamic world after the
Mongol conquests [forthcoming]; but see also D.
Ayalon, The Great Yasa of Chingiz Khan: a re¬
examination, in SI, xxxiii a 1971], 97-144, xxxiv 1971],
151-80, xxxvi [1972], 113-53, and xxxviii [1973 ,
107-56). There was a court of interrogation known as
the yarghu, but we have very few details as to its terms
of reference and rules of procedure. It appears to have
dealt specifically with disputes between Mongols,
Mongol state affairs and cases against officials,
especially of alleged peculation and conspiracy (see
further Morgan, op. cit.). With the conversion of the
Ilkhans to Islam, theyarghu was probably to some ex¬
tent assimilated to the mazalim courts and the kadi s
associated with their proceedings. A yarligh for the ap¬
pointment of a provincial kadi issued by Ghazan Khan
(694-703/1295-1304) reads as follows, “In the case of
disputes which occur between two Mongols or bet¬
ween a Mongol and a Muslim or cases, the decision
of which is difficult, we have ordered the shahnas,
maliks, bitikcis, kadis, c Alids and c ulamd 3 to assemble
every month for two days in the Friday mosque in the
diwan-i mazalim taking the alternate reading diwan-i
mazalim rather than diwan-i mutdla c a as in the printed
text to hear cases together, and after thoroughly ex¬
amining a case to give judgment according to the rul¬
ing ( hukm ) of the shari c a . ”. Their decision was to be
given in writing so that it might not later be abrogated
(Rashid al-Dm, Tdrikh-i mubarak-i ghazani , ed. K.
Jahn, London 1940, 219). The Dastur al-kdtib of
Muhammad b. Hindushah Nakhdjiwam, which
belongs to the late Ilkhan period, describes the func¬
tions of the amiryarghu. He is instructed to act on the
basis of equity ifadl, ma c dalat, insaf nisfat and rdsti) (ed.
A. A. c AlTzadeh, Moscow, i/1 [1964], i/2 [1971], ii
[1976], ii, 30, and see further Morgan, op. cit.).

Somewhat similar procedures appear to have
prevailed in some of the succession states. Ibn Bat¬
tuta, describing his arrival at the court of the amir of
Kh w arazm. Kutludumur, states “It is one of the
regular practices of this amir that the qadi comes daily
to his audience hall and sits in a place assigned to him,
accompanied by the jurists and his clerks. Opposite
him sits one of the great amirs , accompanied by eight
of the great amirs and shaikhs of the Turks, who are
called arghujis. The people bring their disputes to them
for decision; those that come within the jurisdiction of
the religious law are decided by the qadi and all others
are decided by those amirs. Their decisions are well-

regulated and just, for they are free from suspicion
and partiality and do not accept bribes” ( The travels of
Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325-1354, tr. H. A. R. Gibb, Cam¬
bridge 1971, iii, 545).

According to Mongol practice, the kadis and
c ulama 3 were granted certain tax immunities.
Although they were treated with respect, prior to the
conversion of the Ilkhans to Islam, they ceased to en¬
joy in official circles that pre-eminence which had
been theirs when religion and state were, at least in
theory, one. If, as was probably the case, the kadis in.
the main centres continued to receive their appoint-,
ment from the ruler, al-Ghazali’s theory that any kadi
nominated by anyone holding power could give a|
valid decision would have been of peculiar relevance,
Wassaf records a case in Fars ca. 678/1279-80 of th^
joint appointment of two eminent divines to the office
of kadi al-kudat of Fars. This was made by the wazlr of
Fars after consultation with the religious classes and
the notables ( Tdrikh-i Wassaf, Bombay 1269/1853,
205-6). After the conversion of Ghazan Khan to
Islam, the influence of the kadis in official circles
almost certainly increased. Their tax immunities were
confirmed and pensions were allocated to them on the
revenue ( Tdrikh-i mubarak-i ghazani, 218).

Under Ghazan there was a diwan-i kudat, the head
of which was the kadi al-kudat of the empire, who once
more became an important official. He was in charge
of shar c i officials in general and also of awkaf. These
appear to have increased in extent and importance in
the 7th/13th century (though for what reason or
reasons is not entirely clear) (see further Lambton,
Awqaf in the 7th/ 13th and 8th/14th centuries in Persia , in
G. Baer, ed., Social and economic aspects of the Muslim
waqf, forthcoming). An undated document belonging
to the late Ilkhan period issued by the kadi (who had
been charged with the appointment of all sharci of¬
ficials in the empire and was at the same time
mutawalli of charitable and private awkaf) for his depu¬
ty, who was also to hold the office of hakim of
charitable awkaf, states it was impossible for him per¬
sonally to oversee sharci affairs in all regions because
of his being in the retinue of the ruler. He needed a
deputy. Consequently, Husayn al-Asad! was ap¬
pointed deputy kadi al-kudat with a general designation
and with a special designation over c Irak-i c Arab,
Adharbavdjan and various other districts. He was also
appointed mutawalli of charitable and private awkaf
with power to appoint and dismiss those in charge of
religious offices and the execution of Islamic decrees
{Dastur al-kdtib, ii, 191 ff.). Another document in the
same collection, delegating the office of hakim of the
awkaf of the empire to the kadi al-kudat Shavkh c Ali,
gives him full powers in the administration of the
awkaf and over the appointment and dismissal of the
mutawallis and mubashirs and of deputies to act for him
as hakim-i awkaf in the provinces {ibid. , ii, 207 ff.). To
ensure that the awkaf were properly run and their
revenues devoted to the purposes laid down by their
founders was no small matter. Usurpation was com¬
mon. Demands for redress came before the kadi and
it was his duty to investigate them (cf. ibid. , i/1 175-6,
327-9).

Rashfd al-Din Fadl Allah, Ghazan Khan’s wazir,
gives an extremely unfavourable account of the ad¬
ministration of justice by the kadis in the Ilkhan em¬

pire prior to the reign of Ghazan Khan (as he does of
other aspects of the administration). He alleges that
corrupt and ignorant persons insinuated themselves
into the service of the Mongols and by flattery and
bribery secured the office of kadi and other shar c I of¬
fices. Corruption was especially prevalent in transac-

MAHKAMA

tions over landed property. Fraudulent claims based
on obsolete property deeds and bonds which had re¬
mained in the hands of the original owners or their
heirs after the property had changed hands were com¬
mon, and there was often no means for the kadis to
verify the validity of such deeds. Rashid al-Dln states
that Malik-Shah and his wazir Nizam al-Mulk, faced
by a similar situation, had issued a decree ( mithdl ),
conformable to the shari c a , that claims based on title
deeds which had not been preferred for thirty years
should not be heard and that this decree was given to
the muftis of Khurasan, c Irak and Baghdad so that
they might issue Jatwds in accordance with the sharica ,
which were then to be sent to the dor al-khildfa to be
signed ( ta imtfd* nivishta and). Rashid al-Dln claims
that Malik Shah’s decree was extant and that it had
been shown (or reported) to Hiilegu, who had issued
a yarligh on similar lines, as had Abaka, Arghun and
Gavkhatu (Tarikh-i mubdrak-ighazani , 236 ff.). Rashid
al-Dln also asserts that “before this time past sultans
and fiingiz Khan in all their Jarmans and yarlighs made
mention that thirty-year-old claims should not be
heard” (ibid. , 221-2). These decrees, however, had,
he alleges, been inoperative, because First they had
not had shar c i, c akli or C ur/Tconfirmation, and second¬
ly those charged with putting them into operation had
wished to benefit themselves from the existing situa¬
tion to buy property. Ghazan Khan, on the other
hand, consulted the kadis and Fakhr al-Dln Haratl,
the kajial-kuddt of the day, drafted 3.yarligh and wrote
a decision on the back in accordance with the shari c a
stating that land claims which had not been preferred
for thirty years would not be heard (ibid. , 236 ff.). The
yarligh is dated 3 Radjab 699/26 March 1300. Any
kadis who contravened it were to be dismissed and the
names of any powerful persons who urged them to act
in a contrary fashion were to be sent to the court so
that they might be punished (ibid. , 221 ff.). Ghazan
also issued a yarligh concerning the registration and
annulment of title deeds and documents (ibid. , 225)
and another concerning appointment to the office of
kadi and the conduct of kddis in the matter of land
cases (ibid. , 218 ff.).

c UrJt jurisdiction seems to have encroached upon
shar c i jurisdiction again under Timur (d. 807/1405),
but under Shahrukh (d. 850/1446-7) there appears to
have been a deliberate reassertion of shar c i jurisdic¬
tion, although c urji jurisdiction nevertheless continued
to be dominant. Clavijo, who visited Timur’s camp in
Samarkand in 808/1405 states that all litigants and
criminals were dealt with by one of three courts. The
first dealt with criminal matters and bloodshed arising
from quarrels, the second with money frauds such as
might affect the government and the third with cases
arising in the provinces. Wherever Timur’s camp
might be, three great tents were erected, to which
were brought all criminals and litigants for cases to be
heard and sentences given (Embassy to Tamerlane
1403-1405 , tr. G. le Strange, London 1928, 294-5).

When Isma c il I (907-30/1502-24), the founder of
the $afawid dynasty, made Imam! Shl c ism the official
religion of the state, a more flexible attitude towards
the acceptance of public office in general and that of
kadi in particular developed among the ShI c I c ulama 5
that had been the case heretofore, although there were
always some who refused office out of religious scru¬
ple. The ShI c I c ulama 5 became, like the Sunni c ulama 5
before them, public officers and as such relied upon
the machinery of the state for the execution of their
judgments. Imam! Shl c ism superseded the Sunni
schools and the ShI c I c ulama> replaced the Sunni as
those in charge of shar c i jurisdiction—though this did

not, of course, happen overnight. Changes also took
place in the religious hierarchy. The kadi lost some of
his importance, first to (he sadr, who became the chief
official of the religious institution, and then to the
shaykh al-islam, while the mudjtahids, who owed their
pre-eminence not to any official appointment but to
their own learning and sanctity, exercised a great,
though undefined, influence over the religious institu¬
tion and the shar c i courts. The general tendency,
however, was probably for c urji jurisdiction to be
strengthened, at least prior to the reign of Shah Sultan
Husayn (1105-35/1694-1722), and for subordinate
jurisdictions of a local nature to proliferate. There was
a bewildering diversity at different times and in dif¬
ferent provinces. The fact that the shi c a did not accept
the Sunni principle, kull mudjtahid musib, resulted in
the decisions of the kadi's courts being subject to
review and reversal. It was perhaps for this reason
that most Persians, according to Chardin, preferred
the governments courts to the kadi's courts, in which
their cases were not easily brought to a decision
( Voyages, ed. Langles, vi, 91).

Already under Tahmasp (930-84/1524-76) there
was growing financial centralisation, and during the
reign of Shah c Abbas I (996-1038/1587-1629) cen¬
tralisation spread to all aspects of the administration.
The empire was divided into khafsa and mamdlik, i.e.,
regions under the central government and regions
alienated from its direct control under provincial
governors. The extent of the two categories varied at
different times, the khdssa reaching its greatest extent
about 1071/1660-1 (see further K. Rohrborn, Pro-
vinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. und 17.
Jahrhundert, Berlin 1966, 113-14, 115, 118 ff). In the
khdffa, the provincial wazir had general oversight of all
aspects of the administration, including the ad¬
ministration of justice, but probably played little part
in its day to day administration (ibid. , 125). In some
cases the provincial wazir also appears to have exercis¬
ed judicial functions, but this was probably excep¬
tional (see ibid., 112). Under Shah c Abbas the chief
c urji judge in the capital was the diwanbegi, who ranked
among the great amirs. Power of life and death were
usually reserved to the shah (ibid, 64-5), though in
some cases he would delegate these powers to the pro¬
vincial governor, especially if he was a member of the
royal house.

The tradition of personal access to the ruler had re¬
mained strong and was, to some extent, a curb on the
extortion and tyranny of officials, which in the
absence of any clearly defined rules was widespread.
On the occasion of a royal progress, the local people
would bring their cases to the royal court for decision
or redress. There were, however, attempts to institu¬
tionalise this. Isma c Il II (984-5/1576-8), shortly after
his accession appointed Ahmad Beg Ustadjlu as the
officer in charge of the transmission of demands for
redress (parwanaci-i a c dftza wa masakin ) (Kadi Ahmad,
Khuldsat al-tawarikh , Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, ms. Or.
2202, f. 256 b, quoted by Rohrborn, 66 ; and see
H. Busse, Untersuchungen zum islamischen Kanzeleiwesen ,
Cairo 1959, 71, on earlier uses of the term parwanaci).
Shah c Abbas in 1019/1610 issued an order that
demands for redress should be referred to the sadr-i
mamdlik and the diwanbegi (and not to him personally
when he went out into the countryside).Chardin
describes the crowds of plaintiffs who would assemble
at the court ( Voyages, v, 280).

Isma c Il II also set up, shortly after his accession, a
diwdn-i c addlat. He appointed one of his cousins as
diwanbegi-bashi and ordered him to sit twice a week
with the wazir of the supreme diwan and two kizilbash

MAHKAMA

amirs to hear cases (Rohrborn, 67). There were three
types of cases: sharHyyai , which were decided by the
sadr , whose decree was sealed by the diwanbegi',
c urfiyydt , concerning diwan taxation, which were refer¬
red to the shah; and cases of tyranny, which were settl¬
ed by the diwanbegi with the cognisance of the sadr
(Muhammad-i Muna djdj im al-Yazdl, Tdrikh-i
c Abbasi, B.L. ms., Add. 27, 241, 319a, ff. quoted by
Rohrborn, loc. cit.). Shah c Abbas II (1052-77/
1642-67), decided in 1064/1654 to hold the diwan-i
c addlat in person three times a week. On the first day
cases concerning military personnel and members of
the court were heard, on the second the generality of
the subjects presented their cases and on the third
matters concerning pishkash (obligatory “presents”)
were discussed (Muhammad Tahir Wahld-i Kazwlnl,
c Abbds-nama, ed. Ibrahim Dihgan, 1329/1951, 175,
190, quoted by Rohrborn, loc. cit.).

Mlrza Rafi c a describes the duties of the diwanbegi
in the Dastur al-muluk, a manual describing the ad¬
ministration of the late Safawid empire {Dastur al-
muluk-i Mirza Rafica, ed. Muhammad TakI
Danishpazhuh, in University of Tehran , Revue de la
faculte des lettres el sciences humaines , xv/5-6, 475-504,
xvi/1-2, 62-93, xvi/3, 298-322, xvi/4. 416-40, xvi/5-6,
540-64. The text of this, although substantially the
same as that of the Tadhkirat al-muluk published by V.
Minorsky, London 1943, is rather fuller.
Danishpazhuh has identified the author of the
Tadhkirat al-muluk as Mlrza Rafi c a). He held a court
four times a week in the kashik-khana of the C A1I Kapu
in Isfahan to try four types of offence ( ahdath-i arba c a),
namely murder, rape, assault (lit. breaking the teeth),
and blinding; the sadr-i khassa and the sadr-i c dmma,
the chief officials of the religious institution (see fur¬
ther below) sat with him, the former on Saturdays and
Sundays, the latter on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Their function would seem to have been primarily
simply to give shar c i sanction to the decisions of the
diwanbegi. Cases of murder, in accordance with a
taHika issued by the sudur (pi. of sadr), were reported
to the shah by the diwanbegi after the ghassal-bashi (the
head of the corporation of the washers of the dead)
had examined the corpse and decided the cause of
death. Cases of rape, assault and blinding were in¬
vestigated by the diwanbegi without the sudur {ibid .,
xvi/1-2, 64-5, 87-8) but presumably they were
associated with his verdict. The diwanbegi also sat
twice a week in his own house to hear c urfi money
claims (? da c awi-i hisabi-i c urfi ). Minor claims were
presumably dealt with by local officials, but anything
exceeding 4-5 tumans was investigated by the
diwanbegi. Complaints of tyranny and extortion by
diwani officials were heard by him. In the event of
anyone complaining to the diwanbegi of tyranny from
a distance not further than 12 farsakhs {ca. 42 miles)
from the capital, the two parties would be summoned
to appear before him. In the case of complaints from
further afield, a muhassil would be sent, but Mlrza
RafT c a does not give details of the procedure to be
followed except to state that in a case of murder, the
diwanbegi would take 5 tumans caution money from the
plaintiff and send one of the Adjirlu (whose particular
function was to act as muhassils in case of murder) to
the place of the crime. Presumably they would in¬
vestigate the case and if necessary bring the accused
to Isfahan {ibid., xvi/1-2, 87-8).

In financial cases there was apparently a conflict of
jurisdiction between the diwanbegi and the great
wazirs. Financial cases concerning the state and cases
against the bureaucracy were sent by the diwanbegi (if
referred to him) to the great wazirs] and cases against

the kurcis, ghulams, other military personnel and
employees of the royal workshops {buyutat) were refer¬
red to the elders {rish-safid) of the relevant department.
If, however, persons with a complaint against the pro¬
vincial governors (the beglarbegis or the hukkam and
sultans, i.e. governors of the smaller provinces)
brought their case to the diwanbegi instead of to the
great wazirs, he would investigate the matter and
report to the shah {ibid.).

In Isfahan, disputes between the craft guilds and
the inhabitants were decided by the kalantar [q.v.
{ibid., xvi/4, 421-2), presumably on the basis o'
custom and equity. In the provinces there appears to
have been at times a conflict of jurisdiction between
the kalantar and the darugha [q.v.]. The mirdb of
Isfahan, who was an important official, also exercised
jurisdiction in disputes concerning the water of the
Zayanda-rud. In cases affecting all the landowners
and peasants, he would be ordered by the shah to go,
with the wazir of the supreme diwan. the wazir of
Isfahan, the kalantar and mustawfi of Isfahan, to the
districts watered by the river to decide the water rights
of each district on the basis of the diwani registers and
to settle disputes on the basis of common sense {shu-
c ur) and “according to what was customary and the
practice of past years” {ibid., xvi/4, 433).

In the provinces, the provincial governor was the
chief C ur/Tjudge. Lesser cases were sometimes tried by
the darugha. According to Chardin the darugha was ap¬
pointed in the second half of the 11 th/17th century by
the shah, not by the provincial governor ( Voyages, v,
259). The provincial wazir, who was appointed by the
central government, or his deputies, also took part in
these courts (see further, Rohrborn, 68-9).

Many districts in the provinces were alienated in
the form of tuyuls and suyurghdls from the direct control
of the government and its officials. These grants fre¬
quently, though not invariably, gave the grantee im¬
munity from the entry of government officials. In
such cases the holder exercised local jurisdiction. For
example, a diploma issued by Shah Muhammad
Khudabanda, dated 989/1581, granting a suyurghal to
a certain Sultan Ibrahim in Fars, gives him immunity
from a number of taxes and dues and states that
“cases which occurred between the peasants {ra c aya)
of the districts mentioned [i.e. those granted to him as
a suyurghal] should be referred to him so that he might
settle them in accordance with the law of the shan ,: a ,,
(H. Horst, Ein Immunitatsdiplom Schah Muhammad
Huddbandds vom Jahre 989/1581, in ZDMG, cv/2
[1955]. 292). A powerful tuyulddr, even if rights of
jurisdiction were not specifically granted to him,
would in practice exercise such by usurpation. In
cases of arbitration the local kadi was probably from
time to time associated with the tuyulddr as he was with
the provincial governor.

The sadr had already emerged as one of the chief of¬
ficials of the religious institution under the Tlmurids
(see H. Roemer, Staatsschreiben der Timuridenzeit,
Wiesbaden 1952, 143, and also G. Herrmann, Zur
Entstehung des sadr-Amtes, in V. Harmann and P.
Bachmann, eds., Die islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter
und Neuzeit, Festschrift fur H. R. Roemer, Beirut-
Wiesbaden 1979, 278-95). He acquired a new impor¬
tance under the Safawids and was the official through
whom they controlled the religious institution. He was
responsible for the appointment of shar c i officials,
though the documents for the appointment of officials
such as the provincial kadi al-kudat continued to be
issued in the name of the shah (cf. the diploma issued
by Tahmasp for the kadi al-kudat of Fars, dated 25
Rabl c II 955/3 June 1548 (H. Horst, Zwei Erlasse $ah

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

MAHKAMA

♦

Tahmasps I in ZDMG, cx/2 [1961], 307-8) and the
diplomas for the akda al-kuddt of Gllan Biyaplsh dated
Dh u ’l-Hidjdja 1035/1625 and for the kadi 'l-kudat of
Gllan, dated Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 1948/1639, issued by
Shah c Abbas, in Yak sad wa pandjah sanad-i tdrikhi az
Diald Hriyan ta Pahlawi, ed. Djahanglr Ka 3 im
MakamI, Tehran 1348/1969-70, 26-7, 46-7). Once
appointed, the kadi al-kuddt was empowered, in some
cases at least, to appoint and dismiss kadis in the
region under him (cf. the diploma for the kadi ’ l-kudat
of Gllan quoted above). The main function of the sadr
at the beginning of the Safawid period was to impose
doctrinal uniformity. Once this had been established,
the importance of his office declined. The first holder
of the office of sadr in the Safawid state was the kadi
Shams al-Din LahidjI (GflanI), who was appointed in
907/1501. The second holder, Muhammad KashanI,
appointed in 909/1503-4, was also a k.ddi. Under Shah
c Abbas II, the office was left vacant for eighteen
months and by the end of the Safawid period the main
function of the sadr was the supervision of certain
classes of awkaf In the reign of Shah Sultan Husayn
(1105-35/1694-1722), his importance further declined
with the rise of the mulld-bashi. Under the Afshars, his
office disappeared.

As in the case of other offices, the jurisdiction of the
sadr varied at different times. Djalal al-Din
AstarabadI, who held the office of sadr from 920/1514
to 931/1524-5, apparently supervised shar c i affairs
throughout the empire. From time to time there were
joint appointments to the office, the two sadrs
sometimes holding authority jointly throughout the
empire and sometimes their jurisdiction being divided
on a territorial basis. In 1077/1667 Shah Sulayman
(1077-1105/1667-1694) appointed a sadr-i khdssa and a
sadr-i c amma (see R. M. Savory. The principal offices of
the Safawid state during the reign of Tahmasp I
(930-84/1524-76), in BSOAS , xxiv/1 [1961], 79-80 and
Lambton, Quis custodiet custodes, in SI, vi, 134 ff.).
Practice was far from uniform. According to Mirza
Rafi c a, the office of sadr-i khdssa and sadr-i c dmma (also
known as sadr-i mamalik) had sometimes been en¬
trusted to one person (op. cit., xvi/1-2, 66). The sadr
was also in charge of awkaf and the grant of suyurghals
to the religious classes. Tawfidi awkaf , i.e. awkaf con¬
stituted by the Safawid rulers, proliferated during the
Safawid period. The sadr' s supervision of these gave
him potentially great influence. Mirza RafFa states
that the sadr was not paid a salary (except in the case
of the sadr Mirza Abu Talib, who received an
allowance of 1,360 tumdns ) but received one-tenth or
one-twentieth of the value of suyu rgh als and something
by way of hakk al-tawliya and hakk al-nazara from awkaf ,
according to the conditions laid down by the wakif
(xvi/1-2, 65-6). It was apparently only in the case of
tawfidi awkaf that the sadr had the right to appoint of¬
ficials to the awkaf. Neither the sadr nor any other
shar c I official had any right of interference in the case
of sharci awkaf (ibid., xvi/1-2, 66). The precise
delimitation between the sadr-i khdssa and the sadr-i
c amma in the matter of the supervision of awkaf is not
clear. Mirza Rafi^a states that “The intention in the
delegation of these two great offices [that of the sadr-i
khdssa and that of the sadr-i c dmma ] was to order the af¬
fairs of all the mawkufat of the districts of Isfahan,
which concerned them severally, and the appointment
and designation of shar c i officials (hukkam-i shar c ) and
overseers (mubashiran) of the mawkufat-i tawfidi
(mawkufat wa tafwidi being probably a scribal error for
this) and the leadership (rish-safidi) of all the sddat,
c ulama :> , mudarrisan, kadis , shaykh al-isldman, deputy
sadrs, mutawalli s and nazirs of the mawkufat, prayer

leaders, khatibs, mu c a dhdh ins. huffaz, mu c arrifan,
washers of the dead and grave-diggers (the last two on
the recommendation of the ghassal-bashi), their
dismissal and the payment of their pensions (wazifa)
from the mawkufat' ’ (xvi/1-2, 64-5). Shar c i affairs in
Isfahan and the surrounding district (which was ad¬
ministered by the Fayd Athar department) came
under the sadr-i khdssa to the exclusion of the sadr-i
c amma (ibid., xvi/1-2, 65). The sudur, although their
importance declined in the latter part of the Safawid
period, nevertheless retained their pre-eminence over
other officials of the religious hierarchy, as witnessed
by their association with the diwanbegi (see above).
Mirza RafFa makes this point by stating that other
skar^i officials had no part in the examination of the
four offences known as ahddth-i arba Q a. The two sadrs
also decided cases concerning title deeds (kabaladpat)
and sharci deeds (ibid.).

In some periods, the sadr-i khdssa, according to Mir-
za RafFa, also held the office of ka(li c askar (xvi/1-2,
66). Unfortunately, he does not state which of the
sudur held this office. That the sadr should also be kadi
c askar would seem to be a natural consequence of his
succeeding the kadi al-kuddt, who also sometimes held
the office of kadi c askar, as the most important religious
official of the state. However, under Shah Isma c fl and
at the beginning of the reign of Tahmasp, the kadi
c askar of Tabriz (or Adharbaydjan), who also had
charge of the awkaf of Tabriz, was a powerful figure
(see Rohrborn, 127-8). Before sudur were appointed in
Isfahan, the kadi c askar used to sit in the kashik-khana
of the diwanbegi and give decisions in sharci cases for
the military, but when it was laid down that the
diwanbegi should hear sharci cases (unfortunately Mir¬
za RafF a does not state when this was) the kadi c askar
ceased to come to the kashik-(didna\ and his functions
came to be confined to validating with his seal the pay¬
ment orders made in favour of the army. He had no
salary but received a commission of 1 % from the
military on their pay (Dastur al-muluk, xvi/1-2, 70).

Although the importance of the office of kadi was
reduced by the emergence of the sadr, the kadis con¬
tinued to be influential and in the smaller provincial
cities, where they had no rival in the person of the sadr
or the shaykh al-isldm, they probably continued to play
an important part in local affairs. So far as the shaykh
al-isldm was concerned, there appears to have been
some conflict of jurisdiction with the kafi in Isfahan if
not elsewhere. According to Mirza RafT^a, the shaykh
al-isldm of Isfahan heard the cases of the people in his
house every day except Friday and enjoined the good
and forbade evil. Divorce according to the sharia was
given in his presence, and for the most part the
custody of the property of orphans and those who
were absent was his responsibility, though on some
occasions these matters were referred to the kadis. The
shaykh al-isldm also sealed documents and title deeds,
which were not confined to transactions between
Muslims but might also be documents exchanged be¬
tween non-Muslims. Chardin mentions that the shaykh
al-isldm of Isfahan signed and witnessed a document
concerning a financial transaction between him and
some Dutch merchants in respect of a sum of money
which the shah owed him (Sir John Chardin's travels in
Persia, London 1927 121-2). The shaykh al-isldm re¬
ceived annually 200 Tabriz! tumdns as a pension
(wazifa) from the public treasury (Dastur al-muluk,
xvi/1-2, 69).

Under the early Kadjars, c urfi jurisdiction was ad¬
ministered by the shah, the provincial governors and
other local officials. There was little or no differentia¬
tion of function: matters concerning security, law and

MAHKAMA

taxation were, for the most part, referred to the same
officials. The lowest court was that of the village head¬
man, who was empowered to inflict slight
punishments and to impose small fines. More serious
crimes were referred to the district collector {>ddbit ) and
those more serious still, either because of the nature of
the crime or the rank of the persons concerned, to the
governor of the province. The right to pronounce the
death sentence was seldom delegated by the shah ex¬
cept sometimes to the governors of the royal house or
when the country was in rebellion.

The l urjT courts were usually held in public. This,
in Sir John Malcolm’s opinion, operated “as a
salutary check on their proceedings’’. “These
courts’’, he continues, “are sometimes very
tumultuous though the judge is aided by a host of in¬
ferior officers, whose duty is to preserve order. The
women who attend these courts are often the most
vociferous: the servants of the magistrates are not per¬
mitted to silence them with those blows, which in the
case of disturbance they liberally inflict upon the
men” {History of Persia, London 1829, 2 vols., ii, 319).
According to Malcom, c urfi officials referred to the
sharci courts all cases which for personal or political
reasons they wished to be decided by their authority.
In criminal cases the chief judge of the sharci courts
was associated with the c urfi officials and pronounced
sentences according to the decrees of the sharia {ibid.,
320). Curzon, writing towards the end of the century
aptly describes the lack of a clear dividing line be¬
tween the two jurisdictions. He states, “The functions
and the prerogative of the co-ordinate benches vary at
different epochs, and appear to be a matter of accident
or choice, rather than of necessity; and at the present
time, though criminal cases of difficulty may be sub¬
mitted to the ecclesiastical court, yet it is with civil
matters that they are chiefly concerned. Questions of
heresy or sacrilege are naturally referred to them; they
also take cognisance of adultery and divorce; and in¬
toxication as an offence, not against the common law
... but against the Koran, falls within the scope of
their judgment’’ {Persia and the Persian question , London
1892, 2 vols., i, 453). Prior to the attempts at judicial
reform in the reign of Nasir al-DTn Shah (1848-96), it
would seem that governors and others continued to
hear cases much after the fashion of the earlier mazalim
courts. The decisions given by them were entirely ar¬
bitrary: there were no formal rules of procedure. Tor¬
ture and ill-treatment of offenders was common, and
in the middle of the century became the subject of
acrimonious exchanges between Nasir al-DTn and the
British and Russian missions. In 1844 a decree was
issued forbidding torture. Its effect, however, was
almost negligible.

The shaykh al-islam, whose position had increased in
importance since the Safawid period, was the supreme
judge of the shar c i courts. A shaykh al-islam. was ap¬
pointed by the shah in the capital and the major pro¬
vincial cities and received a salary. To this extent his
position was equivocal, but in his appointment the
desire and wishes of the local inhabitants, according to
Malcolm, were almost invariably consulted. In the
smaller towns there was only a kadi and in the villages
seldom more than a mulla. The latter was competent
only to perform marriage and funeral ceremonies, to
draw up common deeds and to decide plain and ob¬
vious cases; anything more complicated was referred
to the kadi in the neighbouring town and often by him
to the shaykh al-islam in the provincial capital
(Malcolm, ii, 316). A mufti was sometimes associated
with the sharci courts. His functions, very different
from those of the mufti in the Ottoman empire, were

simply to prepare an exposition of the case before the
court and to aid it with advice. To do this, however,
he had to be a man of learning and his opinion often
influenced the judgment {ibid., 317). Although the
shah nominated the shaykh al-islam , he was no more
able than preceding rulers to alter the law ad¬
ministered in the sharci courts. This gave the shaykh. al-
islam and the sharci courts a certain independence,
which was further strengthened by the influence of the
mudjtahids , to whose superior knowledge cases were
constantly referred by the shar c i judges. The sentence
of a mudjtahid was irrevocable, except by that of a
mudjtahid of greater learning and sanctity {ibid., 315).

Many cases, including contracts, titles to landed
property, disputed wills, intestate succession,
disputed land boundaries, disputes over the owner¬
ship of landed property, the recovery of debts, and
bankruptcies were decided by arbitration. A madjlis or
informal council of leading persons would be convok¬
ed, usually in the house of a mulla or notable. Both
sides would state their case; the documents would be
produced and inspected, and a decision, almost
always in the nature of a compromise, would be given
and, if reasonably fair, accepted. The verdict would
then be signed and registered by the shaykh al-islam or
the imam djum^a (Curzon, op. cit., i, 455-6).

The fact that there was no land registration
department—title deeds and documents were not
emended or abrogated and often remained in the
hands of their original holders or their heirs—gave
rise to much litigation, particularly over land claims
(as Ghazan Khan had found many centuries earlier,
see above). In the case of disputed tenure, the general
tendency was to have recourse to the local religious of¬
ficials or, if one or both of the parties to the dispute
were influential, to the leading religious figures in the
provincial capital or Tehran for documents attesting
their ownership. Land grants and tuyuls, which were
the subject of a farman or rakam , were in theory
registered in the royal archives and sometimes in the
provincial record offices; but these records were not
open to public inspection and irregularities in
registration were in any case not uncommon (cf.
Lambton, The case of Hajji Nur al-Din 1823-47, in
BSOAS, xxx/1 [1967 , 54-72). Bonds concerning
financial transactions, oans to the government and its
officials and transactions between individuals were
commonly sealed and witnessed by religious
dignitaries. Transactions with government officials
were sometimes registered in the diwan-khana, but
neither practice safeguarded those by whom the
documents were concluded from litigation (cf. eadem,
The case of Hajji c Abd al-Karim, in Iran and Islam, ed. C.
E. Bosworth, Edinburgh 1971, 331-60).

Contact with Europe had been joined in the 16th,
17th and 18th centuries, mainly in the commercial
field. This had resulted in the grant of immunities to
European merchants by the shahs. In the 19th century
this contact took on a new form and was dominated
by the strategic and political interests of the great
powers. Under the commercial treaty concluded at the
same time as the Treaty of Turkoman£ay (1828)
extra-territorial privileges were granted to Russian
subjects, which were later also claimed by other
foreign states for their nationals under most favoured
nation treatment [see further imtiyazat. iii. Persia].
This treaty regulated the position of foreign mer¬
chants. Disputes to which they were a party and
claims by them were removed from the control of the
shar c I courts. In the provinces they were dealt with by
an official known as the kdrgudhar and in the capital by
the diwan-khana and later by the Ministry of Foreign

MAHKAMA

Affairs. Disputes between local dhimmis and Muslims
were still heard in the shar c i courts, but from about the
middle of the century attempts were made to transfer
such cases to the dxwan. In 1851 when Nasir al-Din
was in Isfahan he laid down that inheritance disputes
between an Armenian, Jewish or Zoroastrian convert
to Islam and an adherent of the community to which
he had previously belonged were not to be referred to
the sharci or c urji judges in the province but that the
two parties were to be sent to the capital and the mat¬
ter investigated by the diwan-khana ( Ruznama-yi
wakayic-i ittijakiyya , 3 $afar 1268/1851). On the other
hand, an order ( taHika ) was issued by the sadr-i a c zam
in Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 1270/1854 stating that any dispute
between a Jew, Christian or Zoroastrian on the one
hand and an Ithna c Ashari on the other over partner¬
ships in trade or land should go before the Imam
Djum c a of Isfahan and be settled according to the
shari c a {ibid., Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 1270/1854). In 1863 new
procedures to be followed by the diwan-i c adliyya in
mixed cases were laid down (see Ruznama-i dawlat-i
c aliyya-i Iran, 17 Radjab 1279/1863).

From about the middle of the 19th century, there
were various attempts by Na$ir al-Din and some of his
ministers to centralise the administration of justice
through the diwan-khana and to extend the field of C «r/T
jurisdiction, while at the same time regulating its pro¬
cedure. The first was resisted by the provincial gover¬
nors and the second by the c ulamd \ In 1854 an order
was published in the official gazette stating that if
anyone refused to attend the diwan-khana when sum¬
moned by the authorities, one-fifth of the claim
against him, whether he was of high or low estate, a
Kadjar prince or not, would be confiscated and he
would be forced to appear {Ruznama-yi wakayJ-i it-
tijakiyya, 4 DjumadI I 1270/1854). In 1855 an attempt
was made to abolish the legal force of contradictory
juridical opinions. This, like the order concerning the
inheritance disputes of converts to Islam, was also an
encroachment on the authority of the sharci courts.

In the same year, Mirza Aka Khan Nuri, who had
succeeded Mirza TakI Khan Amir Kablr as sadr-i
a c zam in 1851, apparently submitted a plan to the shah
for the promulgation of a body of laws drawn from
various European codes, having as their basis the
security of life, property and honour of the subject as
in the Ottoman Khatt-i sherij-i Giilkhana (Great Britain.
Public Record Office. F.O. 60: 201, Taylour Thom¬
son to Clarendon, no. 23, Tehran, 18 February
1855). Nothing came of this and it was not until 1858
that further steps were taken towards legal reforms. A
council of ministers was set up and regulations for the
procedure of the diwan-khana-yi c adliyya-yi a c zam, or
ministry of justice, were laid down (see further
hukuma. ii. Persia, and dustur. iv. Iran). It was fur¬
ther announced towards the end of the year that a
department of justice {diwan-khana-yi c adliyya ) would
be set up in each province under a diwanbegl. Its
decrees, if they concerned sharci matters, were to be
referred to a mudjahid , and if they concerned c urjt
matters to the provincial governor. Shar c i documents
were to be registered with the diwanbegl {Ruznama-yi
wakayT-i ittijakiyya, 11 Rabf 1 II 1275/1858). This at¬
tempt to assert the authority of the central diwan over
the provincial courts and of the diwanbegi over sharci as
well as c urjl courts was abortive. In the face of the op¬
position from both the c ulama 5 and the provincial of¬
ficials the decree was suspended. Whether it was
because of the failure of these various measures
designed to achieve some measure of legal reform or
not, in 1860 there was a revival of the mazalim court.
An announcement was made on 28 Muharram

1277/1860 that the shah would hold a mazalim court
every Sunday {Ruznama-yi wakayi^-i ittijakiyya , 28
Muharram 1277/1860). A rescript {dast-khatt) was
issued for the procedure to be followed. The ishikakasi-
bashi and the nasakci-bashi and their deputies were to be
on duty. The First minister and the deputy first
minister were to be present and the latter was to
record the answers given to the petitions. Petitioners
were to be presented by the nasakci-bashi and the
adjudan-bashi. Petitioners were not to assemble near
the guardhouse; in Tehran they were to gather in the
Maydan or the Kuca-i Arg and in Shim ran, or
elsewhere in summer quarters, in the open country.
They were to come forward one by one or two by two.
The Karawul regiment, the Jarrash-i khalwatan and the
p ishkh idmatdn were all to be on duty. If the petitioners
made a commotion when they assembled they were to
be punished. Only petitions for the redress of
grievances would be received: petitions for an increase
of pay, pensions or tuyuls would not be heard. Peti¬
tions from the provinces could be submitted in writing
through the official provincial post {cappar). These in¬
structions suggest that Nasir al-Din feared both
assassination and rioting by the populace; they also
recall Nizam al-Mulk’s fears of commotion by peti¬
tioners at the mazalim court—though apparently the
Safawids had no such fears (see above).

In 1863 there was an attempt to revive the measures
of 1858. Mirza Husayn Khan Mushlr al-Dawla, who
had spent twelve years in Turkey as the Persian
representative there, submitted draft regulations for
the reorganisation of the Ministry of Justice for the
shah’s approval. The purpose of these regulations was
to centralise the administration of justice and to limit
the authority of the provincial governors. These
measures brought Mirza Husayn Khan into conflict
with both the c ulama 3 and the provincial authorities,
and the proposal to set up departments of justice in the
provinces under the Ministry of Justice was again
shelved {Ruznama-yi dawlat-i c aliyya-yi Iran, 17 Radjab
1279/1863, and Lambton, The Persian c ulama and con¬
stitutional rejorm, in Le ShiHsme imamite, ed. T. Fahd,
Paris 1970, 259-60. See also F. Adamiyyat, Fikr-i
dzddi , Tehran 1961, 72 ff.). In 1871 Mirza Husayn
Khan Mushlr al-Dawla, who had become sadr-i a^zam,
issued a decree in the shah’s name, setting up six
courts or departments of the ministry of justice and
regulations for their operation. The settlement of
disputes outside the court was, however, permitted,
provided both parties consented to this. The decrees
of the shar c i courts were to be registered and enforced
by the Ministry of Justice. In the same year torture
was again forbidden (see further Shaul Bakhash, Iran :
monarchy , bureaucracy and rejorm under the Qajars,
1858-1896, London 1978, 83 ff.). Mirza Husayn
Khan’s reforms were also abortive. On 22 May 1888,
as a result of promptings by Drummond Wolff, the
British minister, Nasir al-Din issued a decree giving
security of life and property to all Persian subjects
unless publicly condemned by a competent tribunal.
The effect of this on the lives of the people was,
however, negligible. One last attempt at legal reform
was made after the cancellation of the Tobacco Con¬
cession in 1891, when Amin al-Dawla urged upon the
shah the establishment of regular tribunals. Muhsin
Khan Mushlr al-Dawla, the minister of justice and
commerce, was accordingly ordered to set up a so-
called c adalat-khana. This plan also proved abortive
(Amin al-Dawla, Khatirat-i Mirza c Ali Khan Amin al-
Dawla, ed. H. Farmanfarmaman, Tehran 1962,
164 ff.).

By the end of the century there had thus been little

MAHKAMA

change in the administration of justice. The functions
of the minister were theoretically to take general note
of the law throughout the country and to enforce the
execution of judgments delivered by the c ulama 5 . In
practice his power, like that of other ministers, was
personal: at times his influence extended to the pro¬
vinces, at others it barely ran even in the capital. A
strong minister had his agents in the provinces, but he
seldom had sufficient influence to invest them with
real authority. The execution of sentences rested with
officials called Jarrashha (sin g.farrash). The farrdsh-bashi
of the capital, who was their head, was an important
official and a servant of the shah. In the provinces the
farrash-bashi was nominated by the governor or by the
farrdsh-bashi of the capital. The religious law continued
to take cognisance of many civil matters such as those
concerning personal law, transfers of property, and
certain criminal offences. The c ulama :> i as formerly,
depended for the execution of their decisions upon the
civil authorities. All judgments, whether of the
c ulama 5 or the c urjT officials, were executed by the far-
rashha(d. F.O. 60: 566). Appendix I by Lt. Col. Picot
to Sir M. Durand, in Sir M. Durand's memo, on the situa¬
tion in Persia , Tehran, 27 September 1895 (conf. print
6704). See also Ruznama-yi wakayi c -i ittifakiyya, no. 46,
24 Safar 1268/1851).

In the early years of the 20th century, at the sugges¬
tion of a Belgian legal adviser a codification of the law
was considered, together with a reorganisation of the
courts dealing with mixed cases—the need for legal
reform was by this time acutely felt by foreign mer¬
chants, whose legal claims were referred in the capital
to the madjlis-i muhakamat , a tribunal of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, and in the provinces to the court
of the kargudhar , who frequently bought his office as a
commercial speculation from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs—and the establishment of courts of first in¬
stance and appellate tribunals, which would decide
mixed cases by the application of a simple commercial
code based on that existing in Turkey. The plan was
frustrated by the c ulamd :> , who maintained that the
temporal authority was not competent to legislate in
such matters and that any such legislation must be in
accordance with the shari c a. Russia also opposed the
proposal as being contrary to the Treaty of
Turkoman£ay (F.O. 416: 26. no. 29, Harding to
Grey, London, 23 December 1905).

After the death of Nasir al-Dln Shah in 1896, the
movement for liberal reform, which had been gather¬
ing support during the second half of the 19th cen¬
tury, became more articulate. In 1903 various groups
agreed to work for the establishment of a code of laws.
In May 1905 an open letter was sent to the sadr-i a c zam
demanding, inter alia , a code of justice and the
establishment of a Ministry of Justice. In January
1906, after a large number of people had taken asylum
(bast) in the shrine of Shah c Abd al- c Azim outside
Tehran, Muzaffar al-DTn, who had succeeded his
father Nasir al-Dln, gave orders for the establishment
of a Ministry of Justice ( c adalat-khana-yi dawlati) for the
purpose of executing the decrees of the shari c a
throughout Persia so that all the subjects of the coun¬
try should be equal before the law. A code ( kitabca ) in
accordance with the shari : a was to be drawn up and
put into operation throughout the country. In fact, no
steps were taken to implement the promises given to
the bastis. A second bast by the religious leaders took
place in Kumm, while merchants and members of the
craft guilds of Tehran and others took refuge in the
British Legation. They demanded the dismissal of the
sadr-i a c zam , the promulgation of a code of laws and
the recall of the religious leaders from Kumm. The

shah yielded to their demands and on 5 August 1906
issued a rescript setting up a National Consultative
Assembly. The Fundamental Law was signed on 30
December 1906 and the Supplementary Fundamental
Law was ratified by Muhammad Shah on 7 October
1907 [see dustur. iv. Iran]. Article 2 of the latter
states that at no time must any legal enactment of the
National Consultative Assembly (madjlis-i shawrd-yi
milli) be at variance with the sacred principles of Islam
or the laws established by the prophet Muhammad.
Article 2 also provides for the setting up of a commit¬
tee composed of not less than five mudjtahids and pious
fukaha^, who would consider all matters proposed in
the madjlis and reject wholly or in part any proposal at
variance with the sacred laws of Islam. Article 27
divides the powers of the realm into three categories,
legislative, judicial and executive. It states that the
judicial power belongs exclusively to the sharci
tribunals in matters pertaining to the sharica
(shar c iyyat) and to the civil tribunals (mahakim-i
c adliyya) in matters pertaining to c urf ( c urfiyyat). Article
28 states that the three powers shall always be separate
and distinct from one another, and Articles 81 and 82
affirm the irremovability and independence of the
judges. (These articles were emended in the reign of
Muhammad Rida Shah.) Article 71 states that the
Supreme Ministry of Justice (diwan-i c addlat-i c uzma)
and the judicial courts are the places officially destined
for the redress of public grievances, while judgment in
shar^i matters is vested in just mudjtahids possessed of
the necessary qualifications, thus implying that the
jurisdiction of the judicial courts was general and that
only those matters which were judged to pertain to the
shari c a were to be referred to shar c t judges. The text
is, however, ambiguous, perhaps intentionally.

The committee of mudjtahids laid down in Article 2
of the Supplementary Fundamental Law was set up
by the second madjlis in 1911 but later fell into
desuetude. The result of its work was the provisional
law known as the kanun-i muwakkati-yi tashkildt wa usul
muhakamat of 1329 (the provisional law for the regula¬
tions of judicial procedure of 1911). This law, in spite
of its provisional nature, was the basis on which the
judicial reforms carried out after the grant of the con¬
stitution rested. Under its authority a number of pro¬
visional laws were passed, a procedure which enabled
the government to take “experimental” action and
which avoided the question of whether the madjlis was
contravening Article 2 of the Supplementary Fun¬
damental Laws or not. Article 45 of the provisional
law of 1911 defines shar c i matters as “matters which
are established in accordance with the law of the il¬
lustrious shar c of Islam”. The lack of any more precise
definition of sharci and c urji matters illustrates the dif¬
ficulty which the legislators experienced in making a
separation between the two systems. The law further
divides cases into those concerning sharci matters,
c urJT matters and “joint” cases, i.e. cases which con¬
cerned both shar : i and c uifi matters. The last could
only be referred to the c adliyya (the Ministry of Justice)
with the consent of both parties. Shar c i cases are defin¬
ed inter alia as cases arising from ignorance of a shar c i
judgment or sharci matters, cases concerning mar¬
riage and divorce, debt, inheritance, awkaf and the
appointment of mutawallis and legal guardians. The
sharci courts ( mahazir , sing, mahzar) were presided
over by a mudjtahid possessing the necessary qualifica¬
tions (djami c al-shard Ht) and two deputies (karib al-
idjtihad). The effect of the provisional law, although it
was perhaps intended to limit the competence of the
shar c i courts, was, in fact, to lead to the referral of
most cases to the sharci courts. There were various

MAHKAMA

reasons for this: a lack of trained personnel to ad¬
minister a secular law, lack of familiarity on the part
of the public with the lengthy formalities involved by
the new procedures, the fact that in the provinces
cases were for the most part decided by the governors
on an ad hoc basis and the existence of a separate court
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with branches in the
provinces known as kargudhariha for cases involving
foreign subjects. For these and other reasons, reform
proceeded slowly. Courts of first instance and courts
of appeal, special commercial and military tribunals
and a court of cassation (dtwan-i tamyiz ) were,
however, set up.

Under Rida Shah (1925-42) the government em¬
barked upon an ambitious programme of legal
reform, and with the increasing power of the central
government, the tendency to ride roughshod over op¬
position on the part of the religious classes grew.
Various parts of the civil code were promulgated be¬
tween 1925 and 1935, thereby increasingly limiting
the competence of the shar c i courts. Negotiations were
begun for the abolition of the capitulations, which
finally became effective from 10 May 1928, the pro¬
vincial tribunals presided over by the kargudhars
having already been dissolved by the law of 12
Shahrlvar 1306/3 September 1927 [see imtiyazat, iii,
Persia]. In 1305/1926-7 the Ministry of Justice was
empowered to put into operation a reformed version
of the provisional law of 1911, and as a result a
number of new provisional laws were passed. The
c adliyya was reorganised and the list of matters which
were to be referred to the shar c f courts was revised. By
the law for the regulations of judicial procedure of 7
Day 1307/1928-9, the existence of shar c i courts was
reaffirmed, but their competence was limited broadly
to cases referring to marriage and divorce, matters of
succession and guardianship and the administration
of wills and awkdf. In the following year, by the law
of Khurdad 1308/1929 their competence was further
reduced, while the law of 10 Adhar 1310/1930
abrogated earlier laws concerning shar c i courts and
recognised only those courts which were presided over
by a mudjtahid possessing the necessary qualifications.
Finally, in 1937 new Regulations for judicial pro¬
cedure {d } in-i dadrasi-yi madani) in 789 articles were
presented to the madjlis. They were finally passed on
25 Shahrlvar 1318/1939 and replaced the earlier pro¬
visional laws.

In these various ways, which would in mediaeval
terminology have been described as hiyal, an open
clash between the modernists and the authorities of
the religious law was avoided and a civil law was
codified and brought into operation. The sections on
marriage, divorce, inheritance, awkdf, irrigation and
dead lands were simply a codified version of shar c flaw
already in operation with minor changes. In matters
of divorce, the position was materially altered by the
Family Protection Act of 1967. A penal code, based
mainly on French law but also influenced by Swiss
and Belgian law, was promulgated in 1928 and replac¬
ed by a new code in 1939. A provisional law for com¬
mercial courts was set up under the provisional law of
1911 and a commercial code promulgated in 1932.

Throughout the period under review down to the
early 20th century sharci and c urfi jurisdictions con¬
tinued side by side. The former, administered by the
kadi and the sharci judges, covered in theory all
aspects of the believer’s life, was a written law, and
subject to known procedures. In theory it was
supreme and unchallenged, but in practice it was
limited in the scope of its operation. The latter, ad¬
ministered by the ruler and his deputies, was unwrit¬

ten, its judgments were executed by the strong hand
of power and it was in practice dominant. At best it
was regulated by custom and at worst wholly arbitrary
and guided by the whim of the ruler. The distinction
between the two jurisdictions was not, and could not
be, clearly drawn since the sharica could, in theory,
have no rival. The operation of the two jurisdictions
was personal: now the one, now the other, extended
the field of its operation. The relationship between
them was uncertain and uneasy. The power of execu¬
tion in all cases rested with the c urfi officials, but so far
as the sharci officials were associated with the ’'urfi
courts, a quasi-i^zzr c f sanction was given to their pro¬
ceedings.

Bibliography: Sections on kada 5 are to be found
in all major works on fikh, both Sunni and Shi c I.
Material on the general principles of taking up
government office is also to be found in the sections
on al-amr wa 'l-nahy and al-makasib and al-buyu c . In¬
formation on the exercise of the office of kadi by in¬
dividuals is to be found in biographical dictionaries
and histories. For the modern period, see Ahmad-
Daftary, La suppression des capitulations en Perse, Paris
1930; idem, A 5 in-i dadrasi-yi madani wa bdzargani\
Tehran 2 vols., i, 1324/1956-7, ii, 1334/1966-7;
Mustafa c Adl Mansur al-Safiana, Hukuk-i madani 2 ,
Tehran 1308/1929; C A1I Pasha Salih, Kuwwa-yi
mukannana wa kuwwa-yi kadaHyya, Tehran
1343/1964-5, Muhammad Dja c far LangarudT,
Danishndma-yi hukuk, 3 vols., Tehran
1343-52/1964-74; D. Hinchcliffe, The Iranian family
protection act, in The international and comparative law
quarterly (April 1968), 516-21; E. Graf, Der Brauch
( urf/ada ) nach islamischen Recht, in K. Tauchmann,
ed., Festschrift fur H. Petri , Vienna 1973, 122-44.

(A. K. S. Lambton)

4. The Arab Lands and Israel in
the Modern Period

i. Egypt

In the period of direct Ottoman rule in Egypt, the
Sharica courts had a very wide jurisdiction, which
comprised civil law, including personal status and
wakf, and also criminal and administrative matters.
Their personal jurisdiction applied also to disputes be¬
tween non-Muslims and Muslims, between non-
Muslims of different denominations, and even be¬
tween non-Muslims of the same denomination who
agreed to litigate before a Sharica court.

Muhammad c AlI established many judicial
authorities which took away important powers from
the Sharica courts: madjlis aklam al-da c wd and madjlis
da^awa al-balad , which dealt with claims for specific
amounts and with agricultural matters; and al-madjalis
al-markaziyya , which heard appeals against decisions of
the latter courts and had original jurisdiction in claims
for greater amounts. The courts of first instance {al-
madjalis al-ibtida 5 iyya ) in the provincial capitals heard
criminal matters and civil claims up to substantial
amounts. Their judgments were appealable to the
courts of appeal {madjalis al-istpnaf). The highest ap¬
pellate court was the madjlis al-ahkam, which sat in
Cairo. Other judicial authorities were madjlis al-tidjdra
(a commercial court) and madjlis mashyakhat al-balad.
Jurisdiction in criminal cases and the “investigation
of complaints” in the old sense were exercised by the
chief administrative office, al-diwan al-khidiwi, headed
by the Kikhya as representative of the Pasha; the chief
of police ( dabit ) and the muhtasib also had considerable
powers of punishment.

A major reform in the judicial system was carried

MAHKAMA

♦

out in the days of Isma c fl Pasha. The Hasbiyya Courts
Law of 1873 was a first, moderate step in restricting
the powers of the Sharing courts. The hasbiyya courts
(reorganised under a law of 1896 and renamed
mahakim hasbiyya rather than madydhs hasbiyya in 1947)
were competent to look after the financial interests of
local absent persons and minors, both Muslims and
non-Muslims. Certain matters of personal status were
also transferred to these new courts; the Public
Treasury ( bayt al-mal) was abolished. A national
system of civil jurisdiction, comprising a number of
madjalis y was established in 1874. In 1876, mixed
tribunals were set up in which both foreign and local
judges served. They heard disputes between
foreigners of different nationalities and between
foreigners and Egyptians. The local judges of these
courts were exposed to the influence of Western legal
principles and judicial norms.

The Code of Procedure of Shari c a Courts of 1880
limited the jurisdiction of the Shari c a courts to matters
of personal status, succession, wakf and gifts, and
cases of homicide. They had concurrent jurisdiction,
by the side of the provincial councils, in matters of
blood-money.

The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 did not, in
theory, change the juridical status of the country,
which nominally continued to be part of the Ottoman
Empire, though enjoying a large measure of
autonomy. As a result of reorganisation, the jurisdic¬
tion of the Sharica courts was restricted to personal
status, succession and part of the law of landed pro¬
perty, including wakf of Muslims; the Shari c a courts in
the major towns had jurisdiction also in cases of
homicide referred to them by the madfdlis nizamiyya.

Until 1883, the Sharica courts had general and
residuary jurisdiction with regard to all residents of
Egypt. They also had jurisdiction in matters of per¬
sonal status of non-Muslims, both local and foreign,
if the parties had no communal court of their own or
did not signify their acceptance of milla (communal)
jurisdiction, or if they belonged to different
denominations, or if a non-Muslim husband had con¬
verted to Islam after marriage. The sphere of the
Sharica courts was restricted, either by direct limita¬
tion or by definition of the spheres of the other courts.
In 1883, the judicial system was reorganised: the civil
courts ( madfalis nizamiyya ) were replaced by national
courts ( mahakim ahliyya ) based on European models
(the reform was only completed in 1889). Mixed and
national courts took over many of the powers of the
Sharing courts. They were competent to hear criminal
matters (homicide) and many matters of personal
status and wakf. The law of 1896 further restricted the
jurisdiction of the Sharica courts, viz. to matrimony,
dower, divorce, the custody of children, maintenance
(including maintenance between relatives), paternity,
succession, wakf and gifts; homicide was removed
from their jurisdiction to that of criminal courts.

The dichotomy between the shar c i judicial system,
in which the non-codified Sharica applied, and the
variegated system of the national and mixed courts, in
which judges with a modern legal training applied
Western-inspired codes, increasingly sharpened. In
1899, Muhammad c Abduh [< 7 .^.] suggested the
amalgation of all judicial authorities within the
framework of the Sharing courts or, more concretely,
the vesting of the Sharia courts with jurisdiction in
criminal matters and incidental jurisdiction in other
matters (along with the hearing of matrimonial and
wakf cases). He also suggested integrating the muftis in
the higher echelons of the judicial system. His sugges¬
tions were not accepted.

Another law, of 1909-10, defined the jurisdiction of
the different Sharing courts in greater detail, but
brought nothing substantively new. The law of 1931,
which was in force until the abolition of the Shari c a
courts, dealt more intensively with the jurisdiction of
the latter. Matters relating to gifts, which had been
under the jurisdiction of the £hari c a courts, were
transferred to the national courts a few years before
the Sharica courts were abolished.

The establishment of the hasbiyya courts in 1947 was
only the first step towards the unification of the
judicial system in Egypt. In 1949, the mixed courts
were abolished, and their powers were transferred to
the national courts. Law no. 462 of 1955 abolished the
Shari''a courts and the courts of the religious com¬
munities ( al-mahdkim al-milliyya ) with effect from 1
January 1956, and transferred their powers to the na¬
tional courts, thereby closing the circle. The abolition
of the religious courts was prompted by considerations
of administrative efficiency—the need to prevent con¬
flict of jurisdiction and miscarriages of justice—but
above all, it was intended to demonstrate national
sovereignty by removing the remnants of the judicial
autonomy of foreigners. The action taken against the
non-Muslim courts was more significant because in a
Muslim country the Sharica courts are identified with
the state. Moreover, only the shari c i kdfis have been
absorbed into the national courts, so that matters of
personal status of non-Muslims can now be heard
before Muslim judges, although the latter are suppos¬
ed to apply the religious law of the parties.

Following the Ottoman conquest, the dominant
doctrine in the Egyptian shar c i system was the Hanafi
one, although the population was mainly Shafi c I (in
the north) and Malik! (in the south). The kanun of the
sultan, ostensibly designed to supplement the Sharica,
superseded it in many matters, especially criminal, in
which difficulties arose in its application in the Sharica
courts. Egypt was not affected by the Tanzimdt legisla¬
tion of the Ottoman Empire, and neither was the
Medfelle introduced there.

After an endeavour had been made in 1855, under
Sa c Id Pasha, to codify the criminal law, one which on¬
ly resulted in a “confused compilation” based mainly
on the Shari c a, there came the greater juridical reform
under Isma c fl Pasha in connection with the creation
of the mixed tribunals (1876). At the time of the crea¬
tion of the national courts ( mahakim ahliyya) (1883),
new civil, criminal and commercial codes were pro¬
claimed which were based on French models.

In the late 19th century, Muhammad Kadr! Pasha
prepared codes, all based on the Hanafi doctrine, of
several departments of law: (1) Kitdb Murshid al-hayrdn
ild ma c rifat ahwdl al-insdn , which dealt with civil law; it
was not officially recognised; (2) Kitdb Ahwdl al-
sharHyya fi ’ l-ahwal al-shakhsiyya, which dealt with per¬
sonal status, succession, incompetence, gifts etc.;
though not adopted by act of parliament, it was
published by the Egyptian government in 1875 and
enjoyed semi-official status; it was only intended to
meet the increased need, caused by the creation of the
mixed and national tribunals, for a convenient sum¬
mary of the law administered by the Sharing courts and
had no authority of its own with the latter; there are
official translations into French and Italian and a
commentary by Muhammad Zayd al-Ibyanl; and (3)
Kanun al- c adl wa'l-insaf li'l-kadd 5 c a/a mushkilat al-aw-kdf
(Bulak 1893, 1894, and later editions), which deals
with pious foundations.

A law of 1880 provided that the judgments of the
Shari c a courts should be based exclusively on the most
approved opinion of the Hanafi school, except for

MAHKAMA

cases of homicide, in which the kadis, to avoid corrup¬
tion and the spilling of innocent blood, were permitted
to follow the two disciples of Abu Hanlfa, Abu Yusuf
and al-Shavbani. or, in cases of deliberate homicide,
the three other schools. Muhammad c Abduh, within
the framework of reforms in the shar c i judicial system,
suggested appointing a commission of c ulamd 5 to
prepare comprehensive codes, especially as to per¬
sonal status and wakf, culled from all the Sunni doc¬
trines according to considerations of public welfare;
they were meant to be applied in the Shari^a courts by
order of the ruler; but c Abduh’s suggestion was not
adopted. The Shari c a Courts Organisation Law of
1910 again required the kadis, in principle, to follow
the most approved opinion of the Hanafi school.

From 1920, Parliament engaged in extensive refor¬
mist legislation on matters of personal status, succes¬
sion and wakf; it deviated from the Hanafi doctrine
and adopted elements of other Sunni doctrines and of
the &hl c a. This legislation comprised Law no. 25 of
1920 and Law no. 25 of 1929 on maintenance, divorce
and other matters; Law no. 78 of 1931 on the
organisation of the Sharica courts, introducing also
reforms in family law; the Succession Law, no. 77 of
1943; the Testamentary Disposition Law, no. 71 of
1946, the Wakf Laws, no. 48 of 1946 and no. 180 of
1952, and Law no. 118 of 1952 concerning the denial
of guardianship over a person.

The Civil Code of 1948, prepared by c Abd al-
Razzak al-Sanhurl, which served as model for the civil
codes of several Arab countries, draws inspiration
from the Shari c a as one source among many, and not
the most important. It is based on the codes of 1875
and 1883, which in turn go back to the Code
Napoleon. Part of the reforms were at first carried out
in the Sudan, through the Grand Kafr, who was an
Egyptian jurist.

The £han c a Courts Abolition Law, no. 462 of 1955,
provides that the national courts shall decide matters
of personal status and wakf in accordance with section
280 of the Shari c a Courts Organisation Law of 1931,
that is to say, in accordance with the most approved
opinion of the Hanafi school, except for matters
specially provided for in that law and in statutes of the
nineteen-twenties and subsequent years supplemen¬
ting it. In the national courts, Islamic law applies also
to non-Muslims in matters of succession and wills and
where the parties do not belong to the same
denomination, or one of them has converted to Islam
in the course of the proceedings.

After the unification of the judiciary, there were
several attempts to codify the law of personal status.
There was a growing realisation that the national
courts should apply a uniform material law, valid for
members of all religions and for foreigners as well as
for local residents. But reformist legislation was only
resumed in the second half of the nineteen-seventies,
and even then not to the extent planned: Law no. 26
of 1976 introduced amendment in matters of
maintenance and Law no. 44 of 1979 brought impor¬
tant reforms in matters of maintenance, divorce,
maintenance of divorced women and custody of
children.

In recent years, the efforts of Islamic orthodoxy
have centred on an attempt to disprove the legitimacy
of statutes inconsistent with the Shanca. The prime
objective was establishing the position of the Sharia in
the constitution of the state. The provisional constitu¬
tion of 1964 (i.e. of the time of c Abd al-Nasir) did not
mention the Sharica at all. The 1971 constitution (art.
2) says that Islam is the state religion and that the
principles of the Sharica are a chief source of legisla¬

tion, i.e. one of several. On 22 May 1980, following
a referendum, it was laid down that the Sharica was
the chief source of legislation. There have been
several attempts by superior courts, in reliance on ar¬
ticle 2 of the constitution, to disprove the legality of
laws contrary to the Shanca (see, e.g. al-Da c wa,
February 1980). The Muslim Brothers [see
al-ikhwan al-muslimun] demand that the judicature,
even at its lowest levels, should be enabled to pro¬
nounce on the legality of statutes. Alternatively, they
suggest including the sharci laws, especially the penal
ones, among the statutes (see e.g. al-Da c wa, July
1980).

Since 1972, legislation has been proposed, by both
private and governmental agencies, to introduce
Kur 3 anic punishments ( hudud) for theft and embezzle¬
ment, the consumption of alcoholic beverages, armed
robbery, unchastity (zina), false accusation of un¬
chastity {kadhf). and apostasy from Islam ( ridda ). In
1975, a supreme committee for the initiation of laws
conforming to the Shanca ( al-Ladjna al-^ulya li-tatwu al-
kawanin wafk al-shari c a) was set up. Up till now, these
efforts have had scanty results. The legislative pro¬
posals were not adopted, except for a bill concerning
the consumption and sale of alcoholic beverages,
which became law in 1976 (< al-IHisam , August 1980).

In the period prior to the occupation of Egypt by
the British, procedure and the rules of evidence in
Shari c a courts were based on the Shari c a. Upon the
reorganisation of the courts under the law of 1880,
procedure was also revised. In 1883, immediately
upon the British occupation, new regulations for civil
and criminal procedure, based on French models,
were proclaimed (the criminal code was brought up to
date in 1904); but they were only applied by civil
courts. As to the Sharica courts, in the Reglements since
1897, there has been an increasing tendency to do
away with oral evidence of witnesses and acknowledg¬
ment ( ikrar ) as means of proof and to prefer documen¬
tary evidence. Muhammad c Abduh suggested making
the use of written documents a condition of the
jurisdiction of the Sharica courts. Reformist legislation
from the nineteen-twenties onwards concerning per¬
sonal status and succession included also procedural
provisions which served as means to circumvent
substantive sharci legislation.

The Sharica Courts Abolition Law, no. 462 of 1955,
provides that the Civil Procedure Law shall apply to
matters of personal status and wakf in national courts,
except for matters to which special provisions apply
according to the Sharica Courts Law or laws sup¬
plementing it. In addition, Law no. 57 of 1959
(amended by Law no. 106 of 1962) is to be applied to
proceedings before the Court of Cassation ( mahkamat
al-nakd).

In the days of Muhammad C A1I, there was in Cairo
a chief kadi, sent every year from Istanbul, who
delegated the bulk of the business to the deputy he
brought with him from Istanbul. The plaintiff had, as
a rule, to produce a fatwa from the local Hanafi mufti,
who held permanent office; the mufti, for his part, in¬
vestigated the legal dispute and the kafi was usually
satisfied with confirming the fatwa. Simple cases were
decided at once by the kadi's deputy or by one of the
official witnesses, to whom application had first of all
to be made. Cases of a more complicated nature were
brought before the chief kadi, his deputy and the mufti
together.

In addition to this chief court of justice, there were
subsidiary courts in Cairo and the suburbs at which
official witnesses of the chief court administered
justice as deputies and under the supervision of the

MAHKAMA

chief kadi- In the country towns there were also kadis,
who were usually aided by muftis. The kadis were paid
by the litigants and not by the state. Sa c Td obtained
the right to nominate kadis (but not the chief kadi) and
Isma c Il received permission to nominate, temporarily
at least, the deputy of the chief kadi , who himself re¬
mained in Turkey.

By a law of 1880, the benches of the Shari c a courts
in Cairo and Alexandria were made to consist of three
judges, the court in Cairo became a court of appeal
from the decisions of single judges, and the judgments
of the two courts were made appealable to the HanafT
(chief) mufti ; in cases of doubt, the courts were refer¬
red to the competent muftis, but for the rest they were
made independent of them.

A further step forward was marked by the Reglement
de Reorganisation des Mehkemehs of 1897, modified in
1909-10; between the two versions came the fatwa of
Muhammad c Abduh on the reform of Sharica jurisdic¬
tion of 1899. Both versions provided for an organisa¬
tion of the Sharing courts in three stages: sommaire
(djuzHyyd), de premiere instance (ibtidaHyya ) and supreme
( c ulya ), according to the terminology finally adopted;
single judges sat in the first stage, colleges of judges in
the other stages (always three according to the earlier
version, three in the intermediate instance and five in
the highest court in Cairo according to the later ver¬
sion). The court of appeal was the next highest court;
the more important cases were at once brought before
the court de premiere instance. The earlier version gave
the muftis definite places on the bench of the collegiate
courts; in the later version, the vice-president acted as
mufti, except in Cairo. The Reglement of 1931 brought
the number of judges in the highest court down to
three.

The Sharica Courts Abolition Law of 1955 provides
that matters of personal status shall be dealt with by
national courts of three grades, to be specially
established for this purpose. Those of the lowest
grade, called the summary courts (< al-mahakim al-
djuzHyya), are to hear all matters of personal status, as
defined in the Shari c a Courts Law no. 78 of 1931, ex¬
cept paternity, repudiation and judicial dissolution on
the wife’s initiative, which are within the jurisdiction
of the courts of first instance (al-mahakim al-
ibtidaHyya). In addition, the courts of first instance
hear matters of wakf and appeals from judgments of
the summary courts as far as these are appealable.
Non-final judgments of the courts of first instance sit¬
ting as courts of original jurisdiction are appealable to
the Personal Status Appeals Department of the Court
of Cassation.

A summary court has a bench of one; a court of first
instance has a bench of three and may include shar c i
kadis. The president of the court of first instance is a
senior judge of the Court of Appeal. Courts of first in¬
stance exist in every provincial capital. The Personal
Status Appeals Department has a bench of three, one
of whom may be a shar c i kadi of the rank of naHb or
a member of the Supreme Sharica Court of Appeal.
The president of the Supreme Shari c a Court is made
a member of the Court of Cassation, of which the Per¬
sonal Status Appeals Department forms a part and
which sits in Cairo.

The law of 1955 provides that the kadis of the
Sharica courts of all grades shall be integrated into the
national courts system, the public prosecutor’s
department and the Ministry of Justice as far as mat¬
ters of personal status are concerned. Actually, most
sharci kadis have been integrated into the summary
courts, in which judicial proceedings in matters of
personal status are mainly conducted. At the same

time, a not inconsiderable number of civil lawyers
deal with matters of personal status of Muslims.

The Shari c a Courts Law of 1931 provided that only
advocates might represent parties in court, A kadis’
school established in 1907 trained also shar c i ad¬
vocates. They set up a bar association similar to the
bar association of civil advocates. Since the abolition
of the Sharica courts, shar c i advocates have been per¬
mitted to appear, in matters that had formerly been
within the jurisdiction of the sharica courts, before na¬
tional courts of the corresponding grade.

In the mid-seventies a tendency emerged—
tolerated by the authorities for reasons of domestic
policy—to apply shar c i laws, even if not anchored in
statutory legislation, in the jurisprudence of the na¬
tional courts and to refuse to apply statutes considered
inconsistent with the Sharing (Rose al-Yusuf 18
February 1980; al-Da c wa, February 1980, February
1981).

Bibliography : Lane, Manners and customs of the
modern Egyptians , ch. iv; ED art. Kh edIw. sect. 2;
Schacht, Sari^a und Qanun im modernen Agypten, in Isl.
xx (1932), 209-36; the texts of the laws and decrees
in the Journal Officiel du Gouvernement Egyptien and
separately, e.g. LaHhat al-mahakim al-sharHyya,
Bulak 1297/1880; Reglement de Reorganisation des
Mehkemehs, Cairo 1910; Madfmu^at kawanin al-
mahakim al-sharHyya wa ’ l-madjalis al-hasbiyya, Cairo
1926; Sammarco, Precis de Vhistoire d’Egypte, iv,
265 ff.; Muhammad c Abduh, Takrir fi isldh al-
mahakim al-shar^iyya, Cairo 1900; J. Brugman, De
betekenis van het Mohammedaanse recht in het hedendaagse
Egypte (“The place of Islamic law in contemporary
Egypt”), The Hague 1960, with important
bibliography; J. N. D. Anderson, Law reform in
Egypt, 1850-1950, in P. M. Holt (ed.), Political and
social change in modern Egypt , London 1968, 209-30;
Ch. Chehata, Droit musulman, Paris 1970;
Mahmasanl, al-Awda c al-tashriHyya, 220-40;
F. J. Ziadeh, Lawyers, the rule of law and liberalism in
modern Egypt, Stanford, Calif. 1968; E. Hill,
Mahkama. Studies in the Egyptian legal system, London
1979; Kawanin al-ahwal al-sha khs iyya ba c d al-ta Q dilat
al-djadida, Kanun Kabd al-Nafaka min Bank Nasir al-
Idftima c i wa-Kanun Salb al-Wilaya c ala al-Nafs,
Maktab al-Matbu c at al-Islamiyya wa’l-Kanuniyya,
Cario [1980]; I. Altman, Islamic legislation in Egypt
in the 1970s , in Asian and African Studies, xiii/3
(1979), 199-219; further see Schacht, Introduction,
252, 254 f. (J. Schacht - [A. Layish])

ii. Syria

In the Ottoman era, the sharci judicial system of
Syria was integrated in the Ottoman legal system.
The powers of the Sharica courts were re-determined
by Law no. 261 of 1926; they comprise matters of per¬
sonal status, succession and wakf. However, in con¬
trast to the position in Lebanon, the Sharica courts are
regarded as the ordinary judicial authorities in mat¬
ters of personal status of non-Muslims, except for
matters left to the jurisdiction of the communal
courts. In matters of guardianship, succession, wills,
interdiction ( hadjr ), legal majority (rushd),
maintenance of relatives within the wider family, wakf
khayri and the like, non-Muslims are amenable to the
Shari c a courts. Matters of personal status of foreign
Muslims who in their countries of origin are subject
to civil law are amenable to the civil courts. The
Shari c a court consists of a single kadi, whose judgment
may be appealed to the shar c i department of the Court
of Cassation (mahkamai al-tamyiz). The judicial
authority Law, no. 12 of 1961, provides for 25

MAHKAMA

Muslim courts throughout Syria, each consisting of a
single kadi, except for those in Damascus and Aleppo,
which have three kadis each.

The ShI c Is of Syria, unlike those of Lebanon, have
no courts of their own, and are theoretically subject to
the Sunni Sharia courts. But it seems that they settle
matters of personal status through unofficial arbitra¬
tion by their leaders.

By virtue of the law of 1926, the non-Muslim com¬
munities have religious courts of their own, with
jurisdiction limited to some matters not within the
competence of the Sharica courts: betrothal, marriage,
the various kinds of divorce, matrimo'nial
maintenance and children’s maintenance.

The Syrian Law of Personal Status of 1953 replaced
the Ottoman Family Rights Law of 1917. It is based
on the HanafT doctrine and on reformist legislation
anchored in other Sunni doctrines. In the absence of
an express provision in it as to a particular matter, the
ruling opinion of the HanafT school is to be followed.
The Syrian constitutions from 1950 onwards provide
that the Shari c a shall be the principal source of legisla¬
tion. The said law applies also to the ShI c Is. as well
as to non-Muslims (Christians and Druzes), except
for those matters within the competence of the
religious courts of the latter to which their religious
law applies (art. 308). In other words, this law
represents an attempt to frame a code of personal
status applying to all citizens of Syria without distinc¬
tion of school or religion.

Procedure was unified by the Law of Procedure of
1947. Under the Jurisdiction Law of 1961, Shari c a,
Christian and Druze courts apply the rules of pro¬
cedure of the civil courts; the special rules of the dif¬
ferent communities, including the Ottoman Shar c i
Procedure Law, were abolished.

In the Ottoman era, the Druzes of Syria were not
recognised as a religious community and were
theoretically amenable to the jurisdiction of the
Sharica courts. In practice, they settled matters of
marriage, divorce, wills, wakf, etc., before Druze kadis
lacking statutory status. Like their Lebanese
brethren, the Syrian Druzes were recognised as a
religious community by the Mandatory authorities in
1936 and thereby given the right to exercise com¬
munal jurisdiction in matters of personal status; but
there were differences of opinion as to this with regard
to the Druzes residing outside the Djabal al-Duruz
and especially in Damascus.

Law no. 134 of 1945 made it possible to set up an
independent judicial system for the Druzes in accor¬
dance with madhhabi principles and customs. The
powers of the courts comprise matters of marriage,
divorce, maintenance and the like, as well as matters
of succession and wills. Law no. 294 of 1946 and the
General Judicial Powers Law, no. 56 of 1959, con¬
firmed the powers of the Druze courts under the 1945
law.

Until 1953, the Druze courts applied Druze
religious law and custom. Matters concerning Druzes
heard before the Shari c a courts were determined in ac¬
cordance with the Ottoman Family Rights Law. The
Syrian Personal Status Law of 1953 extends also to the
Druzes, except for matters peculiar to Druze law, viz.
the ban on polygamy and on the reinstatement of a
divorced woman, the right of succession of an orphan¬
ed grandchild (the principle of representation) and the
absolute freedom of testation (art. 307). Law no. 134
of 1945 provides that the Druze courts shall function
in accordance with their own rules of procedure. Ap¬
peal proceedings before the civil Court of Cassation in
Damascus, to which the Druzes resort since 1959, are
conducted under the civil law of procedure.

The 1945 law established a two-grade judicial
system for the Druzes: courts of first instance con¬
sisting of a single kadi and a court of appeal—the Prin¬
cipal Council (al-hay^a al-ra*isiyyd )—which is the
supreme madhhabi authority and whose seat is in the
province of Qjabal al-Duruz. The latter’s judgments
were to be final. Law no. 294 of 1946 provides that the
Principal Council shall consist of three madhhabi
leaders. The kadis were to be appointed by the
Minister of Justice upon the recommendation of the
Religious Council (al-hay 3 a al-diniyya), on which the
spiritual heads of the Druze community were
represented. The judgments were to be enforced by
the authorities of the state. Law no. 56 of 1959
restricted the judicial autonomy of the Druzes. It pro¬
vided that a Druze kadi should be appointed, by order,
on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice of
the Syrian province of the United Arab Republic. Ap¬
peals against his judgments were to be heard before
the civil Court of Cassation in Damascus (in which the
Druzes were not represented) under the rules of pro¬
cedure obtaining in respect of Muslim shar c i kadis.
The Druze court of appeal was abolished and, by way
of compensation, a “Druze Department of Legal Opi¬
nions” (da 3 irat al-iftd 3 li ’ l-madhhab al-durzT) was set up,
consisting of the kadis of the fQrmer court of appeal.
This body is unconnected with the judicial system.
Law no. 56 of 1959 was amended by Law no. 98 of
1961, which provides that the election of a Druze kadi
requires not only the recommendation of the Minister
of Justice but also the consent of the High Judicial
Council ( mad^lis al-kadd 3 al-a^la).

The Bedouin of Syria used to settle their disputes
before an arbitral board (ladjna tahkimiyya) consisting
of two arbitrators and an umpire, elected by the par¬
ties, which followed tribal custom ( c «r/). The Tribes
Law, no. 124 of 1953 (amended in 1956), forbade
Bedouin, by means of penal provisions, to carry out
raids (ghazw). In 1956, matters of personal status of
Bedouin were assigned to the Sharica courts, and in
1958 the Tribes Law was repealed and the Bedouin
became amenable to the ordinary legal system of the
state and to the laws applying therein.

Bibliography: Mafimasam, al-Awdd c al-

tashriHyya , 282-97; E. T. Mogannam, The practical
application of the law in certain Arab states , in George
Washington Law Review, xxii (1953), 142-55;
J. N. D. Anderson, The Syrian law of personal status,
in BSOAS , xvii (1955), 34-49; Fu 3 ad Shubat. Tan-
zim al-ahwdl al-shakhsiyya li- gha yr al-muslimin ft Suriyd
wa-Lubndn, [Cairo] 1966; P. Gannage, La competence
des juridictions confessionnelles au Liban et en Syrie, in
Annales de VEcole Fran^aise de Droit de Beyrouth , iv/1 -2
(1948), 199-247; Amin Tall c , Mashyakhat al- c akl wa
’ l-kadd 3 al-madhhabi al-durzi c abr ta^rikh, Jerusalem
1979, 136-41, 152-3, 156. (A. Lavish)

iii. Lebanon

The Lebanese legal system is mainly based on the
Reglement Organique of 1861, which granted the Pro¬
vince of Mount Lebanon administrative and judicial
autonomy guaranteed by the great powers. The
system remained unchanged until World War I, when
Turkey again ruled Lebanon directly for a short
period. The Reglement makes no mention of the
religious-legal system, but laid the foundation for the
organisation of the judicial system on a communal
basis. At the end of Ottoman rule, the Sharica courts
had jurisdiction in matters of personal status, succes¬
sion and wakf of Muslims and some matters of Chris¬
tians, such as succession, if one of the heirs requested
it.

MAHKAMA

Upon the severance of Lebanon from the Ottoman
Empire, the status of the Muslims was assimilated to
that of the other communities. The French ad¬
ministration made the Mufti of Beirut a “Grand Muf¬
ti” ( al-mufti al-akbar) heading the Sunni Muslim
community and representing it before the authorities,
similar in status to the spiritual heads of the Christian
communities. In 1955, he became the “Mufti of the
Republic”. Beside him functions the “Supreme
Shar c i Council” ( al-madjlis al-shar c i al-aHa), designed
to assist him in running the religious affairs of the
community and administering the wakfs. It consists of
six kadis and the President of the Supreme Sharica
Court.

The Lebanese Shi c Is, unlike their brethren in
Syria, were recognised as a religious community en¬
titled to their own judicial autonomy. The powers of
the Sunni and Dja c farl ShI c I Shari c a courts were
defined by Law no. 241 of 1942 (amended in 1946)
and by the Law Concerning the Organisation of Sun¬
ni and Dja c farl Shar : i Jurisdiction of 1962, which
superseded the former. They comprised personal
status, succession and wills and matters such as legal
majority ( bulugh , rushd ), interdiction (hadjr), missing
persons (mafkud), control of moneys of orphans, wakf
dhurri and mustathnd. Wakf madbut and wakf mulhak of
Sunnis are within the jurisdiction of their wakf ad¬
ministrative council, while those of Dja c faris are
within that of the Dja c fari courts.

The Ottoman Family Rights Law of 1917 is still in
force in Lebanon. In the absence of an express provi¬
sion in this law as to a particular matter, the Sunni
Sharica court must follow the dominant opinion of the
Hanafi school. The court also uses the codification of
the laws of personal status of the Egyptian, KadrI
Pasha (see Section i above). In matters of interdiction
and legal incompetence and of management of
moneys of minors, the Shari c a court applies the
Medj_elle as amended by Lebanese legislation, which
sometimes deviates from the Hanafi doctrine.

The Dja c farl court applies the laws of the Dja c farl
doctrine and the provisions of the Ottoman Family
Rights Law compatible with it. Where the parties do
not belong to the same school (Sunni or Dja c farl), the
doctrine is determined by the court in accordance with
the matter under consideration. In matters of succes¬
sion and wills, e.g., the courts follow the school of the
deceased. For reasons of convenience, a certain
mobility exists among Shi c Is and Sunnis in matters of
personal status and succession. The Hanafi doctrine
applies to many matters of non-Muslims, such as suc¬
cession (until 1959), wakf, interdiction and legal in¬
competence. The laws of 1942 and 1946 laid down
also rules of court deviating in some respects from the
Ottoman ones; there are certain differences in pro¬
cedure between Sunni and Dja c farl courts.

There are two separate systems of courts, a Sunni
one and a Dja c farl one. Each consists of courts of first
instance, manned by a single kadi , in major centres
and a supreme court, manned by three kadis, in
Beirut, which acts as a court of cassation ( mahkamat al-
tamyiz ) in some matters and as a court of appeal
(mahkama istPnafiyya ) in others. The judgments of both
courts are enforced by the execution offices of the
state. The state appoints and dismisses the kadis and
pays their salaries.

The wide autonomy of the courts of the Christian
communities ( mahdkim ruhiyya ) is another carry-over
from the special status of the Province of Mount
Lebanon in the second half of the 19th century. Arti¬
cle 156 of the Ottoman Family Rights Law of 1917
abrogated the judicial powers of the spiritual heads of

the Christian communities in matters of personal
status, but the French administration ignored that ar¬
ticle; in fact, it was repealed by order of the governor
of December 1921 and the Christian courts remained
in existence. The powers of the courts of ten Christian
communities (and of the Jewish community) were
defined by laws of 1930 and 1951. These powers are
wider than those courts had in the past but still nar¬
rower than those of the Sharica courts. The widening
of the powers of the Christian courts met with strong
public opposition for national reasons (subjection to
foreign law) and legal-professional ones. The laws of
wills and succession of non-Muslims, of 1929 and

1959, respectively, freed the Christian communities
from the sway of Islamic law.

The Druzes of the Province of Mount Lebanon
were not recognised as a religious community under
Ottoman rule. At the same time, there is evidence
that they enjoyed a certain autonomy, by ad¬
ministrative arrangement, in matters of marriage,
divorce and wills in which Druze religious law takes
a special position; the Spiritual Head of the Druze
community dealt with these matters “in accordance
with ancient custom”. That autonomy was abolished
by order of the Shaykh al-lsldm during World War I,
together with the judicial autonomy of the Province of
Mount Lebanon, and Druze matters of personal
status were assigned to the Sunni Sharica courts; but
the order was not implemented, and the autonomy re¬
mained in force.

In 1930, the Druze courts were granted jurisdiction
in matters of personal status of the members of the
community, similar to that exercised by the Sunni and
Dja c fan Shari c a courts. In 1936, the Mandate
authorities formally recognised the Druzes as a
religious community. The powers of the courts were
re-defined by a law enacted in 1948 and especially by
the Druze Administration of Justice Law, no. 3473 of

1960. The courts are competent to hear all matters to
which Druze religious law, Druze custom and the
Law of the Personal Status of the Druze Community
apply.

Until 1948, the Druze courts applied non-codified
religious law, Druze custom and the Hanafi doctrine
as far as what was not inconsistent with Druze tradi¬
tion and custom. The Law of the Personal Status of
the Druze Community in Lebanon, of 1948—the
most impressive modern family law at the time—is a
synthesis of many sources of law, religious and
secular, local and foreign, but its most important
source of inspiration is ancient Druze religious law. In
the absence of an express provision in the 1948 law as
to a particular matter, the Hanafi doctrine is to be
followed.

Order no. 3294 of 1938 requires Druze courts to
apply the rules of procedure applicable in Sunni and
Dja c farl courts. The Druze Administration of Justice
Law of 1960 provides that, in the absence of an ex¬
press provision in that law as to a particular matter,
the Druze courts shall apply the rules of procedure ap¬
plicable in Muslim Sharica courts, and that in the
absence of an express provision also in the latter, they
shall apply the general principles of civil procedure as
far as they are not repugnant to Druze religious law
and Druze tradition.

Before the establishment of statutory Druze courts,
the two shaykh al- c akls served as an appellate authority
acting, in a traditional manner, in accordance with
customary law. The statutory status of the shaykh
al- c akls as spiritual heads of the Druze community was
regulated in 1962. In 1947, it was prescribed that the
court of appeal, known as the Supreme Council (al-

MAHKAMA

♦

hay*a al- c ulya), should consist of the two shaykh al- c akls
and a Druze civil judge. If it was not possible to man
the Council, the Minister of Justice might appoint one
or several judges of the court of first instance (other
than those whose judgment was appealed against) to
complete the bench. In 1958, it was ordained that if
it was not possible to appoint a second shaykh al- c akl,
the Minister of Justice should appoint a second Druze
civil judge and that judgments relating to minors or
legally incompetent persons, the Public Treasury (bayl
al-mai), wakf, and dissolution of a marriage on the
ground of absence of the husband, might only be ex¬
ecuted after confirmation by the appellate authority.

The Druze Administration of Justice Law of 1960
(amended in 1967) establishes a two-grade judicial
system integrated in the general Lebanese legal
system: courts of first instance, manned by a single
kdfi madhhab, in Beirut, c Aliya, B c aklln, Rashayya
and Hasbayya and a court of appeal (Supreme
Court), manned by a presiding judge and two
assessors, in Beirut. The court of appeal performs the
functions of a disciplinary committee for kadis of the
first instance. The status of the Druze kadis is the same
as that of the Muslim shar c i kadis, with certain
modifications. In the absence of an express provision
in that law as to a particular matter, the provisions of
the Sunni and Dja c farl Sharica Justice Law are to be
followed.

Bibliography'. Bashir al-Basilanl, Kawanin al-
ahwdl al-shakhsiyya ji Lubndn, [Cairo] 1971;
MahmasanI, al-Awdd c al-tashriHyya, 246-73; P.
Gannage, La competence des juridictions confessionnelles
au Liban et en Syrie, in Annates de /’Ecole Franfaise de
Droit de Beyrouth, iv/1-2 (1948), 199-247; E. Tyan,
Notes sommaires sur le nouveau regime successoral au
Liban, Paris 1960; R. Catala and A. Gervais (eds.),
Le droit libanais, i-ii, Paris 1963. On Druze justice,
see Halim TakI ’1-Din, Ifadd 5 al -muwahhidin al-
duruzJi mdjih wa-hadirih, c Aliya 1979; Amin Tali c ,
Mashyakhat al- c akl wa ’ l-kadd 5 al-madhhabi al-durzi
c abr al-taMkh, Jerusalem 1979; Faysal Nadjib
Kays, Masmu c at idjtihadat al-mahakim al-madhhabiyya
al-durziyya 1968-1972, Beirut 1972; J. N. D. Ander¬
son, The personal law of the Druze community, in WI,
N.S. ii (1952), 1-9, 83-94. (A. Lavish)

iv. c Irak

In the final period of Ottoman rule, a dual, shar c i
and civil, judicial system, integrated in the Ottoman
legal system, was functioning in c Irak. The Sharica
courts had jurisdiction in matters of personal status,
succession and wakf. Such courts, each consisting of a
single Sunni kadi, sat in towns. A judgment of the
Sharing court was appealable to the Shaykh al-Isldm in
Istanbul.

Dja c farl (Ithna c Ashari) ShI c I law was never of¬
ficially recognised in the Ottoman Empire. Though
theoretically amenable to the SharTa courts, the Shi c Is
of c Irak, who form over half of its population, did not
in fact resort to them but settled their personal status
matters, on a voluntary basis, before their
mudftahidun, who had no statutory status.

Pari passu with the advance of the British forces in
c Irak in World War I, the Anglo-Indian legal system
superseded the Turkish. During a short transitional
period, the Shari c a courts were bereft of their status.
Kadis were elected ad hoc by the parties. They dealt
with matters of personal status and succession, and
their judgments were subject to confirmation by a
British court. The ShI c Is continued to resort to the
mudjtahidun, whose judgments were now, for the first
time, recognised by the official authorities.

In July 1916, after the capture of Baghdad by the
British, the Sharing courts were reconstituted in
Baghdad and other cities. Early in 1918, the shar c i
judicial system was reorganised with a view to adap¬
ting it to the new political situation. Personal jurisdic¬
tion was limited to Sunnis, and matters of personal
status of ShI c Is, Christians and Jews were assigned to
civil courts of first instance, which followed the per¬
sonal status law of the parties or any custom ap¬
plicable to them, provided it was not contrary to
justice, equity or good conscience. These courts were
authorised to refer such matters to the Shf-1 mudjtahid
or to the Christian or Jewish religious authority, as
the case might be. The judgments of these were sub¬
ject to confirmation by the civil court. In 1921,
Dja c farl courts were set up in Baghdad that were
authorised to hear matters of personal status. Their
judgments, too, were subject to confirmation by a
civil court. Appeals against judgments of the Sunni
courts were heard before the Sharica Council of Cassa¬
tion (madflis al-tamyiz al-shar^i) under the Sharica
Courts Regulations of 1918.

After independence, the judicial system was
reorganised. In 1923, a dual system of Sharing courts,
Sunni and Dja c fari, with equal status, was set up.
Their jurisdiction comprises personal status in a wide
sense, succession and wills, wakf, orphans’ moneys,
etc. A Basic Law of 1925 confirmed the dual system
of courts. It provided that separate courts for the two
schools should be set up in Baghdad and Basra, but
only one court in other places, where the school of the
ka(li was to be the same as that of the majority of the
inhabitants. The Establishment of Courts Law of
1945 provided that the Sharica courts should be set up
in localities where there were civil courts and that in
the absence of a kadi, his place should be taken by a
judge of the civil system.

Until 1963, appeals against judgments of Shari c a
courts were heard before the Shari c a Council of Cassa¬
tion, which had separate departments for Sunnis and
Dja c farls. It could only confirm or set aside the judg¬
ment or direct the court to re-hear the case. The
Minister of Justice had power to amend the decisions
of the Council. In 1963, the Council was abolished,
and appeals were henceforth heard before the State
Court of Cassation (mahkamat tamyiz al- c Irak), which
combined the functions of the Sunni and Dja c farl
Departments in the Personal Status Committee (hay : at
al-mawadd aLshakhsiyya).

In the Ottoman era, the Sharica courts followed the
non-codified official Hanafi doctrine. The two Ot¬
toman iradas of 1915 relating to personal status, and
the Medjelle, the land law, with certain modifications,
applied in c Irak, but not the Ottoman Family Rights
Law of 1917. The Hanafi doctrine applied also to
matters of succession of Christians and Jews until
special laws were enacted for them by the Civil Courts
Regulations of 1918.

After World War I, the Hanafi kadi, if the parties
belonged to another Sunni school and demanded that
the Hanafi doctrine be not applied, might either deal
with the matter himself according to the school of the
parties or refer it to an c alim of that school. If the par¬
ties belonged to different schools, the court, under the
Shari c a Courts Law of 1923, had to follow the school
of the deceased in matters of wills and intestate succes¬
sion, the school of the husband in matters of marriage,
divorce, dower, guardianship and the like, the school
of the founder in matters of wakf and the school of the
defendant in matters of maintenance of relatives. In
Dja c farl courts, the Dja c farl doctrine was applied. If,
in a place where there were no separate courts for the

MAHKAMA

two schools, a Sunni kadi dealt with matters of Shl < Is,
he had to rely on a fatwa of a ShI c I c alim, and vice
versa.

After several abortive attempts (in the nineteen-
forties) to codify the c Iraki law of personal status and
succession, a Personal Status Law, applying equally
to all c IrakI Muslims, both Sunni and ShI c I. was pro¬
mulgated in 1959 following c Abd al-Karlm Kasim’s
coup d'etat the year before. A succession law was taken
over from a European source. Other important
reforms concerned marriage and divorce. The 1959
law presents a blend of Sunni and Shi* I principles in
some sections, while other sections preserve separate
norms for the two branches of Islam. In 1963, after
c Abd al-Salam c Arif’s coup, under pressure from the
: ulama a retreat occurred from reforms which did
not seem compatible with the Shari^a. The foreign suc¬
cession law was repealed, and in its stead the system
of succession of the Twelver Shl c a was made ap¬
plicable to all c IrakI Muslims. In 1978, further impor¬
tant amendments were made in the Personal Status
Law of 1959 in matters of marriage, divorce, custody
of children and succession. In 1922, the Ottoman
Shar^i Procedure Law was adopted which, with
amendments of the years 1922, 1929 and 1931, is still
in force.

The courts of the non-Muslim communities (Chris¬
tians and Jews) were vested, by the constitution, with
jurisdiction in matters of marriage, divorce, alimony
and probate. The other matters of personal status and
succession are within the jurisdiction of the civil
courts.

In the Ottoman era, tribal courts ( mahakim
al-^asha^ir) applying customary law operated among
the Bedouin. These courts were reorganised by the
British in 1916 on a pattern borrowed from Indian
legislation. A “political officer” appointed special
tribal councils ( madjalis ) authorised to hear civil and
criminal cases if at least one of the parties was a
Bedouin. The relevant law was replaced by the Tribal
Actions Regulation ( ni?am da c awi ’ l- c asha 5 ir ) of 1918,
which was amended several times (in 1924, 1933 and
1951). Some of the tribal customs were abrogated by
statutory legislation. The judgments of the tribal
courts were made subject to scrutiny by the mutasarrif
The tribal courts were abolished in 1958, after the coup
d'etat, with a view to integrating the Bedouin into the
general legal system, which included also the Sharia
courts.

Bibliography : MahmasanI, al-Awda 3 al-

tashnHyya, 321-40; N. el-Naqeb, Problems of
matrimonial law in contemporary Iraq, Master of Laws
thesis, Unij/ersity of London 1967; Muhammad
ShafTk al- c AnI, Kitab al-Murdfa c at wa ’ l-sukuk fi 7-
kada' > al-shar c i, Ba gh dad 1950; idem, Ahkdm al-
ahwal al-shakhsiyya fi ’ l- c Irak , [Cairo] 1970; Y. Li-
nant de Bellefonds, Le code du statut personnel irakien
du 30 decembre 1959 , in SI, xiii (1960), 79-135; J. N.
D. Anderson, A law of personal status for Iraq , in Inter¬
national and Comparative Law Quarterly , ix (1960),
542-63; idem, Changes in the law of personal status in
Iraq, in ICLQj xii (1963), 1026-31; Ta c dil kanun al-
ahwdl al-shakhsiyya li-sanat 1959, Law no. 21 of 11
February 1978 (Amendment no. 2 to the Law of
Personal Status, no. 188 of 1959), al-Thawra, 14
February 1978; Mustafa Muhammad Hasanayn,
Nizam al-mas^uliyya Hnd al-*~ashd 5r al-Hrakiyya
al- c arabiyya al-mu : asira, Cairo 1967. (A. Layish)

v. Palestine and Israel

Upon the severance of Palestine from the Ottoman
Empire in World War I, the country ceased to be a
part of a sovereign Muslim state. The status of the

Muslims was assimilated in practice, though not in
theory, to that of the recognised communities of the
Ottoman era. In the absence of a representative
Muslim body, the Mandate authorities, by order of
December 1921, set up the Supreme Muslim Council
( al-madjlis al-islami al-aHa) and appointed the Mufti of
Jerusalem its chairman. This body was designed to fill
the vacuum which, in the absence of a Muslim
sovereign, had been created in all matters relating to
the Muslim religious establishment.

Article 52 of the Palestine Order in Council, 1922,
which is the principal enactment determining the
powers of the Shari ^a courts to this day, granted them
sole jurisdiction in all matters of personal status, suc¬
cession and wakf, as they had had at the end of the Ot¬
toman era, with some modifications arising out of the
new political situation: their jurisdiction was limited
to matters relating to the establishment and internal
administration of wakfs of the mulhak category, i.e.
those administered by private mutawallis. The order of
1921 gave the Muslim Council control of the wakfs of
the madbut category, i.e. those administered by a
ma^mur al-awkaf in the Ottoman era. In 1937, these
powers of the Council passed to a government com¬
mission appointed under the Defence Regulations
(Muslim Wakf).

The personal jurisdiction of the Shari c a courts was
limited to Muslim litigants. The residuary jurisdiction
they had had in respect of non-Muslims in the Ot¬
toman era was transferred to civil courts, and their
jurisdiction in matters relating to the establishment or
validity of wakfs of non-Muslims established before
Shari c a courts up to 1922 was changed from exclusive
to concurrent.

The material law applying to matters of personal
status in Shari c a courts was mainly the Ottoman Fami¬
ly Rights Law of 1917, and the Ottoman Succession
Law of 1913 was made applicable to property of the
miri category. The kadis frequently relied on KadrI
Pasha’s codification of the laws of personal status and
wakf (see section 4. i above), although it had no
statutory status in Palestine. The doctrine dominant
in the courts was the HanafT—this, too, a legacy of
Ottoman rule— although most of the population
belongs to the Shafi c I school. The Mandatory
legislator carefully maintained the status quo as to the
material law of Muslims. The courts were regulated
by the Muslim Courts Procedure Law of 1333 (1917),
which is still in force with certain modifications. In the
years 1918 and 1919, regulations were enacted con¬
cerning the composition and powers of the Sharica
Court of Appeal, its procedure and the execution of its
judgments.

The Supreme Muslim Council was empowered to
appoint, with the approval of the government, and to
dismiss shar c i kadis. Fifteen courts, each consisting of
a single kadi, sat in the major towns and there was a
three-man court of appeal in Jerusalem. The muftis ,
too, were appointed by the Muslim Council. The
senior status of the Mufti of Jerusalem (the “Grand
Mufti” of the “Mufti of Palestine”) resulted from the
special status Jerusalem had had under the Ottoman
administration and from the personal union between
his offices and that of President of the Supreme
Muslim Council. There was also a ShafFl mufti in
Jerusalem.

Advocates with a shar c i training were authorised to
appear before the Sharica courts. Also attached to the
judicial system were marriage solemnisers (ma^dhun)
and “managers of orphans’ money”. The govern¬
ment paid the salaries of the kadis and of the court of¬
ficials.

A system of tribal courts (mahakim al^asha^ir)

MAHKAMA

operated among the Bedouin. In the years 1919 to
1922, the government maintained a “Blood Council”
(madjlis al-dumum ) which tried homicide cases, and in
1922 permanent tribal courts with specified powers
were appointed; each court consisted of three
representatives of the clans of the major Negev tribes,
with the District Officer of Beersheba as chairman. In
1928, these courts were given power to hear criminal
cases and impose light prison sentences and fines.
From 1933 there was also a tribal court of appeal; it
consisted of two members, with the District Officer as
chairman.

The Government of Israel has reconstituted the
Sharing courts with the same powers as they had under
the Mandate, except for a few modifications: the Age
of Marriage Law, 1950, vests exclusive power to per¬
mit the marriage of a girl under seventeen in the
District Court, and the Succession Law, 1965,
reduces the jurisdiction of the Shari^a courts—like that
of the other religious courts—from exclusive to con¬
current in matters of succession and wills, but not in
matters of personal status, in which it is still exclusive.
The revocation of the Supreme Muslim Council
Order of 1921 by the Katfis Law, 1961, implicitly
revoked the Defence (Muslim Wakf) Regulations, and
it seems that the powers of the §hari c a courts are
thereby restored to their original extent, so as to in¬
clude wakfs of the madbut category.

The Knesset intervened in many matrimonial mat¬
ters with a view to equalising the legal status of
women with that of men. Nevertheless, it abstained
from impinging on any religious-legal prohibition or
permission relating to marriage or divorce and
resorted to procedural provisions and penal sanctions
rather than substantive provisions as means of deter¬
rence, and in matters for which substantive provisions
were enacted, the parties were usually left an option
to litigate in accordance with their religious law. It is
only in matters of succession that there is—since
1965—a clear separation between religious justice, in
which religious law applies, and civil justice, in which
secular law is followed.

The shar c i judicial system is integrated in the
general legal system. The Shari^a Courts (Validation
of Appointments) Law, 1953, validated the appoint¬
ment of courts of first instance and of a court of ap¬
peal, made by administrative action immediately after
the establishment of the state. The Kadis Law, 1961,
regulates the appointment and tenure of the kadi s.
They are appointed by the President of the State upon
the recommendation of an appointments committee,
most of the members of which are Muslims. Their
salaries are paid by the Government. Shari^a courts of
first instance, consisting of a single kadi, exist in
Nazareth, Acre (with an extension in Haifa), Jaffa
(with jurisdiction—since 1967—including also East
Jerusalem (see Section 4. vi below)) and the village of
Tayyia in the “Little Triangle”.

The tribal courts have been abolished in Israel
(though not their juridical basis), and the Bedouin are
now amenable to the &'hari c a courts in matters of per¬
sonal status and succession. The Negev Bedouin were
under the jurisdiction of the Shari^a Court of Jaffa till
1976. In that year, a separate court of first instance
was established for them in Beersheba.

A court of appeal of two or three kadis exists in
Jerusalem. Until 1975, this court consisted of the kadis
of the courts of first instance, except the kadi whose
judgment was appealed against. In that year, it was
administratively ordained that the court of appeal
should consist of permanent members not serving in
courts of first instance.

In Palestine, the Druzes were not recognised as a
religious community. In the Ottoman era, the §&ari c a
court had residuary jurisdiction over them. They in
fact resorted to it, especially in matters of succession.
At the same time, they enjoyed a certain autonomy,
within the framework of their religious and customary
law, in matters of personal status and wills. The Man¬
datory authorities refused to recognise them as a
religious community, in the interest of maintaining
the status quo in matters of religion. They continued to
recognise a certain Druze autonomy with regard to
the performance of marriages, while residuary
jurisdiction was transferred from the courts to

the civil courts, though in fact the Druzes continued
to resort to the Shari c a courts.

In Israel, the Druzes were recognised as a religious
community in 1957. Pending the establishment of
their own religious courts in 1963, they continued to
resort to Shari c a courts, although this practice has no
foundation in law. But in matters in which the Druze
religious-legal norm is utterly different from the
Islamic, such as polygamy, divorce and wills, the
Druzes turned to religious functionaries who acted by
voluntary agreement of the parties; their decisions
had not the effect of judgments enforceable in execu¬
tion proceedings but of arbitral awards anchored in
their personal authority and supported by religious
and social sanctions. The arbitrators decided in accor¬
dance with custom and tradition ( c ddal wa-takalid)\
there were no strict rules of procedure.

The institutionalisation of arbitration and its
transformation into a judicial proceeding began in the
Ottoman era with the appointment of the first “kd$i"
in Palestine in 1909. He acted as an arbitrator, and
his existence did not do away with the residuary
jurisdiction, in respect of the Druzes, of the Shari c a
court in the Ottoman era or of the District Court
under the Mandate. The office of “kadi" -arbitrator
was hereditary in the Tarif family. In 1954, a “Com¬
mittee of Religious-Legal Supervision” ( ladjnat al-
murakaba al-madhhabiyya) was set up to supervise mar¬
riage solemnisers (ma^dhun) appointed under an Or¬
dinance of 1919. In 1959, a “Committee for Druze
Wakf Affairs” ( al-ladjna li-shu^un al-awkdf al-durziyya )
was established. The two committees in fact also dealt
with the settlement of disputes in matters of marriage
and divorce. They did not act as statutory judicial
authorities; their decisions were valid only with the
consent of the parties and could not be enforced in ex¬
ecution proceedings. At the same time, they showed
many characteristics of institutionalised judicial
authorities. The awards of “judgments” of the com¬
mittees were recognised, though with some hesitation
by the various state authorities. The committees were
a kind of unofficial courts of law, and most of their
members later became kadis of the Druze courts.

The Druze Religious Courts Law, 1962, vests the
courts with exclusive jurisdiction in matters of mar¬
riage and divorce of the Druzes in Israel and with con¬
current jurisdiction in all their other matters of
personal status. They also have exclusive jurisdiction
in matters relating to the creation or internal ad¬
ministration of a religious endowment established
before a Druze court or in accordance with Druze
custom, i.e. by will and not before any judicial
authority.

In its original version, the law provides that the
Court of First Instance shall consist of three kd(li
madhhabs and the Court of Appeal of not less than
three. In 1967, it was laid down that if it was not
possible to form such courts the court might consist of
two katfis, and in 1972 it was provided that the Court

MAHKAMA

of First Instance might consist of one kadi . The kofis
are appointed by the President of the State on the
recommendation of an appointments committee, most
of the members of which are Druzes. A transitional
provision prescribes that the first Court of Appeal
shall consist of the members of the “Religious Coun¬
cil’’, i.e. the Spiritual Leadership of the Druze com¬
munity. The Druze courts are integrated in the
general legal system of the State, which enforces their
judgments. Since the establishment of Druze courts,
the Druzes have ceased to resort to the Muslim Sharing
courts.

The Druzes of the Golan Heights formerly settled
most of their matrimonial affairs, without resort to
any judicial authority, by means of religious func¬
tionaries acting as arbitrators, and in so far as they did
go to a court, it was, in the Ottoman era, the Druze
madhhab court in Djabal al-Duruz or in Hasbayya in
Lebanon, and under Syrian rule, the Muslim Sharing
court in Kunaytra. In 1967, after the Six-Day War,
the latter court ceased to function. In 1970, by order
of the military commander of the region, a court of
first instance and a court of appeal were set up with
powers similar to those of the Druze courts in Israel.
From 1972 onwards, the kadis of the Israeli Court of
First Instance and Court of Appeal acted as members
of the corresponding Golan Heights courts by virtue
of the above mentioned order. In 1974, a court of first
instance consisting of local kadis was set up in the
Golan Heights.

Before being recognised as a religious community
in Israel, the Druze had no codified law of personal
status and succession. They dealt with these matters
in accordance with their esoteric law and with custom,
and in so far as they restored to a judicial authority,
it was the Shari c a court, which applied the Ottoman
Family Rights Law or, in the absence of an express
provision in the latter, shar c I law according to the
HanafT school. In 1961, the Spiritual Leadership of
the Druze community in Israel, in its statutory capaci¬
ty as the “Religious Council”, adopted the Personal
Status Law of the Druze Community in Lebanon of
1948 (see Section 4. iii above) with the following
modifications: (a) the HanafT doctrine, which served
as a source of law in matters of intestate succession
and in the absence of an express provision of law in
a particular matter of personal status, was replaced by
custom and “the law accepted by the members of the
Druze community in Israel”; (b) Lebanese legislation
designed to supplement the Druze Personal Status
Law was replaced by Israeli legislation. The
“Religious Council” sanctioned the Druze Courts
Procedure Regulations of 1964, which incorporate
norms of Israeli law.

The law applying to matters of personal status in
the Golan Heights was until the introduction of Israeli
law there on 14 December 1981 the Syrian Personal
Status Law of 1953 (see Section 4. ii above). The
Israeli Succession Law of 1965 was extended to the
Golan Heights by the above-mentioned order of the
military commander of 1970. In practice, the kadis, in
matters of personal status, apply the Lebanese Druze
Personal Status Law, as adopted by the Religious
Council. Since the introduction of Israeli law in the
Golan Heights, this practice has been validated. All
Israeli legislation in matters of personal status express¬
ly referred to religious courts is likewise applicable in
Druze religious courts there.

Under Egyptian military rule in the Gaza Strip,
there were three Shari c a courts of first instance at
Gaza, Khan Yunis and Dayr al-Balah, respectively.
They had jurisdiction in matters of personal status

and wakf within the meaning of the Palestine Order in
Council, 1922. Under Israeli military rule (since
1967), two additional courts have been set up in
Djabaliyya and Rafah. A Sharing court of appeal
operates in Gaza in accordance with the Egyptian
Law of Procedure of Muslim Religious Courts no. 12
of 1965. The Ottoman Family Rights Law of 1917 ap¬
plies in these courts. The salaries of the kadis are paid
by the Military Government.

Bibliography. F. M. Goadby, Inter-religious
private law in Palestine, Jerusalem 1926; E. Vitta, The
conflict of laws in matters of personal status in Palestine,
Tel-Aviv 1947; S. D. Goitein and A. Ben Shemesh,
ha-Mishpat ha-muslemi be-medinat Yisra^el (“Muslim
law in Israel”), Jerusalem 1957; A. Layish, Women
and Islamic law in a non-Muslim state, Jerusalem and
New York 1975, and the bibl. there; idem, The
Muslim waqf in Israel, in Asian and African Studies, ii
(1965), 43-51; idem, Qqdis and shari c a in Israel, in
AAS, vii (1971), 237-72; idem, The family waqf and
the Shari c a law of succession according to waqfiyyat in the
sijills of the Shari^a courts, in G. Baer (ed.), Social and
economic aspects of the Muslim waqf (forthcoming); Y.
Meron, Moslem courts, their jurisdiction in Israel and
neighbouring lands , (forthcoming); R. H. Eisenman,
Islamic law in Palestine and Israel, Leiden 1978; Y.
Meron, The religious courts in the administered territories,
in M. Shamgar (ed.), Military government in the ter¬
ritories administered by Israel 1967-1980, Jerusalem
1982, 354, 361-2; on Druze justice, see A. Layish,
Marriage, divorce and succession in the Druze family,
Leiden 1982, and the bibl. there; idem, The Druze
testamentary waqf, in Baer (ed.), op. cit. On tribal
justice in Palestine see c Arif al- c Arif, Kitab al-Kada 5
bayn al-badw, Jerusalem 1933. (A. Layish)

vi. Jordan

The shar c I legal system in Jordan is based on a medley
of legal traditions. Both banks of the Jordan River
were under Ottoman rule until World War I and
under British Mandate thereafter. Ottoman legal
tradition was preserved to a greater extent in the East
Bank owing to the autonomy enjoyed by the emirate
which eventually became an independent kingdom,
while the influence of English law was felt more
strongly in the West Bank.

After the inclusion of the West Bank in the
Kingdom of Jordan, steps were taken to integrate the
two legal systems, including sharcI jurisdiction, which
in Transjordan was regulated by Shari^a Courts Law,
1931, and to unify the organisation of the religious
establishment. The law which regulated the
reorganisation of the £harl c a courts in the united
Hashemite Kingdom repealed the provisions of Man¬
dated Palestine’s Supreme Muslim Council Order of
1921 relating to the shar c I legal system (see Section 4.
v above). Closely connected therewith was the ap¬
pointment of a staunch supporter of the Amir c Abd
Allah as Mufti of Jerusalem in place of Amin 'al-
Husaynl [q.v. in Suppl.] already in December 1948,
and the transfer of the primacy from the Mufti of
Jerusalem to the Mufti of the Kingdom of Jordan,
whose seat is in c Amman. Since unification, the Jor¬
danian kadi ’ l-kudat takes the place of the President of
the Supreme Muslim Council in the West Bank. He
appoints the kadis and muftis and supervises the wakf
administration and the religious and educational in¬
stitutions supported by it, the c Ulama :> Council
(hay ? a ), the Council for Preaching and Guidance
(madjlis al-wa c z wa y l-irshad) and the Committee for the
Rehabilitation of the al-Ak$a Mosque and the Dome
of the Rock. He has the status of a government

MAHKAMA

♦

minister and is directly subordinate to the Prime
Minister.

The jurisdiction of the Shart c a courts in the West
Bank has been assimilated to that of their counterparts
in the East Bank. The Jordanian constitution of 1952
and other enactments of the early nineteen-fifties vest
the £hari c a courts with jurisdiction in all matters of
personal status and succession as defined in Islamic
law, which definition is wider than that of the
Palestine Order in Council, as well as in matters of
wakf and blood-money (diyd) of Muslims. Their
jurisdiction in matters of personal status is limited to
Muslims. Residuary jurisdiction in matters of per¬
sonal status of non-Muslims has been transferred to a
civil court of first instance, except where the parties
agree to the jurisdiction of the Sharing court. In mat¬
ters of blood-money and of wakfs established before a
Sharica court, the Sharing courts have jurisdiction also
with regard to consenting non-Muslims.

The law applying to matters of personal status on
both banks of the Jordan was until 1951 the Ottoman
Family Rights Law of 1917. In 1951, it was replaced
by a liberal family law. Previously, in 1927, a new
personal status law was adopted in Transjordan, but
it was repealed in 1943 in favour of the traditional
doctrine of family law. A provisional Jordanian family
Rights Law, no. 26, was enacted in 1947, to be
superseded by the law of 1951. The Law of Personal
Status, no. 61 of 1976, replaced the law of 1951. The
new law is more extensive and detailed than the
earlier one and includes important amendments. The
Sharica Courts Establishment Law and the Personal
Status Law of 1951 provide that the courts shall hear
matters within their jurisdiction in accordance with
the most approved opinion of the HanafT school, save
where a provision of law to the contrary exists. A
similar provision exists also in the laws of personal
status of 1951 and 1976. An overwhelming majority of
the Kingdom’s population belongs to the Shafi c I
school. The Sharica courts on both banks of the Jordan
apply the Shar c i Procedure Law, no. 31 of 1959, which
replaced the Procedure Law no. 10 of 1952.

The Sharica Courts Establishment Law of 1951
established a unitary judicial system on both banks.
Twenty-four courts of first instance, each consisting of
a kdfi sitting alone, were set up at district and sub¬
district centres, eight thereof in the West Bank. The
Court of Appeal consists of a president and two
members. It passes decisions by a majority of votes
and its judgments are final. The law enables the
establishment of an additional court of appeal, and in
fact two courts of appeal, one in c Amman for the East
Bank and one in Jerusalem for the West Bank, were
at first set up; however, after a short time, in August
1951, it was decided that there should be only one
Sharica court of appeal, which was to have its perma¬
nent seat in c Amman but might be convened in
Jerusalem when necessary. The Shar c i Law Council,
headed by the Director of the Shari c a Office, is respon¬
sible for the appointment and dismissal of kadis. Its
decisions require the approval of the king.

The powers of the courts of the Christian com¬
munities in Jordan have been greatly widened com¬
pared with the Ottoman period and assimilated to
those of the Shari c a courts. According to the Religious
Councils Law, no. 2 of 1938, which was extended to
the West Bank in 1958, and the Consitution of 1952,
they have jurisdiction in all matters of personal status
and succession, as well as in matters of the establish¬
ment and internal administration of wakfs founded for
the benefit of the community. They apply the law of
the community except in matters of succession and
wills, which are governed by Islamic law.

The Bedouin in Jordan are not amenable to shar c i
jurisdiction. They have tribal courts {mahaktm
al- c ashd>ir) regulated by a law of 1966, which replaced
a law of 1924. Every mutasarrif is responsible for the
activities of the court in his district, and the army
commander is responsible for the court in the Desert
District. A law of 1949 provides that these courts shall
have jurisdiction in all disputes of Bedouin, except
matters of ownership and possession of immovable
property and written partnership agreements concer¬
ning thoroughbred horses. The mutasarrif enforces the
judgments, but the penalty for offences must not ex¬
ceed one year’s imprisonment and a fine of a specific
amount. The mutasarrif or the army commander, as
the case may be, may transfer cases from the tribal
court to a civil court.

A judgment of a tribal court is appealable to a tribal
court of appeal. This court may consult experts in
tribal law. It may increase or reduce the penalty or
return the matter to the court of first instance for a re¬
hearing. The tribal courts apply customary law.
However, state law forbids certain customs, such as
giving girls as diya. Procedure in tribal courts is also
customary.

As a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, the West
Bank was separated from the Kingdom of Jordan, but
Jordanian law still applies there, except in East
Jerusalem, where Israeli law has been introduced.
This situation affects the functioning of the religious
establishment. The Sharica courts of first instance
have been left without their court of appeal, the per¬
manent seat of which, as stated, is in c Amman.

On 24 July 1967, Muslim political leaders and
religious functionaries in East Jerusalem set up a
“Muslim Council’’ ( al-hay^a al-isldmiyya ), which
assumed authority for the conduct of Muslim affairs
in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The sole pur¬
pose of this body, which has no statutory status in
either Jordanian or Israeli law, is to fill the place of the
absent Muslim sovereign. The Council appointed its
president to be kadi ’l-kudat of the West Bank with
powers as defined by Jordanian law.

The Israeli Sharica Court of Jaffa, the area of
jurisdiction of which has been extended to include
East Jerusalem (see Section 4. v above), is not
recognised by most East Jerusalem Muslims, while
the local Shari c a court, which is subject to the Muslim
Council, is not recognised by the Israeli authorities.
East Jerusalem Muslims do not resort to the Israeli
court unless they are interested in the execution of a
judgment or in the performance of some act in a
government office on the strength of a certificate from
the court. In the West Bank, the Israeli Military
Government has inherited the powers of the Jorda¬
nian Government in its various spheres of activity and
is consequently charged with the operation of the
courts, the appointment and dismissal of the kadis and
the payment of their salaries, and the collection of
court fees. In fact, however, it is the Jerusalem kafi 7-
kufdt who appoints the kadis and the Jordanian
Government which pays their salaries. The Military
Government recognises their appointments ex post facto
and the executive offices subject to it enforce their
judgments. As the Sharica Court of Appeal of the West
Bank is in Jerusalem, its judgments are not valid in
the West Bank, but in day-to-day reality they are en¬
forced there. The Shari c a courts of the West Bank and
of East Jerusalem apply the Jordanian law of personal
status and rules of procedure.

Along with their judicial tasks, several East
Jerusalem kadis carry out various other functions—
exegetic (the Mufti of Jerusalem), administrative and
public—connected with the religious establishment.

MAHKAMA

The Muslim Council has conferred on the Sharica
Court of Appeal the powers of the Council of En¬
dowments and Islamic Affairs, the General Ad¬
ministration of Endowments and the Committee for
the Rehabilitation of the al-Ak?a Mosque and the
Dome of the Rock, bodies anchored in Jordanian
legislation.

Bibliography : Adfb al-Halasa, Usus al-lashri c
wa ’ l-nizam al-kada^ I ji ’ l-Urdunn , n.p. 1971;
Mahmasani, al-Awfa*- al-tashriHyya, 304-13; J. N.
D. Anderson, Recent developments in Sharing law. viii.
The Jordanian law of family rights 1951 , in MW, xlii
(1952), 190-206; E. T. Mogannam, Developments in
the legal system of Jordan , in MEJ, vi (1952), 194-206;
idem, The practical application of the law in certain Arab
states ; on the shari c a courts in the West Bank and
East Jerusalem, see A. Layish, ha-Mimsad ha-dati
ha-muslemi ha-gadah ha-ma c aravit ba-tekufa ha-yardenit
(“Muslim religious institutions in the West Bank
under Jordanian rule”), in Medain, Mimshal
vi(Y)hasim Beinleumiyim , xi (1977), 97-108; D.
Farhi, ha-Mo c atza ha-muslemit be-mizrah Yerushalayim
uvi- Yehuda ve-Shomron me-az milhemet sheshet ha-yamim
(“The Muslim Council in East Jerusalem and in
Judea and Samaria since the Six-Day War”), in
Hamizrash Hehadash, xxviii (1979), 1-2, 3-21; Y.
Meron, The religious courts in the administered territories ,
353-68. On the position of the Sharica and the
Sharica courts in tribal society, see J. Chelhod, Le
droit dans la societe bedouine, Paris 1971; A. Layish
and A. Shmueli, Custom and shari c a in the Bedouin
family according to legal documents from the Judean Desert ,
in BSOAS, xlii (1979), 1, 29-45; A. Layish, The
islamization of the Bedouin family in the Judean Desert, as
reflected in the sijills of the shari c a court, in E. Marx and
A. Shmueli (eds.), The changing nomad: Bedouin in
and around Israel, New Brunswick, N.J. 1983.

(A. Layish)

vii. Saudi Arabia

The Arabian Peninsula was under the nominal
sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, but the 19th cen¬
tury legal reforms of the Empire were not applied
there except in the major urban centres of the Hidyaz,
and even there with only limited success. At the time
of his conquest of the Hidjaz in the early 20th century,
c Abd al- c Aziz Ibn Sa c ud found there a legal system
progressive by the standards of other regions of the
peninsula. In the small towns of Nadjd, disputes were
settled by the local amir or a kadi appointed by him.
Among the Bedouin, customary law, applied by ar¬
bitrators, reigned absolute.

The “constitution” of the Hidjaz of 1926 makes no
express reference to the judicial system, but says that
the King is limited by the Shari c a and that the legisla¬
tion of the kingdom shall be based on the Kur 3 an, the
Sunna of the Prophet and the idjmd c of his Compa¬
nions. A fatwd of the c ulama :> , of 1927, demanded inter
alia that c Abd al- c Aziz forthwith repeal the Ottoman
laws in force in the Hidjaz and restore the position of
the Shari c a.

A royal decree of 1927 established three grades of
courts in the Hidjaz:

(1) Expeditious Courts (mahkama musta < -djila), com¬
petent to try misdemeanours ( dhunah ) punishable by a
fine not exceeding a specific amount, offences the
penalty for which was left to the discretion of the kadi
(ta c zirat) and felonies (d£inayat ) entailing Kur 3 anic
punishments ( hudud ), except mutilation (/cat 0 ) or
death; they consist of a single kadi. Such courts were
set up in Mecca and Medina and later in Riyad and
other major cities. Mecca had a further Expeditious

Court, hearing claims by Bedouin. In small ad¬
ministrative units, and especially among the
numerous tribes of desert Bedouin, the local amir acts
as kadi; he generally applies the Sharing but sometimes
resorts to tribal custom.

(2) Greater Shari c a Courts ( mahkama sharHyya
kubra), competent to deal with serious criminal
(djaza^i) matters and civil ( hukuki) claims, except those
under the jurisdiction of the Expeditious Courts, and
with matters of personal status, probate and land.
One such court exists in Mecca and one in Medina.
The one in Mecca consists of three katfis. Ordinary
cases are heard by a single kadi, but the judgment is
given by the full court. Cases in which the punishment
may be death or mutilation are heard by the full
court. The court in Medina consists of a single kadi
(with a nd ^ib) and so does the one in Djidda, but after
the recent abolition of the Expeditious Court in Djid¬
da the Greater Shari c a Court there hears all cases, ex¬
cept those under the jurisdiction of al-madflis al-tidfdri
(see below). In all the other towns of the Hidjaz and
Nadjd, the court, consisting of a single kafi, hears all
cases.

The penalties of death and mutilation in all the
towns of the Hidjaz, all Kur’anic punishments, and
discretionary punishments in Mecca, require confir¬
mation by ra^is al-kada 3 and hay ^at al-tamyiz (see below)
before being carried out. In Medina and other
localities where the court consists of several members,
a penalty for a misdemeanour, a discretionary punish¬
ment and a Kur 3 anic punishment other than death re¬
quire confirmation by the Grand Kadi of the town
before being carried out. In towns where the court
consists of a single kadi, judgments are only carried
out if confirmed by the most senior administrative of¬
ficial in the town in question.

An opportunity is provided—this is an innovation
which has no basis in the classical texts—to appeal
from the judgment of a Sharica court to a Greater
Shari c a Court, which, as stated, is competent to try
felonies as a court of first instance. In 1954, it was or¬
dained that every judgment of a kadi should be carried
out forthwith, except judgments against which a com¬
plaint has been lodged on the ground of injustice and
judgments imposing the death penalty, mutilation or
confiscation ( musadara ); the latter ones require confir¬
mation by the supreme authorities, even if they are
not appealed against.

By the side of every Greater Sharica Court, there
acts an official of the Public Treasury (ma?mur bayt al-
mdl ), whose task is the distribution of inheritances and
the protection of the interest of minors.

(3) The Commission on Judicial Supervision
( hay 3 at al-murakaba al-kada 5 iyya ), the seat of which is in
Mecca. It comprises a Board of Judicial Review
(hay^at al-tadkikat) consisting of four members and
headed by a ra 3 Is al-kada 3 . This body acts as a court
of cassation ( mahkamat al-tamyiz). It examines
judgments and confirms them or returns them to the
lower court for a re-hearing in order to clarify a point
or to rectify a procedural error. It may reverse
judgments incompatible with the Kur’an and the Sun¬
na and direct the lower court to retry the case. If the
kadi abides by his original decision, the case must be
referred to another kadi. The Board also examines
sentences of mutilation, death and confiscation. The
Commission on Judicial Supervision gives legal opi¬
nions on matters not within the competence of the
Sharing courts.

The ra^is al-kada 3 performs the functions of Presi¬
dent of the Supreme Court and Minister of Justice.
He also supervises the Public Treasury ( bayt al-mat).

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

MAHKAMA

the mechanism of religious-legal opinions (iftd *) and
disciplinary proceedings against kadis, and handles
complaints about the functioning of any part of the
shar c i system. Moreover, he supervises all the Public
Morality Committees (hay^at al-amr bi y l-ma c ruj wa 7-
nahy c an al-munkar) in the Hidjaz and Na^jd, the
religious functionaries, education and shar c i institu¬
tions, including the Islamic University of Medina,
and religious instruction at state educational in¬
stitutions.

This sharci judicial system remained in existence
until the mid-seventies. Minor amendments were
made by orders of the years 1931, 1936, 1938 and
1952. The name of the Commission on Judicial
Supervision was changed in 1938 to Office of the
Chief Justice (rPdsat al-kadd*), but its functions re¬
mained the same. In 1967, amendments were in¬
troduced in the organisation of the judiciary and in
the powers of the kadis, and in 1970, a Ministry of
Justice was set up. In 1974, the shar c t judicial system
was thoroughly reorganised. Three grades of courts
were established on the Western pattern: magistrates’
courts ( mahakim djuzHyya), district courts ( mahdkim
c dmma) and a court of cassation ( mahkamat al-tamyiz).
Moreover, a High Judicial Council ( madylis al-kada^
al-a c la) was formed whose functions were to supervise
the kadi. s and to try disciplinary offences. The law en¬
sures the independence of the kadis (they cannot be
removed from office); their appointment and promo¬
tion are effected by the king on the recommendation
of the Judicial Council.

Shar c i law applies to all matters within the com¬
petence of the Sharica courts. In 1927, the kadis were
ordered to decide in accordance with the teachings of
the Hanbali school. Six books of that school, in a
specific order, were recognised as authoritative
sources that must be adhered to. This, in a way, in¬
troduced an element of codification and unification of
the material law into the nation’s judicial system. In
1927, c Abd al- c Aziz Ibn Sa c ud, inspired by Ibn
Taymiyya, suggested the preparation of a code of
Islamic law based not only on the Hanbali doctrine
but also on any other doctrine which, with regard to
the matter in hand, was close to the Kurian and the
Sunna. But he abandoned the idea under pressure
from Hanbali c ulamd>. In the Ottoman era, the Han¬
bali doctrine prevailed only in Nadjd and the Shafril
doctrine in the Hidjaz, except for the courts in the ma¬
jor towns, where the HanafT doctrine enjoyed official
status. An order of 1930 provided that where an ex¬
press provision existed in those authoritative sources
as to a case being heard by a Sharica court consisting
of several kadis, a decision might be given without
convening the members of the court; in the absence of
such a provision, they were to be convened in order
to exercise their collective discretion. The kadis were
permitted to resort to other orthodox doctrines where
the opinion of the Hanbali school was likely to cause
damage and was not compatible with the public in¬
terest ( maslahat al-^umum). An order of 1934 required
the court, in deference to local custom, to decide mat¬
ters relating to contracts of lease of agricultural land
( c ukud al-musakat) or palm plantations ( idydrdt al-nakhil )
in accordance with the doctrine prevailing in the
locality where the action was brought. In matters con¬
taining religious observances ( Hbdddt ), the individual
is free to follow the doctrine of the school to which he
belongs. The Shari c a courts are subject to the shar c i
rules of procedure. Enactments relating to these rules
were made in 1931, 1936 and 1952.

Professional lawyers have recently been authorised
to appear before Sharica courts. In 1928, a Notarial

Office ( kitabat al- c adi) was established for the registra¬
tion of shar c i documents ( sukuk ), powers of attorney,
sales and pledges, but not of wakfs, which are within
the competence of the Sharing courts. There are
notaries in Mecca, Djidda and Medina. In provincial
towns, the functions of the notary are performed by
the kadi. A programmatic statement by Crown Prince
Faysal’s government in 1962 promised the creation of
the post of State Public Prosecutor at the Ministry of
Justice.

From time to time, the King confers quasi-judicial
powers on various bodies with a view to solving pro¬
blems cropping up in the economic, social or ad¬
ministrative sphere. Some of these bodies in fact enjoy
extremely wide powers. They function concurrently
with the shaPi judicial system and are ostensibly
designed to supplement it, but in reality restrict it.

The most important of these bodies is the
Grievances Board (diwdn al-mazdlim), established in
1954, whose seat is in al-Riyad, with an extension in
Djidda. Anyone who believes that an injustice has
been done to him by a decision of a judicial authority
or by an administrative authority may complain to it.
Its functions are to investigate the complaint and to
suggest to the Royal Chancellery and to the govern¬
ment ministry concerned the adoption of measures
against the authority in question; to investigate,
together with other bodies, corruption offences,
disciplinary offences in the army, and offences against
economic boycott regulations (if the recommendations
of the Board are rejected, the matter is to be brought
before the King); to hear appeals against decisions of
the Minister of Commerce in matters relating to
foreign capital investments; to supervise the applica¬
tion of the Sharica by the government in day-to-day
life (the Board includes experts on Shari c a matters and
sometimes refers complaints to the Sharica court)
and—at the special request of the King—to deal with
serious matters relating to Bedouin and matters in
which foreigners are involved; and to execute foreign
judgments.

The chairman of the Board is appointed by the
King and has the status of a government minister;
since 1964, he has been responsible to the King for the
work of the Board (all the decisions of the Board re¬
quire the approval of the King). The Grievances
Board is a permanent institution. Its simple procedure
and the fact that most of its members are lawyers with
a modern background ensure greater flexibility in the
conduct of proceedings than prevails in shar c i justice.

Other administrative-judicial bodies are the Com¬
mission on Cases of Forgery (tazwir), established in
1960, headed by the Minister of Justice and including
representatives of the Grievances Board; the Commis¬
sion on Cases of Bribery, established in 1962 and.
headed by the chairman of the Grievances Board; and
the Commission on the Impeachment of Ministers,
competent to try various offences, ranging from in¬
terference by Ministers in the working of the judicial
system to high treason (punishable with death); it is
an ad hoc body appointed by the Prime Minister and
consists of ministers and senior kadis; death sentences
must be passed unanimously; the judgments of the
Commission are appealable to the King.

Several judicial bodies deal with commercial mat¬
ters: the Central Committee on Cases of Adulteration
(ph ishsh tidjdri), which tries offences connected with
food and drugs; and Chambers of Commerce ( ghurfat
al-tidjdra), established in 1963 and consisting of
representatives of the economic ministries, which they
act as arbitral boards in commercial disputes. The
most important of these bodies was the Commercial

MAHKAMA

Tribunal ( mahkama tidjariyya ), first established in Djid-
da in 1926 for the handling of commercial disputes.
Its composition and powers were laid down by a com¬
mercial regulation in 1931. It consisted of a presiding
judge and seven members, one of them from the shar c f
legal system, who were appointed by the king. Its
decisions might be appealed to the Consultative
Council ( madjlis al-shura). Its rules of procedure were
similar to those of the Shan c a courts. Smaller commer¬
cial tribunals were established in Yanbu c and Dam-
man. Their judgments were appealable to the
Commercial Tribunal in Djidda.

The commercial tribunals in Djidda, Yanbu c and
Damman were abolished and their functions taken
over by the Ministry of Commerce in 1954. They
were restored in 1965, when Commercial Disputes
Arbitration Boards were set up, one in each city, each
Board consisting of three officials of the Ministry of
Commerce and Industry. A Commercial Disputes
Appeals Board was established in 1967, consisting of
three officials of the same ministry, one of them, its
head, the Deputy Minister. These Boards are not
bound by the Sharica, but they can draw upon it as
well as upon Western law and international law and
agreements. The Saudi authorities have recently
directed that agreements of commercial companies
shall contain an express clause forbidding the settle¬
ment of disputes by arbitration contrary to the prin¬
ciples of the Sharing.

A Supreme Board on Labour Disputes was set up
in 1963; it consists of the legal advisers of the Ministry
of Labour and Social Affairs and the Ministry of
Petroleum and Minerals. Disciplinary Councils for
Civil Servants try offenders—by virtue of regulations
of 1958—only after they have been convicted by a
Shan c a court. Disciplinary Councils for Military Per¬
sonnel act as military tribunals by virtue of regula¬
tions of 1947. Their judgments may be set aside or
commuted by the Chief of the General Staff or the
Minister of Defence. Disciplinary Councils for Inter¬
nal Security Personnel try police officers, members of
the coast guard, frontier patrolmen, members of the
fire brigade and criminal investigators. The King
supervises the judicial system by virtue of his being
the supreme kadi and sometimes sits on the bench
himself, advised by c ulama \

Saudi Arabia was not subject to the influence of
foreign systems of law other than the Ottoman, the
impact of which was limited to the Hidjaz. The Sharing
functioned here in a sovereign Muslim state which
had grown out of the Wahhabiyya a puritanical

Muslim renaissance movement which sought to apply
religious law strictly and uncompromisingly in all
spheres of life and in relations with the outside world.
Saudi Arabia is perhaps the most theocratic state in
the Sunni Muslim world. Religion has a monopoly of
the judicial system, education, public morals and the
fiscal system; the c ulama 5 are integrated in the political
establishment; there is no constitution and no
legislative authority; and the Hanball doctrine is en¬
forced upon the entire kingdom.

At the same time, there are significant manifesta¬
tions of a decline of the status of religion and religious
law in the state, although they are minimal compared
with the secularisation processes in other Middle
Eastern Arab countries. Important, though somewhat
vague, elements of a constitution were adopted by
various enactments and declarations under external
pressure; an increasing number of administrative
regulations made by the government and the King
(nizam, mars urn), which have the force of law, are
ostensibly designed to supplement the Shan c a but in

fact impair its substantive validity; important reforms
have been made in commercial law: regulations based
on the Ottoman Commercial Code of 1850, in turn
based on a purely French model, have been enacted
with the omission of all references to interest (that
Code is applied in the tribunals of the chambers of
commerce); banks have begun to operate on the basis
of interest, although it is called commission; marine
and other property insurance is permitted, though
not, for the time being, life insurance; extensive fiscal
legislation (customs duties, income and alms (zakat)
tax, etc.) has been enacted; contracts regulating oil
concessions to foreign companies have been entered
into, although the terminology is shar c I as far as possi¬
ble; social laws and laws regulating labour relations
and transport have been enacted; slavery was abolish¬
ed in 1962 in deference to international public opi¬
nion, although there are indications that reality is still
stronger than the law; shar c i criminal law, including
the harsh KuPanic penalties (decapitation and
mutilation for theft), is still mainly applied, although
a tendency to replace corporal punishment by im¬
prisonment or fines is discernible; new penalties, not
strictly conforming to the provisions of the Sharing,
have been introduced (e.g. the drinking of wine ( shurb
al-khamr ) entails a discretionary punishment (la c ztr),
not a Kur 5 anic one ( hadd)\ blood-money (diya) has
been limited; penalties have been prescribed for
forgery, strikes, causing death or injury in road ac¬
cidents and military offences); there are deviations
from the Shari c a as to the status of non-Muslims (e.g.
their testimony in criminal proceedings has the same
weight as that of Muslims and their oath is accepted;
the same blood-money is exacted for them as for
Muslims).

Bibliography : Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, ii;
idem, Mekka in the latter part of the 19th century : R. B.
Winder, Saudi Arabia in the nineteenth century , London
1965, see index; Soliman A. Solaim, Constitutional
and judicial organization in Saudi Arabia, Ph. D. thesis,
The Johns Hopkins University, Washinton, D.C.
1970; Muhammad Ibrahim Ahmad C A1I, Social
responsibilities of the individual and the state in Sa c udi
Arabian law , Ph. D. thesis, University of London
1971; Abulaziz Mohammad Zaid, Law of bequest in
traditional Islamic law and in contemporary law of Saudi
Arabia , Ph. D. thesis, University of London, 1978;
MahmasanI, al-Awda c al-tashriHyya , 354-75;
Muhammad c Abd al-Djawad Muhammad, al-
Tatawwur al-tashn c i fi ’ l-mamlaka al- c arabiyya al-
sa c udiyya, Alexandria 1977; N. Anderson, Law
reform in the Muslim world , London 1976, see index;
Liebesny, The law of the Near and Middle East , see in¬
dex; S. von Gerd-Rudiger Puin, Der moderne Alltag
im Spiegel hanbalitischer Fetwas aus ar-Riyad , in
ZDMG , Suppl. iii, 1 (1977), 589-97; A. Layish,
c Ulama 5 and politics in Saudi Arabia , in M. Heper and
R. Israeli (eds.), Islam and politics in the modern Mid¬
dle East (forthcoming). (A. Layish)

viii. Yemen and the People’s
Republic of Southern Yemen

Towards the end of their rule in Yemen , the Ot¬
tomans tried to apply their laws there and firmly to
establish there the Shafi c I school, whose main
foothold was in the Tihama region and in the south of
the country. The Imam resisted this attempt suc¬
cessfully. A sultanic firman of 1913 confirmed the
Treaty of Da cc an of 1911, by which the Ottomans
agreed to the demands of the Imam, the most impor¬
tant of them being the reinstatement of the Shan c a as
the only system of law in Yemen. The Imam was

MAHKAMA

♦

authorised to appoint kadis to the courts in regions
populated by Zaydl Shi c is (the $an c a 3 region and the
northern mountainous province). The power of the
Ottoman Walt was confined to the enforcement of
their judgments.

After World War I, when Yemen obtained full in¬
dependence, it became a theocracy. Zaydl Shi* I law,
which is nearest to Sunni law, held unlimited sway in
the imamate. The Imam was the spiritual head, the
head of the executive branch and the Supreme Judge
(al-kdfi al-a c la).

The powers of the £hari c a courts are very wide.
They comprise personal status and criminal law.
Severe Kurianic punishments, such as death and
mutilation, are still applied, though not frequently.
The Imam has directed that Zaydl Shi*! law shall be
applied in the courts. The Shari c a courts system con¬
sists of several grades. The court of first instance is
manned by a single judge (hakim). His judgement is
appealable, with the consent of the local governor
( c amil ), to a higher judge and finally to the High
Court of Appeal (ra *fs al-isti 3 naj ), which has its seat
in $an c a 3 . The Imam is the supreme appellate authori¬
ty, but appeals to him are infrequent. The Imam ap¬
points the judges in all the districts and sub-districts
from among the graduates of al-Madrasa al- c Ilmiyya
in $an c a 3 . The amir al-liwd 3 enforces their judgments,
but the supervision of the shar c t system is the
prerogative of the Imam.

Concurrently with the Shari c a judicial system, a
judicial system of the provincial governor ( c amil )
functions which handles civil matters. Its judgments
are appealable to the prince as ruler of the principality
(liwd *) or, in certain cases, to the Imam. This system
is governed by the Shari c a as far as commercial trans¬
actions and tax matters are concerned.

The Sharica courts operate in the towns. Outside the
towns, among the tribes, an arbitral (mankad) system
exists, and tribal councils adjudicate disputes concern¬
ing water, boundaries and criminal offences in accor¬
dance with tribal custom ( c urf) and tradition ( takdlid ).
Appeals against judgments of tribal courts are heard
by the c amil, whose judgments are in turn appealable
to the provincial amir. Here, too, the Imam is the
supreme appellate authority. The Imam has sought to
eliminate customary justice and to subject the
Bedouin to the Shanca. For this purpose, he has ap¬
pointed persons with a religious training as judges in
the customary judicial system, hoping that they will
gradually substitute the sharica for traditional
customary law, but he has had only partial success.
He has had to recognise c urfi justice officially by the
side of sharci justice.

When Aden was a British protectorate, it had a
dual judicial system, part sharci (with wide powers in
matters of personal status and criminal law) and part
customary. The Imam of Yemen accepted the situation
on condition that the £han c a was applied. Most kadis
were ordered to adhere to the Shaft* I doctrine and
even more to that of Ibn Hadjar. There is evidence of
the application of Kurianic punishments, including
the death penalty. Only minor reforms were introduc¬
ed during that period.

In the period preceding the British conquest of
Aden in 1839, the kail s of Lahdj [g v.] were ap¬
pointed by the Imam of Yemen; their judgments were
only enforced with the consent of the parties. After the
British conquest, a central administration was
established in the sultanate of Lahdj and, inter alia ,
£hari c a courts equipped with wide powers, including
the imposition of sanctions, were set up there by the
sultan. Customary courts functioned side by side with

them; their procedure and rules of evidence differed
only slightly from those of the Shari c a courts. In 1950,
a law establishing an Agricultural Court (al-mafikama
al-zirdHyya) was enacted in the sultanate of Lahdj; this
court applies the provisions of that law as well as
custom and agricultural practice. The purpose of that
law was to exclude agricultural matters from the
jurisdiction of the Sharica courts and the application of
the Shari c a.

Since the achievement in 1967 of the independence
of the People’s Republic of Southern
Yemen, of which the Aden Colony and the Western
and Eastern Protectorates form part, the judicial
system has, in the main, continued unchanged. On
the other hand, in 1974, a family law was enacted of
a radicalism unparalleled in the Muslim Middle East.
Under Marxist influence, it aims at complete equality
between the sexes. Some of the reforms contained in
it have no basis whatsoever in Islamic law (see Section
4. x below). The courts apply a combination of
customary and shar c i procedure. A procedural law
was under consideration at the beginning of 1972.

Bibliography: MahmasanI, al-Awda c al-

tashriHyya, 380-3; A. M. Maktari, Water rights and
irrigation practices in Lahj, Cambridge 1971; Ander¬
son, Law reform in the Muslim world , see index;
Liebesny, The law of the Near and Middle East , see in¬
dex; M. W. Wenner, Modern Yemen 1918-1966 ,
Baltimore 1967, 39, 46-8, 55, 67, 70, 155; Isam
Gharem, Social aspects of the legal systems in South- West
Arabia, with special references to the application of Islamic
family law in the Aden courts , M. Phil, thesis, Univer¬
sity of London 1972; J. Chelhod, in idem (ed.),
L’Arabic du Sud, iii, Culture et institutions du Yemen,
Paris 1985, 127-81. (A. Layish)

ix. The Gulf states

Under the Bitish protectorate, most of the Persian
Gulf Shavkhdoms and Trucial States had no courts of
law in the accepted sense of the term. Justice was ad¬
ministered “under the palm tree” by the rulers
themselves, who applied the £han c a loosely and ar¬
bitrarily or were assisted by kadis. Some of the
Shavkhdoms had a dual judicial system: part shar c i,
dealing with matters of personal status, and part civil,
dealing with all other, including criminal and com¬
mercial, matters and strongly influenced by English
law.

After independence, the judicial system was
reorganised. The Provisional Constitution of the
United Arab Emirates of 1971, confirmed for
another five years in 1976, provides that Islam shall
be the religion of the Union and that the Sharica shall
be a principal source of the Union’s legislation. But in
fact, even the shar c i judicial system is not, in most of
the countries, based on pure sharci law. Sharci law is
here attenuated or superseded by customary law or
modern legislation. The civil courts apply several
sources of law, of which the Shari c a is only one and not
the most important. In some of the countries, a civil
code modelled on the Egyptian Civil Code of 1948 has
been introduced, of which the Shari c a is supposed to
be one source of inspiration; but the role of the Shari c a
is this context should not be exaggerated. The new
graded civil system comprises many lawyers from
other Arab countries.

InKuwayt, a dual judicial system, part shar ( i and
part civil, was functioning under the British protec¬
torate. The jurisdiction of the shar c i kadis was confined
to matters of personal status. The ruler set up two new
courts, for criminal and civil matters, respectively. He
had jurisdiction not only over his own subjects but

MAHKAMA

also over resident nationals of some other Arab coun¬
tries. Those courts applied the Shari c a and the or¬
dinances of the ruler. The harsh Kur 3 anic
punishments were abolished. In 1959, an Organisa¬
tion of Justice Law was enacted. In 1960, the Shari c a
courts were abolished and their powers transferred to
modem civil courts supervised by the Ministry of
Justice. Domestic Courts were set up, with separate
chambers for Shl c s. Sunnis and non-Muslims, to deal
with matters of marriage, divorce, succession and
wills. Criminal, civil and commercial courts were also
set up. The Court of Appeal comprises departments
for criminal and other matters, including personal
status and succession. The legal system remained un¬
changed after independence (1961).

The courts apply the products of some very inten¬
sive modern law-making: codes of procedure, of
criminal law and of commercial law have been
enacted. Matters of personal status and blood-money
(diya) of Muslims are still dealt with in accordance
with the Shari c a, as taught by the respective schools.
The Kuwaytl constitution provides that the Sharing
shall be the principal basis of legislation, but in point
of fact the main source of inspiration is reformist
Egyptian legislation, especially the Civil Code
prepared by c Abd al-Razzak al-Sanhuri. In 1977, a
commission was appointed “to amend and develop
Kuwaytl legislation in accordance with the provisions
of the Shari c a ,” but it is too early to assess the real
significance of these terms of reference.

Under the British protectorate, a dual judicial
system, part sharci and part civil, was set up in
Bahrayn. The Sharica courts, subdivided into Sunni
and Dja c farl sections, dealt with matters of personal
status and applied the Sharica in accordance with the
relevant doctrine. The Shavkh and members of his
family acted as judges in the “civil” courts. These
courts applied the ordinances of the Shavkh and
customary law, which was largely based on Sudanese
law; in any case, the Shari c a was not applied in these
courts. The ruler also had jurisdiction over resident
nationals of sd>me other Arab states.

The dual, shar z i and civil, system remained in ex¬
istence after independence (1971) and so did the sub¬
division of the Sharica courts (including the appeal
stage) into Sunni and Dja c farl sections. The powers of
the Shari z a courts are confined to matters of personal
status of Muslims, while the civil courts have jurisdic¬
tion in civil, commercial and criminal matters and in
matters of personal status of non-Muslims. The Con¬
stitution of Bahrayn of 1973 provides that the Sharica
shall be a principal source of legislation, and the
Judicature Law of 1971 lays down that in the absence
of a suitable provision in legislation, the judge shall
base his decision on the principles of the Sharica or, if
the latter, too, fails to offer a solution, on custom.
Local custom is to be given priority over general
custom, and where no guidance is found in custom,
the tenets of natural law or the principles of equity and
good conscience shall be applied.

In Katar, too, a dual, shar z i and civil, judicial
system was established under the British protectorate.
The Shari z a courts decided matters of marriage,
divorce and succession in accordance with the Shari z a
as taught by the Hanbali school. The ruler set up a
civil court, which heard also criminal cases. It applied
customary law and the decrees of the ruler. The ruler
had advisers from among the religious leadership,
whose task was to see that the decrees did not deviate
from the Shari z a. The ban on the import, sale and con¬
sumption of alcoholic beverages was also strictly en¬
forced. Through the activity of the ruler’s British

adviser, who served in the civil judiciary, English law,
as applied in India and the Sudan, greatly influenced
the criminal law of Katar. The harsh Kur^anic
punishments, such as mutilation, had long been
abolished and been replaced by imprisonment. Law
no. 13 of 1971, regulating the courts of justice, left the
Sharing courts with residuary jurisdiction in matters of
personal status of Muslims. It established courts with
civil and criminal jurisdiction over both Muslims and
non-Muslims, and a labour court.

The Amended Provisional Constitution of Katar,
of 1972, says that the Sharica is a principal source of
law. The last few years have seen a considerable out¬
put of civil and criminal legislation, which is applied
in the civil courts. In 1971, a Civil and Commercial
Law was enacted, based on the Egyptian Civil Code
of 1948. It designates the Sharica as a source of law on¬
ly to be applied in the absence of a suitable norm in
either statute or custom. There has also been legisla¬
tion in specific spheres of commerce, such as the Share
Companies Law, 1961, for the settlement of disputes
with foreign oil companies by arbitration.

Shar z i justice in Abu Dhabi (Zabi) is regulated
by legislation of the years 1968 and 1970. A distinc¬
tion is made between matters of personal status and
succession, dealt with by shar z i kadis , and other civil
matters, dealth with by civil judges. However, there
is no formal distinction between a shar z i and a civil
judicial system. Every District Court has a shar z ikd(Ii
A civil matter other than of personal status or succes¬
sion may be referred to the shar z i kadi with the consent
of the parties. Both the civil judges and the shar z ikd(iis
are to act in accordance with justice or conscience or
with the general principles of justice, provided that
they are guided by Islamic law. The ruler appoints all
the judges, including the kadis.

The basic judicial system in Dubayy is still the
shar z i one. The entire legal system is regulated by the
Courts Law of 1970. The civil courts are competent
only for a few specific matters, leaving the Shari z a
courts with residuary jurisdiction. Still, under the
same law, the ruler may transfer any matter or action
from the Shari c a court to the civil court. Most com¬
mercial matters have recently been so transferred.
There are also criminal courts. The Shari z a courts are
to apply the Shari z a with the modifications required by
the laws of the emirate. Except for a few matters
regulated by local custom and tradition, legal disputes
are settled in the Sharing court in accordance with the
principles of the £hari c a. The civil courts are to apply
usage and custom, the principles of natural justice,
the law of equity, and the laws and legal practices of
neighbouring countries, in addition to the laws of the
emirate and the Shari z a. The Law of Procedure of
1971, which relates to civil and commercial matters,
allows significant deviations from shar z i procedure,
such as written testimony. The ruler appoints the
kadis, including the Chief Sharica Judge.

Until 1968, Sharjah (al-Sharika) had only
Shari z a courts. Sunnis and Shi* is had separate courts
(and maladministrations). These courts had jurisdic¬
tion in all matters. In 1968, the judicial system was
reorganised: civil courts were established by the side
of the Shari z a courts, whose jurisdiction was from then
on confined to matters of personal status, succession
and wills of Muslims, and wakf and blood-money
(diya) where at least one of the parties was a Muslim.
The civil court has jurisdiction, in civil and criminal
matters, also over non-Muslim foreigners. A law of
1971 reconfirmed the dual judicial system and em¬
powered the ruler to establish ad hoc judicial bodies for
all matters. The law applying in the Shari c a courts is

MAHKAMA

Islamic law, Sunni or ShI c I, as the case may be. The
civil courts are to apply the statutes of the
Shavkhdom. the principles of Islamic law, the deci¬
sions of Muslim jurists, common law and local
custom, and the general principles of English law:
right, justice and equity. There has been intensive
legislative activity in the fields of criminal law, con¬
tracts, commercial law etc., as a result of which the
Sharjah legal system is the most developed of any of
the United Arab Emirates.

The Sharing is the principal system of law also in
c Adjman, Umm al-Kaywayn, Ra 3 s
al-Khayma and Fujayra. c Adjman and Ra^s al-
Khayma have also civil courts. In Ra } a al-Khayma.
a Courts Law patterned on the corresponding law of
Dubayy was enacted in 1971; it confers wide powers
on the Shari c a courts, also in civil matters other than
personal status and in criminal matters. A law of 1972
regulates the functioning of the Sharica Court of Ap¬
peal. In the case of death sentences, appeal is
automatic.

In the sultanate of Muscat and Oman
(Maskat and c Uman) (Oman since 1970), the
Shart c a is about as firmly established as in Sa c udl
Arabia. There is no written constitution. The Sharing
courts have wide jurisdiction, including criminal mat¬
ters involving Kur^anic punishments, although there
is a tendency to mitigate the latter. There are still
public executions, but decapitation and mutilation are
banned. The Sharica courts apply the non-codified law
of the Ibatfi sect [see ibadiyya], to which most of the
population of the sultanate belongs, with such
modifications as arise out of legislation enacted by the
Sultan in civil and commercial matters to meet
present-day requirements, viz. legislation relating to
investments by foreigners, commercial companies and
baking. The judgment of the kadi is appealable to a
bench of kadis and to a Chief Court, the seat of which
is in Oman. A final appeal lies to the Sultan.

There is a separate court for matters in which
foreigners are involved; its seat is in Muscat. When
the sultanate was a British protectorate, the Consular
Court had jurisdiction in certain matters concerning
British subjects, but in cases involving both British
subjects and local nationals, the Sultan had jurisdic¬
tion. The Commercial Companies Law of 1974
established a Committee for the Settlement of Com¬
mercial Disputes, vested with judicial powers. In large
areas of the sultanate outside the urban centres, tribal
justice and custom reign almost absolute.

Bibliogrgphy : Liebesny, The Igw of the Negr and
Middle East, 108-11; idem, British jurisdiction in the
states of the Persian Gulf , in MEJ , iii (1949), 3, 330-2;
W. M. Ballantyne, Legal development in Arabia, Lon¬
don 1980; H. M. Albaharna, The Arabian Gulf
States ; their legal and political status and their international
problems 2 . Beirut 1975; N. Sinclair, in collaboration
with W. Olesiuk, Problems of commerce and law in the
Arab states of the Lower Gulf , in D. Dwyer (ed.), The
politics of law in the Middle East (forthcoming);
Anderson, Law reform in the Muslim world, see index.

(A. Layish)

x. Morocco

Before the establishment of the French and Spanish
Protectorates, the peoples under the sultan’s authority
had recourse, more or less, for matters of personal
status, property and contracts or religious en¬
dowments (< ahbds ), to the kadis who were to be found
in centres of some importance. Till the middle of the
19th century, the kadi of Fas had the tide of kadi 7-
kudat and filled all religious offices. Later, the Moroc¬

can government reserved for itself the right to pro¬
ceed, on the proposal of this judge, to nominate all the
other kadis, the staff of mosques and the professors of
the University of al-Karawiyyln [q v.\. The kadis were
aided by witnesses to deeds (fadl [q.v. ], pi. c udul; in
French, adel , pi. adoul ), who received and registered
the acts of witness and drew up the judicial deeds;
whilst the judges received payment on the issuing of
these deeds, the c udul had to rely on the generosity of
those receiving justice. These last had the right to seek
recourse to the muftis, who would deliver fatwas to sup¬
port their pleas.

On the other hand, the sultan was represented too
in the towns by pashas and in the rural areas by kd Hds
[q.v.] who, in the judicial field, put the kadis'
judgements into force and themselves gave judgement
in regard to certain crimes and misdemeanours
without going by any written code but basing
themselves on good sense, tradition and local custom,
and who held certain powers in civil and commercial
cases.

Their judgements, like those of the kadis, were put
into practice immediately and there was no court of
appeal. However, in the government itself, where the
“ministerial departments” were made up of a series
of little rooms ( banika , pi. banikat) which gave out on
to a courtyard and in each of which there was a
“minister” ( wazir ) seated on mats and carpets before
a little desk with an inkwell, pens and paper, there was
one banika occupied by a wazir al-shikaydt, a “minister
for complaints”, who received all the petitions of
those seeking justice and transmitted them to the
sultan, who decided personally or who delegated his
power here to the prime minister ( al-sadr al-a c zam).

Out in the provinces, which were mainly peopled
by Berber speakers and over which the central govern¬
ment had not control, local customary law was applied
by the djamd^a [q.v.] of the section or tribe, both in
civil and criminal cases.

One of the first cares of the Protectorate authorities
was to seek a better system of administering justice
and to end abuses of power. A few days after the con¬
stituting of a commission which was aimed at combat¬
ting breaches of duty—which were common—and
which was given the responsibility of revising
judgements tainted by illegality, there was created, in
particular by a firman of 20 Dhu TKa c da 1330/31 Oc¬
tober 1912, a Ministry of Justice ( wizdrat al- c adliyya),
with responsibility for everything connected with the
sharica, together with the recruitment and supervision
of the personnel of the mahkamas, religious education
in the Kur 5 anic schools and zdwiyas [q.v.] and the
higher education given at the Karawiyyln in which the
kadis were to be trained. This firman was confirmed
and amended by a dahir ( zahir ) of 2 Sha c ban 1366/21
June 1947, which added to the Karawiyyln the
madrasa of Ibn Yusuf founded at Marrakech by the
dahir of 8 Shawwal 1357/1 December 1938.

The shar c i courts were only slightly modified under
the Protectorate, but several dahirs fixed the rules of
how they functioned. At the head of the mahkama was
a single kadi, who held session every day except for
Thursday and Friday. He was usually accompanied
by a deputy (na^ib) who could act for him if the kadi
was unable to function (dahir of 24 Rabl c II 1357/23
June 1938), and should need arise, by nuwwdb in the
quarters and suburbs of the towns, as also in small
places which were distant from the seat of the court.
The kadis, chosen from the graduates of the two col¬
leges cited above, were recruited, after the dahir of 1
Ramadan 1356/5 November, from a competition
organised by the Ministry of Justice, which subse-

MAHKAMA

quently controlled them; they were nominated,
transferred on their own demand (because they were
immovable) and on occasion penalised, by dahir. At
the time of their nomination they received a silver seal
with their own name and that of the seat of their
jurisdiction. They received a fixed salary increased by
15% of the due levied by the mahkama. They had
jurisdiction over personal status, succession, property
and contracts, and gave their judgement on the basis
of the standard manuals of Malik! fikh. Their deci¬
sions could be appealed, for a council of c ulama 3 set up
by the dahir of 29 Muharram 1332/20 December was
followed by the establishment of three appeal courts at
Rabat (4 Sha c ban 1345/7 February 1927), Tetouan
and Tangiers.

In his mahkama , the ka(It is assisted by a number, fix¬
ed for each centre, of notaries which he proposes
himself but who have to pass an examination unless
they have certain qualifications. These c udul, whose
status was established by a decree of 24 Rabi c II
1357/23 June 1938, are paid, according to com¬
plicated calculations, on the issuing of the judicial
deeds which they have the task of drawing up. Fur¬
thermore, the mahkama has in certain cases an ex¬
ecutive official ( c awn ) and a matron ( c arifa ) to take care
of women. After the dahir of 16 Sha c ban 1342/23
March 1924, litigants could be represented by an
oukil ( waktly pi. wukala ^ or legal pleader whose func¬
tions were laid down in a very detailed dahir of 18
$afar/7 September 1925. Advocates, for their part,
could only intervene, and then only on a written basis,
before an appeal court. In each shar c i court, six
registers had to be kept: for landed property,
miscellaneous deeds, successions, lawsuits, appeals
and the careers of the c udul: after the dahir of 12 Safar
1363/7 February 1944, acts of witness were entered in
a separate register.

As for the makhzan [tf.fl.] courts ( al-mahdkim al-
makhzaniyya ), that is, those of the pashas in the towns
and of the ka^ids among the tribes, these were
regulated by several dahirs, the most important of
which was that of 26 Shawwal 1336/4 August 1918.
These officials had limited competence up to a certain
sum of money in civil and commercial cases; they
could refer complicated cases to the kadis or have
recourse to experts. In criminal law, they could judge
misdemeanours involving theft, blows, woundings,
etc., but did not have the right to inflict a prison
sentence than a fixed period or a fine longer above a
fixed limit. The government commissioner (who was
an official of the Protectorate power) watched that the
rules were kept and, in the case of any breach or short¬
coming, could require an appeal to the superior Shari-
fian court ( al-mahkama al- c ulyd al-shanfa) set up by the
above-mentioned dahir. This last jurisdiction was
made up of two chambers: the first acted as an appeal
court against the judgements of pashas and ka^ids,
whilst the second was a criminal court for dealing with
cases of murder, rape, procurement of abortion and
other crimes falling outside the jurisdiction of the of¬
ficials with judicial powers, but investigated by them,
who sent along the relevant files to the criminal sec¬
tion of the superior court. The pasha had a
government-paid secretariat, according to the provi¬
sions of the dahir of 29 Rabl c II/2 April 1946,
although the kaHd had to pay himself his secretary
(JJcih). In the big towns, the pashas had in the quarters
and suburbs subordinates who had the same powers
(dahir of 5 Djumada II 1368/4 April 1949).

All these authorities made their judgements on a
basis of the shart Q a when it gave a solution, but more
often on the sensus communis or unwritten custom.

Among the Berber tribes, it was the d£amd c a which
continued to decide cases between members of the
group according to local customs, also unwritten. As
the French forces advanced into the dissident areas,
some kadis were progressively installed there, but ex¬
perience showed that those seeking justice continued
in general to address themselves to the dp 2 ma c a, which
charged no fees. In any case, a dahir of 20 Shawwal
1332/11 September 1914 already envisaged the reten¬
tion of customary law (which some Berberists strove
to collect and record in written form), but it was the
dahir of 16 Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 1348/15 May 1930 (con¬
firmed again on 23 Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 1352/8 April 1934)
which had the greatest repercussions in the Islamic
world and even in lands like the Netherlands East In¬
dies where custom was indeed a fundamental source
of law [see c ada]. France was accused of having
wanted to de-Islamise Morocco, when it was simply
trying to institutionalise the already existing Berber
system of justice by setting up customary law courts
of first instance (to which there was attached a public
attorney charged with ensuring regularity in the
court’s functioning), and customary law appeal
courts. The composition and jurisdiction of these
courts were determined by a vizieral decree of 5
Djumada II 1353/15 September 1934; another decree
(7 Jafar 1357/8 April 1938) fixed there powers, pro¬
cedure, structure and functioning.

For its part, the Jewish community in Morroco
had, in respect of personal legal status, courts which
were controlled by dahir, in 1918 in the French zone,
in 1914 at Tangiers and in 1914 in the Spanish zone,
as well as a rabbinical high court. Finally, foreigners
and a certain number of Moroccans who had the pro¬
tection, as individuals, of a foreign power benefited
from the capitulations [see imtiyazat] and thus
received justice from the consular courts; these last
were replaced in the French zone on 9 Ramadan
1331/13 August 1913 and in the Spanish one on 1
June 1914 by courts with exclusive competence in all
cases where non-Moroccans were involved, whilst at
Tangiers mixed courts were set up by dahir of 16
February 1924.

After independence, the Moroccan government
legitimately envisaged bringing about three main ob¬
jectives: first, a separation of powers by ending the in¬
tervention of the administrative authorities in the
exercise of justice; second, to unify and arabise the lat¬
ter by “Moroccanising” it; and third, to introduce
modem codes of law based at least in part on the
shari c a.

As early as 17 Muharram 1376/25 August 1956, the
customary law courts were suppressed and replaced
by shar c i courts. A few months later, two dahirs pro¬
mulgated simultaneously on 23 Radjab 1376/23
February 1957 created two types of Jewish courts,
rabbinical and regional, together with a higher court.
As for the French or Spanish courts and the interna¬
tional court at Tangiers, these changed their name to
become the modern ( c asriyya) courts.

Nevertheless, the authorities gave greatest attention
to bringing about the objectives outlined above. By a
dahir of 24 Radjab 1375/7 March 1956, there were
suppressed first of all the judicial functions of the
deputies ( nuwwab ) of the pashas, and, on 6 Sha c ban/19
March of the same year a dahir put an end to the in¬
terference of the executive power in the administra¬
tion of justice, whose independence was asserted. The
dahir of 22 Sha c ban 1375/2 April 1956 aimed at
replacing the courts of the pashas and ka^ids (the
mahdkim makhzaniyya) by ordinary courts (mahdkim
c adiyya) covering the kinds of courts of first instance

MAHKAMA

called sadadiyya, regional ( iklimiyya ) courts and the
high Sharifian court and fixing their spheres of com¬
petence in both civil and criminal affairs. A dahir of
14 Radjab 1348/16 December 1929 had created con¬
ciliation boards with the task of settling conflicts in
labour matters; these were replaced on 28 Ramadan
1376/29 April 1957 by labour courts ( mahakim
al-shughl).

As for shar c t justice, it had been reorganised by a
dahir of 5 Djumada I 1376/8 December 1956, which
had created several new courts, apart from those
which were to replace the customary law courts, and
had instituted in the various regional courts boards
with the task of examining appeals directed against
judgements of the karts’ courts. In the following year,
on 23 Djumada I 1377/16 December 1957, the pro¬
cedure to be followed by the shar c i courts was fixed by
a law less detailed than the code of civil procedure pro¬
mulgated in 1913. In the same year, on 22 Muhar-
ram/16 August, there was set up a commission with
the task of codify in % fifth. It began immediately on the
law of personal status, which was naturally to remain
in the sphere reserved to the kadis , and it speedily
brought its activities to an end. On 20 November
1962 a criminal code, in large measure based on
French legislation, was promulgated.

Regarding appeal courts, the dahir of 25 $afar
1377/21 September 1957 ended that of Tetouan,
reorganised the one at Tangiers and created one at
Rabat to replace the high Sharifian court; a third ap¬
peal court has been set up at Fas on 29 Shawwal
1380/15 April 1961. From 2 RabI 1377/27 September
1957 onwards, control over the Moroccan legal
system was vested in the Superior Council (al-madjlis
al-aHa).

The law of 23 Ramadan 1384/26 January 1965
made the Moroccanisation, Arabisation and unifica¬
tion of the administration obligatory, and this was
followed by the formal unification of the judicial
system and by a decree of the Minister of Justice re¬
quiring use of the Arabic language in all documents
laid before the courts.

Despite the progress achieved, in particular in the
sphere of criminal law, which is no longer in the hands
of administrators, there still exists a certain vacillation
arising from the divergent tendencies of the personnel
involved, some wishing to preserve at least part of the
system bequeathed by the Protectorate whilst others
want to create a totally new and original system.

Bibliography : For the pre-independence

period, see H. Bruno, La justice indigene , in Introduc¬
tion a la connaissance du Maroc , Casablanca 1942,
413-30; A. Coudino, Fonctionnement de la justice
berbere, in ibid. , 431-46; and the ch. on the legal
system in the treatise of c Abd al-Hamld
Benashenhu. al-Baydn al-mutrib li-nizdm hukumat al-
Maghrib 2 , Rabat 1370/1957. For the following
period, an unpublished account by Idris al-
Dahhak, al- c Adala al-maghribiyya min khildl rubu c
karn, has been used. (Ed.)

xi. Algeria. [See Supplement]

xii. Tunisia. [See Supplement]

xiii. Reforms in the law applying in
Sharl c a courts

In the 20th century, many reforms, some of them
very far-reaching, have been effected in matters of
personal status, succession and wakf, which are under
the jurisdiction of the Shari^a courts. The most impor¬
tant of them are the raising of the age of competence

for marriage and the imposition of restrictions on the
marriage of minors; the prohibition of forced mar¬
riages; the prohibition of opposition to the marriage of
persons having reached the age of competence for
marriage; the prevention of great differences in age
between spouses; the restriction of the institution of
equality in marriage (kafa y a) to the point of complete
abolition and the limitation of the functions of the
marriage-guardian; the limitation of the amount of
the dower (Southern Yemen, 1974); the refinement of
the use of stipulations in the marriage contract to im¬
prove the position of women; the performance of mar¬
riages in courts of law ( c Irak, 1978); and the
prohibition of polygamy, leaving discretion to the kadi
to permit it under special circumstances (in Southern
Yemen, the consent of the District Court is required
for polygamy, 1974).

The amount of maintenance of the wife is fixed in
accordance with the economic position of the hus¬
band; both spouses are responsible for their own sup¬
port and that of their children, each according to his
or her ability (Southern Yemen, 1974); maintenance
awarded by the court is paid by a government
authority, which in turn recoups itself from the judg¬
ment debtor (Egypt, 1976; Israel 1972).

Wrongs resulting from the husband’s right of ar¬
bitrary divorce have been redressed: repudiation pro¬
nounced under compulsion or in a state of drunkness
or a fit of anger and divorce by way of an oath or a
threat (provided there is no intent to divorce) are in¬
valid; the effect of a double or triple repudiation pro¬
nounced on a single occasion has been reduced to that
of one revocable divorce; divorce against the wife’s
will is prohibited (Israel 1951, 1959); the husband
must seek judicial approval or registration of the
divorce or dissolution of the marriage by the court
(Southern Yemen, 1974); compensation to the
amount of one or two years’ maintenance, in addition
to waiting-period maintenance, is due to a wife
divorced without justification (Syria, 1953; Jordan,
1976; Egypt, 1979); the respective economic resources
of the spouses must be equalised upon divorce (Israel,
1973). Additional grounds have been provided for
dissolution on the initiative of the wife or of both
spouses: a physical or mental defect of the husband,
sterility of the husband; non-payment of prompt
dowry (before consummation of marriage) or of
maintenance to the wife; cruelty; the taking of a se¬
cond wife; prolonged separation from or abandon¬
ment of the wife without legal cause (even if
maintenance is provided), prevention of the wife from
entering the conjugal dwelling after marriage; im¬
prisonment of the husband for several years, together
with non-supply of maintenance; and adultery of the
spouse ( c Irak, 1978).

The period of the mother’s custody of minors has
been extended in the interest of their well-being; both
parents have been declared the natural guardians of
their children (Israel, 1951, 1962). The rights of heirs
within the nuclear family have been strengthened,
with daughters, in the absence of sons, being given
preference over other Kur 5 anic heirs; the spouse en¬
joys the radd, the residue of the estate, in the absence
of KuPanic heirs and dhawu ’ l-arhdm ; germane
brothers—contrary to the position of the Hanafi
school—share the uterine brothers’ portion of the
estate in cases where the Kur^anic portions exhaust
the estate (Jordan, 1976); the ShI c I system of succes¬
sion, which is not based on the agnatic principle, has
been adopted ( c Irak, 1963); the rights of heirs have
been determined on the basis of equality of the sexes
( c Irak, 1959 to 1963; Palestine, 1923; Israel, 1951,

MAHKAMA

1965); bequests in favour of legal heirs have been per¬
mitted to the extent of one-third of the estate; the
absence of the principle of representation has been
remedied by the device of an “obligatory bequest” in
favour of an orphaned grandson.

In Egypt (1946) and in Lebanon (1947), the
founder of a wakf has been given an option to revoke
it; to stipulate whether a khayri wakf shall be perpetual
or temporary (but a family wakf must be temporary)
and to spend the income of the wakf for purposes not
indicated in the wakf deed; a stipulation by the
founder as to the conduct of the beneficiary is no
longer valid; the disinheritance of legal heirs by. means
of a wakf exceeding one-third of the estate has been
prohibited; wakf property is to be administered by the
beneficiaries; wakf property damaged beyond repair
through neglect is to be liquidated. Most of these
reforms relate to wakfs to be established in the future.
The military regimes in Syria (1949) and Egypt
(1952) abolished the family wakf completely. In 1957,
Egypt nationalised the property of that wakf for the
purposes of agrarian reform. In Israel (1965), the
family and khayri wakfs as far as they comprised
absentee property, were abolished; the property is to
pass into the full ownership of the beneficiaries and of
Muslim boards of trustees, respectively.

Important reforms have also been effected in the
rules of evidence and procedure of the Sharica courts;
written evidence is now admissible and is accorded the
same weight as oral testimony—in fact, with regard to
some matters, documentary evidence is eligible but
not oral testimony; witnesses may be cross-examined;
the court is given discretion to assess the credibility of
the witness and the testimony; the defendant may
bring witnesses to refute the testimony of the plain¬
tiffs witnesses; the defendant may return the oath to
the plaintiff; circumstancial evidence is admissible;
periods of prescription of actions have been in¬
troduced.

Rulers and parliaments have used a wide gamut of
methods to introduce reforms in the law applied by
the courts: (1) The procedural expedient: refusal of
legal relief to parties who disregard a particular refor¬
mist norm, such as the age of competence for mar¬
riage. This method is based on the ruler’s right to
restrict the powers of the court (takhsis al-kada ^). (2)
The takhayyur expedient: the selection of elements
within or outside the heritage of the ruling school
which suit the purpose the legislator seeks to achieve;
sometimes such elements, patched together into a
statute, contradict one another ( talfik ). The theoretical
justification of this expedient lies in the power of the
ruler to direct the fcafi, his agent, to apply a particular
doctrine, and disregard others, in the public interest
(maslaha [q. v. ]). In the Sudan, the direction was given
by means of a “judicial circular” issued by the Grand
Kadi with the consent of the British Governor-
General. (3) Administrative orders, provided that
they do not conflict with the Shari‘■a; they rely on the
duty of Muslims to obey their rulers. In Saudi Arabia,
the reforms are carried out by means of royal orders
based on the utility principle: al-masalih al-mursala or
maflakat al- c umum or siyasa shar c iyya. (4) Criminal
legislation which, while its sanctions are supposed to
deter potential violators of reformist norms, such as
the age of competence for marriage and the prohibi¬
tion of polygamy, does not derogate from the substan¬
tive validity of the Shari c a. (5) A “modernistic”
interpretation of the textual sources (Kur'an and
Sunna), e.g. in matters of polygamy and divorce, with
a view to adapting them to the requirements of
present-day society. In Saudi Arabia, the plenum of

the Greater Shari c a Court may practise legal reasoning
( idjtihad) collectively. (6) The abolition of the Sharica
courts and the application of Islamic substantive law
by civil judicial authorities in accordance with civil
rules of evidence and procedure. The process which
took place in British India (Anglo-Muhammadan law)
may now be expected to occur in Egypt and Kuwayt.
It occurs to a limited extent in countries where the
civil courts have incidental and other jurisdiction in
matters to which Islamic law applies.

The direct approach of the reformers to the sources
of religious law bears a certain, but purely technical,
resemblance to the classical idjtihad [q-v.]. There are
material differences as to the mode of using those
sources (replacement of the deductive kiyas [q v.\ by
the maflaha or utility principle) and as to the sources
of inspiration and motivation of the reforms (Western
ideas, and pressures arising from a disturbance of
balances in Muslim society as a result of modernisa¬
tion and Westernisation). The reforms rely on state-
imposed, not religious, sanctions, and their somewhat
forced link with Islamic sources has been severed in
the process of legislation. They have an autonomous
existence, independent of the sources, and should only
be interpreted within the framework of the statutes in
which they are embodied. In some cases, they have no
basis at all in religious laiw. They are, first and
foremost, legislative acts of secular parliaments. It is
true that even in the past the secular legislation of
caliphs and temporal rulers was outside the Shari c a,
but there was then the pious fiction that this legislation
was intended to supplement the Sharica and that
everybody, including the ruler, was subject to the lat¬
ter, whereas today the parliaments are the declared
sources of sovereignty and set bounds to the Shari c a.
Most Arab countries are today at an advanced stage
of transition from jurists’ law to statute law, and the
question of idjtihad has thus ceased to be relevant.

The purpose of resort to traditional mechanisms in
legislation is a national and tactical one: the creation
of the impression that the reforms are a kind of inter¬
nal renovation of the Shari c a. Islamic law is conceived
as part of the Arab national-cultural heritage; this
prevents the creation of an ideological debt and sub¬
jection to the West. Reference to the modernists of the
school of Muhammad c Abduh is intended to facilitate
acceptance of the reforms by the c ulama 5 and conser¬
vative circles and by the sharci judiciary.

The success of the reforms depends, to a decisive
extent, on the kafis charged with the application of the
legislation designed for the Sharica courts. The kafts,
including those integrated into the national courts in
Egypt, have in their vast majority had a traditional
shar c i training. It seems that, contrary to the expecta¬
tions of the legislator, they do not exercise the wide
discretion given to them and that in many cases, out
of devotion to taklid, they ignore reformist legislation.

At the same time there have been cases (in Israel)
in which that legislation impressed the kafis and tliey
explicitly relied on it in their judgments. Here the
kadis were not opposed to legislation in so far as it did
not supersede the Sharica. Some kafis would even
welcome additional legislation, procedural or penal,
with a view to using the statutory sanction to buttress
the shar c i norm, which is sustained by a toothless
ethical sanction. Druze kadis still use religious and
social sanctions of court. Some kadis do not shrink
from calling for legislation of a definitely substantive
character.

The increasing ascendancy in the Shari c a courts of
lawyers with a secular training and a modem social
outlook will eventually, in judicial practice, lead to a

MAHKAMA

kind of synthesis between the SharT c a and national
law. There are kadis who, in their liberal interpreta¬
tion of religious law, do not hesitate to deviate from
taklid and who, by means of the techniques of takhayyur
and talfik, have scored achievements not inferior to
those of parliamentary legislation. In Saudi Arabia,
the kadis, in the absence of an express provision as to
a particular matter in authoritative Hanball
literature—as designated by decree—are permitted to
rely on elements from other doctrines as far as it is in
the public interest to do so, and there have in fact been
cases in which they applied the maslaha mechanism in
their decisions.

The kadis make use of their personal authority,
sometimes with the assistance of mediators, to bring
about a peaceful settlement of disputes and to give the
effect of judgments to compromises that have been
reached. They thereby continue a tradition of tribal
arbitration. This method also prevents a confronta¬
tion with religious law. The proceedings are simple,
quick and matter-of-fact. Druze kadis are sometimes
called upon to act as arbitrators in criminal cases
heard before civil courts.

The kadis react in different ways to the encounter of
Sharica and custom { c urf, c ada [q. v. ]), according to
their degree of orthodoxy, education and professional
training, their social philosophy and the measure of
their understanding of the Islamisation processes of a
society not yet wont to regard Islam as an obligatory
way of life. Some reject custom absolutely; others ac¬
quiesce in its sovereign existence by the side of the
Shari c a, but there are also attempts to absorb custom,
whilst compromising with it, into the Shan c a. Custom
is an extremely important source of law in the
jurisprudence of the Druze courts, owing to the
absence of a tradition of institutionalised communal
justice and the esoteric character of Druze religious
law.

Following the introduction of a uniform and bin¬
ding material law (secular statutes), and a hierarchy of
collegial courts and appeal stages, in the shar c i judicial
system, there are significant indications of the
development of a case law, a phenomenon alien to the
Shari Q a.

For the time being, there are no significant effects
of the abolition of the Shari c a courts in Egypt. The
kadis, who have been integrated into the national
courts, continue, out of loyalty to taklid, to apply not
only Islamic substantive law but also the Islamic rules
of evidence and procedure, as they used to do in the
Shari c a courts. But there can be no doubt that in the
long run, as their place is taken by civil judges with
a secular legal training and no traditional shar c i educa¬
tion, the reform will make itself felt and Islamic law
will be exposed to the influence of secular—national
and Western—legal principles.

Bibliography : G. H. Bousquet, Du droit
musulman et de son application effective dans le monde ,
Algiers 1949; idem, et alii, EP, art. c ada, with im¬
portant bibliography; J. N. D. Anderson, Recent
developments in Sharica law, i-ix, in MW, xl-xlii
(1950-2); idem, Islamic law in the modern world, Lon¬
don 1959; idem, Law reform in the Muslim world ;
Schacht, Introduction, 100-11, with important
bibliography on 252 ff., 283; Coulson, History, part
iii; idem, Conflicts and tensions in Islamic jurisprudence,
Chicago and London 1969; idem, Succession in the
Muslim family, Cambridge 1971; Orientalise hes Recht,
Leiden and Cologne 1964, 344-440; Y. Linant de
Bellefonds, Trade de droit musulman compare, i-iii,
Paris and the Hague 1965, 1973; M. H. Kerr,
Islamic Reform, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1966;

Chehata, Droit musulman', Liebesny, The law of Near
and Middle East, chs. 6-12; G. Baer, Waqf reform, in
his Studies in the social history of modern Egypt, Chicago
1969, 79-92; A. Layish, The contribution of the moder¬
nists to the secularization of Islamic law, in Middle
Eastern Studies, xiv (1978), 3, 263-77.

(A. Layish)

5. The Indo-Pakistan subcontinent.

[See Supplement]

6. Indonesia

The complex history of Islamic courts in Indonesia
is evident in the many names by which they have been
known over the last century in various parts of the
country: among them Pengadilan Surambi, Priesterraad,
Road Agama, Penghulu Gerecht, Rapat Kadi , Pengadilan
Agama, Mahkamah Syariah, and at the appeals level
Mahkamah Islam Tinggi, Kerapatan Kadi Besar,
Mahkamah Syariah Propinsi, and Pengadilan Tinggi
Agama. The mixed roots of these terms reflect the sub¬
tle interplay of Islamic, pre-Islamic, and Dutch co¬
lonial influences in the evolution of the courts. When
in 1980 the Ministry of Religion finally imposed a
uniform religious-judicial nomenclature throughout
Indonesia, Pengadilan Agama {pengadilan = court,
agama = religion), combining Arabic and Indie roots,
rather than the Arabic and Islamically derived
Mahkamah Syariah, became the name of choice for first
instance religious courts. Appellate religious courts
are now called Pengadilan Tinggi Agama {tinggi = high).

Unlike many other Islamic countries, where
religious courts have been progressively restricted, in
Indonesia they have actually grown in number and in¬
fluence. Despite continual efforts to confine or
eliminate them, since the late 19th century the politics
of their development has led, at every stage, to some
institutional accretion. Legally, they are subordinate
to civil courts, on which they depend for enforcement
decrees, but socially they enjoy a measure of
autonomy and authority guaranteed by Islamic com¬
mitment and political power.

The modern history of these courts began in 1882
under the colonial administration of the Netherlands
East Indies. Earlier they existed in various forms
throughout Java and only here and there in the other
major islands, always under the control of local
aristocratic authorities whose Islamic credentials were
often dubious. In Java, where Islamic courts were
paid most attention in the colony, they were known as
surambi courts, from the forecourt of the mosque in
which they convened, serving in part as general courts
of the land and in part as Islamic courts proper. In the
colony these surambi courts were related to the first in¬
stance colonial civil courts for Indonesians ( landraden )
in two ways: religious judges served as advisers to the
landraden, and Islamic court decisions were required to
obtain enforcement decrees {executoire verklaring ) from
the landraden. The first rule has long since faded, but
the second still survives.

In 1882 the colonial administration reorganised the
Islamic courts, which were now called Priesterraden
(priest’s courts)—though popularly raad agama, or
landraad agama, after the style of the Dutch courts—on
an erroneous understanding of the mosque ad¬
ministrators, penghulu, who staffed the courts. The
new courts were collegial, with three judges, following
from European rather than Islamic judicial traditions.
The most important effect of the reform, however,
was to make the courts formally more autonomous,
and potentially independent of the local Javanese
aristocracy that had traditionally appointed and con¬
trolled Islamic officials.

MAHKAMA

♦

The reform of 1882 was roundly criticised by the
famous Dutch Islamologist C. Snouck Hurgronje,
whose arguments helped to inspire a second round of
reforms, resulting in a new regulation of 1931 whose
implementation, for economic and political reasons,
was delayed until 1937. Applying only to Java and the
nearby island of Madura, the new law responded
superficially to Snouck’s earlier criticism by renaming
the courts Penghulu Gerecht (penghulu court) and
reconstituting them, following Islamic tradition, as a
single kadi (kadi) accompanied by two assessors and a
clerk. Originally, the reform had called for payment
of regular salaries to the religious judges and their
staffs, who had acquired a reputation for venality, but
this measure was put off because of budgetary shor¬
tages during the depression. Only later, during the
revolution, did the Islamic courts begin to receive
financial support from the state. But the heart of the
1930s reform, promoted by Dutch and Indonesian
adat (customary) law scholars who opposed recogni¬
tion of Islamic law except insofar as it was “received”
by indigenous customary law, had to do with issues of
substantive jurisdiction. Matters of wakf ( wakf) and,
crucially, inheritance, were removed from the com¬
petence of the Islamic courts and given over to the
civil landraden. When this provision was implemented,
it caused an uproar among Islamic groups, who have
tried unsuccessfully ever since to restore the in¬
heritance jurisdiction to Islamic courts in Java. It was
a major symbolic as well as practical loss for Islam,
which at about the same time was able to ward off a
challenge to polygamy. In compensation, the reform
established a new Islamic appellate instance, the
Mahkamah Islam Tinggi (Islamic High Court) to hear
appeals from all the religious courts of Java. Although
suspect at first among Islamic officials, the Mahkamah
Islam Tinggi was eventually opened in the central
Javanese city of Surakarta, where it remains today.
Outside of Java, only in Kalimantan (Borneo) were
similar reforms begun, also in 1937, mainly by way of
reorganisation of local religious courts (Rapat Kadi )
and the creation of appellate courts ( Kerapatan Kadi
Besar ), before Japanese forces occupied the country
during the second World War.

During the occupation and early in the revolution
(1945-50) against the returning Dutch administration,
efforts to eliminate Islamic courts failed utterly in the
face of Islamic determination to preserve and develop
Islamic public institutions. A political compromise led
in 1946 to the establishment of a new Ministry of
Religion, which soon absorbed various elements of
Islamic administration, including the existing courts,
and later became a driving force behind their con¬
solidation and expansion throughout independent In¬
donesia. Islamic judicial affairs were organised in the
Ministry under a Directorate of Religious Justice.

With the revolution, the primary issues of the
Islamic judiciary shifted to the islands outside of Java,
particularly Sumatra, where religious courts were few
and poorly developed. In 1946, during a period of
violent local conflict, Islamic groups in Aceh (nor¬
thern Sumatra) established new Mahkamah Syariah
(Shari c a councils). These courts ambitiously assumed
a wide jurisdiction, which the national government
later whittled away gradually by creating competitive
civil courts and subjecting the Mahkamah Syariah to
legal limits as a condition of their incorporation into
the national religious bureaucracy. In response to
what had happened in Aceh, however, in 1947 the
republican governor of Sumatra issued an instruction
to establish Islamic courts, also fashioned as
Mahkamah Syariah, elsewhere in Sumatra. The tem¬

porary resurrection of Dutch rule prevented it from
going into effect, though local Dutch administrations
in Sumatra themselves set up Islamic courts here and
there.

When the Dutch had finally departed, by 1950, a
serious contest quickly developed within the new state
over the creation of Islamic courts outside of Java.
Opposition came from secular parties and the national
Ministry of the Interior, which administered the pro¬
vinces in close association with local elites that had
long resisted the expansion of Islamic authority. On
the other side, the Ministry of Religion, supported by
Islamic parties, pressed the case for new religious
courts assiduously. Religious Affairs Offices (Kantor
Urusan Agama), responsible inter alia for registering
marriages and divorces (nikah, talak, rujuk), established
the local presence of the national Ministry and helped
to generate local pressures in favor of Islamic courts.
At length, in early 1957 the Achehnese courts were
finally validated, and later in the same year a new
regulation provided for Mahkamah Syariah and ap¬
pellate Mahkamah Syariah Propinsi, modelled on the
Mahkamah Islam Tinggi in Java, for those provinces
outside of Java which did not yet have Islamic courts.

The end result was two disparate Islamic judicial
regimes: one in Java and Madura based on the
reforms of 1882 and 1931-7, which influenced regula¬
tions of 1937 for the Kalimantan courts, and a second,
based on the regulation of 1957, for all other areas.
The essential differences had to do with substantive
jurisdiction. While the religious courts of Java-
Madura were confined to matrimonial issues—
essentially divorce—the younger courts elsewhere had
also acquired jurisdiction over issues of child custody
and support (hadhanah), wakf, public religious funds
(baitulmal), charity (sedakah), pre-testamentary gifts
(hibbah), and, above all, inheritance (waris), which
however they shared uneasily and uncertainly with
civil courts. National uniformity in the competence of
religious courts was very difficult to achieve because
of the political sensitivity of the inheritance issue,
jurisdiction over which the Islamic courts in Java
wished to retrieve and those outside of Java would not
relinquish.

While Islamic courts spread after 1957, problems of
internal organisation and development were much
harder to deal with. The courts suffered persistently
from inadequate funds, poorly trained personnel, low
prestige and institutional isolation. From a
sociological point of view, they served their com¬
munities well enough, but beyond routine they often
fell into disorder, and from a legal point of view,
whether Islamic or secular, they were an easy target
for critics. During the 1970s, however, some move¬
ment began on these problems, though it was inspired
largely from outside the religious courts themselves.

In the 1960s, the Directorate of Religious Justice
had begun to move gently towards serving as a na¬
tional review instance of sorts, despite objections from
local religious judges, in response to protests over pro¬
cedural errors and related problems in the first in¬
stance and appellate Islamic courts. This development
was cut short by a new statute of 1970 on national
judicial organisation. In addition to confirming the
Islamic judiciary as one line of national judicial in¬
stitutions (along with civil, military, and ad¬
ministrative courts), the new law also provided for
appeals in cassation from Islamic appellate courts to
the civil Supreme Court (Mahkamah Agung). Although
there were qualms about this among both civil and
Islamic judges, for different reasons, it did finally
establish a national institutional apex for the Islamic

MAHKAMA — MAHMAL

judiciary. But only a few such appeals have been
heard, by late 1982, and it is too early to predict the
influence of the Supreme Court on the religious
courts.

The next major stage in the evolution of Islamic
courts was unexpected and rather surprising in its ef¬
fects. In 1973 Parliament considered a new unified
marriage law for ail religious groups which incensed
many Muslims by its challenge to polygamy and other
Kurianic legal symbols. Islamic groups protested
vehemently, and after a great deal of political tension
the Government revised the original drafts of the law
to meet Islamic objections. One result of the new law
in its final form was to place more authority and func¬
tional responsibility squarely on the Islamic courts.

Until the passage of the 1974 marriage law, the
overwhelming daily fare of Islamic courts everywhere
in the country was made up of divorce issues. Despite
the additional jurisdiction over inheritance of the
courts outside of Java, not many cases of the sort ac¬
tually came to them. (Ironically, the Javanese
religious courts continued informally even after 1937
to hear many inheritance cases, often deciding them
in the form of fatwas, advisory opinions, as people
continued to bring them; sometimes because they
were ignorant of the legal change, sometimes because
the Islamic courts were much speedier than the civil
courts, and sometimes because devout Muslims simp¬
ly regarded the Islamic courts as the proper authority
to take care of their inheritance problems.) The vast
majority of the Islamic courts’ clients were women, as
only women had to go to court for a decree invoking
their husband’s divorce ( talak ) on prescribed grounds.
Husbands bent on divorce need only pronounce the
talak and register it at a local religious office.

The law of 1974 changed all this, however, making
divorce more difficult for men by requiring them also
to go to court, an equalising measure intended to pro¬
mote family stability. The traffic in Islamic courts
naturally increased, though less than expected
because the new legal procedures themselves had the
effect of discouraging divorce. In addition, all Islamic
courts now have jurisdiction over a wide range of
family law issues, including, among others, permis¬
sion for a husband to take an additional wife, permis¬
sion to marry in the absence of or disagreement
among appropriate kin, dispensation from mar¬
riageable age rules, prevention of marriages, an¬
nulments, charges of neglect, determination of child
custody, support of divorced wives, child support,
legitimacy of children, withdrawal of parental
authority, appointment of a wali, and review of ad¬
ministrative refusal to allow mixed marriages. Several
of these questions require only administrative action,
while others constitute litigation, but all together im¬
press on the courts a more variegated responsibility
than they have been used to. As before, decisions of
the religious courts are legally enforceable only by
writ of the civil courts, a requirement that the new law
appears to render perfunctory, indeed mainly
symbolic.

A a consequence of this burgeoning significance of
the religious courts, the Ministry of Religion moved
enthusiastically to demand more courts, more funds
and more facilities. By ministerial regulation, two
new appellate courts were provided for West and East
Java, confining the old Mahkamah Islam Tinggi to the
territorial jurisdiction of Central Java. Increasing at¬
tention has begun to be paid matters of recruitment
and training of religious judges. The national standar¬
disation of the names of the courts in 1980 implies a
further commitment to uniform policies in their
development.

Indonesia’s Islamic courts have survived as one
critical symbol of the Islamic community, but they
have been progressively integrated into state ad¬
ministration. The law of 1974 has transformed them
into rather full-blown domestic relations tribunals,
responsible for profoundly important matters of social
life and state policy.

Bibliography. C. Snouck Hurgronje, Rapport
... over de Mohammedaansche Godsdienstige Rechtspraak,
met name op Java , Feb. 14 y 1890, in Adatrechtbundels ,
i, 1911; Th. W. Juynboll, Handleiding tot de Kennis
van de Mohammedaansche Wet 1 , 1903; j. H. van de
Velde, De godsdienstige rechtspraak in Nederlands-Indie,
staatsrechtelijk beschouwd, 1928; Notosusanto S. H.,
Peradilan Agama Islam di Djawa dan Madura (“Islamic
justice in Java and Madura’’), 1953?; J. Prins, Adat
en Islamietische Plichtenleer in Indonesia, 1954;
Notususanto S. H., Organisasi dan Jurisprudensi
Peradilan Agama di Indonesia (“Organisation and
jurisprudence of Islamic justice in Indonesia’’),
1963; Daniel S. Lev, Islamic courts in Indonesia,
1972; Dept, of Justice, Republic of Indonesia,
Sekitar Pembentukan undang-undang Perkawinan , beserta
peraturan pelaksanaannya (“On the formation of the
marriage law, along with its implementing regula¬
tions’’), 1974; Dept, of Justice, Republic of In¬
donesia, Himpunan Undang-undang dan
Peraturan-peraturan tentang Perkawinan (“Laws and
regulations concerning marriage’’), 1977; S. H.
M. Tahir Azhary, Hukum Acara Per data di
Lingkungan Peradilan Agama (“Civil procedure in the
sphere of religious justice’’), XII Hukum dan Pem-
bangunan, no. 2 (March 1982); S. H. Ichtijanto,
Pengadilan Agama di Indonesia , (“Religious courts in
Indonesia’’) XII Hukum dan Pembangunan, no. 2
(March J982). (D. S. Lev)

MAHLUL (a.), a term used in Ottoman ad¬
ministrative parlance to mean vacant. It is used in
the registers of a grant or office which has been
vacated by the previous holder, by death, dismissal,
or transfer, and not yet re-allocated. The term is also
used more generally for land and other assets left
without heir (see also mukhallafat). (Ed.)

MAHMAL (modern pronunciation of the word
vocalised by the lexicographers mahmil or mihmal), a
type of richly decorated palanquin, perched on a
camel and serving in the past to transport people,
especially noble ladies, to Mecca (cf. al-Sam c anI,
Kitdb al-Ansdb, under the word al-mahamilT). The
famous al-Hadjdjadj b. Yusuf is said to have been the
first to use them.

In a more restricted and precise sense, the word
designates palanquins of this same type which became
political symbols and were sent from the 7th/13th
century by sovereigns with their caravans of
pilgrims to Mecca (or the principal caravan when
it was split up) in order to bolster their prestige. In the
modem period in Egypt, the head-rope of the camel
which carried it was solemnly presented to the Amir al-
Ha didi . the leader of the pilgrimage, in the course of
a ceremony during which the camel, followed by some
musicians, performed seven circuits on the ground in
front of the officials’ platform. In time, the crowds ac¬
corded these palanquins, encompassed by the glory of
the Holy Places, a veneration which was excessive and
at times condemned (e.g. the kissing of the head-rope,
the seven circuits, the participation of the religious
brotherhoods in the ceremonies, allowing the belief
that it was actually a religious emblem). Forming the
centre of picturesque demonstrations in Cairo,
Damascus (and Istanbul) at the time of the departures
and returns of the caravans of pilgrims, they were
mentioned by European travellers. At the end of

MAHMAL

1952, the Egyptian mahmal, the last still in service, was
suppressed by a governmental decision. The camel
which carried it, a splendid and well-nourished
animal, stayed resting all the year at the ddr al-kiswa,
at Khoronfish Street in Cairo, waiting for the
ceremonies in default of journeys.

There exists little precise evidence, in the Middle
Ages, on the form of these political mahmals. On the
other hand, those of the modern period have been
described, photographed and displayed in museums.
In Egypt, the last ones were built of wood and approx¬
imately cubic, broader (1 m 75) than they were long
(lm 35), surmounted by a four-faced pyramid, with,
in the upper angles of the cube, four gilded balls and
on top of the pyramid, a much larger ball surmounted
by a stem, a star and a crescent: the whole was
covered in an embroidered material. There existed
two types of coverings: the first, for towns and the
parade, was in a very rich brocade, enhanced by pom¬
poms and fringes. The name of the sovereign and a
verse of the Kurian (e.g. the “throne verse”, II, 255,
on that of King Fu 5 ad I) was embroidered respective¬
ly on the face in front of the pyramid and on a band
encircling the top of the cube. The second covering of
simpler material (green in recent times) was put on for
the journey or minor halts. The oldest covering which
has been preserved is that of the mahmal of Sultan
Kansawh al-Ghuri (d. 922/1516) at present in Istan¬
bul, in the Topkapi Museum (Turkish embroideries
section, no. 263, Mehmel). A good photo of it is sup¬
plied in the magazine La Turquie Kemaliste, Istanbul,
August 1941. The embroidered text expresses pious
wishes but is not Kurianic. It is reproduced in J.
Jomier, Le Mahmal du sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri , in Annales
Islamologiques (1972), 183-8. The richness of certain
coverings has been mentioned by chroniclers: such as
that of the mahmal of the c lrakls in 721/1321, en¬
crusted with gold, pearls and precious stones {Die
Chroniken des Stadt Makka , ed. Wustenfeld, ii, Got¬
tingen 1859, 278).

Various legends concerning these mahmals are to be
dismissed at the outset. The legend according to
which the Egyptian mahmal goes back to the reign of
Queen Shadjarat al-Durr is not found in any
presently-known ancient source. Those according to
which the palanquin contained Kurbans or served to
transport the hangings ( kiswa ) of the Ka c ba have no
firm basis. The mahmal was normally empty. The
word “sacred cloth” used by Westerners to designate
it is pure fantasy. In Arabic it is called the noble
mahmal , al-mahmal al-shanf, an adjective very often ap¬
plied to that which is in contact with the Holy Places.

The (political) mahmal seems to be a creation of the
Mamluk Sultan Baybars, who sent it for the first time
in 664/1266. It is recorded in the context of the
transfer to Cairo of the c Abbasid caliphate after the
capture of Ba gh dad by the Mongols (656/1258).
Yemen and Egypt were then rivals to offer the hang¬
ings of the Ka c ba (a gift which had always remained
the caliphs’ privilege of honour) until the Sharif of
Mecca promised Kalawun that only the Egyptian
hangings would be hung (681/1282). The sending of
the mahmal coincided with the reopening of the
pilgrimage route via Suez, Aqaba and the east coast
of the Red Sea, closed since the Crusades (reopening
in 660 A.H. plus, the manuscripts having a blank for
the units’ figure). Briefly, Baybars showed by his
policy towards the Holy Places that he was the protec¬
tor of the caliph, some of whose privileges of honour
he took over. At Mecca, and then at c Arafat, the
mahmal was placed in a position where it could easily
be seen, also reinforcing by its presence the sym¬
bolism of the hangings.

Very quickly other countries wanted to rival Egypt:
Yemen also (from 969/1297), c Irak, (from 718/1319)
had their mahmals , doubling their hangings. Hence
there were conflicts of precedence, at times violent, in
the course of which Egypt always insisted on the first
place. Syria (from 692/1293) sent its mahmal , but this
was the responsibility ipso facto of the Mamluk sultans
of Cairo. The presence or absence of one or the other
depended on the vicissitudes of politics. With the Ot¬
toman seizure of Egypt and Syria, Istanbul took on
itself this policy of prestige, and the mahmals came on
its behalf. In the harim of the Top Kapi Palace in
Istanbul, the group of three mahmals (Egypt, Syria
and Yemen) appears three times running on the
faience panels (17th century) representing the Holy
Places. It is in this period that the Yemeni mahmal
ceased to be sent. Toward the end of the same cen¬
tury, M. d’Ohsson {Tableau general de VEmpire Ottoman ,
iii, Paris 1790, 263-6) mentions as customary a sym¬
bolic departure of the mahmal at Istanbul, with the of¬
ficial delegation of the pilgrimage, this palanquin then
being dismantled and returned to its store.

When the Wahhabis seized the Holy Places in
1807, the Egyptian mahmal fell into their hands and
was burnt by them. Its sending was only resumed
after their defeat. The war of 1914 put an end to the
sending of the Syrian mahmal ; the Egyptian one con¬
tinued to be sent until 1926, the date on which a clash
between the soldiers of the escort and the Wahhabi
Ikhwan caused its despatch to be definitively sup¬
pressed. The Egyptian Government and King Hu-
sayn of the Hidjaz (1915-21) had already confronted
each other on the subject of this palanquin and
especially the ceremonial which was to preside over its
reception. Despite exchanges of points of view, the
conflict twice led to the suspension of its sending.
After Ibn Sa c ud had become King of the Hidjaz,
negotiations took place on the same subject, the
Wahhabis refusing to allow the music which accom¬
panied the procession and various superstitious prac¬
tices. Symbol of a political protection over the Holy
Places, the mahmal no longer had its raison d'etre after
the suppression of the caliphate and the Wahhabis’
desire for independence.

The popular festival aspect was manifest in Egypt
in the course of three annual ceremonies (in the Mid¬
dle Ages), in the course of which the mahmal was
solemnly led across the city with a large escort and
parts of the caravan, accompanied by troops armed
with lances and sometimes even clowns. Ladies were
accustomed to go out to see the processions. The first
procession announced the approach of the season of
pilgrimage, the second was that of the departure and
the third that of the return.

In the desert, the mahmal was the centre of the prin¬
cipal caravan. When in 1882, and then in 1884 and
after, the Egyptian caravan ceased to take the desert
route and left by train (for Suez) and then by boat, the
mahmal was hoisted into a train (it had its own special
carriage) and then embarked. From 1328 to
1331/1910-13, it went via Alexandria, the sea, Haifa
and the Medina railway. In the Hidjaz itself, the small
caravan re-formed and it was always the centre of it.
The goings and comings of this caravan have been
described in the valuable reports, full of realistic
details, composed by the physicians who accompanied
it and published pro-manuscripto from the beginning of
the century by care of the Quarantine Service. Infor¬
mation and photos are also to be found in al-
Batanum, al-Rihla al-hidjaziyya , Cairo 1329 A.H. and
Rifkat, MiPat al-haramayn , 2 vols., Cairo 1925. Two of
the old processions (departure and return) lasted until
1926 in Cairo. Suppressed after the incident with the

MAHMAL — MAHMUD

Sa c udi Ikhwan. they were re-established in 1937, the
year in which the hangings (kiswa) of the Ka c ba were
once again sent and accepted, although the mahmal
was formally refused. These processions inside Cairo
lasted until 1952, the date of their definitive abolition.
The custom in Egypt was for the facade of the
pilgrims’ houses, in the popular quarters, to be
decorated around the door with naive frescos recalling
their journey. These frescos painted at the time of
their return might stay in place for several years
before being worn away by time. Until 1952 the
mahmal was almost always represented. At present it
appears only rarely: the new generations no longer
know what it is. See Giovanni Canova, Nota s'ulle raf-
figurazioni popolari del pellegrinaggio in Egitto, in Annali
della Facolta di lingue e letterature straniere di ca' Foscari,
xiv/3 (1975), 83-94, with 8 plates (University of
Venice).

Finally, how can one explain the choice by Baybars
of this type of symbol? Did he merely want a royal
tent? Did he dream of the leather kubbas, carried on
chariots in the steppes of Asia, familiar to some
Mamluks, and which had a religious meaning or at
least one of honour? Or should we not look in the
direction of the known symbolic palanquins of the
Arabs, such as the one among the Rwala at the begin¬
ning of this century which was the emblem of the tribe
(Musil, Die Kultur , 1910, 8 ff., described under the
name Abu Zhur al-Markab), or that which bore
'Alisha at the Battle of the Camel? The question re¬
mains open.

Bibliography : J. Jomier, Le Mahmal et la
caravane egyptienne des pelerins de la Mecque (XIIF-XX e
siecles ), Cairo 1953; R. Tresse, Lepelerinage syrien aux
villes saintes de IT slam, Paris 1937; Lane, Manners and
customs of the modem Egyptians , London 1936, ii,
180-6, 245 ff. (with a reproduction of the Egyptian
mahmal ); Burton, A pilgrimage to el-Medinah and
Mekka, London 1856, iii, 12, 267; Snouck-
Hurgronje, Mekka , i, 29, 83 ff., 152, 157 (with a
photograph in the Atlas, PI. v); T. Juynboll, Hand-
buch des islamischen Gesetzes, 151 ff. In Arabic, apart
from the texts mentioned in Jomier, op. cit. , see
c Abd al-Kadir al-Ansari al-Djazari, al-Durar al-
fara 3 id al-munazzama ft akhbar al-ha djdj wa-farik Makka
al-mu^azzama , especially the autograph ms. at al-
Azhar (first version and the autograph ms. at Fas,
Karawiyyln (completed version, printed by the
Matba c a Salafiyya, Cairo 1384, sponsored by
Sa c udis). The author was for a long time the official
responsible ( kdtib ) for the Pilgrimage Office (diwcin
al-hadjdj) in the 10th/16th century. The work is a
compendium of all the knowledge (Arab tribes,
itineraries, gifts to make, functionaries, a chronicle
of the pilgrimage year by year, etc.) necessary for
an Amir al-Hadidi. (Fr. Buhl - [J. Jomier])
MAHMAND. [see mohmand]

MAHMUD. The following articles on a large
number of personages called Mahmud are arranged
as follows:

M., rulers of Bengal, p. 46-7.

M., sultans of Dihll, p. 47-50.

M., rulers of Gudjarat, p. 50-52.

M., rulers of Malwa, p. 52-55.

M., Ottoman sultans, p. 55-61.

M. Khan, ruler in Kalpi, p. 61.

M. Shah Shark!, ruler in Djawnpur, p. 61.

M. Shihab al-Dln, ruler in the Deccan, p. 62.

M. b. Isma c il, p. 63.

M. b. Muhammad b. Malik-Shah, Saldjuk sultan, p. 63.
M. b. Sebiiktigin, Ghaznawid sultan, p. 65.

M. Ekrem Bey, p. 66.

M. Gawan, p. 66.

M. Kemal, p. 68.

M. Nedim Pasha, p. 68.

M. Pasha, Ottoman Grand Vizier, p. 69.

M. Pasha, beylerbeyi of Yemen and of Egypt, p. 72.
M. ShabistarT. p. 72.

M. Shewkat Pasha, p. 73.

M. Tardjuman, p. 74.

M. Taymur, p. 75.

M. Yalawac, p. 77.

MAHMUD, the name of several mediaeval
rulers of Bengal.

1. Mahmud i, Nasir al-DIn (846-64/1442-59),
was a descendant of Ilyas Shah! dynasty of Bengal.
On the assassination of the tyrant, Shams al-Dln (ca.
846/1442), the grandson of the usurper, Radja
Ganesh (817-21/1414-18), a scramble for power
began among the nobles, which led one of them, nam¬
ed Na?ir Khan, to seize power by killing his rival,
Shad! Khan. But within a week, Na$ir Khan himself
was put to death. Thereupon, the nobles chose
Mahmud, who was a descendant of Sul {an Ilyas Shah
and was living in obscurity, carrying on agriculture.
He ascended the throne as Nasir al-Din Abu T
Muzaffar Mahmud.

Mahmud was just and liberal and an able ad¬
ministrator. Since the Shark! rulers of Djawnpur
[q. v. ] , who were a constant threat to the kingdom of
Bengal, were involved in conflicts with the Lodls,
Mahmud was able to enjoy peace, and this he utilised
in promoting the prosperity of his people, in construc¬
ting mosques and khankahs, bridges and tombs. In
Gawr, his capital, he built a fort and a palace and
other buildings. Unfortunately, only the five-arched
bridge, the Kotwali Darwaza and a part of the walls
of the fort have survived.

These were not the only achievements of Mahmud.
He also strengthened his military power and extended
the boundaries of his kingdom by annexing parts of
the districts of Djassawr and Khulna and a portion of
the twenty-four parganas. He died after a successful
reign of approximately seventeen years and was suc¬
ceeded by his son, Rukn al-Din Barbek.

Bibliography: Ghulam Husayn “Salim”
Zaydpuri, Riyatjal-salatin, ed. c Abd al-Hakk c Abid,
Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1890-1, Eng. tr. c Abd al-Salam,
Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1902-4; Muhammad Kasim
Hindu-Shah, Ta^rikh-i Firishta, ii, Lucknow
1281/1864; Nizam al-Din, Tabakat-i Akbari, iii, ed.
B. De and Hidayat Husayn, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta
1935, and Eng. tr. B. De and Baini Prashad, Bibl.
Ind. Calcutta 1938; J. N. Sarkar, ed., The history of
Bengal, ii, Muslim period, Dacca 1948; M. Habib
and K. A. Nizami, eds., A comprehensive history of In¬
dia (1206-1526), v, Dihli 1970; W. Haig, ed., Cam¬
bridge history of India, iii, Cambridge 1928; Compos,
History of the Portuguese in Bengal, 1919; F. C.
Danvers, The Portuguese in India, London 1894;
Rakhal Das Banerdji, The Banglar Itihds, ii, Calcut¬
ta 1917; N. K. Bhattasall, Coins and chronology of the
early independent Sultans of Bengal, Cambridge 1922;
Ahmad C A1I Khan, Memoirs of Gaur and Pandua, ed.
H. E. Stapleton, Calcutta 1913.

2. Mahmud II, Nasir al-Din, was the third
Habashi (Abyssinian) Sultan. Some modern
historians consider him to be the son of Djalal al-Din
Fath Shah (886-92/1481-87), the last ruler of the Ilyas
Shahi dynasty; but Firishta, ii, 300-1, and Nizam al-
Din, iii, 269, regard him as the son of Sayf al-Din
Firuz (892-95/1487-90), a Habashi Sultan of Bengal.
This view seems to be correct, because it was Firuz
who appointed a tutor for Mahmud’s education and,

MAHMUD

when he died, Mahmud succeeded him. However,
since Mahmud was very young, the government was
carried on by his tutor, Habash Kh an. Meanwhile,
another HabashI, Sid! Badr, nicknamed Dlwana
(“the Mad”), killed Habash Khan and declared
himself Regent. He then put to death the young king
by winning over the palace guards, and himself
ascended the throne of Bengal. Mahmud had reigned
only for about a year.

Bibliography : See that for mahmud i.

3. Mahmud III, Ghiyaih al-Din (940-5/1533-8),
ruler of Bengal. He was one of the eighteen sons of
c Ala al-Din Husayn Shah (899-925/1493-1519) of
Bengal, and had been nominated by his elder brother,
Nusrat Shah (925-39/1519-32) as his heir-apparent.
But Makhdum-i c Alam, his brother-in-law and gover¬
nor of North Bihar, raised to the throne Nusrat’s son,
Abu ’1-Badr, with the title of c Ala 5 al-Din Flruz. He
ruled only for a few months because, in 940/1533, he
was put to death by his uncle, Mahmud, who declared
himself Sultan and ascended the throne as Ghiyath al-
DTn Mahmud III. Makhdum, however, refused to
recognise him and allied himself with Shir Khan (later
Shir Shah), whose power was steadily growing.
Mahmud, on the other hand, made the mistake of
entering into an alliance with the Nuhanis of Bihar,
who were weak and without an able leader. The result
was that, when in 940/1533 Mahmud sent the
Nuhanis with Ku{b Khan, governor of Monghyr,
against Shir Khan. Kutb was defeated and killed.

Mahmud next sent an army against Makhdum.
who was defeated and slain, as the Nuhanis were able
to prevent Shir Khan from coming to his assistance.
However, the victory did not benefit Mahmud
because before setting out to fight, Makhdum had en¬
trusted all his treasure to Shir Khan’s envoy.

Meanwhile, Djalal Khan, the NuhanI ruler of
Bihar, plotted the assassination of Shir Khan, but his
attempt having failed, he was affected with panic, and
crossed over to Bengal with his supporters and sought
the protection of Mahmud, which was given.
Mahmud succeeded in occupying Bihar and, in
Ramadan 940/March 1534, a strong force under
Ibrahim Khan moved out of Monghyr and met Shir
Khan on the plain of Suradjgarh, near the town of
Barh. But Ibrahim was defeated and killed, while
Djalal Khan again fled to Mahmud.

Now it was Shir Khan’s turn to retaliate and, tak¬
ing advantage of Humay tin’s pre-occupation in
Gudjarat, he opened a campaign in 942/1536. Since
Mahmud had strongly fortified the Teliyagarhl Pass
with Portuguese help, Shir left behind a detachment
under his son, Djalal Khan, and having made a
detour, marched through the Jharkand country and
appeared before Gawr, Bengal’s capital. Mahmud
was taken by surprise. The Portuguese advised him to
hold out until the outbreak of the monsoon, when
Shir’s retreat could be cut off by their navy. But
Mahmud was so demoralised that he did not follow
their advice and, instead, came to a settlement with
Shir Khan, by agreeing to pay him an annual tribute
of ten lacs of tankas and to cede the territory from the
river Kosi to Hadjlptir and from Garhl to Monghyr,
which was of considerable importance to the security
of Bengal.

Shir Shah (who had by now assumed the title of
Shah) was too ambitious to remain satisfied with these
gains and, on the pretext of non-payment of tribute by
Mahmud, invaded Bengal. He entered the
Teliyagarhl Pass, which the Bengalis failed to defend,
and laid siege to Gawr. But hearing that Humaytin
had invested Cunar, he at once set out to relieve it,

leaving behind his son Djalal to continue the siege.
Mahmud despairing of any outside help, for the Por¬
tuguese refused immediate assistance, and being faced
with dwindling supplies, sallied out of the fort to give
battle. But he was wounded and fled to north Bihar,
meanwhile, on 6 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 944/6 April 1538, the
Afghans captured the fort by an assault. Mahmud,
now a fugitive, appealed to Humayun, who im¬
mediately marched towards Gawr. But before he
could reach the city, Shir Shah had carried away all
its treasure. It was on his way to Gawr with Humayun
that Mahmud heard of the murder of his two sons by
the Afghans. This effected him so much that he died
soon afterwards.

Mahmud was a voluptuary, but the Portuguese ac¬
count that he had 10,000 women in his harem is an
exaggeration. He was incompetent, and inept in the
art of diplomacy, lacking courage, tact and imagina¬
tion. His mistake in antagonising Shir Shah and his
failure to make an alliance with the Mughals and the
Sultan of Gudjarat led not only to his own overthrow
but also to the loss of Bengal’s independence.

Bibliography : See that for mahmud i; and for
the relations of Mahmud III with the Afghans, con¬
sult the following: Kh w adja Ni c mat Allah, Ta^rtkh-i
Khan-i Dja hdni . i, ed. Imam al-Din, Dacca 1960;
c Abd Allah, Ta^rikh-i Dawudi , ed. c Abd al-Rashld,
Aligarh 1954; Ahmad Yadgar, Ta\tkh-i Salatin-i
Afighina , ed. Hidayat Husayn, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta
1939; K. R. Qanungo, Sher Shah and his times ,
Calcutta 1965; I. H. Siddiqi, History of Sher Shah
Sur, Aligarh 1971. (Mohibbul Hasan)

MAHMUD, the name of two of the Dihll
sultans of mediaeval India.

1. Mahmud I, Nasir al-Din was the son of Iltut-
mish (Firishta, i, 70-1; Minhadj-i Siradj DjuzdjanI, i,
471-2) and not his grandson, as some modern
historians have asserted. He ascended the throne on
23 Muharram 644/10 June 1246 through the joint ef¬
forts of Balban [ q.v . in Suppl.], and Mahmud’s
mother. Since Mahmud was weak and of a retiring
disposition, devoting himself “to prayers and
religious observances”, and he owed his throne to
Balban, the latter became very powerful. He further
strengthened his position by marrying his daughter to
the young Sultan and securing the important office of
na y ib-i mamlakat and the title of Ulugh Khan (Premier
Kh an). His younger brother, Sayf al-Din Aybak, was
given the title of Kashi! Kh an and made amir-i hadyib,
while one of his cousins, Shir Khan, was appointed
governor of Lahore and Bhatinda.

In 651/1253, however, a eunuch named c Imad al-
Dln Rayhan, who was jealous of Balban, organised a
group of discontented Indian Muslims and some
Turks and succeeded in persuading the Sultan to
dismiss Balban and his relations. They were accor¬
dingly ordered to leave for their respective ikta c s.
Balban was replaced by Rayhan, who now became
waktl-i dar and virtual ruler. Shir Kh an was replaced
by Arslan Khan as governor of Lahore and Bhatinda.

Deprived of power and position as a result of these
changes, the Turkish element became discontented
and organised itself under Balban’s leadership to
overthrow Rayhan and, in Ramadan 652/October
1254, marched towards Dihll. Mahmud, under the
influence of Rayhan and his followers, moved out
against the rebels and encamped near Samana.
Rayhan wanted an armed conflict, but Mahmud
refused, because most of his nobles favoured Balban,
and agreed on a compromise. Rayhan was dismissed
and transferred first to Bahra D ic and then to
BadaPun. Balban was reappointed na^ib and his

MAHMUD

kinsmen and followers were reinstated. In conse¬
quence, the Turkish nobility, and with it Balban,
became even more powerful and strongly entrenched
than before.

But the problems which Balban had to confront
were great, because Iltutmish had not been able to
consolidate the Sultanate; nor had his immediate suc¬
cessors done anything to strengthen it. In fact, it was
threatened with dissolution by refractory Hindu
zamindars, ambitious provincial governors and
Mongol pressure.

Already in 645/1247-8, a year after Mahmud’s ac¬
cession to the throne, Balban had led a campaign
against a zamindar in the Do 5 ab and captured a. fort
called Talsindah in the Kannawdj district. He had
then attacked a Radjput chief “Dulka va Mulka”,
who ruled over the area between the Djumna and
Kalindjar, and defeated and expelled him. It took
Balban two campaigns to secure control over the
“Katahriya infidels”, who ruled Bada 5 un and Sam-
bhal. Balban also reduced the refractory tribes of
“Djarall and Datoll”. But these successes were tem¬
porary, and he had to undertake annual campaigns in
the Ganges-Djumna area to maintain peace. In
646/1248-9 he attacked Ranthambor and Mewat, but
the campaign was abortive. In fact, Balban’s efforts to
subdue the Radjputs during Mahmud’s reign proved
a failure; and although he led two expeditions against
the Me^os [q.v.\, who were led by the Radjputs, and
massacred a large number of them, he failed to crush
them.

Owing to the preoccupation of Mahmud’s govern¬
ment with the Mongols, who had become a great
threat by 635/1237, the provincial governors raised
the banner of revolt. Kutlugh Khan. Mahmud’s step¬
father, who held the province of Awadh [q. v. ] and was
anti-Balban, allied himself with Rayhan and defied
royal authority. Balban therefore sent Sandjar
SihwastanI to take over BahnUiC from Rayhan. But
Kutlugh came to Rayhan’s aid, intercepted and seiz¬
ed Sandjar. Sandjar managed to escape and, having
collected a small force, attacked Rayhan and killed
him. Balban thereupon ordered Kutlugh to leave
Awadh and take over Bahra 3 ii, but the latter refused
and rebelled. Balban attacked him, but he escaped to
the Himalayan foothills. In 654/1256 he came out of
his retreat, reoccupied Awadh and even made an at¬
tempt to occupy Karra and Manikpur; but Arslan
Khan, who held the province, expelled him.

In 655/1257, Yuzbek-i Tugjhrfl, a Kip£ak Turk,
who was governor of Lakhnawti [q. v. ] defied the Dihll
government. He led a successful expedition into
Djadjnagar (Orissa), occupied Awadh and had the
khutba recited in his name. But in a campaign in
Kamrup, he was taken prisoner by the forces of its
Radja and executed.

Yuzbek was succeeded by c Izz al-Dln Balban-i
Yuzbekl. But the latter did not rule long, for in
657-8/1259-60, Arslan Khan, governor of Karra,
without Dihll’s permission, advanced on Lakhnawti
and seized it. Yuzbekl was defeated and slain. Owing
to the central government’s preoccupations with other
problems, it could do nothing. Fortunately however,
Arslan Kh an died on 18 Djumada I 663/27 February
1265.

The authority of Dihll over the Pandjab and Sind
was weak partly because of the Mongol pressure and
partly due to their distance from the centre. In
639/1241, Lahore had been occupied by the Mongols.
About the same time Kabir Khan, governor of
Multan had declared his independence and occupied
Uc£h. Shortly afterwards, Hasan Karligh, a lieute¬

nant of Djalal al-Dln Kh w arazm-Shah. succeeded in
occupying Multan, but on the approach of the
Mongols fled to Lower Sind. Kablr’s descendants,
who held U£ch, appealed to Dihll for help. Balban at
once marched with a strong army, whereupon the
Mongols withdrew. Balban placed Multan under
Kishlu Khan, while U££h was left with Kablr’s fami¬
ly. Kishlu was, however, allowed to annex U££h as
well on condition that he relinquished Nagawr. But
Kishlu refused to give up Nagawr and did so only
when he was compelled. In 647/1249-50 Hasan
Karligh returned from Lower Sind and seized Multan
from Kishlu. Yet he was not able to retain Multan
long, for it was occupied by Shir Khan, governor of
Lahore and Bhatinda, who not only refused to restore
it to Kishlu, but dispossessed him of Uiih as well. It
is more than probable that Shir Khan’s action was in¬
spired by Balban.

Although Kishlu was compensated by the gover¬
norship of Bada^un, he was not reconciled to the loss
of Multan and joined the anti-Balban faction led by
Rayhan. In spite of this, Kishlu was, on Rayhan’s
dismissal, given back his former possessions of
Multan and Uc£h according to the settlement of
652/1254. But after establishing himself firmly,
Kishlu threw off the authority of Dihll and transferred
his loyalty to Hiilegu, and Mahmud’s government
was not strong enough to take any action.

Not satisfied with this, Kishlu, early in 655/1257,
joined his father-in-law, Kutlugh Khan, and together
they marched on Dihll. Balban moved out to meet
them near Samana. While the two forces were prepar¬
ing for a conflict, some religious leaders of Dihll sent
word to Kishlu that they would surrender the town to
them. This leaked out and the conspirators were
banished. So when the rebel army reached Dihll on 21
June 1257, after eluding Balban’s forces and Kishlu
found that no support was forthcoming, he returned
to Uc£h. Nothing is known as to what happened to
Kutlugh. But Kishlu paid a visit to Hiilegii in c Irak
seeking help to attack Dihll and, at the end of
655/1257, a Mongol army under Sali Bahadur arrived
in Sind; but, deterred by Balban’s military prepara¬
tions, it did not attack Dihll. Balban succeeded in oc¬
cupying both Multan and the Pandjab. Twice Kighlu
tried to occupy Multan with Mongol help, but failed.
Early in 656/1258, Hiilegii’s envoys arrived in Dihll.
Balban organised outside the city a spectacle, con¬
sisting of soldiers and common people, human heads
and corpses, to express the might and invincibility of
the Sultanate. It seems that Balban was able to arrive
at some understanding with Hiilegu, by which he was
able to occupy Sind.

Mahmud died in 665/1266-7. No contemporary
evidence exists to reveal the manner of his death. But
Ibn Ba{tu{a and c IsamI say that he was poisoned by
the ambitious Balban, and this is not improbable. On
Mahmud’s death, Balban ascended the throne as
Ghiyath al-Dln Balban.

Bibliography. DjuzdjanI, Tabakat-i Nasiri, ed.
c Abd al-Hayy Hablbl, Kabul 1342/1963, also ed.
Nassau Lees, Khadim Husayn and c Abd al-Hayy,
Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1864; Eng. tr. H. G. Raverty,
Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1897; c I§ami, Futuh al-salafin ,
ed. Agha Mahdl Husayn, Agra 1938; also ed. A.
S. Usha, Madras 1948; Eng. tr. Agha Mahdl Hu¬
sayn, ii, Aligarh 1977; Ibn Battuta, Eng. tr. A gh a
Mahdl Husayn, Baroda 1953; IJiya 5 al-Dln
BaranI, Ta^nkh-i Ftruz Shahi. ed. Sayyid Ahmad
Khan, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1862; c Abd al-Kadir
Bada-’unI, Muntakhab al-tawankh, i, ed. Ahmad
c AlI, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1868, Eng. tr. G. Rank-

MAHMUD

♦

ing, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1898; Nizam al-Dln,
Tabakdt-i Akbarl, i, ed. and Eng. tr. B. De, Bibl.
Ind. Calcutta 1927; Muhammad Kasim Hindu-
Shah, TaMkh-i Firishta , i, Lucknow 1281/1864-5;
A. B. M. Habibullah, The foundation of Muslim rule
in India , Allahabad 1961; M. Habib and K. A.
Nizami, eds., A comprehensive history of India
(1206-1526), v. Dihli 1970; W. Haig, ed., Cam¬
bridge history of India, iii, Cambridge 1928; R. C.
Majumdar, History and culture of the Indian people, v,
The struggle for empire, Bombay 1957; H. H.
Howorth, History of the Mongols, i, London 1927;
D’Ohsson, Histoire des Mongoles, iii, The Hague and
Amsterdam 1834; P. Saran, Politics and personalities
in the reign of Nasir al-Din Mahmud, the Slave, in Studies
in medieval Indian history , Dihli 1952; K. A. Nizami,
Balban, the regicide , in Studies in medieval Indian history,
Aligarh 1956; G. H. Odjha, Radjputaneka Itihas,
Adjmer 1927.

2. Mahmud II, Na$ir al-dIn b. sultan
Muhammad Shah b. FIruz Shah Tughluk; ascended
the throne of Dihli on 20 Djumada 796/23 March
1394, on the death of his brother c Ala* al-Din Sikan-
dar Shah, after two weeks of discussion between the
FIruz Shahi slaves and the Afghan Lodi amirs.
Mahmud tried to reconcile the nobles belonging to the
two groups. He appointed Malik Sarwar, a eunuch,
as wazlr with the title of Kh w adja Djahan and Dawlat
Khan Lodi as kotwal of Dihli. c Abd al-Rashld Khan
Sultan! was given the title of Sa c adat Khan and ap¬
pointed barbek. Sarang Khan Lodi, a cousin of Dawlat
Khan was assigned Dipalpur, while Sarang’s younger
brother Mallu Ikbal Khan was made deputy

wazlr.

The sultanate was in the process of disintegration.
Provinces had declared their independence; even the
territory around Dihli was in a state of turmoil. In
Radjab 796/May 1394, Mahmud sent Malik Sarwar
to suppress the rebellion of a zamindar in Djawnpur
and gave him the title of Sultan al-£hark. Malik Sarwar
suppressed the rebellion, annexed considerable ter¬
ritory and founded the kingdom of Djawnpur

Meanwhile, Bir Singh Deva, the Tomara zamindar
of Danaroll, attacked Gwaliyar [q. z>.] and occupied it.
Mahmud marched towards Gwaliyar with Sa c adat
Khan in Sha^ban 796/June 1394, leaving behind
Mukarrab Kh an, the heir-designate, in charge of
Dihli. On approaching Gwaliyar, Mallu Ikbal and
other amirs, who were jealous of Sa c adat, conspired to
assassinate him. But news of this leaked out and
Sa c adat put to death two of the conspirators. Mallu
Ikbal, however, escaped to Dihli to the protection of
Mukarrab Khan. Mahmud and Sa c adat therefore
returned to Dihli, but finding its gates closed to them,
besieged it. In the course of the siege, which lasted for
three months, Mahmud became dissatisfied with
Sa c adat and went over to Mukarrab. Thereupon
Sa c adat withdrew to Flruzabad, which he seized,
and, in RabI I 797/January 1395, set up Nusrat
Khan, another grandson of FIruz Shah, as Sultan.
But not long after, Sa c adat’s fellow-slaves turned
against him and he fled to Dihli, where Mukarrab put
him to death. However, the rebel slaves remained
loyal to Nusrat Shah and recognised him as king. The
result was that there were two rulers: Mahmud, who
was supported by the Lodls [< 7 . v. ] and held the forts of
Dihli and Sir! and their suburbs, and Nusrat, who was
supported by the slaves, and was in possession of
Flruzabad, including some parts of the Do 3 ab, Sam-
bhal, Panlpat and Rohtak. For three years skirmishes
continued between the partisans of Mahmud and
those of Nusrat, until suddenly Mallu Ikbal, the most

unscrupulous of the Dihli nobles of the period,
brought Nu§rat to Djahanpanah and professed loyalty
to him, but then attacked him. Nu$rat fled to
Flruzabad and then to his wazir , Tatar Khan, in
Panlpat. Mallu Ikbal occupied Flruzabad and fought
against Mukarrab for two months, and then killed
him. But he did not hurt Mahmud, whom he now
acknowledged as Sultan and whom he dominated.

Owing to these internecine conflicts, the Dihli
government was absolutely ineffective and, as
Bada 5 unl was to observe later: “the rule of the Sultan
of Dihli is from Dihli to Palam” ( hukm-i khudawand-i
c alam az Dihlist td Palam). Gudjarat, Radjasthan,
Bengal and Bihar no longer acknowledged the
authority of Dihli: Kannawdj, Dalmaw, Awadh and
Bahra 5 i£ were annexed to the new kingdom of
Djawnpur. The Hindu zamindars to the east and west
of Dihli were in a state of rebellion. In the north-west,
Khidr Khan held Multan; but in 798/1395-6 Sarang
Khan, who had been assigned Dipalpur, attacked
Khidr Khan and seized Multan with the help of his
brother, Mallu Ikbal. He then defeated Shavkha
Khokar and appointed his younger brother, c Adil
Khan, as governor of Lahore. But on 15 Muharram
800/8 October 1397, Sarang was defeated by Tatar
Khan at the battle of Kotla.

Such was the condition of Dihli and its provinces
when the storm of Timur’s invasion burst on Hin¬
dustan. Already Plr Muhammad, Timur’s grandson
and commander of the vanguard of his army, had oc¬
cupied Ucch and Multan and killed Sarang Khan
Lodi. Timur crossed the Indus in the second week of
Dh u ’1-Hidjdja 799/September 1399 and marched
towards Dihli, leaving behind a trail of death and
destruction. On hearing of Timur’s approach,
Mahmud and Ikbal improvised a force of 4,000 horse,
5,000 foot and 27 elephants and offered resistance
near the Djahanpanah palace, where Timur had
taken residence. But Mallu Ikbal fled after the first en¬
counter. On 18 December, however, he and Mahmud
confronted Timur with 10,000 horse and 40,000 foot,
but were completely routed, Ikbal fleeing to Baran
and Mahmud to Gudjarat and then to Malwa. After
staying in Dihli for Fifteen days, during which the city
was plundered and its inhabitants ruthlessly
massacred or enslaved, Timur left.

Onn Timur’s departure, Nusrat occupied Dihli,
but he was driven out by Mallu Ikbal into Mewat,
where he shortly after died. Ikbal thereupon invited
Mahmud from Malwa and restored him his throne on
6 Rabl c I 804/14 October 1401. In the same year,
Mahmud, accompanied by Ikbal, marched against
Ibrahim Shark! but, weary of his minister’s domina¬
tion, he went over to Ibrahim. However, as he was
not treated with the respect due to him by the
Djawnpur ruler, he escaped to Kannawdj [see
Kanawdj], where he established himself. Mallu Ikbal
made an attempt on Kannawdj, but was unsuccessful;
he then attacked Khidr Khan, but was defeated and
slain by him on 19 Djumada I 808/14 November 1405
on the banks of the river Dhanda in the Adjudhan
district. Mahmud returned to Dihli at the invitation of
Dawlat Khan Lodi and Ikhtivar Khan, two leading
nobles. But he was faced with serious problems: in the
first place, his kingdom had considerably shrunk,
because the provinces had become independent;
secondly, he was confronted by two formidable
enemies, Sultan Ibrahim Shark! in the east and Khidr
Khan in the west. In Sha c ban 809/December 1406,
Ibrahim Shark! besieged Kannawdj and took it after
a siege of four months. Then in Djumada I
810/October 1407 he marched towards Dihli, but on

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

MAHMUD

hearing that Muzaffar Shah I of Gudjarat was advan¬
cing towards Djawnpur, withdrew to save his capital.
Mahmud took advantage of Ibrahim Shark!’s retreat
to occupy Baran (Bulandshahr) and Sambhal.

It was, however, Khidr Khan who proved to be
Mahmud’s most dangerous enemy. He had con¬
solidated himself in the wildyat of Multan and the shikk
of Dipalpur and, on the plea that Timur had ap¬
pointed him his viceroy, he directed his attention
towards Dihli. In Sha c ban 809/January 1407, he oc¬
cupied Hisar-Firuza, Samana and Sirhind; and
although the next year Mahmud reoccupied Hisar, it
was a temporary success, for in Ramadan
811/January 1409, Khidr Khan sent Malik Tuhfa,
one of his lieutenants, to plunder the Do 3 ab, while he
himself set out towards Dihli and besieged Mahmud
in Sir! and Ikhtiyar Khan in Firuzabad. Lack of pro¬
visions due to famine compelled Khidr to withdraw.
But in 813/1410-11 he conquered Rohtak, and the
next year he again invested Dihli. Ikhtiyar, who held
Firuzabad, submitted, but Mahmud held out in Siri,
and Khidr was once again compelled to withdraw on
account of the lack of provisions. Mahmud died in
Radjab 815/November 1412, and Dawlat Khan Lodi
became the ruler of Dihli. In Ramadan
816/November-December 1413, Khidr for the third
time advanced on Dihli and besieged Siri. After
holding out for four months, Dawlat Khan sur¬
rendered. He was imprisoned in Hisar-Firuza, and
Khidr obtained possession of Dihli on 17 Rabi I 817/6
June 1414, thus laying the foundations of the short¬
lived Sayyid dynasty.

Bibliography: Shams Siradj c AfTf, TaMkh-i
FtruzShahi , ed. Hidayat Husayn, Bibl. Ind. Calcut¬
ta 1890; Yahya b. Ahmad b. c Abd Allah Sirhindi,
Ta \ikh-i Mubarak Shdhi, ed. Hidayat Husayn, Bibl.
Ind. Calcutta 1931, Eng. tr. K. K. Basu, Baroda
1932; Nizam al-Din, Tabakal-i Akbari , i, ed. and tr.
B. De, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1927; c Abd al-Kadir
Bada’um, Muntakhab al-tawdrlkh, i, ed. and tr. G.
A. Ranking, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1898; Muhammad
Kasim Hindu-Shah. Ta 3 rikh-i Firishta, i, Lucknow
1281/1864; A. Mahdi Husayn, Tughluk dynasty,
Calcutta 1963; M. Habib and K. A. Nizami, eds.,
A comprehensive history of India (1206-1526), v, Dihli
1970; W. Haig, ed., Cambridge history of India , iii,
Cambridge 1928; R. C. Madjumdar, ed., History
and culture of the Indian people, v. The strugglefor empire,
Bombay 1957. (Mohibbul Hasan)

MAHMUD, the name of three mediaeval
rulers of Gudjarat, [q.v.] in India.

1. Mahmud I, Sayf al-DIn, Begarha or Begra, a
younger brother of Sultan Kutb al-Din and son of
Muhammad Shah, ascended the throne on 1 Sha c ban
863/3 June 1459, at the age of thirteen, with the title
of Abu TFath Muhammad Shah, after the nobles had
dethroned his uncle Dawud. He is known as Mahmud
Begarha because of the two forts (garhs ) of Girnar and
Campaner which he conquered.

Four months after his accession, Mahmud was fac¬
ed with a conspiracy of some leading nobles aimed at
overthrowing his able minister, Malik Sha c ban. They
told him that the minister was plotting to depose him
and thereby secured his imprisonment. But on
discovering that the charges were false, Mahmud
secured his release. Realising that the Sultan had
come to know of their designs, the conspirators decid¬
ed to attack him; however, as their followers deserted
to the Sultan, they fled. Mahmud had thus crushed
the plot by his courage and presence of mind. Malik
Sha c ban, though restored to his office, soon retired
and Mahmud took the reins of government in his own
hands.

In 866/1462, Mahmud marched to the help of
Nizam Shah BahmanI, whose kingdom had been in¬
vaded by Mahmud Khaldji I [q.v. ] of Malwa. But
learning that Nizam §hah had been defeated, he
entered Khandesh [q.v.] and thereby cut off the
retreat of Mahmud Khaldji who had to make his way
back through Gondwana after much hardship. Next
year again Mahmud Khaldji invaded the Dakhan, but
withdrew on hearing that Mahmud Begarha was com¬
ing to Nizam Shah’s assistance. Henceforth, the
Khaldji ruler never again committed aggression
against Nizam Shah.

In 867/1463, Mahmud invaded Dun, situated be¬
tween Gudjarat and Konkan, because of its Rasa’s
acts of piracy. The Radja was defeated and his fortress
occupied; but it was restored to him on condition of
an annual tribute.

In 871/1466, Mahmud attacked Girnar
(Djunagarh), and compelled its chief, Rao Mandalik
Cudasama, to pay tribute. But although Mahmud re¬
ceived the tribute regularly, he decided to annex Gir¬
nar and led an invasion. The Rao retreated to his
citadel of Uparkot, situated north-west of the town,
but as supplies ran short, surrendered on 10 Dj urn ad a
II 875/4 December 1470. Mahmud had to undertake
three campaigns in four years to subdue the Rao. Gir¬
nar was annexed and its chief, having entered the ser¬
vice of the Sultan, embraced Islam and was given the
title of Khan-i Djahan. At the foot of the Girnar hills
the Sultan founded the city of Mu?tafabad, which
became one of his capitals.

Mahmud next marched against the frontier tribes
of the Sumras, Sodhas and Kahlas who lived on the
Ka££h border and who, although claiming to be
Muslims, were in fact ignorant of the Shan c a. They
surrendered without offering any resistance and
agreed to send their leaders to Ahmadabad to be
taught the tenets of Islam.

In 877/1473, the Djat and Baluc tribes rebelled
against Mahmud’s maternal grandfather, Djam
Nizam al-Din. Mahmud crossed the Rann of Ka££h
in order to suppress the rising, but the rebels dispers¬
ed without offering any resistance. It was suggested to
Mahmud that he should annex Sind but he refused,
saying that his mother belonged to its ruling family.

On his return from Sind, Mahmud heard that
Mawlana Mahmud Samarkand!, a poet and philoso¬
pher, who had long been in the service of the BahmanI
rulers, while sailing in a ship bound for Hormuz, had
been driven to Dwarka, situated in the north-western
corner of Kathiawar, where pirates had robbed him of
all his belongings, including his womenfolk. After
many hardships, the Mawlana arrived in
Mustafabad. Angry at his plight, the Sultan marched
towards Dwarka. Its Radjput chief, Bhim, took refuge
in the island-fortress of Bet or Sankhodhar. Mahmud
marched through dense forests, full of wild animals,
and invested it. Bhim was defeated in a sea fight and
taken prisoner. The Mawlana’s goods were now
restored to him.

Tired of the Sultan’s constant wars and his plans of
invading Campaner, which would be a prolonged af¬
fair, the Gudjarat nobles plotted to overthrow him
and set up his son on the throne. But Ray Rayan, an
important Hindu noble, revealed the plot to the waztr
Baha 3 al-Din, who, in turn, reported it to Mahmud.
To test the reaction of the conspirators, the Sultan an¬
nounced that he had decided to go on a pilgrimage to
Mecca. Realising that Mahmud had been informed of
the conspiracy, and that they would not succeed in
their aims, they requested him to undertake the cam¬
paign for the conquest of Campaner, and then pro¬
ceed to Mecca.

MAHMUD

Accordingly, on Dhu ’1-Ka c da 887/12 December
1482, he marched towards Campaner on the pretext
that its Radja, Rawal Djay Singh, had raided his
kingdom. The Radja was defeated and took refuge in
the hill fortress of Pavagarh, above fiampaner.
Mahmud thereupon besieged it. But learning that
Mahmud Khaldjl I, to whom the Radja had appealed
for aid, was marching towards Gudjarat, Mahmud
left his officers to continue the siege, and he himself
set out to intercept the Malwa army. But as Mahmud
Khaldjl withdrew to Malwa, the Sultan returned to
prosecute the siege. Supplies in the fort ran short and,
after a breach was affected by a cannonball, it was
captured. Of the 700 Radjputs, who performed the
djawhar, all were slain except the Radja and his
minister, who were seized and executed. But the
Radja’s son accepted Islam and was given the title of
Nizam al-Mulk and made the ruler of Idar. 6am-
paner was renamed Muhammadabad.

Mahmud now turned his attention to Radja c Adil
Khan II of Khandesh (861-907/1457-1501), who had
not only not paid his annual tribute, but had asserted
his independence. In 904/1498, Mahmud invaded
Khandesh and compelled its ruler to pay tribute and
recognise his suzerainty. Later, on the death of Radja
c Adil Khan’s son, Ghazni Khan (914/1508), who left
no male heir, Mahmud took part in the dispute over
succession. Ahmad Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar,
c Imad Shah of Berar^ and Husam al-Dln, a powerful
noble, all favoured c Alam Khan, who belonged to the
Faruki dynasty. But Mahmud supported his maternal
grandson, also called c Alam Khan, and marched with
him to Thalner, the capital of the Faruki rulers.
Thereupon, the rulers of Ahmadnagar and Berar,
who had arrived in Burhanpur, withdrew, and on 19
Dh u ’l-Hidjdja 914/10 April 1509, Mahmud installed
c Alam Khan as c Adil Khan III on the throne of
Khandesh: and when, subsequently, a rebellion sup¬
ported by Nizam Shah broke out, he sent troops to the
aid of his grandson, so that the rebels fled.

The Portuguese had diverted the trade between
Europe and the East from the ancient route via Egypt
and the Red Sea to the new route via the Cape of
Good Hope, discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1498.
So, when in 913/1507 the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt
sent an expedition to the Gudjarat coast to destroy the
Portuguese power, Mahmud readily sent his naval
ship under Ayaz, a Turk in his service, to his help. In
a naval battle off Chaul in Ramadan 913/January
1508, the Portuguese were defeated and their com¬
mander, Dom Lourenco, son of the Portuguese
viceroy Almeida, was killed. To avenge the defeat and
the death of his son, Almeida attacked the combined
Egyptian and Gudjarat! navy near Diu and scored a
victory. Impressed by this victory, the Sultan sent an
ambassador to the Portuguese Viceroy, Albuquerque
(1505-15), and a treaty was concluded. It was agreed
that the Portuguese would not hinder Gudjarat trade
and would respect the right of Gudjarat! vessels to ply
in the Indian waters. In return, the Portuguese
prisoners would be released and the Portuguese
vessels would be permitted to visit the Gudjarat ports.
Mahmud released the prisoners of war and offered the
Portuguese a site for a factory at Diu.

Mahmud died on 2 Ramadan 917/23 November
1511, at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in the
mausoleum which he had built for himself at
Sarkhedj, about six miles south-west of Ahmadabad.
He was by far the greatest of the Sultans of Gudjarat,
and his reign was the most glorious period of
mediaeval Gudjarat. Brave, just and liberal, possess¬
ing great energy and a strong will, he was not only a

military genius but also an able administrator. He ap¬
pointed able officers like Malik GopI, his Hindu chief
minister, to carry on the government. He advanced
money to repair old houses, he dug wells, built inns,
planted trees on both sides of the road, made roads
safe for travellers and merchants, freed the country
from internal strife and tried to exterminate piracy.
Owing to these measures, trade increased, agriculture
flourished and the people became prosperous.

Mahmud was a cultured ruler and enjoyed the
society of learned men. He had the famous
biographical dictionary of Ibn Khallikan translated
into Persian, under the name of Manzar al-Islam. He
also patronised Sanskrit, and his court poet
Udayaradj wrote a poem in his praise. He was also a
great builder, and his contribution to Gudjarat ar¬
chitecture is considerable. He laid out two beautiful
gardens, Bagh-i Firdaws and Bagh-i Sha c ban near
Ahmadabad. He founded the towns of Mustafabad,
Mahmudabad and Muhammadabad-6ampaner and
embellished them with palaces and mosques. He
beautified Ahmadabad with broad streets and a
number of fine buildings. At 6ampaner he con¬
structed a magnificent Djam c Masdjid, and at Sar¬
khedj he built for himself on the banks of a reservoir
a grand palace. The fame of Mahmud’s achievements
spread far and wide; in Safar 914/June 1508, an em¬
bassy came from Sikandar Lodi of Dihll, and an em¬
bassy also arrived from Shah Isma c Il $afawl of
Persia, but as the Sultan was lying seriously ill he
could not receive the Persian envoy.

Bibliography. c Abd Allah Muhammad b.
c Umar, Zafar al-wdlih bi-Muzaffar wa-dlih, ed. E. D.
Ross, An Arabic history of Gudj_arat, London 1910-28;
Eng. tr. of vol. i by S. Lokhandwala, Baroda 1970;
Sikandar b. Muhammad, alias Manjhu, Mir^at-i
Sikandari, ed. S. C. Misra, Baroda 1961, Eng. tr.
Fadl Allah Lutf Allah Farldl, Bombay 1899, and by
E. C. Bayley, London 1886; C A1I Muhammad
Khan. Mir^at-i Ahmadi, ed. Sayyid Nawwab C A1I,
Baroda 1927-8, Eng. tr. M. F. Lokhandwala,
Baroda 1965; Mir^at-i Ahmadi , Supplement , ed.
Sayyid Nawwab c AlI, Baroda 1930, Eng. tr. idem
and C. N. Seddon, Baroda 1928; Muhammad
Kasim Hindu-Shah, Ta^rikh-i Firishta, ii, Lucknow
1281/1864; Nizam al-Dln, Tabakdt-i Akbari, iii, ed.
B. De and Hidayat Husayn, Calcutta 1935, and
Eng. tr. B. De and Baini Prashad, Bibl. Ind.
Calcutta 1938; The commentaries of the great Alfonso
d’Alboquerque, Eng. tr. Walter de Gray Birch,
Hakluyt Society, I-IV, 1875-1905; The book of
Duarte Barbosa, Eng.tr. M. L. Dames, Hakluyt
Society 1918; M. S. Commissariat, A history of
Gudjarat, i, London 1938; W. Haig, ed., Cambridge
history of India, iii, Cambridge 1928; M. Habib and
K. A. Nizami, eds., A comprehensive history of India
(1206-1526), v, Dihll 1970; works by J. Burgess on
Muhammadan architecture of Gudjarat, published be¬
tween 1875-1905.

2. Mahmud II, was the sixth son of Sul{an Muzaf-
far Shah (917-32/1511-26), on whose death his eldest
son and heir-designate, Sikandar, succeeded as Sultan
with the support of c Imad al-Mulk Khushkadam and
Khudawand Khan, two powerful nobles. His third
son, Latlf, contested the throne, but was defeated and
slain. Sikandar was extremely handsome, but he sur¬
rounded himself by low favourites, gave himself up to
pleasure and took no interest in affairs of state. This
made him unpopular with both the nobles and
Sayyids of Gudjarat. Taking advantage of this,
Khushkadam, who was angry with Sikandar for ig¬
noring him and not making him wazir , caused him to

MAHMUD

be assassinated on the night of 14 Sha c ban 932/27
May 1526, and raised to the throne Muzaffar Shah’s
six-year old son Na?Ir Khan as Mahmud II.
However, jealous of Khushkadam. who was the defac¬
to ruler, the nobles, led by Tadj Khan Narpall, offered
the throne to Muzaffar Shah’s second son, Bahadur
Kh an: Kh ushkadam appealed to the neighbouring
princes and to Babur, but received no help. On
receiving the nobles’ invitation, Bahadur, who was on
his way to Dj awn pur to try his fortune there, rushed
back to Ahmadabad and ascended the throne on 26
Ramadan 932/July 1526. From Ahmadabad he mar¬
ched to Campaner, and having occupied the fort with¬
out meeting much resistance, executed Khushkadam
and later Mahmud II, whose reign of about forty days
thus came to an end.

Bibliography'. See that for mahmud i; also Mir

Abu Turab Wall, Ta^nkh-i Gudjarat , ed. E. D.

Ross, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1909.

3. Mahmud III, Abu ’l-Futuhat Sa c d al-DIn,
was the third son of Latlf Khan, son of Sultan Muzaf¬
far Shah II. On the death of Bahadur Shah on 3
Ramadan 943/13 February 1537, who left no son,
Muhammad Zaman Mlrza, the Emperor Humayun’s
brother-in-law, claimed the throne on the ground that
Bahadur Shah’s mother had adopted him as his heir,
and he had the khutba recited in his name in the
Djami c Masdjid at Diu. But the Gudjarat nobles
refused to acknowledge him as Sultan and offered the
throne to Miran Muhammad Shah FarukI, son of
Bahadur Shah’s sister. Miran set out from Burhan-
pur, but died on the way (926/1527). Thereupon, the
nobles decided to set up on the throne Latlf s younger
son Mahmud Khan, who, during the reign of
Bahadur Shah, had been in the custody of Miran
Muhammad Shah of Khandesh. But Mubarak Shah.
Miran’s successor, refused to release him, he himself
being a claimant to the throne of Gudjarat. So Ikh-
tiyar Khan Siddlkl invaded Khandesh and brought
Mahmud to Ahmadabad, where he was enthroned as
Abu ’l-Futuhat, Sa c d al-DIn Mahmud Shah III. But
as Mahmud was only eleven years of age, Ikhtivar
Khan became the Regent. He was an able man, but
jealous of his power, and Muhaftz Khan and Darya
Khan had him assassinated. But these two last soon
fell out and fought with each other to dominate
Mahmud. Darya Khan emerged victorious; but not
long after he was replaced by c Alam Khan, another
noble, who now dominated the young Sultan. In
856/1545 Mahmud, weary of being a puppet king,
decided to assert himself and shifted his capital to
Mahmudabad, which had been founded by Mahmud
I.

On 4 September 1538, Sulayman Pasha, the Ot¬
toman governor of Egypt, arrived off the coast of Diu
with a large fleet in order to overthrow the Portuguese
power in the Indian waters. Mahmud helped him
when, in Djumada I 945/October 1538, he attacked
Diu abortively. In 453/1546, Mahmud himself made
an attempt to seize Diu. The Portuguese governor,
Dom Joao de Castro, retaliated by committing great
atrocities on the Gudjarat coast. Realising the in-
vicibility of the Portuguese, Mahmud made peace
with them and granted them favourable terms.

In 1551 Mahmud thought of invading Malwa, but
instead directed his attention to the suppression of
Radjput landlords, who had rebelled because of the
resumption of the large land grants which they held.
The rebellion was crushed with great severity and
their lands were seized; but the Radjput peasant was
not interfered with. Mahmud was planning to march
towards Mandu to the help of the Emperor Humayun

when, on the night of 12 Rabl c I 961/15 February
1554, he was assassinated by his attendant Burhan al-
Dln, in revenge for the punishment which he had once
inflicted on him.

Mahmud was weak and incompetent, but capable
of committing acts of cruelty and of displaying occa¬
sional outbursts of energy. He was nevertheless
generous and distributed food and clothes to the poor,
and in winter gave them firewood and even bedding.
He was a cultured prince and fond of the society of the
learned and the pious. In Mahmudabad he erected an
enclosure, six miles in area, which he named the Deer
Park (Ahu-khana), and in which various kinds of wild
animals roamed freely. He built in it splendid
buildings and laid out nice gardens and spent his time
there in the company of beautiful women, with whom
he hunted and played polo.

Mahmud left no male heir because, dreading that
he would have a rival, he used to procure the abortion
of any of his women who happened to become preg¬
nant. So after Mahmud’s death, the nobles asserted
their independence in their djagirs and fought with
each other for power. They first set up a boy, who was
related to him as Sultan with the title of Ahmad III,
who ruled nominally until Sha c ban 968/April 1561,
and then Muzaffar III who reigned until 980/1572,
when the Emperor Akbar invaded Gudjarat and put
an end to the prevailing chaos by annexing it.

Bibliography: See those for mahmud I and

mahmud II of Gudjarat. (Mohibbul Hasan)

MAHMUD, the name of two mediaeval
rulers of Malwa [ q.v .] in India.

1 . Mahmud KhaldjI I, the son of Malik Mughlth,
whose mother was the sister of Dilawar Khan, the
founder of the Ghurl dynasty of Malwa. On the death
of Sultan Hushang Shah on 8 Dhu THi djdj a 838/5
July 1435, his son Ghazni Shah succeeded with the
support of Mahmud Khan and assumed the title of
Muhammad Shah Ghurl. He was weak and cruel
and, thinking that Mahmud Khan wanted to usurp
the throne, tried to have him assassinated. But
Mahmud Khan came to know of this and caused
Mahmud Ghurl to be poisoned. He then offered the
throne to his father, but since the latter refused, he
himself ascended the throne on 29 Shawwal 839/16
May 1436. He, however, conferred on his father the
title of A c zam Humayun, and permitted him the use
of all the symbols of royalty. He also consulted him on
all affairs of state and acted on his advice.

At the very outset of his reign, Mahmud was faced
by the rebellion of the nobles of Muhammad Ghurl.
who refused to recognise him as Sultan. This he sup¬
pressed, executing some nobles and forgiving others
on the advice of his father, who suggested a policy of
appeasement. However, this policy was not suc¬
cessful, because a rising on a much larger scale now
broke out. A c zam Humayun first had Prince Ahmad
Khan, son of Hushang Shah, poisoned, and then
eliminated the rebels one by one, so that by Radjab
841/January 1438 he had succeeded in crushing the
rising.

Meanwhile, Mahmud was faced with a serious
threat from Sultan Ahmad Shah of Gudjarat, who
championed the cause of Mas c ud Khan, son of
Muhammad Ghurl, and having entered Malwa, laid
siege to Mandu [q.v .], its capital. While the siege was
in progress, Mahmud heard that c Umar Khan,
youngest son of Ahmad Shah, had attacked (Sander!
and killed its governor, HadjdjI Kamal, and that
Prince Muhammad Khan, another son of Ahmad
Shah, was marching to c Umar Khan’s aid. In order
to intercept Prince Muhammad, Mahmud marched

MAHMUD

out of Mandu towards Sarangpur. This led to the
recall of Prince Muhammad by his father. Mahmud,
having prevented any help reaching c Umar Khan,
defeated and killed him and then, on hearing that
Ahmad Shah had withdrawn to Gudjarat because
plague had broken out in his army, he returned to
Mandu. But after seventeen days, he set out towards
Canderi and captured it after a siege of four months.
Here he received a request of help from Bahar Khan.
mukta c of Shahr-i Naw, which was being invested by
Dungar Sen of Gwaliyar [<p.p. ]. Mahmud, instead of
marching towards Shahr-i Naw, advanced towards
Gwaliyar. This strategy was successful, because
Dungar Sen, realising the danger to his capital,
retired from Shahr-i Naw. Mahmud, having achieved
his object, withdrew from Gwaliyar and proceeded to
Shahr-i Naw, where Bahar Khan acknowledged his
suzerainty.

After consolidating his position, Mahmud in
844/1440-1 turned his attention towards the border
chiefs. He first advanced on Khandwa. situated be¬
tween Malwa and Kh andesh and of great strategic
importance. Ray Narhar Das, its chief, finding
himself unable to resist, fled, so that Mahmud was
able to annex it, along with Khora and Khirki, and
secured the submission of Kherla’s chief, Narsingh
Deva. From Kherla [< 7 . y. ], Mahmud marched towards
Sargudja. On the way, the petty zamindars sent
elephants as tribute and begged him spare their ter¬
ritories. Radja Bhodja of Sargudja submitted and
promised to supply elephants to the Sultan. Similarly,
the mukaddams of Raypur and Ratanpur came forward
with elephants as tribute. Mahmud returned from
Sargudja to Mandu in 845/1441-2.

Mahmud’s reputation having spread far and wide,
some of the c ulamd 3 of Dihll invited him to overthrow
its Sayyid ruler, Sultan Muhammad Shah
(837-47/1434-43). Mahmud accepted the invitation
and set out towards Dihli at the end of 845/1442. But
in an engagement near Dihll he was unable to defeat
Prince c Ala :> al-Din, Sultan Muhammad Shah’s son,
and, finding no hope of future success, he returned to
Mandu on 1 Muharram 846/12 May 1442.

Mahmud now turned his attention to Rana Kum¬
bha of Mewar, against whom he nursed a grievance.
The Rana had helped Prince c Umar Khan of
Gudjarat to seize the throne of Malwa, and had reduc¬
ed the Radjput chiefs on the borders of Malwa, which
had accepted the suzerainty of Sultan Hushang Shah.
Mahmud took advantage of the rivalry between the
Sisodias and the Rathors and of the struggle for power
between Rana Kumbha and his brother, Khem
Karan. Since the latter was expelled by the Rana,
Mahmud used it as a pretext for its invasion. On 26
Radjab 846/30 November 1442, he advanced towards
Mewar. On reaching Kumbhalgarh, he attacked the
Banmata temple, situated at its base, occupied it after
seven days and razed it to the ground because it con¬
tained arms for the defence of the main fort and,
although outwardly a temple, formed part of the
defences of the main fort. Mahmud then marched
towards Citor, but before he could attack it, he heard
the news of his father’s death in Mandasor. He
therefore proceeded to Mandasor and, after the
period of mourning was over, returned to Citor, but
Finding its capture difficult, returned to Mandu and
decided to reduce Mewar gradually. So on 13
Shawwal 847/3 February 1444 he occupied Gagrawn
and named it Mustafabad. Two years later he reduced
Ranthambhor. He then attempted to seize Man-
dalgarh, but failed. In 851/1447-8, he marched on
Gwaliyar and defeated Dungar Sen, who was compel¬

led to retreat into his fort. Mahmud proceeded to
Agra and thence to Bayana, whose chief, Muhammad
Khan, submitted to him. In 859/1455, Mahmud oc¬
cupied Adjmer and, early in 861/January 1457, he
besieged the strong fort of Mandalgarh. He took it on
1 Dhu THidjdja 861/20 October 1457, by first break¬
ing the dams of the fort’s reservoir, which caused the
water to flow out, and then affecting a breach in the
fort’s walls. He destroyed an old temple and built a
mosque in its place, and returned to Mandu after ar¬
ranging for its administration. Until the end of his life
Mahmud made several attempts to reduce Citor, but
failed; and although he defeated Rana Kumbha, he
failed to crush him and occupy any large part of
Mewar.

In Sha c ban 848/January 1444, Mahmud came into
conflict with the Shark! ruler of Djawnpur [q.v.]., who
had occupied Kalpi and refused to restore it to Nasir
Khan, his vassal. This led to an armed conflict.
However, through the mediation of the Shaykh al-
Islam, Shaykh Dja 5 ilda, who enjoyed the respect of
both the Sultans, a settlement was arrived at and
Kalp! was given back to Nasir Kh an [see mahmud
shah shark!].

Mahmud, taking advantage of the incompetence of
Muhammad Shah of Gudjarat, tried to interfere in
the affairs of his kingdom. Accordingly, in 854/1450
he set out to the assistance of Ganga Das of Cam¬
paner, which had been attacked by Muhammad
Shah. But instead of marching to Campaner, he
directed his attack on Ahmadabad, capital of
Gudjarat. Alarmed for the safety of his capital,
Muhammad Shah raised the siege of Campaner and
returned to Ahmadabad. Meanwhile, having received
an invitation for the invasion of Gudjarat, Mahmud
marched at the end of 854/January 1451 and entered
Gudjarat. But since Muhammad Shah had died,
Mahmud found himself confronted by his successor,
Kutb al-Din, at Kaparbandj. On the last night of
$afar 855/2 April 1451, he made a night attack on the
Gudjarat army, but it proved abortive. In an engage¬
ment the next day, Mahmud suffered a defeat and
had to retreat with the loss of eighty elephants and his
baggage. On his return to Mandu, Mahmud, to
avenge his defeat, sent Prince Ghivath to raid the
Gudjarat ports of Surat and Rainder. Accordingly,
the prince plundered the suburbs and countryside of
Surat and returned to Mandu with the booty.
However, realising that his chances of success against
the Gudjarat army were remote, Mahmud decided to
compel Kutb al-Din to make peace by a show of his
military power. This device worked, for when, on 6
Dhu THidjdja 855/30 December 1451, he sent an ar¬
my to invade Gudjarat, Kutb al-Din agreed upon a
treaty by which they were to respect each other’s ter¬
ritories and Mewar was to be divided into two parts
for the military activities of the two rulers.

In Muharram 85 7/January-February 1453,
Mahmud invaded the Deccan under the impression
that the Bahmani Sultan c Ala ? al-Din Ahmad II, had
died. But on reaching the borders of Mahur, he
discovered that the Bahmani ruler was not only alive,
but had personally come to attack him; hence he
returned to Malwa.

In 866/1461 Mahmud again invaded the Deccan,
defeated the Bahmani forces at Maheskar on the
Mandjar river and invested Bidar. The Dowager
Queen, mother of the boy-king, Nizam Shah, sent an
army under Mahmud Gawan and at the same time
appealed to Mahmud I of Gudjarat [q.v. ] for aid.
Realising that he was not strong enough to fight the
two armies simultaneously, Mahmud withdrew to

MAHMUD

Malwa. He for the third time invaded the Deccan on
26 Rabl c I 867/19 December 1462, and occupied
Dawlatabad, but on hearing of the approach of
Mahmud Begarha [q.v.], he again withdrew. But
since the route via Khandesh was blocked by the
Gudjaratl forces, Mahmud had to make his way back
through the forests of Gondwana and suffer great
hardship. Convinced that he would not be able to con¬
quer the Deccan, Mahmud came to a settlement with
the Bahmanids. It was agreed that EliCpur [q.v. in
Suppl.] would be the boundary between the kingdoms
of Malwa and the Bahmanids, and that Mahmud
would not in future invade the Deccan.

Mahmud died on 19 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 873/31 May
1469 at the age of sixty-eight and was succeeded by his
eldest son, Ghiyath al-Dln Shah. He had been a
precocious child and, impressed by his intelligence,
Sultan Hushang Shah used to keep him by his side,
and gave him the title of Khan when he was only six¬
teen. So it was no surprise that Mahmud proved to be
the greatest ruler of mediaeval Malwa, which reached
the height of glory under him. He was wise, brave and
benevolent, and a man of great energy and deter¬
mination. Although religious, he was tolerant towards
Hindus and associated them in his government;
Sangrama Singh was his treasurer and Ray Rayan
Siva was one of his most important and respected
nobles. It is true he destroyed some temples, but this
was done in the territory of his enemies in the course
of his campaigns; in his own kingdom he respected the
sanctity of Hindu places of worship.

Mahmud tried to promote the welfare of his sub¬
jects. When the crops were damaged by the marches
and counter-marches of his troops, he compensated
the peasants for their losses. He encouraged trade by
patronising the Jains and encouraging them to settle
in Malwa, and he made the roads safe for the
movements of goods. He established a big hospital in
Mandu which he richly endowed. He also opened a
college with a hostel, where board and lodging was
provided for both teachers and students.

The fame of Mahmud’s achievements reached as
far as distant Egypt and Transoxiana. In 867/1462 al-
Mustandjid bi’llah, the puppet c Abbasid caliph of
Egypt, sent an envoy to Mandu with a khil c a [q.v .]
and a diploma of investiture, conferring on Mahmud
sovereign powers. Some years later, in 867/1462, an
envoy came from Timur’s great-grandson, Abu Sa c Id
of Transoxiana and Khurasan, with presents for
Mahmud. In return, when the envoy left, he was ac¬
companied by Prince c Ala 3 al-Dln and his father’s en¬
voy and carried rich presents for Abu Sa c Id.
Unfortunately, no details of Mahmud’s mission to
Harat are available.

Mahmud was an enthusiastic builder. He com¬
pleted the mosque and tomb of Hushang Shah, whose
foundations had been laid by the latter. He also
erected a number of buildings to commemorate his
victory over Rana Kunbha of Mewar.

Bibliography: c Abd Allah Muhammad b.
c Umar, Zafar al-walih bi-Muzaffar wa-alih , ed.
E. D. Ross, An Arabic history of Gudjardt , London
1910-28; c AlI b. Muhammad al-Kirmanl,
Ma 3 athir-i Mahmud Shahi, ed. Nur al-Hasan, Dihll
1968; Yahya b. Ahmad b. c Abd Allah al-Sirhindl,
Ta Mkh-i Mubarak Shahi, ed. Hidayat Husayn, Bibl.
Ind., Calcutta 1931, Eng. tr. K. K. Basu, Baroda
1932; Nizam al-Dln, Tabakdt-i Akbari, iii, ed. B. De
and Hidayat Husayn, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1935
and Eng. tr. B. De and Baini Prashad, Bibl. Ind.,
Calcutta 1938; Muhammad Kasim Hindu Shah.
Ta \ikh-i Firishta, Lucknow 1281/1864; U. N. Day,

Medieval Malwa (1401-1561), Dihll 1965; M. Habib

and K. A. Nizami, eds., A comprehensive history of In¬
dia (1206-1526), Delhi 1965; W. Haig, ed., Cam¬
bridge history of India , iii, Cambridge 1928; G.

YazdanI, Mandu: the city of joy , Oxford 1929.

2. Mahmud Kh aldjI I, whose real name was
A c zam Humayun, the third son of Suljan Naslr al-
Dln Shah (906-16/1501-10). The latter had designated
his eldest son, Shihab al-Dln, as his successor, but as
Shihab al-Dln had rebelled, he nominated A c zam
Humayun to succeed him, and gave him the title of
Mahmud Shah. Accordingly, on the death of his
father, Mahmud declared himself Sultan. But his two
elder brothers, Shihab al-Dln and Sahib Khan, refus¬
ed to recognise him. The former set out towards Man¬
du, but his advance was checked by Muhafiz Khan
and Khawass Khan, who were in favour of Mahmud.
In consequence, he retired to Khandesh [q.v.].
Mahmud, who had been following him, succeeded in
entering Mandu and ascended the throne on 6 Rabl c
I 917/3 June 1511.

Mahmud was weak, incompetent, fickle-minded
and a puppet in the hands of his nobles, who struggled
with each other to dominate him. He first came under
the influence of Ikbal Khan and Mukhta§$ Khan, who
were so powerful as to assassinate the wazir, Basant
Ray, in the audience hall, and secure the banishment
of Sangran Soni, the treasurer. But Mahmud soon
turned against them and allowed himself to be
dominated by Muhafiz Khan. Ikbal and Mukhtass
thereupon recalled Shihab al-Dln, and finding their
life in danger, left Mandu to join the pretender.
Shihab al-Dln advanced from Khandesh by quick
marches, but died on the way due to heat and exhaus¬
tion. Meanwhile, Mahmud, weary of Muhafiz
Khan’s domination, tried to overthrow him. But
before he could take any action, the minister himself
struck and raised to the throne his elder brother,
Sahib Khan, as Muhammad Shah II. Mahmud, fin¬
ding himself helpless, escaped from Mandu and went
first to Udjdjayn and then to Canderl, where its
governor refused to help him. However, he secured
the help of Ray (Sand Purbiya, upon whom he confer¬
red the title of Mednl Ray, and attacked $ahib Khan.
He defeated him and then besieged him in Mandu.
Sahib Khan, unable to hold out, fled to Gudjarat with
Muhafiz Khan and was given protection by its ruler.
Muzaffar II.

Mahmud, in recognition of Mednl Ray’s services,
made him his wazir. But this aroused the hostility of
the nobles like Sikandar Khan of Satwas and Bah^jat
Khan of Canderl, who rebelled and took up the cause
of Sahib Khan, who had returned to Malwa. Mednl
Ray succeeded in reducing Sikandar Khan to obe¬
dience, but operations against the other rebels had to
be postponed because Muzaffar II invaded Malwa
and besieged Mandu. Fortunately, however, finding
Mandu too strong to be reduced, Muzaffar withdrew
and Mahmud, with Mednl Ray’s help, was able to oc¬
cupy Canderl and expel Sahib Khan in Djumada I
920/July 1514.

The victories achieved by Mednl Ray made him
very powerful, and he began to fill all the important
posts by his own Radjput followers, dismissing old
Muslim officers. Mahmud resented these changes,
and chafing under Mednl Ray’s domination,
demanded that the dismissed Muslim officers be
reinstated, and that the Radjputs should not keep
Muslim women as mistresses. Mednl Ray accepted
these conditions, but his assistant Salivahan refused.
Mahmud therefore decided to get rid of both of them
by assassination. Mednl Ray escaped with minor in-

MAHMUD

juries, but Salivahan was killed. This led to the revolt
of the Radjputs. Mednl Ray, however, pacified them
and continued as wazir. But Mahmud, having failed
to overthrow him, escaped from Mandu at the end of
923/1517 to Gudjarat and sought the aid of Muzaffar
II. The latter, thereupon, invaded Malwa in order to
restore Mahmud’s authority. On hearing of the inva¬
sion, Mednl Ray proceeded to Citor to seek the aid of
Rana Sangarama Sengh, leaving his son, Ray
Pithora, in charge of Mandu. Meanwhile, Muzaffar
II invested Mandu and having taken it by an escalade
on 4 $afar 924/15 February 1518, ordered the
massacre of the Radjputs who had defended the fort.
He reinstated Mahmud and returned to Gudjarat,
leaving behind 10,000 troops for his protection.

These events completely alienated Mednl Ray and
his Radjput followers from Mahmud. Mednl Ray oc¬
cupied Gagrawn and, when Mahmud besieged him,
he appealed to Rana Sangarama for help. The Rana
marched to his relief. Mahmud raised the siege and
set out to intercept the Rana, but was defeated,
wounded and taken prisoner. He was taken to Citor,
and allowed to return to Malwa after his wounds were
healed, but had to surrender his crown and leave
behind his son as a hostage.

On his return to Mandu, he found his position ex¬
tremely weak; and it was further weakened by the
withdrawal of the Gudjarat! forces by Muzaffar II at
his request. The result was that Rana Sanga occupied
Mandasor; Medn! Ray seized Canderi; Silhadi oc¬
cupied Bhilsa and Raisin; and Sikandar Khan
declared his independence in Satwa 3 . The disintegra¬
tion of Mahmud’s power was almost complete, and he
was left with only a small territory around Mandu.
But instead of consolidating his position and trying to
recover his territories, Malimud committed the
mistake of giving asylum and support to Cand Khan
against his brother, Bahadur Khan, who had ascend¬
ed the throne of Gudjarat. Bahadur Khan was greatly
offended and invaded Malwa. He besieged Mandu,
captured it by assault on 9 Sha c ban 937/2 April 1531,
and caused the khutba to be recited in his name.
Malwa thus passed into his possession. Mahmud and
his sons were sent as prisoners to Campaner. On the
way, he made an attempt to escape, but was seized
and killed along with his sons on the night of 14
Sha c ban 837/2 April 1531; with his death the Khaldj!
dynasty of Malwa came to an end.

Bibliography: See that for mahmud khaldj! i.

(Mohibbul Hasan)

MAHMUD, the name of two Ottoman
sultans.

1. Mahmud I (1143-68/1730-54), (with the title of
GhazI and the literary nom-de-plume of Sabkatl). The
eldest son of Sultan Mustafa II, he was born on the
night of 3 Muharram 1108/2 August 1696 in the
Palace at Edirne. His mother was Walide Saliha
Sulfan. He undertook his first studies on Wednesday,
20 Dhu THidjdja 1113/18 May 1702 with a grand
ceremony at the Edirne Palace which his father
Mustafa II attended in person, and was given his first
lesson by the Shaykh al-Islam Sayyid Fayd Allah Efen-
di. In due course, the latter’s son Rumeli Payeli
Ibrahim Efendi was appointed to act as his tutor.
Following the deposition of his father Mustafa II as a
result of the ‘‘Edirne Incident” and the accession of
his uncle Ahmad III on 10 Rab! c II 1115/23 August
1703, Prince Mahmud, together with his mother and
her other children, was taken into custody by the in¬
surgents at the Palace in Edirne and was subsequently
taken to Istanbul along with the Ottoman palace staff
and shut up in a private apartment in the Imperial

Palace (the Saray-i djedld). His circumcision was ef¬
fected with a simple ceremony on Thursday, 22 Dh u
’1-Hi^jdja 1116/17 April 1705.

Prince Mahmud’s life of seclusion in the Palace
continued for 27 years up to 1730. It was only when
Ahmad III was forced to abdicate the Ottoman throne
as a result of the Patrona Khalil revolt that he was set
free, becoming sultan on Monday, 19 Rab! c I 1143/2
October 1730. Having ordered his release from the
apartment in the Palace where he had been shut up,
his uncle invited Mahmud to spend the night of 1-2
October with him so that he could advise him on the
administration of the Empire. He then joined his two
sons in swearing allegiance to Mahmud and was thus
the first ro recognise him officially as sultan. The for¬
malities necessary for his accession were completed at
Eyyub on Friday, 23 Rab! c I 1143/6 October 1730,
when he girded on the sword and the khutba was read
in his name for the first time.

During the first days of Mahmud’s reign, the rebels
had complete control over the affairs of the state. In
particular, their leader Patrona Khalil forced the
sultan to carry out his wishes with regard to new ap¬
pointments, while Mahmud I also complied with the
rebels’ demands by agreeing to the abolition of one
category of taxes and to changes in the way some
others were collected, and he had to sit idly by as the
buildings at pleasure-grounds such as Kaghitkhane
and Fenerbaghcesi were demolished by the in¬
surgents. However, disorderly conduct of this kind
was not permitted for much longer. Under the leader¬
ship of Mahmud’s mother $aliha Sultan, some of the
Empire’s most experienced statesmen—the Kizlar
aghast Beshir Agha, Kaplan Giray, a former Khan of
the Crimea, and the Kapudan-i derya Djanim-Khodja
Mehmed Pasha—cooperated with Kabakulak
Ibrahim Agha and others in arranging for the leading
rebels to be put to death in the Imperial Palace—
inside the Rewan Kasr°and the Sunnet Odasi—on 25
November 1730, and Mahmud was thus assured of
the freedom to rule without such interventions.

Despite the outbreak of a second uprising on 25
March 1731, which seems to have been a continuation
of the first revolt and may even have been organised
by Fatima Sultan, the daughter of Ahmad III and
widow of the executed Grand Vizier Newshehirli
Ibrahim Pasha, in order to revenge herself on the new
Sultan, the people’s manifest support for Mahmud
and the strong measures taken by the Grand Vizier
Kabakulak Ibrahim Pasha and the Kapudan-i derya
Djanim Khodja Mehmed Pasha meant that this
disturbance was confined to the neighbourhoods of
Bayezld and Aksaray and was suppressed before it
could gain strength.

After achieving a strong position in the internal af¬
fairs of the Empire, Mahmud I turned his attention to
the problems facing it abroad. His first moves were
against Nadir Shah, who was causing the Ottoman
Empire difficulties in the East. The forces which he
sent against Iran under the command of the governor
of Ba gh dad. Eyyub! Ahmad Pasha, won the first suc¬
cess of his reign at the battle of Koridjan on 13 Rabl c

I 1144/15 September 1731, and by the treaty signed
on 10 January 1732 the Safawid ruler Shah Tahmasp

II agreed to cede the districts of Gandja, Tiflls,
Rewan, Shlrwan and Daghistan to Mahmud. Never¬
theless, the war between the Ottomans and Iran could
not be concluded because of Mahmud’s objections
over the question of Tabriz, and it continued to rage
with full force through the districts of al-Maw§il,
Kirkuk, Baghdad, Tabriz, Gandja, Tiflls and Kars
until the end of 1735, during the period when Nadir

MAHMUD

Shah was acting as guardian to c Abbas MTrza (III). It
was on account of the successes of the Ottoman forces
during the early years of this war that Mahmud I
adopted the tide of Ghazl. Later on, however, the Ot¬
toman army suffered defeat after defeat and eventual¬
ly, as a result of negotiations which were initially
conducted by the representatives of Nadir Shah and a
Turkish delegation under the commander of Crania,
Gen£ C A1I Pasha, in the Mughan steppe in Adhar-
baydjan and later by an Iranian delegation led by
c Abd al-Bakl Khan and Mahmud I himself in Istan¬
bul, an agreement was reached between the two
powers in 1736 which dealt with the border question
but left the madhhab dispute unsettled.

At this point, Nadir ^hah wished to turn his atten¬
tion to Iran’s eastern borders, while Mahmud I was
intent on dealing with the Russian threat from the
north. Relations between Mahmud I and the Russian
Empress Anna Ivanovna had been soured by the
Polish question and a number of other border
disputes, and because, in the course of the struggle
with Nadir for control of Kars and the surrounding
area in 1735, a contingent of Crimean troops had
crossed Kabartay territory on their way to reinforce
the Ottoman army in northeastern Anatolia. Finally,
after the Russian attack on the fortress of Azak on 31
March 1736, Mahmud I held a great diwan in Istanbul
on 2 May and personally took the decision to declare
war on Russia. However, as Talman, the Habsburg
Emperor’s representative in Istanbul, who later join¬
ed the Ottoman army in the field, followed a policy of
distracting the Ottoman government with plans for
peace, this campaign was not given the necessary
degree of importance and the Ottoman commanders
were therefore unable to gain any success during the
first year. Furthermore, from June 1737 onwards,
when the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI took
Russia’s side in this war, Mahmud was forced to de¬
fend the borders of the Empire along a very broad
front. There were engagements on the banks of the
Sava in northern Bosnia, in the Nish and Vidin areas
south of Belgrade as well as in Little Wallachia, along
the Aksu (Bug) and Turla (Dnestr) rivers near Ozii
and Bender, in the Crimea, and around Azak. In his
attempts to gain the upper hand against both these
states, Mahmud I frequently changed his Grand
Vizier. Eventually, the victories which the Ottoman
forces won against the Austrians on the western front,
which was considered the more important, forced
both states to come to terms with Mahmud through
the good offices of the French ambassador, the Mar¬
quis de Villeneuve, and led to the signing of the treaty
of Belgrade on 18 September 1737.

Mahmud I thereby regained from the Habsburg
Empire a number of towns, Belgrade being the most
important, which had been lost by the treaty of
Passarowitz in 1718. For their part, the Russians had
to evacuate several areas they had occupied in nor¬
thern Moldavia. In return for the Marquis de
Villeneuve’s services, France’s commercial advan¬
tages were increased by the capitulation dated 30 May
1740. At the same time, in order to improve his
political relations with Russia, Mahmud I sent the
Defteremini Mehmed EmnI Beyefendi on an embassy to
St Petersburg, while the Birin^i rtiznamcedji Djanib
c Ali Efendi was dispatched as ambassador to the
Habsburg Empire. Meanwhile, a commercial treaty
had been signed with the kingdom of Sweden in 1737
and a defence pact in 1740, in which same year a
purely commercial agreement was reached between
the Empire and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

However, while Mahmud I was still putting his

political relations with the European states in good
order, his relations with Nadir Shah reached another
crisis point. Nadir Shah, who had returned from his
campaign in India, again marched to Iran’s western
borders and laid siege to the Ottoman cities of
Baghdad and Kirkuk in the spring of 1743 under the
pretext that, during the truce, Mahmud I had not ac¬
cepted the Dja c fari school as the fifth madhhab , as
Nadir had proposed. Because the Turkish mission
which Mafimud I had previously sent to Iran under
Miinlf Mustafa Efendi in July 1741 had been unable
to prolong the good relations with Nadir Shah, the se¬
cond phase of the war between the Ottomans and Iran
had begun before the gates of Baghdad. Kirkuk and
al-Maw$iL However, Mahmud I, with the assistance
of Ahmad Pasha, the Ser c asker of Kars, had Safi Mlr-
za, a member of the $afawl dynasty who was living in
the Ottoman Empire, sent to the Iranian frontier and
turned a number of khans in the Daghistan and Shlr-
wan areas south of the Caucasus against Nadir Shah
by granting them their independence. Nadir Shah
was therefore unable to remain in the Baghdad and al-
Mawsil areas and had to lift the sieges of these two
cities and abandon Kirkuk, which he had already
taken, in order to move to the area around Kars. The
fighting in this area and around Rewan continued un¬
til the end of 1745. In the epd, in the face of the deter¬
mination and perseverance shown by Mahmud I and
despite the fact that he had gained a number of vic¬
tories, Nadir Shah, who was also influenced by events
at home, abandoned the struggle for the Kars region
and made a serious peace proposal to Mahmud. The
peace negotiations between the Ottomans and Iran
began at a great diwan on 1 February 1746, after the
delegation which Nadir had sent under the leadership
of Fath c Ali Khan had arrived in Istanbul.

Mahmud I reacted favourably to the proposals put
forward by Nadir Shah on this occasion and, having
decided upon a new border setdement which was bas¬
ed on the Kasr-i Shirin treaty of 1639, but leaving
aside the problem of the Dja c fari school, he dispatched
a Turkish delegation to Iran under the leadership of
Mustafa Nazlf Efendi on 9 March 1746 with authority
to negotiate with Nadir Shah. This delegation met
Nadir Shah in the Kardan steppe between Kazwln
and Tehran and, as a result of their negotiations,
peace was declared between the two states on 17
Sha c ban 1159/4 September 1746. Mahmud I, who
signed the instruments of this setdement in December
1746, sent the text of the treaty back to Nadir Shah in
the care of the ambassador Kesriyeli Aftmed Pa§ha.

After Nadir’s death, Mahmud I followed a con¬
ciliatory policy towards his neighbours such as Iran,
Russia and Austria up until his own death. Mean¬
while, however, the internal problems of the Empire,
such as the agitation among the Palace Aghas after the
death of the Ktzlar aghast Beshlr Agha, the suppression
of the Lewend bandits [q.v.]. who were bringing
destruction to Anatolia, the murder of Sayyid Fatju in
Syria, the revolt of the Janissary garrison at Nish, the
Wahhabi movement in Nadjd, the uprising in Istan¬
bul on 2 July 1748, and many other similar incidents,
occupied his attention. Mahmud died at the
Demirkapi in the Imperial Palace while on his way
back from the Friday prayers on 27 $afar 1168/13
December 1754. He was not interred in the
mausoleum which he had built beside the Nur-i
c Othmaniyye mosque, but was buried beside his
grandfather Mehemmed IV and his father Mu${afa II
in the mausoleum of Walide Turkhan Khadidje
Sul {an in the Yeni Djami c complex by order of his
brother and successor c Othman III.

MAHMUD

He was a thin, short, well-tempered man, who gave
priority to the maintenance of public order inside Is¬
tanbul and would go to meetings of the diwan in order
to hear the people’s complaints. He was keen on the
sports of djerid [q. v. ], horse-racing and swimming and
was knowledgeable about poetry and music. We know
that he used the makhlas Sabkatl and that he wrote
poetry in Arabic (Shehrizade Sa c Id Efendi, Makhzan
al-safa 3 , Belediye Kutiiphanesi, ms. Muallim Cevdet
0.74, f. 53b; Tayyar-zade Ahmad c Ata 3 , Tartkh-i
c Ata\ iv, Istanbul 1293, 67; c AlI EmlrT, Diawahir al-
muluk, Istanbul 1319, 30). He knew enough about
music to be a composer in his own right, but he is
more often spoken of as an instrumentalist and as a
patron of other musicians (Yilmez Oztuna, Turk
musiktsi lugati, 120, 407; Subhi Ezgi, Nazari, ameli Turk
musiktsi , Istanbul 1940, iv, 93). This Sultan, who was
interested in chess and had a passion for flowers, is
also known to have lavished a good deal of attention
on the cultivation of tulips. In his free time and when
the weather permitted, he would make trips to the
pleasure-grounds along the Bosphorus, at
Kaghftkhane and at Fenerbaghcesi, and would spend
his time in the summer houses there. Although the
Nur-i c Othmaniyye complex, with its mosque,
madrasa , maktab , library, mausoleum, c imaret and sebil,
was built at his orders, it was given its present name
because it was completed in the reign of his brother
c Othman III. Similarly, the Yfldiz-Dede and Defter-
dar Kapfsf mosques and the mosque of the Tulum-
badjflar Odasi near the Yali Koshkii, the
landing-stage at Rumeli Hisari, the c Arab Iskelesi at
Beshiktash, the Friday mosques at Uskiidar which
were named after him and at Kandilli on the
Bosphorus were also built by this Sultan. In addition,
he had the Opuzlu reservoir built to collect the water
from the streams passing between Baghcekoy and
Balabankoy near Kaghitkhane in order to supply the
famous Meydan Ceshmesi fountain which he had had
constructed in Topkhane via the cistern at Takslm,
while water from the same cistern was used to supply
water for around 40 fountains in Kasimpasha,
Tepebashi, Ghalata and in the Beshiktash area. He
also had three libraries built, one in the Ayasofya
Mosque in 1740, the second beside the Fatih Mosque,
in 1742 and the third in the Ghalata Sarayi in 1754.
The Beshiktash Sahil Sarayi, the Bayfldim Kasri at
Dolmaba gh ce. and the Tokat Koshkii near Yiisha
were all repaired in his reign. Furthermore, in his
time the Kandilli quarter on the Bosphorus was also
called Newabad, as he had had it built up from scratch
and had had the Mihrabad summer palace con¬
structed there.

As Ottoman sultan, his political and social activities
were numerous. Because neither he nor his brother
c Othman had any children, the Ottoman dynasty was
continued by the children of his uncle Ahmad III.

Bibliography: Silahdar Findfldfli Mehmed
Agha, Nusret-name , ed. Ismet Parmaksizoglu, i/2,
Istanbul 1963, 169-70, ii/1, 1966, 90-2, ii/2, 1969,
220; Rashid, WakayT-name , Istanbul 1282/1865-6,
ii, 557, iii, 79; Destarl $alih Efendi, Ta^rikh, ed.
Bekir Sidki Baykal, Ankara 1962, text, 26, 30 ff.,
36-41; c AbdI, TaPrikh, ed. Faik Re§id Unat, Ankara
1943, 41-5, 45-8, 62 ff.; Relation des deux rebellions ar¬
rives a Constantinople en 1730 et '731, The Hague
1737, 41 ff., 130-52; Crouzenac, Histoire de la der-
niere revolution arrivee dans /’Empire Ottoman , Paris
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Villeneuve dated November 1730 in the French
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(Sirr-katibi), Dabt-i wakayi c -i yewmiyye-i hadret-i

shehriyan, Istanbul University Library, ms. TY
2518, ff. 7-11, 65b (another copy: Topkapi Sarayi
Miizesi, ms. Revan 1315/2); c Omer Efendi, Ruz-
name (for the years 1153-63/1740-50), Millet
Kutiiphanesi, ms. Ali Emiri, Tarih 423; Saml-
Shakir-$ubhl, WakayT-name, Istanbul 1198/1784,
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Suleyman, Wakayi^-name , Istanbul 1199/1785, ff.
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Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi, ms. Bagdat 231; Mahdl
Khan, Nadir Shah Ta^nkhi (tr. of Karslf HidjabI),
Suleymaniye Library, ms. Es c ad Efendi 2179;
Ta^rikh-i Nadir Shah (tr.), Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi,
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Sultan Mahmud-i ewwel , Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi,
ms. Revan 1324/1 and 1325/2; Isma c Il Diya 5 al-
Dln, MatalT al- : altyya ji ghurrat al-ghaliyya , Istanbul
University Library, ms. TY 2486, ff. 42b ff.,
56 ff.; c Abd al-Ghaffar Kirimi, c Umdat al-akhbar ,
Suleymaniye Library, ms. 2331, fl. 239; Newres,
TaMkhce , Suleymaniye Library, ms. Es c ad Efendi
2252; c Omer Efendi, Ahwal-i kadawat dar diydr-i
Bosna , Istanbul 1154/1741-2, ff. 3-4, 10-56; Munir
Aktepe, Mehmed Emini Beyefendi’nin Rusya sefaret-
namesi, Ankara 1974, passim ; Mustafa Rahml,
Sejaret-ndme-yi Iran, Istanbul University Library,
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Suleymaniye Library, ms. Es c ad Efendi 3655/2, ff.
11-25; Mustafa Munlf, Feth-name-yi Belghrad,
Suleymaniye Library, ms. Es c ad Efendi 3655/3, ff.
26-48 (another copy: Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi, ms.
Revan 1324/2); Mustafa Nazlf, Sefaret-name-yi Iran,
Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi, ms. Hazine 1635 (another
copy: Millet Kutiiphanesi, ms. Ali Emiri, Tarih
824); Kadi Nu c man Efendi, Tadbirat-i pasandlde,
part II, Suleymaniye Library, ms. Resid Efendi,
Tarih 667; Sirrl ( Diwan-i humayun katibi), Makale-yi
wdki c a-yi muhsara-yi Kars, Suleymaniye Library,
ms. Es c ad Efendi 2417 (another copy: Topkapi
Sarayi Miizesi, ms. Revan 1427); Sultan Mahmud-i
ewwel zamdninda Fransiz mu^ahedesi, Istanbul
University Library, ms. TY 2270; Diyafet-ndme
(describing the banquet given at the opening of the
Takslm cistern), Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi, ms.
Hazine 1441; c Othman, / Mahmud devrinde Hare-
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ms. Hazine 1636; Ni c met Efendi, / Mahmud'un
1749 yilinda Hicaz a gonderdigi epya dejteri, Istanbul
University Library, ms. TY 2505; Shem c dam-zade
Findfldfli Siileyman Efendi, Mur c i 'l-tawankh, ed.
Miinir Aktepe, i, Istanbul 1976, ii, 1978, passim-,
Ahmad Wasif, Ta^rlkh, Istanbul 1219/1804-5, i,
40 ff.; Halim Giray, Giilbiin-i khandn, Istanbul
1287/1870-1, 86; A. Vandal, Une ambassadefrangaise
en Orient sous Louis XV, Paris 1887, 249 ff., 348 ff.;
J. von Hammer, Histoire de VEmpire Ottoman, Paris
1839, xiv, xv; Hiiseyin Ayvansarayl, Hadtkat al-
djawami c , Istanbul 1281/1864-5, i, 12, 204, ii, 33,
61, 152, 166; Jouannin, Turquie, Paris 1840, 344;
c Abd al-Rahman Sheref, Ta^nkh-i dewlet-i
c Othmaniyye, Istanbul 1312/1894-5, ii, 162; Gabriel
Efendi Noradounghian, Recueil d'actes international
de l'Empire Ottoman, Paris 1897, i, 65-73, 239-314;
Mehmed Thiireyya, Sidjill-i c Othmam, Istanbul
1308/1890-1, i, 72; V. Minorsky, Esquisse d'une
histoire de Nader-chah, Paris 1934; Lockhart, Nadir
Shah, London 1938; Mary Lucille Shay, The Ot¬
toman Empire from 1720 to 1734 as revealed in despatches
of the Venetian Baili, Urbana 1944; I. Hakki Uzun-
gaqili, Osmanli tarihi, iv/1 and 2 Ankara 1956;
Miinir Aktepe, Patrona isyam (1730), Istanbul 1958;
A. D. Alderson, The structure of the Ottoman dynasty,

MAHMUD

Oxford 1956, 36, 45, 67, 80, 105, 107, 110, 129,
130, Table XLII; Ibrahim Hilmi Tam^ik, Istanbul
(epmeleri, i, Istanbul 1943, ii, 1945; M. de la Croix,
Abrege chronologique de VHistoire Ottomane , Paris 1748,
ii, 725-6; M. Mignot, Histoire de /’Empire Ottoman
depuis son origine jusqu’a la paix de Belgrade en 1740,
Paris 1773, iv, 340-446; Jouannin and Jules van
Gaver, Turquie, Paris 1840, 334-44; Raghib Pasha,
Tahkfk ve tewfik , Istanbul University Library, ms.
TY 3371; R. W. Olson, The Siege of Mosul and
Ottoman-Persian relations, 1718-1743, Indiana 1975,
83-90, 131, 148-50, 155, 191; Mustafa Ali Mehm-
ed, Istoria Turcilor, Bucharest 1970; G. R. Bosscha
Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity: Ottoman-Dutch
relations during the embassy of Cornells Calkoen at the
Sublime Porte, 1726-1744, Ankara 1975.

(Munir Aktepe)

2. Mahmud II (reigned 1223-55/1808-39). Born at
Topkapi palace on 13 Ramadan 1199/20 July 1785,
he was the youngest of twelve sons of sultan c Abd al-
Hamld I. He succeeded to Mustafa IV on 28 July
1808. An armed coup led by the provincial governor
Mu$tafa Bayrakdar [q. v. ] aimed at restoring to the
throne the formerly deposed sultan Selim III. In the
course of the action, however, Selim was assassinated,
the reigning Mustafa deposed, and Mahmud, as the
only remaining legitimate candidate, was declared
sultan. Until his ascendance to the throne, Mahmud
had spent his entire life in seclusion, according to Ot¬
toman practice.

At this point the Ottoman empire appeared to be on
the verge of final disintegration. The central govern¬
ment wielded minimal authority over the provinces,
administered largely by self appointed local rulers [see
a c yan, derebey]. A temporarily inactive state of war
with Russia and Britain imposed further strains on the
political fabric. In Istanbul itself political power was
exercised by extra-legitimate forces, composed mainly
of c ulama 3 and soldiers. The sultan’s office was reduc¬
ed to political impotency (Djewdet. ix, 16).

During the first months of Mahmud’s reign real
power was wielded by Bayrakdar, who had himself
appointed grand vizier. He convened an assembly of
provincial rulers in Istanbul which adopted the Deed
of Agreement [see dustur. ii. turkey]. This docu¬
ment sought to change the constitutional framework
of the empire by limiting the sultan’s sovereignty and
establishing a quasi-feudal political system. In addi¬
tion, it aimed at reviving Selim Ill’s military reforms.
In mid-November 1808, Bayrakdar’s government
was brought down by a popular uprising led by the
Janissaries of Istanbul. It was the culmination of a
movement opposed to reform as well as to the seizure
of the central government by provincial elements.

Following their victory, the Janissaries set up in
Istanbul a reign of terror and once again began to in¬
terfere in state affairs. The anarchy which prevailed at
the capital since the fall of Selim III in May 1807 left
the political elite hopelessly divided and demoralised.
Meanwhile, Mahmud exhibited characteristics of
strong leadership and dedication to traditional values.
The religious and bureaucratic elites desiring the re¬
establishment of orderly government began to turn to
the court for guidance /Djewdet. ix, 59-61). Thus
were laid the foundations for the restoration of the
court as an active centre of government. Mahmud
seized this opportunity to curb the Janissaries.
Throughout his reign he consistently endeavoured to
strengthen the court’s position by subordinating all
other political forces. Gradually, he formed a network
of advisers and assistants who helped him carry out
his policies. Some of these at various times attained

positions of great influence [see halet efendi], but
throughout, Mahmud remained the supreme
autocrat.

In January 1809 a peace treaty was concluded with
Britain, in spite of strong protests by Napoleonic
France. But negotiations with the Russians, who had
in 1806 occupied Bessarabia, Moldavia and
Wallachia, failed. In April 1809 the war was resumed
with the Russians attacking south of the Danube. The
Ottomans suffered defeat in several battles, but suc¬
ceeded in foiling a Russian attempt to take Shumla
and to storm across the Balkan mountains. Faced with
the mounting threat of war with France, the Russians
were prepared to compromise. The war was ter¬
minated with the Treaty of Bucharest (May 28, 1812)
which ceded Bessarabia to Russia, while the Ot¬
tomans regained Moldavia and Wallachia.

Meanwhile, Mahmud initiated a policy designed to
restore central authority over the provinces, and when
the war ended this became his primary concern. By
1820 Istanbul succeeded in re-asserting its power over
most of the provincial centres in Anatolia, as well as
over Thrace, Macedonia and the Danube districts.
The local ruling notables were replaced by governors
appointed from Istanbul. In the view of the govern¬
ment, all local notables were usurpers of legitimate
authority ( muteghallibe ). Consequently, their suppres¬
sion was often ruthless and indiscriminate. This tend¬
ed to destroy the local administrative infrastructure,
weakening thereby the very bases of Ottoman power
(cf. Shanlzade. ii, 230-1, 246-7; Djewdet 2 . x, 146-8,
181-7, 217-19). This was a factor which facilitated the
emergence of the national movements of the Serbs
and Greeks.

During the same period, the sultan intervened oc¬
casionally in the affairs of his Syrian and Mesopota¬
mian provinces, but achieved ephemeral results only.
In Arabia the power of the Wahhabis was curbed by
enlisting the military services of Muhammad C A1I, the
governor of Egypt. While still maintaining his
allegiance to the sultan, Muhammad C A1I gradually
transformed Egypt into a formidable state. The sultan
had no means with which to reassert his authority over
the distant African provinces of Tripoli, Tunis and
Algiers, but he still claimed suzerainty over them.

The Serbs had taken advantage of the weakening of
Ottoman provincial administration to rise in 1804-13
and again in 1815. Under Russian pressure the sultan
agreed to grant the Serbs complete autonomy. The
process was gradual, and was completed in 1829. The
drawn-out conflict between the sultan and
Tepedelenli C A1I Pasha [see c ali pasha tepedelenli ,
the most powerful notable in Albania and Greece, aic -
ed the Greek cause. The sultan initiated the conflict
with C A1I in July 1820 and the Peloponnesus was up
in arms in March 1821. Although Mahmud was pro¬
foundly shaken by the outbreak of the Greek uprising,
for almost another year he continued to direct the
main military efforts against C A1I, whom he con¬
sidered the greater threat to the realm (A. Levy, Ot¬
toman attitudes to... Balkan nationalism). c Ali was finally
defeated and executed in February 1822. Meanwhile,
a series of border skirmishes with Iran in 1820
escalated into a full-scale war. After several years of
desultory Fighting, peace was restored in July 1823.
The sultan now concentrated all his efforts to subdue
Greece. Uprisings in Macedonia and Thessaly were
suppressed, but the Ottoman forces proved incapable
of advancing into the Peloponnesus and a stalemate
ensued. The sultan once again appealed to Muham¬
mad C A1I for assistance, promising to cede to him the
governorship of Crete and the Peloponnesus in return

MAHMUD

for his services. In February 1825 the modernised
Egyptian army landed in Greece, drastically altering
the military balance. The Ottomans renewed their at¬
tacks and by April 1826, with the fall of the key for¬
tress of Missolonghi, the Greek position became
desperate.

The Greek uprising made a great impact not only
on the Ottoman political elite but also on wide
segments of the Muslim population at the centre of the
empire. The proximity of the Fighting and the destruc¬
tion of long-established Turkish communities in
Greece and the islands were among the main reasons
which caused Muslim society to view this conflict as
a threat to its very survival. In addition, the poor per¬
formance of the largely untrained Ottoman troops
could be compared with the effectiveness of the
modernised Egyptian army. This created a percepti¬
ble change in the mood of Ottoman society favouring
military reform (Djewdet, xii, 139-46, 159). Since
early in his reign Mahmud had been cautiously in¬
troducing significant improvements in several
military branches, especially in the artillery and navy.
But in the spring of 1826, with his authority restored
at the capital and in many provinces, and with the
Greek rising appearing close to extinction, it seemed
to Mahmud that the time had come to carry out more
comprehensive reforms. But he adopted a gradual ap¬
proach. The first project called for reorganising part
of the Janissary corps as an elite unit of active soldiers
called Eshkindjiyan. The sultan took precautions to
enlist the support of the religious and bureaucratic
elites as well as the Janissary officers themselves.
Nevertheless, on the night of 14 June the Janissaries
rose up in arms. The sultan reacted with speed and
determination. He mustered loyal troops and on 15
June, within hours, the rebellion was crushed with
considerable bloodshed. Two days later an imperial
order declared the Janissary corps abolished.

It is difficult to exaggerate the impact which the
suppression of the Janissaries made on contemporary
Ottoman society as well as on Europe. It was con¬
sidered the end of one era and the beginning of an¬
other. In an effort to gain for it universal approval,
the regime termed the incident the “Beneficial Af¬
fair” (wak Q a-yi khayriyye) and the court historian Es c ad
Efendi was charged with recording the official version
for future generations. Es c ad’s detailed account entitl¬
ed The foundation of victory ( Uss-i zafer) was printed in
1828. Indeed, the ease with which the suppression of
the Janissaries was carried out and its general accep¬
tance by the public were indications of the changing
times.

Now the Eshkindiiydn project was abandoned in
favour of a more ambitious plan calling for the forma¬
tion of an entirely new army organised and trained on
western models. The new force was named the
“Trained Victorious Troops of Muhammad”
(Mu c allem c asakir-i mansure-yi muhammadiyye), or Man-
sure, for short. But the project encountered great dif¬
ficulties from its very inception and its progress was
much slower than had been expected. By spring 1828
the new army had some 30,000 men only, poorly
organised, trained and equipped.

Meanwhile, the plight of the Greeks elicited Euro¬
pean intervention. Britain, Russia and France offered
mediation. The Ottomans rejected the proposals,
arguing that the conflict was an internal matter. The
European powers countered by sending their fleets to
Greece where on 20 October 1827, inside the harbour
of Navarino, they destroyed an Ottoman-Egyptian
fleet. Ottoman losses alone amounted to 37 ships with
over 3,000 sailors, comprising more than two-thirds of

the entire seaworthy navy. In May 1828 the Russians
launched an offensive against the Ottoman dominions
in Europe and Asia. In 1829 they achieved complete
victory. A Russian army under the leadership of
General Diebitsch bypassed Shumla, stormed through
the passes of the Balkan Mountains, captured Edirne
(August 20) and threatened to march on Istanbul.
The sultan was forced to sue for peace. By the Treaty
of Edirne/Adrianople (14 September 1829) the Ot¬
tomans ceded to Russia the Danube delta in Europa
and the province of Akhaltsikhe (Akhiskha) in Asia.
In addition, they were required to pay to Russia a
heavy war indemnity as well as to recognise the
autonomy of Serbia, Moldavia, Wallachia and Greece
under Russian protection. Later, in negotiations be¬
tween the European powers, it was determined that
Greece should become an independent monarchy. In
July 1832 the sultan accepted these terms.

Military defeat and the apparent failure of the
government’s reform policies rekindled unrest and
rebellion in widely flung provinces, especially in
Bosnia, Albania, eastern Anatolia and Ba gh dad.
These movements, sometimes led by former
Janissaries and their sympathisers, were partly a
delayed conservative reaction against the govern¬
ment’s reforms. More commonly, they represented
protest against increased taxes, forced conscription
and, in general, the sultan’s heavy-handed centralis¬
ing policies. The government was generally successful
in putting down these movements by employing the
new disciplined troops, which proved sufficiently ef¬
fective as an instrument of suppression and centralisa¬
tion. Nevertheless, throughout the remaining years of
Mahmud’s reign, unrest and rebellion continued to
flare up in various districts.

In 1830 the sultan tried unsuccessfully to prevent
the French occupation of Algiers. Meanwhile,
Muhammad C A1T became determined to seek compen¬
sation for his losses in Greece. His perception of the
sultan’s military weakness encouraged him to demand
the governorship of Syria. When this was refused, in
October 1831 the Egyptian army invaded Syria,
defeated two Ottoman armies and completed the con¬
quest by July 1832. When the sultan countered by
preparing yet another army, the Egyptians marched
into Anatolia, defeated the Ottomans again at Konya
(21 December), occupied Kutahya (2 February 1833)
and were in a position to march on Istanbul. The
sultan sought help from the great powers, but only the
Russians dispatched a naval force to defend Istanbul
(February 1833). This induced Britain and France to
offer mediation, resulting in the Convention of
Kutahya (April 8). It conferred on Muhammad C A1I
the government of Syria and the province of Adana.
Meanwhile, Russian paramountcy in Istanbul was
underscored by the Treaty of Hunkar (Khunkar)
Iskelesi (8 July), a Russian-Ottoman defensive
alliance. But the treaty alarmed other European
powers, especially Britain, who became determined to
help the Ottomans liberate themselves of Russian
dependence. The Ottoman empire now came under
the protection of the European Concert, and its
foreign relations with Britain, Austria and Prussia
were increasingly improving.

In spite of military disasters and political setbacks,
during the 1830s Sultan Mahmud relentlessly pro¬
ceeded with his reformatory measures. His main ob¬
jectives continued to focus on centralisation of
government and the attainment of greater efficiency
in its work. In 1835 the entire administration was
reconstituted into three independent branches: the
civil bureaucracy ( kalemiyye ), the religious-judicial

MAHMUD

hierarchy (^ilmiyye) and the military (seyfiyye). Their
respective heads—the grand vizier, the sheykh til-Islam
and the ser- c asker —were now considered equals, and
therefore, responsible directly to the sultan ( BBA , HH
24031; LutfiT, v, 25-6). Throughout most of
Mahmud’s reign the court had been the most impor¬
tant centre of power. Now it was officially recognised
as such. The aggrandisement of the court was mainly
at the expense of the grand vizier’s office. Traditional¬
ly, the grand vizier was considered the sultan’s ab¬
solute deputy ( wektl-i mutlak ) and as such the head of
the entire government, civilian and military. To
underscore the reduction of his authority, in March
1838 the grand vizier’s title was officially changed to
that of chief deputy, or prime minister (bash wekil). At
the same time, the grand vizier’s chief assistants were
given the title of minister (ndzir and later wekil). These
changes were combined with attempts to attain a bet¬
ter definition of administrative responsibilities. Con¬
sequently, from 1836 government departments were
being regrouped into ministries ( nezaret ) for internal,
foreign and financial affairs. A further distinction was
made between the executive and the legislative. Con¬
sultative councils were established to supervise
military and civil matters and to propose new legisla¬
tion. The highest of these, the Supreme Council for
Judicial Ordinances (Medflis-i wald-yl ahkam-l c adliyye ),
established in 1838, acted as an advisory council to the
sultan. New regulations granted the civil servants in¬
creased security, but also required higher standards of
performance. But all these were mere beginnings.
The difficulties were due mainly to the lack of trained
personnel. In most cases the staffs of new departments
were drawn from old ones, and the administrative
reforms often amounted to a mere reshuffle of offices.
Nevertheless, the groundwork was prepared for the
emergence of a new generation of administrators with
a more modern outlook.

The military, which during Mahmud’s last years
was allocated about 70% of the state’s revenues, con¬
tinued to be the focal point of reform. Most significant
was the gradual extension of the authority of the
commander-in-chief (ser-casker) of the Mansure over
other services and branches. Thus the headquarters of
the ser-Casker (Bab-i Ser- C Asker [q.v . ]) gradually came to
combine the roles of a ministry of war and a general
staff and was in charge of all land forces. The navy
continued to operate as a separate organisation under
the grand admiral, whose administration comprised a
separate ministry. In the different branches of the ar¬
my, larger permanent units were formed with their
regular commanding officers and staffs. Segments of
the old feudal (timarlu) cavalry were reformed. In 1834
a provincial militia (redtf) was established. The last
two measures were intended to provide the regular ar¬
my with reserve forces as well as to co-opt the provin¬
cial notability into the new system by conferring on
them commissions and honours. After 1833 the
strength of the regular armed forces was considerably
increased, and by the end of Mahmud’s reign there
were some 90,000 men in all the services, exclusive of
the militia and other semi-regular organisations.
Several European governments began extending
modest military assistance. The Russians and British
each sent a few military instructors. The British also
helped establish the beginnings of a modern arms in¬
dustry and sent teams of engineers and workmen.
Most useful services were rendered by the Prussian
military mission which increased from one officer
(Helmuth von Moltke) in 1835 to twelve by 1837.
This was the beginning of a continuing pattern of
military cooperation which was to last until the 20th

century. At the same time, the sultan rejuvenated the
military engineering schools which had been founded
in the 18th century and had subsequently fallen into
decay. He also established a military medical school
(1827) and an officer school (1834). The sultan
enlisted the support and cooperation of the c ulamd 5 in
many of his military reforms (A. Levy, Ulema). But
the paucity of adequately trained personnel and
limited financial resources made progress difficult.
The commissary system could not support the rapid
increase of the military establishment as demanded by
the sultan. Epidemics were rife and over a quarter of
all recruits succumbed to disease. Desertion was also
very high, and it was necessary to replenish the ranks
continuously with new, untrained conscripts (BBA,
Kepeci 6799; Moltke, Briefe, 349-50).

In May 1835 the international community was
taken by surprise when an Ottoman expeditionary
force occupied Tripoli in Africa, claiming it back to
the sultan. In the following years Ottoman fleets ap¬
peared several times before Tunis, but were turned
back by the French navy (BBA, MMD, ix, 99-110).
The continued occupation of Syria by Muhammad
C A1I could not be tolerated by an autocratic ruler like
Mahmud. In the spring of 1839, believing that his ar¬
my had sufficiently recovered and that a general
uprising in Syria against Egyptian rule was imminent,
Mahmud precipitated another crisis. On June 24 the
Egyptians, once again, decisively routed the Ottoman
army at Nizib. On July 1 Mahmud died, probably
without learning of his army’s last defeat.

During Mahmud’s reign, due to the inertia effects
of long historical processes, the Ottoman empire con¬
tinued to decline in relation to the West. Its
dependence on Europe increased and it continued to
suffer military humiliation and territorial losses. Yet,
within the reduced confines of his realm Mahmud’s
achievements were considerable. He resurrected the
sultan’s office, and with that he reformed and re¬
juvenated the central government. He arrested the
disintegration of the state and even initiated a process
of consolidation. In spite of his intensive reformatory
activity, Mahmud was inherently dedicated to tradi¬
tional values. He did not attempt to alter the basic
fabric of Ottoman society, but rather to strengthen it
through modern means. He generally succeeded in in¬
tegrating the old elites into the new institutions. This
was in keeping with his strong attachment to the ideal
of justice in the traditional Ottoman sense. The sobri¬
quet he selected for himself, ( Adli, “the Just,” is an
indication of the cast of his mind. It may be said,
therefore, that the principles which guided him
throughout his reign were Islam, autocracy and
justice. Nevertheless, though he may not have intend¬
ed it, the reforms which Mahmud introduced were to
produce basic change and to launch Ottoman society
on the course of modernisation in a final and ir¬
revocable manner.

Bibliography. The Ottoman archives contain a
vast number of relevant documents dispersed in
numerous collections. All the documents cited
above are from Ba^bakanlik Ar§ivi (abbreviated as
BBA). For a description of the holdings of this ar¬
chive see M. Sertoglu, Muhieva bakimindan Bayvekalet
Arsivi, Ankara 1955. Especially valuable concentra¬
tion of documents are located in the following col¬
lections: Kanunndme-i askeri defterleri (abbreviated as
KAD), vols. i, ii, vi (military legislation, organisa¬
tion, history); Miihimme-i mektum defterleri (ab¬
breviated as MMD), vols. v-ix (mainly internal
political matters); Maliyeden mudevver defterleri, vol.
9002 (financial and administrative matters); Tev-

MAHMUD — MAHMUD SHAH SHARKI

cihat ve redif ve mevad ve miihimme-i asakir defterleri (ab¬
breviated as TRD), vol. xxvi (military reform and
financial administration); Tevziat, zehayir, esnaj ve
ihitisab defterleri , vols. xxiv - xxxii (taxation, provi¬
sions and various matters); Kamil Kepeci tasnifi
(numerous documents dealing with the financial
administration of the government and armed
forces). The Cevdet tasnifi and Hatt-i humdyunlar (ab¬
breviated as HH) collections are very useful, but
more disparate.

European archives contain extensive information
in the correspondence and reports of envoys sta¬
tioned in the Ottoman empire. At the Archives de
la Guerre, Paris, carton no. MR1619 contains an
especially valuable collection of detailed and in¬
formed reports on political and military conditions.

The Ottoman chronicles for this period are:
Ahmed c Asim, Ta^nkh, 2 vols., Istanbul n.d. (vol.
ii discusses the events of 1808); Shanlzade Mehmed
c Ata :) ullah, Ta^rlkh, 4 vols., Istanbul 1290-1/1873-4
(events of 1808-21); Mehmed Es c ad, TaPrikh, 2
vols., unpublished ms. (events of 1821-6); Ahmed
Djewdet, Ta^rikh, 12 vols., Istanbul 1270-1301/
1854-83; 2nd rev. ed. 1302-9/1884-91 (vols. ix-xii
discuss events of 1808-26; Ahmed LutfT, Ta^rikh, 8
vols., Istanbul 1290-1328/1873-1910 (vols. i-vi
discuss the period 1825-39).

Other important Ottoman historical works are:
Ahmed Djewad, Ta^nkh-t c asker!-yi c O(hmdn! (5
books in 3 vols.), vol. \—Yehiceriler, Istanbul
1297/1880 (tr. G. Macrides, Etat militaire ...; tome i,
livre I— Le corps des janissaires, Constantinople
1882); vols. ii, iii, unpublished ms. (vol. ii, book IV
discusses Mahmud’s military reforms). Hafiz
Khfdr (Khizir) Ilyas, Weka *i c -i letdHf-i enderun ,
Istanbul 1276/1859 (life and politics at Mahmud’s
court). Mehmed Es c ad, Uss-i zafer, Istanbul
1243/1828 (the destruction of the Janissaries; tr.
Caussin de Perceval, Precis historique de la destruction
du corps des janissaires. .., Paris 1833); Mustafa NurT,
Netd^fj al-wuku c at, 4 vols., Istanbul 1294-1327/
1877-1909 (vol. iv discusses political, military and
economic developments).

Of the extensive western travel accounts,
memoirs and other contemporary works, the
following have special value: A. F. Andreossy, Con¬
stantinople et le Bosphore de Thrace 3 , Paris 1841; A.
Boue, La Turquie d' Europe..., Paris 1840; J. E.
Dekay, Sketches oj Turkey in 1831 and 1832, New
York 1833; V. Fontanier, Voyages en Orient..., Paris
1829; A. Juchereau de St. Denys, Les revolutions de
Constantinople en 1807-1808 , Paris 1819; idem,
Histoire de iempire Ottoman depuis 1792jusqu’en 1844,
Paris 1844; C. MacFarlane, Constantinople in 1828,
London 1829; idem, Turkey and its destiny..., Lon¬
don 1850; Helmuth von Moltke, Briefe..., Berlin
1841; R. Wagner, Moltke und Miihlbach zusammen
unter den Halbmonde, Berlin 1893 (very useful; based
on private and public documents).

In addition to numerous articles in El and L4,
modern studies discussing this reign include: N.
Berkes, The development of secularism in Turkey, Mon¬
treal 1964, 89-135; C. V. Findley, The legacy of tradi¬
tion to reform : origins of the Ottoman foreign ministry, in
IJMES, i (1970), 334-57; idem, The foundation of the
Ottoman foreign ministry: the beginnings of bureaucratic
reform under Selim III and Mahmud II, in IJMES, iii
(1972), 388-416; H. Inalcik, Sened-i Ittifak ve Gulhane
Hatt-i Humdyunu , in Belleten, xxviii (1964), 603-22;
A. Levy, The officer corps in Sultan Mahmud IPs new
Ottoman army, 1826-1839, in IJMES, ii (1971),
21-39; idem, The Ottoman ulema and the military

reforms of Sultan Mahmud II, in Asian and African
Studies, vii (1971), 13-39; idem, The eshkenji-
project—an Ottoman attempt at gradual reform (1826), in
Abr-Nahrain , xiv (1973-4), 32-9; idem, Ottoman at¬
titudes to the rise of Balkan nationalism, in B. K. Kiraly
and G. E. Ruthenberg, eds., War and Society in east
central Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, i, New
York 1979, 325-45; B. Lewis, The emergence of modern
Turkey, London 1961, 75-104; S. J. Shaw and E.
Rural Shaw, History of the Ottoman empire and modern
Turkey, ii, Cambridge 1977, 1-54; F. R. Unat,
Bashoca ishak efendi, in Belleten, xxviii (1964),
89-116. (A. Levy)

MAHMUD KH AN. Nasir al-DIn, the
founder of a short-lived dynasty ruling in
KalpI in the first half of the 9th/15th century.

He was the son of Malikzada FTruz b. Tadj al-DTn
Turk, the wazir of Ghiyath al-DTn Tughluk II, who
was killed with his sovereign in DihlT in 791/1389;
after that event he fled to KalpI, his ikta c , gave it the
honorific name of Muhammadabad, and “aspired to
independence” {dam az istikldl mizad). This was not
difficult to attain in the disrupted conditions of the
Dihll sultanate after Timur’s sack and withdrawal,
and Mahmud consolidated his position at the expense
of his Hindu neighbours. His status was never really
secure against the growing power of the neighbouring
sultanates of Malwa and Djawnpur [q.vv.\, and the
historians of those regions indicate that the arrogated
titles of shah and sultan were resented by the rulers of
the larger and more powerful regions. Mahmud died
in 813/1410-11 and was succeeded by his son (Ikhtiyar
al-DTn Abu TMudjahid) Kadir Khan, referred to by
Firishta as c Abd al-Kadir al-mawsum ta-Kadir Shah
(Lucknow lith., ii, 306, 307), d. ca. 835/1432; in a war
of succession between his three sons, Malwa and
Djawnpur again intervened, resulting in a son called
Djalal Khan being installed under the suzerainty of
Malwa; he managed to assert his independence more
firmly than his father or grandfather, for he issued
coins as Fath al-Dunya wa ’1-DTn Djalal Shah Sufianl
in 841/1437-8. The length of his reign is not known,
but his brother NasIr Khan, ruling in 847/1443, was
chastised by the Djawnpur forces and temporarily
deprived of KalpI after being suspected of apostasising
from Islam; thereafter, this semi-independent dynasty
does not appear in the historians.

Bibliography: The prime text is Muhammad
Bihamad Kfianl, Ta^nkh-i Muhammad!, B.M. ms.
Or. 137 (Rieu, Cat. Pers. mss., i, 84 ff.), completed
in 842/1438-9; the author was brought up in the
house of Mahmud Khan’s father, and later served
under Mahmud’s brother and waztr Djunayd
Kh an, receiving the iktd c of Iric for military ser¬
vices. His information is corroborated by Yahya b.
Ahmad SirhindT, Ta^nkh-i Mubarak Shah!, and
Firi§hta, and he is cited as an authority by Nizam
al-Din Ahmad, Tabakat-i Akbar! (whence also the
later information on NasIr Khan): S. H. Hodivala,
The unassigned coins of Jaldl Shah Sultan!, in JASB, NS
xxv (1929), Numismatic Supplement N. 41-6.

(J. Burton-Page)

MAHMUD SHAH SHARKI, ruler in
Djawnpur [q.v.], the eldest son of Ibrahim Shah
Shark!, ascended the throne in 844/1440. In
846/1442, he decided to invade Bengal, but owing to
reasons not clear he refrained from carrying out his
plans. The account in the Matla c al-sa c dayn that he did
so because of a warning from the Tlmurld Shah
Rukh, seems to be apocryphal.

In 847/1443, hearing that Nasir Shah, ruler of
KalpI (Mahmudabad), had plundered the town of

MAHMUD SHAH SHARKI — MAHMUD SHIHAB al— DIN

Shahpur and harassed its Muslim population,
Mahmud decided to punish him, and with the permis¬
sion of Mahmud Khaldjl [q.v. ] of Malwa, whose
feudatory Na$ir Shah's father, Kadir Khan, had
been, Mahmud Shark! marched on Kalpi. Nasir fled
to Canderi and appealed to Mahmud Khaldjl for
help. The latter wrote to the Shark! Sultan to restore
Kalpi to Nasir, but since the Shark! ruler ignored this,
Mahmud Khaldj! advanced towards Era£h on 2
Sha c ban 848/14 November 1444 and attacked him.
Although both sides suffered losses, the result of the
conflict was indecisive, and hostilities ended through
the mediation of the Shaykh al-Islam, Shavkh
Dja 3 ilda, a holy man much respected by both the
rulers; Mahmud Shark! agreed to restore Kalpi to
Nasir Shah.

Soon afterwards, Mahmud crushed a rebellion in
Cunar and annexed a greater portion of it. He then
invaded Orissa which he plundered and, after laying
the foundations of two mosques at Paharpur, returned
to Djawnpur.

Mahmud now put forward a claim to the throne of
Dihli on the ground that its ruler Sultan c Ala 3 al-Din
c Alam Shah (847-83/1443-76) was his wife’s brother.
The Sultan was a puppet in the hands of his wazir ,
Hamid Khan, who was the defacto ruler. But weary of
his minister’s domination, he had gone away to
Bada 3 un. Hamid Khan, finding his position insecure
on account of the machinations of the Sultan and the
hostility of some Dihli nobles, invited Bahlul from
Sirhind. Bahlul immediately set out towards Dihli and
occupied it on 17 Rabi c I 855/19 April 1451. He then
imprisoned Hamid Khan and declared himself king.

At the beginning of 856/1452, Mahmud Shah, in¬
stigated by his queen, Bibi Radji, and invited by the
nobles who detested the uncouth Afghans, advanced
towards Dihli with 170,000 cavalry and 1,400 war
elephants and invested it. Meanwhile, Bahlul Lodi
hastened from Dipalpur to the help of his son,
Kh w adja Bayazid, whom he had left in charge of
Dihli. On hearing of Bahlul’s approach, Mahmud
Shah despatched an army of 30,000 cavalry and 30
elephants under Darya Khan Lodi and Fath Khan
Harawi, who met Bahlul at Narela, 17 miles north of
Dihli. Before the battle Sayyid Shams al-Din, a loyal
follower of Bahlul, won over Darya Khan by appeal¬
ing to his racial feelings. The result of Darya Khan’s
defection was that the Sharki army became demoralis¬
ed and, although numerically superior, it was
defeated by Bahlul’s 7,000 troops. Fath Khan was
taken prisoner and beheaded. Mahmud Shark! had no
alternative except to return to Djawnpur.

In 858/1454 Mahmud sent a force to occupy Udj-
djayn, whose chief, Ishwar Singh, Djawnpur’s
feudatory, had declared his independence. Ishwar
Singh fled, but was pursued and captured and then
put to death (859/1455). Udjdjayn was then annexed.

Emboldened by his victory at Narela, Bahlul Lodi
decided to extend his territories. He occupied Rapri
and expelled the Sharki governor of Etawah.
Mahmud marched against the Afghan army, which
he met at Etawah (856/1452-3). The battle was in¬
decisive, and peace was brought about through the
mediation of Kutb Khan, cousin and brother-in-law
of Bahlul, and Ray Pratap, ruler of Bhongaon and
Kampil. It was agreed that Bahlul would return the
seven elephants he had captured at Narela; that each
would retain possession of the territories which had
belonged to Ibrahim Sharki and Mubarak Shah
Sayyid of Dihli; and lastly, that Shamsabad would be
ceded to Bahlul.

But hostilities again broke out in 861/1456-7

because Djawna Khan, the Sharki governor of Sham-
sabad, refused to surrender it. Bahlul therefore attack¬
ed him and after expelling him, handed over
Shamsabad to Ray Karan. Mahmud hastened to the
aid of Djawna IGian. Kutb Khan and Darya Khan
made a night attack on him, but this proved abortive
and Kutb Khan was taken prisoner. Greatly distress¬
ed on hearing of Kutb Khan’s imprisonment, Bahlul
set out to attack Mahmud. But the latter fell ill and
died in 862/1458. He was succeeded by his eldest son,
Bhikam Khan, who ascended the throne of Djawnpur
as Sultan Muhammad Sharki.

Mahmud was an able ruler and his subjects were
happy and prosperous during his reign. He is said to
have spent his time in the society of the c ulama 3 and
$ufis. He was interested in architecture and built the
famous Lai Darwaza Mosque in Djawnpur, and adja¬
cent to it a magnificent palace for his queen, Bibi
Radji. He also built a bridge and madrasas , and laid
the foundations of another palace outside Djawnpur.

Bibliography: Nizam al-Din, Tabakat-i Akbari,
iii, ed. B. De, Bibi. Ind., Calcutta 1935 and Eng.
tr. B. De and Baini Prashad, Bibi. Ind., Calcutta
1938; Muhammad Kasim Hindu-£hah, Ta^rikh-i
Firishta, ii, Lucknow 1281/1864; c Abd al-Baki
Nihawandi, Ma^dthir-i rahimi ; Mawlawi Khayr al-
Din Muhammad Allahabad!, Djawnpur-nama .
Djawnpur 1875, 1895, abridged Eng. tr. Fakir
Khayr al-Din Muhammad, Calcutta 1814, Urdu
tr. Nadhir al-Din Ahmad, Djawnpur 1921; Miyan
Muhammad Sa c id, The Sharki Sulfans of Dja wnpur.
Kara£i 1972; M. Habib and K. A. Nizami, eds., A
comprehensive history of India (1206-1526), v, Dihli
1970; Sir W. Haig, ed., Cambridge history of India,
iii, Cambridge 1928; M. A. Rahim, A history of the
Afghans in India, Kara£i 1961; S. Hasan c Askari,
Discursive notes on the Sharki monarchy of Djawnpur. in
the Procs. of the Ind. Hist. Congress, 1960, Part i; R.
R. Diwarkar, ed., Bihar through the ages, Calcutta
1959; Percy Brown, Indian architecture. The Islamic
period, Bombay 1956_. (Mohibbul Hasan)

MAHMUD SHIHAB AL-DIN, the fourteenth
ruler of the Bahmani dynasty [?.*>.] in the
Dakhan (Deccan). He ascended the throne at
Muhammadabad-Bidar at the age of twelve on the
death of his father, Shams al-Din Muhammad III, on
5 Safar 887/26 March 1482. During Mahmud’s long
reign of twenty-six years, the kingdom continued on
its downward course on account of his own in¬
competence and the greed and intrigues of his nobles.
The bitter rivalry between the Dakhanis, consisting of
the natives and old settlers, and the Newcomers called
Afakis or Gharibis, comprising Turks, Persians and
Arabs, continued in all its intensity. Malik Hasan
Nizam al-Mulk, a Hindu convert to Islam and gover¬
nor (tarafdar) of Telingana, became the leader of the
Dakhanis and planned to destroy the Afakis, already
weakened since the death of Mahmud Gawan [q. v. ]
on 5 Safar 886/5 April 1481. He succeeded in per¬
suading the boy-king to order the massacre of the
Turkish population of the town. Accordingly, the
gates of the town were shut and about 4,000 Turks
were massacred in cold blood. Fortunately, Yusuf
c Adil, tarafdar of Bidjapur and leader of the Afakis,
who had come to attend the king’s coronation
ceremony, was saved because he had encamped out¬
side the town wall, and after the massacre left for
Bidjapur.

The government was carried on by a Regency with
the Queen-Mother as President of the Council of
Regency; Malik Hasan Nizam al-Mulk as Mir Na 3 ib;
Fath Allah c Imad al-Mulk, also a Hindu convert to

MAHMUD SHIHAB al-DIN — MAHMUD b. MUHAMMAD b. MAL1K-SHAH 63

Islam, as wazir and MTr Djumla as finance minister.
Kasim Band, a Turk who had watched the massacre
of the people of his own race with indifference, was
appointed kotwal

In 891/1486, four years after his accession,
Mahmud, anxious to assert his power, conspired with
Kasim Band and Dastur Dinar, the leader of the
Abyssinians (Habashis), to get rid of both Nizam al-
Mulk and c Imad al-Mulk. But the plot leaked out and
the Sultan apologised to them. However, c Imad al-
Mulk, realising his life to be in danger, left for his own
province of Berar, never to return again. Nizam-al-
Mulk, who took no precaution, was strangled to death
by his friend, Dilpasand Khan, at the instigation of
Mahmud.

Nizam al-Mulk’s removal from the scene led to the
victory of the Afakls. But the Dakhanls, alarmed and
angry by the murder of their leader, plotted to
assassinate the king with the support of the Habashis;
and on 21 Dhu TKa c da 892/8 November 1487, they
entered the palace, locking the gate behind them so
that no one else could enter. They killed the Turkish
guards, but Kasim Barld, with a detachment of
12,000 men, scaled the walls of the palace and rescued
the king. The next morning, Mahmud ordered the
massacre of the Dakhanls, and for three days this con¬
tinued until it was stopped by the intercession of Shah
Muhibb Allah, son of the saint Khalil Allah.

Taking advantage of these events, Kasim Barld
raised the banner of revolt, and compelled Mahmud
to make him ivakil or prime minister (897/1492).
Meanwhile, Malik Ahmad, Nizam al-Mulk’s son,
who was at his djagir [?.ic] of Djunayr, on hearing of
his father’s death, adopted the title of Nizam al-Mulk
and without seeking the permission of the king, con¬
quered all the forts in Maharashtra, including the
whole of Konkon and the territory up to the river
Godavari. He then came to Bldar, where he was
received by Mahmud and confirmed in his new
possessions; but at the same time Mahmud sent troops
against Malik Ahmad and also ordered Yusuf c Adil to
march against_him. The royal troops were defeated,
while Yusuf c Adil, in defiance of the king’s order,
congratulated Malik Ahmad on his success. It was in
895/1490 that Malik Ahmad, on achieving his victory
over the king’s army, had founded the town of
Ahmadnagar [q.v.\, which became the capital of the
Nizam Shah! dynasty [q.v. ].

Encouraged by the incompetence of the ruler, the
governors in the provinces began to assert their in¬
dependence. Bahadur Khan Gilani, kotwal of Goa,
took possession of the whole west coast from Goa up
to Dabul as well as the greater portion of southern
Maharashtra. But on 5 Safar 900/5 November 1494,
he was defeated and killed by Sultan KulT Kutb al-
Mulk, tarafdar of Telingana. Dastur Dinar, the
HabashI, who held the djaglrs of Culbarga, Aland and
Gangawatl, also declared his independence in
901/1496. But although he was defeated by Yusuf
c Adil, he was forgiven by Mahmud and his dfdglrs
restored tohim.

Yusuf c Adil’s position became strong due to the
betrothal of his daughter to the crown prince, Ahmad,
early in 903/1497, which enabled him to secure the
dfaglrs of Gulbarga, Aland and Gangawatl which had
been assigned to Dastur Dinar. Previously to this,
Kasim Barld, being jealous of Yusuf c Adil, had con¬
trived his overthrow. He had suggested to Narasa
Nayak, the prime minister of Vidjayanagar, to occupy
Raycur and Mudgal which were in Yusuf c Adil’s
possession, and had also tried to win over Malik
Afimad against Yusuf by offering him Panhala,

Konkon and Goa, which were at the time in Bahadur
Gilani’s possession. But Yusuf c Adil had succeeded in
foiling Malik Ahmad’s plans. He had first marched
towards Bldar and defeated Kasim Barld, who was ac¬
companied by Mahmud, near the capital. He had
then directed his attention towards the Vijayanagar
army, which he had defeated on 1 Radjab 899/18
April 1493 and had reoccupied Raycur and Mudgal,
thus upsetting Kasim Band’s plans.

Disenchanted with Kasim Barid, Mahmud now in¬
vited Yusuf c Adil and Kutb al-Mulk to his rescue at
the end of Dhu THidjdja 903/August 1497. They
came and besieged Kasim in his djaglr of Ausa, but
gained no success, for the minister was soon reconcil¬
ed to the king. However, in 909/1503-4, Kasim Barld
was replaced by Khan-i Djahan. also a Turk, until
I^asim Barid contrived his death. Thereupon, Yusuf
c Adil, Kutb al-Mulk and Dastur Dinar marched on
Bldar to wrest power from Kasim. The latter was
defeated and fled, but this did not improve things,
because he once again won over Mahmud. Frustrated
in their attempts to rescue the king, the tarafdars in
disgust returned to their respective djagirs, leaving
Kasim Barld as powerful as before. When he died in
910/1504-5 he was succeeded by his son Amir C A1I
Barld, whose domination was even more effective
than that of his father.

Taking advantage of these internecine conflicts,
Krishnadevaraya compelled Yusuf c Adil to evacuate
the Do 3 ab. The Gandjpatis of Orissa, on the other
hand, occupied the whole east coast which had
belonged to the Bahmanids. In 923/1517, Mahmud
tried to recover the Do^ab from the Radja of
Vidjayanagar, but he was defeated and wounded and
compelled to retreat.

Mahmud’s last days were unhappy. In addition to
these territorial losses, there were risings of his taraf-
dars, who were engaged in carving out independent
kingdoms for themselves, which he was helpless to
prevent; soon his writ did not run beyond the walls of
Bldar, and even there he was subject to the will of
Amir C A1I Barid.

Mahmud died on 4 Dhu THidjdja 924/7 December
1518. He was succeeded by four kings, one after
another, set up or set aside according to C A1I Barid’s
pleasure. Kallm Allah, Mahmud’s son, was the last
king. He wrote to Babur for help against c Ali Barld,
but as the latter found this out, Kallm Allah fled to
Bldjapur and thence to Ahmadnagar, where he is sup¬
posed to have died in 945/1538.

Bibliography: Sayyid C A1I Tabataba, Ta 3 rikh-i
Burhan-i nw?dthir, ed. Sayyid Hashim, Dihli
1355/1936; Muhammad Kasim Hindu-Shah.
Ta^rikh-i Firishta , i, Lucknow 1281/1864; Nizam al-
Dln, Tabakdt-i Akbaru iii, ed. B. De and Hidayat
Husayn, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1935, Eng. tr. B. De
and Baini Prashad, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1938; H. K.
Sherwanl, The Bahmanis of the Deccan , Hyderabad
1953: H. K. Sherwanl and P. M. Djoshi, eds.,
History of medieval Deccan (1295-1724), 2 vols.,
Hyderabad 1973-4; M. Habib and K. A. Nizami,
eds., A comprehensive history of India (1206-1526), v,
Dihli 1970; G. Yazdani, Bldar and its history and its
monuments, Oxford 1947. (Mohibbul Hasan)
MAHMUD B. ISMAHL. [See lu 3 lu 3 , badr
al-dIn].

MAHMUD B. MUHAMMAD B. MALIK-
SHA H. MughIth al-Dunya wa ’l-DIn Abu ’l-
Kasim, Great Saldj.uk sultan in western Persia
and Trak 511-25/1118-31.

The weakening of the Great Saldjuk central power
in the west, begun after Malik-Shah’s death in the

MAHMUD b. MUHAMMAD b. MALIK-SHAH

period of the disputed succession between Berk-yaruk
and Muhammad [q.vv.], but arrested somewhat once
Muhammad had established his undisputed authori¬
ty, proceeded apace during Mahmud’s fourteen-year
reign. This arose in part from the latter’s initial
youthfulness (he came to the throne, at the age of 13
and as the eldest of his father’s five sons, on 24 Dh u
THi djdj a 511/18 April 1118, through the support of
Kamal al-Mulk Simiruml, subsequently his vizier),
but stemmed mainly from the continued vitality
among the Saldjuks of a patrimonial concept of rule
which made clear-cut father-eldest son succession dif¬
ficult to enforce. Mahmud’s uncle Sandjar [q.v. ] re¬
mained as undisputed ruler of the eastern Persian
lands, and from his seniority and experience became
regarded as head of the Saldjuk family, even though
since the time of Toghrfl Beg the holder of the seat of
power in the western half of the sultanate had normal¬
ly been regarded as supreme sultan. But what made
Mahmud’s reign so full of strife were the pretensions
of his four brothers, Mas c ud, Toghrfl. Sulayman
Shah and Saldjuk Shah. All of them held some degree
of power in various parts of the western sultanate at
different times, and the first three of them eventually
achieved the title of sultan itself, though their reigns
followed after the brief one of Mahmud’s son Dawud
(525-6/1131-2) and were interspersed with those of
two other sons, Malik-Shah III (547-8/1152-3) and
Muhammad II (548-55/1153-60).

The claims of these fraternal rivals for power during
Mahmud’s reign could not have been sustained
without military support from their own Atabegs or
guardians [see atabak) and other Turkish com¬
manders, through whose control large sections of the
sultanate were frequently abstracted from Mahmud’s
direct rule, with deleterious effects on his finances, his
ability to pay his troops and therefore his enforcing his
authority. As lamented by Anushirwan b. Khalid
[qv.], who acted as Mahmud’s vizier 521-2/1127-8,
“they [sc. Mahmud’s rivals] split up the kingdom’s
unity and destroyed its cohesion; they claimed a share
with him in the power, and left him with only a bare
subsistence’’ (Bundarl, 134). Mahmud’s sultanate
also witnessed further steps in the process of the
revival of the c Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad’s temporal
power, and the growing confidence of Mahmud’s con¬
temporary al-Mustarshid (512-29/1118-35) was only
held in check by the caliph’s enemies in central c Irak,
the ShUl Arab dynasty of the Mazyadids [q.v. ] under
Dubays b. $adaka.

The ascendancy over the young sultan Mahmud
immediately established by the Chief Hadjib c AlI Bar
soon led to an invasion by Sandjar, who came
westwards with a powerful army, defeated Mahmud
at Sawa and dictated peace to him, but on a fairly
amicable basis (513/1119); Sandjar secured control of
the Caspian provinces and Ray, but gave Mahmud
one of his daughters in marriage and made him his
heir. Meanwhile, Mahmud was losing control of the
northern parts of his dominions, for his brother
Toghrfl’s cause was espoused in northern Djibal by
the Atabeg Kiintoghdi, and from a base at Kazwln,
Toghrfl defied Mahmud for the whole of his reign.
Also, Adharbaydjan and al-DjazIra had been granted
to Mas c ud b. Muhammad, with Ay-Aba Djuyush
Beg as his Atabeg. The separatist tendencies of local
Turkish and Kurdish chiefs, including c Imad al-Dln
Zangi, encouraged Mas c ud, and in 514/1120 he and
Ay-Aba rebelled openly, but were defeated by
Mahmud’s general Ak Sunkur BursukI at Asadabad
near Hamadhan, and Mas c ud’s vizier al-Hasan b.
C A1I al-Tughra 5 ! [q.v.], the famous poet and stylist,

was executed. Ay-Aba had hoped to incite Dubays b.
$adaka against Mahmud, and over the next few years
the amir of Hilla’s hopes of reducing Saldjuk influence
in c Irak were raised. Fortunately for Mahmud, fear of
the ShI c I threat had the effect of forcing the caliph al-
Mustarshid into close co-operation with Mahmud’s
own vizier Shams al-Mulk c Uthman b. Nizam al-
Mulk, and in 520/1126 Mahmud came with an army
to Baghdad to enforce his rights and reinforce the
authority of his shihna or military governor there.

On the extreme northern fringes of the sultanate, a
threat had arisen from the resurgent Georgians [see
al-kurdj] under David IV the Restorer (1089-1125),
who had stopped paying tribute to the Saldjuks (see
W. E. D. Allen, A history of the Georgian people, London
1932, 96-100). An army sent by Mahmud in
515/1121, and including Toghrfl. Dubays and the Ar-
tukid Il-Qhazi, failed to halt the Georgians, who cap¬
tured Tiflis and AnI and dislodged the latter’s
Shaddadid prince, and a further expedition to Shlr-
wan led personally by the sultan (517/1123) achieved
nothing either. Toghrfl and Dubays tried soon after
this to stir up c Irak against Mahmud and al-
Mustarshid, but failed and had to flee to Khurasan.
They persuaded Sandjar to move westwards to Ray in
522/1128, but Mahmud became reconciled to his un¬
cle; Dubays had eventually to move to Syria, and in
524/1130 Mahmud and Mas c ud made peace, the lat¬
ter being confirmed in his appanage centred on Gan-
dja in Adharbaydjan.

Mahmud died in Djibal on 15 Shawwal 525/10
September 1131 at the age of only 27, and his death
was to plunge the western sultanate into sharp succes¬
sion disputes. Despite an alleged love of luxury,
Mahmud achieved a favourable mention from
historians for his justice and reasonableness and for
his Arabic scholarship, rare among the Saldjuk rulers.
He patronised many of the leading poets of his time,
and both he and the caliph al-Mustarshid were the
mamduhs of Haysa Bay§a [q.v.] (see c AlI £)jawad al-
Tahir, al-Shi c r al- c arabi fi ’ l-Hrdk wa-bildd al- c Adjam fi
’l-'-asr al-Saldjukt , Baghdad 1958-61, index s.v.
Mahmud). The ten grave accusations levelled against
Mahmud by Anushirwan b. Khalid (listed in Bun¬
darl, 120-4), including those of breaking up the unity
of the Saldjuk house and of causing disharmony in
c Irak, of squandering his father’s treasury, of splitting
up the royal ghulams, of raising the siege of Alamut
because of Isma c fll sympathies, of encouraging an at¬
mosphere of immorality at court, etc., and the further
accusations laid at the door of the vizier Kiwam al-
Din Darguzlnl or AnsabadhI (Anushirwan’s
predecessor and then successor in office), contain
palpable exaggerations, and do not take sufficient ac¬
count of the parlous financial state of the sultanate,
because of which Mahmud was compelled to grant out
to his commanders more and more land as iktd c s and
thus reduce his own income.

Bibliography: 1. Sources. See the general
chronicles, Ibn al-Athlr, Ibn al-DjawzI and Sibf al-
DjawzI; and of the Saldjuk, sources, Bundarl, Zub-
dat al-nufra, 119-56; Rawandl, Rabat al-sudur, 203-6;
Sadr al-Dln Husayni, Akhbar al-dawla al-Saldiukiyya,
88-9, 96-9; Ibn al-KalanisI, Dhayl Ta^rikh Dimashk,
198 ff. There is a biography in Ibn Khallikan, ed.
Ihsan c Abbas, v, 182-3, no. 174, tr. de Slane, iii,
337-8.

2. Studies. See M. A. Koymen, Buyiik Selfuklu
imparatorlugu tarihi. ii. Ikinci imparatorluk devri,
Ankara 1954, 5-148, 164-73; C. E. Bosworth, in
Cambridge hist, of Iran, v, 119-24.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MAHMUD b. SEBUKTIGIN

MAHMUD b. SEBUKTIGIN, sultan of the
Ghaznawid dynasty [g.p.], reigned
388-421/998-1030 in the eastern Islamic lands.

Abu ’1-Rasim Mahmud was the eldest son of the
Turkish commander Sebiiktigin, who had risen from
being one of the slave personal guards of the Hadjib-i
buzurg or commander-in-chief Alptigin [see alp takin]
under the Samanids to becoming the virtually in¬
dependent amir of a principality centred on Ghazna
[q.v.] y at that time on the far eastern fringe of the
Samanid empire. Mahmud was born in 361/971, his
mother being from the local Iranian (?) gentry stock
of Zabulistan [gu>.], the district around Ghazna in
what is now eastern Afghanistan; hence in the
eulogies of his court poets, Mahmud is sometimes
called “Mahmud-i Zabull”.

Mahmud was involved at his father’s side in the
confused, internecine warfare which marked the last
years of the Samanid amirate. In 384/994 the two of
them fought on behalf of the amir Nuh II b. Man§ur
against the rebels Abu c AlI Slrndjurl and Fa 3 ik
Khassa. and Mahmud was rewarded with the
honorific title Sayf al-Dawla and command of the ar¬
my of Khurasan in place of Abu c AlI. Control of this
powerful military force was of prime value to
Mahmud when, in Sha c ban 387/August 997,
Sebiiktigin died and Mahmud had to establish by
force of arms his own claim to the amirate in Ghazna
against that of Isma c i1, his younger brother, whom
Sebiiktigin had by a somewhat puzzling decision ap¬
pointed his successor (388/998) but who had no
military experience or reputation comparable to that
of Mahmud.

Once securely in power, the latter’s first step was to
re-establish the position in Khurasan by ejecting the
general Begtuzun, who had taken over the province
whilst Mahmud was involved in civil war with
Isma c H. By securing a decisive victory over all his op¬
ponents in Khurasan, Mahmud was able to turn
against his old masters the Samanids on pretext of
seeking vengeance for the deposed amir Mansur b.
Nuh II; he then secured from the c Abbasid caliph al-
Kadir [ q. v. ] direct investiture of the governorships of
Khurasan and Ghazna and the lafabs of Yamln al-
Dawla and Amin al-Milla (the former honorific being
that by which Mahmud became most widely-known,
to the point that the whole Ghaznawid dynasty was
often referred to later as the Yamlniyan). With the
final disintegration of the Samanid state >in the face of
a fresh invasion from the north by the Karakhanids or
Ilek Khans it was a question for Mahmud of

moving quickly to consolidate his hold over his own
share of the former Samanid dominions, those south
of the Oxus, for the Ilig Kh an Nasr b. C A1I coveted
Kh urasan also. Whilst Mahmud was pre-occupied in
India in 396/1005-6, a Karakhanid army invaded
Khurasan, and the united forces of the Ilig and his
kinsman Yusuf Kadir Khan of Kashghar were not
finally driven out till 398/1008, after which
Mahmud’s grip on Khurasan was never again
threatened from that quarter.

Mahmud’s 32 years of rule were filled with almost
ceaseless campaigning over a vast expanse of southern
Asia, so that by his death he had assembled an empire
greater than any known in eastern Islam since the
decline of the c Abbasid caliphs. Continuance of his
father’s policy of raids into the Indian subcontinent
enabled Mahmud to build up a great contemporary
reputation as hammer of the heretical Isma c ill Shi c Is
in Multan and other centres of Sind, but above all, of
the pagan Hindus. In retrospect, it appears to us that
the prime motivation for Mahmud’s raids was finan¬

cial greed rather than religious zeal. The temple
treasures of India were thereby tapped, and the pro¬
ceeds used to beautify mosques and palaces in Gh azna
and at places like Lashkar-i Bazar [q. v. j, but above
all, to maintain the central bureaucracy and the
highly expensive, multi-national professional army
which could not be stood down between campaigns.
For the army, indeed, the manpower of India, in the
form of infantrymen and elephant-drivers, was press¬
ed into service, and it does not seem that Mahmud
baulked at employing these men whilst they were still
pagan. The details of Mahmud’s Indian campaigns,
usually enumerated at 17 in all, can conveniently be
read in Nazim’s Sultan Mahmud (see Bibl.), 86-122.
Briefly, the HindushahT [q.v.\ dynasty of Way hind,
which had stood as a bulwark in northwestern India
against Muslim expansion down the Indus valley and
across to the Gangetic plains, was assaulted in several
campaigns, and successive Radjas, Djaypal (d.
393/1002-3), Anandpal, TriloCanpal (d. 412/1021-2)
and Bhimpal (d. 417/1026, the last of his line)
humbled, despite their attempts at alliance with other
threatened potentates such as the Radjas of Kalindjar,
Kanawdj, Gwaliyor, Dihll and U^^jayn. Expeditions
against these latter rulers led Mahmud well into the
Do 5 ab and into Central India, whilst a spectacular
march across the Thar Desert in 416/1026 gained him
fabulous plunder from the idol-temple at Somnath in
Kafhlawar, ancient Sawrashfra, an enhanced reputa¬
tion throughout the Muslim world, and the fresh lakab
of Kahf al-Dawla wa ’1-Islam. Nor were Muslim
dissidents spared, and the Isma c IlI ruler of Multan,
Abu ’1-Fath Dawud b. Na?r, one of the local Arab
rulers in Sind who had acknowledged the distant
suzerainty of the Fatimids, was subdued and finally
deposed in two campaigns (396/1006 and 401/1010).

The raiding of India was thus a financial necessity
for maintaining the momentum of the Ghaznawid
military machine. A political annexation and the mass
conversion of the Hindus were probably never en¬
visaged, and could not have been maintained in face
of the strenous opposition offered by the Hindu
princes except by an enormous army of occupation
and the settlement of myriads of Muslim colonists. By
the end of Mahmud’s reign, Islam must have had a
good hold in the lower and middle Indus valley
regions, but Lahore remained for nearly two centuries
essentially a frontier bastion for Muslim ghazi activity
against Hindu-held territory which lay not far to the
east; it was to be the task of Mu c izz al-Din Muham¬
mad Qhurl and his commanders really to establish
Islamic political control over northern India in the
7th/13th century [see ghurids and dihlI sultanate].

The other aspect of Mahmud’s imperialist policies
concerned the Iranian world, where, as successor-
state to the Samanids, the sultan employed a mixture
of direct conquest and the extension of tributary states
over outlying regions. Thus the local $affarid rulers of
Slstan were reduced to vassalage (393/1003), as had
been already at Mahmud’s accession the Farlghunids
[q.v. in Suppl.] in Guzgan q. v. ] and the Shers or
princes of Gharcistan [q.v.\\ whilst the rulers of
Kusdar and Makran [q.vv.] in modern Balu£istan had
to acknowledge Mahmud in 402/1011 and at the
sultan’s accession respectively. His forcible annexa¬
tion of the ancient kingdom of Kh w arazm [$r.i>.] on
the lower Oxus and the extinguishing of the native
Ma 3 munid dynasty of Kh w arazm-Shahs [q.v.] in
Gurgandj in 408/1017, an isolated outpost of conquest
which Mahmud’s son Mas c ud had to relinquish only
five or six years after his father’s death, nevertheless
enabled the Ghaznawids to turn the flank of the

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

MAHMUD b. SEBUKTIGIN — MAHMUD GAWAN

western branch of the Karakhanids. who under
c AlItigin had never ceased to show hostility to the
sultan, and to achieve a position of dominant in¬
fluence in Central Asia.

Mahmud inherited from the Samanids a tradition
of rivalry with the Daylaml Buyids [see buwayhids]
concerning possession of Ray and northern Persia and
concerning the exercise of suzerainty over the petty
rulers of the Caspian region. The death of Fakhr al-
Dawla of Ray and Djibal in 387/997 in¬

augurated a period of weaker rule for the northern
Buyid amlrate under his youthful son Madjd al-Dawla
Rustam [q.v. ] and his imperious mother and regent
Sayyida. Mahmud made the Ziyarid ruler of Gurgan
and Tabaristan Manu£ihr b. Kabus [see ziyarids] his
vassal, but only towards the end of his life did he feel
freed from his many other commitments to lead a full-
scale expedition against the Buyids (an expedition into
the Buyid province of Kirman in 407/1016-17 in sup¬
port of a Buyid claimant to the governorship there had
achieved no lasting result). Madjd al-Dawla was
dethroned and his amlrate annexed, and the Ghaz-
nawid troops pushed into northwestern Persia, tem¬
porarily subduing local Daylaml and Kurdish princes
like the Kakuyids and Musafirids [q.vv.] (420/1029).
The whole campaign was retrospectively justified by
propaganda denouncing the Buyids for their Shl c ism.
their encouragement of heretics and their tutelage of
the caliphs in Ba gh dad, and grandiose plans for ad¬
vancing on c Irak and confronting the Fatimids on the
Syrian Desert fringes envisaged. All these plans were
cut short by the sultan’s death at the age of 59 on 23
Rabl c II 421/30 April 1030 and rendered impossible
of execution for his son Mas c ud because of the grow¬
ing menace from the Turkmen incursions, which were
to lead eventually to the triumph of the Saldjuks at
Dandanqan [q.v. in Suppl.] and the Ghaznawids’ loss
of Khurasan.

The contemporary image of Mahmud was that of a
Sunni hero, sedulous in sending presents to the caliph
in return for honorifics and investiture patents, and
zealous to maintain orthodoxy within his dominions
against all religious dissent and against odd pockets of
paganism in regions of Afghanistan like Ghur and
Kafiristan [q.vv.]. The centralised, despotic
machinery of state with the sultan at its head, as
created by Mahmud and his Persian officials, typifies
the Perso-Islamic “power-state” in which the ruling
institution of officials and soldiers was clearly set apart
from the masses of tax-paying subjects, the ra c dyd. It
was not for nothing that within half-a-century of
Mahmud’s death, the great vizier Nizam al-Mulk
[q. v. ] could hold the sultan up in his Siydsat-nama as an
exemplar for his own Saldjuk, masters, and the
military state typified by that of the Ghaznawids
became the model for many later Islamic powers, a
large proportion of them likewise directed by Turkish
military castes. However, the Figure of Mahmud also
exemplifies how speedily and successfully the Islamic
cultural milieu could attract and mould in its own im¬
age an outsider whose father had been a barbarian
from the pagan Turkish steppes; for amongst other
things, the literary and intellectual circles at
Mahmud’s court, which nurtured several leading
poets like c Un?uri, FarrukhI and, for a short time, Fir-
dawsl [q. vv. ] and provided a congenial centre of work
for the scientist al-Blrunl [q.v.], show that the sultan
conceived of himself as a full member of the comity of
Islamic prince-patrons.

Bibliography: 1. Primary sources. The

main contemporary source is c UtbI’s al-Ta^rikh al-

Yamtnt, together with that of a generation or so

later, Gardizi’s Zayn al-akhbar; this last plus Ibn al-
Athir contain valuable material from the lost
TaMkh Wuldt Khurasan of Sallaml. Although the
relevant volumes of Bayhakl’s Mudjalldi for
Mahmud’s reign have not survived, those subse¬
quent ones forming the Ta^nkh-i Mas c udi give im¬
portant retrospective information, e.g. for the
conquest of Kh w arazm. The later biographies of
viziers, such as Na$ir al-Dln MunshI Kirmani’s
Nasd ■ > im al-ashdr and Sayf al-Dln c UkaylI’s Athdr al-
wuzard \ are important, as are adab works and col¬
lections of anecdotes, including c Awfi’s Diawdmi c
al-hikdyat and Fakhr-i Mudabbir’s Adab al-harb wa
7- shadjd c a.

2. Secondary sources. M. Nazim’s The life
and times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna , Cambridge
1931, is a detailed, somewhat eulogistic, full-scale
study; briefer, but more critical, is M. Habib’s
Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznin 2 , Dihli 1951. Other
studies containing important information include
Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion 2 ,
London 1928; C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids , their
empire in Afghanistan and eastern Iran 994-1040, Edin¬
burgh 1963; idem, in Camb. hist, of Iran, iv, ch. 5,
v, ch. 1; and idem, The medieval history of Iran,
Afghanistan and Central Asia, London 1977 (contains
several reprinted relevant articles). For a survey of
later historiography about Mahmud, see P. Hardy,
Mahmud of Ghazna and the historians, in Jnal. of the
Panjab Univ. Historical Soc., xiv (Dec. 1962), 1-36.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MAHMUD EKREM BEY. [See ekrem bey].
MAHMUD GAWAN, Kh w adja c Imad al-DIn,
Bahmani minister in South India during the
years 862-87/1458-82.

He was born in 813/1411 (al-SakhawI, al-Daw 5 al -
lami c , x), and arrived at Bldar [q.v.] the capital of the
Bahmani kingdom [q. v. ] at the age of 43. His family
had held high office in Gilan in the Caspian
coastlands, but it had fallen into disgrace and
Mahmud had been compelled to leave the land of his
birth. After wandering from place to place, he at last
reached the Bahmani port of Dabul with the intention
of entering the profession of merchant. From Dabul
he wended his way to the metropolis of the Deccan in
order to sit at the feet of Shah Muhibb. Allah, son of
the famous saint Shah Ni c mat Allah of Kirman, who
had made the Deccan his home. It was not long after
this that he caught the attention of the sultan, Ahmad
II (839-62/1435-58), who appointed him man$abddr of
1,000 and ordered him to go and suppress the
rebellion of the royal kinsman Djalal Khan at Nalgun-
da. After desultory fighting, the rebels soon sur¬
rendered to Mahmud on his promise to intercede with
the sultan for their lives and safety, and this was the
beginning of the policy of conciliation and com¬
promise which Mahmud tried to pursue during the
whole of his life.

Ahmad II was succeeded by Humayun Shah
(862-5/1458-61). Mahmud had already secured a con¬
siderable position in the kingdom, and the new king
appointed him as his prime minister, later bestowing
on him the highly-esteemed title of Malik al-Tu djdid r .
“Prince of Merchants”. On Humayun’s death his
eldest son, who was barely eight years old, succeeded
him as Nizam al-Dln Ahmad III (865-7/1461-3). The
late king had willed that the country should be govern¬
ed during the minority of the new sultan by a council
of regency consisting of Mahmud Gawan, Kh w adja
Djahan Turk and the dowager queen, Makhduma
Djahan Nargis Begam, who was to act as the president
of the council with a casting vote on all matters of

MAHMUD GAWAN

policy. The regency lasted throughout the reign of
Ahmad III and during the minority of the next sultan,
Muhammad III (867-87/1463-82). The short reign of
Ahmad III saw two major military operations, name¬
ly, a war with Kapileshwar of Urisa (Orissa), who
took advantage of the sultan’s youth to invade the
Deccan from the north-east, and the struggle with
Mahmud Khaldjl of Malwa, who invaded it from the
north; in both of these, Mahmud Gawan’s policy and
strategy were successful. While Kapileshwar had to
retreat and pay a large indemnity, Mahmud Khaldjl,
who menaced the very existence of the Deccan as an
independent state, was defeated with the help of the
sultan of Gudjarat [qv.]. This alliance of Gudjarat
with the Deccan was initiated at the instance of
Mahmud Gawan and became the corner-stone of the
foreign policy of the BahmanT kingdom for many
years to come.

Three years after the accession of Muhammad III
in 867/1463, a palace intrigue caused the murder of
one of the members of the council of regency,
Kh w adja Djahan Turk, followed later by the retire¬
ment of the dowager queen from the day-to-day af¬
fairs of state. Mahmud Gawan was now invested with
the insignia of premiership and the title of Kh w adja
Djahan [q.v.\ conferred on him. Mahmud Khaldjl
was again repulsed with the help of Gudjarat, and
following the policy of conciliation already exercised
effectively, the Deccan now entered into a treaty of
friendship with Malwa. Soon an opportunity arose for
interference in the affairs of Urisa when in 875/1470-1
two factions came to grips at Djadjnagar, the capital
of the Gadjapatis, and one of them sought the help of
the BahmanT sultan (JASB [1893], and Burhan-i
ma^athir). Mahmud Gawan thereupon sent Malik
Hasan Bahri (later Nizam al-Mulk and ancestor of the
Nizam-Shahl dynasty of Ahmadnagar [q. v. ]) to Urisa.
Malik Hasan not only succeeded in putting the
rightful claimant on the Urisa throne, but also in an¬
nexing Radjamandrf and Kondavidu to the BahmanT
Kingdom.

It was now the turn of the lands beyond the
Western Ghafs to be pacified. Goa had already been
reduced by the founder of the dynasty, c Ala 3 al-Din
Bahman Shah (748-59/1347-58), but it seems that it
had subsequently passed into Vidj ay an agar’s orbit.
Moreover, certain local chieftains were in the habit of
waylaying BahmanT ships plying in the Arabian Sea.
By a series of brilliant campaigns which lasted three
years from 873/1469 to 876/1472, Mahmud Gawan
successfully negotiated the difficult terrain, captured
the great fort of Sangameshwar and boldly marched to
Goa, which he entered on 20 Sha c ban 876/1 February
1472.

The frontiers of the kingdom had now reached the
Bay of Bengal in the east and the Arabian Sea in the
west, and Mahmud Gawan rightly felt that it was time
to reform the administration which had remained
more or less static since the reign of Muhammad I
(759-76/1358-75). He ordered that the whole land
should be measured and a record of rights kept, thus
forestalling the reforms of Akbar the Great and Radja
Todar Mai by about a century. He re-divided the
kingdom into eight instead of four atraf (sing, taraj) or
provinces, brought certain tracts in each province
under the direct rule of the sultan as royal domain,
made kil c adars or commanders of fortresses in each
province directly responsible to the centre, and
demanded accounts from military dj_agtrddrs or
fiefholders. He thus curbed the power of the
fiefholders and provincial magnates, who had exercis¬
ed absolute power for several decades. Although

himself an Afdkt or “Newcomer”, he tried to keep the
balance between the native Dakknis and the Afakis in
the matter of the distribution of high posts, and thus
strove to solve a problem which had adversely affected
the body-politic. Two significant events vastly in¬
creased the prestige of the kingdom, and with it that
of the Kh w adja. One was the complete rout of
Purushottam of Urisa, who had advanced to the
banks of the Godavari to make common cause with
the rebels of Kondavidu, and the other was the state
visit of c Adil Khan FarukI of Khandesh to Bldar.
c Adil Khan’s visit is remarkable in that it resulted in
the circulation of BahmanT coins in Khandesh as well
as the mention of the BahmanT sultan’s name in the
khutba at Burhanpur, the capital of the principality.
Thus Khandesh. which was once at daggers drawn
with the Deccan, became virtually a protectorate of
the Bahmanls at this time.

It was when Muhammad III was away on an ex¬
pedition to Nellur and KancT (Gonjiverum) in
Shawwal 885/December 1481 that a conspiracy was
formed in the royal camp at KondapallT
(Mustafanagar, now in the Krishna district of Andhra
Pradesh) against Mahmud Gawan. The old feudal
lords resented the loss of their power at the hands of
the Kh w adja, while the Dakhnis had never reconciled
themselves to the rise of a mere “Newcomer” to such
heights. Nizam al-Mulk Bahri, who was the leader of
the conspirators, persuaded Mahmud Gawan’s Hab-
shi private secretary, under the influence of strong
drink, to affix the Kh w adja’s seal to a piece of paper.
The conspirators then forged a letter purporting to be
from the Kh w adja to the Radja of Urisa and sug¬
gesting that the time was opportune for an invasion of
the Deccan. This letter was shown to the sultan on his
return from the south. He at once summoned the
Kh w adja to his presence, and as his ears had been
poisoned against him from time to time ever since he
had been leading the western campaigns, he did not
even enquire how the letter had come in the posses¬
sion of Nizam al-Mulk. The old man was decapitated
forthwith as a traitor, on the sultan’s orders, on 5
Safar 886/5 April 1481 when he was 73 lunar years
old.

The Kh w adja was not merely the political and
military leader of the Deccan, but was its cultural
leader as well. He no doubt re-built a number of forts
such as the one at Parenda, but it is the noble edifice
of the great madrasa at Bldar which was to remain a
permanent symbol of his concern for the public
welfare. The college is a three-storeyed building,
covering a site of 205 ft by 180 ft., and is surrounded
by a large courtyard which was once fringed by a
thousand cubicles where students lived and were pro¬
vided not only with free education but with food and
clothes as well. The library was the central feature of
the institution, and it is related that no one could give
the Kh w adja a more acceptable present than a rare
manuscript. This and other works of utility such as
water-works and numerous public buildings must
have made Bldar known far and wide. The Russian
traveller, Afanasy Nikitin, who was in the Deccan
from 1469 to 1474, says that this city was “the chief
town of Hindustan” and was the centre of trade in
horses, cloth, silk, pepper and many other species of
merchandise.

Mahmud Gawan continued the policy of making
the kingdom the resort of the learned which had been
initiated by Flruz Shah (800-25/1397-1422). He was
himself a scholar of renown and was recognised as one
of the most learned exponents of the Persian
language. He has left us two important works, namely

MAHMUD GAWAN — MAHMUD NEDIM PASHA

the Manazir al-inshd 3 and the Riydj al-inshd 3 The
former, which was compiled in 880/1475, is a hand¬
book of Persian diction of the ornate type in fashion
in those days, treating of the subject in a pro¬
legomenon, two discourses and an epilogue. The
Riyad al-insha 3 is a collection of his letters written to
kings, ministers, princes and divines in practically all
the states in India and the Middle East. It contains
historical material of almost unsurpassed value, as it
is the only contemporary record of many important
events in which the Kh w adja was the chief actor.

Mahmud Gawan’s real character may be gleaned
from the contrast between the image of the public
minister and the real, private man. Nikitin says that
500 men belonging to all walks of life sat down to dine
with the minister every day and that his stables con¬
tained 2,000 horses of the best breed, while his man¬
sion was guarded by a hundred armed men night and
day. But as transpired after his death, he was per¬
sonally a man of extremely simple habits. His
treasurer swore to the sultan that the late minister’s
personal expenses did not exceed twelve silver pieces
per day, and even this amount came out of the forty
thousand laris which he had brought from Gflan. The
sultan realised too late the worth of the servant who
had been so summarily done to death by his orders,
and his remorse was so great that he himself died just
one lunar year after the deed (5 Safar 887/26 March
1482). Mahmud Gawan’s death was one of the causes
of the downfall of the dynasty which he had served so
well, and hastened the day when the provincial gover¬
nors (sc. the c Adilshahls at Bldjapur, the Baridshahls
at Bldar, the Tmadshahls in Berar and the Kutb-
shahis in Tilangana [q.vv.]) became virtually
autonomous and ultimately independent of the central
authority.

Bibliography. Mahmud Gawan, Riyad al-
inshd 3 , Haydarabad Dn., 1948; al-SakhawI, al-
Daw 3 al-lami c , x; Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi\ V.
Major, India in the fifteenth century, J. S. King, History
of the Bahmani dynasty, H. K. Sherwani, Mahmud
Gawan , the great Bahmani Wazir, Bombay 1942;
idem, The Bahmanis of the Deccan, an objective study,
Hyderabad 1953; G. Yazdani, Bidar, its history and
monuments, Oxford 1947; The history and culture of the
Indian people, vi. The Delhi sultanate, Bombay 1960,
266-9, and bibl. at 768-9. (H. K. Sherwani)
MAHMUD KEMAL. [See Inal].

MAHMUD NEDlM PASHA, Ottoman
bureaucrat and twice Grand Vizier under
Sultan c Abd al- c Aziz, was born in Istanbul in
1233/1817-18. He was the younger son of Gurdjii
Mehmed Nedjib Pasha (d. 1267/1850-1), who had a
distinguished governmental career and became wait of
Syria and of Baghdad. After the traditional elemen¬
tary education, Mahmud Nedlm at age 14 entered the
scribal bureaucracy, in the sadaret mektubi. He rose
fairly rapidly, perhaps in part owing to his father’s
position, but also because he was intelligent and at¬
tracted the favourable notice of Mustafa Reshld
Pasha [q.v. ] and, later, of Mehmed Emin c AlI Pasha

In 1256/1840-1 he entered the amedi kalemleri. In
RabI* I 1263/February-March 1847 he was promoted
to the first rank, second class, in the correspondence
office of the grand vizier Reshld Pasha. In Radjab
1265/May-June 1849, again under Reshld’s auspices,
he became the deputy ameddji [q.v. ] of the diwdn-i
hiimdyun [^.i».], and by Muharram 1266/November-
December 1849 attained the full position. In
1270/1853 he became beylikdji of the diwdn-i hiimdyun.
Mahmud Nedlm’s career then shifted into near-

ministerial levels. Under Mustafa Na 3 ilT Pasha he was
sadaret miisteshari for three months from 23 Djumada II
1270/24 March 1854, and then miisteshdr of the
Foreign Ministry from 29 Ramadan 1270/25 June
1854. For 16 days he was detached to carry orders to
the commander-in-chief Ekrem c Omer Pasha, in
Bulgaria, during the war with Russia. On 7 Diumada
II 1271/25 February 1855 Mahmud Nedlm attained
the rank of wezir with appointment as wall of Sidon.
He was transferred as wdli to Damascus in Rabl c II
1272/December 1855 and to Izmir in Muharram
1274/August-September 1857. He managed to return
to the capital in Radjab 1274/February-March 1858
as a member of the Tanzimat Council. Two months
later he was acting Foreign Minister for a time while
the minister, Fu 3 ad Pasha [q.v.\, was at the Paris con¬
ference on the Danubian Principalities. He became a
minister, finally, on 20 Muharram 1275/30 August
1858 with the portfolio of commerce, from which he
was dismissed in Djumada I 1276/November-
December 1859. For half a year he was unemployed.

Till this point, Mahmud Nedlm had a mixed
reputation. He was thought to be able, but some con¬
sidered him a sycophant and untrustworthy. Reshld
Pasha once compared him to mushy soap, suitable
neither for washing hands nor for doing laundry. He
knew the bureaucratic forms and language, but no
foreign tongue save Arabic.

On 19 Dhu THidjdja 1276/8 July 1860 Mafrmud
Nedlm was named wdli of Tarabulus-i Gharb, a post
not much sought-after, at his own request, and re¬
mained there for seven years. Toward the end of this
period occurred the original conspiracy of the small
group of New Ottomans [see yeni c othmanlilar], of
which Mahmud Nedlm’s nephew Saghir Ahmed-zade
Mehmed Bey was a member. Mehmed Bey proposed
that the grand vizier c AlI Pa§ha, whom the con¬
spirators detested, be replaced by his uncle Mahmud
Nedlm. The plan was leaked to the authorities and
known to c Ali Pasha. Therefore in Dhu ’1-Hid jdj a
1283/April-May 1867 Mahmud Nedlm returned to
Istanbul to clear his name with the Grand Vizier.
Although C A1I at first refused to see him, Mahmud
Nedim eventually talked his way back into c All’s good
graces. By 15 $afar 1284/18 June 1867 Mahmud
Nedlm was a member of the Medjlis-i wala-i ahkdm-i
c adliyye, on 23 Rabl c II 1284/24 August 1867 he was
da c awi ndziri, and on 11 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 1284/5 March
1868 was briefly sadaret miisteshari for the second time.
Eight days later he became Minister of Marine, a post
which he held for more than three years, during c All
Pasha’s last grand vizierate. Mahmud Nedlm
cultivated relations with the Palace, catered to Sultan
c Abd al- c Aziz’s interests, and emerged as the sultan’s
choice to succeed C A1T Pasha after c All’s death.

On 22 Djumada II 1288/8 September 1871
Mahmud Nedlm entered on his first grand vizierate,
which lasted eleven months. His administration was
chaotic, marked by a constant shifting of officials both
in provincial posts and in the capital (in 11 months:
five ser c askers, four navy ministers, four justice
ministers, five finance ministers, six arsenal com¬
manders, etc.). He cut salaries in the name of
economy, exiled important rivals, among them Hu-
sayn c AwnI [q. t>.], to the provinces, hobbled the wildyet
system and in general created new enemies for
himself. He evidently took bribes from the Khedive
Isma c il of Egypt. Although the New Ottomans at first
welcomed his appointment as an improvement over
the “tyrant” c Ali, they were soon disenchanted.
Namik Kemal [q.v. ] in his newspaper Hbret began to
criticise Mahmud Nedlm, who then suspended the

MAHMUD NEDIM PASHA — MAHMUD PASHA

paper and ordered Namfk Kemal out of Istanbul to
the post of mutafamf of Gelibolu. The Russian am¬
bassador, Ignatyev, however, thought well of
Mahmud Nedim’s anti- Tanzimdt activities. The
public began to use the nickname “Nedimoff” for the
grand vizier. Eventually Sultan c Abd al- c AzIz seems
to have become disillusioned, too; he later called
Mahmud Nedlm duplicitous and corrupt, and spoke
of him to the British ambassador, “in terms so
disparaging that I have some hesitation in recording
them in a despatch” (PRO. FO 78/2220, Elliot, 2
Nov. 1872). Mahmud Nedlm was dismissed suddenly
on 25 Djumada I 1289/31 July 1872 as the result of
Midhat Pasha’s [q.v. \ energetic representations to the
sultan about the harm the Grand Vizier was causing.
Midhat, already and for ever after an opponent of
Mahmud Nedlm, replaced him. Public rejoicing
ensued.

For nearly three years Mahmud Nedlm was under
a cloud. He was investigated and condemned for ir¬
regular financial dealings, but pardoned by c Abd
al- c Aziz. In Rabl c II 1290/June 1873 he was sent into
provincial exile as wall of Kastamonu, after a month
or two was transferred to forced residence in Trabzon,
then on 22 Sha c ban 1290/15 October 1873 was sent
on to be wait of Adana, from which post he was finally
allowed to return to Istanbul on 23 $afar 1292/31
March 1875. Somehow he had retained or regained
the sultan’s favour. He apparently persuaded c Abd
al- c Aziz that he could deal with the revolt that broke
out in July in Herzegovina, and spread to Bosnia. On
19 RajJjab 1292/21 August 1875 Mahmud Nedlm was
made president of the £hura-yi dewlet [q.v.], and four
days later replaced Es c ad Pasha as Grand Vizier.

Mahmud Nedim’s second grand vizierate was, if
anything, less successful than his first. He was con¬
fronted with a treasury crisis. Without funds for pay¬
ment of the October coupons of Ottoman bonds, his
ministry defaulted on half the amount on 6 October
1875, arousing much enmity from domestic and
foreign bondholders. The revolt in Bosnia and
Herzegovina grew, attracting support from
Montenegro. Bulgarian revolutionaries rose in revolt
early in May 1876; they were put down with much
bloodshed. The French and German consuls in
Salonika were killed by a mob as a by-product of a
religious controversy. These events brought ineffec¬
tual reform palliatives from Mahmud Nedim’s
government and provoked pressures and diplomatic
intervention by the great powers. Russian backing for
“a Grand Vizier devoted to Russia” (Nelidow,
“Souvenirs...,” Revue des deux mondes, 6th per., 27
[1915], 308) brought no solutions. Public sentiment
rose against Mahmud Nedlm. On 8 May 1876,
theological students in Istanbul began to strike; on 10
May, encouraged by Midhat Pasha, they
demonstrated to demand dismissal of Mahmud
Nedlm. The sultan bowed and let him go on 11 May.
The next day Muterdjim Mehmed Riishdl was ap¬
pointed Grand Vizier, and allowed Mahmud Nedlm
to go to fieshme rather than suffer more distant exile;
actually, he took up residence on Sakiz Ada.

In 1879, when Tunuslu Khavr al-Dln Pasha [q.v. ]
was Grand Vizier, Mahmud Nedlm was offered and
declined the governorship of Mawsil wilayet. He then
lived on Midilli until 3 Dhu TKa c da 1296/19 Oc¬
tober 1879, in Mehmed Sa c Iad Pasha’s grand
vizierate, when he was appointed Minister of the In¬
terior. On 20 Rabi c II 1300/26 February 1883, owing
to a lengthy illness, he was dismissed and put on
unemployment pay. He died on 7 Radjab 1300/14
May 1883 and was buried in Djaghaloghlu in
Istanbul.

Mahmud Nedim’s reputation has generally been
unsavoury. His opponents have stressed his
Russophile views, his alleged venality, a character
that included fickleness and deceitfulness, and his
chaotic administrations. Yusuf Kemal Pasha thought
him qualified only to be a chief secretary to a vizier.
In each session of the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies,
1877 and 1878, there were votes to try him for crimes
and incompetence. This was not done. Among
Mahmud Nedim’s writings are some unpublished
poems, a published one ( Hasb-i hat) on his career, and
an unpublished apologia pro vita sua, Mudafa '-a-name or
Reddiyye , much quoted in Pakalin and Inal.

Bibliography : Ibnulemin Mahmud Kemal
Inal, Osmanli devrinde son sadnazamlar, Istanbul
1940-53, 264-321 and picture at 258; Mehmed Zeki
Pakalin, Mahmud Nedim Paja, Istanbul 1940. These
two quote extensively from the standard Ottoman
histories and memoirs, and are the most infor¬
mative. Mehmed Thiireyya, Sidjill-i c 0thmdni,
Istanbul 1308-15, iv, 336-7; i. A. Govsa, Turk
me$hurlan ansiklopedisi , Istanbul 1946, 235; La Tur-
quie, 9 September 1871; Ahmed Cevdet, Tezdkir , 4
vols., Ankara 1953-67, indices; R. H. Davison,
Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856-1876, Princeton
1963, index; Mahmud Djalal al-Dln, Mir y dt-i
hakikat , Istanbul 1326-7, i, 35-6, 91-4; c Abd al-
Rahman Sheref, Ta 5 rikh musdhabeleri, Istanbul
1339, 187-8; Mithat Cemal Kuntay, Namik Kemal ,
Istanbul .1944-56, i, 152, 231, ii, 116-9; c AlI
Haydar Midhat, Midhat Pasha, hayat-i siyasiyyesi. i.
Tabslra-yl Hbret, Istanbul 1325, 125-34; Mehmed
Memduh, Mir^dt-i shu^undt, Izmir 1328, 45-66;
Ahmed $a 5 ib, Wok c a-yi Sultan c Abd al- c Aziz, Cairo
1320, 190-91; R. Devereux, The First Ottoman Con¬
stitutional period, Baltimore 1963, 193, 240.

(R. H. Davison)

MAHMUD PASHA (? - 879/1474), Ottoman
Grand Vizier. Contemporary Ottoman historians
tell us nothing of his origins. Authors of tadhkiras from
the 10th/16th century down to c Othmanzade Ta 5 ib
(Hadikat al-wuzard y , Istanbul 1271/1854-5, 9; facs.
repr., Freiburg 1969) state that he was a native of
Aladja Hi§ar (Krusevac) in Serbia, but this seems
unlikely. According to Phrantzes, he was born of a
Serbian mother and a Greek father. Chalcocondylas
makes his mother Bulgarian, while Kritovoulos
(Turkish tr., Ta \ifsh-i Mehemmed Khdn-i thdni, in
TOEM, Suppl. 1328/1910, 192) makes him the
descendant of a noble Greek family, whose father,
Michael, was a descendant of Alexios III
Philathropenos. According to Martinus Crusius (Tur-
cograecia, Basel 1584, 21), Mahmud Pasha was, on his
mother’s side, the Serbian-born grandson of the
Byzantine nobleman Marko Yagari. He also tells us
that Mahmud Pasha’s cousin, George Amirutzes, the
protovestiarius of the Comnene Emperor of Trebizond,
David, was a grandson of the same Yagari. According
to F. Babinger {Mehmed the Conqueror and his time, Eng.
tr. R. Manheim, ed. W. Hickman, Princeton 1978,
115), based on Chalcocondylas {L'Histoire de la
decadence de VEmpire Grec, Paris 1620, i, 229, 246), he
was the son of Michael Angelus of Novo Brdo. He was
in all probability a scion of the Angeli, i.e. the
Thessalian branch of the Serbian despotate.

It is uncertain when the Ottomans captured
Mahmud Pasha. The accounts in Chalcocondylas {op.
cit. , i, 246), Tashkopriizade (al-Shakd Hk al-nu c mdniyya,
tr. Medjdl, Istanbul 1269/1852-3, 176) and c Ashfk
Celebi ( Tadhkira , University Library, Istanbul,
Turkish ms. 2406, f. 215a) are identical in all but a
few minor details. They each relate how the com¬
mander Mehmed Agha took Mahmud Pasha and his

MAHMUD PASHA

mother prisoner on the road between Novo Brdo and
Smederovo and, since Tashkopruzade {loc. cit.) tells
us of Mehmed Agha’s taking Mahmud from the
“lands of infidelity” to Edirne, together with
Mawlana c Abd al-Karim and Mawlana Ayas (cf.
c Ashfk Celebi, loc. cit.), it seems likely that Mehmed
Agha patronised all three, and it is undoubtedly
through him that he was presented to Murad II.
Tashkopruzade’s claim that Murad II attached him to
the suite of Prince Mehemmed, later Mehemmed II,
is probably false (cf. c Ashik Celebi, op. cit., f. 214a).

He underwent a period of education in the Palace
at Edirne and, after the accession of Mehemmed II in
855/1451, began to receive royal favours. He attained
the rank of odpik aghast, and was in the sultan’s com¬
pany at the siege of Constantinople. According to
some accounts, the sultan sent him to Constantinople
at the beginning of the siege at the end of Rabl c I
857/beginning of April 1543 to demand the surrender
of the city. During the siege, Mahmud Pasha and the
heglerbegi of Anadolu, Ishak Pasha, received the com¬
mand to attack the city wall between modern Edirne
Kapi and Yedi Kule, and a section of the sea-walls in
this area (Kritovoulos, op. cit., 48, 76). Those tadhkiras
which include a biography of Mahmud Pasha and cer¬
tain histories claim that Mahmud Pasha participated
in the siege as a vizier and beglerbegi, but this informa¬
tion is almost certainly false. The most reliable
sources agree that his promotion to the vizierate
followed not the fall of Khalil Pasha Djandarli
but the dismissal of Zaganos Pasha in 858/1454 (Ibn
Kemal, Tevarih-i al-i Osman, VII. defter, ed. §erafeddin
Turan, Ankara 1954, 147; Neshri, Kitdb-i cihan-numd,
ed. F. R. Unat and M. A. Koymen, Ankara 1957, ii,
717; Enweri, Dustur-name, ed. Mukrimin Halil
Yinan$, Istanbul 1928, 103; Idris-i Bitlisi, Hesht
behisht, Ah Emiri Library, Istanbul, Persian ms. 806,
f. 83a). Since his uncle Karadja Beg was beglerbegi until
his death at the siege of Belgrade in 860/1456
(Tewki c i Mehmed Pasha, Tewarlkh al-saldtln
al- c Othmaniyya, ed. Mukrimin Halil Yinanc, in Turk
ta?rlkhi endjiimeni medjmu^asi [1340/1921-2], 147),
Mahmud Pasha must have become beglerbegi after his
siege, as Orudj Beg ( Tewdrlkh-i al-i c Othman , ed. F.
Babinger, Hanover 1925, 72) and Chalcocondylas
{op. cit., i, 252) confirm (cf. also Ibn Kemal, op. cit.,
147; c Ashik Celebi, op. cit., f. 214b). The statement
by Kii6uk Nishandji Ramadanzade Mehmed
{Ta^rlkh, Istanbul 1279/1862-3, 162), that he was at
the same time kd(ll c asker, is probably based on a
reference in the Mendkib-ndme (Menakib-i Mahmud
Pasha-yi Well, Ali Emiri Library, Istanbul, Turkish
ms. 43, f. 50a), which makes it clear that he received
his appointment temporarily while the kadi c asker c Ali
Efendi performed the pilgrimage.

Mahmud Pasha accompanied Mehemmed II on a
number of campaigns, in all of which he achieved
outstanding successes. The Sultan promoted him to
the vizierate in recognition of his courageous exploits
at the siege of Belgrade (Ibn Kemal, op. cit., 122),
after which he served as vizier and beglerbegi of
Rumelia. When, on 24 Djumada I 863/31 March
1458, the Serbian Queen removed Mahmud Pasha’s
brother Michael Anglovic and appointed a Catholic
Bosnian in his stead, the Serbian boyars contacted
Mehemmed II and offered him suzerainty over Serbia
(J. W. Zinkeisen, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in
Europa, Gotha 1845, ii, 116). The Sultan ordered
Mahmud Pasha to settle the Serbian question. To the
Rumelian troops which he had equipped at his own
expense, Mahmud Pasha added the troops of Anadolu
and 1,000 Janissaries which the Sultan had allotted to

him (Dursun Beg, Ta J rlkh-i Ebu ’l-Feth, in TOEM,
Suppl. 1330/1912, 82; Sa c d al-Dln, Tadj_ al-tewdrlkh,
Istanbul 1279/1862-3, i, 465) and marched to Sofia.
He succeeded, with numerous promises, in overcom¬
ing the objections of the troops, who refused to ad¬
vance when the Serbs announced that they would
observe the terms of the agreement only if the Sultan
came in person, and that otherwise they would refuse
to surrender the fortresses and join with the
Hungarians. Continuing the advance, the Ottoman
forces seized several fortified places, the most impor¬
tant being Resava and Kuruca (for the other for¬
tresses, see _ c Ashfk-Pasha-zade, Tewdrlkh-i al-i
c Othman, ed. C A1I, Istanbul 1332/1913-14, 150; Dur¬
sun Beg, op. cit., 86). Mahmud Pagha then unsuc¬
cessfully laid siege to Smederovo, before withdrawing
to the fortress which the Sultan had built nearby.
Shortly afterwards, he improved the fortifications,
and captured the castles of Ostrovica and Rudnik
(Dursun Beg, op. cit., 89; Enweri, op. cit., 103; Ibn
Kemal, op. cit., 154; Bihishti, Tewdrlkh-i al-i c Othman,
BL ms., Add. or. 7869, f. 168a).

After celebrating bayram at Yellii Yurt near Nish,
Mahmud Pasha appeared before Golubac. He seized
and repaired the fort before despatching Minnet Beg-
Oghlu Mehmed Beg with akindfi troops to raid into
Hungary. He then joined the Sultan in Skoplje. It was
he who dissuaded the Sultan from demobilising the
army when the Hungarians crossed the Danube. A
number of sources state wrongly that Mahmud Pasha
commanded the Serbian expedition which resulted in
the fall of Smederovo in 864/1459 (cf. J. von Ham¬
mer, GOR, i, 447), whereas Dursun Beg {op. cit., 90)
and Idris-i Bitlisi {op. cit. ) make the Sultan himself the
commander (cf. also Zinkeisen, op. cit., ii, 116).

In 864/1460, Mahmud Pasha took part in
Mehemmed II’s Morean campaign (see D.
Zakythinos, Le despotat grec de Moree, Paris 1932, i,
285 ff.) On the Sultan’s command he laid siege to the
fortress of Mistra which the Despot Demetrios held
and, with the Sultan’s Greek secretary, Thomas
Katavolenos, acting as intermediary, he persuaded
the Despot to surrender and sent him, on 9
Sha c ban/30 May, to the Sultan in Istanbul. Since the
Despot had voluntarily surrendered the fortress, the
Sultan treated him well (Ducas, Historia Byzantina,
Bonn 1834, 521; Kritovoulos, op. cit., 128; Dursun
Beg, op. cit., 94; Ibn Kemal, op. cit., 168).

In the following year, Mahmud Pasha served with
great distinction under the sultan on the campaign
against Sinop, Amasra and Trebizond. Mehemmed
II apparently attached great importance to the con¬
quest of the Genoese-held Amasra, which earlier
sultans had neglected to capture ( c Ashik Pasha-zade,
op. cit., 153; Neshri, op. cit., ii, 739), and despatched
Mahmud Pasha to blockade the city with a force of
150 ships, while he himself came overland. In
865/1461, the city surrendered to the Ottomans
(Neshri, loc. cit.; Ibn Kemal, op. cit., 185; Hadldl,
Tewarlkh-i al-i c Othman, University Library, Istanbul,
Turkish ms. 1268, f. 126b). Mahmud Pasha also
mounted the operations which resulted in the fall of
Sinop. Sending a fleet of 100 galleys from Istanbul,
with a letter written by Dursun Beg, he himself went
first to Edirne and then to Bursa with the assembled
troops. In describing the campaign Neshri {op. cit., ii,
743) wrote: “Mahmud Pasha was now at the height
of his glory. It was as though the sultan had renounc¬
ed the sultanate and bestowed it on Mahmud”. In
describing the council held at Bursa in the Sultan’s
presence, the Ottoman writers tell how Mahmud
Pasha influenced the other members by speaking

MAHMUD PASHA

against the enemy of the Ottomans, Isfendiyar-Oghlu
Isma c Il Beg of Sinop, and attribute the preparations
for the expedition to Mahmud Pasha. According to an
anonymous Ta^rikh-i al-i c Othmdn (Library of the
Topkapi Sarayi, ms. Revan 1099, 91), he spread the
rumour that the expedition was aimed against Trebi-
zond. At Ankara, the sultan announced the true goal
of the campaign, and sent Mahmud Pasha ahead to
Sinop. Despatching a letter composed by Dursun Beg,
Mahmud Pasha secured Isma c il Beg’s submission to
the Sultan (Dursun Beg, op. cit., 98; c Ashik-Pasha-
zade, op. cit., 156; Chalcocondylas, op. cit., i, 274. See
also Ya§ar Yucel, Candar ogullan beyligi, in Belleten,
xxxiv/135 (1970), 373-407).

Before the Trebizond campaign, Mahmud Pasha
accompanied the sultan on his way to confront Uzun
Hasan Ak Koyunlu, as far as Yassi fiimen, where, ac¬
cording to one account, a joint deputation from Uzun
Hasan’s mother Sara and Kurd Sheykh Hasan, the
beg of fiemishgezek, secretly presented him with a
petition for peace (Sa c d al-Dln, op. cit., i, 479). After¬
wards, he took part in the Trebizond campaign as
commander of the troops of Rumelia. At the head of
the left wing in the vanguard of the army, Mahmud
Pasha appeared before Trebizond, and persuaded
first the townspeople, and then the Emperor David
and his family to surrender (Chalcocondylas, op. cit.,
i, 278; Crusius, op. cit., 21, 121). As David’s pro-
tovestiarius, Mahmud Pasha’s cousin, the philosopher
George Amirutzes played an important role as in¬
termediary, which had led a number of Greek writers
to accuse him of treachery (Ducas, op. cit ., 343; on the
fall of Trebizond, seej. P. Fallmerayer, Geschichte des
Kaisertums Trapezunt , Munich 1827; Heath Lowry, The
Ottoman tahrir defiers as a source for urban demographic
history: the case study of Trabzon , Ph. D. thesis, UCLA
1977, unpublished, ch. i [in course of revision by the
author]).

In 866-7/1462, Mahmud Pasha participated in the
Wallachian campaign, where he successfully
prevented Vlad Drakul from routing Ewrenos Beg’s
akindji troops and repulsed Vlad’s night attack
(Enwerl, op. cit., 104; Dursun Beg, op. cit., 106). Vlad
sought refuge in Hungary, where he was imprisoned
by Matthias Corvinus. According to S. Ferencs
(Magyaroszag a tor ok hoditas korban , Budapest 1886, 41),
Matthias’ motive in imprisoning him was a letter
which he had sent in the same year to Mehemmed II
and Malimud Pasha, offering Transylvania to the Ot¬
tomans (cf. Zinkeisen, op. cit., ii, 176). In 862/458,
the Duke of Lesbos, Niccolo II Gattilusio, had
strangled his brother Domenico, whom he accused of
collaboration with the Ottomans. This provided
Mehemmed II with a pretext to attack the island in
866/1462. Placed in command of the expedition,
Mahmud Pasha besieged Lesbos with a fleet of about
60 galleys and 7 transport vessels (sources differ as to
the exact number of ships) and a portion of the army.
He bombarded the city with 27 guns and captured it
on 24 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 866/19 September 1462. Accor¬
ding to some sources, the city was stormed (Dursun
Beg, op. cit., 112); according to others, it surrendered
voluntarilyJDucas, op. cit., 346, 511; Kritovoulos, op.
cit., 163; c Ashik-Pasha-zade, op. cit., 163). Mahmud
Pasha imprisoned the Duke and made a register of the
booty (Neshrl, op. cit., ii, 759) and gave the govern¬
ment of the island to C A1I al-Bistaml (F. Babinger, op.
cit., 211).

When the Bosnian king Stjepan Tomasevic laid
claim to Smederovo and failed to send tribute, the
Sultan determined on the conquest of Bosnia. On 3
Ramadan 867/22 May 1463, the Sultan seized

Bobovac and, resolving to capture the king at Jajce,
sent Malimud Pasha to lay siege to this fortress.
Mahmud Pasha sent Turakhan-Oghlu c Omer Beg
ahead on a raid. The king surrendered when he heard
that the Sultan had besieged Jajce. Mahmud Pasha
then received orders to prevent the attacks of the
Venetians who were inciting the Greek towns in the
Morea to rebellion (H. Kretschmayr, Geschichte von
Venedig, Gotha 1920, ii, 372). He marched to the
Morea, routed the Venetians and captured Argos.
His victories frightened the Greek rebels into submis¬
sion. He then sent c Omer Beg to raid the Venetian
territories in the Morea, while he himself was despat¬
ched to relieve Lesbos which the Venetians were
besieging. Within 12 days, he raised a fleet of 110
ships and pursued the Venetians, who had abandoned
Lesbos and retreated to Euboea.

In 868/early 1464, when the Hungarians had pass¬
ed to the attack, the Sultan, himself occupied with the
siege of Jajce, ordered Mahmud Pasha on a winter
campaign against Hungary. Malimud Pasha sent
words of encouragement to Zvornik to resist the
Hungarians and, shortly afterwards, sent Mlkhal-
oghlu C A1I Beg to this fortress with akindji troops, forc¬
ing the Hungarians to withdraw (Enwerl, op. cit., 105;
Ibn Kemal, op. cit., 273; Kritovoulos, op. cit., 178). In
869-70/1465, Mahmud Pasha conducted negotiations
with Venice and, in the following year, took part in
campaigns in Albania under the command of the
Sultan (Miinshe^at, ms. Selim Aga Library, Istanbul
862; Kritovoulos, op. cit., 189; Ibn Kemal, op. cit.,
300).

In 872/1468, Mehemmed II intervened in the
troubles in Karaman following the death of Karaman-
oghlu Ibrahim Beg. Accompanying the Sultan to
Konya and Gevele, Malimud Pasha received orders
to pursue the beg of Karaman, Pir Ahmed, whom he
was, however, unable to capture. Mafimud Pasha’s
rival, Rum Mehmed Pa§ha, used this opportunity to
win the Sultan and the army to his cause, by ascribing
Mahmud Pasha’s failure to negligence. Although the
event angered the sultan (Sa c d al-Din, op. cit., i, 511),
he concealed his wrath and sent Mahmud Pa§ha first¬
ly in pursuit of the Turghudlu Turcomans and then,
shortly afterwards, commanded him to deport all the
master-craftsmen from Konya and Larenda to Istan¬
bul. Mahmud Pasha could not, however, restrain
himself from absolving some of these from deporta¬
tion, and offering his consolation to the rest (Ibn
Kemal, op. cit., 291). To discredit him further, his
rivals claimed that he had deported only the poor, and
spared the_ rich in return for bribes (Hadidl, op. cit.,
f. 139b; c Ashfk-Pasha-zade, op. cit., 170). It was not
long before these accusations influenced the Sultan.
Mahmud Pasha’s post went to Rum Mehmed Pagha
and, according to an unsubstantiated report (F. Bab¬
inger, op. cit., 272) the former Grand Vizier’s tent was
collapsed over his head when his army arrived at
Afyon Karahi§ar. Through the misrepresentations of
Rum Mehmed Pasha, he had been dismissed from
both the vizierate and the beglerbegilik of Rumelia.

Ibn Kemal (op. cit., 293) and Hadidl (op. cit ., f.
140a) state that, shortly after his dismissal, Mahmud
Pasha retired to his khdss but, before long, he was ap¬
pointed Admiral (kapudan) with the rank of sanjjak begi
of Gelibolu, with the task of restoring and equipping
the Ottoman fleet (spring 873/1469 or 874/1470).

On 5 Dhu ’1-Hid j d j a 874/5 June 1470, he left
Gelibolu at the head of a large fleet to attack the Vene¬
tian island of Euboea (Negroponte, Egriboz).
Mahmud Pasha arrived off Euboea after capturing
the island of Skiros and warding off the Venetian Ad-

MAHMUD PASHA — MAHMUD SHABISTARI

miral Niccolo da Canale. Approaching the island
from the mainland with a large army (Ma c nawl, Fetli-
name-yi Egriboz, in Fatih ve Istanbul, Istanbul 1954, i,
305), he persuaded the Sultan, who was hesitant,
despite having had a bridge built on which he had
crossed over from the mainland, to press on with the
conquest of the island (Ma c ali, Khunkar-name. ms.
Library of the Topkapi Sarayi, 1417, f. 9a; Dursun
Beg, op. cit., 140; Chalcocondylas, op. cit., ii, 113;
Orudj Beg, op. cit. , 127). The island capitulated on 13
Muljarram 875/12 July 1470.

When Uzun Hasan’s troops began to advance into
Anatolia, Mahmud Pasha, in recognition of his part
in the conquest of Euboea, replaced Rum Mehmed
Pasha as Grand Vizier (Dursun Beg, op. cit. , 148; Ibn
Kemal, op. cit., 350). In Istanbul, he attended the
council which the Sultan had convened to consider
what measures to take against Uzun Hasan. At
Mahmud Pasha’s suggestion, the beglerbegi of
Anadolu, Dawud Pasha, serving nominally under
Prince Mu§tafa, was sent against Uzun Hasan. Ac¬
cording to contemporary sources, Mahmud Pasha’s
refusal of the leadership led to a breach between
himself and the sultan.

On 13 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 877/11 April 1473, Mahmud
Pasha left Istanbul with the sultan and marched to
Sivas, where he encouraged Mehemmed to attack
Karahi$ar-i Shark! (Shebinkarahisar) [see Kara
hisar]. The Sultan rejected his advice and, at the bat¬
tle of Otluk Beli, cast him in a secondary role by posi¬
tioning him with the beglerbegi of Rumelia, Khass
Murad Pasha. Mahmud Pasha acted with great
perspicacity and, perceiving Uzun Hasan’s strategy,
warned Khass Murad not to cross the Euphrates.
Khass Murad ignored him and, after his death,
Mahmud Pasha fought with Uzun Hasan’s son,
Ughurlu Muhammad (Ma c ali, op. cit., f. 29a). At the
battle of Ba§hkent on 19 Rab! c I 878/11 August 1473,
he fought among Dawud Pasha’s forces (R. R. Arat,
Fatih Sultan Mehmed 1 in yarligi, in Turkiyat mecmuasi, vi
[1936-9], 285-322). Popular opinion attributed the
victory to Mahmud Pasha (Ma c all, op. cit., 154); but
Mahmud Pasha’s enemies disgraced him in the
sultan’s eyes and caused his downfall (Bihishtt, op.
cit., f. 202b).

He retired to his estates at Khasskoy, but returned
to Istanbul on the death of Prince Mustafa and,
against the advice of his Jdi w ddja, Kurt Hafiz, ap¬
peared before the sultan. The sultan received him
coldly. Suspecting him of taking pleasure in the death
of Prince Mustafa, he imprisoned him in Yedi Kule.
He was executed shortly afterwards on 3 Rab! c I
879/18 July 1474 (Ibn Kemal, op. cit., 376-7; Sa c d al-
Dln, op. cit. , i, 553 gives the month as Rabi c II) and
buried in the tiirbe near the mosque in Istanbul which
he had endowed (built 867/1462).

Bibliography: for further references see I A art.
Mahmud Pa$a (M. §ehabeddin Tekindag) of which
this article is an abridged and slightly emended
translation. See also Konstantin Mihailovic,
Memoirs of a Janissary , tr. B. Stolz, with historical
commentary by S. Soucek, Michigan 1975;
Selahettin Tansel, Osmanh kaynaklanna gore Fatih
Sultan Mehmed 1 in siyasi ve askeri faaliyeti, Ankara
1953. _ (G. H. Imber)

MAHMUD PA SHA , an Ottoman governor
or beylerbeyi of Yemen and of Egypt in the
10th/16th century, whose avarice and devotion to self¬
promotion led to the near-expulsion of the Ottomans
from southwestern Arabia. A Bosnian by birth,
Mahmud was selected at Damascus in 944/1538 by
Dawud Pasha, the new governor of Egypt

(945-56/1538-49), as his ketkhuda. He subsequently
held various positions in Egypt, including those of
amir al-ha djdj for 957/1550 and 958/1551 and of sandjaft
beyi, making both enemies and friends in his pursuit
and distribution of wealth. In 967/1560, he gained the
governorship of Yemen through the influence of
Kfcadim c Al! Pasha, the governor of Egypt
(966-7/1559-60), and probably by purchase. His ap¬
pointment proved the first in a series of unfortunate
appointments to the governorship of Yemen, where
Ottoman authority had recendy been much expanded
and consolidated. Arriving deeply in debt, Mahmud’s
only apparent goal in Yemen was to exploit its riches
for his own gain. Towards this, he demoralised the
Ottoman soldiery by grossly further debasing the
silver coinage to retain the surplus precious metal for
himself; and he alienated Ottoman allies among the
non-Zayd! population by seizing their wealth without
pretext and levying taxes on previously tax-exempt
communities.

When recalled in 972/1565, Mahmud lavished
much of his accumulated fortune among the influen¬
tial persons of Istanbul in order to gain the governor¬
ship of Egypt. To enhance his reputation and chances
of success, he persuaded the Grand Vizier $okollu
Mehmed Pasha, a fellow-Bosnian, to divide Yemen
into two beylerbeyiliks (5 Djumada II 973/28 December
1565). This arrangement proved destructive to Ot¬
toman interests for the three years during which it re¬
mained in effect, and contributed to the collapse of
Ottoman rule in Yemen by 976/1568-9. In 973/1566,
Mahmud secured his long-coveted posting to Cairo,
where, according to Egyptian chronicles, he ruthlessly
extorted private wealth, and from where he was able
to manipulate official dispatches from Yemen reflec¬
ting adversely on his reputation and warning of the
degenerating situation there. The steady erosion of
Ottoman authority in Yemen was thus concealed from
Istanbul until after his assassination at Cairo in
Djumada I 975/November 1567.

Bibliography: The only comprehensive con¬
temporary source is the Arabic chronicle by Kufb
al-Dm al-Nahrawaif, al-Bark al-yamani, published as
Ghazawat al-djardkisa wa 'l-atrdk ft (ljunub al-^jazlra,
ed. Hamad al-Djasir, al-Riyad 1967. Its author,
who met with Mahmud Pasha on at least three oc¬
casions, incorporated all of the relevant material
provided by the Egyptian chronicles, including al-
Minah al-rahmaniyya by Ibn Abi ’1-Surur al-Bakri.
Two modern studies dealing in part with this in¬
dividual are M. Salim, al-Fath al- c Uthmani al-awwal
li-'l-Yaman , Cairo 1969, and J. R. Blackburn, The
collapse of Ottoman authority in Yemen , in WI, xix
(1980), 119-76. Q. R. Blackburn)

MAHMUD B. c Abd al-KarIm b. Yahya
SHABISTARI, (or ShabustarI, according to
modern Azeri writers) Shavkh Sa c d al-Dln, Persian
mystic and writer.

He was bom at Shabistar, a small town near the
north-eastern shore of Lake Urmiya. The date of his
birth is unknown, but would have to be fixed about
686/1287-8 if the report that he died at the age of 33
(mentioned in an inscription on a tombstone erected
on his grave in the 19th century) is accepted. He is
said to have led the life of a prominent religious
scholar at Tabriz. Travels to Egypt, Syria and the
Hidjaz are mentioned in the introduction to the
Sa c adat-nama. He may also have lived for some time at
Kirman where, in later times, a group of mystics,
known as the Kh w adjagan, claimed to descend from a
marriage of his contracted in that city (cf. Zayn
al- c Abid!n Shlrwam. Riyaj al-siyaha, Tehran

MAHMUD SHABISTARI — MAHMUD SHEWKAT PASHA 73

1334/1955, 89-90). In the Persian tadhkiras, dates
varying between 718/1318 and 720/1320-1 are given
for his death. The tomb at Shabistar, where he was
buried next to his teacher Baha 5 al-Dm Ya c kub
Tabriz!, has become a place of pilgrimage. It has been
restored several times during the last century.

The fame of Mahmud rests entirely on a short
mathnawi (1,008 bayats in the most recent edition), the
Gulshan-i raz (“The rose garden of the secret’’). Ac¬
cording to the poet’s introduction, it was written in
the month of Shawwal 717/December 1317-January
1318 in reply to a versified letter ( ndma ) sent by a
“well-known notable” ( buzurgi mashhur) from
Khurasan. A generally accepted tradition, appearing
for the first time at the end of the 9th/15th century in
Djami’s Nafahdt al-uns (ed. Tehran 1337/1958, 605),
specifies that the letter contained questions on difficult
points of mystical doctrine and was composed by Hu-
saynl Sadat Amir [q-v.], who was an expert writer on
the subject in his own right. These details are not con¬
firmed by the text of the poem. The text of the letter,
which is extant in some manuscripts of the Gulshan-i
rdz, was probably only put together afterwards with
lines taken from the lines of the poem itself, which
precede each of the fifteen main divisions under the
heading subtil (“question”). The answers given by the
poet are subdivided into theoretical parts ( kd Hdd) and
illustrative parts ( tamthil ). The subject-matter of the
poem is the doctrine of man’s perfection through
gnosis. This involves a number of cosmological,
psychological and metaphysical themes as well as
topics proper to the $uf! traditions, such as the prob¬
lem posed by expressions of identification with the
Divine Being. The influence of Ibn al- c ArabI,
acknowledged by Mahmud in his Sa c addt-nama, is
quite obvious. He also continues, however, the older
tradition of Persian religious poetry as it appears from
his treatment of poetical images as mystical symbols in
the last sections of the Gulshan-i raz, and from a
reference to c Attar [q.v. ] as his example.

The great value attached to the poem is reflected,
especially, in the many commentaries which were
written on it throughout the centuries. The diversity
of its contents, in spite of its concision, made the
Gulshan-i raz into a convenient starting-point to
elaborate expositions of mystical doctrine, like the
celebrated Mafatih al-i c djaz by Shams al-Dln Muham¬
mad b. YaJriya al-Lahidjl al-Nurba khsh l. dated
877/1472-3 (several editions, the latest by Ghulam-
Rida Kaywan-SamUl, Tehran 1337/1958). Other
notable commentators were Diya 5 al-Dln C A1I Turka
Khudjandi (d. 835/1431-2), Nizam al-Dln Mahmud
al-Husaynl “al-Da c I ila ’llah” (d. ca. 869/1464-5)
and Shudja c al-Dln Kurball, who wrote his work be¬
tween 856/1452-3 and 867/1462-3. As early as
829/1425-6, a Turkish translation in mathnawi verses
was dedicated to the Ottoman sultan Murad II by
El wan Shiraz! (cf. E. Rossi, Elenco di manoscritti turchi
della Bibl. Vaticana, Vatican City 1953, 236; B. Flem¬
ming, Turkische Handschriften , i, Wiesbaden 1968, no.
366). Imitations were composed until the present cen¬
tury, e.g. the Gulshan-i raz-i dfadid, an appendix to the
Zabur-i c adjam (1927) by Muhammad Ikbal. (See fur¬
ther on the commentaries, translations and imitations
of the Gulshan-i raz : A. GuRln-i ma c anl, in Nuskhaha-
yi khatti , iv, Tehran 1344/1965, 53-124; Munzawl,
ii/1, 1248-53 and passim.) A manuscript with glosses
by an anonymous Isma c ill author was brought to
notice by W. Ivanow (JBBRAS , viii [1932], 69-78)
and published by H. Corbin.

The 17th-century traveller Jean Chardin was the
first Western writer to note the importance of this

poem to the Persian $ufTs as a “somme theologique”

( Voyages, ed. Langles, Paris 1811, iv, 453). It was then
used by F. A. D. Tholuck as a source of his study on
Persian mysticism (Sufismus, Berlin 1821; wrongly
ascribed to “Asisi”) and his anthology of mystical
poetry in German translation ( Bliithensammlung aus der
morgenldndischen Mystik, Berlin 1825). The text, with a
full translation, was published by J. von Hammer-
Purgstall ( Rosenflor des Geheimnisses, Pesth-Leipzig
1838) and by E. H. Whinfield ( The mystic rose garden,
London 1880; repr. 1978). Several other editions were
published in Iran and on the Indian subcontinent. A
critical edition was prepared by Gurban-eli Memmed-
zade (Baku 1973).

Of the other works ascribed to Mahmud Shabistarl,
the most likely to be authentic are the mathnawi called
the Sa c adat-nama, on mystical theology, containing
also valuable data for the biography of the author (cf.
Rieu, ii, 871; Ate§, no. 351/1; Munzawl, iv, 2909-10)
and Hakk al-yakin Ji ma c rifat rabb al- c dlamin, a prose
work which was repeatedly printed (cf. Browne iii,
149-50; Munzawl, ii/1, 1129-30). The Mir^dt al-
muhakkikin, also in prose, is in some manuscripts
ascribed to Ibn Slna or others (cf. Munzawl, ii/1,
842-4 and 1374-5). No longer extant are the Shahid-
ndma , mentioned in Hakk al-yakin as well as in
Gazurgahl’s Madjalis al- c u shsh ak. and a translation of
Muhammad al-Ghazall’s Mishkat al-anwdr. The
mathnawi called Kanz al-hakdHk, published under
Mahmud Shabistari’s name (Tehran 1344/1965),
seems to be identical with a poem wrongly attributed
to c Attar (cf. H. Ritter, in Isl., xxv [1939], 158 f.;
idem, in Oriens, xi (1958), 21 f.; Ate$, no. 122/13).
The real author is probably Pahlawan Mahmud
Puryar Kh w arazml (cf. Ate§, under nos. 351/2 and
382; Munzawl, iv, 3059-60). Some of his ghazals and
quatrains are extant in anthologies (cf. e.g. Ethe, In¬
dia Office, no. 1747; Ismailov, 165).

Bibliography: Ch. Rieu, Cat. of the Pers. mss. in
the Brit. Museum , ii, London 1881; H. Ethe, in
Gr.I.Ph., ii; idem, Cat. of the Pers. mss. in the Library
of the India Office, Oxford 1903; Browne, iii, 146-50;
H. H. Schaeder, in ZDMG , lxxix (1925), 253 ff.;
M. A. Tarbiyat, in Armaghan, xii (1310/1931),
601-10; idem, Danishmanddn-i c Adharbay^dn,
Tehran 1314/1935, 334-8; Kaywan-SamI c I, in-
trod., to the ed. of Mafatih al-Pdjaz, Tehran
1337/1958, pp. lxxvii ff.; Tahsin Yazici, in iA, s.v.
$ebisteri; H. Corbin, Trilogie ismaelienne, Tehran-
Paris 1961; E. E. Bertel’s, Izbraniye trudl. Sufizm i
sufiyskaya literatura, Moscow 1965, 109-25; A. Ate§,
Istanbul kiitiiphanelerinde farsfa manzum eserler, i, Istan¬
bul 1968; A. Munzawl, Fihrist-i nuskhaha-yi farsi,
ii/1, Tehran 1349/1970.and iv, Tehran 1351/1972;
Shaig Ismailov, Filosofiya Makhmuda Shabustari,
Baku 1976. (J. T. P. de Bruijn)

MAHMUD SHEWKAT PASHA (1856-1913),
Ottoman general, war minister and Grand-
Vizier (1913), was born in Baghdad. He came from
a Georgian family long settled in c Irak and thoroughly
Arabised, so much so that he was known as c Arab
Mahmud at the War Academy. His father
Ketkhudazade Suleyman was a former mutasarrif of
Basra, and his mother an Arab lady of the ancient
house of al-Farukhl. After completing his early educa¬
tion in Ba gh dad he entered the War Academy in
Istanbul, graduating in 1882 at the head of his class.
He was appointed to the General Staff with the rank
of captain and thereafter promotions came with
regularity. He rose to the rank of major in 1886, col¬
onel (1891), brigadier-general (1894), and divisional
general or ferik (1901). In 1905 he became army com-

74 MAHMUD SHEWKAT PASHA — MAHMUD TARDJUMAN

mander or birindji ferik and was appointed governor of
Kosova, one of the most troublesome provinces in Ot¬
toman Macedonia. He soon established a reputation
as a tough, efficient, and fair-minded administrator
who did not kow-tow to the Hamldian clique in Istan¬
bul. As a result, immediately after the constitution
was proclaimed in July 1908, Shewkat Pasha was ap¬
pointed commander of the Third Army at Salonica
and in November, acting Inspector-General of
Rumelia, succeeding Hiiseyn HilmI [q.v.].

In April 1909 when military insurrection and
counter-revolution broke out in Istanbul, Shewkat
Pasha marched with his Third Army from Salonica
and crushed it with ruthless determination. He soon
emerged as the most powerful political-military figure
in the Empire. Though he permitted the creation of a
civilian government, Shewkat Pasha, as martial law
commander and Inspector-General of the first three
army corps, refused to accept its authority, especially
its attempts to control the military budget. For a time
there was even tension between the Pasha and the
Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihdd we Terakkl
DjemHyyeti [q. v. ]), whose fortune he had saved in April
1909, but which resented the Pasha’s independence of
cabinet control. When Ibrahim Hakkl Pasha [q.v.]
became Grand Vizier in 1910, he tried to bring
Mahmud Shewkat under cabinet control by appoin¬
ting him Minister of War. But this scheme did not
work either and the Pasha even resigned (October
1910) when the Finance Minister attempted to inspect
military spending. The ministerial crisis that followed
was resolved on the Pasha’s terms: the audit law was
not to be applied to the War Ministry.

By the beginning of 1911, as the government faced
rebellion in the Yemen, Albania and Macedonia, as
well as political dissension at home, there were
rumours in the press that Shewkat Pasha intended to
seize power and set up a military dictatorship. Despite
his independence of and contempt for the civilians,
Shewkat Pasha had no such intentions. He denied
these charges in the Assembly, claiming that he had
not availed of such an opportunity when it had
presented itself in April 1909. His position—and that
of the CUP—declined following the outbreak of an
unsuccessful war with Italy in September 1911. By the
spring of 1912 an anti-CUP opposition had emerged
in the army, reminiscent of the movement of 1908.
Shewkat Pasha introduced legislation to curb this
movement, but with no effect. The rebellion con¬
tinued unabated, and he was forced to resign as War
Minister on 9 July 1912 though he retained his
military command.

Shewkat Pasha remained in political eclipse until 23
January 1913 when the CUP seized power. Again, the
Unionists turned to the Pasha because of his populari¬
ty with the army and the people, and had him ap¬
pointed Grand Vizier and War Minister. But now the
Unionists were in control, and used Shewkat Pasha’s
talents to reorganise the Ottoman army after the
disasters of the Balkan Wars. It was under Mahmud
Shewkat’s influence that the decision to invite a Ger¬
man military mission under Liman von Sanders was
taken. Meanwhile, in the turmoil following the fall of
Edirne (26 March 1913), the Liberal opposition began
to conspire to overthrow the CUP. As a part of that
conspiracy, Shewkat Pasha was assassinated on 11
June as he drove to the Sublime Porte.

Mahmud Shewkat Pasha was one of the most im¬
portant military-political Figures of the Young Turk
period. Despite the role he played, he lacked political
ambition and his principal concern was always the in¬
terest of the amy and the state. He created neither a

clique in the army nor a political faction in the CUP.
He therefore found himself totally isolated in the
political crisis of 1912 and was forced to resign. While
he collaborated with the Unionists, he did not trust
them nor they him: any co-operation between them
was based on the shared goal of an independent and
strong Ottoman state. While Turkish sources do not
deal adequately with his alleged financial corruption,
German sources, quoted by George Hallgarten, find
him “hardly less corrupt than other Turks” (Im-
perialismus vor 1914 , ii, Munich 1951, 139). Yet it is
worth noting that he did prevent the Unionists from
investigating the pilfering of the Yfldiz Palace treasure
by martial law authorities after April 1909. He was
always considered pro-German, and there can be little
doubt that his ten years in Germany and the influence
that Field Marshal von der Goltz had upon him in¬
clined him in that direction. But there was no question
of his seizing power in order to set up a military
regime devoted to German interests, as a Unionist
paper claimed, even in 1909. Mahmud Shewkat
Pagha was primarily a professional soldier and a
cautious statesman devoted entirely to the Ottoman
state, and unwilling to involve it in any rash adven¬
ture. While he was alive there was little danger that he
would take any risks that would threaten the Empire’s
very existence. Had he lived, he might have provided
the stable leadership to prevent the war party in the
CUP from taking Turkey into the World War at a
time not of its choosing.

Bibliography : Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanli
devrinde son sadri-azamlar , 14 pts., Istanbul 1940-53,
1869-92; Glen Swanson, Mahmud §evket Pa$a and the
defense of the Ottoman empire: a study of war and revolu¬
tion during the Young Turk period , unpublished Ph. D.
thesis, Indiana University 1970; Generalfeld-
marschall Freiherr von der Goltz, Erinnerungen an
Mahmud Schewket Pascha, in Deutsche Rundschau ,
xl/1-2, October and November 1913, 32-46,
184-209; Sina Ak§in, 31 Mart olayi , Ankara 1970;
idem,/on Tiirkler ve Ittihat ve Terakki, Istanbul 1980;
Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: the Committee of
Union and Progress in Turkish politics 1908-1914, Ox¬
ford 1969; Mehmed Cavit, Mejrutiyet devrine ait Cavit
Bey in hatiralan, in Tanin (Istanbul), 3 August
1943 ff.; Halid Ziya Ugakligil, Saray ve otesi, i,
Istanbul 1940; F. McCullagh, The fall of Abd-ul-
Hamid, London 1910; Halil Mente§e, Eski meclisi
mebusan reisi Halil Mentefe’nin hatirlan , in Cumhuriyet ,
18 October 1946; Ali Fuad Tiirkgeldi, Gdriip
isittiklerim 2 , Ankara 1951; i. H. Dani§mend, Izahli
Osmanli tarihi kronolojisi 2 , iv, Istanbul 1961; 31 Mart
vak'asi , Istanbul 1961; General Pertev Demirhan,
Generalfeldmarschall Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz , Got¬
tingen 1960. _ (Feroz Ahmad)

MAHMUD TAR DJ UMAN. interpreter and
diplomat for the Ottomans. Born in Bavaria of a
noble family, he was taken captive (probably at the
age of 16) by the Turks at the battle of Mohacs (1526)
while serving as page to Louis II. Sent to the Palace
School in Istanbul, he became famous for his extraor¬
dinary knowledge of languages. From 1550 at the
latest, he served as interpreter to the Porte, with the
title agha, and in 1573 he was promoted to chief inter¬
preter, with the title beg. As Turkish ambassador he
played an important role in the diplomatic relations of
the Porte with the Hungarian king John Sigismund
and the latter’s widow Isabella (1553-4). In 1569 a
diplomatic mission brought him to France, and in
1570 he was sent as ambassador to Venice in order to
summon the Republic to withdraw from Cyprus. The
negotiations remained inconclusive, war broke out

MAHMUD TARDJUMAN — MAHMUD TAYMUR

and Mahmud was kept back in Verona. Only in 1573
did he return to Istanbul. In 1574 he was sent to Vien¬
na and in 1575 to Prague, where he died. His body
was brought to Gran (Esztergom), then on the boun¬
dary of the Hungarian region which had been con¬
quered by the Turks. Mahmud was described by his
contemporaries as a learned and capable diplomat.
Although it cannot be proved unequivocally, it is
assumed that Mahmud can be identified with the
author of the same name who wrote the TaMkh-i
Ungurus , chronicle of the history of Hungary in
Turkish, the unique manuscript of which is in the col¬
lection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of
Science (Torok. F. 57).

Bibliography: J. Matuz, Die P/ortendolmetscher

zur Herrschaflszeit Suleymans des Prdchtigen , in

Siidostforschungen, xxiv_(1975), 26-60. (G. Hazai)

MAHMUD TAYMUR (born in Cairo 16 June)
1894, died in Lausanne 25 April 1973), Egyptian
writer whose prolific output includes novels and
short stories, theatrical pieces, accounts of journeys,
articles and various studies, in particular relating to
Arabic language and literature. He is beyond doubt
the best known of the Taymur family, although his
brother Muhammad (1892-1921) was a talented
short-story writer and dramatist.

Hagiography has claimed the most remote origins
for this family. Henceforward, the most reliable
source for information on these origins is “the story
of the Taymurs”, from the pen of the learned adxb
Ahmad Taymur, father of Muhammad and of
Mahmud, which figures as supplement to his work
Lu- C ab al- c Arab “The games of the Arabs”, 1st ed.,
Ladjnat al-mu 5 allafat al-Taymuriyya, Cairo
1367/1948.

The first known ancestor of the Taymurs, Muham¬
mad b. C A1I Kurd Taymur, was a Kurd from the
region of Mawsil who arrived in Egypt with the troops
sent by the Porte after the departure of the French
forces of Bonaparte (1801). Rising through the
military echelons he became a general, then a senior
official—the title of kashif is also attached to his name.
Having been the confidant of Muhammad C A1I, he
was to become that of his son Ibrahim.

The Taymurs were thus installed in Egypt from the
beginning of the 19th century. The devotion of these
foreigners to the Arabic language and the people of
Egypt intrigued and delighted the Egyptians, whether
historians of literature or literary critics. Their ascen¬
dancy otherwise poses no problems since the Kurds,
it is said, are pure Arabs, descended from Kahtan.
But what is astonishing is to see this dignitary of the
Ottoman state and his descendants showing a clear
predilection for the Arabic language and not keeping
themselves aloof from the Egyptians, not displaying
towards them that arrogance which is so typical of a
foreign aristocracy.

Furthermore, Isma c 3, the son of the kashif , marks
the transition between official and man of letters. His
mastery of Turkish and of Persian earned him the post
of private secretary of Muhammad C A1I, and he subse¬
quently exercised important functions in the Khedival
Diwan under Ibrahim, c Abbas I, Sa c Id and Isma c fl.
But it was no secret that he preferred the company of
books to dealings with people. It was he who laid the
foundations of a library which was to become famous.

The son and one of the two daughters of Isma c fl are
the two first renowed members of the family in the
modem era. The daughter, c A 3 isha (1840-1902), re¬
ceived, at home, a very substantial education, both
religious and poetic, in Arabic, Turkish and Persian,
and produced a corpus which is all the more remark¬

able in view of the fact that Arab poetesses were at
that time scarcely numerous. The son, Ahmad
Taymur (1871-1930), who became a Pasha in 1919,
devoted his entire life to Arabic language and
literature; at his death, he bequeathed to the National
Library of Cairo 4,134 volumes, including many
manuscripts, wich constitute the Taymur collection.

Mahmud, the third son of Ahmad, was born on 16
June 1894 in Cairo, in the Darb al-Sa c ada quarter,
between the street of the Musk! and Bab al-Khalk.
Subsequently, the family was to dwell in another
quarter of Cairo, al-Hilmiyya, and, between these
two stages, took up residence in c Ayn Shams, a
suburb still barely urbanised. Many cultured visitors
frequented the home of Ahmad Pasha Taymur, some
of them famous: the Imam Muhammad c Abduh, the
erudite Maghrib! al-Shankiti and the orientalist Krat-
chkovski.

In this propitious milieu, Mahmud and his brother
Muhammad, two years his senior, were able to satisfy
their precocious appetite for literature. Their father
definitely possessed too strong a classical background
not to make them learn by heart the Mu c allaka of
Imru 3 al-Kays, but he was sufficiently imaginative to
encourage them to read the Thousand and one nights.
While still adolescents, the two brothers developed a
passion for the theatre and, in emulation of Salama al¬
ii idjazl whom they saw at every opportunity, they
composed plays which they performed before their
family and their friends; they were also enthusiasts for
journalism and, with the means at their disposal (the
bdluza was the stencil of that time), they circulated on
a very small scale the family newspaper which they
edited.

Mahmud was to find himself the beneficiary of an¬
other advantage. Shortly before the outbreak of the
First World War, his brother Muhammad, returning
from France where he had studied law for four years,
revealed to him the existence of a realist trend in
literature and acquainted him with the work of
Maupassant. He accepted these discoveries with ad¬
miration but also with circumspection, because the
change of direction to which he saw himself called was
considerable. He had believed that he had realised his
cultural aggiomamento in applauding the attempts
made by Syro-Lebanese emigrants to America to
liberate Arabic language and thought from ponderous
classical cliches; his sensibility had been aroused by
reading the al-Adfniha al-mutakassira , the poetic
“novel” of Djabran (1883-1931), the greatest of the
“Americans”, just as he appreciated the heart¬
rending stories, original or adapted, which the Egyp¬
tian al-Manfalutl (1876-1924) [ q.v .] related in such
exquisite Arabic. Now, his brother assured him,
literature worthy of the name did not need to flee from
reality to take refuge in romantic exaltation, but
should cling as close as possible to life such as it is, to
everyday Egyptian life. Of all contemporary Arabic
writing, he said, two works alone deserved to find
favour: the Hadxth c Isa Ibn Hisham of Muhammad al-
Muwaylihl (1858-1939) and Zaynab of Muhammad
Husayn Haykal (1888-1956) [q.vv.\.

He therefore took some time assimilating this doc¬
trine, though he did not dispute its worth. Appearing
after some poems which he had composed in free
verse, the first story which he published in the review
al-Sufur in September 1916 was sentimental and, in his
own estimation, mediocre. On the other hand, in the
same period his brother Muhammad was for his part
attempting to apply the new principles; he worked
with other enthusiastic amateurs for the creation of a
popular Egyptian theatre, and published, in different

MAHMUD TAYMUR

reviews, short stories which count among the first
realist Egyptian publications to mark an epoch. His
untimely death persuaded Mahmud to engage
resolutely in the path which his brother had traced
out, and as a first step he published, one year after his
death, an edition of his collected works in three
volumes (1922).

However, the stories indicating that Mahmud had
really taken up the mantle of Muhammad seem to
have been slow in coming. The first narrative to
reflect his move towards realism, al-£haykh Djum c a.
dates from 1921, but it was in 1925 that his Ustd
Shahhata yutdlibu bi-atfpiki ‘'The coachman Shahhata
claims his due”, drew attention to him. The -al-Fadjr
review of avant-garde literature in which the text was
published, saw its author as “the Egyptian Maupas¬
sant”, and the critics stressed, not necessarily as a
compliment, the audacious nature of this little tableau
of manners. One of them reckoned that Oriental
society was still too hypocritical to allow itself to be
stripped bare by a Zola.

This was the real departure. Henceforth, his pro¬
duction became more prolific and he began publishing
compilations: two for the one year 1925, each contain¬
ing a dozen short stories, and another appearing in
the following year. These first three compilations had
particular importance for him because about ten years
later (1937) he published a selection from them under
the title al-Wathba al-uld “The first leap”. It could in
fact be said that here is a collection of the first truly
meritorious works, on account of which he is con¬
sidered the creator of the Arabic short story, an opi¬
nion held not only in Egypt and the Arab world but
also in Europe, where the orientalists Kratchkovski,
Schaade and Wiet presented and translated his
writing. Until 1939, he published on average one col¬
lection of short stories every year. After a certain slow¬
ing down due to the war, the rhythm was
subsequently sustained. It may be noted that from the
decade of the 1940s onward, the storyteller also began
writing novels and theatrical pieces which have added
little to his reputation. Suffice it to say that as novelist
or dramatist, Mahmud Taymur followed the same
preoccupations as in his short stories. Always
painstaking in his clarity and accuracy, here too he
drew upon various sources of inspiration: the most
immediate present (the war in al-Makhba 5 rakm 13
“Shelter no. 13”, play, 1942); social questions (the
condition of woman is the basis of Hawwa 5 al-khdlida
“Eternal Eve”, play, 1945, and of lid al-likd 5 ayyuhd
al-hubb “Farewell, love”, novel, 1959); and historico-
legendary evocations tending towards fantasy and
humour ( Kliyubatra Jt Khan al-Khalili “Cleopatra in
Khan al-Khalfli”. novel, 1946, and Ibn Dia la 3 ( = al-
Ha djdj adj. play, 1951). There are, however, par¬
ticular features: only full-length fiction gave him the
opportunity to develop the kind of psychological
analysis to which he had always aspired ( Saliva fi
mahabb al'nh “Salwa to the four winds”, novel, 1944).

The fact remains that Mahmud Taymur was before
all else a short story writer—in the course of his life he
published a total of some thirty compilations. From
the start, he aimed to produce an Egyptian oeuvre.
Much attention is therefore given to the local colour
in his writing, and it is taken as evidence of his
patriotism. In fact, if he locates the majority of his
tales in a context familiar to the Egyptians, he does so
out of concern for authenticity and writes with such
sobriety, with such mastery of ellipsis, that the
predominant impression gained from his work is one
of technical virtuosity. In addition, nothing could be
less banal than the plots and the characters that he

presents. The futuwwa , that is the bad boy, leader of
a gang of ruffians, is indeed a familiar type among the
common folk of Egypt; making him a hd djdj is not con¬
sistent with natural logic, but bestowing upon him this
title and the dignity which accompanies it by having
him serve as a hairdresser to a group of pilgrims
travelling by train to Mecca, is something which
departs totally from traditional norms and reveals the
mischievous attitude of the author (al-H ddjdj Shalabi ,
in the collection bearing this tide, 1930). Realism re¬
quires thus! In the quest for the desired effect, the
writer leaves nothing to chance. He begins with an ex¬
isting situation, a character who may be of any kind
but is easily recognisable and, without any un¬
necessary delay, he brings out the weakness of the
character, the incident which, breaking the daily
routine, will prepare the way for catastrophe. In other
cases, pathology plays a part from the outset; inspired
and possessed persons abound in his work, as well as
beings beset by obsessive beliefs and those whom
misery, frustration or sickness have unbalanced. But
all of this would be incapable of holding the attention
of the reader were it not for the interplay of artistic
qualities: narration which is clear yet precise,
judicious choice of eloquent detail or of striking for¬
mula, sense of suspense and, essential to all the
preceding, firmness of writing.

The question of language was central, in fact, in the
art and in the life of Mahmud Taymur. Out of con¬
cern for realism, he opted first for the spoken
language which he employed in his early stories and
theatrical pieces. Taking part in a Congress of Orien¬
talists held in 1932 in Leiden, he expressed the opi¬
nion that classical Arabic language should be
simplified and relieved of certain cumbersome gram¬
matical forms in order to meet the needs of hitherto
unknown literary genres, sc. the novel and drama.
This being the case, his recourse to dialect, the natural
language of conversation, is clearly explicable. But
subsequently he was to take a different view. No
doubt he felt himself obliged to employ a more polish¬
ed, more “academic” language when official recogni¬
tion was accorded to him: in 1947 the Fu 3 ad I
Academy awarded him the short story prize for the
corpus of his works written in the classical language;
in 1950 he was elected a member of this Academy;
and in 1952 he received the State Prize, which he
shared with TawfTk al-Haklm.

It would, however, be a mistake to overstress this
aspect and to forget that on his own account, for
reasons of taste and also out of concern for efficacy
and appeal, he had taken the side of the fushd. That
which he lost in Egyptian parochialism, he gained in
universality, but above all he was capable of express¬
ing himself in a language simultaneously pure and
adapted to the objectives that he imposed upon
himself: a narrative, living language, freed from the
traditional rhetorical tinsel which would in fact be
totally out of place. On the other hand, those ex¬
pressive classical idioms which had been unjustly
abandoned are restored and rehabilitated in his work.
{This style which is both functional and mildly
anachronistic gives to Taymur’s stories their
distinguishing mark, their peculiar flavour. Most
often the phrase is brief, but the syntax and
vocabulary recall and embellish the technique of the
prose masters of antiquity.

It may be that he attached too much importance to
these questions of language. Not only did he eschew
dialect completely in his later works but he
systematically set about rewriting the earlier ones, or
at least those of them closest to his heart. Dramatic

MAHMUD TAYMUR — MAHMUDABAD FAMILY

pieces and stories received their definitive version,
revised and corrected to an extent that would satisfy
the most rigorous academic standards. A lengthy text
dating from 1934 {Abu c Alt c amil artist ) was thus revis¬
ed twenty years later, becoming Abu c Ali al-fanndn
(1954). Of course, the removal of dialect was not
always the only reason for the revision, which could
be influenced equally by considerations of composi¬
tion (lengthy passages are abbreviated, the profound
sense of history is modified, etc.). However, it is im¬
possible not to regret this perfectionism which drove
a great writer to the rewriting of works which had
been published many years before. To a certain ex¬
tent, these scruples are a credit to a craftsman anxious
to produce fine work, but they also have the effect of
preventing the artist from developing truly original
creations. In the end, it is certainly true that the art
of Taymur, too cultivated, too polished, could no
longer, at a given moment, respond to the curiosities
and dissatisfactions of new generations, in Egypt and
in other Arab countries. It has come about that his
successors, many of them his disciples, denounce his
romantic or theatrical style of writing but further¬
more, question the realism and the rationalism of
which he was a resolute partisan.

Bibliography'. Brockelmann, S III, 218-26; H.
Peres, Le roman dans la litterature arabe moderne, in
AIEO Alger, v (1939-41), 167-86; c Abd al-Muhsin
Taha Badr, Tatawwur al-riwdy a al- c arabiyya al-haditha
fi Misr (1870-1938), Cairo 1963; Yahya HakkI,
Fadjr al-kiffa al-misriyya, Cairo; J. Landau, Studies in
the Arab theater and cinema, Philadelphia 1962, Fr. tr.
Paris 1965; c Abbas Khi^r, al-Kiffa al-kasira fi Misr
mundhu nash'atihd hattd 1930, Cairo 1966; Ch. Vial,
Contribution a Vetude du roman et de la nouvelle en Egypte
des origines a 1960, in, ROMM, iv/2, 1967; E.
Galvez Vazquez, El Cairo de Mahmud Taymur —
Personajes literarios, Seville 1974; eadem, Cuentos egip-
cios de Mahmud Taymur, Madrid n.d. [1976]; N. K.
Kotsarov, PisateliEgipta, Moscow 1975, 212-17;
FathI al-Ibyarl, c Alam Taymur al-kafasi, Cairo 1976;
La litterature egyptienne, in L'Egypte d'aujourd'hui,
ouvrage collectif du GREPO d’Aix-en-Provence,
CNRS, Paris 1977; K.A.S. El Beheiry, Vinfluence
de la litteraturefianfaise sur le roman arabe, Sherbrooke,
Quebec 1980, index. (Ch. Vial)

MAHMUD YALAWAfi, minister in Central
Asia and China of the Mongol Khans in the
13th century A.D.

Barthold surmised ( Turkestan 3 , 396 n. 3) that
Mahmud Yalawac was identical with Mahmud the
Kh^arazmian mentioned by Nasawl as one of the
leaders of (Singiz’s embassy of 1218 to the
Kh^arazm-Shah c Ala 3 al-Dln Muhammad [see
kh^arazm-shahs] . It is true that the Secret history of the
Mongols (tr. E. Haenisch, Die Geheime Geschichte der
Mongolen 2 , Leipzig 1948, 132) refers to Mahmud
Yalawad and his son Mas c ud Beg [q.v. ] as
Kh^arazmians (Kurumshi) and that yalawac!yalawar
means “envoy” in Turkish (Clauson, Etymological dic¬
tionary, 921: perhaps of Iranian origin?). He was clear¬
ly from the merchant class, and must have rendered
services to the Mongols, for under the Great Khan
Ogedey (1227-41) he achieved high office, being ap¬
pointed over all the sedentary population of Transox-
ania and Mogholistan [^.&.] (i.e. the steppelands to
the north of Transoxania) and ruling these from Khu-
djand [<?.&.]. During his governorship, a serious
popular revolt aimed against the Mongol overlords
and the local notables broke out in Bukhara under the
leadership of the sieve-maker Mahmud TarabI
(1238), and it was only Mahmud Yalawad’s interces¬

sion which saved the city from savage Mongol
reprisals. Soon after this, he fell into dispute with
6aghatay, to whom part of Transoxania and
Mogholistan had been granted as an inffu or ap¬
panage [see Caghatay khan and ma wara 3 al-nahr.
2. History], and was dismissed by fiaghatay. Ogedey
expressed disapproval, but accepted his brother’s ex¬
cuses and then appointed Mahmud Yalawad as gover¬
nor of Peking in northern China, an office later
confirmed by Guyiik and Mongke Khans, where he
died in 1254; his son Mas c ud Beg succeeded him as
minister for the Mongols in Central Asia. Mahmud
Yalawa6 is accordingly mentioned in Chinese sources
as Ya-lao-wa-£ 3 i (E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval researches
from eastern Asiatic sources, London 1888, i, 11-12).

Djuwavnl praises the beneficent rule in Transox¬
ania of Mahmud YalawaC and his son: they restored
a city like Bukhara to something of its old splendour,
after the Mongol devastations, and Mahmud abolish¬
ed compulsory labour and military services and ex¬
traordinary imposts ( c awarid [#.&.]).

Bibliography : (in additions to references
already given); Djuwavnl-Boyle. index, s.v.;
Rashid al-Dln, tr. Boyle, The successors of Genghis
Khan, New York and London 1971, index, s.v.; W.
Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion 3 ,
London 1968, 465, 469 ff.; idem, Histoire des Turcs
d’Asie Centrale, Paris 1945, 142-3; V. Minorsky,
Four studies on the history of Central Asia, i, Leiden
1962, 45-6. _ (C. E. Bosworth)

MAHMUDABAD FAMILY, a leading landed
family of north India prominent in public life
under the Mughals, the Kings of Awadh [ q. v. ] and the
British. These Siddlkl Shavkhs trace their descent
from Abu Bakr through one Nasr Allah, a kafi of
Baghdad who is said to have come in the 7th/13th cen¬
tury to India, where his descendants were kadi s of
Dihll. In the 8th/14th century, kadi Nasr Allah’s
great-grandson, kadi Nusrat Allah, acquired land in
Awadh, and under the Mughals his descendants,
Nawwab Dawud Khan, Nawwab Mahmud Khan and
Bayazld Khan, rose high in the imperial service.
Nawwab Mahmud Khan founded the town of
Mahmudabad in the Sltapur district of Awadh, which
gave its name to the junior branch of the family,
dominant over the last 150 years, and whose palace
lay on its outskirts.

In recent times, the family’s fortunes were founded
by Nawwab < A1I Khan (d. 1858) a Shl c l poet, scholar
and able estate manager. Between 1838 and 1858 he
took advantage of the disturbed conditions of Awadh
to add to the few lands he inherited, using all means
at his disposal, until he possessed what Sleeman
described as a “magnificent estate”; see P. D.
Reeves, ed., Sleeman in Oudh, Cambridge 1971,
269-73. Although he took a prominent part in the
uprising against the British of 1857-8, the
Mahmudabad estate which was his great achievement
did pass in large part to his son, Amir Hasan Khan.
The British policy of clemency, and their aim to create
an Indian aristocracy in Awadh, thus enabled the
family to consolidate the gains made under the Awadh
regime and to emerge in the late 19th century as one
of the largest Muslim landlords in India.

The wealth of the Mahmudabad estate provided the
basis on which the descendants of Nawwab C A1I Khan
were able to play leading roles in Indian and Muslim
affairs under the British. Radja Amir Hasan Khan’s
(d. 1903) activities were those of a cultivated landed
gentleman. He followed literary pursuits, in par¬
ticular, writing elegies on the Imam al-Husayn, whilst
he was a great public benefactor in Awadh, support-

MAHMUDABAD FAMILY — MAHR

ing schools and a public library. In 1871 he became
vice-president, and from 1882 to 1892 President, of
the British Indian Association, the organisation of the
Awadh ta c allukdars. He also served on the Viceroy’s
council and was prominent in opposing the Indian
National Congress.

The Radja’s son, Muhammad C A1I Muhammad
Khan, played a more varied and yet more distinguish¬
ed role in public life. He maintained the traditions
established by his father. He gave generously to
educational projects like the Lucknow University and
Lucknow Medical College and founded the Lucknow
Madrasat al-Wa c iz!n. Moreover, he not only gave to
the Muslim University at c Aligarh [q.v. ] but also
played a very active part in the movement to raise the
funds to transform c Aligarh College into the Universi¬
ty of which he was the First Vice-Chancellor from 1920
till 1923. He was President of the British Indian
Association 1917-21 and 1930-1, and served on the
United Provinces’ Legislative Council 1904-9 and the
Governor-General’s Council 1907-20. From 1920 to
1925 he was the First Home Member of the United
Provinces’ government, and consequently had the
embarassing task of putting many personal friends,
Congressmen and Khilafatists. in prison. In 1925 he
was given the personal title of Maharadja.

More important were Muhammad C A1I Muham¬
mad’s activities as a leading Muslim politician, and as
patron of other politicians. He became involved in the
politics of protest for the First time in 1909, demand¬
ing joint electorates in the negotiations leading to the
Morley-Minto Legislative Council reforms, when the
majority of North Indian Muslims were asking for
separate ones. From 1909 to 1917 he was closely
associated with the radical wing of Muslim politics.
He took the part of the radicals in the Muslim Univer¬
sity movement, he protested most vigorously to
government over the Kanpur mosque incident of 1913
[see kanpur] and helped bring about the pact between
the All-India Muslim League and the Indian National
Congress at Lucknow in 1916, by which time his
political stance had annoyed the government so much
that it threatened to confiscate his estates. From 1915
to 1919 he was President of the All-India Muslim
League and presided over its sessions in 1917, 1918
and 1928. Throughout much of his life he helped to
support, both financially and in other ways, young
men who were just entering politics, for instance,
Sayyid Wazlr Hasan, the secretary of the All-India
Muslim League 1912-19, Radja Ghulam Husayn, the
editor of New era , Cawdharl Khalik al-Zaman, who
for a while he made his education secretary, and the
leading Pan-Islamist politicians Muhammad and
Shawkat C AK. However, his political support was not
restricted to Muslim causes alone; he was also a na¬
tionalist and counted leading Congressmen like
Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru amongst his friends. In
the last years of his life he strove, in the teeth of much
Muslim opposition, to draw his community behind
the Nehru Report of 1928, the Congress response to
the communal problem which supported the creation
of Muslim provinces but rejected separate representa¬
tion, and then threw his weight behind the Muslim
Nationalist Party founded in 1929. He died in May
1931.

The Maharadja was succeeded by his eldest son,
Radja Muhammad Amir Ahmad Khan (1914-73),
who, though he began as an Indian nationalist in
politics, soon became absorbed in Muslim separatism.
In 1936, as a young man, he was drawn into the All-
India Muslim League by Djinnah. a close family
friend for over two decades and a trustee of the
Mahmudabad estate. From 1937 to 1947 he played a

leading role in the League, as treasurer, chairman of
the Working Committee and a major benefactor. In
particular, he operated as the link between the League
and Muslim youth; he was president of the All-India
Muslim Students Federation and devoted himself
especially to organising the student forces which
played such a considerable role in the League’s cam¬
paigns for support. But Amir Ahmad Khan did not
follow League policy in all things. A deeply religious
man, in the early 1940s he became involved in the
Islam! Djama c at and advocated, against Djinnah.
that Pakistan should be an Islamic state.

After the partition of India, Amir Ahmad Khan liv¬
ed for a time in c Irak and in Pakistan. He played little
part in Pakistani politics, and rejected Ayyub Khan’s
demand that he refound the Muslim League on the
grounds that Pakistan needed a “party with socialist
aims wedded to Islamic justice”; see Dawn (Karachi)
for 15 October 1973. From 1968 until his death he was
Director of the Islamic Cultural Centre in London,
where his principal achievements were to bring to
fruition plans to complete the London Mosque and to
establish an Islamic Science Foundation. His life was
distinguished by his faith, his simplicity, his generosi¬
ty and a high level of cultivation in Urdu, Arabic,
Persian and English, a level of scholarship which had
been the hall-mark of his ancestors in the previous
three generations.

Bibliography: There is a family history by
Shavkh c Ali Hasan, the Ta^nkh-i Mahmudabad, ms.,
Lucknow n.d.; short histories of the family can be
found in Nurul Hasan Siddiqui, Landlords of Agra
and Avadh, Lucknow 1950 and H. R. Nevill,
Sitapur: a gazetteer , being Volume XL of the District
Gazetteers of Agra and Oudh, Allahabad 1905; T. R.
Metcalf, Land, landlords and the British Raj : Northern
India in the nineteenth century , Berkeley and Los
Angeles 1979, P. D. Reeves, The landlords' reponse to
political change in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh,
India, 1921-1937, Ph. D. thesis, Australian Na¬
tional University, 1963, unpublished, and idem,
ed., Sleeman in Oudh, Cambridge 1971, throw light
on the family as tacallukdars-, while F. Robinson,
Separatism among Indian Muslims: the politics of the
United Provinces' Muslims 1860-1923, Cambridge
1974, Choudhuri Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to
Pakistan, Lahore 1961, and the Raja of
Mahmudabad, Some memories, in C. H. Philips and
M. D. Wainwright, eds. The partition of India:
policies and perspectives 1935-1947, London 1970, of¬
fer information on the political careers of Amir
Hasan Khan, Muhammad C AU Muhammad Khan,
and Amir Ahmad Khan. (F. Robinson)

MAHPAYKAR. [see kosem].

MAHR (a.), Hebrew mohar, Syriac mahra,
“bridal gift”, originally “purchase-money”,
synonymous with saddk which properly means
“friendship”, then “present”, a gift given voluntari¬
ly and not as a result of a contract, is in Muslim law
the gift which the bridegroom has to give the bride
when the contract of marriage is made and which
becomes the property of the wife.

1. Among the pagan Arabs, the mahr was an
essential condition for a legal marriage, and only
when a mahr had been given did a proper legal rela¬
tionship arise. A marriage without a mahr was regard¬
ed as shameful and looked upon as concubinage. In
the romance of c Antar, the Arab women, who are be¬
ing forced to marry without a mahr, indignantly reject
such a marriage as a disgrace. Victors alone married
the daughters of the conquered without giving them a
mahr.

In the pre-Islamic period, the mahr was handed over

MAHR

to the wait, i.e. the father, or brother or relative in
whose guardianship (wala *) the girl was. Here the
original character of the marriage by purchase is more
apparent. In earlier times the bride received none of
the mahr. What was usually given to the woman at the
betrothal was the sadak; the mahr, being the purchase
price of the bride, was given to the wall.

But in the period shortly before Muhammad, the
mahr, or at least a part of it, seems already to be given
to the woman. According to the Kuc’an, this is
already the prevailing custom. By this amalgamation
of mahr and sadak, the original significance of the mahr
as the purchase price was weakened and became quite
lost in the natural course of events. There can be no
doubt that the mahr was originally the purchase price.
But the transaction of purchasing, in course of long
development, had become a mere form. The remains,
however, as they survived in the law of marriage in
Islam, still bear clear traces of a former marriage by
purchase.

2. Muhammad took over the old Arab patriarchal
ceremony of marriage as it stood and developed it in
several points. The Kur 3 an no longer contains the
conception of the purchase of the wife and the mahr as
the price, but the mahr is in a way a reward, a
legitimate compensation which the woman has to
claim in all cases. The Kur’an thus demands a bridal
gift for a legal marriage: “And give them whom ye
have enjoyed their reward as a wedding-gift” (lit.
fanda “allotment of property”, IV, 24) and again:
“And give the women their dowries voluntarily” (IV,
3); cf. also IV, 25, 34; V, 5; IX, 10.

The bridal gift is the property of the wife; it
therefore remains her own if the marriage is dissolved.
“And if ye wish to exchange one wife for another and
have given one a talent, take nothing of it back” (IV,
20). Even if the man divorces the wife before he has
cohabited with her, he must leave half the mahr with
her (II, 236-7).

Up to the Muslim period, the wife was considered
after the death of the husband as part of his estate; the
heir simply continued the marriage of the deceased.
Such levirate marriages are found in the Old Testa¬
ment also. Muhammad abolished this custom, which
still remained in his time, by sura IV, 19; “O ye who
are believers, it is not permitted to you to inherit
women against their will”. In his social reforms,
Muhammad made the mahr into a settlement in the
wife’s favour.

3. There was an ample store of traditions about
the mahr, and these pave the way for the theories laid
down by the jurists in the fikh books. From all the
traditions, it is clear that the mahr was an essential part
of the contract of marriage. According to a tradition
in Bukhari, the mahr is an essential condition for the
legality of the marriage: “every marriage without
mahr is null and void”. Even if this tradition, so brief
and to the point, is not genuine, a number of tradi¬
tions point to the fact that the mahr was necessary for
the marriage, even if it only consisted of some trifling
thing. Thus in Ibn Madja and al-Bukharl. traditions
are given according to which the Prophet permitted a
marriage with only a pair of shoes as mahr and approv¬
ed of a poor man, who did not even possess an iron
ring, giving his wife instruction in the Kur'an as
mahr.

A few hadiths endeavour to show that the mahr must
be neither too high nor too low. From the traditions
we also learn what mahr was given in particular cases
in the Prophet’s time: for example, the bridal gift of
c Abd al-Rahman b. c Awf was an ounce of gold, that
of Abu Hurayra 10 ukiyas and a dish, that of Sahl b.
Sa c d an iron ring.

In the hadiths we again frequently find the Kur 5 anic
regulation that in a divorce after cohabitation the
woman has the right to the whole mahr.

4. According to Muslim/z^-books, marriage is
a contract { Q akd) made between the bridegroom and
the wait of the bride. An essential element in it is the
mahr or sadak, which the bridegroom binds himself to
give to the bride. The marriage is null without a mahr.
The jurists themselves are not quite agreed as to the
nature of the mahr. Some regard it practically as
purchase-money (e.g. Khalil: “the mahr is like the
purchase-money”) or as equivalent ( Hwaf) for the
possession of the woman and the right over her, so
that it is like the price paid in a contract of sale; while
other jurists see in the mahr a symbol, a mark of
honour or a proper legal security of property for the
woman.

All things can be given as mahr that are things (maf)
in the legal sense and therefore are possible to deal in,
that is, can be the object of an agreement. The mahr
may also—but opinions differ on the point—consist in
a pledge to do something or in doing something, e.g.
instructing the woman in the Kurban or allowing her
to make the pilgrimage. The whole of the mahr can
either be given at or shortly after the marriage or it
may be paid in instalments. When the latter is the
case, it is recommended to give the woman a half or
two-thirds before cohabitation and the rest after¬
wards. The woman may refuse to allow consumma¬
tion of the marriage before a part is given.

Two kinds of mahr are distinguished:

a. Mahrmusammd, “specified mahr”, the amount of
which is exactly laid down in the wedding contract.

b. Mahr al-mithl “mahr of the like”, i.e. unspecified
dower, in which the amount is not exactly laid down,
but the bridegroom gives a bridal gift befitting the
wealth, family and qualities of the bride. This mahr al-
mithl is also applied in all cases in which nothing
definite about the mahr was agreed upon in the
contract.

The mahr becomes the property of the wife and she
has full right to dispose of it as she likes. In the case
of any dispute afterwards as to whether certain things
belong to the mahr or not, the man is put upon oath.

The Shari c a lays down no maximum. There is also
no upper limit to the mahr: whatever is agreed upon
in the contract must be paid. The mahr generally is ad¬
justed to what other women of equal status (sister,
daughter, aunt) have received. As regards the
minimum for the amount of the mahr, limitations were
introduced by the various law-schools; the HanafTs
and Shaffis insist upon 10 dirhams as a minimum and
the Malikls three dirhams. The difference in the
amount fixed depends on the economic conditions in
the different countries where the madhhabs in question
prevail.

If the man pronounces a divorce, the mahr must be
paid in every case if cohabitation has taken place; but
the bridegroom may withdraw from the marriage
before it is consummated; in this case he is bound to
give the woman half the mahr.

Bibliography: W. Robertson Smith, Kinship
and marriage in early Arabia, Cambridge 1885 (cf.
thereon Th. Noldeke, \nZDMG, xl [1886], 148-9);
Wellhausen, Die Ehe bei den Arabern, in Nachrichten
der G. W. zu Gott. (1893), 431 ff.; G. Jacob, Alt-
arabisches Beduinenleben, Berlin 1897; R. Roberts,
The social laws of the Qoran, London 1925, 29, 124;
Gertrude H. Stern, Marriage in early Islam, London
1939; W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina,
Oxford 1956, 283, 393.—For the hadiths, cf.
Wensinck, Handbook, 145; the chapters Nikah and
Sadak or Mahr in the Fikh- books. Further:

MAHR — MAHRA

Mahomed Yusoof, Mohamedan law relating to mar¬
riage, dower, divorce, legitimacy and guardianship of
minors according to the Soonees , i-iii, Calcutta 1895-8;
Ameer Ali, Mahommadan law , i 4 , Calcutta 1912, ii 5 ,
Calcutta 1929; T, Juynboll, Handbuch des islam.
Gesetzes, 181 ff.; E. Sachau, Muhammadanisches
Recht , 34 ff.; D. Santillana, Istituzioni di diritto
Musulmano Malichita, Rome 1926, p. 168 sqq.; van
den Berg, Principes du droit musulman (tr. France de
Tersant), Algiers 1896, 75; Khalil. Mukhtayar,
Italian tr. Santillana, Milan 1919, ii, 39 ff., French
tr. G.-H. Bousquet, Abrege , Algiers 1956-62; Tor-
nauw, Moslem. Recht, Leipzig 1855, 74 ff.; G.
Bergstrasser, Grundzuge , index; J. Schacht, The
origins of Muhammadan jurisprudence, Oxford 1959;
idem, An introduction to Islamic law, Oxford 1964,
167-8; Asaf A. A. Fyzee, Outlines of Muhammadan
law 3 , Oxford 1964, 126-38, 4 Delhi 1974, 132-45; N.
J. Coulson, A history of Islamic law, Edinburgh 1964,
40, 137-8, 207-8; see also the works of Milliot,
Bousquet, Linant de Bellefonds and Brunschvig.

(O. Spies)

MAHRA, a tribe living in the south-eastern part
of the Arabian peninsula, in a stretch of land along the
coast of the Indian Ocean between Hadramawt and
c Uman, and in the hinterland belonging to that
region.

More accurately, the boundaries of Mahra-land
run in the west from the coast along Wadi Maslla, a
continuation of Wadi Hadramawt, in the north-west
along Wadi Rama 5 as far as Sanaw, from there east-
north-east, and reach via Andawr the north-eastern
coast at Ras Hasik, to the north of Hasik, the ancient
Mahra settlement. These boundaries enclose also the
territories of other tribes, namely of the ghahara, the
Kara and the Batahira in Zufar. At the present time,
Mahra-land comes within the People’s Democratic
Republic of Yemen in the west and in the Sultanate
of c Uman in the east. Until very recently, the Mahra
of the Zufar province in the Sultanate of c Uman, liv¬
ing mainly on the highlands between the desert and
the mountains, led a Bedouin life; but those living on
the coast have always been sedentary. The present-
day sixth govemorate (muhdfaza) of South Yemen,
with its chief town Kishn [q.v.\, corresponds more or
less with the former Mahra sultanate, with the same
centre.

The Mahra can be considered not only as a tribe
but as a separate people, since they speak a language
of their own, Mahrl [qv.], and have until very recent¬
ly retained a high degree of autonomy. That the
Mahra are mentioned by classical Arabic authors is
mainly due to this fact that they have their own
language, not understood by anybody else (Ibn al-
Mudjawir, 271, 1. 17).

A member of the Mahra tribe is indicated in their
own language as mahri or mehrx, pi. mahre or mehre (A.
Jahn, Mehri-Sprache, 130, 1. 14); the corresponding
feminine forms are mehriul (Hein, Mehri-Texte , 137, 1.
2), plural mehreyten (Jahn, 210). They indicate Mahra-
land as rabbet dha-mahre (cf. Jahn’s map, op cit ., 211).

According to Yakut (Mu c djam, iv, 700, 1. 8), the
correct form is Mahara, not Mahra, but he stands
alone in this opinion, which is moreover uncor¬
roborated by any proof. Mahara is perhaps an incor¬
rect reconstruction of an alleged plural Maharat, a
place name in the Nadjd of Mahra land (Mu c djam , iv,
697, 1. 2). Ibn Durayd (Kitdb al-Ishlikdk, ed. C A. M.
Harun, 2nd ed. Ba gh dad 1979, 552, 11. 3 f.) derives
the name Mahra from Arabic mdhir “skilful, ex¬
perienced”. Ibn al-Mudjawir (271, 11. 8-14) relates
an aetiological story, according to which the Mahra

are descendants of three hundred virgins who, having
escaped a massacre in a place called al-Dabadib, were
given a dowry (mahr) by the people of the surrounding
mountains and then married by them.

The most important of the still-existing sub-tribes
of the Mahra (their orthography not being always
consistent in the sources) are: Bayt Kalshat, Bayt
Samudat, Bayt Thuwar, Bayt Za c banat, Bayt
Harawlz, Bayt Ziyad, Bayt Bara c fTt, Bayt Kamslt and
Bayt Balhaf (see the charts and lists of the Mahra
tribes in Dostal, Beduinen, 77 ff.; H. C A. Lukman,
Ta^nkh al-djuzur al-yamaniyya, Beirut 1972, 47-50:
Ka 5 il al-mahn ft Hajramawt; Carter, Tribal structures,
46-8). W. Dostal ( Beduinen , 34) estimates the number
of their able-bodied, weapon-carrying men as 8,000.
J. Carter (Tribal structures, 37) supposes that there are
5,000 members of this tribe in c Uman, and T. M.
Johnstone (The Modern South Arabian languages, Malibu
1975, 2) is of the opinion that the individuals of all
Mahra groups taken together amount to some 15,000.
According to the Gazetteer of Arabia. A geographical and
tribal history of the Arabian peninsula, ed. Sh. A. Scoville,
i, Graz 1979, 80, the number of the Mahra on the
mainland, the Bedouin included, amounted to 50,000
in the then Aden Protectorate at the time of the First
World War. A census carried out in 1983 numbers the
population of the sixth governorate of the People’s
Democratic Republic of Yemen at 60,000. If one
takes into account that on the one side people from
Hadramawt and elsewhere have immigrated into the
country of the Mahra and that on the other hand
members of the Mahra tribes have emigrated to other
provinces and to the Gulf Emirates the total number
of the Mahra, i.e. the people speaking Mahrl, can be
estimated at about 60,000 (A. Lonnet, The Modem
South Arabian Languages in the P.D.R. of Yemen, in Pro¬
ceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, xv [1985], 51).

It cannot be maintained any longer that Mahra-
land was already known to the ancient Greek writers,
nor that Mamali, with the variant Mali, named by
Theophrastus (Hisioria plantarum, ix, 4,2) as the fourth
South Arabian land next to Saba 5 , Hadramawt and
Kataban [ q.vv .], is probably a corruption of Mahra
and should be identified with it (F. Hommel,
Ethnologie und Geographic des Alien Orients, Munich 1926,
137). E. Glaser’s endeavour (Skizze der Geschichte und
Geographic Arabiens, ii, Berlin 1890, 26) to identify
Minaia, mentioned by Strabo (Geographia, xvi, 4,4 =
768), who refers to Eratosthenes, with Mahra-land,
has also been proved to be incorrect. The earliest at¬
testation of the Mahra is apparently found in the
Hadramite inscription RES 4877 from al- c UJda, a
pre-Islamic stronghold to the west of the capital Shab-
wa. The text, presumably dating from the beginning
of the 3rd century A.D., runs as follows: (1) shhrm/bn
(2) w Hm/kb (3) rPmhrn, “Shahirum (or Shahrumk son
of Wa 5 ilum, chief of the Mahrites”. It is true that A.
F. L. Beeston (The Philby collection of old South-Arabian
inscriptions, in Le Museon, li [1938], 324) translates
kbr/^mhrn as “chief of the artificers”, and A. Jamme
(The Al- c Uqlah texts, Washington 1963, 50) as “leader
of the specialised workers”. But in the inscriptions,
kabtr almost always indicates the leader or the chief of
a tribe, and is followed by the name of the tribe or by
the nisba plural in the form f c ln, af c ulan, usual in an¬
cient South Arabian, e.g. kbr/fyshn (RES 3913,1)
“kabtr (of the tribe) of Fayshan”, kbr/frwh (RES 3951,
1 f.) “kabtr (of the city-tribe) of $irwah”,

kbr/kl/sh c bn/' i rymn (RES 4085,1) “kabtr of the entire
tribe of the Raymanites”, kbrfhsm (Ja 816,2) “kabtr
(of the tribe) of the Hasiran”, etc.; the “leader of the
Bedouin of the king of Saba 5 ” (kbrT GblmlklsP: Ja

MAHRA

665, 1 f.) is indicated in the same way. Thus 3 mhm is
the nisba of an unattested * mhryn “Mahrite”, i.e.
Amhuran, or perhaps Amharan, since the place-name
Burkat al-Amhar, mentioned as lying next to al-
Ghavda (Mahri: Ghaydat) (HamdanI, Sifa, 147, 1.
17), certainly does not mean anything else but
“Burka of the Mahrites”. W. Dostal’s conjecture ( Be -
duinen, 134) that the Mahra, being neighbours of the
highly-developed culture of ancient South Arabia,
served as mercenaries already in the armies of the pre-
Islamic kings in the same way as they went into ser¬
vice occasionally later, is confirmed by inscription
RES 4877. A further evidence for the country and the
tribe of Mahra has been found in the Sabaean rock-
inscription from Wadi c Abadan from the middle of
the fourth century A.D., in which military campaigns
“towards the country of Mahra” (line 7:
qbl/^rtf/mhri) and “against the Mahra” (line 21:
Hy/mhrt) are mentioned (cf. the reproduction of the
text in J. Pirenne, Deux prospections historiques au Sud-
Yemen , in Rayddn. Journal of Ancient Yemeni Antiquities
and Epigraphy, iv [1981], 235). F. Hommel’s assump¬
tion ( Sud-arabische Chrestomathie , Munich 1893, 45) that
the form Amhar is still alive in the name of Amhara
people, who allegedly have migrated from Mahra
land to Ethiopia, is wrong. Already A. Sprenger (. Alte
Geographic , 268) had wrongly maintained that the
Semites of Ethiopia were of Mahra origin. An alleged
form mhrt, found in the late Sabaean inscription RES
4069,5 from Nisab, has nothing to do with the Mahra;
the passage should rather be read as
wmhrg/wkbwr/sh c bn/sybn, and translated as “and the
administrators and the leaders of the Sayban tribe”.

The Yemenite authors al-Hamdanl and Ibn al-
Mudjawir excepted, the classical Arabic geographers
who localised Mahra-land in the region between
Hadramawt and c Uman (al-Istakhrl. 12, 1. 20; al-
MukaddasI, 53, 11. 9-11), had only a superficial
knowledge of it; the interior in particular was almost
completely unknown to them. Al-Hamdanl (Sifa, 45,
11. 18 f.; see also Iklil, i, 72, 1. 19) names al-As c a 5
as the centre of the Mahra. C. de Landberg
(Hadramout, Leiden 1901, 158) wanted to correct this
name into al-Ashgha, but there is no necessity for
this, for the place-name al-As c a 3 , apparently not
mentioned any more since the early Islamic period, is
now verified as *s c yn (As c ayan; Yanbuk 47, 1. 7) in a
late Sabaean inscription from Yanbuk in Hadramawt
(M. A. Bafaqih, New light on the Yazanite dynasty, in Pro¬
ceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, ix [1979], 7;
M. Bafaqih et Chr. Robin, Inscriptions inedites de Yan-
bug , in Rayddn. Journal of Ancient Yemeni Antiquities and
Epigraphy ii [1979] 49 f.). According to E. Glaser ( Die
Abessinier in Arabien und Afrika , Munich 1895, 87), the
co-ordinates given by al-Hamdanl for the position of
al-As c a 3 point to the region of Damkot and Ras Par-
bat c Ali, thus rather precisely to the middle of the
coastal strand which was, moreover, at a later time
still inhabited by the Mahra. This conclusion cor¬
responds with al-Hamdanl’s indication, given in
another passage (Sifa, 87, 11, 21 f.), that al-As'-a 5 is
a port. Elsewhere (Sifa, 127, 1. 4), al-Hamdanl counts
Mahra among the coastal lands of the Arabian Sea.
According to him, the Wadi al-Ahkaf (for the term al-
Ahkaf [<?. v. ], see also L. Forrer, Siidarabien nach al¬
ii amddni s “Beschreibung der Arabischen Halbinsel",
Leipzig 1942, 220, n. 4) flows for several days’
journeys from the land of Hadramawt into Mahra-
land (Sifa, 87, 1. 10), and likewise to the left of the
great wadi, the Wadi Thawba where the tomb of the
Prophet Hud is to be found (Sifa, 87, 1. 8). Mahra-
land is considered to belong to the farthest part of

Yemen (Yakut, Mu c dfam, i, 280, 11. 1 f.; ii, 510, 1.
13; etc.) and is named as one of its mikhldfs (Yakut,
Mu^djam, iv, 700, 11. 11 f.). The steppe region be¬
tween the slope down to the coast in the south and the
desert in the north is called Nadjd, as was already
done by al-Tabari (Ta^rikh, i, 1980, 1. 12), Yakut
(Mu^djam, iii, 681, 1. 11; iv, 697, 1. 2.; etc.) and
others; from that region originates also the nadjdi, a
highly-appreciated kind of frankincense (A.
Grohmann, Sixdarabien als Wirtschaftsgebiet, i, Vienna
1922, 137 f.). Al-Shihr is also mentioned as a main
centre of Mahra-land (al-Istakhrl, 25, 11. 10 f.; Ibn
Khaldun, Mukhtasar , 132, 1. 2). Muhammad b.
Habib (Kitdb al-Muhabbar , ed. I. Lichtenstaedter,
Haydarabad 1942, 266, 11. 4-6) counts al-Shihr in
Mahra as one of the markets of the Arabs in pre-
Islamic times; it is said to lie at the foot of the moun¬
tains in which the tomb of the Prophet Hud is found,
and said further that no tithe is levied on that market
because the town does not belong to any kingdom. Al-
Shihr is occasionally even identified with Mahra-land
(Ibn Khaldun, Muktasar, 132, 11. 1,4 f.), as can also
be qoncluded from Nashwan b. Sa c Id al-Himyarl,
Shams al- : ulum, when he (under the root s- c -y ) defines
al-As c a (rzc) as a place in al-Shihr, i.e. in Mahra-land.
This is also the case when, for the year 694/1294-5,
during the zenith of the power of the Rasulids [q. v. ]
under al-Ashraf, it is said that the latter’s domination
was firmly established in the Yemen, in al-Shihr (i.e.
in Mahra-land) and in Hadramawt (Yahya b. al-
Husayn, Ghayat al-amdni fi akhbar al-kutr al-yamani,
Cairo 1968, 477, 11.6 f.). Thereafter, for long al-
Shihr, once the residence of a Mahra sultan, did not
belong any more to Mahra-land; it passed into the
possession of the Ku c aytl sultans of al-Shihr and
Mukalla. Only families like the A1 Kiraynun, living
there in isolation, testify to the former presence of the
Mahra in al-Shihr.

The Mahra trace their genealogy back to their
ancestor Mahra b. Haydan b. c Amr b. al-Haf.
Already A. Sprenger (Alte Geographic, 266) recognized
in these names some geographical and ethnographical
names of places on the South Arabian coast, e.g. in
Ibn al-Haf the port of Bal-Haf, lying to the west of Blr
C A1I. Early Arabic authors traced these geneaological
connections further back to Kahtan: al-Haf b.
Kuda c a b. Malik b. Himyar b. Kahtan (see the
genealogy of the descent of the Mahra in Carter,
Tribal structures, 38). On the descendants of Mahra b.
Haydan and the sub-divisions of the Mahra according
to Arabic sources, see al-Hamdanl, al-Iklil, i, 72, 1.
19-74, 1. 8, and the remarks by W. W. Muller on
some of the names mentioned there in OLZ, lxiv
(1969), 265-6. Less reliable than this South Arabian
source is the rendering of the often specifically Mahra
names by North Arabian authors like Ibn al-Kalbl,
Diamharat al-nasab, ed. W. Caskel, i, Leiden 1966,
Table 328. The Mahra genealogy as given by the
Arabic authors shows in any case a tendentious
endeavour to reconstruct a pattern of origins for the
tribes which often does not coincide with the
genealogy handed down by the Mahra themselves.
Their genealogy distinguishes clearly between the
authentic Mahra (cf. the groups indicated in al-
Hamdanl, Iklil, i, 73, 1. 12 as afsah Mahra and the
“mahricised” Arabs (cf. the groups which are said
newly to have come to join them: dakhala ft Mahra, al-
Hamdanl, Iklil, i, 73, 11. 20 f.), and thus reflects the
fusion of Arab groups with the Mahra and their
assimilation to the latter’s genealogy. Rivalry between
these Arab groups and those who claim descent from
Mahra exists until today. Of these two groups which

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

MAHRA

differ genealogically, the one, whose members are
considered to be “pure” Mahra, claim descent from
the Banu Sharawih; the others who are said to be of
Arabic origin, are brought together in the Banu Sar.
Each of these two great confederacies is sub-divided
again into several patrilineal groups (see the tables of
the classification of the Mahra tribes and their attribu¬
tion to these two groups in Dostal, Beduinen, 77). The
greater part of the Mahra coasted area is in the hands
of the Banu Sar, while the inland zone belongs to the
Banu Sharawih, who have access to the coast only
between Kishn and Dabot and possess a small enclave
further north (for a general outline of the region where
both of the Mahra confederacies are at present dwell¬
ing and roaming, see the map in Dostal, Beduinen,
125). This spread of the Mahra over two areas is
perhaps reflected already in al-Tabari ( TaMkh , i,
1980, 1. 9-1981, 1. 3), who mentions two groups of
the Mahra under two different leaders, one dwelling
in the plain around Djayrut (this form is also found in
Ibn al-Mudjawir 260, 1. 9), the other in Nadjd, i.e.
in the highland zone.

According to Ibn al-Mudjawir (271, 11. 15 f.), the
origin of the Mahra is to be sought in the remains of
the people of c Ad; when God destroyed the greater
part of them, this group of people was saved and went
to live in the mountains of Zufar and the islands of
Sukutra (Socotra) and al-MasIra. Ibn Khaldun
( Mukhta$ar , 132, 11. Ilf.) also says that the land,
afterwards inhabited by the Mahra, in prehistoric
times belonged to the c Ad mentioned in the Kurian.

The first Kahtanid to settle in this area is said to
have been Malik b. Himyar, who was succeeded by
his son Kuija ( a. The latter’s possessions, however,
became restricted to the land which later was named
after his great-grandson (Yakut, Mu Q dj_am, iv, 700, 1.
10; Ibn Khaldun. Mukhtasar, 132, 11. 13-17). Ibn
Khaldun goes on to say that the Mahra have come to
their later dwelling-places from Hadramawt or from
the Ku(fa c a, but this certainly does not correspond
with reality. The derivation of the Mahra from the
Kahfan through Ku<^a c a and Himyar is a mere con¬
struction of Arabic genealogists which does not with¬
stand examination. Immigration from further west is
also out of the question. Although the Mahra do not
have written historical traditions, yet in their oral
transmission the memory survives of large parts of
c Uman having belonged in earlier times to the regions
where they were living and roaming and of their being
expelled from there by the Arabs. The pressure of
their eastern neighbours must have caused the Mahra
to withdraw to the west and brought about their great
loss of fertile regions. W. Dostal ( Beduinen, 184-8) sup¬
ports this tradition of the Mahra by collating non-
Arabic place-names in south-east Arabia ending in
-ut, -ot and -it. He also illustrates this tradition with
the aid of a map showing the spread of Mahrl place-
names (. Beduinen , 133, PI. 19). Further criteria for
Mahri place-names in this region are: the ending -et
occuring as a variant of -it, the feminine plural en¬
dings -oten and -uten, the relative frequency of place-
names with the prefixes ya- and yi-, and finally the
etymology which in many cases indicates a place-
name as being clearly Mahri. The majority of these
place-names, mostly names of wadis, lies in the in¬
terior. On the coast they are only found in the area
which is traditionally Mahri. Their greatest density
occurs between long. 51° and 55° and lat. 16° and
18°. Since more than half of these non-Arabic place-
names lie in regions now inhabited by Arabic¬
speaking tribes, this finding shows at the same time
the present limitations of the Mahri living space. Al-

Hamdanl (Sifa, 52, 11. 5 IT.; Jklil, i, 73, 1. 15) still at¬
tests that the Banu Riyam, a group of the Mahra tribe
of the Kamar, were settled in c Uman; other tribes,
too, he remarks, have their dwelling places in the
region of c Uman (Iklil, i, 73, 1. 5) or on the sea-coast
of c Uman (Iklil, i, 73, 1. 4). Other groups, like the
Banu Khanzirit (Sifa, 51, 11. 25 fif.) and the
Thughara (Sifa, 52, 11. 2 ff.) were entangled in
warlike altercations with Arabs who pressed forward
along the coast into Mahra-land. Al-Hamdanl (Sifa,
51, 11. 16 ff.) still includes in his description of the
“Green Yemen” the territory of the Mahra tribes of
the Ghavth. Kamar and c Ukar. On the island of
Sukutra [ q.v .] (Socotra), Mahra are also to be found
living (al-Hamdanl, Sifa, 53, 1. 1), i.e. members of all
Mahra tribes (Iklil, i, 74, 1. 9). Ibn Ruzayk attests
that even in the year 884/1479-80, part of c Uman was
in the possession of the Mahra, since in that year the
IbadI Imam compelled the departure of the Mahra
from c Uman.

After 608/1211-12, the Mahra tribe of the Banu
Zanna pushed forward into the eastern part of
Hadramawt, where they exercised control over the
town of Tarim for some time after 673/1274-5. In
945/1538-9 serious danger was brought to the Mahra
by the Banu Kathlr under sultan Badr Bu Tuwayrik.
The latter occupied great parts of the Mahra territory,
and in 952/1545-6 conquered even the Mahra port of
Kishn, where they murdered almost all the members
of the family of the sultan of the Banu c Afrar, the
mashdyikh of the Mahra. But in 955/1548-9 sultan
Sa c Id b. c Abd Allah of the Banu c Afrar succeeded in
reconquering the town of Kishn from the Banu
Kathlr. He started from the island of Sukutra, where
the Mahra had constructed a fortress after the retreat
of the Portuguese in 917/1511-2. Since the Kathlr had
joined the Ottomans, the Mahra were supported by
the Portuguese. In 1876 the Mahra sultan of Sukutra
and Kishn guaranteed not to surrender any of his
possessions except to the British Government and in
1886 he agreed to a Treaty of Protectorate with Great
Britain.

The Mahra also participated in the Islamic cam¬
paigns of conquest. Together with other South Ara¬
bians, they settled in c Irak and in even greater
numbers in Egypt. In Kufa and in Old Cairo they liv¬
ed in their own quarters (cf. the khitfat Mahra of al-
Fustat in al-Kalkashandl, Subh al-a c shd, iii, 327, 1.
12). There were also communications between the
coast of Mahra-land and the island of Sukutra on the
one hand, and with East Africa on the other, where
the Mahra may have had settlements. Thus on Vasco
da Gama’s first journey, the Mahri Ibn Madjid [q.v.]
guided the Portuguese as a pilot from Malindi to In¬
dia. As well as Sulayman Mahri [q.v.\, he left behind
nautical texts. In 923/1517 the Mamluk sultan
Barsbay enlisted Mahra as soldiers for his undertak¬
ing in the Yemen (see L. O. Schuman, Political history
of the Yemen at the beginning of the 16th century. Abu
Makhrama's account of the years 906-927 h. (1500-1522
A.D.) with annotations, Groningen 1960, 27 ff.).
Mahra are attested in Zayla c during the years
944-5/1537-9, and a group of about seventy Mahra
with their chiefs (mukaddams) are repeatedly mention¬
ed in the Futuh al-Habasha (see Serjeant, Portuguese, 81,
n. 5). The Comoro Islands [see kumr] allegedly owe
their name to the Kamar or Moon mountains of
Mahra-land (see H. Ingrams, Arabia and the Isles 3 ,
New York 1966, 64). For Mahra immigrants to
Somalia, see E. Cerulli, Un gruppo Mahri nella Somalia
Italiana, in RSO, xi (1926-8), 25-6.

The Mahra are “tall handsome people” (Ibn al-

MAHRA

Mudjawir, 271, 1. 17) of brown complexion with
black, often curly, hair. Because of these physical
characteristics they have been considered as not
belonging to the Mediterranean race but as related
rather to the Veddas in South India. Until circumci¬
sion, boys have their hair shaven at both sides, so that
only a tuft remains in the middle of the head. Circum¬
cision of boys takes place at the age of twelve or also,
as was usual in earlier days, only immediately before
the wedding. After circumcision the hair grows long,
either tied into a knot or falling down loosely and only
kept together with a long braid, either plaited or made
of leather; growing a beard is forbidden. Sedentary
Mahra wear an indigo-coloured loin cloth and a skirt,
the Bedouin generally only a loin cloth, an extremity
of which can be thrown over the shoulder. Boys' or¬
naments consist of amulets and occasionally also
necklaces; men adorn themselves with a leather belt
equipped with characteristic ornamentation and
sometimes stitched with pearls. Many Bedouin also
wear an earring in the right ear and an armlet above
the right elbow. Tattooing scars are also found, and
all men carry the curved dagger ( dfanbiyya ), more as
an ornament than as a weapon. Nowadays, rifle and
cartridge-belt are carried as weapons; formerly there
were used the spear and the throwing stick ter¬
minating almost in a point, together with a sword
without a sheath and a round shield. The Mahra have
their own war-cry. They greet each other with a three¬
fold kiss on the cheek, starting with the right cheek,
then the left and the right again. Girls are circumcised
immediately after birth. Mahra women wear the hair
braided and go unveiled. Women’s dress is preferably
also indigo-coloured and has an open square or round
neck. Women like to wear many silver ornaments like
chains at the forehead, rings at nose, ears, fingers and
ankles, and armlets (Ibn al-Mudjawir, 271, 1. 12,
describes Mahra virgins as mukhalkhalat mudamladfat
“provided with armlets and ankle rings’’), and occa¬
sionally wearing head or neck ornament hanging
down to the belt, single parts of which are adorned
with geometrical embellishments and cornelians
(akik). At the neck, an amulet of leather, silver or gold
is also worn, and one side of the nose is usually per¬
forated in order to wear a precious stone as ornament.
The breast ornament is an indication of the social
status of the wearer. Women also use face-painting.

The nomads among the Mahra make do with
modest shelters. They live mainly in caves, seek
refuge under protruding rocks or make a roof against
the sun amongst trees and shrubs. Remarks that the
Mahra in these dwelling-places resemble animals (Ibn
al-Mudjawir, 272, 11.2 ff.) and are like wild animals
( wuhush ) in those sands (Ibn Kh aldun. Mukhtasar , 132,

I. 12), may allude to their modest way of life and their
familiarity with the surrounding nature. In their land,
the Mahra do not know the cultivation of date-palms
or agriculture (al-IstakhrT, 25,1. 12); this information
refers of course to the Bedouin and not to the seden¬
tary Mahra who, in the western part of their land, at
the edge of Wadi Masila, practice a well-developped
farming and lay out palm plantations. The riches of
the Mahra consist of camels and goats, while they live
on meat, milk and a kind of small fish on which they
also feed the animals (Ibn Khaldun. Muktasar, 132,

II. 3 ff.). This fish is the sardine-like c ayd, found in
great numbers along the coast and which, after having
been dried, is given to the animals, especially when
other food is lacking. Goats are still predominant
among the Mahra and more appreciated than sheep.
Camels bred by the Mahra (sing. mahriyyat un , pi.
mahara, mahdf n and mahdriyy u ') were considered from

ancient times as a particularly good breed (al-
Hamdani, Sifa 100, 11. 1 ff.). Among these were
valued as noble the c Idite camels, named after c IdI
(vocalisation according to al-Hamdani, I kit l, i, 73, 1.
11), a Mahra tribe (Sifa, 201, 1. 14). Already in the
biography of the Prophet (Ibn Hisham, Sira, ed. F.
Wiistenfeld, 963, 1. 9) Mahra camels are mentioned;
they were valued by the caliphs (al-KazwinT, c Adja :> ib,
i, 41, 11. 3 ff.) and repeatedly celebrated by the an¬
cient poets (e.g. Abu Tammam, Dtwan, ed. M. C A.
c Azzam, ii, 132, 1. 4 = AghanT 1 . xv, 106, 1. 16). They
spread as far as North Africa, where the form mahrt
(pi. mahdra) made its way into French as mehari
“riding camel’’ (pi. mehara ) from which term was
derived mehariste to indicate a member of the camel
riders. Besides making use of their herds, the Mahra
provide the transport of merchandise by procuring
caravan service, convey pilgrims to the places of
pilgrimage and supply local markets with camels. If
they do not possess their own incense trees, a sup¬
plementary source of livelihood consists in employ¬
ment as seasonal workers in Zufar at the time of the
incense harvest in order to scrape the gum off the
trees; The Kara leave their incense trees to the
Bedouin to take half of the harvest. The Mahra living
on the coast are mostly fishermen; a few are also mer¬
chants and seafarers. With the rise of the oil industry
in the Arab countries of the Gulf, many Mahras have
departed thither as labourers.

Among the Mahra exists a patrilinear system of
kinship; however, still-remaining traces of matriliny
point to an earlier matrilineal social structure.
Monogamy is the prevailing form of marriage; if
polygamy occurs, it is in fact mainly a multi-local
polygamy based on uxorilocal marriage.

The Mahra settle their social and political affairs
almost exclusively inside their tribe. The sultanate of
the Banu c Afrar exercised authority only in name, and
thus had only a limited influence on the political situa¬
tion of the mainland, the more so because the sultan
used to reside on Sukutra, with another member of
the c Afrar family acting as his representative in
Kishn. The real power over the individual tribes is in
the hands of their chiefs, the mukaddams, who have
always enjoyed great esteem. Feuds exist between the
Mahra and almost all of their neighbouring tribes (see
the charts on inter-tribal relations in Dostal, Beduinen,
109); lasting hostility exists especially with the
Manahil. Friendly relations exist only with the Banu
Kathir and the Banu Rashid, bringing about also
marriages between members of these tribes and the
Mahra.

Al-Hamdani (Sifa, 87, 1.11) relates that the Mahra
visit at all times the tomb of the Prophet Hud. Besides
this pilgrimage place, the Mahra also venerate other
holy places like the tomb of Bin C A1I in Mirbat, of
shaykh c AfTf in Taka or of Bin c Anbat in Raysut. Oath¬
taking and vows play an important role among them
(see T. M. Johnstone, Oath-taking and vows in Oman , in
Arabian Studies , ii [1975], 7-18). In order to prove their
innocence, they swear on the tombs of the saints and
invoke divine judgement by way of ordeal by fire.
They practise all kinds of charms, especially against
malevolent dfinn or against the evil eye. Ibn al-
Mudjawir (271, 11. 17-272, 1. 1) even wanted to
derive from sihr “witchcraft” the term Sahara,
another name for the Mahra which has not as yet been
satisfactorily explained. He attributes (272, 1. 1) to
the Mahra ignorance (djahl) and reason ( c akl) and
some demoniac possession (dfinun), moreover, and
continues (272, 1. 2) by saying that they benefit from
God’s blessings without giving praise and thanks, and

MAHRA — MAHRI

that they worship not Him but someone else. The first
statement probably refers to the indifference in
religious matters and to the non-performance of the
prescribed worship, which can be observed especially
among the nomadic Mahra. The last statement, on
the other hand, may be attributed to the fact that the
Mahri language does not know either the word Allah
or the word rabb, but speaks of God as ball (literally
“my Lord”), so that an Arab, not understanding this
word might infer that they serve another deity. Ibn
Khaldun (Mukhtasar. 132, 11. 12 ff.), however, righdy
remarks that, so far as religious confession is concern¬
ed, the Mahra are Kharidjls. in fact Ibatfls [q.vv.]. In¬
formation about the Mahra’s conversion to Islam is
given by Ibn Sa c d, Tabakat, i/2, Leiden 1917, 83, 11.
13-26. After the Prophet’s death, Mahra-land also
formed part of the areas joining the ridda movement;
but c Ikrima, one of Abu Baler’s commanders, suc¬
ceeded in reconquering Mahra-land for Islam (al-
Tabari, Ta^rtkh, i, 1980, 1.5 - 1982, 1. 2).

Bibliography : Apart from the works quoted in
the text, only the more frequently quoted and most
important sources are mentioned here: Tabari,
Ta^rikh; HamdanI, $ifat dfazirat al- c Arab, i, ed. D.
H. Muller, 1884; HamdanI, al-Ikltl, i/2, ed. O.
Lofgren, Uppsala 1965; Istakhrl: MukaddasI;
Yakut, Mu c dfam al-bulddn; Ibn al-Mujjjawir, Ta^rtkh
al-muslabfir, ii, ed. O. Lofgren, Leiden 1954; Ibn
Khaldun. Mukhlasar al-ta^rijdk, with H. C. Kay,
Yaman, its early mediaeval history, London 1892,
103-38 of the Arabic text; A. Sprenger, Die alte
Geographic Arabiens, Bern 1875; A. Jahn, Die Mehri-
Sprache in Siidarabien, Vienna 1902; W. Hein, Mehri-
und Hadrami-Texte, Vienna 1909; J. Tkatsch, art.
Mahra , in EP (contains numerous further details on
the history of the exploration of Mahra-land and
the Mahrilanguage); R. B. Serjeant, The Portuguese
off the South Arabian coast, Oxford 1963; W. Dostal,
Die Beduinen in Siidarabien , Vienna 1967 (this is the
most important work on the Mahra, based on field-
studies; it has been much utilised for the present ar¬
ticle), cf. the review of W. W. Muller, in ZDMG ,
cxviii (1968), 399-402; T. M. Johnstone, Folklore
and folk literature in Oman and Socotra, in Arabian
Studies, i (1974), 7-23; J. Garter, Tribal Structures in
Oman, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies,
vii (1977), 11-68, esp. 37-49. (W. W. Muller)
MAHRAM BILKlS. [see marib].
MAHRATTAS. [ see maratha].

MAHRI. The Mahri language, called by its
speakers Mahrayyat, is spoken by many thousands,
both Bedouin and settled people, over a large area of
South Arabia extending in a great half-circle from
Mukalla in South Yemen to the small coastal towns of
Zufar or Dhofar. In South Yemen, the speakers are
Bedouin, merchants, fishermen and seamen, but
many Mahra of the more prosperous classes are now
monolingual in Arabic. In Zufar, the Mahri speakers
are, or were, mainly concentrated in Nadjd, the high
desert area of Zufar behind the fertile part of the long
mountain range (Mahri sahayr) which is largely
populated by speakers of Djibball. For a long time,
however, there have been large settlements of Mahra
in the eastern coastal towns and their hinterlands, and
in some of these coastal towns (like Sidh, for exam¬
ple), the Mahra speak only Arabic and Djibball.

The Mahra also continuously penetrate the sahayr,
the fertile part of the £ufar mountain which gets the
monsoon rains, not without some resistance from the
Kara, the dominant Djibball-speaking group. Many
of these immigrants lose their Mahri language also,
and come to speak only Djibball and Arabic. The

western dialect is not confined entirely to South
Yemen, and is spoken in the coastal area of ?ufar
nearest to South Yemen (where there is also a
definably western dialect of Djibball).

A number of non-Mahri groups within this area
speak what may be defined as dialects of Mahri, or as
languages closely related to Mahri. Within Zufar, a
small group of people, the Bafahira, speak a language
or dialect closely related to Mahri. Now fishermen,
formerly of humble status, they were apparently
driven from their homes in the fertile hinterland of the
coastal towns of Shuwaymiyya and Sharbithat. at or
near where they are now mainly settled. It seems like¬
ly that they learnt their language from the invaders,
unlike the Kara who would seem to have learnt their
language from the original inhabitants of the fertile
area they conquered. In the desert between the ?ufar
province and the Sharkiyya province of c Uman, in the
area between Hayma and the Wadi Halfayn, is the
small tribe of the IJarasIs, apparently of Arab origin.
HarsusI, which is fairly easily understood by Mahra,
shows signs of having been acquired by them on the
borders of £ufar and South Yemen. In the same
border area is the last of the groups speaking a Mahri-
related language, namely Hobyot. Hobyot is spoken
by a small number of people in little setdements on
both sides of the border. It shares a few features with
HarsusI: thus, “I want” is xom in IJarsusI and xom in
Hobyot, as against Mahri horn and Bathari ham.

Na^jdl Mahri (NM) appears to be a more conser¬
vative dialect than the South Yemen dialect (SM).
Thus NM retains the interdentals t, d and d, which
in (most dialects of) SM are replaced by t, 2, and f.
The Austrian expedition (SAE) publications give no
indication that SM has a definite article, a passive
voice, or conditional verb forms. This does not con¬
clusively prove that they do not occur in SM,
however, since the SAE publications also give no in¬
dication that globalised consonants occur in SM,
though they do occur in SM texts recorded by the pre¬
sent writer.

The principal features of interest in the phonology
of Mahri (M) are, firstly, the occurence of the glot-
talised consonants d (mainly NM), k, $, /, and / (as
against the series of emphatic/velarised consonants in
Arabic), the occurrence of the laterals / and z (which
probably occurred in early pre-literary Arabic) and
finally the (virtual) non-occurrence of the voiced
pharyngal (Ar. c ayn).

The syllabication of M is also of considerable
historical and comparative interest. In M all forms
with a final Cv (C) syllable (other than -CaC) have
final stress. This stress results in a lengthening of the
vowel of the final syllable where it was not already
long, and the reduction to o of the short (or lengthen¬
ed) vowels of the non-final syllables.

Thus consider katub (“he wrote”, from earlier
*katab(a)), htobut (“she wrote” from *katabat), and
htobis (“he wrote it”, f., from *katab-a-s). Non-final
stress occurs in many earlier monosyllables. Thus
badr, “seed” has become be&r, but in affixed forms it
remains -badr-, as, e.g., abadroh, “his seed”, where the
a-element is a definite article. It is a puzzling feature
of phonology that the vowel of the stressed syllable of
nominal forms is not always of the same quality as
that of the comparable verbal forms. Thus contrast
soyur, “he went”, with sabeb, “cause”; and j bed*r,
“seed” with iibtr, “it got broken”. Even if it is likely
that the nouns lost their final vowels before the verbs
(though some plural nouns like hadutin, “hands”, still
have a final nunation which is elided on affixation),
this does not throw much light on the problem. Fern.

MAHRI — MAHSATI

nouns, for example, may be characterised by an -et, -
it, -ot, or -ut ending.

The noun in M is not inflected for case but has two
genders, masc. and fern., and three numbers, sing.,
dual and pi. Some common nouns, such as bayt ,
“house’’ and nahor, “day”, are fern, in M (and in¬
deed, in all the Modern South Arabian languages).
The dual in M ends in -i, thus gawgi, “two men” and
fakhi, “[two] halves”. It rarely occurs without a
following numeral pro (masc.) or prayt (fern.), “two”,
and, unlike dual verb forms, can be considered to be
obsolescent. Thus speakers clearly believe when they
say “two boys” that they are saying gaggen itro, and
not gaggeni tro.

Nouns have sound or broken plurals. Masc. nouns
for the most part have broken plurals, while fern,
nouns mostly have sound pis. in -otan, utan, -dttm , etc.
The noun in NM can be defined by the prefixation of
a. This can, however, be affixed only to words with an
initial voiced or glottalised consonant. Thus katob,
“a/the book”, abedar , “the seed”, and asayd, “the
fish”.

The verb in M has two main simple themes and six
derived themes, namely:

Simple CaCuC (a) and ClCaC (b)

Intensive-conative (a)CoCaC

Causative haCCuC

Reflexive CatCaC (a) and aCtaCuc (b)

Causative-reflexive SaCCuc (a) and SaCeCaC (b)

The reflexive types (a) and (b) often overlap in their

conjugation.

The verb has a perfective and an imperfective
aspect. The imperf. indie, and subj. patterns are
markedly different from Arabic. Thus consider katub
(perf. )/yakutab (indie. )/yakteb (sub).)/yaktebm (cond.).
Conditional forms occur relatively rarely, mainly in
sentences involving hypothetical conditions. All
dependent verbs are subj., and the subj. also func¬
tions as a jussive and occasionally as a kind of future.
Imperative forms are subj. in syllable structure but
lack the personal prefixes, so, e.g. k(a)teb! , “write’.”.
The verb has the following persons: 3 m.s., 3 f.s., 2
m.s., 2 f.s., 1 c.s.; 3 m.du., 3 f.du., 2 c.du., 1 c.du;
3 m.pl., 3 f.pl., 2 m.pl., 2 f.pl., 1 c.pl. The verb has
also verbal nouns, and active and passive participles.
The active participle (as, e.g., m.s. katbona, f.s. katbita,
etc.) functions as a future.

Mahrl (or at least NM) has a large vocabulary
relatively little affected by Arabic, and there is a good
deal of resistance to borrowings from Arabic. Lexical
items may be considered to be for comparative pur¬
poses in a number of categories: words which have no
cognates in literary or colloquial Arabic (as, e.g.,
sxawalul, “he sat”); words which have Ar. cognates
but cannot, for phonological or morphological
reasons, be borrowings (as, e.g., zdfor, Dhofar/Zafar);
words which have the same radicals as the equivalent
Ar. words (as, e.g., sad, “it sufficed”); words which
have been borrowed and modified to become com¬
pletely Mahrl in terms of phonology and morphology
(such as, perhaps, abtodi, “he began”); and borrow¬
ings from Ar. which have been left virtually unchang¬
ed (as, e.g., maftah, “key”). There is a large area of
the vocabulary, which is not possible to categorise
with any degree of certainty. Since M and Ar. have
lived side by side for many centuries, it is difficult to
say in many cases which language has borrowed from
the other. Thus sayur, “he went”, is paralleled by sdr
in most Ar. dialects of the South. It is just as likely,
however, that such Ar. dialects are influenced by
Mahrl as that Mahri has been influenced by Arabic.

Bibliography. All references up to his date of

publication are collected in W. Leslau, Modern South
Arabian languages—a bibliography. New York 1946;
for later references, see E. Wagner, Syntax der
Mehri-Sprache. .., Berlin 1953. The most important
of these earlier sources are the following (all
published in Vienna) by the Austrian South Ara¬
bian Expedition (SAE) associates: (grammar) A.
Jahn, Grammatik der Mehri-Sprache in Siidarabien, in
SB Ak. Wien, Phil.-Hist. Kl., Bd. 150, Abh. 6,
1905; M. Bittner, Studien zur Laut- und Formenlehre
der Mehri-Sprache in Siidarabien, in SB Ak. Wien, Phil.-
Hist. Kl., Bd. 162, Abh. 5; Bd. 168, Abh. 2; Bd.
172, Abh. 5; Bd. 174, Abh. 4; Bd. 178, Abh. 2, 3,
1909-15; (texts) A. Jahn, SAE 3, 1902 (with
vocabulary); W. Hein, SAE 9, 1909 (ed. D. H.
Muller); D. H. Muller, SAE 7, 1907. For more re¬
cent work, see the following publications of T. M.
Johnstone: Harsusi lexicon, Oxford 1977; A definite
article in the Modem South Arabian languages, in
BSOAS, xxxiii/2 (1970); Dual forms in Mehriand Har¬
susi, in BSOAS, xxxiii/3 (1970); Diminutive patterns in
the Modern South Arabian languages, in JSS, xviii
(1973); Folklore and folk-literature in Oman and Socotra,
in Arabian Studies, i (1973); Contrasting articulations in
the Modern South Arabian languages, in Hamito-Semitica ,
Leiden 1975; Oath-taking and vows in Oman, in Ar.
St., ii (1975); Knots and curses, in Ar. St., iii (1976);
A St. George of Dhofar, in Ar. St., iv (\977)',Jibbdli lex¬
icon, 1981; Mehri lexicon, 1984.

(T. M. Johnstone)

MAHSATI (the most probable interpretation of
the consonants mhsty, for which other forms, like
MahistI, MahsitI or MihistI, have been proposed as
well; cf. Meier, 43 ff.) a Persian female poet
whose historical personality is difficult to ascertain.

She must have lived at some time between the early
5th/ 11th and the middle of the 6th/12th century. The
earliest sources situate her alternatively in the en¬
vironment of Mahmud of Ghazna. of the Sal^juk
Sultan Sandjar, or of a legendary king of Gan^ja in
Adharbay^jan. The qualification dabir or dabtra is
often attached to her name, but it is uncertain whether
she actually worked as a professional scribe, the func¬
tion designated by this term. Usually, she is
represented as a singer and a musician as well as a
poet of the court, though not as a panegyrist. The
poems attributed to her name are almost without ex¬
ception quatrains. Their dominating theme is the
lover’s complaint about the absence, the lack of atten¬
tion or the cruelty of his or her beloved. Several poems
belong to the genre of shahrashub poetry in which the
beloved is presented as a young craftsman. Mahsati
has acquired a reputation as a writer of bawdy verse.
Mystical and fatalistic thoughts, often expressed in
Persian quatrains, are absent and the antinomism of
the kalandariyyat can only seldom be found. The
authenticity of these poems remains in each case ques¬
tionable. An original collection is not known to exist.
The current dtwdns of Mahsati are modern compila¬
tions from many different sources.

Mahsati became already at an early date the
heroine of romantic tales. The oldest specimen is con¬
tained in c Attar’s lldhi-nama (Meier, 53-6; tr.
J. A. Boyle, Manchester 1976, 218-20). A similar
story, embellished by inserted quatrains, was used by
c Abd Allah Djawhari in a commentary on the kasida-yi
hawliyya, a poem about alchemy, towards the end of
the 7th/13th century. It is, however, not derived from
c Atiar’s story (Meier, 63-7). The Ddstdn-i Amir Ahmad-
u Mahsati is a popular romance, built upon an exten¬
sive cycle of quatrains, dealing with the love between
two poets, of whom the former is sometimes referred

MAHSATl — MAHSUD

to as “the son of the preacher of Gandja’ ’ {pur-i khafib-
i Gandja). It is extant in two versions of different
lengths (Meier, 123 and passim; E. E. Bertel’s, Nizami
i Fuzuli, 78, n. 12).

Bibliography. The fundamental study by F.
Meier, Die sc hone Mahsati. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
des persischen Vierzeilers. Band I, Wiesbaden 1963,
gives full references to the preceding literature. It
also contains a critical edition of 279 poems with
translation and commentary; the quatrains which
only occur in the Dastdn , have been excluded. See
further: E. E. Bertel’s, IstoriyQ persidsko-tadzikskoy
literaturi, Moscow 1960, 425, 489 f.; idem, Nizami-i
Fuzuli, Moscow 1962, 77-81; Iradj Afshar, Fihrist-i
makdldt-i fdrsi, i, Tehran 1340/1961, 693-6 and ii,
Tehran 1348/1969, 495; A. GuRln-i ma c anl, Shahr-
dshub dar shi c r-i fdrsi, Tehran 1346/1967, 15-7; J.
Rypka et alii, History of Iranian literature, Dordrecht
1968, 199. (J. T. P. de Bruijn)

MAHSUD, the name of a Pafhan tribe on
the north-west frontier of Pakistan, in British
Indian times the fiercest opponents there of British
rule. The Mahsuds inhabit the heart of Waziristan
around Kaniguram and are shut off from Pakistan
territory by the Bhittanni country. On all other sides
they are flanked by Darwlsh Khel Wazlrls. It is now
generally accepted that they left their original home in
the Birmal hills of modem A fg hanistan sometime
towards the close of the 8th/14th century and gradual¬
ly extending eastwards occupied the country in which
they now reside. The tribe has three main branches:
the Bahlolzay, Shaman Khel, and the c AlIzay.

The Mahsuds have always been the scourge of the
Bannu and Deradjat borders. This was the case in the
days of Sikh rule and, after the annexation of the Pan-
djab in 1849, they still continued to plunder and
devastate the borders of British India. This and the
fact that their rocky mountain fastnesses command
the Gomal and Toci, two of the five main passes con¬
necting India with Afghanistan, compelled the British
to resort to reprisals. On three occasions, in 1860,
1881 and 1894, the Mahsuds became so troublesome
that punitive expeditions had to be undertaken
against them. On the conclusion of the 1860 expedi¬
tion, a temporary peace was patched up by which each
of the three main sections of the tribe agreed to hold
themselves responsible for outrages committed by
their respective clansmen. From 1862 to 1874 various
sections of the tribe were at one time or another placed
under a blockade until, in 1873 and 1874 respectively,
the Shaman Kh el and Bahlolzay, finding their con¬
tinued exclusion from British territory irksome, made
full submission. The burning of Tank by a band of
Mahsuds in 1879 and other outrages brought about
the expedition of 1881, when a British force
penetrated Waziristan as far as Kaniguram and
Makln. For the next ten years, British subjects were
left practically unmolested and the whole of the
Wazlrl border enjoyed a period of comparative peace.
So peacefully disposed were the Mahsuds that, in
1883, they even rendered assistance in the survey of
the country around Khadjuri Kac, and, in 1890, were
granted allowances for the watch and ward of the
Gomal pass.

In 1894, under the influence of Mulla Powinda, a
ShabI Kh el mulla belonging to the c Alizay section of
the tribe, the Mahsuds attacked the British boundary
demarcation camp in defiance of the subsidised
maliks. From this time the Mulla’s influence steadily
increased, and all efforts to uphold the authority of the
maliks against his faction failed. Continued depreda¬
tions along the British borders after 1897 called for

reprisals. From December 1900 to March 1902, the
Mahsuds were subjected to a stringent blockade, but
it was only after the blockade had been varied by sud¬
den punitive sallies into the Mahsud hills that they
were forced to come to terms. During this period,
there were two factions in the country, the one headed
by the maliks , the other by their enemy, the Mulla
Powinda (to whom also, in an effort at conciliation, a
monthly allowance had been granted in 1900); and
from 1902 onwards the Mulla’s influence was para¬
mount. After 1908 the Mahsud question became
acute again, and a series of raids into British territory
were traced to him. On his death in 1913, his place
was taken by Mulla c Abd al-Hakim, who continued
the policy of attempting to preserve the independence
of the Mahsud country between British India and
Afghanistan by exploiting the marauding proclivities
of the tribesmen. From 1914 to 1917 the history of the
Dera Isma c fl Khan district was one long tale of rapine
and outrage. Eventually, in 1917, troops marched in¬
to the Mahsud country, but were able to effect only a
temporary settlement. British preoccupations else¬
where delayed the day of retribution, and during 1919
and 1920, the wind-swept raghzas of Waziristan
witnessed the severest fighting in the annals of the In¬
dian frontier.

During the disturbances in Afghanistan following
on the abdication of Aman Allah [ 9 . 0 . in Suppl.] and
the brief assumption of power by the adventurer
Bac£a-yi Sakao (1928), Mahsuds and Wazlrs joined
the returning Nadir Khan in his march on Kabul, and
were the spearhead of his successful bid for the throne.
But they were disappointed at not receiving a licence
to loot indiscriminately, and were subsequently stir¬
red up by the partisans of Aman Allah, so that in 1933
a Mahsud and Wazlr lashkar crossed the Durand Line
and besieged Matun in the Khost district till repulsed
by Nadir’s brother Hashim Khan.

From 1936 onwards, the Mahsuds were further in¬
flamed by the presence amongst them of the virulently
anti-British “Fakir of Ipi’’ [q.v. in Suppl.], HadjdjI
Mlrza c AlI Khan, and in 1938 they and the Wazlrs
were stirred up by the “Sham! Plr”, Sa c Id al-Djflanl
from Syria, who established himself at Kaniguram
with the aim of working for a restoration in
Afghanistan of Aman Allah, until the Plr was bought
off by a large subsidy from the Government of India.

Mahsuds and Wazlrs took part enthusiastically in
the Kashmiri djihad against India in 1948; since Parti¬
tion, considerable numbers of Mahsuds have
migrated down to the Indus valley and other parts of
Pakistan in search of work.

Bibliography. C. U. Aitchison, Treaties, engage¬
ments and sanads, xi, Bombay 1909; R. I. Bruce, The
Forward Policy and its results, London 1900; C. C.
Davies, The problem of the North-West Frontier , Cam¬
bridge 1932; idem, Coercive measures on the Indian
borderland , in Army Quarterly Review , April 1928; R.
H. Davies, Report showing relations of British Govern¬
ment with tribes on N. W.F. of the Punjab, 1855-1864,
1864; Frontier and overseas expeditions from India (con¬
fidential), ii, 1908; North-West Frontier Province ad¬
ministration reports (published annually in British
Indian times); Operations in Waziristan, 1919-1920,
1921; W. H. Paget and A. H. Mason, Record of ex¬
peditions against the N. W.F. Tribes since the annexation
of the Punjab, London 1884; Panjab administration
reports, 1850-1900; Parliamentary papers , lxxi, Cd.
1177, 1902; H. Priestley, Haydt-i Afghani, 1874; H.
A. Rose, Glossary of tribes and castes of the Punjab and
North-West Frontier Province, iii, s.v. Wazlr; H. C.
Wylly, From the Black Mountain to Waziristan, 1912;

MAHSUD — MAHYA

Sir Olaf Caroe, The Pathans 550 B.C.-A.D. 1957,

London 1958, 392-4, 397, 406-9; J. W. Spain, The

Pathan borderland , The Hague 1963, 52-3.

(C. Collin Davies*)

MAHSUSAT (A.), “sensibilia”. For the
theories of sense-perception held by the principal
falasifa of Islam, see hiss. In addition to these, it
should be mentioned that Ibn Badjdja is perhaps the
philosopher who most closely follows Aristotle’s views
on this subject, and that his Kitab al-Nafs (ed. M. S.
Hasan Ma c ?umi, Damascus 1960; tr. as Ibn Bajja's
c Ilm al-nafs , Karachi n.d.), while undoubtedly an
original work, may be regarded as almost a
paraphrase of Aristotle’s De anima. In particular, he
differs from other Islamic philosophers in not referr¬
ing to to “internal” and “external” senses or to al-
kuwwa al-mushtarika.

In Jalsafa , mahsusat are frequently contrasted with
ma c kulat, “intelligibilia’. In tasawwuf, however, both
are regarded as equally unreliable as means of arriv¬
ing at the truth and are contrasted with dhawk. For a
clear statement of this position, see al-Ghazali,
al-Munkidh min al-dalal (where c akliyyat is used rather
than mackulat). In spite of the Sufis’ avowed rejection
of Jalsafa , such views as these may, to some degree, be
considered to represent less a complete abandonment
of it than a turning away from Aristotelianism
towards Platonism (in neo-Platonic guise). That
Jalsafa continued to exercise an influence may be seen
from Djalal al-Dln Ruml’s references in the Mathnawi
to the “internal” and “external” senses and to the
“common sense”.

Bibliography : Given in the article and in hiss.

(J. N. Mattock)

MAHUR ,asmall town of mediaeval India
in the extreme north of the former Hyderabad State
of British India. It is situated in lat. 19° 49' N. and
long. 77° 58' E. just to the south of the Penganga
river, a left-bank affluent of the Godavari, where it
forms the boundary between the former regions of
northern Hyderabad [see haydarabad] and Berar
[q.v.] in Central India.

In pre-Muslim times, Mahur had the shrine of Srl-
Dattatreya. In the middle years of the 8th/14th cen¬
tury, the territory up to Mahur was conquered by the
Deccani power of the Bahmanis [q.v.]. In 857/1453
Mahmud I Khaldjl [q.v. J of Malwa besieged the for¬
tress of Mahur, but was unable to conquer it from the
Bahmanis, and in 872/1468 it was again a bone of
contention between the two powers. In later times,
however, it relapsed into insignificance. In British In¬
dian times, it fell after 1905 within the c Adilabad
District and ta c alluk, the district being described in the
1901 census as sparsely-populated forest land, with
76% of the people being Hindus, 11% animistic
Gonds and 5% Muslims, whilst, from the linguistic
point of view, 44% were Telugu-speaking and 28%
Marafhi-speaking. In the Indian Union, after the
1956 administrative reorganisation, the Mahur region
was placed within Maharashtra State, and is now in
Nanded District and Kinvat tacalluk. Mahur village
had in 1971 a population of 380.

Mahur has an important fortress, which may have
been in existence in pre-Bahmanid times. It stands on
a steep hill 380 feet/120 m. above the valley of the
Penganga, and is irregularly shaped since it occupies
the edges of two adjacent spurs (the intermediate
valley is converted into a large tank through the con¬
struction of a massive connecting wall); the hill is
precipitous on the east, south and west, its northern
access being defended by multiple gateways. The
main northern gateway (known as Clnl Darwaza,

from the panels of Bahmanid tilework on its fagade)
encloses a defended entry with guard rooms along
each side, and the KiPadar’s residence is set in an up¬
per storey.

Bibliography: Gazeteer of India. Provincial series.
Hyderabad State, Calcutta 1909; G. Yazdani, Report
on c Adilabad District , in Annual Report, Archaeol. Dept.
Hyderabad, 1327 F./1917-18, 6 - 8 ; Maharashtra State
District gazeteers. Nanded, Bombay 1971; Description
of some of the antiquities in Jnal. Hyderabad Archaeol.
Soc. (1918), 48-59.

(C. E. Bosworth-J. Burton Page)
MAHYA, a communal nightly liturgical ritual
in which the recital of supplications for divine grace
for the Prophet [see salawat] is central.

Such sessions were originally introduced as a
mystical method [see tarIka] by Nur al-Dln al-Shunl
(d. 944/1537; cf. Brockelmann, II, 438, for the titles
and additional details about the salawat composed by
him), a shaykh of c Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha c ranI [ q.v.] at
the mosque of Ahmad al-Badaw! in Tanja and at al-
Azhar mosque in Cairo in the year 897/1491-2 ( c Abd
al-Wahhab al-Sha c ranI, al-Tabakat al-kubrd, Cairo
1954, ii, 172-3; cf. Nadjm al-Dln b. Muhammad al-
GhazzI, al-Kawdkib al-sdHra ft aPydn al-mPa al- c ashira,
Beirut 1945-59, ii, 216-19). The meetings were held
after the maghrib prayer on Thursday night until the
adhan for the Friday prayer the following noon. Later,
mahya sessions were held on Monday night as well (al-
Tabakat, ii, 171). In these sessions many candles were
burnt. This aspect brought about criticism from the
side of the students at the mosque. They condemned
it as an act of Mazdaism. It elicited a Jatwd from al-
Burhan b. AbT Sharif who denounced the lightning of
more candles than were necessary for sufficient il¬
lumination (al-GhazzI, ii, 216), while Abu ’l- c Abbas
Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Kastallanl [q.v. ] wrote a
treatise in its defence (see al-GhazzI. ibid.).

The spread of this new institution in Egypt and
from there to Syria, North Africa, Takrur and the
Hidjaz during al-Shunl’s life-time (see al-Tabakat, ii,
172) may be viewed as one of the manifestations of the
growing reverence for the Prophet, particularly from
the 7th/13th century onwards (cf. T. Andrae, Die Per¬
son Muhammeds in Lehre und Glauben seiner Gemeinde,
Stockholm 1918, 379, 388, and I. Goldziher, Ueber den
Brauch der Mahja Versammlungen im Islam, in WZKM xv
[1901], 38 f.).

At al-Azhar, supervision and organisation of these
meetings became institutionalised in an office. The in¬
cumbent to this office was known as shaykh al-mahya.
The names of the mashayikh al-mahya from al-Shuni
until the year 1057/1647-8 are mentioned by Muham¬
mad al-Muhibbl, Khulasat al-athar Ji a c yan al-karn al-
hadi c ashar, Cairo 1284, i, 266, iii, 382 f. (see also
c Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha c ranI, al-Tabakat al-sughra ,
Cairo 1970, 88 f. for data concerning al-Shunl’s
khalifa, Shihab al-Dln al-Bulkinl, d. 960/1553). After
this year, no incumbents are known and no informa¬
tion concerning the exact nature of the office has
become available. It seems likely, however, that the
office of shaykh al-mahya has been similar to the offices
of shaykh kuna 3 al-Hizb and shaykh kira 3 at Dald HI al-
Khayrat existing in 19th century Egypt (cf. F. De Jong,
Turuq and turuq-linked institutions in nineteenth century
Egypt. A historical study in organizational dimensions of
Islamic mysticism , Leiden 1978, 112). The office of
shaykh al-mahya must have become redundant or great¬
ly insignificant during the 18th century, since no men¬
tion of an incumbent is made in c Abd al-Rahman
al-Djabartl, c Adja Hb al-athar fi y l-tarddjim wa ’ l-akhbar,
while the term mahya itself lost its specific meaning

MAHYA — MAKADUNYA

and became synonymous with dhikr [q.v.}\ cf. Abu T
Faytf Muhammad Murtada al-Zabidi, Tad) al- c arus
min shark dfawahir al-Kdmus , Cairo 1306-7, x, 110.

In this sense, and more particularly in the sense of
weekly hadra [q. v.\, the term is used in a treatise by the
well-known Rifa c iyya shaykh Muhammad Abu ’1-
Huda al-Sayyadr (1859-1909), al-Tarika al-RifaHyya ,
Baghdad 1969, 131. In the 7th/13th century another
Rifa c iyya author uses the term mahya (Izz al-Din
Ahmad al-$ayyad al-Rifa c I, al-Ma c arif al-
Muhammadiyya fi 'l-wazd ■‘if al-Ahmadiyya, Cairo 1305,
41, 89; the context, however, defies identification of
its meaning). The term is equally employed to denote
the ha^ra of the Demirdashiyya order [q.v. ] in Cairo,
which is not a mahya of the type introduced by al-
Shunl, as is erroneously supposed by Goldziher {ibid .,
49 f.; cf. E. Bannerth, La Khalwatiyya en Egypte. Quel-
ques aspects de la vie d’une confrerie , in MI DEO, viii
[1964-6], 47; and idem, Uber den Stifter und Sonderbrauch
der Demirdasiyya Sufis in Kairo , in WZKM, lxii [1969],
130, for a description of the ritual. For the texts
recited during the hadra , see also Husayn Amin al-
$ayyad, al-Fuyudat al-nurdniyya ft mahya al-tarika al-
Demirddshiyya , Cairo n.d., 12 ff.). In Egypt, the in¬
creasing institutionalisation of Islamic mysticism, in
particular in the 9th/15th century, in tankas , some of
which, like the Shadhiliyya [< 7 . 1 /.], held the recital of
salawdt as part of the hadra , and the rise of al-
Sha c raniyya [q.v.} as an independent tanka after the
death of c Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha c ranT (d. 973/1565),
who had been shaykh al-mahya in al-Ghamurl mosque
(cf. al-GhazzI. ii, 217), may have contributed to the
decline of the mahya as an institution independent
from the main stream of Islamic mysticism.

Before the middle of the 10th/16th century, the
mahya had also become institutionalised in Mecca, as
is testified by a fatwa given by Ibn Hadjar al-HaytamT
[q.v.], al-Fatawi al-hadithiyya, Cairo 1307, 137-40,
relative to the salawdt formulae recited on these occa¬
sions. No other data on the mahya in this part of the
Islamic world have come down to us.

In Damascus, the mahya was introduced by c Abd al-
Kadir b. Muhammad b. Suwar (921-1014/1515-
1605). The first mahya in this city was held in al-
Buzurl mosque in Radjab 970/March 1563. Shortly
afterwards, a weekly mahya was started in the
Umayyad mosque (cf. al-Muhibbi, ii, 454; iii, 276;
Muhammad Khalil al-Muradl, Silk al-Durarft a c ydn al-
karn al-thani^ashar, Bulak, 1301, i, 112 f.; ii, 160; iii,
179; and al-GhazzI, ii, 218). In Damascus, as in
Cairo, organisation and supervision of the mahya ses¬
sions became an office which is referred to in the
sources as shaykh al-mahya (Ahmad al-Budayri,
HawadithDimashk al-yawmiyya (1154-75/1741-62), ed.
Ahmad c Izzat c Abd al-Karlm, Cairo 1359, 180, 230;
al-Muhibbi, i, 281, 336; ii, 454; iv, 375) and shaykh
sa didia dat al-mahya al-shanf (al-Muradl, iii, 142). This
office, about which little is known, was hereditary
within the Ibn Suwar family. Members of this family
conducted mahya sessions twice weekly at the mosques
mentioned, until the end of the 19th century at least
(cf. Goldziher, 49).

In addition, the term laylal al-mahya (night of the
mahya , i.e. the night made alive by devotional activity;
cf. Goldziher, 42; and al-GhazzI. ii, 217, for
etymological details and references) was used to
denote the night of 27 Radjab, when religious gather¬
ings were held at the shrine of C A1T, in early 8th/14th
century al-Nadjaf (Ibn Battuta, i, 417-8); the night of
27 Ramadan, when the Haririyya order com¬
memorated the death of the order’s founder, in
8th/14th century Damascus (Kutubi, Fawat, Cairo

1951, ii, 91); and the night of mid~Sha c ban in, as
would seem, several parts of the Islamic world in that
period (see Muhammad b. Muhammad al- c Abdarf
(= Ibn al-Had j d j ). al-Mudkhal, Cairo 1320, i, 260;
and also C A1I b. al-Hasan b. Ahmad al-Wasip,
Khuldsat al-iksirft nasab sayyidina al-Ghawth al-Rifa c t al-
Kabir, Cairo 1306, 92).

Bibliography. Given in the article.

(F. deJong)

MAIMONIDES. [see ibn maymun].

MA C IN, name of an ancient people of
Southwest Arabia, mentioned by the 3rd century
B. C. Greek geographer Eratosthenes as one of the
four principal peoples ( ethne) of the area, under the
form Minaioi.

In Strabo and Pliny they figure as largely engaged
in the aromatics trade between South Arabia and the
Mediterranean; according to Pliny, they were the in¬
itiators of the frankincense trade. Apart from sparse
notices in Greek and Latin sources, our knowledge of
them is based on their own inscriptions, in a distinc¬
tive language which has however some afinities with
the language of Saba [< 7 . a.]. The widespread nature of
their trade is evidenced by Minaean inscriptions from
the island of Delos and from the Egyptian Fayyum,
but apart from such scattered examples, all the texts
in this language come from in and around their main
centre Karnaw (Khirbet Ma c in) at the eastern end of
the South Arabian Djawf, from the oasis of Yathill
(Barakish) a little south of there (both these places still
show impressive town walls), and from their trading
settlement at Dedan (al- c Ula in the northern Hidjaz).
But they certainly had other similar trading posts
elsewhere, and a Katabanian language text from
Timna c in the Wadi Bayhan [see kataban] mentions
a “magistrate of the Minaeans in Timna c ”.

In effect, the term Minaeans seems to have had a
double application. There must have been an original
Minaean folk who, to judge from Pliny’s remark that
“they possessed palmgroves, but their main wealth
lay in cattle”, may perhaps most plausibly be sited in
the steppe country north of Karnaw. But considered
as a trading organisation, they were subdivided in a
number of ahalt or “folks”, of whom the most signifi¬
cant in the texts are the ahl GB'N. Earlier scholars did
not hesitate to identify these with Pliny’s Gebbanitae,
and although in recent years there has been a tenden¬
cy to equate them with the Katabanians, the earlier
view still seems more probable, since Pliny’s Geb¬
banitae (and also Strabo’s Gabaioi) figure as prin¬
cipally concerned with the frankincense trade up the
west coast of Arabia. The Minaean language texts all
belong within the Ptolemaic period, and after Pliny
(whose information may well be already a little out-of-
date when he wrote), they disappear from the records.
Evidently, therefore, their trading monopoly had
broken up by about the turn of he Christian era, the
west coast trade having been taken over by
Nabataeans and other north Arabian peoples, while
the Minaeans seem to have sunk back into obscurity.

Bibliography : Strabo, Geogr. , xvi. 4 4; Pliny,
Nat. hist., xii. 54, 63-4, 68-9, 88 ; Les monuments de
Ma c in, i by M. Tawfik, ii by K. Y. Nami (Pubis.
Inst. Fr. d’Arch. Or. du Caire, Etudes sudarabi-
ques, 1-2), Cairo 1951-2; J. Pirenne, Paleographie
des inscriptions sud-arabiques , i, Brussels 1956; A. F.
L. Beeston, Pliny's Gebbanitae , in Procs. Fifth Seminar
for Arabian Studies , London 1972, 5-8; idem, Some
observations on Greek and Latin data relative to South
Arabia, in BSOAS, xlii (1979), 7-12).

(A. F. L. Beeston)

MAKADUNYA, the Ottoman Turkish name for

MAKADUNYA

Macedonia, a region which occupies the centre of
the Balkan Peninsula. Despite its historically mixed
population of Slavs, Ottoman Turks, Greeks, Alba¬
nians, Vlachs, Sephardic Jews and others, Macedonia
forms a geographical unit. Its boundaries are
sometimes disputed, but may be said to follow the line
of peaks which stretches from the §ar Planina in the
north to the Rhodope range and the river Mesta in the
east, and to the Albanian mountains and the Pindus
in the west. On the southern side it is naturally limited
by the Gulf of Salonica. Macedonia was visited by the
early Arab traveller Harun b. Yahya, and is mention¬
ed in the form Makaduniya by the c Abbasid geographer
Ibn Khurradadhbih (257/870) and by the anonymous
Hudud al-^dlam (372/982).

1. Ottoman Macedonia. Immediately before
the Ottoman conquest, Macedonia was loosely divid¬
ed between the Byzantine and various local poten¬
tates. In 784/1383, during the reign of Murad I,
Ottoman forces penetrated as far as Seres, and in
787/1385 captured Ishtip (Stip), Manastir,
(Monastir, Bitola) and Pirlepe (Prilep). Uskiib (Skop¬
je) fell in 794/1391. Selamk (Salonica) was briefly held
from 789/1387, but not finally secured until 834/1430.
Thereafter Ottoman rule was consolidated. The fron¬
tier marches were replaced by sandjaks dependent on
the beglerbeglik of Rumell, and the timar system was in¬
troduced. Turkish settlements began at an early date.
Anatolian yiiruks were established in the
neighbourhood of Selamk, Ishtip and Uskiib. The
dewshirme [q. v. ] was levied, and during the
9th-10th/15th-16th centuries, conversion to Islam
proceeded at a significant rate. Institutions of Islamic
culture and learning were established in the major
towns. Popular Islam was in the hands of the dervish
orders, amongst whom the Bektashis were prominent.
The 11th/17th century saw the emergence of an in¬
tractable haydud or brigandage problem. Economical¬
ly, the region was a traditional exporter of grain; the
development of ciftliks [q.v.] in the 12 th/ 18th century
led to an expansion of rice and tobacco cultivation.
The Ottoman Empire did not recognise Macedonia as
an administrative unit, and the sandjaks , into which
the beglerbeglik , subsequently eyalet, of Rumell was
divided, bore little relation to Macedonia’s
geographical borders. In 1864 the Law of the Wilayets
divided the region between the wilayets of Kosowa,
Manastfr and Selamk, and apart from a brief period
when the wildyet of Manastfr was suppressed, this ad¬
ministrative partition survived to the end of Ottoman
rule.

2. ‘‘The Macedonian question”.
Macedonia acquired a political significance during the
19th century as a result of the revival of the Christian
nationalities and the rival aspirations of Greeks, Serbs
and Bulgarians to establish themselves in Macedonia
as the Ottoman Empire’s prospective successor. The
Greeks were the first to mount an effective national
propaganda designed to secure the allegiance of the
Macedonian Christians, but they were rapidly
challenged by the Bulgarians, who won ecclesiastical
independence with the establishment of the Bulgarian
Exarchate in 1870. Russia obliged Sultan c Abd al-
Hamld II to agree to the inclusion of most of
Macedonia in an autonomous Bulgarian principality
at the Treaty of San Stefano (3 March 1878), but the
subsequent Treaty of Berlin (13 July 1878) restored
Macedonia to Ottoman control. Greek, Serbian and
Bulgarian propaganda continued, and began to
assume a violent form. In 1893 local Slavs formed the
Internal Macedonia-Adrianople Revolutionary
Organisation to fight for the establishment of an

autonomous Macedonia. It was soon rivalled by the
overtly pro-Bulgarian Supreme Macedonian Com¬
mittee. There was an upsurge of guerilla and terrorist
activity in which Greeks, Vlachs and Albanians soon
joined. The Internal Organisation’s abortive Ilinden
Rising in August 1903 led the Powers to impose a pro¬
gramme of administrative reforms upon Sultan c Abd
al-Hamid, but their intervention fanned existing
discontent among Ottoman troops stationed in
Macedonia, where the lttihdd we Terakki DiemHyyeti
[ 9 . 11 .] was increasingly active. As a result, it was from
Macedonia that the sucessful Young Turk Revolution
was launched in July 1908. The Young Turk regime
attempted to alter the confessional balance in
Macedonia by encouraging the immigration of
Muslims from Bosnia, but lost all of Macedonia in the
Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Macedonia was partitioned
between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia (subsequently
Yugoslavia). Bulgaria’s share was reduced somewhat
after World War I. The partition has had far-reaching
ethnic consequences. Thanks to immigration from
Asia Minor, the population of Greek Macedonia now
consists overwhelmingly of Hellenes. Before World
War II, attempts were made to Serbianise Yugoslav
Macedonia; however, the subsequent Communist
regime has recognised the Macedonian Slavs as a
separate historic Macedonian nation. The Turkish
population has been drastically reduced by emigration
to Asia Minor. In 1913 Turks accounted for 29.5% of
the population of Greek Macedonia, and numbered
some 300,000: all were deported during the Greco-
Turkish population exchanges of the 1920s. Bulgarian
Macedonia, where Turks accounted for 16.3% of the
population in 1913, has been similarly cleared. The
Turkish population of Yugoslav Macedonia has been
reduced by voluntary emigration from a total of
209,000 in 1913 to 129,000 in 1971, falling as a pro¬
portion of the total population from 19.3% to 6 . 6 %.
Against this, the Albanian population of Yugoslav
Macedonia rose from 13% of the total in 1961 to 17%
in 1971. The surviving Turkish community in
Yugoslav Macedonia enjoys full minority rights.

Bibliography : The geography and

ethnography of Ottoman Macedonia is outlined
in S. Gop£evi£, Makedonien und Alt-Serbien , Vienna
1889; Benderev, Voennaya geografiya i statistika
Makedonii i sosyednikh s neyu oblastey Balkanskogo
poluostrova, St. Petersburg 1890; and J. Cvijic,
Mazedoien und Altserbien, Gotha 1908. For
mediaeval Islamic geographers, see V.
Minorsky, tr., Hudud al- c alam, London 1937, 156,
420. There exists no comprehensive account of
Macedonia under Ottoman rule. Istorija na
Makedonskiot narod, 3 vols., Skopje 1969, is sketchy.
Local Ottoman administrative materials
have been translated into Macedonian and publish¬
ed in the two series, Turski dokumenti za istorija na
Makedonskiot narod , i-iv, Skopje 1963-72, and Turski
dokumenti za Makedonskaia istorija , i-v, Skopje
1952-8. Documents from Istanbul are published as
Makedonija vo XVI i XVII vek: dokumenti od carigrad-
skite arhivi (1557-1645) , Skopje 1955. A. Birken, Die
Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches , Wiesbaden 1976,
describes provincial organisation, as does
B. Cvetkova, Les institutions ottomanes en Europe ,
Wiesbaden 1978, which also deals with economic
and social questions. The salnames of the wilayets of
Kosowa, Manastir and Selamk give basic informa¬
tion for the later Ottoman period, as does
Mahmud, Manastir wildyetinih ta\ikhcesi, Manastir
n.d. Popular religion is dealt with in F. M.
Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the sultanate, 2

MAKADUNYA — MAKALA

vols., Oxford 1929. The question of I si ami sa-
tion is broached in B. Cvetkova, op. cit. Settle¬
ment of yiiruks is dealt with in M. Tayyib
Gokbilgin, Rumelide Yurukler, Tatarlar ve Evldd-i
Fdtihan, Istanbul 1957. The hay dud problem is
documented in J. Vasdravellis, Klephts , Armatoles
and pirates in Macedonia during the rule of the Turks
1627-1821 , Thessaloniki 1975, and in two volumes
of documents published as Turski izvori za ajdutstvoto
i aramistvoto vo Makedonija, Skopje 1961. See also A.
Stojanovski, Dervendzistvoto vo Makedonija, Skopje
1974. Aspects of economic history are covered
in N. Todorov (ed.), La ville balkanique , XV e -XIX €
siecles , Sofia 1970; Khr. Khristov, Agrarnite ot-
nosheniya v Makedoniya prez XIX v. i nacalato na XX v .,
Sofia 1964; Zografski, Razvitokot na kapilalistickite
elementi vo Makedonija, Skopje 1967, contains much
data. See also M. Lascaris, Salonique a la Jin du
XVIII siecle d’apres les rapports consulaires Jranfais,
Athens 1939; N. Svoronos, Le commerce de Salonique
au XVIII siecle, Paris 1956; F. Bianconi, Carte com¬
mercial de la province de Macedoine, Paris 1888; Khr.
Gandev. Targovskata obmena na Evropa s balgarskite
zemi prez XVIII i nachaloto na XIX vek, in Godishnik na
sojiiskiya univerzitet, xl, Sofia 1944; A. Matkovski,
G'urcin Kokaleski, Skopje 1959. The literature of the
Macedonian question is extensive and highly
controversial. F. Adamr, Die macedonische Frage,
Wiesbaden 1979, uses Turkish materials; E.
Barker, Macedonia, London 1950, concentrates on
the post-Ottoman period. The issue is approached
from varying national standpoints by E. Kofos, Na¬
tionalism and Communism in Macedonia, Thessaloniki
1964; I. Katardziev, Serskiot okrug od kresnenskoto
vostanie do mladoturskata revolucija , Skopje 1968; G.
Kyosev, Istoriya na makedonskoto natsionalno revolyut-
sionno dvizhenie, Sofia 1954. Useful information is
found in D. Dakin, The Greek struggle in Macedonia
1897-1912, Thessaloniki 1966; Khr. Silyanov,
Osvoboditelnite borbi na Makedoniya, 2 vols., Sofia
1933-43. Some light is shed on the attitudes of c Abd
al-Hamld II and his advisers by M. Hocaoglu, Ab-
diilhamit Han'in muhtirlan, Istanbul n.d.; H. K.
Bayur, Sadrazam Kamil Pa§a, Ankara 1954; Sa c id
Pasha, Sa c id Pasha nih khatirdtl, ii, Istanbul 1328.
The Macedonian background to the
Young Turk Revolution is traced in Ahmed
Niyazi, Khdtlrat-i Niyazi, Istanbul 1326; Kazim
Nami Duru, Arnavutluk ve Makedonya hatiralanm,
Istanbul 1959; §evket Siireyya Aydemir, Enver Papa, i,
Istanbul 1970. Albanian aspects are covered
by J. Bartl, Die albanischen Muslime zur Zeit der na-
tionalen Unabhangigkeitsbewegung (1878-1912),
Wiesbaden 1968; Stavro Skendi, The Albanian na¬
tional awakening 1878-1912, Princeton 1967. Tahsin
Uzer, Makedonya e^kiyahk tarihi ve son osmanli
yonetimi, Ankara 1979, is a personal memoir of the
Ittihad we Terakki DjemHyyeti in Macedonia. For a
brief account of the fate of the Turkish
population of Macedonia since 1913,
R. Grulich, Die tiirkische Volksgruppe in Jugoslawien,
in Materiala Turcica, i, Bochum 1975, the Yugoslav
Turkish periodicals Sesler, Qevren, and Birlik may
also be consulted. (F. A. K. Yasamee)

MAKALA (a.), article.

1. In Arabic

This masdar mimi from the root k-w-l “to say”, has
etymologically the sense of “statement”, “ut¬
terance”, etc. It will be noted, however, that in a
typical hundred pages of text from the classical period,
it is found only once with this “oral” sense (Ch. Vial,

v _

Al-Gdhiz, quatre essais, ii, Cairo 1979, 132). On the
other hand, its usage in contemporary Arabic is
remarkably frequent, all the more so in that its sense
is henceforward almost exclusively related to the writ¬
ten rather than the spoken text. The modern user
designates by the word makal or makdla that which we
call “article”, and doubtless there would be nothing
further to add in this context were it not that the
history of the word impinges upon the recent history
of Arabic literature.

It being unnecessary to dwell in detail on an evolu¬
tion which is now well-known, it will simply be recall¬
ed that modern Arabic prose has been forged through
the intermediary of the press. It was a a result of the
creation and development of Arab journals and
reviews at the end of the 19th century that the affected
and inflated language which had hitherto prevailed
rapidly gave way to a convenient and direct means of
expression. In avoiding the conventional attractions
of hackneyed rhythm and rhyme (sadjj), the writer
simultaneously freed himself from the mould of en¬
trenched ideas which had hitherto been imposed on a
variety of subjects. The liberation of the language was
accompanied to a certain extent by a liberation of
thought. This fundamental change was effected by
departure from the domain of the classical Arabic
humanities and by contact with European languages.
There were genuine grounds for fearing that a move¬
ment of such magnitude might compromise the very
nature of the Arabic language. There was much con¬
cern that, by dint of inspiration from foreign press
agencies and the desire to imitate the style of Euro¬
pean periodicals, the grammatical correctness of ar¬
ticles appearing in the Arabic press would be severely
impaired. Authoritative voices—linguists, professors
and writers—were raised to engage in often impas¬
sioned debate on the most common defects and on the
means of preventing the corruption of the Arabic
language. The development of education, the visceral
attachment of the Arabs to their language, the fre¬
quent criticism brought to bear on the linguistic cor¬
rectness of texts of all kinds, the painstaking work of
academies of the Arabic language [see madjma c
1.], all these elements have enabled “the language of
the press” to maintain a thoroughly respectable stan¬
dard, even though—in Arabic as elsewhere—a
number of eminent individuals protest at the liberties
taken by the press, and more recently by radio and
television, with the rules of the language (cf. in par¬
ticular the arguments between linguists at the end of
the last and the beginning of the present century;
among them, the Lebanese Ibrahim al-Yazidjl and his
Lughat al-djara Hd, Cairo 1901).

But the makdla does not represent only the testing
bench or laboratory of that which, more elaborated
and better adapted, has become the contemporary
literary prose. It represents a mode of expression
regarded as special, and some would go as far as to see
it as a whole literary genre in its own right. In the
same way that there is talk of oratorical literature
(adab al-khataba) it has come about that there is talk of
literature of the article ( adab al-makdla). There is an
impression that, mutatis mutandis, the treatment of this
term today is similar to the treatment undergone in
the Middle Ages and until more recent times by the
word risala [q.v.]. In the latter case, the notion of
“epistle” was abandoned in favour of that of a
literary text of variable length and sometimes very
long, retaining nothing in common with the idea of
epistolary form other than the more or less fictitious
existence of a recipient (sc. the one to whom the text
is dedicated). Henceforward, the original sense of

MAKALA

“letter”, “missive”, “epistle”, was no longer ap¬
propriate and, as works of undisputed literary quality
dealing in principle with a relatively circumscribed
subject which is considered in an original manner, it
became appropriate to regard them as “essays” (cf.
Vial, op. cit., i, 2-3). Also, it will be noted that the
definition of this risala genre is so vague that it
becomes impossible to lay down the guidelines accor¬
ding to which literature is to be conceived either as
a manifestation of thought or as an artistic effect, in
other words, closer to the original expression of a con¬
sistent thought or more akin to gratuitous rhetorical
cliche. Precisely the same considerations apply to the
masala (cf. Anouar Abdel-Malek, Anthologie de la li¬
terature arabe contemporaine. ii. Les essais, Paris 1965).

On the one hand, Arab intellectuals who have ac¬
quired a western culture are inspired both by the ideas
and the style of the French and English writers whom
they have taken as models and masters. Djabran,
c Aritfa and Nu c ayma in America, al- c Akkad, Taha
Husayn and al-Mazini in Egypt, have attempted to
present and adapt to the Arab public a new concep¬
tion of literature and of reflection, and the framework
in which they have expressed themselves is precisely
that of the makdla, where the temperament and style
of each of these authors is revealed: the concise phrase
of Nu c ayma, the causticness of al- c Akkad, the fulsome
sentence-structure of Taha Husayn, etc. Moreover, it
is by no means absurd to consider an article of Hasdd
al-Hasbim by al-Mazini as being just as revealing of his
literary personality as one of his stories of Bayt al-ta c a.

This close connection between essay and the nar¬
rative text enables a further step to be taken in the
assessment of the role of the makdla. It is a known fact
that the contemporary period has seen the develop¬
ment of a novelistic genre among the Arabs. As has
been indicated above, the modernisation of the
language, achieved as a direct result of the develop¬
ment of the press, gives to novelists an appropriate
tool which they can perfect still further. But, on the
other hand, there is a danger that the makdla may im¬
pose itself as a screen or as a substitute for narrative
fiction as such. The first Arabic novels, those which
attempt to evoke the problems of oriental society in
the framework of an imported genre, often have the
appearance of political or sociological articles. The
first narrative essays of the c IrakI Dfiu ’1-Nun Ayyub
represent the transition between the article and the
story and it is the author himself who calls them al-
mafcdfsa ( = makdla kiffa). But even in the case of con¬
firmed novelists, it is not unusual for the writer to in¬
dulge in an art which is located on the fringe of fiction.
Examples are very numerous, but worthy of mention
are the collections of articles by Yahya HakkI and in
particular one of his mixed collections (‘'Antara wa-
Diuliyat) in which “tableaux” ( lawhat ) are found
alongside “stories” in the true sense of the term. It is
easy to demonstrate that, in this case as in other
similar ones, the literary article which becomes the
outline of a narrative corresponds to particular condi¬
tions of composition and readership; a journal is
assured of the weekly collaboration of a writer of
repute (in this case, for his humanity and his
humour). The result of this is a special tone midway
between the free expression of opinion or dilettante
story-telling, and literary narration proper. The in¬
terest of the reader whose sympathy must be rapidly
gained is attracted by the use of language that is ap¬
parently amiable and relaxed, but where the use of a
carefully chosen dialectal term responds to strategic
considerations. This having been said, it appears
quite superfluous to consider makdla as a separate

genre in itself, since if it were so, it would risk confu¬
sion with the “diverse” category, those varia which
defy classification by any reputable catalogue.

Bibliography: Mainly given in the text, but see
also c Abd al-Djabbar Dawud al-Basrl, Ruwwad al-
makala al-adabiyya fi ’ l-adab al-Hraki al-haditJi,
Baghdad n.d.; Muhammad Yusuf Na^jm, Farm al-
makdla , Beirut 1957; c Abd al-Lapf Hamza, Adab al-
makala al-suhufiyya, 8 vols., Cairo 1965, 1966 ff.

(Ch. Vial)

2. In Persian.

Makdla has been used in Persian to denote a collec¬
tion of discourses, spoken or written, on a given sub¬
ject (e.g. Cahar makdla by Ni?ami-yi c Aru<^I, ed. M.
Mu c In, 135; Khakani’s Munsho?dt. ed. M. Rawghan,
174; Hamdldi’s Makdmat, ed. Gh. AhanI, 5, 17, 38;
Baba Afdal’s Writings , ed. Y. Mahdawl and M.
Minowi, ii, 393; DjuwaynVs Tdrikh-i Djahdngushd. ed.
M. Kazwlni, i, 32; and also the poems of Na§ir-i
Khusraw and Sa c dl). Makdla was used in reference to
spoken discourses and sermons up to the late 19th cen¬
tury (see Muhammad-Hasan I c timad al-Saltana, al-
Ma?dthir wa ’ l-dthdr , under the biography of Burhan
al-Wa c iz!n of Gilan, 1306 A.H., 201 col. 1).

Makdla has also been used to designate a book’s in¬
ner divisions, synonymously with such other terms as
fayl, bdb, ba khsh or guftdr. Nizaml-yi c ArudI, op. cit .,
19, writes: “The book, therefore, comprises four
makdlat ..., in each makdlat whatever was found befit¬
ting in the domain of philosophy was included.” The
title of his work, Cahar makdla , was not bestowed upon
it by its author. The book was found to contain four
discourses, and so it became popularly known as Cahar
makdla, and Had j d j I Khalifa appears to be the first
person to have recorded down its title as such (see
Kashf al-zunun, under Cahar makdla).

The term makdlat has been also used for the ut¬
terances, statements and dictations of $ufi shaykhs, the
best-known of these being the Makdldt-i Shams ; to the
same category also belongs the Makdlat-i c Ala 3 al-
Dawla Simndni.

Makdla in contemporary Persian is synonymous
with article in English and article or essai in French. It
started with the practice of modern journalism in 19th
century Iran, and was applied to almost any kind of
writing produced for the printed page (even a news
story, short story or play was often referred to as
makdla in place of nivishta or matlab), and the person
who engaged in such writing would be called makdla-
nivis or equally matlab-nivis (see Afdal al-Mulk Zandl,
Afdal al-tawdrikh , ed. M. Ittihadiyya and S.
Sa c dwandiyan, Tehran 1361 A.H.S.).

The leading article of a newspaper, or its editorial,
would be called sar-makdla in Persian, and a series that
would be carried over several issues would be makdlat-i
musalsal or silsila makdlat.

Scholarly papers, which usually get published.in
academic journals, are also referred to as makdla (see
Zarrlnkub’s Nakd-i adabi, ii, 640), and a volume con¬
taining a collection of such papers would be called
makdlat or madjmu^a makdlat, e.g. the Makdlat-i Takxzada
or Makdldt-i Kasrawi. Sometimes the number of papers
contained in such a volume will provide an ap¬
propriate title for it, e.g. Bist [20] makala-yi Kazwmi,
Bist makala-yi Takizada, Cihil [40] makala-yi Husayn
Nakhdjawant and Cand [several] makdla-yi Nasr Allah
Falsafi.

The practice of indexing published articles and
papers does not go back a long time. For a listing of
selected writings in the field of Iranian studies, Iradj
Afshar’s Fihrist-i makdldt-i Farsi is available. Three

MASALA

volumes have been published so far, containing
references to some 16,000 makdldt that have appeared
between 1915 and 1971 in Iran. The fourth volume,
unpublished as yet, deals with the writings of the past
decade. Some other fields for which indexes are
already available are geography, social sciences,
economics, and law.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(I. Afshar)

3. In Turkey

In the majority of Turkish dictionaries of the 19th
century, the term makala figures with the primary
sense of “discourse”, of “monograph” or of “thing
said or written regarding any given subject” (Shams
al-Dln Sami, Kdmus-i Turkt). In this period it is usual¬
ly encountered, often in the plural {makdldt), in the
titles of collected editions of the “sayings” or
“writings” of a certain writer or eminent person.
However, since the middle of the 19th century, with
the development of the Turkish language press, it has
appeared more and more frequently as a designation
of an article published in a periodical, pro¬
gressively displacing from current usage other words
such as bend or bahth.

Although a noun of Arabic origin, makala has
resisted quite well the various trends towards
turkification of vocabulary which have characterised
the history of the Turkish language in the 20th cen¬
tury. At the present time, this term is still in current
use in the sense of an article in a journal or review (its
primary sense of “thing said” having been forgotten),
even though the word yazi “writing”) which some
would seek to substitute for it is gradually gaining
ground, in spite of its inaccuracy.

Specialists in Turkish literature readily present
makala as a specific literary genre, distinct from the
essay ( deneme) or the anecdotal account {fikra). It is
thus, for example, that Cevdet Kudret defines it as a
“writing composed with the object of exposing, defen¬
ding or supporting a point of view on a certain sub¬
ject” and states specifically that this type of work
should not be confused with the essay (C. Kudret,
Orneklerle edebiyat bilgileri , Istanbul 1980, ii, 372). In
practice, however, it seems very difficult to assign
precise limits to the makala genre, this term being ap¬
plied in fact, in customary usage, to every kind of arti¬
cle, ranging from the editorial of a daily newspaper to
a learned study published in a specialist review, and
including the article of literary criticism (generally
classed in the category of “essays”), the “paper” of
the historian or the political pamphlet.

While not constituting a major genre, the makala is
clearly a means of expression particularly valued by
Turkish writers. The majority have written them
while some, among the most eminent, have published
nothing other than journalistic articles, promoting
this type of production to the status of genuine artistic
creation.

If the makala has thus become the literary genre pro¬
bably most widely practised in Turkey, this fact is to
be explained in terms of the spectacular rise enjoyed
by the periodical press in this country, beginning in
the second half of the 19th century (see djarIda. iii).
The first Turkish language journals—the Takwlm-i
wakd’i c , founded in 1832, and the Dje ride-yi hawddith
launched by the Englishman William Churchill in
1840—accorded only limited space for “articles”, and
essentially offered their readers short stories and of¬
ficial bulletins. However, with the appearance in 1860
of Terdjuman-i ahwdl, published by Agah Efendi in col¬
laboration with Shinasi [ q . v. ], one of the most talented

literary figures of the period, matters were to change
in a radical manner. In fact, under the influence of
Shinasi and of all those writers who were soon to
become active in the same field, the nascent Turkish
press rapidly acquired the objective not only of infor¬
ming the public but also of working for the reform of
society, and the journalistic article, in particular the
editorial (soon to be designated by the term bash
makala), henceforward became a licensed instrument
of education.

In the Turkish periodicals of the 1860s and 1870s,
the majority of the leading contemporary literary
figures are encountered. Besides Shinasi, who launch¬
ed in 1861 his own journal, the Tafwtr-i ejkar, writers
of renown including Ziya (piya’) Pasha, C A1I Su c awl,
Namik Kemal, Shams al-Dln Sami and Ebii 1-Ziya
(Abu 1-Diya’) TewfTk, contributed to making the
makala one of the most flourishing genres. It was to a
great extent through their articles, published in in¬
creasingly numerous intellectual journals, that ideas
of reform began to spread at an accelerated pace.
Neither political institutions, nor social structures,
nor traditional culture escaped the criticism of these
intellectuals of liberal tendency, most of whom
belonged to the “Society of Young Ottomans” ( Yehi
c OtJimdnlilar DiemHyyeti). which sought to transform
Turkey into a modern country based on the model of
the West, a state endowed with a constitutional
regime and directed towards new manners of thought,
life and action.

During this period of genesis, the newspaper article
did not constitute only a means for the propagation of
ideas received from elsewhere. It also played the role
of a spear-head in the elaboration of a new literary
language, closer to spoken Turkish. Shinasi and Diya’
Pasha were among the first advocates of this
simplification of the written language. They were
soon followed by Namik Kemal—who was not always
capable of putting into practice his own precepts on
the matter—Shams al-Dln Sami and numerous
others.

While the makala genre thus flourished in the con¬
text of the intellectual press, there also came into be¬
ing in Turkey in the same period of time, a specialised
periodical press—scientific reviews, women’s
magazines, professional organs, literary journals,
etc.—in which there were to be found, alongside
numerous translations, scholarly studies, articles of
literary criticism and historical pieces comparable, in
their professionalism, to writings of the same type
promulgated by the Western press. Among these
periodicals, one of the most notable was the Medjmu c a-
yi fiinun , founded in 1861 by Munif Pasha. This
monthly, which was presented as the organ of the
“Ottoman Society of Sciences” (DjemHyyet-i c Ilmiyye-
yi c Othmdniyye [q.v. ]) and which included articles
dealing with such diverse disciplines as geography,
history, geology, philosophy or natural sciences, was
distinguished, during the few years of its existence, by
the quality of its presentation and it played in Turkey
of the mid-19th century a role similar to that of the
Grande Encyclopedic in France of the Enlightenment.

Conscious of the danger which could be posed by
these periodicals, which were continually growing in
number, the Ottoman government had, since 1864,
enacted various measures aimed at limiting the
freedom of the press. With the accession to power of
c Abd al-Hamid II in 1876, the weight of bureaucratic
interference was to become even more oppressive. But
censorship, while preventing for several decades the
publication of articles judged subversive, did not halt
the development of Turkish journalistic production.

MAKALA

Indeed, on the contrary, as has been noted by Niyazi
Berkes (The development of secularism in Turkey , Mon¬
treal 1964, 277), the prohibition, beginning at the end
of the 1870s, of subjects of political nature, was largely
balanced by the proliferation of writings on scientific
or cultural themes, which led to the accelerated diffu¬
sion of new ideas and knowledge.

Ahmed Midhat Efendi is definitely the most
representative publicist of the Hamidian period.
Becoming a fervent supporter of c Abd al-Hamid II,
after having flirted for some time with the adversaries
of absolutism, he was very careful to write nothing
which could have been interpreted as a criticism of the
regime. This did not prevent him publishing an in¬
calculable number of articles on the most diverse sub¬
jects, using the press, and in particular his own
journal, the Terdjumdn-i hakikat , founded in 1878, as a
veritable instrument of popular instruction.

The same encyclopaedic, somewhat disorderly
curiosity is encountered in the case of Abu ’1-Diya’
TewfTk who, for almost thirty years, was practically
the sole contributor to the Medj_mu c a-yi Abu 'l-Diya ,
one of the best cultural periodicals of the reign of c Abd
al-Hamid.

Among other great names of the Turkish press in
this period, it is appropriate to mention also Ahmed
Ihsan Bey, founder of the Therwet-i Junun, a scientific
and literary magazine which brought together, until
ca . 1900, the best writers of the time, notably the poet
TewfTk Fikret and the essayist Djanab Shihab al-Din,
thus opening the way to the development of a whole
literary school, subject to diverse influences but
especially interested in symbolism and realism as then
practised in France.

This having been said, although makdlas on scien¬
tific or cultural themes represented, in these last years
of the 19th century, the essence of Turkish journalistic
production, political literature was also being
developed. In fact, while within Turkey the periodical
press employed its best efforts to avoid the attention
of the Hamidian censorship, abroad there was a pro¬
liferation of opposition journals, entirely devoted to
anti-government diatribe. The Young Turk leader
Ahmed Rida Bey, who in 1895 had founded Meshweret
in Paris, was one of the foremost exponents of the
political makala and an expert at transcribing into
Turkish the effects of French eloquence. His rivals
were the founder of Mizan, Murad Bey, and various
other revolutionaries, among whom particular men¬
tion is due to c Abd Allah JDjewdet, whose c OthmanU ,
set in motion in Geneva in 1897, was for several years
the most widely read organ of the Committee for
Union and Progress.

After the Young Turk Revolution, which finally
broke out in July 1908, the makala genre was to enter
a new stage in its development. The period of in¬
stability which ensued was marked not so much by
liberalisation of control of the press as by the spec¬
tacular rise of a resolutely nationalist literature. In the
daily press, it was the Tanin, headed by Hiiseyn
Djahid and TewfTk Fikret, which played the role of the
leading mouth-piece of this effervescent nationalism.
But the Turkish intellectuals had at their disposal a
large number of literary and scientific reviews in
which they were able to publish considerably more
“considered” articles than those destined for the daily
consumption of the readers of newspapers.

According to a survey undertaken by Ahmed Emin
in 1913 (The development of modern Turkey as measured by
its press, New York 1914, 113-16), there were at this
time in Istanbul, besides the official newspaper and 8
ministerial weekly bulletins, 60 periodicals, classified

as follows: 6 dailies, 3 humorous magazines, 5 il¬
lustrated magazines, 6 “nationalist” reviews, 11
reviews intended for children, 2 women’s journals, 6
religious reviews, 4 professional organs, 5 agricultural
reviews, 6 military reviews and 7 scientific reviews. A
large number of these periodicals had appeared after

1910, on the full crest of the nationalist wave, and
they expressed, with different nuances and according
to various approaches, the same aspiration towards a
national rebirth. While the illustrated magazines ac¬
corded an ever increasing amount of space to
photographs, the majority of the other reviews were
composed almost entirely of makdlas , often quite long.
It was not unusual, for example, for Turk Yurdu, one
of the leading nationalist organs of the period, to
publish articles ten or more pages in length, in the
form of serials continued over several issues. Makdlas
also occupied a relatively significant place in the daily
press. According to the survey made by Ahmed Emin,
makdlas of all kinds (editorials, points of view) covered
between 30 and 52% of the space of the six journals
in circulation when the survey was conducted in 1913.
The editorial alone occupied 11.74% of the space in
Sabah , an independent pro-government journal,
11.20% in Tanzimdt , an organ of the extreme left,
1017% in Yehi Gazete , favourable to the opposition
and between 6 and 10% in Tanin, official organ of the
government, c Alemdar (opposition) and Ikddm
(moderate). These by no means negligible percen¬
tages testify in fact to the fidelity of the Turkish
publicists to the tradition of the preceding decades
where the bash makala , the “leading article”, con¬
stituted the essential and indispensable element of the
newspaper, sometimes occupying as much as a
quarter of the space available.

When this prolific production of articles is con¬
sidered in total, the constant recurrence of certain
themes cannot be other than striking. Among the
questions of greatest interest to Turkish intellectuals
in these years, the most prominent was the long¬
standing debate over the simplification and moder¬
nisation of the written language. The publication, in
the review Gene Kalemler of Salonica, of a series of ar¬
ticles by c Omer Seyf al-Din and C A1I Djanib proposing
the adoption of the spoken Turkish of Istanbul as a
means of literary expression was to open the way, in

1911, to the movement of the “new language”. The
impassioned discussions which took place around this
theme mobilised a large number of writers, some
favourable to the theses defended in Gene Kalemler —
prominent among those belonging to this category
was Diya’ Gokalp, one of the leading advocates of the
nationalist trend—others opposed to them, among
whom it is appropriate to mention Kopruliizade
Mehmed Fu’ad and Djanab Shihab al-Din, resolutely
hostile to what they considered a debilitating debase¬
ment of the language. Another vigorous debate, in a
quite different scheme of ideas, revolved around
economic questions. Since the end of the 19th cen¬
tury, certain Turkish publicists, including Ahmed
Midhat, had begun to express concern at Western
control over the Ottoman economy and had advanced
propositions aimed at putting an end to this state of af¬
fairs. Immediately after the Young Turk Revolution,
controversies on this theme resumed in earnest, pit¬
ting the advocates of a liberal policy, favourable to
foreign investments and freedom of commercial ex¬
changes, against the supports of a strategy of tight
government control, capable of opening the way to
the establishment of a “national economy.” Practical¬
ly all the major periodicals of the period took part in
these discussions, giving column space either to

MAKALA

“enlightened amateurs” such as Diya’ Gokalp and
Mustafa SubhT, or to genuine specialists such as Alex¬
ander Israel Helphand, alias Parvus (one of the
leading figures of German Social Democracy who liv¬
ed in Turkey from 1910 to 1915) or Tekin Alp (pen-
name of Moi'se Cohen), editor-in-chief of Ikti$adiyyat
Medjmu '■asi, the leading economic review of the
period.

In some publications, a very important place was
also accorded to the literature and history of the
Turks. In the review Turk Yurdu especially, writers
whose origins lay in the Russian Empire, including
Yusuf Ak2ura, c Ali Huseynzade and Ahmed
Aghaoghlu, supported by Ottoman intellectuals in¬
cluding the novelist Khalid Edib, the poet Djelal
Sahir, the historian Kopruliizade Mehmed Fu’ad and
the literary critic C A1I Djanib, skilfully exalted the
prestigious past of the “Turkish race” and pleaded
unceasingly for a reunification, if only cultural, of the
peoples derived from the primal Central Asian stem.
Among the periodicals contributing to this explora¬
tion of the literary and historical foundations of
Turkish nationalism, also worthy of mention are the
monthly Bilgi and the weekly Khalka Doghru , both
published by Djelal Sahir, and, in particular, the
Tq'nkh-i c Olhmdnt En^jumeni Medjmu c asi, organ of the
Ottoman Historical Society which, through the
medium of the works of scholars such as Ahmed Refik
and c Abd al-Rahman Sheref. the last official
chronicler of the Imperial Court, was to give decisive
encouragement to the development of a “national”
Turkish historiography.

To the range of themes which caused the greatest
amount of ink to flow in the Young Turk decade, it
is appropriate to add, finally, the religious question.
In this domain, the controversies were particularly
impassioned. While Muslim periodicals such as
Volkan , Bey an al-hakk or Sebtl ul-reshad pressed for
various forms of Islamic revival, advocating the
teaching of the Kur’an as the effective resppnse to the
evils of the age, certain nationalists and the “westem-
ists” who had as their principal mouth-piece the
review I^jtihad of the doctor c Abd Allah Djewdet.
published numerous articles which, if not overtly anti-
religious, at least favoured a “rationalisation” of
Islam and went so far as to demand a strict secularisa¬
tion of Ottoman institutions which would free civil
society from all religious domination.

The entry of the Ottoman Empire into war in 1914
did not bring about a fundamental change in the
subject-matter of the makalas published by Turkish
men of letters. In fact, a large proportion of the work
produced in the preceding years had already con¬
stituted a literature of propaganda, intended prin¬
cipally to equip public opinion with ideological
weapons in readiness for the approaching conflict,
signalled in advance by a succession of regular crises.
However, with the outbreak of hostilities there was
witnessed a sharp radicalisation of the points of view
expressed in the periodical press. Learned controver¬
sies were replaced by slogans, the exaltation of the na¬
tional identity was transformed into belligerence and
the eulogy of “Turkish” cultural values became
racism. This nationalism exacerbated by war did,
however, allow numerous Turkish individuals to
clarify their positions. It was during the war years that
Tekin Alp and some others put the finishing touches
to theories of “national economy”. It was also during
the war years that Diya’ Gokalp, who had become the
foremost ideologue of the regime, promoted in the
most excessive terms the cause of “Turkism”.

Naturally, the circumstances were hardly

favourable to freedom of expression. Literary men
were obliged to take into account not only the im¬
peratives of the war but also the increasingly marked
authoritarianism of the Committee for Union and
Progress, the holders of absolute power since 1912. It
was not until the end of the global conflict that a ge¬
nuine plurality of opinions was once more established
in the Turkish periodical press. To be sure, occupied
by the forces of the Entente, Istanbul, the intellectual
capital of the country, was obliged for many years to
bow to the censorship of the Allied High Commis¬
sions. But that which could not be said and written in
the Ottoman capital could be blazoned forth in
Anatolia, where Mu${afa Kemal was leading the
struggle for Turkish independence, and conversely,
writings which would not be tolerated by the
Anatolian government could be published without dif¬
ficulty in the regions controlled by the Entente.

In Istanbul, a large number of journalists and
writers took advantage of this situation to oppose
systematically the ideas propounded by the na¬
tionalists, and to campaign with equally vigorous pro¬
paganda against those who still supported the
Committee of Union and Progress in opposition to
Mustafa Kemal and his partisans. The most virulent
among them was c Ali Kemal Bey, editor-in-chief of
Peyam-i $abah, whose editorials bore witness to a par¬
ticularly incisive polemical talent. For their part,
literary men who supported the nationalist movement
undertook as their primary task to put a stop to
defeatism, using their writings to stimulate Turkish
patriotism. But some also pondered over the future of
Turkey and indulged in speculation as to the form
which would be taken by the future Turkish state. No
reader of the journalism dating from the beginning of
the War of Independence can fail to notice, in par¬
ticular, to what an extent the nationalists were
fascinated by the Soviet experience. In Yeni Gun ,
editorials favourable to the Soviets—most of them ow¬
ed to Yunus Nadi, the proprietor of the newspaper, or
to Mahmud Es c ad—could be counted by the score.
Articles of similar type, though fewer in number, were
also published by Hdkimiyyet-i milliyye , the official
organ of the Kemalist government. It is, however, ap¬
propriate to state that this love affair with revolu¬
tionary Russia was short-lived. At a very early stage,
the ideologues of the national movement—prominent
among whom was Mu§(afa Kemal himself, who did
not hesitate to take to the pen to express his point of
view—were putting forward concepts very similar to
those championed some years previously by the
theorists of the Young Turk regime, leaving the
defence of the Soviets to genuine Communists such as
Shefik Husnu and Sadr al-Dln Djelal, the two leading
contributors to the review Aydinlik.

Undoubtedly the most remarkable phenomenon in
these years was the emergence of a genre closely
related to that of the makdla, the fikra, a kind of short
news item generally of entertaining nature, combin¬
ing anecdote with comment on some matter of con¬
temporary importance. The first major practitioner of
this literary genre, Ahmed Rasim, had begun to
publish his articles towards the end of the 19th cen¬
tury. Subsequently, numerous other writers, in par¬
ticular the poet Ahmed Ha§him and the journalist
Huseyn Djahid YaRin, made names for themselves as
eminent authors of fikras. But it was especially after
the First World War, with the appearance of new
specialists such as Refik Khalid Karay and Falih Rifkf
Atay, that this type of news-item came to occupy a
position of major importance in newspapers and
reviews, possibly because the anecdotal tone which

MAKALA

was its distinguishing feature enabled it to discuss
political questions in a manner unlikely to alarm the
censors, possibly also because the public expressed an
ever-increasing interest in this form of expression.

Extremely sensitive to the fluctuations of political
circumstance, the Turkish periodical press was oblig¬
ed once again to change its complexion in the
mid-1920s, with the establishment in Turkey, shortly
after the proclamation of the Republic, of a single¬
party regime. In fact, although this did not lead to the
total disappearance of opposition newspapers and
reviews, the monopoly exercised by Mustafa Kemal’s
creation, the Republican People’s Party, over the con¬
duct of public affairs was accompanied by a spec¬
tacular inflation—especially noticeable after 1930—in
the press entrusted with the defence of the official line.
This development of a republican press was made
possible only by means of a vast mobilisation of in¬
tellectuals. Journalists, writers, historians, eco¬
nomists, sociologists, all were called upon to make
their contribution to the building of the new Turkey.
Those who responded to this appeal—and there were
many of them—did so by producing for the Kemalist
periodicals makalas remarkable, whatever the subject
tackled, for the eagerness of their commitment.

It is probably in the monthly Kadro , published be¬
tween 1932 and 1934, that there appeared the most re¬
markable and significant articles of the period.
Motivated by a relatively limited team of writers in¬
cluding in particular Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu,
Vedat Nedim Tor, §evket Siireyya Aydemir, Ismail
Husrev and Burhan Asaf, this review was especially
concerned with economic and social questions, and it
contributed in a significant manner to the refinement
of Kemalist theses in these domains. Writers involved
with this magazine were responsible for the most con¬
vincing arguments in favour of the state control policy
adopted by the regime in economic matters, from the
beginning of the 1930s.

The articles published in Kadro , often relatively
long and technical, were addressed to an educated
public of bureaucrats and intellectuals. Makalas of a
more accessible type were to be found for example in
the numerous organs of the “People’s Houses” [see
Khalkevi). kinds of public forums established by the
Republican People’s Party to propagate Kemalist
values throughout the country. The reviews, of which
the best was Ulkii, the monthly magazine of the Peo¬
ple’s House of Ankara, provided an impressive collec¬
tion of works, generally modest in scale but sometimes
of very high quality, concerning the folklore, the
history, the arts and the social life of Turkey all of
which had the aim, often in explicit manner, to
stimulate the national pride of the population and to
lay the foundations of a new culture compatible with
republican ideas.

With the spread of universities, high schools and
research institutions, Kemalist Turkey was also soon
to be endowed with various specialised reviews,
among which it is appropriate to mention in particular
Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi , organ of the Institute of Turcology
of the University of Istanbul, and Belleten, review of
the Foundation for Turkish History. The scientific
makalas published in these periodicals were generally
of a quality comparable to that of articles of similar
type produced in countries with a long university
tradition. However, some writers willingly took ac¬
count of the directives and principles of the regime,
eager to construct from all their work hypotheses and
theories capable of supporting them.

This said, even though writings inspired by official
doctrines constituted until the end of the Second

World War the major portion of the material appear¬
ing in the Turkish periodical press, dissidents were
not deprived of the opportunity for self-expression,
provided that they did not overstep certain limits. It
was thus for example that one of the most talented
journalists of the period, Peyami Safa, was responsi¬
ble for a large number of subtly reactionary makalas
and fikras of which some were even published in
government journals such as Yunus Nadi’s Ciimhuriyet
and Ulus, the official organ of the Republican Party.
Similarly, persons suspected of Communist sym¬
pathies such as Zekeriya Sertel, Sabahattin Ali, Aziz
Nesin, Sadrettin Celal and numerous others, were
able for many years to write in periodicals known for
their progressive ideas—in particular the daily Tan
and the monthly Yurt ve Dunya —without being unduly
molested. It was only in 1945, in the wake of violent
polemical struggle with Pan-Turkist organs, that they
were obliged to put an end to their activities, some of
them even being forced into exile.

After the Second World War, with the establish¬
ment of a pluralist regime and the emergence of new
political parties, the various constituents of Turkish
opinion were able to make their points of view known
with greater ease than in the past, on condition
however of exercising a degree of self-censorship. On¬
ly extremist factions, in particular all those considered
to be Communists, as well as certain religious or
ultra-nationalist groups, found themselves deprived
for rather more than a decade of freedom of expres¬
sion. This was however gradually restored to them in
the wake of the coup d'etat of 1960 which inaugurated
in Turkey a period characterised by a growing
liberalisation of political life and ideological debate.

This was a climate eminently favourable to the
development of the press, as the statistics
demonstrate. In 1951, there was a total of 551
periodicals in Turkey; by the end of the 1970s, the
number had risen to more than 1,400. In such cir¬
cumstances, the makala genre could not but prosper.

The political makala in particular flourished
remarkably, especially in the period beginning in the
mid-1960s. Among the outstanding specialists in the
genre, mention should be made, on the left, of Dogan
Avcioglu, who in 1961 launched the weekly Yon, the
first of a whole series of increasingly subversive
periodicals which were to come into existence in suc¬
ceeding years, as well as journalists of great talent in¬
cluding Qetin Altan, Abdi Ipekgi and Ilhami Soysal.
As for the conservative camp, besides Peyami Safa,
who continued to produce extremely corrosive makalas
until his death in 1961, worthy of mention, among
many other polemicists of great virulence, are the poet
Necip Fazil Kisakiirek, founder of the Islamic and na¬
tionalist review Biiyiik Dogu, Ahmet Kabakli, author of
a large number of news-items of fundamentalist tone
published in various journals, and Nazli Ilicak,
editor-in-chief of the daily Tercuman.

During the same period, literary criticism and the
related genre of the essay ( deneme ) also developed in a
remarkable manner. Nurullah A tag, who died in
1957, had dominated the preceding decades with his
refined sensibility and literary talent, leaving to
posterity thousands of articles dispersed among scores
of periodicals. Slightly younger than him, Suut Kemal
Yetkin, Sabahattin Eyuboglu, Azra Erhat and Tahir
Alangu had also contributed to the enrichment of
modern Turkish letters in these two domains. In their
wake, with the proliferation of literary reviews from
1950 onwards, there appeared a host of new talents,
of whom there is space here to mention only a few
such as Asim Bezirci and Fethi Naci, very productive

MAKALA — MAKAM

literary critics; Mahmut Makal, the pioneer in
Turkey of the essay on rural themes; Salah Birsel,
who was responsible in particular for numerous
theoretical writings on poetry; and most of all Atilla
ilhan, author of news-items of a very personal tone on
problems of contemporary Turkish society.

Finally, it is appropriate to note the remarkable
proliferation of works of academic type published in
reviews intended for a limited audience. Until recent¬
ly, only establishments of higher education had at
their disposal organs capable of accommodating such
production. Several reviews of wider circulation,
designed with the aim of laying the results of scientific
research before an educated public, have begun to ap¬
pear since the mid-1970s, at the initiative of private
individuals or associations. The most characteristic
example which may be cited in this context is the
quarterly Toplum ve Bilim , founded by Sencer Divit-
gioglu which, since its inception, has given a new im¬
petus to works in the domain of economic and social
history.

If the makala appears as a whole to be an ever-
expanding genre, it should nevertheless be noted that,
in the daily press, the tradition of the bash makala has
tended, for its part, to disappear. An essential element
of the newspaper in the 19th century and during the
Young Turk period, from the end of the 1930s the
editorial occupied no more than approximately 1 to
2 % of available space in organs such as Cumhuriyet or
Ulus. Today, it has disappeared from the majority of
dailies—including Cumhuriyet , in spite of its long-lived
traditional role as a journal of opinion—or survives
only in the form of articles of variable regularity
relegated to the interior of the newspaper. This aban¬
donment of the bash makala is perhaps a result of the
proliferation, in newspapers, of particular rubrics—
fikra, news of foreign politics, economic news, etc.—
enabling different members of the staff to express their
point of view on matters of the moment. It is explain¬
ed, above all, by the radical transformation experienc¬
ed by the Turkish daily press after 1960. The
appearance of non-political newspapers of mass
circulation—in 1982 Gunaydin had a readership of
more than 800,000 and Hiirriyet approximately
600,000—and the competition posed by television
have had a drastic effect on the ideological press
which, to survive, has found itself in many cases
obliged to adopt the formulae operated by the mass-
circulation dailies: development of photographic
reportage, expansion of space reserved for sport, for
humorous cartoons, for entertainments, multiplica¬
tion of short stories at the expense of serious articles.
The most successful example of this adaptation to the
new circumstances of journalism is provided by the
conservative daily Tercuman which in 1982 drew a
readership of almost 400,000. However, as has been
seen, these structural changes have not prevented the
makala on political themes from prospering. The tradi¬
tional bash makala has been replaced not only by the
news-items and diverse “points of view’’ published on
the inside pages of daily newspapers, but also by the
widespread production of weekly or bi-monthly
periodicals of all shades of opinion, whose prolifera¬
tion has only been temporarily halted by the measures
taken to restrict the freedom of the press in the after-
math of the military intervention of 1980.

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Ulus gazeteleri hakkinda muhteva tahlili, in Ank. Univ.

Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi Dergisi, xvi/2 (June 1961),

93-118; Korkmaz Alemdar, Basinda Kadro dergisi ve

Kadro hareketi He ilgili bazi goriifer, in Kadro (new facs.

edn. by Cem Alpar), Ankara 1978, i, 21-42; Niyazi

Berkes, The development of secularism in Turkey, Mon¬
treal 1964; Omer Sami Co§ar, Milli mucadele basini,
n.p., n.d.; Server Iskit, Turkiye’ de nesriyat hareketleri
tarihine bir bakif , Istanbul 1939; A. D. Zeltyakov,
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Turkey, Leiden 1974; idem, Pan-Turkism in Turkey.
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1976; idem, QagdLa$ tiirk edebiyatt (1908-1972), Istan¬
bul 1973; Fuat Sureyya Oral, Tiirk basin tarihi, 2
vols., n.p., n.d.; Ragip Ozdem, Tanzimattan beri
yazt dilimiz, in Tanzimat, i, Istanbul 1940, 859-931;
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, 19uncu asir tiirk edebiyatt
tarihi 2 , Istanbul 1956; Zafer Toprak, Turkiye’de
‘'Milli iktisat” (1908-1918), Ankara 1982; Tank
Zafer Tunaya, Islamctltk cereyam, Istanbul 1962;
Hilmi Ziya Ulken, Turkiye’de (agda? diifiince tarihi 2 ,
Istanbul 1979; M. Bulent Varlik, Turkiye basin-yaytn
tarihi kaynakfasi, Ankara 1981; idem, Turkiye’de
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351-84; Ahmed Emin [Yalman], The development of
modem Turkey as measured by its press , New York
1941. (P. Dumont)

MAKALLA. [see al-mukalla].

MAKAM (a., pi. makdmdt), literally “place, posi¬
tion, rank”, began to appear in Islamic musical
treatises at the end of the c Abbasid period, to
designate Arabo-1rano-Turkish and assim¬
ilated musical modes and, in this musical sense,
it is still predominantly used today. It is thought that
this usage comes from the place assigned to the musi¬
cian with a view to the interpretation of a given
musical mode; but it will be seen later that each mode
also has a defined place and a position on the finger¬
board and fingering of the c ud [q. v. ].

Makdm has a broader meaning than its translation
“mode”. Makdm defines both the “formulary mode’’
(J. Chailley), the Greek concept of the systemic mode,
the “scale-system” (J.-Cl. Ch. Chabrier) with the
heptatonic octave ( sullam , dlwan asast) or, going
beyond the octave, the analysed modal structure,
standardised or conceived on the c ud through a
joining-together of tri-, tetra-, or pentachordal genres
(diins, pi. adjnas), the plan, process or “operational
protocol” of improvisation or interpretation of the
mode according to the models, forms, formulas or
musical cadences, and finally “the ethos” or “modal
sentiment” (ruh al-djins), linked to the conception or
perception of the given musical mode.

Such a fairly broad meaning of the word, compris¬
ing the system, structure, form and aura of the mode,
entails a relative synonymity of the term makdm with
other generic names of modes, used concurrendy by
the musicologists of mediaeval Islam, such as lahn,
dgam^, tanka, dastdn , madfra, tarkib , djins, dawr, shadd,
murakkab , shu'-ba, barda, awdz , gusha, bahr, etc. In the
20th century, even if the term makdm remains the most
classical and widespread, other generic names
designate the musical mode in various regions: nagh-
ma, nagham (Arab East); tab , san c a (Maghrib); dwaz ,
dastgah, naghma (Iran). The term makdm becomes
makam in Turkey, mugdm in Adharbaydjan and
Turkmenistan and makom in Central Asia.

A musicological controversy places in opposition to

XX^ s. OID CLASSIQUE & ECHELLE DES SONS GENRES ET MODES USUELS : NOMS, INTERVALLES, INSERTIONS SUR LECHELLE DES SONS

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one another at present the partisans of the makam -
sy stem and the partisans of the makam- form. The
ambiguity arises from the fact that a makam- system be¬
ing made musically concrete entails the illustration of
its structures in the form of a solo melodic modal im¬
provisation entrusted to an instrumentalist (this is the
taksim ), to the human voice without written music
(this is the layali), or in the form of a memorised or
written elaboration entrusted to an instrumental
group (takht or djawk) or to an orchestra with soloists,
singers and choral voices. In the latter case, the
listener retains the written music or poetry and the
form more than the system. In some countries, e.g.
those of the Maghrib or Central Asia, as in Iran,
Adharbavdjan or c Irak, the makam is understood
precisely through the agency of its forms or models
transmitted on the instrument from master to pupil or
entrusted to solo artists acquainted with the tradi¬
tional repertoire ( nawba in the Maghrib, makom in
Central Asia, radif in Iran, mugdm in Adharbavdjan or
makam in c Irak, for example).

Whatever may be the ascendancy of human voices
and the impact of words and poems on the Islamic
populations, even if it remains at the central core of
Islamic culture, the Arabo-Irano-Turkish makam ap¬
pears in the history of musical language to be a rela¬
tion which has evolved from the ancient musical
mode, rethought, conceived and standardised on the
fingerboard of the c ud through an association of genres
(i adjnas ). The understanding of the makam is thus in¬
separable, on the level of the analysis of modal struc¬
tures, from a study of the language of the c ud, an
instrument which has defined the scale of sounds and
tested the types constituting the modes. The modal
languages of Islam were developed under the finger
( isba c , pi. asabi c ), on the finger-board (dastan) and
along the scale-range of the c ud. This process of
elaboration allowed each makam , from the time of its
creation, to go beyond its own technical and intellec¬
tual conception and each system to be transmuted into
a process and a form which would put into a concrete
shape the “idea-materiar’, the “ makam-^ud ” rela¬
tionship. Hence the risk constituted by the representa¬
tion of a makam or its modal structures on a musical
stave in the 20th century.

Formation and evolution of the
theoretical scale of sounds.—The first
technical and modal problem of music within Islam
seems to have been the combination of the
autochtonous or empirical systems inherited from the
Dj dhiliyya with the scholarly systems borrowed from
the Byzantines, Lakhmids and Sasanids. The artists
and theoreticians, therefore, until the end of the
c Abbasid period, had to find on the finger-board of
the lute theoretical scales whose intervals and “finger-
degrees” or “scaling-fingerings” might be compati¬
ble with the local practices and Greek theories which
were regarded as ideal [cf. musIki].

As the Greek modes had been conceived on the lyre
and the local modes on long-necked lutes, it was
necessary to multiply the number of fingering-degrees
and positions on the finger-board of the <: ud, a short¬
necked lute adopted with the rise of Islam, so as to
ratify the juxtaposition of various scales with different
intervals and to open up the possibility of producing
sound-degrees to suit various systems and
temperaments.

The technical genesis of the makam , heir of the an¬
cient mode, passed according to mediaeval treatises
through the following stages:

1. Calculation of a theoretical scale, defining sounds
and intervals;

2. Study of tetrachordal genres on the finger-board of

the c ud; and

3. Elaboration of heptatonic octave scale system.

In fact, the theoreticians proceeded rather in the op¬
posite way; starting with musical modes in use, they
analysed their genres and attempted to conceive a ra¬
tional theoretical scale.

What must be intended here by a theoretical scale
is a series ( tabaka ) or a framework of available con¬
secutive sounds disposed from low to high within an
octave and over several octaves, to depart from which
knowledgeable musicians could select the intervals or
standardise the fingering-degrees, then the genres,
and finally the modes of a piece of music in a given
temperament. Throughout the evolution of the
musical sciences within Islam, various theoretical
scales were conceived and used, either successively or
concurrently.

The first theoretical scale of tones, which existed
before Islam and was known to the ancient Greeks,
was based on the division of the string into forty ali¬
quot parts, and, following from this, the division of
the first octave into twenty musically unequal inter¬
vals. Al-Farabl, writing in the 4th/l0th century,
describes the tunbur of Baghdad in these terms,
distinguishing five first fingerings in use since the
Djd hiliyya and five others which are his own invention.
Theoretically, this acoustic system defines numerous
intervals which are to be found in earlier or later
systems. Worthy of mention are a sub-quarter-tone
diesis (40/39) of Eratosthenes, a sub-limma
(40/38 = 20/19; 89 cents), a sub-neutral-second,
prefiguring that of Ibn Slna, (40/37), a minor har¬
monic tone (40/36 = 10/9; 182 cents), a maximal tone
(40/35 = 8/7; 231 cents). Furthermore, al-Farabl pro¬
poses a subminor-third (40/34 = 20/17; 281 cents), a
sub-neutral-third (40/33), a major harmonic third
(40/32 = 5/4; 386 cents), an implicit diminished fourth
(40/31) and a perfect fourth (40/30 = 4/3; 498 cents).
If this system is pursued, the logical outcome will be
a sub-diminished fifth (40/29), a harmonic tritone
(40/28= 10/7; 617 cents), a short fifth (40/27) and a
super-“wolf’s-fifth” (40/26). But al-Farabl restricts
his description to the fourth, and no evidence is
available concerning the details of the diffusion of this
system in proto-Islamic or early Islamic music.

In Baghdad, in the 2nd-3rd/8th-9th centuries, the
eminent and skilled classical soloists of the c ud , like
Ishak al-Mawsill, seemed more inclined to employ the
Pythagorean Hellenistic system. The latter was
characterised by a limma (256/243; 90 cents), an im¬
plicit apotome (2187/2048; 114 cents), a major tone
(9/8; 204 cents), a minor third (32/27; 294 cents), a
major (third) or ditone (81/64; 408 cents), a perfect
fourth (4/3; 498 cents), an implicit tritone subsequent¬
ly described by al-Farabl with reference to the harp
(729/512; 612 cents) and a perfect fifth (3/2; 702
cents).

The two systems were thus only compatible on the
level of the limma and of the fourth. At the same time,
Mansur Zalzal, a virtuoso lutist, apparently reconcil¬
ed the popular and learned traditions by giving official
status to a para-Pythagorean system based on em¬
pirical and equidistant longitudinal divisions of the
string of the c ud, following the Pythagorean fingering-
degrees.

Zalzal thus recommended the use of the following
complementary degrees: a “Persian” neutral second
(162/149; 145 cents; 6,4 holders), a “Zalzalian”
neutral second (54/49; 168 cents; 7,4 holders), a
“Persian” minor third (81/68; 303 cents; 13,4
holders) and a “Zalzalian” neutral third (27/22; 355

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

MAKAM

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MAKAM

cents; 15,7 holders.) Thus there came about, in
regard to the fingerboard of the c ud, the confrontation
between the Hellenistic or universal acoustic systems
and the specific or empirical Arabo-Irano-Turanian
musical systems.

The treatises of al-Kindi, al-Munadjdjim (3rd/9th
century), al-Farabi, al-Isfahanl, the Ikhwan al-$afa 3
(4th/10th century), Ibn Slna (5th/11 th century) and
many other scholars thus had as their object or desired
aim to position on the finger-board of the c ud a
theoretical scale capable of standardising the intervals
of these different systems.

The ideal solution seems to have been found in the
7th/13th century by the Systematists with Safi al-Din
al-UrmawI and Kutb al-DTn al-Shlrazi, thanks to a
commatic scale supporting the Pythagorean system
and assimilating, by justifying them by longitudinal
measures and mathematical calculations, the intervals
of the Djahiliyya and the neutral intervals. It all led in
practice to the (theoretical) comma, the limma (4
commas), the apotome (5 commas), the minor tone (8
commas), the major tone (9 commas) divided into two
limmas and a comma, and their combinations,
amongst these being a minor third (13 commas), a
neutral third which became “natural” (17 commas),
a major third (18 commas) and a perfect fourth (22
commas).

Subsequently, Iran, Central Asia and the outer
regions moved away from reference to the c ud and
returned to empirical systems. The Arab world was to
experience the recession before adopting from the
18th century, and more precisely with Mikha^Tl
Mushaka (19th century), under the influence of
Europe, a theoretical scale dividing the octave into
twenty-four quarter-tones (rub 0 ). Only the Ottomans
and the heirs of c Abbasid elitism were able to
perpetuate the commatic system of the Systematists.

In the 20th century, a comparative Arabo-Irano-
Turkish study entails the reconstitution of a
theoretical scale of sounds confronting the three
systems of contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish
temperaments. In spite of divergences, the octave can
be divided into twenty-four intervals defining twenty-
five fingering-degrees or scaling-fingerings (daradfa,
barda, perde), supposing there to be four per major
tone. The traditional names of these fingering-degrees
are somewhat variable from one language to another
(e.g. segah-sikah, cahargah-^aharkah).

The preliminary division of the octave into fifty-
three Holderian commas among the Turks and
twenty-four quarter-tones among the Arabs and Ira¬
nians only presents minor problems of temperament,
illustrated by the controversies as to the height of the
“neutral” fingering-degrees, as, for example, the
segah higher in the Zarlinian third (17 commas,
Turkey, Aleppo, Baghdad than in the Zalzalian third
(16 commas or 7 quarters, Cairo, Damascus). Of the
twenty-five theoretical fingering-degrees, modern Ira¬
nian treatises mention only eighteen fingering-degrees
to the octave, dividing the octave into seventeen inter¬
vals which are unequal, having a semi-tone and two
quarter-tones in a major tone. So it is not a case of
seventeen third-tones.

This theoretical scale is transposable in its entirety
in terms of the pitch (tabaka) then of the height of
reference chosen. Also the guide mark and key tone of
the scale, yegah and rast, can be aligned on a frequen¬
cy, a pitch and then an equivalent Latin note which
varies according to the countries, schools or, obvious¬
ly, voices to be accompanied. The rast, key tone, can
be a a do (Mediterranean), a re (Turkey), a fa or
a sol ( c Irak, Iran) or even a la, and the whole scale is

led by it like a mobile keyboard or a set of nays (obli¬
que flutes) of various pitches.

This theoretical scale can be deduced from the
historical c ud which conceived it and is reducible to
the modern c ud which is its ideal standard. For this
reason, it is influenced by “units” of fourths, and
presents in the 20th century preferential degrees cor¬
responding to the open strings of the c ud with classical
tuning, supposing that, from low to high, is a bass
string: karar-rdst or karar-dugah, 1st string yegah, 2nd
string c ashtran, 3rd. string dugah, 4th string nawa, 5th
string gardan. So it is not equalised like a piano scale.

This theoretical scale is only a range without an im¬
mediate melodic outcome. The twenty-five sounds
disposable on the octave are not played in conjunction
or simultaneously. A given modal structure uses nor¬
mally only four degrees to the fourth or eight degrees
to the octave in the rules of heptatonic diatonism.

Value of the intervals and formation of
the genres. Historically in the treatises and logically
in analysis, the approach to the makamat entails, the
unit of measure and theoretical scale of sounds being
known, a study of the intervals and fingering-degrees
which, in dividing the fourth or the fifth, seek to
define the tri-, tetra- or pentachordal genres con¬
stituting the makamat. The genre (dfns, bahr, c ikd, in
Arabic, dortlii-befli in Turkish) is thus the elementary
unit of the modal structures in contemporary Arabic
and Turkish treatises. In Iranian treatises it is not ex¬
plicitly identified, but a modal analysis should reveal
its presence.

The selection of a given genre brings a choice of
fingering-degrees on the theoretical scale of sounds
and also ordains a specific series of juxtaposed inter¬
vals. The value of these intervals is determined by the
systems or temperaments adopted.

In the Arab countries and Iran, the intervals are
measured in quarter-tones at the rate of twenty-four
quarters per octave. The chromatic quarter-tone is ex¬
ceptional. The current melodic intervals are the semi¬
tone (2 qs.), the three-quarter-tone (3 qs.), the major
tone (4 qs.), the maxim tone (5 qs.), the trihemitone
(an augmented second of (6 qs.). The thirds are minor
(6 qs.), neutral (7 qs.) or major (8 qs.). The fourths
are perfect (10 qs.), but the shortened fourth (6 qs.)
of the saba genre should be noted as well as the
augmented fourth (tritone of 12 qs.) of the nikriz,
nawathar and kurdl-athar genres. The perfect fifths are
14 qs. The intervals are more flexible in Iran.

In Turkey and the academic schools (Aleppo,
Mosul, Baghdad) the intervals are measured in
Holderian commas at the rate of fifty-three commas
per octave. The current intervals are the limma (4
commas), the apotome (5 cs.), the minor tone (8 cs.),
the major tone (9 cs.), the “trilimma” or trihemitone
(augmented seconds of 12 or 13 cs.). The thirds are
minims (12 cs.), minors (13-14 cs.), rarely neutrals
(15-16 cs.), Zarlinian naturals (17 cs) or Pythagori-
cian majors (18 cs.). The fourths are perfect (22 cs.),
shortened (18) or augmented (26 cs.), in the genres
mentioned above. The perfect fifths are of 31
commas.

The Arab, Iranian and Turkish treatises give the
specific intervals historical names, of which the
variants will not be mentioned here. The fingering-
degrees or scaling-fingerings are not always
designated by their Eastern names, and, under the in¬
fluence of European notation, Latin names of the
notes are frequently used by giving them adapted in¬
flections. Also, more precisely since the Congres de
musique du Caire (1932), a note lowered a quarter-
tone (made semi-flat) can be called nuss-bemol, kar-

100

MAKAM

bemol or koron. Raised a quarter-tone (made semi¬
sharp), it becomes nufs-dieze, kar-dieze or sort. The
Turkish codes of inflection are clearly more rigid due
to the commatic system. There are regular new ini¬
tiatives, amongst which is a code of the Colloque de
Beyrouth (1972). One of the most recent (code arabes¬
que, 1978) normalises the signs and transcribes all the
commatic inflections.

Just as the theoretical scale of sounds is only a
range, the quarter-tone and the comma are only units
of measure and not melodic or chromatic intervals.
Heptatonic diatonism theoretically escapes the pro¬
liferation of fingering-degrees or scaling-fingerings
beyond eight to the octave, when there is a given
modulation. Further, the conception of the genres on
the finger-board of the c ud can only use the open
string and four fingers, which reinforces the link be¬
tween the fifth and the playing of a pentachord and
does not stir the musician to imagine micro-intervals
smaller than the limma which do not exist in the tradi¬
tional genres. Here, moreover, the makam owes more
to the c ud than to the laboratory.

Nevertheless, some “micro-intervals” are smaller
than the semi-tone or the limma. In diatonism, they
may be detected below the fingering-degree segdh of
the rare genres awdfara and sdz-kdr described by
Erlanger (quarter-tone between re dieze and mi semi-
bemol). There is also a leading note at the same level
in the segdh genre, which is superimposed on
diatonism. However, it would appear to be a matter
of Turkish limmas, which, transposed in the Arabic
quarter-tone system, are devalued. In chromatism,
there are micro-intervals in the execution of the rare
mukhdlif genre of c Irak; but it is, in this case, an alter¬
nated overlapping of the saba and segdh genres on the
same part of the scale. In this case, it is even possible
to analyse a makam Mukhdlif formed from the overlap¬
ping of the three Saba , Segdh and Huzam makdmat
mobilising twelve degrees per octave (cf. Arabesques
record 5, Luth en Iraq traditionnel , c Ud Jamil Bachir).

As the selection of a genre brings a choice of
fingering-degrees and ordains a specific series of
juxtaposed intervals, the genre is an elementary and
invariable modal structure which should be identified
on analysis in terms of the value of its intervals and in¬
dependently of the temperament adopted. The ear
itself is probably aided by characteristic melodic for¬
mulae of the genre and by an intuitive perception.
However, apart from the variations of temperament
from one country to another, the universal laws of
music “temper” the rigidity of the specific intervals.

Some fingering-degrees of the genre, in particular
the two poles or extremities often inserted in an open
string of the c ud , are rigorously fixed, except, for in¬
stance, in the Iranian- c Irakian Dashti-Dasht mode.
Others, the intermediaries, can be mobile. This
mobility is frequently linked to phenomena of ascen¬
ding or descending gradient or enharmonic change,
quite natural on instruments with a non-fretted
finger-board such as the c ud or the violin, and more
artificial on instruments such as the kanun. It also
responds to phenomena of attraction or repulsion
valid in other kinds of music.

Also, such a fingering-degree or scaling-fingering
will be raised more in ascending than in descending.
In spite of the fairly rigid commatic precision of the
system applied in Turkey, the third fingering-degree
segdh of the rast genre occurs at 17 commas of the finale
in ascending and 16 in descending, also inflecting a
Zarlinian third and a Zalzalian third. By contrast, if
this segdh fingering-degree becomes the finale of the
segdh genre it becomes a modal pole and it is fixed

more especially as it is doubled with a leading note
given the space of several commas.

It may be remarked that the mobile degrees are fre¬
quently linked, as historical treatises or musical prac¬
tice confirm, with the index or medius finger on the
finger-board of the historical or modem c ud. In the
modes of Iran, these mobile fingering-degrees, which
the analysts do not associate with the role of the c ud,
are called mutaghayyir.

The establishment of a nomenclature of Arabo-
Irano-Turkish musical genres can only lead to a
didactic compromise due to the complexity of the
criteria allowing the specificity of a genre to be con¬
firmed. However, the same term can designate dif¬
ferent genres, or the same genre may be designated
variously according to the countries. An Arabo-
Turkish terminology will be normalised here.

Erlanger presents an Arabo-Turkish system mark¬
ed by the academic tradition of Aleppo with a quarter-
tone scale and enumerates seventeen genres. An
Arabo-Turkish system will be presented here marked
by the c ud school of Ba gh dad with a commatic scale.
A progression of structures will follow from the
“Hellenic” scale (tones and semi-tones) to the
“Islamic” scale (which includes also neutral seconds
and thirds). The reverse approach would also be
plausible.

Attention will be given to eight structures of the
main genres by giving precise information on their
characteristic interval: cahargah or c adj_am- c ashiran (ma¬
jor); busalik (minor); kurdt (minor second and third);
hidjaz (with trihemitone-augmented second); bayati
and nawa tetrachords or husayni and c ushshak pen¬
tachords (neutral second and minor third); ?abd
(neutral second, minor third and diminished fourth);
segdh and c irdk (finale on a neutral fingering-degree
with apotome and short neutral third), rast, an
academic and classical genre (major second and
neutral third).

Six structures will also be cited derived from the
main genres by correlation, overlapping, combina¬
tion, inflection: kurdi-athar (kurdi/hidjaz correlation);
niknz and nawathar (busalik/hidjaz correlation); mukhdlif
(saba-segdh overlapping); huzam (segah!hidjaz combina¬
tion); musta c ar inflection of the segdh); and zawil
(hidjaz/rast interaction).

All these genres are compatible with the fifth and
can be represented in the form of pentachords on a
diagram illustrating the real value of the intervals and
the preferred insertion on the scale of sounds, itself
transposable. However, so as to facilitate reading, a
scale of sounds is often chosen with a rast key tone in
do (Mediterranean) and one may also remark the
equivalence in Latin notes of the height of the
fingering-degrees or scaling-fingerings by giving their
inflections precisely.

Formation of the musical modes from the
genres.—The mode (makam in Arabic; dastgdh, dwaz ,
naghma in Persian; makam in Turkish) is formed by the
combination of genres. However, musicologists who
do not play the c ud, Iranian authors and numerous
Western musicologists study the mode as a whole like
a Greek mode or an Indian raga.

In popular traditions and archaic practices, a single
tri-, tetra- or pentachordal genre can constitute a
makam of limited ambitus. In general, it is a genre
more autochthonous than Hellenic such as the hidjaz,
the bayati, the saba or the rast. A Bedouin’s improvisa¬
tion on his rabdba is often limited to a tetrachord. But
an educated artist can decide to play deliberately in
the popular style and produce an astonishing result
(e.g. Djamil Bashir interpreting the swlhll-ndHl on the

MAKAM

101

Q ud ; cf. Arabesques record 5, Luth en Iraq traditionnel, Q Ud
Jamil Bachtr).

Two genres joined from low to high can form the
“scale system’’ ( diwan asasi, sullam in Arabic; dizi in
Turkish) of a classical heptatonic makam bearing a
tonic finale ( asds , maye, durak ), a witness-pivot (gham-
maz, shahid, guflii), normally placed at the juncture of
the two genres and corresponding most often to an
open string of the c ud, which, in fact, by structural
and acoustic definition, is a preferential degree. Other
degrees can be preferential or mobile according to the
genres and modes played and in terms of what the
ethnomusicologists call the hierarchy of degrees.

Musical treatises class makamat in terms of the
degree on which they are inserted and progress from
low to high. Here it will be limited to a small number
of heptatonic “scale systems”, simple or compound
according to the identical (or theoretically identical) or
different genres from which they are formed. All the
makamat cited point to Arabo-Turkish academic tradi¬
tions and a certain number of these makams seem to be
of relatively recent creation from the time of the Ot¬
toman Empire (18th-19th centuries).

The constituent genres will be mentioned from low
to high with and by their arbitrary limitation to the
main octave ( diwan asasi).

1. The principal makamat formed by the combina¬
tion of two identical genres are called simple, and
often bear the same name as their constituent genre or
the fingering-degree of insertion on the theoretical
scale of sounds:

Cahargah or ^Adyam-^Ashiran (or Mdhur): major; major
pentachord + major tetrachord.

Nihawand or Busalik : minor; busalik tetrachord +
busalik pentchord

Farahnuma, Hidyaz-kar-kurdi, Kurdl: two disjointed kur-
dl tetrachords (or Kurd! tetrachord + busalik pentachord
Ldmi: two descending, joined kurdi tetrachords (minor
without finale)

Shadd- c Araban, Suzidil, Hidyaz-kdr, Shahnaz : hidiaz pen¬
tachord + hidiaz tetrachord (or the latter + nikriz-
nawathar pentachord)

Husayni : bayati-^u shsh ak pentachord + baydti

tetrachord (pivot on 5th degree)

Rast: rast pentachord + rast tetrachord (two neutral
thirds) (3rd and 7th degrees are neutral)

2. Some compound makamat are formed by joining
two different genres constituting a heptatonic blend
( tarkib , miirekkep):

Sultani-yegdh, Nihawand-kabir : harmonic minor; busalik
pentachord + hidjdz tetrachord (or busalik tetrachord
+ nikriz pentachord)

Athar-kurdi: kurdi-athar pentachord + hidiaz tetrachord
Nikriz: nikriz pentachord + modulating rast tetrachord
Nawathar. nikriz nawathar pentachord + hidjaz
tetrachord

Hid^dz-. hidiaz tetrachord + modulating rast pen¬
tachord

Baydti , Nawa : baydti tetrachord + modulating rast pen¬
tachord ( busalik pentachord in the Turkish Baydti)
Kardjghdr: baydti tetrachord + modulating hidjaz pen¬
tachord

Shur: baydti tetrachord + modulating baydti , busalik ,
rast or hidiaz pentachord (mobile 5th and 6th degrees)
Dasht: baydti- c u shsh dk pentachord (mobile 5th degree
witness-pivot) + modulating Kurd! tetrachord).
Suznak : rast pentachord + hidiaz tetrachord

3. Some complex makamat are reducible to three
different genres by their octave system (a theory not
found in Turkey):

Huzam: segah trichord + hidiaz tetrachord + rast
trichord

Segah: segah trichord + modulating rast or baydti
tetrachord + rast trichord

c Irak: segah trichord + baydti tetrachord + rast trichord
Saba: sabd tetrachord + hidiaz overlapping (no octave)

4. Some makamat are reducible to an overlapping of
genres or modes: Farahfaza: minor-major modal
relativity with several leading notes
Mukhalif: overlapping of saba, segah and huzam
(chromatism)

The definition of the makam limited to the octave is
only a didactic diagram, for only archaic improvisa¬
tions are limited to the octave. The extension of the
system beyond the octave can be made in various
ways. In the most common case, the heptatonic struc¬
ture is recommenced in the adjacent low and high oc¬
taves. In scholastic practice, the theory or science of
the musician adds new structures to the high and low
in the form of connected genres or modes. It also leads
to the formation of makamat of a broad ambitus, of
which many are described in treatises. Going beyond
the register of the human voice, they apply to in¬
struments covering three octaves such as the Q ud with
six courses of strings, the kanun , the santur or the nay.
In this way, the makam is freed from its antiquity.

On the occasion of an improvisation ( taksim ),
Arabic and Turkish traditions define for each makam
a point of departure ( mabda?, zemiri), a process of
melodic movement ( tawr, seyr), stopping points
( mardkiz, asma kararlar), specific melodic formulas such
as the kafla before returning to the finale ( karar ). Ira¬
nian traditions entail the unrolling of a certain
number of melodic models (gushas) according to a fix¬
ed protocol in the official repertoire (radij), with the
periodic return of a conclusive formula-coda (forud)
such as bdl-i kabutar.

Apart from the vertical association of genres and
modes from low to high, horizontal associations in
time allow for improvisation by modulating from a
makam of reference. Genres and modes constituting
the initial modal system are renewed in terms of the
laws of Arabo-Turkish modulation ( talwln , ge(ki) by
the substitution or evolution of structures engendering
a succession of genres and modes at intermediate
stages ( miyana, meyan ) and illustrating a rich proces¬
sion of ten or twenty makamat before returning to the
initial makam (e.g. “Reveries sur le maqam
Farahfaza”, Arabesques record 6, Luth au Yemen classi-
que, c Ud Jamil Ghdnim )

Al-makdm al-Hraki, based on the same process, is a
typically c IrakI genre whose poem is entrusted to a
solo singer ( makdmci) and the accompaniment to an in¬
strumental quartet ( calght) from the beginning ( tahrlr )
to the finale ( taslim ) (e.g. “Meditations sur des
naghams traditionnels d’lraq”, in makam Pandigah ,
Arabesques record 1, Luth en Iraq classique, : Ud Munir
Bachir).

Insertion, height in frequency, transposi¬
tion, gradient, ethos.— Makamat are not of a fixed
height in frequency with reference to universal
physical principles. But they have for preferential in¬
sertion that of their main genre, which is done more
readily on certain fingering-degrees of the scale of
sounds. Also the Shadd c Araban , the Yegdh are inserted
on yegah; the Suzidil on c ashlrdn; the C Adpim - C AshIran on
nim- c adiam ; the c Irak on Hrdk\ the Nihawand , Nikriz ,
Nawathar, Hidjaz-kar, Rast on rast; the Kurdi , Hidiaz,
Baydti , Nawa, Husayni, c Ushsh ak. Saba, Shahnaz on
dugah; Segah, Huzam, Musta c ar on segah; etc.

As the height in frequency of the fingering-degrees
or scaling-fingerings is in terms of the height in fre¬
quency of the theoretical scale of sounds and the latter
varies from one country to another and one school to

102

MAKAM

another, it would be difficult to speak of absolute
height, more especially as the European pitches,
which are often cited in reference, have continued to
rise since the 18th century. Recourse to the nay ,
sometimes evoked as a pitch, presents the same risk
since, with the fixed fingering-degrees, the nay
transposes the scale in terms of its size.

In the Mediterranean Arab countries, the rast is
generally assimilated to a do2 and played as such by
trained musicians. In Turkey the scale has been
deliberately fixed and the rast key tone, called sol and
written sol by convention is a re2 in official institu¬
tions. In c Irak and Iran, the rast is more readily a ja2
or a sol2. These heights suit baritone singers quite
well. At all times, in practice, the instrumentalists
choose their scale and the soloist singers impose theirs
in terms of their vocal aptitudes.

The makamat can be transposed in various ways, in
addition to transposition by total displacement of the
tuning-pitch of the instrument or the theoretical scale
of sounds. Transposition can be obtained on the nay
by preserving the fingerings and changing the nay. On
the kanun and the santur, the playing is displaced after
the tuning-pitch has been refined. On the c ud all the
fingering-degrees of a course of strings can be
transferred to the next course, corresponding to a
translation of a fourth without modification of the in¬
ternal acoustic equilibrium of the makam. Also a baydtl
on a dugah (3rd open string) can be transposed on a
nawa (4th open string) or on an c ashiran (2nd open
string) without breaking its structure, since the finale
and the pivot (4th degree) remain inserted on the open
strings. In some cases, the makam transposed in this
way takes on a new name.

In other cases, a musician displaces the finale in a
longitudinal fashion on the string, which leads to a
transposition with translation of all the fingering-
degrees and a modification of the acoustic structure of
the makam. Such would be the case of a makam Rast
played on a segah finale, a particularly arduous perfor¬
mance which alters the acoustic role of the pivot (5th
degree), usually on an open string (nawa), and plays
it on a fingering in the middle of a string.

Some mafcdms have, observed on a stave, octave
scale systems absolutely identical with those of other
makamat, whose height of insertion on the theoretical
scale is different. Such is the case of makamat
Shadd- C A rabdn (on yegdh), Suzidil (on c ashirdn), Hidjdz-
kar (on rast), Turkish Zengiile and Shahnaz (on dugah).
Played on a kanun in the absence of a criterion of
height, they could only be differentiated from one
another by formulas, details of modulation or
cadence. By contrast, on an c ud, they have their own
acoustic equilibrium. The yegdh finale (1st open string)
of the Shadd- c Araban is on the : ud a preferential and
fundamental degree. On the other hand, the rast finale
(on a fingering of minor third on c ashiran 2nd string)
of the Hidjaz-kar, which is a very important key tone,
is not an acoustically preferential degree. Conse¬
quently, a makam Hidjaz-kar is not a transposed
Shadd- c Arabdn.

The question of the gradient of the makamat has
given rise to several controversies. Some makamat, at
the time of their improvised melodic evolution,
deliberately display ascending melody, others no less
deliberately descending melody. The musicologists of
Turkey give precise information in their works as to
the nature of the pitch to be given its value. At times,
two makamat of identical modal structure and identical
insertion have different gradients. Also, the Turkish
Bayati is descending and the Turkish c Ushsh ak ascen¬
ding; the Turkish Hidjaz ambivalent and the c Uzzal

ascending; the Turkish Neva ascending and the
Turkish Tahir descending. In c Irak, two popular
makamat based on the modal structure of the Saba are
respectively the Mansuri, usually ascending, and the
NaHl, usually descending.

Historically, each genre and mode is supposed to
correspond to a certain ethos (ruh) or a “modal senti¬
ment”, which conditions the inspiration of the artist,
and the perception or sensation of his accompanists
and audience, when he improvises. Each mode or
genre even had in former times its preferred hour, at
dawn ( makam Rahawt), at the end of the evening
(makam Zirajkand), if reference is made to the
Anonymous treatise dedicated to the Ottoman sultan Mehem-
med //(9th/15th century). But in the 20th century, the
holding of musical sessions in the evening and the in¬
fluence of the media have upset the nyctemeral ruh as
they have the sentimental ruh.

Nevertheless, the Rast is classical and academic, the
Bayati has a rural and collective tendency and is well-
suited to popular songs, the Segah expresses lofty sen¬
timents and is claimed by the mystics, the Saba, linked
to the fresh wind of dawn, expresses the weariness of
the end of the night with a clear tendency to sadness
and depression. It is all together strange, on the other
hand, to the idea of waking up and is not an arousing
makam. The Hidjaz is a makam able to evoke sadness
without depression and it is remarkable to Western
ears. In a certain measure, the calls to prayer main¬
tain a kind of nyctemeral ethos of the makamat, since
they are supposed to change the makam at each call.

Nomenclature and comparative ap¬
proaches.—The number of real or fictitious
makamat is difficult to determine in the absence of a
preconceived idea and due to the plurality of musical
traditions perpetuated in the heart of Arabo-Irano-
Turkish Islam.

A Persian theoretician of the Sasanid period, Bar-
badh. had elaborated a mystical and cosmogonous
musical system describing seven khusrawanis (modes),
thirty lahns (genres?) and three hundred and sixty
dastgahs (modulations?). This type of nomenclature as
the basis of fatidical numbers has not disappeared and
some contemporary musicologists retain seven notes
and forty intervals to the octave so as to reach three
hundred and sixty makamat. In the 7th/l3th century,
Safi al-D!n described twelve shudud, six dwazdt, one
murakkab and two undetermined modes.

Apart from large mediaeval treatises which studied
the scales, intervals, genres and modes conceived on
the c ud, and which established the nomenclatures for
the classification of the modes used, we should take ac¬
count of the delicate art and patronage which en¬
couraged musicians to create a new mode and present
it to the prince amidst a circle of initiates or on the oc¬
casion of a collective feast. Also, throughout thirteen
centuries, hundreds of makamat have been described
and it has been possible to elaborate thousands.
However, the present current practice is limited to a
few tens of simple or compound makamat and a hun¬
dred transposed makamat.

In the 20th century, Erlanger describes one hun¬
dred and nineteen Eastern makamat and twenty-nine
Tunisian makamat belonging to the Hispano-Arabic
tradition. S. al-Mahdl describes forty makamat. Alexis
Chottin notes the existence of twenty-four nawbat of
North Africa, corresponding to twenty-four modes.
Hiiseyin Sadeddin Arel describes a hundred Turkish
makamlar. Nelly Caron and Dariouche Safvate
describe twelve Iranian modes, seven being dastgah
and five awaz. Jurgen Eisner notes the existence of the
system of six makomot in Central Asia, usually

MAKAM

103

characterised by their forms. Habib Hassan Touma
evaluates the mugdm of Adharbaydjan as more than
seventy. Among all these structures there exist
similarities and divergences.

Aesthetic, natural musical and universal laws, the
limited character of the theoretical scale of sounds and
a large number of historical interferences explain how
numerous Arabo-Irano-Turkish makamat or those of
Central Asia may be identical with Indian modes
(ragas), Greek modes or modes perpetuated in the
Eastern churches or among the minorities.

As for the similarities with India, we can recognise
the identity of structure between the Indian Bhairam
and the Kurdi. As for the Greek heritage, it must be
remarked that classical musicians of the end of the
2nd/8th century such as Ishak al-Mawsili [ q.v .] used
exclusively the Pythagorean Hellenic scale. The
rehabilitation of autochthonous structures in
academic music seems to be undertaken with Mansur
Zalzal and his neutral fingering-degrees. Since then,
“Greek” and “local” structures coexist. Some
musicologists of Islam do not fail to underscore the
homology between “Islamic” and Greek genres: Io¬
nian, Aeolian, Dorian and Phrygian. The process,
nevertheless, suffers from the multiplicity of classifica¬
tions of the Greek genres. Thus we have to remark the
presence of a major and a minor and the similarities
with the modes of Greek churches, namely Rast-
natural diatonic, Bayati- minor chromatic, and Hidjaz-
kar- major chromatic.

The similarities with the Greek modes arise equally
from the European influences of the 19th century
which provoked a paradoxical re-Hellenisation. After
the c Abbasid period, which marked the flight of
Arabo-Irano-Turanian musical syncretism, academic
musical forms regressed among the Arabs and Ira¬
nians and were to discover a new brilliance at the
court of the Ottomans. But from the 19th century on¬
wards, imperial patronage and the taste of Istanbul
were more and more influenced by Europe. A
recrudescence of the Nihawand (minor) took place and
the “creation” of makamat for grand occasions, with a
very broad ambitus, and a “tempered” tendency
such as the Nawathar ( neveser ), Sultani-yegah (harmonic
minor), Hidya.z-kdr-ku.rdi ( Kurdili-Hidyaz-kar ), Farahjaza
and Farahnumd. It is these makamat , along with so
many others perpetuated at the Ottoman court, which
were to be introduced in Egypt by c Abdu al-HammulI
so as to regenerate music which was at that time in a
parlous condition, if the descriptions of Villoteau are
to be believed.

The similarity between the modes of Islam and the
modes of the Eastern churches is at times striking,
despite divergences of form and style. It might as well
be attributed to relics of the common ancient heritage
claimed by both traditions, to a period of modal syn¬
cretism, or to the fruits of a coexistence which lasted
more than ten centuries. The same question can be
posed as regards the commatic chant of the churches
whose territory was administered by the Ottomans,
when the latter perpetuated the Byzantine artistic
heritage and commatic system.

The problem of the musical modes perpetuated by
the minorities reveals the same ambiguous
similarities. As regards the Kurds, for example, it is
well-known in Turkey, c Irak and Iran that the Kur¬
dish singers and instrumentalists interpret more
readily the Husayni or Dasht modes according to their
own forms and styles. The form and style can also be
ascribed to the mountainous environment as well as to
precise ethnic criteria. But, if it is a matter of reconcil¬
ing a citizenship or a race to the modes, it is note¬

worthy that the same Husayni or Dasht modes were
perpetuated with the same structures and more
classical forms or styles in Istanbul, Baghdad or
Tehran.

Some modes, endowed with structures that can be
found throughout the Arabo-Irano-Turkish world,
have taken a form, style and name which makes them
characteristic of a region. But they are not linked
especially strictly to a nation. Also, the Shur and Dashti
modes ( bayati structure) or Ajshpiri (segdh structure) of
Iran, perpetuated equally in Adharbaydjan, corres¬
pond respectively, as far as structure is concerned, to
the Shuri, Dasht and Awshar makamat of c Irak, and it
may be supposed that they derive from a common
regional ancestral patrimony in these three countries.

A classical mode can present local variants. Also the
Segdh , remarkable for its finale on a neutral fingering-
degree, is articulated according to various patterns: in
the 3rd degree, on a modulating rdst!busalik tetrachord
(in the Arab countries) or on the equivalent of a bayati
genre (in Iran), or, in the fifth degree, on a hijjdz
tetrachord (in Turkey). Another mode called makam
Nawa/dastgah-i NawdtNeva makami is also constituted:

— a Bayati tetrachord (hardly variable) inserted on the
dugah fingering-degree (3rd open string on the c ud)

— a modulating variable pentachord inserted on the
nawa fingering-degree (4th open string on the c ud)
which may be

(a) a rdst pentachord in Turkey (5th degree hardly
mobile);

(b) a rdst or busalik pentachord in the Arab coun¬
tries (5th degree mobile); or

A comparative approach to the Arab, Iranian and
Turkish modes would allow, by making an abstrac¬
tion of nationalisms, separatisms or claims of paterni¬
ty, the discovery of a large number of divergent
structures under a common name or common struc¬
tures under different names. However, ambiguities of
terminology are involved. What is called a
makam/Cahargah among the Arabs and Turks is a ma¬
jor, while the Cahargah of Iran corresponds to an
Arabo-Turkish Hidydzkar. The major is called Mdhur
or Rast-pandjgah in Iran, while the Arab Mahur is not
a major. The makamat called Pandjgah and Shuri in
c Irak would be called Suznak and Kardjighar in Turkey
and Syria.

The fruitless efforts since the Congress of Arabic
Music in Cairo in 1932 show that it is too late to
establish normalised Arabo-Irano-Turkish nomen¬
clature and that it is illusory to want to fix the height
of the neutral degrees, very high in Istanbul and very
low in Cairo. Finally, the two recent Baghdad Con¬
gresses of Music in 1975 and 1978 have allowed us to
ascertain that it is just as impossible to agree to a
definition of the term makam in its musical sense.

Moreover, every amateur and every musicologist
will persist in perceiving the makam in terms of his sen¬
sibility or formation: familiar melodic formulas,
recollection of a cultural identity, expression of an
ethnic music, modal system, heptatone on a stave,
modal protocol, form of improvisation, aesthetic
vestige of the Golden Ages, obstacle to progress by
harmonisation, communication of a state of soul,
linguistic system of the c ud and specific language, etc.

Bibliography. There is a very full
bibliography on the makam as understood by
orientalist musicologists or ethnomusicologists, on
musiki and the c ud in J. Eisner, Zum Problem des Ma-
quam, in Acta musicologica, xlvii/2 (1975), 208-30; H.
G. Farmer, arts. musiki and c ud in

104

MAKAM — MAKAM IBRAHIM

EP —Interpretation of mediaeval
treatises. Evolution of music and of the
c ud in Islam. Translations: Th. Antar, Sams
al-Din Muhammad al-Saydawi al-Dimasqi. Livre de la
connaissance des tons et leur explication, Sorbonne typed
thesis, Paris 1979; J. E. Bencheikh, Les musiciens et
la poesie. Les ecoles d’lshaq al-Mawsili (m. 225 H.) et
d ’Ibrahim al-Mahdi (m. 224 H.), in Arabica, xxii
(1975), 114-152; J.-C. Chabrier, Un mouvement de
rehabilitation de la musique arabe et du luth oriental.
L ’ecole de Bagdad de Cherif Muhieddin a Munir Bachir,
Sorbonne typed thesis, Paris 1976; A. Chottin, La
musique arabe , in Roland-Manuel (ed.), Histoire de la
musique , Paris 1960, 526-43; R. d’Erlanger, La
musique arabe, i-iv, Paris 1930-8; H. G. Farmer, The
lute scale of Avicenna, in JRAS (1937), 245-57; L.
Ronzevalle, Un traite de musique arabe moderne, in
MFOB, iv (1913), 1-120; J. Rouanet, La musique
arabe and La musique arabe dans le Maghreb, in A.
Lavignac (ed.), Histoire de la musique, Paris 1922,
2676-2939; A. Shiloah, L’epitre sur la musique des
Ikhwan as-Safa, annotated translation, in REI
(1964), 125-62, (1966), 159-93; idem, Al-Hasan ibn
Ahmad ibn < Alt al-Katib. La perfection des connaissances
musicales, Paris 1972; idem, Un ancient traite sur le c ud
d’Abu Yusuf al-Kindi, in Israel Or. Studies, iv (1974),
179-205; idem, The theory of music in Arabic writings
c. 900-1900, in R.I.S.M., Bx, Munich 1979; O.
Wright, The modal system of Arab and Persian music.
A.D. 1250-1300, Oxford 1978; Z. Yusuf, Ibn al-
Munadjdjim, Risdla fi ’l-musika, critical ed., Cairo
1964; Chabrier, Evolution du luth- c ud et periodisation
des structures musicales arabo-islamiques, in R. Petcos
(ed.), Proceedings of the ninth congress of the U.E.A.I.,
Leiden 1981, 31-47; G. Villoteau, De I’etat actuel de
Part musical en Egypte ou Relation historique et descriptive
des recherches et observations faites sur la musique en ce pays
par M. Villoteau, in Description de l’Egypte, 2nd ed.,
xiv, Paris 1826.—Modes and scales in
general: J. Chailley, Formation et transformations du
langage musical, Sorbonne duplicated handbook,
Paris 1955, 1-24, 69-143, 191-200; idem, Essai sur
les structures melodiques, in Revue de Musicologie, xliv
(1959), 139-75; idem, LTmbroglio des modes, Paris
1960, 5-9, 35-41, 10-28; Chailley, and H. Challan,
Theorie complete de la musique, Paris 1951; E. Weber
(ed.), La resonance dans les echelles musicales (C.N.R.S.
Colloquium 1960), Paris 1963. —Makam and
taksim in the Arab countries: Dj amil Bashir,
al- c Ud wa-tankat tadrisihUUd, ways and methods of
teaching, Baghdad 1962; d’Erlanger, La musique
arabe, v, Paris 1949; Eisner, Zum Problem des Ma-
quam; idem, Der Begriff des maqdm in Agypten, in
Beitrdge zur musikwissenschaftlichen Forschung in DDR,
v (1973); E. Gerson-Kiwi, On the technique of Arab
Taqsim composition, in Festschrift W. Graf, Vienna-
Cologne-Graz 1970, 66-73; M. Guettat, La musique
classique du Maghreb, Paris 1980; M. Khemakhem,
La musique tunisienne traditionnelle. Structures et formes,
Sorbonne typed thesis, Paris 1974; S. Mahdl, La
musique arabe, Paris 1972; idem (Salih al-Mahdi),
Makamat al-musika al- c Arabiyya, Tunis (1982); R.
Riddle, Taqsim Nahawand, a study of sixteen perfor¬
mances by Jihad Racy , in Yearbook of the International
Folk Music Council (1973); B. Nettl, Thoughts on im¬
provisation. A comparative approach, in The Musical
Quarterly , lx/1 (1974), 1-19; Aly Jihad Racy,
Musical change and commercial recording in Egypt,
1904-1932, thesis Univ. of Illinois, Urbana 1977;
A. Shiloah, The Arabic concept of mode, in JAMS
xxxiv/1, 1981; H. H. Touma, Maqam, une forme
d’improvisation, in The World of Music, xii/3 (1970),

22-31; idem, The Maqam phenomenon: an improvisation
technique in the music of the Middle East, in
Ethnomusicology (1971); idem, Der Maqam Bayati im
arabischen Taqsim, Hamburg 1976; H. A. Mahfuz,
Mu^d^am al-musika al- c arabiyya, Baghdad 1964.—
Makam c iraki and makamat in c Irak:
Chabrier, thesis, cited above; B. Fa^iq, The Iraqi
maqam, in Baghdad, x (May 1975), 25-8; C A. Bilal,
al-N agh am al-mubtakar fi ’l-musika al-Hrakiyya wa
’l-'-arabiyya, Baghdad 1969; al-Hadjdj M. Hashim-
Radjab, al-Makam al-Hrdkl, Baghdad 1961; M.S.
Djalall, al-Makamdt al-mustkiyya fi ’l-Mawsil , Maw§il
1941.—Modal structures in Iran: M.
Barkechli and M. Ma c rufi, La musique traditionnelle
de l Tran et les systemes de la musique traditionnelle
(Radif), Tehran 1963; M. Barkechli, La musique ira-
nienne, in Roland-Manuel (ed.), Histoire de la musi¬
que, 453-525; N. Caron and D. Safvate, Iran. Les
traditions musicales, Paris 1966; H. Farhat, Form and
style in Persian music, in The World of Music, ii (1978),
108-14; Gerson-Kiwi, The Persian doctrine of Dastga
composition, Tel Aviv 1963; Khatschi-Khatschi, Der
Dastgah, Studien zur neuen persischen Musik, in Kolner
Beitrdge zur Musikforschung, xix (1962);
M. F. Massoudieh, Awaz-e Sur, Zur Melodiebildung
in der persischen Kunstmusik, in ibid., xlix (1968); B.
Nettl and B. Foltin, Daramad of Chahdrgdh: a study in
the performance practice of Persian music, in Detroit
monographs in musicology, ii (1972); G. Tsuge, Nota¬
tion in Persian music, in The World of Music, ii (1978),
119-20; E. Zonis, Classical Persian music, an introduc¬
tion, Harvard-Cambridge 1973.—Modal struc¬
tures in Turkey: H. S. Arel, Turk musikisi
nazariyati dersleri, Istanbul 1968; S. Ezgi, Nazari ve
ameli tiirk musikisi, 5 vols., Istanbul 1933-53; B.
Mauguin, Utilisation des echelles dans la tradition
musicale turque contemporaine, typed thesis, Paris
1969; G. Oransay, Die melodische Linie und der Begriff

Makam der traditionellen tiirkischen Kunstmusik vom 15.

• •

bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Ankara 1966; Y. Oztuna,
Tiirk musikisi ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1969, 3 vols.; A.
Saygun, La musique turque, in Roland-Manuel (ed.),
Histoire de la musique, 573-617; K. L. Signell,
Makam: modal practice in Turkish art music , thesis,
Seattle 1977; R. Yekta-Bey, La musique turque, in
A. Lavignac (ed.), Histoire de la musique, Paris 1922,
1845-3064.—Modal structures in C. Asia,
makom and the shash-makom system: J.
Eisner, see above; V. M. Belyaev, Ocerki po istorii
musiki narodov S.S.S.R., I, Mosow 1962.

Specific discography: There are analyses of the
Arabo-Irano-Turkish modal structures with tables
of transposition, finger-boards of the <: ud and
transcription of all the perceived modulations in J.-
C. C. Chabrier (ed.), Arabesques — recitalbum. An-
thologie phonographique du recital oriental, ten albums,
Paris 1974-9 (with the cooperation and patronage
of the C.N.R.S. and the Institut du Monde Arabe,
to be reissued): 1. Luth en Iraq classique. Meditations.
c Ud Munir Bachir 2. Cithare au Liban classique. Qdnun.
Muhammad Sabsabi 3. Flute en Syrie classique. Nay.
Selim Kosur 4. Luth en Syrie. Thanes damascenes. fUd.
c Omar Naqichbendi 5. Luth en Iraq traditionnel. Evoca¬
tions. c Ud Jamil Bachir 6. Luth au Yemen classique.
Reveries. c Ud Jamil Ghanim 7. Cithare en Egypte. Le
Caire. Qanun. Muhammad c Atiya c Omar 8. Luth au
Liban traditionnel. Buzuq. Nasser Makhoul 9. Flute en
Turquie mystique. Nay. Soufi Hayri Turner 10. Cithare
en Iran classique. Santur. Faramarz Payvar.

(J.-Cl. Ch. Chabrier)

MAKAM IBRAHIM denotes, according to
Kurban, II, 125 (... wa-ttakhidhu min makami Ibrahtmi

MAKAM IBRAHIM

105

musallan ...) a place of prayer. Some commen¬
tators interpreted, however, the word musallan as “a
place of invocations and supplications”, a definition
which would considerably modify the status of the
place. The reading of the verb in the phrase became
the subject of discussion. Several scholars read it in
the perfect tense ”... wa-ttakhadhu ...”, and they
rendered it” ... and they took to themselves
Abraham’s station for a place of prayer”, linking it
with the preceding clause” ... and when We ap¬
pointed the House to be a place of visitation for the
people and shelter and they took to themselves ...”
(see e.g. Mudjahid, Tafsir , ed. c Abd al-Rahman al-
Suratl, Islamabad n.d., i, 88, 89 n. 1; al-Shawkanl,
Fath al-kadir, Beirut n.d., i, 138; Ibn Mudjahid, Kitdb
al-Sab c a fi ’l-kira-’at, ed. ShawkI Dayf, Cairo 1972,
169, no. 45; al- c Ayni, c Umdat al-kdri, Cairo 1348,
repr. Beirut, ix, 212). In the other version, the verb
is read as an imperative ”... wa-ttakhidhu ...” and
rendered ”... and take to yourselves ...”; this is the
reading preferred by the majority of Muslim scholars.
The verse was connected with the person of c Umar,
who according to tradition approached the Prophet
asking him to establish the spot on which the stone
known as makdm Ibrahim was located as a place of
prayer. After a short interval, God revealed to the
Prophet the verse of sura II, 125 ”... and take to
yourselves ...”. This is one of the miraculous cases in
which c Umar’s advice proved to be congruent with
the will of God, the Kur’anic verses lending confir¬
mation to his suggestion (see Abu Nu c aym, Hilyat al-
awliyd\ Cairo 1351/1932, iii, 302, 377, iv, 145; al-
Tabaranl, al-Mu^d^am al-saghir, ed. c Abd al-Rahman
Muhammad c Uthman, Cairo 1388/1968; al-Muttakl
al-Hindl, Kanz al- c ummdl , Hyderabad 1390/1970,
xvii, 99, nos. 283-5; al-Fakhr al-Razi, al-Tafsir al-
Kabir, Cairo n.d., xxiii, 86; Amin Mahmud Khattab.
Fath al-malik al-ma c bud, takmilat al-manhal al- Q adhb
al-mawrud, sharh sunan al-Imam Abi Dawud, Cairo
1394/1974, ii, 11; al- c AynI, op. cit ., ix, 212; al-
Kurtubl, Tafsir [al-DidmF li-ahkam al-Kur^an], Cairo
1387/1967, ii, 112; al-Shawkanl, op. cit., i, 140 inf.;
Anonymous, Manakib al-sahaba , ms. Br. Mus., Or.
8273, fol. 3a). Ibn al-DjawzI is reported to have
wondered why c Umar had asked for a practice from
the faith of Abraham ( millat Ibrahim ) to be introduced
into the ritual of Islam despite the fact that the Pro¬
phet had forbidden him to quote passages from the
Torah. Ibn al-DjawzI tries to explain this, saying that
Abraham is revered in Islam as an imam , the Kur 3 an
urges people to follow in his steps, the Ka c ba is linked
with his name and the prints of his feet are like the
marks of the mason; that is the reason why c Umar
asked to turn the makdm into a place of worship (see
al- c Ayni, op. cit., iv, 145; Ibn Hadjar, Fath al-bari,
Cairo 1300 [repr. Beirut], viii, 128). One of the com¬
mentators states that the injunction is linked with sura
II, 122 (”... Children of Israel, remember my bless¬
ing...”) and that the Children of Israel are those who
were addressed by it (al-Fakhr al-Razi, op. cit., i,
472); another one says that the injunction is incum¬
bent upon the Jews at the time of the Prophet (al-
Tabari, Tafsir, ed. Mahmud and Muhammad Shakir.
Cairo n.d., iii, 31); a third commentary connects the
injunction with II, 124: “... and when his Lord tested
Abraham ...”. According to this last interpretation,
the makdm Ibrahim is one of the words of the Lord by
which Abraham was tested (al-Shawkanl, op. cit., i,
139; Ibn KathTr, Tafsir, Beirut 1385/1966, i, 291).

There was disagreement among Muslim scholars as
to the significance of the expression makdm Ibrahim.
Some of them claimed that the expression denotes the

whole place of the pilgrimage, others said that c Arafa,
Muzdalifa [q.vv.] and the Djimar are meant; a third
group maintained that makdm Ibrahim refers to c Arafa
only, while the fourth view identifies it with the Haram
of Mecca (see e.g. al- c AynI, op. cit., iv, 130, ix, 212;
Abu TBaka 3 Muhammad b. al-Diya 3 al- c AdawI,
Ahwal Makka wa d-Madina, ms. Br. Mus., Or. 11865,
fol. 84b; Amin Mahmud Khattab. op. cit. , ii, 11). The
great majority of the scholars identified makdm Ibrahim
with the stone in the sanctuary of Mecca which com¬
monly bears this name (see e.g. al- c Ayni, op. cit., ix,
212; A. Spitaler, Ein Kapitelaus den Fada 3 il al-Qur 3 an
von Abu c Ubaid al-Qasim b. Salam, in Documenta islamica,
Berlin 1952, 6, nos. 29-30) and behind which the Pro¬
phet prayed when he performed the circumambula-
tion of the Ka c ba (see e.g. al-Wakidl, al-Maghazi, ed.
M. Jones, London 1966, 1098; al-Harbl, al-Mandsik,
ed. Hamad al-Djasir, al-Riyad 1389/1969, 433, 500;
al-Tabaranl, op. cit., i, 22; Muhibb al-DIn al-Tabari,
al-Kird li-kdsid umm al-kura, ed. Mustafa al-Sakka,
Cairo 1390/1970, 342 sup.).

The sanctity of the stone was enhanced by the fact
that it bears the footprints of Abraham (see e.g. al-
Isfara 3 InI, Zubdat al-admal wa-khuldsat al-af-al, ms. Br.
Mus., Or. 3034, fol. 6b). The footprints of the Pro¬
phet had exactly the same size as the footprints in the
makdm (see e.g. al-TabarsI, I c lam al-ward, ed. c AlI
Akbar al-Ghaffarl, Tehran 1379, 73; al-Kazaruni,
Sirat al-nabi, ms. Br. Mus. Add. 18499, fols. 70b, 88a,
89a). Some traditions say that the miracle of
Abraham’s footprints in the stone appeared when
Abraham built the Ka c ba; when the walls became too
high he mounted the makdm which miraculously rose
and went down in order to let Isma c il hand him the
stones for the building (see e.g. al-Sindjari, Mana\h
al-karam bi-akhbar Makka wa d-Haram, ms. Leiden, Or.
7018, fol. 22b; al-Sayyid al-Bakri, Fdnat al-talibin c ala
hallalfazfath al~mu c in, Cairo 1319, repr. Beirut, ii, 295
inf.-296 sup.; al-lsfara 3 lnl, op. cit., fol. 83b; al-
Khargushl. LawamF, ms. Vatican, Arab. 1642, fol.
67b; al-Suyutl, al-Hdwi li dfatawi, ed. Muhammad
Muhyl al-DIn c Abd al-Hamld, Cairo 1378/1959, ii,
201; al-$alihl, Subul al-huda wa d-rashad fi sirat khayr
al-Hbad, ed. Mustafa c Abd al-Wahid, Cairo
1392/1972, i, 181; Muhibb al-DIn al-Tabari, op. cit.,
343); other traditions claim that the miracle occurred
when the wife of Isma c II washed the head of Abraham
(see e.g. al-Mas c udI, Ithbat al-wasiyya , Nadjaf
1374/1955, 39 inf.-40 sup.; Abu ’1-Baka 3 al- c Adawi,
op. cit., fol. 85a; al- c AynI, op. cit., ix, 212); a third
tradition says that it happened when Abraham
mounted the makdm in order to summon the people to
perform the pilgrimage to Mecca (see e.g. Abu T
Baka 3 al- c AdawI, loc. cit. ;. al-$alihl, op. cit., i, 184-5;
anon., c Arf al-tib , ms. Leiden, Or. 493, fol. 70a;
Muhibb al-DIn al-Tabari, op. cit., 342; al-Sindjari, op.
cit., fol. 28b; al-MadjlisI, Bihar al-anwar, Tehran 1388,
xcix, 182, 188). Certain traditions affirm that

Abraham took the stone as a kibla [q v.\, he prayed at
the stone turning his face to the Ka c ba (see e.g. al-
Isfara 3 InI, op. cit., fol. 83b; Muhibb al-DIn al-Tabari,
loc. cit.\ Abu TBaka 3 al- c AdawI, loc. cit.). Some
scholars, however, defined the stone merely as a
means to mark the kibla, bidding the believer to have
the stone placed in front of himself while facing the
Ka c ba (al- c AynI, op. cit., iv, 130: fa-inna d-makama in-
namayakunu kiblatan idha djodalahu al-musalli baynahu wa-
bayn al-kibla). Certain scholars pointed out that the
prayer at the makdm is not obligatory (al- c AynI, op.
cit., ix, 212: wa-hiya c ala wadjh al-ikhtiyar wa d-istihbab
dun al-wudfiib ...).

Numerous traditions about the qualities and virtues

106

MAKAM IBRAHIM

of the makam report that the stone was sent down from
Heaven, that supplications at the makdm will be
answered and sins will be forgiven (see e.g. al-Salihl,
op. cit. , i, 204; al-Sindjari, op. cit. , fol. 23b; anon., c Arf
al-tib , fol. 73b; al-Madjlisi, op. cit., xcix, 219, 230,
231; al-Fasi, Tuhfat al-kiram, ms. Leiden Or. 2654,
fol. 66b; Muhibb al-Dln al-Tabari, op. cit., 324; al-
Shibll, Mahasin al-wasa HI fi maHifat al-awd HI, ms. Br.
Mus., Or. 1530, fol. 38b; al-Isfara^ml, Zubdat al-
aHndl, fols. 76b-77a; al-Kh w arazmi. Mukhtasar ithdrat
al-targhib wa ’/- tashwik, ms. Br. Mus., Or. 4584, fols.
lla-13a; al-Kazwml, Athdr al-bilad, Beirut 1382/1962,
118; Ibn Abl Shavba. al-Musannaf, Hyderabad
1390/1970, iv, 108-9; c Abd al-Razzak, al-Musannaf,
ed. Habib al-Rahman al-A c zamI, Beirut 1392/1972,
v, 32, no. 8890; al-Sayyid al-Bakri, op. cit., ii, 295).
The sanctity of the makdm was associated with that of
the rukn and with zamzam; 99 prophets are buried at
this spot, among them Hud, Salih, Nuh and Isma c il
(see e.g. al-Sindjari, op. cit., fol. 26a; al-Suyup, al-
Durr al-manthur, Cairo 1314, i, 136). Prayer at the
graves was permitted on the ground that this was a
cemetery of prophets; as prophets are alive in their
graves, prayer is not only permitted but even
meritorious (cf. al-Sayyid al-Bakri, op. cit., ii, 277).
Scholars criticised the practice of kissing the stone,
stroking it, and even performing a kind of circumam-
bulation round it (see Ibn Abl Shavba. op. cit. , iv, 61,
116; Muhibb al-Dln al-Tabari, op. cit., 357, no. 109;
anon., c Arf al-tib, loc. cit.; but see Ibn Djubavr. al-
Rihla, Beirut 1388/1968, 55, ... tabarraknd bi-lamsihi
wa-takbilihi ...).

The makdm is a stone of small dimensions: 60 cm.
wide by 90 cm. high (see the data recorded by al-Fasi,
Tuhfat al-kiram , fol. 67a; measured by al-Fasi anno 753
AH; and see al-Sindjari, op. cit., fol. 23a). It is now
“closely surrounded by glass and bars set into a
polygonal base, the whole structure, capped by a
much narrower kind of ‘helmet’, being about three
yards above ground level” (A. J. Wensinck-
J. Jomier, art. ka c ba). In the early periods of Islam,
the stone, encased in a wooden box, was placed on a
high platform so as to prevent its being swept by a tor¬
rent. During the prayer led by the ruler or his deputy,
the box used to be lifted and the makdm shown to the
people attending the prayer; after the prayer, the box
was again locked and placed in the Ka c ba (cf. al-
MukaddasI, 72). It was sad to see how al-Ha djdj adj
tried with his leg to set up the makdm Ibrahim back to
its place after it had moved (see c Abd al-Razzak, op.
cit., v, 49, no. 8959).

In 160/777 the makdm was brought to the abode of
al-Mahdi in Mecca when he performed the
pilgrimage. In the next year, when the makdm was
raised carelessly by one of its keepers, it fell down and
cracked; it was repaired at the order of al-Mahdi and
its upper and lower parts were braced with gold. Al-
Mutawakkil in 241/855-6 improved the pedestal of the
makdm, embellished the makam itself with gold and
ordered the building of a cupola over the makdm (cf.
al-Sindjari, op. cit., fol. 120b). In 252/866 the makam
was stripped of its gold by the governor of Mecca
Dja< far b. al-Fadl; the gold was then melted down for
minting dinars, which he spent in his struggle against
the rebel Isma c fl b. Yusuf b. Ibrahim (see al-Sindjari,
op. cit., fols. 120a ult. - 120b, 121a; on Isma c fl b.
Yusuf, see al-Fasi, al- c Ikdal-thamin, ed. Fu 5 ad Sayyid,
Cairo 1383/1963, iii, 311, no. 783). A thorough
restoration of the makam was carried out in 256/870 by
the governor c Ali b. al-Hasan al-Hashimi (see on him
al-Fasi, op. cit., vi, 151, no. 2050). Al-Fakihi gives a
detailed description of the stone in its place (cf. Le Mu-

seon, lxxxiv [1971], 477-91). When the stone was
brought to the dar al-imara, al-Fakihi noticed the in¬
scription on it and tried to copy parts of it. R. Dozy
reproduced the inscription and tried to decipher it (R.
Dozy, Die Israeliten zu Mekka , Leipzig 1864, 155-61).
His reading and interpretation are implausible (Prof.
J. Naveh’s opinion, communicated verbally).

Lengthy and heated discussions took place among
the scholars about the place of the makam. The tradi¬
tions about whether the stone was established in its
place are divergent and even contradictory (see e.g.
Ibn Abi THadld, Shark Nahdf al-baldgha. ed. Muham¬
mad Abu ’1-Fadl Ibrahim, Cairo 1964, xii, 160; al-
Kuda c I, TaHikh, Bodleian ms. Pococke 270, fol. 58a;
al-Harbi, al-Mandsik , ed. Hamad al-Djasir, 500; al-
ShiblT, op. cit. , fol. 38a-b; al-Muttaki al-Hindl, op.
cit., xvii, 97-9, nos, 278-81; Ibn Hibban al-Bustl, al-
Thikat, Hyderabad 1395/1975, ii, 218; c Abd al-
Rahman b. Abi Hatim al-Razi, c Ilal al-hadith, ed.
Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib. Cairo 1343, i, 298). These
traditions were divided by al-Sindjari into five groups.
According to some reports, c Umar was the first who
removed the stone. Others say that in the time of
Abraham the stone was in the same place as it is now,
but in the time of the Djahiliyya it had been attached
to the Ka c ba and so it remained during the periods of
the Prophet and of Abu Bakr and for some time dur¬
ing the caliphate of c Umar, who returned it to its pro¬
per place. A third series of traditions claims that the
Prophet removed the stone from its original place
(next to the Ka c ba) and put it in its present location.
A fourth tradition maintains that c Umar moved the
stone to its present place and returned it to the same
spot after it had been swept away by a torrent. Final¬
ly, some scholars say that the makdm has always been
in the place where it is nowadays; c Umar re-installed
it to this place after it was swept away by a torrent (see
al-Sindjari, op. cit., fols. 23a-b, 76b-78a). A tradition
which contains new aspects of the location of the
makdm is recorded by Ibn Kathlr. The stone was in the
Ka c ba; the Prophet took it out of the Ka c ba and at¬
tached it to its wall (i.e. of the Ka c ba). Then he said,
“O people, this is the kibla" (Ibn Kathlr, Tafsir, ii,
322). It is noteworthy that in this tradition there is no
mention of c Umar, of his advice or of the changes car¬
ried out by him. It is quite plausible that c Umar’s
change had to be legitimised and duly justified.
Muhibb al-Dln al-Tabari tries to explain this
discrepancy by reporting that c Umar inquired after
the death of the Prophet about the place in which
Abraham put the stone. In the time of the Prophet,
the stone was indeed attached to the wall of the Ka c ba;
but c Umar was aware of the Prophet’s will to follow
the sunna of Abraham, and returned the makam to its
original place, the place in which it had been put by
Abraham ( al-Kird, 347; quoted by Abu ’l-Baka 5
al- c Adawi, Ahwdl Makka wa ’l-Madina, fols. 86b-87a).
A divergent report is recorded by al-Sindjari on the
authority of Ibn Suraka. Between the door of the
Ka c ba and the place of Adam’s prayer (where God ac¬
cepted his repentance) there were nine cubits; it was
the place of makam Ibrahim and there the Prophet per¬
formed two rak c as after finishing the tawdf and after
receiving the relevation of the verse “... and take the
makam Ibrahim as a place of prayer... ”. It was the Pro¬
phet himself who later removed the stone to the place
where it is nowadays, sc. at a distance of 20 cubits
from the Ka c ba (al-Sindjari, op. cit., fol. 77a). Instruc¬
tive is the report of Ibn Djubayr. The ditch ( hufra ) at
the door of the Ka c ba (in which the water gathers
when the Ka c ba is washed) is the place of the makam
in the time of Abraham; the place is crowded by

MAKAM IBRAHIM — MAKAMA

107

believers who pray there; the stone was moved by the
Prophet to the present place (see al-Rihla, 55 inf. - 56;
al-Sindjari, op. cit., fol. 78a). The change of the place
of the makam and the possibility that the stone should
be moved to another place of the haram led to a distur¬
bing question: would it be incumbent upon the
believer to pray, in such a case, in the new place (since
the injunction clearly makes it necessary to take the
makam as a place of prayer), or to stick to the original
place? (See al-Sindjari, op. cit., 77b and also fol. 78a:
the former makam occupied half of the ditch (hujra) at
the hidjr).

Shl c i scholars were aware of the change carried out
by c Umar. ShI c I imams are said to have recommended
prayer at the former place of the makam Ibrahim. This
“former place” is described as being between the rukn
al-Hraki and the door of the Ka c ba. Second in merit is
the prayer behind the present makam (cf. al-MadjlisI,
op. cit., xcix, 230, no. 4, 231 nos. 6-7). Ibn Babawayh
sketches the history of the changes as follows.
Abraham attached the stone to the Ka c ba, stood on it
and summoned the people to perform the pilgrimage
to Mecca; on that occasion his footprints were mould¬
ed in the stone. The people of the Djahiliyya then
removed the stone and put it in its present place in
order to make the circumambulation of the Ka c ba
easier. When the Prophet was sent, he reinstalled the
makam in the place where it had been put by
Abraham. c Umar asked where its location had been
during the period of the Djahiliyya, and returned it to
that place; hence the present place of the makam
Ibrahim is the same as it was in the time of the
Djahiliyya (see Ibn Babawayh, c Ilal al-sharaY, ed.
Muhammad $adik Bahr al- c ulum, Nadjaf 1385/1966,
423, bab 160; quoted by al-MadjlisI, op. cit. , xcix, 232,
no. 1; cf. anon., untitled ms. Vatican Arab. 1750, fol.
32b).

Some traditions related by al-FakihT add certain
peculiar details about the change carried out by
c Umar. A report traced back to Sa c Id b. Djubayr says
that Abraham placed the stone in front of the Ka c ba.
c Umar removed the stone and placed it in its present
spot, as he was afraid that people performing the lawdf
might tread on it; it is now facing the former makam.
Another report given on the authority of Hisham b.
c Urwa and transmitted to him by his father c Urwa
says that the Prophet prayed facing the Ka c ba; after¬
wards, both Abu Bakr and c Umar in the early part of
his caliphate prayed in the same direction. But later,
c Umar announced that God, blessed He is and lofty,
says “... and take to yourselves the makam Ibrahim as
a place of prayer ...”; thereafter, he moved the stone
to the (present) place of the makam (al-Fakihi, TaHtkh
Makka, fol. 331a). Both these reports recorded by al-
Fakihl are sober, concise and devoid of miraculous
features or of obligatory divine injunctions, and
deserve a fair degree of confidence. The conclusion
must be that it was c Umar who relocated the place of
the makam , probably out of pragmatic considerations.

The latest change in the place of the makam has been
carried out by the Sa c udl government: the makam was
moved to the rear in order to widen the path for the
circumambulation of the Ka c ba (see in al-Harbi, op.
cit., 500, n. 2 of Hamad al-Djasir).

Bibliography : In addition to references given

in the text, see the bibl. in LeMuseon, lxxxiv (1971),
477-91_. (M. J. Kister)

MAKAMA, a purely and typically Arabic
literary genre. The word is generally translated as
“assembly” or “session” (Fr. “seance”), but this is
an approximation which does not convey exactly the
complex nature of the term.

Semantic evolution of the term. The
semantic study of this vocable for the period previous
to the creation of the genre is complicated by the fact
that the plural makamat, which is frequently used, is
common to two nouns, makdma and makam [q.v.]. Both
are derived from the radical k-w-m, which implies the
idea of “to rise, to stand in order to perform an ac¬
tion”, but which is often weakened in that it simply
marks the beginning of an action, whether the agent
rises or not, and even loses its dynamic sense
altogether, taking on the static sense of “to stay in a
place”. Makam occurs fourteen times in the Kur 5 an
with the general sense of “abode, a place where one
stays”, more specifically in the beyond, but in one
verse (XIX, 74/73), where it is used in conjunction
with nadi, “tribal council”, it must refer to a meeting
of important people; the same applies to a verse of
Zuhayr b. Abl Sulma (Cheikho, Shu^ara^ al-
Nasrdniyya, 573, v. 6 : makamat ... andiyd). Otherwise,
from the archaic period onward, makam naturally con¬
veyed the sense of “situation, state”, and, in a verse
of Ka c b b. Zuhayr ( Banat Su^ad, ed. and tr. R. Basset,
Algiers 1910, v. 41), the makam of the poet, which is
certainly dramatic, is judged terrifying (ha HI) by the
commentator. It is probable that an analysis of an¬
cient poetry would supply more precise and il¬
luminating examples, but it seems likely that by
means of a transference of meaning, starting with “a
tragic situation”, makam came to designate a battle, a
combat, a melee, and that, as a result of a confusion
of the two terms or the simple exigencies of metre,
makdma also took on this sense. In a verse of Djarir in
-si(Sharh Diwan Djarir . ed. Sawi, Cairo n. d., 326, v.

1 of the 2 nd poem), makdma seems to signify, not
madjlis “assembly” (as it is glossed by the editor, who
confines himself to reproducing the dictionary defini¬
tion), but “battle”; similarly, in a verse of Abu Tam-
mam in -da (Badr al-tamam JTshark Diwan Abi Tammam ,
ed. M.I. al-Aswad, Beirut 1347/1928, i, 222, v. 5),
makdma (read as mukama by the editor, but glossed as
“scene of warlike actions”) is used in conjunction
with muHarak and doubtless has the sense of “theatre
of warlike valour”. In other examples of this type it
is the plural which is attested, and it is not known to
which singular it corresponds. In any case, it is cer¬
tainly in the sense of “battles, military actions” that
this plural is to be best understood in a passage of the
Kitdb al-Bukhald 3 of al-Diahiz (ed. Hadjirl, 184, 1. 2;
rectify accordingly the translation by Pellat, 289),
where there is a case of Bedouins talking of battles of
the pre-Islamic period (ayydm [q. v. ]) and of makamat,
acts of heroism.

In assemblies of important people, eloquence was a
natural feature, and it is not surprising that, by means
of another transference of meaning, makam should also
refer to the topics discussed in the course of these
meetings, then, by extension, to more or less edifying
addresses delivered before a distinguished audience.
This evolution is attested, in the 3rd/9th century by
Ibn Kutayba [< 7 . 0 . ] who, in his c Uyun al-akhbar (ii,
333-43), gives the title Makamat al-zuhhad c ind al-
khulafa J wa d-muluk to a chapter in which he
reproduces pious homilies designated, in the singular,
by the term makam. Before him, the Mu c tazili al-Iskafi
(d. 240/854 [q.v. ]) had written a Kitdb al-Makdmat fi
tajdil c Ali, and in the following century, al-Mas^udl
[q.v.] (Murudj, iv, 441 = § 1744) speaks of homilies by
C A1I b. Abi Talib and (v, 421 = § 2175) of a sermon
by c Umar b. c Abd al- c Az!z, delivered on the occasion
of their makamat, where it is impossible to tell whether
the corresponding singular is makam or makdma.
Whatever the case may be, al-Hamadhanl was

108

MAKAMA

perhaps thinking primarily of the latter interpreta¬
tion, while retaining in the background the memory of
the concept of feats of arms when he adopted the term
makama to designate the speeches, which he considered
instructive, if not edifying, of Abu ’1-Fath al-Iskandari
and the “sketches”, the “sessions”, in the course of
which they are reported by c Isa b. Hisham; then, this
word came to be applied to a whole genre, and was
ultimately confused often, as will be seen in due
course, with risdla [q.v. ]. W. J. Prendergast (The Ma-
qdmat of Badt c al-Zaman al-Hamadham, London-Madras
1915, repr. with introd. by C. E. Bosworth, London-
Dublin 1973, 11-14) has collected a number of occur¬
rences of makama and makamat in poetry and prose pre¬
dating BadT c al-Zaman, but the most exhaustive
research has been that of R. Blachere, Etude semantique
sur le nom maqama, in Machriq (1953), 646-52 (repr. in
Analecta, Damascus 1975, 61-7).

Birth of the genre. In the makamat described by
Ibn Rutayba, it is often a Bedouin or a person of
rather shabby appearance, although extremely elo¬
quent, who addresses an aristocratic audience. Before
an audience of common people, an analogous role was
performed by the kasf [q. v. ], who originally delivered
edifying speeches but, as is well-known, in the course
of time soon took on the dual function of storyteller
and mountebank, whose activity was to a certain ex¬
tent comparable to that of the mukaddl [q.v.], the
wandering beggar or vagrant who went from town to
town and easily gathered around him an audience
who rewarded him financially for the fascinating
stories that he told. It seems probable that the first to
introduce these colourful characters into Arabic
literature was al-Djahiz [q.v.], who devoted a long
treatment to them in the Kitdb al-Bukhald 5 and wrote
at least two other pieces on the stratagems of thieves
(Hiyal al-lusus ) and of beggars (Hiyal al-mukaddin), of
which al-Bayhakl (Mahasin, ed. Schwally, i, 521-3,
622-4) has preserved extracts which are unfortunately
very short (see Pellat, Arabische Geisteswelt, Ziirich-
Stuttgart 1967 - The life and works of Jahiz, London-
Berkeley-Los Angeles 1969, texts xlii and xliii). The
interest taken by the aristocracy and men of letters,
not only in the popular classes, but also in members
of the “milieu” is remarkably illustrated by the Kasida
sdsdniyya of Abu Dulaf al-Khazradji (4th/10th century)
[q.v.] which has given C. E. Bosworth occasion to
write a masterly work (The medieval underworld , the Band
Sdsdn in Arabic society and literature , Leiden 1976, 2 vols.)
to which the reader must be referred; he will find
there, in particular, a very well-documented first
chapter on vagabonds and beggars, as well as a discus¬
sion (97-9) of opinions regarding the birth of the
makama. In the formation of the latter it is in fact
possible to discern a certain influence from earlier
literature relating to the adventures of some marginal
elements of society, and in particular from the kasida
of Abu Dulaf (cf. al-Tha c alibI, Yatima , Damascus
1885, iii, 176). To this influence there should no
doubt be added that of mimes [see hikaya], since the
makama contains an undeniable theatrical element, at
least in the make-up of the hero and the posture of the
narrator. Recently, A. F. L. Beeston (The genesis of the
maqamat genre, in Journal of Arabic literature, ii [1972],
1 -12) has endeavoured to show that the reputation of
al-Hamadham has been to some extent exaggerated
and that the anecdotal literature represented especial¬
ly by the Faraa f/ ba^d al-shidda of his contemporary
al-Tanukhl (329-84/939-94 [q.v .]) also presented
persons of pitiable appearance who prove to be en¬
dowed with an exceptional talent for oratory. The
contrast between the external appearance and elo¬

quence or wisdom is a commonplace of adab, and
while the anecdotal literature discussed by Beeston
has certainly exercised an influence, it has not been
the only one to do so.

As early as 1915, Prendergast (op. laud., 6) had
drawn attention to and translated a subsequently well-
known passage of the Zahr al-adab (ed. Z. Mubarak,
Cairo 1344, i, 235; ed. Budjawi, Cairo 1972/1953, i,
261) of al-Husrl (d. 413/1022 [q.v.]), who states that
al-Hamadhanl imitated ( c arada) the forty hadtths of
Ibn Durayd [q.v.] and composed four hundred “ses¬
sions” on the theme of the kudya, the activity of the
mukaddun. After Margoliouth had, in the first edition
of the El (s.v. al-hamadhani), given credit to this
passage, Z. Mubarak, in 1930, adopted the same
point of view in al-Muktataf (lxxvi, 412-20, 561-4) and
reproduced it in his thesis on La prose arabe au IV e siecle
(Paris 1931), while, in the same volume of the
Muktalaf (588-90), Sadik al-Rafi c I refuted his
arguments by emphasising the weakness of the source
on which he relied. R. Blachere and P. Masnou (al-
Hamadani, choix de Maqamat, Paris 1957, 15) criticise
the exploitation of the information supplied by al-
Husrl and write that the only conclusion to be drawn
from it “is that at the end of the 10th century or at the
beginning of the 11th, a Muslim scholar discovered a
link between the ‘sessions’ of Hamadam and the
stories attributed to a philologist-poet of Iraq, Ibn
Duraid”; as Prendergast had done, these authors
observe that no work of this genre features in the list
of Ibn Durayd’s writings, and C. E. Bosworth, in his
introduction to the reprinted edition of Prendergast,
concludes that al-Husn’s information is suspect.
Powerful evidence in support of this conclusion is sup¬
plied by the silence of a compatriot of the latter, Ibn
Sharaf (d. 460/1067, q.v.), who at the beginning of his
Masd^il al-intikad (ed.-tr. Pellat, Algiers 1953, 5)
declares that he himself has been inspired by the Kalila
wa-Dimna , by Sahl b. Harun [q.v. , who also wrote
about animals, and by BadT c al-Zaman, but makes no
mention of Ibn Durayd.

In another context, in his account of the great rival
of al-Hamadhanl, al-Kh w arazmi [q.v.], Abu Bakr
(323-83/934-93), Brockelmann (S I, 150) adds, having
listed the mss. of the RasdHl of this author, “nebst
Maqamen, in denen wie bei al-Hamadanl c Isa b.
Hisam auftritt”; moreover, al-Kalkashandl (Subh,
xiv, 128-38) reproduces, from the Tadhkira of Ibn
Hamdun (495-562/1102-66 [q.v.]), a makama of Abu
’1-Kasim al-Kh w arazmI in which the author recounts
his victory over a learned opponent encountered in
the course of a journey. Even allowing for the fact that
al-KalkashandT made a mistake over the kunya of this
Kh w arazmT, this makama is certainly of a later period
than the first Seances of Bad! c al-Zaman. The same can
probably be said of the Hikaya of Abu TMutahhar al-
Azdi [q.v. in Suppl.] (A. Mez, Abulkasim, ein bagdader
Sittenbild, Heidelberg 1902) of which the connections
with makama are not clear [see hikaya].

Whatever the case may be, it may be asserted that
the idea of the “session” as we know it was in the air
and that, in the absence of information to the con¬
trary, the first to have adopted it for the creation of a
new literary genre was, as all the critics agree, al-
Hamadhani (358-98/968-1008 [q. v. ]). It does not
seem obligatory, in fact, to search desperately for a
model whenever an innovation appears, since the
most elementary justice demands that allowance be
made for personal invention. Prendergast (op. laud.,
20-1) poses the question as to whether Badl c al-
Zaman owes anything to Greek or Byzantine models,
but considers such influence totally improbable and

MAKAMA

109

concludes that “the same demons of difficulty,
obscurity and pedantry entered the orators and poets
of both nations in different periods”. This assess¬
ment, the accuracy of which will become apparent in
the course of the study of the evolution of the makama,
cannot, however, be fully applied to al-Hamadhanl. It
is undeniable that this author was, in the framework
of Arabic literature and Arab-Islamic society in
general, subject to various influences, but he should
be given credit for having succeeded, through a com¬
mendable work of synthesis, in setting in motion two
principal characters charged with precise roles, in par¬
ticular a hero who symbolises a whole social category.

Structure of the original makama. From the
point of view of form, this genre is characterised, in
the work of its initiator, by the almost invariable use
of sadf [g v.], of rhymed and rhythmic prose
(sometimes blended with verse) which, in the 4th/10th
century, tended to become the almost universal mode
of literary expression, especially in the class of ad¬
ministrative secretaries to which al-Hamadhanl
belonged, and was to remain so until the end of the
19th century. As regards the structure of an individual
makama, the fundamental characteristic is the ex¬
istence of a hero (in this case Abu ’1-Fath al-Iskandarl)
whose adventures and eloquent speeches are related
by a narrator (in this case c Isa b. Hisham) to the
author who, in turn, conveys them to his readers. As
Abd El-Fattah Kilito has quite correctly observed in a
suggestive article (Le genre “seance ”, in St. Isl., xliii
[1976], 25-51), in the makama , a text is obtained
through the research of a rawi and transmitted
through a second rawi (the author), in such a way that
the mode of transmission recalls that of ancient poetry
and, still more precisely, that of hadith, with the dif¬
ference that the text, the person who speaks it and the
first rawi are fictitious. In a typical makama , Kilito
adds (48), the order of events is as follows: arrival of
the rawi in a town, encounter with the disguised baligh
(the eloquent man = the hero), speech, reward,
recognition, reproach, justification, parting. It need
hardly be said that this general scheme does not apply
invariably to all the makamat of al-Hamadhanl, still
less to those of his successors. From the start, this
literary form was employed to cover a great variety of
subjects: criticism of ancient and modern poets, of
prose-writers like Ibn al-Mukaffa c and al-Djahiz, of
the Mu c tazilis, exposure of the sexual slang and
jargon of vagabonds, display of lexicographical
knowledge, etc.; six makamat of Badl c al-Zaman
celebrate the author’s benefactor, Khalaf b. Ahmad,
the ruler of Sidjistan, to whom Margoliouth ( art. cit.)
believes that the whole work may have been
dedicated. It is not, however, certain that all these
compositions were put together in a compilation con¬
stituted ne varietur. In fact, Ibn Sharaf (op. laud. , 5)
counts no more than twenty of them and adds that
they were not all available to him, while al-
Hamadhanl (Rasa HI, Beirut 1890, 390, 516), quoted
by al-Tha c alibi ( Yatima , Damascus 1885, iv, 168) and
al-Husri (see above), claims to have written four hun¬
dred of them, which is highly improbable; current edi¬
tions contain fifty-one each (fifty-two in all), so that
fifty may be reckoned the average number of makamat
of Badr c al-Zaman in circulation in the Middle Ages;
the figure of fifty was subsequently considered ar¬
tificially to be a traditional characteristic and was
respected by numerous imitators of al-Hariri (see
below), who had himself adopted it.

In summary, the original makama appears to be
characterised fundamentally by the almost exclusive
use of rhymed prose (with the insertion of verse) and

the presence of two imaginary persons, the hero and
the narrator. As for its content, this appears to be a
complex amalgam having recourse to numerous
genres such as the sermon, description, poetry in
various forms, the letter, the travelogue, the dialogue,
the debate, etc., which allowed the successors of al-
Hamadhanl the greatest of latitude in the choice of
their subjects.

Development of the genre. These authors
had no difficulty in obeying the exigencies of the form,
namely rhymed prose, but it was not long before they
indulged in verbal acrobatics, the first manifestations
of which are encountered in the works of the most
eminent successor of BadT c al-Zaman, al-Harlrl
(446-516/1054-1122 [#.*>.]). The latter retains the
structure created by his predecessor and presents a
hero and a narrator, but many of his imitators were
to dispense with the former character, if not with
both. The diversity of themes dealt with in primitive
makamat set the scene for the exploitation of the genre
for the most varied of purposes and we shall see that
if the objective of the genre is that of the authentic
adab, seeking to instruct through entertainment, by
means of a harmonious blending of the serious and the
joking (al-djidd wa ’ l-hazl \q. v. ]), many makamat
deviate from this purpose and in this respect follow the
evolution of the adab which has a tendency either to
neglect the djidd or to forget the hazl.

Furthermore, some compositions corresponding
approximately to the exigencies of this genre are
known by other names, such as risdla or hadith, while
some so-called makamat show none of the fundamental
features of “sessions”. What has happened is an
evolution similar to that of the word tabakdt , which
after usually designating biographical works arranged
according to generation (tabaka), is ultimately applied
to those which follow alphabetical order. A confusion
between risdla and makama is already visible in the
Risdlat al-Tawdbi c wa 'l-zawdbf of Ibn Shuhavd
(382-426/992-1035 [ 9 . 1 ?.]), who was well-acquainted
with Badl c al-Zaman since he makes use of his sahib ,
his inspiring spirit (ed. B. al-Bustam, Beirut 1951,
172-4); J. Vernet goes so far as to assert (Literatura
drabe, Barcelona n.d., 114) that he was inspired by the
makama iblisiyya in the writing of his Risdla, which in
effect contains two features of the “sessions”, rhymed
prose and the presence of a companion of the author,
in this case a genie who questions the tawdbi c of
various representatives of Arabic literature. Other
evidence is supplied at an early date by Ibn Sharaf
(see above) who gives the title hadith to his composi¬
tions, while one manuscript of the surviving fragment
bears the title Masd 3 il al-intikdd and another, Rasa Hi
al-intikad ; the subject-matter comprises questions of
literary criticism articulated by a scholar expressing
his opinions of ancient and modern poets, somewhat
in the style of al-Hamadhanl. but without an in¬
termediary rawi (see Ihsan c Abbas, TaHikh al-nakd al-
adabi c ind al- c Arab, Beirut 1391/1971, 460-9).

These two authors were writing in al-Andalus
where, on the other hand, the word makama was to be
used “to designate any rhetorical exercise in rhymed
verse, with or without an ingredient of poetry,
whatever the theme inspiring it: congratulating a
recently-appointed provincial judge, accompanying a
basket of first-fruits sent as a gift, describing a land¬
scape, recounting an incident of minimal importance
or the perils of a journey, giving praise or blame or
simply indulging in caprice, as an antidote to
boredom. Any theme is considered valid, and this
type of composition, laden to the point of asphyxia
with all the devices of language, erudition and pedan-

110

MAKAMA

try and well-nigh indecipherable, is indiscriminately
called risdla or makama , without any account being
taken of the theme (if indeed it has one...)” (F. de la
Granja, Maqdmas y risdlas andaluzas, Madrid 1976, p.
xiv). The above remarks could equally well be applied
to many of the oriental makamat.

History of the genre. Independently of the al-
Kh w arazmi mentioned above, whose dates cannot be
precisely established, a contemporary of al-
Hamadhani, Ibn Nubata al-Sa c di (d. 405/1014) wrote
a ‘ ‘session” which is preserved in Berlin (see
Brockelmann, I, 95; Blachere and Masnou, op. laud.,
39 and n. 1), but it cannot be said whether it is an im¬
itation or an original work. Again in the 4th/10th cen¬
tury, c Abd al- c Az!z al- c Iraki was the author of a
makama on the resurrection (Brockelmann, I, 524).
Chronologically, it is here that one should place Ibn
Shuhavd (see above) and Ibn Sharaf (see above) who
confines himself to presenting his hadith in the form of
the beginning of a dialogue followed by a long
monologue of the scholar who takes the place of the
hero and the rawi: ; one gains the impression that, for
this learned Tunisian who made his home in Spain,
the essential features of makama are rhymed prose and
the intervention of a fictional character who is an elo¬
quent speaker ( baligh ). It is thus that many later
authors interpret the scheme of Badl c al-Zaman,
when they do not eliminate the hero. In any case, the
works of Ibn Shuhavd and of Ibn Sharaf, not to men¬
tion the Zahr al-ddab of al-Husri, testify to the rapid
diffusion of the Makamat of al-Hamadhani in Ifrikiya
and al-Andalus where, in the same century, a poet,
Ibn Fattuh, was the author of a makama on the poets
of his time which was also presented in the form of a
dialogue (Ibn Bassam Dhakhira. i/2, 273-88; F. de la
Granja, op. laud., 63-77), and where Ibn al-Shahid
[q.v.] made the account of a journey by a member of
a group of travellers in a makama (Dhakhtra . i/ 2 ,
104-95; F. de la Granja, 81-118) which exercised a
certain influence on the genre as developed in Hebrew
(see below). Ibn Bassam (Dhakhtra. i/2, 246-57) men¬
tions another makama by Abu Muhammad al-Kurtubl
(443-83/1051-92; see R. Arie, Notes sur la maqama < 2 «-
dalouse , in Hesperis-Tamuda, ix/2 [1968], 204-5).

In the east, a close successor of Bad! c al-Zaman, the
physician Ibn Buflan (d. after 460/1068 [<?.d. ]) was the
author of a Makama fi tadbir al-amrad (Brockelmann, S
I, 885) which might well deserve examination.
However, one of his most eminent imitators was Ibn
Nakiya (410-85/1020-92 [f u.]), nine of whose
makamat are available to us; this author renounces the
oneness of the hero and introduces several narrators,
but this plurality would amount to nothing more, ac¬
cording to Blachere and Masnou (39-40), “than a
mark of respect paid to the model”, Badi c al-Zaman,
to the extent that the possibility of varying the
methods of narration has been understood (ed. Istan¬
bul 1331; O. Rescher, Beitrage zur Maqdmen-Literatur,
iv, 123-52; tr. Cl. Huart, in JA, 10th series, xii
[1908], 435-54). Nevertheless, the most eminent suc¬
cessor of al-Hamadhani is incontestably al-Hariri
(446-516/1054-1122 [q. v. ]) who gave the genre its
classic form, freezing it, so to speak, and diverting it
from its actual function; according only a secondary
interest to the content and placing his entire emphasis
on the style which often takes on the nature of
ponderous obscurity, al-Hariri” s ultimate aim is the
preserving and teaching of the rarest vocabulary, to
such an extent that some twenty philologists have
commented on his makamat and many of his imitators
accompany their own compositions with lexi¬
cographical commentaries. (In the same way, a

Maghrib! author was to write 12 makamat in dialectical
Arabic in order to improve the language spoken in
southern Algeria; see G. Faure-Biguet and G.
Delphin, Les seances d’El-Aouali, textes arabes en dialecte
maghrebin de Mohammed Qabih al-Fa’l (M. le Mauvais su-
jet), in JA, 11th ser., ii [1913], 285-310, iii [1914],
303-74, iv [1914], 307-78.) The success of al-Hariri’s
Makamat, which appealed to the taste of readers to
such an extent that, after the Kur 3 an, children were
made to memorise them, overshadowed those of al-
Hamadhani. which were too easily intelligible, and
prompted many later writers to imitate the rhetorical
artifices invented by al-Hariri (see Prendergast, 22-5;
Crussard. Etudes sur les Seances de Hariri, Paris 1923;
Blachere and Masnou, 42-6) and to take such little in¬
terest in the substance that verbal richness remained
in fact the principal, if not the only specific
characteristic of this original and fertile literary genre
in its principle.

In spite of the specialisation of the term which
designates it, we still see al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111
[q. v. ]) in his Makamat al-^ulamd 3 baynayaday al-khulafd 3
wa 'l-umara 3 (ms. Berlin 8537/1) and al-Sam c anI (d.
562/1167 [q.v. ]) in his Makamat al-^ulamd^ bayna yaday
al-umara 3 (Hadjdji Khalifa, no. 12702), of which the
titles and content recall the chapter of Ibn Kutayba
mentioned above, returning to the previous notion of
makamlmakama = “pious discourse”; the same applies
to al-Zama kh sh ari (467-538/1074-1143 [?.&.]), who,
while appearing to take his inspiration from al-
Hamadhani and al-Hariri, composed fifty makamat in
which he addresses to himself a number of moral ex¬
hortations, also entitled Nafd^ih al-kibdr ; they would
appear to testify to the repentance of the author who
has decided, after an illness, to renounce profane
literature (see Brockelmann, S I, 511; Blachere and
Masnou, 40-1; ed. Cairo 1312, 1325; tr. Rescher,
Beitrage, vi, 1913), but, unable to forget that he is also
a philologist, he produces a commentary on his own
compositions (Yakut, Udabd 3 , xix, 133).

Two authors of the 6th/12th century are also
credited with makamat composed in imitation of al-
Hariri: al-Hasan b. $afl, nicknamed Malik al-Nuhat
(489-568/1095-1173; see Yakut, Udabd\ viii, 123-4;
al-Suyuti, Bughya . 220) and Ahmad b. Djamil (d.
577/1182) of Baghdad, whose only work cited by
Yakut (Udabd 3 , ii, 282) is a Kitdb Makamat.

The work of al-Hariri soon became known in
Spain, where the most celebrated commentary on it,
that of al-Sharishl (d. 619/1222 [q.v.]), was written.
These makamat were already being imitated there, ap¬
parently, by a slightly younger contemporary of their
author, Ibn al-Ashtarkuwi (d. 538/1143) in al-
Makdmat al-Sarakustiyya, which numbering the
henceforward traditional fifty, may perhaps be,
according to F. de la Granja (op. laud. , p. xiii) the only
Spanish ones which conform to the classical norms; in
addition, the other title by which they are known,
Kitdb al-Khamsin makama al-luzumiyya, could be an in¬
dication of the influence of al-Ma c arri and of his
Luzumiyydt (cf. luzum ma la yalzam; A. M.
al- c Abbadi, in RIEEIM, ii/1-2 [1954], 161); two of
them, which deal with literary criticism, have been the
object of a study on the part of Ihsan c Abbas (op. laud.,
500-1), but the others would doubtless merit closer ex¬
amination (on the mss., see Brockelmann, S I, 543).
It was also at the beginning of the 6th/12th century
that the wazir Abu c Amir Ibn Arkam composed a
makama in praise of the Almoravid amir of Granada
Tamim b. Yusuf b. Tashfin (see R. Arie, art. cit.,
206); judging by the fragment which has been
preserved by al-Fath b. Khakan (Kald f id al- c ikyan, ed.

MAKAMA

♦

111

Paris, repr. Tunis 1966, 153-4), this composition in
rhymed prose is related to the rahil of the kasida, but
there appears in it a fictitious person who engages the
author in a discussion on the mamduh. Al-Fath b.
Khakan himself (d. ca. 529/1134 [^.p.]) composed a
makama on his master al-BatalyawsI (H. Derenbourg,
Mss. de I’Escurial, 538), and Ibn Khayr al-Ishbfll
(502-75/1108-79 [?.t>.]) mentions in his Fahrasa (328,
450) a further seven makdmdt written by the wazir Abu
’l-Hasan Sallam al-Bahill (see al- c Abbadi, art. cit.,
162; R. Arie, art. cit., 205). For his part, al-Makkari
(Azhdr al-riyad, ed. Cairo 1361/1942, iii, 15) attributes
a number of them to a fakih of Granada named c Abd
al-Rafrman b. Ahmad b. al-Ka?Ir (d. 576/1180; see
Arie, 206). In Spain in the 6 th/12th century, we may
note (Ibn al-Abbar,_ Takmila, 407) a further two
makamas by al-Wadl Ash! (d. 553/1158), one of which
is written in praise of the kadi c Iyad
(476-544/1083-1149 [< 7 . 0 .]), but, contrary to a
widespread opinion, this eminent person is neither the
author nor the dedicatee of al-Makama al-dawhiyya or
al-Hyddiyya al-ghazaliyya which is the work of Muham¬
mad b. c Iyad al-Sabtl and of which Ibn Sa c !d has
preserved a few lines (see F. de la Granja, op. laud.,
121-8). Ibn Ghalib al-Ru$afT (d. 572/1177) composed
a Makama fi wasf al-kalam of which a brief surviving
fragment has been edited and translated by F. de la
Granja (131-7). It was very probably in Syria that Ibn
Muhriz al-Wahrant (d. 575/1179) wrote al-Makama al-
fdsiyya, in which the hero is questioned about a
number of real actual people who are characterised in
a few sometimes incisive lines (ed. S. A c rab, in al-
Bahth al-Hlml , Rabat, no. 5 [1965], 195-204).

Too much attention should not be given to the
Makdmdt sufiyya of al-Suhraward! al-Maktul (d.
587/1191 [^. 0 .]) which deal with Sufi terminology
(Brockelmann, S I, 783), even less to the Makdmdt or
Stages on the Mystic Way, of another SuhrawardI,
Abu Hafs c Umar (d. 632/1234 [f^.]). Neither shall
we enlarge on the various collections of Makdmdt deal¬
ing with mystical ethics rightly or wrongly ascribed
(see O. Yahia, Histoire et classification de V oeuvre d y Ibn
‘Arabl, Damascus 1964, nos 415, 416, 417) to Ibn
‘Arab! (560-638/1165-1240 [q.v.]).

Abu ’l- c Ala 5 Ahmad b. Abl Bakr al-Razi al-HanafT,
who dedicated thirty “sessions” to the grand kadi
Muhy! ’1-Din al-Shahrazuri, seems to belong to the
end of the 6 th/12th century. He strives to imitate al-
Hamadhan! and al-Harlri, like them presenting a
hero and a narrator, but he uses simpler language; he
is fond of rich descriptions of a high-spirited nature
which are not always free of obscenity and he com¬
poses makdmdt which go together in pairs and are
mutually explanatory (ed. Rescher, Beitrage, iv,
1-115).

At the beginning of the 7th/13th century, attention
may be drawn to al-Makama al-mawlawiyya al-sahibiyya
of al-WazTr al-Sahib Safa 5 al-Dln, which deals with
judicial questions (Brockelmann, S I, 490; ed.
Rescher, Beitrage, iv, 153-99), then to an imitation of
al-Hariri’s work, al-Makdmdt al-zayniyya , Fifty in
number, composed in 672/1273 by al-Djazar! (d.
701/1301 [q.v. in Suppl.]). In the course of the same
century, the names of Ibn Karnas (ca. 672/1273), of
al-Bara c I (ca. 674/1275) and of al-Katj! Hashid (ca.
690/1291) are mentioned by Brockelmann (I, 278), as
well as those of the young poet al-Shabb al-Zarlf
(661-88/1263-89 [q.v.]), author of the amorously-
inspired Makdmdt al- c u shsh ak (S I, 458), and Ibn al-
A c ma (d. 692/1293) who wrote a Makama bahriyya (S
I, 445). His contemporary ZahTr al-Kazarun! (d.
697/1298) presents a narrator and a hero who visits
Baghdad with him and describes some early customs

in a Makama fi kawa c id Baghdad fi ’ l-dawla al-
‘Abbasiyya, published by R. and M. c Awwad, in al-
Mawrid, viii/4 (1979), 427-40. Ibn al-Sa’igh

(645-722/1247-1322) is credited with a Makama
shihdbiyya which did not survive.

In the 8th/14th century, imitations seem to pro¬
liferate, often applying to religious or parenetic sub¬
jects. In 730/1229, Ibn al-Mu c azzam al-Razi is still
using the term makdm which we have encountered in
the work of Ibn Kutayba in the title of his twelve com¬
positions, al-Makdmdt al-ithna^ashar (ed. Hara 5 in,
Paris 1282/1865, Tunis 1303; Brockelmann, II, 192,
S II, 255); the Tunisian-born Ibn Sayyid al-Nas (d.
734/1334 [q.v.]) celebrates the Prophet and his Com¬
panions in al-Makdmdt al- c aliyya fi ’ l-kardmdt al-djaliyya.
Shams al-Din al-Dimashk! (d. 727/1327) puts the
form of the makama to a mystical purpose in al-
Makdmdt al-falsafiyya wa-tardjamat al-$ufiyya which are
fifty in number (Brockelmann, S II, 161). The Dxwan
of Ibn al-Ward! (689-749/1290-1349 [q.v.]), published
by Faris al-Shidvak in Constantinople in 1300, con¬
tains some makdmdt and a risdlal makama, al-Naba 5 c an
al-waba 5 , concerning an epidemic in which he died
shortly afterwards (Brockelmann, II, 140, S II, 174,
175). An author of Ma gh rib! origin, Ahmad b. Yahya
al-Tilimsani, also known as Ibrj Ab! Hadjala (725-776
or 777/1325 to 1374-5 or 1375-6), who spent most of
his literary career in Cairo, was renowned in his day
as a writer of makdmdt, and one curiosity of his is a
makama on chess which he dedicated to the Artukid
ruler of Mardin, al-Malik al-Salih Shams al-DTn
Salih, presumably himself a chess enthusiast (see
Brockelmann, II 2 , 5-6, S II, 5, and J. Robson, A chess
maqdma in the Rylands Library, in Bull. John Rylands
Library, xxxvi [1953], 111-27).

An Andalusian, Ibn al-Murabi c (d. 750/1350 [ 4 . 0 .])
drew attention to himself with his Makdmdt al- c id,
published by A. M. al- c Abbad! (in RIEEIM, ii/1-2
[1954], 168-73) and translated by F. de la Granja (op.
laud., 173-99); the hero is a beggar, one of the Banu
Sasan, searching for a victim to sacrifice on the occa¬
sion of the Great Feast, and the text also supplies in¬
formation concerning the history of Granada, the
home of an eminent contemporary of the author, Ibn
al-Khatlb (713-76/1313-75 [q.v.]). In the extensive
and varied literary output of the latter there are a
number of compositions which borrow certain
features of the “session”; of the four texts analysed by
R. Arie (Notes, 207-14): Khatrat al-f.ayf fi rihlat al-shitd 5
wa 'l-sayf (account of a journey), Mufakharat Mdlaka
wa-Sald (a eulogy of Malaga), Mi^yar al-ikhtiyarfi dhikr
al-ma c ahid wa d-diyar and Makdmat al-siyasa, it is the
two last which are most closely related to the makama.
In the Mi c yar (ed. A. M. al- c AbbadI, Mushahadat Lisan
al-Din Ibn al-Khatib fi bildd al-Maghrib wa 'l-Andalus,
Alexandria 1958, 69-115), the author presents a
traveller who describes thirty-four towns and villages
of al-Andalus, and a doctor who eulogises sixteen-
localities in the Ma gh rib: as in the second text men¬
tioned above, the reader is faced with a mufakhara or
a munazara, a debate, of which a large number of ex¬
amples is found in the “sessions” which ultimately
absorbed this particular genre (see below). The
similarity with the classical makama is more marked in
the Makdmat al-siyasa (apud al-Makkari, Nafh al-tib, ed.
Cairo, ix, 134-49), in which the author brings into the
presence of Harun al-Rash!d an old man of un¬
prepossessing appearance who gives him advice on
good administration and the duties of the ruler (see D.
M. Dunlop, A little-known work on politics by Lisan al-
Din b. al-Hatib, in Miscelanea de estudios arabesy hebraicos,
viii/1 [1959], 47-54).

While still dealing with al-Andalus, we may further

112

MAKAMA

recall that the kadi y l-djama c a of Granada, al-Nubahl
[g.fl.], inserted in his Nuzhat al-Bafd^ir wa ’l-absar, in
781/1379, a commentary on his own Makama nakhliyya
presented in the form of an erudite, obscure and
pedantic dialogue between a palm-tree and a fig-tree
(see R. Arie, art. cit., 212-12). In Spain in the follow¬
ing century, in 844/1440, a similar calamity to that
described by Ibn al-Wardl (see above) inspired c Umar
al-Malakl al-Za djdj al to write his Makama fi amr al-
wabd 3 which is preserved by al-Makkarl in his Azhar
al-riyai (ed. Sakka 3 et alii , Cairo 1939-42, i, 125-32)
and translated by F. de la Granja (op. laud., 201-30);
this jurist-poet is also the author of the Tasrih al-nifdl
ild makdtil al-fa$sal which according to the same Mak-
karl, who twice reproduced the text of it (Azhar, i,
117-24 and Nafh al-fib, ed. Cairo, vi, 345-50), was ap¬
preciated by the populace but rejected by the khasfa on
account of the mudjun [^.^.] which characterised it.

In the East, the names of some writers of the
8th/14th century have been mentioned by
Brockelmann: al-Shadhill (702-60/1302-58; S II,
148); al-$afadl(696-764/1296-1363 [^.&.]), the author
of the Waft, who wrote a makama on wine, Rashf al-
rahik fi wasf al-harik (S II, 29); and al-Bukharl (d.
791/1389; S II, 289).

Al-Kalkashandl (d. 821/1418 [<?.&.]) reproduces in a
chapter of the Subh (xiv, 110-38) a text of al-
Kh w arazmi (see above) and a makama of his own in¬
vention regarding the function of the secretary to a
chancellery (see C. E. Bosworth, A maqdma on
secretaryship: al-Qalqashandi s al-Kawakib al-duriyya fi 7-
manaqib al-badriyya, in BSOAS, xxvii/2 [1964], 291-8).
Naturally, the prolific writer al-Suyup (849-911/
1445-1505 [<?.».]) could not avoid cultivating the
makama genre, which he uses in the form of dialogues,
abandoning the traditional structure and dispensing
with hero and narrator, to deal with religious and
secular questions, such as the fate of the family of
Muhammad in Heaven, the qualities of perfumes,
flowers and fruits, and obscene subjects are not ex¬
cluded (see Rescher, Zu Sojuti’s Maqamen, in ZDMG,
Ixiii [1919], 220-3; Brockelmann, S II, 183, 187, 197,
198; L. Nemoy, Arabic MSS in the Yale University
Library , New Haven 1956, ms. L. 754, fols. 47-50).
His contemporary, the South Arabian Zaydl Ibrahim
b. Muhammad al-HadawI Ibn al-WazIr (d. 914/1508)
applies this form to theological questions in al-Makdma
al-nazariyya/dl-manzariyya wa ’ l-fdkiha al-khabariyya
(Brockelmann, II, 188, S II, 248; Nemoy, op. laud.,
ms. L-366, fols. 140-7), and al-Suyutl’s rival, Ahmad
b. Muhammad al-Kastallani (d. 923/1517) did
likewise in his Makdmdt al- c ariftn (Brockelmann, II,
72). Brockelmann also mentions al-Birkawi
(929-81/1523-73; S II, 658), al-Ghazafi (ca. 997/1589;
S II, 383), al-Mardlnl (ca. 1000/1591; S II, 383), al-
Kawwas (ca. 1000/1591), author of nine “sessions”
(II, 272, S II, 383) and al-Fayyumi (d. 1022/1614; S
II, 486). Not mentioned by Brockelmann is the In¬
dian author from Multan, Abu Bakr al-Husaynl al-
Ha^ramT (floruit late 10th/16th century) who wrote a
set of fifty makdmdt inspired by al-Hariri; cf. L.
Cheikho, Madjani y l-adab, Beirut 1957, vi, 76-8, and
R. Y. Ebied and M. J. L. Young, Arabic literature in
India: two maqdmat of Abu Bakr al-Haframi, in Studies in
Islam (1978), 14-20.

In the period of literary decadence which marked
the 11th and 12th/l 7th and 18th centuries, the “ses¬
sion” was still used to deal with a wide range of sub¬
jects. In 1078/1697, Djamal al-Din Abu c Ali Fath
Allah b. c Alawan al-Ka c bi al-Kabbanl composed one
describing the war conducted by Husayn Pasha and
C A1I Pasha Afrasiyab of Basra against a Turkish army

commanded by Ibrahim Pasha, and added a com¬
mentary, the Zdd al-musdfir (printed in Baghdad in
1924; Brockelmann II, 373; S II, 501). Also en¬
countered are the names of al-KashI/al-Kashanl
(1007-90/1598-1679; S II, 585), c Arif (d. 1125/1713;
S II, 630), Ba c bud al- c AlawI who produced in
1128/1715 (S II, 601) an imitation of al-Harlri in
which al-Nasir al-Faftah (the victorious conqueror)
recounts the fifty adventures, in India, of Abu ’1-Zafar
al-Hindi al-Sayyah (“the triumphant Indian vaga¬
bond”) under the title al-Makamat al-hindiyya (lith.
1264), and al-Djaza>irf (1050-1130/1640-1718; S II,
586).

In Morocco, the genre is represented by Muham¬
mad b. c Isa (d. 990/1582) and Muhammad al-Maklati
(d. 1041/1631-2), whose Makama bakriyya is a eulogy of
Mahammad b. Abl Bakr al-Dila 5 ! (d. 1021/1612 [see
dila 3 in Suppl.]), the son of the founder of al-Zdwiya
al-dila Hyya (see M. Lakhdar, La vie litteraire au Maroc
sous la dynastie calawide (1075-1311 / 1664-1894), Rabat
1971, 42). Muhammad al-MasnawI al-Dila 5 !

(1072-1136/1661-1724) describes this zawiya and
laments its destruction in al-Makdma al-ftkriyya ft
mahdsin al-zawiya al-bakriyya, which is of classical struc¬
ture, with hero and narrator (see Lakhdar, 156-8).

Nemoy (op. laud.) records a ms. (Yale L-182) of al-
Makdma al-rumiyya of al-Bakri (1099-1162/1688-
1749 [<?.&•]), which is part of his Tafrik al-humum wa-
taghrik al-ghumum fi ’ l-rihla ild bilad al-Rum. c Abd Allah
b. al-Husayn al-Baghdadi al-Suwaydl (d. 1174/1760)
and his son Abu ’1-Khayr c Abd al-Rafrman (d.
1200/1786) use this form (Brockelmann, II, 374, 377,
S II, 508) as a means of bringing together, in an enter¬
taining fashion, a whole series of ancient and modern
proverbs, the father, in Makdmdt al-amthal al-sa 5ra
(Cairo 1324), and the son, in al-Makdma $_ami c at al-
amthal c azizat al-imthal (ms. Berlin 8582/3).

In the same way that al-Harirl, in the two risalas
called al-siniyya and al-shiniyya, employed only words
containing respectively a sin and a shin, c Abd Allah al-
Idkawi (d. 1184/1770) wrote al-Makdma al-iskandariyya
wa * l-ta$hifiyya in which pairs of words which differ on¬
ly in diacritical points are placed beside each other
(Brockelmann, II, 283). A display of erudition is the
main characteristic of al-Makama al-Dudjayliyya wa 7-
makdla al- c Umariyya of Uthman b. c AlI al- c Umari al-
Mawsill (d. 1184/1770) which contains essentially a
list and a brief definition of Islamic sects
(Brockelmann, S II, 500; Rescher, Beitrage, iv,
191-285, where other products in this style are to be
found). Nemoy (op. laud.) further mentions (Yale
L-302) Makdmdt in mixed prose and verse by Aljmad
al-ArmanazI (18th century?).

The popular theme of competitive debate (see
Steinschneider, Rangstreitliteratur, in SB Ak. Wien, clv/4
[1908]; Brockelmann, in Mel. Derenbourg, 231;
Blachere and Masnou, 48 and n. 2; H. Masse, Du
genre litteraire “Debat" en arabe et en persan, in Cahiers de
civilisation medievale, iv, 1961), is developed in the
Makdmat al-muhdkama bayn al-muddm wa ’ l-zuhur (ms.
Berlin, 8580) of Yusuf b. Salim al-Hifnl (d.
1178/1764), also the author of al-Makdma al-hifniyya
(B. M. 1052/1; Brockelmann, II, 283; S II, 392). The
Cretan Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Rasml (1106-79/
1694-1783) also experimented with this genre and
wrote al-Makama al-zuldliyya al-bishariyya
(Brockelmann, II, 430). Of the work of al-Badrl (d.
1215/1800) there survives a brief makama (Yale L-30a)
composed in sadf and verse (Nemoy, op. laud.). In a
similar way, by inserting numerous verses of his own
composition, the Tunisian poet al-Warghl (d.
1190/1776) put together three makdmdt edited by c Abd

MAKAMA

113

al- c Aziz al-Glzanl at Tunis in 1972 and called al-
Bdhiyya (on the founder of the zawiya bahiyya in
1160/1747), al-Khitdniyya (on the occasion of the cir¬
cumcision of the Bey C A1T b. al-Husayn’s sons in
1178/1764) and al-Khamriyya (in praise of this same
Bey in 1183/1769). His compatriot and contemporary
al-Ghurab (d. 1185/1771) likewise left three makamat
behind, of which two, al-Hindiyya and al-Bahiyya , have
a hero and a narrator, without however conforming to
all the genre’s exigencies, whilst the third, al- c Aba dyya
or al-Sabaniyya, is merely a risala (see H. H. al-GhazzI.
al-Adab al-tunisi fi d- c ahd al-husayni , Tunis 1972, 95-7;
see also 154-60, on al-War gh l). Another Tunisian,
Isma c Il al-Tamlml (d. 15 Djumada I 1248/10 Oc¬
tober 1832) wrote a Makama fi hakk al-shaykh sayyidi
Ismd c il kadial-hadra al- Q aliyya bi-Tunis , which has been
published by H.H. al-GhuzzI, in al-Fikr, xxv/2 (April
1980), 25-9 (see also the latter’s study on al-Makdma
al-tunisiyya bayn al-taklid wa ’ l-tafawwur al-marhali nahw
al-kissa, in ibid. , xxvii/5-6 (1982), 33-9, 96-103).

Other names which could be mentioned are those of
c Abd al-Rahman b. c Abd Allah al-Suwaydl (1134-
1200/1721-86; II, 374), al-Barblr (1160-1226/1748
-1811; S II, 750), Hamdun Ibn al-Hadjdj al-Fasi
(1174-1232/1760-1817; S II, 875) whose Makama ham-
duniyya is said to be found in ms. in Cairo (M.
Lakhdar, op. laud., 282). Again in Morocco, Abu
Muhammad c Abd Allah al-Azanfi (d.
1214/1799-1800) addressed to the sultan’s khalifa in
Sus a makama comprising a hero and a narrator and
describing the conditions prevailing in Saharan areas
in the 12th/18th century (text in al-Bahth al- c ilmi, xiii/2
[1396/1971], 166-72). Another Moroccan writer al-
Zayyani (1147-1249/1734-1833) is the author of a
makama fi dhamm al-ridjal directed against the con¬
spirators who deposed Mawlay Sulayman (Lakhdar,
323). Another well-known Moroccan, Akansus
(1211-94/1796-1877 [q.v. ]) left a makama of mystical
appeal (ms. Rabat D 1270) designed to show the vani¬
ty of the things of this world; it contains a hero and
a rawi and comprises poems, dialogues and descrip¬
tions (Lakhdar, 343-5).

Thus we arrive at the 19th century, where the first
name to be noted is that of al- c Attar (d. 1250/1824;
Brockelmann, S II, 720), then that of Abu ’1-Thana
al-AlusT (1217-70/1802-53), author of five makamat
without hero or narrator which contain advice to the
writer’s children, autobiographical information,
descriptions and reflections on death (see
Brockelmann, II, 498, S II, 786; El 2 , s.v. al-alusY);
they were lithographed in 1273 at Karbala 5 , but do
not seem to have enjoyed great success (see M. M. al-
Baslr, Nahdat al-^Irak al-adabiyya, Baghdad 1365/1946,
230-4).

It was precisely in the period of the Nahda, the
renaissance, that a number of writers set themselves
the task of reviving this genre in accordance with the
classical norms, believing that, as a genre exclusive to
Arabic literature, it was the best means of stimulating
the interest of readers and of putting back into circula¬
tion a rich vocabulary that had fallen into disuse over
the course of the preceding centuries. In this respect,
the most eminent writer of the 19th century is the
Lebanese Christian Naslf al-Yazidjl (1800-71 [see al-
yazidji]), who, with his Madjma' : al-bahrayn, offered
the public, for didactic purposes, a successful imita¬
tion of al-Harm; in his work, which nevertheless con¬
tains sixty makamat (instead of the fateful number of
fifty) accompanied by his own commentary, the hero
and the narrator meet sometimes in the town, but
often in the desert, a traditional setting for eloquent
speech (see also Blachere and Masnou, 49-50).

Brockelmann also mentions al-Djaza^irl (S II, 758,
III, 379), al-Hamsh (S III, 338) and c Abd Allah
Pasha Fikrl (d. 1307/1890 [q.v. ]), whose works (al-
Athdr al-fikriyya, Bulak 1315) contain a number of
makamat including al-Makama al-fikriyya fi 'l-mamlaka
al-bdtiniyya which has been published separately in
Cairo in 1289 (Brockelmann, II, 475, S II, 722).
Some Makamat by Mahmud Rashid Efendi were
edited in Cairo in 1913 (S III, 85). In c Irak, Dawud
Celebi (Makhiutat al-Mawsil, 299) has found a makama
on Ba gh dad by c Abd Allah b. Mustafa al-Faydl al-
Mawsill (late 19th century). In the Lebanon, Ibrahim
al-Ahdab (1242-1308/1826-91 [q. v. ]) left eighty-eight
“sessions” of traditional structure, with hero and
rawi, which are as yet unedited (see Dj. c Abd al-Nur,
in Da drat al-ma : arif, vii, 172).

In 1907, in Cairo, Muhammad Tawfik al-Bakrl
published a collection of makamat, Saharidf al-ludu 5 , a
number of which were chosen by c Uthman Shakir and
included, in 1927, in his work entitled al-Ludu 5 fi
d-adab.

It is not our intention to dwell here on the Hadith
c Isa b. Hifiam of al-Muwaylihl (1868-1930 [q.v. ]) of
which the first edition in book form dates from 1907;
this “novel”, which is both the first major achieve¬
ment of 20th century Arabic literature and the swan¬
song of classical literature, has been the object of a
number of studies, the list of which is to be found in
G. Widmer, Beitrage zur neuarabischen Literatur, iv, in
147, n.s. iii/2 (1954), 57-126; H. Peres, in Melanges
Massignon , iii, Damascus 1957, 233; N. K. Kotsarev,
Pisateli Egipta xx vek, Moscow 1975, 157-9. It will
however be recalled that while still being published in
instalments, this satire on contemporary mores had
inspired an imitation, LayaliSatih, on the part of Hafiz
Ibrahim (1872-1932 [^■t']), who also aspired,

although with less success, to present a satirical
portrait of society in the form of a long makama (see H.
Peres, in B. Et. Or., x [1943-4], 13 ff.; Kotsarev, op.
laud., 104-7). The Wadjdiyyat of Muhammad Farid
Wadydl, published in Cairo in 1910, contain eighteen
“sessions” which have not attracted much interest
(but see the Tunisian review al-Mabahith , xxxi ff.).
Finally, it is possible that other writers of the first half
of the 20 th century have composed, as rhetorical exer¬
cises or for a specific purpose, makamat which have not
come to the attention of literary critics and historians.
This applies notably to Amin al-Rlhanl (1876-1940
[q.v. ]), whose Rihaniyyat contain (ed. 1956, ii, 83-6) al-
Makama al-kabkadjiyya , where the narrator is a moth-
grub ( c uththa) searching for an attractive book in a
library.

The above list cannot be regarded as exhaustive; it
is based essentially on the article Mafcama by
Brockelmann in EP and his Geschichte der arabischen Lit-
teratur, the material of which has already been ex¬
ploited by Blachere and Masnou (op. laud., 123-9);
our intention has been to complete this inventory by
means of less ancient works but, in order to achieve
a more satisfactory result, it would be necessary to go
through recently published or still unedited
biographical works, as well as catalogues of
manuscript collections, and to carry out research in
certain libraries whose riches have not been explored.
As our list has been compiled in approximately
chronological order, no mention has been made of a
dozen or so fairly late authors whose dates have not
been precisely located. Blachere and Masnou mention
the following: al-Sukkarl (Brockelmann, S II, 906),
al-Khanlnl (S II, 908), al-Ha 5 irI (Rescher, Beitrage,
iv, 328), al-Saghanl (ibid., iv, 335), al-ShafiT (S II,
908), Ibn Rayyan (S II, 909), Ibrahim b. C A1I b.

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

114

MAKAMA

Ahmad b. al-Hadl (S II, 909), al-Antakl (Rescher, iv,
116), al-Munayyir (S II, 1010), al-Husaynl (Rescher,
iv, 311), al-Ras c ani (Rescher, iv, 339), al- c UmarI al-
Maw§ill (Rescher, iv, 199).

In general, however, it seems certain that the most
significant representatives of the genre have not
escaped scrutiny, giving rise to the works enumerated
in the bibliographies of the noticesdevoted to them by
the present Encyclopaedia. But alongside those authors
whose makamat are known only by a sometimes
misleading title or by a brief mention in one or other
of the bibliographical works, there are a number
whose surviving works deserve, if not an edition, at
least a fairly thorough examination, in order to allow
for a more confident judgment. The general observa¬
tions which follow are therefore still fragmentary.

Of the characteristics of primitive makdma, all the
authors have essentially retained the use of rhymed
prose, more or less rhythmic and mingled with verse,
and, taking the example of al-Hamadham and
especially of al-Hariri, a vocabulary obscure to the
point of being sometimes impenetrable; furthermore,
sa<£f, which sometimes goes to acrobatic extremes, is
all the less likely to make use of simple language since
the object of many of the authors is to make a display
of their verbal dexterity. Quite apart from this com¬
mon feature, the presence of two characters is not
always felt to be necessary, so that the hero and the
narrator are the same person in a large number of
makamat, where this device is still retained.

From a theoretical point of view, the “seance”,
which belongs to adab is, by this definition, certainly
designed to entertain, but also to instruct, since it is
inconceivable that, originally, prose literature could
have lacked any purpose. While the didactic function
was to be served by means of the educational or edify¬
ing content, it was soon the form which fulfilled this
role to the detriment of the essence, through the ac¬
cumulation, scarcely bearable today for the average
reader, of rare and unnecessary words, through a
disagreeable pedantry and an impenetrable obscurity.
The first objective, for its part, was to be realised, as
in the case of adab, by a mixture of the serious and the
joking, by the interesting quality of the adventures
related and the theatrical element introduced by the
two imaginary characters. Now, just as the risdla,
being a convenient means of display on the part of
authors full of false modesty, tended to be nothing
more than a rhetorical exercise, in the same way the
makdma, while supplying authors with an opportunity
safely to express personal opinions in fictitious guise,
enabled many others simply to make a show of their
lexicographical expertise, at the same time, however,
aiming at a certain aestheticism, one is tempted to
say, at art for art’s sake. This tendency is an expres¬
sion of the love of Arabic-speakers for fine verbal
style, and one gains the impression that an exquisite
form sometimes conceals nothing more than a total
vacuum. It is, however, not impossible that at least
some of the compositions which appear most hollow
lend themselves to different interpretations at a level
which has yet to be ascertained.

The authors of manuals on the history of Arabic
literature, when tackling the subject of makdma, right¬
ly cite al-Hamadham and al-Harlrl as those whose
works are considered the first milestone on the path
followed by this original genre; subsequently, they
maintain their silence and, for the next seven cen¬
turies are unaware of one author worthy of mention
as an eminent representative of the “session”, which
is evidently the sign of an unfortunate decline; more
detailed studies will perhaps enable one to correct this

severe judgment, but the fact remains that, in the
absence of evidence to the contrary, it is necessary to
wait until the 19th century to find, in the Ma$ma c al-
bahrayn of al-Yazidjl, a third significant milestone,
although the new lease of life given to the makdma by
this author did not inspire any notable works, perhaps
because his object was far too didactic. In any case,
the fourth and final milestone was planted by al-
Muwaylihl, whose Hadlth c Isa b. Hisham is sometimes
described as a novel. But at this time rhymed prose
had already begun to lose its appeal, and the educated
public turned for entertainment, either in the original,
or in translation, to foreign works which inspired
modern Arabic literature to the detriment of a
henceforward discredited genre.

The theatrical element contained in classical
makamat has not been satisfactorily exploited, for we
do not see many playwrights drawing from them their
inspiration and staging some of them. C A1I al-Ra c I
(Some aspects of modern Arabic drama, in R.C. Ostle
(ed.), Studies in modern Arabic literature, Warminster
1975, 172 ff.) thinks that the shadow-plays of Ibn
Daniyal [ q. v. ] are linked to Arabic literature through
the makdma and points out that the Moroccan al-
Tayyib al-Siddlkl has based himself on the famous
Madua [q.v.] and other sections of al-Hamadham to
write plays which have met a great success; but this is
an isolated attempt.

Imitation in other literatures. The success of
the genre created by al-Hamadham and consolidated
by al-Harlrl was so remarkable in Arabic-speaking
circles that some authors, who normally expressed
themselves in other languages but had direct access to
the Arabic texts, conceived the idea of composing
makamat of their own.

In Persia, particularly highly esteemed were the
twenty-four “sessions” which Hamid al-Dln BalkhI
(d. 559/1156) composed in 551/1156 in imitation of
the two great Arabic authors (Ha djdj I Khalifa, no.
12716; lith. Tehran and Cawnpore); some of them
consist of debates between a young man and an old,
a Sunni and a ShlT. a doctor and an astronomer;
others contain descriptions of summer and autumn,
love and folly, judicial and mystical discussions, but
the sense is always sacrificed to the form (see H.
Masse, Du genre “Debat”, 143-4). The example of
Hamid al-Dln does not seem to have been much
followed; nevertheless, the journalist Adlb al-
Mamalik (d. 1917) composed a series of makamat
(Browne, iv, 349).

In Spain, Yehuda ben Shlomo Harlzl (1165-1225
A.D.) first translated al-Harlrl into Hebrew (in
502/1205), then composed fifty makamat which he .en¬
titled Sefer Tahkemoni; in these “sessions” the style of
the model is imitated by means of a very skilful use of
Biblical quotations; as for the content, it has been
noted that Harlzl was inspired by a makdma of Ibn al-
Shahld which we have mentioned above (see S. M.
Stern, in Tarbiz, xvii [1946], 87-100; J. Schirmann,
ibid., xxiii [1952], 198-202; J. Razahbi, ibid., xxvi
[1957], 424-39); the work had been the object of par¬
tial translations into German, by Krafft (in
Literaturblatt des Orients, xiii [1840], 196-8, xiv, 213-5)
and L. Dukes ( Ehrensaulern, etc., Vienna 1873, 92-4),
before being published by P. de Lagarde, under the
title Iudae Harizii Macamae (Gottingen 1881, 2nd ed.
Hanover 1924).

A contemporary of Harlzl, Jacob ben Eleazar of
Toledo (beginning of the 13th century A.D.) for his
part composed ten makamat which he intitled Meshalim,
with a narrator, but no hero; this work has been
studied by J. Schirmann, Les conies rimes de Jacob ben

115

MAKAMA — MAKAN b. KAKI

Eleazar de Tolede (in Etudes d’orientalisme ... Le'vi-
Proven(al, ii, 285-97). In addition, J. M. Millas
Vallicrosa mentions, in La poesia sagrada hebraico-
espahola (Barcelona 1948, 133-4, 136-7, 144) other
Jewish writers of Spain whose works could be com¬
pared to makamat.

The archbishop of Nisibin, c Ebedyeshu c / c Ab-
dlshu c (d. 1318 A.D.) composed in 1290-1, in imita¬
tion of al-Harlrl, fifty “sessions” in Syriac verse of
religious and edifying content, divided into two parts
designated under the names Enoch and Elias; he
himself explained, in a commentary written in 1316,
the extremely artificial language abounding with
acrostics and verses which can be read indifferently
from right to left or from left to right (see Chabot, Lit¬
terature syriaque, Paris 1934, 141); the first half of these
“sessions” was published by Gabriel Cardahi in
Beirut, in 1899, under the title Paradaisa dha Edhen seu
Paradisus Eden carmina auctore Mar Ebediso Sobensis.

Apparently there is no makama composed or
translated into Latin or Romance during the Middle
Ages, but it is quite clear that the hero of the picares¬
que novel, the pi'caro , closely resembles in many ways
the characters of Abu ’1-Fath al-Iskandarl or Abu
Zayd al-Sarudjl, and the diffusion in Spain of the
work of al-Hamadhanl, and later and more
significantly that of al-Harlrl, suggests a direct or in¬
direct influence of the makama. The works which have
been undertaken in this area (in particular by
Menendez Pelayo, Origenes de la novela, 1943, i, 65 ff.;
A. Gonzales Palencia, Del Lazarillo a Quevedo, Madrid
1946, 3-9) appear as so far inconclusive. On the other
hand, A. Rumeau ( Notes au Lazarillo, in Langue neo-
latines , no. 172 (May 1965), 3-12)'has shown that the
central episode, La casa lobregay oscura, of the Lazarillo
de Tormes is closely related to an anecdote mentioned
by al-Ibshihi (Mustatraf, tr. Rat, ii, 670), but already
figuring in the work of al-Bayhaki, who probably bor¬
rowed it from al-Djahiz; thus it is likely that the long
road travelled from the fata and the mukaddi of the lat¬
ter to the picaro passes through the makama. This ques¬
tion, linked to that of the influence of the 1001 Nights,
has been recently discussed in an extensive thesis by
M. Tarchouna, Les margitans dans les recits picaresques
arabes et espagnols, Tunis 1982, which contains a pro¬
found comparison between the two sources mentioned
above and the picaresque literature (and extensive
bibl.)

Bibliography : To the references in the text, the
following may be added: V. Chauvin, Bibliographic
des ouvrages arabes ou relatijs aux Arabes, ix, Liege
1904; the studies published in the Tunisian review
al-Mabdhith , xxiii-xxv, xxvii-xxviii; A. Mez,
Renaissance, index; G. E. von Grunebaum, The
spirit of Islam as shown in its literature, in SI, i (1953),
114-19; Dj. Sultan, Fann al-kissa wa \l-makama ,
Damascus 1362/1943; Shawkl Dayf, al-Makama,
Caire 1954; ‘Abd al-Rahman YaghI, Raf fi 7-
makama, Beirut 1969; Jareer Abu-Haydar, Maqamdt
literature and the picaresque novel , in JAL, iii (1974),
1 -10; M. R. Hasan, Athar al-makama fi nashfat al-
kifsa al-misriyya al-haditha , Cairo 1974; H. Nemah,
Andalusian maqamdt , in JAL, iii (1974), 83-92; R.
MarzukI, Tatawur al-makama shakl an wa-madum an , in
CERES, Kadaya d-adab al-'arabi, Tunis 1978,
299-335; R. Droury, Hawl kawd^id tabaddul al-kafiya
fi l-makama, in S. Somekh (ed.), Abhath fi 7 -lugha wa
d-uslub, Tel Aviv 1980, 7-13; and A. Kilito, Les
seances, Paris 1983. Several “maitrise” theses deal¬
ing with the makama have been presented in recent
years to the University of Tunis; see also the
general studies in manuals of the history of Arabic

literature, in particular H. A. R. Gibb, Arabic
Literature 2 , 1963, index, s.v. maqdma\ F. Gabrieli,
Storia della letteratura araba, Milan 1951, 202-7; G.
Wiet, Introduction a la Literature arabe, Paris 1966,
174-9; and J. Vernet, Literatura arabe, Barcelona
n.d., 125-9. (C. Brockelmann - [Ch. Pellat])
MAKAN b. KAKI, Abu Mansur, Day la mi
soldier of fortune who played an important part
in the tortuous politics and military operations in nor¬
thern Persia, involving local Daylaml chiefs, the
c Alids of Tabaristan and the Samanids, during the
first half of the 4th/10th century.

The house of Kaki were local rulers of Ashkawar in
Ranikuh, the eastern part of Gilan in the Caspian
coastlands. Makan rose to prominence in Tabaristan
in the service of the c Alid princes there, and as the
c Alids themselves dissolved into internecine rivalries,
he became the contender with a fellow-commander,
Asfar b. Shlruva [see asfar b. shIrawayhI] for con¬
trol over the Caspian lands. Makan allied with the
Hasanid al-Dd c i al-S agh ir al-Hasan b. al-Kasim [q.v.
in Suppl.] against the latter’s rival Dja c far b. al-
Hasan b. al-Utrush and his supporter Asfar, but was
worsted in battle in 316/928 by the rule of the c Alids
in Tabaristan, and Makan had temporarily to flee in¬
to Daylam. His fortunes nevertheless revived, and by
318/930 he was master of Tabaristan, Gurgan and
even of Nlshapur in Khurasan, and had repelled an
attack by Asfar’s supplanter Mardawldj b. Ziyar
[q.v.\, master of Ray (319/931).

Mardawidj’s elan could not be stemmed by Makan,
who lost Tabaristan and had to retire to Samanid ter¬
ritory in Khurasan, receiving from the amir Nasr b.
Ahmad [^.v.] the governorship of Kirman. However,
when Mardawldj was assassinated in 323/935 by his
slave troops (according to Gardlzi, at Makan’s in¬
stigation), Makan returned from the east to the Cas¬
pian region, established himself as governor of
Gurgan for the Samanids, and allied with another
local leader, Mardawidj’s brother Wushmaglr,
founder of the subsequent Ziyarid dynasty [?.£>.].
With Wushmaglr’s support, he threw off the control
of Bukhara, but the amir sent against him an army
under Abu c Ali Ahmad b. Muhtadj Caghanl. Makan
was dislodged from the town of Gurgan and compel¬
led to fall back on Ray; and outside the town, at a
village called Ishakabad on the Damghan road, the
forces of Wushmagir and Makan were defeated on 21
Rabi c I 329/25 December 940. Makan was killed and
his head sent first to Bukhara and then to the caliph
in Ba gh dad.

Makan’s career is typical of several Daylaml con-
dottieri in the early stages of the “Daylaml intermez¬
zo” of Persian history, when the decline of caliphal
power in northern Persia allowed various local in¬
terests to vie for power there; but in the long run, it
was the Buyids who were able to establish the most en¬
during domination ( c Ali b. Buya, the later c Imad al-
Dawla [q.v.], seems to have taken an important step
forward in his career by joining Makan’s army as a
commander, perhaps in ca. 316/928, but left Makan
when the latter was temporarily eclipsed by Mar¬
dawldj, see above). Collateral relatives of Makan, the
family of his cousin al-Hasan b. Flruzan, continued to
rule locally in Daylam till the end of the century.

Bibliography. 1. Sources: Mas c udl, Murud^,
ix, 6-8 = §§ 3578-9; c Arib, 137-8; Miskawayh, in
Eclipse of the ^Abbasid caliphate, i, 275 ff., ii, 3-6; Gar-
dlzi, ed. Nazim, 30-1, ed. HabTbl, 83-5, 153;
Hamadham, Takmila, ed. Kan c an, i, index; Ibn
Isfandiyar, tr. Browne, 208-li; Nizami c Arudi
Samarkand!, Cahar makala , ed. Kazwlnl and

116

MAKAN b. KAKI — MAKASSAR

Mu c in, 24-7, Browne’s revised tr. 16-18
(chronologically confused anecdote): Ibn al-Athlr,
viii, 140-292, passim ; Zahlr al-Dln, ed. Dorn,
171-6; 2. Studies. H. L. Rabino, Mdzandaran and
Astarabdd, 140; V. Minorsky, La domination des
Ddilamites , in Iranica, twenty articles, Tehran 1964,
17, 27; Spuler, Iran, 89-94; W. Madelung, in Cam¬
bridge hist. of Iran, iv, 141-2, 211-12, 253-4; EP s.v.
(M. Nazim). (C.E. Bosworth)

MAKARI. [see kotoko]

MAKASSAR, since 1972 renamed “Ujung Pan-
dang” with reference to one of its oldest quarters
around the harbour, is the capital of the Indone¬
sian Province of Sulawesi Selatan (South
Celebes). It has 434,168 inhabitants, among them
332,618 Muslims. After World War II, Makassar was
the capital of the Dutch-sponsored East Indonesian
State (until 1950). It still remains the dominant
cultural, administrative, economic and traffic centre
in East Indonesia, its population comprising notable
minorities of Torajas, Menadonese, Ambonese,
Timorese, etc.

Its name “Makassar” originates from the people
living in its hinterland, stretching over the most
southern part of the south-western peninsula of
Sulawesi. The population of the island of Selayar, to
the south, is usually also counted among the
Makassars, although their dialect shows a number of
differences from genuine Makassarese. Their
neighbours to the north are the Buginese, who are
closely related to the Makassars in their customs,
manners, and language. At the present, there are
about 1,250,000 people living in the predominently
Makassarese-speaking kabupatens (regencies) of Gowa,
Takalar, Jene Ponto, Bantaeng, Maros, and Pangka-
jene (here mixed with Buginese).

Originally, as H. J. Friedericy had pointed out by
examining the old Bugis-Makassarese epic La Galigo,
Makassarese society was divided into three main
groups: the ana ’ karaeng , or family of the king, the to
deceng, or free people, and the ata, or slaves, who were
either captives, those who could not repay their debts,
or who had acted against the adat (customary law).
Since the beginning of the 20th century, slavery has
been abolished. An outstanding feature of the
character of the Makassars (and Buginese) is called
sirV, a feeling of humiliation and shame if the rules of
adat are broken; it usually leads to revenge.

Little is known about the history of Makassar in
pre-Islamic times. In the middle of the 14th century,
the area was under the rule of the Javanese kingdom
of Majapahit. According to the chronicles of Gowa
and Tallo’, which are the names of the two ancient
Makassarese kingdoms, Gowa originally consisted of
an alliance of nine small districts, each under a noble;
after the government had passed into the hands of one
man and the kingdom had expanded, to include for
example the lands of what was later Tallo’, Gowa is
said, after the death of the sixth king (the first one
described as an ordinary mortal), to have been divid¬
ed between his two sons; the one became ruler of
Gowa and the other of Tallo’. Both kingdoms usually
had close relations and were known to the Europeans
as the “kingdom of the Makassars”. About the year
1512, one year after the conquest of Malacca by the
Portuguese, “Malays” were given permission to set¬
tle in Makassar and to build a mosque in their
quarter. Also, in other ports on the west coast of
South Sulawesi, Muslim traders began to settle.
Those in Pangkajene were resisting tendencies among
the family of the local ruler to adopt the Christian
belief. But on the whole, during the 16th century, the

Makassars and their rulers were still adhering to their
traditional religion, and an even-handed policy was
pursued towards the Muslim traders, most of whom
originated from Johore, Malacca, Pahang, Blam-
bangan, Patani, Banjarmasin, and the Minangkabau
in West Sumatra on one hand, and the Portuguese on
the other.

When the Makassarese kings started to become in¬
terested in trade affairs, they usually asked the Por¬
tuguese for their good services. The karaeng of Tallo’,
Tu Nipasuru’ (First half of the 16th century) is said to
have travelled to Malacca and Johore for trade
reasons. During the reign of Tu Nijallo as karaeng of
Gowa (1565-1590), the sultan of Ternate, Bab Allah,
visited Makassar about 1580. Besides trying to solve
their political disputes, Bab Allah, a fervent enemy of
the Portuguese who had murdered his father, urged
the karaeng to adopt Islam. It seems doubtful that he
had any success, and it was not until 9 Djumada I
1014/22 September 1605 that the young karaeng of
Tallo’, I Mallingkaang Daeng Nyonri, who at the
same time acted as patih (prime minister) of Gowa,
publicly confessed the Islamic shahada. Later he was
known as Sultan c Abd Allah Awwal al-Islam. The
karaeng of Gowa, I Mangu’ rangi Daeng Nanra’bia,
soon followed his example and adopted the name
Sultan ‘•Ala 5 al-Din. On 18 Radjab 1016/16
November 1607, the islamisation of the two
Makassarese kingdoms was officially declared to be
completed. This was followed by successful wars
against the Buginese neighbours, who thus were forc¬
ed to convert to Islam too. One of the most celebrated
teachers of Islam at that time was the miraculous
Dato’ riBandang, a mystic from Kota Tengah in the
Minangkabau, who is said to have been a pupil of
Sunan Giri in Java. Other outstanding teachers were
Dato’ riTiro and Dato’ Patimang. Their tombs
became centres of worship.

In the first half of the 17th century, the kingdom of
Makassar extended very much, so that it brought
under its suzerainty almost the whole of Sulawesi,
Buton, Flores, Sumbawa, Lombok and the east coast
of Kalimantan. In 1609, the Dutch East India Com¬
pany was granted permission to establish a factory,
but disputes about the trade with the Moluccas gave
cause to repeated warfare and treaties which reduced
the sovereignty of the Makassarese kings, and led to
the expulsion of the Portuguese and later, in 1667, of
the British as well. A treaty dictated by Admiral C.
Speelman in 1667, which was reconfirmed in 1669,
gave the right to the Dutch to settle there permanent¬
ly. These wars are the topic of the Sja c ir Perang
Mangkasara '.

Although the main port in South Sulawesi was (and
is) Makassar, the most skilled sailors and shipmakers,
however, were not the Makassars but the Buginese,
especially those from Wajo, who formed in
Makassar—like in some other major ports, e.g. in
East Kalimantan—their own community supervised
by the matoa. The third matoa, Amanna Gappa,
assisted by two of his colleagues from other ports,
compiled in about 1676 a code of trade and navigation
law which reflects at the same time their understan¬
ding of the cosmic order, together with Islamic and
traditional elements.

Both the Makassars and likewise the Buginese are
usually considered as strong, and sometimes fanatical
confessors of Islam. Generally speaking, most of the
legal duties of Islam are conscientiously observed. But
this does not prevent them from maintaining, at the
same time, pre-Islamic religious convictions, and a
number of “mystical movements” are still in ex-

MAKASSAR — MAKAYIL

117

istence or are even gaining in strength, especially
among the villagers, but also among intellectuals.
Since the beginning of this century, modernist
Muslim ideas have been spread by Zaini Dahlan, a
former pupil of the Sumatra Thawalib, and the journal
al-Islam which was published since 1906 for some
years by a Sumatran living in Malaya, and which
resembled al-Manar in its orientation. A branch of the
modernist Muhammadiyah movement was established
in 1929.

In 1950, Makassar became the starting point of the
“Darul-Islam” rebellion led by Kahar Muzakkar. In
1963 came the establishment of the Ikatan Masjid dan
Mushalla Indonesia Mutahhidin, or Association of
United Indonesian Mosques and Prayer Houses (ab-
brev. IMMIM ), which tries to propagate the prin¬
ciples of unity in the c akida , but tolerance in matters
of the khilafiyyat. Thus among its members are mos¬
ques which are owned by the Muhammadiyah , or by the
traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama party, or by other
groups. They are urged by the leaders of the IMMIM
to keep their special convictions among themselves in
order to avoid public turmoil. It has branches now in
Central and Southeast Sulawesi, in the Moluccas and
in Irian Jaya.

Bibliography : see article macassar in EI l ; T.
Leigh and D. Midwinter, An historical description of
the Kingdom of Macasar in the East Indies , London
1701, republ. 1971; H. J. Friedericy, De Standen bij
de Boegineezen en Makassaren, in BKf xc (1933),
447-602; J. Tideman, Een Makassaarsch Adat
huwelijk, in Koloniaal Tijdschrift, xxiii (1934), 66-77;
H. T. Chabot, Verwantschap , Stand en Sexe in Zuid -
Celebes, Groningen-Jakarta 1950; G. J. Resink,
Volkenrecht in vroeger Makassar , in Indonesia, v
(1952-3), 393-410; J. Noorduyn, De Islamisering van
Makasar, in BKf cxii (1956), 247-66; M. Sjarif
Saleh Daeng Paesa, Analisa Perjuangan Muhammadi-
jah di Sulawesi Selatan , in Almanak Muhammadijah
Tahun Hijra 1380, Jakarta 1960, 132-49; Ph. O. L.
Tobing, Hukum Pelayaran dan Perdagangan Amanna
Gappa (The Navigation and Commercial Law of Amanna
Gappa ), Makassar 1961, repr. Jakarta-Ujung Pan-
dang 1977 (with an abbreviated English version);
Mattulada, Sin dalam Hubungannya dengan
Perkawinan Masjarakat Mangkasara', Makassar 1962;
C. Skinner, SjaHr Perang Mengkasar (The Rhymed
Chronicle of the Macassar War) by Entji Amin, ’s-
Gravenhage 1963 ( = VKI 40); G. J. Wolhoff and
Abdurrahim, Bingkisan Sedjarah Gowa. Makassar
1964; Bahar Mattalioe, Kahar Muzakkar dengan
Petualangannja. Jakarta 1965; Abdurrazak Daeng
Patunru’, Sedjarah Gowa, Makassar 1967; Mat¬
tulada, Kebudajaan Bugis-Makassar, in Koentjaran-
ingrat (ed.), Manusia dan Kebudajaan di Indonesia,
Jakarta 1971, 264-83; Bingkisan Budaya Sulawesi
Selatan, new series since 1976 (ed. by South
Sulawesi Cultured Foundation, Ujung Pandang);
Hamka, Pandangan Islam terhadap Sin , in Panji
Masyarakat No. 227, 15 July 1977; Chr. Pelras, Les
premieres donnees occidentales concernant Celebes-Sud, in
BKf cxxxiii (1977), 227-60 (with useful

bibliography); IMMIM menuju persatuan ummat
dengan kerja , in Panji Masyarakat No. 263, 15 January
1979. (W. H. Rassers - [O. Schumann])

MAKAYIL (a ), “measures of capacity”
(sing. mikyal(a)\ var. makayil , sing, mikyai), and
MAWAZIN (a.) “weights” (sing, mizan). On the
measures of length and surface area, see misaha.

1. In the Arabic, Persian and Turkishlands.
In the history of Oriental metrology, the spread of

Islam meant no abrupt break. Whereas Charlemagne
imposed in his empire a uniform system of weights
and measures and introduced a much heavier pound
than the Roman libra of 327.45 g, neither Muham¬
mad nor c Umar made such a reform; and as later
rulers could not claim canonical character for their
systems of weights and measures, their bewildering
diversity was in the Muslim countries even greater
than in mediaeval Europe, where Charlemagne’s
system remained as a firm basis. The weights and
measures which were used in the countries conquered
by the Muslims were however not altogether different,
as preceding oriented conquerors had introduced their
metrological systems in other countries and, secondly,
a mutual influence shaped them to a certain extent.
For the needs of the fiscal administration [see bayt al-
mal and dIwan] and the market supervision [see
hisba], every governor and finance director of the
provinces of the caliphal empire had to enforce what
the caliph decreed concerning weights and measures.
But rulers who had in mind to establish a truly new
regime fixed new weights and measures, just as they
built up an administration different from that of their
predecessors. The Buyid prince c Adud al-Dawla, the
Fatimids, the Il-Khan Ghazan and the Turcoman
Uzun Hasan introduced new metrological systems.

For the study of Muslim weights one has recourse
to the accounts in literary sources, the analysis of glass
weights which served as standards and, thirdly, to
data in European sources, such as Merchants’
Guides. But despite the relatively rich information,
research in Muslim metrology has not resulted in
generally-accepted conclusions. From the accounts of
the Muslim authors and the archaeological findings,
different values have been calculated. The data in the
European sources mostly point to smaller ones, which
cannot be considered as mistaken.

The names of the weights and measures of capacity
point to their origins: the rati, the most common
weight, is an Aramaic form of the Greek Xttpov; the
kintar (100 rails) is obviously the Latin centenarius; and
the kafiz is the Persian name of a measure of capacity.
When the Arabs conquered the lands of the Near
East, all these names were already used for different
weights and measures. The mudd, a measure of
capacity, was in c Irak of (about) 1.05 litres, in Syria
of 3.673 litres, and in Egypt of 2.5 litres. The diversity
of the weights and measures called by the same name
was a phenomenon common to all Muslim countries.
Almost every district had its own weights and
measures, and in some countries those used in the
capitals were different from those of the countryside.
This is what the Arabic geographers tell about Djibal
and its capital Rayy, about Khuzistan and its capital
al-Ahwaz and about Aleppo (Halab) and its province.
Further different weights were used for various com¬
modities: in many provinces meat was weighed by a
rati different from that of other articles. In all pro¬
vinces of Upper Egypt there was a rati for meat and
bread and another for other commodities. In many
countries there were particular rath for pepper, silk,
etc. For grain, one used in all Arabic countries
measures of capacity; for liquids one had other
measures of this kind. One learns, however, from the
sources that in course of time there was a trend in
several countries to use for liquids (e.g. olive oil)
weights, and secondly, there was a tendency to replace
weights (and measures of capacity) by bigger ones.
Despite the mutual influence between the
metrological systems of the Near Eastern countries,
there remained through the Middle Ages (and also
later) a marked difference between the Persian and

118

MAKAYIL

Arab countries (although there was some overlap¬
ping). The mutual influence and the age-old Roman-
Byzantine rule over the Near East resulted, however,
in a two-sided structure of the metrological systems of
all the Muslim countries: they were both sexagesimal
and decimal. This was indeed also a characteristic
feature of the metrological system of the Greco-
Roman world. The survival of the metrological
systems of antiquity overshadows the almost insignifi¬
cant influence of the weights and measures of Arabia
upon the newly-conquered countries. The measures
of capacity which were used in the Hidjaz in the days
of Muhammad, the sa Q equal to 4 mudds and the wo.sk
equal to 60 mudds , did not spread to other countries
(except perhaps in Algeria and Tunisia where the sa c
is still used, with varying equivalences). But the basic
weight used at Baghdad became widely accepted as a
standard weight. This was clearly the influence of
c Abbasid rule. On the other hand, the Muslim rulers
did not introduce “Royal measures” for collecting
taxes or making payments; some of them established
special measures for these purposes, but these latter
ones did not become new standards. The striking
feature of the metrological systems of the mediaeval
Arab countries was their diversity. Nevertheless, the
Muslims tried to give the obviously different systems
a common theoretical basis, adapted to the monetary
system of the caliphs which was considered as
canonical. Thus a metrological theory was elaborated.

Every weight was supposed to consist of a certain
number of weight dirhams (to be distinguished from
the weight of the coin called by the same name). The
French scholars who came with Bonaparte to Egypt
found that this dirham was equal to 3.0884 g, whereas
a commission appointed by the Egyptian government
in 1845 concluded that it was of 3.0989 g, and this lat¬
ter value was taken by Sauvaire as basis for his
calculations. Decourdemanche concluded that it was
3.148 g, and Hinz 3.125 g. But the Egyptian govern¬
ment established in 1924 that it is 3.12 g, and both the
glass weights of the caliphal period and the data in the
late mediaeval Merchants’ Guides point to a smaller
value. In addition, mediaeval Muslim writers say that
this unity was not equal everywhere. For in Central
Syria it was, according to them, lighter than in other
Near Eastern countries. Another standard weight uni¬
ty was the mithkal. Just as 10 silver dirhams should have
the same weight as 7 gold dinars , so 10 weight dirhams
should be equal to the weight of 7 mithkals. The
authorities of the caliphal empire had the dirham
weight stamped on the standard weights, and Arab
writers usually give the value of a (real) weight in
these theoretical units. They also established further
relationships: a weight dirham consists of 60 barley
grains ( habha ), each equal to 70 grains of mustard; a
mithkal too is equal to 60 barley grains, but of 100
mustard grains each. The mithkal was also divided into
24 kirats (from the Greek X£pdrtov), and consequently
the weight dirham was reckoned at 164/5 kirats. But the
mithkal was not everywhere the same; thus that of
Damascus was lighter than the Egyptian one.

In the time of Muhammad and his first successors,
the weight system of Mesopotamia had apparently
already been introduced into Arabia. Both in Mecca
and in c Uman there was used a rati which was the dou¬
ble of what was later called “the rati of Ba gh dad”, so
that it weighed 402.348 g. The rati of Yemen was
equal to the Ba gh dad rati. The rati of Medina weighed
617.96 g. The basic unity of the measures of capacity
was the mudd , which contained a Meccan rati of wheat,
and this was considered as the canonical mudd of
Islam.

The data which we have about the weights and the
measures of capacity which were used in the Middle
Ages in Syria and in Egypt are much more numerous
than data about those in other Islamic countries, and
both archaeological Findings and the information pro¬
vided by Westerners enable us to draw a comprehen¬
sive sketch of the metrological development of these
two countries.

For weighing small quantities one used in these
countries everywhere the rati. Under Umayyad rule,
one had in Syria a rati of 337.5 g or 340 g, obviously
equal to the Roman pound. In the 4th/10th century,
one used in most provinces of Syria and Palestine a
heavy rati, numbering 600 dirhams , i.e. 1.853 kg. The
rati of Damascus was, however, according to al-
MukaddasI, slightly lighter. In this town it remained
unchanged throughout the Middle Ages. In northern
Syria, however, other rails were used. In the 5th/llth
century, the Aleppo rati was equal to 1.483 kg. In the
6th/12th century one had in Aleppo a rati of 2.335 kg,
in Hamat one of 2.039 kg and in Shayzar one of
2.114 kg. According to the Arabic sources, the
Damascus rati was in the Mamluk period still equal to
1.85 kg, but the Italian Merchants’ Guides make it
600 light Venetian pounds, i.e. 1.8072 kg. The rati of
the northern provinces of Syria was in the 7th/13th
and 8th/14th centuries, according to the Arabic
sources, equal to 2.22 kg, and according to the Italian
sources it was of 2.1688 kg. In the 11 th-13th/l7th-
19th centuries the rati of Aleppo was slightly heavier
and weighed 2.28 kg. Even in Palestine every district
had its own rati ; that of Jerusalem (also used in
Nabulus) was in the Middle Ages of 2.47 kg and in the
19th century of 2.78 kg.

Grain was measured in southern Syria and in
Palestine by the ghirara , a measure of capacity which
was however of different size in every province. The
ghirara of Damascus was equal to 731/2 mudds , con¬
taining 2.84 kg of wheat each, or to 3 Egyptian ir-
dabbs. So it contained 208.74 kg of wheat. But in
Jerusalem, the ghirara contained, at least at the end of
the Middle Ages, three times as much, sc. 626.22 kg
of wheat, and in Ghazza 313.1 kg. In northern Syria
one used for weighing grains the makkuk. Even this
was a name given to different measures. The makkuk
of Aleppo and Tripoli contained 83.5 kg of wheat and
that of Hamat 92.77 kg, according to Ibn Fadl Allah
al- c Umari and al-Kalkashandl. But in the period of
the Crusades, the makkuk was smaller. Ibn al- c Ad!m
recounts that the makkuk of Aleppo was in the 6th/12th
century half of the makkuk of his own day, so that it
must then have been of about 40 kg of wheat. Once
more one becomes aware of a characteristic trend of
the development of weights and measures in the
mediaeval Near East: that there was a tendency to use
heavier and bigger ones. In the 19th century one used
in Syria the kayl of 28.18 kg of wheat.

Judging from the glass weights found in Egypt,
the standard rati in Umayyad times was in that coun¬
try equal to 440 g, whereas the c Abbasids introduced
a lighter rati , weighing 390-400 g. But in c Abbasid
Egypt also a “big rati ” (rati kabir) of 493 g was used.
Under the Fatimids, several rails were used. Accord¬
ing to the Arabic writers of that period and shortly
afterwards, such as Eliya of Nisibin, writing in the
firts half of the 5th/l 1 th century, al-Makhzumi of the
late 6th/12th century and Ibn Mammatl, at the begin¬
ning of the 7th/13th century, and a later text referring
to a happening in the early 5th/11th century, they
were the following: the rati called misri of 144 dirhams,
i.e. 444.9 g, used for weighing bread, meat and other
articles; that of 150 dirhams, i.e. 463 g, used for spices

MAKAYIL

119

(and therefore called fulfuli, pepper rati ) and also for
cotton; the rati laythi of 200 dirhams, i.e. 617.96 g, used
for flax; and the rati djarwi of 312 dirhams ; i.e. 964 g,
used for honey, sugar, cheese and metals. However,
according to the Italian Merchants’ Guides the rati
fulfuli was equal to 1.4 - 1.46 light Venetian pounds,
i.e. 420 - 440 g, the rati laythi (called after the governor
al-Layth b. Fadl, year 802), equalled 602.46 - 617.52
g, and the rati djarwi 939.8376 - 951.8868 g or, as
other Italian sources have it, 300 light Venetian
pounds, i.e. 903.69 g. Although one can quote other
data from these European sources, the comparison of
the data in the Arabic and European sources shows
clearly that the European merchants who carried on
trade in the Near East were accustomed to lighter
standards. Several authors of the European Mer¬
chants’ Guides, such as Pegolotti, emphasise that
these rails were used in Cairo, Alexandria and
Damietta alike, and others point to minimal dif¬
ferences, but from the Arabic sources one learns that
different rails were used in almost all provinces of
Egypt. The Fayyum, Asyuf, Manfaluf, Ikhmtm and
Kus in Upper Egypt, Kalyub, Fuwwa, al-Mahalla
and Samannud in Lower Egypt, all had their own
rails. The variety of the Egyptian weights was even
much greater than that of the weights used in Syria,
as in the major towns of this latter country many more
commodities were weighed by the same weights. In
Damascus, for instance, all the spices and the metals
were weighed by the Damascene rati (and kintar). In
Egypt, on the other hand, some spices were weighed
by the mann, which was equal, according to the Arabic
sources, to 260 dirhams, i.e. 803.348 g, according to
Pegolotti to 840 g, and according to other Merchants’
Guides to 2V 2 light Venetian pounds, i.e. 753 g.
Spices weighed by the mann comprised cinnamon,
nutmeg, mace, cloves, cubeb and borax.

The measures of capacity which were used in Egypt
in the caliphal period for grain were the tillis and dif¬
ferent irdabbs, but from the middle of the 5th/11th cen¬
tury the first of these measures dropped out of use.
Al-Mukaddasi says that it was of 96.4 kg of wheat and
that it was no more used in his days. But in various
accounts of the third decade and of the middle of the
5th/ 11th century, the tillis is still mentioned; perhaps
this was another tillis. The irdabb (from ap-capri) was
originally a Persian measure of capacity which had
been used in Egypt for a long time under the
Ptolemies and the Byzantines. According to al-
MukaddasI, it contained 72.3 kg of wheat. This was
the irdabb of the Egyptian capital; it consisted of 6
waybas of 12.05 kg of wheat each. In the various pro¬
vinces there were other irdabbs , such as that of
Fayyum comprising 9 waybas or 103.22 kg of wheat.
In the Mamluk period, the irdabb of Cairo correspond¬
ed to 68.8 kg. of wheat, whereas, judging from the
equations made by Pegolotti and in two anonymous
Merchants’ Guides, the irdabb of Alexandria was
already in that period twice as much. In the 18th and
19th centuries the irdabb was apparently everywhere
doubled, and nowadays it is in the Buhayra of 140.8
kg of wheat and in the Sa c Id of 148.3 kg. Flour was
weighed by the butta, equal to 50 Egyptian ratls, i.e.
22.245 kg. A tillis of flour weighed, according to Ibn
MammatT, 150 of these rails, i.e. 66.735 kg.

For olive oil, one used in the period of the
Umayyad and the c Abbasid caliphs measures of
capacity. There were three measures called hist
(Ijearr)*;, sextarius ), one containing 476 g olive oil,
another 1.07 kg and yet another 2.14 kg. But accord¬
ing to al-Makrlzi, a kist contained 2.106 1 (or .1.93
kg) of olive oil. Other measures of capacity for liquids

were the matar (derived from the Greek p.e.TpfjT7}<;)
which, according to a Venetian source, contained, in
the later Middle Ages, about 17 kg of olive oil. But
under the rule of the Ayyubids, one began to weigh
olive oil by the kintar (rati) djarwi, as is borne out by
an account of Ibn MammatT.

For great quantities of various commodities, one
used some kinds of “loads”. The himl was reckoned
at 600 “Egyptian rails”, i.e. 266 kg, but as far as
spices were concerned it consisted of 500 ratls only,
i.e. 222.45 kg. This latter unity is that which the
Italian traders called sporta and reckoned at 720 (later
700) light Venetian pounds, i.e. 216.885 kg.

Weights in c Irak, where the old Persian tradition
prevailed, were altogether different from those used in
Syria and in Egypt, although some had the same
name. The rati of Ba gh dad which was equal to
401.674 g (according to others, to 397.26 g) (130 or
128 4/7 dirhams respectively) was considered as the
“canonical” rati of the Muslims, because it was used
from the days of the first caliphs. Al-Mukaddasi re¬
counts that this rati was also used in Upper
Mesopotamia. But a short time later, Eliya of Nisibin
says that in his native town one had a rati of 926.49
g (210 mithkals) and he mentions also a rati of Balad as
being twice as much, i.e. 1.8529 kg. His contem¬
porary Nasir-i Khusraw mentions the rati of
Mayyafarikln which was equal to 1.483 kg. The
measures of capacity which were used in c Irak fitted
into a sexagesimal system. Small quantities of grain
were sold by kafiz. In the 4th/10th century one used
various kafizs. One of them contained 10 kg of wheat
(25 Baghdadi ratls); Baghdad and Kufa had a kafiz
containing 120 ratls or 48.2 kg wheat, whereas the
kafiz of Wasit and Basra was only half of it, i.e. equal
to 24.1 kg. The measure of capacity used for greater
quantities of grains was the kurr. There were,
however, different kurrs. The so-called “reformed
kurr ” (kurr mu^addal) contained, according to al-
Buzadjani, an author of the Buyid period, 2829 kg of
wheat, since it was equal to 60 kafizs; the “full kurr ”
(kurr kamil) was half of it. In Upper Mesopotamia, one
used the “Sulaymani” kurr which contained 771.2 kg
of wheat (1920 ratls of Baghdad). In the period of the
caliphs, one measured in this latter region small quan¬
tities of grain by a makkuk containing 6.025 kg of
wheat, but in the period of the Crusades the makkuk of
this region was bigger. It contained, according to Ibn
al-Athlr, ! / 14 of a Damascene ghirara, that is, 14.91 kg
of wheat. The data which one finds in the Arabic
sources about the measures of capacity which were us¬
ed in c Irak for liquids are rather scanty. According to
Eliya of Nisibin, one used for olive oil a kist containing
3 Ba gh dadi ratls and another which was twice as
much.

The weights and measures of capacity of Persia
had almost nothing in common with the metrological
system which had been established by the Arabs in
Syria, in Egypt and in other countries on the basis of
the Roman-Byzantine tradition. The ancient Persian
tradition on the whole withstood the Muslim-Arab in¬
fluence, but was nevertheless not wholly untouched by
it.

In the provinces of Persia adjacent to c Irak, many
towns had the rati as the basic weight unit for small
quantities of various commodities, but most of them
shared with the ratls used in the lands of the Fertile
Crescent only the name. One exception to this rule
was the town of al-Ahwaz, where one used the
Baghdadi rati. Al-Istakhn recounts that one used
almost everywhere a mann which weighed twice as
much as the rati of Baghdad. This is undoubtedly an

120

MAKAYIL

exaggeration. In Rayy, the capital of Djibal, one had
a rati of 300 dirhams , i.e. 926.94 g. This rati was also
used in some provinces of Adharbavdjan. as in those
of Khuv and Urmiya. But outside Rayy, one used in
Djibal a rati which was the double of the Rayy one,
and in other provinces of Adharbavdjan one used the
rati of Baghdad. The rati of Ardabll weighed, accor¬
ding to al-Istakhn. 1,040 dirhams, i.e. 3.213 kg, and
according to al-Mukaddasi 1,200 dirhams, i.e. 3.7 kg.
In Shiraz one weighed bread and meat by the rati of
Baghdad, whereas other commodities were weighed
by the same rati as that used in Ardabll (eight times as
much as that of Ba gh dadi. The standard weight for
small quantities of dry (and even liquid commodities)
was in most provinces of Persia the mann (also called
mana), which had spread widely in western Persia. But
even mann was a name given to different weights. In
the province of Khuzistan, outside the town of al-
Ahwaz, it was equal to 4 rails of Ba gh dad, so that it
weighed 1.6 kg. In the neighbouring province of Pars,
one used in some towns, like Arradjan, a mann of 1.2
kg (equal to 3 Baghdadi rails) and in others one of
926.94 g. In Istakhr one used a mann of 400 dirhams,
i.e. 1.235 kg, and in Fasa one of 300 dirhams, i.e.
926.94 g. The mann of Rayy was of 1.853 kg, and that
of other towns of Djibal 1.2359 kg (600 and 400 dirham
respectively). The mann of Rayy was widely used. It
was also the standard weight of the provinces of
Daylam and Tabaristan, whereas Kumis had a mann
of 926.94 g. Despite the bewildering variety of all
these weights, they point to a striking difference bet¬
ween the metrological system of the Persian provinces
of the caliphate and those formerly belonging to the
Byzantine empire: the basic unit was much heavier
than that used in the latter countries. The mann re¬
mained also in the later Middle Ages, and even in
subsequent periods, the basic weight of the provinces
of Persia. Ghazan imposed the mann of Tabriz, which
was equal to 260 dirhams, i.e. 803.348 g, as the stan¬
dard weight in the whole kingdom of the Il-Khans,
and even grain was weight by this mann. However, ac¬
cording to Pegolotti, spices were weighed by a mann
equal to 903.69 g. After the downfall of the Il-Khans.
in the middle of the 8th/14th century, it fell out of use.
Uzun Hasan introduced another weight, the so-called
batman, equal to 5.76 kg, and this was apparently the
standard weight in most Persian provinces under the
rule of the Safawids. Then in the 11 th/17th and
12th/18th centuries a mann of 2.88 - 2.9 kg spread
everywhere. Obviously, this was a variation of half
the pound of Uzun Hasan. From the beginning of the
19th century, it was mostly equal to 3 kg, and later it
was indeed Fixed at exactly 3 kg. In 1926 the
equivalence of Persian and metric weights was fixed
by law, and in 1935 the metric system was introduced,
although in practice the ancient weights are still used.

The use of measures of capacity was in Persia much
less common than in the Arab-speaking countries,
although in the days of the caliphs, the kajiz was wide¬
ly used. According to the reports of the Arabic authors
of the 4th/10th century, one used in Nlshapur a kajiz
which was equal to 70 manns, i.e. 56.23 kg of wheat.
In Fars one had various kafizs, containing 3.2 - 6.4 kg
wheat. For greater quantities, one used there the
djarib, equal to 10 kafizs of 16 rails, i.e. 64.26 kg, but
the inference of al-Istakhrl is that this only is an in¬
dication of its average weight, since he adds to this
equation with the rati (of Baghdad) the statement that
the weight of the kajiz depended upon the commodity
measured (and this was probably true for other
equivalents of measures of capacity and weights). In
his native town of Istakhr. one called kajiz a measure
which was half of the kajiz of Shiraz. In Khuzistan one

used a kurr containing 1004 kg of wheat (but for
government crops, only 963.5 kg). Another unit of
weight which was in all periods widespread in the Per¬
sian lands was the kharwar, a donkey’s load. The
Buyid ruler c Adud ad-Dawla fixed it at 96.35 kg, and
Ghazan Khan at 80.29 kg; but in the later Middle
Ages a heavier kharwar was introduced, weighing 288
kg, and at present a kharwar of 297 kg is widespread
(although others are used).

In the Muslim regions of Asia Minor one used,
according to Eliya of Nisibin, in the 5th/l 1th century
a rati which was equal to 317.89 g, but later authors
say that the rati rumi weighed 120 dirhams, i.e. 370.776
g. Ibn Fa<,ll Allah al- c UmarI, who wrote in the first
half of the 8th/14th century, mentions the different
ratls of several provinces of Asia Minor. According to
him, one used in some (as in those of Antalya,
Aksaray and Kara Hi$ar) a rati of 1.779 kg; in Bursa
a rati of 9.64 kg; and in KastamunI a rati of 7.118 kg.
As to the rati of Slwas, the contemporary Pegolotti
says that it was of 4.8 kg, whereas one learns from an
Arabic source that it was of 4.618 kg. In the 18th cen¬
tury Istanbul had a rati of 2.8 kg, and Konya had in
the 19th century a rati of 481 g. Beside these different
ratls, one used everywhere in the Ottoman empire
another weight, the okka, which was equal to 1.283 kg.
For grain, one used in the Middle Ages in the Turkish
provinces of Asia Minor measures of capacity, which
in some places equalled the Egyptian irdabb. Ibn Fadl
Allah al- c UmarI lists them and says also that in Bursa
one used a mudd which was bigger by a quarter. In the
Ottoman period the mudd contained 513 kg of wheat
(being of 666.4 1).

In North Africa the rati of Baghdad, being con¬
sidered as the canonical, was the most common as
long as the c Abbasids exercised suzerainty there. The
Fatimids, however, introduced a heavier rati, which
had been previously used for weighing pepper. It was
reckoned at 140 dirhams, i.e. it was equal to 432.572
g, according to the detailed account of al-MultaddasI.
Ibn Hawkal, who probably describes conditions
prevailing at the beginning of their rule, says that
meat was weighed in al-Kayrawan by a rati of 328
dirhams, i.e. 395.49 g, whereas other commodities
were weighed by a rati of 4.94 kg. Eliya of Nisibin
gives for the common Maghrib! rati 137 V 7 dirhams,
thereby confirming the account of al-Mukaddasi. Ibn
Hawkal’s report about a heavy rati of al-Kayrawan
refers certainly to that used in this town, according to
the later al-Bakrl, for figs, nuts and other victuals, and
this was 10 times heavier than the pepper rati . The lat¬
ter author gives also some data about the weights used
in various other provinces of the Maghrib, in the post-
Fatimid period there. According to him, one used in
Tenes, Mellla and Nakur, a rati of 330 dirhams, i.e.
1.019 kg, whereas meat was both in Tenes and in
other towns weighed by much heavier ratls. Ibn Bat¬
tuta makes two statements about the common
• «

Maghrib! rati: in one he says that it was equal to a
quarter of a Damascene rati, that is 463.47 g, and in
another that it was 5 / 4 of an Egyptian rati, i.e.
556.164 g. From Pegolotti, one learns that one used
in the first half of the 8th/14th century in Tunis a rati
of 490.7 g. For grains, one had in the Ma gh rib
various mudds. According to al-Bakrl, there was used
in Fas a small mudd of 4.31 1, but in most places bigger
units were used. Al-Mukaddasi says that in al-
Kayrawan a mudd was used which equalled 201 1, and
al-Bakrl reports that the people of Tahart had a mudd
of 243 1. For liquids, such as olive oil, there was used
in Tunis in the 19th century the kulla of 10.08 1 and
the malar, twice its weight.

In Muslim Spain, a rati of 503.68 g was com-

MAKAYIL

121

monly used. But for weighing meat, one had a rati
four times as heavy. For grain, one used a kafiz con¬
taining 60 rails of wheat, i.e. 30.22 kg. Olive oil was
weighed by a thumn containing 2 J / 4 rath, i.e. 1.12 kg;
the kulla was equal to 12 thumns.

Bibliography : Istakhrl. 156, 191, 203, 213;
MukaddasT, 99, 129, 145 f., 181 f., 204, 240, 381,
397, 417 f., 452; Bakrl, ed. de Slane, 26 f., 62, 69,
89, 91117, 145; Ibn Mammatl, Kawantn al-
dawawtn, Cairo 1943, 360 ff.; Ibn al-Ukhuwwa.
Ma c dlim al-kurba, London 1938,' ch. ix; Ibn
al- c Ad!m, Zubdat al-talab min ta^nkh Halab,
Damascus 1954, ii, 182; al-Kalkashandi, $ubh al-
a c shd, iii, 445, iv, 181, 198, 216,’233, 237, 422 f.;
Makrizi, Khitat. Bulak 1270, ii, 274, 1. 27; al-
Sakatl, Un manuel hispanique de hisba, ed. Levi-
Provengal, 11, 13, 39; Ibn Battuta, iii, 382, iv, 317;
Pegolotti, La practica della mercatura, ed. Evans,
30 f., 69 ff., 89 ff., 135, 166; Zibaldone da Canal,
ed. A. Stussi, Venice 1967, 56, 65 IT.; Tarifa zoe
noticia dy pexi e mexure di luogi e tere che s’ adovra mar-
cadantia per el mondo, Venice 1925, 26 ff., 63; II
manuale di mercatura di Saminiato de' Ricci, ed. A.
Borlandi, Genoa 1963, 120; II libro di mercatantie et
usanzede' paesi, ed. Fr. Borlandi, Turin 1936, 70 f.,
72 ff., 75 ff., 99 ff.; Sauvaire, Materiaux pour servir
a Vhistoire de la numismatique et de la metrologie
musulmane, in JA (1884-6); idem, On a treatise on
weights and measures by Eliya, archbishop of Nisibin, in
JRAS (1877), 291 ff.; R. Brunschvig, Mesures de
capacite de la Tunisie medievale, in RAfr., 1935/3-4,
86-90; idem; in AIEO Alger (1937), 74-87; W.
Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte, Leiden 1955,
Russian tr. with corrections, together with a
treatise about weights in Central Asia, Musul'man-
skie men is vesa s perevodom w metriceskuyu sistemu, tr.
Y. Bregel, (with) E. A. Davidovic, Materiali po
metrologii srednevekovoy sredney Asii, Moscow 1970; P.
Balog, Vmayyad, Abbasid and Tulunid glass weights and
vessel stamps, New York 1976; A. Grohmann, Ein-
fuhrung und Chrestomathie zur arabischen Papyruskunde,
Prague 1955, 139 ff.; F. Vive, Deneraux, estampilles
et poids musulmans en verre en Tunisie, in CT, iv
(1956), 17-90; A. S. Ehrenkreutz, The kurr system in
medieval Iraq, in JESHO, v (1962), 309 ff.; Cl.
Cahen, Douanes et commerce dans les ports mediterraneens
de VEgypte medievale d’apres le Minhadj d'al-Makhzumi ,
in JESHO, vii (1964), 275 ff.; B. Lewis, Studies in
the Ottoman archives, in BSOAS, xvi (1954), 489; E.
Ashtor, Histoire des prix et des salaires dans V Orient
medieval, Paris 1969, 103, 125; A. K. S. Lambton,
Landlord and peasant in Persia 2 , London 1969, 405 ff.;
C. E. Bosworth, Abu c Abdallah al-Khwarazmi on the
technical terms of the secretary's art, in JESHO, xii
(1969). (E. Ashtor)

2. In Muslim India

It appears that the earliest Muslims in India of
whose Fiscal regulations we have any records had
assimilated the indigenous system of weights of north¬
ern India for everyday trade; for the more precise re¬
quirements of the coinage, there is excellent
numismatic evidence that indigenous standards had
been adopted from the beginning and maintained
thenceforth, except for a few anomalous periods. The
interconnexion between precise and general weights,
however, varies enormously from time to time and
from region to region, so that there can be con¬
siderable difficulties in interpreting references before
the 19th century.

An attempt was made by the East India Company
in 1833 to standardise the weights system in Regulation

VII, “A regulation for altering the weight of the Fur-
ruckabad [i.e. Farrukhabad] rupee and for
assimilating it to the legal currency of the Madras and
Bombay Presidencies; for adjusting the weight of the
Company’s sicca rupee, and for Fixing a standard unit
of weight for India”. This provided for the following
scale:

8 ratti = 1 mdshd
12 mdshd = 1 told
80 told = 1 ser
40 ser =1 man

The ser was further divisible into 16 chatdnk (just as
the rupee was divisible into 16 ana “annas”, the and
being originally not a coin but merely a money of ac¬
count, “sixteenth share”. The central unit here, the
told, was Fixed at 180 grains, i.e. 11.6638 gm.; thus the
“ofFicial seer”, ser, was Fixed at 2.057 lbs.av. = 0.933
kg., and the “ofFicial maund”, man, at 82.286 lbs.av
= 37.32 kg. The Indian weights and measures act. Act. XI
of 1870, provided for the extension of this system,
throughout British India, and provided for a future
redeFinition of the ser as precisely equal to the standard
kilogram, although with the death of Lord Mayo, the
proposer of the Act, this scheme did not materialise at
the time, and the above system of weights remained
in force until the ofFicial introduction of the metric
system after Indian independence (persisting unof-
Ficially in country districts up to the present day). The
anglice form “maund” derives from man through Port.
mao, possibly influenced by an old Eng. “maund”, a
hamper of eight bales, etc.; see OED, s.v. Maund.

This relative scale was general throughout north
and central India and Bengal, although the values of
ser and man were very variable; the situation is further
complicated by the presence side by side of a kaccd and
a pakkd ser and man almost everywhere (cf. mediaeval
Europe: “almost every city in Italy had its libra grossa
and libra sottile ”; and the former distinction in
England between lb.av. and lb.troy. See Hobson-
Jobson, s.v. pucka, Pucka, and cf. variations in the
Eng. pound for different commodities in OED, s.v.
Pound. Thus Tavernier (Les six voyages..., Paris 1676,
ed. and Eng. tr. V. A. Ball, London 1889) and Grose
(Voyage to the East Indies..., London 1757) agree that
the ordinary man is 69 livres/pounds, but that used for
weighing indigo is only 53. Grose further mentions
the man of Bombay as 28 lb., that of Goa 14 lb., that
of Surat 37 lb., of Coromandel 25 lb., but of Bengal
75 lb. Some, but not all, of these estimates correspond
with those of Prinsep (E. Thomas, ed., Essays on In¬
dian antiquities of the late James Prinsep ...to which are add¬
ed his Useful Tables, London 1858), whose list is the
most complete; his largest man is of Ahmadnagar, of
64 ser and = 163.25 lbs, the smallest that of “Col-
achy” (Kolacel) in Travancore, of 18.80 lbs.

Absolute values have been cited First from Euro¬
pean travellers, since they describe transactions of
their own times and offer some standards for com¬
parison. The question becomes more difficult when
interpreting the Muslim historians: e.g. Diya 3 al-Dln
BaranI, discussing ( Ta\ikh-i Flruz Shahi, 316 ff.) the
first dabita of c Ala :> al-Din Khaldjl on the regulations
of grain prices some sixty years after the events,
details the prices for various commodities in terms of
djitals or lankas per man or ser, only Firishta’s
explanation—some three hundred years after c Ala :> al-
Dln’s time—that the ser was at that time of 24 tolas
allows the rough calculation that the man referred to
must have been about 11.2 kg., provided that one can
depend on the accuracy of both BaranI and Firishta
[q. vv.]. Ibn Battuta (iii, 290, tr. Gibb, iii, 695),
describing the famine of 734/1334, refers to the Dihli

122

MAKAYIL — MAKBARA

man, and to its half, the rati, and elsewhere equates the
Dihll rati as 20 Maghrib! rati (Hinz, Islamiscke Masse,
32, makes the Morocco rati 468.75 gm). Some writers
confuse the issue further (e.g. c Abd al-Razzak
Shiraz!. Matla c al-sa c dayn; Djahangir. in Tuzuk), by
referring to a foreign man, although Djahangir does
explain that 500 Hindustan! man = 4000 Wilayati;
the “Hindustan!” must be the recently established
man-i Akbari, equivalent to man-i tabrizi.

The smaller weights present fewer problems, since
they are relatable to the coinage and one possesses the
ponderal evidence of the coins themselves. Here the
standard is the tola, the weight of the tanka , calculated
as equal to 96 ratti. The ratti ( <( red one”, Skt. raktikd\
Abu TFa<h in A ^in-iAkbari calls it surkh ) is the seed
of a small red-flowered leguminous creeper, Abrus
precatorius ; the actual weight of such a seed varies from
80 to 130 mg, its notional weight, at least up to the
end of the 8th/14th century, being 116.6 mg. (for
fuller discussion of the metrological problem see
sikka. India). The ratti is in Hindu theory a high
multiple of the smallest particle, the “mote in a
sunbeam”; there are several factitious tables of in¬
crements in the ancient authors, some of which are
related by al-Blrunl (ed. Sachau, text i, 76 ff.; Eng.
tr. i, 160 ff.), who complains of weights being “dif¬
ferent for different wares and in different provinces”.
He relates some of these weights to his mithkdl, but not
consistently, giving the mithkdl a weight of about 5.5
gm. But the weight of the mithkdl has similarly varied;
the term is used occasionally by Indian authors,
especially in the Bdbur-ndma and Humdyun-ndma,
where it is expressly stated to be the weight of a
shdhrukhi, the especial currency of Kabul, two-fifths
the value of an Akbari rupee, and weighing only
about 4.67 gm (S.H. Hodivala, Historical studies in
Mughal numismatics, Calcutta 1923, s.v.
“Shahrukhls”, 1-10).

The ratti and, less frequently, the madia are also us¬
ed as the common jewellers’ weights; in some cases
the jewellers’ ratti is known to have been a “double rat¬
ti" ; this brings it to nearly the weight of another seed
notionally used in South India, including Golkonda
and Bldjapur, the mandj,dli (Telugu) or mandjadi
(Tamil), of about 260 mg. (Hobson-Jobson, s.v.
Mangelin).

There were no measures of capacity in regular
Indian use, liquids and grain being regularly ac¬
counted by weight only. When precision was of small
importance, water might be accounted by the skinful,
dahi (curds) by the jarful, small quantities of grain by
the handful, etc. Al-Blrunl, loc. cit ., does mention
some Indian measures of capacity, of which only the

bist seems to have survived but not now to be iden-

✓

tillable. Factory records (e.g. those at Dhaka, see Ab¬
dul Karim, Dacca: the Mughal capital, Dacca 1964)
show cloth as being accounted simply by the “piece”,
or (tantalisingly) for smaller or fractional lengths, by
the reza.

Bibliography. In addition to references in the
article, see for the metrology especially, H. N.
Wright, The coinage and metrology of the sultans of Delhi,
Oxford (for the Manager of Publications, Delhi)
1936, App. A. (J. Burton-page)

MAKBARA (or makbura, makbira, mikbara, makbar
and makbur) (a.), “cemetery”. The word occurs on¬
ly in the Kurban in the plural form makabir: “Rivalry
distracts you, until you visit the cemeteries” (CII,2).
Its synonyms dfabbana, madfan and turba do not figure
in the Holy Book.

1. In the central Arab lands
The Arab authors supply little information of use in

tracing the history of Muslim cemeteries. Works of
fikh refer only to prohibitions concerning tombs ( kabr,
>1. kubur [q.v. ]) and the visiting of burial-places (ziyara
q.v. ]). At the most, a few occasional references may
>e gleaned from these sources: Ibn Bafta and Ibn
Kudama recall, for example, the dictum of the
Prophet forbidding prayer in cemeteries (cf. H.
Laoust, La profession de foi d' Ibn Batta, Damascus 1958,
80, 149, and idem, Le precis de droit d’Ibn Quddma,
Beirut 1950, 21). Ibn Taymiyya notes that the
cemeteries of Christians and Jews must not be located
in proximity to those of the faithful (cf. idem, Essai sur
les doctrines sociales et politiques d' > Ibn Taimiyya , Cairo
1939, 372). For more substantial information, it is
necessary to consult works of topography, guides to
pilgrimage and the accounts of travellers. Even here,
it very often happens that such information is dispers¬
ed and responds only partially to the requirements of
the historian. Thus in his topography of the city of
Damascus, Ibn c Asakir devotes a whole chapter to the
cemeteries, but he is primarily concerned with
locating the tombs of the revered individuals who are
buried there. While he identifies the site of the first
cemetery of Damascus, that of Bab Tuma (currently
Shavkh Raslan) where the Muslims killed at the time
of the conquest of the city were buried, it is only by
chance that he mentions those of al-Bab al-Saghlr and
al-Farad!s, in referring to the tombs of the Compan¬
ions of the Prophet (cf. Ibn c Asakir, Ta^rlkh madindt
Dimashk, ii, ed. S. Munadjdjid, Damascus 1954,
188-200, tr. N. Elisseeff, La Description de Damas,
Damascus 1959, 303-16). His aim is not to describe
the history of the cemeteries, their creation, develop¬
ment and abandonment, but to give a topography of
the tombs.

It is in the same manner that the authors of
topographies of the two holy cities—Mecca and
Medina—describe the cemeteries. They recount the
traditions relating to their origin, but are concerned
above all with the topographical landmarks of tombs
of the members of the family of the Prophet whose
names are listed. They accord the same treatment to
the Sahaba and the Tabi c un (cf. al-Azrak!, Akhbar
Makka wa-md dja y a fi-hd min al-athdr, Mecca 1965,
209-13; al- c Abbas!, Kitdb c Umdat al-akhbdrfimadinat al-
mukhtar, Cairo n.d., 147-62).

Somewhat different is the account given by al-
Makriz! in the chapter of the Khitat devoted to the
cemeteries of Cairo. He locates them, tells the story of
the acquisition of the site of the ICarafa a t the time of
the conquest, and gives a brief account of its develop¬
ment and extension. But the greater part of the
chapter deals with the localisation of the
monuments—mosques, palaces, ribats, mufallas —
dispersed throughout that massive expanse at the feet
of the hill of al-Mukattam known as the “city of the
dead” (cf. al-Makrlzi, al-MawaHz wa ’ 1-iHibdr bi-dhikr
al-fdiitat wa 'l-athar, Beirut n.d., ii, 442-3, 451-3).

By adding to the information supplied by
topographical works that which may be gleaned from
the accounts of travellers, it is possible to identify the
privileged sites where Muslim cemeteries were
established: in general, according to a comprehensible
urban logic, they are laid out on the exterior of the
ramparts, close to the gates of the town: for example,
in the case of Damascus, the cemeteries of Shavkh
Raslan near Bab Tuma, of al-Bab al-Sa g hlr. of Bab
Kaysan, of Dahdah near Bab al-Farad!s, ofal-Sufiyya
near Bab al-Djabiya, etc. (cf. Kh. Moaz and S. Ory,
Inscriptions arabes de Damas, les steles funeraires. I. Le
cimetiere <Tal-Bab al-Saghir, Damascus 1977, 9-13); in
the case of Mecca, the cemetery of al-Hadjun, close to
Bab Ma c la (cf. al-Azrak!, op. cit., ii, 3, 81; Ibn Bat-

MAKBARA

123

tuta, Rihla , i, 330, Eng. tr. Gibb, i, 206-8; Ibn
Djubavr. Rihla, Fr. tr. Gaudefroy-Demombynes,
Paris 1951, ii, 129); in the case of Medina, al-Baki c ,
near the gate of the same name (Ibn Djubayr, op. cit .,
ii, 227; Ibn Battuta, i, 286, tr. i, 179; in the case of
Baghdad, the cemeteries of Bab Dimashk, of Bab al-
Tibn, of Bab al-Harb, of Bab al-Kunas, of Bab al-
Baradan, of Bab Abraz (cf. al-Khafib al-Baghdadl.
TaArikh Baghdad, i, Cairo 1931, 120-7; J. Lassner, The
topography of Baghdad in the early Middle Ages, Detroit
1970, ch. The cemeteries of Baghdad, 111-18; G.
MakdTsI, Ibn c Aktl et la resurgence de V Islam traditionel
Damascus 1963, index s.v. cimetieres; etc.).

The slopes or foot of mountains imbued with an at¬
mosphere of sanctity are also propitious sites for
cemeteries. The cemeteries of the Karafa in Cairo, at
the feet of the Djabal al-Mukat{am, are the best ex¬
amples of this. Also worthy of mention in this context
are the cemeteries of al-Hadjun in Mecca, on the hill
of the same name (cf. above), and that of $alihiyya in
Damascus, at the foot of Mount Kasiyun [q.v. ].

While the perspective in which cemeteries are
described in the works of Arabic topography does not
fully respond to all the requirements of the historian,
it does, on the other hand, identify well the relations
existing between the cemetery and the town, am¬
bivalent relations which reflect the difficulties of
reconciling legal prescriptions with living reality, dif¬
ficulties similar to those already mentioned in the con¬
text of tombs (cf. Y. Raghib, Les premiers monuments
funeraires de VIslam, in Annales Islamologiques , ix [1970],
21-2). In fact, in the view of some of the fukaha 3 , the
cemetery is an impure case. It will be recalled that Ibn
Kudama and Ibn Batfa {op. cit. , 80, 149) include it in
the list of places unsuited to prayer, in the same man¬
ner as public baths, enclosures where camels shed ex¬
crement, abattoirs and rubbish dumps. However, for
the majority of authors and the consensus of believers,
the cemetery is a holy place, seeing that it contains the
tombs of individuals venerated in Islam: members of
the Prophet’s family, the Sahaba or Companions, the
Tabi c un or successors, awliya 3 and falihun. Ibn Bat¬
tuta and al-Makrlzi, referring to the mosque of the
cemetery of the Karafa, call it the DiamT al-awliya 3
and when al-HarawI ( Ziyarat , ed. and tr. J. Sourdel-
Thomine, Damascus 1953-7, 33/76, 37/86, 74/166,
76/172) mentions a cemetery, it is always in terms of
the saints and righteous men buried there. Special
blessings are attached to these tombs. Every major ci¬
ty of Islam claims the honour of possessing the tombs
of such venerated persons, irrespective of the fact that
several cities may boast of the burial-place of the same
individual (cf. Moaz-Ory, op. cit., tomb of Bilal al-
Habashi, 79).

A whole literature has developed around this
theme. These are the books of fada^il [q.v.], listing the
holy persons still present, in a certain sense, in the
town, and conferring upon it merit, glory and blessing
(cf. for example al-Ruba c I, Fafd^il al-Sham wa-
Dimashk, ed. $. Muna djdj id. Damascus 1950; Ibn al-
Zayyat, al-Kawakib al-sayyara ft tartib al-ziyara fi 7-
Karafatayn al-kubra wa 1 l-$ughra, Ba gh dad n.d., chs. 1-3,
pp. 5-12). Very similar to these works, and sometimes
overlapping with them, are the books of ziyarat [q.v.\
for the use of pilgrims who come to visit these tombs
in order to benefit from the privileges associated with
them (cf. Y. Raghib, Essai d’inventaire chronologique des
guides a l 1 usage des pelerins du Caire, in REI xli/2 [1973],
259-80; al-HarawI, op. cit.; J. Sourdel-Thomine, Les
anciens lieux de pelerinage damascains, in BEO, xiv [1954],
65-85). For these pilgrims to cemeteries, itineraries of
visits are established (cf. L. Massignon, La cite des

morts au Caire, Cairo 1958, 45-6) and rituals compos¬
ed. Today still, ShI c I pilgrims who visit the tombs of
Fatima and Sukayna, in the cemetery of Bab Saghir,
recite, wailing, the litanies specially written for these
visits.

In conjunction with these rituals, a veritable funeral
liturgy was developed in certain cemeteries, in par¬
ticular in that of the Karafa. Readings of the Kur 3 an
were performed over the tombs visited by members of
the company of kuna 5 [see kari 3 ] and, on feast-days,
ceremonies took place with dhikr [q.v.], dances and
chanting, organised by the disciples of the
brotherhoods (cf. L. Massignon, op. cit., 46-8). These
gatherings in the cemeteries sometimes led to abuses
which the jurists were obliged to remedy. Thus in
Baghdad, the caliphate authorities were obliged to
place a guard on the cemetery, so intense were the
demonstrations of devotion on the part of the pilgrims
over the tomb of Ibn Hanbal (on the legality of these
visits, see kabr).

The tombs of these holy persons were often the
basis for the creation of new necropolises or
“quarters” in pre-existing cemeteries. Their
topography thus led to the appearance of nuclei,
grouping together in small enclosures within the
cemetery, the tombs of members of the Prophet’s
family, the $ahaba and the Tabi c un. In Baghdad, in
the cemetery of Bab al-Harb, a number of Hanballs
are buried in the shadow of the tomb of Ibn Hanbal,
and HanafTs around that of Abu Hanlfa (cf. Makdisi,
op. cit., 258, 259, n. 1, 446, n. 2, 447, 448, 453, n. 1,
388). At Karbala, Shi c Is were buried in the cemetery
which developed around the tomb of the imam al-
Husayn and, in the small Syrian town of Busra [q.v.],
they established their own cemetery around the
masdjid of al-Khidr [q.v.].

At the present day, Muslim cemeteries display an
extremely varied typology. A vast extent of stones,
with barely perceptible tombs, where the dead lie in
anonymity conforming to the most rigorous injunc¬
tions of the fukaha 3 , or a city where the visitor becomes
lost in the labyrinth of streets fringed with the facades
of false buildings, behind which shelter tombs and
funeral monuments, a veritable “city of the dead”,
desert necropolises gathered together in the hollows of
dunes and fields of flowers from which funeral steles
emerge, cemeteries built into the walls of cities or
dispersed in palm-groves or forests of cork-oak—all of
these constitute the cemeteries of Islam.

Bibliography: Given in the article, to which

should be added, M. Galal, Essai d'observations sur

les rites funeraires en Egypte actuelle..., in REI, xi
(1937), 131-299. (S. Ory)

2. In North Africa

The most common terms used to designate a
cemetery in the languages and dialects of the Maghrib
are the plural forms mkaber and kbor l-ma c mdra and roda
(in Moroccan and Algerian Arabic); and d^ebbana
(Tunisian and Algerian Arabic); the Berber form in¬
clude tirmkbdrt or hmkabar (Kabyle); a c ammar, is sandal,
tinwdlin (Middle, High and Anti-Atlas Mts.), imdran
(Rif), etc.

The cemeteries of North African towns and villages
may be both extra and intra muros. Thus Fas, for exam¬
ple, has at least ten important graveyard sites. These
include the Bab Futuh, which is separated by a small
valley and stream into two halves: the so-called al-
Kbab “the cupolas” (because of its numerous
mausoleums of holy men) to the west, and Sldl
Harazom to the east. The whole of the cemetery
overlooks the madina of Fas from the south. At the

124

MAKBARA

same time, there are within the city walls immense
graveyards, such as Bab al-Hamra and Sldr C A1I al-
Mzali (cf. R. Le Tourneau, Fes avant le protectorate
Casablanca 1949, 114, 135 and index, 638). The
various sites may differ in social composition and
rank, and within any given cemetery there may exist
a diversity of types of graves and elaborations of these.
In some tribal localities, there is a tendency for par¬
ticular lineage groups to have their graves within a
particular plot (cf. D. M. Hart, The Aith Waryaghar of
the Moroccan Rif, Tucson 1976, 144). It may be the
case, in regard to some towns of the region, that ur¬
ban growth “is hindered particularly by the stiff collar
of cemeteries which modern Islamic towns have had
the greatest difficulty in breaking through’’ (X. de
Planhol, The world of Islam, Ithaca, N.Y. 1959
(original French ed. Paris 1957), 11), but this is not
everywhere so; there are examples, at least in Tunisia,
of cemeteries having been moved in order to facilitate
urban expansion; elsewhere, formerly external sites
have now become, because of expansion, part of city
centres.

Some writers have noted a striking contrast be¬
tween the cemeteries of Europe and those of the
Islamic shores of the Mediterranean: that the former
are enclosed, sad places, whilst the latter are open
spaces, favoured especially by women and children,
and used for visiting, for strolling about and for pic¬
nics. It seems that in the Muslim towns of the
Mediterranean lands, attitudes towards death and the
dead imply certain specific rights and duties that are
absent in Christian Europe; cf. J.-P. Charay, La vie
musulmane en Algerie d’apres la jurisprudence de la premine
motie du XX e siecle, Paris 1965, 237; Hart, op. cit., 147.

In the far west of Islam, during mediaeval times,
judging on the basis of 6th/12th century Seville, the
c ulama 3 were concerned about the maintenance of
cemeteries both from the physical and the moral
points of view. The kadi Ibn c Abdun remarks upon the
tendency to construct buildings within cemeteries and
to use these buildings and the space around them for
purposes considered illicit or indecent (E. Levi-
Provenial, Seville musulmane au debut du XII e s ., Paris
1947, 57-8). Some dynasties constructed elaborate
necropolises for their dead, e.g. Chella (Shala [<?.i».]),
built by the Marlnid sultans Abu Sa c Td and Abu ’1-
Hasan between 710/1310 and 739/1339 on the site of
the ancient Roman city of Sala (see H. Basset and
Levi-Proven^al, Chella , une necropole merinide, in
Hesperis, ii [1922], 1-92, 255-316, 385-425), and the
Sa c dian tombs of Marrakesh, mostly built during the
reign of Ahmad al-Mansur (986-1012/1578-1603) (see
G. Deverdun, Marrakech des origines a 1912, Rabat
1959, 381 ff.).

A number of customs and rituals are associated
with cemeteries in the Ma gh rib. Most of these include
ceremonial visits and meals, usually accompanied by
prayers at gravesides. Thus in Fas, at least until
World War II, the family of a deceased person on the
day after the death sent a meal to the grave to be
distributed to the poor assembled there {‘'ashat l-kbar
“the supper of the grave’’). Generally, various in¬
dividuals or groups (family, men, women) visit graves
on specific occasions, such as c Ashurd^ day, on 26
Ramadan, and on c Arafa, the day before the Greater
Festival. In most urban centres, the obligatory out¬
door place of prayer, musalla, is in the major
cemetery. There the chief religious rite of the Greater
and Lesser Festivals, the morning worship of the first
day, takes place; and on the Greater Festival, the in¬
itial sacrifice of the local community is carried out by
the kadi (set E. Westermarck, Ritual and belief in Moroc¬

co, London 1926, ii, 105, 254, 457, 478-9, 511, 547).
Another rite often carried out at the musalla is the
“prayer for rain” {salat al-istiskd 3 [see istiska 3 ]); see
K. L. Brown, The impact of the Dahir Berbere in Sale, in
E. Gellner and C. Micauld (eds.), Arabs and Berbers,
London 1973, 209.

The general attitude towards the space within
cemeteries has been mentioned above. It appears to
be marked by a mixture of dread and security. Thus
according to Westermarck, Moroccans fear to pass
near or through cemeteries at night, because in them
dwell the mwalin l-ard, i.e. the znun\ but as Hart
remarks, these znun are considered harmless.
Moreover, travellers are said to have stayed the night
in cemeteries because of the security and protection
provided by the mwalin l-kbor “the masters of the
graves’’, i.e. the dead, amongst whom there was like¬
ly to be some holy man (see Westermarck, ii, 374, and
Hart, loc. cit.).

The sanctuaries of holy men (awliya 7 ) are often
alongside or within cemeteries, and this in part ex¬
plains why these latter places may be considered and
filled with mystery. In tales, it is said that the prophets
whilst crossing through them heard the voices of the
dead; and mystics, especially those considered
divinely-possessed {madjdhiib [^.u.]), are supposed to
have gone into retreat within them. Yet the fact of be¬
ing sacred does not result from the simple agglomera¬
tion of graves, but depends on the presence and
veneration of the tomb {kubba) of a holy man; cf. E.
Dermenghem, Le culte des saints dans I Islam maghrebin,
Paris 1957, 135-6. Private sepulchres which become
sanctuaries (rawja) may or may not be considered as
cemeteries in the broader sense. Thus Mawlay Idris,
the main sanctuary in the heart of Fas, is not properly
speaking a cemetery. But in other places, the tomb of
a holy man will be at the centre of a town’s graveyard.

Finally, it should be noted that the cemeteries of
North Africa offer precious sources for historical and
demographic research. The use of such data has hard¬
ly begun, but see J. Bourrilly and E. Laoust, Steles
funeraires marocaines, Paris 1927, and P. Pascon and D.
Schroeter, Le cimetiere juif dTligh (1751-1955), etude des
epitaphes comme documents d’histoire sociale (Tazerwalt,
Sud-Ouest Marocain), in ROMM, xxiv (1982), 39-62.

Bibliography. Given in the article.

(K. L. Brown)

3. In Turkey

Funerary monuments in both the pre-Ottoman and
Ottoman periods are characterised by the use of
durable material as well as sometimes by rich decora¬
tion, neither of which accord with orthodox Sunni
tradition. Pre-Islamic Turkish traditions, as well as
manners and customs of other peoples with whom the
Turks came into contact during their migration
towards the West, are here at variance with the
stringent regulations of Sunni Islam, according to
which a tomb should be simple and made of transient
material. Particularly in eastern Anatolia and in
Adharbaydjan, these traditions and contacts are at the
origin of gravestones in the form of animals, con¬
nected with animistic religious belief, as well as of
types based on the tradition of local industrial art (e.g.
at Akhlat).

Not much is known about early Ottoman tombs
before about the 10th/17th century. Since only a small
number of authentic gravestones have been preserv¬
ed, no further conclusions can be made. It cannot be
ascertained whether their disappearance is to be at¬
tributed to the influence of time alone: European
travellers of the 16th and 17th centuries mention

MAKBARA

125

bricks as material for tombs (Geuffroy, Erste Theil der
Hoffhaltung Des Turckischen Keysers ... ed. Hoeniger,
Basel 1596, i, p. clii). The use of this transient
material, if in fact not limited to isolated cases, could
explain the small number of tombs which have surviv¬
ed from this period. This might then support the
hypothesis according to which the funerary art of the
later Ottoman period began to develop in the

I Oth-11th/16th-17th centuries only.

One of the characteristics of the Ottoman
gravestone—unparalleled in this form—is its an¬
thropomorphic shape, with a reproduction on top of
some kind of headgear. Such a representation is
reserved for tombs of men, but it is not the only form
used. (Only further investigation can confirm the
assertion, repeatedly put forward, that the form of the
upper part of tombs for women, widespread since the

II th/18th century, can indeed be traced to an old
Turkish, nomadic headgear.) The headgear on tombs
of men—in a comparable form and frequency not to
be found in any other region of the Islamic world—
can be proved to have been in existence since ca.
900/1494-5. The oldest example in Istanbul is the
tomb of a Dervish Mehmed in Eyiip (918/1512-3). In
the next 200 years, hardly any social differentiation
can be detected in the form of the headgear, since only
a small number of turban forms appear which cannot
be clearly ascribed to any particular social group.
Since the llth/18th century, it became customary in
Istanbul to represent, on gravestones of men, a
headgear which was specific for a certain social class,
or to express the social affiliation in another way
(representations in relief of headgear and other
distinctive marks). In the same way in which the
graves of dervishes began to show the turbans of the
various tankas , and not the headgear in general use,
the form of the turban started to indicate the differen¬
tiation between the various professional and social
groups in other areas of society. Besides, one finds
other representations in relief which indicate to which
group the deceased belonged: insignia of boliik and
djemd c at for Janissaries, rosettes (gilt) of the various
tankas, especially for women from ca. 1250/1834-5,
and, rather infrequently, images of utensils and in¬
struments.

For about a century, this strong differentiation
marks the image of Ottoman gravestones. The in¬
troduction of the fez from 1829 onwards leads, again,
to a general levelling and standardisation. (In other
parts of the empire this development appears with
some delay; e.g. in Bosnia, turban forms, which in the
capital had fallen into disuse at the beginning of the
18th century, were still used towards the end of the
19th century.) Besides the fez, turbans remained in
use, but in Istanbul they were, since about 1850,
almost exclusively reserved for Ci ulama 5 and dervishes.
Finally, the Atatiirk reforms, especially the reform of
the script and the legislation on headgear, mark the
end of the tradition of Ottoman graves.

As in other fields of Ottoman art, an ever-
increasing degree of European influence upon grave
ornamentation can be detected from the second half of
the 18th century onwards. Before that period,
gravestones had hardly been decorated, but now
vegetational motifs, both of traditionally oriental
(cypresses, etc.) and of western origin (flower-baskets,
cornucopias, etc.) were spreading more and more. By
the roundabout way of Europe, older Islamic motifs,
like the arabesque, were rediscovered for tombstone
art towards the end of the 19th century. In general,
the development of ornamentation of tombstones
went parallel to that of representative and architec¬
tural art.

Whereas tomb inscriptions in Arabic can be found
for the early period, Ottoman became the dominant
language in the 10th/16th century. With regard to
their contents, these inscriptions underwent but very
few alterations: they follow a formula which cor¬
responds largely to that of Ottoman documents (see
Kraelitz, Osmanische Urkunden in turkischer Sprache,
Vienna 1921, 12 ff., adapted to gravestones by Pro-
kosch, Osmanische Inschriften auf Grdbern bei der Moschee
des Karabaf-Klosters in Tophane-Istanbul, Istanbul 1976,
3-4):

1. invocatio: mostly hiive ’ l-bakl , or another of the 99
names of God [see al-asma 3 al-husna].

2. benedictio: merhum ve maghfur. occasionally more
elaborate.

3. inscriptio : statements about the deceased. Apart
from the name, details on his origin, relationship
and profession, may be given here.

4. request for prayer: mostly ruhiyciln or ruhuna fatiha.

5. date.

Such concise and rather uniform inscriptions were
standard during a long period, even if particular com¬
ponents occasionally are expressed more elaborately.
From the 18th century onwards, poetical expressions
on the transitoriness of temporal existence are often
inserted between the invocatio and the benedictio , in
which reference is almost always made to the same
limited and reiterated repertoire of verses of this kind.
In the same period, chronograms are more and more
used, especially for dervishes. In later times, there is
a clear tendency towards more elaborate inscriptions.
Instead of the original 5-6 lines of concise text, there
often appear 15-20 lines which, however, do not pro¬
vide more factual information.

Traditional Ottoman Islamic society did not allow
the digging out of tombs, or their re-use; burial-places
had to remain for ever. Yet the loss of many tomb¬
stones, and above all of most of the (uninscribed) foot-
end stones might be attributed to their being used
again by Ottoman masons. Since the middle of the
19th century, the construction of roads for traffic and
new buildings has become another source for destruc¬
tion of cemeteries, and consequently of tombstones, a
problem which has still not been solved. However, at
present most of the permanent losses cannot be im¬
puted to such interferences (in which, as a rule, at
least part of the tombstones are erected again at some
other places), but to the hardly supervised re-use of
historical cemeteries.

Bibliography. H.-P. Laqueur, Osmanische
Grabsteine , bibliographische Ubersicht, in Travaux et
Recherches en Turquie, 1982 , Collection Turcica ii, Lou¬
vain 1983, 90-6. A survey of the most important
historical descriptions of Ottoman cemeteries can
be found in idem, Grabsteine als Quellen zur
osmanischen Geschichte-Moglichkeiten und Probleme , in
Osmanli At a§tirmalanlJournal of Ottoman Studies, iii
(1982), 21-44 (esp. 21-8). (H.-P. Laqueur)

4. In Iran [see Suppl.]

5. India

The word makbara is used in India for both
graveyard and mausoleum, although kabristan is also
heard for the former; kabr may, besides the grave
itself, signify a monumental tomb, especially of the
simpler variety; dargah is used especially for the tomb
or shrine of a pir, where there may be also such
associated buildings as mosque(s), mihman-khana , etc.;
in Kashmir a pir* s tomb is usually called ziydrat , and
the related mazdr may also be used, especially for the
smaller wayside shrine; rawda is commonly used for a

126

MAKBARA

monumental tomb within an enclosure, not necessari¬
ly of a pir.

The solitary grave is rare; the individual may select
an appropriate site in his lifetime, usually on his own
ground (but sometimes by a roadside, since it is
believed that the dead like to be within sound of
human activity). But because this action then
precludes the use of the ground for other purposes, the
individual grave becomes a focus for other sepultures.
In this way many family graveyards especially have
come into being—“family” in the case of a pir being
held to include murids. There is a tendency in some
regions for graveyards of the Muslim community to
be situated to the south of habitations, possibly an ex¬
tension of the Hindu association of the south as* the
“quarter of Yama”, the god of death: in the Lodi
period the entire region of Dihli south of Flruzabad
and Purana Kil c a down to the Ku{b complex was used
mostly as a vast necropolis. Khuldabad, near
Dawlatabad, was originally called simply Rawda and
was a necropolis village. Community graveyards may
be enclosed by a low boundary wall, but protection is
generally careless and graves and walls may fall into
early ruin. Some enclosures are known to be family
graveyards, where the standard of upkeep is higher;
there may be an imposing entrance to the east and a
tall and substantial wall to the west, with arched open¬
ings or depressions which serve to indicate the kibla;
some of the Dihli examples (Yamamoto et al. list and
illustrate some 72 graveyards) stand on high arcaded
plinths and may have such features as substantial cor¬
ner towers and the position of the central mihrab in¬
dicated on the exterior wall, precisely as in mosques.
In the Kadam Sharif [ q. v. ] at Dihli the enclosure wall
is fortified, as a measure of protection for the special
relic; but the fortified rocky outcrop on which stands
the tomb of Tughluk Shah is primarily an extreme
outpost of the fortifications of Tughlukabad (plan at
Vol. ii, p. 257 above). In Ahmadabad the tombs of
the queens of the Ahmad Shahl dynasty are enclosed
in a large screened chamber (Ram ka hudjra) which
forms part of a royal precinct; a fine enclosed
graveyard known as “Nizam al-Dln’s” in Gander!
q.v. ] contains tombs and many individual mihrabs
rom the early 9th/15th century with a rich design
repertory. Some graveyards may contain one or more
substantial mausoleums in addition to simple graves.
An indication of the kibla may be provided, even in
unenclosed graveyards, by one or more “ kibla walls”,
with an odd number of arched necesses; individual
mausoleums may also be provided with such a
separate structure on the kibla side, or the enclosure
wall may be modified in such a way as to incorporate
one: e.g. the tomb of Sikandar Lodi in Dihli has three
arches and a raised platform in the west enclosure wall
which presumably formed a kandti mosque. A
mausoleum very often has openings on three sides
with the west wall solid to incorporate an internal
mihrab (the tombs of the Band Shahls [q.v.], however,
are regularly open on all four sides). The larger
mausoleums may be provided with a full-scale mos¬
que (without minbar), either replacing or in addition to
an internal mihrab ; Bldjapur [q.v.] provides many ex¬
cellent examples, of which the Ibrahim Rawda is the
finest example with tomb and mosque of similar pro¬
portions and sumptuous decoration standing on a
common platform in an elaborate enclosure; the Tadj
Mahall [see m ah all] has not only a superb mosque on
the kibla side but an identical building on the east
essentially for the symmetry of the plan but inciden¬
tally to serve as a mihmdn-khana. (The converse
arrangement, wherein a single tomb is subsidiary to a

mosque, is common, especially when both have the
same founder.) Some major mausolea, however, are
without any indication of the kibla at all: e.g.
Humayun’s tomb at Dihli (plan at Vol. ii, p. 265
above) has neither internal mihrab nor external mos¬
que or other structure (the building on the west,
where a mosque might be expected, is in fact the main
gateway); although the enclosure wall on the south¬
east has a range of exterior arches which formed the
kibla wall of the earlier “Nila gunbad”. At some
graveyards there is a special mortuary provided for
the ghassals to work in: outstanding examples at the
graveyard of Afdal Khan’s wives at Bldjapur, and the
tombs of the Kutb Shahl kings at Golkonda. Some
form of well is of course a common adjunct; a bd^oli
[q.v. ] is commonly found included in a (SishtI dargah
complex, and occasionally elsewhere (e.g. within the
fortified enclosure of the tomb of the “Sayyid” sultan
Mubarak Shah at Kolia Mubarakpur, Dihli).

There has been no study of the typology of
gravestones (i.e. the stone or brick structures above
ground level, the ta c widh) in India as a whole,
although many types with regional variation can be
recognised. Dja c far Sharif [q.v.], referring primarily
to the Deccan, says that on a man’s tomb, above the
(commonly) three diminishing rectangular slabs, a
top member is placed “resembling the hump on a
camel’s back, or the back of a fish”, and adds that in
north India tombs of men are distinguished by a small
stone pencase ( kalamdan ) raised on the flat upper sur¬
face; but in fact both types can be seen side by side in
Dihli graveyards. The tombs of women are generally
flat above the diminishing rectangular slabs, and
more frequently in north India than in the Deccan
may display a flat takhti, in form like a child’s slate,
where those of men have the kalamdan (the explanation
commonly given is that only males are literate and so
can carry a pencase, whereas women have to have
everything written for them!); in south India in par¬
ticular a woman’s tomb may have instead a basin-like
hollow on the upper surface. The woman’s tomb,
given the same date and provenance, is lower than the
man’s. In the case of the larger mausoleums, this ap¬
plies to the cenotaph tacwidh as much as to the tacwidh
of the actual grave. There may be, in both men’s and
women’s tombs, a mere stepped surround with the in¬
ternal rectangular space filled with earth (e.g. grave of
Awrangzeb at Khuldabad) or grass (e.g. grave of
Djahanara Begam, daughter of Shahdjahan, within
the dargah of Nizam al-Dln Awliya 5 at Dihli, where
however the surround and the enclosure are of white
marble and there is an inscribed marble headstone;
plan at Vol. ii, p. 263 above). This is much approved
by the pious, but leads to quick decay of the structure
if the grave is not attended. In parts of western India
in particular a cylindrical boss may be found at the
head of the tomb of a man, sometimes in addition to
an inscribed headstone. In Gudjarat the “casket”
style of tomb is favoured, at least for the more exalted
personages, in which a rectangular chamber with ver¬
tical sides, about a cubit high, rises from the base and
is capped by the shallow diminishing rectangular
slabs, finished flat in the case of women, arched or
triangular in cross-section for men; they may have in
addition cylindrical corner stones with vertical ribbing
and two or three cross-mouldings. Dr Zajadacz-
Hastenrath, describing similar forms in the Gawkhan-
dl tombs, sees here a representation of the carpa^i
(string bed) with rope lashings which would have been
used as the bier. A ciraghdan, to carry lamps or on
which fragrant substances may be burnt, may be plac¬
ed at the head of or alongside any tomb; the actual

MAKBARA

♦

127

grave may, in the case of the illustrious, be covered
with a pall kept in place by ornamental weights (mir-i
farsh). The tomb of a pir may be marked also by a
white (or green in the case of a sayyid) triangular flag
carried on a tall bamboo, especially in country
districts.

It is only in the case of the remarkable Cawkhandi
tombs that anything like a systematic study has been
made (Salome Zajadacz-Hastenrath, Chaukhan-
digraber: Studien zur Grabkunst in Sind und Baluchistan,
Wiesbaden 1978). In the most characteristic (but not
the only) style one, two or three diminishing rec¬
tangular hollow “caskets” are superimposed, and are
capped by a final slab set vertically on edge. The
cylindrical boss at the head may be added in the case
of males. They are richly carved, either with
geometrical patterns (the author gives ten plates of
“Steinmetzmuster” alone), flowers, whorls, mihrab-
like blind arches, swords, bows, and even the figure of
a horseman carrying a spear, sometimes led by an at¬
tendant. Similar carvings (or paintings on wood) are
reported in Crooke’s ed. of Dja c far Sharif (ref. below)
from Afghanistan, Kurdistan, and the Orakzay
Pafhans; this ethnological aspect stands in need of fur¬
ther investigation.

A curious class of tomb, sparsely but widely
distributed, is that of the “nine-yard saints”, naw gaz
pir, usually ascribed to warrior saints of the earliest
days of Islam in India. Many of these have the reputa¬
tion of miraculously extending their length over the
ages. (Miracles are reported at other tombs: lumps of
silver in the pavement of the dargah of Muntadjib al-
Dln “Zar Bakhsh” at Khuldabad are said to be the
remains of silver trees which grew after the saint’s
death, which were broken off for the upkeep of the
shrine; hairs from the Prophet’s beard at the same
place are said to increase in number yearly.) Many
tombs have the reputation of curing various ailments
through the thaumaturgic power of a pir persisting;
e.g. women still tie ribbons on the lattice screens on
the tomb of Salim CishtI at Fathpur Sikrl as a cure for
barrenness. (The virtue is not confined to Muslims: I
have seen an obviously Hindu woman making obla¬
tions at the tomb of the Kadirl brothers at Bldjapur.)

Tombs may bear inscriptions (and inscribed tombs,
from reverence for the written word, stand a better
chance of being looked after in later years): on the
ta^widh itself sometimes simply a name and date of
decease, more often the kalima or Kur’anic verses
such as the Ayat al-kursi, 11.256, the conclusion of
11.157, or the very end of Sura II; there may be,
especially with the tombs of men in Gudjarat, a
sizeable headstone with a more elaborate epitaph; but
so many tombstones are devoid of any information on
the deceased that many obviously major mausolea
cannot be now identified. The cenotaph of Akbar, of
white marble, is inscribed on the sides with the ninety-
nine Names of God, and on the ends the Dln-i Ilahl
formulae Allah u Akbar and Djalla dpaldlah u . On the
ta^widh of Djahanglr the Names are inscribed in pietra
dura. Often in the case of mausolea an inscription is
placed within the entrance or on a wall, and copious
KuPanic texts may be inscribed on the facade, e.g. at
the Tadj Mahall.

The graves above belong to the mainstream tradi¬
tion of Islamic art, which may be described as the
“Greater Tradition”; graves of a “Lesser Tradi¬
tion”, belonging to a stream of folk-art, have been
observed in Gilgit, Punial, the Swat valley and the
Yusufzay country, and may have a more extensive
area. These, which do not always distinguish between
the graves of males and females, have a crude indica¬

tion of the north-south axis marked by slabs of stone,
or by wooden planks which may be carved into
various shapes, or by turned wooden posts; they may
also be surrounded by an open wooden framework
which, it is suggested, represents the bier inverted
over the sepulture, and may be analogous to the
cdrpa'i representations in the Cawkhandi tombs. A
fuller description, with map and drawings, in J.
Burton-Page, Muslim graves of the “Lesser Tradition ’:
Gilgit , Punial , Swat, Yusufzai, in JRAS (1986).

The typology of the mausoleum is too complicated
for any but the simplest treatment here; further infor¬
mation is provided in the articles hind. vii. Architec¬
ture, mughals: Architecture, and on the various
regional dynasties. The simplest type, in that it pro¬
vides a covered place over the ta c widh, is the chain [see
mizalla], a single dome supported on pillars; those
covering a square or octagonal area are the com¬
monest, although the hexagonal plan is known. From
the use of the umbrella in both Buddhist and Hindu
funerary practices, there is possibly here a persistence
of an eschatological idea (but the Hindu use of the
chatri to mark the site of a cremation, so common with
the Radjput rulers at e.g. Udaypur and Djaypur, is a
borrowing back from Muslim forms). Even with this
simplest type there is the possibility of the common
principle that a funeral building (or its site; cf. the
tomb of Tughluk Shah mentioned above) might be in¬
tended for a different purpose during its owner’s
lifetime. An elaboration is to support a square roof on
twelve pillars, thereby furnishing three openings on
each side as well as making possible a larger area (this
type of building, baradari, is also of wide secular use
for pleasaunces). Filling in the openings with stone
screens (d^alt), leaving an entrance on each side, is fre¬
quently practised, although as noticed above the
western side is often completely closed to provide an
indication of kibla; Tomb 2 at Thalner [q.v. ; see plan
of tombs] is a baradari whose sides have been filled in
with purpose-cut masonry. An extension of this type
is characteristic of Gudjarat, whereby both an inner
chamber and a surrounding veranda are provided
with screened walls; after the Mughal conquest of
Gudjarat tombs of this type are found in north India,
e.g. those of Muhammad Ghawth at Gwalyar, Salim
Cishtl at Fathpur Sikrl. When a tomb is given greater
prominence by being raised on a plinth, the sepulchral
chamber may be placed at earth level in a tahkhana,
with a cenotaph tacwidh immediately above it on an
upper floor; but where this applies to the principal in¬
humation at a large mausoleum, it is not practised for
later and subsidiary burials, and is not held to be re¬
quired for burials within a raised mosque fahn. The
preponderant form of the masonry mausoleum is a
square chamber surmounted by a dome; an idiosyn¬
cratic type occurs in the royal BahmanI tombs (Haft
Gunbad) at Gulbarga [q.v.], where two square domed
chambers are conjoined on a single plinth (the sultan
in one chamber, his immediate family adjoining); but
the octagonal form [see muthamman] is also known
from the 8th/14th century (popular for royal tombs of
the “Sayyid” and Lodi dynasties, tombs of pirs at
Multan and Uc£h [qq.v.], nobles of the Sur dynasty
[see especially sher shah surI], and not infrequently
in Mu gh al times); in the earliest monumental tomb,
that of Nasir al-Dln Mahmud (“Sultan Gharl”) at
Dihll, the plinth of the structure accommodates a
vaulted octagonal sepulchral chamber. In two of the
SurI tombs at Sasaram [q. v. ] the mausoleum stands in
the middle of an artificial lake, approached by a
gateway and causeway; the idea recurs in the Mu gh al
period with fine but anonymous examples at

128

MAKBARA — MAKDISHU

Ttimadpur, near Agra, and Narnawl [q.v.\, where the
idea of a pleasaunce for use in the lifetime of the sub¬
ject seems patent. Mughal mausolea introduce new
plans: the oblong, the square or oblong with
chamfered corners to produce a “Baghdadi octagon”
(e.g. the Tadj Mahall), a square chamber with engag¬
ed corner rooms (e.g. Humayun’s tomb, tomb of
c Abd al-Rahlm Khankhanan) or engaged corner tur¬
rets (e.g. tomb of $afdar Djang). They may also in¬
corporate independent symmetricaly disposed
minarets (see manara, 2. India), and may stand
within a formal garden (see bustan, and further
references in ma 3 , 12). The wooden tombs of Kashi;
rmr do not fall into any of the above categories, and
are described under ziyara.

Bibliography: In addition to references in the
article and the Bibliographies to other articles cited:
for graveside requirements and practices see
djanaza; Dja c far Sharif. Kdnun-i Islam , Eng. tr. as
Herklots ’ Islam in India , ed. W. Crooke, Oxford
1921, esp. ch. ix, “Death”; W. Crooke, Popular
religion and folklore of northern India , Allahabad 1894,
Chap, iv, “The worship of the sainted dead”,
which has illuminating references to Hindu-
Muslim syncretisms. F. Wetzel, Islamische Grab-
bauten in lndien in der Zeit der Soldalenkaiser, Leipzig
1918, provides a typological framework for the
study of monumental tombs of the Dihll sultanate,
rich in plans and sections. T. Yamamoto, M. Ara
and T. Tsukinowa, Delhi: architectural remains of the
Delhi sultanate period , i, Tokyo 1967, describe (in
Japanese) and illustrate 142 monumental tombs
and 72 graveyards of Dihll, excellent photographs;
idem, ii, Tokyo 1968, analyse in depth several of
the same monumental tombs. Some good illustra¬
tions of “Nizam al-Dln’s graveyard” at (Sander! in
R. Nath, The art of Chanderi, Delhi 1979. Much of
the information above is based on a personal
photographic collection, which will eventually be
housed in Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

(J. Burton-Page)

MAKBUL IBRAHIM PASHA, [see ibrAhIm
pasha].

MAKDI SH U. the capital of the Somali
Republic, independent since 1960, comprising the
former Italian Somalia and British Somaliland, lies in
lat. 2° N. on the East African shore of the Indian
Ocean.

Although it is not specifically mentioned in the
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (ca. A.D. 106), this Alexan¬
drine report attests the presence of Arab and Egyptian
traders on the coast. The principal exports were cin¬
namon, frankincense, tortoise-shell and “slaves of the
better sort, which are brought to Egypt in increasing
numbers.” Recent excavations at Ras Hafun by
H. N. Chittick, as yet unpublished, disclosed Egyp¬
tian pottery of Roman Imperial date, probably 2nd to
3rd century A.D. Apart from some ruins of uncertain
date that are possibly South Arabian, Makdishu is
stated by a 16th century Chronica dos Reyes de Quiloa,
preserved in a summary form by Joao de Barros, to
have been founded by “the first people of the coast
who came to the land of Sofala [ q. v. ] in quest of gold.
This date is uncertain, but it was at some time bet¬
ween the 10th and 12th centuries A.D., when the
Sofala gold trade became the monopoly of Kilwa
(Port. Quiloa) [see kilwa]. It is not to be thought that
there was any single immigration of Arabs; rather,
they came in trickles, and from different regions of the
Arabian peninsula; the most remarkable one came
from al-Ahsa on the Gulf, probably during the strug¬
gles of the caliphate with the Karmatians. Probably at

the same time, Persian groups emigrated to
Makdishu, for inscriptions found in the town refer to
Persians from Shiraz and Naysabur dwelling there
during the Middle Ages. The foreign merchants,
however, found themselves obliged to unite politically
against the nomadic, Somali, tribes that surrounded
Makdishu, and against invaders from the sea. In the
10th century A.D. a federation was formed of 39
clans: 12 from the MukrI tribe; 12 from the Djid c atl
tribe; 6 from the c Akabi, 6 from the Isma c IlI and 3
from the c AfTfT. Under conditions of internal peace,
trade developed; and the MukrI clans, after acquiring
a religious supremacy and adopting the nisba of al-
Kahtanl, formed a kind of dynasty of c ulama 3 and ob¬
tained from the other tribes the privilege that the kadi
of the federation should be elected only from among
themselves. It is not known at what period Islam
became established, but the earliest known dated in¬
scription in Arabic in Somalia is an epitaph at Barawa
of 498/1105.

In the second half of the 7th/l 2th century, Abu
Bakr b. Fakhr al-Dln established in Makdishu an
hereditary sultanate with the aid of the MukrI clans,
to whom the new ruler recognised again the privilege
of giving the kafi to the town. In 722/1322-3 the ruler
was Abu Bakr b. Muhammad: in that year he struck
dated billon coins in his name, but without title. Dur¬
ing the reign of Abu Bakr b. c Umar, Makdishu was
visited by Ibn Battuta, who describes the town in his
Rihla. The relationship of this sultan with his
predecessors is not known, but he was probably from
the family of Abu Bakr b. Fakhr al-Dln; and under
this dynasty Makdishu reached, in the 8th/14th and
9th/15th centuries, the highest degree of prosperity.
Its name is quoted in the Majhafa Milad , a work by the
Ethiopian ruler Zare 3 a Ya c kob, who refers to a battle
fought against him at Gomut, or Gomit, in Dawaro
by the Muslims on 25 December 1445. To these cen¬
turies are to be ascribed, in addition to the billon coins
issued by Abu Bakr b. Muhammad, the undated cop¬
per issues of ten rulers whose names are com¬
memorated on their coins, but whose sequence even
is not known. They are linked by a simularity of
script, weight, type and appearance, and certain of
the issues share with contemporary Kilwa issues a
reverse legend contrived to rhyme with the obverse.
To this period belongs also the foundation of the three
principal mosques in Makdishu, all dated by inscrip¬
tions, the Friday Mosque in 636/1238, that of Arba c
Rukun in 667/1268, and that of Fakhr al-Dln in
Sha c ban 667/April-May 1269. Their handsome pro¬
portions witness to the prosperity of the times there.

In the 10th/16th century, the Fakhr al-Dln dynasty
was succeeded by that of Muzaffar. It is possible that
one copper issue refers to a ruler of this dynasty. In
the region of the Webi Shabella, the true commercial
hinterland of Makdishu, the Adjuran (Somali), who
had constituted there another sultanate which was
friendly with and allied to Makdishu, were defeated
by the nomadic Hawiya (Somali), who thus con¬
quered the territory. In this way, Makdishu was
separated by the nomads from the interior, and began
to decline from its prosperity, a process which was
hastened by Portuguese colonial enterprise in the In¬
dian Ocean and later by the Italians and the British.
When Vasco da Gama returned from his First voyage
to India in 1499, he attacked Makdishu, but without
success; and similarly in 1507 Da Cunha failed to oc¬
cupy it. In 1532 Estavao da Gama, son of Vasco,
came there to buy a ship. In 1585 Makdishu sur¬
rendered to the Ottoman amir c AlI Bey, who came
down the coast in that year with two galleys as far as

129

MAKDISHU — MAKHARIDJ al-HURUF

Mombasa; all along the coast, the suzerainty of the
Ottoman Sultan was recognised. In 1587, however,
the Portuguese re-asserted their authority with a
strong fleet, but no attempt was made to attack
Makdishu. The vials of their wrath fell on Faza,
where large numbers of people were slaughtered and
10,000 palm trees destroyed. c AlI Bey returned with
five ships in 1589, but, although the coast again
declared for the Ottomans, he was himself defeated
and captured in Mombasa harbour, from which he
was deported to Lisbon. Although this was the end of
Ottoman attacks on the eastern African coast, at
Makdishu new copper coins were issued by no less
than eleven rulers. All these bear a tughra in imitation
of Ottoman coinage, and are probably to be ascribed
to the 10th/16th to 11 th/17th centuries.

In 1700 a British squadron of men-of-war halted
before Makdishu for several days, but without lan¬
ding. After the c UmanI Arabs had taken Mombasa
from the Portuguese in 1698 Makdishu and other
towns on the Somali coast were occupied at uncertain
dates, but after a while their troops were ordered back
to c Uman. The sultanate of Makdishu continued to
decline, and the town was divided into two quarters,
Hamar-Wen and Shangani, by civil wars. Little by
little the Somali penetrated into the ancient Arabian
town, and the clans of Makdishu changed their
Arabic names for Somali appellatives: the c AkabI
became the rer Shekh. the Djid c atl the Shanshiya, the
c AfTfI the Gudmana, and even the MukrI (KahtanI)
changed their name to rer Faklh. In the 12th/18th
century the Darandolla nomads, excited by exag¬
gerated traditions of urban wealth, attacked and con¬
quered the town. The Darandolla chief, who had the
title of imam , set himself up in the Shangani quarter,
and once again the KahtanI privilege of electing the
ka4X was recognised. In 1823 Sayyid Sa c id of c Uman
attempted to assert his authority over Makdishu, and
arrested two of the notables. It was not until 1843 that
he was able to appoint a governor. He chose a Somali,
but the new governor shortly retired inland to his own
people. When Charles Guillain visited Makdishu in
1848, he found only “an old Arab” who presided over
the customs house. Guillain’s fourth volume, an
Album, contains some admirable engravings of
Makdishu at this period which have been reproduced
in Cerulli’s work. It was only at the end of the cen¬
tury, during the reign of Sa c Id’s son Barghash
(1870-88), that Zanzibari authority was finally
established over Makdishu, only to be ceded to Italy,
along with Barawa, Merca and Warsheikh, for an an¬
nual rent of 160,000 rupees, in 1892.

Bibliography: Yakut, i, 502; Ibn Battuta,
Rihla, ii, 183, ed. Cairo 1322, i, 190; J. de Barros,
Da Asia, Decade i, iv, xi, and l.viii, iv, 1552; F. S.
Caroselli, Museo della Garesa: Catalogo: Mogadiscio
1934; De Castanhoso, Dos feitos de Dom Christovam
da Gama, ed. Esteves Pereira, Lisbon 1898, p. xi; E.
Cerulli, Somalia, scritti vari editi ed inediti, i, Rome
1957 (reprinting earlier articles on Somalia); H. N.
Chittick and R. I. Rotberg, East Africa and the
Orient , New York 1975; Gaspar Correa, Lendas da
India, Lisbon 1858-66, t.i, vol. ii, 678; t. iii, vol. ii,
458, 540; Diogo do Couto, Decadas da Asia, Lisbon
1778, dec. iv., l.viii, cap. ii; G.S.P. Freeman-
Grenville, Coins from Mogadishu, c. 1300 to c. 1700,
in Numismatic Chronicle (1963); idem and B. G.
Martin, A preliminary handlist of the Arabic inscriptions
of the Eastern African coast, in JR AS (1973); C.
Guillain, Documents sur Vhistoire, la geographie et le
commerce de VAfrique orientale, Paris 1856, i; I. M.
Lewis, The modem history of Somaliland, London
1965; C. Conti Rossini, Vasco da Gama, Pedralvarez

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

Cabral e Giovanni da Nova nella Cronica di Kilwah, in
Atti del 3° Congresso geografico Italiano, ii, Florence
1899; idem, Studi su populazioni delVEtiopa, in RSC,
vi, 367, n. 2; S. A. Strong, History of Kilwa, in
JR AS (1895); A. Negre, A propos de Mogadiscio au
moyen age, in Annales de VUniv. du Benin, ii (Nov.-
Dec. 1975), 175-200, repr. in Annales de VUniv.
dlAbidjan, Serie 1, vol. v (1977), 5-38.

(E. Cerulli - G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville])
al- MAKDISI [see AL-MUKADDAS J AL-MUTAHHAR
B. TAHIR]

MAKHA<5-KAL c E (Russ. Makhackala), a town
on the western coast of the Caspian Sea at
the point where the narrow coastal plain running
north from Baku and Derbend [q. y.], at the eastern
extremity of the Caucasus range, debouches into the
Nogay Steppe. The present name of what is now
(since 1921) the chef-lieu of the Dagestan A.S.S.R. is
neither Islamic nor of any great antiquity, reflecting
the eponym of a local revolutionary leader Muham¬
mad c AlI Dakhadavev (d. 1918), but Makhac-kal c e
stands on or near the site of a number of places signifi¬
cant in the mediaeval history of the Caucasus:
Balanghar ( = Arm. Varac c an), the capital of the Hun
tributaries of the Khazar kingdom (J. Marquart,
Osteuropdische und ostasiatische Streifziige, Leipzig 1903,
16: Samandar, “four (eight) days march from Der¬
bend”); and Tarkhu/Tarkl, briefly occupied by the
Ottomans in the late 10th/16th century. The present
town may be traced back to the Russian foundation of
Petrovsk, known subsequently as Temlr-Khan-Shura
and (in the years 1917-20) as Shamil-kal c e.

Bibliography: O. Pritsak, in Harvard Jnl. of
Ukrainian Studies , ii (1978), 263; A. Bennigsen and
H. Carrere d’Encausse, in REI ( 1955), 7-56 (with
details of the ethnic composition of Makha£-kal c e):
iA, art. Ddgistan (Mirza Bala); EP, art. Daghistan
(W. Barthold-[A. Bennigsen]); BSE 2 , s.vv. Mafchac,
Makhackala. (C. J. Heywood)

MAKHARIDJ al-HURUF (a.), “the places of
emission of the letters”, i.e. the points of ar¬
ticulation of the phonemes of Arabic. The
singular may be either makhradf, noun of place from
form I of the verb kharadja “go forth, be emitted”, or
else mukhrady, passive participle of form IV akhra^a
“emit, send forth” serving as the noun of place. The
word huruf (sing, harf) denotes both the graphic
elements of the language ( = letters) and the phonetic
ones ( = consonants and vowels) which they represent.

The first description which we possess of the points
of articulation of the 29 Arabic phonemes is that of al-
Khalfl (d. 175/791 [^.y.]) in his K. al- c Ayn (ed.
Anastase al-Karmall, Baghdad 1914, 4, 11. 8-9). This
description is given according to two classifications,
which present certain differences. In the first, al-
Khalll enumerates, going from the throat towards the
lips, 10 zones ( hayyiz ) of articulation, each of these
comprising several degrees ( madradfa ):

1. The pectoral cavity ( dfawf) and air (hawa'); the
sounds made in the cavity or made with the air
waw, yd*, alif and hamza.

2. The back (aksa) part of the throat (halk): the gut¬
turals c ayn, ha 3 and ha *

3. The fore ( adna) part of the throat: the gutturals
kha 3 and ghayn.

4. The uvula ( lahdt): the uvular sounds kaf and kaf

5. The side (shadjr) of the mouth: the laterals djim,
shin and ddd.

6. The apex ( asala ) of the tongue: the apical sounds
sad, sin and zdy.

7. The alveoles (nit 0 ) of the palate: the alveolars ta 3 ,
dal and ta 3

8. The gum ( litha ): the gingivals za 3 , dhal and thd 3

130

MAKHARIDJ al-HURUF — MAKHDUM KULI

9. The tip ( dhawlak ) of the tongue: the sounds pro¬
nounced at the tip of the tongue rd*, lam and nun.

10. The lips (shifd): the labials fa*, bd* and mim.

In the second classification, less detailed than the
first, al-Khalil enumerates them in the opposite way,

i.e. from the lips to the throat, but with only six ar¬
ticulatory zones:

1. The lips: fa*, bd* and mim.

2. The tip of the tongue and the extremity ( taraf) of
the palate (ghar): rd*, lam and nun.

3. The back ( zahr) of the tongue and the zone going
from the interior ( batin ) of the middle incisors
(thandyd ) to the palate: tha * to shin.

4. The back part of the mouth, between the root
(fakada) of the tongue and the uvula: djim, kdf and
kdf

5. The throat: c ayn, ha *, kha* and ghayn.

6. The back part of the throat: hamza.

It will be noted that, in this scheme of classification,
the place of emission of the djim is placed with that of
kdf (which might suppose a realisation as gim), and
that that of wdw, yd * and alif is not given with preci¬
sion, whilst that of the hamza is placed in the throat.

The second description of the points of articulation
of the phonemes of Arabic is provided for us by
Sibawayhi (d. ca. 180/796 [<y.p.] in his Kitdb (ed.
H. Derenbourg, Paris 1889, ii, 452-3). In this,
Sibawayhi enumerates, going from the throat towards
the lips, 16 places of emission of the sounds:

1. The back part of the throat: hamza, ha* and alif

2. Its middle part (awsat): c ayn and ha*.

3. Its fore part: ghayn and kha*.

4. The back part of the tongue and palate (hanak):
kdf

5. A little lower (asfai) than the place ( mawdi °) of the
kdf: kdf.

6. The middle part of the tongue and the middle part
of the palate: djim, shin and yd*.

7. The beginning of the edge (haffa) of the tongue
and its molars ( adras): dad.

8. The edge of the tongue, from its forward part to
its extremity, and the palate, a little bit below the
pre-molar ( ddhik ), the canine tooth (nab) and the
incisors (raba Hyya and thaniyya ): lam.

9. The tip of the tongue and a little bit below the
middle incisors: nun.

10. The same position, but a little further towards the
inner part of the back of the tongue: rd*.

11. The tip of the tongue and the bases ( usuf) of the
middle incisors: ta*, dal and ta*.

12. The tip of the tongue and a little bit above the
middle incisors: zdy, sin and sad.

13. The tip of the tongue and the tips of the middle in¬
cisors: zd *, dhdl and tha *.

14. The inside of the lower lip and the tips of the up¬
per middle incisors: fa *.

15. The two lips: bd*, nun and wdw.

16. The nasal cavities (khayashim): nun realised lightly
(khafifa).

The most important difference between the descrip¬
tion of al-Khalil and that of Sibawayhi lies in the fact
that al-Khalil indicates the place of emission of wdw
and yd* realised as long vowels (u and f), whereas
Sibawayhi indicates these places of emission realised
as consonants (w and y).

It was Sibawayhi’s description which was to prevail
for all the later grammarians, in whose works it is
found cited en bloc, sometimes with a few variations.
Thus al-Mubarrad (K. al-Muktadab, Cairo 1963, i,
192-3) separates the place of emission of shin from that
of dfim, and names the place of emission of dad by a
word which denotes the corner of the mouth (shidk).

One should finally note that the makharidi al-huruf
have been the subject of a very interesting study by a
Moroccan scholar, Muhammad b. c Abd al-Salam al-
FasI (1717-99), in his commentary on the Lamiyya of
Abu ’1-Kasim al-Shatibl.

Bibliography: J. Cantineau, Cours de phonetique
arabe, in Etudes de linguistique arabe, Paris 1960,
1-125; H. Fleisch, Etudes de phonetique arabe, in
MUSJ, xxviii (1949), 225-85; idem, La conception
phonetique des Arabes, in ZDMG, cviii (1958), 74-105;
idem, Trade dephilologie arabe, i, Beirut 1969, 51-70;
G. Troupeau, Le commentaire d’al-Sirafi sur le chap.
265 du Kitdb, in Arabica, v (1958), 168-82; A.
Roman, Le systeme consonantique de la koine arabe
d'apres le Kitdb de Sibawayhi, in CLOS, ix (1977),
63-98; idem, Les zones d’articulation de la koine arabe
d'apres /’enseignement d'al-Halil, in Arabica, xxiv
(1977), 58-65. _(G. Troupeau)

MAKHDUM-I DJAHANIYAN. [see djalAl
bukhArI],

MA KH DUM KULI “FirAkI”, perhaps rather
Makhtum Kull (local forms Magtimkulf and Fragi), a
prominent 18th century Turkmen poet
(1733?-1782?).Much of the information about this
poet is obscure, and sources are unreliable. Among
the 10,000 lines ascribed to him, a substantial amount
must certainly be considered spurious, invalidating
their informative value. Moreover, it is unclear
whether the events alluded to have a real historical
significance or are merely literary devices. Hence it is
uncertain whether he was really born in the Gurgen
River region, studied at the ShlrghazI and Kokildash
madrasas in Khlwa and Bukhara respectively, worked
for a time as a silversmith and a cobbler, bewailed a
brother, who had disappeared into captivity in Persia
(where he himself had suffered too), lost an infant son
and was separated from his love. However, there is a
personal flavour in the relevant descriptions. Such
uncertainties are often met with when discussing ma¬
jor Turkmen poets.

It does however seem that he was a son of Dawlat
Muhammad “AzadI”, that he travelled widely, and
that he was well versed in classical Persian and
Turkish letters as well as in the folk literature of Cen¬
tral Asia, Iran and Adharbavdjan. A master of the
elevated style and technique, he nevertheless in¬
troduced popular forms, such as syllabic quatrains,
into Turkmen poetry. He wrote fiery patriotic verses
during the warfare between the Turkmens, Iran and
Khlwa. His lyrical and didactic (not epic, and—
though Yasawl-like elements spring to the eye—not
strictly religious) poetry remained widely appreciated,
not only among his compatriots but in the whole of
Central Asia.

Bibliography: 1. Editions: A. Chodzko,
Specimens of the popular poetry of Persia, London 1842,
389-94; N. Berezin, Turetskaya khrestomatiya , ii,
Kazan 1857-76; H. Vambery, Die Sprache der
Turkomanen und der Diwan Machdumkulis, in ZDMG,
xxxiii (1879), 388-444, (31 poems and 10

fragments, with German tr.; not too reliable);
Shavkh Muhsin Fan!, Makhtum-kuli diwani we yedi
c asirllk bir manzume, Istanbul 1340/ 1924 (a bad
repr. of Vambery); B. M. Kerbabaev, Sbornik iz-
brannlkh proizvedeniy turkmenskoyo poeta Makhtum-Kuli
(II. pol. XVIII. veka), Ashkhabad 1926 (289 poems,
Arabic script, useful). A. Gyurgenli (?),
Magtimguli, saylanan goshgilar , A shkh abad 1940 (un¬
critical); Kurban, Maktimkull, Berlin 1944;
Magtimguli, saylanan eserler, A shkh abad 1957, 2 vols.
(375 poems). 2. Studies and translations: A.
Samoylovic, UkazetaV pesnyam Makhtum-kuli, in

MAKHDUM KULI — MAKHFI

131

ZVOIRAO, xix (1909), 0125-0147, additions in
ibid., 0216-0218 and xxii (1914), 127-39; Russian
tr. Izbranniya stikhotvoreniya , Moscow 1941;
Makhtum-Kuli fragi, izbrannye stikhi, Moscow 1945;
Makhtum-kuli, Stikhotvoreniya, Leningrad 1949;
Izbrannoe {sic), Moscow 1960. 3. General

surveys: Zeki Velidi, in TM, ii (1928), 465-74;
Koprulii-zade Fu 5 ad, EI l , art. Turkomans.
Literature ; J. Benzing, in PTF, ii, Wiesbaden 1954,
726-7; 739-40; B. A. Karryev, in BSEf xv, 526.

(H. F. Hofman)

MA KHD UM al-MULK, a Mu gh al religious
lfeader, whose real name was mawlana c abd
allah. He was the son of Shaykh Shams al-Dln
of Sultanpur. His ancestors had emigrated from
Multan and settled at Sultanpur near Lahore. The
pupil of Mawlana c Abd al-Kadir Sirhindl, he became
one of the foremost religious scholars and func¬
tionaries of his day. A committed Sunni, he never
trusted Abu ’1-Fadl c AllamI (d. 1011/1602 [?.p.]) and
looked upon him from the beginning as a dangerous
man. Contemporary monarchs had great respect for
Makhdum al-Mulk. The Emperor Humayun
(937-63/1530-56) conferred on him the title of Shaykh
al-Isldm. When the empire of Hindustan came into the
possession of Sher Shah (946-52/1539-45), the latter
further honored him with the title of Sadr al-Isldm. He
was a man of especially great importance during the
reign of Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605). Bayram Khan
Khanan (d. 968/1560) exalted his position very much
by giving him the sub-divison of Thankawala which
yielded an annual income of one lakh of rupees, while
Akbar gave him the title of Makhdum al-Mulk , by
which designation he has become known to posterity.
When the Emperor introduced his religious innova¬
tions and tried to convert people to his “Divine
Faith” (see din-i ilahI], however, Makhdum al-Mulk
opposed him. Akbar became very angry. He ordered
Makhdum al-Mulk to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca
and Medina. Setting out in 987/1579, he completed
the enforced canonical journey within two years’
time. On his return from the Hidjaz, Makhdum al-
Mulk died or was poisoned in 990/1582 in
Ahmadabad.

He was the author of the following books, none of
which are now extant: (1) c Ismat al-anbiyd 5 , a work on
the sinlessness of prophets (cf. Bada 5 um, iii, 70); (2)
Minhady al-din , a life of the Prophet (cf. Mahathir al-
umard 3 , iii, 252); (3) Hdshiya Sharh Mullah , a gloss on
Dj ami’s commentary on Ibn al-Ha^Jjib’s Kdjiya (cf.
Mahathir al-umard 3 , iii, 252); (4) Sharh Shamd 3 il al-
Tirmidhi, a commentary on TirmidhT’s Shama 3 il al-
nabi (cf. Bada 3 uni, iii, 70).

Bibliography’. c Abd al-Kadir Bada^um, Mun-
takhab al-tawdrikh, iii, 70; Shahnawaz Khan
AwrangabadI, Mahathir al-umard 3 , iii, 252; Khazinat
al-asfiyd 3 , 443, 464; A 3 in-i Akbari, tr. Blochman,
172, 544.

(M. Hidayet Hosain - [B. Lawrence])
MA KHD UM_al-MULK Sharaf al-DIn Ahmad
b. Yahya MANIRI or MANERI, celebrated saint
of mediaeval Bihar. Born in Shawwal
661/August 1263 at Manlr or Maner, a village in the
north Bihar! district of Patna, Sharaf al-Dm was
educated at Sunargaon, Bengal by the Hanball tradi-
tionist Abu Tawwama. On completing his studies, he
travelled to DihlT, where he met the premier CishtI
shaykh of the Sultanate period, Nizam al-Dln Awliya 5
(d. 725/1325). He subsequently enrolled as the disci¬
ple of Nadjfb al-Dln FirdawsI (d. 691/1291) and spent
several years in the forests of BihTya and Radjglr
secluded from human company and engaged in

meditation on God. When he re-emerged at Bihar
Sharif ( ca . 60 miles from Patna city) in the 1320s, he
was acknowledged as a spiritual preceptor and guide
of extraordinary power. From the khanakah built for
him by friends and later enlarged by Sultan Muham¬
mad b. Tughluk (reigned 1325-1351), Sharaf al-Dln
established the FirdawsI silsila throughout northern
Bihar and western Bengal. He died at Bihar Sharif on
6 Shawwal 782/3 January 1381.

The several writings of Sharaf al-Dln reveal him to
be a knowledgeable traditionist as well as a skilled
dialectician of Sufi categories and concepts. He is best
known for one of his collections of letters, Maktubdt-i
sadi. He has also been credited with three other
epistolary volumes: Rukn-i fawd 3 id , Maktubdt-i du sadi,
and Maktubdt-i bist-u hasht. Numerous are the compila¬
tions of awrad (invocatory prayers) and ishdrdt (prac¬
tical directives) attributed to Sharaf al-Dln, but his
most comprehensive work was a sharh (commentary)
on the Sufi catechism, the Addb al-muridin of Abu
Nadjlb SuhrawardI (d. 561/1168).

The literary and spiritual tradition of Sharaf al-Dln
was continued by the several notable FirdawsI saints
who were his successors, beginning with Muzaffar
Shams BalkhI (d. 803/1401). The attainments of this
regionally delimited silsila were lauded throughout
Hindustan; its major shaykhs found recognition in the
most popular pan-Indian tadhkiras, e.g., c Abd al-Hakk
Dihlawl’s Akhbar al-akhydr and Ghulam Sarwar
Lahorl’s Khazinat al-asfiyd 3 .

Bibliography. Shu c ayb b. Djalal al-Dln
Manlrl, Mandkib al-asfiyd' 3 , Calcutta 1895; Zayn al-
Dm Badr-i c ArabI, Ma c din al-ma c dni, Bihar 1884;
c Abd al-Hakk Dihlawl, Akhbar al-akhydr , Dihll
1309/1891, 113-118; Ghulam Sarwar Lahori,

Khazinat al-asfiyd 3 . Lucknow 1290/1873, ii, 290-92;
M. Mu c In al-Dln Darda 5 i, Ta\ikh-i silsila-yi Fir-
dawsiyya [Urdu], Gaya 1962, 137-244; M. Ishaq,
India's contribution to the study of hadith literature, Dacca
1955, 66-71; S. H. Askari, Sufism in medieval Bihar,
in Current Studies (Patna College), vii (1957), 3-37,
viii (1958), 107-29; B. Lawrence, Notes from a distant
flute: the extant literature of pre-Mughal Indian Sufism,
Tehran 1978, 72-77; S. A. A. Rizvi, A history of
Sufism in India , i, Dihll 1978, 228-40

(B. Lawrence)

MA KH FI. the much-disputed pen-name of
Zlb al-Nisa 31 Begum, eldest child of the Mughal
emperor Awrangzlb (1068-1118/1658-1707).

She was born in 1638 at Dawlatabad in the Deccan.
Her mother, Dilras Banu Begum (d. 1657), was the
daughter of Shahnawaz Khan (d. 1659), a dignitary
of Shahdjahan’s reign. For her early education she
was assigned to Hafiza Maryam, a learned lady who
was the mother of one of Awrangzlb’s trusted nobles,
Tnayat Allah Khan (d. 1139/1726-7). Under Hafiza
Maryam’s guidance, Zlb al-Nisa 5 memorised the
Kur 5 an, for which Awrangzlb rewarded her with a
purse of 10,000 gold pieces. Later, she studied under
some of the best scholars of the time, foremost among
them being Muhammad Sa c Id Ashraf (d.
1116/1708-9), a poet and man of learning who came
to India from Persia during the early part of
Awrangzlb’s reign. Her accomplishments included
mastery of Arabic and Persian languages as well as
skill in calligraphic writing. She was a great lover of
books, and is said to have collected a library which
was unrivalled in its time. Many writers and scholars
benefited from her generous patronage, and some of
them composed books bearing her name. Significant
among such writing was Safi al-Dln Ardablll’s Ztb al-
tafasir, which was a Persian translation of Fakhr al-

132

MAKHFI — MAKHRAMA

Din Razl’s exegesis of the Kur’an. Zlb al-Nisa re¬
mained unmarried throughout her life. It is reported
that she was involved in a love intrigue with c Akil
Khan, a nobleman of Awrangzlb’s court, but this is
pure fiction invented by some 19th-century Urdu
writers. She incurred AwrangzTb’s wrath for complici¬
ty with her brother, Akbar, in his unsuccessful
rebellion against the emperor. In 1681 she was im¬
prisoned in the Salimgarh fort at Dihll, where she
spent the remaining years of her life until her death in
1702.

Whether or not ZTb al-Nisa 3 left behind a diwan of
her poems is a disputed question. A collection of verse
published in her name under the title of Diwdn-i
Makhfi has been subjected to critical scrutiny, and is
regarded as the work of someone other than Zlb al-
Nisa 3 . Sporadic verses attributed to her indicate that
she was a promising poet, favouring a lyrical style.

Bibliography : Musta c Td Khan SakI, Ma 3 dthir-i
c Alamgiri, tr. Jadunath Sarkar, Calcutta 1947;
Ahmad Kh an HashimI SandTlawT, Tadhkira-yi
makhzan al-ghard Hb, ii, ed. Muhammad Bakir,
Lahore 1970; Muhammad Kudrat Allah
Gopamawf, Tadhkira-yi natd Hdy al-afkdr , Bombay
1336/1957-8; Diwdn-i Makhfi , Cawnpore
1283/1866-7; Muhammad b. Muhammad RafT c
“Malik al-Kuttab” ShlrazI, Tadhkirat al-khawdtin ,
Bombay 1306/1888; Shams al-DTn Sami, Kdmus al-
a c lam, iv, Istanbul 1889; T. W. Beale, An oriental
biographical dictionary, London 1894; Magan Lai and
Jessie Duncan Westbrook, The diwan of Zeb-un-
Nissa , New York 1913; P. Whalley, The tears of
Zebunnisa, London 1913; Journal of the Bihar and
Orissa Research Society, xiii (March 1927); ShiblT
Nu c manT, Sawdnih-i Zib al-Nisa 3 Begum, Lucknow
n.d.; Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, iii,
repr. DihlT 1972; idem, Studies in Aurangzib's reign,
Calcutta 1933Muhammad C A1T Tarbiyat,
Ddnishmandan-i Adharbaydjdn, Tehran 1314/1935-6;
M. Ishaque, Four eminent poetesses of Iran, Calcutta
1950; J. Rypka, History of Iranian literature, Dor¬
drecht 1956; C A1T Akbar MushTr SalTmT, Zandn-i
sukhanwar, ii, Tehran 1335/1956-7; Nur al-Hasan
Ansarl, Farsi adab bi- c ahd-i Awrangzib, DihlT 1969;
Punjab University, Urdu daHra-yi ma c drif-i
Isldmiyya , x, Lahore 1973; P. N. Chopra, Life and
letters under the Mughals, DihlT 1976.

(Munibur Rahman)

MAKHLAD, Banu, a family of famous Cor¬
dovan jurists who, from father to son, during ten
generations, distinguished themselves in the study of
fikh. The eponymous ancestor of the family was
Makhlad b. YazTd, who was kadi of the province of
Reyyoh (the kura in the south-west of Spain, the
capital of which was Malaga), in the reign of the amir
c Abd al-Rahman II, in the first half of the 3rd/9th
century. His son, Abu c Abd al-Rahman BakT b.
Makhlad [qv.\, was by far the most famous
member of the family, and his direct descendants
devoted their intellectual activity mainly to commen¬
ting on the masterpieces of their celebrated ancestor.
A list of these scholars, with bibliographical
references, is supplied in a little monograph devoted
to the family of the Banu Makhlad by Rafael de
Urena y Smenjaud, Familias de jurisconsultos: Los
Benimajlad de Cordoba , in Homenaje a D. Francisco Cor-
dera, Saragossa 1904, 251-8.

Bibliography: Add to the Bibl. of bakT b.
makhlad: Manuela Mann, Baqi ibn Majlady la in-
troduccion del estudio del hadit en al-Andalus, in al-
Qantara, i (1980), 165-208; W. Werkmeister,
Quellenuntersuchungen zum Kitab al-'Iqd al-farid , Berlin
1983, 267-70 and index. (E. Levi-Provenqal)

MAKHLAS [see TAKHALLUS].

MA KH RAMA. Ba or Abu, a South Arabian
Himyarite clan of Shafi c T jurists and Sufis
who lived in Hadramawt and Aden in the 9th/15th
and 10th/16th centuries. Prominent members of it
were the following:

1. c AfTf al-DTn Abu ’l-Tayyib c abd Allah b.
Ahmad b. C A1T b. Ibrahim Ba Makhrama al-Himyarl
al-Shaybanl (or al-Saybanl?) al-Hadjaranl al-
Hadraml al- c AdanT, b. 833/1430 in Hadjarayn \q.v.],
d. 903/1497 in Aden, where he was appointed kdtfi by
the sultan C A1T b. Tahir but resigned after four
months, without losing his popularity (in
Brockelmann, S II, 239 f.; these biographical dates
are by mistake attributed to his son ai-Tayyib, below,
2.). His writings include remarks ( nukat ) on Djdmi c al-
mukhtasarat by al-Nasa 3 T (Brockelmann, II, 199/254)
and the Alfiyya of Ibn Malik, a commentary on the
Mulha of al-Hariri, an abstract of Ibn al-Ha 3 im’s
commentary on the Urdfuza al-Yasaminiyya
(Brockelmann, S I, 858:7.1.1), rasa HI and fatdwi.

2. Abu Muhammad al-Tayyib b. c Abd Allah b.

Ahmad ... al-^AdanT (son of 1.), b. 870/1465, d.
947/1540, jurist and scholar of wide learning,
teaching fikh , tafsir, hadith, nahw and lugha. He had
studied under his father, Muhammad Ba Fa^l and
Muhammad al-Kammat (both d. 903/1497) and
shared his reputation as a fakih with Muhammad b.
c Umar Ba Kaddam (d. 951/1544) belonging to
another branch of the Makhrama family. Sickness
evidently prevented him from finishing his two main
works: the “Chronicle of Aden” TaHikh Thaghr c Adan
(ed. Lofgren 1936-50) and Kilddat al-nahr fi wafayat
a c yan al-dahr ( tabakdt work, with historical supplement
£d. Schuman 1960). He also wrote Mushtabih al-nisba
ild 'l-buldan (Serjeant, Materials, no. 11) and Asma 3
ridfdl Muslim. In the Kilada are biographies of the
brothers Ahmad (d. 911/1505-6), c Abd Allah

al- c AmudT and Muhammad, who at his death in Shihr
in 906/1500-1 bequeathed his library to students of
theology in Aden, under the supervision of his
brothers Ahmad and al-Tayyib (see MO, xxv, 131-8).

3. c Umar B. c Abd Allah b. Ahmad (son of 1.), b.
884/1479 in Hadjaran, d. 952/1545 in Saywun (a
residential town in WadT Hadramawt between Tarim
and Shibam), famous $ufT scholar and poet. Having
completed his juridico-theological training in Aden
under his father, the local saint Abu Bakr al- c Aydarus
[q. v. ] and Muhammad b. C A1I DjirfTl al-Daw c anT (d.
903/1497-8), he met with the Sufi c Abd al-Rahman b.
c Umar Ba Hurmuz [see hurmuz, ba], was converted
to mysticism, and became a local spiritual leader
residing in Saywun, where he collected numerous
disciples and was buried in a mausoleum close to that
of the KathTrl sultans. He was a productive poet in
classical as well as indigenous ( humayni) metre; his
Diwan was collected in several volumes by al-Hudayll
Sahib al-Kara (d. 1037/1627-8, al-Muhibbl, ii, 366,
cf. Serjeant, Materials , no. 28). Specimens of it are
given in al-Nur al-sdfir, 33-7, and TaHikh al-£hu c ara 3 al-
Hadramiyyin, i, 134 ff. Two verses on ma c iyya written
shortly before his death were treated by c Abd al-
Rahman aI- c Aydarus under three titles, Irshad dhawi
’ 1-lawdhaHyya c ala baytay al-maHyya, Ithaf dhawi 7-
almaHyya fi tahkik mahna ’ 1-maHyya , and al-Nafha al-
ilahiyya fi tahkik ma c na ’ 1-maHyya (cf. Isma c Tl Pasha,
Idah al-maknun, i, 18, ii, 668). Other writings by him
include al-Warid al-fcudsi fi sharh ayat al-kursi. Shark
Asma 3 Allah al-husna, al-Matlab al-yasir min al-salik
al-fakir.

4. c AfTf al-DTn c Abd Allah b. c Umar b. c Abd
Allah (son of 3.), b. 907/1501 in Shihr, d. 972/1565
in Aden, where he finished his legal career as mufti

MAKHRAMA — MAKHZAN

133

and was buried at the side of his father and his uncle
al-Tayyib close to the mausoleum of the $ufi Djawhar
al- c AdanI (6th/12th century, cf. TaHikh Thaghr c Adan,
ii, 39 ff.). Having studied under his father, his uncle
and c Abd Allah b. Ahmad Ba Suruml al-Shihn (d.
943/1536*7) he was kadi in Shihr twice, became a
great authority ( c umda ) on fikh, and was consulted
from all parts of the Yaman and Hadramawt. As will
be seen from the list of his writings, he was not only
a fakih and theologian, but pursued a special interest
of astronomy and chronology. He also wrote some
poetry ( aradfiz ).

His writings include Dhayl Tabakat al-ShdfiHyya by
al-AsnawI (Brockelmann, II, 91/111) Nukat on Ibn
Hac^ar al-HaythamT’s commentary on al-Nawawi’s
Minhady, 2 vols., Fatawi, al-Durra al-zahiyya fisharh [al-
Urdfuza] al-Rahbiyya (16 vv. in Ambr. NF D 256),
Hakikat al-taw hid (radd Q ala Id Hfat Ibn c Arab!), al-Misbdh
fi sharh al- c Udda wa ’ l-sildh (li-mutawalll c ufcud al-nikdh ,
by Muhammad b. Ahmad Ba Fadl, d. 903/1497-8),
(cf. Brockelmann, S II, 972:5 Mishkdt al-misbah, iden¬
tical); astronomy-chronology: al-Djaddwil al-

muhakkaka al-muharrara fi Him al-hay^a, al-Lum c a fi Him
al-jalak (Rabat 2023), al-Shdmil fi dalaHl al-kibla , etc.,
rasa HI on ikhtildf al-matdli c wa-ttifdkihd, al-rub c al-
mudfayyab , samt al-kibla, zill al-istiwd 3 (several details
from the work of King, see Bibl. below).

Bibliography : O. Lofgren, Arabische Texte zur
Kenntnis der Stadt Aden im Miltelaller, i-ii, Leiden
1936-50: edition of TaHikh Thaghr c Adan ; idem,
Uber Abu Mahrama's Kilddat al-nahr, in MO, xxv,
120-39; R. B. Sergeant, Materials for South Arabian
history, in BSOS , xiii, 281-307, 581-601; L. O.
Schuman, Political history of the Yemen at the beginning
of the 16th century , 1960; D. A. King, Mathematical
astronomy in medieval Yemen (unpublished study);
al- c Aydarus(T), al-Nur al-sdfir c an akhbar al-karn
al- c ashir, passim ; al-Sakkaf, TaHikh al-Shu^ara^ al-
Hadramiyyin, i; Sakhawl. al-Daw* al-lamT, v, 8; Ibn
al- c Imad, Shadhardt al-dhahab, viii, 268, 367;
Kahhala, Mu^d^am al-mu^allifin , vii, 293; Zirikll, al-
A c lam, iv, 193, 227, 249, v. 213. (O. Lofgren)
MAKHREDJ (a ), “ outlet, going out”, an Ot¬
toman term used in education and law. In
education, the term was used in reference to two
schools in the 19th century, of which one prepared
students for employment in Ottoman administrative
offices, the other for the military schools.

Makhredfii akldm designated the post-secondary
school were secondary school students were prepared
to “go out” to work at Ottoman administrative of¬
fices, aklam (pi. of kalam (<?.£.]). The Makhredf-i akldm
was founded in 1862 when Ottoman administrators
decided that the quality of secondary school training
was insufficient. The first graduates of the school were
examined in 1864 by the Educational Council, medjlis-
i maHdrif, and were appointed to the aldam. The
school was superseded in 1876 by a school of higher
education for civil servants, mekteb-i funun-u mulkiyye.

Makhredf-i mekdtib-i c askeriyye was the secondary
school which prepared students “going out” to
military schools. The foundation for the school was
laid in 1862 when the Naval and Civil Engineering,
Warfare, and Medical Schools established introduc¬
tory classes to train their students. The students were
admitted to these classes only after completing classes
called makhredf. In 1864, all introductory classes were
combined into a preparatory school, Tdddi-i c umumi
The makhredy classes were collected into a secondary
school, makhredf-i mekdtib-i : askeriyye. This school was
replaced in 1875 by a newly formed military
secondary-school, c asken rushdiyye.

In 1 aw, the term makhredj had two meanings. Cer¬
tain judicial districts in the Ottoman Empire were
referred to as makhredj mewlewiyyeti [see
mewlewiyyet] . The name derived from a common
attribute of the judges appointed to these districts. All
were judges “going out” to their first appointment
after teaching in schools, madrasa \q.v.\. The judges
who had completed this appointment and were
awaiting assignment to a higher ranking judicial
.district were called makhredf mewalisi.

In inheritance law, makhredj was the term for the
denominator which was used to divide an inheritance
among heirs. In the case of the inheritance of a
deceased woman, for example, where her husband
and daughter each received one-fourth of the in¬
heritance and her son received two-fourths, the
makhredi of the inheritance would be four.

Bibliography : O. Ergin, Istanbul mektepleri ve il-
im, terbiye ve san at muesseseleri dolayisile Turkiye maarif
tarihi, ii, istanbul 1940, 397-400, 413, 418-21;
M.Z. Pakalin, Osmanlt tarih deyimleri ve lerimleri
sozliigu, Istanbul 1951, 385-7; LA. Govsa, Resimli
yeni lugat ve ansiklopedi, iii, 1708; I.H. Uzun^arsili,
Osmanli devletinin ilmiye tefkilati, Ankara 1965, 90,
101, 120, 265; M. Sertoglu, Resimli Osmanli tarihi
ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1958, 194; Gibb-Bowen, i/2,
89, 126, 151. (F. Muge Go^ek)

MA KH ZAN (a.), from khazana, “to shut up, to
preserve, to hoard”. The word is believed to have
been first used in North Africa as an official term in
the 2nd/8th century applied to an iron chest in which
Ibrahim b. al-Aghlab, amir of Ifrikiya, kept the sums
of money raised by taxation and intended for the
c Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. At first this term, which
in Morocco is synonymous with the government,
was applied more particularly to the financial
department, the Treasury.

It may be said that the term makhzan (pronounced
makhzen) meaning the Moroccan government, and
everything more or less connected with it, at first
meant simply the place where the sums raised by taxa¬
tion were kept, intended to be paid into the treasury
of the Muslim community, the bayt al-mal [q v.\.
Later, when the sums thus raised were kept for use in
the countries in which they were collected, and they
became, as it were, the private treasuries of the com¬
munities in which they were collected, the word
makhzan was used to mean the separate local treasuries
and a certain amount of confusion arose between the
makhzan and the bayt al-mal.

We do find in Spain the expression Q abid al-makhzan,
but it still means slaves of the treasury rather than
slaves of the government, and in al-Andalus, later it
seems than in Morocco, in proportion as the state
became separated from the rest of the Muslim com¬
munity after being successively under the Umayyads
of Damascus, the c Abbasids of Baghdad, the
Umayyads of Spain and the Fatimids of Egypt, that
makhzan came to be used for the government itself.

To sum up, the word makhzan, after being used for
the place where the sums intended for the bayt al-mal
of the Islamic empire were kept, was used for the local
treasury of the Muslim community of Morocco, when
it took shape under the great Berber dynasties; later,
with the Sharlff dynasties, the word was applied not
only to the treasury but to the whole organisation
more or less administrative in nature which lives on
the treasury, that is to say the whole government
of Morocco. In tracing through history the changes
of meaning of the word makhzan, one comes to the con¬
clusion that not only is the institution to which it is ap¬
plied not religious in character but, on the contrary,

134

MAKHZAN

it represents the combined usurpations of powers,
originally religious, by laymen, at the expense of
which it has grown up through several centuries. The
result of these successive usurpations is that the
makhzan ended up by representing to the Moroccans
the sole principle of authority.

In rapidly surveying the history of the makhzan, we
can see how it became gradually established, while us¬
ing the prescriptions of Islam, and how it succeeded
in forming, in face of the native Berber element which
surrounded it, a kind of Arab facade, behind which
the Berbers, in spite of the slowness of their gradual
islamisation, have preserved their institutions and
their independence.

No organisation was made at the first conquest by
c Ukba b. Nafi c in 63/682. All the Arab conquerors
had to do was to levy heavy tributes in money and
slaves to satisfy their own greed and to enable them to
send valuable gifts to the caliph of Damascus.

It was the same in 90/708 with Musa b. Nusayr,
but the conquest of Spain brought over to Islam a
large number of Berber tribes by promising them a
share in plundering the wealth of the Visigoths. On
the other hand, the spread of KharidjI doctrines made
any unity of power impossible and on the contrary in¬
creased decentralisation.

The Idrlsid dynasty, which its SharlfT origin gives
a claim to be the first Muslim dynasty of Morocco and
which completed the conversion of the country to
Islam, only exercised its power over a small part of
Morocco. Alongside of it, the Barghawata [q.v. ]
heretics and numerous KharidjI amirs continued to ex¬
ist. It was not till the 5th/l 1th century, under the
Almoravids, that in the reign of Ya c kub b. Tashfin we
can see the beginnings of a makhzan which only
becomes clearly recognisable under the Almohads.

It was under the latter that religious unity was first
attained in Morocco. The heresy of the Barghawata
and all other schisms were destroyed, and a single
Muslim community, that of the Almohads, replaced
the numerous more or less heterodox sects which had
been sharing the country and its revenues. It may be
said that the organisation of the makhzan as it existed
in Morocco at the opening of the 20th century is fun¬
damentally based on this unification and the measures
which resulted from it. The Almohads were able to
apply to all the territory of their empire the ideal
Muslim principle for dealing with land, i.e. that all
the lands conquered by them from non-Almohads,
and even from Almohads whose faith was regarded as
suspect, were classed as lands taken from infidels and
became hubus (pi. ahbas) of the Muslim, i.e. Almohad
community. These landed properties are those whose
occupants have to pay the kharadj_ tax. In order to levy
this, the sultan c Abd al-Mu 5 min had all his African
empire surveyed from Gabes to the Wadi Nun.

A few years later, Ya c kub al-Mansur brought to
Morocco the Djusham and Banu Hilal Arabs and
settled them on lands which had been uninhabited
since the destruction of the Bar gh awata. the wars of
the Almohads with the last Almoravids and the exten¬
sive despatches of troops to Spain.

These Arab tribes who formed the gish [see djaysh]
of the Almohads did not pay the kharadj_ for the lands
of the Muslim community which they occupied. They
were makhzan tribes who rendered military service in
place of kharaa £. We shall find later the remains of this
organisation with the gish tribes and the tribes of
na 5 iba . The efforts of the Marlnids to reconstitute a
gish with their own tribes did not succeed, and they
had to return to the makhzan of Arab tribes brought to
Morocco by Ya c kub al-Mansur and even added to it
contingents of the Ma c kil [q.v. ] Arabs of the Sus.

Under the Banu Waftas, this movement became
more marked, and Spanish influences became more
and more felt in the more complicated organisation of
the central makhzan and by the creation of new offices
at the court and in the palace.

The conquests by the Christians, by causing the
development of the zawiyas and the fall of the Banu
Wattas, brought about the rise of the Sa c dids [ q.v .] of
Wadi Dar c a. The latter, with their customs as
Saharan tribes and under the religious influence of the
shaykhs of the brotherhoods, began to try to bring back
the exercise of power to the patriarchal simplicity with
which it was wielded in the early days of Islam. The
necessities of the government, the intrigues of the
tribes and the wars of members of the ruling family
against one another soon made necessary the constitu¬
tion of a proper makhzan with its military tribes;
ministers, its crown officials of high and low degree,
its governors to whom were soon added the in¬
numerable groups of palace officials which will be
mentioned below.

The frequent intercourse between the Sa c dids and
the Turks, who had come to settle in Algeria at the
beginning of the 10th/16th century, brought to the
court of Morocco a certain amount of eastern
ceremonial, a certain amount of luxury and even a
certain degree of pomp in the life of the sovereign and
in that of his entourage and of all the individuals
employed in the makhzan.

The increasing official relations of Morocco with
European powers, the exchange of ambassadors, the
commercial agreements and the ransoming of Chris¬
tian slaves, largely contributed to give this Makhzan
more and more the appearance of a regular govern¬
ment. The jealousies of the powers, their desire to
maintain the status quo in Morocco and the need to
have a regular government to deal with them further
strengthened the makhzan both at home and abroad
and enabled the sultan Mawlay al-Hasan to conduct
for nearly twenty years this policy of equilibrium be¬
tween the powers on one side, and the tribes on the
other, who kept till his death the empire of Morocco
in existence, built up of very diverse elements, of
which the makhzan formed the facade.

The very humble, almost humiliating, attitude im¬
posed on the European ambassadors at official recep¬
tions increased the prestige of the sultan and the
makhzan in the eyes of the tribes. The envoy of the
Christian power, surrounded by the presents which he
brought, appeared on foot in a court of the palace and
seemed to have come to pay tribute to the commander
of the Muslims, who was on horseback. All the
theatrical side was developed to strike the imagination
of the makhzan with much care, and it succeeded in
creating an illusion of the real efficiency of this
organisation in the eyes of both tribes and powers.

Under the Berber dynasties, the Almohads, the
Marlnids and the Banu Wattas, the military tribes,
the diaysh (gish) were almost all Arab; under the
Sa c dids they were entirely Arab; to the Djusham and
Banu Hilal Arabs were added the Ma c kil Arabs of the
Sus. On the other hand the Sa c dids had removed from
the registers of the diaysh a certain number of the Arab
tribes who then paid in money the kharadj_ for the ahbas
lands of the Muslim community which they occupied.
These tribes, in contrast to the diaysh, were called
tribes of the na^iba, that is to say, according to the
etymology proposed for the word, they were under the
tutelage of the makhzan (from naHb “tutor” or
“substitute” for a father), or rather, they paid the
tribes of the diaysh a sum for replacing them (from naba
“to act as a substitute”).

From this time onwards, Morocco assumed the ap-

MAKHZAN

135

pearance which it had when France established her
protectorate there. The frontier, settled with the
Turks in the east, had hardly been altered by the oc¬
cupation of Algeria by France and the territory of
Morocco was divided into two parts: 1. bildd al-
makhzan or conquered territory; 2. bildd al-siba [q.v. ] or
land of schism; the latter was almost exclusively oc¬
cupied by Berbers.

The bildd al-makhzan , which represented official
Morocco, was formed of territories belonging to the
ahbas of the Muslim community, liable to the kfyaradi
and occupied by Arab tribes, some gish, other na^iba.

The Berber tribes of the bildd al-siba not only refus¬
ed to allow the authority of the makhzan to penetrate
among them, but even had a tendency to go back to
the plains from which they had gradually been pushed
into the mountains. One of the main endeavours of
the present dynasty, the c AlawIs of Tafilalt, which
succeeded the Sa c dids in the 11th/17th century, has
been to oppose this movement of expansion of the
Berber tribes. This is why Mawlay Isma c il, the most
illustrious sultan of this dynasty, built 70 kasbas on the
frontier of the bildd al-makhzan to keep down the
Berbers. Hence we have this policy of equilibrium and
intrigues which has just been mentioned and which up
till the 20th century was the work of the makhzan.

As has already been said, it was not a question of
organising the country nor even of governing it, but
simply of holding their own by keeping rebellion
within bounds with the help of the gish tribes by ex¬
tracting from the ports and from the na 5 iba tribes all
that could be extorted by every means. From time to
time, expeditions led by the sultan himself against the
unsubjected tribes asserted his power and increased
his prestige.

The makhzan , gradually formed in course of cen¬
turies by the possibilities and exigencies of domestic
policy as well as by the demands of foreign policy,
seems to have attained its most complete development
in the reign of Mawlay al-Hasan, the last great in¬
dependent sultan of Morocco (1873-94). The govern¬
ment of Mawlay al-Hasan consisted in the first place
of the sultan himself, at once hereditary and also, if
not exactly elected, at least nominated by the c ulamd 3
and notables of each town and tribes from among the
sons, brothers, nephews and even the cousins of the
late ruler. This proclamation is called bay c a. It is, in
general, he who takes control of the treasury and of
the troops when the moment comes to assume the
right of succession. It sometimes happens that the late
sovereign has nominated his successors, but this does
not constitute an obligation on the electors to obey it.
There is then no rule of succession to the throne.

Formerly there was only one vizier, the grand vizier
( al-$adr al-a^zam)] the grand vizierate, a kind of
Ministry of the Interior was divided into three sec¬
tions, each managed by a secretary (katib):

1. From the Strait of Gibraltar to the Wad Bu
Regreg.

2. From Bu Regreg to the Sahara.

3. The Tafilalt.

In the reign of Sldl Muhammad (1859-73), the
more frequent and intimate relations with Europe and
more particularly the working of the protectorate,
made it necessary to found a special office for foreign
relations, and a wazir al-bahr, literally Minister of the
Sea, was appointed. This did not mean minister for
the navy, but for all that came by sea, i.e. Europeans.
This minister had a representative in Tangier, the
naHb al-sultan, who was the intermediary between
European representatives and the central makhzan.
His task was to deal with European complaints and

claims from perpetual settlements and to play off
against one another the proteges of the European
powers, who were certainly increasing in numbers
and frequently formed an obstacle to the traditional
arbitrary rule of the makhzan. The regime of the con¬
sular protectorate, settled and regulated in 1880 by
the Convention of Madrid, had also resulted in
discouraging the makhzan from extending its authority
over new territory.

The exercise of this authority was in fact
automatically followed by the exercise of the right of
protection and, from the point of view of resistance to
European penetration, the makhzan had everything to
gain by keeping in an apparent political independence
the greater part of the territory in order to escape the
influence which threatened in time to turn Morocco
into a regular international protectorate.

By a conciliatory policy and cautious dealing with
the local chiefs, the shaykhs of the zawiyas and the
Sharif! families, the makhzan was able to exert even in
the remotest districts a real influence and never ceased
to carry on perpetual intrigues in order to divide the
tribes against one another. It maintained its religious
prestige by the hope of preparation for the holy war
which was one day to drive out the infidels, and
sought to penetrate by spreading the Arabic language
and the teaching of the Kurian and gradually
substituting the principles of Islamic law of the shar c
for Berber customs. In a word, it continued the con¬
quest of the country by trying to complete its islamisa-
tion and making Islam permeate its customs.

In the reign of Mawlay al-Hasan, the makhzan con¬
sisted of the grand vizier, the wazir al-bahr , minister of
foreign affairs, the ^allaf— afterwards called minister
of war—, the amin al-umand 3 .—afterwards minister of
finance—, the katib al-shikayat, secretary for com¬
plaints, who became minister of justice by combining
his duties with that of the kadi ’ l-kudat , Kadi of Kadis.
These high officials had the offices ( banxka , pi. band 3 ik )
in the mashwar at the Palace.

The offices were under the galleries which were
built round a large courtyard. At the top of the
mashwar was the office of the grand vizier, beside
which was that of the ka 5 id al-mashwar, a kind of cap¬
tain of the guard, who also made presentations to the
sultan. The ka^id al-mashwar was in command of the
police of the mashwar and he had under his command
the troops of the gish, mashwariyya, masakhriyya as well
as all the bodies of servants outside the palace (hanati,
sing. hanta)\ the mawla (mul ) al-ruwa, grand-master of
the stables, and the fra \giyya, who had charge of the
sultan’s encampments (afrag [q.v. ]).

In addition to these banikas of the mashwar, mention
must be made of an individual who could play a more
considerable part in the government than his actual
office would lead one to expect. This is the hadfib
[<?. v. ], whose banika was situated between the mashwar
and the palace proper; he had charge of the interior
arrangements of the sultan’s household. Under his
orders were the various groups of domestic servants
(hanati al-dakhliyyin), mwalin al-udu 3 , who looked after
the washing arrangements, mwalin al-frash , who at¬
tended to the beds, etc.; he also commanded the
eunuchs and even was responsible for the discipline of
the sultan’s women, through the c arfas or mistresses
of the palace. The hadjib is often called grand
chamberlain, although he does not exactly correspond
to this office.

Around these officers gravitated a world of
secretaries of different ranks, of officers of the gish,
then the ka Hd al-raha , who was in theory in command
of 500 horsemen, the ka \d al-mi^a, who commanded

136

MAKHZAN

100, down to a simple mukaddam. All this horde of of¬
ficials, badly paid when paid at all, lived on the coun¬
try as it could, trafficking shamelessly in the influence
which it had or was thought to have and in the
prestige it gained from belonging to the court,
whether closely or remotely.

In this organisation it may be noticed that the
authority of the makhzan properly so-called, i.e. of a
lay power, continually increased at the expense of the
religious power by a series of changes. No doubt the
basis continued to be religious, but the application of
power became less and less so and the civil jurisdiction
of the ka and of the makhzan more and more took
the place of the administration of the shar c by the
kadis, which finally became restricted to questions of
personal law and landed property [see mahkama.
4. x].

The sultan’s authority was represented in the towns
and in the tribes by the ka ^ids, appointed by the grand
vizier and by the muhtasibs, who supervised and con¬
trolled the gilds, fixed the price of articles of food and
inspected weights and measures and coins [see hisbaJ.

The tax of the nd^iba, which represented the old
kharady , was levied on the non-^ijA tribes by the ka *ids
of these tribes. It was one of the principal causes of
abuses; the amount of this tax was never fixed and the
sums which came from it were in reality divided
among the ka^ids, the secretaries of the makhzan and
the vizier without the sultan or the public treasury get¬
ting any benefit from it.

The grand vizier also appointed the nadir ( < ndzir)
officials who, from the reign of Mawlay c Abd al-
Rahman, had been attached to the local nazirs of the
ahbas of the mosques and sanctuaries. The financial
staff, umana 3 , who controlled the customs, the posses¬
sions of the makhzan ( al-amlak ), the mustajaddt (market-
dues and tolls, etc., called mukus, pi. of maks ), the con¬
troller of the bayt al-mdl (popularly abu * l-mawarith ), i.e.
the official who intervened to collect the share of the
Muslim community from estates of deceased persons
and who also acted as curator of intestate estates (wakil
al-ghuyyab). All these officers were appointed by the
amtn al-umana 5 , who was later known as the minister
of finance.

This organisation was completely centralised, i.e.
its only object was to bring all the resources of the
country into the coffers of the state and of its agents;
but no provision was made for utilising these
resources in the public interest. No budget was drawn
up, no public works, no railways, no navy, no com¬
merce and no post was provided for. Military ex¬
penses were confined to the maintenance of a
regiment commanded by an English officer, of a
French mission of military instruction, of a factory of
arms at Fas directed by Italian officers and of the
building at Rabat of a fort by a German engineer.
These were really rather diplomatic concessions to the
powers interested than a regular military organisa¬
tion. In the spirit of the makhzan , the defence of the
territory was to be the task of the Berber tribes,
carefully maintained out of all contact with Europeans
behind the elaborate display maintained by the court.

In the event of war, the makhzan , faithful to its
system of equal favour, purchased arms and muni¬
tions from the different powers and kept them in the
Makina of Fas in order to be able, when necessity
arose, to distribute them to the tribes when proclaim¬
ing a holy war.

The expenses of the education service were limited
to the very modest allowances granted to the c ulama 3
of al-Karawiyyin [q.v.]. These allowances were levied
from the ahbas and augmented by the gifts made by
the sultan on the occasion of feasts (sila).

Nothing was done for public health, and one could
not give the name of hospitals to the few maristans to
be found in certain towns, where a few miserable
creatures lived in filth, receiving from the ahbas and
the charity of the public barely enough to prevent
them dying of hunger and without, of course, receiv¬
ing any medical assistance.

On the repeated representation of the Powers, the
sultan had ultimately delegated his powers to the
members of the diplomatic corps in Tangier, which
had been able to form a public health committee in
order to be able to refuse admission if necessary to in¬
fected vessels. In spite of its defects, the makhzan con¬
stituted a real force; it formed a solid bloc in the centre
of surrounding anarchy which it was interested in
maintaining, in order to be able to exploit it more
easily on the one hand and on the other to prevent the
preservation in the country of any united order which
might become a danger to it.

In brief, we may say that the makhzan in Morocco
was an instrument of arbitrary government, which
worked quite well in the social disorder of the country,
and thanks to this disorder, we may add, it worked for
its own profit and was in a way like a foreign element
in a conquered country. It was a regular caste with its
own traditions, way of living, of dressing, of fur¬
nishing, of feeding, with its own language, al-lugha al-
makhzaniyya , which is a correct Arabic intermediate
between the literary and the spoken Arabic, composed
of official formulae, regular cliches, courteous, con¬
cise and binding to nothing.

This makhzan, which was sufficient in the old order
of things which it had itself contributed to create and
maintain, was forced, if it was not to disappear at
once, to undergo fundamental modifications from the
moment this state of things had rendered necessary
the establishment of a protectorate. The vizierate of
foreign affairs and that of war were then handed over
to the Resident-General, and that of finance to the
Director-General of Finance, who administered the
revenue of the empire like those of a regularly-
organised state. The director-generalships of
agriculture and education, which were regular
ministries, were held by French officials, as were the
management of the postal service, telegraph and
telephone, and the board of health.

Two new vizierates had been created, that of the
regal domains {al-amlak) and that of the ahbas. The
vizierate of the amldk was soon suppressed and the do¬
mains were henceforward administered by a branch of
the finance department. The vizierate of the ahbas was
under that of the Shanfian affairs. This organisation
represented the principle of protectorate in the
Moroccan government itself, in order to realise “the
organisation of a reformed Shanfian makhzan ” in
keeping with the treaty. (E. Michaux-Bellaire*)
Bibliography. 1. On the evolution of the
meaning of the word makhzan: E. Levi-
Provengal, Documents inedits d'histoire almohade, Paris
1928, Arabic text, 71 and glossary, and esp. Dozy,
Supplement , s.v. kh.z.n , and the bibl. cited there. For
the sense of the term in Algeria, see F. Pharaon,
Notes sur les tribus de la Subdivision de Medea , in RA
(1856-7), 393; in ibid. (1873), 196 ff.; N. Robin,
Note sur l'organisation militaire et administrative des
Turcs dans la Grande Kabylie, in ibid. (1873), 196 ff.;
E. Mangin, Notes sur Uhistoire de Laghouat, in ibid.
(1895), 5 ff., 109 ff.

2. On the history of this institution: (a)
Arabic works: Kitdb al-Baydak, in Levi-Provengal,
op. cit .; Ibn Abl Zar c , Kirtds, lith. Fas 1305; Ibn
Battuta, Rihla; Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima; IfranT,
Nuzhat al-hadi, Arabic text, lith. Fas 1307, tr. O.

MAKHZAN — MAKHZUM

137

Houdas, Paris 1889; Zayyani, al-Turdyumdn al-
mu c rib, extract published and tr. Houdas, Le Maroc
de 1631 a 1812, Paris 1886; Nasirl, Kitdb al-Istiksd,
Cairo 1312/1894, 4 vols. (tr. of vol. i. by A.
Graulle, G. S. Colin and Ismael Hamet, in AM,
xxx, xxxi, xxxii, tr. of vol. iv. by Fumey, in AM,
ix and x); Akansus, al-Djaysh al- c aramram, lith. Fas
1336/1918; al-Hulal al-bahiyya ji muluk al-dawla
al- c alawiyya, anonymous ms. of the beginning of the
20th century; E. Fumey, Choix de correspondances
marocaines, Paris 1903; M. Nehlil, Lettres cherijiennes,
Paris 1915.

(b) European works: Diego de Torres, Relation de
Vorigine et Succez des Cherijs , Paris 1637, 315-20;
Sieur Mouette, Relation de captivite and Histoire des
conquetes de Mouley Archy, both Paris 1682, passim;
Marmol, VAjrique, tr. Paris 1667, passim; Pidou de
St. Olon, Estat present de /’empire de Maroc, Paris
1694, 58 ff. and 153 ff.; P. Dominique Busnot,
Histoire du regne de Mouley Ismael, Rouen 1714,
35-62; P. P. Jean de la Faye, Denis Mackar, etc.,
Relations du voyage pour la redemption des captifs aux
rouames de Maroc et d’Alger, Paris 1726, 146 ff.;
Braithwaite, Histoire des revolutions de l' Empire de
Maroc, French tr., Amsterdam 1731, 214; Georg
Host, Ejter retninger om Marokos , Copenhagen 1779,
158-71; I. S. de Chenier, Recherches historiques sur les
Maures et histoire de /’empire de Maroc, Paris 1787, iii,
161-70, 226-44, 391-4, 480-1; Voyages d'Alt Bey et
Abbassi, Paris 1814, i, passim; Jacopo Graberg di
Hemso, Specchio geograjico e statistico dell ’ Empero di
Morocco, Genoa 1834, 194-217; Garcin de Tassy,
Memoire sur les noms propres et les titres musulmans,
Paris 1878, 38-41; Dr. Oskar Lenz, Die Machaznyah
in Marokko , in Deutsche Rundschau fur Geogr. (1882);
J. Erckmann, Le Maroc moderne, Paris 1885; H. de
la Martiniere, Le Sultan du Maroc et son Gouvernement ,
in Rev. fr. de l'Et. et des Col. (1885), ii, 282-5; L. de
Campou, Un empire qui croule, Paris 1886; Ch. de
Foucauld, Reconnaissance au Maroc, Paris 1888,
passim; de Campou, Le Sultan Mouley, Hacen et le
Makhzen Marocain, Paris 1888; E. Reclus, Geographie
universelle, xi, Paris 1890; Leo Africanus, Description
de VAjrique, passim ; Rouard de Card, Les traites entre
la France et le Maroc, Paris 1898; Budgett Meakin,
The Moorish empire, New York 1899, 197-236; E.
Aubin, Le Maroc d'aujourd’hui, Paris 1904, 172-256;
Dr. Fr. Weisgerber, Trois mois de campagne au Maroc,
Paris 1904; G. Veyre, Au Maroc, Dans /’intimite du
Sultan, Paris ca. 1905; H. de Castries, Sources inedites
de Chistoire du Maroc, Paris 1905 ff., passim; G.
Wolfrom, Le Maroc, ce qu il faut en connaitre, Paris
1906; L. Massignon, Le Maroc dans les premieres an-
nees du 16 me siecle. Tableau geographique d'apres Leon
Africain, Algiers 1906, 172-84; Chevrillon, Un
crepuscule d y Islam, Paris 1906, 190-2; Cte. Conrad
de Buisseret, A la Cour de Fez, Brussels 1907, 40-8;
G. Jeannot. Etude sociale, politique et economique sur le
Maroc, Dijon 1907, 185-268; H. Gaillard and Ed.
Michaux-Bellaire, L’ administration au Maroc—Le
Makhzen—Etendue et limites de son pouvoir, Tangier
1909; Michaux-Bellaire, L’ administration au Maroc,
in Bull, de la Societe de Geographie d’Alger et de /’Ajrique
du Nord, Algiers 1909; J. Becker, Historia de Mar-
ruecos, Madrid 1915, passim; A. Bernard, Le Maroc*,
Paris 1915.

Articles in journals: Salmon, Uadministra¬
tion marocaine a Tanger, in AM, i, 1 ff.; Michaux-
Bellaire, Les impots marocains, in ibid. , i, 56 ff.;
idem, Essai sur Vhistoire politique du Nord marocain, in
ibid., ii, 1-99; X. Lecureuil, Histonque des douanes au
Maroc, in ibid., xv, 33 ff.; A. Peretie, Le Rais El

Khadir Ghailan, in ibid., xviii, 1-187; Michaux-
Bellaire, Un rouage du gouvernement marocain, la Bem-
qat ech-chikayat de Moulay Abd el-Hajid, in RMM, v,
242-74; idem, Au palais du Sultan Marocain, in ibid.,
v, 646-62; L'Islam et Vetat marocain, in ibid., viii;
idem, Uorganisme marocain, in ibid. , ix, 1-43; A. le
Chatelier, Lettre a un Conseiller d' Etat, in ibid., xii,
87-91; idem, Enquete sur les corporations musulmanes,
l'influence du Makhzen, in ibid., lviii, 104-7; Le voyage
du Sultan, in Bulletin du Comite de /’Ajrique jranfaise
(1902), 420; Rene Manduit, Le Makhzen marocain,
in ibid. (1903), Suppl. 293-304; General Der-
recagaix, La crise marocaine, in ibid. (1904), 4; idem,
Devolution du Makhzen, in ibid., 50; Commandant
Ferry, La reorganisation marocaine, in ibid. (1905),
517-28; Le Sultan et la Cour , in ibid. (1906), 335; Le
Gouvernement marocain, in ibid. (1907), 102; Le Sultan
du Sud, in ibid., 367; Le deplacement de la Cour de Fez,
in ibid., 368; E. Doutte, Les causes de la chute dlun
Sultan, la Royaute marocaine, in ibid. (1909), 185 ff.

(M. Buret)

MA KH ZUM. Banu, a clan of Kuraysh [ q.v .]
which achieved a prominent position in pre-Islamic
Mecca. Although in the course of the 7th century
A.D. the clans of c Abd Shams and Hashim [q.v. ] went
on to achieve greater prominence, a role of some im¬
portance was played in early Islamic history by
Makhzumls. They were for the most part descendants
of al-Mughira b. c Abd Allah b. c Umar b. Makhzum,
in whom the bayt of Makhzum reposed (al-Mus c ab al-
Zubayri, Nasab Kuraysh, ed. Levi-Proven^al, 300; al-
Baladhuri, Ansdb al-ashrdf, Siileymaniye ms. ii, 523;
Ibn Hazm, Diamhara. ed. Harun, 144), rather than
members of the cadet branches of the clan associated
with his nineteen (according to Ibn al-Kalbi,
Diamhara. ed. Caskel, table 23) or more brothers and
cousins.

The extent of the power and influence of Makhzum
in Mecca during the 6th century A.D. cannot be
established with any certainty; all we know is that
Muslim accounts of the two major Kurashi
alignments there at that time—the Mutayyabun and
the Ahlaf—place Makhzum in the latter grouping,
along with the clans of c Abd al-Dar, Sahm, Djumah
and c AdI (Watt, Mecca, 5). Near the end of the cen¬
tury, however, at about the time of the formation of
the Hilf al-Fudul [q.v.) as a third grouping at Mecca
(which took c Adr away from the Ahlaf), the
Makhzum! leader Hisham b. al-Mughira came to oc¬
cupy a prominent position in Meccan political life. He
was “the sayyid of Kuraysh in his time”; (Ibn
Durayd, al-Ishtikak , ed. Harun (following
Wiistenfeld’s pagination, 92); Mughira had inherited
the siydda, and the Banu Hisham were the foremost of
the Banu TMu gh lra (Ibn Durayd, 87); “in the
djahiliyya the genealogy of Kuraysh was linked with
that of Hisham’’ ( nusibat Kuraysh ild Hisham ji 7-
Djahiliyya: Ibn Durayd, 94); when Hisham died, the
Meccans were called on to witness the funeral of their
lord (rabb: Ibn Durayd, 63); and it is reported that
Kuraysh used a dating system in which Hisham’s
death was taken as the starting point (al-Mus c ab, 301;
Ibn Habib, al-Munammak, ed. Farik, 412; al-
Baladhuri, Ansdb, ms., ii, 524; al-Mubarrad, al-
Kdmil, ed. Wright, 313; Aghdni 1 , xv, 11 (where a se¬
cond report says, less credibly, that the death of [his
brother] al-Walid b. al-Mu gh ira was taken as the star¬
ting point). The economic interests of Makhzum at
this time appear to have been focussed on trade in the
Yemen and Ethiopia, where they constituted the
predominating Meccan presence; in that connection,
the sources name Hisham, his brother al-Walid, and

138

MAKHZUM

Descendants of al-Mughira b. c Abd Allah b. ''Umar b. Makhzum

al-Mughira

8 or 9 Hisham

other sons

r r -

al- c Asi Abu Djahl al-Harith c Abd Allah Hantama Hisham Khalid al-Muhadjir

Ismaril c Abd al- al-Muhadjir
Rahman

al-Harith Abu al- Hisham Khalid

Bakr MughTra

Ibrahim Muhammad Umm Hisham

Khalid c Ikrima c Abd al- al- c Umar
1 Rahman Harith

two more of the sons of al-Mughira, together with
four of their sons (P. Crone, Meccan trade (forthcom¬
ing), ch. v).

The emergence of Muhammad as Prophet in the se¬
cond decade of the 7th century A.D. met with
strenuous opposition on the part of the Makhzum!
leader of the time, Abu Djahl b. Hisham b. al-
Mughira [q.v. ); he it was who in particular brought
into effect the boycott of the Banu Hashim in ca.
616-18 (Watt, Mecca , 117 ff.). In addition, his uncle,
the hakam [q.v.] (Ibn Habib, 460; al-Fasi, ed.
Wiistenfeld, in Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, ii, 143)
al-Walrd b. al-Mughira. was one of the “deriders”
(al-mustahzU un) against whom verses in the Meccan
suras of the Kurian are said to have been directed
(Mu^arridj al-Sadusi, Hadhf min nasab Kuraysh, ed. al-
Munadjdjid, 68; Ibn Hisham, 272; Ibn Habib, 485-6;
Ibn Durayd, 60-1, 94). But the tables were turned on
Makhzum by the Prophet shortly after the hidjra at the
battle of Badr [q.v.], where the Meccan force which
went to the assistance of the threatened caravan was
led by Abu Djahl. The Makhzum! losses were heavy:
seven or eight of al-Mughira’s twenty-five or so
grandsons were killed on the Meccan side at Badr
(among them Abu Djahl himself), together with a
similar number and proportion of the same genera¬
tion of the cadet branches of Makhzum. and others
were taken captive (for details, see Ibn al-Kalbi, tables
22-3 and Register; al-Mus c ab, 299-346; Watt, Mecca,
176-7); the three Makhzumis who fought on the
Prophet’s side at Badr, viz. al-Arkam b. c Abd Manaf,
Abu Salama b. < Abd al-Asad, and Shammas b.
c Uthman, were all from the cadet branches of
Makhzum. not from the Banu '1-Mughira
(Mu^arridj, 73-4; Watt, Mecca, 176, and cf. 93).
Losses of an order such as this inevitably weakened
the position of Makhzum at Mecca, and in particular
vis-a-vis Abu Sufyan \q. v. ] and c Abd Shams. It was
not until shortly before the Prophet’s conquest of
Mecca in late 8/January 630 that c Ikrima b. Abi Djahl
began to exert influence there as the new Makhzum!
leader—one who was strongly opposed to entering in¬
to negotiations with the Prophet (Watt, Medina, 58,
62, 64); but by that stage more Makhzumis were
among those who had gone over to the Prophet, in¬
cluding Khalid b. al-Walid b. al-Mughira [q.o.^ who
had earlier played a vigorous part in the Meccan
military opposition to him. Khalid participated in the
conquest of Mecca; and c Ikrima fled to the Yemen.

Following the conquest of Mecca, Makhzum were
incorporated into the new order. Two of their
number, al-Harith b. Hisham b. al-Mughira and
Sa c id b. Yarbu c , were among “those whose hearts
were reconciled” ( al-mu^allafa kulubuhum: Watt,
Medina, 74), presumably in their capacity as leaders of
the Banu ’l-Mughira and the cadet branches respec¬
tively (Mu 3 arridj, 74, also names a second person
from the cadet branches in this connection). c Ikrima
received a pardon, returned from the Yemen, played
a conspicuous part in the suppression of the ridda [q.v.]
in 11/632-3 (see al-Tabari, index; the Yemen was
among the places to which this activity took him, but
Mu^arridj seems to be alone in holding the view (69)
that Abu Bakr appointed him over the Yemen), and
was subsequently mortally wounded in battle against
the Byzantines in Syria (at either al-Adjnadayn [q.v.]
or al-Yarmuk [q.v.]: al-Mus c ab, 303, 310; Ibn Sa c d,
v, 329; Ibn Durayd, 93; al-Baladhuri. Ansab, ms., ii,
526; al-Tabari, i, 2100-1, iii, 2307). The continuing
Makhzum! link with the Yemen also becomes ap¬
parent with the appointments there of al-Muhadjir b.
Abi Umayya b. al-Mughira and c Abd Allah b. Abi
Rabi c a b. al-Mughira; there is disagreement in the
sources about points of detail, but it would seem that
al-Muhadjir was appointed as governor of San c a 3 by
the Prophet in 10/631 but did not go there, was reap¬
pointed by Abu Bakr, went there, and was still there
at the time of Abu Bakr’s death in 13/634 (Mu c arridj,
71; Ibn Durayd, 62, who incorrectly calls him al-
Muhadjir b. c Abd Allah b. Abi Umayya; al-Tabari, i,
1750, 2013, 2135, iii, 2357). Even more confused are
the reports relating to c Abd Allah b. Abi Rabi c a, who
is one of those named in the earlier context of
Makhzum! trade in the Yemen. He was appointed
over al-Djanad and its mikhlafs by the Prophet
{Agham 1 , i, 32), over all or part of the Yemen by Abu
Bakr (al-Baladhuri. Ansab , ms., ii, 531), and over the
Yemen by c Umar (al-Mus c ab, 317; Ibn Sa c d, v, 328,
Khalifa b. Khavvat. Ta^nkh, ed. Zakkar, 154; Ibn
Hazm, 146); he was governor of al-Djanad at the time
of Tmar’s death (al-Tabari, i, 2798; AghanP, i, 32)
in 23/644 and at the time of the death of c Uthman (al-
Tabari, i, 3057 Add.) in 35/656.

Two other Makhzumis who were particularly active
in this period were Khalid b. al-Walid [q.v. ) and al-
Harith b. Hisham. Khalid overcame the resistance of
al-Musaylima [q.v.] in the Yamama and subsequently
played a leading role in the conquest of Syria. Al-

MAKHZUM

139

Harith also took part in the conquest of Syria and
later migrated there with 70 of his ahl bayt, apparently
because of his displeasure at being allocated by c Umar
a stipend which reflected the tardiness of his conver¬
sion; he and all but four (or two) of those with him
perished, variously in battle and of plague (al-
Mus c ab, 302; al-Tabari, i, 2411-12, 2516, 2524). His
surviving son c Abd al-Rahman was brought to
Medina by c Umar, who awarded him an allocation of
land (khitta [q.v .]) there (al-Mus c ab, 303). In this con¬
nection, it can be noted not only that c Umar’s mother
was from the Banu ’l-Mughlra (Hantama bint
Hashim b. al-Mu gh lra: al-Mus c ab, 301, 347; al-
Baladhurl. Ansab, ms., ii, 531; al-Tabari, i, 2728; al-
Mas c udl, Murudi, iv, 192 = § 1525; Ibn Hazm, 144.
Al-Mas c udi says that she was black, from which Lam-
mens {Etudes, 8 n.) inferred that she was “esclave des
Mabzoumites”), but also that one of his wives, Umm
Hakim, was a daughter of al-Harith b. Hisham (al-
Mus c ab, 349-50, cf. 302).

The line of c Abd al-Rahman b. al-Harith b.
Hisham was to be of particular importance within the
large and influential Hisham branch of the Banu T
Mughlra. c Abd al-Rahman fathered thirteen or four¬
teen sons (five or six of them by Fakhita bint c Utba of
c Amir b. Lu^ayy) and eighteen daughters; al-Mus c ab
al-Zubayrl, writing in the first half of the 9th century
A.D. remarks (419) on the large numbers of descen¬
dants of c Abd al-Rahman and Fakhita in his own
time. Some idea of 7th century MakhzumI connec¬
tions can be gained not only from the information that
c Abd al-Rahman’s own wives included a daughter of
al-Zubayr (who was herself a granddaughter of Abu
Bakr) and a daughter of c Uthman (al-Mus c ab, 111,
307-8; al-Baladhurl, Ansab, ms., ii, 526), but also
from data relating to twenty-five marriages (all of
them within Kuraysh) of his daughters: ten of these
were with Makhzumls (all of them from the Banu ’1-
Mughlra), eight of them were with Umayyads (in¬
cluding Mu c awiya, although that was a childless
union terminated by divorce), and five were with
Zubayrids ( c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr in two instances);
the marriage settlement of 40,000 dinars paid by c Abd
al-Malik’s uncle, Yahya b. al-Hakam in respect of
one of these ladies, while it may not have been typical,
does at least give us an indication of how large such
a settlement could be (al-Mus c ab, 306-8). In the
following generation, the ten recorded marriages in¬
volving the six daughters of al-Mughlra b. c Abd al-
Rahman are also instructive: one with a MakhzumI
(an ibn c amm), three with Marwanids (including one of
c Abd al-Malik’s sons) and five with other Kurashis
(descendants of Abu Bakr, c Umar, c Uthman,
al- c Abbas and Talha respectively); the tenth of these
marriages, that of Umm al-Banln bint al-Mughlra b.
c Abd al-Rahman to al-Hadjdjadj b. Yusuf [q.v. ] (al-
Mus c ab, 310), represents the earliest indication of a
Makhzumiyya being given in marriage to a non-
Kurashl (the two other examples of this phenomenon
given by al-Mus c ab (309, 310) involve sons of
al-Hadjdjadj).

A second branch of the Banu TMughlra to which
attention should be paid is that of al-Walld b. al-
Mughlra, particularly in the lines of his sons Khalid,
Hisham and al-Walld. The distinction of Khalid’s
line lies above all in his own accomplishments and
those of his son c Abd al-Rahman [q.v.], who was
governor of Hims and the Djazlra for Mu c awiya and
achieved renown as the leader of campaigns against
the Byzantines. Al-Mus c ab states quite categorically
that the line came to an end in the time of (their
agnate relative) Ayyub b. Salama (328), i.e. by the

end of the Umayyad period or conceivably just after;
all forty or so of Khalid’s male descendants died in a
plague in Syria (Ibn Hazm, 148). The line of Hisham
b. al-Walld is of interest because his grandson,
Hisham b. Isma c Il, in addition to being c Abd al-
Malik’s governor of Medina, was also the father of
c Abd al-Malik’s wife Umm Hisham (Mu 3 arridj, 71;
al-Mus c ab, 328; al-Baladhurl, Ansab , ms., ii, 541; Ibn
Hazm, 148 (Umm Hashim); Ibn Hazm, Ummahat al-
khulafa > , ed. al-Munadjdjid, 17: her name was either
c A 3 isHa or Fatima). When her son Hisham became
caliph, he appointed his maternal uncles Ibrahim and
Muhammad, the sons of Hisham b. Isma c Il, to terms
of office as governors of Medina; they later ran foul
of his successor, al-Walld b. Yazld, and were tortured
to death on his instructions by the governor of c Irak,
Yusuf b. c Umar [q.v. ] (al-Mus c ab, 329; al-Baladhurl.
Ansab, ms., ii, 541 (Muhammad was governor of
Mecca and then of Medina)). As far as the line of al-
Walld b. al-Walld is concerned, its interest lies
primarily in the fact that it produced Umm Salama
bint Ya c kub b. Salama, who married the future first
c Abbasid caliph, Abu ’l- c Abbas; their daughter Rayta
married the caliph al-Mahdl and bore him two sons
(Mu 5 arridj, 72; al-Mus c ab, 330; al-Baladhurl. Ansab ,

iii, ed. al-Durl, 161, 180; Ibn Hazm, 148).

Although there were some Makhzumls in Syria (at

least until Khalid’s line became extinct) and some in
c Irak (mainly Basra) in the course of the Umayyad
period, the main concentration of Makhzum was in
the Hidjaz, at Mecca and Medina. The Makhzum of
Medina appear to have come into conflict with
c Uthman on account of his maltreatment of the Com¬
panion c Ammar b. Yasir [q.v.] (al-Mas c udl, Murua!J_,

iv, 266, 299 = §§ 1591, 1602), who was a maw la of
theirs as a result of Abu Hudhayfa b. al-Mughlra’s
manumission of him (Ibn Habib, 312; Ibn Sa c d, iii/1,
176; al-Tabari, iii, 2388). In the events following the
murder of c Uthman, some MakhzumI support for
Talha [q.v.] and al-Zubayr [q.v.] is indicated by the
MakhzumI casualities (Khalifa, 209) at the battle of
the Camel (al-Djamal [^.i».]). In the ensuing confron¬
tation between c AlI and Mu c awiya, Mu c awiya had
the support of c Abd al-Rahman b. Khalid, who
distinguished himself at the battle of Siffin [q.v.],
where he bore the standard of the Syrian army (Lam-
mens, Etudes, 5); and the Makhzum of the Hidjaz may
be presumed to have preferred Mu c awiya to c AlI. The
presence on c AlI’s side of Dja c da b. Hubayra, who
was from one of the cadet branches of Makhzum. is
explained by the identities of his mother and his wife:
his mother was a daughter of Abu Talib and his wife
was a daughter of c AlI (Mu 5 arridj, 75; al-Mus c ab, 39,
45, 344, 345; Ibn Hazm, 141). Less easy to explain is
the pro-Hashimite stance of Khalid’s son al-
Muhadjir, who was killed on c All’s side at Siffin (Ibn
Habib, 450; al-Baladhurl. Ansab, ms., ii, 543;
Aghani \ xv, 13).

If we are to judge by the pattern emerging from the
marriages reported by al-Mus c ab al-Zubayrl,
however, it would seem that Mu c awiya’s ultimate vic¬
tory was not particularly to the advantage of
Makhzum. Their links by marriage were stronger
with the Zubayrids and the descendants of c Uthman
and al-Hakam than with the Sufyanids. Moreover,
relations between Mu c awiya and Makhzum
deteriorated when c Abd al-Rahman b. Khalid was (at
least allegedly) poisoned in 46/666 by Mu c awiya’s
physician Ibn Uthal (reportedly on account of his
growing popularity as potential successor to
Mu c awiya) and Ibn Uthal himself was killed in
vengeance by c Abd al-Rahman’s nephew Kh alid b.

140

MAKHZUM — al-MAKHZUMI

al-Muhadjir (al-Mus c ab, 327; Ibn Habib, 449 ff.; al-
Baladhuri. Ansab , ms., ii, 542; A g hant 1 . xv, 13; al-
Tabari (ii, 82-3) seems to be alone in attributing the
murder of Ibn Uthal to Khalid b. c Abd al-Rahman—
the other sources know of no son of c Abd al-Rahman’s
by that name. Cf. Lammens, Etudes 7-10). It is
noticeable that there were no Makhzumi governors of
Mecca from 48/668 until the end of Mu c awiya’s
caliphate in 60/680, although Khalid b. al- c Asi b.
Hisham had hitherto held that post on several occa¬
sions (Ibn Sa c d, v, 330; al-Fasi, 161-6). Yazld b.
Mu c awiya did appoint Khalid’s son, the poet al-
Harith b. Khalid. to the post (al-Mus c ab, 313, 390;
al-Baladhuri. Ansab , ms., ii, 531; Ibn Hazm, 146; al-
Fasi, 166), but it was also a Makhzumi ( c Abd Allah
b. Abi c Amr b. Hafs b. al-Mughira) who was the first
to forswear allegiance to Yazid (al-Mus c ab, 332; al-
Baladhuri, Ansab , ms., ii, 539; Ibn Hazm, 149). In
the ensuing second civil war, Makhzum were pro-
Zubayrid with the single exception of al-Harith b.
Khalid, who was pro-Marwanid (AghanP , iii, 102);
and they were accordingly represented among the
governors appointed by Ibn al-Zubayr (al-Harith al-
Kuba c b. c Abd Allah b. Abi Rabi c a b. al-Mughira at
Ba?ra; and c Abd Allah al-Azrak b. c Abd al-Rahman
b. al-Walid b. c Abd Shams b. al-Mughira at al-
Djanad (al-Mu$ c ab, 332)).

The defeat of the Zubayrids obviously affected the
interests of Makhzum adversely, and c Abd al-Malik
saw the wisdom of being magnanimous in victory by
drawing them closer to him. In addition to reinstating
al-Harith b. Khalid as governor of Mecca, he ap¬
pointed the Makhzumi Hisham b. Isma c il (from
Banu ’1-Walid b. al-Mughira) as governor of Medina
and married his daughter; a second Makhzumiyya
(Umm al-Mughira bint al-Mughira b. Khalid b.
al- c Asi b. Hisham) is also identified as having been
one of c Abd al-Malik’s wives (al-Mu§ c ab, 165; al-
Mughira b. Khalid is not otherwise known; al-Harith
b. Khalid would make perfect sense); and the blind
religious scholar, Abu Bakr b. c Abd al-Rahman b. al-
Harith b. Hisham b. al-Mughira (d. in or ca.
93/711-12), whose predilection for ritual prayer,
fasting and asceticism earned him the sobriquet “the
monk” ( rahib ) of Kuraysh”, enjoyed the caliph’s
special favour (kana dha manzila min c Abd al-Malik: al-
Mu§ c ab, 304; Ibn Sa c d, v, 151; al-Baladhuri. Ansab,
ms., ii, 527-8; Ibn Hadjar, Tahdhib , xii, 31). There is
not, however, any evidence of similar caliphal atten¬
tion having been paid to Makhzum by c Abd al-
Malik’s immediate successors. Al-Walid dismissed
Hisham b. Isma c il from his post at Medina, and the
sources tell us little of Makhzum thereafter until the
caliph Hisham appointed his maternal uncles as
governors of Medina in the 720s to 740s; their demise
at the hands of Yusuf b. c Umar shortly preceded the
end of the Umayyad caliphate.

It is apparent that, as the Hidjaz became more and
more a political backwater after the defeat of the
Zubayrids, the role of Makhzum became increasingly
restricted to one of being merely local gentry. In¬
dividual Makhzumis crop up in the sources mainly in
the context of religious learning and the application of
Islamic law: In addition to Abu Bakr b. c Abd al-
Rahman (see above), special mention should be made
of the fakih Sa c id b. al-Musayyab [q-v.], who was from
one of the cadet branches of Makhzum: a list of
Makhzumis who transmitted hadith is given by al-
Tabari (iii, 2383-8); c Abd al- c Aziz b. c Abd al-
Muttalib (from one of the cadet branches) served as
kadi of Medina in the time of the caliphs al-Man§ur
and al-Mahdi (al-Mus c ab, 341. Ibn Hazm, 142, says

Mecca and Medina in the time of al-Mansur and al-
Hadi), Muhammad al-Awka§ b. c Abd al-Rahman
(from the Banu Hisham b. al-Mughira) served as kadi
of Mecca in the time of al-Mahdi (al-Mus c ab, 315;
Ibn Hazm, 146; al-Baladhuri. Ansab, ms., ii, 531 says
in the time of Abu Dja c far). and Hisham b. c Abd al-
Malik al-Asghar (from the Banu Hisham b. al-
Mughira) served as ka$i of Medina in the time of the
caliph Harun al-Rashid (al-Mus c ab, 309; Ibn Hazm,
145). There are in addition indications that in the ear¬
ly c Abbasid period Makhzumi links with c Alids,
notably Hasanids, became closer (al-Mu§ c ab, 52-3,
56, 63); in particular, the mother of Idris b. c Abd
Allah [q v.], who founded the Idrisid dynasty in the
Maghrib at the end of the 8th century A.D., was
c Atika bint c Abd al-Malik b. al-Harith b. Khalid b.
al- c Asi (from the Banu Hisham b. al-Mughira: al-
Mus c ab, 54, 315).

The bulk of the wealth and assets of Makhzum may
be presumed to have been in the Hidjaz: they owned
much land and property in and around Mecca (al-
Azraki, ed. Wustenfeld, in Die Chroniken der Stadt
Mekka, i, 468-72 for details), as well as the khitta at
Medina awarded by c Umar to c Abd al-Rahman b. al-
Harith b. Hisham; and the report that c Abd al-
Rahman’s son al-Mughira endowed an estate as a
wakj [q.v.\ for the provision of food to pilgrims at
Mina [q. v. ] (al-Mus c ab, 305-6) does prompt the ques¬
tion of whether Makhzumis may have had a stake in
the business of provisioning more generally. There is
not a great deal of evidence of Makhzumi economic
involvement elsewhere: c Amr b. Hurayth, who was
from one of the cadet branches, prospered greatly in
al-Kufa from early on (al-Mu§ c ab, 333; Ibn Durayd,
61); and Muhammad b. c Umar b. c Abd al-Rahman
b. al-Harith, who took the head of the rebel Yazid b.
al-Muhallab [?.^.] to the caliph Yazid b. c Abd al-
Malik, was rewarded for his pains with the rebel’s ddr
(sc. at al-Ba§ra) and some of his estates (al-Baladhuri.
Ansab, ms., ii, 528). Insufficient evidence also
prevents much being said about the nature of
Makhzumi links with the Yemen after c Abd Allah b.
Abi Rabi c a: the sole subsequent Makhzumi appointee
there was Ibn al-Zubayr’s governor of al-Djanad (see
.above); the land in the Yemen owned by c Abd Allah
b. Abi Rabi c a (al-Tabari, i, 2757) may have stayed in
the family; and his son, the poet c Umar (b. c Abd
Allah) b. Abi Rabi c a [q-v.], had maternal relatives
( akhwal) there {Aghant, i, 49). As for Ethiopia, it re¬
mains to be ascertained whether there was any con¬
tinuum between pre-Islamic Makhzumi activities
there and the Makhzumi sultanate of Shoa, which rul¬
ed from the last decade for the ninth century A.D. un¬
til 1285 (Cambridge History of Africa, iii, 106, 140).

Bibliography: In addition to the items given in
the article, see Ibn Abi ’1-Hadid, Sharh Nahdy al-
balagha, ed. Ibrahim, xviii, 285-309; Schwarz, Der
Diwan des c Umar ibn Abi Rebi c a, 4 (Schluss-) Heft,
Leipzig 1909, 1-33, esp. 9-12 (M. Hinds)

al-MA KH ZUMI. Abu ’l-Hasan c Ali b.
c Uthman al-KurashI, author of an important,
long-forgotten fiscal treatise, al-Minhadf ft Him
kharadi Misr, a large part of which was recently
discovered in the acephalous ms. Add. 23,483 in the
British Museum. Al-Makhzumi belonged to a great
family dating back to the origins of Islam. He was a
kadi and it was owing to this title, although he was a
Shafi c i as were nearly all the Egyptians, that the
Fatimids, as was their custom, entrusted him with the
duties of controlling the employees of the tax office,
nearly all Copts. He performed these duties for a long
time in Alexandria, and it is plain that he had ac-

al-MAKHZUMI — al-MA c KIL

141

quired a concrete experience of the work, which his il¬
lustrious contemporary, Ibn MammatY [q.v. ] did not
possess. Although the two works have similar
documentary sources for some points and present
almost the same form of administration (that of the
later Fatimids prolonged under Saladin), they differ
profoundly: the Kawanin al-dawawin presents a clear,
methodical account, without technical details which
would be difficult for the senior civil servant to
understand, of the fiscal regime of Egypt; the Minhad^
is concerned, with the concrete activities performed
by the employees of the tax office. For us, its
remarkable originality lies in the minute description it
gives of the customs and commercial administration
of the Mediterranean ports frequented by Italian mer¬
chants; it provides despite the lacunas of the
manuscript and the mediocrity of the style, something
which no other work gives us in any corresponding
measure. There is also an important chapter on the
army, a very short one on the currency, the tirdz, etc.
The author of the present article has devoted to the
contents of the Minhddj_, especially in JESHO for 1962,
1963, 1965 and 1972, a series of articles now gathered
together in his Makhzumiyyat (Leiden 1978) and hopes
to produce in the near future the complete Arabic
text. The manuscript, however, comprises in its first
part some historical developments and traditions
which will be left aside, owing to the very poor state
of these pages, of which al-MakrYzY reproduces all the
main points. The Minhddj_ has been used to advantage
by some young contemporary scholars, such as H.
Rabie, in his Financial system of Egypt; R. Cooper, most
recently in JAOS (1976); Gladys Frantz-Murphy (un¬
published thesis); etc. (Cl. Cahen)

al-MA c KIL, Arab tribe, probably of Yemeni
origin, who, having come from Arabia at the same
time as the Banu Hilal [q.v.], crossed Egypt and
Libya, entered the Maghrib towards the middle of the
5th/l 1 th century, led a nomadic life for a short time
to the west of Gabes (Ibn IGialdun, Berberes, i, 36), but
left only a small number of their members in the south
of Ifrikiya ( Berberes, i, 116; cf. R. Brunschvig, Haf-
sides, ii, 170); in fact, they proceeded towards the west
(taghriba ), following the northern border of the Sahara
(cf. al-ZayyanY, Turdjumana , Fr. tr. Confourier, in
AM, vi [1906], 448, who notes their route). However,
it happened that they strayed from their route on oc¬
casion and also that, in 496/1103, the Hammadid al-
Mansur (481-98/1088-1104 [q.v. ]) was able to march
on Tlemcen after having gathered together some Arab
contingents including some Ma c kil ( Berberes , i, 54-5,
295). Similarly, at the beginning of the 6th/12th cen¬
tury, a clan of the tribe, the Tha c aliba, occupied the
region stretching from Titteri to Medea and supplied
the local rulers with auxiliary troops ( Berberes , i, 92,
123, 253); Leo Africanus (ii, 349) mentions that in
915/1510 a member of this clan had become ruler of
Algiers and held on to power for several years before
being strangled in a hammam and replaced by Bar-
barossa [see khayr al-dYn], who dealt harshly,
moreover, with the Tha c aliba.

But it is principally in the oasis of Touat and
Gourara (southern Algeria), and then in Morocco
(where they began to infiltrate in the first decades of
the 7th/13th century, so as to constitute an important
collection of groups who were authentically Arab, at
least in origin), that the majority of the Ma c kil settled.
They approached this land from the south-east and
expanded rapidly in the eastern and southern regions
of what constituted at that time al-Maghrib al-Aksa,
on the one hand between the west of the Oran region
and the valley of the Moulouya (Malwiyya) as far as

the Mediterranean coast and, on the other hand, in
the south-east of present-day Morocco, in Tafilalt,
Dar c a and Sous, as far as the Atlantic coast to the
south of the High Atlas. The clans known as DhawY
Hassan and Shabbanat. established further to the
north, were to be summoned to Sous by c AlY b. Yed-
der (Idder = Yahya or Ya c Ysh), who had rebelled
against the Almohad al-Murtada (646-65/1248-66) in
652/1254-5 ( Berberes , i, 131, ii, 276-7), but it is quite
possible that these clans may already have been in the
area. Whatever may be the case, the Ma c kil were not
slow to impose their domination on the sedentary
Berbers of the ksur and the oases, to levy tolls on the
caravans that they were supposed to protect and to
sow disorder in these lands which were already fairly
turbulent; in fact, even if, according to Ibn Khaldun
{Berberes, i, 117), they did not always devote
themselves to brigandage, they upset the economic
situation and political structures quite considerably.
Some of them remained nomads (camel breeders),
especially in the steppes of eastern Morocco, but the
majority settled, not without allying themselves at
times with the local Berber groups in order to resist
more effectively the sultan and his agents, should the
occasion arise.

Even though on their arrival in IfrYkiya the Ma c kil
were, we are told, fewer than 200 {Berberes, i, 116),
they increased considerably and added to their
number allogenous elements, after having attained
the goal of their principal migration. They formed,
according to Ibn Khaldun ( Berberes, i, 115-34), three
large groups called DhawY (Dwi) c Ubayd Allah (be¬
tween Tlemcen, Taourirt and the mouth of the
Moulouya, in the plain of the Angad), DhawY Man$ur
(who constituted the majority and occupied the region
stretching from Taourirt to Dar c a, as well as the coun¬
tryside around Taza, Fez, Meknes, and even Tadla)
and DhawY Hassan (between Dar c a and the Atlantic
Ocean). The author of the Kitdb al- c Ibar enumerates in
great detail the families grouped within these three
branches. He rejects the claim of the Ma c kil to be
descended from Dja c far b. AbYTalib [q.v. ] and, while
being quite convinced that their origin is unknown, he
is compelled by his intellectual honesty to consult Ibn
al-KalbY’s Dja mhara. retains two possible genealogies,
and finally inclines in favour of that which links them
with the Banu Madhhidj [qv.\: in fact, the
eponymous ancestor of the tribe is sometimes call¬
ed RabY c a, and the Ma c kil of the Madhhidj in fact
bears the personal name of RabY c a b. Ka c b (= al-
Aratt) b. RabY c a (see Ibn al-KalbY-Caskel, (damharat
an-nasab , Tab. 258). Moreover, G. Kampffmeyer (in
MSOS [1899], 176) considers that the use of DhawY
pleads in favour of the Yemeni origin of the Ma c kil.
For his part, Leo Africanus does not indulge in the
same speculations as Ibn Kh aldun, but he also divides
the Ma c kil into three branches (i, 27, 30-2) called
Mukhtar, c Uthman and Hassan (cf. Berberes, i, 119,
where the two first names only designate subdivi¬
sions). In both authors, the large groups contain an
important number of families whose territory is men¬
tioned with relative precision; however, they are far
too numerous, and the nomenclature is much too
variable, to be able to contemplate enumerating them
here with any degree of reliability. It is even impossi¬
ble, within the restricted limits of the present article,
to relate the history of the most notable clans, even
supposing that it were known sufficiently. We will
therefore confine ourselves to the facts which appear
the most remarkable.

It is probably in the last years of the Almohad
dynasty (515-668/1121-1269) [see al-muwahhidun)

142

al-MA c KIL

that the Ma c kil settled in the pre-Saharan areas of
Morocco, where they began to dominate the local
populations without, however, playing a political role
wide enough to be termed national. But on the acces¬
sion of the Marlnids (668-823/1269-1420 [q.v. ]), the
situation was modified. Shortly after the unsuccessful
siege (660/1261-2) of Sidjilmasa [q.v. ] by a Marlnid
prince, the inhabitants of the town, which had fallen
into the hands of the Ma c kili clan of the Munabbat,
appealed to the c Abd al-Wadids (7th-10th/13- 16th
centuries [q. v. ]) of Tlemcen ( Berberes , ii, 278-9), which
led the Marlnid Ya c kub b. c Abd al-Hakk
(656-85/1258-86) to come to seize it in 672/1274
{Berberes, iv, 68-9) and to massacre the population.
Various clans of the Ma c kil, such as the Shabbanat
and the Dhawl Hassan, also tried to oppose the in¬
terference of the new sultans in the territories of the
south where they were solidly established ( Berberes , ii,
132). Profiting from this troubled situation, a relative
of the sultan Abu Ya c kub (685-706/1286-1307) passed
over in 686/1287 to the Dhawl Hassan and “raised
the standard of revolt”; the sovereign sent against the
rebels, to the east of Dar c a, his nephew Mansur b.
Abi Malik who slaughtered them in large numbers
and seized their herds and womenfolk. Several
months later, th^ sultan himself went to Dar c a to
punish some Ma c kil who were practising brigandage
{Berberes, iv, 123). Generally, eastern Morocco suf¬
fered from the opposition of these tribes to the
Marlnid sovereigns, until the time when Abu c Inan
(749-59/1349-58 [q.v. ]) appointed to Dar c a a gover¬
nor who won their friendship and succeeded in impos¬
ing his authority, but he had to grant them ikta c s and
entrust them with collecting taxes {Berberes, i, 117,
132); these privileges, from which some clans
benefited, did not prevent several others from conti¬
nuing to plunder the whole region; at the end of the
8th/14th century, the Ma c kil brought anarchy to Sous
and seized revenues which should have been paid to
the Marlnids {Berberes, i, 133).

It is probably towards the end of this dynasty that,
not content with controlling the oases and Saharan
borders, some Ma c kil proceeded as far as the Hawz of
Marrakech, devastating on their way cultivated lands
and forests (see J. Berque, Antiquites Seksawa, in
Hesperis [1953], 379, 401-2). In the following century,
the plain of Shlshawa and the town of Amizmiz on the
northern slopes of the High Atlas were suffering from
the presence of “Arabs” who overtaxed the people
(Leo, i, 98).

At almost the same period, i.e. in the
8th-9th/l4th- 15th centuries, some Dhawl Hassan,
who were accustomed to spending the winter in the
area called al-Sakiya al-hamra 5 [q.v.], spread into the
western Sahara. It is not known under exactly what
conditions this partial migration took place towards a
region which today forms part of the Republic of
Mauritania, but as the groups in question had re¬
ceived the title of makhzan tribes [see djaysh. iii], it
could be considered a conquest on behalf of the
sultans of Morocco (on this problem of territorial
distribution, see murItaniya). In any case, the dialect
of the Arabic speakers of the land, Hassaniyya, is
related to those who are known as the clan of the
Dhawl Hassan, without, from an ethnic point of view,
necessarily being associated with the confederation of
the Ma c kil (see D. Cohen, Le dialecte arabe hassamya de
Mauritanie , Paris 1963).

The decadence of the Marlnids also encouraged
other Ma c kil to speed up their movement northwards
and to enter the Middle Atlas in search of summer
pastures; they appeared in the region of Khunayk al-

Gh irban. on the direct route from Tafilalt to Fez,
before spreading, at the beginning of the 11 th/17th
century, in the region of Sefrou, bringing in their
wake migrations of Berber tribes (see G. S. Colin,
Origine arabe des grands mouvements de populations berberes
dans le Moyen-Atlas, in Hesperis, 1938/2-3, 265-8). And
it is probably at the end of the 9th/15th century that
the Zaer (Za c ir), who are authentic Ma c kil (al-Ifranf,
Nuzha, Fr. tr. Houdas, 329), moved northwards
across the mountainous massifs of the High and Mid¬
dle Atlas. Leo Africanus (i, 249-50) mentions them
near Khenifra, and they then descended the valleys of
the Bou Regreg and its tributaries to come to settle to
the south of Rabat, where they are still to be found
(see V. Loubignac, Textes arabes des Zaer, PIHEM,
xlvi, Paris 1953).

Leo Africanus also recalls (ii, 426-7) that in the
same period the Ma c kil were the masters of Sidjilmasa
and that they controlled the traffic, levying a toll; but,
even if they did not attack caravans, their presence
made the traditional routes from the Maghrib to the
Sudan impracticable, so that travellers had to make
detours.

At the end of the 9th/15th century, they were
powerful enough in the south-west of Morocco to par¬
ticipate in the agreements reached in 904/1499 be¬
tween the Berbers and Castile (D. Jacques-Meunie,
Maroc Saharien, i, 317), Subsequently, their attitude
towards the Portuguese regarding the position of San¬
ta Cruz of the Cap de Gue [see agadir-ighir] seems
to have been conditioned by their relations with the
Sa c dids (961-1064/1544-1654 [< 7 . 0 .]). In fact, in the
period which witnessed the birth of the movement
which was to result in the foundation of this dynasty,
the Berbers of Sous, exhausted by the oppression that
the Arabs had inflicted upon them, supported the ac¬
tion of these more or less genuine sharijs whom they
continued to uphold, whereas the clan of the Shab¬
banat of the plain of Sous and the western High Atlas
were, it seems, the only one to rally to the Sa c dids,
whose famous sultan Ahmad al-Mansur
(986-1012/1578-1603 [q.v.]) married a wife from this
family.

The Ma c kil who remained in the region of Guercif
towards the end of the Sa c did dynasty gathered in
1051/1641-2 around the c Alawid Mawlay Muham¬
mad b. al-Sharlf (1050-75/1640-64), who seized
Oujda and pressed his advantage as far as the south
of Algeria, but his followers abandoned him in
1074/1664 and recognised his brother Mawlay al-
Rashid (1075-82/1664-72 [<7 ^]) whom they proclaim¬
ed in Oujda. These events were not able to limit the
activity of other Ma c kil, who continued for their part
to trouble public order. It was also in 1069/1659 that
Karrum al-Hadjdj occupied Marrakech and, ten years
later, Mawlay al-Rashld found the Shabbanat masters
of the capital of the South (see G. Deverdun, Mar¬
rakech des origines a 1912, Rabat 1959-66, i, 460). The
brother and successor of this latter sultan, Mawlay
Isma c Il (1082-1139/1672-1727 [q.v.]) added to his ar¬
my some _Ma c kil from the oases to form the gish
{djaysh) of Udaya, but he treated other members of the
tribe harshly (see al-ZayyanT, Turdjuman, Fr. tr.
Houdas, 35), the Ahlaf (= c Amarna and Munabbat
of the Dhawl Mansur from the region of Sidjilmasa);
after his death, these clans recovered their old power.

It would be difficult today to trace the descendants
of the various groups of Ma c kil, more especially as the
names which designated them changed frequently in
the course of centuries. Furthermore, it is probable
that some members of this confederation were
distinguished in the religious or literary sphere, but

al-MA c KIL — al-MAKIN

143

the adjective Ma c kili does not appear to be used, and
it would be necessary to search in the lists—without
any assurance of success—for those members of the
tribe corresponding to the numerous families cited by
Ibn Kh aldun, We will restrict ourselves to remarking
that the Tha c alibls of Algeria, who produced a
renowned theologian (788-873/1386-1468 [qv.]) and
probably belonged to the Ma c kil, occupy a prominent
position till our own day. Ibn c Askar ( Dawhat al-ndshir,
ed. Hadjdjl, Rabat 1396/1976, 101) notes that the
fakih and saint by the name of c Umar al-Husayni who
died in the years 940s/1530s, was min kabilat Husayn
min c Arab al-Ma c kil (more precisely, from the Dhawi
Man§ur); such a note is however isolated. It is also not
impossible that the Ma c kil may be have taken part in
the spread of the popular poetry known in Morocco
by the name of molhun [see malhun].

It is evident from the brief account that precedes
that different groups of this tribe were scattered over
a territory which, within the present Moroccan fron¬
tiers, forms a crescent going from the Mediterranean
to the Atlantic Ocean, crossing the High and Middle
Atlas and turning its convex side towards the desert.
But the vast territory occupied by these Arabs is not
continuous, to such an extent that, being intimately
mixed with Berber populations, they scarcely have the
feeling of belonging to a homogeneous ethnic group.
This situation explains how the various clans would
often rally to opposite camps, favouring moreover the
weakest dynasty (cf. Berberes , i, 120-1). If some of
them, still partially nomadic, rebelled spontaneously,
those who were settled in Tafilalt and Sous provided
a refuge rather for princes who were in more or less
open rebellion and who found on the spot combatants
ready to help them, at least provisionally. So the
almost constant policy of the authorities established in
the capital was to suppress energetically any sign of in¬
subordination and to prevent these Arabs—although
employed at times as auxiliaries—from moving north¬
wards to settle in more fertile regions, which they
nevertheless succeeded at times in doing, when the
central power showed signs of weakness.

Bibliography : Among the Arabic sources, the
richest is the Kitab al- c Ibar of Ibn Khaldun, of which
only the French translation of de Slane is cited, en¬
titled Histoire des Berberes, 2nd ed., Paris 1925-34,
1956). From Ibn Tdhari (7th-8th/13th-14th cen¬
turies), whose Baydn (vol. iii) published by A. Huici
Miranda in Tetuan in 1963 had been used by the
latter in the preparation of his Historia politico del im-
perio almohade, Tetuan 1956, the Arab historians of
the Maghrib and especially of Morocco (notably al-
Ifrani/Ufrani, Nuzhat al-hadl, Fr. tr. O. Houdas,
Paris 1888-9, Ibn Abl Zar c , Rawd al-kirtas, Rabat
1972, and al-Nasirl, Istiksa 5 , Casablanca 1954-6)
were led by force of circumstances to cite the
Ma c kil. The same applies to even the authors of
general histories such as Ch.-A. Julien, Histoire de
rAfrique du NorcP, Paris 1952, H. Terrasse, Histoire
du Maroc, Casablanca 1949-50, and A. Laroui,
Histoire du Maghreb, Paris 1970.

Apart from Ibn Khaldun, another important
source is Leo Africanus, whose Description de VAfri¬
que, Fr. tr. Epaulard, Paris 1956, gives an idea of
the situation at the beginning of the 16th century.
Independently of the partial studies, of which some
have been cited in the art., two works are of par¬
ticular interest: those of G. Margais, Les Arabes en
Berberie du XI e au XIV e siecle, Constantine-Paris
1913, 364-404, 548-81 and index (with a map of the
distribution of tribes at the end of the work) and
Mme D. Jacques-Meunie, Le Maroc saharien des

origines a 1670 , Paris 1982, index, 5. vv. Arabes
Maaqil and Maaqil (with an extensive
bibliography); the other works of the latter author,
notably Cites anciennes de Mauritanie, Paris 1961, also
contain useful information. See also F. de La
Chapelle, Esquisse d'une histoire du Sahara occidental ,
in Hesperis xi/1-2 (1930), 35-95, esp. 65-70. Finally,
one should cite an unpublished thesis submitted in
Paris in 1984 by M. Kably and entitled Societe ,
pouvoir et religion au Maroc , des Merinides aux Wat-
tdsides (XI_V e -XV e siecles), index. (Ch. Pellat)
al-MAKIN b. al- c AMID, Djirdjis, (602-72/
1205-73) Arabic-speaking Coptic historian whose
History, covering the period from the creation of the
world to the year 658/1260, was one of the very First
mediaeval oriental chronicles to become known in
Europe and consequently played a significant role in
the early researches of modern Islamic scholars.

The encyclopaedists, who since the 18th century
have provided a biography of al-Makin which is still
reproduced by Brockelmann (I, 348) and Graf
{GCAL, i, 348), have omitted to indicate their sources;
all that is known is that the history of the family of al-
Makin was related in his own appendix to a
manuscript with which these scholars were evidently
familiar. However, this account, an enlargement
from his biography, is certainly the basis of the ver¬
sion supplied by the Christian Arab al-Suka c i, Tali
kitaty Wafaydt al-a\ydn (ed. J. Sublet, no. 167) and
subsequently reproduced by al-Safadi and al-Makrizi
in the Mukaffa. Al-MakTn was descended from a mer¬
chant of Takrit who settled in Egypt under the
caliphate of aI- c Amir; the younger son of this mer¬
chant (if our biographers are not missing out a genera¬
tion) held high offices in the diwdn al-dyaysh from Salah
al-Dln to al-Salih Ayyub, offices in which he was suc¬
ceeded by his son al-Makin, first in Egypt and later in
Damascus. Implicated in the unrest which broke out
in Syria at the time of the Mongol invasion and the
beginning of the reign of Baybars, al-Makin spent
several years in prison; he ended his life in Damascus,
but remained in close contact with Egyptian Coptic
scholars, like al- c AssaI, who possessed a manuscript of
the history of al-Makin (Graf, loc. cit.).

This history, al-Madj.mu c al-mubdrak, generally
known by the simple title of History, is a universal
chronicle covering the period from the origins of the
world to the accession of Baybars (658/1260). It is
divided into two major sections: the first concerning
pre-Islamic history as far as the eleventh year of
Heraclius; the second, Islamic history to the year 658.
(i) Pre-Islamic section. It is today difficult, if not im¬
possible, to determine the originality of the History of
al-Makin, for two reasons: on the one hand, the
manuscripts have not been classified; on the other, the
similar work of his contemporary Ibn al-Rahib [q. v. in
Suppl.], which al-Makin frequently quotes, has not
yet been edited. G. Wiet, who undertook an edition
of the history, has given some indications as to the
manuscript transmission of the earlier section, in J.
Maspero, Histoire des Patriarches d'Alexandrie, Paris
1923, 219-22, n. 2. He identified two distinct groups
of manuscripts, one transmitting the original text of
al-Makin, the other, which he calls the vulgate, being
an edition adapted according to the model of
Eutychius/Sa c id b. al-Bitrik (it was a manuscript of
this vulgate which was utilised by al-Makrizi, e.g.
B.N. ar. 4729).

In addition, al-Makin makes frequent textual
quotations from Ibn al-Rahib. Before the researches
of A. Sidarus, Ibn al-Rahibs Leben und Werk , Freiburg-
i.-Br. 1972, the latter’s Universal history was known on-

144

al-MAKIN — MAKKA

ly in the form of an abbreviated edition which has
misled more than one historian (L. Cheikho, Petrus ibn
Rahib chronicon orientate , in CSCO, xlv, Louvain 1903).
But there is now available a complete manuscript of
the K. al-Tawarlkh , a work dating from 1257, and the
forthcoming publication of this text will no doubt
make it possible to assess how much of al-M akin's
work is to be considered original.

Whatever may prove to be the case, al-Makm
presents universal history in the form of biographies:
to the year 586 B.G., it is naturally enough the
biblical account which provides the format, the
biographical series beginning with Adam; after the
destruction of the Temple of Solomon he traces the
ancient dynasties of Asia, then those of Alexander, the
Romans, the Byzantines.

(ii) Islamic section. The second part of al-Makm’s
history is quite unconnected with the first and appears
to be an abridged version of al-Tabari, supplemented
with material from more recent sources dealing with
the history of Syria and Egypt. But in fact it seems
that al-Makin was not directly responsible for this
work; a comparison between his text and the Ta 3 nkh
§alihi of Ibn Wasil (unedited) leads to the conclusion
that al-Makin virtually copied either this work, or a
hitherto unidentified common source; the only doubt
arises from the fact that the correspondence between
the texts ceases with the death of $alah al-DTn,
although Ibn Wasil’s history extends to the year
635/1238; for the early stages of this final period al-
Makln clearly lacks source-material.

Whatever the case may be, the abbreviated nature
of the greater part of this history makes it less useful
to us than to our predecessors. Only the last part, con¬
temporary with the life of the author, is more detailed
and of vastly superior originality and interest. By an
unfortunate chance, Erpenius, who edited the work in
the 17th century, stopped short at the year 525/1130,
with the result that the final section has remained vir¬
tually unknown until the present day and its publica¬
tion by Cl. Cahen (in BEO, xv [1955]; cf. Arabica, vi,
198-9, and al-Makin et Ibn Wasil, in Hispano-Arabica ...
Fr. Pareja, i, Madrid 1974, 158-67).

A characteristic apparently common to all Arabic
historiography, Christian or Muslim, is that authors
of both persuasions write in almost the same manner
and indulge in mutual plagiarism. As has been
observed, al-Makin follows a Muslim predecessor and
is utilised in his turn by Shaft c b. c AlI. The only dif¬
ference is that the Christian supplements the Hegirian
chronology with a Christian chronology (in this case
the Era of the Martyrs) and includes in his account
episodes of ecclesiastical history (which were to be
borrowed by al-Makrlzi). Certain copyists continue
his list of patriarchs as far as the year 720/1320. It is
not known whether al-Makin utilised the history of
the patriarchs compiled by Severus b. al-Mukaffa c
and his successors.

The final section of the work of al-Makin, the part
contemporary with his own life, is totally undeserving
of the pejorative judgment of it expressed on the
author by Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. , Paris 1713,
10 ); it is intellectually comparable with the works of
the major historians of the period, with a particularly
sensitive interest in military administration, reflecting
the professional career of the author. Most important
of all, the principal historians of this time, even
though they deal with Egypt, are of Syrian nationali¬
ty; together with the Muslim Ibn Muyassar, whose
treatment of the Ayyubids is accessible to us only
through al-Nuwayrl’s version, al-Makin is the only
Egyptian historian of his generation. His work was

continued by al-Mufaddal b. Abi ’l-Fada^il, who was
of the same family but who makes no mention of him.

Also published, but erroneously, under the name of
al-Makm was a doctrinal study, al-Hdwi, ed. Taridus
Basili, Cairo, Maison Copte (cf. Abstracta 1st. , 1966
no. 831).

Bibliography: Given in the article; supplemen¬
tary details concerning the early section are given
by M. Plessner in EI l , s.v.

(Cl. Cahen and R. G. Coquin)
MAKKA (in English normally “Mecca”, in
French “La Mecque”), the most sacred city of
Islam, where the Prophet Muhammad was born and
lived for about 50 years, and where the Ka c ba [q.v. ]
is situated.

1. The pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods

Geographical description.—Mecca is loca¬
ted in the Hidjaz about 72 km. inland from the Red
Sea port of Jedda (Djudda [q-v.\), in lat. 21° 21' N.
and long. 39° 49' E. It is now the capital of the pro¬
vince ( manatik iddriyya) of Makka in Su c udl Arabia,
and has a normal population of between 200,000 and
300,000, which may be increased by one-and-a-half or
two millions at the time of the Hadjdj or annual
pilgrimage.

Mecca lies in a kind of corridor between two ranges
of bare steep hills, with an area in the centre rather
lower than the rest. The whole corridor is the wadi or
the batn Makka, “the hollow of Mecca”, and the lower
part is al-Bajha 3 , which was doubtless the original
settlement and where the Ka c ba stands. Originally
some of the houses were close to the Ka c ba, but ap¬
parently there was always a free space round it, and
in the course of centuries this has been enlarged to
constitute the present mosque. Into the Batha 3 con¬
verged a number of side-valleys, each known as a
shi c b, and often occupied by a single clan. The outer
and higher area of settlement was known as the
zawahir. The situation of Mecca was advantageous for
trade. Important routes led northwards to Syria (Gaza
and Damascus); north-eastwards through a gap in the
mountain chain of the Sarat to c Irak; southwards to
the Yemen; and westwards to the Red Sea, where
there were sailings from Shu c avba (and later from
Djudda) to Abyssinia and other places. Rainfall is
scant and irregular. There may be none for four
years. When it does come, it may be violent and a sayl
or torrent may pour down each shi c b towards the
Haram or sacred area round the Ka c ba. There are ac¬
counts of the flooding of the Haram from time to time.
The supply of water depended on wells, of which that
at Zamzam beside the Ka c ba was the most famous.
One of the leading men of Mecca was always charged
with the sikdya, that is, with the duty of seeing there
was sufficient water for the pilgrims taking part in the
Ha djdj . Needless to say, there was no agriculture in
the neighbourhood of Mecca. The climate of Mecca
was described by the geographer al-MukaddisI as
“suffocating heat, deadly winds, clouds of flies”. The
summer was noted for ramja^Makka, “the burning of
Mecca”, and the wealthier families sent their children
to be brought up in the desert for a time.

Pre-Islamic Mecca.—Mecca had been a sacred
site from very ancient times. It was apparently known
to Ptolemy as Macoraba. The Kurban has the name
Makka in XLVIII, 24, and the alternative name
Bakka in III, 96/90. It also (II, 125-7/119-21) speaks
of the building of the Ka c ba by Abraham and
Ishmael, but this is generally not accepted by occiden¬
tal scholars, since it cannot be connected with what is
otherwise known of Abraham. According to Arabian

MAKKA

145

legend, it was for long controlled by the tribe of
Djurhum [q.v.], and then passed to Khuza c a [q.v.],
though certain privileges remained in the hands of
older families. After a time, presumably in the 5th
century A.D., Kh uza c a were replaced by Kuraysh
[q. v. ]. This came about through the activity of Kusayy
[q. v.],a descendant of Kuraysh (or Fihr), who became
powerful through bringing together hitherto disunited
groups of the tribe of Kuraysh and gaining the help of
allies from Kinana and Kuda c a. It is probable that
Kusayy was the first to make a permanent settlement
here as distinct from temporary encampments. In
later times a distinction was made between Kuraysh
al-Bitah (those of the Batha 3 or centre) and Kuraysh
al-Zawahir (those of the outer area); and it is signifi¬
cant that all the descendants, not only of Kusayy but
of his great-grandfather Ka c b, are included in the
former. These are the clans of c Abd al-Dar, c Abd
Shams, Nawfal, Hashim, al-Muttalib, Asad (all
descended from Kusayy), and Zuhra, Makhzum,
Taym, Sahm, Djumah and c AdT. The most important
clans of Kuraysh al-Zawahir were Muharib, c Amir b.
Lu 3 ayy and al-Harith b. Fihr. There are no grounds,
however, for thinking this distinction was equivalent
to one between patricians and plebeians.

In the 6th century A.D. divisions appear within
Kuraysh al-Bitah. c Abd al-Dar had succeeded to some
of the privileges of his father Kusayy, but in course of
time his family was challenged by the descendants of
another son of Kusayy, c Abd Manaf, represented
by the clan of c Abd Shams. c Abd Manaf had the
support of Asad, Zuhra, Taym and al-Harith b. Fihr;
and this group was known as the Mutayyabun
(“perfumed ones” [see la c akat al-dam]). c Abd
al-Dar’s group, known as the Ahlaf or Confederates,
included Makhzum. Sahm, Djumah and c AdI. A
compromise agreement was reached without actual
fighting. About the year 605 (Ibn Habib, Munammak,
46) a league is mentioned called the Hilf al-Fudul
[q.v. ] which seems to be a continuation of the
Mutayyabun. It comprised the same clans as the lat¬
ter, except that of the four sons of c Abd Manaf only
Hashim and al-Muttalib were in the Hilf al-Fudul,
while Nawfal and c Abd Shams remained aloof. The
ostensible reason for this league was to help a YamanT
merchant to recover a debt from a man of Sahm (al-
Mas c udr, Murudj_, iv, 123 f. = §§ 1451-3; cf. Ibn
Habib, Muhabbar , 167; idem, Munammak , 45-54; Ibn
Hisham, 85-7; al-Tabari, i, 1084 f.). This suggests
that the Hilf al-Fudul was not a general league against
injustice (as maintained by Caetani, Annali, i, 164-6)
but was an association of commercially weaker clans
attempting to curb unfair monopolistic practices by
stronger and wealthier clans—the repudiation of debts
would discourage non-Meccans from sending
caravans to Mecca and increase the profits of the
caravans of the great merchants of Mecca (sc. those
not in the Hilf al-Fudul).

From many other pieces of evidence it is clear that
by this time Mecca had become an important com¬
mercial centre. Because of the sanctuary at Mecca and
the institutions of the sacred months, when blood
feuds were in abeyance, there had doubtless been
some commerce for many centuries. It would appear,
however, that during the second half of the 6th cen¬
tury A.D. the trade of Mecca had increased enor¬
mously. It might be conjectured that the wars between
the Byzantines and Persians had made the route
through western Arabia more attractive than that
from the Persian Gulf to Aleppo. Even if this is not so,
the leading merchants of Mecca had gained control of
a great volume of trade passing between Syria and the

Mediterranean on the one hand and South Arabia
and the Indian Ocean on the other. Despite the Hilf
al-Fudul, it would appear that most of the merchan¬
dise was carried in caravans organised by wealthy
Meccans. The Kurban (XVI, 2) speaks of “the winter
and summer caravans”, and it is usually stated that
the former went to the Yemen and the latter to Syria
[see ilaf]. Normally, a caravan carried goods belong¬
ing to many groups and individuals, who presumably
gave a proportion of their profits to the organisers.
The organisers had to enter into agreements with the
political authorities in Syria and South Arabia, and
possibly also with the ruler of al-Hira and the Negus
of Abyssinia, in order to be allowed to buy and sell;
and they had to ensure the safety of the caravans by
agreements with the nomadic chiefs through whose
areas they passed.

It is possible that the expedition of the “men of the
elephant” (Kurban, CV, 1) was occasioned by the
growing prosperity of Mecca, and that Abraha [q.v. ],
the Abyssinian ruler of the Yemen, wanted to reduce
its commerce by attacking the sanctuary which
facilitated it.

The war of the Fidjar \q.v. \ certainly marks a stage
in the growth of Meccan commercial strength, since it
appears to have resulted in the elimination of al-Ta 3 if
as a rival centre of trade and its incorporation into the
Meccan system in a subordinate position. The term
“system” is appropriate since Mecca was a financial
centre, and not a mere focus of trade. By about 600
A.D., the leading men were skilled in the manipula¬
tion of credit and interested in possibilities of invest¬
ment along the routes they travelled, such as the
mines in the territory of the tribe of Sulaym. It may
be noted that one or two women were merchants,
trading on their own account and employing men as
their agents; such were Khadidja [q.v.], Asma 3 bint
Mukharriba. mother of Abu Djahl, and Hind, wife of
Abu Sufyan. Among the goods carried were leather,
ingots of gold and silver, gold dust (tibr), perfumes
and spices, the two latter from South Arabia or India.
From Syria they conveyed the products of Mediterra¬
nean industry, such as cotton, linen and silk fabrics,
and also arms, cereals and oil. Some of these goods
would be sold to nomadic tribesmen, others would be
sold in markets at the further end of the trade route.

Henri Lammens spoke of Mecca as a “merchant
republic”, and this description fits up to a point, but
the underlying political concepts were those of Arabia,
not of Greece or Italy. Almost the only organ of
government, apart from clan assemblies, was the
mala 3 or “senate”. This was in fact a meeting of the
chiefs and leading men of various clans, but had no
executive powers. Any punitive measures could be
taken only by the chief of the offender’s clan, since
otherwise the lex talionis [see kisas] would be invoked.
There was no president or doge, but sometimes a
man’s personal talents gave him a degree of primacy
(as Abu Sufyan had for three years after the defeat at
Badr in 624). The Kuraysh, however, were renowned
for their hilm [q.v.] or “steadiness”, and this in prac¬
tice meant putting their commercial interests before
all other considerations. Because of this, the mala ^ was
often able to compose differences between its
members and come to a common mind. Thus most of
the leading men were agreed on a policy of neutrality
in the struggle of the two giant empires of the day, the
Byzantine Greek one and the Sasanid Persian one.
Both were trying to extend their spheres of influence
in Arabia. When, in about 570 or 575, the Persians
conquered the Yemen from the Abyssinians, it
became all the more necessary for the Meccans to re-

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

146

MAKKA

main neutral. Some years after the war of the Fidjar,
a man of the clan of Asad called c Uthman b. al-
Huwayrith entered into negotiations with the Byzan¬
tines and told his fellow-Meccans that he could get
favourable trade terms for them if they accepted him
as their leader; though he was denounced by a men of
his clan as aiming at kingship, the rejection of his pro¬
position was doubtless also due to the need of avoid
too close an association with the Byzantines.

In addition to the mala*, there were certain tradi¬
tional offices or functions, usually attached to specific
families. The sikaya or superintendence of the water-
supply, especially for pilgrims, has already been men¬
tioned. The rifatja was the provisioning of pilgrims;
the liwa 3 was the carrying of the standard in war; the
nasi was the privilege of deciding when an intercalary
month should be inserted to keep the lunar calendar
in line with the solar year; and there were several
others.

The culture and religion of the Meccans were essen¬
tially the same as those of their nomadic neighbours.
They applied the lex lalionis in much the same way,
and had similar ideas about the relations of a chief or
sayyid to the full members of his clan or tribe, namely,
that he was only primus inter pares. They likewise gave
a central place to the conception of honour [see c ird],
though in detail Meccan ideas of honour may have
been modified by the ideas of wealth and power. Like
most nomadic Arabs, the majority of Meccans were
pagans, acknowledging many gods, but probably
having little faith in these and being mainly
materialistic in outlook. The Kurban, however, in a
number of passages, describes pagans who, besides
the minor deities, acknowledging Allah as a “high
god” or supreme god, and especially his function of
creating. This form of belief is known to have been
predominant among the Semitic peoples of a whole
wide region (cf. J. Teixidor, The pagan god, Princeton
1977). In addition, besides Byzantine visitors or tem¬
porary residents, one or two Meccans seem to have
become Christians, such as c Uthman b. al-
Huwayrith, and others are said to have been attracted
to monotheism [see hanif). One or two, whose
business contacts were with c Irak, had some interest
in Persian culture.

Mecca and the beginnings of Islam.—
Although the Kur 3 anic message had from the first a
universal potential, it was originally addressed to
Meccans. The attraction of the message for many
Meccans was due to its relevance to the moral, social
and spiritual malaise which had developed in Mecca
as a result of the great increase in wealth. It is thus not
accidental that Mecca still remains the focus of the
religion of Islam. The career of Muhammad and the
early history of the religion which he proclaimed will
be found in the article muhammad. Here the relation
of these events to the town of Mecca will be briefly
noted.

Muhammad was born in Mecca into the clan of
Hashim about 570 A.D. This clan may have been
more important earlier, but was not now among the
very wealthy clans, and played a prominent part in
the Hilf al-Fudul, which was directed against
monopolistic practices. Because Muhammad was a
posthumous child and his grandfather died when he
was about eight, he was excluded by Arabian custom
from inheriting anything from either. Most of his near
kinsmen were engaged in trade, and Muhammad ac¬
companied his uncle Abu Xalib on trading journeys to
Syria. Then he was employed as a steward by the
woman merchant Khadidja and subsequently married
her. This was about 595, and thereafter he seems to

have continued to trade with her capital and in part¬
nership with one of her relatives. It was no doubt his
personal experience of these consequences of being an
orphan which made Muhammad specially aware of
the problems facing Meccan society; and it was about
610, after he had long meditated on these matters,
that the KuPanic revelation began to come to him.

The Kurban may be said to see the source of the
troubles of Mecca as the materialism of many Mec¬
cans and their failure to believe in God and the Last
Day. In particular, it attacked the great merchants for
their undue reliance on wealth and their misuse of it
by neglecting the traditional duties of the leading men
to care for the poor and unfortunate. At the same
time, the Kurban summoned all men to believe in
God’s power and goodness, including his position as
final Judge, and to worship him. In the years up to
614 or 615 many people responded to this summons,
including sons and younger brothers of the great mer¬
chants. By 614 some of these great merchants,
especially younger ones like Abu Djahl, had come to
feel their position threatened by Muhammad, since
his claim to receive messages from God and the
number of people attracted by his preaching might
eventually give him great political authority. A move¬
ment of opposition to the new religion then appeared.
The great merchants applied pressures of various
kinds to Muhammad and his followers to get them to
abandon their beliefs, or at least to compromise. Some
of his followers, persecuted by their own families,
went to Abyssinia for a time. Muhammad himself was
able to continue preaching so long as he had the pro¬
tection of his clan. About 619, however, his uncle Abu
Talib died and was succeeded as head of the clan by
another unde, Abu Lahab, who was in partnership
with some of the great merchants and found a pretext
for denying clan protection to Muhammad. In 622,
therefore, Muhammad accepted an invitation to go to
Medina where a great many people were ready to ac¬
cept him as a prophet. His move from Mecca to
Medina was the Hidjra or emigration.

The greater part of the period between the Hidjra
and Muhammad’s death was dominated by the strug¬
gle between Muhammad’s supporters and the great
merchants of Mecca. After some fruitless Muslim raz¬
zias against Meccan caravans, the Meccans were pro¬
voked by the capture of a small caravan under their
noses, as it were, at Nakhla early in 624. Because of
this they sent a relatively large force to protect a very
wealthy caravan returning from Syria in March 624;
and this expedition ended disastrously for them in the
battle of Badr, where they lost many of their leading
men by death or capture, including the leader of the
expedition, Abu Djahl. Meccan affairs were guided
by Abu Sufyan for the next three years. His attempt
in 625 to avenge the defeat of Badr led to his having
the better of the fighting at Uhud in the oasis of
Medina, but he failed to disturb Muhammad’s posi¬
tion there. His next attempt in 627, with numerous
allies, was a more ignominious failure through
Muhammad’s adoption of the khandak or trench and
the break-up of the alliance. Abu Sufyan then seems
to have worked for peace and reconciliation with the
Muslims, while other men still hoped to retrieve the
fortunes of Mecca, and, for example, forcibly
prevented Muhammad and 1,600 Muslims from
making the pilgrimage in 628. Nevertheless, they
made the treaty of al-Hudaybiyya [<? £'•] with him as
with an equal. A breach of the terms of this treaty by
Meccan allies led to a great Muslim expedition
against Mecca with some 10,000 men. The town was
surrendered almost without a blow, and all the Mec-

MAKKA

147

cans, except a handful who were guilty of specific of¬
fences against Muhammad or some Muslim, were
assured their lives and property would be safe if they
behaved honourably. For some time, Muhammad
had been aiming at reconciling the Meccans rather
than crushing them by force. When, a week or two
after the capture or fath, it was learnt that there was
a large concentration of nomads to the east of Mecca,
some 2,000 Meccans took to the field with Muham¬
mad and helped him to gain the victory of Hunayn
[<y. i>. ]. Some of the pagan Meccans became Muslims
almost at once, others only after a longer period.

A young Muslim of a Meccan family was left as
governor of Mecca and it was made clear that Medina
would remain the capital. The Ka c ba had for many
years been the kibla [q. v. ] or direction towards which
all Muslims turned in prayer. At the fath it was purged
of idols and became a centre of Islamic worship, while
the Black Stone was retained as an object to be
reverenced. The annual Ha didi [q .^. ] was retained as
an Islamic ceremony, and this also gave special im¬
portance to Mecca in Islamic eyes. Its commercial ac¬
tivity appears to have dwindled away, perhaps largely
because many of the leading men moved to Medina
and subsequently found their administrative abilities
fully employed in organising an empire. After the cap¬
ture of c Irak, the trade between the Indian Ocean and
the Mediterranean seems to have resumed the old
route by the Euphrates valley.

Mecca from 632 to 750.—Not much is heard
about Mecca under the first four caliphs. c Umar and
c Uthman were concerned with the danger of flooding
and brought Christian engineers to build barrages in
the high-lying quarters. They also constructed dykes
and embankments to protect the area round the
Ka c ba. The first Umayyad caliph, Mu c awiya, the son
of Abu Sufyan, though mostly living in Damascus,
took an interest in his native town. He had new
buildings erected, developed agriculture in the sur¬
rounding district, and improved the water-supply by
digging wells and building storage dams. The work of
flood prevention continued under the Umayyads. In
an attempt to control the sayl, a new channel was dug
for it and barriers were erected at different levels.
Despite these improvements, the problem was not ful¬
ly solved, since the Batha 5 was a basin with no outlet.
In the course of operations, buildings on the bank of
the sayl and adjoining the Ka c ba were taken down,
and the appearance of Mecca was thus considerably
altered.

For a brief period after the death of Mu c awiya,
Mecca had again some political importance as the seat
of the rival caliph c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr [q.v.]. The
succession to Mu c awiya of his son Yazld in 611/680
was disliked by many members of Kuraygh, and Ibn
al-Zubayr took advantage of such feelings to build up
a party of supporters in Mecca, and eventually had
himself proclaimed caliph there. For a time he con¬
trolled most of Arabia and c Irak, but the Umayyad
c Abd al-Malik gradually consolidated his power, and
in 73/692 his general al-Hadjdjadj defeated and killed
Ibn al-Zubayr, thus ending his bid for power and
restoring to Umayyad rule Mecca and the other
regions acknowledging the Zubayrids. In 63/682,
when Ibn al-Zubayr was deep in intrigue but had not
yet openly claimed the caliphate, an Umayyad army
was sent to Mecca, and during its presence there the
Ka c ba was partly destroyed by fire, probably through
the carelessness of a supporter of Ibn al-Zubayr.
Subsequently, the latter had the Ka c ba rebuilt, in¬
cluding the Hidjr within it; but this change was
reversed by al-Hadjdjadj. The caliph al-WalTd I is

credited with the construction of galleries circling the
vast courtyard round the Ka c ba, thus giving the mos¬
que (al-masdjid al-haram ) its distinctive form. In the
period of the decline of the Umayyads, in 130/747
Mecca was briefly occupied by Abu Hamza, a
Kh aridjf rebel from the Yemen, but he was soon
surprised and killed by an army sent by the caliph
Marwan II. For most of the Umayyad period, Mecca
had a sub-governor responsible to the governor of the
Hidjaz who resided at Medina. It attracted wealthy
people who did not want to be involved in politics and
became a place of pleasure and ease with many poets
and musicians. There were also some religious
scholars, but fewer than at Medina.

Bibliography. 1. - Sources. Ibn Hisham,
Sira ; WakidI, Maghazi, ed. Marsden Jones; Ibn
Sa c d, Tabakat; Ya c kubi, Historiae , ed. Houtsma, ii;
Tabari, Annales, series I, ii; Wiistenfeld, Chroniken
der Stadt Mekka , esp. those of AzrakI and FarisI, i,
ii; Bakrl, Mu : djam ; Yakut, Mu^dfam', MukaddasI,
Ahsan al-takdsim, 71-9; Mas c udT, Murudg al-dhahab,
iii.

2. Studies. H. Lammens, La Mecque a la veille
de Vhegire , in MFOB, ix (1924); idem, La republique
marchande de la Mecque vers Van 600 de noire ere, in BIE
(1910); idem, Les chretiens a la Mecque a la veille de
Vhegire, in BIFAO, xiv; idem, Les juifs a la Mecque a
la veille de Vhegire, in RSR, xiv; C. Snouck Hurgron-
je, Mekka, i; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le
pelerinage a la Mekka , Paris 1923; L. Caetani, Annali,

1, ii; F. Buhl, Das Leben Muhammeds, Leipzig 1930;

W. M. Watt, Muhammad at Mecca, Oxford 1953; P.
Crone, Meccan trade and the rise of Islam, Princeton,
forthcoming. (W. Montgomery Watt)

2. From the c Abbasid to the modern period

i. Mecca under the c Abbasids down to
the foundation of the Sharlfate
(132-350/750-961).

Although the political centre of gravity in Islam
now lay in Baghdad, this period at first presents the
same picture as under Umayyad rule. The Haramayn
are as a rule governed by c Abbasid princes or in¬
dividuals closely connected with them (Die Chroniken
der Stadt Mekka, ed. Wiistenfeld, ii, 181 ff.).
Sometimes Mecca and T^if were under one ruler,
who was at the same time leader of the Hadidi. while
Medina had a separate governor of its own.

Arabia had, however, from the 1st century a.h.
contained a number of c Alid groups, who, as was their
wont, fished in troubled waters, lay in wait as
brigands to plunder the Ha didi caravans, and from
time to time hoisted their flags when they were not
restrained either by the superior strength or by the
bribes of the caliphs. We find al-Man§ur (136-56/
754-74) already having trouble in Western Arabia.
Towards the end of the reign of al-Mahdl (156-69/
774-85) a Hasanid, Husayn b. C A1I, led a raid on
Medina, which he ravaged; at Fa khkh [q.v.] near
Mecca, he was cut down with many of his followers by
the c Abbasid leader of the Ha didi . The place where he
was buried is now called al-ShuhadaL It is significant
that he is regarded as the “martyr of Fa khkh ” (al-
Tabari, iii, 551 ff.; Chron. Mekka, i, 435, 501).

Harun al-Rashid on his nine pilgrimages expended
vast sums in Mecca. He was not the only c Abbasid to
scatter wealth in the holy land. This had a bad effect
on the character of the Meccans. There were hardly
any descendants left of the old distinguished families,
and the population grew accustomed to living at the
expense of others and were ready to give vent to any

148

MAKKA

dissatisfaction in rioting. This attitude was all too fre¬
quently stimulated by political conditions.

In the reign of al-Ma 3 mun (198-218/817-33) it was
again c Alids, Husayn al-Aftas and Ibrahim b. Musa,
who extended their rule over Medina, Mecca and the
Yemen (al-Tabari, iii, 981 ff.; Chron. Mecca, ii, 238),
ravaged Western Arabia and plundered the treasures
of the Ka c ba. How strong c Alid influence already was
at this time is evident from the fact that al-Ma 5 mun
appointed two c Alids as governors of Mecca (al-
Tabari, iii, 1039; Chron. Mecca, ii, 191 ff.).

With the decline of the c Abbasid caliphate after the
death of al-Ma 3 mun, a period of anarchy began in the
holy land of Islam, which was frequently accompanied
by scarcity or famine. It became the regular custom
for a number of rulers to be represented at the Ha djdj
in the plain of c Arafat and to have their flags unfurled;
the holy city was rarely spared fighting on these occa¬
sions. The safety of the pilgrim caravans was con¬
siderably affected; it was very often c Alids who
distinguished themselves in plundering the pilgrims.

The c Alid cause received an important reinforce¬
ment at this time by the foundation of a Hasanid
dynasty in Tabaristan (al-Tabari, iii, 1523-33,
1583 ff., 1682-5, 1693 ff., 1840, 1880, 1884 ff, 1940).
In Mecca the repercussion of this event was felt in the
appearance of two Hasanids {Chron. Mekka , i, 343; ii,
10, 195, 239 ff.l, Isma c fl b. Yusuf and his brother
Muhammad, who also ravaged Medina and Djudda
in the way that had now become usual (251/865-6).

The appearance of the Karmatians [see karmatI]
brought still further misery to the country in the last
fifty years before the foundation of the sharlfate (al-
Tabari, iii, 2124-30). Hard pressed themselves at the
heart of the empire, the caliphs were hardly able even
to think of giving active support to the holy land, and,
besides, their representatives had not the necessary
forces at their disposal. From 304/916 onwards the
Karmatians barred the way of the pilgrim caravans.
In 318/930, 1,500 Karmatian warriors raided Mecca,
massacred the inhabitants by the thousand and car¬
ried off the Black Stone to Bahrayn. It was only when
they realised that such deeds were bringing them no
nearer their goal—the destruction of official Islam—
that their zeal began to relax and in 339/950 they even
brought the Stone back again. Mecca was relieved of
serious danger from the Karmatians. The following
years bear witness to the increasing influence of the
c Alids in western Arabia in connection with the ad¬
vance of Fatimid rule to the east and with Buyid rule
in Baghdad. From this time, the Meccan c Alids are
called by the title of Sharif, which they have retained
ever since.

ii. From the foundation of the Sharlfate
to K at ad a {ca. 350-598/960-1200).

a. The Musawls. The sources do not agree as to
the year in which Dja c far took Mecca; 966, 967, 968
and the period between 951 and 961 are mentioned
{Chron. Mekka, ii, 205 ff.). c Alids had already ruled
before him in the holy land. It is with him, however,
that the reign in Mecca begins of the Hasanids, who
are known collectively as Sharlfs, while in Medina this
title is given to the reigning Husaynids.

The rise and continuance of the Sharlfate indicates
the relative independence of Western Arabia in face of
the rest of the Islamic world from a political and
religious point of view. Since the foundation of the
Sharlfate. Mecca takes the precedence possessed by
Medina hitherto.

How strongly the Meccan Sharlfate endeavoured to
assert its independence, is evident in this period from

two facts. In 365/976 Mecca refused homage to the
Fatimid caliph. Soon afterwards, the caliph began to
besiege the town and cut off all imports from Egypt.
The Meccans were soon forced to give in, for the
Hidjaz was dependent on Egypt for its food supplies
(Ibn al-Athlr, Kamil, viii, 491; Chron. Mekka , ii, 246).

The second sign of the Sharlfs’ feeling of in¬
dependence is Ab u T-Futuh’s (384-432/994-1039)
setting himself up as caliph in 402/1011 {Chron. Mekka,
ii, 207; Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 233, 317). He was probably
induced to do this by al-Hakim’s heretical innovations
in Egypt. The latter, however, was soon able to
reduce the new caliph’s sphere of influence so much
that he had hurriedly to return to Mecca where in the
meanwhile one of his relatives had usurped the power.
He was forced to make terms with al-Hakim in order
to be able to expel his relative.

With his son Shukr (432-53/1039-61) the dynasty
of the Musawls, i.e. the descendants of Musa b. c Abd
Allah b. Musa b. c Abd Allah b. Hasan b. Hasan b.
C A1I b. Abl Talib, came to an end. He died without
leaving male heirs, which caused a struggle within the
family of the Hasanids with the usual evil results for
Mecca. When the family of the Banu Shavba (the
Shay bis) went so far as to confiscate for their private
use all precious metals in the house of Allah, the ruler
of Yemen, al-$ulayhl {Chron. Mekka, ii, 208, 210 ff.;
Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 422; x, 19, 38 [see sulayhids], in¬
tervened and restored order and security in the town.
This intervention by an outsider appeared more in¬
tolerable to the Hasanids than fighting among
themselves. They therefore proposed to al-Sulayhl
that he should instal one of their number as ruler and
leave the town.

He therefore appointed Abu Hashim Muham¬
mad (455-87/1063-94) as Grand Sharif. With him
begins the dynasty of the:

b. Hawashim (455-598/1063-1200), which takes
its name from Abu Hashim Muhammad, a brother of
the first Sharif Dja c far; the two brothers were descen¬
dants in the fourth generation from Musa II, the
ancestor of the Musawls.

During the early years of his reign, Abu Hashim
had to wage a continual struggle with the
Sulaymanl branch, who thought themselves
humiliated by his appointment. These Sulaymanls
were descended from Sulayman, a brother of the
above-mentioned Musa II.

The reign of Abu Hashim is further noteworthy for
the shameless way in which he offered the suzerainty,
i.e. the mention in the khutba as well as the change of
official rite which is indicated by the wording of the
adhan, to the highest bidder i.e. the Fatimid caliph or
the Sal^juk sultan {Chron. Mekka, ii, 253; Ibn al-Athlr,
x, 67). It was very unwelcome to the Meccans that im¬
ports from Egypt stopped as soon as the official men¬
tion of the Fatimid in the khutba gave way to that of
the caliph. The change was repeated several times
with the result that the Saldjuk, tired of this comedy,
sent several bodies of Turkomans to Mecca.

The ill-feeling between sultan and Sharif also in¬
flicted great misery on pilgrims coming from c Irak. As
the leadership of the pilgrim caravans from this coun¬
try had gradually been transferred from the c Alids to
Turkish officials and soldiers, Abu Hashim did not
hesitate occasionally to fall upon the pilgrims and
plunder them {Chron. Mekka, ii, 254; Ibn al-Athlr, x,
153).

The reign of his successors is also marked by
covetousness and plundering. The Spanish pilgrim
Ibn Djubayr, who visited Mecca in 578/1183 and
580/1185, gives hair-raising examples of this. Even

MAKKA

149

then, however, the Hawashim were no longer ab¬
solutely their own masters, as over ten years before,
the Ayyubid dynasty had not only succeeded to the
Fatimids in Egypt but was trying to get the whole of
nearer Asia into their power.

The Ayyubid ruler Salah al-Dln (Saladin)’s
brother, who passed through Mecca on his way to
South Arabia, abandoned his intention of abolishing
the Sharifs, but the place of honour on the Ha didj
belonged to the Ayyubids and their names were men¬
tioned in the khutba after those of the c Abbasid caliph
and the Sharif (Ibn Djubayr, 75, 95). The same
Ayyubid in 582/1186 also did away with the ShI c I
(here Zaydl, for the Sharifs had hitherto been Zaydls)
form of the adhan ( Chron. Mekka , ii, 214), had coins
struck in Salah al-Dln’s name and put the fear of the
law into the hearts of the Sharif s bodyguard, who had
not shrunk from crimes of robbery and murder, by
severely punishing their misdeeds. A further result of
Ayyubid suzerainty was that the Shafi c I rite became
the predominant one.

But even the mighty Salah al-Dln could only make
improvements in Mecca. He could abolish or check
the worst abuses, but the general state of affairs re¬
mained as before.

iii. The rule of Katada and his descen¬
dants down to the Wahhabi period
{ca. 596-1202/1200-1788).

Meanwhile, a revolution was being prepared which
was destined to have more far-reaching consequences
than any of its predecessors. Katada, a descendant of
the same Musa (see above) from whom the Musawls
and the Hawashim were descended, had gradually ex¬
tended his estates as well as his influence from Yanbu c
to Mecca and had gathered a considerable following
in the town. According to some sources, his son Han-
zala made all preparations for the decisive blow on the
holy city; according to others, Katada seized the town
on 27 Radjab when the whole population was away
performing a lesser Q umra in memory of the comple¬
tion of the building of the Ka c ba by c Abd Allah b. al-
Zubayr, which was celebrated on this day along with
the festival of Muhammad’s ascension to heaven.
However it came about, Katada’s seizure of the town
meant the coming of an able and strong-willed ruler,
the ancestor of all later Sharifs. He steadfastly follow¬
ed his one ambition to make his territory an indepen¬
dent principality. Everything was in his favour; that
he did not achieve his aim was a result of the fact that
the Hidjaz was once again at the intersection of many
rival lines of political interest.

Katada began by ruining his chances with the great
powers; he ill-treated the son of the Ayyubid al-Malik
al- c Adil (540-615/1145-1218 [see al- c adil]) in brutal
fashion {Chron. Mekka , ii, 263). He roused the ire of
the caliph by his attitude to pilgrims from c Irak. He
was able, however, to appease the latter and the em¬
bassy he sent to Baghdad returned with gifts from the
caliph. The caliph also invited him to visit Ba gh dad.
According to some historians, however, the Sharif
turned home again before he actually reached
Baghdad. On this occasion, he is said to have express¬
ed his policy of the “splendid isolation” of the Hidjaz
in verse, as he did in his will in prose (see Snouck
Hurgronje, Qatadah’s policy of splendid isolation , cited in
Bibl).

On the other hand, Katada is said to have vigorous¬
ly supported an Imam of Hasanid descent in founding
a kingdom in the Yemen. After the reconquest of this
region by a grandson of al- c Adil, the Ayyubids of
Egypt, Syria, and South Arabia were mentioned in
the khutba in Mecca along with the caliph and Sharif.

Katada’s life ended in a massacre which his son

♦

H asan carried out in his family to rid himself of
possible rivals {Chron. Mekka , ii, 215, 263 ff.; Ibn al-
Athlr, xii, 262 ff.). The Ayyubid prince Mas c ud,
however, soon put a limit to his ambition and had
Mecca governed by his generals. On his death,
however, power again passed into the hands of the
Sharifs. whose territory was allowed a certain degree
of independence by the rulers of the Yemen as a
bulwark against Egypt.

About the middle of the 7th/13th century, the world
of Islam assumes a new aspect as the result of the ad¬
vent of persons and happenings of great importance.
In 656/1258 the taking of Baghdad by the Mongol
Khan Hiilegii put an end to the caliphate. The
pilgrim caravan from c Irak was no longer of any
political significance. In Egypt, power passed from
the Ayyubids to the Mamluks; Sultan Baybars \q.v.]
(658-76/1260-77) was soon the most powerful ruler in
the lands of Islam. He was able to leave the govern¬
ment of Mecca in the hands of the Sharif, because the
latter, Abu Numayy, was an energetic individual
who ruled with firmness during the second half of the
7th/13th century (652-700/1254-1301). His long reign
firmly established the power of the descendants of
Katada.

Nevertheless, the first half century after his death
was almost entirely filled with fighting between dif¬
ferent claimants to the throne. c Adjlan’s reign also
(747-76/1346-75) was filled with political unrest, so
much so that the Mamluk Sultan is said on one occa¬
sion to have sworn to exterminate all the Sharifs.
c Adjlan introduced a political innovation by appoin¬
ting his son and future successor Ahmad co-regent
in 762/1361, by which step he hoped to avoid a
fraticidal struggle before or after his death.

A second measure of c Adjlan’s also deserves men¬
tion, namely the harsh treatment of the mu^a dhdh in
and imam of the Zaydls; this shows that the reigning
Sharifs had gone over to the predominant rite of al-
Shafi c I and forsaken the Zaydl creed of their
forefathers.

Among the sons and successors of c Adjlan, special
mention may be made of Hasan (798-829/1396-
1426) because he endeavoured to extend his sway over
the whole of the Hidjaz and to guard his own financial
interests carefully, at the same time being able to
avoid giving his Egyptian suzerain cause to interfere.

But from 828/1425 onwards, he and his successors
had to submit to a regular system of control as regards
the allotment of the customs.

From the time of Hasan, in addition to the
bodyguard of personal servants and freedmen, we
find a regular army of mercenaries mentioned which
was passed from one ruler to another. But the mode
of life of the Sharifs. unlike that of other Oriental
rulers, remained simple and in harmony with their
Arabian surroundings. As a vassal of the Egyptian
sultan, the Sharif received from him every year his
tawki c [q. v. ] and a robe of honour. On the ceremonies
associated with the accession of the Sharifs, see
Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka , i, 97-8.

Of the three sons of Hasan who disputed the posi¬
tion in their father’s lifetime, Barakat (I) was
chosen by the sultan as co-regent; twenty years later,
he succeeded his father and was able with slight inter¬
ruptions to hold sway till his death in 859/1455. He
had to submit to the sultan, sending a permanent gar¬
rison of 50 Turkish horsemen under an amir to Mecca.
This amir may be regarded as the precursor of the later
governors, who sometimes attained positions of con¬
siderable influence under Turkish suzerainty.

Mecca enjoyed a period of prosperity under

150

MAKKA

Barakat’s son Muhammad ( Chron. Mekka, ii,
341 ff.; iii, 230 ff.), whose reign (859-902/1455-97)
coincided with that of Kafitbay [ q.v.] in Egypt. The
latter has left a fine memorial in the many buildings
he erected in Mecca.

Under Muhammad’s son Barakat II
(902-31/1497-1525), who displayed great ability and
bravery in the usual struggle with his relatives,
without getting the support he desired from Egypt
(Chron. Mekka , ii, 342 ff.; iii, 244 ff.), the political
situation in Islam was fundamentally altered by the
Ottoman Sultan Selim’s conquest of Eeypt in
923/1517.

Although henceforth Constantinople had the im¬
portance for Mecca that Ba gh dad once had, there
was little real understanding between Turks and
Arabs, Mecca at first experienced a period of peace
under the Sharifs Muhammad Abu Numayy
931-73/1525-66) and Hasan (973-1009/1566-1601).
Under Ottoman protection, the territory of the
Sharifs was extended as far as Khavbar in the north,
to Hall in the south and in the east into Nadjd.
Dependence on Egypt still existed at the same time;
when the government in Constantinople was a strong
one, it was less perceptible, and vice-versa. This
dependence was not only political but had also a
material and religious side. The Hidjaz was depen¬
dent for its food supply on corn from Egypt. The
foundations of a religious and educational nature now
found powerful patrons in the Sultans of Turkey.

A darker side of the Ottoman suzerainty was its in¬
tervention in the administration of justice. Since the
Sharifs had adopted the Shafi c I madhhab , the Shafi C I
kd^i was the chief judge; this office had also remained
for centuries in one family. Now the highest bidder for
the office was sent every year from Istanbul to Mecca;
the Meccans of course had to pay the price with in¬
terest.

With Hasan’s death, a new period of confusion and
civil war began for Mecca. In the language of the
historians, this circumstance makes itself apparent in
the increasing use of the term Dhawi. .. for different
groups of the descendants of Abu Numayy who
dispute the supremacy, often having their own ter¬
ritory, sometimes asserting a certain degree of in¬
dependence from the Grand Sharif, while preserving
a system of reciprocal protection which saved the
whole family from disaster (Snouck Hurgronje,
Mekka , i, 112 ff.).

The struggle for supremacy, interspersed with
disputes with the officials of the suzerain, centred in
the 11 th/ 17th century mainly around the c Abadila,
the Dhawi Zayd and the Dhawi Barakat.

Zayd (1040-76/1631-66) was an energetic in¬
dividual who would not tolerate everything the
Turkish officials did. But he was unable to oppose suc¬
cessfully a measure which deserves mention on ac¬
count of its general importance. The ill-feeling
between the Sunni Turks and the ShI c I Persians had
been extended to Mecca as a result of an order by
Sultan Murad IV to expel all Persians from the holy
city and not to permit them to make the pilgrimage in
future. Neither the Sharifs nor the upper classes in
Mecca had any reason to be pleased with this
measure; it only served the mob as a pretext to
plunder well-to-do Persians. As soon as the Turkish
governor had ordered them to go, the Sharifs however
gave permission as before to the Shi c Is to take part in
the pilgrimage and to remain in the town. The Sharifs
likewise favoured the Zaydls, who had also been fre¬
quently forbidden Mecca by the Turks.

The further history of Mecca down to the coming

of the Wahhabis is a rather monotonous struggle of
the Sharifian families among themselves (Dhawi
Zayd, Dhawi Barakat, Dhawi Mas c ud) and with the
Ottoman officials in the town itself or in Djudda.

iv. The Sharlfate from the Wahhabi
period to its end. The Kingdom.

Although the Wahhabis [q.v. ] had already made
their influence perceptible under his predecessors, it
was Ghalib (1788-1813) who was the first to see the
movement sweeping towards his territory like a flood;
but he left no stone unturned to avert the danger. He
sent his armies north, east and south; his brothers and
brothers-in-law all took the field; the leaders of the
Syrian and Egyptian pilgrim caravans were appealed
to at every pilgrimage for help, but without success.
During the period of the French occupation of Egypt
(1798-1801), he made a rapprochement with the
French there, hoping to ensure the continuance of the
corn imports from Egypt upon which the Hidjaz relied
and to reduce Turkish influence there (see M. Abir,
Relations between the government of India and the Sharif of
Mecca during the French invasion of Egypt , 1798-1801 , in
JR AS [1965], 33-42). In 1799 Ghalib made a treaty
with the amir of DarUyya, by which the boundaries of
their territories were laid down, with the stipulation
that the Wahhabis should be allowed access to the holy
territory. Misunderstandings proved inevitable,
however, and in 1803 the army of the amir Su c ud b.
c Abd al- c Az!z approached the holy city. After Ghalib
had withdrawn to Djudda, in April Su c ud entered
Mecca, the inhabitants of which had announced their
conversion. All kubbas were destroyed, all tobacco
pipes and musical instruments burned, and the adhan
purged of praises of the Prophet.

In July, Ghalib returned to Mecca but gradually he
became shut in there by enemies as with a wall. In
August, the actual siege began and with it a period of
famine and plague. In February of the following year,
Ghalib had to submit to acknowledging Wahhabi
suzerainty while retaining his own position.

The Sublime Porte had during all these happenings
displayed no sign of life. It was only after the
Wahhabis had in 1807 sent back the pilgrim caravans
from Syria and Egypt with their mahmals [q.v.], that
Muhammad C A1I [< 7.0 ] was given instructions to
deal with the Hidjaz as soon as he was finished with
Egypt. It was not till 1813 that he took Mecca and
there met Gh alib who made cautious advances to him.
Ghalib, however, soon fell into the trap set for him by
Muhammad c AlI and his son Tusun. He was exiled to
Salonika, where he lived till his death in 1816.

In the meanwhile, Muhammad c AlI had installed
Ghalib’s nephew Yahya b. Sarur (1813-27) as
Sharif. Thus ended the first period of Wahhabi rule
over Mecca, and the Hidjaz once more became
dependent on Egypt. In Mecca, Muhammad C A1I was
honourably remembered because he restored the
pious foundations which had fallen into ruins, revived
the consignments of corn, and allotted stipends to
those who had distinguished themselves in sacred lore
or in other ways.

In 1827, Muhammad C A1I had again to interfere in
the domestic affairs of the Sharifs. When Yahya had
made his position untenable by the vengeance he took
on one of his relatives, the viceroy deposed the Dhawi
Zayd and installed one of the c Abadila, Muhammad,
usually called Muhammad b. c Awn (1827-51). He
had first of all to go through the traditional struggle
with his relatives. Trouble between him and Muham¬
mad c All’s deputy resulted in both being removed to
Cairo in 1836.

MAKKA

151

Here the Sharif remained till 1840 when by the
treaty between Muhammad c AlI and the Porte the
Hidjaz was again placed directly under the Porte.
Muhammad b. c Awn returned to his home and rank.
Ottoman suzerainty was now incorporated in the per¬
son of the wait of Djudda. Friction was inevitable be¬
tween him and Muhammad b. c Awn; the latter’s
friendship with Muhammad C A1T now proved of use to
him. He earned the gratitude of the Turks for his ex¬
peditions against the Wahhabi chief Faysal in al-
Riyad and against the c AsIr tribes. His raids on the
territory of Yemen also prepared the way for Ottoman
rule over it.

In the meanwhile, the head of the Dhawl Zayd,
c Abd al-Muttalib (1851-56), had made good use
of his friendship with the grand vizier and brought
about the deposition of the c Abadila in favour of the
Dhawl Zayd. c Abd al-Muttalib, however, did not suc¬
ceed in keeping on good terms with one of the two
pashas with whom he had successively to deal. In 1855
it was decided in Istanbul to cancel his appointment
and to recall Muhammad b. c Awn. c Abd al-Muttalib
at first refused to recognise the genuineness of the
order; and he was supported by the Turkophobe feel¬
ing just provoked by the prohibition of slavery. Final¬
ly, however, he had to give way to Muhammad b.
c Awn, who in 1856 entered upon the Sharlfate for the
second time; this reign lasted barely two years. Be¬
tween his death in March 1858 and the arrival of his
successor c Abd Allah in October of the same year,
there took place the murder of the Christians in Djid-
da (15 June) and the atonement for it (cf. djudda, and
Snouck Hurgronje, Een rector der mekkaansche univer-
siteit , in Bijdragen t. d. Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van
Ned.-Indie, 5 e volgr., deel ii, 381 ff., 399 ff.).

The rule of c Abd Allah (1858-77), who was much
liked by his subjects, was marked by peace at home
and events of far-reaching importance abroad. The
opening of the Suez Canal (1869) meant on the one
hand the liberation of the Hidjaz from Egypt, on the
other, however, more direct connection with Istanbul.
The installation of telegraphic connections between
the Hidjaz and the rest of the world had a similar im¬
portance. The reconquest of Yemen by the Turks was
calculated to strengthen the impression that Arabia
was now Turkish territory for ever.

The brief reign of his popular elder brother Husayn
(1877-80) ended with the assassination of the Sharif
by an Afghan. The fact that the aged c Abd al-
Muttalib (see above) was sent by the Dhawl Zayd
from Istanbul as his successor (1880-82) gave rise to
an obvious suspicion.

Although the plebs saw something of a saint in this
old man, his rule was soon felt to be so oppressive that
the notables petitioned for his deposition (Snouck
Hurgronje, Mekka , i, 204 ff.). As a result in 1881, the
energetic c Othman Nurl Pasha was sent with troops to
the Hidjaz as commander of the garrison with the task
of preparing for the restoration of the c Abadila. c Abd
al-Muttalib was outwitted and taken prisoner; he was
kept under guard is one of his own houses in Mecca
till his death in 1886.

c Othman Pasha, who was appointed wall in July
1882, hoped to see his friend c Abd Ilah, one of the
c Abadila, installed as Grand Sharif alongside of him.
c Awn al-Rafik (1882-1905) was, however, appointed
(portrait in Snouck Hurgronje, Bilder aus Mekka). As
the wall was an individual of great energy, who had
ever done much for the public good and c Awn,
although very retiring, was by no means insignificant,
but was indeed somewhat tyrannical, trouble between
them was inevitable, especially as they had the same

powers on many points, e.g. the administration of
justice and supervision of the safety of the pilgrim
routes. After a good deal of friction, c Othman was
dismissed in 1886. His successor was Djemal Pasha,
who only held office for a short period and was suc¬
ceeded by Safwat Pasha. Only Ahmad Ratib could
keep his place alongside of c Awn, and that by shutting
his eyes to many things and being satisfied with cer¬
tain material advantages. After c Awn’s death, c Abd
Ilah was chosen as his successor. He died, however,
before he could start on the journey from Istanbul to
Mecca. c Awn’s actual successor was therefore his
nephew C A1I (1905-8). In 1908 he and Ahmad Ratib
both lost their positions with the Turkish Revolution.

With Husayn (1908-1916-1924 [see husayn b.
c ali]), also a nephew of c Awn’s, the last Sharif came
to power as the nominee of the young Turks in Istan¬
bul. But for the Great War, his Sharlfate would pro¬
bably have run the usual course. The fact that Turkey
was now completely involved in the war induced him
to declare himself independent in 1916. He
endeavoured to extend his power as far as possible,
first as liberator ( munkidh ) of the Arabs, then (22 June
1916) as king of the Hidjaz or king of Arabia and
finally as caliph. Very soon however, it became ap¬
parent that the ruler of Nadjd, c Abd al- c Az!z A1
Su c ud, like his Wahhabi forefathers, was destined to
have a powerful say in the affairs of Arabia. In
September 1924 his troops took al-Ta 3 if, and in Oc¬
tober, Mecca. King Husayn fled first to c Akaba and
from there in May 1925 to Cyprus. His son c AlI
retired to Djudda. Ibn Su c ud besieged this town and
Medina for a year, avoiding bloodshed and complica¬
tions with European powers. Both towns surrendered
in December 1925.

We owe descriptions of social life in Mecca during
the last decades of the pre-modern period to two Euro¬
peans, the Briton Sir Richard Burton, who as the
dervish-physician Mlrza c Abd Allah visited Mecca in
1853 at the time of the pilgrimage, and the Dutchman
Snouck Hurgronje, who lived in Mecca for some
months during 1884-5 with the express aim of acquir¬
ing a knowledge of the daily life of the Meccans, but
also with a special interest, as a Dutchman, in the
Djawa or Indonesians who went as pilgrims to Mecca
and who often stayed there as mudjawirun.

The institution of the pilgrimage and the
ceremonies connected with the various holy sites in or
near the city dominated Meccan life, many of its
citizens having specific roles concerning the religious
rites and being organised in special gilds, such as the
zamzamiyyun who distributed water from the well of
Zamzam in the courtyard of the Ka c ba; the Bedouin
mukharridjun or camel brokers, who arranged transport
between Djudda, Mecca, al-Ta^if and Medina; and
above all, the mutawwifun or guides for the intending
pilgrims and their conductors through the various
rites (manasik) of the Ha didj \q.v.\. These mutawwifun
had their connections with particular ethnic groups or
geographical regions of the Islamic world (there were,
in Snouck Hurgronje’s time, 180 guides plus hangers-
on who were concerned with the Djawa pilgrims
alone), and their agents ( wukala *) in Djudda would
take charge of the pilgrims as soon as they disembark¬
ed. Such groups as these, together with the towns¬
people in general who would let out their houses or
rooms, were geared to the exploitation of the pilgrims,
and it was only in the rest of the year that tradesmen,
scholars, lawyers, etc., could really pursue their other
vocations.

At this time also, the slave trade was still of con¬
siderable importance. There were a few white Circas-

152

MAKKA

sians (Cerkes [< 7 . £».]), but much more important for
hard manual labour like building and quarrying were
the black negro slaves (sudan), and, for domestic ser¬
vice, the somewhat lighter-skinned so-called Abyssi-
nians ( hubush ). Despite the prohibitions of
slave-trading imposed in their own colonial territories
and on the high seas, Snouck Hurgronje further
observed some slaves from British India and the
Dutch East Indies, and the Mecca slave market was a
flourishing one.

Bibliograph y: AzrakI, Akhbar Makka , in Die
Chromken der Stadt Mekka , ed. Wustenfeld; Tabari;
Ibn al-Athlr, Kamil ; Ahmad b. Zaynl Dahlan,
Khuldsat al-kalam ft bayan umara 5 al-balad al-hardm,
Cairo 1305; Wustenfeld, Die Scherife von Mekka im
XL (XVII.) Jahrhundert, in Abh. G. W. Gott., xxxii
(1885); C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka , The Hague
1888-9 (on this work is based the above sketch
down to the beginning of c Awn’s reign); idem, Een
rector der Mekkaansche Universiteit, in BTL V, 5 e reeks,
ii, 344 ff. = Verspr. geschr ., iii, 65 ff.; idem,
Qatadah’s policy of splendid isolation of the Hijdz, in A
volume of oriental studies presented to E. G. Browne,
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’ l-dawla al- c Uthmdniyya, Cairo 1376/1957; Emel
Esin, Mecca the blessed, Madinah the radiant, London
1963; R. Bayly Winder, Saudi Arabia in the nineteenth
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literature in the period 1908-41, with some reference to the
history of the press, London Univ. Ph. D. thesis,
1967, unpublished; C A1I b. Husayn al-Sulayman,
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Univ. Ph. D. thesis, 3 vols. 1983, unpublished.

(A. J. Wensinck - [C. E. Bosworth])

3. The Modern City

Politics and administration. C A1I b. al-
Husayn b. C A1I, was declared king of al-Hidjaz on 5
Rabl c I 1346/4 October 1924 following the abdication
of his father the previous day, but the odds against his
stabilising a collapsing situation were insurmoun¬
table. Wahhabi forces under Khalid b. Lu 3 ayy and
Sultan b. Bidjad had already occupied al-Ta^if, where
excesses had taken place, and a significant number of

Makkans, in fear for their lives, had fled to al-Madlna
and Djudda. Since, unlike other HidjazI cities,
Makka had no walls, and since King c All’s “army”
probably did not exceed 400 men, the monarch
ordered his troops out of the capital on 14 Rabl c I 13
October 1924 to take up new positions in Bahra about
half-way between Makka and Djudda. The next mor¬
ning, the city was looted, not by the Ikhwan
(Wahhabis) but by local Bedouin who found it
unguarded. c Abd al- c Azfz b. c Abd al-Rahman Al
Su c ud, the sultan of Nadjd and its Dependencies, was
in al-Riyad and had ordered Khalid b. Lu’ayy and
Ibn Bidjad not to enter Makka by force before his own
arrival, for fear of further savagery in Islam’s holiest
city. However, when Khalid and Ibn Bidjad found
that the enemy had fled, they decided to move. On 17
Rabl c 1/16 October, by which time the Bedouin had
left, Ibn Bidjad ordered four Ikhwan from Ghatghat
to enter the shuttered city without weapons and wear¬
ing ihram clothing. As they traversed the deserted
streets, they read a proclamation annexing the city
and guaranteeing the safety of its inhabitants. Slowly
the citizenry began to re-emerge. On the following
day, Khalid and Sultan led their forces, all muhrimun,
into the holy city to the Haram, where the c umra was
performed. There was some sporadic destruction of
water pipes, tobacco supplies, Sharlfian property and
domed tombs, and the Ikhwan delivered sermons.
Among the revered antiquities destroyed was the
reputed birthplace of the Prophet and two houses
revered as those of Khadldja and of Abu Bakr. But on
the whole, good order was kept. As a Su c udl official
observed, the Ikhwan entered Makka saying “La il-
aha ilia Allah” and “Allahu Akbar”, not fighting and
killing. Khalid b. Lu’ayy was “elected” amir and
promptly installed himself in the Sharlfian reception
room to receive the submission of the civil and
religious notables.

The amir of Makka served unaided for a month-
and-a-half, and had to confront both domestic and in¬
ternational problems almost at once. On 6 Rabl c II
1343/4 November 1924, the consuls resident in
Djudda (British, Dutch, French, Iranian and Italian),
who no doubt anticipated an immediate Su c udl ad¬
vance on Djudda, sent Ibn Lu 3 ayy a letter addressed
to Sultan c Abd al- c Az!z holding the Nadjdls responsi¬
ble for the safety of the subjects and citizens of their
several countries but also indicating their neutrality in
the ongoing conflict with the reduced Sharlfian
kingdom. Ibn Lu^ayy forwarded it on to the sultan.
Ibn Lu^ayy also received a rather treasonable com¬
munication of 7 Rabl c II/5 November from the
Hidjaz National Party in Djudda. This group, which
was nominally led by Shavkh c Abd Allah Sarradj, the
mufti of Makka, who reputedly had been the only of¬
ficial of al-Husayn’s government who had been will¬
ing to stand up to him in debate, had been
transformed into King c AlI’s cabinet. Following
Baker’s account, we learn that they nevertheless,
secretly, wrote to Ibn Lu 3 ayy seeking some accom¬
modation. Ibn Lu 5 ayy responded on 20 Rabi c 11/18
November curtly, “We, the Muslims, have no aim
but to subject ourselves to God’s orders and to love
those who carry out those orders even if he be an
Abyssinian negro, to fight the kuffdr ... or the mushrikin
...As God said (LVIII, 22) in his Holy Book... ‘Thou
wilt not find those who believe in God and the last day
loving those who resist God and His Prophet even
though they be their fathers, sons, brothers or kin’ ...
if you look at our own situation and consider our ac¬
tions you will see that this is our way of defending -
Islam.” He enclosed a copy of c Abd al- c Aziz’s pro-

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clamation to the people of Djudda and Makka sug¬
gesting an international conference on the future of
al-Hidjaz and meanwhile assuring security for all.
The Hidjaz committee responded to the effect that,
since al-Husayn had gone and since King C A1F and the
Party accepted the same kind of Islam that Sultan
c Abd al- c Aziz believed in, there was no reason to con¬
tinue fighting. They asked to send delegates to Makka
so that a truce could be signed pending the decision of
the international conference. Khalid gave them no en¬
couragement; he wrote on 22 Rabi c 11/20 November,
“God has already purified the Holy Haram by ridding
it of Husayn... We shall oppose all those who continue
to support c Ali. ” Muhammad al-Tawfl, who was the
real power in the Hidjaz National Party, nevertheless,
requested permission to send a delegation; Khalid
agreed, and the delegation went to Makka the next
day. Any lingering doubt as to Wahhabi intentions
was removed by the ultimatum which Khalid gave his
visitors. They could arrest c Ali, get him out of the
country, or join the Wahhabis in seizing Dj udda.

Sultan c Abd al- c Az!z had left al-Riyad with an ar¬
my of 5,000 sedentaries on 13 Rabi c II 1343/11
November 1924 for Makka and arrived there in
remarkably fast time on 8 Jumada 1/5 December.
Upon his departure from al-Riyad he had issued a
proclamation (text in Wahba, Diaz fra. 253) on his pur¬
poses in going to Makka. He also sent an advance
party of three close advisors, Dr. c Abd Allah al-
Damludjl (from al-Mawsil), Shaykh c Abd Allah A1
Sulayman (from c Unayza in al-Kasim, Nadjd), and
Shaykh Hafiz Wahba (of Egyptian origin) to study
out the situation in Makka and to assist in reassuring
the population. Shaykh Hafiz reports (Khamsun .
63 ff.) that he delivered a number of speeches to
ulema, merchants and government employees in
various meetings. He stressed that c Abd al- c AzIz
would reform corruption, end the isolation of al-
Hidjaz from the mainstream of the Muslim world and
put the administration of the country, and especially
of the Haramayn, on a sound basis. These speeches
probably helped; in any case, just before c Abd
al- c Aziz’s arrival, Shaykh Hafiz received a letter from
the director of the Egyptian lakiyya, Ahmad Sabir,
congratulating him on one of them.

Sultan c Abd al- c Aziz himself reached al-Ta 5 if on 6
Djumada 1/3 December, changed into ihram, enterec
the city and then, by the Bab al-Salam, entered the
sacred mosque. No member of his house had prayed
there since 1227-8/1812. Ibn Su c ud eschewed the
SharTfian palaces and instead set up his camp outside
the city in al-Shuhada’, where for two weeks he
received all and sundry. Universal report is that his
humility, his unpretentiousness, his sincere apologies
for what had happened at al-Ta ? if and his rejection of
sycophancy (to those who tried to kiss his hand he said
that his custom was only to shake hands) combined to
win local hearts. The proclamation that he had issued
on 12 Djumada I 1343/9 December when he entered
the city had already made a favourable impression
(text in Wahba, Djazira. 254-5). Article 4 was as
follows: “Every member of the ulema in these regions
and each employee of al-Haram al-Sharif or mulawwif
with a clear title shall be entitled to his previous en¬
titlement. We will neither add to it nor subtract
anything from it, with the exception of a man against
whom people bring proof of unsuitability for a post,
for unlike the past situation, such practices will be for¬
bidden. To whomever has a firm previous claim on
the bayt al-mdl of the Muslims, we will give his right
and take nothing from him.”

Having established some rapport with the citizens

of Makka, Sultan c Abd al- c Aziz now took command
of his forward troops located at al-Raghama about 4
km. east of Bahra. The governance of the city rested
still with Ibn Lu 5 ayy, but c Abd al- c Az!z now turned
the civil administration of the city over to c Abd Allah
al-Damludjl and to Hafiz Wahba on a kind of rotating
basis. He then decided he would rather have al-
Damludji close at hand and left the administration of
Makka divided so that Khalid b. Lu’ayy handled
Ikhwan and military affairs and Shaykh Hafiz civil
matters. Soon thereafter the administration was fur¬
ther elaborated. The municipality was turned over to
a Makkan, Shaykh Ahmad al-Subahl, and an em¬
bryonic consultative council was established under the
chairmanship of Shaykh c Abd al-Kadir al-Shaybl, the
keeper of the key of the Ka c ba. This simple council
was the kernel of the later Majlis al-Shura. This ad¬
ministrative set-up continued until the capture of
Djudda a year later.

The dual armrate was not harmonious. Shaykh
Hafiz reports perpetual conflicts between himself and
Khalid. It was, he says, a conflict between Bedouin
and sedentary mentalities. “He wanted to confiscate
all the houses and seize their contents because their
owners had fled. Since they had only fled out of fright,
I tried and in many cases succeeded in preserving
them; in other cases I failed.” Smoking was a
perpetual source of trouble. Ibn Lu^ayy wanted to use
force on offenders; Hafiz, kindness. One of the ironies
was that although smoking had been banned, cigaret¬
tes were taxed.

There were other problems. King C A1T, attempts at
reconciliation having failed, stopped all supplies going
from Djudda to Makka. Since 300-400 camel loads a
day were needed, the situation became very strained.
c Abd al-Kadir al-Shaybi wrote to King C A1T as follows:
“How far do your deeds differ from the statement of
God. What is the reason for stopping our food? We
are not responsible for the Nejdi Army entering Mec¬
ca; you are, for the following reasons (i) you did not
settle differences with the Sultan of Nejd, (ii) when the
Nejd army entered Taif we asked you to evacuate our
families and belongings, but you refused. You pro¬
mised to protect us but you ran away. When you
came to Mecca we asked you and your father to pro¬
tect us... and again you ran away... we would like to
ask your Highness if the neighbours of the House of
God are animals. We beg your Highness to leave us
and Jeddah.” (quotation from Baker, 214-15). C A1I
sent one of his dilapidated aircraft to drop a leaflet in
reply saying that he had left in order to prevent a
repetition of the erneutes in al-Ta-fif. c Abd al- c Aziz’s
response to him was more concrete. He sent the
Ikhwan to capture Rabigh and al-Llth thus (a) giving
them something to do; (b) breaking the blockade; and
(c) cutting the communications between Djudda and
al-Madlna.

In fact, the situation in Makka improved while that
in Djudda slowly deteriorated. Not only did Makkans
begin to return home, but native Djuddawis
themselves began to arrive in Makka. The superior
administration in Makka was a noticeable factor. In
April an interesting visitor arrived, Comrade Karim
Khan Haklmoff, the Soviet consul in Djudda. He had
been granted permission by King c AlT to mediate and
arrived with his Iranian colleague. They were of
course received by c Abd al- c AzTz. Reportedly,
Haklmoff characterised the hostilities as resulting
from imperialist plots, but he did get permission for
Fu^ad al-Khatlb. King c All’s foreign minister, to
come and negotiate. On 2 May, c Abd al- c AzIz met
with al-Khatlb at a coffee shop midway between the

154

MAKKA

warring lines. The sultan never wavered: the former
King al-Husayn now in al- c Akaba was still really run¬
ning affairs; even if he were not, King C AII was in¬
distinguishable from him; both had to go.

The sieges of al-Madlna and Djudda dragged on,
but the approaching Ha djdi season of 1344/June-July
1925 began to occupy c Abd al- c AzIz’s attention.
Despite the difficulty that the siege of Djudda impos¬
ed, he was anxious for the Ha djdi to go well. He an¬
nounced that Rabigh, al-Llth and al-Kunfudha were
official pilgrim ports and sent out a general invitation
(nidd^ c dmm ) to all Muslims (text in Wahba, Khamsun .
67) which incidentally indicated that charitable con¬
tributions and economic development projects would
be welcome.

This was the year that Eldon Rutter, an English
Muslim, made the pilgrimage and left a first-hand ac¬
count thereof. Of course, the number who came was
very small. His mutawwif claimed normally to have
had some 1,000 plus clients, but this year he had only
Eldon Rutter. The Englishman estimated that the
total number who came was approximately 70,000, of
whom he thought some 25-30,000 were Nadjdls. They
camped apart, and Rutter notes that they took no
notice of the tobacco that was on sale everywhere. “It
is the smoking ... which is unlawful, not the selling of
it!” At c Arafat, while returning toward his tent from
a visit to Masdjid Namira (also known as Masdjid
Ibrahim and Masdjid c Arafa), Rutter and his
companions “passed the burly figure of Ibn Sa c ud,
dressed in a couple of towels and bestriding a beautiful
Nejd horse which looked rather like a little animated
rocking horse under his long form. He was attended
by four mounted guards carrying rifles.” Another of
Rutter’s vivid descriptions is that of the break-up of
the pilgrim throng at c Arafat: “Far out on the north¬
ern side of the plain rode the scattered hosts of the
Nejd Ikhwan—dim masses of hosting camelry,
obscurely seen in the falling dusk. Here and there in
the midst of the spreading multitude, a green stan¬
dard, born aloft, suddenly flashed out from the dust-
cloud, only to disappear the next moment behind the
obscuring screen, which rose in spreading billows
from beneath the feet of the thousands of trotting
deluls.” There were also Wahhabis riding as police
against the returning crowd on the look-out for thiev¬
ing, which was much less that year because potential
thieves knew that the Wahhabis would apply Islamic
law literally and promptly. The Nadjdl flag was flying
over the hospital at Muna, where c Abd al- c Az!z had
pitched his tent on the “cope-stoned earthen platform
where the tents of the Sharif of Mekka were formerly
pitched at this season.” All guests, including Rutter,
were received by the sultan, and he rose to greet each
and every one. By this time, the sultan had apparently
settled for more comfortable quarters when in the city.
Rutter mentions passing his residence in al-Abtah (al-
Mu c abada), a spacious well-built mansion which
belonged to c Umar al-Sakkaf and over which the
green flag flew. Rutter met with c Abd al- c Aziz a
number of times, learned that he personally approved
the editorials in the new official journal, Umm al-Kura,
and on one occasion heard the king say that his three
concerns were Allah, “my beloved” Muhammad and
the Arab nation.

In short, despite occasional harassment of foreign
pilgrims by the Ikhwan. the pilgrimage was a brilliant
success for the new regime. The numbers who came
were obviously small but the organisation was ex¬
cellent. Glowing reports filtered back to home coun¬
tries, and the bogey man image of the Wahhabi leader
began to recede.

Meanwhile, the sieges were dragging down to their
end. Rutter describes one aerial attack in which the
Sharlfian bombs were dropped on the hills bordering
al-Mu c abada. He opines that they were probably
aimed at the house in al-Abtah. The result was not
impressive; the straw hut of a TakrunI (African) was
destroyed, and an old woman was slightly wounded in
the leg. Autumn brought visitors. Philby on a per¬
sonal mission was received by the sultan at al-
Shumavsl on the edge of the sacred territory. Sir
Gilbert Clayton, who was negotiating with c Abd
al- c Az!z at his camp in Bahra, noted in his diary for
22 Rabl c 1/21 October the arrival of an Iranian
delegation. Led by Mlrza C A1I Akbar Khan Bahman,
the Iranian minister in Egypt, and Mlrza Habib
Khan Huwayda, the consul-general of Iran in
Palestine, its function was to investigate alleged
Wahhabi desecration and destruction of shrines in
Makka and al-Madlna. c Abd al- c AzIz received them
most cordially and sent them on to Makka by car. The
sultan said he welcomed the investigation because the
charges were false. Incidentally, Clayton indicated in
his diary (19 October 1925) his belief that Ibn Su c ud
could have captured Djudda whenever he wanted, but
that he was going slowly because, inter alia, he wanted
“to gauge more fully the effect which his attack on the
Holy Places and his capture of Mecca has had on the
Moslem world in general and especially in India and
Egypt.” In any case, by the middle of November
1925, large numbers of Wahhabis began to arrive in
groups ranging from half-a-dozen to several hundred.
The wadi from Djabal al-Nur to the city was crowded
with them and many were sent on to the front. Clear¬
ly, the sultan was preparing to storm Djudda, but it
turned out not to be necessary. Al-Madlna sur¬
rendered on 19 Djumada I 1344/5 December 1925,
followed two weeks later by Djudda. On 20 Djumada
II 1344/5 January 1926, certain notables in Djudda
formally approached the sultan of Nadjd to ask him if
he would also become king of al-Hidjaz, hoping by
this device to maintain the integrity of al-Hidjaz.
When they had left. c Abd al- c Az!z convened the
ulema and other notables. They approved. On 22
Djumada II/7 January in Makka, Ibn Su c ud released
a formal statement of his intentions pointing out that
there had been almost no response to his appeal for a
conference to discuss the problem of al-Hidjaz. “So,
as I find that the Islamic World is not concerned about
this important matter, I have granted them [the peo¬
ple of the Hidjaz] the freedom to decide what they
will.’ The wishes of the “people” manifested
themselves the same evening in the form of a petition
confirming their support for c Abd al- c Azfz: “We
acknowledge you, Sultan Abdulaziz, as king of Hejaz
in accordance with the Holy Book and the Sunna of the
Prophet and that Hejaz will be for the Hejazeen ...
Mecca will be the capital and we shall be under your
protection” (Baker, 230). Rutter was present in the
Great Mosque for the mubaya c a : “Upon a Friday [23
Djumada II/8 January] after the midday prayer, I
mounted the crumbling stone steps of the school el
Madrassat el Fakhriya, which stands beside the Bab
Ibrahim, in order to visit an acquaintance who was
employed as a schoolmaster there. As we sat sipping
tea beside a window looking into the Haram, we were
surprised to observe a sudden rush of people toward
Bab es-Safa. They were evidently attracted by
something which was happening near that gate.

Rising, we descended the steps and passed into the
Haram. Making our way toward Bab es-Safa, we
came upon a great press of Mekkans and Bedouins. In
the midst of them was one of the Haram preachers

MAKKA

155

[probably c Abd al-Malik Murad] perched upon a little
wooden platform or pulpit, apparently addressing the
multitude. Elbowing our way into the crowd, we were
able to see Ibn Sa c ud sitting in a prepared place near
the gate. The preacher was addressing to the Sultan
a speech of adulation. Presently, he made an end, and
then several of the Ashraf, the Shaybi, and other pro¬
minent Mekkans in turn, took the Sultan’s hand and
acknowledged him King of the Hijaz. Ibn Sa c ud
received these advances with his usual cordial smile,
and upon the conclusion of the ceremony he rose, and
accompanied by his armed guards, made his way
slowly through the crowd towards the Kaaba and pro¬
ceeded to perform the towaf. Having completed this,
and prayed two prostrations in the Makam Ibrahim,
he left the Mosque and went to the Hamidiya where
he held a general reception... Suddenly one of the old
guns in the Fort of Jiyad [Adjyad], boomed and was
immediately followed by another on Jebel Hindi. The
troops of the garrison were saluting the new king. A
hundred and one times the peace of the city was
broken.” Rutter reports some hostile reactions to the
elevation of al-Su c fidl, as some Makkans dubbed their
king, but contrasts most favourably the honest treat¬
ment received by pilgrims under the new dispen¬
sation.

The hostilities over, the new king of the Hidjaz re¬
mained in his new capital, Makka, and addressed
himself to these major issues: the Hadjdj of 1344/1926,
the Islamic conference which he had previously an¬
nounced and which was scheduled in conjunction with
it, and the administration of the kingdom. The Hadjdj
that summer attracted 191,000, approximately an
eight-fold increase over the previous year, but the Ho¬
ly City was also the scene of the rather serious mahmal
[q.v.] affair. The Egyptian mahmal arrived in the usual
way with the kiswa [q.v.], with the retinue of civilians
and soldiers including their flags and bugles, and with
contributions of cash and kind much of which
represented wakf[q.v.] income dedicated to the Haram
from Egypt. The Egyptian amir al-Hadidi was
Mahmud c Azmi Pasha. The whole procedure was
almost programmed for trouble, given the cultural
differences of the groups involved and especially the
religious sensitivities of the Ikhwan. As Lacey (202)
observed: ‘‘The glorious shoulder-borne litter smack¬
ed to them of idolatry [and] its retinue of armed
guards piqued their pride...”. In the event, the Ka c ba
was dressed in its new Egyptian kiswa without inci¬
dent, and the ceremonies were proceeding normally,
but on the eve of 9 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja (some report the
day of 10 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja) the situation exploded. One
report is that the spark was some music ( = probably
bugling) played by the Egyptian soldiers. Other
reports indicate that the Nadjd! Bedouin simply saw
the mahmal and began to shout out that it was an idol.
Whatever the precise trigger event was, in the
crowded mass of pilgrims between Muna and c Arafat
some Ikhwan tried to interfere with the Egyptians and
began to throw stones at them. The Egyptians
responded with gunfire reportedly at the order of
Mahmud ‘•Azmi. In all, some 25 men and women
pilgrims were killed and 100 wounded; 40 camels
were also killed; but the carnage could easily have
been much worse. Just as the Ikhwan were preparing
a massive assault on the Egyptians, King c Abd
al~ c Az!z rode up and at considerable personal risk
managed to separate the two groups and to cool the
hot blood. Once order was restored, the king ordered
his son Faysal to guard the Egyptians with a detach¬
ment of Su c fid! troops until the end of the ceremonies.
When the Ha djdj had ended, he ordered Mush an b.

Su c fid b. Djalwl to escort the Egyptians to Djudda
with a detachment of Su c fid! troops, and as a cable
(text in Wahba, Khamsun . 257) of 16 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja
1344/from c Abd Allah A1 Sulayman in Makka to
Hafiz Wahba, then serving as the king’s envoy in
Cairo, makes clear, the departure of the Egyptians
from Makka was scarcely willing, but the king was go¬
ing to have them out, willing or not. As Lacey had
summarised it ( loc. cit.), “the Mahmal never trooped
again in glory through the streets of Mecca”, but the
incident further soured Egypto-Su c udi relations to the
degree that diplomatic relations were not established
between the two countries as long as King Fu 3 ad
reigned in Cairo.

Since the fall of the city to his arms, King c Abd
al- c Az!z had repeatedly proclaimed his intention to
convene an Islamic conference in Makka to which
delegates from all Muslim countries and communities
would be invited. The stated idea was to discuss the
governance of Islam’s holiest sites and ceremonies,
but the basic motivation was to put to rest the fears of
Muslims beyond Arabia over the capability of a
Su c udi-NadjdjI-Wahhabi regime to care for the Hara-
mayn responsibly. In the event, the conference pro¬
bably attained its goal, but the results were passive not
active. Egypt had declined to attend, and the mahmal
incident was most distracting. The delegates who did
attend debated with great freedom a wide variety of
religious subjects but to no very particular point. On
the underlying political issue, it was crystal-clear that
c Abd al- c Az!z was going to run the country and there
was no indication of any incapacity on his part. That
issue was settled without being raised.

The series of ad hoc administrative arrangements
made by the king during and after the conquest now
gave way to more permanent arrangements. It should
be remembered that until the unification of the “dual
kingdom” (on 25 Radjab 1345/29 January 1927 c Abd
ai- c Aztz had been proclaimed king of Nadjd and its
Dependencies) as the Kingdom of Su c udi Arabia in
1932, and even beyond that time, al-Hidjaz and
especially its capital Makka received most of the
government’s attention. It is not always easy to
separate what applied: (a) to Makka as a city, (b) to
al-Hidjaz as a separate entity including Makka, and
(c) to both the Kingdom of al-Hidjaz and the
Kingdom of Nadjd, equally including Makka. The
evolution of advisory or quasi-legislative councils was
as follows. Immediately after the Su c fid! occupation of
Makka (7 Dj umada I 1343/19 December 1924), c Abd
al- c Az!z convened a partly elected, partly appointed
body of notables called al-Madjlis al-Ahli (the national
council). It was elected and then it was re-elected on
11 Muharram 1344/1 August 1925. Representation
was on the basis of town quarters, and included pro¬
minent merchants and ulema, but in addition, the
king appointed a number equal to the elected
members and also appointed the presiding officer; in¬
deed, no elected member could take his seat without
c Abd al- c AzIz’s approval. After the second election,
this group came to be known as Madjlis al-Shura (con¬
sultative council). After the Islamic conference ended,
this arrangement was significantly changed. A na¬
tional (Hidjaz!) council—a kind of constituent
assembly—with 30 Makkan members was convened
to study an organic statute ( al-Ta c limdt al-Asdsiyya li 7-
Mamlaka ’ l-Hidjaziyya). Known as al-Djam c iyya
al- c Umumiyya (the general assembly), it accepted on 21
Safar 1345/31 August 1926 Ibn Su c ud’s draft of the
organic statute which specified that Makka was the
capital of the kingdom, that administration of the
kingdom was “in the hand of King c Abd al- c Aziz,”

156

MAKKA

and that a ncPib c amm (deputy general, viceroy) would
be appointed on behalf of the king. Fay sal b. c Abd
al- c Aziz, the king’s second living son, was appointed
ncPib c dmm. Under his chairmanship and in accor¬
dance with the statute, a new Madjlis al-Shura of 13
members (five from Makka), this time all appointed,
was convened. Various administrative and budgetary
matters were routinely discussed by it. (For the rapid
evolution of the Madjlis al-Shura, see Nallino, 33-5,
235-6 and M.T. Sadik, 21-47.) The Matjjlis al-Shura ,
no matter how limited its real powers were, did play
a major role as a sounding board in al-Hidjaz for
various government policies. It has never been
dissolved and even under the very much changed
situation caused by oil price increases in 1973, it ap¬
parently still meets ceremonially from time to time.

One should also note that the Madjlis al-Shura,
meeting in Makka on 16 Muharram 1352/11 May
1933, recognised the king’s oldest living son, Su c ud b.
c Abd al- c Aziz, as heir designate (wall al- c ahd). The
prince himself was not present, and Faysal b. c Abd
al- c AzTz received the bay c a on his behalf. The decree
was read aloud in the Haram and the ministers,
notables and ordinary people filed by to present their
congratulations. The organic statute also established
arrangements for local government and national
departments; all of the latter were in Makka. Nor did
this situation change radically with the proclamation
of the unified Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1351/1932.
As late as 1952, the Minister of Health and Interior
(H.R.H. Prince c Abd Allah b. Faysal b. c Abd
al- c Aziz) and the ministry officials were in Makka as
was the Ministry of Finance under c Abd Allah A1
Sulayman A1 Hamdan and the Directorates General
of Education, P.T.T., Public Security, awkaf, and
other central government agencies. It may be noted
here that Faysal was named Minister of Foreign Af¬
fairs in 1349/1930, but also that his father continued
to make all important decisions in all matters as long
as he was vigorous.

Initial branches (originally called aksam, sing, kism)
of the new government, each under a director ( mudir )
were: shanca affairs, internal affairs, foreign affairs,
financial affairs, public education affairs and military'
affairs. Courts, wakfs and mosques, including the
Makkan Haram, were under the shanca branch;
municipal matters were under internal affairs. It
should also be noted that a Ha didi committee compos¬
ed of the heads of all departments concerned with
pilgrimage matters plus members nominated by the
king was formed under the chairmanship of the
viceroy. Finally, one may note that the titles of
departments, their heads and the loci of responsibility
all evolved over time. For example, in 1350/1932 a
Council of Agents (Madjlis al-Wukalad) was announc¬
ed, and for the first time the germ of the idea of
ministerial responsibility was introduced.

Makka was one of only five cities in the Hidjaz that
had had a municipality in Ottoman and Hashimite
times. The municipality was re-established by the
Su c udT regime in 1345/1926 with its own organisa¬
tional structure. Three years later, its powers and
responsibilities were increased and its name was
changed to Amanat al- c Asima. According to Hamza,
the underlying idea of the king was to turn purely
local matters over to local people. Further organisa¬
tional adjustments were made in 1357/1938. The
budget was in reality under the control of the king and
his deputy general, but formaly it was under the pur¬
view of the Madylis-al-Shura. Once the budget was ap¬
proved, the municipality apparently enjoyed a certain
independence in administering it. It was able to levy

local fees ( rusum ). Figures are very incomplete, but in
1345/1926-7 the municipal budget totaled SR 158,800
and in 1369/1949-50 SR 4,034,000. Municipality
responsibilities included city administration, clean¬
ing, lighting, supervision of establishments, roads, in¬
stallation of awnings, condemnation and destruction
of properties, land registration, price regulation (for
necessities), cleanliness of food preparers, slaughter
houses, weights and measures, supervision of elec¬
tions of guilds of industries and trades and of their ac¬
tivities, supervision of burial procedures, kindness to
animals and fines. No other municipality in the land
had such broad responsibilities.

The one area where Nadjdis played an important
role in the Makkan scene after the conquest was in
organised religion. As early as Djumada II
1343/January 1925, conferences between the
Wahhabi ulema of Nadjd and the local ulema of
Makka were going forward with minimal difficulty.
Shortly after the conquest, c Abd al- c Aziz had transfer¬
red c Abd Allah b. Bulayhid (1284-1359/1867 to
1940-1) from the kada 5 of Ha^il to that of Makka,
where he remained for about two years. He was suc¬
ceeded by c Abd Allah b. Hasan b. Husayn b. c Ali b.
Husayn b. Muhammad b. c Abd al-Wahhab. Philby,
writing around 1369-70/1950, referred to him as the
“archbishop of Mecca” and Aramco, Royal Family ...
still reported him to be chief kadi in Dhu ’1-Ka c da
1371/July 1952. Yet care was taken not to alienate the
local ulema. For example, when the Hi^jazi Hay*at al-
Amr bid Ma c ruf wad-Nahy c an al-Munkar was establish¬
ed in 1345/1926, c Abd Allah al-Shaybi was made
chairman of the committee. The function of the Hay’a
was in general to supervise morals, encourage prayer,
control muezzins and imams of mosques, and report
infractions of the shan c a (details in Nallino, 100-2.) In
general, the influence of the ulema was high and they
were deferred to. The king could not dispose of shan c a
questions on his own and regularly referred them to
either a kadi or to the full “bench” of the Makkan or
RiyadI ulema. The king’s direct influence over this
largely autonomous group was through the power of
appointment, but he was of course influential in¬
directly.

Makka was one of only three cities in al-Hidjaz that
had had police at the time of the Su c udT takeover;
however, since King C AK had taken them all to Djud-
da as part of his military forces, none were immediate¬
ly available. According to Rutter, a squad of powerful
black slaves belonging to c Abd al- c Aziz kept order.
Makka was also the seat of police administration. A
police academy was started in 1353/1933-4 and, at
that time at least, the police supervised the orphanage
and an old persons’ home which had 44 residents. In
1953-5, a new government building was constructed
in Djarwal as the main headquarters for the police,
and in 1385/1965-6 a police emergency squad was
established which responded to the emergency
telephone number of 99. In the first decades after the
conquest, police were almost all recruited from c Asir
[q.v.] and Nadjd. By the mid-1930s, they wore
European-style uniforms and numbered 33 officers
and 896 other ranks. As long as it was necessary, the
police force also included a special squad called Kalam
Taftish al-Raklk (section for the inspection of slaves).
Executions were usually carried out on Fridays after
the noon prayer between the Hamidiyya (government
house) and the southern corner of the Haram. Philby
(Jubilee, 118-20) details a triple execution in 1931 over
which Faysal presided from a window in the madjlis of
al-Harmdiyya, where a group of notables had also
gathered. There was a large crowd of commoners in

MAKKA

157

the street. When the beheadings were over, the police
tied the corpses “each with its head by its side” to the
railings of the building until sundown.

There were three levels of judicial jurisdiction
established by the court regulations ( nizam tashkilat al-
mahakim al-sharHyya ) issued in Safar 1346/August
1927, at least up until the post-World War II period.
The lowest was the summary court ( mahkamat al-umur
al-musta c dfla ) presided over by a single kadi with
jurisdiction over petty civil cases and criminal cases
not involving execution or loss of limb. The higher
court ( mahkamat al-shari c a al-kubra) had a kadi as presi¬
dent plus two of his colleagues. In cases involving loss
of limb or execution, the sentence had to be pronounc¬
ed by the full court. The appeals court sat only in
Makka and was presided over by a president and four
other ulema. It functioned as a court of appeals
(criminal cases) and of cassation (civil cases). Appeals
have to be filed within 20 days and if the court refuses
to take the case, the verdict of the lower court stands.
The president, who was Shavkh c Abd Allah b. Hasan
Al al-Shaykh, also administers the whole system and
supervises all courts and kadis. There has also been,
since 1350-1/1932, an inspector of courts. Notaries
(sing, katib al- c adt) were instituted in 1347/1928-9, and
Hamza reports that in Makka at the time he was
writing the incumbent was c Urabf Sidjlm.

A few other administrative notes are in order. Im¬
mediately after the conquest, the government over¬
printed “Sultanate of Nadjd and al-Hidjaz” on the
Hashimite stamps, but Su c udi ones were soon in use
and the Su c udi government joined the International
Postal Union of Berne in 1345-6/1927. In
1357-8/1939 Makka’s post office was one of only four
(the others being at Djudda, al-Madlna and Yanbu c )
in the country that could handle all operations
specified by the international conventions including
the telegraph. There was a daily service to Djudda
and al-Ta 5 if and a twice-weekly service to al-Madma.
In 1384/1964-5, Makka’s post office, which was
handling in that year’s ha djdj 350,000 letters daily,
became a postal centre independent of Djudda. Rent
control was imposed at the time of the conquest and
was still in force as late as 1374/1955-6. There was a
customs office in the city which, like its counterpart in
al-Madlna, was presumably a branch of the main of¬
fice in Djudda. Wakf administration in Makka
reported directly to the viceroy. Early directors of the
Directorate of Awkaf were Muhammad Sa c id Abu ’1-
Khayr (1343/1924-8) and Madjid al-KurdT
(1347-50/1928-31). By a royal decree of 27 Dhu T
Hidjdja 1354/21 March 1936 the Makkan Directorate
of Awkaf was changed into a directorate general to
which the other awkaf directorates of al-Hidjaz would
report. Sayyid c Abd al-Wahhab Na 5 ib al-Haram was
appointed director general.

As far as fire fighting is concerned, Rutter (228)
describes a reasonably effective volunteer system in
use before modern systems were adopted. He com¬
ments that in case of fire “the neighbours regard it as
a point of honour to render all the assistance in their
power, and official notice of the occurrence is taken by
the police, some of whom also turn out and help.”
The first student mission sent abroad to train in fire
fighting and life-saving methods was some time before
1367/1947-8.

One may at this point reasonably inquire as to
general Makkan acceptance of Su c udt hegemony in
the pre-oil period. Leaving aside Ikhwan discontent at
the regime’s alleged softness toward religious laxity in
Makka and discounting near-by tribal unhappiness
(“taxing’’ pilgrims was no longer possible), there was

general acceptance of the regime and great pleasure at
the total security and basic fairness. There was also
some unhappiness which doubtless increased with the
very straitened circumstances concomitant with the
general world-wide depression. In 1345-6/1927 Hu-
sayn Tahir al-Dabbagh, whose father had been
Minister of Finance both under King al-Husayn and
under King C A1I and who himself headed a business
house, established in Makka an anti-Su c udT “Hidjaz
liberation organisation” called Andjumani Hizb al-
Ahrar. Its basic platform opposed any monarch in al-
Hidjaz. Husayn was exiled in 1346-7/1928, but he
probably left behind a clandestine cell of his party
which also maintained an open operation in Egypt.
We get another glimpse of anti-Su c udi feeling in
Makka in 1354-5/1936 from the report of a Muslim
Indian employee of the British legation in Djudda
named Ihsan Allah. According to him, dissatisfaction
was widespread; older conservative merchants and
ulema wished for an Egyptian takeover with British
support, whereas middle-aged merchants and govern¬
ment officials simply viewed the government as
backward, a “set of old fools”; younger businessmen,
army officers, and pilots longed for an Ataturk [ q.v .]
or a Mussolini. Ihsan notes, however, that there was
no action and that the preferred way to seek relief was
by working for Hidjazi interests through the Madflis
ai-Shura. Intelligence reports are notoriously
unreliable, but it would have been surprising had
there not been some level of discontent. With the com¬
ing of oil, separatist feelings doubtlessly disappeared,
and Makka participated to the full in the extraor¬
dinary development that the Kingdom enjoyed as a
whole. The extraordinary events of 1400/1979 were
the only dramatic break in the standard rhythms of
the city’s life.

Seizure of the Haram. Not since the followers
of Hamdan Karmat [q.v. ] seized Makka and carried
the Black Stone back to their headquarters in al-Ahsa 5
[q.v. ] had there been such an astonishing event as that
which unfolded in the Haram at dawn on Tuesday, 1
Muharram 1400/20 November 1979. It was of world¬
wide interest not only because of its intrinsic impor¬
tance for one of the world’s major religions, but also
against the background of the Soviet-American global
rivalry, of the recent revolution in Iran, and of the
general religious fervour surging through the Muslim
world.

The events can be quickly told. The Haram may
have had 50,000 people in it, which is not many for
a structure designed to accommodate 300,000. It had
more than usual at that hour because the day was the
First of the new Islamic century and thus deserved
some special observance. The imam , Shavkh Muham¬
mad b. Subayyil, had gone to the microphone to lead
the prayer, but he was then pushed aside. Several
dozens of men produced rifles from their robes; firing
broke out, the worshippers ran, and the armed men
moved quickly to seal the 29 gates. Many people were
wounded in these First exchanges, and a number were
killed. Meanwhile two men, subsequently identified
as Djuhayman (“little glowerer”) b. Muhammad
al- c UtaybI and Muhammad b. c Abd Allah al-
KahtanT, were at the microphone proclaiming that the
latter was the Mahdi The rebels, a number of whose
grandfathers had been killed while Fighting as Ikhwan
against c Abd al- c AzTz in 1347-8/1929, who considered
themselves neo-Ikhwan, and who numbered in all
some 250 including women and children, let the wor¬
shippers out aside from 30-odd who were kept as
hostages. With apparent presence of mind, Shavkh
Muhammad had removed his clerical garb and made

158

MAKKA

his way to a telephone in his office according to some
reports—a public phone according to others—and
notified the authorities of the seriousness of what was
happening. He managed to slip out with the other
worshippers. At the beginning of the ensuing siege,
the rebels used the powerful public address system,
which had speakers in the 90 m. high minarets and
which was designed to be heard in the streets and
plazas outside the mosque, to proclaim their message
that the Mahdi was going to usher in justice
throughout earth and that the Mahdx and his men had
to seek shelter and protection in al-Haram al-Sharif
because they were everywhere persecuted. They had
no recourse except the Haram. Attacks on the House
of Su c ud and its alleged policies and practices were
virulent; the rebels opposed working women, televi¬
sion, football, consumption of alcohol, royal trips to
European and other pleasure spots, royal involvement
in business, and the encouragement of foreigners who
came to Arabia and corrupted Islamic morality.
Details of names and business contracts were
specified. The amir of Makka came in for particular
attack. Meanwhile, Su c udT Arabia was alive with
rumours, some officially encouraged, to the effect that
the Djuhayman was a homosexual, that he was a drug
addict, a drunkard, etc.

The reaction of the Su c udi government was hesi¬
tant at first but never in doubt. Prince Fahd b. c Abd
al- c Azfz, the heir designate, was out of the country at¬
tending an international conference in Tunis. Prince
c Abd Allah b. c Abd al- c Azfz second in line to the
throne was on vacation in Morocco. The king, Khalid
b. c Abd al- c Aziz, was awakened at seven in the morn¬
ing and informed of what had happened. He im¬
mediately ordered that all communication with the
outside world to be cut. The ensuing communications
blackout was so total that it was reported that even
Prince Fahd had been unable to find out what was go¬
ing on. In Makka a police car, which may have been
the first concrete reaction, drove toward the mosque
to investigate. It was promptly fired on and left. Later
the amir drove up to try to assess the situation, only to
have his driver shot in the head. The men inside were
evidently well armed, trained and ruthless. By mid¬
afternoon, the 600-man special security force was in
Makka and national guard, police, and army units
were being airlifted in from Tabuk [q. v. ] in the north
and Khamis Mushayt [q.v. ] in the south. Prince
Sultan b. c Abd al- c Az!z, the Minister of Defence;
Prince Na^if b. c Abd al- c Az!z, the Minister of In¬
terior; and Prince Turk! b. Faysal b. c Abd al- c Az!z,
the Chief of Exernal Intelligence, all arrived in
Makka. In al-Riyad, the king had simultaneously call¬
ed together the senior ulema in order to get a jatwa
authorising the use of force in the Haram , since force
there is by definition forbidden. The Jatwa approving
the action was apparently issued immediately but not
published for several days. Authority was found in the
aya of the Kurban: “Do not fight them near the Holy
Mosque until they fight you inside it, and if they fight
you, you must kill them, for that is the punishment of
the unbelievers” (II, 149).

By Tuesday evening the siege was on, and the
rebels had no way to escape, despite the fact that they
had secretly and ingeniously cached large supplies of
weapons, ammunition and food in the mosque. Elec¬
tricity and all other services to the mosque were cut,
but Djuhayman’s snipers covered the open ground
around the mosque. Horrified by what was going on,
some national guardsmen ( mudjahidun) wanted to
storm the mosque, but the king had ordered that
casualties be minimised. The situation was extremely

delicate, for Prince Sultan could hardly order heavy
weaponry to destroy the mosque and Bayt Allah.
Ultimately, Prince Sultan ordered an attack on the
mas c a which juts out from the mosque enclosure like
an open thumb from a closed fist (see plan). Accor¬
ding to some, an “artillery barrage” was laid down,
but when the troops advanced, they suffered heavy
losses and accomplished little. There was considerable
confusion on the government side and some lack of
coordination among the various services. At one
point, two soldiers reportedly ran firing into the court¬
yard in order to be shot down and die as martyrs.
Others were reported to have been unhappy at being
called on to fight in the mosque. Since the national
guardsmen were tribal, and it had become known that
the leaders of the insurrection were tribal, suspicion of
the national guardsmen arose. Sultan tried another
approach involving a disastrous helicopter attack into
the courtyard. It failed; the soldiers were winched
down in daylight, and most died. When government
soldiers died, the rebels are said to have exclaimed amr
Allah (“at the order of God”), when one of their own
died, they either shot or burned off his face—a job the
women mostly performed—to conceal his identity. In
a very difficult situation, friendly governments in¬
cluding the American, French and Pakistani “were
prodigal with advice, much of it conflicting” (Holder
and Johns, 524). By Friday, 4 Muharram/23
November, however, the superiority of the govern¬
ment forces began to tell. Using tear gas, they forced
an entrance into the mosque including the second
storey, and they drove the rebel marksmen from two
of the minarets. Once inside, government forces were
able to rake Djuhayman’s people, and despite a
desperate pillar-to-pillar defence backed by barricades
of mattresses, carpets and anything else that could be
found, the rebels were gradually pushed down toward
the maze-like complex of basement rooms. By Mon¬
day, 7 Muharram/26 November the government had
gained control of everything above ground. But the
fighting continued in nightmarish conditions below
ground even though the number of the rebels was by
then much reduced. By Wednesday the courtyard had
been sufficiently cleared and cleaned to broadcast
prayers live on TV and to begin to calm down the city
and the country.

Below ground, difficult fighting continued. The
rebels were few and their supplies now scant, but ac¬
companied in some cases by their women and children
they fought desperately. Gas, flooding, and burning
tires were all tried in an effort to flush them out—
without success. The fate of Muhammad b. c Abd
Allah al-Kahtani is not clear. Some reports indicate
that he was killed early in the fighting; others that, in
the depths of despair, Djuhayman had shot him. With
many wounded, the hour of the rebels had come. At
an hour-and-a-half after midnight on Wednesday 16
Muharram/5 December Djuhayman led his people
out. “It is said that as they emerged, many weeping
and too tired to stand, muttering constantly, spat on
and reviled, one of the band turned to a National
Guardsman and asked: ‘What of the army of the
north?’ ” (Holder and Johns, 526.) But many had to
be individually overpowered. Djuhayman is reported
to have been kicking and struggling even as his arms
were pinned. Su c udi TV covered this scene, and
Djuhayman “stared defiantly at the cameras,
thrusting forward his matted beard, his eyes fierce
and piercing like a cornered beast of prey” (Lacey,
487).

The investigation and trial of the rebels did not take
long. On Wednesday a.m., 21 Safar 1400/9 January

MAKKA

159

1980 (not following the Friday noon prayer as was
customary) in eight different Saudi cities amongst
which they had been divided, 63 of the rebels were
beheaded. Their citizenship was as follows: Su c udls
41, Egyptians 10, South Yamanls 6, Kuwaytls 3,
North Yamanls 1, Sudanese 1 and Trakls 1. Twenty-
three women and thirteen children had surrendered
along with their men. The women were given two
years in prison and the children were turned over to
welfare centres. The authorites found no evidence of
foreign involvement. In addition, 19 who had sup¬
plied arms were jailed, while another 38 so accused
were freed. The government casualty count listed 127
troops killed and 461 wounded, rebel dead as 117, and
dead worshippers as 12 or more (all killed the first
morning). Popular reaction to these extraordinary
events was uniformly hostile to the rebels as defilers of
God and his house. The only reported approval is by
other members of the c Utayba tribe, who reportedly
admired the fact that Djuhayman had in no way
buckled under during interrogation.

Population and Society. Consistent popula¬
tion figures for Makka are not easy to find. Those that
follow are perhaps suggestive:

people of Makka. Nor were the early Wahhabis least
in their low opinion of Makkans. c Abd al- c Az!z is
reported to have said that he “would not take the
daughters of the Sharif or of the people of Mecca or
other Moslems whom we reckon as mushrikm’
(Helms, 98 quoting W. Smalley, The Wahhabis and Ibn
Sa c ud , in MW, xxii [1932], 243). Philby {Jubilee, 126)
quotes the king in 1930 as having dismissed them
with, Ahl Makka dabash (“the people of Makka are
trash”). Nor was Philby’s own opinion of them high:
“In truth, the citizen of God’s city, by and large, is
not an attractive character: his whole life being con¬
centrated on the making of money out of gullible peo¬
ple, especially pilgrims, by a studied mixture of
fawning and affability.” H. R. P. Dickson reports the
Bedouin view that “every foul vice prevails there.”
But of course, not all reports are bad. Wahba (Diazira.
31) opines that Makkans (along with Medinese) care
more about the cleanliness of their houses and their
bodies than do other Arabians. One might finally note
the establishment in Makka of the Sunduk al-Birr (the
piety fund), which was started by one family and join¬
ed in by others, including the royal family. The
organisation distributes welfare support to some hun-

Date

Estimated

population

Source

Before

Su c udl-

Sharlfian war

125,000

Rutter

1923

60,000

Rutter

1932

100 ,000*

Wahba, Diazira

1940

80,000

Western Arabia & the Red Sea

1953

150,000

Philby, Sa c udi Arabia

1962

71,998

c Abd al-Rahman Sadik al-Sharlf

1970

112,000

c Abd al-Rahman Sadik al-Sharlf

1974

198,186

c Abd al-Rahman Sadik al-Sharlf

1976

200,000 plus

Nyrop

* Excluding women

Incidentally, the population density for Makka
district (not the city) has been estimated as 12 per
km 2 . The age distribution in the city for 1974 was
estimated to be as follows (in percentage):

Age Makka
Under 10 35

10 - 29 36

30 - 49 22

Over 50 7

Kingdom of Su c udi Arabia
37
30.8
21.4
10

Given the fact that Makka has for centuries been
the centre for a pilgrimage that was often slow and
tortuous, and given the desire of the pious to live and
die near Bayt Allah, it is natural and has been observ¬
ed by many that the population is a highly mixed one.
Faces from Java, the Indian sub-continent and sub-
Saharan Africa are noticeable everywhere. Almost
every cast of feature on the face of the earth can be
found. And the process continues; Nyrop (140)
estimated that 20% of the population consisted of
foreign nationals in the early 1960s—a figure which is
particularly remarkable when one reflects that the
non-Muslim foreigners who flocked to other Arabian
cities in that era were absent from Makka. In a way,
this has constituted an important benefit for Makka
because the city is the continual recipient of new
blood.

Outsiders have frequently complained about the

dreds of needy families and also helps victims of ac¬
cidents and calamities. It proved to be a model for
similar funds in other cities in Su c udl Arabia. Actual
Makkan manners and customs seem unexceptionable
(as the comments above about cooperative neighbour¬
ly firefighting suggest), and Rutter, who gives many
interesting details of life in Makka just after the
Wahhabi conquest, specifically states that the city is
not as immoral as it is pictured and that for example,
Makkans use foul language much less than do
Egyptians.

Marriages were arranged by the prospective
bridegrooms’s mother or other female relative, who
negotiated with the prospective bride’s parents. Both
normally give their consent. Once the dowry and
other details have been agreed, the bride’s parents
prepare a feast to which the groom and his friends are
invited. Two witnesses are required, but there is
usually a crowd. After instruction by the shaykh, the
girl’s father takes the groom’s hand and states that he
is giving him his daughter in marriage for a dowry of
the agreed amount. The groom accepts this contract
and the parties are at that point married. No women
are present. Neither party has seen the other unless
accidentally or as children. Consummation, if the in¬
dividuals are old enough, is usually about a month
later at the bride’s house. The same night, she is
escorted quietly by her family to the groom’s house,
and the whole procedure ends the evening after that

160

MAKKA

with a party at the groom’s house to which relatives
of both families male and female are invited. The
sexes are, however, still segregated on this occasion.
In Rutter’s day there was some polygyny and many
slave concubines, but little divorce. He thought Mak-
kan women, for whom silver was the commonest
jewelry, were generally fairer than the men and notes
that many women could play the lute and drum. They
also smoked a great deal. Prostitution was never seen
by him. A week after the birth of a child, the father
invites his and his wife’s relatives for the ceremony
naming the infant. Again, the women are upstairs and
the men down. When all have assembled, the father
goes up and brings the child down on a cushion and
places it on the floor while saying things like ma sha 5
Allah [q.v.] —but not too vigorously lest devils be at¬
tracted. The father arranges the child so that his head
is toward the Ka c ba and his feet away from it. The
father kneels, says a c udhu bi-Allah min al-Shay tan al-
radjxm , then bends over the child’s head with his
mouth close to the right ear of the infant and repeats
the adhan [q.v.] three times. He then says: “I name
thee so-and-so. “The child is now a Muslim. The
guests repeat the name, invoke God’s blessing, and
each puts a coin under the pillow. Another person
then rings an iron pestle against a brass mortar. This
is the signal to the women upstairs that the child has
been named. They respond with zaghradat (trilling
ululations) of joy. With that, the father picks the in¬
fant up, the guests kiss it on the cheek, and the father
takes it back upstairs to the women. He redescends
with a tray full of sweets. On the 40th day after birth,
every child is taken to the Haram and placed for a mo¬
ment on the threshhold of the Ka c ba. Other aspects of
child rearing, at least up to Rutter’s time, included
the use of foster mothers by the wealthy and the
ashraf s turning their male children over to Bedouin
foster mothers for the three-fold purpose of developing
their independent spirit, learning the “pure”
language of the desert and creating an indissoluble
alliance with the tribe. Up to the age of four, clothes
worn are scanty and sketchy. Starting at five, boys go
to kuttabs [q.v.] and girls are veiled. Boys are circum¬
cised at six or seven, and female circumcision is also
practised. Rutter characterises children as generally
submissive and respectful. Rutter thought that life ex¬
pectancy was not great because of the lack of move¬
ment of air during the heat of the long summer and
because of the high humidity during the wet season
(November-February). Death is marked by brief
keening, after which the women friends of the family
come to comfort the bereaved women. The body is
washed, then carried on a bier without a coffin and
placed on the pavement of the mataf in front of the
door of the Ka c ba. The mourners stand, and one
repeats the burial prayers. The bier is then lifted,
taken out the appropriately named Djama 3 iz Gate to
the Ma c la Cemetery north of the Haram. Mourners
and even passers-by rapidly rotate in carrying the
bier. Burial is in shallow graves, and the shrouds have
commonly been soaked in Zamzam water. After the
burial, male friends pay a brief visit of condolence to
the males of the deceased’s family. There are often
Kur’an readings on the 7th and 40th days after death.

As to recreation, there was little sport, but im¬
promptu wrestling and foot races sometimes occurred.
Singing, the lute, the reed pipe and drums were
popular both in homes and in the open air coffee
houses just outside of town, but all music was
discouraged by the NadjdT puritans. “The club of the
Mekkans,” wrote Rutter (375), “is the great
quadrangle of the Haram. Here friends meet by acci¬

dent or appointment, sit and talk of religious or
secular matters, read, sleep, perform the towaf in
company, have their letters written (those of them
who are illiterate) by the public writers who sit near
Bab es-Salam, or feed the sacred pigeons.” There are,
incidentally, many pigeons and they enjoyed a
beneficial wakf for the supply of the grain. They had
drinking troughs and two officials to serve them, one
to dispense their grain and the other to fill the water
troughs. Popular belief is that no bird ever perches on
the roof of the Ka c ba. Rutter himself says that in
months of sleeping on a roof overlooking the Ka c ba,
even when the courtyard and the makams of the imams
were covered with birds, the roof of the Ka c ba was
bare. Another popular belief concerns those who fall
asleep in the Haram. Should their feet point toward the
Ka c ba, they are sharply turned around to conform
with custom. There were other pleasures. One of the
greatest was repairing to the outdoor, half-picnic,
half-tea or coffee house sites out of town. Rutter
describes one in a ravine at the southeast end of
Adjyad where a small stream of clear water often
flows. Many groups would go there with samovars
and waterpipes (shishas). At sunset, after performing
ablutions in the stream, all would pray. There was a
singer, some of whose lays were religious, others,
amorous. Along with these latter went clapping and
dancing. In pre-Wahhabi times, alcohol may have
been served and pederasty practiced. Incidentally, he
comments that King al-Husayn had already stopped
the open drinking and prostitution of Ottoman times.
Rutter also provides (291-4) an interesting account of
a visit to the oasis and farms of al-Husayniyya about
20 km southeast of the city (and see Nallino’s
reference (202) to similar visits to al-Sanusiyya, 20 km
northeast of the capital). He also paints a picture of
how Makkans spend a week or two on the upland
(2,000 m) plain of al-Hada overlooking the escarp¬
ment to the west of al-Tahf. The largest house there
belonged to the Ka c ba key-keeper, al-Shavbl.
Religious occasions also formed part of the rhythm of
participation in the life of the city. Twice yearly in
Radjab and Dhu’l-Ka c da there occurs the ritual of
washing the inside of the Ka c ba. These occasions con¬
stitute major festivals. All the important people and
important visiting pilgrims attend and a big crowd
gathers. Al-Shavbl provides the water in a large bottle
and brooms which the dignitaries use for the purpose.
There are some distinctly un-Islamic folk practices,
such as people washing themselves in the used
washing water and actually also drinking it. During
Ramadan, there is much recitation of the Kurban.
One hears it as one walks down the street. Purely
secular “clubs” also existed in the form of coffee
houses which provided tea, light food and shishas. One
of their characteristics is the high (about 1 m.) wood¬
framed platforms about two m. long with rush-work
surface. Characteristically, the mat work is done by
Sudanese. These high mats are used as chairs, on
which three or four can sit, or used as beds. The cafes
have linen available if the latter use is required. These
establishments are open day and night. Al-Kurdi in¬
dicates that there were two Ottoman-era hammdms
[q.v.], but that the first, which had been near Bab
al- c Umra, was torn down to make way for the mosque
expansion and the second, in al-Kashashiyya quarter,
was closed—a victim no doubt of private residential
baths and showers.

Finally, some mention must be made of slaves.
King c Abd al- c Azfz had agreed as early as 1345/1927
to cooperate with the British government in suppress¬
ing the international slave trade, but slavery as such

MAKKA

161

was not outlawed in Su c udl Arabia until 1382/1962.
In 1365/1946 Hafiz Wahba described it ( Diazira . 32-3)
as a reasonably flourishing institution. Makka was the
largest slave market in Arabia—possibly because it
was secure from prying non-Muslim eyes. Meccans
trained male slaves (sing. c abd) and female slaves
(sing, djariya) well for household duties, and Wahba
quotes prices as being £60 for a male and £120 for a
female. Ethiopians were considered the best because
they were more loyal and more sincere in their work.
He indicates that they worked mostly in domestic
chores or in gardens, but that Bedouin chiefs also ac¬
quired them as bodyguards. Diarivas he notes were
also used for other things. Manumission is an act of
piety, and Shaykh Hafiz says that hardly a master
died who did not free some of his slaves and leave
them a legacy. Apparently non-slave servants were
very difficult to find, and Shaykh Hafiz opined that a
sudden prohibition of slavery would cause a revolu¬
tion. He also notes that the trade was declining.

The coming of the Su c udl regime also had an im¬
portant impact on the top of the social structure in
that the privileged position formerly held by the skarifs
was eliminated. Merchants, ulema and mutawwifun
stood high on the local social scale, with pride of place
perhaps going to the Shayba family.

Because of the cosmopolitan nature of the popula¬
tion, city quarters seem not to have had quite the
same degree of near water-tight ethnic or religious
compactness that is found in some other cities, but
quarters did and do exist. Some generalised com¬
ments applying mostly to the pre-oil period follow.
Djarwal, an extensive mixed area northwest of the
Haram, was the site of many offices and the garages of
motor transport companies. It is also the quarter in
which Philby lived, the quarter where c Abd Allah A1
Sulayman, the Minister of Finance under King c Abd
al- c AzTz, had his palace, and the quarter in which im¬
migrants from west and central Africa used to live—
mostly in hovels. Writing in the early 1960s, al-Kurdl
indicates (ii, 264) that the Djarwal and al-Misfala
quarters had heavy concentrations of bidonvilles in¬
habited by poor Sudanese and Pakistanis. Their shan¬
ty dwellings were, however, being replaced by
modern buildings. Al-Shubayka, to the west and a lit¬
tle south of the Haram, was, pre-World War II, main¬
ly populated by Central Asian, Indian and East
Indian mutawwifun. Adjyad, southeast of the Haram ,
was the old Ottoman quarter sometimes called
“government quarter.” It continued in Su c udl times
to contain a number of important institutions, in¬
cluding the first modern hospital, the Egyptian takiyya,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of
Finance, the public security office, al-Ma^had al- c Ilmi
al-Su c udi , the Kiswat al-Ka c ba factory), the Egyptian
Bank and the Directorate of Education. Adjyad is
dominated by an imposing looking Ottoman fort,
Kal c at Adjyad, which is perched on the heights to the
south of it. The quarter is said to have the best climate
and the best views in the city. It was also the location
of most of the better older houses and hotels. Pre-oil
city quarters numbered 15 in all, as follows: Suk al-
Layl, Shi c b C A1I, Shi c b c Amir, al-Sulaymaniyya, al-
Mu c abada, Djarwal, al-Naka, al-Falk, al-Karara, al-
Shamiyya, Adjyad, al-Kashashiyya, al-Shubavka.
Harat al-Bab and al-Misfala. There are also eleven
modern outlying quarters: al- c Utaybiyya, al-
Hindawiyya, al- c Az!ziyya (earlier known as Hawd al-
Bakar), al-Shishsha. al-Rawda, al-Khanisa, al-Zahir,
al-TanbudawT, al-Rasifa, al-Mish c aliyya and al-
Nuzha. Some of these are dubbed hayy, others, hara\
and the last three mahalla. Each quarter has an c umda
as its administrative head.

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

The importance and centrality of the Haram dic¬
tated that areas immediately adjacent to it were of
high importance and prestige, at least as long as the
pilgrim business was the main source of revenue.
Thus before the extension of the mosque, there were
a number of suks which surrounded it or nearly so.
These included al-Suwayka just north of the northern
corner which was the drapery and perfume bazaar;
Suk al- c Ab!d the slave market; al-Suk al-Saghlr ca.
100 m southeast of Bab Ibrahim, which was in the
main water course and often washed out in floods;
Suk al-Habb the grain market some 700 m north of
the mosque; and finally the fruit market, also to the
north, which was simply called al-Halaka, the market.
Al-Mas c a formerly was paved and covered during the
early days of c Abd al- c Az!z’ reign, but it was still a
public street with book and stationery stores at the
southern (al-Safa) end and stalls selling items for
pilgrims along the rest of it. Another transient
demographic feature that may be noticed is that in
pre-oil days, the camps used by pilgrims were on the
outskirts of the city nearest the direction from which
they came, i.e., those coming from Syria camped
north of the city, etc.

With the broader economic and transportation
possibilities available since World War II (and
especially after the oil price increases of 1973 and
beyond) and with the number of pilgrims swelling to
almost two million (with attendant traffic and other
problems), centre city has probably become less
desirable.

The physical City. Constrained as it is by the
wadi courses and low mountains of its location, the
size and physical appearance of Makka has changed
dramatically in the six decades since the Wahhabis
most recently captured it. It should be borne in mind
that the Haram is in the widest part of the central,
south-flowing wadi and that main streets follow wadi
valleys. Before the most recent enormous enlargement
of the mosque structure, a noticeable feature was what
Philby called “oratory houses.” These surrounded
the entire periphery and abutted on the mosque itself.
They had first floor balconies on the roof of the mos¬
que’s surrounding colonnade and were more or less
considered an integral part of the mosque. Since the
inhabitants of these houses could pray at home while
observing the Prophet’s injuction that whoever lives
near the mosque should pray in it, they were in high
demand at high rentals. On the other hand, the
residents were said to have run up rather large
hospitality bills! In the pre-oil era, Makkan buildings
were mostly built of local dark grey granite, but by
and large they gave no great impression of grandeur.
The larger ran to about four storeys. Even before
modernisation, major streets in Makka were fairly
wide. King al-Husayn had electrified the Haram dur¬
ing his brief reign, but probably it was not until after
the second World War that streets were lighted elec¬
trically. Previously they were lighted, on special occa¬
sions only, by oil lamps attached to the corners of
houses. Al-Husayn’s palace had been located north¬
east of the Haram in al-Ghazza, but when King c Abd
al- c Az!z built his own palace, he chose a site well to the
north in al-Mu c abada, where incidentally, the pre-oil
wireless station was also built in the immediate vicini¬
ty of the king’s palace. At the present time
(1405/1985) this tradition continues, for the amlrate,
the municipality secretariat, its technical units and the
main courthouse are all located at that site. Expansion
of the city in the period before there were adequate
roads tended to be along the Djudda road.

Modernisation in the oil era has brought completely
different architectural approaches and materials, and

162

MAKKA

Tunnels
Proposed roads
Proposed tunnels
Built-up areas (approximate)

Quarters

Shfiri 4

Tank

Djabal

Fig. 1. Makka in the 1980s: built-up areas. After Farisi

much of the old has been swept away. Air condi¬
tioners are everywhere, cement and reinforced con¬
crete reign, and buildings of up to 13 or more storeys
high are everywhere visible. City planning in Su c udl
Arabia has become pervasive, and the master plan
studies and designs for Makka were projected to be
ready for implementation in 1976. Given the
pilgrimage, traffic circulation had to be a major part
of the plan. Key features of the traffic plan were: a
series of broad open plazas around the Haram, a major
north-south road which essentially followed the main
wadi bottom, a set of four concentric ring roads (none
of which had been completed by 1402-3/1982-3), and
a remarkable complex of roads leading to Muna,
Muzdalifa, and c Arafat. Especially to be noted is the
extensive tunnelling under Makka’s rocky crags for a
number of these roads, not excluding a major
“pedestrian way” for pilgrims which goes due east
from al-$afa before bending southwest toward
c Arafat. About one kilometer of the “pedestrian way”
is a tunnel (Nafak al-Sadd) under Djabal Abl Kubays,
the north-south running mountain east of the Haram.
In addition to the roads themselves—all built to inter¬

national standards with clover-leaf intersections, over¬
passes and the like—there are vast systematic parking
areas, helicopter pads and other facilities. Makka may
have some areas left without modern amenities such
as running water and electricity, but essentially it is a
modern city with all the assets and problems that
modern implies. The growth in the area of the built-
up section of Makka can only be roughly estimated,
but according to Rutter’s map (facing p. 117), the
maximum length of the built-up section on the north-
south axis was about 3 km; on the east-west axis it was
about 2V 2 km. Farisi's map (1402-3/1982-3) in¬
dicates a north-south axis of about 8 km and an east-
west of just under 5V 2 km. This massive growth does
not include very extensive new built up areas such as
al-Faysaliyya and al- c Az!ziyya—the latter reaching all
the way to Muzdalifa.

Economy. The economy of Makka consists of on¬
ly two basic factors, commerce and industry concern¬
ed with the local market, and the pilgrimage.
Agriculture is essentially non-existent in Makka.
Food was imported: fruit from al-Ta 5 if, vegetables
largely from the Wadi Fatima and a few other oases

MAKKA

163

u% Vi

EE Biuan (watertank) @ Mosque

® Weil I * «+4 Ruins

Fig. 2. Makka in late Ottoman, Hashimite and early
Su c udi times. After Rutter and Western Arabia and the
Red Sea. The numbers indicate approximate heights in
metres above the central valley.

Key : 1. al-Masdjid al-Haram—2. Kal c at Adjyad—
3. Masdjid Bilal—4. Kal c at Djabal Hindi—5. Kal c at
Fulful—6. Shavkh Mahmud—7. Djarwal— 8 . Harat
al-Bab—9. al-Shubayka—10. Ottoman barracks—
11. Walled garden—12. Graveyard—13. al-Suk al-
Saghlr—14. al-Hamidiyya—15. Dar al-Takiyya al-
Misriyya—16. al-Kashashiyya—17. Suk al-Layl—
18. al-Ghazza—19. al-Djawdharivya—20. Suk al-
Habb—21. al-Ma c la—22. al-Suwayka—23. al-
Karara—24. al-Falk—25. Prophet’s birthplace—
26. Sharlfian palace—27. Slaughterhouse— 28. al-
Safa.

such as al-Husayniyya. They included egg plant,
radishes, tomatoes, vegetable marrows, spinach,
Egyptian clover (birsim) for fodder and hibiscus.
Makka itself had to content itself with a few date trees
in the gardens of the wealthy (see al-Kurdi, ii,
208-15). Industry in 1390/1970-1 counted 35
establishments employing 800 people with an estimate
of SR ( = Su c udi riyals) 22 million in use. By way of
contrast, neighbouring Djudda had 95 establishments
with 4,563 employees and SR 329 million in use.
Among the Makkan enterprises were corrugated iron
manufacturing, carpentry shops, upholstering
establishments, sweets manufactories, vegetable oil
extraction plants, flour mills, bakeries, copper
smithies, photography processing, secretarial
establishments, ice factories, bottling plants for soft
drinks, poultry farms, frozen food importing, barber
shops, book shops, travel agencies and banks. The
first bank in Makka was the National Commercical
Bank (al-Bank al-Ahli al-Tidjari) which opened in
1374/1954. Hotels and hostels are another major ac¬
tivity. According to al-Kurdi (ii, 173), there were no
hotels before the Su c udi regime began. Important

pilgrims were housed in a government rest house,
others stayed in private homes as actual or paying
guests. The first hotel project was undertaken and
managed by Banque Misr for the account of the
Ministry of Finance in 1355/1936-7. A decade later it
was bought by Sidka Ka c ki, a member of Makka’s
most successful business family. Banque Misr also
managed a second hotel that belonged to Shavkh c Abd
Allah Al Sulayman and which opened in 1356/1937-8.
This had its own electric power, an elevator, running
water and some private baths. Construction activity,
long important in Makka, has obviously grown with
the oil-fired building boom. The traditional building
trades with their interesting organisation and special
skills in stone masonry (details in al-Kurdi, ii, 261-6)
are fading away. It is also interesting to note that in
1936 a DjamHyyat al-Kirsh was founded with its seat in
Makka with the goal of encouraging economic
development in order to make the country
economically independent by stimulating new and ex¬
isting industrial and agricultural projects. Goods
available in the markets in the 1930s were almost all
imported. Cotton textiles came from Japan, silk from
China and India, and carpets, rosaries (subha,
misbaha ), and copper and silver items—the kinds of
items that pilgrims wanted—came variously from
Syria, India and al- c Irak. Many of the merchants
catering to the pilgrim trade were foreigners or of
foreign extraction and employed native Makkans as
hawkers. Visitors felt that prices were high, profits
large and local employees inadequately paid.

The importance of the Ha djdj for the economy of
Makka through most of the city’s history is simple. As
Rutter has put it, “[Makkans] have no means of earn¬
ing a living but by serving the hajjis.” Fifty years
later, D. Long confirms that “the Hajj constitutes the
largest single period of commercial activity during the
year,” and that no one in the country is unaffected
thereby. Indeed, once al-Hidjaz had been conquered,
ha djdj income was supposed to finance Nadjd in addi¬
tion to the Holy Land. The money came in different
ways. A direct tax, instituted by c Abd al- c Aziz in
1345-6/1927, was seven gold rupees ($16.80). In addi¬
tion there was a kind of service charge, dubbed “lan¬
ding and service fee,” which amounted to £1.5
($7.20) in the early thirties. As late as 1972, this
charge, now called “fee for general services” was SR
63 ($11.88). Thefe were also taxes on internal motor
transport, for example £7.5 (36.00) on the round trip
car hire fare between Makka and al-Madina in the
1920s, reduced to £6.00 (28.00) in 1931. In addition
to direct levies, the government received indirect in¬
come from licence fees charged those who served the
pilgrims, from customs duties on goods imported for
re-sale to pilgrims and from other indirect levies. As
D. Long (much followed in this section) has noted,
when the world-wide depression struck, King c Abd
al- c AzTz, despite his successful efforts to eliminate
gross exploitation of the pilgrims, was forced to im¬
pose fees on the pilgrims in order to maintain the
solvency of the government. Later, oil income essen¬
tially eliminated government dependence on pilgrim
fees, and in 1371/1952 the king abolished the head tax
altogether. That the government continued to be sen¬
sitive to the public relation aspects of any fees at all,
is made clear by the official Ha djdj instructions for
1972 (quoted by Long) to the effect that such charges
only cover the actual costs of necessary services. For
Makka, the Ha djdj has of course continued to be a
major source of cash income. On the other hand, from
a national Su c udi viewpoint, servicing the pilgrims
became a major expenditure category far exceeding

164

MAKKA

the income generated, though one should note that in
recent years the national airline, Saudia, derived
some 12% of its revenue from Ha didi - gene rated
customers. D. Long has also made detailed estimates
(101-5) of the effect of the Ha didi on the private sector
in Djudda. al-Madma and especially Makka.
Roughly, he estimates that in 1972 pilgrims paid the
guilds ( mutawwifun , wukald > and zamazima) a total of
$7.9 million in fees, a figure which excludes
gratuities. Lodging during the late 1960s cost each
pilgrim an average of $60, for a total housing income
of $40 million. The transportation syndicate’s income
based on fares paid by land and air pilgrims for inter¬
nal transportation is estimated at $11 million. All
these estimates are for gross income. Net income is
difficult to calculate, especially because fixed costs of
capital items, such as accommodation at Muna and
c Aralat which is only filled for a few days a year, are
normally not counted. Makkan merchants continue to
see the two months of pilgrim business as more or less
their whole year’s business, and as in the case of holi¬
day expenditures in other countries the merchants
raise their prices, despite government attempts to pro¬
tect the pilgrims. Animals for ritual slaughter approx¬
imately double in value. The foreign provenance of
pilgrim-specific goods continued in later years. Cheap
($1 to $10 each), European-manufactured prayer rugs
sell a million or more each year, but it may be noted
that in the 1970s prayer beads were manufactured by
a local Makkan plastics factory. In more general
categories, Swiss and Japanese watches move briskly;
most textiles still come from Asia, though expensive
ones may be from Europe; United States products
predominate among cosmetics, better quality canned
foods and drugs; wheat is almost exclusively
American; whilst China has predominated in cheap
fountain pens, parasols and cheaper canned goods.
One final point is that many non-Su c OdI pilgrims who
can afford them purchase luxury consumer items
which are either heavily taxed or unavailable in their
own countries. Foreign exchange trading also con¬
stitutes a brisk business for the Makkan banks—all
nationalised by about 1400/1979-80. Long notices
another economic factor, that more and more foreign
pilgrims have come in the sixties, seventies and early
eighties, but the shift in mode of travel has been
equally dramatic as the chart below shows:

Mode of travel of non-Su c udI pilgrims
(Selected years)

Year Mode of Travel Total Number

Land

Sea

Air

1381/1961

32%

43%

25%

216,455

1391/1971

479,339

1403/1982

1,003,911

The dramatic increase in numbers and equally
dramatic shift to air travel have meant that the
average length of stay has decreased from two to
three, or even more, months to an average stay of on¬
ly a few weeks. Purchases of food and rentals for lodg¬
ing have declined proportionately with the decrease in
time, and in addition, because of baggage limitations
on air travel, gift items have trended toward the watch
and away from bulky items. Sales to pilgrims as a pro¬
portion of total sales by Meccan merchants have also
declined. Long (based on Djudda information)
estimated that they had declined from 33-50% of the
total in 1381/1961 to about 25% in 1391/1971—still
highly significant. Based on an estimate of per capita

expenditures of ca. $230, Long estimates that gross
sales by Su c udi merchants to foreign pilgrims ag¬
gregated $53 million from the Ha didi . If one adds
Su c udi pilgrims, the figure rises to $90 million. His
estimate of Ha didi income from all sources for the
1391/1971 Ha djdj was ca. $213 million. It is not easy
to know the proportion of this total which went to
Makka and Makkans, but the number has to be quite
significant locally when one considers the size of the
city and the concentrated nature of the business.

1» • ■ • -I The Su'udi enlargement
1111 R Other buildings

Fig. 3. al-Masdjid al-Haram after the Su c udT
enlargement. After Bundukdjr.

Key : 1. a!-Ka c ba—2. al-Hutaym—3. Makam Ibrahim
—4. Zamzam—5. al-Marwa—6. al-Safa—7. al-
Mas c a—8. Bab al-Malik—9. Bab al- c Umra—10. Bab
al-Salam—11. al-Haram Library—12. Dome.

Al-Masdjid al-Haram and other religious
buildings. From the moment c Abd al- c Az!z entered
Makka, he and his successors have expended time,
money and effort on the Great Mosque of Makka.
(For description of the mosque at the beginning of the
Su c ud! regime, see Rutter, 252-63.) In the spring of
1344/1925, the king was anxious to make the best im¬
pression possible for the first Ha didi under his
auspices. He ordered a general tidying-up, and when
the pilgrims arrived, they found everything freshly
painted and clean. An innovation of 1345/1926 was
the erection of tents inside the cloister to give relief
from the sun; but unfortunately they could not with¬
stand the wind. In 1346/1927 the king ordered a
thorough restoration to be undertaken “at his per¬
sonal expense.” The work was entrusted to Shavkh
c Abd Allah al-DihlawI on the basis of his successful
work over a number of years at c Ayn Zubayda. This
programme lasted about a year and cost 2,000 gold
pounds. The accomplishments included replacing tiles
and marble, cleaning the domes of the cloister, repair¬
ing doors and pillars, repairing and painting (green)

MAKKA

165

Fig. 4. Plan of the Haram in late Ottoman, Hashimite
and early Su c udi times. After Snouck Hurgronje,
Rutter and Western Arabia and the Red Sea.

Key : 1. al-Ka c ba—2. al-Hutaym—3. al-Mataf—4. al-
Makam al-HanafT—5. al-Makam al-Malikl—6. al-
Makam al-Hanball—7. Zamzam—8. Ban! Shavba
portal—9. Makam Ibrahim—10. Minarets (7)—
11. Kadi’s office—12. Bab Bazan—13. Bab al*
Baghia—14. Bab al-Safa—15. Bab al-Rahma—
16. Bab Djiyad—17. Bab Adjlan—18. Bab Umm
Hani 3 —19. Bab al-Wida c —20. Bab Ibrahim—21.
Bab al-Da ? udiyya—22. Bab al- c Umra—23. Bab c Amr
b. al- c As—24. Bab al-Zamazima—25. Bab al-
Basita—26. Bab al-Kutbl—27. Bab al-Ziyada—
28. Bab ai-Mahkama—29. Bab al-Madrasa—30. Bab
al-Durayba—31. Bab al-Salam—32. Bab Ka^it Bay—
33. Bab al-Nabl—34. Bab al- c Abbas—35. Bab c AIT—
36. ai-Marwa—37. al-Safa—38. al-Mas c a—39. al-
Hamldiyya—40. Dar al-Takiyya al-Mi$riyya—
41. Guardhouse—42. Suk al-Layl.

Fig. 5. Boundary of the Haram area. After Bun-
dukdjl, Maps of hajj.

the roofs of the Makam Ibrahim and of al-Makam al-
Hanafi. The Zamzam building was much beautified,
the stones of the Ka c ba were pointed, and Bab
Ibrahim was widened and beautified. Moreover,
determined to do something to protect worshippers
from the fierce sun, c Abd _al- c Az!z, for the 1346
Ha djdj . ordered c Abd Allah Al Sulayman to erect all
around the inside of the cloister a massive wooden
frame to which heavy canvas was fixed as an awning.
Once the pilgrims had left, this canopy was removed.
But apparently there were some serious structural
problems, for in 1354/1935-6 a more general study
was undertaken. The order for this created a special
four-man committee ( c Abd Allah b. c Abd al-Kadir al-
Shaybl of the Madjlis al-Shura, chairman, Sulayman
Azhar, Assistant Director of awkaf Hashim b.
Sulayman, Administrator of the Haram (nd^ib al-
Haramf and c All Mufti of the Makka municipality).
Its mission was to carry out a general survey and then
make recommendations for repairs and restoration.
The committee recommendations (details in
Basalama, 285) included such things as disassembling
walls and rebuilding them, using cement for mortar.
Costs for this work, which began in Ramadan, were
split between the Directorate of Awkaf and King c Abd
al- c Az!z.

The electrification of the mosque had been in¬
stituted under the Hashimite al-Husayn, but was
steadily improved under c Abd al- c Az!z with generous
outside support. In 1346/1927-8 Hadjdj Dawud Atba
(?) of Rangoon donated a 300 kilowatt generator, and
as a result the king was able to increase the number
of bulbs from al-Husayn’s 300 to 1,000. In
1349/1930-1 new generating equipment was acquired
so that “a reader could read his book by electric lights
anywhere in the mosque” (Basalama, 257). In addi¬
tion, large free-standing, brass electric candelabra
mounted on reinforced concrete columns 3 m high
were placed in the mosque and six other brass
candelabra were mounted on al-Hutaym, the semi¬
circular wall enclosing the Hadjar Isma c Il. An even
larger contribution was made in 1353/1934-5 by
Djanab Nawwab Bahadur Dr. al-Hadjdj Sir Muham¬
mad Muzammil Allah Khan (1865-1938) of Bhikham-
pur, India, who presented much more elaborate
equipment to the mosque. It consisted of a 52 h.p.
engine, a 220 volt, 34 kilowatt generator and required
that the mosque engineer (Isma c Il al-Dhablh) go to
India in order to familiarise himself with it. He stayed
there several months and, interestingly, returned with
additional contributions in kind (elaborate candelabra
put on the gates, on the makams, and on the Zamzam
dome) from Muslim philanthropists in Cawnpore,
Lucknow and Karachi. Toward the end of
1354/1935-6, all was in working order and ‘‘the Matdf
was as though in sunlight.” Microphones and
loudspeakers were first used in the mosque in
1368/1948-9.

Attention should now be turned to several specific
features of the mosque area.

Al-Mas c a. — Firstly, it may be noted that the
Hashimite al-Husayn was the first person in Islamic
history to improve physically the running place, in ef¬
fect a street at that time, between al-Safa and al-
Marwa when in 1339/1920-1 he ordered c Abd al-
Wahhab al-Kazzaz to erect a cover over it. A steel
structure with wooden roof was built to the general
benefit of all. This continued in use for many years,
with some later improvements made by the muni¬
cipality (then directed by c Abbas Kattan) at the order
of King c Abd al- c Az!z. The king also undertook an¬
other major improvement early in his reign (1345/
1926-7) when he ordered al-Mas c a, which was rough

166

MAKKA

ground, to be paved. To oversee the work, a high-
level unit was constituted within the administration
framework of the Amdnat al- c Asima, that is, the
municipality. It was presided over by c Abd al-Wah-
hab b. Ahmad, the Nadib al-Haram, and included his
former assistant Muhammad Surur al-Sabban, later
Director (Minister) of Finance, along with the ubiq¬
uitous c Abd Allah A1 Sulayman (as the king’s
representative), several members of the Madjlis al-
Shura and some technical people. The decision was
reached to use square granite stones mortared with
lime. Initial expenses were to be covered by the
Amdnat al- c Asima and subsequent ones from the na¬
tional treasury ( bayt al-mal). Once protruding living
rock had been levelled, the work began ceremonially
with a large gathering that saw H. R. H. Prince
Faysal b. c Abd al- c Aztz lay the “corner stone” and
heard invocations from the khatib of the mosque. This
enterprise, completed before the Ha djdj of 1345,
resulted in the first paved street in the history of the
city.

Zamzam. — In the early repairs carried out under
al-DihlawT’s direction, the king paid special attention
to the well of Zamzam and the two-chambered
building above it. Two new sabils [q.v.} were con¬
structed, one of six taps near Bab Kubbat Zamzam,
the other of three near the Hudjrat al-Aghawat; in ad¬
dition, the older Ottoman sabil was renovated. All this
was beautifully done in local marble with fine
calligraphic inscriptions including the phrase “Imam
sic] c Abd al- c AzTz b. c Abd al-Rahman al-Su c ud [jic]
milt this sabil."

Kiswa. — With the outbreak of World War I, the
kiswa came as it had for many years previously from
Egypt. When the Ottoman Empire entered the war on
the side of Germany, the authorities in Makka as¬
sumed that British-controlled Egypt would no longer
send the kiswa and so they ordered one to be made in
Istanbul. It was a particularly fine one and was dispat¬
ched by train to al-Madina, thence to be taken to
Makka. In the event, the Egyptian government did
send the kiswa, bearing the embroidered name of Hu-
sayn Kamil, sultan of Egypt as well as that of Sultan
Muhammad Rashad. The Istanbul-manufactured
kiswa remained in al-Madma, and the Cairo one (with
Husayn Kamil’s name removed) was hung on the
Ka c ba. After the Sharif al-Husayn revolted against
the Ottomans, the Egyptians continued to send kiswas
until 1340/1922. In that year, at the end of Dhu ’1-
Ka c da, as a result of a dispute between the Sharif al-
Husayn and the Egyptian government, al-Husayn
sent the mahmal, the Egyptian guard, the wheat ra¬
tion, medical mission, surra (traditional funds for¬
warded from Egypt), alms, oblation and kiswa back
from Makka to Djudda. With only a very short time
left before the ha djdj . al-Husayn cabled to the amir of
al-Madina immediately to forward the Ottoman kiswa
stored there to Rabigh [q.v. ). Simultaneously, he
dispatched the steamship Rushdi to proceed from
Djudda to Rabigh. All worked well, and the Ottoman
kiswa reached Makka in time to be “dressed” on the
Ka c ba by the deadline date of 10 Dhu THidjdja.
Subsequently, al-Husayn ordered a kiswa woven in
al- c Irak, lest the dispute with Egypt not be settled by
the 1342/1923 ha djdj : however, in that year the Egyp¬
tian kiswa arrived and was used as usual. When the
ha djdj of 1343/1924 approached, c Abd al- c Aztz ruled
Makka, and relations with Egypt had become so bad
that Egypt did not send the kiswa. Luckily, the king
had a fall-back position, namely, the kiswa that King
al-Husayn had had made in al- c Irak. In the next year,
the Egyptians did send the kiswa , but that was the year
of the famous mahmal incident as a result of which

Egypto-Su c udl relations became very bad indeed.
The Su c udl expectation apparently was that the Egyp¬
tians would again send the kiswa in 1345, but in fact
they forbade it along with the other customary items.
The Su c udl government learned of this only at the
beginning of Dju ’l-KjTda, and once again the king
called on c Abd Allah A1 Sulayman, this time to have
a kiswa made locally on a rush basis. Shavkh c Abd
Allah and the Makkan business community fell to,
and by 10 Dhu '1 Hidjdja—the due date—a black
broadcloth kiswa , brocaded with silver and gold as
usual, had been produced. For the first time the name
of the Su c udi monarch appeared—as the donor—
brocaded on the band aboye the Ka c ba door. The
kiswa continued to be made in a special factory in
Makka until relations with Egypt improved, after
which it was reordered from there. In 1377/1957-8,
the donor legend was as follows: “The manufacture of
the kiswa was carried out in the United Arab Republic
during the regime of President Djamal c Abd al-Nasir
and donated to the noble Ka c ba during the regime of
Khadim al-Haramayn, Su c ud b. c Abd al- c Aziz A1
Su c ud, King of Su c udi Arabia, A.H. 1377” (text in
Kurdi, iv, 220). When relations between Su c udi
Arabia and Egypt later soured again, the government
once more responded by opening a kiswa factory in
Makka (currently [1985] located on Djudda Street
[Shari c Djudda] about 8 km west of the Haram. The
factory is managed by a deputy minister of hadjdj and
awkaf.

Repair of the Ka c ba. — On the first day of
Muharram 1377/29 July 1957, King Su c ud b. c Abd
al- c Az!z went to the roof of the Ka c ba to inspect
reported damage. The fact was that the venerable
building had an outer roof which needed repair, an in¬
ner wooden roof which was rotting and walls that were
beginning to crumble. Repairs were needed im¬
mediately. Two commissions, one technical, the other
religious, were established to undertake the work. A
detailed examination was made on 7 Muharram, and
a subsequent report recommended the following
remedial steps: replacement of upper roof, repair of
lower roof, insertion of a concrete beam between the
two roofs around the perimeter, repair of the damaged
walls and of the stairs leading to the roof and repair
of the marble lining the inner walls. A royal decree
(text in al-Kurdl, iv, 68) was issued instructing
Muhammad b. c Awad b. Ladin al-Hadrami, the
Director of Public Works (insha^ at c umumiyya) to carry
out the work. All workers were Makkan; the ar¬
chitects and engineers were mostly Egyptian.
Specifications were that all materials should be local,
the wood of the roof should be of the highest quality,
the roof not be painted or decorated in any way and
the concrete beam be exactly the same thickness as the
original space between the two roofs. On 18 Radjab
1377/1957, Faysal b. c Abd al- c Aziz presided over the
start of these repairs, and on 11 Sha c ban, H. M. King
Su c ud b. c Abd al- c Aztz placed the last piece of marble
facingstone in the walls inside the Ka c ba. This was
followed by two large dinners on successive nights.

Even before the repair of the Ka c ba, the mosque
had begun to undergo the most stupendous expansion
in its history. This development in Makka had no
doubt been informally decided upon by the king and
other senior officials, even as the expansion of al-
Haram al-Nabawi in al-Madina was getting under way
in 1370/1951. In any case, the increase in the number
of pilgrims after World War II had brought facilities
of all sorts to acute levels of congestion and inade¬
quacy to the degree that pilgrims in Makka were pray¬
ing in roads and lanes far outside the confines of the
mosque. The first public indication of what was to

MAKKA

167

happen came on 5 Muharram 1375/24 August 1955
when it was announced that all the equipment and
machinery which had been used on the now com¬
pleted enlargement in al-Madina would be moved to
Makka. A month later (6 Safar/24 September) a royal
decree established: (1) a Higher Committee chaired
by Faysal b. c Abd al- c AzIz, the heir designate, to
supervise the planning; (2) an executive committee to
supervise implementation; and (3) a committee to
assess values of expropriated property. Later, the first
two were merged into a higher executive committee
with King Su c ud b. c Abd al- c Aziz as chairman and
the minister of finance as vice chairman. The basic
concept of the final design was little short of inspired,
and may be considered an extension of the design con¬
cept developed for the enlargement of the mosque in
al-Madlna. It consisted of two ideas: (1) to maintain
the old mosque intact and surround it by the new con¬
struction; and (2) to incorporate al-Mas c a fully into
the mosque complex.

Work began in Rabl c II 1375/November 1955 with
road diversions, cutting of cables and pipes, land
clearing and other diversionary work, and was con¬
centrated in the Adjyad and al-Mas c a areas. A
foundation-stone ceremony was held five-and-a-half
months later in front of Bab Umm Hani 5 with the
king and other dignitaries in attendance, and this
marked the beginning of construction. Incidentally,
by ha didi time, pilgrims were able to perform the sa^y
undisturbed by hawkers and traffic for the very first
time. Work concentrated in Stage I on the
southeastern side of the mosque and also on the al-
Mas c a “thumb.” This latter, completed, is 394.5 m
long. The ground fioor is 12 m high and the second
storey 9 m. It is noteworthy that there is a low parti¬
tioning in the middle of the Mas c a which provides for
a special lane for the handicapped and ensures one¬
way traffic in each direction. There is no basement
under al-Mas c a, but a full one under the rest of the
new construction. A particular problem was the floods
which sweep south down the wadi systems, around
both sides of the mosque (but especially on the east).
To deal with this problem an underground conduit 5
m wide and 4-6 m deep was run under the road now
known as Shari c al-Masdjid al-Haram (formerly
Shari c al-Ma c Ia) starting in al-Kashashiyya quarter
then under the area of al-Safa, and under Shari c al-
Hidjra where, well south of the mosque, it resurfaces
in the Misfala quarter. Among the buildings removed
in this phase of the work were those of the old general
post, the Ministry of Education and the Egyptian
takiyya ; in addition, there was some other non-mosque
construction carried out as a part of the whole project,
including a three-story building near al-Safa to house
government offices and the mosque-project offices
and just northwest of al-Marwa a group of buildings
with office and apartments on the upper floors. In
Stage II, work continued in a counter-clockwise direc¬
tion. Special note may be made of the demolition of
the cells along the Bab al-Salam and Bab Adjyad
fagades, where the zamazima used to store water for
pilgrims, and the construction of replacement cells
under the old ones. Not as lucky were the madrasas ad¬
joining the mosque on the Adjyad fagade; they were
simply demolished. Public fountains were also built
on the new exterior fagades as the work progressed. In
Stage III, the southwest and northwest arcades and
fagades were built. The work was completed in
1398/1978.

All walls of the new construction are covered with
local marble. The marble came from quarries in Wadi
Fatima, Madraka and Farsan. The quarries were

developed by Muhammad b. Ladin, who had also
started the companion marble processing factory in
1950 in preparation for the enlargement of the mos¬
que in al-Madlna. He identified the quarries by ask¬
ing local Bedouin to bring him samples and then by
purchasing the most promising land from the govern¬
ment. The equipment in the factory was all Italian,
and a force of nine Italian marble specialists directed
and trained a total work force of 294 Su c udls and
others on a three-shift, round-the-clock basis. Accor¬
ding to the Italian technicians, the marble is much
harder than the famous Italian Carrara marble.
Another feature of the marble operations was the pro¬
duction of “artificial marble.” Remnant pieces and
chips of marble from the main operation were sent to
a crushing plant in Djudda, where they were ground
into carefully graded pellets. To these were added
waste from the cutting operations. This material was
then mixed with a binding agent and poured into a
variety of moulds of decorative panels. There were 800
different moulds “the patterns for which were created
by a master of the art from Carrara.” The mosque
project as a whole called for processing 250,000 m 2 of
marble.

Some over-all statistics and other information on
the new structure follow:

1. Areas of old building 29,127 m 2

Area of new building, including

al-Mas c a 131,041 m 2

Total 160,168 m 2

2. The building can accommodate an estimated
300,000 worshippers with a clear view of the Ka c ba.

3. The old gate names were retained for the new gates
except for the new Bab al-Malik Su c ud (probably
subsequently renamed Bab al-Malik).

4. There are six main stairways and seven subsidary
ones. Stairs leading directly form the street have gen¬
tle slopes in order to make it easier for elderly
pilgrims.

5. There are seven minarets, 90 m high each. (The
old minarets are one feature that did not survive; they
also numbered seven.)

6. By Radjab 182/December 1962, demolition of 768
houses and 928 stores and shops had been carried out
against indemnities of SR 239,615,300.

7. The work force in 1382/1962 was:

architect-engineers 6

administrative employees 208

skilled workers 150

unskilled workers (maximum) 3,000

8. The total cost of the mosque expansion is
estimated at $155 million.

9. The width of the streets around the new mosque is
30 m, with large plazas in front of the main gates.

There is one final aspect of the mosque enlargement
and renovation that deserves mention, sc. Zamzam.
In 1383/1963-4, the building that had long covered it
was torn down and the space was levelled. Access to
the well is now below ground down an ample sloping
marble staircase; there is no above-ground structure
whatsoever.

Like other shrines, al-Masdjid al-Haram has its ser¬
vants and its administration. In late Ottoman days the
administration was headed by the wait of Makka who
was, therefore, the nominal shaykh al-Haram, and it
depended financially on the ewkdf (aw/caf) in Istanbul.
The operational head was the na^ib al-Haram (deputy
of the Haram ) who was appointed by the sultan. The
Hashimite contribution was to institute a special
security force whose assignment was to watch out for
thieves and corruption and also to provide needed ser-

168

MAKKA

vices such as “lost and found.” Once he assumed
power, King c Abd al- c Az!z appointed the na*ib al-
Haram, and he also established a three-man ad¬
ministrative council (Madjlis Idarat al-Haram al-Shartf)
over which the n&Hb presided. Financially, since in¬
come ceased coming from many wakfs after the
Su c udf takeover, King c Abd al- c Aziz ordered the
Financing of all services to come from the public
treasury. He also initially doubled the salaries of those
who served. His own wakf department had support of
the Haram building as one of its main charges. Accor¬
ding to Rutter, below the ndHb came the “opener of
God’s House” (sadin), who since pre-lslamic times
had always been from the Shayba ( nisba : Shaybl)
family. Not the least of the perquisites of the sadin was
the right to cut the kistua up after the Ha didj and to sell
the small pieces to pilgrims as religious tokens. In¬
cidentally, a member of the Banu Shayba could not
become na?ib al-Haram. Below the “opener” were two
or three lieutenants who supervised the numerous
lesser personages and the actual workers. All, accor¬
ding to Rutter, took special pride in this work. Rut¬
ter’s estimate is that the total work force declined to
400 during the Wahhabi invasion but that in better
times it rose to as many as 800. This latter figure
would have included 100 imams and preachers, 100
teachers, 50 muezzins, plus hundreds of sweepers,
lamp cleaners, door keepers and Zamzam water
drawers ( zamzami , pi. zamazima). The Mataj, the cir¬
cular inner area around the Ka c ba, was in the care of
50 black eunuchs who also doubled as mosque police.
They were either Africans or of African origin and are
called aghas or, colloquially, tawashi (pi. tawdshiya , sc.
eunuchs). Their chief ranked directly below the
Shavbl. They wore distinctive clothes and were
diligent in instantly removing any litter. The rationale
for having eunuchs was that, if women became involv¬
ed in any incident in the mosque or had to be ejected,
the aghas could deal with them without impropriety.
They apparently had large incomes (especially from
awkaf in al-Basra) and maintained expensive
establishments including “wives” and slave girls as
well as slave boys. They all lived in al-Hadjla at the
northern end of al-Misfala quarter. The young boys
destined for this service, who normally had been
castrated in Africa, lived together in a large house,
there to receive instruction both in their faith and in
their duties. Literally slaves of the mosque and not of
any individual, the aghas were nevertheless greatly
venerated both by pilgrims and Makkans. “The
middle-class Makkans also invariably rise when ad¬
dressed by an Agha, and treat him in every way as a
superior” (Rutter, 251). Others give a lower estimate
for the numbers of mosque employees. Hamza ( Bilad,
217) writing in 1355/1936-7 numbers as follows:
muezzins 14, eunuchs 41, supervisors 80, water
drawers 10, sweepers 20 and doormen 30. His list
does not include teachers or preachers. Al-KurdI (iv,
249), writing in the 1960s, notes that there are 26
eunuchs including their shaykh and their nakib. He also
notes that the aghas have their own internal organisa¬
tion (nizam) and that amongst themselves they use
special nicknames.

There are, naturally enough, numerous religious
sites in Makka other than al-Masjjid al-Haram. Brief
remarks: 1. Mawlid al-Nabl (the Prophet’s birth¬
place), located in the Shi c b C A1I ravine near Suk al-
Layl. First the dome and minaret and later the whole
structure was torn down by the Wahhabis. The place
is still pointed out. 2. Mawlid Sayyidatna Fatima (the
birthplace of our Lady Fatima). Same remarks. 3.
Masdjid al-Arkam b. al-Arkam. The home of a Com¬
panion of the Prophet and reputed site of c Umar’s ac¬

ceptance of Islam. Destroyed during the recent
expansion of al-Haram, its location is now a parking
lot east of al-Mas c a. 4. In Rutter’s time the small
mosques marking the houses of other Companions
had mostly already been destroyed. 5. Cemetery of al-
Ma c la. It is located about 1 km due north of al-Haram.
In it are buried Amina, the Prophet’s mother;
K h adidj a. his first wife; c Abd Manaf, his great-great
grandfather; c Abd al-Muttalib, his grandfather and
guardian; and hosts of Muslims, famous and
unknown, from the earliest days until the present. In
the first flush of the occupation, Wahhabi zealots
destroyed the small domes which covered some of the
most famous sites, and those guardians who had
sought alms from pious visitors were faced with other
work. As in the case of al-Bak! c cemetery in al-
Madlna, bodies decompose quickly (six months) in al-
Ma c la, and there is “continuous” burial in the same
place. 6. Masdjid al-Djinn (also called Masdjid al-
Bay c a and Masdjid al-Haras). It is on Shari c al-
Haram next to al-Ma c la cemetery and marks the
reputed place (see Kurian, XLVI, 29) where a party
of djinn , having heard the Prophet chanting the
Kur’an were converted to Islam. An older Ottoman
building was replaced by a modern mosque in
1399/1978-9. 7. Char Hira’. Site of the first revela¬
tion (XCIV, 1-5), the cave of Hira 5 is near the top
of the mountain from which it takes it name (the
mountain is more commonly called Djabal al-Nur to¬
day). It lies about 5.2 km northeast of al-Haram al-
Sharif —a steep climb to the top. The Wahhabis pulled
down the dome which earlier had ornamented it. 8.
Ghar Thawr. Seven km south-southeast of al-Masdjid
al-Haram lies the cave on the top of Djabal TTawr in
which the Prophet took refuge with Abu Bakr at the
beginning of the hijjra\ a difficult ascent. 9. al-
Tan c Im. Seven km north of al-Masdjid al-Haram on
Shari c al-Tan c Im which turns into Tank al-Madlna.
This is the limit of the sacred area in this direction,
and it is the place where Makkans often go to don the
ihrdm when they want to perform the c umra. They go
there not because it is necessary for them but because
it is the place where the Prophet, returning from al-
Madlna, announced his intention of performing the
c umra. Formerly also a pleasant picnic spot, al-
Tan c Im in the 1980s has become a suburban quarter.
There is a small mosque called Masdjid al- c Umra. 11.
Masdjid al-Khayf. A mosque in Muna in which (at
least formerly) were several large vaults which were
opened for the receipt of bodies in plague years. It is
especially meritorious for prayer on the c Id al-Adha
and has been rebuilt and enlarged by the Su c udls.
The new mosque has many columns, splendid carpets
and a permanent imam. 12. Masdjid Ibrahim or, more
commonly today, Masdjid Bilal. Formerly outside the
city on the slope of Djabal Abl Kubays 250 m due east
of the Ka c ba; now a built-up area. 13. Masdjid al-
Namira. Also known as Masdjid Ibrahim al-Khalll
and as Masdjid c Arafa. It is located almost 2 km west
of Djabal al-Rahma in the plain of c Arafat and takes
its name from a low mountain about 2 km further
west. 14. Al-KurdI estimates (ii, 269) that in all there
are 150 mosques in Makka, but he adds that Friday
prayers are only allowed to be performed in 15 of
them (not counting al-Haram) in 1375/1955-6. This
relaxation of the traditional restriction on performing
the Friday noon prayers only in al-Haram was in
response to the growth of the city and the disruption
of al-Masdjid al-Haram by the new construction there.
The 15 mosques (with their locations) are as follows:
Masdjid (thereafter, M.) al-Djinn (al-Sulaymaniyya),
M. al-Djumazya (al-Mu c abada), M. al-Amlra Hassa
(al-Hudjun), M. Hamdan al-Farah (al- c Utaybiyya),

MAKKA

169

M. Ibn Rushd al-Hamzam (?) (al-Mu c abada), M. al-
Malik c Abd al- c AzTz (al-Mu c abada), M. Hayy al-
TawfTk (Djarwal), M. al-Malik c Abd al^AzIz (al-
Zahir), M. BPr al-Ham (?m)am (Shi c b c Amir], M.
al-Amir Bandar (al'Mu c abada), M. Hasan A1 al-
Shavkh (Shari c al-Mansur), M. al-Kuwaytf (Shari*-
al-Mansur), M. al-Tabfshl) (Djarwal), M. al-Ka c k!
(Djarwal). and M. al-Badawi (or M. al-Raya or M.
al-Djawdariyya) (al-Djawdariyya). From their names,
it is clear that most of these are modern mosques. (For
more detail on all the above and other mosques, see
al-Biladl, esp. s. v. masdjid.).

Pilgrimage. From time immemorial, the life of
Makka has been punctuated by the inflow of pilgrims,
and even mighty oil has not interfered with this an¬
nual surge. Indeed, it has rather confirmed it. D.
Long’s admirable study of the modern Ha djdj begins,
“Over 1,500,000 people [by 1403/1982 the total
figure was probably a little under 2,000,000] annually
attend the Hajj, or Great Pilgrimage to Makkah,
making it one of the largest exercises in public ad¬
ministration in the world. Nearly every agency of the
Saudi government becomes involved, either in
regulating the privately operated Hajj service in¬
dustry, or in providing direct administrative services.
Such a task would tax the most sophisticated govern¬
ment bureaucracy; and yet Saudi Arabia, where
public administration is still in a developing stage,
manages to get the job done each year. Moreover,
since non-Muslims are not allowed in Makka, it is
done with almost no administrative assistance from
more developed countries.” The brief tent city an¬
nually erected on the plain of c Arafat and the vast
multitude that inhabits it creates as moving a picture
of religious faith as any that human society affords.

Ha djdj arrival figures (or estimates) for the period
under review from various sources:

Foreign Ha djdj arrivals (in 000s)

Year

No.

Year

No.

1324/1907

120

1373/1954

164

1343/1925

1374/1955

233

1344/1926

—

1375/1956

221

1345/1927

191

1376/1957

216

1346/1928

1377/1958

209

1347/1929

1378/1959

207

1348/1930

1379/1960

253

1349/1931

1380/1961

286

1350/1932

1381/1962

216

1351/1933

1382/1963

197

1352/1934

1383/1964

267

1353/1935

1384/1965

283

1354/1936

1385/1966

294

1355/1937

1386/1967

316

1356/1938

1387/1968

319

1357/1939

1388/1969

375

1358/1940

1389/1970

406

1359/1941

1390/1971

431

1360/1942

1391/1972

479

1361/1942-3

1392/1973

645

1362/1943

1393/1973-4

608

1363/1944

1394/1974-5

919

1364/1945

1395/1975

895

1365/1946

1396/1976

719

1366/1947

1397/1977

739

1367/1948

1398/1978

830

1368/1949

1399/1979

863

1369/1950

108

1400/1980

813

1370/1951

101

1401/1981

879

1371/1952

149

1402/1982

854

1372/1953

150

1403/1983

1,004

In the period under review, three aspects of the
Ha djdj must be considered: the transitional period
running from the Su c udi conquest to the end of World
War II, during which the camel gave way to the motor
vehicle; the increasing Su c udT regulation of what D.
Long has called the Ha djdj service industry; and the
Ha djdj in the era of mass air transport.

1. The Hadjdj in the era of camel and car. In general,
what must be emphasised is that the security which
the pax Su c udiana brought to the Hidjaz transformed
the pilgrimage. No longer were pilgrims subjected to
capricious “taxes” or thinly veiled threats of much
worse as they passed through tribal areas. No longer
were the exploitative tendencies of merchants,
transporters, mutawwifs and officials allowed to run
unchecked and unheeded. The policy was to make the
pilgrimage as dignified and comfortable a spiritual ex¬
perience as possible. King c Abd al- c Aziz turned his at¬
tention to the improvement of the lot of the pilgrims
as he first entered Makka. It has already been noted
that, when the king entered the city, his initial decree
confirmed all mutawwifun “with a clear title” in their
positions. The organic statute of 1345/1926 establish¬
ed a committee, Ladjnat Idarat al-Ha djdj (committee on
administering the Ha djdj ). to assist the viceroy, Faysal
b. c Abd al- c Aziz, in supervising the pilgrimage. The
committee was to include the heads of all government
departments involved in the Ha djdj and a number of
qualified notables, which latter category was probably
intended to include senior members of the mutawwif
organisation. The committee was vested with in¬
vestigatory powers, and all aspects of the pilgrimage
were within its purview. But the king remained the
final authority, as Article 16 makes clear: “‘All
regulations made by the Pilgrimage Committee
should be enforced by the Agent-General [viceroy]
after they have been sanctioned by His Majesty the
King’” (quoted in Long, 55).

Philby reports ( Pilgrim , 20 ff.) in some detail on the
1349/1931 pilgrimage. The king personally supervis¬
ed matters like an officer in his command post. The
royal party itself travelled in 300 automobiles, but it
was not until 1352/1934 that ordinary citizens were
allowed to use vehicles to go to c Arafat. Houses in
Mina were being rented for £40 for the four or five
days of the Ha djdj . but again note that they were used
for only some of the 350 days of the lunar year. The
government discouraged various extravagant prac¬
tices and did not allow access to the summit of Djabal
al-Rahma; guards were posted about half-way up. Ex¬
actly at sunset on 9 Dhu THidjdja, the return to
Makka begins, and on arrival at Muzdalifa the wor¬
shippers find a city which had not been there when the
pilgrims passed through on the previous day. The
pilgrimage is attended by various kinds of difficulties,
for the regime which is responsible, not excluding
political difficulties. Philby notes (Jubilee , 160) that
during the 1349/1931 Ha djdj . the king felt it necessary
discreetly to stop Aman Allah Khan [ q.v . in Suppl.j,
the former king of Afghanistan, from making political
propaganda for his cause with Afghan pilgrims. c Abd
al- c AzTz’s policy was that any Muslim was welcome,
but that the occasion was for religious not political
purposes. A different, attempted political use of the
pilgrimage occurred during the 1353/1935. As the
king and his eldest son Su c ud were performing the
tawaf al-ifada (circumambulation of the Ka c ba on 10
Dh u TKa c da), three Yamanls, probably hoping to
revenge some loss incurred in the Su c udi-Yamanl war
the previous year, fell on King c Abd al- c AzTz and on
Su c ud b. c Abd al- c Az!z with daggers. Both received
light wounds, but the assailants were shot dead.

The pilgrimage is also a socio-political affair, and

170

MAKKA

King c Abd al- c Aziz and his successors have extended
their hospitality generously and advantageously.
c Abbas Hamada, who was a delegate from al-Azhar
and whose account of his pilgrimage in 1354/1936
contains many interesting observations, vividly retells
his reception by the king. He and others were invited
to a royal dinner on the night of 6 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja.
They gathered in front of the Ministry of Foreign Af¬
fairs to wait for cars to take them to al-Mu c abada
palace. A little before sunset, the group left.
Paraphrasing and skipping, his account reads (70-3):
‘‘We were let off in front of a great palace built like
a strong military fort outside Makka to the northeast
in al-Mu c abada. Opposite the palace lies Djabal
Durud, on the summit of which was a fort. When I
entered the outside door, I found the royal guard on
both sides armed to the teeth wearing splendid Arab
dress. Most of them were slaves of the king. I walked
until I entered a large reception hall furnished with
splendid oriental carpets. When all the visitors had
assembled, excellent Arabian coffee was passed
around several time. During this stage, the chief of the
diwan was going around and greeting people warmly.
When the muezzin called out sunset prayer time, we
hastened to the mosque inside the palace. After pray¬
ing, we climbed to the upper floor where superb Arab
food was spread out for the guests. It combined the
best oriental practice with the most modern Euro¬
pean. H. R. H. Prince Su c ud b. c Abd al- c Aziz, the
heir designate, sat at one table; Prince Fay sal b. c Abd
al- c AzIz, at another; and the chief of the royal diwan
at a third. After the meal, we went into an area reserv¬
ed for receptions and then to the main royal reception
hall where King c Abd al- c Aziz ibn al-Su c ud was sur¬
rounded by ulema, princes, ministers and Eastern
leaders who had come to Makka for the pilgrimage.
When all had gathered, c Abd al- c Aziz delivered an
Islamic sermon. His talk reminded me of the Or¬
thodox caliphs. When he finished, various speakers
and poets rose to praise him. I got up and gave my
speech [text, which is not without interest, at pp.
71-3]. We all left full of thanks, praise, and loyalty.”
Nor was that dinner the only time Hamada was enter¬
tained by the royal family. He was later received by
the king in Mina, and on another occasion Su c ud b.
c Abd al- c AzTz sent for him to attend his matfjlis.

Hamada makes other observations. He speaks of
the general lack of consideration for the old and weak
in the surge of people performing the tawaf. Some
would die, he opines, were it not for the police. A
custom that he reports (61) is that some men take their
wives’ heads and shove them hard against the Black
Stone. If blood flows, he calls out: ‘‘ Ha didi V ’ because
the flowing blood means that the pilgrimage is accep¬
table. There is also shouting for forgiveness as people
run around the Ka c ba. These folk practices and ideas,
including the belief of some ignorant pilgrims that it
is a blessing if they are hit by droppings from the
Haram pigeons, or the practice by others of kissing the
stone of the Makam Ibrahim, are the kind that the
Su c udl regime discouraged; Hamada condemns them
vigorously in his turn. He also discusses (67) begging.
At Hadidi time, thousands of poor Bedouin flocked to
Makka and, along with the Makkan poor, became an
army of beggars who constituted a considerable
nuisance for the pilgrims. It was more or less a profes¬
sion, in his view. Since his pilgrimage was made just
when the conversion from camel to automobile
transport was taking place, Hamada makes a number
of remarks (passim) on the subject. Most importantly,
cars are much more comfortable than camels and
much quicker. He contrasts the 12 days it took by

camel from Makka to al-Madfna with the 18 hours
that it took by car, although he notes that the conver¬
sion might deprive many Bedouin of their livelihood.
He himself went to c Arafat with a group that had 400
camels, and he paid 60 Egyptian piasters for the
round trip. The outgoing trip encountered a severe
thunderstorm, and it took six hours to reach the
destination. On the problem of conversion from camel
transport to motor vehicles, Philby notes (Forty years,

173) that the chaos initially engendered by cut-throat
and dishonest competition among motor transport
companies had by 1348-9/1930 been ended through
the government’s forcing all the motor companies to
combine into a single monopoly company backed and
regulated by the government.

2. The Hadjdj service industry. This service has long
been a key element in the year-to-year functioning of
the pilgrimage. It has grown up over centuries, is
highly specialised, is divided among families and is
organised into guilds. Two guilds are specifically
Makkan, the mutawwifun (sing, mutawwif “one who
causes [others] to make the tawaf or circumambulation
of the Ka c ba”; an alternate term sometimes en¬
countered is shaykh ai-ha didi ): and the zamazima (sing.
zamzami , a “Zamzamer”). A third guild which is
related to Makka, but which is largely based in Djud-
da, is that of the wukala ’ (sing, wakil, “agent”) whose
task, as agents for the mutawwifun , is to meet pilgrims
arriving in Djudda, help them choose a mutawwif if by
chance they do not have one, be responsible for them
in Djudda until they depart for Makka and again
when they return to Djudda. (For the guild of adilla ',
sing, dalll, “guide” of al-Madfna, see art. al-madina;
for the now defunct guild of camel brokers, mukhar-
ridfun, sing, mukharridy, “dispatcher”, see Long, 46.)
The task of the mutawwifun is to assist the pilgrim
while in Makka, by supplying his material needs and
in performing the rites of the pilgrimage. In the years
immediately following the Su c udf conquest, the
mutawwifun functioned much as they had in previous
times. They delegated many of their responsibilities to
assistants, who were called sabi (boy) if apprentices
and dalil (guide; unrelated to the adilla ’ of al-Madfna)
if experienced. Mutawwifun commonly owned proper¬
ty which they either rented out directly to their clients
or to another mutawwif for his clients. Rutter notes
(149) that particular national groups have their own
attitudes. Malaysians, for example, like to be housed
near the Masdjid al-Haram and are willing to pay hand¬
somely for the privilege. Thus a mutawwif with a
house there will rent it to a mutawwif of Malaysians
and put his own group in cheaper quarters. Rutter’s
own mutawwif was the model for this generalisation.
Aside from his own living quarters, he had rented his
house to a mutawwif of Malaysians for a three-month
period for £30 per year. Incidentally, Rutter reports
that in the previous year 1342/1924 his mutawwif had
had 1,000 clients whereas in the starving year of
1343/1925 he had only Rutter. One of the obligations
of a mutawwif even in Rutter’s time was to keep a
register of each pilgrim who died, along with a list of
his or her effects. Twenty-seven of this mutawwif s
1,000 clients had died during the 1342/1924
pilgrimage. Most had been destitute or had possessed
only a pound or two. The mutawwifun were organised
according to the areas from which their clients came,
and frequently the mutawwif was originally from the
same area. Thus he spoke the language and knew the
characteristics of his customers who in turn would, if
warranted, report favourably on him when they
returned home.

Mutawwifun specialising in a particular country

MAKKA

171

formed sub-guilds (Long’s term, 30) which rigidly ex¬
cluded other mutawwifun. These sub-guilds were called
tawa^if(sing, ta^ifa), and each was headed by a shaykh
al-masha^ikh. The title of the over-all guild leader was
shaykh al-mutawwifin. He both represented the guild to
the authorities and also had the responsibility of see¬
ing that government regulations were applied. The
normal pool for admitting new members was those
proven assistants who were members of the family of
a mutawwif. “In cases of an interloper, however, the
mutawwifin would rise to a man to prevent him from
becoming established. The few outsiders who per¬
sisted were called jarrars (those who drag [someone]
along) and dealt primarily with Hajjis too poor to hire
the services of a bona fide mutawwif” (Long, 30).
The final decision on admissibility lay with the shaykh
al-mutawwifin. Some mutawwifun were large operators,
with recruiters who travelled annually to the country
or countries of specialisation; others were much
smaller. Long (31) estimates that in the mid- 1930s,
there may have been 500 mutawwifun who, with
helpers and apprentices, would have totalled “several
thousand.” The mutawwifun were compensated for
their work in a variety of ways, although it should be
noted that in theory there was no charge for guiding
the pilgrim in the actual performance of his duties. In
fact, there were no set fees and the pilgrims were ex¬
pected to pay a gratuity according to their means.
Should a pilgrim be too poor to pay, a mutawwif would
help him with the rites without pay; however, accor¬
ding to Rutter (446), “such an act is rarely done out
of kindness. It is done in order to sustain the delusion
that rites performed without the guidance of a
mutawwif are valueless in the sight of Allah—for such
is the impious connection advanced by the fraternity
of guides for their own financial advantage.” Yet such
a flexible system doubtless cut both ways, especially
for the apprentices and guides, and some at least
worked hard for little. Additional sources of income
were rentals, commissions for referring clients to
various associated merchants, zamazima, coffee shops,
etc. It should also be realised that the government got
a “cut” of mutawwif income by issuing licenses (sing.
takrir) to the mutawwifun. In theory, these licenses once
issued had been good for life, but prior to the Su c udi
take-over, revalidation fees of various sorts had caus¬
ed the system to break down. The zamazima are
basically organised in the same way as the
mutawwifun. Membership is hereditary, members
employ young helpers, they have their own shaykh ,
and they also specialise by the country or area of their
clients’ origin. As indicated above, they normally
have client-sharing relationships with the ta^ifa of
mutawwifun , specialising in the same linguistic or na¬
tional group as themselves. Many are bi- or multi¬
lingual. The basic function of the zamazima is to
distribute the sacred water of Zamzam to those who
desire it, whether in the mosque precincts or at home,
where it was delivered twice a day to those who
ordered it. Naturally, business was much greater dur¬
ing the Ha djdi . Selling water in containers to be taken
home by a pilgrim was also a most important part of
their business. Although in principle anyone could
draw his own water, the practice was hardly en¬
couraged by the zamazima, and in addition, they per¬
formed a considerable service during the long hot
periods by cooling the otherwise warm water in
porous earthenware jars. The members of the guild of
wukala 3 of Djudda have formal relationships with the
Makkan mutawwifun for whom they do it in fact work
as agents.

Regulation of the guilds began shortly after the oc¬

cupation of al-Hidjaz. In Rabi c II 1345/-October-
November 1926, Faysal issued comprehensive regula¬
tions for the guilds, in the first article of which it was
made clear that the king nominated mutawwifun.
However, the fact that these guilds were powerful is
indicated by the fact that they made King c Abd
al- c Az!z back down on two separate occasions. The
first was very shortly after he took Makka, when he
tried to break the monopoly that had grown up
whereby a pilgrim was compelled to accept as
mutawwif a mutawwif who had acquired rights to all
pilgrims from the given pilgrim’s home area, but the
affected interests were too powerful, and the king had
to accept the old system. The second time was in the
late 1920s, when the king wanted to pump water from
Zamzam and lead it by pipe to taps in locations where
it would be more readily available to pilgrims and also
more sanitary. The zamazima and the sakis (water
haulers) saw their interests threatened, and they
aroused the local Nacjjdls against the king’s plan.
With the Ikhwan trouble brewing, c Abd al- c Aztz
decided it was more politic to retreat, and the pumps
and pipes that had been ordered sat uselessly. Never¬
theless, government control over the guilds gradually
increased. In 1348/1930, the king devoted much effort
to the reorganisation of the Ha didj . and the commit¬
tee’s name became Ladjnat al-Ha didj wa J 7- Mutawwifin
(Committee on the Ha djdi and the mutawwifun). Dur¬
ing the 1351/1932-3 sessions of the Madjlis al-Shurd , its
policy mandate was enlarged to include “caring for
pilgrimage and pilgrims ... because efforts expended
in serving the interests of pilgrims in this holy land
constitutes one of the ways of approaching God.... It
is a duty in the interest of this country to care for them
and their interests with vigilance” (text in Hamza,
101). Bureaucratically, Hadjdi affairs were under the
Ministry of Finance. The committee was composed of
ten members, as follows: chairman (appointed by the
government), four members elected by the trustees
{hay 1 at umana ? ) of the mutawwif guild (two to represent
Turkish mutawwifun ; two, other nationalities), two
members from the trustees of the Djawa (“Java” =
Southeast Asia) to? if a, two members from the trustees
of the “Indian” (= South Asia) ta^ifa, and one
member from the trustees of the zamazima. Licensing
of guildsmen was spelled out by the Su c udl regime in
some detail. The bases for possession of a valid licence
were: 1. inheritance of a licence; 2. service under a
licenced mutawwif for a period of 15 years conditional
on the applicant’s receiving a certification of com¬
petence and good character from a licensed mutawwif ,
plus nomination by the relevant ta^ifa and approval by
the shaykh al-mutawwifin ; 3. a grant ( in c am ) from the
ruler {wali al-amr ); and 4. holding a license from a
previous ruler. Two types of these licenses had been
issued, a first type that gave the head of a given
geographical area’s tdfifa the right to assign pilgrims
to individual mutawwifun within the pa?fa , and a se¬
cond type introduced by the Hashimite regime, in
which the process of assigning pilgrims was opened
up. At the time Fu^ad Hamza was writing, these
guilds were divided into three divisions (his term is
kism) each led by a head (his term is raj is): 1 . the
“Javan” shayfdis ((headed by Shaykh Hamid c Abd al-
Mannan), whose ten trustees were elected by the 500
members. 2. The “Indian” mutawwifun (headed by
Shaykh c Abd al-Rahman Mazhar), who also have
trustees and who number in all 350. 3. The
mutawwifun of other races (headed by Shaykh
Muhammad Harsanij, who also have ten trustees and
a membership of 350. Hamza notes that there were
200 zamazima (headed by Sulayman Abu Ghaliyya),

172

MAKKA

with a similar organisation. Hamza’s estimate then is
for a total of 1,400 Makkan guildsmen, not counting
the mukharridjun. For the 1386/1967 Ha djdj . regula¬
tions on the assignment of clients to mutawwifun were
liberalised so that a pilgrim arriving without a pre¬
selected mutawwif could be assigned to any mutawwif
by the SiPal (Interrogation [committee]). A Su^al,
composed of wukala ’ and Ministry of Had j d j officials,
sits at every port of entry. The purpose of the change
was to prevent mutawwifun who specialised in areas
whence many pilgrims came, from getting too large a
share, relatively, of the market. To the same end, the
fees collected were set on a sliding scale which reduced
the fee as the number of a mutawwif s clients increas¬
ed. Nevertheless, nothing prevented mutawwifun from
employing doubtful tactics to lure pilgrims before
their arrival in Su c udl Arabia and after the 1386/1967
pilgrimage, controls in this regard were tightened to
force each mutawwif formally to declare his area of
specialisation. Simultaneously, the three ta^ifas were
also formalised as follows: Arab td^ifa (Arab countries
plus Turkey, Iran and Europe [?plus the Americas],
Indian tPifa (Afghanistan, Ceylon, India and
Pakistan), Djawa td^ifa (Indonesia, Philippines, Bur¬
ma, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan). As a
double check, each ta^ifa board had to approve the
mutawwif s declaration. The net result was that no
mutawwif was allowed to solicit clients outside the area
of his approved declaration. Balancing this limitation
was the rule that thereafter, pilgrims arriving with no
pre-selected mutawwif would automatically be assign¬
ed to a mutawwif specialising in the area from which
he came.

Gradually, the government was also able to
establish set fees. In 1948 the total fee for a pilgrim
was SR 401.50/£35.50 (see Madjallat al-Hadjdj. n. 10,
p. 47; cited by Long, 38). This fee included all
charges. The part of it dedicated to Makkans was as
follows: mutawwif , SR 51; skaykk al-mutawwifin and his
board, SR 4.5; nakib (? later term for a dalif), SR .5;
poor mutawwifun , SR .5; zamzami , SR 3.5. Thus the
total cost for guild services in Makka was SR
60/£5.31.

Various new decrees and amendments continued to
increase the regulatory control until on 9 Djumada I
1385/5 September 1965 a comprehensive royal decree
(marsum ) was issued which detailed the responsibilities
of all guilds, including those in Djudda and in al-
Madrna, reset fees and established travel instructions.
The fee for the services of a mutawwif , zamzami and a
wakil was SR 74/$16.44. This fee was paid in Djudda
to the wakil , who deposited it in the central bank, the
Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency. The government
then paid the guildsmen. Under new streamlined pro¬
cedures, the pilgrim was to go to a reception centre
run by the Ministry of Ha djdj and Awkaf where he or
she was processed and introduced to the mutawwif or
his staff. Duties to the client were specified as follows:
1. to receive the arriving pilgrim, take his passport,
and issue him a special travel document giving his
name, nationality, address in Makka, name of his
mutawwif ’ departure date and means of transport; 2.
to assist the pilgrim to find lodging at a rate he can af¬
ford, according to a rent-control schedule of SR 100
for a house in Makka and SR 30 for a tent in c Arafat
and Mina. There is an Accommodation Control
Committee charged with oversight of housing and in¬
vestigation of abuses. The mutawwif must also assist
the pilgrim in obtaining reasonable prices for food and
other goods in stores; 3. to guide the pilgrim through
all the prescribed rites in Makka, c Arafat, and Mina;
4. to supervise the transportation and the stay at

c Arafat and Mina. For this purpose a second card is
issued showing the site of his tent in c Arafat and
Mina. According to the regulation, “cards shall in¬
clude the number of the plot, square, and street.” In
addition, the mutawwif must erect signs giving the
same information “so that the Hajjis may see clearly
their places in c Arafat and Mina” (Long, 41-2); and
5. to assist the pilgrim in arranging his ongoing travel.
Three days before departing from Makka, the
pilgrim’s name “is submitted to the Hajj Ministry for
inclusion on a departure list and for checking reserva¬
tions and tickets... Passports, tickets, and reservations
are then returned to the Hajji” (Long, 42). The zam¬
zami had under the 1965 regulations two respon¬
sibilities: 1. to supply pilgrims with Zamzam water
within al-Masdjid al-Haram and twice a day in their
rooms; and 2. to help them during prayers, i.e., to
supply water for ablutions. All guildsmen are respon¬
sible for carrying out set procedures to help lost
pilgrims, to report suspected disease to health officials
and to deal with death. Finally, the government has
also tried to regulate the quality of the guildsmen’s
helpers. Long indicates (45-6) that the royal decree of
1965 “states that every employee must be of good
conduct, physically fit, of suitable age to perform his
required services, and competent and licensed for that
service. It further stipulates that: ‘The mutawwif...
and zamzami, for their part must take the necessary
steps to supervise the said persons during their work
and guarantee good performance. Each is to be sup¬
plied with a card containing all the [required] infor¬
mation including the name of his employer.’ ”

3. The Hadjdj in the era of air travel. The pilgrimage
entered its latest phase in the wake of World War II
with the simultaneous appearance of air travel and of
greatly increased income from oil. The first pilgrim
flights were in chartered ex-military transports; in the
1980s, almost all pilgrims came by “wide-bodied”
jets, and the number have increased dramatically as
noted above. One might start this section on the post¬
war period by reporting that the direct tax imposed by
the king in 1345-6/1927 was lifted in 1371/1952, by
which year oil income had exceeded Ha djdj income.
The circumstances were as follows. c Abd al- c Az!z, just
a year before his death, was heard to say: “The goal
of my life is to lift the Ha djdj fees from the Muslims.”
One of his oldest advisors, Shavkh Yusuf Yasln, who
was present, said: “The king almost immediately
turned to me_ and said, ‘Telegraph Ibn Sulayman
[ c Abd Allah Al Sulayman, Minister of Finance] to
abolish the pilgrims’ fees.’ So I wired him in the
king’s name as directed. He replied to the king, ‘O
Long of Life: Thirty million riydh —from what shall I
compensate them in the budget?” c Abd al- c Az!z
replied to him: ‘ Dabbir nafsakai (“solve your own pro¬
blems”)!’ ” The fees were abolished forthwith. (See
al-ZirikJT, 1416.) Other positive moves followed. By
1376/1956-7, the Ministry of Health had built a large
modern hospital in Mina, including specialised sun¬
stroke facilities, even though the town really existed
only a few days a year. Al-Kurdi describes (ii, 194) the
government’s provision of shaded rest areas and ice
water taps along the way between Mina and c Arafat
(in addition to the numerous coffee houses which
serve fruit and other food as well as drinks). There
were also important administrative changes. In
1383-4/1964 following Faysal’s accession to the
throne, direct supervision of the Ha djdj was relin¬
quished by the new king and devolved upon the amir
of Makka. For the pilgrimage of 1385/1966, the old
committee was superseded by a new Supreme Hadjdj
Committee ( Ladjnat al-Ha djdj al- c Ulya). “Chaired by

MAKKA

173

the amir, its members include the mayors of Jiddah
and Makkah; the senior representatives in the Hijaz
for the Ministries of Health, Interior, Hajj and
Waqfs, and other interested ministries; and represen¬
tatives from the local police, customs, quarantine, and
other offices” (Long, p. 56). All policy on the ever¬
more complicated Ha djdj operation was set, under the
over-all supervision of the king, by this committee.
Another new aspect of the Ha djdj is the growth of
hotels. The city now boasts not less than 25 hotels,
and several of them belong to major international
chains; many meet international standards. To give a
small insight into the way things have changed in the
latest phase, it is enough to mention that at c Arafat
there are lost children’s tents stocked with toys to
divert them until their parents claim them. It is also
pertinent to note that in 1974, the kiswa factory
employed 80 craftsmen who wove 2,500 feet of
material on hand looms. The finished cloth weighs
about 5,000 lbs.

The annual traffic problem may be the most
challenging in the world. An excellent picture is pro¬
vided by the following extended quotation:

“In order to get some idea of the magnitude of the
traffic problem at c Arafat during the nafrah, one
might picture about twelve [major] football games all
getting out at the same time, with all the fans heading
for the same place; only, in the case of the Hajj, there
is a multitude of different languages, types of vehicles,
and many foreign drivers not familiar with the road
system. In order to cope with this situation, special
cadres of traffic police are trained for the Hajj and are
given extra assistance by the Saudi army. In recent
years such modern devices as closed circuit television
have also been installed to help guide the traffic flow.
Moreover Hajjis traveling overland are required to
use designated routes on entering al-Madlnah, Mak¬
kah, Muzdalifah, and Mina; the vehicles must be
parked in designated places until the Hajjis are
scheduled to depart. While in these cities and at
c Arafat the Hajjis must utilize Saudi transportation
(for which they have paid anyway).

Despite all these measures the traffic situation can
still get out of hand. In 1968 a mammoth traffic jam
developed during the nafrah, and some Hajjis were
delayed as much as twenty hours trying to get from.
c Arafat to Muzdalifah. Making matters worse, an ex¬
ceptionally large number of Saudis attended the Hajj
because of the special religious significance of Stan¬
ding Day falling on Friday and because of the exten¬
sion of the highway system throughout the kingdom.
Not subject to the parking regulations for non-Saudi
Hajjis, many took their private autos to c Arafat. In
addition many Turkish buses, which had been allow¬
ed to drive to c Arafat because they contained sleeping
and eating facilities, broke down during the long tie-
ups, further contributing to the traffic jam. Sixteen
new, black-and-white-checkered police cars especially
marked for the purpose, were wrecked as they sought
to cross lanes of moving or stalled traffic. In the post-
Hajj evaluation by the Supreme Hajj Committee,
traffic control was a major topic, and since then no
such major tie-ups have been reported” (Long, 64).

It is clear that, in totally changed circumstances,
pilgrimage to the Bayt Allah in Makka is a continuing,
vital process not only for Muslims around the world
but most especially for Makka al-Mukarrama.

Education and cultural life. Formal educa¬
tion, traditional or modern, was little developed in
Makka in late Ottoman and Hashimite times. The
first major attempt to improve the situation had been
made by the distinguished public-spirited Djudda

merchant, Muhammad c Al! Zaynal Rida, who found¬
ed the Madrasat al-Falah in Makka in 1330/1911-12
as he had founded a school of the same name in Djud¬
da in 1326/1908-9. He is reported to have spent
£400,000 of his own money on these two schools
before the world depression of 1929 forced him to cur¬
tail his support, at which point c Abd al- c AzIz assigned
a share of the Djudda customs’ duties to support the
institutions. These two schools, the best in the land,
had enormous influence through their graduates, even
though they followed the old principles of excessive
reliance on memorisation with little emphasis on in¬
dependent thought. There were also in pre-Hashimite
days some Indian religious institutes, and of course,
Islamic sciences were taught in al-Masdjid al-Hardm.
During the Hashimite period, what Wahba calls (125)
schools-in-name appeared, including an academic
school (al-Madrasa al-Rakiya) as well as agricultural
and military schools. By the time of the Su c udi oc¬
cupation, the city counted one public elementary
(ibtida^i) and 5 public preparatory ( tahdlri) schools.
Private schools in addition to al-Falah included 20
Kur’an schools ( kuttab ) and perhaps 5 other private
schools. Rutter noted that a good deal of study went
on among the pilgrims and opined that the Makkans
were better educated than the contemporary Egyp¬
tians. Hamada, writing a decade later, agrees about
the first point, for he says that during his pilgrimage
hundreds of pilgrims gathered nightly to hear the
lesson given by the imam, Shavkh Muhammad Abu
Samh c Abd al-Zahir. He taught tafslr [q.v.] according
to Ibn Kathlr [q.v. j, but Hamada complains that his
lecture wandered, often to the question of intercession
with God—a sensitive point for the Wahhabis—and
wishes that he would concentrate on subjects of more
interest to his listeners. He also comments that the
majority of the population were illiterate and opines
that the highest diploma awarded by the Falah school,
the c dlimiyya, was equivalent to the ibtidd^iyya of al-
Azhar in Cairo.

In any case. King c Abd al- c Aziz moved rapidly in
the field of education as in other areas. In 1344-5/1926
he established al-Ma c had al- c Ilm! al-Su c udt (Science
Institute) for instruction in shan c a and Arabic
language and linguistics, but also for social, natural
and physical sciences as well as physical education. In
1356-7/1938, the Ma c had was divided into four
departments, shanca, calligraphy, teacher training,
and secondary instruction. The faculty was largely
Egyptian, and by 1935 was also giving instruction in
the English language. In addition, by that time the
government had established other schools, the
Khayriyya, c AzIziyya, Su c udiyya and Faysaliyya, in
addition to starting student missions abroad. These
developments were praised by Hamada. Another
development in the growth of education in Makka was
the establishment in 1352/1932 of the Dar al-Hadlth
(the hadlth academy) by Imam Muhammad Abu
Samh c Abd al-Zahir. Hadlth was the only subject
taught, and that at a relatively low level. Based on
Hamza’s summary (220-2), Makkan schools in about
1354/1935 were as shown in the table overleaf.

Thus, based on a population of perhaps 80,000, there
were some 5,000 students enrolled in schools. Many
of the teachers were “foreigners,” Egyptians,
Southeast Asians, Muslims from British India and
Central Asians, but then many in the population as a
whole were people of non-Arabian origin. Students in
many of these schools received stipends based on the
financial capability of the several schools.

Educational facilities continued to expand, especial¬
ly after oil income began to flow on a significant scale

174

MAKKA

Name

Level

No. of teachers

No. of students

Public schools

al-Ma c had al- c llml al-

-Su c udl

al- c Az!ziyya

elementary &

preparatory

452

al-Rahmaniyya

) y

300

al-Su c udiyya

y y

300

al-Faysaliyya

y y

250

al-M uhammadiy ya

elementary

100

al-Khalidiyya

y y

Night Schools

100

Police Department

supervised orphanage

Sub-total

1,698

Private schools

al-Falah

796

al-Fakhriyya

371

al-Sawlatiyya

575

al-Fa 5 izm

120

al-Mahl

138

al-Tarakkl al- c llml

al- c Ulumiyya al-Djawiyya

500

al-Indunisiyya

Dar al-Hadlth

20 kuttabs

685

Sub-total

3,324

Total

5,022

after World War II. Secondary school education mechanics, shop, electronics, printing and book bin-

developed as follows. The first school to become a ding had opened.

regular secondary school was the c AzTziyya, which An official survey of the academic year

had been upgraded to that status in 1355-6/1937. By 1386-7/1966-7 (from Kingdom of Su c udl Arabia,

1363-4/1944, the number had grown to four with total Ministry of Finance, passim ) reveals the picture for in¬
enrollments of 368. Nine years later, there were 12 stitutions which are part of the Ministry of Education

secondary schools with 1,617 students, and by shown on the facing page.

1381-2/1962 there were 18 with 2,770 pupils. The first There is little information available on female
institution of higher learning was established in education. According to Hamada, girls in the 1930s

1370/1949-50, namely, the Kulliyyat al-Shari c a only attended kuttabs taught by Jakihs and after the first

(shari'-a college), which subsequently became the few years had to continue study at home. He also

Faculty of SharUa of King c Abd al- c Aziz University, comments on the generally low level of women's

most faculties of which are in Djudda. According to knowledge and deprecates the use of female diviners

Thomas’s survey (published 1968) the Faculty of or fortune-tellers (sing. c arrafa) for medical purposes.

Shari c a was comprised of departments of shari c a\ But Hamada also notes that even in his day, young

Arabic language and literature; and history and men were seeking more educated wives, and he calls

Islamic civilisation. The undergraduate programme on the government to support female education and in

lasts four years and grants a bachelor’s degree. particular to replace the jakihs with “enlightened”

Master’s degrees and doctorates are also granted. teachers. The chart above indicates that, although

(For curricular details, see Thomas, 68-70.) A College female education has expanded a great deal, it has

of Education followed in 1370-1/1951. Its depart- continued to lag behind male,

ments in the mid-60s were: education and psychology; In the 1970s and the 1980s, educational expansion
geography; English; mathematics; and physics. It on- has continued on a large scale. One estimate—

ly granted the bachelor’s degree in the 1960s, but possibly high—is that in 1402/1982 there were 15

planned to develop masters’ and doctoral programs. secondary schools in Makka.

(For curricular details, see Thomas, 74-7.) In 1981 Educational administration of Makkan institutions

the university faculties in Makka were constituted into followed general trends in the country. The Depart-

a separate university called Djami^at Umm al-Kura, ment of Education was established in 1344/1926

which included four faculties; shari c a and Islamic under the direction of Salih Shatta. and regulations

studies; science; Arabic language; and education, to for it were issued by the government of al-Hidjaz in

which last there was also attached a centre for the Muharram 1346/July 1927. Inter alia , these gave the

English language. In 1379-80/1960 another higher in- department its own policy board ( madjlis ). The budget

stitution was created, the police academy, which re- was £5,665. In Muharram 1357/March 1938 a vice-

quired a secondary school certificate for admission. regal decree ( amr sam tn ) was issued which thoroughly

By 1386/1966-7 there was also in existence Ma c had al- reorganised the department now called Mudlriyyat al-

Nur (the Institute of Light), a school for the blind and Ma c drif al- c Amma. All education except military fell

deaf, which counted 87 students. It may also be noted under its aegis. Four departments were established:

that an intermediate vocational school teaching auto policy board, secretariat, inspectorate, and instruc-

MAKKA

175

Type

No. of

No. of Su c udi

No. of non-

Total

No. of

institutions

teachers

Su c udf
teachers

teachers

students

Elementary

527

213

740

18,654

Intermediate

189

2,768

Intermediate/secondary

387

Secondary

767

Teacher training

—

343

institutes of elementary
schools

Teacher training
institutes for secondary

schools

Commercial intermediate
school

Adult education

2,226

Institute for blind

Private schools

1,563

Public girls schools

—

318

9,882

Private girls schools

—

1,984

Faculty of Shari c a

737

Total

130

39,520

tional office (details in Nallino, 44-7). These new
regulations brought private education under full
government control. They specified that the principal
had to be a Su c udi citizen and that preference in hir¬
ing teachers should also go to citizens. Foreign na¬
tionals had to be approved by the Department of
Education. In curricular terms, those private schools
which received government support were required to
teach skari c a according to any one of the four recognis¬
ed madhkabs. In the religious institutions, kalam [q.v.]
was forbidden and fikh was limited to the Hanbalf
madhhab. Little budgetary information on the schools
of Makka is available. Directors of the department
were as follows: Salih Shatta, Muhammad Kamil al-
Kassab (of Damascus, who served only briefly),
Madjid al-Kurdf, Hafiz Wahba (in addition to his
other duties; his deputy, who ran the department, was
Ibrahim al-Shuri, a graduate of Dar al- c Ulum in
Cairo), Muhammad Amin Fuda (1347-1352/1928-9
to 1933-4), Tahir al-Dabbagh (until 1378/1959),
Muhammad b. c Abd a!- c Azfz al-Mani c (of Nadjdf
origin). It may be mentioned that when independent,
fully-formed ministries were established at the end of
c Abd al- c Azfz’s reign, Prince (later King) Fahd b.
c Abd al- c Aziz became the first Minister of Education.
Subsequently, the ministry was divided into a
Ministry of Education ( Wizdrat al-Ma^arif, under Dr.
c Abd al- c Aziz al-Khuwaytir from approximately
1395/1975 to the present, 1405/1985) and a Ministry
of Higher Education (Wizdrat al-Ta c lim al- : All, under
Shavkh Hasan b. c Abd Allah b. Hasan A1 al-Shaykh
from approximately 1975 to the present).

The most important library in Makka is the Haram
Library (Maktabat al-Haram) as it became known in
1357/1938. The basis of the collection was 3,653
volumes donated by Sultan c Abd al-Medjfd. These
were placed under a dome behind the Zamzam
building, but were badly damaged during the flood of
1278/1861-2. The sultan then ordered the construc¬
tion of a madrasa/Yihrary next to the Egyptian takiyya
(by the southern corner of the Haram), but died before
its completion. In 1299/1881-2 the dome above Bab
al-Durayba was used to house the remains of the
damaged library. New accretions began; Sharif c Abd
al-Muttalib b. Ghalib (d. 1303/1886) donated wakf

books, to which were added those of Shavkh $alih
c ItirdjT, and still other volumes brought from different
mosques and ribats. In 1336/1917-8 another addition
was made by wakf from Shavkh c Abd al-Hakk al-
Hindf. A more important accretion occurred in
1346/1927-8 under the new Su c udf regime when the
1,362-volume library of Muhammad Rushdf Pasha
al-Shirwanl (d. 1292/1875-6), a former Ottoman wall
of al-Hidjaz, was added to the growing collection. By
1386/1965 the collection was officially estimated as
200,000 volumes used in the course of the year by
100,000 readers. The main public library, founded in
1350/1931-2, contained 500,000 volumes and was us¬
ed by 400,000 people per year. Other libraries in¬
clude: 1. The Dihlawf library results from a
combination of the library of Shavkh c Abd al-Sattar
al-Dihlawf (1286-1355/1869-70 to 1936-7) composed
of 1714 volumes with that of Shavkh c Abd al-Wahhab
al-Dihlawf which in fact had been collected by Shavkh
c Abd al-Djabbar (? al-Dihlawi). It is said to have
many choice items. 2. The Madjidiyya library was
assembled by Shavkh Muhammad Madjid al-Kurdf,
sometime director of the Department of Education,
and consists of 7,000 volumes of rare printed works
and manuscripts. Shavkh Madjid not only acquired
the books but systematically organised and indexed
them. After al-Kurdf’s death, c Abbas al-Kattan pur¬
chased the library from al-Kurdf’s children and set it
up in a building that he had built. Although al-Kattan
died in 1370/1950, the library was moved to the
building and was attached to the wakf libraries of the
Ministry of Hadjdj and Awkaf. 3. Another library
reputed to contain manuscripts and rare printed
works is that of Shavkh Hasan c Abd al-Shukur, a
“Javan” shaykh. 4. Other libraries are those of c Abd
Allah b. Muhammad Ghazf, al-Madrasa al-
•Sawlatiyya, Madrasat al-Falah, Sulayman b. c Abd al-
Rahman al-Sanf c (d. 1389/1969), Muhammad

Ibrahim al-Ghazzawf (brother of the poet laureate),
Muhammad Surur al-Sabban, al- c Amudf, Ibrahim
Fuda, Ahmad c Abd al-Ghafur c Attar, and the late
distinguished writer c Abd al-Kuddus al-Ansarf. (Sec¬
tion on libraries basically from al-Zirikli, iii, 1035-7.)

Presses and publishing in Makka have been rather
restricted. The first press was brought to the city ca.

176

MAKKA

1303/1885-6 by c Othman Nun Pasha, who had arriv¬
ed as Ottoman wall in November 1881. Probably it
was briefly directed by the historian Ahmad b. Zaynl
Dahlan (d. 1304/1886-7). During the Hashimite
period, it was used to print the official gazette, al-
Kibla. It was of course taken over by the Su c udl
regime, new equipment was purchased, and other
small local presses were bought by the government
and added to it. The new enlarged operation was call¬
ed Matba c at Umm al-Kura after the new Su c udl of¬
ficial gazette Umm al-Kura , which was published
thereon. Subsequently, a separate administration was
set up for it and its name was changed to Matba c at al-
Hukuma (the government press). A Syrian expert at
the same time was brought in to teach Su c udls zinc et¬
ching and stamping ( c amal al-tawabi c ). A special plant
was set up for this purpose in 1346/1927. The next
press to arrive was brought in by Muhammad Madjid
al-Kurdi in 1327/1909. Called al-Matba c a al-
Madjidiyya, it was installed in his house and printed
many books. His sons continued it after his death.
The third press was that introduced by the famous
Djudda scholar, Shavkh Muhammad Salih Naslf,
which he called al-Matba c a al-Salafiyya, but which he
soon sold. Other presses include: al-Matba c a
a!- c Arabiyya (or al-Sharika al- c Arabiyya li-Taba c
wa’l-Nashr) used to print Sawt al-Hidjaz newspaper
(subsequently called al-Bilad al-Su c udiyya , subsequent¬
ly al-Bilad); the press of Ahmad al-Fayd Abadi
established in 1357/1938 on German equipment;
Matabi c al-Nadwa, established in 1373/1953-4; the
beautifully-equipped press of Salih Muhammad
Djamal (for printing books); Matba c at Kuraysh,
established by Ahmad al-Siba c I, the author of the
well-known history of Makka; and Matba c at Mashaf
Makka al-Mukarrama established in 1367/1948 with
American equipment. Most of these were hand
presses up until the 1960s, but many have doubtless
been highly automated since then. (For other lesser
presses, see al-Kurdi, ii, 156, who along with al-
Zirikli, 1023-4, is much followed in this section, and
also Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, MudTriyya, 235.)

Newspapers and magazines published in Makka in
modern times include in chronological order the
following: 1. The first periodical in Makka (and in the
Hidjaz) was an official gazette called al-Hidjaz which
began publication in both Arabic and Turkish in
1326/1908 (not, apparently, in 1301/1884 as reported
by Philippe TarrazT). It appeared in four small pages
and ceased publication a year later with the Young
Turk Revolution. It reappeared under a new name,
Shams al-Hakika (“The Sun of Truth”) that same year
again in Arabic and Turkish as the organ of the Com¬
mittee on Union and Progress in Istanbul. Its editor
was Muhammad TawfTk MakkT and his assistant was
Ibrahim Adham. Under the Hashimites, al-Kibla,
their official gazette, appeared starting in 1334/1916
on a weekly basis. Those who participated in the
editorial work were Fu 5 ad al-Khatlb, Muhyl al-Dln
Khatlb. and Ahmad Shakir al-Kar(?a)mI. When
c Abd al- c Az!z Al Su c ud captured Makka, the official
gazette re-emerged once again on a weekly basis as
Umm al-Kura. The speed with which it began once
again illustrates the energy of the new regime, for it
started on 15 Djumada I 1343/12 December 1924, ex¬
actly one week after the sultan of Nadjd had entered
the newly-conquered city. According to Hamada, cir¬
culation was 3,000 during the Ha djdj . The paper has
remained the unrivalled documentary source for
Su c udl affairs, but also has included much non¬
official material, especially literary. Successive editors
of Umm al-Kura starting with vol. i, no. 1 were Yusuf

Yasln, Rushdi Malhas, Muhammad Sa c Id c Abd al-
Maksud, c Abd al-Kuddus al-Ansarl, and in 1952, al-
Tayyib al-SasI. 2. Sawt al-Hidjaz, (“The Voice of the
Hidjaz”), appeared in 1350/1932 as a weekly paper
and lasted with that title for seven years. Like Umm al-
Kura. , it had four, small-format pages. Its publisher
was the well-known Muhammad Salih Naslf and its
initial editor was c Abd al-Wahhab Ashl. His suc¬
cessors were a kind of Who’s Who, including Ahmad
Ibrahim al-Ghazzawi, Hasan al-Fakl, Muhammad
Sa c Id al- c Amudi, Muhammad Hasan c Awwad,
Ahmad al-Siba c I, Muhammad c AlI Rida and
Muhammad C A1I Maghrib!. 3. al-Manhal (“The
Spring or Pool”), a magazine which was first publish¬
ed in al-Madlna in 1355/1936, but transferred to
Makka a year later. It ceased publication for a while
during World War II along with other periodicals (see
below), and then resumed in Makka. It is essentially
a literary magazine and was published and edited by
the well-known c Abd al-Kuddus al-Ansarl. In the
1960s, al-ManhaV s operations were moved to Djudda.
4. al-Ha djdj magazine started publication in
1366/1947 under the initial editorship of Hashim al-
Zawawl, who was succeeded therein in 1370/1951 by
Muhammad Tahir al-Kurdi. It is religiously oriented
and includes literary and historical materials. It is
published under the auspices of the Ministry of
Hadjdj and Awkaf. 5. al-Islah (“Reform”) ran for two
years as a monthly magazine starting in 1347/1928. It
was published by the Department of Education and
edited by Muhammad Hamid al-Fakl. It is not to be
confused with its late Ottoman predecessor of the
same title. 6. al-Nida? al-lslami was a bilingual
monthly magazine (Arabic and Indonesian) which
began publication in 1357/1938. It is to be noted that
on 27 Djumada 11/1360/21 July 1941, the government
issued an official communique which ordered the
cessation of all newspapers and magazines except
Umm al-Kura because of the war-time shortage of
newsprint. When the wartime emergency was over,
al-Manhal and al-Ha djdj reappeared and have con¬
tinued publication. 7. Sawt al-Hidjaz also reappeared
but with a different name, al-Bilad al-Sidudiyya (“The
Su c udi Land”)—first as a weekly again, then as a
half-weekly. Starting in 1373/1953, it became the first
daily in all of Su c udl Arabia. Its name was subse¬
quently shortened simply to al-Bilad and, according to
al-Zirikll, (ii, 1024-8), much followed here, it was by
far the best paper in the country from almost all points
of view. Its editor was c Abd Allah c Urayf for a long
period after the Second World War, and it is worth
noting that, as with several other periodicals, Makka
lost al-Bilad to Djudda in the 1960s. 8. A newer Mak-
kan daily is al-Nadwa. It was founded in 1378/1958-9
and in 1387/1967 boasted a circulation of 9,000. 9.
Finally, note should be taken of Madjallat al-Tidjara
wa'l-Sind'-a (“The Journal of Commerce and In¬
dustry”), a monthly founded in 1385/1965 with a cir¬
culation of 2,000. (For additional journals, see
al-Kurdi, ii, 156-60.) Both Nallino and Hamada,
writing about the same time, note that censorship ex¬
isted. The former indicates that the Hay^at al-Amr bi’l-
Ma c ruf had responsibility for censorship and states
that among books which had been disallowed were
polemics against Ibn Taymiyya (<?.u. ], the forerunner
of Wahhabism, books by Ahmad b. Zaynl Dahlan,
and Muhammad Husayn Haykal’s Fi manzil al-wahy ,
the latter for its criticism of Wahhabi extremism.
Hamada says only that “a committee” oversees
writers and journalists and passes on imported books.
He wonders if his book will be approved.

Before turning to Makkan writers, we may notice

MAKKA

177

one or two incidental aspects of cultural life in the city.
Bookstores were formerly clustered around the Haram
near its gates. When the enlargement of the mosque
took place, they were forced to move and relocate in
scattered directions. Of 12 listed by al-Kurdl (ii, 138,
148), four belonged to the A1 Baz and three to the A1
Fadda c families, but al-Kurdl reports that only two
were sought by scholars and students. The first was
Maktabat al-Haram al-Makkl, which was, he opines,
founded “a number of centuries ago’' by an Ottoman
sultan. Originally, it was located facing Zamzam “in
a room above a small dome,” but when the Ottoman
mosque renovation (? by Sultan c Abd al-Medjid) took
place, it was relocated inside the mosque at Bab al-
Durayba. When the Su c udi expansion took place, the
store was once again moved to a special place near
Bab al-Salam. The second, Maktabat Makka al-
Mukarrama, he describes as newly-established. Infor¬
mation on the time spent in penning careful
calligraphy is not commonly given. Muhammad
Tahir al-Kurdl, whose history has often been cited in
this article, started the calligraphy for a Kurban in
1362/1943-4. He published it, as Mashaf Makka al-
Mukarrama in 1369/1949-50. Some mention should
also be made of the ^^/-established ribats of Makka,
best defined perhaps as hospices. Some were for
students; others for the poor and the wayfarer. They
were, according to al-Kurdi (ii, 149), “numerous”
and not a few were for women. Established for the
most part by wakfs, they usually provided students
with single rooms. They were generally located adja¬
cent to or in the immediate vicinity of the Haram.
When the Su c udi regimes pulled everything down
around the mosque to make way for the enlargement,
the ribats of course went. Some were paid compensa¬
tion and hence rebuilt elsewhere; others were not, and
hence have disappeared forever. Al-Kurdl remembers
six of the latter, and claims that none was less than
400 years old. (For details of the Italo-Muslim hospice
in Makka, al-Ribat al-Itali al-Islami , see Nallino,
109-10.)

Makka has not failed to produce its share of modern
writers, some of whom were primarily poets, others
prose authors. Many had other work, often in
publishing, journalism and printing. Many of the
names that follow (based on Nallino, 132-7, who bas¬
ed his work in turn on c Abd al-Maksud and
Balkhayr’s Wahy al-sahra *), have appeared earlier in
this article: 1. Ahmad Ibrahim al-Ghazzawi (b.
Makka 1318/1900-1). A poet, he studied at the al-
Sawlatiyya and al-Falah schools and held public posi¬
tions both under the Hashimites and the Su c uds. A
member of the Madjlis al-Shura in 1936. Was
designated “poet of the king” (sha c ir al-malik\ poet
laureate, in Philby’s words) in 1932. (For a sample of
his verse see al-Zirikli, ii, 675-6). 2. Ahmad Siba c i (b.
Makka 1323/1905/6). Travelled abroad and studied
two years at the Coptic High School in Alexandria.
On his return, he taught in schools and then became
the director of Sawl al-Hidjdz in 1354/1935-6. His
TaMkh Makka (“History of Makka”), the most
judicious, comprehensive history of the city, was first
published in 1372/1953. The sixth edition appeared in
1404/1984, a year after he was judged first in the state
prize of honour (djaAizat al-dawla al-takdiriyya). 3. Amin
b. c AkTl (b. Makka 1329/1911). Amfn studied at al-
Falah and then moved with his family to Mukalla in
Soiith Yemen, where he continued to study. He also
was in Lahidj for a year-and-a-half and then returned
to Makka and completed his studies at al-Falah. In
1351/1932, along with a group of Hidjazls, he was
briefly exiled in al-Riyad on political grounds. His

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

medium was prose. 4. Husayn Khaznadar (b. Makka
1336/1917-18). He studied at al-Khayrivya school
and finished his studies at al-Falah: a poet. 5. Husayn
Sarhan (b. Makka 1334/1915-16). A member of the
al-Rusan section of the c Utayba tribe, he also studied
at al-Falah and was a poet. 6. Husayn Sarra^j (b.
1330-1/1912). Primary studies at al-Falah, secondary
in Jordan, he received his B.A. from the American
University of Beirut in 1936; a poet. 7. c Abd al-
Wahhab AshI (b. Makka 1323/1905). He studied at
al-Falah, taught at al-Fakhriyya school and at al-
Falah. A member of the Automobile Association, he
became editor-in-chief of Sawt al-Hidjaz. In 1932 he
was imprisoned for political reasons and exiled in
Nadjd for two months. On his return, he joined the
Ministry of Finance and in time became head of the
correspondence section. 8. c Abd Allah c Umar
Balkhavr (b. al-Ha(jramawt 1333/1914-15). He soon
moved with his father to Makka, studied at al-Falah
and then at the American University of Beirut. Co¬
author of Wahy al-sahra 5 (with Muhammad Sa c Id [b.]
c Abd al-Maksud; Cairo, 1355[/1936-7]), an an¬
thology of prose and poetry by then living Hi^jazi
authors, this talented young man was diverted from
writing into government service. He became the
translator from English of world-wide radio reporting
for King c Abd al- c Az!z during World War II and rose
to be Minister of Information under King Su c ud b.
c Abd al- c Az!z. When the latter was deposed, Shavkh
c Abd Allah retired and in the 1980s has begun to write
again. 9. c Umar SayrafT (b. Makka 1319/1901-2).
Upon completing his studies, $ayrafi taught in South
Yaman and subsequently at al-Ma c had al-Su c udi
al- c Ilrm. Prose was his forte. 10. c Abd al-Salam
c Umar (b. Makka 1327/1909-10 studied at al-Falah
and also taught there until he took a post with the
Ministry of Finance in the correspondence depart¬
ment, to which a number of writers—given the very
high levels of illiteracy in the country—gravitated.
c Abd al-Salam wrote prose. 11. c Umar c Arab (b.
Makka 1318/1900). Having studied in a kuttab and
then at al-Falah, he taught at al-Falab school in Djud-
da, became secretary of the municipal council of
Makka and then was transferred to the cor¬
respondence section of the viceroy’s secretariat. 12.
Muhammad b. Surur al-Sabban (b. al-Kunfudha
1316/1899) moved with his family first to Djudda then
to Makka, where he enrolled in al-Khayyat school. At
first he became a merchant and then, under the
Hashimites, accountant of the Makkan municipal
government. He retained this post under the Su c udi
regime. He was imprisoned on political grounds but
released after the fall of Djudda to c Abd aMAziz.
Thereafter, he became assistant to the head ( amln ) of
the municipality of Makka, but in 1346/1927 he was
incarcerated in al-Riyad for more than a year. After
his release, he became head of the correspondence
department in the Ministry of Finance, of which he
ultimately became the minister. He was the author of
Adab al-Hidjaz (Cairo 1344/1925-6), an anthology of
HidjazI authors. 13. Muhammad Sa c td al- c Amudi (b.
Makka 1323/1905-6), attended a kuttab and al-Falah
school. After a stint in commerce, he was employed by
the c Ayn Zubayda authority. After several other
posts, he became head of the correspondence depart¬
ment of the Department of Posts and Telegrams. He
was also editor of Sawt al-Hidjaz. Al- c AmudI wrote
both prose and poetry. 14. Muhammad Hasan FakT
(b. Makka 1330/1911-12) attended both al-Falah of
Djudda and that of Makka. He taught at the latter for
three years, and he also became editor of Sawt al-
Hidjaz. This poet and prose author was also chief of

178

MAKKA

the contracts’ department in the Ministry of Finance.
15. Muhammad Hasan KutubI (b. Makka
1329/1911) studied at al-Falah and was a member of
the mission that Muhammad c Ali Zaynal Rida sent at
his own expense to Bombay, India, for the study of
religious science. After receiving his diploma there,
KutubI returned and he also became editor of Sawt al -
Hidjaz. In addition, he taught courses for prospective
kadis at al-Ma c had al- c Ilmi al-Su c udI and later became
director of public schools in al-Ta 3 if. 16. Muhammad
Tahir b. c Abd al-Kadir b. Mahmud al-Kurdl (b.
Makka ca. 1323/1904-5. Al-Kurdl attended al-Falah
school, and after graduation entered al-Azhar in
1340/1921-2. That trip was the First of many to Egypt.
He was a member of the executive committee on
replacing the roof of the Ka c ba and on enlarging the
Great Mosque. His works number more than 40, not
all of which have been published. Among the publish¬
ed works are Makam Ibrahim c alayhi ’l-Saldm (Cairo
1367/1947-8), Mashaf Makka al-Mukarrama
(1369/1949-50), Ta^rikh al-KuPan wa- gh ara?ib rasmihi
wa-hukmihi , al-Tafsir al-Makki, a book (title unknown)
on calligraphy, and al-Ta^rikh al-Kawim li-Makka wa-
Bayt Allah al-Karim, 4 vols. (Makka 1385/[ 1965}; a
Fifth volume is promised. His work is traditional in
conception, but scrupulous and comprehensive.

Health care. Because of the Ha djdi and its atten-
dent health problems and because of the world-wide
reach of returning pilgrims, health facilities in Makka
are of more than passing importance. In the late Ot¬
toman and Hashimite periods, there were two
“hospitals” one in Adjyad and the other in al-Mad c a.
They had about Five doctors between them, and al-
KurdT reports (ii, 225) that the equipment was
satisfactory. These doctors were all foreign—Indians,
Indonesians, Algerians, etc. There was one proper
pharmacy near al-Marwa and other shops which sold
drugs on a casual basis. In a general way, observers
noted that the combination of primitive sanitary
facilities, low standards of personal hygiene and an
oppressively hot climate were unhealthy, although
Rutter said that vermin were almost non-existent as a
result of the heat and summer dryness. Mosquitoes
were apparently common enough but non-malaria
bearing. Shortly after c Abd al- c Aziz reached Makka,
he deputed his personal physician, Dr. Mahmud
Hamdl Hamuda, to re-establish the medical services,
and among his First acts was the appointment of doc¬
tors to the Department of Health and the reopening of
the Adjyad hospital. The hospital reportedly (Hamza,
200) had 275 beds and its facilities included an
operating room, X-ray department, microscope
room, pharmacy, obstetrics department and an out¬
patient clinic. It may be pointed out that it had
become normal over the years for countries with large
Muslim populations, and hence many pilgrims, to
dispatch medical teams to Makka at Ha djdi time. In
1345/1927 the regulations for the health department
(Maslahat al-Sihha al- c Amma) were established, and by
the mid-1930s the spectrum of medical facilities in ad¬
dition to the Adjyad hospital included the following:
1. a mental hospital. 2. a contagious disease hospital.
3. a brand new hospital in al-Shuhada 3 section with
completely up-to-date equipment. 4. the Egyptian
hospital in Dar al-Takiyya al-Misriyya—the official
Egyptian presence in Makka. 5. an emergency aid
society (Djam c iyyat al-Is c af) founded 1355/1936, which
held a conference on hygiene and First aid and which
owned its own ambulances and motor cycles. In its
First year it treated 922 victims of misfortunes, almost
all of them in its own facilities. The king, heir
designate, and viceroy all contributed to this society,

and it was authorised to levy a special 1/4 piastre
stamp on top of the regular postage for the support of
its activities. This society probably came into ex¬
istence because of needs arising from the 1934 Su c udl
war against the Yaman. It grew into the Red Crescent
society of the whole country (Philby, Pilgrim, 39); 6.
a school for midwives. Philby estimated that during
the pilgrimage of 1349/1931, there were 40 deaths out
of total pilgrims numbering 100,000 and in
1352/1934, 15 deaths out of 80,000 pilgrims. In the
post-World War II period, there was predictably a
great increase in facilities, and to the above list must
be added: 7. The Dr. Ahmad Zahir hospital with 400
beds and 16 doctors. 8. an obstetrical hospital. 9. an
eye hospital. 10. a bilharzia (schistosomniasis) control
station (1975). 11. a venereal disease control

demonstration centre.

As noted earlier, various governments send medical
missions to Makka during the ha djdi season. Hamada
reported (69) that in the 1930s, the Egyptian mission
consisted of two units, one in Harat al-Bab near Djar-
wal, the other in the permanent Egyptian mission
building (al-Takiyya al-Misriyya), which used to face
al-Masdjid al-Haram before it was torn down to make
way for the mosque enlargement. The latter unit was
in addition to the permanent Egyptian medical service
in the same building. In 1355-6/1937, the countries
sending medical missions were Egypt, India, the
Dutch East Indies, Algeria, Afghanistan and the
USSR. They contributed a total of ten doctors plus
pharmacists, assistants and supplies to the available
medical services. During the same period, Hamza
noted (200) that at Hadjdi time there were a total of 13
government hospitals and clinics spread between
Makka and c Arafat. Physicians, nurses and orderlies
were hired on a temporary basis to man them.
Reading from Farisi’s map, one Finds that the latest
indications are as follows: there were six hospitals,
seven clinics ( mustawsaf) and three medical centres
(markaz tibbi) in Makka proper and ten dispensaries in
Mina, one hospital in Muzdalifa, and one medical
centre in c Arafat. These latter doubtlessly function
only during the Hadjdj.

Communications. By 1985 Makka, like other
Su c udl cities, was possessed of the most modern
telephone, telex, radio and TV communications. Its
roads were of the most modern design, and it was
linked to the rest of the country by First-class
highways, many of them divided and of limited ac¬
cess. Since Djudda, which has one of the world’s
largest and most modern airports, is only some 60 km
away and since a major airport at Makka would be
difFicult, both because of the terrain and because of
the problem of non-Muslims being in proximity to the
haram area, there is no important airport in Makka. It
may, however, be noted that a Djudda-Makka service
had been authorised in 1936 to Misr Air (now Egypt
Air). It was cancelled following an accident in 1938.
In a similar vein, a railroad project from Djudda to
Makka was authorised by a royal decree in 1351/1933
with a concession granted to c Abd al-Kadir al-Djllam.
It was revoked 18 months later because of his failure
to carry it out.

The modernisation of communications has been
dramatically rapid. Rutter describes (455) how in
1925 camel caravans for al-Madina assembled in an
open space called Shaykh Mahmud on the western
edge of Djarwal; a camel in Djarwal in 1985 would be
about as common as a horse in Paris. The use of cars
spread very rapidly after the Su c uds’ conquest and
the development of the Djudda-Makka road was a
natural early priority because of the pilgrim traffic. It

MAKKA

179

was first asphalted in the period just before the out¬
break of World War II.

Telecommunications were early emphasised by
King c Abd al- c Az!z because they represented a means
of control as well as a convenience. In King al-
Husayn’s time, there had been about 20 telephones in
the city—all reserved for high officials and probably
only functional within the city. By 1936, subscribers
in Makka had grown to 450 (slightly over half of all
those in Su c udi Arabia), and lines had been extended
to Djudda and al-Ta-fif (but not al-Riyad or al-
Madlna). Hamza also reports (230-1) that, in addition
to the regular telephones, there were ‘"automatic” (?)
telephones which were used by officials. Of this type,
50 were in Makka. After World War II, the first
telephone training mission (10 persons) was sent
abroad in 1367/1947-8. By 1385/1965-6, Makka had
5,000 telephones but service was still through
operators. Dial phones were introduced soon after
this, and within a dozen years there was fully'
automatic direct-dial service anywhere in the world.
There had been limited radio communication within
the Hidjaz under the Hashimites. In 1348/1929, using
Philby as an intermediary (for details see Jubilee ,
173-4; Days, 286-9; Sa c udi Arabia , 316-17), the king
contracted with the Marconi company for wireless sta¬
tions in various towns. That of Makka was of 25 kw
power (as was al-Riyad), and by the spring of 1932 the
network was fully functional. Soon after World War
II, by contract with the German Siemens company,
this network was greatly expanded and improved.
Radio communication has been used at various key
points in directing the pilgrimage since about
1370/1950. Public radio broadcasts were initiated on
yawm al-wukuf (“standing day”) during the
pilgrimage of 1368/1949 with Huna Makka (“This is
Makka”) as the opening words. Initial power was on¬
ly 3 kw, but with the creation of the Directorate
General of Broadcasting, Press and Publications (by a
decree of 1374/1955) under c Abd Allah c Umar
Balkhayr, there was rapid improvement. Within less
than a year, power had increased to 10 kw, and it was
boosted in 1377/1957 to 50 kw, making Radio Makka
one of the most powerful in the Near East at that time.
Later, power was increased still more to 450 kw. In
keeping with Wahhabi tradition, music was initially
kept off the air, but it was gradually introduced. TV
in Makka began service in 1386/1966-7 and has since
become a pervasive part of life there as everywhere
else in the world.

Water supply. Before oil-induced modernisa¬
tion, the water supply of Makka came from two basic
sources. The first was local wells. The water of these,
of which Zamzam is one, was generally brackish, and
they were located in houses. The second was fresh or
sweet water most of which came from c Ayn Zubayda
by man-made underground channels of the kanawat
[see kanat] type. Locally, the system is called kharaz.
A very sporadic third source was rainfall which,
although it brought the threat of destructive floods,
was eagerly collected in every way possible. Water
distribution was by hand. A man carried two 20 litre
petrol tins ( tanaka ) attached to the ends of a stout
board or pole on his shoulders to the individual houses
of those who could afford such service. Philby noted
{Forty years, 172) that in the 1930s, 8 gallons cost one
penny. His monthly bill seldom exceeded five
shillings. The mass of the people went individually to
get their own water at one of the small reservoirs or
cisterns ( bazan ). Of these in Rutter’s time, there were
seven in the city and one each in Mina, Muzdalifa,
and c Arafa. The water for all of these came from c Ayn
Zubayda.

The immediate source of the c Ayn Zubayda water
is the mountains (Djabal Sa c d and Djabal Kabkab)
which lie a few kilometers east of Djabal c Arafa or
about 20 km east southeast of Makka. The main
source is a spring in the mountains, c Ayn Hunayn,
which according to Rutter is a two-hour walk from the
Wadi Na c man plain. Several other small springs are
led to the beginning of the subterranean aqueduct
which starts at the foot of the mountain. The aqueduct
is attributed to Zubayda [q.v.], the wife of Harun al-
Rashld, but in all probability it far predates her, and
she should be credited with improvement of the
system rather than creation of it. Like other kanawat ,
the c Ayn Zubayda system is characterised by access
wells ( ; fatahat ) at intervals of about one km which are
marked by circular erections around them. King c Abd
al- c Az!z did not lack interest in the water supply
system, and made personal financial contributions
from time to time. Philby reports {Jubilee , 116-17) an
expedition of autumn 1930 when the king and his par¬
ty drove out to inspect work in progress at one of the
access wells which was being cleaned. A thorough
cleaning of the whole system had been ordered
because flow had been declining as a result of inade¬
quate maintenance in the prior, disturbed years. A pit
some 30 m deep had been dug “at the bottom of
which the top [Philby’s italics] of one of the original
manholes could be seen.” Philby theorised that the
valley silt had built up at a rate of about 3 m a cen¬
tury. In any case, the new pit was surfaced with
masonry and the channel between it and the next pit
thoroughly cleaned. When the whole process was
completed, the flow of water in Makka increased
greatly, although Philby notes that the growth of
private gardens in the suburbs was putting pressure
on supplies. The c Ayn Zubayda system (as well as
other lesser ones) was so important to the city that a
separate c Ayn Zubayda administrative authority had
been created. Its budget came from the government
and fell under the purview of the Mad^lis al-Shura. In
addition, pilgrims often made pious contributions to
the upkeep of the system. Hamada notes (77) that
supervision of it had to be increased during
pilgrimage season because of the danger of defile¬
ment. He also, writing for an Egyptian audience,
assures his readers that Zubayda water is little inferior
to Nile water! In the early 1950s, a modern pipline
was run from al-Djadlda, 35 km northwest of Makka
at the head of the Wadi Fatima, to the city. It doubled
the water supply. One may assume that by the 1980s,
water was piped into most Makkan houses, offices and
apartments and that indoor plumbing and metered
water, desalinated from sea water, were the norm.
Detailed information is not, however, readily
available.

Floods in Makka have been a danger since earliest
times. Al-KurdI counts a total of 89 historic ones, in¬
cluding several in the Su c udl period. The most severe
one was in 1360/1942 when it rained for several
hours. Water reached the sill of the Ka c ba’s door, and
prayers and tawaf were cancelled. The streets of the ci¬
ty filled with mud, and there was severe damage to
stocks in stores. Tombs in al-Ma c la were washed out
and houses were destroyed (al-Kurdl, ii, 200). Philby
also reports (Sa c udi Arabia, 320) a flood in 1950 which
reached a depth of seven feet in the mosque. Soon
thereafter the improved modern technologies and
easier financial situation led to the construction of
dams, one on the Wadi Ibrahim, which is the main
source of floods, the other across the Wadi al-Zahir,
which threatens the northern and western sections.
These dams were helpful, and the great underground
conduit built in connection with the mosque enlarge-

180

MAKKA

ment may have permanently ameliorated the problem
of floods.

Bibliography : Fundamental works on Su c udl
Arabia including Makka in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s
are those of F. Hamza, C. Nallino, H. St. J. B.
Philby, and H. Wahba. Muhammad Surur al-
Sabban, Adab al-Hidjaz, Cairo 1344/1926 (not con¬
sulted; unavailable); E. Rutter, The holy cities oj
Arabia , London and New York 1930 (most impor¬
tant source on Makka in immediate wake of Su c udi
take-over); Muhammad Sa c Id c Abd al-Maksud
and c Abd Allah c Umar Balkhayr, Wahy al-sahra ?,
Cairo 1354/1936 (important for literature, uncon¬
sulted); c Abbas Mutawalll Hamada, Mushahaddtifi
'l-Hidjaz sanata 1354/1936, Cairo 1355/1936 (in¬
teresting photos and other material by a semi¬
official Egyptian pilgrim); Fu 5 ad Hamza, al-Bildd
al- c Arabiyya al-Su c udiyya, Makka 1355/1936-7; C.
Nallino, Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti. v. 1. L'Arabia
Sa c udiana (1933), Rome 1939; Great Britain, Ad¬
miralty, Naval Intelligence Division, Geographical
Section, Western Arabia and the Red Sea, [London]
1946; Hafiz Wahba, Djaztrat al- c Arab fi ’l-karn
al- c ishrin, Cairo 1365/1946; H. St. J. B. Philby, A
pilgrim in Arabia, London 1946; idem, Arabian days,
London 1948; Arabian American Oil Co., Govern¬
ment Relations, Research and Translation Divi¬
sion, The Royal Family, officials of the Saudi Arab
government and other prominent Arabs, (typescript),
Dhahran 1952; Philby, Arabian jubilee , London
1952; Abdul Ghafur Sheikh, From America to Mecca
on air borne pilgrimage, in The National Geographic
magazine , civ, (July 1953), 1-60; Husayn Muham¬
mad Naslf, Madi al-Hidjaz wa-hadiruha (probably
important, unavailable); Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, Ministry of Commerce, al-Mamlaka
al- c Arabiyya al-Su c udiyya: tasdjil wa-ta c rif, Damascus
[? 1955]; Philby Sa c udi Arabia, London 1955;
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, al-Mudlriyya
al- c Amma li-Idha c a wa’l-Sihafa wa’l-Nashr, al-
Mamlaka al- c Arabiyya al-Su c udiyya fi c ahdiha 'l-hadir
[Djudda] 1376/1956-7; Philby, Forty years in the
wilderness, London 1957; c Umar c Abd al-Djabbar.
Durus min madi al-ta^lim wa-hadirihi bi'l-Masdjid al-
Haram , Cairo 1379/1959-60; Salih Muhammad
Djamal, Sunduk al-birr, in Kafilat al-zayt, vii/6, 10;
Hafiz Wahba, Khamsun c dman fi Djaztrat al- c Arab,
Cairo 1380/1960; Marble for Mecca, in Aramco world,
xi (Nov. 1962), 3-7; Muhammad TawfTk $adik,
Tatawwur al-hukm fi ’l-mamlaka al- c Arabiyya al-
Su^ udiyya, al-Riyad 1385/1965; Muhammad Tahir
b. c Abd al-Kadir b. Mahmud al-Kurdl, al-Ta\lkh
al-kawim li-Makka wa-Bayt Allah al-Karim, 4 vols.
Makka 1385/1965-6; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Ministry of Information, Enlargement of the Prophet's
mosque at Medina and the Great Mosque in Mecca , [?al-
Riyad n.d.j; A. Thomas, Saudi Arabia: a study of the
educational system of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Washington 1968; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Cen¬
tral Department of Statistics, Statistical Yearbook,
1387A. H., 1967A. D., [al-Riyad ?1388/1968]; Sir
Gilbert Clayton, An Arabian diary , ed. R. O. Col¬
lins, Berkeley 1969; Khayr al-Dln al-ZiriklT, Shibh
al-djazira fi c ahd al-Malik c Abd al- c Aziz, 3 vols.,
Beirut 1390/1970; The Hajj: a special issue, in Aramco
world xxv (Nov.-Dec. 1974), 1-45 (excellent

photographs); c Abd al-Rahman b. c Abd al-Latlf b.
c Abd Allah Al al-Shavkh. Mashahir c ulama 3 Nadjd
wa-ghayrihim, [al-Riyad] 1394/1974-5; Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency,
Annual report, al-Riyad 1396/1976; c Abd al-Rahman

Sadik al-Sharif, Diughrafiyat al-mamlaka al- c Arabiyya
al-Su c udiyya, i, al-Riyad 1397/1977; Husayn Ham¬
za Bundukdji, Maps of hajj to the holy land: Mecca-
Medina, Cairo 1397/1977; idem, Diughrafiyat al-
mamlaka al- c Arabiyya al-Su c udiyya, 2nd printing,
Cairo 1397/1977; R. F. Nyrop et alii, Area handbook
for Saudi Arabia?, Washington 1977; idem, Atlas of
Saudi Arabia, Oxford 1398/1978; R. Baker, King
Husain and the Kingdom of Hejaz, Cambridge 1979;
D. Long, The hajj today: a survey of the contemporary
pilgrimage to Makkah, Albany 1979 (a fundamentally
important piece of research); c Abd al-Madjld Bakr,
Ashhar al-masadjid fi 'l-1 slam, i. al-Bika c al-
Mukaddasiyya, Djudda [ 1400]/1979-80 (has major
treatment of Su c udi enlargement of al-Masdjid al-
Haram)\ Anon. (Abu Dharr, pseudonym), Thawra
fi rihab Makka : haklkat al-nizam al-Su c udf [n.p. ?
Kuwayt], Dar Sawt al-TalT c a 1980 (an anti-Su c udi,
pro-neo-Ikhwan defence of the seizure of the Great
Mosque in 1979); c Atik b. Ghayth al-Biladl,
Ma c alim Makka al-tcPrikhiyya wa l-athariyya, Makka
1400/1980; Husayn c Abd Allah Basalama, Ta'nkh
Hmdrat al-Masdjid al-Haram (series: al-Kitab
al- c Arabi al-Su c udI, no. 16), Djudda 1400/1980
(originally published in 1354/1935-6); D. Stewart,
Mecca, New York 1980; G. M. Helms, The cohesion
of Saudi Arabia, London 1981; D. Holden and R.
Johns, The house of Saud, London 1981; Husayn
Hamza Bundukdji, City map of Makkah Al Muk-
karamah, Jidda 1401/1981 (a useful map); Hamza
Ka'idi, La Mecque et Medine aujourd'hui, Paris [1981];
R. Lacey, The kingdom. New York and London
1981; ZakI Muhammad C A1I FarisT, City map and
Hajj guide of Makka Al Mukkaramah, Jidda
1402-3/1982-3 (the best map available); J.
Kostiner, The making of Saudi Arabia 1917-1936 (un-
publ. PhD diss., London School of Economics and
Political Science), n.d.; c Abd al-Latlf Salih, Al-
Mutawwif - The pilgrim's guide, in Ahlan wasahlan,
vii, (Dhu THidjdja 1403/September 1983), 8-11;
Ahmad al-Siba c I, TadrTkh Makka : dirasat fi ’ l-siydsa
wa'l-Hlm wa'l-idjtima^ wa'l- c umran, 6 2 vols. in 1,
Makka 1404/1984; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Saudi Arabian Monetary' Agency, Research and
Statistics Department, Statistical summary, al-Riyad
1404/1984. Important works unfortunately not
consulted in the compilation of this article are: G.
A. W. Makky, Mecca: The pilgrimage city. A study of
pilgrim accommodation, London 1978; Z. Sardar and
M. A. Z. Badawi, eds., Hajj studies, i, London
[1977]. (R. B. Winder)

4. As THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD
I ntroduction.

In Kur 5 an, II, 144, Muslims are enjoined to face
the sacred precincts in Mecca during their prayers.
The Ka c ba was adopted by Muhammad as a physical
focus of the new Muslim community, and the direc¬
tion of prayer, kibla, was to serve as the sacred direc¬
tion in Islam until the present day.

Since Muslims over the centuries have faced the
Ka c ba during prayer, mosques are oriented so that the
prayer wall faces the Ka c ba. The mihrab [q.v. ] or
prayer-niche in the mosque indicates the kibla, or local
direction of Mecca. Islamic tradition further pres¬
cribes that certain acts such as burial of the dead,
recitation of the Kurban, announcing the call to
prayer, and the ritual slaughter of animals for food, be
performed in the kibla, whereas expectoration and
bodily functions should be performed in the perpen¬
dicular direction. Thus for close to fourteen centuries,

MAKKA

181

Muslims have been spiritually and physically oriented
towards the Ka c ba and the holy city of Mecca in their
daily lives, and the kibla or sacred direction is of fun¬
damental importance in Islam [see ka c ba and kibla,
i. Ritual and legal aspects].

A statement attributed to the Prophet asserts that
the Ka^ba is the kibla for people in the sacred mosque
which surrounds the Ka c ba, the Mosque is the kibla
for the people in the sacred precincts ( haram) of the
city of Mecca and its environs, and the sacred
precincts are the kibla for people in the whole world.
To c A > isha and C A1I b. AbT Talib, as well as to other
early authorities, is attributed the assertion that Mec¬
ca is the centre of the world. The early Islamic tradi¬
tions with Mecca as the centre and navel of the world
constitute an integral part of Islamic cosmography
over the centuries (see Wensinck, Navel of the earth,
36), although they do not feature in the most popular
treatise on the subject from the late mediaeval period,
namely, that of al-Suyutl see Heinen, Islamic

cosmology.

From the 3rd/9th century onwards, schemes were
devised in which the world was divided into sectors
(djiha or hadd) about the Ka c ba. This sacred
geography had several manifestations, but the dif¬
ferent schemes proposed shared a common feature,
described by al-Maknzf, “The Ka c ba with respect to
the inhabited parts of the world is like the centre of a
circle with respect to the circle itself. All regions face
the Ka c ba, surrounding it as a circle surrounds its
centre, and each region faces a particular part of the
Ka c ba” {Khitat, i, 257-8).

Islamic sacred geography was quite separate and
distinct from the mainstream Islamic tradition of
mathematical geography and cartography, which ow¬
ed its inspiration to the Geography of Ptolemy [see
djughrafiya and kharita]. Indeed, it flourished
mainly outside the domain of the scientists, so that a
scholar such as al-Bfrunf [q.v.\ was apparently
unaware of this tradition: see his introduction to
astronomy and astrology, the Tajhim, tr. R. R.
Wright, London 1934, 141-2, where he discusses the
Greek, Indian and Persian schemes for the division of
the world, but makes no reference to any system cen¬
tred on Mecca or the Ka c ba.

The orientation of the Ka c ba.

In the article ka c ba, it is asserted that the corners of
the Ka c ba face the cardinal directions. In fact, the
Ka c ba has a rectangular base with sides in the ratio ca.
8:7 with its main axis at about 30° counter-clockwise
from the meridian. When one is standing in front of
any of the four walls of the Ka c ba, one is facing a
significant astronomical direction; this fact was known
to the first generations who had lived in or visited
Mecca. In two traditions attributed to Ibn c Abbas and
al-Hasan al-Basrl [q.vv.], and in several later sources
on folk astronomy, it is implied that the major axis of
the rectangular base of the Ka c ba points towards the
rising of Canopus, the brightest star in the southern
celestial hemisphere, and that the minor axis points
towards summer sunrise in one direction and winter
sunset in the other (Heinen, Islamic cosmology,
157-8).

For the latitude of Mecca, the two directions are in¬
deed roughly perpendicular. (A modern plan of the j
Ka c ba and its environs, based upon aerial
photography, essentially confirms the information
given in the texts, but reveals more: for epoch 0 AD,
the major axis is aligned with the rising of Canopus
over the mountains on the southern horizon to within
2°, and the minor axis is aligned with the southern¬

most setting point of the moon over the south-western
horizon to within 1°. This last feature of the Ka c ba is
not known to be specifically mentioned in any
mediaeval text, and its significance, if any, has not yet
been established.) In early Islamic meteorological
folklore, which appears to date back to pre-Islamic
times, the Ka c ba is also associated with the winds. In
one of several traditions concerning the winds in pre-
Islamic Arabia, the four cardinal winds were thought
of as blowing from the directions defined by the axes
of the Ka c ba. This tradition is in some sources
associated with Ibn c Abbas (see matla c and also
Heinen, 157).

The term kibla, and the associated verb istakbala for
standing in the kibla, appear to derive from the name
of the east wind, the kabul. These terms correspond to
the situation where one is standing with the north
wind ( al-shamdl) on one’s left (shamal) and the Yemen
on one’s right (yamin); see Chelhod, Pre-eminence ojthe
right, 248-53; King, Astronomical alignments, 307-9. In
other such traditions recorded in the Islamic sources,
the limits of the directions from which the winds blow
were defined in terms of the rising and setting of such
stars and star-groups as Canopus, the Pleiades, and
the stars of the handle of the Plough (which in tropical
latitudes do rise and set), or in terms of cardinal direc¬
tions or solstitial directions [see matla c ].

It appears that in the time of the Prophet, the four
corners of the Ka c ba were already named according to
the geographical regions which they faced and which
the Meccans knew from their trading ventures: name¬
ly, Syria, c Irak, Yemen, and “the West”. As we shall
see, a division of the world into four regions about the
Ka c ba is attested in one of the earliest sources for
sacred geography. Since the Ka c ba has four sides as
well as four corners, a division of the world into eight
sectors around it would also be natural, and, as we
shall see, eight-sector schemes were indeed proposed.
However, in some schemes, the sectors were
associated with segments of the perimeter of the
Ka c ba, the walls being divided by such features as the
waterspout (mtzdb) on the north-western wall and the
door on the north-eastern wall (see Fig. 1).

The directions of sunrise and sunset at mid¬
summer, midwinter and the equinoxes, together with
the north and south points, define eight (unequal) sec¬
tors of the horizon, and, together with the directions
perpendicular to the solstitial directions, define 12
(roughly equal) sectors. Each of these eight- and
12-sector schemes was used in the sacred geography of
Islam.

The determination of the sacred
direction

The article kibla, ii. Astronomical aspects, ignores
the means which were used in popular practice for
determining the sacred direction, since at the time
when it was written, these had not yet been in¬
vestigated. It is appropriate to consider them before
turning to the topic of sacred geography per se.

From the 3rd/9th century onwards, Muslim
astronomers working in the tradition of classical
astronomy devised methods to compute the kibla for
any locality from the available geographical data. For
them, the kibla was the direction of the great circle
joining the locality to Mecca, measured as an angle to
the local meridian. The determination of the kibla ac¬
cording to this definition is a non-trivial problem of
mathematical geography, whose solution involves the
application of complicated trigonometric formulae or
geometrical constructions. Lists of kibla values for dif¬
ferent localities and tables displaying the kibla for each

182

MAKKA

Fig. 1. Different schemes for dividing the perimeter of
the Ka c ba to correspond to different localities in the
surrounding world. The Black Stone is in the south¬
eastern corner; the door is on the north-eastern wall;
the blocked door is on the south-western wall; and the
waterspout is on the north-western wall.

degree of longitude and latitude difference from Mec¬
ca were available. Details of this activity are given in
kibla. ii. Astronomical aspects. However, math¬
ematical methods were not available to the Muslims
before the late 2nd/8th and early 3rd/9th centuries.
And what is more important, even in later centuries,
the kibla was not generally found by computation
anyway.

In some circles, the practice of the Prophet in
Medina was imitated: he had prayed southwards
towards Mecca, and there were those who were con¬
tent to follow his example and pray towards the south
wherever they were, be it in Andalusia or Central
Asia. Others followed the practice of the first genera¬
tions of Muslims who laid out the first mosques in dif¬
ferent parts of the new Islamic commonwealth. Some
of these mosques were converted from earlier religious
edifices, the orientation of which was considered ac¬
ceptable for the kibla ; such was the case, for example,
in Jerusalem and Damascus, where the kibla adopted
was roughly due south.

Other early mosques were laid out in directions
defined by astronomical horizon phenomena, such as
the risings and settings of the sun at the equinoxes or
solstices and of various prominent stars or star-
groups; such was the case, for example, in Egypt and
Central Asia, where the earliest mosques were aligned
towards winter sunrise and winter sunset, respective¬
ly. The directions known as kiblat al-sahaba, the “ kibla
of the Companions”, remained popular over the cen¬
turies, their acceptability ensured by the Prophetic
dictum: “My Companions are like stars to be guided
by: whenever you follow their example you will be
rightly guided”.

Astronomical alignments were used for the kibla
because the first generations of Muslims who were

familiar with the Ka c ba knew that when they stood in
front of the edifice, they were facing a particular
astronomical direction. In order to face the ap¬
propriate part of the Ka c ba which was associated with
their ultimate geographical location, they used the
same astronomically-defined direction for the kibla as
they would have been standing directly in front of that
particular segment of the perimeter of the Ka c ba. This
notion of the kibla is, of course, quite different from
that used by the astronomers. Such simple methods
for finding the kibla by astronomical horizon
phenomena (called dala^iJ) are outlined both in legal
texts and in treatises dealing with folk astronomy. In
the mediaeval sources, we also find kibla directions ex¬
pressed in terms of wind directions: as noted above,
several wind schemes, defined in terms of solar or
stellar risings and settings, were part of the folk
astronomy and meteorology of pre-Islamic Arabia.

The non-mathematical tradition of folk astronomy
practiced by Muslims in the mediaeval period was
based solely on observable phenomena, such as the
risings and settings of celestial bodies and their
passages across the sky, and also involved the associa¬
tion of meteorological phenomena, such as the winds,
with phenomena in the sky [see anwa 3 , manazil,
matla c and rIh]. Adapted primarily from pre-Islamic
Arabia, folk astronomy flourished alongside
mathematical astronomy over the centuries, but was
far more widely known and practised. Even the legal
scholars accepted it because of Kur’an, XVI, 16, “...
and by the star[s] [men] shall be guided”. There were
four main applications of this traditional astronomical
folklore: (1) the regulation of the Muslim lunar calen¬
dar; (2) the determination of the times of the five daily
prayers, which are astronomically defined; (3) finding
the kibla by non-mathematical procedures; and (4) the
organisation of agricultural activities in the solar
calendar (see King, Ethnoastronomy , and Varisco,
Agricultural almanac).

Historical evidence of clashes between the two
traditions is rare. Al-BTrunI made some disparaging
remarks about those who sought to find the kibla by
means of the winds and the lunar mansions ( Kitdb
Tahdid nihdydt al-amakin, tr. J. Ali as The determination
of the coordinates of cities, Beirut 1967, 12 (slightly
modified): “When [some people] were asked to deter¬
mine the direction of the kibla, they became perplexed
because the solution of the problem was beyond their
scientific powers. You see that they have been discuss¬
ing completely irrelevant phenomena such as the
directions from which the winds blow and the risings
of the lunar mansions”.

But the legal scholars made equally disparaging and
far more historically significant remarks about the
scientists. According to the 7th/13th century Yemeni
legal scholar al-Asbahl (ms. Cairo Dar al-Kutub,
mikdt 984, 1, fol. 6a-b): “The astronomers have taken
their knowledge from Euclid, [the authors of] the
Sindhind, Aristotle and other philosophers, and all of
them were infidels”.

It is quite apparent from the orientations of
mediaeval mosques that astronomers were seldom
consulted in their construction. Indeed, from the
available architectural and also textual evidence, it is
clear that in mediaeval times several different and
often widely-divergent kiblas were accepted in specific
cities and regions. Among the legal scholars there
were those who favoured facing the Ka c ba directly
( c ayn al-Ka c ba ), usually with some traditionally accep¬
table astronomical alignment such as winter sunrise,
and others who said that facing the general direction
of the Ka c ba ( dfihat al-Ka c ba ) was sufficient (see PI. 1).

MAKKA

183

Thus, for example, there were legal scholars in
mediaeval Cordova who maintained that the entire
south-eastern quadrant could serve as the kibla (see
King, Qibla in Cordova, 372, 374).

Islamic sacred geography

The earliest known Ka c ba-centred geographical
scheme is recorded in the Kitab al-Masalik wa 7-
mamdlik, ed. de Goeje, 5, of the 3rd/9th century
scholar Ibn Kh urradadhbih ]. Even if the scheme
is not original to him, there is no reason to suppose
that it is any later than his time. In this scheme,
represented in Fig. 2, the region between North-West
Africa and Northern Syria is associated with the
north-west wall of the Ka c ba and has a kibla which
varies from east to south. The region between
Armenia and Kashmir is associated with the north¬
east wall of the Ka c ba and has a kibla which varies
from south to west. A third region, India, Tibet and
China, is associated with the Black Stone in the
eastern corner of the Ka c ba, and, for this reason, is
stated to have a kibla a little north of west. A fourth
region, the Yemen, is associated with the southern
corner of the Ka c ba and has a kibla of due north.

Fig. 2. A simple scheme of sacred geography in the
published text of the Kitab al-Masalik of Ibn
Kh urradadhbih.

The 4th/10th century legal scholar Ibn al-Kass
wrote a treatise entitled Dala HI al-kibla which is unfor¬
tunately not extant in its entirety. The Beirut ms. is
lost, and the Istanbul and Cairo mss. (Veliyuddin
2453,2 and Dar al-Kutub, mikat 1201) are quite dif¬
ferent in content. In the Istanbul copy, Ibn al-Kass
states that the world is centred on the Ka c ba and then
presents a traditional Ptolemaic survey of the seven
climates [see iklTm]. In the Cairo copy, he surveys the
different stars and star-groups used for finding the
kibla.

The principal scholar involved in the development
of sacred geography was Muhammad b. Suraka
al- c Amiri, a Yemeni jakih who studied in Basra and
died in the Yemen in 410/1019. Little is known about
this individual, and none of his works are known to
survive in their original form. However, from quota¬
tions in later works, it appears that he devised a total
of three distinct schemes, with eight, 11 and 12 sectors

around the Ka c ba. In each scheme, several prescrip¬
tions for finding the kibla in each region are outlined.
Ibn Suraka explains in words and without recourse to
any diagrams how one should stand with respect to
the risings or settings of some four stars and the four
winds; the actual direction which these prescriptions
are intended to help one face is not specifically stated.
Thus, for example, people in c Irak and Iran should
face the north-east wall of the Ka c ba, and to achieve
this one should stand so that the stars of the Plough
rise behind one s right ear, the lunar mansion al-
Han c a rises directly behind one’s back, the Pole Star
is at one’s right shoulder, the East wind blows at one’s
left shoulder, and the West wind blows at one’s right
cheek, and so on (see Table 1). Ibn Suraka did not ac¬
tually point out that the kibla in c Irak was toward
winter sunset.

Ibn Suraka’s eight-sector scheme is known from the
writings of one Ibn Rahik, a legal scholar of Mecca in
the 5th/11 th century, who wrote a treatise on folk
astronomy (extant in the unique Berlin ms. Ahlwardt
5664; see especially fols. 23a-25b). Several significant
regions of the Muslim world were omitted from this
scheme. A similar but more refined eight-sector
scheme is proposed by the 7th/13th century Libyan
philologist Ibn al-Adjdabi [q. v.} ( Kitab al-Azmina ...,
ed. I. Hassan, 120-35). Here eight sectors are neatly
associated with the four walls and the four corners of
the Ka c ba, and the kiblas in each region are defined in
terms of the cardinal directions and sunrise and sunset
at the solstices. A cruder scheme based on the same
notion is proposed by the 6th/12th century Egyptian
legal scholar al-Dimyatl (ms. Damascus, Zahiriyya
5579, fol. 14a). He represents the Ka c ba by a circle
and associates each of the eight regions around the
Ka c ba with a wind (see PI. 2).

Yet another eight-sector scheme is presented in an
anonymous treatise preserved in a 12th/18th century
Ottoman Egyptian manuscript (Cairo, Tal c at,
madjami c 811,6, fols. 59a-6la (see PI. 3). From inter¬
nal evidence, it is clear that this scheme, in which the
kiblas, are actually defined in terms of the stars which
rise or set behind one’s back when one is standing in
the kibla and in terms of the Pole Star, was already at
least five centuries old when it was copied in this man¬
uscript. For example, various 7 th/ 13th century
Yemeni astronomical sources contain 12-sector
schemes based on precisely the same eight kibla direc¬
tions. In the eight-sector scheme, Palestine had been
omitted and two regions were associated with two en¬
tire walls of the Ka c ba. The individual who first devis¬
ed this particular 12-sector scheme added a sector for
Palestine and three more for segments of those two
walls.

Ibn Suraka’s 11-sector scheme is known from an
8th/14th (?) century Egyptian treatise (ms. Milan
Ambrosiana, 11.75 (A75), 20, fols. 1 74a-177b), and in
it he has simply added three sectors to his eight-sector
scheme and modified the prescriptions for finding the
kibla. His 12-sector scheme is yet more refined. It was
used by al-Dimyatl in his Kitab al-Tahdhib fi ma c rifat
dalaHl al-kibla (ms. Oxford, Bodleian Marsh 592, fols.
97b-101b, and 126a-28a), who complained that Ibn
Suraka had placed Damascus and Medina in the same
sector, and so he himself presented a 13-sector
scheme, subdividing the sector for Syria and the
Hidjaz. Ibn Suraka’s 12-sector scheme was also used
by the 7th/13th century Yemeni astronomer al-Farisi
in his treatise on folk astronomy. The unique copy of
this work (ms. Milan Ambrosiana X73 sup.) includes
diagrams of Ibn Suraka’s 12-sector scheme and the
different 12-sector scheme discussed above (see PI. 4).

184

MAKKA

Table 1: Kibla indicators in the eight- and eleven-sector schemes of Ibn Suraka

Ms. Berlin Ahlwardt 5664, fols. 23a-25b

Ms. Milan Ambrosiana A75,20, fols. 174a-177b

BN = Banal Na c sh; EW = east wind; NW = north wind; PS = Pole Star; SW = south wind; WW = west wind

1. Medina, Palestine

(Waterspout)

2. Djazira, Armenia

(Syrian Corner to
Mu$alld of Adam)

3. C. c lrak, N. Iran
T ransoxania

(Mu$alla of Adam
to Door)

4. S. c Irak, S. Iran,
China

(Door to c lrakl
Corner)

5. Sind, India,
Afghanistan
( < Iraki Corner to
Musalla of the
Prophet)

6. Yemen,
Hadramawt

(Mufatld of the
Prophet to
Yemeni Corner)

BN setting behind
Canopus rising in front

(al-DinivatF (ms. Oxford Marsh 592.
fob 100b) attributes:

NW intermediate wind behind
BN setting behind
PS behind left shoulder)

1. As in 8-sector
scheme

Winter sunrise at bone behind left ear
EW at left shoulder
NW at right cheek
WW in front
SW at left eye

BN rising behind right ear
al-Han c a rising behind
PS at right shoulder
EW at left shoulder

NW between nght side of neck and nape
WW at right cheek
SW at left cheek

PS at right ear

Vega rising behind

al-Shawla setting in front

Summer sunrise behind right shoulder

EW at left shoulder

NW at right ear

WW in front

SW at left side of neck

BN rising at left cheek (sic)
PS behind (sic)

EW behind left ear
NW at right cheek
SW at left shoulder

PS in front

Canopus rising at right ear (sic)
Canopus setting behind left ear
Winter sunrise at right ear
EW at right shoulder
NW in front

SW at right shoulder (sic)

2. Syria

(Waterspout to
Syrian Corner)

3. As in 8-sector
scheme

8. Ethiopia

(Yemeni Corner
to Blocked Door)

BN setting behind
Canopus rising in front
Vega rising at left ear
Vega setting behind right ear
EW at left eye
NW behind left ear
WW behind right ear
SW at right eyebrow

BN rising behind left ear

PS at left shoulder, al-Hak c a rising at left

EW at left cheek

NW at joint of right shoulder

WW at right ear towards nape

SW in front

Capella rising between behind left ear and nape
Capella setting at right side
PS between right ear and behind nape
Winter sunrise at bone behind left ear
EW at left shoulder
NW at right cheek
WW at right side of neck
SW at left eye

BN rising at right ear
al-Han c a rising between directly behind and
behind left ear
PS at right shoulder
EW' at left shoulder

NW between right side of neck and nape
WW at right cheek
SW at left cheek

PS at right ear

Vega [rising] behind

al-Shawla setting in front

Summer sunrise behind right shoulder

EW at left shoulder

NW at right ear

WW at right cheek

SW at left eye

BN rising at righ cheek
PS at right eye
EW behind right ear
NW at right cheek
WW at left cheek
SW at left shoulder

PS in front

Canopus rising at right ear (sic)
Canopus setting behind left ear
Winter sunrise at right ear
EW at right shoulder
NW in front
WW at left side
SW at left shoulder

Pleiades rising in front

Sirius and Capella rising at right eye

PS at left ear

EW at right ear

NW in front

WW on left

SW behind

9. Sudan

7. Andalusia,

Maghrib, Ifrikiya,
Ethiopia

(7 cubits from
Western Corner
to Corner itself)

8. Egypt, coast of
Maghrib and
Ifrikiya

Pleiades rising in front
Sirius rising at right eye
EW in front
WW behind
NW at left shoulder
SW at right shoulder

BN setting at right shoulder
BN rising at left shoulder
PS behind
WW at right

(Blocked Corner
to 7 cubis short of
Western Corner)

10. Andalusia,
Maghrib.
Ifrikiya

As in 8-sector
scheme

Capella rising in front
Pleiades rising at right eye
al-Shawla setting behind
PS at left cheek
Summer sunrise in front
Winter sunset behind
EW at right eye
NW at left eyebrow
WW at left ear
SW at left shoulder

Pleiades rising in front
Sirius rising at righ eye
Capella setting behind nape
EW in front
WW behind
NW at left shoulder
SW at right shoulder

al-Zubdnd (al-Ahmira) rising in front
BN setting at left shoulder
BN rising at left ear
NW behind left ear
EW at left side

MAKKA

185

Several sources contain schemes in which the
prescriptions for finding the kibla in each region of the
world are based only on the Pole Star (al- Dj udayy or al-
Kutb). Although the earliest known scheme of this
kind dates from the 6th/12th century, others must
have been in circulation prior to this time, since al-
BTrunl ( Tahdid , tr. Ali, 13, modified) wrote: “Of the
majority of people [who write about the kibla in non-
mathematical terms], none are closer to the truth than
those who use ( iHabarahu bi-) the Pole Star known as
al-Djudayy. By means of its fixed position, the direc¬
tion of a person travelling can be specified approx¬
imately”.

The most detailed scheme of this kind is recorded
by the 7th/13th century Egyptian legal scholar Shihab
al-Dln al-Karafi [q.v.] in his Dhahhlra , ed. Cairo, i,
489-508; in this, some nine regions of the world are
identified and instructions for finding the kibla are
given as follows: “[The inhabitants of] Sind and India
stand with [the Pole star] at their [right] cheeks and
they face due west, etc.” See Fig. 3 for a simplified
version of this kind of scheme.

★

EGYPT

POLE-STAR ★

( 2 )

SYRIA

( 2 )

YEMEN

Fig. 3. A simple scheme for using the Pole Star to face
Mecca recorded in a late Ottoman Egyptian text,
typical of much earlier prescription for finding the
kibla.

Fig. 4. A simplified version of the 12-sector scheme of
sacred geography found in some manuscripts of the
Athar al-bilad of al-KazwmL

At least one of the 12-sector schemes mentioned
above must have been in circulation outside the
Yemen before the 7th/13th century, because it was
copied by the geographer Yakut ( Buldan , Eng. tr.
Jwaideh, 51), who worked in Syria in ca. 600/1200.
The instructions for finding the kibla are omitted from
his diagram. A similar diagram is presented in al-
KazwInT’s Athar al-bilad, 76, (see Fig. 4), and the same
scheme is described in words in al-Kalkashandl, Subh,
iv, 251-5. Another such simple 12-sector scheme oc¬
curs in the cosmography Kharidal al- c adja^ib of the
9th/15th century Syrian writer Ibn al-Wardl [q-v.\, a
work which was exceedingly popular in later cen¬
turies. In some copies of this, a diagram of an eight-
sector scheme is presented. In others, diagrams of 18-,
34-, 35-, or 36-sectors schemes occur. In one manu¬
script of a Turkish translation of his treatise (ms.
Istanbul Topkapi, Turkish 1340 = Bagdat 179),
there is a diagram of a scheme with 72 sectors. In the
published edition of the Arabic text (Cairo 1863,
70-1), extremely corrupt versions of both the 12- and
the eight-sector schemes are included.

These simple diagrams were often much abused by
ignorant copyists, and even in elegantly copied manu¬
scripts we find the corners of the Ka c ba mislabelled
and the localities around the Ka c ba confused. In some
copies of the works of al-KazwTni and Ibn al-Wardl
containing the 12-sector scheme, Medina occurs in
more than one sector. In other copies, one of these two
sectors has been suppressed and only 11 sectors ap¬
pear around the Ka c ba (see PI. 5).

Yet another scheme occurs in the navigational atlas
of the 1 Oth/16th century Tunisian scholar C A1T al-
Sharafi al-SafakusT (see PI. 6). There are 40 mihrabs
around the Ka c ba, represented by a square with its
corners facing in the cardinal directions, and also by
the fact that the scheme is superimposed upon a
32-division wind-rose, a device used by Arab sailors to
find directions at sea by the risings and settings of the
stars. Even though ai-Safakusi had compiled maps of
the Mediterranean coast, the order and arrangement
of localities about the Ka c ba in his diagram in each of
the available copies (mss. Paris, B.N. ar. 2273 and
Oxford, Bodleian Marsh 294) are rather inaccurate.
Again, no kibla indications are presented.

Mainly through the writings of al-KazwTni and Ibn
al-Wardl, these simplified 12-sector schemes were
copied right up to the 19th century. By then, their
original compiler had long been forgotten, and
Muslim scholars interested in the sciences were start¬
ing to use Western geographical concepts and coor¬
dinates anyway. In most regions of the Islamic world,
traditional kibla directions which had been used over
the centuries were abandoned for a new direction
computed for the locality in question using modern
geographical coordinates.

The orientation of Islamic religious
architectu re

A variety of different kibla values was used in each
of the major centres of Islamic civilisation (see King,
Sacred direction). In any one locality, there were kiblas
advocated by religious tradition, including both car¬
dinal directions and astronomical alignments ad¬
vocated in texts on folk astronomy or legal texts, as
well as the directions computed by the astronomers
(by both accurate and approximate mathematical pro¬
cedures). This situation explains the diversity of
mosque orientations in any given region of the Islamic
world. However, since very few mediaeval mosques
have been surveyed properly for their orientations, it
is not yet possible to classify them, and for the present

186

MAKKA

we are forced to rely mainly on the information con¬
tained in the mediaeval written sources.

In Cordova, for example, as we know from a
6th/12th century treatise on the astrolabe, some mos¬
ques were laid out towards winter sunrise (roughly
30° S. of E.), because it was thought that this would
make their kibla walls parallel to the north-west wall of
the Ka c ba. The Grand Mosque there faces a direction
perpendicular to summer sunrise (roughly 30° E. of
S.), for the very same reason: this explains why it
faces the deserts of Algeria rather than the deserts of
Arabia. In fact, the axis of the Mosque is “parallel’'
to the main axis of the Ka c ba.

In Samarkand, as we know from a 5th/11th century
legal treatise, the main mosque was oriented towards
winter sunset, in order that it should face the north¬
east wall of the Ka c ba. Other mosques in Samarkand
were built facing due west because the road to Mecca
left Samarkand towards the west, and yet others were
built facing due south because the Prophet, when he
was in Medina, had said that the kibla was due south,
and some religious authorities interpreted this as
being universally valid.

Similar situations could be cited for other
mediaeval cities. In some of these, the kibla, or rather,
the various different directions accepted for the kibla,
have played an important role in the development of
the entire city in mediaeval times. Investigations of
the orientations of Islamic cities are still in an early
phase. However, the city of Cairo represents a partic¬
ularly interesting case of a city oriented towards the
Ka c ba.

The first mosque in Egypt was built in Fustat in the
lst/7th century facing due east, and then a few years
later was altered to face winter sunrise (about 27°
S. of E.). The first direction was probably chosen to
ensure that the Mosque faced the Western Corner of
the Ka c ba, the second to ensure that it faced the
north-western wall, but these reasons are not men¬
tioned in the historical sources. When the new city of
al-Kahira was founded in the 4th/10th century, it was
built with a roughly orthogonal street plan alongside
the Pharaonic canal linking the Nile with the Red Sea.
Now, quite fortuitously, it happened that the canal
was perpendicular to the direction of winter sunrise.
Thus the entire city was oriented in the “ kibla of the
Companions”. The Fatimids who built al-Kahira
erected the first mosques in the new city (the Mosque
of al-Hakim and the Azhar Mosque) in the kibla of the
astronomers, which at 37° S. of E. was 10° south of
the kibla of the Companions. Thus their mosques were
skew to the street plan.

The Mamluks built their mosques and madrasas in
such a way that the exteriors were in line with the
street plan and the interiors skew to the exteriors and
in line with the kibla of the astronomers. When they
laid out the “City of the Dead” outside Cairo, they
aligned the street and the mausolea with the kibla of
the astronomers. In the other main area of greater
Cairo known as al-Karafa, both the streets and the
mosques follow a southerly kibla orientation. Al-
Makrizi discussed the problem of the different orien¬
tations of mosques in Egypt, but without reference to
the street plan of Cairo. Now that the methods used
in mediaeval times for finding the kibla are
understood, the orientation of mediaeval Islamic
religious architecture in particular and cities in
general is a subject which calls out for further in¬
vestigation.

Concluding remarks

This purely Islamic development of a sacred
geography featuring the world centred on the Ka c ba,

provided a simple practical means for Muslims to face
the Ka c ba in prayer. For the pious, to whom the
“science of the ancients” was anathema, this tradition
constituted an acceptable alternative to the
mathematical kibla determinations of the astronomers.
As noted above, it was actually approved of by the
legal scholars, not least because of Kur 5 an XVI, 16.
The number and variety of the texts in which this
sacred geography is attested indicate that it was widely
known from the 4th/10th century onwards, if not
among the scientific community. The broad spectra of
kibla values accepted at different times in different
places attest to the multiplicity of ways used by
Muslims to face the Ka c ba over the centuries, and all
of this activity was inspired by the belief that the
Ka c ba, as the centre of the world and the focus of
Muslim worship, was a physical pointer to the
presence of God.

Bibliography. On the early Islamic traditions
about Mecca as the centre of the world, see A. J.
Wensinck, The ideas of the Western Semites concerning
the Navel of the Earth, Amsterdam 1915, repr. in
Studies of A. J. Wensinck, New York 1978. On early
Islamic traditions about cosmology in general, see
A. Heinen, Islamic cosmology: a study of al-SuyutVs al-
Hay^a al-saniyya ft al-hay^a al-sunniyya, Beirut 1982.

On the Ka c ba, see in addition to the bibliography
cited in ka c ba, J. Chelhod, A Contribution to the prob¬
lem of the pre-eminence of the right , based upon Arabic
evidence (tr. from the French), in R. Needham, Right
and left, Chicago 1973, 239-62; B. Finster, Zu der
Neuauflage von K. A. C. Creswell’s Early Muslim Ar¬
chitecture, in Kunst des Orients, ix (1972), 89-98, esp.
94; G. S. Hawkins and D. A. King, On the orienta¬
tion of the Ka c ba, in Jnal. for the Hist, of Astronomy, xiii
(1982), 102-9; King, Astronomical alignments in
medieval Islamic religious architecture, in Annals of the
New York Academy of Sciences, ccclxxxv (1982),
303-12; G. Luling, Der christliche Kult an der
vorislamischen Kaaba ..., Erlangen 1977, and other
works by the same author; G. R. Hawting, Aspects
of Muslim political and religious history in the 1st/ 7th cen¬
tury, with especial reference to the development of the
Muslim sanctuary, University of London Ph. D.
thesis, 1978 unpublished.

On Islamic folk astronomy, see in addition to the
articles anyva 5 , manazil and matxa c , King,
Ethnoastronomy and mathematical astronomy in the
Medieval Near East, and D. M. Varisco, An
agricultural almanac by the Yemeni Sultan al-Ashraf, in
Procs. of the First International Symposium on
Ethnoastronomy, Washington, D.C. 1983 (forth¬
coming).

All available sources on Islamic sacred geography
(some 30 in number) are surveyed in King, The
sacred geography of Islam, in Islamic Art, iii (1983)
(forthcoming). For an overview of the kibla prob¬
lem, see idem, The world about the Ka c ba: a study of the
sacred direction in Islam (forthcoming), and its sum¬
mary, The sacred direction in Islam: a study of the interac¬
tion of science and religion in the Middle Ages, in
Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, x (1984), 315-28.

On the possibility of a kibla towards the east
before the adoption of the kibla towards the Ka c ba,
see W. Barthold, Die Orientierung der ersten muham-
madanischen Moscheen, in Isl., xviii (1929), 245-50,
and King, Astronomical alignments, 309.

On the orientation of Islamic religious architec¬
ture, see King, op. cit., and on the situations in
Cordova, Cairo and Samarkand, see Three sundials
from Islamic Andalusia, Appx. A: Some medieval values
of the Qibla at Cordova, in Jnal. for the Hist, of Arabic
Science, ii (1978), 370-87; Architecture and astronomy:

MAKKA — al-MAKKARI

187

the ventilators of medieval Cairo and their secrets , in
JAOS, civ (1984), 97-133; Al-Bazdawi on the Qibla in
Transoxania, in JHAS, vii (1983), 3-38. In 1983, a
treatise on the problems associated with the kibla in
early Islamic Iran by the 5th/11 th century legal
scholar and mathematician c Abd al-Kahir al-
Baghdadi was identified in ms. Tashkent, Oriental
Institute 177; this awaits investigation. No doubt
other treatises on the problems of the kibla in West
and East Africa and in India were prepared, but
these have not been located yet in the manuscript
sources. (D. A. King)

al-MAKKARI, Shihab al-dIn Abu ’l- c Abbas
Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Yahya
al-Tiumsani al-FasT al-Maliki, man of letters
and biographer, born at Tilimsan (Tlemcen) in
ca. 986/1577, d. at Cairo in Djumada II 1041/Jan.
1632. He belonged to a family of scholars, natives of
Makkara (about 12 miles from MsTla [see masila]).
One of his paternal ancestors, Muhammad b.
Muhammad al-Makkari, had been chief kadi of Fas
and one of the teachers of the famous Lisan al-Dln Ibn
al-Khatlb \q. v. ] of Granada. He himself received a
wide education from his early youth; one of his prin¬
cipal teachers was his paternal uncle Abu c Uthman
Sa c Id (d. at Tlemcen in 1030/1620-1; on him, see Ben
Cheneb, Idjaza, § 103).

In 1009/1600, al-Makkari went to Morocco. At
Marrakush, he met numerous scholars and followed
the teaching of Ahmad Baba [q.v.] y who on 15 RabT c
1010/13 October 1601 gave him an idjaza (text in al-
Makkari’s Rawda, 305-12) authorising him to teach
the Muwatta * the two Sahihs of al-Bukhan and
Muslim, the Shifa D of the Kadi c Iyad and his own
works, to the spreading of which he must have con¬
tributed greatly (see M. A. Zouber, Ahmad Baba de
Tombouctou, Paris 1977, 57-8 and index). It was prob¬
ably round about this time that he began to frequent
the zawiya dila^iyya, where his special master for hadith
was Mahammad b. Abl Bakr (967-1046/1559-1636)
[see al-dila/ in Suppl.]. He kept up cordial relations
with the latter until his last days, judging by a letter
written at Cairo early in 1041/1631 and entrusted to
Mahammad’s son Muhammad al-Hadjdj, on his
return from the Pilgrimage; this letter, in which he
gives some details about his latest works and journey-
ings, is preserved in the Rabat ms. 471 K (it has been
published by M. HadjdjT, al-Zawiya al-dila}iyya, Rabat
1384/1964, 282-4).

Al-Makkari remained then in Fas, where he
became imam and mufti at the al-Karawiyyln mosque
[q.v.\ from 1022/1613 to 1027/1617. It was during the
stay there that he composed his Azhar al-riyad (see
below). But he was accused of favouring a turbulent
tribe, and decided to leave for the East in order to
make the Pilgrimage. In 1027 or 1028/1617-18 he ac¬
cordingly left Fas, leaving there, besides his books, a
daughter and a wife (to whom he gave, in the above-
cited letter, the power to obtain a divorce), and after
having accomplished the Pilgrimage (1028/1618), he
went to Cairo, where he remained for some months
and got married. In the next year, he undertook a trip
to Jerusalem, and then returned to Cairo. From
there, he went back on several occasions to the Holy
Places and, both at Mecca and at Medina, gave a
course in hadith which excited great attention. He
made fresh trips to Jerusalem and Damascus, where
he was welcomed at the Cakmakiyya madrasa by the
scholar Ahmad b. Shahm; in this last city too, his
courses on the Islamic traditions were much fre¬
quented by students. He went back to Cairo, and just
as he was preparing to return to Damascus and stay
there permanently, he fell ill and died.

In spite of his long stay in the East, it was in Moroc¬
co that al-Makkari collected the essential materials for
his work as the historian and biographer of Muslim
Spain, especially at Marrakush in the library of
Sa c dian Sultans (now preserved in part in the
Escorial; see Levi-Proven^al, Les manusents arabes de
VEscurial, iii, Paris 1928, pp. viii-ix). Indeed, his
masterpiece, written at Cairo in 1038/1629 at the sug¬
gestion of Ibn Shahln. is a long monograph on
Muslim Spain and on the famous encyclopaedist of
Granada, Lisan al-Dln Ibn al-Khatib, Nafh al-tib min
ghusn al-Andalus al-ratib wa-dhikr waziriha Lisan al-Din
Ibn al-Khatib „ an immense compilation of historical
and literary information, poems, letters and quota¬
tions very often taken from works now lost. It is this
that gives the Nafh al-tib an inestimable value and
puts it in the first rank for our sources of Muslim
Spain from the conquest to the last days of the Recon-
quista.

The Nafh al-tib consists of two quite distinct parts,
a monograph on the history and literature of Muslim
Spain and the monograph on Ibn al-Khatib. The first
part is divided as follows: 1. Physical geography of al-
Andalus. 2. Conquest of al-Andalus by the Arabs,
period of the governors. 3. History of the Umayyad
caliphs and of the petty dynasts (A luluk al-tawa^if). 4.
Description of Cordova, its history and its
monuments. 5. Spanish Arabs who made the journey
to the East. 6. Orientals who made the journey to
Spain. 7. Sketches of literary history, the intellectual
and moral qualities of the Spanish Arabs. 8. The
Reconquista of Spain and the expulsion of the
Muslims. The second part contains: 1. Origin and
biography of the ancestors of Ibn al-Khatib. 2.
Biography of Ibn al-Khatib. 3. Biographies of his
teachers. 4. Letters in rhymed prose of the chanceries
of Granada and of Fas, sent or received by Ibn al-
Khatib ( mukhatabat ). 5. Selection of his work in prose
and verse. 5. Analytical list of his works.

The first part was published at Leiden from 1855 to
1861 under the title of Analectes sur I’histoire et la lit-
terature des Arabes d’Espagne, by R. Dozy, G. Dugat, I.
Krehl and W. Wright. In 1840, D. Pascual de
Gayangos had published in English, at London,
under the title The history of the Muhammadan dynasties
in Spain, a version adapted from the part of the first
half which deals with the history of Muslim Spain.
The complete Arabic text of the Nafh al-tib was first
printed at Bulak in 1279, at Cairo in 1302 and 1304
in 4 volumes, then at Cairo in 1367/1949 in 10
volumes and finally, by Ihsan c Abbas at Beirut in
1968 (8 volumes). Although various texts given by al-
Makkari have been translated, in addition to the work
of Pascual de Gayangos mentioned above, a complete
version of this monumental work still remains to be
done.

Another important work of this author is the Azhar
al-riyad fi akhbdr c Iydd, a long monograph on the Kadi
c Iyad (476-544/1083-1149 [q.v. ]), which is enriched
by numerous pieces of information on scholars of
Morocco and al-Andalus and by citations from other¬
wise lost works. Of this work, the autograph ms. (in¬
complete) is in the Royal Library in Rabat (no. 784),
and there is a good ms. in the General Library of
Rabat (no. 229 K); this has been the object of an edi¬
tion begun in Tunis (1322/1904), and then 3 volumes
have been published in Cairo in 1359-61/1939-42; the
vols. iv and v at al-Muhammadiyya in 1978-80.

A third work by al-Makkari, the Rawdat al-as
al- c atirat al-anfas fi dhikr man lakituhu min a c ldm al-
hadratayn Marrakush wa-Fas, contains biographies of
scholars and other Moroccan personalities, together,
like the preceding two works, various others texts, in

MAKKA

PLATE I

Fig. 1. Aerial view of c Arafat during the hadjdi. (Photograph by courtesy of the Em¬
bassy of the Kingdom of Saoudi Arabia, The Hague).

PLATE II

MAKKA

Fig. 2. Pilgrims at Mina. (Photograph by courtesy of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saoudi Arabia, The Hague).

MAKKA

PLATE III

Fig. 3. Aerial view of Mina during the ha didi . (Photograph by courtesy of the Embassy

of the Kingdom of Saoudi Arabia, The Hague).

PLATE IV

MAKKA

Fig. 4. Interior of the Mas c d. (Photograph by courtesy of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saoudi Arabia, The Hague).

MAKKA

PLATE V

*n i

M* ***** ffi. X**’2f*

l T— >2 '*Wj

<AJI

t ^ i 2

U. L V F

nk f

*■>

<JSr

iUl

• *

I^U^y

£tASZ? ^’^-C '■A^+u*^\r x ’b

A.S.UW.

j£s

1. Diagrams in the unique manuscript of the Tahdhtb of al-Dimyafl
displaying the notions of c ayn al-Ka c ba, facing the Ka c ba head on, and
djihat al-Ka c ba, facing the general direction of the Ka c ba, that is,
anywhere within the field of vision (ca. 90°) of a person facing the
Ka c ba head on. Taken from ms. Oxford Bodleian Marsh 592, fols.

23b-24a.

S~fe ^^,^ fe4Uy g^wT<

Ctrl

>. •- it*?

3 >-

• .

2. An illustration of al-Dimyap’s eight-sector kibla scheme in the
unique copy of his shorter treatise on the kibla. The directions of
the kibla are defined in each sector in terms of the Pole Star.
Taken from ms. Damascus Zahiriyya 5579, fol. 14a.

3. Two illustrations from an anonymous treatise on the kibla and the Ka c ba of uncertain provenance. On the left is a latitude and longitude
grid with various localities marked, as well as the Ka c ba, shown in the upper left comer, inclined to the meridian. (No such diagram is
contained in any scientific treatise from the mediaeval Islamic period.) On the right is an eight-sector kibla scheme not attested in any
other known source. The main kibla indicators used in each sector are the risings or settings of prominent stars which should be directly
behind the person facing the kibla: this suggests that they were determined by someone standing with his back to the appropriate part of

the Ka c ba looking towards those regions. Taken from ms. Cairo Tal c at madjam i* 811, fols. 59b-60a.

- t

iBi

j| i

■ f i

r!RI

PLATE VI MAKKA

«rh^ru’ 2° L Un r?r atth€ ^L d ° f the Un ‘ qUe com P lete c °Py of a treatise on folk astronomy by the 7th/13th century Yemeni

M olar Muhammad b. Abi Bakr al-Farisi. The one on the left corresponds roughly to the scheme described in the text of al-Farisf’s treatise
Notice that the scheme is surrounded by a schematic representation of the Sacred Mosque. The one on the right is developed from the

eight-sector scheme of Ibn Suraka. Taken from ms. Milan Ambrosiana Griffini 37, unfoliated.

MAKKA PLATE VII

5. On these flyleaves of an Ottoman Turkish copy of a 10th/16th century Syrian zidj_ are preserved four different schemes of sacred
geography. Two are represented graphically, and two others by ordered lists of localities (upper left and upper right). In addition,
there is (lower right) a diagram for locating the so-called ridjal al-gfiayb, intermediaries between God and man, belief in whom was wide¬
spread amongst Suits in Ottoman times. Taken from ms. Paris B.N. ar. 2520.

PLATE VIII MAKKA

MAKKA

PLATE IX

^ClrtTc-

1 *

UUAllvi^JI

^*Uj/

6. A defective diagram of a 12-sector scheme (simplified from that of Ibn Suraka) in an elegantly copied manu¬
script of Ibn al-Wardl’s Cosmography. As in some diagrams of this kind in various copies of al-Kazwim’s Athdr
al-bildd , there are only 11 sectors: presumably at some stage in the transmission someone noticed that, because
of copyists’ errors in some copies of the text, Medina occurred in two sectors. The one omitted here is the one
in which Medina had been entered by mistake. Taken from ms. Istanbul Topkapi Ahmet III 3020, fol. 52b.

PLATE X

MAKKA

7. The 40-sector scheme of ai-$afajcusi, superimposed on a 32-division windrose. The order of the localities
around the Ka c ba differs somewhat in the two extant copies of this chart. Taken from ms. Paris BN ar 2278

fol. 2b.

188

al-MAKKARI — MAKKI

particular, idjazas received by or conferred by the
author (ed. Rabat 1383/1964).

As well as these historical and biographical com¬
pilations, al-Makkan is said to have left behind a com¬
mentary on the Mukaddima of Ibn Khaldun (Had jdj I
Kh alifa, ii, 106) which has not yet been found, but
there are extant several others of his works which are
of varying interest. From the lists given of his works
(see Ben Cheneb, Idjaza, § 102; Brockelmann, II 2 ,
381-3, S II, 407-8; M. HadjdjI, op. cit ., 110-13), there
will be mentioned here those which are extant and
which deal with: — (l)the Prophet: Path al-muta c dl
Ji madh al-npdl (hadiths , verses and citations from the
texts of Moroccan poets and writers, in particular, on
the Prophet’s sandals). This is a lengthy rewriting (ed.
Hyderabad 1334/1916) of a compilation made in
Cairo under the title of al-Nafahdt al- c anbariyya ft nPal
khayr al-bariyya. The ms. 565 Dj. of Rabat contains the
Fath and an urdjuza on the same topic addressed to
Mahammad b. Abl Bakr. Another text, Azhar/Zahr al-
kimdma. fisharaj al-Hmdma , is an urdguza of 305 verses on
the Prophet’s turban, written at Medina and sent to
this same Dila c I, which contains lexicographical
details on Muhammad’s clothing (cf. ms. Rabat 984
D, ff. 96b-103a). — (2) theology : Ida y at al-dudfunna
bi- c aka dd ahl al-sunna, a profession of faith in 500
radjaz verses, which al-Makkarl asserts (in the letter
cited above) he taught and commented upon at Mec¬
ca, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Alexandria, Rosetta
and Ghazza. More than 2,000 copies, most of them
with his signature, are said to have been made
(numerous ms., including Rabat 1227 D, 2742 K; ed.
Cairo 1304). IthaJ al-mughram al-mughra ft sharh al-
Sughra, a commentary on the c akida sughra of al-Sanusi
[q.v. ] (mss. Royal Library at Rabat nos. 3544 and
5928). — (3)Jifch: I c mal al-dhihn wa ’l-jikr Ji I-masadl
al-mutanawwPat al-adjnds al-warida min al-Shaykh Sayyidi
Mahammad b. Abi Bakr, barakat al-zamdn wa-bakiyyat al-
nas (in al-Hawwat, al-Budur al-dawiya, ms. Rabat 261
D, ff. 64a-71b). — (4) magical formulae and
devices: Nay l al-maram al-mughtabit li-talib al-
mukhammas al-khali al-wasat (ms. Rabat 2878 K).

Al-Makkan was essentially a compiler who
felicitously preserved a host of texts otherwise lost
which he had copied out before leaving for the East,
and one hopes that he did not rely too much on his
own memory, which was remarkble. His master
Mahammad b. Abl Bakr, despite their friendly rela¬
tions, did not have a very high opinion of his reliabili¬
ty in regard to hadith, and al-Ifranl (Sajwa, 74), repeats
a judgement of al- c AyyashI according to which he
always refused to give a legal opinion twice on the
same question, for fear of contradicting himself.
Nevertheless, he was a skilful versifier, and in the
passages composed by himself, his rhymed prose re¬
mains relatively smooth-flowing and readable.

Bibliography (in addition to works cited in the
article): Mayyara, al-Durr al-thamin, Cairo

1305/1887, i, 41; YusI, Muhadarai, lith. Fas
1317/1899, 59; KhafadjI, Rayhdnat al-alibbd^, Cairo
1283, 293; Ibn Ma c sum, Suldfat al- c asr, Cairo 1324,
589; MuhibbI, Khulasat al-athar, Cairo 1284, i,
302 ff.; IfranI, Sajwat man intashar, lith. Fas n.d.,
22 ff. ; Kadirl, Nashral-mathani, lith. Fas 1310/1892,
i, 157-60; Dugat, in introd. to the Analectes', E.
Levi-Provengal, Chorfa, 93, n. 3; KattanI, Fihns al-
faharis, Fas 1346/1927, i, 337-8; M. Hajji, L’activite
intellectuelle au Maroc a I’epoque sa^dide, Rabat 1977,
423-4 and index.

(E. Levi-Proven£ai. - [Ch. Pellat])
al-MAKKI. [See abu talib].

MAKKI, Abu Muhammad Makki b. AbI Talib b.
(?) Hammush b. Muhammad b. Mukhtar al-Kays!

al-KayravvanI al-Andalusi al-KurtubI, Malik!
lawyer and Kurban reader, born at al-
Kayrawan on 23 Sha c ban 354/25 August 965, died at
Cordova in 437/1045, one of the earliest and most dis¬
tinguished scholars in the science of Kurban reading
(kira^a [q. v. ]) and especially the theory and art of
recitation ( tadfwid [q.v. ]) in the Muslim West.

It is largely due to him that the new development
in Kur’an reading scholarship which is connected
with the Baghdadi Imam al-kurra > , Ibn Mudjahid (d.
324/936 [<7. tc]) spread so soon via Aleppo and Cairo
to Spain. Makki started his studies in Cairo at the age
of thirteen, and accomplished most of his learning
there during the years 368-74/978-84, 377-9/987-9
and 382-3/992-3, concentrating on philology, kira^at
and tadfwid, and frequenting at an advanced stage
such illustrious authorities as the commentator Abu
Bakr al-Udfuw! (304-88/916-98, GAS, i, 46) and Abu
TTayyib c Abd al-Mun c im b. Ghalbun al-Halabf (d.
389/999). The latter had studied with Ibn Mudjahid’s
pupil Ibn Khalawayh [q.v. ] during Sayf al-Dawla’s
reign in Aleppo [see halab, III, 86a] and become
famous for his works on kira^a (GAS, i, 15). Makki also
studied with Abu ’1-Tayyib’s son Tahir b. Ghalbun
(d. 399/1008), the same scholar, who was to become
the teacher of Makki’s 17 years’ younger Maghrib!
colleague, Abu c Amr al-Danl [q.v.], who came to
Cairo some 20 years later. It is Tahir b. Ghalbun’s
teaching and his K. al-Tadhkira fi ’l-kird'at (GAS, i, 16)
that were to become the foundations of two influential
(tiV(fl 5 a/-works by each of Makki (K. al-Tabsira, K. al-
Kashf) and al-Danl (K. al-Taysir, K. Pi amp al-bayan).
During Makki’s short residence at home in
374-77/984-7, he studied with two outstanding Kayra-
wanl scholars: the legal scholar and traditionist al-
KabisI (d. 403/1011 [<7.0.]) and the lawyer Ibn Abl
Zayd (d. 386/996 [q.v.]). In 387/998 he set off for his
last journey to the east. Staying three years in Mecca,
frequenting Meccan scholars and performing the
ha djdi several times, he wrote in 389/999 his K.
Mushkil gharib al-Kur^dn, a summary of which is prob¬
ably extant in a unique ms. (ed. Yusuf c Abd ar-
Rahman al-Mar c ashli, Beirut 1981; its authenticity is,
however, doubted by Ahmad Farhat, see preliminary
note to Mar c ashll’s edition). On his way back to al-
Kayrawan via Cairo, two other works were com¬
pleted: (1) K. Mushkil Prab al-Kur^dn, written in
390/1001 in Jerusalem (16 mss. extant, Brockelmann,
I, 515, S I, 719, and cf. introd. to the critical edition
by Yasln M. al-Sawwas, Damascus n.d., 2 vols.; fur¬
ther edition by Hatim S. al-Damin, Baghdad ca.
1970); and (2) K. al-Tabsira, originally meant as a
mere introduction to be memorised by beginners,
which was later elaborated by Makki and published in
424/1038 as K. al-Kashf c an wudfuh al-kira^at al-sab c (4
mss., ed. Muhyl al-Dln Ramadan, Damascus, 2
vols.; Hatim S. al-Damin, Ba gh dad ca. 1970). This
longer version not only gives the fuller isnads for the
readings but also grammatical justifications (ta^lil) for
them, following closely the method first adopted by
Abu c Ali al-FarisI (d. 377/987 [9.0.]), whose K. al-
Hu didi a. which was well known to Makki, constitutes
a complete Kurban commentary discussing the
readings presented by Ibn Mudjahid in his K. al-
Sab c a, see GdQ, iii, 116-43.

Makki did not remain long in his home town, but
— for reasons unknown to us — left al-Kayrawan for
al-Andalus in 393/1003 and established himself as a
teacher of Kur’an reading ( mukri : ) at Cordova at the
Masdjid al-Nukhayla in the c AttarIn quarter. He soon
won a wide reputation for his learning, and was ap¬
pointed between 397/1007 and 399/1009 by al-
Muzaffar c Abd al-Malik b. Abl c Amir [see c amirids]

MAKKI — MAKLI

189

as mukrp to the Mosque of the Zahira quarter, newly
established by the c Amirids. After the fall of the
c Amirid rule in 399/1009, he was called by the caliph
Muhammad b. Hisham al-Mahdl (399/1009) to teach
at the Friday Mosque of Cordova. There he con¬
tinued to teach until the end of the civil war, when the
vizier Abu THazm b. Djahwar [see djahwarids] ap¬
pointed him imam and preacher to the same mosque
(after 425/1031), which office he held until his death
on 2 Muharram 437/21 July 1045).

At Cordova, most of his works (numbering over 80,
on various topics such as fikh, hadith , but mostly on
kira^a) were written. Two of the extant ladjivid works
have played a major role in the development of the
kird^a disciplines, al-RPaya li-tadjwid al-kird^a wa-lafz al-
tildwa (preserved in 9 mss, ed. Ahmad Farhat,
Damascus 1973) is considered as one of the earliest
systematic treatises on tadjwid. His Shark kalla wa-bald
wa-na c am wa ’l-wakf c ala kulli wahidatin minhunna wa-
dhikr ma c dmha wa- c ilaliha (4 mss., ed. Ahmad Farhat,
Damascus 1978) treats the rhetorical qualities of the
three particles monographically and is a useful source
for the study of Kur 5 an rhetorics. A work unique of
its kind is his K. al-Ibana jima c am 'l-kird^at (4 mss., ed.
Muhyl al-DTn Ramadan, Damascus 1979, previous
edition by c Abd al-Fattah ShalabT, Cairo 1960)
discussing problems arising from the existence of
several different and equally canonical readings.
Whereas his comprehensive Kurban commentary al-
Hidaya seems to be lost, his monograph on the special
tafslr problem of the abrogated verses is extant: al-Iddh
li-ndsikh al'KuPan wa-mansukhih (4 mss., ed. Ahmad
Farhat, Riyadh 1976). Makkfs work has in later
generations been overshadowed by that of his younger
colleague al-Danl and the later scholastic commen¬
taries resting upon al-Dani’s writings. Yet some of
MakkI’s treatises have exercised even a direct influ¬
ence on later scholars, see Pretzl, in GdQ iii, 214.
Some of his work has come to light again only in re¬
cent years, and has still to be studied as to its intrinsic
value and its impact on later developments.

Bibliography : Basic studies: G. Berg-
straesser and O. Pretzl, Geschichte des Qorans, iii. Die
Geschichte des Korantexts, Leipzig 1938, repr.
Hildesheim 1961, see Index, s.v. MakkI b. Abl
Talib; O. Pretzl, Die Wissenschaft der Koranlesung
( c ilm al-qird y a). Ihre literarischen Quellen und ihre
Aussprachegrundlagen (usul ), in Islamica, vi (1933-4),
1-47, 230-46, 290-331.

Biographical sources: Ibn Bashkuwal, K.
al-Sila fi la^rtkh aSmmat al-Andalus , Cairo 1966, ii,
631-3; Abu Barakat al-Anbari, Nuzhat al-alibba^ ft
tabakat al-udaba*, ed. I. al-SamarriPi, Baghdad
1970, 238; al-Dabbl, Bughyat al-multamis ji taSikh
ridjal ahl al-Andalus, Cairo 1967, 469; Yakut al-
Rumi, Mu c djam al-udaba > , ed. Margoliouth, Lon¬
don 1925, vi, 7, 173-5; ai-Kifti, Inbah al-ruwat c ala
anbah al-nuhal, ed. Abu TFadl Ibrahim, Cairo
1955, iii, 313-15; Ibn Kh allikan. Wafayat al-aSyan,
ed. I. c Abbas, Beirut 1968, v, 274-7; al-Dabbagh,
Ma c dlim al-imam ft ma c rifal ahl al-Kayrawan, ed. M.
Madur et alii , Tunis 1968-78, iii, 171-2; al-
Dhahabl, al- : Ibarfikhabar man ghabar, ed. F. Sayyid,
Kuwayt 1961, iii, 187; Ibn al-Djazarl, Tabakat al-
kurra \ ed. Bergstraesser, Cairo 1932, ii, 309-10; al-
Suyutl, Bughyat al-wu c dt, ed. Abu TFadl Ibrahim,
Cairo 1964, 396-7; al-Makkarl, Nafh al~ttb minghusn
al-Andalus al-ratib, ed. I. c Abbas, Beirut 1968, iii,
179. See also H. A. Idris, Deuxjuristes Kairouanais,
in AIEO Alger, xii (1954), 152; Ch. Bouyahia, La vie
litteraire sous les Zirides, Tunis 1972, 129-30.

(Angelika Neuyvirth)

MAKLI, the elongated, flat hilltop, running north
and south some 2 miles/3 km. to the northwest of the
city of Thaffha (Tatta or Thatta) [q.v.] in lower Sind
[ 9 . ] on the road to KaracI and now in Pakistan,
which served as a necropolis for the local Sam-
m a, Arghun, and Tarldian dynasties, besides
being the burial ground for countless thousands of or¬
dinary Muslims. The etymology is obscure, though
possibly derived from mukalla 5 “a river bank", as it
lies along the old bed of the Indus. Within its ir¬
regularly curving width, the mausolea are arranged in
roughly chronological order, with the oldest at the
northern end. Their architecture, strongly local and
somewhat provincial in character, though influenced
by buildings in Iran, is executed in two distinct
techniques; the brick characteristic of the country is
either clad in tilework, both polychrome and mosaic,
or built in courses alternating with glazed bricks
whose edges are recessed and glazed white to simulate
a mortar joint about 1.5 cm wide on two or more sides
(though some real mortar joints in white plaster can
also be found) to create a vertical emphasis, a horizon¬
tal one, or both. Other monuments, however, are in
carved ashlar of yellow, grey or red sandstone slabs on
a rubble core, which in many cases has crumbled with
disastrous effects; some of this stone is local, from
Djangshahl, and the rest imported from Radjputana
and Gudjarat. The brick buildings are set on stone
bases to withstand the rise of moisture charged with
destructive saltpetre. The glazes are generally white,
cobalt, and turquoise; though the tile designs may be
stereotyped, the technical standard of the dense red
brickwork is very high, and the true joints can hardly
be seen. Glazed brick in chevron patterns is also used
to face some domes internally, as may be seen in one
of the earliest buildings on the hill, the tomb of Fath
Khan’s sister (898/1492).

The mausoleum of t)jam Nizam al-Dln Nin-
do (915/1509) at the northernmost end of the site il¬
lustrates the recently Hindu origin of the Radjput
Sammas; square in plan, its four stone walls are
decorated entirely with Hindu carving, except for a
frieze of KuPanic inscriptions in beautiful thulth. The
almost cubical mass is articulated by twelve other
horizontal bands of motifs, including one of geese,
alternating with plain stone. This is set off by the
heavily-worked carving on the rear of the mihrab, sur¬
mounted by a corbelled balcony with arched open¬
ings. The incomplete nature of this work shows that
it has been borrowed from a Hindu temple, complete
with a miniature sikhara, though some panels are
Islamic. The interior is dominated by the use of
squinch arches, in tiers of first eight, then sixteen, to
carry the missing dome. Both their scale and the cor¬
belled technique are reminiscent of Iltutmish’s tomb
at Dihll ( ca. 632/1235), though the ornament is again
limited to flat bands, friezes and rosettes like tilework.
Two chatri pavilions nearby, each on eight columns,
also incorporate Hindu work, with corbelled domes,
monolithic banded pillars, and kalsd finials (late 15th
century).

_ The tomb of Sultan Ibrahim (966/1558), son of
c Isa Khan Tarkhan I, is an octagonal brick structure
surrounding a square cell inside with a carefully-
proportioned Persian dome on a cylindrical drum
above. Each of the faces houses a recess within a
pointed arch outside, those at the cardinal sides being
taller, and containing a door with a window above in
the flat iwan wall, while those at the angles form five-
faceted niches. It may have been derived from the
tomb of Mulla Hasan at Sultaniyya [q. v. ] (ca.
936/1530), though it lacks double storeys at the

190

MAKLI — al-MAKRAMI

angles, and its proportions are more compact. Traces
of turquoise tiling can be seen on the dome, though
little remains elsewhere except for three small panels
of KuHanic phrases, one of them signed. Another
cenotaph within is dated 952/1545, and that of Amir
Sultan Muhammad stands outside. The structure an¬
ticipates the monument to DjanI Beg (1009/1601),
and ultimately that to Asaf Kh an at Lahawr [q.v.].

The tomb of Tsa Khan Tarkhan I (973/1565)
with five others of his family lies in the centre of a
court whose stone walls still stand. Outside, recessed
panels house blank arches with rosettes in relief, and
arched dfali screens alternately, under bold string
courses which rise around the pishtak of the entrance.

It is Iranian in its restraint. The mausoleum of the ap¬
parently paranoid Mirza Muhammad BakI
Tarkhan (d. 993/1585), which follows the same pat¬
tern, still has merlons over the pishtak, diaper-work on
the lintel, and bolder entrance steps; the inscription
shows it to have been built for his son Shah-zada
Shahrukh in 992/1584. Like other enclosures of this
type, the court has been used for subsequent family
burials in separate compartments over a generation.
Just to the south again, the similar mausoleum of
Ahinsa Ba 5 I (995/1587) has finely-carved relief be¬
tween the string-courses, in a frieze of palmettes car¬
ried over a tall mihrab to the west, and the $ali frets
are geometrically more intricate.

Although Mlrza DjanI Beg, the last indepen¬
dent Tarkhan ruler, died while in submission to
Akbar’s court, he too was buried at Makli, in the
southernmost great tomb, in 1009/1601. Set in a once '
similar stone enclosure, with fine KuHanic epigraphs
around the gate, which has four rosettes set boldly in
the tympanum, and over the mihrab elaborated with a
faceted recess, flanked by miniature lotus posts and
superimposed aedicules, the mausoleum itself is a
domed octagon, whose alternating courses of Venetian
red and turquoise brick, with both joints picked out in
white glaze, reflect the alternately broad and narrow
coursing of the yellow sandstone. The plan differs
from Sultan Ibrahim’s tomb only in that the panels
housing the angle arches are recessed. The outer
dome has fallen, though its septal reinforcements re¬
main. The inner one still carries sections of tilework,
and on the walls below is a tiled dado, which once had
a counterpart outside. The three iwans and the tym¬
panum of the doorway to the south house geometric
(jjfllis, surmounted by panels of Kur’anic inscription
in white on cobalt.

The building housing the tomb of Djan Baba (d.
1017/1608), with others from 964/1557 onwards, is by
contrast a rectangular pavilion originally covered by
three domes, of which the central one remains. The
brown stone enclosure wall is heavily carved with both
relief and incised work, with blank arcading carrying
fully developed pole medallions and rosettes. The rich
mihrab, with mukarnas vaulting, is housed in a
carefully-conceived two storied backing.

The mausoleum of c Isa Khan Tarkhan II (d.
1054/1644) combines a square domed central cell with
surrounding verandahs in two stories, two rows of ten
square columns being on each face. The middle two
columns in the outer row rise free of the gallery
behind, like those of the Djami c Masdjid at
Ahmadabad, to support triple arches with lotus-buds
on the intrados, below a remarkable rising parapet
which is effectively a pishtak for each face. The main
dome, surmounted by a mahapadma finial, is sur¬
rounded by low hemispherical ones over each bay; it
has, unusually, eight facets. The buff Kafhiawar
sandstone surfaces of walls, pillars and lintels are

wrought with carving of both types which in its swar¬
ming intricacy recalls that of Fathpur Sikri (1568-85)
[q.v. ]. The monolithic pillars of the upper level have
scrolled bracket capitals of an Indian type, but those
below have tapering honeycombs of a western Islamic
kind. The building is at the centre of a large court
with high stone walls, arcaded within, and with a
massive iwan in the middle of each side once crowned
by a smooth squinched vault. Hindu influence is evi¬
dent in the dparokha balconies projecting either side of
these, and in the rows of niches forming the plinth.
The work is reported to have been built in the
Nawwab’s life-time.

Best preserved is the tomb of the Diwan Shurfa
Khan (1048/1638), again a square cell rising into a
dome, with an iwan on each cardinal face outside, but
here the corners are built as heavy cylindrical towers
containing spiral stairs, and the dome, slightly
bulbous above a recessed springing, is apparently the
first of its kind in Northern India: it is close to that of
the Masdjid-i Shah at Mashhad (855/1451) in shape,
and was once sheathed in light blue tile. The walls,
outside and in, are of unglazed red brick with blue
strips in the joints. Glazed bricks make a chevron pat¬
tern inside the dome, with bands of tiles below. The
cenotaph and headstone carry especially fine carving.
Another bulbous dome, with more pronounced
shoulders, roofs the open tomb of Tughrul Beg
(1090/1679), surrounded by merlons and cha didia s.
above twelve carved square pillars. Honeycomb
capitals support a trabeated octagon below the arches
of an Islamic zone of transition, and chevron vaulting.

Bibliography. The available material is
uneven. For tilework, see H. Cousens, Portfolio of il¬
lustrations of Sind tiles, London 1906. His descrip¬
tions of Makli in his Antiquities of Sind, Calcutta
1929, repr. Oxford and Karachi 1975, contains
some mistakes in identification and dating, particu¬
larly of BakI Beg with Muhammad BakI Tarkhan
(p. 119). Shamsuddin Ahmad, A guide to Tattah and
the Makli Hill, Karachi 1952, is still a useful pocket
guide, but dates need revision; M. Idris Siddiqi,
Thatta, Karachi 1958 and Islamabad 1970; M. A.
Ghafur, Muslim architecture in Sind area, Karachi
1964; idem. The calligraphers of Thatta, Karachi 1978
(useful history and dating, with transcriptions of
epigraphy); Shaukat Mahmood, Islamic inscriptions
in Pakistani architecture to 1707, unpublished Ph.D.
thesis, Edinburgh 1981, 3 vols., 254-320 (new
analyses of inscriptions and chronograms). See also
hind. vii. Architecture, xii. Sind.

(P. A. Andrews)

al-MAKRAMI, Safi al-dIn Muhammad b. Fahd,
the progenitor of the Makrami (pi. al-
Makarima, so called after their supposed ancestor Ibn
Makram b. Saba 5 b. Himyar al-Asghar) family
which headed the Sulayman! branch of the Isma c fll-
Musta c ll-Tayyibl da < wa [see isma c iliyya] in Yaman
and also wielded political power in Nadjran [q.v.]
during the past two centuries.

He was appointed by Sulayman b. Hasan (d.
1005/1597) [q.v. ] as the acting da c i to manage the af¬
fairs of the da c wa during the minority of his son
Dja c far b. Sulayman. He lived first in Tayba, a town
northwest of San c a 5 , then migrated to Nadjran where
he preached and succeeded in winning the confidence
of the most influential Yam [ q.v .] tribe settled in that
region (Fuad Hamza, Najran, in JR CAS, xxii [1935],
631-40; the author, an official of the Saudi Arabian
government, visited Nadjran probably in 1934 and
derived his information from the then deputy of the
da% Husayn b. Ahmad al-Makraml). Here in the

al-MAKRAMI — MAKRAMIDS

191

Yam territory he took Badr, situated at an altitude of
6,600 feet in wadi Badr, which later became the
MakramI capital, as his new residence and died there
on 1 Sha c ban 104-2/11 February 1633. Through his
farsightedness the groundwork laid by him among the
Yam came to fruition in the succeeding generations
by providing the Yam! support for the da z wa and
thereby raising its religious prestige in the Nadjran
province. He was also a prolific author. Most of his
works deal with the succession dispute after the death
of Dawud b. c Adjab in ca. 999/1591 which split the
Musta c li-Tayyibl da c wa into the Dawudi and
Sulaymanl branches (for a comprehensive list see I.K.
Poonawala, Biobibliography of IsmaHli literature, Malibu
1977, 244-6).

Bibliography, in addition to the works cited in
the article: c Abd Allah al-Djarafi, al-Muktataf min
ta^rikh al-Yaman, Cairo 1951, 233; Mustafa

al-Dabba gh . Diazirat al- c Arab, Beirut 1963, i,
234-5, 270; M. Wenner, Modern Yemen, 1918-66,
Baltimore 1967, 34, 76-7. (I. Poonawala)

MAKRAMIDS, a family which has held the
spiritual and political leadership of the Banu Yam
[q.v.] and the Sulaymanl IsmaTlI community [see
isma c ?liyya] in Nadjran and Yaman since the
11 th/17th century. The name evidently refers to the
Banu Makram of Hamdan who are settled in Tayba
in the Wadi Dahr and in some other villages to the
west of San c a 3 . There is evidence that the family came
from Tayba, an old Isma c IlI stronghold. A pedigree
linking them rather to a Makram b. Saba 3 b. Himyar
al-Asghar is fictitious. The term Makarima is often
also extended to their followers.

The earliest known member of the family, Safi al-
DTn Muhammad b. al-Fahd al-Makraml [q.v.\, is said
to have been the first of them to settle in the town of
Badr in the Wadi Hibawna in northern Nadjran,
which later remained the usual residence of the
MakramI da c is. When Sulayman b. Hasan, founder of
the Sulaymanl da c wa and its 27th da c i mutlak since the
disappearance of the Imam al-Tayyib, died in
1005/1597, he became acting (mustawda c ) da c i during
the minority of Sulayman’s son Dja c far, the 28th da c i
mutlak. He wrote numerous treatises, mostly polemics
against the Dawudi da^wa, and died in 1042/1633. A
Djabir b. al-Fahd al-Makraml, also known as the
author of a religious treatise, was probably his
brother. Safi al-Dln’s son Ibrahim succeeded to the
leadership of the Sulaymanl community as the 30th
daft mutlak in 1088/1677, and died in 1094/1683 in
Nadjran (according to H. St. J. Philby, Arabian
Highlands, Ithaca 1952, 358, in Tayba). Since then,
the position has remained in various branches of the
family except in the time of the 46th da% the Indian
Husam al-Dln Ghulam Husayn (1355-7/1936-8). A
list of the Sulaymanl chief daHs and their death dates
has been given by A. A. A. Fyzee (JBBRAS, N.S. x
[1934], 13-14, xvi [1940], 101-4), followed and con¬
tinued by I. Poonawala ( Biobibliography of IsmaHli
literature, Malibu 1977, 368-9), and a geneaological
chart of the family is provided by Philby {op. cit ., 719).
The 43rd da c i, whose name is given there as c Abd
Allah b. c Ali, was, according to E. Glaser, c Abd Allah
b. Ahmad b. Isma c Il, son of the 42nd d&H (see D. H.
Muller and N. Rhodokanakis, eds., Eduard Glasers
Reise nach Marib, Vienna 1913, 128). Nos. 48 and 49
in Poonawala’s list are evidently identical.

The Makram! da c is remained politically indepen¬
dent as rulers of Yam until the inclusion of Nadjran
in the Sa c udl kingdom in 1934. Their history is only
fragmentarily known from occasional reports, mostly
in YamanI and Wahhabi chronicles. The Zaydl Imam
al-Mansur al-Husayn b. al-Mutawakkil after his ac¬

cession in 1131/1719 sought the support of the tribes
of Yam and the Makramls under the 32nd daH Hibat
Allah b. Ibrahim (1109-60/1697-1747) against rebels
in his family and, in recognition of their services,
granted him control of the Isma c IlI territories of Haraz
in Yaman. When his rule was solidly established, al-
Mansur tried to recover Haraz, provoking raids of the
Yam into his territories in Tihama. At this time,
Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Khayrat, amir of Abu
c ArIsh and the Mikhlaf al-Sulaymanl, sought an
alliance with them against hostile tribes. Overthrown
by his uncle Hawdhan in 1157/1744, he found refuge
in Nadjran and was restored to power by an army of
Yam. The Makramls thereafter continued to in¬
terfere, by force and diplomacy, in the affairs of the
Al Khayrat dynasty until its fail ca. 1285/1868. They
were aided by the fact that the Al Khayrat were usual¬
ly forced to employ Yam mercenaries as the backbone
of their army.

The power of the MakramI da c is reached a peak
under Hibat Allah’s son and successor Diya 3 al-Dln
Isma c Il (1160-84/1747-70). Isma c Il asserted his
authority over the Isma c fll community in Yaman by
conquering a mountain fortress in Sa c fan (before
1164/1751) and holding it against all attacks of the
Zaydl imam and of the adventurer Abu c Ulama al-
Mashdja c I. He forced the amir Muhammad al-
Khayratl into an alliance. According to modern
HadramI authors, he invaded Hadramawt, for the
first time in 1170/1756-7, and pretended to uphold the
sharia there and to abolish tribal law and customs.
The MakramI sway over Hadramawt appears to have
lasted for some time, perhaps still during the reign of
his brother Hasan (see R. B. Serjeant, Hud and other
pre-lslamic prophets of Hadramawt, in Le Museon, lvii
[ 1954), 132, repr. in idem, Studies in Arabian history and
civilization, London 1981, with addendum, p. 1). In
1178/1764 he invaded Nadjd and inflicted a crushing
defeat on the Wahhabis at al-Ha 3 ir. He pushed on
further, approaching al-Riyad, but then agreed to a
settlement and withdrew, spurning the offer of an
alliance and joint anti-Wahhabi action by c Uray c ir,
the ruler of al-Ahsa 3 . The Wahhabi chronicles seem to
be mistaken in identifying the leader of the campaign
as Hasan b. Hibat Allah. They, as well as Niebuhr,
describe the leader as the lord of Nadjran. Yet it is cer¬
tain that Hasan did not succeed his brother Isma c fl
before the latter’s death six years later. Isma c Il is also
the author of an esoteric Isma c IlI commentary on the
Kur 3 an, Mizaff al-tasnim (ed. R. Strothmann, Got¬
tingen 1944-55), of answers to questions by Hasan b.
Sahna 3 and of other works (listed by Strothmann, op.
cit., introd. 39). His brother and successor Hasan b.
Hibat Allah (1184-9/1770-5) after his accession reaf¬
firmed the MakramI domination in the territories of
Muhammad al-Khayratl, who had tried to assert his
independence, by defeating him and occupying the
town of Harad for two months. In 1189/1775 he led
a second campaign against the Wahhabis to al-Ha 3 ir
and Durma. The Wahhabi defence proved more ef¬
fective this time, and Hasan, struck by illness, decided
to retreat and died on the way back. In 1202/1788
“the lord of Nadjran”, presumably the 36th <7a c f c Abd
Allah b. C A1I (1195-1225/1781-1810), joined forces
with some of {he tribes of al-Dawasir in order to pre¬
vent the Wahhabis from taking possession of this
region neighbouring Nadjran, but was forced to
retreat unsuccessfully. In 1220/1805 Sa c ud b. c Abd
al- c Az!z sent a numerous Wahhabi army to conquer
Nadjran. After an unsuccessful assault on Badr, the
Wahhabis built a fortress near the town and left a gar¬
rison there.

The Makramls now became more active in Yaman.

192

MAKRAMIDS — MAKRAN

In 1237/1822 they seized ZabTd for six months, and in
1241/1825-6 they sacked al-Hudayda. In 1256/1840
they took possession of al-Manakha. the capital of
Haraz. The 41st da% Hasan b. Isma c fl b. Muhsin Al
Shibam al-Makraml (1262-89/1846-72), who be¬
longed to a collateral line of unknown relationship to
the main branch of the family, established himself
there and pursued expansionist designs. In 1277/1860
he seized al-Hayma and held it against all Zaydf ef¬
forts to expel him. Other conquests were of less dura¬
tion. According to Manzoni (El Yemen , Rome 1884,
177-8), he entered into an anti-Ottoman alliance with
the Khedive Isma c Il of Egypt, cut the Ottoman trade
between al-Hudayda and San^ 5 , and raided the Ot¬
toman provinces of al-Hudayda and al-Luhayya. In
1289/1872 the Ottoman Ahmad Mukhtar Pasha set
out from al-Hudayda to conquer Haraz. The daH sur¬
rendered in the mountain fortress of c Attara after
having received a promise of safety. When the Pasha
was informed of the heretical doctrines contained in
the captured IsmaTlI books, he ordered the dd c i, his
sons and other leading MakramTs to be sent to the
Porte. The da c i died on the way in al-Hudayda,
perhaps murdered, and his son Ahmad perished at
sea. Thereafter, the Makramf da c fs again resided in
Badr. They reached a modus vivendi with the Ottomans
in Yaman and declined an invitation of the Sayyid
Muhammad b. C A1I al-IdrlsT, ruler of c AsIr, to join an
anti-Ottoman alliance, fearing Ottoman reprisals
against their possessions in Haraz.

In 1352/1933, after the failure of prolonged Sa c udl-
Yamanl negotiations concerning the status of
Nadjran, the army of Imam Yahya Hamid al-Dln seiz¬
ed Badr. The 45th daH, C A1I b. Muhsin Al Shibam
(1331-55/1913-36), probably a descendant of Hasan
b. Isma c Il, fled to Abha in Sa c udl territory. The
YamanI army destroyed the houses of the MakramI
da c fs and desecrated the tombs of their ancestors.
Strong local reaction forced it to withdraw and paved
the way for the Sa c udl takeover of Nadjran, which was
sealed by the Sa c udl-Yamani treaty of May 1934. c AlI
b. Muhsin was allowed to return to Badr, and all
members of the family in Nazran, said to have
numbered 145, were given a small pension by the
Sa c udl government in lieu of the contributions which
they used to receive from their followers.

Bibliography (In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the article): anon., Tuhfat al-zaman fima
djara min al-nukat bi-kiyam Abf c Ulama ft ’l-Yaman,
ms. Brit. Mus. Or. 3790, fols. 14a, 16a; C.
Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, Copenhagen
1772, 250, 267, 172-4, 347; Ibn Ghannam, Rawdat
al-afkar, Bombay n.d., ii, 76-8, 101-2, 103-5,
150-1; Ibn Bishr, c Unwdn al-madjd, Mecca 1349, i,
47-8, 63-4, 136; al-Nu c amI, Ta^rtkh al-Yaman, ms.
Brit. Mus. Or. 3265, fols. 170-1, 182b, 185b, 219b;
al-HarazI, Riyad al-rayahtn, ms. Brit. Mus. Or.
3912, fols. 52b, 59, 60b, 61a, 65a, 66a, 70b,
74a-75a; Ahmad Rashid, Ta^nkh Yaman wa-San c d ■*,
Istanbul 1291, i, 265, 301, 311-2, ii, 86-90, 206; al-
Wasi c I, Tahikh al-Yaman, Cairo 1346/1927-8, 83,
85, 102-3, 106, 108, al-DjarafT, al-Muktataf min
ta^rikh al-Yaman, Cairo 1951, 205, 207, 243-4; al-
Sayyid Mu§tafa Salim, Takwfn al-Yaman al-hadith 2 ,
Cairo 1971, 367-70; Muhammad b. Ahmad
al- c Ak!lI, Ta : rikh al-Mikhldf al-SulaymanP , al-Riyad
1982, esp. i, 393-424, ii, 1111-14. The anonymous
Yemenite chronicle published by c Abd Allah
Muhammad al-Hibshl under the title Hawliyyat
Yamaniyya min sanat 1224 h. ila sanat 1316 h. , n.p.,
n.d. [1980?], gives some variant dates for the
MakramI campaigns in the first half of the 19th
century (pp. 17-18, 28, 36). (W. Madelung)

MAKRAN, the coastal region of southern
Balucistan, extending roughly from the Somniani
Bay in the East to the eastern fringes of the region of
Bashkardia [see bashkard in Suppl.] in the west. The
modern political boundary between Pakistan and Iran
thus bisects the mediaeval Makran. The east-to-west
running Siyahan range of mountains, just to the north
of the Mashkel and Ra khsh an valleys, may be regard¬
ed as Makran’s northern boundary. In British Indian
times, this range formed the boundary between the
southwestern part of the Kalat native state [see kilat]
and the Kharan one [q.v.)\ the easternmost part of
Makran fell within the other native state of Las Bela
[q.v. ]. At this time, the part of Makran within British
India was often called Kec Makran to distinguish it
from Persian Makran.

The topography of Makran comprises essentially
east-west running parallel ranges of mountains; the
coastal range, going up to 5,180 feet; the central
Makran range, going up to 7,500 feet; and the
Siyahan range, going up to 6,760 feet. Between these
lie the narrow Kec valley and the rather wider
Ra khsh an-Mashkel one, where some agricultural ac¬
tivity, chiefly dates, cereals and rice, can be practised
by irrigation. Considerable fishing is possible from the
coastland itself, otherwise arid, but this region
possesses few major harbours, except for Pasni and
Gwadar [q.v. in Suppl.] in what is now Pakistani
Makran, and Cahbahar (now an important base of
the Iranian Navy, with free access to the Indian
Ocean) and Djask in what is now Persian Makran.
The only inland town of significance in Pakistani
Makran is Turbat, in the Kec valley; the main towns
of inland Persian Makran are NIkshahr, Bampur
[q.v. ] and the modern administrative centre of Persian
Balucistan, Iranshahr (the mediaeval Fahradj).
Climatically, the coasts are in part affected by the
southwestern monsoon, but the inland parts are ex¬
tremely hot and arid. Makran as a whole can never
have supported more than an exiguous population.

The etymology of the name Makran has been much
discussed, but the popular Persian etymology from
mdhi-khiirdn “fish eaters”, echoing the Greek des¬
cription of the inhabitants of the coastlands as
ichthyophagoi, cannot of course be credited. More likely
is a connection with the name Magan, which is known
in texts of the Sumerian and old Akkadian period as
a territory somewhere in or beyond the lower Persian
Gulf region having trade connections with Mesopo¬
tamia. Recently, J. Hansman has propounded the
identification of the ancient Magan with modern
western, substantially Persian, Makran, and the other
region of Melukhkha, described as being beyond
Magan according to the ancient Mesopotamian texts,
with modern Pakistani Makran (A Periplus of Magan
andMeluhha, in BSOAS, xxxvi [1973], 554-87). Magan
would therefore be the Maka of the Old Persian in¬
scriptions (described as a satrapy of Darius, and here
apparently covering the whole of Makran or
Balucistan), and the Makarene, seemingly so-called in
the Seleucid period and certainly called thus in Byzan¬
tine Greek sources; but a derivation from Magan does
not explain the intrusive r of Makran. By the time of
Alexander the Great, eastern Makran was known to
the Greeks as Gedrosia and its people as Gedrosii (a
name possibly Iranian in origin, hence younger than
the ancient one Melukhkha); the conqueror travelled
through here on his way back from the Indus valley in
325 B.C., turning northwestwards and inland, prob¬
ably from near modern Gwadar, to the Bampur valley
and the Djaz Muryan depression, whilst his general
Nearchus sailed along the Makran coast to Charax at
the head of the Gulf. In Parthian usage we have the

MAKRAN — al-MAKRIZI

193

form Makuran (Mkwrn in the Shapur inscription of
the Ka c ba-yi Zaradusht) and in Pahlavi the form
Makulan (MkwPn) in the Kartir inscription of Naksh-
i Rustam) (P. Gignoux, Glossaire des inscriptions
pehlevies et parthes, Corpus inscriptionum iranicarum,
Suppl. Series, i, London 1972, 28, 57), echoed in ear¬
ly Islamic times in the Makurran/Mukurran of Arabic
poetry (e.g. al-Hakam b. c Amr al-Taghlibl, in al-
Tabari, i, 2708, and A c §ha Hamdan, Diwan, ed.
Geyer, 328). In general, however, eastern Makran
must have remained until the Muslim invasions with¬
in the cultural and political sphere of India, and latter¬
ly under the influence of the Brahman kings of Sind.

Arab raiders reputedly entered Makran from Kir¬
man during c Umar’s caliphate, but were deterred by
the appalling desolation and inhospitableness of the
terrain (sentiments subsequently further expressed by
A c sha Hamdan in his verses, see loc. cit.). In
Mu c awiya’s caliphate, Ziyad b. Ablhi, governor of
the east, sent thither Sinan b. Salama b. al-Muhabbik
al-Hudhall, who planted a garrison there; according
to another tradition, Makran was invaded by Hakim
b. Djabala al- c AbdT (al-Baladhurl. Futdh, 433-4;
Yakut, Buldan, ed. Beirut, v, 179-80). From here,
raids were directed northwards into KTkan in the
region known to the Arabs at the time as Turan [ q.v.
in EP\, which came to contain the mediaeval Islamic
town of Kusdar [q. v. ], and Makran also formed the
springboard for Muhammad b. Kasim al-ThakafT’s
invasion of Sind [q.v. ] in 92/711.

The mediaeval Islamic geographers describe
Makran as a region of scant population and few
amenities, its main product being sugar-cane syrup
( famdh , see EP art. sukkar). The Hudud al- c alam ( ca.
372/982), tr. 123, § 27, comm. 373, reckons Makran
as part of Sind. It names TTz, in the Cahbahar bay,
as Makran’s chief port, together with inland towns
which were centres of trading like Kiz or KTdj
(modern Kec), the seat of the king of Makran, and
Rask, Pandjbur, etc.; Tlz is described by al-
Mukaddasi, 478, as a flourishing port with fine riba} s,
and Pandjbur as the kasaba or chef-lieu of the region.
The local ruler of Makran whose seat was at Kiz must
have been from the family mentioned in connection
with early Ghaznavid history. According to
Miskawayh, in 7 'adjarib al-umam, ii, 298-9, tr. v,
320-1, c Adud al-Dawla’s general c Abid b. c AlI had
penetrated to TTz and western Makran in 360/970 as
part of the operations to subdue the disturbed pro¬
vince of Kirman, and had brought all these regions
under Buyid allegiance (cf. Bosworth, The Banu Ilyas
ojKirman (320-57/932-68), in Iran and Islam, in memory
oj the late Vladimir Minor sky, ed. idem, Edinburgh 1971,
117-18). With the subsequent rise of the Ghaznawids
[q.v.\, the local ruler of Makran, named by BayhakT
as Ma c dan, submitted to Sebiiktigin and Mahmud.
After 417/1026, his son c Isa likewise acknowledged
Ghaznawid suzerainty, but Sultan Mahmud’s son
Mas c ud during 421-2/1030-1 sent an army into
Makran which placed c Isa’s brother Abu ’l- c Askar on
the throne there; clearly, Makran was at this time a
loosely-tributary state of the Ghaznawid empire on
the same sort of footing as the Ziyarids of Gurgan and
Tabaristan or the Saffarids of Slstan before the im¬
position of Ghaznawid direct rule in 393/1003 (M.
Nazim, The life and times oj Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna,
Cambridge 1931, 79-80; R. Gelpke, Sultan Mas c ud I.
von Gazna. Die drei ersten Jahre seiner Herrschajt
(42111030-424!1033), Munich 1957, 87-9).

During the succeeding centuries, Makran appears
little on the general scene of eastern Islamic history.
At times, outside empires, like those of the Ghurids
and Kh w arazm-Shahs and the amirs of the 11-

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

Khanids after the death of Abu Sa c Id (Ibn Battuta, ii,
124; amir Malik Dinar), exercised some measure of
suzerainty there, but local potentates must have held
all internal power. Marco Polo sailed along the
Makran coast on his way home in 1290, describing it
as Kesmacoran (= Kidj Makran) and as the last of
the provinces of India, under a separate ruler of its
own (Sir Henry Yule, The book of Ser Marco Polo the
Venetian, London 1871, ii, 334-5; cf. P. Pelliot, Notes
on Marco Polo , ii, 759-60). It was during these cen¬
turies that Makran was largely colonised by Balu£
tribes, Makran being predominantly Baluffi-speaking
today. The region’s history may now be followed in
the EP art. baloCistan and the EP arts, kilat and
LAS BELA.

Bibliography, (in addition to references given
in the article): W. Tomaschek, Zur historische
Topographie von Persiens, in SB Ak. Wien, cii (1883),
44 ff.; Pauly-Wissowa, vii/1, cols. 895-903, art.
Gedrosia (Kiessling); Sir Thomas Holdich, Notes on
ancient and mediaeval Makran , in Geogr. Jnal., vii
(1896), 387-405; Le Strange, The lands of the Eastern
Caliphate, 329-30; Marquart, Erdnsahr, 31-4,
179 ff.; R. Hughes-Buller, Baluchistan District
gazeteers series, vii. Makran, Bombay 1906.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MAKRIN b. Muhammad al-Buchturi [see
al-bughturI],

al-MAKRIZI, TakT al-DIn Abu ’1- c Abbas Ahmad
b. c AlI b. c Abd al-Kadir (766-845/1364-1442),
Egyptian historian.

His father (d. 779/1378 at the age of fifty), married
a daughter of the wealthy philologist and jurist Ibn al-
Sa’igh (d. 776/1375). He was born in Cairo, ap¬
parently in 765/1363-4. The nisba MakrizI refers to a
quarter in Ba c labakk where his paternal family came
from. His paternal grandfather, c Abd al-Kadir b.
Muhammad (ca. 677-733/1278-1332, see Ibn Hadjar,
Durar , ii, 391 f.) was a Hanball, his maternal grand¬
father, who influenced his early upbringing, a HanafT.
His father was a Shafril, and he himself opted for
Shafriism in early manhood; he also developed (non-
juridical) Zahiri tendencies (cf. I. Goldziher, Die
Zdhiriten, Leipzig 1884, 196-202). He received the
thorough education of a youth born into a well-to-do
scholarly family, studying with famous scholars and
eventually being able to boast of “600 shaykhs. ,y Like
his father, but with greater success initially, he exer¬
cised a variety of administrative and scholarly func¬
tions, such as those of writer of tawkP s, deputy judge,
muhtasib (for terms lasting only a few months each in
801, 802, and 807), preacher in the Mosque of c Amr
and the Madrasa of al-Hasan, imam and chief ad¬
ministrator of the Mosque of al-Hakim, and professor
of hadith in the Mu^ayyadiyya. In Damascus, where
he spent about ten years beginning in 810/1408, he
held teaching positions at the Aghrafiyya and
Ikbaliyya, and was chief financial administrator of the
Kalanisiyya and the great Nuri Hospital, although
this last position was reserved by law for the Shafi c I
judge of Damascus. He had actually been offered that
judgeship by al-Nasir b. Barkuk, but had refused.
While in Syria, he appears to have decided to give up
an unsatisfactory public career and devote himself
full-time to historical scholarship (instead of part-time
as he had done before). He did so after his return to
Egypt. He spent a number of years in Mecca and died
in Cairo in early February 1442. The last of his
children had died already in 826/1423 (Suluk, iv, 2,
651). A nephew, Na$ir al-Dln Muhammad b.
Muhammad (801-67/1399-1462), survived him (al-
Sakhawl. Daw ix, 150).

The germs of his determination to become an

194

al-MAKRIZI — MAKS

historian were perhaps planted by Ibn Khaldun, with
whom he appears to have been on familiar terms; ac¬
cording to Daw *, ii, 24, he once predicted on the basis
of Ibn Khaldun’s horoscope when the latter would
again be appointed to office. With his fellow
historians, such as al- c AynI [q.v. ] and Ibn Hadjar, he
seems to have had professional, and perhaps also per¬
sonal, difficulties, although relations remained out¬
wardly proper. Ibn Hadjar’s devoted student
al-SakhawI displays an outspokenly negative attitude
toward him. His contemporaries were sometimes
critical of his scholarship, cf., e.g., Ibn Ta gh ribirdi.
Nudjum, ed. Popper, vi, 756, tr., part iv, 143, anno
841. Yet his works were not only numerous and often
planned on the grand scale, but they also proved to be
of lasting importance.

For older editions, translations, and studies, most
of them still useful for scholarship, see Brockelmann
(below, Bibliography), whose bibliographical references
are not repeated here. Best known is al-MawaHz wa 7-
iHibdrfidhikr al-khitat wa ’l-dthar, commonly referred to
as Khitat (the incomplete ed. of G. Wiet covers about
one-half of the ed. Bulak 1270, repr. Beirut, ca. 1970;
English translation by K. Stowasser in progress). It
deals with the topography of Fustat and Cairo as well
as with Alexandria and Egyptian history in general.
According to the critical Ibn Hadjar (al-SakhawT). al-
Makrizi used much of the material assembled earlier
by al-Awhadl (761-811/1359-1408). He made no
mention of that in the Khitat (in the way in which, for
instance, Ibn Kutlubugha acknowledged that he had
used al-MakrlzI’s notes for his Tadf al-taradfim ), but
elsewhere he spoke of his indebtedness to al-Awhadi
(see Daw*, i, 358 f.). The accusation of plagiarism
seems much too harsh. The preservation of older
sources now apparently lost is one of the Khitat' s
greatest merits.

Among his many other works are a history of the
Fatimids ( IttPdz al-hunafd *, ed. Djamal al-DTn al-
Shayyal, Cairo 1367/1948, 1387/1967; ed. A. Hilmy,
Cairo, 1971-3, see C. Cahen and M. Adda, in
Arabica, xxii [1975], 302-20) and a history of the
Ayyubids and Mamluks {al-Suluk li-ma c rifat al-muluk,
ed. M. M. Ziyada and S. C A. c Ashur, Cairo 1934-73;
English translation of the history of the Ayyubids by
R. J. C. Broadhurst [Boston 1980]; for source studies,
see e.g. D. P. Little, in JSS, xix [1974], 252-68), also
extensive biographical works, which remained un¬
completed, on prominent Egyptians, entitled al-
Mukaffa and Durar al-^ukud, as well as a world history,
al-Khabar c an al-bashar, which he also did not live to
complete; it contains his last eloquent statement on
the value of history. His short monographs are re¬
markable for the interesting subjects they deal with,
such as the differences between Umayyads and
c Abbasids (al-Niza c wa ’l-takhasum , ed. G. Vos, Leiden
1888, Cairo 1937; Eng. tr. C. E. Bosworth Al-
MagrizVs “Book of contention and strife... ”, Manchester
1981, see idem in Islam: past influence and present
challenge = W. M. Watt Festschrift, Edinburgh 1979,
93-104), the Arab tribes which came _to Egypt ( al-
Bayan wa ’ l-i c rab , ed. c Abd al-Madjid c Abidm, Cairo
1961), the Muslim rulers of Ethiopia (al-Ilman bi-akhbar
man bi-ard al-Habasha min muhik al-Islam), or the
geography of the Hadramawt ( al-Turfa al -gh ariba ). His
interest in the economic factors in history is evident in
the Suluk and in treatises on measures and on coins
(al-Nadjaf 1387/1967, Turkish translation by i. Ar-
tuk, in Belleten, xvii [1953], 367-92) as well as on
famines and inflation in Egypt ( Ighathat al-umma,
Cairo 1940; ed. al-Shayyal, Cairo 1957; French
translation by G. Wiet, in JESHO, v [1962], 1-90). A

work on certain aspects of the biography of the Proph¬
et ( Imta c al-asma c , ed. Mahmud Shakir. Cairo 1941),
a biography of TamTm al-Dari {Daw* al-sari, ed. M.
A. c Ashur, Cairo 1392/1972), a treatise on caliphs
and rulers who performed the pilgrimage (al-Dhahab
al-masbuk, ed. al-Shavval. Cairo 1955), a discussion of
the preferred position of the Prophet’s family ( Ma c rifat
md yadjibu li-dl al-bayt al-sharif min al-hakk c ala man
c adahum, ed. M. A. c Ashur, Cairo 1973), attest to his
religious interests, as does a work on dogmatics not
yet studied {Tadfrldal-tawhfd, cf. also al-Bayan al-mufid
fi ’ l-fark bayn al-tawhid wa ’ l-talhid \ of somewhat doubt¬
ful attribution, ed. and tr. by G. C. Anawati, see
MI DEO, xii [1974], 150). He also published brief
treatises on minerals {al-Makasid al-saniyya) and bees
flbar , or Dhikr al-nahl, ed. al-Shayyal, Cairo 1946).
A general work on geography, entitled Dj ami c al-azhar
min al-Rawd al-mi : tar, has not yet been sufficiently
studied, see Ibn c Abd al-Mun c im al-Himyari, at the
end.

Bibliography. Ibn Hadjar, Inba*, ix,
Hyderabad 1396/1976, 170-2; SakhawT. Daw*, ii,
21-25; Ibn Ta gh ribirdi. Manhal, ed. A. Y. Nadjati,
Cairo 1375/1956, i, 394-9, and Nudfum, ed. W.
Popper, vi, 277-9, tr., part v, 182. Still later
biographical notes, such as the one in Ibn Iyas, ed.
M. Mostafa, ii, 231 f. (Bibl. I si. 5b), contain no
new information. Further, Brockelmann, II, 47-50,
675, S II, 36-8, also EP, art. al-Makrlzi; Dirasat c an
al-Maknzi, Cairo 1391/1971 (lectures given in 1966
by six scholars). (F. Rosenthal)

MAKRUH (a.) “reprehensible action, action
disapproved of’, one of the five juridical
qualifications ( ahkdm [q.v. ]) of human actions ac¬
cording to the Sharia [f.i;.].

MAKS, toll, customs duty, is a loanword in
Arabic and goes back to the Aramaic maksa, cf.
Hebrew mekes and Assyr. miksu; from it is formed a
verb m-k-s I, II, III and makkas, the collector of
customs. According to the Arabic tradition preserved
in Ibn Slda, even in the Djahiliyya there were market-
dues called maks, so that the word must have entered
Arabic very early. It is found in Arabic papyri
towards the end of the 1st century A.H.

C. H. Becker dealt with the history of the maks,
especially in Egypt, and we follow him here. The old
law books use maks in the sense of c ushr, the tenth
levied by the merchants, more properly the equivalent
of an excise duty than of a custom. They still show
some opposition to the maks, then give it due legal
force, but the word continued to have unpleasant
association, cf. the hadith : inna sahib al-maks fi ’l-nar
“the tax-collector will go to hell’’: Goldziher has sug¬
gested that the Jewish view of the publican may have
had some influence here. There are six traditions
about maks in the Kitdb al-Amwdl by Abu c Ubayd al-
Kasim b. Sallam (Cairo 1353, nos. 1624-9,
Brockelmann, S I, 166), and al-SuyutT wrote a Risala
ft dhamm al-maks (Brockelmann, II, 152, no. 174).

The institution of the customs duty was adopted by
Islam about the beginning of the Umayyad period or
shortly before it. While theological theory demanded
a single customs area in Islam, the old frontiers re¬
mained in existence by land and water, and Egypt,
Syria and Mesopotamia were separate customs areas.
The amount of the duty in the canon law was settled
not so much by the value of the goods as by the per¬
son, i.e. the religion of the individual paying it; but
in practice, attention was paid to the article and there
were preferential duties, and no attention was paid to
the position of the owner in regard to Islam. The laws
of taxation were very complicated and graduated; the

MAKS — MAKSURA

195

duties rose in course of time from the tenth ( c ushr ) to
the fifth ( khums ).

The Egyptian maks was levied on the frontier at
al- c Ansh and in the ports ( sawdhil) c Aydhab, al-
Kusayr, al-Tur and al-Suways, but there was also an
octroi to be paid in al-Fustat, at a place called Maks.
This name is said to have replaced an old Umm Du-
nayn and then became identified with the Maks =
custom-house of Cairo. At Alexandria there was a
maks al-munakh for caravans, and today Maks is the
name of a quarter there, cf. Khalil Mutran, Wasf al-
Maks (Nakhla, Mukhtarat, ii, 139-41). All grain had to
pass through here before it could be sold, and two
dirhams per artaba and a few minor charges had to be
paid on it. Further details of the administration of the
maks in the earliest period are not known; but there
are references towards the end of the 1st century A.H.
to a sahib maks Misr in papyri and in literature also.

The conception of the maks was extended in the
Fatimid period, when all kinds of small dues and taxes
became known as mukus, especially—emphasising the
already mentioned unpleasant associations of the
word—the unpopular ones which the people regarded
as unjust. Such occasional taxes had been levied from
time to time in the early centuries of Islam. The first
to make them systematic was the dreaded financial
secretary and noted opponent of Ahmad b. Tulun,
Ahmad b. al-Mudabbir [see ibn al-mudabbir]. The
latter introduced not only an increase in the ground-
tax and the three great monopolies of pasture fisheries
and soda (in connection with which it is interesting to
note a reversion was made to old Roman taxes), but
also a large number of smaller taxes which were called
ma c awin and mardfik and included among the hilali, the
taxes to be paid according to lunar years. Such ar¬
tifices (known as mukus from the Fatimid period and
later as mazalim, himayat, rimaydt or must a ^djardt) were
destined to develop in time into the main form of op¬
pressing the people and to become one of the principal
causes of the economic decline in Egypt, until under
the Mamluks a limit was reached where hardly
anything was left untaxed and mukus were even
granted as fiefs and “misfortune became general’’
(wa- c ammat al-balwa). These small taxes, however,
(but not the monopolies) were repeatedly abolished by
reforming rulers, indeed ibtal al-mukus (other terms
are radd, musamahat, iskat, wad c , raf : al-mukus ) even
formed part of the style and title of such rulers. Thus
it is recorded of Ahmad b. Tulun that he abolished
some duties, and later of Salah al-Dln, Baybars,
Kalawun and his sons Khalil and Nasir Muhammad,
of al-Ashraf Sha c ban. Barkuk and Djakmak. Al-
Makrlzl gives a long list of mukus abolished by $alah
al-DTn, and al-Kalkashandl gives copies of the texts of
musamahat, which are decrees of the Mamluk sultans
abolishing taxes or granting exemption from dues
which were sent to the governors and read from the
minbars and sometimes contain very full details, while
shorter decrees were probably carved on stone and are
given among the fragments published by van Ber-
chem. It would of course be wrong to deduce from
such abolitions of taxes that the government was a
particularly good one, while on the other hand, the
continually-recurring extortion of the same taxes
shows that the abuses had been restored in the inter¬
val. Al-MakrlzT, Khitat. i, 111, concludes with the
well-known jibe at the Copts: “even now there are
mukus, which are in the control of the vizier, but bring
nothing to the state but only to the Copts, who do ex¬
actly as they like with them to their great advantage”.
A group which particularly suffered from the mukus
were the pilgrims to Mecca from the Ma gh rib. The

Spanish traveller Ibn Djubavr [q.v. ], who as a pilgrim
passed by Egypt in 1183, saw at Alexandria, c Avdhab
and Djudda many proofs of mukus and wazd^if
mukusiyya. He wrote a poem about them and sent it to
Salah al-Dln, whom he admired. But he noted tamkis
and dariba maksiyya even in Syria and Sicily. About
that time, al-Makhzum! wrote his Minhadf, with lists
of mukus and other duties {khums, wadfib, kaj, matdfar).

Among the great variety of dues, which were of
course not all levied at the same place and at the same
time, were the following: hilali taxes on houses, baths,
ovens, mills and gardens; harbour dues in al-Djlza, in
Cairo at “the corn-quay” {sahil al-ghalla) and at the
arsenal (smd c a), also levied separately on each
passenger; market-dues for goods and caravans
( badd^i c wa-kawafil) especially for horses, camels,
mules, cattle, sheep, poultry and slaves; meat, fish,
salt, sugar, pepper, oil, vinegar, turnips, wool, silk,
linen and cotton; wood, earthenware, coal, halfa
grass, straw and henna; wine and oil-presses, tanned
goods; brokerage ( samsara ) charges on the sale of
sheep, dates and linen. There were taxes on markets,
drinking-houses and brothels, which were
euphemistically called rusum al-wilaya. Warders
deprive prisoners of everything they have; indeed, this
right is sold to the highest bidder; officers consume the
fiefs of their soldiers; peasants pay their lords forced
labour and give them presents {baratil, hadaya) and
many officials {shddd, muhtasib, mubdshirun and wulat)
also accept them; when a campaign is begun, the mer¬
chants pay a special war-tax and a third of in¬
heritances falls to the state; when news of victories is
received and when the Nile rises, levies are made; the
dhimmis, in addition to paying the poll-tax, have to
contribute to the maintenance of the army; pilgrims to
the Holy Sepulchre pay a tax in Jerusalem; separate
special taxes are levied to maintain the embankments,
the Nilometer etc.

Outside of Egypt we occasionally hear of the maks
as toll or market-due, e.g. in Djudda and in North
Africa (cf. Dozy, Suppl., ii, 606). Ibn al-Hadjdj, Mad-
khal, iii, 67, mentions a musamahat mazalim, but does
not use the word mukus in this sense.

Bibliography : Ibn Mammati, Kawdnin al-
dawdwin, 10-26; Makrlzl, Khitat. i, 88 ff., 104-11;
ii, 267; Kalkashandl, iii, 468 ff. (= Wiistenfeld,
169 ff.); xiii, 30 ff., 117; C. H. Becker, Papyri
Schott-Reinhardt, 51 ff.; idem, Beitrdge zur Geschichle
Agyptens, 140-8; idem, EP , ii, 15; idem, Islam-
studien, i, 177, 267, 273 ff.; M. van Berchem,
Materiaux pour un Corpus Inscripiionum Arabicarum, i,
59, 560; ii, 297, 332 ff., 374, 377, 384; A. Mez,
Renaissance, 111 ff., 117; W. Heffening,
Fremdenrecht, 53 ff.; H. Bowen, The life and times of
c Ali b. c Isa, the “Good Vizier ”, Cambridge 1928,
124; W'ensinck, Handbook, 228; Fagnan, Additions,
165; Yakut, iv, 606, on Maks; Ibn Djubavr. Travels ,
ed. Wright 2 , 14, 55, 62, 69, 77, 301, 331; Cl.
Cahen ; Douanes el commerce dans les ports mediterraneens
de V Egypte medievale d’apres le Minhddj d’al-
Makhzoumi, in JESHO, vii (1964), 217-314 ( =
Aiakhzumiyyat [57]-[154]). (W. Bjorkman)

MAKSURA (a.), a name given to a poem whose
rhyme is constituted by an alif maksura ( ^ ). According
to al-Mas c ud! {Murudf, viii, 307 = § 3462), the first
author of a piece of this type was the Shi*! Nasr b.
Nusayr al-Hulwam [^. 0 . ], who preceded the most
famous versifier in this field, Ibn Durayd (died
321/933 The author of the Murudf also cites

someone called Ibn W'arka 3 (unidentified) who had
composed a maksura on that of Ibn Durayd, and
declares that the latter had often been imitated

196

MAKSURA — MAKTAB

(faradaha ... dfamd c a min al-shu c ard x , ; viii, 305 3461), but
he only names in this connection a certain c Ali b.
Muhammad al-Tanukhl, whose Maksura was dedi¬
cated to the praise of the Tanukh. As the Murudy
dates from 332/943, some imitations must have been
made in the first third of the 4th century, testifying
also to the immediate vogue of the masterpiece of Ibn
Dura yd; this success, due in large part to the didactic
value of the piece of verse, was not contradicted in the
course of the following centuries, to judge by the ex¬
ceptional number of manuscripts of the Maksura which
survive and by the takhmiss , lasmits and commentaries
which it inspired (see Brockelmann, S I, 172-3; Ben
Salem, cited in the Bibl.). Among the shuruh which
were devoted to it, al-$afadi (Waft, ii, 1301) and al-
BaghdadT, himself author of a brief commentary
(Khizdna. ed. Bulak, i, 490 = ed. Cairo, iii, 105) ap¬
preciate in particular that of Ibn Hisham al-Lakhml
[q.v. in Suppl.] which was partially edited, with a
Latin translation of the Maksura , by Boysen, in 1828.
The Dutch were interested from an early date in this
famous Maksura ; by 1773, Haitsma had translated it
into Latin and published it at Franeker, following it
with the commentary of Ibn Khalawavh: this work
had served as the basis of the edition-translation, also
in Latin, of Sceidus (1786), and there exists in ms., in
Leiden, a Latin version of N. G. Schroeder (1721-98),
as well as a commentary of the same author and an¬
other anonymous Latin translation accompanied by a
commentary (see P. Voorhoeve, Handlist of Arabic
manuscripts , Leiden 1957, 192). In 1808, Bilderdijk
brought out in the Hague a new edition and Dutch
translation of the same Maksura which, since then, has
been made the subject of several oriental editions:
Tehran 1859 and 1910, Istanbul 1300/1883 with the
commentary of al-Zam akhsh arl. Cairo 1328/1910,
1358/1939.

The text of the poem calls for some remarks. In its
present state, it numbers 249 and even 25 verses of
radjaz in Ibn Salim’s ed. of the Diwdn of Ibn Durayd
(Tunis 1973, 115-37), while al-Baghdadi (loc. cit.)
counts only 239, so that it must be considered that
several verses have been interpolated. In fact, al-
Suyutl ( Bughya , 32) asserted that the original matla c
opened with a conditional particle, then a protasis
without an apodosis, followed by a feminine, of which
it was not known to what it related; it is Kamal al-Dln
Ibn al-Anbari (died 577/1181) [see al-anbarT]) who
allegedly composed a prologue of ten verses, of which
the last may have been retained as a true matla c . In¬
dependently of probable additions, the plan of this
poem composed in praise of the MikalTs [q.v.) ap¬
peared barely coherent: at the beginning, there is the
topic of the beloved, the separation, the cruel destiny
of the poet, then comes the relation of a pilgrimage
containing a certain number of toponyms in - d ; the
personal glorification, followed by the panegyric of
the MTkalls (vv. 96-110), but the beloved appears
again later on, possibly justifying the nostalgia ex¬
perienced by the poet for the city of Basra, and one
can scarcely see why he glorifies himself anew, before
delivering moral reflections, recounting a journey to
the MTkalis, returning to the nasib, inserting some
verses on wine and finally expressing his satisfaction.
In spite of all these faults, the Maksura aroused the ad¬
miration of the litterati, philologists and fukaha The
former, and particularly the poets, see in it a kind of
tour-de-force because of the difficulty of the rhyme
and the diversity of the themes treated; for the
philologists, it contains a third of the nouns in alif
maksura and may consequently serve for the teaching
of vocabulary; the fukaha 5 , for their part, were seduced

by the moral reflections which incline towards
resignation.

Another important Maksura is that of Hazim al-
Kartadjannl (died 684/1285 [g.i;.]) which contains no
less than 1,006 verses of radfaz and was composed in
imitation of Ibn Durayd and in praise of the Hafsid al-
Mustan$ir. As it has already been discussed in the ar¬
ticle on Hazim, we shall confine ourselves here to a
few pieces of information. The plan of the poem is
hardly more homogeneous than that of its model:
nasib (vv. 1-52), praise of al-Mustansir’s ancestors and
services rendered by the latter (vv. 53-172), recollec¬
tion of the poet’s youth in various towns in Spain (vv.
173-84), glorification of love and description of the
sky (vv. 185-97), recollection of past pleasures (vv.
198-502), return to the beloved (vv. 503-66), laments
(vv. 567-788), panegyric of al-Mustansir (vv.
789-974), and finally, eulogy of the poet’s masterpiece
(vv. 975-1006).

The text of this Maksura was published in Cairo in
1344, then by Mahdi c Allam, in Hawliyyat Kulliyyat al-
Adab of c Ayn Shams University 1953-4, 1-110. Apart
from the commentary of al-Gharnap (Raf al-hudjub al-
mastura c an mahdsin al-Maksura, Cairo 1344/1925), M.
Lakhdar (Vie litteraire, 37) mentions another of Abu ’1-
Kasim al-Sabtl (died 760/1358).

Among the other pieces of verse which bear the title
of Maksura, that of Abu Madyan (died 594/1197 [?.u.])
met with a great success, and there exist several mss.
of it (see for example, G. Vajda, Catalogue, 460;
Brockelmann, S II, 785). The BN in Paris also
possesses one of Hasan b. Habib (Vajda, 459) and an¬
other of Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Hawwari (ibid .;
Brockelmann, II 2 , 15). Hamdun b. al-Hadjdj
(1174-1232/1760-1817) has also left us a Maksura on
prosody and rhymes (E. Levi-Provencal, Manuscrits
arabes de Rabat, 292 (5), 497 (11); Lakhdar, Vie lit¬
teraire, 282).

Bibliography : Apart from the works cited in
the article, see: on Ibn Durayd, A. Ben Salem, Ibn
Durayd, vie, oeuvre et influence, thesis Paris 1968,
100-9, 313-7, 324-30 (published in Arabic, Tunis
1972); on Hazim, E. Garcia Gomez, Quelques remar¬
ques sur la <( qasida maq sura ” d’Abu ’l-Hasan Hazim al-
Qartajanni\ in Actes du XVIIP Congres des Onentalistes,
1931, 242-3; idem, Observaciones sobre la “Qasida
maq sura ' ’ de Abu ’l-Hazim al-Qartdyanni, in And., i
(1933), 80-103; M. c Allam, Abu ’l-Hasan al-
Kartadfinni wafann al-maksura fi ’l-adab al- c arabi, in
Hawliyyat Kulliyyat al-Adab, c Ayn Shams University,
1951, 1-31; M. H. Belkhodja, ed. of Manhadj_ al-
bulaghaR of Hazim, Tunis 1966, introd. 81-6.

(Ch. Pellat)

MAKSURA [see masdjid],

MAKTAB (a.), pi. makdtib , was an appellation for
the Islamic traditional school frequently
known also as kuttdb [q. v. ; a brief discussion of the uses
of maktab will be found there]. The same applies to its
equivalents in Persian, maktab, and in Turkish, mekteb.
In Egypt, the Copts too used maktab to denote their
own traditional schools. Later, however, the term
came also to mean “school”, more generally, as in the
Ottoman Turkish mekteb-i fanaW (“vocational
school”) or even mekteb gemisi (“training ship”). In
both Ottoman Turkish and Arabic the term was bor¬
rowed, mainly during the 19th century, to denote—in
various word-combinations—some of the more
modernised educational institutions which were then
being established. Thus during the reign of Mahmud
II, the Mekteb-i tibbiyye shdhane, the Mekteb-i ma c arif-i
c adhyye and the Mekteb-i c ulum-i harbiyye were set up to
teach, respectively, medicine, general knowledge for

MAKTAB — MAKTABA

197

government service and military studies. Later, in
1859, the Mekteb-i mulkiyye was founded as a civil ser¬
vice school. In a parallel manner, in Muhammad
c All’s Egypt, al-Maktab al- c dli, which the French called
“Ecole des Princes”, was inaugurated in the 1820s as
a military college for the male members of Muham¬
mad c Alf’s family and of some others. In 1833, a
Maktab al-muhimmdt al-harbiyya was set up in Cairo and
closed down after three years, probably purveying for
munitions or serving as military workshops. In 1836,
a Maktab ra^is al-muhasaba was set up to train the ac¬
countants which were so badly needed. In the
Khedive Isma c fl’s days, the general sense of “school”
for maktab seems to have become so prevalent in Egypt
that the term makatib ahliyya, i.e. “national schools”
or “local schools”, as were called the primary schools
founded between 1868 and 1879 in Cairo, its suburbs
and the provincial centres, was accepted unquestion-
ingly. From there, the usage seems to have spread into
other Arab lands, although maktab continued too to be
widely used as synonymous with kuttdb. In our days,
in Turkey, a primary school is called ilk mektep and the
next stage, the “middle school”, orta mektep. In
Malaysia, it has recently been used for “Institute”, as
in Maktab Perguruan Ilm Khas (“Specialised Teachers’
Training Institute”) in Kuala Lumpur. Mekteb was
also the title of a journal, published since 1307 A.H.,
in Istanbul, in Turkish, first as a weekly, then twice
a month, for the benefit of educators. In modern
Persian usage, in addition to its basic meaning of
“school”, maktab has acquired also the connotation of
an “instructing manual”, as in Maktab-i Islam (“A
manual of instruction into Islam”, 2 vols., Tehran
1375-8/1334-7), Mihrdad Mihrin’s Maktab-i falsafa-yi
igzistansiydlfzm (“A manual—or study—of existen¬
tialism”, Tehran 1343), Maktab-i tashayyu c (“A
manual of instruction in Shi c ism”, annual, i,
1378-/1338-), or even Maktab-i c ishk (“A manual of
love”, title of a play by c AlI Asghar Sharif. Tehran
1313). Otherwise, during the 20th century, maktab has
increasingly come to mean, in Arabic, “bureau” or
“department”, generally in the official sense, such
as Maktab al-buhuth (“Bureau of research”) and
Maktab dd^im (“Permanent bureau”) or Maktab al-
sihha (“Department of Health”); or else “office” as
in Maktab al-band (“Post office”); or even “agen¬
cy”, as in Maktab al-anbd 5 (“News agency”). This
applies to both administrative and military terms,
sometimes with slight differences of usage, in various
countries.

Bibliography. See the bibl. for kuttab and also
the arts, in EP, IA and Turk Ansikl., s.v. Further,
Mekteb-i sana^P nizdm-ndmesi, n.p. [Istanbul] 1285;
Mehmed Niizhet, Mekatib-i rushdiyye okunmak uzere
mukhtasar mensheM dir, Istanbul 1289; H. Vambery,
Der Islam im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, Leipzig 1875,
171 ff.; Fadfl, Mekatib-i c askariyye-yi shakirdanine
makhsus miiswedde numunelen, Istanbul 1314;
Ma c arif-i c Umumiye Nezaretf, Mekatib-i Pdddxyede
tedris olunan c ulum ve-funun mufredat proghrdmi, fasc.
1-7, Istanbul 1327; idem, Mekatib-i iblidaHyye
ders mufredatx, Istanbul 1329; idem, Mekatib-i
Sultdniyyenih sunuf-x ibtidaHyye ve-taliye ders pro-
ghramlari, Istanbul 1329; Ibrahim c AshkT, Mekteb ter-
biyesi , Istanbul 1330; Fa^ik SabrI, Mekteblerde
djoghrafiya tedrisati, Istanbul 1331; Mekteb-i Sultdnlnln
ellindi sene-yi dewriyye-yi te^sisi miindsebetile neshrolun-
mushtur, Istanbul 1334/1918; Ma c arif-i c Umumiyye
NezaretT, Mekatib-i Sultaniyye c Arabi ve-EdjnebT
lisanlari mufredat proghramlarinih mu c addal suretleri,
Istanbul 1335; Mekteb-i miilkiyye-yi shdhane taMkhcesi,
n.p. 1337 (lith.); Djelal c Abdi, Mukhtasar-i mekteb

hifz-i sihhasi, Istanbul 1340; Mekteb-i Harbiyye—
Birindjl dewre, Ddbitdn kiirsu 1340 senesi c umumt im-
tihdn proghrdmlari . Istanbul 1340; Kazim Nami,
Mekteblerde akhldki ndfd telkin eytmeli? Istanbul
1343/1925; T. KallTktyeyev, Mektepte okutudjular
iicun metodikteyoldasht, Kazan 1927; Hifz al-Rahman
Rashid, Mektebfiligin ka c besinde, Istanbul 1928;
Safattin Riza, Eski tarihte mektep , in Atsiz Mecmua
(Istanbul), 6 (15 October 1931), 130-1; §evket
Siireyya, Mektep kooperatifyiligi ve tasarruf terbiyesi,
Ankara 1932; Naci Kasim, Mektep kitaplari ve Turk
irjan hayati, Istanbul 1933; Tek kitap kanuna dair:
mektep kitaplan tdbilerinin bazi dilekleri, Istanbul 1933;
H. A. Malik, Koyde mektep, in Ulkii (Ankara), i/6
(July 1933), 481-4; F. Uzun, Mektep^ilige dair, Istan¬
bul 1935; J. Heyworth-Dunne, An introduction to the
history of education in modern Egypt, London n.d.
[1938], 139-42, 207-8, 371-2; Ihsan Sungu, Mekteb-
i Maarif-i Adliyyenin tesisi, in Tarih Vesikalan , i/3
(1941), 1-14; Statuto della communita musulmana in
Jugoslavia (25 ottobre 1936), in OM, xxii (1942),
105-9; K. K. Pahlen, Mission to Turkestan, London,
N.Y. and Toronto 1964, esp. 37-49, 58, 61, 63, 74
(for 1908-9); S.Z. Shaw and E. K. Shaw, History of
the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, ii, Cambridge
1977, index s.v. Mekteb-i; ilhan Tekeli, Toplumsal
donusiim ve egitim tarihi uzerine konusmalar, Ankara
1980; c Abd al- c Aziz al-Sayyid aJ-Misrl, Kissat
awwal madrasa islamiyya fi ghdbdt Siera Leone, in al-
Dawha (Kafar), lxxiii (Jan. 1982), 35-9; P. X.
Jacob, L \enseignement religieux dans la Turquie moderne,
Berlin 1982, 12-38; Avraham Cohen, Maktab: ha-
Heder be-Faras (Hebr., “Maktab: the Heder in Per¬
sia”), in Pe^amim, Jerusalem, xiv (1982), 57-76.

(J. M. Landau)

MAKTABA, library, is the word now normally
used in the Arab world for this institution. In Iran
kitdb-khdna is used (the entry-word for the article in
is/ 1 ), and in modern Turkey kutiiphane. Other
equivalents are khizanat al-kutub and ddr al-kutub.

With the zeal for literary pursuits and the ever in¬
creasing composition of books, after the period of con¬
quests, men of literary tastes accumulated handsome
private collections of books and from the example of
the Kufan philologist Abu c Amr al-Shavbanf we can
reasonably assume that it was a custom for authors to
deposit copies of their works for reference in the
mosque of their town or quarter.

The libraries of the Umayyads contained books on
all the principal branches of knowledge cultivated at
that time. Librarians were appointed to take charge of
them, and translators may have worked in them or, at
least, have deposited their works in them.

Youssef Eche, by dint of reading most of the rele¬
vant Arabic literature, manuscript or printed, on
history and geography, belles-lettres in prose or
poetry, fikh and wakf, has assembled all available in¬
formation on public and semi-public libraries in c Irak,
Syria and Egypt during the mediaeval period (up to
the death of Hiilegu). Hence there is no need to look
further than this valuable compendium for the history
of libraries in the Arab world during these centuries.

The first public libraries formed a fundamental part
of the first academies known as bayt al-hikma [q.v.].
That established by Mu c awiya contained collections
of hadith and works such as that of c AbId b. Shariyya,
composed at the order of the caliph. This was in¬
herited by his grandson, Khalid b. Yazid [q.v. ], who
devoted his life to the study of Greek sciences, particu¬
larly alchemy and medicine. We are told that he caus¬
ed such books to be translated, and when an epidemic
occurred at the beginning of the reign of c Umar b.

198

MAKTABA

c Abd al- c Aziz, he commanded the books to be fetched
out of the library (khizana) to be made available for the
people.

The bayt al-hikma underwent its greatest develop'
ment in the time of the c Abbasid caliph al-Ma^mun in
Baghdad. To make this library as comprehensive a$
possible he had valuable Greek manuscripts purchas¬
ed in the Byzantine empire and translated by a
number of competent scholars into Arabic. This
library contained books in all the sciences cultivated
by the Arabs. After the transfer of the caliphate from
Baghdad to Samarra under al-Mu c tasim, successor of
al-Ma^mun, the bayt al-hikma lost its academic charac¬
ter and was known solely as khizdnat al-Ma?mun.
Visited by scholars up to the end of the 4th/10th cen¬
tury, it is not mentioned by writers after that time,
and is thought either to have been incorporated into
the library of one of the caliphs or to have been
dispersed by the Saldjuks. It is known, however, that
some of its books carrying the emblem of al-Ma 3 mun
were presented to Ibn Abl U§aybi c a [ q.v .] at the time
of his compiling the Tabakat al-atibba 5 .

The period of the bayt al-hikma was followed by that
of the dar al-Hlm [q.v.] y an institution of semi-official
character, established in the style of a public library
with its own building for the purposes of
disseminating sectarian propaganda and teaching the
natural sciences. These were set up in Baghdad.
Mawsil, Basra, Ram-Hurmuz and elsewhere; that in
Basra, founded by Ibn Sawwar, being said to be the
first ever established by wakf. All of these are des¬
cribed in detail by Eche, and some by Mackensen (see
Bibl.). The dar al-Hlm engendered the madrasa [< 7 .a.],
and so the library is the father of the Arab university.
Other celebrated libraries were those attached to the
Nizamiyya and the Mustansiriyya madrasas in
Baghdad, where there existed also many others at¬
tached to madrasas , mosques, ribats and mausoleums.
Eche describes more than twenty of these, most of
which were destroyed by Hulegii in 656/1258, as were
those of other cities in c Irak. Similar libraries were
founded in Damascus, Aleppo and other cities in
Syria, and in Egypt.

The library collected by the Fatimid caliph al-
Hakim [q.v. ] in Cairo contained untold literary
treasures and we learn that in the year 435/1043-4 the
wazxr Abu TKasim C A1T b. Ahmad al-Djardjara 3 ! gave
instructions for a catalogue of the books to be made
and the bindings to be renewed, and he appointed
Abu KJialaf al-KudaT and Ibn Khalaf al-Warrak to
superintend the work. This library remained intact till
the death of the last Fatimid caliph al-^Adid, when
Salah al-Dtn ordered it to be dissolved and the Kadi
’1-Fadil [q.v.] acquired most of the books and
deposited them in the library of the Fadiliyya madrasa
which he founded, where they were soon neglected,
and by the time of al-Kalkashandi most of them had
disappeared. This library is stated to have contained
6,500 volumes on the exact sciences alone, such as
mathematics, astronomy, etc., and among its
treasures was a globe of copper stated to have been
constructed by Ptolemy and bearing an inscription
stating that it had been acquired by Khalid b. Yazld
b. Mu c awiya.

The Spanish Umayyad caliphs at Cordova pos¬
sessed a library which achieved great renown. Al-
Hakam II [q. v. ] devoted his life to it, employing
agents to collect books from all Islamic lands. It is said
to have contained some 400,000 volumes, described in
a catalogue of 44 volumes, each containing 40 leaves.
Disastrously, it was plundered and largely destroyed
in the time of his successors. After the conquest of

Granada by the Catholic kings, in order to facilitate
the conversion of the Moriscos, the order was given
that all books in their possession should be handed
over to the authorities for examination by experts, so
that all useful works of philosophy, medicine and
history might be retained and all others destroyed.
Cardinal Cisneros, however, decreed that all books in
Arabic should be burnt in a public square in Granada.
We are frequently told of valuable private libraries
which were placed at the disposal of learned men, as
e.g. in the biographies of al-Suil [q.v. ] we read of his
large collection of books which were tastefully bound
in red and yellow leather. Al-SafadI [q.v.\ records in
the biography of Gh ars al-Ni c mat al-Sabl that he
founded in Ba gh dad a library of about 300 volumes
for the use of students and that this library was
shamelessly robbed by the librarian who had been
placed in charge.

In Persia, libraries allegedly existed at the time of
the Achaemenids, as we hear from Ibn Nadim, but
these were destroyed by Alexander the Great. In the
c Abbasid period libraries are recorded at Ram-
Hurmuz (founded by Ibn Sawwar), Rayy and Isfahan
(plundered by the Ghaznawid troops in 420/1029 and
removed to Ghazna, but later destroyed there by the
Gh urid Sultan c Ala :) al-Dln Husayn). In Shiraz, the
celebrated library founded by c Adud al-Dawla con¬
tained a copy of all books written up to that time in
all branches of learning (al-MakrlzI, 449, tr. in Pinto
[see Bibl.], 228).

When early in the 7th/13th century the Mongols
swept over Persia we read that in addition to the loss
of human life and the destruction of other valuable
property untold quantities of priceless books were
wantonly destroyed. Although some of the sultans of
Dihll patronised scholars and were keen friends of
learning, no mention of a library from that period has
as yet been found. The earliest of which we hear is,
however, that of the saint Nizam al-Dln Awliya 3 , a
contemporary of the Khaldjl and Tughlukid sultans.
Many of the Mughal emperors and their courtiers
were dedicated bibliophiles and possessed private col¬
lections of great value, and fostered the development
of the imperial library. This was dispersed after the
traumatic events of the 1857-8 Indian Mutiny, and
some of its valuable manuscripts came to the India
Office Library and the Royal Asiatic Society; but
many remain in various libraries of India and
Pakistan. Sezgin records 46 libraries in India and 8 in
Pakistan which have published catalogues of their
Islamic manuscripts, among them the Banklpur [q. v. ]
Library at Patna (6,000 manuscripts), the Buhar col¬
lection in the National Library at Calcutta (485 Per¬
sian and 465 Arabic manuscripts), and the Rampur
State Library (10,500 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian
and various Indian languages).

After the conquest of Constantinople, Mehemmed
II Fatih [q.v.] assembled the manuscripts in Greek,
Latin and other languages which had survived the
holocaust into the library which he founded in the
Eski Saray, which now forms part of his palace, the
Topkapi Saray. Ahmed III [q.v.] established no fewer
than five libraries in Istanbul, including his Enderun-i
Hiimayun Kutiibkhanesi, of which the poet Nedim
[q.v.] was appointed curator. He also prohibited the
export of rare manuscripts. Most of the libraries
formerly attached to mosques in the capital have now
been transferred to the Suleymaniye Public Library.
In Istanbul alone there were said to be in 1959 over
135,000 manuscripts, many of them known only to
scholars through the very inadequate defiers published
in the late Ottoman period.

MAKTABA

199

Most countries in the Middle East now possess a
national library performing the functions of such
libraries everywhere, including, it may be, the
publication of the national bibliography (see
Auchterlonie, Libraries [see Bibl.], 245-9). Public,
university, special and school libraries have been set
up, schools of librarianship inaugurated, and library
associations founded.

Arrangements, administration and use of
libraries. In the 4th/1 Oth century there were
already buildings devoted solely to libraries and
erected specially for this purpose. For example, Sabur
b. Ardashlr, the vizier of Baha 5 al-Dawla [ q.v . in
Suppl.], built in 381/991 in Baghdad in the Karkh
quarter a Dar al-kutub, which contained over 10,000
volumes (Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 246; Yakut, i, 799). The
geographer al-MukaddasI (449) found in Shiraz a
huge library which had been built by the Buyid c Adud
al-Dawla (338-72/949-82). This library was a separate
building and consisted of a great hall, a long vaulted
building along the three sides of which were a series
of rooms (khaza^in). Along the walls of the central
vaulted room and along the side-rooms were cases of
carved wood three ells high and three broad, with
doors which were let down from the top. The books
lay on shelves one above the other. The cases used in
the Fatimid library in Cairo were somewhat different
(al-MakrlzI, Khitat, Cairo 1270, i, 409); the bookcases
( rufuf) were divided by partitions into separate com¬
partments ( hadjiz ) each of which was closed by a door
with hinges and locks. Open cases, which also were
divided into small compartments, are illustrated in a
miniature by Yahya b. Mahmud of the year 634/1237
in the Paris manuscript of al-Harlrl, ms. arabe,
5847), which shows a library in Basra (Blochet, Les
enlumineurs des manuscrits orientaux, Paris 1926, PI. 10).
Unlike our custom, we find the books lying one above
the other in the small compartments, as is still usual
in the East. This explains the oriental custom (which
is only occasionally found in the West) of writing a
short title of the works on the upper and lower edge.

The books were systematically arranged,
classified according to the various branches of
knowledge. Copies of the Kurban had usually a special
place; in the Fatimid library, for example, they were
kept on a higher level than the others. The various
books were often present in several copies; this made
it possible not only to lend the same work to several
readers, but the scholar was also enabled to read cor¬
rupt passages at once in a manuscript by referring to
another copy. The Fatimid library of Cairo, for exam¬
ple, had thirty copies of the Kitab al- c Ayn of al-Khalll.
twenty copies of the Tabikh of al-Tabari and, if the
figure is not wrong, actually a hundred copies of the
Dja mhara of Ibn Durayd.

The wakjiyya drafted when the books were deposited
normally served as the catalogue. Occasionally we
hear of a special catalogue (fihrist [q. v. ]) being compil¬
ed by the librarian. These catalogues sometimes ran
into several volumes, that of al-Hakam II in Cordova
filling 44 of 20 leaves each (Ibn Khaldun. c Ibar , iv,
146). In the Fatimid library, to the door of each
bookcase was affixed a list of the books contained
therein.

Libraries usually had a director (sahib) and one or
more librarians ( khazin ) according to the size of the in¬
stitution, also copyists (nasikh) and attendants (far-
rash). We find that some of the most celebrated
scholars were librarians: thus the historian Ibn
Miskawayh was librarian to the vizier Abu ’1-FadI b.
al- c Amid in Rayy (Ibn Miskawayh, Tadparib al-umam ,
ed. Amedroz and Margoliouth, Oxford 1921, text, ii,

224, tr. v, 237); al-Shabushl (d. 390/1000), the author
of the Kitab al-Diyarat, was librarian of the Fatimid
library in Cairo under al- c Az!z (Ibn Khallikan,
Wafayat, i, 338).

The books were acquired partly by purchase and
partly by the copyists attached to the libraries copying
manuscripts. Al-MakrlzI has preserved for us the
budget of a library (i, 459); according to this, the
caliph ai-Hakim (386-411/996-1020) spent 207 dinars
a year on the Ddr al-^llm founded by him. This was
allotted as follows:

dinars

Mats from c Abbadan, etc. 10

Paper for copyist 90

Salary of the librarian 48

Drinking water 10

Wages of the attendant 15

Wages of the keeper of paper, ink,

and reed pens 12

Repairing the door-curtains 1

Repairing books 12

Felt carpets for the winter 5

Blanket for the winter 4

Libraries were open to everyone free of charge.
Paper, ink and reed-pens were supplied by the
authorities. Some private libraries even provided for
the maintenance of scholars who had come from a
long distance. A deposit had usually to be made if
books were taken outside the library buildings; at least
Yakut (iv, 509-10) praises the liberality of the libraries
in Marw, where he always had two hundred and more
volumes to the value of two hundred dinars in his
house without a deposit. Instructive in this connection
also is the wakf document of 21 Safar 799/24
November 1396) by which Ibn Khaldun bestowed his
Kitab al-Hbar on the library of the Djami c al-
Karawiyyln in Fas; according to it, this manuscript
was only to be lent out to trustworthy, reliable men for
two months at the most in return for a substantial
deposit, for this period was long enough to copy or
study the borrowed work. The director of the library
was to take care that this rule was observed (Levi-
Provengal, in JA, cciii [1923], 164).

But at the same time we find in Muslim lands pure¬
ly reading libraries. One of these was the library
of the Madrasa al-Mahmudiyya founded in Cairo in
797/1395. By the will of the founder, the Ustadar
Djamal al-Dln Mahmud b. C A1T (d. 799/1397), no
book was to leave the rooms of the madrasa. The man¬
uscript of the Tadjarib al-umam of Ibn Miskawayh
(Gibb Mem. Ser., vii/6) published in facsimile by
Caetani belonged to this library; in the tt'a^/document
on the first page of this manuscript, dated 15 Sha c ban
797/5 June 1395) it is written: “The above-named
donor makes the condition that neither the whole
work nor a single volume of it shall be lent from the
library, either against a deposit or without one’’.

Nevertheless by the year 826/1423 when the books
were checked, it was found that 400 volumes (exactly
a tenth of the total) were missing, whereupon the then
director of the mosque was dismissed (cf. Ibn Hadjar
al- c AskaIanI, in Quatremere, Mbnoire [see Bibl.\, 64,
70; al-MakrlzI, Khitat , ii, 395).

If we think of the above statements, which are true
even of the 4th/10th century, it can safely be asserted
that Muslim libraries were in every respect centuries
in advance of those of the west; there was a general
need for public libraries felt in Muslim lands much
earlier than in the west.

Bibliography: 1 . General. Quatremere,

Memoire sur le gout des livres chez les Orientaux, in JA,

Ser. 3, vi (1838), 35-78; and the supplementary

200

MAKTABA — MAKU

notes by Hammer-Purgstall in JA, Ser. 4, xi
(1848), 187-98; Mez, Renaissance des Isldms,

Heidelberg 1922, 164 ff.; A. Grohmann,

Bibliotheken und Bibliophilen im islamischen Orient, in
Festschrift der Nationalbibliothek in Wien, Vienna 1926,
431-42; M. Hartmann, Das Bibliothekwesen in den
islamischen Landern, in Centralblatt f. Bibliothekwesen,
xvi (1899), 186 ff,; idem, Zur litterarischen Bewegung
und zum Buch- u. Bibliothekwesen in den islamischen
Landern, in Catalogue No. 4 of the Buchhandlung
Rudolf Haupt, Halle 1905. 2. The Arab world.
J. Ribera y Tarrago, Bibliofilos y bibliotecas en la
Espaha musulmana, in his Disertaciones y opusculos,
Madrid 1928, 181-228; S. M. Imamuddin,

Hispano-Arab libraries, books, and manuscripts, in J.
Pak. Hist. Soc., vii (1959), 101-19; G. Gozalbes
Busto, El libroy las bibliotecas en la Espaha musulmana,
in Cuad. Bibl. Esp. Tetuan, v (1972), 17-46; Eva
Thurmann, Bibliophilie im islamischen Spanien, in
Philobiblon, xviii (1974), 195-203; O. Pinto, Le
biblioteche degli Arabi nelT eta. degli Abbasidi, in
Bibliofilia, xxx (1928), 139-65, tr. F. Krenkow as
The libraries of the Arabs in the time of the Abbasids, in
IC , iii (1929), 210-43; Ruth Mackensen, Moslem
libraries and sectarian propaganda, in Amer. J. Sem.
langs. lit., li (1934-5), 83-113; eadem, Arabic books and
libraries, in ibid., lii (1935-6), 245-53; liii (1936-7),
239-50; liv (1937), 41-61; Ivi (1939), 149-57; eadem,
Background of the history of Moslem libraries, in ibid., li
(1934-5), 114-25; lii (1935-6), 22-33, m-W-eadem,
Four great libraries of medieval Baghdad, in Library Qtly,
ii (1932), 279-99; Youssef Eche, Les bibliotheques
arabes publiques et semi-publiques en Mesopotamie, en
Syrie et en Egypte au Moyen Age, Damascus 1967; J. P.
C. Auchterlonie, Libraries, in Arab Islamic
bibliography, ed. D. Grimwood-Jones, Hassocks
1977, 235-65; J. A. Dagher, Repertoire des bibliothe¬
ques du Proche et Moyen-Orient, Paris 1951; Ahmad
Badr, Dalit dur al-makhtutat wa ’l-maktabat wa-marakiz
al-tawthik wa-ma c ahid al-bibludfrafiyya fi ’l-duwal
al- c arabiyya, Cairo 1965; Arab League, Dalfl al-
maktabat fi ’l-watan al- c arabi, Cairo 1973. 3. Per¬
sia. Rukn al-DTn Humayun Farrukh. History of
books and the imperial libraries, tr. Abu Talib SarimI,
Tehran 1968; idem, TdCrikhca-yi kitab-khanaha-yi
Iran az sadr-i Islam ta c asr-i kununi, Tehran 1347 sh.,
esp. 199-216; Iradj Afshar, Kitab-khanaha-yi Iran wa
mukaddama-i dar bara-yi kitab-khanaha-yi kadim, in
Yaghmd, xiv (1964), 331-6, 418-22 and suppl., 1-16;
M. Weisweiler, Avicenna und die iranischen Fiirsten-
bibliotheken seiner Zeit, in Avicenna commem. vol.,
Calcutta 1956; Abazar SipihrT, Rahnama-yi kitab-
khanaha-yi Iran (.A directory of Iranian libraries, i. West
Azarbayjan, East Azarbayjan, Kordestan, Kermanshahan,
Gilan, Hamadan), Tehran 1970; Firishta Radawi,
Rahnama-yi kitab-khanaha-yi shimal-shark-i Iran,
Tehran 1349 sh. (Khurasan. Mazandaran,
Simnan); Hooshang Ebrami, Iran, libraries in, in
Enc. of library and information science, xiii, 15-53. 4.
Muslim India. Sh. Abdul Aziz, The imperial
library of the Mughals, Lahore 1967; S. A. Zafar Nad-
vi, Libraries during the Muslim rule in India, in IC, xix
(1945), 329-47; xx (1946), 3-20; Dharma Bhanu,
Libraries and their management in Mughul India, in J.
Ind. Hist., xxxi (1953), 157-73; idem, The Mughul
libraries, in J. Pak. Hist. Soc., ii (1954), 287-301;
V.C.S. O’Connor, in An Eastern library, Glasgow
1920 (Bankipore); Hidayat Hosain, The founders of
the Buhar Library, in IC, vii (1933), 125-46; S. M.
Imamuddin, A visit to the Rampur State Library, in IC,
xxi (1947), 360-78; Hidayat Hosain, The Library of
Tipu Sultan, in IC, xiv (1940), 139-67; C. Stewart,

A descriptive catalogue of the oriental library of the late Tip-
poo Sultan of Mysore, Cambridge 1809; S. C. Sutton,
Guide to the India Office Library 2 , London 1967, 34 n.;
A. Sprenger, A catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and
Hindustany manuscripts of the libraries of the King of
Oudh, Calcutta 1854. 5. Turkey. Tiirkologischer
Anzeiger, section AC, passim; A. Deissmann,
Forschungen und Funde im Serai, Berlin 1933; Ab¬
dullah Savasgi Nurten Eke, Turk kutuphanecilik
bibliyografyasi, Ankara 1976; Turk kutuphaneleri rehberi
(Repertoire des bibliotheques de Turquie), Ankara 1957;
Muzaffer Gokman, Istanbul kutuphaneleri veyazma tip
kitaplan (Libraries of Istanbul and their medical manu¬
scripts), Istanbul 1959; Halit Dener, Suleymaniye
Umumi Kiituphanesi, Istanbul 1957. 6. Outside
the Islamic world. For libraries outside the
Middle East with collection of Islamic manuscripts
and printed books see, in addition to the works
listed by Auchterlonie, op. cit. , and Sezgin, Levinus
Warner and his legacy, Leiden 1970; F. Taylor, The
Oriental manuscript collections in the John Rylands
Library, in BJRL, liv (1972), 449-78; H. J.
Goodacre and A. P. Pritchard, Guide to the Depart¬
ment of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, London
1977; T. J. Martin, North American collections of
Islamic Manuscripts, Boston 1977; H. Halen, Hand¬
book of Oriental collections in Finland, London and
Malmo 1978; E. Apor, ed., Jubilee volume of the
Oriental Collection, Budapest 1978.

(W. Heffening - [J. D. Pearson])
al-MAKTUL [see al-suhrawardi|.

MAKU, a former khanate in the Persian
province of Adharbaydjan, and now the name
of a town and of modern administrative units around
it (see below).

Maku occupies the north-western extremity of Per¬
sia and forms a salient between Turkey (the old san-
dfak of Bayazid, modern vilayet of Agri) and Soviet
Transcaucasia. In the west the frontier with Turkey
follows the heights which continue the line of the
Zagros in the direction of Ararat. The frontier then
crosses a plain stretching to the south of this mountain
(valley of the Sari-su) and runs over the saddle be¬
tween Great and Little Ararat. Down to 1920 Great
Ararat formed the frontier between Russia and
Turkey, while Little Ararat was divided between
Russia and Persia. Since 1920 Great Ararat has been
completely surrounded by Turkish territory, while
Little Ararat is divided between Turkey and Persia.
The Turco-Persian frontier at the present day comes
down to the Araxes. The Lower Kara-?u and the
Araxes (to its confluence with its right bank tributary
Kotur-cay) form the frontier between Maku and the
autonomous territory of Nakhcuwan which forms part
of the Armenian SSR. The third side of the triangle
i.e. the inner boundary between the khanate and the
Persian province of Kh oi [q. v. ] is somewhat vague.
When the prestige of its khans was as its greatest, their
lands stretched to the districts of Cay-para, Caldfran
(Kara- c AynT) and Aland. The little khanate of Awadjik
(30 villages belonging to the Ayrumlu Khans) on the
Bavazid-Caldiran- Kh oi road formed a little enclave
close to the Turco-Persian frontier.

The region of Maku consists of a series of heights
and fertile valleys. In the centre between the valley of
the Zangimar and that of the Akh-cay rises the
isolated mass of Sokkar. At the foot of the Little
Ararat along the frontier chain and on the slopes of
Sokkar there are excellent pastures.

The lands of Maku are very well-watered. The
streams that flow into the Araxes on the right bank are
as follows: 1. in the northwest the lower Kara-su,

MAKU

201

which runs almost parallel to the Araxes and receives
on the right bank the waters from Dambat (a high
plateau to the south-east of Little Ararat where in
1905 Minorsky discovered the ruins of the ancient
town which local Armenian tradition identifies with
Arshakawan, cf. Moses of Chorene, iii, 27, and ibid.,
i, 30); 2. the mountain-torrents Yilandarasi and Sari-
cay; 3. the river Zangimar (Zangibar, Maku-£ay)
which consists of three main branches, one coming
from the khanate of Awadjik; the other, the Tighnit,
from the south-east corner of the plain of Caldiran
from the vicinity of the village of Tighnit (Armenian
tlmut = “muddy”); and the third from the central
canton of Babad[jik. The combined waters run
through the defile in which lies the town of Maku and
water the rich district of Zangibasar (“watered by the
Zangimar”). Here the Zangimar receives on its right
bank the waters from the central massif of Sokkar (this
tributary seems to have been once known as the
Kaban), and on the left bank the Sari-su (different
from the above mentioned $ari-su) which rises in
Turkish territory in the north of Bayazld and flows a
considerable distance parallel to the central course of
the Zangimar. 4. The Akh-cav. the sources of which
are on the eastern face of the chain which separates
Turkey from Persia and on the southern face of the
transverse chain (Alagan) which separates Akh-cav
from Tighnit. The waters of the Akh-£av and its
tributary irrigate the canton of Sogman-awa, flow into
the fertile plain of Caypara and flow into the Kotur-
£ay which waters the plain of Khoi. Below this con¬
fluence, the Akh-cav receives on its right bank the
waters of the district of Aland which rise near the
Turco-Persian frontier to the south of the sources of
the Akh-£ay and the north of those of the Kotur-cay.

The town. Maku is situated in long. 44° 30' and
lat. 39° 18' at an altitude of 1,294 m./4,245 feet. Its
site, 170 miles from Tabriz and on the main Tabrlz-
Erzerum road, is very striking. It lies in the short
gorge through which the Zangimar here runs. The
cliffs rise perpendicularly on the right bank. The cliffs
on the left bank rise to a height of 600 feet above the
river. The little town lies in an amphitheatre on the
slope. Above the town at the foot of the rocks, are the
ruins of ancient fortifications and a spring. Then the
mountain wall rises almost perpendicularly, and at a
height of 180 to 200 feet leans forward. There is there¬
fore an incredible mass of rock suspended over the
town. (According to Monteith’s estimate, the dimen¬
sions of the cavern thus formed are: height 600 feet,
depth of the cavern 800 feet (?), breadth 1,200 feet,
thickness at the top of the arch 200 feet.) It is only for
a brief period daily that the sun penetrates into this
gigantic cave. Just above is a cave which used to be
entered by a perilous scaffolding. At a later date,
when the cave was used as a prison, the prisoners were
hoisted up by a rope. (The only European who has
been inside it is A. Ivanovski.)

The population. The population of the town of
Maku in ca. 1950 was 6,670, comprising Turkish¬
speaking ShYls. The population of Maku consists of
Turks and Kurds. The former, who are in the majori¬
ty, occupy villages along the rivers of the khanate.
They are the remains of the Turkoman tribes of
Bayat, Pornak etc. The canton at the foot of the Sok¬
kar is called Karakoyunlu. The people (about 900
houses in the earlier decades of this century, grouped
into 26 villages) belong to the Ahl-i Hakk [q.v. ] faith
(RMM, xl, 66) which is indirect but interesting
evidence of the character of the heresy of which the
Turkoman dynasty of the Kara-Koyunlu was accused
(Munedjsjjim-bashf, iii, 153). The old enmity be¬

tween the Turkoman tribes survives in the general
name applied by the Kara-Koyunlu to their ShTa
“Twelver” neighbours: they call them Ak-Royunlu
(Gordlevsky, 9).

The Kurds of the khanate are semi-nomads. The
Djalall (cf. on their supposed ancestors, c Alam-dra,
539, under the years 1017-18) occupy the slopes of
Ararat, and in summer betake themselves to the
pasturages along the Turco-Persian frontier. Many
sections of them lead a troglodyte life in the caves of
the Dambat region.

The Milan live between the Araxes and the massif
of Sokkar, where they pass the summer. At
Kara- C aynl (in Kurdish Kaleni) there are
Haydaranlu.

Before the First World War there were only 1,200
Armenians left in Maku. It was remarkable that the
confidential servants in the houses of the khans were
of this nationality. The celebrated and imposing
monastery of St. Thaddeus (Thadevos-Arakel =
Kara-Kilisa among the Muslims), rebuilt in 1247 (St.
Martin, Memoires sur I’Armenie, ii, 463), is in the cen¬
tral canton of Baba^jik. It is regarded with a certain
respect even by Muslims, who kiss the Gospels on
entering it. A long inscription recording the firman of
protection given it by Shah c Abbas adorns the door¬
way. At one time the villages at Maku and at KhoT be¬
longed to the monastery and paid their rents to it.
Another Armenian monastery (Surp-Stephanos;
Danival-Pavghambar among the Muslims) lies below
the mouth of the Kotur-cay on the borders of Maku.
The little village of Djabbarlu is inhabited by Yazldls

Ancient history. The oldest monuments of
Maku go back to the period of the Urartian (Vannic)
kingdom. The chamber carved in the rock near
Sangar (on the Maku-Bazirgan-Bayazld road) is one
of a number of similar constructions in Bayazld and
in the country west of Urmia (Minorsky, Kela-shin, in
ZVOIRAO, xxiv, 171; S. Matheson, Persia , an ar¬
chaeological guide, London 1972, 81-5). A Vannic in¬
scription known as that of “Maku” seems to come
from Bastam on the Akh-£av (district of Cay-para). It
is of king Rusa II, son of Argishti (ca. 680-645 B.C.;
cf. Sayce, A new Vannic Inscription, in JRAS [1912],
107-13; N. Y. Marr, Nadpis Rust II iz Maku, in
ZVOIRAO, xxv [1921], 1-54). The inscription is im¬
portant as showing that the power of the kings of Van
extended to the region of KhoT.

Maku later formed part of Armenia. It corresponds
to the canton of Artaz of the province of Vaspurakan
(Armenian 7th century Geography). According to
Moses of Chorene, the district was at first known as
Shawarshan. but was given the name of Artaz in
memory of the old home of the Alan whom Artashes
transplanted hither (cf. Ardoz in Ossetia). The name
Shawarshakan may be explained from the rule of the
Artsruni kings among whom the name Shawarsh
(Xsayarsan = Eip%r\<; = Mod. Pers. Siyawush) was
frequent (cf. Marquart, Eransahr, 4, 177). The sugges¬
tion of this scholar that Artaz is connected with the
older ’'ACocpoc etc., Strabo, xi, 14, 3, is untenable
because Azara is above Artaxata, which again is
above the land of Artaz = Maku. The Amatuni kings
who later established themselves north of the Araxes
must also have ruled in Artaz, for the diocese of Maku
is called Amantuneac c tan (Adontz).

The names Maku and Hac c ium ( = Hasun) north
of Maku are mentioned in the History of Thomas
Artsruni written in the 10th century, in the passage
(ii, § 3) describing the frontier of the lands ceded by
the Sasanid Khusraw to the emperor Maurice in 591

202

MAKU

(Brosset, Coll, d’hist. arm., St. Petersburg 1874, i, 78).
On the many Armenian monuments in the land of
Maku, cf. the work of Minorsky on the antiquities of
the khanate: cf. also Hiibschmann, Die altarm. Orts-
namen, 1904, 344, and Adontz, Armenia v epokhu Justi-
niana, St. Petersburg 1908, index.

According to a legend recorded by Moses of
Chorene (i, 30; ii, 49), Tigranes, having defeated the
Mede (in Arm. Mar) Azdahak, settled his descendants
all around Masis (Ararat). Neither the Arab
historians (al-Tabari, Ibn al-Athir) nor geographers
know this corner of Armenia, although the name looks
very old. It would be tempting to explain Maku as
Mah + kuh = “Mountain of the Medes” (Pers. mah
and Arm. mar go back to the old Iranian Mada). The
form Makuya (*Makoya) which is found in Hamd
Allah Mustawft, however, presupposes a different
final element.

History under Islam. Hamd Allah Mus{awlT
(Nuzhat al-kulub, ed. Le Strange, 89) is the first writer
(740/1340) to mention Maku among the cantons of
the tuman of Nakhcuwan: it is a castle in the cleft of a
rock and at the foot lies a village which stands in the
shade till midday. In this place lives the Christian
chief priest ( hashish ) whom they call Mar-Hasiya (this
reading is preferable to Mardjanitha of Le Strange; cf.
Aram. Mar-Khasia “the Lord Bishop’’.)

The Spanish Ambassador Clavijo who visited
Maku on 1 June 1404 still found it inhabited by
Armenian Catholics ruled by their prince Noradin,
who enjoyed practical independence. Timur did not
succeed in taking Maku, but by a treaty Noradin
agreed to supply him with 20 horsemen when re¬
quired. The eldest son of Noradin was taken to
the court of c Umar Mlrza and converted to Islam,
when he was given the name of Sorgatmix
(Suyurghatmish); as to another son, Noradin intend¬
ed to send him to Europe to be consecrated a bishop.
Clavijo mentions a monastery of Dominicans at
Maku, “en el dicho lugar’’ (Frayles de Sancto Dom¬
ingo, Vida y hazahas, ed. Sreznevski, St. Petersburg
1881, 158-62, 376; tr. Le Strange, London 1928,
144-5). Clavijo gives an accurate description of the
town (a castle in the valley; on the slope, the town sur¬
rounded by walls; higher, a second wall, which was
reached by steps cut in the rock).

On the death of Timur, Kara Yusuf the Kara-
Koyunlu reappeared on the scene and Maku was one
of the first places he conquered in 809/1406 ( Sharaf-
narna, i, 376). Henceforth the country must have
become rapidly Turkicised. According to the Sharaf-
narna (i, 295, 308), in 982/1574 the Ottoman govern¬
ment ordered the Kurd c Iwad Beg of the Mahmud!
tribe [see Kurds] to take Maku (one of the cantons of
Nakhcuwan) from the Persians and to restore the for¬
tress. c Iwad was given Maku as odjaklik. After his
death in 1002/1593-4, Sultan Mehemmed II gave the
fortress to Mustafa Beg, son of c Iwa<j.

When in the summer of 1014/1605 Shah c Abbas
was in the vicinity of Khol. the Mahmud! Kurds of
the district of Maku and Pasak (a village on the
Aland-cay to the west of Khol) did not come to pay
homage to the Shah. c Abbas I transferred the clan of
Mansur-beg to Persian c Irak and took the field in per¬
son against Mustafa, beg of Maku. The historian
Iskandar Munsh! mentions two forts at Maku, one at
the foot of the mountain (pay-i kuh) and the other on
its side ( miyan-kuh ). The former was soon taken by the
Shah’s troops, but the capture of the other was “not
so easy”. Orders were given to plunder the Mahmud!
tribe, which was done. The women and children were
carried off and the Mahmud! men executed. The

booty was so great that cows were sold at 2 dirhams =
200 (Persian) dinars a head. The royal camp remained
for 10 days at Maku, but the upper fortress “in spite
of the constrictedness of the place and the lack of
water” held out and the Shah left for Nakhcuwan
without having obtained its surrender ( c Alam-ara,
479).

The Turks and Persians attached great importance
to the position of Maku. Murad IV in the campaign
of 1045/1635-6 himself realised the importance of
Kotur and Maku, and in the instructions given in
1048/1638-9 to Kara Mustafa Pasha ordered him to
demand that the Persians should destroy the two for¬
tresses. Indeed, by the treaty of 1049/1639 the Per¬
sians decided to raze Kotur Makur (read Maku) and
Maghazberd (Ta^rikh-i Na c imd, i, 686). However,
Murad IV died and in the reign of Sultan Ibrahim,
the Persians reoccupied Kotur and Maku (Ewliya
Celebi, iv, 279).

The next stage is recorded in the Persian inscription
engraved on the rock above the fortress. (Minorsky,
Drevnosti, 23). It tells us that Shah c Abbas II ordered
the destruction of the fortress because it sheltered the
unsubdued ( mufsidan ). The fortress is compared to a
Kal c a-yi Kaban; the executor of the Shah’s order was
a certain Akbar and the date is 1052/1642-3
(chronogram gh-n-b). The history of c Abbas II ( Kisas
al-Khakam. Bib. Nat. Paris, Suppl. Pers. no. 227)
throws no light on the incident, but as (f. 74b) an Ot¬
toman embassy to the court of the young Shah in
1052/1642-3 is mentioned, it is probable that it was
not without influence on the destruction of the for¬
tress, on the preservation of which Persia had former¬
ly laid stress.

Contrary to the tenor of the inscription, Ewliya
Celebi, ii, 337-9, claims that it was the Ottomans
who, after the peace of 1049/1639, destroyed Maku
and at the same time recalled the Mahmud! Beg who
was their representative there. In 1057/1647 the Kurd
beg of Shushik (a stronghold on the borders of Persia)
rebelled against the Turks. The Persians, while pro¬
testing against his raids, seized the occasion to intro¬
duce to Maku 2,000 musketeers from Mazandaran.
The Ottomans sent an army of 72,000 men against
Shushik. Mustafa Beg of Shushik was defeated and
sought refuge in Maku. Ewliya accompanied the
Pasha and the detachment that went to Maku to de¬
mand the extradition of the rebel. Satisfaction was
given them, and the wait of Erzerum, Mehmed
Pasha, treated the Persian envoys in a very friendly
fashion. He told them, however, that if the Persians
did not withdraw their troops from Maku and destroy
the fortress, he would attack Eriwan and Nakhcuwan.
The result is not known, but Persia’s possession of
Maku recognised in 1049/1639 does not seem to have
again been seriously disputed by Turkey.

The family which ruled Maku from 1747 to 1923
belonged to the Bayat tribe, the clan settled around
the Sokkar (on the Bayat, cf. Koprulii-zade Mehmed
Fu^ad, Oghuz etnolozhisine ddyir ta J rikhi notalar, in
T'urkiyydt Med[mu c asi [Istanbul 1925], 16-23). Accord¬
ing to oral tradition, Ahmad Sultan Bayat was in
Khurasan in the service of Nadir Shah. After the lat¬
ter’s assassination, he seized one of his wives and a
part of his treasure and returned to Maku. Very little
is known about him or his son Husayn Khan
(Monteith’s host?) who died in 1835. It is possible that
under the Zand dynasty and at the beginning of the
I^adjars, the real authority in the region north-west of
Adharbavdjan belonged to the family of Dumbul!
Khans [cf. kurds], whose headquarters was at Khol
(cf. tabrIz; the special history of the Dumbul! is not

MAKU — al-MAKULAT

203

accessible in Europe). The disappearance of the Dum-
buli must have opened the way to the Bayat. C A1I
Khan (1775-1865), son of Husayn Khan, is often
mentioned by travellers (Fraser, Abich, Flandin,
Cirikov, Likhutin) as an influential chief jealous of his
prerogatives. We know that the Bab was entrusted to
the guardianship of c All Khan from June to December
1847 and that the latter treated him very kindly. The
Bab in his esoteric language calls Maku djabal-i basit in
contrast to djabal-i shahid ( = Cahrik, see salmas),
where his imprisonment was more rigorous (cf.
Browne, A traveller’s narrative, 1891, ii, 16, 271-7;
Djanl-KashanT, Nuktat al-kaf\ GMS, xv, Leiden 1910,
131-2). During the war of 1853-6, C A1I Kh an derived
great material advantage from the neutrality of his
territory, which lay between Russia and Turkey. His
son TTmur Pasha Khan (1820-95?) profited by a
similar situation during the Russo-Turkish war of
1877-8. In 1881, his appearance at the head of the
Maku horsemen in the district of Salmas accelerated
the collapse of the invasion of Kurds under Shavkh
c Ubayd Allah. Timur Pasha Kh an was hailed as the
saviour of Adharbaydjan and the people even called
him Maku Padshahi.

His son and successor Murtada Kull Khan Ikbal al-
Saltana (1863-1923) at first continued the policy of
isolation and aggrandisement of the khanate, but his
activity aroused suspicion on all sides. At the begin¬
ning of the First World War in 1914, Russian distrust
earned him a forced stay in Tiflis. In time, Maku
became part of the theatre of war. The Russian troops
built a light railway from Shah-takhti (on the Araxes)
to BayazTd, and the station of Maku became a busy
centre. In 1917 the Sardar returned home and held his
position till the coming of Rida Shah Pahlawl, when,
accused of intrigues, he was arrested on 25 Mihr
1302/17 October 1923) and transported to the prison
of Tabriz where he died suddenly. A Persian officer
was appointed governor of Maku (Nawbakht,
Shahinshdh-i Pahlawl, Tehran 1332, 112).

In modern Iran, Maku town is described as having
a population of 6,670, all Turkish-speaking and Shf-I
in faith. It is also the centre of a ba khsh (population
22,420), together with two others, making up the
shahrastan( population 100,854) of the same name in
the province or ustan of Western Adharbaydjan. which
is based on Ridariyya (Rezaiyyeh) (since the Iranian
Revolution of 1978-9, re-named Urumiyya (Urmia)).

Bibliography. Monteith,yourrza/ of a tour through
Azerbidjan , in JRGS, iii (1933), 40-9 ( c Arablar-
Bilga-Maku-Surp Thadewos-Zawiya-Malhamlu);
E. Smith and Dwight, Missionary researches, London
1834, 313 (KhoT-Zorawa-Awadjik); J. B. Fraser,
Travels in Koordistan , London 1840, ii, 314-21
(Khol- Kara - Ziyaddin - Sufiyan - Maku - Bazirgan);
Ritter, Erdkunde, ix, 916-24; E. Flandin, Voyage en
Perse, Paris 1851, i; Likhutin. Russkiye v Azial. Turl-
sii, St. Petersburg 1863, 244-50; Cirikov, Putevoi
zhurnal, 1875, 506-8 (visit in September 1852:
Bayazid-Maku); M. Schachtachtinski, Aus dem
Leben eines orientalise hen Kleinslaates an der Grenze
Russlands, in Das Ausland, Stuttgart 1887, ix, 23-6;
H. Abich, Aus kaukasischen Landern , Vienna 1896, i,
97-11, 121-5 (visit to Maku in 1844), ii, 121; S.
Wilson, Persian life and customs , London 1896, 85-9;
A. Ivanovski, V Makinskom khanstve, in Russk.
Vedomosti (1897), nos. 314, 323, 325; A. Ivanovski,
Po Zakavkazyu v 1893-4, in Mater, po arkheol. Kavkaza,
vi (1911), 68; Frangean, Alrpatakan, Tiflis 1905,
10-27: Maku; 27-43: Surp Thadewos; Minorsky,
Otcet o poyezdke v Makinskoye khanstvo v 1905, in Mater,
po izuc. Vostoka, St. Petersburg 1909, 1-62; idem,
Drevnosti Maku, 1-29 (repr. from Vos toe. Sbornik ,

Petrograd 1916, ii); M. Philips Price, A journey
through Azerbaijan, The Persian Society, 1913,
13-17 \ Makinskoye khanstvo, in Novii Vostok, Moscow
1922, i, 334-44; V. A. Gordlevsky, Kara-Koyunlu
[canton of Maku], in Izv. Obshc. obsledov. Azer¬
baijani, Baku 1927, 5-33; Farhang-i djughrafiyMi-yi
Iran, iv, 481-3; L. Adamec, ed., Historical gazeteer of
Iran. i. Tehran and northwest Iran , Graz 1976, 428-9.

(V. Minorsky*)

MAKULA, banu [see ibn makula].

MAKUA, the largest tribal group in
Mozambique [qv.\, where they occupy the
greatest part of the area north of the Zambezi River.
A few also are found in Masasi, Kilosa and Tunduru
districts in Tanzania. In 1980 they were approximate¬
ly 30% of the total Mozambique population of some
12m. Almost all of them are Muslims. Their tradi¬
tions assert that they reached Mozambique from the
north during the 16th century, among other Bantu¬
speaking peoples then entering southern Africa. The
Dominican missionary FrJoao dos Santos OP record¬
ed a brief description of their customs during his
travels in the country at the end of the 16th century,
when they were still pagan. A few words of their
language, Kimakua, were recorded in 1607 by the
French sea captain Jean Moquet, some of which are
akin to Swahili. Their conversion to Islam, which is
almost total, most probably did not take place until
after 1870, when members of the Kadiriyya and Sha-
dhiliyya fraternities from the nearby Comoro Islands
[see kumr] penetrated the area as missionaries and
traders. It seems that the Arabs, who had had contacts
on the coast already for a millenium, had made no
religious headway among them. The Makua who in¬
habit the areas nearest to the coast speak a form of
Swahili. Other than the Yao [q v.], their immediate
neighbours have, however, apparently been imper¬
vious to Islam, and have been considerably Chris¬
tianised. Although the question has not been explored
in detail, this is probably due, as in neighbouring
Tanzania, to the local limits of the activity of the
Comorian missionaries. In spite of Islam, the Makua
preserve matrilineal reckoning of descent, and are rul¬
ed by village chiefs without any central organisation of
their own.

Bibliography : E. Jardim da Vilhena, A influen¬
ce islamica na costa oriental d Africa, in Boletim da
Sociedade da Geografica de Lisboa, xxiv/a (1906); B. G.
Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods m nineteenth century
Africa, Cambridge 1976; Jean Moquet, Voyages en
Afrique, Asie, Indes Orientates , Paris 1617, recording
a visit of 1607; Joao dos Santos OP, Ethiopia Orien¬
tal, Evora 1609, ed. Mello d’Azevedo, 2 vols.,
Lisbon 1891, recording visits in the 1590s; Mary
Tew, Peoples of the Lake Nyasa region, Ethnographical
Survey of Africa, Oxford 1950; G. S. P. Freeman-
Grenville, The Sidi and Swahili, in Bull, of the British
Assoc, of Orientalists, vi (1971).

(G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville)
al-MAKULAT (a.), “Categories”, the
translation of the title of the work of Aristotle [see
aristutalis] on that subject, which is also referred to,
by the transliteration of the Greek title as Katlghuriya
or Katlghuriyas. The singular is usually makula, but
makul is also found. Al-Makulat is used also in the titles
of works by Muslim authors on the same subject.

The ten Aristotelian categories are commonly
rendered as follows (but for a detailed analysis of
renderings by various Arab authors, see the table at
the end of the article):

1 . ouaia (Substance, “what?”) jawhar

2. 7i (xjov (Quantity, “how large? ")kam

204

al-MAKULAT

3. itotov (Quality, “of what kind ? ”) kayfa

4. 7tpd<; Tt (Relation, “in what

relationship to
anything?”)

5. 7wu (Place, “where?”)

6. 7c6xe (Time, “when?”)

7. (Posture, “in what
attitude?”)

8. i'xeiv (Possession, “having/

containing what?”)

djida or milk

9. itotetv (Action, “doing what ?”)(an) yafal or

fi c i

10. nav/iiv (Affection, “suffering (an) yanfaHl or

what?”) infi c al

idafa or mudc

ayna

mata

mawdu c or
wal c

(an yakun )
lahu or

The earliest appearance known to us of the
Categories in Arabic is in a version of a Greek compen¬
dium of part of the Organon attributed to Ibn al-
Mukaffa c [q.v. ] (said to be preserved in Beirut ms.
Univ. St.-Joseph 338). This compendium is said also
to have been translated by Abu Nuh (flor. ca.
184/800).

The full translation that we possess, however,
which was that used by later philosophers, is at¬
tributed to Ishak b. Hunayn [g.i;.]. Hunayn is himself
credited with a translation, but this seems to have
been into Syriac. Ishak may have referred to his
father’s version in preparing his own, but this appears
to have been made directly from the Greek. It certain¬
ly has no connexion with the Syriac version of James
of Edessa (ed., with Ishak’s Arabic version, K. Georr,
Les Categories d’Aristote dans leurs versions syro-arabes,
Beirut 1948). Ishak’s version is stylish and, on the
whole, clear and accurate. It survives in a recension
by al-IJasan b. Suwar (d. ca. 408/1017), based on
Yahya b. c AdT’s copy and furnished with an introduc¬
tion and critical notes. In these, Ibn Suwar makes use
of a large amount of earlier material, including a com¬
mentary by Ibn c Adi.

The controversy in the classical world concerning
the authenticity of the work appears not to have suviv-
ed its transmission to the Islamic world. Ibn Suwar
mentions it, no doubt drawing on his Greek sources,
but he accepts the work as genuine, as do the other
commentators.

Many commentaries on the work were made.
Among those mentioned by the bibliographers but
not, as far as we know, extant are works by Abu Bishr
Malta, Thabit b. Kurra, Djabir b. Hayyan (attrib.).

Abu TKasim b. al- c Abbad, and c Abd al-Laftf al-
Baghdadi. Epitomes are also attributed to Ibn Bahriz
(a bishop of Mawsil and a patron of Hunayn), al-
KindT, Ahmad b. al-Tayyib (d. 286/899), and
Muhammad b. Zakariyya 3 al-Razf. Surviving works
based on the Categories include a paraphrase by al-
Farabl (ed. D. M. Dunlop, Al-Farabi’s paraphrase of the
Categories of Aristotle, in IQ, iv [1958], 168-87, v
[1959], 21-54), a large section of Ibn STna’s al-£hifa ?
(al-Mantik 2 - al-Makulat), ed. G. Anawati et alii, Cairo
1959), a commentary by Abu ’1-Faradj b. al-Tayyib
[see ibn al-tayyib] (d. 434/1043) (preserved in Cairo
ms. Bibl. Eg. 7772; anon, paraph. India Office ms.
Or. 3832), notes by Ibn Badjdja [q.v. ] on al-Farabi’s
paraphase (preserved in Escurial ms. 612), and Ibn
Rushd’s Compendium (in Hebrew tr.) and Middle Com¬
mentary (ed. M. Bouyges, Averroes: Talkhif kitab al-
maqoulat, Beirut 1932). The work or, at any rate, the
subject with which it deals is also, of course, referred
to, if at no great length, in other Islamic philosophical
works, e.g. the RasdHl Ikhwan al-Safa and al-Ghazall’s
Mi c yar al- c ilm.

It might well be thought that the Categories received
more attention from the earlier Islamic philosophers
than it merited, particularly in view of the difficulty of
determining precisely what it is about. This question
is still disputed; I. Madkour (introd. to ed. of al-Shifd 5
cited above) characterises it as “... a la fois une
recherche sur la substance et les accidents et un essai
de determiner exhaustivement le nombre des genres
supremes; par la, elle se rattache a la fois a la
metaphysique et a la logique.” Others maintain,
more simply and perhaps more plausibly, that it is
merely an early attempt by Aristotle to list all the
predicates that can be attached to a given man, and
that it is therefore indisputably an adjunct, if a minor
one, to the study of logic. The choice of al-makulat as
the translation of the title may perhaps indicate that
Ishak himself inclined to the latter view (kala ... c ala ...
“to predicate ... of ...”). It may be that the digres¬
sions in the work itself, the mass of commentary, in
Greek, Syriac and Arabic, that it attracted, and the
inclusion of a similar treatment of the categories in
Metaphysics A (where, according to Ross, it is clearly
out of place) combined to obscure the significance of
the title. Whether most of the Islamic commentators
really considered it to be an integral part of the
Organon , or their respect for Aristotle forced them to
retain it as such, is not clear. Ibn Slna is the only phi¬
losopher to give an independent opinion on the nature

Early Arabic nomenclature of the categories
(compiled by F. Zimmermann)

Aristotle

ad b.

c Abd Allah

al-Kindf

al-Ya < kubf

Abu ’I-Husayn
ai-Katib

Ishak b.
Hunayn

al-Farabi

Ikhwan

al-Sala*

al-Kh u arazmf

Avicenna

ouata

c ayn

(diawhar)

djawhar

diawhar

djawhar

rcoaov

c adad

kammiyya

c adad

kam

kammiyya

kam

kammiyya

TCOtOV

sifa

kayfiyya

hdl

kayfa

kayfiyya

kayfa

kayfiyya

*:p<k

muddf

mutfdf

muddf

idafa

muddf

idafa

7UOU

makdn

(ayna)

ayna

makdn

ayna

TCOT t

wakt

(mata)

mata

zamdn

maid

mata

maid

xuaOati

nusba

wad c

(nusba)

wad c

nusba

mawdu c

wad c

nusba

(wad c )

wad c

(nusba)

waf

e'xttv

djida

lahu

djida

kunya

(an yakuna) lahu
lahu

malaka

dhu

(djida)

djida ,
milk

Ttoietv

faHl

fd c il

faHl

yaf-al

yafal

Tiaaxttv

maf-il

munfa c il

maf'ul

munfaHl

yanfaHl

yanfa c il

yanfaHl

(infi c al)

205

al-MAKULAT — MAL al-BAY c A

and the value of the work. He takes its object to be to
assert—not to prove—that ten things are summa genera
(adjnds c aliya), which comprehend all that exists (tahwi
’l-mawdjudat), and to which alone single terms ( al-alfdz
al-mufrada) can be applied. One of these is substance
and the nine others are accidents. Consequently, he
considers it to be metaphysical rather than logical
and, although he grudgingly accords it a certain value
for the theory of definition, wishes to remove it com¬
pletely from the syllabus of the study of logic. He is,
he claims, merely following tradition in including in
his logical works a treatise (a most substantial, de¬
tailed and critical one, it must be said) on a subject
that is of little use and may indeed confuse and harm
the reader. In al-Nadjdi, he refers to the categories on¬
ly in connection with the theory of definition, and in
al-Ishharat he omits all mention of them.

Ibn Rushd does not tell us his opinion of the work
or indicate whether he made his commentary on it for
its own sake or out of loyalty to Aristotle. After him,
at all events, it would seem that Ibn Slna’s assessment
of its worth commanded general assent, for it makes
few further appearances.

Bibliography (in addition to references in the
text): I. Madkour, L'Organon d’Aristote dans le monde
arabe 2 , Paris 1969; F. E. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus,
Leiden 1968; idem, Aristotle and the Arabs, New York
1968; R. Walzer, New light on the Arabic translations
of Aristotle, in Greek into Arabic, Oxford 1962 (repr.
from Oriens, vi [1953)); I. Alon and F. Zimmer-
mann, ed. and tr., An account of elementary logic at¬
tributed to Muhammad b. c Abdallah b. al-Muqaffa c
(forthcoming). (J. N. Mattock)

MAKURRA [see nuba).

MAL (a.), means in the old language posses¬
sion, property, referring among the Bedouins
particularly to camels, but also to estates and money,
and in any case to concrete things. The word is form¬
ed from ma and li and means properly anything that
belongs to any one. As a noun it is of course treated
as a med. w stem from which a verb is then formed.
In the meaning “money”, the word is used in the ex¬
pression mdl samit “dumb property” in contrast to mdl
natik “speaking property”, applied to slaves and cat¬
tle. There is a full definition of the conception in the
introduction to the Ishara ila mahdsin al-tidjdra of Abu
’1-Fadl Dja c far b. C A1I al-Dimashkl (Cairo
1318/1900-1, 2 ff.), studied and for the most part
translated by H. Ritter, in Isl. , vii (1916), 1-91. There
and in the Mafatih. al^ulum (see Bibl. ), 59, the different
classes of property are enumerated. As mdl includes
property in its different aspects, the word can also
mean “taxes”.

The attitude of the Muslim religion to money and
property and its acquisition was of course a subject of
discussion from the beginning of the literature. The
authoritative religious and ethical point of view is that
of al-QhazalT in the second ten of the books of the
Ihya*, especially book 13 (Ritter, op. cit. , gives an
analysis) and 14 (tr. H. Bauer, Erlaubtes und verbotenes
Gut - Islamische Ethik, iii, 1922; cf. R. Hartmann in
Isl., xiv; analysis of the two books in G.-H. Bousquet,
Ih*ya c ouloum eddxn, Paris 1955, 121-53).

The acquisition, conservation and disposal of pro¬
perty is one of the four main sections of domestic
economy (tadbir al-manzil), the second part of practical
philosophy, which is divided into ethics, economics
and politics, just as it entered Islam with the rest of
Hellenistic sciences. As the Politics of Aristotle, the
first book of which deals with economics, was not
translated into Arabic, the Muslims had to be content
with the only translated work on economics, compos¬

ed by the Neo-Pythagorean Ps.-Bryson, which has
had a deciding influence on the whole economic
literature of Islam. The text, the Greek original of
which is lost, was first edited by L. Cheikho in
Machriq, xix (1921) and has been recently published
with the Hebrew and Latin versions and a German
translation by M. Plessner. The interesting chapter
on mdl in it was further expanded by Muslim authors
of the school of the Ps.-Bryson, particularly from
religious literature. A standard work is the Akhlak-i
ndsiri of al-TusI [q.v. j, of which the economic section
has been analysed and translated by Plessner. The
view of the origin of money which Aristotle holds in
the Nicomachaean ethics reached Islam direct, besides
coming through the Ps.-Bryson; it is first found in the
Tahdhib al-akhldk of Miskawayh, e.g. Cairo 1322,
1904-5, 38 [cf. also namus and dhahab].

The word mdl very early became a technical term in
arithmetic. It is first found in exercises in dividing in¬
heritances applied to the property of the testator which
is to be divided. We later find the word used regularly
for the unknown quantity in an equation; in this
meaning it was afterwards replaced by shay* [q.v. ]. Us¬
ed for the unknown in quadratic equations, it became
the word for the square of a number. The fourth
power is called mdl al-mal, the fifth mal u ka c b m , the
square of the cube. The history of this change of
meaning has been elucidated by J. Ruska, Zur altesten
arabischen Algebra und Rechenkunst, in S.B.Ak. Heid.,
Phil.-hist. Kl. (1917), no. 2, esp. ch. vi, cf. also index
s.v. Mdl.

Bibliography. Brockelmann, Grundriss, i; H.
Ritter, Ein arabisches Handbuch der Handelswissen-
schaft, in Isl., vii (1916), 1-91 (cf. esp. the passages
quoted on p. 45, n. 3, from the Arab lex¬
icographers, the LA and Dozy, r.o.); M. Plessner,
Der oixovopixo<; des Neupythagoreers “Bryson ” und sein
Einfluss au] die islamische Wissenschaft, 1928; Merx,
Die Einfuhrung der aristotelischen Ethik in die arabische
Philosophie, in Verhandlungen des XIII. Intern. Orien-
talistenkongresses, 290 ff.; on the meaning in algebra,
cf. the references given in Ruska, op. cit.; al-
Kh w arazmi, Mafatih al-^ulum, ed. van Vloten,
1895, 59, 198-9 (the latter passage tr. by
Wiedemann, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Natur-
wissenschaften, xiv = SBPMS Erl., xl [1908].

(M. Plessner)

MAL al-BAY c A (a.), also hakk al-bay^a, rasm al-
bay'-a and plat al-bay c a, a term used for the payments
made to the dfund at the time of the swearing of
the oath of allegiance {bay^a [q. v. ]) to a new
ruler.

The practice was unknown among the Umayyads
and early c Abbasids, and the first example seems to be
the payments made to the djund in Baghdad following
the death of al-Mahdl in 169/785, when each man was
given eighteen months’ or two years’ salary ( rizk ) after
they had caused disturbances. It is not clear, however,
that this was directly related to the bay c a, and it may
have been settlement of arrears of pay. Nonetheless,
this seems to have become a precedent, and extra c utd*
[q.v. ] was paid at the time of Harun’s accession the
next year. After the death of Harun in 193/809, al-
AmTn’s supporters in Baghdad paid two years’ rizk to
the army, while in Marw his brother al-Ma-'mun paid
one year’s salary at the time of the bay c a. By this time,
such payments seem to have been regarded as
standard practice, and the harmful effects were soon
apparent; when Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl was proclaimed
caliph in Ba gh dad in 201/817 in opposition to al-
Ma > mun, he promised six months : atd*, but was
unable to pay the full amount, hence drafts were given

206

MAL al-BAY c A — MALABAR

to the troops so that they could collect payment in
kind from the surrounding country. There is no men¬
tion of payment at the accessions of al-Mu c tasim
(218/833) or al-Wathik (227/842), but whether this
meant that the practice was in abeyance or that it had
become routine is impossible to tell. On the accession
of al-Mutawwakil (232/847), eight months’ salary was
paid, and some, but by no means all, of his successors
followed the practice. Under al-Muktadir, the abuse
of the system became glaringly obvious. The troops in
Ba gh dad received mal li , l-bay c a at the time of his ac¬
cession, while those escorting the ha didi rioted when
they did not receive dJPizat al-bay c a which they clearly
felt was their due. After the abortive revolt of Ibn al-
Mu c tazz in the next year, the djund were given a sec¬
ond payment for renewing the oath. In 317/929 a
revolt was launched with the object of deposing al-
Muktadir and making al-Kahir caliph, but the at¬
tempt collapsed when the leaders were unable to sup¬
ply the year’s rizk demanded by the army as a reward.
The re-establishment of al-Muktadir meant that mal
al-bay^a was required for the third time in his
caliphate, and this led to the selling off of state lands
at very low prices in an effort to satisfy the troops. The
accession of al-Kahir in 320/932 meant a further
payment.

Thereafter, the practice seems to have become less
regular; at the accession of al-Muttakl in 329/940, the
Turkish amir al-umara 5 Badjkam [q. v. ] reduced
payments and restricted them to his own followers.
Payments were sometimes made under the Buyids, as
at the accession of Baha 3 al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.] in
379/989, when rasm al-bay c a was paid, and the army
also extorted it on the accession, in suspicious cir¬
cumstances, of the c Abbasid caliph al-Kadir in
381/991. Under the later Buyids, extra payments con¬
tinued to be demanded, and sometimes made, at ac¬
cessions and other times of crisis, but the decline of
the system of regular salaries, and the bankruptcy of
the state, meant that the practice was irregular.

Bibliography. See descriptions of accessions in

Tabari, iii; Miskawayh, Tadjarib, ed. Amedroz;

Rudhrawari, Dhayl Tacfarib, ed. Amedroz; Ibn al-

Athlr; and also in c am. (H. Kennedy)

MAL-I AMIR (See Tdhadj).

MAL-I IRSALIYYE [See irsaliyye],

MALABAR, the name first given by Arab and Per¬
sian mariners in mediaeval times to a pepper-
producing coastal region of the south¬
western Indian Deccan approximately conter¬
minous with the modern state of Kerala. The name
“Malabar” is probably derived from a combination
of the Dravidian term malai = “mountain” and the
Persian bar = “country” (Logan, i, 1), though the af¬
fix bar may alternatively be derived from the Arabic
ban = “a continent”, or the Sanskrit vara = “a
slope” ( Hobson-Jobson, 539; cf. Madras glossary, 460).
The name Malabar is not generally employed by the
indigenous inhabitants of the region, who have tradi¬
tionally preferred the Dravidian Malayalam = “the
hill country”, or the more classical Keralam, a name
thought to be derived from the former Chera kingdom
of the Indian Deccan (Logan, i, 224; see also Menon,
op. cit., passim).

According to Hobson-Jobson, the substantive part of
the name Malabar, variously appearing as Malai,
Male, Maliah, etc., is to be found “in the earlier post-
classical notices of India, whilst in the great Temple-
Inscription at Tanjore we find the region in question
called Malai-nadu” . The affix bar would seem to ap¬
pear for the first time (in the form Manibar) in al-
Idrisi’s mid-6th/12th century geographical study

Nuzhat al-nushtak fi ’khtirak al-afdk (Nainar, 19), whilst
Yakut includes the name Malibar in his 7th/13th cen¬
tury geographical dictionary, the Mu c djam al-buldan
(Nainar, 19; cf. Miller, 18). In its original usage, the
name Malabar was applied by the Arabs and Persians
to the whole coast of the south-western Deccan from
Mt. D’eli in the north to Cape Comorin in the south.
Although originally an exclusively Arabo-Persian
designation, the name Malabar soon attained wide¬
spread international currency, being employed by
John of Montecorvino in 693/1293 (Yule, Cathay, i,
215) and by Marco Polo in 698/1298 (Bk. iii, ch. 25).
The name Malabar also occurs in Ming Chinese
sources, both in the rather obscure form Ma-li-mo
employed in Chau Ju-kua’s 7th/13th century Chu-fan-
chi (Hirth and Rockhill, 88, 90) and in the immediate¬
ly recognisable form Ma-lo-pa listed in Feng Ch’eng-
chiin’s Hsi-yii ti-ming.

Although the name Malabar was adopted by the
Portuguese and applied by them to the whole region
of modern Kerala, from the beginning of the British
period the name was applied to an increasingly
restricted area, being employed to designate that part
of the south-western Deccan which came under direct
British rule. This area, which covered the northern
third of present-day Kerala, became the ad¬
ministrative district of Malabar, a part of the Madras
Presidency situated between 10° and 12°30' north
which included the important ports of Kannanur
(Cannanore) [q.v. ] and Kozhikode (Calicut), as well
as the important Mappila [q.v.] Muslim centre of
Ponnani. After the incorporation of Malabar within
the modern Indian state of Kerala in 1956, the old
Malabar district was divided into three smaller
districts: Kozhikode, Kannanur and Palghat. In 1969
a fourth district, Malappuram, was carved out of
these three (Miller, 18). Under the British, Minicoy
Island and the Laccadives [q.v. ] were attached to
Malabar for administrative purposes, though when
Malabar was incorporated within Kerala in 1956, the
Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands were
reorganised in the separate Indian Union Territory of
Lakshadweep.

Arab contacts with the Malabar region pre-date the
Islamic era by many centuries, and the foundations of
the present Mappila Muslim community of South In¬
dia were laid within a few years of the hidjra , certainly
well before Muhammad b. Kasim’s conquest of Sind
in 93-5/711-13 (Miller, 39-43; Ahmad, 77; Logan, i,
231-45; Cherian, op. cit., passim ); Malabar is therefore
the site of the earliest Muslim community to have
been established on the South Asian subcontinent.

Today South India’s Mappila community numbers
some five millions and extends beyond the frontiers of
Kerala into Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Mappila
communities are also to be found in Bangalore,
Madras and Bombay as well as overseas in Arabia, Sri
Lanka, Malaysia and Burma. The former district of
Malabar remains, however, the Mappila homeland
par excellence; thus according to Census of India figures
for 1921, out of a total population of 2,039,333 there
were 1,004,327 Muslims living in the Malabar
district, 93.60% of whom were Sunnis. Nearly all the
Malabari Muslims are Mappilas, but there is also a
sizeable Labbai [q. v. ] community, and there are lesser
numbers of Pathans and Arabs. According to the 1971
Census of India, there were 4,162,718 Mappilas in
Kerala state, of whom 2,765,747 lived in the four ad¬
ministrative districts (Kozhikode, Kannanur, Palghat
and Malappuram) which correspond approximately
to the former Malabar District. (In 1971 the total
population of this same region was 8,012,759, of

MALABAR — MALACCA

207

whom 4,789,198 were Hindus; Miller, 315.) Today
the administrative region of Malabar no longer exists,
but the name is still widely applied to coastal Kerala,
and may almost be said to have reverted to its original
Arabo-Persian meaning, that is, the whole littoral of
the south-western Indian Deccan between Mt. D’eli
in the north and Cape Comorin in the south.

Bibliography. W, Logan, Malabar, 3 vols.,
Madras 1887; Madras glossary, vol. iii of Manual of
the administration of the Madras Presidency, Madras
1893; K. P. Menon, Discursive notes on Malabar and
its place names, in Indian Antiquary, xxxi (1902),
349-50; Sir H. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 2
vols., London 1903; idem and A. C. Burnell,
Hobson-Jobson 2 , London 1903 (repr. 1968); W. W.
Hunter, The Imperial Gazetteer of India 2 , Oxford
1908, s.v.; C. A. Innes, Madras District Gazetteer:
Malabar and Anjengo, Madras 1908; F. Hirth and W.
W. Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua: his work on the Chinese and
Arab trade in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, St.
Petersburg 1911 (repr. Taipei 1970); Sir H. Yule,
Cathay and the way thither 2 , 4 vols., London 1915-16;
S. Muhammad Nainar, Arab geographers' knowledge of
Southern India, Madras 1942; Feng Ch’eng-chiin.
Hsi-yu ti-ming (“Names of places in western
regions”) 2 , Peking 1957; Aziz Ahmad, Studies in
Islamic culture in the Indian environment, Oxford 1964;
A. Cherian, The genesis of Islam in Malabar, in Indie a
(1969), 1-13; G. Bouchon, Les Musulmans du Kerala
a Tepoque de la decouverte portugaise, Centre des
Recherches d’Histoire et de Philologie de la IV 1 ’
Section de l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (IV,
Hautes Etudes Islamiques et Orientales d’Histoire
Comparee), 5 \ Mare Luso-Indicum, Geneva-Paris, ii,
1-59; R. E. Miller, Mappila Muslims of Kerala ,
Madras 1976; F. S. Dale, Islamic society on the South
Asian frontier: the Mappilas of Malabar 1498-1922,
Oxford 1980. (A. D. W. Forbes)

MALACCA, a town situated on the west
coast of the Malay peninsula, inlat. 2° 12' N
and long. 102° 15' E. The common anglicised form
is Malacca, but the official spelling now used in
Malaysia is Melaka. Giving its name to the Malacca
Straits separating the Malay peninsula from Indone¬
sian Sumatra, Malacca is the administrative centre of
Malacca State and is 152 km. from the Malaysian
capital of Kuala Lumpur. The town is distinguished
from other Malaysian cities by its 19th century
Chinese Malay shop houses and old Portuguese and
Dutch buildings. Together with Central Malacca
district, it currently numbers about 250,630 in¬
habitants. Relatively quiet today, Malacca was in the
9th/15th century the bustling heart of the most power¬
ful kingdom in Malay history, the Malacca sultanate,
which played a key role in the expansion of Islam
through the Archipelago.

Origins. Malacca’s origins are obscure. Although
a plausible date for its founding is ca. 802-3/1400,
Malacca is not mentioned in any pre-9th/15th century
sources. The first verifiable reference is RabT c II
806/October 1403, which comes from the imperial
records of the Ming dynasty. At that time the new
Yung Lo Emperor (804-28/1402-24) first heard of
Malacca’s existence, possibly from some Muslim In¬
dian envoys then in Peking. It was already important
enough to warrant the despatch thither of a Chinese
mission, and its growth must thus have been extreme¬
ly rapid. According to Albuquerque’s commentaries
(983-4/1576), one purported derivation of “Malacca”
was a word (as yet unidentified) meaning “to meet”,
because so many people settled there in such a short
time. In an effort to explain why Malacca was able to

develop so quickly, scholars have been drawn by
Malay traditions which attribute its founding to a
prince from a mighty kingdom situated in Palembang
in southeast Sumatra.

Malay accounts of Palembang’s former greatness
have been supported by archaeological evidence as
well as by references in Chinese sources. It is believed
that a prosperous trading kingdom, which the
Chinese called San-fo-chi (reconstructed as Srtvijaya)
rose in southeastern Sumatra in the 1 st/7th century.
Acting as an entrepot to serve the trade between India
and China, Srlvijaya flourished and became a noted
centre for Buddhist studies. At the height of its power,
it claimed overlordship over the interior and east coast
of Sumatra, the Malay peninsula, and the islands of
the Riau-Lingga archipelago and the South China
Sea. By the 6th/13th century, Srlvijaya appears to
have been weakening as neighbouring kingdoms
challenged its commercial hegemony and sought to
take advantage of new opportunities for trade with
China. Attacks by Chola India in 415-16/1025 and
recurring hostilities with Java further undermined its
position. From 772-3/1371, Java claimed suzerainty
in southeastern Sumatra, but around 792-3/1390 a
Palembang prince apparently attemped to assert his
independence. Shortly afterwards, he was ousted by
an invading Javanese army. When a Chinese fleet
visited Palembang early in the 9th/15th century, it
was still an important port, but was under the control
of a Chinese pirate chief.

Two major sources contain the Malay legend of a
Palembang prince who left Sumatra, foundinga dynas¬
ty which ultimately ruled in Malacca. The first is the
Sejarah Melayu, a Malacca court text, of which the
oldest extant version dates from the 11 th/17th century
but which was probably based on earlier recensions
since lost. The second is the Suma oriental, a work by
a Portuguese apothecary, Tome Pires, sent to Malac¬
ca in 914-15/1509 by the Portuguese to investigate
trading conditions there. Though the two sources dif¬
fer in detail, the core of the legend is similar. Accord¬
ing to the Sejarah Melayu, a descendant of Alexander
the Great (in Malay, Iskandar Zul-karnain) appeared
miraculously on a hill in Palembang named Bukit Si
Guntang. A covenant was concluded between him
and the local chief in which he promised that he and
his descendants would govern the people justly in
return for their loyalty. With the title Sri Tri Buana,
he was then made ruler. Subsequently, seeking a
suitable site for a city, Sri Tri Buana came to an island
which he renamed Singapore after glimpsing a
strange beast which he took to be a lion ( singa ) there.
During the succeeding four reigns, Singapore
developed into a great trading city, but the fourth and
fifth rulers flouted Sri Tri Buana’s earlier covenant,
unjustly punishing their subjects. In retribution,
Singapore was attacked not only by giant swordfish
but by Javanese armies. The ruler, Iskandar Shah,
fled up the coast to Muar, but was twice forced to
relocate his settlement. Finally, he came to a place
called Bertam which he deemed auspicious after he
saw one of his hounds kicked by a courageous mouse
deer. Because he was standing under a melaka tree
(phyllanthus emblica; tetramerista glabra ) he decided to call
the place Melaka.

The broad outlines of Pires’ version are similar. Ac¬
cording to the Suma oriental, a Palembang prince enti¬
tled Paramesvara would not acknowledge his
subservience to Java and proclaimed his in¬
dependence. The Javanese attacked and Paramesvara
fled to Singapore with a following which included thir¬
ty orang laut, proto-Malay sea people whose habitat

208

MALACCA

was the coasts and offshore islands of Sumatra and the
peninsula. In Singapore, Paramesvara killed the local
chief, a vassal of the Thai kingdom of Ayudhya, and
established himself instead. When the Thais attacked
five years later, Paramesvara fled to Muar where he
settled, while the orang laut moved about 8 km. further
north to the mouth of the Malacca River. Discover¬
ing an attractive area up-river (Bertam), they per¬
suaded Paramesvara to establish his residence there.
Paramesvara gave the port at the estuary the name
Malacca, which according to Pires’ version means
“hidden fugitive”, although no satisfactory deriva¬
tion is known. Another suggested derivation given in
the Sejarah Melayu is the Arabic malakal (written
in Malay and or in ear¬

ly Arab trading manuals) = “possession”, which the
text interprets to mean “a place where merchants
gather”.

The Malacca dynasty. The precise chronology
of the first five rulers varies according to the source,
and gravestones have established the reign dates of
only some of the later rulers. The following is the cur¬
rently accepted dynastic list of the Malacca dynasty:

mented, “There is no doubt that Malacca is of such
importance and profit that it seems to me it has no
equal in the world.”

If the Sumatran origins of Malacca are accepted, it
can be argued that a primary reason for its rapid rise
was the fact that its founders brought with them the
prestige, administrative traditions and commercial
experience of the formerly great port of Snvijaya.

However, there were more tangible factors in
Malacca’s success as an entrepot. It was strategically
placed on the narrow Straits through which shipping
between China and India passed and where the domi¬
nant monsoonal wind systems met. Ports in the Straits
region had a guaranteed clientele because seaborne
trading patterns followed the cycle of the monsoon
winds. Ships from India and the western lands arrived
at various periods between March and January, while
traders from China and the east came between
November and March and those from the western ar¬
chipelago between May and September. For some
shipping, there was an enforced wait before they could
return home as the monsoon changed direction or
gained force; other traders, taking advantage of dif-

Paramesvara (died 816/1413-14)

Megat Iskandar Shah (817/14)4 - 826/1423-4)

Sri Maharaja Sultan Muhammad Shah (827/1424 - 847/1444?)

Raja Kasim, Sultan Muzafar Shah
(850/1446 - 863-4/1459?)

Raja Ibrahim, Sri Paramesvara Dewa Shah
(848-9/1445? - 850/1446?)

After 917/1511, when Malacca was captured by the
Portuguese, the dynasty ruled from capitals in the
Riau archipelago and peninsular Johor. The last
direct descendant was murdered in 1111/1699.

Malacca as an international entrepot. In
order to appreciate the reasons for Malacca’s place in
the expansion of Islam, it is necessary to understand
its emergence as an entrepot. It has been said that
Malacca was founded, rather than grew into, a
trading city. Its life blood was always commerce, for
the soil around was unsuitable for large-scale rice
growing, and rice imports became vital for feeding its
population. Some sago was grown, together with
fruits such as sugar cane, jackfruit, lichi and bananas.
The ordinary people subsisted by fishing from simple
dugout canoes, by collecting forest and marine pro¬
ducts, by panning tin and by weaving mats for barter
in Malacca’s market. These local activities, however,
were economically of minor importance beside Malac¬
ca’s role as an exchange centre in the international
trading network which by the 10th/16th century
reached from China through India and the Middle
East to Europe.

By 805-6/1403, presumably within a few years of its
founding, Malacca was sufficiently important to
receive a mission from the Chinese Emperor. During
the course of the 9th/15th century, it eclipsed its
rivals, notably the ports of Pasai and Aru on
Sumatra’s northeast coast, which had long since par¬
ticipated in international trade. Tome Pires com-

Raja Abdullah, Sultan Mansur Shah
(863-4/1459? - 882/1477)

Sultan Alauddin Riyat Shah
(882/1477 - 893/1488)

Sultan Mahmud Shah
(893/1488-934-5/1528)

ferent wind systems, needed to wait only a short
period before they left. Malacca proved ideally suited
as a stapling port where goods could be stored, ships
reprovisioned and cargoes sold and purchased quick¬
ly. It had an attractive harbour with approaches free
from shoals and mangrove swamps and, because it lay
in the lee of Sumatra, was more sheltered from storms
than Pasai. By tropical standards, the climate was
pleasant; there were good stands of timber for masts
in the jungles nearby; and to the northeast of the
settlement was a supply of potable water. Malacca was
also well-placed as a collecting point for local jungle
and marine products which were valued in India and
China. A portage route linked the upper Malacca
River with the gold mines of inland Pahang, and
numerous rivers that disembogue on both sides of the
Straits facilitated the transport of goods between the
coast and interior. Finally, the hill to the east of the
settlement (Malacca or St. Paul’s Hill) was a natural
vantage point where lookouts could be posted to warn
against any impending attack.

Diplomatic initiatives by the first rulers further con¬
tributed to Malacca’s commercial success. The
patronage of China, the greatest Asian power at the
time, was assiduously cultivated. When a large
Chinese mission arrived in 806/1404, Malacca
responded by sending envoys back to the imperial
court. As a sign of the emperor’s favour, Paramesvara
was granted an elevated title and Malacca became the
first foreign nation to receive the Yung Lo Emperor’s

MALACCA

209

personal inscription. Between 806-7/1404 and
838-8/1435, twenty missions were sent from Malacca
to China, several of which were headed by the ruler
himself. By offering the apropriate tribute and fulfill¬
ing its obligations to its Chinese overlord, the new
settlement retained China’s favour and protection in
the initial stages of its development. For their part, the
Ming Emperors obtained as a vassal an important
commercial centre which could act as a base for the
Chinese naval fleets that periodically sailed to the In¬
dian Ocean. Although the Imperial court withdrew
from active involvement in overseas affairs after
837-8/1434, junk trade with Malacca continued. Nor
were the close ties of the past forgotten. Sultan
Muzafar, Sultan Mansur and Sultan Mahmud re¬
quested investiture by China and it was to China that
the last Malacca ruler looked for assistance when the
Portuguese attacked in 916-17/1511.

The new settlement also reached if not friendship
then at least a modus vivendi with its two powerful
neighbours, the Thai kingdom of Ayudhya and Ma¬
japahit in Java. Founded in 751-2/1351, Ayudhya
continued to claim suzerainty over the entire penin¬
sula, and Majapahit too exercised a vague overlord¬
ship in the southern peninsula. Accordingly, until the
latter part of the 9th/l5th century, Malacca rulers
acknowledged themselves to be Ayudhya’s vassals. In
return, Malacca received supplies of food and people
as well as valued trading privileges. When Ayudhya
attempted to impose its control there in 809-10/1406,
822/1419 and 834-5/1431, Malacca was able to appeal
to its patron China, who ordered the Thais to desist.
The relationship with Majapahit, on the other hand,
was more harmonious. Malacca continued to accept
vassal status till the end of the century, and ties with
Majapahit were fostered through regular missions and
royal marriages. This ensured a mutually advan¬
tageous trade and guaranteed Malacca access to
Javanese rice.

From Malacca’s inception, its rulers sought to at¬
tract inhabitants. Not only was manpower a vital
economic resource, but a kingdom’s prestige was
always measured in terms of the people it controlled.
According to Portuguese accounts, within four
months of his arrival Paramesvara’s new settlement
had a population of a hundred people, which soon in¬
creased to 2,000. By the second reign, the population
had swelled to 6,000 and it continued to grow as
Malacca’s trade expanded. Peoples from the ar¬
chipelago itself, especially Sumatra and the peninsula,
were the most numerous, but there were also large
groups of foreigners, especially Indians, who took up
semi-permanent residence in Malacca and frequently
became prominent officials. At the beginning of the
10th/16th century the inhabitants of Malacca were
estimated at 100,000, though this is probably an exag¬
geration. According to Pires, no less than 84
languages could be heard in the streets and 4,000
foreign merchants resided there. The town itself
spread out for three leagues (about 15 km.) on both
sides of the Malacca river, encompassing a large com¬
mercial quarter on the northern shore, a Javanese
settlement on the southern side, impressive buildings
on Malacca Hill, and fishing villages at the estuary
and along the river marshes.

Militarily, Malacca was able to assert its superiority
in the region and thus ensure that its commercial
hegemony was maintained. Portuguese figures for
Malacca's fighting men vary from 4,000 in the city
proper to 100,000, including the neighbouring areas.
In the Portuguese attack on Malacca in 917/1511,
3,000 guns were taken, but this was believed to be less

than half the town’s artillery. The prime component
in Malacca’s forces were the orang laut, the sea people
of the coasts and river reaches, who manned its fleets.
In the early stages of Malacca’s development orang laut
patrols were sent out to compel passing vessels to
patronise Malacca rather than rival ports, and they
were crucial in guarding Malacca’s sea lanes from
pirate raids by other kingdoms. Their prestige in
Malacca was considerable. Several of their leaders
were related to the Malacca dynasty through mar¬
riage, and some of the highest ministers traced their
descent from orang laut.

A prime factor in Malacca’s success was the quality
of its administration. High priority was given to
security within the town and to the protection of
foreign merchants and their goods. One very practical
measure was the construction of underground
warehouses so that stored goods would be less
vulnerable to theft and fire. An early Chinese account
mentions men patrolling the streets ringing bells, and
both Malay and Portuguese sources describe the ac¬
tive part taken by rulers themselves in supervising the
enforcement of law. By the middle of the 9th/l 5th cen¬
tury, a body of laws had been codified regulating
punishments and attempting to control abuses such as
bribery, especially of judges. A separate maritime
code set out the powers of a ship’s captain when at sea
and his relationship with the merchants whose goods
he was carrying. The fact that foreigners in Malacca
had ready access to a legal authority in cases of dispute
must have been a great attraction to traders.

Commercial transactions were aided by an efficient
administrative system shaped to the needs of the mer¬
cantile community. Four Shahbandars or harbour
masters were appointed, each representing a group of
trading nations. One was for the Gujeratis alone,
since they were the most numerous (estimated at
1,000 by Pires); another was for other Indians and for
traders from Pegu and Pasai; another for those from
Java, the Moluccas, Banda, Palembang, Borneo and
the Philippines; the fourth was for traders from
Champa, China and the Ryukyu Islands (probably
including Japan). Each Shahbandar had the respon¬
sibility of welcoming individual traders, assigning
warehouses, overseeing the affairs of his particular
group, maintaining a check on weights, measures and
coinage, adjudicating disputes between ships’ cap¬
tains and merchants, and generally supervising the
market place.

Customs duties were also carefully regulated. In
general, these were paid in accordance with the value
of the cargo, with additional gifts presented to the
ruler and leading ministers. Though the bulk of
Malacca’s revenue came from these duties, they were
somewhat lower than those of its chief rivals. The
Chinese, furthermore, were exempt from any gift¬
offering. For large ships, a flat rate of 6% of the total
value was levied, eliminating the need for further
gifts. To minimise the possibility of extortion or cor¬
ruption, a consortium of Malacca merchants under
the supervision of the Temenggung often bought up
the entire cargo of these larger vessels. Each merchant
then received a proportion of the cargo equivalent to
the amount he had contributed. This proved a speedy
and efficient method of clearing cargoes, enabling
captains to buy up new supplies and prepare for their
homeward journey with the appropriate monsoon.
The smaller Malay traders of Malacca acted as mid¬
dlemen, by selling or bartering the goods in front of
their homes, in licensed stalls erected on the bridge
over the Malacca River, or in the market place itself.
They also carried cargoes by boat to other areas in

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

210

MALACCA

the archipelago. Because of the middleman role of
Malays, and because their language was easily learnt
when compared with most regional languages, Malay
became the lingua franca in ports throughout the ar¬
chipelago.

Thanks to its attractive mercantile environment,
Malacca emerged as the collecting centre for spices
from the eastern archipelago as well as a distribution
point for Indian textiles. This dual role was vital in its
commercial success, giving it a great advantage over
nearby ports and ensuring its dominance in the Straits
region. By the beginning of the 10th/16th century,
Pires valued Malacca’s trade at 2.4 million cruzados
annually, well over half that of Seville, one of
Europe’s major commerical cities.

Statecraft in Malacca. The prestige which
came to Malacca was linked not only to its wealth but
to the development of a court culture. A fundamental
part of this culture was the formulation of a concept
of statecraft that reinforced the status of the dynasty
and of Malacca itself. At the apex of the kingdom was
the ruler, whose exalted lineage was traced to Sri Tri
Buana, the prince who had miraculously appeared on
Bukit Si Guntang in Palembang. The legend of the
contract made by Sri Tri Buana with the Palembang
chief stressed that a terrible retribution would be
meted out to any subject guilty of derhaka or disloyalty
to the ruler. Although the latter was enjoined to treat
all his subjects with respect, the punishment of a wick¬
ed king must be left to Allah Almighty. But when a
ruler governed justly and wisely, the kingdom would
llourish, for the prosperity of the state found its
ultimate source in the king. Divine powers were in¬
herent in him, in pre-Islamic times perhaps subsumed
in the Sanskrit word sakti or old Malay andeka but later
denoted by the Arabic term daulat.

Despite the king’s theoretical sanctity and total
authority, there were checks against arbitrary rule. It
was customary for all state decisions to be based on
muafakat or consultation between the ruler and his
ministers. The interaction between the two is well ex¬
pressed by the Sejarah Melayu, which compares the
ruler to the fire and the ministers to the firewood “and
fire needs wood to produce a flame”. Since the
ministers were responsible for the daily functioning of
the kingdom, they wielded great power. The most im¬
portant was the Bendahara, originally of commoner
and perhaps orang laut birth, but whose line in time
became intimately linked with the royal house
through intermarriage. Following him came the
Penghulu Bendahari, the head of all Shahbandars,
who controlled state revenues as well as royal servants
and scribes. The Temenggung, originally third in line
but later regarded as Bendahara designate, was chief
of police and chief magistrate. Finally, the Laksamana
headed the military administration and was com¬
mander of the ruler’s bodyguard and the fleets of orang
laut.

Below them were many other nobles, although the
numbers are unknown. Some noble positions were
created as royal favours, but many others were in¬
herited. The nobles shared in the process of govern¬
ment through collective decision-making in a large
assembly where consensus was highly valued. Because
of their commercial interests, these men were often
extremely wealthy and could call on a large following.
Indeed, the greatest challenge a ruler could face was
a coterie of hostile ministers and nobles. It is not sur¬
prising, therefore, that by the mid-9th/15th century
Malaccan theories of statecraft had been translated in¬
to laws which spelt out special royal prerogatives in
dress and ceremonial and the severe penalties for any

who flouted this rigid sumptuary code. In extreme
cases, such as the use of words forbidden to any but
the king, the offender would be put to death.

While these notions of kingship did not originate in
Malacca, it was there that they were fully developed
and most clearly articulated. Malacca’s great achieve¬
ment was to refine a court culture which was then con¬
sciously imitated throughout other parts of the
Malay-speaking world. Despite local variations, the
style of dress, literature and dance, social norms and
courtly language were similar throughout the penin¬
sula and east-coast Sumatra, with considerable influ¬
ence in Borneo and parts of the eastern archipelago.
The fact that this highly-respected dynasty also
adopted Islam was not only an important ingredient
in its own prestige, but was also fundamental to the
spread of Islam in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago.

Islam in Malacca. Arab and Indian Muslim
traders had been in the archipelago for several cen¬
turies, but Islam did not begin to attract converts in
significant numbers until after the 7th/13th century
(for the coming of Islam, see Malay peninsula and
Indonesia). By 692-3/1292 the town of Perlak and by
696/1297 Samudra-Pasai on the north-eastern coast of
Sumatra had Muslim rulers, but on the peninsula the
earliest evidence of an Islamic king is the Trengganu
Stone from the east coast. It has a partly illegible hidjra
date which could read between 702/1303 and
789/1387. Various dates for the conversion of the
Malacca ruler, ranging from 811-12/1409 to
839-40/1436, have been suggested, but the precise
year is still speculative. While the Islamic name of
Iskandar is attributed to Malacca’s founder by the Se¬
jarah Melayu, it is unlikely that the first ruler was
himself Muslim. Pires attributes the conversion to the
second ruler, whom he calls Iskandar. Since his
dynastic list omits one king, it is more probable that
the conversion he describes can be identified with the
third ruler, Sultan Muhammad Shah, whom the Se¬
jarah Melayu depicts as the first royal convert. The sec¬
ond, and conceivably the first ruler, may have
assumed the name Iskandar and the Persian title of
Shah to enhance their status, but Muhammad is a
more appropriate name for a newly-converted king.

The Sejarah Melayu presents the conversion of the
third ruler as an act of divine revelation. The Prophet,
appearing to him in a dream, instructs him to recite
the confession of faith, gives him the new name
Muhammad, and tells him of the imminent arrival of
a teacher from Jeddah. When the king awakes, he
finds that he has been miraculously circumcised and
that he is able to recite the creed. That afternoon a
religious teacher arrives as his dream had foretold
and, convinced by this event, both the ruler and his
court embrace Islam.

The precise reasons for the ruler’s conversion are
still debated. According to Pires’ account, the (sec¬
ond) Malacca ruler was aware that the commercial
vitality of Malacca’s rival, Muslim Pasai, was largely
due to its patronage by Indian Muslim cloth mer¬
chants. He therefore took active steps to emulate
Pasai’s success and himself attract Muslims to Ma¬
lacca. Muslim traders were granted commercial
privileges; residences and mosques were built for
them and they were welcomed at court. Pasai, assum¬
ing the prestigious role of proselytiser, encouraged
this development by sending teachers to Malacca.
Pires goes on to say that under the influence of both
Pasai and prominent Muslim merchants, the (second)
ruler at the age of 72 adopted Islam and married the
King of Pasai’s daughter.

Pasai’s example and Malacca’s desire to attract

MALACCA

211

merchants must have been persuasive in Malaccan
court circles. Arguments in favour of taking definitive
measures to secure Muslim trade would have been
strengthened after the third ruler returned from a mis¬
sion to China in 838-9/1435, presumably aware that
the Emperor intended to abolish imperial trade, which
had previously brought Malacca valued revenue, and
revert to the tribute system.

But the decision to embrace Islam would not have
been purely the result of commercial considerations.
The new faith would have heightened the dynasty’s
already considerable prestige, since it linked the ruler
with the wider Muslim world. The impressive
ceremonial accompanying the reception of foreign en¬
voys at the Malacca court must have been even more
significant when the missions came from the Muslim
princes of such places as Aden, Hormuz, Cambay and
Bengal. Scholars have also suggested that the chang¬
ing doctrinal mood of Islam may have been another
inducement. By the 8th/13th century, the mystical
Sufi orders had become more influential within Islam
and had become closely associated with trade guilds.
The tolerance of Sufism when confronted with non-
Islamic practices as well as the Sufis’ syncretistic
theosophy, moderating the more stringent demands of
orthodox Islam, may have helped to make the new
faith acceptable to the Malacca court [see Malay
peninsula].

Little is known of the nature of Islam in Malacca.
The main source for information about its theological
content has been the Sejarah Melayu , but although the
text contains scattered references to Islam, these can¬
not be considered as particularly revealing. The
reshaping of the royal genealogy to incorporate Alex¬
ander the Great (Iskandar Zul-karnain), regarded as
a great Muslim warrior who converted the ruler of In¬
dia, conveys more about Malay attitudes to ancestry
than to religion. The Islamic invocation at the conclu¬
sion of each chapter and the death-bed testimonies of
various rulers are purely formulaic phrases. Stories
similar to that describing the miraculous conversion of
the third ruler can be found in other parts of the In¬
donesian world and are hardly unique.

Scholars have been attracted by apparent references
to mysticism, but the Sejarah Melayu itself does not
demonstrate any deep knowledge of SufT thought. The
great Persian theologian and mystic, al-Ghazali (d.
505/1111 [q. v . ]) is mentioned simply as an example of
a very learned man; similarly, the episodes which des¬
cribe the exchange of missions between Malacca and
Pasai, apparently over questions of doctrinal interest,
may be equally related to the Malay love of riddles
and the rivalry between the two courts. In one of these
episodes, a teacher from Mecca is sent from Malacca
by Sultan Mansur to Pasai to have his book on
mysticism, Durr manzum, either authenticated or ex¬
plained. In another, Sultan Mansur poses to the Pasai
court the question of whether those in heaven or hell
abide there forever, from which it has been inferred
that the work of the late 8th/14th century and early
9th/15th century mystic c Abd al-Karim al-Djlll (d.
820/1417 [q. i>.]) was known in Malacca. Sultan
Mahmud later sent a further mission to Pasai to
resolve an apparent contradiction between two
statements concerning the nature of unbelief. But
while the deliberately undisclosed answer may
possibly imply a mystic response, the debate over
what distinguished an infidel from an unbeliever was
of general concern to Muslims in these early stages of
Islamicisation.

Available sources do no more than suggest that
Islamic teaching in Malacca was tinged with

mysticism. Historical evidence is more revealing
about Malacca’s prestige as a thriving Muslim centre
in the 9th/15th century and about the contribution of
Islam to the shaping of Malay culture.

Within Malacca, Islam helped to strengthen the
dominance of the court. By the time Islam was for¬
mally adopted in Malacca, the influence of Persian
notions of kingship, stressing the monarch’s sacral
nature and elevating him to a place high above or¬
dinary mortals, had spread through much of the
Islamic world. The Malacca ruler became part of this
tradition. Already regarded as semi-divine, he was
now able to assume other new and imposing titles.
Coins from Malacca proclaim the ruler as Sultan and
Shah, raising him above all other princes in the region
who, with the exception of Pasai, bore the simpler title
raja. He was also “Helper of the World and of the
Religion’’ (Nasir al-dunyd wa 'l-dln), “Allah’s Shadow
Upon the Earth’’ {Zill Allah ji } l- c alam), to whom obe¬
dience was due as a religious obligation. In the words
of the Sejarah Melayu, “When you do your duty to the
Prophet and Allah, with whom a good king is joined,
then it is as though you are doing your duty to Allah
himself’.

There have been suggestions that the Hinduised
titles of Sultan Muhammad’s successor imply a short¬
lived rejection of Islam. In general, however, the pro¬
motion of Islam in Malacca was very much a royal
undertaking, with the rulers themselves actively en¬
couraging proselytisation. In the reign of Sultan Man¬
sur, marriages between Muslims and infidels were
arranged to attract new converts, and apostasy was
forbidden. The daily prayers were made obligatory
for Muslims, and to a considerable extent the legal
system began to favour Muslims, especially as
witnesses and in property disputes. The adoption of
Islam became increasingly necessary in order to main¬
tain high positions in the court; while able non-
Muslims could still rise, they usually eventually con¬
verted to the new faith. Nothing is known of the
Islamic religious hierarchy, although there are passing
references to imam , kadi, and khatlb. It seems that the
major religious official, who also played a prominent
role in court affairs, was termed Kadi. He had far
greater authority than did the kadi or judge in the
Islamic heartlands, and in at least one case the posi¬
tion passed from father to son. Other religious of¬
ficials, especially the ruler's own teacher, similarly
gained influence in court circles and Malacca’s ad¬
ministration because of their assumed piety and
superior knowledge.

The high point of royal encouragement of Islam
came during the reign of Sultan Mansur, who built a
great new mosque for Malacca and made prepara¬
tions to make the pilgrimage. He died before this
could be accomplished, but his son, Sultan Alauddin,
said to be devoted to mosque affairs, also announced
his intention of going to Mecca. Though he too aban¬
doned his goal, the projects assume greater
significance when it is realised that until the late 19th
century no Malay kings had made the haj.

In the development of Malacca’s court culture,
Islam’s great strength was its willingness, within cer¬
tain limits, to tolerate many non-Islamic beliefs and
traditions. An examination of Malacca’s laws
(Undang-Undang Melaka) shows that Islam made conti¬
nuing compromises with existing practices, particu¬
larly in regard to criminal punishments and sexual
offences. These laws, though drawn up by Islamic
jurisconsults and modified over several reigns, often
include two penalties for the same crime, one follow¬
ing custom ( c adat ) and the other said to be that of “the

212

MALACCA

law of Allah”. In fact, the so-called “law of Allah”
was often adapted from sharia law to conform with
local conditions. This fusion of Islam and Malaccan
custom was encouraged as local religious scholars and
scribes took over the task of rewriting and amending
the existing law code. While some sections of the
Malacca laws seem to have been copied verbatim
from Islamic law books, the language was not uncom¬
monly corrupt because sharia law was not always fully
understood.

To some Muslims, especially non-Malays, this ac¬
comodation was not always acceptable. An Arab
sailor-author whose account is dated 866/1462 con¬
sidered that, in Islamic terms, Malacca had no
culture; he was critical of the marriage between
Muslims and infidels, and the fact that divorce was
not regarded as a religious act; he also condemned the
failure to observe Islamic restrictions against certain
foods, especially the eating of dogs and drinking of
wine. The Sejarah Melayu hints at the continuing ten¬
sion between Malays and foreign Muslims who looked
down on a society they might well consider morally
and spiritually lax. One incident describes how a
Malacca noble, coming to his religious class intox¬
icated, accuses his teacher of being in Malacca purely
for financial gain; another noble defends the subtlety
of Malay pronunciation in comparison with that of
Arabic.

From an orthodox point of view, Malacca Malays
might not have been deeply versed in Islamic theology
or punctilious observers of strict sharia law. On the
other hand, even when the faith was only newly-
established in Malacca, the sources contain no hint
that Muslims from eastern Asia questioned its or¬
thodoxy. Ma Huan, a Chinese Muslim interpreter
whose account may relate to any period between
812-13/1409 and 855/1451, notes simply that “the
king of the country and all the people follow the
Muslim faith, fasting, doing penance and chanting
liturgies”. By the second half of the 9th/15th century,
Malacca was regarded as a focal point for Islamic
scholarship, with religious teachers attracted by the
patronage of the court and the possibility of suppor¬
ting themselves by taking on pupils. Malacca became
a dissemination point for Islam as much as for trading
goods, and all over the archipelago, in the southern
Philippines, Borneo and Java, legends link royal con¬
versions to teachers arriving from Malacca or to local
figures who received instruction there. The explica¬
tion and dispersal of Islamic beliefs was facilitated
because Malay was already established as a regional
lingua franca. Furthermore, the process of Islamicisa-
tion was fostered by the later Malacca rulers, who
regarded themselves and were perceived as the cham¬
pions of Islam in the region. Sultan Muzafar was said
to have actively encouraged princes in the northern
coastal ports of Java to adopt Islam, and one Javanese
non-Muslim ruler was driven to complain to the Por¬
tuguese about Malacca’s Muslim fervour. While
Malacca laid down the basis for much of Malay
culture, Islam itself became so associated with Malays
that, in places such as Borneo, to embrace Islam was
to masuk Melayu, to enter Malay ness.

The spread of Islam in neighbouring courts owed
much to the example of the prosperous and
prestigious Malacca, but its acceptance was not only
a result of peaceful persuasion. As Malacca expanded
territorially, gaining control over greater economic
resources, food-producing areas and manpower, it
brought its religion as well as overlordship. In the sec¬
ond reign, Malacca’s borders extended to include all
land between Kuala Linggi and Kuala Kesang (re¬
spectively the northern and southern borders of the

modern Malacca state) and from the mid-9th/15th
century, territorial expansion proceeded apace. Con¬
fronted by an aggressive Ayudhya, Sultan Muzafar
waged several campaigns against the Thais, the vic¬
tory, according to the Sejarah Melayu, being finally
assured by the magical power of a Malacca say id.
Following the conclusion of peace with Ayudhya and
emboldened by his friendship with Pasai, China and
Majapahit, Sultan Muzafar extended his control
north to Selangor, south to Singapore and west to
Pahang, where the ruler adopted Islam at Muzafar’s
request. Although he never succeeded in defeating
Aru, Malacca traditions successfully propagated the
notion that the people of Aru, though converted
before Malacca, practised a form of Islam inferior to
that found in Malacca. Sultan Muzafar did, however,
defeat the rulers of Kampar and Indragiri on the east
coast of Sumatra, forcing them to become Muslim
and gaining access to the pepper and gold of the
Sumatran interior. His son Sultan Mansur extended
suzerainty over Perak, gained after wars with Kedah,
Ayudhya’s vassal. His control was strengthened along
the east coast of Sumatra, where Siak was defeated
and Mansur’s daughter married to its ruler. Mansur’s
sister, who married the ruler of Minangkabau, also
induced her husband to accept Islam. The next ruler,
Sultan Alauddin, incorporated the entire Riau-
Lingga archipelago in his territory, and to ensure his
hold over key areas of his empire, retained the kings
of Pahang, Kampar and Indragiri at the Malacca
court, where he was said to have instructed them on
Islamic matters.

Islam must have provided the last ruler of Malacca,
Mahmud, with a rallying point around which to
mobilise his subjects in campaigns against the Bud¬
dhist Thais. During his reign Malacca attacked
Kelantan, a Thai vassal in the northern Peninsula,
and in 902-3/1497 moved as far north as Ligor. A
Thai prince of Patani agreed to accept Melaka’s
suzerainty and adopt Islam, while the ruler of Kedah
also revoked Thai overlordship. When Mahmud for¬
mally renounced any Thai claims to suzerainty in the
region, relations with Ayudhya were broken off. In
905-6/1500 the Thais attacked Malacca again and
possibly made another unsuccessful Siamese assault
prior to the first arrival of the Portuguese in
941-5/1509. But by this stage, Malacca’s hold over the
central and southern peninsula was so strong that
Ayudhya was only able to impose overlordship over
the most northerly Malay states.

During the 9th/15th century, the nexus between
flourishing international trade and a thriving religious
environment, characteristic of major maritime ports
in the archipelago, is well-exemplified in Malacca.
Islam became an integral part of the court culture of
Malacca which, admired and emulated throughout
the Malay world, also laid the basis for the evolution
of modern Malay society. While Malacca played a
vital role in the Islamicisation process, Islam was
equally important in contributing to Malacca’s special
place in Malay history. Perhaps the measure of
Malacca’s prestige is expressed most vividly by the
last ruler, Sultan Mahmud, who claimed that Malac¬
ca was so great that it could be made into Mecca itself.
Although implications of Sufi teaching on the unim¬
portance of the haj have been read into this, it is as
easy to see it simply as the boast of a proud, wealthy
and successful dynasty. But the statement clearly
created a dilemma for orthodox Muslims, and accord¬
ing to later Malay arguments it was Sultan Mahmud’s
unacceptable hubris which brought down divine
retribution from far-off Portugal.

In Rabi* H-Djumada I 917/July 1511, Malacca was

MALACCA

213

attacked by a Portuguese fleet under the command of
Afonso de Albuquerque. The Portuguese aim was to
establish a post for their expanding Asian trade, to
gain access to and command of eastern spices, and to
strike a major blow at Christianity’s great rival,
Islam. Internal dissensions in Malacca, and Por¬
tuguese military superiority, led to the flight of Sultan
Mahmud with 3,000 men and the fall of the city itself
on 21 Djumada I 917/10 August 1511. There can be
little doubt that at the time both Malays and Por¬
tuguese felt the religious nature of the conflict to be as
compelling as the commercial one. Several Por¬
tuguese taken hostage in Malacca in 914-15/1509
were circumcised and forcibly converted by Sultan
Mahmud’s orders. His refusal to negotiate with Albu¬
querque two years later was attributed to the influence
of Muslim merchants, especially those from India who
had already experienced conflict with the Portuguese.
Albuquerque for his part saw “Moors” as Portugal's
implacable enemies, both on commercial and spiritual
grounds, and gave orders that any Malay captured
should be put to death. The Hindu merchants of
Malacca regarded the Christian Portuguese as a
natural ally against their Muslim rivals and gave
Albuquerque valued assistance both before and after
Malacca’s fall.

In the aftermath of the attack, Malacca was sacked
and mosques and royal graves destroyed to provide
stone for the great fortress, La Formosa, built on the
site of Sultan Mansur’s great mosque. A Portuguese
governor and administration was appointed, Hindus
were placed in high positions and relations with
neighbouring non-Muslim rulers were cultivated. In
time, a modus vivendi was reached with other Muslim
states whose economy had come to be closely linked
with Malacca’s. But despite sustained efforts, the Por¬
tuguese were never successful in reviving Malacca’s
former commercial supremacy. While it remained an
important entrepot, foreign merchants complained of
high duties and official corruption, and Muslim
traders preferred to patronise Islamic Atjeh [q.v. ]
because of the unsympathetic Portuguese attitude
towards those of the Muslim faith. The Portuguese
were thus unable to command the exchange trade in
spices and cloth which, largely in Muslim hands, had
been so fundamental in Malacca’s former success.

Furthermore, Portuguese Malacca faced the conti¬
nuing hostility of the Malacca dynasty’s heirs. Setting
up a new capital in the Riau-Lingga archipelago, they
made repeated attacks on Malacca in an effort to
recapture the city. When the Dutch appeared in the
area in the early 11 th/17th century, the Malacca
dynasty, now based in peninsular Johor, were more
than ready to assist the Dutch East India Company
(VOC) in a siege of Malacca, perhaps hoping that
they might thereby return. However, after Malacca’s
fall to Dutch forces in Shawwal 1050/January 1641, it
became simply one more post in the vast VOC
trading network. Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch
never saw Malacca as an important commercial cen¬
tre. Its major function was to act as a strategic guard
post on the Malacca Straits, with commercial traffic
focussed on Batavia, the VOC capital.

Under the Dutch administration, the Malay
population (including Malay speakers from elsewhere
in the archipelago) slowly increased to more than
5,000. Indian Muslim traders did frequent Malacca,
but not in great numbers, being always the object of
Dutch suspicion. But Islam fared better under the
Protestant VOC than under the Roman Catholic Por¬
tuguese. The VOC did not encourage missionary ac¬
tivities among Muslims, and in many ways was more

concerned about Catholicism. However, without a
Malay court to act as a religious sponsor, and without
the links to the Muslim world provided by a
cosmopolitan trading port, Malacca made no further
significant contribution to the development of Malay
Islam. In 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, it was
taken over by the British to prevent its capture by the
French. Under the British, the famous fort was
destroyed to forestall its use by hostile forces in the
future. Malacca reverted briefly to the Dutch in 1818
but in 1824, by the terms of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty,
was returned to the British in exchange for Benkulen
(west Sumatra). In 1826 it was incorporated into the
Straits Settlements, but was always subservient com¬
mercially to Penang and Singapore, which became
renowned centres for Islamic study. In 1867 the
Straits Settlements were transferred from the Govern¬
ment of India and brought directly under the Colonial
Office. During the colonial period (1874 until 1957),
Malacca was under the control of a British Resident
responsible to the Governor in Singapore. It became
part of the independent Federation of Malaysia in
1957.

Bibliography. A collection of essays surveying
Malacca’s history from early times to the present
day is found in two volumes edited by Kernial
Singh Sandhu and P. Wheatley, entitled Melaka: the
transformation oja Malay capital, c. 1400-1980, Kuala
Lumpur 1983. R.O. Winstedt, A history of Malaya,
revised ed. Singapore 1968, is dated but still useful.
The background to Malacca’s founding is given in

O. W. Wolters, The fall of Srivijaya in Malay history,
Ithaca and London 1970, and P. Wheatley, The
Golden Khersonese, Kuala Lumpur 1961. Early rela¬
tions with China are discussed in J.V.G. Mills (tr.
and ed.), Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan. The overall
survey of the Ocean’s shores (1433), Cambridge 1970;
see especially Wang Gungwu, The opening of relations
between China and Malacca, 1403-5, in J. Bastin and
R. Roolvink, eds., Malayan and Indonesian studies,
London 1964, 34-62, and The first three rulers of
Malacca, in JMBRAS, xli/1 (1968), 11-22. The
Arabic navigational texts are discussed by G. R.
Tibbetts, A study of the Arabic texts containing material
on South-East Asia, Leiden and London 1979. The
standard Malay account is C. C. Brown, Sejarah
Melayu or Malay Annals, in JMBRAS, xxv/2-3
(1953), which is discussed by R. J. Wilkinson, The
Malacca Sultanate, in JAIBRAS, xxi/2 (1935), 22-67.
Legal codes are Liaw Yock Fong, Undang-Undang
Melaka, The Hague 1976, and R. O. Winstedt and

P. E. Josseling de Jong, The maritime laws of Malac¬
ca, in JMBRAS, xxix/3 (1956), 22-59. A. Cortesao,
ed., TheSuma oriental of Tome Pires, ii, London 1944,
remains the most valuable source on most aspects
of Malacca’s history, providing the basis for
M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz’s standard work, Asian
trade and European influence in the Indonesian Archipelago
between 1500 and about 1630, The Hague 1962. In¬
formation on Islam is limited, but see C. H. Wake,
Malacca’s early kings and the reception of Islam, in Jnal.
of Southeast Asian History, v/2 (1964), 104-28; A. H.
Johns, Islam in Southeast Asia: reflections and new direc¬
tions, in Indonesia, xix (1975), 33-55; A. C. Milner,
Islam and Malay kingship, in//?.4^(l981), 46-70. For
the Portuguese conquest, see W. de Gray Birch,
ed. and tr. The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalbo-
querque, iii, London 1884; A. Bausani, ed. and tr.
he tier a di Giovanni da Empoli, Rome 1970; M. L.
Dames, tr. The Book of Duarte Barbosa. An account of
the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean and their in¬
habitants, A.D. 1518, London 1918. Malacca’s deal-

214

MALACCA — MALAHI

ings with Malay states under the Portuguese and
Dutch are covered in L. Y. Andaya, The Kingdom
of Johor, 1641-1728, Kuala Lumpur 1975, and
Dianne Lewis, The Dutch East India Company and the
Straits of Malacca, 1700-84, unpubl. Ph. D. thesis,
A.N.U. Canberra 1970. The period of British rule
is discussed in C. M. Turnbull, The Straits Set¬
tlements 1826-7, Kuala Lumpur 1972.

(Barbara Watson Andaya)
MALAGA [see malaka].

MALAHI (a., pi. of malha ), appears in a number
of sources, in a figurative sense, as the equivalent of
musical instruments; it is sometimes replaced by
alat al-lahw or linked with the word lahw which means
“game, pastime, amusement”, as e.g. in certain
works called kitab al-lahw wa ’l-malahi. According to
the LA, the verb laha denotes an action aimed at
amusing and at securing tarab, the emotion of joy or
sadness; this further term, closely associated with
music and its power, gives birth to another appellation
of musical instruments, dial al-tarab. Dozy, in his Sup¬
plement, ii, 554, lists several terms which come from
the same root and are connected with the same idea:
mulhi “musician, instrumental player, minstrel,
balladeer whose profession is to amuse the masses”;
the feminine mulhiya would mean “dancer”, accord¬
ing to Quatremere, but Dozy remarks “I believe
rather that it means a female musician”; finally, we
have arbab al-malahi “musicians” and alat al-malahi
“musical instruments”. We have thus already three
equivalent terms denoting the same idea.

These few explanations of the usage of the term
malahi underline very clearly the association of the
designated object with the idea of game, pastime,
diversion and amusement, a point which leads
us to examine certain questions of principle. Does this
obvious connection with games and diversion indicate
a certain ideological and conceptual attitude which
could be at the very origin of the term in its relation¬
ship with music? Is it therefore possible that the term
was adopted at a given moment and in particular cir¬
cumstances? Was it, together with its variants, the
sole term used to designate the musical facts to which
it corresponds? Are the various meanings given by
Dozy exceptional ones, or do they rather indicate that
the term malahi is a wider one and extends beyond the
idea of musical instruments to denote, e.g., music in
general, and above all, the art-forms of music? Is
there perhaps a more restricted sense denoting e.g., a
particular category of instruments? As we shall see, it
seems that malahi is a term with manifold usages.

A study of the sources on music reveals to us a very
significant state of affairs. On one side, the term
malahi , either alone or linked with lahw, appears in the
title of 7 or 8 works which, accordingly, set forth
systematically the facts concerning it. On the other,
malahi appears in the chapters and passages devoted to
music which form part of works belonging to certain
categories of writings, but is almost absent from
treatises with a speculative character. These last,
which examine closely the mathematical, theoretical
and philosophical aspects of music, like those of al-
Kindl, al-Farabl, Ibn Sina, etc., use other terms to
denote the musical instruments or the other concepts
covered by malahi , such as alat pure and simple, or alat
al-musiki, alat al-tarab and alat al- gh ina ? The Epistle of
the Ikhwan al-Safa 5 , which is on the borderline be¬
tween the opposing categories, uses on one occasion at
the beginning of the treatise the term in the combina¬
tion sina c at al-malahi (instrumental art or musica in-
strumentalis) , but in the definition of music and its aims
twice repeated we read “musiki is ghina?, the musikar is

the musician and the musikat are musical instruments,
dial al-ghind y \ Amongst the rare exceptions in the
speculative treatises, one may cite the case of a late,
anonymous treatise called Ma c rifat al-anghdm wa 7-
hunuk wa l-tarab fi 'l-ithnay ’'ashar wa Tsitta
“Knowledge about the melodies and modes and the
happy emotions caused by the 12 and 6 modes” (ms.
Top Kapu Sarayi A. 2130, pp. 2-47), where it says
“The search for tarab has led to the invention of malahi
(musical instruments) by the philosophers”.

It is interesting to note that seven out of the eight
treatises completely dedicated to malahi saw the light
in the 3rd/9th century; the eighth one, the Dhamm al-
maldHb wa ’l-maldhi by Ibn al-Kayyal (d. 938/1532), is
conceived in the same spirit and bears almost the same
title as one of the seven others, Ibn Abi ’l-Dunya’s
Dhamm al-malahi (author d. 281/894). Like this last,
Ibn al-Kayya! brings together games and music in his
treatise (ms. Chester Beatty 3419, fols. l-77a), of
which the first two-thirds are devoted to games and
the last third to music, dancing and musical in¬
struments, whose origin is attributed to Satan. Given
that the theologian and jurist Ibn Abi ’l-Dunya’s
Dhamm al-malahi is the oldest extant work of this kind,
it is plausible to suggest that it was indeed he who es¬
tablished the model of the systematic and expanded
connection of “music and musical instruments” with
“games, pastimes and amusements”.

Ibn Abi ’1-Dunya in fact attacks violently music,
which he regards as a diversion from the life of devo¬
tion and piety; his attack covers all kinds of musical
activity, including the instruments linked up with
games and other types of pleasure. This treatise ac¬
cordingly became a source of inspiration for later
generations of theologians and jurists who opposed
music. Discussion concerning malahi in either a wide
or a more restrained sense crops up again whenever
it is a question of sama c [q. v. ]. In the numerous
passages about the problem of malahi, we find at¬
titudes varying from total prohibition to total ad¬
missibility of music, dancing and all instruments.
Hence in certain cases, the term malahi acquires a very
wide sense, embracing the art-forms of music and the
dance; in others, it is restricted to a limited number
of forbidden instruments. Al-AdfuwT, e.g. in his
treatise al-Imtd c bi-ahkdm al-sama c (which exists in
various mss., see Shiloah, The theory of music in Arabic
writings , 50-2), discusses the case of several in¬
struments, such as the duff (tambourine) and the shab-
bdba and yard! (flutes), then he deals separately with
the malahi, which are identified with ma c azif (a generic
term for stringed instruments). In this case, one must
understand that malahi denoting the forbidden in¬
struments for amusement correspond essentially with
stringed instruments, those par excellence of art-form
music. The MalikI jurist Ibn al-Hadjdj (d. 737/1336)
confirms in some measure this remark in his Madkhal
al-shar c al-sharif, where he states that ghind listening to
slave musicians, to the c ud, the tunbur and other in¬
struments of amusement ( malahi ) is to be condemned.
An attitude similar to al-AdfuwI’s turns up again in
the treatise of Ibn al-Kaysarani, Fidjawdz al-sama c , in
which the author begins also by putting forward the
idea that certain instruments are allowable, but then
devotes a passage to mazamir and malahi, which are ab¬
solutely forbidden. The jurist al-Shami (d. 993/1585)
in his Nisdb al-ihtisab writes that if the c ud, the tunbur
and the zamr are publicly on view, it is the muhtasib’s
duty to destroy them. Finally, in this type of writings,
the term malahi or alat al-lahw is taken, according to
the attitude of the various authors, at times as the
equivalent of all the concepts concerning art-form

MALA HI

215

music and the dance and at times as designating cer¬
tain instruments which are universally condemned.

In the general schema of the literature on sama c ,
there are other points of view about the term and con¬
cept of malahi. Al-NabulusT (d. 1143/1731) in his Idah
al-daldlat Ji samd c al-alat (ed. Damascus 1302/1884)
puts forward the idea that the word Lahw, by which
one describes the instruments ( malahi or alat al-lahw ),
does not necessarily indicate that musical instruments
are invariably used with the aim of amusement. This
qualification and the prohibition which follows from it
are justifiable when the end sought is mere amuse¬
ment. But when they contribute to the spiritual eleva¬
tion of the Sufi, this idea of distraction and
amusement is no longer valid, since an instrument as
such is not to be condemned because of its shape or
the harmonious sounds which it makes; thus listening
to the beautiful sounds made by birds is not forbid¬
den. We find exactly the same attitude again, set forth
in more or less the same terms, in the work of al-
Nabulusl’s pupil al-Dikdikidjl (d. 1189/1775), Raf-al-
mushkilat Ji hukm ibahat sama c al-alat bi 1-naghamat al-
tayyibat (ms. Berlin, We 1811, fols. 1-29).

With this refutation, which reduces to some extent
the pejorative sense of malahi and which rejects the
ideological attitude which associates them wholly with
maleficient effects, we can pass on to the class of
writings which presents the point of view of literary
exponents and is seen in the other works of the 3rd/9th
century devoted to malahi. Amongst these, some are
unfortunately lost, and we only have the titles in
bibliographical works. Ibn al-Kiftl, in his T. al-
Hukama > , mentions a treatise by al-SarakhsI (d.
286/899), whose complete title is Kitab al-Lahw wa 1-
malahiji l-ghina* wa 1-mughannin wa 1-munadama wa 7-
mudjalasa. Ibn Abl Usaybfia, in his c Uyun al-anba
gives an abridged title for the same work, K. al-Lahw
wa ’l-malahi, and Hadjdji Khalifa refers merely to a K.
al-Lahw; in the light of the practices of al-SarakhsI’s
time, it may be that we have here more than one
work. Amongst the lost treatises on music of Thabit
b. Kurra (d. 288/901), a Kitab al-Lahw wa l-malahi is
mentioned in the previously-cited work of Ibn al-
KiftT. Finally, in the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadlm cites a lost
work of Muhammad b. Yahya b. Abl Mansur al-
Mawsill (3rd/9th century) which had the title Kitab
al-^Ud wa l-malahi.

We come now to two final works of the 3rd/9th cen¬
tury which dealt with malahi and which are, at the
same time, the oldest treatises on music which have
come down to us. The first, the Kitab al-Malahi , is that
of the famous grammarian of the Kufan school al-
Mufaddal b. Salama(d. ca. 292/905 [q. v. j). The work
is essentially apologetic, and takes up the defence of
two causes set forth in the introduction in the follow¬
ing order:

(1) Refutation of the opinion, probably that of the
Shu c ubiyya [q.v.], according to which the Arabs did
not know the c ud and the other malahi and the Arabic
language did not possess the technical terms for the
different parts of the instrument and for other musical
features; and (2) demonstration of the fact that music
and musical instruments were not illicit. The author
begins with the second proof, to which he devotes a
few lines only, adducing some pieces of evidence in
favour of music and musical instruments. The greater
part of the treatise is thus devoted to the first proof,
in which the attitude of the grammarian becomes
clear. He comments upon a large number of Arabic
terms relating to instruments and to music which he
has gleaned from classical Arabic poetry. The method
of presentation starts off from the origin of each in¬

strument considered, most frequently, in the style of
the awall [q.v.] literature. The c ud, regarded as the
king of instruments, comes first; in this connection,
the author quotes Hisham Ibn al-Kalbl for the legend
of its invention by Lamech [see lamak). After having
mentioned other Biblical inventors of instruments
(Tzila, daughter of Lot, etc.), he moves on to details
of terminology, supporting each piece of commentary
by references to poetry. Thus he passes under review
the different names for the c ud , sc. kiran, mizhar, barbat
and muwattar ; the term for “string 5 ', sc. watar, mahbad
and shar c a ; the special name for the c ud’s four strings,
sc. zir, mathna y mathlath and bamm ; its frets (dasatin),
called in Arabic c ikdb, the Arabic equivalents of the
tunbur, a lute with a long neck and plucked strings, sc.
dirridj and alwan ; and the names of the ten different
kinds of wind instruments, sc. mizmar, mizmar, zam-
mar a, nay, kussab, mushtak, yara c , zanbak and hanbuka.
Still on the lexicographical level, at the end of the
treatise the author adds the first forms of singing
developed in the pre-Islamic period, sc. hida\ nasb,
sinad and hazadj^. In addition to its lexicographic im¬
portance, the work has a special interest for
musicology in its aspect of organology (i.e. the science
dealing with musical instruments). This interest ex¬
tends in fact to all the categories of the literature on
malahi , and provides information to the scholar about
a large number of instruments since fallen into disuse.
Thus al-Shalahl (8th/14th century) mentions in his
Kitab al-Imtd c wa !-intifd c Ji mas^alat samd c al-sama c 28
different instruments, and the total number to be
gleaned from this literature amounts to several dozen.

To the same period as al-Mufaddal b. Salama’s
work belongs that of the geographer Ibn Khurrada¬
dhbih (3rd/9th century [q.v.]), his Kitab al-Lahw wa 1-
malahi Despite certain similarities to the preceding
work, this latter one is much more complex and
sophisticated. In the same fashion as the Kitab al-
Maldhi, it opens with a section refuting the opinions of
those who prohibit music and gives the story of the in¬
vention of the c ud by Lamech as well as the stories of
other inventors of musical instruments in Biblical
times, but Ibn Khurradadhbih slants his work
towards wider and more universal horizons. His in¬
terest is indeed more centred on cultural and historical
than lexicographical questions. In furtherance of
these, he touches on the music of other peoples, in
particular, on that of the Persians and Greeks; and he
pictures the musical world on a wide scale, dealing
with the power of music and its different effects. From
his glimpse at world music, he passes to its develop¬
ment among the Arabs, and then devotes the greater
part of the work to a series of biographies of all the
famous musicians from the beginnings of Islam to his
own time. As a result, the term malahi has here a wider
sense and becomes the equivalent of “music”. Hence
it is not by chance that al-Mas < udT (d. 345/956 [q. v. ])
has cited, in the form of a dialogue in his Murudx al-
dhahab (see Bibl.) the essential part of Ibn Kh urrada-
dhbih’s work. Al-Mas c udi related indeed that the
caliph al-Mu c tamid, who was a fervid lover of music,
asked Ibn Kh urradadhbih to compose for him a
treatise on the origins and evolution of music; the
discourse which Ibn Kh urradadhbih sets forth in
response to the caliph’s request follows amost word-
for-word the first part of the K. al-Lahw wa l-malahi
as far as the point where the long series of biographies
begins.

These two works are the beginning and the end of
this category of writings on the malahi. They are also
the opening of a genre of writings on music which bor¬
rows from that adab literature which has anecdotal and

216

MALAHI — MALATKA

edifying works which do not however use the word
malahi any longer in their title. Nevertheless, the term
was to remain for a long while in use sporadically. It
is often to be found in the Kitdb al-Agham, as e.g. in
the passage concerning the caliph al-Mu c tamid cited
above, in which it is said that he had a passion for
malahi. Moreover, in regard to the caliph Yazid
(60-4/680-3), the same source states that “he was the
first to introduce malahi (musical instruments) and
singers at court’’.

In conclusion, we are inclined to admit that the
term malahi came into current usage of the 3rd/9th
century above all with the sense of musical in¬
struments. Within the circles of those religious
authorities opposed to music, their association with
amusement is seized upon and stress laid on this pe¬
jorative connotation, which at times enables these
authorities to attack what they regard as the negative
side of music and its emotive power. It is accordingly
in this sense that the term malahi is perpetuated in the
corresponding literature. In the circles of literary
adepts, the sense of amusement is taken up as the
equivalent of tarab, the dominating and much sought-
after effect of music in that period. Its substitution
takes place at the moment when the theoretical
writings on music become formed, without the influ¬
ence of Greek treatises translated into Arabic, i.e.
towards the beginning of the 4th/10th century. The
term disappears fairly rapidly from this literature,
because the philosophers and theorists inveighed
against the identification of music with playing,
pastimes and amusement; hence they had no interest
in utilising a term which denoted the very thing which
they wished to avoid.

Bibliography : C A. al- c Azzawi, al-Muslka

al-Hrakiyya fi c ahd al-Mughul wa ’l-Turkuman,
Ba gh dad 1370/1951, 73-89, 94-101; H. G. Farmer,
Studies in Oriental musical instruments, London 1931;
idem, Ibn Khurdadhbih on musical instruments, in JR AS
(1928), 509-18; idem, A Maghribi work on musical in¬
struments, in ibid. (1935) 339-53; I. A. Khalife,
Mukhtasar Kitdb al-Lahw wa i-malahi li’bn Khur-
radadhbih, in Machnq (1960), 129-67 (2nd ed. Mukh-
tar min K. al-Lahw wa ’ l-malahi li’bn Khurradadhbih ,
Beirut 1969); Mas c udT, Murudl, viii, 88-99 =
§§ 3213-26; J. Robson, The Kitab al-malahi of Abu
Talib al-Mufaddal ibn Salama, in JRAS (1938),
231-49; idem, A Maghribi MS. on listening to music, in
1C, xxvit 1 (1952), 113-31; idem (ed. and tr.). Tracts
on listening to music: being Dhamm al-malahl by Ibn
Abi ’l-Dunya and Bawariq al-ilma c by Majd al-Din al-
Tusi al-Ghazall, London 1938; A. Shiloah, L’epitre
sur la musique des Ikhwan al-Safa, in REI (1964),
125-62, 1966, 159-93; idem. The c ud and the origin of
Music, in Studia orientalia memoriae D. H. Baneth,
Jerusalem 1979, 395-407; idem The theory of music in
Arabic writings (c. 900-1900), in Repertoire international
des sources musicales, Bx, Munich 1979.

(A. Shiloah)

MALAHIM (a.), pi. of malhama \q.v.], which is the
subject of the article below mainly devoted to the
Malhamat Daniyal and its several versions culminating
in an apocalyptic current, at first in connection with
the announcing of the approach of the MahdT [?• r.j,
and then oriented towards the predictions concerning
the fate of different dynasties. These oracles gave
birth to the elaborating of so-called malahim (or
hidthan) works, which have been already spoken of in
the article djafr, and the subject is only raised again
here in order to note the use of the term in the sense
of predictions of a historical character (see
e.g. al-Mas c udr, Murudl, i, 8, ii, 335 = §§ 6, 756) and

to highlight the fact that Ibn Khaldun enumerates
several of these writings in a section about the beginn¬
ings of states and of nations which he places in the last
pages of ch. 3 of Book i of the Mukaddima (Ar. text, ii,
193 ff., tr. de Slane, ii, 226 ff., tr. Rosenthal, ii,
200 ff.). There follows here a list of the texts of which
he acquired knowledge, mainly in the Maghrib, but
some also in the Orient:

— A kaslda of Ibn Murrana on the Lamtuna, i.e. the
Almoravids, who seized Ceuta [see sabta] in
476/1083-4;

— A kaslda of 500 verses or 1,000 verses called al-
TubbaHyya and concerning the Almohads;

— A maPaba “amusing piece’’ or “plaything’’ of
about 500 verses given in zadyal [q. v. ] form, attributed
to a Jew and also concerning the Almohads;

— A kaslda on the Hafsids of Tunis attributed to Ibn
al-Abbar [qv.\, but belonging to a person of the same
name who was a tailor;

— Another malhama on the Hafsids;

— A maPaba attributed to a certain HawshanI and
written in dialect Arabic in such an hermetical style
that it would need an allegorical commentary.

In the Orient, Ibn Kh aldun acquired knowledge of
a malhama attributed to Ibn al- c ArabT [q. v. ], the Sayhat
al-bum (see O. Yahia, Histoire et classification de Toeuvre
d’Ibn c Arabi, Damascus 1964, no. 708; T. Fahd, in al-
djafr, above), as well as several others attributed to
Ibn Slna, to Ibn Abi ’l- c Akb (see Goldziher, in
ZDMG, lxxv [1921]) or, on the Turks, to the Sufi al-
Badjurbaki.

One should note that the works consulted by Ibn
Khaldun in the Maghrib are all in verse (classical or
dialectical), that they were widespread in his own time
and that he himself attached no credence to any of
them.

Bibliography: In addition to references given

in the article, see A. Kovalenko, Magie et Islam,

Geneva 1981, index, and the Bibls. to al-djafr and

malhama. (Ed.)

MALA 3 IKA (a.) angels (Persian “angel” =
firishta).

1. In the Kur 3 an and in Sunni Islam.

The form malaHka is the broken plural in Arabic of
a word going back to early North-West Semitic (there
is no cognate in Akkadian), Ugar. mPk “messenger”,
Aram. maPak and O.T. Hebr. maPak “messenger,
angel”, the root in Arabic being referred by the lex¬
icographers and commentators to a root m-l-k, l-k or
even l-^-k (see LA, xii, 272-4, 370-1; al-Tabari, Tafslr,
i, 150; Lane, Lexicon, i, 81c), which they consider
original to Arabic. A. Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of
the Qur’an, 269-70, following e.g. K. Ahrens,
Christliches im Qoran, in ZDMG, lxxxiv (1930), 24,
thought it fairly certain that the proximate source of
the word in Arabic was nevertheless the Ethiopic
maPak, pi. mald^eket, the usual equivalent in that
language for Grk. angelos “messenger > angel”; the
word was presumably a loanword into Ethiopic from
Aramaic or Hebrew. Since it is so frequently used in
the Kur'an, Muhammad’s audience was obviously
familiar with it, and it must have been a pre-lslamic
borrowing. The singular in Arabic is normally malak
without hamza, and so always in the Kur 3 an; although
LA in two places (xii, 274,8; 371,5) quotes the same
verse as a proof that mat 3 ak does occur, but as an ex¬
ceptional form (sha dhdh ). Both singular and plural in
Arabic are used only in the sense “angel”. In the
Kurban it occurs twice in the dual ( malakayn, II, 96;
VII, 19); of the two angels Harut and Marut [q.v.,
and sihr], and of Adam and Eve being tempted in the

MALATKA

217

Garden to believe that they may become angels. The
plural occurs very often in the Kur-’an (in Flugel’s
Concordance under l-^-k, 171) but the singular only 12
times (Flugel, under m-l-k, 183). These are of the peo¬
ple demanding revelation by an angel rather than a
human being (bashar, VI, 8, 9, 50? XI, 15, 33; XVII,
97; XXV, 8); women think Joseph an angel for his
beauty rather than a human being ( bashar, XII, 31);
an angel's intercession ( shafa c a , LIII, 26) does not
avail; twice as collective for angels, beside the c arsh
(LXIX, 17), and in rows and rows (LXXXIX, 23).

In XXXII, 11 “the angel of death” (malak al-mawt)
occurs but not by name; see ‘izraTl, and references
in tradition in Wensinck, Handbook of early Muham¬
madan tradition, 22b. Djibrll, the angel of revelation, is
named three times (II, 91, 92; LXVI, 4); cf. tradi¬
tions on him in Muslim, Constantinople 1333, i,
109-11 and other references in Wensinck, 59. In
Kurban XXVI, 193-5, Djibrll unnamed, is called
“the Faithful Spirit” ( al-ruh al-amfn); he brings down
the revelation to the kalb of Muhammad in a clear
Arabic tongue. There are other descriptions of him,
still unnamed, in LIII, 5-18 and LXXXI, 19-25, as
appearing plainly to Muhammad in revelation. He,
as “our Spirit” ( ruhana ), was sent to Maryam (XIX,
17). He is called “the Holy Spirit” ( ruh al-kudus) in
XVI, 104 and Allah aided Tsa with the name (II, 84,
254; V, 109). Mika -’ll (variant Mlkal) is named (II,
92) as an angel of the same rank as Djibrll; see a long
and apparently true story of how his naming came
about in al-Baydawi (ed. Fleischer, i, 74, 18 ff.); in
traditions he, with Djibrll, appears to Muhammad
and instructs him; he does not laugh (Wensinck,
152b); Muhammad called the two his waztrs of the
angels. To Israfil [q v.], the angel with the trumpet of
resurrection, there is no reference either in the
Kur-’an or in canonical traditions, but very much in
eschatological legend. In Kurban, XLIII, 47, the tor¬
tured in hell call to the keeper of hell, “O Malik!”
and in XCVI, 18, the guards of hell are called al-
Zabaniyya, an otherwise unused word, meaning ap¬
parently, “violent thrusters” (LA, xvii, 55); the
number of these, LXXIV, 30, is nineteen, and they
are asserted specifically to be angels, apparently to
guard against the idea that they are devils; they are
called “rough, violent” (ghilaz. shidad). Another class
of angels are those “Brought Near” [to Allah], al-
mukarrabun (IV, 170); these praise Allah day and night
without ceasing (XXI, 20); al-Baydawi calls them also
al- c alawiyyun (on Kurban, II, 28; ed. Fleischer, i, 47,
23); and al-karrubiyyun (D'QTO) on Kur-’an, IV, 170
(ed. Fleischer, i, 243, 25) as those that are around the
c arsh. The same term, mukarrab, is used of c Isa (III, 40)
as he is in the company of the angels nearest Allah; cf.
c Isa for his semi-angelic character. At the beginning of
the Sura of the Angels (XXXV) there is a significant
description: “making the angels messengers ( rusul an ),
with wings two and three and four; He increases in
the creation what He wills”; this has had much effect
on later descriptions and pictures. They are guardians
(hafizin) over mankind, cognisant of what man does
and writing it down ( katibin ; LXXXI I, 10-12), in
XXI, 94 the writing down is ascribed to Allah himself.
In LXX, 4; LXXVIII, 38; XCVII, 4, there occurs
the very puzzling phrase “the angels and al-ruh” . Al-
Baydawi on the first two passages shows how perplex¬
ing the distinction was found (ed. Fleischer, ii, 356,5,
383,4): “the ruh is an angel set over the spirits ( al-
arwah)\ or he is the whole genus of spirits; or Djibrll;
or a creation ( khalk ) mightier than the angels”; cf. too,
al-Kazwmrs ^Adya^ib, ed. Wiistenfeld, 56. For spirits
and the conception “spirit” in Islam, see ruh. In the .

KuHan there is no reference to the two angels,
Munkar and Nakir, who visit the dead man in his
grave, on the night after his burial, and catechise him
as to his Faith. Thereafter, if he is an unbeliever, his
grave becomes a preliminary hell, and if he is a
believer, it becomes a preliminary purgatory from
which he may pass at the Last Day into paradise; it
may even, if he is a saint, be a preliminary paradise.
This is called technically the Questioning (su ? al) of
Munkar and Nakir and, also, the Punishment of the
grave {fadhab al-kabr [q.v. ]). This doctrine, similar to
the Lesser Judgement of Christian theology, is one of
the samHyyat (to be believed on oral testimony) and is
based on the implicit meaning of Kur-’anic passages
(XIV, 32; XL, ii, 49; LXXI, 25) and upon explicit
traditions (al-Taftazam’s commentary on al-Nasafi’s
'■Aka^id, Cairo 1321, 109; the Mawakif of al-Idji with
commentary of al-Djurdjani, Bulak 1266, 590 ff.).
There is a still fuller account and discussion by the
Hanbali theologian Ibn Kayyim al-Djawzivya
(Brockelmann, II, 106, no. 23) in his Kitab al-Ruh,
Haydarabad 1324, 62-144, §§ vi-xiv.

The angels are also called the heavenly host, or
multitude ( al-mala 3 al-aHd, XXXVII, 8; XXXVIII,
69) and guard the walls of heaven against the “listen¬
ing” of the dfnn and shaytan. See further on this under

S1HR.

The Kur-’an lays stress on the absolute submission
and obedience of the angels to Allah “To Him belong
those who are in the heavens and in the earth and
those who are with Him ( indahu ) are not too proud for
His service ( < ibada ) and they do not become tired.
They praise, night and day, without intermission”
(XXI, 19, 20). “They do not anticipate Him in
speech and they labour on His command (XXI, 27).
At the creation of Adam they are distinguished in this
respect from him and his future race: “while we
praise Thee and sanctify Thee” (II, 28). Over the
Fire there are set certain terrible and powerful angels,
“they do not rebel against Allah as to what He com¬
mands them and they do what they are commanded”
(LVI, 6). But does this absolute obedience extend to
impeccability (Hsma [q.v.])? The Kur-’an is emphatic
as to their obedience, but is in contradiction as to their
created nature and as to their relationship in that
respect to the dyinn and to the shaytans. Thus in several
passages in the KuHan, the story is told of the creation
of man out of clay and that the angels were bidden by
Allah to prostrate themselves to him. This they all did
“except Iblis” (ilia Iblis ; II, 32, VII, 10; XV, 31;
XVIII, 48; XXXVIII, 74). Iblis, therefore, must
have been an angel; as al-Baydawi says, “If not, the
command to them did not apply to him and his being
excepted from them was illegitimate” (ed. Fleischer,
i, 51, 21). This would mean that the angels were not
impeccable. But, again, in XVIII, 48, the statement
is expanded, “except Iblis; he was of the djinn; so he
departed from the command of his Lord” (jasaka : an
amf rabbihi). Further, in VII, 11; XXXVIII, 77, Iblis
pleads in justification that man was created of clay
(tin) but he of fire ( nar ); and the diinn are acceptedly
created of fire; “fire of the sarnurn ” in VI, 27, “of a
maridj_ of fire” in LV, 14. The meaning of maridf is
unknown; LA, iii, 189, 13-19, gives a number of con¬
tradictory explanations, but it is probably an uniden¬
tified loan-word. Iblis and the dyinn, then, were
created of fire; but there is no statement in the KuHan
as to the material out of which the angels were
formed. A tradition traced back to c A ;) isha is the foun¬
dation of the accepted position that the angels were
formed of light: “The Prophet said, ‘The angels were
formed of light (khulikal min nur ) and the dj_ann were

218

MALA 5 IKA

formed of a marid / of fire and Adam of that which was
described to you” (Muslim, Constantinople 1333, vii,
226; al-BaydawT, i, 52,4). Another difficulty in the
doctrine of the impeccability of the angels is the
KuPanic statement as to Harut and Marut referred to
above. These two angels are supposed to have yielded
to sexual temptation, to be confined in a pit near Babil
and there to teach magic to men. But, it is answered,
(a) the Kurban says nothing of their fall; (b) teaching
magic is not practising magic; (c) they always first
warn those who come to them, “We are only a temp¬
tation (fitna ); so do not disbelieve” (Kurban, II, 96);
cf. further, al-Taftazanl on the : AkaHd of al-NasafT,
Cairo 1321, 133.

In al-BaydawT on Kurban, II, 32, there is a long
discussion of the angelic nature (ed. Fleischer, i, 51,
20 to 52,8) which, however, runs out in the despairing
statement that knowledge on the point is with Allah
alone ( al-Hlm c inda-dldh l ). Perhaps Iblfs was of the
djinn as to his actions ( fi c /“") but of the angels as to
species ( naw c ). Also, Ibn c Abbas has a tradition that
there was a variety ( darb ) of the angels who propagated
their kind (this has always been regarded as an essen¬
tial characteristic of the djinn and of the shay tans as op¬
posed to the angels) and who were called al-^inn; and
IblTs was one of these. Or, that he was a djinni brought
up among the angels and identified with them. Or,
that the djinn were among those commanded to pro¬
strate themselves to Adam. Or, that some of the
angels were not impeccable, although that was their
characteristic in general, just as some men, e.g. the
prophets, are guarded against sin but most are not.
Further, perhaps a variety of the angels are not essen¬
tially different from the shaytans but differ only in ac¬
cidents and qualities as men are virtuous or evil, while
the djinn unite both, and IblTs was of this variety. The
tradition from c A 3 isha is no answer to this explana¬
tion, for light and fire in it are not to be taken too
precisely; they are used as in a proverb, and light is
of the nature of fire and fire of light, they pass into an¬
other; fire can be purified into light and light obscured
to fire. So al-Baydawi.

With this should be compared the scholastic discus¬
sion in the Mawdkif of al-Idji, with the commentary of
al-Djurtjjanl, Bulak 1266, 576. In it the objector to the
Hsma of the angels has two grounds”: (a) their urging
upon Allah that he should not create Adam showed
defects (slander, pride, malice, finding fault with
Allah) in their moral character; (b) that IblTs was
rebellious, as above. These grounds are then
answered scholastically. Then various Kur 5 anic texts,
as above, on the submission and obedience of the
angels are quoted. But it is pointed out that these texts
cannot prove that all of them, at all times, are kept
free from all sins. The point, therefore, cannot be ab¬
solutely decided. Individual exceptions under varying
circumstances may have occurred, just as, while the
shaytans as a class were created for evil ( khuliku, It 7-
sharr), there is a definite tradition ( Sharh by al-
MaturTdT on al-Fikh al-akbar ascribed to Abu HanTfa,
Haydarabad 1321, 25) of one Muslim shaytan , a great-
grandson of IblTs, who appeared to Muhammad and
was taught by him certain suras of the Kurban.

The story of Harut and Marut suggests that the
angels possess sex, although they may not propagate
their kind. But “they are not to be described with
either masculinity or femininity” (fAkaHd of al-
NasafT, Cairo 1321, 133). Al-Taftazanl and the other
commentators in this edition explain that there is no
authority ( nakl) on this point and no proof by reason
( c akl); it should, therefore, be left unconsidered and
that, apparently, was the course followed by al-Idji

and al-Djurdjanl. They may have sex and not use it.
In that respect, man, who has in himself the possibili¬
ty of sin and must himself rule his appetites of lust
(shahwa) and of anger (, ghadab ), has a higher potentiali¬
ty of excellency than the angels (al-BaydawT on II, 28,
ed. Fleischer, i, 48, 28).

This leads to the second question as to the angels
which scholastic theology has considered, the relative
excellency of angels and men, and especially, of angels
and prophets. This is stated shortly by al-NasafT, 147:

(a) “The Messengers ( rusul) of mankind ( al-bashar ) are
more excellent than the Messengers of the angels; and

(b) the Messengers of the angels are more excellent
than the generality of mankind; and (c) the generality
of mankind are more excellent than the generality of
the angels”. Al-Taftazan! develops the theme that
there is general and indeed necessary agreement on
the excellency of the messengers of the angels over
mankind in general, but that the other two statements
(a and c) will bear argument. He urges (a) the pro¬
strating of the angels to Adam; (b) that Adam was
taught all the names of things (Kurban, 29); (c) that
Allah “chose” (islafa) Adam and Nuh and the family
of Ibrahim and the family of c Imran over all created
things ( c ala d-^alamin, III, 30); and (d) that mankind
achieves excellencies and perfections of knowledge
and action in spite of the hindrances of lust and anger.
But the Mu c tazilTs and the “philosophers” ( al-faldsifa)
and some Ash c arTs held the superior excellence of the
angels. They urged (a) that they were spirits, stripped
of materiality (arwah mudjarrada ), complete actually,
free of even the beginnings of evils and defects, like
lust and anger, and from the obscurities of form and
matter (zulumat al-hayula wa 'l-sura), capable of doing
wonderful things, knowing events (kawa^in), past and
to come, without error. The answer is that this des¬
cription is based on philosophical and not Muslim
principles, (b) That the prophets learn from the
angels, as in Kurban, XXVI, 193; LIII, 5. The
answer is that the prophets learn from Allah and that
the angels are only intermediaries, (c). That there are
multiplied cases both in Kurban and in tradition
where mention of the angels precedes that of the
prophets. The answer is that precedence is because of
their precedence in existence or because their ex¬
istence is more concealed (akhfa) and, therefore, faith
in them must be emphasised, (d) In Kurban, IV, 170,
“ al-masih does not disdain to be an c abd to Allah nor
do the angels” must mean, because of linguistic
usage, that the angels are more excellent than c Isa.
The answer is that the point is not simple excellency
but to combat the Christian position that c Isa is not an
c abd but a son to Allah. In the Mawdkif, 572-8, there
is a similar but much fuller discussion which involves
a philosophical consideration of the endowment—
mental, physical, spiritual—of all living creatures
from immaterial spirits to the lower animals ( al -
bahima).

In the ^Adjd?ib al-makhldkat of al-KazwTnT, ed.
Wiistenfeld, 55-63, there is an objective description of
the angels in all their classes, in which the statements
of Kurban and Sunna are adjusted to the Aristotelian-
Neoplatonic universe with its spheres ( al-aflak ), in ac¬
cordance with al-Kazwmi’s general aim to give a pic¬
ture of the created universe in its details and wonders.
Yet apparently, while the angels possess the quality of
“life” ( hayat ) and are the inhabitants of the heavens
and of the heavenly spheres ( sukkan al-samawat ), they
are not to be reckoned among the animals ( al -
hayawan). Al-DamlrT includes mankind and the djinn ,
even the diabolic (mutashaytana) djinn, such as the ghul,
in his Hayat al-hayawan but not the angels. Equally

MALA 5 1KA — MALAK HIFNI NASIF

219

acute and scholastic with the discussion in the
Mawdkif and more spiritual than that by al-KazwYnY,
is al-Ghazali’s treatment of the mystery of the angelic-
nature in some of his specialist smaller treatises. For
him, it is part of the general question of the nature of
spirit to which his smaller Madnun is devoted. See,
too, the larger Madnun, Cairo 1303, in Rukn, ii, 23
and the translation by W. H. T. Gairdner of his
Mishkat al-anwdr , London, Royal Asiatic Society, 1924
passim. Muslim literature also takes account of non-
Muslim ideas on the angels, such as those of
“philosophers”, Christians, dualists, idolaters. These
will be found given briefly by al-Baydawf on Kur 3 an,
II, 28, ed. Fleischer, i, 47, 18, and in more detail in
al-Tahanawi, Diet, of techn. terms, 1337 ff.

Bibliography: In addition to references given
in the article, see W. Eickmann, Angelologie und
Damonologie des Korans, New York and Leipzig
1908; T. P. Hughes, A dictionary of Islam, 15-16; D.
B. Macdonald, The religious altitude and life in Islam ,
Chicago 1912, index; J. Horovitz, Muhammeds
Himmelfahrt, in Isl., ix (1919), 159-83; idem, Jewish
proper names in the Koran, in HUCA, ii (1925),
144-227; idem, Koranische Untersuchungen, Berlin
1926; L. Jung, Fallen angels in Jewish, Christian and
Mohammadan literature, in JQR, N.S., xv (1924-5),
267-502, vii (1925-6), 287-336; P. A. Eichler, Die
Dschinn, Teufel und Engel im Koran, Leipzig 1928;
ERE, art. Charms and amulets (Muhammadan) (Carra
de Vaux), Demons and spirits (Muslim) (M.

Gaudefroy-Demombynes); S. Zwemer, The worship
of Adam by angels, in MW, xxvii (1937), 115-27; R.
Guenon, Notes sur Tangelologie de Valphabet arabe, in
Etudes traditionnelles, xliii (1938), 324-7; J. Mac¬
donald, The creation of man and angels in the
eschatological literature, in Isl. Studies, iii (1964),
285-308; W. M. Watt, Bell's Introduction to the
Qur'an, Edinburgh 1970, indices at 216, 242; L.
Gardet, Les anges en Islam, in Studia missionalia, xxi
(1972), 207-27; F. Jaadane, La place des anges dans la
theologie cosmique musulmane, u\SI, xli(1975), 23-61;
A. T. Welch, Allah and other supernational beings: the
emergence of the Qur’anic doctrine of Tawhid, in Jnal of
the American Acad, of Religion, Thematic Issue, xIvii/4
(Dec. 1979), 739 ff., 749 ff.; Fazlur Rahman,
Major themes of the Qur'an, Minneapolis-Chicago
1980, index; arts. djabrTPTl/djibrYl, harut

WA-MARUT, ISRAFIL, ‘‘IZRAIL, mTkaL.

(D. B. Macdonald*)

2. In Shi c ism.

In ImamY ShY c ism, angels are closely associated
with the Imams. Imam! doctrine consistently upheld
the dogma that the Imams , just like the prophets, were
more excellent before God than the angels with whom
they shared in divine protection from sin and error
(Hsma), and leading theologians, like the Shavkh al-
Mufid, wrote treatises in support of it. The Imams are,
however, guided and aided by angels. According to a
well-known ImamY tradition, the Imams could only
hear the voices of the angels but could not see them,
in contrast to the messenger prophets (rusul), who
could see angels while awake and would converse with
them, and to ordinary prophets who could hear and
see them in their sleep. This was countered, however,
by other traditions which affirmed that the Imams also
see the angels, and the restriction was held to apply
only at the time of their receiving divine instruction
through the angel. According to a tradition attributed
to the Imam Dja c far. the angels regularly come to the
Imams, tread on their beds, attend their tables, come
forth to them from every plant in its season, shake
their wings above the children of the Imams, prevent

beasts from reaching them and join them in every
prayer. Angels will, according to Imam! belief, appear
in the sky at the advent of the Twelfth Imam and will
call out his name; Gabriel and Michael will rally the
faithful to swear allegance to him. ImamY doctrine
adds to the Islamic angels of death, Munkar and
NakYr, who question and torment the dead in their
tomb, a positive counterpart, Mubashshir and
BashYr, who are sent to the saintly dead to comfort
them. According to some, they are the same pair as
Munkar and NakYr and merely change their function,
while according to others they are a different pair.

In Isma c Ylism, the hierarchy of ranks (hudud) of the
spiritual world are sometimes described as angels. In
particular, the triad of Djadd. Fath and Khayal,
which mediates between the Universal Intellect and
Soul and the prophets and Imams in the physical
world, are commonly identified with the archangels
DjibraTl, MikaYl and Israfil. In an early Isma c YlY
cosmogony, seven Cherubim ( karubiyya ) are named
and described as having been created out of the light
between the first two principles of the spiritual world.
After them a group of twelve “spiritual beings
(ruhdniyya )” was created to form their counterpart. In
later TayyibY Isma c Ylism, the third to ninth Intellects
of the spiritual world arc called the seven Cherubim.
Isma c YlY doctrine, however, also recognises angels of a
more conventional character. They are described as
being all of a single substance, with only their names
varying in accordance with their functions. Some in¬
habit the spiritual world, others the heavenly spheres,
and still others the physical world in order to preserve
all its regions. They are seen only by prophets and
those who rise spiritually to become like prophets.

Bibliography: The Imamiyya: al-MadjlisY,
Bihar al-anwdr, for references to angels throughout
this encyclopaedia, see c Abbas al-KummY, Safinat
al-bihar, Nadjaf 1355, ii, 546-9; the main section on
angels in the new edition of Bihar al-anwdr is in vol.
lix, Tehran 1386, 144-326. M. J. McDermott, The
theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufid, Beirut 1978, index s.v.
Angels. The Isma c Yliyya: C A1Y b. Muhammad
[b. ] al-WalYd, Tadj aMaka?id, ed. C A. Tamir, Beirut
1967, 45-6; R. Strothmann, Gnosistexte der

Ismailiten, Gottingen 1943, 29, 44, 46; H. Corbin,
Histoire de la philosophic islamique, i, Paris 1964,
118-36; H. Halm, Kosmologie und Heilslehre der friihen
IsmaTliya, Wiesbaden 1978, index s.v. Karubiya ; S.
M. Stern, Studies in early IsmaHlism, Jerusalem 1983,
20-9. (W. Madelung)

MALAK, MAL>AK [see mala 3 ika]

MALAK HIFNI NASIF (1886-1918), pen-name
of Bahithat al-Badiya, daughter of HifnI Nasif, a
follower of Muhammad c Abduh [< 7 . v. ], and pioneer
protagonist of women’s rights in Egypt.
She was in 1903 one of the first Egyptian women to
receive a teacher’s primary certificate and became a
teacher in the government girls' school. Her marriage
to c Abd al-Sattar al-Basil took her to the Fayyum,
where she observed the life of women in nomadic and
rural society. She was herself faced with the problem
of polygamy, since her husband had married a second
wife.

The intellectual influence of her father, her profes¬
sional training and experience, and the experience of
her marriage caused her to become the first Egyptian
woman to speak out publicly for the emancipation of
women. She wrote articles on the topic in al-Djanda
and such women s magazines as al- Dj ins al-latlf and
founded her own women’s organisation, the Ittihdd al-
Nisa :> al-Tahdhibi. In 1911 she gave a speech before the
Egyptian Congress in Helipolis, in which she

220 MALAK HIFNI NASIF — MALAKA

developed a ten-point programme for the improve¬
ment of the conditions of women.

In her ideas on emancipation, she was certainly in¬
fluenced by the writings of Kasim Amin [qv.\, though
her goals usually remained more moderate and her
concern with proper Islamic norms was strong. She
defended the veil, but was bitterly opposed to
polygamy. She attributed great importance to the
proper education of women in such subjects as
hygiene, household economics, child-rearing, first
aid, etc., i.e., to the provision of an education which
would prepare the woman for her role as mother and
household manager. In this she addressed herself
especially to upper-class women, whose idleness in
seclusion and ignorance she perceived as the major
cause for the weakness of their social position, and
whose style of life she contrasted with a somewhat
romanticised view of the active life of rural and
nomadic woman. Although she propagated the
possibility of higher education for women, she did not
envisage an independent professional life for women,
and opposed any suggestion of their participation in
public life and politics. Concurring with the general
trend of the emancipation movement for women at
the time, she did not postulate the legal and social
equality of women with men.

Bibliography: For a collection of her essays, ad¬
dresses, and lectures, see Madjd al-DTn Nasif (ed.),
Athdr Bahithat al-Badiya, Cairo 1962, and Bahithat
al-Badiya, al-Nisa^iyyat, Cairo 1328/1910, which in¬
cludes all her articles published in al-Djarida. ( Umar
Rida Kahhala, A c lam al-nisd^fi c alamay al- c arab wa 7-
islam, Damascus 1959, v, 74-101, and Rawhiyya
al-Kallinl, Shd c irdt c arabiyyal, Cairo 1964, 37-57,
have comprehensive biographies on her, the latter
work discussing especially her poetic works. For a
general analysis of her role, see T. Philipp,
Feminism and nationalist politics in Egypt, in N. Keddie
and L. Beck (eds.), Women in the Muslim world,
Cambridge, Mass. 1978. (T. Philipp)

MALAKA (a.), a philosophical term used to
translate the Greek hexis, “a being in a certain state or
habit”. It is contrasted with privation ( c adam - steresis)
in translations and commentaries on Aristotle:
whatever the possession ( malaka ) naturally occurs in,
anything capable of receving a possession is deprived
of it when it is completely absent from that which
naturally has it. It is also used in the expression al-^akl
bi ’l-malaka (the nous kath-hexin of Alexander of
Aphrodisias) to represent the intellect in habitu, a stage
in the development of the human intellect where basic
primary truths are cognised on the route to the in¬
tellect in actu where a complete set of primary and
secondary (imaginative) truths are cognised and ap¬
plied in the philosophy of mind of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina
and Ibn Rushd. According to Ibn Sina, all forms of
thought exist in the intellect, which is in a state
{malaka) in which it can by itself perform the act of
thinking. Ibn Rushd uses the contrast between malaka
or habit and c dda (the Greek ethos) or custom to
criticise al-Ghazall’s reduction of causal language to
language about God’s customs. Talking about God
having habits is to suggest impiously that there is
change in God “from which a repetition of his act
often follows” ( Tahdfut al-Tahafut, 425.6). There is
also a significant use of malaka by Ibn Kh aldun to ex¬
plain the survival of civilisation despite serious
political upheavals. The acquisition of habits embody¬
ing civilisation is a matter of education and involves
the learning through continuous repetition of skills or
science, which then persist in very different cir¬
cumstances.

Bibliography : P. H. Hannes, Des Averroes
Abhandlung: uber die Moglichkeit der Conjunction, Halle
a.S. 1892, 10, 53; Ibn Sina, K. al-Ishdral wa 7-
tanbihat, ed. J. Forget, Leiden 1892, 126-7; Ibn
Rushd, Tahafut al-Tahafut, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut
1930; Ibn Sina, K. al-Nad^at, ed. G. Anawati and
S. Zayed, Cairo 1938, 160-1; Kh. Georr (ed.), Les
Categories d’Aristote dans leurs versions syro-arabes,
Beirut 1948, 347 f.: Ibn Rushd, Talkhis K. al-Nafs,
ed. A. AhwanI, Cairo 1950; F. Rahman, Avicenna’s
psychology, London 1952, 117-20; Ibn Khaldun, The
Muqaddimah , tr. F. Rosenthal, London 1958, i, p.
lxxxiv; Ibn Sina, Shifd x . De anima, ed. F. Rahman,
London 1959, 48-50; H. Wolfson, The philosophy of
the Kalam, London 1976, 545, 556; F. Zimmer-
mann, Al-Farabi’s commentary and short treatise on
Aristotle’s De interpretation, London 1981, 29 n. 2; I.
M. Lapidus, in Barbara D. Metcalf (ed.), Moral
conduct and authority, the place of A dab in South Asian
Islam, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984, 53-6 (on
malaka in Ibn Kh aldun). (O. N. H. Leaman)
MALAKA, Arabic form of the name of
Malaga (in ancient times Malaca), which is today a
major city of southern Spain, on the Mediterranean
coast between Algeciras and Almeria, and regional
centre of the province of the same name. It is situated
in the centre of a bay and lies at the foot of a hill
known as Gibralfaro (Djabal Faruh). The town is
divided from north to south by a ravine which, at
times of heavy rainfall, carries the waters of the
Guadelmedina (Wadi ’l-Madina). To the west stret¬
ches the Hoya of Malaga, a fertile plain formerly
covered with various crops and especially tropical
fruits, but today severely damaged by the enormous
tourist development of the region.

The geographers of al-Andalus, of the Maghrib and
even of the Orient, provide lavish descriptions of
Malaga in which they stress the outstanding qualities
of the town just as much as the products of its soil. Its
port, always a centre of intense traffic, was visited by
numerous traders from all countries and especially
from the mercantile republics of Italy, the Genoese in
particular. The arsenal {dar al-sina c a , the name of
which is preserved in that of atarazana) drew the ad¬
miration of the German traveller J. Miinzer in Oc¬
tober 1494. The town, in the Islamic period and
particularly from the 5th/11th century onward, was
magnificent and possessed remarkable buildings;
there were two densely-populated quarters, that of
Fuentecilla or Fantanella (Funtanalla) in the upper
city and that of the fig merchants (al-Tayyanm) in the
lower city, attractive public baths ( hammamat) and
well-stocked markets. According to al-Himyarl
(Rawd, text 178, tr. 214), five gates were let into the
wall, of which two, to the south, overlook the sea; to
the east, or rather to the west, was the Bab al-WadT;
the north gate, according to the same author, was
called Bab al-Khawka; the kadi of Malaga Ibn c Askar
(d. 636/1239) mentions the fifth, the Bab al-Riyah or
“gate of the winds”. The fortifications of the town in
the time of Ibn al-Khadb. comprising a fortress, dou¬
ble walls, a ditch, bastions, towers set out at short in¬
tervals and well-defended gates, rendered Malaga an
impregnable stronghold. The same Ibn al- Kh atlb
{Mufakharat Malaka wa-Sala, in Mushahadat ft bilad al-
Maghnb wa ’ l-Andalus , ed. A. M. al- c AbbadI, Alexan¬
dria 1968, 57-66; tr. E. Garcia Gomez, El parangon
entre Malagay Sale, in al-And., ii [1934], 190-1) stresses
the attractive appearance and the elegance of its
population, the liveliness of its streets, markets and
suburbs, as well as the beauty of its buildings and
palaces and the size of its country houses.

MALAKA

221

The Vega, now known as the Hoya of Malaga, was
cultivated in its entirety. The texts stress the abun¬
dance of fruits, especially delicious figs, almonds and
raisins. The figs of Malaga {tin rayyi) were much in de¬
mand on the markets and, when dried, were exported
to Egypt, Syria, c Irak and even India. The Malaga
region was densely planted with fig-trees, vineyards,
groves of almonds, olives and pomegranates, without
counting other crops and the timber plantations. The
wine was excellent with the result that, rightly or
wrongly, it became proverbial, as is described by al-
Shakundl in his Risala (tr. E. Garcia Gomez, Elogio del
Islam espahol, Madrid 1934, 111). Ibn al- Kh atib draws
attention to the fact that Malaga enjoyed the benefits
of the sea, which offers abundance and variety of fish,
and of the land, so fertile that it produces lavish crops
which not only allow it to be self-sufficient but also
provide, through surpluses and the harvests from the
common lands, considerable revenues. It is also ap¬
propriate to take into account the development, from
the 5th/11 th century onward, of the textile industry,
in particular the manufacture of silk of different col¬
ours with a fringe of gold {washy) known in Europe by
the names, among others, of algiiexi, albeci, alve.ici and
oxi, and the making of muslin for bonnets and
turbans. The industry of leather and precious stones,
used in the manufacture of sword scabbards, belts,
straps and cushions, was no less important; the iron
industry, producing especially knives and chisels is
also to be noted; there was also the manufacture of
glazed and gilded ceramics which, of unique type,
were an exported product. In the markets of the town,
baskets were woven from both osiers and esparto-
grass. The curing of fish, anchovies in particular, was
characteristic of Malaga. The tending of bees and silk¬
worms were also well developed industries; silk had
become one of the most highly-prized export
products.

Malaga possessed a considerable number of mos¬
ques. One of the first must have been that which,
situated inside the fortress, was constructed at the in¬
itiative of the traditionist from Hims, Mu c awiya b.
Salih (d. 158/775). The Great Mosque, which oc¬
cupied the present site of the cathedral, in the centre
of the former madlna , had five naves according to the
author of al-Rawd al-miHar. The courtyard of this
mosque was planted with orange and palm trees. The
fortress was built or rebuilt by the ZTrid Badls after he
captured Malaga in 449/1057; it was reinforced in the
8th/14th centuries by the Nasrids, because for them
the town constituted a vital strategic point. There
were, it is known, at least five cemeteries; the largest
was situated to the north-east, outside the gate of the
Fontanella; there were also those of the Musalla and
of the Rawda of the Banu Yahya, according to L.
Torres Baibas ( Ciudades hispano-musulmanas, i, 277).
On the banks of the Gibralfaro, in the 9th/14th cen¬
tury, there lay, not far from the Jewish quarter, to the
east of the town, the cemetery of the Jewish communi¬
ty; this then numbered just over 1,500 persons.

Concerning the social and economic life of Malaga,
especially in the 7th/13th century, information is
available from an exceptional document, sc. the
treatise on hisba by al-Sakatl, which offers a vivid and
expressive account of customs, weights and measures,
corporations, the price of foodstuffs, etc. The descrip¬
tion of Malaga, like that of other towns in the region,
offered by Ibn al-Khatib in his Mi c yar al-ikhtiyar (ed.
M. Kamal Shabana. Rabat 1396/1976, 87-92, and
ed. A. M. al- c Abbadi, in Mushahadat Lisdn al-Din Ibn
al-Khatib . 76-8) permits the formation of a close im¬
pression of the reality of life in Malaga in the later
centuries of its Islamic history.

In the politico-administrative division of al-
Andalus, Malaga, perhaps on the fall of the caliphate,
'came to be the regional centre of the kura of Rayya
(some read Rayyu) in place of Archidona (Arshi-
dhuna or Ardjidhuna). The limits of the kura are, ex¬
ceptionally, indicated for the beginning of the
5th/11th century by the 8th/14th century author who
was a native of Malaga, al-Nubahl, in his K. al-
Markaba al- c ulyd, Cairo 1948, 82: the region included
Alhama (al-Hamma) of Granada: to the west, the
limit was formed by the Montemayor (Munt Mayur,
previously Hisn al-Wad) near Marbella; to the north
by the Rio Genii (Wadi Shanll) alongside the
Benameji (Hisn Ban! Bashir) and the Castillo of An-
zur (al-Ranisul); the limit subsequently passed
through the territory of Aljonos (ai-Khunus), of
Gilena (Karyat Djilyana), near Estapa (Istabba) as far
as the limit (hawz) of Moron {Mawrur). Among the
strongholds and towns of the kura were Marbella,
Fuengiroia (Suhayl), Cartama, Iznajar, Comares,
Velez Malaga, Coin, Alhama and Antequera and, for
some time, probably also Estepa (cf. J. Vallve, De
nuevo sobre Bobastro, in al-And., xxx [1965], 139-74).

The perimeter of Malaga enclosed an area of some
34 hectares at the end of the 5th/11th century, which
allows a calculation of the population, in these years,
at 20,000 inhabitants, mostly residing in homes of 50
to 100 m 2 (although some exceeded 150 m 2 or were
smaller than 40). During the same century, according
to Ibn Hazm in his Dja mharat ansab al- c Arab (cf. Elias
Teres, Linajes arabes en al-Andalus, in al-And., xxii
[1957], index) a number of Arab tribes settled in the
region of Malaga, among them Ash c arls, Lakhmls.
Nahdls and KaysTs descended from Himyar, (Habib!)
Umayyads, and Berbers of diverse origin (Lamaya,
Maghlla. Nafza, among others of the race of the
Sanhadja and the Zanata), all of these on a broad base
mostly Hispano-Christian and Hispano-Muslim, with
a considerably smaller Hispano-Jewish element.

Malaga and its kura knew almost eight centuries of
Islamic history from the moment when, according to
certain sources, an army sent from Ecija by Tarik, in
92/711, took the town, then an episcopal see and one
of the most important ports of the peninsula in the
Roman period. However, Ibn c Askar, who seems to
take his information from Ibn Hayyan (cf. J. Vallve,
Una Juente importante de la historia de al-Andalus. La
“ Historia ” de Ibn c Askar, in al-And., xxxi [1966],
244-5) presents in some detail a version according to
which it was c Abd al- c Ala 5 , son of Musa b. Nusayr,
who besieged the town and took it by storm, without
thereby discounting the obliging wa-yukal which in¬
dicates that it was Tarik who sent the army to the con¬
quest of Malaga. In the time of the wall Abu
’1-Khattar, in 125/742, the Syrian djund of Jordan (al-
Urdunn) became established in the kura. In the last
decade of the period of the walls , the territory of
Malaga experienced the effects of rivalries between
Kalbls and Kaysls who were seeking power, and the
Syrians. One of these pretenders was Yahya b.
Hurayth, an Arab of the Djudham, w ho had to be
content to govern the province of Rayya, but for only
a short time, since he was soon to be stripped of power
by Yusuf al-Fihrl, appointed in 131/747 wall of al-
Andalus.

Malaga gave a warm welcome to c Abd al-Rahman
I al-Dakhil and supported him after his landing at
Almunecar and his journey across the kura of Ilblra.
Until the second half of the 3rd/9th century, the
chronicles record no event of importance, apart from
the fact that, for an expedition against Djilllkiya, the
kura of Malaga supplied 2,600 horsemen to the impos¬
ing army which was formed with contributions from

222

MALAKA

other provinces. In the period of al-Mundhir. and at
the outbreak of the civil wars which marked the major
crisis of the amlrate, Malaga and other regions of
southern al-Andalus found themselves involved in the
series of rebellions which ensued and of which the
leading protagonist was the muwallad c Umar b. Haf¬
sun, who established his operational base and the cen¬
tre of his revolt in the territory of Malaga, where he
could rely on the decisive aid of the city chieftains and
of strong fortresses. This action obliged the authorities
in Cordova to send troops in order to defeat and
punish the rebels. One of the most important of these
expeditions dispatched in the time of the amir c Abd
Allah was that of 291/904 which, commanded by
Aban, brother of the amir , routed the forces of Ibn
Hafsun near Antequera. Some years later, the same
Aban marched against Malaga, laid siege to the city,
set fire to the suburbs and overran part of the
neighbouring littoral. A fresh expedition was sent
against the rebels of Malaga in 297/910 and achieved
a result favourable to the troops of the amir. In the first
years of the reign of c Abd al-Rahman III, various
campaigns were undertaken in the region with the ob¬
ject of putting an end to the rebellion of c Umar b.
Hafsun, who had found support there especially from
the population of Spanish origin, both Christians and
Muslims. One of these was the campaign of Belda,
directed by c Abd al-Rahman III himself in 306/919,
and crowned with success. Once Malaga had been
subdued, all the strongholds of the kura met the same
fate, as a result of repeated expeditions, and once the
territory had been pacified, the kura of Rayya ex¬
perienced a long period of prosperity which was to last
throughout the caliphate, until the turbulent years of
the fitna.

In the first third of the 5th/11th century, at the be¬
ginning of the period of the Muluk al-tawaHf (in fact as
early as the time of the fitna), Malaga declared itself
independent under the government of the Ham¬
mudids [q.v.], recognised as caliphs by the majority of
Berbers of southern al-Andalus. Under the caliphate
of c AlT b. Hammud, proclaimed in Cordova in
407/1016, who, arriving from Ceuta had disembarked
at Malaga, the town began to play a national role in
the affairs of al-Andalus. It was in fact the refuge of
al-Kasim b. Hammud when he was forced to leave
Cordova in 412/1021 and, in 413/1023, of his nephew
Yahya b. c AlI, who sustained his rebellion in Malaga
and was recognised as caliph by the people of Seville
and by the neighbouring Berber chieftains. Some time
later, al-Kasim, besieged in Xeres and taken prisoner
by his nephew, was incarcerated in Malaga, where he
was strangled on the orders of Idris b. C A!T b. Ham¬
mud in 427/1036. In fact, Malaga was transformed
into another taifa kingdom and was the rival of Seville,
where the kadi al-Kasim b. c Abbad employed a fraud
consisting of displaying and having recognised a dou¬
ble of Hisham II al-Mu 5 ayyad. Yahya, son of Idris,
was proclaimed in Malaga on the death of his father
in 431/1039 and was recognised by the people of the
town, but at the price of estrangement from another
Hammudid prince, Hasan, based in Ceuta. Con¬
fronted by action undertaken by troops loyal to the
latter, Yahya surrendered and abdicated in favour of
Hasan, who was proclaimed four months later,
having taken power (432/1040), and was recognised
as rightful caliph by the ZTrid amir of Granada and by
other provincial chieftains. In 434/1043 the Ham¬
mudid Idris II was in charge of the political affairs of
Malaga, but the inhabitants turned against him and
he was forced to seek refuge in Bobastro, where he ap¬
pealed to Badls for assistance in regaining his throne.

When his enterprise failed, in spite of the support that

he received, he withdrew to Ceuta. Power then fell to

Muhammad b. Idris b. C A1I b. Hammud who
♦ «

adopted, like his predecessors, the title of caliph. He

reorganised public administration but, proving cruel

and bloodthirsty, he was deposed, and Muhammad b.

al-Kasim, governor of Algeciras, was appointed in his

place.

The history of Malaga under the later Hammudids
remains fairly obscure, and there is evidence that the
situation was fairly precarious and showing symptoms
of weakness and instability, since Badls of Granada
took steps to annex Malaga and its entire region to his
own possessions and achieved this in 448/1056, ac¬
cording to al-Nubahl, who follows the account of c Ibn
c Askar, or in 449/1057-8, according to al-Makkarl
and other sources. Badls, as has been said previously,
then built or reconstructed the old fortress and en¬
trusted the government of Malaga to his son Bulug-
gin. The successor to the latter, Tamlm, showed
hostility to his brother c Abd Allah, the Zlrid of
Granada, and, around 474/1082, he appealed unsuc-
cesfully to Yusuf b. Tashfln for aid against the latter.
In 483/1090, Tamlm was deposed by Yusuf, and
Malaga was henceforward ruled by Almoravid
kuwwad, but no significant information is available
until the time that Ibn Hassun, kadi of the town,
rebelled against the Almoravids (538/July 1143-July
1144) and subsequently repelled the Almohads in
Rabl c I 547/June 1182. Malaga had been besieged by
the shaykh Abu Hafs c Umar al-Intl who had not suc¬
ceeded in breaching its defences, but when the in¬
habitants rebelled and Ibn Hassun was deposed and
imprisoned, the people invited the Almohads to enter
the town. In years marked by the overall insurrection
of al-Andalus against the Almohads, c Abd Allah b.
C A1I b. Zannun began a revolt in Malaga and
recognised the authority of Ibn Hud in 621/1229. Ibn
c Askar supplies a quite detailed account of the political
activities of Ibn Zannun and of his tragic end.

Finally, in Ramadan 635/April 1238, Malaga was
incorporated into the Nasrid kingdom of Granada.
The Banu Ashkilula, the kinsmen of Muhammad I b.
Nasr, who governed the town, consolidated
themselves there, rebelled against the latter and of¬
fered allegiance to Alfonso X of Castile who was at
war with Granada. In 665/1267, Malaga was besieged
without success for three months by the Granadan; in
Dh u ’1-Hidjdja 674/June 1275, Muhammad II also at¬
tacked the town without success, and subsequently the
Banu Ashkilula, who had obtained the favour of the
Marlnids and recognised them as sovereigns, handed
over the town to them on 6 Shawwal 676/2 March
1278. Six years later, the Marlnid sultan renounced
his claim to Malaga and other places in favour of
Muhammad II al-Faklh of Granada. Henceforward,
a Nasrid governor was appointed over the town. The
plague of 1348 claimed some hundred victims each
day, with the result that the inhabitants panicked and
abandoned the town. In the later years of the crisis of
the Nasrid kingdom, from 1455 onwards and in the
time of the sultans Sa c d and of Muhammad XI,
Malaga found itself embroiled in dynastic quarrels
and civil war, while its plain was subjected to reprisals
on the part of the Castilians. In the course of the cam¬
paign between 1485 and 1488 and, more especially in
that which began in the spring of 1487 against Velez-
Malaga, the old capital of the Hammudids, after
three-and-a-half months of siege, its chieftain then
being Ahmad al-Thaghrl, fell on 27 Sha c ban 892/18
August 1487 to the might of the armies of the Catholic
Kings.

MALAKA — MALAMATIYYA

223

Bibliography (in addition to references given in
the article): see especially (on Rayya as well as
Malaga), Cromca delMoro Basis, ed. D. Catalan and
M. S. de Andres, Madrid 1975, 105-8; Idris!, Opus
geograpkicum, Naples-Rome 1975, v, 570-1; Zuhri,

K. al-Dja c rafiyya. ed. M. Hadj-Sadok, in B. Et. Or.,
xxi (1968), 179; Ibn Sa c Id, K. Bast al-ard, ed. J.
Vernet, Tetouan 1958, 74 and idem, Espaha en la
geografia de Ibn SaHd al-Magribi, in Tamuda, vi
(1958), 313; al-Mughrib, ed. Shawki Dayf, Cairo
n.d., i, index; E. Fagnan, Extraits inedits, Algiers
1924, index; Yakut, s.v.; Abu ! 1-Fida\ Takwim al-
bulddn, ed. Reinaud and de Slane, 174-5; Ibn
Ghalib, ed. Lutft c Abd al-Bad! c , in RIMA, i/2
(1955), 294; Ibn Battuta, Rihla, ed. Beirut
1388/1968, 254-5 (various trs., including the latest,
the Spanish one by S. Fanjul and F. Arbos, A traces
del Islam, Madrid 1981, 761-3). To the descriptions
of the geographers and historians, add Ibn al-
Khatib, Ihata, ed. c Abd Allah c Inan, Cairo
1393-7/1973-7, index; Lamha , ed. Cairo 1347, in¬
dex; Makkar!, Najh al-tib, ed. Ihsan c Abbas, Beirut
1388/1968, index; For political history, as well as
the sources cited in ishbIliya, see Akhbar mafimu c a,
10, 12, 58, 80, 119 Arabic text, and 23, 25, 64, 79,
108 tr.; Ibn Hayyan, Muktabas, v, ed. P. Chalmeta,
Madrid 1979, index; Ibn c Idhari, Baydn; c Abd
Allah b. Buluggm, K. al-Tibyan, ed. E. Levi-
Provenial, Mudhakkarat al-amir c Abd Allah, Cairo
1955, index, tr. E. Garcia Gomez, El siglo XI en la
persona. Les “Memorias" de c Abd Allah, ultimo Rey Ziri
de Granada destronado por los almoravides (1090),
Madrid 1980, index. As well as the works of R.
Dozy, E. Levi-Provengal, A. Prieto Vives, J. Bosch
Vila and A. Huici Miranda, cited in ishbIliya, see

L. Seco de Lucena, Los Hammudies, senores de Malaga
y Algecires, Malaga 1955; H. R. Idris, Les Zlndes
d’Espagne, in al-And., xxix (1964), 39-144, index;
R. Arie, L’Espagne musulmane au temps des Nasrides
(1232-1492), Paris 1973; F. Guillen Robles, Malaga
musulmana. Sucesos, antigiiedades, ciencias y letras
malaguehas durante la edad media, Malaga 1957; of
special interest for the last years of the Islamic
history of Malaga is the work of Jose E. Lopez de
Coce Castaher, La tierra de Malaga a fines del siglo
XV, University of Granada 1977.

(J. Bosch Vila)

MALAM (pi. malamai ), a Hausa term derived
from the Arabic mu^allim with the meaning
“teacher”, formerly used to designate a man vers¬
ed in the Arabic language and Islamic sciences to
whatever extent. The tasks of a malam were many and
various and included any or all of the following:
preparing talismans (Hausa: hatimi from the Arabic
khatam ), dispensing medical cures both herbal and
Kur 5 anic, advising on propitious days, slaughtering
animals at circumcision, naming and other
ceremonies, officiating at marriages, offering prayers
on behalf of patrons, teaching the KuCan, copying
and selling books, etc. A malam of higher scholastic at¬
tainments, often known as babban malam “a great
malam ”, would devote himself mainly to teaching the
Islamic sciences or to such offices as kadi (Hausa,
alkali ) or imam (Hausa, limam).

Nowadays, although the traditional malam des¬
cribed above remains a familiar feature of Hausa
society, the term itself has been debased to the point
where (like the Arabic term al-sayyid) it merely serves
the function of the English “Mr.”. Similarly, Shehu
(from Arabic al~shaykh), once the coveted title of a
great teacher and scholar, is now commonly used as
a personal name. Combined with the word malam ,

however, in the phrase shehu malami, it is used as an
epithet for a distinguished exponent of the Islamic
sciences.

Among the black communities of Algiers where the
Hausa bori (possession) cult has been influential, the
term malam is used as a title in the diyar of Sid! Bilal.
The malam is in charge of musical arrangements
during ceremonies at the dar and officiates at minor
sacrifices outside it.

Bibliography. For the autobiography of a

malam , see Alhaji Koki, Kano malam, ed. and tr. N.

Skinner, Zaria 1979. On the usage of the term in

Algiers, J.-B. Andrews, Les Fontaines des genies (Seba

Aioun), croyances soudanaises a Alger, Algiers 1903.

(J. O. Hunwick)

MALAMATIYYA, an Islamic mystical
tradition which probably originated in 3rd/9th cen¬
tury Nishapur.

1. In the Central Islamic Lands

The foundation of this tradition has been attributed
to Hamdun al-Kassar (d. 271/884-5 [ q.u . and see fur¬
ther on him below, section 2]). One of the main
sources for the study of its doctrine is the Risdlat al-
Maldmatiyya by c Abd al-Rahman Muhammad b. al-
Husayn al-Sulam! (330-412/941-1021). This treatise
(see Bibl. ) contains a number of sayings by early
authorities concerning the Malamatiyya and an
enumeration of the principles ( usuI) of Malamat!
teaching. This teaching is not a closely reasoned inter¬
nally consistent system, but rather a number of tenets
which centre around the basic Malamat! doctrine that
all outward appearance of piety or religiosity, in¬
cluding good deeds, is ostentation. The most impor¬
tant of these tenets are: 1. the display of c ibada [q.v. ]
is shirk [qv.]\ 2. the display of a hal [q.v.] is irtidad
[q.v. ]; 3. in all ahwal, suspicion of one’s nafs [q.v.\ is
obligatory (and in conjunction, man is an opponent of
his nafs, therefore he must not find pleasure in any
hal ); and 4. a man must struggle against finding
satisfaction in doing good, since every action and
every pious deed which he looks upon with apprecia¬
tion is worthless. In accordance with these tenets, the
Malamat! has to struggle continuously against his
desire for divine reward and for approval by man.
This explains the requirements: 1. not to say prayers
{du c -d y ) except (under special conditions) for those in
distress; 2. not to dress differently from others and/or
isolate oneself from the world, but to dress like
everybody else and to live a normal life in conformity
with the requirements of society; 3. to take up a
despised profession and to refuse a prestigious one;
and 4. to conceal one’s poverty (if revealed, one enters
the state of neediness and will attract attention). The
required struggle against the desire for the approval of
men in conjunction with the concern to hide his hal
may bring the Malamat! to show only his bad
qualities. In doing so, he may make himself an object
of blame (Ar. malam, malama, from the root lama “to
blame”).

The Malamat! attitude is older than Islam. R.
Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzdhlungen, Leipzig
1906, 65 ff., was drawn upon by I. Goldziher,
Vorlesungen iiber den Islam, Heidelberg 1925, 167-8,
Eng. tr. Introduction to Islamic theology and law,
Princeton 1981, 149-50, who traced back the essence
of Malamat! thought to the ancient Greek
philosophical school of the Cynics, while M. Mole,
Les mystiques musulmans, Paris 1965, 72-7, has shown
that the Malamat! trend to hide one’s virtuous ac¬
tions, in order not to divulge one’s saintly state, was
to be found among the early Syrian Christians. Most

224

M A LA MAT 1Y Y A

contemporary Muslim authors (see Bibl.) on al-
Malamatiyya are in unanimous agreement that this
tradition is not Islamic, neither in its spirit nor in its
theory.

In the 4th/1 Oth century, the Malamatiyya tradition
reached Baghdad and Mecca in the persons of Abu
c Umar al-Zad j d j adji. Abu THasan b. Bandar, Abu
THasan b. Sahl al-Bushandji, Abu Ya c kub al-
NahradjurT and Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Farra 2 (cf.
c Abd al-Kadir Mahmud, al-Falsafa al-Sufiyya fi 7-
Islam, Cairo 1967, 415). In later centuries, the
Malamatl orientation frequently took the form of an
explicit invitation of reproach and rejection by inten¬
tional repulsive behaviour. Sometimes, such
behaviour became the hall-mark and proof of sanctity.

Intentional and systematic transgression of the
norms and values of society is particularly practised
by the Kalandariyya [^.a.], which have been looked
upon (e.g. by A. Le Chatelier, Les confreries musulmanes
du Hedjaz, Paris 1887, 253 ff.) as the continuation of
the Malamatl tradition within the framework of a
more or less regular tanka. This idea of continuity
must be discarded, however. Fundamental differences
exist between Malamatl and KalandarT thinking and
practice, as has already been pointed out by Shihab
al-DTn Abu Hafs c Umar b. Muhammad al-
Suhrawardl (539-632/1144-1235) and lately by J. S.
Trimingham, The Sufi orders in Islam, Oxford 1971,
264-9. In al-Suhrawardl’s life-time, the Malamatl
tradition still had its adepts in Khurasan and in c Irak,
where, however, the epithet Malamatl was not ap¬
plied to them (al-Suhrawardl, c Awarif al-macarif, Cairo
1971, i, 228).

Elements of the Malamatl tradition, notably silent
dhikr, abstinence of ritual activity in public and the re¬
quirement of “mental isolation” in the world while
actively engaged in it, seem to have been absorbed in¬
to the teaching of the Nakshbandiyya [ q.v .] order and
Filtered into the mystical traditions in the Arab lands;
for this process, see section 2 below.

The origins of the version of the Malamatiyya order
which had active adherents in the Hidjaz in the 19th
century were in a Syrian congregation of the Ham-
zawiyya (see below). These adherents were most
numerous in the town of al-Tafif, where this
Malamatiyya order had been introduced by the kadi of
the town, Hasan Fath al-Karkhl. Leadership of the
order in the Hidjaz used to be held by his descen¬
dants. A zdwiya [q. v.] existed in Mecca at the end of
the 19th century (Le Chatelier, 256).

Bibliography. Basic texts on the Malamatl
mystical tradition are Abu c Abd al-Rahman al-
Sulann, Risalat al-Malamatiyya, ed. Abu T- c Ala 5
c Afifi in his al-Malamatiyya wa ’l-tasawwuf wa-ahl al-
futuwwa, Cairo 1945, 71-120 (for an analysis of this
text, see R. Hartmann, As-SulamVs Risalat al-
Malamatfja, in Isl., viii [1918], 157-203); Abu T
Hasan C A1I b. c Uthman al-HudjwTn, Kashf al-
mahdjub, ed. V. A. Zhukovskii, Leningrad 1926,
repr. Tehran 1399/1979, 68-78, tr. R. A.

Nicholson, The ‘‘Kashf al-Mahjub'’, the oldest Persian
treatise on Sufism by al-Hujwm, GMS, London 1911,
see 19-74 for the Malamatiyya; Shihab al-DTn Abu
Hafs c Umar b. Muhammad al-Suhrawardl, c Awdrif
al-ma c arif Cairo 1971 (several editions exist), ch. 8
(/T dhikr al-Malamatiyya wa-sharh hdliha). Dispersed
and fragmentary information may be found in a
number of classical texts, which are all mentioned
in c Abd al-Kadir Mahmud, 407. See also MuhyT T
Din b. c Arabi, al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya, Bulak
1293/1876, iii, 44-6.

For short discussions by contemporary Muslim

authors based mainly upon these texts, see Abu
’l- c Ala 5 al- c Afifi, al-Tasawwuf, al-thawra al-ruhiyya fi
’l-Islam, Beirut n.d., 268-70; c Abd al-Kadir
Mahmud, op. cit. , 406-20; Ibrahim Hilal, al-
Tasawwuf al-Islami bayn al-dln wa ’ l-falsafa, Cairo
1979, 11-14. In addition to these works and the
works mentioned in the article, see A. J. Arberry,
Sufism, an account of the mystics of Islam, London
1956, 70, 74; H. Ritter, Philologika XV. Fanduddln
c Attar. III., in Oriens, xii (1959), 14 ff.; M.S. Seale,
The ethics of Malamatiya Sufism and the Sermon on the
Mount, in MW, lviii (1968), 12-23 (contains an
abridged translation of al-SulamT’s enumeration of
Malamatl tenets); P. Nwyia, Ibn c Aid 3 Allah et la
naissance de la confrerie sadilite, Beirut 1972, 243-4;
M. G. S. Hodgson, The venture of Islam, ii, Chicago
1974, 457; A. Schimmel, Mystical dimensions of
Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 86 - 8 ; R. Gramlich, Die
Schntischen Derwischorden Persiens. Zweiter Teil: Glaube
und Lehre, Wiesbaden 1976, 346-7; Taki ’l-Dln lbn
Taymiyya, al-Tuhfa al-^Irakiyya fi ’l-a^mal al-
kalbiyya, Cairo n.d., 45 (for a condemnation of the
Malamatiyya in its antinomianist form); Ahmad
Muhammad Ridwan, al-Nafahat al-rabbaniyya,
Cairo 1970, 113 (a short characterisation of the
Malamatiyya and the observation that al-Khidr
[see al-khadir] is one of them). (F. de Jong)

2. In Iran and the Eastern Lands

The concept of blame that underlies the designation
Malamatiyya (both in the sense of self-reproach and of
exposing oneself to reproach by others) derives from
KuHan, V, 54 (“they struggle in the path of God and
fear not the blame of any blamer”), a verse referring
to the Prophet and his Companions, whom the
MalamatTs indeed claimed as the First of their number
(Hudjwlrl, Kashf al-mahdyub, Leningrad, 1926, repr.
Tehran 1399/1979, 78). But as a historically iden¬
tifiable group, the Malamatiyya first appeared in Iran
in the 3rd/9th century, and since they remained con¬
fined to Iran, at least in their original form, it is per¬
missible to define the Malamatiyya as an Iranian or,
more narrowly, as a Khurasanian form of spirituality.

As noted in the preceding section, the major Figure
of the Malamatiyya was Abu Salih Hamdun al-
Kassar, after whom the early MalamatTs were some¬
times known as al-Hamduniyya or al-Kassariyya.
Born in Nlshapur where he spent most of his life and
gathered his following, he was himself a student of
Abu THasan Salim al-Barus! (for whose putative
spiritual descent see Cavit Sunar, Melarnilik ve
Bektasilik, Ankara 1975, 9). Al-Barusi was a critic of
the effusive and public devotions of the Karramiyya
sect [q. v. ] in Nlshapur, and insofar as the emergence
of the Malamatiyya may be taken as a reaction against
contemporaneous trends, it is in the Karramiyya
rather than the Sufi's that the counterpoint to the
MalamatTs should be sought. Shunning fame for piety
and the concomitant danger of hypocrisy, Hamdun
al-Kassar and his associates believed it necessary to
conceal all acts of superrogatory worship and declared
public appearances to be a matter of indifference; the
pleasure of God and the pleasure of men were irrecon¬
cilably opposed goals. The appetitive self was their ex¬
clusive object of blame (cf. the expression
“reproachful soul”— al-nafs al-lawwama —in Kur’an,
LXXV, 2), to such a degree that they allowed the du¬
ty of publicly “forbidding the evil” ( al-nahy c an al-
munkar) to fall into abeyance. The emphasis on in¬
ward, secretive devotion also led the MalamatTs to a
deliberate shunning of distinctive forms of dress, of
the writing of treatises setting forth their principles, of

MALAMATIYYA

225

the musical sessions of the Sufis known as sama c [<?.*;.]
and even of vocal—and hence audible —dhikr [q.o.\.

Abu Hafs al-Haddad and c Abd Allah Munazil, the
latter a pupil of al-Kassar, are clearly identifiable with
the Malamatiyya, but other figures sometimes
designated as Malamatfs have been claimed by the
Sufis as their own; this is the case notably with Abu
c Uthman al-Hfrf. In addition, Malamatf features are
to be found in persons who have no direct relation
with the Malamatf circle of Nfshapur, especially in
Bayazld Bistamf [see abu yazid al-bistamI], who on
several occasions changed popular acclaim into blame
by apparent violations of the Sharia. It is evident,
then, that the demarcation between Malamatfs and
Sufis was not always sharp. Hamdun al-Kassar
himself met with Sahl al-Tustarf and al-Djunavd
[q.vv.\ while on a visit to Ba gh dad and earned their
approval, surely an indication of compatibility be¬
tween the Malamatiyya and the “sober’’ school of
c Irakf Sufism.

Nonetheless, the shunning of all outward indica¬
tions of one’s inward state was a clear point of dif¬
ference from the Sufis, one implying criticism of
them. In return, the Sufis politely condemned the
unceasing Malamatf preoccupation with the wret¬
chedness of the nafs, which seemed to them a form of
implicit ontological dualism, setting the soul up as a
reality confronting God. Echoing earlier writers,
Djamf said of the Malamatfs: “Although this group is
precious and their state is noble, the veil of creaturely
existence has not been fully lifted from them” ( c Abd
al-Rahman Djamf, Nafahat al-uns, ed. Mahdi
Tawhfdfpur, Tehran 1336 r£./1957, 9). Likewise, the
preoccupation with reproach of the nafs seemed to
some Sufis to bar the Malamatfs from all progress
beyond the station ( makam ) of sincerity of devotion
(,ikhlas)-, al-Suhrawardf said that while the Sufi has
“lost awareness of ikhlas because of ikhlas ... the
Malamatf is fixed at the station of ikhlas" ( c Awdrj al¬
ma c arif in supplementary volume to al-Ghazalf, Ihya?
c ulum al-din, Beirut n.d., 71).

A close relationship appears to have existed be¬
tween the first Malamatfs and the practitioners of
futuwwa [ q.v.\ the members of the craft guilds. Like
them, the Malamatfs wore the common dress of the
bazaar and followed various callings, rejecting the
work-denying interpretation of tawakkul made by cer¬
tain Stiffs. Both Hamdun al-Kassar and Abu Hafs al-
Haddad are on record as offering definitions of
futuwwa, and it is significant that al-Sulamf—whose
maternal grandfather was Abu c Uthman al-Hfrf—
treated malama and futuwwa as twin concepts in his
writing. Ahmad Kh idrawavh was identified by al-
Kushayrf as a fata and by Hudjwfrf as a malamatf ; this,
too, must indicate an overlapping between the two af¬
filiations. After the disappearance of the Malamatiyya
in their original form, the craft guilds and organs of
futuwwa seem to have become one of the chief
repositories of Malamatf influence, with their em¬
phasis on self-effacing probity and practical devotion.

Although no prominent individuals are identified as
Malamatf after the 4th/1 Oth century, the original
Malamatiyya may have survived in Khurasan for
considerably longer. In the 6th/12th century, al-
Suhrawardf wrote in his ^A war if al-ma c arif 71,
“There is still a group of them (sc. of Malamatfs) in
Khurasan; they have their elders who expound their
fundamental principles and make known to them the
conditions of their states. I have seen people that
follow the same path in c Irak but they are not known
by this name”. Early on, however, the name
Malamatf had been usurped by antinomians who ac-

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

tively sought the blame of others, instead of simply
being ready to accept it; instead of hidden piety, liber¬
tinism was their hallmark. Although both Hudjwfrf
(Kashf al-mahdfub, 72) and al-Suhrawardf (op. cit., 72)
sought to clarify the difference between the true and
the false Malamatf, it seems that the false gradually
came to prevail, at least numerically. Kalandar [q. v. ] a
term designating a vagabond of scandalously offensive
behaviour, became interchangeable with Malamatf in
popular usage.

The true heirs of the early Malamatiyya of
Kh urasan were, it appears, the Nakshbandfs,
although they did not claim initiatic descent from
them (the notion of a silsila, like many other ap¬
purtenances of Sufism, was in any event alien to the
Malamatfs). The Nakshbandfs followed the
Malamatis in their avoidance of a distinctive garb,
their shunning of vocal dhikr and sam c , their prohibi¬
tion of ceaseless voyaging, and their closeness to the
people of the bazaar. The most prolific of early
Nakshbandf authors, Kh w adja Muhammad Parsa (d.
823/1420) quoted approvingly and at length from
Hudjwfrf’s discussion of the Malamatiyya; he said of
Abu Bakr al-Siddfk, Salman al-Farisf and Bayazfd
Bistamf—all key figures in the spiritual ancestry of the
Nakshbandf order—that they were to be regarded as
Malamatis; and concluded that “whatever holds true
of the Malamatfs holds true of our masters
( kh w adiagdn) also” (extract from Parsa’s Fasl al-khijab,
quoted in Sa c fd Nafisf, Sarcishma-yi tasawwuf dar Iran,
Tehran 1343 sh./\ 964, 172-80). More generally, the
original concept of the Malamatiyya continued to be
celebrated as a spiritual virtue or station in Sufi
literature, while in later Persian poetry—suffused
with the terminology and concepts of $ufism—
malamat became ubiquitous as a usefully rhyming an¬
tonym to saldmat (“safety”): the lover had to be ready,
it was held, to accept the former and renounce the lat¬
ter, for the sake of his beloved.

The original concept of the Malamatiyya does not
seem to have entered India and Central Asia, except
as mediated by the Nakshbandiyya. The term
Malamatf was, however, sometimes applied to antino-
mian (btsharf groups such as the Djalaliyya, a
derivative of the Suhrawardiyya that was addicted to
narcotics and ate scorpions.

Bibliography. Aziz Ahmad, An intellectual history
of Islam in India , Edinburgh 1969, 44-5; Farid al-
Dfn c Attar, Tadpkirat al-awhyaA, ed. R. A.
Nicholson, London and Leiden 1905, i, 322-35;
Jacqueline Chabbi, Remarques sur le developpement
historique des mouvements ascetiques et mystiques au
Khurasan, in SI, xlvi (1977), 32-4, 53-7; Kh w adja
c Abd Allah Ansarf Harawf, Tabakat al-Sufiyya, ed.
Muhammad Sarwar Mawiafi, Tehran 1362
rA./1983, 113-17, 121-2; Djamf. Nafahat al-uns,
9-10; Sa c fd Nafisf, Sarcishma-yi tasawwuf dar Iran,
160-81; Abu TKasim al-Kushayrf, al-Risala al-
Kushayriyya, ed. c Abd al-Halfm Mahmud, Cairo
1974, i, 118-19, 129-31; Suhrawardf, c Awdrif al-
ma c anf in supplementary vol. to Ghazalf, Ihyd >
c ulum al-din, 70-2; Sunar, Melamilik ve Bektasilik,
8-12; F. Taeschner, Zunfte und Bruderschaften im
Islam , Zurich and Munich 1979, 27; c Abd al-
Husayn Zarrinkub, Ahl-i malamat va rah-i kalandar,
in Yadnama-yi Marhum Ustdd Badi : al-Zamdn Furuzan-
far ( Madjalla-yi Danishkada-yi Adabiyyat wa c Ulum-i
Insani, Danishgah-i Tihran, no. 89 [Spring 1354
5A./1975]), 61-100. (Hamid Algar)

3. In Ottoman Turkey.

In the Ottoman Empire, the name Malamatiyya at-

226

MALAMATIYYA

tached itself to a heretical offshoot of the Bayramiyya
[q.v.]. An account of the original split between the or¬
thodox and the heretical branches of the Bayramiyya
survives only as a legend recorded first in the
1 Oth/16th century. According to this, c Omer the
Cutler (d. 880/1475-6), a dervish who had followed
first Shavkh Hamid (d. 815/1412-13) and then
Hamid’s disciple, Hadjdji Bayram [q.v.], refused to
join the disciples of Hadjdji Bayram’s appointed suc¬
cessor, Ak Shams al-Din [ q. v. ] in performing dhikr
[q.v.], or to kiss Ak Shams al-Din’s hand. Thereupon,
Ak Shams al-DTn threatened to divest c Omer of the
distinguishing cloak (khirka) and headgear (tadj) of the
new order. c Omer’s retort was to invite Ak Shams al-
Din and his followers to his house, where he lit a fire
in the courtyard. He then walked through the fire,
which burned off his headgear and cloak but left his
body unscathed. After this c Omer’s followers—the
Malamatiyya-yi Bayramiyya—wore no distinguishing
garments (Mahmud of Caffa, Kata^ib, quoted in A.
Golpinarh, Melamilik ve melamiler, Istanbul 1931, 41;
c Ata 3 I [q.v.], Dhayl-i shaka^ik, Istanbul 1268/1851-2,
65). The real reason why the Malamatiyya wore no
distinguishing clothing must, in fact, have been
because their heretical beliefs led to occasional
persecutions, and their survival could depend on con¬
cealing their identities from the authorities. To wear
identifiable clothing would invite investigation. How¬
ever, the sect continued to abjure special garments
right down to the 13th/19th century, by which time it
had long since become an orthodox $ufl group, ac¬
cepting the authority of the Sharia [q.v.] (J. P. Brown,
The dervishes, London 1868, repr. 1968, 61. On the or¬
thodoxy of the later Malamatiyya, see Brown’s
translation of a risala by La c llzade c Abd al-Baki, in op.
cit., 232 ff.). The legend of c Omer’s dispute with Ak
Shams al-Din suggests that their rivalry was personal.
This seems probable since, although Hadjdji Bayram
had nominated him as his successor or khalifa [q.v.],
Ak Shams al-Din had been one of the last to join the
group, so displacing candidates of “forty years’”
standing. His nomination no doubt aroused jealousy.
However, the essential split was doctrinal, and it was
doctrinal differences that caused it to be permanent.

There are no surviving 9th/15th century Malami
writings to give an account of the original doctrines
and affiliations of the sect. Links with Badr al-Din of
Simawne [q.v.] and the early $afawiyya [q.v.],
through c Omer’s and Hadjdji Bayram’s connection
with Shavkh Hamid have been suggested (H. J. Kiss-
ling, Zur Geschichte des Derwischordens der Bajramijje, in
Siid-Ost Forschungen, xv [1956], 237-68). The writings
of 1 Oth/16th and 1 lth/17th-century MalamI shaykhs,
however, clearly reveal the sect’s doctrines and permit
speculation as to its 9th/15th century origins. These
show that the sect espoused Sufism of a Halladjian
type, striving not, as orthodox Sufis, for Jana*
fi’lldh —the total loss of individual identity in God—
but believing in the manifestation of God in the in¬
dividual member of the sect: “Know that the Mirror
of Man is the outward form of the Merciful God”, in
the words of Ahmed the Cameleer (d. 952/1545-6), or
“The kibla is Man”, in the words of “The Hidden”
Idris (d. 1024/1615) (quoted by A. Golpinarh, op. cit.,
59, 127). The orthodox c ulamd with some justifica¬
tion, regarded this form of Sufism as leading to a
disavowal of the Sharia, the true source of divine
authority, since its adepts believed the divine authori¬
ty to be within themselves. This disavowal, the c ulamd : ‘
believed, expressed itself in a denial of the distinction
between what is canonically legitimate (haldl [q. v. ])
and what is canonically forbidden (hardm). The sur¬

viving verses attributed to the MalamI martyr Isma c ll
Oghlan Shavkh (d. 935/1529) (quoted by A.
Golpinarh, op. cit., 51-4) do, in fact, strongly suggest
that he flouted the concepts of haldl and hardm by, for
example, linking “the mosque and the wineshop” or
“the mosque of the Muslim worshipper ( ma c bcd~i
c dbid) and the idol-house of the priest” in a way which
went far beyond accepted Sufi convention. In his
guidelines for the trial of the MalamI suspect
Ghadanfer Dede (d. 974/1566-7), Abu ’l-Su c Gd [q.v.]
instructed the examiners to pay particular attention to
his statements on haldl and hardm ( c Ata :) I, op. cit.,
87-8).

Although Halladjian beliefs were not peculiar to
any one sect, there is evidence that they came to the
Malamatiyya specifically from the original Hurufiyya
[y.fl.]. Hurufi doctrines appear not only in the
Halladjism of MalamI writings, but also in certain
specific details. In the verses attributed to Oghlan
Shavkh. there are references to God’s appearing in
the human face: “Today, O heart, look at the beauty
of the Beloved’s face”, and in a ghazal [q.v. of “The
Hidden” Idris, there is a reference to the indisputably
Hurufi concept of “The Seven Lines” of the face as
a visible form of the jdtiha [q.v.], which in turn
represents the Sum of the Universe (i.e. God plus
what is beside God): “The Seven Lines are the
‘Mother of the Book’ (i.e. the Jdtiha). They are the
visible testimony from God”. Oghlan Shavkh also
makes the Hurufi equation between the “Name”
(Irm) and the “Named” ( musarnrna ): “You whose
name is Man gives news of the Named”. Further¬
more, one of his ghazals is a nazira of one by the Hurufi
martyr Neslml [q.v. ] (d. 820/1417). These Hurufi
echoes occur in poems of the 10th/ 16th and early
11 th/ 17th centuries, but it is possible that the doc¬
trines themselves date from the earliest days of the sect
in the first half of the 9th/l 5th century, since this was
the period when the disciples of Fadl Allah [q.v. ] were
actively preaching Hurufi doctrines in Anatolia and
Syria (see H. Ritter, Die Anfange der Hurufi-sekte, in
Oriens, vii [1954], 1-54; Ibn Hadjar al- c AskalanI
[fl.fl.], Inbd* al-ghurnr, Cairo 1973, 136; for the Hurufi
preacher in Edirne in 848/1444, see F. Babinger, Von
Amurath zu Amurath, in Oriens, iii [1950], 229-65).
c Omer the Cutler and his followers may well have ab¬
sorbed their doctrines.

A distinguishing feature of malami writings is their
exhortation to believers to conceal their beliefs from
the “ignorant”, meaning non-members of the sect. In
this they resemble the original Malamatiyya; but con¬
cealment of belief had the immediate practical pur¬
pose of preventing persecution by the Ottoman
authorities. They also maintained that “although
there can be no place like Man for the manifestation
of God’s essence” (Oghlan Shavkh. quoted by A.
Golpinarh, op. cit., 52), God can be manifest only in
a “believer” that is, a member of the sect. Non¬
believers are mere “animals”.

The Malamatiyya began as a sect in central Anatolia
and appear not to have spread beyond this region un¬
til the first quarter of the 10th/16th century. c Omer’s
khalifa, Benyamln or Ibn Yamln (d. 926/1520) came
from Ayash near Ankara [q.v.]. His successor, Plr
C A1I Dede (d. 935/1528-9) was a native of Aksaray
[q.v.], where he is also buried. The Malami shaykh
Husam al-Din, a khalifa of Ahmed the Cameleer,
came from the region of Ankara ( c Ata 5 I, op. cit., 70).
In 960/1553 he was imprisoned and executed in the
citadel of that town. He still had followers in the near¬
by region of Haymana, whom the Ottoman govern¬
ment investigated in 975/1568 (Muhimme defteri, text in

MALAMATIYYA

227

A. Refik, On altinci asirda Rafizihk ve Bektasilik, Istan¬
bul 1932, 24-5). By the time of Husam al-Dln’s end,
however, the sect had spread far beyond the region of
its origin.

The expansion began in 934/1528 when Isma c ll, the
son of Plr c AlI Dede, known as Oghlan Shavkh. began
to preach in Istanbul. For a year he preached and per¬
formed ceremonies, apparently in mosques, attracting
many followers, including soldiers ( c A$a 5 I, op. cit.,
79). These were probably kapikuli troops stationed in
the capital. In 935/1529, after numerous warnings
and condemnatory fatwas [q.v.\, the authorities ex¬
ecuted him on the At Meydanf, with the sanction of
a fatwa from Kemal Pasha-zade [q.v.].

The underlying question in the trial of Oghlan
Shavkh was whether or not he accepted the authority
of the Sharia, and therefore of its officially appointed
interpreters, the Ottoman c ulamd\ However, the ex¬
amination centred specifically around the question of
whether he and his followers regarded the gyrating
dance which constituted their dhikr as c ibada [q.v.],
obligatory worship, or simply as a permissible ( mubdh)
religious ceremony. To regard it as mubdh did not oc¬
cur the death-penalty: it merely branded its practi¬
tioners as “dissolutes”, to be corrected by flogging
(ta c zir). However, to regard it as Hbada made the
death-penalty inevitable. Since the term Hbada refers
specifically to the forms of obligatory worship laid
down by the Sharia, to claim any other form of wor¬
ship as Hbada is to arrogate to oneself the authority
which properly belongs to the Sharia, the revealed
command of God. This Oghlan Shavkh did, and, fur¬
thermore, defended his position with quotations from
the Kurban and Hadith (John Rylands Library,

Manchester, Turkish ms. no. 39 [the fatwas of Kemal
Pasha-zade), fols. 377a-b. This section, entitled
Matlab-i Zeyd-i Sufi, appears to refer to the case of
Oghlan Shavkh). In doing so, he conformed precisely
to the definition of a heretic ( zindik [q. v. )) which
Kemal Pasha-zade had propounded, following the
case of Molla Rabid [q.v.} in the previous year. A zin¬
dik was someone who, while “concealing his unbelief,
also propagates it” by “extracting his seditious prop¬
aganda from the Truth” (Kemal Pasha-zade, Risdla fi
tahkik lafz al-zindik, printed in Rasa SI Ibn Kemal, Istan¬
bul 1316/1898-9, 240-9). A heretic was, in fact, some¬
one who, like Oghlan Shavkh. supported
“erroneous” opinions by arguments from the
Kur-’an, Hadith or other “true sources” of Islam (for
a summary—how accurate a one we can only
surmise—of the sherHyye sidjilli entry on the trial of
Oghlan Shavkh. see M. Akdag, Turkiye'nin iktisadi ve
iftimai tarihi, ii, Ankara 1971, 48-9).

The trial of Oghlan Shavkh may have assisted the
Ottoman authorities in formulating a definition of
heresy, but was otherwise counterproductive. In ex¬
ecuting him, they created the first Malaml martyr. A
body of legend, relating essentially to the injustice of
his execution collected around him ( c Ata 5 I, op. cit., 70)
and continued to circulate for at least a century and
a half after his death (Evliya Celebi [q.v.], Seyahat-
ndme, i, Istanbul 1314/1896-7, 456). Years after his
execution, Abu ’1-Su c ud ruled that if a person claimed
that O gh lan Shavkh’s execution was unjust and also
belonged to the “sect of Oghlan Shavkh”. he incur¬
red the death-penalty (M. E. Diizdag, §eyhulislam
Ebussuud Efendi fetvalan , Istanbul 1972, 196). In the
case of Ghadanfer Dede, Abu ’1-Su c ud also wrote that
“no good” could come of him if the reports were true
that he was “from the silsila [q.v.] of O gh lan Shavkh”
( c Ata 3 i, op. cit., 88). An Imperial Decree of 967/1559
concerns the arrest of a shaykh who preached around

Uskudar [q. v. ] and was a “disciple of Oghlan
Shaykh’s father” ( Mihimme defteri, text in A. Refik,
op. cit., 17). This frequent re-occurrence of Oghlan
Shaykh’s name suggests that his martyrdom advanced
the fortunes of the Malamatiyya.

O gh lan Shavkh brought Malaml doctrines to the
capital. It is possible that Ahmed the Cameleer, a
native of Hayrabolu in Thrace, where he is also
buried ( c Ata 5 I, op. cit., 65), carried them into Europe.
In 980-1/1572-3, the Imperial Diwdn ordered the kadi
of Hayrabolu and the kadis of the neighbouring
districts of Rodoscuk (Tekirdagi) and Burgos (Lule
Burgaz) to examine suspects in certain villages who
were adherents of the martyred Malaml Hamza (d.
968/1561) (Muhimme defteri, text in A. Refik, op. cit.,
33-4; Muhimme defteri, xxii, 228). It may have been
Ahmed the Cameleer who established the sect in his
native region. His itinerant profession would also
have given him the opportunity to proselytise in dif¬
ferent areas. A later shaykh, “The Hidden” Idris, also
travelled a great deal, making frequent trips as a mer¬
chant to “Belgrade (Belgrad), Plovdiv (Filibe), Sofia,
Edirne and Gallipoli (Geliboh)” ( c A{a 3 I, op. cit., 602).
It is likely that travelling shaykhs such as these both
spread the sect and maintained contact between
members in different regions. By whatever means it
spread, it is clear that by about 1560 Malaml doc¬
trines had reached and had become deep-rooted in
Bosnia. There is no obvious reason why this should
have been so, but it is worth noting that pre-Ottoman
Bosnia had been a centre of dualist Christianity, with
remnants of the Bogomil sect surviving into the Ot¬
toman period, showing that Bosnia had long been
receptive to heterodox forms of religion.

The Malaml shaykh Hamza, a khalifa of Husam al-
DTn, was a Bosnian by birth. His public preaching in
Istanbul led to his execution there in 968/1561 and to
an investigation of his followers in Bosnia, of whom
“many were arrested and executed” ( c Ata 5 T, op. cit.,
70-1). ‘‘Atari’s report ( loc. cit.) that a baltadji \q v.]
committed suicide in grief at his execution suggests
that he, like Oghlan Shaykh. had a following among
the kapikuli troops.

The execution of Hamza, like the execution of
O gh lan Shavkh. had the effect of creating a new mar¬
tyr, and one so revered that the Malamatiyya came to
be known as the Hamzawls until the last days of the
sect (Brown, loc. cit.). Nor did the persecutions in
Bosnia after his death eliminate his followers in the
area. In 981/1573, the year of similar investigations in
Thrace, the Imperial Diwdn received reports about
“disciples of the heretic Hamza, who was previously
arrested and executed” and ordered the sandjak beyis
of Hercegovina (Hersek [<y. ]), Bosnia and Pozega,
and the beylerbeyi of Buda (Budin [q. v. ]), to arrest and
imprison them while awaiting further instructions
[Muhimme defteri, xxii, 194). The authorities’ efforts
seem again to have been ineffective, since in
990/1582, the kadis of Zvornik, Gracanica and Tuzla
in Bosnia again investigated a group belonging to the
“sect of Hamza, who was executed when his heresy
was proven” (Muhimme defteri, xlvii, 185; xlviii, 151).
At the same time, the government clearly continued
to treat with suspicion adherents of the sect in the
capital. At an unspecified date, it issued a fermdn for
the arrest of “The Hidden” Idris, after the “great
shaykhs of the city”, SlwasI Efendi and c Omer Efendi,
had publicly denounced him for heresy. Idris, how¬
ever, avoided arrest by using his name HadjdjI c AlI
Beg in public, rather than his lakab [q.v. ] of Idris, and
by spending most of his time in the seclusion of his
own house ( c Ata 3 T, op. cit., 602; Katib Celebi [q.v.\,

228

MALAMATIYYA — MALANG

Fedhleke, Istanbul 1286/1869-70, i, 373-4, after
c Ata 3 I). The sect’s last martyr was a certain Beshlr
Agha who, together with “forty” disciples, was ex¬
ecuted in Istanbul in 1073/1662-3. He apparently had
a number of HurufTs in his following (A. Golpinarh,
op. cit., 128, 158-60, after La c llzade c Abd al-Bakl,
Serguzesht).

There are, however, indications that, by the time of
Beshlr Agha, the Malamatiyya had largely changed,
or were changing their character to become an or¬
thodox tanka [q.v. ]. The Bosnian MalamI shaykh
Hiiseyn-i Lamekam (d. 1035/1625) (Katib fielebi, op.
cit., ii, 71), for example, while still defending the
sect’s gyrating dance with the same hadlth as Oghlan
Shaykh had used, apparently upheld the primacy of
the Sharia: “[The believer] should be a HanafT, a
Sunni and pious ...” (quoted by A. Golpinarh, op.
cit., 82). By the time of La c llzade (d. 1165/1751-2),
the sect appears to have accepted without question the
authority of the Sharia. The report that the vizier
Ferhad Pasha [q. v. ] (d. 1004/1595) became a disciple
or murid of Hiiseyn-i Lamekam is perhaps significant;
as members of the Ottoman ruling establishment
began to join the sect, it would, by definition, become
orthodox.

The organisation and membership of the sect re¬
mains as obscure as the Malamls themselves obviously
intended it to be. It is not clear, for example, whether
one kutb [q.v.] could ever claim the allegiance of the
entire sect. This was probably the case until the death
of Benyamm (926/1520), when the order was confined
to central Anatolia. c Ata 3 I (op. cit., 65), however,
gives him three khalifas: his son Shaykh Ibrahim, Abu
Leyll Shaykh Suleyman and the influential Plr c AlI of
Aksaray. He then lists three khalifas of Plr c All:
Ahmed the Cameleer, Plr Ahmed of Edirne (d.
1000/1591-2) and Shavkh Ya c kub the Ac/ua-maker (d.
989/1581-2). The last two appear to have been too
young to have been Plr c AH’s personal disciples, but
the number of apparently very long-lived Malarm
shaykhs whom he lists, and other peculiarities, cast
doubt upon c Ata 3 T’s chronology. Among PTr c AlI’s
successors, one should also mention his son Isma c Il
Oghlan Shaykh. Ahmed the Cameleer’s khalifa
Husam al-Dln, in turn claimed three khalifas : the mar¬
tyred Hamza, Hasan the Tailor, from Bursa (d.
1010/1601-2) and “The Hidden” Idris. Hiiseyn-i
Lamekam was a khalifa of Hasan. The most influential
kutbs down to 1024/1615 seem to have been c Omer—
Benyamln—Plr c AlI and his son—Ahmed—-Husam
al-Dln—Hamza—Hasan—Idris. However, another
branch descended from Ahmed the Cameleer: c Ala :>
al-Dln of Vize (d. 970/1562-3) (for verses attributed to
this shaykh , see A. Golpinarh, Turk tasavvuf fiiri antolo-
jisi, Istanbul 1972, 119-31) and his khalifa Ghadanfer
Dede, who won acquittal in his trial for heresy. His
successors were, in turn, Ball Efendi of Vize, his son
Hasan and Emir Efendi of Kasim Pasha.

The number of khalifas whom c Ata : ’T records after
the death of Benyamm points to the success and
spread of the sect from the time of Plr C A1I. However,
it is by no means certain that his list represents any
kind of recognised succession or hierarchy within the
order itself. The apparent confusion within the line of
succession suggests that, as the sect spread over a wide
area after 926/1520, it became less cohesive, with
various kutbs acquiring fame and a personal following
not universally recognised by all members. It is possi¬
ble, for example, that the following of c Al£p al-Dln,
Ghadanfer Dede and Ball Efendi did not extend
beyond the region of Vize. The difficulty of com¬
munication within a widely-dispersed and under¬

ground order must have caused fragmentation, and
the order probably had no recognised and formal
hierarchy.

If information on the Malarm leaders is inadequate,
that on their followers is even more so. The recorded
professions of the shaykhs suggests that it was largely a
movement of artisans, although the verses and other
writings of some of them suggest that they had re¬
ceived an education wider than a simple craft¬
training. The founder, c Omer was a cutler, Shaykh
Ya c kub a helva- maker, Ahmed a cameleer, and Hasan
was a tailor who was “both director of a workshop,
and intent upon guiding the people of the tarlkat"
('•Ata 3 !, op. cit., 169). Ghadanfer Dede was a tanner,
and “The Hidden” Idris made a fortune as a mer¬
chant, but had begun his career as an apprentice to his
uncle, who was a tailor to the Grand Vizier Rustem
Pasha [q.v.] ( c Ata :> i, op. cit., 602). The list of Bosnian
suspects in 990/1582 {Miihimme defteri, loc. cit. ) refers to
two of them as knife-grinders (carkci), and to one of
them as khalifa, a title which, in this context, probably
refers to that position in a craft-gild ( kalfa ). However,
Oghlan Shaykh and Hamza seem also to have
numbered kapikuli troops among their followers, and
the 981/1573 investigations in Thrace suggest that it
had spread beyond the towns to the villages of the
area.

The doctrines of the sect, which could lead its
members to claim a source of divine authority outside
the Sharia, imply that they also disavowed the
authority of the Ottoman dynasty which claimed, as
a source for its legitimacy, to “prepare the path for
the precepts of the Manifest Sharia". The clearest
statement of opposition to the dynasty occurs in a
poem by Ahmed the Cameleer, which he almost cer¬
tainly composed during the reign of Suleyman I [q. v. ]:
“If I could find the most minute message from your
ruby lips / I would not buy the Kingdom of Solomon
(Turkish: Suleyman) for the smallest coin” (quoted by
A. Golpinarh, in op. cit., 59). There is further
evidence from the 990/1582 investigations in Bosnia.
Part of the accusation against the group was simply
that they had “declared lawful that which is haram"
and “associated with women outside the permitted
degrees” (Miihimme defteri, loc. cit.). These accusa¬
tions, while quite possibly true, are simply
stereotyped phrases found in most indictments of
heretics. However, the additional accusation that one
of them claimed to be “the Sultan who had succeeded
Sultan Hamza”, while others claimed to be
“viziers”, a ''''kadi'' and a “ defterdar" [q.v.], does sug¬
gest that this group, at least, did regard itself as self-
governing and beyond the authority of the Ottoman
state, whose titles and organisation it mimicked.
While any evidence produced in a heresy hunt is
suspect, this piece does seem credible in that it does
not fit into the stereotyped pattern of orthodox ac¬
cusations.

Bibliography : Given in article.

(C. H. Imber)

MALANG (etymology uncertain: not PandjabI,
possibly Persian; in Urdu, malangi, masc. = “salt
worker”, fern. = “loose, wanton woman”), a term
used in Muslim India, including in the Pandjab but
also in the Deccan, to denote wandering der¬
vishes of the Kalandarl, bl-shar c or antinomian type
[see kalandar, kalandariyya] . Dja c far Sharif [q.v.]
at one place of his Kanun-i Islam puzzlingly names
their founder as Djalal al-Dln Bukhari, Makhdum-i
Djahaniyan-i Djahangasht [<?• i'-j, and at another, as
Djamandjatl. a disciple of Zinda Shah Madar (Islam
in India, ed. W. Crooke, London 1921, 141-2, 172-3,

MALANG — MALARYA

229

290), but describes the term Malang as a general one
for unattached religious mendicants.

Malangs aim at total distinctiveness from the exter¬
nal world, in which are included the prescriptions of
the Sharia as followed by the more orthodox, bd-shar c
Sufis, in order to enter the inner spiritual world.
Hence the use of hashish and other narcotics is com¬
mon amongst them, as is the wearing of a particular
style of dress and type of long hair arrangement,
together with the use of bangles, rings and other
feminine ornaments to symbolise the Malang’s role as
the bride of God, hence subservient to Him; cf. the
descriptions of DjaTar Sharif, loc. cit.

Bibliography: Dja c far Sharif, see above; H. A.
Rose, A glossary of the tribes and castes of the Punjab and
North West Frontier Province, Lahore 1911-19, i, 579,
iii, 57; M. T. Titus, Indian Islam, London 1930,
127, 130; Katherine Ewing, Malangs of the Punjab,
intoxication or adab as the path to God?, in Barbara D.
Metcalf (ed.), Moral conduct and authority, the place of
adab in South Asian Islam, Berkeley, Los Angeles
and London 1984, 357-71 (Ed.)

MALARYA, a neologism in Arabic for malaria,
an infection of the blood by a minute plasmodium
parasite. The disease is characterised clinically by
fever, which is often periodic; varying degrees of
anaemia; splenic enlargement; and various syn¬
dromes resulting from the physiological and
pathological involvement of certain organs, including
the brain, liver and kidneys. The severity of the
disease is dependent on the age, health, and degree of
immunity of the victim and the particular species of
the plasmodium parasite. Under suitable en¬
vironmental conditions, malaria is transmitted by the
mosquito genus Anopheles', out of about 375 species of
anopheline mosquitoes, more than 70 are vectors of
the four species of human malaria, i.e. P. falciparum ,
P. vivax, P. malanae, and P. ovale. Although the
geographical distributions of plasmodial and
anopheline species are not uniform, malaria is today
a serious endemic disease in most Islamic countries
from North Africa to South-East Asia, evoking wide¬
spread eradiction programs.

Malaria seems to have originated in tropical Africa
in prehistoric times. With the Neolithic revolution,
the infection appears to have spread and established
itself in the great centres of riverine civilisation in
Mesopotamia, India, South China and the Nile
valley, from which it invaded the Mediterranean lit¬
toral. From these five foci, malaria extended its hold
over most of the tropical world and much of the land
in the temperate climates. Moreover, it appears that
high gene frequencies of abnormal haemoglobins were
created that protected human population against
malaria and allowed for the exploitation of malarious
areas.

Considerable attention has been devoted to the
history of malaria and its deleterious effects on
Graeco-Roman civilisation. It would appear, that
malaria became endemic in Greece and Italy at least
by the 5th century B.C. Because of the prevalence of
the disease, malarial symptoms were recorded in the
Hippocratic corpus and later medical works (see
W. H.S. Jones, Malaria and Greek history, Manchester
1909, ch. 3). Aside from simplistic cultural notions of
degeneration, the major effects of malaria on a
population are a high infant mortality rate and a
reduction in its work efficiency.

A prion, malaria seems to have existed from late an¬
tiquity until modern times in most of the regions
where Islam was established as the predominant
religion. The spread of rice cultivation in the

mediaeval period, especially, may have significantly
augmented the disease. The history of malaria in
Islamic society, however, has not been the subject of
any systematic investigation. The medical literature,
particularly, has not been studied with regard to
malaria; in one instance, al-Razi gives a case that had
been misdiagnosed as malarial (E. G. Browne, Arabian
medicine, Cambridge 1921, 51 ff.; M. Meyerhof,
Thirty-three clinical observations by Rhazes (circa 900
A.D.), in Isis, xxiii [1934], 332 f,). Generally, the
descriptions of fevers ( hummayat ) in Arabic medicine
appear to be greatly dependent on the Greek medical
tradition (see M. Meyerhof, c Alial-Tabari’s <( Paradise
of wisdom", one of the oldest Arabic compendiums of
medicine, in Isis, xvi [1931], 29 f.; idem, The (< Book
of treasure", an early Arabic treatise on medicine, in Isis, xiv
[1930], 71 f.; M. Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam,
Leiden 1970, 42, 137 f, 214).

Bibliography: The literature on malaria—its
epidemiology, treatment, and eradication—is quite
extensive. Useful accounts include: G. Harrison,
Mosquitoes, malaria and man: a history of the hostilities
since 1880, New York 1978; L. W. Hackett, Malaria
in Europe. An ecological study, London 1937; P. F.
Russell, Man’s mastery of malaria, London 1955. For
a valuable description of the disease, see. B.
Maegraith, “Malaria”, in Adams and Maegraith,
Clinical tropical diseases 6 , Oxford 1976, ch. 6. The
following works discuss malaria with special
reference to Islamic countries: E. H. Ackerkneckt,
The history of malaria, in Ciba Symposia, vii (1945),
38-68; J. L. Angel, Porotic hyperostosis, anemias,
malarias, and marshes in the prehistoric Eastern Mediterra¬
nean, in Science, ser. 2, vol. cliii (1966), 760-3; E. N.
Borza, Some observations on malaria and the ecology of
Central Macedonia in Antiquity, in American Journal of
Ancient History, iv (1979), 102-24; L. C. Bruce-
Chwatt, Paleogenesis and paleo-epidemiology of primate
malaria, in Bulletin, WHO, xxxii (1965), 363-87; P.
A. Buxton, Rough notes: anopheles mosquitoes and
malaria in Arabia, in Transactions of the Royal Society of
Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, xxxviii (1944),
205-14; S. R. Christophers and H. E. Short,
Malaria in Mesopotamia, in Indian Journal of Medical
Research, viii (1921), 508-52; Ch. Comte, Note sur
Thistorique de la lutte contre le paludisme en Tunisie
(1903-1929), in Compte-Rendu du Deuxieme Congres
International du Paludisme (Alger 1930), ii, Algiers
1931, 117-25; W. Fisher, Quelques facteurs geographi-
ques de la repartition de la malaria en moyen-orient, in An¬
nates de Geographic, Ixi (1952), 263-74; Hackett,
Conspectus of malaria incidence in Northern Europe, the
Mediterranean region and the Near East, in Malariology,
ed. M. F. Boyd, Philadelphia and London 1948,
ii, 788-99; A. Halawani and A. A. Shawarby,
Malaria in Egypt, in Journal of the Egyptian Medical
Association, xl (1957), 753-92; Hussameddin, La
lutte contre le paludisme en Turquie, in Compte-Rendu du
Deuxieme Congres International du Paludisme (Alger
1930), ii, 359-401; International symposium on malaria
in Rabat, in Wiadomosci parazytologiczne, xx (1974),
900-3; S. Jarcho, A cartographic and literary study of the
word malaria, in Journal of the History of Medicine, xxv
(1970), 31-9; I. J. Kligler, The epidemiology and con¬
trol of malaria in Palestine, Chicago 1930; Carol
Laderman, Malaria and progress: some historical and
ecological considerations, in Social Science and Medicine,
ix (1975), 587-94; H. S. Leeson, Anopheline surveys
in Syria and Lebanon, in Anopheles and malaria in the
Near East, London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine Memoir no. 7, London 1950, 1-46; K.
Lindberg, Le paludisme dans Than, in Acta Medica

230

MALARYA — MALATYA

Scandinavica, cvii (1941), 547-78; W. H. R.

Lumsden and J. Yofe, Anophelism and malaria in
Transjordan and in the neighbouring parts of Palestine and
Syria, in Anopheles and malaria in the Near East,
47-108; T. T. Macan, The anopheline mosquitoes of
Iraq and North Persia, in ibid., 109-220; M. Motabar,
I. Tabibzadeh and A. V. Manouchehri, Malaria
and its control in Iran, in Tropical and Geographical
Medicine, xxvii (1975), 71-8; A. A. Shawarby et alii,
The response of malaria and its vectors to environmental
changes in the southern oases of U.A.R., in Journal of the
Egyptian Public Health Association, xlii (1967), 19-33;
H. Soulie, Histoire du paludisme en Algerie, in Compte-
Rendu du Deuxieme Congres International du Paludisme
(Alger, 1930), ii 420 ff.; S. Tomaszunas, Human
milieu and malaria eradication in Afghanistan, in Przegl.
epidemioi, xxviii (1974), 139-48; A. R. Zahar,
Review of the ecology of malaria vectors in the WHO
Eastern Mediterranean Region, in Bulletin, WHO, 1
(1974), 427-40; J. de Zulueta, Malaria and Mediterra¬
nean history, in Parasitologia, xv (1973), 1-15; idem
and D. A. Muir, Malaria eradication in the Near East,
in Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine
and Hygiene, Ixvi (1972), 679-96. (M. W. Dols)
al-MALATI, Abu ’l-Husayn Muhammad b.
Ahmad b. c Abd al-Rahman, ShafI c I fakth and
specialist in the Kur^anic readings, born at
Malatya [q.v. ] and died at c Askalan in 377/987,
whence the nisba of al- c AskalanI which he also bears.
He was the author of a kasida of 59 verses on the
readings and the readers, in imitation of a poem by
Musa b. c Ubayd Allah al-Khakanl, but he deserves
the notice of Islamicists through his having left behind
one of the oldest treatises on heresiography, the Kitab
al-Tanbih wa ’l-radd c ala ahl al-ahwa : wa ’l-bida c , which
has been edited and published on various occasions,
in particular, by S. Dedering, Bibl. Islamica, ix,
Istanbul-Leipzig 1936, and by Muhammad Zahid al-
Kawtharl, Ba gh dad 1388/1968.

Bibliography: Subkl, Tabakat al-Shafi c iyya, ii,
112 (ed. Cairo 1384/1965, no. Ill, iii, 77-8); Ibn
Khayr al-Ishblll, Fahrasa, 73; Ibn al- Dj azarl.
Tabakat al-kurra\ ii, 67; Massignon, Passion d’al-
Halladj, 510; Ritter, in Isi, xviii, 41; Zirikll, A Ham,
vi, 202; Brockelmann, S I, 332, 348; H. Laoust,
L y heresiographie musulmane sous les Abbasides, in Cahiers
de Civilisation medievale, 1967, 157-78. (Ed.)

MALATYA, an old-established town of
eastern Anatolia, not far from the upper
Eu ph rates. It lies at the junction of important roads
(in antiquity: the Persian royal road and the
Euphrates route; in modern times Samsun-Siwas-
Malatya-Diyarbakr and Kaysariyya-Albistan-
Malatya-Kharput) in a plain (the fertility and richness
of which in all kinds of vegetables and fruits was
celebrated by the Arab geographers, as in modern
times by von Moltke and others) at the northern foot
of the Taurus, not very far south of Tokhma-su
(Arabic Nahr al-Kubakib), which is there crossed by
the old bridge of Kfrkgoz. The town was supplied with
drinking-water by the springs of c Uyim Dawudiyya
and by the Euphrates. Weaving used to be a
flourishing industry there; according to Ibn al-
Shihna, there were once 12,000 looms for spinning
wool in Malatya, but they no longer existed in his
time. Its attitude is 2,900 ft./884 m.

1. Pre-Ottoman history.

The town appears as Melidda in Assyrian cuneiform
inscriptions and two ‘‘Hittite” stelae have been found
there (to be more accurate: at Arslan Tepe, a little
south of Malatya: Messerschmidt, Corpus Inscr. Hel-

titic., in MVAG [1900], part iv, 13; [1906], part v, 7).
It is probably also to be identified with the district
called M-l-z (last letter uncertain) in the inscription of
king Z-k-r of Hamat ( ca . 800 B.C.) which Pognon
found in c Afis near Aleppo. Pliny {Nat. hist., vi, 8)
calls the town Melita a Samiramide condita; the name of
the legendary foundress has perhaps survived in that
of the fortress of Shamrln which Michael the Syrian
{Chronicle, tr. Chabot, iii, 272) mentions in the 12th
century in the land of Sawad in the region of Malatya.
To its position on the Oriental limes Malatya owed its
great prosperity in the Roman period. From the time
of Titus it was the headquarters of the Legio XII
Fulminata\ it was much extended by Trajan, and
under Justinian raised to be the capital of the province
of Armenia III. Anastasius and Justinian refortified
and beautified it. After his severe defeat at Malatya in
the autumn of 575, Khusraw I Anushirwan burned
the town (John of Ephesus, vi, 9; E. Stein, Studien zur
Gesch. d. Byzant. Reiches, Stuttgart 1919, 66-8, 83 n. 9).

In the period of the early Arab conquests, Habib b.
Maslama al-Fihn first took Malatya, but when
Mu c awiya became governor of Syria, he had to send
Habib again to Malatya in 36/656-7, and he then cap¬
tured it by storm. It subsequently became one of the
frontier fortresses see c awasim, thughur] and was
used as a base for the summer campaigns into Byzan¬
tium. In the time of c Abd al-Malik, it reverted to the
Greeks, and was resettled by Armenian and Nabatl
(i.e. Aramaic-speaking) peasants. In the course of the
2nd/8th century, Malatya was once more occupied by
the Muslims, rebuilt by Hisham, razed to the ground
by Constantine VI Copronymos in 133/750 and then
again rebuilt by al-Mansur’s governor of al-DjazIra
and the marches, c Abd al-Wahhab b. Ibrahim b.
Muhammad, the caliph’s nephew. The same pattern
of struggles for possession of the town continued
throughout the subsequent c Abbasid period, with con¬
trol of it oscillating between the Arabs and the Greeks,
with an intermediate element in the 3rd/9th century
in the shape of the Paulician heretics (Arabic, al-
Bayalika), who lived to the north and west of Malatya
and who were often aided by the Muslims against the
Byzantines, e.g. by the amir of Malatya c Umar b.
c Abd Allah al-Akta c . Then in the 4th/10th century,
the Domestikos Joannes Kurkuas (in Ibn al-Athlr,
viii, 221, al-Dumistik Kurkash), himself of Armenian
origin, seems to have granted Malatya and Samosata
(Sumaysat [q-v. ]) to the Armenian prince Mleh
(Arabic, Mallh; Greek, Mellas), who was however
driven out of the two towns in 320/932 by the Ham-
danid Sa c Id al-Dawla of Mawsil. When Nicephorus
Phocas reconquered Syria, he wished to rebuild and
to repopulate Malatya with Greek settlers, but they
refused to live there because of the town’s exposure to
Arab raids; hence Syrian Jacobites were in 969 invited
to settle there, with the result that by the year 1100
there were said to be 53 churches in Malatya and its
district and 60,000 Jacobite and Melkite Christians
capable of bearing arms (Michael of Tinnls and
Barhebraeus).

During the years of Byzantine re-occupation,
Malatya was held for a time by the rebel and claimant
to the imperial throne Bardas Scleros (366/976-7), but
in the following century began the attacks of the
Turkmens. The First raid is recorded in the Syriac and
Armenian sources as taking place in 1058, or slightly
earlier in the reign of Constantine IX, and soon the
Greeks were being by-passed by Turkmens raiding as
far as Kayseri and beyond, making their tenure of
Malatya impossible. Hence it was held for a while by
the Armenian Philaretos as the centre of his

MALATYA

231

ephemeral principality on the thughur, under caliphal
protection. Despite help from the Frankish Crusaders,
recently established in Edessa, Malatya was captured
by the Turkmen amir of Slwas Gumiishtigin b.
Danishmend [see danishmendids] in Dhu TKa c da
494/September 1101. There were now several con¬
tenders for control of the area, including the
Danishmendids, the Saldjuks of Rum, the
Mengiidjekids of Kemakh [ q. v. ], the Franks of Edessa
and the Greek Comnenoi emperors. By the end of the
6th/l2th century, the Saldjuks were generally the
holders of power there, in alliance with the Ayyubids.
In 628/1231 the Mongols penetrated to Hisn Ziyad
and the neighbourhood of Malatya, and after their
victory at Rose Dagh (9.0.] near Siwas in 641/1243,
Malatya was on two occasions besieged by the
Mongols and its vicinity laid waste; then in the time
of the Il-Khan Abaka (663-80/1265-82), Malatya fell
within the share of the Saldjuk sultanate of Rum allot¬
ted, under Mongol suzerainty, to Ghiyath al-Dln
Mas c ud b. c Izz al-DTn Kay Kawus. It is from the
Saldjuk period that the oldest monument in Malatya,
the Ulu Djami c , stems.

In the 12th and 13th centuries lived the two great
Syriac historians, both born in Malatya, to whose
chronicles we mainly owe our knowledge of the
history of the town: the patriach Michael I
(1126-99), son of the priest Eliya, who belonged to the
family of KindasI in Malatya and the Mafr c yan
Gregor Abu TFaradj called Barhebraeus (1226-86
[see ibn al- c ibri]), whose father, the baptised Jewish
physician Ahron, had restrained his fellow citizens in
Malatya from stupidly flying before the Tatars
(Baumstark, Gesch. d. syr. Lit., 298-300, 312-20).
Michael’s principal authority, Ignatius (d. 1104), was
also metropolitan of Malatya (Baumstark, op cit.,
291).

The increasing weakness of the Saldjuks about 1300
favoured the formation of local Turkmen and Arme¬
nian petty states, especially in the east of Asia Minor.
According to Abu TFida 3 , Christians and Muslims in
Malatya in those days lived on the best of terms with
one another; the town took the side of the Tatars and
informed them of everything that went on in the coun¬
try. During his war against the Tatars, Sultan al-
Malik ai-Nasir Muhammad b. Kalawun in 715/1315
decided to send a large army under the naPib of
Damascus, Sayf al-DTn Dengiz, who was joined by his
vassal Abu TFida 3 of Hamat, against Malatya. The
army went by Halab, c Ayntab, Hisn Mansur and
Zibatra to Malatya and encamped before the town on
28 April. The inhabitants sent their hakim Djamal al-
DTn al-Khidr, whose father and grandfather had Filled
the same office in their time, through the south gate,
Bab al-Kadl, to Dengiz, who was willing to afford
them protection and security, if they surrendered the
town. But he was unable to fulfil his pledge, for the
soldiers could not be restrained from plundering and
ravaging in the town. Among the prisoners was the
Tatar Ibn Kerbo gh a 3 and the sahib of Hisn Arkana 3 ,
Shavkh Mindu. The greater part of the town was
finally burned down (Abu TFida 3 , Annales Moslemici,
ed. Reiske, v, 286-92; ed. Istanbul 1286, iv, 77-8; tr.
also in Rec. hist. or. Crois., i, 180; Weil, Gesch. d.
ChaliJ., iv, 310-11). The sultan made the territory of
Malatya a separate frontier province, which included
seven districts (Khalil al-Zahirl, Zubda, ed. Ravaisse,
52). There were seven citadels around the town;
Mushar or Minshar, KumT, Karahisar, Kadarbirt,
Kal c at Akdja, Kal c at Nawhamam (?) and Kafat al-
Akrad ( Kh alil, op. cit. ; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La
Syrie a I’epoque des Mamelouks, 97, 105).

Malatya for the next few decades belonged to the
Mamluk sultans. As their remotest province, it was
with Halab in 791/1389 the scene of a great rebellion
led by the governors Mintash and Yilbogha against
Barkuk [ q.v . . About this time, the Turkish family of
the Dulghadfr or Dhu TKadr-oghlu [see dhu ’l-
kadr] began to rise to power in the region of Malatya
and Albistan, where they ruled till 921/1515 under
Mamluk suzerainty. About 794/1391-2, BayezTd I
conquered the town, and in 903/1400 Timur. By the
battle of Koc Hisar (922/1516) it fell into the hands of
Selim I [q.v.] who destroyed the Dhu TKadr-o gh lu.
This was the cause of his war against Egypt, which
was rapidly decided on the field ofMardj Dabik [q.v.].
At a later date under the Ottomans, the eyalet to which
the sandjak of Malatya belonged was still called Dhu T
Kadriyya.

Bibliography : Geography: Kh w arazml,

Kitdb Surat al-ard, ed. H. von Mzik in Bibl. arab.
Histor. u. Geogr., iii, Leipzig 1926, 25 (no. 366);
BattanI, Opus astronom., ed. Nallino, ii, 40, iii, 238
(no. 143); Istakhrl, 62; Ibn Hawkal, ii, 120, Ibn al-
Faklh, 114; Ibn Khurradadhbih, 97, 108, 173-4;
Kudama, 233, 254; Ibn Rusta, 97, 107; Ya c kubi,
Buldan , 238, 362; Mas c udl, Tanbth, 52, 58, 169,
183, 189; IdrlsI, ed. Gildemeister, in ZDPV, viii,
26; Yakut, Mu^dyam, iv, 633; Safi al-Dln, Marasid
al-itlild'', ed. Juynboll, iii, 144; Abu TFida 3 , ed.
Reinaud, 235; Hamd Allah Mustawfi, tr. Le
Strange, 98-9; Kalkashandl, Subh al-a^sha^, iv,
131-2, 228; tr. in Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La
Syrie a I’epoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, 97, 217;
Ibn al-Shihna, al-Durr al-muntakhab fi ta^rikh Halab ,
tr. A. v. Kremer, in Denkschr. Akad. Wien , iii
(1850), 42-3; W. M. Ramsay, The historical
geography of Asia Minor, London 1890, index; Le
Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 499-500 and in¬
dex; idem, The lands of the eastern caliphate, Cam¬
bridge 1905, 120; E. Reitemeyer, Die

Stadtegriindungen der Araber im Islam, Munich 1912,
79-80; E. Honigmann, Die Ostgrenze des Byzan-
tinischen Reiches, Brussels 1935, index.

History: Pauly-Wissowa, xxix, 549-50;

Baladhurl. Futuh , 184-8, 190, 199; Abu YFida 3 ,
Annales Moslemici, ed. Reiske, ii, 4, 10, v, 286;
Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. and tr. J.-B.
Chabot, index, 50; Barhebraeus, Chronicon
syriacum, ed. Bedjan, Paris 1890, passim-, Ibn al-
Athlr, al-Kamil, index, ii, 813; Yahya b. Sa c !d al-
Antakl, ed. Rosen, 1-3, 20, 49 ( = 1-3, 22, 51 of the
Russian tr.), in Zapiski Imper. Akad. Nauk.., xliv
(1883); Ibn Bibl, in Houtsma, Recueil de textes rel. a
Thistoire des Seldjoucides, iv, index, 358; Cl. Cahen,
Pre-Ottoman Turkey, London 1968, index.

(E. Honigmann)

2. The Ottoman and modern periods.

Reliable information on the size of Malatya begins
with the 10th/16th century. A first list of taxable in¬
habitants was prepared in 924/1518, shortly after the
end of Mamluk rule. In 929/1522-3, the town pos¬
sessed 1,540 taxpayers, who probably represented a
total population of 6,900-7,000 inhabitants. Almost
forty years later, in 967/1559-60, the number of tax¬
payers had risen to 1,946. By this time, the total
population should have amounted to about 8,700 in¬
habitants.

Malatya’s commercial importance during the
10th/16th century was great enough to warrant the
construction of a covered market (bedestan). In addi¬
tion, the existence of a bridge toll collected at the
Kirkgoz bridge, a Saldjuk structure over which the

232

MALATYA — MALAY PENINSULA

road to Siwas crossed the Tokhma Suyu, equally
shows that 10th/16th century Malatya played a cer¬
tain role in local and interregional trade. Moreover,
it seems also during this period to have possessed at
least one major khan q.v.]. Of the constructions which
existed in the midd e of the 1 Oth/16th century and
produced appreciable revenues for the Sultan’s
treasury, nothing at present remains. But in
1046/1636-7, Sultan Murad IV’s kapudan-i derya,
Silahdar Mustafa Pasha, had a new khan constructed,
which survives today and about whose original shape
ample information can be found in contemporary
documents. This khan, in which several hundreds of
camels could be stabled, probably possessed military
as well as commercial functions.

For the 11 th/17th and 12th/18th centuries, only in¬
direct information concerning the population of
Malatya is available. In ca. 1068/1657-8, the town
consisted of 293 taxable units ( c awarid-khane ). At the
beginning of the 12th/18th century, the town con¬
sisted of almost 100 taxable units ( c awarid-khane ),
while the number of houses inhabited by tax-paying
families amounted to about 370. Even if a large
number of people lived in one house, the town must
have declined appreciably between 967/1559-60 and
the early 12th/18th century.

Throughout the 11 th/ 17th century, Malatya, as
described by travellers such as Ewliya Celebi and
Katib Celebi, appears to have functioned primarily as
a marketing centre for the fruit and other agricultural
produce grown on the rich irrigated land surrounding
the town. In summer, most of the inhabitants moved
out of Malatya proper to live among their gardens and
vineyards. This custom gave rise to the development
of summer settlements, among which Aspuzu
gradually took on the characteristics of a separate
town.

Both the gradual decline of Malatya, and the rise of
Aspuzu were accelerated by eternal factors. In 1838-9
the Ottoman army under Hafiz Pasha, on campaign
against the Egyptian forces of Muhammad c AlI and
his son Ibrahim, established winter quarters in
Malatya. The townsmen were therefore obliged to
spend the winter in their summer settlement, and
after their return found that the town had been too
badly destroyed to make reconstruction worthwhile.
As a result, the name as well as the old foundations of
Malatya were gradually transferred to Aspuzu. The
old settlement, first known as Eskishehir and later as
Eski Malatya, continued to exist as a good-sized
village and nahiya centre.

Similar to other Anatolian towns, Malatya toward
the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th cen¬
tury went through a period of growth. Before the be¬
ginning of World War I, population had increased to
40,000. But the economic difficulties of the war years
caused a sharp decline, and the first population count
of the Turkish Republic in 1927 recorded only about
20,000 inhabitants. However, in the subsequent
years, the town soon recovered and then surpassed its
previous level, to become one of the most rapidly
growing cities of Turkey. According to the census of
1975, Malatya possessed a population of 154,505,
thereby ranking as a major provincial centre.

Bibliography. Among unpublished documents,
see particularly the Ottoman tax registers Tapu
Tahrir nos. 387, 408, 257 (Basbakanhk Arsivi,
Istanbul) and Tapu Kadastro Genel Mudiirlugu,
Kuyudu Kadime no. 146 (Ankara). Compare also
the kadi registers of 1068/1657-8, p. 198, and
1129-33/1716-21, pp. 121-30 (photostat copies in
Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi Library, Ankara).

The Ottoman period, with particular emphasis on
geographical factors, has been treated by Besim
Darkot in his I A article s.v. (fundamental; excellent
bibliography). Further references include: Ewliya
Celebi, Seyahat-names i, ed. Ahmed Djevdet et alii, 10
vols., 1313/1895-6 to 1935, iv, 7-20; Katib Celebi,
Djihan-numd . Istanbul 1145/1732-3), 600, Malatya il
yilhgi, 1967, Ankara; W. F. Ainsworth, Travels and
researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and
Armenia, 2 vols. London 1842, i, 252-6; Ch. Texier,
Description geographique, historique et archeologique des
provinces et des villes de la Chersonnese d’Asie, Paris
1862, 586-9; Helmuth von Moltke, Brieje iiber
Zustande und Begebenheiten in der Tixrkei, Berlin 1877,
297 ff.; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie. Geographic ad¬
ministrative. Statistique descriptive et raisonnee de chaque
province de TAsie Mineure , 4 vols. Paris 1891-4, ii,
369-75; Murray’s handbook, Asia Minor, Trans¬
caucasia, Persia, etc., London 1895, 256-7; G. L.
Bell, Amurath to Amurath, London 1911, 336-8; E.
Banse, Die Tixrkei. Eine moderne Geographic,
Brunswick 1916, 223-4; E. Chaput, Voyages d’etudes
geologiques et geomorphogeniques en Turquie, Istanbul
1936, 134 ff.; A. Gabriel, Voyages archeologiques dans
la Turquie orientale, 2 vols. Paris 1940, i, 263-75,
352-4; ii, 94-7; Zeki Oral, Malatya kitabeleri ve
tarihi, in III Turk Tarih Kongresi, Kongreye sunulan
tebligler, Ankara 1948, 434-40; Celal Yalvac, Eski
Malatya Ulu Camii, in Turk Yurdu, v (1966), 22-9;
M. 01u§ Ank, Malatya Ulu Camiinin asli plant ve
tarihi hakkinda, in Vaktflar Dergisi, viii (1969), 141-5;
Erol Ozbilgen, Eski Malatya ’da Silahdar Mustafa Papa
Ham ’nin restitixsyonu hakkinda, in Tarih Enstitixsu
Dergisi, i (1970), 93-102; Nejat Goyiing, Eski
Malatya’da silahdar Mustafa Pa$a Hant, in Tarih
Enstitixsu Dergisi, i (1970), 63-92; idem, Silahdar
Mustafa Papa Hamna ait bir vesika, in Tarih Dergisi,
xxv (1971), 73-8; idem, Kanuni devrinde Malatya
sehri, in VIl Turk Tarih Kongresi, Kongreye sunulan
bildiriler, 2 vols. Ankara 1973, ii, 654-9; Cevet
Quipan, Turk tafkopriileri, Ortacagdan Osmanli devri
sonuna kadar, Ankara 1975, 119-20.

(S. Faroqhi)

MALAY PENINSULA. 1. Geographical con¬
siderations. The Malay peninsula, together with
the Borneo states of Sabah (formerly North Borneo)
[see Borneo in Suppl.] and Sarawak, became the
Federation of Malaysia in 1963. The population of the
Federation in 1977 was estimated at 12.74 million, of
whom 10.5 million lived on the peninsula, and the
ethnic composition (according to 1970 census figures)
was approximately: Malay 46.8%, Chinese 34.1%,
Indians 9%, Dayaks (including Ibans) 3.7%,
Kadazan 1.8%, other native groups 3.2%, and others
(Eurasians, Arabs, Siamese, Filipinos, Indonesians,
etc.) 1.4%. While almost all Malays, Indonesians,
and some of the native groups are Sunni Muslims of
the Shafi c I school, the other ethnic communities are
mainly Christian, Buddhist and Hindu. “Peninsular
Malaysia”, as the Malay peninsula is officially known
to distinguish it from the Borneo half, covers some
131,794 square kilometres and comprises the eleven
states of Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor (in
which is located the separate Federal Capital Ter¬
ritory of Kuala Lumpur), Malacca, Johor, Negri
Sembilan, Pahang, Trengganu and Kelantan.

Peninsular Malaysia’s unique location explains
much about its prominent role in the history of Islam
in Southeast Asia. Lying athwart the Straits of Malac¬
ca, the Malay peninsula is the southernmost extension
of mainland Southeast Asia and forms, with the
islands of the Indonesian archipelago, a large

MALAY PENINSULA

233

breakwater between the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Until the advent of air travel, seaborne traffic moving
between the major civilisations of the East and the
West was forced to sail through either the Sunda
Straits, separating the Indonesian islands of Java and
Sumatra, or the Malacca Straits. The latter was in¬
deed almost the only passageway used until the Sunda
Straits became better known in the 10th/16th century,
with the invention of ships capable of open sea sailing
and with the discovery of the winds known as the
“Roaring Forties”, enabling ships to sail quickly and
easily from east coast Africa to Indonesia.

The Malay peninsula is also strategically located in
terms of the seasonal monsoon winds circulating over
the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. With the onset
of the southwest monsoon in April, the winds blow
from the Indian Ocean on to the Sumatra coast then
in May across the Malay peninsula. While this mon¬
soon gradually decreases, the northeast monsoon
develops in the northern part of the South China Sea
in October. It reaches a peak in January, when it
covers all equatorial Southeast Asia except for Java
and southern Sumatra, and then slowly lessens in in¬
tensity until the cycle begins again in April. Sailing
ships in earlier centuries were dependent upon these
winds to move quickly between east and west, and ex¬
perienced mariners soon realised that the Straits of
Malacca were ideal as a harbouring place because
they were sheltered from the winds and were the be¬
ginning and end points of the monsoons.

Another important geographical consideration is
the Malay peninsula’s virtually inaccessible interior
and its long coastlines. Along the whole length of the
peninsula for about 483 km is a north-south moun¬
tain range varying between 914 and 2,134 m. above
sea level. This main range and inhospitable interior
jungles have been the main barriers to trans¬
peninsular contact by land. On the opposite shore of
the Straits, in Sumatra, fairly similar conditions are
found. From very early on, therefore, inhabitants liv¬
ing on the Malay peninsula and east-coast Sumatra
have regarded the rivers and seas around them as the
primary means of contact with one another. The
Straits of Malacca between the west coast of the penin¬
sula and the east coast of Sumatra became an internal
lake linking the people living in lands adjoining it and
helping to create a basically common culture. Com¬
munication between these peoples was often even
closer than that between those living on the west and
east coasts of the peninsula itself.

2. Early contact with the outside world. It
is generally accepted that by the 2nd century A.D.
there were Indian traders in the area of the Straits.
The search for gold may have provided the initial im¬
petus, but soon a profitable exchange of local products
with Indian goods sustained the trade. The participa¬
tion of the Chinese and other traders from the East
and the Indonesian archipelago, all using the Straits
as a convenient harbouring place and later exchange
site, was an added attraction to Indian traders. Enter¬
prising native chieftains quickly seized the opportuni¬
ty to make their particular settlement the centre of
trade. The few places which developed into major en¬
trepots had responded successfully to the demands of
foreign merchants and provided the physical facilities
and the legal and governmental apparatus to assure
the rapidity, fairness and security of trade.

Through contact with Indians, the Malays were in¬
troduced to religio-political and cultural ideas which
struck a familiar chord, since both societies shared a
basic Monsoon Asian belief system. What was dif¬
ferent and hence attractive to the locals was the

elaboration and refinement of these ideas from India
which had been a result of the incorporation of the
Indo-European Aryan culture to local Monsoon Asian
belief. Although little is known of how this “In-
dianisation” process occurred in the Malay areas, its
success can be gauged by the survival of Indian terms,
themes, and practices in present-day Malay language,
literature and court ceremonies. India, then, was
regarded from early times by Malays as the homeland
of a rich culture worthy of consideration and
emulation.

China’s contact with the Malay peninsula was
much more limited since it only began using a sea
route to the West from about the 5th century A.D.
Even then, China’s political philosophy regarding the
self-sufficiency of the kingdom discouraged official in¬
volvement in international trade. Nevertheless, some
trade under various guises and rationalisations did oc¬
cur and was carried on principally by Persians and
Arabs in the first millenium A.D. Only later in the
period of the famous Ming voyages of the late
8th/14th and early 9th/ 15th centuries did the Malay
areas begin to appreciate the splendour and the might
of the culture from China. Like India, China now
became regarded by Malays as a respectable source of
goods and ideas.

A third group to have visited the Malay areas in
earlier centuries was the Arabs. By the 3rd/9th cen¬
tury, Arab traders knew a large part of Southeast
Asia, but appeared to have neglected this area in
favour of the lucrative China trade. Although Arab
sources mention the northwestern and eastern coasts
of Sumatra, the Malacca Straits down to Palembang,
Johor, part of the Riau-Lingga archipelago and Pulau
Tioman, there is no hint of organised Arab trade with
these areas until the mid-4th/mid-10th century. By
the 7th/l3th century, Arab trade to Southeast Asia
was all but superseded by that of their Muslim
brethren from India, and it is to them that the spread
of Islam through the archipelago is generally at¬
tributed.

3. The coming of Islam to the Malay
lands. The Malay areas were accustomed to regard
India as a source of respectable and exciting ideas,
and they welcomed Indians bearing tidings of Islam in
the same way that they had greeted their predecessors
with their Hindu-Buddhist ideas. Although the ques¬
tion as to which Indian group was responsible for the
conversion of Southeast Asia may never be answered
conclusively, the direct relationship between trade
and the spread of Islam is rarely denied. After the fall
of Baghdad and the destruction of the c Abbasid
caliphate by the Mongols in 657/1258, the spice route
from the east through the Persian Gulf, up to the
Levantine coast, and thence to northern Europe, was
effectively closed. A new route now went from the east
to India, then to Aden in southern Arabia, through
the Red Sea up to Alexandria, and thence northward.
Since the authorities in Egypt refused any but Muslim
trading as far as Alexandria, the Muslim ports of
Cambay, Surat and Diu in Gudjarat province of India
acquired great importance as trans-shipment centres
for spices. Growing demand for Eastern spices by a
prosperous Renaissance Europe and the cessation
from the 8th/14th century of direct Chinese trade to
India brought the Gudjaratf merchants into great
prominence as intermediaries in the spice trade. Their
great numbers in Malacca [q.v.], the major emporium
in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago in the 9th/l5th
and early 10th/16th centuries, facilitated the work of
Muslim missionaries in spreading the ideas of Islam
in the region. By the beginning of the 10th/16th cen-

234

MALAY PENINSULA

tury, in addition to the thousand or so Gudjaratl mer¬
chants resident in the city of Malacca, there were
about three to four thousand others always en route
between this port and those in Gudjarat. But the
GudjaratTs did not have the exclusive control of trade
to Southeast Asia. There were substantial numbers of
other Indian traders from the Malabar ] and
Coromandel Coasts in South India, as well as from
Bengal. In fact, some of the strongest arguments,
based on local traditions and survival of certain
religious terms, have been made for a Southern In¬
dian origin of the Islamic ideas which came to
Southeast Asia.

A theory has recently been advanced which does
not attempt to single out any particular group for the
honour of bringing Islam to Malay shores. Instead, it
suggests that there was a general Islamic “fall-out”
around the shores of the Indian Ocean which
“showered” the Malay areas. When the Portuguese
fleet rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 904/1498,
they entered what has been described as an “Arabic¬
speaking Mediterranean”. The extensive trading net¬
work which stretched from east-coast Africa to India
was dominated by Muslims, and Arabic was the lingua
franca. Malays had already long been a part of this
trading world in which the Muslim network was
simply the latest development. A 6th/ 12th century
Arab account mentions Malays from Zabag (iden¬
tified with Snvijaya, a kingdom which flourished in
the Straits of Malacca area between the lst/7th and
8 th/l4th centuries) participating in the trade to east
coast Africa, while an 8th/14th century Arabic source
describes a trip from China to Sumatra on a junk
manned by Malays. The latter had moved from being
simply engaged in facilitating the trade of others to ac¬
tive traders themselves. They, therefore, according to
this theory of “fall-out”, were already subject to
Islamic ideas prevalent in the Indian Ocean area.

Another theory concerning the coming of Islam to
the Malay lands points to an easterly route, from
China to Champa in central Vietnam and then to the
western half of the Malay-Indonesian archipelago.
The participation of Muslim Arabs and Persians as
shippers for the Chinese traders in earlier centuries,
and the later direct involvement of Malays in the
trade to China, would have provided the vehicle for
movement of ideas from Muslims in China to these
trading intermediaries. Early Chinese contacts with
the Malay areas, especially with the 9- 10th/15- 16th
century kingdom of Malacca, had already made such
an avenue for ideas both acceptable and respectable.

4. The adoption of Islam by Malay socie¬
ty. A foreign Muslim trading colony is said to have
existed at some time in the 4th/10th century in Kalah
[q.v. ] a place tentatively located in the northern part
of the Malay peninsula. Other evidence of early
Muslim activity on the peninsula itself is scattered and
difficult to corroborate. In 1965 a Muslim tombstone
was found in Kedah bearing the Arabic date 291 A.H.
(903 A.D.). Another find was a gold coin in Kelantan
in 1914, which local Islamic scholars claim dates from
a 6th/12th century Muslim kingdom in that state. But
the most interesting and reliable discovery of early
Muslim activity in the peninsula is the Trengganu
Stone, dated between 703/1303 and 788-9/1386-7.
The stone, which was intended as a pillar, contains
the oldest Malay text in the Perso-Arabic script. It
refers to certain Islamic laws in a way which indicated
that the population, if converted, was not yet deeply
Muslim. However, the first evidence accepted by
historians as indicating sustained local Muslim activi¬
ty in the Straits of Malacca is not on the peninsula but

on Sumatra, where Marco Polo in 692/1292 men¬
tioned a Muslim town in Perlak on the northeastern
coast.

The manner in which Islam, once brought to the
Straits area through the trading connection, took root
is still a matter of speculation. If the Indianisation
process, though imperfectly known, can be used as a
guide, there had to be certain perceived benefits
which the new religion or religio-political ideas could
confer on the receiving society. There are some who
have argued that the rulers of the Malay areas were
attracted by the resplendent titulary and traditions of
the Perso-Islamic kingship which had arrived via In¬
dia. An epithet borrowed from the Babylonian rulers,
“God’s Shadow on Earth”, became incorporated into
the titles of the Muslim rulers, as did the Persian title
of Shah. From Baghdad to Morocco and from the
north of India in DihlT to the south in Madura,
Muslim rulers assumed grandiloquent titles or lakabs
[q.v. j to mark their uniqueness. To belong to such a
distinguished company and to acquire the appella¬
tions and ceremonies associated with this new religion
would have appealed to a Malay ruler, always awake
to the possibilities of enhancing his position.

Another perceived benefit of Islam among the local
ruling classes would have been the prospects of closer
economic links with the powerful and prosperous
Muslim kingdoms, whence came most of the traders
to the Malay areas. After Malacca’s foundation some
time in the beginning of the 9th/15th century, it vied
with a number of centres to become the dominant en¬
trepot in the region. One of its competitors was Pasai
on the northeastern coast of Sumatra which had ac¬
cepted Islam toward the end of the 8th/l4th century.
Malacca’s rulers may have justifiably attributed
Pasai’s prosperity to the presence of large numbers of
Muslim Indian cloth merchants in that city. Since In¬
dian cloth was an essential component of the complex
exchange system which operated in the Southeast
Asian region, any ruler able to attract Indian cloth
merchants was assured of a lucrative trade in his port.
As an Islamic city, Pasai offered to Muslim traders
mosques and the protection of an Islamic ruler, ad¬
vantages which neighbouring non-Muslim kingdoms
were unable to match. For Malacca’s rulers, there¬
fore, there seemed much to gain and little to lose by
embracing this new faith.

While the paraphernalia of Perso-Islamic kingship
and hopes of increased trade with powerful Muslim
kingdoms may have been appreciated by the ruling
classes, such arguments would have probably been in¬
sufficient to convince many of the common folk. In
some areas in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago,
local sources indicate that, despite the conversion of
the rulers, some resistance to Islam was encountered
among the common people. But initial distrust gave
way to cautious acceptance as the people began to
view Islam as yet another source of ideas and spiritual
power to strengthen the community.

One reason for the success of the proselytisation ef¬
fort among the people may be attributed to Sufism.
The impressive flourishing in 10-11 th/16-17th cen¬
tury Atjeh in north Sumatra of Sufi ideas has given
rise to the suggestion that Sufism may have been the
vehicle by which Islam became the religion of the ar¬
chipelago. Sufism’s moderate religious demands, in¬
corporation of local pre-Islamic beliefs, and similarity
to certain existing spiritual practices are seen as
positive factors in its general acceptance. In the Malay
areas the Sufi recitation of prescribed prayer formulae
(awrad, sing, wird) resembled local incantations to the
spirits; the trance-inducing Sufi sessions of the dhikr

MALAY PENINSULA

235

[q.v.] were similar to the seances of the local shaman
(pawang); and the healing powers attributed to the Sufi
were a trait also associated with the traditional village
doctor ( bomoh ). The successful co-existence of Islamic
and local spirit practices is clearly demonstrated in a
12th/18th century Malay text from Perak, the Misa
Melayu. It describes how, when the sultan was ill,
prayers were offered to the Prophet, the saints, as well
as the ancestors. Pawangs commonly ascribed their in¬
cantations to the Hindu deities Siva and Brahma, as
well as to Lukman al-Haklm, father of Arabian magic
[see lukman]. Among Malay farmers today there are
various Kitab Tib, Islamic works on magic, saint wor¬
ship, and other practices considered to be only vague¬
ly Muslim. One of the most well-known of these works
is the Taj ul-Muluk (Tadj al-muluk ) respected among
Malay farmers as the standard source on Islamic
magic.

Another factor which may have facilitated conver¬
sion to Islam was the introduction of Muslim tales in¬
to the already vast international repertory of stories
found among the Malays. Tales of Islamic heroes ap¬
pealed to the people as much as the heroes of the well-
known episodes from the Indian epics, the
Mahabharata and the Ramdyana. Stories of the lives of
Muslim saints were a source of entertainment and
religious edification, and treatises on magic and
divination helped confirm Islam as another impor¬
tant, if not the most superior, source of spiritual
power for the Malay community.

One other reason should be cited for the adoption
of Islam as a religion among Malays. In all levels of
society, there would have been people who would
have understood the basic teachings of the religion
and seen their value for this life and for that in the
hereafter. For such people, the act of embracing Islam
was a spiritual commitment to the basic tenets preach¬
ed by the Prophet Muhammad.

5. The role of Malays and the Malay
language in the propagation of Islam. The
conversion of Malacca to Islam [see Malacca] was an
important factor in that kingdom’s rise to become one
of the greatest commercial emporiums in the 9th/ 15th
century world and the centre for the propagation of
Islam to other areas of Southeast Asia. With Malacca
as the hub of a vast international trading network,
which included even the easternmost islands of the In¬
donesian archipelago, Malay and other traders
prepared the way for more formal conversion by
Muslim missionaries. Malacca’s predominance on the
Malay peninsula meant that Islam quickly became es¬
tablished as a religion in all the vassal courts and
riverine settlements.

The incorporation of the Malay peninsula and
other areas in the archipelago into the Muslim ummal
provided a basis for united action against the Chris¬
tian Europeans who began appearing in the area from
the beginning of the 1 Oth/16th century. But unity was
more a hope than a reality, and in 917/1511 the
famous entrepot kingdom of Malacca fell to the Por¬
tuguese, to be replaced by new centres of power in the
Muslim kingdoms of Atjeh [q.v.] in northern Sumatra
and Banten in West Java [see Indonesia]. Malacca’s
royal family roamed the wide reaches of their
kingdom before finally settling at a site on the Johor
River in the southern tip of the Malay peninsula. As
the ruling house of the new kingdom of Johor, the
Malacca dynasty continued to conduct itself in the
manner of the former days of glory, but the direction
in the Islamic world in the archipelago was shifting to
the rising power of Atjeh.

At the court of Atjeh in the 11th/17th century, im¬

portant religious tracts on Sufi mysticism were being
translated into Malay by such writers as Hamza
Fansuri, Shams al-DTn, Nur al-DTn al-Ramri, and
c Abd al-Ra^uf of Singkel [see Indonesia, iv. History,
(a) Islamic period]. Although Malay was not the
mother tongue of any of these writers, it was the lingua
franca in the archipelago as a result of Malacca’s long
dominance in the trading world. In order to reach the
largest number of readers, these mystic scholars were
forced to use Malay to explain Islamic concepts in a
way which was comprehensible to those with only a
limited understanding of Islam. Toward the end of
the 12th/18th century, Malay theologians followed the
trends in the Middle East and turned to the mysticism
of al-GhazalT. The latter’s famous work, the IhyP
c ulum al-dtn, was translated into Malay over a ten-year
period by c Abd al-Samad of Palembang, while Dawud
b. c Abd Allah b. Idris of Patani also translated this
work and al-GhazalT’s Kitab al-Asrar and Kitab al-Kurba
Ha Allah into Malay. For more serious debate within
the Islamic world itself, these writers read, wrote, and
discussed in Arabic.

For anyone wishing to go beyond the few rudiments
of Islamic law and doctrine, a knowledge of Malay
was essential. Even in those few manuals written in
other regional languages there were numerous Malay
words. But the more important information was con¬
tained in kitabs, which are works written in Malay but
derived and compiled from Arabic sources. In
general, only the introduction, the conclusion, and a
few comments are the original work of the local
“author”, while the remainder is simply a transla¬
tion. These kitabs, were the principal tools of Islamic
learning for many who were unable to read Arabic.
One inhabitant in early 19th century Malacca
describes how a poor Arab sayyid (Malay, sayid) from
the Hadramawt with a knowledge of both Arab and
Malay gave lessons on Islam for five dollars per year
per pupil. The first text used was the Ummu ’l-barahin
(Umm aPbarahin ), and then he went on to other manu¬
scripts, all in Malay, to teach canon law, matters con¬
cerning prayers and similar devotional practices,
various branches of Islamic knowledge and didactic
stories. Malay, then, had become a language of Islam
and an essential vehicle for the spread of religious
ideas throughout the Southeast Asian Islamic world.

6 . Impressions of Islamic institutions
before the mid-19th century. There is very lit¬
tle material about Islam in the Malay peninsula before
the early period of British rule in the mid-l9th cen¬
tury. What one knows about Islamic institutions
before this must perforce remain as impressions from
scattered and often disparate evidence in Malay
sources and contemporary European reports. It ap¬
pears that one of the most important Islamic officials
in the Malay states was the kadi {kadi). In early
12th/18th century Johor, the kadi was ranked next to
the principal ministers as the most powerful in¬
dividual in the kingdom. His respected status may
have been a result of his Muslim learning, which
would have still been considered to be a rare achieve¬
ment in the Malay world at this time. Even in the ear¬
ly 19th century, an episode is related in the Hikayat
Abdullah of how the rare appearance in Malacca of a
learned sayid from Atjeh resulted in a virtual self-
imposed seclusion of those who previously had
claimed to be local religious scholars. The kadi ap¬
peared to have had close ties with the royal family and
may even have married into local royalty. His
knowledge of Islam would have made him in the eyes
of the local people a superior individual with access to
strong spiritual powers. But as the number of Muslim

236

MALAY PENINSULA

teachers and scholars increased, especially in the sec¬
ond half of the 18th and 19th centuries, the kadi
gradually lost his unique standing. Nevertheless, in
the 19th century he was still described as “presiding
over a number of mosques”.

The only indication that one has of a religious
hierarchy, although not necessarily an official one, is
from the Misa Melayu. At the occasion of the opening
of a new palace ( mahaligai ), which coincided with the
Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, special celebrations
were arranged with the secular and religious guests
seated according to rank. On the first level was the
sultan and his religious counterpart, the sharif; on the
second level the nobles and the ulama ; on the third
level the court attendants and the imam; on the fourth
level the district official ( hulubalang ) and the khatib; on
the fifth level the official in charge of a settlement
around a mosque (penghulu mukim ) and the bilal (i.e.
the muezzin); on the sixth level the ordinary people
and the experts on religious matters (lebai and alim );
and on the lowest level, the foreign traders, itinerant
travellers and the religious mendicants (fakir).

The sharif family was especially honoured in Perak,
but everywhere else in the Malay peninsula, descen¬
dants of the Prophet, whether say id or sharif (Malays
rarely distinguished between the two), generally were
accorded a high place in society and even regarded as
suitable marriage partners for the royal children. But
pre-19th century sources rarely speak of them until
the arrival of Hadramawt say ids and sharifs in the ar¬
chipelago from the mid-12th/l8th century. Once
again, as the kadi in Johor in the early 12th/l8th cen¬
tury, the prominent position of the say id or sharif was
most likely due to his religious knowledge, which
would have been substantially greater than most other
Muslims in the kingdom. But more important, the
sharif or sayid had an even greater claim to respect and
honour among the Malays because of his direct des¬
cent from the Prophet.

While there does not appear to have been any of¬
ficial hierarchy extending from the chief religious
figures at the court to the other Muslim officials in the
kingdom, there was a definite ranking at the village
level. The imam , usually a member of a prominent
village family, was the head of the village prayer
house ( surau ), which functioned as the gathering place
for Friday prayers, village Islamic rituals, village
education, and certain community-wide religious
celebrations. Mosques were usually found only in the
larger settlements and in the towns. Below the imam
was the khatib who delivered the Friday sermons and
performed the wedding ceremonies. Next in line was
the bilal, who called the faithful to prayer and of¬
ficiated at funerals; and finally there was the penghulu
mukim , combining both secular and religious ad¬
ministrative duties, who kept the mosque in good
order, assisted in ceremonies, reminded the faithful of
the Friday services, reported absences to the imam and
beat the wooden gong outside the mosque to summon
the people to prayer. The kadi and the village elders
screened individuals before selecting them for these
posts. Funds for the partial remuneration of these
religious functionaries and for the upkeep of the surau
or mosque were obtained through a collection of the
annual zakat and fitrah (zakat al-fitr), the taxes or alms,
from the villagers.

Other than the small village Islamic officialdom,
with the kadi at the apex in charge of a number of
village suraus or mosques, there is no mention in the
sources of any formal kingdom-wide religious hierar¬
chy. A study of the state of Kelantan suggests that
above this village hierarchy may have functioned a

nominally state-wide authority of a mufti and kadi with
the various other officials associated with the religious
courts. But in other states the picture is less clear, and
the only reference one has of any united Islamic effort
is when holy war is declared against the Europeans.
But such calls for Muslim unity were mainly unsuc¬
cessful since personal, ethnic, and state rivalries and
antagonisms often proved stronger than the appeal to
a common religious bond.

7. Islam in British Malaya. Only in the 19th
century with the establishment of British rule in
Singapore (1819) and the Malay peninsula
(1874-1919) did a more formal organisation of Islam
occur. The British long maintained the pretence that
they were merely advisers to the Malay sultans, while
effectively exercising control over all aspects of
government except “religion and custom”. This lat¬
ter sphere was regarded as being under the jurisdic¬
tion of the sultans. Unable to exercise much authority
in matters of government, the sultans in the last two
decades of the 19th century created a religious
administration modelled after the centralised
bureaucratic system imposed by the British to govern
the Malay states. In Kelantan, which together with
Trengganu, Perlis and Kedah were under Siam until
1909, religious administrative change occurred
toward the end of the 19th century more as a result of
a reaction to Siamese provincial reform efforts than to
any British example.

By the second decade of the 20th century, most
states had a form of centralised Islamic bureaucracy
which was co-ordinated by bodies such as Perak’s
Council of Chiefs and Ulamas, Kelantan’s Council of
Religion and Malay Custom, Selangor’s various com¬
mittees under the State Council, and Johor’s Council
of Ministers. These bodies, which included the State
Mufti (Shaikh ul-lslam) and the Chief Kadi as ex-officio
members, were appointed by the sultan and served as
his religious advisers. What differed significantly from
the past was the presence in these organisations of a
majority of non-Islamic officials from the royal
household and senior chiefs, a development which
reflected the limited opportunities now open to the
traditional ruling classes in the new British colonial
government. Their participation in the newly-
formalised religious hierarchy further strengthened
the long-standing mutually supportive relationship
between religious and secular authorities. This
alliance guaranteed that any Islamic reform move¬
ment which threatened to weaken the established
religion would find little favour among the ruling
classes. It is noteworthy that the reformist Wahhabi
movement which made such a great impression in In¬
donesia, especially in Sumatra at the end of the 18th
and 19th centuries, created barely a ripple in the
Malay peninsula.

In the new Islamic bureaucracy, the previously-
independent village Muslim officals became incor¬
porated into a system which bound them closer to the
secular authorities than ever before. Although im¬
plementation of policies from the centre was often dif¬
ficult because of the relative inaccessibility of some of
the villages, the new religious structure did reinforce,
at least in the eyes of the people, Islam’s traditional
support for the ruler.

Islamic scholarship, too, became much more
organised and extensive in the peninsula in the 19th
century. One major factor in this development was
the new Islamic intellectual activity being fostered in
such centres as Atjeh, Palembang and Riau. Malay
translations from the Arabic of authoritative Muslim
treatises on doctrine, law, exegesis, commentary,

MALAY PENINSULA

237

Sufism, prayer and catechism were produced,
together with popular religious works in Malay which
arose independent of the Middle East. Riau’s reputa¬
tion as the guardian of the Malay heritage, which now
also included the purity of Islam, made it an exemplar
of Islamic thought and attitudes for the rest of the
Malay world. From the beginning of the 19th century,
reformist Islamic ideas were encouraged on Riau, as
were the Sufi mystical brotherhoods divested of their
“accretions’’. In the congenial atmosphere of the
Riau court, particularly that of the Raja Muda on the
island of Penyengat, religious writings and theological
debates flourished, attracting Muslim scholars from
all parts of the archipelago.

One of the members of the Raja Muda family and
a prominent Malay scholar was Raja Ali Haji ibni
Raja Ahmad (ca. 1809-ca. 1870). He encouraged the
recruitment of Islamic teachers and was sufficiently
regarded as an Islamic scholar himself to have been J
consulted on religious doctrine by the royal family and
even appointed as the religious adviser to the Raja
Muda. He was greatly influenced by al-Ghazali’s
Ihya? c ulum al-dfn and Nasthat al-muluk , as can be seen
by Raja Ali Haji’s application of theological and
ethical argument in viewing the Malay past in his
monumental work, the Tuhfat al-nafts. Raja Ali Haji
also had sisters and sons who promoted the study of
Islam in such groups as the Persekutuan Rusydiah. But
Raja Ali Haji remained the dominant intellectual
figure in Riau, and his religious ideas became the
basis for many of the views expounded later by the
Kaum Muda group in Singapore.

The Straits Settlements of Malacca, Penang and
Singapore, geographically and culturally on the edge
of Malay society, contributed further to the develop¬
ment of Islamic thought in the region. Created as an
administrative unit by the British in 1867, the Straits
Settlements were cosmopolitan centres serving as a
gateway for the flow of labour, capital and ideas to
the Malay peninsula. The wealth and dynamism of
Penang and Singapore, enjoying the protection of
British rule, fostered religious and political ideas
which were less acceptable in the Malay states. A
heterogeneous Muslim community became resident
in these cities, especially in Singapore, since it was an
important port of call for Southeast Asian Muslims
going on the pilgrimage to Mecca.

From the last two decades of the 19th century until
about 1920, when Penang challenged its position,
Singapore had a reputation as a principal centre of
Islamic learning. Muslims from Southeast Asia, In¬
dia, and the Middle East gathered in the city to debate
the latest religious ideas, and Islamic tracts in Arabic
were translated and simplified into Malay for con¬
sumption throughout the archipelago, a practice
which had already begun in the 9th/15th century in
the heyday of the Malacca kingdom. No stronger
comment can be made concerning the vitality of Islam
in Singapore than to mention that those in the ar¬
chipelago wishing to study Islamic law or theology
went either to Mecca or to Singapore. The establish¬
ment of a number of hand lithograph presses in
Singapore in the late 19th century operated principal¬
ly by Jawi Peranakan (those of mixed Malay-Indian
origin) enabled the publication of a growing body of
Islamic literature in Arabic, Malay and even in some
regional languages. The generally liberal attitude of
the British authorities toward religious activities in the
Straits Settlements facilitated the publication of works
and journals not in favour with the religious establish¬
ment in the peninsula.

In July 1906 a periodical Al-Imam , modelled in¬

tellectually after the Egyptian periodical al-Manar,
began publication in Singapore, promoting the
modernist Islamic ideas of the Egyptian thinker,
Muhammad c Abduh. Although Al-Imam’s readership
was small, limited mainly to the intellectuals in urban
areas, its ideas did percolate to the countryside in the
peninsula. The presence of Al-Imam’s representatives
in most Malay states and the interest which it
generated among religious teachers in the modernist
Islamic schools, the madrasahs, assured the transmis¬
sion of its viewpoints to an audience outside the cities.
This, and other similar publications, advocated a
return to the original strength of early Islam and the
rejection of accretions to Islam which had prevented
the revival of the Malay nation. A number of
madrasahs began to be established introducing a more
modern curriculum than that offered by the pondok
(“hut”) schools, which employed the method of
| recitation and exegesis by a teacher as the principal
means of imparting religious knowledge to the pupils.
The madrasahs were intended to put into practice the
ideas advanced in the modernist Islamic publications.
Instruction was by no means confined to Islam, and
such commercial subjects as mathematics, history,
English, business, techniques for wet-rice agriculture,
and soap- and soy sauce-making were also introduced
to instruct a good Muslim how to survive and flourish
in a modern society.

Because of the traditionally supportive role between
the religious and secular authorities in the Malay
states, the modernist Islamic press attacks on estab¬
lished religious officialdom became viewed as an at¬
tack on the ruling classes. Attempts were made to
prevent entry of these publications into the peninsula
from the Straits Settlements. In 1934 there was a
public burning of a tract on free will written by a
Malay modernist who had studied at al-Azhar univer¬
sity in Cairo. But the debate could not be stifled. Op¬
ponents of the movement referred to the modernists as
Kaum Muda , the “Younger Faction”, while reserving
for themselves the more respectable appellation of
Kaum Tua, or “Older Faction”. The modernists ob¬
jected to their label, since they regarded themselves as
the true “Older Faction” who advocated a return to
the original pure teachings of the Prophet. Despite the
forcefulness of the rhetoric in the modernist Islamic
literature and the progress made in the establishment
of madrasahs, the impact of modernist ideas was much
less in the countryside than in urban areas. With the
British creation of Malay vernacular schools
throughout the countryside, and the introduction of
KuHan lessons within these schools, the village
Muslim officials were able to strengthen their influ¬
ence among the people. Their new formal positions
provided them with security and respectability, and
reinforced their traditional ties with the existing
secular authorities. The opposition of these village
Muslim officials to the modernist Islamic ideas being
propagated via the Straits Settlements seriously
weakened the impact of such ideas in the Malay coun¬
tryside. During the Japanese Occupation in Malaya
(1942-5), the links between the ruler and the Islamic
hierarchy were further reinforced, since more of the
secular functions of the ruler were removed, leaving
him basically only with religion as an area of respon¬
sibility.

8 . Islam since independence. Since the in¬
dependence of Malaya in 1957, there has been con¬
stitutionally a separation between Church and State.
The various sultans are regarded as the head of
religion in their respective states, and in Malacca and
Penang, which have no sultans, the quinquennially-

238

MALAY PENINSULA

elected Paramount Ruler {Yang Dipertuan Agung ) is
regarded as the religious head. Since 1948 every state
has had a religious affairs department, a type of coun¬
cil of religion, the Sharia court, the Treasury or Bayt
al-Mal , and a department of zakat. While Islam is the
proclaimed official religion of Malaysia today,
freedom to worship any other religion is guaranteed
by the Constitution. The protection of the non-
Muslim citizen is evident in the controlled application
of hukum syara c or Sharia law. The religious courts
{mahkamah syariah) deal mainly with Muslim personal
law, especially with marriage, divorce and property
matters, but have no jurisdiction over non-Muslims.
In any conflict between the religious courts and the
civil courts, the latter prevail.

The most significant religious development in the
peninsula since independence has been the dakwah
movement. Dakwah is described in Malaysia today as
a call inviting those who are not yet Muslim to em¬
brace the faith, and those who are Muslims to practice
it in their lives. The movement stresses Islam as deen ,
a total system, which provides an effective alternative
to Western materialism and secularisation. The
movement seems strongest among government of¬
ficials, teachers, and young urban Malays from
English or Malay schools, rather than from Islamic
educational institutions as one would have expected.
Even among Muslim students studying abroad, there
has been a noticeable increase in dakwah participation.

The origins of the movement can be traced directly
to the government’s policy after 1969 to increase
Malay enrolments in the universities. Many of these
graduates, who became teachers or bureaucrats in the
education system, were the dakwah activists of the
1970s. The movement gained popularity, particularly
after 1974, when government restrictions on student
political activity on the campuses led many to re¬
channel their discontent via the dakwah movement,
with its stress on Islam as a total system. So pervasive
is the movement that the term dakwah has been used
to categorise behaviour (returning to the simple, less
materialistic life style), dress (wearing short praying
veils for women, and the turban and long white,
green, or black robes for men) and organisation (any
group viewing itself as advancing the cause of the
movement). Such dedication is encouraged by a
steady supply of Islamic literature, both in Indonesian
and English, now filling the bookstores in the urban
areas.

The basic dakwah ideas are in the tradition of earlier
Islamic reform movements, such as Wahhabism and
the modernism of Muhammad c Abduh. They all
preach the rejection of “corrupt” Islamic accretions
and the return to the purity of Islam as practised by
the Prophet. And as in earlier reformist waves, the
dakwah movement is seen as a threat to the existing
religious and secular authorities and has been resisted
by both. In the villages, many of the Muslim officials
reject the movement and have managed to retain the
loyalty of the villagers. In the urban areas, where the
movement is strongest, traditional religious officials
have to a large extent been sheltered by the govern¬
ment’s cautious attitude toward the movement. The
government has sought to contain or domesticate the
movement by creating its own dakwah organisations
within the various departments. While fears have
been expressed concerning the possibility of an
Islamic revolution along the lines which have
transformed Iran into a theocratic state, the more
realistic concern is the movement’s threat to disrupt
the fragile unity painfully created by the nation’s
leaders between the Malays and the large non-Muslim

Chinese and Indian minorities in the country. The
movement is viewed suspiciously by some of the latter
as yet another instrument by which the Malays would
justify their dominance over the other ethnic com¬
munities.

The strength of the traditional relationship between
the religious and secular authorities has thus far suc¬
ceeded in diverting dakwah energies along the least
disruptive channels. L^nlike earlier reformist move¬
ments, however, dakwah activities have become much
more forceful and prominent because of the
resurgence of Islamic pride and power throughout the
world. Yet one can still detect in the movement, and
the attempts by established authority to contain and
guide it, the process by which new ideas have always
filtered into the Malay peninsula. The Malays are
now undergoing a re-examination of their religion
and society and will no doubt, as in the past, select on¬
ly those ideas which will best strengthen and make
more meaningful their chosen way of life.

Bibliography : For a general history of the
Malay peninsula and of Malaysia in general, see B.
W. Andaya and L. Y. Andaya, A history of Malaysia.
London 1982. An enlightening work on Malay
society is R. W. Winstedt, The Malays, a cultural
history, 6th ed., London 1961.

The im port a nee of early trade as a source of
goods and ideas to the Malay areas is the subject of
O. W. Wolters, Early Indonesian commerce, Ithaca
1967; see also idem, The fall of Srivijaya in Malay
history, Ithaca 1970; P. Wheatley, The Golden Kher-
sonese, Kuala Lumpur 1961; G. R. Tibbetts, Early
Muslim traders in South-East Asia, in JMBRAS, xxx/1
(1957), 1-45; J. A. E. Morley, The Arabs and the
eastern trade , in JMBRAS, xxii/1 (1949), 143-76.
Theories of how Islam was introduced to
the Malay world are discussed in A. H. Johns,
Islam in Southeast Asia: reflections and new directions, in
Indonesia, xix (April 1975), 33-55; idem, Sufism as a
category in Indonesian literature and history, in Jnal. of
Southeast Asian History, ii/2 (1961), 10-23; idem,
From coastal settlement to Islamic school and city:
Islamization in Sumatra, the Malay peninsula and Java,
in Hamdard Islamicus, iv/4 (1981), 3-28; G. W. J.
Drewes, New light on the coming of Islam to Indonesia,
in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land - en Volkenkunde, cxxiv/4
(1968), 433-59; S.Q. Fatimi, Islam comes to
Malaysia, Singapore 1963.

Impressions of Islamic institutions prior
to the 19th century in the Malay peninsula can
be gleaned from such works as A. H. Hill, ed. and
tr., The Hikayat Abdullah, Kuala Lumpur 1970; J.
M. Gullick, Indigenous political systems of Western
Malaya, London 1958; W. R. Roff, ed., Kelantan:
religion, society and politics in a Malay State, Kuala
Lumpur 1974; B. W. Andaya, Perak: the Abode of
Grace, Kuala Lumpur 1979; L. Y. Andaya, History
of Johor, 1641-1728, Kuala Lumpur 1975.

For a discussion of the Islamic intellectual
climate and writings in the Malay areas in
the 19th and early 20th centuries, see B.
W. Andaya and V. Matheson, Islamic thought and
Malay tradition: the writings of Raja Ali Haji of Riau
(ca. 1809-ca. 1870), in A. Reid and D. Marr, Percep¬
tions of the past in Southeast Asia, Singapore 1979;
Roff, The origins of Malay nationalism , Kuala Lum¬
pur 1967; R. W. Winstedt, A history of classical
Malay literature, Kuala Lumpur 1969. An in¬
teresting account of the blend of Islamic, Hindu
and spirit beliefs among Malay villagers in idem,
The Malay magician, being Shaman, Saiva and Sufi, rev.
ed. London 1951. A more general account of

MALAY PENINSULA — MALAYS

239

the role of Islam in Malay society in the
19th and 20th centuries can be found in D. Noer,
Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia: a preliminary study, in
Review of Indonesian and Malayan Affairs, ix/2 (July-
Dec. 1975), 51-70; M. A. Rauf, A brief history of
Islam, with special reference to Malaya, Kuala Lumpur
1964; Syed Naguib al-Attas, Some aspects of Sufism as
understood and practised among the Malays, Singapore
1963; Roff, Kelantan: religion, society and politics in a
Malay State', idem, The origins of Malay nationalism ;
M. L. Lyon, The Dakwah movement in Malaysia, in
Review of Indonesian and Malayan Affairs, xiii/2
(1979), 34-45; Khoo Kay Kim, ed., Tamadun di
Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 1980 (a collection of ar¬
ticles, many written by members of the Islamic
Studies departments in the various universities in
Malaysia); V. S. Naipaul, Among the believers. An
Islamic journey, London 1981. (L. Y. Andaya)

MALAYS, a people of South-East Asia. The
Malays speak Malay, one of the languages of the
Austronesian language family. Inscriptions from the
area of Palembang in Sumatra dating from the 7th
century are the oldest evidence of Malay. They show
that Malay functioned as an official language in an In-
dianised kingdom. It is sometimes assumed, on some¬
what tenuous ground, that this region of Sumatra and
the islands off its east coast are the homeland of the
Malays.

The Malay language takes three forms. It is a
series of local dialects; it is a lingua franca, and it is the
official language of Indonesia, of Malaysia, of Brunei
and one of the national languages of Singapore. Its
speakers rank sixth in number amongst those of other
world languages. Most of these, however, do not have
Malay as their first language. Malay is spoken also in
Southern Thailand, in Sri Lanka by descendants of
slaves brought there, and in the Netherlands by
40,000 Moluccan Malays. What is sometimes called
Cape Malay is actually not Malay at all, but
Afrikaans with unimportant Malay influence. As the
official language of Indonesia [see Indonesia, iii.
Languages] it is one of approximately 800 languages.
It is spoken as a local dialect in the southern part of
Sumatra, around the city of Medan on that island and
in the islands of Bangka, Billiton, and in Riau; in
Kalimantan it is spoken around the rim of the island;
in Java it is spoken as a local dialect in pockets along
the north coast. “Moluccan Malay” is one name
given to several varieties of the local dialects in
Eastern Indonesia. From a linguistic point of view,
the situation of dialects has not yet been properly
studied. Teeuw notes that the varieties of types of
influence—via traders, religious figures, wanderers
and others—has left “an intricate complex of Malay,
Malay-like and Malay-influenced languages and
dialects”. In Malaysia, the language of Johor and
Riau is considered the correct language. There is
much divergence from this form of Malay. However,
linguistic study does not yet allow us to specify how
many dialects can be isolated.

Malay already existed as a lingua franca during the
period of Portugese activity in Eastern Indonesia. Its
status as a national language was furthered by its use
by both Dutch and British in dealing with their co¬
lonial subjects. The Japanese replaced Dutch and
English with Malay during World War II and thus
helped development of Malay as a language of ad¬
ministration and learning. This marked the beginning
of efforts to expand the use of the language that con¬
tinue to the present. Malay is more of a success as a
national language in Indonesia than in Malaysia. It
has often become the language of domestic life in ma¬

jor Indonesian cities, as well as the language of youth.

The complicated Malay linguistic situation makes it
difficult to decide which groups are Malay and which
are not. In Malaysia the term bumiputera, meaning
“son of the soil” is used to distinguish Malays from
Chinese and Indians. When it is so used it refers to
native speakers of Malay who are Muslim and born in
Malaysia. The same term in Borneo, however, refers
to tribes who may or may not speak a form of Malay.
Though the term bumiputera is recent, the notion, as
Gullick notes, goes back to British rule. Before co¬
lonial times, it is doubtful that an equivalent term was
used by anyone to designate themselves, Malay
speakers rather referring to themselves as inhabitants
of certain places or followers of certain rulers.

Before the colonial period, Malay states were
typically situated at the mouths of rivers. Revenues
collected from the control of trade were the source of
the ruler's power. With these revenues, the ruler
maintained a band of retainers. Before the coming of
the British, peasants fled from one area to the next as
they felt pressure from rulers to pay taxes or perform
labour services. The limitation of aristocratic power
and the bringing of peace to the Malay Peninsula al¬
lowed for the building of permanent Malay setle-
ments. It resulted also in immigration from Sumatra
to the central areas of the peninsula. Rubber became
a major smallholder crop between 1910 and 1920 and
thus a mainstay of the Malay economy on the West
Coast. In other states, rice became the chief crop. The
growing of those crops along with fishing, the cultiva¬
tion of copra and palm oil, work on estates and in the
civil service comprise the chief occupations of Malay¬
sians today.

It is more difficult to isolate a notion of “Malay”
in Indonesia with its more complicated linguistic and
ethnic composition and different colonial history.
What have been termed “Coastal Malays” have been
little studied. Pigeaud has used the Malay word mean¬
ing “coastal” to term the culture that includes coastal
Malays as well as other groups, “Pasissir culture”.
Hildred Geertz has elaborated this notion. She sees
Pasissir culture as developing around the spice trade
of the 14th to the 18th centuries and associated with
the spread of Islam. In this process, Malay culture
was mixed with other influences—Javanese and
Makassarese as well as Arabic and south Indian, with
different mixtures evolving in different localities. In
addition to Islam, Geertz stresses an orientation to the
market and the development of literary forms as
features of Pasissir culture. As was the case in the
Malay states, a system of status was tied to actual
political power so that office was not a sure sign of
authority, rulers having to validate their power
through the maintenance of retainers.

Malays are Sunni Muslims. Their religious institu¬
tions vary from place to place. There is usually a
village religious official, often termed a lebai. In the
traditional states, there were religious officials, in¬
cluding kadis, associated with the courts as well as
religious functionaries independent of the states and
connected often with mosques or with religious board¬
ing schools in the countryside. Peripatetic teachers
from the Middle East as well as the pilgrimage have
long been important vehicles of influence. The oldest
Malay texts which show Muslim influences come
from Trengganu in Malaysia and Atjeh in Indonesia.
Both date from the 14th century. Tomb inscriptions
showing adherence to Islam date from the 15th cen¬
tury. (J. Siegel)

Of pre-Islamic Malay literature, nothing is
known. As far as may be concluded from a few old in-

240

MALAYS — MALAYSIA

scriptions in Hindu script, it seems that Malay was
written in Kawi-like characters, but literature, in its
earliest known form, is written in Arabic letters only.
The oldest manuscripts are preserved in the Cam¬
bridge and Oxford libraries; they date from the last
years of the 16th and the first decade of the 17th cen¬
tury. The only literary-historical evidence of the ex¬
istence of written literature in the 16th century is the
mention, in a 17th century chronicle, of the use made
of a royal library at Malacca at the time when the Por¬
tuguese endeavoured to capture that town (1511).
Malay literature, as it presents itself now, is only for
a very small part original. Hardly any of the
chronicles, tales and poems are derived from Arabic
sources directly, most of the religious and semi-
historical romances having been translated from Per¬
sian; but all these literary products are imbued with
the Muslim atmosphere, being full of Arabic words
and phrases and laden with Islamic theory. There are,
it is true, some indigenous farcical tales, and some
fables, especially the sometime highly appreciated
mouse-deer tales, moreover some original romances
with Hinduistic influences, and several adapted old
Javanese tales, that do not betray real Islamic influ¬
ence; but the very fact that all these books are written
in Arabic characters makes them overflow with Arabic
words in a way that shows that they belong to Islamic
mentality. In this short account, there will be no men¬
tion of literary products going back to the great San¬
skrit epic poems, nor of the tales that do not show
traces of Muslim influence; only in so far as Malay
literature has Islamic features will it be treated here.
The originally genuine Indonesian deer-fable has
undergone an Islamic correction. The historical
writings, more or less mythical and semi-romantic,
are almost absolutely Islamised. To that class of works
the chronicle Sejarah Melayu, and other ones, as the
chronicles of Kutawaringin, Kutai, Atjeh and Pasai,
are to be reckoned. A partly historical but for the
greater part fictitious, romance is the Hikayat Hang
Tuah. A host of romances, dealing with foreign
princes and princesses and their endless adventures,
has been spread over a great part of the Malay-
reading East-Indian World; the titles of all those
popular, but for European readers less attractive,
books, may be found in the catalogues of Malay man¬
uscripts at Leiden, Batavia and London. Some books
of fiction have been translated from Persian, Arabic
or Hindustani. A group of them is to be traced to the
Hitopadesa- collection, another one to the Tuii-nama-
series, a third one to the Bakhitar cycle. Only excep¬
tionally have foreign authors written in Malay; e.g.
the Radjput Nur al-Dln al-Ramn, who wrote a great
encyclopaedic chronicle at the instigation of an At-
jehnese queen. A very great number of texts deals
with the former prophets, the Prophet Muhammad,
his family and friends. Those works, like e.g. the
romances of Amir Hamza and Muhammad b. al-
Hanafiyya, have Persian originals. The purely
religious books cannot be regarded as Malay
literature.

Poetical literature has a different character.
The real Malay kind of poetry, though not devoid of
Persian influences, is the pantun, i.e., popular
quatrains, whose first two kinds deal with a natural
fact, or a well known event, and are intended to
prelude, phonetically, the third and fourth lines, that
contain the real meaning of the usually erotic poem.
The other “genre” is the sha^ir. Its form is the stanza
of four rhyming lines. Some of these very extensive
overloaded poems are from the Javanese, some others
are versified versions of prose romances, moreover

historical events, love-scenes, religious matters,
mystical speculations etc. are dealt with in in¬
numerable sha6r. (Ph. van Ronkel)

The development of Malay as a modern
literary language is generally said to begin with
the writings of Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi,
1796-1854 (known as Munshi Abdullah), who intro¬
duced a colloquial style and who relied on his own
observations for the content of his writing. The
Islamic features of the literature that developed after
Munshi Abdullah are difficult to specify. The progress
of modern literature meant a decisive break with older
forms, such as the sha^ir, with their strong Muslim
overtones. At the same time, the development of con¬
temporary forms such as the novel and short story can
be seen as a means of continuing the expression of
traditional social tensions which often centred around
Islam. Writers from the 1920s and 1930s who were
responsible for the acceptance of modern styles were
most often from the Minangkabau region of Sumatra.
Taufik Abdullah has shown that a continuous tension
and resolution between Minangkabau tradition which
featured matrilineal descent and Islam resulted in the
perpetual generation of new social forms. The modern
novel and short story as exemplified in the works of
writers such as Marah Rush, born 1889, Nur Sutan
Iskandar, born 1893, and Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana,
born 1908, can be seen as continuing the expression
of this tension. At the same time, one cannot point to
a specifically Islamic literature, though writers such as
Hadji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah, born 1908
(known as Hamka) continue to deal with Islamic
themes.

Bibliography : The standard history of the
earliest Malay kingdom is O. W. Wolters, Early In¬
donesian commerce: a study of the origins of Srivijaya,
Ithaca 1967. On the Malay language, see A.
Teeuw, A critical survey of studies on Malay and Bahasa
Indonesia, The Hague 1961; P. Voorhoeve, Critical
survey of studies on the languages of Sumatra, The Hague
1955; A. A. Cense and E. M. Uhlenbeck, Critical
survey of studies on the languages of Borneo, The Hague
1985. On Malay literature, the standard works are
Sir Richard Winstedt, A history of Classical Malay
literature, in JMBRAS, xxxi (1958), 1-261; C.
Hooykaas, Over Maleise Literatuur, Leiden 1947; A.
Teeuw, Modern Indonesian literature, The Hague
1967.

On Pasissir culture, see Th. Pigeaud, Javanese
Volksverloningen, Batavia 1938, and H. Geertz, In¬
donesian cultures and communities, in R. McVey (ed.),
Indonesia, New Haven 1963. Important studies of
Malay society include R. Firth, Malay fishermen:
their peasant economy, London 1946; J. Djamour,
Malay kinship and marriage in Singapore, London 1959;
J. M. Gullick, Indigenous political systems of Western
Malay, London 1958; idem, Malaysia, London
1985; C. Kessler, Islam and politics in a Malay state:
Kelantan 1838-1969, Ithaca 1978; W. Roff, The
origins of Malay nationalism, New Haven 1967;
Taufik Abdullah, Schools and politics in the Kaum
Muda movement in West Sumatra (1927-1933), Ithaca
1971; idem, Modernization in the Minangkabau world.
West Sumatra in the early decades of the twentieth century,
in Claire Holt (ed.), Culture and politics in Indonesia,
Ithaca 1972. (J. Siegel)

MALAYSIA. Political developments since
195 7. The Federation of Malaya (consisting of nine
peninsular Malay states plus Penang and Melaka)
achieved sovereign independence within the Com¬
monwealth on 31 August 1957. The written constitu¬
tion (amended at various times since) provided a

MALAYSIA

241

strong centra] authority comprising the Yang di-
Pertuan Agong (the constitutional monarch who is
elected at five-yearly intervals by and from the nine
hereditary Malay Rulers), a partially nominated
Senate and a wholly elected House of Represen¬
tatives. The Malay Rulers remained heads of their
respective states (though Governors occupied this
position in Penang and Melaka), each of which was
provided with an executive council responsible to the
state assembly. The Rulers were also confirmed as
heads of the Islamic religion in their states. For a
society where differences between Malays, Chinese
and Indians are marked, a single nationality was
created with provisions enabling all persons to qualify
for citizenship either by birth or according to re¬
quirements of residence, language and allegiance.
Though this would allow the proportion of non-Malay
citizens to rise steadily, it was made acceptable to the
Malays by constitutional safeguards for their religion,
language and “special position” in public service,
education, land reservations, etc. Lawyers and politi¬
cians have had some difficulty reconciling the historic
principles of “the special position of the Malays” with
the more modern concept of “common nationality”.

Tunku Abdul Rahman’s Alliance coalition of the
United Malays National Organization (UMNO),
Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and Malayan
Indian Congress (MIC) was intended to make com¬
patible the interests of the three major communities.
The arrangement allowed Malay political hegemony
and non-Malay domination of the economy in the
short term while holding out the prospect of a gradual
breakdown of these respective preserves. The Alliance
majority was confirmed at the 1959 elections and on
1 August 1960 it was confident enough to end the
Emergency which has been declared on the outbreak
of the communist insurrection (June 1948). Con¬
troversial educational and rural developmental
policies were launched to improve the economic lot of
the Malays.

On 27 May 1961 the Tunku proposed the forma¬
tion of “Malaysia” from Malaya and the British
dependencies of Singapore, Brunei, North Borneo
(Sabah) and Sarawak. Neither the Tunku nor Lee
Kuan Yew (Chief Minister of Singapore) believed
that an independent Singapore could survive on its
own, while the former was confident that the peoples
of Borneo would counter-balance the Chinese of
Singapore. Reassured about their military base in
Singapore, the British were prepared to decolonise the
rest of their Southeast Asian empire via the Malaysia
plan. Despite protests in Borneo (e.g. the Sarawak
United People’s Party; Azahari’s revolt in Brunei,
December 1962), the Cobbold Commission and a UN
Mission separately concluded that the majorities in
Sabah and Sarawak favoured Malaysia which was in¬
augurated, but without Brunei’s membership, on 16
September 1963.

The new federation faced problems within and
without. Sukarno condemned it as a “neo-colonial”
conspiracy and “confrontation” between Indonesian
and Malaysian-Commonwealth forces lasted until
May 1966, while the Philippines laid claim to Sabah.
Relations between Kuala Lumpur and some state
governments were also strained. The Pan-Malayan
Islamic Party (PMIP) controlled Kelantan, and the
federal government had to intervene in the affairs of
Sabah and Sarawak to ensure state governments to its
liking. Lee Kuan Yew’s commitment to a “Malaysian
Malaysia” challenged the Alliance formula for the
harmonisation of communal differences and roused
UMNO “ultras”. In August 1965, Singapore was

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

forced to secede from Malaysia. Nevertheless, the
Alliance had increased its majority in the 1964 federal
elections.

The elections five years later, however, were bitter¬
ly contested. The PMIP and some Malays within
UMNO criticised Tunku Abdul Rahman for “giving
in” to the Chinese, while the Democratic Action Par¬
ty (DAP), Gerakan and People’s Progressive Party
complained about the disadvantages suffered by non-
Malays. Reduction of the Alliance majority, particu¬
larly the MCA’s poor performance, provoked
demonstration and counter-demonstration which
spilled into communal violence in Kuala Lumpur on
13 May 1969. Probably many hundreds were killed.
Parliamentary government was suspended until
February 1971.

1969 is a turning-point in the modern history of
Malaysia. Tun Abdul Razak, for years the Tunku’s
deputy, assumed the leadership of government, first
as Director of the National Operations Council and
later as Prime Minister (September 1970 to January
1976). Razak evolved a strategy for stability which
was continued by Hussein Onn (1976-81) and
Mahathir (since 1981). The Rukunegara (national
creed) was proclaimed, but public and parliamentary
debate of “sensitive issues”, notably the paramount-
cy of the Malay Rulers, the special position of
bumiputras (“princes of the soil”, i.e. Malays and
other indigenous peoples) and the citizenship rights of
non-Malays, was outlawed. Authoritarianism has
been a characteristic of Malaysian government; in
1960 when the Emergency ended, the executive
equipped itself with even wider emergency powers by
amending the Internal Security Act, and detention
without trial and news censorship have been features
of the period since the return to parliamentary
government in 1971. The coalition has been enlarged
to incorporate former opposition parties, including
the Parti Islam Sa-Malaysia (PAS, previously PMIP),
between 1973 and 1977, but not the DAP. This Na¬
tional Front (NF or Barisan National ), like the old
Alliance, has been dominated by UMNO. In the 1974
elections, the NF won well over two-thirds of the
federal seats (the amount needed to amend the con¬
stitution) and control of all 13 states.

Perhaps the most significant result of the 1969 riots
lay in economic planning. One of the most prosperous
countries in Asia and enjoying an enviable growth
rate, Malaysia has nonetheless suffered from rural
poverty and an uneven distribution of income. To
break down the communal compartmentalisation of
society, in which bumiputras were identified with tradi¬
tional activities while Chinese and Indians were ob¬
viously associated with the modern sector, the New
Economic Policy (NEP) was devised. Through a
series of Five Years Plans (1971-5, 1976-80, 1981-5),
the NEP has aimed to eradicate poverty and to in¬
crease the bumiputras' share of corporate wealth to
30% by 1990. There is tension between these objec¬
tives, and irritation arising from their immediate pur¬
suit or failure to attain long-term goals could
exacerbate communal relations and popular
grievances. Since independence, the economy has
diversified considerably and the manufacturing sector
has been developed, but Malaysia still relies on the ex¬
port of commodities (petroleum, rubber, tin, palm oil,
timber and more recently cocoa) and is thus
vulnerable to world-market fluctuations. Since the
mid-70s, government has been aware that world
recession might upset the timetable of the NEP. So,
too, might the rapid growth of population (currently
at 2.7% p.a.) which, according to the 1983 estimate,

242

MALAYSIA — MALAZGIRD

totalled 14,744,000 and is ethnically divided in the ap¬
proximate proportions of Malays 47 %, Chinese 33 %,
Indians 9% and Borneo peoples 9% (plus 2% others),
and is distributed geographically between Peninsular
Malaysians 83 % and East Malaysians 17%.

In foreign affairs, too, the early 1970s saw a shift in
emphasis. The Anglophile Tunku had stayed firmly
in the Western camp; though Malaysia had not joined
SEATO, the Anglo-Malayan (Malaysian) Defence
Agreement (AMDA) had underwritten the country’s
security, and Malaysia had supported the US in Viet¬
nam. In 1971 AMDA was replaced by the Five Power
Defence Arrangement (Australia, Britain, Malaysia,
New Zealand, Singapore) in which Britain played a
less prominent role. At the same time, Malaysia
became interested in the neutralisation of the region
through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN, 1967). Without compromising its anti¬
communism, it established diplomatic relations with
China (1974). Communist expansion and Sino-Soviet
rivalry in Indo-China since 1975 has been tackled by
Malaysia as an ASEAN matter rather than through
the Commonwealth, in which the present Prime
Minister shows little interest.

In 1975-6, world recession, resurgent terrorism,
political crisis in Sabah, corruption involving the
Selangor Chief Minister and the death of Tun Razak
(January 1976) might have shaken the regime, but the
calm control asserted by Datuk (later Tun) Hussein
Onn was endorsed by the 1978 elections. In July 1981
he was succeeded by the more abrasive Datuk Seri Dr
Mahathir Mohamad, a vigorous champion of Malays
within a “Greater Malaysia’’. “Leadership by exam¬
ple”, “Malaysia incorporated” and “Look East” are
some of the slogans illustrating his drive for ad¬
ministrative efficiency, entrepreneurial zeal and inter¬
national repute. Since the NF’s landslide victory in
the elections of April 1982, however, he has been em¬
barrassed by a constitutional wrangle with the Rulers,
a financial scandal arising from the Bank Bumiputra’s
involvement in property development in Hong Kong,
the Islamic revivalism of PAS and the defeat of the NF
party (Berjaya) in the Sabah state election (April
1985). Though Mahathir’s command of UMNO, the
NF and the country is unassailable at the moment
(June 1985), he has to counter the blandishments of
PAS and guard against splits between NF partners
and within parties such as the MCA and MIC, which
are notoriously disunited. Apart from the politics of
the moment, some are exercised by the fear of a slump
in Malaysia’s economy whose continuing buoyancy is
essential to the integration of this new state.

Bibliography. Barbara Watson Andaya and
L. Y. Andaya, A history of Malaysia, London 1982;
J. Gullick, Malaysia: economic expansion and national
unity, London 1981; D. Lim, Economic growth and
development in West Malaysia, 1947-1970, Kuala
Lumpur 1973; Mahathir b. Mohamad, The Malay
dilemma, Singapore 1970, republ. 1981;
D. K. Mauzy and R. S. Milne, Politics and govern¬
ment in Malaysia, Vancouver 1978; G. P. Means,
Malaysian politics, London, 2nd ed. 1976;
R. S. Milne and K. J. Ratnam, Malaysia—new
states in a new nation: political development of Sarawak,
and Sabah in Malaysia, London 1974; Mohamed
Noordin Sopiee, From Malayan union to Singapore
separation: political unification in the Malaysia region,
1945-65, Kuala Lumpur 1974; Tun Mohamed Suf-
fian, H. P. Lee, F. A. Trindade, eds., The constitu¬
tion of Malaysia, its development 1957-1977, Kuala
Lumpur 1978; K. von Vorys, Democracy without con¬
sensus: communalism and political stability in Malaysia,

Princeton 1975; see also the Far Eastern Economic

Review and its Year Book (Asia Year Book, 1973—),

Hong Kong; The Far East and Australasia, London,

1969—; Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,

Southeast Asian Affairs, Singapore 1975-

(A. J. Stockwell)

MALAZGIRD. 1 . The town. The modern
Turkish Malazgird constitutes a district (ilfe) centre in
the province (it) of Mus in eastern Anatolia. The area
surrounding the town is rich in cuneiform inscrip¬
tions, and it is possible that the battle between
Tiglathpileser I and the Nalri kings took place in the
area. The name of the town itself, which probably
goes back no further than the Parthian period, in
Old Armenian is recorded as Manavazakert,
Manavazkert and Manazkert, while the oldest Arabic
form is Manazdjird. It has been supposed that this
name preserves the memory of the Urartu king
Menuas of Van, whose name is mentioned in many
inscriptions which have been found in the Malazgird
area.

Very little is known about the town’s pre-Islamic
history. Constantine Porphyrogenitus remarks that
the local dynasty who held Malazgird in the 4th/10th
century paid tribute to the Byzantine Empire. How¬
ever, the members of this dynasty, which originally
had been subordinate to the Bagratids, bore Arabic
names, the nisba derived from Malazgird being
recorded as al-Manazi. Thus during the campaign of
the Hamdanid Sayf al-Dawla into eastern Anatolia
(328/940), we hear of a prince of Malazgird named
c Abd al-Hamld. In 353/964 a ghulam of Sayf al-
Dawla’s conquered the town, and in 359/969-70 it was
taken by the Byzantines. The Byzantine occupation of
Malazgird must have been very brief, for in 382/992-3
another Byzantine army tried to take possession of the
town, this time without success. On the other hand,
by 446/1054-5 Malazgird must have once again fallen
into Byzantine hands, because Ibn al-Athir records
that in 446/1054-5 Malazgird resisted a siege by the
Saldjuk Toghrfl Beg.

However, the main event in the history of the town
was the battle of Malazgird between the Saldjuk
sultan Alp Arslan and the Byzantine ruler Romanus
Diogenes (463/1071) [for details, see 2. below]. The
outcome of this battle led to the gradual settlement of
Anatolia by Turkish nomads and then townsmen, and
to the establishment of the Rum Saldjuk sultanate in
central and eastern Anatolia.

On the other hand, the town of Malazgird itself
never played a prominent role, neither in the Saldjuk
nor during the Ottoman period. During the 7th/13th
century, the name of Malazgird is occasionally men¬
tioned in chronicles (particularly Ibn al-Athir), but no
references can be found concerning the economic life
of the town. Equally sparse is the material for the Ot¬
toman period. Thus it has not been possible to locate
an enumeration of Malazgird tax-payers in the tahrfrs
of the 10th/16th century, although an Ottoman docu¬
ment from the year 1001/1592-3 refers to a sandjak of
Malazgird, in the wilayet of Diyarbekir, which was in¬
habited by the Kara Ulus nomads (Basbakanlik
Arsivi, Divan-i hiimayun Ruus Kalemi, 253/46a, p.
63). However, Katib Celebi (Djihan-numa. 426) makes
a brief reference to the existence of the town, which in
the 11 th/17th century could be reached in two days’
travel from Erzurum. Moreover, the town lay on a
road connecting Adilcevaz and Bitlis, which was used
by the Ottoman army on one of its campaigns in
c Irak.

In the 1890s, Malazgird appears as the centre of a
kada 5 (sandpak of Mush, wilayet of Bitlis) comprising 50

MALAZGIRD

243

villages, the main settlement containing 213 houses
and 19 shops. The kaffi, then as now, depended
mainly upon agriculture and animal husbandry. Ac¬
cording to the ilyilhgi of Mus (1967), Malazgird ap¬
pears as an il(e (formerly nahiye ) centre of 7,826
inhabitants, mostly engaged in field agriculture, such
as the cultivation of wheat, barley, beans, and maize.
Vegetables and industrial cultures (sunflowers,
sugarbeet) were being encouraged by government
projects. The number of craftsmen was low, and the
il(e possessed no industry.

According to the ilyilhgi of Mus published in 1973,
the town had by 1970 grown to 10,711 inhabitants
(1975: 13,094). A hydrolectrical power plant had been
established, so that Malazgird is now supplied with
electricity. As an administrative centre, the town also
provides educational services for its district: a high
school (Use) was opened in 1971, and the construction
of a cultural and sports centre began about 1970. An
irrigation project had equally been undertaken by
1970, and the first producers’ cooperatives were
making their appearance. However industry con¬
tinues to be practically absent from the life of
Malazgird.

Bibliography. Apart from V. F. Buchner’s EP
art., revised and augmented by Besim Darkot in
i/4, see: Katib fielebi, Diihdn-nimd. Istanbul
1145/1732; Nasuh al-Silahi (Matrakfi), Beyan-l
mendzil-i sefer-i Hrdkayn, ed. H. G. Yurdaydin,
Ankara 1976, 105; Samy-Bey Fraschery, Kdmus al-
a c lam, 6 vols., Istanbul 1316/1898, vi, 4388; V.
Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie, Paris 1894, iii, 589-91;
Le Strange, The lands of the eastern caliphate , 115-16,
139; E. Banse, Die Tiirkei, eine moderne Geographie ,
Berlin, Hamburg, Brunswick 1916, 210, 214; M.
Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H’amddnides,
Algiers 1951, 187 and n. 279, 473-5, 481-3, 629-32,
668 ; Mu? il yilligi 1967, Elazig; 1967; Cumhuriyetin
50. yilinda Mus, Elazig 1973; Genel nilfus sayimi, idari
boliimu , 26.10.1975, Ankara 1977, § 49, p. 6 .

(S. Faroqhi)

2. The battle. As noted above, the most impor¬
tant event with which the name of the town is con¬
nected is the battle of Mantzikert fought in Dhu
TKa c da 463/August 1071 between Alp Arslan [< 7 . z/. ]
and Romanus IV Diogenes. This event is treated by
a variety of sources, Byzantine Greek, Armenian,
Syriac and Arabic. The most valuable account is sure¬
ly that of Attaliates, who was present at the battle itself
as well as being an adviser of the Emperor, whereas
that of Psellus, tutor of Michael VII Ducas who was
to replace Romanus on the imperial throne after the
battle (see below), is hostile. Although Cahen (1934,
see Bibl.) was critical of Attaliates’ detailed testimony,
more recently Vryonis and Cheynet (see Bibl.) have
reinstated him as the prime source for the battle. A
relevant Western source is the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi
of William of Apulia (see Bibl.); other later Christian
writers such as Michael the Syrian and Matthew of
Edessa are strongly anti-Byzantine, viewing the
Saldjuk invasions of Anatolia as divine retribution for
the Emperors’ treatment of non-Melkite religious
minorities of the empire. There is no contemporary
Muslim account, the earliest extant one being that of
Ibn al-KalanisT (d. 555/1160), but the long description
by Sibt b. al-Djawzi (probably deriving from Ghars
al-Ni c ma Muhammad b. Hilal al-SabP’s lost c Uyun
al-tawdrikh) is, among other Muslim sources, detailed
and valuable.

The policy adopted by Romanus when he became
Emperor in January 1068 was to take the offensive
against the Muslim enemy beyond the Byzantine

frontiers rather than to wait for raids to take place,
and the campaign which culminated at Malazgird was
the last of three conducted by the Emperor himself,
for which he left Constantinople in spring 463/1071,
aiming to securing against the Saldjuks the Armenian
fortresses of Akhlat [q. v. ] and Malazgird. Alp Arslan
was for his part besieging Edessa in the spring, but on
hearing of the arrival of the Byzantine army in the
east, decided to move in that direction, probably via
Mawsil and Khuy, to assemble reinforcements.
Romanus detached a contingent of his army under the
Norman Roussel of Bailleul to take Akhlat. whilst he
took and garrisoned Malazgird itself. Preliminary
skirmishes took place, during which time some of the
Uze (sc. Ghuzz) mercenaries in the Byzantine army
deserted to the enemy, whilst Roussel and the
Georgian Joseph Trachaniotes fled westwards from
Akhlat. deserting the Emperor, at the approach of Alp
Arslan. The Muslim side offered peace, but Romanus
refused any terms, feeling that he had numerical
superiority and being unwilling to throw away the im¬
mense effort put behind his campaign. The Muslim
sources emphasise Alp Arslan’s pessimism before the
battle, but the fact that the battle took place on a Fri¬
day meant that the force of universal Muslim prayer
was felt as an advantage (cf. al-Husaym, Akhbar aP
dawla al-sald^ukiyya, 47-9, which purports to give the
text of special prayers offered up throughout the Sun¬
ni world at the caliph al-Karim’s orders).

Although the figures in the Muslim sources for
Romanus’s army (from 200,000 to 400,000) must be
exaggerated, the Emperor must, despite defections,
have had superiority in numbers; Cheynet estimates
his army at probably 60,000, with much baggage and
impediment. Its morale however was not high, and its
composition very heterogeneous; amongst foreign
mercenaries are mentioned Franks, Arabs, Rus,
Pechenegs, Georgians, Abkhazians, Khazars, Ghuzz.
Kipcak, Scyths, Alans and Armenians. Alp Arslan is
generally credited in the Muslim sources with having
15,000 troops at the battle. The exact date of the bat¬
tle has not hitherto been established with certainty,
but the fact that it was a Friday in Dhu ’1-Ka c da
seems to limit the possibilities to 20 Dhu TKa c da/19
August or the next week; in fact, astronomical indica¬
tions, confirming Attaliates’ information that the
night before the battle was moonless, point to 27 Dh u
’1-Ka c da 463/26 August 1071, as is shown in a recent
popular book on the battle, A. Friendly, The dreadful
day , London 1981, 178. The exact location of the field
of battle is likewise uncertain, though it was along the
road between Malazgird and Akhlat: the al-Rahwa
(cf. Yakut, ii, 880) of Sibt b. al-Djawzi, Ibn al-Djawzi
and Ibn al- c Ad!m seems most probable.

The course of the battle is described in most detail
by Attaliates and by the anti-Romanus, later writer
Nicephorus Bryennius. A Byzantine return to camp at
nightfall seems to have been interpreted as a retreat;
the rearguard under Andronicus Ducas left the field,
leaving the army’s rear unprotected; and in the later
stages, the Saldjuk forces lured the Greeks into am¬
bushes. The Emperor was captured and was
honourably treated by Alp Arslan; several sources
record the famous conversation in which the sultan
asked Romanus what treatment should be meted out
to him. A peace agreement was drawn up, the precise
terms of which are not known, but which probably in¬
cluded a ransom, the cession of various frontier for¬
tresses, and the provision of troops and annual tribute
to the sultan; but since during Romanus’s brief cap¬
tivity, Michael VII Ducas had been proclaimed
Emperor and Romanus was eventually blinded and

244

MALAZGIRD — MALDA

killed by his supplanter (August 1072), it is likely that
these terms were never put into force anyway.

Romanus’s defeat seems to have sprung in part
from inadequate intelligence about the movements of
the Akhlat force, which was to rejoin him, and a poor
choice of terrain, one favourable to the Saldjuks’
mounted archers; but internal dissensions within the
Byzantine empire, moreover, had been reflected in
the army itself, for Andronicus Ducas, cousin of the
future Emperor Michael VII, had been ill-disposed
towards Romanus. A Fatimid involvement in the
campaign has recently been suggested by Hamdani
(see Bibl.), but this remains speculative.

Was the battle indeed “the greatest disaster of
Byzantine history” (Grousset)? In many ways, it was
the decade of internecine strife within the Empire
after the battle which harmed the Empire more and al¬
lowed Turks to infiltrate Byzantine territory. Byzan¬
tine prestige abroad was certainly harmed by the
ignominy of Romanus’s capture, and some Crusader
chroniclers (e.g. William of Tyre) see Western Euro¬
pean involvement in the Levant as dating from this
time, with the Franks replacing the Greeks as
upholders of Christianity against Islam there. The
Muslim historians, for their part, tend to over¬
dramatise the event, probably because it was the only
major military confrontation during the infiltration
process.

Bibliography. 1. Primary sources: (i)

Arabic: I bn al-Kalansi, Dhayl ta *rikh Dimashk, ed.
Amedroz, 99; Ibn al-Azrak al-Fariki, Ta^rikh al-
Fariki, ed. B.A.L. c Awad, Cairo 1959, 186-90; Hu-
saynl, Akhbar al-dawla al-saldfukiyya, ed. Ikbal,
46-53; al-Makm b. al- c Amid, Historia saracenica, ed.
T. Erpenius, Leiden 1625, 555-6; Ibn al- c Adfm,
Zubdat al-halab min ta^rikh Halab, ed. S. Dahhan,
Damascus 1954, ii, 23-30; Ibn al-Djawzi, al-
Muntazam, viii, 260-5; Sib{ al-DjawzI. MiPat al-
zamdn, apud Ibn al-Kalanisi, in op. cit., 100-5; Bun-
dan, Zubdat al-nusra wa-nukhbat al- c usra, ed.
Houtsma, ii, 36-44; Ibn al-Athir, x, 43-6. (ii) Per¬
sian: Zahir al-Dln Nishapuri, Saldiuk-nama,
Tehran 1332, 24-7; Mlrkh w and. Rawdat al-safa,
Tehran 1853-4. (iii) Eastern Christian:
Aristakes of Lastiverd, Recit des malheurs de la nation
armenienne, ed. M. Canard et H. Berberian,
Brussels 1973, 124-8; Michael the Syrian, facs. ed.
and tr. J.-B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien,
Paris 1899-1914, 168-70; Matthew of Edessa, Pat-
mut’iwn, tr. E. Dulaurier, Chronique de Matthieu
d’Edesse (962-1136) ..., Paris 1858, 163-70; Bar
Hebraeus, The chronography of Gregory Abu ’l-Faraj
..., ed. and tr. E. A. W. Budge, London 1932,
220-2. (iv) Byzantine: Attaliates, Historia, ed. I.
Bekker, in CSHB, Bonn 1853, 144-69; Nicephorus
Bryennius, Historia, tr. P. Gautier, Nicephore Bryen-
nios Histoire, Brussels 1975, 104-20; Skylitzes,
Ioannes Skylitzes continuatus, ed. E. T. Tsolakes,
Thessalonika 1968; Michael Psellus, Chronographia,
tr. E. R. A. Sewter, The Chronographia of Michael
Psellus, London 1953, 271-4; Zonaras, Ioannis
Zonarae epitomae historiarum, ed. T. Biittner-Wobst,
in CSHB, Bonn 1897, 696-703. (v) Western
Christian: William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti
Wiscardi, in MGH Scriptorum, 1851, ix, 239-98.

2. Secondary sources: C. Oman, A history of
the art of war, London 1898, 216-21; J. Laurent,
Byzance et les Turcs Seldjoucides dans I’Asie occidentale
jusqu’en 1081, Nancy 1913, 43-4; C. Cahen, La
campagne de Mantzikerl d’apr'es les sources musulmanes,
in Byzantion, ix (1934), 613-42; E. Honigmann, Die
Ostgrenze des Byzantinischen Reiches, Brussels 1935,

189-90 and index; R. Grousset, Histoire de TArmenie,
Paris 1947, 624-30; M. Mathieu, Une source negligee
de la bataille de Mantzikert. Les ‘ ‘Gesta Roberti Wiscar¬
di” de Guillaume d’Apulie, in Byzantion, xx (1950),
89-103; S. Runciman, A history of the Crusades, Cam¬
bridge 1954, i, 62-5; i. Kafesoglu, IA, art.
Malazgirt; A. Hamdani, A possible Fatimid background
to the battle of Manzikert, in AUDTCFD, vi (1968),
1-39; Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, London 1968,
26-30; J. C. Cheynet, Mantzikert: un desastre
militaire? , in Byzantion , 1 (1980), 410-38; S.

Vryonis, Jr., The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia
Minor and the process of Islamization from the eleventh
through the fifteenth century, Berkeley, etc. 1971,
96-104; N. Kaymaz, Malazgirt savasi ile Anadolu’nun
fethi ve turkle$mesine dair, in Malazgirt armagam,
Ankara 1972, 259-68; A. Sevim, Malazgirt meydan
savasi ve sonu^lart, in ibid., 219-30; A. Hamdani,
Byzantine - Fatimid relations before the battle of Man¬
zikert, in Byzantine Studies, ii/2 (1974), 169-79; F.
Sumer, Malazgird savasina katilan Turk beylen, in
Sel(uklu Araftirmalan Dergisi, iv (1975), 197-207.

(Carole Hillenbrand)

MALDA (properly Maldah or Maldaha) a
district of India, in the Jalpaiguri Division of the
State of West Bengal, area 3,713 sq. km. (1971),
population 1,612,657 (1971), of whom 827, 706 were
males and 784,951 were females. Of the total popula¬
tion, 53.64% were Hindus and 46.18% were
Muslims.

It is possible that the name of the district town,
Malda, is derived from the element mal and refers to
the wealth of the place as a centre of trade in the
mediaeval period. In more ancient times, the area was
known as Gaur (Gauda) from the city of that name,
capital of the Senas (a Hindu dynasty). Between 1201
and 1203 the whole area was conquered by Muham¬
mad Bakhtivar Khaldjl. who was until that time a
djagirdar under the Muslim governor of Oudh.
Muhammad Bakhtivar Khaldjl was murdered in 1206
by c Alf Mardan Khaldjl: the latter was subsequently
appointed by the Sultan of Dihli as governor in
Lakhnawtl [ q.v .] which had become the Muslim
capital in western Bengal. Islamic institutions were es¬
tablished throughout the area; numerous mosques,
maktabs and madrasas were constructed. In 1345,
Sultan Shams al-Din Ilyas Shah became ruler of the
area independently of Dihli. The Shah! dynasty he
founded was noted for its liberal patronage of Bengali
culture, and the Shahis are generally acknowledged to
have been tolerant and enlightned rulers. The begin¬
ning of Mughal rule in Bengal at the end of the
10th/16th century was a period of disorder and
upheaval, followed by eventual peace, but not by the
same identification with Bengali culture as under the
Shahis. In the 11 th/17th century, under the Mughal
rulers, trade with various European merchants flour¬
ished, notably with the English, whose assumption of
the Diwani in 1765 led to the eventual economic
decline of the area. The ruins of magnificent mosques
at Malda, Lakhnawti and Pandu remain as evidence
of the district’s Islamic history; of the ten thanas into
which the district is divided, four (on the western side
of the district) have Muslim population majorities.

Bibliography. Ghulam Husayn Salim, Riyad
al-salatin, tr. Abdus Salam, Calcutta 1902-4, repr.
Dihli 1975; Sir Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), The history
of Bengal: Muslim period, 1200-1757, Patna 1973;
Montazur Rahman Tarafdar, Husain Shahi Bengal,
1494-1538: a socio-political study, Dacca 1965; Jatin-
dra Chandra Sengupta, West Bengal District Gazet¬
teers. Malda, Calcutta 1969; Bhaskar Ghose, Census

MALDA — MALDIVES

245

of India 1971. Series 22. West Bengal, Part II A,
General population tables, DihlT 1973; G. Michell
(ed.), The Islamic heritage of Bengal, UNESCO Pro¬
tection of the cultural heritage, Research papers 1,
Paris 1984, 106-7, 154, 196-7 (on the monuments).

(T. O. Ling)

MALDIVES, a group of islands in the Indian
Ocean.

1. History and social organisation.

The Republic of Maldives, formerly a
Sultanate, forms an independent Asian
state located in the north-central Indian Ocean some
650 km. south-west of Ceylon [q.v.]. The name
“Maldives” is a foreign designation, probably deriv¬
ed from the Sanskrit maladvipa, “garland of islands”;
the indigenous name Divehi Rajje “island realm” is
gradually attaining some international currency.

The Maidive Archipelago consists of a narrow, 750
km. long chain of coral islands, lying scattered on a
north-south axis between lat. 7°6' N. and 0°42' S
and long. 72° and 74° E. The country is divided
into nineteen administrative atolls, comprising an
estimated 1,196 islands, of which 211 are presently
(1980) inhabited. According to the 1977 Maldivian
Government Census, the total population was
143,469, of whom 29,555 lived in Male, the capital
and only town of the archipelago.

The Maldives are believed to have been settled by
the first of several waves of Sinhalese in the 5th or 4th
century B.C., though both legend and scientific
evidence point to the presence of an earlier Veddoid
or Tamil population (Bell, 1940, 16; Maloney, 1980,
28-71). The islands seem never to have passed under
Ceylonese political control, however, and with the ex¬
ception of a brief period of Portuguese domination
(965-81/1558-73) have remained effectively indepen¬
dent throughout recorded history.

Little is known of the history or culture of the
Maidive Islanders in the pre-Islamic period. There
are indications both of an indigenous primal religious
pantheon (in which Rannamarl, a powerful deity of
sea and storm, may have played a leading role), and
of Hindu influence, both etymologically (Maloney,

1980, 51) and archaeologically (a Shivalingam,

possibly indicating the site of a former Hindu temple,
was excavated in Ari Atoll, Ariyaddu Island, in 1959).
It is clear, however, that from ca. 300 A.D. onwards,
Theravada Buddhism emanating from neighbouring
Ceylon came to dominate the archipelago (Bell, 1940,
passim', Reynolds, 1974, 1978; Maloney, 1980,

72-98). Thus by the 4th/10th century, Buddhist
monasteries and stupas existed throughout the coun¬
try, but especially in the southern and central atolls.

The initial advent of Islam to the islands remains
shrouded in mystery. However, it is clear that the ex¬
istence of the Maldives must have been known to
Arab (and Persian) mariners even in pre-Islamic
times, and it is therefore reasonable to assume that
Muslim merchants and sailors first visited the remote
archipelago as early as the lst/7th century (Forbes,

1981, 62-77). For the next four centuries, Buddhism

remained established as the dominant religious creed
of the islands, though it is possible that, during the
4th-5th/10th-l 1th centuries, some of the northern
atolls fell under the political and cultural influence of
the (Hindu) Chola monarchs Rajaraja I and Rajendra
I (Sastri, 1953, 220; Forbes, 1979, 138). During this
period a mixed Arabo-Maldivian population, albeit of
small size, must have developed at Male, in some
respects paralleling the development of the neighbour¬
ing Mappila community of Malabar [q.v.] and

elsewhere on the Indian Ocean littoral. As with the

Mappilas, this nascent Maldivian Muslim community
is likely to have wielded economic, political and
cultural influence out of all proportion to its numbers.

According to the Maldivian TaMkh (a historical
chronicle dating from the early 12th/18th century—
see Bell, 1940, 18-43), the last Buddhist monarch of
the Maldives, who bore the Sinhalese-style biruda
(epithet) “Sir! Bavanadltta”, was converted to Islam
by a Muslim visitor to the islands on the 12th day of
Rabl* II 548 (1153 A.D.), upon which he adopted the
Muslim name and title “Sultan Muhammad
al- c Adil”. Certain controversies surround this arcane
event. Thus, according to Ibn Battuta (who visited the
islands between 1343-4 and again in 1346), the shaykh
responsible for the conversion was a Maghribl styled
Abu ’l-Barakat al-Barbarl, a Sunni Muslim of the
Maliki madhhab (text, iv, 127; English tr. Gray, 1882,
14). In contrast, the Maldivian Ta\lkh ascribes the
conversion to one Shaykh Yusuf Shams al-Dln
Tabriz!, by nisba almost certainly a Persian or perhaps
a Turk, of uncertain rite (Bell, 1940, 18-19). Today,
Abu ’l-Barakat is officially recognised as the shaykh
responsible for the conversion, and his tomb stands in
Male’s Henveru district, the most venerated ziyara in
the country. Other early epigraphic evidence ascrib¬
ing the conversion to Shams al-Dln is extant, however
(Bell, 1940, 190; Forbes, 1982), and the exact role
played by “Tabrlzugefanu” (who is still widely
revered throughout the country) remains uncertain.

Following the conversion of Muhammad al- c Adil to
Islam, both the Ta^rikh and Ibn Battuta’s Rihla are
agreed that the new faith was rapidly embraced by all
Maldivians. Recently-translated epigraphic evidence
casts doubt on this claim, however. Thus according to
a copper-plate grant ( lomafanu ) preserved at the
Bodugalu Mosque in Male, more than half-a-century
after the initial conversion, it was necessary for the
Male authorites to send a military expedition to crush
an “infidel” (presumably Buddhist) king in the south
of the country (a transcript of this lomafanu is currently
in press at Male). It may be safely assumed, however,
that by the late 7th/13th century the country was
universally Muslim, a situation which remains un¬
changed today.

Following the initial Portuguese assault upon the
traditional trade network of the Indian Ocean, much
of the indigenous, Muslim-dominated trade of the
Malabar region was re-routed via the Maldives, thus
exposing the islanders to more direct and regular con¬
tact both with Arabia and with Islamic South-East
Asia. This development led in turn to an increased
(and unfriendly) Portuguese interest in the islands,
culminating in the brief but destructive Portuguese
occupation when, between 965-81/1558-73, Male
passed under the control of the hated “Adiri Adiri”
and “the sea grew red with Muslim blood” (Ta^rfkh:
Bell, 1940, 26). In response to this Portuguese aggres¬
sion, the Maldivians, under the inspired leadership of
Muhammad Bodu Takurufanu, a son of the khatlb of
Utlm in the north of the country, waged an unre¬
mitting guerilla struggle. By 981/1573 the Portu¬
guese were forced to withdraw, and Muhammad
Takurufanu became sultan. One lasting result of the
Portuguese occupation was a change in the madhhab
followed by the Maldivians. Thus according to the
Tahfkh (Bell, 1940, 27), following the expulsion of the
Portuguese it was discovered that the Maldivian
c ulama* had been decimated, and that no shaykh of the
Maliki madhhab remained alive. At this time there
chanced to return to Male from southern Arabia one
Muhammad Djamal al-Dln Huvadu (a native of
Huvadu/Suvadiva Atoll in the south of the country),

246

MALDIVES

a Maldivian c alim who had spent many years studying
at the §hafi c fT centres of the Wadi Hatframawt and at
Zabid in the Yemen. He was subsequently appointed
kadi by Muhammad Takurufanu, and from this time
the Maliki madhhab was replaced by the Shaft C I one as
the formal rite of the Maldives.

From 981/1573 to the present day, the Maldives
have remained effectively independent, though in
1887 an agreement was signed between Sultan
Ibrahim Nur al-Dln and the British Crown by which
the islands assumed British protectorate status in mat¬
ters of foreign policy, but retained internal self-
government. In 1932 a constitution was introduced
for the first time, though the Sultanate was retained
for a further 21 years, when the First Republic was es¬
tablished under the Presidency of Muhammad Amin
Did!. In 1954, following the overthrow and death of
the latter, the Sultanate was briefly re-established.
However in 1968, three years after the attainment of
full independence from Britain, the Sultanate was
finally abolished and a Second Republic proclaimed
under the Presidency of Ibrahim Nasir. Today, the
President of the Republic of Maldives is Maumoon
Abdul Gayoom, a graduate of al-Azhar who is fluent
in both Arabic and English.

The people of the Maidive Islands are
predominantly of Indo-European origin, being linked
ethnically and culturally with the Sinhalese people of
Ceylon and the inhabitants of Minicoy Island, now
grouped with the neighbouring Laccadive Islands
[q. v. ] to the north. Other important constituent
elements in Maldivian culture are the Dravidian and
the Arabo-Muslim ones. Maldivians are 100% Sunni
Muslims of the Shaft C I madhhab. The only non-
Muslims to be found in the country are foreign ex¬
perts or businessmen, all of whom are resident on a
strictly temporary basis, and none of whom may ac¬
quire property or Maldivian nationality without first
becoming Shafi C I Sunnis. The Ismael Bohra com¬
munity (originating from Gudjarat [see bohoras])
which dominated Maldivian trade from the late 19th
century to the early 1950s has been expelled, and their
solitary mosque (in Male) has passed under Shafi C I
control. Unlike the neighbouring Laccadive Islands,
the Maldives are patrilineal; nor is “caste’’ a factor,
though class distinctions were—and in some cases
remain—strong. Maldivian Islam is therefore distin¬
guished by considerable orthodoxy at the official level.
At a popular level, however, it is characterised by an
unusually widespread belief in spirits and in all man¬
ner of djinn , as well as by the extensive practice of fan-
dita (cf. Sanskrit pandit, “a learned person’’), a
religio-magical science widely accepted throughout
the archipelago and described by Maloney (1980,
242-73) as “a parallel religious system”. Today the
Maldivian religious establishment—which draws
much of its inspiration from the reformist ideologies
with their roots in Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle
East—is anxious to limit the role played by jandita in
Maldivian society, and actively discourages sthuru (cf.
Ar. sihr “magic”), Jandita s black magic counterpart.
Despite these pressures, however, widespread belief in
jandita and in a plethora of djinn persists, providing in¬
triguing evidence of parallels between popular Islam
in the Maldives and in its counterpart in the Malay-
Indonesian archipelago.

Bibliography. Ibn Battuta, iv, 110-67; cf. A.

Gray, Ibn Batuta in the Maldives and Ceylon, in JR AS

(Ceylon Branch), extra no. (1882), 60 pp.; F. Pyrard,

The voyage of Francois Pyrard of Laval, ed. and tr. A.

Gray and H. C. P. Bell, Hakluyt Society, Cam¬
bridge 1888, 3 vols. in 2, i, 60-320; H. C. P. Bell,

The Maidive Islands: an account of the physical features,
climate, history, inhabitants, productions and trade,
Ceylon Government Sessional Paper xliii (1881),
Colombo 1883; idem, The Maidive Islands: report on a
visit to Male, Ceylon Government Sessional Paper
xv (1921), Colombo 1921); idem, The Maidive
Islands: monograph on the history, archaeology and
epigraphy, Colombo 1940; K. A. Nilakanta Sastri,
The Colas, Madras 1953; C. H. B. Reynolds, Bud¬
dhism and the Maldivian Language, in L. Cousins
(ed.), Buddhist studies in honour of I. B. Horner,
Dordrecht 1974, 193-8; J. Carswell, Mosques and
tombs in the Maidive Islands, in Art and Archaeology
Research Papers, ix (July 1976), 26-30; Reynolds,
Linguistic strands in the Maldives, in Contributions to
Asian Studies, xi (1978), 155-66; C. Maloney,
Divehi, in R. V. Weekes (ed.), Muslim peoples: a
world ethnographic survey, London and Connecticut
1978, 128-33; A. D. W. Forbes, Sources towards a
history of the Laccadive Islands, in South Asia, ii/1-2
(1979), 130-50; idem, Archives and resources for Maldi¬
vian history, in ibid., iii/1 (1980), 70-82; C. Maloney,
People of the Maidive Islands, Madras 1980; Forbes,
Southern Arabia and the Islamicisation of the Central In¬
dian Ocean Archipelagoes, in Archipel, xxi (1981),
55-92; idem, The mosque in the Maidive Islands: a
preliminary historical survey, in ibid., xxiv (1982); N.
F. Munch-Petersen, The Maldives, history, daily life
and art-handicraft, in Bull, du Centre d’Etudes du Moyen-
Orient el de la communaute Islamique , Brussels, i/1-2
(1982), 74-103. See also laccadives, Bibl.

(A. D. W. Forbes)

2. Language and literature. The Maldivian
language, called Divehi, is an Indo-Aryan tongue
closely related to Sinhalese, with which it shares such
distinctive features as the half-nasals before voiced
stops and the “umlaut” of a to e in certain positions.
It maintains the distinction, now lost in Sinhalese, be¬
tween dental / and retroflex /. It was formerly written
in a script derived ultimately from Brahml and closely
resembling earlier forms of Sinhalese script. This
script, known as Dives akuru (“Maldivian letters”),
survives on tombstones and inscriptions and in some
manuscripts, but was gradually replaced during the
18th century by a script called tana, written from right
to left (which facilitated the use of Urdu or Persian
loanwords written in Arabic script). This script con¬
tains 24 letters (one of which is known as alifu, though
it has more than one function). It was a local inven¬
tion; the First nine letters are forms of the Arabic
numerals. In 1977, an official romanisation scheme
was introduced by the government.

No ancient literature has survived. Surviving
writings on palmleaf are mostly magical or medical
treatises. A few historical works exist, though not
generally available for inspection. Learned works
were sometimes written in Arabic; thus an Arabic
ta^rikh of the Maldivian Kingdom (. Divehi rajje) exists,
compiled in 1725 and brought up to date in 1821, as
well as some 18th-century histories in Maldivian
called Radavali (“line of Kings”); these histories all
begin from the time of adoption of Islam in 548/1153.
Surviving poems include Diyoge raivaru (“The song of
Diyo”), an obscure romance of travels in the Indian
Ocean dating from about 1810.

It is only with the 20th century that books became
common and duplication of texts was practised.
Grammatical formulation of the Maldivian language
may be dated from the publication of Sullam al-arib by
Shavkh Ibrahim Rushdl in A.H. 1355. Amin Did!,
Chief Minister and later First President of the
Maldives (1909-54), was a proliFic writer and encour-

MALDIVES — MALHUN

247

aged and promoted literary compositions by others.
Literary magazines feature among the early
newspapers which date from the 1930s, and poetry
competitions became fashionable at the time. Amin
Did! also wrote historical and biographical works, in¬
cluding a history of the Maldives during the 1939-45
war.

There was also a tradition of religious writing,
usually of a commentarial character. Literary figures
of the recent past who wrote on both secular and
religious subjects are Shavkh Salah al-Dln (d. 1950)
and Bodufenvaluge Sid! (also known as c AfTf al-Dln)
(d. 1969). Most of their works remain in manuscript.

Bibliography. H. C. P. Bell, The Maldive

Islands: monograph on the history, archaeology and

epigraphy , Colombo 1940. (C. H. B. Reynolds)

MALHAMA (a) in modern times designates an
epic [see hamasa] and also corresponds to a usage
already in evidence in the Old Testament, where
milhamot is applied to the wars of Yahweh (I Sam.
xviii, 17, xxv, 28), but in the Islamic Middle Ages this
word meant a writing of a divinatory charac¬
ter, the Malhamat Daniyal [cf. daniyal]. It is a ques¬
tion of a collection of meteorological signs with their
divinatory meanings, derived from the day of the
week on which 1 January falls (from the Saturday to
the Friday), eclipses of the moon, following the same
order, lightning, thunder, the appearance of halos
around the sun and the moon, a rainbow, the ap¬
pearance of a sign in the sky and earthquakes. This
first series of signs is followed by another, referring to
the effects of the winds on events, those of days of the
week and those of days of the week on which 1 Thot
of the Coptic year falls, and the first day of the Arab
year (cf. Istanbul ms. Bayezit, Veliuddin Ef. 2294,3,
fols. 58-65).

Another recension of this malhama (Istanbul,
Bagdatli Vehbi 2234, fols. l-6a) enlarges the range of
these predictions based on the lunar mansions,
thunder according to months, eclipses of the moon,
earthquakes, new moons, a rainbow, parhelions ( al-
ghubar c ala wadjh al-shams'), the moon’s disc, snow,
hail, clouds, comets, the blowing of winds, rains, etc.

A third recension (Istanbul, Reisiilkuttab Mustafa
Ef. 1164,2, fols. 15a-93a) enumerates the signs and
information supplied by “celestial and terrestrial
phenomena in deserts and at sea, earthquakes,
eclipses, new moons, according to the signs of the
zodiac, tempests, black winds, clouds seen as silhouet¬
tes of people; what will happen in the lands of the Per¬
sians, Arabs and other peoples and in the islands and
mountains”.

These popular astrological portents trace their
origin to the Akkadian divinatory tablets and the
Syriac writings which preserve echos of them. The
most complete Syriac witness to this is the K. al-Dala?il
( = Ktobo d-shudo^e) “Book of Prognostications” of al-
Hasan b. Bahlul (cf. Istanbul, Hekimoglu 572, fols.
l-300a, fine large naskhi, dating from 556/1160-1).
The prognostications which it incorporates are deriv¬
ed from the seasons, months, weeks and festivals, ac¬
cording to the calendar of the Christians, Muslims,
Jews, Armenians and Copts. This compilation con¬
tains, in addition, various calculations, information
on the festivals of the Harranians, where Ibn al-
Bahlul refers to the Fihrist (of Ibn al-Nadim), whose
author he gives as Yahya b. Hatim Ipna (?) ( ^1 ),

and an account of the Mandaeans of Wasit. One table
brings together prognostications derived from at¬
mospheric phenomena; a chapter on physiognomy
(based on the Kunnash al-Mansuri of Abu Bakr al-RazI
and other writings); symptoms of poisons and their

antidotes; signs of the humours which predominate in
the body; rules for the purchase of slaves; the
diagnosis of illness; the recognition of horses’ ill¬
nesses; a compendium of dream interpretation.

There follows (fols. 302-356a) a malliama of Daniel
in which the meteorological and astrological malliama
develops into the apocalyptical malhama . Indeed, in
the introduction we read the following definition:
“This is Malhamat al-bayan fi ma c rifat al-simn wa 7-
duhur wa ’l-azman on the celestial bodies, the move¬
ments of the stars, the phenomena of the universe,
order and corruption, how to see the shifts of fortune,
the oppression that kings exercise over one another,
the succession of their states and what will befall
them” (fol. 2a). The work is presented as a reply by
Ka c b al-Ahbar [qv.\ to a question asked by
Mu c awiya concerning the MahdI.

This apocalyptical current reaches its peak in al-
Shadjara al-nu c maniyya fi ’l-dawla al- c uthmaniyya, a work
attributed to Muhyl ’1-Din Ibn al- c Arabi (d.
638/1240) and commented on, in particular, by his
disciple Sadr al-DTn al-Kunaw! (d. 672/1263), Salah
al-DTn al-Safadl (d. 764/1363). Ahmad b. Muham¬
mad al-Makkari (d. 1041/1632), Mustafa Ef. b.
Sahrab and al-Shahrafl. The earliest form of this
work, recast and adapted at a later date in Egypt (cf.
Istanbul, Nuruosmaniye 2819, 82 fols., dating from
1111/1699-1700; Saray, Revan 1742, fols. 65b-180b;
Univ. Kutiiphanesi A 6257, fols. 26b-34a), then in
the Ottoman Empire, on the authority of Ibn
al- c ArabI, is thought to go back to the Fatimid period
and to have dealt with the MahdI. It is to be found in
madjmu^at of an apocalyptical character, such as ms.
A 542 of Istanbul University, containing: (1) al-
Shadjara al-nu : mdmyya wa-hiya ’l-kubra min thalath
dawd^ir (fol. 2b); (2) al-Damira JTbayan zuhur al-ka^im min
c ilm al-dyafr (fols. lb-2b) and (3) al-Risala al-sharifa al-
harfiyya JT bayan rumuz al-dfafriyya (fols. 3a-20a).
Similarly, Bursa ms. Ulucami 3544, naskhi from
1096/1684-5, contains an anonymous commentary on
al-Shadjara al-nu^maniyya (fols. 94a-140a) preceded by
the Risalat al-burhdn JT c aldmat mahdidkhir al-zaman (fols.
l-92b) of C A1I b. Husam al-Dln known by the name
of al-Muttakl (d. between 975 and 977/1567-9).

With this current of apocalyptical malbama, maldhim
[q.v. ) literature is associated.

Bibliography: T. Fahd, La divination arabe,
Leiden 1966, 224-8, 408-12; F. Sezgin, GAS, vii,
Leiden 1979, 312-17, 282-3, 328; A. Abel,
Changements politiques et litterature apocalyptique dans le
monde musulman, in SI, ii (1954), 23-43; Sophia
Grotzfeld, Daniyal in der arabischen Legende, in
Festgabe H. Wehr, Wiesbaden 1969, 72-85; G.
Furlani, Di una raccolta di tratti astrologici, in RSO, vii
(1916-18), 885-9; idem, Fine Sammlung astrologischer
Abhandlungen in arabischer Sprache, in ZA, xxxiii
(1921), 157-64; G. Bergstrasser (ed.), Neue

meteorologische Fragment e des Theophrast, in SBAk.
Heidelberg, Phil.-hist. Kl. (1918), Abh. 9, 6-7; G.
Vajda, Quelques observations sur Malhamat Daniyal, in
Arabica, xxiii (1976), 84-7; A. Fodor, Malhamat
Daniyal, ed. and tr. in The Muslim East. Studies in
honour of Julius Germanus, ed. G. Kaldy-Nagy,
Budapest 1974, 85-133. (T. Fahd)

MALHUN ( molhun ) designates the state of the
language which served for the expression
of certain forms of dialectal poetry in the
Maghrib, as well as this poetry itself. Although the
verse composed may be generally intended to be in¬
toned and chanted by amateurs or professionals with
a momentary musical accompaniment, this term does
not come from lahn “melody”, as Muhammad al-FasI

248

MALHUN

would have it (Adab ska c bt, 43-4), but from lahana (cf.
Djirarl, Kafida , 55-7) understood in the sense of “to
stray from the linguistic norm” i.e. from literary
Arabic [see lahn al- c amma]. In the Ma gh rib there
are various forms of popular poetry in dialect which
grew up there or were imported [see in particular
bukala, hawfI and zadjal], but, although the distinc¬
tion may not always be perceived or even perceptible,
rmlbiun properly so-called, which also has various
names such as kasida zadjaliyya or Him mawhub/muhub
because this art was innate (see Djirarl. 54-64) or
simply klam, comprises more specifically strophic
poems or ones derived from the classical kasida [q.v.\,
whose fundamental characteristic appears to be (apart
from liberties taken by poets) the tendency to use an
internal rhyme, the first hemistichs of all the lines
rhyming throughout the poem or in each of the
strophes.

In the present article, we will not neglect
Tripolitania, and we will concern ourselves with
Tunisia, where popular poetry is still very much alive,
but more particularly with Morocco and Algeria, for
it is concerning these two countries that there is the
most information, due to the significant number of
bards ( gawwdl pi. gawwdlln) and poets (shaHr, nazim,
Shaykh) who were famous there from an earlier period,
and due also to the abundance of works which have
been devoted to them. However, we will limit
ourselves to citing those of them who are the most
renowned and, as it is impossible to reserve a notice
for each of them in this Encyclopaedia, we will indicate
in brief the principal references which concern them,
asking the reader to refer to the general bibliography,
where the titles will be given in their complete form.

The origin of mdlhun. Mdlhun does not appear
to have arisen from any of the categories of poetic pro¬
duction in dialectal Arabic with which Spain [see
zadjal] and the Near East (see Safi al-Dln al-Hilll,
al- c Atil al-hali, ed. W. Hoenerbach, Die vulgararabische
Poetik, Wiesbaden 1956) were already acquainted in
the Middle Ages. Ibn Khaldun, to whom the merit,
among other things, must be acknowledged of taking
popular poetry into account, does not use the word
mdlhun, but he cites at the end of the Mukaddima (iii,
417 ff.; French tr. de Slane, iii, 445 ff. Eng. tr.
Rosenthal, iii, 466 ff.) some examples of townspeo¬
ple’s poetry which he calls Q arud al-balad and whose
creation he attributes to an Andalusian by the name
of Ibn c Umayr who had emigrated to Fas. It is a
strophic poetry with a double rhyme which Ibn
Khaldun regards as deriving from the muwa shsh ah
\q. v. ] and whose structure is similar to certain pieces
of urban mdlhun (see A. Tahar, Poesie populaire,
363 IT.). The author of the Mukaddima adds that Ibn
c Umayr respected iHdb, but that the FasTs abandoned
it because it did not interest them. Despite its
undeniable value, this evidence does not allow us to
ascertain the period in which the first manifestations
of the genre which concerns us arose; that of Leo
Africanus [q.v. ] (10th/16th century) is not of much
more help; he says in fact {Description de VAjnque,
214-15) that there were in Fas many poets composing
love poems in the “vernacular” and, each year, on
the occasion of the festival of the Prophet’s birthday
( mawlid/mulud) [q.v.], a piece of verse in his praise [see
mawlidiyyat], but it is quite likely that the “ver¬
nacular” in question was Hispanic Arabic, as this
must also have been the language of the c arud al-balad.
According to G.S. Colin (in Initiation au Maroc, 224-7;
EI l , art. morocco, vii. 2), two periods are to be dis¬
tinguished in the evolution of popular poetry; during
the first, which stretches until the beginning of the

Sa c dids (middle of the 10th/16th century)„ Moroccan
poetry in dialectal Arabic was a direct heritage from
al-Andalus and was expressed in Hispanic Arabic,
having become the “classical” language of the zadjal;
the second begins in the 10th/16th century, and it is
under the “Bedouinising dynasties” of the Sa c dids
and c Alawids (from 1076/1666) that mdlhun properly
so-called, a special language influenced by Bedouin
dialects made its appearance and developed. The
word designating, in Algeria, the popular poet
(gawwdl and not kawwal), the significant number of
bards belonging to nomad or at least rural tribes, and
the fact that the oldest specimens of the genre which
have been preserved date from the 10th/16th century,
seem to lend credence to G.S. Colin. However, this
mdlhun was not born overnight, and it is probable that
the Arab tribes who had emigrated into North Africa
in the 5th/11th century had preserved their traditions
and that they composed some verse in their own
dialect; only a study of the language of the most an¬
cient remnants of dialectal poetry could shed some
light on this problem. It is actually dangerous to con¬
test G.S. Colin’s theory by citing, as djirarl had done
(549-60), poets earlier than the 10th/16th century,
without taking account of the language—which is
really hard to define—that they used in their com¬
positions.

Whatever may be the case, the first who is known
was one called Ibn c Abbud who lived in Fas at the
end of the Wattasid dynasty (first half of the 10th/16th
century); he is famous in Morocco for a “war poem”
( harbi) inspired by the battle of 942/1536 between
Wattasids and Sa c dids, at which he was present
(Rabat ms. G594; see E. Dermenghem and M. El
Fasi, Poemes marocains, 96; M. El Fasi, in La Pensee, no.

1 (November 1962), 68; M. al-FasI, Adab sha Q bt, 46).
Two poets of the same period, the Moroccan al-
Madjdjub [q.v.\, author of well-known quatrains
which constitute a category on their own, and the
Algerian Sid I Lakhdar Bokhkhluf (al-Akhdar.
alias al-Akhal b. c Abd Allah b. Makhluf), of the
Mostaganem region, are counted among the earliest;
in a poem on the Battle of Mazagran delivered against
the Spaniards in 965/1558, the latter asserts that he
participated in this combat in person, so that if this
detail is authentic, he supplies a valuable chron¬
ological reference; the works of this bard are still ap¬
preciated, so that it has been possible to collect them
in a Diwdn published by M. Bekhoucha in Rabat in
1951 (31 poems, among which figure several

panegyrics of the Prophet, which are still sung by the
lolba, in funerary vigils, to the tune of the Burda [qv.];
see also J. Desparmet, Blida, 146-66; idem. Chansons
de geste, 195, 216-19; Sonneck, no. 112; M. al-Kadi,
Kanz, 7-15; A. Tahar, index).

The principal poets from the 10th/16th
century to the present. In the second half of the
century there lived another Moroccan originally from
the Tafilalt called Abu Faris c Abd al- c AzTz al-
Maghrawi (d. 1014/1605) who has also remained
famous, to the point that there is a proverb kull twil
khdwi, gher dn-ndkhla w-dl-Mdghrawi “Everything tall is
empty, except the palm-tree and al-MaghrawT”,
because he was very tall and expressed such wisdom
in his verses that sanctity was attributed to him (see
Rabat ms. Bibl. Royale 860), although he also left
erotic poems which we do not know whether to inter¬
pret symbolically; in his finely-executed work figure
ghazawdt (see below) and, in particular, a marthiya
[q.v.] in dialectal Arabic composed on the death of
Sultan al-Mansur al-Dhahabl (985-1012/1578/1603),
j whose favourite he was (see Rabat ms. 594; Aubin, Le

MALHUN

249

Maroc, 343; Colin, op. laud., 225; al-Ghawtht. Kashf,
87-9; Kadi, Kanz, 205-10; Bekhoucha, Poemes erotiques,
156-78; idem and Sekkal, Printanieres, 61-5; M. al-
Fasi, Adab sha c bi, 57, who estimates at about 50 the
number of the poems preserved; Belhalfaoui, 120-37,
hymn to the Prophet; Djirari, 587-91; Tahar, index).

In the course of the 11 th/17th century, when
Tlemcen had already become a flourishing centre of
this genre of popular poetry, Moroccan rrulhun re¬
ceived a fresh impetus from Tlemceni poets in exile
(see below). Towards the end of the century, another
shaHr originally from the TafTlalt (see M. al-Fasi, Adab
shacbi, 57; Djirari. 592-6), al-Masmudi, “noted
the principal tunes, that the people had gradually
adapted for their songs, and he also became the
creator of the” griha (< kariha, which designates a
light music and some easy tunes for popular poems,
with a vague instrumentation”; Aubin, op. laud.,
342-3); with regard to this, it is said that al-Masmudi
is one of the branches of poetry, while al-Ma gh rawi is
its trunk.

Mdlhun did not cease to find favour with all classes
of Moroccan society, but after these two poets, it ex¬
perienced a certain stagnation until the end of the
12th/18th century. In this period, one of those who
revived it was Sultan Sidi Muhammad b. c Abd
Allah (1171-1204/1759-89) who had no scruples
about cultivating it himself (see M. al-Fasi, Adab
sha c bi, 58). Among his successors one can mention
SidI Muhammad b. c Abd al-Rahman
(1276-90/1859-73), with whom TuhamT al-
Madghari (Mdoghri) of the TafTlalt (see below) liv¬
ed on intimate terms, and it is said that many kasidas
issued in the latter’s name were really the work of the
prince (Aubin, op. laud., 343-4; M. al-Fasi, Adab
shacbt, 62-3). The last sultan who was particularly in¬
terested in dialectal poetry was Maw lay c Abd al-
Haflz (1909-13), who is said to have composed the
39 pieces of verse collected in his Diwan lithographed
in Fas (n.d.); it is, however, doubtful whether they
were all of his creation (see M. al-Fasi, op. laud., 64),
and the names of three poets are cited who may have
participated in the fraud (see JQjirari, 663-9).

In an erotico-mystical poem on Mecca, the Moroc¬
can al-Hadjdj Mukhtar al-Bakkali (d. 1255/1839;
see Ibn Zaydan, Ithaj, v, 339, 341, 443) wants to con¬
fide his anxieties to 21 of his predecessors and contem¬
poraries and asks them for their intercession (text and
French tr. in Belhalfaoui, 56-61); although he may
not be one of the most remarkable, this poet gives an
idea of the unity which existed in the field of dialectal
poetry between Morocco and Algeria and, without
compiling an honours list properly speaking, or testi¬
fying to the tastes of all his contemporaries, he never¬
theless supplies precious information on the names to
bear in mind by recording in the first lines, alongside
more obscure personages and ones who are harder to
identify, the greatest representatives of mdlhun from
the 10th/16th century to the first decades of the
13th/ 19th. Apart from al-Ma gh rawi. SidI Lakhdar
and al-Masmudj already cited, there appear notably:

al-Hadjdj c Isa of Laghwat (d. ca. 1150/1737-8),
author, in particular, of hunting poems (see Sonneck,
no. 63; M. Sidoun, Chasse au jaucon, 272-94; Kadi,
Kanz, 179-81; C. Trumelet, Les Fran^ais dans le desert,
499).

Muhammad b. Amsayb (Ben Msayeb et var.)
of Tlemcen (d. 1182/1768), who had to go into exile
in Morocco after having sung of love and wine, and
composed on his return several panegyrics of the
Prophet and saints; he is still held in public favour and
his “poems of love and religious inspiration always

move men and women at weddings” (S. Bencheneb,
in Initiation a VAlgerie, 302; see Sonneck, no. 32; M.
Ben Cheneb, Itineraire; Desparmet, Blida, 8; Kadi,
Kanz , 134-42, 147-9; A. Hamidou, Poesie vulgaire,
1007-30; Bekhoucha, Poemes erotiques, 6-33; idem and
Sekkal, Printanieres, 124-7; Belhalfaoui, 72-91; Tahar,
index; al-Diawahir al-hisdn 285-316; his Diwan (31
poems) was collected and published in Tlemcen in
1370/1951 by M. Bekhoucha.

c Ali Kura (end of the 12th/18th century), of the
Relizane region, who celebrated Platonic and mystical
love (see Belhalfaoui, 148-53; Tahar, 208, 210).

Ibn Swikat (Bessouiket), an Oranian of the same
period, who achieved fame through his opposition to
the Turkish occupation, although al-Bakkali claims
that he was a Turk (see A. Cour, Poesie politique, 486;
Belhalfaoui, 144-7, on his dying horse; Tahar, index).

c Ali al-Baghdadi, a Moroccan poet of the same
period, whose fame rests on a kasida entitled al-Harraz
(watchman = rakib of the Andalusians = gardador of
the troubadours), which is a little satirical comedy
(French tr. E. Dermenghem and M. El Fasi, Poemes
marocains, reproduced in H. Duquaire, 213-22 and E.
Dermenghem, Les plus beaux textes arabes, Paris 1951,
522-31; see also M. al-Fasi, Adab sha c bi, 61-2).

Ibn Hamm ad I of Relizane (early 13th/19th cen¬
tury) who exalted love and the Prophet (see
Belhalfaoui, 138-43; Tahar, index).

Ibn c A11: this poet who is cited by al-Baldcali must
be Muhammad b. C A1I wuld/u Rzin of TafTlalt (d.
1237/1822), whose best known work today in Moroc¬
co is a love poem in which the tar shun (“young hawk”)
symbolises the loved one (text and French tr. by M.
El Fasi, Le tarchoun (le petit jaucon ) de Ben c Ali Cherif,
in Hesperis-Tamuda, vi [1965], 39-52; see also Son¬
neck, no. 59; Aubin, 343; Bekhoucha, Poemes erotiques,
115-54; idem and Sekkal, Printanieres, 75-89; M. al-
Fasi, Adab shacbi, 60-1); he is notable for his com¬
position of a poem (preserved, but inaccessible) on
Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt (see Djirari, 625-7).

al- c Amiri of Meknes (middle of the 13th/19th
century), who attracted attention on account of his
poems called djajriyya full of reflections of a political
character which led him to make predictions about
future events (see M. al-Fasi, Adab sha c bi, 62; Djirari.
627-8).

al-Hadjdj Muhammad al-Nadjdjar of
Marrakesh, son-in-law and copyist of Mthlrad (see
below), who left many panegyrics of the Prophet, a
poem in which he alluded to an eclipse and a marthiya
of Hamdun b. al-Hadjdj [see ibn al-hadjdj in Suppl.]
which is preserved in Rabat ms. 396D (see Aubin,
343; Bekhoucha and Sekkal, Printanieres ; M. al-Fasi,
Adab sha c bi, 58; Djirari, 616-19).

His contemporary Kaddur al- c AlamI of
Meknes (d. 1266/1850), who is one of the most
popular; that al-Bakkali, who was his master, cites
him among his authorities is an indication of the
prestige which he already enjoyed. This illiterate poet,

| who claimed descent from c Abd al-Salam b. Mashish
j [q v.] and led a pious life, is a kind of saint regarded
as possessing thaumaturgical gifts; moreover, he re¬
counts several miracles in his poems which he com¬
posed with extreme facility. There appears to have
been no attempt to collect his works, but a certain
number of them, preserved by his disciples and rawis
(also called in Morocco fojfdd < hajfaz), still enjoy
great popularity, even in the humblest circles. Sidi
Kaddur, who belongs to the urban school, is the
author of zadjals dealing with mystical and profane
subjects and of ksdyd (kasPid) to which a religious
character is attributed, even when they have an en-

250

MALHUN

♦

tirely erotic appearance. One of his most famous com¬
positions is that in which he tells the story of his house,
sold, miraculously recovered and transformed into a
much-frequented zdwiya, where he was later buried.
His biography, which figures in Ibn Zaydan ( Ithaf v,
336-52) has been discussed by M. T. Buret, in
Hesperis, xxv/1 (1938), 85-92 (see also Lakhdar, Vie lit-
teraire, 337-8; on his verses, see the Ithaf, loc. cit. ; Son-
neck, no. 12; A. Fischer, Liederbuch, nos. 17, 26, 29,
34; Levi-Provengal, in Arch. Berb., iv [1919-20],
67-75; Katfi, Kanz, 143; Bekhoucha, Poemes erotiques ;
J. Jouin, in Hesperis, 1959/1-2, 87-103; M. al-FasI,
Adab sha c bt, 62-3; Djirari, 629-39; Tahar, index;
Belhalfaoui, 47, for whom a line of Kaddur rightly
recalls the beginning of a famous poem of Rutebeuf).

Abu ’ 1-Afbak, who is doubtless Mubarak Abu
TAtbak (Mbark Bu Letbak), an Oranian poet,
author of gh azawat (see Desparmet, Chansons de geste,
195; M. al-FasI, Adab shacbt, 56, 58).

Al-Bakkali further cites an Ibn c Arus, who is
perhaps identical with al- c Arus! al-Tilimsani (see
Desparmet, Chansons de geste , 195, 205 ff.), and four
other unidentified poets.

On the other hand, several great names have been
omitted and, although the limits of this article do not
allow mention of all the gawwalin whose work is not
totally forgotten, we will go back in time a little to add
to the preceding list those who appear the best known:
Abu c Uthman Sa c Id b. c Abd Allah al-Tilimsanf al-
MandasI, who lived in the entourage of three sultans
of Morocco: Mawlay Mahammad b. al-Sharlf
(1045-74/1635-64), Mawlay al-Rashld (1075-82/
1664-72) and Mawlay Isma c Il (1082-1139/1672-
1729). This poet originally from Tlemcen enjoyed
great prestige among his colleagues due to his pro¬
found knowledge of literary Arabic in which he also
composed, as well as to his taste for rare rhymes and
for the transposition in dialect of classical poems. He
is known particularly as the author of the c Akika, a
famous poem of 303 lines composed in 1088/1677 in
praise of the Prophet, with a commentary in literary
Arabic by Muhammad Abu Ra 5 s al-Nasiri
(1164-1237/1751-1822) entitled al-Durra al-anika fi
sharh al-^Aklka, later edited and translated by G.
Faure-Biguet, L’Aqiqa {la Cornaline ), Algiers 1901 (see
also al-Ghawthl. Kashf, 51-75; Kadi, Kanz, 21-43,
190-6; M. al-Fasi, Adab shacbi, 58; Djirari. 604-8;
Tahar, index).

Al-MandasI had as his pupil his fellow-citizen
Ahmad b. al-Trlkl (Ben Triki or Ben Zengli) who
died at the beginning of the 18th century. A singer of
love, he was exiled by the Turks in 1083/1672 and,
like his master, had to seek refuge for some time in
Morocco. On his return, he composed mainly
panegyrics of the Prophet (see Sonneck, no. 33; al-
Ghawthl. Kashf, 75-84; Desparmet, Blida, 130-1;
Bekhoucha, Poemes botiques\ idem and Sekkal, Prin¬
tanibes, 50-4; A. Hamidou, Poesie vulgaire, 1030-6;
Qjirarl, 608; Belhalfaoui, 100-15; Tahar, index; al-
Djawahir al-hisdn . 85-106, 317-70).

After the stagnation which has been alluded to
above, the Moroccan mzlhun experienced a new
flowering at the end of the 18th century and the begin¬
ning of the 19th, less probably due to the panegyrist
of the Prophet c Abd al-Madjld al-Zabadi (d.
1163/1750; see Lakhdar, Vie littbaire, 94) than to

Djilali Mthlrod, who lived in the reign of Sldl
Muhammad b. c Abd Allah, has already been cited as
a poet in dialect. Mthlrod, a Filall born in Marrakesh
where he worked as a vegetable seller, composed prin¬
cipally khamriyyat [q.v. ] and some love poems; he is
regarded as the best of his time and perhaps in Moroc¬

co, and it is quite astonishing that al-Bakkall, who
cites his son-in-law al-Nadjdjar, passes over him in
silence, unless he knew him under another name (see
M. al-FasI, Adab sha c bi, 58-60; idem, Jilali Mthired, in
La Pensee, no. 5 [March 1963], 42-54; Djirari. 611-
i6).

In the reign ol Mawlay Sulayman (1206-38/
1792-1823), Muhammad b. Sulayman al-
FasI, a pupil of the Ibn c AlI mentioned by al-
Bakkall, found himself in disagreement with his
master, and his verses carry an echo of this mis¬
understanding; a kasida undoubtedly composed on his
death-bed is one of his most remarkable works (see
Aubin, 343; Sonneck, no. 5; Bekhoucha and Sekkal,
Printanibes, 65-71; M. al-Fasi, Adab sha c bi, 61; Djirari.
625-7).

For his part, the Darkawl Muhammad al-Harrak of
Tetwan (d. 1261/1845) is the author of mystical
kasfdas which have been preserved and published at
the end of his Diwan (lith. Tunis and Fas n.d.; ed.
Meknes, n.d.); he was himself made the subject of a
monograph, al-Nur al-lami c al-barrak fi tardfamat
Muhammad al-Harrak (Rabat ms. 960; see Levi-
Provengal, Chorfa, 343, n. 8).

TuhamI al-Madgharl (d. 1273/1856) whom we
have already encountered, composed also in classical
Arabic; his works consist of some occasional poems,
khamriyyat and ghazal , as well as the panegyric of the
prince Muhammad b. c Abd al-Rahman (see Sonneck,
no. 14; Kadi, Kanz, 162-4; Desparmet, in Bull. Soc.
Geog. Alger, xxii [1917], 40-51; M. al-Fasi, Adab sha c bi,
63-4; Un poeme marocain inedit: <des Buveurs» de si Thami
al-Oldaghi, recueilli et traduit par M. El Fasi et E.
Dermerghem, in L’Islam et l’Occident, Cahiers du Sud,
1947, 343-8; Djirari, 643-9).

Ahmad al-Ganduz, who lived in the reign of
Mawlay c Abd al-Rahman (1238-76/1823-59) and his
son Muhammad (1276-90/1859-73), is the author of
an elegy on the first and poems in honour of the
Hamadsha [q.v. in Suppl.] (see Djirari, 650-2).

al-Madanl al-Turkumani (d. 1303/1886) is
regarded as a specialist in humorous kasfdas (see Son¬
neck, no. 11; M. al-Fasi, Adab shacbi, 64).

Idris b. c All, surnamed al - Hansh (d. 1319/1901),
left a classical diwan and a makama [q.v.] in addition to
his poems in rmlhun (see Djirari. 656-7).

Several more or less renowned Moroccan poets
might also be cited in the three principal centres of
composition; Fas, Meknes and Marrakesh (see al-
FasI, Adab shacbi, 64; Djirari. 534-704, passim).

In Algeria, we should not pass over in silence the
Tlemceni singer of love, Muhammad b. Sahla
(end of the 12th/18th century), whose works enjoy a
lasting success (see Sonneck, nos. 29, 30; Desparmet,
Blida, 8; J. Joly, Repertoire algbois, 58-66; Bekhoucha,
Po'emes erotiques, 70-111 (on Muhammad b. Sahla
and his son); idem and Sekkal, Printanibes, 122-4;
Hamidou, Poesie vulgaire, 1025, 1037; Belhalfaoui,
170-9; al-Diawdhir al-hisdn. 371 -88). His son Abu Ma-
dyan (Boumediene) followed his father’s example and
also sang of love (see Sonneck, no. 31; El Boudali
Safir, in Huna ’l- Dja zaPir. no. 61 [1958], 35-7; Tahar,
index; al-Djawahir al-hisdn , 389-97).

In the 19th century, Ibn al- c Abbas (Belabbes) of
Mascara, combined with love poetry philosophical
and political themes (see Belhalfaoui, 116-19), while
his fellow citizen Habib b. Gan nun (Benguennoun)
composed principally during his long life
(1761 ?-1864) erotic poems (see Bresnier, Cours,
Algiers 1846, 636-7; A. Tahar, in Bull, des Et. Ar., no.
12 [1943], 42-3; Belhalfaoui, 92-9; Tahar, index).

The most famous gawwdl is, however, Mustafa b.

MALHUN

251

Ibrahim (Mastfa ban Brahlm, 1800?-67), whose rich
Diwan was collected by c Abd al-Kadir c Azza (see
below); having had much success with women and
celebrated love at length, this Oranian bard, following
a gallant adventure, had to seek exile in Fez, where he
expressed his nostalgia in a highly-esteemed poem, zl-
Gomri “the dove” (Diwan, no. 34, 242-84). He then
returned to his country and, like all his compatriots on
returning from exile, ceased to sing of women in order
to turn to religious poetry. Some of his poems are still
sung at weddings and circumcision feasts.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the most
popular of the gawwalin appears to have been c Abd
Allah b. Kerrlw of Laghwat (d. 1921), whose
romances are still appreciated (see J. Joly, in R Afi.,
liii [1909], 285-303; Huna ’l-DiazPir. no. 13 [1953],
22, no. 27 [1954], 27-8; S. Bencheneb, in Initiation a
VAlgerie, 302; Tahar, 87-9).

The poems of Tripolitanian origin gathered by
Sonneck (nos. 16, 17, 45, 101, 102) are generally
anonymous and come from the Mahamld tribe. As for
Stumme (Beduinenlieder), it was an informant from the
Matmata, illiterate but provided with a collection,
who supplied him with his documentation on
Tripolitania and South Tunisia. The specimens col¬
lected by P. Marty (Chants lyriques) at the beginning of
the century in this latter region are all anonymous;
those which Stumme reproduced in Marchen und
Gedichte , relying on an informant from Tunis, are also
unnamed, whereas the authors of some of the 23
Tunisian poems which figure in Sonneck’s collection
are known, but are not very old and barely go back to
the 19th century. Among them can be cited c Abd
Allah b. Bu Ghaba of al-Kaf (no. 107) who, like
Mostfa b. Brahim, entrusted a message to a pigeon in
a strophic kasida; Sasi b. Muhammad (19th-20th
century) of the Djibaliyyin (nos. 46, 65, 67, 75) who
describes at length the horse and its rider (no. 65) as
well as a hunting party (no. 67); c Uthman Ulidl of
Bizerta, who celebrates (no. 106) the construction of
a bridge; Ahmad b. Khudja who exalts the merits
of the saint c A :> isha al-Mannubiyya [q.u. ]; finally
Ahmad b. Musa (d. 1893; see Briquez) to whom is
attributed, probably wrongly (see MarzukI, Malldk ,
10) the authorship of a poem of 29 strophes of 5 lines
of which each one, packed with proverbs and maxims,
is introduced by a letter of the alphabet followed by a
word beginning with the same letter; however, this
poem (Alij al-adab) is more likely to be the work of
Ahmad Mallak of Sfax, who was his contemporary
and lived in a period when popular poetry had
developed, in part due to the impetus given it by
Ahmad Bey (1253-71/1837-55). The Diwan of this lat¬
ter poet, who deals with all kinds of subjects (social,
wise, religious, but also amorous, satirical and rural)
was published in the form of extracts by Muhammad
al-Marzukl, Ahmad Malldk, shdHr al-hikma wa 7-
malhama, Tunis 1980. Mallak is described here as an
epic poet, but we do not know exactly whether it is
him or Hamdun Shalbl who is the author of a kind
of narrative poem inspired by the legend of Hassuna
al-Layll; the latter was made the subject of another
poem of Salim al- < Aydudi that M. MarzukI pub¬
lished and studied, with the preceding poem, in
Hassuna al-Layli, malhama sha c biyya, Tunis 1976.

In our own time, mzlhun is always very much in
favour in the whole of North Africa. Djirarl further
cites (671-87) several contemporary Moroccan poets
who bear witness to the vitality of dialectal poetry. In
Algeria, Muhammad c Ababsa (d. 1953), surnamed
the “Bard of the tribes” (shaHr al-a c rdsh ), expresses
“philosophical” ideas, e.g. on peace and fraternity

(in Huna ’1-DjazaHr , no. 10 [1953], 16-17). AI-Tahir
Rahab greets the spring, the month of Ramadan,
the feast of the sacrifices, tells of a journey to Sicily
and eulogises his mother in some poems of 26-43 lines
(see Huna ’l- Dia zddr. nos. 11, 14 [1953], 43, 44
[1956], 56 [1957], 61 [1958]).

In Tunisia, the government encourages not only
the study of popular poetry of the past, but also the
composition of poems on the occasion of anniversaries
of national events which have marked the recent for¬
tunes of the country: festivals of the Revolution (18
January), Independence (20 March), Victory (1
June), the Republic (25 July), the Departure of the
occupiers (15 October), as well as that of the birth of
President Bourguiba (3 August); the Minister of
Cultural Affairs publishes, under the suggestive title
c i/kdziyya [see c ukaz], a selection of these occasional
poems. The authors will not be cited, as they are still
alive, but by way of information we will note that the
c Ukaziyyat of the years 1977-80 and of 18 January
1981 contain a total of 73 poems by 24 poets, among
whom several provided 4 to 10 compositions.

Subjects treated in mzlhun. As suggested by
the preceding, poetry in dialectal Arabic covers the
same fields as that which is expressed in literary
Arabic, and the classical genres are present in it, sc.
madih, hiarithfi?, ghazal, etc., but certainly in dif¬
ferent proportions. As S. Bencheneb rightly remarks
(in Initiation a VAlgerie, 302), the gawwalln “derive
their inspiration from all sources, chivalrous adven¬
tures as well as love stories, miracles as well as every¬
day life”; for his part, G. S. Colin (in Initiation an
Maroc, 226) makes out poems which are amorous,
mystico-erotic, satirical, political (against the French
presence), didactic (or on wisdom themes), burlesque,
to which must be added those which celebrate wine
(mystical or not), sing the beauties of nature, glorify
the Prophet and the saints or eulogise a person living
or dead. M. al-FasI presents (Adab sha Q bi, 51-6) a com¬
prehensive list of the subjects treated, and Djirarl
devotes a very long discussion (198-529) to the themes
of the Moroccan mzlhun which he analyses with great
care. Although no statistics are available, we cannot
help but remark on the important place occupied by
love in spontaneous dialectal poetry, very often in a
symbolic form behind the erotic (or erotico-Bacchic)
appearance, in which it is sometimes very hard for the
profane, but not for the initiated, to detect a mystical
meaning, as is the case with al-Bakkall’s poem cited
above. Moreover, what is particularly striking is the
abundance of religious songs, hymns to the Prophet,
to the patron saints of the different towns and local
saints, kldm al-djzadd as opposed to kldm al-hzl; one can
even read (Belhalfaoui, 66-71) a mystical poem
dedicated to c Abd al-Kadir al-Djllanl [q.v. ] by c Abd
al-Kadir al-Tubdji (beginning of the 19th century).

Among the Bedouins, beside love, nature and
animals, both wild and domesticated (horse, camel,
pigeon), are very often celebrated in accordance with
archaic tradition, and hunting with the falcon is a
traditional theme (see above, al-Hadjdj c Isa and Gen.
A. Margueritte, Chansons de I’Algerie), while wars be¬
tween tribes gave further inspiration to the bards of
the south at the times when these wars were still
endemic (see P. Marty, Chants lyriques).

As the poets enjoy much freedom, some acts of dai¬
ly life and family events are a source of inspiration
which is not negligible (we will mention notably a
poem on the death of his wife, a relatively rare theme
in Arabic literature [see marthiya], by Ibn Gltun
Wula al-Saghlr of the Biskra region; Sonneck, no. 41
and Huna ’1-DiazPir, no. 19 (1953), 14-15).

252

MALHUN

Some dramatic events which made a deep impres¬
sion also find an echo in popular poetry. Venture de
Paradis had collected Un chant, algerien du XVIII e siecle
of 114 lines (published in RAfr xxxviii [1894],
325-45) on a bombardment of Algiers, in 1770, by the
Danes (?). An accident which occurred in 1885 pro¬
vides the material for a Complainie sur la rupture du bar¬
rage de Sainl-Denis-du-Sig, edited by G. Delphin and L.
Guin, Paris-Oran 1886. S. Bencheneb ( Initiation a
I’Algerie, 307) mentions that the first Orleansville (al-
Asnam) earthquake, in 1954, inspired melodies full of
sadness and hope, and it is probable that the one in
1980 will also be lamented in mdlhun. It has been seen
earlier that Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt was made
the subject of a Moroccan poem, just as the construc¬
tion of a bridge at Bizerta had been celebrated in its
time.

The events which have so far been alluded to until
now have a lesser weight, in the eyes of the
Maghribls, than the conquest and colonisation of
North Africa. In Algeria, they have, since 1830, given
rise to a whole series of compositions (see e.g. Gen. E.
Daumas, Mceurs et coutumes de I’Algerie 3 , 1858, 160-74,
on the capture of Algiers; J. Desparmet, La conquete
racontee par les indigenes, in Bull. Soc. Geogr. Alger., cxxxii
[1932], 437-56). The resistance of the amir c Abd al-
Kadir [q.v. ] was bound to find an echo among rmlhun
poets, such as Kaddur wuld Muhammad al-Burdjl,
called Bu Ngab (d. 1850), of the Mascara region (see
A. Cour, Poesie politique, 463-76; Kadi, Kanz, 92, 94,
96, 100, 104-6; Moh. Abderrahman, Enseignement de
Varabe parle 2 , 1923, 44 ff.) or Tahir al-Haw wa who
fought him, was taken prisoner, then eulogised him.
after having been freed (see A. Cour, Poesie politique,
478-83; Katji, Kanz, 75-8; Desparmet, Elegies et satires,
48-9).

In a general way, the poets who tackle political
themes deplore what they consider as the ruin of
Maghrib! civilisation, and pour out their sarcasm on
that which their conquerors bring them (see
Desparmet, Elegies et satires). Opposition to the French
penetration is manifested indirectly in some poems
which the nwdddhs declaim in public: some accounts
relating the warlike exploits of the Prophet’s contem¬
poraries and some Muslim heroes which, in classical
Arabic, constitute the pseudo -Maghazi, are in part
adapted in dialectal Arabic and form a kind of little
epics; very much in vogue from the time of c Abd al-
Kadir in order to stimulate the ardour of the com¬
batants, then at the end of the 19th century and in the
20 th century to recall the glories of the past and give
consolation for the present humiliation, these ghazawat
are an evident manifestation of Maghrib! nationalism
(seej. Desparmet, Chansons de geste).

Different events which took place after the conquest
also inspired the gawwdlin. By way of example, we will
cite Mhammad b. al-Khavr (Belkhei'r) who was
deported to Corsica after taking part in the insurrec¬
tion of the Awlad Sidf Shaykh of 1864-6; he addresses
a prayer to God and expresses in touching terms his
nostalgia, in a poem which deserves to be cited among
the works composed by prisoners (see Sonneck, no.
44; KadT, Kanz, 177-9; Tahar, 74-83).

The 38 poems gathered by P. Marty in southern
Tunisia, between 1902 and 1907, are classified into 4
categories (see Chants lyriques ) according to the subject
which inspires them: love, war between tribes,
nature, and finally the situation created in Tunisia by
the installation of the French protectorate; in this
“modern cycle” (for the other poems are older) some
poets express their surprise and their anxieties or
glorify the epic action for independence of some

rebels, whilst others discover in the new themes
material for irony or for reflection (see e.g. Sonneck,
nos. 70 and 71, against the French in 1881).

The two World Wars have also found an echo in
mdhun (see Desparmet, Chanson d’Alger), and it is pro¬
bable that the events which took place in Algeria from
1954 to 1962 have given rise to a certain form of
heroic poetry, but the author of the present article on¬
ly possesses in this connection some works of poets
writing in French. In southern Tunisia, al-Fitur!
Tl!§h (d. after 1943) derives his inspiration from the
political and military situation during the Second
World War, and uses symbols to express his hostility
with regard to the French authorities who had thrown
him into prison; but horses and camels are not absent
from his work, which has been collected in a Dfwan
and published by M. Marzuk! (Tunis 1976). Today,
the c Ukaziyydt are eloquent, and the patriotic themes
are greatly developed in them.

Transmission and preservation of
malhiin. As was said at the beginning of this article,
the compositions in mdlhun of the poets earlier than the
10th/16th century, if they existed, have not been pre¬
served. It can be still ascertained that, among the
Bedouins, the gawwdlin used to go, in the manner of
troubadours, from encampment to encampment,
from the house of a notable to the tent of a tribal chief
in order to provide a spectacle on the occasion of
festivals: wedding, circumcision, anniversary, etc.,
being accompanied by a rudimentary orchestra play¬
ing the oboe, flute and tambourine, while, sometimes,
dancers complete the troupe. Several authors who
have described these festivals (e.g. C. Trumelet, Les
Fran^ais dans le desert, 249-61; P. Marty, Chants lyriques,
in RT, 1936/1,96) stress the transmission of the tradi¬
tions of song in families. “It is rare”, adds Marty,
“for them to make them publicly known or for a
stranger to be allowed to record them ... But the
refrains are known by everyone or at least learnt and
remembered at once, and the whole audience,
especially the women who are always very excited,
repeat in chorus this refrain, which is ordinarily in¬
dicated by the two last rhymes of the couplet.” In
southern Algeria, a distinction is established between
the gawwal proper, the maddah who sings the works of
others, and the fissah who improvises and modifies
from his own inspiration a theme which is learnt and
known, without always distinguishing exactly what he
has remembered from what is of his own creation. In
Morocco, Aubin (343) says with regard to the kasida
that “it is the work of a poet who, himself, is not a
musician and who is content to provide professionals
with his compositions and entrust them with retailing
them from house to house. The latter learn by heart
the new song and apply to it a known tune which ap¬
pears to suit it.” M. el-Fasi confirms this information
(in Hesperis-Tamuda, vi [1965], 39) and states that the
town poets who compose kasidas without ever writing
them “entrust them to the memory of a haffad. or rawi
who teaches them to the siah [shydkh , pi. of
shaykh!shekh] musicians. They sing them to the accom¬
paniment of the violin and the la c rtja (tambourine),
while the aliyin who sing to classical ‘Andalusian’
music, have an orchestra formed by the lute, the rbdb
(rebeck) with two strings, the tambourine (tarr) and
the violin.”

Thus, as among the ancient Arabs, the popular
poets do not make a point of writing their composi¬
tions, more especially as they are often illiterate, and
the executants, who trust to their extraordinary
memory, only rarely transcribe them in notebooks
(kunnash) or on loose leaves, so as more surely to retain

MALHUN

253

the monopoly. Dialectologists and ethnologists have
sometimes succeeded in procuring some of these
documents, and in 1898 A. Fischer could have at his
disposal, in Tangier, a rich songbook ( Liederbuch , pp.
vii-viii) containing poems in dialectal Arabic, all
anonymous, and some poems of well-known classical
authors, such as al- c Abbas b. al-Ahnaf, Ibn al-Ruml,
Abu ’l-Atahiya, Abu Nuwas and al-Mutanabbi. Not
all investigators have been as fortunate, and H.
Stumme states (Beduinenlieder , 2-3) that he was refused
the possibility of examining a collection whose ex¬
istence he knew of. The jealous care with which the
written documents are preserved by their owners is a
constant trait of which researchers do not cease to
complain (see e.g. the complaints of Djirarl. 5, whose
entreaties often met with no response, or of Marzukf,
Mallak , 6 ). In a general way, in a period in which the
tape recorder did not exist, the investigators had to be
content with collecting from the mouth of more com¬
plaisant informants, some texts which they transcrib¬
ed and, in many cases, translated. Jeanne Jouin
relates (in Hesperis, 1959/1-2, 78) that she was able to
have a Moroccan girl or woman, whose father owned
a collection of the works of Kaddur al- c AlamI (see
above), recite a kasida “which he was often pleased to
chant aloud for the joy and edification of his family
who appreciated it very much” and had ended by
learning it by heart. Fortunately, Djirarl (700-3) sup¬
plies a long list of manuscript sources, and c Azza (see
below) states that he had procured a collection of
al-Madgharfs poems. Without waiting to have at
their disposal technical means of recording them,
some scholars and ardent amateurs succeeded, after
minute and difficult inquiries, in putting together
some important anthologies (see al-Ghawthi. Kadi,
Bekhoucha, MarzukT, etc.), and even, in assembling
patiently some scattered remnants, to reconstitute at
least partially some diwans and publish them in Arabic
script, in spite of the inconvenience that this pro¬
cedure presents (see below). Fraudulent attributions
are doubtless more numerous than those which have
been laid bare, but, after all, this poetry is a common
patrimony, and it is not of great importance that the
authorship of each poem be exactly defined. As P.
Marty writes ( Chansons lyriques, 97), whose collection
is all anonymous: “The singers do not, however, have
the glory of the author” (even if they assert that such
a passage is man klami “of my creation”).

The reader has been able to remark a revival of in¬
terest in productions in dialectal Arabic, and particu¬
larly in Tunisia where, until recently, they
encountered a “hostile prejudice” (L. Bercher, in In¬
itiation a la Tunisie, Paris 1950, 194). Although several
Muslims did not have scruples about showing, by
publishing specimens and translating them, their taste
for popular poetry, it should be recognised that the
opposition had two principal causes: on the one hand,
many scholars, even if they took pleasure in listening
to rwlhun, could not admit that they were seriously
concerned with dialectal Arabic and the literature ex¬
pressed in it (and Djirarl states that there was an at¬
tempt to dissuade him from submitting in Cairo a
thesis on the kasida in Tmlhun)\ on the other hand, in
the eyes of many, to bring these works to light, was to
play the game of “colonialism” which a certain pro¬
paganda presented as determined to transform dialec¬
tal Arabic into a national and official language. Still
today, when this unfounded worry has been
dissipated, M. al-Fasi begins his article on Adab sha c bl
with a profession of faith in the future of literary
Arabic and A. Tahar feels constrained (p. v) “to reaf¬
firm his position which is entirely favourable to
classical Arabic as a means of communication both

written and oral”. There is no doubt, he adds, “that
the liberation of the Arab lands has ruined the hopes
of those who speculated on linguistic partition in
order to divide them so as to perpetuate their rule over
them”, and then he justifies (p. vi) “his assistance in
the work of a salvaging enterprise to rescue from obli¬
vion the little which remains of popular poetry”. No-
one ever really believed in the propaganda which
aroused this speculation on “linguistic partition”,
and especially not A. Tahar who, an ardent admirer
of rrulhun , had begun to study it well before the in¬
dependence of Algeria; in 1933, in fact, he had
presented an (unpublished) memoire on Ben Guen-
noun and, some years later, promised his collabora¬
tion to Henri Peres. The latter, after having given in
the BEA, no. 1 (1940), 17-19, a general bibliography
of Algerian popular poetry, published, (ibid., no. 4,
111-15) under an engaging title (Pour un corpus des
poesies populaires de l AIgerie) , a list of 85 gawwdlin whose
works had to be collected and edited according to a
necessarily subjective order of urgency. In the period,
five diwans were in the course of preparation, but to
our knowledge, only three of them have been pub¬
lished: those of SldT Lakhdar_(who came quite low in
the order of urgency), Ibn Amsayb (see above) and
Mstfa ton Brahim (see below). Actually, the project of
H. Peres was quite ambitious and difficult to achieve
integrally, but it is regrettable that it was not more
largely carried out. Aware of the interest that popular
poetry presents as an authentic element of the national
patrimony, an eloquent representative of the per¬
sonality of a country and evidence of a sensibility
which cannot always be expressed in classical Arabic,
the author of the present article accepted the super¬
vision of three theses on this subject: those of
Abdelkader Azza (Mastfa ban Brdhim, barde de VOranais
et chantre des Beni c Amer), M. Belhalfaoui (La poesie arabe
maghrebine d’expression populaire) and A. Tahar (La poesie
populaire algerienne (melhun). Rythmes, metres et formes).
All three have been printed, but only the latter in exten-
so (Algiers 1975); to elaborate on the first, which was
treated in H. Peres’ list, the candidate had collected
the works of Mastfa ton Brafum and had transcribed
them in Arabic and Latin script and commented on
them; his work was published after his death, but ex¬
clusively in Arabic (D. ( = Duktur ) ^Abd al-Kadir
c Azza, Mustafa b. Ibrahim, shdHr Ban! c Amir wa-madddh
al-kabd^il al-wahrdniyya, Algiers 1977). The case of the
second is entirely different, for M. Belhalfaoui, in
order to publish it in Paris in 1973, had to remove the
apparatus criticus and transcriptions into Latin script,
so as to present a literary study only—of high quality
and very suggestive—as well as a selection of poems
reproduced in Arabic script and translated. Actually,
a fourth thesis ought to be added, that of Mohamd El
Moktar Ould Bah, which was submitted in 1969, but
has remained unpublished; it is a collection of
Mauritanian poems in literary as well as dialectal
Arabic, which the author presented in a Introduction a
la poesie mauritanienne (1650-1900), published in Arabica
(xviii [1971], 1-48); a paragraph in it was devoted to
the popular poetry which is expressed in the dialect of
the country, Hassaniyya, and is called ghna 3 (ghind 7 ),
although, in an unspecified work of Muhammad al-
YadalT, it also bears the name malhun\ the reader will
find several examples of it in this Introduction (which he
will be able to supplement with Ahmad al-Shinklti, al-
Wasit fi taradjjm udaba * Shinkit, Cairo 1960, studied by
A. B. Miske, in BIFAN, B, xxx/1 [1968]; A. Leriche,
Poesie et musique maures, in BIFAN, xiii [1951],
1227-56; D. Cohen, Hassaniya, 236-43; H. T. Norris,
Shingitifolk literature and song, Oxford 1968).

It is essential to insist on the necessity of not -estric-

254

MALHUN

ting oneself to publishing in Arabic script the texts
gathered, if one wants to write a useful work and pre¬
sent a study which can be used beyond the limits of
one land or indeed region. The efforts of M. El-Fas to
explain how he arranges the Arabic writing so as to
allow the correct reading of a text ( Hesperis-Tamuda, vi
[1965], 45) would certainly have been more con¬
clusive if he had added to the good translation of the
poem studied a transcription in Latin script, especial¬
ly as his article is in French and is addressed to a
public who may well be ignorant of Arabic. For his
part, Djirarl doubtless devised an analogous system,
but could not prevent the printer from omitting the
vowels and reading signs, conscious though he was of
the difficulty that is encountered in reading a dialectal
poem. The vowels which figure in the c Ukaziyyat and
in certain publications of M. MarzukT are useful,
without being totally satisfactory. The thesis of A.
Tahar proves that it is possible to produce works
which combine a care to preserve the poems in their
Arabic script with a concern to make them ap¬
preciated and studied by Arabists and, thanks to
translations, to procure proper evidence to nourish
fruitful studies in comparative literature.

The language of mdlhun. If we have insisted
on the importance of presenting transcriptions and
translations (accompanied by suitable annotation), it
is also because this poetry is not always perfectly clear;
the differences of interpretation which can be brought
forward among qualified experts are an irrefutable
proof. With regard to Morocco, E. Aubin (343)
writes: “The song—qagida—is composed in the com¬
mon language and permits, consequently, the dialect
of each province”, which would appear evident. On
the other hand, A. Fischer (Liederbuch, p. ix)
distinguishes, midway between the dialectal
(Vulgarsprache) and the classical (Schriftsprache ), some
poems in a mixed language ( Mischsprache ), and G. S.
Colin (op. laud., 225) describes, for his part, the
language of popular poetry as a “kind of literarised
poetic koine, based on common Moroccan Arabic, but
influenced above all by Bedouin dialects. “It seems
furthermore”, he adds, “that this poetry may be of
Bedouin origin”. This last suggestion seems very
plausible, and one cannot help thinking of the poetic
koine of the pre-Islamic period which transcended the
speech of the tribes and tended to a certain unity.
Mutatis mutandis , a similar phenomenon has been able
to take place with mzlhun which serves so to speak as
a common language for poets of different regions,
without extending, however, to the whole of North
Africa. On the other hand, the literary genre also
represented was not limited to the Bedouins and coun¬
tryfolk, and it must be recognised that a more or less
independent rrulhun developed in certain towns and
adopted, besides, some rather different structures (see
below).

Given that the language of popular poetry has still
not been studied in depth, in spite of the efforts of M.
al-Fasi (Lughat al-malhun ), it is best to be very prudent
and beware of any peremptory assertion. M.
Belhalfaoui (53-4) describes m?lhun as “a language
whose expression, while remaining popular and cur¬
rent, possesses a vocabulary which is sometimes en¬
tirely that of classical Arabic, with some minor
modifications; some forms which are often actually
the same as those of classical Arabic, without our los¬
ing sight of the notable differences in morphology and
above all the semantic evolutions which confer here
and there on the dialectal expression a stamp suigeneris
far removed from the classical source ... We believe
that we can assert that the dialectal language—that of

the people and that of the bards—is today remarkably
similar to that which was already attested in the works
of El-Maghraoui or Lakhdar Ben Khlouf and Abder-
rahmane El-Mejdoub, all three of the 16th century”
and, he could have added, of different origin. Here we
have a highly optimistic assertion, and certainly an
imprudent one in the present state of our knowledge.
Even if the language of the bards appears palpably
that of the people, one cannot fail to remark some dif¬
ferences, which thorough comparisons and exhaustive
inventories would reveal more clearly. Proofs of these
particulars are not lacking: A. Joly (Poesie moderne ) and
Abdelkader Azza (at the end of his original thesis)
gave a list of words which do not Figure in Beaussier’s
dictionary; M. al-FasT (Lughat al-malhun, 199)
recognises that the language of nwlhun is not easily in¬
telligible, and Djirarl writes (6): “It has not been easy
for us to understand these texts, especially those which
were recorded in writing, because of the evolution of
the language and our ignorance of the meaning of
many words and their pronunciation.” M. MarzukT
takes care to explain, at the end of each of the poems
that he publishes, the difficult terms, and often claims
that only the context enlightens them. Fortunately
these exist a number of texts in mjlhun transcribed
in Hebrew characters, so that further studies in this
respect will probably yield useful information.

When the poets are educated (like al-MandasT in
the c Akika), it is understandable and inevitable that
they use classical words and forms (omitting the i c rab
and certain short internal vowels), but the illiterate
poets themselves, formed by the tradition and exam¬
ple of their masters or predecessors, are acquainted
with some of them and use them in their composi¬
tions. Some at the very least provide food for thought;
thus the word rah (wine), already poetic in classical, is
quite frequent in malhun\ is it a case of a borrowing or
a survival from the poetic tradition brought by the
conquerors and consequently a pre-classical word? As
Djirarl has rightly perceived, it is the whole problem
of the Arabisation of North Africa which is hereby
posed (see W. Margais, Comment VAjrique du Nord a ete
arabisee).

Apart from classical words, certain poets go as far
as inserting in their verses, as a pleasantry (li f l-(lahik ;
Sonneck, no. 117, of c All b. al-Tahir of Djelfa),
some French words (or Berber, notably in
Mauritania) possessing the required syllabic quantity,
and this remark must lead us directly to another prob¬
lem which appears to be a very difficult one, that of
metre.

The metrics of mzlhun. The First researchers
who concerned themselves with popular poetry were
Arabists, naturally inclined to look for connections
with classical metrics, but they stumbled against the
problem of identifying the rhythm and proposed
various solutions. H. Stumme (Tunisische Marchen und
Gedichte, 87-103) detects in the verses studied a metre
based on accent, then discovers in the Bedouin malhun
of Tunisia and Tripolitania (Beduinenlieder, 24, 38, 39,
40, 44, 45) some iambic lines of classical poetry. W.
Mar^ais (Tlemcen, 208-9) discerns in his turn in the
hawji [q v.] a classical basit. R. Basset Finds a radjaz
madjzu^in Une complainte arabe, 4. However, J. Despar-
ment (Blida, 445) considers that the rhythm of the
mdlhun is based on the “numeration of syllabes which
are accented in conformity with dialectal pronuncia¬
tion”. For G. S. Colin (in Initiation au Maroc, 225 and
EI l , art. morocco, vii/2), the metre is “based ex¬
clusively on the number of syllables of each line (as in
French)”. S. Bencheneb (Chansons satiriques, 90) em¬
phasises the number of syllables and the rhyme. A.

MALHUN

255

Chottin (Musique marocaine , 154) is of the opinion that
the rhythm rests on the number of syllables and on
an accentuation which he can hardly define. E.
Dermenghem and M. El Fasi (.Poemes marocains, 99)
imply that the mdlhun is characterised by the number
of syllables and the rhyme. For Azza, it is the number
of syllables which characterises the verse of Ban
Brahlm. Djirari (131-46) recognises that the metre of
al-Khalfl [q.v. ] cannot be applied to mzlhun, and says
that the Moroccan za djdja ls have particular taf'ildt
which they call suruf and which are of two kinds: the
dandana (danddni) and mall mail, owed respectively to
al-MaghrawI and al-Masmudl (592-6). M. al-Fasi,
who undertook a study in depth of the structure of
mdlhun, also considers ( c Arud al-malhun, 8-9) that the
rhythm is syllabic, but remarks that certain poems
pose quite complicated problems.

A. Tahar, after having been won over to the view
of S. Bencheneb, not without taking into account the
accentuation ( Metrique , in BEA, no. 11 [1943], 1-7),
endeavoured to deepen his study of the question and
finally discovered and explained, in his thesis cited
above, a new theory which appears attractive. Given
that Maghrib! Arabic possesses only end short open
syllables (Cv), while such syllables are preserved in
literary Arabic in the body of the word, a line in
rrwlhun cannot be scanned according to the classical
metres [see c arud]; all the syllables are thus long
(CvC, Cv) or overlong, and the latter (CvC, CvCC,
CCvC, CCC, CvCC, CCvCC) present a particular
importance. So, after having examined a considerable
number of lines and separated the syllables which they
contain, this scholar has come to the conclusion that
the rhythm of the rrulhun is essentially characterised by
the identity of the number and the place of the over-
long syllables in the lines of a poem. Here is an exam¬
ple taken from the work of the Moroccan Kaddur
al- c Alamf:

Itn yzrkdn min bant lu zmP l-zhydl
c dd rmnzdl diwanu b-dl-kddr radix

“Where will he go to take refuge whose stratagems
have all been in vain

And whose cares fill up the place of his
assemblies?”

scanned (61) as follows (the over-long syllables in
roman type):

lln / ydrIhnlrmnlbalntlXuzl mi c /hh/ya\
c adl nun! zzlt di/ wa) nulbaWd dartmd! It
In spite of the impressive number of examples
cited, this theory does not seem to be applicable to all
poetry in malhun , at least when one attempts to put it
into practice on written texts; however, it is worthy of
being taken into consideration.

Pursuing his researches, A. Tahar has tried to
determine the different “metres” according to the
number of syllables and the place of the over-long
ones and, in imitation of al-Khalfl, has even given
them names. For example, the line above belongs to
metre no. 1, called dl-Hik “the old”, formed by two
decasyllabic hemistichs with four over-long syllables
in the first and three in the second. In all, seven
metres have been distinguished, but some of them
contain a considerable series of variants, so that the
question, in so far as it is of interest, would have to be
reconsidered. In any case, pp. 176-349, which are
devoted to the analysis of the metres, have the addi¬
tional advantage of containing a mass of verse
reproduced in Arabic script, transcribed and
translated.

The structure and forms of m^lhun. In an
urdjuza of some 5,000 lines, al-Uknum JT mabadp
al- c ulum, which is a veritable encyclopaedia (see M.

Lakhdar, Vie litteraire, 93-5), c Abd al-Rahman al-Fasi
(d. 1096/1685 [see al-fasT in Suppl.]) approaches the
c ilm mizdn al-malhun (see Djirari, 62) and counts 15
awzan , of which the last is al-kasid al-djd.ri\ one might
as well say that one can hardly make use of this docu¬
ment where wazn appears to designate at once the
form and the rhythm. Anyway, analysis is com¬
plicated by a confusion in the terminology and the ex¬
tension of the word rmlhun to everything which is
composed in dialectal Arabic, and notably to zadjal , in
which is included the kasida, also known as griha. In
fact, although the forms of mzlhun may be extremely
varied, it is permissible to distinguish, for the sake of
simplication, two principal categories: the Bedouin
type and the urban type.

Among the Bedouins and the townsfolks who follow
the Bedouin tradition, we meet with isometric poems
generally described as kasida or kasid (gseda/gsed) and
recalling the old kasida , with, however, some essential
differences: the bi- or tripartite frame is not com¬
pulsory; the rhythm (see above) has nothing in com¬
mon with classical metres and especially the kdfiya, the
final rhyme, is doubled by an internal rhyme, i.e. all
the first hemistichs rhyme also within themselves. For
example, the line of Kaddur al- c AlamT cited above
belongs to a poem in which the odd hemistichs end in
-dl, and the even, in -It; in al-Bakkall’s poem used at
the beginning of the present article, the hemistichs
rhyme respectively in -dl and -ra\ G. Boris (. Documents ,
166-7) reproduces a satire of seven lines rhyming in
-rd and -an. The examples could be multiplied, and it
suffices to go over the great collections in order to take
account of the importance of internal rhyme, which
appears so fundamental that it is respected even in the
case where the bard takes the liberty of changing the
rhyme of the second hemistich in each line.

The word kasida (et var.) naturally applied to poems
of the preceding type, is extended, among the
Bedouins themselves to a strophic structure which, far
from being uniform, presents very numerous varieties
which it is impossible to reduce to only a few forms.
A. Tahar has undertaken a work analogous to that of
Ibn Sana 3 al-Mulk [q. v. ] on the muwa shsh ah [q. v. ], and
one can only refer to his analysis (363-404). The
simplest form to be recognised is constituted, in
Bedouin nulhun, by a succession of strophes with a
double rhyme whose designation is variable from one
region to another. We are not able to enter here into
all these details, and will limit ourselves to recalling
that in Algeria these strophes, which alternate with
one another, are called h»dda and frash, the poem be¬
ginning and ending with a fodda; such an arrangement
is particularly regular in the Diwan of Mastfa ban
Brahlm. In Morocco, the kasida with a double rhyme
contains several divisions called ksdm (pi. of ks9m) y
themselves having subdivisions whose terminology
does not seem clearly fixed. It is the same in Tunisia,
and this question will merit being made the subject of
an analysis in depth. Finally, the quatrain is also to be
met with in Bedouin mdlhun .

As for the urban type, which may be compared with
the c arud al-balad cited by Ibn Khaldun, it also presents
some variable forms, for the strophic arrangement
which is prevalent leaves the field open to all the im¬
provisations, and the terminology, here again, is quite
confused. For example, in Algeria, a prelude (matlad
or mddhhdb) is followed by strophes of two or three
parts: bit or c arubi, then kufl or bit, dawr and kufl. The
structure and terminology of Moroccan rrulhun have
been made the subject of a thorough study by M. al-
FasT ( c Arud al-malhun). Djirari (147-73) analyses -a
kasida containing a prelude ( sarraba ) intended to set the

256

MALHUN

rhythm and comprising an introduction ( dkhul) fol¬
lowed by two or three lines forming a na c ura, of one
strophe and one linking hemistich (radma); then comes
the ksam which follow a refrain ( harba ); the latter ksam
often contain the name of the author and the date of
the composition clearly announced or in a cryptic
form and, for the latter, by means of the Ma gh rib! ab-
djad [ 9 . v. ] (an example in Belhalfaoui, 168).

In his edition of the Tar shun (Hesperis-Tamuda
[1965], 39 ff.), M. El-Fasi divides the poem into: ksam
of introduction followed by a harba (refrain), then four
other ksam constituted by a strophe ( na^ura ), a harlba
(small refrain), a ksam and a harba. So we see that the
structure of malhun and the terms which designate the
different parts of a kasida are extremely variable. The
common point remains, nevertheless, the principle of
the double rhyme, which tends to be quite widely
respected in each of the constituent elements.

It is clear from all that precedes that the Maghrib!
malhun which we have attempted to present concisely
by abstaining from approaching the difficult question
of melody (on the different modes, see M. al-Fas!,
z Arud al-malhun), is a question which, from a scientific
point of view, merits being studied more deeply, now
that the obstacles, real or imagined, have in large part
been raised, for this “poetry of popular expression”,
as M. Belhalfaoui wishes to describe it, not only re¬
mains very much cultivated and even to a certain
point competitive with poetry in classical Arabic, as
the Tunisian c Ukdziyyat notably prove, but still offers
to the Arabist and comparativist an extremely exten¬
sive field of research. Although the corpus already
available, thanks to dialectologists and enlightened
amateurs, may as a whole be considerable, it will be
desirable in the first place to collect the greatest possi¬
ble number of poems preserved in the memory of
the raw is or in notebooks still too jealously guarded,
to transcribe them in Arabic and Latin script and
translate them or at least elucidate the obscure
passages. The national radios today give a large place
to popular poetry, and the singers hardly have reasons
to refuse to communicate their repertoire; so it will be
necessary to record it in such a way as to be in a posi¬
tion to resolve definitively the problem of rhythm and
see to what extent the theory of A. Tahar can be
generally applied. One would then have to attempt to
set to rights a terminology which seems anarchic, and
finally to make an inventory of the vocabulary so as
to determine the origin of the different elements which
constitute it.

Bibliography. Although some references have
appeared in full in the main article, they are
repeated here also.

I. —There is a general bibl. on the Algerian
malhun , by H. Peres, in Bull, des etudes arabes (BEA),
no. 1 (1941), 17-19; the same author completed it
up to 1958 in L’arabe dialectal algmen et saharien:
Bibliographie analytique auec un index methodique (see
“poesie”), Algiers 1958; a summary bibl. comes
after the names of the poets listed by idem. Pour un
corpus des poesies populaires de TAlgerie, in BE A, no. 4
(1941), 111-15.

II. —Collections and anthologies (in
chronological order): H. Stumme, Tunisische Mdr-
chen und Gedichte, Leipzig 1893; idem, Tripolitanisch-
tunisische Beduinenlieder, Leipzig 1894 (partial Fr. tr.
A. Vagnon, Chants des Bedouins de Tripoli et de la
Tunisie, Paris 1894); idem, Marchen und Gedichte aus
der Stadt Tripolis, Leipzig 1898; M. Hartmann,
Lieder der libyschen Wiiste, in Abh. fur d. Kunde des
Morgenland, xi/3 (1899); Sonneck = M. C. Sonn-
eck, Chants arabes du Maghreb. Etude sur le dialecte et la

poesie populaire de TA/rique du Nord, 2 tomes in 3 vols.
Paris 1902-4 (i. Arabic text of 117 pieces, ii/1.
Transcription of 6 songs and Fr. tr. of the whole
collection, apart from nos. 113-17. ii/2.

Phonological and morphological study, glossary).
There are reproduced in this collection, as nos. 2,
29, 41, 59, 101 and 108, by the same author, the
Six chansons arabes en dialecte maghrebin , published in
JA , 3 e serie, xiii (1899), 471-520, xiv (1899),
121-56, 223-58); A. Joly, Remarques sur la poesie
moderne chez les nomades algeriens, in RAfr., xliv
(1900), 283-311, xlv (1901), 208-36, xlvii (1903),
171-94, xlviii (1904), 5-55, 211-63 (numerous
texts); Abu C A1! al-Ghawthi, Kashf al-kina c c an alat
al-sama c , Algiers 1322/1904 (muwa shsh ahdt. azdjal
and a selection of the works of six poets); J.
Desparmet, Bhda = La poesie actuelle a Blida et sa
metrique, in Actes du XIV e Congres Intern, des Orient.,
iii, Paris 1907, 437-602 (various songs, and list of
poets from the end of the 19th century); J. C. E.
Falls, Beduinenlieder des libyschen Wiiste, Cairo 1908;
M. Sidoun, Chants sur la chasse au faucon attribues a Sid
El Hadj Aissa, Cherif de Laghouat, in RAfr., Iii (1908),
272-94 (5 songs, text and tr.); J. Joly, Chansons du
repertoire algerois, in RAfr., liii (1909), 46-66; idem,
Poesies du Sud, in RAfr., liii (1909), 285-307; A.
Fischer, Das Liederbuch eines marokkanischen Sangers,
Leipzig 1918 (125 pieces, tr. and notes); A. Cour,
La poesie populaire politique au temps de TEmir Abdel-
qader, in RAfr., lix (1918), 458-93; J. Desparmet,
La conquete racontee par les indigenes, in Bull. Soc. Geog.
Alger, cxxxii (1932), 437-56; idem, Elegies et satires
politiques de 1830 a 1914, in ibid., cxxxiii (1933),
35-54 (translated extracts from 8 poets); idem, La
chanson d'Alger pendant la Grande Guerre, in RAfr.,
lxxiii (1932), 54-83 (tr. and Arabic text); idem, Les
chansons de geste de 1830 a 1914 dans la Mitidja, in
ibid., lxxxiii (1939), 192-226; Muhammad al-Katfl,
al-Kanz al-maknun fi ’l-shi c r al-malhun, Algiers 1928
(selected works from 30 poets); S. Bencheneb,
Chansons satiriques d’Alger, l Te moitie du XIV e siecle de
I’hegire, in RAfr., lxxiv (1933), 75-117, 296-352
(Arabic text, tr. and notes); M. Bekhoucha and A.
Sekkal, Anthologie d’auteurs arabes. Les printanieres ou
romantisme arabe: Kitab Nafh al-azhar wa-wasf al-anwdr
wa-aswdt al-atydr wa-nigham al-awtar, Tlemcen 1934
(works of 14 Algerian and Moroccan poets); E.
Chimenti, Eves marocaines, Tangier 1935; A.
Hamidou, Le Bonheur eternel, Tlemcen 1935; idem,
Aper(u sur la poesie vulgaire de Tlemcen. Les deux poetes
populaires de Tlemcen: Ibn Amsaib et Ibn Triki (Deux-
ieme Congres de la Federation des Soc. savantes
de 1’Afrique du Nord), in RAfr., lxxix (1936),
1007-46; P. Marty, Les chants lyriques populaires du
Sud Tunisien, in RT, nos. xxv (1936/1), 83-135,
xxvi (1936/2), 256-95, xxix (1937/1), 138-77, xxxi
(1937/3-4), 433-69 (38 pieces, text in Arabic char¬
acters and tr.); M. Bekhoucha, Anthologie arabe.
Deuxieme livre. Poemes erotiques: Kitab al-hubb wa-l-
mahbub, Tlemcen 1939 (notices and poems by 7
authors); E. Dermenghem and M. El Fasi, Poemes
marocains du genre melhun, in Cahiers du Sud, Feb.
1940; E. Chimenti, Chants de femmes arabes, Paris
1942; H. Duquaire, Anthologie de la litterature maro-
caine, Paris 1943, 213-31; the journal al-Amal
(Algiers), Nov.-Dec. 1969 (some 20 poems); M.
Belhalfaoui, La poesie arabe maghrebine d'expression
populaire, Paris 1973 (17 poems in Arabic characters
and tr.); c Ukaziyyat min al-shi c r al-sha c bi, years
1977-80, Tunis 1981 (69 poems from 24 poets, in¬
cluding one woman), year 1981 (4 pieces from 4
poets, including one woman); anon., Kitab al -

MALHUN — MALI

257

Dja wahir al-hisan fi-nazm awliya? Tilimsan, ed. c Abd
al-Hamld Hadjiyat, Algiers 1982 (Arabic char¬
acters).

III. — Diwans : c Abd al-Hafiz, lith. Fas n.d.;
Dtwan de Ben Msaib, by M. Bekhoucha, Tlemcen
1370/1951; al-Harrak, lith. Tunis 1331, Fas n.d.,
printed Meknes n.d.; Dtwan de Sidi Lakhdar Ben
Khlouf by M. Bekhoucha, Rabat 1958; Ahmad
Mallak, by M. MarzukI, Tunis 1980; al-Flturl
Tllsh, by idem, Tunis 1976; Mustafa b. Ibrahim,
by A. c Azza, see below, V).

IV. —Isolated texts: original or tr.
(alphabetical order): Achour Abdelaziz, Un chant
maghribin: la qasida de la «Tete de mort», in RMM,
xxxix(1920), 134-50; R. Basset, Une complainte arabe
sur Mohammed et le chameau, in Giornale della societa
asiatica italiana, xv (1902), 1-26; A. Bel, La Djazya.
Chanson arabe precedee d’observations sur quelques legendes
arabes et sur la geste de Banu Hildl, in JA , 9 e serie, xix
(1902), 289-347, xx (1902), 169-236, 10 e serie, i
(1903), 311-66; M. Ben Cheneb, Itineraire de
Tlemcen a La Mekkepar Ben Messatb (XVIII e si'ecle ), in
RAfr., xliv (1900), 261-82 (text and tr.); G. Boris,
Documents linguistiques et ethnographiques sur une region
du Sud Tunisien (Nefzaoua), Paris 1951, 160-2/175,
166/179; L. J. Bresnier, Cours pratique et theorique de
langue arabe, Algiers 1846; H. Briquez, Un poete
populaire tunisien: chansons du Cheikh Ben Moussa El
Fathairi, in RT (1917), 286-304; D. Cohen, Le
dialecte arabe hassanlya de Mauritanie, Paris 1963; A.
Cour, Constantine en 1902 d’apres une chanson populaire
de Cheikh Belqasem Er-Rehmouni El-Haddad, in RAfr.,
lx (1919), 224-40 (text, tr. and comm.); G.
Delphin and L. Guin, Complainte arabe sur la rupture
du barrage de Saint-Denis-du-Sig, Paris-Oran 1886;
M. El Fasi, Le tarchoun (le petit faucon) de Ben Alt
Cherif in Hesperis-Tamuda, vi (1965), 39-52; Gen.
G. Faure-Biguet, LAqiqa (La cornaline) par Abou-
Otman Said ben Abdallah Et-Tlemsani el-Mendasi,
Algiers 1901 (text and tr.); J. Jouin, Un poeme de Si
Qaddour-el- c alami, in Hesperis, xlvi/1-2 (1959),
87-103 (transcription and tr.); E. Levi-Provengal,
Un chant populaire religieux du Djebel marocain, in
RAfr., lix (1918), 215-48 (text and tr.); idem, La
chanson dite Sidi ’l-Alwi, in Arch. Berb., iv (1919-20),
67-75; M. al-Marzukl, Hassuna al-Laylt, malhama
sha c biyya, Tunis 1976 (2 poems); A. Tahar, Le cheval
de Ben Guennun, in BE A, no. 12 (1943), 42-3; Ven¬
ture de Paradis, Un chant algerien du XVIII e siecle,
published by E. Fagnan, in RAfr., xxxviii (1894),
325-45 (text and tr.).

V. —Studies, commentaries, translations,
etc. (alphabetical order): Abu Ra 5 s al-NasirT, al-
Durra al-anika ft sharh al-Akika (see Faure-Biguet,
who partially reproduced this comm.); c Abd_al-
Kadir c Azza, Mustafa b. Ibrahim sha c ir Barn Amir
wa-madddh al-kaba'il al-wahraniyya, Algiers [1977];
c Abd al-Rahman al-Fast, al-Uknum fi mabadP
al- c ulum (mss. in Rabat); E. Aubin, Le Maroc d’au-
jourd’hui, Paris 1912, 343-4; M. Bekhoucha,
Enigmes, contes et chansons tlemceniennes, T'emcen
1942; A. Bel, La Djazya, see above, IV; M.
Belhalfaoui, see above, II; S. Bencheneb, La li¬
terature populaire, in Initiation a TAlgerie, Paris 1957,
301-9; M. T. Buret, Sidi Qaddur el-Alami, in
Hesperis, xxv /1 (1938), 85-92; C. Cerbella, Poesie e
conti popolari arabi, in Libia, iv (1956), 27-39; A.
Chottin, Tableau de la musqiue marocaine, Paris 1938;
G. S. Colin, Literature arabe dialectale, in Initiation au
Maroc, Paris 1937, 224-7; idem, in EI\ s.v.

MOROCCO = El 2 AL-MAGHRIB, AL-MAMLAKA AL-

maghribiyya; Gen. A. Daumas, Moeurs et coutumes
Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vi

de TAlgerie, Paris 3 1858; c Abbas Djirari, al-Zajdal fi
l-Maghrib: al-kasida, Rabat 1390/1970 (715 pp.);
idem, Daltl kasa^id al-zadjal fi y l-Maghrib (unpubl.);
M. El Fasi, La literature populaire, in La Pensee
(Rabat), no. 1 (Nov. 1862); idem, Jilali Mthried, in
ibid., no. 5 (March 1963), 42-54; idem (Muham¬
mad al-Fasi), al-Adab al-shacbi al-maghribi al-malhun,
in al-Bahth al-Hlmi, i (1964), 41-64 (see also Tifwan,
ix (1964), 7-30; idem, Lughat al-malhun, in al-Bahth
al- c ilmt, iv-v (1965), 199-203; idem, Aru<jal-malhun
wa-muftalahatuh, in al- Thakafa al-maghribiyya . i
(1970),’ 7-29, ii-iii (1970), 5-23, iv (1971), 1-2, v
(1971), 1-19 (study of the structure and, from I, 17,
onwards of the terminology of the molhun ); idem,
Chants anciens de femmes de Fes, Paris 1968 (tr. of 168
pieces); Ibn al-SzPih (B. Bessalh), Funun al-taswir fi
7 shir al-sha c bi al-malhun, in Huna ’l-Diazd } ir - Ici-
Alger, no. 33 (1955), 4-5; idem, Nazra khatifa c ala T
shPr al-djazdHrial-malhun, in ibid., no. 44(1956), 12;
Ibn Zaydan, Ithaf a c lam al-nds, Rabat
1347-52/1929-33; Idris al-Idrlsi, Kashf al-ghita 3
sirr al-musiki wa-nataHdj al-ghina Rabat 1935; M.
Lacheraf, Poesie du Sud, in Cahiers du Sud (1947),
323-33; M. Lakhdar, La vie litteraire au Maroc sous la
dynastie c alawide, Rabat 1971; J. Lecerf, La place de
la «culture populaire» dans la civilisation musulmane, in
Classicisme et declin culturel dans Thistoire de TIslam,
Paris 1957, 351-67; Leo Africanus, Description de
TAfrique, tr. Epaulard, Paris 1956; A. Leriche,
Poesie et musique maures, in BIFAN, xiii (1951),
1227-56; E. Levi-Proven^al, Les historiens des Chorfa,
Paris 1922; A. Maiza, Sidi Guessouma, patron des
«hechaichis» de Constantine, in Recueil de notices et
memoires de la Soc. archeol. de Constantine, 5 e serie, xv
(1927), 83-166; W. Margais, Le dialecte arabe parle a
Tlemcen, Paris 1902; idem, Comment TAfrique du Nord
a etearabisee, in AIEO Alger, iv (1938) and xiv (1956);
Gen. A. Margueritte, Chasses de TAlgerie et notes sur
les Arabes du Sud, Paris 3 1884; M. al-Marzukl, al-
Shi c r al-sha c bi fi Tunis, in Madjallat al-Funun al-
sha^biyya,. i (Cairo 1965); M. M. Ould Bah, Intro¬
duction a la poesie mauritanienne (1650-1900), in
Arabica, xviii /1 (1971), 1-48; Ahmad al-Shinkltl, al-
Wasit fi taradjim ^ulama^ Shinkft, Cairo 1960; P. M.
de Styx, Chants de Grenade et du Maghreb, Paris 1953;
A. Tahar, La metrique de la poesie populaire, in BE A,
no. 11 (1943), 1-7; idem. La poesie populaire algerienne
(melhun). Rythmes, metres et formes, Algiers 1975 (fun¬
damental); Col. C. Trumelet, Les Franfais dans le
desert, Paris 2 1885, 249-61. (Ch. Pellat)

MALI, a kingdom of mediaeval West
Africa. The West African Republic of Mali is nam¬
ed after the ancient kingdom of Mali. In the 13th and
14th centuries, ancient Mali expanded over the whole
territory of the modern Republic of Mali and beyond
into the present Republics of Senegal, Gambia and
Niger.

The dominant ethnic group in ancient Mali were
the Malinke (i.e. “the people of Mali”), also known
as Mandinka, of the large group of Mande-speaking
peoples.

The history of ancient Mali is known to us from
oral traditions and from Arabic written sources. The
two categories represent different, but complemen¬
tary, viewpoints, Whereas in the oral traditions the
African traditional themes are prominent, the Arabic
sources emphasise Islamic aspects.

In 460/1067-8 al-Bakri (ed. Algiers 1911, 178)
describes the small chiefdom of Malal amidst stateless,
loosely-organised peoples. Its ruler embraced Islam
after a Muslim visitor had prayed for rain and had
saved the country from severe drought. The Malal of

258

MALI

al-Bakrf must have been one of several chiefdoms
which, according to oral traditions, emerged among
the Malinke during the 11th and 12th centuries.
Muslims reached that area of the Upper Niger river
on their way to the goldfields of Burne, the exploita¬
tion of which began about that time.

Mali was Ghana’s successor as the hegemonic
power in the Western Sudan. But in between (towards
the end of the 12th century), after the decline of
Ghana and before the rise of Mali, the Susu, a
southern Soninke group, conquered territories to the
north (Ghana) and south (the Malinke chiefdoms).

The Susu represented a traditional reaction to
Islam, which by then had become a significant factor
in quite a few chiefly courts. The Malinke war of
liberation from the rule of the Susu was led by Sund-
jata, who became recognised as head of all the
Malinke, with the title of mansa.

In the first half of the 13th century, following the
victory over the Susu, the new kingdom of Mali ex¬
panded northwards to the Sahel. The termini of the
trans-Saharan trade, where Muslim communities
flourished, became part of Mali, and served as a link
with the Muslim world north of the Sahara. As the
small Malinke chiefdom turned into a multi-ethnic
kingdom, with influential Muslim elements inside and
extensive Islamic relations with the outside, the rulers
of Mali adopted an Islamic-oriented policy.

Mansa Uli (or Wall), son of the founder of Mali,
extended the conquests of his father. He secured the
northern frontiers of Mali in the Sahara, which per¬
mitted him to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. He
passed through Cairo during the reign of Baybars
(658-76/1260-77). There was a long tradition of royal
pilgrims in West Africa, especially among the more
powerful rulers. Ibn Khaldun, to whom we are in debt
for an excellent chronicle of the kings of Mali in the
13th and 14th centuries (ed. Paris 1847, i, 264-8),
recorded also the pilgrimage of Sakura during the
second reign of al-Malik al-Nasir b. Kalawun
(698-708/1299-1309). But the most famous of all royal
pilgrims was Mansa Musa \qv.], who visited Cairo in
724/1324.

Visits of kings of Mali to North Africa, Egypt and
Mecca established the fame of Mali (often referred to
as Takrur in Egyptian chronicles) as a Muslim
kingdom rich in gold. Religious, cultural and com¬
mercial relations between Egypt and Mali became
more intensive. At home, the blessing (baraka) ascrib¬
ed to pilgrims was respected by Muslims and non-
Muslims alike and added to the authority of the king.
The performance of the pilgrimage, and the en¬
counter with the central lands of Islam, called the
rulers’ attention to the laxity of Islam in their own
lands. Mansa Musa pursued a more vigorous Islamic
policy after his return from the hadjdj : he built new
mosques and sent local c ulama 3 to study abroad in Fas.
In 737/1337, Mansa Musa initiated the exchange of
ambassadors and gifts with the Moroccan Sultan Abu
’l-Hasan c Ali of the Marinid dynasty, which were
continued under their successors until 762/1360-1.

The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited Mali in
753-4/1352-3, during the reign of Mansa Sulayman,
the brother of Mansa Musa. In many Malian towns,
Ibn Battuta met residents from Morocco.

Ibn Battuta’s account reveals strong traditional sur¬
vivals in Mali beneath a veneer of Islam. Royal
presence at the public prayer of the two Islamic
festivals turned them into official ceremonies to which
non-Muslims were also attracted. In return, the
prestige of Islam was used to exhort loyalty to the king
during the khutba. As national feasts, the Islamic

festivals had to accommodate pre-Islamic rites, which
were among the sources of the king’s legitimacy. Ibn
Battuta condemned this and other pre-Islamic
customs at the court of Mali. But he also had words
of praise for the devotion to the prayer of Malian
Muslims, in particular the Friday prayer, and their
concern with the study of the Kurian by heart. The
ritual rather than the legal aspects of Islam were of
greater significance. The precepts of the Sharia were
observed only by foreign residents and by a small but
committed group of local traders and clerics.

Islam penetrated into African societies through the
rulers’ courts. But it was in the purely Muslim towns,
mostly commercial centres, that Islam was more
vigorous and the ^ulama? were in authority. The kings
of Mali respected the autonomy of these towns, the
most important of which was Timbuktu

Timbuktu, which had begun as a summer camp
and a trading entrepot for the Tuaregs, developed in¬
to an important commercial town and a cultural cen¬
tre of Islam since the 14th century. The Andalusian
poet and architect Abu Ishak al-Sahili, who accom¬
panied Mansa Musa back to Mali from the ha djdj .
died in Timbuktu in 1346. Timbuktu must have been
by then an intellectual centre of some importance for
al-Sahili to have settled there.

By the beginning of the 15th century, Timbuktu
was “full of Sudanese fukahd 3 ” (al-Sa c dI, Ta^rikh al-
Suddn, 51). One of the leading scholars of Timbuktu
was Modibo Muhammad, who had come from the
town of Kabora on the Niger south of Timbuktu. This
town was mentioned by Ibn Battuta (iv, 395) together
with Diagha, the people of which “were Muslims of
old, and are distinguished by their piety and their
quest for knowledge”.

Towards the end of the 14th century, Mali was
weakened by rivalries over the royal succession and
lost its hold over the Sahelian provinces. In
837/1433-4 Timbuktu passed into the hands of the
Tuaregs. The political vacuum caused by the decline
of Mali invited the expansion of the rising kingdom of
Songhay [q.v.] into the area west of the Niger bend.
The hegemony of Songhay over the northern section
of the present republic of Mali in the second half of the
15th and through the 16th centuries coincided with
the most illustrious period in the economic and intel¬
lectual history of Timbuktu. The history of Songhay
and Timbuktu may be reconstructed from the
biographical treatises of Ahmad Baba (d. 1036/1627)
and from the mid-17th century chronicles of Tim¬
buktu, the Tadrlkh al-Sudan by al-Sa c di and the Tadrikh
al-Fattash by Ibn al-Mukhtar. Djenne, which was link¬
ed by the Niger waterway with Timbuktu, was the
commercial and Islamic metropolis of the Sudanic
hinterland. About the level of Islamic learning in
Djenne, one may learn from the career of two of
its sons, the brothers Muhammad and Ahmad
Baghyughu, who moved to Timbuktu and were
among the leading scholars there. From Djenne and
its region, the Dyula and Marka, Muslim traders who
spoke Malinke and Bambara dialects extended their
commercial network southwards as far as the fringes
of the forest. These traders were known also as
Wangara. Their impact on Hausaland is recorded by
the Kano chronicle (/. of the Anthropological Institute
[1908], 70): “The Wangarawa came from Mali bring¬
ing with them the Mohammedan religion.”

The Songhay empire expanded mainly along the
Niger river as far as Djenne in the south. Mali con¬
tracted to its Malinke nucleus, but survived repeated
attacks until the beginning of the 17th century. Niani,
the capital of Mali, was on the Sankarani, one of the

MALI

259

tributaries of the Upper Niger (today in Guinea).
Because its ethnic and political base was deep in the
Savannah, Mali survived longer than the two other
powers of the Western Sudan, Ghana and Songhay.
Both had their centres in the northern Sahel, exposed
to external intervention: the Almoravids [see al-
murabitun] in the 11th century and the Moroccans at
the end of the 16th century.

In 1591 a Moroccan expeditionary force sent by the
Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur [q.v. ] defeated the Songhay
army by its superior fire-arms and conquered Gao,
Timbuktu and Djenne. Timbuktu became the capital
of a pashalik, which soon became virtually indepen¬
dent of Morocco, and ruled by a hereditary military
caste, the descendants of the Moroccan conquerors,
known as al-rumat or arma. The pashalik survived until
the beginning of the 19th century.

As seen from the north, through Muslim records,
Mali was reduced to a kingdom of local importance
during the 15th and 16th centuries. But the Por¬
tuguese, who about that time reached the Gambia,
became aware of the powerful inland ruler of Mali,
whose authority extended to the Atlantic coast. Mali’s
westward expansion was consolidated by the migra¬
tion of Malinke warriors, peasants and traders to the
Gambia. In 1621, sailing up the Gambia river, the
British voyager Jobson met many hundred of
Muslims traders and clerics who “have free recourse
through all places” even in times of war (Jobson, in
E. W. Bovill, The golden trade of the Moors, London
1932, 17-8, 84, 106).

In Mali and Songhay, Islam had become integrated
into the imperial texture ideologically and institu¬
tionally. Yet even the great mansds and askiyas, who
had been exposed to external Islamic influences and
ruled over centres of Islamic learning, remained at¬
tached to the pre-Islamic heritage of their people.
Islam was confined to urban traders and c ulama
Similar patterns persisted into the 17th and 18th cen¬
turies, except that the rulers of smaller states, which
had emerged as a result of the fragmentation of the
great empires, had no contacts with Islamic centres
north of the Sahara and had fewer and smaller towns.
Consequently, Islamic influences were mitigated by
traditional particularisms.

The Bambara, one of the major ethnic groups in
present day Mali, are closely related to the Malinke
and speak a similar dialect. They call themselves Ban-
mana, and the term Bambara has the connotation of
“infidels”. Under ancient Mali they were among the
subject peoples, the common peasantry, who had no
share in the imperial culture of which Islam was an
important component. Following the disintegration of
Mali, the Bambara entered upon a process of state¬
building, which culminated with the establishment of
the powerful Bambara states of Segu and Kaarta in
the 18th century. With Bambara clans in political
authority, their chiefs came under Islamic influences.
Muslim elements penetrated the culture of the Bam¬
bara, but the latter remained traditionally-oriented.
They were treated as infidels by most of the militant
Islamic leaders of the 19th century.

The northern frontiers of the modern Republic of
Mali cut deep into the Sahara to incorporate impor¬
tant Arabo-Berber groups. Thus Mali, like Niger and
Chad, accommodates both the pastoralists of the
southern Sahara and the peasants of the Sahel and the
savannah. Tension between these two elements is an
important feature in the political life of these states.
Though the present frontiers were determined by col¬
onial France, the interaction between desert and Sahel
has a longer tradition. The southern Sahara was of

strategic importance for the Sudanic states as the
outlet of the desert trade routes. On the other hand,
the pastoralists of the southern Sahara were attracted,
mainly during years of drought, to the more promis¬
ing pastures of the Sahel.

Whenever a strong state dominated the Sahel
(Ghana of the 11th century, Mali of the 14th century
and Songhay of the 16th century), its authority ex¬
tended over the Tuareg of the southern Sahara. But
in between these periods, the pastoralists pressed
south. The most decisive and lasting invasion of the
Tuareg into the Niger bend began in the second half
of the 17th century with the decline of the power of the
pashalik of Timbuktu.

The southern Sahara was not, however, only a
threat to the Sahel, but also a source for religious and
spiritual leadership. The most prominent scholars of
Timbuktu, such as the famous Aklt family, were of
$anhadja origin. The harshness of the desert
pastoralists was mitigated by the marabouts, from ho¬
ly families, whose religious prestige carried political
influence. In the 18th century the Kunta [q.v.}, a clan
of Arab and Berber descent, established one of its cen¬
tres in Azawad, north of Timbuktu. Their leader Sldl
al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (1728-1811) was venerated by
the Tuareg warriors, and through them he extended
his influence over the Niger bend and the city of Tim¬
buktu. His religious authority expanded even farther
as the head ( mukaddam ) of the Kadiriyya $ufi
brotherhood [q.v.], which was for the first time spread
effectively among Islamic communities of the Savan¬
nah by Sldi al-Mukhtar’s numerous disciples.

The introduction of $ufism into the western Sudan
contributed to Islamic revivalism and militancy,
which bred the dyihad movements. In 1818 Shekhu
Ahmadu (Shaykh Ahmad), a scholar of Fulbe origin
and a follower of the Kuntl Kadiriyya, initiated a
djihad against the Fulbe clan leaders in Massina who
practiced mixed Islam. He also challenged the
religious authority of the established c ulama 5 of
Djenne, who sanctioned the existing socio-political
order and reconciled it with the marginal role of
Islam. The military success of Shekhu Ahmadu
resulted in the creation of a theocratic state (known as
dina ) with its capital in the new town of Hamdallahi.
The state existed for over forty years under the suc¬
cessive rule of Shekhu Ahmadu, his son and
grandson.

In 1862 Hamdallahi was conquered and destroyed
by a rival mudjahid, al-Hadjdj c Umar b. Sa c Id. Al-
Hadjdj c Umar, whose way to his own land of Futa
Toro, on the lower Senegal, had been blocked by the
French, turned east against the infidel Bambara state
of Segu. He then attacked the theocratic state of Ham¬
dallahi, which he anathemised as an ally of the infidel
Bambara. Behind this pretext was the fierce conflict
between two Sufi brotherhoods; the Kadiriyya of
Hamdallahi and the Tidjaniyya of al-Hadjdj c Umar.
The Tidjaniyya represented a more vigorous, radical
and populist way (tanka) which challenged the
aristocratic, established way of the Kadiriyya. The
leader of the Kadiriyya Ahmad al-BakkaPl (grandson
of the great Sldl al-Mukhtar al-Kunti), who had first
resented the militant aggression of Hamdallahi, now
rose to oppose the Tidjanl threat of al-Hadjdj c Umar.
The forces which he mobilised fought al-Hadjdj
c Umar, who was killed in battle in 1864.

The latter’s son Ahmad ruled for almost thirty
years in Segu, the former Bambara capital. His
authority had to be enforced by his army, composed
of Tokolor followers and local conscripts (sofa),
against continuous resistance of local ethnic groups.

260

MALI

The French military commanders in their advance
towards the Niger exploited the internal dissensions in
the Tidjani empire of Segu, until its Final defeat in
1893. The non-Muslim ethnic groups, like the Bam-
bara, greeted their liberation from Tidjani rule. Many
of those who had been forcibly converted to Islam by
the TidjanTs now returned to their ancestral ways.

During the colonial period (when the present
Republic of Mali was known as the French Sudan),
Islam progressed among most ethnic groups, winning
over those who moved to the growing towns and those
who joined the seasonal labour migration to the more
prosperous colonies. With better roads and greater
security, more clerics ( marabouts ) visited villages, con¬
verted non-Muslims and invigorated religion among
long-established Muslim communities.

These marabouts helped the spread of Sufi
brotherhoods. The younger and more vigorous
Tidjaniyya expanded faster and further than the old
Kadiriyya. But the Tidjaniyya in its turn was
challenged by a new brotherhood, a splinter group,
the Hamaliyya, named after its founder Hamahulllh
(1883-4 to 1943). The French colonial authorities,
seeking to avoid instability, intervened in defence of
the old Tidjaniyya brotherhood. They deported
Hamahullah, harassed his followers and as in other
cases of self-fulfilling prophecies, provoked the
Hamallists to violence.

In the 1930s, some young Muslim scholars who
returned from studies at al-Azhar resented the grow¬
ing influence of the $ufi brotherhoods and deplored
the exploitation of the believers by the marabouts.
The reformists, sometimes referred to as neo-
Wahhabls, considered ignorance as the source of all
evils and devoted themselves to the promotion of
Islamic education, with emphasis on the teaching of
Arabic. Bamako, the capital of the French Sudan, was
an important centre for their activities. Religious
reformism and fundamentalism soon had political im¬
plications; at home they challenged the authority of
the old marabouts, and abroad they subscribed to
pan-Islamic ideologies. Both trends were considered a
threat to the public security, and the reformists were
closely watched by the French colonial authorities and
their activities were severely curtailed. The reformists
were among the first supporters of the radical, anti-
colonial party, the Union Soudanaise (US - RDA).

The post-war political struggle in the French Sudan
was between the US and the PPS (Parti Progressiste
Soudanaise). The latter was the party supported by
the traditional chiefs and favoured by the French col¬
onial authorities. It was stronger in the villages among
non-Muslims and away from the main commercial
routes. It survived longer among the Bambara and the
Fulbe, the two ethnic groups most hostile to the
Tidjani empire and those who had most to gain from
its destruction by the French. The US was stronger in
the towns, along commercial routes, among traders,
and the more committed and politically-articulate
Muslims. The political leaders of the US soon
discovered the effectiveness of an Islamic vocabulary
for mass mobilisation. Radical Muslim ideas were in¬
corporated into the political ideology of the US. It
won the elections of 1956 and formed the first
autonomous African government of the French
Sudan. After independence, the radical government
of the US pursued a “scientific” though not an
atheistic socialism. In its economic policies, it soon
alienated the Dyula Muslim traders, who had been
among the supporters of US during the period of
decolonisation. The government also curtailed the ac¬
tivities of the c ulama 3 . Islam was integrated into the

national ethos of Mali, but only at the symbolic level.
The coup d’etat in November 1968 brought to power
young officers, mostly of Bambara origin, who were
little concerned with Islam. In 1971 by a government
decree, the modern Islamic schools established by
Muslim reformists (l’Union Culturelle Musulmane)
were closed.

Modern Malians have strong historical sentiments
and consider themselves heirs to the traditions of an¬
cient Mali, to the intellectual achievements of Tim¬
buktu and to the religious experience which was
enriched through the interplay of Islam and ethnic
religions.

Bibliography : Arabic sources: Bakrl, K.
al-Masdlik wa ’l-mamalik, ed. M. G. de Slane,
Algiers 1911; c Umarf, Masdlik al-abfdr fi mamalik al-
amyar, ms. B.N. 5868; Ibn Battuta, Tuhfat al-nuggar
fi gharaHb al-amsdr, ed. and tr. Defremery and
Sanguinetti, repr. Paris 1922; Ibn Khaldun. K.
Ta Mkh al-duwal al-isldmiyya bi ’l-maghrib min Kitdb
al- ( Ibar, ed. de Slane, Paris 1847; Ahmad Baba,
Nayl al-ibtihddffi tatriz al-dibadj, , Cairo 1956; Sa c df,
Tafikh al-Sudan, ed. O. Houdas, Paris 1900; [Ibn
al-Muktar], Tafikh al-Fattash, ed. Houdas and M.
Delafosse, Paris 1913; anon., Tafhkirat al-nisydn,
Paris 1901; M. Eisenstein, Die Herrscher von Mali
nach al-Qalqasandt, in Orientalia Lovaniensia periodica
xvi (1985), 197-204.

Ancient Mali: Ch. Monteil, Les empires du Mali,
Paris 1927; R. Mauny, Tableau geographique de
I’Ouest Africain au moyen age, Dakar 1961; D. T.
Niane, Soundiata ou Tepopee mandingue, Paris 1960;
N. Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali, London 1973;
J. M. Cuoq, Recueil des sources arabes concemant TAfri-
que Occidental du 8 e au 16 e siecle (Bilad al-Sudan),
Paris 1975; M. Ly Tall, L’empire du Mali, Dakar
1977; W. Filipowiak, Etudes archeologiques sur la
capitale medievale du Mali, Warsaw 1979;
J. F. P. Hopkins and N. Levtzion (annot. tr.),
Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history,
Cambridge 1980.

Songhay, Timbuktu, the Paibaltk and the
Bambara states (15th-18th centuries):
Ch. Monteil, Les Bambara du Se'gou et du Kaarta, Paris
1924; idem, Une cite soudanaise: Djenne, Paris 1932;
J. Rouch, Contribution a Thistoire des Songhai, Dakar
1953; J. O. Hunwick, Religion and state in the Songhay
empire, 1464-1591, in Islam in Tropical Africa, ed. I.
M. Lewis, London 1966; S. M. Cissoko, Tombouc-
tou et l’empire Songhay, Dakar 1975; M. A. Zouber,
Ahmad Baba de Tombouctou, Paris 1977; M. Abitbol,
Tombouctou et les arma, Paris 1977.

The 19th-century djihad movements:

A. H. BaetJ. Daget, L’empire peul du Macina, Paris
1962; Y. Person, Samori: une revolution dyula, Dakar
1968; A. S. Kanya-Forstner, The conquest of the
Western Sudan, Cambridge 1969; W. A. Brown, The
caliphate of Hamdallahi: ca. 1818-1864, unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., U. of Wisconsin 1969; Y. J. Saint-
Martin, L ’empire toucouleur, 1848-1897, Paris 1970;

B. O. Oloruntimehin, The Segu Tukulor empire,
1848-1893, London 1972; A. A. Batran, Stdi al-
Mukhtar al-Kunti and the recrudescence of Islam in the
Western Sudan and the middle Niger, c. 1750-1811, un¬
publ. Ph.D. diss., U. of Birmingham 1972; A.
Zebadia, The career and correspondence of Ahmad al-
Bakkd^i of Timbuktu, 1847-1865, unpubl. Ph.D.
diss., U. of London (SOAS) 1974.

The French Sudan and modern Mali: A.
Le Chatelier, L ’Islam dans l’Afrique Occidentale, Paris
1899; M. Delafosse, Haut-Senegal-Niger, Paris 1912;
P. Marty, Etudes sur VIslam et les tribus du Soudan,

MALI — MALIK

261

Paris 1920-1; M. Chailley, Aspects de l * Islam au
Mali, in Notes et etudes sur l*Islam en Afrique noire,
Paris 1962; R. Schachter-Morgenthau, Political par¬
ties in French-speaking West Africa, Oxford 1964; W.
J. Foltz, From French West Africa to the Mali Federation,
New Haven 1965; P. Alexandre, The Hammalism,
in Protest and power in Black Africa, ed. Rotberg and
Mazrui, New York 1970; L. Kaba, The
Wahhabiyya: Islamic reform and politics in French West
Africa, Evanston 1974; J. M. Cuoq, Les Musulmans
en Afrique, Paris 1975, 175-89. (N. Levtzion)

MALIK, the Arabic word for king (pi. muluk ),
stemming from the old Semitic root m-l-k (the Hebrew
equivalent is melekh ; Aramaic malka; Akkadian malku\
Assyrian malku, maliku ), which signifies “possession'’
and, by extension, “rule” or “government”. As a
kingly title, the term appears repeatedly in pre-
Islamic inscriptions from southern Arabia and the
Syrian desert fringes (e.g. the Namara epitaph of
Imru 3 al-Kays, “King of the Arabs”, from 328 A.D.
[see lakhmids]). The Kur 3 an mentions several
historical and legendary kings (muluk), among them
Pharaoh and Saul (II, 246-7; XII, 42 f.); and the
hadtth discusses numerous others.

Islam, however, presented a new order in which
God alone was “the King, the Truth”, “the
Possessor of Heavens and Earth” as the Kur 3 an says,
“Say, O God, Possessor of sovereignty ( mdlik al-
mulk), You give sovereignty to whomever You choose
and take it from whomever You choose” (III, 26). In
this view, heads of the community of believers, the
caliphs, were vested with the exercise of God’s
sovereignty so that they could administer His
divinely-created polity; yet its ultimate possession, as
well as the kingly title, remained exclusively His. Ac¬
cordingly, a man’s claim to such a title was regarded
as a contemptible feature of the prior, unholy order
that Islam sought to replace (an analogous approach
may be seen in the Old Testament, where the idea of
human kingship is discredited as unfit for the pious
community of the People of Israel; cf. Judges, viii,
22-3; I Samuel, viii, 4-20). Malik thus came to con¬
note the temporal, mundane facet of government—
the antithesis of khalifa and imam [qvv.] which
signified piety and righteousness. The Umayyads
were termed muluk and their rule mulk by their op¬
ponents, who thus expressed disdain for an irreligious
and worldly-minded government. Considered to be a
term of abuse, malik was not officially assumed by
Muslim rulers in the early centuries of Islam; on the
other hand, it was commonly applied, sometimes with
unconcealed scorn, to non-Muslim monarchs.

The spread of the Islamic empire brought it under
the impact of non-Arab traditions, which played a
major role in shaping the Muslim concept of govern¬
ment in the early centuries of Islam. Under Sasanid
influence, authors of “Mirrors for princes”, from the
beginning of the c Abbasid period, introduced theories
on the divine right of kings. God, it was stated,
“bestowed upon kings His special grace ( karamatihi )
and endowed them with His authority (sultanihi)"
(Kitdb al-Tadj_ fi akhldk al-muluk, attributed to al-
Djahiz, ed. Ahmad ZakT, Cairo 1914, 2). Discussing
in great detail the privileges, duties and recommended
conduct of kings, this literature emphasised the
elevated status of a malik within his community. The
principles underlying these writings, distant from the
initial Islamic theory of rulership, represented the
revival of pre-Arab concepts in the formerly Persian
regions of the empire.

The use of the royal title in such a manner gradual¬
ly led to a modification in its import, and consequent¬

ly to its adoption by Muslim rulers. Towards the
middle of the 4th/10th century the Buyids, new rulers
of the empire, were reviving the Sasanid tradition of
regnal epithets: in the year 325/936 C A1I b. Buya, one
of the three founders of the dynasty, assumed the per-
sian title shahanshah (i.e. “king of kings” [q.v. ]); and
his nephew and heir, c Adud al-Dawla (338-72/944-83
[<?.£.]) added malik to his list of epithets (al-Maknzi,
Suluk, 28). Meanwhile, in the north-eastern prov¬
inces, Samanid rulers likewise assumed kingship as a
measure of asserting their independence from
c Abbasid and Buyid dominion: on coins dating from
the years 339/950-1, i.e. from the reign of Nuh b.
Nasr (331-43/943-54), the latter is designated al-malik
al-mu\yyad. Later members of his dynasty employed
the title in a similar way (S. Lane Poole, Catalogue of
coins in the British Museum, ii, 100, 103, 105-6, 109-10,
115-16). Other non-Arab dynasties followed suit:
Kh w arazmT, Ghaznawid and Saldjuk rulers called
themselves malik, usually in combination with
honorific adjectives, e.g. al-kdmil, al-salih, al-^adil,
which accordingly became a highly common feature
of mediaeval Islamic titulature. On the western flank
of the Islamic empire, Fajimid rulers in the late
5th/11th century similarly adopted malik as their royal
epithet. The Ayyubids inherited it from them (one of
Salah al-Dln’s titles was al-malik al-nasir), and in turn
passed it on to the Mamluks. In the Buyid, Saldjuk,
Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk states the title was
not reserved for the heads of the monarchy alone, but
was rather freely applied to princes, wuzard 3 and pro¬
vincial governors as well (see examples in Hasan al-
Basha, al-Alkab al-Islamiyya, Cairo 1957, 496-500).

The increasing number of potentates identifying
themselves as malik gradually rendered the name less
majestic, for it came to imply limited sway over one
realm among many, and subjection to a supreme
suzerain. Its devaluation, once again, was reflected in
the fact that many a ruler assumed, in addition to
malik, other and more pretentious designations.
Several Buyid heads of state (e.g. Djalal al-Dawla,
Baha 3 al-Dawla) and Ayyubid ones (e.g. al- c Adil)
adopted the epithet malik al-muluk, modelled on the
Persian shahanshah', while others called themselves
sultan [q.v.], a title superior to malik as it conveyed a
sense of independent sovereignty. The Mamluks, in a
similar manner, combined these last two names, iden¬
tifying themselves as al-malik al-sultdn, while calling
high-ranking governors in the Egyptian and Syrian
provinces malik al-umard 5 i.e. chief amir . In one in¬
stance in the Mamluk state the term was employed in
the feminine, as the regnal designation of Shadjar al-
Durr [q.v. ) (d. 655/1257), who entitled herself malikat
al-muslimin. Another occurrence of the name in the
feminine was in India, where malik was not other¬
wise in use; the queen Radiyya [q.v. ] of Dihli
(634-7/1236-40), the only female ruler in Muslim In¬
dia, adopted it in lieu of the title sultan carried by the
male members of the dynasty.

The depreciation of the title was apparently the
main reason for its disappearance in later times. The
Ottoman Sultans did not commonly use it. By the
time when they were in power, the name retained but
little of its former glory.

In the 20th century, malik has appeared again in the
Muslim countries, carrying a new sense of grandeur.
Following more than a century of contacts with Euro¬
pean monarchies, the idea of kingship acquired new
respect in the Islamic countries, and malik lost
whatever was left of its uncomplimentary associations.
Its reappearance was, thus, not a revitalisation of the
old title but rather a caique of “king” or “roi” in the

262

MALIK — MALIK b. ANAS

modern European sense. The first to use malik in this
novel sense was the Hashimite Husayn, the sharif of
Mecca, who in 1916 declared himself “King of the
Arab countries’’; after some international discussion,
he was recognised by Britain and France as “King
(malik) of the Hidjaz”. The Hashimite kingdom of the
Hidjaz existed until 1925, when it was conquered by
the Sa c udl c Abd al- c Az!z Ibn Sa c ud, the Sultan of
Nadjd. In 1926 the latter declared himself “Sultan of
Nadjd and King of the Hidjaz and its Dependencies’’,
and in 1932 he merged the different units, thereby
becoming malik of the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.

The style of royal titles reached the peak of its
prestige in the Islamic countries in the 1920s, when
several kingdoms were established. In 1920 the
Hashimite King Husayn’s son, Fay$al, was declared
King of Syria; his monarchy lasted for four short
months, at the end of which he left for c Iralt, where he
became king in 1921. In the following year, the Sultan
of Egypt, Fu 3 ad I [see fiPad al-awwal], followed the
latter’s footsteps and assumed the title malik. In 1926
Aman Allah [q.v. in Suppl.], the amir of A fgh anistan,
abandoned his former title and declared himself king;
and in the same year the Imam Yahya of Yemen was
First recognised as malik in a treaty with Italy. Yemeni
rulers, more commonly known by the title Imam, were
thereafter formally acknowledged as kings in interna¬
tional documents. Muslim rulers continued to adopt
the royal epithet in later years: in Trans-Jordan in
1946 the Hashimite amir c Abd Allah took the title
“King of Trans-Jordan” (since 1948: of “the
Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan”); in 1951 the amir
Idris al-Sanus! of Cyrenaica was declared malik of the
nascent state of Libya; and in Morocco in 1957, the
Sultan Muhammad V changed his title to malik, thus
marking his intention to introduce a modern type of
government.

By that time, however, malik was no longer the
venerated and popular title it used to be in the earlier
part of the century. Anti-monarchical revolutions and
revolts swept away most kings reigning in the Islamic
countries—in Egypt in 1952; in c Irak in 1958; in
Yemen in 1962; in Libya in 1969; and in A fgh anistan
in 1973. Thus the last third of the 20th century has
witnessed, once again, a decline in the standing of the
kingly title, which has lost ground to more attractive
alternatives inspired by leftist, revolutionary trends.

Bibliography : LA, s.v.; Ibn al-Athir, Ta^rikh
al-dawla al-atabakiyya , in Recueil des historiens des
croisades, x, Paris 1876, s.v., in index; Kalkashandl,
Subh al-a c sha , v, 486-8; Goldziher, Muh. Stud. , ii,
31 ff., Eng. tr. ii, 40 ff.; A. K. S. Lambton, The
theory of kingship in Nasihat ul-muluk of Ghazali, in IQ,
i (1954), 47-55; W. Madelung, The assumption of the
title shahanshah by the Buyids and ‘the reign of the Daylam
(dawlat al-Daylam)\ in JNES, xxviii (April 1969),
84-108, (July 1969), 168-83; C. E. Bosworth, The
titulature of the early Ghaznavids , in Oriens, xv (1962),
210-33; Hasan al-Basha, al-Alkab al-islamiyya, Cairo
1957, 496-507 and passim (a fundamental work); cf.

also LAKAB, PADISHAH, SHAH. SULTAN.

(A. Ayalon)

MALIK B. ABI ’L-SAMH al-tPi (d. ca.
136/754), one of the great musicians of the
lst/7th century. According to a tradition given in the
Aghani, the famous Ishak al-Mawsill classed him
among the four finest singers, of whom two were Mec¬
cans, Ibn Muhriz and Ibn Suraydj, and two
Medinans, Ma c bad and Malik.

His father, who came from a branch of the tribe of
Tayy, died when Malik was still very young; his
mother, who came from the Kurayshite tribe of

Makhzum had to leave the mountains of the

Tayy because of famine and settled with her children
in Medina. According to the Aghani again, Malik
became fascinated by singing, and spent his days at
the door of c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr’s son Hamza,
listening to the latter’s protege, the famous singer
Ma c bad, and in whose company he spent the greater
part of his time. One day, the amir invited in the
strange young Bedouin who had stationed himself
at the door, and after a brief audition, instructed
Ma c bad to teach him music. The relations between
master and pupil were not always unequivocal.

Subsequently, Malik attached himself to Sulayman
b. C A1I al-Hashimi, who became his patron. When al-
Saffah came to power, he nominated his uncle
Sulayman as governor of the lower Tigris region. The
latter installed himself at Basra and summoned thither
his protege Malik. After a short stay, Malik decided
to return to Medina, where, after some time, he died
at over 80 years old.

Malik learnt very easily the songs which he heard;
but although he could easily remember the tunes, with
all their nuances, he found it hard to remember the
poetic texts. Ever since his first meeting with Hamza,
he showed a remarkable mastery in the exact and
tasteful reproduction of the melodies of Ma c bad,
whom he captivated when listening at the door. In
regard to the words, he confessed frankly that he could
not remember them. In accordance with the norms of
the period, Malik was not considered as a creative ar¬
tist and he himself did not consider himself as such.
His practice was to declare that he was happy to
embellish and enrich the works of others. According¬
ly, he was in some way a musical aesthete whose
whole imagination and energy were concentrated on
the refinement and embellishment of the melody and
on the beauty of its execution, rather than on the crea¬
tion of new songs. Being careful to discover an exact
expression of the facts just mentioned, he questioned
his confrere Ibn Suraydj about the qualities of the per¬
fect musician, and heard this reply: “The musician
who enriches the melody, has good wind, gives the
correct proportion to the phrases, underlines the pro¬
nunciation, respects the grammatical endings of
words, gives long notes their proper value, separates
clearly the short notes and, finally, uses correctly the
various rhythmical modes, can be considered as per¬
fect”. It is very likely that Malik embodied these
qualities of the perfect musician.

Finally, Malik remained faithful to his origins
among the people, for we read on several occasions
that he took as the basis of this compositions
folkloristic melodies which a mourning woman, a
weaver, an ass-driver, etc., sang.

Bibliography : Aghani, Cairo 1932, i, 251, 315,

v, 101-21; Ibn c Abd Rabbihi c Ikd, Cairo 1949, vi,
29-30; JA (Nov.-Dec. 1873), 497-500.

(A. Shiloah)

MALIK b. ANAS, a Muslim jurist, the Imam of
th e madhhab of the Malikls, which is named after
him [see malikiyya], and frequently called briefly the
Imam of Medina.

1. The sources for Malik’s biography.

The oldest authority of any length for Malik, Ibn
Sa c d’s account (d. 230/845 [q.v.]), which is based on
al-Wakidl (d. 207/822 [<jr.y.]) and which places him in
the sixth class of the Medinan “successors”, is lost, as
there is a hiatus in the manuscript of the work; but it
is possible to reconstruct the bulk of it from the quota¬
tions preserved, mainly in al-Tabari (iii, 2519 ff), in
the Kitab al- c Uyun (Fragm. hist. arab. , i, 297 ff.), in Ibn
Khallikan and in al-Suyup (7, 6 ff., 12 ff., 41, 46).

MALIK b. ANAS

263

From this, it is evident that the brief biographical
notes in Ibn Kutayba (d. 276/889 [q.v. ]) and the
somewhat more full ones in the Fihrist (compiled in
377/987) are based on Ibn Sa c d. The article on Malik
in al-Tabari’s (d. 310/922 [q. v .]) Dhayl al-Mudhayyal is
essentially dependent on the same source, while a few
other short references there and in his history are
based on other authorities. Al-Sam c anl (wrote ca.
550/1156 [q. v. ]) with the minimum of bare facts gives
only the legendary version of an otherwise quite well
established incident, while in Ibn Khallikan (d.
681/1282 and particularly in al-Nawawi (d.

676/1277 [q. y.]), the legendary features are more pro¬
nounced, although isolated facts of importance are
also preserved by them. Al-SuyutI (d. 911/1505 [g.o.])
gives a detailed compilation drawn from Ibn Sa c d and
other works, most of which are now no longer accessi¬
ble but are for the most part of later date and
unreliable, like the Musnad Hadlth al-Muwatta 5 of al-
GhafikT. the Hilya of Abu Nu c aym, the Kitdb al-
Muttajak wa ’l-mukhtalaj of al-Khatlb al-BaghdadT, the
Kitdb Tartfb al-maddrik of al-Kadi c Iyad and the Fada?il
Malik of Abu ’1-Hasan Fihr. The bulk of the later
Manakib for example that of al-ZawawI, are of

no independent value.

2. Malik’s life.

Malik’s full name was Abu c Abd Allah Malik b.
Anas b. Malik b. AbT c Amir b. c Amr b.-al-Harith b.
Ghavman b. Khuthavn b. c Amr b. al-Harith al-
Asbahl; he belonged to the Humayr, who are included
in the Banu Taym b. Murra (Taym Kuraysh).

The date of his birth is not known; the dates given,
varying between 90 and 97/708-16, are hypotheses,
which are presumably approximately correct. As early
as Ibn Sa c d we find the statement that he spent three
years in his mother’s womb (over two, according to
Ibn Kutayba, 290), a legend, the origin of which in a
wrong interpretation of an alleged statement by Malik
on the possible duration of pregnancy, is still evident
in the text of Ibn Sa c d. According to a tradition pre¬
served by al-Tirmidhl, Muhammad himself is said to
have foretold his coming as well as that of Abu Hamfa
and al-Shafi c I. His grandfather and his uncle on the
father’s side are mentioned by al-Sam c am as tradi-
tionists, so that there is nothing remarkable in his also
being a student. According to the Kitdb al-Aghani, he
is said to have first wanted to become a singer, and
only exchanged his career for the study of jikh on his
mother’s advice on account of his ugliness (cf.
Goldziher, Muh. Studien, ii, 79, n. 2); but such anec¬
dotes are little more than evidence that someone did
not particularly admire him. Very little reliable infor¬
mation is known about his studies, but the story that
he studied jikh with the celebrated Rab^a b. Farrukh
(d. 132 or 133 or 143/749-60), who cultivated ra ^y in
Medina, whence he is called Rab^at al-Ra 3 y, can
hardly be an invention, although it is only found in
somewhat late sources (cf. Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 80).
Later legends increase the number of his teachers to
incredible figures: 900, including 300 tabi c un are men¬
tioned. He is said to have learned kird from Nafi c b.
AbT Nu c aym. He transmitted traditions from al-
ZuhrT, Nafi c , the mawla of Ibn c Umar, Abu ’1-Zinad,
Hashim b. c Urwa, Yahya b. Sa c Id, c Abd Allah b.
Dinar, Muhammad b. al-Munkadir, Abu ’1-Zubayr
and others, but the isndds of course are not sufficient
evidence that he studied with the authorities in ques¬
tion; a list of 95 shuyukh is given by al-Suyup, 48 ff.

A fixed chronological point in his life, most of which
he spent in Medina, is his being involved in the rising
of the c Alid pretender Muhammad b. c Abd Allah in
145/762 (on the other hand, the story of Malik’s alleg¬

ed dealings with Ibn Hurmuz in the same year gives
the impression of being quite apocryphal). As early as
144/761, the caliph al-Mansur sent to the Hasanids of
Mecca through him a demand that the two brothers
Muhammad and Ibrahim b. c Abd Allah, suspected of
being pretenders to the supreme power, should be
handed over to him; this shows that he must have
already attained a position of general esteem and one
at least not openly hostile to the government; he was
even rewarded out of the proceeds of the confiscated
property of the captured c Abd Allah, father of the two
brothers above named. This mission met with no suc¬
cess. When Muhammad in 145/762 by a coup made
himself master of Medina, Malik declared in a jatwd
that the homage paid to al-Man?ur was not binding
because it was given under compulsion, whereupon
many who would otherwise have held back joined
Muhammad. Malik took no active part in the rising
but stayed at home. On the failure of the rebellion
(147/763), he was punished by flogging by Dja c far b.
Sulayman, the governor of Medina, when he suffered
a dislocation of the shoulder, but this is said to have
still further increased his prestige and there is no
reason to doubt that the stories of Abu Hanlfa’s ill-
treatment in prison are based on this episode in the
life of Malik. He must have later made his peace with
the government; in 160/777 the caliph al-Mahdl con¬
sulted him on structural alterations in the Meccan
sanctuary, and in the year of his death (179/796) the
caliph al-Rashld visited him on the occasion of his
pilgrimage. While this fact may be considered certain,
the details in the Kitdb al- c Uyun are already somewhat
legendary and in al-Suyuti, following Abu Nu c aym,
quite fantastic. The story of al-Man$ur found as early
as Ibn Sa c d, in a parallel riwdya in al-Tabari from al-
Mahdl, is quite fictitious, and is given again with fan¬
tastic detail in al-Suyuti (from Abu Nu c aym) from al-
Rashid, that the caliph wanted to make the Muwatta 5
canonical and only abandoned his intention at the
representations of Malik.

Malik died, at the age of about 85 after a short ill¬
ness, in the year 179/796 in Medina and was buried
in al-Baki*. c Abd Allah b. Zaynab, the governor
there, conducted his funeral service. An elegy on him
by Dja c far b. Ahmad al-Sarradj is given in Ibn
Khallikan. Pictures of the fcubba over his grave are
given in al-Batanuni, al-Rihla al-Hidjciziyyd 1 , opposite
p. 256, and in Ibrahim Rif c at Pasha, Mir^dt al-
Haramayn, i, opposite p. 426.

As early as Ibn Sa c d (certainly going back to al-
Wakidl), we have fairly full description of Malik’s
personal appearance, his habits and manner of life,
which cannot however claim to be authentic, nor can
the sayings attributed to him, which became more and
more numerous as time went on. The few certain facts
about him have been buried under a mass of legends;
the most important facts have already been noted and
the others will be found in al-Suyuti and al-Zawawi.

On the transmitters of his Muwatta 1 * and the earliest
members of his madhhab, see malikiyya. Here we will
only mention the most important scholars who hand¬
ed down traditions from him. These were c Abd Allah
b. al-Mubarak, al-Awza c i, Ibn Djuravdj. Hammad b.
Zayd, al-Layth b. Sa c d, Ibn Salama, al-Shafi c I.
Shu c ba. al-Thawri, Ibn c Ulayya, Ibn c Uyayma,
Yazid b. c Abd Allah and his shaykhs al-Zuhri and
Yahya b. Sa c Id; al-Suyuti, (18 ff.) gives a long list of
transmitters, but most of them are not corroborated.
We may just mention the apocryphal story of Malik’s
meeting with the young al-Shafi C I ( Fragm . hist, ar., i,
359; Wiistenfeld, in Abh. Gott. AW [1890], 34, and
[1891], 1 ff.), which is simply an expression of the

264

MALIK b. ANAS

view that was held of the relation between the two
Imams.

3. Malik’s writings. Further sources for
his teachings.

A. Malik’s great work is the Kitdb al-Muwatta*
which, if we except the Corpus juris of Zayd b. C A1T, is
the earliest surviving Muslim law-book. Its object is to
give a survey of law and justice; ritual and practice of
religion according to the idjma c of Islam in Medina,
according to the sunna usual in Medina; and to create
a theoretical standard for matters which were not
settled from the point of view of idjma c and sunna. In
a period of recognition and appreciation of the canon
law under the early c Abbasids, there was a practical
interest in pointing out a “smoothed path’’ (this is
practically what al-muwatta* means) through the far-
reaching differences of opinion even on the most
elementary questions. Malik wished to help this in¬
terest on the basis of the practice in the Hidjaz, and
to codify and systematise the customary law of
Medina. Tradition, which he interprets from the
point of view of practice, is with him not an end but
a means; the older jurists are therefore hardly ever
quoted except as authorities for Malik himself. As he
was only concerned with the documentation of the
sunna and not with criticism of its form, he is ex¬
ceedingly careless as far as order is concerned in his
treatment of traditions. The Muwatta* thus represents
the transition from the simple fikk of the earliest
period to the pure science of hadith of the later period.

Malik was not alone among his contemporaries in
the composition of the Muwatta*; al-Madjashun (d.
164/781) is said to have dealt with the consensus of the
scholars of Medina without quoting the pertinent
traditions, and works quite in the style of the Muwatta*
are recorded by several Medinan scholars of the same
time (cf. Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 219 ff.) but nothing of
them has survived for us. The success of the Muwatta*
is due to the fact that it always takes an average view
on disputed points (see below, section 4).

In transmitting the Muwatta*, Malik did not make
a definitive text, either oral or by munawala, to be
disseminated; on the contrary, the different riwayas
(recensions) of his work differ in places very much (cf.
Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 222). The reason for this,
besides the fact that in those days every little stress was
laid on accurate literal repetition of such texts and
great liberty was taken by the transmitters (cf.
Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 221), lies probably in the fact
that Malik did not always give exactly the same form
to his orally-delivered teachings. But the name
Muwatta*, which certainly goes back to Malik himself,
and is found in all recensions, is a guarantee that
Malik wanted to create a “work” in the later sense of
the term, although of course the stories which make
Malik talk of his writings reflect the conditions of a
later period. In later times, the MuwaUa* was regarded
by many as canonical (cf. Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 213,
265 ff.; al-Suyufl, 47) and numerous legends deal
with its origin (al-Suyup, 42 ff.).

Fifteen recensions in all of the MuwaUa* are known,
only two of which were to survive in their entirety,
while some Five were studied in the 3rd-4th/9th-l0th
centuries in Spain (Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 222, nn. 2
and 4) and twelve were still available to al-Rudan! (d.
1094/1693) (Heffening, Fremdenrecht, 144, n. 1):

a. the vulgate of the work transmitted by Yahya b.
Yahya al-Ma§mudT (d. 234/848-9), often printed e.g.
Delhi 1216, 1296 (without isndds and with Hindustani
translation and commentary), 1307, 1308, Cairo
1279-80 (with the commentary of Muhammad b.
c Abd al-Baki al-Zurkanl, d. 1122/1710), Lahore 1889,

Tunis 1280; numerous commentaries, editions and
synopses; cf. Brockelmann, I, 176, S I, 297-9;
Ahlwardt, Katalog Berlin, 1145; Muhammad c Abd al-
Hayy al-Lakhnaw! (Introduction to the edition of the
recension b), Lucknow 1297, 21 ff.; al-Suyutl, 3
passim (work of al-Ghafikl), 57 (on Ibn c Abd al-Barr)
and 58 (chief passage); Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 230, n.
2; Schacht, in Abh. Preuss. Ak. (1928), no. 2 c; and al~
Suyup, Is c af al-mubaffa* bi-ridjal al-Muwatta*, Delhi
1320, and Muhammad b. T^hir al-Patnl, Madjma c
bihdr al-anwdr, Lucknow 1283.

b. the recension of Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-
Shaybanl (d. 189/805) which is also an edition and
critical development of Malik’s work, as al-Shavban!
at the end of most chapters gives his own views and
that of Abu Hanlfa on the questions discussed, some¬
times with very full reasonings; often printed, e.g.
Lahore 1211-13 (with Hindustani translation and
notes), Ludhiana 1291, 1292, 1293, Lucknow 1297
(with introduction and commentary by Muhammad
c Abd al-Hayy al-Lakhnawi), Kazan 1910 (with the
same); several commentaries; cf. Brockelmann, op.
cit.-, Schacht, op. cit., nos. 2, 2 a, 2b; and the works
quoted under a.

On the relation of these riwayas to one another, cf.
Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 223 ff.

c. The quotations from the recension of c Abd Allah
b. Wahb (d. 197/813) which are preserved in the two
fragments of al-Tabari’s Kitdb Ikhtilaf alfukahd* (ed.
Kern, Cairo 1902, and Schacht, op. cit., no. 22) are
fairly comprehensive; this riwdya follows that of Yahya
b. Yahya quite closely.

The other recensions of the Muwatta* are given by
al-Lakhnawi, op. cit., 18 ff.; further lists of transmit¬
ters of the Muwatta* are given in al-Suyutl, 48, 51, and
in al-NawawI.

B. Whether Malik composed other works besides
the Muwatta * is doubtful (the statements in the Fihrist,

199,9, which speak of a number of works by Malik
are quite vague and uncertain). The books ascribed to
him fall into two groups: legal and otherwise. Among
the legal ones we read of a Kitdb al-Sunan or al-Sunna
(Fihrist, 199, 11. 9, 16) transmitted by Ibn Wahb or
by c Abd Allah b. c Abd al-Hakam al-Mi§rI, a Kitdb
al-Mandsik (al-Suyutl, 40), a Kitdb al-Mudjalasat,
transmitted by Ibn Wahb (ibid.), a Risala fi ’l-akjiya,
transmitted by c Abd Allah b. c Abd al-Djalfl (ibid., 41)
and a Risala fi ’l-fatwd, transmitted by Khalld b. Naz-
zar and Muhammad b. Mutarrif (ibid. ). The genuine¬
ness of all these is, however, uncertain, and even if
they go back to Malik’s immediate pupils (sometimes
they are actually attributed to the latter; cf. al-
Lakhnawl, op. cit., 19), Malik’s own share in them
would be still uncertain. A work (Gotha 1143) said to
have been transmitted by c Abd Allah b. c Abd al-
Hakam al-Misri and heard by him along with Ibn
Wahb and Ibn al-Kasim is certainly apocryphal and
does not pretend moreover to give any utterances of
Malik himself.

Of other titles, there are mentioned a Tafsir, a
Risala fi ’l-kadar wa ’l-radd c ala ’l-kadariyya, a Kitdb al-
Nudjum and a Kitdb al-Sirr (al-Suyutl, 40 ff.), which
are in the usual style of the apocryphal literature. The
suspicion of falsity is also strong in the case of the
Risala containing advice to the caliph al-Rashld, men¬
tioned as early as the Fihrist alongside of the Muwatta*
(printed Eulak 1311; cf. Brockelmann, op. cit.) which
looks like a Malik! counterpart of the Kitdb al-Kharadi
of Abu Yusuf: even al-Suyutl (41) doubted its genu¬
ineness, although for reasons which are not convinc¬
ing to us.

C. There are two other main sources for Malik’s

MALIK b. ANAS — MALIK b. c AWF

265

teaching (setting aside the later accounts of the doc¬
trine of the Malik! madhhab ):

The more important is the al-Mudawwana al-kubra of
Sahnun (d. 240/854 [q.v. ]) which contains replies by
Ibn Kasim (d. 191/807) according to the school of
Malik, or according to his own ra^y, to questions of
Sahnun as well as traditions and opinions of Ibn
Wahb (d. 197/813) (cf. Brockelmann, op. cit., 177;
Heffening, op. cit., 144; Krenkow, in EI l art.
sahnun).

Al-Tabari, who in his Kitab Ikhtilaj al-jukaha? has
preserved fragments of the Muwatta 5 recension of Ibn
Wahb (cf. above), also quotes frequently traditions
and opinions of Malik in his commentary on the
Kurian on the “legal” verses.

4. Malik’s position in the history of jikh.

Malik represents, in time, a stage in the develop¬
ment of jikh in which the reasoning is not yet thorough
and fundamental but only occasional and for a special
purpose, in which the legal thought of Islam has not
yet become jurisprudence; and, in place, the custom
of the town of Medina where the decisive foundations
of Muslim law were laid down. One of the main ob¬
jects in the juristic thought that appears in the
Muwatta 5 is the permeation of the whole legal life by
religious and moral ideas. This characteristic of the
formation of legal ideas in early Islam is very clear,
not only in the method of putting questions but in
the structure of the legal material itself. The legal
material, having in itself no connection with religion,
that has to be permeated by religious and moral points
of view, is the customary law of Medina, by no means
primitive but adapted to the demands of a highly
developed trading community, which for us is the
principal representative of old Arabian customary
law: it appears in Malik sometimes as sunna “use and
wont”; sometimes it is concealed under the Medina
idjma c , which he ascertains with great care. Broadly
speaking, this only means that objections on religious
grounds have not been raised by anyone against
a principle, etc., of customary law. The older
jurisprudence had another main object: the formation
of a system which sets out from principles of a more
general character, which aims at the formation of legal
conceptions in contrast to the prevailing casuistry and
is to some extent rounded off in a codification, if still
a loose one, of the whole legal material.

While the Islamisation of the law had been already
concluded in its essential principles before Malik,
many generations had still to work at its systematisa¬
tion; therefore, Malik’s own legal achievement can
only have consisted in the development of the forma¬
tion of a system. How great his share in it was cannot
be ascertained with certainty from the lack of material
for comparison. The surprising success achieved by
the Muwaffa\ out of a number of similar works, would
in any case be completely explained by the fact that it
recorded the usual consensus of opinion in Medina
without any considerable work of the
author’s own and came to be regarded as
authoritative as the expression of compromise (just as
the works on Tradition came to be regarded as
canonical). The Muwatta 3 would in this case have to be
regarded less as evidence of Malik’s individual activi¬
ty than as evidence of the stage reached in the general
development of law in his time. It may be said that
this average character was just what Malik aimed at
(cf. above, section 3, A).

The high estimation in which Malik is held in the
older sources is justified by his strict criticism of
hadiths and not by his activity in the interests of jikh
(al-Tabari, iii, 2484, 2492; al-Sam c anI; al-Nawawf;

Goldziher, op. cit., ii, 147, 168; idem, Zahiriten, 230);
even this only means that with his hadiths he kept with¬
in the later consensus. That al-Shafi c i devoted special
attention to him out of all the Medinan scholars (cf.
his Kitab IkhtilajMalik wa ’l-Shaji c i) is explained by the
fact that he was a disciple of his.

As to the style of legal reasoning found in the
Muwattahadith is not by any means the highest or the
only court of appeal for Malik; on the one hand, he
gives the Q amal, the actual undoubted practice in
Medina, the preference over traditions, when these
differ (cf. al-Tabari, iii, 2505 ff), and on the other
hand, in cases where neither Medinan tradition nor
Medinan idjmd c existed, he laid down the law in¬
dependently. In other words, he exercises ra^y, and to
such an extent that he is occasionally reproached with
ta c arruk, agreement with the c Irak!s (cf. Goldziher,
Muh. Studien, ii, 217; idem, Zahiriten, 4 ff., 20, n. 1).
According to a later anti-ra^ legend, he is said to have
repented of it on his deathbed (Ibn Khallikan). It is
scarcely to be supposed that he had diverged seriously
from his Medinan contemporaries in the results of his
ra*y.

5. Malik’s pupils.

In the strict sense, Malik no more formed a school
than did Abu Hanifa; evidence of this is found in the
oldest names Ahl al-Hidjaz and A hi al- c Irak , etc. com¬
pared for example with Ashdb al-Shdji c f These names
at once indicate the probable origin of the Malik!
madhhab ; after a regular §hafi c i school had been form¬
ed, which in view of al-Shafi c !’s personal achieve¬
ment, is quite intelligible in the development of jikh
(cf. Bergstrasser, op. cit., 76, 80 ff.), it became neces¬
sary for the two older schools of jikh, whose difference
was probably originally the result of geographical con¬
ditions in the main, also to combine to form a regular
school, when a typical representative of the average
views like Malik or Abu Hanifa was regarded as head.
In the case of Malik, the high personal esteem, which
he must have enjoyed even in his lifetime (see above,
section 2) no doubt contributed to this also. But it is
to his pupils that his elevation to the head of a school
is mainly due. Traces of this process are still to be
found in the varying classification of old jurists as of
the Hidjaz school or as independent mudjtahids (cf.
also Fihrist, 199, 1.22).

On the Malik! law school, see malikiyya.

Bibliography : On Malik’s life: Ibn Kutayba,
Kitab al-Ma c arij, ed. Wustenfeld, 250, 290; Tabari,
Annales, index; Kitab al-Fihrist, ed. Fliigel, 198;
Sam c ani, Kitab al-Ansdb, GMS, xx, fol. 41a; Ibn
Khallikan. ed. Wustenfeld, no. 500; Nawaw!, ed.
Wustenfeld, 530; De Goeje, Fragmenta historicorum
arabicorum, index; al-Suyup, Tazyin al-mamalik, in
Ibn al-Kasim, al-Mudawwana, i, Cairo 1324; c Isa b.
Mas c ud al-Zawawi, Mandkib sayyidna al-lmdm
Malik, Cairo 1324; the further mandkib and Malik!
tabakdt literature; a modern list by Muhammad
c Abd al-Hayy al-Lakhnawi in the introduction to
his edition of the Muwatta 5 of al-Shavban! [q.v. j.

On Malik’s writings: Brockelmann, I, 175, S
I, 297-9; Sezgin, GAS, i, 457-84; Goldziher,
Muhammedanische Studien, ii, 213 ff. (Fr. tr. L. Ber-
cher, 269 ff.; Eng. tr. S. M. Stern and C. M.
Barber, ii, 198 ff.); al-Lakhnaw!, op. cit.

On Malik’s position in the history of jikh:
Bergstrasser, in Isl., xiv, 76 ff.; Goldziher, op. cit.

(J. Schacht)

MALIK b. C AWF b. Sa c d b. Rabi c a al-Nasr!,
Bedouin chief and contemporary of Muhammad,
who belonged to the clan of the Banu Nasr b.
Mu c awiya of the powerful Kays! tribe of the

266

MALIK b. C AWF — MALIK b. DINAR

Hawazin, whom he commanded at the battle of Hu-
nayn [q.v. ] against the Muslims; it is mainly through
this role that he has achieved a place in history.

We know little about his early history, but one may
assume that he early found opportunities to display his
personal bravery. He was still amrad, beardless, that
is, barely out of his first years of adolescence (AghanP ,
xix, 81) when he commanded a detachment of the
Hawazin in the Fidjar [q.v. ] war.

This distinction he perhaps also owed to the con¬
sideration which his clan, the Banu Nasr b.
Mu c awiya, enjoyed among the Banu Hawazin. Allies
of the tribe of Thakif (AghanI, xii, 46), the Banu Na$r
found themselves in the same position with regard to
the latter and the town of Ta-’if as the Ahablsh with
respect to the Kuraysh and Mecca. They supplied
mercenaries to Ta^if and were given the task of defen¬
ding the town and protecting against the depredations
of marauders the fine gardens that covered the
Thakafi territory. Their relations were, as a rule,
peaceful and friendly, but occasionally it happened
that the anarchical instincts of the Bedouins, gaining
the upper hand, drove them to encroach on the do¬
main of their allies, the citizens of Tir’if. This situa¬
tion enables us to understand how in the struggle that
was about to develop against Islam, the Thakif were
ready to march under the banner of a Bedouin com¬
mander.

In 8/629, Muhammad, at the head of a strong
force, was preparing to attack Mecca. This news
disturbed the people who lived on the hills of the
Sarat. They asked themselves, if, once master of Mec¬
ca, the Prophet would not be tempted to invade their
country. It was then that Malik b. c Awf succeeded in
combining for their joint defence the majority of the
Kays! tribes settled on the frontiers of Nadjd and of
the Hidjaz. The Thakafis joined their forces to those
of their Hawazin allies. The only result was the defeat
at Hunayn [?.&.]. The commander-in-chief Malik had
had the unfortunate idea of bringing the women,
children and flocks along with the actual combatants.
The whole of this enormous booty fell into the hands
of the Muslims.

The defeated side did not distinguish themselves by
bravery on the battlefield; the tradition of the Banu
Hawazin attempts the impossible when it endeavours
to hide this failure and save Malik’s reputation. After
the debacle, he is said to have bravely sacrificed
himself to cover the retreat of his comrades-in-arms.
This same tradition attributes to him a series of
poetical improvisations on this occasion, in which,
after the fashion of the old Bedouin paladins, he ex¬
plains and excuses his flight.

Malik tried to make a stand at Liyya, a few hours
south of Ta 5 if where he had a htifn. What was a husn ?
In Medina at the time of the hidjra, the name was
given to an enclosure commanded by an utum or
tower. Malik’s had probably only brick walls like the
little stronghold in Yemen described by al-MukaddasI
(Ahsan al-takdstm , 84). A century ago, the traveller
Maurice Tamisier ( Voyage en Arabie, Paris 1840, ii, 6)
passing through Liyya saw there “une forteresse flan-
quee de tours” intended as in earlier times, to guard
the road. Muhammad easily destroyed Malik’s fort,
and when the latter learned of the approach of the
Muslims, he tought it prudent to seek refuge behind
the ramparts of 'Ja-’if.

In the interval, all the booty taken by the Muslims
at Hunayn had been collected in the camp at
Dji c rana, including Malik’s family and flocks. To the
Hawazin deputies sent to negotiate the ransom of the
prisoners, Muhammad said: “If Malik comes to em¬

brace Islam, I shall return him his family and proper¬
ty with the addition of a gift of a hundred camels”.
Whatever the decision adopted by Malik, this declara¬
tion could not fail to compromise him with the
Thakafis. He rightly recognised that his position in
Ta 5 if had become untenable. He succeeded in escap¬
ing from the town and presented his submission to
Muhammad, who fulfilled his promise to the letter.
Malik then pronounced the Muslim confession of
faith and, to use the traditional formula, ‘‘his Islam
was of good quality”.

The new proselyte had extensive connections and
was remarkably well acquainted with the Thakafi
region. The Prophet was glad to use him against
Ta 3 if, which he had been unable to take by force. He
put Malik at the head of the Kaysl tribes who had
adopted Islam. Malik therefore organised a guerilla
war against his old allies in Thakif. No caravan could
leave Ta 5 if without being intercepted by Malik’s men.
Exhausted by this unceasing struggle, the Thakafis
decided to sue for terms. Malik then became the
representative of the Prophet among the Banu
Hawazin, and the caliph Abu Bakr later confirmed
him in the office. He took part in the wars of con¬
quest, and was at the taking of Damascus and the vic¬
tory of al-Kadisiyya in c Irak.

Bibliography : Ibn Hisham, Sira, ed.

Wustenfeld, 840, 852, 854, 867, 872, 879; Ibn
Kutayba, Ma c drif, 315; Ibn al-Kalbl-Caskel,
Dja mhara . Tab. 115; Naka^td Diartr wa ’ l-Farazdak ,
ed. Bevan 495; Yakut, s.v. Liyya; Ibn Sa c d.
Tabakdt, ed. Sachau, vi, 17; Nawawl, Tahdhtb al-
asmd\ ed. Wustenfeld, 539; AghanP, viii, 160, xvi,
141, xix, 81; Ibn al-Athlr, Usd al-ghdba, iv, 289-90;
Caetani, Annali, ii, 119, 152, 162 ffl, 189, 359,
559; H. Lammens, La cite arabe de Ta^if a la veille de
Uhegire, in MFOB, viii/4 (1922), 61, 63, 65, 74-5.

(H. Lammens)

MALIK b DINAR al-SamI, Abu yahya,
preacher and moralist of Ba$ra, who copied
the Holy Book for a living and who was interested, it
seems, in the question of the Kur’anic readings (Ibn
al-Djazarl. Tabakdt al-kurra 3 , ii, 36).

He was the mawla of a woman of the Banu Sama b.
Lu 3 ayy, to whom he owed his nisba, and had the occa¬
sion to follow more or less regularly the teaching of
Ba$ran traditionists and mystics as famous as Anas b.
Malik, Ibn Sirin, al-Hasan al-Basrl and Rabl*a
al- c Adawiyya q.vv.]. He was considered to have led
an ascetic life himself, and posterity went so far as to
attribute to him thaumaturgic gifts. In reality, he
seems to have been above all a most eloquent kass
[qv.\, who nevertheless admired the eloquence of al-
Hadjdjadj [q.v. ] whom he naturally could see at Basra.
According to Ibn al-Faklh, Bulddn, 190, tr. Masse,
231, he brought honour to his native town because he
was accounted one of the six Ba§rans who were with¬
out equals at Kufa. Abu Nu c aym, Hilyat al-awliya ii,
357-89, and Ibn al-DjawzI, Sifat al-safwa, Haydarabad
1356, iii, 197-209, reproduce a host of sayings at¬
tributed to Malik b. Dinar whose authenticity is
nevertheless very doubtful; the idea of djihad within
oneself is even traced back to him (djjdhidu ahwadakum
kama tudjahidun a c da :> akum ‘‘fight against your desires
just as you fight against your enemies”; al-Mubarrad,
Kamil, ed. ZakI Mubarak, Cairo 1355/1936, i, 180, ii,
520; Abu Nu c aym, op. cit., ii, 363). It is not impos¬
sible, as Abu Nu c aym suggests (ii, 358, 359, 369, 370,
382, 386), that he was strongly influenced by the
Christian scriptures. His moralistic tendency is seen
in a fairly numerous collection of pieces of advice for
behaviour, as well as in the reproaches which he

267

MALIK b. DINAR — MALIK b. NUWAYRA

launched at Bashshar b. Burd [q.v.], who was accused
of bringing dishonour on the Basrans and inciting the
population to debauchery (AghanP , iii, 41, vi, 49).

He died just before the epidemic of plague which
caused considerable ravages in Basra in 131/748-9;
the Fihrist, ed. Cairo 10, places his death in 130/747-8,
and Ibn al- c Imad, Shadharat, i, 173, places it in
127/744-5.

Bibliography : In addition to sources given in
the article, see Djahiz, Bayan, index; Ibn Kutayba,
Ma c arif 470, 577; Ibn Sa c d, Tabakat, vii/2, 11;
Tabari, iii, 281; Abu T c Arab, Tabakat c ulama 5
Ifnkiya, ed. and tr. M. Ben Cheneb, Algiers
1915-20, 17; MakkI, Kut al-kulub, iv, 187; Nawawl,
Tahdhlb , 537; Pellat, Milieu, 99-100, 257.

(Ch. Pellat)

MALIK b. MISMA C [see masami c a].

MALIK b. NUWAYRA b. Djamra b. Shaddad b.
c Ubayd b. Tha c laba b. Yarbu c , Abu ’l-Mighwar.
brother of the poet Mutammim [q.v.] and a poet in his
own right, considered as the chief of the B. Yarbu c
during Muhammad’s lifetime. The B. Yarbu c was
one of the most powerful tribes of the Tamlm con¬
federacy, and was involved in many of the battles
(ayyam al- c arab [q.v. ] in the Djahiliyya. The office of
ridafa —a kind of viceroyship in the court of al-HTra—
was traditionally held by members of Yarbu c , among
whom was Malik b. Nuwayra (there is, however, an
account according to which he was offered the ridafa,
but rejected it. See DjarTr, Dlwan, 261-2). Malik’s
clan, the B. Tha c laba b. Yarbu c , was incorporated in¬
to the body-politic of Mecca in the Djahiliyya,
through the organisation of the hums (see M. J. Kister,
Mecca and Tamlm, in JESHO, iii/2 [1965], 139, 146).

Malik is usually portrayed as a noble, ambitious
and brave warrior, a hero of whom the Yarbu c ! poet
DjarTr boasts, referring to him as “the knight (farts) of
Dhu ’1-Khimar” (heroes often being called after their
horses). The saying “a man but not like Malik” ( fata
wa-la ka-Malik ) is taken to reflect his bravery. Not¬
withstanding all these descriptions, concrete details of
his heroic exploits are sparse if not altogether lacking,
and in the abundant and detailed material concerning
the ayyam of Yarbu c he is hardly mentioned at all. The
few verses attributed to him concerning certain battles
do not necessarily indicate that he participated in
them (see e.g. Yakut, Bulddn, s.v. Mukhattat). There
is, however, an incident in which it is implied that
Malik held a senior position in his clan: during a con¬
flict between groups of Tamlm, peace was proposed to
the B. Hanzala (the larger tribal group which includes
the B. Yarbu c ), and all its leaders accepted except for
Malik. Nevertheless, he had to comply with the deci¬
sion of the others (NakaHd, ed. Be van, i, 258-9, al-
Maydani, Madfma c al-amthal, Beirut 1962, ii, 525, al-
Alusi, Bulugh al-arab, ii, 75). It seems, then, that
Malik’s fame as a chief and warrior in the Djahiliyya
has no solid basis in actual accounts of his glorious ex¬
ploits. Indeed, even the saying “a man but not like
Malik’’ seems originally to refer to his reliability
rather than his valour (see Abu Hatim al-Sidjistani,
alyMu c ammarun wa ’l-was ay a, ed. c Abd al-Mun c im
c Amir, 1961, 15). It is rather his brother’s descrip¬
tions of him which have earned him his fame. Mutam¬
mim, who lamented bitterly Malik’s death, glorified
him in elegies which have come to be counted among
the most famous of their kind in Arabic literature.

Not much is known about Malik’s attitude towards
Islam during the lifetime of the Prophet. There is a
dubious tradition which records that when the sage
Aktham b. $ayf! [q.v. ] recommended to Tamlm that
they should adopt Islam, Malik objected. However,

he is said to have been appointed by Muhammad as
tax-collector (in the year 9 or 11 A.H.). His respon¬
sibilities are said to have included the tribe of Yarbu c
or the larger group of Hanzala. Both versions seem to
be exaggerations caused by the careless way in which
tradition uses tribal names. It is safer to accept Abu
Rayyash’s statement, that Malik was appointed over
his own clan only, namely, the B. Tha c laba b. Yarbu 5
(see Abu Tammam, Hamdsa, ed. Freytag, i, 370, al-
Baghdadi, Khizana. ed. c Abd al-Salam Harun, ii, 24).

In contrast to the sparsity of information about
Malik’s life, there is an abundance of details concern¬
ing the circumstances of his death. This is due to the
fact that his execution during the ridda wars, apparent¬
ly by order of Khalid b. al-Walid, aroused a fierce
dispute among the Muslims. Some claimed that
Malik was an apostate ( murtadd) and therefore de¬
served his fate, while others maintained that he was a
Muslim, and that Khalid had him murdered because
he coveted his wife. The affair was used in political
conflicts, as Khalid’s enemies, both from among the
Kuraysh and the Ansar, used it against him, while the
Sh^a accused Abu Bakr of having ordered Malik’s ex¬
ecution for his alleged support of C A1I (see al-Madjlisi,
Bihar al-anwar, [Tehran 1301-15], viii, 267; Ibn Abi
THadid, Sharh Nahdi al-balagha, Cairo 1963, xvii,
202). Also reflected in this affair is the juridical and
theological debate concerning the conditions required
from a man in order to be considered a Muslim (see
e.g. al-Haytharm, Madfma c al-zawa\d wa-manba c al-
fawdHd, Cairo 1352-3, vii, 293-4), All details of the
traditions about Malik’s execution should be exam¬
ined in the light of these debates.

The sources are in agreement that Malik was killed
by the Muslims in the year 11 A.H. There are,
generally speaking, three different accounts of the
events.

Account (a), the most prevalent of the three,
runs as follows: Malik was the tax-collector of his peo¬
ple. Upon Muhammad’s death he did not hand over
to Medina the camels which he had collected as sadaka,
but instead gave them back to his fellow-tribesmen;
hence his nickname al-Djaful (it should however be
noted that djaful also means “one who has abundant
hair”, a trait for which Malik was known. See e.g.
Ibn Nubata, Sarh al- c uyun, Cairo 1321, 54). When
Abu Bakr learned of Malik’s deed he was furious, and
had Khalid b. al-Walid promise before God that he
would kill Malik if he could lay hands on him. As
Khalid was advancing through Nadjd, having con¬
quered some rebellious tribes, one of his detachments
came upon a group of twelve Yarbu c Is, among whom
was Malik b. Nuwayra. The YarbuTs offered no
resistance, declared that they were Muslims, and were
taken to Khalid’s camp at al-Butah (or Ba c uda) where
they were executed as rebels. Some of the captors,
chiefly the Ansar! Abu Katada, tried to prevent the
execution by arguing that the captives were in¬
violable, since they had declared themselves to be
Muslims and performed the ritual prayer. Khalid.
however, disregarded these arguments, ordered the
execution, and married Malik’s widow. When c Umar
learned of Khalid’s conduct, he pressed Abu Bakr in
vain to punish him, or at least to dismiss him. Even¬
tually, Abu Bakr openly forgave Khalid, after having
heard his version of the story.

Account (b), the unique tradition of Sayf b.
‘■Umar (preserved in the annals of al-Tabari, Ibn al-
Athlr and Ibn Kathlr, and in the Aghani). This tradi¬
tion connects Malik with the so-called false prophetess
Sadjah [q.v.]. It relates that Muhammad’s death
found the confederacy of Tamlm in a state of internal

268

MALIK b. NUWAYRA

conflict, with groups of it preparing for war against
one another. At this point, Sadjah and her army
reached Tamiml territory. Malik persuaded her to
abandon her original plan, which was to attack
Medina, and to join him against his (Tamiml)
enemies. A battle took place, in which the combined
forces of Sadjah, Malik and another chief of Hanzala
were defeated. Sadjah’s army was defeated in yet an¬
other battle, whereupon she headed for al-Yamama,
while Malik stayed behind, realising that his policy
had failed. He ordered his men to disperse and cau¬
tioned them not to offer any resistance to the Muslims
who would reach their territory, but to submit and
adopt Islam. He himself retreated to his dwelling-
place, where he was captured by the Muslims. The
details of his capture and execution closely resemble
those given above in account (a). Into these two ac¬
counts are sometimes woven traditions justifying the
conduct of Khalid b. al-Walid. For instance, it is
recorded that in a conversation held between Khalid
and Malik, the latter referred to Muhammad as
“your man” (or “your master”) instead of “our
man” (or “our master”), thus excluding himself from
the Muslim community. In a variant of this tradition,
Malik further insisted on withholding the fadaka pay¬
ment, and therefore Khalid put him to death (needless
to say, this additional detail spoils the original argu¬
ment, because if Malik withheld the sadaka, which was
the casus belli of the ridda, it was immaterial how he re¬
ferred to Muhammad in a conversation). Another
tradition claims that the captives were killed by
mistake, as Khalid’s soldiers misinterpreted his
orders, due to dialectal differences (cf. the same motif
in quite another story, in LA, s.v. h-m-r). Strangely
enough, though, traditions which openly accuse
Malik of rebellion against Islam do not mention his
co-operation with Sadjah, but only his refusal to pay
sadaka. Moreover, it is stated that this co-operation
was not tantamount to ridda (e.g. Ibn al-Athlr, Usd al-
ghaba, s.v. Malik b. Nuwayra).

Account (c), the unique tradition quoted from
Abu Rayyash (Ahmad b. Abi Hashim) (preserved in
al-Baghdadl’s Khizdna and al-Tabrlzi’s commentary
to the Hamasa). This tradition records that upon
Muhammad’s death, Malik raided the place called
Rahrahan and drove off 300 camels which had been
collected from various tribes as their sadaka payment.
When Abu Bakr learned about this, he ordered
Khalid b. al-Walid to kill Malik, should he capture
him. While advancing through Nadjd, Khalid arrived
at the plain where the clans of Yarbu c were encamped.
He encamped there as well, and they showed no fear
of him. Then he attacked the clans of Ghudana and
Tha c laba (Malik’s clan), because he did not hear the
call to prayer ( adhan ) among them. He disregarded
their protestations that they were Muslims, and not
rebels, so Malik took to arms. Only a part of his clan
followed suit, but they fought vigorously till they had
to surrender. Khalid offered Malik security ( dhimma )
in return for his acceptance of Islam, to which Malik
consented. Later, Khalid broke the agreement on the
ground that he had promised Abu Bakr to kill Malik,
and so he ordered his execution.

Obviously, the three accounts are very different
from one another, and can hardly be harmonised so
as to make one coherent story. Two additional details
should be mentioned here. Firstly, the actual execu¬
tioner of Malik, whether or not by order of Khalid b.
al-Walid, was Dirar b. al-Azwar al-Asadl, whose clan
had been in a state of war with Malik’s clan. Second¬
ly, the affair of Malik’s execution closely resembles
another affair, where Khalid. on a mission on behalf

of Muhammad to invite people to embrace Islam,
wrongfully executed members of the B. Djadhlma.
Indeed, some of the accounts of the two affairs are
practically identical. It thus seem that the truth
behind Malik’s career and death will remain buried
under a heap of conflicting traditions.

Bibliography: Sources: DiyarbakrI, Ta*nkh
al-khamis, 1302/1885, ii, 225, 232-3; Sulayman b.
Musa al-Kala c I al-BalansI, Ta*nkh al-Ridda, ed.
Kh. A. Fariq, New Delhi 1970, 10, 50-5; Ibn
Hubaysh, Kitab Dhikr al -gh azawat wa Tfutuh, ms.
Leiden, Or. 343, pp. 13, 28-30; Ibn A c tham, Futuh,
Hyderabad 1388/1968, 21-3; Ps.-Wakidi, al-Ridda,
ms. Bankipore, Cat. xv, 1042, fols. 16b-17b;
MakkI, Simt al-nudjum, Cairo 1380, ii, 351-3;
Tabari, Tadrikh , ed. Muhammad Abu ’1-Fadl
Ibrahim, iii, 147, 268-70, 276-8, 304-5; Ibn al-
Athlr, Kamil, Beirut 1385/1965, i, 598-600, 650, ii,
357-60; Ibn Kathlr, Bidaya, Cairo 1351/1932, vi,
320-3; Isfahan!, ed. al-Shankltl. Cairo n.d., xiv,
63-9; Djumahi, Tabakat al-shu^arad, ed. Hell, 48-50;
MarzubanI, Mu^dpzm al-shu^ara*, ed. Krenkow,
360-1; Ibn Kutayba, Shi c r, Cairo 1350/1932,
119-122; Bakrl, Mu c djam ma ’sta c djam, s.vv. Ba c uda,
al-Butah, al-Mala, al-Dakadik, and index; Yakut,
s.vv. Ba c uda, al-Butah, and index; Ibn Khallikan,
Wajaydt al-a'-yan, tr. De Slane, iii, 648-56; Ibn Abi
’l-Hadld, Shark Nahdj_ al-balagha, Cairo 1963, xvii,
202-7, 212-14; Madjlisi, Bihar al-anwdr, viii, 264-7;
Ibn Hadjar, Isdba, s.vv. Malik b. Nuwayra, Mutam-
mim b. Nuwayra, Dirar b. al-Azwar, Fatik b. Zayd,
Khalid b. al-Walid, Aktham b. Sayfi; Ibn al-Athlr, Usd
al-ghaba, s.vv. Malik b. Nuwayra, Dirar b. al-Azwar,
Ibn c Abd al-Barr, Isti^ab, s.vv. Mutammim b.
Nuwayra, Khalid b. al-Walid; Mughltay b. Kilidj al-
Bakdjarl, al-Zahr al-basim fi siyar Abi ’l-Kasim, ms.
Leiden Or. 370, fol. 279b; Tibrlzl, Shark al-Hamasa ,
ed. Freytag, 370-2; MarzukI, Shark al-Hamasa,
1371/1951, 797-9; Baghdadi, Khizdna. ed. c Abd al-
Salam Harun, Cairo 1387/1967, ii, 24-8; Muham¬
mad b. Habib, Asma* al-mughtalin min al-ashraffi al-
djahiliyya wa 'l-Islam, in Ndwddir al-makhtutdt, ed.
c Abd al-Salam Harun, Cairo 1374/1954, ii, 244-5;
idem, Kuna 'l-shu c ara , in ibid., ii, 295; Mubarrad,
al-Kamil, ed. Wright, 7, 317, 612, 692, 761-3;
DhahabI, Siyar a 11 lam al-nubala*, i, Cairo 1956, 271;
idem, Tadrikh al-Isldm, Cairo 1367, i, 353-8;
Tha c alibi, Thimar al-kulub, Cairo 1384/1965, 24;
MakdisI, Bad*, ed. Huart v, 159-60; al-
Khalidiyyan, al-Ashbah wa ’ l-nazd*ir min ashlar al-
mutakaddimin wa ’l-djdhiliyya wa ’l-mukhadramin, ed.
Muhammad Yusuf, Cairo 1965, ii, 345-7; Ibn
c Asakir, Ta*nkh , Damascus 1332, iii, 105-6, 112;
KutubI, Fawat, Bulak 1299, ii, 143-4; al-Muttakl T
Hindl, Kanz al- c ummal, Hyderabad 1374/1954, v,
360-1 (no. 2309); Khalifa b. Khavvat. Ta*nkh ,
Nadjaf 1386/1967, 63, 69-70; Baladhurl. Futuh,
Cairo 1377/1957, 137; Ya c kubl, Ta*rikh , Beirut
1379/1960, ii, 76, 79, 122, 131-2; Ibn Nubata, Sarh
al- c uyun, Cairo 1321, 14-5, 54-7; Himyarl, al-Hur
al- c in, Cairo-Baghdad 1948, 130-2; Yazldl, Amali,
Hyderabad 1367/1948, 18-26.

For modern studies and resumes of Malik’s
career, see N old eke, Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Poesie
der alien Araber, Hanover 1864, 87-95, 134; Caussin
de Perceval, Essai, iii, 366-70; Ahlwardt, in Samm-
lungen alter Arabischer Dichter, i (ElagmaHjjat), 7-8, and
Ar. text, 25-6; Lyall, Translations of ancient Arabian
poetry, London 1930, 35-6; idem, tr. and notes to
Mufaddaliyyat, ii, 20, 205-6; E. Shoufani, al-Ridda
and the Muslim conquest of Arabia, Toronto 1972, in¬
dex; Wellhausen, Skizzen, vi, 12-15; Caetani, An-

MALIK b. NUWAYRA — MALIK AYAZ

269

nali, ii, 650-8 ( anno 11, §§ 175-84); W. M. Watt,
Muhammad at Medina 138-9; Ibtisam Marhun al-
Saffar, Malik wa-Mutammim ibnd Nuwayra, Ba gh dad
1968. A study by Ahmad Muhammad Shakir is
mentioned by Ahmad Amin and Harun in their
edition of the Hamasa (797, n.). This study was
published in al-Muktataf August 1945, and al-Hady
al-nahawi, Sha c ban 1364.

Verses attributed to Malik have been collected by
Noldeke, op. cit., and al-Saffar, op. cit. To these
may be added the following references: Mufad-
jaliyydt, 25, 77, 565, 720; c Ikd, v, 234-5; Naka > id,
258, 412; Ibn Hisham, iii, 260; Zam akhsh arl. al-
Musiafoa ft amthal al- c arab, Hyderabad 1381/1962,
ii, 387, Djarlr, Diwdn, 262; Abu Hilal al- c Askari,
Diwdn al-ma^dni, Cairo 1352, ii, 55.

(Ella Landau-Tasseron)
al-MALIK al C ADIL, al MALIK al KAMIL,
AL- MALIK AL- MANSUR, etc.; see for those
Ayyubid monarchs with names of this type, the sec¬
ond element of the name, i.e. al- c adil, al-kamil, al-
mansur, etc.

AL- MALIK AL- NASIR. [see salah al-din].
MALIK AL- TA>L [see MALIK B. ABI ’l-SAMH],
MALIK AHMAD BAHRI, later styled Ahmad
Nizam Shah Bahrl and regarded as the first in¬
dependent ruler of the Nizam ShahI [q.v. ]
sultanate, was the son of Malik Hasan Nizam al-
Mulk Bahrl, the converted Hindu who eventually
became a wazir of the BahmanT sultanate after the
murder of Mahmud Gawan [q. v. ] in 886/1481.

There is no reliable evidence concerning his date of
birth or his early years, but he is known to have ac¬
companied his father when the latter was appointed
governor of Telingana in 875/1471. Here his ability
and promise were so conspicuous that Mahmud
Gawan separated father and son, sending Ahmad to
Mahur [< 7 . ] as a commander of 300, where he spent
five years before becoming his father’s deputy gover¬
nor at Radjamundarl. After Malik Hasan came to
power in Bidar, when the boy king Mahmud had suc¬
ceeded to the BahmanI throne, he strengthened his
following by conferring assignments on his own men,
his son Malik Ahmad receiving Bir and Dharur and
other districts around Dawlatabad and Djunnar,
residing in the latter place and successfully suppress¬
ing Maratha oppression; later, at his father’s bidding,
he attacked the Maratha hill-forts whose chieftains
had been withholding the annual tribute, and extend¬
ed his control over the entire Konkan coast. In
891/1486 Malik Hasan was murdered and Ahmad
assumed his title of Nizam al-Mulk; he continued his
campaign of conquest against Marafha-held forts, and
soon held the entire north up to the river Godavari,
where his good administration commanded much
local respect and support. The court party, mostly of
Afakls, at Bidar was against him and his successes;
but an army sent against him was defeated near
Nikapur, later named Bagh, from the garden which
Ahmad laid out to commemorate his victory in
895/1490; a palace he built there (Bagh-i Nizam)
became his residence, and the city which grew around
it was named Ahmadnagar. He then styled himself
Ahmad Nizam Shah Bahrl, and omitted the name of
the BahmanI sultan from the khutba ; this, and his
use of the white umbrella, were resented by some
BahmanI loyalists, but he had become too strong and
his independence dates from this time.

For his future history, and for Bibliography, see
further under Nizam ShahI. (J. Burton-Page)
MALIK c AMBAR, a H abash! wazir and
military commander who served the Nizam
Shah! dynasty of Ahmadnagar in the Deccan.

Born around 955/1548 in Abyssinia, Malik c Ambar
was sold into slavery in Baghdad and subsequently
brought to India, where he was sold to the wazir of the
Nizam ShahI court. After his patron died, he sought,
but was refused, the patronage of other local powers
in the Deccan. He then returned to Ahmadnagar,
where in 1006/1596 he commanded a cavalry of 150
horse. The fall of Ahmadnagar fort to Mu gh al arms
in 1009/1600 created turmoil in the kingdom, during
which Malik c Ambar rose to particular prominence.
Supported by Deccanis and other Habashls, he
managed to rescue the dynasty from extinction by
raising a member of the royal family, Murta^a Nizam
Shah II, to the throne. The monarch’s power was only
de jure, however, as the wazir wielded effective power
from this point until his death in 1035/1626. Malik
c Ambar fended off not only his rival for military
supremacy within the kingdom, Miyan Radju, who
was finally suppressed in 1016/1607, but also the ar¬
mies of the c Adil ShahI dynasty of Bldjapur to his
south, European naval powers on the Konkan coast
and above all, the armies of the Mughal Empire to his
north. Throughout the period 1009-35/1600-26, the
emperors Akbar and Djihanglr [q. vv.\ mounted large-
scale invasions of the Deccan in repeated attempts to
subdue the HabashI wazir.

Malik c Ambar’s name has endured for several
reasons. First, he represents perhaps the most striking
example of HabashI slave mobility in Indo-Muslim
history. Second, despite his preoccupation with
military matters, he placed the land revenue system of
the kingdom on a firm and rational basis, probably
imitating the reforms of Radja Todar Mai in this
respect. Third, it was he who pioneered the recruiting
and training of Maratha [ q. v. ] light cavalry and also
the organised use of guerrilla tactics in Indian war¬
fare. Even his arch-opponent, the Mughal Emperor
Djahanglr, acknowledged that as a commander,
Malik c Ambar was without equal. Finally, he pro¬
moted the social and political fortunes of several
Maratha families—most notably that of ShahdjI
Bhonsle, father of the Maratha chieftain Shlvadji—
which contributed to the subsequent rise of Maratha
power in western India.

Bibliography. Original authorities include the
Akbar-ndma, completed in 1010/1602 by Abu ’l-Fatfl
b. Mubarak, Calcutta 1873-87, tr. H. Beveridge,
Calcutta 1897-1921; Futuhat-i c Adil §hahi, com¬
pleted ca. 1054/1644 by Hashim Beg AstarabadI,
ms. London, British Library; Firishta, abridged tr.
J. Briggs, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power
in India, Calcutta 1910; Ikbal-nama-yi Diahangiri.
completed 1028-9/1619-20 by Muhammad Sharif
Mu c tamad Kh an, Lucknow 1870; Ma^athir-i
Rahimi, completed 1047/1637 by c Abd al-Bakl
Nihawandl, Calcutta 1910-31. Secondary
authorities include J. G. Duff, A history of the
Mahrattas, ed. J. P. Guha, New Delhi 1971; W. H.
Moreland, Pieter van den Broeke at Sural (1620-29), in
Journal of Indian History, x (1931), 235-50; xi (1932),
1-16, 203-18; idem, From Gujarat to Golconda in the
reign of Jahangir, in ibid., xvii (1938), 135-50; D. R.
Seth, The Life and times of Malik Ambar, in IC, xxxi
(1957), 142-55; Radhey Shyam, Life and times of
Malik Ambar, New Delhi 1968. (R. M. Eaton)
MALIK AYAZ, I ndian Muslim admiral,
administrator and statesman, one of the most
distinguished personalities of the reigns of the
Gudjarat Sultans Mahmud I (863-917/1458-1511)
and Muzaffar II (917-32/1511-26).

Ayaz, according to the Portuguese historian Joao
de Barros, was originally a Russian slave, born in
Georgia, who fell into the hands of the Turks and thus

270

MALIK AYAZ — MALIK KAFUR

found his way to Istanbul, where he was sold to a
trader having business connections with India. En¬
dowed by nature with valour and wisdom, he proved
to be the “jewel of a great price” in the estimate of his
master who later, in one of his business trips to
Gudjarat, made a gift of him to the reigning Sultan
Mahmud I, popularly known in history as Sultan
Begada. A legend has it that he attained instant fame
when he brought down, with a well-aimed arrow, a
hawk which defecated on the head of the Sultan
during an expedition against Malwa; the delighted
Sultan granted him freedom on the spot and conferred
on him the title of Malik. By showing gallantry on the
battle-field and prudence in council, Ayaz rose steadi¬
ly in the confidence of the king, who ultimately made
him governor of Div [see diu], an island situated off
the coast of Una in the extreme south of the
Kathiawar peninsula.

In 1484, Malik Ayaz played a vital part in securing
form Mahmud I the great and impregnable Radjput
hill-fortress of Pavagarh in Campaner, following its
investment over a period of 20 months. Its fall signal¬
led the end of the centuries-old sovereignty of the
Radjput dynasty of Patai Paval over Campaner,
which for the next 50 years remained the political
capital of Gudjarat under the Muslims. In 1511,
Malik Ayaz was called upon by Sultan Muzaffar II to
salvage the prestige of Gudjarat, severely mauled by
the inroads of Rana Sangha of Citor. Placed in
supreme command of what is described as 100,000
cavalry and assisted by generals like Malik Sarang
and Mubariz al-Mulk, Ayaz proved his mettle in cap¬
turing enemy strongholds like Dungarpur and Man-
dasor, and also through his diplomatic skill concluded
peace with Rana Sangha.

But it is round the administration of the historic
island city of Dlv that the career of Malik Ayaz is
mainly centred. In view of its strategic situation and
commercial importance, the island during the late
15th century had become a bone of contention be¬
tween the maritime powers of Europe and the
Gudjarat Sultans. The most determined challenge
came from the Portuguese, who had already made
their appearance on the western shores of India. They
made persistent demands from the Muslim rulers for
permission to build a fortress in Div, whose possession
was in fact the cornerstone of the very survival of
Malik Ayaz. Ever since he was given charge of Dlv,
Malik Ayaz set about fortifying the island. He built a
tower there on a submarine rock and drew from it a
massive iron chain across the mouth of the harbour so
as to block the entry of enemy ships into the island
waters. He also built a bridge over the creek lying be¬
tween the island and the mainland. The resulting
naval base was meant for his fleet of at least 100 fustas,
large war vessels and many armed merchant ships,
which ultimately made DTv invulnerable to Por¬
tuguese attacks. Both the contemporary native
historians and Portuguese chroniclers testify to Malik
Ayaz’s complete authority over the Gudjarat sea-coast
as long as he lived, and his invincible armada did not
allow any intruding vessel to enter Dlv except for the
purpose of trade.

The Portuguese now tried diplomacy, and won sup¬
porters among courtiers such as Malik Gopi in order
to secure approval for building a fortress in Dlv, but
were frustrated by the intelligence and influence of
Malik Ayaz. Afonso de Albuquerque, conqueror and
Governor of Goa, whom the Malik met and entertain¬
ed at Dlv in 1513, records that “he had never known
a more suave courtier; nor a person more skilful in
deception while at the same time leaving one feeling

very satisfied”. The last Portuguese attempt during
Malik Ayaz’s life was in 1520 under Diogo Lopes de
Sequeira, the next Governor of Goa, who nevertheless
found the island’s defences too strong for his am¬
bitions.

Malik Ayaz died at Una in 928/1522, and lies
buried there near the tomb of Shah Shams al-Dln. In
his death, the Gudjarat Sultan lost a brave soldier and
astute statesman and the Portuguese an inveterate
adversary. The disastrous consequences suffered by
the kingdom soon after the Portuguese were granted
the much-sought-after concessions by Sultan Bahadur
in 1535 provide the highest justification of the unben¬
ding policy of exclusion which Malik Ayaz had fol¬
lowed in respect of the Portuguese.

The Mir : at-i Sikandari contains many anecdotes
about Malik Ayaz and his mode of life; his dinner
table used to be stocked with the delicacies of India,
Persia and Turkey. The Zafar al-walih speaks of his
generosity, charity and hospitality, and his concilia¬
tion of his subjects with presents and bounties. He
amassed immense wealth and affluence, and attained
a position second in power only to the Sultan himself.

Bibliography. Sikandar b. Muhammad, alias
Mandjhu b. Akbar, Mir^at-i Sikandari, ed. S. C.
Misra and M. L. Rahman, Baroda 1961, Eng. tr.
Sir E. Clive Bayley in his Local Muhammadan
dynasties: Gudjarat, London 1886, and by Fadl Allah
Lutf Allah FaridT, Dharampur n.d.; C A1I Muham¬
mad Khan. MiCat-i Ahmadi, ed. Syed Nawab c AlT,
Baroda 1927-30; Eng. tr. C. N. Seddon, S. N. Ali
and M. F. Lokhandwala, Baroda 1928, 1965; c Abd
Allah Muhammad al-Makkl al-Asafi Ulu ghkh anl
HadjdjT al-Dablr, Zafar al-walih bi-Muzajfar wa-alih,
ed. E. Denison Ross, London 1910-28, Eng. tr. M.
F. Lokhandwala, i, Baroda 1970; Afonso de Albu¬
querque, Commentaries, Eng. tr. London 1875-84;
Duarte Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa, London
1918-21; Joao de Barros, Decadas da Asia, Lisbon
1945-6; M. S. Commisariat, History of Gujarat,
Bombay 1938-57; M. N. Pearson, Merchants and
rulers of Gujarat, London 1976. (Abdus Subhan)
AL- MALIK al- c AZIZ, Abu Mansur Khusraw-
Firuz, eldest son of Djalal al-Dawla ShlrzH, Buyid
prince (407-41/1016 or 1017-1049). In the lifetime of
his father Djalal al-Dawla [q.v.], ruler of Ba gh dad, he
was governor of Basra and Wasif and latterly heir to
the throne, but when his father died in Sha c ban
435/March 1044, Kh usraw-Flruz was away from the
capital in Wasif, and superior financial resources
enabled his more forceful cousin c Imad al-DTn Abu
Kalidjar Marzuban [q.v.] to secure the loyalty of the
Buyid troops in Ba g hdad and to establish himself
firmly in c Irak. Khusraw-Flruz was forced to wander
between local courts such as those of the Mazyadids at
Hilla and the c Ukaylids at Mawsil [q.vv.], making
abortive military attempts to secure his father’s
throne, and died at MayyafarikTn in Rabl* 1 I
441/August 1049 whilst staying with the Marwanids
of Diyarbakr [q.v.].

Bibliography: The main primary source is Ibn
al-Athlr. See also H. Bowen, The last Buwayhids, in
JRAS (1929), 230-3; Mafizullah Kabir, The
Buwayhid dynasty of Baghdad, Calcutta 1964, 109-10;
C. E. Bosworth, in Camb. hist, of Iran, v, 39-40; H.
Busse, Chalif und Grosskonig, die Buyiden im Iraq
(945-1055), Beirut-Wiesbaden 1969, 110-13.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MALIK DANI SH MAND [see danishmandids).
MALIK KAFUR, military commander of
the Dihll sultans.

Originally a Hindu eunuch, nicknamed Hazdr-

MALIK KAFUR — MALIK MUGHITH

271

dinar i, “a thousand dinar slave”, from his purchase
price, was included in the large booty captured from
the port city of Kambayat (modern Cambay) follow¬
ing the Khaldjl conquest of Gudjarat [ q . v. ] in
698/1299, and brought to Sultan c Ala :) al-Dln Khaldjl,
whose fascination he attracted by dint of his personal
ability. He gradually attained the title of nd^ib malik
“Regent of the King”, a position which was next only
to the Sultan. Malik Kafur reached the zenith of his
meteoric career when he showed his martial prowess
conclusively as the commander of the First Muslim ar¬
my to cross the Vindyachal into South India. In
706/1307, he opened his Deccan adventure by leading
an army of 30,000 horsemen to Devagiri (modern
Dawlatabad in Maharashtra State), whose king
Ramachandra Deva surrendered without offering any
resistance. By subjugating in 709/1310 Warangal, the
capital of the Kakatiya kingdom of Telingana, Kafur
secured for his master the vassalage of its ruler Rai
Prataprudra, along with a vast quantity of treasures,
which were carried to Delhi by a thousand camels. In
710/1311, the Hoysala dynasty of Dwarasamudra, the
ruins of which can still be seen at Halebid in the
Hassan district of modern Karnataka State, was the
third Deccan kingdom to fall to the invading hordes of
Kafur, and its ruler Vir Ballala III became bound by
a peace treaty to pay a substantial war indemnity to
the Dihli Sultan, apart from acknowledging his
suzerainty. Malik Kafur continued his spectacular
march towards the extreme south of the peninsula and
after a few days’ march arrived at Madura, the seat
of Pandya kingdom (known to Muslim writers as
Ma c bar [ q . v. ]), only to find it abandoned by its fleeing
king Vir Pandya. The Khaldjl general stopped only
when confronted by the sea at the coastal town of
Rameswaram, where he built a mosque named after
c Ala 5 al-Dln Khaldjl. He returned to Dihli with an
enormous spoils which included 312 elephants; 20,000
horses; 2,750 pounds of gold, whose value equalled
nearly ten crores of tankas ; and chests of jewels. The
capital had never before seen such a large booty.

Kafur’s brilliance on the battlefield was over¬
shadowed by the civil strife which marked the rest of
his life. The Sultan’s infatuation with him proved
anathema to the influential Khaldjl nobles, so much
so that within only 35 days of the Sultan’s death he fell
a victim to the assassin’s sword on 12 Dhu ’1-Ka c da
715/11 February 1316.

Bibliography : Diya^ al-Dln BaranI, TaMkh-i-
Firuz Shdhi, Calcutta 1860-6; c IsamI, Futuh al-
salatin, Agra 1938; Amir Kh usraw. KhazaHn al-
futuh, Calcutta 1953, Eng. tr. Muhammad Habib,
Bombay 1931; K. S. Lai, History of the Khaljis
(1290-1320), Dihli 1967; S. K. Aiyangar, South In¬
dia and her Muhammadan invaders, Madras 1921.

(Abdus Subhan)

al- MALIK AL- KAMIL II [see sha c ban]

MALIK KUMMI, In do-Muslim poet, was
born at Kum in about 934/1528. The author of the
Maykhana states that his full name was Malik
Muhammad.

He went at an early age to Kashan, where he stayed
nearly twenty years, and then spent approximately
four years in Kazwln, frequenting the company of
writers and scholars in both places. Already during his
youth he seems to have won distinction for himself in
poetical competitions with his contemporaries, and
was regarded highly by such literary figures as
Muhtasham of Kashan (d. 996/1587-8) and Damlrl of
Isfahan (d. ca. 1578) for his innovative tendencies. He
was respected in important circles, and was sought
after by Safawl nobles and other Persian dignitaries.

He left Kazwln, according to Azad BilgramI, in
987/1579 and, reaching India, took up residence at
Ahmadnagar, enjoying the favours of Murtada
Nizam Shah I (1565-88) and, upon the latter’s death,
of Burhan Nizam Shah II (1590-5) [see ni?am-shahs].
It is mentioned in the Mahathir-i Rahimi that after the
fall of Ahmadnagar to Akbar’s forces, he served tem¬
porarily under c Abd al-Rahlm Khan-i Khanan.
whom he praises in several of his kasidas. Finally, he
settled down in Bldjapur, attaching himself to the
ruler of that state, Ibrahim c Adil Shah II (1580-1627)
[see c adil-shahs]. There he reached the highest point
of his career, with his appointment as poet laureate in
the Bldjapur court. In Ahmadnagar, and later in
Bldjapur, he developed close relations with Zuhurl
(ca. 1537-1616), to whom he gave his daughter in
marriage. The two poets collaborated in several
literary ventures which they undertook for Ibrahim
c Adil Shah. The report that they also worked jointly
in producing Naw ras, a book of songs attributed to the
above-mentioned ruler, and received 9,000 gold
pieces as a reward for their efforts, is disputed by
modern writers. Towards the end, Malik Kumml
seems to have led a life of retirement dedicated to
austerity and devotion. He died, most probably, in
1025/1616, a date confirmed by the chronogram com¬
posed on his death by Abu Talib Kallm.

Apart from Zuhurl, Malik Kumml was the only
other significant poet in the Deccan during his time.
According to Bada^unl, he was known by the title of
Malik al-Kalam. Most writers speak highly of his
literary talents. He was the author of many works,
written either independently or in collaboration with
Zuhurl. In his personal life he was inclined towards
mysticism, and has been praised for his pious habits
and purity of character.

Bibliography: Kulliyyat, ms. I.O. 1499; c Abd
al-Bakl Nihawandl, Ma^athir-i Rahimi , iii, ed.
Muhammad Hidayat Husayn, Calcutta 1931;
c Abd al-Kadir Bada 5 unl, Muntakhab al-tawarikh , iii,
tr. T. W. Haig, Calcutta 1925; Amin Ahmad RazI,
Haft iklim, ii, ed. Djawad Fadil, Tehran n.d.;
Iskandar MunshI, Ta\Ikh-i c alam ard-yi C Abbasi, i,
ed. Nasr Allah FalsafT, Tehran 1334/1955-6; c Abd
al-Nabl Fakhr al-Zamanl Kazwln!, Maykhana , ed.
Ahmad Gulcin Ma c anl, Tehran 1340/1961-2; Lutf
c AlI Beg Adhar, Atash-kada , ed. Sayyid Dja c far
Jhahldl, Tehran 1337/1958; Ghulam C A1I Khan
Azad BilgramI, Sarw-i azad , Hyderabad 1913;
idem, Khizdna-yi c amira , Cawnpore 1871; Ahmad
c AlI Khan HashimI Sandllawl, Tadhkira-yi makhzan
al-ghardHb, ms. Bodleian 395; La£hml Narayan
Shafik, Sham-i ghariban , ed. Akbar al-Dln Siddlkl,
Karachi 1977; Muhammad Kudrat Allah
Gopamawl, Tadhkira-yi natd^idg al-afkar , Bombay
1336/1957-8; Shibll Nu c mam, Shi c r al-^Adjam, iii,
repr. A c zamgarh 1945; E. G. Browne, LHP, iv,
repr. Cambridge 1953; Muhammad c Abdu’l
Ghani, A history of Persian language and literature at the
Mughal court, iii, Allahabad 1930; Muhammad C A1I
Mudarris Tabriz!, Rayhdnat al-adab, iv, Tabriz
1371/1952; J. Rypka, History of Iranian literature,
Dordrecht 1956; Nazir Ahmad (ed.), Kitdb-i
nawras, Delhi 1956; T. N. Devare, A short history of
Persian literature at the Bahmani, the Adilshahi, and the
Qutbshahi courts, Deccan, Poona 1961; H. K. Sher-
wani (ed.), History of medieval Deccan, ii, Hyderabad
1974; P. N. Chopra, Life and letters under the Mughals,
Delhi 1976. _ (Munibur Rahman)

al- MALIK AL- MANSUR [see kalawun],
MALIK MUGHITH, military commander
under the rulers of Malwa [q v.\.

272

MALIK MUGHITH — al-MALIK al-RAHIM

The son of a Turkish noble named c AlI Shir Khurd.
he played a conspicuously important role in the
history of mediaeval Malwa. He came into promi¬
nence during the reign of Sultan Hushang Shah
Ghuri (809-38/1406-35), who appointed him minister
in recognition of his meritorious service and conferred
on him the titles of Ashraf al-Mulk and Khdn-i-Diahdn.
He was instrumental in bringing about the accession
of his son Mahmud Khaldji I (839-73/1436-69),
whom he helped to achieve signal victories against
rival chieftains of central India, to extend the limit of
frontiers to its widest extent and to bring un¬
precedented glory to Malwa. The galaxy of honorific
denominations which Malik Mughlth received, such
as Amir al-Umard\ Zubdal al-Mulk 2 Khuldsal al-Malwa,
A c zam-i Humayun and Masnad-i ‘Alt, amply reflect the
influence and prestige which he enjoyed throughout
his life. His death in 846/1443, following a brief illness
while laying a siege to the fort of Mandasor, left the
Sultan so distracted with grief that he “tore his hair
and raved like one bereft of his senses” (Firishta, ii,
488). He lies buried in the Khaldji family mausoleum
at Mandu [q. v. ] where he has also left an architectural
legacy in the shape of an elegant mosque called the
Masdjid-i Malik Mu gh lth. which he built in
835/1432.

Bibliography. Ghulam Yazdani , Mandu, City of
Joy, Oxford 1929; Upendra Nath Dey, Medieval
Malwa (1401-1562), Dihll 1965.(Abdus_Subhan)
MALIK MUHAMMAD DJAYASI (DjaysI/
DjaysI) (P900/1493 to P949/1542), Indian Sufi and
poet, was born at Djayas (Djays) in Awadh [ q. v. ] and
died at nearby Amethl. Educated locally, he became
a disciple of the fiisht! Shavkh Muhyl TDln. He had
Hindu as well as Muslim teachers, and showed a
religious tolerance which some ascribe to the influence
of Kabir. He wrote poetry in AwadhI, a form of
Eastern Hindi, including two fairly short religious
poems, one of which, Akhiri kalam, is on the Day of
Judgement. But he is famed chiefly for his Padumavat,
a narrative and descriptive poem of over 5,000 verses
probably, but not conclusively, written in Persian
script, although it is best preserved in Nagarl, and
moreover probably the earliest major work in any In¬
dian vernacular extant in authentic form, apart from
its intrinsic literary merits. It combines some elements
of the earlier Hindi bardic epic, elements of the tradi¬
tional mahdkdvya and some metrical resemblances to
the Persian mathnawi, being a story of war and love,
the heroine of the title being a paragon among
women. It ends with the death of Padumavatl’s hus-

band, who is ruler of Citor, and her soli, followed by
the capture of 6itor by c Ala :> ai-Dln, Sultan of Dihll.

Despite the apparent secular nature of the poem,
K. B. Jindal ( History, 45, see Bibl.) regards it as a Sufi
love poem. The poet, in his envoi (if this is authentic
and not a later addition), states that it is an allegory,
briefly explaining the symbolism: but A.G. Shirreff
(Padmavati , p. viii, see Bibl. ) describes it as “half fairy¬
tale and half historical romance”. The first canto
(again, if this is authentic) is of interest to Islam-
ologists. The poet praises God, Muhammad the
Prophet, the first four caliphs, Sher Shah, the Sultan
of Dihll, the poet’s CishtI teachers and predecessors
and the city of Djavas. Hindu and Islamic ter¬
minology is intermingled, the Kur 5 an being so named
and also called purdna, for example. All the essentials
of Islam are referred to in Hindu terms, with a
deliberately propagandist intent in accordance with
CishtI ideals, e.g. c Uthman is called pandit, Allah
vidhi, “the book” giranth = Granth, the Companions
mil (Skr. mitra “friend”), as well as the Kur D an called
pur an.

Malik Muhammad Djayas! has been revered on
religious grounds by both Hindus and Muslims of the
sub-continent, while his poetry gives him importance
in the history of both Hindi and, to a lesser extent,
Urdu literature.

Bibliography: Brief critical accounts of the
poet will be found in F.E. Keay, A history of Hindi
literature, London, etc. 1920, 31-3; K. B. Jindal, A
history of Hindi literature, Allahabad 1955, 44-7;
G. A. Grierson and N. A. Dvivedi, The Padumdvati
of Malik Muhammad Jaisi, Calcutta 1911, i, Introd.
1-5; A. G. Shirreff, Padmavati, Calcutta 1944, con¬
taining an annotated English translation of the
whole poem; the text of the collected poetry is
found in Ramcandra Shukla. Djayasi granthdvalx, 1st
ed. Benares 1924, 5th ed., Allahabad 1951, and
Mataprasad Gupta, Djayasi granthdvali, Allahabad
1952 (both in the Devanagarl script). Grierson and
Dvivedi’s work contains the text of about half of the
Padumdvati in the same script, with a translation in
vol. ii. Lakshmi Dhar, Padumdvati - a linguistic study
of 16th century Hindi (Avadhi), London 1949, gives
the text of cantos 26-31 (out of 57) in Roman
transliteration, with an indifferent or worse English
translation and lexical analyses. There are five mss.
of the text in Persian script, three dating from
around the end of the 11 th/17th century, in the In¬
dia Office Library, London. Unfortunately, there
is no authoritative printed edition in the Persian
script, scholars having largely concentrated on pro¬
ducing a reliable Devanagarl version, since the Per¬
sian script, even when fully vowelled, is not entirely
satisfactory for Hindi. They have compared
Persian-script mss. with earlier ones in Devandgan,
but the process of establishing a definitive version
is not yet complete. For further bibliography, in¬
cluding historical and religious background, see
Shirreff, op. cit., pp. xi-xiii, to which should be
added, as the best modern study, Vasudev Saran
Agraval, Padmarat, JhansI 2012 V.S./1955, with a
critical introd., analysis, edited text based largely
on Gupta’s but also taking into account recently-
discovered mss., translation and commentary. See
also hindI and hindu. (J. A. Haywood)

al- MALIK al-RAHIM, Abu Nasr KhusRAw-
FIruz, Buy id amir , d. 450/1058. When Abu
Kalldjar, ruler in Khuzistan, Fars, Kirman, c Uman
and Basra in parallel with his uncle Djalal al-Dawla
[q.v. ] of Baghdad, died in 440/1048, the eldest of his
ten or so sons, Kh usraw-Flruz. succeeded as amir with
the title, unwillingly extracted from the caliph, of al-
Malik al-Rahlm. However, his succession was
challenged by various of his brothers, and especially
by Fulad-Sutun, and during his seven years’ reign,
Khusraw-Flruz reigned undisputedly only in c Irak,
with Fulad-Sutun established in Shiraz and generally
controlling southern Persia, fighting off Khusraw-
Flruz’s attempts to secure Fars and Khuzistan.

These squabbles were ominous for the future of the
Buyid dynasty, whose position in northern Persia had
already been destroyed by the Ghaznawids [see madjd
al-dawla], in that it allowed the Saldjuk leader
Toghrfi Beg to intervene in the remaining Buyid
lands. Already in 444/1052-3 marauding Oghuz
reached Shiraz: in the next year Fulad-Sutun placed
To gh rfi’s name in the khutba before those of Khusraw-
Flruz and his own; and in 446/1054-5 Toghrfi was in
control of Khuzistan. Khusraw-Flruz’s seven-year
reign in Baghdad was marked by continuous civil
strife there, with the caliph al-Ka^im’s vizier, the ra■‘is
al-ru^asa^ Ibn al-Muslima [q.v. ] upholding the Sunni,
Hanball cause, and the Turkish commander Arslan
Basaslrl [q.v. ] inclining towards the ShLls, being

al-MALIK al-RAHIM — MALIK-SHAH

273

suspected of furthering the designs of the Fatimids on
c Irak. Toghrfl marched on Baghdad and entered it in
Ramadan 447/December 1055, with his name pro¬
nounced in the khutba there. Kh usraw-FTruz was soon
afterwards arrested and deposed, and spent the last
four years of his life in captivity, dying at Ray in
450/1058. The rule of the Buyids in c Irak accordingly
ended, though it continued for a few years more in
Fars under Fulad-Sutun.

Bibliography. The main primary sources are
Ibn al-AthTr, al-Bundarl and Ibn al-DjawzT. See
also H. Bowen, The last Buwayhids, in JRAS (1929),
234-8; Mafizullah Kabir, The Buwaihid dynasty of
Baghdad, Calcutta 1964, 112-15; C. E. Bosworth, in
Camb. hist, of Iran, v, 45-7; H. Busse, Chalif und
Grosskonig, die Buyiden im Iraq (945-1055), Beirut-
Wiesbaden 1969, 119-24. (C. E. Bosworth)

MALIK SARWAR, or Kh w adja Djahan. the
founder of the sultanate of Djawnpur
in northern India. A eunuch of common birth, Malik
Sarwar rose in the service of Sultan Flruz Tughluk to
become the governor of the city of DihlF. In the
political confusion that followed the death of Sultan
Firuz in 790/1388, Malik Sarwar lent powerful sup¬
port to Prince Muhammad, his chief patron and a
younger son of Flruz, in Muhammad’s bid for the
throne. Several years later the prince eventually
ascended the DihlT throne as Sultan Muhammad
Shah, and in 795/1392 he elevated Malik Sarwar from
governor of DihlT to wazlr of the sultanate, conferring
upon him the title Kh w adja Djahan. But the sultan
died the next year, and the state of political affairs in
DihlT plunged still deeper in chaos, with provincial
governors and Hindu chieftains openly defying the
authority of the court.

In these circumstances, Sultan Na$Tr al-Dln
Mahmud Shah, shortly after becoming sultan in
796/1394, made Malik Sarwar governor of all the
DihlT’s sultanate’s possessions from Kanawdj to
Bihar, and conferred upon him the title Malik al-
Shark or “Lord of the East”. The new governor
promptly repaired to these domains with twenty
elephants and a large army. After a victorious cam¬
paign, in which he succeeded in subduing rebellious
princes throughout the lower Djumna-Ganges Doab
and Bihar, Malik Sarwar established himself in the
provincial capital of Djawnpur as a virtually indepen¬
dent monarch, a circumstance enhanced by DihlT’s
own preoccupation with TTmur’s invasion of India in
801/1398. During his brief rule, Malik Sarwars
power increased and his administration flourished,
with even the kings of Bengal paying to him the
tribute formerly sent up to DihlT. Upon his death in
802/1399, he bequeathed to his adopted son Karanful
a vast kingdom stretching from just east of DihlT
through the heart of the Gangetic plain to Bengal.
Through the patronage of Malik Sarwar’s successors,
the Sharki kings of Djawnpur, the city of Djawnpur
emerged as an important regional centre of Indo-
Muslim culture in the 9th/15th century.

Bibliography. Ta \lkh-i Mubarak Skdhi, com¬
pleted ca. 837/1434 by Yahya b. Ahmad SirhindT,
Calcutta 1931, tr. K. K. Basu, Baroda 1932;
Tabakat-i Akbari, compiled in 1001/1593 by Nizam
al-Dln Ahmad, Calcutta 1913, tr. B. De, Calcutta
1927-31; MTyan Muhammad Saeed, The Sharqi
sultanate of Jaunpur, Karachi 1972.

(R. M. Eaton)

MALIK-SHAH, the name of various
Saldj.uk rulers.

1. Malik-Shah I b. Alp Arslan, Djalal al-
Dawla Mu c izz al-Din Abu ’l-Fath, Great

Saldjuk sultan, born in 447/1055, reigned
465-85/1072-92. During his reign, the Great Saldjuk
empire reached its zenith of territorial extent—from
Syria in the west to Khurasan in the east—and
military might.

Alp Arslan [q.v. j had made Malik-Shah his wall
’l s ahd or heir to the throne in 458/1066, when various
governorships on the eastern fringes were at this same
time distributed to several members of the ruling
family. Although Alp Arslan was fatally wounded
during his Transoxanian campaign against the
Karakhanids [see ilek-khans], he lingered long
enough to make clear his intended arrangements for
the future of the empire, leaving his son Ayaz in the
upper Oxus provinces and his brother Kawurd [q. v. ]
to continue in the largely autonomous principality of
Kirman which he had carved out. Through the
prompt action of the experienced vizier Nizam al-
Mulk [q.v.], Malik-Shah’s succession to the sultanate
was officially notified to the caliph in Ba gh dad, and
the key city in Kh urasan of NTshapur and its treasury
secured for the young prince. The revolt of the
disgruntled Kawurd, who regarded his position as
senior member of the Saldjuk family as giving him a
superior claim, was quelled at Hamadan in 466/1074
and Kawurd strangled, though the sultan subsequent¬
ly (467/1074) restored his sons Sultan-Shah and
Turan-Shah to Kirman (see E. Mergil, Kirman
Sel(uklan, Istanbul 1980, 45 ff.).

Malik-Shah’s preoccupation with Kawurd at this
time in western Persia had emboldened the
Karakhanid Shams al-Mulk Nasr b. Tamghac Khan
IbrahTm (460-72/1068-80) to invade Balkh and
Tukharistan, necessitating Malik-Shah’s hurried
return to the east. He drove the Karakhanids out of
Tirmidh and dictated terms to the Khan in his own
capita] of Samarkand (466/1074); the subsequent
disputes of Shams al-Mulk Nasr with the eastern
branch of his dynasty in Kashghar kept the Khan
generally submissive to Saldjuk suzerainty over the
ensuing years (see W. Barthold, Turkestan down to the
Mongol invasion , London 1928, 314-15). Ayaz b. Alp
Arslan died just before the Transoxanian campaign of
his elder brother, and Malik-Shah now gave Balkh
and Tukharistan to his other brother Tekish. For
some years, Tekish governed his territories peaceful¬
ly, but in 473/1080-1 took into his service 7,000
mercenary troops discharged by Malik-Shah as an
economy measure, even though Nizam al-Mulk had
warned him of the dangers of throwing such a large
group of desperadoes out of employment (cf. Siyasat-
nama, ch. xli, ed. H. Darke, Tehran 1340/1962,
209-10, tr. idem, London 1960, 170-1). With these
soldiers, Tekish rebelled, but failed to capture
NTshapur and had to submit. The sultan pardoned
him, but four years later, in 477/1084, Tekish again
renounced his allegiance whilst Malik-Shah was in the
DjazTra at the other end of the empire; this time,
Malik-Shah showed no mercy, and after quelling the
outbreak, blinded and jailed Tekish. These draconian
measures kept further potential trouble-makers within
the Saldjuk family quiet for the rest of the reign.

Peace was also established on the eastern fringes by
the achievement of a modus vivendi with the Ghaz-
nawids [q. v. ] of eastern Afghanistan and India. The
succession quarrels at the outset of Malik-Shah’s
reign tempted the Ghaznawid sultan IbrahTm b.
Mas c ud (451-92/1059-99) to make a bid for the
recovery of the Ghaznawid territories in Khurasan
lost to the Saldjuks 30 years before. IbrahTm attacked
the Saldjuk prince c Uthman b. Gaghrf Beg Dawud in
northern Afghanistan and captured him, but Malik-

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

274

MALIK-SHAH

Shah sent an army and restored the situation there
(465/1073). Thereafter, Ibrahim seems to have been
reconciled to the permanent loss of the Ghaznawid
former western provinces, and peaceful relations be¬
tween the two empires became the norm; there were
marriage links between the two royal houses, and
Saldjuk cultural influence, e.g. in regard to titulature
and coinage patterns, was increasingly felt within the
Ghaznawid dominions (see C. E. Bosworth, The later
Ghaznavids, splendour and decay: the dynasty in Afghanistan
and northern India 1040-1186, Edinburgh 1977, 50-8).
Within the buffer zone between the two empires, the
principality of Sistan, governed by scions of the once-
mighty Saffarid dynasty [q.v.\ as vassals of the
Saldjuks, Malik-Shah’s authority was reasserted, and
joint operations conducted by the Saldjuk and $affarid
forces against the Isma c flls of Kuhistan [q. v. ].

Saldjuk-Karakhanid relations also remained
pacific, as noted above, for the rest of Shams al-Mulk
Nasr’s reign and during the short reign of Khidr
Khan b. Ibrahim and then of the latter’s son Ahmad,
nephew of Malik-Shah’s Karakhanid wife Terken
Khatun, whom the sultan had married when a child
in 456/1064. But the discontent of the orthodox
c ulama ° in Transoxania led Malik-Shah to invade
Transoxania once more in 482/1089, to depose
Ahmad Kh an (though he was later restored before his
final deposition and execution, ostensibly because of
his Isma c fll sympathies, in 488/1095) and to pene¬
trate as far as Semiretye, overawing the eastern
Karakhanid ruler of Kashghar and Khotan. Harun
Khan b. Sulayman, who now acknowledged Malik-
Shah in the khutha of his dominions. Recognition of
the Saldjuks here represented the culmination of
Saldjuk prestige in the east (see Barthold, Turkestan,
316-18).

Timely displays of military force were sufficient to
subdue ambitious Saldjuk rivals, to bring into line
Karakhanid princes torn by family dissensions and to
persuade the Ghaznawids that their fortunes now lay
in the exploitation of India rather than in futile ir¬
redentist dreams in the west. The situation on the
western borders of the Great Saldjuk empire was more
complex and the frontier, towards which Turkmen
adventures and ghazis had for some time been de¬
flected by government policy, more fluid and shifting.
There was a zone of local Arab and Kurdish amlrates,
jealous of their independence, mingled with ambitious
Turkish slave commanders and Turkmen begs;
beyond them, in western Transcaucasia and western
Anatolia, lay the hostile Christian powers of Georgia
and Byzantium. Hence the special importance to the
Saldjuks of defending the northwestern provinces of
Adharbaydjan, Arran and Armenia against Georgian
attacks and of preserving these regions as areas of con¬
centration for Turkmen forces. Soon after he came to
the throne, Malik-Shah took steps to strengthen his
frontier by deposing the Kurdish Shaddadid [<?.&.]
prince of Gandja and Dvin Fa<Jl(un) III b. Fadl II
(466-8/1073-5) and installing there the veteran
Turkish slave commander of Alp Arslan’s, Sawtigin,
who was already well-familiar with the situation in the
Caucasus region. Malik-Shah campaigned here per¬
sonally in 471/1078-9, after the Georgian king had
temporarily captured Kars from the Muslims, and
again in 478/1085 after the restored Shaddadid Fadl
III had rebelled (see V. Minorsky, Studies in Caucasian
history, London 1953, I. New light on the Shaddddids of
Ganja, 67-8). This time, the main line of the Shad-
dadids in Gandja was extinguished, although a col¬
lateral branch continued in An! till the end of the
6th/12th century (see ibid., II. The Shaddddids of Ani,

79-106). The submission of the Shlrwan-Shah
Fariburz [see shIrwan] was also received. Much of
the Araxes-Kur basin, i.e. eastern Transcaucasia, was
now parcelled out as ikta c s [t/.y.] for the sultan’s
Turkish commanders, with Malik-Shah’s cousin
Kutb al-Din Isma c fl b. YakutI as overlord.

The overrunning of Anatolia and the gradual
pushing-back of the Greeks continued essentially as
an enterprise of individual Turkmen leaders, promi¬
nent among whom were the sons of the Saldjuk
Kutlumush b. Arslan Israeli, Sulayman and Mansur.
Although the later historiography of the Rum
Saldjuks makes Malik-Shah officially invest these
princes with the governorship of Anatolia, the
assumption of the title of sultan by these last seems to
have been a unilateral act which Malik-Shah probably
could only regard as one of lese-majeste; and two others
of Kutlumush’s sons actually fought at the side of the
Fatimids in Palestine against the Saldjuk cause (see
Cl. Cahen, Qutlumush et ses fils avant VAsie Mineure, in
Isl., xxxix [1964], 26-7; idem, Pre-Ottoman Turkey,
London 1968, 73 ff.).

In the Arab lands of c Irak, the Djazlra and Syria,
Saldjuk policy aimed at containing the Isma c fll
Fatimids [q. v. ] in Palestine, at curbing their influence
among the ShLl Arab amlrates of the desert fringes
and within the Arabian peninsula, at assuring Sunni
control of major cities like Aleppo and Damascus, and
at establishing some measure of control over the
Turkmen bands ranging across these lands of Syria
and the Djazlra and competing with the existing Arab
population for pasture-grounds. The caliphal vizier
Fakhr al-Dawla Ibn Djahlr [see djahIr, banu] secured
Saldjuk military help in order to reduce the Kurdish
principality of the Marwanids [q. v. ] of Diyarbakr in
478/1085, eventually incorporating it into the Saldjuk
empire. Malik-Shah’s authority in Syria was imposed
in the face of opposition from the Armenian former
general of the Byzantines. Philaretos, in the middle
Taurus Mountains region, from the c Ukaylids [q.v. ]
under their amir Muslim b. Kuraysh in the lands be¬
tween Mawsil and Aleppo, and from Sulayman b.
Kutlumush, firstly through the agency of Malik-
Shah’s brother Tutush and then in 477-8/1084-5 by
an army from the capital Isfahan under the caliph’s
personal command (see Cahen, La Syrie du Nord a
Vepoque des Croisades, Paris 1940, 177 ff.; idem, Pre-
Ottoman Turkey, 30-2). Triumphing over his rivals,
Malik-Shah’s authority was now extended as far as
the Mediterranean shores, and Turkish slave com¬
manders installed as governors in Antioch, Aleppo
and Edessa. Saldjuk influence was even carried
southwards into the Arabian peninsula, for in
469/1076-7 Malik-Shah’s commander Artuk b. Ekseb
(later, the founder of a dynasty of Turkmen begs in
Diyarbakr [see artukids]) marched into al-Ahsa
in eastern Arabia against the Carmathians [see
karamita]; the Sharifs of Mecca were suborned from
their Fapmid allegiance; and Yemen and Aden were
temporarily occupied.

Relations with the c Abbasid caliphs were necessari¬
ly important for a power like the Saldjuks which
claimed to be the spearhead of Sunni orthodoxy and
protector of the Commander of the Faithful against
ShlT threats. Malik-Shah did not manage personally
to visit Ba gh dad until 479-80/1086-7, when al-
Muktadl [< 7 -z>.] formally granted him the saltana or
secular authority. As Cahen has pointed out {op. cit.,
42), Malik-Shah and Nizam al-Mulk regarded the
sultanate, whose protectorate over the caliph had been
established by Malik-Shah’s great-uncle Toghrfl Beg
[q.v.\, as an institution deriving its legitimacy from its

MALIK-SHAH

275

very self and having a full entitlement to intervene
even in religious matters. The caliphs could not of
course concede the validity of this constitutional inter¬
pretation of the ordering of affairs in Islam, hence the
inevitability of a state of tension, in greater or lesser
degree, between the two focuses of authority (see G.
Makdisi, Les rapports enlre calife et sultan a Tepoque Salju-
qide, in IJMES, vi [1975], 228-36).

The sultans had installed in Ba gh dad a shihna [q. v. ]
or military commander, who had to keep order in the
city and often in c Irak in general, and an : amtd [q.v. ]
or official in charge of civil and financial matters, in¬
cluding the allocation to the caliph of his iktdH and
allowances. These personages could, and at times did,
exert considerable pressure on the caliphs. Central
policy in the Saldjuk state was directed from the dtwan
of the great vizier Nizam al-Mulk, who had been first
appointed under Alp Arslan; for a detailed survey of
his policy, see nizam al-mulk. Part of this policy lay
in facilitating the revival of Sunni Islam, as the
authority of ShiT powers like the Buyids or
Buwayhids [q.v.] and Fatimids disappeared or waned,
by financial and other support to the orthodox
religious institution, including the encouragement of
the founding of madrasas [q.v.], and this in theory
meant harmonious co-operation with the c Abbasid
caliphs, the moral heads of Sunni Islam. In practice,
strains arose between Nizam al-Mulk and the Banfl
Djahlr, viziers to the caliphs from al-Ka 5 im to al-
Muktafi, with a nadir of bad relations in 471/1079
when Nizam al-Mulk secured Fakhr al-Dawla Ibn
Djahlr’s dismissal. The arranging of the betrothal of
one of Malik-Shah’s daughters to al-Muktadl in
474/1081-2 (another daughter was later to marry the
next caliph al-Mustazhir) only brought about detente
when the sultan came personally to Ba gh dad and the
marriage was celebrated in 480/1087. Even then, rela¬
tions speedily deteriorated, and on his second visit to
Baghdad, shortly before his death, the caliph was
largely ignored by Malik-Shah, who set in motion ex¬
tensive building operations, including a great
mosque, the Djami c al-Sultan, and palaces for the
great men of state, intending to make Ba gh dad his
winter capital (see Makdisi, The topography of eleventh-
century Bagdad, materials and notes, in Arabica, vi [1959],
292, 298-9). It seems that the sultan planned to set up
his infant grandson Dja c far, the “Little Commander
of the Faithful” and fruit of the alliance between the
caliph and the Saldjuk princess, as caliph; but in the
middle of Shawwal 485/November 1092, not very
long after Nizam al-Mulk’s assassination, of complici¬
ty in which some people thought him guilty, Malik-
Shah died of fever at the age of 58, suspectedly poison¬
ed (see M. T. Houtsma, The death of Nizam al-Mulk and
its consequences, in Jnal. of Indian history, iii [1924],
147 ff.). The caliph was thereby assured of a reprieve.
Terken Khatun and her protege the mustawji Tadj al-
Mulk Abu ’1-Ghana 5 im endeavoured lo place Terken
Khatun’s four-year old son Mahmud on the throne,
but the Nizamiyya, the relatives and partisans of the
dead vizier, succeeded in killing Tadj al-Mulk and
eventually securing the succession of the thirteen-year
old Berk-yaruk, Malik-Shah’s eldest son by another
wife, Zubayda Khatun. The Great Saldjuk sultanate
now entered a period of internal dissension under
Malik-Shah’s sons [see bark-yaruk; muhammad b.
malik-shah; sandjar], so that the political authority
of the caliphate could revive in the 6th/12th century as
that of the sultans declined. Malik-Shah’s body was
carried back to Isfahan and buried in a madrasa there.

Malik-Shah is praised in the sources, Christian as
well as Muslim, for his noble and generous character.

Although probably no more cultured than the rest of
the early Saldjuk sultans, he acquired, in the conven¬
tional pattern of Islamic rulers, the reputation of
being a patron of learning and literature. The great
Arabic poet and stylist al-Tughra 5 ! [q.v. ] served in his
chancery, and amongst Persian poets, Mu c izzl [q.v.]
in fact derived his takhallus from Malik-Shah’s
honorific of Mu c izz al-Dln. c Umar Khayyam [q.v.]
seems to have been attracted into the Saldjuk service
at the time of Malik-Shah’s Transoxanian campaign
against Shams al-Mulk Nasr, and to have played a
leading role in the reform of the calendar, involving
the introduction of the new Malik! or Djalali era (after
the sultan’s lakah of Djalal al-Dawla [see djalali]),
and in the construction of an observatory at Isfahan.
A collection of legal responsa , the Masa^il al-
Malikshahiyya fi ’ 1-kawaHd al-sharHyya, perhaps com¬
posed for the sultan, is mentioned in certain sources,
e.g. in Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Husaynl’s
abridgement of Rawandl, al- c Urada fi ’ l-hikdya al-
saldpukiyya, ed. K. Siissheim, Leiden 1909, 69-71.
Bibliography: (in addition to works mentioned
in the article): Of primary sources, see the
standard Arabic and Persian ones for the period,
such as Zahlr al-Dln Nlshapurl, Rawandl, Bun-
dan, Sadr al-Dln al-Husaynl, Ibn al-Athlr, Ibn al-
DjawzI, Sibt b. al-DjawzI, and the Syriac one of
Barhebraeus. Ibn Khallikan, ed. Ihsan c Abbas, v,
283-9, tr. de Slane, iii, 440-6, has a biography of
Malik Shah, deriving material for it from the con¬
tinuation of Miskawayh by Muhammad b. c Abd al-
Malik al-Hamadhanl (d. 521/1127).

Of secondary sources, see i. Kafesoglu,
Sultan Meliksah devrinde Biiyuk Selfuklu imparatorlugu,
Istanbul 1953; C. E. Bosworth, in Cambridge history
of Iran, v, 66-102, for political and dynastic history,
and A. K. S. Lambton in ibid., 203 ff. for ad¬
ministrative history; O. Turan, Selfuklar tarihi ve
Tiirk-Islam medeniyeti, Istanbul 1969, 152-75.

2. Malik-Shah II b. Berk-Yaruk, infant son
of sultan Berk-yaruk, who, after the latter’s
death in 498/1105, was briefly proclaimed sultan in
Baghdad, with Ayaz as his Atabeg and Sa c d al-Mulk
Abu ’l-Mahasin as vizier, but who soon had to yield
to Muhammad b. Malik-Shah 1 [q.v.].

Bibliography: Bosworth, in Camb. hist, of Iran,

v, 111.

3. Malik-Shah III b. Mahmud b. Muhammad
Mu c In al-DIn (547-8/1152-3), son of sultan
Mahmud [q.v.], who, with the support of the amir
Khass Beg Arslan and of Ildegiz [q.v.], Atabeg of Ar¬
ran and most of Adharbaydjan, briefly became sultan
in western Persia after the death of his uncle Mas c ud
b. Muhammad [q.v.] without direct heir. His in¬
capability as a ruler—the caliph al-MuktafT was now
able to get rid of all Saldjuk authority from Ba gh dad
and c Irak—speedily led to his deposition in favour of
his brother Muhammad. He was imprisoned, escaped
and then was granted the governorship of Fars by
Muhammad, but died at Isfahan in 555/1160.

Bibliography: Bosworth, in Camb. hist, of Iran,

vi, 169, 175-7.

4. Malik-Shah was also the name of two
members of the Saldj.uks of Rum in the
6th/ 1 2th century: (a) Malik-Shah b. Kilidj Arslan
I b. Sulayman b. Kutlumush (for a brief spell after
his father’s death in 500/1107); and (b) Malik-Shah
b. Kilidj Arslan II b. Mas c ud, Kutb al-DIn, who
during the division of territories during the latter part
of his father’s reign (i.e. 551-88/1156-92), received
Slwas and Aksaray, and who then kept his father in
semi-captivity in Konya [see kilidj arslan ii] .

276

MALIK-SHAH — MALIK al-TUDJDJAR

Bibliography : Zambaur, Manuel, 143; O.

Turan, Selfuklu zamamnda Tiirkiye, Istanbul 1971,

149 n. 2, 154, n. 17; S. Vryonis, The decline of

medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor, Berkeley and Los

Angeles 1971, 147, 150 n. 48. (C. E. Bosworth)

MALIK al-SHU c ARA> (a.), “King of the Poets”,
honorific title of a Persian poet laureate,
which is also known in other forms. It was the highest
distinction which could be given to a poet by a royal
patron. Like other honorifics [see lakab], it con¬
firmed the status of its holder within his profession
and was regarded as a permanent addition to his
name which sometimes even became a hereditary
title. Corresponding to this on a lower level was the
privilege, given occasionally to court poets, of choos¬
ing a pen name [see takhallus] based on the name
or one of the lakabs of their patron.

Certain responsibilities went with the title, at least
during the Middle Ages. The poet laureate was a
supervisor of the poets assembled at the court and
passed judgment on poems before they were presented
to the patron. He also decided about the admission of
applicants to the position of a court poet, but it is evi¬
dent from some of the anecdotes related by Nizami-yi
c Arudi that such introductions could equally be
sought through the intermediacy of other dignitaries.
Being the guardian of the ruler’s reputation as a
benefactor of letters, he occupied a position of trust;
it is frequently mentioned that the poet laureate was
a prominent boon companion (nadim [<?.y.]) of his
patron. E. E. Bertels ascribed an important role in the
development of Persian poetry before the Mongol
period to the institution; the influences exerted by a
poet laureate on the poets under his control fostered
the rise of local traditions marked by common stylistic
features.

The scarce information about literary life at the
Sasanid court available to us suggests that the rank of
favourite artist was known in Iran prior to Islam. The
story about the rivalry between Sarkash and Barbad
over the first place among the minstrels of Khusraw
Parvlz can be taken as an indication (cf. A.
Christensen, LTran sous les Sassanides, Copenhagen
1944, 484). The founding of a diwdn al-shi c r for the
distribution of rewards to poets by the Baramika [q. v. ]
and the appointment of Aban al-Lahikl (died about
200/815-16 [< 7 . 0 .]) as an official critic of the poems
presented to these Iranian viziers of the c Abbasids,
point into the same direction (see also D. Sourdel, Le
vizirat c Abbdside de 749 a 936, Damascus 1959-60, i,
143 f.).

Dawlatshah (flor . at the end of the 9th/15th century)
recorded the formal appointment of c Un$uri as a poet
laureate by Mahmud of Ghazna through a mithdl-i
malik al-shu^ard^t in the early 5th/11 th century. The
duties of this office were similar to those incumbent on
the holder of the office instituted by the Barmakids
(Tadhkirat al-shu c ard 5 , London-Leiden 1901, 44 f.).
Although the actual title is not mentioned in sources
from his own time, there is little reason to doubt that
c UnsurI did occupy the leading position at the Ghaz-
nawid court ascribed to him. This need not mean,
however, that he was the first Persian poet who was
honoured in this manner. The chapter on the poets in
the Cahdr makala, the anecdotes of which illustrate the
most important aspects of early court poetry, refers to
the special position held by RudakI under the
Samanids in the 4th/10th century. Particularly infor¬
mative is the story on Nizami-yi c ArudT’s visit to Amir
Mu c izzl [ q.v .] in 510/1116-17 in order to get a reward
for a kasida presented to this poet-laureate of the
Saldjuk sultan. It contains a detailed account of

Mu c izzi’s succession to the post of amir al-shu^ra*
which was held already by his father Burhanl. The
remunerations attached to this function consisted of a
djdmagi and an ijjrd \ the kinds of salary regularly
assigned to officials [see djamakiyya]. Another anec¬
dote tells about a conflict at the court of the
Khakanlyan (i.e. the Ilek-Khans [q.v.]) of Transox-
ania between rival poets. Rashid! defies successfully
the authority of the amir al-shu c ard 3 c Am c ak and wins
for himself the title of sayyid al-shucard 3 . It should be
noted that the title of malik al-shxTard which later ap¬
pears to be in general use, does not occur in the Cahdr
makala.

The institution remained a part of the organisation
of courts wherever poetry was practised according to
the Persian tradition. We find it under the Saldjuks of
Anatolia as well as under the Muslim rulers of the In¬
dian subcontinent. For the later periods, it is difficult
to decide to what extent its significance exceeded that
of a merely honorary office. A remarkable revival of
mediaeval customs came about in 19th-century Iran
under the Kadjar dynasty. Fath C A1I Shah tried to im¬
itate the literary splendour of the ancient court of
Ghazna by attracting a great number of court poets
who were united in a society called an$uman-i Khdkdn.
He gave the title of malik al-shu c ara 5 to Saba, the
author of the §hdhinshdh-ndma, which in the style of the
Shdh-ndma glorified the exploits of Fath C A1I Shah.
Many honorifics of this kind were handed out by
Shahs, viziers and provincial governors to their
favourite poets throughout this period. Among the
last who received the title of malik al-shu^rd* was
Muhammad TakI Bahar [q.v.]. In 1904, when he was
only eighteen, Muzaffar al-Dln Shah allowed him to
adopt this title which was previously held by his father
Saburf. In spite of his subsequent renouncing of
feudal poetry, the title remained attached to Bahar’s
name till the end of his days.

Bibliography: Nizami-yi c ArudI, Cahdr makala,
ed. M. Kazwlnl and M. Mu c In, Tehran 1955-7,
49 ff.; E. E. Bertels, Izbrannie trudi. Istoriya persid-
skotadzikskoy literaturi, Moscow 1960, 125 f., 332,
355; F. Machalski, Persian court poetry of the Kagar
period, in Folia Orientalia, vi (1964), 1-40; J. Rypka,
History of Iranian Literature, Dordrecht 1968, 173,
203, 326, 328 f., 345; J. W. Clinton, The Divan of
Manuchihri Ddmghdni, Minneapolis 1972, 29 ff.

(J. T. P. de Bruijn)

MALIK al-TU DJDJ AR (a. “king of the big mer¬
chants”), an office and a title which existed in
Iran from Safawid times (J. Chardin, Journal de
voyages du Chevalier Chardin, en Perse, et autres lieux de
VOrient ..., ed. L. Langles, v, Paris 1811, 262), and
probably earlier, until the end of the Kadjar period.

It is not clear precisely what the functions of the
malik al-tu djdj dr were during the Safawid and early
Kadjar periods, or to what extent the office existed in
the various commercial centres of the country. It is,
however, obvious, that not all major towns had a malik
al-tu djdj dr in the first half of the 19th century. In
Djumada I 1260/May-June 1844 Muhammad Shah
(1834-48) issued a farmdn which ordered that a malik
al-tu didj dr be appointed “in every place in Persia
where extended commerce is carried on ...” (“Fir¬
man relating to bankruptcies '...”, in L. Hertslet
[ed.], A complete collection of the treaties and conventions ...
between Great Britain and foreign powers, ix, London
1856, 614). By the second half of the 19th century, big
merchants (tu djdj dr) acting as malik al-tu didj dr were to
be found in most major commercial centres of Iran
(Mlrza Muhammad Hasan Khan I c timad al-Saltana
[Sani c al-Dawla], MiCat al-buldan-i Ndsirt, Tehran

277

MALIK al-TUDJDJAR — MALIKANE

1297-1300/1880-83, ii, 270; iii, 2, 4-5, 25, 33, 120;
Hadjdyi Mlrza Hasan Fasa 5 T, Fdrs-ndma-yi Nasin,
Tehran 1313/1895-6, i, 308-9; ii, 205; Ruznama-yi
Dawlat-i ^Aliyya-yi Iran [Tehran], 486, 2 Ramadan
1277; 26 Dhu ’I-Hidjdja 1280; Ahmad c AlI Khan
Wazlri, Dju ghrafiyd-yi Kirrndn, ed. M. Bast am Parlzl,
Tehran 1346/1967, 67, 159; J. E. Polak, Persien: Das
Land und seine Bewohner, ethnographische Schilderungen,
Leipzig 1865, ii, 188; E. G. Browne, A year amongst the
Persians, London 1893, 372, 407; W. M. Floor, The
merchants (tujjar) in Qajar Iran, in ZDMG, cxxvi (1976),
107-9). In Na§ir al-Din Shah’s reign (1848-96), the
malik al-tu djdjd r of Tehran was officially recognised as
the superior malik al-tu djdjd r of the country, and re¬
ceived the title malik al-tu djdjd r al-mamdlik (Mlrza
Muhammad Hasan Khan Ptimad al-Saltana [Sani c
al-Dawla], Ta^rikh-i muntazam-i Nafiri, Tehran
1300/1883, iii, 231; Ruznama-yi Dawlat-i c Aliyya-yi
Iran, 642, 16 RabP I 1287). It seems that the promi¬
nent big merchants of each main town chose one from
out of their ranks and recommended his name to the
authorities, which would then nominate him to that
office ( Ruznama-yi Dawlat-i c Aliyya-yi Iran, 486, 2
Ramadan 1277; 26 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 1280; Polak, Per¬
sien, ii, 188; J. Greenfield, Die Verfassung des persischen
Staates, Berlin 1904, 145). It appears that the office al¬
most always fell into the hands of one of the most
prominent and wealthy big merchants of any given
commercial centre (Dr. J.-B. Feuvrier, Trois ans a la
Cour de Perse, newed., Paris 1906, 284; J. G. Lorimer,
Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, 5 Oman, and Central Arabia,
i/2, Calcutta 1915, 2618; “MaYlan” and “Shiraz” in
Government of India, Gazetteer of Persia, Simla 1910,
i, 497-8, 502-3; iii, 852; J. Greenfield, Verfassung,
143), and that a strong hereditary tendency developed
in the holders of the office ( Ruznama-yi Dawlat-i
c Aliyya-yi Iran, 642, 16 RabP I 1287; Ptimad al-
Saltana, Mir^at, iii, 120; Fasa 5 !, Fars-nama, ii, 205).

The malik al-tu djdj dr was not a government official.
He did not receive any payment for holding the office,
nor was he officially a member of any government
department. He had two main functions: (1) he was
the merchants’ representative, or better, the link be¬
tween the trading community of a given town or pro¬
vince and the authorities, and ( 2 ) he was entrusted
with authority to settle disputes between the Iranian
merchants and their customers, among the merchants
themselves, and between local and foreign merchants
and trading-firms (Polak, Persien, ii, 188-9; J. M. de
Rochechouart, Souvenir d’un voyage en Perse, Paris 1867,
176; C. J. Wills, Persia as it is, London 1886, 45;
G. N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian question , London
1892, i, 450; A. Houtum-Schindler, art. Persia. I.
Geography and statistics, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 10th
ed., London 1902, xxxi, 619; Greenfield, Verfassung,
143; idem, Das Handelsrecht ... von Persien, Berlin 1906,
22, 27). It was the latter function, especially so far as
it concerned the claims of foreign merchants in cases
of the bankruptcies of Iranian merchants, that pro¬
voked the issue of Muhammad Shah’s above-
mentioned farman. Nasir al-Din Shah extended the
functions of the malik al-tu djdj dr to include, in col¬
laboration with the provincial official in charge of
trade and commerce (ra^is tu djdj arat). the encourage¬
ment of commercial activity in particular and of the
economy of the country in general (Greenfield, Ver¬
fassung, 143). In Tehran, the malik al-tu djdj dr was con¬
sulted by the government on commercial and various
other economic issues. He was asked by Nasir al-Din
to form a council of the prominent big merchants of
the capital which would hold regular meetings, in
which the question of developing and encouraging

trade and commerce, should be discussed, and the
results of its deliberations communicated to the
government (Ptimad al-Saltana, Ta^nkh, iii, 231. Cf.
Houtum-Schindler, in EB 10 , xxxi, 619).

The economic developments of the 1870s and 1880s
were bound to bring to an end the co-operation which
had existed between the government and the big mer¬
chants. While the central government found itself
faced by growing fiscal difficulties, the big merchants
became wealthier. Against this background, the
government initiated new economic measures. The
tobacco concession (1890) and the new customs ad¬
ministration and regulations (1898-1904) in particular
aroused the opposition of the big merchants to the
government. Big merchants holding the office of malik
al-tu djdjd r in several major towns played a central role
in the protest movements which brought about the
cancellation of the tobacco concession in 1892, and the
granting of a constitution ( kanun-i asast) and the
establishment of a national consultative assembly
(madjlis-i shura-yi mill!) in 1906 (see further Mihd!
Malikzada, Ta?nkh-i inkilab-i mashrutiyydt-i Iran,
Tehran 1328/1949, i, 128-30, 278-9; ii’ 28, 168-72;
Ibrahim Taymuri, Tahrim-i tanbaku yd awwalin
mukdwamat-i manfi dar Iran, Tehran 1328/1949, 78-9,
112; Nazim al-Islam Kirmanl, TaMkh-i btdan-yi
Irdmydn, Tehran 1332/1952, 12; Mlrza C A1I Khan
Amin al-Dawla, Khatirat-i siydsi-yi Mlrza c Alt Khan
Amin al-Dawla , ed. Hafiz Farmanfarmayan, Tehran
1341/1962, 155; Yahya Dawlatabadl, Ta^rikh-i mu c asir
yd hay at-i Yahya, Tehran n.d., i, 108; A. K. S. Lamb-
ton, The tobacco regie: prelude to revolution, in SI, xxii
[1965], 124-42; eadem, Persia: The breakdown of society,
in The Cambridge history of Islam, i, Cambridge 1970,
459-67; eadem, The Persian constitutional revolution of
1905-6, in P. J. Vatikiotis (ed.), Revolution in the Mid¬
dle East, London 1972, 175-82; N. R. Keddie, Religion
and rebellion in Iran, the tobacco protest of 1891-1892, Lon¬
don 1966, 49-53, 85, 90-1; eadem, Iranian politics
1900-1905: background to revolution, in Middle Eastern
Studies, v [1969], 7, 12, 155-6, 163, 236, 240, 243; G.
G. Gilbar, The big merchants (tujjar) and the Persian con¬
stitutional revolution of 1906, in Asian and African Studies,
[The Hebrew University, Jerusalem], xi [1976],
288-303; idem, Persian agriculture in the late Qajar period,
1860-1906: some economic and social aspects, in ibid., xii
[1978], 334-46).

With the fall of the Kadjars and the adoption of
modern forms of government and Western institu¬
tions, the office of malik al-tu djdjd r lapsed, its functions
being taken over by the Chambers of Commerce of
the major towns and by several government
departments.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(G. G. Gilbar)

MALIKANE, a tech nical term made up of
Arabic malik “owner” and the Persian suffix -ane
which gives the meaning of “in the manner of, way
of” to the word to which it is added. It is used to des¬
cribe intangible property, i.e. fiscal revenues,
whenever the enjoyment of them is connected with full
ownership. The term’s content has nevertheless
changed over the centuries. The oldest attestation of
it known to us appears in a grant of Ghiyath al-Din
Plrshah, ruler of Kh w arazm, d. 627/1230 (see H.
Horst, Die Staatsverwaltung der Grosselguqen und Horazm-
sahs (1038-1231), Wiesbaden 1964, 142). Under the
Saldjuks of Asia Minor and their subsequent successor
states, including the Ottomans, the term malikane was
applied to the tithe (i.e. the tax levied according to the
religious law) or to a proportion of it ceded by the
state either subject to various liabilities or freely to a

278

MALIKANE — MALIKIYYA

certain person, who could sell it, make it into a pious
foundation or bequeath it to his descendants. It is thus
contrasted with those fiscal revenues called diwani
which were composed of customary rights. Under this
form, the malikane system was able to maintain itself
only in certain long-established pious foundations,
since the Ottoman state would not tolerate any fiscal
revenue slipping from its control.

In 1695, the dejterddr [see daftardarJ of the time
elaborated the bases of a new form of malikdne, i.e. a
grant of the enjoyment of revenues for life, with care
to protect the properties of the state from the dilapida¬
tion allowed by uncaring lessees, heedless of the
ultimate fate of properties granted to them. The fiscal
revenues were, as in ordinary leases, put up for auc¬
tion and sold to the highest bidder. This last paid over
to the state the “price” of the lease called mu c a djdje le
and contracted to hand over each year a fixed sum
corresponding to the fiscal revenues taken on lease. In
the case of a new sovereign coming to the throne, he
paid additionally 25% of the cost of the lease, and in
times of war, 10%. Given the fact that the holders of
these leases for life came from the class of high officials
and persons (such as civilian and military dignitaries
and scholars) who usually lived in the capital, they in
turn sub-let the properties they had leased. In 1715 a
firman decreed the abolition of the system, but it con¬
tinued in existence till ca. 1839.

• •

Bibliography : O. L. Barkan, Tiirk-islam toprak
hukuku tatbikatimn osmanli imparatorlugunda aldigi
sekiller. Mdlikdne-divdni sistemi, in Turk hukuk ve iktisat
tarihi mecmuasi, ii (1932-9), Istanbul 1939, 119-84;
M. Z. Pakalin, Osmanli tarih deyimleri ve terimleri
sozligii, ii, Istanbul 1951, 3, 395-7; M. Gene,
Osmanli maliyesinde malikane sistemi, in Turkiye iktisat
tarihi semineri, ed. O. Okyar, Publ. of Hacettepe
Univ. no. C 13, Ankara 1975, 231-96; I.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Fiscalite et formes de possession
de la terre arable dans TAnatolie preottomane, in JESHO,
xix/3 (1976), index x.v. malikane.

(I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr)
MALIKIYYA, a juridical-religious group
of orthodox Islam which formed itself into a school (al-
madhhab al-mdliki) after the adoption of the doctrine of
Imam Malik b. Anas [< 7 . 0 .] who died at Medina in
179/795.

In the 2nd/8th century, when the islamisation of
law had been partially accomplished but different
systems coexisted, the need for a uniform judicial code
became imperative. The second c Abbasid caliph, Abu
Dja c far al-Mansur (d. 159/775), approached the
Medinan jurist with a proposal to establish a judicial
system which would unify the different methods then
in force in the different Islamic countries. This project
was in accordance with the spirit of c Abbasid policy,
and Malik b. Anas was chosen because he represented
Medina, where the principles of Islamic law had been
determined, and because it is almost certain that, at
the time that this proposal was put to him, his doctrine
had already been diffused and circulated by his pupils
in the Ma gh rib and in Spain.

1. Doctrine

The sources. The originality of the teaching of Malik
consists in the fact that he introduced in the Kitab al-
Muwatta 3 the recognition of c amal, i.e. the effective
and unanimous practice of Medina, which he estab¬
lished as an organised judicial system. The Muwatta 5
is the earliest Islamic judicial work which has survived
to the present day; a treatise of fikh based on hadith
which plays the role of judicial argument, it has two
objects in view: religious worship ( Hbdddt ) and general

law ( mu^dmaldt ). In its final edition, the Muwatta 3 con¬
tains approximately a hundred hadiths, 222 mursals,
613 mawkufs [see hadith] and 285 opinions of
Tdbi c un. All the individuals mentioned are Medinans
or scholars who had frequented Mecca or Medina.
The bulk of the traditions are traced back to c Abd
Allah b. c Umar. The success enjoyed by the Muwatta 3
is owed to the fact that it represented the moderate
view then holding sway in Medina and that, without
being a particularly original work, it bore witness to
the judicial level attained by the consensus of opinion
in Medina (for an analysis of the Muwatta * see A.
Bekir, Histoire de Vecole malikite.) The Muwatta 5 is thus
a code of legislation according to a description of law,
statute and dogma as practised according to the
consensus and the tradition (sunna) of Medina,
augmented by personal remarks of Malik. On the
recensions of the Muwatta see malik b. anas, and al-
Suyutl, Tazyln al-mamalik bi-mandkib sayyidind al-lmam
Malik, where there is a list of authors who have passed
on a riwdya of the work.

The other principal source for the study of the doc¬
trine of Malik is intitled al-Mudawwana al-kubrd. It is
the work of the Kayrawarn Sahnun (160-240/776-854
[q.v. ]), and is a collection of Maliki fikh which contains
the corrections and responses made to Sahnun by Ibn
al-Kasim al- c UtakT (d. 191/806), a disciple of Malik,
according to the opinions of Malik himself, of his con¬
temporaries and his masters in tradition including al-
Zuhrl (d. 124/740), Nafi c (d. 116/734) and Rab^at al-
Ra 5 y. The Mudawwana was also called the Mukhtalifa,
since it completed and improved upon, through the
diversity of subjects considered, the Asadiyya of Ibn al-
Furat (d. 213/828), a work based on the teaching of
Malik and of the HanafTs of c Irak. The practical in¬
terest of the Mudawwana consists in the fact that it il¬
lustrates the connections between religion and trade
and that it describes mercantile practices (documenta¬
tion, bills of exchange and all kinds of commercial
transactions). See G. H. Bousquet, La Mudawwana.
Index (avec la table generale des matieres), in Arabica, xvii/2
(1970), 113-50.

This work gave rise to a whole literature of com¬
mentaries of which the principal examples will be in¬
dicated here, and some of which have been translated.
The first to be mentioned are the works of Ibn Abl
Zayd al-Kayrawani (d. 386/996): the Ikhtisar al-
Mudawwana and the Kitab al-Nawddir wa \l-ziydddt c ala
’ l-Mudawwana, a summary of the precepts of the
school, supplemented by a study of cases not foreseen
by Sahnun. Ibn Abl Zayd al-Rayrawanl is also the
author of a famous Risala, a precis of Maliki law,
translated by L. Bercher, Algiers 1952 (see H. R.
Idris, Note sur Tidentification du dedicataire de la Risala
d’Ibn Abi Zaid al-Qairawani, in CT, i [1953], 63-8). An¬
other work which enjoyed great success in North
Africa is the Tahdhib al-Mudawwana, Tunis ms.
Zaytuna, of Abu Sa c id al-Bardha c T (d. 400/1009). In
imitation of Sahnun, the Andalusian Ibn Habib (d.
238/845) composed al-Wadiha after a visit to Egypt as
the guest of Ibn al-Kasim. One of his pupils, al- c Utbi
(d. 255/869), made an abridged version of it entitled
al- c Utbiyya. The Mudawwana also inspired Ibn
Hadjib (d. 646/1248) who restated the precepts of the
Maliki school in his Mukhtasar fi ’l-furu c . Khalil b.
Ishak (d. 776/1374 [< 7 . 0 .]) is the author of a Mukhtasar
of this work. It has been translated into French by
Perron ( Precis de jurisprudence musulmane, 2nd ed., Paris
1877); into Italian by Guidi and Santillana in 1919,
and again into French by G. H. Bousquet {Abrege de
la loi musulmane selon le rite de Tlmam Malik, Algiers-
Paris 1956-63), to say nothing of partial translations.

MALIKIYYA

279

This Mukhtasar of Kh alil, a basic text of Malik! law, is
in its turn barely usable without the aid of commen¬
taries, of which the best known are:

— al-Sharh “'aid Mukhtasar Khalil of al-Zurkan! (d.
1099/1687, published in Cairo in 1307 with a com¬
mentary by al-Bannan! (a version highly valued in the
Orient);

— al-Sharh al-$aghir of Dardir (d. 1201/1786), Bulak
1289, and, of the same author;

— al-Sharh al-kabir, Bulak 1295, with glosses by
al-Dasuk!;

—Mukhtasar Khalil of al-Khirsh!, with glosses by
al- c Adawi, Bulak 1316, vols, iv and v;

— al- Dju z 3 al-awwdl min Kitab Mawahib al-Djalil li-shark
Mukhtasar Sidi Khalil of al-Mawwak, vols. iii and iv;
Abu ’l-Walld al-Badj! (d. 474/1081), a celebrated
polemicist who composed a Mukhtasar ji masaHl al-
Mudawwana is also the author of the Muntaka shark al-
Muwatta\ published in Cairo in 1312.

Transmission of the doctrine. According to Ibn
Khaldun ( Mukaddima, Cairo n.d.), until the 5th/11 th
century the Malik! school was divided into three
tendencies ( turuk ): Kayrawanl, Andalusian and
eastern, the last-named including the c IrakI, Egyptian
and Alexandrian transmissions. The following are the
lines of transmission from Malik onwards:

Kayrawanl sanad: Ibn al-Kasim (d. 191/806),
Sahnun (d. 240/854), who also inherited from Asad b.
al-Furat (d. 213/828) and, by this indirect means,
from the disciples of Abu Hanlfa. After Sahnun, there
are the commentaries of Abu Zayd al-Kayrawan! (d.
386/996), of al-Bardha c I (d. 400/1009), of Ibn Yunus
(d. 451/1059), of Ibn Muhriz (d. 450/1058), of al-
Tunis! (d. 443/1051) and of al-Lakhm! (d. 478/1085).
This line of transmission established the reputation of
the Mudawwana and of its commentaries for the
Maghrib.

Andalusian sanad: Yahya b. Yahya al-Layth! (d.
234/848), al-A§bagh (d. 224/838), Ibn al-Madjishun
(d. 214/829), al-Mutarrif (d. 220/835), Ibn al-Kasim
(d. 191/806) who transmitted to Ibn al-Hab!b (d.
238/845) and in his turn to al- c Utb! (d. 255/869). The
Andalusian transmission for its part accords the
greatest respect to the c Utbiyya, of which the best
known commentary is the Baydn of Ibn Rushd (d.
520/1126 [q.v.]).

c Iraki sanad : KadT Isma c !l (d. 246/860), Ibn
Khuwayzmindad, Ibn al-Labban and al-Abhar! (d.
375/985) who transmitted to c Abd al-Wahhab (d.
421/1030). The last-named, who settled in Egypt, was
to influence directly and profoundly the Egyptian
sanad.

Egyptian sanad: Ibn c Abd al-Hakam (d. 214/829),
Ibn al-Kasim (d. 191/806) and Ashhab (d. 204/819);
al-Harith b. Miskm (d. 250/864) inherited from both
these last two. The following may be regarded as the
most significant links in this chain of transmission:
Ibn al-Rashlk (d. 632/1234) and Ibn al-Hadjib (d.
646/1248), the latter inheriting via the Alexandrian
sanad from Ibn c Inan (d. 541/1146), Ibn c Ata 5 Allah
(d. 612/1215) and Ibn c Awf (d. 581/1185), and
transmitting to al-Karaf! (d. 684/1285). The connec¬
tion between eastern and Andalusian transmission
was established in the 6 th/12th century with Abu Bakr
al-Turtushi (d. 520/1126), who travelled to Egypt and
secured employment as a teacher in Alexandria (see
V. Lagardere, L ’unificateur du malikisme oriental et oc¬
cidental a Alexandrie: Abu Bakr al-Turtushi, in ROMM, i
[1981]). This connection with the Egyptian school,
already much influence by the c Iraki transmission in
the person of the kadi c Abd al-Wahhab, was to have
as its consequence the abandonment, in the 7th/13th

century, of the Mudawwana and of the c Utbiyya in
favour of the Mukhtasar fi ’l-furif of Ibn al-Hadjib (d.
646/1248). These two basic works of Malik! doctrine,
which had led to the production of a significant corpus
of judicial writing, continued to be influential for
some time after the disappearance of Cordova and
Kayrawan as centres of learning, but lost their effec¬
tive role at the end of the 8th/14th century.

Principles and judicial theory. Like other schools of
Sunn! Islam, Malikism bases its doctrine on the
Kurian, the Sunna and idjma c [q-v.]\ nevertheless,
divergencies of greater or lesser significance exist in
regard to the other rites. While there is unanimity sur¬
rounding the Holy Book, a primary difference ap¬
pears concerning the Sunna. The tradition of the
Prophet Muhammad and that of the Companions
constitute the Sunna according to Malik, who excludes
from it the tradition of C A1!, which other schools in¬
corporate (in fact, in refusing to choose between C A1!
and c Uthman, Malik would have recognised the
legitimacy of their caliphate, but, according to an¬
other trend of opinion, he would have agreed as to the
superiority of c Uthman, which would seem more like¬
ly in view of the fact that his school also flourished at
Basra in an c Uthman! milieu).

To idjmd c , universal consensus of the Muslims,
there is added the Medinan ijjmd c which proceeds
from the c amal, the effective practice of Medina. It can
even result that this consensus prevails over hadith,
Medinan opinion being considered to testify to the
acts of the Prophet. For Malik, hadith is thus not the
most important source, and personal judgment, raj,
is to be used in parallel, when idjmcd cannot provide
the answer to a question and only if this procedure
does not injure the public good ( maslaha ). Malik is
sometimes reproached for making too much use of
this method. Kiyas [q.v.], reasoning by analogy, which
had many opponents among the Sunnis, is applied by
the Malikis in cases of idjma c al-umma.

Malikism and schismatics. It was the intolerance of
Malik towards schismatics which made his school so
successful. The hostility of his teaching towards the
Kadariyya [q. v. ] and the Kharidjls is based on the fact
that they are considered to be disturbers of public
order and agents of corruption (fasad). I£jiaridj!s must
make an act of repentance ( tawba ); if they refuse, they
are condemned to capital punishment. For the zindik
[q.v. ], even repentance is not allowed; he is im¬
mediately condemned to death for the crime of
apostasy. The temporal authorities, notably the
c Abbasid caliphate, often had recourse to a Malik! kafi
to judge heretics, public agitators or those considered
as such. Thus it was the Malik! Grand Kcuji of
Baghdad, Abu c Umar Ibn Yusuf, who tried and con¬
demned to death al-Halladj [q. v. ] in 319/922. Two
Shl^I extremists of the Middle Ages are known to have
perished in similar circumstances: Hasan b. Muham¬
mad al-Sakak!ni, executed at Damascus in 744/1342,
and c Al! b. al-Hasan al-Halab!, executed in 755/1354.

Malikism and mysticism. There is a priori no place for
mysticism in the school of Malik. A hadith of the
Prophet forbids monasticism, which is even regarded
as bid c a. Nevertheless, under the impulse of piety an
ascetic movement was established, and until the
2nd/8th century it attracted little attention. But,
stimulated by the intense intellectual activity which
developed in the Orient from the end of this century,
mysticism spread widely and attained proportions
which were disturbing for the prevailing orthodoxy.
In the Ma gh rib, in spite of fatwas promulgated to con¬
demn and ban the works of al-Ghazall (d. 505/1111),
Sufism gained ground with the Almoravids and even

280

MALIKIYYA

flourished under the Almohads. In al-Andalus, where
the milieu was particularly intolerant, the mystical
movement enjoyed a brief period of ascendancy with
Ibn Masarra (d. 319/931) [q.v. ] and his disciples (see
V. Lagardere, La Tariqa et la revolte des Muridun en
539HI1144 en Andalus, in ROMM, i [1983]).

The following may be named among the Maliki
mystics: Abu ’1-Kasim al-Shibll (d. Baghdad.
334/945), the Ifrlkiyan Abu c Uthman Ibn Sallamf al-
Maghribl (d. NTsabur, 373/983). After al-Ghazali.
mysticism triumphed with the Hanball c Abd al-Kadir
al-DjilT (d. 561/1166), whose school spread widely
both in the East and the West. Abu Madyan al-
AndalusI diffused his doctrine in the Maghrib, and
one of his pupils was c Abd al-Salam b. Mashlsh (d.
624/1227), the teacher of al-Shadhili (d. 656/1258),
who was educated in Ifrlkiya and in Egypt and had
numerous disciples in Syria and the Hidjaz. From this
time onwards, there were many Sufis among the
Malikis. In Syria, around Ibn al- c ArabI (d.
638/1240), the greatest mystic of Muslim Spain, a
complete organisation was established and zawiyas
were built for his followers. Among known Maliki
Sufis, also worthy of mention are Muhammad b.
Ahmad al-Bisatl (d. 842/1438), Maliki kadi and shaykh
of the Sufis of Cairo, and c AlI b. Muhammad al-
Kurashi (d. Alexandria, 808/1405). Another who
should be mentioned is a famous Egyptian Sufi who
introduced gnosis (ma^rifa) into his doctrine, Dhu ’1-
Nun al-Mi$rI; a Maliki, he is the author of a version
of the Muwalta?.

Works oj Tabakat, other sources for the knowledge of
Malikism and of its disciples. Although the first text of
Maliki tabakat is owed to the pen of Ibn AbT Dallm (d.
351/962), under the title of Kitab al-Tabakat ftmanyar-
wi c an Malik wa-atbaHhim min ahl al-amsdr, it is not this
that is regarded by posterity as a fundamental work,
both of tabakat and of history of the doctrine, but the
second of the genre in chronological order, that of the
kadi c Iyad (d. 544/1149 [q.v. ]), which bore the title
Tartib al-madarik wa-takrib al-masalik. This source is
particularly important for the reason that, in addition
to the biographies of Eastern and Western Malikis, it
contains a lengthy study of the life of Malik, his work,
the eminence of his doctrine and the causes of its ex¬
pansion before dealing with the expansion itself. The
next text, which contains the biographies of Malikis
who lived after the time of c Iyad until the end of the
8th/14th century, is the work of the Andalusian Ibn
Farhun (d. 799/1396) and is intitled al-Dibadj al-
mudhhab ft ma^rifat a c ydn c ulamd 5 al-madhhab.

The Shafi c i al-SakhawI (d. 780/1378) is the author
of Tabakat mdlikiyya which is composed on the basis of
some twenty sources mentioned in the conclusion.
Two further works of tabakat directly inspired by the
Dibadj of Ibn Farhun should be noted: Nayl al-ibtihddj
bi-tatriz al-Dibddj of Ahmad Baba (d. 1032/1622
[g.u.]), printed in the margins of the Dibadj, and the
Tawshih al-Dibddj of al-Karafi (d. 1008/1600). The last
text of Maliki tabakat is that of the Tunisian Muham¬
mad Makhluf who lived at the beginning of the 20th
century; it is intitled Shadjarat al-nur al-zdkiyya ft tabakat
al-Malikiyya and was published in Cairo in 1931. This
is the most complete source, since it relates the
biographies of the Prophet, of the Companions, of the
tabi c un, then those of the eminent jukahd? of the
Hidjaz, of c Irak, of Egypt, of the Maghrib and of An¬
dalusia, concluding with those of the masters who in¬
structed the author in 1922.

2. The expansion of Malikism

The Orient. In general, in the East as in the West,

it was the disciples of Malik who took upon themselves
the task of spreading his doctrine in his lifetime. In the
Tartib al-madarik, the kdji c Iyad informs us that it was
in Egypt, at Alexandria, that the second centre of
Malikism after Medina was established, through the
efforts of c Uthman b. c Abd al-Hakam al-Djudhaml
(d. 163/779), Sa c id b. c Abd Allah al-Ma c afirI who in¬
troduced Malikism to Alexandria, and Ibn al-Kasim
al- c UtakI who lived for a long time at Medina as an
intimate of Malik and was the intermediary through
whom the doctrine gained sway in the Maghrib and
Muslim Spain. On his death in 191/806, c Abd Allah
b. Wahb (d. 197/812) succeeded him as leader of the
Malikis of Egypt. These eminent fukahd 3 were suc¬
cessful in definitively implanting Malikism in this
country in spite of the difficulties caused by living in
proximity with ShafYism which was ultimately to sup¬
plant it; today, this school is dominant in Egypt, but
Malikism remains active in the $a c Td.

In his Raf- al-isr c an kuddt Misr, Cairo 1957, Ibn
Hadjar al- c AskalanI (d. 852/1449) provides a list of
the Maliki kadis of Egypt from the origin of the post
until the middle of the 9th/15th century. Al-
Kalkashandl, in the Subh al-a^sha, xii, explains how
the Malikis were addressed under the Mamluks. For
the modern period, see also G. Delanoue, Moralistes et
politiques musulmans dans TEgypte du XIX siecle
(1798-1882), Cairo 1982.

In c Irak, it was c Abd al-Rahman al-Ka c nabI (d.
221/835), of Medinan origin, who spread the doctrine
of Malik in the region of Ba§ra. One of the most emi¬
nent figures of. the c IrakI school is the kadi Isma c H b.
Ishak who, by his judical and political activities,
represents the Maliki authority par excellence of his
period. Other figures, no less renowned, including
Abu Bakr al-Bakillanl or al-Abhari, continued the
enterprise and spread the doctrine in Khurasan and
Syria. But the crises provoked by the Shafi c I move¬
ment at the beginning of the 5th/11th century led to
the eviction of Malikism from c Irak. In Khurasan, the
doctrine did not long resist the competition of the new
ideologies, and in Syria, after promising beginnings,
Malikism could not succeed in supplanting the doc¬
trine of al-Awza c I and did not survive in that country.

In the Yemen, it stood firm for more than a cen¬
tury, but was ultimately ousted by Shafi c ism.

At Medina, after the demise of the first disciples of
the Imam Malik, all trace of the school is lost. Never¬
theless, some Maliki scholars are attested before the
time of the arrival of the Fatimids, notably c Abd
al- c Az!z b. Abl Hazim, Muhammad b. Dinar al-
Djuhaynl (d. 182/798) and c Abd al-Malik al-

Madjishun (d. 213/828). It was not until the triumph
of Sunnism in the 8th/14th century that Malikism
returned to Medina (see A. Bekir, op. cit.).

In the present day, the Shafi C I rite holds sway in the
Hidjaz, but Maliki nuclei exist in the cities. In the
contemporary United Arab Emirates, there exists a
small Maliki community represented by a section of
the Hinawl clan.

The Muslim West. North Africa. It was Asad Ibn
al-Furat who introduced Malikism into North Africa
and Sahnun who established it as a formal sect. A
Malikism of extreme severity then dominated the
Ma gh rib, in particular Ifrlkiya under the Aghlabid
dynasty, and this continued until the arrival of the
Fatimids (298/910), which marked the triumph of
ShlSsm. A vigorous resistance was directed against
the latter by the Maliki scholars of Kayrawan, but it
was not until 440/1048 that Malikism was definitively
adopted in the Ma gh rib following the expulsion of the
Fatimids from Ifrlkiya.

MALIKIYYA

281

However, the intransigent doctrine which became
the norm in the Maghrib had the effect of suppressing
intellectual effort and religious feeling. In fact, the
study of the Kurban and of kadith , as well as ifjtihad
(personal effort at interpretation) were abandoned in
favour of the manuals of applied fikh {furu c ). The
Almoravid sovereigns gave their support to these
methods and encouraged the jukaha 5 to accord
supreme importance to the study of manuals of furu c .
This abandonment of recourse to the Kur 3 an and the
Sunna is denounced by al-Qhazall in the Ihya? c u/um al-
din, which shows that Malikism as practised by its
disciples no longer had any connection with the
religion as it had developed. He also condemns the
important role played by th e fukaha^ in political life.
Ibn Tumart [q.v. ] went even further than al-Ghazall.
Inspired by his principles, he declared war on the
Almoravids, appointed himself judge of morals, ap¬
propriated the title of Mahdi and, by violent means,
restored true orthodoxy. He banned the works of
furu c , and established as the basis of his doctrine
elements of the purest orthodoxy, sc. Kur 5 an, Sunna
and consensus of the umma. The doctrine of Ibn
Tumart was to be the impulse for an important
mystical movement throughout the whole of the
Maghrib, and in spite of the collapse of the Almohad
empire, and thus of its political support, it was to im¬
print upon victorious Malikism an indelible mark of
austerity (segregation of the sexes, fasting, dietary
prohibitions, among other elements characteristic of
Maghribi austerity).

It is, on the one hand, with the Haf§id civilisation
in Ifrlkiya, under the influence of the judicial schools
of Tunis, Bougie and Kayrawan, and of scholars of
the calibre of Ibn c Arafa (d. 804/1401), and on the
other, with the Marinid civilisation in the Western
Maghrib, and the famous madrasas of Fas and
Tlemcen, that the renaissance of Malikism in North
Africa is observed. If, today, Maghribi Islam seems
particularly rigorous, this is due to Malikism. In fact,
practice and doctrine have remained totally un¬
changed since the middle of the 7th/13th century, im¬
mediately after the fall of the Almohads. The success
of Malikism in North Africa may be explained by
reference to the theory of Ibn Khaldun (d. 808/1406)
according to whom Bedouin culture accounts for the
predominance of this school in the Muslim West. Ef¬
fectively, Malikism is loyal to the Tradition and
hostile to rational explanations; it is perfectly suited to
the Berber mentality of the Maghribls who refuse to
accept any idea unless it can be traced back to a tradi¬
tion. It is for this reason that Ma g hribi Malikism
seems rigid in comparison to that of the East, which
does not reject effort at interpretation ( idjtihad ). In
contemporary North Africa, Malikism is predomi¬
nant in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya; it coex¬
ists with some Ibacjl and HanafT centres in the three
last-named countries. It is exclusive in Mauritania
where it has been the object, over the centuries, of an
interesting adaptation (see Ould Bah, Litterature
juridique).

Muslim Spain. It was at the end of the 2nd/8th
century that Malikism was introduced into Muslim
Spain where it superseded the Syrian doctrine of al-
Awza c I. Those who brought to the country the
principles of the Imam of Medina were Andalusian
scholars, initiated by Malik himself or by his pupils.
The best known among them are Ziyad b. c Abd al-
Hakam, Yahya b. Yahya al-Laythi, Yahya b. Mu^ar
and c Isa b. Dinar. This class of scholars was the
nucleus of a clerical aristocracy which, throughout the
duration of the Umayyad dynasty, exercised real
power in the state and made Malikism the sole official

rite of al-Andalus. This state of affairs, which lasted
for nearly two centuries, coincided with the period of
the transmitters of Malik and of the Medinan tradi¬
tion, of the commentaries on the Muwatta 5 and
compilations of responsa. Andalusian Malikism was
characterised then by an intransigent austerity, ex¬
clusively attached to the study of manuals of
jurisprudence (furu 0 ), forsaking, in the manner of its
Maghribi neighbour, the study of hadiths and pro¬
scribing all effort at personal reflection {idjtihad).

The fall of the Umayyad caliphate, then the
emergence of regional principalities {muluk al-tawa?if)
in the 5th/11 th century, and later, the domination
of the Almohads, put an end to the supremacy of
jurisprudence. Political decentralisation, stimulated,
at an early stage, a socio-cultural renewal with in¬
dividuals including Ibn c Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1070),
al-Badjl (d. 474/1081) and Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1063);
with the last-named, a Zahirl jurist who opposed the
Malik! doctrine, hadith, the usul al-fikh and polemics of
judicial methodology {djadal) became the order of the
day (see in this context, the edition of al-Minhadjfitar-
tib al-hidjadj of BadjI, edited by A. M. Turki, Paris
1978, and Turki, Polemique entre Ibn Hazm et Bagi sur les
principes de la loi musulmane, Algiers 1976).

This opening towards the exterior, towards other
systems of thought, is given formal expression in the
work of Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198), especially with the
Biddyat al-mudjtahid wa-nihayat al-muktasid (ed. Cairo
1329). Nevertheless, the class of the Jukaha 5 retained a
dominant position until the last days of the Andalu¬
sian principalities and in particular that of Granada,
by means of individuals like Ibn Lubb and Muham¬
mad al-Sarakustl in the 8th/14th and 9th/15th cen¬
turies, and through them, Malikism, as the
compilations of biographies testify.

Africa, Bilad al-Sudan. Islam was propagated
at an early stage in the Sudan, among the Nuba of the
Nile Valley. But it was not until the 10th/16th century
that it was introduced to Dar Fur by Arab tribes. The
progress of Islam became most definitive towards the
end of the 13th/19th century under the influence of
the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad. At the present time,
the majority of the Muslims of the Sudan are of the
MalikI rite and use the Mukhta$ar of Khalil. Islam
spread to Kanem in the 5th/11 th century and was
firmly established around Lake Chad from the
9th/15th century onwards.

InWest Africa, Malikism was introduced by the
Almoravid conquest of the Takrur (Futa Toro) among
tribes which were to a greater or lesser extent vassals
of Ghana. At the end of the 5th/ 11th century,
Islamisation gained sway in the Gold Coast. Tim¬
buktu became the Islamic metropolis of the western
Sudan in the 8th/14th century, and its influence lasted
until the conquest of Songhay by Morocco in
1000/1591. It was especially among political func¬
tionaries and senior officials that the Muslim faith was
spread. It was not until the 12th/18th and 13th/19th
centuries that theocratic monarchies were established
in Futa Djallon and Futa Toro, following the victories
of the Toucouleur Muslims over the Peuls who were
forcibly converted. The Toucouleur Usman u Fodjo
preached djihad and founded the empire of Sokoto in
1207/1802. Muslim law was introduced to Maslna by
the Peul Seku Hamadu Bari in 1225/1810 and, in
1236/1820, the Toucouleur al-Ha djdj c Umar had
himself appointed khalifa tidjani for the Sudan. A vast
empire was established in which the Muslim faith was
the state religion. At the present time, there are
MalikI Muslims in the Black African states of Senegal,
Mali, Niger, Togo, Chad and Nigeria.

Bibliography. I. For the general study of

282

MALIKIYYA

Malik! doctrine, law and juridical ap¬
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Cairo 1951; Sahnun, al-Mudawwana al-kubrd, Cairo
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madhahib al-arba^a, Cairo 1844; Bergstrasser, in
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^ulama^Ifrxkiya, Cairo 1966; Malik!, Riyadal-nufusfi
tabakat c ulama 5 al-Kayrawan wa-Ifrtkiya, ed. H.
Mu 5 nis, Cairo 1951; Dabbagh Ibn Nadji, Ma c alim
al-imdn fi ma c rifat ahl al-Kayrawan, Cairo 1968-72;
c Iyad, Biographies aghlabides extraites des Madarik, ed.
Talbi, Tunis 1968; I. Goldziher, Introduction au
Livre de Mohammed Ibn Toumert, Algiers 1903; O. Pe-
sle, Le marriage chez les Malikites d’Afrique du Nord, in
Hesperis, xxiv (1937); Snoussi, Code du status person¬
nel tunisien, Tunis 1958; J. Roussier, Dispositions
nouvelles dans le statut successor al en droit tunisien, in SI,
xii (1969), 121-44; H. Mones, Le Malekisme et Techec
des Fatimides en Ifriqya, in Et. d’Or. ... Levi-Provenqal,
Paris 1962, i, 197-220; M. Talbi, Kairouan et le
malikisme espagnol, in ibid., i, 317-37; idem, L’emir at
aghlabide 184-286/800-909, Paris 1966; idem, Opera¬
tions bancaires en Ifriqiya a l’epoque d’al-Mdzari
(453-536/1061-1141), in Recherches d’lslamologie,
Louvain 1977; A. al-Fas!, Difd c al-shar^a, Rabat
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TOccident musulman. Hommage a G. Marfais, Algiers
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dans la Tunisie des Deys et des Beys jusqu ’au milieu du
XIX e siecle, in SI, xxiii (1965), 27-70; H. R. Idris,
Deux juristes kairouanais de I’epoque ziride: Ibn Abi Zaid
etal-Qabisi, in AIEO Alger, xii (1954), 122-98; idem,
Deux maitres de I’ecole juridique kairouanaise sous les
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Hmran al-Fasi, in ibid., xiii (1955), 30-60; idem, Le
crepuscule de I’ecole mdlikite kairouanaise (fin du XI e s.),
in CT, iv, 1956; idem, Une des phases de la lutte du
malikisme contre le si^isme sous les Zirides (XI e s.), in
ibid .; idem, Quelques juristes ifriqiyens de la fin du X*
siecle, in RAfr., c/446-9 (1956), 349-73; idem, L ’ecole
malikite de Mahdia: l’imam al-Mdzari (m. 536

H./1141), in Et. ... Levi-Provenfal, 153-63; idem,
Contribution a l’histoire de la vie religieuse en Ifriqiya
ziride (Xeme-XIeme siecles), in Melanges Louis
Massignon, Damascus 1957, ii, 327-59; idem, La
Berberie orientate sous les Zirides, Paris 1962; idem,
L ’aube du malikisme ifriqiyen, in SI, xxxiii (1971); M.
Bormans, Status personnel et famille au Maghreb de
1940 a nos jours, Paris 1977. — Expansion en
Espagne musulmane: J. Lopez-Ortiz, La recep-
cion de la escuela malaqui en Espaha, in Anuario de
historia del derecho espahol. Madrid 1931; E. Levi-

MALIKIYYA — MALIYYE

283

Provencal, Le malikisme andalou et les apports doc-
trinaux de l'Orient , in RIEE1 , i (1953), 159-71; idem,
Histoire de VEspagne musulmane, Paris 1953; P.
Nwyia, Ibn c Abbad de Ronda, Beirut 1961; H.
Menez, Le role des hommes de religion dans l’histoire de
VEspagne musulmane jusqu’a la fin du calif at, in SI, xx
(1964), 47-88; H. R. Idris, Reflexions sur le malikisme
sous les Umayyades d’Espagne, in Atti del III congresso
di Studi Arabi i Islamici, Ravello 1966; A. M. Turki,
La veneration pour Malik et la physique du malikisme an¬
dalou, in Theologiens etjuristes de VEspagne musulmane,
Paris 1982; idem. La place d'Averroes juriste dans
Vhistoire du malikisme et de VEspagne musulmane, ibid .;

R. Arie, L’Espagne musulmane au temps des Nasrides
(1232-1492), Paris 1973; D. Urvoy, Le monde des
ulemas andalous du V e /XI e s. au VII e !XIII e s. , Geneva
1978. — Expansion en Afrique: J. Schacht,
Islam in northern Nigeria, in SI, viii (1957), 123-46; J.

S. Trimingham, Islam in West Africa, Oxford 1959;
idem, A history of Islam in West Africa, Oxford 1962;
M. Zouber, Ahmad Baba de Tombouctou, Paris 1977;
J. Cuoq, Recueil des sources arabes concernant VAfrique
occidentale du VIII e au XVI e s. , Paris 1975; idem, Les
musulmans en Afrique, Paris 1975; V. Monteil,
L’Islam noir, Paris 1980; Sidi Mohamed Mahibou
et J. L. Triaud, Voila ce qui est arrive, Bayan ma
waqa c a d’al-H ddjdj c Umar al-Futi, Paris 1983;
Mohamed El Mokhtar Ould Bah, La litterature
juridique et Vevolution du Malikisme en Mauritanie,
Tunis 1981.

(N. Cottart)

MALINDI, a town on the Kenya coast inlat
4°N. It is first mentioned in literature by al-Idrlsi {ca.
1150); the Ma-in mentioned by Ou-yang Hsiu, Hsin
T’ang-shu, ca. 1060, is more likely to have been
situated in Somalia. Al-Idrlsi says that it was a town
of hunters and fishermen, whose inhabitants owned
and exploited iron mines. Iron was their greatest
source of profit. The iron, however, as A. O. Thomp¬
son has shown, was not mined, but recoverable from
seashore deposits. Al-Idrlsi also mentions Malindi as
a centre of witchcraft, a view also confirmed by Abu
’l-Fida 3 (1273-1331), who adds that it was the capital
of the King of the Zandj; he is likewise aware of the
exploitation of iron. Malindi was visited by the
Chinese admiral Cheng Ho in the course of his fifth
diplomatic and commercial voyage in the Indian
Ocean. Otherwise, little is known of the town in the
Middle Ages.

It was from Malindi that Vasco da Gama set off for
India in 1498 under the guidance of the pilot Ahmad
b. Madjid al-Nadjdp [see ibn madjid]. Da Gama had
been cold-shouldered at Mombasa, but was well-
received at Malindi, where the ruler had an ancient
enmity against Mombasa. The town of Malindi,
which in Swahili means “deep-water anchorages”,
lay in a bay and extended along the shore. A more de¬
tailed description is given by Duarte Barbosa in ca.
1517-18. The place was well laid out, with many
storeyed houses with flat roofs. The people traded
gold, ivory and wax, importing rice, millet and wheat
from Cambay. It was visited briefly by St. Francis
Xavier in 1542, when he had a conversation with a
kadi, who would seem to have been a ShTl. He
reported that the practice of Islam had greatly de¬
clined in recent years, and that, out of seventeen mos¬
ques, only three were in use. A later missionary, Fr.
Joao dos Santos O.P., reported in 1609 that the whole
coast from Mozambique to Lamu was ShTl.

The royal family of Malindi was of ShlrazI descent,
and possibly related to that of Kilwa [q.v.]. When the
royal line of Mombasa failed in ca. 1590, the Por¬

tuguese donated Mombasa to the Malindi dynasty,
which then reigned from Mombasa until 1632 [see
mombasa]. In the 18th century the Malindi traders at
Kilwa had as their chief an officer known as the
Malindani, who had virtually sovereign powers over
them which even the Sultan of Kilwa could not over¬
rule. After the move of the royal house to Mombasa,
the town lost its importance. Captain Owen found it
deserted in 1827. The modern seaside resort contains
few Islamic antiquities: two ruined mosques, a
cemetery, and a pillar tomb which is possibly near the
site of the former royal palace.

Ten miles from Malindi to the south, and two miles
inland, is the very remarkable Islamic site of Gedi,
which was occupied from the 11th until the 17 th cen¬
tury, when it was abandoned to nature. The outer
wall encloses an area of about 45 acres, and may have
contained a population of some 10,000. Within the in¬
ner wall are a palace, a Friday mosque and several
other small mosques, numerous houses and what may
have been a commercial centre. The place is not men¬
tioned either in Arabic or Portuguese literature. Its
proximity to Malindi, and the fact that it lies some
two miles from the sea, suggests that, unlike other
eastern African coastal sites, which were primarily
trading centres, Gedi was, as it were, a country
residence of the sultans of Malindi, around which a
small town had grown up. Three architectural
features of the houses are of especial interest: the
houses are divided into two distinct compartments,
presumably for a wife each; of these compartments
one has a store especially designed for cowrie shells,
the local currency; and the palace and houses have
elaborately constructed water conduits, leading to in¬
ternal ablutions and latrines.

Bibliography. J. Brodrick, S. J., Saint Francis
Xavier (J506-52), London 1952; J. J. L. Duyven-
dak, China's discovery of Africa, London 1949; G. S.
P. Freeman-Grenville, The French at Kilwa Island,
Oxford 1965; idem. The East African coast: select
documents (contains relevant Arabic and Portuguese
sources), 2nd edn., Oxford 1975; idem, ShVt rulers
at Kilwa, in Num. Chron. (1978); P. S. Garlake, The
early Islamic architecture of the East African coast,
Nairobi 1966; J. S. Kirkman, The Arab city of Gedi:
excavations at the Great Mosque, London 1954; idem,
Gedi: the palace, The Hague 1963; Joao dos Santos,
Ethiopia oriental (1609), Mello de Azevedo, Lisbon
1891; J. Strandes, The Portuguese period in East Africa
(1899), tr. J. F. Wallwork, ed. J. S. Kirkman, 2nd
edn., Nairobi 1968; S. A. Strong, History of Kilwa,
in JRAS (1895); A. O. Thompson, Geological survey
of Kenya, report no. 36, 1956; St. Francisci Xavieri,
Epistolae, t.i. 20 Sept. 1542, ed. G. Schurhammer
and J. Wicki, Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu,
lxvii, Rome 1944.

(G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville)
MALIYYE. In the Ottoman Empire and
successor states. In the 19th and 20th centuries,
this term has been used in Arabic and Turkish to refer
to financial affairs and financial administration. In the
Ottoman Empire, and in various of its successor
states, the term has also acquired a more specific
reference to the Ministry of Finance {Maliyye Nezareti
under the empire; Maliyye Wekaleti or bakanligi under
the Turkish Republic; Wizarat al-Maliyya in the Arab
states). The history of financial institutions in the Ot¬
toman Empire and its successor states still awaits
thorough research. In part, this fact is attributable to
problems of the original sources, which remain largely
inaccessible even for the empire (e.g., Qetin, 28-35,
42, 83, 128, 133-4, 135, 158-60; Sertoglu, 62-7, 72,

284

MALIYYE

74, 78-9, 85). In part, the challenge of studying the
history of the financial institutions, or financial prob¬
lems more generally, derives from the fact that the
economic and fiscal problems of the Middle East can¬
not be fully understood as unique, local occurrences.
Increasingly, as time passes, they have been
manifestations of world-encompassing patterns of
economic relationships that only become clear when
seen in a comparative perspective, preferably one of
global scope.

While it is essential to acknowledge this fact, a brief
article can only be selective in coverage. Since much
of the scholarship on economic and financial topics
has concentrated on problems of particular interest to
people outside the Islamic world, this discussion will
concentrate on maliyye in the sense of institutions for
financial administration. Even within that limit, it will
focus on the Ministry of Finance of the Ottoman Em¬
pire and the Republic of Turkey. A concluding sec¬
tion will offer comments aimed at setting Ottoman
and republican Turkish developments in a com¬
parative perspective that encompasses other Islamic
states.

1. The late Ottoman Empire. During the
last quarter of the 18th century, the Ottoman financial
agencies were still concentrated in a large building
situated between Top Kapi Palace and the Sublime
Porte and referred to by terms such as Bdb-i Defteri.
These agencies were presided over by three officials
known respectively as the defterddr* [q.v. ] of the first,
second, and third “divisions” (defterddr-i shikk-i ewwel,
thani, thdlith). In the 18th century, the first defterddr
functioned as the real head of the financial depart¬
ments, and the other two as assistants to him. Dif¬
ferent sources from the period show the Bdb-i Defteri as
including a slightly varying list of bureaux, number¬
ing close to 30. In addition to records on the revenues
and disbursements of the empire, these bureaux kept
the muster rolls and pay records of various categories
of military personnel and palace functionaries, as well
as the records on the provisioning of the capital city
and major fortresses. Other responsibilities of the of¬
fices of the Bdb-i Defteri included processing the papers
for appointments of Muslim religious functionaries,
maintaining records on relations between the imperial
government and the non-Muslim religious authorities
of the empire, and disposing of the estates (mukhallefat)
of important officials, when these estates reverted
to the sultan by death or expropriation. As was
characteristic of Ottoman government agencies of
the period, these responsibilities were parcelled out
among the various bureaux in a way that reflected the
effects of accretion over time, more than any effort at
systematisation. At the head of each bureaux stood
an official holding the rank of the scribal elite
( kh^ddjegdn ). The potential for gradual change among
the financial agencies, even before the beginning of
serious efforts at innovative reform, was illustrated by
the introduction, at the beginning of the reign of
Selim III, of a type of internal debt securities (esham)
and the creation of a new bureau to maintain the
records on them ( Eshdm Mukdta c asi Kalemi). Accord¬
ing to a source of ca. 1770-90 (Top Kapu Sarayi Arsivi
D3208), the number of officals employed in the offices
discussed here was about 650. This fact made the
Bdb-i Defteri the largest, though not the most influen¬
tial, of the scribal agencies.

Eighteenth-century Ottoman financial practice
displayed several traits of particular significance for
later periods. One was the custom of assigning specific
revenues to specific expenses and limiting the extent
to which transfers could be made. This practice goes

back to the beginnings of Islamic fiscal practice and is
still found in many parts of the world, but is in con¬
trast to the preferred modern practice, at least in the
West, of pooling revenues in a unified budget (Heid-
born, ii, 12-14). A second characteristic was particu¬
larly prominent among the Ottomans in the era of
imperial decline: revenue collection by means of tax
farms, either on an annual basis ( iltizam) or for life
(mdlikdne [q.v.]; Issawi, Turkey, 343-7). A third prac¬
tice, which he ps to explain the reliance on tax farm¬
ing, was that some of the most important revenues
continued to be collected in kind.

The chief business of the offices of the Bdb-i Defteri
was to keep records of transactions organised on these
bases. In furtherance of this, the staff included, in ad¬
dition to the bureaux discussed above, an auctioneer
(miridelldl bashisi) to conduct auctions of tax farms, an
c dlim appointed with the title miri kdtibi to hear cases
arising between the financial department and revenue
farmers or other individuals; and staffs of quasi-police
officers (bash bdki kuli, kharadj bash bdki kuli) whose
responsibility was to collect overdue revenues
(d’Ohsson, iii, 375-9; Hammer, Stoats., ii, 145-69;
Uzun^ar^ih, 319-73).

In the late 18th century, the treasury was still
located in Top Kapi Palace. In fact, there were two
treasuries. One was known as the outer treasury
(khazine-yi birun, tashra khazinesi) or state treasury
(khazine-yi c amire). The other was known as the inner
treasury ( khazine-yi enderun, ic khazinesi). The latter was
supposed to be a reserve treasury, filled at least in part
out of the surplus of the former and bound to aid the
former in event of shortage. In addition, there were a
number of so-called khazine s, including a “privy
purse” ( djeyb-i hiimayun) at the palace and a number of
others located in specific government agencies [see
khazine). These were little more than special funds or
cashiers’ offices for specific needs or departments
(Deny, 119-20).

Substantial efforts at reform of Ottoman financial
institutions began under Selim III (1789-1807 [< 7 .^.])
in conjunction with his programme of military
reform. To finance his new military force, he created
a “new receipts treasury” ( irdd-x djedid khazinesi),
under the direction of the former defterddr of the “sec¬
ond division” ( shikk-i thani ), and assigned a number of
revenues to him. The new treasury survived until the
end of Selim’s reign, when, like other reforms of his
“new order” (nizdm-i djedid [qv.]), it was eliminated.
Those of its revenue sources that were still productive
were reassigned to the “treasury” of the Mint
(darbkhane-i ''dmire khazinesi), which was a branch of the
inner or private treasury (Mustafa Nuri, iv., 113-4;
Pakahn, OTD, ii, 79-80; Shaw, Old and new, 128-34).
Selim’s reforms also included some efforts to limit
fiscal exactions and to reorganise the state treasury
(ibid., 170, 174).

Under Mahmud II (1808-39 [< 7 . 0 .]), financial
reform resumed in the 1820s, at first, it appears, as a
concomitant of efforts in other fields. For example,
Mahmud assigned a number of Anatolian san$aks to
a kind of collection agents (mutesellim), rather than the
normal type of provincial administrators (wali,
mutasarrif). Such assignment of mutesellims was not
new, but this time the revenues that would otherwise
have gone to the wali or mutasarrif were diverted
to Istanbul [see khazine. iv, 1185]. Another of
Mahmud’s policies affected the timar [q. v. ] system and
the provincial cavalry (sipahis [q.v. ]) who had tradi¬
tionally benefited from it. In 1241/1825-6, Mahmud
began re-assigning timars and sipahis to other types of
military forces (Djewdet, Ta Midi xii, 143-4). In 1831,

MALIYYE

285

he attempted to abolish what remained of the timar-
system and to carry out a land survey and census
(Lewis, 90-2).

While the exact course of events is still not entirely
clear, Mahmud’s reforms had clearly extended by
then into a direct reorganisation of financial offices.
With the abolition of the Janissaries in 1826, the one
of the offices of the Bdb-i Defteri that had been respon¬
sible for maintaining records of that corps, that of the
yeni-ceri katibi , went through a series of changes of
name and function, emerging as a “military super-
visorship” f-askeri nezareti; LutfT, i, 132, 143; Pakalin,
Maliye, iii, 22-3). By 1831, further change had pro¬
duced at least two financial “supervisorships”, a
masdrifdt nezareti, responsible for military expen¬
ditures, and a mukdta c dt nezareti, responsible for other
aspects of government finance. This nomenclature is
somewhat confusing, since presumably the revenues
assigned to both agencies were farmed out, although
the term mukdta c a might be taken to indicate that this
was true only of the second (Heidborn, ii, 37; Pakalin,
Maliye, i, 10; idem, OTD, ii, 578). Over the next
several years, there were a number of further
reorganisations, a persistent feature, at least until
1838, being maintenance of one agency for military
finance and another for government finance more
generally (Hammer, Histoire, xvii, 182; LuffT, iv,
111). In 1250/1834-5, for example, we find a state
treasury ( khazine-yi c amire) and a financial agency for
the army, referred to as the mansure defterdarlight (Heid¬
born, ii, 37; Pakalin, OTD, ii, 406-7). In
1251/1835-6, the state treasury (, khazine-yi c dmire) was
combined with that of the mint ( darb-khane ), the new
agency being placed under the headship of a darb-khane
defterdari (LutfT, v, 17). Then on 3 Dhu THidjdja
1253/28 February 1838, the mansure defterdarlighi was
added to the organisation, the mint was again
separated out, and the result became known as the
Ministry of Financial Affairs (Umur-i Mdliyye Nezareti).

The second half of the 1830s was when Mahmud
organised the larger departments of the Ottoman
government into European-style ministries, for which
he adopted the generic term nezdret. From that point
onwards, that term continued, as in the past, to refer
both to small-scale agencies, where it is more ap¬
propriately translated as “supervisorship”, and to the
new ministries. The financial agency created in 1838
was clearly of the latter type (LutfT, v, 104-5; Pakalin,
Maliye , i, 25-6).

Following the death of Mahmud II, the develop¬
ment of the Ottoman system of financial administra¬
tion reflected both the goals of reformers like Mustafa
Reshld [q. v. ] and the intensity of the political struggle
that surrounded them. At the death of Mahmud,
Kh osrew Pasha [q.v. ] seized the grand vizierate and
set to work undoing many of the reforms of the late
sultan and his civilian bureaucratic advisers, who
were Khosrew’s enemies. Among other things,
Khosrew abolished the Ministry of Financial Affairs
(Djumada ’l-Ula 1255/July-August 1839), replacing it
with a dual system of a state treasury ( khazine-yi c dmire )
and a defterdarlik for farmed revenues ( mukdta c dt;
Pakalin, Maliye , iii, 96). When Mustafa Reshld and
his friends managed to topple Khosrew in 1840, they
also launched an ambitious attempt to replace tax¬
farming with direct collection of revenues, at least in
selected localities. About the same time, it appears
that they converted the defterdarlik for farmed revenues
into a Ministry of Finance ( Mdliyye Nezareti) responsi¬
ble for supervision of the system of direct collection,
relegating responsibility for revenues that continued
to be administered in the “old way” to the state

treasury ( khazine-yi c dmire ; LutfT, vi, 68-9, 106). At the
beginning of 1257/1841, the treasury was again com¬
bined with the ministry to form a single Ministry of
Financial Affairs ( Umur-i Mdliyye Nezareti; Pakalin,
Maliye, i, 26). Mustafa Reshld and his friends did not
consolidate their hold on high office until ca. 1845;
however, the history of the Ministry of Finance was
continuous from 1841 onwards. By the early 1840s,
the bureaux formerly attached to the Bdb-i Defteri had
also undergone considerable modification; and the
ministry had acquired a number of new functionaries
and agencies. The resulting organisation remained
essentially unchanged from that point until 1297/1880
(LutfT, v, 105, 116; vi, 125-6; Pakalin, Maliye, i, 26-7;
iii, 29-31, 34).

Had Mustafa Reshld and his colleagues succeeded
in realising the policy goals that lay behind these
changes of organisation, the results might have done
a lot to provide the Tanzimat [q. v. ] reforms with the
sound economic foundation that they never acquired.
What the reformers intended was a fundamental
reorganisation of the system of taxation: eliminating
many of the old taxes, especially the arbitrary exac¬
tions ( tekalif-i c orfiyye), substituting direct collection
for revenue farming, centralising receipts and
disbursements in the state treasury, and assigning
salaries to all officials to replace the prebendal forms
of compensation and the revenue forms on which
most of them had previously depended. In 1838, the
tax reforms were inaugurated on an experimental
basis in selected provinces, and the salary system was
supposed to go into effect. The Giilkhane Decree of
1839 proclaimed the general principles underlying
the changes. Subsequent acts generalised the fiscal
reforms to a larger number of provinces. The chief
agents of the new system of revenue-collection were to
be collectors ( muhasfils) appointed to assess and collect
revenues in collaboration with locally appointed ad¬
ministrative councils ( medjlis-i idare ), which were to in¬
clude both ex officio members and representatives of
the local populace ( c Abd al-Rafiman WefTk, i, 346-7;
ii, 6-50; inalcik, Tanzimat'in uygulanmasi, 623 ff.;
idem, Application of the Tanzimat , 97 ff.; Shaw, Tax
reform, 422). These reforms failed, and the Ottomans
never succeeded in overcoming the consequences. In
part, the failure resulted from the fact that the Ot¬
toman system of financial administration was not
ready for the demands that fiscal centralisation made
on it. In part, the problem resulted from the opposi¬
tion of former tax farmers or sarrdfs [q.v. ], who had
vested interests in the old system (Pakalin, Maliye , iii,
52-4; Shaw, Tax reform, 422). In any case, revenue
receipts fell off. In 1258/1842, tax farming ( iltizam ,
but not the life farms, malikane) had to be restored
(Pakalin, OTD , ii, 397). Direct collection was later
revived for some taxes. But for the tithe on
agricultural produce (cTshdr), the most important
single revenue, tax farming continued at least into the
Young Turk period (Heidborn, ii, 117-30; Lewis,
385-6, 458; Shaw, Tax reform, 428-9; Issawi, Turkey ,
351-60). The failure of the effort at centralisation of
revenue collection crippled the new system of official
salaries from the start. And that was not all.

The extent to which the Ottoman Empire had
been integrated, prior to the 19th century, into the
worldwide system of European economic dominance
is clear from the evolution of the capitulations (im-
tiyazat [q. v. ]) and the abuses that developed out of
them. One of the saddest ironies of the Tanzimat is that
the economic subordination of the empire underwent
a critical tightening in 1838, just as the new period
was about to open. This occurred with the adoption of

286

MALIYYE

the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention of Balta
Liman. This, and comparable treaties concluded
later with other states, marked the substitution of
negotiated bilateral treaties for the capitulations.
More important, it forced Ottoman statesmen, who
were desperate at that point for European help against
the Egyptian challenge, to accept what amounted to
free trade (Bailey, Kiitukoglu). The effects on an
unindustrialised economy, in which customs revenues
had traditionally been one of the most important cash
revenues, were very serious. Not only were Ottoman
markets now opened wide to European industrial
goods, but the ability of the Ottoman government to
raise new revenue, either by taxation or by setting up
monopolies or other government enterprises, was
limited by the terms of the treaties (du Velay, 338).
The deteriorating economic situation, and the
political and military crisis with Egypt, led to the issue
in 1840 of the first Ottoman paper money ( ka?ime
[q.v.]). This remained in circulation until 1862, and
gave rise to serious problems of counterfeiting and
depreciation. Paper money was again issued in the
wake of the Russo-Turkish War and during World
War I (Toprak, 205 ff.). The coinage, too, was in
disarray (Schaefer, 25 ff.; Issawi, Turkey , 326-31).
The monetary problems were aggravated by the lack,
prior to the second half of the century, of modern
banking facilities; when created, these were essentially
foreign enterprises (du Velay, 132 ff.; Biliotti; Issawi,
Turkey , 339-42).

To make matters worse, the Ottoman government
began during the Crimean War to contract foreign
loans (Djewdet, Tedhakir, 1-12, 20-3; du Velay,
134 ff.). In a little over twenty years, the empire ac¬
quired a foreign debt of 200 million pounds sterling
(Blaisdell, 74) and experienced a complete collapse of
its credit. The crisis over the public debt resulted in
Muharram 1299/1881 in the creation of an interna¬
tional Council of the Public Debt (duyun-t c umumiyye
[q.v.]), to which the Ottoman government was forced
to cede control of a number of revenues (du Velay,
463 ff.; Young, v, 55 ff.; Blaisdell, 90 fT.; Issawi,
Turkey, 361-5). The Russo-Turkish War also left the
empire saddled with an indemnity of 35 million
Turkish pounds to pay to Russia (Blaisdell, 85;
Heidborn, ii, 294-5; Milgrim, 519 ff.). The liabilities
that the Ottomans incurred under concessions for
various economic development projects—example,
the kilometric guarantees granted to assure a profit to
foreign railway builders—were another drain (du
Velay, 550 ff.). Over the course of time, the govern¬
ment ceded more of its revenues to the Public Debt
Administration in order to cover further com¬
mitments, until that agency controlled almost one-
quarter of Ottoman revenue (Blaisdell, 150-1).

Considering the swift failure of its most important
attempts at fiscal reform and the continuing decline in
the economic independence of the Empire, it is not
surprising that Ottoman financial institutions of the
reform era made little progress in achieving increased
efficiency. The Public Debt is only the most con¬
spicuous example of the extent to which control of
public revenues remained dispersed among a number
of different agencies. By the last years of the reign of
c Abd al-Hamid II (1876-1909), there were twenty or
more official or semi-official bodies in Istanbul with
power to collect and disburse revenues directly. The
most important were the Public Debt Administration
and the privy treasury ( khazine-yi khasfa). As successor
to the old privy purse (djeyb-i hiimayun), this became a
very large and powerful organisation, thanks to the
growth of c Abd al-Hamld’s enormous personal for¬

tune. The Minister of Finance really had control only
over fiscal resources not otherwise accounted for.
Even there, the control was not effective. Partly
because the economy was overwhelmingly agri¬
cultural, with important revenues still collected in
kind, tax collection was always in arrears (Heidborn,
ii, 162 ff.). The weakness of central control over pro¬
vincial finance is clear from the use, as a favourite
mode of payment, of the hawdle. This was an order to
pay, drawn against a provincial “treasury”, which
might or might not have funds to honour the order.
Ottoman bankers and sarrafs made a business of dis¬
counting these orders. The Ministry of Finance
seldom had enough money on hand to pay more than
a few of its creditors in cash. Procedures were so com¬
plicated that even this favoured few had to “jump
through many fiery hoops” before getting their
money (Pakalin, Maliye, i, 38). Favouritism and ir¬
regularity in salary payments were but a variation on
this theme. By inflating the numbers of officials in all
departments, c Abd al-Hamid’s policy of using the
bureaucracy as a vast patronage machine made the
financial situation much worse.

Under these circumstances, it was out of the ques¬
tion for Ottoman officials to use budget preparation as
an effective instrument of fiscal policy. What look like
modem budgets began to be prepared in 1863; there
had been somewhat similar documents earlier in the
Tanzimat (Shaw, Tax reform, 449-50; idem, Ottoman ex¬
penditures, 373-8; Findley, 349-52, 384 n. 123, 396 n.
178, 404 n. 124; Issawi, Turkey, 348-9). Contem¬
porary experts were united in the opinion that the
budgets bore little correspondence to reality, especial¬
ly before 1908 (Heidborn, ii, 45-9; du Velay, 174-88,
317-24).

The late 19th century nonetheless witnessed some
efforts to improve the organisation and efficiency of
financial institutions. There was an attempt in
1277/1861 to organise a hierarchy of fiscal officials to
serve in the local administrative system then being
created ( Diistur l , ii, 4-25). Under c Abd al-Hamld,
there were further acts on this subject and on the
related issue of tax collection (Young, v, 18-21). The
Constitution of 1876 contained a special section on
financial affairs, including articles on taxation,
budgeting, and the creation of an independent Board
of Audit (Dtwan-i Muhasebat; Diistur J , iv, 16-17, arts.
96-107). The law of 1877 on provincial municipalities
authorised them to have their own budgets (Young, i,
69-84; Diistur 1 , iv, 538-53). After the Russo-Turkish
War, there was a flurry of effort at reorganisation on
a number of fronts, the purpose being to convince the
major powers of the empire’s capacity for reform.
Among the measures then enacted were one of
1296/1879 setting up the Board of Audit (Diwan-i
Muhasebdt\ Diistur l , iv, 602-13) and another of
1297/1880 reorganising the Ministry of Finance (ibid.,
iv, 674-84; Pakalin, Maliye, i, 28-30, 32-7). The latter
measure reorganised the ministry and its personnel
into two components, the central organisation (hey^et-i
merkeziyye) and the attached agencies (hey^et-i miilhaka),
located either in the provinces or in other ministries at
the centre. The central organisation was to include a
corps of inspectors (hey^et-i teflishiyye) empowered to in¬
vestigate the accounts of all central and provincial
departments. Under the Hamldian regime, control
measures such as the inspectorate and the Board of
Audit produced little real effect. The practice of filling
the post of undersecretary of finance (maliyye
miisteshari) with a foreign expert did at least provide a
continuing source of critical perspective on fiscal af¬
fairs (Young, v, 16).

MALIYYE

287

There was also another extensive reorganisation of
the ministry in ca. 1305/1888. The ministry in this
form appears to have been distinguished by the
complexity of its internal organisation and records-
keeping procedures (Pakalin, Maliye, i, 37-52). Like
most governmental agencies under c Abd al-Hamld, it
also became grossly overstaffed. The number of of¬
ficials in its central offices stood at 650 in 1879, 750
in 1888, and perhaps 1,400 at the time of the Young
Turk Revolution (ibid., i, 36, 52).

The 1908 Revolution opened the way for efforts at
fundamental reform in finance, as in other fields. The
most important reforms of the period appear to have
been three in number. First, as part of a program af¬
fecting the bureaucracy in general, there was a purge
(tenslkdt ) of superfluous and unreliable officials and a
reduction of salaries for all others (Findley, 296-8).
The purge was carried out in several waves and reduc¬
ed the number of officals in the central offices of the
ministry for a time to about 500. Second, as a natural
extension of the purge, there was a reorganisation
of the ministry. Thenceforth, its central agencies
consisted of the minister, his undersecretary, a di¬
rectorate general for accounts, eight specialised
departments, and two consultative bodies. One of
these, the Financial Reform Commission (Islahat-i
Mdliyye Komisyoni ), included foreign as well as Ot¬
toman members and served to study reform proposals
and draft legislation on them; the other, the Con¬
sultative Committee ( Endjiimen-i Mushdwere), was to
advise on implementation of a new accounting
system. Even more important, the inspectorate of
finance and the Board of Audit (Diwdn-t Muhasebat)
were at last made into active institutions. The ongoing
practice of training financial inspectors by a period of
apprenticeship abroad dates from this period (Ayni,
25). The third major reform of the Young Turk years
was a new system of accountability, embodied in a law
(usul-i muhdsebe-yi c umumiyye kanuni) that went into ef¬
fect in 1911. The new system centralised control of
revenue and expenditure in the Ministry of Finance,
established in principle the universality of the state
budget, defined the system for budget preparation,
and provided for a directorate of accounts, controlled
by the minister of finance, in every ministry. These
major reforms of the Young Turk period were the
most important innovations attempted in government
finance since the beginning of the Tanzimdt (Heid-
born, ii, 42-65; Pakalin, Maliye , i, 30-1, 50-5).

In addition, the Young Turk years also included
many other financial innovations. Publication of
budgets and other acts of fiscal relevance began for the
first time on a prompt and regular basis, and the
budgets were much more realistic than any published
before (see Bibl.). Some taxes were abolished, and the
assessment and collection of many others revised. The
law of 1913 on provincial administration allowed each
province to have a budget consisting of revenue and
expenditure items controlled at the provincial level
(Diistur 2 , v, 144, 186-216, arts. 79-83; vi, 505-8). The
Land Registry Office (Defter-i Khdkdni [<y. v. ]), was at¬
tached to the Ministry of Finance. A special school for
financial officials (Mdliyye Mektebi) was founded in
1910. The privileges that foreigners enjoyed under the
capitulations were unilaterally repudiated in 1914. In
response to wartime needs, a Ministry of Supply (/-
c dshe Nezareti) was eventually created. Many of these
reforms occurred during the four periods between
1909 and 1918 when Djawld Bey [q.v. ] was minister
of finance (Pakalin, Maliye , iv, 238-9, 243, 246-7).
He exemplifies the energy and determination
characteristic of the period.

2. The Turkish Republic. Following the col¬
lapse of the empire, the Turkish Republic managed to
extricate itself from the problems that had done most
to breach Ottoman economic sovereignty. The posi¬
tion of the Public Debt Administration had previously
been undermined by the wartime loss of co-operation
among its European members, the collapse of the Ot¬
toman monetary system, and the shrinkage during the
armistice period of the territory under control of the
Ottoman government (Blaisdell, 179 ff.). The Treaty
of Lausanne (1923) recognised the end of the
capitulatory regime in Turkey and apportioned the
Ottoman debt among the various successor states, set¬
ting the share of the Turkish Republic at 67%. The
Turkish government accepted the debt obligations
assigned to it, but later unilaterally suspended pay¬
ment, and in 1943 made a final offer to redeem out¬
standing bonds at a reduced rate (Robinson, 98-9).

Meanwhile, the development of the Ministry of
Finance, as of other agencies of the new government,
was “evolutionary, rather than revolutionary”
(Dodd, 47). Although the matter appears not to have
been studied, there must have been substantial initial
carry-over of personnel and organisation from the
imperial government. Serious efforts at financial
reorganisation came only with the abolition of the
tithes ( a c shar ) in 1925 and subsequent tax reforms
(Ayni, 29), then in 1929 with a reorganisation of the
Ministry of Finance under a law on unification
and equalisation of government payrolls (devlet
memurlannin maaylannin tevhid ve taadiil hakkindaki kanun\
Ulker, 91). These provisions were superseded by a
law of 1936 on the organisation and duties of the
Ministry of Finance (maliye bakanhgi teskilat ve vazifeleri
hakkindaki kanun\ Gorvine and Barber, 78-89). With
numerous amendments, this remained in effect in the
mid-1970s (Ulker, 91-2; Tefkildt rehben 1976 , 332).

Under the Republic, the mission of the Ministry of
Finance has been defined as “to carry out the finan¬
cial administration of the State in harmony with the
efforts directed toward the economic development of
the country” (Organization and functions , 164). In keep¬
ing with this extension of the old concept of finan¬
cial administration into the newer one of economic
development, the internal organisation and the size of
the ministry have become considerably greater than
in the Ottoman period, while a number of other
organisations with related missions have also come in¬
to existence.

In contrast to the bipartite organisation of central
and attached officials prescribed for the ministry in
1880, the Republican Ministry of Finance comprises
four categories of agencies: central, provincial, inter¬
national, and attached ( bagli ) or related ( ilgili ). During
the mid-1970s, the central organisation had at its
top the minister, with his undersecretary, assistant
undersecretaries, and private secretariat. There were
five advisory and staff units, including the Financial
Inspectorate (teftis kurulu ), the Board of Accounting
Experts, and the Board of Certified Bank Examiners
(bankalaryeminli murakiplan kurulu). The ministry had
six principal organisational units, including a depart¬
ment for legal counsel and general directorates for
budget and financial control, accounts (muhasebat),
revenues (gelirler ), and the treasury, the last also serv¬
ing as a general secretariat for international economic
co-operation. There were also support agencies in
charge of personnel (ozliik isleri), the mint and printing
plant, the accounts of the ministry itself, etc. The pro¬
vincial agencies of the Ministry of Finance were found
at the two highest jurisdictional levels of the local ad¬
ministrative hierarchy, the il (province) and the il(e.

288

MALIYYE

At the province level, the chief financial officer con¬
tinued to bear the old title defterdar. There were a
number of agencies attached to him with functions
parallel to various of the central agencies. The most
important of these provincial agencies were those
responsible for assessment and collection of taxes. At
the next lower administrative level, the ilfe , the senior
official was the mal muduru , whose functions and staff
were a reduced-scale replica of those of the provincial
defterdar. The international agencies included financial
representatives serving with the Turkish missions
to organisations like the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (Brussels) or the United Nations (New
York), as well as financial counsellors attached to em¬
bassies and consulates. The category of agencies at¬
tached or related to the Ministry of Finance included
the Central Bank, the State Investment Bank, the
government retirement fund, and the national lottery
(Turkish government organization manual, 138 ff.; Ulker,
92 ff.; Tefkildt rehberi 1976 , 333 ff.).

During the mid-1960s, the staff of the ministry
reportedly stood on average at 2,000 in the central of¬
fices and 15,000 in all (Ulker, 92). A decade later, it
was reported at 5,600 in the central offices and over
40,000 in total (Tefkilat rehberi 1976, 342). The com¬
parison between these two sets of figures is startling,
suggesting that political forces have again been at
work, as in the days of c Abd al-Hamld, to bloat the
bureaucracy. Whatever the explanation of the short¬
term contrast, that between either of these sets of
figures and those dating from the empire is probably
more significant. Whatever other factors may be at
work, the presence of many times more financial of¬
ficials in a state much smaller than the empire surely
reflects the greater demands made on the ministry in
a society committed not just to financial administra¬
tion, but to economic development.

Indeed, the growth of the Ministry of Finance is on¬
ly a partial illustration of this point. To appreciate it
fully, one must also note the proliferation of govern¬
mental agencies with financial and economic respon¬
sibilities. The empire in its day had ministries, which
appear not to have been very effective, for trade,
agriculture, public works, forests and mines, as well
as certain state enterprises. Atatiirk committed the
Republic to eliminating the hold of foreign interests
over the economy and to etatism, and the first state
plan for economic development went into effect in
1934 (Robinson, 103 ff.; Hershlag, 31 ff.; Issawi,
Turkey, 367-8). By then, the development of a new
series of official and semi-official agencies had begun.
By the mid-1960s, this series included the State Plan¬
ning Organisation (Devlet Planlama Tefkilati, created
1960), Board of Audit (now known as Sayiftay instead
of Dtwan-i Muhasebat), the ministries of customs and
monopolies, commerce, industry, public works, com¬
munications, agriculture, health and social assistance,
reconstruction and settlement, tourism and informa¬
tion, plus other agencies or enterprises concerned with
banking, energy, natural resources, land tenure, and
various forms of industrial production ( Organization
and functions, 62-6, 163-4, 198-317). The obvious need
for coordination among so many agencies has given
rise to several interministerial bodies intended to per¬
form this function in support of the development plans
(Teskilat rehberi 1976, 139-43, 156-8). Where the
Ministry of Finance is concerned, probably the most
critical need for co-ordination arises between it and
the State Planning Organisation, which not only
prepares the economic development plans for the state
but also plays a central role, together with the
Ministry of Finance, in budget preparation (Dodd,
245-6; Organization and functions, 175-76).

The Ministry of Finance of the Turkish Republic,
though vastly larger in size and wider-ranging in func¬
tions than its imperial prototype, has thus been sur¬
rounded with a galaxy of agencies with financial
and economic responsibilities. According to recent
sources, some major developmental needs of the
ministry are still unmet. These include improved
coordination with other agencies, especially the plan¬
ning organisation; the full acceptance of “programme
budgeting”, as opposed to dispersion of sums needed
for a given project under different headings; and an
end to the age-old practice of assigning specific
revenues to specific needs (Dodd, 246; Organization and
functions, 170-1, 179-80). The last point, in particular,
shows that the Ottoman tradition dies hard. To these
problems must, of course, be added others of general
economic significance, such as the monetary instabili¬
ty and mounting public debt that have again come to
plague the republic.

3. Comparative note. In the 19th century, the
financial and economic history of autonomous regions
within the Empire passed through stages parallel to
those observable in Istanbul. The similarities derive
from a common institutional heritage, similar
economic and environmental constraints, and con¬
frontation with the same set of problems in dealing
with the outside world. At many points, there is not
only parallelism, but also contemporaneity, in the
major economic events occurring in different locales.
In the 20th century, parallelisms are equally
noticeable, the main difference being the proliferation
of sovereign states and the growth of emphasis on
economic development. In both periods, similar traits
can be found in Islamic states beyond the frontiers or
former frontiers of the empire, as well as farther
afield.

In the 19th century, there were two regions in the
Islamic parts of the empire that the Ottomans
acknowledged as autonomous. These were the
“privileged provinces” (eydlat-i miimtdze) of Egypt and
Tunisia. As early as the time of Muhammad c AlT
(1805-49), Egypt, at least, began to develop Financial
agencies that resembled, and for a time anticipated,
those of Istanbul in their development. Both Tunisia
and Egypt professedly adopted a European-style
system of ministries in the 1850s; the Istanbul govern¬
ment had done so in the late 1830s. Tunisia and Egypt
resembled their suzerain in the form and weakness of
procedures for budgeting and revenue control. They
shared the same problems where the privileges of
foreigners were concerned. Tunis, Cairo, and Istan¬
bul all began to accumulate a foreign debt between
1854 and 1862. Bankruptcy occurred for Tunis as ear¬
ly as 1866; for Cairo and Istanbul, it came a decade
later, although Egypt had been in deep trouble ever
since the collapse of the cotton boom enjoyed during
the American Civil War (1861-5). Fiscal control agen¬
cies, dominated by Europeans, were established in all
three places between 1870 and 1881. In Egypt, there
was not only a Caisse de la deite, but also an Anglo-
French dual controllership over the remainder of
government finance. Even the personal fortune of the
Khedive was taken under European control (Deny,
104-20, 131-43, 398-414, 519-48; Rivlin, 75-136;
Landes, 278 ff.; Issawi, Egypt: an economic and social
analysis, 23-5; idem, Economic history of the Middle East
and North Africa, 62-70; Owen,' 122-52, 216-43;
Brown, 134-7, 245-50, 335-49; Ganiage, 99-112,
186-216, 298-334, 348-402). It is true that Tunisia
came under direct European domination in 1881, and
Egypt did in 1882, while the territories remaining
under control of the Istanbul government did not. Yet
for the Istanbul government, as for the few other

MALIYYE

289

Asian and African states that retained nominal in¬
dependence in this period, sovereignty became almost
a fiction. With its fiscal system a weaker version of the
Ottoman one, and its economy even more dominated
by foreign interests, Kadjar Iran is one of the clearest
examples (Bakhash, Evolution, 139 ff.; idem, Iran,
102-4, 110-14, 142-4, 166-7, 263-6, 270-81).

Following World War I, the dismantling of the Ot¬
toman Empire meant that all its Islamic territories
outside what became the Republic of Turkey fell
under European control, if they had not been before.
The only exceptions—to the extent that it can be
spoken of as former Ottoman territory—were in the
Arabian peninsula. The fact that the Turkish
Republic managed, through the Treaty of Lausanne,
to escape the peace terms inflicted on the empire
following World War I, while others of the successor
states did not, meant that some aspects of the old
regime survived elsewhere, after being abolished in
Turkey. For example, the capitulatory privileges of
foreigners were not abolished in Egypt until 1937
(Issawi, Egypt: an economic and social analysis , 172). In
Egypt, the development of financial institutions con¬
tinued in this period under the British-dominated
monarchy. In the Fertile Crescent, the development
of such institutions, beyond what had existed as part
of the Ottoman provincial administration, began in
the 1920s under the mandatory regimes controlled by
the French and British. Whether for the mandate
period or for that of independence, detailed examina¬
tion would disclose important parallelisms between
economic and fiscal developments in the Arab suc¬
cessor states and Republican Turkey. Major traits in
common include demands that economic and finan¬
cial institutions provide an increasing range and
quality of services, a growing number of government
agencies with responsibilities of such types, and an in¬
creasing emphasis on social welfare. Government con¬
trol of important sectors of the economy, efforts to
restrict foreign enterprises, reliance on centralised
planning for economic development are now also
generally characteristic. In recent years, the chief fac¬
tor in differentiating the economic fortune of the
various successor states has been the presence or
absence of significant petroleum resources (see e.g.
Issawi, Economic history oj the Middle East and North
Africa, 170 ff.; on Egypt, idem, Egypt in Revolution ,
46-75, 169-80, 246-315; Hansen and Marzouk, 1-21,
246-316; Mabro, 107-63; Ikram, passim ; on c Irak,
Penrose and Penrose, 148-81, 240-73, 381-530,
538-44; on Saudi Arabia, El Mallakh, Saudi Arabia ,
passim).

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under the Qajars, 1858-1896, London 1978; L. C.
Brown, The Tunisia of Ahmad Bey, 1837-1855,

Princeton 1974; J. Deny, Sommaire des archives tur-
ques du Caire, Cairo 1930; R. El Mallakh, Saudi
Arabia: rush to development, Baltimore 1982; J.
Ganiage, Les origines du protectorat franyais en Tunisie
(1861-1881), Paris 1959; B. Hansen and G. A.
Marzouk, Development and economic policy in the
UAR (Egypt), Amsterdam 1965; K. Ikram, Egypt:
economic management in a period of transition , Baltimore
1981; C. Issawi, Economic history of the Middle East
and North Africa, New York 1982; idem, The economic
history of the Middle East, 1800-191.4, Chicago 1966;
idem, The economic history of Iran, 1800-1914,
Chicago 1971; idem, The economic history of Turkey,
1800-1914, Chicago 1981; idem, Egypt: an economic
and social analysis, London 1947; idem, Egypt at mid¬
century, London 1954; idem, Egypt in revolution ; an
economic analysis, London 1963; D. S. Landes,
Bankers and pashas: international finance and economic
imperialism in Egypt, Cambridge, Mass. 1958; R.
Mabro, The Egyptian economy, 1952-1972, Oxford
1974; R. Owen, The Middle East in the world economy,
London 1981; Edith and E. F. Penrose, Iraq: inter¬
national relations and national development, London
1978; Helen Anne B. Rivlin, The agricultural policy
of Muhammad c Ali in Egypt, Cambridge, Mass.
1961; A. Scholch, Agypten den Agyptem. Die politische
und gesellschaftliche Krise der Jahre 1878-1882 in
Agypten, Zurich and Freiburg im Breisgau n.d.

(C. V. Findley)

MALKARA (modern Turkish Malkara; Ottoman
Ma c lghara < Mighalghara/Mighalkara; oldest
forms: Mighal Kara (in a wakfiyya of Murad I of
767/1366—but cf. Wittek^ in WZKM, lviii [1962],
180); Mighalkara (temp. Mehemmed II, cf.
Gokbilgin, Edime, 167, 193) < ? *Mey<iXTj

ayopa/*MtyaXTj yapua cf. Jacopo de Promontorio, ca.
1475: “Magalicarea”), a township in European
Turkey (pop. 1973, 12,204), approximately 95 km
to the south-south-east of Edime [q.v.] and lying 57
km. to the west of Tekirdag (Tekir/Tekfur Daghf
[q.v. ]) on the Ottoman “route of the left hand” (yol
kol) from Istanbul to Greece and Albania.

In the oldest surviving Turkish narrative sources
for the conquest of Eastern Thrace, the apparently
uncontested (and possibly temporary) First Turkish
seizure of Malkara is linked with that of Bizye/Vize
(which incontestably occurred between September
1357 and August 1358, cf. Schreiner, i, 9, 42; ii,
287-8), and of Kypsela/Ipsala, and with the name of
Sulayman Pasha b. Orkhan [q.v.] (AhmedT, Iskender-
ndme, 120, 11. 117-119: Wize wii Mighalkara wu lb-
salatfeth old! aha [sc. Sulayman Pa§ha] bu iici [ric: ? udji\
bile/anda leshkeri oldi zebun). In a different, takwfm-
derived tradition, the fall of Malkara is linked with
Dimetoka [gu>.], Keshan and, dubiously, Edirne
[q.v. ; but see now Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherches,
and Travaux et memoires, i]. Other sources, some of
which are reflected in later recensions (e.g. Sa c d al-
Din, Tddj al-tawdnkh, i, 57-8), attribute to the udj-begi
HadjdjI Ilbegi the “extinction of the rites of
polytheism” in Malkara, while Murad I’s tutor and
commander Lala Shahin Pasha is also linked with
grants of land in the vicinity of Malkara (cf. Babinger,
Beitrdge, 47). This process of Ottomanisation of ter¬
ritory originally conquered and controlled by the vir¬
tually autonomous u<j]-begis probably took place after
ca. 777/1376, from which time the other great udj-begi
family of the Turakhan-oghullari, which also had its
original seat in Rumeli in and around Malkara
(Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherches, 47-8), found more
lasting possessions in the new udj being opened up by
then in Thessaly.

MALKARA — MALKOM KHAN

291

Despite this uncertainty in matters of chronology,
evidence, such as the listing of a number of villages in
the ndhiye of Malkara as forming part of the wakf of
Sulayman Pasha, and the names of some of them (e.g.
Sarukhanlu. Kastamonlu, Tatarlar, Kara Akhl. Kara
Yakhshi; cf. Gokbilgin, op. cit., 167-8; Beldiceanu-
Steinherr, op. cit. , 142-3), suggests both the origin and
the rapidity of Turkish colonisation in that part of
Thrace.’Malkara, indeed, from the earliest period of
Turkish rule, seems to have been a place of particular
resort for akhis and dervish elements (cf. the numerous
9th/15th and 10th/16th century foundations of minor
tekkes and zawiyas in and around Malkara, Gokbilgin,
op. cit., passim). Conversely, th cyiiruk element in the
population appears to have been scanty in comparison
with districts more to the north and north-west
(Gokbilgin, Yuriikler, 262).

In the later centuries of Ottoman rule, the history
of Malkara appears to have been both obscure and
uneventful. In the reign of Mehemmed II, Malkara
possessed 938 Muslim hearths, but there was still a
Christian element in the population, not only at the
end of the 9th/15th century (cf. Barkan, Belgeler, i/1
[1964], Ek cedvel I), but also in the 19th century (150
Armenian houses and one chapel; 100 Greek houses
and one church {Journals of Benjamin Barker [1823],
cf. R. Clogg, in Univ. Birmingham Historical Journal,
xii/2 [1971], 259; Sdl-name-i wildyet-i Edirne 1311,
223 f.). In the 11 th/17th century Malkara formed a
kada* in the sandjak of Gallipoli (Gelibolu [y.r.]); a
rather meagre description of the town at this time is
given by Ewliya Celebi [q.v.], Seydhat-ndme, v, 325).
At the end of the 11 th/17th century, it figures as a
relay-station ( menzil-khdne ) on the above-mentioned sol
kol, between Tekir Daghi and Keshan (Istanbul,
Ba^bakanlik Ar^ivi, Kepeci 3006).

Bibliography'. Given in the text; cf. also Sh .

Sami Bey, Kamils al-aHdm , vi, Istanbul 1316, 4329.

(C. J. Heywood)

MALKOM KH AN. MIrza, Nazim al-Dawla
(1249-1326/1833-1908). Perso-Armenian diplomat,
journalist and concession-monger, impor¬
tant in the history of 19th-century Iran for his early
advocacy of governmental reform and thorough-going
westernisation, themes he expounded first in a series
of privately-circulated treatises and then in the
celebrated newspaper Kanun.

He was born in the Isfahan suburb of Djulfa [q.v.
in Suppl.] to an Armenian family whose ancestors had
been transplanted there by Shah c Abbas from
Karabagh [q.v. ] in the southern Caucasus. His father,
MIrza Ya c kub, was converted to Islam some time
after the birth of Malkom, but the profession of Islam
sat lightly on the shoulders of father and son; both ap¬
pear to have believed in a “religion of humanity”, in¬
spired by freemansonry and the theories of Auguste
Comte. Recognising the importance of Islam in Ira¬
nian society, Malkom generally took care to present
his proposals in Islamically-acceptable terms (see H.
R. Haweis, Talk with a Persian statesman, in Contem¬
porary Review, lxx [1896], 74-7), a stratagem imitated
by other secular reformists of the time.

After preliminary studies in Djulfa, Malkom re¬
ceived his further education at the Samuel Moorat
College in Paris, an Armenian institution operated by
the Mechitarist Fathers. The seven years which he
spent studying in Paris were the first of his many
residences in Europe, which far exceeded in total the
years he spent in Iran. He returned to Iran in
1267/1850, entering government service in two
capacities: as interpreter for European instructors at
the newly-established Dar al-Funun, the first institu¬

tion of modern, secular learning in Iran, and as per¬
sonal translator for Nasir al-Dln Shah. At the same
time, he began composing his earliest treatises on the
necessity of westernising reform, notably the Kitabca -
yi ghaybi (“The Booklet inspired from the Unseen”).
In 1273/1856, he acquired his first diplomatic ex¬
perience, accompanying MIrza Farrukh Khan’s mis¬
sion to Paris and London. After his return the
following year, Malkom established a faramush-khana
(lit. “house of forgetfulness”) [q.v. in Suppl.] in
Tehran, the first masonic lodge to be set up in Iran.
Numerous courtiers, merchants and even religious
scholars joined the organisation, the purpose of which
appears to have been twofold: the propagation of ideas
of governmental reform, and the building up of a per¬
sonal following for Malkom Khan. Fearing that the
faramush-khana might be the centre of a republican con¬
spiracy, Nasir al-Dln Shah ordered its dissolution in
October 1861, and soon after banished Malkom to
Arab c Irak- After Malkom had spent a few months in
Baghdad, the Ottoman authorities, responding to Ira¬
nian pressure, had him transferred to Istanbul.

There he was able to acquire the friendship of MIr¬
za Husayn Khan, the Iranian ambassador, and to
enter his service. With his livelihood thus assured, he
resumed writing his treatises, and also began to take
an interest in alphabet reform, corresponding exten¬
sively on the subject with the c AdharbaydjanI
playwright Fath C A1I Akhund-zada [ q.v.].

In 1288/1871, MIrza Husayn Khan was recalled to
Iran and appointed prime minister, and the following
year he invited Malkom to join him as special adviser.
Malkom accepted, and his influence is to be seen on
the measures of governmental reorganisation that
MIrza Husayn Khan undertook. But a new emphasis
had emerged in the thinking and aspirations of both
men: the attraction of foreign capital to Iran, for the
sake of personal profit as well as economic develop¬
ment. Thus Malkom became profitably involved in
the negotiations surrounding the notorious Reuter
concession, and it was partly in connection with the
unfinished business of the concession that he left Iran
early in 1873 to take up an appointment as Iranian en¬
voy in London. He was now destined to spend the rest
of his life in Europe, with the exception of four brief
return visits to Iran, later in 1873, in 1881, in 1887
and in 1888.

His sixteen years as minister in London were spent
chiefly in fruitless attempts to promote various conces¬
sions, above all for the construction of railways in
Iran, and to interest Britain more closely in Iran, in
the hope that she would provide a counterweight to
Russia and would encourage reform in Iran. Despite
his relative ineffectiveness in these areas, Malkom
exerted some influence on events through corre¬
spondence with numerous princes and politicians, the
most important of whom were MIrza C AH Khan Amin
al-Dawla, a confidant of Na$ir al-Dln Shah and later
prime minister; MIrza Yusuf Khan Mustashar al-
Dawla, Iranian ambassador in Paris; Mas c ud MIrza
Zill al-Sultan, the governor of Isfahan; and Mu?affar
al-Dln MIrza, the heir-apparent. He also continued to
compose treatises on the problems of government and
reform, and took up again the question of alphabet
reform (the scheme he finally elaborated is set forth in
Namuna-yi khatt-i adamiyyat, London 1303/1885).

The most important period of Malkom’s career
began after his dismissal from his diplomatic post in
December 1889. The preceding year, he had obtained
from Nasir al-Dln §hah a concession for the institu¬
tion of a national lottery and the construction of
casinos in Iran. The concession was swiftly rescinded,

292

MALKOM KHAN — MALLAH

but Malkom deftly sold it to European investors
before they had a chance to realise it was worthless.
He invoked diplomatic immunity and escaped legal
condemnation, but the profitable venture cost him
his post of ambassador. Partly to avenge himself for
his dismissal, he embarked on the publication of a
newspaper, Kanun (“The Law”), in which he
castigated the Iranian government—particularly
Amin al-Sul{an, the prime minister of the day—for its
corruption, and hinted at the existence of a vast
revolutionary network in Iran, owing allegiance to
himself. It is unlikely that such a nework did exist,
although an association called MadjpuZ-i Adamiyyat
(“The League of Humanity”) did operate under
Malkom’s general and remote supervision, chiefly for
the purpose of distributing Kanun. Malkom also at¬
tempted to implicate the Baha 5 Is in his activities, al¬
most certainly without foundation (see the letter of
c Abd al-Baha 5 to E.G. Browne quoted in Browne,
Materials for the study of the Babi religion, Cambridge
1918, 296). Despite these ambiguities, it is certain
that the newspaper was widely-circulated and avidly-
read in Iran. Its strictures on tyranny struck a respon¬
sive chord, and it is indeed the impact made by Kanun
during the years preceding the constitutional revolu¬
tion that is Malkom’s chief claim to a place of impor¬
tance in modern Iranian history. In keeping with its
agitational purposes, Kanun contained little systematic
discussion of the changes Malkom proposed; note¬
worthy, however, is the demand, put forward in no.
35 of the newspaper, for the institution of a bicameral
legislature, with the lower house to be elected by
popular vote.

The contents of Kanun appear to have been written
almost exclusively by Malkom himself. Nonetheless,
during the years of its publication he had extensive
contact with other notable opponents of the Tehran
government: Sayyid Djamal al-Din AsadabadT
(“Afghani”) \y.o.] t who met Malkom in London in
1891; Mlrza Aka Khan KirmanI, a formerly Azall
freethinker resident in Istanbul, who helped in the
distribution of Kanun in the Ottoman Empire; and
Shavkh al-Ra 5 Is Abu ’1-Hasan Mlrza, a Kadjar prince
of unconventional views living in India.

When Na?ir al-Din Shah was assassinated in 1896
and it appeared to Malkom that his political fortunes
might be restored, the insurrectional tone which had
marked Kanun was abruptly abandoned. Two years
later, in anticipation of his appointment to the Iranian
embassy in Rome, Malkom ceased publishing Kanun
altogether. He retained his diplomatic post in Italy
until the end of his life in July 1908, and no longer
seriously involved himself in Iranian politics. Another
organisation operating under this supervision, the
Didmi^-i Adamiyyat (“The Society of Humanity”),
did, however, play a role of marginal importance in
the struggles over the constitution in 1907 and 1908,
and, more importantly, many of those active in pro¬
moting its cause can be shown to have belonged to the
readership of Kanun.

Most of those who knew Malkom personally—even
those who can be termed his collaborators—seem to
have had a low opinion of his personal qualities, re¬
garding him as venal, arrogant and inconstant,
despite his obvious talents as writer and thinker.
Subsequent Iranian historiography accorded him a
more honorable mention, emphasising his role as a
pioneer of reform and modernisation. Of late, with
the growing rejection in Iran of westernisation as a
panacea^ critical voices have again begun to be raised
(Djalal Al-i Ahmad, for example, ridiculed Malkom
as “a homegrown Montesquieu” in his Qharb-zadagl

(new, uncensored edition, Tehran 1357 sh./ 1978, 80;
for a similar, but more detailed critique, see Huma
Nafik, Md wa Mirzd Malkom Khanhd-yi ma, in her book
Az mast ki bar mast, Tehran 1354 sh.f 1975, 165-99).

Bibliography. (1) Published works of
Malkom: Kulliyydt-i Malkum, ed. Hashim
RabP-zada, Tabriz 1328/1908 (this collection
contains 13 treatises, including one, Risdla-yi
Ghaybiyya . falsely ascribed to Malkom); Madjmu'-a-yi
dthdr-i Mlrza Malkom Khan, ed. with introd. by
Muhlt Tabataba 5 !, Tehran 1327 jA./ 1948 (the con¬
tents of this collection overlap with those of the
preceding one); Persian civilisation, in Contemporary
Review, lix (1891), 238-44; Kanun, 42 issues, Lon¬
don 1890-8. (2) Unpublished works of
Malkom: manuscript collection dated 1295/1878
containing 11 treatises, Central Library, Universi¬
ty of Tehran 3257; Risdla-yi Fardmush-khana, Malik
Library, Tehran 3116; manuscript treatises in the
library of Firidun Adamiyyat, Tehran. (3) Let¬
ters written and received by Malkom:
Fath c AlI Akhund-zada, Alifbd-yi djadld wa maktubdt,
ed. Hamid Muhammad-zada and Hamid AraslI,
Baku 1963 (contains letters exchanged between
Malkom and Akhund-zada on the alphabet ques¬
tion); B. N. Paris, supplement persan 1986-91,
1995-7 (a collection of letters received by Malkom
and donated by his widow in 1924; contents des¬
cribed in Blochet, Catalogue des manuscrits per sans, iv,
284-91). (4) Studies of the life and ideas of
Malkom: Hamid Algar, Mirza Malkum Khan. A
Study in the history of Iranian modernism, Berkeley and
Los Angeles 1973; Firishta Nura 5 !, Tahklk dar afkdr-
i Mlrza Malkom Khan, Tehran 1352 jA./ 1973; A.
Piemontese, Per una biografia di Mlrza Malkom Xan,
in AIUON, n.s. xix (1969), 361-85; Isma c fl Ra 3 In,
Mlrza Malkom Khan. Zindagl wa kushishha-yi siydsl-yi
u, Tehran 1350 sh./\971 . (5) Works containing
substantial mention of Malkom: Firidun
Adamiyyat, Andlsha-yi tarakkl wa hukumat-i kanun dar
c asr-i Sipahsdlar, Tehran 1351 sh./ 1972; idem, Fikr-i
dzadl wa mukaddima-yi nihdat-i Mashrufiyyat, Tehran
1340 sh ./1961 (esp. 94-181); Mlrza C A1I Khan
Amin al-Dawla, Khdtirat-i siyasl, ed. Hafiz
Farmanfarma^iyan, Tehran 1341 sh./ 1962; W. S.
Blunt, Secret history of the English occupation of Egypt,
London 1903 (pp. 82-4 contain a fanciful autobio¬
graphical fragment of Malkom relating to the
episode of the fardmush-khana); Mlrza Muhammad
Hasan Khan I c timad al-Saltana, Ruz-nama-yi
khdtirdt, ed. Iradj Afshar, Tehran 1345 sh./ 1967;
Huma Na(ik and Firidun Adamiyyat, Afkar-i
idjlimdH wa siyasl wa iktisadl dar dthdr-i muntashir
nashuda-yi dawra-yi Kadjar , Tehran 1356 ^71976
(contains numerous references to the unpublished
treatises of Malkom); Djahanglr Ka 5 immakaml,
Rawabit-i Zill al-Sultan wa Mlrza Malkom Khan, in
Barraslha-yi Tdrlkhl, iii/6 (Bahman-Isfand
1347/January-February 1969), 83-120; Isma c fl
Ra 3 In, Fardmush-khana wa framdsumi dar Iran , 3
vols., Tehran 1348 j/i./ 1968 (i, 487-568), contains
a detailed account of Malkom’s fardmush-khana);
Ibrahim Safa 5 !, Rahbaran-i Mashrufa, Tehran 1344
rA./1966 (41-63 are devoted to Malkom); Khan
Malik SasanI, Siydsatgardn-i dawra-yi Kadjar , i,
Tehran 1337 sh ./1958 (esp. 127-47).

(Hamid Algar)

MALLAH, “J ewish quarter in Morocco”.
The institution of malldh/melldh is essentially linked to
the history of Jewish settlement in the major cities of
Morocco and to the distribution of their communities
within the frontiers of the Sharifian Empire. In

MALLAH

♦

293

Morocco, it is the name given to the place of residence
assigned to the Jewish dhimmis.

At the outset, it is necessary to distinguish the ur¬
ban mallah. from the rural mallah. The former, as it ex¬
ists in several large towns, is a quarter adjacent to the
Muslim city, integrated within it or shifted to the
nearby periphery, yet enclosed within a separate
enclave defended by a wall and a fortified gateway. It
is most often situated close to the kasaba (citadel), the
residence of the king or the governor, in order to
guarantee the security of its inhabitants, some of
whom occupy senior positions in the civil administra¬
tion or carry out important functions in the royal
palace and must therefore remain close at hand in
order to answer the summons, should their presence
be required. The latter, the rural mallah , that of the
mountains and valleys of the Atlas and the Rif, the
southern and eastern plains as far as the fringes of the
Sahara, is an “open” village exclusively inhabited by
Jews, situated some distance from the nearest Muslim
ksar or the fortress of the protector fca^id). Also to be
noted is the existence, in some towns, of an old and
a new mallah, mallah kdlm and mallah jdid. The reason
may be a transfer of the Jewish population from one
to the other, in order to move it away from an already
existing site of Muslim culture or for purposes of con¬
struction (here we may note the religious scruples of
the pious sultan Mawlay Sllman/Sulayman, with
reference to Tetouan and Sale), or it may be an exten¬
sion of the former quarter on account of its over¬
population (al-SawIra and Meknes/Miknas).

Not all towns necessarily possess a mallah , and with
those that do have one, it has not always been so. The
institution of the mallah was only imposed on some
communities at a relatively recent date, as their
history testifies. Whereas, in Christian cultures,
segregation was the rule (although originally, here
too, there was a preference for living together in the
same quarter for reasons of security or simply for con¬
venience, in order to facilitate the practice of ritual
and the communal observance of religious laws,
customs and usages), in Islamic lands the Jews coex¬
isted for a long time, and almost everywhere, in the
towns as well as in the country, with their Muslim
fellow-citizens, in peaceful proximity in the same
quarters and the same streets. Very often, and this
predates the Arab conquest, there is evidence of a
deliberate choice on the part of ethnic, religious and
professional groups, to live together in the same
space, with their own streets and quarters. Jewish
quarters are called hdra in Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli;
ka c a in the Yemen; mahalla in Persia, or quite simply
darb al-yahud “the street of the Jews” or al-shar c “the
avenue”.

The etymology of the term mallah is closely
associated with the history of the Jewish community of
Fas and with what might be called its “ghettoisa-
tion”. At the end of the 7th/13th century, the
Marlnids founded, alongside Fas al-Ball (“Old
Fez”), Fas al-Jdld (“New Fez”), and close by, a little
later (first half of the 8th/l 4th century), the town of
Him?, which was initially allocated to the Ghuzz arch¬
ers and the Christian militia; then, at the beginning of
the 9th/15th century, in 1438 according to the Jewish
chronicles ( Kisse ha-melakhim “Throne of the Kings”,
by Raphael Moise Elbaz; Yahas Fas “Genealogy of
Fas” by Abner Hassarfati), the Jews were compelled
to leave their homes in Fas al-Ball and to settle in
Hims, which had been built on a site known as al-
Mallah “the saline area”. From toponymy (derived
from the root m-l-h with the connotations “salt”, “to
salt”, etc.), this term is extended in a generic sense,

becoming a common name which, passing from Fas to
the other towns of Morocco, ultimately designated the
Jewish quarter. All the other proposed etymologies
are to be rejected, in particular that which maintains
that mallah is “salted, cursed ground” and that the
Jews are “those appointed to the task of salting the
heads of decapitated rebels”. It should be noted that
originally there was nothing derogatory about this
term: some documents employ the expression “ mallah
of the Muslims” and conversely, the Jewish quarter
contained large and beautiful dwellings which were
favoured residences for “the agents and ambassadors
of foreign princes”. But for the Jews, these transfers
from one quarter to the other were resented as a bitter
exile and as the manifestation of a painful segregation,
often accompanied by the conversion to Islam of those
who refused to submit to the exodus imposed by the
royal edicts and to abandon their homes and their
shops. This was what happened at Fas in 1438 and,
much later, at Sale in 1807.

The mallah of Fas is, in every respect, the oldest in
Morocco and, for a long time, remained the only and
the most important one. It is only in the second half
of the 10th/ 16th century ( ca . 1557) that the term mallah
appears in Marrakesh, with the settlement there of
Jewish and Judaised populations from the Atlas and,
in particular, from the city of Aghmat where there
had lived, since time immemorial, an important
Jewish community. G. Mouette, a French captive in
Morocco from 1670 to 1681, writes ( Histoire des Con -
questes de Moulay Archy , Paris 1683): “In Fas and in
Morocco ( = Marrakesh), the Jews are separated from
the inhabitants, having their own quarters set apart,
surrounded by walls of which the gates are guarded by
men appointed by the King ... In the other towns,
they are intermingled with the Moors.” It was not un¬
til 1682, or more than a century later, that a third
mallah was founded; it was that of the town of Miknas,
new capital of the kingdom of Mawlay Isma c Il
(1672-1727). At the beginning of the 19th century, ca.
1807, the “ghettoisation” of the Jews was undertaken
by the pious sultan Mawlay Sulayman in the towns of
the coastal region, at Rabat and Sale, at al-SawIra
(Mogador) and at Tetouan. With the exception of
Tetouan, where the Spanish wordjWma is used, else¬
where it is the term mallah which designates the new
Jewish residential areas.

In Rabat, the Jews were living alongside the
Muslims in the Bhlra quarter when, in 1807, the
sultan ordered the construction of a mallah at the
eastern extremity of the town, buying the land with
his own money, building houses, kilns, mills and
shops, all in the space of one year. In Sal£, the New
Mallah, built in 1807, is a long avenue extending
from the Gate of the Mallah to the old monumental
gate dating from the Marinid period; in the alleyways
which open out on this avenue there are 200 houses,
20 shops and trading booths, two kilns and two mills.

The Jewish community of Mogador deserves a
special mention: the Jews were for a long time a ma¬
jority in this town which was familiar with intense
commercial activity and uninterrupted international
relations (with the United States and Europe) from its
recent foundation, in 1765, on ancient sites (the Pur¬
ple Islands in the time of Juba II, the Portuguese
Castello Real) until the beginning of the 20th century.
When Muhammad b. c Abd Allah set about building
the town, there were Jews living in the village of
Dyabat on the Oued Ksob, some 2 km. to the south
of the town. To populate the new city, designed to
replace Agadir as a centre of international commerce,
the sultan appealed to the wealthieth and most

294

MALLAH — MALLU IKBAL KHAN

dynamic Jews of other Moroccan communities, con¬
ferring upon them, along with the title of tu djdja r al-
sultdn “the King’s merchants”, special privileges such
as tax exemptions and other immunities, assigning
them comfortable homes in the quarter known as
kasaba al-kdtma which was the residence of the gover¬
nor, the higher functionaries and the consuls. The
other Jews and Christian traders lived, with the
Muslims, in the madtna. As in Tetouan, Rabat and
Sale, it was in 1807 that orders were given for the
separation of Jews from Muslims and for the construc¬
tion of the present-day “old malldh ”, with a sur¬
rounding wall and a fortified gate. Becoming
overpopulated (8,000 souls in 1865), it was permitted
to extend into the quarter known as Shabanat where
it took the name of al-mallah al-jdid “the new malldh ”.

On the topography of the malldh, administrative
organisation, commercial and manufacturing ac¬
tivities, intellectual and cultural life, see in the Bibl.
the works which the author of the present article has
devoted to these various themes.

Bibliography : M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes,
Marocain: mellah, in JA, ii (1914), 651-8; J.
Goulven, Les mellahs de Rabat-Sale , Paris 1927; L.
Brunot and E. Malka, Textes judeo-arabes de Fes,
Rabat 1939; J. Benech, Essai d’explication d’un
mellah, Marrakech 1940 (?); R. le Tourneau, Fes
avant le Protector at, Casablanca 1949; G. Vajda, Un
recueil de textes judeo-marocains , in Hesperis, xii (1951);
H. Z. Hirschberg, Histoire des Juifs d’Afrique du Nord
(in Hebrew, see also the English version, Leiden
1974, i), Jerusalem 1965; D. Corcos, Studies in the
History of the Jewish Morocco , (collection of articles in
Hebrew, French and English), Jerusalem 1976; H.
Zafrani, Les Juifs du Maroc. Vie sociale, economique et
religieuse. Etude de Taqqanot et Responsa, Paris 1972;
idem, Poe'sie juive en Occident Musulman , Paris 1977;
idem, Literatures populates et dialectales juives en Occi¬
dent Musulman , Paris 1980; idem, Mille arts de vie
juive au Maroc, culture et histoire, religion et magie, Paris
1983; see also G. Colin, Mellah, in EP and D.
Corcos, Jewish Quarter, in Encyclopaedia Judaica,
Jerusalem 1971. _ (H. Zafrani)

MALLU IKBAL KHAN. Indian military
leader of the Tughluk period.

The decade of decadence following the death of
Sultan Flruz Shah of Dihll in 790/1388 is marked by
the manoeuvrings of the princes, intrigues of the
nobles and sufferings of the people. According to
Firishta, the vast kingdom of the Tughluks fell to
pieces and the central administration lost all authority
over the outlying provinces. Confusion reached such
a point that there occurred an unprecedented spec¬
tacle of two sovereigns within a radius of 12 miles of
Dihll, i.e. Nusrat Shah at Flruzabad and Mahmud
Shah at Djahanpanah, like two kings in the game of
chess, to use Bada 5 um’s words. Both the monarchs
were no more than puppets in the hands of their am¬
bitious but unscrupulous patron-nobles; and Mallu
Ikbal Khan was one such noble who emerged as the
strongest out of this internecine melee.

Mallu was one of the three sons of Darya Khan,
better known as £afar Khan Lodi II, the influential
Afghan chief under Flruz Shah Tughluk. Along with
his elder brother Sarang Khan, who was governor of
Dlpalpur, he obtained ascendancy over all other amirs
of Sultan Mahmud, who gave him the title Ikbal
Khan and the command of the fortress of Siri, modern
Shahpur Jat, east of the Dihli-Kutb road. He owed his
rise also to the Sultan’s minister, Mukarrab Khan,
another member of the ruling military oligarchy of
that time. Perfidious as he was by nature, Ikbal Kh an

gradually got rid of those whom he regarded as rivals.
He first aligned himself with the other king, Sultan
Nusrat Shah, whom he deceitfully dislodged from
Flruzabad, which he immediately occupied in
800/1398. He followed it up by treacherously killing
his benefactor Mukarrab Khan and securing complete
control of DihlT. Annexation of Panipat a little later
made Ikbal Khan undisputed master of the region.

His triumph proved short-lived, as Timur’s sudden
invasion of the Do-'ab country caught him unawares.
He confronted the Mongol invaders, but had to flee in
order to avoid complete annihilation. He escaped to
Baran (modern Bulandshahr), while Sultan Mahmud
fled to Gudjarat.

After Timur’s onslaught ended, Ikbal Khan again
took possession of the ruined city of Dihll. Though he
had the capital of the sultanate under his sway, his
writ did not extend beyond a part of the Do 3 ab and
some districts round Dihll. In 804/1401, he invited
thither the fugitive Sultan Mahmud Shah and accord¬
ed him a warm reception, without however parting
with the reality of power. Not content with a limited
sovereignty, Ikbal Khan was bent upon extending the
boundaries of his suzerainty. But he felt frustrated by
the powerful Shark! rulers of |3jawnpur [q.v. ] in the
east and the influential governor of Multan, Khidr
Khan, in the west. Accompanied by Sultan Mahmud,
Ikbal Khan undertook an expedition against
Djawnpur, where Ibrahim Shah Shark! had lately
ascended the throne. At a time when battle lines were
being drawn, Sultan Mahmud secretly deserted
Ikbal’s camp and went over to the ruler of Djawnpur
with a view to securing his assistance to extricate
himself from tutelage of Ikbal Khan. On failing there,
the Sultan went to Kanaw^j [q.v.], an appendage of
the Shark! kingdom, where he was allowed to live with
the status of a local king as long as Ikbal lived. Ikbal
returned to Dihll in 805/1402 disappointed.

Ikbal Khan now decided to try his luck in the west,
an attempt which brought about his downfall. He first
marched to Samana, which was ruled by Bahram
Khan TurkbaWa, who was in league with Khidr
Khan. Though Ikbal managed to have Bahram Khan
murdered, he had to face the challenge of Khidr
Khan, and in a fierce engagement by the river Dahin-
da in Adjodhan (modern Pakpattan in Pakistan),
Ikbal Khan was defeated and killed by Khidr Khan’s
army in 808/1405. His severed head was presented to
Khidr Khan, who sent it to Fathpur, the latter’s
native town, where it was fixed on the gate of the city.
According to the Tabakat-i Akbari, the family and
dependents of Ikbal Khan were expelled from Dihl!
and sent to Kol, but none of them was harmed in any
way.

A Persian inscription of Ikbal Khan, fixed on the
southern bastion of an old c tdgdh at Kharera village
near Dihll, describes him as Mallu Sultan!, indicating
that he insisted on being called a slave or servant of
the Sultan. It must be said to his credit that in spite
of possessing what were in effect the absolute political
and administrative powers of a king, Ikbal Khan
never assumed royal prerogatives, such as striking
coins in his name and inserting his name in the khutba.
The epitaph referred to above also reveals his religious
zeal in having erected the place of worship with his
own money, and condemns the destruction and
desolation wrought by the Mongol marauders.

Bibliography: Proceedings of the Indian History

Congress, Second Session, 1938; History and culture of the

Indian people, vi. The Delhi Sultanate, Bombay 1960;

K. S. Lai, Twilight of the Sultanate, Bombay 1963;

Mahd! Husain, The Tughluq dynasty, Calcutta 1963;

MALLU IKBAL KHAN — MALTA

295

A comprehensive history of India, v. The Delhi Sultanate,

Bombay 1970. (Abdus Subhan)

MALTA (ancient Melita; Ar. Mal(i)ta; French
Malte), the name of the main island of a
Mediterranean archipelago which is situated
around 100 km from Sicily and about 300 km from
Tunisia and which also includes Gozo, Comino,
Cominotto, Filf(o)la and some unimportant rocks,
measuring 47 km. from the north-west to the south¬
east. The island of Malta measures 27 km in length
and 14 km in breadth; its main town is Valletta (Fr.
La Valette), the capital of what has been since 21
September 1964 an independent state included how¬
ever in the British Commonwealth. In 1968, the total
population was around 320,000. Malta is exclusively
Christian, and owes its mention in the El solely
because it was occupied for more than two centuries
by the Muslims and because its official language
derives from an Arabic dialect.

1. History. Malta was inhabited in ancient times
by a Mediterranean race, whose megalithic monu¬
ments are preserved at Hagiar Kim (“standing
stones”), Hal Tarxen and Hal Saflieni. It was colon¬
ised very early, certainly before the 10th century
B.C., by the Phoenicians, and formed a base for their
trading ships. It is not certain that the name of Malta
is derived from the Phoenician, while the Phoenician
origin of Gaulos (Gozo), meaning “a merchant boat
of round shape”, seems certain.

The Carthaginians became masters of the island in
the 7th-6th century B.C. and kept it for four or five
centuries. The Romans conquered it in 218 B.C., and
for the next ten centuries Malta remained under
Roman and Greek influence, being situated near
Eastern Sicily. Gozo had only Greek coins, and Greek
and Roman coins in great number were minted in
Malta. Very early, with St. Paul in the 1st century
A.D., the island was converted to Christianity; during
the Western Empire’s decay the Byzantines estab¬
lished themselves in it; after their conquest of
Northern Africa, the possession of Malta became in¬
dispensable to them.

The Muslim conquest of Malta is generally fixed in
256/870, but it is possible that the island was the goal
of at least a reconnaissance raid in 221/835-6, if one
considers it probable that the island was included
amongst those against which the Aghlabid Ibrahim
sent a fleet in that year. E. Rossi (in El 1 s.v.) thought
that it would not be too bold to adopt the view of
Malta’s falling under Muslim domination even before
184/800, and added that de Goeje shared his opinion
(in ZDMG, lviii, 905 n. 2), but there is nothing to con¬
firm this hypothesis. What seems certain is that in
256/870 a squadron left Sicily under the command of
Ahmad (called HabashI) b. c Umar b. c Abd Allah b.
Ibrahim b. al-Aghlab in order to relieve Malta, which
was being invested by a Byzantine fleet (Ibn al-Aihlr,
vi, 307, and al-Nuwayrf, ed. Remiro, ii, 81, do not
give the exact year). This shows that the island was
already occupied by the Muslims before that date, and
the year 255/869 indicated notably by Ibn Khaldun
( c Ibar, iv, 430) and al-Kalkashandl ($ubh, vi, 121)
should probably be retained. The retreat, without a
fight, of the Byzantine fleet on 28 Ramadan 256/29
August 870 seems to have given the signal for ill-
treatment inflicted on the Greek population of the
island, the arrest of its bishop, who was then sent into
captivity at Palermo, and the destruction of the
church, the materials from which were re-used at the
time of the construction of the Kasr HabashI at
Sousse.

In Malta, the Muslim occupation was certainly

more permanent and strongly established than in Sici¬
ly; the narrow island was completely subjugated by
the conquerors, who made it a strategic base; this
helps us to understand how the Arab-Berber Muslims
of Africa succeeded in forcing upon Malta the Arabic
language, from which the modem Maltese dialect is
derived (see below, 2).

Besides the Arabic language and place-names, the
Muslims have left in Malta a few coins and a con¬
siderable number of inscriptions on tombstones;
one of them, the celebrated inscription called of
Maymuna, dated 568/1173, was published more than
a century ago, and repeatedly studied by orientalists
(Italinski, Lanci, Amari, Nallino, etc.); another one,
found in Gozo, is to be seen in the Malta Museum.
About twenty more have been found in the excava¬
tions in 1922-5 at Rabato (near the place called
Notabile); they are preserved in the Museum of the
Villa Romana, near the place of the excavations.

The Muslims lost M^ta in 483/1090, when the
Normans conquered it; they were however allowed to
live on the island under the Norman government until
647/1249, the date when Frederick II expelled them.
From 1530 to 1798 Malta was the seat of the Order of
St. John of Jerusalem, which the Turks had expelled
from Rhodes in 1522. The Order organised there an
important war fleet. The island was in constant rela¬
tions with the East and with Barbary; thousands of
Muslim slaves were taken to Malta; the Maltese ships
had repeated encounters with those of the Porte and
the Levantine and Barbary pirates. The Turks at¬
tempted to occupy Malta in 1565, with their well-
known expedition, which ended in disaster, and again
in 1614; more than once, they threatened to invade it
under Sultan Mehemmed IV.

A few Arabic manuscripts and nautical charts, of
no great value, are preserved in the Public Library of
Malta and in its Museum.

Bibliography. S. Gsell, Histoire ancienne de
TAfrique du Nord, Paris 1918-20, i-iv; A. Mayr, Die
Insel Malta im Altertum ; G. A. Abela, Descrillione di
Malta, isola nel mare siciliano, Malta 1647 (repr. with
additions by G. A. Ciantar 1722); M. Miege,
Histoire de Malte , Paris 1840, 20-1; Th. Noldeke,
review of H. Stumme’s works, in ZDMG , lviii,
903 ff.; R. Paribeni, Malta, un piccolo paese dalla
grande storia , Rome 1925; I. Zammit, Malta: the
Maltese islands and their history , Malta 1954; M.
Talbi, Aghlabides, index; B. Blouet, The story of
Malta , Malta 1967; A. A. Vasiliev, Byzance el les
Arabes, tr. M. Canard, ii/1, Brussels 1968, 25.

(E. Rossi*)

2. The Maltese language. Maltese is the
language of the inhabitants of the Maltese Islands
(Malta, Gozo, and Comino; ca. 330,000 speakers). It
is to some extent a mixed language, for its basic struc¬
ture, together with much of the vocabulary for the
more basic features of life, are derived from Arabic—
mainly North African Arabic—while an important
Romance adstratum (mainly [Siculo-] Italian) com¬
prises, in particular, vocabulary linked with more ad¬
vanced civilisation. The relation between the two
constituent elements is comparable to that between
the Anglo-Saxon and Norman French elements in
English. For several centuries mainly a medium of
oral communication, Maltese became a literary
language chiefly during the 19th and 20th centuries;
it gained official recognition in 1933, and became the
national language of Malta in 1964. It is written in a
modified form of the Latin alphabet (29 letters; see
table), being the only Semitic language thus written;
the present system, officially adopted in 1934, follows

296

MALTA

experimentation influenced by Italian and Arabic
models from the 18th century onwards. The language
has thus been subject to standardising influences only
for a comparatively brief period, and it is still actively
developing in response to modern needs. Several
variants of contemporary Maltese can be distin¬
guished. Literary Standard Maltese, used in belles
lettres, tends to aim at a mainly Semitic diction. Jour¬
nalistic Maltese tends to differ from it slightly in spell¬
ing, phonology, morphology and syntax, but
substantially in vocabulary and phraseology (many
foreign loanwords and caiques). Colloquial Standard
Maltese is intermediate between the two, varying in
composition according to socio-linguistic factors such
as the social standing of individual speakers. In addi¬
tion, there is dialectal Maltese, varying from town to
town and from village to village, but essentially to be
divided into urban and rural. Dialectal Maltese is now
under threat, owing to the levelling effects of com¬
pulsory education and the news media.

Any attempt to offer a description of present-day
Maltese, and still more of the past history of the
language is faced with some difficulties. Grammars
and dictionaries of Maltese were indeed being made
at least by the 18th century: notably early works are
Agius de Soldanis’ grammar Della lingua Punica
presentemente usata dai Maltesi (Rome 1750), and his un¬
published dictionary surviving in manuscript Damma
tla Kliem Karlaginis Mscerred Pel Fom tal Maltin u
Ghaucin , followed by M. A. Vassalli’s dictionary Lex¬
icon Melitense-Latino-Italum (Rome 1796) and his two
grammars, Mylsen Phoenico-Punicum sive grammatica
Melilensis (Rome 1791), and Grammatica della lingua
Maltese (Malta 1827). Understandably, the Maltese
described by them differs somewhat from that of to¬
day. Correct present usage as taught in schools is
given in A. Cremona’s Taghlim Juq il-Kitba Maltija (2
vols. Malta 1934-8; many reprints), and in the gram¬
mars by E. Sutcliffe and J. Aquilina listed in the
bibliography below. However, Maltese is at present
not yet completely covered descriptively; thus no com¬
plete comprehensive dictionary on modem lines is
available: the one by E. Serracino Inglott, II Miklem
Malti (Maltese-Maltese, Malta 1975 ff.) is still pro¬
ceeding, while the Maltese-English dictionary by J.
Aquilina is still to be published. There is also as yet
no complete and comprehensive description of
Maltese dialects, though work is proceeding.

Historically, Maltese is at present practically un¬
documented before the 15th century, and very badly
known up to the 18th. To the 15th century belongs the
earliest known Maltese literary text, the Cantilena by
Peter Caxaro published by G. Wettinger and M.
Fsadni {Peter Caxaro’s Cantilena, a poem in medieval
Maltese , Malta 1968; for a discussion, see the literature
quoted by G. Wettinger, in Jnal. of Maltese Studies, xii
[1978], 88 ff., and R. Bin Bovingdon, in ibid .,
106 ff.), as well as Maltese phrases and names of per¬
sons and places contained in notarial documents, all
written in varying and often ambiguous transcriptions
into the Latin alphabet. More texts of this nature are
available from the 16th and 17th centuries (cf. G.
Wettinger, in Oriental studies presented to Benedikt S. J.
Isserlin, Leiden 1980, 173 ff.; idem, in Procs. of the First
Congress of Mediterranean Studies of Arabo-Berber influence,
Algiers 1973, 484 ff.), as well as a 16th-century word
list gathered by the German traveller H. Megiser,
published in his Propugnaculum Europae ... (Cracow
1611; discussed by W. Cowan in Journal of Maltese
Studies, ii [1964], 217 ff.). Of 17th century date is an¬
other word list compiled by the English traveller
Philip Skippon (cf. A. Cremona, A historical review of

the Maltese language, Malta 1945, 14), as well as a son¬
net by G. P. Bonamico ( ca . 1672). From the 18th cen¬
tury, a few prose texts also survive, such as popular
dialogues by de Soldanis, sermons and other devo¬
tional work, the Lord’s Prayer (1718) and the first
catechism in Maltese (1752)—brief bibliographical
notes concerning all of which can be found in Wet¬
tinger and Fsadni, op. cit. , 8 ff. Broadly speaking,
however, Maltese prose literature postdates the age of
the early grammarians and lexicographers, though the
origins of Maltese folk literature (songs, ballads, tales,
proverbs) are earlier. Confronted with this scarcity of
data, scholars attempting to trace the development of
Maltese, and to explain its character and relations to
Arabic dialects, have been compelled to work back
from the present state of the language, to some extent,
through theoretical reconstruction.

It can, however, be said that Maltese contains,
according to present information, no recognisable
linguistic elements going back to the pre-Phoenician
prehistoric period. Though Phoenician or Punic was
both spoken and written in Malta from ca. 800 B.C.
to the Roman conquest of 218 B.C. and probably
afterwards, the once popular opinion that Maltese is
a direct descendant from Phoenician or Punic is now
antiquated (cf. P. Grech, Journal of Maltese Studies, i
[1961], 130 ff.).

The persistence of Phoenician substratum influ¬
ences in Maltese has been suggested by J. Cantineau
with reference to the realisation of a as 6 in Maltese
rural dialects ( Cours de phonetique arabe, Paris 1960,
100 ), and other scholars have suggested morph¬
ological or lexical survivals; but all this remains
hypothetical at present. The existence of Latin
elements in Maltese vocabulary going back to the
period of Roman rule there is also disputed (cf.
J.Aquilina, Papers in Maltese linguistics, Malta 1961,
8 ff.), and Greek terms which should date from the
time of Byzantine supremacy, like lapsi (from Greek
analepsis “Ascension Day”) are remarkably few. The
linguistic board appears in fact to have been wiped
clean to an astonishing extent by the Arab conquest of
A.D. 870, which brought in the North African dialec¬
tal (pre-Hilalian) Arabic which is still the basis of
Maltese. This included some Berber elements in
vocabulary (cf. G. S. Colin, in Manorial Andre Basset
(1895-1956), Paris 1957, 7-16; J. Aquilina, Maltese
linguistic surveys, Malta 1976, 25 ff.). Possible links
with Eastern Arabic, like the Maltese realisation of k
as a glottal stop, are less cogent, though bita c , recently
identified in transcription in 15th century Maltese
lists as the ancestral form of present Maltese ta “of’
(G. Wettinger, Journal of Maltese Studies, vi [1971],
37 ff.), links Malta with Egypt rather than the North
African dialect region, which has mta c . Eastern
Arabic-derived religious terms were possibly brought
to Malta by Maronite clergy (J. Aquilina, Maltese
linguistic survey, 19 ff.). The essentially Western
Arabic dialect ancestry of Maltese is in fact sufficient¬
ly evident from two morphological features: the for¬
mation of the first persons singular and plural of the
imperfect of verbs according to the pattern nktl/nfctlu as
against Classical and Eastern Arabic 3 ktllnktl, and the
replacement of the verbal form derived from IX by a
modified XI, with a resultative meaning (like hmar
(i hmar ) “to redden”). See further on the whole ques¬
tion, Ph. Margais, Arabiyya. 3. Western dialects.

Nevertheless, classical literary Arabic was used in
Malta as well, down to ca. 1200 A.D. at least, as is
shown by tombstones and surviving quotations from
three 12th century Maltese poets writing in Arabic.
This must have kept dialectal tendencies in check at

MALTA

297

least among the educated. However, the Norman con¬
quest of A.D. 1090, followed by the expulsion of the
Arabs in 1249, gradually separated Malta from the
Arabic-speaking world of Islam and linked her with
the Romance-speaking part of the Christian West.
This would have involved the removal of the linguistic
control up to then exercised over Maltese Arabic by
the Arab scribal and grammatical tradition, and al¬
lowed dialectal tendencies and local linguistic develop¬
ment to progress unchecked. With this one may link
grammatical impoverishment, such as the loss of
derived form IV of verbs (not all of which can still
form perfect, imperfect and participle), or the loss of
the feminine plurals of adjectives, besides a reduction
and modification in the stock of broken plurals (e.g.
merging of type fa c alil u with fa c ali^ f spread of fa c ali),
as well as the survival and development of aberrant
forms, like mixed verbal forms derived from forms
VII and VIII (such as intharat as well as normal inharat
“was ploughed”—Arabic root h-r-th), or of forms X
and II (like stkenah “he loathed”—Arabic root k-r-h,
besides normal forms X of type staktab). There are
analogies to such developments in dialectal Arabic, in¬
cluding North African Arabic. This is partly true also
where the development of auxiliaries is concerned,
Maltese gieghed/qed corresponding to dialectical Arabic
kaHd followed by the imperfect, indicating the actual
present.

Lexically, Maltese underwent progressive shrink¬
age of its Semitic stock—even basic Semitic terms,
like “father”, “much, many” have disappeared. The
former was replaced by Romance missier , the latter by
Semitic terms changed in meaning, like hafna (Arabic
“a handful”), or wisq (Arabic “a load”). Changes in
meaning are indeed not uncommon: thus, e.g., in
Maltese halq means “mouth”, not “throat” as in
Arabic. This loss of contact with Literary Arabic also
meant that Maltese was not much affected later by the
Arabic renaissance of the 19th and 20th centuries; its
vocabulary of abstract and technical terms has re¬
mained non-Semitic to a considerable extent, the use
e.g. of verbal nouns, or of nouns ending in -iyya
(Maltese -ija) for such purposes being much rarer than
in Arabic. The replacement of Arabic as a written
language first by Latin, then in the 15th century by
Siculo-Italian and from the 16th onwards by Italian,
the close connection with Sicily which continued
during the rule of the Knights (1530-1798), and the
influx of Romance speakers (administrators, mer¬
chants, artisans, sailors and fishermen) into Malta, all
explain the importance which the Romance, and in
particular the Siculo-Italian, element then acquired in
Maltese. Standard Italian became the language of law
and administration, literature and culture, up to the
20th century. The coming of British rule (1813-1964)
added an English element to the language, which is
noticeable now particularly in such semantic fields as
sport, commerce and administration, and in profes¬
sional and technical vocabularies. The English com¬
ponent in Maltese is still developing, owing to the
importance of English as an international medium
and also because it is taught in Maltese schools. On
the other hand, recent interest in Malta’s Arab con¬
nections has not so far found much linguistic
reflection.

The present condition of the language thus evolved
can be summarised as follows. While the Semitic
vocabulary in Maltese may be limited, it is quan¬
titatively very strong where actual use is concerned.
In literary and ecclesiastical texts it may amount to
over 90% of the total, according to word statistical
investigation. In spoken Maltese the percentage is

smaller, but even in newspapers with their tendency
to use foreign loan words the Semitic element comes
to over two-thirds, the Romance element to not quite
one-third; similarly also in other texts dealing with
political, social, and economic matters (cf. F. Krier,
Le maltais au contact de Vitalien , in Forum phoneticum , xv,
Hamburg 1976, 110 ff.; E. Fenech, Contemporary jour¬
nalistic Maltese, Leiden 1978, 216-17 and passim). The
growth of this Romance component can be followed to
some extent over the centuries: in Peter Caxaro’s Can¬
tilena there is one single purely Romance term, but by
the mid-18th century de Soldanis’ dictionary shows
the Romance constituent in Maltese vocabulary was
fairly substantial. English words in most contexts on
the other hand amount to less than 5% of the total.

Phonetically, the Semitic stock of Maltese has
undergone considerable changes. Among consonants,
the emphatics, primary or secondary, have become
fused with the corresponding non-emphatics: t > t, d
> d, z> d, f > s (r > r, etc.). However, the former
presence or absence of emphasis may still be responsi¬
ble for the different colouring of adjoining vowels:
contrast Maltese sajf “summer” (Arabic sayf) with sejf
“sword” (Arabic sayf). Interdental fricatives dh, th
have become stops d, t. Arabic k is normally replaced
in Standard Maltese pronunciation by glottal stop (oc¬
casionally by g; and in some dialect pronunciations by
k). Kh has become fused with h, and gh with c (but kh
and gh survive as allophones in some dialects). c itself,
while still written, is no longer pronounced: it has left
traces of various kinds (pharyngalisation, colouring,
or lengthening of neighbouring vowels); in some con¬
texts it is replaced by h. H in standard Maltese is
mostly silent (in which case it may cause compen¬
satory lengthening in neighbouring vowels); in certain
conditions it may become h. Many of these changes
seem to have occurred after the 15th or 16th century,
when c , dh, th may still have existed (though the fusion
of dh and th with d and t may have gone some way in
pre-Hilalian Arabic, from which Maltese descended,
and dh had become d in Muslim Sicily); kh and gh were
still fairly widely used in the 18th century. The
diminishing Semitic consonantal repertoire was on the
other hand augmented by the inclusion of Romance
phonemic consonants p, v, c, ts, dz, and Romance in¬
fluence is reponsible for a much wider use of g. The
devoiced pronunciation of voiced consonants, an oc¬
casional feature in Arabic dialects, became regular in
word final position or before voiceless consonants
(thus bieb “door” is pronounced approximately biep,
and libsa “suit” lipsa). Vice versa , voiceless consonants
before voiced consonants become voiced. Consonant
assimilation, fairly frequent, also affects the verbal
prefix t- (e.g. iggib (for Arabic tadjib “you/she
bring(s)” (via it jib). As for vowels, the various realisa¬
tions of phonemic vowels {a, i, u:a, t, u inherited from
Arabic are supplemented by the phonemic vowels e,
o:e, 6 taken over from Romance. Since there is pro¬
nounced stress in Maltese, short unstressed vowels
may disappear. Original Arabic i and u in open
syllable before stress normally vanish, but short a is
preserved near former emphatics and after c or gh;
since in some environments it may have gone into i
before disappearing, Maltese may originally have
been a “differential” dialect in Cantineau’s ter¬
minology (a in the feminine singular ending -a once
seems to have undergone imdla —15 th century
transcriptions not rarely give it as -e, but present
Standard Maltese again has -a; the reasons for this
change are not clear. Imala of -a may still occur in
rural dialects). Among long vowels, Arabic a is now
mostly represented by ie (i) in Maltese, rarely by e —

298

MALTA

except near former emphatics, velars, and
pharyngals, where it may survive as a. This ie is very
typical of Maltese; it seems to have spread at the ex¬
pense of e during the last four centuries. Diphthongs
mostly survive with some modification, though
Arabic ay may be represented by t, and aw by ii, as in
xitan (Arabic shaytdn) “devil”, or mulud (Arabic
mawlud) “bom”. Vowel harmony, and the formation
of prosthetic and epenthetic vowels, are all noticeable
features.

Maltese morphology remains essentially that of
dialectal Arabic, somewhat modified and reduced.
Foreign loan words may be fitted into this framework:
thus, among nouns, spalla “shoulder” is given the
dual ending -ejn (spallejn “two shoulders”), and sound
or broken plurals are often given to loan words. On
the other hand, foreign plural endings may be pre¬
served: Italian -i (standing also for Italian - e ), and
English -s, the latter in recent loans. Incorporation
often involves restructuring of loan words. In the case
of Romance loan terms, this has most recently been
studied by F. Krier (Le maltais au contact de TItalien,
following J. Aquilina, The structure of Maltese, Malta
1959; Papers in Maltese linguistics. Italian vowels may
undergo the impact of Sicilian: cf. Maltese munita with
Italian moneta. Nouns may lose vocalic endings but
receive prosthetic prefixes (cf. Maltese istess with
Italian stesso). Unstressed short vowels, but also some
consonants, may be lost (cf. Maltese storbju with
Italian disturbo , archaic variant disturbio). Early
Romance loan words in particular may show a
replacement of Romance by corresponding Semitic
consonants (cf. Sicilian palla with Maltese balla).
English loan words, recently studied by E. Fenech
(Contemporary journalistic Maltese) have undergone
similar restructuring: cf. e.g. Maltese kit la, plural
ktieli, for English kettle. Verbs of both Romance and
English derivation are similarly adapted, e.g. by in¬
ternal modifications, or the addition of prefixes or
suffixes; cf. e.g. ikkopja “copied” jibbrajba
“bribes”.—The Romance element has in turn af¬
fected the Semitic by the incorporation of endings—
azz (from Sicilian - acciu) and -un (Italian -one) cf.
sakranazz “addicted to drunkenness” and damn “big
house”, from Semitic sakran and dar, respectively.

This substantial influx of foreign terms has led to
many Romance-Semitic doublets, such as hu stessu/hu
nnifsu , both meaning “he himself’. Sometimes there
are different shades of meaning. The occurrence of
numerous caiques derived from Italian and English ex¬
pressions is a related feature. On the other hand,
foreign influence in syntax is rather less marked,
though e.g. the frequence of the sentence structure in
which the verbal predicate follows rather than
precedes the subject may owe something to European
models.

Dialectal Maltese has received attention since the
18th century, when Vassalli recognised the existence
of five regional dialects in the Maltese Islands and
outlined their respective characteristics. H. Stumme’s
Maltesische Studien (Leipziger Semitische Studien, i/4, Leip¬
zig 1904) made an outstanding contribution of perma¬
nent value; within the last decade, study has received
a renewed impetus (cf. works by P. Schabert, J.
Aquilina and B. S. J. Isserlin et alii, and A. Borg listed
in the Bibi). While urban dialects may be nearer to
Standard Maltese, rural dialects show some archaic
features: kh and gh are still sounded in some Gozitan
villages, and the imdla of Arabic a into e (or f—the lat¬
ter found especially in Gozo) recalls 15th century
transcriptions. The realisation of the a, preserved as a
in standard Maltese, as o is typical of country dialects;

so is a tendency towards the diphthongisation of sim¬
ple vowels, such as u into eo or eu. The age of the
former phenomenon is unclear—up to now, it has not
been attested in early transcriptions—but the latter
may have spread during the past few centuries. A
greater tendency to use rare or archaic terms and
broken plurals, and to employ Semitic rather than
Romance vocabulary, are shared also by some oral
folk literature. All in all, rural dialectal Maltese may
represent to some extent a strain parallel to Standard
Maltese, but one which is less far removed from the
Western Mediterranean Arabic ancestry of the
Maltese language than the latter.

Bibliography : (in addition to works mentioned
in the text above): Grammars: E. F. Sutcliffe, A
grammar of the Maltese language, Oxford 1936,
reprints in Malta; J. Aquilina, Teach yourself Maltese,
London 1965; Dictionaries: E. D. Busuttil,
Kalepin (Dizzjunarju) Malti-Ingliz , 3rd ed., Malta
1964; idem, Kalepin (Dizzjunarju) Ingliz-Malti 2nd
ed. Malta 1968; C. Psaila, Dizzjunarju Ingliz u
Malti, Malta 1947, reprints; C. L. Dessoulavi, A
Maltese-Arabic word list, London 1938; D. G.
Barbera, Dizionario Maltese-Arabo-Italiano, Beirut
1939-40; Other works: J. Aquilina, Maltese
linguistic surveys, Malta 1976; idem, and B. S. J.
Isserlin (eds.), A survey of contemporary dialectal
Maltese, i, Leeds 1981; A. Borg, in Israel Oriental
Studies, vi (1976), vii (1977); D. Cohen, Etudes de
linguistique semitique et arabe, Janua linguarum,
Series practica 81, The Hague-Paris 1970; W.
Cowan, A reconstruction of proto-colloquial Arabic,
University Microfilms. Ann Arbor 1975; J. Cassar
Pullicino, Kitba w Kittieba tal Malti, 3 vols, Malta
1962; P. Schabert, Laut- und Formenlehre des
Maltesischen anhand zweier Mundarten, Erlanger Stu¬
dien 16, Erlangen 1976; A. J. Borg, A study of aspect
in Maltese, Linguistica extranea, Studia 15, Ann Ar¬
bor 1981. Numerous additional references will be
found in issues of the Journal of Maltese Studies and
works listed here; and bibliographical detail may be
found in G. Mangion, in Atti. XIV Congresso Interna-
zionale di linguistica e filologia romanza, Napoli 1974,
612-41; idem, in Onoma, xxv (1981), 303-4; idem,
in Rivista Italiana di dialettologia, ii-iv (1979-80),
489-96. See also his Appunti di storia linguistica
Maltese, in Atti del IX Convegno por gli studi dialettali
Italiani, Pisa 1974, 389-415. (B. S. J. Isserlin)

3. Maltese literature.

The literature of the small Maltese archipelago
emanates from a culture which may still be defined to¬
day as Christian, and more specifically as Roman
Catholic, in all its essential aspects. The very early
Christianisation of the island of Malta (which its in¬
habitants trace back to a visit made there by Saint
Paul—Acts, xxviii, 1-10) was able to resist a Muslim
domination of almost four centuries, and Islam does
not seem to have exerted a significant influence.

Until the 19th century, Italian, the official and ad¬
ministrative language, the language of education, was
the vehicle of Maltese literature, just as it was the
language of social relations among the educated
classes. But alongside this learned literature, written
in a foreign language, there existed, and still exists, an
oral and genuinely national literature. At the festival
of Imnarja, a great popular gathering in the woods of
Buskett attended by peasants and artisans from all the
villages of the island, among other displays there take
place, on the night of 28-9 June, poetical contests and
improvisations, some forms of which are approved by
public acclamation.

On the other hand, since the end of the 19th cen-

MALTA

299

Table showing the Maltese alphabet and corresponding Arabic and Romance sound values
(Rare correspondences are shown in brackets, occasional ones mostly omitted)

Maltese

letter

sound

value

corresponding
Arabic sound[s]

corresponding Romance
(Italian and Sicilian sound[s])

a, i

b(0

b(p)

sh, di 00

* (k)

d, dh, d, z

d(t)

a, i

e (i)

di, z

k, q (di)

- (h. h)

h, kh O

i (a, u)

i (e)

y (di)

(see text)

c , gh

u (a, i)

0 , u

b, f

P (b, V)

hamza

k (S k)

s, §

t, th, l

Kd)

U, 0

V, b

w ( k ) w , (g) w

sh (s)

sh, s

•

z> 3

t and s in disjunction

ts, £

Note: Long and short vowels are not distinguished in Maltese writings; e.g. dar stands for dar.

tury, collections of oral literature have been made by
foreigners, including the German Stumme, and also
by Maltese: Nawel Magri (1851-1907) published col¬
lections of popular tales, including Mrejjef misserijietna
(“Stories of our ancestors”, 1902). Guze Cassar-
Pullicino (b. 1921) wrote a number of volumes deal¬
ing with folklore; one of these, Femmes de Malte dans
les chants traditionnels (1981), in collaboration with
Micheline Galley, specifically studies the feminine
repertoire.

These collections reveal the basic forms of this
literature: stories which are generally short, very vivid
and colourful, little quatrains which are usually
satirical or amorous, also lullabies, prayers and
ballads of which the most renowned is L-Gharusa tal-
Mosta (“The wife of Mosta”), the tale of the kidnap¬
ping of a girl by Turks on her wedding day.

Similarly, proverbs have been collected since a
very early date. In the 18th century, de Soldanis had
already made an extensive collection, Apoftegmi e pro-
verbi maltesi. He was followed in this course by M. A.
Vassalli, whose Motti, aforismi e proverbi maltesi dates
from 1828, and by G. Aquilina, whose Comparative dic¬
tionary of Maltese proverbs appeared in 1969.

Despite the cultural domination of Italian, there are
available some items written in Maltese dating from
before the 19th century. The oldest is a Cantilena of
twenty verses attributed to Peter Caxaro, dating
from the 15th century. Unfortunately, difficulties of
reading and a syntax sometimes unfamiliar to modem
scholars make its interpretation problematical. More¬
over, the system of transcription lacks consistency,
since a single phoneme may have two or even three

graphical equivalents, and the converse applies. How¬
ever, analysis of this text shows that certain phonetic
evolutions, characteristic of Maltese as currently
spoken, have not yet taken place; in particular the
pharyngeals and the velars have not disappeared. Also
worthy of mention are a short poem by the writer
G. F. Bonamico (1639-80) composed ca. 1672 and
dedicated to the Grand Master Nicholas Cottoner;
humorous verses concerning the Carnival composed
by Dun Felic Demarco in 1760; religious hymns and
also some prose works, including a collection of ser¬
mons of Father Ignazio Saverio Mifsud (1739), in a
rather feeble oratorical style, and a catechism (Taghlim
Nisrani) of F. Wzzino, published in 1752. It was also
in the middle of the 18th century that de Soldanis
composed his Djalogi; this consists of eight short
dialogues which were discovered in the manuscript of
his grammar and were published in 1947 by G.
Cassar-Pullicino. The majority of their protagonists
are common people, whom the author makes talk in
a very idiomatic manner, from which it may be sup¬
posed that these dialogues are a faithful reflection of
the popular language of the period. Moreover, they
contain a great deal of sociological and historical in¬
terest. Also available to us is an acrostic poem (1758)
by the same author, in honour of Dr Ludovico Col-
tellini, secretary of the Academy of Botany and
Natural History of Cortona, a documentary rather
than literary curiosity.

Maltese prose-writing began quite modestly.
Over a long period, the main concern of writers was
to translate religious works, as well as Italian, English
or French works. M. A. Vassalli himself made an ex-

300

MALTA

cellent Maltese version of the Gospels (1823-9).
Richard Taylor (1818-68) produced in 1846 a transla¬
tion of Robinson Crusoe which is still highly regarded to¬
day. But all these works had the merit of showing that
the Maltese language, unjustly scorned by the
educated classes, was capable of serving literature of
the highest quality.

It is only in the last quarter of the 19th century that
an original prose is seen to emerge. The first novels,
described as “Gothic” by the Maltese, enjoyed con¬
siderable popular success, in spite of their somewhat
mediocre quality. Neriku u Guditta (“Henry and
Judith”, 1872), by M. German, Gorg il-Bdot
(“George the Pilot”, 1880) by Ninu Muscat Fenech
and Ermelinda u l-vendetta tal-Konti (“Ermelinde and
the vengeance of the Count”, 1894) by A. Adam are
nothing more than somewhat pale imitations of
popular foreign novels. However, some works testify
even at this time to a greater degree of independence,
such as Fernandu Montagues (1896) by Alwig Vella,
or the stories of V. Busuttil, II-Habib tal-familji
(“The friend of the families”, 1893-4). Here too the
phraseology is of Italian type, but the reader is no
longer aware of the awkwardness of a language of
translation. In fact, it should not be forgotten that all
these authors began their writings in Italian, a situa¬
tion still applying at the beginning of the 20th cen¬
tury, before Italian was displaced in favour of English,
which became an official language in 1934, at which
time Maltese achieved the same status.

Two authors succeeded particularly well in defying
the ascendancy of Italian, an achievement which
earns them a special place in the history of Maltese
literature. The first, A. E. Caruana, is distinguished
by the purity of his language and the facility with
which he expresses complex notions in spite of a
vocabulary remarkably deficient in abstract terms.
These features are especially evident in his historical
novel Inez Farrug, which appeared in 1889 and of
which the action is set in the 15th century during the
Spanish occupation, but which denounces by impli¬
cation all the foreign powers who have ruled the
archipelago. The second, Guze Muscat Azzopardi
(1853-1927), was concerned above all to give to the
Maltese language a literary syntax of its own. It may
be said that he achieved his purpose with Nazju Ellul
(1909), a historical work describing the Maltese
resistance to the occupation by Napoleonic troops.

But the Maltese novelists of this period, guided by
concern for purity and nobility of expression, were
generally unable to avoid the pitfalls of an excessively
neutral language, of a frigid style dominated by the
taste for oratorical eloquence. A further four decades
were to elapse before they were able to rid themselves
of the shackles of Italian romanticism.

However, their ambitious works exerted only a
limited influence on the authors of the 20th century.
The stories composed by F. M. Galea (1861-1941),
Moghdija iaz-zmien (“Entertainments”), between 1899
and 1915, provided a model for a popular literature;
written in a simple and living language, dealing with
issues of daily and local life, they enjoyed immediate
success. But it is to Temi Zammit (1864-1935) that
there belongs the privilege of being considered the
founder of the Maltese short story, idiomatic and con¬
cise. His writings were collected by Cremona in Stejjer,
hrejeff u kitba okra (“Stories, tales and other works”)
and Stejjer u kitba ohra (“Stories and other works”) in
1961.

The historical and patriotic vein continued
predominant in the inter-war period. Among the
works produced at this time and worthy of mention

are Imhabba u mibeghda (“Love and hate”, 1927) and
Helsien (“Liberty”, 1940) by Guze Bonnici (1907-40),
Zmien l-Ispanjoli (“The time of the Spanish”, 1938) by
Guze Galea (1901-78) and Angli tan-niket (“Angels of
sadness”, 1938) by Gino Muscat Azzopardi
(1899-1982), the son of Guze Muscat Azzopardi.

But, at the same time, new tendencies are taking
shape. There is observed the appearance of an ironical
tone, hitherto absent from Maltese literature, and
Gwann Mamo (1886-1941) is its initiator. His novel
Ulied in-Nann Venut jl-Amerka (“The children of
Grandmother Venut in America”, 1930) is described
by the author himself as a “satirico-descriptive, con¬
temporary, semi-political novel”. Leli ta’ Haz-Zghir
(“Christmas of Haz-Zghir”, 1938) by Guze Ellul
Mercer (1898-1961) is written in the same vein.

Some clear social preoccupations also begin to be
observed, as in Tejbilhom hajjithom (“To improve their
life”, 1937) by John Francis Marko (1894-1954) or in
Is-Salib tal-fidda (“The cross of silver”, 1939) by
Henry Wistin Born (b. 1910).

However, the novel which is still today considered
the masterpiece of modern prose belongs to the
historical vein. The work in question is Tahi tliei
saltniet (“Under three dominations”), published in
1937 by Guze Aquilina, then only 26 years old. But
historical anecdote is here only the pretext for a more
general social critique which goes far beyond the scope
of the traditional historical novel. Furthermore, the
work contains neither melodramatic plot nor rudi¬
mentary psychology. In addition, the work is distin¬
guished by a great virtuosity of writing, Aquiline
possessing perfect knowledge of the language and its
popular usages.

Although under increasing competition, the
historical novel was to remain an important genre un¬
til the decade of the 1970s. Example include Manwel
Gellel (1961) by Guze Cardona (b. 1922), Il-Qassis li
rebeh (“The victorious priest”, 1970) by Gorg
Scicluna (1923-74), or Beraq u qawsalli (“Lightning
and rainbow”, 1976) of Gorg Pisani (b. 1909).

The “ironical” novel was also to be developed by
M. C. Spiteri (b. 1917) in L-Ghafrid (“The devil”,
1975), and Trevor Zahra (b. 1947) in Is-Surmast
(“The master”, 1973).

But two European movements were to give rise to
a new literary genre, the “social” genre, after the Sec¬
ond World War; these were the expressionist move¬
ment, which reached the archipelago at a late stage,
and the theories of existentialism. The Maltese novel
began to turn more and more towards contemporary
social reality. Numerous authors achieved renown in
this genre, notably Guze Chetcuti (b. 1914) who was
the pioneer with Nirien ta* mhabba (“The fires of
love”, 1961). He was followed in particular by Victor
Apap (b. 1913) and Alfred Massa (b. 1938). The
former published F’ bieb il-hajja (“At the doors of
life”) in 1975, the latter It-Tfajla tal-bikini vjola (“The
girl in the violet bikini”) in 1979.

However, this movement only really began to be
taken seriously under the pen of J. J. Camilleri (b.
1929). Thus Ahna sinjuri (“We are rich”, 1965) is a
political diatribe against certain aspects of Maltese
life.

Finally, since the end of the decade of the 1960s, it
has been the psychological novel which has
dominated. The characters are no longer out-of-the-
ordinary heroes; they are simple individuals, con¬
fronted by daily reality. The way was opened in 1968
by Frans Sammut (b. 1945).with his stories Labirint u
stejjer ohra (“Labyrinth and other tales”). But it was
especially in his first novel Il-Gagga (“The cage”,

MALTA

301

1971) that he showed himself a writer of talent, confir¬
ming this four years later with Samuraj (“Samurai”).
Alfred Sant (b. 1948) for his part shows more
philosophical preoccupations in L-Ewwel weraq tal -
bajtar (“The first leaves of the fig-trees”), which ap¬
peared in 1969. Also worthy of mention are J. J.
Camilleri for Is-Sejka tal-art (“The call of the earth”,
1974), T. Zahra for Hdejn in-nixxiegha (“Close to the
source”, 1975). Anton Grasso (b. 1952) for Ahjar
jibqajohlom (“Better continue to dream”, 1975), and
Oliver Friggieri (b. 1947) with L-Istramb (“The
strange one”, 1980).

Unlike the novel, dramatic art had a long time
to wait before attaining a position of prestige. With
Italian opera exerting a strong attraction upon the
educated classes, theatre was relegated to a status of
simple entertainment designed for the people, who
had to be content with mediocrity.

It is to Luigi Rosato (1795-1872) that Maltese
literature owes its first dramatic work, Katarina
(1836), a historical and patriotic drama written in
verse. But most of the works produced in the 19th cen¬
tury were nothing other than farces and melodramas,
without much psychology or technical originality, and
served by feeble, barely natural dialogues and ex¬
cessively conventional situations.

The only dramatist of distinction of this period was
Guze Muscat Azzopardi, who composed several
pieces of romantic inspiration, or of social character,
for example X’ lnhuma l-fatati (“What phantoms
are”), a comedy in two acts dating from 1874. Later,
his son Gino also wrote numerous dramatic works of
some merit, including Huwa (“He”).

Later still, certain authors distinguished themselves
by sound knowledge of scenic technique and by vivid
dialogue. Cremona set the example with a versified
drama in five acts, Il-Fidwa tal-bdiewa (“The redemp¬
tion of the farmers”), written in 1913, published in
1936. Subsequently added to the repertoire were some
pieces by A. Bom (b. 1901), whose main concern was
in adapting French or Italian vaudeville, and by E.
Sarracino Inglott (1904-83), in whose work the formal
influence of the Classical Greek theatre is clearly
perceived ( Il-Barrani y “The stranger”, 1942). A.
Cassola (1915-74) was renowned in particular for a
comedy in three acts, Il-Vizzju tal-vjaggi (“The vice of
journeys”), and Gorg Pisani for four comedies of
social nature derived directly from the expressionist
trend: Is-Sengha tal-imhabba (“The art of love”, 1945).
Ghanja tar-rebbiegha (“Song of spring”, 1947), II-
Kewkba (“The star”, 1949), and Is-Sigriet ta’ Swor
Kristina (“The secret of Sister Christina”), written in
1958 and published in 1978. G. Chetcuti is also
known for his two dramas, Il-Kerrejja (“The Re¬
formatory”, 1963), and Imhuh Morda (“Sick spirits”,
1966), in which he studies the effects of social environ¬
ment on individuals.

But four authors have been especially esteemed by
critics; these are Guze Diacono (b. 1912). Guze
Aquilina, Francis Ebejer (b. 1925) and Oreste Calleja
(b. 1946).

Guze Diacono is a realist author whose works are
both a document and a study of the life of his contem¬
poraries. His most ambitious piece, Erwieh marbuta
(“Enslaved souls”, 1965) is a transposition to the
period of the Second World War of the Biblical story
of Samson and Delilah. There also exists in his work
a “naturalist” tendency, after the pattern of Zola,
especially in relation to the problems of heredity, as
emerges from L-Ewweljien\ (“I am the first!”, 1963).

The works of Guze Aquilina show real, and often
courageous, moral and sociological preoccupations, as

in L-Ikkundannata (“The condemned woman”, 1969),
the plot of which revolves around the drama of an un¬
married mother. In 1962, he published a collection of
one-act plays, intitled Fit-teatru (“In the theatre”),
which deal with both serious and humorous themes in
a very brisk and masterly style. In 1981, there ap¬
peared a collection of three plays: Xqfra mill-borza
(“The knife of the sack”), Il-Kaz taz-Zija Olga (“The
case of aunt Olga”) and Coqqa u dublett (“Hood and
petticoat”), of a very different style which G.
Aquilina defines as “the exploration of the mystic
aspects of pathological crime”.

Francis Ebejer is for his part considered the leading
light of the new Maltese dramatic art. His theatre,
very philosophical and symbolic, has been strongly in¬
fluenced by the “Theatre of the absurd” of Ionesco,
although he lacks the latter’s pessimism, since he
always endows his characters with a certain will¬
ingness to change. In Boulevard , he denounces the
absurdity of stereotyped and mechanical human
language, as an image of the alienating ascendancy of
society over the individual. In Menz, a more overtly
political play, he contrasts the romantic hero, a
positive and revolutionary figure, with the anti-hero,
a man without qualities or illusions. These two plays
were published in 1970.

Belonging to the same vein is the work of Oreste
Calleja, whose four Drammi (“Dramas”), appearing
in 1972, were favourably received by critics.

With the exception of Dwardu Cachia (1858-1907),
whose poems were for the most part based on the oc¬
tosyllabic metre of popular verse, a form of which M.
A. Vassalli was a leading advocate, Maltese poetry,
since its beginnings in the 19th century, has been
much influenced by the Italian school, copying the
metre, the accentual rhythm and strophic forms of
classical and romantic poetry.

It was initially in the field of translations that the ef¬
forts of the first versifiers, who at this stage can hardly
be called poets, were deployed. At around the middle
of the 19th century, Dun Dovik Mifsud Tommasi
(1796-1879) translated the hymns of the Breviary
(1853), as well as the original compositions of a
Salvatore Cumbo (1810-77) or of an Indri Schembri
(1805-72); Richard Taylor also provided a version of
the Psalms (1846), then adapted a canto of the Divine
Comedy in 1864.

Gan Anton Vassallo (1817-67) has left a corpus that
is more personal, although considerably less spon¬
taneous, in which he has experimented extensively in
metrical forms. His epic Il-Gifen Tork (“The Turkish
galley”), based on the folklore tradition of piracy,
written in 1844 and published in 1853, is still widely
known.

These authors had opened the way, at least in part,
and all that was lacking was a poet of real quality.
This was found in the person of Guze Muscat Az¬
zopardi. By means of pure and simple language, he
was able to avoid the stiffness and monotony of his
predecessors, and to adapt an original content to a
borrowed form. His poetry, essentially religious, like
all Maltese poetry, sought to. express the preoccupa¬
tions of his contemporaries. To him belongs the credit
of having removed poetry from servile imitation of
classical Italian forms. His influence on the following
generation, of which Dun Karm is the most eminent
representative, was essential.

The reputation of Dun Karm, considered the na¬
tional poet, has extended beyond the frontiers of the
archipelago, as is attested by the study devoted to him
jointly by the Maltese P. Grech and the Englishman
A. J. Arberry. He wrote one work of great lyrical in-

302

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spiration which has led him to be compared with
Foscolo and Leopardi. In its entirety, it is a long
meditation on nature (Dell u dija, “Shadow and
Light”), history (Lil Malta, “To Malta”), the condi¬
tion of Man, especially in his relationship to God
(Zjara lil Gesit, “Visit to Jesus”), and on the destiny
of the poet himself ( Non omnis moriar). Although very
romantic in its inspiration and sentiments, the versify¬
ing of Dun Karm remained classical and in conformi¬
ty with the model of Azzopardi, although no
constraint is perceptible since the writing is smooth
and fluent. The major part of his works was published
in 1940 by G. Bonnici in three volumes: X’ Habb u x*
kaseb il-poeta (“What the poet likes and thinks”), X’
Emmen il-poeta (“What the poet believes”), and X y
Charnel izjed il-poeta (“What the poet does most”). O.
Friggieri devoted a critical edition to him in 1980: Dun
Karm, il-poeziji migbura ((Dun Karm, collected
poems”).

Among his contemporaries, Anastasju Cushieri
(1876-1962) and Ninu Cremona showed the greatest
audacity in prosodic and rhythmic style. Cushieri’s
poem Il-Millied (“Christmas”) contains no less than
six different metres within a very complex structure.
Cremona has adopted the rhythms and the lightness
of popular poetry in his recent Ghana Malti (“Maltese
songs”), after going somewhat astray in attempts at
complicated syntax. A collection of his poems was
edited in 1970 under the title Mis-Sigra ta’ hajti, weraq
mar-rih (“From the tree of my life, leaves in the
wind”).

All of this poetry is characterised chiefly by a very
serious and relatively objective manner of ap¬
proaching religious, patriotic or narrative subjects,
which is found in such diverse works as those of Gorg
Pisani, who gives the impression of being an
Epicurean (Il-Ghid taz-zghozija, “The feast of youth”,
1945), Gorg Zammit (b. 1908), G. Aquilina, Mary
Meylaq (1905-75), a poetess of nature as is shown by
her collection Plegg il-hena (“The promise of joy”,
1945) and Villa Mejlaq (1947), Anton Buttigieg
(1912-83), or Guze Delia (1900-80), renowned as the
poet of legends following the appearance in 1958 of his
collection Leggendi.

But even among the poets of this generation there
is already a perceptible change, with the deepening of
poetic sentiment. “Religious fervour is tainted by
pessimism and often has the object of questioning the
norms of social life. Patriotic exaltation yields to
philosophical or poetic satire. Lyricism becomes more
personal” (David Cohen, La litterature maltaise, in En-
cyclopedie de la Pleiade). The work of a certain Karmenu
Vassallo (b. 1913) takes this new tendency to the ex¬
treme. His collections, Nirien (“Flames, 1938),
Kwiekeb ta’ qalbi (“Stars of my heart”, 1944), Mamien
u sriep (“Doves and serpents”, 1959) and Tnemnim
(“Flickerings”, 1970) give the impression of a man
disgusted with his century. Even Ruzar Briffa
(1906-63), in spite of the elegance and the musicality
which characterise his work, is not immune from ex¬
istential pessimism (Jien ma naf xejn, “I know
nothing”, 1957) and from social and political indigna¬
tion (Milled atomiku, “Atomic Christmas”, 1957).

His influence, as well as that of Wallace Gulia (b.
1926) who has greatly diversified his source of inspira¬
tion, has exerted a powerful influence on contem¬
porary poetry. Indignation and lyricism, despair and
hope, are intermingled in the world of young Maltese
poetry, and there has been a revival of amorous
poetry. Moreover, unlike their elders who were
moulded by the influence of the Italian school, con¬
temporary poets turn rather towards English poetry
(that of T. S. Eliot for example) or French, abandon¬

ing classical versification. However, there has not
been a crucial break with tradition, since Roman
Catholicism still maintains the link with the preceding
generation, and the same Christian perception of the
world is evident.

Nevertheless, the independence of the country in
1964 induced among many young Maltese writers a
new awareness of the restraint which the British oc¬
cupation had constituted; this sense was accompanied
by a reaction against the scholasticism of ancient
poets. But this national awareness was combined with
a desire to set poetry on the level of modern European
literature. This was expressed in a kind of “dispute of
the Ancients and the Modems”. Out of this con¬
troversy there was born in November 1966 the Movi-
ment Qawmien Letterarju (“Movement for Literary
Revival”), of which the first efforts materialised,
under the inspiration of Victor Fenech (b. 1935), in
publications to which all young authors contributed:
Kwartett (“Quartet”) in 1965, Dhahen fl-imhuh
(“Smoke in the brains”) in 1967, Prizmi (“Prisms”)
and Antenni (“Antennae”) in 1968 and Kalejdoskopju
(“Kaleidoscope”) in 1969. In 1973 P. Serracino
Inglott (b. 1936) devoted an authoritative anthology
to this movement, Linji godda (“New lines”).

Numerous authors illustrate this “revival”: J. J.
Camilleri, Marjan Vella (b. 1927) and Bernard
Mallia (b. 1941) have succeeded in creating in various
genres a synthesis between tradition and modernity.
Gorg Borg (b. 1946), greatly influenced initially by R.
Briffa, has subsequently shown an occasional affinity
with modern Arabic poetry in poems that are for the
most part very short and melodious (Solitudnifir-ramla,
“Solitude in the bay”, 1978). Achille Mizzi (b. 1936),
in L-Ghar tal-enimmi (“The cave of the enigma”,
1964) attempts a new metrical system. A poet of
dreams and of mythology, he appeals to the mind
rather than to the feelings. Daniel Massa (b. 1937),
while being very close to the last-named, showed
greater audacity in the treatment of themes.

Mario Azzopardi (b. 1944) expresses with great
violence the protest of the individual against society in
Il-Qniepen nhar ta ’ gimgha (“The bells of Friday”,
1971); he is also a poet of sensuality. But his stylistic
experiments sometimes lead him to copy foreign
phraseologies.

Victor Fenech is also one of the most rare “commit¬
ted” poets, but his vision is more analytical than that
of M. Azzopardi. Worthy of mention, finally, are Joe
Friggieri (b. 1946); Lilian Sciberras (b. 1946); Ken¬
neth Wain (b. 1943); Philip Sciberras (b. 1945), an
autobiographical author; and O. Firggieri, whose cold
style conceals a deep despair.

These are some of the names which attest to the
vitality of this poetry, the finest flower of Maltese
literature.

The history of Maltese literature, barely a century
old, is closely linked with the development of a literary
language, the objective of several generations of
writers. Today, the objective seems to have been at¬
tained. Works such as those of Dun Karm or Aquilina
show that, after the ideological barriers, the linguistic
obstacle has also been overcome. Furthermore, the
Maltese writers, while succeeding in preserving their
national identity, increasingly show a desire and a real
capacity to exert a universal appeal.

For their part, the Europeans have begun to take an
interest in this young literature, through the medium
of anthologies and translations, of vyhich the most
recent are devoted to Dun Karm, Guze Galea (in
English), Anton Buttigieg (in Italian) and Oliver Fig-
gieri (in Serbo-Croat).

It may be agreed with the writer Guze Cardona that

MALTA — al-MA c LUF

303

“the effort represented by the flowering of Maltese
language and literature, coming from a small nation
of 320,000 souls, is such as to fill us ... with astonish¬
ment and admiration”.

Bibliography: Studies: H. Stumme,

Maltesische Studien, Leipzig 1904; idem, Maltesische
Marchen, Geschichte und Rdtsel , Leipzig 1904; A. J.
Arberry and P. Grech, Dun Kami, poet of Malta ,
Cambridge 1961; G. Aquilina, Papers in Maltese
linguistics, Valetta 1961; idem, Maltese , London
1965; idem, Die maltesische Literatur , in Die Literaturen
der Welt , Zurich 1968; K. Vassallo, “Vatum Consor¬
tium” jew ll-Poezija bil-Malti, Malta 1969; M.
Galley, L ’.Imnarja a Malte, in Bulletin de litterature orale
arabo-berbere , Paris 1970; O. Friggieri, Kittieba ta’
Zmienna, Malta 1976; G. Cassar-Pullicino, Studies in
Maltese folklore, Malta 1976; D. Cohen, Litterature
maltaise, in Histoire des literatures, Encyclopedie de la
Pleiade , Paris 1977; G. Cassar-Pullicino and M.
Galley, Femmes de Malte dans les chants traditionnels ,
Paris 1981; — Anthologies: L. Bonelli, Saggi del
folklore dell’I sola di Malta , Palermo 1895; B. II g,
Maltesische Marchen und Schwdnke, Leipzig 1906; E.
Magri, Hrejjef Misserijietna, Malta 1906; L. Ropa,
Poetes maltais , Tunis 1937; Arberry, A Maltese an¬
thology, Oxford 1960; Aquilina, ll-Muza Maltija, An-
tologija ta’ poeti Maltin, Malta 1969.

(Martine Vanhove)

al-MA c LUF, a Lebanese family name which
became renowned throughout the Arab world through
the literary and other intellectual efforts of at least ten
of its members, both in Lebanon and in the Mahdjar
[^. 0 .], during the past 150 years. The best known
members are Na§If (1823-65), Luwis (1867-1947),
Yusuf (1870-1956), Amin (1871-1943), the three
brothers Kaysar (1874-1964), Djamil (1879-1950) and
Mlghal (1889-1942) and c Isa Iskandar (1869-1956)
and his sons FawzI (1899-1930) and Shaflk (1905-76).

According to c Isa Iskandar, who wrote the history
of the family, the Ma c luf family are descendants of the
Ghassanids [q.v. ] who had their centre at Dama
al- c Ulya in the Hawran. They gave armed support to
the four Rightly-Guided caliphs and so won exemp¬
tion from paying the poll-tax. The same services were
rendered to the Umayyads, who likewise exempted
them from payment of the poll-tax. They called
themselves Banu TMa c yuf, because of the if a 3 (ex¬
emption) which they enjoyed. The c Abbasids did not
prolong this privilege for the supporters of their adver¬
saries, and then the name was changed into Banu
’1-Ma c luf.

The Hawran became less secure for Christians
when a new round of fights between the Kays and the
Yaman [q. v. ] had begun at the beginning of the 15th
century. Some members of the Ma c luf clan left the
Hawran. One of those who left was Ibrahim al-
Ma c luf, called Abu Natih because of his large off¬
spring. He settled in Sir c In not far from the
Ba c albakk. His descendants split up after a fight in
1572 and settled in Nazareth, Djuni, al-Muhaydatha
and above all in Kfar c Akab. The descendants of those
who settled in Kfar c Akab again spread over Syria and
Lebanon with Zahla as their main city (see al-Machriq ,
viii, ix).

_ Muslim branches of the family are mentioned by
c Isa Iskandar in his Rihlati ila Misr ( al-Adib [March
1964], 58-9). He describes his visit in 1934 to the
shrine of al-Shaykh Ahmad al-Ma c luf in Shubra al-
Khayma, Cairo, to which he refers as a place of
pilgrimage and of a mawlid. Among his other dis¬
coveries is a manuscript in the National Library in
Cairo, with the title Riydd al-nufus , by Abu Bakr c Abd

Allah al-Malikl. This manuscript mentions the Al al-
Ma Huf al-muslimin ft Sikilliyya wa ’l-Kayrawan wa-Susa.
The oldest Ma c luf mentioned is Abu c Umar Ibn
Maymun b. c Amr b. al-Ma c luf, who died in 316/928
(see al-Adib, loc. cit.).

1. NasIf al-MA c LUF (Nassif Mallouf), born in Zab-
bu g ha (Lebanon) 20 March 1823, died near Smyrna
14 May 1865.

He received his first educational lessons at Bayt al-
Dln, where he went with his father, c amil of the amir
Bashir II (1788-1840). He met there the poets and the
scholars who were invited to Bayt al-Dln by Amir
Bashir, among whom he met NasIf al-Yazidjl.
Languages attracted his prime interest. He was
engaged by a merchant from Smyrna to instruct his
sons in Arabic and to teach them the basic rules of
French in 1843. Part of his time was reserved for the
business of the merchant. In 1845 he was nominated
teacher of eastern languages at the school of the Prop¬
aganda of the Lazarists at Smyrna. From then on, he
used his spare time for the study of Turkish, Italian
and modern Greek. He was Dragoman to Lord
Raglan, the supreme commander of the English forces
during the Crimean War, whom he accompanied
from August 1855 to September 1856. His travels
with Lord Raglan brought him to London, where he
stayed until the end of the year. During this stay, he
was elected a member of the Athenaeum Club. He
then became Dragoman to Sir Henry Bulwer, whom
he accompanied from Bucharest to Istanbul. In 1858
he went back to Smyrna to become the first
Dragoman of the English consul. He died in 1865
from yellow fever.

All his chroniclers make mention of the fact that
NasIf al-Ma c luf was a member of both the English
and the French Asiatic Societies. He is listed as a
member of the Societe Asiatique from 1854, and the
Royal Asiatic Society has his name on its lists of
members from 1860 until 1867. A curriculum vitae was
published in French in the Courrier d’Orient.

His most renowned works are his French-Turkish
and Turkish-French dictionaries. The first was
printed in Smyrna in 1849 and reprinted in 1856 by
Maisonneuve in Paris and listed as Nassif Mallouf,
Dictionnaire frangais-turc. The companion volume Turc-
frangais was first published in 1863. Most of his
polyglot and two-language conversation books had at
least one reprint edition. His Grammaire elementaire de la
langue turque was published by Maisonneuve.

Bibliography: Masadir al-dirasa al-adabiyya ,

Beirut 1957, iii, 1258-61; Y. A. Daghir, in al-

Machriq, viii, ix; Zirikll, al-A c ldm*, vii, 350;

Philologiae turcicae fundamenta, i, Wiesbaden 1959.

2. Luwis al-Ma c luf, SJ (Louis Ma c luf), born in
Zahla 18 October 1867, died in Beirut, 7 August
1947. He was baptised with the name Zahir, which he
changed into Louis upon his entry into the Jesuit
Society. He studied at the Jesuit College in Beirut,
went to England to study philosophy and studied
theology in France, where he stayed for ten years. He
is best known for his al-Mundjidfi ’l-lugha wa ’l-adab wa
’l-^ulum, the first edition of which dates from 1908 and
which has since been reprinted and expanded in many
editions.

From 1906-32 he was director and editor of the
Catholic weekly al-Bashir. Its annual supplement
Takwim al-Bashir, the almanac, was made by him into
a useful instrument of information on matters of
calendar, church and state, in that order. His Makdldt
falsafiyya kadima li-ba c d mashdhir falasifat al- c arab,
muslimin wa-nasdrd was first published in Beirut in
1911 by the Imprimerie Catholique and then

304

al-MA c LUF

republished at Frankfurt in 1911 with the French title
Trades inedits d’anciens philosophes arabes musulmans et
chretiens, pub lies dans la revue al-Machriq par L. Malouf E.
Edde et L. Cheikho. He edited Ta Mkh hawadith al-Sham
wa-Lubndn min sanat 1197 ild sanat 1257 (1782-1841) of
Mikhayil al-Dimashkl, Beirut 1912. His Riydja
ruhiyya li ’l-kahana hasab tarikat al-kiddis Ighndtiyus was
published in 1937 in Beirut.

Bibliography. Daghir, Masadir, ii, 727-9;
Zirikll, al-A Ham*, v, 247; Riyad al-Ma c luf, Shu c ara 5
al-Ma ^alifa, Beirut 1962, 85.

3. Yusuf nu c man al-Ma c luf, bom at Zahla 1870,
died at New York, 18 June 1956. He emigrated to
North America, settled in New York and founded the
newspaper al-Ayydm, which survived for ten years
from 1897 to 1907. He enlisted the help of his nephew
Djamil (no. 6 ), who migrated for this purpose.
Through their newspaper they made propaganda for
Arab independence, and thus earned the displeasure
of the Ottoman government. Both were condemned to
death under Djamal Pa§ha, the military governor of
Syria from 1915 until the end of the Syrian campaign
of the combined Arab-English forces. Yusuf, how¬
ever, never came within reach of the Ottoman
authorities. Together with E)jamn h e published Kitdb
Khizanat al-ayyam fi tarddjim al-Hzdm, New York 1899,
a biographical dictionary of important men, Arabs
and Turks. Another joint publication is Asrdr Yildizaw
al-^akd al-thamin fi taHikh arba c at saldtin, New York
1900. His other publications were LaHhat IsmdHl Bek ,
and Hikdyat Abi ’ l-Hudd.

Bibliography. Da gh ir. Masadir, iii/2, 1262-3;
Saydah, Adabund wa-udaba\nd fi 2-Mahddjir al-
Amirkiyya 2 , Beirut 1957, 21, 307; al-BadawI al-
Mulaththam, al-Ndtikun bi 2-dad fi Amirkd, New
York 1946, 36; Zirikll, al-AHdm*, viii, 255; Riyad
Ma c luf, Shu c ard :> al-Ma c alifa, 88 .

4. Amin fahd al-Ma c luf, born in al-Shwayfat
(Lebanon), 1871, died in Cairo, 21 January 1943.

Amin al-Ma c luf studied medicine at the Medical
Faculty of the University of Beirut until 1894 and then
went to Istanbul to obtain his ijjdza. He served as a
physician in the Egyptian army and took part in the
Sudan expedition, the battle of Khartoum and the oc¬
cupation of Bahr al-Ghazal. An account of the Bahr
al- Gh azal occupation by his hand was published in ten
instalments in al-Muktafaf in 1911 and 1912.

He was active during the Balkan war and during
the battle of the Dardanelles in the First World War,
and then joined the Arab forces of Sharif Husayn. He
taught biology at the Ma c had al-Tibbl al- c Arabi in
Damascus after the capture of that city. When the
French put an end to the rule of Faysal over Syria and
the British offered him c Irak instead, Amin also went
to c Irak to serve in the c Iraki army. He returned to
Egypt when his time of retirement had come.

He wrote a large number of articles on Arabic
scientific terms, especially on the names of plants. His
Mu c djam al-hayawdn was published in instalments in
al-Muktataf, from 1908 onwards, giving the English
names in alphabetical order, followed by the scientific
names, the Arabic equivalents and the current Arabic
names. It was republished in book-form by al-Muktataf
and given to the subscribers as the annual present in
1932. A supplement was published not long after,
possibly in 1933. His al-Mu c djam al-falaki appeared in
Cairo, 1935. Studies about plant-names appeared in
the Madjallal al-Madjma c al-Hlmi al- c Arabi, but reasons
of health prevented the author from developing these
studies into a dictionary of plant names. Medical
terms in Arabic were another field of study for him.
He started the translation of Webster’s Dictionary,

reaching the letter F. An obituary by Fu 5 ad $arruf ap¬
peared in the magazine of the Overseas Services of the
BBC, Huna London, no. 75 (Febr. 1963), 30.

Bibliography: al-Adtb , 55-6; Daghir. Masadir,
ii, 713-15; Zirikll, al-AHdm 4 , iii, 19; al-Muktataf
Ixxxvii (1935), 245, cii (1943), 186, 418, 479.

5. Kay$ar IbrahIm al-Ma c luf, born in Zahla
1874, died in Beirut, 25 April 1961,^brother of Djamil
and Mlshal, brother-in-law of c Isa Iskandar and
nephew of Yusuf, his paternal uncle.

In 1895 he emigrated to Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 1898
he became editor of the newspaper al-Bardzil , which
had been founded in Santos in 1896 and had been
moved to Sao Paulo in 1897. He continued to work
for this paper until 1903, when it was absorbed by the
paper al-Afkar. He was one of the founding members
of an Arabic literary circle among emigrants al-Nahda
al-adabiyya and of the literary club Riwdk al-Ma c arri,
both in Sao Paulo. The Riwdk al-Ma c arri was quite
popular, having many itinerant merchants among its
members. Their main activity was the recitation of
newly-received poems by Ahmad ShawkI and Khalil
Mutran, followed by comments and imitations along
well-known lines of the mu^draja ($aydah, 151). The
activities of the Riwdk came to an end during the First
World War, when preference for nationalistic content
to the detriment of literary value drove the better
poets out ($aydah, 316). Kay$ar had meanwhile, in

1906 (Riyad al-Ma c luf, Shu^ara^, 45) or 1914 (Zirikll,
A C /Jm 4 , v, 209 f.) returned to Lebanon.

The list of his publications opens with a play in
verse, Riwayat Nirun, Zahla 1894. His diwdn, Tidhkar
al-Mahadyir, was published in Sao Paulo in 1904, as
were his novels: al-Ghada al-Suriyya fi ’l-diydr al-
Amirkiyya, Sao Paulo 1907; Fidyat al-hubb, Sao Paulo

1907 and Midhat Bashd, Sao Paulo 1907. Djamal biladi
is an epic poem which appeared in Beirut in 1939.
The Diwdn Kaysar al-Ma Huf was published in Beirut in
1958.

Bibliography: F. di TarrazT, Kurras al-nasharat
al-dawriyya al- c arabiyya , Beirut 1933, 450-1; Riyad
Ma c luf,;S£u c ara c al-Ma c dlifa, 45; Daghir. Masadir,
iii/2, 1256 f.; Zirikll, al-AHdm 4 , v, 209 f.; $aydafi,
Adabund wa-udabaduna , 151, 316, 454.

6 . Djamil al-Ma c luf, born at Zafila, 15 February
1879, died 30 December 1950; brother of Kay$ar and
Mlshal, brother-in-law of c Isa Iskandar and nephew
of Yusuf Nu c man, his paternal uncle.

He learned Turkish in Beirut and then, in 1896,
answering the call of his uncle, he migrated to the
United States and helped in editing the newspaper al-
Ayyam. He became a member of the literary circle al-
Halka al-Afghdniyya. Part of his time he spent travelling
between New York, Sao Paulo and Lebanon. In 1908
he went to Paris and made contact with the Turks who
were working for the deposition of c Abd Hamid II.
The following year, after c Abd Hamid’s reign had
come to an end, Djamil travelled via Istanbul to
Beirut. The coming of Djamal Pasha as military
governor of Syria turned out to be a direct threat
against his life. He was condemned to death, but
escaped from being hanged as his family knew how to
hide him from Turkish eyes. An incurable disease put
him in hospital before the First World War ended,
and there he remained until his death in 1950.

He wrote a large number of articles for the
newspaper al-lslah in Brazil with the title Kayf tathur al-
umam. With his uncle Yusuf he published Khizanat al-
ayyam fi tara<jjim al-Hzdm, New York 1899, in which
publication he wrote the part concerning the Turkish
notables. His Turkiya al-djadida wa-hukuk al-insan, Sao
Paulo, is said to have served Kemal Pasha as a hand-

al-MA c LUF

305

book, but the catalogue of Ataturk’s library does not
mention the book. Djamil advocated turcification of
the country, the separation of church and state,
unified schooling programmes, the adoption of the
European dress, etc.

His further publications include Wasiyyat Fu^ad
Bdsha, Sao Paulo 1908, and Kdnun al-sihafa al- c arabiyya,
also 1908, which he translated from the Turkish.

Bibliography. Madfallat al- c Ufba, xi/4 (April
1951), 297-308; al-Adtb, x/4 (April 1951), 55 ff.;
Riyad al-Ma c luf, Shu^ara^ al-Ma c alifa^, 21-2;
Daghir, Masadir, ii, 716-19; $aydah, Adabuna wa-
udabd^und, 308; Zirikll, al-A c lam*, ii, 137; Atatiirk’iin
dzel kutiiphanesinin katalogu (Amlkabir ve Qankaya
bolumlert), Ankara 1973.

7. MTshal al-Ma c luf, born in Zahla, 1889, died
in Beirut, 3 June 1942; younger brother of Kaysar
and Djamil, brother-in-law of c Isa Iskandar, and
nephew of Yusuf Nu c man al-Ma c luf, his paternal
uncle.

His fame chiefly rests on the fact that he was one of
the founding-members and the first chairman of
al- c Usba al-Andalusiyya from 1932 to 1938, being one of
the sponsors who made the publication of the monthly
al- c Usba possible. In 1938 he returned to Lebanon.

His contribution to Arabic poetry was limited.
Some of his poems are reprinted as an appendix to the
memorial volume Ft haykal al-dhikrd, containing the
commemorative speeches and the elegies of the
members of al- c Usba al-andalusiyya , as well as the “In
memoriam”s which had appeared in Djaridat Zahla al-
Fatat and in the monthly al-Adtb. A play by his hand,
Sadjtn al-zulm , was printed at Zahla in 1910.

Bibliography : Ft haykal al-dhikrd , Sao Paulo
1944; Riyad al-Ma c luf, Shu^ard al-Ma c alifa, 51.

8 . c Isa Iskandar al-Ma c luf, born at Kfar c Akab,
23 April 1869, died 2 July 1956. He married in 1897
c Aftfa Ma c luf, the daughter of Ibrahim Basha al-
Ma c luf. Out of this marriage were born FawzI
(1899-1930) and Shaftk (1905-76), for whom see
below, nos. 9 and 10.

c Isa Iskandar received his education at the Scottish
Missionary school in his home village and at the Scot¬
tish Missionary school in al-Shuwayr. Circumstances
forced him to leave this last school and to pursue his
studies privately. In 1890 he was nominated teacher at
the Patriarchal Orthodox school in Damascus. Almost
simultaneously, he began to contribute historical ar¬
ticles to the periodical al-Ni c ma , and in December of
the same year he started to work as the editor,
secretary and proof-reader of the newspaper Lubndn.
He exchanged Damascus for Zahla in 1898 to teach
Arabic, English and Mathematics at al-Kulliyya al-
Sharkiyya (al-Badawi al-Mulaththam, Hsd Iskandar ,
49). His articles in al-Machriq in this period have his
name followed by the words mudarris ddab al-lugha
al- c arabiyya wa ’l-khitaba. At al-Kulliyya al-Sharkiyya
he edited and printed the paper al-Muha dhdh ib from
1901 onwards, and, after an absence from the college
for one year, 1908-9, he produced the paper al-
Sharkiyya. Both papers were produced on a forerunner
of the stencil-machine. In 1903 he founded the
Diam Hyyat al-nahda al-Hlmiyya for his students as a
training-ground on which they could develop their
eloquentia and where they could indulge into literary
research. He was its chairman until 1921. He made
an important contribution in the field of humanities
when in 1911 he founded al-Athar, a periodical
devoted to history, archaeology and literature, to
which many scholars of fame throughout the Arab
world contributed. The periodical continued to ap¬
pear until 1928, with an interruption of three years
during the First World War.

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

His efforts in the field of learning were so much ap¬
preciated that he became a member of the learned
societies in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt on the very first
day of their existence. On 8 January 1918 the Shu c bat
al-tardjama wa ’l-ta Hif was formed during the reign of
Faysal in Syria. It was transformed into the Madjlis al¬
ma c arif and then in 1919 into al-Madjma c al-Hlmi
al- c arabi He was a member of these societies from the
first day, as also of al-Madjma : al-Hlmi al-Lubndni,
founded on 20 February, 1928. The Madjma c al-lugha
al- c arabiyya Egypt counted him among its members on
its foundation-day, 6 October 1933. In 1936 he was
nominated corresponding member of the Brazil
Academy of History and Literature in Rio de Janeiro.

He was a very prolific writer. TarrazI, TaHikh al-
Sihafa, ii, 234-8, lists almost 40 journals and
magazines to which he contributed his articles on a
wide variety of subjects. Larger works were often
serialised in magazines and then printed in book-
form. Daghir lists 22 printed works and more than 50
titles of works which did not pass the manuscript-
stage. During his lifetime he acquired a large library
of about 1,000 manuscripts and 10,000 printed works.
Some 500 manuscripts were purchased by the
American University in Beirut and catalogued.

The following is a list of works published in book-
form or serialised in the periodicals al-Adtb, al-Machriq
and al-Muktataf:

— al-Kitaba—a. volume of studies on script, language
and writing (84 pp.), 1895— Lamha ft ’1-shiH wa ’l-'-asr
(40 pp.) 1902— al-Akhldk. Madjmu c c adat, Zahla
1902— al-Mubkiydt, a collection of elegies in memory
of Mrs. Mahlba bint Yusuf Abl C A1I al-Ma c luf, the
wife of Ibrahim al-Aswad, proprietor of the
newspaper Lubndn , 1903— al-Ihtiddrdt wa-kabariyyat ,
about last words and epitaphs. A series of articles
in al-Muktataf, xxx-xxxi (1905-6)— Nd$if al-MaHufwa-
usratuhu , a series of articles on the origins of the al-
Ma c luf family and a short biography of Na$If al-
Ma c luf, in al-Machriq , viii-ix (1905-6)— al-Khuri Dj ir-
djis Hsd al-Lubndniy 2 parts, in al-Machriq , ix, (1906)—
Nukhba min diwdn Ibrahim al-Hakim al-Halabi, 4 parts,
in al-Machriq, x (1907)— Dawdni al-kutuf ft sirat Bani
MaHufy al-Matba c a al- c Uthmaniyya, Ba c abda 1908.
Apart from being a family history of the Ma c lufs,
other families are also followed. The book is a history
of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine with information
about customs. Asad Rustum, in al-Machriq, lvii
(1963), 518-20, describes the book as an en¬
cyclopaedia of the situation in Lebanon in the first
half of the 19th century as it survived in the memories
of the old people at the end of that century. The subti¬
tle is A general socio-historical book, being a description of
facts, morals and customs and cultural affairs. —Nukhba min
amthdl al-kiss Hananyd al-Munir , 5 parts, in al-Machriq ,
xii, (1909)— al-§hu c ara :> wa ’l-sirkat wa ’l-ma^dkhidh al-
shi^iyya, 16 parts, in al-Muktataf, xxxvii-xxxix, xliv-
xlvi (1910-15)— Ta^rikh madinat Zahla, 298 pp., Zahla
1911 and 1912— Ta^rikh Lubndn, printed during
World War I, it is said.— Mu c araddt Yd layl al-fabb, a
collection of mu c drafdt and the original poem by al-
Hu§rl al-Kayrawanl [see Abu ’1-Hasan al-Hu§r! al-
Kayrawanl, ed. of M. MarzukI and Dj. b. al-Hadjdj
Yahya, Tunis 1963, 143-9 and mu c dra<pit, 150-201,
containing Cesar al-Ma c luf (177-9), c Isa Iskandar
(182-4), FawzI al-Ma c luf, (185-6) and a mu^arafa by
c Isa Iskandar 1921, also published in al-Muktataf, lix,
(1921)]— Ta^rikh al-tibb kabl al- c arab, 55 pp.,
1924— Ta\ikh al-tibb c ind al- c arab, Damascus
1922— al-Kila c wa l-hufunft Suriyya, i n\ql-Muktataf, lxi-
lxiii, lxv, (1922-4)— Sina c at _ Dimamk al-kadima,
Damascus 1924— TaArikh kasr Al al- c Azm bi-Dimashk,
Beirut 1926. This was serialised in al-Machriq, xxiv

306

al-MA c LUF

(1926) with the title Ka$r As c ad Bashd al- c Azm fi
Dimashk — al-Kada? fi Lubnan bi-zaman al-umara? al-
Shihdbiyyin , in al-Machriq, xxxi (1933)— Ta^rikh al-Amlr
Falser al-Din al-Ma c ni al-thanl hakim Lubnan min sanat
1590 ild sanat 1635 , 468 pp., Beirut 1934 and 1966,
also published in al-Machriq until vol. xxx (1932)— al-
Usar al- c arabiyya al-muihtahira bi ’l-tibb al- c arabi wa
ashhar al-makhtutdt al-tibbiyya al- c arabiyya (60 pp.),
Beirut 1935— al-Ghurar al-ta \ikhiyya fi ’l-usra al-
Yazidfiyya, two parts of 128 and 142 pp., Sidon 1944
and 1945— Ta^rikh Mashdyikh al-Ydzi(jjiyyin wa-
ash^arihim, Dayr al-Mukhallis 1945, which is an
abridged edition of al-Ghurar al-taMkhiyya—Mu : djam
al-aljaz al- c dmmiyya al- c arabiyya wa ’1-dakJj.ila, serialised
in 9 parts in al-Adlb , iii (1944), iv (1945). The intro¬
duction gives a survey of Arabic colloquial words and
expressions from ancient until modern times.—
Mu c djam tahlil asma 3 al- ashkh as. serialised in al-Machriq ,
lix-lx (1964-6)— Mu^djam tahlil asma 5 al-amdkin ji 7-
bildd al- c arabiyya , serialised in al-Machriq , liii-lvii
(1959-63)— Ta^rikh Saydndyd, written in 1924 but not
published till 1973 at Bikfaya— al-Akhbdr al-marwiyya fi
ta^rikh al-usar al-sharkiyya, only partly published in
periodicals.

Bibliography: al-Adib , xvi/1 (January 1957),
56-7; al-Machriq,_ lvii (1963), 518-20; al-BadawI al-
Mula thth am. c Isd Iskandar al-MaHuf: al-mu ^arrikh,
al-mawsuH, al-adib, Cano 1969; Riya<^ al-Ma c luf,
al- c Allama al-Marhum c Isa Iskandar al-Ma Huf, c u(lw
al-Madjdmi c al-Hlmiyya al-carabiyya: haydtuhu,
athdruhu, ba V rnakdldtihi , in MM I A (1957); Daghir,
al-Masddir , iii/2, 1246-55; Riyad al-Ma c luf,
Shu c ara 3 al-Ma c dlifa, 37-8; Ziriklf, al-AHam* , v,
101; TarrazI, Ta^rikh al-$ihdfa, i, 25, ii, 234-8.

9. Shafik al-ma c luf, born at Zajila, March 1905,
died at Sao Paulo 1976; son of c Isa Iskandar and
brother of FawzI.

Shafik studied at al-Kulliyya al-Sharkiyya in Zahla.
In 1922 he went to Damascus and joined the editorial
staff of the newspaper Alif-Bd 5 . His first diwdn of
poetry, al-Ahlam, was completed in 1923 but not
printed till 1926 in Beirut. The diwdn called forth
many disputes and comments, including those of An-
tun Sa c ada, published in his al-Sira c al-jikrifi ’l-adab al-
Suri, Beirut 1947. Shafik left for Sao Paulo in 1926 to
join his brothers FawzI and Iskandar, who had set up
a textile factory there. With his uncle Mlshal and
others, he took an active part in founding al- c Usba al-
Andalusiyya in 1932 and its monthly al- c Usba in 1933,
which survived until 1952. He served Arab literary
life in Sao Paulo by giving weekly dinners, at which
he and his wife Ruz received writers and poets, with
literary discussions before and after the meals (al-
Badawl al-Mulaththam, al-Natikun bi ’l-ddd fi Amirkd
al-Dianubiyya. part 2, Beirut 1956, 747).

In 1936 he produced the first version of c Abkar, or
a visit to the land of the Djinn, Shavtans. Hurls, etc.,
in six cantos. This work was immediately hailed as an
important innovation in Arabic literature, and a
solemn meeting in honour of its author was held
shortly after its publication. Speeches and poems read
at this meeting were published in a special issue of
al-CJJsba (ii, December 1936). The second edition with
six new cantos added was published in 1949.

From 1951 onwards he published five new diwdns:
Li-kull zahra c abir, Sao Paulo 1951; Nidd? al-madfddhxf,
Sao Paulo 1952; Wa-Caynaki mihradjdn , 1960; Shumu c fi
y l-addb and c Ald sinddn al-khayl. A selection from the
last two diwdns was republished in a new diwdn with
the title Sandbil Rd c uth ( = Ruth), Beirut 1961. Habbat
zumurrud, Damascus 1966, consists of two longer
essays and a collection of shorter essays. SataHr al-

hawdadi, containing poetry and prose, was published
in Damascus 1975. His Layla al-Akhaliyya is a riwdya.

A commemorative meeting was held in Zahla on 26
June 1977.

Bibliography : Iliyya al-Hawi, Shafik al-MaHuf
sha c ir c abkar, Beirut 1978; al-Adib, xxxv (Jan.-Dec.
1976); xxxvii (7 July 1978), 37; al-Machriq , lxiv
(1970), 719; Riyad al-Ma c luf, Shu dra^ al-Ma c alifa ,
34-6; Saydah, Adabund wa-udaba^und , 351-6; al-
Badawl al-Mula thth am. al-Natikun bi ’l-dad fi
Amirkd al-Dianubiyya . part 2, Beirut 1956, 747;
al-CUsba , xi/3 (1951), 247-8; xi/5-6, 481-3; xj/9-10,
781-90; ii (Dec. 1936), c Adad mumtaz; c Isa al-
Na c url, Adab al-Mahdfir ^, Cairo 1959, 516-22;
c Umar al-Dakkak, Shu c ara* al- c Usba al-Andalusiyya fi
’l-Mahdjar , Beirut 1973. (C. Nijland)

10. FawzI al-Ma c luf, born at Zahla, 21 May
1899 (Dhikrd . 4; Dawdni al-kutuj , 288; Diwdn , 127),
died at Rio de Janeiro 1930; son of c Isa Iskandar and
brother of Shafik.

Of the primary constituent elements of his develop¬
ment, mention may be made of the influence of his
father (see al-Ddd , v [1935]; Aoun, 28-9) and the dual
cultural background that he acquired in the two
clerical institutions of al-Sharkivva (in Zahla) and of
the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Beirut
1914-15). The World War and the severe famine in
Lebanon forced him to interrupt his studies; in 1916
he was employed by the Wheat Commission ( Bika c ,
ms. Jan. 1916), then, in 1919, he was appointed bur¬
sar of the teachers’ training college in Damascus, and
secretary to the Dean of the School of Medicine (al-
Ma c had al-tibbi , vii, 127; Dhikrd. 4; Aoun, 33-4). It is
to this period that his literary first-fruits belong
( Dhikrd. 5-6, 8-11, 39), and in 1921 his poem al-
Firdaws al-musta c dd won him a literary prize. On 17
September of the same year, apparently under com¬
pulsion (Dhikrd. 30; Diwdn , 25-28), he emigrated to
Brazil and settled in Sao Paulo, where he joined his
maternal uncle and engaged in commerce ( al-Shark , iv
[March 1931]; Dhikrd. 186-8).

In 1922, he founded al-Muntadd al-Zahli ( al-Ittihdd ,
18 January 1930; al-Rabita , 10 January 1930; Dhikrd .
4-5, 185), which led to a redoubling of both social
and literary activity, and Spanish-Portuguese culture
came to be grafted on to his original Arabic-French
background (Dhikrd . 37). Although well-known in
emigre society from the year 1923 onward, his name
only began to arouse the interest of Brazilian literary
circles after the appearance, in 1926, of his poem Q Ala
bisdt al-rih.

Details concerning his short life, his generous
nature, his illness (20 November 1929) and his death
in the English Hospital in Rio de Janeiro (7 January
1930) have been carefully collected by his father
(Dhikrd . passim): al-Adib, xxxii (March 1973), 53d,
reprints a letter of Shafik to c Isa al-Na c urI saying that
FawzI had not died of appendicitis but of an inflama-
tion of the duodenum, but that he had told his parents
at the time that FawzI was suffering from an appen¬
dicitis in order to allay their worries. The letter was
written after c Isa al-Na c uri had written in al-Adib,
xxi/11 (Nov. 1972), 46, that FawzI had possibly died
of a venereal disease or of tuberculosis.

The rare unedited works preserved in his father’s
library (fragments of poetry, the first issue of a month¬
ly revue, al-Adab, intended to be distributed in the
school—ms. January 1914—assorted meditations,
proverbs and aphorisms translated from French, two
panegyrics—ms. 1914-15) display tendency towards
an elegant and elaborate prose (al-Adab, preface), a
quasi-traditional prosody, a romantic taste and a con-

al c MA c LUF

307

cern for the collation or insertion of items of wisdom.

His first novellas, including Salma and c Ala fcfif al-
kawt^ar (Dhikrd, 5-6, 39) recall the romantic genre of
Djabran (d. 1931 [<?.*>•]). In 1916 he completed the
composition of I bn Hamid aw sukut Ghamdta (Dhikrd .
39, 107-9), a romantic drama in five acts (published
in Brazil by al- c Ufba, 1952). The subject is borrowed
from Andalusian Muslim history and the action is set
in Granada. Attention has been drawn to analogy be¬
tween this drama and the novel of Florian, Gonzalve de
Cordoue (Ibn Hamid , preface; Aoun, 59-74) which the
poet, while still an adolescent, is said to have
translated into Arabic (Dhikrd . 10). A closer analysis,
however, shows the precise similarity between the
drama and the novel by Chateaubriand, Le dernier des
Abencerages , translated into Arabic by Shaklb Arslan
(1870-1946) as Akhir Bant Sirdfy (ed. al-Mandr , 1920, in
Khuldsat taHikh al-Andalus). The dialogue is a poetic-
prosodic mixture of a high level. There are, however,
a number of weaknesses regarding theatrical tech¬
nique, plot, analysis of characters (Act iv, sc. 2) and
strict observation of local colour (Act iii, sc. 3, pp. 66,
69). Lyrical effusions have the effect, here and there,
of hindering the rhythmic evolution of the action
(passim ; and Act v, sc. 7).

In its incomplete form, the Diwdn is a collection of
46 fragments and poems. It shows numerous omis¬
sions (see tentative outline, Aoun, 35-53, and appen¬
dix, 166-8; thesis, AUB 1967, appendix) and a
chronological classification of the poems has still to be
made. The three main tides ( Ta^awwuhdt al-ruh: 12
poems; Aghani al-Andalus: 12 muwa shsha hdt : Shu c lat
al-^adhab; 6 cantos with a seventh incomplete) denote
a set of varying correspondences within classical con¬
formism (in the themes, Elegy of Sulaymdn al-Bustani,
the Muwashshahdt , the occasional borrowings from al-
Ma c arri and al-Mutanabbi).

The influence of the two poets Shawkl (d. 1932; see
Fir c awn, in Diwdn , 9-15) and Kh. Mutran (d. 1949;
see Saydah, 348-9) and a lyricism charged with child¬
hood memories, nostalgia, love, dreams, mingled
with the thought of death and the disillusionment of a
bitter pessimism (his poems Ba c labakk, c ala shdtP Rio,
al-Lifafa ), are typical of the literary output of his
generation and that of emigre poets in particular.

His position in contemporary Arabic poetry rests,
however, on c Ala bisat al-ribi . This long poem (218
verses, in khajif metre) contains fourteen cantos each
with fourteen lines and originally modelled on the
French sonnet (see the 1st ed., published in Sao
Paulo, 28 June 1926, by al-Djaliya (Dhikrd . 74; al-
Athar , viii [October 1927], 387-400). In a 2nd ed.
(1929) which was to give the poem its definitive form,
the author fixes the number of lines at sixteen, except
in the last three cantos. A two-line preamble, in the
guise of a musical leitmotif ( madjzd > al-khafif =
fdHldtun , mustaf'ilun) defines the respective phases of
the poem. The illustrated edition (1929, 1931) is ac¬
companied by a long introduction by F. Villaespasa,
responsible for the Spanish version. Venturelli
Sobrinho undertook the Portuguese version and seven
other translations followed (MSOS, xxxi, 158-65;
Aoun, 93-4; Da gh ir. Ma$adir, ii, 722-3; Diwdn ,
139-40). The poetic form, erratic in the Diwdn , more
accomplished in the later poems, is to a large extent
free from earlier imperfections and represents a har¬
monious fusion of restraint and simplicity. In this
freely-flowing acoustic style, ideas, often common
ones, take on a new and larger potential. The im¬
aginary escape to the astral plane and the “Land of
the Souls” is stimulated by the dualism of a divorce
between the soul and the body. Faced by his insoluble

dilemma, the divided and shattered being searches for
its lost unity. The transitory tends towards immortali¬
ty and the finite towards infinity. Thanks to his im¬
aginative power, the poet, a stranger in the material
world, seeks deliverance from his terrestrial imprison¬
ment and project himself into space (cantos i, ii, iii).
The stellar journey is marked out with dialogues,
notably that of the winged and planetary race. These
passages nevertheless bear the melancholic accent of a
broken and lonely poet facing his implacable destiny
(cantos vi, vii, viii). The spatial distance opens up a
vertical perspective on the world; seen from these
spiritual altitudes, controversies deepen, life takes on
the appearance of a thin flux of ephemeral beings and
there is a proliferation of meditations on the pas¬
sions of mankind, his vanity and the destructive
materialism of a perverse and perfidious civilisation
ruled by the spirit of evil (cantos x to xiii). The poet’s
expiation is achieved by purificatory inspiration, and
original unity is regained by the fusion of the two
unyielding elements. But this state of grace attained
through the mystery of love is dissipated like “the
brightness of a dream” and the flesh is seen to fail.
Only the pen, the poet’s beloved harp, remains as the
sole instrument of consolation and deliverance (canto
xiv).

His poetic style takes as its starting-point the neo-
classicism of his contemporaries, where the new pro¬
fesses to be the epiphenomenon of a traditionalist pro¬
sody. Then he frees himself from this genre so as to
integrate himself with the emigrant literary move¬
ment. We may recall, in this connection, the elaborate
themes, the nature of the imagery, the dimensions of
the poetic state, the system of evocative language,
which form common ground with the pleiad of al-
Rabita al-kalamiyya. Other reminiscences seem to recall
the Arabic version of the RubdHyydt of c Umar
Khayyam (tr. W. Bustani, 1912) and Djabran’s poem
al-Mawakib (New York 1918). Imbued with French
romanticism, a desperate idealist, fleeing from confu¬
sion, an uprooted emigrant, his lyrical impulse is
characterised by an authentic and personal accent
within an incomplete poetic corpus.

Bibliography : C I. I. al-Ma c luf. Dhikrd Fawzial-
MaHuf ', Zahla 1931; G. Kampffmeyer, in MSOS ,
xxxi, 158-65; Mgr. I. Dib, Ruh shaHr fi tayyara,
1935; F. Faris, Risdlat al-minbar ila al-Shark al- c Arabi ,
Alexandria 1936; F. Aoun, Fawzi MaHuf et son
oeuvre (thesis), Paris 1939; Brockelmann, S III; P.
G. Abu Sa c da, Fawzi al-MaHuf , St.-Sauveur
(Lebanon) 1945; Daghir, Masddir, ii,; Y. Awdat,
ShaHr al-tayydra, Cairo 1953 ; G. $aydah, Adabuna
wa-udaba^una; R. al-Ma c luf, $hu c ard :> al-Ma c alifa;
C I. al-Na c un, Adab al-Mahdfar' 1 , Cairo 1967, 465-72;
Taha Husayn, Hadith al-arbiW, ii, Cairo 1968;
Kahhala, Mu c djam al-mu^allifin, viii, 83-4; see also
the journals al-Athar , ii-v (1912-28); al-Dad, v
(June, July, August 1935), (May, June 1959); al-
Isldh, iv (1932), 417-22; al-Kitdb, v/3 (1948); al-
Muktataf , lxxv/4 (1928), lxxvi/3 (1929), lxxviii/3
(1931); al-Shark , Sao Paulo ii, iv, vii, viii, xii
(1929-40). (A. G. Karam)

11 . Djurdj Hassun Ma c luf, born at Bikfaya 1893,
died in Sao Paolo 1965. He visited the English school
at Shuwayr and then studied law at the Jesuit College
in Beirut. Ya c kub al- c Awdat, who knew him well in
later years, relates that Djurdj Hassun joined the
Jesuit College in 1907 to study law and that he practis¬
ed as a barrister for two years before he left Lebanon
for Argentine in 1911. There he worked as the
secretary to the Ottoman Consulate at Buenos Aires
for one year and then he went to Brazil. He became

308

al-MA c LUF — MA C LULA

one of the founding-members of al- c Usba al-
andalusiyya. Though he had an astounding knowl¬
edge of Arabic poetry, prose held his chief interest.
He translated from French, Spanish and Portuguese,
and composed some stories himself, apart from
numerous articles. He wrote a long introduction (32
pp.) to the Diwdn of Ilyas Farhat in 1932. Al- c Usba
published a volume of stories, partly translated, partly
original, with the title Akafis in 1954. The first instal¬
ment of a book on the literature of the Mahdyar was
published in al-Mardhil. He died in 1965 in a car
accident.

Bibliography : al-Badawf al-Mula thth am ( =
Ya c kub c Awdat), al-Ndtikun bi 'l-dad Ji Amirkd al-
Djanubiyya . part 1, Beirut 1956, 338-9.; c Isa al-
Na c url, Adab al-Mahdj_ar, 2 Cairo 1967.

(C. Nijland)

MA C LULA, a place in Syria.

1. The locality. Ma c lula is situated 38 miles/60
km. to the south-east of Damascus, 6 miles/10 km. to
the west of the main Damascus-Him$ road, on the sec¬
ond plateau (5,000 feet/1,500 metres altitude) of the
Djabal Kalamun, the last chain of the Anti-Lebanon.
The agglomeration is constructed in the form of an
amphitheatre, inside a wide and deep gap; access to it
is protected, from the side of the third plateau, by two
defiles which open on to its flanks. There is access by
one of these defiles to the monastery of St. Sergius,
whose church with a cupola supported on pendentives
is of Byzantine date; at the entrance to the other defile
there is built, partly on the rock, the monastery of St.
Thecla. The parish church of St. Leontius has no
features of interest, but a mosaic from the 4th century
A.D. has been found in the church of St. Elias.

Ma c lula is mentioned by George of Cyprus as
Magloula and as forming part of Lebanese Phoenicia;
Yakut gives it as a district ( ikltm ) of the environs of
Damascus. It is known to have been the seat of a
Melkite Orthodox bishopric in the 17th century, and
in 1724 was attached to Saydnaya. At the time of the
rebellion of the amir of Ba c labakk, Muhammad Har-
fush, in 1850, Ma c lula was sacked by the Turkish
troops of Mustafa Pasha chasing the rebels who had
taken shelter in the village against the desires of the
local population. In 1860 and 1925, Ma c lula was
again attacked and besieged.

The fame of this picturesque place comes from the
fact that its inhabitants (about 2,000), who have re¬
mained Christians, mainly Melkite Catholics, still
speak a Western Aramaic dialect, just like the people
of two other nearby villages, Djubba c dln and Bakh c a.
which became Muslim in the 18th century. Since the
time of the first notes on the Aramaic or Ma c lula pub¬
lished by Cl. Huart in 1878, this speech has been the
subject of several important works by Dom J. Parisot,
G. Bergstrasser, S. Reich and A. Spitaler (see below,
2. The language).

Since the Aramaic of Edessa was formerly the
liturgical language of these Christians of Byzantine
rite, a certain number of Syriac manuscripts from the
monasteries and churches of Ma c lula have come
down to us, but most were burnt on the orders of a
bishop in the 19th century.

Bibliography : EI l art. s.v. (E. Honigmann);
R. Dussaud, La topographie historique de la Syrie antique
et t medievale, Paris 1927, 264, 270, 281; S. Reich,
Etudes sur les villages arameens de VAnti-Liban , in Docs,
d’Etudes Orientals de I’lnstitut Franfais de Damas , vii
(1938), 5-9; B. Poizat, Bibliographie du neo-arameen,
in Comptes-rendus du GLECS, xviii-xxiii (1973-9),
379-80. (G. Troupeau)

2. The language. Ma c lula and its Aramaic¬

speaking neighbouring villages, Bakh c a and Djubb
c Adin-Qhuppa c Odh are bilingual, and use varieties
of dialectal Arabic more or less rapidly assimilating to
the regional prestige speech of the city of
Damascus—a process already completed for Ma c lula
itself—in all outside relations. Hence it is not
astonishing that there is a strong Arabic influence on
their Aramaic vernacular, especially in the field of
vocabulary: a random count will yield an average of
about 20% and even more of words of Arabic origin
in any given text. Loan translations abound. Never¬
theless, the Aramaic language of Ma c lula and Djubb
c Adm is still in full vigour, while at Bakh c a there
seems to be a marked tendency, especially among the
younger generation, to supplant it entirely by Arabic,
which, of course, in due time will lead to its extinction
there; in 1971 people of less than forty years’ age
were, according to information by inhabitants of the
village, no longer able to use the vernacular correctly,
although they had no difficulties in understanding it.
Understandability among the three villages is mutual,
except for smaller details which on the whole will not
impair the comprehension of any utterance.

The characteristics of Ma c lula Aramaic (or, to be
more exact, Western Neo-Aramaic) include:

General. MA is a descendant of the western branch
of Aramaic (yiktul , ykutlenn-e, inter alia ), its closest rela¬
tionship being to Judaeo-Aramaic and Syro-
Palestinian.

Phonology. Long vowels of Older Aramaic have been
preserved under stress; a > 6. In unstressed position,
they appear shortened -a > a - and partially merged,
e.g. hbmi < hdme , paytl < bayti. Short vowels in a
stressed syllable seem to continue the former state,
while, when unstressed, they too have undergone, at
least phonologically, certain mergers {e ~ i, o ~ u
against a, pre-tonic even eiou > ? against a). Stress
is usually on the penult, and may hit even originally
prosthetic vowels: ebra < bra via dbrd. Voiced plosive
consonants have been devoiced (b d g > p t k),
voiceless plosive consonants except p palatalised (t k >
t k; Dj. C A. k > c), p has become J, b > b. Begadkefat
laws are no longer operating, although they have left
many traces; roots containing susceptible consonants
will appear either unified: irkheb “he mounted (a
horse)” from rkeb: arkhep “he put somebody on
horseback’ ’ corresponding to older arkep which, except
for palatalisation and b > b, should have remained
unchanged (for p, see below); or there exists a so-
called root-variant: irkheb as above: rikhpit “I
mounted”, the p having been generalised in the
causative (see above example). Initially, in general the
spirant version of these consonants has been
perpetualised (original context pronunciation after
final vowel).

Morphology. On the whole, the older system has
changed very little, much less than in eastern Neo-
Aramaic. This is doubtless to be attributed to a cer¬
tain preserving force exerted by the structurally very
similar surrounding Arabic dialects. Salient in¬
novatory features out of Aramaic material are the
development by fusion of analytical constructions of
obligatory verbal forms to show the definiteness of a
following direct or indirect nominal object (iktal
ghabrona “they hit a man”: katlull ghabrona “they hit
the man”, < katlunn-eh /-) and the personal inflexion
of predicative adjectives by prefixes formally identical
with those of the imperfect (ana n-ifker “I’m poor”),
as well as the strongly extended use of old kill and kattil
participles as a resultative or perfect. Arabic has con¬
tributed in addition to a good many of verbal stems
(III, V, VI, VII—the normal expression of the

MA C LULA — MALWA

309

passive voice—, VIII, X), which, with the exception
of Vll, of course may be regarded as a special kind of
lexical innovation, above all its construction of c amma
+ 6-imperfect (this latter being represented in
Aramaic by the present participle) to render con¬
tinuous action or state. This fact has led to at least a
partial restructuring of the verbal system, the simple
participle in main clauses being restricted to the func¬
tion of a general present. Besides, mention should be
made of the free possibility of forming an elative even
of Aramaic roots on the model of Arabic ( awrab “big¬
ger”, from^r6: Ar. ahsan).

Syntax. For category syntax, see the preceding sec¬
tion. Clause and sentence connection is realised on the
one hand to a large extent by intonation alone
(asyndesis), while on the other hand there is, as far as
clause adverbials of time are concerned, a real profu¬
sion of incessantly reappearing temporal conjunc¬
tions. Very remarkable is the introduction from
Arabic of the asyndetic relative clause (the $ifa) to be
used in exactly the same circumstances (indefinite
clause-head) as in the tongue of origin.

The value of western Neo-Aramaic for the clarifica¬
tion of difficult problems raised by our not always
complete understanding of the intricacies of the gram¬
mar of Older Aramaic has not yet been fathomed;
there is still a grave lack of studies of this kind.

Bibliography : Specifically linguistic

studies: A. Spitaler, Grammatik des neuaramdischen
Dialekts von MaHula (Antilibanon), Leipzig 1938,
repr. Nendeln 1966; V. Cantarino, Der
neuaramdische Dialekt von Gubb c Adin (Texte and
Ubersetzung ), diss. Munich 1961; Chr. Correll,
Materialien zur Kenntnis des neuaramdischen Dialekts von
Bab c a y diss. Munich 1969; idem, Untersuchungen zur
Syntax der neuwestaramdischen Dialekte des Antilibanon
(MaHula, Bab c a, Gubb c Adin). Mit besonderer
Berucksichtigung der Auswirkungen arabischen Adstrat-
einflusses. Nebst zwei Anhdngen zum neuaramdischen
Dialekt von Gubb c Adfn , Wiesbaden 1978.

General: S. Reich: Etudes sur les villages arameens
de VAnti-Liban Damascus 1937. (Chr. Correll)
MALWA proper is an inland district of In¬
dia bordered on the south by Vindhyas, and lying
between lat. 23° 30' N. and long. 74° 30' E.

To this tract, known in the age of the Mahdbhdrata
as Nishadha, and later as Avanti, from the name of its
capital, now Udjdjayn, was afterwards added Akara,
or eastern Malwa, with its capital, Bhilsa, and the
country lying between the Vindhyas and the Sat-
puras. Primitive tribes like Abhlras and BhUs have
been dwelling among the hills and jungles of Malwa
since ancient times, some of whom still cling to their
primitive way of life. The province formed part of the
dominions of the Mauryas, the Western Satraps,
the Guptas of Magadha, the white Huns, and the
kingdom of Kanawdj [q.v.], and then passed to the
Malawas, from whom it has its name since about the
5th century A.D. These when Hinduised formed the
Paramara tribe of Radjputs, which bore sway in
Malwa from 800 to 1200, but from the middle of the
11th century onward their power was increasingly
challenged by a confederacy of the 6alukyas of
Anhilvada and the Kalacuris of Tripun.

Malwa, at the crossroads between northern India
and the Dakhan, and between the western provinces
and the seaports of Gudjarat [q.v.\, always occupied a
position of great strategic and commercial impor¬
tance. It was therefore only a matter of time for the
territory to attract the attention of the Sultans of
Dihll. In 632/1234-5 Shams al-Dln Iltutmish [q.v.] of
Dihll invaded U djdj avn. demolished the temple of

Mahakal, and sacked Bhilsa. This, however, was no
more than a predatory raid and did not lead to annex¬
ation. Sultan c Ala 5 al-Dln Khaldjl [see khaldjIs]—
who as governor of Kara had led a successful raid on
Bhilsa in 691/1292—sent his commander c Ayn al-
Mulk Multan! [q.v. in Suppl.], “a master of pen and
sword” (Amir Khusraw). in 705/1305 to conquer
Malwa. It now became a province of Dihll, and, with
interludes of Hindu revolt, remained so until, in
804/1401-2, on the disintegration of the Kingdom of
Dihll after Timur’s invasion, the Afghan governor
Dilawar Khan Qhuri made it an independent king¬
dom. On his death in 809/1406-7 (evidence of his
having been poisoned by his son Alp Khan is in¬
conclusive), Alp Khan succeeded him under the title
of Hushang £hah. He transferred the capital from
Dhar to Mandu [q.v.] and founded Hushangabad. To
him goes the credit for the consolidation of the newly-
established kingdom. He followed an active foreign
policy, extended his territory wherever possible,
maintained friendly relations with his southern
neighbours and succesfully withstood the pressure of
Gudjarat. He favoured a policy of toleration towards
his Hindu subjects and encouraged Radjputs to settle
in his kingdom. Malwa prospered under his benign
rule, and his patronage of letters attracted many
scholars. On his death in 838/1435 he was succeeded
by his son Ghazni Khan, entitled Muhammad Shah,
who after a reign of less than a year was poisoned by
his ambitious waztr and brother-in-law Mahmud
Khaldjl.

Attempts by amirs loyal to the Qhuri dynasty to
raise Muhammad Shah’s thirteen-year old son
Mas c ud were foiled by Mahmud who, in 839/1436,
ascended the throne as Mahmud I, and whose reign
of thirty-three years was the most glorious in the an¬
nals of Malwa [see mahmud i khaldjI] . He waged war
successfully against the kings of Gudjarat, the
Dakhan, and Djawnpur, against the small state of
KalpI, and against Rana Kumbha of Citor; he
retired, but without disgrace, before the superior
power of Dihll; and he extended the frontiers of his
kingdom on the north, east and south. Mahmud fol¬
lowed a policy of “perfect toleration” (Jain). He pro¬
tected the interests of the peasantry and encouraged
extension of cultivation; trade and industry flour¬
ished, since he succeeded in establishing law and
order throughout the realm. Robbery and theft were
said to be almost unknown in his kingdom (Firishta).
He was interested in the welfare of his subjects, and
established hospitals, dispensaries, schools and col¬
leges. Mahmud was known outside India, and had
diplomatic relations with the titular c Abbasid caliph of
Cairo as well as with the Tlmurid Abu Sa c Id Mirza of
Khurasan.

On his death in 873/1469 he was succeeded by his
son c Abd al-Kadir Ghiyath al-Dln. Though Ghiyath
al-Dln was well-versed in warfare, he had the sagacity
to shift the emphasis from conquest to consolidation.
He gave up his father’s aggressive foreign policy and
tried to maintain friendly relations with his
neighbours. His reign was a period of peace and plen¬
ty and of cultural development. Having a large harem
to look after, he increasingly associated his son Na?ir
al-Dln in state affairs. In the event, Nasir al-Dln
removed all rivals from the throne, forced abdication
on his father and himself ascended the throne
(906/1500). His cruel reign ended with his death in
916/1510, leaving the kingdom in disarray and beset
with grave problems. He was succeeded by his son
Mahmud II [q.v.], who, though personally brave, was
a poor general. With the help of Muzaffar II of

310

MALWA — MALZUZA

Gudjarat he rid himself of his powerful Radjput
minister, MednT Ral, but in doing so embroiled
himself with Sangrama Rana of fiitor, who defeated
him in the field and took him prisoner, but generously
released him. He then, with inconceivable folly and
ingratitude, bitterly offended Bahadur Shah of
Gudjarat, who invaded Malwa and, after giving
Mahmud every opportunity of atoning for his error,
carried Mandu by assault in Sha c ban 937/March
1531. Mahmud and his sons were sent in custody
towards Campaner, but the officer in charge of them,
apprehending a rescue, put them to death.

Malwa now became a province of Gudjarat, and in
941/1535 the emperor Humayun [£.».], invading that
kingdom, defeated Bahadur Shah at Mandasor and
captured Mandu, but was recalled to Hindustan in
the following year by the menacing attitude of Shir
Khan in Bengal; hence Mallu Khan, an officer of
Mahmud II, established himself in Malwa and as¬
sumed the title of Kadir Shadja c at Khan and HadjdjI
Khan, two officers of Shir Shah, drove him from
Malwa and assumed the government of the province.
Shadja c at Khan died in 962/1554-5, and was succeed¬
ed by his son Malik Bayazld, known as Baz Bahadur,
who, during the decline of the power of the Sur
emperors, became independent. A severe defeat at the
hands of the queen of the Gond Kingdom of Garha
Mandla engendered in him a distaste for warlike
enterprise, and he devoted himself to music and to the
embraces of the beautiful Rupmatl. In 968/1561
Akbar’s army under Adham Khan surprised Baz
Bahadur at Sarangpur, defeated his troops, put him to
flight, and captured his mistress, who took poison
rather than become the conqueror’s paramour. Baz
Bahadur fled into Khandesh [q.v. ] and Pir Muham¬
mad Khan, second-in-command of Akbar’s army,
who followed him thither, was defeated by Mubarak
Khan of Khandesh and drowned in the Narbada. Baz
Bahadur returned and again reigned in Mandu, but
in 969/1562 another Mughal army under c Abd Allah
Khan the Uzbek invaded Malwa and compelled
him to flee to Citor. He remained a fugitive until
978/1570, when he submitted to Akbar and entered
his service. Abu ’1-Fadl mentions him among the
musicians of Akbar’s court.

Malwa flourished under Mughal rule, and made
notable progress in agricultural and industrial produc¬
tion. It became one of the best revenue-yielding
provinces of the empire. The Marathas started

raiding the province during the closing years of
Awrangzlb c AlamgIr’s [q.v. \ reign. The province suf¬
fered greatly under their recurring depredations. In
1154/1741 the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah,
with his authority greatly shaken by Nadir Shah’s
invasion, was compelled by increasing Maratha
pressure to appoint the Peghwa as deputy-governor of
Malwa and virtually to hand over the province to the
Marathas. They failed, however, to restore Malwa as
a unified and settled province, and it soon “became
a jumble of principalities ruled over by Maratha
generals and officers, Rajput princes and Afghan
adventurers” (Raghubir Sinh).

It was afterwards divided between the great
Maratha generals whose descendants, Sindhya of
Gwalior, Holkar of Indore, and the Ponwars of Dhar
and Dewas, still held most of it till 1947.

From 1780 until 1818, when British supremacy was
firmly established, the province was one of the prin¬
cipal arenas in which Muslim, Maratha and Euro¬
pean contended for empire. Since then, its history has
been uneventful, but sporadic risings took place at six
military stations during the great rebellion of 1857.

Bibliography : Amir Khusraw T KhazaHn al-
futuh, c Aligarh 1927; idem, Dawal-RdnI-Khidr-Khdn .
c Aligarh 1917; C A1I b. Mahmud al-Kirmanl, alias
Shihab Hakim, Madthir-iMahmud Shaht (completed
872/1467-8), ms. no. Elliott 237, Bodleian, Oxford
(also see an abridged version of the work, edited by
Nur al-Hasan Angarl, Dihll 1968); Diya 3 al-Din
BaranI, Ta^rikh-i Ffruz Shaht, Calcutta 1860-2; Abu
’1-Fadl c AllamI, AHh-i Akbari , Calcutta 1867-77;
idem, Akbar-ndma , Calcutta 1873-87; Nizam al-Din
Ahmad, Tabakdt-i Akbari , iii, Calcutta 1935; c Abd
al-Kadir Badayunl, Muntakhab al-tawdrikh , Calcutta
1864-9; Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrahim!, Bombay 1832;
HadjdjI al-Dablr, An Arabic history of Gujarat , ed. E.
D. Ross, London 1921-8; A. B. M. Habibullah,
The foundation of Muslim rule in India , Lahore 1945;
K. S. Lai, History of the Khaljis , revised ed. New
Dehli 1980; K. C. Jain, Malwa through the ages, Dihll
1972; P. N. Day, Medieval Malwa, Dihll 1965;
Ishwari Prasad, The life and times of Humayun,
Calcutta, etc.., revised ed. 1956; Raghubir Sinh,
Malwa in transition, Bombay 1936; G. C. Grant
Duff, History of the Mahrattas , London 1921; Cam¬
bridge hist, of India, i.

(T. W. Haig - [Riazul Islam])
MALZUZA, an ancient Berber people belong¬
ing to the branch of the Butr, and to the family of
Darlsa, who most probably lived in Tripolitania.

If we are to believe Ibn Khaldun (8th/14th century)
and his sources, the Berber genealogists, the Malzuza
were descendants of Fafin, son of Tamzlt, son of pari
(eponym of the Darlsa) and were the sister-tribe of
the important Berber tribes of the Matghara, the
Lamaya, the $adlna, the Kumiya, the Madyuna, the
Maghlla, the Matmata, the Kashana (or Kaghata)
and the Duna. The majority of these peoples have sur¬
vived until the present day, except for three, sc. the
Malzuza, Kashana and Duna, who became extinct
at an early date and whom the mediaeval Arab
historians knew only by name. According to Ibn
Khaldun, all the nine peoples above-mentioned oc¬
cupied, before the 8th/14th century, “an exalted rank
among the Berber populations and were distinguished
by their great exploits”. One should add that, accord¬
ing to another passage of the History of the Berbers of Ibn
Khaldun, the Malzuza were not a sister-tribe of the
Maghlla \q v.], but rather a clan of this latter people.
Another genealogy of the Malzuza, quite different
from that of Ibn Khaldun, was given by Ibn al-Ahmar
in his monograph on the Marinids entitled Rawfat al-
nisrin ft dawlat Bant Marin. According to this author,
the Malzuza belonged, together with the Maghlla, the
Matghar (sic), the Madyuna, the Kashashana (or
Kashana), the Matmata and the Lamaya, and also the
people of Fatin, not to the descendants of Dari, but to
the great Berber branch of the Zanata.

It seems that the majority of the Malzuza were an¬
nihilated by the c Abbasid general Yazld b. Hatim b.
Kablsa b. al-Muhallab during the great massacre of
the Berber peoples of Tripolitania which took place
after the defeat and death of the IbadI imam Abu
Hatim al-Malzuz! [^.o.]. The Malzuza, his fellow
tribesmen, were to suffer in particular after his fall.
However, it is not impossible that a clan of the
Malzuza survived until the 4th/10th century. Indeed,
one would be tempted to link the name of
bjj* Malzuza with that of bif-* Mazura whom Ibn
Hawkal, who was writing during this century, men¬
tions in his list of Berber tribes as among the peoples
of Tripolitania belonging to the great branch of the
Mazata.

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun. Histoire des

MALZUZA — al-MALZUZI

311

Berberes 2 , i, 172, 236, 248; Abu Zakariyya 5 b.
Yahya Ibn Kh aldun. Histoire des Beni c Abd al-Wad,
ed. A. Bel, i, Algiers 1903, 123, n. 4; Ibn Hawkal,
Kitab $urat al-ard, ed. J. H. Kramers, Leiden 1938,
i, 107, Fr. tr. Kramers-Wiet, i, 104.

(T. Lewicki)

al-MALZUZI, abu hatim ya c kub b. labid,
famous Ibadi imam. He is mentioned in the Kitdb
al-Sira wa-akhbar al-aHmma , an Ibadi chronicle written
shortly after 504/1110-11 by Abu Zakariyya 5 Yahya
b. Abi Bakr al-Wardjlanl. Abu Hatim was also known
by other names. In the chronicle (which is at one and
the same time a collection of biographies of famous
Ibadl-Wahbl shaykhs ) composed by Abu T c Abbas
Ahmad al-Shammakhl towards the beginning of the
10th/16th century and entitled Kitdb al-Siyar, the imam
concerned is called Abu Hatim Ya c kub b. Habib al-
Malzuzl al-NadjlsI; he was, according to this author,
a mawld of the Arab tribe of Kinda. Al-Shammakhl
used, in the paragraph of his work concerning Abu
Hatim, the historical work written by Ibn Salam b.
c Umar, a scholar who is the First IbadI historian
known from the Maghrib and who lived in the 3rd/9th
century. Similarly, the form of the name of the imam
Abu Hatim mentioned in the Kitdb al-Siyar is the
oldest known and may be correct. As for the nisba al-
Nadjlsl, which is added by al-Shammakhl. following
Ibn Salam b. c Umar, to the name of Abu Hatim al-
Malzuzl, it most probably originates from the Berber
tribe of Nadjasa, which is known to us from the table
of Berber peoples of Ibn Hawkal (4th/10th century).
The latter author cites the Nadjasa among the peoples
belonging to the branch of the Mazata who lived in
Tripolitania. Similarly, the tribe of the Malzuza seem
to have belonged to the Mazata and not to the Darlsa
or Zanata, as it would appear from the evidence of the
works of Ibn Khaldun and Ibn al-Ahmar.

Another IbadI historian and biographer of the
Maghrib who has transmitted to us several details
concerning Abu Hatim al-Malzuzi, that is, Abu
’l- c Abbas Ahmad b. Sa c Id al-Dardjlnl (7th/13th cen¬
tury), calls him Abu Hatim Ya c kub b. Lablb al-
Malzuzi al-Hawwarl. The tribe of the Hawwara, the
largest part of which lived, in the first centuries of
Islam, in the vicinity of the city of Tripoli, had, in the
2 nd/ 8 th century, played a major role in the history of
the Ibadls of Tripolitania. Also, it is not impossible
that this tribe may have headed the confederation of
Ibadi Berber people of the Maghrib who supported
Abu Hatim al-Malzuzi, giving its tribal name to this
confederation. It is very likely that Abu Hatim, being
the supreme head of the confederation in question,
added the name of Hawwara to that of the tribe into
which he was born, Malzuza [< 7 . y.].

To conclude our discussion of the Ibadi sources, let
us add that Abu Hatim is also mentioned in an
anonymous document called Tasmiyat mashdhid al-
DjabaL published by R. Basset under the title Sanc-
tuaires du Djebel Nefousa. It is a list of the places
venerated on Djabal Nafusa, probably composed in
the 9th/15th century, and was written as an autograph
in an appendix to al-ShammakhLs Kitdb al-Siyar (ed.
Cairo, 598-600). At the end of this list, we read that
“one faces towards the oratory opposite the tomb of
Abu Hatim”. No doubt this is Abu Hatim al-Malzuzi
who was killed, as we shall see, in a battle with the
c Abbasid army in the Djabal Nafusa and buried in a
place in this district. Finally, a distinguished Ibadi
writer of the 9th/ 15th century, Abu ’1-Kasim al-
Barradl, calls the leader in question Abu Hatim
Ya c kub b. Labid al-Malzuzi al-Hawwarl.

As for the orthodox Arabic sources, only three

authors tell us of Abu Hatim al-Malzuzi: Ibn c IdharI

al-Marrakushi (7th/13th century), al-Nuwayrl

(8th/14th century) and Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the

same century. Ibn c Idhari calls him simply Abu

Hatim, except in a passage where he cites al-Tabari

and where this imam is called Abu Hatim al-Ibadl- Al-

Nuwayrl says that this leader bore the name Abu

Hatim b. Habib and that he was also called Abu
• •

Kadim. He adds that Abu Hatim was a mawld of the
♦ ♦

Arab tribe of Kinda. Sometimes he is named by al-
Nuwayrf quite simply as Abu Hatim. Ibn Khaldun
gives the Berber leader the name of Abu Hatim
Ya c kub b. Habib b. Midyan Ibn Ruwafat. According
to Ibn Khaldun, he also bore the name Abu Kadim;
this historian also makes him an amir of the tribe of the
Maghfla [< 7 . 0 .]. It should be noted that the tribe into
which Abu Hatim was born, the Malzuza, was
regarded by Ibn Khaldun and the Berber genealogists
on whom he depended as the sister tribe of the
Maghfla or, indeed, as a clan of this latter tribe.

Let us now turn to Abu Hatim’s political and
military activity. It is not impossible that he played a
certain role, as amir of the powerful tribe of the
Maghfla who professed KharidjI. Ibadi and SufrI doc¬
trines, as early as the imamate of Abu ’1-Khattab
c Abdal-A c la al-Ma c afirI (140-4/757-61). In fact, if we
are to believe Abu Zakariyya 5 al-Wardjlanl ( 6 th/12th
century), he was governor of the city of Tripoli during
this imam’s rule. He survived the great massacre of the
Ibadi populations of Tripolitania by the c Abbasid
general Ibn al-Ash c a£h which followed the defeat and
death of Abu ’l-Khattab in the battle that took place
at Tawargha between the Ibadi forces and the
c Abbasid army ($afar 144/May-June 761). In
151/768-9, when the c Abbasid caliph al-Man§ur sent
a new governor to Ifrlkiya in the person of a distin¬
guished Arab general called c Umar b. Hafs, also
known as Hazarmard, the Ibadi Berber tribes of
Tripolitania, already recovered after the defeat of
Tawargha. were ready to rise again against Arab
domination. c Umar b. Hafs established himself in
Kayrawan, capital of Ifrlkiya, but soon received
orders from the caliph al-Mansur to go to the Zab and
rebuild the strong fortress of Tubna which was to be
the main base of the Arab armies in the central
Ma gh rib. He was anxious to confront the powerful
$ufrl leader of the central Maghrib. Abu Kurra, who
was supported by two great Berber tribes of this land,
the Banu Ifran and Maghfla. and who was proclaimed
caliph by his followers in 148/765. Abu Kurra had
created a powerful state with Tilimsan (Tlemcen) as
his capital. Making for Tubna, c Umar b. Haf$ en¬
trusted the government of Kayrawan (already
depleted, like the whole of Ifrlkiya, of Arab troops,
most of whom had gone to Tubna, following the new
governor), to his cousin Habib b. Habib b. Yazid b.
al-Muhallab. c Umar b. Hafs was entirely assured of
the attitude of the Berbers of Tripolitania and Ifrlkiya
who had been, in 144/761-2 so severely punished by
Ibn al-Ash c ath. But this peace was only apparent. In
fact, the Ibadls of this land were already prepared to
rebel against the Arabs. Indeed, immediately after the
departure of the c Abbasid forces commanded by
c Umar b. Hafs in the central Ma g hrib, where they
had difficulty in dealing with Abu Kurra, the Ibadi
Berbers of the area around the city of Tripoli rebelled,
in 151/768-9, against the Arab governor of the city of
Tripoli. The rebels chose as their leader Abu Hatim.
Under the command of their leader, they challenged
the forces that the c Abbasid governor of this city had
sent against them, and seizing Tripoli, they went on
to lay siege to Kayrawan. Later, Abu Hatim al-

312

al-MALZUZI — al-MAMAKANI

Malzuzi moved against Tubna, at the head of the
IbadT insurgents of Tripolitania and Ifrikiya, who
then joined with the other IbadT and $ufri groups
besieging c Umar b. Haf§. The latter put up a brave
defence, at the head of 15,000 soldiers. As for the
besieging forces, they formed a huge army, in which
Abu Kurra stood out at the head of 40,000 $ufris. An¬
other band of Sufrls numbering 2,000 soldiers was
commanded by c Abd al-Malik b. Sakardld. Several
IbadT forces, commanded by different leaders, were
independent of one another. The sources mention
among these latter troops: Abu Hatim at the head of
a considerable number of warriors; c Abd al-Rahman
b. Rustam, with 15,000; c A$im al-Sadratl at the head
of 6,000 warriors and al-Miswar b. Hani 5 with
10,000. The army under the command of Djarlr b.
Mas c ud al-Madyunl was also composed of Ibadls.
During the siege of Tubna, Abu Hatim al-MalzuzT
was only one of the leaders of the IbadT groups and not
the commander-in-chief of the IbadT armies who
besieged c Umar b. Hafs. The latter, threatened by the
great KharidjT army, whose total strength was about
four times that of his own army, bought the neutrality
of Abu Kurra for 40,000 dirhams. After this, the lat¬
ter’s warriors left Tubna. Similarly, c Abd al-Rahman
b. Rustam, whose troops had been routed by a
detachment of the garrison of ( Umar b. Hafs, hasten¬
ed to lead back to Tahart, his capital, the remnants of
his army. It was only from this time that Abu Hatim
al-MalzuzT took charge of the besieging forces. c Umar
b. Haf§, seeing that the forces of the IbadTs surroun¬
ding Tubna were very much weakened, succeeded in
escaping from this fortress and making haste to
Kayrawan, which was also besieged by the IbadTs.
The IbadT army which was besieging this city was
already commanded by Abu Hatim, who had aban¬
doned the siege of Tubna to make an end of the
capital of Ifrikiya and its governor in the name of the
c Abbasids, c Umar b. Hafs Hazarmard. This army
was at this moment 350,000 men strong, of whom
35,000 were horsemen. It may be that, during the
siege of Kayrawan, Abu Hatim al-MalzuzT had been
proclaimed imam of all the IbadTs of the Maghrib with
the title of imam al-difd c (Abu TKhattab c Abd al-A c la
al-Ma c afir! bore the title of imam al-zuhur). The siege
of Kayrawan lasted for a long time and ended with the
death of c Umar b. Hafs (who was killed by the IbadTs
during a sortie) and with the surrender of Kayrawan,
whose population and garrison were already totally
starved.

But Arab help was near. Indeed, a large c Abbasid
army was heading for Tripolitania under the com¬
mand of the new Arab governor YazTd b. Hatim. At
the news of the approach of this army, Abu Hatim al-
MalzuzT set out for Tripoli, from where he headed
for the Nafusa Mountains, whose inhabitants were
particularly attached to the IbadT doctrine. But other
IbadT Berber tribes also gathered around Abu Hatim,
in anticipation of the final battle which would decide
the future of Iba<Jism in the Ma gh rib. Among Abu
Hatim’s faithful followers, apart from the Nafusa,
may be counted the Hawwara and Darisa. Abu
Hatim held out in the Djabal Nafusa in an almost im¬
pregnable place, according to certain sources, in
Djanbl. where, however, he died, with his compan¬
ions, despite their brave defence (155/772). Abu
Hatim’s tomb, which is situated in the same part of
the Djabal Nafusa and which is one of the holy places
of this land, was surrounded with legends. After his
death, the dignity of the IbadT imam of the Ma g hrib
passed to c Abd al-Rahman b. Rustam and his descen¬
dants, who succeeded in maintaining what was left of

the IbadT imamate of Tahart until the beginning of the
4th/10th century.’

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun. Histoire des
Berb'eres 2 , i, 221-3; Nuwayri, Conquete de VAfrique
septentrionale par les musulmans, apud Ibn Khaldun.
op. cit., i, 379-85; Ibn c Idhari, Baydn 2 , i, 75-8;
Chronique d’Abou Zakaria, Fr. tr. E. Masqueray,
Algiers 1878, 41-9; ShammakhT. Kitdb al-Siyar ,
Cairo 1301/1883-4, 133-8; DardjTnT, Kitdb To-bakdt
al-mashdyikh, ed. Talla’i, Blida 1394/1974, i, 36-40;
BarradT, Djawahir al-muntakat, ed. Cairo
1302/1884-5, 172-3; Tasmiyat mashdhid al-Diabal. ed.
R. Basset, in JA (May-June 1899), 423-36, (July-
August 1899), 115-20; H. Fournel, Berbers , i,
371-80. (T. Lewicki)

al-MAMAKANI, c Abd Allah b. Muhammad
Hasan b. c Abd Allah al-Nadjaf! (b. at Nadjaf 15
RabI* I 1287/15 June 1870, d. 15 Shawwal 1351/11
February 1933), Imarnl ShT c I scholar of fikh and
usul, and author of some 30 works to which the
bibliographical guides devote in general only a few
lines.

He is very well-known among the Imamls for his
Tankih al-makal ji Him al-ri^al (lith. Nadjaf, i,
1349/1930-1, ii, 1350/1931-2, iii, 1352/1933-4), one
of the last works in the tradition of Him al-ri^jal [q.v.],
of which al-KashshT, al-Na^jashl and al-TusT are the
most eminent representatives. This is a collection
in which the persons who were witnesses and/or
transmitters of the sunna of the Prophet and the
Twelve Imams are arranged in alphabetical order. It
gathers together 13,365 persons, enumerated by the
author, and it is also possible to glean information
about his own life from the tardjama which he devotes
to himself, to follow his scholarly career, i.e. his
studies, his travels and pilgrimages and the
bibliography of his works, and to discover some im¬
portant dates of his life, such as that of 14 Ramadan
1314/16 February 1897 when he received from his
father the idjdza to function as a mudjtahid. The Tankih
can certainly be considered as his main work, and can
be judged as the widest repertory existing of ridjdl. At
the same time, it has been the object of various
criticisms, both for the author’s numerous errors and
also for his particular way of using the term madjhul.
Among the specialists in this field, the term indicates
a transmitter concerning whom the aHmmat al-ridjdl
(i.e. the chief authorities in this matter) have asserted
djahdla “ignorance about the degree of confidence to
be placed in him”, but al-Mamakanl uses it in a wider
sense, so that the madjhul becomes merely a person
whose biography he is ignorant about. This is why, on
reading the Tankih, and even more the NataHJ^ al-
Tankih, the index in which are set forth the “results”
of the Tankih , the impression is given that the
transmitters of Imarnl hadith were very largely madjhul,
unknown persons. These deficiencies led the contem¬
porary scholar Muhammad Talu al-Tustari to write a
final dictionary, the Kdmus al-ridjdl , which puts itself
forward as definitive in this particular sphere.

Bibliography : MamakanT, Tankih, ii, 208-11;
Agha Buzurg TihranT, al-Dhari^a. iv, Nadjaf
1360/1941, 466-7; idem, Musaffa ’ l-makal Ji musan-
niji Him al-ridjdl, Tehran 1378/1959, 250; Muham¬
mad c AlI Tabriz! KhiyabanT, Rayhdnat al~adab Ji
taradjim al-maHuJin bi ’l-kunya aw al-lakab, iii,
1369/1949-50, 430-3; Muhammad Tak! al-Tustari,
Kdmus al-ridjdl , i, Tehran 1379/1959-60, 2-4;
Kahhala, Mu'allifin, iv, 116. General references: A.
Arioli, Introduzione alio studio del c ilm ar-rigal im-
amita: le fonti, in Cahiers d’onomastique arabe , Paris
1979, 77*8; B. Scarcia Amoretti, L’introduzione al

al-MAMAKANI — MAMLAKA

313

Qamus al-rigal di Tustan: per una guida alia lettura dei

testi prosopograjici imamiti , in ibid. , 37-49.

(A. Arioli)

AL- MAMI, al-Shaykh Muhammad (d. 1282/

1865-6), traditional Mauritanian scholar of a
highly individualistic nature, whose reputation is
founded less upon his considerable qualities as a poet
and a Malik! jurist than upon some of his statements,
which caused a sensation in their time.

Thus, for example, he claimed to know the number
of grains of sand contained by the earth, by means of
a calculation which he reveals in a poem in hassdniyya
Arabic, although he refrains from giving the precise
result of his computations. He caused something of a
scandal by declaring the principle of the roundness of
the earth, something of which his compatriots, adher¬
ing to the letter of the KuHan: “The earth, We have
stretched it out ...” (XV, 19), were still unaware in
the 19th century. He is also credited with having
predicted the existence of the rich mineral deposits
which are exploited today in Mauritania. Legend has
it that from his reading of all the books currently
available (except two!) he acquired original
knowledge which is revealed particularly in his poems
in dialectal Arabic. He employed this same mode of
expression to declare grammatical rules or to for¬
mulate prayers, but he resorted to classical Arabic for
anything that could be described as didactic poetry;
the latter includes in particular the kasldas intitled al-
Mtzabiyya on the art of debate, and al-DulJiniyya which
express the essence of his judicial teaching.

Concerned to adapt law in such a way as to
legitimise the practices of his time, he naturally rejects
taklid, blind imitation, and reveals himself an advocate
of idjtihad , personal effort; while not going to far as to
claim for himself the status of a mudjtahid , he skilfully
recommends recourse to the practice of takhridx, , which
consists in formulating general rules on the basis of
the teaching of a particular school, in his case,
Malikism.

A practical problem which engaged the attention of
al-Mam! is that of the zakat [q.v. ] of animals owned by
the tributaries of a Mauritanian tribe; he considers
that they should be relieved of this obligation and
bases his conclusion on substantial arguments. Other¬
wise, in a general fashion, he makes it his business to
give legal foundation, in conformity with the sharia,
to all the customs rooted in his social milieu and, in
his principal work entitled, significantly, Kitdb al-
Badiya , he addresses himself to the specific problems of
nomadic societies: the open-air mosque, the valuation
of objects according to a monetary system constituted
by non-financial items (a block of salt, a sheep or a
piece of fabric), the treatment of wakfs among
nomads, etc. At the beginning of the Kitdb al-Badiya ,
he deals at length with custom ( c urf or c ada), stressing
its continuance and normative value, and he reveals
the fundamental role that it has played in the judicial
system of Islam, especially among the MalikTs. He is
thus led to sanction practices current in his time and
considered contrary to the sharia: wangala (the
slaughtering and sharing, each day, of a sheep within
a given group), force-feeding of women, ear-piercing,
ihsdn (contract for the loan of a lactiferous animal, the
hiring of young camels for the purpose of following a
she-camel so that she continues to give milk), gifts of¬
fered by merchants to sellers of gum, faskha (dowry
supplied by the family of the bride when she joins the
conjugal home), consumption of tobacco, etc., all
these being topics treated in a very liberal fashion. It
is this spirit which characterises the teaching of al-
Mam! in the judicial sphere; it appears more exacting

in the context of politics, and this author is observed
deploring the absence of any administrative structure
corresponding to the requirements of the authentic
Islamic city and regretting to some extent that he has
never found the opportunity to exploit his talents as a
statesman, in spite of his prestige, his wealth and his
personal connections with sultans of Morocco, to
whom he dedicated many of his poems.

The literary corpus of al-Mam! is quite significant,
but is yet to be edited. It comprises in particular,
besides the K. al-Bddiya and the verse writings to
which reference has been made, a rendering in verse
of the Mukhtasar of al- Kh alll and several commentaries
on judicial works.

Bibliography: The only study is that of
Mohamed El Mokhtar Ould Bah, La litterature
juridique et revolution du Malikisme en Mauritanie ,
Tunis 1981, 82-96, 112-13 (list of works) and in¬
dex. (M. M. Ould Bah)

MAMLAKA (a.), which may be considered (LA,
s.v.) either as mafdar or ism al-makan of the root m-l-k
“to hold, possess”, denotes in its first sense ab¬
solute power over things and especially
over beings: to begin with, that of God over crea¬
tion as a whole, and then, that of any individual, in
certain circumstances. In a second sense, the word is
applied to the place either in origin or by applica¬
tion, of the power under consideration: in
the first case, it can refer e.g. to an all-powerful
minister (Dozy, Supplement , s.v.); in another case, it
can denote the spatial entity under the control of the
above-mentioned power—the human one (whence: a
free man who has become a slave, above all, by reason
of war) or the natural one (notably: the middle of a
road). But the most current denotation of the word, in
this latter sense, is that of a piece of territory
under the control of some authority — in the
modern meaning of the term, a kingdom.

Arabic geographical literature provides some in¬
teresting developments of the word. It adopts it, on
one hand, in its plural form mamalik, as it attested by
the titles of several works of the type of geography
called “that concerned with roads and kingdoms”
(Kitdb al-Masdlik wa ’l-mamalik [q. v. ]), made popular
by Ibn Khurradadhbih. But it is the singular form,
mamlaka , which merits attention here. One of the
pioneers of Arab geography, al-Djahiz, distinguishes
in his K. al-Amsdr wa- < -adja' > ib al-buldan between the
mamlakat al- c Arab and the mamlakat al- c Adjam, which
was a classic distinction in the framework of the
Shu c ubiyya controversies. About 70 years later,
around 316-20/928-32, another pioneer of the genre,
representing administrative geography, Kudama b.
Dja c far, want beyond the controversy and reunited
the two mamlakas into a single one, the mamlakat al-
Isldm or, more simply, al-mamlaka. This course of
evolution ended with the geographers of the Balkh!
school, that of the so-called “atlas of Islam” who
devoted themselves to depicting the Islamic world and
that world only. The mamlakat al-Islam from this time
onwards monopolises geographical description in al-
Istakhri, Ibn Hawkal and above all al-Mukaddas!,
who opposes, en bloc, this mamlaka to the whole of the
remainder of the world, calling it, according to the
needs of the context, mamlakat al-Islam , al-mamlaka or
al-Islam. The feeling of unity, based on economic links
and the sense of belonging to the same civilisation,
here transcends the political cleavage inherent in the
existence of two caliphates at Cordova and Cairo,
rivals of the one in Baghdad. But the appearance of
the Turks in the 5th/11 th century en masse, and the
decline of the caliphate were to justify this vision;

314

MAMLAKA — MAMLUK

political divisions were to make this vision disappear,
at a single blow, after the year 1000 A.D., from the
works of the geographers.

Bibliography. Given in A. Miquel, La
geographic humaine du monde musulman jusqu ’au milieu
du XI e siecle , Paris-The Hague 1963 (new ed. 1973)
- 1980, index (see esp. i, 99, ii, 525-8, iii, pp. x-xi).

(A. Miquel)

MAMLUK (a.), literally “thing possessed”, hence
“slave” [for which in general see c abd, kayna and
khadim]. especially used in the sense of military
slave”; for these last in various parts of the Islamic
world, with the exception of those under the Mamluk
sultanate of Egypt and Syria [see next article], see
ghulam. Although for many centuries the basis of
severed Islamic powers, the institution of military
slavery can in many ways best be studied within the
framework of the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and
Syria (648-922/1250-1517) since the latter is so richly
documented in the historical sources, many of them
contemporary to the events which they describe
and containing definitions and descriptions of that
sultanate’s institutions. Although differences of cir¬
cumstances and the need to handle the Mamluk
sources with care (since many of them are partial or
inaccurate or valid only for the author’s own time) call
for caution in making a comparative study, it is never¬
theless true that an examination of Mamluk military
slavery is bound to shed much light on other Islamic
societies in which the institution played a leading role.

Of all the slave societies which should be examined
in connection with that of the Mamluks, it is obvious
that those immediately preceding and following it (in
the Ayyubid period and in Ottoman Egypt) should
have first priority.

1. Countries of origin and racial composition.

We know quite a lot about the racial composition of
the Mamluks of the Mamluk sultanate and their coun¬
tries of origin (called quite often simply al-bildd ; see
e.g. Ibn al-Dawadarl, ix, 71, 11. 12-13). By contrast,
though we know that the greater part of the Ayyubids’
Mamluks were Turkish, we do not know their exact
lands of origin, with the certain exception of al-Malik
al-Salih Nacjjm al-Dm Ayyub’s reign, the direct
precursor of the Mamluk period, and with the pos¬
sible exception of the reigns of one or two of his
Ayyubid contemporaries or immediate predecessors.

The source evidence on the characteristics of the
peoples supplying the Mamluks and on the various
factors which brought about those Mamluks’ sale and
importation into the sultanate, clarifies the reasons for
the creation of a military slave institution and explains
its unparalleled success and durability as the major
military force for its time in the lands of Islam.

A most important description of the Kip£ak steppe
[see dasht-i kipCak in Suppl.] and its people, the
major source of military slaves for the Mamluk
sultanate in the first part of its existence, is that of Ibn
Fatfl Allah al- c UmarI, who based it on the evidence of
persons who visited the Golden Horde (K. Lech, Das
Mongolische Weltreich, Wiesbaden 1968, 68-71 of the
Arabic text, which is an excerpt of the Masdlik al-absdr,
al-KalkashandT, Subh al-a c shd, iv, 456-8). There the
author stresses both the very harsh circumstances
in which the inhabitants of that steppe live, their
primitiveness (including that of their pagan religion),
as well as their military ability, faithfulness and loyal¬
ty (see also al-Dimashki, Nukhbat al-dahr, 264, 11.
4-11, 279, 11. 9-12), a combination of qualities which
made them highly suitable raw fighting material.
The sources attest a unanimous conviction that the

Mamluks of Egypt and Syria had been the decisive
factor in saving Islam both from the Frankish and the
Mongol threats since the battles of al-Man$ura
(647/1249) and c Ayn Djalut (658/1260) [< q.v .] to the
later battles against the Ilkhans of Persia and c Irak
(aI- c Uman, op. cit., 70, 1.7-71, 1.12; $ubh, iv, 458.
See also D. Ayalon, The transfer of the c Abbasid caliphate,
58-9, and n. 1; idem, The European-Asiatic steppe ,
47-52; idem, The Great Yasa , part Cj, 117-130, part
C 2 , 148-56; idem, From Ayyubids to Mamluks). This
unanimous and repeated evidence is crowned by Ibn
Khaldun’s evaluation of the Mamluk phenomenon in
the lands of Islam in general and in the Mamluk
sultanate in paticular ( c Ibar, v, 369-73; Ayalon,
Mamlukiyydt, 340-3). The resultant prestige greatly
helped the Mamluks in overthrowing the Ayyubids,
in firmly establishing their rule, and in thoroughly in¬
corporating in their realm an undivided Syria, as a
region with a status very inferior to that of Egypt.

The factors which led to the sale of slaves by the in¬
habitants of the Kip£ak steppe and their rulers were
the following ones: the general destitution of the
population, which forced it, in certain years, to sell its
children ( c Umari, 70, 11. 2-4; Subh , iv, 458, 1.2; al-
Makrlzl, Suluk, i, 942, 11. 10-12); the need to sell the
children in lieu of taxes to the ruler ( Subh , iv, 476, 11.
11-16); the ruler’s capturing and selling the children
and women of his subjects ( c Umari, 69, 11.6-10; Subh ,
iv, 474, 1.10-475, 1.1). It was not, however, only
under duress and such pressures that those children
were sold. The high sums paid for them constituted an
immense incentive. In the third reign of al-Na§ir
Muhammad b. Kalawtin (1309-40 [ q.v .]), who was
exceptionally lavish in his buying of Mamluks, the
Mongols competed so fiercely with each other in sell¬
ing their boys, girls and relatives to the slave-
merchants, that it marred their internal relations
(Suluk, ii, 525, 11.6-10).

It is true that the Mongol attacks on the Kip^ak
steppe filled the slave markets with Turks from there,
thus facilitating their purchase by the later Ayyubids
and particularly by al-$alih Na^jm al-Dm Ayyub,
and indirectly contributing to the establishment of the
Mamluk state (see e.g. Ayalon, Le regiment Bahriya,
133-4; idem, The Great Yasa, part Cj, 117 ff.). How¬
ever, prisoners of war captured by any kind of exter¬
nal enemy, or even by a Muslim ruler, could not
guarantee the uninterrupted supply of Mamluks,
particularly children below military age, without the
constant co-operation of local elements, whether the
ruler, or the heads of the tribes, or above all, the
parents and relatives of those children. Furthermore,
that co-operation in selling their own flesh and blood
was not confined to the subjugated peoples, but in¬
cluded as well the conquering and subjugating
Mongols, and we are even informed as well that the
subjugated peoples of that region used to steal the
children of their Mongol conquerers and sell them to
the slave-dealers ( c Umari, 72, 11.16-17).

The Islamisation of the Mongol dynasty of the
Golden Horde and many of its constituent peoples
must have contributed, in the long run, to the diminu¬
tion of military manpower for the lands of Islam from
the Kip£ak steppe and especially for the Mamluk
sultanate. In the short run, however, it is quite doubt¬
ful whether the adoption of Islam had a considerable
effect on the slave-trade from that region. For many
years, those who became Muslims retained many of
their old pagan habits, and numerous others re¬
mained pagan ( c Umari, 72, 11.12-19; Subh, iv, 457,
1. 19-458, 1.3). Both sellers and buyers had a very
strong interest in the continuation of the slave-trade,

MAMLUK

315

which meant that new converts to Islam were not
necessarily excluded from becoming Mamluks (ibid.).
For the effects of conversion to Judaism or Christiani¬
ty of nomads of the Eurasian steppe at an earlier
period on their readiness to sell their children, see al-
Istakhri, 223, 11.11-15.

One of the major drawbacks of the Mamluk system,
from which almost all the Muslim states suffered, was
that they had little or no control on their sources of
supply (the outstanding exception being the Ottoman
empire, which recruited most of its kullar from the
Christian peoples living within its boundaries). The
states which were not contiguous to those sources of
supply had an additional major problem, that of being
dependent on favourable factors concerning the routes
leading to the sources in question (be they sea or land-
routes) (see e.g. Ayalon, Aspects of the Mamluk
phenomenon , i, 207-9). The Mamluk sultanate was, in
this respect, completely dependent on foreign factors
both on land and on sea; hence its attempts to diver¬
sify its routes (and very probably its sources) of supply
as far as it could.

The main route was by sea through the Bosphorus
and the Dardanelles, and this was under the complete
command of Byzantium, and later the Ottomans, and
the Franks. In the Byzantine period there is no com¬
plaint in the Mamluk sources about Byzantine in¬
terference with the ordinary flow of slaves to the
Mamluk sultanate, in spite of Byzantium’s am¬
bivalent policy in its relations with the Mongols of the
Golden Horde, the Ilkhans of Persia and c Irak and the
Mamluks. In the correspondence between Michael
Palaeologus and Kalawun in 680/1281 concerning the
conclusion of a pact between the two states, the slave
traffic figures quite prominently. The emperor pro¬
mises, inter alia , safe passage of Mamluks and slave
girls, on the condition that there will be no Christians
among them, but demands the release of all the Chris¬
tian Mamluks already in the sultanate to Byzantium.
The sultan agrees, in his answer, to most of the
emperor’s suggestions, and stresses the importance of
granting safe conduct to the merchants coming from
$udak and the Kfpcak steppe, but completely ignores
the emperor’s demand about the Christian Mamluks
(Ibn al-Furat, vii, 229, 1.20-230, 1.16, 232, 11.15-22,
233, 11.3-6).

Even more important was the attitude of the Ot¬
toman empire, now in the ascendant. With the
deterioration of Mamluk-Ottoman relations from the
beginning of Kayitbay’s reign onwards, the Ottomans
had an excellent means of weakening the Mamluks by
cutting off the supply of military manpower to them,
and they do seem to have used that weapon to some
extent. In 895/1490, when the Ottomans wanted to
conclude peace with the Mamluks, one of Kayitbay’s
two major stipulations was the release of the mer¬
chants of Mamluk slaves (Ibn Iyas, iii, 267). In
922/1516, on the eve of the destruction of Mamluk
sultanate’s independence, Sultan Selim writes to
Sultan Kansawh al-Qhawri a conciliatory letter in
which he states that al-Ghawri’s claim that the
Ottomans prevent the slave merchants from coming
to his empire is wrong; those merchants avoided
bringing Mamluks to the Mamluk sultanate because
of its debased currency (Ibn Iyas, v, 43, 11.17-17).
Considering the sizes of the Mamluk regiments of
Kayitbay and Kansawh al-Ghawrl, it would appear
that the Ottoman embargo, as far as it existed, was
not very thorough.

There were two additional land routes. One ran
through Eastern Anatolia, about which we do not
know much, but which seems to have been quite im¬

portant. In using this route, the Mamluks had to sur¬
mount two formidable obstacles: their enemies, the
Ilkhanid Mongols, and the Mongols’ staunch allies,
the Christians of Little Armenia (Bildd Sis). The at¬
titude of the Mongols is unknown (for a single excep¬
tion, see below), but that of the rulers of Little
Armenia, as well as the importance of the route, is
revealed in the truce ( hudna) concluded between
Kalawun and King Leon III in RabI* II 684/June
1285, which included the following stipulation; the
merchants bringing Mamluks and slave-girls to the
Mamluk sultanate will be permitted to pass through
King Leon’s territory without hindrance, and those of
them already stopped or imprisoned will be freed and
allowed to pursue their journey (Ibn c Abd al-Zahir,
Tashrif al-ayydm wa 7 - c usur, Cairo 1960, 99,
11.7-11,15, and especially 100, 1.19-101, 1.1). In all
probability, Sultan Baybars I, who had been bought
together with others in Slwas, arrived in the Mamluk
realm by this Eastern Anatolian route.

The other land route seems to have been through
the very heart of the Ilkhanid empire, and the slave-
trade here apparently centred round a great mer¬
chant, named Madjd al-Din Isma c H al-Sallaml (or al-
Madjd al-Sallami), a native of that empire, who was
born in the vicinity of Mawsil, described as al-Nasir
Muhammad b. Kalawun’s “slave-dealer of the Privy
Purse’’ (tadjir al-khassfi 'l-rakik) and very influential at
the Ilkhanid court. He is said to have been the main
instrument in the conclusion of a peace treaty between
the Mamluks and the Mongols (723/1323), but even
before that date, he used to go repeatedly to Tabriz
and other places in the Ilkhanid realm and bring
slaves from there. One of the stipulations of the
Mamluk sultan in that treaty was the free purchase of
Mamluks in the Ilkhanid dominions ( Esclavage , 3; al-
$afadl, al-Wafi bi *l-wafaydt , ix, Wiesbaden 1974, 220,
1.9-221, 1.6; Ibn al-Dawadari, Kanz al-durar , ix, 312,
1.16-313, 1.10; al-MakrizI, Suluk, ii, index, p.
1020b), and it is thus very probable that the flow of
Mamluks through Ilkhanid territory increased as a
result of the treaty. It is true that Dimurdash b.
Djuban, the Ilkhanid governor of Anatolia (Bildd
al-Rum ), prohibited, after 1323, the dispatch of
Mamluks to Egypt from or through that area (suluk,
ii, 293, 11.1-8), but the attitude of that highly con¬
troversial ruler, for which he paid with his life, should
be considered as exceptional. How the slave trade
from the Ilkhanid empire went on after its disintegra¬
tion in 736/1336 is unknown.

In the third reign of al-Nasir Muhammad b.
Kalawun, the purchase of Mamluks reached,
perhaps, its peak. He is said to have imported
Mamluks and slave girls from “the Golden Horde
(Bildd Uzbak ), Anatolia (al-Rum), Tabriz and Ba g hdad
and other countries’’ (Suluk, ii, 524, 11.13-15); clear¬
ly, at this time all the three main routes connecting his
realm with the Mamluks’ countries of origin were in
use.

In summing up the problem of the routes through
which military manpower was supplied to the
Mamluk sultanate, it can be said that interference
with the flow of slaves into it, be it by Byzantines, Ot¬
tomans, rulers of Little Armenia, Ilkhanid Mongols
or Christian Europeans, never seriously affected the
military strength of that sultanate; only an effective
embargo on this item alone might have broken that
strength.

One of the major events in the history of the
Mamluk sultanate, which transformed the racial com¬
position of its military aristocracy, was the supplant¬
ing of the Kipcak Turks by the Circassians. The

316

MAMLUK

Mamluk sources attribute that transformation solely
to interna] causes (Ayalon, Circassians, 135-6). There
are, however, good reasons to suggest that the situa¬
tion in the Mamluks’ countries of origin had some
share in bringing about that result. There is a con¬
siderable amount of evidence about the comparatively
flourishing situation and the dense population of the
Kfp£ak steppe in ca. 1200-1350 (ibid. , 136, and n. 2),
although the process of its decline seems to have
started with the Mongol occupation (al- c Uman, 71,
11.15-18). Ibn c Arab§hah gives quite a detailed des¬
cription of how it had been devastated and de¬
populated by internal wars and the attack of Timur
(Akhbdr Timur , 113, 1.5-115, 1.4, 122, 1.2, 126,
1.2-127, 1.4; see also A. N. Poliak, in REI [1935],
241-2; idem, in BSOS , x, 864-7). The very fact that the
area had been a major source for the supply of
Mamluks must have contributed considerably to its
depopulation and perhaps even to the military
devaluation of its human material, since the slave traf¬
fic was confined mainly to a particular section of a
special age group, namely, the cream of adolescent
boys and girls who still had all the reproductive years
ahead of them, and this must have adversely affected
the future generations in the steppe. Although the
number of the Royal Mamluks ( al-mamdltk al-
sultdniyya ) was not very great, it should be re¬
membered that many of the commanders, both in
Egypt and in Syria, had their own Mamluks, and that
the owning of white slaves existed in sections of society
well beyond the military aristocracy. Furthermore,
the Kip£ak steppe supplied slaves to countries outside
the Mamluk sultanate as well. Finally, the rate of
mortality among those Mamluks in the countries
to which they had been imported was very high,
especially in times of epidemics, necessitating the
more or less constant need for the replenishment of
their thinning ranks. The long-range effects of the
islamisation of the peoples of the Kip£ak steppe have
already been mentioned.

Before enumerating the races of the Mamluks, the
term Turk must be discussed. It had two meanings;
one very wide, the other much narrower. We shall
start with the wider meaning, leaving the other to the
enumeration of the races. Turk or Atrdk in the wide
sense embraced all the Mamluk races, and was prac¬
tically synonymous with Mamluks. The Mamluk
sultanate was called Dawlat al-Turk or Dawlat al-Atrdk
or al-Dawla al-Turkiyya. The commonest designation
of the Mamluk sultans was Muluk al-Turk. But where¬
as the sultans of the Kip£ak period had only this
designation, each of the sultans of the Circassian
period had a double designation; thus Sultan
Djakmak was the thirty-fourth of “ Muluk al-Turk and
their sons” and the tenth of the ** Diardkisa and their
sons”; and so on.

To compile a list of the various races represented in
Mamluk military society is quite easy. But to evaluate
the respective weight of the various racial groups, with
the exception of the two major ones (the Turk and the
Dja rkas) is very difficult. This is because it is quite rare
that the sources refer to the racial affiliation of in¬
dividual Mamluks, who were usually given Turkish
names, irrespective of their racial origin; moreover,
the mention of racial groups taking an active part in
a certain event or struggle (again with the exception
of the two main races) is even much rarer (some lists
of Mamluk racial groups do however exist). This is in
glaring contrast to the extremely rich and varied data
furnished by those sources about the groups (tawd^if,
sing, ta^ifa) based on slave and patron relations, like
the Zahiriyya of Baybars, Mansuriyya of Kalawun,

Nasiriyya of Faradj, Aghrafiyya of Kayitlpay, etc.
Therefore, our picture of these groups and their rela¬
tions (on whom see below) is far clearer than that of
the racial groups (< adjnds, sing, djins). The racial strug¬
gle comes into prominence mainly in connection with
the Circassians and from a comparatively early date
in the Turkish-Kip£ak period, reaching its peak in the
closing decades of the 8th/14th century. After the al¬
most total victory of the Circassians, it is brushed
aside, with the exception of some flickers of an¬
tagonism on the part of other races, and of repeated
expressions of haughtiness towards and discrimina¬
tion against those races on the part of the Circassians.

In Ottoman Egypt, the racial factor is even more
subdued than the Mamluk one. Furthermore, at least
as far as the chronicle of al-Djabarti [q.v. ] is con¬
cerned, practically the only data we possess about the
racial composition of the military aristocracy are that
source’s mentioning of the racial affiliation of a cer¬
tain number of individual Mamluks.

From the data in the sources of the Mamluk period
(including the lists of races), the following general list
can be reconstructed: Turk (or Atrak ), Kijdjdk, Tatar,
Mughul (or Mughul), Khitd\vya. Rus, Rum, Arman, Af,
Abaza, Laz and Dj arkas.

By far the two dominant races were the Turk and
the Djarkas. if the whole Mamluk period is considered.
The Djarkas seem to have constituted an important
element already in the Burjjiyya [q.v. ] regiment
created by Kalawun, and are the only ones mentioned
as repeatedly challenging the supremacy of the Turk.
The Kijdjdk are rarely referred to in the above-
mentioned data and lists, and are an obvious
synonym of Turk. The case of the Mughul and the
Tatar is more complicated. The Mughul , who are
mentioned only in the KipCak period, seem to have
been distinct from the Turk, although perhaps with a
certain degree of overlapping. The Tatar, on the other
hand, especially under the Circassians, were very
often synonymous with Turk. This can be proved in
two ways: (a) Turk and Tatar are never mentioned
together in the same list, or in connection with the
same event; and (b) a good number of individual
Mamluks in the Circassian period are said to have
been Turki al-djins on one occasion and Tatari al-djins
on another. The reason for that alternation is obvious.
The more the Tatars advanced in the steppe, the
greater was the Turkish element which they sub¬
jugated and incorporated in their armies; and since
the Turks were much more numerous, it was they
who absorbed their conquerors. Already Ibn Fa<^l
Allah al- c Umar! says that the Tatars were completely
assimilated by the Kipcakls and lost their own identity
(op. cit., 73, 11. 17-20).’

The Rum were third in importance. There is no suf¬
ficient information for establishing the relative impor¬
tance of the other racial groups. The Rus are never
mentioned as a racial group outside the lists, and there
are hardly any individual Mamluks who are said to
have belonged to that race (the best-know individual
is Baybugha Rus, or Urus or Urus).

The Franks (Farandj, Ifrandj) are never mentioned
in the Mamluk sources as a racial group. There are,
however, a fair number of Mamluks who are said to
have been of Frankish origin; and since the Mamluks,
as already stated, did not preserve their original in¬
fidel names—especially if they had not been Turks—
and since the origin of many of them is not men¬
tioned, the number of the Franks amongst them might
well have been considerably higher. Yet the sources’
absolute silence about the Franks as a separate body
does not support the claim of some mediaeval Euro-

MAMLUK

317

pean writers about the very great proportion of
Franks in the Mamluk army. One should, however,
take into consideration the possibility that there might
have been a certain degree of overlapping between
Farana and Rum.

There were some Muslim-bom people, even from
within the boundaries of the Mamluk sultanate, or
from the neighbouring countries (particularly the
areas inhabited by the Turcomans), or from regions
lying further away, who managed to join the Mamluk
military aristocracy either by fraudulent means (such
as an arrangement with the slave dealer), or because
they were taken prisoners and found the status of a
Mamluk too good to give up by admitting that they
were in reality Muslims. Some of these whose bluff
had been called were ousted from the military
aristocracy, deprived of their Mamluk names and
forced to bear again their original names. These
Muslim-born Mamluks constituted, however, only a
very marginal element in Mamluk society. A few of
the Turcomans who became Mamluks were called
Rumis as well.

2. The arrival and early training of the Mamluk

The crucial stage in the Mamluk’s career, from his
leaving his country of origin, through his education
and upbringing, and up to his manumission, can be
reconstructed fairly well in the Mamluk sultanate,
despite numerous gaps which affect the sureness of the
general picture; even so, this picture is far superior to
what we know at present about the parallel careers of
military slaves in the rest of the mediaeval Muslim
world, including the Ottoman empire, up to the be¬
ginning of the 10th/16th century.

In the life story of each Mamluk, his slave mer¬
chant, and especially the one who brought him over
from his country of origin, Figured most prominently.
He was his First patron and protector from the hard¬
ships and dangers during the long voyage to his adopt¬
ing country. He also served as the most usual link
between him and his original homeland, so that
Mamluk was usually bound with strong ties of affec¬
tion and veneration to that merchant. All of those
merchants were Muslim civilians from outside the
Mamluk sultanate, and some of them became very in¬
fluential in that sultanate. They should not be con¬
fused with the ‘‘merchant of the Mamluks” {tadjir al-
mamalik , or fully, tadfir al-mamalik al-sultdniyya ), who
was generally a low-ranking Mamluk amir {amir of
ten) and whose function was to supervise the com¬
merce of the Mamluks; this personage usually stayed
within the boundaries of the sultanate.

While we know very little about the slave-market
and its functioning, we know much more about how
the sultans bought their Mamluks; they in fact usually
bought them from the Bayt al-Mal [q. v. ] or treasury.
Those of them who had not yet been manumitted
before the death or dismissal of the reigning sultan
were returned to the Bayt al-Mal and bought from
there by the new sultan.

The sultan’s Mamluks were brought up in a
military school situated in the barracks {tibak, atbak ,
sing, tabaka ) of the Cairo citadel, of which there were
12. It would appear that each of those barracks had a
special (probably separate and secluded) section
assigned to the Mamluk novices (kuttabiyya, or
possibly kitabiyya, sing, kuttabi or kitabi), since (a) after
having finished their period of training, and as long as
they had not been driven out of the citadel, the
Mamluks continued to stay in those barracks and
belong to them, bearing their respective names; and
(b) the barracks accommodated far bigger numbers of

Mamluks than the number of novices staying there at
any given moment.

The education of the novice was divided into two
main parts: First, the study of the elements of Islam
and afterwards the military training ( anwa c (or funun)
al-harb (or al-furusiyya )). The First part was most essen¬
tial; for, in spite of its unavoidable elementary charac¬
ter, it inculcated in him the conviction that he had
been led in the right path from the darkness of
heathendom to the light of Islam (see also Baybars al-
Mansuri, Zubdat al-fikra, B.L. ms. no. 23325, fol. 51b,
11.5-16). This kind of gratitude of the Mamluk, even
if later in his career he did not lead a very strict
religious life, was at least as important as his other
kinds of gratitude to the Muslim environment in
general, and to his patron in particular, for raising
him from poverty to richness and from anonymity to
fame and high position. As al-MakrlzI aptly puts it in
his well-known passage on the Mamluk’s upbringing,
the combination of his identiFication with his new
religion, and a great proFiciency in the art of war
(more precisely, in horsemanship) were the targets of
the Mamluk’s education. “[Until] the gloriFication of
Islam and its people had been merged in his heart,
and he became strong in archery, in handling the
lance and in riding the horse” ( Khitat . ii, 214, 11.1-2).
Curtailing the religious education, or dropping it
altogether, because of the need or desire to shorten the
period of apprenticeship, was always a symptom of
decline in the Mamluk sultanate or elsewhere.

3. The role of the eunuchs

The overwhelming dominant element in the per¬
sonnel of the military school was that of the eunuchs
[see khasI], who took part in the upbringing of the
novices (even in the religious field, in addition to the
theologians), as well as in keeping very strict
discipline among them. A major reason for manning
the school with eunuchs was to use them as a buffer
between the young and adult Mamluks to prevent
pederasty [see liwat]. A novice proved to have been
the object of sodomy could be sentenced to death
{Khitat, ii, 214, 11.6-8).

The eunuchs in the military school formed a kind
of a pyramid, at the basis of which were the simple
eunuchs called khuddam (or tawashiyat) al-tibak. At the
head of each barracks was a eunuch called mukaddam
al-tabaka , and all the barracks were commanded by a
eunuch who was called mukaddam al-mamalik al-
sultaniyya and who had a deputy (na^ib), also a eunuch.

There does not seem to have been a separation be¬
tween eunuchs serving in the school and in other
military or administrative capacity and those of them
serving in the harem or in religious institutions. It
would appear, however, that they did not usually per¬
form those different functions simultaneously.

The eunuchs as a body were extremely strong and
influential under the Mamluk sultans. It is difficult to
compare their power with that of the eunuchs in other
Muslim mediaeval states, because the eunuch hierar¬
chy of those other states cannot be reconstructed to the
same degree. What is certain, however, is that in¬
dividual eunuchs in the Mamluk sultanate could not
rise to the highest ranks or be as powerful as those in
other Muslim states, including under the Ayyubids
and in the very early decades of the Mamluk sul¬
tanate; neither could they be commanders in the field
of battle, as happened so often in earlier Muslim
states. The highest rank that a eunuch could reach
under the Mamluks was the middle one, namely, amir
of forty, and even to this rank only one single eunuch
could be appointed, the Mukaddam al-Mamalik al-

318

MAMLUK

Sulfaniyya. Only in the chaotic conditions prevailing in
the years immediately following al-Na§ir Muhammad
b. Kalawun’s third reign, to a very great extent as a
result of that reign, the eunuchs, together with the
women and slave-girls of the court, accumulated un¬
precedented power. This kind of power could not
have lasted for long, for in addition to its running
counter to the basic concepts of Muslim society, it
would have destroyed the very foundations of
Mamluk aristocracy. Other evils originating from that
reign (usually believed to be good and great, with only
partial justification) lasted much longer (see below).

The eunuchs in the Mamluk sultanate belonged
mainly to four races, the Rum, Habash, Hind and
Takrur , the two first-named being the predominant
races. Thus only one race, the Rum , was common to
them and to the Mamluks. Like the Mamluks, each
one of them was considered to be Ibn c Abd Allah (thus
shrouding his infidel past in obscurity). Unlike them,
however, they bore a special kind of Muslim names,
representing the pleasant and beautiful (gems, per¬
fumes, etc.; see lakab). Only a few of them bore
Turkish names.

With all the differences between them and the
Mamluks, the eunuchs of the court formed a very
essential part of the aristocracy, and without them,
the early stage of the Mamluk’s career, which affected
so decisively his subsequent one, would have been
fundamentally different.

4. Completion of training and manumission

There is no evidence indicating the average length
of the period which the novice had to stay in the
military school. There is, however, much proof to
show that, on the whole, that period was considerably
shortened in the later period, a curtailment which
adversely affected the proficiency of the Mamluk
soldier. Each single Mamluk attending the school was
manumitted on finishing his period of apprenticeship.
The ceremony was a communal one, carried out in
the presence of the sultan in a passsing-out parade
called khardj., in which 150 to 500 “graduates” took
part. Each one of them received a manumission cer¬
tificate, called Htaka, which attested, at the same time,
his being a fully-fledged soldier.

The amirs did not have at their disposal facilities
even remotely similar to those of the sultan for up¬
bringing and training their Mamluks, a fact which
was reflected in their comparative military inferiority.
There are, however, certain indications that the
Mamluks of the great amirs were brought up accord¬
ing to principles resembling those which were applied
in the case of the sultan’s Mamluks (see e.g. Zubdat al-
fikra , fols. 51b, 11.5-16, 99b, 11.13-100a, 1.4).

The Mamluks, on their manumission, were simple
soldiers. Thus they were given an equal start. How¬
ever, they had a real chance to rise to the highest ranks
only if they had been manumitted by a sultan and not
merely by an amir, and this chance was greatly im¬
proved if the Mamluk was included in the sultan’s
personal guard ( al-khassakiyya [ 9 . 0 .]). There was no
school for training officers; these rose from the rank of
simple soldier without having to undergo a special
kind of training.

In a most illuminating passage, where al-MakrfzI
contrasts the attitude of al-Nasir Muhammad b.
Kalawun to his Mamluks with that of the sultans who
preceded him, the correct principles for creating a
healthy and successful Mamluk military body, as
against the wrong ones, come to the fore: The earlier
sultans, besides giving the Mamluk the proper up¬
bringing (already described earlier), used to dress him

in comparatively simple costumes, raise his salary
gradually and promote him slowly in rank and posi¬
tion. A Mamluk thus treated, when reaching the top,
will know how valuable is his new status, acquired
with such efforts, and will be able to make the right
comparison between his previous wretchedness
(shaka 7 ) and his present well-being (naHm) (Suliik, ii,
524 1.3-525 1.15).

5. The Mamluk and his patron

The period of the Mamluk’s slavery, terminated by
his manumission, did not only affect his career (i.e.
his chances of rising in the socio-military ladder), but
also determined for life his close affiliations. He was
bound by loyalty, on the one hand, to his manu¬
mitting patron ( muHik, ustadh), and, on the other, to
his colleagues in servitude and manumission
(khushddshiyya). The intensity of the Mamluks’ feelings
of loyalty to their patron is revealed in those cases
when things did not work according to plan. It hap¬
pened that a patron-sultan died or was dismissed
shortly before the date fixed for the manumission of a
certain group of his Mamluks. This group refused
sometimes to be manumitted by their new patron-
sultan in spite of the fact that by doing so they prac¬
tically dealt a death blow to their chances of becom¬
ing part of the uppermost stratum of the military
aristocracy. The patron and his freedmen developed
relations very similar to those of a family. He was con¬
sidered to be their father ( walid ), and they his sons
(awlad, sing, walad), and the freedmen amongst
themselves were regarded as brothers (ikhwa, sing.
akh), with special relations between senior and junior
brothers ( aghawat , sing, agha, and iniyyat, sing. ini).

The ties binding the patron to his own freedmen
and the same freedmen to each other constituted the
pivot upon which Mamluk internal relations hinged.
These ties continued to be binding after the dismissal
or death of the patron. That cohesive factor, most for¬
midable in itself, was supplemented and strengthened
by a rejective one: a freedman of patron A, who had
been transferred to the service of patron B, would
never be accepted by him and his own freedmen on an
equal footing. He would always be considered as a
stranger {gharib, a^nabi). A Mamluk “family” or
group or faction (fd^ifa, pi. tawaHf) kept outsiders
serving their patron at arm’s length. Such a faction,
if and when separated from its patron, could either be
broken by killing its members, putting them in prison,
sending them into exile and transferring them to the
service of other patrons, under whom they were given
an inferior status, or else remain intact and carry on
until the death of the last of its members. In the
Mamluk sultanate, a new sultan quite often broke up
part of his immediate predecessor’s freedmen and let
the other part stay on until it petered out after several
decades. Under the Circassians, where the attempts to
create a dynasty failed constantly, and sultans fol¬
lowed each other in quick succession, numerous fac¬
tions, owing allegiance to different sultans, existed
simultaneously. Many combinations of short-lived
coalitions between those factions were constantly for¬
ming and dissolving. A very instructive case in point
is Ibn Taghribirdi’s account of the change in sultan
Khushkadam’s position from almost complete
shakiness to comparative stability as a result of the
varying attitudes of the Mamluks of the sultans
who preceded him, both in their relations among
themselves and with the Mamluks of the reigning
sultan, al-Zahiriyya Khushkadam. The Mamluks of
the sultans who preceded Khushkadam were, in the
order of their seniority, al-Mu 5 ayyadiyya Shavkh. al-

MAMLUK

319

Ashrafiyya Barsbay, al-Zahiriyya Djakmak and al-
Ashraflyya Aynal (Hawddith al-duhur , 442, 1.7-444,
1.10, 550, 11.4-9). They formed ephemeral coalitions
which changed kaleidoscopically.

The particular ties existing between the patron and
his slave soldiers go back to the very beginning of
military slave society in Islam and always constituted
one of that society’s mainstays. However, they
clashed quite often with interests wider than those of
the specific ruler and his military slaves, thus con¬
stituting a source of weakness as well. Yet on balance,
they had, from a Muslim point of view, a positive
value. The great drawback of the whole system was
that it had outlived its purpose; it could not cope pro¬
perly with the progress of technology and with the
unavoidable military changes which it brought about,
as was so decisively demonstrated in the annihilation
of the Mamluk army and empire by the Ottomans
[see barud. iii. The Mamluks]. In Ottoman Egypt,
the antiquated character of the art of war as practised
by the Mamluks was only accentuated. At the same
time, the internal dissensions within Mamluk society
were greatly intensified, through a strange merging of
hereditary and one-generation nobilities in that socie¬
ty. Hence Mamluk “houses” ( buyut , sing, bayt ) did
not peter out as they did in the Mamluk sultanate, but
went on living indeflnity as long as they were not
crushed by a factor external to the specific “house”.
The longer they lived, the more deep-rooted and
vehement became their mutual hatreds. The incidents
necessitating the taking of blood revenge (al-a khdh bi
7 -tha^r) grew in number, ultimately leading to the
unflinching determination of annihilating physically
(kaf, izdla) the rival “house”. When the Fikariyya
wiped out the Kasimiyya in 1142/1729, the causes
which brought about the inevitably uncompromising
struggles within the Mamluk society were not re¬
moved; the “houses” which grew out of the Fikariyya
continued their fights according to the old pattern.

6. Mamluk society

Mamluk society in the sultanate was a very ex¬
clusive one. In order to become a member of it, one
had to fulfill very definite requirements. One had to
be fair-skinned; to be (in most cases) an inhabitant of
the area stretching to the north and to the north-east
of the lands of Islam; to be born an infidel; to be
brought into the Mamluk sultanate as a child or
young boy (preferably at the age of puberty); and to
be bought, brought up and manumitted by a pa¬
tron who was a member of the military aristocracy
(preferably a Mamluk as well, and most preferably
the sultan himself). The chances of a Mamluk who
had been bought and manumitted by a civilian of
joining the aristocracy, and particularly of rising high
within it, were very meagre indeed.

What greatly helped in making the Mamluks such
an easily distinguishable, distinct and exclusive caste
was a practice which started long before the creation
of the Mamluk sultanate, namely, that all of them,
with but a few exceptions, bore Turkish names, ir¬
respective of their origin. This was also the case of the
Circassians when they came to constitute the major
factor in the military aristocracy. The fact that most
of the Mamluks’ sons (awlad al-nas [ q. v. ]) bore Muslim
names greatly helped in their smooth ousting from
that aristocracy, thus facilitating its preservation as a
one-generation aristocracy. In Ottoman Egypt, the
adoption of Muslim names by the overwhelming ma¬
jority of the Mamluks was an important factor in the
creation of a society in which hereditary and one-
generation nobilities merged into one.

Another important aspect of the exclusiveness of
that society was that its members married mainly
slave-girls from their own countries of origin or
daughters of Mamluks. Most of their concubines were
also from the same region, although black girls were
by no means excluded from that category. Marriages
between Mamluk amirs and local girls (mainly the
daughters of high-ranking officials, great merchants
or distinguished c ulamd ;y ) were quite rare. This meant
that the number of slave-girls imported from the areas
which served as the source for military slaves was at
least as great as the number of Mamluks. Marriages
between the sons of the Mamluks and local girls were
much more numerous, and this represents one facet of
the assimilation of the Mamluks’ offspring in the local
population.

The Mamluks were also distinguished by their
dress, which was considered to be much more respect¬
able than that of any other class. This distinction goes
back to the Mamluk regiment of the c Abbasid caliph
al-Mu c ta§im (al-Mas c udI, Murud$_ al-dhahab, vii, 118
= § 2801).

The owning of Mamluks was the prerogative of the
Mamluks (although cases of Mamluks owned by
civilians were quite frequent), as was the riding of
horses. Orders prohibiting civilians from buying
Mamluks were rarer than those forbidding them to
ride horses (some of the highest civilian officials were
explicitly exempted from the riding prohibition).

The language which the Mamluks used pre¬
dominantly among themselves was Turkish. The
knowledge of Arabic of most of them seems to have
been very superficial, although a more systematic
study of this question may change that impression to
a certain extent. Their Islamic awareness, however,
was very strong. It was expressed, inter alia , in the
numerous religious institutions which they built. This
activity had also its material aspect, as stated by Ibn
Khaldun: in order to assure the future of the
Mamluks’ descendants, who could not join the
military upper class, they appointed them as ad¬
ministrators or superintendents of the wakfs assigned
to those institutions for their maintenance (al-Ta c rif bi-
Ibn Khaldun. 279).

The main body of the Mamluk sultanate’s army,
namely, all the Royal Mamluks ( al-mamdlik al-
sultdniyya )—who formed the backbone of the
Sultanate—and most of the armies of the first-ranking
amirs were stationed in Cairo. It was very difficult to
make any part of the Royal Mamluks serve as a gar¬
rison anywhere outside the capital. Units of the corps
which were forced to stay in Syria, for example, soon
declined in power and importance, and some minor
exceptions to this rule do not affect the general pic¬
ture. Considering the comparatively limited number
of the Mamluks, keeping their elite element together
must have been the only way of preserving its military
might. This, in its turn, considerably increased the
already great preponderance of the capital vis-a-vis
the rest of the realm. Nothing could move the Royal
Mamluks, of their own choice, from Cairo, not even
epidemics, which wrought havoc among them.

This concentration in the capital had its grave
drawbacks. Any serious revolt of the Bedouins or Tur¬
comans anywhere in the realm could not be quelled
without the participation of the Royal Mamluks, who
were often stationed far away from the scene of the
revolt. Worse still, all the major wars of the Mamluk
sultanate took place in its northern part or beyond it,
a great distance from the main centre of military
might, and this became critical in the closing decades
of Mamluk rule, when the Mamluks had to cope with

320

MAMLUK

the Turcomans beyond their borders, who lived con¬
tiguously to the Turcomans of their own realm, and
who were supported by the ominously growing power
of the Ottoman empire.

7. Mamluks in other Islamic states

The Mamluk sultanate served as an example to
other Muslim states, including in the reliance on
Mamluk soldiers, many of whom were acquired in
Egypt. For the ruler of Yanbu c , see Ibn al-Furat, ix,
43, 11.6-9; for the ruler of Mecca, see Daw^ al-fubh,
332; Ibn Iyas, iv, p. 456, 11.10-12; Nu<ljum , ed. Pop¬
per, vi, 117, 11. 18-23; Ibn al-Furat, ix, 208,
11.12-15, 308, 11. 7-20; for the ruler of Yemen, see
Subh, v, 35, 11. 15-17; Nudjum, v, 81, 11.1-2; for the
ruler of Bidjaya, see Subh, v, 137, 1.9; and for the
sultan of Takrur, see Subh, v, 300, 11.7-9.

In 869/1464-5 the army of the ruler of Shlrwan and
the adjacent areas, whose capital was Shamakhl. was
estimated at 20,000 combat soldiers ( mukatila), of
whom 1,000 were Circassian Mamluks (Hawadith al-
duhur, 579, 1.16-580, 1.13). This does not necessarily
imply direct influence from the Mamluk sultanate,
but what it certainly reflects is the great competition
from other Muslim states which that sultanate had to
face in drawing manpower from the same sources,
and especially from states situated much nearer to
those sources.

The character, structure and development of
military slavery in the Mamluk sultanate can be more
properly understood if it is studied in connection with
its Ayyubid predecessor. The Kurdishness of the
Ayyubid regime and its army has been greatly exag¬
gerated. The Turkish, and even more so the Turkish
Mamluk element in its armed forces was the domi¬
nant one throughout its history, as was only natural
for a dynasty whose founders came from the ranks
of the Zangid army. Shirkuh’s private army, the
Asadiyya, who numbered 500, and who were, most
probably, the main factor which enabled $alah al-Din
to succeed his uncle, were—contrary to what students
of the Ayyubids have written about them—a pure
Mamluk unit (see e.g. Abu Sham a. i, 173, 1.1-2; al-
MakrizI, IttF'az al-hunafa 5 , iii, 308, 11. 9-10), as were
the other private armies of the Ayyubid sultans, like
the Kamiliyya of Muhammad, the Ashrafiyya of
Musa, the Nasriyya of Yusuf, etc.

The reign of al-Malik al-$alih Nadjm al-Din
Ayyub, the founder of the Bahriyya regiment which
toppled the Ayyubids and established the Mamluk
sultanate, strengthened the Ayyubid impact on that
sultanate. That sultan was venerated by his Bahriyya,
who looked upon him as the example which should be
followed. It was very rare that a ruler belonging to a
deposed dynasty should leave such an impress on its
deposers; it took the Bahriyya quite a long time to
disconnect themselves from the direct heritage of their
patron, and from their general Ayyubid heritage they
disconnected themselves only partly.

Mamluk military slavery certainly shows an evolu¬
tion in comparison with its Ayyubid prototype, but
the changes were quite slow and each of them has to
be traced and identified separately.

Bibliography. That given here is restricted to
studies dealing in some detail with Mamluk
military slavery and with a few related subjects dis¬
cussed above; works based on European sources are
only perfunctorily mentioned.

G. Wiet, L Egypte arabe ... 642-151 7, in Histoire de
la nation egyptienne , iv, Paris 1937, 387-636 (esp.
387-92); M. M. Ziada, The Mamluk sultans, in Set-
ton and Baldwin, eds., History of the Crusades, ii,

Philadelphia 1962, 735-58; iii, 1975, 486-512,
passim; S. C A. c Ashur, Mifr fi c asr dawlat al-Mamdlik
al-Bahriyya, Cairo 1959; I. C A. Tarkhan. Mifr fi c ajr
dawlat al-Mamdlik al- Dja rdkisa. Cairo 1960; C A. M.
Madjid, Dawlat al-saldtin al-mamdlik wa-rusumuhum fi
Misr, Cairo 1964; E. Quatremere, Histoire des
Sultans Mamlouks de l’Egypte, Paris 1837-42 (the
notes on Mamluk terms are still very useful; see in¬
dices); M. Van Berchem, CIA, Egypte, Paris
1894-1929 (many relevant terms, indices); W.
Bjorkman, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Staatskanzlei im
islamischen Agypten, Hamburg 1928 (much relevant
terminology, index); M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes,
La Syried Tepoque desMamelouks, Paris 1923, esp. pp.
XIX-CXIX; W. Popper, Egypt and Syria under the
Circassian Sultans, Berkeley 1955; M. Mostafa,
Beitrdge zur Geschichte Agyptens zur Zeit der tiirkischen
Eroberung, in ZDMG, lxxxix (1935), 194-224, esp.
208-24; J. Sauvaget, La poste aux chevaux dans Tem¬
pire des Mamelouks, Paris 1941; idem, La chronique de
Damas d’al-Jazari , Paris 1949 (terms in the index);
idem, Noms el sumoms de Mamelouks, in JA, ccxxxviii
(1950), 31-58; A. N. Poliak, Le caractere colonial de
Tetat mamelouk dans ses rapports avec la Horde d’Or, in
REI, ix (1935), 231-48; idem, The influence of
Chingiz-Khdn } s Ydsa upon the general organization of the
Mamlouk state, in BSOS, x (1940-2), 862-76; idem,
Some notes on the feudal system of the Mamluks, in JRAS
(1937), 97-107; idem, Feudalism in Egypt, Syria,
Palestine and Lebanon (1250-1900), London 1939;
S. B. Pevzner, art. in Russian on the ikfa c analysed
by M. Canard in Arabica, vi-vii (1960-1); L. A.
Semenova, Salakh al-Din i Mamluku v Egipte,
Moscow 1966; M.C.S. Tekindag, Berkuk devrinde
Mamluk sultanligi ; Istanbul 1961, 151-7 et passim;
A. Darrag, L’Egypte sous le regime de Barsbay
825-841/1422-1438 , Damascus 1961, 33-55; P. M.
Holt, The sultanate of al-Manfur Ldchin (696-8/1296-
9), in BSOAS, xxxvi (1973), 521-32; idem, The posi¬
tion and power of the Mamluk sultan, in BSOAS, xxxviii
(1975), 237-49; I. Lapidus, Muslim cities in the later
Middle Ages, Cambridge, Mass. 1967, index, 301;
H. M. Rabie, The financial system of Egypt
564-741/1169-1341, Oxford 1972 (numerous rele¬
vant terms, index); idem, The training of the Mamluk
Faris , in War, technology and society in the Middle East,
London 1975, 153-63; R. S. Humphreys, The
emergence of the Mamluk army, in SI, xlv (1977),
67-99, xlvi (1977), 147-82; idem, From Saladin to the
Mongols, Albany 1957, passim; B. Flemming,
Literary activities in Mamluk halls and barracks, in
Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem 1977;
249-60, and the studies quoted there; U. Haar-
mann, Altun (Ian and Cingiz (fan bei den agyptischen
Mamluken , in Isl. , li (1974), 1-36; D. P. Little, Notes
on Aitamis, a Mongol Mamluk , in Die islamische Welt
zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, Festschrift fur H. D.
Roemer, Beirut-Wiesbaden 1979, 387-401; G.
Guemard, De Tarmement et de Vequipement des
mamelouks, in BIE, viii (1926), 1-19; L. A. Mayer,
Saracenic heraldry, Oxford 1933 (esp. 1-43); idem,
Mamluk costume, Geneva 1952; M. Meinecke, Die
Bedeutung der mamlukischen Heraldik fur die
Kunstgeschichte, in ZDMG (1974), 213-40; G. T.
Scanlon, A Muslim manual of war, Cairo 1961; J. D.
Latham and W. F. Paterson, Saracen archery, Lon¬
don 1970; S. H. Labib, Handels geschichte Agyptens im
Spatmittelalter , Wiesbaden 1965 (index s.w.
Sklaven, Sklavenhandel, etc.); W. Heyd, Histoire
du commerce du Levant, Leipzig 1885-6 (index s.w.
Esclaves, Mamelouks ); A. Schaube, Handels geschichte
der romanischen Volker des Mittelmeergebiets bis zum Ende

MAMLUK — MAMLUKS

321

der Kreuzzilge, Munich 1906 (index s.v. Sklaven,
Sklavenhandel); G. I. Bratianu, Recherches sur le
commerce genois dans la mer Noire au XIII e siecle, Paris
1929, passim; R. S. Lopez and W. Raymond,
Medieval trade in the Mediterranean world , New York
1955 (index s.vv. slaves, slave trade); P.-H. Dopp,
Trade d’Emmanuel Piloti sur le passage en Terre Sainte
(1420), Louvain-Paris 1958, esp. 51-6; D. Ayalon,
Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt (1250-1517'), London
1977; idem, The Mamluk military society , London
1979 (two collections of studies); idem, Gunpowder
and firearms in the Mamluk kingdom - a challenge to a
mediaeval society, London 1978; idem, The Great Ydsa
of Chingiz Khan—a reexamination , in SI , esp. parts
Cj, xxxvi (1972), 113-58, and C 2 , xxxviii (1973),
107-56; idem, Mamlukiyyat, part I, in Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam , ii (1979), 321-49; idem,
The Mamluk army in the first years of the Ottoman con¬
quest [in Hebrew], in Tarbiz, Jerusalem 1952,
221-6; idem, From Ayyubids to Mamluks , in Muqamas,
Cambridge, Mass.; idem, Egypt as a dominant factor
in Syria and Palestine during the Muslim period, in The
history of relations between Egypt and Palestine,
Jerusalem; arts, bahriyya. ii. The navy of the
Mamluks; burdjiyya; harb. iii; hisar. iv; M.
Sobernheim, EP, art. mamluks; A. S. Ehren-
kreutz, Strategic implications of the slave trade between
Genoa and Mamluk Egypt in the second half of the thir¬
teenth century , in A. L. Udovitch, ed., The Islamic
Middle East. Studies in economic and social history,
Princeton 1983; W. M. Brinner, A chronicle of
Damascus 1389-1397, Berkeley and Los Angeles
1963, esp. i, 341-3. (D. Ayalon)

MAMLUKS, the Mamluk sultanate, i.e. the
regime established and maintained by (emancipated)
mamluks [see preceding article] in Egypt from
648/1250 to 922/1517, and in Syria from 658/1260
to 922/1516; and with the role of their successors, the
neo-Mamluks, in Ottoman Egypt. It surveys (i)
political history, and (ii) institutional history. On
military history, see the relevant sections by D.
Ayalon of the articles bahriyya (i.e. navy), barud,
harb, hi$ar; on the bureaucracy, see dIwan, ii. Egypt
(H. L. Gottschalk).

(i) Political History

(a) Origins of the Mamluk sultanate

The Mamluk sultanate had its origins in the
Bahriyya [q.v.], a military household of Kip£ak [q. v.
Turkish mamluks, which belonged to the bodyguarc
(halka [q. u.]) of al-Salih Ayyub (637-47/1240-9). The
Bahriyya superseded the Ayyubids [q. v. ] in Egypt and
Syria less by a deliberate process of usurpation than
under the constraint of two military crises: the crusade
of St. Louis (647-9/1249-50) and the Mongol invasion
of Syria (657-8/1259-60). Their seizure of power in
Egypt resulted directly from the preference shown by
the new sultan, Turanshah, for his own household at
the expense of the Bahriyya. A group of the Bahriyya
murdered Turanshah on 27 Muharram 648/1 May
1250. The rise of the Bahriyya to political dominance
was assisted by their outstanding part in the resistance
to the crusade, and probably also by the death of the
last non-mamluk commander, Fakhr al-Dm Ibn
Shaykh al-Shuyukh, who had handled the affairs of
state when al-Salih Ayyub died, but was himself killed
before the arrival of Turanshah. The Bahriyya sought
to preserve the appearance of Ayyubid sovereignty by
installing as sultan al-Salih Ayyub’s widow, Umm
Khalil Shadjar al-Durr, herself of Turkish slave
origin, but the shift of power was indicated by the

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

appointment of a Mamluk commander ( atabak
al- c asakir), Aybak al-Turkumanl. Al-Na§ir Yusuf, the
Ayyubid ruler of Aleppo, refused to recognise the
sultanate of Shadjar al-Durr, and captured
Damascus. The Bahriyya thereupon deposed Shadjar
al-Durr, and raised Aybak to the sultanate as al-Malik
al-Mu c izz (28 RabF II 648/11 July 1250). A few days
later he resumed his former command, and a child, al-
Ashraf Musa, descended from the Ayyubids of
the Yaman, was recognised as nominal sultan. This
device failed to appease al-Nasir Yusuf, who under¬
took more than one campaign against Egypt in the
following decade. Aybak resumed the sultanate in
652/1254. At some time he married Shadjar al-Durr,
thus following Saldjukid precedents for the marriage
of an atabeg to the widow of his former lord. Mean¬
while, hostility was developing between the Bahriyya
and the household of Aybak, the Mu c izziyya. The
leading Bahrl, Faris al-Dln Aktay al-Djamadar,
assumed the royal insignia, contracted a political mar¬
riage with an Ayyubid princess, and demanded that
she should reside in the Citadel of Cairo. Aybak pro¬
cured Aktay’s assassination by his mamluk, Kutuz al-
Mu c izzl. This coup broke the power of the Bahriyya,
many of whom fled to Syria and entered Ayyubid ser¬
vice. Among these was Bay bars al-Bundukdarl [q.v.],
who now emerged as their leader.

Ironically, another political marriage led to
Aybak’s death. His intention to marry a daughter of
the atabeg of Mosul, Badr al-Din Lu 3 lu \q. v. ], aroused
the jealousy of Shadjar al-Durr, who had him
murdered on 23 RabI* I 655/10 April 1257. The
dispersal of the Bahriyya had, however, left her with¬
out an adequate power-base. The Mu c izziyya had her
put to death, and installed as sultan C A1I, a youthful
son of Aybak by another wife, Kutuz being the most
important of the magnates. When the Mongol inva¬
sion of Syria began in 657/1259, Kutuz usurped the
sultanate and effected a reconciliation with Baybars,
who returned to Egypt. They led an expeditionary
force into Palestine, and defeated the Mongols at
c Ayn Djalut \q v.] on 25 Ramadan 658/3 Sept. 1260.
The Mongol evacuation of Syria rapidly ensued. Al-
Nasir Yusuf being a captive of the Mongols, the two
major Ayyubid principalities of Damascus and Alep¬
po fell under direct Mamluk control, although the
three minor lordships of Hims, Hamat and al-Karak
retained their autonomy. With the ending of this
crisis, the inveterate rivalry of the Mamluk
households reappeared. Baybars headed a group of
conspirators who murdered Kutuz. He then usurped
the sultanate after undertaking to help his brothers-in-
arms, the Bahriyya.

(b) The embattled sultanate

Al-Zahir Baybars, rather than his predecessors, was
the effective founder of the Mamluk sultanate. In his
comparatively long reign (658-76/1260-77), a high
degree of internal stability, contrasting with the
political vicissitudes of the previous decade, allowed
the establishment of the characteristic political struc¬
ture and institutions of the regime. Nevertheless,
during his reign and those of his immediate suc¬
cessors, the Mamluk sultanate was an embattled
power, threatened by the Mongol Ilkhans [q. v. ] in the
east, and by the remains of the Frankish states on the
Syro-Palestinian coast. Of the two, the Mongols were
by far the greater danger. A few months after c Ayn
Djalut, a second Mongol invasion of Syria was stop¬
ped by the Ayyubids of Hims and Hamat at the First
battle of Him§ (Muharram 659/December 1260). An¬
other critical encounter was at the second battle of

322

MAMLUKS

Him§ [ q. v. ] in 680/1261, during the reign of Kalawun
[q.v.], while the last invasion took place as late as
712/1313, early in the third reign of al-Nasir Muham¬
mad b. Kalawun. The Frankish states were by com¬
parison militarily insignificant: the danger was that
they might provide a base for a crusade from Europe,
which would make possible a pincer-movement of
Crusaders and Mongols against the Mamluks. This
fear seemed about to be realised when the Lord Ed¬
ward, son of the English King Henry III, brought a
crusading force to Acre in 669/1271, and obtained the
limited co-operation of the IIkhan Abaka. This com¬
bined operation, the first and last of its kind, ac¬
complished nothing. The security of Muslim Syria as
a salient in enemy territory was thus one of Baybars’s
chief preoccupations. He strove with much success to
strengthen his control there. At the beginning of his
reign, his comrade Sandjar al-Halabi, whom Kufuz
had appointed governor of Damascus, proclaimed
himself sultan, perhaps hoping for autonomy under
Baybars’s overlordship, somewhat on the Ayyubid
pattern. His bid for power was, however, quickly ter¬
minated, as was that of a war-lord in Aleppo, Akush
(for Ak-kush) al-Burunli (or al-Barll). In 661-2/1263,
two of the remaining Ayyubid principalities fell into
Baybars’s hands: al-Karak by the treacherous capture
of its lord, al-Mughlth c Umar (whom Baybars had
served when in exile), and Him§ by the death without
an heir of Shlrkuh’s last descendant. The Isma c llls
were reduced to submission, and between 669/1271
and 671/1273 their castles were taken over by
Baybars. The reduction of the Frankish states was
equally one of his objectives, and his aggressive policy
contrasts with the general acceptance of co-existence
by the Ayyubids after Saladin. Baybars campaigned
almost annually in Syria, and captured many of the
remaining Frankish cities and castles: Caesarea,
Haifa and Arsuf fell in 663/1265, Jaffa and Antioch in
666/1268. These towns were forthwith demolished, to
deny them as bases to Crusaders. Inland fortresses,
however, such as $afad (captured in 664/1266) and
Hisn al-Akrad (Crac des Chevaliers, taken in
669/1271) were restored and provided with Muslim
garrisons. Warfare alternated with uneasy truces, in
which the Frankish frontiers were eroded by the
establishment of condominia ( mundsajdt ). Against the
Mongols Baybars remained on the defensive, seeking
to weaken them by diplomacy rather than force of
arms. He exploited the hostility between the Ilkhans
and Berke [q. v. ], the khan of the Golden Horde
(reigned 654-64/1256-66), a convert and the ruler of
the Kip£ak steppes [see dasht-i kipCak in Suppl.],
the Mamluk recruiting-ground. The alliance with
Berke promoted a flow of Mongol tribal warriors
(wafidiyya) from Ilkhanid territories to Baybars. Only
at the end of his reign did Baybars invade the Ilkhanid
sphere of influence by an expedition into the sultanate
of Rum. He defeated a Mongol army in the frontier-
region of Elbistan [q.v. ] in Dhu ’1-Ka c da 675/April
1277, and was enthroned in Kayseri (Kaysariyya),
but withdrew without achieving a lasting conquest.

Two of Baybars’s internal aims were to legitimise
his rule and to establish a dynasty. He succeeded in
the former by installing an c Abbasid prince as caliph
in Cairo, and receiving from him a formal delegation
of plenary powers as the universal sultan of Islam
(Radjab 659/June 1261). When this caliph (al-
Mustansir bi ’llah) shortly afterwards died in a forlorn
hope against Baghdad, Baybars installed a successor,
al-Hakim bi-amri ’llah, whose descendants were
recognised as caliphs in Egypt and Syria until (and
even beyond) the Ottoman conquest. This translation

of the caliphate assisted Baybars in his negotiations
with Berke, in view of the social disparity between a
mamluk and a Cingizid. In regard to the second aim,
Baybars early took steps to ensure the succession of his
son, Baraka (i.e. Berke) Khan, named after his mater¬
nal grandfather, a Kh w arazmian warrior-chief. In
Shawwal 662/August 1263, Baraka Khan, aged about
four years, was duly invested as joint-sultan with his
father.

Baybars’s dynasty did not long survive, the essen¬
tial cause of its downfall being the hostility between
the veteran magnates of Baybars’s household, the
Zahiriyya, and the khasfakiyya, i.e. the court-mamluks
of his son. The leading opponent belonged to an older
generation, and was Kalawun al-AlfT, a comrade of
Baybars. Having deposed Baraka Khan, the
magnates installed his seven-year-old brother
Salamish (Siileymish) as nominal sultan. A few weeks
later, Kalawun usurped the throne (Rabf- II
678/August 1279), and exiled the sons of Baybars to
al-Karak.

Al-Man§ur Kalawun was responsible for an impor¬
tant military innovation, viz. the recruitment of a Cir¬
cassian mamluk regiment, known (from its quarters in
the towers of the Citadel) as the Burdjiyya [q.v. ]. This
was the first indication of a threat to the ascendancy
of the Kipiak Turkish mamluks. In other respects,
Kalawun continued the policies of Baybars. Syria re¬
mained a central preoccupation. The governor of
Damascus, Sunkur al-Ashkar, proclaimed himself
sultan like Sandjar al-Halabi before him. He was
defeated after some difficulty in $afar 679/June 1280,
but succeeded in establishing himself in the former
crusader-castle of Sahyun, whence he controlled the
fortresses in the mountainous hinterland of Latakia.
Finally, he joined Kalawun in operations against a
Mongol force sent by the Ilkhan Abaka, which was
routed at the second battle of Him§ (Sha c ban
680/November 1281). Abaka died in the following
year, and his successor, Teguder Ahmad, a convert to
Islam, sought good relations with the sultan. Kalawun
was thus left free to pursue the djihad against the
Frankish states. Tripoli fell in Rabl* II 688/April
1289, and like the other coastal towns was demol¬
ished. Kalawun was about to lead an expedition
against Acre when he died (Dhu ’1-Ka c da
689/November 1290). Like Baybars, he endeavoured
to establish a dynasty, but his intended successor, his
son al-Salih c AlI, predeceased him. The throne passed
to another son, al-Ashraf Khalil [q.v.], for whom was
reserved the crowning mercy of the capture of Acre
(Djumada I 690/May 1291) and the extinction of the
Latin kingdom. In the following year, Khalil took the
Armenian patriarchal see of Kal c at al-Rum (Radjab
691/June 1292), but in Muharram 693/December
1293 he fell a victim to a conspiracy of magnates who
had belonged to his father’s military household (the
Mansuriyya), and who felt themselves threatened.

The murder of al-Ashraf Khalil inaugurated seven¬
teen years of political instability, during which
magnates with the support of mamluk factions
dominated the sultanate. Twice in this period, in
693-4/1293-4 and 698-708/1299-1309, another son of
Kalawun, al-Na§ir Muhammad, was installed as
sultan. Aged less than ten at his first accession, he was
no more than a figurehead, and he was twice set aside
by usurpers; between 694/1294 and 698/1299 by
Kitbugha and Lacln (Ladjin [q.v. ]), and in
708-9/1309-10 by al-Muzaffar Baybars al-Djashnikir
[q.v. ]. It is significant that this last usurper was a Cir¬
cassian, originally recruited into the Burdjiyya. The
part played by the Burdjiyya added a further com-

MAMLUKS

323

plication to the factional struggles after the death of
al-Ashraf Khalil. In 709/1310, however, al-Nasir
Muhammad, now mature in political experience and
with a mamluk household of his own, emerged from ex¬
ile in al-Karak, and, with the support of the governors
of Aleppo, Hamat and Tripoli, marched on Egypt
and overthrew al-Muzaffar Baybars.

During the long third reign of al-Na$ir Muhammad
(709-41/1310-41) the Mamluk sultanate was no longer
threatened by external enemies. The Frankish states
were gone, and with them any serious danger of a
crusade from Europe. The last Mongol invasion,
commanded by the Ilkhan Oldjeytii in the winter of
712/1312-13, was abortive. Thus the Sultan did not
need to divide his time between Syria and Egypt, and
al-Nasir Muhammad was free to concentrate on in¬
ternal problems, and to establish an autocratic
government.

He had first to secure his own position. The usurper
Baybars and his colleague Salar were put to death
within a few months of the restoration. The three
Syrian governors who, as kingmakers, might become
dangerous were the next to go. One died naturally,
the second was arrested, while the third fled to
Oldjeytii. Meanwhile, with consummate political
skill, al-Nasir Muhammad carried out the operation
which had been fatal to several earlier sultans—the
substitution of his own mamluks for veteran magnates
in key positions. Outstanding among his servants was
Tankiz al-Husami, appointed governor of Damascus
in 712/1312, and in effect governor-general of Syria
two years later. Another, Arghun al-Dawadar, re¬
ceived similar extensive powers as vicegerent in Egypt
(na Hb al-saltana bi ’l-diydr al-Misriyya). Early in the
reign, the sultan carried out a fiscal reorganisation (al-
rawk al-Nafiri), which greatly strengthened his own
position against the magnates. Such a reform had
been attempted in 697/1298 by LacTn, and had been
a principal cause of his murder. Al-Na$ir Muhammad
proceeded with his habitual caution, commissioning
first a cadastral survey and redistribution of assign¬
ments of landed revenue (sing. ikta c [q.v. ]) in the less
politically sensitive province of Damascus (713/1313).
This was followed in 715/1315 by the cadastral survey
of Egypt, after which the sultan sat in full court to
distribute warrants of assignments to the
beneficiaries. In consequence of the rawk , the share of
revenue assigned to the sultan’s fisc ( al-khass ) was
raised from one-sixth to five-twelfths at the expense of
the other holders of assignments. At this time also he
abolished a wide range of uncanonical taxes ( mukus
[see maks]), many of them abusive. This was a
popular act, which probably had little effect on the
sultan’s own resources but worked to the detriment of
the tax-farmers.

Al-Nasir Muhammad’s third reign was thus a
period of autocratic and sometimes arbitrary rule. His
tenure of power was so secure that on three occasions
(712/1313, 719/1320, 732/1332) he was able to absent
himself from Cairo for the Pilgrimage—thereby also
demonstrating his suzerainty over the Holy Cities.
His relations with his magnates, although apparently
close and cemented by political marriages, were liable
to sudden rupture. Even Tankiz al-Husami was
disgraced and put to death, after nearly thirty years’
service in Syria. In the last months of the sultan’s life,
rival court-factions were forming around two of his
favourites, Kawsun (who had married a daughter of
the sultan) and Bashtak, although on his deathbed he
obtained the semblance of a reconciliation between

them. He died in Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 741/June 1341,
having nominated his son, Abu Bakr, to succeed him.

(d) The ascendancy of the magnates

Although three generations of al-Nasir Muham¬
mad’s descendants succeeded him in the sultanate, the
fact that twelve sultans reigned in less than half a
century indicates their weakness. They were mostly
young and inexperienced, some of them mere
children, who lacked the essential power base of
mamluk households. Behind these figureheads, the
magnates controlled the state, and struggled among
themselves for the ascendancy. The period also saw a
rise in Circassian recruitment after an intermission
during the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad. Political
instability appeared immediately after al-Nasir
Muhammad’s death. Three weeks later, Kawsun ob¬
tained Abu Bakr’s approval for the arrest of Bashtak
and the sequestration of his vast wealth and assign¬
ments. The fallen amir was sent to Alexandria, where
shortly afterwards he was put to death. Then in Safar
742/August 1341, Kawsun forestalled a plot against
himself by the sultan, whom he deposed, substituting
an infant son of al-Nasir Muhammad, named (or
perhaps nicknamed) Kudjuk, i.e. Kuiiik. The new
sultan was certainly not more than seven years old,
and Kawsun was the effective ruler until he was over¬
thrown, and his puppet-sultan deposed, in Radjab
742/January 1342. It would be otiose in this article to
recount in detail the political history of the later
Kalawunids. The one sultan in this period who show¬
ed some promise of repeating the success of his father,
al-Nasir Muhammad, was al-Nasir Hasan. Eleven
years old when he was first raised to the throne after
the killing of his brother and predecessor (Ramadan
748/December 1347), he was deposed in favour of an¬
other brother in Djumada II 752/August 1351.
Restored in Shawwal 755/October 1354, he succeeded
in ridding himself of the kingmaker and regent,
Sar gh atmush al-Nasiri, in Ramadan 759/August
1358. He then promoted his own mamluks, chief
among them being Yalbugha al- c Uman, and tried to
create a power-base of a new kind by conferring high
amlrates and provincial governorships on awlad al-nds
[q. v. ], i.e. descendants of the mamluks, a socially
privileged group who nevertheless did not normally
form part of the military and ruling establishment.
This experiment inevitably aroused the mistrust of the
mamluks , and an opposition faction appeared, headed
(against the traditions of mamluk loyalty to the founder
of the household) by Yalbugha al- c UmarT. The sultan
was defeated, captured, and put to death (Djumada I
762/March 1361). Yalbugha acted as regent until his
own overthrow and death in Rabl* II 768/December
1366. Sixteen years later, Barkuk b. Anas [q.v.], a
Circassian nurtured in his military household, the
Yalbughawiyya, deposed the last Kalawunid and
usurped the sultanate.

(e) The Circassian Mamluk sultanate

The Circassian Mamluk sultanate, which begins
with al-Zahir Barkuk’s usurpation in Ramadan
784/November 1382, follows a regular and almost in¬
variable pattern of succession. A magnate would
usurp the throne, which on his death would pass to his
son. Within a few years at most, the latter would be
deposed by another usurper, and the cycle of events
would be repeated. But the sultanate was not a prize
open to all comers: the usurpers emerged from specific
circles, namely the military households of previous
sultans. The two principal nurseries of sultans were
the households of Barkuk and of Ka^it Bay [q.v.], each

324

MAMLUKS

of which produced five rulers. Since Ka 5 it Bay was a
mamluk of Barsbay [ q. v.], who was himself a mamluk of
Barkuk, the Circassian sultans may be regarded as
constituting a dynasty by mamluk clientage rather than
blood descent (cf. Table 2).

The Circassian sultanate faced in its early years a
threat comparable to that which al-Zahir Baybars had
confronted in the later 7th/13th century—the danger
of annihilation by the Turco-Mongol forces of Timur
Leng. Barkuk responded by offering asylum in
796/1394 to Ahmad b. Uways the Djalayirid [ q.v.] ex¬
pelled from Baghdad by Timur, by establishing a
common front with the Ottomans and the Golden
Horde, and by replying defiantly to Timur. The
storm did not break until 803/1400-1, during the
reign of Barkuk’s son, Faradj [q.v.]. He and his forces
were compelled to evacuate Syria, which Timur oc¬
cupied and devastated. He did not, however, attempt
to invade Egypt. In Sha c ban 803/March 1400, he
began to withdraw from Damascus, having secured
his flank for an advance on the Ottomans.

Although throughout the 9th/15th century the
Mamluk sultanate continued to present the ap¬
pearance of a great power, it was undergoing a pro¬
longed economic and military decline. Its growing
economic weakness has usually been ascribed to
political factors—the factional conflicts of the
magnates, resulting in enfeebled administration, and
hence in the decay of agriculture. These disorders
were probably rather symptomatic than causative,
and the basic reason for the economic decline may lie
in the heavy mortality occasioned by successive
epidemics of plague. The most serious of these (the
Black Death of European history) occurred in
749/1348-9, during the first reign of al-Na§ir Hasan,
and there were twelve severe epidemics during the last
century of the sultanate. Since mortality was particu¬
larly high among the mamluks, this must have
necessitated very heavy expenditure by the sultans
and magnates to keep up their military households.
Even so, there seems to have been a marked fall in
recruitment. The Royal Mamluks dropped from
about 12,000 in the third reign of al-Nasir Muham¬
mad to less than half the number under the Circassian
sultans. The plague, however, inflicted its severest
damage by its inroads upon the agrarian and in¬
dustrial workforce. Villages were deserted, irrigation
works neglected, and cultivated land went back to
waste. The landed revenue of Egypt shrank in the last
century of the sultanate from over 9 milion dinars to
less than 2 million. Alexandria, the centre of the tex¬
tile industry, suffered badly from the Black Death,
and its decline continued in the Circassian period.
Both in Egypt and Syria, the weakening of admi¬
nistration and the decline of the sedentary population
were reflected in growing tribal pressure on the
cultivable areas and the routes. It is in this period that
a fraction of Hawwara [ q. v. ], settled by Barkuk in Up¬
per Egypt, established a domination there which they
retained into the Ottoman period.

As the landed revenue decreased, the magnates and
sultans made growing depredations upon commerce;
e.g. they compelled merchants to buy goods at an
artificially-enhanced price (tarh, rimdyd), an abuse for
which there had been sporadic precedents. The
transit-trade, especially in spices, from the Indian
Ocean, which had been handled since the 6th/12th
century by the group known as the KarimTs [qv.], was
brought under strict control by Barsbay (825-41/
1422-38). Djudda, under Mamluk customs-
administration from 828/1425, became in effect the
staple for oriental trade in the Red Sea, and its

revenue was shared between the sultan and the Sharif
of Mecca. In 832/1428 Barsbay established a monopo¬
ly of the pepper trade, forcing up the price at Alexan¬
dria to the detriment of the Venetian merchants. His
interest in the transit-trade between the Red Sea and
the Mediterranean explains two other developments
in his reign. Three campaigns against Cyprus,
culminating in the conquest of the island (829/1426)
and the reduction of its king to a vassal of the sultan,
ended the danger to Muslim shipping from this
Frankish outpost. The campaigns are of interest as
being the only major naval operations undertaken by
the Mamluks. Furthermore, Barsbay’s refusals,
repeated over ten years (828-38/1424-34), to allow
Shahrukh the formal privilege of providing a veil for
the Ka c ba indicate a determination to deny the
Tlmurid any locus standi within the Mamluk commer¬
cial sphere of interest.

Between the reign of Barkuk at the beginning of the
Circassian period, and that of Kan?awh al-Ghawrl
[q.v.] at its end, the Mamluk sultanate was involved
in only one major land-war, that fought with the
Ottomans between 890/1485 and 896/1491. The
underlying cause of this war in the reign of Ka^it Bay
872-901/1468-96) was the threat offered by the Ot¬
tomans to the marcher-principalities, particularly
Elbistan, which since its foundation by the ruling
dynasty (Dulkadir, see dhu ’l-kadr) in the first half
of the 8th/14th century had been a Mamluk protec¬
torate. This localised conflict of interests was ag¬
gravated by considerations of high policy when, on
the accession of Sultan Bayazld II [?.£>.] in 886/1481,
Ka 3 it Bay gave asylum to his brother and rival, Djem
[q.v.]. Although in appearance the Mamluks con¬
fronted the Ottomans on equal terms, the outcome of
the war was merely to maintain the status quo on the
frontiers.

Bayazld had been unable to commit all his forces to
the war, and the next conflict between the two powers
was to reveal the inherent military and political
weakness of the Mamluks. As a fighting-force they
were obsolescent. Unlike the Ottomans, they had fail¬
ed to take advantage of the development of firearms,
the conservative Mamluk cavalry showing particular
reluctance to adopt the crude hand-guns of the period.
Even the traditional equestrian exercises and games
were neglected, and the insubordination of newly-
recruited mamluks (>dlulban) is a feature of the later
9th/15th century. A principal cause of the overthrow
of Ka-’it Bay’s son and successor, al-Nasir Muham¬
mad (901-4/1496-8) was his recruitment of a force of
black arquebusiers. Kan$awh al-Ghawrl attempted to
restore the military effectiveness of his state. An
arquebus unit ( al-tabaka al-khdmisa ) was set up in
916/1510, but the old prejudice remained, and it was
dissolved in 920/1514. He paid attention to the casting
of cannon, which had been used by the Mamluks (but
for siege-warfare only) since the later 8th/14th cen¬
tury, and he made efforts to revive the traditional
cavalry-training.

At the beginning of Kansawh al-Qhawri’s reign
(906-22/1501-16), the Mamluk sultanate was hemmed
in by three great powers. To the north was the Ot¬
toman state, which was now confronted on the east by
the new military monarchy of the Safawid Shah
Isma c n [q.v.]. To the south, dominating the Indian
Ocean and threatening the Red Sea, was the naval
power of the Portuguese. The Mamluks lacked the
maritime traditions and experience to deal with this
danger. They received supplies of material and per¬
sonnel for a naval expedition from the Ottomans in
520/1514. Ottoman-$afawid hostilities, however, in-

MAMLUKS

325

volved the Mamluks when Sultan Selim I invaded
Syria, probably to safeguard his flank, and defeated
Kansawh (who died during the battle) at Mardj Dabik
(25 Radjab 922/24 Aug. 1516). He subsequently ad¬
vanced into Egypt, and inflicted a second defeat on
the Mamluks at al-Raydaniyya (29 Dhu ’1-Hidjdya
922/23 January 1517). Cairo fell, and the last
Mamluk sultan, al-Ashraf Tuman Bay, was subse¬
quently captured and hanged. Egypt thus became a
province of the Ottoman Empire, and was separately
administered from Syria.

(f) The Neo-Mamluks of the Ottoman period

The Ottoman conquest of Egypt was not followed
by the extirpation of the mamluks. Indeed, from one
point of view, it may be regarded as an episode in
Mamluk factional politics, since Selim’s victories were
facilitated by Mamluk collaborators in opposition to
Kansawh al-Ghawri and Tuman Bay. The leaders of
this faction were the governors of Aleppo and
Damascus, Kha 3 ir Bay and Djanbirdi al-Ghazall
[q.v.], who received their reward from the conqueror,
Kha^ir Bey being appointed viceroy in Cairo (where
he maintained much of the state of the sultans, his
predecessors), and Djanbirdi being restored to
Damascus. These arrangements marked, however, a
transitional phase. On Selim’s death in 926/1520,
Djanbirdi attempted to make himself independent,
but his revolt was suppressed, and he himself killed
(927/1521). Kha 3 ir Bey died in 928/1522, and
thereafter Ottomans were appointed to both
Damascus and Cairo. A last Mamluk rising headed
by the kashifs Djanim and Inal was suppressed shortly
afterwards.

Mamluk recruitment and the formation of mamluk
military households nevertheless continued, and pro¬
vided part of the armed forces of Egypt beside, but
distinct from, the seven corps of the Ottoman garrison
troops, the most important of which were the
Janissaries and the c azabs [< 7 . i>. ]. The heads of the
Mamluk establishment, nominally 24 in number,
bore the Ottoman designation of sandjak beyi (whence
in the Arabic chronicles sanadfik!sanad^ik is used as the
plural of bak/beg\ the modern bakawat is a neologism),
but they differed in their functions from their
homonyms elsewhere in the Ottoman empire. After
continuing in obscurity during the remainder of the
10th/16th century, the beylicate emerged as a factor of
great political importance in the middle decades of the
11th/17th century (a period of Ottoman weakness),
and the old pattern of Mamluk factionalism reap¬
peared with the inveterate hostilities between the two
households of the Dhu ’1-Fakariyya (usually Faka-
riyya) and the Kasimiyya [q. vv.\. The former attained
its apogee with Ridwan Bey, who was amir al-hd didi for
over 20 years until his death in 1066/1656. The Fakarl
ascendancy was broken in 1071/1660 by the
Kasimiyya in collusion with the Ottoman viceroy, but
with the assassination of their chief, Ahmad Bey the
Bosniak, in 1072/1662, they too sank into impotence.
A revival of the political power of the beylicate, and
of factional rivalry, may be observed in the early
12th/18th century. By this time, complex webs of pro¬
tection and patronage were linking the Mamluk
households with the officers and troops of the Ot¬
toman garrison, the urban population of Cairo and
the Arab tribes, and a new polarisation appears in the
factional struggles. There was a manifestation of this
in 1123/1711, when the ambition of a Janissary boss,
Afrandj Ahmad, produced a split between Janissaries
and c azabs, and between Fakariyya and Kasimiyya,
which culminated in a battle outside Cairo. Although

in 1142/1730 the Fakariyya finally obtained the
supremacy over the Kasimiyya, they were soon over¬
shadowed by a younger household, the Kazdughlivya
[q. v. ], which (a significant indication of the assimila¬
tion of Ottoman military society in Egypt to Mamluk
norms) had been founded, and was for some decades
headed, by officers of the garrison. Mamluks from this
household began to enter the beylicate after 1161/
1748. Its most famous member was C A1T Bey [q.v.],
known as Bulut Kdpan, who as shaykh al-balad (i.e.
premier bey) dominated the affairs of Egypt between
1173/1760 and 1186/1772. He was ruthless in extir¬
pating his rivals and opponents, and gave signs of an
intention to make himself independent in Egypt.
After his overthrow, his former mamluk , Muhammad
Bey Abu ’1-Dhahab, enjoyed a brief supremacy until
he died on campaign against Shaykh Zahir al- c Umar
in 1189/1775. Thereafter factional struggles con¬
tinued among the leading beys, the most, notable of
whom were two of Abu ’l-Dhahab’s mamluk s, Ibrahim
Bey al-Kabir [q.v.] and Murad Bey, whose uneasy
duumvirate was threatened by the expedition of
Djeza^irli GhazI Hasan Pasha [qv.] in
1200-1/1786-7, and destroyed by Bonaparte’s occupa¬
tion of Egypt in 1213/1798. The massacre and pro¬
scription of the Mamluk chiefs by Muhammad c AlI
Pasha in 1812 marked the end of their ascendancy in
Egypt.

(ii) INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

(a) Institutions of the sultanate

The central and essential institution of Mamluk
society under both the sultanate and the Ottomans
was the military household. This consisted of the
mamluks obtained, trained and emancipated by a
master ( ustadh ), to whom they remained attached by
loyalty and more formally by legal clientage (<wala *).
This link was indicated by the mamluk’ s nisba. The
loyalty felt towards the ustadh was narrowly personal;
during the sultanate, it extended, if at all, only in a
very attenuated form to his sons or other members
of his family. The second bond of loyalty created by
the Mamluk household was the comradeship
(khushdashiyya) existing among the mamluks as
brothers-in-arms (sing, khushdash). The constant pro¬
pensity of each generation of magnates to recruit new
households of mamluks virtually excluded their blood-
descendants ( awlad al-nds ) from military functions,
and hence from political power. The second and later
generations of immigrant origin thus became ab¬
sorbed into the Arabic-speaking Muslim society of
Egypt and Syria, to the culture of which they made
notable contributions.

The principal households were those of the sultans
(the Royal Mamluks), designated from the lakab of the
founding ustadh, e.g. the Salihiyya of al-Malik al-$alih
Ayyub, the Zahiriyya of al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars
etc. Since the mamluks were immigrants, recruited at
any one time principally from a single ethnic group
(originally the Kipcak Turks, subsequently the
Circassians), they formed in effect a synthetic alien
tribe. The factional struggles among the different
households, which form a recurrent feature of
Mamluk history, bear some analogy to clan warfare.
The mamluks depended upon their ustadh for patronage
and advancement, while the ustadh depended upon his
mamluks for the maintenance of his own power and
security. This was clearly the case as regards the royal
household. The short reigns of many sultans, e.g. the
later Kalawunids and the sons of Circassian usurpers,
may largely be explained by their lack of mamluk

326

MAMLUKS

households recruited before their accession. Even if a
sultan began his reign with an effective household, as
did most of the usurping magnates, his position was
not secure until he had ousted the great office-holders
who were his potential rivals (often his khushdash-
comrades), and installed his own mamluks in their
places. It was this situation which produced recurrent
succession-crises from the time of Turanshah on¬
wards, and it resulted in continual tension between
the two constituent groups of the Royal Mamluks—
those recruited by the reigning sultan ({jjulbdn, a<jjlab,
mushtarawat) and the veterans of his predecessors’
recruitment (karanifa, karanis).

The nature of the sultanate in the Mamluk period
is obscured by our sources, which present the ruler in
accordance with traditional Islamic stereotypes.
During the early decades, the sultan was primarily a
war-leader, seen by his khushdash- comrades as first
among equals, and presented as the supreme mudjdhid
in the royal biographies. On the other hand, there is
an anxiety to assert the Islamic legitimacy of the
sultans, at first as the successors to the Ayyubids. In
his biography, Ibn c Abd al-Zahir shows Baybars as
the true successor to al-Salih Ayyub by mamluk clien¬
tage and qualities of character, rather than Turan¬
shah, the heir by blood-descent. The need for these
somewhat specious arguments was ended, however,
when Baybars, by his translation of the caliphate to
Cairo, placed the supreme legitimating authority in
Sunni Islam under the control of himself and his suc¬
cessors. Thereafter the caliph played an essential, if
formal, part in the accession observances of the
Mamluk sultans. When the danger from the Frankish
states and the Mongols came to an end, and the
sultans became sedentary in Cairo, their governmen¬
tal functions became more important than leadership
in war—a development demonstrated in the auto¬
cracy established by al-Nasir Muhammad in his third
reign (709-41/1310-41), and reasserted by the effec¬
tive usurping sultans during the Circassian period.

The distinctive characteristic of the administrative
system was the over-riding control exercised by the
sultan through Mamluk amirs. The armrates that had
existed under the Ayyubids were organised, probably
in Baybars’s reign, into three principal ranks. At the
top was that of amir mi^a wa-mukaddam alf, i.e. the
commander of a household force of 100 horsemen and
head of a company of 1,000 warriors of the halka. With
the differentiation of the Bahriyya from the halka
which had been its matrix, the latter sank into being
an honourable but archaic formation of declining
military significance, latterly recruited largely from
awlad al-nas. In theory there were 24 amirs of the
highest rank. The second rank was that of amir
tablkhdndh , who had the privilege of a military band,
and came to be equated with the commander of 40
household troopers. The third rank, amir c ashara, had
a military household of ten horsemen. This was a
hierarchy of rank; it did not imply a chain of com¬
mand, nor was there any kind of subinfeudation,
although it usually provided a cursus honorum. The
military households, including that of the sultan, were
maintained by assignments of landed revenue (sing.
ikta c [q v.], khubz), which as mentioned above were
reorganised by al-Na?ir Muhammad in 715/1315,
thereby laying the fiscal basis of his autocracy. It was
the Royal Mamluks who were promoted to amirates
and appointed to the great offices at court and in the
provinces. Although their tenure of office was in¬
dividually precarious, and their assignments were
never in this period hereditary or life-tenures, these
magnates were always potential opponents of the
sultan. Repeated attempts to establish a species of

contractual relationship by obtaining an accession-
compact at the installation of a sultan were never ef¬
fective in practice; hence many reigns ended in fac¬
tional revolt, and the deposition (or even murder) of
the ruler.

A noteworthy instance of the development of offices
in this period, and of the extension of Mamluk control
over the administration, is provided by the history of
the vizierate. Under the Ayyubids, as under previous
regimes, the greatest officer of state had been the
waztr , a civilian usually trained as a jurist, who served
during the ruler’s pleasure as his omnicompetent
minister. The erosion of the wazir’s powers began
with the establishment of the office of vicegerent {nd *ib
al-saltana), held by a mamluk , as a permanent post, not
an ad hoc appointment during the sultan’s absence on
campaign. This development may be dated to the
reign of Baraka Khan (676/1277). The close relation¬
ship which had existed between the ruler and the wazir
was further weakened in 678/1280 when Kalawun
promoted the civilian head of the chancery ( sahib
diwdn al-inshd *) to the confidential post of secretary
(katib al-sirr) to himself. The secretaryship was held by
a succession of civilian officials down to the end of the
Mamluk sultanate. The wazir then was restricted to
being the head of the state treasury ( al-dawla al-sharifa,
diwan al-wizdra ), but on several occasions Mamluk
amirs were appointed to the office until it was abol¬
ished by al-Nasir Muhammad in 728/1328. A profes¬
sional financial official, the controller of the treasury
(ndzir al-dawla) was jointly responsible with the wazir ,
and handled its affairs directly when his colleague was
an inexpert military officer. On the abolition of the
vizierate, the controller continued to administer the
treasury. A new financial department, diwdn al-khas $,
created by al-Nasir Muhammad to administer his fisc,
was also placed under a civilian controller (ndzir al-
khass), who absorbed many of the wazir 1 s financial
functions as the secretary had taken over his chancery
functions. Although the vizierate was restored after
the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad, it was restricted to
a limited financial field. Barkuk created two new per¬
sonal treasuries, al-diwan al-mufrad and diwdn al-amlak,
which were managed by a Mamluk great officer of the
household, the high steward (ustadar al- c aliya from
ustddh al-ddr al- c dliya).

The militarisation of household offices, and the
acquisition by some of state functions, were
characteristic developments of the Mamluk sultanate.
In contrast to the Ayyubids, under whom only four
court offices were normally held by the military, the
Mamluks beginning with Baybars quickly developed
a hierarchy of such offices. The dawdddriyya was
militarised, and its holder rose from being the bearer
of the royal ink-well to being the channel of com¬
munication between the sultan and the chancery. Not
until the 8th/14th century, however, was this office
usually given to an amir of the highest rank. Another
officer who acquired public functions was the
chamberlain (hadjib [< 7 .i>.]), who obtained jurisdiction
in disputes between the amirs and • the soldiery.
Originally, he acted in conjunction with the vice¬
gerent, hence his importance increased when al-Nasir
Muhammad left the vicegerency vacant after
727/1326. During the first half of the 9th/15th cen¬
tury, the chamberlain’s jurisdiction was abusively ex¬
tended to ordinary subjects, to the detriment of the
Shari c a courts. A proliferation of offices took place;
e.g. by the end of Barkuk’s reign there were six
chamberlains, Faradj raised the number to eight, and
by the mid-9th/15th century their numbers had in¬
creased still more.

An important military office, which went back

MAMLUKS

327

through Ayyubid and Zangid antecedents to a
Saldjukid institution, was that of the atabak [q.v.], i.e.
atabeg. From the start of the Mamluk sultanate, it was
held exclusively by officers of mamluk origin, whereas
under the Ayyubids, free-born Muslims, and even
princes of the blood, had also been appointed. The
Mamluk atabakiyya was originally a tenure of the
supreme military command by delegation from a
sultan who could not exercise it in person, e.g.
Shadjar al-Durr, C A1I b. Aybak. Hence the specific
title of atabak al- c asakir becomes standard form. The
regency, which had been exercised by the atabeg under
previous regimes, is usually separately designated as
tadbir al-mamlaka (or equivalent term), although this
function was often combined with the atabakiyya. The
four decades of the last Kalawunids, during which
atabaks and mudabbirs flourished at the expense of the
feeble sultans, saw the absorption of another title, that
of amir kabir. In the Ayyubid period and during the
first century of the Mamluk sultanate, this meant
simply and literally a senior amir , until in 756/1355-6,
during the second reign of al-Nasir Hasan, Shavkhun
al- c Umari annexed the title to his office of atabak
al- c asakir, and the two terms were thenceforth synony¬
mous. This was, however, itself an indication that the
atabakiyya was coming to imply pre-eminence in rank
rather than specific functions. From about the same
time also, the title of atabak al- c asakir comes to be held
by amirs in the Syrian provinces, and so loses its uni¬
queness.

In contrast to the loose Ayyubid family confederacy
of autonomous principalities, the provinces of the
Mamluk sultanate were under close central control,
being administered by governors of mamluk origin
serving as the sultan’s delegates (sing. na 7 tb al-saltana).
In Egypt, this title was originally held solely by the
vicegerent ( al-na Hb al-kafil ), who (as indicated above)
was in some respects the functional successor to the
wazir. The title of nd^ib was extended in 767/1365 to
the governor of Alexandria (after the brief occupation
of the city by King Peter I of Cyprus), and by Barkuk
to the governors of Upper and Lower Egypt. The
vicegerency was characteristically allowed to lapse by
al-Nasir Muhammad in 727/1326. Restored after his
death, it was overshadowed by the atabakiyya. The
last appointment was made by Fara^j in 808/1405.
The Syrian na *ibs held the title of malik al-umara y ,
which had been used by the Saldjuks of Rum [see
beglerbegi] , and which continued to be borne by
Khafir Bey as viceroy of Egypt after the Ottoman
conquest. Pre-eminent among them was the governor
of Damascus. Although the Syrian governors seemed
like kinglets in their provinces, they were subject to
various controls, both from the arbitrary will of the
sultan and of an administrative nature. Grants of
assignments could only pass under the sultan’s
signature, or sometimes that of the vicegerent. Several
of the principal provincial officials, e.g. the governor
of the citadel at Damascus and the chamberlain there,
were appointed by the sultan, as was the governor’s
secretary, who served as a spy on him. Governors of
the Egyptian provinces bore the inferior titles of kashif
or wall.

(b) Neo-Mamluk institutions

The extinction of the Mamluk sultanate ended the
recruitment of Royal Mamluks, but the formation of
mamluk households continued until the time of
Muhammad c Ali Pasha. Detailed information on
their structure is only available from the early
12th/18th century with the copious data provided by
al-Djabarti. By this time the households (sing, bayt)

had developed into complex patronage-systems com¬
prising the following elements: (1) the head ( ustadh ) of
the household, who might be a bey , an Ottoman
garrison-officer, or even a native civilian (e.g. Salih
al-Fallah, d. before 1161/1748). (2) Children of the
ustadh. By contrast with the normal practice under the
sultanate, sons of an ustadh were members of the
military household, and might succeed to its head¬
ship. Daughters or widows of an ustadh might marry
mamluks of the household. (3) True mamluks. The im¬
migration (especially of Circassians) continued as
under the sultanate, but there is some evidence of the
recruitment for military purposes of black slaves ( c abid
sud). (4) Free retainers recruited in Anatolia and
Rumelia. They served chiefly as mounted bodyguards
(sing, sarrddj), and were subsequently, it appears,
enrolled in the Ottoman garrison-corps as clients
(sing, clrak , whence ishrdk or dlirdk) of their former
employers. They were thus largely excluded from the
advancement open to true mamluks, although the
Bosniaks who appear in the Kasimiyya in the
11 th/17th century, and the future Djazzar Ahmad
Pasha, may have started their careers in this way. (5)
Allies among the native urban population and the
tribes, where Mamluk factionalism tended to link up
with an indigenous division into the rival groupings of
Sa c d and Haram.

With the disappearance of the Royal Mamluks, the
old factional polarisation between karanisa and (jjulbdn
ceased, but factionalism reappeared (perhaps not
before the later 11th/17th century) basically to obtain
high office and the control of the revenues of Egypt.
Although the old iktd c s had been abolished after the
Ottoman conquest, their place was soon taken by a
system of tax-farms (sing, iltizdm [q.v.]), many of
which were appropriated by the neo-Mamluks. The
sandjak bey is (an Ottoman term which almost certainly
conceals their continuity with the amirs of the highest
rank under the sultanate) were at one and the same
time the leading multazims and the chiefs of the neo-
Mamluk establishment. Although they formed a
military elite, the beys were outside the cadres of the
Ottoman garrison. Their lack of specific duties en¬
abled them to assume a wide range of functions and
to develop into a self-perpetuating ruling group. Their
principal functions were: (1) the command as serdar of
forces levied for service inside Egypt (e.g. against
nomadic incursions) or outside in the Ottoman
sultan’s wars. (2) The command of the annual tribute-
convoy sent by land to Istanbul, held by the amir al-
khazna. (3) The command of the annual Pilgrimage-
caravan to Mecca, held by the amir al-ha didj (the form
amir al-ha didj . which might be expected, is not found
in mediaeval or later sources), who accompanied the
mahmal, sent, as during the Mamluk sultanate, in
token of sovereignty. (4) The headship of the financial
administration as daftardar. The earliest dqftardars after
the conquest were Ottomans, but from the later
10th/16th century the post was held by a bey. (5)
Service as acting viceroy (kd ^im-makdm [q.v. ]) in the
interim between the withdrawal of a viceroy and the
arrival of his successor. In the factional struggles, such
an appointment was a means of legitimating the posi¬
tion of the dominant group. In addition, during the
12th/18th century, beys served as military governors of
the sub-provinces of Egypt, thus reducing the status of
the former governors, the kashifs, who were also
mamluks by origin. They became in effect subor¬
dinates of the beys. An important new office which
emerged during the 12th/l 8th century was that of
s^aykh al-balad , which institutionalised the primacy
(ri ? dsa ) held by military and political leaders. The title

328

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330

MAMLUKS

seems to have been held only by members of the
beylicate. With the administrative reorganisation
carried out by Muhammad C A1I Pasha as the
autonomous viceroy of Egypt, the neo-Mamluk titles
and offices became obsolete.

Bibliography, (i) Primary sources : (a) A r-

chival. For documentary material preserved in
the monastery of St. Catharine in Sinai, see H.
Ernst, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden des Sinai-
Klosters, Wiesbaden 1960; S. M. Stern, Petitions
from the Mamluk period, in BSOAS, xxix (1966),
233-76. For other documents extant in various
European archives, see Aziz Suryal Atiya, Egypt
and Aragon, in Abh. K. M., 1938; J. Wansbrough,
A Mamluk ambassador to Venice, in BSOAS, xxvi
(1963), 503-30; idem, Venice and Florence in the
Mamluk commercial privileges, in BSOAS, xxviii
(1965), 482-523; idem, A Mamluk commercial treaty
concluded with the republic of Florence 849/1489, in S.
M. Stern (ed.), Documents from Islamic chanceries, Ox¬
ford 1965, 39-79. Various documents are reproduc¬
ed in al-Kalkashandi, Subh al-a c sha, Cairo
1331-8/1913-20; e.g. treaties with the Frankish
states and other Christian powers, on which see P.
M. Holt, Qalawun’s treaty with Acre in 1283, in
English Historical Review, xci, no. 361 (1976),
802-12; idem, Qalawun’s treaty with Genoa in 1290, in
Isl. lvii (1980), 101-8; idem, The treaties of the early
Mamluk sultans with the Frankish states, in BSOAS, xliii
(1980), 67-76.

(b) Literary. There is extant a very con¬
siderable amount of material, particularly
chronicles, royal biographies and biographical dic¬
tionaries, a number of which have been published.
The following is a representative sample only. (1)
The four major chronicles for the period are: Ibn
al-Dawadarl (d. after 736/1335), Kanz al-durar, viii,
ed. U. Haarmann, Freiburg 1391/1971; ix, ed. H.
R. Roemer, Cairo 1379/1960; al-Makrlzi (d.
845/1442), K. al-Suluk, ed. M. Mustafa Ziada et
alii, Cairo 1956- Ibn TaghribirdI (d. 874/1470), vii-
xvi, Cairo 1348-92/1929-72, ed. W. Popper,
Berkeley-Leiden 1908-36; Ibn Iyas (d. ca.
930/1524), BaddH c al-zuhur, ed. Mohamed
Mostafa, Wiesbaden 1379-95/1960-75. Among
Syrian chroniclers may be mentioned Abu ’l-Fida 3
(d. 732/1332), al-Mukhtasar ft ta Sikh al-bashar,
various edns., iv, for memoirs of his own times; Ibn
Sasra (d. after 801/1399), A chronicle of Damascus
1389-1397, ed. and tr. W. M. Brinner, Berkeley
and Los Angeles 1963; Ibn Tulun (d. 953/1546),
Mufakahat al-khilldn ft hawadith al-zamdn, ed.
Mohamed Mostafa, Cairo 1381/1962, 1384/1964.
The principal published royal biographies are:
(Baybars), Ibn c Abd al-Zahir, al-Rawd al-zahir ft
sir at al-Malik al-Zahir, ed. c Abd al- c Aziz al-
Khuwaytir, al-Riyad 1396/1976; Shafi c b. c AlI b.
c Abbas (d. 730/1330), Husn al-mandkib al-sirriyya al-
muntaza : a min al-sira al-Zahiriyya, ed. al-Khuwaytir,
al-Riyad 1396/1976; (Kalawun), Ibn c Abd al-
Zahir, Tashrtf al-ayyam wa 7- c usur ft sirat al-Malik al-
Mansur, ed. Murad Kamil, Cairo 1961; (Khalil).
A. Moberg (ed. and tr.), Ur Q Abd Allah b. c Abd Ez-
Zahir’s biografi over Sultanen El-Melik El-Asraf Halil,
Lund 1902. Among biographical dictionaries, a re¬
cent important publication is Ibn al-Suka c I (d.
726/1326), Tali kitdb wafayat al-a c yan, ed. and tr.
Jacqueline Sublet, Damascus 1974.

(2) Much less has been published on the Ottoman
period. Chronicles available are: al-Ishaki (fl. ca.
1032/1623), Kitdb Akhbar al-uwal ft man tasarrafa ft
Misr min arbab al-duwal, various edns.; Ahmad

Shalabi b. c Abd al-Ghani (d. 1150/1737), Awdah al-
ishdrat ft man tawalla Misr al-Kahira min al-wuzard? wa
7 -bashat, ed. c Abd al-Rahlm c Abd al-Rahman c Abd
al-Rahlm, Cairo 1978; c Abd al-Rahman b. Hasan
al-Djabarti (d. 1825-6), ^AdjaHb al-dthdr, Bulak
1297/1879-80. Two important documents are: S. J.
Shaw, Ottoman Egypt in the eighteenth century [i.e. the
Nizdm-name-yi Misir of Djazzar Ahmad Pasha],
Cambridge, Mass. 1962; Shafik Ghurbal. Misr
c tnda mafrak al-turuk [i.e. the answers of Husayn
Efendi to Esteve in 1216/1801], in Madfallat
Kulliyyat al-Adab [Cairo], iv (1936), 1-71; tr. and
annotated Shaw, Ottoman Egypt in the age of the French
Revolution, Cambridge, Mass. 1964.

(ii) Secondary sources: (a) Political history.
There is no recent large-scale study of the Mamluk
sultanate. The pioneer work is that of Gustav Weil,
Geschichte der Chalifen, iv-v, Stuttgart 1860 J 2. Its
derivative, W. Muir, The Mameluke or slave dynasty of
Egypt, London 1896, is inadequate. The period is
presented in wider historical surveys by S. Lane-
Poole, A history of Egypt in the Middle Ages, London
1901; and by G. Wiet, L’Egypte arabe ... 642-1517
[ = G. Hanotaux (ed.), Histone de la nation egyp-
tienne, iv, Paris 1937]. On individual sultans, see G.
Schregle, Die Sultanin von Agypten, Wiesbaden 1961
(for Shadjar al-Durr); Abdul-Aziz Khowaiter,
Baibars the First: his endeavours and achievements, Lon¬
don 1978; P. M. Holt, The sultanate of al-Manfur
Ldchin (696-8/1296-90), in BSOAS, xxxvi (1973),
521-32; Shah Morad Elham, Kitbuga und Lagin,
Freiburg 1977; Ahmad Darrag, L’Egypte sous Le regne
de Barsbay 825-841/1422-1438, Damascus 1961.
The establishment of the Circassian ascendancy is
studied in Hakim Amir c Abd al-Sayyid, Kiyam
dawlat al-Mamalik al-thaniya, Cairo 1966. Some ac¬
count of the neo-Mamluks of Ottoman Egypt is
given in Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent
1516-1922, London 1966; see also idem, Studies in
the history of the Near East, London 1973. A. Ray¬
mond, Artisans et commerfants au Caire au XVIIP sie-
cle, Damascus 1973, deals widely with political as
well as social and economic history.

(b) Social, economic and institutional
history. Data (chiefly from al-Kalkashandi) on
the institutions of the Mamluk sultanate are
presented in the introduction to [M.] Gaudefroy-
Demombynes, La Syrie a I’epoque des Mamelouks,
Paris 1923. Most of the illuminating articles of D.
Ayalon on many aspects of Mamluk society are
now conveniently assembled in Studies on the
Mamluks of Egypt (1250-1517), London 1977, and
The Mamluk military society, London 1979; idem,
Gunpowder and firearms in the Mamluk kingdom, Lon¬
don 1956, is a seminal monograph on military and
social history. The transition from Ayyubid institu¬
tions is examined by R. Stephen Humphreys, The
emergence of the Mamluk army, in SI, xlv (1977),
67-99; xlvi (1977), 147-82. A general survey is pro¬
vided by Sa c Id c Abd al-Fattah c Ashur, al-Mud^tama5
al-Misn ft c asr al-salatin al-mamdlik, Cairo 1962. On
economic and social history, E. Ashtor, A
social and economic history of the Near East in the Middle
Ages, London 1976; idem, Histoire des prix et des
salaires dans Vorient medieval, Paris 1969; Hassanein
Rabie, The financial system of Egypt A.H.
564-741/1169-1341, London 1972; H. Halm,
Agypten nach den mamlukischen Lehensregistern. I.
Oberagypten und das Fayyum, Wiesbaden 1979, II. Das
Delta, Wiesbaden 1982. On governmental in¬
stitutions, Holt, The position and power of the
Mamluk sultan, in BSOAS, xxxviii (1975), 237-49;

331

MAMLUKS — al-MA 3 MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

and The structure of government in the Mamluk sultanate,
in Holt (ed.), The eastern Mediterranean lands in the
period of the Crusades, Warminster 1977, 44-61. For
urban society during the sultanate, I. M.
Lapidus, Muslim cities in the later Middle Ages, Cam¬
bridge, Mass. 1967; C. F. Pekry, The civilian elite of
Cairo in the later Middle Ages, Princeton 1981; in the
Ottoman period, A. Raymond (as above).

(P. M. Holt)

MA C MAR b. AL-MUTHANNA [see ABU C UBAYDA].

AL- MA>MUN [see al-bata^hi; dhu ’l-nunids].
al-MA 5 MUN, Abu ’l- c Abbas c Abd Allah b.
Harun al-RashId. seventh c Abbasid caliph.
Born on 15 RabI* I 170/14 September 786, “the night
of the three caliphs” (death of al-Hadi, accession of al-
Rashid, birth of the future al-Ma^mun), he was the
eldest of the eleven sons of al-Rashid. His mother,
Maradjil, a concubine originally from Badhghls, died
soon after his birth and he was brought up by
Zubayda, the grand-daughter of al-Man$ur, wife of
al-Rashid and mother of Muhammad (the future al-
Amm) who was born in Shawwal 170/April 787. He
received a classical education in Arabic, tutored by al-
Kisa-’T [<7.0.], in adab (as a pupil of Abu Muhammad
al-YazIdi), in music and in poetry (where his tastes
were classical). In religious sciences, he was trained in
hadith (and became a transmitter himself) and in fikh
(taught by al-Hasan al-Lu^lu 5 !), where he excelled in
HanafT jurisprudence. He was distinguished by his
love of knowledge, making him the most intellectual
caliph of the c Abbasid family, which accounts for the
way in which his caliphate developed.

In 177/794, in response to the wishes of members of
his family, al-Rashid named as his First successor
Muhammad (al-Amln), the only caliph born to
parents both of whom were c Abbasids; proclaimed
initially in Khurasan by his guardian al-Fa<jl b.
Yahya al-Barmakl [<7.0 ], he subsequently received the
bay c a in Baghdad. As for c Abd Allah (al-Ma 5 mun), he
had to wait until the age of puberty to be declared sec¬
ond heir of al-Rashid, in 183/799, under the guar¬
dianship of Dja c far b. Yahya al-Barmaki, the caliph’s
favourite. While reviving the Marwanid tradition
of appointing two heirs to the throne in order to
guarantee the stability of the regime and the future of
the dynasty, al-Rashid made an innovation in accep¬
ting the appointment of a third successor, al-Kasim
(al-Mu^tamin), the son of a concubine, sponsored by
his c Abbasid guardian c Abd al-Malik b. $alih [<7.0.].

The protocol was solemnly proclaimed, during the
pilgrimage of 186/802, in Mecca: the unity of the em¬
pire was re-affirmed by the existence of a single
caliph-designate, Muhammad (al-Amin), residing in
Ba g hdad, supported by his two heirs who were given
charge of key-provinces: greater Khurasan, the
heartland of the c Abbasid regime since the success of
the da c wa hashimiyya (132/750), was entrusted to c Abd
Allah (al-Ma-’mun) and the war-front in the struggle
against the Byzantine Empire (al-DjazTra and
northern Syria), a major pre-occupation of al-Rashid,
placed under the authority of al-Kasim (al-
Mu 5 tamin). This interdependence between the dif¬
ferent groupings of the empire conferred autonomy on
Ifrikiya, where the authority of the Aghlabids was
recognised in 184/800, with the purpose of containing
the Kharidjls, the c Alids and the Umayyads who had
succeeded in founding principalities in the Maghrib
and in al-Andalus, in the second half of the 2nd/8th
century.

On his return from the pilgrimage, al-Ra§h!d rid
himself of the patronage of the Barmakids, ordering
the execution of Dja c far b. Yahya on the night of 1

Safar 187/29 January 803, and arresting al-Fadl and
his brothers, who were imprisoned at al-Rafika.
Henceforward, c Abd Allah (al-Ma^mun) had as his
guardian al-Fadl b. Sahl, son of a Zoroastrian from a
village near Kufa, who entered the service of the Bar¬
makids and ultimately converted to Islam, in 190/806,
assuming the role of kdtib- tutor, thus becoming
qualified for the post of future vizier on the accession
of al-Ma^mun.

At the age of eighteen, c Abd Allah married his
cousin, Umm c Isa, daughter of Musa al-Hadi, who
bore him two sons (Muhammad al-Asghar and c Abd
Allah), and had numerous concubines. In 192/808,
having stabilised the war-front with the Byzantine em¬
pire, al-Rashid took personal charge of the situation
in Khurasan, which was disturbed by the revolt of
Rafi c b. Layth, grandson of Na$r b. Sayyar (the last
Umayyad governor of Khurasan), against the cen¬
tralising policy of the governor C A1T b. c Isa b. Mahan,
who represented the abnd? al-dawla /Khurasanians
resident in c Irak). Accompanied by c Abd Allah (al-
Ma-’mun) and al-Fadl b. Sahl, but also by the hadiib-
vizier al-Fatfl b. al-Rabl*, successor to the Barmakids
at the head of the central administration, he set out,
but died at Tus on 3 Djumada II 193/24 March 809,
al-Ma^mun having preceded him to Marw with a part
of the army. Immediately, the new caliph in Baghdad
began to take measures designed to reinforce the
position of the central power in opposition to the
autonomist aspirations of greater Khurasan, in line
with the policy that had been in force for fifty years;
he ordered the return of the army and of the treasury
to Baghdad, which deprived the prince-governor al-
Ma^mun of the means to “pacify” rapidly and com¬
pletely the troubled regions (Transoxania; Slstan-
Kirman, disturbed by the revolt of the Kharidji Ham¬
za since 179/795; etc.). Nevertheless, al-Ma D mun did
not lack the ingenuity to consolidate his position in
confrontation with the caliphate, and following the ex¬
ample of his father, he devolved his responsibilities
upon the Sahlids, who received full powers to manage
affairs and to safeguard his rights of inheritance to the
caliphate, which were sealed in the Ka c ba. A process
of pacification and mobilisation of the forces of the
eastern provinces was achieved by means of the
recognition of the autonomy of local chieftains, the
support of the aristocracy, which saw in the poten¬
tialities of the empire an opportunity of gaining un¬
precedented wealth and prestige, an increase in the
wages of the army, the reduction of the kharddj, by a
quarter, the restoration of the efficiency of the ad¬
ministration and recourse to the mazalim q.v.],
regularly presided over by al-Ma 3 mun. Particular ef¬
forts were applied in the direction of the fukahd 5 and
mutakallimun suffering persecution in c Irak (the
Mu c tazila), whose opinions were canvassed. These
various concessions, following the line of the Bar-
makid policy of al-Fa<jl b. Yahya, as practised at the
time of his recruitment of an c Abbdsiyya army (in
177/794), had the expected effects in regard to the
maintenance of the territorial integrity of the prov¬
inces subject to the authority of al-Ma^mun (ending
the various insurrections, except that of the Kharidji
Hamza in Slstan) and the rallying of local populations
to the “son of their sister” and a member of the Fami¬
ly of the Prophet whose rights to the imdma of the um-
ma had been endorsed by the da c wa hashimiyya,
installed at Marw.

Similarly, in the West, supported by his hadjib -
vizier al-Fatjl b. al-Rabf 1 b. Yunus, chief of the mawali
of the caliph, whose role had been augmented at
the expense of the kuttdb of the administration

332

al-MA>MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

(represented by the Barmakids), his confidential ally
Bakr b. al-Mu c tamir (the holder of the Seal), his chief
of police, al-Sindi b. Shahak, mawld of the caliph, al-
Amln enlarged his circle of partisans; he ordered the
release of C A1I b. c Isa b. Mahan, chief of the Abna?
(determined to preserve their privileges at the expense
of the autonomist aspirations of Khurasan), and the
surviving Barmakids, including Musa b. Yahya, who
rallied to his cause, while Muhammad rejoined the
camp of al-MaYnun. C A1T b. c Isa b. Mahan was pro¬
moted leader of the caliph’s bodyguard, while c Abd
al-Malik b. Salih, the principal supporter of al-
Mu 5 tamin, was arrested. Rule over Syria was en¬
trusted to Thabit b. Nasr, grandson of Malik b. al-
Haytham al-Khuza C I (one of the twelve nukaba 3 of the
da c wa hashimiyya, who became the confidential ally of
Abu Muslim al-Khurasan!), while Egypt, governed
by c Abd al- c Aziz b. c Abd al-Rahman al-Azdl
(descended from a Hashimite da c f, former governor
of Khurasan), was potentially dissident. Only the
Hidjaz, which had benefited from irrigation projects
and from the riches of Zubayda, was firmly behind al-
Amm (at the expense of the c Alids). This bi¬
polarisation has been the object of a historical
misunderstanding, with the eastern provinces being
identified with “Iran” and the western provinces with
the contemporary Arab countries. In fact, greater
Khurasan extended only as far as Rayy and Hama-
dhan (in the west), while Fars was detached from it
following the assassination of Abu Muslim (137/755),
and the most advanced centres of Islamisation and
Arabisation in the period of al-Ma 5 mun were situated
in the former Sasanid empire (divided between al-
Amin and al-Ma 3 mun) rather than in the former
Roman-Byzantine empire (Syria-Egypt); cf. R. W.
Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the medieval period: an essay
in quantitative history , Cambridge, Mass.-London 1979.
Likewise, the rivalry between al-Amm and al-
Ma 3 mun is not explained by the origin of their
mothers (Arab and Iranian), in view of the patrilineal
system of the c Abbasid family, recalled by al-Mansur,
son of a Berber concubine, to Muhammad al-Nafs al-
Zakiyya (who prided himself on being of pure and free
descent on both the paternal and maternal side) to
refute the legitimising pretensions of the c Alids (in
144/762; cf. al-Tabari, iii/1, 211-15). Al-Amln at¬
tempted to copy the example of al-Man$ur (in regard
to c Isa b. Musa), of al-Mahdt (in regard to the same
c Isa b. Musa), and of al-Hadl (in regard to his brother
al-Rashid), seeking to institute a direct line of succes¬
sion, at the expense of his brothers (al-Mu^tamin and
al-Ma^mun). This attempt to modify the pre-
established order had its supporters, the mawdli of the
caliph and the abna* al-dawla of c Irak, whose privileges
were threatened by the success of regional autono-
mism, beginning in the Maghrib and extending to
greater Khurasan, the pillar of the c Abbasid regime.
Under these circumstances, it comes as no surprise to
find the eastern provinces supporting the defender of
their aspirations. This was the first time that their
status was officially defined (by the “Meccan
Documents”) and that their representative was not
only an c Abbasid prince but also an heir to the
caliphate. In other words, if victorious, the Khurasa-
nians would win their autonomy and be assured of an
influential position in the structure of the state. As for
al-Ma^mun, it was his good fortune to reside beyond
the jurisdiction of the rejgning caliph, thus avoiding
the fate undergone by c Isa b. Musa (obliged to ab¬
dicate in favour of the sons of al-Mahdl) or that all but
suffered by al-Rashid (imprisoned by his brother al-
Hadi). His brother al-Mu^tamin did not have the

same opportunity and his case confirmed a contrario
the lot of al-Ma^mun.

The conflict began in 194/810, sparked off by the
addition of the name of Musa, the young son of al-
Amin, to the list of heirs to the caliphate: al-Ma 5 mun
and al-Mu^amin. A delegation was sent to Marw to
persuade al-Ma 5 mun to return to Baghdad, where he
was to take on the role of adviser of the caliph. Of¬
fended by his refusal, al-Amin attempted to re-assert
his authority over the whole of the empire; he
demanded the sending of the surplus revenues of cer¬
tain provinces (Rayy, Kumis and western Khurasan,
then the nomination of fiscal agents and finally the ap¬
pointment of a chief of postal services or intelligence
officer at Marw, al-Ma-’mun’s capital. The pers¬
picacity of al-Fadl b. Sahl, and the determination of
the Khurasanians to defend the autonomy that they
had finally acquired, helped al-Ma^mun to refuse any
modification of the letter of “Meccan Documents”
and thus to avoid any involvement with the
mechanism set in motion by the advisers of al-Amm
with the object of threatening his position. The rift
opened wide in 195/811, with the removal of the
caliph’s name from the coinage and the tirdz
of Khurasan. Taking advantage of the strength of his
position, al-Amin resolved to settle the question of
relations between the central power and Khurasan,
while there was still time. He proclaimed his son
Musa (son of a concubine) first heir (at the expense of
al-Ma 5 mun) and c Abd Allah (son of another con¬
cubine) second heir (at the expense of al-MuYamin),
in flagrant violation of the “Meccan Documents”.
Al-Ma^mun replied by taking the title of Imam, follow¬
ing the example of the Imam Ibrahim, son of Muham¬
mad b. C A1I, heir of Abu Hashim (son of Muhammad
b. al-Hanafiyya). This return to the principles of the
first da c wa hashimiyya at Marw was further underlined
by appeals sent to the various Arab tribal factions of
Khurasan, exalting the role of the nukaba x . Abu
Dawud Khalid b. Ibrahim al-Dhuhli al-Shay ban!
(confidential ally of Abu Muslim), Kahtaba b. Shabib
al-Ta 5 ! (commander of the revolutionary army),
Musa b. Ka c b al-Tamimi, Malik b. al-Haytham al-
Khuza c i, etc. In addition, the authority of the Imam
is of a more religious nature than that of the Amir
al-Mu^minin, this prefiguring the “imperial-papal”
policy of al-Ma 3 mun. Communications between c Irak
and Khurasan were cut, and the frontiers guarded to
prevent the sending of intelligence to Baghdad, while
al-Ma^mun’s intelligence service was in action at the
court itself (through the efforts_of al- c Abbas, son of the
former heir to the caliphate c Isa b. Musa, and other
informers recruited by al-Fadl b. Sahl).

The “Meccan Documents” were undermined and
then revoked at the behest of al-Amin, who finally
ordered his brother to recognise his complete authori¬
ty over Khurasan. The nature became total with the
appointment of c Alf b. c Isa b. Mahan, the deposed
former governor of Khurasan, as governor of Djibal
(the provinces of Kumm, Nihawand, Hamadhan.
Isfahan) with the mission of restoring the caliph’s
authority over Khurasan (Djumada II 195/March
811). The caliph’s army was composed of the abnd?
“sons” of the Khurasanian army garrisoned in c Irak,
of whom some were supporters of the conflict with
Khurasan (notably c Al! b. c Isa b. Mahan), while
others showed themselves loyal, in spite of the reserva¬
tions of some (in particular Khuzavma. son of
Khazim b. Khuzavma al-Tamimi, governor of the
region bordering on the Byzantine empire, the
c Awdsim [q. v. ] of al-DjazIra and of northern Syria).
Consequently, it is not appropriate to identify the par-

333

al-MA^MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

tisans of al-Amin with Arabs bent on vengeance, since
this leads to a flagrant contradiction: after all, the
Khurasanian army (composed of Arabs and of
mawali) had destroyed the Kaysl army of al-Djazira
to establish equality between Muslims, conquering
Arabs or conquered mawali , and to solve the social
problems of the empire. The politico-military
“establishment” was divided on the question of cen¬
tralisation as oppossed to the autonomy of provinces,
whose supporters were likewise of Arab and non-Arab
origin. It is for this reason that a certain number of
abna ? al-dawla are found in the camp of al-Ma ? mun,
including Harthama b. A c yan, a mawla of the Banu
f)abba, a native of Balkh; this former supporter of
c Isa b. Musa (who accepted the idea of a partial
autonomy for Khurasan), having espoused the cause
of al-Hadl and become a confidential ally of al-
Rashld, took the part of al-Ma^mun, who appointed
him chief of his bodyguard (although his son Hatim
was governing Egypt in the name of al-Amin);
Zuhayr, son of al-Musayyib b. Zuhayr al-Dabbl (who
was a deputy of the nakib), put himself on the side of
al-Ma 3 mun (who appointed him governor of Slstan),
as did his brother al- c Abbas, retained as chief of police
by al-Ma^mun (although another brother, Muham¬
mad, was an army officer in Ba gh dad in the service
of al-Amin); Shabib, grandson of Kahtaba b. Shabib
al-Ta J I, took the part of al-Ma^mun (who appointed
him head of the Kumis), although the rest of his fami¬
ly supported al-Amin; Muhammad b. al-Ash c ath al-
Khuza c I, whose family was resident in a village of
Bukhara, supported al-Ma-’mun, while the grandsons
of his namesake (who was a deputy of the nakib) were
in the camp of al-Amin.

The reserved attitude of c Abd Allah, son of the
nakib al-Haytham al-Khuza c I, who refused a post in
the administration (the other members of his family
were on the side of al-Amin), as well as Yahya b.
Mu c adh b. Muslim, a mawla of the Banu Dhuhl, a
veteran of the army of al-Rashid, opened the way to
the promotion of Tahir b. al-Husayn, of Bushandj,
descendant of Abu Mansur Talha b. Ruzayk, a mawla
of the Khuza c a, one of the twelve nukaba 5 of the da c wa
hashimiyya, in charge of relations with the Imam
Ibrahim. As governor of his native city. Tahir had
taken part in the revolt of Rafi c b. al-Layth against
the governor c Ali b. c lsa b. Mahan, until his deposi¬
tion at the hands of Harthama b. al- c Ayan (192/808).
Promoted governor of Djibal, Tahir was sent to Rayy
with a small army, to oppose the advance of C A1T b.
c Isa b. Mahan, commander of the main army of the
caliph (40,000 men against 4,000-5,000 under the
orders of Tahir).

The composition of al-Ma^mun’s army was Trans-
oxanian, thus extending recruitment to the c Abbasid
army to the populations of Soghdia, of Kh w arazm
and of other principalities of Central Asia. Only the
chiefs were dignified with the title of mawali of al-
Ma 3 mun, in the sense of supporters (singular muwali)
of the heir to the caliphate, this permitting them to ac¬
quire a majority of key posts in the event of victory.
The confrontation with the caliph’s army took place
near Rayy and, with odds of ten against one, the
result of the battle seemed a foregone conclusion.
Nevertheless, Tahir b. al-Husayn succeeded in killing
c Alr b. c Isa b. Mahan (7 Shawwal 195/3 July 811).
This surprise victory earned him the honorific title of
Dhu ’l-Yaminayn and restored the situation in favour of
al-Ma^mun, saved by this feat of arms. Tahir oc¬
cupied Kazwln and marched against Hamadhan.
where the remnants of the caliph’s army were entren¬
ched. He was obliged to confront an army of rein¬

forcements (20,000 abna 5 based at al-Anbar)
commanded by c Abd al-Rahman b. Djabala, who had
borne a grudge against al-Ma^mun since the latter
ordered the sending of the army of al-Rashid and the
treasury to Marw, in 193/809. Once more, Tahir was
victorious, and c Abd al-Rahman was killed (196/812).
The whole of the province of Djibal was now con¬
quered, opening the road to c Irak. To block the route
of the Khurasanian army, al-Amin mobilised two new
armies, one of 20,000 abna 5 under the orders of c Abd
Allah b. Humayd, grandson of the nakib and com¬
mander of the revolutionary army Kahtaba b. Shabib
al-Ta J i [qv.], and the other of 20,000 Arabs com¬
manded by the Kaysl Ahmad b. Mazy ad al-Shaybani,
representing the Rab^a of al-Djazira. Once more,
Tahir skilfully succeeded in playing these two sections
of the army against each other by exploiting their
rivalries (Kaysis cheated of their rights by the
Khurasanians for 60 years!). These repeated reverses
suffered by the abna? of c Irak and the impracticability
of mobilising the Arabs of al-Djazira forced al-Amin
to attempt to raise levies in Syria, in spite of the recent
revolt of the Sufyanid against him (195/811). c Abd al-
Malik b. Salih was reinstated as governor of the
c Awasim of al-Djazira and Syria, and Husayn son of
c Ali b. c Isa b. Mahan, his lieutenant, was sent on a
recruiting mission to Syria. However, the divisions
between Kaysis and Kalbis (Yemenis) did not con¬
stitute a propitious climate, all the more so in that the
Arabs of Syria had learned lessons from their par¬
ticipation in the struggle for the caliphate, and the
support given to the c Abbasid c Abd Allah b. C A1I
against the caliph al-Mansur (136/754). Finding his
task impossible, al-Husayn organised a coup d’etat at
Baghdad: in Radjab 196/March 812, he ordered the
arrest of al-Amin and proclaimed his brother al-
Ma^mun caliph. Nothing better illustrates the divi¬
sions of the abna 5 than the counter-coup which
restored the caliphate of al-Amin, while al-Husayn
was sent away to fight the army of Tahir, but was
killed in retribution. Henceforward, the hadjib-\ izier
al-Fadl al-Rabf 1 , one of the leading instigators of the
conflict with al-Ma^mun, sensing the cause of al-
Amln to be finally lost, decided to make provision for
the future by leaving the political scene and plunging
into obscurity. He was replaced by the katib al-sirr of
al-Amin, Isma c Il b. $ubayh al-Harranl, who had little
to say regarding the opening of further hostilities with
al-Ma 5 mun.

On the same date, al-Ma^mun was officially pro¬
claimed caliph at Marw, while al-Fadl b. Sahl was en¬
dowed with the title of Dhu ’ l-RPasatayn (a dual civil
and military command), and Tahir b. al-Husayn re¬
ceived orders to march on Khuzistan, which was
defended by a Muhallabid, Muhammad b. Yazld b.
Hatim, resident at Ahwaz. Tahir won the battle,
and this forced the Muhallabid of Basra, Ibn Abl
c Uyayna, to assure the position of his family by rally¬
ing to the new caliph al-Ma-’mun. In return, he was
appointed governor of Eastern Arabia (Bahrayn,
Yamama and c Uman), while an c Abbasid prince,
Isma c Il b. Dja c far, was charged with the government
of Basra. Tahir’s troops marched on Kufa, where they
encountered some resistance; then they set out
towards al-Mada 5 in, which they occupied, and finally
arrived at a point west of Ba gh dad. A second
Khurasanian army, commanded by Harthama b. al-
A c yan, one of the leading military chiefs under al-
Rashld, was sent by al-Ma^mun to invest the capital
from the east (Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 196/August 812). The
siege of Ba gh dad lasted thirteen months, prolonged
by the popular resistance of the c ayyarun [q v.], people

334

al-MA 3 MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

of humble origin, who exploited the situation to their
advantage. This urban guerilla warfare checked the
advance of the regular army of Tahir b. al-Husayn,
who began a destructive bombardment of the “City of
Peace”. The provinces situated to the west of c Irak
recognised the authority of al-Ma 3 mun in 197/813:
the Hidjaz (where the pilgrimage was under the
supervision of al- c Abbas, son of Musa b. c Isa, an early
ally of al-Ma^mun); Egypt, where the abnd 5 were
divided between partisans of al-Makhlu c (al-Amin) and
those allied to al-Ma^mun, supported by the Yemeni
Arabs (against the Kaysls); Ifrlldya, autonomous
under the Aghlabids, recognised the established
power; northern Syria and al-DjazIra, which had lost
their governor c Abd al-Malik b. $alih (d. 196/812),
took advantage of the situation to establish their
autonomy, an example followed by Adharbavdjan
and Armenia.

As for al-Amin, after squandering the resources of
the public treasury (several hundreds of millions of
dirhams ), he lost his supporters, who negotiated with
Tahir b. al-Husayn in order to safeguard their in¬
terests. Finally, he was obliged to seek the protection
of Harthama b. al-A c yan. But Tahir captured him
and ordered his execution on the night of 24-5 Muhar-
ram 198/24-5 September 813; this was the First time
that an c Abbasid caliph was thus humiliated and put
to death by rebel soldiers, whose conduct contrasted
with the more respectful and conciliatory attitude of
the veteran Harthama b. al-A c yan.

The government of c Irak was entrusted to al-
Hasan, brother of al-Fadl b. Sahl, while Tahir b. al-
Husayn was charged with securing the front in the
war against Byzantium, starting with al-DjazIra,
where Nasr b. Shabath al-Laythl, grandson of one
of the leading Kays! chiefs, had made his base at
Kaysum (in Diyar Mudar). The conqueror of al-
Amin underestimated this adversary [whose
resistance lasted until 210/825), while in Adhar-
baydjan Arab chieftains took control of the towns in
which they were established (their autonomy lasted
until 206/821). In order to subjugate Baghdad, al-
Hasan b. Sahl did not spare the conquered abnd > , and
this had the effect of re-kindling their resistance under
the leadership of the family of the Banu Khalid,
mawali of the Banu c Amir b. Lu 5 ayy, originally from
Marw al-Rudh, who took over the role of the family
of c AlT b. < Isa b. Mahan (it may be noted that Ahmad
b. Abl Khalid allied himself with al-Ma^mun and held
high office in the administration of Marw). This
unrest, encouraged by the demobilisation of the abnd 3
and fiscal problems in Ba g hdad, was exploited by the
c Alids, of Zaydi tendency, who sought to seize power
at the very heart of the empire: on 10 Djumada
199/26 January 815, Muhammad b. Ibrahim
Tabataba [q.v.], a descendent of al-Hasan b. c AlI and
of Fatima, was proclaimed al-Rida min al Muhammad
(in accordance with the da c wa hdshimiyya ) at Kufa. He
was supported by Abu ’1-Saraya al-Sirn b. Man§ur al-
Shaybanl, who had left the army of Harthama b. al-
A c yan; the troops of al-Hasan b. Sahl, sent to sup¬
press this revolt, were repulsed, but Ibn Tabataba
died of his wounds (February 815). A new Husaynid
Imam was proclaimed in the person of Muhammad b.
Muhammad b. Zayd. The movement sought to
spread throughout c Irak: at Basra, the Husaynid
Zayd, son of Musa al-Kazim, set upon the c Abbasids
of this metropolis to avenge the execution of his father
(in 183/799) on the orders of al-Rashid, as did the vic¬
tims of the revolt of 145/762-63 which had been
organised by Ibrahim b. c Abd Allah, brother of
Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya [q.vv.], against al-

Man§ur. The same occurred at Kufa, where the
property of c Abbasids was attacked. Emboldened by
these successes, the ShI c Is marched on Baghdad, forc¬
ing al-Hasan b. Sahl to appeal for help to the veteran
Harthama b. A c yan, who put an end to the revolt of
his former lieutenant Abu ’1-Saraya (executed in
RabI* I 200/October 815 [q.v. ]). Kufa was recaptured,
as was Ba§ra (where Zayd al-Nar “the Firebrand”
was arrested and sent to Marw). Other ShI c I centres
were established in the Hidjaz and the Yemen: at
Mecca, the envoy of Abu ’1-Saraya succeeded in
organising the proclamation of Muhammad al-
Dlbadj, grandson of the Imam Dja c far al-$adik, in
RabI* I 200/ November 815. The suppression of the
uprising was entrusted to Hamdawayh, son of C A1I b.
c Isa b. Mahan, leading a force of those abnd? who had
supported al-Ma-hnun in the civil war. Mecca was
recaptured and Muhammad al-Diba^j was spared (he
eventually went into exile in Djurdjan). There was
still the Yemen, where Ibrahim, son of Musa al-
Kazim succeeded in taking power in a bloodthirsty
fashion (which earned him the epithet of al-Djazzar
“the Butcher”), from $afar 200/September 815.
Hamdawayh succeeded in suppressing this movement
(then attempted, in his turn, to make himself in¬
dependent!).

These outbursts of hatred on the part of the c Alids
for the c Abbasids, who were accused of violating the
“rights” of the descendents of C A1I and Fatima, drove
al-Ma^mun to effect a spectacular reconciliation be¬
tween the two branches of the Family of the Prophet,
c Alids and c Abbasids, by means of a return to the
principles of the first da c wa hdshimiyya, which did not
in any way prohibit the choice of an c Alid Imam , in ac¬
cordance with the interpretation of the first vizier Abu
Salama al-Khallal [q.v.] (who, on the death in 132/749
of the c Abbasid Imam Ibrahim had offered the
caliphate to the Husaynid Dja c far al-Sadilc, then to
the Hasanid c Abd Allah b. al-Hasan, as well as to
c Umar b. c AlI b. al-Hasan). In addition, not only did
he spare the c Alids who had recently been proclaimed
anti- c Abbasid caliphs, but most significant of all, he
went further than his grandfather al-Mahdi in choos¬
ing as his successor another son of the martyr Musa
al-Kazim, c AlI, brother of Zayd the rebel in Basra and
of Ibrahim the rebel in the Yemen, who was given the
title of al-Rida min dl Muhammad. This initiative by al-
Ma 5 mun ran counter to the policy pursued for a cen¬
tury, and in particular, since the support given by the
lOiurasaniyya to the c Abbasid branch, with the pro¬
clamation of al-Saffah, brother of the Imam Ibrahim,
in preference to the c Alid candidates. The Sahlids,
who controlled the machinery of state, were forced to
identify with this etymologically revolutionary policy
in order to avoid suffering disgrace analogous to that
of the Barmakids (when they did not share the
anti- c Alid policy of al-Rashid). Nevertheless, the
relative strengths of c Irak and of Khurasan did not
permit the realisation of this attempt to broaden the
social base of al-Ma 5 mun’s regime. In fact, the threat
of an inversion of roles at the expense of c Irak led its
aristocracy, far from enfeebled by the war between
partisans of al-Amin and of al-Ma^mun, to resist the
Sahlids whose policy in c Irak was judged dangerous
for the caliphate itself by such veterans as Harthama
b. A c yan. The latter did not hesitate to present
himself in person at Marw, to inform al-Ma-’mun of
the reality of the situation in c Irak, instead of taking
up his post as governor of Syria and the Hidjaz, to
which he had been appointed on the eve of the revolt
of Kufa. Taking advantage of his influence over the
caliph, al-Fadl b. Sahl succeeded in turning al-

al-MA 5 MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

335

Ma 3 mun against him and ultimately he had him ex¬
ecuted in Dhu ’1-Ka c da 200/June 816. In conse¬
quence, Hatim, son of Harthama b. al-A c yan and
governor of Armenia, raised a revolt. Allying himself
with other local chieftains of Adharbaydjan, Babak
al-Khurraml [^.».] went into action in 201/816 at
Ba dhdh [ q.v . in Suppl.] in the mountainous region to
the south of the Araxes.

The struggle for power in Baghdad and the attempt
to impose c AlI al-Rida as successor to al-Ma-’mun
granted a respite to the autonomists of Adharbaydjan,
of Armenia, of the c Awdfim of northern al-DjazIra and
Syria, of Syria and of Egypt. In fact, the resistance of
the abnd 3 forced al-Hasan b. Sahl to abandon the
capital. A triple power was established there with the
appointment of al-Mansur b. al-Mahdl, son of a Per¬
sian concubine, as delegate of al-Ma^mun, from 25
Djumada II 201/18 January 817 onwards. In addi¬
tion, the urban lower classes supported the movement
of Sahl b. Salama al-Ansarl, a native of Kh urasan, in
the quarter of al-Harbiyya; “[the command] al-amr bi
3 l-ma c ruf wa ’l-nahy c an al-munkar became identified
more or less with political independence and with the
self-government of small social groups” (J. van Ess,
Une lecture a reborns de I’histoire du mu Hazilisme , in REI,
xlvii/1 [1979], 68 = Extrait hors serie 14, Paris 1984,
127), while Abu ’l-Hudhayl and al-Nazzam, who had
introduced Mu c tazilism to the court of al-Ma 3 mun,
worked, on the contrary, for a policy of reconciliation
with the c Abbasid power. In other words, the process
of recovery of the second half of the reign of al-
Ma 3 mun, was beginning to evolve. In the meantime,
on 2 Ramadan 201/24 March 817, al-Ma^mun pro¬
claimed C A1T b. Musa al-Kazim as his successor (at the
expense of al-Mu 3 tamin, his brother), with the title of
al-Rida min al Muhammad, and abandoned the black
colour of the c Abbasids in favour of the green colour
(the Katiba al-khadrd 3 of the Prophet). Henceforward,
the choice of caliph -Imam was to be made from among
the descendents of Hashim, common ancestor of
Muhammad and of his uncles al- c Abbas and Abu
Talib the father of c AlI (a census taken in 201/816
counted 30,000 Hashimites, who had their own
nakib). When the news reached c Irak four months
later, the c Abbasids and their supporters reacted
against this assault on their “acquired rights”: the
c Abbasid governor of Basra Isma c Il b. Dja c far b.
Sulayman b. c AlI refused to wear green, while in
Ba gh dad, the sons of al-Mahdl led the opposition.
When al-Man$ur (whose mother was al-Buhturiyya,
daughter of the Dabuyid ispahbadh of Tabaristan,
Khurshld) refused to be proclaimed caliph, his half-
brother Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl (whose mother was
Shakla. daughter of the Masmu gh an of Damawand,
deposed at the time of the conquest of this district) ac¬
cepted the title (28 Dhu THidjdja 201/17 July 817)
and chose his nephew Ishak b. Musa al-Hadl,
brother-in-law of al-Ma 3 mun, as heir to the throne.
He was supported by the c Abbasid princes, notably
Ibrahim b. Muhammad b. c Abd al-Wahhab b.
Ibrahim al-Imam (known as Ibn c A :) isha), Abu Ishak
the future al-Mu c ta?im, the mawdli of the preceding
caliph al-Amln, al-Fadl b. al-Rabl* (who returned to
his post of hadjib at the court), al-Sindl b. Shahak, re¬
appointed chief of the police^ and the abnd 5 , compris¬
ing the sons of both C A1I b. c Isa b. Mahan and of Abu
Khalid, and even of former partisans of al-Ma^mun,
including al-Muttalib b. c Abd Allah, grandson of the
nakib Malik b. al-Haytham al-Khuza c I. or Nu c aym b.
Khazim b. Khuzavma al-Tamlml (who joined his
brother Khuzavma. who had remained loyal to al-
Amln). In other words, this was the revival of the war

between the two camps, dormant since 198/813. The
fact that al-Amln was the son of an Arab wife, and
Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl that of a Persian concubine, like
al-Ma^mun, did not affect the way that the conflict
was waged, in terms of the relations between c Irak,
(capital Baghdad) and Khurasan (capital Marw).

The new caliph Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl succeeded in
extending his authority over the capital by putting
and end to the activities of Sahl b. Salama al-An$arI
in the quarter of al-Harbiyya. Then he sought to take
control of Kufa, from which the c Alid governor
al- c Abbas, brother of C A1I al-Rida, was expelled
(Djumada I 202/November 817). But Wasit served as
a headquarters for al-Hasan b. Sahl, who regained
control of Basra. The governor of Egypt, c Abd
al- c Aziz b. c Abd al-Rahman al-Azdl, rallied to
Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl, while the autonomous amir of
Ifrlkiya remained neutral as before. The gravity of the
situation was hidden from al-Ma^mun by al-Fa<^l b.
Sahl, until c Ali al-Ri^a disclosed to him that Ibrahim
b. al-Mahdl had been proclaimed caliph, rather than
amir , in Baghdad. Henceforward, at the age of thirty-
one years, al-Ma^mun decided to take personal con¬
trol of affairs; he recognised that a military solution
was not appropriate and that only agreement between
the social elements of the empire was capable of saving
the regime, by enlarging its social base as a means of
gaining control of the different provinces. A First con¬
cession to the aristocracy of c Irak was effected by the
announcement of his return to Baghdad, whose role
as capital of the empire was thus assured; on 10
Radjab 202/22 January 818 al-Ma^mun left Marw
with the court, the administration and the army, leav¬
ing Ghassan b. c Abbad, a cousin of the Sahlids, as
governor of Khurasan at Marw. At Sarakhs. al-Fadl
b. Sahl, who had attempted to usurp the authority of
the caliph, suffered the same fate as the Barmakids; he
was assassinated at the instigation of al-Ma-’mun (2
Sha c ban 202/13 February 818), but unlike the Bar¬
makids, the other Sahlids were spared; besides con¬
trolling Khurasan and southern c Irak, they held
influential posts in the central administration, with
the promotion of al-Hasan b. Sahl to the post of
vizier -amir which had been held by his brother al-
Fadl. A matrimonial alliance was concluded to con¬
solidate this situation, with the betrothal of al-
Ma 3 mun to Buran, daughter of al-Hasan b. Sahl (the
marriage was to be celebrated in Ramadan
210/December 825). Two months later, al-Ma^mun
left Sarakhs for Tus, making no attempt to hasten the
issue. As for Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl, he was hampered
by lack of Financial resources and was obliged to com¬
bat opposition movements: on the part of Asad, who
raised a revolt in the quarter of al-Harbiyya (sup¬
pressed by c Isa b. Muhammad b. Abl Khalid); on the
part of Mahdl b. c Alwan al-Sharf (al-Haruri) in
the region between Baghdad and Mada 5 in (the head¬
quarters of Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl), who was defeated
by Abu Ishak (al-Mu c tasim); and on the part of cer¬
tain abnd 3 who sought to come to terms with the
generals of al-Hasan b. Sahl. Alerted to this con¬
spiracy, in which al-Mansur b. al-Mahdl was im¬
plicated, Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl returned to Ba g hdad
(14 Safar 203/21 August 818) and had his half-brother
arrested, as well as Khuzavma b. Khazim al-Tamlml,
although al-Muttalib b. c Abd Allah al-Khuza C I suc¬
ceeded in escaping. It was then that the army of al-
Hasan b. Sahl captured al-Mada 3 in and the Nahr
Diyala. Meanwhile, in Khurasan. c Ali al-Rida met
his death in the village of Sanabad, near Tus, on 29
Safar 203/5 September 818, and the ShI c Is were con¬
vinced that al-Ma^mun had had him poisoned

336

al-MA-’MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

(whence the name of Mashhad [q. ».], given to this
place). Not only was a heavy taxation levied, but in
Baghdad, certain abna > conspired against Ibrahim b.
al-Mahdl; c Isa b. Abl Khalid was supposed to capture
him and hand him over on Friday 29 Shawwal 203/29
April 819, but his plan was revealed and he was im¬
prisoned. To free him, the family of the Banu Khalid
entered into conflict with Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl and
rallied to the cause of al-Ma-’mun (Dhu ’1-Ka c da
203/May 819), who was in Djurdjan at this date (in
other words, it had taken him sixteen months, since
leaving Marw, to cover the twenty journey-stages
which separated this town from Djurdjan). Feeling the
cause lost, once more, the hdtjjib al-Fadl b. al-Rabl*
deserted his caliph and his post and plunged again in¬
to obscurity. As for Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl, he was re¬
duced to using his rival Sahl b. Salama al-An$ar in an
attempt to mobilise the lower classes of Baghdad.
After two years as caliph, Ibrahim decided to leave the
political scene, at the same time escaping from a con¬
spiracy of some of his military chiefs who had plotted
to hand him over to al-Hasan b. Sahl (16 Muharram
204/13 July 819). The authority of al-Ma^mun was
restored in Baghdad, while al-Hasan b. Sahl withdrew
from political life (on account of his ill-health). In
other words, the way was clear when al-Ma-’mun ar¬
rived at Hulwan, which separates c Irak from the
Iranian plateau. Tahir b. al-Husayn, who had
withdrawn to Rakka, received orders to return to
Baghdad, where al-Ma^mun made a triumphal entry
on 17 Safar 204/August 819 (after ten years of
absence). One month later, he re-adopted the colour
black, but retained the title of Imam (which all his suc¬
cessors were to bear) with the object of consolidating
his role as guide of the umma , following the example
of the c Alid Imams.

Henceforward, the attempt to control the empire
and to guide the umma was the personal responsibility
of al-Ma^mun, advised by the Mu c tazills and the kafi
Ahmad b. Abl Du 5 ad [f.p.]. To apply the new policies
of the Imam , the kuttab of the previous administration
were first disbanded but then reinstated as advisers on
the administrative staff which was recalled from
Khurasan. Ahmad b. Abl Khalid, kinsman of the
abna 3 of c Irak, was the personal secretary of al-
Ma 3 mun, and acted as principal adviser and as agent
for rallying the abna 5 of Baghdad (until his death in
211/826). The chiefs of the diwans, most of whom
were former proteges of the Barmakids, were con¬
trolled directly by the caliph, who took personal
charge of recourse to the mazalim. For the
maintenance of order, supervision of the police was
entrusted to Tahir b. al-Husayn, while yesterday’s
adversaries were pardoned in the interests of com¬
munal reconciliation: thus al-Fa^l b. al-Rabl* and
then Ibrahim b. al-Mahdl (in 210/825) benefited from
the hilm of al-Ma^mun (who executed only the
recalcitrant Ibrahim Ibn c A 3 isha, descendent of the
Imam Ibrahim, in 210/825). The central army com¬
bined numerous bodies of troops, and privileged
status reverted to the supporters of al-Ma 5 mun, of
Transoxanian and Khurasanian origin, at the expense
of the abna 3 who had been defeated on two occasions,
in 198/813 and then in 204/819. Since the empire was
only now emerging from a civil war that had lasted ten
years, al-MaYnun confined himself to supporting the
revolt of Thomas the Slav in Asia Minor (820-3),
while awaiting the opportunity to renew the campaign
against the Byzantine empire (which he did from
215/830 onwards). As for the government of the prov¬
inces, he entrusted the holy cities of the Hidjaz to an
c Alid, while al-Djazira, troubled by the revolt of Nasr

b. Shabath at Kaysum, received as its ruler the
veteran Yahya b. Mu c adh b. Muslim, who was also
required to act with restraint.

In 205/820, a number of troublesome incidents oc¬
curred in the marshlands of lower c Irak, where the
Zu{t [fl.w.] controlled the routes of communication
(until 219/834), but also and especially in Khurasan.
It was in response to these problems that there was es¬
tablished a dynasty of Tahirid governors, in accord¬
ance with the conditions granted to al-Ma 5 mun by the
“Meccan Documents” (in 186/802), this representing
a durable compromise solution. This was the first
time that the c Abbasids made use of governors to rule
the eastern half of the empire and to support the
policies of the caliphate (similar methods had been
practised under Mu c awiya with Ziyad b. Ablhi, and
under c Abd al-Malik b. Marwan with al-Hadjdjadj b.
Yusuf al-Thakafi). In fact, Tahir b. al-Husayn ruled
greater Khurasan, while his cousin Ishak b. Ibrahim
b. Mus c ab deputised for him as commander of the
police in Baghdad, and his son c Abd Allah b. Tahir
was responsible for extending the caliph’s authority
over the autonomous provinces by means of the cen¬
tral army, which was recruited principally from the
eastern provinces.

In other words, the autonomy of the Tahirids was
of a different nature from that of the Aghlabids in
Ifrlkiya, and, contrary to the views of some
“Jacobin” historians, the power of the state was not
conceived in terms of centralisation, representing a
very high cost and uncertain results, but in the co¬
operation of different provinces which, in exchange
for a degree of autonomy, were prepared to mobilise
and to employ the energies and creative abilities of
their inhabitants in the service of the umma. It was by
this means that the integration of the former Sasanid
empire was achieved, assisting al-Ma 5 mun in his task
of restoring the unity of the empire on new cultural
bases. In fact, Mu c tazilism seemed to represent a
compromise solution which would conciliate the
c Alids and would adapt Islam to the economic and
social evolution of the empire, seeing that the rural
communities were unfairly oppressed by the scale of
land-taxes levied by the aristocracy of the towns, while
the urban proletariat, by frugal living, managed after
a fashion to support a non-Kur D anic burden of taxa¬
tion (whence its support for Hanbalism, favouring a
strict adherence to the Kurban and to the Sunna of
Muhammad and his Companions). The political im¬
plications of Mu c tazilism, elaborated by the mawalt of
Kufa (including Bishr b. al-Mu c tamir) and of Basra
(including Abu THudhavl al- c A!laf and his nephew
al-Nazzam), explain the interest of al-Ma^mun in this
school of kalam, which supplemented the Arabic
literary tradition by recourse to Greek philosophy as
a means of arguing in favour of the oneness of God
(whose shadow on the earth is the Imam). In other
words, the “son of the Persian” al-Ma^mun, far from
hallowing the influence of the Sanskrit and Pahlavi
cultural and scientific heritage, was the promoter of
the cultural watershed of the 3rd/9th century, en¬
couraging the translation into Arabic from Greek (and
from Syriac) of the philosophy, astronomy,
mathematics and medicine of the Hellenistic period
(cf. R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic, 1962; G. E. von
Grunebaum, Islam and medieval Hellenism , London).
The foundation of the Bayi al-Hikma [ q. v. ] in Baghdad
(217/832) confirmed his interest in the development of
a new culture, Arabic in expression and Islamic in in¬
spiration, integrating the contributions of the various
peoples of the Orient, including the neighbours of the
c Abbasid empire, whether they were commercial part-

al-MA^MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

337

ners (India) or political enemies (Byzantium).
Scholars of all persuasions (Muslims, Christians,
Jews, Zoroastrians and Sabians) and from different
provinces of the empire (Kh w arazm, Farghana,
Khurasan. Tabaristan, al-Djazira and c Irak) con¬
tributed to the advancement of Arab science, heir to
the sciences of antiquity, adopted and adapted accord¬
ing to the requirements of Arab-Islamic civilisation.

These borrowings from various foreign cultures
were not to the taste of the traditionists ( muhaddithun )
who adhered to the Kurban and the Sunna as sources
of the law. While certain Jukahd 3 were supporters of
ra^y in questions of jurisprudence (particularly the
HanafTs of c Irak), the majority tended to distrust
divergences of opinion and, to maintain the purity of
religion, re-affirmed the authority of the Kurban com¬
pleted by the Sunna (at that time being edited in tex¬
tual form, a process begun by Malik, b. Anas).
Al-Ma 3 mun applied himself to encouraging politico-
religious controversies, on the one hand between
representatives of different religions (cf. G. Tartar,
Dialogue islamo-chretien sous le calife al-Ma?mun. Les epitres
d’al-Hashimi et d’al-Kindi, doctoral thesis, Univ. of
Strasbourg, ii, 1977, repr. in the Bulletin Evangile-
Islam , special issue, October 1982; Gu^jastak Abalish,
ed. and tr. A. Barthelemy, Paris 1887; the subject is
a polemic between a Zoroastrian converted to Islam
and the leader of the Mazdaeans of Fars); on the other
hand, and most of all, between c «/ama 5 of the different
tendencies with regard to the interpretations of Islam.
Aware of the gulf between Mu c tazill concepts (hither¬
to classed as zandaka) and those of the jukahd ? and
muhaddithun , opposed to the notion of the created
Kur’an, al-Ma 5 mun was at pains, over the years, to
promote the Mu c tazill point of view, of which the
political implications were obvious: the Imam , seeking
to correct the inequitable effects of the established
order (particularly in terms of the taxation levied on
citizens) borrowed from the Mu c tazills that which he
judged necessary for his purpose, this being the
dogma of the created Kurban (only God is uncreated
and eternal), which he was able to use in rectifying the
order himself, by means of his knowledge (jilm). This
perspicacity brought him close to the example of c All,
the first of the Companions of Muhammad to have
understood that a practical interpretation of Islam was
necessary after the upheavals set in motion by the suc¬
cess and the extent of the Arab conquests (634-44).
Furthermore, with the object of wooing the support of
the ShT c Is, C A1I was proclaimed “the best of the
Companions after the Prophet” (in 211/826, re¬
affirmed in 212/827).

Scientific work, especially in the realms of
astronomy and of mathematics, as well as car¬
tography, conducted alongside the theological discus¬
sions of the decade beginning in 820, coincided with
the restoration of the authority of the caliphate over
the autonomous provinces with the regions situated to
the north of c Irak. Through the efforts of c Abd Allah
b. Tahir, the revolt in al-Djazira of Na§r b. Shabath
was suppressed (surrender in 210/825), while in
Adharbaydjan, c Isa b. Abi Khalid put an end to the
autonomy of the chieftains in the principal cities, but
failed to subdue the mountainous region held by
Babak, who controlled the principalities of Siounik
and Baylakan, situated in Arran (on the other side of
the Araxes). The various expeditions entrusted to
Sadaka b. C AH al-Azdl (in 209/824), then to Muham¬
mad b. Humayd al-Ta 5 ! or al-Tusi (212-14/827-9)
were unable to stamp out a mountain guerilla force,
strongly based and particularly effective against a
regular army. These repeated failures cost the

caliphate very dear, but did not impede the extension
of the caliph’s control over other mountainous
regions; in 207/822, after arranging the succession of
Tlhir b. al-Husayn at Marw, Ahmad b. Abi Khalid
succeeded in integrating the principality of Ushrusana
into the empire, through the help of Haydar b.
Kawus, son of al-Afshin [q.v.]> who had taken refuge
with al-Ma^mun. Another local prince, Mazyar b.
Karin, driven out of his mountainous principality in
the Elburz, was employed by al-Ma 5 mun as co¬
governor of Tabaristan, of Ruyan and of Dunbawand
which were under the control of the Tahirids (cf. M.
Rekaya, Mazyar , in Studia Iranica, ii/2 [1973], 143-92,
and karinids). All these local princes who rallied to
al-Ma^mun were converted to Islam and were
honoured with the title of mawdllAmir al-Mu^minin as
a reward for their support of his policies. As for the
Yemen, it was the base for the outbreak of a new c Alid
revolt, fomented in 207/822 by c Abd al-Rahman b.
Ahmad, but al-Ma 5 mun succeeded in obtaining his
surrender, thus salvaging the desired reconciliation.
However, the revolt of the citizens of Kumm,
discontented by the refusal to reduce the kharddj_, had
to be suppressed (in 210/825, again in 216/831).

Once the pacification of the empire had been almost
achieved, with the return of Egypt under the control
of the caliphate (in 210-11/825-6), and the confirma¬
tion of the autonomous status of Aghlabid Ifrikiya, al-
Ma 5 mun felt sufficiently strong to proclaim
Mu c tazilism as the official doctrine (in 212/827). He
thus announced an “imperial-papal” policy, the ap¬
plication of which had been deferred until the con¬
solidation of the new regime. In fact, the Imam
undertook to reorganise the central army in order to
provide himself with a powerful and effective striking
force which would serve under his guidance. In
213/828 he took control of the armed forces, and
divided them into three main army groups (each com¬
prising a company of abnd 5 , troops of the c Awafim and
recruits drawn from the eastern provinces): the first
under the command of Ishak b. Ibrahim (charged
with the maintenance of order in c Irak and in Djibal
and Fars, adjoining greater Khurasan, which was en¬
trusted to Talha b. Tahir); the second under the
orders of al- c Abbas b. al-Ma^mun (responsible for the
war-front in the struggle against the Byzantine empire
in al-Djazira and northern Syria); and the third en¬
trusted to Abu Ishak Muhammad (al-Mu c tasim,
successor to al-Ma 5 mun) and charged with the
government of Egypt, where the situation was ex¬
plosive. In fact, from 214/829, the Muslims and the
Copts fomented a revolt against the system of taxation
and inflicted a defeat upon the forces of al-Mu c tasim.
In northern Adharbaydjan. Babak al-Khurrami suc¬
ceeded in killing Muhammad b. Humayd al-Tusi
(214/829) and repelling his army, forcing al-Ma 5 mun
to charge c Abd Allah b. Tahir, veteran of the pacifica¬
tion of al-Djazira and then of Egypt, with the suppres¬
sion of this movement. However, before being able to
intervene against Babak, c Abd Allah b. Tahir was
transferred to Khurasan on the death of his brother
Talha (214/829), this coinciding with the end of the
revolt of the Kharidji Hamza b. Adarak (which had
lasted for a third of a century in Slstan-Kirman). The
task of pacifying Djibal, Adharbaydjan and Armenia
was then entrusted to C A1I b. Hisham, one of al-
Ma^mun’s leading generals, who did not however
succeed in changing the territorial status quo.

This policy of restoring the unity of the empire
preceded the resumption of war against Byzantium,
already under way with the settlement of Andalusians
in Crete (from 210/826) and the conquest of Sicily by

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

338

al-MA>MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID

the Aghlabids of Ifrlkiya (a campaign launched in
211/827). In addition, deserters from the Byzantine
empire were gathered together and posted in frontier
sites (cf. P. Lemerle, L’histoire des Pauliciens d’Asie
mineure d’apres les sources greques , in Travaux et Memoires
du Centre de recherch.es d'histoire et civilisation de Byzance, v
[1973]; H. Gregoire, Manuel et Theophobe , in Byzantion ,
ix [1934]; M. Rekaya, Mise au point sur Theophobe et
Valliance de Babek avec Theophile , in ibid ., xliv [1974]).

The first campaign began in 215/830 under the per¬
sonal command of al-Ma > mun, who thus intended to
prove himself worthy of his title of Imam, according to
the Zaydl definition which then obtained, meaning a
guide endowed with great knowledge {Him) and with
tried and tested political and military courage. On the
way, al-Ma^mun made the discovery of the Sabaeans
of Harran, some of whom were obliged to convert to
a Religion of the Book, while a fatwd proclaimed a for¬
mal accord between Islam and this religious com¬
munity (then assimilated to the 5abi 5 un of the
Kurban, II, 59/62, V, 73/69, XXII, 17), which pro¬
duced many scholars and translators of the Greek
heritage into Arabic. The outcome of this campaign
was the capture of a number of fortresses in Cap¬
padocia (in Arabic: al-Matamlr [see matmura]. In
response, the Byzantine emperor Theophilus attacked
the fortresses of al-Ma$$Isa and Tarsus, provoking the
second campaign of al-Ma 5 mun (216/831) in which he
was accompanied by his son al- c Abbas (the conqueror
of Theophilus) and by his brother and successor Abu
Ishak (al-Mu c ta$im). After a series of victories in Asia
Minor, al-Ma 5 mun rejected the proposal for an ex¬
change of prisoners and a five-year truce. The caliph
withdrew to Damascus and from here he was obliged
to make his way in person to Egypt to put an end to
the revolt of the Copts and the Muslims against the
burden of taxation. After the subjugation of the
rebels, al-Ma^mun undertook a fiscal reform; the
system of kabdla replaced the former method of collec¬
tion, and the state showed itself willing, in case of
need, to take account of difficult circumstances. In ad¬
dition, relations with the Nubians were improved,
enabling the Muslims to exert better control of the
lands of the Nile.

With the pacification of Egypt achieved, al-
Ma 3 mun returned to the Byzantine front in 217/832,
with the object of gaining control over the ports of
Cilicia beyond the Taurus. The siege of the fortress of
Lu 3 lu 5 a (which controlled access to Tyana) ended
with its capitulation, and once more the emperor
Theophilus called unsuccessfully for a truce and an
exchange of prisoners.

In spite of his preoccupation with the Byzantine
war-front, and the political difficulties aroused by the
persistent rebellions of the Zuft (of lower c Irak), of
Babak al-Khurraml in the north of Adharbaydjan,
complicated by the sedition of C A1I b. Hisham, gover¬
nor of Djibal, of Adharbaydjan and of Armenia (ex¬
ecuted in Djumada I 217/June 832), al-Ma-’mun did
not neglect cultural matters (foundation of the Bayt al-
Hikma in 217/832) and did not lose sight of his objec¬
tive of having his “imperial-papal” policy recognised
by the Sunni c ulamd -3 . While preparing for the major
campaign of 218/833 (of which the objective was
Amorium, the natal city of the current Byzantine
dynasty and thus the heart of Byzantium itself), al-
Ma 3 mun engaged in a trial of strength with the
c ulamd 3 in the Islamic sciences, instituting the mihna
[q.v.] (RabI* I 218/April 833), four months before his
death. Henceforward, Mu c tazilism was to be adopted
by all the c ulamd 3 , whether in the service of the state
or independent of the c Abbasid power. A struggle for

influence over the c amma took place between the Imam
al-Ma^mun who claimed for himself the right to inter¬
pret the law (and to change the established rules in the
name of social justice), and the c ulama 3 and Jukahd 3 ,
traditionalists who refuted this pretension on the part
of the caliphate (and believed that the changes would
be, in fact, carried out in the interest of the khassa, the
least of whose concerns was the general interest,
represented by the ^amma 7 ). The majority of the
c ulamd 3 conceded the claims of the Imam, whether
through loyalty or through fear of reprisals. A minori¬
ty refused his directive, forming the nucleus of a
resistance movement which received the support of
the urban proletariat of Ba g hdad (cf. W. M. Patton,
Ahmed ibn Hanbal and the Mihna, Leiden 1897). The
social conflict between the khdsfa and the c amma of the
capital was revived (leading the successor of al-
Ma 5 mun to found a new capital at Samarra).

Shortly before his death, al-Ma^mun chose as his
successor not his son al- c Abbas, who was in charge of
the c Awdsim (in the manner of al-Mu-’tamin, who was
to be the third heir of al-Rashid), but his brother al-
Mu c tasim who was responsible for the new recruits
from Transoxania. His political testament recom¬
mended the pursuit of his politico-religious work, in¬
complete in Radjab 218/August 833, the date of his
death near Tarsus.

In conclusion, it is not inappropriate to compare al-
Ma-’mun with c Abd al-Malik b. Marwan
(65-86/685-705), both of whom restored unity to the
empire after a long civil war and promoted a political
and cultural upheaval (of the 2nd/8th century in the
case of c Abd al-Malik, and of the 3rd/9th century in
the case of al-Ma 5 mun). Their successors benefited
from their work (built up over twenty years) and
developed its main points of policy during their reign
(of ten years); al-Mu c tasim put an end to various cen¬
tres of persistent revolt (the Khurramiyya of Djibal in
218/833, the ZuH of the marshlands of lower c Irak in
219/834; the Khurramiwa of Babak in Adharbaydjan
in 222/837; the abnd 3 favourable to al- c Abbas b. al-
Ma 5 mun in 223/838; and the Sufyanid al-Mubarka c
in Syria in 226/841). He endorsed the Tahirids, the
pillars of the regime, going so far as to suppress the
autonomist revolt of Mazyar, the prince-governor of
Tabaristan (225/840) and to sacrifice one of his
leading supporters, al-Afshm of Ushrusana
(225/840), in order to put an end to his rivalry with
the Tahirids. He surrounded himself with the same
Mu c tazill advisers as had been chosen by al-Ma 5 mun,
in particular the chief kadi Ahmad b. Abl Du 5 ad, a
native of Kinnasrin, and pursued the mihna in¬
augurated in 218/833. He made new campaigns
against the Byzantine empire, achieving in 223/838
the project undertaken by al-Ma 3 mun in 218/833.
The stimulus given to translations and to scientific
works under al-Ma^un continued unabated, permit¬
ting the tutor of the sons of al-Mu c ta$im, al-Kindl,
to achieve the integration of Neo-Platonism into
Mu c tazill theology. In spite of this continuity there
were some changes, exemplified by the transfer of the
capital to Samarra [q.v.] (from 221/836), in order to
preserve the strength of the strike force constituted by
the army, dominated by Transoxanians, among
whom the role of the Turkish guard was growing in
importance.

Bibliography: Sources. These embrace prac¬
tically all the categories of documents, cf. Cl.
Cahen, Introduction a Thistoire du monde musulman
medieval (VII e -XV e siecle), Paris 1982. The section of
Tabari on al-Ma^m tin’s reign has been translated
into English by C. E. Bosworth, The caliphate of al-

339

al-MA>MUN b. HARUN al-RASHID —

Ma y mun 198-213 (813-33), Albany 1986. 2.

Studies. There is no work of synthesis on al-
Ma 5 mun (the subject however of the present
writer’s these d’etat, in preparation). The 3 vols. of
A. al-Rifa c i, Q Asr al-Ma^mun, Cairo 1928, are a
compilation from the Arab sources; M. M. Had-
dara, al-Ma?mun, al-khalifa al- c alim, Cairo n.d.
[1966], has no scholarly pretentions. F. c Umar
touches on this period only in certain articles col¬
lected together in his Buhuthfi ’ 1-taMkh al- c Abbasi,
Baghdad 1977, and al-TaMkh al-isldmt wa-fikr al-
kam al- c ishrin, Beirut 1980. Chapters are devoted to
al-Ma 5 mun’s age in recent works on the c Abbasids:
M. A. Shaban, Islamic history, a new interpretation. 2.
A.D. 750-1055 (A.H. 132-448), Cambridge 1976;
H. Kennedy, The early Abbasid caliphate. A political
history , London 1981; D. Sourdel, Le vizirat
c abbaside , Damascus 1959, i; P. Crone, Slaves on
horses , Cambridge 1980; O. Racine, L’aristocratie au
premier siecle c abbaside (doctorat du 3 e cycle), Univ.
of Toulouse II 1984. One should also mention F.
Gabrieli, La successione di Hdrun al-Rasid e la guerra fra
al-Amln e al-Ma^mun, in RSO, xi (1926-8), 341-97;
S. B. Samadi, The struggle between the two brothers Al-
Amin and Al-Mamun, in IC, xxxii (1958), 99-120;
Barbier de Meynard, Ibrahim fils de Mahdi , in JA
(1869); A. Arioli, La rivolta di Abu Saraya , in Ann.
Fac. Ling. Lett, stran. Ca’ Foscari, v (1974); S. Ham-
di, The pro-alid policy of MaAmun , in Bull. Coll. Arts
Sc., Baghdad, i (1959); D. Sourdel, La politique
religieuse du calife c abbaside al-Ma^mun, in REI, xxx/1
(1962), 26-48; F. Gabrieli, al-Ma?mun egli c Alidi, in
Morgenldndische Texte und Forschungen, Leipzig ii,
1929; L. Veccia Vaglieri, Le vicende del frarigismo in
epoca c abbaside, in RSO, xxiv (1949), 31-44; M.
Rekaya, Le khurram-din et les revoltes khurramites jus-
qu’a Bdbak (m. 837), Paris 1985; M. Kaabi, Les
Tdhirides au ffurasan et en Iraq (III e /IX e siecle), Tunis
1983; D. Sourdel, Les circonstances de la mort de Tahir
I a au ffurasan en 207/822, in Arabica, v (1958), 66-9;
E. L. Daniel, Iran’s awakening: a study of local
rebellions in the eastern provinces of the islamic empire,
126-227 A.H. (743-842 A.D.), Ph. D. thesis, Univ.
of Texas, Austin 1978 (publ. by University
Microfilms International, Ann Arbor 1982); idem,
The political and social history of Khurasan under Abbasid
rule 747-820 , Minneapolis-Chicago 1979; C. E.
Bosworth, The Tahir ids and Arabic culture, in JSS, xiv
(1969), 445-79; idem, An early Arabic mirror for
princes: Tdhir Dhu l- Yaminayn’s epistle to his son
c Abdallah (206/821), in JNES, xxix (1979); D. M.
Dunlop, A diplomatic exchange between al-Ma^mun and
an Indian King, in Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies,
Leiden 1972; A. A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes. I.
Relations politiques de Byzance et les Arabes au temps de
la dynastied’Amorium (820-67), Fr. edn. H. Gregoire
and M. Canard, Brussels 1935, repr. 1959; H.
Ahrweiler, L ’Asie mineure et les invasions arabes (VII e -
IX e siecle), in Revue Historique , ccxxvii (1962), 1-32;
M. M. Ahsan, Social life under the Abbdsids
(170-289/786-902 A.D.), London-New York 1976;
Cl. Cahen, Mouvements populaires et autonomisme ur-
bain dans TAsie musulmane du Moyen Age, in Arabica,
v (1958), 225-50, vi (1959), 25-56; Bagdad, special
no. of Arabica, ix (1962); G. Le Strange, Baghdad
during the ^Abbasid caliphate. Oxford 1924; S. Sabari,
Mouvements populaires a Bagdad a Vepoque c abbasside,
IX e -XI e siecles, Paris 1981; E. Ashtor, Histoire des
prix et des salaires dans VOrient medieval, Paris 1969;
idem, A social and economic history of the Near East in
the middle ages, London 1976; M. c Awis, al-
MudjtarruT al- c abbasi min khildl kitabdt al-Didhiz .

al-MA'MUN b. YA c KUB al-MANSUR

Cairo 1977; M. R. al-Na djdj ar. Hikdyat al-shuttar
wa > l- c ayydrin fi ’ l-turdth al- c arabi, Kuwait 1981; J.
Pradines, Recherches sur le role des chretiens a la cour des
Umayyades et des premiers c Abbasides (661-861), these
de 3 e cycle, Univ. of Toulouse II, 1975; Y. Eche,
Les bibliotheques arabes publiques et semi-publiques en
Mesopotamie, Syrie, Egypte au Moyen Age, Damascus
1967; R. Arnaldez, Sciences et philosophie dans la
civilisation de Bagdad sous les premiers c Abbasides, in
Arabica, ix (1962), 357-73; Ch. Pellat, Etudes sur
Thistoire socio-culturelle de ITslam (VII e -XV e s.), Lon¬
don 1976; J. E. Bencheikh, Poetique arabe, Paris
1975. (M. Rekaya)

al-MA^UN, Abu ’l- c Ala :> Idris b. Ya c kub
al-Man§ur b. Yusuf b. c Abd al-Mu 5 min b. c Ali,
ninth sovereign of the Almohad dynasty,
born in 581/1185-6 in Malaga, of the marriage of his
father with the Spanish princess $afiyya, daughter of
the amir Abu c Abd Allah b. Mardanlsh (Martinez).
The Arab historians pay high tributes to the good
qualities of this prince, who was very well-read, and
equally well-versed in profane and religious learning.
At a time when the Almohad dynasty was much
troubled by the strife stirred up by pretenders, he was
able by his energy to postpone for several years its
final collapse.

At first, al-Ma 5 mun served in Spain as the lieute¬
nant of his brother Abu Muhammad c Abd Allah
al-^Adil, then on the throne. The latter had soon to
leave the Peninsula and return to Morocco without
having been able to subdue the rebel leader Abu
Muhammad al-Bayyasi, who was supported by Ferdi¬
nand III of Castile, but he was soon betrayed by his
own men in his own land and assassinated in
624/1127. This murder was followed by the almost
simultaneous proclamations of al-Ma^mun and an¬
other Almohad pretender, nephew of the preceding,
Yahya b. al-Nasir b. al-Mansur, who took the
honorific lakab of al-Mu c ta§im bi’llah. On his acces¬
sion and without leaving Spain, al-Ma^mun was soon
able to make himself recognised in the greater part of
his empire and to get rid of the rebel al-Bayyasi. But
almost immediately, a rebellion broke out in the east
of al-Andalus, in which Muhammad b. Yusuf of the
powerful family of the Banu Hud [q. v. ] was proclaim¬
ed caliph in the town of Murcia. At the same time, the
prestige of Yahya al-Mu c tasim increased in Morocco
and his partisans became more and more numerous.
Feeling himself powerless in Spain and forced to turn
his eyes towards Africa, al-Ma 5 mun was forced to
seek an alliance with the king of Castile. The latter
agreed to support al-Ma^mun under very harsh
terms, including the surrender of ten Muslim
strongholds of the frontera and the building of a church
in Marrakush and the granting of freedom of worship.
In return, al-Ma-’mun received a body of 500 Chris¬
tian mercenaries with whom he at once went to the
Maghrib. He was soon able to enter Marrakush in
triumph, after having defeated the army of al-
Mu c tasim (627/1230), and to open the chapel of St.
Mary for his Christian troops.

Enraged at the defection of the Almohad makhzan
[< 7 .z>.] so devoted to his predecessors, al-Ma^mun took
a decision at Marrakush that was quite unprecedented
in the annals of the dynasty. He stigmatised the
memory of the Mahdi Ibn Tumart, denied him “im¬
peccability” ( c isma) and had a large number of
Almohad shaykhs executed whom he suspected of
having betrayed him. The rest of the reign of al-
Ma 3 mun was spent in trying to put down several
rebellions in the Ma gh rib: but he did not succeed in
bringing al-Mu c ta?im to terms, for the latter was able

340

al-MA 3 MUN b. YA c KUB al-MANSUR — MA 3 MUR

to take Marrakush, to massacre the Christians and
destroy their church and to plunder the town. On
hearing this, al-Ma 3 mun, then busy with the siege of
Ceuta, hurried off to the capital at once but fell ill and
died on the way in the valley of the Wadi ’l- c Abid at
the end of Dhu THidjdja 629/October 1232.

Bibliography : Ibn AbT Zar c , Rawdal-kirfas, ed.
Tornberg, Annales regum Mauritaniae, Upsala 1843,
166-9; al-Ifulalal-mawshiyya, Tunis 1329, 123-5, ed.
Allouche, 137, tr. Huici Miranda, 192; Ibn
Khaldun, c Ibar, Histoire des Berberes, ed. de Slane, i,
342-4, tr. idem, ii, 233-7; al-Nasiri al-Salawi, al-
Istiksa 3 , Cairo, ii, 197-200, tr. I. Hamet, in Archives
Marocaines, xxxii (1927), 213-25; R. Millet, Les
Almohades, Paris 1923, 145-50; A. Huici Miranda,
Coleccion de cronicas drabes de la reconquisla , ii, 313 ff.;
G. Deverdun, Marrakech des origines a 1912, Rabat
1959, index; R. Le Tourneau, The Almohad move¬
ment in North Africa in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
Princeton 1969, 94-7. (E. Levi-Provencal)*

MA 3 MUN b. MUHAMMAD, Abu ’l- c AbbAs,
founder of the short-lived line of Ma’munid
Kh W arazm-Shahs in Kh w arazm [q v ]-

Ma 3 mun was governor, probably as a nominal
vassal of the Samanids [q.v.], in the town of Gurgandj
[q.v.], which during the 4th/10th century had been
prospering commercially at the expense of the ancient
capital Kath [</.z;.], seat of the old-established line of
Afrighid Kh w arazm-Shahs [see kh w arazm-shahs]. In
385/995 the AfrTghids were overthrown and their
dynasty extinguished, so that Ma 3 mun became ruler
of a unified Kh w arazm.

Very soon he was drawn into the struggle between
the last Samanid amirs, in particular, Nuh b. Mansur,
and the rebellious Turkish slave commanders Abu
c AlI Simdjuri and Fa 3 ik Khassa. arranging a peace be¬
tween the two sides in 386/996, in the face of the
threat of a renewed Karakhanid invasion [see ilek-
khans]. In the following year, however, Ma 3 mun was
assassinated in an internal turmoil, and was succeed¬
ed on the throne by his son Abu ’1-Hasan C A1I.

Bibliography : E. Sachau, Zur Geschichte und
Chronologie von Khwdrizm , in SB WA W, lxxiv (1873),
290-2; Barthold, Turkestan , 261-3; Zambauer,
Manuel, 208. _ (C. E. Bosworth)

al-MA 3 MUNI, c Abu Talib c Abd al-Salam b. al-
Hasan, Arabic poet of the 4th/10th century, whose
name indicates his descent from the caliph al-
Ma 3 mun. He was born in Baghdad after 343/953, left
the capital in his youth and went to Rayy, where the
famous $ahib Ibn c Abbad made him a member
of his learned circle. However, “the scorpions of envy
from the part of the boon-companions of the Sahib
were creeping around him”, so he decided to move
and went to Nishapur, where he was introduced to
Ibn Slmdjur, a high-ranking military commander of
the Samanids, who recommended him to the court in
Bukhara. The brilliant young poet having arrived
there, a l-wazir Abu ’1-Husayn al- c Utbi and his suc¬
cessor Abu Nasr showered gifts and honours upon
him. Al-Ma 3 munl seems to have dreamt of
regaining—or usurping—the c Abbasid caliphate by
the aid of a Khurasanian army; at least, this is what
he intimated to al-Tha c alibi (cf. below). However, his
poetry shows him to have been rather an epicure and
pleasure-lover than a warrior. He died of hydropsy in
383/993.

The main source for his life and poetry is al-
Tha c alibi s Yatimat al-dahr (vol. iv, part. 4, ch. 3,
Damascus 1304/1886-7,iv,84-l 12; Cairo (1352/1934),
iv, 149-79). In addition to this, a number of verses are
scattered in various sources including al-Djurdjanfs

Asrar al-balagha and al-Nuwayri’s Nihayat al-arab. Most
of his poems are short specimens of wasf, descriptive
epigrams on buildings, various utensils (e.g. for
writing), fruits, and dishes. His art of description
makes ample use of metaphors, metonymy, peri¬
phrasis, and the attribution of human characteristics
to objects, e.g. showing a pair of scissors as two in¬
separable spouses, a basket as a devout, reliable ser¬
vant, and so on. With its still somewhat clumsy
mannerism, this poetry forms an interesting docu¬
ment for the development of the sophisticated Persian
style, showing it at an early stage and in Arabic guise,
as already pointed out by Bertels.

Bibliography : E. Barthold, Turkestan down to the
Mongol invasion 3 , 258; E. Bertels, Persidskaya noeziya
v Bukhare—X vek (Trudf Instituta vostokovedeniya,
10), Moscow 1935; J. C. Burgel, Die ekphrastischen
Epigramme des Abu Tdlib al-Ma 3 muni —

Literaturkundliche Studie iiber einen arabischen Concep-
tisten, in Abh. Ak. W.Gott., Phil.-hist. Kl. 14,
(1965), detailed review by W. Heinrich, in ZDMG,
xcci (1971), 166-90. (J. C. Burgel)

MA 3 MUNIDS [see KH W ARAZM’SHAHS]

MA 3 MUR (a), in the usage of the late Ottoman
empire and Turkish republic, “civil official”.

Roughly at the end of the 18th century, this term
began to appear in Ottoman Turkish, not only as a
passive participle designating “one who is ordered or
commissioned” to do something, but also as a
substantive referring to an “official”, normally a
“civil official”. As far as one can tell from research
done to date, the change was a matter of gradual tran¬
sition, and not the result of any clearly-marked shift
in governmental practice. This was, however, a
period when traditional scribal institutions were
undergoing extensive change, and scribal officials
were being used increasingly for assignments or mis¬
sions (me ^muriyyet) other than those evoked by such
traditional designations for scribal roles as kdtib
kalja (from khalife, normally applied to scribal officials
only in the plural form khulefaZ), or kh^ddje (also nor¬
mally applied to officials only in the plural form
kh w ddjegan [see kh w adjegan-i diwan-i humayun];
Findley, 64-6, 106-11). Usage in historical works of
this period suggests that repeated references to in¬
dividuals who were “ordered” (me^mur) to perform
a particular mission (me 3 muriyyet ) gradually caused
these terms to float free of association with specific
persons or duties and acquire the general meanings of
“official” and “official position or appointment”. In
the History of Wasif, published in 1219/1804, and in
that of c A§fm [q.v.], written about five years later,
there are numbers of section headings containing the
terms me^mur or me ^muriyyet (e.g. Wasif, i, 148, 155,
184, ii, 110, 116, 119, 147, 154, 185, 207, 266, 268,
272, 294; c Asim, i, 62, 155, 174, 223, ii, 20, 26, 166).
At some points, the word me 3 mur appears with mean¬
ings approaching that later conventional in Turkish.
Me 3 murs go to Egypt and return (Wa§if, i, 172-3); the
me^murs of the naval arsenal (tersane) are accused of
negligence ( c Asim, i, 51); Russian consuls behave in¬
appropriately toward government officials (dewlet
me^murlart, ibid., i, 178-9).

From roughly the 1830s onwards, the term me^mur
began to be associated in Ottoman official usage with
the term miilkiyye, which was then coming into use as
a noun meaning “civil administration” or “civil ser¬
vice”. Eventually, a civil official came to be known as
a miilkiyye me 3 muri, a compound that contrasted both
the man and his branch of service with the scribe
(kdtib, etc.) of the scribal service (kalemiyye), as it had
been known prior to the beginning of reform. Since

341

MA 3 MUR — MA C MURAT al- c AZIZ

the terms mulki and mulkiyye convey associations with
both land ownership and sovereignty, generalised use
of the new nomenclature may have been a result of the
growing association of civil officials with provincial
administration, thus with a vast domain of employ¬
ment external to the bureaux in the capital city, in
which most scribal officials had historically served.
When Mahmud II [q.v.] reorganised the central of¬
fices as a series of ministries, the first title of the new
minister of the interior was, in fact, umur-i mulkiyye
ndziri, or “Minister of Civil Affairs”. The title was
conferred in 1251/1836 (LutfT, v, 29-31), but was
changed to Minister of the Interior (dakhiliyye ndziri)
a year later. Ultimately, however, the term mulkiyye
me 3 muri and its variations, such as the common plural
me 3 munn-i mulkiyye, clearly referred, not just to local
administrators but to civil officials in general
(Findley, 65-6, 140, 364, n. 66). Despite some incon¬
sistency in usage, this fact became clearer as a
systematic personnel policy emerged for this branch of
service {ibid ., 140-7, 194-7, 270-9, 326-33). In the
Turkish of the republican era, me^mur remains, first
and foremost, a noun that means “official” and refers
especially to the civil service.

Nineteenth-century lexicographical works were
slow to register the use of me^mur in this sense. This
fact no doubt reflects the tendency of the authors to re¬
ly on earlier written works; but it is probably also an¬
other sign that the shift in usage was not clearly
marked. Works that do not mention the new usage in¬
clude Alexandridis (1812), Bianchi ( Vocabulaire , 1831,
s.vv. “fonction”, “fonctionnaire”, “officier”), Hin-
doglu (1838, j. v. “me^mur”), and Handjeri (1841,
s.vv. “fonction”, “fonctionnaire”, “officier”). Even
Redhouse, whose long years in Ottoman service made
him a great authority, gave only conservative defini¬
tions in his first lexicographical publication, the
Muntakhabat-i lughat-i : othmdniyye, prepared by the ear¬
ly 1840s and first published in 1269/1852-3 (see the
printing of 1285/1868-9, 88). Even in his last dic¬
tionary, he gave the traditional meanings first, as was
his wont {Turkish and English Lexicon , 1890, s.vv.
me^mur, me^muriyyet). By then, however, indications of
the new usages had long since appeared in Rhasis
(1828, s.vv. “fonctionnaire” and “civil”, giving as
one translation of the latter term milki [j/r], with the
example “troubles civils, ikhtildldt-i milkiyye ou
dakhiliyye '’), Bianchi {Dictionnaire franfais-turc, 1843,
s.v. “fonctionnaire”), and in Guzel-oglou (1852, s.v.
“fonction”). In 1835, Bianchi and Kieffer {Diction¬
naire turc-franfais, s.vv. me^mur, me^muriyyet, mulkf) had
given the new meanings, but had associated them
with Egyptian usage.

The reference to Egypt does reflect usage there, at
least in Ottoman Turkish, under Muhammad c Ali
Pasha. In Ottoman-language Egyptian documenta¬
tion of that period, one finds me 3 mur as a general term
for “official” (Deny, 106); by the 1820s, mulkiyye was
also in use in Egypt with essentially the meaning
“civil affairs” (e.g. diwan-i mulkiyye, as opposed to
diwan-i djihadiyye\ ibid., 108, 111-5). From this period
also dates the use of the term me^mur as a title for the
chief officer of a given type of local administrative
district {ibid., 130, 565); this usage has survived in
Egypt. In general, muwazzaj , rather than ma 3 mur has
been the common term for “civil official” in modern
Arabic.

Bibliography. D. Alexandridis, Grammatike
graikiko-tourkike, Vienna 1812 (reference supplied by
A. Tietze); Ahmed c Asim, c Asim ta^rikhi, 2 vols.,
Istanbul n.d.; T.-X. Bianchi, Dictionnaire franfais-
turc, 2 vols., Paris 1843-6; idem, Vocabulaire franfais-

turc, Paris 1831; T. X. Bianchi and J. D. Kieffer,
Dictionnaire turc-franfais, 2 vols., Paris, 1850 (also an
earlier edn., 1835-7); J. Deny, Sommaire des archives
turques du Caire , Cairo 1930; C. V. Findley,
Bureaucratic reform in the Ottoman empire: the Sublime
Porte. 1789-1922, Princeton 1980; E. Guzel-oglou,
Nouveaux dialogues franfais-turcs precedes d’un
vocabulaire, Constantinople 1852 (reference supplied
by A. Tietze); A. Handjeri, Dictionnaire franfais-
arabe-persan et turc, 3 vols., Moscow 1840-41; A.
Hindoglu, Dictionnaire abrege turc-franfais, Vienna
1838; Ahmed LutfT, Ta 3 rikh-i Lutfi, 8 vols., the 8th
edited by c Abd ul-Rahman Sheref, Istanbul
1290-1328/1873-1910; anon, [by J. W. Redhouse],
Muntakhabdt-i lughat-i c othmdniyye , Istanbul
1285/1868-9; idem, A Turkish and English lexicon ,
Constantinople 1921; G. Rhasis, Vocabulaire
franfais-turc, St. Petersburg 1828; Ahmed Wasif,
Mahasin ul-dthdr we hakdHk iil-akhbdr, 2 vols., Istan¬
bul Sha € ban 1219/November 1804.

(C. V. Findley)

MA C MURAT al- c AZIZ, a town in eastern
Anatolia, modern Turkish Elazig, now the chef-lieu
of a vilayet of the latter name.

The area around the town is rich in evidence of
prehistoric and protohistoric settlement. Bronze Age
sites have been investigated at Agin, Nor$untepe,
Tepecik and Han Ibrahim §ah, whilst traces of
Hellenistic and later occupation have been found at
A^vankale and Kalecikler. Thus a more or less con¬
tinuous occupation of the Elazig area since
Chalcolithic times seems likely, even though it is not
certain exactly at what periods the site of Elazig town
was inhabited. In classical and mediaeval times, the
main settlement of the region was at Khartpert (Latin
name Ziata Castellum, Arabic Hisn Ziyad, Khar-
tabird or Khartabirt. Classical Armenian Kharberd.
mediaeval French Quart-Pierre, vulgar Armenian
K 3 arp 3 ut, Byzantine Greek Xapjr6xe, Ottoman
Turkish Kharpurt, Kharpurd, or as in c Ayni C A1I
EfendT 3 s Kawdnin risalesi, repr. Istanbul 1979, 30:
Kharbrut, modern Turkish Harput). For its history in
classical and Byzantine times, see EP art. kharput.
and for the mediaeval Islamic and Ottoman periods,
see khartpert). It survives as a village and as a
recreational area for the inhabitants of Elazig.

Although Kharput’s location on its hilltop made it
splendidly defensible, during the 19th century the dif¬
ficulty of access came to be considered a liability
rather than an asset. Hence early in that century, the
governors of the sandjak, of Kharput in the eyalet of
Diyarbakr, moved their residence to the plain to the
little town of Mezere. The name of this settlement is
probably derived from the word mazra c a, mezra c a
“sown area, hamlet”, which has not infrequently
entered into the formation of Anatolian place names
(compare in this context the articles Harput and Eldziz
in iA, by Besim Darkot, also the different editions of
TC Dahiliye Vekaleti, Koylerimiz. For an alternative,
but less likely, suggestion, connecting the name with
Ma^otpa as apparently found in Ptoiemy, see H.
Hubschmann, Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen, in Indoger-
manische Forschungen, xvi [1904]). Visitors of the 19th
and early 20th centuries such as von Moltke and Ger¬
trude Bell still record the name of the new settlement
as Mazraa.

The new settlement gained importance in
1250/1834 when Rashid Mehmed Pa§ha, after a tour
of inspection through the provinces of eastern
Anatolia, suggested Mezere as the seat for the local
governor. Barracks and a hospital were accordingly
constructed, and von Moltke saw them on his visit in

342

MA C MURAT al- c AZIZ — MAN SINGH

1254/1838. In 1278/1862, upon a suggestion from the
local governor Isma c fl Pasha, the settlement was
renamed Ma c murat al- c Az!z in honour of the reign¬
ing sultan c Abd al- c AzTz [g.v.]. The name was extend¬
ed to the sanjjak and then in 1296/1879 to a new
wildyet formed on these upper reaches of the
Euphrates. It was soon transformed in popular
parlance into al- c Aziz/Elaziz, and the present name
Elazig adopted in 1937.

Until the end of World War II, the growth of Elazig
was somewhat irregular. While the town probably
consisted of about 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants at the
beginning of World War I, the first census conducted
by the Turkish Republic in 1927 recorded 20,052 in¬
habitants. In 1940, this figure had risen to 25,465, but
the shortages of the war years led to an exodus of
population, so that in 1945 only 23,695 inhabitants
were counted. However, from then onward, the city
has gone through a period of dramatic and uninter¬
rupted growth (1950: 29,317; 1955: 41,667; 1960:
60,289; 1965: 78,605; 1970: 107,364; 1975: 131,415).

The most important factor determining the growth
of Elazig in recent years has been the construction of
the Keban power plant at a distance of only 45 km.
from the town (lake area: 68,000 ha., productive
capacity 5,871,000 kwh/year). Throughout the con¬
struction period, building workers employed on the
Keban dam generally lived in the city, so that during
the nineteen-sixties and seventies, Elazig was in¬
habited by many more males than females (1960:
32,449 males, 27,840 females; 1975: 69,797 males,
61,681 females).

Among the factories constructed in the area, some
of the more important ones are connected more or less
directly with the Keban dam project. Thus a cement
factory belonging to the public sector of the Turkish
economy was founded in the city, possessing a capaci¬
ty of 400,000 ton/year. In addition, the city is located
close to an important mining area, in which chrome
is extracted; this situation accounts for the relatively
high percentage of miners in the Elazig district (2.5%
of the active population in 1965). Due to these ac¬
tivities, the level of urbanisation in the district of
Elazig (40.2% in 1970) has surpassed the average not
only for eastern Anatolia, but even for Turkey as a
whole (38.7% in 1970).

The growth of Elazig has also been stimulated by a
side effect of the Keban dam, namely the total
flooding of close to a hundred villages. In addition,
over a hundred others have lost a large part of their
agricultural lands. Among the 20,000 people who
were forced to move, many apparently chose to settle
in Elazig and to invest the indemnities paid by the
government in houses and small business. Some of the
recipients of major indemnities were encouraged to
invest their money in a holding company, which by
1972 had built a factory producing plastic pipes and
tubes, and by 1977 had also erected a leather factory
employing 260 workers. State offices and enterprises
also absorbed some of the migrants, mainly in subor¬
dinate capacities. However, just as the electricity pro¬
duced by the Keban dam is mainly consumed outside
of the area, it appears that a considerable percentage
of the money received as indemnities was invested in
the large cities of western Turkey.

Bibliography : Helmuth von Moltke, Briefe iiber
Zustande und Begebenheiten in der Turkei , Berlin 1877,
212 etc.; Kdmus al-a c lam, iii, 2032, vi, 4330; V.
Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie, Geographie administrative ,
statistique descriptive et raisonnee de chaque province de
I’Asie Mineure , Paris 1892, 355-7; Gertrude Bell,
Amurath to Amurath , London 1911, 329-32; E.

Banse, Die Turkei, Eine moderne Geographie ,
Brunswick 1916, 227; T. C. Ba$vekaleti, Istatistik
Umum Mudurlugii, 1946-1954 zirai biinye ve istihsal,
Ankara 1955; METU Department of Restoration,
Doomed by the dam. A survey of the monuments threatened
by the Keban Dam flood area ..., Ankara 1967; [Keban
Projesi] 1968 yaz (ahfmalan , ODTU Keban Projesi
yayinlari 1/1, Ankara 1970; Devlet Istatistik
Enstitusii, Tanmsal yapi ve uretim 1969, Ankara
1971; Keban Projesi 1969 (alifmalan, same series,
1/2, Ankara 1971; Keban Projesi 1970 caltfmalan,
same series 1/3, Ankara 1972; Keban Projesi 1971
(alifmalan , same series 1/3, Ankara 1974; Devlet
Istatistik Enstitusii, Genel nufus sayimi, idari boliinu
25.10. 1970. Ankara 1973; Devlet Su I$leri, Keban
baraji ve hidroelektrik santrah, Ankara 1973 (folder);
Cumhuriyetin 50. yilinda Sumerbank 1933-1973 , n.p.,
n.d.; O. Silier, Keban koylerinde sosyo ekonomikyapi ve
yeniden yerlefim sorunlan, Ankara 1976; Devlet
Istatistik Entitusii, Genel nufus sayimi, idari boluniif,
25.10.1970, Ankara 1973, 26.10.1975, Ankara
1977; Tiirkiye deri ve deri mamullan rehberi, Ankara
1977; Devlet Istatistik Enstitusii, Tanmsal yapi ve
uretim 1969, Ankara 1971, 1976-78, Ankara 1979.

(SURAIYA FAROQHl)

MAN SINGH, Maharadja ol Amber, outstanding
general of the Mughal armies under Akbar,
later governor of Mughal provinces.

He was born in 1607 V.S. = 975/1550, the son of
Bhagwant Das, eldest son and heir apparent of the
reigning Maharadja Bharah Mali, a Radjput [q .z>.] of
the Kacchwaha clan; the Muslim sources (Nizam al-
Din, BadaYim, Firishta, Abu ’1-Fadl, and Djahangir
in his Tuzuh) garble the names and confuse Man
Singh’s parentage, but there seems no reason to doubt
the contemporary Radjput records. After a young
martial training, he entered the Mughal service
(together with his father Bhagwant Das) in 970/1562
on the occasion of Akbar’s marriage with the daughter
of Bharah Mall, the first of those alliances which were
to strengthen Mughal-Radjput relations. He was with
the Mughal armies at the capture of Ranthambor in
976/1569 (Tod, ii, 472-3, casts Man Singh as
mediator in the surrender, but the assertion is without
evidence and inherently improbable); his first com¬
mand seems rather to have been in the Gudjarat cam¬
paigns in 980/1572 against the Mirzas [q.v.], before
the campaign against Dawud Kh an Kararanl [q.v.]
two years later. He was, though, sent as a mediator to
Pratap Singh who had succeeded as Mahararia of
Mewar on the death of Uday Singh, the knowledged
senior ruler of the Radjput tribes. Pratap continued
his father’s arrogance and hostility to the Mughals,
and gratuitously insulted Man Singh, which resulted
in the latter’s being chosen to lead the Mu gh al army
against him at the battle of Haldlghat, 35 km. north¬
west of Udaypur, in 984/1576; he inflicted a
devastating defeat, but his chivalrous orders that the
Raria was not to be pursued and that Mewar was not
to be looted lost him Akbar’s favour for a while. He
next cleared Malwa of Mlrza disaffection, and was
rewarded with a mansab [q.v.] of 3,500. Sent against
the disaffected Afghan and Baltic! elements in the
Pandjab, he acquitted himself well, and was placed in
charge of operations in the north-west against Akbar’s
half-brother Mlrza Muhammad Hakim [q.v.], then
ruling Kabul; after the MTrza’s death in 993/1585, he
occupied Kabul, brought the district to order, and was
officially its governor, his principal occupation being
to control the threat from the Rawshana 3 is [see
rawshaniyya] and Ytisufzays. In 995/1587 Man
Singh was transferred to the governorship of the suba

MAN SINGH — MA C N

343

of Bihar, where he pursued a vigorous policy against
both recalcitrant Hindu rddjas and disaffected local
Afghan chiefs. He had succeeded to the Amber gaddi
“cushion of state”, i.e. throne in 998/1589, receiving
the Mughal title of Radja with his mansab confirmed
as 5,000. In two campaigns he next brought Orissa
(Urisa, ]) under Mu gh al suzerainty, its local
Afghan chieftains fleeing to eastern Bengal. His cam¬
paigns against them were continued in his next ap¬
pointment, as subadar of Bengal, in 1002/1594. He
built a new capital at Agmahal which he renamed
Akbarnagar (AkbarT mint-town; later renamed
Radjmahal [q.v. ]), with fort, palace and large mosque
(see Catherine B. Asher, Inventory of key monuments , in
G. Mitchell (ed.), The Islamic heritage of Bengal ,
UNESCO-Paris 1984, 120-1). Further chastisement
of dissident Afghans, and the conquest of Kuch-
Bihar, occupied him until 1014/1605, when he
returned to the imperial court at Agra with the mansab
of 7,000. He was less successful as a courtier than as
a military commander, for he urged the claims of
Khusraw against those of Djahangir; when the latter
succeeded to the Mughal throne a couple of months
later, Man Singh was sent first to Bengal again, then
on the Deccan campaign, accomplishing nothing of
note in either. He died a natural death in Ilicpur in
1023/1614. His contributions to building are im¬
portant. Among much temple building and restora¬
tion, irrelevant here, stands the Govindadeva temple
at Mathura, which marries the Muslim use of arch
and dome to traditional Hindu forms; Man Singh’s
palace at Amber is largely in frank imitation of the
buildings of Agra fort; various buildings at Akbar¬
nagar [see radjmahal]; especially repairs to fortifica¬
tions at Rohtas [q.v.] with gateways and imposing
palace, and originally a garden in the Mu gh al style.

Bibliography : Career details especially in Abu
'I-Fagll, Akbar-nama\ Bada^unl, Muntakhab al-
tawarikh ; Nizam al-DTn Ahmad, Tabakat-i Akbari, all
passim , and information concerning “Mancinus”
in Fr A. Monserrate, Mongolicae legationis commen-
tarius , and de Laet, De imperio magno Mongolia
Leiden 1631. Valuable additional information,
often correcting the above, in Diaypur Vansavali in
State Archives of Jaipur. R.N. Prasad, Raja Man
Singh of Amber, Calcutta 1966, is very useful for the
Hindu sources quoted. (J. Burton-Page)

MA^N, Banu, an Arab family of chiefs of the
Druse district of the Shuf, in the southern parts
of Mount Lebanon, who enjoyed a special political
prominence in Syria in the 10th/11th and 11th/17th
centuries.

The origin of the house of Ma c n remains unclear,
what is related about it by the traditional Lebanese
historians being without foundation. The first Ma c n
whose historicity is beyond question was Fakhr al-DTn
c Uthman b. al-Hadjdj Yunis who died in 912/1506.
Another, possibly Fakhr al-DTn c Uthman’s son, was a
Yunis Ma c n who died a young man in 917/1511.
Kurkumaz b. Yunis Ma c n, possibly a son of this
Yunis, was established as a mukaddam (local chief) in
the Shuf in 922-3/1516-17, when the Ottomans con¬
quered Syria and Egypt. At least two other Ma c ns, a
c Alam al-DTn Sulayman and a Zayn al-DTn (thus
known by his lakab, with no ism mentioned), were
recognised chiefs in the Shuf at the same time. While
the Ma c ns of the 10th/ 16th and 11 th/17th centuries
comprised Kurkumaz and his descendants, it appears
that the c Alam al-DTns, who feature as the rivals of the
house of Kurkumaz in the Shuf at the time, were also
Ma c ns descended from c Alam al-DTn Sulayman.

Of the career of Kurkumaz b. Ma c n, not much is

known, beyond the fact that he was reportedly
residing in the village of al-Baruk in 934/1528 and
being deeply involved in the factional politics of the
mountain. A second Kurkumaz, possibly the grand¬
son of the first, died in 993/1585 while Ottoman forces
were invading the Druze districts. This Kurkumaz
left two sons, Fakhr al-DTn and Yunis. By the 1590s,
his son Fakhr al-DTn (d. 1044-5/1635), commonly
believed to have been the older of the two, was already
set on a career of political success which was to make
him the dominant figure in the politics of Syria during
the first three decades of the seventeenth century.

From small beginnings as a mukaddam and Ottoman
multazim (tax farmer) in the Shuf, Fakhr al-DTn rose
by 1011/1602-3 to become the sandjak-beyi of Sidon-
Beirut and of Safad, under the beylerbeyi of Damascus.
He had already taken possession of Beirut, along with
the southern parts of the district of Kisrawan, as far
north as Nahr al-Kalb (the Dog River), in 1006/1598.
In 1014/1605, he took possession of the whole of the
Kisrawan. He next became involved in the rebellion
of C A1T Djanbulad, the usurper Pasha of Aleppo, by
coming to his support against the beylerbeyis of Tripoli
and Damascus. This aroused the suspicion of the
Porte against him for the first time.

As the master of two sandjaks, Fakhr al-DTn estab¬
lished himself in Sidon. He recruited a mercenary
army of levends \q. v. ] and sokmans, whom he used to
garrison old Crusader fortresses in his territory which
were restored for military use. By 1017/1608 he had
reached an agreement with the Medicis of Tuscany,
who had ambitions in Syria at the time, which in¬
creased the Ottoman suspicious against him. Attacked
by the Ottomans in 1022/1613, Fakhr al-DTn fled to
Tuscany, but was permitted to return home in
1027/1618, to resume office as sandjak-beyi of Sidon-
Beirut and Safad. During the years that followed, he
crushed rival chiefs in every direction, at first with Ot¬
toman support and approval, until most of rural Syria
fell under this control. Alarmed by the growth of his
power, the Ottomans organised an expedition against
him in 1042/1633. In the face of the Ottoman offen¬
sive, his power rapidly collapsed; his eldest son, C A1T,
was killed in battle, and he and his remaining sons
were captured and taken to Istanbul in 1045/1635.
There Fakhr al-DTn was put to death by strangulation
in that year, along with his son Mansur. His youngest
son, Husayn Ma c n-zada [see ma c n-zada], survived
him to become chamberlain to the Sultan and Ot¬
toman ambassador to India. This Husayn was an in¬
formant of the Ottoman historian Na c Tma [q v.], and
the author of a book of adab literature entitled the
Kitab al-Tamylz.

At home, Fakhr al-DTn was survived by a nephew,
Mulhim, whose political claims in the Shuf (the Sidon
hinterland) and the other Druze districts (the Gharb,
Djurd and Matn, in the Beirut hinterland) were
challenged by the c Alam al-DTns—as already men¬
tioned, probably the descendants of c Alam al-DTn
Sulayman b. Ma c n. At various times, Mulhim held
the sandjak of Safad, or the sandjak of Batrun, the latter
in the eyalet of Tripoli. Upon his death, reportedly in
1068/1658, he was survived by a son, Ahmad, who
succeeded in expelling the c Alam al-DTns from the
Druze districts and the Kisrawan in 1078/1667 and in
installing himself in their place as the local multazim ,
in subordination to the beylerbeyi of Sidon (an eyalet
since 1070/1660). By holding this position without in¬
terruption for thirty years (1078-1108/1667-97),
Ahmad Ma c n became, de facto , the founder of the
autonomy enjoyed by the territory in question (today
part of Lebanon) until the 19th century.

344

MA C N — MA C N b. MUHAMMAD

With the death of Ahmad Ma c n, the direct Ma c nid
male line became extinct, and the iltizam of his ter¬
ritory passed over to his nephew (sister’s son) Bashir
I Shihab (1109-1118/1697-1706), then to his grandson
(daughter’s son) Haydar Shihab, Sunni Muslim
chiefs from Wadi al-Taym, in the Anti-Lebanon. The
c Alam al-Dins, apparently as Ma c ns in the indirect
line, rose to challenge this Shihab succession some¬
times by intrigue, sometimes by military action, until
they were defeated in battle and killed to a man in
1123/1711.

In the modern Republic of Lebanon, the Band
Ma c n have become a national legend, and theii
tenure of their mountain territory in the southern
Lebanon, as multazims for the Ottoman State, has
come to be regarded as a precursor to the modern
Lebanese State. Fakhr al-Dln, in particular, is
regarded as a Lebanese national hero, although
Lebanon in his time was no more than a geographical
expression. The real achievements of the Banu Ma c n
are of a different order. By controlling the pre¬
dominantly Maronite district of Kisrawan alongside
the Druze districts of the Shuf, Gharb, Djurd and
Matn, Fakhr al-Dln and his Ma c n successors, more
by accident than by design, laid the foundations of a
political symbiosis between Maronites and Druzes in
the sandjak of Beirut-Sidon (after 1660, part of the
eyalet of Sidon). This became, in its turn, the mainstay
of the de facto autonomy enjoyed by the same territory
in subsequent Ottoman times. By encouraging silk
production, and protecting foreign traders, the Ma c ns
furthermore secured for their territory a modest pro-
perity unknown in other rural parts of Syria in Ot¬
toman times.

Bibliography : Hasan al-Blrunl, Taradjim al-
a c yan min abnd^ al-zaman, ms. Vienna, Cod. Arab.
1190, Mixt. 346; Istifan al-Duwayhi, TaMkh al-
azmina, 1095-1699, ed. Taoutel, Beirut 1951;
Nadjm al-Dln Muhammad al-GhazzI, Lutfal-samar
wa-katf al-thamar min taradjim al-tabakat al-ula min al-
karn al-hadi c ashar, ed. Kamal al-Shaykh, Damascus
1981-2; Hamza Ibn Sibat, Ta^rikh, ms. American
University of Beirut, 956.9, I 13t; Shams al-Dln
Muhammad Ibn Tulun, Sail al-sdrim c ala atba c al-
Hakim bi-amr Allah , no. 79, Taymuriyya Library,
ff. 247-60; Ahmad al-KhalidT, Ta\ikh al-Amit
Fakhr al-Din al-Ma c ni , ed. Asad Rustum and Fuad
A. Bustani, Beirut 1936; al-MuhibbT, Khulasat al-
athar ft a c yan al-karn al-hadi c ashar, Beirut n.d.;
Munadjdjim BashI, Didmi c al-duwal, ms. Topkapi
Saray, no. 5966; Mustafa Na c Tma, Rawdat al-
Husayn ft khulasat akhbar al-khdfikayn, Istanbul
1282/1865-6; Abu ’1-Wafa 5 , Mahddin al-shahdb ft al-
ridjdl al-musharrafa bi-him Halab , ms. British
Museum Or. 3618; G. Minadoi, Historia della guerra
fra Turchi e Persiani, Venice 1594; George Sandys, A
relation of a journey, an. Dom. 1610, London 1615; R.
Knolles and P. Rycaut, The Turkish History from the
Original of that Nation to the Growth of the Ottoman Em¬
pire , with a continuation to this present year 1687 , Lon¬
don 1687. (K.S. Salibi)

MA C N b. AWS al-MUZANI, Arab poet belong¬
ing to the tribe of the Muzayna (see Ibn al-Kalbl-
Caskel, Djamhara). Tab. 88), which was established in
a fertile region between Medina and Wadi TKura.

He was considered to have been a mukhadram poet,
but was probably born shortly before the mission of
Muhammad and lived most of his life under Islam.
He lost his sight towards the end of his life, which
came about no earlier than 64/684, at least if the
verses in which he complains about the hospitality of¬
fered by c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr \q.v.} in Mecca are

authentic. Although probably converted along with
his tribe before the capture of Mecca, he does not
seem to have participated in the conquests, and his
poetry barely reflects the situation created by the new
religion, which is mentioned only occasionally. More¬
over, the available biographical information is sparse
and is mainly concerned with his private life, his wives
and his daughters (whom he by no means considered
insignificant persons). Closely attached to an estate
which he owned not far from Medina, and to the
Bedouin life-style which he followed in his home-
territory, he nevertheless visited Basra, where he is
said to have met al-Farazdak [q.v.) and to have mar¬
ried a woman of his tribe, also of Syria, the country
of origin of another of his wives. He wrote eulogies of
a number of Muslim personalities, including c Ubayd
Allah b. al- c Abbas, c Abd Allah b. Dja c far, c Asim b.
c Umar b. al-Khattab and Sa c Td b. al- c As, without
deviating from the Bedouin tradition. Although Ibn
Sallam and Ibn Kutayba appear to ignore him, he is
considered a talented poet, regarded by Mu c awiya as
almost the equal of his fellow-tribesman Zuhayr b.
Abl Sulma. The fact is that his poetry contains,
alongside personal references, passages of a moralistic
nature. His name does not feature in the lists of
diwans, collected by the early ruwat, but P. Schwarz
discovered in the Escurial an incomplete manuscript,
with a commentary the contents of which go back to
al-Kali [q.v.] and published it under the title Gedichte
des Ma c n ibn Aus (Leipzig 1903) with an introductory
account of the poet (cf.Noldeke, in ZA [1903], 274 ff.;
Reckendorf, in OLZ [1904], 138-40; R. Geyer, in
WZKM , xvii, 246-70). Kamal Mu§{afa reprinted the
Schwarz edition, with some additions and omissions,
under the title Ma c n b. Aws, haydtuh, shi c ruh, akhbaruh,
Cairo 1927; these collections could probably be
enriched by the use of new sources. O. Rescher par¬
tially translated the dtwdn in his Beitrage zur arab. Poesie,
vi/2, Istanbul 1956-8, 1-28, and M R. al-NadawI has
devoted a study to the poet, Mahn b. Aws al-Muzani , in
Madjallat al-Madyma c al-Hlmi al-Hindi, i/1 (1396/1976),
107-25. A new edition of the Diwan, based on
Mustafa’s edition plus a combing of adab works, etc.,
is by c Umar Muhammad Sulayman al-Kat{an,
Djudda 1403/1983. ShTr Mu c n b. Aws al-Muzani (47
poems and fragments).

Bibliography : In addition to the references
cited, see Djahiz, Baydn, index; idem, Bukhald 5 , ed.
Hadjiri, 205, 379; Abu Tammam, Hamasa , ii, 2-4;
BuhturT, Hamasa, index; Aghani, x, 154-8, ed.
Beirut, xii, 50-9; NakaHtjl, ed. Bevan, 819; Kali,
Amdli, ii, 234; c AskarI, Sind^atayn, 55-6; Husri, Zahr
al-addb, 816-7 (cf. Ibn Abi ’l-Hadld, Shark Nahdj al-
balagha, ii, 125); MarzubanI, Mu^djam, 399; Ibn
Hadjar, Isaba, no. 8451; Baghdadi. Khizana, ed.
Bulak, iii, 258; Yakut, Buldan , index; SafadI, Nakt
al-himyan , 294; Abkaryus, 272-3; Brockelmann, S
I, 72; O. Rescher, Abriss, i, 107; R. Blachere,
HLA, 320-1; Sezgin, GAS, ii, 269-70, ix, 275.

(M. Plesser - [Ch. Pellat])
MA C N b. MUHAMMAD, b. Ahmad b. SumadTh
al-TuDpBi, Abu ’1-Ahwas, founder of a branch
of the dynasty of the Tudjibids [q. v. ] in the
little principality of Almeria [see al-mariyya] in
eastern Spain in the middle of the 5th/11 th century.
The principality had been founded in ca. 416/1025 by
the two c Amirid fatas KKayan and Zuhayr. On the
latter’s death in 428/1037, their overlord c Abd al-
c AzTz b. Abl c Amir, king of Valencia, declared it his
property and in 432 or 433/1041-2, placed his brother-
in-law Ma c n b. Sumadih as governor there. The latter
belonged to a noble family of Arab origin; his father

MA C N b. MUHAMMAD — MA C N-ZADA

345

had been one of the generals of the celebrated hadjib
al-Mansur [q.v.\ and was governor of the town
Huesca [see washka]. Ma c n remained loyal to the
king of Valencia for nearly four years, then cast off his
allegiance and declared himself independent. He
reigned at Almeria for a few years longers and died in
Ramadan 443/January 1052.

Bibliography : Ibn c Idhari, Bayan, iii, 167; Ibn
al-Abbar, al-Hulla al-siyara 5 , ed. H. Mu 5 nis, Cairo
1964, ii, 81; R. Dozy, Reckerches sur Uhistone et la li¬
terature de VEspagne pendant le Moyen-age, Leiden
1881, i, 241 and appendices xix, xx; A. Prieto
Vives, Los reyes de taifas , Madrid 1926, 40, 44, 61.

(E. Levi - Provencal)

MA C N b. ZA 5 IDA, Abu ’l-Waud al-ShaybanI.
military commander and governor of the late
Umayyad and early c Abbasid period. He came from
the ashraf of the Shayban tribe and rose to importance
with the patronage of YazTd b. c Umar b. Hubayra
(see ibn hubayra], the last Umayyad governor of
c Irak. He fought against the advancing c Abbasid ar¬
mies when they reached c Irak in 132/749, and was
said to have killed the enemy commander, kahtaba b.
Shabib [q.v.]. He joined his master Ibn Hubayra in
the defence of Wasit and was one of the few leaders
not to be executed, apparently because he was in
Kufa, conveying Ibn Hubayra’s oath of allegiance to
al-Saffah. Thereafter he remained in hiding until the
rebellion of the Rawandiyya in the newly-founded
capital of Hashimiyya (variously dated 139 to
141/756-9), when he was able to rescue the caliph
from the rebels and so earn his forgiveness. Al-
Mansur appreciated his value as a man with a strong
tribal following, and sent him as governor to Yaman
in 142/759-60. In this post he pacified the country
brutally but successfully, and in 151/768 he was
recalled and sent on another difficult mission to
Sistan. It was here that he came into conflict with the
local KharidjTs, who were defeated in battle but suc¬
ceeded in killing him in his winter quarters at Bust by
disguising themselves as workmen (152/769-70). He
left at least four sons, but his position in the tribe of
Shayban and at the c Abbasid court was inherited by
his nephew, Yazld b. Mazyad, who also continued the
feud with the KharidjTs. Ma c n was remembered in the
Arab literary tradition as a fierce warrior, but also for
his extreme generosity and as a patron of poets,
notably Marwan b. AbT Hafsa [q.v.], who wrote a
famous elegy on Ma c n.

Bibliography : Ibn al-KalbT, Dmmhara . ed.
Caskel, i, table 146; Ya c kubi, Historiae, ii, 389-400,
448, 462-3; Baladhurl. Futuh , ed. Munadjdjid, 493-
4; idem, Ansab, iii, ed. Dun, 96-8, 138, 145-6, 235-
8; Tabari, ii, 1978-80, iii, 16, 63-5, 130-3, 368-9,
394-7; Mas c udi, Murudy , vi, 45-6, 168-70 = §§
2272, 2380-1; Aghani (tables) iii, 642; Ibn al-Athir,
v, 284, 309, 336-7, 383-5, 464, vi, 15-6; Ibn
Khallikan, ed. Wustenfeld, no. 742, ed. Ihsan
c Abbas, v, 244-54, tr. de Slane, iii, 398-408.

(H. Kennedy)

MA C N-ZADA, Husayn b. Fakhr al-DTn al-
Ma c nT (Ma c n-oghlu) son of the famous Druze
amir , Fakhr al-DTn 11 [q. ».]; [see also ma c n, banu],
born on 14Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 1030/29 October 1621, his
mother being the niece of Yusuf Pasha Sayfa, the
Sunni Turkoman chieftain in the regions of c Akkar
and Tripoli. When he was an infant, his father sent
him several times in delegations to receive senior Ot¬
toman officials passing via the Syrian coast. Through
bribery and other cunning methods, his father was in
1031/1621 able to get an imperial order entrusting
Husayn with the sandyak of c Adjlun, replacing the es¬

tablished Ghazzawi family who were confidants of the
Ottomans and the leaders of the Kaysi faction in
southern Syria. Fakhr al-Din deputed one of his men
to administer the sandyak on behalf of Husayn, but two
years later delegated the job to a certain Bashir al-
Ghazzawi.

Very little is know about the childhood of Husayn
and his youngest brother Hasan. However, when
Sultan Murad IV in 1043/1634 commissioned the
governor of the province of Damascus, Kiifuk Ahmad
Pasha, to eradicate the Ma c nids, Fakhr al-Din in¬
structed Husayn to take shelter in al-Markab citadel
situated in the neighbourhood of Ladhikiyya. Husayn
was arrested and sent to Aleppo, whence he was even¬
tually dispatched to Istanbul. In 1044/1635, his father
and two of his sons were put to death, but the life of
Husayn was spared because of his youth. He was sent
to the Palace pages’ school. After graduating from
there, he served at the Ottoman court in the Khass
odasi. It appears that he showed competence, because
he was promoted to be a private secretary to Sultan
Mehemmed IV (1058-99/1648-87). Later on, he held
the post of chief assistant at the treasury, khazine ket-
fdiuddsi, and then in 1066/1656 that of kapidyi bash! or
head of the Sultan’s guards. Later in the same year,
he was sent as the Sultan’s special envoy (elci) to the
Mughal sultan in India Shah Djahan (1037-68/1628-
57), travelling by land to Basra in the company of an
ambassador sent by Shah Djahan, and from there
they sailed to India; Husayn refers to this journey in
his only surviving work al-Tamyiz. Arriving in Dihli,
he found that the emperor had died and that fighting
had broken out between his sons. It seems that his stay
there did not last long, and he went back to Istanbul
carrying a message of good wishes from Murad
Bakhsh, son of the deceased sultan. It is possible that
he was not on good terms with the new Grand Vizier
Mehmed Koprulu (1656-61) [see koprulu], since he
was not appointed to any official post, although for¬
tunately his property was not confiscated. This
enabled him to devote ample time to his work al-
Tamyiz, for which he made use of his own rich library
and other private libraries in Istanbul. During this
period of his life, it seems that the court historian,
Mustafa Na c ima [q.v. ] (d. 1128/1716) came to ac¬
quaint himself with Husayn and to make use of his
knowledge and of his library; on several occasions,
Na c ima acknowledges his indebtedness to him, prais¬
ing his vast knowledge, his modesty and zuhd. He
states that his information about both Sultan Ibrahim
and Sultan Mehemmed IV was taken orally from Hu¬
sayn, but a recent study doubts this role accredited to
Husayn by Na c Ima.

The Tarnyiz comprises 26 babs with a jasl (section)
appended to each chapter. In the bab he mentions the
merits of the subject he is analysing, whereas in the
fast he relates what other learned sages have said for
or against that particular subject. His citations came
from innumerable sources, but mainly from the
Kur’an, Hadith, the Nahdi al-balagha and the IhyP
c ulum al-din. Na c ima states that on the request of Hu¬
sayn, he made several copies of the Tarnyiz , which
were presented by the author to the dignitaries of
Istanbul, and particularly to the Grand Vizier Hu¬
sayn Koprulu. It appears that he finished the first
final copy in 1686.

Na c ima places Husayn’s death in 1102/1690, while
Muhammad Khalil al-Husayni al-Muradi (d.
1206/1791) mentions that this took place in
1109/1697, and this last report was accepted by some
Lebanese historians such as the Patriarch Istifan ai-
Duwayhi (d. 1704), Haydar al-Shihabi (d. 1835) and

346

MA C N-ZADA — MA C NA

Tannus al-Shidvak (d. 1859), who claim that Husayn
intervened with Ottoman officials in 1697, when the
Ma c nid family came to an end. According to this, he
succeeded in persuading the Ottomans to appoint
Haydar al-Shihabi, the grandson of amir Ahmad al-
Ma c nl, the last Ma c nid amir , rather than amir Bashir
al-Shihabi, to govern al-Shuf. If Na c Ima is accurate in
reporting the date of Husayn’s death (1102/1690),
then this aspect of local Lebanese history clearly needs
further investigation.

Bibliography : Ahmad b. Muhammad al-
Khalidl al-Safadl, Ta\ikh al-Amir Fakhr al-Din al-
Ma c ni, ed. Asad Rustum and Fu^ad Afram al-
Bustanf 2 , Beirut 1969, 105, 110, 112, 116-17, 119,
120, 123, 125-6, 137, 155, 160, 166; Nadjm al-Din
al-GhazzI, al-Kawakib al-sa?ira fi a < yan al-mPa al-
c ashira , ed. Dj. Djabbur, Beirut 1945-59, iii, 201-2;
Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi, Silk al-durar fi a \yan
al-karn al-hadi a c shar, Bulak ii, 59-60; Muhammad
Amin b. Fadl Allah al-Muhibbl, Khulasat al-athar fi
a c yan al-karn al-hadi ‘ashar , repr. Beirut 1970, i, 365-
8, iii, 266-9, 299-303; Ispfan al-Duwayhl, Ta\ikh
al-Azmina, ed. Ferdinand Taoutel al-Yasu‘I, Beirut
1961, 312, 314, 327, 329, 382-3; Mustafa Na‘ima
Efendi, Ta 5 rikh Na ‘ima. Rawdat al-Husayn fi khulasat
akhbar al-khafikayn, Istanbul 1967-9, iii, 1229-30, v,
2373-5, 2471, vi, 2698; tr. Ch. Fraser, Annals of the
Turkish empire from 1591 to 1659 , London 1832, 422-
5; Haydar Ahmad al-Shihabi. al-Ghurar al-hisdn ft
akhbar abna 3 al-zaman, i, ed. Asad Rustum and
Fu^ad Afram al-Bustani, Beirut 1969, 3-5; Tannus
al-Shidyak. Kitab Akhbar al-a c yan fi Diabal Lubndn,
ed. Fu^d Afram al-Bustani, Beirut 1970, i, 170,
266, 268-9, 277-9, 287; Isma'fl Pasha al-Baghdadl,
Hadiyyat al- c drifin, asma 3 al-mu c allifin wa-athar al-
musannifin, Istanbul 1951, i, 324; c Isa Iskandar al-
Ma c luf. Kitab al-Ta c bir fi ’ l-muhddarat: makhtut li 7-
Amir Husayn b. al-Amir Fakhr al-Din al-Ma c ni, in al-
Machriq , xxvii (1929), 811-15; idem, Ta^rikh al-Amir
Fakhr al-Din al-Ma c ni al-Thani. Beirut 1966, 162,
169-70, 179, 188, 205, 210, 249; Mehmed
Thureyya, Sidjill-i c othmani, ii, 73-119, 286; L.
Thomas, A study of Naima, ed. N. Itzkowitz, Albany
1972, 22-4, 142-5, 147; Kamal S. Salibi, Ta\ikk
Lubndn al-hadithf , Beirut 1972, 31-2; idem. EP art.
Fakhr al-Din; M. Cavid Baysun, IA, art. Naima. A
text of the Tamyiz, edited by M.A. Bakhit from
eleven Istanbul mss. and the Yale one, is being
printed in Beirut. (M.A. Bakhit)

MA C NA (a.), a term whose sense needs to be
defined according to the discipline in which it is used.
1. In grammar. Etymologically, ma c na is what the
speaker intends to say ( c ibara c an al-shay 5 alladhi c anahu
T c ani y al-RazI, Mafatih, i, 24,16); it is then almost
synonymous with terms such as maksud , niyya and
murad. As a technical term, ma c na indicates the seman¬
tic counterpart of lafz. Each word has an asl, i.e. the
radicals that constitute the consonantal structure of
the word, which is realised in a pattern ( binya). For
each asl there is a correlating ma c na, as well as for each
binya, the latter ma c na being the primary concern of
the grammarian.

The terminological pair ma c nallafz is already found
in Sibawayhi’s Kitab (according to Troupeau, Lexique-
index , 891 and 215 times respectively). This early
popularity shows the importance of the use of ma c na in
grammar and the need to take the grammatical data
into account for any theory which tries to explain its
origin in other disciplines, e.g. by pointing out
analogies with the Stoic term lekton.

Although according to some authors there exists a
correlation between the phonic and the semantic part
of a word (Ibn Djinni, Khasa^is, ed. Nadjdjar, ii, 245

ff., iii, 264 ff.), there is an inherent discrepancy be¬
tween the two entities, in that one expression may
stand for several meanings, and vice-versa (cf. already
Slbawayhi, Kitab , ed. Bulak, i, 7, 22-8, 3). On other
level, one may say that the lafz never expresses the
complete meaning, which can only reconstructed by
means of a grammatical analysis, called takdir.
Through this method, the grammarian re-establishes,
for instance, those governing words which are
necessary for the meaning, but do not appear in the
actual sentence ( c amil ma c nawi).

A special use of ma c na in grammatical writings is
found in the expression harf ma c na “particle” as
against harf “consonant, letter” (connected with the
controversial definition of the harf djcPa li-ma c nan,
Slbawayhi, Kitab, i, 2, 1); and ism ma c nd “abstract
noun” as against ism c ayn “concrete noun” (e.g. al-
Zamakhsharl, Mufassal , 5, 3).

In the debate between logicians and grammarians
in the period after the first translations of Greek
logical writings had appeared, the difference between
lafz and ma c na was used by the logicians to define the
different subjects of the two disciplines; grammar was
to occupy itself solely with the alfaz , whereas the study
of the ma c ani was restricted to logic (e.g., al-Sidjistam,
apud al-Tawhrdl, Mukabasat, ed. Sandubi, 169, 21 ff.).
The two terms are not synonymous with the pair
ism/musamma, which is often used in logical and
philosophical discussions, because ism denotes the en¬
tire linguistic symbol., whereas musamma is either the
correlating thought or the object in the outer world.

The opposition between alfaz as the linguistic ex¬
pression, and macani as the underlying meaning, was
common in rhetorics and poetics, where one of the
much-debated questions concerned the status of these
two entities. For al-Djahi?, for instance, the alfaz of
the poet are more essential for an evaluation of his
qualities than the ma c ani (Baydn , ed. Sandubi, i, 98
ff.). The numerous books with titles such as Kitab
Macani ’l-shi c r, Kitab Ma c ani *1-KuPan , etc., contain
primarily discussions of the meaning of words and
phrases, and are, therefore, lexicographical rather
than grammatical writings.

In Ibn Hazm’s grammatical theory, finally, there is
a strict distinction, contrary to the generally-accepted
usage, between the intention of the speaker and the
inherent signification of the word.

Bibliography : A fundamental analysis is given
by G. Bohas, Contributions a Delude de la methode des
grammairiens arabes en morphologie et en phonologie
d’apr'es des grammairiens “tardifs ”, these d’etat Paris
III, 1979, 33-42, 64 ff., 167 f.; cf. also C.
Versteegh, Greek elements in Arabic linguistic thinking ,
Leiden 1977, 178-90; N. Anghelescu, ‘Sensul' in
gindirea linguistica araba, in I. Coteanu and L. Wald
(eds.), Semantica si semiotica , Bucharest 1981, 166-
77. Lafz/ma c na in rhetorics: W. Heinrichs,
Arabische Dichtung und griechische Poetik, Beirut 1969,
62-82; L. Bettini, Studi sulla teoria letteraria araba,
Florence 1981, esp. 9-14. Lafz/ma c na in the
debate between logic and grammar: M.
Mahdi, Language and logic in Classical Islam, in G.E.
von Grunebaum (ed.), Logic in Classical Islamic
culture , Wiesbaden 1970, 51-83; G. Endress, al-
Munazara bayn al-mantik al-falsafi wa ’l-nahw al- c arabi
fi c usur al-khulafa^ (with English summary), in Jnal.
for the history of Arabic Science, i (1977), 339-51;
Versteegh, Logique et grammaire au dixieme siecle, in
Histoire, Epistemologie, langage, ii (1980), 39-52.
Ma c na in Ibn Hazm’s and Ibn Mada 3 s
Zahirl system: R. Arnaldez, Grammaire et
theologie chez Ibn Hazm de Cordoue , Paris 1056, 56-61,
90-6. (C. H. M. Versteegh)

MA C NA

347

2 . In philosophy. This term is used to translate a
number of Greek expressions. Ma c nd is frequently
used as a synonym of ma c kul , corresponding to the
Greek noema, a concept, thought or idea. Sometimes
ma c kul is used to translate the term “concept” (as in
al-Farabi’s commentary on Aristotle’s De Interpreta¬
tions ) and sometimes ma c nd (as in his commentary on
Aristotle’s De Intellectu). Ishak b. Hunayn uses ma^na
in his translation of the De Interpretations , but he also
translated Aristotle’s use of pragmata (real things) by
ma c am. (For an argument against the Latin translation
of ma'-na by intentio, see Gyeke). Al-Ghazall uses
ma c dni to represent meaning, a general usage, and it
has been argued that this sense of the expression is
Stoic in origin, representing lecton (Shehaby). AI-
Hasan b. Suwar, in his notes on Aristotle’s Categories ,
identifies ma^ani with athar (affections produced by
natural things in the soul) and identical to the forms
(suwar) of the actual things ( umur ). It is in a similar
sense that Ibn Slna identifies a form in the soul with
a ma c nd, a meaning or notion, which in mediaeval
epistemology has the technical sense of “natural sign
in the soul”. Ibn Slna’s distinction between ma c dni o(
the first and second understanding probably stems
from Porphyry’s distinction between terms of first and
second imposition. The latter, ma c dnio( second under¬
standing, are abstract notions which are applied to the
notions of first understanding. The expressions ma^anl
ma c kula, intelligible notions, or ma c dni or just ma c kulat,
are often found in Ibn Slna, all frequently translated
as intellecta. These terms are important for his argu¬
ment of the complex relationship between logic and
language (see Sabra).

Mu c ammar b. c Abbad al-Sulami, the Basran
Mu c tazill philosopher, is undoubtedly the chief expo¬
nent of the use of the term ma c nd as a vital part of a
metaphysical system. According to him, every ma'-na
(entity) is brought about by another entity, which
itself has its origin in a third entity, and so on ad in¬
finitum. Mu c ammar speaks of an infinite chain of
determinant ma c ani, the first determinant of which is
God, and through which God is indirectly the real
cause for the accidental external appearance of
substances. For example, he talks of God creating
countless ma c ani of colour, the final effect of which is
the accident “colour”. The infinite chain of macani
are causes of creating, and the occasionally evil ac¬
cidents brought about thereby are caused by the sub-
tance through the real features of nature, not God.
Ma Q na is used by Mu c ammar to represent the princi¬
ple of individuation of one substance from another.
Horovitz identifies macani with Plato’s ideas, while
Horten thinks they originate in the Indian system of
categories. Watt identifies ma c na with Aristotelian
eidos and Plato’s ideas, as a real determination of a
substance. Wolfson relates it to Aristotle’s concept of
nature as the cause of motion and rest, a claim hotly
contested by Frank. The latter describes it as an in¬
trinsic causal determinant, a Stoic notion which cer¬
tainly seems to be present in Mu c ammar’s distinction
between primary and secondary causal determinants.
Frank criticises the accounts of Mu c ammar’s use of
ma c nd provided by al-RazI and al-Shahrastanl and in¬
sists that ma c dm in the original system inhere in the
material substrate of atoms, not with the accidents
(references in Frank). Daiber, in the fullest account of
macani in Mu c ammar’s system yet to appear, on the
contrary stresses their relational properties as opposed
to their property of inherence in substance.

Bibliography : Farabi, Risala fi 'l- c akl, in

Philosophische Abhandlungen, ed. F. Dieterici, Leiden

1890, 43, 11. 17-18, 44, 11. 6-7; S. Horovitz, Uber

den Einfluss der griechischen Philosophie auf die Ent-
wicklung des Kalam , Breslau 1908, esp. 44-54; M.
Horten, Die Ideenlehre des Mucammar, in Archiv fur
systematische Philosophie , xv (1909), 469-84; idem,
Was bedeutet m- c n-y als philosophischer Terminus ?, in
ZDMG, lxiv, 391-6; Ghazali, Makasid al-falasifa ,
Cairo 1912, 25, 64, 70, 71; Ibn Slna, Kitdb al-
Nadjat, Cairo 1938, 3; O. Pretzl, Die fruhislamische
Altributenlehre, in SB Bayr. Ak. (1940), 37-43; Ibn
Suwar, ed. and tr. Kh. Georr, Les categories dAristote
dans leurs versions syro-arabes, Beirut 1948, 361-86,
esp. 361,11. 1-4; Ibn Slna, al-Shifd\ al-Mantiki. i. al-
Madkhal , ed. G. Anawatl, M. El-Kohdeiri and F.
El-Ahwanl, Cairo 1952, esp. 17, 22-3; Aristotle,
Anstutalis, Fi al-Nafs , etc., ed. A. Badawl, Cairo
1954, 79; Ibn Slna, al-Shifa\ al-llahiyyat , ed. G.
Anawatl and S. Zayed, i, Cairo 1960, 10-11; Al-
Farabi’s commentary on Aristotle's De Interpretations, ed.
W. Kutsch and S. Marrow, Beirut 1960, esp. 24;
W. M. Watt, The logical basis of early Kalam , in I(f
vi (1961), 3-10; H. Wolfson, Mucammar's theory of
ma c na, in Arabic and Islamic Studies in honour of
H.A.R. Gibb, ed. G. Makdisi, Leiden 1965, 673-
88; N. Rescher, The concept of existence in Arabic logic
and philosophy, in his Studies in Arabic philosophy,
Pittsburgh 1966, 80; R. Frank, Al-Ma c na: some
reflections on the technical meanings of the term in the
Kalam and its use in the physics of Mucammar, in JAOS,
lxxxvii (1967), 248-59; K. Geyke, The terms “prima
intentio ” and “secunda intentio ” in Arabic logic, in
Speculum, xlvi (1971), 32-8; H. Daiber, Das
theologisch-philosophische System des Mucammar ibn
c Abbdd as-Sulami, Beirut 1975, esp. 78-89, 350-9
(excellent bibl.); N. Shehaby, The influence of Stoic
logic on al-Jassas’s legal theory, in The cultural context of
medieval learning, ed. J. Murdoch and E. Sylla,
Boston 1975, 61-86, esp. 80-5; A. Sabra, Avicenna
on the subject matter of logic, in Jnal. of Philosophy,
lxxvii (1980), 746-63. (O.N.H. Leaman)

3. In poetry. Marked out to serve as a reflection on
the language and to take its place in a cultural syn¬
thesis, poetry, after the preaching of Islam, assumed
its role under the surveillance of academic
phraseology. Scholars began to derive arguments
from it to support their theories. Thus called upon by
morpho-phonology, syntax, lexicography and even
exegesis and historiography, poetry was turned into
an instrument and reduced to being just a speech
practice meant for providing arguments for the basic
disciplines of language and thought. Hence one
should not be surprised at the lack, until the 4th/10th
century, of a true theory of meaning visualised as
starting from poetical experience. Until then the word
ma c na had only two meanings:

(1) The meaning of a word or proposition in a cer¬
tain given verse. This meaning limits the reading to a
purely contextual explanation. The Kitdb Ma c ani al -
shi c r of Abu c Uthman Sa c Id al-Ushnandanl, transmit¬
ted by Ibn Durayd, gives an example of these courses
and monographs devoted to verses considered dif¬
ficult. Lexically, attention is concentrated on terms
which have become rare in usage (gharlb) or culturally
marginal ( wahshi ), but also on those syntactic expres¬
sions which leave the expressions ambiguous.
Numerous works devoted to poetry are subsumed
under this pragmatic aim and the elucidation of
meaning.

(2) The meaning of a trope. The procedure here is
similar, that of a clarification of the meaning, but the
specific nature of the figurative expressions opens up
perspectives which were later to become a semantics
of poetry.

348

MA C NA

In this way, a fragmentary poetical text, reduced to
citations, finds a place in lexicography, syntax and
rhetoric. The school exercise of explaining it cor¬
responds to a demand of criticism. The latter, born
out of philology, requires the fitting of the ma c na to the
maksad or gharad, with the supposition that what is said
corresponds exactly to what it was intended to say.
Every displacement between the intention and the
statement betrays the poet’s inability to express what
is correct with complete exactitude and shows up an
inadequacy in the tools of the language. The ma c na is
a target which may be missed in two ways: either by
not respecting the established correlations between the
word and its referent, or between the syntactic expres¬
sion and the logical distribution of its meanings; or
else by disturbing the rules of construction of such
figurative expressions as comparison, metaphor,
metonymy, etc. The divergence between what is said
and what it was intended to say ( bu c d) is the measure
of the ambiguity in the meaning ( ghumuft ). Criticism
of meaning remains, within this framework, a
criticism of effectiveness.

This enterprise ends up by updating the cultural
codes prevailing in the language and makes an impor¬
tant contribution to the study of an archaeology of
meaning. But one must note carefully that the works
devoted to classification of meanings and tropes (Ibn
Kutayba, al-Mubarrad, Tha c lab, Ibn al-Mu c tazz in
the 3rd/9th century) do not have poetry in view in the
first place, or else they do not make the tropes
analysed there a specific phenomenon of poetic
writing. Moreover, even the terms connected with a
single poetic genre such as madih , hidja 5 , ritha* or nasib
are not fashioned by means of a reflecting on the
genres and themes. Till the end of the 3rd/9th cen¬
tury, it is quite wrong to consider the Him al-ma : ani as
an analysis of thematic forms, even with an author
like Ibn Kutayba, who devotes a chapter of his Kitdb
Ma c ani al-shi c r to marathi.

It is Kudama b. Dja c far [q.v.\ in his Nakd al-shiH
who puts forward a general theory on the nature of
poetry. This theory aims at defining an aesthetic,
hence at regulating taste ( dhawk ) by setting out the
rules of a science of what is good in poetry. Since the
latter is an art (sina c a), its actualisation can be placed
on a scale of values which it is possible to draw up by
reference to established canons of taste. Kudama
brings forward these canons of the connections ex¬
isting between the constituent elements of poetic
writing ( lafz, ma^na, wazn and kdfiya). The mafnd here
does not mean signification, since the latter is a fact
of language, but the register of expression. Thus there
are six martini in poetry: madih , hidja?, marathi, tashbih,
was/ and nasib. Four of these names denote a semantic
field relatively clearly delimited. Kudama is here re¬
maining within the track traced by his forerunners.
He is an innovator in that he included tashbih in this
list; he considers it as a general way of proceeding for
the production of poetical statements, and all his at¬
tention is concentrated on the figures of thought. Wasf
brings in the general problem of the relationship of the
statement to the object described. We can discern here
a trace, small but clear, of the Greek theory of
mimesis. The dialectic of kadhib and sidk is thus here
set aside, for Kudama himself clearly, on this occa¬
sion, distances himself from all moralistic purposes.

Ma c na is definitively that particular form (sura)
which poetry sketches out in a general sense. What is
good may be measured by the amount of the conform¬
ing of the statement produced to an ideal statement
(gharad) The progress of poetry is contained in this
movement which leads towards the perfect forms.

In fact, reflection about meaning in poetry eluded
the udaba?, who remained fixed on the need of
philological and lexical explanations, and had no
theoretical system which could enable them to go fur¬
ther ahead. Work on the ma c na became the preoccupa¬
tion of the rhetoricians who had evolved the required
tools for analysis. But it was the task of the logicians
to put forward an attempt at definition, no longer of
poetry, but of poetic theory, i.e. the ways of achieving
the specific meanings required in poetry. Since al-
Kindr’s commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics has not
come down to us, we have to consider al-Farabl [q.v. ]
as the first to have turned his attention and thought to
al-akdwil al-mukhayyila. The problem of takhyil was to
remain as a subject of thought for the analysts,
especially for Ibn Slna, c Abd al-Kadir al-Djurdjam,
Ibn Rushd and Hazim al-Kartadjannl. Our point of
departure is a re-interpretation of the Aristotelian
mimesis, which al-Kartadjannl in the end separates
completely from speculative discourse. Takhyil
denotes “the imaginary representation of the object
which mimetic discourse (i.e. poetry) fixes in the
speaker’s imagination. The meaning is thus contained
in a relationship of the object with its aesthetic
representation as the producer of an effect”. In this
way, a fresh posing of the problem of meaning is for¬
mulated, and “the specificness and autonomy of
poetry is circumscribed”. The poet, as the creator of
images, thus throws off the task of being truthful to
life and becomes consequently free to project on to the
object chosen all the features which his imagination
pictures for him. The theory of the poetic uslub set
forth by Ibn Khaldun in his Mukaddima is actually a
theory of the genuine poetic image. The uslub is the
abstract form of the meaning which becomes fixed in
the poet’s imagination. The latter realises it in
statements made up of a thing signified (ma c nd) con¬
tained within a framework of the phrase (tarkib). The
nomenclature put forward by Ibn Khaldun stems
from this: kalam/fann (poetry, in contrast to
pros c)/madhahib ( madh, rithd*, nasib)/ asdlib/aghrad or
ma c dni and tarakib. Ibn Khaldun in this way completes
his predecessors’ analysis by studying the mechanism
of production of ma c ani.

Bibliography : Texts: Since the texts utilised
are well-known and amply cited in the articles on
the respective authors, it is enough to say that the
logicians’ developments of the topic of poetic theory
are given in c Abd al-Rahman Badawl’s Aristutdlis,
Jann al-shi c r l , Cairo 1954, with a better ed. of Ibn
Rushd’s commentary and a 1st ed. of al-Farabl’s
Diawdmd al-shiH by M. Salim Salim, Cairo 1971;
the part of Ibn Slna’s K. al-Shifa 5 devoted to the
commentary on Aritotle’s Poetics has been tr. with
an English commentary by I. M. Dahiyat,
Avicenna’s commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle, a critical
study with an annotated translation of the text, Leiden
1974.

Studies: J. E. Bencheikh, Poelique arabe, Paris
1975; Dj. A. c Usfur, Mafhum al-shi c r, Cairo 1978;
K. Abu Deeb, Al-Jurjani’s theory of poetic imagery ,
Warminster 1979; Bencheikh, Min al-kawdlib al-
lisaniyya ila ’l-asalib al-shi c riyya, Ibn Khaldun wa-
mdhiyyat al-shiH , in A c mal nadwat Ibn Khaldun ,
Casablanca 1981,47 ff.; C A. al-Msaddl, al-Tafkir al-
lisdnifi ’l-hadar al- c arabiyya, Tripoli and Tunis 1981;
H. Sammud, al-Tafkir al-balaghi Hnd al- c Arab ,
ususuhu wa-tatawwuruhu ila ’l-karn al-sadis , Tunis
1981; H. Foda, La formule due sens, essai sur al-Nuqat
ft i c gaz al-Qur’an d'al-Rummani, in Analyses-Theorie
(1982), no. 1, 43-70; idem, La rhetorique au coeur des
enjeux. art. Literature arabe , in Encyclopaedia Univer-

MA C NA — MANAKIB

349

sails, new ed. (the definition of takhyil is borrowed
from here). (J. E. Bencheikh)

MANAF, name of a deity of ancient Arabia.
This IVth form masdar from the root n-w-f is con¬
nected with the Qatabanite nwfn “the exalted”, an
epithet describing c Athar-Venus at its zenith, as op¬
posed to shrkn “the eastern” and ghrbn “the western”.
From the same root is derived tanuf “that which
climbs high in the firmament”, an epithet of the sun,
as opposed to mshrktym “that which rises”, and tadun
“that which sets” (cf. A. Jamme, Le pantheon sud-arabe
preislamique'd’ apres les sources epigraphiques , in Le Museon,
lx [1947], 88 and n. 225, 102, 106; on the meaning
of this root and the vocabulary which is derived from
it, cf. TA, s.v.).

“Manaf was one of the greatest deities of Mecca”,
states al-Tabari (i, 1092). Such a statement is never¬
theless surprising, bearing in mind how little informa¬
tion we have on the subject. Only Ibn al-Kalbl ( K.
al-Asndm, ed. and Fr. tr. W. Atallah, Paris 1969, 26)
devotes a few lines to it, repeated by al-Tabari (i,
1091-2) and Yakut (iv, 651); however, going by the
inscriptions, the name was known in Thamudic (A.
van den Branden, Les inscriptions thanioudeennes, 48
(Huber, 12), 225 (Huber, 696), in Safaitic and in
Lihyanitic (G. Ryckmans, Les noms propres sud -
semitiques , i, Louvain 1934, 18; idem, Les religions arabes
preislamiques 2 , Louvain 1953, 17), and altars were
dedicated to him in the Hawran (cf. P. Mouterde, In¬
scriptions grecques conservees a Vlnstitut Fran(ais de Damas,
no. 33, in Syria, vi [1925], 246-52) and at Volubilis in
Morocco (cf. L. Robert, in Revue des etudes grecques
[1936], 3-8).

Probably of South Arabian origin, the cult of this
deity was widespread among the Kurayshites, Hu-
dhayl and Tamlm, as is shown by the theophoric
names composed with his name (cf. Ibn al-Kalbl,
Asndm, loc. cit.; Ibn Durayd, Ishtikdk, 143, 1. 16, 66;
TA, iii, 470, 1. 7 f. a fine). One of the most famous is
that of c Abd Manaf, one of the four sons of Kusayy,
reformer of the cult in Mecca. His mother had prom¬
ised him to the god, so as to protect him from the evil
eye, for he was so handsome that he was surnamed al-
kamar “the moon” (al-Tabari, loc. cit.).

Ibn al-Kalbl, reproduced by Yakut, notes a practice
common to all the idols, mentioned by G. Ryckmans
{Les religions arabes preislamiques, 17) as being peculiar
to Manaf; menstruating women did not touch them as
a token of blessing and kept at a distance from them.
Two verses, one by Bafa 5 b. Kays, relating to Manaf,
the other Bishr b. Abl Khazlm. relating to Isaf, allude
to this (Ibn al-Kalbl and Yakut, locis citatis; Yakut, i,
235).

Bibliography : Apart from the references cited,
see J. Wellhausen, Reste 2 , Berlin 1897, 57; T. Fahd,
Le Pantheon de VArable centrale a la veille de Vhegire,
Paris 1968, 122-3. (T. Fahd)

MANAKIB (a.), plural substantive (sing mankaba)
featuring in the titles of a quite considerable number
of biographical works of a laudatory nature,
which have eventually become a part of
hagiographical literature in Arabic, in Persian
and in Turkish.

To define this term, the lexicographers make it a
synonym of akhldk, taken in the sense of “natural
dispositions (good or bad), innate qualities, charac¬
ter”, and associate it with nakiba , explained by nafs
“soul”, khalika or labTa, likewise signifying “trait of
character, disposition”, but also with nafadh al-ra^y,
“perspicacity”, in such a way that the connection
with the radical n-k-b, which is particularly expressive
and implies especially the concrete sense of “per¬
forate, pierce (a wall, for example)”, thus, in an

abstract sense, “succeed in penetrating a secret”,
becomes perfectly clear. Perhaps it should be ap¬
proached as is suggested by Ibn Manzur {LA, sub
radice n-k-b), via nakib “chief”, thus named because
he is privy to “the secrets of his fellow-tribesmen
{dakhilat amr al-kawm) and to their manakib , which is
the means of knowing their affairs”; in short, manakib
would signify almost simultaneously both “traits of
character” and “acts and deeds”, and its use to intro¬
duce a biography centred not only on the actions, but
also on the moral qualities of an individual, would be
entirely legitimate. Finally, also worth consideration
is an alternative meaning of the verb nakaba, “walk,
follow a narrow path”, and a subtle connection may
be observed between two senses of the singular
mankaba : on the one hand, “narrow street between
two houses”, or “difficult path on the mountain” (cf.
Yakut s.v. al-Manakib; Sira, ii, 468) and, on the other
hand, “noble action”, in contrast to mathlaba
“villainy, subject of shame” [see mathalib], as is
supported by the evidence of numerous titles, particu¬
larly that on the Kitab al-Manakib wa ’l-mathalib by
Hibat Allah Ibn c Abd al-Wahid (Brockelmann, S II,
908), where the two antithetical terms possess the
added advantage of mutual rhyme. If the last explana¬
tion suggested is correct, one is entitled to consider
that a semantic evolution has occurred comparable to
that of sira [^.y.].

However, although this last term may be accom¬
panied by a depreciative epithet (e.g. sayyp), manakib,
sometimes made more precise, sometimes not, by a
qualificative {dyamil, karim , etc.), is always taken in a
good sense; the term may be rendered
approximately by “qualities, virtues, talents,
praiseworthy actions”, and introduces a laudatory
biography in which the merits, virtues and remark¬
able deeds of the individual concerned are given
prominence. It will be observed that, immediately
following the development of mysticism and the cult
of saints, it is the marvellous aspects of the life, the
miracles or at least the prodigies {karamat) [q.v. ]) of a
Sufi or of a saint believed to have been endowed with
miraculous powers, which are the subjects preferred,
and manakib ultimately acquires the sense of “mira¬
cles” or “prodigies”. It is perhaps a reminiscence of
this last sense that is used to form an abstract applied
even to the army by c AzIz al-Ahdab in his Diaysh Lub-
nan wa-mandkibiyyatuh al-^askariyya, Beirut 1975.

Such is, schematically outlined, the apparent evolu¬
tion of this concept, although it is not easy, in reality,
to follow it with precision. In fact, the most ancient
texts bearing the title of manakib have in general
hardly survived at all, and their existence is only
known to us thanks to the biographers and biblio¬
graphers of the Middle Ages; on the other hand,
that which could be called “the manakib genre” is hard
to isolate, since it is practically impossible, on account
of constant interference, to establish a neat classifica¬
tion according to the etiquettes affixed by authors to
the account of the life and enumeration of the virtues
of the individual or the group chosen. The nomen¬
clature in fact comprises a full gamut of titles which
must be examined.

—iardyama [q.v.\, quite neutral, implies no par¬
ticular quality and introduces any biography; it may
be said, however, that this term features in titles
where another would be expected, for example Tar-
dyamal Ahmad b. Hanbal or Tardyamat al-ShdfPi by al-
Dhahabl (see S. al-Munadjdjid, Mu^dyam al-
mu^arrikhin al-dimashkiyyin, Beirut 1398/1978, 445),
while the founders of judicial schools arc most often
entitled to manakib (see below).

— ta c rif, likewise neutral, but already used by c Iyad

350

MANAKIB

♦

(see below) for the Prophet, appears in the title of lives
of saints, possibly for reasons of discretion, in a period
where manakib seems to be confined to the
hagiographical sphere. For example, c Abd al-Salam
al-Kadirl (d. 1110/1698 [see al-kadirI]) devoted al-
Maksad al-ahmad fi ’l-ta c rif bi-Sayyidina Ibn c Abd Allah to
Ibn Ma c n al-Andalusi (see E. Levi-Proven^al, Les
historiens des Chorfa, Paris 1922, 278), while the
monograph on the same saint by Muhammad al-
Mahdf al-FasI (d. 1109/1698 [see al-fasI in Suppl.])
is intitled c ArifUAwarif al-munna bi-manakib SayyidT
(Sidi) Mahammad b. c Abd Allah muhyi 7 -sunna ( Chorfa,
275; ms. in Leiden, see P. Sj. van Koningsveld, Ten
Arabic manuscript-volumes of historical contents acquired by
the Leiden Univ. Libr. after 1957, in E. van Donzel
(ed.), Studies on Islam , Amsterdam-London 1974, 95).
Similarly, Mahammad al-Masnawi al-Dila 3 ! (d.
1136/1724 [see al-dil/C in Suppl.]), is the author of
al-Ta c rif bi ’l-shaykh Abi 7 - c Abbas al-Yamani ( Chorfa,
302), c Abd al-Madjid al-Zabadl (d. 1163/1750; see
Chorfa, 314) wrote the Ifadat al-murad bi ’l-tacrif bi 7-
shaykh Ibn c Abbdd (d. 792/1390) and al-Dar c I

(12th/18th century), al-Rawd al-zahir fi ’l-ta c rif bi 7-
shaykh Ibn Husayn wa-atba c ih al-akabir, on the saint of
Tamgrut named al-Kabbab (d. 1045/1635-6; see
Chorfa, 315). This term, adopted by Ibn Khaldun for
his autobiography, seems to be particularly common
in Morocco, where hagiographical literature is
especially prolific.

— akhbar, also neutral, tends to be applied to collec¬
tions of historical traditions, even of simple anecdotes,
concerning individuals of ethnic or social groups (see
e.g. Akhbar Abi Nuwas, Akhbar al-kiyan, etc.). Never¬
theless, one encounters, again from the pen of af-
Dhahabl (d J 748/1347 [q.v. ]), the Akhbar Umm al-
MiCminin c Alisha (Munadjdjid, 445), which does not
necessarily imply a greater concern for objectivity
than is found in the Manakib Hadrat Umm al-Mu^minin
c A5sha. (Hadydji Khalifa. Kashf al-zunun, ed. Istanbul
1941, ii, col. 1843) by Muhibb al-Dln al-Tabari (d.
694/1294-5 [< 7 . 1 /.]) or in the Kitab al-Albab al-taHsha ft
manakib Umm al-MiCminin C A 5sha by the Moroccan
Muhammad b. c All al-Wadjdl al-Ghammad (d.
1033/1624; see M. Hajji, L ’activite intellectuelle au Maroc
a Tepoque sa c dide, Rabat 1976, 487). For his part,
Ahmad Adfal gave the title Akhbar to his biography of
Ahmad b. Musa al-Samlall (d. 971/1564; see Hajji,
181, 650; al-Susi, al-Ma c sul, Casablanca 1380-3/1960-
3, 20-43), whereas that of the same Susi saint by
Yiburk al-Samlall (Hajji, 181) bears the title of
Manakib al-Sayyid Ahmad b. Musa. A further example:
c Abd al-Rahman al-FasI (d. 1096/1685 [see al-fasI in
Suppl.]) celebrated the memory of his father in two
works: Bustan al-azahir ft akhbar al-shaykh C Abd al-Kadir
and Tuhfat al-akabir ft manakib c Abd al-Kadir ( Chorfa,
267).

— sira, as is known, is not reserved for the Prophet,
and a considerable number of biographies (and even
stories, such as the Sirat c Antar) bearing this title are
mentioned in the repertoires; it will be noted only, for
the sake of example, that al-Dhahabl (yet again) wrote
a Sirat al-Halladf (Munadjdjid, 446), and the Sufi
Hisnl (d. 829/1426; see Munadjdjid, 231), a Siyar al-
nisa 3 al- c dbidat, just as Kasim al-HalfawI (d.after
1000/1591; see Hajji, 181) entitled his monograph on
the santon of Marrakesh known as Abu c Amr al-
Kastalll Shams al-mafrifa ft sirat ghawth al-mutasawwifa
(mss. in Rabat and Marrakesh).

— fadadil, ‘ £ virtues ”, is closer to the sense of manakib
and even serves as its equivalent, although covering a
much more extensive range [see fadila]. While the
“fada^il genre” is in part reserved for the vindication

of towns and of countries, Ibn al-DjawzI (d. 597/1200
[q.v.]) wrote the Manakib Baghdad (ed. Ba gh dad 1921;
see Brockelmann, S I, 917), he merely used fada^il for
Bishr al-Hafi (d. 226 or 227/840-2 [q.v.]). The two
terms are set in parallel and applied with exactly the
same meaning to the people of Cordova by al-ldrlsl
[q.v.] in his Opus geographicum (written in 548/1154), v,
574. Fada :, il is used by authors anxious, as was al-
Tabari (d. 310/923 [q.v.]), to celebrate the virtues of
the Companions and of the Orthodox Caliphs (see
Yakut, Udabad, xviii, 80-1); otherwise it had already
been adopted by al-Mada^inl (d. 226/840 [q. v. ]) for
Dja c far b. Abi Talib, al-Harith b. c Abd al-Muttalib
and Muhammad Ibn al-Hanafiyya {Udaba?, xiv, 132)
and by al-Bukharl (d. 256/870), who dedicates a bab
to the fada^il ashab al-Nabi, following it however with
a bab manakib al-Muhadfrin and a bab m. al-Ansar (v, 2-
47); as late as the 5th/11th century, Ibn al- c Usharf (d.
441/1049; see Brockelmann, S I, 601) wrote a Kitab
Fada'ilAbiBakral-Siddik, and, in the 7th/13th century,
Amin al-Dawla Ibn c Asakir (d. 686/1288), Fada^il
Umm al-Mu^mimin Khadidja (Munadjdjid, 120). How¬
ever, the anonymous ms. 8273 of the British Museum
is called Manakib al-Sahaba, and, in Spain, al- Gh afikl
(d. 540/1146; see Brockelmann, S I, 629) wrote
Manakib al- c ashara wa- c ammay Rasul Allah, while c Abd
al-Ghanl al-MakdisI (d. 600/1203; see Munadjdjid,
68-9) left for posterity Manakib al-Sahabiyyat (ms.
Zahiriyya 3754), and Madjd al-Dln Ibn al-Athir (d.
606/1210; see ibn al-athTr), al-Mukhtar ft manakib al-
akhyar ( cf. O. Spies, in MO, xxiv [1930], 1-15) on the
pious men and women of early Islam; al-Diya 3 al-
MakdisI (d. 643/1245; see Munadjdjid, 86, 442)
eulogised the manakib of Dja c far b. Abi Talib (ed.
M.H. A1 Yasln, Ba gh dadi: the afore-mentioned
Muhibb al-Dln al-Tabari, has, like al-Ghafikl,
celebrated the “ten assured of Paradise” in al-Riyad
al-nadira ft manakib al- c ashara (ed. Cairo 1372/1953); al-
Dhahabl is himself credited with al-Tibyan ft manakib
c Uthman (Munadjdjid, 445) and Ibn c Abd al-Hadl (d.
909/1503; see Munadjdjid, 274, 276) even wrote a
Mahd al-ikhlas ft manakib Sa c d b. Abi Wakkas (ms.
Zahiriyya 3248). If, for C A1I b. Talib and his descen¬
dants, the use of manakib is fully justified in the works
of those authors who particularly revere their memory
(see below), and if the same can to a certain extent be
said of c Umar b. ’Abd al- c Az!z, thus eulogised by Ibn
al-Djawzi, it is hard to say why the last-named {Kashf,
iv, col. 560; Brockelmann, S I, 916-17) and, for ex¬
ample, al-Barzandjl (Brockelmann S II, 934) gave the
title Manakib to their biographies of Abu Bakr and of
c Umar b. al-Khattab. It is true that it is impossible to
find the explanation in the variation which manifests
itself in the Diam <i al-fawaSd min DjamT al-usul [of Ibn
al-Athir] wa-Madpma c al-zawaHd [of al-Haythaml],
Medina 1381/1961, in which hadiths concerning the
Companions as a group are given under the title of
fadadil (ii, 490-500), whilst those relating to the same
Companions considered individually are given under
that of manakib (ii, 500-81).

— ma^athir and mafakhir, “exploits, objects of
pride”, normally feature in the titles of collections of
traditions in favour of tribes, peoples or groups and
are the reverse of mathalib\ they are also encountered,
as is sometimes mahasin, in those of monographs of in¬
dividuals who have played an eminent political,
politico-religious or military role. An example which
may be mentioned, from Morocco, is a Rawdat al-ta c rif
ft mafakhir Mainland Isma : il b. al-Sharif by al-Ifranl (d.
1156 or 1157/1743-5 [< 7 .y.]), which concerns a sultan
{Chorfa, 275); al-Muntaka Tmaksur c ala ma^athir khdafat
al-Mansur (ms. in Leiden, see van Koningsveld, 94;

MANAKIB

351

Brockelmann, S II, 679) by Ibn al-Kadl (d. 1065/1616
\q. v. ]), where ma : dthir is sometimes replaced by
mahdsin , is a panegyric of the sultan al-Mansur al-
Dhahabl; on the other hand, the Rawdat al-mahasin al-
zahiyya bi-ma?athir al-shaykh Abi ’l-Mahasin al-bahiyya, by
the afore-mentioned Muhammad al-Mahdl al-FasI, is
the biography of a religious man ( Chorja , 114), and the
same al-Ifranl who is cited above gave the title Durar
al-hidfal fi ma?athir “sab c at ridjal ” (Chorja , 115) to a
hagiography of the “seven saints” of Marrakesh (see
G. Deverdun, Marrakech , Rabat 1959, 571-5),

whereas manakib would more naturally be expected.

— akhlak: Ibn Faris (d. 395/1004 [<?.£'.]) is credited
with a Kitdb Akhlak, al-Nabi (Udabd?, iv, 84) which
justifies the assimilation, by Ibn Manzur (see above),
of manakib to akhlak , for it seems likely that in choosing
this latter term, the author of the Sahibi wished to
signal his intention of dealing with the character and
moral qualities of the Prophet, as al-Tirmidhl (d. ca.
275/888-9 [ 0 . 0 .]) had done in his ShamdHl al-Nabi (ed.
Cairo 1306). In the 6 th/12th century, the kadi c Iyad
(d. 544/1149 [ 0 . 0 .]) chose a more neutral title, al-Shifa
bi-ta^rif al-Mustafa (numerous editions), not suspecting
that this biography of the Prophet was destined to be
accorded “throughout North Africa, supernatural
virtues” (M. Talbi, Biographies aghlabides , Tunis 1968,
19); Ibn Habib al-Dimashkl (d. 779/1377; see
Munadjdjid, 449), who is said to have imitated the
Shifa, showed less discretion, since he entitled his work
al-Nadfm al-thdkib fi ashraf al-manakib. Ibn c ArabT (d.
638/1240 [^. 0 .]) for his part, is the author of a
rnankabat mawlid al-Nabi (this is the only attestation of
the singular in a title), which is a “presentation of the
life of the Prophet from the point of view of his
metaphysical reality, that is to say in his capacity of
representing the Perfect Man upon the earth” (O.
Yahia, Histoire et classification de Voeuvre d'lbn c Arabi,
Damascus 1964, 358; the singular is not attested in
any Arabic title, but it may be noted that in Urdu
rnankabat indicates a poem in honour of c AlI and the
ShI c T Imams, [see madTh. 4. In Urdu]). Shamabl is al¬
most synonymous with akhlak when the latter is taken
in good a sense, and c Abd al- c Az!z b. c Abd al-Sulami
al-Dimashkl (d. 660/1262; see Munadjdjid, 97)
associates this term with manakib in his Manakib al-
Mustafa wa-shamabluh. There is however a fundamen¬
tal difference between akhlak and manakib , as is clearly
revealed by al-Djahiz (d. 255/868 [ 0 . 0 .]), who is the
author of a Madh ... and of a Dhamm akhlak al-kuttab ,
where the key-word remains neutral, and of a Risala
fi manakib al-Turk/al-Atrdk wa-^dmmat djund al-khilafa, in
the title of which no further proof is needed of the
desire to depict in the most favourable colours the
natural dispositions, the merits and the characters of
the Turkish troops and of other elements in the army.
It appears from this example that in the 3rd/9th cen¬
tury, under the pen of a writer of the calibre of al-
Djahiz, akhlak and manakib may again be practically
synonymous, on condition that the former be given
clearer definition by means of a favourable term, ex¬
cept, of course, where no doubt is possible as to the in¬
tentions of the writer, as when the subject of
discussion is the Prophet.

— manakib : R. Sellheim [see fadIla] considers that
the Fada^il of al-Hasan al-Basrl by Ibn al-DjawzI
belongs to the literature of manakib , but one may
wonder why this author chose fadaZil for the title of his
eulogy of the famous preacher, whereas he opted for
manakib when he sought to glorify Baghdad, c Umar b.
Khattab or c Umar b. c Abd al- c Az!z, and the most ap¬
propriate usage of the word in question is found in his
Kitab Manakib al-imam Ibn Hanbal (ed. Cairo

1349/1931), as will be observed in due course. Study
of a long series of titles in fact leaves the impression
that, for many writers, there was scarcely any dif¬
ference in conception and in method of exposition ac¬
cording to the terminology employed; in effect, the
latter seems to be to a large extent interchangeable,
and although R. Sellheim is probably correct in think¬
ing that the lives of saints were to exercise a sort of
monopoly over the use of manakib, the fact remains
that a degree of fluctuation in the choice of terms
demands constant vigilance.

While the Manakib of c AlI b. Abi Talib by Ahmad
b. Hanbal (d. 241/855 [< 7 . 0 .]) which HadjdjI Khalifa
(ii, col. 1843-4) mentions, saying that later authors
have to a large extent exploited this biography, and
perhaps also that by al-Kufi (d. 300/931;

Brockelmann, S I, 209), are probably no more than
collections of traditions relating the virtues of the
Prophet’s son-in-law, this probably does not apply to
the Manakib c Ali b. c Abi Talib by al- Kh w arazml (d.
568/1172; Brockelmann, S I, 623; there is said to be
a ms. of it at Nadjaf (al-SamawI library), which fur¬
ther possesses others; see RIMA, iv, 237), to the
Manakib Al Abi Talib (ed. Telmay 1317; Nadjaf
1376/1956), by Ibn Shahrashub (d. 588/1192 [ 0 . 0 .]),
al-Arba c In fi manakib sayyidat al-nisa 3 Fatima al-Zahra 5 by
the same author or the Manakib Fatima al-Zahra 5 by al-
Suyutl (d. 911/1505 [ 0 . 0 .]), to which reference is made
in the Kashf (ii, col. 1843). These last-named works
are in fact closer to hagiography, like those, in a more
general sense, which are devoted to the family of the
Prophet, such as the DhakhaSr al- c ukba fi manakib dhawi
'l-kurbd (ed. Cairo 1356) by Muhibb al-Dln al-Tabari
(d. 694/1294-5) or the Mahdsin al-azhar fi manakib al-
c itra al-athar by Hamid al-Mahalll (d. after 652/1254;
see A. Fu^ad Sayyid, Sources de Vhistoire du Yemen a
Tepoque musulmane, IFAO, Cairo 1974, 127, 128) or
even the Nut al-absar fi manakib Al Bayt al-Nabi al-
mukhtar by Mu 3 min al-Shablandjl (ed. Cairo n.d.).

There is no doubt as to the legitimacy of associating
with this category a Kitdb al-Manakib of a 4th/10th cen¬
tury Imam! ShI c I named C A1I b. Ibrahim b. Hashim
al-Kumml ( Fihnst , ed. Cairo, 311; cf. Udaba •*, xii,
215), but there is certainly no justification for in¬
cluding in the corpus of hagiographical literature the
K. al-Ulam bi-manakib al-Islam (ed. Cairo 1968) by the
Persian philosopher al- c Amir! (d. 381/992 [ 0 . 0 .]) “a
philosophical defence of Islam” or the Manakib al-
a^imma by al-Bakillanl (d. 403/1013 [ 0 . 0 .]), which are
designed to defend “the Sunni position with regard to
the imamate”. In fact, a number of other titles are en¬
countered which testify to the imprecision of the
nomenclature, for example the Manakib al-ma^arif by
Ibn c ArabI (O. Yahia, op. cit. no. 406; Brockelmann,
S I, 801, no, 175) or Kitab Manakib al-kuttab by Ibn
Kuthayyir al-AhwazI ( Fihrist , ed. Cairo, 200; cf.
Udaba 3 , iv, 244) which must have been a simple vin¬
dication of government secretaries; it is hardly likely
that c Ubayd Allah b. Djibrll (d. 450/1058) described
miraculous cures in the Manakib al-atibbd? {Kashf, ii
col. 1842), and attention may be drawn to Manakib of
poets in Persian by Abu Tahir al-Khatum {Kashf, ii,
col. 1842) and, in Turkish, the Manakib-i hunerveran
(ed. Istanbul 1926) by c All (d. 1008/1599-1600 [0 0 ]),
in which “he collected important material on several
hundred calligraphers, miniaturists, illuminators and
book binders”. Also, al-Kawkab al-thakib fi akhbar al-
shu^ra^ wa-ghayri-him min dhawi l-manakib of c Abd al-
Kadir b. c Abd al-Rahman al-SalawI (written
1176/1762-3) contains some 129 biographies of poets
(ms. Royal Library of Rabat 925; see c Abd Allah al-
Yasiml, in al-Fikr, xxvii/10 [1982], 121-32).

352

MANAKIB

♦

Dynasties, families, distinguished individuals, also
have their compilations of manakib which are ap¬
parently nothing more than glorious deeds or
achievements. Thus al-YazIdl al-NahwI (d. 313/925)
gathered together those of the Banu ’l- c Abbas ( Kashf ,
ii, col. 1841) and al-SulI (d. 335/946-7 [q.v. ]), those of
Ibn al-Furat (d. 312/924 [<?. v. ]), as is noted by HadjdjI
Khalifa (iv, col. 559), while Ibn al-Sama c I (d.
674/1275-6 wrote a Kitab Manakib al-khulajd?(Kashf ii,
col. 1841) and Sadr al-DTn al-Basrl (7th/13th century)
dedicated to Baybars (d. 676/1277 [^•t'.]) al-Manakib
al- c abbasiyya wa ’l-majakhir al-mustansiriyya (Brockel-
mann, S I, 457), where the two terms used in par¬
allel are evidently regarded by the author as syn¬
onymous. This Mamluk sultan was himself the sub¬
ject of a biography by Shafi c b. C A1I b. c Abbas (d.
730/1330), Husn al-manakib al-sirriyya al-muntaza c a min
al-sira al-zahiriyya, ed. al-Khuwaytir, Riyad 1396/
1976. The Manakib Bani Hashim wa-mathalib Bant
Umayya (Sezgin, GAS , i, 577) and the Kitab Manakib al-
hikam ji mathalib al-umam by a somewhat presumptuous
author known as Shumaym al-Hilll (d. 602/1204; see
Udaba?, xiii, 72) testify once more to the use of manakib
as an antonym of mathalib and as a synonym, here too,
of jadaHl or of ma^athir/majakhir. These latter terms
could without inconvenience be substituted for
manakib in the titles of those works written in praise of
the c Abbasids which have just been mentioned, and of
the following, which celebrate ruling families or
political figures: al-Kawakib al-durriyya ji ’l-manakib al-
Badriyya , a makama [q.v.] written in 791/1389 by al-
Kalkashandl [q.v. ] for his master Badr al-Din (see
C.E. Bosworth, A maqama on secretaryship , in BSOAS y
xxvii [1964], 291-5); al-Hada^ik al-wardiyya ji manakib
(wa-dhikr taradjim) al-a Smma al-Zaydiyya by the already-
mentioned Hamid al-Mahalll (Fu 3 ad Sayyid, 127), al-
Durr al-thamin ji manakib Nur al-Din by Badr al-DTn Ibn
Kadi Shuhba (d. 874/1470 [see ibn kadi shuhba]), of
which numerous mss. exist (Brockelmann, S II, 25;
Munadjdjid, 252-3), al-Maskra c al-rawl ji manakib al-
sadat Al AbT c Alwi (ed. Cairo 1319) by al-Shillf (d.
1093/1682; see Fu 5 ad Sayyid, 246), Path al-Rahman ji
manakib Sayyidi C Abd al-Rahman b. Sulayman , written in
1263/1847 in honour of a member (d. 1250/1834-5) of
the al-Ahdal [q.v.] Yemeni family by Sa c d b. c Abd
Allah Suhayl (Fu 3 ad Sayyid, 294), or indeed al-Durr
al-thamin ji dhikr al-manakib wa ’l-wakaV li-Amir al-
Muslimim c Iyad (Fu 3 ad Sayyid, 305), a history of the
revolt against the Ottomans of this amir and his
descendants up until the year 1288/1871, by Hasan b.
Ahmad al-Yamani. Also to be mentioned, in this con¬
text, are the Manakib-i Mahmud Pasha-yi Weli on an Ot¬
toman Grand Vizier (d. 879/1474 [q.v. ]) and
al -Manakib al-lbrahimiyya wa ’l-ma 3 athir al-khidiwiyya
(ed. Cairo 1299/1882) by Abkaryus (d. 1885 [see
iskander agha]) on the viceroy of Egypt Ibrahim
Pasha [q.v.]. The natural gifts of the Yemenis are
celebrated by al-Afdal al-RasulT (d. 778/1377) in al-
c Ataya i-saniyya wa ’l-mawahib al-haniyya ji ’l-manakib
al-Yamaniyya (Fu 3 ad Sayyid, 148), and reference is
also made to a work of al-GhazzT (d. 1061/1651), al-
Kawakib al-sa-’ira bi-(manakib) a c yan al-mi 3 a al- c ashira ,
ed. Dj. S. Djabbur, Beirut 1945-9 (cf. Munadjdjid,
319-20).

To the examples of this genre others could be added
which would only further complicate the preceding
survey, involved as it is already, and intentionally so,
since the titles are an indication of a constant fluctua¬
tion of the terminology. What emerges from them is
simply a clear desire on the part of the authors to em¬
phasise the remakable qualities of the persons whose
lives they describe and the superior merits of the
groups concerned. Conversely, there are a good many

works which could be entitled manakib , for they con¬
tain laudatory biographies and even belong to a
literature of hagiographic type, starting with the
Hilyat al-awliya 3 by Abu Nu c aym (d. 430/1039 [q. v. ]).
Nevertheless, two important tendencies come to light
in the usage of the term which is the subject of the
present article.

Biographies of the founders of madhahib.

Regarding the first of these tendencies, we are for¬
tunate in that a connoisseur of Arabic literature in
general of the calibre of HadjdjI Khalifa (d. 1067/1657
[see katib celebi]), can help us to a clearer view of the
subject by offering his own interesting conclusions. It
happens that this bibliographer not only supplies the
researcher with a long list of manakib (Kashf, ii, col.
1836-43; see also iv, 559-60), but also declares, referr¬
ing to the authors of works belonging to this category,
that the disciples of the different legal schools need to
know, in order to imitate them, the manakib, the
qualities (shamaHl), the virtues (fada^il), the behaviour
(sira) and the truth of the sayings ( akwal) of their
founders, besides information regarding their
genealogy, places of birth etc. Although in this
passage, manakib could no doubt be rendered simply
by “natural dispositions, character’’, it is plain that,
for Had j d j I Khalifa, the term has a specialised mean¬
ing in its application to a genre composed of de¬
tailed, edifying and exemplary biographies
of the great imam s. In fact, although jadaHl is
employed from time to time, notably by al-Maghaml
(d. 288/900) for Malik b. Anas (see al-Makkarl, Najh
al-tib , Cairo 1949, iii, 274-5) and by Abu ’l-‘Arab (d.
333/945 [q.v. ]) for the same imam and for Sahnun (see
below), and although al-Dhahabl preferred tardyama
for Abu Yusuf, Ahmad b. Hanbal and al-Shafi C I (see
Munadjdjid, 445), it is nevertheless manakib which
prevails in this category for:

—Abu Hanlfa (d. ca. 150/767 [q. v. ]): the im¬
pressive list contained in the Kashj (ii, cols. 1836-9),
also includes compilations in Persian (ii, col. 1839)
and in Turkish (iv, col. 560). Those of Brockelmann
(S I, 285) and more especially of Sezgin (GAS, i, 411-
12 ) are likewise well-stocked; their most significant
contents are the works of al-Muwaffak b. Ahmad al-
Makkl (d. 588/1192) and Muhammad b. Muhammad
al-Kardarl (d. 827/1424), Manakib al-imam al-a c zam
(ed. Haydarabad 1321) and of al-Suyutl, Tabyid al-
sahifa ji manakib Abi Hanija (ed. Haydarabad 1307).
Also to be mentioned are al-TahawI (d. 321/933
[q.v. ]); al-Zamakhsharl (d. 538/1144 [q.v. ]), Shaka^ik
al-nu c mdn ...ji manakib al-imam Abi Hanija al-Nu Q man
(Udaba 5 , xix, 135); al-Bakrl (d. 568/1172; Brockel¬
mann, S I, 549); Ibn al-Djawz! (d. 597/1200); al-
Shami (d. 942/1536), c Ukud al-djuman ji manakib Abi
Hanija al-Nu c man (numerous mss. in Cairo, Istanbul
and Damascus; see Munadjdjid, 287-8); Ibn Tulun
al-Salihl (d. 953/1546 [<7-tf ]) al-Amani ’l-latija ji
manakib Abi Hanija (Munadjdjid, 291); Ibn Hadjar al-
Haythaml (d. 973/1565 \q. v. ]) see Brockelmann, S II,
528): al- c Adjlun! (d. 1162/1749), c Ikd al-la^dli wa 7-
mardjan ji manakib Abi Hanija al-Nu c man (ms. Princeton
4225; see Munadjdjid, 351-2); anon., ms. Yale 1202;
Abu TKasim b. c Abd al- c AlTm al-Hanafl, Manakib
Abi Hanija wa-sahibayhi (ms. c Abd al-Wahhab, see
Hawliyyat al-Didmi c a al-Tunisiyya , vii [1970], 153, no.
76).

—al-Awza c i (d. 157/774 [q.v. ]): Ibn Zayd (d.
870/1465; see Munadjdjid, 248), Mahasin al-masa c i ji
manakib al-Awza % ed. Shaklb Arslan, Cairo 1352 (see
Brockelmann, S I, 308; O. Spies, in ZS [1935], 189
ff.; for the identification of the author, see MMIA, xx
[1947], 187).

—Malik b. Anas (d. 178/795 [q. v. ]): besides the Ta-

MANAKIB

353

zyin of al-Suyuti (Brockelmann, S I, 297; Sezgin,
GAS, i, 458), one may mention al-Dlnawarl al-Misrl
(d. 310/922; Kashf, ii, col. 1841), al-ZawawI (Brockel¬
mann, S II, 961) and al-Hanball (d. 909/1503;
Sezgin, GAS, i, 458).

—al-Shafi c I (d. 204/820 [q.v. ]) has benefited from a
large number of collections of mandkib ; HadjdjI
Khalifa alone (ii, cols. 1839-40) lists thirteen: al-Subkl
(Tabakat , i, 185), Brockelmann (S I, 304) and Sezgin
(GAS, i, 480) mention several others. One of the most
ancient is probably that of Abu ’1-Husayn al-RazI (d.
347/958; see Munadjdjid, 17-18), whose death
HadjdjI Khalifa places in 454/1063, while Sezgin
(GAS, i, 480; cf. Brockelmann, S I, 921) attributes the
Mandkib al-ShdfiH (ed. Cairo 1372/1953) to Fakhr al-
Dln al-RazI (d. 606/1209 [q.v. ]). It is also appropiate
to mention Ibn al-Nadjdjar (d. 643/1245; see Udabd ? ,
xix, 50; DaPirat al-mafdrij, iv, 102-3); Ibn al-Salah (d.
643/1245; Munadjdjid, 83-4), Hilyat al-ShdfTi (ms.
Zahiriyya 3795), the title of which recalls that of Abu
Nu c aym; al-NawawI (d. 676/1277 [q .^.]), Mandkib al-
ShafiH wa ’l-Bukhdri (ms. Ulu Cami 2462;
Munadjdjid, 113-4); Ibn Kathlr (d. 774/1373 [q.v. ]),
Tardjamat (or Mandkib ) al-imam al-Shdfi c f (ms. Chester
Beatty 3390; Munadjdjid, 204, 206-7); Badr al-Dln
al-Hashiml (d. 826/1423; Kashf, iv, col. 560); Ibn
Hadjar al- c Askalan! (d. 852/1449 [< 7 .^.]), Tawali 7-
ta^sis bi-ma c dli Ibn Idris ft mandkib ... al-Shafi c i (ed.
Bulak 1301/1884).

—Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/355 [q. v. ]) has been
the subject of fewer collections than al-ShafT C I, but
some are encountered (Kashf, ii, col. 1836; Brockel¬
mann, S I, 309); Sezgin, GAS, i, 503-4), among which
the following may be mentioned: al-Bayhakl (d.
458/1066 [< 7 . t>. ]), Mandkib al-imam Ibn Hanbal wa 7-
imam al-ShajiT(Kashf; cf. Brockelmann, S I, 619, nos.
11-12; Sezgin, i, 503), al-HarawI (d. 481/1088), Ibn
al-DjawzI (d. 597/1200), Mandkib al-imam Ahmad b.
Hanbal (ed. Cairo 1349/1931) and al-Makrlz! (d.
845/1442 [q.v. ]), Mandkib Ahmad b. Hanbal (Brockel¬
mann, S II, 37; Sezgin, GAS, i, 504).

To these monographs may be added the
biographical dictionaries devoted to the disciples of a
school. They usually start with an account of the
founder, and most often bear the classical title Tabakat
[q.v.], but one encounters nevertheless, by al-Sharlf
al-Husaynl (d. 776/1374), al-Makatib al-^aliyya Ji
mandkib al-Shdfi Hyya (ms. Feyzallah 1525; see
Munadjdjid, 211) and, by TakI al-Dln Ibn Kadi
Shuhba (d. 851/1448 [see ibn kadI shuhba]), Mandkib
al-ShdfiH wa-ashabih ( = Tabakat al-Sha/Tiyya), drawn
from the Ta^rikh al-Islam by al-Dhahabl (numerous
mss.; see Munadjdjid, 238-9).

It has been observed (see above) that al-Bukharl (d.
256/870 [<?. i>. ]) was associated with al-Shafi C I by al-
Nawawl, although he belonged to no particular
madhhab, and it will be noted not without interest that
al-Dhahabl, whose capricious choice of titles has
already been established, entitled mandkib the
biographies of the author of the Sahih and of Sufyan
al-Thawn(d. 161/778 [q.v. ]), but tardjama those of the
founders of the legal schools (see Kashf, iv, col. 560;
Munadjdjid, 446).

On account of the specialisation of the mandkib
genre and the proscribing of i Hizdl, one would hardly
expect to find compilations of this type composed in
honour of the Mu c tazills. On the other hand, par¬
tisans of al-Ash c arl (d. 324/935-6 [q. p. ]) were entitled
to the Mandkib al-Ashfariyya (Kashf, ii, col. 1835) by
C A1I Ibn c Asakir(d. 571/1176 [see ibn ^sakir) and to
the Mandkib al-mpa min al-a?imma al-Ash z ariyya (Kashf,
ii, col. 1841) by a certain al-Yafi c I (d. 868/1464).

Among the Hanballs, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328
[q. #.]) was not slow to benefit from a favourable treat¬
ment, as three of his contemporaries dedicated com¬
pilations of mandkib to him: Ibn c Abd al-Hadl (d.
744/1343; see Munadjdjid, 157), al- c Ukudal-durriyyaJi
mandkib shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya (ed. Cairo 1356),
Ibn Kudama al-Makdisi (d. 745/1344; see Brockel¬
mann, S II, 119) and al-Bazzar (d. 749/1349), al-
AHdm al- c aliyya ft mandkib shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya ,
ed. Munadjdjid, Beirut 1396/1976.

The Malikism which prevails in North Africa owes
much to one of its interpreters, Sahnun (d. 240/854
[q. v. ]), founder of a local legal school, to whose
memory al-Khushanl (d. 371/981 [q.v.]) dedicated a
compilation of mandkib, after Abu ’I- c Arab gave the
title faddhl to his biography and to that of Malik, while
he had written a Kitab Mandkib Bam Tamim. Among
the eminent representatives of Malikism in Ifrlkiya,
al-KabisI(d. 403/1012 [</.p.]) was the object of mandkib
(ed. H.R. Idris, Algiers 1959) on the part of Abu c Abd
Allah Muhammad al-Malikl (d. 438/1046); a similar
honour was awarded to his disciple Abu Bakr Ahmad
b. c Abd al-Rahman (d. 432 or 435/1040-3; see Idris,
Deux maitres de Tecole kairouanaise, in AIEO Alger, xiii
[1955], 30-41) by a pupil of the latter, Ibn Sa c dun (d.
485 or 486/1092-3; see Idris, ibid. , 35-6). It is ap¬
propriate in this context to stress the importance of
biographical works relating to this Malik! school
which was so active in the Maghrib, especially al-
Iftikhar Ji mandkib fukahd 5 al-Kayrawdn by c At!k al-
Tudjlbl (d. 422/1030; see Idris, Deux juristes

kairouanais, in AIEO Alger, xii [1954], 153), the Tartib
al-Maddrik wa-takrlb al-masdlik bi-ma c rifat a c lam madhhab
Malik (ed. A. Baklr, Beirut 1967) by the kddi c Iyad (d.
544/1149 [q.v.]), which begins with a lengthy
biography of Malik and in which the articles on the
leading fukahd 5 contain a paragraph entitled faddPiluh
( = manakibuh), and the Ma c dlim al-iman ft ma c rifat ahl
al-Kayrawan by Ibn NadjI (d. 839/1435 [q.v. in
Suppl.]), who took up (see ed. Tunis, iii, 262, 263)
the Ma c dlim al-iman ft mandkib al-mashhurin min c ulamd 5
al-Kayrawan of al-Dabbagh (d. 699/1300 [q.v. in
Suppl.]), already continued by Ibrahim al- c AwwanI
(d. 720/1320), and is also furnished with KayrawanI
mandkib such as those of Sldl Abu Yusuf al-Dahmanl
or of Abu ‘Ali al-Kadldl. R. Brunschvig (Hafsides, ii,
382), who quotes these last-named authors, reckons
that the biographies of the Ma^alim “are closely linked
to the manaqib genre”, meaning that they tend
towards hagiography.

Hagiography

This second tendency appears all the less astoni¬
shing as certain of these KayrawanI jurists were
drawn, from the beginning of the 4th/10th century,
into the ascetic movement which held sway in Ifrlkiya
and died more or less in an odour of sanctity or as
“martyrs’’ in the ranks of the insurgents led by Abu
Yazld (d. 336/947 [q. v. ]): it is thus in this period that
the mandkib genre begins in the Ma gh rib to take on a
gradually more marked hagiographical tone. Featur¬
ing prominently among these persons is al-RabI c b. al-
Kattan (d. 334/946 who, having renounced his ac¬
tivities as a fakih, withdrew from the world but was
one of the instigators of the revolt and attained the ac¬
colade of martyrdom (see Idris, Deux juristes, 129-30)
in such a way that his mandkib were gathered together
by al-Husayn b. c Abd Allah al-Adjdabl (d. 432/1040)
who dedicated monographs of the same type to an¬
other “martyr”, al-MammasI (d. 333/944), also to
al-Saba 5 ! (d. 356/966) whose piety and asceticism has
been noticed (see Idris, op. laud., 126-7, 133-4). Two
other Ifrlkiyans whose merits are widely celebrated,

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

354

MANAKIB

al-Djabanvanl (d. 369/979) and the patron saint of
Tunis, Muhriz b. Khalaf (Sid! Mahrez, d. 413/1022
[q. v. ]), have been the object, through the offices of, re¬
spectively, al-Labldl (d. 440/1048) and al-Farisi (d.
ca. 440-50/1048-58), of hagiographies which have
been published and translated by H.R. Idris (Mandqib
d’Abu Ishaq al-Jabanydni par Abu l-Qdsim al-Labidi et
Mandqib de Muhriz b, lfialaf par Abu Tahir al-Farisi,
Tunis 1959, 111-20; one can also find there a short ex¬
pose on the genre studied in the present article and a
description of several mss. containing various collec¬
tions of mandkib, as well as the text and the translation
of those concerning (161-2, 329-30) Ibn al-Nafis (d.
479/1086) and (163-7, 331-3) Abu Zayd al-Manatikl;
see also Yusuf al-Hanashl, Kutub al-mandkib wa-
mazahir min al-hayat al-idfiimaHyya bi-Ifrikiya Ji 1-karn al-
rdbi c li ’ l-hidfra/al- c ashir milddl , in al-Fikr, xxvii/6
[1982], 111-20).

From that time onward, the development of
hagiolatry, then of religious orders, favoured in the
Muslim world as a whole the evolution and the rich
proliferation of a specialised mandkib genre, and there
is scarcely a single famous ascetic, venerated saint,
founder of a tanka [q.v.\ or eminent Sufi who did not
earn his own monograph or at very least an article in
general works, the titles of which do not necessarily
contain the word mandkib ; this is the case, as has been
observed, of the Hilyat al-awliya 5 by Abu Nu c aym or
of the Indian and other Tadhkiras [qv.], or indeed, in
a later period, the Akhbar al-akhyar (ed. DihlT
1309/1891) by c Abd al-Hakk Dihlawl (d. 1052/1642
[q.v. ]). But reference may be made to, for example,
the Mandkib al-abrar min mahasin al-akhyar by Ibn
Khamls al-Mawsill al-Shafi^i (d. 552/1157;

Brockelmann, S I, 776), the Mandkib al-abrar fi
makamat al-akhyar by Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-
Shafi c I (d. 676/1277-8; Kashf, iv, col. 559), the
Mandkib al-Hbad min sulaha 3 al-bilad by al-SayrafT, of
whom Hadjdji Khalifa says (ii, col. 1843) that he took
some of his biographies from the Safwat al-safwa by
Ibn al-Djawzi, the Mandkib al-asfiya 3 (ed. Calcutta
1895) by Shu c ayb b. Djalal al-Dln ManTrl (after the
8th/14th century) and, in Turkish, the Manakibi-
awliya 5 of Sharlfl-zade (d. 1040/1630-1; Kashf , iv,
560).

The eminent eastern saint Uways al-Karanl (d.
37/657 [q.v. ]), who is not lacking in biographies (see
for example Abu Nu c aym, Hilya, ii, 79-87), has,
omissions excepted, only at a late stage been the object
of a monograph, and in Turkish, by al-Lami c I (d.
938/1531-2 [qv.\, Manakib-i Hadrat-i Uways al-Karani]
for mss. see G. K. Alpay, LdmiH Chelebi and his works,
in JNES, xxxvi [1976], 82, no. 9. The legend of Abu
Ayyub (d. 52/672) is recounted by Hadjdji c Abd Allah
in al-Athar al-madfidiyya fi ’l-manakib al-khalidiyya (ed.
Istanbul 1257/1841), and Ibn al-Djawzi celebrates the
mandkib of Ma c ruf al-Karkhl (d. 200/815-16 [<?.*>.]),
ed. S.M. al-Djumayll, in al-Mawrid, ix/4 (1401/1981),
609-80. On Dhu ’1-Nun (d. 246/861 [ q.v .]) we are
aware of al-Kawkab al-durri fi mandkib Dhi ’l-Nun al-
Misri, attributed to Ibn c ArabI (d. 638/1240), but not
mentioned by O. Yahya (His loire et classification de
Toeuvre d’Ibn ^Arabi; a ms. of this work exists in
Leiden, see van Koningsveld, 108), while Ibn c ArabI
himself has mandkib composed in his honour (Kashf, ii,
col. 1843), in particular by al-Suyuti (d. 956/1549) ac¬
cording to Hadjdji Khalifa (ii, col. 1835). The great
saint c Abd al-Kadir al-DjUanl (d. 561/1166 [<?.y.])
naturally has his place in the hagiographical dic¬
tionaries, and it is even said that the MiUdt al-zaman
by Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi supplied al-Yunlnl (d.
726/1326) with the material for a collection of his

mandkib (Kashf , ii, col. 1842), which would be a further
indication of the close links that have already been ob¬
served between general biography and hagiography
when religious persons are concerned. Hadydyi
Kh alifa lists numerous other monographs on the
eponymous founder of the Kadiriyya [qv.\, notably
Asnd ’l-mafdkhirfi mandkib al-shaykh c Abd al-Kddir by al-
YafTl (d. 768/1367 [q.v. ]). Another founder of an
order, Abu > l- c Abbas Ahmad b. C A1I al-Rifa c I (d.
578/1183 [see al-rifa c i]) soon earned his mandkib
from the pen of al-VVasip (d. 589/1194; see

Brockelmann, S I, 781, who also mentions the com¬
pilation by Dja c far al-Barzandjl, 1179/1765). For
their part, the Mawlawiyya [q.v.], and in particular
their first shaykh, Djalal al-Dln Rumi (d. 672/1273
[q.v. ]) and his successors, quickly inspired AflakI
(8th/14th century [<y. t?. ]) to compose, in Persian, the
Mandkib al - c anfin wa-maratib al-kdshifin (French tr. Cl.
Huart, Les saints des derviches tourneurs, Paris 1918-22;
ed. T. Yazici, Ankara 1959); numerous other
religious persons have their mandkib written in
Turkish (see Kashf, ii, col. 1842, iv, col. 560); for in¬
stance, Ahmet Yasar Ocak presents in JA , cclxvii/3-4
(1979) a Turkish mathnawi of Elwan Celeb! (after
761/1360), Menakib ’ul-kudslya ft menasib ’il-unslya:
une source importante pour Thistoire religieuse de TAnatolie au
XIIF siecle, devoted to Baba Ilyas and his descen¬
dants. The saint so much respected in Egypt, Ahmad
al-BadawI (d. 675/1276 [q.v. ]), has been honoured by
various compilations (see Brockelmann, S I, 808), but
c Abd al-Samad Zayn al-Dln (d. 1028/1634-5), no
doubt judging mandkib insufficiently expressive, enti¬
tled his al-Djawahir al-saniyya fi *l-kardmat al-Ahmadiyya
(numerous editions). Ibn Kiwam (7th/13th century)
owes to his grandson the Mandkib al-shaykh Abi Bakr Ibn
Kiwam (mss. Zahiriyya 5398, 6951), while Ibn Tulun
(d. 953/1546 [?.^.]) is content to entitle his biography
Tuhfat al-kiram fi tardfamat Abi Bakr Ibn Kiwam
(Munadjdjid, 291). Nakshband (d. 791/1389 [<?.t>.]),
eponymous founder of the Nakshbandiyya, speedily
acquired his mandkib through the offices of al-Sharif al-
Djurdjanl (d. 816/1413; Kashf, ii, col. 1841), while the
Khalwatiyya [q. v. ] have been honoured by Muham¬
mad b. al-Makkl in al-Nafahdt al-rahmaniyya fi mandkib
ridial al-Khalwatiyya (Istanbul 1927) and by Ibn c Azzuz
al-TunisI (Kashf, iv, col. 560). Ibn al-Bazzaz al-
Ardablll (8th/14th century [q.v. in Suppl.] wrote a
biography of Safi ’1-Din, founder of the $afawiyya
order and eponymous ancestor of the Safawids, al-
Mawdhib al-samyya fi mandkib al-Safawiyya, or Safwat al-
safa 3 (lith. Bombay 1329/1911). The patron saint of
Aden or c Adan, Abu Bakr Ibn Aydarus (d. 914/1508
[see ^ aydarus]), found his panegyrist in the person of
his contemporary Husayn b. Siddlk al-Ahdal (d.
903/1497 [see al-ahdal ), author of the Mawdhib al-
kuddus fi mandkib Ibn c Aydarus. Al-Dja c farl (d. after
1157/1744) wrote al-Tablb al-muddwi bi-manakib al-
shaykh Ahmad al-Nahlawi on a saint who died in
1157/1744 (see Munadjdjid, 347), and mulla Nizam
al-Dln is the author of the Manakib-i Razzakiyya in
honour of the pir Sayyid c Abd al-Razzak [see farangI
mahall in Suppl.]. In the 13th/19th century, the
vogue for mandkib was perpetuated in the east. The
Egyptian Sufi saint Ahmad al-Sawi (d. 1241/1825) in¬
spired a collective work, al-Nur al-wadda^ fi mandkib
wa-karamat c umdat al-awliya 3 Sayyidi Ahmad al-Sawi (ed.
Cairo 1347/1928), al-Duwayhl (d. 1874 [q.v. in
Suppl.] has left behind a biography of his master
Ahmad b. Idris, partially reproduced in a compilation
of Salih b. Muhammad al-Madanl, al-Muntaka al-nafis
fi mandkib Kutb dd^irat al-takdis Ahmad b. Idris, Cairo
I960, Khalifa al-Saftl (d. 1296/1879) is the author of

MANAKIB

355

the manakib al-shaykh c Abd al-Latlf al-Kayatl (d. 1258/
1842; ms. Yale 1209), and Husayn al-Djisr dedicated
the Nuzhat al-fikrfi manakib mawland 7- c arif bi-llah ta c ala
kutb zamanih wa-ghayth awanih al-shaykh Muhammad al-
Djisr (ed. Beirut 1306) to his father, who was a Syrian
Suit (d. 1262/1846) and a disciple of al-§awl. Al-
HisafT (d. 1910 [q.v. in Suppl.], founder of the tanka
hisdfiyya , has found his hagiographer in the person of
C A1T al-Dja c farawI, author of al-Manhal al-safi fi
manakib al-Sayyid Hasanayn al-Hisafi, Cairo
1330/1911-12.

Rich though the list of Hadjdjl Khalifa is, it is still
incomplete, for it is highly probable that many
hagiographies of a more or less popular nature, which
must have circulated in SulT circles, have escaped this
conscientious bibliographer, without counting, of
course, those which appeared at a later time.
Whatever the reason, he makes scant reference to the
collections of manakib composed in North Africa and
particularly in Morocco, which was a breeding-
ground of saints and marabouts. Just as hitherto there
has been no attempt to cite all the relevant titles or to
go beyond the 19th century, so we will confine
ourselves to discussion of those Maghrib! works which
appear to be the most characteristic.

The earliest compilations of Ifrlkiyan manakib have
already been mentioned. The Moroccan saint al-Sabtl
(d. 601/1205 [q.v. ]), whose memory has remained
very much alive in the Maghrib, inspired a number
of them (mss. in Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, Paris etc.; see
E. Levi-Proven^al, Les manuscripts arabes de Rabat ,
Paris 1921, no. 403; Brockelmann, S II, 1013). c Abd
al-Salam b. Mashlsh (d. 625/1227-8 [q.v.]) has been
honoured by al-Warrak; Abu Sa c Id Khalaf al-Badjl
(d. 629/1230) enjoyed the same distinction, after
633/1235, through the offices of Abu ’1-Hasan al-
HawwarT (see the catalogue of the mss. left by H.H.
c Abd al-Wahhab, in Hawliyyat al-Diami c a al-tunisiyya,
vii [1970], no. 205; Public Library of Tunis, ms. ar.
no. 30). Al-Shadhill (d. 656/1258 [q.v. ]), his disciples
and even his grotto situated in the Djabal al-Zalladj
(ms. c Abd al-Wahhab, no. 655), have been the object
of collections of manakib which have survived (mss.
c Abd al-Wahhab nos. 45, 321, 655). In the same
period j7th/13th century), there lived in Tunis the
saint c A 3 isha al-Mannubiyya [q.v.], whose manakib
have been published (Tunis 1344/1925). To a Tuni¬
sian saint of a later time, Sid! Ben c Arus (d. 868/1463;
see R. Brunschvig, Hajsides , ii, 341-50), c Umar al-
Rashidr dedicated the Ibtisam al-ghurus wa-washy al-
turus bi-manakib al-shaykh Abi ’l- c Abbas Ahmad b. ( Arus
(ed. Tunis 1303); to a member al-Asmar (d. 981/1574
[q.v.]), of the order of the c Arusiyya founded by the
above-named, numerous compilations have likewise
been dedicated, among which that of Muhammad b.
Muhammad al-MunastTn, Tankih rawdat al-azhar ... fi
manakib Sidi c Abd al-Salam al-Asmar, was published in
Tunis in 1325/1907-8. A large number of monographs
on Tunisian saints have yet to be published. Two mss.
of the Great Mosque of Tunis (nos. 1697 and 3875)
contain some fifteen of them, and in the catalogue of
c Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts more than half-a-dozen
madjmuSas are to be found (nos. 45, 205, 321, 519,
520, 541, 655) comprising a total of some 45 texts
(some of them in duplicate or triplicate); it is likely
that private libraries have also preserved a certain
number of them.

On writings of this genre dating from the Hafsid
period (627-982/1229-1574), R. Brunschvig (op. laud.,
ii, 381) makes a judgement which is capable of wider
application: “Numerous and of living and of varying
dimensions, often anonymous, are these lives of saints

or manakib, a genre which is, moreover, fairly mono¬
tonous, where virtues and miracles are complacently
enumerated on the testimony of witnesses, living
or dead, who are named. Works of panegyrists or of
devotees, they should not be expected to show any
critical tendency, and some of the historical informa¬
tion that they purport to contain is to be treated with
caution. Often composed by the semi-literate who ad¬
dress a poorly-educated public, they are written in
simple language, as close as possible to the spoken
idiom ... In this sense, they constitute linguistic
documents of some interest. Similarly, the insights
that they supply, unwittingly, on the toponomy and
the ‘realia’ of their period are by no means to be
disregarded, but above all they throw a useful light on
the mentality and customs of these people, insignifi¬
cant folk who congregated around the mystical
shaikhs, eager to benefit from their baraka .”

In the course of the ensuing period, the cult of
saints did not weaken in Tunisia, but the activity of
the hagiographers seems to have declined somewhat.
A Abdesselem (Les historiens tunisiens des XVII e , XVIII e
et XIX e siecles , Tunis 1973, 495) notes that this literary
genre “contains very few works”, and, although
monographs were probably still being composed, in
addition to al-Fath al-munir fi ta c rif al-tarlka al-shabbiyya
by Muhammad al-Mas c ud! al-Shabbl (10-11 th/16th-
17th century), the third chapter of which contains the
miracles and prophecies of the founder of the Shab-
biyya fraternity and of his sons, he points out and
analyses only two hagiographical works: the first (149-
53) is the Nur al-armashfi manakib Sayyidi (Sidi) Abu (sic)
’l-Ghayth al-Ka shsh ash (d. 1031/1621) written in 1032
by al-Muntasir b. Abi Lihya of Gafsa, who put
together a number of miracles (karamat) “all of them
equally implausible” (according to Hadjdjl Khalifa,
ii, col. 1835, a certain Muhammad b. Sh a c ban al--
TarabulusI, d. 1020/1611, had already recorded the
manakib of this saint); the second (385-6) is the Takmil
al-sulaha 5 wa ’l-a c yan li-ma c dlim al-iman fi awliya? al-
Kayrawan (ms. Paris ENLOV, 452) by c Isa al-Kinanl
al-Kayrawanl (d. 1292/1875), which purports to be a
sequel to the Ma Q alim al-iman by Ibn al-Nadjl (see
above) and contains “material borrowed from earlier
manaqib".

Travel narratives of a later period [see rihla] are
not lacking in hagiographical tendencies, but this does
not apply to that of al-SanusI (d. 1318/1900 [q.v. ]),
who is nevertheless the author of numerous texts
which A. Chenoufi (Un savant tunisien du XIX e si'ecle:
Muhammad al-Sanusi, sa vie et son ceuvre, Tunis 1977,
181-6) classifies under the heading “works of a
hagiographical nature”; they do not bear the title
manakib, but the Tuhfat al-akhyar bi-mawlid al-Mukhtar,
where there is an account of “the miraculous happen¬
ings which attended the birth of the Prophet, and
those which characterised his youth”, and al-Mawrid
al-maHn fi dhikr al-arbaHn, which contains the laudatory
biographies of the forty companions of al-Shadhill
(see above) testify to the permanence of this literary
genre in Tunisia.

In Morocco, hagiolatry made its appearance at ap¬
proximately the same time as in Ifrlkiya, thus well
before the springing-up, in the 9th/15th century, of
the wave of mysticism which was to spread throughout
North Africa and before the evolution of maraboutism
as a characteristic of religious activity. In fact, the first
elements of Moroccan hagiography appear as early as
the 7th/13th century in the form of dictionaries such
as the Tashawwuf ila [ma c rifat] ridjal al-tasawwuf (ed. A.
Faure, Rabat 1958) of Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadll (d.
627/1229-30) which contains 277 biographies of san-

356

MANAKIB

tons and $ufis of the 5th-7th/l 1 th-13th centuries, or
al-Maksad al-sharif ... ft dhikr sulaha 5 al-Rtf (tr. G.S.
Colin, in AM, xxvi [1926]), of al-BadisI (d. after
722/1322 [q.v.]), which describes the lives of some
forty saints of the Rif, of whom the majority are now
forgotten; among this number, one who features (88-
93) is an Andalusian named Abu Marwan c Abd al-
Malik b. Ibrahim al-Kays! al-YuhanisI (7th/l3th cen¬
tury), who was the master of al-Shadhill and to whom
is dedicated the Tuhfat al-mughtarib bi-bildd al-M ag hribft
karamat al-shaykh. Abi Marwan by Ahmad al-Kashtall
(ed. Madrid 1974, under the title Milagros de Abu Mar-
wan al-Yuhanisi, by F. de la Granja, who stresses the
rarity of words of this type in Spain). In the 8th/l4th
century, Abu c Abd Allah al-Hadraml dedicated to the
Marlnid sultan Abu ’l-Hasan (767-74/1366-72) al-
Salsal al c adhb wa ’l-manhal al-ahla on the forty saints
revered in Fez, Meknes and Sale ( Chorfa , 222-3; ms.
in Leiden, see van Koningsveld, 94). Ahmad b.
c Ashir al-HafT (d. 1163/1750; see Chorfa , 313-14) is
the author of a hagiographical work on his homonym,
the patron saint of Sale (d. 764 or 765/1362) or 1363),
the Tuhfat al_-za*ir bi-ba c dmanakib Sayyidi (Sidi) al-Ha djdj
Ahmad b. c Ashir al-Haft (ms. in Leiden, see van Ko¬
ningsveld, 96). Ibn Kunfudh al-Kusanpnl (d.
810/1407-8 [< 7 -^.]) uses manakib in the sense of “pro¬
digies” when he gives the title Tahsil al-mandkib ft
takmil al-ma^arib (ms. in Rabat) to a commentary on
his astronomical treatise, the Taystr/Tashtl al-matalib ft
ta c dtl al-kawakib , but curiously, he refrains from
employing the term in the Uns al-fakir wa- Hzz al-hakir ,
which is a biography of the patron saint of Tlemcen
Abu Maydan (d. 594/1197 [q.v. ]) and of his disciples
(ed. M. al-Fasf and A. Faure, Rabat 1965).

On account of the often-quoted hadtth: bi-dhikr al-
sulahd 3 lanzil al-rahma “mention of the virtuous ( =
saints) makes mercy descend”, biographical literature
developed to a considerable extent in Morocco under
the Sharlfian dynasties, and the manakib genre, even
though this term is not always used, plays a significant
role in the form both of hagiographical dictionaries
and of monographs of saints or at least of persons
whose memory is revered. To become familiar with
the extent of the phenomenon, it is sufficient to peruse
Les historiens des Chorfa by Levi-Proven^al (from p.
220); numerous works of this type have been men¬
tioned at the beginning of this article, and we confine
ourselves here to reference to those which seem partic¬
ularly representative.

A relatively ancient hagiography, dating from the
8th/14th century, bears a title devoid of ambiguity
[Chorfa, 221); al-Minhddy al-wddih ft tahktk karamat Abi
Muhammad Salih, by the great-grandson of this disciple
(d. 631/1234) of Abu Madyan. The term manakib is
observed as appearing to introduce an account of the
lives of two saints of Aghmat [q.v.] by al-Hazmlrl al-
Marrakushl ( Chorfa , 223); Ithmid al-^aynayn wa-nuzhat
al-nazirayn ft manakib al-akhawayn Abi Zayd wa-Abi c Abd
Allah al-Hazmiriyyayn (d. respectively in 706 or
707/1306-8 and 678/1280). In the 10th/l6th century,
the Djazull [q.v. ] movement, of which the spiritual
line stretches back to c Abd al-Salam b. Mashlsh (see
above), found its historian in the person of Ibn c Askar
(d. 986/1578; [q.v.]), author of the Dawhat al-nashir li-
mahasin man kan bi ’l-M ag hrib min mashayikh al-karn al-
c ashir, (lith. Fas 1309/1892; ed. M. HadjdjI, Rabat
1396/1976), which is a catalogue of shaykhs to whom,
as a group, “was allotted a particle of sanctity”
{Chorfa, 234);_ another catalogue, from which was
drawn the c Arif al-munna of the above-mentioned
Muhammad al-Mahdl al-FasI, was moreover entitled
Mumti c al-asma c bi-manakib al-shaykh al-Diazuli wa-man

lahu min al-atba c . The great Moroccan saint Abu
Ya c azza (d. 572/1177 [q.v. ]), who was the subject of
a long article in the Tashawwuf { 195-205), inspired an¬
other al-Tadll (d. 1013/1604), to write a monograph,
the Kitab al-Mu c zaft manakib Abt Ya c za (ms. in Rabat;
see Chorfa , 239-40). Ibn Raysun al- c AlamI (d.
1055/1645) is the author of the Manakib al-Raysuniyyin
on his father and his paternal uncles (Hajji, 520). To
Ibn c Ayshun al-Sharrat (d. 1109/1697) is attributed
al-Rawd al- c dlir al-anfas ft akhbar al-salihin min ahl Fas
(ms. in Rabat; see Hajji, 712). The Safwat man intashar
min akhbar sulaha 5 al-karn al-hddi c ashar (lith. Fas n.d.)
by al-Ifranl (d. 1151/1738-9 [< 7 -t'.]) is a catalogue of
Moroccan saints, forming a sequel to the Dawha of
Ibn c Askar. A Syrian emigre in Morocco, Ahmad al-
Halabl (d. 1120/1708) is the author of al-Durr al-nafts
wa ’l-nur al-anis ft manakib al-Imam Idris b. Idris (lith.
Fas 1300, 1304; see Chorfa, 287). c Abd al-Rahman al-
FasI, who has already been mentioned on account of
the fact that, like al-Ifranl, he preferred akhbar to
manakib, nevertheless also wrote the Bus tan al-adhhan ft
manakib al-shaykh Abi Muhammad c Abd al-Rahman ;(ms.
in Rabat) on the saint and poet in malhun al-
Madjdhub [q.v.]. Also to be mentioned is al-
Murki!Murakki ft ba c d manakib al-kutb al-Sayyid Maham-
mad al-Sharki (12th/18th century?) by his descendant
c Abd al-Khalik al-Sharki (ms. in Rabat); and al-
Dhahab al-ibriz ft manakib al-shaykh ( Abd al- c Aziz by al-
Lamatl (d. 1156/1743 [q.v. ]) devoted to the Fas! saint
called al-Dabbagh (d. 1131/1719), lith. at Cairo in
1278/1861, printed at Bulak in 1292/1875 and at
Cairo in 1304/1886. The Kadirls [q.v. \ left to posterity
numerous monographs of saints and prominent
members of their family. One of them, c Abd al-Salam
(1110/1698), is the author of the MuHamad al-rawi ft
manakib wait Allah Ahmad al-Shawi, on a popular saint
of Fas (d. 1014/1605), and of the Nuzhat al-fikr ft
manakib al-shaykhayn Sayyidi (Sidi) Mahammad wa-
walidih sayyidi (Sidi) Abi Bakr, on the founder of the
zawiya of al-Dila 5 [q.v. in Suppl.] and his son (see
Chorfa, 278); the wonderful history of this zawiya is
recorded by al-TazI (d. 1247/1831 -2) in the Nuzhat al-
akhydr al-mardiyyin ft manakib al- c ulama al-DildSyyin al-
Bakriyyin (ms. in Rabat). The Ashraf (Shurafa 5 ) of
Wazzan [q.v.] have, in their own right, been the ob¬
ject of several complications: c Abd al-Salam al-
Kadirl, al-Tuhfa al-Kadiriyya ft manakib al-Wazzaniyyin
wa ’l-Shddhiliyyin (ms. in Rabat); Hamdun al-Tahirl
(d. 1 191/1777), Tuhfat al-ikhwdn bi-ba c d manakib

shurafa 3 Wazzan , lith. Fas 1324/1906, with, in the
margins, al-Kawkab al-as c ad ft manakib Sayyidina wa-
Mawlana ''Alt b. Muhammad \al- Wazzani] (d.
1226/1811), of a 19th century author, Abu Allah
Muhammad b. Hamza al-MiknasI (see Chorfa, 327),
Muhammad al-Ruhunl (d. 1230/1815) likewise col¬
lected the manakib of this last-named sharif (see M.
Lakhdar, Vie lilteraire , 279). As early as 1214/1799,
Harazim was commending the merits of the founder
of the Tidjaniyya [q.v.] in the Bulugh al-amani ft
manakib al-shaykh al-Ttdjdni (d. 1230/1815) which was
published in Cairo in 1345/1926-7, with a different
title. To conclude, attention may also be drawn to the
Manakib al-shaykh Abt c Abd Allah Muhammad al-Hadikt
by Muhammad b. c Abd Allah al-Hadlkl al-DjazulI (d.
1189/1775), the Manakib al-sulaha 5 (see Lakhdar, 259)
by Muhammad al-Tawudl Ibn Suda (d. 1209/1795)
and the Manakib al-^Akkari(d. 1118/1707) by one of his
descendants (d. 1304/1886); a ms. of it exists in
Rabat. Finally, it will be noted that Hamdun b. al-
Hadjdj (d. 1232/1817 [see ibn al-hadjdj in Suppl.]),
who was in no sense a saint, also earned his Manakib
(ms. in Rabat), which proves that this key-word was

MANAKIB — al-MANAMA

357

not always felt, even in the 19th century, necessarily
to imply the accomplishment of miracles.

As may be observed through a perusal of the
intentionally-abridged list which precedes, several
hagiographers are descendants of a saint or a shaykh;
possessing sufficient education, they were no doubt
able by themselves to put into shape the oral or writ¬
ten testimony as well as assembled family documents.
On the other hand, many poorly-educated Moroccans
devoted themselves to similar researches, but were
obliged to entrust the dossier thus compiled to some
learned individual, with instructions to compose the
monograph which they wished to dedicate to the
memory of their ancestor; E. Levi-Proven<;al ( Chorfa ,
49, n. 1) cites an example of the latter procedure of
which he has had direct knowledge, but it is known
that others exist. Thus the libraries, especially the
private ones, contain, among others, a number of
these lives of saints which R. Brunschvig finds
monotonous because the portraits of the individuals
whom they honour are repeated without any great
regard for originality. In general, writes Levi-
Provengal (50), although one may encounter “some
accounts of events which seem distorted and tending
towards the miraculous, it should be recognised that,
in the majority of cases, the men whose lives are
presented here are quite ordinary mortals. The true
legend of the saint is not found in the written
hagiographies, so to speak; it resides in the spirit of
the uneducated masses. Popular hagiolatry often has
little in common with compilations of manaqib. In the
latter, the saint is above all a very orthodox, devout
and ascetic Muslim; his biographers endow him with
the nature of an intercessor; he sometimes has the
ebullient spirit of a mysticism which brings him close
to unity with the divine ... It is in the social role which
they play in the land that the Moroccan marabouts
gradually appear through the monographs. It is
precisely here that the interest of the latter resides.
This general observation also provides an explanation
as to why female saints, who enjoy a widespread
popular cult in Morocco, are almost ignored by the
learned national hagiography’’. It will be noted, how¬
ever, as exceptions confirming the rule, that a number
of articles relating to Moroccan women, often
anonymous, feature in the hagiographical dic¬
tionaries, particularly in the Tashawwuf, that there ex¬
ist in the Sus the Manakib of al-Sayyida Maryam bint
Mas c ud al-Susi al-Samlali (d. 1165/1751) by Abu T
c Abbas Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-AdrlzT (d. 1168/1754)
and that al-Kuntl (d. 1224/1810 [see kunta])

honoured both his parents in one tribute, al-Tanfa wa
’l-talida min karamat al-shaykhayn al-walid wa ’l-walida
(ms. B.N. Paris 5511).

At the end of this inevitably limited catalogue of
works which may be regarded as belonging in general
to the manakib genre, it is possible to summarise its
evolution as follows.

Since the earliest centuries of Islam, manakib , which
is not yet a key-word, appears, concurrently with
other terms which may be neutral (tardjama, akhbar, ta-
c nf) or more expressive (fada Hi, mafakhir, ma^athir), in
the titles of individual biographies or of biographical
compilations whose principal aim is to offer to the
reader a moral portrait and information on the noble
actions of the individuals who constitute their subject
or on the superior merits of a certain group. This con¬
currence is perpetuated over the centuries, although
manakib clearly tends towards specialisation. In fact,
from the 4th/10th century onwards, both in Ifrlkiya
and in other Islamic countries this term is quite
regularly applied to laudatory biographies of the

imam s who founded the great legal schools and played
a fundamental role in the elaboration of the Sharia.
Like the fadaHl of the Companions of the Prophet, the
manakib of the imams and of their leading disciples are
aimed towards the edification of the community,
which is thus invited to acquire their real or supposed
virtues and scrupulously to follow their example.
However, hagiolatry which begins to emerge at this
time and subsequently expands to a considerable ex¬
tent, is concerned to recount the lives of saints whose
memory has not yet been effaced, while the gradual
foundation of religious orders, a gradual process over
the years, leads to the proliferation of shaykhs who are
to a greater or lesser extent tinged with an aura of
sanctity; thus the manakib genre takes on an increas¬
ingly marked hagiographical nature, and the term
which designates it, having been applied to the
qualities and actions and behaviour of any human
being, however little virtuous, becomes synonymous,
in the public mind, with prodigies, even more with
miracles performed by a saint recognised as such, or
by a Sufi, a marabout or indeed by a simple mortal to
whom, rightly or wrongly, miraculous gifts are at¬
tributed.

Systematic research into the bibliographical
catalogues, of biographical works and of general
histories of Islamic literature, as well as a more de¬
tailed examination of texts bearing the title manakib ,
would certainly serve to bring into sharper focus the
preceding outline. Just as the study of the tabakat
genre undertaken by I. Hafsi (in Arabica , xxiii/3
[1976], 227-65 and xxiv/1-2 [1977], 1-41, 150-86) has
shown how a term as simple as the plural of tabaka has
undergone, in the sphere of biographical literature, an
astonishing semantic evolution, so parallel researches
into the manakib genre deserve to be undertaken, see¬
ing that it involves a delicate and ultimately quite
complex concept.

Bibliography : The principal sources have been
cited in the article. What is offered here is a simple
reminder of the titles of a few works to which
reference has repeatedly been made: E. Levi-
Provengal, Les historiens des Chorfa , Paris 1922; R.
Brunschvig, La Berberie onentale sous les Hafsides,
Paris 1940-7; A. Fu^ad Sayyid, Sources de Thistoire du
Yemen a Tepoque musulmane, IFAO, Cairo 1974; P.
Sj. van Koningveld, Ten Arabic manuscript-volumes
acquired by the Leiden University Library after 1957 , in
E. van Donzel (ed.), Studies on Islam , Amsterdam-
London 1974; M. Hajji, L’adivite intellectuelle au
Afaroc a Tepoque sa c dide, Rabat 1976; S. al-Munadj-
djid, Afu c djam al-mu ^arnkhin al-dimashkiyyin, Beirut
1398/1978. (Ch. Pellat)

al-MANAMA, the capital city of the amirate
of Bah ray n [ q.v.\ in the Persian Gulf. The city is
located at latitude 26° 13' N and longitude 50° 35'
E, on the north-eastern coast of the island of Bahrayn,
which was formerly known as Awal. The shallow
waters between Manama and the neighbouring island
of Muharrak [q. v. ] have long been used to provide
good shelter for native craft. It has been suggested
that the name Manama (A. “a place of resting, sleep¬
ing’’) may reflect the proximity of a number of
prehistoric burial mounds.

The early history of Manama remains obscure, for
reliable references are few and their topographical
nomenclature is both vague and confusing. When the
Portuguese seized Bahrayn in the 10th/16th century,
they built their major fortification on the coast at
Kal c at al- c Adjadj, some 4 miles west of Manama. The
Persians, who wrested control from the Portuguese in
1011/1602, held the archipelago for much of the

358

al-MANAMA — MANAR, MANARA

following turbulent period of 180 years, during which
time they erected a defensive position on the current
side of Manama. In 1197/1783 the A1 Khalifa [< 7 -y.]
clan of the c Utub tribe invaded the islands from
Zubara in Ka{ar, and after a siege of some 2 months
the Persians were expelled from that fort. The A1
Khalifa — who remain the ruling dynasty — did not,
however, enjoy an unchallenged accession to power,
and the A1 Bu Sa c Id [< 7 . 0 .] rulers of c Uman mounted
a series of expeditions against Bahrayn between
1214/1799 and 1244/1828 during which time the small
town was attacked and occupied on several occasions.

Over the next century, Manama gradually became
an important entrepot port serving much of eastern
Arabia, though its fortunes fluctuated in response to
the vagaries and violence of local and regional
political rivalries. Although Manama was becoming
the commercial centre of the archipelago, the A1
Khalifa usually resided at Muharrak, which was also
the harbour used by the island’s large pearling fleet.
The ruling family used the fort at Manama only
during the hottest months of the year, and it was not
until the second decade of the 20 th century that the
town became the true capital of the amirate.

European activities had, however, been concen¬
trated at Manama since the end of the 19th century.
In 1893 the Dutch Reformed Church of America es¬
tablished a mission in the town, and in 1902 that
organisation built a hospital and a dispensary. A
British Assistant Political Agent was appointed and
took up residence in 1900; four years later the post
was upgraded to a Political Agency. According to
Lorimer, the population of Manama in 1905 was ap¬
proximately 25,000, of whom 60% were ShlT and
40% Sunni Muslims. There were, in addition, a small
number of Hindu, Jewish and Christian residents.

The development of the modern city began after the
First World War. In 1920 a municipal administration
was established, educational facilities at the primary
school level were created, and electricity supplies were
inaugurated in 1930. The discovery of oil at Djabal al-
Du khkh an in 1932, and the subsequent development
of that resource, helped to stave off the otherwise
serious economic and social consequences of the
decline in pearl fishing. In 1935 the British established
a naval base at Ra 5 s al-Djufayr, some 2 miles
southeast of Manama, following withdrawal from the
Persian island of Handjam. This base later became
the major centre of British naval activity in the Gulf.
In 1942 a causeway road was built linking Manama
with Muharrak. In 1946 the British Political
Residency was transferred from Bushahr to Manama.
By 1950, the population of the town had grown to
over 40,000 and the following three decades have
seen even greater expansion and development. By
1981 the population was believed to be over 121,000,
and Manama had become an important regional cen¬
tre for banking, commerce and communications.

Bibliography : As there are no works devoted
exclusively to Manama, the reader is referred to the
bibliographical sections of the entries for bahrayn
and al-khalIfa. which list the standard sources.
The following recent monographs contain some ad¬
ditional information. E.A. Nakleh, Bahrein: political
development in a modernizing society, Lexington 1976;
M.G. Rumaihi, Bahrain: social and political change
since the First World War, London 1976; Fuad I.
Khuri, Tribe and state in Bahrein: the transformation of
social and political authority in an Arab state, Chicago
1980 and Mahdi Abdalla al-Tajir, Language and
linguistic origins in Bahrain: the Baharnah dialect of
Arabic , London 1982. (R.M. Burrell)

MANAR, MANARA (a), ‘‘lighthouse”, an
elevated place where a light or beacon is established;
the means of marking (with fire, originally) routes for
caravans or for the army in war; lampstand
(“candelabrum”, archaic meaning); minaret (in this
sense normally in the fern., mandra, whereas for
“lighthouse”, in both the masc. and fern., mandr ,
mandra). In some modern Arabic dictionaries we also
find fandr. It is by chance that this latter word
resembles phare (French), faro (Italian, Spanish, which
derive their origin from Pharos = the islet situated at
the entrance to the port of Alexandria, on which
formerly stood the famous lighthouse; see below).
Fandr has no doubt come into Arabic via Turkish
fanar/fener , which comes from the Greek pharos , whose
diminutive phanarion was used, for example in Byzan¬
tine Greek; in a parallel fashion, in mediaeval Latin
fanarium = lantern, lighthouse, beacon light, French
fanal (cf. von Hammer-Purgstall and IA , s.v. Fenerliler ;
but the Turk Ansiklopedisi, 1968, xvi, 230, confuses
phands and Pharos). From Turkish, the word has also
passed into Persian.

Classical Arabic literature describes several uses of
fire among the ancient Arabs ( mrdn al- c Arab = “fires
of the Arabs”; see al-Djahiz, Hayawdn , iv, 461-91, v,
123, 133-4; al-Nuwayrl, Nihdya, i, 109-13; T. Fahd,
Le feu chez les anciens Arabes, in Le feu dans le Proche-Orient
antique , Leiden 1973, 43-61). Some of them were in¬
tended to guide caravans, convoys and individuals
who were travelling, by night, indicating the route for
them, or the beginning of it ( irshad al-sdri). The roads
were shown with “landmarks” (stones, etc., with fire;
then the meaning was extended to those even without
fire); the historical legends give the ruler of Pre*
Islamic South Arabia, Abraha, the title “the man of
the mandr" , for he was the first to mark out the routes,
in time of war (see al-Suyutl, al-Wasa^il, ed. al- c Adawi
and c Umar, 146). But among these clearly recorded
fires, we find no mention of maritime lighting (see
also Yakut,_ s.v. mandra ; al-Nuwayrl, Ilmam, iv, 3:
mandra of c Ad).

The word mandra designates several objects (or
buildings) which facilitated lighting; for example the
candelabrum in the sense outlined above, and which
supported the lamp (misradja ; see al-Djahiz, Bukhala 5 ,
ed. al-Hadjirl, 19; al-Blrunl, K. al-Diawdhir. 227:
mandra in porcelain; and the iconographic evidence in
a miniature of the illustrated ms. Paris BN, Ar. 5847,
fol. 13b; Leningrad, Acad, of Sc., Or. S. 23, fob 30;
cf. in the Cairo Geniza, e.g. Camb. T-S.J.l, 15 and
Ox. 2821 (16], fob 56a [and see E. Ashtor, in JESHO,
vii, 179; idem, Histoire des prix, Paris 1969, under
“chandelier”]), and even certain kinds of “arms”
(arm-rests of seats, thrones, etc. (Sadan, Mobilier , 39,
126). The commonest word to designate the tower
standing alongside (or on top of) a mosque and which
is used to call the faithful to prayer, is mPdhana [qv.\,
but mandra is also found. This word has produced, in
the European languages, forms such as minaret and
minareto (A. J. Butler, The Arab conquest of Egypt, thinks
that the connection between ma^dra-lighthouse and
marcara-minaret is much more than a pure and simple
etymological connection; the lighthouse of Alexandria
influenced, in his view, the creation and form of the
minaret in Islamic architecture; in the new ed. of
Butler-Fraser, pp. LXXIV-LXXV, other references
have been added, for, in fact, there is no unanimity
among researchers; cf. H. Thiersch, Pharos, 98-201;
Creswell, A short account of Muslim architecture , Beirut
1968, 14; and see masdjid).

The research published on the pre-Islamic Arabs
bears witness to the existence among them of a certain

MANAR, MANARA

359

knowledge of maritime life; however, they did not
have very substantial experience. If we add that the
“fires of the Arabs” do not contain anything on
maritime lighting, we may assume that it is especially
after the expansion of Islam that interest in this genre
was awakened. It seems that in the east of the Islamic
world (Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean), the Arabs had
discovered the sporadic use of fires, and only the more
durable “lighthouse” of the khashabat [q.v.], near
Basra, is mentioned in the description of Arab
geographers.

Some sporadic uses of fire are even confirmed in the
information about the only fixed and noteworthy
lighthouse, properly speaking, that of Alexandria:
communication by signalling with fires on the depar¬
ture of Muslims’ ships towards the Alexandria
lighthouse which, in its turn, gave warning of the ar¬
rival of an enemy (by lighting the fire in the direction
of the town); some fires were lit on the Mediterranean
coast from Alexandria as far as the regions of North
Africa, so as to give notice of enemies and direct ships.
It is even recorded that opposite the Palestinian coast
an exchange of signals of this kind was made between
ships and the coast (see, apart from the Bibl. below,
M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie , 258-61; ribat,
in EP, and especially C A. El c ad, Coastal cities, in The
Jerusalem Cathedra, ii, 146-67, which summarise
(following G. Margais and others) information taken
from al-Baladhun. al-MukaddasT, Ibn Marzuk (ac¬
cording to E. Levi-Proven^al, in Hespens, v, 31 and
al-Makrizi, and cf. al-Kalkashandl Khitat ch. iv of
makala 10). It was a system of lighted fire signals,
rather than fixed lighting, but nothing prevented
them from profiting from this use of fires for the
security of maritime pilotage (see al-HamawI, in the
Bibl.). These fires and their sites, near the sea, are
called niran , mawdkid, maharis and manazir ; al-
Mukaddasi even uses the word manara for a kind of
“lighthouse” or beacon-light and even for a tower
(minaret of a ribat?) being used as a lighthouse. Arabic
geographical literature, and especially that of the
maritime guides, e.g. in the 9th/15th century (Ibn
Macyid) and in the 10th/16th (Sulayman al-MahrT),
clearly reflects the dangers presented by reefs and
other maritime obstacles and the various means used
to avoid them, as if the existence of lighthouses was
rare (see I. Y. Krackovskiy, Geograficeskaya literatura,
Ar. tr., Cairo 1963-5, ii; G. R. Tibbetts, Study,
Leiden and London 1979, passim ; A. M. c Atiyya,
Adab al-bahr, Cairo 1981, 79-98).

The famous lighthouse of Alexandria was inherited
by the Arabs from the civilisation which had preceded
theirs; it had been built, at the entrance to the port,
on the islet of Pharos (which is connected today to the
coast by a causeway), by Ptolemy Philadelphus,
around 279 A.D. Since then and until the conquest of
Alexandria by the Arabs (in 21/642), it had
undergone some modifications and it has been con¬
cluded that its functioning and structure deteriorated
successively. There is a tendency to accuse, often
moreover without reason, the conquerors and change
of regime of being the cause of deterioration, and the
assumption that two centuries after the conquest, the
lighthouse had fallen completely into ruin (G. F.
Hourani, Seafaring, 61: “The wonderful Pharos fell to
ruin and no one could be found who knew to repair
it”) seems exaggerated; for several centuries the
lighthouse was indeed used, although its functioning
was not as perfect as before Islam.

It is logical to suppose that during the first years of
the Islamic regime, maritime traditions persisted as
before. It is to the Umayyad period that certain

historian-geographers attribute its first deterioration;
the legend relates that a Christian, pretending to be a
Muslim, was able to convince the caliph al-Walid
(d. 87/705) to allow him to look for treasure near (and
underneath) the lighthouse and that the sabotage car¬
ried out at that time caused some damage to the upper
part of the tower. But the Muslims continued to light
the fire on the lighthouse, and only the Arab writers
(geographers, etc.) allude to the fact that, in the past,
the technique used in its functioning (the lantern) was
more perfected, in recounting to their readers that in
earlier times it was equipped with mirrors (or a mir¬
ror); by concentrating the sun’s rays, these mirrors
could burn the enemy ships (the historical fact which
is hidden here is, perhaps, the existence in ancient
times of a reflector or another technical method; the
technique consisting of adding a reflector to a lantern
was not completely unknown in the Islamic world (see
al-MakkarT, Rawda, 13-14),but it was probably more
difficult to repair the damage undergone by a proper
lighthouse). In the 3rd/9th century, the governor Ibn
Tulun had the upper part of the lighthouse repaired,
but the work was often in wood which was not strong
and durable. The use of the lighthouse by the Arabs
(lighting the fire on top, at night, by means of special
custodians, who even had rooms intended for their
lodging) continued until the 5th/11th century. In
578/1 182-3 the lighthouse was only 50 cubits high;
this diminution of its height was due to a deterioration
of the construction and to an earthquake (which was
neither the first nor the last experienced by the
lighthouse), so that the upper parts had been
destroyed. At the beginning of the 8th/14th century,
it was no more than a ruin, despite the efforts made
by certain sultans (for example, Baybars I (d.
676/1277) and Baybars II (d. 709/1310), some time
earlier to repair it a little. Already al-Malik al-Kamil
(d. 635/1238) had built on this site a mosque, and the
fort which is to be found there today (and which now
houses the maritime museum of Alexandria) was con¬
structed by the sultan Ka 5 it Bay (d. 901/1496).

As for the form of the lighthouse of Alexandria, it
is often described by the mediaeval Arab authors, who
strive to accentuate its splendour in the past (one of
the “Seven Wonders of the World”); but it is hard to
deduce what were its original dimensions, especially
because the upper parts (a statue of Poseidon, on top,
and the lantern) no longer existed in the Islamic
period; some conclude that, during the major part of
its history, after the birth of Islam, the lighthouse only
reached two-thirds of its original height. Three at¬
tempts have been made to record its form and dimen¬
sions according to the description of the Muslim
historians and geographers by H. Thiersch, Asm
Palacios (who also discovered a description of the
7th/13th century) and E. Levi-Proven^al (who added
a source drawing on the description of the geographer
al-Bakri in the 5th/11 th century). The latter is the
most recent and may also be summarised. The rec¬
tangular base of 320 cubits was surmounted by a nar¬
rower, octagonal section of 80 cubits, then by another
narrower, rectangular section (until the discovery of
this description it was considered to be cylindrical) of
50 cubits; no more of it was in existence.

Manar and fanar have given their names to some
neighbouring quarters, e.g. in Istanbul (see Fanar-
t a ]k) = Fener + koy,J. von Hammer-Purgstall, Con¬
stant inopolis und der Bosporus, 1822, 270, 279 and the
Istanbul miniature of the 17th century, in B. Lewis,
Istanbul , Norman, Oklahoma 1963, 99, on the left; see
also Fenerliler in I A; however, the lighthouse—or
rather the signalling tower, Kiz Kulesi, at the en-

360

MANAR, MANARA — al-MANAR

trance to the Bosporus—dates almost from our own
times). With or without a direct connection with
maritime illumination, some trading places, an im¬
portant journal [see al-manar], etc., are called
“lighthouse”.

The modern age has witnessed several im¬
provements and constructive efforts in the maritime
field, including the building of lighthouses (e.g. in
Morocco in 1865 [see muhammad b. c abd al-
rahman]), of a more organised nature, in the
necessary places.

Bibliography : Apart from the works cited in
the article, see A.J. Butler and P.M. Fraser, The
Arab conquest ojEgypt, pp. lxxiv-lxxv, 389-400; E.M.
Forster, Alexandria—history and guide (new ed.), 17-
18, 106-7, 144-50; Le Strange, Lands , 49; H.
Thiersch, Pharos , Leipzig-Berlin 1909; Asm
Palacios, Una description nueva , in al-And., i/1 (1933),
242 ff.; E. Levi-Provenial, Une description arabe , in
Melanges Maspero, iii, Cairo 1940, 161-71; G. Fer-
rand, Les monuments, in ibid. , 58-60; P. Kahle,
Katastrophe , in ibid., 150; A.M. Fahmy, Muslim sea-
power , London 1950, 29-30; G. F. Hourani, Arab
seafaring, Princeton 1951, 60-1, 69; F. Farad], al-
lskandariyya , Cairo n.d. (e.g. 20); Turk Ansikl.,
1966, xiii, 45-51; Dj. D. al-Shayyal, Ta\ikh al-
Iskandariyya, Alexandria 1967, 53 ff., 70, 85-6;
HammawT, Ta^rikh al-ustul, Damascus 1975, 76,
81-3; M. Brill, Pharos, in Cairo Today (January
1984), 20-4; Univ. of Alexandria, TaMkh al-
bahriyya, Alexandria 1973-4, geog. index s .vv.fanar
and manar. (J. Sadan and J. Fraenkel)

al-MANAR, a journal of Muslim thought
and doctrine which appeared in Cairo from
18 98 to 1940. Its work was the counterpart of that
of a printing-house, of the same name, which, besides
its other publications, re-issued articles previously
published in the review, such as the famous modern
commentary on the Kurban ( Tafsir al-Manar). Without
forming part of any particular school, the Manar
subscribed to the reformist line of the salafiyya [^.tr.];
this movement of cultural resistance towards colonial
encroachment sought to restore to Islam its former
power and to re-establish confidence in its traditional
values, starting with the Arabic language, while
employing modern techniques. It elaborated an
apologetic which is still widely known and influential
today.

The Manar was the personal work of one man,
Sayyid Rashid Rida [^.».], born in 1865 near Tripoli
(Lebanon). At the end of 1897, the same year as the
death of Djamal al-Dln al-Afghanl [q-v.], with whom
he had dreamed of collaborating, he travelled to Cairo
in order to work in partnership with the Imam
Muhammad c Abduh \qv.\. Resolved, from the
outset, to found a journal which he entitled the Manar
(“The Beacon”), he published the first issue at the
end of Shawwal 1315/March 1898. He was, over the
course of the years, to include in it a number of ar¬
ticles by al-Afghanl, Muhammad c Abduh, al-Kawa-
kibl, Djamal al-Dln al-Kasiml, and others. Scientific
questions were tackled by Dr. Tawflk SidkI. After the
war of 1914-18, the amir Shaklb Arslan sent him copy
from Geneva. But the bulk of the material was drawn
from him own tireless pen.

As H. Laoust writes in his article Le reformisme or-
thodoxe des “Salaflya”, “Its discreet expertise, its
Islamic internationalism and the reliability of its
general documentation, direct the Manar towards a
liberal, cultured minority. The publication of the
commentary of c Abduh gives it the prestige of a great
name. Its leading articles perfectly convey the pro¬

gressive orthodox view, always well-argued and a
balanced in form, of the major contemporary Islamo-
Arab questions.” In addition, its judicial discussions,
its criticism of books and its news of the Muslim world
made it into a link between correspondents, writing
from Indonesia as well as from India, Syria, North
Africa and even some European countries.

From being at the outset a weekly periodical
numbering eight pages, later distributed at longer in¬
tervals (once a fortnight, then once a month), the
journal very rapidly built up an annual total of 960
pages, a figure which declined during the war of 1914-
18 and then rose back to 800 (ten issues per year).
Each of its 35 volumes possesses either a detailed table
of contents, or alphabetical indices, the form of which
evolved over the years. The first 34 volumes covered
a period of 37 years (1898-1935). As a result of the
death of Rashid Rida in 1935, the next volume (no.
35) had its ten issues spread over a period of six years
(July 1935 - September 1940). The Muslim Brothers
[see al-ikhwan al-muslimun] had guaranteed its
revival, but they preferred to concentrate their efforts
on journals of their own. Initially printed in an edition
of 1,500, then of 1,000, its circulation rose after the
fifth volume with subscriptions from students. The
figure of 300 subscribers henceforward guaranteed it
a stable, basic readership. There were sometimes tem¬
porary difficulties in the distribution of the issues:
these were later solved (cf. Turkish censorship in
Syria in the first year of publication).

The collected corpus of the Manar provides a mine
of information on the attitudes, the focuses of interest,
the hopes and disappointments of reformists over a
period of nearly forty years. It reflects the major
events of the Muslim world seen from Cairo, as well
as the personal development of Rashid Rida. The
judicial discussions have been separately reprinted in
Beirut.

Being centred on the religious and social reform
(islah, [q.v. ]) of the Islamic umma, the Manar vindicates
the salafi heritage of al-Afghanl and of c Abduh, extoll¬
ing a return to the Kurian and to the Sunna with a
view to a purer tawlild. It is concerned with the unity
of the community, and makes appeals for the sur¬
mounting of divisions. It opposes those Europeans
who seek to efface the last vestiges of the Muslim law.
It teaches the compatibility of Islam with science and
with reason, in the best interests of mankind at all
times and in all places. Following the expression of H.
Laoust, “The canonical legitimacy of the sciences, the
incorporation into the primitive conception of Islam
of the most contemporary social and political ideas to
which Muhammad c Abduh had attached his name”,
have the right of free entry into the Manar. But Rashid
Rida remained cautious with regard to what was later
to be called al-tafsir al-Hlmi which seeks to discover in
the Kur 5 an all the modern sciences (cf. Manar, xxx,
514-16, on the tafsir of Shavkh Tantawl Djawharl [q.v.
in Suppl.]).

Diverging from the Hanafism-Maturldism of
c Abduh, the Manar turned towards Hanbalism. The
journal’s continual attacks on culpable practices, con¬
trary to the tawhid (mawlid, bida c , etc.) are based on
Ibn Taymiyya and certain of his fatwas. This paved
the way for the reconcilation which was realised
through the eulogy of Wahhabism and the transfor¬
mation of the Manar publishing-house into an active
centre of Wahhabi propaganda, beginning after the
war of 1914-18 and especially following the conquest
of the Hidjaz by Ibn Sa c ud (1924-6). In the Manar
there is insistence on the need for Muslim propaganda
and for guidance ( al-da c wa wa ’l-irshad). Many lines

al-MANAR — MANARA, MANAR

361

are devoted to these topics, particularly to the idea of
founding a seminary designed to train enthusiasts for
this task. There are articles on Arab nationalism, on
relations between Turks and Arabs and on the need to
ensure for the Arabic language a land of freedom
where it may flourish; Islam cannot in fact survive
without it, especially at a time when the Turks are
adopting a hostile linguistic policy. Similarly, the
Manar enables us to follow the affair of the caliphate
and the upheavals caused by its suppression by the
Turks in 1924- [see khilafa].

There are articles describing various personalities
of the Muslim world, mostly Arab. Attitudes towards
ShiSsm are discussed. Polemic is directed as much
against liberal Muslims (cf. that against the Siyasa ,
which supported Taha Husayn, etc.) as against al-
Azhar. There is news relating to the pilgrimage, the
construction of the Hidjaz railway, the wars in
Tripolitania, in the Rif, etc., as well as European col¬
onial policy, particularly in regard to the Syrian ques¬
tion after 1918, the Coptic Congress in Asyut in 1911,
the Muslim Congresses of Cairo, of Mecca, etc. ; rela¬
tions with the Christians, their doctrine, missions of
Western Christians, Western writers sympathetic to
Islam, studies on the greatness and decadence of na¬
tions, on pedagogy, on the role of the c ulama :> in the
Muslim renaissance, etc. Literary and cultural Arab
news items are not lacking. The judicial discussions
tackle various difficulties, some of them relevant to
the modern world, mentioning the position of
Muhammad c Abduh (cf. for example the question of
the Savings Bank). In short, the periodical contained
material suitable for learned and illuminating mono¬
graphs.

The commentary on the Kur 5 an published from the
third year onward was the work of Rashid Rida; it in¬
cluded lengthy extracts from the commentary ex¬
pounded by Muhammad c Abduh in evening lectures
at al-Azhar, and the respective contributions of the
two men were clearly distinguished. c Abduh went no
further than v. 125 of sura IV (al-Nisa*) whereas Rida
continued to the end of sura XII, (Yusuf, v. 107).
Some of the positions adopted were daring: c Abduh
maintained that the texts of the Jewish Scriptures and
of the Gospels were authentic and that only their in¬
terpretation had been false (Rida denied their authen¬
ticity); he claimed that the execution of the Muslim
apostate was a measure dating from a time of war
during which apostasy constituted desertion in the
face of the enemy—today this is not the case and the
apostate who does not attack Islam should not be put
to death; it is for God to punish him. These examples
and other show how c Abduh sought to re-open the
door of idjtihad. Reference to all these allusions are to
be found in the studies mentioned in the bibliography.

Although a positive and very important work in the
context of the modern Muslim awakening, it should
be noted that the Manar sometimes confined itself to
schematic views of an apologetic nature, simplifying
in extreme fashion certain historical problems,
notably those of the causative influences which helped
to bring about the Renaissance of Europe. It also used
its influence on behalf of the Gospel of Barnabas,
“this undoubtedly apocryphal work” according to L.
Massignon, edited for the first time in the 14th cen¬
tury and later in the 16th, sponsoring its translation
into Arabic in 1908. This apologetic must have
responded to a deeply-felt need, for it enjoyed, and
still enjoys, enormous success, even if it contributed
little to imparting a sense of objectivity and of history
to those who studied it. Similarly, the Manar seems to
have ignored a fundamental question: did the adop¬

tion of Western techniques not also entail a certain
change of mentality, and if so, what? It thus remained
silent on one of the key problems posed by the very ex¬
istence of technological civilisation.

Bibliograpy: Rashid Rida, Ta?rikh al-Ustadh al-
Imam, 3 vols., Cairo; the 35 volumes of the review
al -Manar itself, as well as texts reprinted separately,
such as Fatawa 'l-Imam Muhammad Rashid Rida , 6
vols., Beirut 1961-2, or from Cairo, al-Manar prin¬
ting house: Tajsir al-Manar, 12 vols.; al-Manar wa 7-
Azhar, 1353/1934-5; al-Khilafa aw al-lmama al- c uzma,
1341/1923. Numerous references to al-Manar ar¬
ticles are to be found in the notes accompaying the
translation of the latter work by H. Laoust, under
the title Le calijat dans la doctrine de Rashid Rida ,
Beirut 1938. The most important study of the sub¬
ject is H. Laoust, Le Reformisme orthodoxe des
“Salqfiya ”, in RE1 (1932), 175-224. See also J.
Jomier, Le Commentaire coranique du Manar, Paris
1954; idem, Les raisons de Tadhesion du Sayyed Rashid
Rida au nationalisme arabe , in Bulletin Inst. d’Egypte,
liii-liv, 53-61; idem, L 'Imam Mohammad Q Abdoh et la
Caisse d’Epargne (1903-1904), in Revue de TOccident
Musulman et de la Mediterranee (1973), 99-107. For the
influence of al-Manar on the c ulama 5 of Algeria, see
Ali Merad, Le Reformisme musulman en Algerie de 1925
a 1940_, Paris 1967 1 (J. Jomier)

MANARA, MANAR (a.) minaret.

1. In the Islamic lands between the
Maghrib and Afghanistan.

Unlike the other types of Islamic religious building,
such as the mosque and the madrasa, the minaret is
immediately and unambiguously recognisable for
what it is. The reasons for this are worth in¬
vestigating. It seems on the whole unrelated to its
function of the adhan \q.v. ) calling the faithful to
prayer, which can be made quite adequately from the
roof of the mosque or even from a house-top. During
the lifetime of the Prophet, his Abyssinian slave Bilal
\q.v.], was responsible for making the call to prayer in
this way. The practice continued for another genera¬
tion, a fact which demonstrates that the minaret is not
an essential part of Islamic ritual. To this day, certain
Islamic communities, especially the most orthodox
ones like the Wahhabis in Arabia, avoid building
minarets on the grounds that they are ostentatious
and unnecessary. Others are content with the so-
called “staircase” minarets which consist simply of a
few broad external steps leading to a diminutive kiosk
a little above roof level. These perpetuate a practice
common in the first century of Islam. While such
structures are obviously functional, it is very doubtful
whether the same can be said for any minaret much
more than 15 m. high. Without mechanical amplifica¬
tion, the human voice simply cannot make itself
heard, especially in a noisy urban setting, from the
top of such celebrated minarets as the Giralda in
Seville [see ishbIliya: 2. Historic buildings] or the
Kutb Minar [q. v. ] in Dihll.

If then, the ostensible function of the minaret is
somewhat misleading, what other purposes might it
have served? If the investigation confines itself in the
first instance to the early minarets of the Islamic world
—i.e. those predating 1000 A.D.—three possible ap¬
proaches may be suggested. One is to examine the
role of the very earliest minarets in their particular
historical setting, on the theory that these examples
laid down guidelines for the further development of
the form. Another is to see what clues lie in the Arabic
words used for minaret, and in their etymology. A
third approach would focus on the forms of these early
minarets and on their immediate sources, and would

362

MANARA, MANAR

thus involve the assumption that at least traces of the
earlier functions associated with these forms survived
into the Islamic period. It must be remembered, how¬
ever, that throughout the mediaeval period, the role of
the minaret oscillated between two polarities: as a sign
of power and as an instrument for the adhan. These
functions were not mutually exclusive.

It will be convenient to begin by studying the cir¬
cumstances in which the earliest minarets were built.
According to the literary evidence, the first minaret
was erected in ca. 45/665 by the governor of c Irak
Ziyad b. Abihi [< 7 .^. ]: a stone tower ( mandra ) was
added to the mosque at Basra. Soon afterwards,
orders were given by the caliph Mu c awiya to the
governor of Egypt, and the mosque of c Amr at Fustat
was given a quartet of sawami c , whilst these were also
added to other mosques in Egypt. Although nothing
remains of these structures, this literary evidence is
important in showing that the impetus to build was
not a matter of local initiative but came from the
highest power in the land, the idea emanating from
Syria, where minarets were presumably added to at
least some Syrian mosques at this time. It is hard not
to see religio-political motives at work here. Christian
Syria, within which the Muslims formed a few small
enclaves, was lavishly endowed with fine stone chur¬
ches whose most striking external feature was a tall
tower. At the top of these towers was struck the
simandron —the Orthodox equivalent of the church
bell—to summon worshippers for divine service.
Some attribute the change in the adhan to c Umar, but
Mu c awiya, sensitively attuned as he was to the
discrepancies between Christian and Muslim culture,
and to the need to reconcile them wherever possible,
can scarcely have failed to compare this Christian
practice with its simpler Islamic equivalent. It would
have been wholly in character for him to have decided
to secure for the adhan a dignity and formality it had
not hitherto possessed by giving it monumental ex¬
pression. Typically, too, that expression borrowed a
Christian form but imbued it with a new Muslim
meaning. The slightly later case of the Dome of the
Rock leaps to mind as the obvious parallel. The intru¬
sion of political concerns into the forms of early
Islamic religious architecture was to be a hallmark of
the Umayyad period.

The arguments set out above are susceptible to
more than one interpretation. They could support the
theory that these early, essentially redundant,
minarets were intended simply to demonstrate to the
local non-Muslims that the new faith was no less
capable than its rivals of devising monumental ar¬
chitecture to glorify itself. However, they could also
imply the conclusion that from its very beginning the
minaret was intended to function as an outward sign
of Islam. A usage formulated in response to a hostile
environment would then gradually have become
canonical and would have persisted even when cir¬
cumstances had overtaken the need for it. These two
interpretations will be considered in more detail below
in the context of the form of the earliest minarets.

The second possibly approach to the original func¬
tion of the minaret is through the etymology of the
words used in Arabic to describe this kind of building.
It is perhaps significant that the three words most
commonly used - mandra, sawma c a and mi > dhana - all
arguably refer to quite separate functional aspects of
the building. Thus the notion that the minaret served
multiple functions is embedded in the Arabic
language itself. These functions quite naturally
generated appropriate terms for themselves. Whether
the prevalence of a given term in a given geographical

area reflects the predominance of one function over
another is, however, doubtful.

By far the commonest of the three terms is mandr(a),
the source via Turkish of English and French
“minaret”, lit. “place of fire” ( ndr ), a word used in
pre-Islamic Arabia to denote an elevated place from
which signals of fire or smoke were made. Whence the
frequent education of the minaret with the lighthouse
[see preceding article manar]; the cylindrical towers
attached to Islamic fortresses along parts of the North
African littoral, e.g. in Tunisia, not only served as
beacons and lighthouses but were actually called
manaras. One should, on the other hand, avoid any
temptation to connect mandr(a) with nur “light” and to
discern a basis for symbolic interpretation of the
minaret as an emanation of divine light or as an image
of spiritual illumination. The original term mandr(a)
soon lost its necessary connection with fire, and
became used to designate signposts, boundary stones
or markers, and watch-towers when no particular
association with fire was intended. Hence there
emerges that mandr(a) came to involve the two distinct
notions of fire and of a marker, neither of which, how¬
ever, had a specific role in Islamic ritual. The lighting
of a fire on the minaret of a mosque was an event of
utmost rarity in early Islam (it is recorded as having
occured in the case of the Manarat al- c Arus in the
Damascus mosque), though it is self-evident that the
minaret had a value as marker of the principal
building of the Islamic community. It seems therefore
safe to assume that, in the context of religious ar¬
chitecture, the association between the minaret and
fire is irrelevant.

The second term frequently used to designate the
minaret—indeed, it is the standard usage in North
Africa—is sawmaca. The word means the cell in which
a person (usually a monk) secludes himself, with the
particular gloss that the cell has a slender pointed
apex. Such cells were a regular feature of pre-Islamic
Byzantine architecture; they were incorporated into
the tall rectangular towers with which churches,
monasteries and houses were furnished. Once again,
however, as in the case of mandra , the etymology is apt
to mislead—for while the basic meaning of sawmaca is
indeed “hermitage”, the word has come to designate,
by a process of pars pro toto, the entire structure of
which the cell was a small part. The specific connota¬
tion of sawmaca in the present context is perhaps a
“sentry-box” minaret, and eventually a tall, rec¬
tangular minaret, rather than the minaret genre itself.
For this reason, it is an entirely appropriate term for
the minarets of North Africa. Moreover, unlike the
word mandra , its connotations are religious, albeit with
a Christian tinge. Possibly as a result of its association
with the minaret, the word is also used more generally
to mean “a higher place” or even “a high building”,
and in this less specific since its connection with
mandra in the sense of signal tower or marker is plain.
In North Africa, however, a distinction clearly exists,
for mandra is used for signal towers and lighthouses.
Appropriately enough in view of its Christian con¬
notations, sawmaca has found a.lodging in Europe, in
the Spanish word zoma meaning “minaret”.

It is a challenging reflection that the two Arabic
words most frequently used to designate the minaret
give no clue to the ritual function commonly
associated with the building. Instead, they evoke re¬
spectively pre-Islamic and Christian associations. The
term that does accurately render the ritual function of
the building— mPdhana —is, ironically enough, much
rarer than the other two, suggesting, perhaps, that
earlier “minarets "Imanaras had functions not ex-

MANARA, MANAR

363

clusively ritual. It derives of course from adhan, hence
literally “place from which the call to prayer is
made”, whose root further gives mu 3 a dhdh in “muez¬
zin, he who gives the call to prayer”. Even this last
has pre-Islamic connections, for in the Djahiliyya the
herald who made important announcements was
known as the mu*a dhdh in. Before leaving the problem
of etymology, it may be worth noting that several
other words occur sporadically in literary or
epigraphic texts as synonyms for at least some of the
meanings of mandra : c alam/ c alama (“signpost”,
“boundary maker”, “standing stone”, “flag”), mil
(possibly derived from the Greek miliarion, “mile¬
stone”) and c asas, “a place of watching”, a term es¬
pecially popular in the Ma gh rib. The mere mention
of these words in the context of the foregoing discus¬
sion is enough to emphasise yet again that etymology
is a somewhat treacherous guide in determining the
function of the minaret. It can safely be asserted, how¬
ever, that the review of Arabic terminology given
above establishes that the minaret performed not one
function but several in the mediaeval Islamic world.
Whilst the rarer Arabic words for “minaret” may
well reflect the function of the building in the par¬
ticular context concerned, the most commonly
employed word, mandra, was obviously a blanket term
which does not readily lend itself to precise elucida¬
tion, unless the context offers further, more specific,
clues.

The third possible approach to determining the
function of the minaret in the early centuries of Islam
is by way of morphology. The briefest survey of the
formal characteristics of mediaeval minarets is enough
to yield one very significant result: that virtually the
whole body of surviving minarets belongs to one of
two categories. One category comprises minarets with
ample interior space; the other, minarets in which the
interior space is reduced to the bare minimum re¬
quired for a spiral staircase to ascend the structure.
Minarets with external staircases obviously belong in
neither category. Useful as this division is, it cannot
shed light on the crucial first century of Islam. Any at¬
tempt to explain the function of the minaret by means
of its form has to take some account of the earliest
recorded minarets, even though none of these has sur¬
vived. The interpretation placed on the tantalising
brief literary accounts which refer to the earliest
minarets is therefore crucial.

These accounts are unfortunately either ambivalent
or too short to throw any light on the problem. For ex¬
ample, the historian al-Baladhuri refers to the minaret
at Basra as a stone minaret. Since stone is specified
and the rest of the mosque was of mud brick, it seems
legitimate to conclude that the minaret was important
enough to have special care taken over its construc¬
tion. This, then, seems to be a fairly straightforward
case. The same cannot be said for the minarets of the
mosque of c Amr at Fustat. The source here is the
9th/15th century author al-MakrizI, who states that
Mu c awiya ordered the building of four sawami c (pi. of
sawma c a) for the call to prayer, and that Maslama
placed four sawami c in the corners of the mosque.
Since this is not, in all probability, the first word for
minaret that would have come naturally to the
Mamiuk historian’s mind, its use in this passage
needs some explanation. It is possible that al-Makrlz!
used it deliberately because it connoted to him tall,
rectangular minarets of the Syrian or Ma gh rib! type
(very unlike those which he saw all around him in
Egypt). His choice of word would in that case have
reflected either his own or his source’s precise
knowledge of the form which these early Umayyad

minarets took; or he may have been quoting an earlier
text. Alternatively, he may have used the word
sawami*- with one of his other meanings in mind, such
as a high place. In that case, the sense of the passage
might be more accurately rendered by translating the
key passage as “Maslama heightened the four corners
of the Friday Mosque”. Such an interpretation would
find further support in the literary accounts dealing
with the construction of the Damascus mosque.

The key point to bear in mind in a discussion of the
Damascus minarets is that there is no evidence that
they were the work of any early Muslim patron. In¬
deed, the geographer Ibn al-Fakfh, writing at the
opening of the 10th century A.D., states specifically
that the minarets ( mPdhana ) in the Damascus mosque
“were originally watch towers in the Greek days, and
belonged to the Church of John. When al-Walld
turned the whole area into a mosque, he left these in
their old condition”. Similarly, al-Mas < ud! writes that
in this rebuilding “the sawami* were not changed,
they serve for the adhan at the present day”. Thus
strictly speaking, there is no clear evidence even that
these pre-Islamic towers were used for the call to
prayer in Umayyad times, and one may especially
doubt that they served this function before the reign
of al-Walid, when the Muslims shared the site of the
future Great Mosque with the Christians. Never¬
theless, the significant use of the word sawami* by the
c Irak! al-Mas c ud! pinpoints the connection between
Damascus and Fustat, a connection which would
make sense anyway because Damascus was
Mu c awiya’s capital. Conversely, one might justifiably
use the evidence of Fustat to conclude that in all prob¬
ability the corner towers at Damascus were indeed
used for the adhan after the mosque had been built.

Reasonable grounds therefore exist for assuming
that the corners of the mosque of c Amr at Fustat
looked very like those of the Damascus temenos. Such
sawami c could be no more than abrupt excrescences at
roof level, possibly articulated a little further by cre-
nellations. They would indeed resemble Christian
towers, but only in a somewhat stunted fashion. They
could not aspire to dominate the skyline or indeed
make any marked physical impact on the urban land¬
scape. If this motive had loomed large in the mind of
al-Walld at the time that he was building the
Damascus mosque, it would have been a simple pro¬
cess to heighten the existing corner towers accord¬
ingly. That he chose not to do so is clear evidence that
the symbolic role of the minaret was not yet generally
accepted. Indeed, the mosques of Basra and Fustat
are more prophetic of later developments, even
though they were built earlier. At Basra, the minaret,
whatever its form may have been, was clearly distin¬
guished by its different material of construction, while
at Fustat the sawami* were solid up to roof level,
necessitating access by ladders. While this detail
reflects the early Islamic practice of delivering the
adhan from the roof, it is also conceivable that such
corner sawami* had an architectural function as but¬
tresses for the whole building. Their location and
strength in turn invites a symbolic interpretation of
their function as cornerstones of the faith. The impact
of their placing can be gauged from the statement of
al-Makrlz! that, at the time of the dawn prayer, a
muezzin was stationed at each sawma*a and that their
combined adhan resounded like thunder through the
silent city. It might fairly be said, then, that despite
the probably rather truncated nature of their
resemblance to Christian towers, the sawami* of the
Mosque of c Amr did operate as markers of the
mosque. This function was certainly performed more

364

MANARA, MANAR

effectively and elegantly by later minarets, but the
crucial point is that it is already implicit in the earliest
buildings of this genre.

As evidence of the relationship between the Chris¬
tian towers of Syria and the early minaret, the
earliest surviving Islamic monument, at Bosra [q. v. ]
in southern Syria, is often cited and certainly its
minaret fits naturally into a long series of similar
towers erected in pre-Islamic times as part of Chris¬
tian churches, monasteries and houses, often with a
defensive function. Yet, this Bosra minaret, notable
for its bold projection from the otherwise regular
perimeter wall of the mosque, a feature not explicable
by e.g. any peculiarity of the site or structural con¬
sideration, is actually Mamluk. The Umayyad
mPdhana , according to recent research by Jonathan
Bloom, is the staircase minaret along the west wall.

Hence already in the first Islamic century, the
religious role of the minaret had been defined in
essentials; later times were to bring refinements, but
after this first century, the development of the minaret
proceeded rather on the lines of variations in form and
new secular functions.

For some time, the square form, already well estab¬
lished in Syria, continued to dominate in the Islamic
world. Recent excavations have confirmed that the
square substructure of the minaret of the Mosque of
Sid! c Ukba at al-Kayrawan in Tunisia is of A gh la-
bid date though some of the upper parts are later (thus
weakening a once-popular theory that this minaret
reflects the influences of the Pharos of Alexandria,
which had a three-tier elevation, each tier smaller
than the previous one), but it is quite possible that in
its original form the minaret looked much as it does
now. Lezine suggested that the lighthouse at Salakta
was the formal model, but it is also possible that the
Arab conquerors of North Africa, coming westwards
as they did from Egypt, should have used the most
celebrated tower of Egypt as a model for the minaret
of the first mosque built in the newly-Islamised ter¬
ritory. In this mosque of al-Kayrawan, the minaret
was placed opposite the musalla, and it was only a mat¬
ter of time before the last refinement was added and
the minaret aligned exactly with the mihrab q.v. ] (the
Great Mosque at Samarra is the earliest and best sur¬
viving example of this culminatory process). The
substantial enclosed space of the al-Kayrawan minaret
(base ca. 10m. square and height ca. 35m.) encour¬
aged the possibility of provision of chambers within
the minaret. For some reason, this was not done
there, hence the minaret has inordinately thick walls;
but later MaghribI and Andalusian minarets, such as
the Almohad examples in Seville, Rabat and Mar¬
rakesh, employed such chambers and also gave them
decorative vaults in stone or brick.

These three minarets of the later 6th/ 12th century
mark the zenith of this genre in Western Islam,
perpetuating the outer shell of pre-Islamic and early
Islamic Syrian towers, and of the minaret at Cordoba,
but they are much larger than their distant Syrian
models (approaching 65m. in height) and display rich
decoration on all four sides, with cusped, horseshoe or
multifoil arches, often generating a lattice-work
design, and also with single or paired windows on
each storey. Eventually, too, the Andalusian minarets
were to exert an influence on the campaniles of
Spanish churches of the period—the wheel coming full
circle, as it were, after these towers’ Syrian Christian
origins. So strong was the tradition of the tall, square-
shafted minaret in the Maghrib, that in the eastern
Ma gh rib it survived the coming of the Ottomans; and
in Ottoman Tunis, a novel type of octagonal minaret,

with each face richly tiled and the whole crowned by
a projecting balcony and steepled pavilion, enjoyed
special popularity.

An unexpected and distant by-product of the Syrian
tradition is the Saharanor West African minaret.
The Saharan type, often very high (e.g. the fairly re¬
cent example of the Walad Djalal at Zibane) has a
marked batter to its walls—a feature which had occur¬
red at al-Kayrawan but had not been exploited subse¬
quently in the mediaeval period—and is crowned by
an open-plan kiosk. In West African minarets, most
of which date from the last four centuries (e.g. Tim¬
buktu and Agades), the latter is so pronounced that
the minaret resembles a truncated cone, studded with
projecting palm beams. These facilitate the constant
repairs that such mud-brick structures require. Simi¬
lar minarets are found as far north as the Mzab region
in Algeria.

The minarets of the Ma gh rib and Andalusia form
a school unique in the Islamic world for its Fidelity to
an imported model and for its innate conservatism,
which maintained a broadly consistent form through¬
out a vast area for over a millennium. The history of
the minaret in the rest of the Islamic world, sc. in
Egypt and Turkey and in the area to the east of them,
is somewhat more varied. It embraces a very wide
range of forms, of alien influences, and of functions
both secular and religious.

This wider canvas is immediately apparent in the
immediately post-Umayyad minarets which survive
in the eastern Islamic world. These are principally to
be found in c Irak. Possibly the earliest among them is
the so-called Manarat al-Mudjtda, which departs
from the norms of the first century by being a slender
cylindrical structure of baked brick, with a winding
interior stair and sparing external decoration in baked
brick; hence it is prophetic of the minarets erected in
Iran during the Saldjuk period. Moreover, it is en¬
tirely freestanding, with no sign of there ever having
been a building adjoining it. It lay strategically on the
route between the c Abbasid princely palace of al-
Ukhavdir [see architecture and pi. XIV there] and
Kufa, hence may have had the funtion of a marker,
with its peculiar form a reflection of watchtowers
which apparently stood along the former Sasanid limes
against the Arabs in c Irak.

The most celebrated of early c Abbasid minarets are
of course the helicoidal towers attached to the Great
Mosque of Samarra (234-7/848-52) and the mosque of
Abu Dulaf (245-7/859-61) [see architecture and Pis.
XVII-XVIII there]. Although their precise origin is a
matter of dispute, the question of a classical or Chris¬
tian source does not arise. Their forms are deeply
rooted in ancient Near Eastern architecture. In both
cases, a square base carries an external ramp which
spirals upwards, at First gently but then with increas¬
ing steepness, around a solid central cylinder. In the
case of the minaret at Samarra (the malwiyya) the
ramp ends after five complete revolutions at an ar¬
caded kiosk. A similar aedicule probably crowned the
minaret of the Abu Dulaf mosque after the ramp had
completed four revolutions. The Samarra minaret is
therefore substantially larger, and with a height of
53m. is indeed one of the highest minarets in the
Islamic world. As beFits its importance, the minaret
has a new and imposing location. It is placed some
30m. outside the mosque and is precisely on the axis
of the mihrab. By this means, its integration with the
mosque and its liturgical function in relationship to
the rest of the building is adequately stressed, while its
isolation is sufficiently marked for the minaret to in¬
vite attention as a separate structure. The practice of

MANARA, MANAR

365

placing the minaret on the mihrab axis was copied
throughout the Islamic world.

There seem to be two possible origins for this
bizarre helicoidal form for a minaret. Firstly, an Ira¬
nian one. There survives at Flruzabad in Fars, the
first capital of the Sasanids, a square-shafted tower
with the remains of an external ramp winding round
it (called a tirbdl by the Arabs), and this monument
has been interpreted as a Zoroastrian one, which had
a fire burning at its summit; and we have noted the
Arabs’ readiness to take over architectural forms sanc¬
tified by earlier faiths. Secondly, there is the ancient
Mesopotamian form of the ziggurat or tower-temple.
Whilst most of these had stepped elevations made up
of superimposed squares of decreasing size, a few had
a square base which carried a huge central cylinder
encircled by a rising ramp; a four-storeyed building of
this type has been excavated at Khorsabad [q. v. ] in
northern c Irak. To have adopted either of these types
as a basis for minarets would have accorded with the
anti-Syrian attitudes of the c Abbasids. In the event,
however, the malwiyya form seems to have been too ec¬
centric to serve satisfactorily as a minaret, and it re¬
mained virtually without progeny.

The sole important descendant of the c Irak!
malwiyya, specifically that of the Mosque of Abu
Dulaf, was indeed the minaret of the mosque built by
a servant of the c Abbasids in c Irak, Ahmad b. Tulun,
in Egypt (263-5/876-9) [see architecture and Pis.
XXI-XXIV there]. Unfortunately, the present
minaret is a reconstruction of the late 7th/13th early
8th/14th century, but earlier historians agree that its
original form was spiral.

But these spiral minarets, though fascinating,
represent a by-way in the history of the minaret. In
the eastern Islamic world, the dominating tradition
was henceforth to be that of Iran, where an entirely
different form, that of the lofty, cylinder type, de¬
veloped; this obviously owed nothing to Syria, but
might well have owed something to the regions on
Iran’s northern and eastern fringes, sc. India, Central
Asia and even China (E. Schroeder speculated that
the pillar form is an immemorial symbol of “the axis
of the universe, and the direct way to Heaven”). Even
so, such fragmentary evidence as survives suggest that
the very earliest Iranian minarets, e.g. at Dam gh an
and Siraf, followed the Umayyad square-towered
form, but judging by the minaret of the Nayin
mosque, which has a square, ground-level format sur¬
mounted by an octagonal shaft merging into a taper¬
ing cylinder, this form was soon modified. The Nayin
minaret seems to be pre-Saldjuk, and the literary
evidence confirms that, by the 4th/10th century, ex¬
tremely tall minarets were a feature of Iranian towns.

The tally of surviving 5th/11th and 6th/12th cen¬
tury buildings in Iran shows that this was a time of un¬
precedented building activity, with mosques being,
like madrasas [q.v.], expressions of official Saldjuk
patronage often executed by their amirs (as at e.g. the
mosques of Kazwfn and Burudjird). These soaring
Saldjuk minarets—often around 30m. high, with a
pronounced taper which accentuates their height, in¬
ternal stairways, and lavish external brick geometric
or calligraphic decoration contrasting with the plain¬
ness of the mosque walls—are of such assurance and
completeness in their form that a previous period of
development must surely be postulated. Within this
context of Saldjuk patronage, one notes that the rich
decoration of such minarets testified to its patron’s
munificence. Moreover, as an architectural project it
was substantially smaller in scope—despite its
ostentation—than a mosque. This would obviously

recommend it to less wealthy patrons. That these
minarets did not necessarily have a straightforward
liturgical function is suggested by the case of 6th/12th
century Isfahan. Given that it is only the Friday
mosque that according to custom (not dogma) re¬
quires a minaret, it is remarkable to note that this
city, one of the Saldjuk capitals of Iran, had over a
score of minarets in this period. In nearly every case,
the mosque for which the minaret was originally in¬
tended has vanished. It is tempting to speculate that
these mosques were very much simpler and humbler
structures which had earlier not had minarets. One
may justifiable assume that some evidence besides the
minarets themselves would have remained if these
minarets had been built contemporaneously with their
adjoining mosques as integrated building projects.

The case of the mausoleum traditionally associated
with the Samanid Isma c Tl b. Ahmad at Bukhara shows
that by ca. 900 A.D. the effectiveness of brick decora¬
tion as a mantle for a building, one of relatively small
surface area and therefore cheap, had been disco¬
vered, and was now transposed to the minaret (overall
brick decoration on contemporary tomb towers, with
their much larger diameters, occurs only on smaller
buildings of that genre). The cylindrical Iranian
minaret generated a surprising variety of forms,
mostly in the 6th/12th century, with variations in the
proportion of the plinth, octagonal or square, and the
cylindrical shaft; two or three tiers of tapering
cylinders (e.g. at Ziyar near Isfahan and at Djam in
Ghur in central Afghanistan); staircases might revolve
round a central column or be built into the thickness
of the exterior wall and carried on small vaults. Paired
minarets probably date from this period, as a means
of lending extra importance to the entrance gate of a
building (e.g. at Ardistan and Nakh£iwan), even¬
tually to be brought into the mosque proper in order
to flank the entrance to the musalld. There seems to
have been no consistent practice governing the loca¬
tion of single minarets within the mosque. When the
minaret was erected as an integral component of the
mosque, provision was often made for it to be entered
not at ground level but from the roof of the mosque.
The otherwise puzzling existence of such doorways
comparatively high up the shaft of minarets which are
now free-standing are clear evidence that they were
originally intended to be part of a mosque.

A few minarets of this period raise searching prob¬
lems of function. Some are located along major routes
or at the edge of the desert (Khusrawgird; Ziyar; Mil-i
Nadir!), which would lend support to the theory that
they served, no doubt inter alia , as signposts. Since
much caravan travel was by night, a lamp at the top
of a minaret would allow the building to serve as a
landlocked lighthouse. A chance literary reference
establishes that in 581/1185 the practice of placing a
lamp at the top of a minaret was sufficiently familiar
in Khurasan to occasion no comment. Perhaps the
most enigmatic, as well as the most splendid, minaret
of the period is that of Djam, with a height of ca. 60m.
unprecedented among Iranian minarets, and its main
lower shaft principally decorated by a whole Kur’anic
sura (XIX, Maryam) plus other, mainly historical, in¬
scriptions, lauding the achievements of the Ghurid
sultan GBiyath al-Din Muhammad b. Sam [see
ghurids] ; clearly, there is a motive here of prestige
and victoriousness, with the KuUanic text perhaps
emphasising the Islamic faith in a land which had not
long emerged from paganism.

In later periods, the Iranian minaret never
recovered the importance it had had under the
Saldjuks, but even so, new uses and new types of

366

MANARA, MANAR

decoration were found for it. In Il- Kh anid times, the
device of paired minarets flanking an important iwdn
[q.v .\—usually the entrance to a building—was en¬
thusiastically employed (Abarkuh, Ashtardjan,
Karabaghlar and two buildings in Isfahan). There
was a new emphasis on lavishly-applied tilework, and
this was a crucial factor in a change of emphasis, the
deliberate highlighting of the lower stages of the
minaret. Under the Tfmurids, the separateness of the
minaret was stressed by the technique of enveloping
the shaft with a lozenge grid in brick whose interstices
were each filled with a medallion of high-quality
tilework (e.g. the minarets of the Masdjid-i Shah and
the Mosque of Gawhar Shad, both in Mashhad). In
Safawid times, the topmost storey of the minaret was
standardised in the form of a tapering shallow-domed
cylinder which, like the rest of the minaret, was en¬
tirely sheathed in glazed tilework, with, occasionally,
much of the shaft gilded (e.g. at the shrines of Kum
and Mashhad). Under the Kadjars, architects signal¬
led the increasingly secular function of the minaret by
using it to punctuate entrance portals to bazaars
(Yazd), towns (KazwTn, Simnan) and places
(Tihran); minarets, formerly single or in pairs, now
proliferated and became trivial.

The influence of the Saldjuk minaret is clearly
discernable in Muslim India, carried thither by the
Ghurids and their epigoni; see below, 2. India.

There remains to examine the architectural genre
of the minaret in Egypt and Turkey, two areas where
it enjoyed great popularity. Turkey has had a distin¬
guished though shorter tradition of minaret construc¬
tion than Egypt, beginning with the very numerous
minarets erected by the Saldjuks of Rum, in which we
find a use of paired portal minarets, of massive str¬
ength, all of brick in their upper sections, contrasting
with the ashlar stone facades below, all of this showing
their ultimate Iranian origins.

Rather more individual, perhaps, was the Anato¬
lian interpretation of what had long been a standard
device of Islamic architects, namely employing a
single minaret as an integral part of a mosque deserv¬
ing special attention in its own right. The novelty lay
in reducing the surface area of the mosque and
thereby giving the minaret much more prominence.
Nowhere in the Islamic world is the familiar silhouette
of a compact mosque with a low dome and cylindrical
minaret encountered as regularly as in Turkey. This
is a schema which has attained well-nigh symbolic
status, and was in Anatolia extended to madrasas and
c imdrets. Their sturdiness and their location at a corner
of the building lends these minarets the air of a bas¬
tion, well exemplified in the c Ala 3 al-DTn mosques at
Konya and Nigde or the Ulu Cami at Divrigj (all
7th/l3th century) and, in the following century or so,
in the mosques of c Isa Bey at Sel^uk 777/1375) or
Ilyas Bey at Miletus (806/1404). Such buildings kept
the tradition alive and ensured that it became
canonical under the Ottomans from the time of their
earliest buildings at Iznik (Yesil Cami) and Bursa
(Yesil Cami and the Hudavendigar mosque among
others). In the mature Ottoman masterpieces of Istan¬
bul, two or more minarets are standard equipment for
mosque complexes; but in the provinces the old tradi¬
tion continued unchanged, as mosques in Elbistan,
Diyarbakir, Gebze and elsewhere testify.

Although a variety of forms were used in pre-
Ottoman Anatolia, these minarets give little hint of
the unique role which the minaret was to play in Ot¬
toman architecture, one which became largely fixed,
with its slender and elegant form, like a sharpened
pencil, after the capture of Istanbul. In the Ottoman

minaret, the main cylindrical shaft rises from a square
or polygonal base and is punctuated by one, two or
even three circular balconies carried on mukarnas [q . v.
vaulting, the whole being capped by elongated conica
roofs, sheathed in lead and ending in finials. Muez¬
zins on each balcony would deliver the call to prayer
in the form of a canon; and the acoustic impact of
these many voices would of course be significantly in¬
tensified in a mosque with multiple minarets, the
voices interweaving in different sonorities depending
on the height and distance separating the muezzins.
Whether such musical refinements were entirely audi¬
ble is another matter.

Perhaps the most celebrated feature of Ottoman
minarets was not their outward form but their use in
pairs, quartets or sextets as a device to proclaim the
royal status of the building—for it seems that only a
reigning sultan could erect more than one minaret per
mosque. There can be little doubt that these mosques
represent the most sustained attempt in all of Islamic
architecture to reconcile the divergent aims of royal
and religious iconography. These gigantic, needle-
sharp lances clustered protectively, like a guard of
honour, around the royal dome, have a distinctly ag¬
gressive and ceremonial impact, largely dependent on
their almost unprecedented proportions; the pair of
minarets flanking the Suleymaniye dome are each
some 70m. high. Such minarets function simultane¬
ously to enrich the exterior silhouette of the mosque—
in the case just cited, for instance, the outer minarets
flanking the principal facade of the building are
shorter than those flanking the dome. Thus a
pyramidal effect is achieved which is still further em¬
phasised by the choice of a sloping site. The gently
rolling skyline of Istanbul, with its rural views, was
ideally suited for this kind of display, and the political
significance of the city as the Ottoman capital may
partly have motivated this new use of the minaret as
a component of urban design on a mammoth scale.
Such minarets were also used in a more symbolic way
as markers of the courtyard of the musalla, or of the en¬
tire mosque, staking out the boundaries of the
religious domain within a secular environment. Dome
chamber and minaret alike thus acquire extra
significance as symbols of the faith. This development
was not new, but only in Ottoman architecture is it
pursued with such singlemindedness. It is therefore
entirely appropriate that these minarets should, like
the domes over the mihrab, also bear the emblem of the
crescent, supported on a series of superposed orbs.

If conservatism is the hallmark of the Ottoman
minaret, its counterpart in Egypt is above all varied.
This variety is all the more remarkable because the
Egyptian school is to all intents and purposes concen¬
trated on the buildings of Cairo, though it is
represented in some small measure in the provincial
towns of Egypt and in the architecture of the
Mamluks in Syria and the Levant. Unfortunately,
very few surviving pre-Mamluk minarets have
escaped extensive alternation. Moreover, the most
important examples to fall within this category are not
metropolitan work at all but are found in various pro¬
vincial towns—Esna, Luxor, Aswan and nearby
Shellal, all dating from the late 5th/11 th century and
already displaying the characteristic Egyptian division
of the minaret into separately conceived superimposed
tiers, though Hidjazi influences are at work also.

Interesting as these minarets are stylistically, they
are insignificant in comparison with the great corner
towers marking the main facade of the Mosque of al-
Hakim in Cairo, built between 380/990 and
401/1010. With their massive—but later—embattled

MANARA, MANAR

367

square bases, whose taper, like that of an ancient
Egyptian pylon, is so pronounced that it is almost a
slope, they have all the appearance of bastions. That
this military quality was to some degree present in the
original layout is shown by the fagade of the Mah-
diyya mosque, built in Tunisia early in the previous
century, which too had the corners of its main facade
heavily emphasised by bastions which matched the
main entrace of the mosque in projecting some 3m.
from it and moreover projected a full 7m. from the
lateral walls. In its original layout, the Hakim mosque
maintained the consonance between corner projec¬
tions and portal already established at Mahdiyya,
though the projection was twice as marked. Very
soon, however—by 401/1010—each minaret was
enclosed by a huge salient some 17m. square which
allotted it a revolutionary and portentous role.
Finally, in 480/1087, Badr al-Djamall enlarged the
northern salient to gigantic proportions—some 25m.
square. He thereby not only incorporated the prin¬
cipal facade of the mosque into the expanded fortifica¬
tions of the city—a clear indication of the essentially
military flavour of this mosque—but managed to
make the minarets play a major part in this process
without noticeable strain or incongruity.

Since the minarets of al-Hakim survive only in an
altered state, it is not easy to see where they belong in
the corpus of Egyptian minarets. This is all the more
regrettable in view of the once-vigorous controversy
over the role of the Pharos of Alexandria, which stood
intact until it was partially ruined by an earthquake in
180/796-7, in the evolution of the Egyptian minaret.
Pace Creswell, who argued against any connection be¬
tween the two building types, it can scarcely be
overlooked that the surviving Egyptian minarets
which date before 1100 all attest a pronounced multi¬
partite division of the elevation. Since this feature is
absent alike in the Syrian, Iranian and Ma gh rib!
traditions (with two significant exceptions), some ra¬
tionale for this unusual feature must be proposed, and
a probability here seems to be the Pharos, with the
Egyptian minarets as free variations on the Pharos
theme. (One should note that the Pharos was
repeatedly rebuilt by the Muslims until its final disap¬
pearance between the early 7th/13th and the mid-
8th/14th century. Indeed, as Butler noted, the ac¬
count of c Abd al-Lat!f indicates that in ca. 1200 the
Pharos comprised successively square, octagonal and
round storeys and was crowned by a lantern or small
cupola. It may well be, therefore, that this semi-
Islamic Pharos rather than the original buiding was
the means of establishing the tradition of the multi-
staged minaret in Egypt.)

But if the Pharos did, in one or other of its suc¬
cessive guises, exert some influence on early Egyptian
minarets, this does not seem to have been continuous.
In the early versions of certain towers, the emphasis
was on a tall, square shaft of Syrian type, which may
be very plain (mausolea of Abu TGhadanfar.
552/1157, and Fatima Khatun) or richly decorated
(minaret in madrasa of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad),
with the so-called mabkhara (because it resembled the
top of an incense burner), a two-storey octagonal
pavilion, crowning it. Subsequently, the mabkhara was
accorded more emphasis, and its interior divisions
made more marked, with differing ground plans, oc¬
tagonal and circular, and decorative patterns.

In later times, the principle persisted of altering the
ratio of the component tiers. The main shaft was re¬
duced to the point where it was lost in the surrounding
walls of the mosque, leaving the visible part of the
minaret as an octagonal shaft with a cylindrical

superstructure (minarets of Shaykhun and Sarghat-
mish, both mid-8th/14th century). The transitions be¬
tween the tiers were often marked by multiple
balconies on mukarnas corbelling, recalling Ottoman
minarets, and these were indeed used to secure the
same antiphonal effects in the chanting of the adhan as
in Turkey. There was an emphasis on absolute height,
with the southeastern corner minaret of the Sultan
Hasan mosque soaring to 90m., the tallest in Cairo.
The mabkhara was now replaced by the kulla, so-called
because of its resemblance to the upper half of the
typical Egyptian water container, pear-shaped and
with at least two bronze finials whose crescents are
orientated towards the kibla. In the final decades of
Mamluk rule, the minaret is crowned by a pair of
square-plan pavilions crowned by a cluster of kullas
(funerary complex of Kansuh al- Gh url).

Finally, the popularity of the minaret in Mamluk
architecture invites explanation. In the 8th/14th and
9th/15th centuries, the main building type in Cairo
appears to have been the composite ensemble. Its con¬
stituent parts could vary from one ensemble to an¬
other, but their main functional elements were the
mosque, madrasa, khankah and mausoleum. Similar
complexes had already become popular in Saldjuk
Anatolia. In Egypt, however, unlike Anatolia, the
minaret was from the first regarded as an integral part
of such complexes. Whether this was entirely for func¬
tional reasons may be doubted. In the dense urban
fabric of Cairo, nothing could more appropriately
designate such a complex from afar than a minaret;
and in this sense, it could be regarded as a public affir¬
mation of its patron’s munificence. Their placing
varied. Sometimes they were located at the two cor¬
ners of the principal fagade, or flanking a gateway
(e.g. Bab Zuwayla); these were traditional locations.
But many of the locations were unusual or even un¬
precedented. The madrasa of al-Salih has a single
minaret above the central porch of the fagade, and the
two minarets in the mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad
on the citadel are at the corner of the kibla wall and to
one side of the main entrance. The latter location
recurs in the funerary complex of Ka^it Bay. In this
unpredictable positioning of the minaret, one may
recognise similar concerns to those of Ottoman ar¬
chitects. Now the minaret was, it seems, valued less
for its actual or symbolic religious function and more
for its role as a marker or articulating feature, both
within the complex to which it belonged and more
broadly within the cityscape itself. Once again, then,
the flexibility of the forms developed by Islamic ar¬
chitects asserted itself.

Bibliography : E. Doutte, Les minarets et Tappel
a la pri'ere, in RAfr., xliii (1899), 339-49; H.
Thiersch, Pharos in Antike, Islam und Occident, Leip¬
zig and Berlin 1909; R. Hartmann, Manara, in
Memnon , iii, (1910), 220-2; idem, Zum Thema:
Minaret und Leuchtturm, in I si., i (1910), 388-90; H.
Lammens, Phares, minarets, clochers et mosquees: leur
origine, leur architecture , in Revue des Questions Histori-
ques, N.S. xlvi (1911), 5-27; F. Sarre and E. Herz-
feld, Archaologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigrisgebiet,
Berlin 1911-20, 4 vols.; K. A. C. Creswell, The
evolution of the Minaret, with special reference to Egypt , in
The Burlington Magazine, xlviii (1926), 134-40, 252-
8, 290-8; E. Diez, Manara , in EP ; M. B. Smith,
The Mandrs of Isfahan , in Athar-e Iran , i/2 (1936),
313-58; E. Schroeder, The Iranian mosque form as a
survival , in Proceedings of the Iran Society, i (1936-8),
82-92; J. Schacht, Ein archdischer Minaret-Typ in
A gyp ten und Anatolien, in Ars Islamica, v (1938), 46-
54; S. Hassid, The Sultan’s turrets, a study of the origin

368

MANARA, MANAR

and evolution of the minaret in Cairo, Cairo 1939; J.
Sourdel-Thomine, Deux minarets d’epoque seljoukide en
Afghanistan, in Syria, xxx (1952), 108-36; Creswell,
The Muslim architecture of Egypt, i-ii, Oxford 1952-9;
G. Margais, L ’architecture musulmane d’Occident,
Paris 1954; Schacht, Sur la diffusion des formes d’ar¬
chitecture religieuse musulmane a tracers le Sahara , in
Travaux de Tlnstitut de, Recherches Sahariennes , xi
(1954), 11-27; idem, Further notes on the staircase
minaret, in Ars Orientalis, iv (1961), 137-41; G. R.
Mohammad The minaret and its relationship to the
mosque in early Islam, Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Edin¬
burgh 1964, 2 vols., unpubl.; Creswell Early
Muslim architecture 2 , i/1, Oxford 1969, 59-61; D.
Whitehouse, Staircase minarets on the Persian Gulf, in
Iran, x (1972), 155-8; A. M. Hutt, The development
of the minaret in Iran under the Saljuqs, M. Phil, thesis,
Univ. of London 1974, 2 vols. unpubl.; F. Her¬
nandez Gimenez, El alminar de c Abd al-Rahman III
en el mezquita mayor de Cordoba. Genesis y repercusiones,
Granada 1975; Hutt, The Central Asian origin of the
eastern minaret form, in Asian Affairs, N.S. viii/2
(1977), 157-62; J. M. Bloom, The Mosque of al-
Hakim in Cairo, in Muqarnas, i (1983), 15-36; idem,
Five Fatimid minarets in Upper Egypt, in Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians, xliii/2 (1984), 162-7;
B. O’Kane, Salguq minarets: some new data, in Annales
Islamologiques, xx (1984), 85-101, with full bibl.
covering recent work on Saldjuk minarets; D.
Behrens-Abouseif, The minarets of Cairo, Cairo 1985;
Bloom, The minaret before the Saljuqs, in The art of the
Saljuqs in Iran and Anatolia, ed. R. Hillenbrand (in
the press). (R. Hillenbrand)

2. In India.

The mandra in India, commonly referred to by the
imala form minar, may be either (a) free-standing or
(b) an integral part of a mosque or other building. In
the second category, it is convenient to distinguish the
(actually or potentially) functional from the non¬
functional forms. With rare exceptions, in some
regional styles [see hind. vii. Architecture] no form of
the minar is used at all; Djawnpur; Malwa; the Dihli
sultanates and the pre-Mughal Pandjab; Sind; Kash¬
mir; the c Imad Shahi. Nizam Shahi and Barid Shahi
sultanates in the Deccan. (It might be objected that
the non-functional forms do not properly qualify to be
called minars at all; but these forms, with others to be
mentioned below, are certainly derived from minar
prototypes, and there is no other recognised term by
which they may conveniently be described. The term
minar is regularly applied to towers of many types and
functions.)

(a) The free-standing minar First appears in India
as an adjunct to the earliest mosque (“Kuwwat al-
Islam”) in Dihli, standing outside the original
mosque compound, commenced by Kutb al-Din Ay-
bak (whence, possibly, its sobriquet of “Kutb Minar”
[q. v. ]) about 595/1199, and completed before
634/1236 by Iltutmish [q. v. to a height of some 230
feet. The taper of its profile is very pronounced,
nearly 5° from the vertical and it was divided into four
stages by encircling balconies supported by mukarnas
corbels; the three lower stages show different designs
of vertical fluting, the flutes on the lowest stage being
alternately rounded and angular, those in the second
all rounded, those in the third all angular (the original
fourth stage was rebuilt into two storeys in 770/1368
under Firuz Shah the Tughlukid). The occurrence of
the Kur’an, LXII, 9-10, in an inscription on the sec¬
ond storey affords presumptive evidence for the use of
the minar as a mPdhana. The assertions s.v. dihlI (II,
260) and hind (III, 441) above, that the fluted storeys

develop the polygonal outline of the minars of Ghazna.
taken as the prototype of the Dihli minor , now need
modification in the light of later research: A. Hutt, in
Three minarets in the Kirman region, in JRAS (1970), 172-
80, shows that the section of the base of the minaret
of the Masdjid-i Djami c of Zarand shows precisely the
same disposition of alternate rounded and angular
flutes; this is therefore a more exact exemplar for the
Kutb Minar than the minars at Gh azna. whose section
is stellate, based on two interlaced squares. A minar in
the Sistan region, described by K. Fischer in
Afghanistan, xxii/3-4 (1970), 91-107, of similar form,
suggests a nearer prototype on the probable line of
transmission to India. (There is thus now even less
need to cite the form of the Doddabasappa temple in
Dambal, Dharwar district, as a possible prototype of
the Kutb Minar plan, as has been advocated by some
Hindu enthusiasts.) The characteristic taper of the
Kirman examples, and of the minaret of Djam in
Afghanistan, is also closer to that of the Kutb Minar
than are the Gh azna examples. These details are em¬
phasised here because of their persistence in certain
aspects of mosque architecture, described under (b)
below. Other free-standing minars stand or stood at
Ko 5 il ( c Aligarh) (inscr. 652/1254; erected by Balban
as governor to commemorate victories of the sultan
Nasir al-Din Mahmud; tapering with square base and
external galleries supported by cornices, with internal
spiral stair, but demolished in 1862 without adequate
record; Bayana, cylindrical with slight entasis but un¬
finished, in city near Ukha mandir and Ukha mas¬
djid, 9th/l5th century, and tall minar in hilltop fort,
tapered with corbelled balcony, inscr. 871/1466 (?),
possibly with a double staircase (entrance blocked on
my visit in 1972); Dawlatabad, “Cand Minar” in in¬
ner city, ca. 849/1445, three encircling galleries sup¬
ported by elaborate brackets, similar profile to minars
of madrasa in Bidar, see below; Bldar town,
“Cawbara”, low cylindrical tower at crossing of main
thoroughfares, early 9th/15th century; 6hota
Pandu 5 a Bengal: massive minar 50m. from Bari
masdjid, early 8th/14th century, five diminishing tiers
resembling half-drawn-out telescope, lowest three
fluted; Gawr: Feroz Minar, ca. 895/1490, no taper,
polygonal section. Both Hiran minar at Fathpur Slkrl
and “Nlm sara 3 !” minar at old Malda, Bengal,
tapered with stone projections resembling elephant
tusks (on which to display heads of rebels?), Mu gh al,
late 10th/16th century; Dihli “Cor Minar”, early
9th/15th century, many holes for same purpose;
Shavkhupura. Pandjab, Hiran Minar, 30m., tapering
1044/1635, popularly sometimes supposed to com¬
memorate Djahangir’s favourite elephant, but often
attributed to Dara Shukoh. Finally, the Kos Minars
of the early Mughal period, solid towers of similar
profile to the Kutb Minar but only 6-8 m. high, were
set at intervals of a kos [see misaha. 2. India] along the
major thoroughfares. Many purposes are involved in
the above: mPdhana ; observation post to command
dead ground; possibly, following Hindu examples,
“victory tower”; other commemoration; platform for
shooting or observation game; execution displays;
distance markers. The purposes are frequently
combined.

(b) Minars attached to a mosque or other
building, however, are provided primarily as
mPdhanas, although since they are almost always
multiplied symmetrically, they obviously have also an
important aesthetic function (the single minar in the
south-east corner of the courtyard of the Bahmani Ek
minar ki masdjid at Raycur [q.v. ] is a striking excep¬
tion). Only in Gudjarat under the Ahmad Shahi

MANARA, MANAR

369

sultanate, and in Burhanpur in Khandesh, are paired
functional minars used regularly before the Mu gh al
period; here they are cylindrical, their internal stair¬
cases opening on to one or more encircling balconies
supported on heavy corbels as well as to the mosque
roof, and are capped by conical roofs with no sugges¬
tion of an open turret. The earliest Ahmad ShahT ex¬
amples flank the central arch of the liwan, although
later they may be placed at the north and south ends
of the facade. The latest mosques of the Ahmad ShahT
period, e.g. Rani SabarT’s mosque and the Isanpur
one, have solid pseudo-mfnars at the ends of the
fagade.

This sudden reintroduction of the mpdhana-rnindr,
with an immediate secondary aesthetic function, is
not fully explained. Gudjarat mosques in DihlT
Sultanate times such as Hilal Kh an's one at Dholka,
the Djami c mosque at Cambay, have only solid con¬
ical or cylindrical pillars over the parapet flanking the
central bay of the liwan ; but earlier DihlT Sultanate ex¬
amples outside Gudjarat may show the connection
with the Kutb MTnar; e.g. the ArhaT din ka djompra
mosque at Adjmer carries two cylindrical turrets, solid
and some 2m. tall, over the maksura arch, with vertical
flutes alternately circular and angular exactly as on
the lowest storey of the Kutb MTnar (similar fluting
occurs on the external corner buttresses of the mosque
courtyard). In DihlT itself, the Kutb MTnar profile is
perpetuated in the solid buttresses which flank
mosque gateways, the central bay of the liwan fagade,
the external mihrab- project ion, and external corners of
courtyards, in the Tughluk and LodT periods; these
show at least one band of Kutb MTnar-like fluting,
and their profile is carried up above parapet level to
end in a guldasta; especially when flanking the central
propylon-like arch of the liwan fagade, these suggest
paired mPdhana towers, and may thus have a psycho¬
logical purpose. This would seem to be the explana¬
tion for many of the examples which follow. In the
BahmanT Sultanate, the minar is not used regularly
with mosques; that at Raycur mentioned above is an
exception, and the Cand MTnar at Dawlatabad is
doubtless sited with the old Djami c mosque in mind
although physically separated by some 100 metres—
doubtless also to enable a view of broken ground to
the east. The profile of both resembles that of the re¬
maining one minar of two at the ends of the entrance
fagade of the madrasa of Mahmud Gawan ( q. ] at
BTdar, inscr. 877/1472, although the balconies of the-
latter are carried out from the main shaft in a cur¬
vilinear form rather than being supported on brackets
in the usual Indian manner. All are crowned with a
dome-shaped cap, with no open room at the top. The
old brick minars attached to the courtyard of the much
later Makka Masdjid at BTdjapur, also of BahmanT
date, have lost their upper parts; their balconies seem
to have been supported on wooden brackets. Other
BahmanT minars , all of similar profile, are the pairs
flanking the gateways of the dargah of Shavkh Siradj
al-DTn DjunaydT and the so-called house of Gesu
Daraz, both in Gulbarga, and those flanking both the
outer and inner gateways of the dargah at Aland; but
these are crowned with foliated domes of three-
quarter sphere shape, as in the c Adil ShahT and Kutb
ShahT styles, and those of the outer gateway have
moreover an encircling band of open arches in the
Kutb ShahT manner. Of possible relevance to the de¬
signs in north India referred to above are the guldastas
which stand at the corners of the parapets of BahmanT
tombs, starting with the very earliest at Gulbarga:
these are fluted, although fluting does not extend to
the minars. The minar proper is not used at all in the

Bahmanls’ successor states. The skylines of mosques
and tombs of the c Adil ShahTs in BTdjapur and else¬
where are so liberally provided with vertical pillars as
to resemble a burgeoning asparagus bed, but these are
at best pseudo-mfmzrs which may psychologically sug¬
gest the mPdhana-mindr but whose real function is
merely artistic. Turrets, chatris and guldastas are also
freely used, but the relation between these forms can¬
not be pursued here. The minar-Wke structures of the
Kutb ShahTs of Haydarabad and Golkonda, similarly,
are usually solid shafts, cylindrical, with characteristic
encircling arcaded galleries, although in a late off¬
shoot of the Kutb ShahT style in the Djami c mosque of
SrTrangapaffana \q.v.) (“Seringapatam”) an internal
staircase is provided. That the bases of the pseudo-
rnindrs of the TolT Masdjid (1082/1671) outside
Haydarabad city stand in pot-shaped bases should not
be taken as representing any connexion with ancient
Indian pillars.

Under the Mughals, the functional minar returns to
north India; this is possibly inspired by Gudjarat ex¬
amples, since other typically GudjaratT features are in¬
troduced into Mughal architecture after the conquest
of Gudjarat in 980/1573. The first example is that of
the four minars at the corners of the gateway of
Akbar’s tomb at Sikandra, completed in the early
years of the 11 th/17th century: tapering, white marble
(the lowest stage fluted), two intermediate balconies
supported on corbel brackets, topped by an open chatri
with slender columns. With some variation in the pat¬
terns of the intermediate balconies, and of the
material, section and decoration of the shaft, this type
is the model for the major later minars : at DjahangTr’s
tomb in Lahawr; the Djami c mosque
(Shahdjahanabad) DihlT; the Tadj Mahall at Agra
(but not the Djami c mosque); the mosque of WazTr
Khan at Lahawr; the BadshahT mosque of Lahawr,
which has also short minar- like corner turrets; the
tomb of Rabi c a DawranT (“BTbT ka makbara”) at
Awrangabad; AwrangzTb’s mosques in Banaras,
Mathura, etc.; short corner staircased minars also at
the tomb of I c timad al-Dawla at Agra, little more
than turrets, seem to be the mode! for engaged corner
turrets at e.g. the tomb of Safdar Djang at DihlT, and
Mughal mosques in Bengal e.g. Dhaka, Mur-
shidabad, etc. Since there is no necessity for the ddhdn
at tombs, many of these Mughal minars are thus also
principally decorative.

Bibliography : In addition to references in the
text, see for the Kutb MTnar, J. A. Page, Historical
memoir on the Qutb (= MASI , 22), Calcutta 1926,
and its abridgement Guide to the Qutb, Dehli,
Calcutta 1927; cf. also A. Maricq and G. Wiet, Le
minaret de Djam , Paris 1959. For Ko^il: Aligarh gazet¬
teer, 1902, 165 ff.; A. Rashid, Koil minar—who
built?, in Proc. Ind. Hist. Congr., vi, 1943, 395-7 (not
seen). For BTdar: G. Yazdani, Bidar\ its history and
monuments, Oxford 1947, 90-100 and Plates L-LVI,
LXIV. For Bengal: short descriptions, photographs
and bibliographical notes in Catherine B. Asher,
Inventory of key monuments, in G. Michell (ed.), The
Islamic heritage of Bengal, UNESCO Paris 1984, 53,
73, 108; forChofa, Pandua, also H. Blochmann, in
Proc. ASB (1870), 122, and Jd^(1870), plates. For
Gudjarat, see Bibl. to hind, vii. For the BahmanT
structures mentioned: illustrations in E.S. Merkl-
inger, Indian Islamic architecture: the Deccan 1347-
1686, Warminster 1981 (text very unreliable); for
Raycur also Ann. Rep. Arch. Dept. Hyderabad, 1339F.
Illustrations of Kutb ShahT (pseudo)- minars: Car
MTnar, Ann. Rep. Arch. Dept. Hyderabad , 1328F., 3-
4, and PI. III-IV; TolT masdjid, ibid. , 1326F., 3-5,

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

370

MANARA, MANAR — MANAS

Plates II-III, IX-X., and see also srirangapat-
fANA. For the c Adil Shah! decorative forms, see
Bibl.. to bIdjapur. Monuments. For the Mu gh al
minars and associated structures, see mughals. Ar¬
chitecture. A fully-illustrated study by the author of
minars, guldastas and associated structures is in
preparation. (J. Burton-Page)

3. In East Africa, the word (Swahili, mnara, pi.
minara ), has three connotations:

(1) Before the late 19th century minarets were of ex¬
treme rarity. The Great Mosque of Kilwa in Tan¬
zania, the largest of all, did not have one. The only
examples are the Great Mosque (1238) and the
Mosque of Arba c a Rukun (1268) at Mogadishu, and
the Friday Mosque at Merca (1609), all in Somalia
and dated by inscriptions; a late 14th century mosque
at Ras Mkumbuu, Pemba Island; and the Malindi
Mosque in Zanzibar Town built in 1831, of which the
minaret is reputedly of greater age. Many mediaeval
mosques, however, possess an external staircase,
sometimes part of the structure of the ablutions, from
which the call to prayer was given. The earliest such
example is at Kaole, near Bagamoyo, Tanzania,
while the Great Mosque at Kilwa, Tanzania, has two
such staircases outside the mosque proper in its north
and south courts respectively.

(2) The word is also used, both in Arabic and
Swahili, for the pillar tombs which are an architec¬
tural peculiarity of the eastern African coast. Situated
generally on the north of kibla side—for Mecca lies al¬
most due north of the eastern African coast—these
tombs are formed by a roofless square or rectangular
walled structure, providing space for two up to five or
six burials, the distinguishing pillar being cylindrical
or tapered, square, hexagonal or octagonal, and
usually with a string course or some other form of
decoration near the top that markedly suggests a
phallic origin. (In this connection it should perhaps be
noted that at Mtitimira, some 12 miles north of
Kilwa, a representation of a phallus the size of a
man’s forearm surmounts the mihrdb arch in a mosque
that was abandoned in the 14th century.) The height
of the pillars varies greatly from some 10 to 20 feet,
but at Mombasa an extreme example reaches some 60
feet and has a base which actually spans the entire
tomb. It is alleged today by some Sunni Muslims
amongst the Swahili that these pillar tombs are the
work of Shills, but this has never been confirmed.
The only reference to a pillar tomb in literature is in
the Arabic History of Kilwa , B.L. Or. ms. 2666, which
refers to the burial ca. 1364 of sultan Talut b. al-
Husayn of Kilwa in a pillar tomb on Mafia Island
which was already occupied by the burials of two
fakihs. This is the earliest date that we possess for these
structures, but regrettably the tomb in question seems
to have fallen into ruin and disappeared. Pillar tombs
are distributed from as far north as Koyama in the Ba-
jun Islands off the east coast of Somalia to as far south
as Mboamaji, a few miles south of Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania. Their walls are frequently panelled and
often elaborately decorated with different motifs
sculptured in coral, and sometimes inlaid with plates
of Chinese porcelain, rarely celadon, but chiefly blue-
and-white of the Ming dynasty. This practice already
existed in the 14th century, as witness Yuan porcelain
inlaid in the pillar of a pillar tomb at Kaole, near
Bagamoyo, Tanzania. In 1954 the Zumbe (chief) of
Mkwaja regretted to the present writer that no
porcelain plates of Chinese origin were available for
the decoration of the Zumbe’s father’s tomb. In
default of porcelain, a group of early 20th century
tombs at Moa, Tanzania, is decorated with blue
enamel plates.

(3) A structure on Songo Mnara Island near Kilwa,
which gives the island its name, is built on a platform
of four steps some sixteen yards offshore. Visiting it in
1950, the late Gervase Mathew found the skeletal re¬
mains of a goat which had apparently been sacrificed
on top of it. It is described by P. S. Garlake as a
mosque, but an Arabic treaty between the then Sultan
of Kilwa and a French slave-trader, Jean-Vincent
Morice, dated 12 Sha c ban 1190/4 November 1776,
clearly refers to it as bayt manor (sic). Garlake prints a
plan of the structure showing a small mosque with a
ruined mihrdb , but H.N. Chittick, who partly cleared
the building in 1961, founds it to be “a truncated
pyramid with stepped sides, surmounted by a rec¬
tangular chamber”, with doors at the north and
south. The present writer did not distinguish the re¬
mains of a mihrdb when he visited it in 1955. Morice’s
two maps of ca. 1776 show it as a three-storeyed
building, the three storeys tapering towards the top;
he refers to is as la pagode. Chittick found only two
storeys remaining, the second storey being decorated
with numerous late 15th century celadon bowls. J.
Crassons de Medeuil, another slave-trader, writing in
1784, says that la pagode which “was very curious
looking”, had fallen down at some time during the
preceding three years. This sentence follows im¬
mediately upon the description of a mosque, thus
clearly differentiating it therefrom. M. H. Dorman
thought it to have been a lighthouse, but this is
unlikely because these are unknown in eastern Africa
at the period indicated by the celadon bowls, and in¬
deed until the later 19th century. The elaborate
decoration suggests rather that the building was
domestic, even if the lowest of the three rooms was
used for prayer, and that perhaps it was a tower kiosk
built so as to take advantage of the evening breeze on
what is a hot sticky island. This explanation would
satisfy the meaning both of mnara and that of pagode in
18th century French.

Bibliography : H. N. Chittick, Tanganyika, An¬
nual report of the Antiquities Division, 1961 , 1963, 5;
M. H. Dorman, The Kilwa civilisation and the Kilwa
ruins , in Tanganyika Notes and Records , no. 6 (1938),
68; G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, Medieval history of
the coast of Tanganyika, London 1962, 116; idem, The
East African coast: select documents, Oxford 1962;
idem, The French at Kilwa Island, Oxford 1965, 72-5,
202, 206; idem and B. G. Martin, A preliminary
handlist of the Arabic inscriptions of the Eastern African
coast, \nJRAS (1973), 103, 107; P. S. Garlake, The
early Islamic architecture of the East African coast,
Nairobi 1966, 84, 91; V. L. Grotanelli, I pescatori
delTOceano Indiana, Roma 1955, 29; J. S. Kirkman,
Men and monuments on the East African coast, 1964,
numerous references, esp. 90-1; S. A. Strong, The
History of Kilwa , in JRAS (1895), 417; anon., A guide
to Zanzibar, Government Printer, Zanzibar 1952, 49
(historical sections compiled by Sir J. M. Gray).

(G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville)
MANAS, the name of the paramount hero
of the Kirghiz oral epic tradition and also of the
totality of the epics which accreted about him and his
kindred by the process of cyclisation, in this case very
marked.

Some 4,000,000 lines of Manas are said to have
been recorded in Kirgizia in this century, but not one
scholarly edition of a self-contained performance has
appeared, or, if it has, has yet reached the West. A
recording of an episode from Manas was made by R.
Dor in the Pamir in 1973, of which a philological edi¬
tion, with translation and commentary, is imminent;
and recordings of Manas in Xinjiang by members of
the Institute for Minorities, Peking, are reported to

MANAS — MANASTIR

371

have been made during the last decade. In 1911-12,
G. von Almasy published 72 lines critically, with
translation and commentary. Thus the importance of
the 15,705 lines of Manas recorded by W. Radloff (V.
V. Radlov) and Ch. Ch. Valikhanov between 1856
and 1869 cannot be overestimated: it is obligatory in
method that the earliest extant specimens of an heroic
tradition be studied before the later, and the later
Kirghiz epics can scarcely be available in acceptable
editions within a hundred years from now.

What follows here is largely based on close study of
the mid-19th century recordings. The disordered
renarration from Manas in the Tadjik MadjmxT al-
tawarlkh of Sayf al-Dln, attributed to the 16th century,
has been accepted as evidence of the flourishing of
Manas at that time; yet the two mss. of the Madjmu' so
far cited are dated respectively 1792-3 and 19th cen¬
tury, so that the (very likely) possibility that the Manas
passage was interpolated to serve the political ends of
Khokand requires convincing disproof before it can
be considered as evidence for Manas in Kir gh iz at so
early a date. However, Manas , as it appears in Kir¬
ghiz verse for the first time in the Valikhanov recor¬
ding of Kokotoydiin ashi (“The memorial feast for
Kokotoy”) in 1856, reflects a mature and truly epic
tradition which is obviously the product of many
generations. Surprisingly, if one goes back to this
earlier tradition from the patriotic and at times
stridently nationalistic material of the 20th century,
one finds that the heroes are not Kir gh iz but No gh ay:
on the very rare occasions when “Kir gh iz” are
named, it is with irony. Nevertheless, the connection
between the mid-19th century epic tradition and the
life of the Kir gh iz as then lived is supplied by the
situation of Manas, his son Semetey and his grandson
Seytek: all are only sons forming a fragile line of khans
that is threatened with extirpation in manhood,
boyhood, in the very womb. And such, mutatis
mutandis, was the situation of the scattered Kir gh iz
tribes themselves, dangerously hemmed in as they
were on their high pastures by the Chinese, the
Kalmik, the Khokanders and the Russians. The
“Noghay” of mid-19th century Kir gh iz epic are, as
were the Kirghiz themselves, only superficially
touched by Islam, their treacherous Kalmik an¬
tagonists even less by Lamaist Buddhism. The plots of
the various self-contained episodes of the abstraction
Manas that were recorded in 1856-69 are clear-cut,
stark and existential. The style is rapid, graphic and
abounding in beautifully-structured epithets and for¬
mulae aimed at connoisseurs. It provides a touchstone
by which the published 20th-century material, despite
its enrichment by Persian narrative poetry and the
European novel, must be pronounced inflated,
distorted and, qua epic, decadent.

Bibliography : See for pre-1966 references,
hamasa. iv. Central Asia. Since 1966: (i) Mid-
19th-century. (Edition) A.T. Hatto, The
memorial feast for Kokotoy-khan (Kokotoydiin asi). A
Kirghiz epic poem edited for the first time from a photocopy
of the unique manuscript with translation and commentary,
London Oriental Series, 33, Oxford 1977. (Inter¬
pretation) [All by A.T. Hatto] The birth of Manas ,
in Asia Major, N.S., xiv (1969), 217-41; Kukotay
and Bok Murun: a comparison of two related heroic
poems of the Kirgiz, in BSOAS, xxxii (1969), 344-78,
541-70; Almambet, Er Kokco and Ak Erkec , in CAJ, xiii
(1969), 161-98; Koz-kaman , in CAJ, xv (1971), 81-
101, xv (1972), 241-83; The Kirgiz original of Kukotay
found , in BSOAS, xxxiv (1971), 379-86; Semetey, in
Asia Major , xviii (1973), 154-80, xix (1974), 1-36;
Germanic and Kirgiz heroic poetry. Some comparisons and

contrasts, in Deutung und Bedeutung. Studies ... presented
to Karl-Werner Maurer, ed. Brigitte Schludermann et
alii, The Hague-Paris 1973, 19-33; The catalogue of
heroes and heroines in the Kirgiz Joloi-kan, in Tractata
altaica. Festschrift for Denis Sinor , Wiesbaden 1976,
237-60; Plot and character in mid-nineteenth-century
Kirghiz epic, in Die mongolischen Epen, Asiatische
Forschungen, Bd. 68, Wiesbaden 1979, 95-112;
The marriage, death and return to life of Manas: a Kirghiz
poem of the mid-nineteenth century, in Turcica , xii
(1980), 66-94 (= Pt. I; Pt. II in 1981); Zyklische
Anspielungen und Epitheta in der altkirghisischen
Heldenepik, in Asiatische Forschungen , lxxii (1981).
(Survey) Kirghiz. Mid-nineteenth century, in Tradi¬
tions of heroic and epic poetry, gen. ed. A.T. Hatto,
London, i (1980), 300-27. (ii) 20th century.
(Miscellaneous) Manas. Geroiceskiy epos kirgiz-
skogo naroda, ed. S. Musaev, Frunze 1968
( = Reprints of in part-inaccessible essays); J. Hein,
Epik altaischer Volker (passim), in Volksepen der
uralischen und altaischen Volker , ed. W. Veenker
( = Ural Alaische Bibliothek, xvi), Wiesbaden
1968, 55-65; S. M. Musaev, Problemi naucnoy
publikatsii tekstov “Manasa”, in FoTklor. izdanie eposa,
ed-in-chief A.A. Petrosyan, Moscow 1977, 223-9;
I. Basgoz, The epic tradition among Turkic peoples, in
Heroic epic and saga, ed. F. Oinas, Bloomington and
London 1978, 318-22; S. Musaev, Epos “Manas”-,
naucno-populyarniy ocerk, Frunze 1979, 1-205.

(A.T. Hatto)

al-MANASIR, Banu (sing. al-MansurI), the
name of half-a-dozen tribes, or branches of a
single tribe, residing in eastern and southern
Arabia, c Irak, Jordan, the Sudan and Algeria. The
Arabian tribe or branch, at least, claim descent from
Kahtan through Ghuwaynim, and they are thus, in
the Arabic genealogical scheme, al-^Arab al- c ariba, or
true Arabs. Both they and the Jordanian branch boast
of having been originally Christian, hence the deriva¬
tion of the name from Nasara. Presumably therefore,
the tribe originated in the Yemen, although the name
does not appear in any of the South Arabian
genealogical works.

Little has been written about those residing in the
Fertile Crescent or in the Sudan, aside from the
statements that those in Jordan (al-Balka 3 ) are af¬
filiated with the Banu Djarumiyya and those in c Irak
with the large and important Banu Shammar. In
Algeria, the al-ManasIr, living along the coast be¬
tween Tenes and Cherchell, have apparently been
Berberised.

In eastern and southern Arabia, the Banu ’1-
Manaslr share the entire southern edge of the Rub c al-
Khall from the border of c Uman to Nadjran, a
distance of about a thousand miles, with the Banu
Murra, noted, until modernisation, for their particu¬
larly fine herds of camels. Although supporters of the
Su c udT family, the al-ManasIr are not Wahhabis and
follow the Malik! school of law.

Bibliography : c Umar Rida Kahhala, Mu c djam
kaba^il al- c Arab, Damascus 1948, iii; H.St. J.B.
Phil by, The Empty Quarter, New York 1933; A.
Hamilton, The Kingdom of Melchior, London 1949;
Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab
Emirates, London 1982. (C.L. Geddes)

MANASTIR. The name Manastir (Greek monas-
tirion) is not an uncommon toponym (cf. Goljam
Manastir in Bulgaria and Manastir near Bey^ehir in
Turkey). However, it usually occurs astheTurkish
designation for the modern town ofBitola in
the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in Yugoslavia.
Bitola is situated near the site of the ancient town of

372

MANASTIR — MANASTIRLI MEHMED RIF C AT

Heraclea where the eastern foothills of the 2,601m.
high Mt. Pelister merge with the Pelagonian Plain.
The town, already mentioned as an episcopal see in
the 5th/11 th century, had developed into an impor¬
tant urban centre as a result of its advantageous situa¬
tion on the old Via Egnatia even before it was
conquered by Timurtash Pasha in the eighth decade
of the 8th/14th century. While documents pertaining
to the history of the town under Ottoman rule are ex¬
tant from as early as the first half of the 9th/15th cen¬
tury (H. Kalesi, Najstarija arapska vakufnama u
Jugoslaviji, in POP, x-xi [1961], 55-75), statistical data
reflecting the development of Manastir are extant
only since the seventh decade of the century, and only
last (as far as is known) until the seventh or eighth
decade of the following 10th/16th century (M.
Sokoloski, Turski izvorni podatoci od XV i XVI vek za
gradot Bitola, in Glasnik INI, vii/1 [1963], 127-56; idem
(ed.), Turski dokumenti za istorijata na makedonskiot narod.
Opsirni popisni defteri od XV vek, ii, Turksi dokumenti za
makedonskata istorija , 5 vols. Skopje 1973, 141-5). The
sidjills of the kadis of Manastir, which offer a
penetrating view into almost all aspects of urban life,
document the period from 1016/1607 to the end of Ot¬
toman rule in Macedonia (1912) and beyond. They
also witness the development of Manastir first into a
residence of the waits of Rumeli (in the course of the
second half of the 12/18th century), and then to the of¬
ficial seat of the provincial government of the eyalet of
Rumeli which was redefined in 1836 (M. Sokoloski,
A, Starova, V. Boskov and F. Ishak (eds.), Turksi
dokumenti za istorijata na makedonskiot narod, Serija prva:
1607-1699, 4 vols. Skopje 1963-72: i (1607-23), ii
(1627-35), iii (1636-9), iv (1640-2); A. Matkovski
(ed.), Turski izvori za ajdutstvoto i aramistvoto vo
Makedonija, 5 vols. Skopje 1961-80: i (1620-50), ii
(1650-1700), iii (1700-25), iv (1725-75), v (1775-
1810); P. Dzambazovski, and A. Starova (eds.)
Skopje 1951-8: i (1800-3), ii (1803-8), iii (1809-17), iv
(1818-27), v (1827-39)). In addition, documents from
the archives of the metropolitan of Manastir pertain¬
ing to the first half of the 13th/19th century have been
published (I. Snegarov, Gracki kodeksi na Pelagonijskata
mitropolija/Griechische Kodexe der Pelagonischen Metropolie,
in Godisnik na Sofiskija universitet, Bogoslovski fakultet,
xxv [Sofia 1948], 2-58). Since the middle of the
13th/l9th century, when numerous European con¬
sulates were established in Manastir, consular reports
comprise one of the most important historical sources.
As a result of its importance, Manastir became the
capital of a wilayet of the same name in 1874 and again
in 1879 (A. Birken, Die Provinzen des Osmanischen
Reiches, Wiesbaden 1976, 71 f.). Its population in
1900 was 37,000, and in 1971, 65,035 (M. Panov,
Geografija na SR Makedonija , i, Skopje 1976, 303).

Bibliography : A first, uncritical, sketch of the
history of Manastir from its beginning is given by
Mehmed Tewfik, Manastir wilayetinih tarikhcesi ve
istatistik-i c umumisi, Manastir 1327/1909, Serbo-
Croat tr. Glisa Elezovic, Kratka istorija bilolskog vila-
jeta , in Bratstvo, xxvii (1935), 190-244. Although no
comprehensive, scientific treatment of Manastir’s
history has been undertaken as yet, a general
abstract, based in part on more recent research, has
been undertaken by Apostolos E. Vacalopoulos,
History of Macedonia 1354-1833, Thessaloniki 1973
(cf. index s.v. “Monastir”). The first, tentative,
contributions to a bibliography of “Bitola and en¬
virons up to World War I” have been begun by
Koco Sidovski, Prilog kon bibliografijata za Bitola i
Bitolsko do prvata svetska vojna , in Istorija , ix/1 (Skopje
1973), 264-70; x/1 (1974), 405-8; x/2 (1974), 571-5;
xii/1-2 (1976), 323-7. (M. Ursinus)

MANASTIRLI MEHMED RIF C AT (1851-1907),
Ottoman Turkish officer, writer, poet and
playwright of the younger Tanzimdt generation.
Born in Monastir [see manastir], son of a regimental
secretary, ReshTd Efendi, who had migrated from
Athens and settled there, he attended the local
military school and then was trained at the War Col¬
lege (Mekteb-i Harbiyye ) in Istanbul and graduated in
1872 as a staff captain. He and his class mate, a close
friend (and future collaborator in many plays) Hasan
Bedreddln (Bedr al-Dm) were both appointed
teachers at the War College where they attracted the
attention of Suleyman Pasha \q. v. ], director general of
military schools ( makatib-i c askeriyye naziri) who thought
highly of them and protected them.

When Hiiseyn c Awm Pasha, the Minister of War
(Ser (i asker) and his close friends in the government (in¬
cluding the great liberal Midhat Pasha [<?.^.]) who
strongly disapproved of Sultan c Abdul c azTz ( c Abd al-
c Aziz)’s regime, decided to dethrone the Sultan, they
secured the help of their trusted man, Suleyman
Pasha, a convinced liberal and prominent soldier-
scholar. On the night of 30 May 1876, the
Dolmabah^e Palace was surrounded by troops led by
Suleyman Pasha. They consisted of two battalions of
War College cadets commanded by Mehmed RiPat
and his colleague and friend Hasan Bedreddln re¬
spectively. c Abdul c aziz commited suicide on 5 June,
six days after his dethronement.

During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-8, Meh¬
med RiPat, now a major, was sent to the Eastern
Anatolian front and fought under Ghazf Ahmed
Mukhtar Pasha \qv.]. He was taken prisoner, sent to
Russia and returned home after the peace (July 1878).
But the new absolutist regime which was inaugurated
after the dissolution of Parliament (13 February 1878)
marked down Mehmed RiPat and Hasan Bedreddln
as persona non grata, having collaborated with “dan¬
gerous” liberals.

When in 1882 c AbdiiIhamid II ( c Abd al-Hamid)
decided to get rid of Midhat Pasha, “the Father of the
Constitution” (Eb-i Meshrutiyyet) who was at the time
in Izmir as governor of the wilayet of Aydfn, he ac¬
cused him of having arranged the “assassination” of
Sultan c AbduPaziz in 1876, had him arrested and sent
to the Yildiz Palace, where he and fourteen others
were sentenced. All soldiers and civil servants in¬
volved in the dethronement, or simply thought to
have liberal ideas, were banished from Istanbul. True
to Hamfdian methods of dealing with undesirable
soldiers and civil servants, Mehmed RiPat was first
promoted to lieutenant-colonel, then posted to a divi¬
sion in Damascus and later transferred to Aleppo,
whence he never returned. He died in Aleppo in this
same rank, in 1907, one year before the restoration of
the Constitution.

A prolific writer, Manastirli RiPat was both an
author and also the translator of more than thirty
books: text-books on mathematics, military science,
religion, poetics, letter writing, Arabic and Persian
grammar and plays, particularly during the theatre
boom of the 1870s. While teaching in the War Col¬
lege, he founded the periodical Canta (“Satchel, bag”)
in which he published mainly epic-patriotic essays,
largely for the benefit of the cadets and his fellow of¬
ficers, which prompted enthusiastic response from the
great patriot Namik Kemal \q.v. ] from his prison at
Famagusta in Cyprus (for the text of his letter, see
Ebuzziya (Abu l-Diya 5 ) Tewfik, Niimune-yi edebiyyat-i
c OtJimdniyye l , Istanbul 1292/1875).

Manastirli RiPat’s poems, written mostly in the old
style and published in various newspapers and
periodicals, his sira and Kisas-i enbiya 5 in verse and his

MANASTIRLI MEHMED RIF C AT — MANAT

373

verse translations of many Arabic and Persian kasidas ,
etc., have not been collected into book form. His other
poems, mostly of a personal nature, which he col¬
lected in a small diwan ( diwance ) remain unedited.

Manastfrli RiFat is mainly remembered because of
his remarkable contribution to the Turkish theatre in
writing, translating and adapting many plays. Some
of these plays were written in collaboration with this
close friend, Hasan Bedreddin (later Pasha) [q.v. in
Suppl.].

Although it is customary to begin the modern
Turkish theatre with Ibrahim Shinasl’s ShdHr evlenmesi
(1859), there are many indications that an earlier date
should be adopted (see Fahir Iz, Pabu$<;u Ahmed'in garip
maceralan, Istanbul 1961, and Metin And, 100 soruda
Turk tiyatrosu, Istanbul 1970), However, modern
Turkish theatre had a speedy development soon after
Shinasl’s play, and reached the proportions of a
boom, particularly in the late 1860s and early 1870s,
one which lasted until the inauguration of the anti¬
liberal, reactionary period after 1878. Namfk Kemal,
Shemseddln (Shems al-DTn) Sami, C A1T Bey, Ahmed
WefTk Pasha, Teodor Kasab and others contributed to
this activity. Early modern plays were considerably
inspired by the Turkish traditional or folk theatre
(Karagoz, Orta oyunu, Meddah [q.vv. ]) and used, to
some extent, the techniques of French comedy and
farce (Moliere being the favourite author). Often
Western (mainly French) plays were translated or
adapted.

Manastfrli RiFat and Hasan Bedreddin joined this
movement and published together, in fascicules, be¬
tween 1875 and 1879, 16 plays, under the general title
lemasha (“Spectacle”), which eventually made up
two volumes (Vol. i, fasc. 1-9. vol. ii, fasc. 1-7) of
nearly a thousand pages. The majority of these plays,
including two comic-operas and one opera-bouffe, of
little interest, are translations from the French or via
French. The following 7 plays are original: Vol. i,
Fasc. 2, Dellle yahut kanli intikam (“Dellle or bloody
vengeance”), 1875, an historical drama of Eastern
Anatolia; fasc. 4, Ebu ’l- c Alayahut muruwwet (“Abu ’1-
c Ala :) or humaneness”), 1875, a play on Islamic
history; fasc. 6 , Ebu ’l-Fida (“Abu ’l-Fida”); a comic
opera, in three acts, 1975; fasc. 7, Nedamet (“Repen¬
tance”) 1875, a comedy; Vol. ii, fasc. 1, Kolemenler, a
historical drama in five acts; fasc. 4, Faklre yahut
miikdfd-i Hjjet (“The poor girl, or the reward of vir¬
tue”), 1876; fasc. 6 , Ahmed-i yetlm yahut natxdje-yi
sadakat (“Ahmed the orphan, or the result of
loyalty”), 1879, an historical drama of the Egypt
under the Tulunids.

All these plays were performed in the famous Gedik
Pasha Theatre in Istanbul. Apart from these plays,
written in collaboration, Manastfrli RiFat published
the following plays independently: Gorenek (“Social
practice, custom”), 1873, social criticism satirising
over-lavish weddings, where families try to outdo one
another; c Othmdn Ghazi. 1873, Yd gh azi yd shehid, 1874,
two patriotic plays, possibly inspired by the en¬
thusiastic reception of the performance of Namfk
Kemal’s famous Watan (“Fatherland”), which caused
such a furor at the time; and Pdkddmen (“The chaste
one”) which seems to have been inspired by Redja^i-
zade Ekrem's [q.v.] ( 'Afife Anzhelik (1870), with non-
Turkish dramatis personae, about a married woman’s
resistance to the valet’s overtures during her hus¬
band’s absence. Manastfrli RiFat’s other works worth
mentioning include: MedyamT el-edeb, in four volumes,
1890, a detailed treatise on the art of literature,
rhetoric, poetics, prosody, etc., and Hikayat-l miin-
takhabe (“Selected stories”), 1876, a striking example

of the spoken Turkish of the time used as written
Turkish.

Bibliography : ibnulemin Mahmud Kemal
Inal, Son asir Turk sairleri 2 , Istanbul 1969, 157-60,
1455-61; Fehmi Edhem Karatay, Istanbul Univer-
sitesi Tiirkfe basmalar alfabetik katalogu, Istanbul 1956,
ii, 670-3; Ibrahim Alaettin Govsa, Turk meshurlan
ansiklopedesi , Istanbul n.d. [1946], s.v.; Behcet
Necatigil, Edebiyatimizda isimler sozliigu 10 , Istanbul
1980, s.v.; Agah Sirri Levend, Turk dilindegelisme ve
sadelepme evreleri 2, , Ankara 1972, 168, 215, 258;
Metin And, Tanzimat ve Istibdat doneminde Turk
tiyatrosu , 1839-1908, Istanbul 1972, 261.

(Fahir iz)

MANAT, name of one of the most ancient
deitiesofthe Semitic pantheon, who appears in
the Pre-Sargonic period in the form Menutum and
constitutes one of the names of Ishtar (J. Bottero, Les
divinites semitiques anciennes en Mesopotamie , in S.
Moscati (ed.), Le antiche divinitd semitiche, 30; Tallqvist,
Gotterepitheta, 373-4); the Kur’anic scriptio of her name
preserves the primitive w, which also appears in the
Nabatean mnwtw (Lidzbarski, Handbuch, 313; Well-
hausen, Reste 2 , 28). The w changes to i in the Bible
(Isa. lxv, 11), as in the Sallier IV papyrus, verso, i, 5-6
(in J.B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to
the Old Testament , Princeton 1950, 250), where Meni is
presented as a Semitic deity forming part of “the En-
nead which is in the house of Ptah”. The difference
of gender poses no obstacle to this identification, due
to the fact that the l is not radical in the two forms and
that the Arabic sources regard it as a feminine ter¬
mination referring to sakhra, the stone or rock embo¬
dying the deity (cf. Yakut, iv, 652, 1.15; TA, x, 351
in Jine\ Ibn al-Kalbl speaks of Manat in the masculine
(K. al-Asnam, ed. and Fr. tr. W. Atallah, Paris 1969,
9), thinking in this case ol ' sanam). Originally, the two
names had the root mnw/y which is to be found in all
Semitic languages with the meaning of “to count”,
“to apportion”, being applied in particular to the
idea of “to count the days of life”, hence death
(maniyya), and “to assign to each his share”, hence,
lot, destiny (cf. C. Bezold, Babylonisch-Assyriches
Glossar, ed. Gotze, Heidelberg 1926, 176; Gesenius-
Buhl, Hebraisches und aramaisches Handworterbuch iiber das
Alte Testament 11 , Berlin 1949, 436 ff.; TA, x, 347 ff.;
Yakut, iv, 652.

The Greco-Roman equivalents given to Manat
testify to this meaning, since she is identified with
Tuxon or the Fortunae, the dual reflecting the form
Manawat (a false plural used for the dual manawdn
(Yakut, iv, 652, 1.12), as in Thamudic, where she is
called st slm “the Lady of Peace”, see A. van den
Branden, Les inscriptions thamoudeennes , 110 (Huber,
193), and in Nabatean (CIS 198). In Palmyra she is
represented on a mosaic, seated and holding a sceptre
in her hand, after the fashion of Nemesis, goddess of
destiny (J. Starky, Palmyre, Paris 1952, 103 and pi.
xii, nos. 5 and 6 ).

Like al-Lat [< 7 .^.] and al- c Uzza \q. v. ] who form with
her the Arab triad (Kur’an, LIII, 19-20), Manat was
worshipped by all the Arabs”. It was [originally] a
rock for Hudhavl in Kudayd” (Yakut, iv, 652, 1.15
f.). c Amr b. Luhayy [q.v.\, who substituted for the
cult of betyls that of idols, erected for her, in Kudayd,
a statue imported from the north, like that of Hubal
[q~v.\. The sacred site of al-Mushallal in Kudayd,
about 15 km. from Yathrib, became the gathering
place of the Aws and Kh azradj. who were the most ar¬
dent worshippers of Manat, to such an extent that
they considered their pilgrimage to Mecca as in¬
complete if they had not been to her to shave their

374

MANAT al-MANAZIL

heads. All the tribes of the surrounding area took part
in her cult. Before the arrival of the Aws and
Khazradj, coming from the south, she was worship¬
ped by the Hudhavl who led a nomadic life in the
region of Yathrib and by the Khuza c a in that of
Mecca.

Also, from being a simple rock in Kudayd, the third
divinity of the Arab triad, following the normal evolu¬
tionary process, ended up by being sculpted to suit the
root from which she derives her name, representing
one of the faces of the Asiatic Venus, i.e. Fortune,
who, according to the testimony of Pausanias (vi,
2,4), was worshipped by the Syrians on the banks of
the Euphrates. Al-Lat, with whom Manat shared the
title of Taghiya (Yakut, i, 236, 1.11), and al- c Uzza
represented the two others volets of the triptych.

The destruction of the sanctuary of Manat in
Kudayd gave rise to a legend of the same interpreta¬
tion as that which is associated with the destruction of
al- c Uzza (cf. T. Fahd, Pantheon , 173).

Sa c d b. Zayd al-Ashhall (Ibn Sa c d, ii/1, 106, and al-
Tabari, i 3 , 1649, whereas Yakut states that it was C A1I
b. Talib who found in his treasury the two famous
swords, Mikhdham and Rasub, which Ibn Sa c d, ii/1,
118, places in the treasury of al-Fals), ordered by the
Prophet to go to destroy Manat, in the year 8/629, ac¬
companied by twenty horsemen, appeared before the
sadin and announced to him his intention to destroy
her. “Go on”, he said to him in an ironic tone. Sa c d
went towards her and at once saw a nude black
women rise up with her hair dishevelled, uttering
curses and beating her breast. The sadin called out:
“Come on! O Manat, show the anger of which you
are capable!”. Sa c d began to beat her to death; then
he approached the idol with his companions and they
destroyed it.

Bibliography : The principal sources are: Ibn
al-Kalbl, K. al-Asnam, ed., Ger. tr. and introd. by
Rosa Klinke-Rosenberg, Leipzig 1941 (Sammlung
Orientalise her Arbeiten, 8), ed. Atallah, index; Yakut,
s.v. The principal studies are: T. Fahd, Le pan¬
theon de TArabie centrale a la veille de Thegire , Paris
1968: J. Wellhausen, Reste 2 , Berlin 1897 (cf. 29 on
the theophoric names formed with Manat); J.H.
Mortmann, Mythologische Miscellen. V. Tyche-Gad
Meni , in ZDMG, xxxix (1885), 44-6; D. Nielsen,
Der Dreieinigegott in religions-histonscher Beleuchtung , i-
ii/1, Copenhagen 1922, 1942; G. Ryckmans, Les
religions arabes preislamiques 2 , Louvain 1953; G.A.
Barton, The Semitic Istar cult , in Hebraica , ix (1892-
3), 131-66, x (1893-4), 1-74. (T. Fahd)

MANAZGERD [see malazgird]
al-MANAZIL (A.) or more fully manazil al-kamar ,
the lunar mansions, or stations of the moon (sing.
manzil or manzila ), a system of 28 stars, groups of
stars, or spots in the sky near which the moon is found
in each of the 28 nights of her monthly revolution.

The system seems to be of Indian origin (see
Scherer; Pingree [1] and [2]; Billard). Babylonian
origin has sometimes been suggested (cf. Hommel),
but could never be established from the documents.
The “stars in the moon’s path”, in the mul APIN text
(cf. van der Waerden [1], 77; recently re-dated to
2300 B.C., cf. van der Waerden [2]) are 17 or 18 in
number and rather represent an early stage in the
development of the zodiac. The system of the lunar
mansions was adopted by the Arabs, through chan¬
nels as yet unknown, some time in the pre-Islamic
period, since the term manazil is already mentioned in
the Kur ? an (X, 5; XXXVI,39). To the single man¬
sions, the Arabs applied names already found with
them previously, and originally used to designate

their anwa? [see anwa 5 ] . A complete list of the 28 man¬
sions is reported by c Abd al-Malik b. Habib (d.
238/852) on the authority of Malik b. Anas (d.
179/795); nearly contemporary to this is the list drawn
up by the astronomer al-Fargham. Items of informa¬
tion concerning the lunar mansions were collected by
the Arabic philologists in their kulub al-anwa? (see the
printed works of Ibn Kutayba al-Marzukl, Ibn Slda,
Muhammad al-Mukri 5 , al-Kazwinl, Ibn al-Adjdabi,
Ibn Manzur/al-TTfashI, and Ahmad b. Madjid), and
by astronomers, who took pains in identifying these
mansions astronomically (see al-Fargham, al-Battanl,
al-Sufi, al-Blrunl [1], [2], and [3]). Whereas the scien¬
tific astronomers of the Arabic-Islamic period did not
actually use the lunar mansions, these apparently
were of some importance for the distribution of the
ecliptic (besides of the zodiac) in earlier times. Later,
they were often used by astrologers and others for dif¬
ferent systems of divination (see e.g. Picatrix, and c Ali
b. Abi ’l-Ridjal; cf. also Savage-Smith, for the lunar
mansions in relation to geomancy). Hence they were
engraved, together with other calendric and
astrological items, on the back of many Islamic and
some western astrolabes (cf. Hartner, 2549 f.; Michel,
42; Mayer, pis. XV, XVIB, XX, XXII-XXV).
Through Latin translations of Arabic works, the list of
the 28 lunar mansions and their Arabic names known
to mediaeval Europe from the late 10th century on¬
wards (see Millas, 251 ff.), and, later, were much
used for divinatory purposes (see e.g. Steinschneider,
Vian, Svenberg, Weidemann, Lutz and Muller).
Lists of the 28 lunar mansions, with their Arabic
names, have also penetrated Byzantine astrological
texts (see CCAG).

The names of the 28 mansions, and their
astronomical identifications, are as follows (for the
names, see the individual entries in Kunitzsch [1],
where sources and further details are given):

1. al-sharatdn (also: al-nath), py, or pa Arietis.

2. al-butayn , e8p Arietis.

3. al-thurayya , the Pleiades.

4. al-dabaran, <x Tauri.

5. al-hak c a, XcJ^^Orionis (according to the Almagest ,
one nebulous object, the first star of Orion; but
registered as three individual stars by al-BTrum
[3]). Alternatively also, al-maysan, which properly
would be one of the two stars of no. 6.

6. al-han c a, Geminorum; also al-tahayi, TjjJLv

Geminorum (either separately, or together with
Geminorum). Al-BTrunI [3] has it vyl-
Geminorum.

7. al-dhiraS , ap Geminorum. There is confusion in
the sources as to whether this dhira c is al-dhira c al-
makbuda or al -dhiraS al-mabsuta.

8. al-nathra, e Cancri, or tf8 Gancri (Ibn Kutayba,
and al-BTrunl [3]).

9. al-tarj , 8 Cancri + X Leonis.

10. al-dyabha , Cfrja Leonis (included with this station is
the star a Leonis, “Regulus”, which had no in¬
dividual name in the classical Arabic star lore).

11. al-zubra (also: al-kharatan), 80 Leonis.

12. al-sarfa, p Leonis.

13. al-^awwa?, prjye Virginis, sometimes 8 Virginis is
also added to these.

14. al-simak (i.e. al-simdk al-a c zal), a Virginis.

15. al-ghafr , ixX Virginis (al-BTrum [3] has ix only).

16. al-zubana , aP Librae.

17. al-iklrl, p8n Scorpii.

18. al-kalb, a Scorpii.

19. al-shawla, Xu Scorpii. Sometimes, al-ibra, or ibrat
al- c akrab, is given as an alternative designation,
but some authors refer this name to a different ob-

al-MANAZIL

375

ject, viz. the nebulous cluster following behind al-
shawla, i.e. M 7 Scorpii.

20. al-naWim, the two groups of four stars each,
Y^er) + acpxC Sagittarii; alternatively, al-wasl, the
space between these two groups.

21. al-balda, a region void of stars, between stations
nos. 20 and 22.

22. sa Q d al-dhabih , a b 2 v(3 Capricorni.

23. sa c d bula c , jit Aquarii, to which some authors add
FI. 7, or v Aquarii, as a third star.

24. sa c d al-su c ud, pi- Aquarii + c 1 Capricorni.

25. sa c d al-akhbiya, Y^C*) Aquarii.

26. al-fargh al-mukaddam (also al-fargh al-awwal ), 0 $
Pegasi.

27. al-fargh al-mu ? a khkh ar (also al-fargh al-thani), Y
Pegasi + a Andromedae.

28. bain al-hut (also al-risha y ). p Andromedae.

Some authors additionally register the names of
some stars, or spots in the sky, near which the moon
is seen when failing to reach her proper mansion,
whereas the interstices between two mansions,
generally, are called furdja (see Ibn Kutayba, 86; al-
Marzuki, 196 f.; Ibn Slda, 12; Ibn Manzur, 1800 =
al-Tifashi, 205; al-BTrunl [1], 351 f., tr. 353 f.).

The knowledge of the 28 lunar mansions has lived
on into modern times, and agricultural calendars
formed according to them are still today found in
various regions of the Arabic-speaking world and its
neighbourhood (cf. Landberg, Cerulli, Monteil, Ser¬
jeant, Hiskett, Galaal, and the literature cited there;
less so consistent are the observations reported by C.
Bailey, q.v.). Such calendars are already known from
mediaeval times (see Liber anoe [ = Kitdb al-anwd 3 ,
Spain, 961 A.D.; translated into Latin by Gerard of
Cremona], and Ibn al-Banna 3 ); they appear to con¬
tinue older astro-agricultural traditions as paralleled
in Ptolemy’s Phaseis and the Babylonian mu, APIN
texts.

Bibliography : 1. Arabic sources: c Abd al-
Malik b. Habib, Risala ft ma c rifat al-nu^um, ms. Ait
Ayach, Hamzawiyya 80/4, p. 188 (cf. F. Sezgin,
GAS, vii, 346, 373); Ahmad b. Madjid, Kitdb al-
FawaPid Ji usul c ilm al-bahr wa ’l-kawd c id, ed. I.
Khoury, Damascus 1971, 31 ff., Eng. tr. G.R.
Tibbetts, Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean before the
coming of the Portuguese, London 1971, 79 ff.; c AlT b.
Abi ’1-Ridjal, Kitdb al-BarPji ahkdm al-nudium, Latin
tr. Praeclarissimus liber completus in iudiciis astrorum,
Venice 1485, see pars vii, cap. 101; al-Battam,
Opus astronomicum, ed. and tr. C.A. Nallino, i-iii,
Milan 1899-1907, see ch. 51 (text, iii, 187 ff.; tr.,
i, 124 ff.; comm., i, 295 ff.); Latin tr., printed
Nuremberg 1537, and Bologna 1645; in the Old
Spanish tr. this chapter is missing, cf. G. Bossong
(ed.), Los Canones de Albateni, Tubingen 1978, 84;
al-Blruni [1]: al-Athdr al-bakiya, ed. E. Sachau,
Leipzig 1878, 336 ff., Eng. tr. E. Sachau, The
chronology of ancient nations , London 1879, 335 ff.;
idem [2]: Kitdb al-Tafhim li-awdHl sind c at al-tandjfm,
ed. and tr. R.R. Wright, London 1934, §§ 164-6;
idem [3]: al-Kanun al-Mas c udi, i-iii, Hyderabad
1954-6, see ix, 8 (pp. 1139 ff.); al-Farghanl,
Elementa astronomica, ed. J. Golius, Amsterdam
1669, see ch. 20; two Latin translations, by
Johannes Hispalensis (A.D. 1135), ed. F.J. Car-
mody, Al-Fargham, Difference scientie astrorum,
Berkeley 1943, and by Gerard of Cremona, ed. R.
Campani, Alfragano: II “libro delTaggregazione delle
stelle”, Citta di Castello 1910; Ibn al-Adjdabl, al-
Azmina wa ’l-anwa 3 , Damascus 1964, 60 ff. (lacuna
in the ms., supplied from other sources); Ibn al-
Banna 5 , Le Calendrier d’Ibn al-Bannd 3 de Marrakech,

ed. and tr. H.P.J. Renaud, Paris 1948; Ibn
Kutayba, Kitdb al-Anwd?, Hyderabad 1956,T6 ff.;
Ibn Manzur, Kitdb Nithdr al-azhdr fi ’l-layl wa 7-
nahar, Constantinople 1298, 174 ff., re-edited,
under the name of the original author Ahmad b.
Yusuf al-Tifashi. Surur al-nafs bi-madarik al-hawass
al-khams, Beirut 1980, see 199 ff.; Ibn Sida, Kitdb
al-Mukhassas, ix, Cairo 1319, 9 ff.; al-Kazwmi,
Kosmographie, ed. F. Wiistenfeld, i, Gottingen 1849,
41 ff.; German tr. H. Ethe, Zakarija ... el-Kazwini’s
Kosmographie, Leipzig 1868, 87 ff.; Liber anoe: Le
Calendrier de Cordoue, ed. R. Dozy, Leiden 1873,
new ed. Ch. Pellat, Leiden 1961; al-Marzukl, Kitdb
al-Azmina wa ’l-amkina, i-ii, Hyderabad 1332, see i,
184 ff. and 310 ff.; Muhammad al-Mukri 3 (cf.
Brockelmann, S II, 364: Abu Mikra c al-Battuwi),
Les mansions lunaires des arabes, ed. and tr. A. de C.
Motylinski, Algiers 1899; Picatrix (Ps.-Madjrlti,
Kitdb Ghayat al-hakim), ed. H. Ritter, Berlin-Leipzig
1933, see i,4; German tr. H. Ritter and M.
Plessner, “Picatrix”. Das Ziel des Weisen, London
1962; al-$ufi, Kitdb Suwar al-kawdkib ..., Hyderabad
1954.

2. Modern studies: C. Bailey, Bedouin star-lore in
Sinai and the Negev, in BSOAS, xxxvii (1974), 580-96;
R. Billard, L’astronomie indienne, Paris 1971, 15, 18,
40; CCAG ( = Catalogus codicum astrologorum graeco¬
rum, i-xii, Brussels 1898-1953), see v, 3, pp. 90 f.
and 91 f.; viii, 1 p. 217 f.; ix, 1 p. 138 ff.; E.
Cerulli, Le stazioni lunari nelle nozioni astronomiche dei
Somali e dei Dandkil , in RSO, xii (1929-30), 71-8, xiii
(1931-2), 76-84; M.H.I. Galaal, The terminology and
practice of Somali weather lore, astronomy, and astrology,
Mogadishu 1968; W. Hartner, The principle and use
of the astrolabe, in A.U. Pope (ed.), A survey of Persian
art, Oxford 1938-9, iii, 2530 ff. (repr. separately as
Astrolabica, no. 1, Paris 1978); M. Hiskett, The Arab
star-calendar and planetary system in Hausa verse,
BSOAS, xxx (1967), 158-76; F. Hommel, LJeber den
Ursprung und das Alter der arabischen Stemnamen und
insbesondere der Mondstationen, in ZDMG, xlv (1891),
592-619; P. Kunitzsch [1], Untersuchungen zur Stern-
nomenklatur der Araber, Wiesbaden 1961; idem [2],
Arabischen Stemnamen in Europa, Wiesbaden 1959,
53-7; C. von Landberg, Glossaire Datinois, ii,
Leiden 1923, 1092 ff.; B.F. Lutz, Das Buch
“Alfadol ”, diss. Heidelberg 1967, 131, 321 ff. (ap¬
pendix by P. Kunitzsch); L.A. Mayer, Islamic
astrolabists and their works, Geneva 1956; H. Michel,
Traite de Tastrolabe, Paris 1947, repr. Paris 1976;
J.M. Millas Vallicrosa, d’historia de les idees

fisiques i matemdtiques a la Catalunya medieval, i,
Barcelona 1931; V. Monteil, La toponymie,
Tastronomie et Vorientation chez les Maures, in Hespms,
xxxvi (1949), 189-219; U. Muller. Deutsche Mond-
wahrsagetexte aus dem Spatmittelalter, diss. Berlin 1971;
C.A. Nallino, Raccolta di scritti, v, Rome 1944, 175
ff.; Ch. Pellat, Dictons rimes, anwa 5 et mansions
lunaires chez les arabes, in Arabica, ii (1950), 17-41; D.
Pingree [1], in Isis, liv. no. 176 (1963), 229 f.; idem
[2], in Viator, vii (1976), 144, 146, 174 ff.; L. de
Saussure, in G. Ferrand, Instructions nautiques et
routiers arabes et portugais des XV e et XVF siecles, iii,
Paris 1928, 143 ff.; E. Savage-Smith and M.B.
Smith, Islamic geomancy and a thirteenth-century
divinatory device, Malibu, Calif., 1980; A. Scherer,
Gestirnnamen bei den indogermanischen Volkern,
Heidelberg 1953, 151 ff.; R.B. Serjeant, Star-
calendars and an almanac from South- West Arabia, in An-
thropos, xlix (1954), 433-59; M. Steinschneider,
Uber die Mondstationen (Naxatra) und das Buch Arcan-
dam, in ZDMG, xviii (1864), 118-201, with addi-

376

al-MANAZIL — MANAZIR

tions in xxv (1871), 378-428; E. Svenberg, Lunaria
et zodiologia latina, Goteborg 1963 (esp. 45 ff.); B.L.
van der Waerden [1], Erwachende Wissenschaft , ii,
Die Anfange der Astronomie, Basel-Stuttgart 1968;
idem [2], On pre-Babylonian mathematics. II, in Archive
for History of Exact Sciences , xxiii (1980), 36 (confirm¬
ing the theory of W. Papke, in his unpublished doc¬
toral diss. of 1978, Tubingen); R. Vian, Ein
Mondwahrsagebuch, Halle 1910; B. Weidemann,
“Kunst der Gedachtnuss und “De Mansionibus”, zwei
friihe Traktate des Johann Hartlieb, diss. Berlin 1964;
Ph. Yampolsky, The origin of the twenty-eight lunar
mansions , in Osiris , ix (1950), 62-83.

(P. Kunitzsch)

MANAZIR, or C ILM al-MANAZIR, the

science of optics. The term al-manazir (pi. of A.
manzar or manzara , from nazara, “to look at”) was used
by the Arabic translators of Greek scientific writings
as equivalent to xa 6nux. a, optics or the theory of vi¬
sion. The feminine manzara in the sense of “aspect”
or “appearance” (the way a thing or a group of things
looks) is attested in al-Shamil ft usul al-din of Abu T
Ma c all al-DjuwavnT (d. 478/1085), where the plural
manazir is also used in the same sense (ed. C A.S. al-
Nashshar et alii , Alexandria 1969, esp. 476-7, 479,
483-4).

The kaldm literature, to which al-DjuwaynT’s al-
Shdmil belongs, adopted shu c d c both for the light rays
emanating, for example, from the sun, and for the
visual rays (i.e. rays emanating from the eye) which,
according to Mu c tazili and Ash c an kaldm, were the
vehicles of vision (see the relevant sections in al-KadT
c Abd al-Djabbar’s al-Mughni. iv (Ru^yat al-Bari 7 ), ed.
M.M. HilmI and Abu ’l-Wafa 3 al-Taftazanl, Cairo
1965, esp. 59-79). However, in the medical literature
deriving from Galen, we find the word manazir used in
the sense of visual rays (Galen’s oc|>et<;), and it is in this
sense that Hunayn b. Ishak speaks of “the reflexion
(;inkisar ) of al-manazir ” (cf. M. Meyerhof, The book of
the ten treatises of the eye ascribed to Hunain ibn Is-haq (809-
977 A.D.), Cairo 1928, Ar. text 109; Meyerhof
translated manazir here as “images” — see p. 36 of his
English translation in the same volume — but cf. the
Arabic version of Galen’s De usu partium , Escorial ms.
850, fol, 29b). It may be noted that the Greek writers
on optics, including Euclid, Hero and Theon, used
o<|>ei<; and axxiveq interchangeable to designate visual
rays (cf. A. Lejeune, Euclide et Ptolemee, Louvain 1948,
18-21).

In the scheme of the sciences inherited by
mediaeval Islamic scholars from the Greeks, optics
was considered a mathematical science. But Aristotle
had already characterised optics as one of “the more
physical of the.mathematical disciplines”, a group of
enquiries which also included astronomy and har¬
monics ( Physica , II.2). And although Euclid’s book on
Optics ( ca . 300 B.C.) was formulated almost ex¬
clusively in geometrical terms, physical, physiological
and even psychological elements tended increasingly
to mingle with geometrical considerations in the
writings of later Hellenistic mathematicians. Thus for
example, Hero of Alexandria (1st century A.D.) com¬
pared the reflexion of visual rays to the behaviour of
projectiles when they strike a hard surface (cf. his
Catoptrica, iii, in Herons von Alexandria Mechanik und
Katoprik , ed. and German tr. L. Nix and W. Schmidt
(Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia, i/1, Leip¬
zig 1900), 322-5). The (lost) first book of Ptolemy’s
Optics (2nd century A.D.) expounded a theory of
luminous radiation as distinguished from the emission
of visual rays; the same work dealt with binocular as
well as monocular vision; and it mentioned a virtus

discernitiva (or regitiva), a psychological faculty to which
was assigned a certain vague role in visual perception
(cf. L ’Optique de Claude Ptolemee dans la version latine
d’apres Tarabe de Temir Eugene de Sidle, edition critique
et exegetique par Albert Lejeune, Louvain 1965, in¬
dex and 22, n. 22; and 62, n. 81).

In the Islamic period, this tendency shows itself
early in a work by Abu Yusuf Ya c kub b. Ishak al-
Kindl (3rd/9th century [q.v. ]), which survives in a
12th century Latin translation entitled De aspectibus
(Al-Kindi, Tideus und Pseudo-Euclid: drei optische Werke,
ed. A.A. Bjornbo and S. Vogl, Leipzig and Berlin
1912 [ = Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematischen
Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen, Heft,
XXVI. 3]). Here al-Kindi considers optics to be a
mathematical science ( ars doctrinalis: c ilm taHtmt), but
one which must satisfy physical as well as geometrical
principles (ibid. , 3); and he opens his book with a
treatment of rectilinear light radiation and the forma¬
tion of shadows, thus departing from Euclid’s presen¬
tation but in agreement with Ptolemy and, it appears,
Theon of Alexandria (see the Introduction to Theon’s
Recension of Euclid’s Optics in Euclidis Optica, Opticorum
recensio Theonis, Catoptrica, cum scholiis antiquis , ed. I. L.
Heiberg, Leipzig 1895, 144 ff.; French, tr. P. Ver
Eecke, in Euclide: TOptique et la Catoptrique, Paris 1959,
53 ff.).

With Ibn al-Haytham [q.v.] in the 5th/l 1th cen¬
tury, we reach an entirely new stage in the conception
of the nature of optics. His great Kitdb al-Manazir
(“Book of Optics”, of which several manuscripts are •
extant) begins with the assertion that optics is a syn¬
thetic branch of inquiry that combines mathematical
and physical considerations. But this was not merely
to continue the trend that had already started in late
antiquity. Ibn al-Haytham’s position implied a com¬
plete break with the visual-ray hypothesis which had
been consistently maintained by the entire mathe¬
matical tradition from Euclid to al-Kindl and by the
medical tradition of Galen and his Islamic followers.
Ibn al-Haytham opted instead for the view of
“physicists” (j tabf'iyyun ) or natural philosophers, ac¬
cording to which vision consisted in the eye’s recep¬
tion of a form (sura) emanating from the object seen.
But again, this was not a mere imitation, and his
theory was the first attempt to treat this view
mathematically. The result was, therefore, not only a
new doctrine of vision, but also a new methodology.
In other words, Ibn al-Haytham was led to formulate
problems which either would not have made sense
from the standpoint of the visual-ray theory or had
been ignored by philosophers aiming primarily to give
an account of what vision is rather than an explanation
of how it takes place.

Ibn al-Haytham was also convinced that an in¬
tromission explanation of visual perception was essen¬
tially incomplete without a theory of the psychology of
perception, and he accordingly devotes a considerable
part of his K. al-Manazir to such a theory. His argu¬
ment is that since the eye can only receive impressions
of the light and colour in the visible object, all other
properties of the object, including the fact that it is
situated in outer space, must somehow be “inferred”
from the received visual material. His theory then
consists in describing the models of inference (kiyas)
which the “faculty of judgement” ( al-kuwwa al-
mumayyiza ) employs in achieving the perception of
such visual properties ( ma c am mubsara) as distance,
size, shape, opacity, transparency, beauty—in fact,
all properties other than light and colour as such.

Ibn al-Haytham wrote substantial treatises on the
burning sphere and burning mirrors of various

MANAZIR — MANBIDJ

377

shapes, on the formation of shadows, on camera obscura
phenomena and on the halo and the rainbow. Yet
none of these phenomena is treated in the K. al-
Manazir. The book thus illustrates a restricted concep¬
tion of optics as primarily a theory of vision by means
of direct, reflected or refracted light rays. (A discus¬
sion of the rainbow would not have been out of place
in a book on optics in this narrow sense, since the
phenomenon depends on the position of the eye. But
the rainbow had been traditionally treated since
Aristotle in books on meteorology— ahdath al-djaww or
al-athar al- c ulwiyya [q. y. ]. The force of this tradition
continued into the 17th century: Descartes, for exam¬
ple, offered his explanation of the rainbow in a work
entitled Meteores , and not in his Dioptrique.) But since
these are luminous (not visual) rays, Ibn al-
Haytham’s explanations are presented on the basis of
an experimental examination {iHibar) of the relevant
properties of light as objective phenomena existing in¬
dependently of a seeing eye. Because of its highly-
sophisticated character, combining physical,
mathematical, experimental, physiological and psy¬
chological considerations in a methodically-integrated
manner, the influence of Ibn al-Haytham’s book
upon later writers on optics both in the Muslim world
and (through a mediaeval Latin translation) in the
West can hardly be exaggerated.

It is remarkable that two centuries-and-a-half had
to elapse before the Optics of Ibn al-Haytham began to
exert any appreciable influence in the Islamic world,
by which time the book had already made a deep im¬
pression in Europe (especially on Roger Bacon, John
Pecham and Witelo). Towards the end of the 13th
century, the Persian Kamal al-Din al-FarisT [q. v. ]
rescued the Optics from near oblivion by writing a
large and critical commentary on it, entitled Tankih al-
Manazir li-dhawi ’ l-absar wa ’1-basPir , which survives in
many manuscript copies testifying to its wide use
(printed at Hyderabad, Dn., in two volumes in 1347-
8/1928-9). In this work, Kamal al-Din went beyond
discussion of the matters treated in the K. al-Manazir,
adding, among other things, recensions (sing, tahnr)
of Ibn al-Haytham’s treatises “On the halo and the
rainbow”, “On the burning sphere”, “On the for¬
mation of shadows” and “On the shape of the
eclipse”. We have here, then, a book on optics that is
not entirely restricted to questions related directly or
indirectly to vision. And yet the book does not include
a discussion of burning mirrors, a subject which Ibn
al-Haytham had thought fit to include in a (non-
extant) treatise “On optics, according to the method
of Ptolemy”. (As for gnomon shadows, these were
generally considered a separate subject to be treated in
a separate category of writings sometimes referred to
as Kutub al-Azlal, “books on shadows”.) But the nar¬
rower conception of optics proved tenacious; when in
the 10th/16th century Taki al-Din Ibn Ma c ruf (d.
993/1585) wrote his Nur hadakat al-ibsar wa-nur hadikat
al-absar (Bodleian ms. Marsh 119) for the Ottoman
sultan Murad III, he based himself directly on Kamal
al-Din’s Tankih. But rather than include the topics ap¬
pended by the Persian mathematician to his commen¬
tary on Ibn al-Haytham’s K. al-Manazir , he limited
himself to the subjects treated in the earlier work.

Bibliography : In addition to works, cited in
the article, see the bibls. to the articles on Ibn al-
Haytham, Kamal al-Din al-Farisi and al-Kindi in
Dictionary of scientific biography , ed. C. Gillispie, New
York: vi (1972), 189-210; vii (1973), 212-19 and xv
(1978), 261-7. The mediaeval Latin translation of
Ibn al-Haytham’s K. al-Manazir was published in
1572 by Friedrich Risner at Basel in a volume enti¬

tled Opticae thesaurus , which also included Witelo’s
Perspective and a treatise on dawn and twilight which
is wrongly attributed in this volume to Ibn al-
Haytham. An edition of the Arabic text of K. al-
Manazir is in progress; see A. I. Sabra, ed., Kitab
al-Manazir /-//-/// (On direct vision), Kuwait 1982.
This includes an introduction, Arabic-Latin
glossaries and concordance tables for comparing
the Arabic and Latin texts. An English translation
is forthcoming. (A. I. Sabra)

MANBI DJ , anancienttown ofSyria which
was situated to the north-east of Aleppo.

It appears that an urban settlement with the name
Nappigi or Namplgi existed on this site in the
Assyrian period. In the time of Shalmaneser, it was
known as Lita Ashur. The Syriac appears to refer
back to the Assyrian root; in fact the name became
Mabbog or Mambog which signifies “gushing
water”, linked, according to Yakut, to the root
nabadya “to gush”, which would hardly be surprising
in a region of abundant springs. The following spell¬
ings are encountered: in the Greek texts of the Byzan¬
tine period pepi7reT^, (Leo the Deacon, iv),

papouxri; elsewhere Manbadj ( Subh , iv, 127), Manbidj
(Yakut, v, 205), Mambedj (Volney, 279), Mambidj
(Honigmann), Menbidj (Dussaud, Topographie, 474),
Meenbidj (Baedeker and Wirth), Membidj ( Guide
Bleu , 1932). On the origin and orthography of the
name, see E. Honigmann, Ostgrenze , 16; K. Ritter,
Erdkunde 1057 ff.; E. Honigmann, EP, s.v. On the
various traditions regarding the origin of Manbidj,
see Pauly-Wissowa, Suppl., iv, 732-42 and Der kleine
Pauly , ii, 1130.

The Arab geographers are agreed in placing Man¬
bidj in the middle of the fourth climatic region to the
north-east of Halab; on the other hand, there are
variants for the geographical coordinates. Yakut
(s.v.), quoting Batlamiyus [q. v. ] gives the longitude of
71° 15' and presents the horoscope of the town, then
he mentions the Zidq of al-Battani, where the longitude
is 63°45' and the latitude is 35°. In the Takwim al-
buldan of Abu ’1-Fida 3 , the corresponding figures are
62°50' and 36°50\

This oasis is situated at an altitude of 1310 feet (398
m) in a zone of annual rainfall greater than 250 mm,
bordering on two contrasting economies: to the north-
north-east, a region of sedentary inhabitants, crop-
growers or craftsmen; to the south-south-west, the do¬
main of the nomadic shepherd or stock-breeder.

To the north of Manbidj, along the Sadjur, the
plateaux are covered with flints from the Acheulian
and Middle Palaeolithic epochs which enabled
prehistoric man to manufacture tools; the presence of
numerous springs permitted, as early as the Assyrian
period, the organisation of a system of irrigation
(sakya) and the installation of kanats \q.v. ] which estab¬
lished the renown of the region ( c amal) to the west of
the elbow of the Euphrates in Syria and of which,
some 15-20 m. under ground, numerous remains
have been found and are mentioned by all the Arab
or foreign geographers and travellers who have visited
the area.

The abundant supply of water also facilitated the
development of the cultivation of cereals (corn and
barley), as well as cotton and hemp, and the exploita¬
tion of orchards and plantations of mulberries for the
rearing of silk-worms from the early Middle Ages. To
the south of Manbidj, there also exists a hot water
spring marked by a cupola in a place called “Hama”.

For the demography of the region from Neolithic
times to the birth of Islam, see the results of two ar¬
cheological excavations conducted in the region of the

378

MANBIDJ

Nahr Sadjur and on the Syrian Higher Euphrates,
published in Holocene settlement in North Syria by Paul
Sanlaville and others in the BAR International Series,
Oxford 1985, no. S 238. Under the Umayyads, a sec¬
tion of the Banu Taghlib [q. v. ] settled on the east bank
of the Euphrates and led a nomadic existence near
Manbidj, although the bulk of the tribe was estab¬
lished between the Khabur [q.v.\, the Euphrates and
the Tigris. They were to distinguish themselves at the
end of the 7th/13th century in the struggle against the
Tatars. Palgrave {Narrative, London 1865, i, 118)
mentions in the region the presence of a modern tribe,
the Shammar, who are said to be related to the Banu
Taghlib. According to A. Musil {Middle Euphrates ,
281), the tribe of the Tarleb {sic) was still leading a
nomadic existence at the beginning of the 20th cen¬
tury in the arid plain between Manbidj, Rusafa and
the heights of the Djabal Bishn.

After having been “the mustering point of the
Roman expeditions directed against the Sasanid Em¬
pire which followed the route of the Euphrates’’, the
latter being a military communication route parallel
to the river on the western bank, Manbidj was an im¬
portant centre of the limes of Chalcis, linked to Aleppo
by a Roman causeway, before becoming the capital of
the c Aivasim in the c Abbasid Golden Age. In the Mid¬
dle Ages, it continued to play an important strategic
and commercial role in north-south and east-west
communications, the town being not only a staging-
post, but also a major road-junction to the west of the
Euphrates, on the route which maintained connec¬
tions between the Mediterranean world and the
Asiatic world, between the valley of the Orontes and
that of the Euphrates.

Manbidj, of which mention is made in the Antonine
itinerary , features on the 16th century Tabula of Peu-
tinger. It was a military base of the Romans against
the Persians, of the Byzantines under Justinian and
his successors against the Sasanids, of the c Abbasid
caliphs and the Syrian princes against the Crusaders,
and a stronghold against Turkish invasions from the
east. Its role was not only to safeguard the frontier
posts {thughur), but also to watch over the Syrian
desert to the south as far as the region of Balis-
Maskana. Situated in a fertile plain furrowed with
ravines, placed in the centre of a ghuta [<?. t>. ], Manbidj
also owes its importance to the presence there of abun¬
dant drinkable water for caravans. The site was of
vital significance, because it controlled all the access’
routes from northern Syria towards the Djazira [q. v. ]
and c Irak and, in particular, three junctions leading to
crossing-points (Ceoyiia, djisr) on the great bend of the
Middle Euphrates: to the north, up-stream from
Biredjik [q.v.], a crossing protected by the Kal c a
Bayda 3 ; or downstream from the confluence of the
Sadjur, opposite Tell Ahmar, at Djarablus, the an¬
cient Caeciliana; or 29 km. to the north-east, at Kal c at
Nadjm [<?. t>. ], which protected Djisr Manbidj, the
bridge of boats permitting access to the Upper Dja¬
zira. A further crossing-point was further south at
Suriya, opposite Kal c at Dja c bar [q.v.].

In the time of al-Mukaddasi (4th/l0th century),
Manbidj was reached from Halab in two days’
journey, passing through Bab and crossing the Wadi
Butnan [<?. t;. ], a distance of ten farsakhs [q.v. ] (approx¬
imately 80 km.); from this point a single stage
{marhala) remained to be covered; Yakut gives a figure
of three farsakhs to arrive at Djisr Manbidj, where the
Euphrates could be crossed by means of a bridge of
boats, a crossing made today by ferry-boat. From
Manbidj, c Ayntab or Kurush (Cyrrhus) could be
reached in two days and Malatiya in four.

It seems that the darb sultaniyya, which passed
through Manbidj on the way to c Irak, changed direc¬
tion at the end of the 8th/14th century, crossing the
Euphrates at the latitude of Siffm and Rakka
and the route was shifted further to the south. At the
beginning of the 20th century, as Franz Cumont
testifies, “caravans or c arabas [q. £>.] setting out
towards Ourfa (Edessa) and Mossoul still pass
through Manbidj towards the same crossing, where
ferry-boats transport them to the left bank of the
Euphrates”.

There also existed in the Ayyubid period a route
from Hama towards the north-east. Protected against
the Franks by Barin, Famiya and Kafar Tab, it per¬
mitted access to Djazira by way of Manbidj, avoiding
Halab.

Today, the road from Halab to Manbidj via Bab
(78 km.) is well-asphalted, as is that leading from
Manbidj to Djarablus (37 km.), where the Euphrates
is crossed by a metal bridge.

Shortly before the reign of Alexander the Great, in
the 4th century B.C., the town was in the hands of a
dynast surnamed c Abd Hadad (= worshipper of
Hadad, the god of thunder), who had coinage struck
there. For a long period of Antiquity, Manbidj was a
religious centre dedicated to the cults of Atargatis and
her consort Hadad.

In the Hellenistic period, Manbidj played an im¬
portant military role in countering invasions from the
east. The Greeks endowed it with a double rampart
and a temple owning an important treasure, which
Crassus sacked before setting out with his legions to
fight the Parthians and dying, the victim of an
assassin, in 53 B.C.

From the 3rd century onwards, through the good
offices of Septimus Severus, the town became, in its
role as a bulwark against the Sasanid Persians, one of
the principal bases of the “ limes of Chalcis”. From
there, in 363, Julian the Apostate led an expedition
against Ctesiphon, in the course of which he was mor¬
tally wounded.

Manbidj was part of the Cyrrhestian province,
before being promoted by Constantine II, in the mid¬
dle of the 4th century, to the status of capital of
Euphratesian Syria. In 451, the metropolitan of Man¬
bidj was Stephen of Hieropolis. At the end of the 5th
century there lived there an innovative theologian, the
Monophysite bishop Philoxenus of Mabbugh, who
had a Syriac translation made of the New Testament
and published a commentary to it; he died in exile in
Thrace in 523. In April 531, Kawadh, Emperor of
Persia, occupied Hierapolis; Belisarius arrived to
resist the invasion and in the same year inflicted a
defeat on the Sasanid army at Callinicos, near the
confluence of the BalTkh and the Euphrates. In 532,
Kisra Anushirwan, the new Persian sovereign, of¬
fered Justinian a treaty of “permanent peace” which
was to be commemorated by a monument at Man¬
bidj, but in 540 he attacked the town, which was
obliged to pay a ranson for its liberation. It was in this
period that a temple of fire was built in the town by
the Sasanid Emperors. Kisra gave the town the name
of Manbik, which was arabised into Manbidj.

During the 5th and early 6th centuries, the Byzan¬
tine emperors, including Justinian, maintained
Hierapolis/Manbidj as a front-line stronghold against
the East. In 612, the Persians invaded Syria, took
Jerusalem on 5 May 614 and occupied Alexandria
(617-19). Heraclius reacted and succeeded in restor¬
ing the situation and, in March 630, he came to Man¬
bidj to receive the True Cross which the Persians had
carried off from Jerusalem in 614. The chronicler

MANBIDJ

379

Pseudo-Dionysius mentions in Manbidj a church of
Saint Mary and a church of Saint Thomas. According
to Ibn Khurradadhbih, in the 3rd/9th century there
was there a very fine church built of wood.

In the time of the caliphs c Umar and of c Uthman,
after the conquest of Syria, Manbidj was one of the
c awasim, fortified posts which marked the frontier be¬
tween the Dar al-lsldm and the Byzantine province of
Antioch.

In 16/637, the inhabitants of Manbidj were at¬
tacked by c Iyad b. Ghanim, who had been sent as
vanguard by Abu c Ubayda b. al-Djarrah [q.v.]. They
capitulated, and the treaty was ratified by Abu
c Ubayda when he appeared before the town. The sur¬
rounding areas of the town were at this time occupied
by Yemeni tribes and, in particular, the Banu
Taghlib.

Under the Umayyads, according to the testimony
of the Monophysite Christian poet al-Akhtal (20-
92/640-710), the Banu Taghlib, his own tribe, were
settled between the Tigris, the Euphrates and the
Khabur and led a nomadic existence towards the west
as far as the fertile region of Manbidj. Situated in the
frontier zone of northern Syria, Manbidj seems to
have enjoyed a degree of independence, in view of the
fact that its inhabitants had requested permission
from c Umar to practise commerce in the interior of
the caliphate. When YazTd b. Mu c awiya constituted
the djjind of KinnasrTn, he incorporated Manbidj into
it. In 131/748 the town was devastated by a violent
earthquake in the course of which the church of the
Jacobites (Monophysites) collapsed during a service,
entombing the faithful. In 170/786, Harun al-Rashld
reorganised the northern frontier of the c Abbasid
caliphate with the intention of reviving djihdd. He
detached Manbidj from the djund of KinnasrTn and
made it the capital of the new zone of c awasim , which
combined the frontier posts of Syria and of the Upper
Djazlra. From 173/789-90, the caliph appointed as
local governor c Abd al-Malik b. Salih b. C A1T [ q . v. ], an
c Abbasid who was later (196/811-12) to be promoted
governor of Syria and of Upper Mesopotamia by al-
Amln, who had many new buildings constructed in
Manbidj. It was henceforward to serve as a starting
base for summer expeditions (sa^i/a) directed against
the Byzantines by the caliph of Baghdad. The good
condition of its fortifications in this period contributed
to its designation as capital. “A vast area of land was
attached to it, stretching from the limits of the ter¬
ritory of Halab to the Sadjur and the Euphrates”.

Implicated in an abortive plot against his uncle, the
caliph al-Mu c tasim, a pretender to the c Abbasid cali¬
phate, al- c Abbas b. al-Ma^mun, died in the prison of
Manbidj in 223/838. Forty years later, in 264/877-8,
Ahmad b. Tulun occupied Syria under the pretext of
conducting djihad, and Manbidj then passed under
Egyptian domination. In the 4th/10th century, under
the Hamdanids, Manbidj owed its importance to its
agricultural wealth, to its location in the region form¬
ing the junction of the Mesopotamian and Syrian
frontiers and also to its proximity to Halab and the
Euphrates close to a crossing over that river, Djisr
Manbidj or Kal c at Nadjm. In the middle of this cen¬
tury, the region was subjected to raids on the part of
the c Ukayl, Kalb, Kilab and Numayr tribes [q. v. ]. Ac¬
cording to al-Hamadhanl, Manbidj was shared be¬
tween the Kalb and the Kilab.

In 334/945 the Hamdanid prince Sayf al-Dawla
signed a peace treaty with the Ikhshldid [q.v.] ruler of
Egypt and took possession of a vast area comprising
the c awasim of Antakiya and of Manbidj. Two years
later, the eastern part of this zone was entrusted to the
poet Abu Firas [q. v. ], a cousin of the prince of Halab,

who was, in 336/947, only sixteen years of age. In
343/late summer 954, a major expedition was laun¬
ched from Manbidj with the object of combating the
NizarT tribes of Diyar Mudar [q.v.] and of the Syrian
Desert. In 351/962, Nicephorus Phocas seized Man¬
bidj from Sayf al-Dawla’s viceroy, Abu Firas, and
took him prisoner. The latter was obliged to spend
seven years in captivity in Constantinople, evoking
Manbidj in his Rumiyyat.

In 355/966, Nicephorus Phocas, who had now
become emperor, camped before Manbidj from where
he removed the sacred tile bearing the portrait of
Christ ( al-Kirmida , xepocpeStov). According to Leo the
Deacon, it was John Tzimisces who is said to have
procured this “portrait of Christ” when in 363/974 he
took the citadel of Manbidj, where he found the san¬
dals of Christ and some hairs of St. John the Baptist,
which he carried away as relics to Byzantium. During
the second half of the 4th/10th century, Manbidj was
to remain one of the primary objectives of the
Byzantines.

At the end of the 4th/10th century, Ibn Hawkal
writes: “Not far from Balis is situated Manbidj, a fer¬
tile and fortified town where there are numerous very
ancient markets, rich in Greek relics. One of the local
products is a kind of nougat ( natif) of dried grapes,
made with nuts, pistachios and sesame ... Spread
among the farms of Manbidj there is a very great
number of non-irrigated vineyards. The dried grapes
are exported to Halab and to other places. This town
is located in a desert plain without water-courses, but
its soil is humid, red in colour and turning yellow
saffron-colour, and the greater part of its land is not
artificially irrigated. It is surrounded by an ancient
rampart”. Already at this time, thanks to water mills
on the Sadjur, manufactured paper could be found
there.

Although the Fatimids were occupying northern
Syria in 406/1015, Salih b. Mirdas became master of
Halab in 414/1023; he took Manbidj in the autumn of
the following year. An agreement having been made
between the Mirdasid Rashid al-Dawla Mahmud and
his uncle Abu Du c aba c Atiyya, lord of Rakka, Man¬
bidj reverted to the latter between 456/1063 and
457/1064. In early 461/late 1068, Romanus IV Dio¬
genes took possession of Manbidj and reinforced the
citadel, thus securing communications between An¬
takiya and al-Ruha [q.v.]. Subsequently, the town was
to be entrusted to the Armenian prince Philaretos.
Taken prisoner after his defeat at Malazgird [q.v.]
(Mantzikert) in Dhu ’1-Ka c da 463/August 1071,
Romanus ceded Manbidj to Alp Arslan [q.v.], who
was already occupying the town. A small mosque was
built there in the same year by Salih, son of Muham¬
mad Sharif al-AdhamT. In 468/1075, under the
caliphate of al-Muktadl, Manbidj was entrusted to
Saldjuk Turkish amirs who are said to have restored
the citadel. Ten years later (477/1085), it formed part
of the territory subject to the authority of the c Ukaylid
amir Sharaf al-Dawla Muslim b. Kuraysh [q.v.], a do¬
main which extended from al-Mawsil to the
Euphrates, including the districts of Diyar Rabl c a and
of al-Djazlra.

In 479/1086, the Saldjuk sultan Malik Shah placed
Manbidj under the authority of Abu Sa c id Ak-Sunkur
c Abd Allah Kasim al-Dawla al-Hadjib, one of his
Turkish officers, who, the following year, took over
the government of Halab, of Hamat and Ladhikiya.
In 485/1092, on the death of Malik Shah, the situation
changed; two years later, his brother Tadj al-Dawla
Tutush defeated Ak Sunkur, whom he put to death,
and occupied Manbidj in his turn.

In the early years of the 6th/12th century, Manbidj

380

MANBIDJ

was to be coveted by the Atabeg of al-Mawsil,
DjawalT. by Ridwan b. Tutush of Halab and by the
Franks. In Safar 502/September 1108, after DjawalT
seized Balis from the prince of Halab, the latter ap¬
pealed to Tancred for aid. Baldwin and Joscelin
restored DjawalT to Manbidj where Sadaka, chief of
the Banu Mazyad Bedouins, was also present. In
503/1110, at the time of the attack on the principality
of Antioch by Ridwan, the troops of Joscelin
descended from Tell Bashir, attacking Manbidj and
Balis. The following year, the Franks seized and
ravaged Manbidj; they joined it to the archbishopric
of Tell Bashir, subject to the Latin Patriarchate of An¬
tioch. Shortly afterwards, the Franks lost the town, to
which they were never to return, but there was to be
for a long time a Latin prelate consecrated bishop of
Manbidj in parti bus.

In 514/1120, the territory of Manbidj was attacked
from Tell Bashir by Joscelin who, barely released
from captivity by DjawalT, had crossed the Euphrates
on his way to Antioch and, arriving at Manbidj, was
unable to resist pillaging the lands belonging to Rid¬
wan of Halab. In spring 517/1123, after the amir
Hassan b. Gumiishtigin, a Turkish lieutenant of
Balak at Manbidj, had taken prisoners in the territory
of Edessa, Joscelin returned to pillage the region by
way of reprisal. In 518/1124, the Artukid Nur al-
Dawla Balak b. Bahram b. Artuk [q.v. ], the nephew
of Il-GhazI, having become master of Halab on the
death of the latter in Ramadan 516/November 1122,
resolved to attack Tell Bashir. He entrusted an army
to his cousin Husam al-DTn Tlmur-Tash and asked
him to invite Hassan to accompany him. Suspicious of
Hassan’s lukeward response, Tlmur-Tash arrested
him and occupied Manbidj, while c Isa, the brother of
Hassan, took refuge in the citadel of Manbidj and ap¬
pealed for help to Joscelin of Edessa, offering him the
town in return for driving away the troops of Balak.
Joscelin marched towards Manbidj with Geoffrey the
Monk, lord of Mar c ash, and in Safar 518/March-
April 1124, was confronted by Balak as the latter was
preparing to attack Manbidj. The Franks suffered a
grave defeat; Geoffrey was killed, Joscelin tied and
took refuge at Tell Bashir. Balak occupied Manbidj
and tried to take possession of the citadel, which he
wished to hand over to his cousin Tlmur-Tash, but on
19 RabI* I 518/6 May 1124 an arrow shot from the
citadel wounded him fatally. His troops disbanded,
Tlmur-Tash brought the body back to Halab and took
power there, while Hassan, released from detention,
returned to Manbidj.

In 520/1126, the Atabeg BursukI of al-Mawsil, on
a journey through Syria, passed beneath the walls of
Manbidj. The following year, in RabF 1 I 521/April
1127, c Imad al-Dln Zangl, having become Atabeg of
al-Mawsil and master of Halab, did not hesitate to
seize the important road junction of Manbidj. In
525/1131 Joscelin de Courtenay besieged Tell c Aran,
a site between Halab and Manbidj. Injured by a col¬
lapsing undermining, he was carried to Tell Bashir,
where he died. The governor of Manbidj, accom¬
panied by the amir Sawar of Halab, took advantage of
the situation by attacking the knights of Edessa.

When the Byzantine John Comnenus attacked the
region of Manbidj in 536/1142, he did not take the
town. Two years later, Manbidj contributed a con¬
tingent of Turkomans to the army of Zangl. On the
death of the latter, in 541/1146, his son Nur al-Dln,
on his way from Halab to lay siege to al-Ruha, passed
through Manbidj with his siege machinery. It was the
amir of Manbidj, Hassan, loyal ally of Nur al-Dln,
who by taking Tell Bashir in 546/1151, put an end to
the County of Edessa.

In 553/1158 Madjd al-Dln Abu Bakr, foster-
brother of Nur al-Dln, governor of the province of
Halab, warned by the amir in command of Manbidj of
a conspiracy against Nur al-Dln, foiled the plot which
had been hatched during the illness of the latter and
was to have been put into effect in Muharram
554/February 1150. When Hassan al-Manbidjl died
(562/1167), Nur al-Dln gave Manbidj in ikta c to
GhazI b. Hassan, but the latter rebelled and the
sovereign then came in person with Madjd al-Dln
Abu Bakr b. al-Daya and Asad al-Dln Shirkuh, in
spring 563/1168, to take the town after a full-scale
siege. He deposed Gh azI and gave the place in ikta c to
Kutb al-Dln Inal b. Hassan, the rebel’s brother. Nur
al-Dln consolidated the defences of Manbidj, con¬
structing there, as at Halab, a protective outer wall.
After 563/1167 he also built there a ShaffT madrasa for
Ibn Abl c Asrun, while Kutb al-Dln built one for the
HanafTs.

On 14 Shawwal 571/April 1176, Salah al-Dln
(Saladin) launched an offensive in northern Syria
against Sayf al-Dln of Halab. He headed towards the
north-east, in the knowledge that Manbidj was held
by Kutb al-Dln Inal b. Hassan, a resolute enemy of
the Ayyubid sovereign; the siege-engineers had
already begun their work when Inal offered to sur¬
render, giving up his citadel and his treasury, in ex¬
change for safe-conduct. The prospect of taking
Manbidj without bloodshed and gaining precious time
persuaded Salah al-Dln, who permitted Inal to make
his way to al-Mawsil. Manbidj was taken on 29
Shawwal 571/11 May 1176, and the victor found
significant spoils there. Salah al-Dln recalled his
nephew TakI al-Dln c Umar b. Turan Shah, who was
seeking to impose his authority in Egypt, and gave
him fiefdoms in Syria, including Manbidj. In
577/1181, TakI al-Dln al-Muzaffar c Umar, prince of
Hamat, while in Manbidj, attempted to bar the road
from Halab to c Izz al-Dln Ibrahim Ibn al-Mukad-
dam, but he failed and was forced to retreat to
Hamat. In Ramadan 579/June 1179 2 Salah al-Dln ap¬
pointed his brother al-Malik al- c Adil governor of
Manbidj and, two years later, he added a minaret to
the Great Mosque.

It was during this period (Rabl* I 580/June 1184)
that Ibn Djubavr. coming from Harran, mentioned
the purity of the air, the beauty of the landscape, the
abundance and quality of the water of Manbidj. He
described its broad streets and markets, noted the
piety of the §hafi c I inhabitants, mentioned the ancient
defensive wall as well as the remains of Roman
buildings, and referred to the separate and isolated
citadel.

In 586/1190, Manbidj, then ruled by Nasir al-Dln,
son of al-Muzaffar TakI al-Dln c Umar, was an impor¬
tant rallying-point for troops setting out to fight
Frederick Barbarossa.

In 588/1192, al-Malik al-Zahir, third son of $alah
al-Dln, sought to assert control of Manbidj, appealing
to al-Malik al-Mansur of IJamat to lend him his sup¬
port against al-Malik al- c Adil. But al-Mansur refused
to give up the town which controlled the communica¬
tion routes towards the north-east, the valley of the
Upper Euphrates and Diyar Mudar. In Radjab
589/April-May 1193, al-Malik al-Zahir and al-Malik
al-Afdal attacked Manbidj; al-Zahir destroyed the
citadel to prevent it being used by an enemy and the
town, deprived of defences, was given in ikta c .

In 591/1195, Manbidj was dependent on al-Mansur
of Hamat; al-Malik al-Zahir came from Kinnasrin to
attack it, but he was obliged to return in haste to
Damascus and he abandoned the operation. In Dhu
’1-Ka c da 595/September 1199, al-Malik al-Mansur

MANBIDJ

381

Muhammad took Barin from c Izz al-Din Ibrahim Ibn
al-Mukaddam and gave him Manbidj by way of com¬
pensation. Several months later, at the request of al-
Malik al- c Adil, he also gave Famiya and Kafar Tab to
c Izz al-Din in recompense for Barin. Meanwhile, c Izz
al-Din Ibrahim died at Famiya, and Manbidj reverted
to his younger brother Shams al-Din c Abd al-Malik.
In 598/1202, al-Malik al-Zahir undertook restoration
work on the Great Mosque.

Ca. 600/1204, Manbidj was a much-frequented
place of pilgrimage. At the end of the 6th/12th cen¬
tury, al-HarawI refers to “the tomb, no longer to be
seen, of al-Hakam b. al-Muttalib b. c Abd Allah b. al-
Muttalib”, an eminent Kurashi who lived at the end
of the Umayyad period and is said to have died in
Syria. This author mentions the mashhad of al-Khadir
and “the mashhad of the light (mashhad al-nur), where
it is claimed that there lies the tomb of some pro¬
phet’’. Ibn Shaddad ( AHak , 57) confirms the existence
of this monument; “Mashhad with the cenotaph of
Khalid b. Sinan al- c Absi” [q.v.], a personage of the
jatra [q.v.]\ this tomb was situated to the east of Man¬
bidj. There was also a masdjid al-mustadjab, an oratory
where vows were fulfilled. Also mentioned is a “Tem¬
ple of the Moon which was a place of pilgrimage for
the Sabians”.

In 597/1201 al-Malik al-Zahir Gh azT who, like al-
Malik al-Afdal, did not recognise the authority of al-
Malik al- c Adil, sent al-Mubariz Akdja, one of his
senior amirs of Halab, with troops to take possession
of Manbidj and of KaFat Nadjm. Shams al-Din was
taken prisoner and incarcerated in the citadel of
Halab. Henceforward, Manbidj was incorporated
among the territories of Halab, and the domination of
the Banu TMukaddam came to an end.

Al-Malik al-Zahir was not slow to acknowledge al-
Malik al- c Adil as overlord, and the latter, in 598/-
1202, granted Manbidj in ikta c to c Imad al-DTn b.
Sayf al-Din c Ali Ahmad b. al-Mashtub. Soon after¬
wards, al-Malik al-Zahir, who struck coinage at
Halab, took it back from al-Mashtub in Djumada II
598/March 1202 and dismantled the walls and the
citadel, while c Abd al-Malik b. c Ali b. c Abd al-Malik
b. Abi Shavba contributed to the restoration of the
Great Mosque. Manbidj was the object of numerous
attacks on the part of al-Malik al-Zahir, who died in
613/1216.

In RabF II 615/JuIy 1218, the vanguard of the
troops of the Saldjuk Kaykawus b. Kavkhusraw [q.v. ]
having invaded the territory of Manbidj, the town
opened its gates to him. But the Saldjuk sultan of
Rum was forced to evacuate the place, which was
taken by al-Malik al-Afdal; the latter spared the
population and appointed as governor of the town one
of his officers, Sarim al-Din al-Manbidji, who
restored the defensive walls. At the approach of al-
Malik al-Ashraf, who had succeeded al-Malik al- c Adil
as head of the Ayyubids, Sarim al-Din advanced
against the Ayyubid army, suffered a decisive defeat
and lost the town. In 625/1228, the army of Djalal al-
Din Kh w arazm-Shah [q. v. j advanced to Manbidj, but
withdrew at the approach of winter. In 631/1234, al-
Malik al- c AzTz Muhammad received orders from the
Ayyubid supreme ruler al-Malik al-Kamil to muster
troops at Manbidj in preparation for an assault on
Tell Bashir; as a result, the chieftains assembled on
the plain of Manbidj included al-Malik al-Ashraf
Musa, Kaykubad b. Kavkhusraw. al-Malik
al-Mughith of Hims, al-Malik al-Muzaffar of Hamat
and al-Malik al-Nasir of Karak; the commander of the
operation was al-Malik al-Mu c azzam Turan Shah,
cousin of the prince of Halab,who was reponsible for
bringing these leaders together.

In 634/1236-7, at the end of the reign of al-Malik
aI- c Aziz c Uthman, further construction work was
done to the Great Mosque of Manbidj. In 636/1238,
al-Mu c azzam Turan Shah brought his army to oc¬
cupy the town, which gave shelter to refugees from
Rakka and Balis fleeing before the Kh w arazmians. In
637/1240-1, the latter, crossing the Euphrates once
more, routed the troops of Halab and marched
against Manbidj; on Thursday 20 RabF II/8
November 1240, the population took refuge within
the fortifications, but the town was taken by assault
three days later and burnt. The Kh w arazmians
massacred a great many of the inhabitants before re¬
crossing the Euphrates. Al-Malik al-Mansur retrieved
the town. In Djumada I 640/November 1242, on their
way from KaFat Dja c bar, al-Malik al-Mansur and al-
Malik al-Muzaffar stopped at Manbidj before reach¬
ing Halab.

When the Mongols of Hulagu [q.v. j crossed the
Euphrates in their turn, in the course of their
headlong invasion of the West, having taken Balis in
Dh u ’1-Hidjdja 657/November-December 1259, they
turned towards the north and sacked Manbidj, and
then attacked Tell Bashir before returning to their
base at al-Ruha.

With the arrival of the Mamluk sultans, the post of
kadi of Manbidj, which had been occupied by Awhad
al-Din, was entrusted to Shams al-Din Abu c Abd Al¬
lah Muhammad b. Mahmud al-Isfahani
(616-88/1219-89).

In the treaty which the sultan Kalawun concluded
with Leo of Armenia on 1 RabF II 684/6 June 1281,
Manbidj is mentioned among the “Egyptian’’ towns.
According to Ibn al-Shihna, it contributed to the
sultan’s diwdn a sum of approximately 500,000 dirhams
per year, composed of various levies.

At the end of 699/1299, Manbidj was destroyed by
the Tatars, but in the vicinity, numerous pastures and
gardens were still to be seen; the majority of the trees
were mulberries.

In the period of Abu ’l-Fida 5 (first half of the
8th/14th century) Manbidj was replaced by Antakiya
as capital of the c Awasim. It became a small niyaba , but
remained an important place in the region of the
Syrian Upper Euphrates. It is known from al-
Kalkashandl (1418), who summarised the Takwim
(1321), that the region was dependent then upon the
nd\b of Halab and that its governor was a dj_undi }
mukaddam of the halka [q.v.], appointed by tawki c karim
and enjoying an ikta c . In Dhu ’1-Hidjdja
721/November 1321, the place became the objective
of the Turkoman amir Mintash, who came to attack it;
the siege lasted several days, and finally Manbidj was
taken and burnt, and a large section of the population
massacred. A few weeks later, the amir of al-Ruha
joined battle with Mintash, who was defeated, taken
prisoner and sent to Djulban, viceroy of Halab (early
722/late 1321).

In 748/1349, a major plague of locusts infested the
region, which, the following year was to be smitten by
a serious outbreak of the Black Death. In this period,
the town had as its wall the poet and historian c Umar
b. Muzaffar al-Ma c arri Zayn al-Din al-Wardi, author
of a sequel to the chronicle of Abu TFidaT In the
8th/14th century, following changes to the road net¬
work, Manbidj played no further part in the postal
system ( band ); Ibn Battuta did not pass this way, and
the mail between Halab and the Euphrates, routed
furhter to the south, crossed the river opposite Kal c at
Dja c bar.

At the beginning of the 9th/15th century, Manbidj,
like many other places, suffered great damage as a
result of the invasion of the Timur Lang. However, in

382

MANBIDJ

the middle of this century, according to Ibn al-Shihna
of Halab (in his al-Durr al-muntakhab) , it was con¬
tributing 40,000 dinars in annual taxation to the
sultan’s treasury, a fact which testifies to a degree of
economic activity. For his part, the Egyptian Khalil
al-Zahirl, in his survey of the province of Halab in the
Zubdat kashf al-mamalik (mid-9th/l 5th century), makes
no mention of Manbidj.

In 922/1516, Syria passed under the authority of
the Ottoman sultans; the re-organisation of the
eastern provinces of the empire and changes in the
road network placed Manbidj on the periphery of the
major commercial processes.

In 1784 Volney visited the pashalik of Halab, and
wrote: “Two days’ travel to the north-east of Aleppo
is the small town of Manbidj, formerly renowned
under the name of Bambyce and Hierapolis. There
remains no trace of the temple of that great goddess,
whose cult is described by Lucian.’’

For the 19th century, two important sources of
evidence are worthy of mention, those of Chesney and
of Yanovski. In his account of an exploration of the
valley of the Euphrates, Chesney provides valuable
information concerning the state of Manbidj at the be¬
ginning of the century. He refers to the town and the
castle, which were then called Kara Mambuche or
Biiyuk Munbadj, and mentions remains of surroun¬
ding walls, square Arab towers and a trench which
marked the limits of the Muslim city. He describes
four large cisterns, a fine sarcophagus and the sparse
ruins of the acropolis, the remains of two temples, in
the smaller of which were an enclosure and the traces
of seven columns. In the larger, which could be that
of Atargatis, there are, he mentions specifically, traces
of massive architecture: eleven arches alongside a
paved court, in which there lie the shafts of columns
and lotus-shaped capitals. Slightly to the west of the
defensive walls there is a necropolis containing many
Turkish tombs as well as some which are pagan,
Saldjuk and Syriac, the last-named bearing inscrip¬
tions with illegible characters. Two roads leave this
site, leading to two bridges of boats (CeGyp-oc). Towards
Sadjur, there are the remnants of a kanat, partially
abandoned, which has supplied Manbidj with water
perhaps since the Assyrian, if not the Persian period.
To the east of the town there is an aqueduct carrying
water from the hills of the Djabal Dana Tagh situated
7 miles to the south-south-east. Two miles to the south
is the encampment of the Banu Sa c Id Bedouins, whose
herds roam the pasture-lands stretching from Balis to
the Sadjur.

Some years later, J. Yanovski and J. David note
that “as throughout the pachalik of Aleppo, subterra¬
nean water-courses abound in the territory of Mam-
bidj, relayed by communication channels and
thousands of reservoirs”. In this region, Yanovski
stresses the contrast between “the natural magnifi¬
cence and the human squalor.” From Manbidj to the
southern limits of the land of Halab, the author
describes “massive plains, which although laid out in
the form of fertile steppes, already resemble desert
and which are variegated only by a series of low hills
with derelict citadels on their summits”. Yanovski
also speaks of “once luxuriant prairies ruined by the
disorderly encampments of nomadic tribes.”

As for the remaining vestiges of the ancient Man¬
bidj at the beginning of the 20th century, according to
Baedeker (French edition, 1912, 411), “the extensive
ruins of the ancient town are barely visible above the
surface of the ground; however, it is possible to
recognise the contours of a theatre and of a stadium”.
The Guide Bleu (1932 edition, 165) states for its part:

“besides the perimeter wall, nothing is visible of the
remains of the ancient town, the ruins of which have
been used as a stone quarry of centuries”. In the first
third of the century, there still existed there a large
pool, still stocked with carp similar of those which had
been dedicated in Antiquity to the cult of Atargatis.
This was, in fact, an ancient sacred lake which, like
its equivalent at Marathus (Amrlt) on the Syrian
coast, was originally flanked by a rectangular stone
wall, and in the centre of which there rose an altar of
marble, (ma^abid). In the middle of the 20th century
all that remained of it was a deep un walled depression
without water, the dried-up sacred pool being used as
a playground, while its spring supplied a bathing pool
from which water was also drawn off to irrigate
gardens. Of the successive ramparts surrounded by a
broad trench which, since Antiquity had protected the
town, there remained nothing but a circular earth em¬
bankment and a few vestiges on the north-west side.

Since the 16th century, Manbidj had been incor¬
porated into Ottoman Turkey. At the beginning of
the 20th century it was a regional centre of a kada? of
the wilayet of Halab, joined to the latter since 1913 by
a telegraph cable. The region was then inhabited by
groups of Kurdish and arabised Turkish families,
among whom there were settled, after the Treaty of
San Stefano put an end to the Russo-Turkish war of
1877-8, a number of Circassians, Hanafi Muslims
[see cerkes). In 1915, at the time of the Russian of¬
fensive against eastern Turkey, the Circassians were
obliged, as a precautionary measure, to join their
kinsmen established at Khanazlr, 50 km to the south-
south-east of Halab at the northern limit of the Syrian
desert.

In 1921, after the imposition of French authority in
the Levant, Manbicy was incorporated into the third
region of the provincial government of Halab.

In 1924, the agricultural zone of Manbidj was part
of the sandjak of Halab; later, it was to contribute one
of the seven mintakas of the muhafaza of Halab. In this
region, in the first half of the 20th century, there ex¬
isted a tripartite association between the owner of the
land, the owner of the irrigation equipment and the
farmer, the supply of water being linked to the ex¬
ploitation of the land. In this period, irrigation was
still operated by the system of kanats. Since before
1914, Manbidj had been an important staging-post
for the convoys of humped cattle which, coming from
al-Mawsil, made a halt there, which explains the
presence in the town, from this period onwards, of a
veterinary surgeon who inspected the beasts before
they set out for Halab by way of Bab. In the region
of Manbidj itself, there was livestock, comprising in
1924, according to Ch. Parvie, 386 oxen, 414 calves
and 4,182 cows, which made the town an important
centre of dairy production. There were also herds of
sheep and goats.

In 1930, Manbidj, where there existed a police sta¬
tion and a magistrate’s court, was incorporated into
the kada > of the Djabal Sama c an, which was dependent
on Halab. Two years later, the population of the town
numbered 2,000, including 800 Circassians and 100
Armenians. In 1945, a census counted 4,653 in¬
habitants, including the population of the regional
centre of the kadP. According to the official statistics
of the Syrian Arab Republic (1982), the population of
the town was estimated in 1960 at 8,577, in 1970 at
14,635 (the mintaka or district then numbered
102,730), and in 1981 at 30,844. The significant
demographic growth of the region in the course of the
last decade is due to electrification made possible by
the barrage of Tabka on the Euphrates, to the im-

MANBIDJ — MAND

383

provement of the road network and to a re-structuring
of the hydraulic system, measures which have led to
a spectacular development of agriculture in the region
and to an improvement of the habitat.

Bibliography : 1. Arabic authors: Akhtal.
Diwan, ed. Salhanl, Beirut 1891-2, 134; Ibn Khur-
radadhbih, 75,’ 98, 1 17, 162, 228, 229, 246, 254;
Baladhurl. Futuh , 132, 150, 188, 191; Ibn Rusta,
83, 97, 107; Ya c kubl, Bulddn, 161; Tabari, i, 959,
ii, 779, 1876, iii, 47, 654, 694, 1103, 1265; BattanI,
al-Zidi al-sabi, ed. Nallino, ii, 41 (no 154), iii, 238;
Istakhrl, 62, 65, 67; Mas c udl, Alurudp, §§ 228,
2644; idem, Tanbih , 44, 152; Kudama, 228-9, 246,
254; Abu Firas, Diwan, ed. S. Dahan, Damascus
1944, 326-9; Ibn Hawkal, 187 (tr. Kramers-Wiet,
164, 178, 184-6, 206); MukaddasI, 54, 60, 154, 190
(tr. A. Miquel, Damascus 1963, 132, 159, 240,
302); Nasir-i Kh usraw. Safar-nama , ed. Ch.
Schefer, 31; IdrlsI, Opus geographicum, 378, 643,
651, 652. c Imad al-Din al-Isfahanl, al-Fath al-kussi
fi ’l-fath al-kudsi, tr. H. Masse, Paris 1972, 231;
Harawl, Kitab al-Ziyarat, ed. and tr. J. Sourdel-
Thomine, Damascus 1953-7, 101, 237; Ibn Dju-
bayr, Rihla, tr. M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris
1949-65, 286-7; Yakut, ed. Beirut 1957, v, 205-7;
Ibn al-Athlr, see index ii, 813; Ibn al- c Ad!m, Zubdat
al-Halab fi ta'rikh Halab, ed. Dahan, Damascus
1951-4, i and ii, index; Abu ’l-Fida 3 , Takwim, 271;
Kalkashandl, Subh al-a c sha, iv, 127-8; Ibn Shihna,
al-Durr al-muntakhab fi ta'rikh mamlakat Halab , ed.
Sarkis, Beirut 1909, 191 ff.; Ibn Sasra, al-Durra al-
mudPa. A chronicle of Damascus 1389-1397, ed. and
tr. W.M. Brinner, Berkeley 1963, 132a, 204b.

2. Non-Arabic sources: Leo the Deacon, Histo-
riae, in Patrologia Migne , cxvii, 102; Matthew of
Edessa, Armenian chronicle, tr. E. Dulaurier, Paris
1858, 311-12, 373, 384, 426, 450, 463, 468;
Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. and tr. J.-B.
Chabot, Paris 1899-1914; Pseudo-Dionysius,
Chronicle, ed. Chabot, Paris 1895, 47, 68;

3. Western works: Volney, Voyage en Egypte et en
Syrie, 1799, new ed. by J. Gaulmier, Paris 1959,
279; J. Yanovski, Syrie ancienne et moderne , Paris
1848, 19-21; F. Chesney, Expedition for the survey of
the rivers Euphrates and Tigris , London 1850, 420,
421, 510; H. Guys, Statistique du Pachalik d’Alep,
Marseilles 1853; K. Ritter, Erdkunde, viii.2 = Teil
14-17, Berlin 1852-5, 1057 f.; Palgrave, Narratives,
London 1865, i, 128; E. Sachau, Reise im Syrien und
Mesopotamien, Leipzig 1883. 146-52, 154; G. Le
Strange, Lands , 107; idem, Palestine , Cambridge
1890, 500-2; D.G. Hogarth and J.A.R. Munro,
Afodern and ancient roads in Eastern Asia Alinor , R.
Geog. Soc. Suppl. Papers, London 1893, iii, 643;
V. Cuinet, Syrie, Liban, Palestine, Paris 1898; D.G.
Hogarth, Carchemish and its neighbourhood , in Annals
of Archaeology and Anthropology, ii, Liverpool 1909,
166, 183; K. Baedeker, Palestine et Syrie, 4th Fr. ed.
1912, 410, 411; Fr. Cumont, Etudes Syriennes, Paris
1917, 23-6, 358; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La
Syne a Tepoque des Afamelouks, Paris 1923, p. xxxlv,
9, 10, 92, 219, 281; L. Caetani, Annali dell ’Islam,
Milan 1905-26, iii, 792, 794, 797, 816; C. Pavie,
Fiat d’Alep. Renseignements agricoles, Aleppo 924; R.
Dussaud, Topographie historique de la Syrie, Paris
1927, viii, 187, 450 ff., 462, 468, 470, 474 f. map
XIII h; A. Musil, The Afiddle Euphrates, New York
1927, 281; Guide Bleu, Syrie-Palestine, Paris 1932,
165; Cl. Cahen, Chronique de Djazira d’apres Ibn Shad-
dad, in REI, viii (1934), 109-28; idem. La Syrie du
Nord, Paris 1940, index; R. Grousset, Histoire des
Croisades , Paris 1934-7, index; E. Honigmann, Die

Ostgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches, Brussels, 1935,
142, 462 ff.; A. Latyon, La vie rurale en Syrie et au
Liban, Beirut 1936, 78; Goossens, Hierapolis de Syrie.
Essai de monographie historique, Louvain 1943; R.
Mouterde et A. Poidebard, Le limes de Chalcis, Paris
1945, 21, 66, 127, 230; M. Canard, Hamd’anides,
Algiers 1951 (see index \n Arabica, xviii [1971] 309);
S. Runciman, A history of the Crusades, Cambridge
1952, ii, 113, 165, 170, 312, 330, 385, 409; K.M.
Setton, A history of the Crusades, Philadelphia, 1955,
i, see index, ii, 1962, 696, 708, 775; L. Dillemann,
Haute Alesopotamie, Paris-Beirut 1962, 131, 177-84;
N. Elisseeff, Nur al-Din, Damascus 1967, index,
map 2-D; E. Wirth, Syrien, Darmstadt 1971, 103,
180, 296, 390; A. Ehrenkreutz, Saladin, Albany,
N.Y. 1972, 146, 147; D.E. Pitcher, An historical
geography of the Ottoman Empire, Leiden 1972, map
xxxxii A.2; E. Ashtor, A social and economic history of
the Near East in the Aliddle Ages, Los Angeles 1976,
100; R.S. Humphreys, From Saladin to the Alongols,
Albany N.Y. 1977, index; Syrian Arab Republic,
Statistical abstract, Damascus 1982; J. Lauffray,
Halabiye, Paris 1984, 27, 32; P. Sanlanille et al.,
Holocene settlement in North Syria, BAR Intern, series,
Oxford 1905, no. S 238; RCEA, nos. 2673, 2970,
3402, 4123, 4124, 4125. (N. Elisseeff)

MAND (Mund, Mund), the longest river in
Fars ( Nuzhat al-kulub\ 50 farsakhs; E.C. Ross: over
300 miles in length).

The name. As a rule in Persia, sections of a river
are called after the districts through which they flow.
Mand is the name of the last stretch near its mouth.
The name seems to appear for the First time in the
Fars-nama (before 510/1116), but only in the com¬
posite Mandistan (cf. below).

The old name of the river is usually transcribed in
Arabic characters Sakkan (al-Istakhrl, 120; Ibn
Hawkal, 191; al-ldrlsl, tr. Jaubert, i, 401), but the or¬
thography varies: Thakan, Fars-nama, GMS, 152;
Nuzhat al-kulub, 134; Zakkan or Zakkan, Nuzhat al-
kulub, 217; Sitaragan, Djihan-numa. 247; cf. also
Sayhkan in Hasan Fasa 3 !.

The identification of the Sakkan with the Sn:ocx6<;
mentioned in the Periplus of Nearchus (Arrian, lndica,
xxxviii, 8) is generally recognised. The identity of
Sitakos with the Sitioganus (Sitiogagus) mentioned by
Pliny, Nat. Hist., vi. 26, is also usually admitted
(Weissbach, 1927), but Herzfeld (1907) relying on the
existence of another river, the Shadhkan (=
Sitioganus?), has suggested doubts about the iden¬
tification of the Sitakos with the Sitioganus. Now ac¬
cording to al-Istakhrl. 119, the Shadhkan flows into
the Persian Gulf at Dasht al-Dastakan (north of
Bushlr?). This Shadhkan must be identified with the
river Shapur. The Fars-nama, ed. Le Strange, 163,
mentions Rudbal-i Sittadjan (“the banks of the S.”)
as a station on the road from Shiraz to Tawwadj.
From this fact and especially from the name, Sittadjan
seems to have applied to the left bank tributary of the
Shapur. Pliny, who follows Onesicritos, adds that by
the Sitioganus one reaches Pasargades in 7 days.
Whatever be the identity of the Sitioganus, the exag-
garation in this statement is evident (especially in the
direction of the sea to Pasargades) and the waters of
Pasargades (Mashad-i Murghab) do not flow into the
Persian Gulf. But there is nothing to prove the ab¬
solute impossibility of using the Sakkan as a sub¬
sidiary means of transport in the season of floods (the
winter). According to Arrian, Nearchus found at the
mouth of the Sitakos large quantities of corn which
Alexander had brought there for the army. Al-
Istakhrl, 99, places the Sakkan among the rivers of

384

MAND

Fars which are navigable at need (al-anhar al-kibar allati
tahmil al-sufuna idha udfriyat JT-ha).

Another question is the phonetic identity of the
names Sitakos (Sitioganus?) and Sakkan. According
to C.F. Andreas, Stxaxog is a nominative restored
from a supposed genitive ‘Sitaxtov (Sitakan); Sitio-
gan-us is a mistake for Sittagan-us; lastly, the
peculiarity of the Arabic script could explain the
change of Sittakan to Sakkan. Here we may add that
Hasan Fasa T gives one of the stretches of the river the
strangely written form Sayhkan (*Stkan?). Al-
Istakhrl. however, derives the name of the river from
that of the village of Sakk ( Nuzhat al-kulub: Zakan) in
the district of KarzTn considerably below the Sayhkan
stretch of the river.

To sum up, the identification of the Sitakos with the
Sitioganus does not seem sufficiently established.

The course of the river. The Sakkan (Mand)
describes a great curve. At first it runs in the direction
N.W.-S.E., to the northern base of the Kuh-i Marra-
yi Shikaft, which separates it from the valley of the
river Shapur. It follows this direction ( ca . 100 miles)
to the end of the Asmangird mountains around which
it makes a bend and turns south (70 miles). It then
meets the parallel ranges which run along the Persian
Gulf and continues its winding course to the sea in a
westerly direction (140 miles).

The Sakkan (Mand) and its tributaries drain and ir¬
rigate a considerable area (the Kuh-i Mand and the
Kuh-i Darang). Al-Istakhrl says that its waters con¬
tribute the largest share to the fertility of Fars {akthad 1
c imarat tn ).

The sources of the river (Kan-i Zand, Cihilcashma
and Surkh-rag) rise in the mountains of Kuh-i Nar
and Kuh-i Marra-yi Shikaft to the northwest and west
of Shiraz. These streams unite before Khan-i Zinyan
in the district of Masarm on the great Shiraz-Karrun-
Bushlr road. Al-Istakhrl. 120, places the sources of
the Sakkan near the village of Shadhfan (?) in the
district of Ruwaydjan (?). In the same author, 130,
Khan al-Asad on the Sakkan corresponds to the
modern Khan-i Zinyan. The Fars-ndma (and the
Nuzhat al-kulub ) places the sources of the Sakkan near
the village of Catruya (?). Under the Turkish name of
Kara aghac, i.e. “[the river of] the elm”, the com¬
bined streams flow through the districts of Masarm
( = Kuh-i Marra-yi Shikaft), Siyakh (al-Istakhrf, 120:
Siyah) and Kawar. In this last district, Rivadaneyra,
iii, 81, going from Shiraz to Flruzabad, crossed the
river by a “substantial bridge”. It is in the district of
Kawar that Hasan Fasa gives the river the name of
Saykhan. In Kawar (Hasan Fasa 3 !) there used to be
the barrage of Band-i Bahman, where by a subterra¬
nean channel ( kandt ) part of the water was led into
reservoirs (cdh.) and then to the fields. In the buluk of
Khafr (al-Istakhrl, 105: Khabr), which must be dis¬
tinguished from the district of the same name in the
kura of Istakhr. the river turns south. Aucher-Eloy,
who crossed the river on the road from Flruzabad to
Djarrun (Djahrum) calls it “Tengui Tachka” ( =
Tang-i Kashkay?) and speaks of its “beautiful
valley”. Rivadaneyra continuing his journey from
Flruzabad to Darab crossed the river by a ford be¬
tween the villages of Tadwan and “Assun-Dscherd”
(Asmangird?). He also admires the pleasant and
flourishing aspect of Khafr. Below the latter, the river
enters the buluk of Simkan where, near the village of
Sarkal, it receives on its left bank, the brackish ( shur)
river of Djahrum, and then flows through the ravine
of KarzTn, and waters the buluk of KTr-wa-KarzIn. Ab¬
bott coming from Fasa crossed the river by a ford be¬
tween c Ali-abad and Lifardjan (cf. the name of the

ramm of Kurds in Fars al-Liwaldjan, al-Istakhrl. 113),
where it was 100 yards wide and the water rose up to
the horse’s belly. Farther down below the ford, Stack,
going from Kir to Kariyan crossed the river, here 60
yards broad, by the bridge of c Arus, built in a zig-zag
and in two stories (“the queerest structure in the way
of a bridge”). Near the village of Nlm-dih, the river
enters the buluk of Afzar. After having wound round
the fort of Kal c a-yi Shahriyar the river receives (near
the place called Cam-i Kabkab) the name of Baz and
then irrigates the buluk of Khundj (cf. Ibn Battuta, ii,
241: Khundjbal = Kh undj + Bal). In the district of
Diz-gah of the buluk of Galla-dar, the river has two
tributaries: near the village of Gabrl, the Dar al-
Mizan, and two farsakh s lower, that of Dihram. The
Dar al-Mlzan comes from the left (east) side of the
buluk of Aslr. The Dihram, much more important,
comes from the right side after watering the historic
district of Flruzabad (the ancient Gur, capital of
Ardashlr-Khurra; cf. the details in Le Strange, 256,
and also fIruzabad). Al-Istakhrl, 121, makes this
tributary come from Dardjan (of Siyah) and water
first Khunayfghan and then Gur (in place of the name
of the river Tirza, al-Istakhrl. 99, 121, one should
probably read Buraza; cf. the Fdrs-ndma , 151, Nuzhat
al-kulub , 117-18: Hakim Buraza was the sage who
dried up the Lake of Gur).

After Diz-gah, the river enters the district ofSana-
wa-Shumba of the buluk of DashtT, and near the
village of Baghan receives on the right bank the river
CanTz which comes from the district of Tasudj-i
DashtT. Finally, near the village of Dumanlu the river
enters the coast district of Mandistan and receives the
name of Mand. It flows into the sea near the village
of Ziyarat, halfway between the old harbours of
NadjTram (to the north and Siraf (to the south).

Mandistan. The district forms part of the buluk of
DashtT (which is to be distinguished from Dashtistan
to the north of DashtT up to Bushlr). DashtT (36 x 18
farsakhs) is composed of 4 districts: 1. Bardistan, the
part of the coast in which is the port of Dayyir. 2.
Mandistan in the coast to the north of Bardistan and
the two banks of the river Mand. 3. Sana and Shumba
on the river above Mandistan. 4. Tasudj-i DashtT, a
very narrow valley (11 x '/ 2 farsakhs ), watered by the
CanTz and separating Sana and Shumba from the
buluk Arba c a (on the lower course of the river of
Flruzabad).

The whole of the buluk belongs to the torrid zone
(garmsfr) of Fars. Mandistan (12x5 farsakhs ) includes
lands so flat that the current of the river is impercepti¬
ble and the water cannot be used for irrigation.
Agriculture (wheat, barley, palm-trees) is dependent
on the winter floods. The district has 40 villages. The
capital of the district and of the buluk is Kakl. There
used to be two rival families in Mandistan: the
Shavkhivan and the Hadjdjiyan. During the distur¬
bances under Afghan rule (1722-9) the HadjdjI RaTs
Djamal exterminated the Shavkhivan and founded a
little dynasty of hereditary governors, who were able
to annex the district of Bardistan through matrimonial
alliances. One of his descendants, Muhammad Khan
(d. at Bushir in 1299/1881), was noted as a poet under
the pen-name of DashtT.

Hasan Fasa 5 ! explains the name Mandistan by a
popular etymology: “the place where the water flows
slowly (wamanda)". Names in -stan are common in
Fars (Laristan, Bardistan), but even if such a forma¬
tion was possible in a river-name, the element Mand
would still be a puzzle. It is curious that Hasan Fasa- 5 !
sometimes writes it Mand (read Mund) and some¬
times Mund (read Mond). It might be suggested as a

MAND — MANDATES

385

pure hypothesis that there is a connection with the
people Mnd (cf. Med) of which there might have been
a colony in Mandistan.

Bibliography : Weissbach, Silakos , in Pauly-
Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie 2 , 2nd Ser., v, 1927,
377; IstakhrT, 120; Ibn Hawkal, 191; Ibn al-Balkhf,
Fars-nama, GMS, 156; Nuzhat al-kulub, GMS, 134;
Hadjdji Kh alifa, Dj ihan-numa . 247; Hasan Fasa^T,
Fars-nama-yi Nasiri, Tehran 1314, ii, 210, 328-9; the
author of this excellent work published separately a
map of Fars which is now very rare. Aucher-Eloy,
Relations, Paris 1843, ii, 520; Keith Abbott, Notes on
a journey eastwards from Shiraz , in JRGS (1857), 149-
84; Haussknecht, Routen im Orient , map no. iv: Cen¬
trales and siid/iches Persien\ Rivandaneyra, Viaje al in¬
terior de la Persia , Madrid 1880, iii, 110; Stack, Six
months, London 1882, ch. xvi, p. Ill; E.C. Ross,
Notes on the river Aland , or Kara Aghatch , in Proc. RGS ,
v (1883), December, 712-16 with a map (the article
reproduces the learned note by C. F. Andreas);
Stolze, Persopolis, Bericht uber meine Aufnamen, in
Verb. d. Gesell. f. Erdk., Berlin, x (1883), 251-76;
Tomaschek, Topogr.Erlduterung d. Kustenfahrt
Neuarchs , in SB Ah. Wien , exxi, (1890), no. vii, 58-
61; Schwarz, Iran, i, 1896, 8; Le Strange, The lands
of the eastern caliphate , Cambridge 1905, 252, 255;
Herzfeld, Pasargadae, Inaugural-Dissertation, 1907,
9-10 (with a sketch based on Hasan Fasa 5 T); Ad¬
miralty handbook, Persia, London 1945, 70-1, 126,
372, 374-5; Cambridge history of Iran, i, 29-30.

(V. Minorsky)

MANDA, anislandoffthecoastofKenya. It
lies in approximately 2° 12’ S, 41° E, on the east side
of Lamu Island [ q.v . ] in the Lamu Archipelago. There
is a small modern settlement at Takwa Milinga, near
the ruins of the ancient walled town of Takwa in the
centre of the island, a small, deserted and allegedly
ancient settlement at Kitau at the south-west corner of
the island, and, in the extreme north, not far from a
small modern settlement, the remains of the ancient
walled town of Manda, which gives the island its
name. It was finally destroyed by Fumo Luti, Sultan
of Pate, in 1806. Its sole mention in Arabic literature
is as Mandakha or Manda Kha in the History of Kilwa
[see kilwa], as one of the settlements at which a son
of the founder was set up; the Arabic form presuma¬
bly represents the Swahili Manda Kuu, or Great
Manda, recorded by A. Voeltzkow. Al-Id risi ’s
reference M.l.n.da. more probably refers to Malindi
\q. v. ]. According to the traditional Habari za Pate
(“History of Pate”), it was founded earlier than Pate,
by which it was conquered later. However, it was of
sufficient importance to pay tribute to the Portuguese
separately from Pate, and it was its failure to do so
that led to reprisals by the Portuguese in 1569, when
many houses and some 2,000 palm trees were
destroyed. In 1637 it was required to demolish its
defensive walls.

H.N. Chittick carried out excavations at the site be¬
tween 1966 and 1982. (These have been entirely filled
in, and there is scarcely anything to be seen, other
than the remains of two mosques.) There are massive
stone walls on the western and northern sides abutting
on the shore, and the remains of later walls on the
south-west and south-east of the site. These walls are
distinguished by Chittik as mega-walls and maxi¬
walls: the mega-walls are of blocks of stone weighing
up to one ton each. The stone used, in both cases, is
coral, quarried from a nearby reef which can still be
identified. The walls provided stability for the sand
dunes, so that houses could be built on the resulting
terraces. These constructions are similar to ones ob¬

served by the writer at Shihr in South Yemen. The
houses were built of coral, but also used brick. Very
similar bricks have been found at Suhar, c Uman, and
were probably brought from there as ships’ ballast
unloaded here in order to take on cargoes of
mangrove timber. Certain houses have brick cisterns,
and one, with a sunken courtyard, is similar to one
known in STraf. Per contra, the lay-out of the houses,
however, is compared by M.C. Horton rather to
types known from the Red Sea. Glazed and unglazed
imported Islamic pottery, in which the earliest period
of the site abounds, can be paralleled closely in D.
Whitehouse’s excavations at STraf [q.v.], and some
was certainly made in the S.Traf vicinity. It need not be
concluded, however, that Manda was a colony of
STraf. Rather, its connections with the Red Sea, and
also with Suhar, suggest that it served both the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf as a trading port, already in
existence in the mid-8th century, busied chiefly in the
ivory and mangrove trades, in a region in which they
abound naturally. A curiosity is an arcaded building
with open sides, probably of the 13th-14th centuries,
and most likely to have been a covered market, albeit
it has been fancifully described as a “kiosk”. There is
a Friday mosque and another mosque, of 14th-15th
century date. Only six coins have been found, two of
them Fatimid, and apparently from Sicilian mints, an
illustration of the wide dispersal of coinage. (The plate
published by Chittick is illegible.) There is no trace of
there having been a local currency.

At Takwa there is a well-preserved Friday Mosque
and quite a number of houses in what was a walled
town of some 12 14 acres. The mosque appears to be
of the late 15th or early 16th century, and was cleared
by J.S. Kirkman, Pace the latter author, the pillar that
rises above the roof of the mihrab is not of religious
significance. Examination of the side walls discloses
stumps of what were a series of pillars that originally
provided an open clerestory below the roof, a feature
still perpetuated in domestic architecture on Pate
Island. A curiosity in the mosque ablutions is the
decoration of the cistern with three plates: that in the
place of honour in the centre is of Portuguese
manufacture, and bears the Cross that is the emblem
of the Portuguese Order of Christ. Outside the walls
an inscription on a pillar tomb is read by Kirkman
c Abd Allah Muhammad c Ali al-mutawaffa sana 1094.
Local tradition, nevertheless, claims it as the tomb of
Shaykh Ahmad Mansur b. Ahmad or “Shavkh FakThi
Mansur”, honouring it with an annual pilgrimage
from Shela on Lamu Island. The Friday Mosque also
enjoys the reputation of being a place of sanctuary.
The inability to read the inscription can be taken as
an indication of the local level of literacy in Arabic.

Bibliography : (H.) N. Chittick, Manda, excava¬
tions at an island port on the Kenya coast, Nairobi, 1984;
G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, The East African coast:
select documents 2 , Oxford 1975, 248-53 (Swahili
History of Pate in English tr.); P.S. Garlake, The
Early Islamic architecture of the East African Coast,
Nairobi 1966, 65-6 and figs. 31, 34; J.S. Kirkman,
Takwa—The Mosque of the Pillar, in Ars Orientalis, iii
(1957); J. Strandes, The Portuguese period in East
Africa (1899), ed. J.S. Kirkman, Nairobi 1968; A.
Voeltzkow, Die Witu-Inseln und Zanzibar-Archipel,
Stuttgart 1923; personal communications by M.C.
Horton and by D. Whitehouse, and personal visit,
1982. (G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville)

MANDATES. The mandate (Arabic intidab\
Turkish manda, from the French) was essentially a
system oftrusteeship, instituted by the League of
Nations after the end of the First World War, for the

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

386

MANDATES

administration of certain territories detached from the
vanquished states, chiefly the Ottoman and German
Empires. The concept of the mandate has been
variously understood as either a new world order or,
contrariwise, merely as a facade for neo-colonialism,
with other interpretations ranging between these two
extremes. Essentially, the option of establishing man¬
dates in conquered territories was largely intended to
defuse (if not quite resolve) three foci or conflict: (1)
Among the Powers themselves, particularly the vic¬
torious Allies, regarding domination of areas formerly
administered by the vanquished - according to their
respective global and regional interests and in con¬
sideration of secret agreements drawn up during the
war years. (2) Between each Mandatory Power and
the populations of the to-be-mandated territories —
whose elites had become at least partially suffused
with assertive patriotism — in an attempt to find
methods of fulfilling promises expressed during the
war. (3) Among rival sectors within each of these
populations, some of which rejected mutual accom¬
modation.

The mandate was not only a response to the real or
potential threat of the above conflicts, but also a com¬
promise between the desire of the victors — chiefly
France and Great Britain — to maintain their hold on
certain territories and the demand for self-
determination raised by idealists, among whom Presi¬
dent Woodrow Wilson and General Jan Smuts were
most prominent. The guiding principle essentially
agreed upon was to adopt a system of Great Power ad¬
ministration, intended to foster not only material
welfare and cultural advancement but also progressive
development of the mandated territory towards in¬
dependence and statehood as well. The degree of
development varied among the territories, which were
classified accordingly into three categories. Category
A, the highest level, comprised three mandates (out of
a total of fourteen), all in ex-Ottoman territories:
c Irak; Syria and Lebanon; and Palestine and Trans¬
jordan. We will consider only these mandates herein,
as they included sizeable Muslim populations (man¬
dates in Category B were located in Africa and those
in Category C in Africa and the Pacific area; for both,
a more paternal type of rule was envisaged). For a
brief while (1918-19) there was some discussion of a
British and then an American mandate over Anatolia
— the latter mooted separately by Khalide Edlb [q. v. ]
in Turkey and Henry Morgenthau, former U.S. am-
bassaor of Istanbul, in The New York Times. These pro¬
jects were soon dropped, however, due to the Turkish
nationalists’ flat rejection, at the Sivas Congress
(1919) of any mandate idea and their success in
Turkey’s war of independence. Similarly, projects of
mandates for Armenia and Albania failed to
materialise (the United States Senate debated the
former, which received insufficient support because of
majority opposition to the Treaty of Versailles. Fur¬
thermore, no other state was willing to assume a man¬
date over Armenia).

The victorious Allies first agreed in principle about
mandates, in a formal manner, in a resolution of the
Council of Ten on 30 January 1919, which became
Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations
signed in Paris in April 1919 and incorporated into
the Versailles Peace Treaty two months later. Concer¬
ning the “A” areas, the Covenant stated, in part, that
“Certain communities formerly belonging to the
Turkish Empire have reached a state of development
where their existence as independent nations can be
provisionally recognised, subject to the rendering of
administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory

until such time as they are able to stand alone. The
wishes of these communities must be a principal con¬
sideration in the selection of the Mandatory.”

The above formulation reflected the feelings of
humanity and justice prevalent in the wake of the
First World War and well suited the principle of effi¬
ciency in public administration, better served by a
defined Mandatory state whose commitment to the
local population could be safeguarded by the control
and criticism of international public opinion. How¬
ever, not all the above principles were fully acceptable
to France and Great Britain; hence the final texts of
the mandates introduced certain modifications (e.g. in
allowing local populations a share in selecting “their”
Mandatory). At the San Remo Conference, in April
1920, the Allies definitively allotted c Irak and
Palestine to Great Britain, and Syria and Lebanon to
France. The final versions of the mandates and the
respective specifications of each were worked out
within the League of Nations and approved in July
1922 for Palestine and Syria; those relating to c Irak,
however, were never ratified as such and consisted in¬
stead of a British- c IrakI Treaty — a modified version
of the original draft of the mandate — signed on 12
October 1922 and approved by the Council of the
League of Nations in September 1924. The mandates
became valid only since September 1923, after the
Republic of Turkey (at the Lausanne Conference)
had officially renounced all claims on the non-Turkish
territories of the defunct Ottoman Empire. Even then,
certain frontier issues remained to be ironed out
subsequently.

From a legal point of view, the appointment of a
Mandatory took the form of an agreement between
the League of Nations and the relevant Power, in
which the latter was enjoined to promote the interests
of the population in the mandated territory and
prepare it for self-rule, under the control of the inter¬
national body — a new conception in political science.
The Mandatory had to report annually to the League
of Nations’ Permanent Mandates Commission,
whose Constitution was approved by the League’s
Council in December 1920. The Commission was
first appointed in February 1921 and formally super¬
vised the application of the mandates. This Commis¬
sion, numbering at first nine members (the number
subsequently varied), comprised a majority of
representatives from countries other than the Man¬
datory. It usually met in Geneva twice a year,
diligently examining reports from the Mandatory and
petitions by the local population, generally insisting
upon the presence of representative officials of the
Mandatory for cross-examination. Consequently, the
commission’s functions were simultaneous control of
and collaboration with each of the Mandatories. It
was hampered, however, by the lack of direct contact
with people in the Mandated territories and by an
absence of any power other than that of relaying
observations to the Council of the League of Nations,
whose duties included overall observance of the
system and its modification where required. In addi¬
tion, the International Court of Justice at the Hague
served as a court of appeals, in certain cases, for the
people of the mandated territories.

On a practical basis, the Mandatory thus had con¬
siderable latitude in its day-to-day governing and
even in much of its decision-making. Nevertheless,
there remained certain basic juridical differences be¬
tween mandates and colonies. The Mandatory lacked
exclusive rights and possessed merely a delegated —
and consequently limited — authority; hence it was
not the sovereign power of the mandated territory,

MANDATES

387

nor even its protector, in an international sense.
Rather, it constituted merely a trustee for interna¬
tional society and a tutor appointed by the League of
Nations to take care of the interests of the country’s
population. Legally, this implied both rights and
obligations for the Mandatory. In actual practice,
much depended upon the interests involved and the
forces applied in each case.

c Irak. The mandates offered differing degrees of
autonomy to the local populations — to c Irak the
most, to Palestine the least, and to Syria an in¬
termediate degree — apparently dependent upon the
level of homogeneity of the population (assuming that
too much autonomy might be unsuitable for a
heterogeneous population). The case of c Irak is rather
special, however, on other grounds as well. In 1921,
even before final approval of the mandate, the British,
who had already assumed effective control, invited
Faysal b. Husayn (who had been ejected from Syria
by the French) to reign over c Irak under their aegis,
assisting him in setting up the institutions of govern¬
ment [see faysal i]. True to their conception of the
mandate, the British created directors’ posts at the top
level of every Ministerial office and appointed ad¬
visers in various administrative departments, as well
as local judges. In 1921, an c Irakf army was set up; in

1923, a Constituent Assembly was elected, which met
in March of the following year and approved c Irak’s
constitution of July 1924. The assembly also approved
the October 1922 British- c IrakT Treaty which, without
explicitly supplanting the Mandate, constituted of¬
ficial legal recognition by Great Britain of c Irak’s
sovereignty, provided the former offered binding ad¬
vice in international and financial matters. Great Bri¬
tain indeed successfully represented and defended
c Irak’s interests in the delicate negotiations held with
Turkey since 1925 concerning the area of Mavysil
[q.v. ] which the League of Nations eventually allotted
to c Irak. Although the 1922 Treaty did not mention
the mandate at all, it was nonetheless approved by the
Council of the League of Nations, on 27 September

1924, as the instrument of mandate.

These moves only satisfied the c IrakT nationalists
for a brief while, however, if at all. Largely due to
their pressures, a new British- c Iraki treaty was signed
in 1930, one which practically terminated the man¬
date; Great Britain reserved for itself certain rights,
largely in the military domain, for another twenty-five
years. The League of Nations, however, was the only
institution which could terminate a mandate officially
— and this was the first time the issue had arisen.
Thus the Permanent Mandates Commission set up
five pre-requisites for ending a mandate: a settled
government and administration capable of running ail
public services; ability to maintain territorial integrity
and political independence; capability of keeping in¬
ternal peace and order; adequate financial resources
for governmental requirements; and a legal and
judicial system affording regular and equal justice to
all. The Commission had some doubts about the
suitability of conditions in c Irak for ending the man¬
date, primarily those relating to the judicial system
and minority rights. After lengthy debates, however,
in autumn 1932 the Permanent Mandates Commis¬
sion voted to recommend termination of the mandate
for c Irak to the Council of the League of Nations. The
Council approved and in October 1932 admitted c Irak
to the League of Nations (the first Arab state to join);
thus the 1930 Treaty came into force and the mandate
ended definitively. All formal restrictions on c Irak as
a sovereign state were abrogated, although Great Bri¬
tain did exercise its rights to intervene in crucial state

and security matters until the end of the Second
World War.

Syria and Lebanon. The French mandate in
Syria and Lebanon, also imposed in 1922, continued
to exist for a much longer period that that of c Irak,
ending only in 1945. The Mandatory was charged
with framing an organic law for Syria and Lebanon
within three years and then to lead them into develop¬
ing as independent states. It was further enjoined to
levy taxes, develop natural resources, and establish
judicial and educational systems, as well as military
forces, these last to be eventually handed on to the
local people. All this was conditional on the Man¬
datory’s promoting the well-being of the population
and refraining from granting monopolies and conces¬
sions to its own nationals to the detriment of the local
people or those of those states. The French in Syria
accordingly allowed Arab Syrians and Lebanese to
staff the administration — although it was headed (as
in c Irak) at its highest echelons by advisers delegated
by the Mandatory. The French had a parallel
organisation of their own, led by the High Commis¬
sioner; furthermore, they not only managed foreign
and military affairs themselves, but often intervened
in interna! matters as well, through their officials. As
with the British in c Irak, the French in Syria and
Lebanon found Francophile Arabs willing to co¬
operate with them, simultaneously incurring the
hostility of the nationalists.

On the whole, the Mandatory had greater success
in Lebanon than in Syria. In the former, a represen¬
tative council was prompted to prepare an Organic
Law, in 1925, which was adopted by the Mandatory
in the same year; in the following year, Lebanon
became a republic with its own constitution, president
and government — supervised by the Mandatory (as
in c Irak). In Syria, however, a serious uprising (called
a “revolt” by the nationalists and an “insurrection”
by the French) occurred in the Druze region 1926-7,
probably brought about by a combination of local
grievances and patriotic aspirations; this uprising
spread and the Mandatory forces put it down strong-
handedly. An attempt to set up a Constituent
Assembly, 1928, to prepare a constitution, foundered
largely because of tensions between the above groups.
In 1930, the assembly was dissolved and the French
authorities unilaterally proclaimed a constitution,
with the proviso that it could not contradict the
responsibilities entailed in the Mandate. In principle,
it resembled the Organic Law in c Irak, although it
was republican rather than monarchical in intent and
comprised variations for Syria’s different units. An
assembly was elected two years later and, in 1936, a
French-Syrian treaty was agreed upon. This would
have recognised Syria’s sovereign independence (in
three years’ time), while allowing France to maintain
its military forces there. However, the Government
and Parliament in France did not ratify the treaty and
Syria reverted to Mandatory rule, with the French
High Commissioner increasing his authority.

All this exasperated the nationalists who, although
divided among themselves, were antagonised by the
French division of the mandated territory into
separate units and by the changes repeatedly intro¬
duced. The nationalists were particularly irritated by
what they interpreted as the Mandatory Power’s ac¬
tions to increase autonomy in Druze and c A!awT
districts, carve out a “Great Lebanon” and hand over
the sandjcLk of Alexandretta (Hatay) to Turkey. Even
the declaration of General Catroux (commander of
the Free French forces which entered Syria, together
with the British, in June 1941), in September 1941,

388

MANDATES

that the French mandate had ended hardly convinced
the Syrian nationalists, as France insisted on a
“predominant position” there. Only at the end of the
war, in 1945, did France recognise Syria’s in¬
dependence, thus ending the mandate (the League of
Nations had been inactive during the war and was
considered defunct, for practical purposes; hence it
had no part in this decision).

The mandate in Lebanon developed along parallel
although not identical lines. As early as August 1930,
the French carved out a “Great Lebanon” which did
away with the area’s former Christian hegemony and
turned Lebanon into an even more complicated
mosaic of religious communities. The division of the
main official positions, as well as the composition of
the elected representative assemblies since 1926, have
reflected and institutionalised this complexity. The
1926 Constitution accorded a high degree of home
rule to the Lebanese, while granting France important
decision-making privileges. A Franco-Lebanese trea¬
ty, similar to the Franco-Syrian one of 1936, was
drawn up during the same year, but likewise failed to
obtain ratification in France. Nevertheless, the dif¬
ference between Lebanon and Mandatory France led
to less violence in Lebanon than in Syria; Lebanon’s
independence (and termination of the mandate), at¬
tained in 1945, demanded fewer struggles that did
Syria’s.

Palestine and Transjordan. The mandate for
Palestine was sui generis in several respects. Unlike the
drafts of the mandates for c Irak and for Syria and
Lebanon, the text of the mandate for Palestine did not
charge the Mandatory with drafting an organic law,
but rather with promoting political, administrative
and economic conditions to ensure the establishment
of a national home for the Jewish people, while protec¬
ting the civil and religious rights of the rest of the
population. The Balfour Declaration of 2 November
1917 was inserted into the preamble of this text and
certain privileges were granted to the Jews, sc. the for¬
mation of an official Jewish Agency to represent them
as well as provisions concerning land settlement,
Palestinian nationality, the establishment and opera¬
tion of public works, services and utilities, the
development of national resources and the recognition
of Hebrew as an official language (along with English
and Arabic)

Considering the terms of the mandate and, even
more so, the increasing rivalries between Arabs and
Jews in Palestine, the British authorities found it dif¬
ficult to accommodate communities; many official
measures antagonised one community, or the other,
or both. One of the first such British decisions was to
separate Transjordan from Palestine, in 1922, and en¬
dow it with a separate administration (to be headed,
however, by the same High Commissioner). Rela¬
tions between the Mandatory and Transjordan were
then formalised, in 1928, by a treaty and a Constitu¬
tional Law, both patterned on British- c IrakT ones and
confirmed by the Permanent Mandates Commission.

In both Palestine and Transjordan, the British in¬
stituted an administration essentially differing from
the colonial ones they had established elsewhere. Its
legal authority was based on The Palestine Order in
Council, 1922, providing the British administration in
Palestine with executive, legislative and judicial
powers. The administration was led by the High
Commissioner, assisted by a Chief Secretary and
other British heads of various departments. Some of
the middle-rank positions and most of the lower ones
were staffed by local Arabs and Jews — one of their
few and highly competitive meeting grounds. All

British efforts to establish joint Arab-Jewish bodies,
such as a Legislative Council, were doomed to failure.
Even when reluctance was overcome, mutually accep¬
table terms could not be agreed upon: the Arabs
wanted such bodies to reflect their statistical majority,
while the Jews wished guarantees that they would not
be voted down on every single issue. In consequence,
both Arabs and Jews in Palestine developed their own
separate systems for self-rule, the latter enjoying
greater success in virtually developing “a state within
a state” in such domains as education, self-defence,
elections, trade unions, religious, social and cultural
affairs. Many of these were taken care of within an
“Assembly of Israel” ( Kneset Israel) and co-ordinated
by its elected “National Council” (Va c adL v umi). The
Arabs, on the other hand, were more divided among
rival factions, of which the most important was the
“Arab Higher Committee” (al-Hay^a al- c Arabiyya al-
c ulya ), led by the Mufti al-Hadjdj Amin al-Husaym
[q.v. in Suppl.], which succeeded in co-opting a
number of Christian Arabs as well.

The 1920-1 and 1929 flare-ups, directed mostly
against the Jews, culminated in a large-scale Arab
uprising which continued sporadically during 1936-9,
against both the Jews and the British. Each was fol¬
lowed by British Commissions of Inquiry, which
resulted in official White Papers duly laid before both
the British Parliament and the Permanent Mandates
Commission. The Royal Commission headed by
Lord Peel proposed the partition of Palestine, but this
was rejected by both Arabs and Jews. The 1939 White
Paper limited Jewish immigration and restricted land
sales to Jews, thus appeasing the Palestinian Arabs
during the Second World War. After the war, how¬
ever, it was the Palestinian Jews who acted against the
1939 White Paper policy: in steps initiated by the
Jewish Agency and the National Council, they
smuggled in Jewish immigrants from amongst the
survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, while small groups,
disobeying the above bodies, physically attacked
British officials and soldiers in Palestine. When
neither strong military reprisals nor additional com¬
missions proved to be of any avail, the British,
undergoing a process of decolonisation in any case,
bowed to local wishes and world opinion. American
pressure played a particularly prominent role in this
respect, as did the United Nations, before which the
issue had been brought in 1947 (and which had
decided on partition). Thus the British terminated the
mandate for Palestine on 15 May 1948. They had
already granted Transjordan formal independence by
a treaty concluded in March 1946 and amended in
March 1948 in Transjordan’s favour (equalising rela¬
tions, although, in practice, Great Britain remained
the new state’s preferred ally).

Conclusion: The mandate system was far from a
signal success; nor was it a total failure, however. First
of all, it succeeded in providing a formula, acceptable
to both idealistic statesmen and Realpolitik partisans,
for dividing the spoils of the First World War; and,
secondly, it represented a modus operandi for the vic¬
torious Allies, chiefly Great Britain and France, to
maintain their interests in the Middle East without
blatantly contradicting their mutual agreements
during the war and their promises to Arabs, Jews and
others. On the other hand, it failed to provide either
a solution to tensions between local nationalists and
the respective Mandatories, or a permanently satis¬
factory modus vivendi among the various local popula¬
tion groups within each of the mandates. It was
nationalist pressure, escalating into violence, which
hastened termination of the physical presence of the

MANDATES

389

Mandatories in c Irak, Syria and Lebanon, Palestine
and Transjordan. The process itself was part of the
new world order following the Second World War,
one which witnessed decolonisation and the founding
of numerous new states, not unrelated to the political,
military and economic relinquishing of Great Power
status by the British and French. The tensions be¬
tween Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and ShT c is in c Irak,
various ethnic and religious coomunities in Syria and
Lebanon, Arabs and Jews in Palestine, or Bedouins
and other groups in Transjordan, erupting into
violence or even war, were among the more unfor¬
tunate aspects of the unresolved legacies of the
mandates.

It may be that the Mandatories had neither the time
nor the opportunity required to tackle these tensions
and to set up a lasting accomodation. They were too
busy with forging unitary countries and nations in the
mandated territories, which had been disparate units
in the sprawling Ottoman Empire. Although the
Mandatories’ fostering of local culture was tempered
by a desire to export their own civilisation, they did
succeed in encouraging education, setting up a more
impartial judiciary, instilling law and order, pro¬
moting a national economy, establishing a more ade¬
quate taxation system, improving agriculture and
irrigation and assisting with public health, roads and
communications — all of which led to significant ad¬
vances towards modernisation.

Bibliography : Publications issued by the League of
Nations, n.p. [Geneva] 1935, and its supplements
list materials about the mandates. Updated
bibliographical information is in A.C. de Breycha-
Vauthier’s La Societe des Nations centre d’etudes ei source
d’information: ce que contiennent ses publications , Paris
1937. The League’s Permanent Mandates Com¬
mission regularly published its Minutes , 4 Oct. 1921
to 21 Dec. 1939, which, with their detailed subject-
indexes, form a voluminous body of primary
sources; so does The League yearbook. Among other
League publications: League of Nations — Man¬
dates, Statistical information regarding territories under
mandate (also in French: Societe des Nations, Man¬
dats, Reneignements statisiiques relatifs au territoires sous
mandat), Geneva 1933; Nachrichtenabteilung —
Sekretariat des Volkerbundes, Der Volkerbund und
das Mandats system, Geneva n.d. [1926]; The League
of Nations, The mandate system, Geneva 1927; idem.
The mandate system: origin, principles, application,
Geneva 1945 (of particular interest, as it summed
up the whole issue before dissolving). Considerable
archival materials on the Mandates are located in
the Public Record Office (London), especially the
Foreign Office and Colonial Office series, the
various Cabinet files, and the private cor¬
respondence and papers of key personalities; and
the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (Paris),
particularly the series E-LEVANT 1918-1929 and
E-LEVANT 1930-1940, sub-series SYRIE-
LIBAN, as well as E-LEVANT, sub-series TUR-
QUIE, vols. 262-77. Many others are located in the
states which were formerly mandated territories
(see below). Some important American materials,
both manuscript and printed, are listed in S.R.
Dorr’s Scholar’s guide to Washington, D. C. for Middle
Eastern studies, Washington, D.C. 1981. A useful
general bibliography on the countries under man¬
date is the American University of Beirut’s A post¬
war bibliography of the Near Eastern mandates: a
preliminary survey of publications on the social sciences
dealing with Iraq, Palestine and Trans-Jordan and the
Syrian states, 1919-1930, i-viii, Beirut 1932-6. More

updated are Jalal Zuwiyya’s The Near East,
Metuchen, N.J. 1973, and G. Feuer’s Le Moyen
Orient contemporain. Guide de recherches, Paris 1975.
For a detailed chronology of events, see M. Man-
sour, Arab world. Political and diplomatic history 1900-
1967: a chronological study, Washington, D.C. 1972,
i (for 1900-41), ii (for 1942-52). A selection of addi¬
tional materials follows (first the general ones and
then by country), with bibliographies and primary
materials preceding, respectively, a sample of the
more representative among the numerous studies
available, scholarly or political-minded.

General (in addition to the sources mentioned
above): K.T. Khairallah, Le probleme du Levant: les
regions arabes liberees — Syne — Irak — Liban. Lettre
ouverte a la Societe des Nations , Paris 1919; H.
Morgenthau, Mandates or war? The New York Times,
9 Nov. 1919, repr. in Morgenthau’s All in a lifetime,
London 1923, 423-37; Franco-British convention of
December 23, 1920, and certain points connected with the
mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and
Mesopotamia, London 1921 ( = Cmd. 1195); La Na¬
tion Arabe: revue mensuellepolitique, litteraire, economique
et sociale, Geneva 1933 (monthly of the Syro-
Palestinian lobby at the League of Nations); P.
Mantoux, Les deliberations du Conseil des Quatre (24
mars-29 juin 1919). Notes de Vofficier interprete, i-ii,
Paris 1955. See also F. Pollock, The League of Na¬
tions, London 1920; A. Sweetser, The League of Na¬
tions at Work, New York 1920, 122-34 (“Manda¬
tes”). A. Acito, L’Oriente arabo: Odierne questioni
politiche (Siria — Palestina — Libano — Irak), Milan
n.d. [1921]; G. Cioriceanu, Les mandats interna¬
tional, Paris 1921; L. Bourgeois, L’oeuvre de la
Societe des Nations (1920-1923), Paris 1923, 303 ff.;
Th. H. Dickinson, The United States and the League ,
New York 1923, ch. 8; P. Furukaki, Les mandats in¬
ternational de la Societe des Nations, Lyons 1923; J. de
V. Loder, The truth about Mesopotamia, Palestine and
Syria , London 1923, 135 ff. (“Mandates, treaties
and conclusions”); P. Pic, Le regime du mandat
d’apres le traite de Versailles: son application dans le Pro-
che Orient: Mandats fran^ais en Syrie, anglais en Palestine
el Mesopotamie, in Revue Generale de Droit International
Public (Paris), xxx (1923), 321-71; A. Vallini, I
mandati internazionali della Societa delle Nazioni, Milan
1923; Ch. Ayoub, Les mandats orientaux, Paris 1924,
87-182; M. Bileski, Die entwicklung des Man-
datssystem, in Zeitschriftfur Volkerrecht (Breslau), xiii/1
(1924), 77-102; G. Menassa, Les mandats A et leur ap¬
plication en Orient; il faut convoquer les assemblies consti-
tuentes, Paris 1924, 54 ff.; A. Millot, Les mandats
international: etude sur Vapplication de Particle 22 du
Pacte de la Societe des Nations, Paris 1924; W.R.
Batsell, The United States and the system of mandates,
Worcester, Mass. 1925; L.B. Guryevic, Siriya,
Palyestina, Myesopotamiya (mandatniye strani):
pohticyeskiy ocyerk, Leningrad 1925; J. Stoyanovsky,
La theorie generale des mandats internationaux, Paris
1925; Rashid Tabara, al-Intidab wa-ruh al-siyasa al-
Inkliziyya, Beirut 1925; W. Schneider, Das volker-
rechthche Mandat in historisch-dogmatischer Darstellung,
Stuttgart 1926; Freda White, Mandates, London
1926, 7-82; V.A. Kuri, L’evolution du mandat A,
Paris 1927; M. Pernot, Deux experiences: L’lrak et la
Syne, in Revue des Deux Mondes (Paris), xcvii (1 April
1927), 530-59; D.F.W. van Rees, Les mandats inter¬
nationaux; le controle international de Vadministration
mandataire, Paris 1927; idem, Les mandats interna¬
tionaux: les principles generaux du regime des mandats,
Paris 1928; H. Gilchrist, Imperialism and the mandates
system, New York 1928; J-M. Gortazar, Los man-

390

MANDATES

datos internacionales en la politico colonial , Madrid
1928; F. Gsell-Triimpi, Zur rechtlichen Natur der
Volkerbundmandate, Glarus 1928; E.G. Mohr, Die
Frage der Souveranitdt in den Mandatsgebieten , Leipzig
1928; L. Palacios, Los mandatos internacionales de la
Sociedad de Naciones, Madrid 1928, 161-287; La
politique du mandat fran^ais: Irak et Syne, in L’Asie
Fran^aise (Paris) xxviii (Feb. 1928), 60-7; Sch.
Milkonowicki, Das Mandatssystem in Volkerbund mil
besonderer Beriicksichtigung der A-Mandate, Berlin 1929;

R. Pahl, Das volkerrechtliche Kolonial-Mandat, Berlin
1929; E. Topf, Die Staatenbildungen in der arabischen
Teilen der Tiirkei seit dem Weltkriege nach Entstehung,
Bedeutung und Lebensfdhigkeil, Hamburg 1929; Freda
White, The mandate system , in J. Epstein (ed.), Ten
years’ life of the League of Nations, London 1929, 148-
56; N. Bentwich, The mandates system, London 1930;
D.C. Blaisdell, Representation of minorities and
guarantees of minority rights in the former Ottoman Em¬
pire, Cyprus, Egypt, the Ottoman Sanjak of Lebanon and
the mandates of Syria and the Lebanon, Irak, and Palestine,
New York, 1930; B. Gerig, The open door and the
mandates system: a study of economic equality before and
since the establishment of the mandates system, London
1930, chs. 4-8; S.F. Kyecyek-’yan, Mandati ligi nat-
siy v stranakh Arabskogo Vostoka, Baku 1930; A.A.
Margalith, The international mandates , Baltimore
1930, esp. 124-44; D.P. Myers, Handbook of the
League of Nations since 1920, Boston 1930, 192-207;

S. D. Myres, The Permanent Mandates Commission and
the administration of mandates, in Southwestern Political
and Social Science Quarterly (Austin, Texas), xi/3
(Dec. 1930), 1-34; H. Roth, Das Konlrollsystem der
Volkerbundmandate, Berlin 1930; Q. Wright, Man¬
dates under the League of Nations, Chicago 1930; E.
Jung, Les Arabes et TIslam en face des nouvelles Croisades
et Palestine et Sionisme, Paris 1931; E. Marcus, Zur
Theorie und Praxis des Mandatssystem, in Zeitschrift fur
Volkerrecht , xvi/2 (1931), 314-30; A. Peltzer, Die
volkerrechtlichen Mandate und die Mandatskommission,
Wurzburg 1931; F.M. Zeineddine, Le regime du con¬
trol des mandats de la S.D.N., Paris 1932; A. Gian-
nini, / mandati internazionali, Rome 1933; K.
Grunwald, Le finanze statali dei territori sotto mandalo
nel Vicino Oriente durante il loro primo decennio, Rome
1933; L. Jovelet, L’evolution sociale et politique des
‘Pays Arabes’(1930-1933), in REI, vii/4 (1933), 425-
644; J. Achkar, La France et l Angleterre dans le Proche-
Onent. L ’evolution politique de la Syne et du Liban, de la
Palestine et de TIrak, Lyons 1934; L. Comisetti, Man¬
dats et souverainete, Paris n.d. [1934], 77-153; J.
Alcandre, Le mandat colonial: analyse juridique et criti¬
que politique, Paris 1935, 43 ff.; F. Fischer, Die
formelle Natur der volkerrechtlichen Mandate insbesondere
ihre Verteilung, Endigung und Anderung, Tubingen
1935; E. Yapou, De la non-discrimination en matiere
economique notamment en pays de protectorat et sous man¬
dat, Paris 1935; C.A. Boutant, les mandats interna-
tionaux, Paris 1936, esp. 93-114; Ali Akbar Akhavi,
L’echec de la S.D.N. dans Torganisation pratique de la
paix: ses causes, son avenir, Paris 1937; N. Feinberg,
La jurisdiction et la jurisprudence de la cour permanente de
justice Internationale en matiere de mandats et de minorites,
Paris 1937, 10 ff.; N. Macaulay, Mandates: reasons,
results, remedies , London 1937; H.H. Cumming,
Franco-British rivalry in the post-war Near East: the
decline of French influence, London 1938, 68-120; [A.]
von Freytagh-Loringhoven, Das Mandatsrecht in den
deutschen Kolonien: Quellen und Materialien, Munich
1938; J. Pichon, Le partage de I’Orient, Paris 1938,
184 ff, 253 ff.; G. Venturing II protettorato interna-
zionale, Milan 1939; E. E. Reynolds, The League ex¬

periment, London 1940; Pays sous mandat, n.p.
[Paris] 1943, mimeographed (= no. 2508 in the
library of the Centre des Hautes Etudes Ad-
ministratives sur l’Asie et l’Afrique Modernes,
Paris); P. de Azcarate, League of Nations and national
minorities: an experiment, Washington, D.C. 1945, in¬
dex; R. W. Logan, The Senate and the Versailles man¬
date system, Washington, D.C. 1945 H.D. Hall,
Mandates, dependencies and trusteeship, Washington,

D. C. 1948; M.V. Seton-Williams, Britain and the
Arab states: a survey of Anglo-Arab relations, 1920-1948,
London 1948, index; J. Kimche, Seven fallen pillars:
the Middle East 1915-1950, London 1950, index;

E. B. Haas, The reconciliation of conflicting colonial
policy aims: acceptance of the League of Nations mandate
system, in International Organization (Boston), vi/4
(Nov. 1952), esp. 525-36; A. Homont, L ’application
du regime de la tutelle aux territories sous mandat , in Revue
Juridique et Politique de TUnion Franfaise (Paris), vi/2
(April-June 1952), 149-88; C.L. Upthegrove, Em¬
pire by mandate. New York 1954, chs. 5-6; R.N.
Chowdhuri, International mandate and trusteeship
systems : a comparative study. The Hague 1955, esp.
103-12; J. Mulenzi, La tutelle Internationale et le pro-
bleme des unions administratives, Louvain and Paris
1955, 11 ff.; E.F. Qelik, Manda ve vesayet rejimleri
hakkinda milletlerarasi adalet divanmin istfari mutalaasi,
in Istanbul Universitesi Hukuk Fakiiltesi, Muammer
Resit Sevig’e armagan, Istanbul 1956, 263-75; R.
Furon, Le Proche Orient, Paris 1957, 178 ff. (“Le
systeme des mandats’’); F.P. Walters, A history of
the League of Nations, London 1960, index; J.A.
DeNovo, American interests and policies in the Middle
East, 1900-1939, Minneapolis 1963, index; L.
Evans, United States policy and the partition of Turkey,
1914-1924, Baltimore 1965, 89-107 (“Establishing
the mandate system’’), 292-322 (“The United
States and the mandates”); Djalal Yahya, al- c Alam
al- c Arabi al-hadith: al-fatra bayn al-harbayn al-
( 'dlamiyyatayn, Cairo 1966; B. Dexter, The years of op¬
portunity: the League of Nations, 1920-1966, New York
1967, index; M.A. Gannon, The influence of the Per¬
manent Mandates Commission in the administration of the
class A mandate, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., St. John’s
Univ., New York 1969; J. Nevakivi, Britain, France
and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, London 1969,
ch. 12 (“San Remo and after”); S.K. Garrett,
Aspects of Anglo-French rivalry over the question of the
Middle East mandates, unpubl. M.A. thesis, Keele
Univ. (U.K.) 1970; H.K. Jacobson, Quincy
Wright’s study of the mandates system, in Journal of Con¬
flict Resolution (Ann Arbor, Mich.), xiv/4 (Dec.
1970), 499-503; E. Monroe, Round Table and the
Middle Eastern peace settlement, 1917-1922, in The
Round Table (London), lx/240 (Nov. 1970), 479-90;
G. Scott, The rise andfall of the League of Nations, New
York 1973; E. Bendiner, A time for angels: the
tragicomic history of the League of Nations, New York
1975, index; Yaacov Shimoni, Medinot c Arav: pirkey
historiyya medinit (Hebrew, The Arab states: chapters of
political history), Tel-Aviv 1977, index; J.A. Joyce,
Broken star: the story of the League of Nations (1919-
1939), Swansea 1978; A.J. Crozier, The establish¬
ment of the mandates system 1919-25: some problems
created by the Paris Peace Conference, in Jnal. of Contem¬
porary History (London), xiv/3 (July 1979), 483-513.
For the projected mandate over a part of Tu r k i s h
Anatolia, see Armenian National Union of
America, Should America accept a mandate for Armenia?,
New York 1919. G. van Horn Morseley, Mandatory
over A rmenia, Washington, D.C. 1920 (= 66th Con¬
gress, 2nd session, Senate Document no. 281); J.

MANDATES

391

Harbord, American military mission to Armenia, in In¬
ternational Conciliation (New York), 151 (June 1920);
Halide Edib, The Turkish ordeal: being the further
memoirs of Halide Edib, New York 1928, 15-6; Gazi
Mustafa Kemal, Nutuk, i, Istanbul 1934, 5, 64, 80-
2; Ahmed Emin Yalman, Turkey in my time , Nor¬
man, Oklahoma 1956, 71-9; Ulug igdemir (ed.),
Sivas Kongresi tutanaklan, Ankara 1969, index. See
also E. Blyth, Australia and the mandate for Armenia , in
The Near East (London), xvii/477 (24 June 1920),
903-4; No mandate for Armenia, in Current History
(New York), xii/4 (July 1920), 710-3; Ph.M.
Brown, The mandate over Armenia, in American Jnal. of
International Law, xiv (1920), 396-7; Vehbi Cem
Askun, Sivas Kongresi, Istanbul 1963; G. Jaschke,
Ein amerikanisches Mandat fur die Turkei? in \VI, N.S.,
viii (1963), 219-34; Th. A. Bryson, Woodrow
Wilson, The Senate, public opinion and the American
mandate, 1919-20, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Univ. of
Georgia 1965, 40 ff.; G. Jaschke, Ein Angebot
Mustafa Kemals an die Englander vom November 1918,
in Wl, N.S., x (1965), 69; J.B. Gidney, A mandate
for Armenia, n.p. [Kent, Ohio] 1967, 168-255;
Mahmut Gologlu, Sivas Kongresi , Ankara 1969,
87-97; Mine Erol, Turkiye’ de Amerikan mandasi me-
selesi 1919-1920, Giresun 1972; S.L. Meray,
Lozan’in bir oncisii: Prof. Ahmet Selahattin Bey, Ankara
1976, 11-20; Inci Enginiin, Halide Edib Adivar’in in
eserlerinde Dogu ve Bati meselesi, Istanbul 1978, 44-51;
H.A. Reed, Atatiirk, the Turkish nationalists and the
United States: a neglected prospect for peace in 1919, in
Jnal. of the American Institute for the Study of Middle
Eastern Civilization (Kew Gardens, N.Y.), i/3-4
(Autumn-Winter 1980-1), 99-111; Secil Akgun,
General Harbord’un Anadolu gezisi, Istanbul 1981.
c Irak. For bibliographies, see Publications issued by
the League of Nations, 159, 172-3, 190; National
Library, Cairo, A bibliography of works about Iraq ,
Cairo 1960; Abdul Jabbar Abdulrahman, A
bibliography of Iraq, Baghdad 1977. The Permanent
Mandates Commission’s Minutes, 1921-39, are im¬
portant, as are the Societe des Nations’ La question
de Mossoul a la 35™ session du Conseil de la Societe des
Nations, Lausanne 1925, and its L'activite politique,
Geneva n.d., ii, 7-53 (“Affaire de Mossoul”). For
archival material in c Irak, see references in Diana
Grimwood-Jones et alii (eds.), Arab Islamic biblio¬
graphy, Hassocks, Sussex and Atlantic Highland,
N.J. 1977, 194. The draft of the text of the man¬
date was printed as a British parliamentary paper.
Draft mandates for Mesopotamia and Palestine as submit¬
ted to the approval of the League of Nations, London
1921 ( = Cmd. 1176). The Final text of the mandate
may be found in ibid., London 1921 (= Cmd.
1500). It was reprinted several times, e.g. in Q.
Wright, Mandates...., 593 ff. Instead of the man¬
date, a series of treaties was entered into by the
British and c IrakTs. The most important of these,
published as preliminary papers and presented to
the League of Nations (and approved by it) are the
following: Iraq. Treaty with King Feisal, London 1922
( = Cmd. 1757); c Iraq. Protocol of the 30th of April,
1923 and the agreements subsidiary to the treaty with King
Feisal, signed 10th of October, 1922, London 1924 ( =
Cmd. 2120); Treaty of alliance between Great Britain
and Irak signed at Bagdad, October 10, 1922\ and pro¬
tocol to treaty of alliance between Great Britain and Irak of
October 10, 1922, signed at Bagdad, April 30, 1923,
London 1925 (= Treaty Series no. 17 (1925),
Cmd. 2370); : Iraq. Treaty with King Feisal, signed at
Bagdad, 13th January, 1926, with explanatory note , Lon¬
don 1926 ( = Cmd. 2587); Treaty between the United

Kingdom and Iraq regarding the duration of the treaty be¬
tween the United Kingdom and Irak of October 10, 1922,
signed at Bagdad, January 13, 1926, London 1926 ( =
Treaty Series, no. 10 (1926), Cmd. 2662); Hraq.
Treaty between the United Kingdom and c Iraq, signed at
London, December 14, 1927, London 1927 (= Cmd.
2998); Treaty of alliance between Iraq and Great Britain,
signed on 30th June, 1930, Baghdad 1930, whose
Arabic title is MuSahadat al-lahaluf bayn al-Urdk wa-
Bantaniya al- c Uzma. Of special relevance is yet an¬
other British parliamentary paper, c Iraq. Papers
relating to c Iraq of the principles of article 22 of the Cove¬
nant of the League of Nations, London 1925 ( = Cmd.
2317). The British official reports, first entitled
Report on c Iraq administration, were later issued an¬
nually by the Colonial Office, as Report by his Britan¬
nic Majesty's Government to the Council of the League of
Nations on the administration of c Iraq, London 1920-
31. A general 330-page report by the Colonial Of¬
fice appeared as Special report by His Majesty’s Govern¬
ment in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the pro¬
gress of c Iraq during the period 1920-1931, London
1931 ( = Colonial no. 58). Special documents were
published as Command Papers, which included
Reports to the Council of the League of Nations. Several
relevant documents appeared in Arabic in the of¬
ficials al-Waka^T al-Hrakiyya (published since 1922),
then in Faruk Salih al- c Umar’s al-Mu c ahadat al-
c Irakiyya wa-atharuha fi ’ l-siyasa al-ddkhiliyya, Bagh¬
dad 1977. Other primary sources are FahmT al-
Mudarris, Makalat siyasiyya, taAikhiyya, idjtimaHyya,
Baghdad 1351/1932, esp. 117 ff.; H. Bowman,
Middle-East window, London 1942, 163-248;

Mudiriyyat al-Di c aya al- c Amma, Faysal b. Husayn fi
khutabihi wa-akwalihi, Baghdad 1945, 231-325; C.J.
Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and Arabs: politics, travel and
research in Near-Eastern Iraq, 1919-1925, London
1957, chs. 26-7 (“The Mosul Commission”); c Abd
al- c AzTz al-Kassab, Min dhikrayati , Beirut 1962;
Muhammad Mahdl Kubba, Mudhakkirati fi samlm
al-ahdath, 1918-1958, Beirut 1965, 26ff.; Taha al-
Hashimi, Mudhakkirat 1919-1943. Beirut 1967; Abu
Kh aldun Satr c al-Husari, Mudhakkirati fi 'l-'Irak,
1921-1941, i, Beirut 1967; TawfTk al-Suwaydi,
Mudhakkirati: nisf karn min ta^rikh al- c Irak wa 7-
kadiyya al- c Arabiyya, n.p. [Beirut] n.d. [1969], 53 ff.
See also Khairallah, Le probleme....; Acito, 49 ff.;
DC. Lee, The mandate for Mesopotamia and the princi¬
ple of trusteeship in English law, London 1921;
Muhammad al-MahdT al-Basfr, Ta^rikh al-kadiyya
al-Hrdkiyya, Baghdad 1342/1923, 325-609;’ B.H.
Bourdillon, The political situation in Iraq, in Jnal. of
the British Institute of International Affairs (London), iii
(Nov. 1924), 273-87; Menassa, Les mandats A ...,
204-15; J. van Ess, The Mesopotamia mandate, in
MW, xiv/1 (Jan. 1924), 54-7; R. Coke, The heart of
the Middle East, London 1925, 216 ff.; Guryevic, 13
ff.; F. Hesse, Die Mosul Frage, Berlin 1925; La ques¬
tion de Mossoul et la signature du traite d'armistice de
Moudros, 30 Octobre 1918 au l n Mars 1925, Constan¬
tinople 1925; V.A. Gurko-Kryadzhin, Arabskiy
Vostok i impyerializm, Moscow 1926, 104-42; F.
White, Mandates, 38-61; Q. Wright, The government
of Iraq, in The American Political Science Review, xx/1
(Nov. 1926), 743-60 (tr. by Ikram al-Rukabi as
Hukumat al- c Irak, n.p. n.d. [1345/1927]); Ch.A.
Hooper, L Irak et la Societe des Nations: application a
l ’Irak des dispositions de l ’article 22 du Pacte de la Societe
des Nations, Paris 1927, 13-97; idem. The constitu¬
tional law of Iraq, Ba gh dad 1928; P.E.J. Bomli, L’af-
faire de Mossoul, Amsterdam 1929; Mikonowicki,

392

MANDATES

The mandates system, 52 ff., 173-9; Blaisdell, Represen¬
tation..., 47-53; A. Giannini, La costituzione dell’
Irak, in OM, x/11 (Nov. 1930), 525-46;

Kyecyek^yan, Mandati ..., 56-62; H. Kohn, Das
Konigreich Irak: sein erstes Jahrzehnt, in Zeitschrift fiir
Politik (Berlin), xx/4 (July 1930), 246-84; Q.
Wright, Mandates ..., index; Muhammad Djamil
Bayham, al-Intiddbdn fi ’T c Irak wa-Sunya: Inklitra-
Fransa, Sidon 1931, 42-95; H.U. Hoepli, England
im Nahen Osten: das Konigreich Irak und die Mossulfrage,
Erlangen 1931,63-159; A. de Farkas, Irak Kiralysdg
(in Hungarian: The Kingdom of c Irak), Paris 1931;
G. Ambrosini, Irak, Gran Bretagna e Societa delle Na-
zioni: considerazioni sulla fine del mandato , in Atti della
R. Academia di Scienze, Lettere e Belle Arti di Palermo,
xviii/1 (1932), 3-34; L.H. Evans, The emancipation of
Iraq from the mandates system, in The American Political
Science Review, xxvi/6 (Dec. 1932), 1024-49; Abdel
Halim El Gammal, La fin des mandats internationaux
et Texperience irakienne, Dijon 1932; W.L. Williams,
The state of Iraq : a mandatory attains independence, in
Foreign Policy Reports (New York), viii/16 (12 Oct.

1932) , 184-94; N. Davidson, The termination of the
Iraq mandate, in International Affairs (London), xii/1
(Jan.-Feb. 1933), 60-78 (tr. by c Adjdjadj Nuwayhis
as al- c Irdk aw al-dawla al-djadida, Jerusalem
1351/1932). R. Tritonj, La fine del mandato sulT Iraq
e una preoccupazione per TItalia, in OM, xiii/4 (Apr.

1933) , 169-77; (Mrs.) Steuart Erskine, King Faisal
of c Iraq: an authorised and authentic study, London
1933, 119 ff.; Aounoullah El-Djabri, L ’evolution et la
fin du mandat en Irak, Geneva 1934; Chafik
Djeroudi, Application des mandats internationaux a
Tlrak, Toulouse 1934; Amin al-Rayhanl, Faysal al-
awwal , Beirut 1934, 28-211; E. Main, Iraq from
mandate to independence, London 1935, 78-1 12; al-
Sayyid c Abd al-Razzak al-Hasanl, al- Q Irak ftdawray
al-ihtilal wa ’l-intidab, i-ii, Sidon 1354-7/1935-8;
Boutant, Les mandats.... , 95-9; H.A. Foster, The
making of the modern Iraq , London 1936, 87 ff.;
c Umar Abu al-Nasr, al- Q Irak al-dfidid, n.p. 1937;
P.W. Ireland, Iraq: a study in political development,
London 1937, 201-453; Rachad Kodsi, Le mandat
anglais sur Tlrak: son origine, son evolution, sa fin,
Strasbourg 1937; G. Antonius, The Arab awakening:
the story of the Arab national movement, London 1938,
358-68; W.H. Ritsher, Criteria of capacity for in¬
dependence, Jerusalem 1934, 15-40 (tr. into Arabic as
Makayis li ’l-kafcTa li ’l-istiklal, Beirut 1938;
Muhammad c Abd al-Fattah al-Yaf), al-Hrak bayn in-
kilabayn, Beirut 1938; Hassan Aaref, La Grande-
Bretagne en Egypte et en Irak, etude comparee, Beirut
1939; F. Cataluccio, Storia del nazionalismo arabo,
Milan 1939; J. Robinson et alii, Were the minority
treaties a failure? New York 1943, index; Strani
Blidzhnyego iSryednyego Vostoka, n.p. [Moscow] 1944,
100-18; al-Sayyid c Abd al-Razzak al-Hasanl,
Ta^rikh al- c Irak al-siyasi al-hadith, i-iii, Sidon
1367/1948; Seton-Williams, 17-47; Kimche, 83-99;
A1 Fir c awn, al-HakaHk al-nasTa fi ’l-thawra al-
Hrakiyya sanat 1920 wa-nataHdjiha, Ba gh dad
1371/1952; S.H. Longrigg, Iraq 1900-1950 : a
political, social and economic history , London 1953,
chs. 4-7; Upthegrove, Empires...,, 125-42; J.M.
Salih, Anglo-Iraq relations (1925-1932), unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago 1957; al-Sayyid
c Abd al-Razzak al-Hasanl, al- c Irak fi zill al-
mu c dhadat 2 , Sidon 1377/1958 (for the years 1920-
30); Longrigg and F. Stoakes, Iraq, London 1958,
78-94; Lord Birdwood, Nuri al-Said: a study in Arab
leadership, London 1959, index; E. Kedourie,
Reflexions sur Thistoire du royaume d ’Irak 1921-1958, in

Orient (Paris), xi (1959), 55 ff.; M. Montserrat,
L’affaire de Mossoul, in ibid., ix (1959), 23-30; J.
Morris, The Hashemite kings, London and New York
1959, 67-86; Ali Ghalib al-Ani, La vie parlementaire
en Irak (de 1921 a 1957), Neuchatel 1960, 17 ff.;
c Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz, Muhadarat min al-ihtilal
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pesi, Structures communautaires et ideologie politique au
Liban a I’epoque du mandat franfais, unpubl. Ph.D.
diss., Univ. of Paris 1974; M. Ma c oz, Suriyya ha-
hadasha (Hebrew, New Syria), Tel-Aviv 1974, ch. 6;
Warner, Iraq and Syria..., 67 ff., 122-58; Kaddura,
Ta'rikh..., 260 ff., 307 ff.; Y.M.H. Chaherly,
L’evolution politique en Syrie de 1936 a 1939, unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Grenoble 1976, 19 ff.; A.
Mockler, Our enemies the French: being an account of the
war fought between the French and the British, Syria 1941 ,
London 1976; M.P. Zirinsky, France, Syria and
Lebanon: the treaties of 1936, unpubl. Ph.D. diss.,
Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 1976; W.L.
Browne, The political history of Lebanon, 1920-1950, i-
iv, Salisbury, N.C. 1976-80; Saffiuddin Joarder,
Syria under the French mandate: the early phase, 1920-27 ,
Dacca 1977 (= Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
Publications, 31); J.L. Miller, The Syrian revolt of
1925 , in IJMES, viii/4 (Oct. 1977), 545-63; D.A.

Makyeyev, Iz istorii economicyeskikh svyazyey SSSR s
Siriyey i Livanon (20-30g.), in Narodi Azii i Afriki
(Moscow), 1977, part 2, 27-35; Abed al-Hafiz
Mansur, Great Britain and the birth of Syrian and
Lebanese independence, in International Studies (New
Delhi), xvi/2 (Apr. -June 1977), 245-73; Cl. Palaz-
zoli, La Syrie: le reve et la rupture, Paris 1977, 133-45;
Z.N. Zeine, The struggle for Arab independence: Western
diplomacy and the rise and fall of Faisal’s kingdom,
Delmar, N.Y. 1977; Lyne Loheac, Daoud Ammoun
et la creation de I’etat libanais, Paris 1978, 71-181; I.
Rabinovich, Compact minorities and the Syrian state,
1918-45, in Jnal. of Contemporary History, xiv/4 (Oct.
1979), 693-712; J.M. Landau et alii (eds.). Electoral
politics in the Middle East: issues, voters and elites, Lon¬
don and Stanford 1980, index; Ph.S. Khoury, The
tribal shaykh, French tribal policy, and the nationalist
movement in Syria between two world wars, in MES,
xviii/2 (April 1982), 180-93; DjanYiyyat al-muha-
dana al-Turkiyya al- c Arabiyya, al-Muhadana al-
Turkiyya al- c Arabiyya, Cairo n.d., also a Turkish
version, Turk-Arap muhadeneti (about the
Alexandretta-Hatay issue); Amin Sa c Id, al-Thawra
al- c Arabiyya, iii, 288 ff.; Karim Khalil Thabit. al-
Duruz wa 'l-thawra al-Suriyya wa-sirat Sultan Basha al-
Atrash, n.p. n.d.

Palestine and Transjordan. Bibliographies
in Publications issued by the League of Nations, 158,
160, 172-3; Patai, Jordan, Lebanon...-, National
Library, Cairo, A bibliographical list of works about
Palestine and Jordan 2 , Cairo 1964; Walid Khalidi and
Jill Khadduri, Palestine and the Arab-Israel conflict: an
annotated bibliography, Beirut 1974; Palestine and
Zionism, New York, i-viii (1946-53), is a detailed
bibliography, published periodically, of books,
pamphlets and magazine articles. A recent review
article by R.W. Zweig, on The Palestine mandate, ap¬
peared in the Historical Jnal. (Cambridge), xxiv
(1981), 243-51. For archival materials in Israel, see
P.A. Alsberg (ed.), Guide to the archives in Israel,
Jerusalem 1973; for others, particularly in Britain,
but also in Jordan and elsewhere, the best guide is
by P. Jones (ed.), Britain and Palestine, 1914-1918:
archival sources for the history of the British mandate, Ox¬
ford 1979. See also references in Grimwood-Jones
et alii (eds.), 193. For the draft of the text of the
mandate, see British Parliamentary Papers, Draft man¬
dates for Messopotarnia and Palestine as submitted to the
approval of the League of Nations, London 1921 ( =
Cmd. 1176). For its final draft, see ibid., London

1921 (= Cmd. 1500); for the definitive text, see
ibid., London 1922 (= Cmd. 1785) and in the
League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine and
memorandum by the British Government relating to its ap¬
plication to Transjordan, approved by the League of Na¬
tions of September 16th, 1922, Geneva 1926. The last
comprises an official French version as well, Societe
des Nations, Mandat pour la Palestine et Memorandum
du gouvernement britanique relatif a l’application de ce
mandat a la Transjordanie, approuve par le Conseil de la
Societe des Nations le 16 septembre 1922. The text itself
has been reprinted frequently, e.g. in Wright, Man¬
dates..., 600 ff., and J.C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the
Near and Middle East, Princeton, N.J. 1956, ii, 106-
11. A Hebrew translation appeared, e.g., in M.
Medzini (ed.), Kovets mismakhim be-toledot ha-medlna
(Hebrew, A collection of documents in the history of the
state), Jerusalem 1981, 23-7; an Arabic one in
Tabara, al-Intidab..., 240-52; a German one as Das
Mandat fur Palastina, vom Volkerbundsrat am 24. Juli

1922 genehmigter geltender Text, Berlin n.d. [1922],
and an Italian one as II mandato inglese per la

396

MANDATES

Palestina, tradotto dal testo ufficiale publicato dal ministero
degli esteri inglese, Florence 1921. The Permanent
Mandates Commission’s Minutes, 1921-39, com¬
prise firsthand material. The British have pub¬
lished numerous papers, both Parliamentary and
non-Parliamentary ones, some as Reports in the
1920s, Statements of policy during the 1930s, and Pro¬
posals for the future of Palestine in the 1940s. The first
appeared as Government of Palestine, Report on
Palestine administration, July 1920-December 1921,
London 1922; later ones as Colonial Office, Report
by his Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the
League of Nations on the administration of Palestine and
Transjordan, annually, London, until 1939. Among
the others, the following are particularly important:
Palestine. Correspondence with the Palestine Delegation
and the Zionist Organization, London 1922 (= Cmd.
1708); Report of the High Commissioner on the ad¬
ministration of Palestine, London 1925 (= Colonial
no. 15); Report of the commission on the Palestine distur¬
bances of August, 1929, London 1930 (= Cmd.
3530); Report of the Palestine royal commission (July
1937), Geneva 1937; The political history of Palestine
under British administration (memorandum by His Britan¬
nic Majesty’s Government presented in July, 1947, to the
United Nations Special Committee on Palestine), Jeru¬
salem 1947; Government of Palestine, Memorandum
on the administration of Palestine under the mandate,
Jerusalem 1947; Proposals for the future of Palestine ,
London 1947 (= Cmd. 7044); Palestine: Termination
of the mandate, 15th May 1948. Statement prepared for
public information by the Colonial Office and Foreign Of¬
fice, London 1948. For Transjordan, see Agreement
between His Majesty and the Amir of Trans-Jordan, signed
at Jerusalem, February 20, 1928, London 1930
(Treaty Series, no. 7) ( = Cmd. 3488); Treaty of
alliance between His Majesty in respect of the United
Kingdom and His Highness the Amir of Trans-Jordan,
London 22ndMarch, 1946, ( = Cmd. 6779). For the
Order-in-Council of 1922 and others, ordinances,
proclamations and regulations of the Mandatory,
see N. Bentwich (ed.), Legislation of Palestine 1918-
1925, i-ii, Alexandria 1926. For Transjordan, see
C.R.W. Seton (ed.), Legislation of Transjordan 1918-
1920, translated from the Arabic, including the laws,
public notices, proclamations, regulations, etc., London
n.d. [prob. 1931J. For some official documents of
the Arab case, see The Executive Commitee,
Palestine Arab Congress, Report on the State of
Palestine during four years of civil administration submitted
to the mandate commission of the League of Nations through
H.E. the High Commissioner for Palestine, Jerusalem
n.d. [1947]; idem, Two memoranda submitted to the
Council & Permanent Mandates Commission of the League
of Nations respectively through the High Commissionner for
Palestine, Jerusalem 1925; idem, Spoliation in
Palestine, Jerusalem 1925 (also in Arabic, Ightisab
hukumat Fi las tin); idem, Memorandum on the Palestine
white paper of October 1930, Jerusalem 1930; Hukm
Allah taSala fi ’l-ba c a wa ’l-samasira: MadjmiTat al-
fatawi al-khatira allati asdaraha c ulamcT al-Muslimin ft
Filastin wa-fT ghayrihd min al-aktdr al-Islamiyya,
Jerusalem n.d. [A.H. 1353-4]; The Arab Higher
Committee, A sample of the methods adopted by the
government of Palestine in the administration of the country,
Jerusalem n.d. [1936]; idem, Memorandum submitted
to the Permanent Mandates Commission and the Secretary
of State for the Colonies, n.p. 1937; idem, The Palestine
Arab case, Cairo 1947; The Arab Office, London,
The future of Palestine, London 1947, 12-166. For
some official documents of the Jewish case, see

Zionist Organisation, The mandate for Palestine:
memorandum submitted to the Council of the League of Na¬
tions, n.p. 1922 (also in French, L organisation
sioniste, Le mandat sur la Palestine, memorandum soumis
a la Societe des Nations , s.p. 1922); Waad Leumi (Na¬
tional Council) of the Jews in Palestine, Memoran¬
dum submitted to the Permanent Mandates Commission of
the League of Nations, Jerusalem 1926; The Jewish
Agency for Palestine, Memorandum on the “Report of
the Commission on the Palestine disturbances of August
1929”, submitted to the Secretary-General of the League of
nations, for the information of the Permanent Mandates
Commission, London 1930; idem, Memorandum sub¬
mitted to the Palestine Royal Commission on behalf of the
Jewish Agency for Palestine, London 1936; idem, The
Jewish case against the Palestine White Paper: documents
submitted to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the
League of Nations, London 1939; idem, Documents
relating to the Palestine problem, London 1945; idem,
Reply to the Government of Palestine’s memorandum on the
administration of Palestine under the mandate , Jerusalem
1947; idem, The Jewish case before the Anglo-American
committee of inquiry on Palestine, Jerusalem 1947. For
representative collections of documents, see De¬
partment of State, Division of Near Eastern Af¬
fairs, Mandate for Palestine, Washington, D.C. 1927;

al-kina c : madjmvL'at mu c ahadat wa-hakaPik c an
ahwdl al-idtirdbdt al-akhira fi Filastin , Haifa 1937;

M. M. Laseron (ed.). On the mandate: documents,
statements, laws and judgements relating to and arising
from the mandate for Palestine, Tel-Aviv 1937; British
labour policy on Palestine’, a collection of documents,
speeches and articles, 1917-1938, London 1938;
Mamun al-Hamui (ed.), Die britische Paldstina-
Politik, Berlin 1943; M. Moch (translator), La
Palestine de Balfour a Bevin: declarations et documents,
Paris n.d. [1946]; Moshe Atias (ed.), Sefer ha-te c udot
shel ha-Va c ad ha-LPumi li-Kneset Israel bl-Frets -
Israel, 1918-1948 (Hebrew), The book of documents of
the National Council of Kneset Israel in Palestine, 1918-
1948), Jerusalem 1963; Doreen Ingrams (ed.),
Palestine Papers 1917-1922 : seeds of conflict, London
and New York 1973, esp. 88-183; Seeds of Conflict,
i-vi, Nedeln (Lichtenstein), 1974; Division of Near
Eastern Affairs, U.S. Department of State, The
Palestine mandate. Collected United States documents
relating to the league of Nations mandate for Palestine, to
the possible future independence of Palestine and to the need
for the creation of a separate Jewish state, Salisbury,

N. C. 1977. For others primary sources, see B.
Pullen-Burry, Letters from Palestine, February-April
1922, London n.d. [1922]; C.R. Ashbee, A Palestine
notebook, 1918-1923, New_ York 1923, 92-278;
Yusuf Tuma al-Bustam, c Aman fi c Amman: mudhak-
kirat c dmayn fi c asimat Shark al-Urdunn, Cairo 1925;
al-Kitab al-aswad fi ’l-kadiyya al-Urduniyya al-
c Arabiyya, Jerusalem n.d. [prob. 1928-9]; H.B.
Samuel, Unholy memories of the Holy Land, London
1930, index; Herbert Samuel, Great Britain and
Palestine , London 1935; C. Arlosoroff, Leben und
Werk, Berlin 1936, 39-284; L. Farago, Palestine on
the eve, London 1936; G. Mansur, The Arab worker
under the Palestine mandate, Jerusalem 1936; L.
Rosner Szkice Palestyhskie (Polish, Palestine sketches),
Cracow 1936; F.H. Kisch, Palestine diary, London
1938; Mudhakkirat al-malik ^Abd Allah b. Husayn, n.p.
n.d. [1938-9], 158 ff.; R. Courtney, Palestine
policeman, London 1939. H. Bowman, Middle-East
window, 249-340; Sir Herbert Samuel, Memoirs,
London 1945, 139-84; Sir Ronald Storrs, Orienta¬
tions, London 1945, 273-440; R. Crossman,
Palestine mission: a personal record, London n.d.

MANDATES

397

[1946-7]; B.C. Crum, Behind the silken curtain: a per¬
sonal account of Anglo-American diplomacy in Palestine
and the Middle East , New York 1947 (French, Derriere
le rideau de sole, Paris 1948); J. Garcia-Granados,
The birth of Israel: the drama as I saw it. New York
1948, index; J. B. Glubb, The story of the Arab Legion,
London 1948, 37 ff.; R.M. Graves, Experiment in
anarchy , London 1949; Pearse, Threeyears. .., 179 ff.;
Chaim Weizmann, Trial and error, London 1949,
747-589; R.D. Wilson, Cordon and search: with 6th
airborne division in Palestine , Aldershot (U.K.) 1949;
B.S. Vester, Our Jerusalem: an American family in the
holy city, 1881-1949 , n.p. [Beirut] 1950, 305-81;
Menahem Begin, The revolt: story of the Irgun, New
York 1951 (also in French, La revolte d’Israel, Paris
1953); D.V. Duff, Bailing with a teaspoon, London
1953; al-Takmila min mudhakkirat... al-malik c Abd
Allah b. al-Husayn, Amman 1951 (Eng. tr.. King
c Abdallah of Jordan, My memoirs completed,
Washington, D.C. 1954); Hashim al-Sab c ,
Dhikrayat suhufi mudtahad, i, Jerusalem 1951; D.
Horowitz, State in the making. New York 1953, in¬
dex; David Ben Gurion, Rebirth and destiny of Israel,
New York 1954; Sir Alec Kirkbride, A crackle of
thorns: experiences in the Middle East, London 1956,
18-168; Glubb, A soldier with the Arabs, London
1957, 41 ff. (French tr., Soldat avec les Arabes, Paris
1958); H.H. Bodenheimer (ed.), So wurde Israel:
Erinnerungen von Dr. M l. Bodenheimer, Frankfurt
a/M 1958, 266-75 (“Die Mandatspolitik”) (Eng.
tr., The memoirs of Ml. Bodenheimer: prelude to Israel,
New York and London 1963, 340-53). Hazza c al-
MadjdjalT, Mudhakkirati, n.p. [Jerusalem] 1960, 11-
80; R. Meinertzhagen, Middle East diary, 1917-
1956, New York 1960, ch. 5; E.M. Epstein,
Jerusalem correspondent, 1919-1958, Jerusalem 1964,
index; N. and Helen Bentwich, Mandate memories,
1918-1948, London 1965; O. Tweedy, Gathering
moss: a memoir, London 1967, index; G. Furlonge,
Palestine is my country: the story of Musa Alami, London
1969, 76 ff.; C. Mitchell, Having been a soldier, Lon¬
don 1969, 50-66; Ben Gurion looks back in talks with
Moshe Pearlman, New York 1970, 66 ff.; R. John
and Sami Hadawi, The Palestine diary, i-ii, Beirut
1970; E. Samuel, A lifetime in Jerusalem: the memoirs
of the Second Viscount Samuel, Jerusalem 1970, 26-
251; Ben Gurion, Igrot (Hebrew, Letters), i-iii, Tel-
Aviv 1971-4; idem, Zikhronot (Hebrew, Memoirs), i-
v, Tel-Aviv 1971-82. A. Ruppin, Memoirs, diaries,
letters, London 1971, 183-314; Emil al-Ghuri.
Filastfn c ibrat sittin c aman, i-ii, Beirut 1972-3; Iskan-
dar al-Khuri, Dhikraydtf, Jerusalem n.d. [1973], 77
ff.; Golda Meir, My life, London 1975, chs. 4-8
(German tr., Mein Leben, Hamburg 1975, 75 ff.);
Christina Jones, The untempered wind: Forty years in
Palestine , London 1975, 1-144; Moshe Dayan, Story
of my life, New York 1976, 29-148; Kirkbride, From
the wings: Amman memoirs, 1947-1951 , London 1976,
1-119; Moshe Sharett, Yoman medim (Hebrew, A
political diary), i-v, Tel-Aviv 1976-9; M.W. Weisgal
(ed.), The letters and papers of Chaim Weizmann, Series
A: Letters, x-xxiii, New Brunswick, N.J. and
Jerusalem 1977-80; Musa c AdTl Baymirza Shar-
dan, al-Urdunn bayn c ahdayn, n.p. n.d., 12 ff. See
also F. Ruffini, Sionismo e Societa delle Nazioni,
Bologna 1919; E.L. Langton, The British mandate for
Palestine and its significance, London 1920; Acito, 39
ff.; Federazione Sionistica Italiana, Mandato per le
Palestine e la sede nazionale ebraica, Rome 1922; H.C.
Luke and E. Keith-Roach, The handbook of Palestine,
London 1922; L. Stein, The mandate for Palestine:
some objections answered, London n.d. [1922]; P.

Graves, Palestine, the land of three faiths, London
1923, 62-286; P. Appel, Das Palastina-Mandat, in
Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Volkerrecht 7
June 1924, 81-8; Menassa, Les mandats A..., 215 ff.;
Guryevic, 12 ff.; Makarczyk, Przez Palestyne..., 5
ff.; W.B. Worsfold, Palestine of the mandate, London
1925, index; Gurko-Kryadzhin, Arabskiy Vostok...,
49-74; H.J. Seidel, Der britische Mandatstaat Palestina
im Rahmen der Weltwirtschaft, Berlin 1926; F. White,
Mandates..., 78-82; Q. Wright, The Palestine problem,
in Political Science Qtly. (New York), xli (1926), 384-
412; A. Kramer, Das volkerrechtliche Mandat unter
besonderer Beriicksichtigung des Palastina-Mandates,
Heidelberg 1927; Lord Melchctt el alii, Report of the
joint Palestine survey commission, London 1928; I.R.
Moreno, Teoria general de los mandatos: el mandato
Britanico en Palestina, Buenos Aires 1928; M.
Spiegel, Das volkerrechtliche Mandat und seine Anwen-
dung auf Palastina, Vienna 1928; J. Stoyanovsky,
The mandate for Palestine: a contribution to the theory and
practice of international mandates, London 1928; Bent¬
wich, The mandate for Palestine, in The British Year
Book of International Law (London, etc.), x/2 (1929),
137-43; idem [signed N.B.], The mandate for Trans¬
jordan, in ibid., 212-13; A. Besozzi, Italia e Palestina,
Milan 1929, 197-283; Kohn, Die stoats- und ver-
fassungsrechtliche Entwicklung des Emirats Transjorda-
men , in Archiv des offentlichen Rechts (Tubingen),
N.F.., xvi/2 (1929), 238-67; E. Marcus, Palastina -
ein werdender Staat, Leipzig 1929 (= Frankfurter
Abhandlungen zum modernen Volkerrecht), 23-318;
Milkonowicki, Das Mandatssystem..., 63-73; M.
Samuel, What happened in Palestine: the events of
August, 1929, their background and their significance,
Boston 1929; G. Schwarzenberger, Das Volkerbunds-
Mandat fiir Palastina, Stuttgart 1929 ( = Tiibinger
Abhandlungen zum Offentlich Recht, 21); H. Sideboth-
am, British policy and the Palestine mandate, London
n.d. [1929]; Blaisdell, Representation..., 55-62; J.H.
Kann, Some observations on the policy of the mandatory
government of Palestine , The Hague 1930;
Kyecyek^yan, Mandati..., 39-50; S.E. Soskin, Pro-
bl'emes sionistes vus de Geneve (Toeuvre de la Commission
des Mandats), Paris 1930; Wright, Mandates..., in¬
dex; F.F. Andrews, The Holy Land under mandate, i-
ii, Boston 1931; A. Baumkoller, Le mandat sur la
Palestine, Paris 1931, 67 ff.; J. Cohn, England und
Palastina: ein Beitrag zur Britischen Empire-Politik,
Berlin 1931, 104-96; G.T. Garrat, The future of
Palestine, in Political Qtly., ii (1931), 46-58; A. Gian-
nini, La constituzione della Transgiordania, in OM, xi/3
(March 1931), 117-31; Bentwich, England in

Palestine, London 1932, index; A. Bonne, Palastina:
Land und Wirtschaft, Leipzig 1932, index; S.
Ficheleff, Le statut international de la Palestine orientate
(la Transjordanie), Paris 1932, 23-108; M. Moch, Le
mandat britannique en Palestine, Paris 1932, 41-376;
Anis Saghir, Le sionisme et le mandat anglais en
Palestine, Paris 1932; H. Viteles and Khalil Totah
(eds.), Palestine: a decade of development, Philadelphia
1932 ( = Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Sciences, 164); A. Granowsky, The fiscal system
of Palestine, Jerusalem 1933; M. Burstein, Self-
government of the jews in Palestine, Tel-Aviv 1934; B.S.
Erskine, Palestine of the Arabs, London 1935, 69 ff.;
Boutant, Les mandats, 106-14; Wadi* al-Bustanl,
al-Intidab al-Filastinibatil wa-muhal, Beirut 1936 (also
in English, W.F. Boustany, The Palestine mandate,
invalid and impracticable , Beirut 1936); T. Canaan,
The Palestine Arab cause, Jerusalem 1936; D. Duff,
Palestine picture, London 1936; N. Feinberg, Some
problems of the Palestine mandate, Tel-Aviv 1936, 65-

398

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115; Emile Ghoury, An Arab view of the situation in
Palestine , in IA, xv/4 (July-Aug. 1936), 684-99; J.
Gottlieb, Juden und Araber im Mandat, Tel-Aviv n.d.
[1936]; E. Ovazza, L’Inghilterra e il mandato in
Palestina , Rome 1936; A. Revusky, Les Juifs en
Palestine, Paris 1936, 28 ff. (Eng. tr., Jews in
Palestine , New York 1945, 20 ff.); E. Sereni and
R.E. Ashery (eds.), Jews and Arabs in Palestine:
studies in a national and colonial problem , New York
1936; F.H. Beck, The case of the Palestine Arab, n.p.
[London] 1937, 4-28; Fr. Friedmann, Das Palastina
Mandat, Prague 1937; M. Le Guillerme, Bagarres en
Palestine, Paris 1937, 34 ff.; Macaulay, Mandates ...,
161-7; E. Main, Palestina at the crossroads , London

1937, 91 ff.; M.E.T. Mogannam, The Arab woman
and the Palestina problem , London 1937,123 ff.; The
Royal Institute of International Affairs, Great Brit¬
ain and Palestine, 1915-1936, London 1937, 17-111;
c Isa al-Safari, Filastin al- c Arabiyya bayn al-intiddb wa
’l-Sahyuniyya , i-ii, Jaffa 1937; H.J. Simson, British
rule and rebellion, Edinburgh and London 1937, 131-
320; D.J. Tosevic, Palestine v boufi (Czech, Palestine
in storm), Prague 1937, index; H.L. Weisman, The
future of Palestine: an examination of the partition plan,
New York 1937; A. Musil, Zaslibena Zeme: Nova
Palestina (Czech, The Promised Land: New Palestine),
Prague n.d. [1937-8], 21-217; J. Schechtmann,
Transjordanien im Bereiche des Palastinamandats ,
Vienna n.d. [1937-8], 68-262; Antonius, The Arab
awakening ..., 386, 412; Bentwich, Fulfilment in the
Promised Land, 1917-1937, London 1938, 12 ff.; S.
Bissiso, La politique anglo-sioniste en Palestine: etude
juridique et critique du sionisme et du mandat anglais,
Paris 1938; I. Hazan, Palestina la raspdntie (Ruma¬
nian, Palestine at the crossroads), Bucharest 1938, 3-
77; Office of Statistics, Jerusalem, Statistical abstract
of Palestine, 1937-38, Jerusalem 1938, Giselher Wir-
sing, Englander, Juden und Araber in Palastina, Jena

1938, 47 ff.; B. Akzin, The Palestine mandate in prac¬

tice, in Iowa Law Review (Iowa City), xxv (1939),
32-77; M. Buchwaje, Mandat ligi narodow nad Pales-
tyna (Polish, The mandate of the League of Nations over
Palestine), Cracow 1939, 8-161; Cataluccio,

Storia..., 199-258; J.M.N. Jeffries, Palestine: the
reality, London 1939, 336-712; The Royal Institute
of International Affairs, Great Britain and Palestine,
1915-1939, London 1939; A. Lourie, Britain and
Palestine: an examination of present British policy in the
light of the mandate for Palestine, New York n.d.
[1940?]; J. Cohen-Megouri, La Palestine sous le
regime des Ordres en Cornell, Caen 1940; P.M.
Hanna, British policy in Palestine, Washington, D.C.
1942, 39-169; A.M. Hyamson, Palestine: a policy,
London 1942, 126-209; Celal Tevfik Karasapan,
Filistin ve §ark-iil-Urdun, ii, Istanbul 1942; E. Mar-
ton, Palesztina es a nagyvilag (Hungarian, Palestine and
the wide world), Koloszvar 1943; P. van Paassen,
The forgotten ally. New York 1943, 105 ff.; Shmuel
Ben Eliezer Zvi, Palestine is mandated, not British ter¬
ritory: British white paper 1939 violates mandate. New
York 1943; R. Fink, America and Palestine, New
York 1944, 37 ff.; E. Frankenstein, for my
people, New York 1944, 51 ff.; C.J. Friedrich,
American policy toward Palestine , Washington, D.C.

1944, 5-103; S.S. Perry, Britain opens a gateway,
London 1944; A. Abrahams, Background of unrest:
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Santi Nava, Termini vecchi e nuovi del problema
palestinese, in OM, xxv/1-12 (Jan.-Dec. 1945), 1-8;
B.A. Toukan, A short history of Tranjordan, London

1945, 44-9; N. Zackai, Trans-Jordan 1914-1939, un-
publ. Ph.D. diss., Northwestern Univ. 1945;

Frankenstein, Palestine in the light of international law,
London 1946, 9-54; Hashomer Hatzair Workers’
Party of Palestine, The case for a bi-national Palestine,
Tel-Aviv 1946, 7 ff.; S. Katznelson, The Palestine
problem and the solution: a new scheme, Jerusalem 1946;
A. Konikoff, Transjordan: an economic survey,
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makhalib al-isti c mar, Cairo n.d. [1946?]; Nadjlb
Sadaka, Kadiyyat Filastin, Beirut 1946, index; N.
Barbour, Nisi Dominus: a survey of the Palestine con¬
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or crescent?. New York 1947; M.F. Abcarius,
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diss., Oxford Univ. 1971; Annamarie Ade, Winston
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the High Commissioner in British policy in Palestina, un¬
publ. Ph.D. diss., London Univ, 1972; Ann Sinai
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the Jewish state, New York 1972, index; Adnan
Mohammed Abu-Ghazaleh, Arab cultural nationalism
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ff.; Ben Gurion, My talks with Arab leaders. New
York 1973; Dann, The political crisis of the summer of
1924 in Transjordan, Tel-Aviv 1973; N. Grant, The
partition of Palestine, 1947: Jewish triumph, British
failure, Arab disaster. New York 1973; W.B. Quandt
et alii, The politics of Palestinian nationalism, Berkeley,
Calif. 1973, 5-42; N.A. Rose, The gentile Zionists: a
study of Anglo-Zionist diplomacy, London 1973; S.R.
Silverburg, Organization and violence: the Palestinian
Arab nationalistic response, 1920-1948, unpubl. Ph.D.
diss.. The American Univ., Washington, D.C.
1973; N. Katzburg, Mi-haluka la-sefer ha-lavan: me-
duniyyut Bentanya be-Erets-Isra V, 1936-1940
(Hebrew, From partition to white paper: Britain ’s policy
in Palestine, 1936-40), Jerusalem 1974, index;
Kamil Mahmud Kh illa. Filastin wa ’l-intidab al-
Brfldm, 1922-1939, Beirut 1974, 51 ff.; J.J. Me
Tague, British policy in Palestine, 1917-1922, unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., SUNY, Buffalo 1974; Y. Porath, The
Palestinian Arab national movement, i-ii, London 1974;
idem, The political organization of Palestinian Arabs
under the British mandate, in M. Ma c oz (ed.), Palesti¬
nian Arab politics , Jerusalem 1975, 1-20; T. Bowden,
The politics of the Arab rebellion in Palestine, 1936-39,

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in MES, xi/2 (May 1975), 147-74; M.J. Cohen,
Direction of policy in Palestine, in ibid. , xi/3 (Oct.
1975), 237-61; M. Curtis et alii (eds.), The Palesti¬
nians: people, history, politics, New Brunswick, N.J.
1975, 21-50; Cl. Lo Jacono, I governi transgiordanici
dal 1921 al 1948, in OM, lv/1-2 (Jan.-Feb. 1975),
67-78; Y.N. Miller, From village to nation: government
and society in rural Palestine, 1920-1948 , unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., U.C. Berkeley 1975; Aida Ali Najjar,
The Arabic press and nationalism in Palestine, unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., Syracuse Univ. 1975; G. Cohen, Ha-
Kabinet ha-Beriti w-shPelat Erets-Israel, 1943
(Hebrew, The British Cabinet and the question of
Palestine, 1943), Tel-Aviv 1976; Dann, The United
States and the recognition of Transjordan 1946-1949, in
Asian and African Studies (Jerusalem), xi/2 (1976),
213-39; B. Litvinoff, Weizmann: last of the patriarchs,
London 1976, 127 ff.; Reguer, Winston Churchill...,
283-317 (“Policy for Palestine’’); H.M. Sachar, A
history of Israel from the rise of Zionism to our time, New
York 1976, 116-353; B. Wasserstein, Herbert Samuel
and the Palestine problem, in English Historical Review ,
xci/361 (Oct. 1976), 753-75; T. Bowden, The
breakdown of public security: the case of Ireland 1916-
1921 and Palestine 1936-1939, London and Beverly
Hills 1977, 143 ff.; O. Carre, Le mouvement national
palestinien, Paris 1977, 39-107; M.J. Cohen, Secret
diplomacy and rebellion in Palestine, 1936-1939, in
IJMES, viii/3 (July 1977), 379-404; Ph. Daumas,
La Palestine et le mandat brittanique, in J. Bauberat et
alii , Palestine et Liban: promesses et mensonges de
TOrient, Paris 1977, 106-30; M. Gilbert, Britain,
Palestine and the Jews: the evolution of the 1939 white
paper, 1891-1939, Oxford 1977; Ann Sinai and A.
Pollack (eds.), The Hashimite kingdom of Jordan and the
West Bank: a handbook. New York 1977, 21-8 and in¬
dex; Tibawi, Anglo-Arab relations and the question of
Palestine, 1914-1921 , London 1977, 387-503; A.W.
Kayyali, Palestine: a modern history, London n.d.
[1977-8], 84 ff.; G. Ben-Dor (ed.), The Palestinians
and the Middle East conflict, Ramat-Gan 1978; N.
Caplan, Palestine Jewry and the Arab question, 1917-
1925, London 1978; M.J. Cohen, Palestine: retreat
from the mandate: the making of British policy, 1936-45,
London 1978, index; R.H. Eisenman, Islamic law
in Palestine and Israel , Leiden 1978, 73-151; M.
Gilbert, Exile and return: the emergence of Jewish
statehood, London 1978, 119-309; D. Horowitz and
M. Lissak, Origins of the Israeli polity: Palestine under
the mandate, Chicago and London 1978; B. Wassers¬
tein, The British in Palestine: the mandatory government
and the Arab-Jewish conflict, 1917-1929, London

1978, 73-241; N. Bethell, The Palestine triangle: the
struggle between the British, the Jews and the Arabs, 1935-
1948, London 1979; N. Feinberg, Die volkerrechtliche
Grundlagen der Paldstinensischen Staatsangehorigkeit,
repr. in idem, Studies in International Law, Jerusalem

1979, 385-400; idem, The problem of the legislative
council — its legal aspect, repr. in ibid., 401-13; idem,
The interpretation of the Anglo-American convention on
Palestine, 1924, repr. in ibid., 414-29; Z. Ganin,
Truman, American Jewry and Israel, 1945-1948, New
York and London 1979, index; A. Ilan, Amerika,
Beritanya ve-Erets-Israel (Hebrew, America, Britain
and Palestine), Jerusalem 1979; W. Kazziha, The
political evolution of Tranjordan, in MES, xv/2 (May
1979), 239-57; A.S. Klieman, Divisiveness of
Palestine: Foreign Office versus Colonial Office on the issue
of partition, 1937, in Historical Jnai, xxii/2 (June
1979), 423-41; A.M. Lesch, Arab politics in Palestine ,
1917-1939: the frustration of a nationalist movement,
Ithaca and London 1979, 79 ff.; Fallah Khalid c Ali,

Filastin wa ’l-intidab al-Britani, 1919-1948, Beirut
1980; Sarah Graham-Brown, Palestinians and their
society 1880-1946: a photographic essay, London 1980;
J. Jankowski, Egyptian responses to the Palestine problem
in the interwar period, in IJMES, xii/1 (Aug. 1980), 1-
38; R.L. Jasse, Zion abandoned: Great Britain’s
withdrawal from the Palestine mandate, 1945-1948, un¬
publ. Ph.D. diss., Catholic Univ. of America,
Washington, D.C. 1980; Shmuel Dotan, Ha-
Ma y avak C al-Erets-Isra :> el (Hebrew, The struggle for
Palestine), Tel-Aviv 1981, index; Kedourie, The
Bludan congress on Palestine, September 1937, in MES,
xvii/1 (Jan. 1981), 107-25; M.J. Haron, The British
decision to give the Palestine question to the United Na¬
tions, in ibid., xvii/2 (Apr. 1981), 241-8; H. Me-
jcher and A. Scholch (eds.), Die Paldstina Frage
1917-1948: historische Ursprunge und internationale
Dimensionen eines Nationenkonflikts, Paderborn 1981,
47-216; A. Nachmani, British policy in Palestine: The
Anglo-American committee of inquiry into the problems of
European Jewry and Palestine, 1945-1946, unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., Oxford Univ. 1981; M.J. Cohen,
Palestine and the Great Powers, 1945-1948 , Princeton
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Government in Palestine, Jerusalem 1982 ( = Falk In¬
stitute’s Discussion Paper 816); Y. Porath and Y.
Shavit (eds.), Ha-Mandat we-ha-bayit ha-lPumi
(1917-1947) (Hebrew, The mandate and the national
home, 1917-1947), Jerusalem 1982; Yusuf Haykal,
al-Kadiyya al-Filastiniyya: tahlil wa-nakd, Jaffa n.d.;
idem, Mashru c taksim Filastin wa-akhtaruhu , n.p.
n.d.; Amin Sa c Td, al-Thawra al- c Arabiyya..., iii, 5
ff.; M. Sarkis and D. GhalT, al-Sahyuniyya wa 7-
ittihad wa-fjalaPil a c maliha fi Filastin, Cairo n.d.;
Aziz B. Shihadeh, A.B. C. of the Arab case in Palestine.
An exposition of the Arab case in concise and readable form,
Jaffa n.d. (J.M. Landau)

MANDE, a term which simultaneously possesses
geographical, political and ethnic connotations.
Mande is a region situated between the upper Niger
to the East, Beledougou to the North and the upper
Bakhoy to the West. Mande is also applied, however,
to the whole of an enormous ethnic family com¬
prising, according to some West African traditions
(Dogon, Bambara, Malinke in particular), more than
forty population groups currently inhabiting the
Republics of Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali,
Upper Volta, Niger and even Nigeria (see D. Zahan,
Aper$u sur la pensee theogonique des Dogon, in Cahiers Inter¬
nationa ilx de Sociologie, vi [1949], 113-33; S. de Ganay,
Notes sur la theodicee bambara, in RHR , cxxxv [1949],
212-13; G. Dieterlen, Essai sur la religion bambara, Paris
1951, 13; the same, Mythe et organisation sociale au
Soudan franfais, in Journal de la Societe des Africanistes,
xxv/1-2 [1955], 40-2).

More precisely, Mande designates the “mother¬
land” of one of the ethnic groups which originated
there, the Mandingos. According to dialectal
variants, the latter pronounce the term Mande or
Mandeng, Mandi, or Manding, while the Bambara of
Ouassoulu (South of Bamako) say Mane or Mani, the
Soninkes Malle or Malli, the Foulbe Melle or Melli (cf.
M. Delafosse, Haut-Senegal-Niger (Soudan fran(ais), 1st
series, i, 121). All these forms constitute variants of
one word which in phonetic notation should be
transcribed as Made or Made.

This phonetic rendering illustrates the uncertain
etymology of the morpheme, Made could signify either
“child” {de) of the mother ma”, i.e. uterine issue or
“child {de) of the master of the soil ( ma )”, i.e. in¬
digenous (cf. M. Delafosse, La Langue mandingue et ses
dialects {Malinke, Bambara, Dioula), Bibl. de l’ENLOV,

MANDE

401

Paris 1929, i, 11). There is no basis for deciding in
favour of either of these hypotheses.

In the current state of knowledge, little is known of
the early history of the Mande. The first written infor¬
mation on this subject derives from Arabic sources, it
being understood that the first scholars to transmit in
writing their knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa lived in
North Africa and were directly or indirectly in contact
with the negroes of the Sudan of their period. Among
the latter, the Mandingos were, doubtless from an
early period, the suppliers of gold (the tibr of the Arab
authors, signifying “unrefined gold” and “gold
dust”) to the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish mer¬
chants who acquired it in North Africa through the in¬
termediary of local traders. But it is logical to suppose
that the tracks crossing the Sahara and bearing this
precious metal towards the Mediterranean did not
become “trade routes” until after the conquest of
North Africa by the Arabs. Furthermore, it was
subsequent to this invasion that there appeared the
first written testimonies relating to the Mande.

The earliest in date, known today, is given by al-
Ya c kubT (d. 284/897) in his Ta^nkh, 28: “There is also
another kingdom called Mallal, which is at war with
the sovereign of Kanim (Kanem). Their king is called
MayusT (Mai Was!?)” (cf. J.M. Cuoq, Recueil des
sources arabes concernanl I’Afrique Occidentale du VIII e au
XVl e siecle (Bilad al-Sudan), Paris 1975, 48). Mallal is
in fact Mali [q.v.], the future rival, then destroyer, of
Ghana Al-Ya c kubl knew of it only by hearsay,

never having travelled himself in the Bilad al-Sudan.
If his orthography is to be believed, the information
that he provides is without doubt of Soninke origin,
the Soninkes (or Sarakoles) constituting the predomi¬
nant group, from a political and economic point of
view, in the kingdom of Ghana, situated between the
Maghrib and the valleys of Senegal and of the upper
Niger (otherwise known as the “Nile” by the Arab
historians and geographers).

It is difficult to say what was the nature of Mallal
at the time of this ancient historical testimony; a
modest local chiefdom, no doubt, situated in the
region of the confluence of the Niger and the
Sankarani, but one which was beginning to make
itself known because of its deposits of gold, coveted by
the Arabs and the peoples living to the north of the
Mediterranean.

Some time ago, having understood the cultural
importance of the historical evidence, traditional
story-tellers (griots) or minstrels of the present-day
Republic of Mali began to reveal their knowledge con¬
cerning Mali. Certainly, this information is to be
taken with the caution appropriate to oral testimonies
separated from the events that they describe by a con¬
siderable period of time. But caution is not the same
as rebuttal, far from it. According to these story¬
tellers, then, at the time of the foundation of the em¬
pire of Mali (beginning of the 13th century), the Man-
ding comprised 34 clans, lineages and socio-profes¬
sional groups: 16 clans of warriors (Konate,
Coulibaly, Traore, Kone, Doumbya (or Koroma, or
Kourouma, or Sissoko, or Fakoly), Kamara-
Komagara, Bagayogo-Sinayogo, Dereba-Kamissoko,
Dannyoko, Magassouba, Diawara, Dabo, Diallo,
Diakite, Sidibe and Sangere); 5 Kei'ta lineages belong¬
ing to the family of Soundyata, founder of the empire;
5 maraboutic families (Cisse, Toure, Berete, Diane
and Sanogo)(according to some, the Kouma con¬
stituted the fifth maraboutic family of the Manding);
4 Dyabi families, related to the afore-mentioned
maraboutic families; 4 families of people of “caste”:
the griots or minstrels (Kwate (Kouyate), Kamissoko,
Dyabate, Soumano); the blacksmiths: Doubya,

Bagayogo, Sinayogo, Sinaba, Kante; the shoemakers:
Kamare, Garanke; the descendants of slaves and
slaves themselves (SCOA, L’Empire du Mali , 1976,
413).

Originally, however, the number of Manding clans
was smaller. The memories of the story-tellers men¬
tion twelve of them, as having constituted the nucleus
of what was later to become the Manding “world”,
the difference (between this number and 34) con¬
sisting of new elements coming in from the exterior,
either from the empire of Gh ana, or from Sosso
Mande, in fact, attracted these “immigrants”, as
they would now be called, for two reasons: first, the
gold of Boure, with all that this metal offered in terms
of opportunity for work and wealth, and second, the
paganism of the animist religion which was seen as
virgin territory for Islamic missionary effort. The first
of these attractions was more of a lure to the in¬
habitants of Sosso, almost all of whom practised the
extraction and casting of iron; the second appealed to
natives of the kingdom of Gh ana, among whom Islam
was already beginning to be implanted on a wide scale
and who were seeking, at the same time, to migrate
towards the south, as a result of increasingly frequent
droughts.

It is evident that available knowledge concerning
Mande before the foundation of the empire represents
fragments of little importance. If to these there is
added an item from al-Bakri ( K. al-Masdlik wa 7-
mamdlik, tr. de Slane, 1965, 333, quoted by Cuoq, op.
cil., 102-3), mentioning the conversion to Islam of a
king of Mallal ( ca . 442/1050) with the aim of putting
an end to the drought which was devastating his coun¬
try, then in a passage from al-Idrlsi (548/1154) on the
subject of Mallal, “a small town without walls (Opus
geographicum , i, Naples-Rome 1970, 22; Cuoq, op. cil.,
132), the sensation of “historicity” may perhaps be
reassuring, but our knowledge relating to Mande
gains nothing in substance. It is not until the begin¬
ning of the 13th century, and again with recourse to
the oral tradition relayed by the minstrels, that a
“history” is discovered in which Mande becomes a
kind of stage, upon which actors, half-real and half-
mystical, play a role in events of interest and
significance.

At this period there was in Mande a certain Nare-
Famaghan, who was only one of forty or more Man¬
ding princelings all of whom bore the title of mansa
(chief). He had twelve sons, his potential successors,
of whom the youngest, Soundiata (the Mari-Diata of
Ibn Khaldun) was to have a historic destiny: it was he
who was soon to found the empire of Mali. Mean¬
while, Mande was tributary to the neighbouring
kingdom of Sosso.

This destiny was, in reality, dependent on three fac¬
tors: (a) the decline of the neighbouring empire to the
north, Ghana, threatened by the king of Sosso, as well
as by Arabo-Berbers descending from the north who
were ultimately to destroy it (469/1076-7); (b) the lack
of unity in Mande, where each princeling was master
of his own territory; and (c) the victory of Soundiata
over his rival Soumangourou Kante, king of Sosso.

This last factor constitutes a remarkable example of
the oral history of Mande. The narration of the events
which took place in the confrontation between the two
protagonists takes the form of an epic account in
which the real, the miraculous, the serious and the
comic are mingled in an apparently inextricable man¬
ner, but where a guiding thread is detectable
throughout. The story-tellers have seized with relish
on these events and, in general, accord little impor¬
tance to the other two factors.

The plot of the account in question may be sum-

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

402

MANDE — MANDIL

marised in the following manner. Soumangourou,
king of Sosso and suzerain of Mande, massacres the
eleven sons of Soundiata. The latter is spared only on
account of his disability, which renders him inoffen¬
sive in the eyes of his suzerain. His disability is signifi¬
cant and makes him the opposite of his rival, the
blacksmith of Sosso, the archetypal “man of action”,
dressed in garments of iron; he has crippled legs, as
a result of which he lives for seventeen years in a hole
in the ground, only his head and shoulders being visi¬
ble. But Soundiata is cured of his infirmity in an
equally ^significant manner: with the aid or two enor¬
mous bars of iron (used by him successively), of which
the first becomes his bow and the second his royal
sceptre, he hoists himself out of his “hole”, per¬
manently cured, takes to arms, rallies his warriors and
goes to fight Soumagourou in a decisive battle, at
Krina. The latter escapes from his pursuer only by
disappearing into a cave, at Koulikoro, the opening of
which is blocked by a slab of stone immediately after
the entry of the unlucky hero. Traditionists and
historians agree in making these events coincide with
the foundation of the Manding empire, ca. 1235, and
the dispersion of the blacksmiths across West Africa,
subsequent to the destruction of their “empire”.

It has not been possible to include all the details of
the famous encounter between the two protagonists.
The elements of the account supplied here have the
purpose only of giving an impression of the structure
of the narrative and an “introduction” to its eventual
interpretention.

This structure and its interpretation have as their
starting point the idea that the status of the hunter-
cultivator is superior to that of the blacksmith; but this
superiority only emerges and becomes evident from
the moment that the first masters the products of the
technology of iron possessed by the second. Soundiate
is in subjection to Soumangourou until the day that he
takes possession of arms, of which the raw material
has been supplied to him by his rival, the blacksmith.
This could, conceivably, be translated into more
modern terms as an assertion that strategy and skill in
the manipulation of arms (traits characteristic of the
hunter-cultivator), represent a knowledge more pro¬
found than that which concerns metallurgy and the
science of the armourer. The story summarised above
also refers, undoubtedly, to the type of knowledge ac¬
quired through initiation. The blacksmith is, on ac¬
count of his skill, a “natural” and it could be said,
initiated being. The hunter-cultivator, on the other
hand, acquires this knowledge only after a long period
of initiation corresponding to a “death”. Soundiata
remains “buried” for seventeen years, and emerges
from his “hole” to conquer. Soumangourou, on the
contrary, is the archetype of life and strength, but,
beaten, he descends into bowels of the earth. One
comes out of the earth to defeat his adversary, the
other enters the earth, vanquished by his enemy. This
gives an explanation not only of the dispersal of
blacksmiths across Africa, but especially of their place
in society.

Soundiata, rich in exploits and in wisdom, occupies
a position of eminence in the memory of Malinke
story-tellers. He has no equal in the history of Mande
other than in the person of one of his successors at the
beginning of the 8th/l 4th century, Mansa Musa
[q.v.\, whose reign marked the highest point of the
Manding empire. In his time, this extended from Gao
to the estuary of the Gambia, and from Oualata (in
the north) to the jungles of Guinea. But Mansa Musa
owes his place of honour in the work of Arab
historians, particularly in that of al- c Umari ( Masdlik

al-absar ft mamalik al-amsar, quoted by Cuoq, op. cit.,
275-9), to the pilgrimage which he made to Mecca
and to the fast which he observed during the journey.
This sovereign dominated the whole of the 8th/14th
century in West Africa. Even Europe was aware of
him and he was featured on the Catalan maps of
Dulcert (1339) and of Cresques (1375). Ibn Battuta
(iv, 376-48), who passed through Mande in 753/1352-
3, was unable to make the acquaintance of the Man¬
ding emperor who died ca. 1337, but his journey coin¬
cided with the last years of prosperity of the great
empire. From about the year 1380 onwards, this em¬
pire entered upon a period of decadence concerning
which Ibn Kh aldun gives some interesting informa¬
tion (cf. Cuoq, op. cit. y 339-50). The 15th century
marked the beginning of the death-throes of Mande,
harassed by the Touareg, the Songhai and the Mossi;
the second half of the 17th century saw its disap¬
pearance. In 1670, Mande, as a political entity, was
reduced, under the onslaught of the Bambara kings of
Segou, to the small province from which it had
originated, in the region of the Upper Niger; it had
survived for approximately three and a half centuries.

Situated in a zone of commercial contacts between
North Africa and Black Africa, Mande has, on ac¬
count of its rich gold deposits, throughout its history
attracted much covetousness, on the part of its im¬
mediate neighbours as well as of the Arabo-Berber
tribes of the Mediterranean coast. In view of the facts,
it is quite astonishing that this great kingdom, born
out of the victory of strategy over technology, could
have lasted so long. This would not, in the opinion of
the present writer, have been possible had not those
who presided over the affairs of the country, as well as
the people themselves, been particularly conscious of
the values which permit the realisation of human
potential. The initiatic societies of the Malinkes, so
closely linked to the monarchy, are instructive in
regard to the “spiritual” preoccupations of the kings
of Mande. Such concerns are not rare in African
history, but in this case they take on a particular
dimension in view of the zone of insecurity in which
the Manding empire was located from the very begin¬
ning of its existence.

Bibliography : In addition to references given
in the article, see J.J. Trimingham, A history of Islam
in West Africa, Oxford 1962, index; L’Empire du
Mali. Un recit de Wa Kamissoko de Krina, set down,
transcribed and annotated by Youssouf Tata Cisse,
Premier Colloque International de Bamako (27
January-1 February 1975), Fondation SCOA,
Paris 1975; Colloque de Bamako, 1975, Actes, Fon¬
dation SCOA, Paris 1975; L ’Empire du Mali. Un
recit de Wa Kamissoko de Krina, set down,
transcribed, translated and annotated by Youssouf
Tata Cisse, Deuxieme Colloque International de
Bamako, (16 February-22 February 1976), Fonda¬
tion SCOA, Paris 1977; Colloque de Bamako 1976,
Actes, Foundation SCOA, Paris 1977; Actes du Collo¬
que de Niamey , Paris 1980. (D. Zahan)

MANDIL, normalised mindil, from Latin/Greek
mantel{e , -um, ium), entered Arabic speech in pre-
Islamic times, presumably through Aramaic, and has
remained in use to this day. Its principal meanings
were those of hand kerchief, napkin, and towel.
Mandil was, however, understood generally as
“piece of cloth” and used for many other pur¬
poses, such as covering or carrying something or serv¬
ing, attached to the body, as an untailored part of
dress. Numerous other words were available in
Islamic languages as synonyms of mandil in both its
specific and its generalised meanings. Arabic thus had

MANDIL

403

mashush and minshafa , while khirka was often
substituted as an inferior sort of mandil. Persian had
dastar (dimin. dastarca ), rumal , and many other words;
some were used in Arabic contexts such as shustadja
(al-Tabari, i, 1048, also Glossary, CCCXI, and
below) and dastadja (Kushadjim, below, although the
meaning of handkerchief for dastadja seems unusual,
read shustadja?). Turkish bukca was frequent in later
Arabic texts ( bukdja , for instance, al-Djawbarl, Kashf,
Cairo 1316, 24; Ibn Abi Usaybi c a, ii, 178). The
diminutive munaydiiil is attested (Ibrahim b. Ya c kub
in al-Bakrl, Masalik in connection with Prague;
Ibn Sudun, Nuzhat al-nufus, ms. Brit. Mus. or. 6517,
fols. 70a, 110a). Philologists invented kunyas for man¬
dil: Abu ’1 HanI, Abu Tahir, Abu TNazif (Ibn al-
Athlr, Murassa c , Baghdad 1972, 230, 323, 344, 373).
Construct formations indicated function, such as m.
al-ghamar (“grease”), al-ta c am (“food”), al-sharab
(“drink”), al-wadjh (“face”), al- c udhra (“virginity”),
al-aman (“safe conduct”). M. al-kumm (cf. German
Taschentuch ) got its designation from the wide sleeve in
which it was carried.

Mandils were made of many textile fibres. Often
they were outstanding products of the weaver's and
embroiderer’s craft. This applied in particular to
handkerchiefs, but also, in a more modest way, to
napkins and towels. Handkerchiefs were praised for
their sheerness and beauty. The qualities of their dif¬
ferent makes were compared (al-Mubarrad, Kamil ,
repr. Cairo ca. 1968, ii, 146). They came in many col¬
ours and had colourful embroided borders. Many
localities, especially in Iran and Egypt, produced, and
gave their names to, special kinds of mandils. Depen¬
ding on quality, they could be very costly; even badly
worn mandils could still be sold for cash (al-Tanukhl,
al-Faradj ba c d al-shidda, Cairo 1357/1938, i, 55 f., cf.
also Nishwar , Cairo 1391-3/1971-3, iii, 67). They
shared with other textiles the fact that they were often
not within the reach of the poor. Not having a mandil
was part of the definition of poverty (al-Ghazall. IhyoT,
Cairo 1352/1933, i, 198). Conversely, the wealthier
classes took considerable pride in them and counted
them among their prized possessions, to which a per¬
son might become unduly attached ( Ihyd? , iv, 426, 1.
23) and which had to be taken good care of. But even
among ordinary people, it was customary to carry a
handkerchief when going out, as is shown, for in¬
stance, by the curious story of the trained donkey in
al-Ghuzuli, MatalT al-budur, Cairo 1299-1300, ii, 183
(for the use of mandils in tricks, cf. also al-Djawbarl.
16, etc.). A complete outfit of clothing ( Jhyd 3 , iv, 185,
200) or a proper trousseau would include mandils.
Since they were thought to be indispensable, they
were assumed to exist in Paradise (according to the
haditJi , cf. also Abu TLayth al-Samarkandl, Kurrat al-
c uyun, on the margins of al-Sha c ranI, Mukhtasar,
Cairo 1358/1939, 159; Ibn Kayyim al-Djawzivva.
Had! al-arwah, Cairo 1381/1962, ch. 50). Angels had
mandils of fire (al-Nuwayrl al-Iskandaranl, Jlmam ,
Hyderabad 1388-96/1968-76, i, 123, 1. 6). Fire-
resisting mandils in this world were described as
curiosities.

Many uses of mandils are attested, for instance:
covering the face to conceal crying (al-Yunlnl, Dhayl.
Hyderabad 1374-80/1954-61, i, 364; al-Djawbarl, 23,
speaking of a trained monkey); wiping off tears
(Ta^rikh Baghdad , xi, 185) or sweat (al-Sabi 5 , Rusum dar
al-khilafa, Baghdad 1383/1964, 75, using shustadfa, tr.
Salem, Beirut 1977, 61); blowing the nose, which had
to be done in a refined manner, and the m. al-ta c am
was not to be used for it (al-Nuwayrl, Nihaya , iv, 126,
1. 18; al-Ghuzuli. i, 146, 1. 3); stilling a nose bleed
(al-Yunlnl, i, 354); cleaning hands and mouth after

eating and drinking; wiping off spittle, to be done
delicately with the end (dhu^aba) of a folded mandil , as
was the custom of the great al-Tabari (Yakut, Udabaf
vi, 459); drying parts of the body; covering the
loins ( izar ) after bathing (cf. H. Grotzfeld, Bad, Wies¬
baden 1970, 67, 93); wrapping it around the body
like a wishdh (al-Shabushtl, Diydrdt, Ba gh dad 1951,
133; al-Sanawbari, Diwan, Beirut 1970, 486); cover¬
ing the head as c imdma (al-Zadjdjadjl, Amali , Cairo
1382, 171 f.); covering dishes and tables; carrying
practically anything, money, sandals (Ibn al-Suka C I,
Tali, Damascus 1974, 111), the medicines of a visiting
physician (Ibn Abi Usaybi c a, i, 158, 1. 28, and, using
shustadja, i, 217, 1. 2); massaging and serving as hot
compresses (al-RazI, Tadjarib, ms. Istanbul,
Topkapisarayi Ahmet III 1975, fols. 72a, 93a); wrap¬
ping objects, even heavy ones in large mandils; strangl¬
ing (al-Mubarrad, Kamil , iv, 8) or poisoning
(al-Mas c udI, Murudj, viii, 211 = § 3354); using it in
futuwwa installation ceremonies (cf. F. Taeschner,
Ziinfte und Bruderschaflen, Ziirich-Munich 1979, 222),
etc., etc.

Literature speaks of handkerchiefs as convenient
for writing on, or concealing in, billets-doux (Ibn al-
DjawzI, Dhamm al-hawa , Cairo 1381/1962, 532 f.). In
general, litterateurs considered them worthy of notice
as art objects whose mention conveyed special moods
and aesthetic impressions. A poem by Kushadjim
[q. v. J mourning a mandil of his that had been pilfered
by a lover gives a graphic description of their use and
the esteem in which they were held {Diwan, Baghdad
1390/1970, 86-8; al-Husrl, Zahr al-adab , Cairo 1389/
1969, 868 f.). Blood covering a wolf s head from be¬
tween the ears to the shoulder blades suggested a
mandil to the mukhadram poet Ibn Mukbil [ q.v . in
Suppl.] (Ibn Kutayba, Ma c ani, Hyderbad 1368-
69/1949, i, 184). The elephant’s ear was compared to
it (al-Djahiz, Hayawan , ed. Harun, vii, 173), as was
the flame of a candle spread by the wind’s blowing
(Diya 5 al-Dln Ibn al-Athlr, as quoted by al-Ghuzuli,
i, 81). Mandil was used metaphorically to indicate low
status, commonness, and abuse (al-Tawhldl, Akhlak
al-wazirayn , ed. al-Tandjl, 232; al- c Imad al-Raghib al-
Isfahanl, Muhadarat, Cairo 1287, i, 313; al- c Imad al-
Isfahanl, Kharida . iv, Cairo ca. 1951, ii, 134; see also
al-Ra c I al-Numayrl, Diwan, ed. Weipert, Beirut 1980,
235, Steiger and Keller, 126 f.). All this shows that
the mandil was always an object that engaged the
human fancy.

Most, if not all, of the uses of mandils antedated
Islam (cf. H. Kindermann, liber die gulen Sitten,
Leiden 1964, 99-102). The widespread use of hand¬
kerchiefs, however, shows a high degree of general
cultural refinement, much in advance of mediaeval
Europe (cf. N. Elias, The civilizing process, Eng. tr.
New York 1978, 143 ff.).

Bibliography : The few selected references in
the article are meant to be in addition to those in
F. Rosenthal, Four essays on art and literature in Islam ,
Leiden 1971, 63-99. Fundamental earlier studies
are R.B. Serjeant, Material for a history of Islamic tex¬
tiles , in Ars Islamica, ix-xvi (1942-51), repr. as
Islamic textiles, Beirut 1972, and A. Steiger and H.-
E. Keller, Lat. Mantelum, in Vox Romanica, xv/1
(1956), 103-54, where mandil is followed in its
forms and uses through the European languages
and Arabic. More recently, Geniza studies have
enriched our knowledge of the mandil , cf. the
publications by S. D. Goitein and, especially, Y.
K. Stillman, for instance, The wardrobe of a Jewish
bride in Medieval Egypt , in Studies in marriage customs,
iv (1974), 297-304. See also libas.

(F. Rosenthal)

404

MANDIL

MANDIL, Awlad or Banu, a chiefly family of
the Maghrawa [< 7 . 0 .], prominent in what is now
western Algeria in the 7th~8th/13th-14th centuries,
taking its name from MandTl, grandson of one Abu
Nas, a scion of the Banu Khazrun, rulers of Tripoli
(391-540/1000-1 to 1145-6) and descendants of the
10th-century Spanish Umayyad MaghrawT chief,
Khazrun b. Faiful.

Abu Nas, whose forbear from Tripoli had made his
way to kin in the Chelif (Shalaf) basin and Finally es¬
tablished himself among the local Ma gh rawa. had re¬
ceived an c ikta c there for his services to the Almohads
in c Abd al-Mu-’min’s [< 7 . 0 .] day. His son c Abd al-
Rahman thereafter united the Ma gh rawa behind him
and garnered the rewards of loyalty to the Almohads.
On his death, he was succeeded by Mandfl, the elder
of two sons, whose expansionism won him the
Ouarsenis (WansharTs), Medea (al-Madiyya) and the
fertile Mitidja (MatTdja) plain, which he devastated
with unswerving pro-Almohad zeal. Subsequently he
lost Mitidja itself [see bulayda] to Yahya, the last of
the Banu Ghaniya [q. v .), and around 623/1226 Yahya
had him killed. MandTl was the founder of the
stronghold of Marat on the Riou (WadT Rahyu), a
tributary of the Chelif.

MandTl’s eldest son, al- c Abbas, was accepted by his
brothers as the new chief. As such, he looked to his
father’s example, but in fact lost all Mandll’s gains to
his rivals, the Banu TudjTn, and fell back with his
tribe on their heartlands in the lower Chelif. There he
remained for a time as ruler of a modest principality.
A change came with the intervention of the Hafsids
[q.v. ] in the Central Maghrib following the repudia¬
tion of Almohad authority by the c Abd al-Wadid [q.v. J
Yaghamrasan, de facto ruler of Tlemcen. Tribal ap¬
peals to the Hafsid Abu Zakariyya 5 for aid against
Tlemcen’s aggression met with success: in 640/1242
Tlemcen was taken and Ya gh amrasan made a Hafsid
vassal. On his way back, the Hafsid set up, on the
basis of tribal support for him, three small buffer
dependencies, each with an accredited ruler. One
such ruler was al- c Abbas, chief of the Ma gh rawa with
sway over Miliana (Milyana), Tenes (Tanas), Brechk
(Barishk) and Cherchell (Sharshal). During the chief¬
taincy of al- c Abbas, the Ma gh rawa founded Mazouna
(Mazuna). On his death in 647/1249-50 he was suc¬
ceeded by his brother Muhammad. The latter’s
assassination in 662/1263 by his brothers Thabit and
c A 3 id disrupted family unity, With c Abd al-Wadid
aid, their brother c Umar eventually won the day
(668/1269-70) and, till his death in 676/1277-8, re¬
mained chief to the Ma gh rawa. Thereafter the chief¬
taincy reverted to Thabit.

From Muhammad’s murder to Thabit’s death the
salient feature of the family’s history is its involve¬
ment with Tlemcen, ending with its debut on the
Marlnid stage in Fez. Briefly, the facts are as follows.
After an accord with Tlemcen, then a quarrel that cost
him Miliana, Muhammad regained the town with the
aid of the Hafsid Mustansir and ruled it in his name.
But c Umar, resenting Thabit’s position as chief of the
Ma gh rawa. conspired with Ya gh amrasan to put
Miliana under Tlemcen’s suzerainty in return for its
governorship and command of the Ma gh rawa. To
spite c Umar and to curry favour with Ya gh amrasan.
Thabit and c A 3 id then sold to the latter Tenes
(672/1273-4). Thabit’s attempts after c Umar’s death
to retrieve Miliana for himself and his tribe, though
initially successful, ended in disaster. Tlemcen did not
allow his disloyalty and rebellion to go unpunished:
Ya gh amrasan began a campaign which, after his
death, his son c Uthman was to complete. Within a

few years, c Uthman had taken Medea, Mazouna and
Tenes and finally forced the Ma gh rawa to take to the
mountains. Thabit tried in vain to hold Brechk and
sailed for Morocco (694/1294-5) to enlist Marlnid
support. In his absence, his son Muhammad usurped
his chieftaincy of the Ma gh rawa. but did not live long
to enjoy it. Thereafter, the Awlad MandTl of the Cen¬
tral Ma gh rib disintegrated in a welter of fratricidal
and internecine quarrels.

For his part, Thabit was warmly welcomed by the
Mannid sultan Yusuf b. Ya c kub, but died in an un¬
fortunate incident in Fas before attaining his goal. His
family, however, was cared for by Yusuf, who in fact
came to marry the sister of Thabit’s grandson, Rashid
b. Muhammad. The alliance gave Rashid reason to
hope for the retrieval of his birthright in the
Ma gh rawa homeland. But it was not to be: during the
long Mannid siege of Tlemcen (689-706/1290-1306),
it was to c Umar b. Wlghran b. MandTl that Yusuf
assigned chieftancy of the Ma gh rawa and, later, com¬
mand of the army that was to take Miliana, Tenes and
Mazouna in 699/1299-1300. Resenting his kinsman’s
preferment, Rashid deserted the MarTnids. From the
Mitidja mountains he won a Ma gh rawa following,
provoked a rising in Mazouna, and, having
eliminated his rival c Umar, gained united MaghrawT
support. Leaving Mazouna strongly garrisoned, he
entrenched himself in the mountain fastness of the
Banu Bu Sa c Td between Mazouna and Tenes. For the
MarTnids he was a scourge: it took them two years to
regain Mazouna, and in 704/1304-5 they sustained
heavy losses in attempting to dislodge him. After his
withdrawal to the Mitidja mountains they regained
control of MaghrawT territory, but readily agreed to
end their pursuit of Rashid when he sued for peace.

Peace between Tlemcen and Fas came in 706/1307
on terms restoring to the former all that the latter had
taken. Thinking to retrieve his homeland, Rashid
marched on Miliana, but, finding the c Abd al-Wadids
in control, banished the thought. Around 707/1307-8
he took up with Abu ’1-Baka 3 , the Hafsid ruler of
Bougie (Bidjaya) and, later, of Tunis. An initially suc¬
cessful and promising alliance between Rashid and his
Ma gh rawa. on the one hand, and the Hafsid and the
Sanhadja, on the other, collapsed a few years later
with the death of Rashid in a heated personal quarrel
with a new chief of his allies, the Sanhadja (between
709 and 711/1309 and 1311; date unclear). Dismayed
at Rashid’s death, the Ma gh rawa left their Chelif
heartlands, and many took refuge in places as far
apart as Andalusia and IfrTkiya. Rashid’s young son,
c AlT, found safety with his aunt in Fez, the sultan’s
wife, and the Awlad MandTl migrated to Marlnid soil
and married into MarTnid tribes.

C A1T b. Rashid grew up at court as a MarTnid by
adoption and, in adult life, took part in the sultan Abu
’1-Hasan’s ambitious campaigns that toppled
Tlemcen, but on the sultan’s defeat at Kairouan (al-
Kayrawan) in 749/1348 he took over Miliana, Tenes,
Brechk and Cherchell and re-established his
ancestors’ principality. He requested, but was
refused, MarTnid recognition in return for support
against c Abd al-Wadid resurgence. c AlT’s subsequent
reliance on the c Abd al-Wadids to respect his prin¬
cipality proved misplaced, and brought him to
disaster and suicide (752/1351-2). His young son,
Hamza, was taken to Fas and, like C A1T, was reared as
a MarTnid.

As an adult, Hamza deserted the MarTnids on the
grounds of an alleged injustice when in the Field
against Tlemcen (772/1370). Taking to the mountains
of the Banu Bu Sa c Td, he won Ma gh rawa support and

MANDIL — MANDJAN1K

405

held out till a vast Marlnid army terrified his allies
into surrender. With few followers he next established
himself among the Arab tribe of Husayn, then in
revolt against the Marlnids with c Abd al-Wadid back¬
ing. His style “ruler of Title ri” suggests that the
tribe’s hisn Titan was his stronghold. His subsequent
failure to rally the Banu Bu Sa c Td drew him into a rash
exploit at Timzought (Thmzughat), north-west of
Miliana, which ended in disaster. Both he and his
friends were captured, and the Husayn fled to the Tit-
teri mountains from their plain below. From the for¬
tress they made their last stand—an event actually
witnessed by Ibn Khaldun. Hamza and his friends
were executed, and early in 1372 their headless corp¬
ses were crucified outside Miliana. Thereafter the
Awlad MandTl disappear from history.

Bibliography : Ibn Khaldun, c Ibar, vii, 63-71
(text often corrupt) = de Slane, iii, 310-26 (transla¬
tion not always accurate); on the places mentioned
see “Table geographique”, ibid ., iv, 489 ff., under
the French spellings; Ibn Khaldun, al-Ta c rif bi-Ibn
Khaldun. Cairo 1951, 29, 139; Yahya b. Khaldun.
B uq hyat al-ruwwdd. ed. and tr. A. Bel, Hist, des Beni
c Abd al-Wad, Algiers 1903-13, i, 128 f. = tr. 173;
146 f., 154 ff. = tr. 195, 206 ff. (the translation
carries very informative notes on the places men¬
tioned; see index); M. Gaspar Remiro, ed. and tr.,
Correspondencia diplomatics entre Granada y Fez (siglo
XIV), etc., Granada 1916, 42, 82, 118; Levi-
Provengal, Hist. Esp. mus., ii, 261 (on Khazrun); J.
D. Latham, Ibn al-Ahmar s Kitab Mustawda c al-
c alama, in Studia Arabica et Islamica: Festschrift for
Ihsdn c Abbas, ed. W. al-Kadi, Beirut 1981, 329 f.
(see n. 127 on Titteri); J. M. Abun-Nasr, A history
of the Maghrib 2 , London 1975, 152, 156. R.
Brunschvig, La Berberie orientate sous les Hafsides,
Paris 1940-7, i, 48, 128, ii, 77. All the chronicles of
the Marlnids, c Abd al-Wadids and Hafsids should
be consulted. (J.D. Latham)

MANDINGO [see mande]

MANDJANIK. (a., ultimately from Greek pay-
yavtxov, via Aramaic, cf. Fraenckel, Die aramdnische
Fremdworter, 243, passing into Spanish as almajaneque,
cf. Dozy and Engelman, Glossaire, 153), a general
term for any kind of stone-throwing siege-
engine. The expressions mandjanlk and c arrdda [q.v. ]
are both used for this kind of machine, and although
the c arrada may have been the smaller of the two, the
expressions often seem to be interchangeable. Man¬
djanlk occurs more frequently than c arrdda , but their
presence at a siege is often confined to a mere men¬
tion, without any description of the machines being
given. The earliest reference to the mandjanlk in
Muslim times is the machine used to bombard the
walls of al-Tarif when the town was besieged by the
Muslims in 8/630 (al-Baladhuri. Futuh, 55). We are
not told what kind of machine this was; it may well
have been of the type used by the Greeks and
Romans, which was operated by the release of energy
stored in twisted fibres or large bows. These weapons
were characterised by the high velocity and low trajec¬
tory of the missiles, which were fairly light. They were
therefore of more use on the battlefield than against
the strong walls of cities and fortresses. From some
time in the lst/7th century onwards, however, the
siege-engines used by the Muslim armies were of
beam-operated type, first the traction trebuchet and,
much later, the counterweight trebuchet.

The traction trebuchet originated in China no later
than the 4th century B.C. and was in common use in
Chinese armies from that time onwards (J. Needham,
China's trebuchets, manned and counterweighted, in Lynn

While Festschrift, Humana civilitas, i [1976], 107-45). It
consisted of a beam, composed of a single spar, or of
several spars bound together, which was supported on
a fulcrum on top of a timber tower. The tower was
often provided with wheels, to assist in the emplace¬
ment and aiming of the weapon. The beams were
from 5.60 to 8.40 m. in length, with diameters at the
extremities of 12.5 and 7 cm. At the narrower end was
a copper “nest”, attached to the beam by iron wires,
thus forming a short sling. The missile, which could
weigh up to 60 kg. was placed in the sling. At the
other end of the beam there was a special attachment
to which a number of ropes were attached. A team of
men, ranging in number from 40 to 250 or more,
pulled in unison on these ropes to discharge the
missile, to distances of up to 150 metres (D.R. Hill,
Trebuchets, in Viator, iv [1973], 99-114). Although the
range of these machines was less than that of the
classical weapons, the greater weight of the missiles
made them much more effective against fortifications.

The traction trebuchet was diffused from China,
through the Turkish areas, to the Middle East during
the lst/7th century. At the siege of Mecca in 64/683
there was a mandjanlk called Umm Farwa (“Mother of
the hair”). This description may well have been
derived from the appearence of the ropes hanging
down from the end of the beam. A poet added his own
description: “swinging its tail like a foaming [camel
stallion” (al-Tabari, ii, 426). At the siege of Daybu
in Sind in 92/711-12, the Muslims had a siege-
machine called al- c Arus (“The Bride”). It was
operated by 500 men, and was under the control of a
skilled operator who took charge of the aiming and
shooting (al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 437). There was a bat¬
tery of machines at the siege of Baghdad in 261/865-6:
men were assigned to every mandjanlk and Q arrada, and
pulled on ropes to discharge the missiles (al-Tabari,
iii, 1551 f.).

The counterweight trebuchet, which came into use
at the end of the 6th/l 2th century, was a much heavier
machine. It consisted of a heavy wooden beam resting
on a fulcrum, which was supported on a massive
timber tower. The beam, typically about 20 m. long,
was divided by the fulcrum in the ratio of 5:1 or 6:1.
At the end of the short arm, the box containing the
counterweight was suspended, and filled with lead,
iron or stones; the total weight was from 10 to 30
tonnes. A long sling—about as long as the beam
itself—was attached to the end of the long arm, with
a pouch to contain the missile. The trebuchet was
spanned by a winch, whose rope was attached to the
long arm at about the mid-point. When the release
mechanism was pulled, the beam rotated and the sling
accelerated to a greater velocity than that of the beam.
The missile was released when the end of one of the
ropes slipped from a hook, at an instant when the
combined effect of the sling’s velocity and the angle of
discharge gave maximum range to the missile. Rang¬
es were of the order of 300 m., and the missiles could
be very heavy. During the 8th/14th century sieges of
Tlemcen, the mandjanlks were capable of bombarding
the town with balls made of marble, some of which
have been found there, the largest with a cir¬
cumference of 2 m. and weighing 230 kg. (see hisar,
ii; for characteristics of both kinds of trebuchet, see
Hill, op. cit., passim).

The question of the point of origin of the
counterweight trebuchet has not yet been resolved.
The earliest unambiguous description of the machine
in Europe refers to its use in northern Italy in A.D.
1199 (Lynn White Jr., Medieval technology and social
change, Oxford 1962, 102-3). In a treatise on weapons

406

MANDJANIK — MANDU

written a few years earlier than this, Murda b. C A1I
devotes a section to trebuchets, all except one of the
traction type. The exception is called a “Persian”
mandfanik, and although the passage is obscure, it is
possible that this was a counterweight machine (Cl.
Cahen, Un traite d ’armurene compose pour Saladin, in
BEO, xii [1947-8], 16-18). On present data, we can
only locate the origin of the counterweight trebuchet
somewhere in Mediterranean Christendom or
western Islam, towards the end of the 6th/12th cen¬
tury. Its spread thereafter was very rapid, both in
Europe and in the Muslim world. The first report we
have of its use in Islam refers to the siege of Hims in
646/1248, where the machine in question is referred
to as a mandjanik m agh ribi, a western or a North
African trebuchet (Abu TFida 3 , Mukhtasar ta^rikh al-
bashar, in RHC, Historiens orientaux , i, 1872, 125).
Counterweight trebuchets were used in great numbers
by the Muslims at the siege of c Akka in 690/1291 (al-
MakrTzT, K. al-Suluk , ed. Quatremere, Histoire des
sultans Mamlouks, Paris 1837-42, ii, 125). Almost cer¬
tainly, the counterweight trebuchet was introduced to
China by the Muslims. Two Muslim engineers, ‘•Ala 3
al-Dln and Isma c Tl, are honoured by a biography in
the official history of the Yuan dynasty. They con¬
structed the machines for Kubilay for the siege of Fan-
chheng towards the end of A.D. 1272. Thus the
counterweighted trebuchets acquired the name of
“Muslim phao”, by which they were long afterwards
known (Needham, op. cit. y 114).

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text, see K. Huuri, Zur Geschichte des
Mittelalterlichen Geschiitzwesens aus orientalischen
Quellen, Helsinki 1941; information about the con¬
struction of traction trebuchets is to be found in
Abu c Abd Allah al-Kh w arazmI. Mafatih al- c ulum ,
ed. van Vloten, 247-9. (D. R. Hill)

al-MAN DJ UR. Abu ’l- c Abbas Ahmad b. c AlT
al-Miknas! al-Fasi, a learned Moroccan
scholar and teacher, from a family originally
from Meknes, born in Fas 926/1520 and died there 16
Dh u ’1-Ka c da/18 October 1587. Endowed with vast
learning and a great power of verbal expressiveness,
he spent his life teaching, with the methods in use at
the time, various Islamic topics, in particular,
theology and law, and was considered one of the
greatest masters of his age at the KarawiyyTn \q.v.\.
Between 987 and 993/1579-85, he stayed frequently
for periods in Marrakesh, where his most eminent
disciple was the sultan al-Mansur al-Dhahabi [f i>.].

He was the author of commentaries and glosses on
well-known and esteemed works of theology and law
(see Levi-Proven^al, Chorfa, 91), of which various
manuscripts are extant (see Hajji, Activite intellectuelle ,
164-77, passim ), but above all he has left behind a
Fahrasa [q. v. ] of great documentary interest which has
not however yet been made the object of a critical edi¬
tion. It was written in Radjab 989/August 1581 at the
request of al-Mansur, who wished to get from his
master a general idjaza [ q. v. ] theoretically authorising
him to teach all the topics studied under his direction
and further containing the names of his own masters,
with biographical notices and items of information of
a literary nature. Several manuscripts of al-Mandjur’s
Fahrasa exist (see Hajji, op. cit. , 27, no. 72), whieh was
written in two versions, a long and a short one, ac¬
cording to the author’s own practice.

Independently of the sultan, this teacher oversaw
the intellectual formation of several pupils, who
themselves became more or less distinguished subse¬
quently and who filled the office of kadi in various
Moroccan towns, unlike their master who, despite his

great learning, piety and exalted protection and
patronage, never exercised any religious office at all
because of his distant Jewish ancestry [see mayyara];
he was even barred from leading the prayer when he
had been thus designated by al-Mansur (al-IfranT,
Nuzhat al-hadi, 155).

Bibliography : I bn c Askar, Dawhat al-nashir, ed.
M. HadjdjT, Rabat 1396/1976, 59; Ibn al-KadT,
Djadhwat al-iktibas , lith. Fas 1309, 65; idem, Durrat
al-hidjal, Cairo 1390/1970, i, 153-63, ii, 221;
Ahmad Baba, Naylal-ibtihady, Cairo 1352/1932, 95,
MakkarT, Rawdat al-as, Rabat 1383/1964, 285-6;
Muhammad Makhluf, Shadjarat al-nur, Cairo
1349/1930, 287; Ifranf, Safwat man intashar, lith. Fas
n.d., 4-6; M. Ben Cheneb, Etude sur les personnages
mentionnes dans I’idjaza du cheikh c Abd al-Qadir el-Fasy,
in Actes du XVI e Congr. des Or ., iv, 1907, § 28;
Nasirl, Istiksd 3 , v, 191; Levi-Proven^al, Chorfa, 88-
92; Brockelmann, S II, 697; M. Hajji, L’activite in¬
tellectuelle au Maroc a Vepoque sa c dide, Rabat 1976-7,
index. ^ (Ch. Pellat)

MANDU, fortress and town of Central
India.

1. History. Once the fortress-capital of Malwa
[q.v. ] and now a village 34 km. south of Dhar in
Madhya Pradesh, in lat. 22° 21’ N and long. 75° 26'
E. The first rulers took full advantage of a natural out¬
crop of the Vindhya range, overlooking the Nimar
plain to the south. A deep and jagged ravine, the
Kakra Khoh, isolates it on the sides. The plateau,
well-supplied with lakes and springs, stretches
unevenly over 5 km. and more from north to south,
and 6 to 7 km. from east to west, at an average
altitude of 600 m. with the remains of the inner fort
of Songarh as one of the more prominent landmarks
to the west. Mahdapika is mentioned on an inscription
found at Pratapgadh in Radjasthan and dated to the
equivalent of 946 A.D. Mahdapa-durga appears on a
copper-plate grant of Jayavamadeva dated 1261 A.D.
Thus Mandu could be a corruption of Mandapa or
even of Mandava.

In the early Islamic days of the subcontinent, the
Paramara king Bhoja deflected Mahmud, the Ghaz-
nawid sultan [q.v.\, from the area. Iltutmish himself
did not reach as far as Mandu in his conquests, but
Djalal al-DTn KhaldjT sacked the neighbouring lands
in 1293, and the fort fell to c Ala 3 al-DTn Khaldji’s
general A 3 Tn al-Mulk in 1303. Thereafter, the local
governors ruled from Dhar, where Mahmud Shah
Tughluk took refuge from the chaos engendered by
Timur’s onslaught; after his return to Dihli in
804/1401, Dilawar Khan GhurT proclaimed himself
independent, and at his death in 808/1405, his eldest
son Alp Khan ascended the throne of Malwa under
the name of Hushang Shah, and moved the capital to
Mandu. On his coins and until the end of the century,
ShadTabad, the “city ofjoy”, appears as the name for
the new capital. Although much involved in warfare
with the rulers of Gudjarat, Djawnpur, DihlT, Urisa
and the Dakhan, he fully restored and strengthened
the ancient fortifications protecting the access to the
extensive plateau, as shown on the inscriptions on the
Bhagwanlya darwaza (809/1416-17) and the DihlT dar-
waza (820/1417). he also embarked on the ambitious
construction of his Djami c Masdjid besides, no doubt,
an impressive building programme over the 30 years
of his liberal reign, in order to enhance the new capital
and to rival with his neighbours. After his death, the
cruelty of his own son led the son of his trusted relative
and wazir Malik Mughith to accept the throne in
839/1436 under the name of Mahmud I KhaldjT [q.v.].
During the 36 years of his reign, the fame of Mandu

MANDU

407

spread abroad as far as Cairo as well as to Samarkand;
scholars and holy men called at the capital, sometimes
on their way to the BahmanI court of Shams al-Dln
Muhammad III at Bldar [q.v. J. The buildings of his
reign reflect the ever-expanding size of his realm;
besides palaces and hospitals, Mahmud ordered the
start of Hushang Shah’s tomb in 843/1439, his own
madrasa and victory^ tower in 846/1443 after his vic¬
tories over Chitor (Citawr), and the completion of the
Djami c Masdjid in 858/1454. In 871/ 1467 the lunar
calendar replaced the solar one. Under the generous
if orderly rule of sultan Ghiyath al-Dln, the town of
Mandu was further enhanced, one may imagine, by
buildings to fit his desire “to open the door of peace
and rest, and pleasure and enjoyment on me and
those depending on me” after the “34 years at the
stirrups” of his father. His large and somewhat eccen¬
tric harem never deterred him from his religious
duties and from a sober life, unlike his son Nasir al-
Din (906-16/1500-10), who was a dipsomaniac,
although for a time a sound ruler, a lover of the arts
and a great builder of palaces such as the so-called Baz
Bahadur palace dated 914/1508. During the troubled
reign of his son Mahmud II, Muslim and Hindu
nobles were rivals for power at court, especially
Medini Ray [q.v.\. Notwithstanding its architectural
highlights, his rule came to a brutal end in 937/1531,
when Mandu-fell to Bahadur Shah of Gudjarat and
the Shah was taken prisoner, with his seven sons, and
later killed. In 941/1534, the Mughal Humayun [q.v.]
broke into the fort near the Tarapur gate, but not
before Bahadur Shah had been lowered with horses
from the inner fort of Songarh down into the deep
Kakra Khoh. Two years later Mallu Khan, an officer
of the defunct Khaldji retinue, seized Mandu and
ruled for 6 years under the name of Kadir Shah until
submitting in 949/1542 to Shir Shah Sur, who
replaced him by his relative Shudja c Khan as gover¬
nor of Malwa. In 963/1555 his son Baz Bahadur
seized power, although unable to assert himself for
long; when Akbar’s general Adham Khan overran
Mandu in 968/1560, Baz Bahadur escaped while his
favourite Rupmati, of poetical fame, chose poison
rather than servitude. He managed to recapture
Mandu briefly, but finally submitted to Akbar in
978/1570. The latter first visited the fort in 991/1573;
further visits were connected with expeditions to the
Dakhan. Two inscriptions dated 1008/1600 and
1009/1601 recall the hospitality given by his governor
Shah Budagh Kh an in his palace now called Nil
Kanth. On Akbar’s order, the southern Tarapur dar-
waza was re-orientated to the west in 1014/1605 and
Mahmud KhaldjT’s tomb was roughly repaired at the
same time. Djahanglr [q.v. ], according to his
memoirs, spent seven months in Mandu during the
rainy season in 1026/1617; buildings were restored
and the whole court enjoyed hunting and feasting; his
birthday celebrations took place in Baz Bahadur’s
garden next to his palace with the future Shah Djahan
and Sir Thomas Roe in attendance. Four years later,
the young prince spent another rainy season there and
held a conference to induce reconcilation between two
Jain factions. AwrangzTb [q.v. ] is represented in
Mandu by only one inscription on the northern
c AlamgIr darwaza dated 1079/1668-9. After his death
1118/1707, a rapid deterioration of the empire lead to
the supremacy of Maratha [q.v. ] power. In 1734 A.D.
Peshwa Badji Rao was appointed governor of Malwa.
His deputy Anand Rao Puar and his descendants
ruled thereafter from Dhar. Mandu reverted to its
first vocation of a hunting ground until basic restora¬
tion was started early this century; it has continued to
this day.

2. Architecture. As in Gudjarat, Djawnpur and
Bldar [q.vv. } throughout the 9th/15th century, the
newly-independent state of Malwa competed not only
on the battlefield but also in setting up an imposing
new capital. It was imperative to modernise the walls
and the ten complex gates and to make good use of the
expanses of water and springs, as well as to plan the
town along a north-south axis with the new Djami c
Masdjid sited at the central east-west crossing. As in
Dhar, the master-builders at first drew on the
Gudjarat! tradition by adapting Hindu proportions
and style to the Dilawar Kh an Djami 11 (808/1405-6)
measuring about 37 by 45 m., and the Malik Mughith
Djami c (835/1432), about 42 by 46 m. In both cases,
spoils from temples were used to implement an Arab
mosque plan, with three domes over the prayer hall in
the later building. The Djami c Masdjid, built of red
ochre sandstone like the rest of Mandu, was com¬
pleted by the mid-9th/15th century to include the
revered marble tomb of Hushang Shah. An inscrip¬
tion dated 1070/1659 recalls the reverential visit of
four master builders of the Mughal court. An exalting
plinth emphasises the 85m. facade of the mosque,
with its eastern domed entrance of metropolitan
quality. A similar dome over the mihrab rests on com¬
petent corner arches. A total 150 smaller domes line
the sahn. Opposite, ^he one-time madrasa (Ashrafiyya
Mahall) of Mahmud I Khaldji, with its tower of vic¬
tory once seven storeys high, was changed into a
marble-lined imposing tomb, with impressive inscrip¬
tions, before his death; but it soon became derelict. A
large number of lesser tombs are scattered along the
approach road to Mandu and across the plateau.
Always on a plinth and at most times following a
square plan, the domed chamber usually belongs to a
complex including a prayer hall also on a plinth, and
a tank, as with the Darya Khan mausoleum
(10th/l6th century). Geometric bands of glazed tiles
enhance the base of drums inside domes, as in the
Djami c Masdjid, as well as outside some of the tombs;
they are chiefly turquoise and white, of mediocre
quality when compared with those on buildings in
Bldar. Stone carving on elegant projecting windows,
arched walls and djalis are far more successful.

In secular architecture, an attractive balance is
struck between palaces and water expanses: the
Djahaz (“ship”) Mahall, on two levels, extends to
about 115 m. between the Mundja Talao and the
Kapur Talao. Each level has an original stepped bath;
moreover, the long terrace of the upper level is
dominated by elegant domed pavilions. In the more
austere, T-shaped Hindola (“swing”) Mahall, the
broad buttressing outer walls (at an angle of 77° from
the horizontal) contain an imposing audience hall
with five double and one single-pointed arches. By the
north wall of the royal enclosure, a large palace com¬
plex once dominated the Mundja Talao, including a
special well, the Champa baolt, with adjacent
underground rooms for the summer. Further afield,
the Udjala (bright) baoll and the Andherl (dark) baoli
recall the elaborate wells of Gudjarat and Radjasthan.
Both the Gada (beggar) Shah’s shop and house hint at
a later audience hall and palace. Beyond the large
Sagar Talao to the south, the so-called Baz Bahadur
palace overlooks the waters of the RTwa Kund. Once
a complex of barracks, the so-called Rupmati pavil¬
ions dominate the whole scene. The last important
palace to be built was the Nil Kanth (“blue throat”);
it faces westward on the edge of the cliff by a spring.
At present it is used as a Hindu temple.

3. Painting. As in architecture, painting in man¬
uscripts for the court evolved along original lines, but
drew on two main sources, relating to neighbouring

408

MANDU — MANDUR

states. A Jain minister of the Paramara king
Jayasimha founded in Manqlapa-durga one of his six
Jndna-bhanddras (‘‘storage of knowledge”), a specifi¬
cally Jain library, in 1263; the books always contained
an important pictorial element. The Mandu kalpa
sutra of 1439 illustrates the continuity in production.
On the other hand, illustrated Islamic texts of the time
blend this traditional draughtmanship and vivid col¬
ours with the conventions from the 9th/15th century
schools of Shiraz and Harat, to produce a
recognisable Malwa style; the few manuscripts
discovered so far relate to the early part of the
1 Oth/16th century: the Ni c mat-namd (a book of
delicacies), (Ethe 2775, India Office Library), the
Mijtdh alfudala 5 (a Persian glossary of rare words),
(BL Or. 3299), the Bustdn of Sa c dl dedicated to Nasir
al-Dln before 916/1510 (National Museum of India,
New Delhi, no. 48.6/4), c Adja^ib al-sana^i c (a Persian
translation of al-Djazarl’s book on the knowledge of
mechanical devices [see al-djazari and hiyal in
Suppl.]) (BL Or. 13718).

Bibliography : Ta^rikh-i Firishta , Eng. tr. J.
Briggs, History of the rise of the Mahomedan power in In¬
dia till the year A. D. 1612, iv, London 1910; Tabakat-
i Akbarf, Eng. tr. B. De, revised B. Prashad, iii/2,
Calcutta 1939; Tuzuk-i Dja hangiri. Eng. tr. A.
Rogers and H. Beveridge, London 1909-14; The
embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, ed. W. Foster, Hakluyt
Society; H.N. Wright, Catalogue of coins in the Indian
Museum, Calcutta, ii, Oxford 1907; J. M. Campbell,
Mandu , in JBBRAS, xix (1896), 154-201; Capt. E.
Barnes, Dhar and Mandu , in JBBRAS, xxi (1904),
339-91; Z. Hasan, The inscriptions of Dhar and
Mandu, in Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica (1909-10), 6-
29, 110-1; G. Yazdani, Remarks on the inscriptions of
Dhar and Mandu, in Epigraphica Moslemica (1911-12),
8-11; G. Yazdani, Mandu, the city of joy, Oxford
1929; P. Brown, Indian architecture (Islamic period),
Bombay 1942; H. Goetz, An irruption of Gothic style
forms into Indo-Islamic architecture, in Artibus Asiae,
xxii (1959), 33-8; In praise of Mandu, in Marg, xiii/3
(1959: articles by R. Ettinghausen, G. Yazdani, R.
Skelton, P. Chandra and L. M. Crump with plans
and sections; D. R. Patil, Mandu, New Delhi 1971;
W.G. Archer, Central Indian painting, London 1958;
N.M. Titley, An illustrated Persian glossary of the six¬
teenth century, in BMQ, xxix (1964-5), 15-9; M.
Chandra, New documents of Jaina painting, Bombay
1975; arts. hind. vii. Architecture, v. Malwa, and
MAHALL. (YoLANDE CrOWe)

MANDUB (a.) ‘‘meritorious and recommended
action”, te_rm of Islamic law; see sharI c a.

MANDUR, Muhammad b. c Abd al-HamId Musa
(1907-65), the shaykh of modern Egyptian and
Arab literary critics, was born in Kafr Mandur,
near Minya al-Kamh, in Egypt’s Sharkiyya Province,
to a rather wealthy family. His semi-literate father
was a devout and tolerant Muslim who belonged to
the Nakshbandl dervish order. Mandur learned many
KuUanic verses from his father, and his religious up¬
bringing in a rural milieu instilled in him moral and
spiritual values that he preserved all his life. At the
age of five, he was sent to the village kuttab [^.».], and
the following autumn he entered the elementary
school in Minya al-Kamh. In 1921 he transferred to
the secondary school in Tanta, where he studied
English and earned the Baccalaureat Litteraire in
1925. He then enrolled in the law school of the newly
inaugurated Egyptian University, hoping to become a
public prosecutor. He was persuaded by Taha Hu-
sayn [q. v. ] and another teacher to enrol also in the
Departments of Arabic and Sociology. In 1929 he ob¬

tained a Licence in Arabic Literature, and in 1930 a
Licence in Law. Immediately afterward, Mandur was
offered a position as a public prosecutor, but he
declined it in order to accept a government scholar¬
ship to study at the Sorbonne.

After studying for nine years in France, Mandur
graduated both in classical languages and literatures
and in law and political economy. The turbulent
political situation in France before World War II
discouraged him from finishing his doctorate and
hastened his return to Egypt in 1939. Without a doc¬
torate, he could not assume a university teaching posi¬
tion in Egypt. Hence he spent the years 1940-1
translating and teaching translation from French and
English into Arabic. In 1942, the University of Alex¬
andria was established and Mandur was appointed a
professor of Arabic literature. There the eminent
scholar and educator Ahmad Amin (d. 1954) encour¬
aged Mandur to finish his doctorate, which he did in
1943. His dissertation, “Arabic critical trends in the
fourth century A.H.” ( Tayyardt al-nakd al- c Arabt fi 7-
karn al-rabi c al-hidjrT), supervised by Ahmad Amin,
was later published under the title “Methodical
criticism among the Arabs” (al-Nakd al-manhadji c ind
al- c Arab), 1946, and has since become the most
celebrated single work in Arabic on mediaeval Arabic
literary criticism.

He resigned his post at the University of Alexandria
in 1944 in order to accept a position as Editor-in-Chief
of the newspaper al-Misn, thus embarking on a
tumultuous career of political and literary journalism
in the vanguard of opposition to the government of
Sidkl Pasha and the British. Mandur was discharged
after only three months, and for a short while he con¬
tented himself with publishing a few articles and
teaching at the newly-founded (1944) evening In¬
stitute of Drama. In 1945 he was appointed Editor-in-
Chief of the evening newspaper al-Wafd al-Misn,
which, with the assistance of some rebellious avant-
garde writers, he gradually transformed into a daily
revolutionary manifesto against the British and their
Egyptian collaborators. Despite his socialist writings
and his leadership of the liberal progressive wing
within the Wafd party, Mandur was never a com¬
munist. His deep involvement in national politics and
his vehement opposition to the SidkI-Bevin Treaty
brought him imprisonment twenty times in 1945 and
1946, and cost him the closing of his own six-months-
old newspaper, al-BaHh. (“Resurrection”), as well as
eleven other newspaper and magazines. With the fall
of Sidkl’s cabinet, Mandur assumed the editorship of
the new Wafd newspaper, $awt al-Umma (“The voice
of the Nation”), where he pursued his political strug¬
gle against “colonialism and Western exploitation of
Egypt’s national resources”. Mandur operated a suc¬
cessful law office from 1948 to 1954, and at the same
time continued to write and edit the newspaper Sawt
al-Umma. He was elected to the Egyptian parliament
in 1950, and served on several parliamentary commit¬
tees. In 1953 he embarked on yet another teaching
and writing career at the Arab League’s Institute of
Higher Arabic Studies, and continued until some time
before his death in 1965.

Mandur’s copious oeuvre consists of specialised and
general books treating one or several related subjects
or literary genres; translations of diverse works,
mostly from French into Arabic; book reviews; hun¬
dreds of political and literary articles; some elemen¬
tary attempts at poetry; and one screenplay. *

Despite his prominence as a journalist, political ac¬
tivist and translator, Mandur’s reputation is prin¬
cipally that of eminent literary critic, surpassing in

MANDUR — MANER

409

intellectual vigour and critical insight his teacher
Taha Husayn, but without his fame and versatility.
His literary works encompass three basic fields:
criticism, theoretical and practical; poetry and poets;
and theatre, in both its prose and verse forms. Most
notable and enduring of his critical books are Ft 7-
mizdn al-djadid (“In the new balance’’), in which Man¬
dur expounded his theory of al-shiH al-mahmus
(“whispered poetry”), inspired by the title of
Mikhail Nu c ayma’s [q.v. ] poetry collection Hams al-
djufun , n.d. (“The whispering of eyelids”); and al-
Nakd al-manhadji c ind al- c Arab (“Methodical criticism
among the Arabs”), 1946. Some other books in this
category are: Ft ’l-adab wa ’l-nakd (“On literature and
criticism”), 1949; al-Adab wa-madhahibuh (“Literature
and its schools”), 1958; and al-Adab wa-fununuh
(“Literature and its genres”), 1963. Mandur’s major
works on poetry and poets comprised a theoretical
work on poetry, Fann al-shiH (“The art of poetry”),
1960, and a renowned series of critical studies on
Syro-American poets, Egyptian modernist poets, and
the poets of the vers libre movement. His principal
works on the theatre include al-Masrah (“The
theatre”), 1959; al-Klasikiyya wa ’l-usul al-fanniyya li 7-
drdma (“Classicism and the artistic roots of drama”),
n.d.; and applied studies of the verse plays of Ahmad
ShawkT (d. 1932) and the prose theatre of Tawfik al-
Haklm (born 1898).

The most distinguished of Mandur’s translations
are the two acclaimed critical treatises which greatly
influenced his early critical thought and which punc¬
tuated his critical writings throughout his career:
Georges Duhamel’s Defence des lettres (1943) and
Gustave Lanson’s La Methode de I’histoire lilteraire
(1946), which he appended to the fifth edition of al-
Nakd al-manhadji Hnd al- c Arab. The other translated
works encompass a whole range of literary disciplines,
from Flaubert’s Madame Bovary to E.A. Poe’s “The
Raven”.

His political and ideological writings comprise one
major book, al-Dimukratiyya al-siyasiyya (“Political
democracy”), 1952?, and innumerable articles, some
of which were published in two books.

Mandur’s training in the French critical tradition,
especially the then-predominant approach of Vexplica¬
tion de textes, was inculcated in his critical writings and
eventually evolved into an eclectic theory that under¬
went, according to him, three distinct stages:

(1) Aesthetic impressionistic, in which
precedence is accorded to aesthetic values. This ap¬
proach is adopted in his two earlier and much
celebrated works, al-Nakd al-manhadji Hnd al-Arab and
Fi ’ l-mizan ad-djadid, which also includes his famous
theory of al-shiH al-mahmus (“whispered poetry”).
Mandur acclaimed poetry that “whispers”, that com¬
municates with the listener is an undertone, a mi-voix,
poetry that is devoid of elocutionary bombast, florid
rhetoric and effete sentimentality. Emigre poetry [see
mahdjar] (especially Nu c ayma’s) and Free Verse
were grand examples of “whispered poetry” in his
judgement.

(2) Descriptive analytic. Here Mandur
undertakes an objective method that strives more for
analysis, identification and instruction than for
guidance. He generally applied this approach in the
thirteen books on poetry and the theatre, including
the renowned series “Egyptian poetry after ShawkT”.
which he wrote for the Arab League’s Institute of
Higher Arabic Studies.

(3) Ideological criticism, which conceives of a
well-defined social function for literature. His applica¬
tion of this approach was a consequence of his socialist

beliefs and of his involvement in national politics, and
is attributed to his diversified activities in journalism,
law, parliament, and his enduring interest in Egyp¬
tian rural life. Ideological criticism, embedded in
socialist (New), realism, is equivalent to committed
literature, or as Mandur called it, purposive literature
{al-adab al-hadif), which he propounded more than he
applied it to poetry in his critical works.

Despite the multiplicity of approach, Mandur’s
fundamentally eclectic theory espouses the pursuit of
beauty in any given literary work, and the ultimate
judgment, in his reckoning, lay with cultivated per¬
sonal taste reinforced by vast and diversified
knowledge. He defined criticism as the art of
distinguishing between literary style and its function
as interpretation, evaluation and guidance. Criticism
as such has the capacity to participate in re-creating a
literary work.

Mandur’s remarkable literary presence, fecundity,
originality and vibrant intellect earned him endless
and brutal literary battles with his contemporary
critics, especially with al- c Akkad [q.v. in Suppl.] (d.
1964), and with the opponents of modern Free Verse.
Both the critics and their psychological, positivistic
and dogmatic approaches were the subject of his
learned and astute criticism.

Mandur’s precise, elegant and unembellished style
enhanced the comprehensibility and accessibility of
his rather original writings. Mandur introduced into
modern Arabic critical lore such concepts as
whispered poetry, poetic pantheism, purposive
literature, objective romanticism, and methodical
criticism. Despite his political and socialist undertak¬
ings, Mandur remained all his life a literary, but not
an ideological critic.

Bibliography : Mandur wrote upwards of
thirty books and hundreds of articles and book
reviews, the majority of which remain uncollected.
In 1964, he granted an elaborate and informative
interview which was published in Fu 5 ad Dawwara’s
book c Ashrat udabd' 3 yatahaddathun, Cairo 1965. An¬
other interview was published in the Lebanese
literary journal al-Addb (January 1961), by Faruk
Shusha. Scores of articles about his life and critical
writings have been written after his death in such
major Arab literary journals as al-Addb , al-Tal^a
and al-Madjalla. The most detailed and penetrating
expositions of Mandur’s criticism in English are
presented by D. Semah in his book, Four Egyptian
literary critics , Leiden 1974, and in his Muhammad
Mandur and “New Poetry’ in JAL, ii (1971). Major
Arabic studies of Mandur include Henri Riyad’s
Muhammad Mandur , RaHd al-adab al-isfitirdki, Khar¬
toum 1965 and Beirut 1967; and KhayrT c AzIz,
Udabd-* c ala tank al-nidal al-siyasi, Cairo 1970. Works
published posthumously, such as Kitdbal lam
tunshar, Cairo n.d., and more recent editions of
Mandur’s work, feature representative lists of his
publications. (Mansour Ajami)

MANER, a former town, now no bigger than a
village, 22 miles/32 km. west of Patna [q.v. ] in Bihar
state, India, by the junction of the rivers Son and
Ganges (it was reported to be at the junction in 1722,
3 miles/5 km. south of it by 1812, 7 miles /10 km.
south by 1907); it had therefore some strategic and
mercantile advantage, and was one of the earliest and
most important sites of Muslim colonisation in this
part of India.

By Mughal times, it had become the chief town of
a pargana of some 80,000 bighas [see misaha 2. India]
in the suba of Bihar {AHn-i Akbari, tr. Jarrett, Calcutta
1891, ii, 151, 153). A copperplate grant from a Hindu

# IX*

MANDU

PLATE XI

1. Malik Mughith Djami

835/1432, cast facade

y l

JajjL r

]

V 1.

B( 1

3* ^ r

m i 7 f

r * 1

I ?

2. Malik Mughith Djami c , Kibla riwaks and sahn.

PLATE XII

MANDU

4. Darya Khan’s mausoleum, early 10th/16th century (photographs: Y. Crowe).

410

MANER — MANF

king of Kanawdj (ed. and tr. Pt. R. Sharma, in
JBORS, ii/4 [1916]) of 1126 A.D. requires its
Brahman recipient in “Maniyara” to pay the tax
called turushka danda “Turk’s duty”, which seems to
imply that tribute was being paid some seventy years
before the Muslim conquest of north India,
presumably to a Ghaznawid agent; the early date is
strengthened by local tradition, which holds one grave
in the great dargdh to be that of Tadj al-DIn Khan-
dgah, the nephew of Mahmud of Ghazni (local tradi¬
tions in eastern India may refer to other putative
kinsmen of the Ghaznawid rulers; but other early
6th/12th century Sanskrit inscriptions also mention
the turushka-danda, and references in BayhakI point to
sporadic trans-Gangetic Muslim settlement; see K.A.
Nizami, Some aspects of religion and politics in India during
the thirteenth century, Bombay, etc. 1965, 76 ff.). The
consolidation of Islam is, however, thus explained: a
YamanT saint Mu^min c Arif (still of great local repute)
had settled in Maner, but was harassed by the local
radja\ he went back to Medina and returned with a
raiding party led by Hadrat Tadj Faklh which
defeated the local radya in a pitched battle, destroyed
the temple (chronogram, shud din-i Muhammad kawi =
576/1180) and dismantled the riverside fort. Many
“ shahids' graves” in Maner are said to date from this
time. Tadj Faklh returned to Medina, leaving his
kinsmen to rule Maner; but the rule seems to have
been a spiritual one, for his grandson Shavkh Yahya
Manerl, d. 690/1291 (chronogram: makhduml), was
the most celebrated saint of Bihar, progenitor of a dis¬
tinguished line of local saints, whose shrine (in the
Bari Dargah; see below) was visited by Sikandar
Lodi, Babur, Humayun and Akbar, though his fame
has been eclipsed by (and sometimes conflated with)
that of his son Sharaf al-DIn Ahmad Maner! [see
makhdum al-mulk, sharaf al-dIn] of Bihar Sharif.
murid of Nadjlb al-DIn Firdawsl. Eighth in descent
from Shavkh Yahya was Abu Yazld, commonly
known as Makhdum Shah Dawlat, d. 1017/1608-9,
whose tomb (the (Shot! Dargah) is the finest Muslim
building in Bihar.

The khdnkah forms a complex of buildings disposed
around a vast rectangular tank ( hawd ), its stepped
masonry sides equipped centrally with ghats and
barddaris , drawing its water from the river Son by a
subterranean channel. The tank is said to have been

v *

rebuilt in stone at the same time as the Ban and Chotl
Dargahs were erected in the early 11 th/17th century
by Ibrahim Khan Kakar ( not by Ibrahim Khan Fath
Djang, subadar of Bihar 1023-5/1615-17, as Horn and
others assert). The Bari (“great”) Dargah west of the
tank, on the site of the temple mound, is great in sanc¬
tity rather than magnificence. It consists of a great
boundary wall enclosing a graveyard and a small
mosque, standing to the west of a railed platform con¬
taining the simple open grave of Shavkh Yahya (in¬
scription of Ibrahim Khan Kakar, 1014/1605-6); also
odd stone pillars, and a mutilated statue at the en¬
trance presumably from the old temple. The Chotl
(“small”) Dargah is a high square platform in a
fortress-like brick enclosure north of the tank, on
which stands the square sandstone mausoleum of
Makhdum Shah Dawlat (inscription with decease
chronogram 1017/1608-9, and two construction chro¬
nograms 1025/1616), a superb specimen of provincial
Mughal architecture. The central square chamber is
domed, with lower and upper verandahs (fine carved
ceilings: floral, geometric and Kur -’anic designs) run¬
ning round all sides, each corner formed into a square
room with arched openings below and an open domed
chatri of similar size above. The lower verandah and

the chains are built on the beam-and-bracket princi¬
ple, and heavy stone corbels support both the lower
and upper cha didi a . contrasting with the arches of the
tomb chamber which also has finely carved stone
screen openings. A local tradition asserts that the
stone was brought from Gudjarat; certainly, features
of Gudjarat tomb design are apparent here [see fur¬
ther mughals. Architecture.]. West of the mausoleum
is a small mosque with curvilinear roof, centrally
situated between stone verandahs running along the
entire western wall of the enclosure; inscription dated
1028/1619, quoting Kur’an, III, 97-8. An
underground chamber in the south-west corner is
identified as the cilia of Shah Dawlat. A fine entrance
gate, in a more conventional Mughal style, bears two
chronograms of 1022/1614-15 and 1032/1622-3.
Other minor buildings around the tank are in grave
disrepair. The earliest inscription of Maner,
798/1395-6, records the reconstruction of an older
mosque, now disappeared. The Djami c mosque of
Maner, itself undistinguished, bears two records of
renovations, of 1103/1691-2 and 1283/1866 (the last
on a marble slab carved in Medina), both mosques
thus testifying to a vigorous Muslim population over
the centuries; but the grounds around the Maner tank
are also the scene of a doubtfully Islamic fair on the
c urs of GhazI Miyan [q.v.].

Bibliography : P. Horn, Muhammadan inscrip¬
tions from Bengal, in Epigr. Ind. , ii, 1894, 280-96; T.
Bloch, Report , AS Bengal Circle, 1901-2, 19 ff.; Syed
Zahiruddin, History and antiquities of Manair,
Bankipore 1905; Farid al-Dln Ahmad (Sadjdjada-
nishln of the dargdh in 1918), untitled Urdu ms. on
the history of the dargdh, author’s collection; Hafiz
Shamsuddin Ahmad, Maner and its historical remains,
in Procs. and Trans, of 6th All-India Oriental Conference,
Patna 1933, 123-41; Yusuf Kamal Bukhari, Inscrip¬
tions from Maner, in Epigr. Ind. Arabic and Persian
Suppl. 1951 and 1952 [1956], 13-24, and pis. viii-x;
Qeyamuddin Ahmad, Corpus of Arabic and Persian in¬
scriptions of Bihar, Patna 1973, 67, 162, 182-5, 214-
15, 294-7, 391-2; Muhammad Hamid KuraishI,
List of ancient monuments protected ... in Bihar and Orissa
= ASI, N.I.S., li, Calcutta 1931. Excellent aqua¬
tint in T. Daniell, Oriental scenery, 1st series, xii:
“The mausoleum of Mucdoom Shah Dowlut, at
Moneah [jiV], on the river Soane,” London 1795;
A. Casperz, in Jnal. Photogr. Soc. India (June 1902).
For the Firdawsiyya order, see tasawwuf. India.
For Ibrahim Kh an Kakar, see Mahathir al- c ulamd 3 ,
Bibl. Ind. text, ii, 9-14, and Tuzuk-i Dja hanglri, ed.
Rogers and Beveridge, i, 29-30, 49, 59, 62, 77,
105, 248, 286, 298. See also the Bibls. to bihar,
patna. (J. Burton-Page)

MANF, Memphis, the capital of the Egyptian
Old Kingdom, situated on the west bank of the Nile
opposite modern Hulwan [q.v.] about twelve miles
south of Fustat [q.v.], plays a pivotal role in mediaeval
Arabic geographical and historical writing on Egypt.

Al-Kalkashandl (Subh al-a c sha, iii, 316, 6-8; Ger¬
man tr. F. Wustenfeld, Die Geographie und Verwaltung
in Agypten, Gottingen 1879, 41) presents the climate
(= the third) and the geographic coordinates of
Manf. The Muslims knew about the great antiquity
(madina ... azaliyya ; K. al-Istibsar ft : adjaPib al-amsar,
Alexandria 1958, 83, French tr. 68) of the formerly
huge city (cf. Ibn Zulak, quoted by al-KazwInl, Athar
al-bilddwa-akhbar al-Hbad, Beirut 1399/1979, 274). The
great scholar and most prominent mediaeval
authority on Manf, c Abd al-Latlf al-Baghdadl (al-
Ifada wa ’l-iHibar, in Kamal Hafuth Zand etalii, The
eastern key, London 1965, 136-7) speaks of over 4,000

MANF

411

years, a surprisingly exact_ estimate. Manf was
destroyed when c Amr b. al- c As conquered Egypt and
presented itself to mediaeval visitors in ruins ( kharab ,
cf. e.g. al-Ya c kubI, K. al-Bulddn, 331,9, and Abu T
Fida 5 , Takwtm al-buldan , 117), unlike c Ayn Shams
[q.v.] (Heliopolis), Manf s traditional rival in the eyes
of mediaeval Muslim authors (al-ldnsl, Nuzhat al-
mushtak , 135, 4-5; Opus geographicum, 326, 1. 2; Ibn
Hawkal, K. Surat al-ard, 160, French tr. J.H. Kramers
and G. Wiet, Beirut-Paris 1964, i, 158). The two
cities are often mentioned together—as in a poem
ascribed to the caliph al-Ma-’mun (cf. Ps.-Ibn
Zahira/Ibn Zuhayra = Abu Hamid al-Kudsi, al-
FadaSil al-bdhira ft mahdsin Misr wa ’l-Kahira, ed.
Mustafa al-Sakka and Kamil al-Muhandis, Cairo
1969, 69; on the author, see now M. Cook, Abu Hamid
al-Qudst ( d. 888/1483), in JSS, xxviii [1983], 85-97)—
and are sometimes confused (Ibn Hawkal, as cited by
Ibn al-DjawzT, Mir^at al-zamdn, in Ibn al-Dawadari,
Kanz al-durar, i, ed. B. Radtke, Cairo 1982, 124, 1-5).

Despite its decay, however, Manf continued to
denominate the northermost kura (district or country)
of Upper Egypt for some centuries (see e.g. Ibn Khur-
radadhbih, al-Masalik wa ’Tmamalik, 81; Ibn al-Fakih,
Mukhtasar Kitab al-Bulddn , 73; al-Dimashkl, K. Nukhv
bat al-dahr ft < 'adj<Pib al-barr wa \l-bahr , 231-2; and the
tables in J. Maspero and G. Wiet, Materiaux pour servir
d la geographic de VEgypte, Cairo 1919, 173-84, and A.
Grohmann, Studien zur historischen Geographic und
Verwaltung des fruhmittelalterlichen Agypten, Vienna
1959, appendix ii). Many, though certainly not all,
mediaeval authors (e.g. al-Dimashkl, 232) merge the
districts of Manf and of Wasim-Awsim into one. A
papyrus of 133/750-1 explicitly mentions the kurat
Manf (Grohmann, 40b). Al-Dimashkl counts 54
villages in the district of Manf (232). As late as the
early 7th/13th century, Abu Dja c far al-ldnsl [q.v.]
speaks of a village like Buslr as belonging to the a c mal
madinat Manf , the vicinity of Manf ( Anwar c ulwiyy al-
adjram , ms. Munich, fol. 47b). By that time, Djiza
[?.».], the provincial capital ( kasaba , cf. Ibn Dukmak,
K. al-lntisar li-wasitat Hkd al-amsar, iv, 130), had suc¬
ceeded Manf as the regional centre ( c Abd al-Latlf,
134-5). Until the 4th/1 Oth century at least, Manf re¬
mained the see of a bishop (Severus of Ushmunayn,
in Patr. orient, vi, 490 [26J; Abu Salih al-Armani, in B.
T. A. Evetts and A. J. Butler, The churches and
monasteries of Egypt and some neighbouring countries , Ox¬
ford 1895, 199), though only a few generations later
(al-Idrisi, Nuzha, 135-2, Op. geog., 32b, 7.2), it is
labelled a village ( karya ).

The Nile posed a constant threat to the fields and
pastures around Manf in pre-Islamic and in Islamic
times; Ibn c Abd al-Hakam ( Futuh Misr wa-akhbaruha ,
6,8) still speaks of the canal of Manf as one of the
seven khuludj_ of Egypt; for al-Wakidl (see Ibn al-
Zayyat, al-Kawakib al-sayyara ft tartib al-ziyara, 6,8 ff.)
it was one out of six. In al-Kalkashandl’s time this
canal had disappeared, unlike the six others ( Subh , iii,,
297-302). The Christian author Abu Salih al-Armanl
(early 7th/13th century), in his remarkably vivid and
original chapter on Manf, mentions that since anti¬
quity the Nile gradually changed its bed towards the
city {Churches, 19; see also Sibt b. al-Djawzi, in Ibn al-
Dawadari, Kanz , i, 124). In the 9th/15th century
finally, the village of Badrashayn (Umm c Isa) flour¬
ished, either exactly where (Ibn Dukmak, 130), or
close to where (al-Kalkashandf, iii, 316,14) the old
Memphis had stood (see also H. Halm, Agypten nach
den mamlukischen Lehensregistern . i, Wiesbaden, 211).

Manf is the accepted rendering of the name of the
city (al-Kalkashandi, ii, 316,5), although one also

reads Minf (Abu ’l-Fida 5 , 116), Munf (a variant
reading in Ibn c Abd al-Halam, 6,5), Munayf (Abu
Salih, 200), Manfish (Abu c Ubayd al-Bakri, al-
Masalik wa ’l-mamahk, 21, 11; al-Bakri was an expert
of Greco-Latin toponyms, cf. 21, 10 and 13) and,
wrongly, Manuf al- c ulya (Ibn Ta gh riblrdl. al-
Nudfum al-zahira, i, 49, 11 ff). On the confusion of
Manf and Manuf [al- c ulya/al-sufla], see Maspero-
Wiet, 200, 202-4). Ibn c Abd al-Hakam (8-9), on the
authority of his prestigious informants, was the first of
many subsequent authors to connect the Arabicised
form Manf with Coptic mdfa ( = maab , maave),
“thirty”; al-Kalkashandi (iii, 316,10) quotes al-
Himyarl, al-Rawd al-miHar , stating a Syriac root. We
also find the forms Maf (Ibn al-Zayyat, 7,6-7) and
Manafa (Abu Salih, 199). As an explanation for this
etymology, we learn that the first inhabitants of
Manf—in one case described as unruly rogues
djababira\ cf. al-MakrfzI, al-Khitat , ed. G. Wiet, iii,
29, quoting from Ibn WasTf Shah’s legendary history
of Egypt—numbered thirty (e.g. al-Nuwayri, Nihayat
al-arab, xv, 44, 8 ff.).

The seventeenth-century Turkish traveller Evliya
Celebi ( Seyahatname , x, 11, 18) vacillates, in his inter¬
pretation, between a Coptic {menuf = a bride) and an
Hebrew etymology (“place of purity”).

The Muslims regard Manf as the first settlement
(Ibn Dukmak, 130, offers as an alternative the city of
B.d.w. in the province of al-Sharkiyya) and as the
capital city {misr, ka c ida) of postdiluvian Egypt,
epitomising Egypt as a whole (al-NuwayrT al-
Iskandaranl, K. al-Ilmam , iii, 367) until it was
destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (Ibn Khaldun. al- c Ibar ,
Cairo 1355/1936, i, 113; Khitat , iii, 26). He took the
city because its king Kumis (Abu Hamid al-Kudsi,
69) had given shelter to the Jews who had fled from
his oppressive regime ( c Abd al-Latlf, 134-5). Accord¬
ing to Ibn Dukmak (130), there had been an antedilu¬
vian settlement named M.z.na in the location of
Manf. The earlier Egyptian capitals, Amsus, off the
Mediterranean coast, and B.r.san (of uncertain loca¬
tion), had perished in the Flood (al-Kalkashandi, iii,
315, 14-20).

There is no consensus about the identity of the
founder of Manf. We hear of Baysar b. Ham (Ibn
c Abd al-Hakam, 9,3) who was the first to be buried in
Egyptian soil (Abu Salih, 199), i.e. in the terrain of
St. Jerome’s—still visible—monastery ( Dayr [Abi]
HirmFs ) in the vicinity of Manf (Maspero-Wiet, 96).
Symbolising the continuity of Egyptian history
beyond the dividing line of the Flood, Baysar married
the daughter of Philemon or Polemon al-Kahin (al-
Khitat, iii, 29-30), the antediluvian sage of Egypt who
had warned king Surld of the imminent carastrophe
and advised him to erect the Pyramids as a shelter for
the secret knowledge of Egypt (cf. Ibn Wasif Shah/al-
Waslfi—on this latter form, see Sa c id al-AndalusI,
Tabakat al-umam ed. L. Cheikho, Beirut 1912, 39;
Abu TSalt, al-Risala al-misriyya, ed. C A. Harun, in
Nawadir al-makhtutat , i, 24, 14 ff.; K. al-Istibsar, 62;
Abu Dja c far al-IdrlsT, fols. 22a, 23a et alia —in Ps.-
Mas c udl’s AMibar al-zamdn , ed. C A. al-SawT 3 , Beirut
1978, 134-5; on WasTfi’s hermetic history of pre-
Islamic Egypt, see M. Cook, Pharaonic history in
medieval Egypt, forthcoming in ST). Other authors (e.g.
al-Dimashki, 229) claim Baysar’s son Misrjim/ayim]
to have been the first to leave the security of the
Mukattam mountain ( al-Khitat, iii, 27) in the com¬
pany of his grandfather Ham b. Nuh (Ibn Dukmak,
130) and to settle in the plains on the other bank of the
Nile that could be reached by the clement east winds
( c Abd al-Latlf, 26-7). Abu Salih (199) also mentions

412

MANF

another legendary king, Manfa^us b. c AdIm, as
founder of Manf. In Ps.-al-Madjrltl’s famous manual
of the arcane sciences, Ghaydt al-hakim , the inventor of
the Indian amulet, Kanka al-Hindl al-Munadjdjim, is
presented as the founder of the city where he built
castles for his daughters, equipped with wondrous ap¬
pliances that produced whistling and other sounds (H.
Ritter and M. Plessner, “Picatrix". Das Ziel der Weisen
von Pseudo-Magriti, London 1962, 285-6; Arabic ed.
278; cf. also Ibn al-Dawadarl, i, 213-14).

The explicit and implicit information on Pharaonic
Egypt given in the Kur’an and in the stories of the
prophets was the indispensable repertory for
mediaeval Muslim reports on the history of the coun¬
try in pre-Islamic times. The ubiquitous archeological
remains of Pharaonic period were eagerly identified
with items familiar from the sacred text and the com¬
mentaries. In a similar fashion, Manf was given its
well-defined and prominent place within salvation
history. The reports of traditionists such as Ibn Lah^a
[q-v.], recorded by early historians like Ibn c Abd al-
Hakam and c Umar al-Kindf, remained the main
corpus of information on Manf well into the modern
period. Even in the 19th century the truths of the kisas
al-anbiya 3 were not easily superseded by the results of
enlightened empirical and historical research. C A1T
Mubarak Pasha’s lengthy chapter on Manf is intro¬
duced and, so it seems, legitimised by a long verbatim
quotation from al-Makrlzfs Khitat, i.e. by an intrin¬
sically Islamic text. Only then does there follow what
European scholarship has found out about the factual
history of the city (see his al-Khitai al-Tawfikiyya al-
dj_adtda, xvi, 2-8).

Three verses of the Kurban are interpreted as refer¬
ring directly to the city of Manf: xxviii, 15, “And he
[ = Musa] entered the city at a time of carelessness of
its folk” (cf. also c Umar al-Kindt, Fada^il Misr, ed.
Ibrahim Ahmad al- c AdawI and C A1I Muhammad
c Umar, Cairo-Beirut 1391/1971, 25); xxviii, 21, “So
he [ = Musa] escaped from thence, fearing, vigilant”;
and xliii, 51, “Is not mine the sovereignty (mulk) of
Egypt and these rivers flowing under me? Can ye not
then discern?” (cf. Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, 6,5; al-
Nuwayrl al-Iskandaranl, Ilmam , iii, 363, on Harun al-
Rashld’s symbolic defiance of Pharaoh’s claim to the
mulk Misr; Ibn Kh aldun. Hbar , i, 115). The latter
verse posed particular problems to historical and
geographical commentators. What to do with the
rivers in the plural? It was Manf, 12 miles long, the
city of iron (Ibn al-Dawadarl, Kanz, i, 124 writes
“copper”) and brass walls (Ibn al-Faklh, 73; Ibn
Khurradadhbih, 161 [not 81, as in EP art. manf])
and of 70—or, alternatively, 30 (Abu Salih, 199-
200—gates from which the four great rivers of the
earth flowed. The numerous dams and bridges ( kanalir
wa-djusur) of the lowlands of Manf (Ibn c Abd al-
Hakam, 6,3; al-Khitat, iii, 27) are also directly linked
to this Kur 5 anic verse.

The dominant Islamic stereotype associated with
Manf is its role as the seat of Pharaoh ( madlnat
Fir ( awn, see e.g. Ibn al-Faklh, 73). Other familiar
epithets are dar al-mamlaka ( al-Istibsdr , 83; al-Himyarl,
al-Rawd al-miHar, ed. I. c Abbas, Beirut 1975, 551a),
ddr al-mulk (Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, 20, 14; Abu TSalt,
29; al-Khitat . iii, 29), ddr al-mulk wa ’ l-Hlm (Ibn al-
c IbrI, Ta^rikh mukhtasar al-duwal, Beirut n.d. [1978-9],
20, 10), madtnat al-iklim (Abu Hamid al-Kudsi, 69),
misr al-ikltm (Ibn Dukmak, 130) and, last but not least,
Misr al-kadlma (Abu Dja c far al-IdrisT, fol. 34a; al-
Kalkashandl, iii, 316, 14). At least five Pharaohs
resided there (al-Dimashkl, 229). Al-Makrlzl (al-
Khitat, iii, 25-70) integrates the complete story of

Egypt between Musa and Nebuchadnezzar into his
chapter on Manf. Eight prophets, from Idris to
Yusha c , lived to see it as the Egyptian capital (Abu
Dja c far al-ldrlsl, fol. 12b). The famous stories of
Musa and Yusuf b. Ya c kub took place in and around
Manf (see e.g. Yakut, Mu c dj_am al-bulddn, Beirut.
1397/1977, v, 214b, s.v. Manf). Miscellaneous
monuments are identified with Yusufs granary and
prison, with Zallkha/Zulavkha’s tomb and with the
mosques of Ya c kub and Musa (see e.g. al-
Kalkashandl, iii, 317, 4-12). The village of al-
c Aziziyya north of Manf is said to go back to Potiphar,
the c aziz Misr [q. v.]. It was at Manf that Yusufs coffin
was lowered into the floods of the Nile (only in al-
Mas c udl, Murudj_ al-dhahab , i, 90 = § 83). Manf
becomes an important scene of Jewish history. From
there the Jews were banished to c Ayn Shams, as one
source maintains (Abu Dja c far al-ldrlsl, fol. 57a). Al-
Himyari goes so far as to claim Jewish rule over Egypt
after the demise of Pharaoh’s troops in the Red Sea
(al-Rawd al-miHdr, 551a, cf. the footnote of the editor).
According to c Abd al-Latlf (134-5) and Abu Dja c far
al-ldrlsl (fol. 35a), both writing in the Ayyubid era,
Musa took refuge in the neighbouring hamlet of
Dunuh/Dumuya/Dumuwayh. This place remained
sacred to the Jews, who erected a synagogue there
( c Abd al-Latlf) and made it a place of public venera¬
tion (Abu Dja c far al-ldrlsl).

The women’s regime established in Egypt after the
Pharaoh of Moses had perished in the Red Sea
together with the soldiers of the country provided the
“historical” nucleus for the hen-pecked predicament
of the Egyptian male, to be encountered among non-
Egyptian writers from the days of Herodotus to the
time when Mustafa c AlI, at the end of the 10th/16th
century, visited Cairo. Manf too has an important
part to play in this context. The main temple
(birbd/barba [<?.^.]) of Manf, with its four doors, built
by the valiant Queen Daluka, had an apotropaic func¬
tion in those sad days when Egypt was bereft of men
and seemed an easy prey to foreign invaders. If we
follow Ibn c Abd al-Hakam and his sources (27, 16-28,
8), the sorceress Tadura had prepared images of the
riding beasts and of the vessels on which the
numerous potential enemies could enter Egypt. In
voodoo-like magical substitution, the destruction of
the image entailed, whenever the situation arose, the
destruction of the object depicted. With the extinction
of Tadura’s offspring in Manf, this magic knowledge
was irretrievably lost (Ibn Dukmak, 130; Ibn al-
Zayyat, 11, 14-22). In another tradition of obscure
origin, cited by Abu Hamid al-Kudsi in his fada^il
Misr work (70), it was not the animals and vehicles but
rather the enemy kings themselves who were depicted
in Manf and who could thus be annihilated from afar
whenever they were tempted to attack Egypt. We are
reminded of one of the immortal stereotypes con¬
nected with Egypt: whomever God wishes to destroy,
He lures into Egypt. In our story, Nebuchadnezzar
contrived to gain knowledge of the secret, to have his
own effigy in the tower (kubba) of Manf soaked with
the blood of pigs, and thus to break the spell and con¬
quer the city and the country. Al-Makrlzl, in his
chapter on Manf (al-Khitat . iii, 27), brings Manf into
the orbit of Muhammad’s miraculous telepathic
powers; the pagan monuments of Manf collapsed at
the precise moment when the Prophet victoriously
entered Mecca, destroyed the idols and proclaimed
the advent of truth from east to west, all around the
world.

As we have seen in the case of Manf s epithet
“capital city of the Egyptian kings”, historical

MANF

413

veracity and pious legend are inevitably and inex¬
tricably mixed. Some of the miraculous buildings of
the Manf of the magicians may well have had their
less conspicious counterparts in historical reality.
Thus we hear of sophisticated gears ( al-daradf al-
mudjawwafa , al-Khitat. iii, 28) engineered to lift water
to the highest buildings on Manf in early postdiluvian
times. Manf is—truly or falsely?—mentioned as the
location of Egypt’s first Nilometer [see mikyas], (al-
Mas c udl, Murudj_ ii, 365 = §781; a slightly altered
version in al-Kazwfni, 265, who cites al-Kuda c T, and
in Sibt Ibn al-DjawzI, as quoted by Ibn al-Dawadari,
Kanz , i, 196, 18-20). Al-Kalkashandl (iii, 317,14)
speaks of a place in Manf that up to his own time, the
9th/15th century, was known under the name of al-
mikyas. Al-Mas c udT (loc. cit.) and Abu Salih (200) tell
us that Yusuf erected it, together with the Pyramids,
and “was the first who measured the Nile in Egypt by
the cubit” (see also Ibn c Abd al-Hakam 16, 17 on the
mikyas Manf). The Nilometers of Ikhmlm or AkhmTm
[q.v. ] and in the “extreme Sa c id”—the latter,
presumably referring to the Nilometer on the island of
Elephantine, mentioned only by al-Mas c udT—were
built as the second and third ones much later by
Queen Daluka. Of equally indeterminable historicity
is the widespread report of an observation post
( markab ) on the Mukattam between Manf and c Ayn
Shams (Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, 157,18 - 158,5, on the
authority of Sa c Td Ibn c Ufayr, quoting Ka c b al-
Ahbar). Whenever, according to legend, Pharaoh set
out from Manf to c Ayn Shams, his other favourite
abode (al-Idrfsi, Opus geogr., 376, 1.3), or vice versa,
his departure could immediately be signalled to the
other city so that the people there had enough time for
an appropriate to their ruler. This station on the
Mukattam was allegedly equipped with a mobile mir¬
ror (mir-’at tadur c ald lawlab , al-Idrlsi, op. cit., 326 1.6).
Later on, this place became known as “Pharaoh’s
oven” ( tannur Fir c awn) (cf. e.g. al-ldrisl, loc. cit. ;
Yakut, v, 214b). Ibn Tulun had a mosque erected
there (cf. Zaky Mohamed Hassan, Les Tulunides. Etude
de VEgypte musulmane a fin du IX e si'ecle 868-905, Paris
1933, 295). Ibn Khaldun’s remark that Manf was one
of the residences of the Mukawkis is also at the
borderline of legend and historical truth ( c Ibar , I,
114).

The vast and fabulous ruins of Manf—according to
c Abd al-Latlf (176-7) another Babil—left profound
impressions on mediaeval visitors, some of whom
declared the city as a whole one of the ^ad^a^ib of Egypt
(cf. Ibn al-Zayyat, 11, 13-14). It took c Abd al-Latlf
(134-5) half a day to tour the site of Manf, which is
often closely connected with the adjacent Pyramids
(sc. of Sakkara, Buslr and Djlza). Egypt’s greatest
u c djuba (Abu Salih, 200; Abu Dja c far al-Idrfsi, fob
34a, speaking of Manf as the “settlement” [khiyam]
belonging to the Pyramids). A visit to the Pyramids
and to Manf seems to have been the minimum pro¬
gramme for visitors to the area who were interested in
Pharaonic archaeology (cf. Abu Dja c far al-Idnsf, 45a,
on the envoy of Frederick II to the court of al-Malik
al-Kamil). In striking unanimity, most authors men¬
tion the prevalence of the indelible green colour (sc. of
the granite monuments) in the ruins of Manf (see Abu
’i-Fida\ 117).

Certain monuments are singled out in the descrip¬
tions available to us, though it is not always easy to
identify them and to differentiate between their legen¬
dary function—in such cases as Joseph’s abode or
Pharaoh’s palace—and the archaeological reality as
seen and recorded by the authors. Therefore the de¬
tailed scholarly observations of c Abd al-Latlf al-

Baghdadi are of particular value. One building, not
mentioned by c Abd al-Latlf, is the magnificent,
monolithic, so-called “bishop’s church” (kanisat al-
uskuf); Abu Hamid al-Kudsi (150) lists it even as the
first among the ^adjcVib of Egypt. It is not all clear
whether this church, the church “spread with mats”
mentioned by Abu Salih (200), and, thirdly, the
monolithic Dar Fir c awn, with its many halls, rooms
and roofs, about which an c Alid authority reports full
of awe ( al-Istibsar, 83; Yakut, v, 214a; al-HimyarT,
55a; al-Nuwayn al-Iskandarani, liman , iii, 367), all
mean the same building or not.

There was certainly one other kanisa —since we
have to do with Pharaonic buildings, rather to be
rendered as “temple” than “church”—in Manf. It
was noted for its small size, for which a hieroglyphic
inscription, deciphered by c Uthman b. Salih (d.
217/832), the “sage of Egypt” and one of Ibn c Abd
al-Hakam’s main authorities, gives a very convincing
financial explanation: building with granite on a large
scale was just too expensive ( c Umar al-KindT, FaddHl,
52, quoting Ibrahim b. Munkidh al- Kh awlam: modi¬
fied in Yakut, v, 214a-b, quoted by al-KazwinT, 274-
5, and Abu Hamid al-Kudsi, 70). This temple was
allegedly erected on the spot where the irate young
Musa, at Satan’s instigation, had killed an Egyptian
(al-radjul al-kibti [!], cf. Kur’an, XXVIII, 15). Again
we have the problem of identification. Is this monu¬
ment the famous monolithic green chapel that was
located within the precinct of the great temple of Manf
and is described in detail by c Abd al-Latlf (138-9), al-
KalkashandT (iii, 316, 19-317,3) and al-Makrlzi (al-
Khitat, iii, 28)? Its weight was legendary (ibid.). Both
from the inside and the outside it was covered with
hieroglyphic inscriptions ( al-kalam al-birbawi, aklam al-
birbawiyya, Abu Dja c far al-IdrisT, fob 42a), with pic¬
tures of the sun, of stars, men in different postures,
snakes and other animals—for c Abd al-Latlf, impor¬
tant proof to his conviction that the old Egyptians
used the pictograms not for simple decorative pur¬
poses (138-9). The fundament of this building had
already been destroyed in his days by some, as he
complains, foolish treasure-hunter (loc. cit.). Sultan
Hasan b. Muhammad b. Kalawun’s generalissimo,
the amir Shaykhu, tried to transport the chapel to
Cairo after the year 750/1350. It broke into pieces;
Shaykhu had them polished and re-used them as sills
and thresholds in his khanakah and his Friday mosque
in the vicinity of the mosque of Ibn Tulun south of the
Fatimid city of Cairo (al-Khitat. iii, 29; al-
Kalkashandl, iii, 317, 1-3; see the still important com¬
ments by Silvestre de Sacy, Relation de VEgypte par Abd-
allatiph medecin de Bagdad, Paris 1810, 248, n. 65; G.
Wiet, L'Egypte de Murtadi, Paris 1953, 93, n. 2; U.
Haarmann, Die Sphinx. Synkretistische Volksreligiositat im
spatmittelalterlichen islamischen Agyp ten , in Saeculum, xxix
[1978], 377). There they can still be seen in our time.
The astronomical reliefs on the green chapel attracted
particular attention; Abu Hamid al-Kays! al-
Gharnatl (Tuhfat al-albab, ed. G. Ferrand, in JA, ccvii
[1925], ii, 78) mentions them, and according to al-
MakrizT ( al-Khitat . iii, 28), the Sabians maintained
that this building was dedicated to the moon as one of
originally seven such houses, each of which pertained
to one of the seven planets. Also, Ps.-Madjriti’s
remark (286) about a sanctuary dedicated to the
planets by the Indian Kanka should be linked with the
green chapel at Manf. c Abd al-Latlf (140-55) goes on
to describe the sad remains of the temple terrain
within which the green chapel still stood in his time.
He displays an expertise on the sophisticated techni¬
ques and materials of Pharaonic masonry and on the

414

MANF — al-MANFALUJI

harmonious proportions of the huge human statues of
limestone and red granite, one of which undoubtedly
represents Isis with the child Horus (154-5). Al-
Kalkashandl (iii, 316, 16-18) speaks of two idols of 20
cubits length each which lie precipitated in the mud as
being made of “white granite”. Al-Makrlzi (al-Khitat .
iii, 28) attributes them (or two other, similar,
monuments) to Potiphar. One of the two statues could
well be identical with the monument mentioned by
Abu Salih (199) with the surprising name of Abu ’1-
Hawl (see Haarmann, Die Sphinx , 373) and with the
famous statue of Rameses II that was transported
from Manf to the Cairo railway staion at the Bab al-
Hadld in this century.

Bibliography : (in addition to the works quoted
in the article): Else Peitemeyer, Beschreibung
Agyptens im Mittelalter aus den geographischen Werken der
Araber, Leipzig 1903, 129-36; L’Egypte de Murtadi,
90-3 (both works containing German or, alter¬
natively, French translations of the passages referr¬
ing to Manf in Abu Hamid al-Kays! al-Gharnatl.
c Abd al-Lapf al-Ba gh dadl, al-MakrlzI’s al-Khitat
and al-Kalkashandl); Maspero-Wiet, Materiaux ,
200. _ (U. Haarmann)

al-MANFALUTI, Mustafa Lutfi (1293-
1343/1876-1924), Egyptian writer and poet.

Born in al-Manfalut (Upper Egypt), then going to
live in Cairo, al-Manfalutl never attended any
teaching institutions except al-Azhar. He later com¬
posed poems which appeared in the press; one was
published in 1904 by Farah Antun’s magazine al-
Djami c a. By the very traditional character of his art,
he belongs among the great Egyptian poets of the age.
Like them, he cultivated the still flourishing genre of
occasional poetry. His composition of epic poems can¬
not even be regarded as original, since Khalil
Mutran, Ahmad ShawkI and Hafiz Ibrahim had dis¬
tinguished themselves in this field. (He left no diwan,
but only an anthology, Mukhtarat al-ManJalutt, 1912, in
which some prose texts accompany several poems.)

Finally, his true originality derived from his doc¬
trinal commitment, and from its quite unexpected
literary corollary. His Islamic faith appears strong in
the face of any test. For him, Islam is not an old
system of values in which he will seek refuge, but a
dynamic religion whose constantly renewed force
should animate the faithful, allowing them to view the
future with optimism. He also believes that
everything capable of favouring this dynamism should
be encouraged. Thus he took the side of the great
reformist Muhammad c Abduh [< 7 . 0 . ] and even went to
prison for supporting him against the Khedive. His
support for the companion of al-Afghani is often evi¬
dent in his poems, but being as he is above all a
moraliser, he found a more convenient form in which
to express himself in the collection of essays in the
shape of edifying stories which he published in the
weekly al-Mu^ayyid under the title of al-Nazarat (“Sket¬
ches”). Death, misfortune and tears, represent the
essential ingredients of these narratives. At times,
destiny, cruel and unjust, besets pure and defenceless
beings. But often it is the evolution of society which
brings on catastrophes; at the end of the last century
and beginning of the present one, the rash Egyptians
have repudiated their sound traditions and turned
their back on the wise precepts of Islam in order to im¬
itate blindly the European example. This is the
message to be drawn from al-Manfalutl’s fables. We
must believe that the content and form of these
writings matched the expectations of the public of the
period, since they were reprinted in three volumes in
1910, 1912 and 1920.

But in 1915 our author published another collection
with the evocative title al- c Abarat (“Tears”). The
dominant tone remains one of pathos, but it is to be
noted that the stories are of two kinds. Only three of
them are the original work of al-Manfalutl, while the
eight others have been translated by him from French
or—in one case—from American English. For,
paradoxically, despite his admonitions against the
Western life style, he admired the literature which it
produced. Chateaubriand and Alexandre Dumas the
Younger are translated here, and later it was to be the
turn of Alphonse Karr (Som* Vombre des tilleuls [“In the
shade of the linden trees”], 1919), Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre ( Paul et Virginie) and Frangois Coppee
(Pour la couronne [“For the crown”], 1920). Are we not
to suppose that this pitiful picture of disasters, to
which venal, unshared or impossible love leads, con¬
stitutes the most eloquent condemnation of the society
which attaches such importance to this sentiment?
Furthermore, one of the three original stories in al-
c Abardt, entitled al-Hidjab (“The veil”) shows how a
young Egyptian, returned from Europe where he has
studied, brings on his own misfortune by allowing his
wife to spend time in the company of his best friend.
However, this interpretation is not always justified. It
is clear that the narrator is little concerned to explain
the avalanche of misfortunes which befall his heroes.
His main concern is to place them in a desperate
situation, which he knows how to turn to the best ad¬
vantage in order to move his readers. For here we
have an artist who excelled in appealing to the emo¬
tions. The instrument that he used was the Arabic
language, on which he played to perfection because he
kept it in the register which suited him best: ample
periods, sonorities balanced with majesty and the
theatrical expression of powerful feelings. All his con¬
temporaries and even some of his successors bore
witness to the quality of his style, which they regarded
as enchanting. But, quite obviously, the conclusions
that they reached could be diametrically opposed.

The novelist Mahmud Taymur [</.».], in the pref¬
ace of one of his first collections (al-Shaykh Sayyid al-
c Abft, 1926), believed that the subjects and characters
imagined by al-Manfalut! lacked consistency, but he
did not cease to write eulogies on the quality of his
vocabulary and the absolutely classical purity of his
language. This testimony is worth bearing in mind
when one realises how great an audience at this period
in the Arab world such a writer enjoyed. On the other
hand, the equally famous Ibrahim c Abd al-Kadir al-
Mazinl [q-v.] proceeded, for his part, to a definitive
execution of al-Manfalutl in the book of literary
criticism which he published in collaboration with
c Abbas Mahmud al- c Akkad [ q.v . in Suppl.] (al-Diwan,
1921). His intrigues, he says, are a tissue of im¬
probabilities, and his pretended virtue is only shoddy
sentimentalism nourishing women’s fiction; as for the
style, let us speak about it in detail! It is characterised
by artifice, accumulation of maf c ul mutlaks , abuse of
synonyms, i.e. of tinsel and eye shadow, whereas the
art of the real writer resides in the care taken in
significant and subtle composition, in the choice of the
“mot juste”.

Even if al-Manfalutl’s works are constantly being
republished, there is no doubt that from now on they
will be merely of historical interest. But at any rate,
this interest is undeniable. At a time when Arabic
romantic literature was still sought after, al-Manfalutl
contributed to winning a public for it. In fact, this
well-known foreign genre became acclimatised on
Arab soil. It did so in the first place thanks to the
quality of its language, although some Syro-Lebanese

al-MANFALUTI — MANGISHLAK

415

and Egyptian translators of the period wrote in very
mediocre Arabic. It must be noted that, never having
left Egypt or studied seriously any foreign language,
his expression did not risk being contaminated and
debased by foreign idioms. Also, his supposed transla¬
tions were actually adaptations of pre-existing transla¬
tions. Thus it is to be understood that they were,
probably, not very faithful, and that his original
works and translated works might be closely related.
Furthermore, the kind of story which he preferred is
the same in both cases. This was, moreover, along
with the language, the second method of luring the
reader. The romantic, in the technical and literary
sense of the word, had to use the romantic in the emo¬
tional and popular sense of the word. He believed
that, like himself, his compatriots might have a pas¬
sion for the unhappy love stories in Europe, while
they also might have a passion for the life stories of
those who had died or had been driven mad by love,
of whom Arab collective memory had preserved the
remembrance. It is significant that the modernist al-
MazinT had mentioned, in the above-mentioned
work, what a danger al-Manfalutfs literature pre¬
sented for lovers of bad novels, those who put nothing
above Platonic love ( al-hubb al- c udhri ), i.e. the pure
love which made the HidjazT tribe of the Banu c Udhra
famous from the 2nd/8th century onwards.

Bibliography : Apart from the references given
in the text: S. Bencheneb, Deux sources d’al-
Manfaluii, in RAfr., lxxxv (1941), 260-4;

Brockelmann, S III, 195-202; H. Peres, Le roman
arabe dans le premier tiers du XX e s.: al-Manfaluti et
Haykal, in AIEO Alger, xvii (1959), 145-68; A. al-
Djindf, Adab al-mar^a al- c arabiyya ... Tatawwur al-
tardjama , Cairo n.d., 59-60. (Ch. Vial)

MANGIR [see sikka).

MANGISHLAK , a mountainous peninsula
on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. The north¬
ern part of Mangishlak (the Buza£i peninsula) is a
lowland covered with small salt-marshes. In the cen¬
tral part, the Mangfstau mountains stretch from
northwest to southeast for ca. 100 miles; they consist
of three ranges, Southern and Northern Aktau and
Karatau, the last one running between the first two.
The highest peak (in the Karatau) is only 1,824 feet.
To the south of the mountains lies the Mangishlak
Plateau. From the east, the peninsula borders the Ust-
Yurt Plateau. Mangishlak is now one of the most arid
areas of Central Asia, without permanent rivers and
with an annual precipitation of ca. 150 mm. The most
often suggested etymology of the name is from
Turkish ming kishlak “the thousand winter quarters”;
another one derives the name from Turkish man
(mang) “four-year-old sheep” (Mahmud al-
Kash gh arT. iii, 157; cf. mang “three-year-old sheep”
in Caghatay and modern Turkmen), so that
Mangishlak is, presumably, “sheep’s winter quar¬
ters”. Neither etymology is proven; other etymologies
trying to connect the word with its present Kazak
form Mangfstau or with the name of a subdivision of
the Nogays, Mang (?), are unacceptable, since the
term was registered in the sources long before the
emergence of both the Kazak and the Nogays with
their languages.

The region was first mentioned under the Persian
name Siyah-Kuh (“Black Mountain”; see al-Istakhrl,
218; Hudud al- c alam, 60), which, probably, is a
translation of the Turkic name Karatau (or Karatagh)
mentioned above. The same name Siyah-Kuh was
given to the mountains (dj_abal; apparently, the steep
scarp of the plateau of Ust-Yurt) west of the Sea of
Aral (Ibn Rusta, 92). In mediaeval Muslim works.

the localisation of the Siyah-Kuh mountains was not
always clear, and sometimes they were located also on
the northern shore of the Caspian Sea and even as
stretching along the whole eastern shore of this sea.

According to al-Istakhhrl (219), the peninsula used
to be uninhabited; it was only shortly before his time
(or that of his predecessor al-Balkhi. i.e. in the first
half or by the beginning of the 10th century A.D.) that
Turks, who had quarrelled with the Ghuzz [q.v.], i.e.
with their own kin, had come here and found springs
and pastures for their flocks. Ships which were
wrecked on the cliffs of the peninsula used to be
plundered by these Turks, A short mention of the
Gh uzz Turks on Siyah-Kuh in Hudud al^alam goes
back most probably to the same account of al-Istakhrl.
Al-MukaddasT mentions the mountain of Binkishlah
as marking the frontier between the land of the
Khazars and Djurdjan [ q.v.\ (see BGA, iii, 355); this
is, apparently, the earliest mention of the name in
literature. The name in its present form appears in the
5th/11th century in the dictionary of Mahmud al-
Kashghari (i, 387, vocalised Mankishlagh), where it
is explained somewhat vaguely as “name of a place in
the country of the Ghuzz”. In almost the same form
(B.n.kh.sh.lagh) the name is mentioned in the Kanun
of al-Blruni as a harbour, or port (furda), of the
Ghuzz, belonging to the region of the Khazar (see
Birum’s picture of the world, ed. A.Z.V. Togan, New
Delhi 1941, 67; cf. Blrunl, al-Kanun , ii, Haydarabad
1955, 575, with the spelling Y.n.h.sh.lagh. The inter¬
changeable initial m/b probably supports the
etymology ming/bing kishlak).

Mangishlak as a region of the Saldjuk empire, ap¬
parently subordinate to the governor of Mazandaran,
was mentioned in Persian documents compiled in the
Saldjuk chancery in the middle of the 6th/12 th century
(where the spelling M.n.k.sh.lak and M.n.k.sh.la gh
is given; see Muntadjab al-DTn Bad!*, c Atabat al-
kataba, ed. by M. KazwTnT and C A. Ikbal, Tehran
1329/1950, 19, 85); here also some unbelievers (kuffar)
were mentioned in the desert of Mangfshlak and the
regions of Dihistan \q.v.\> and the governor of Djur¬
djan was instructed to wage djihad on them. In the
very early 7th/13th century, Mangishlak was men¬
tioned by Ibn al-Athir and Yakut (both vocalised as
Mankashlagh) and by Muhammad Bakran in his
Djahan-nama (vocalised Mankishla gh ). Ibn al-Athir
(x, 183) tells about a Turkic principality on Mankash¬
lagh. with a town (madina) of the same name, at the
end of the 5th/11 th century. In 490/1097 the
Mankashla gh Turks (their tribal affiliation is not
mentioned) unsuccessfully interfered in the fight be¬
tween the Kh w arazmshah Kutb al-DTn Muhammad
and Toghrfl Tegin, son of Ekinci b. Kockar [ q.v. in
Suppl.]. According to Ibn al-Athir, the son and suc¬
cessor of Kutb al-DTn Muhammad, the
Kh w arazmsh ah Atsfz, conquered the town of
Mankashla gh when he commanded the army of
Kh w arazm during the reign of his father (i.e. before
521/1127 or 522/1128). YakGt (iv, 670) describes
Mankashla gh not as a region, but only as a strong for¬
tress ( kal c a hastna) near the sea between Kh w arazm
[q.v.\, SaksTn [q .a.] and the land of the Rus; he cites
verses by Abu TMu^ayyad al-Muwaffak b. Ahmad
al-Kh w arazmI. where Mankashla g h and its conquest
by Atsfz are mentioned. Muhammad Bakran, a con¬
temporary of Ibn al-AthTr and Yakut, first mentions
Mankishla gh in his description of the Caspian Sea, as
a region lying between Siyah-Kuh and the Balkhan
[q.v.] region in the south and the region of the Khazar
in the north ( Dja han-nama, ed. Yu. Borshcevskiy,
Moscow 1960, fob 5b). In another place (fol. 17a) he

416

MANGISHLAK

explains Mankishlagh as a name of a tribe ( kawm ) of
Turks who left their former place because of an en->
mity between them and the Gh uzz and came to live
in the region of Siyah-Kuh near the Caspian Sea,
where they found springs and pastures (cf. the ac¬
count of al-Istakhri-al-Balkhi above); they were called
the “People of Mankishlagh” (ahl-i Mankishlagh), and
their ruler was Called khan. Immediately after this,
speaking about the Turkic tribe (kawm) Yazir which
lived in the Balkhan mountains, Bakran adds that two
other tribes, one from Mankishlagh and the second
from Kh urasan, joined the Yazir, after which the lat¬
ter became numerous and strong, and at the time of
writing (aknun) they consisted of three parts: the Yazir
proper, those of Mankishla gh (Mankishlagh!) and of
Fars.

As one can conclude from all accounts cited above,
Mangfshlak became inhabited by some Turkic (ap¬
parently Oghuz) tribe of tribes about the first half of
the 4th/10th century, and the migration of these
Turks to Mangfshlak was connected with the internal
strife in the Oghuz confederation. The Mangfshlak
Turks were apparently hostile to the O gh uz tribes in¬
volved in the Saldjuk movement, and they were con¬
sidered pagan as late as in the middle of the 6th/12th
century; in the early 7th/l3th century they (or at least
a part of them) were included into the Yazir group of
the Oghuz. the centre of which was in northern
Khurasan. No permanent settlement on Mangfshlak
is again mentioned in the sources after the account of
the campaign of Atsfz, and Barthold assumed that the
“town” mentioned by Yakut was destroyed by the
Kh w arazmians (see El', iii, 243). However, it is quite
possible that the “fortress of Mangfshlak” was in fact
not a town, but rather a fortified place where the
Oghuz nomads could find refuge in time of danger.

The accounts of written sources are to some extent
corroborated by the Turkmen genealogical tradition
as rendered by Abu TGhazT (Shadiara-yi Tarakima, ed.
Kononov, text, 61-2), which also connects the migra¬
tion of the Oghuz to Mangfshlak with the great distur¬
bances in the el of the O gh uz in the time of c Ali Khan
and Shah Malik (Oghuz rulers, contemporaries of the
first Saldjuks). It is to this time that the Turkmen
tradition relates the migration to Mangfshlak of all
those tribes which were also later found on the penin¬
sula, as attested in other sources. The most numerous
among these tribes was the Salor [qv.], which in the
10th/16th century was divided into the “inner” (icki)
Salor” who lived on the coast, and the “outer (tashki)
Salor” who lived farther to the east, on the road from
the coast to Kh w arazm (see Bartol’d, Socineniya, viii,
148). The “outer Salor” was, in fact, a group of tribes
affiliated with the Salor proper, and it was found also
in the Balkhan and Khurasan: among them the tribe
Ersarf [ q.v. in Suppl.] lived partly on Mangfshlak.
Other tribes mentioned in Shadjara-yi Tarakima as
those who came there with the Salor included the

v . • •

Cawdor [q.v.] and Igdir, which remained on the
peninsula also later.

According to the Turkmen tradition, in the middle
of the 8th/14th century Mangfshlak belonged to the
Golden Horde, together with the Balkhan and the
northern part of Kh w arazm (see Abu ’1-Ghazf,
Shadjara-yi Tarakima , ed. Kononov, text, 72). Nothing
is known about the region in Tfmurid times. The
available sources only clearly indicate that after the
Mongol conquest, Mangfshlak remained for several
centuries one of the main regions inhabited by the
Turkmens, together with the Balkhan and the western
part of the Karakum desert (see Yu. Bregel, in CAJ,
xxv/1-2 [1981], 20-2). With the conquest of Kh w a-

razm by the Uzbeks in the early 10th/16th century,
the c Arabshahid khans subdued also the Turkmen
tribes of Mangfshlak. which were divided between the
Uzbek sultans as part of their appanages (see Abu ’1-
GhazT, Shadjara-yi Turk, ed. Desmaisons, text, 201,
202, 206; tr., 216, 220). In the 11 th/17th century,
however, the Turkmens of Mangfshlak seemed to be
mostly independent, and the region sometimes served
as a refuge for the Uzbek sultans, who fled from
Kh w arazm during internal strife there. Via
Mangfshlak there ran a trade route from the Volga
basin to Kh w arazm. Goods were unloaded in the
Kabaldf landing-place on the Buzaci peninsula and
taken to Kh w arazm by caravans through the plateau
of Ust-Yurt. The route became especially important
after the conquest of Astrakhan [q-v. \ by the Russians
(1556). Turkmens also profited from this trade, sup¬
plying camels and protection to the caravans, extor¬
ting presents from the merchants and occasionally
plundering them. Mangfshlak also served as the start¬
ing point of a sea-route to Shlrwan [q.v.\, in the late
10th/16th and early llth/17th centuries used by Cen¬
tral Asian merchants and pilgrims to Mecca wishing
to avoid travel through ShPf Iran (see Abu TGhazI,
Shadjara-yi Turk , ed. Desmaisons, text, 257, 273; tr.,
275, 294). In 1558 the first English traveller to Cen¬
tral Asia, Anthony Jenkinson, passed through
Mangfshlak to Kh w arazm (see Purchase his Pilgrimes ,
xii, Glasgow 1906, 10-13).

Both the Turkmen tribes on Mangfshlak and the
trade caravans were endangered by the raids from the
north of the Mangft [f.u.], or Nogays, in the
10th/16th century and of the Kalmuk [q. v. ] in the
11 th/17th century. The Kalmuk raids in 1620s and
1630s caused the transfer of the landing-place from
the Kabaklf Bay to the Karagan Bay, near the Sarf-
Tash Mountain, farther to the south (see A. Culosh-
nikov, in Material! po istorii Uzbekskoy, Tadzhikskoy i
Turkmenskoy SSR, pt. 1, Leningrad 1932, 74-6, and the
map attached to the book). Already the Mangft raids
forced a part of the Turkmens to leave Mangfshlak.
Another cause of emigration was, apparently, the
growing desiccation of the steppe which began at the
same time (see Yu. Bregel, op. cit., 29-30). Later, the
Kalmuk pressure had the same effect. In the middle
of the 11 th/17th century, the Ersarf tribe totally aban¬
doned Mangfshlak, together with a part of the Salor;
another part of the Salor probably remained there till
the early 12th/18th century. The Kalmuks under
Ayuka (1670-1724), or as early as the reign of
Puntsuk-Moncak (1667-70) deported parts of the
tribes of the Cawdor and Igdir as well as the whole
tribe of the Soyinadji to the Volga basin (from where
they moved to the Caucasus). In the first half of the
12th/18th century, most of the remaining Cawdors
and Igdirs migrated to Kh w arazm, and in the early
19th century several groups of the same tribes
migrated via the Volga to their tribesmen in the
Caucasus; but Mangfshlak was finally abandoned by
the Turkmens only in 1840s (a small section of the
Cawdor has continued to dwell near the Caspian
shore till the present time). The Turkmens were
replaced on Mangfshlak by the Kazaks, who belonged
to the clan Aday of the Bayulf tribe (of the Little
Horde). There seems to be no historical evidence of
the time of this migration; Kazak legends relate this
movement to the middle or the second half of the
12th/18th century. Assertion of some modern Kazak
scholars trying to connect the Aday with the ancient
Dahae, and thus trying to prove that the Kazaks were
the most ancient inhabitants of Mangfshlak, are
totally unfounded. For the Aday, Mangfshlak was the

MANGISHLAK — MANGIT

417

region of their winter pastures, their summer pastures
being about 600 miles from there to the north.

As early as the 1670s, the khan of Khiwa, Anusha,
asked the Russian government to build a fortress on
Mangfshlak to protect the trade route between Russia
and Central Asia; but the first Russian attempt at
establishing a permanent position on the peninsula
was made only under Peter the Great, when three for¬
tresses were built near the Caspian coast by the ill-
fated expedition of Bekovic-Cerkasskiy (1716); the
fortresses were abandoned the next year. During the
12th/l8th and early 19th centuries a number of Rus¬
sian expeditions studied Mangfshlak, and in 1834 the
Russians founded a fortress on the southern shore of
the Mertvfy Kultuk Bay, named Novo-Aleksandrov-
sko ye , with a permanent garrison. The establishment
of Russian power on the Mangfshlak shore was one of
the reasons of tensions between her and the Kh anate
of Kh iwa which led to the unsuccessful Russian
military campaign of 1839-40. Mangfshlak remained
a bone of contention between Russia and Khiwa for
another decade, both sides trying to use against one
another the Aday Kazaks, but neither actually extend¬
ing its sovereignty over the peninsula until in 1846 the
Russians built a fortress on Cape Tup-Karagan,
named first Novo-Petrovskoye and then in 1859
renamed Fort Aleksandrovskiy. But the final incor¬
poration of Mangfshlak into the Russian Empire oc-
cured only after the occupation of the Krasnovodsk
region in 1869 and the submission of Khiwa in 1873.

According to the imperial decree of 1870, the
district (pristavstvo) of Mangfshlak was subordinated to
the Russian vicegerent of Caucasus, and after the
Russian conquest of Turkmenia in 1881 this district
was incorporated, as an uyezd , in the newly-organised
Transcaspian region ( Zakaspiyskaya oblast T After the
revolution of 1917, Mangfshlak (except for its
southernmost part around the Kara-Bo gh az Bay) was
separated from the land of the Turkmens and in¬
cluded in the republic of Kazakhstan. Since 1973 it
has formed a separate Mangfshlak region (oblast") of
Kazakhstan, including also a part of the Ust-Yurt
plateau, with an area of 100,000 square miles and its
centre at Shevcenko (built only in 1960s; until 1964
Aktau); the population of the oblast ’ was 256,000 in
1978, of which the population of Shevcenko was al¬
most a half (110,000 in 1979); 92% of the inhabitants
of the oblast’ live in cities (see Sovetskiy entsiklopediceskiy
slovar’, Moscow 1980, 1522). The present economic
and strategic importance of Mangfshlak is determined
by its mineral riches, especially petroleum and natural
gas (discovered in 1961) and uranium; details about
the uranium mines are kept secret by official Soviet
sources, but this uranium is used, apparently, by the
atomic power station in Shevcenko.

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text, see S. P. Polyakov, Etniceskaya
is tor iy a Sever o-Zapadnoy Turkmenii v sredniye veka ,
Moscow 1973; R. Karutz, Unter Kirgizen und
Turkmenen. Aus dem Leben der Steppe , Leipzig 1911;
V. V. Vostrov, M.S. Mukanov, Rodoplemennoy
sostav i rasseleniye kazakhov (konets XIX - nacalo XX v .),
Alma-Ata 1968, 248-54; M. S. Tursunova, Iz islorii
kazakhov Mangishlaka v pervoy polovine XIX veka, in
Voprosi istorii Kazakhs tana XIX - nacala XX veka ,
Alma-Ata 1961, 173-202; M.S. Tursunova,

Kazakhi Mangishlaka vo vtoroy polovine XIX veka ,
Alma-Ata 1977. On the present geographical con¬
ditions, see V. Ya. Gerasimenko, Poluostrov sokro-
vishc, Alma-Ata 1968; Kazakhstan (series Sovetskiy
Soyuz ), Moscow 1970, 274-9; BSE 3 , xv, 317-18.

(Yu. Bregei.)

o _

MANGIT, the name of Mongol and Turkic
t ri bes.

It first appears in Rashid al-Dln (in the transcrip¬
tion Mangkut; Rashid al-Dln, i/1, ed. Romaskevic et
alii, 87, 501-15, Russ, tr., 78, 184-6; i/2, Russ. tr.,
29, 125) and the Secret history (§ 46) as one of the tribes
belonging to the Nirun branch of the Mongols; its
genealogy went back to Djaksu, the first son of Turn-
bine Khan (the great-great-grandfather of Cingiz-
Khan). The Mangft were subjugated by Cingiz Kh an
together with the tribes of the TaycPut. Later they be¬
longed to both right and left wings of the army of
Cingiz Khan (Rashid al-Dln, Russ, tr., 1/2, 208,
272), and parts of this tribe were found in all major
Mongol uluses. The Mangft tribe (since the 14th cen¬
tury the name appears in the sources in the forms
Mangkit, Manghut, Manghlt, Manghlt; in later Cen¬
tral Asian sources mainly Mankit and Manghit)
became especially important in the ulus of Djoci (the
“Golden Horde”), where it was completely
Turkicised, along with the other Mongol tribes, ap¬
parently already by the 14th century. From the 15th
century onwards, the Mangfts inhabited the territory
in the lower Volga basin and farther to the east, at
least to the Emba. At the same time they began to be
called in Russian sources Nogai (according to N.G.
Volkova, Etnonimi i plemenniye nazvaniya_ Severnogo
Kavkaza, Moscow 1973, 78, not earlier than the
1380s). It is believed that this ethnic name was con¬
nected with the name of the famous Nokay Noyan
[see nogay], a tumen-begi and an actual ruler of the ulus
of Djofi in the end of the 13th and the beginning of
the 14th century (cf. on him B. Spuler, Die Goldene
Horde 2 , Wiesbaden 1965, 56-77, with further referen¬
ces). According to this view, the Mangft was the
predominant Turkic tribe in the ulus of Nokay. How¬
ever, there seems to be no evidence of the tribal com¬
position of the ulus of Nokay, which possessed the
territory to the west of the Dnieper and formed the
right wing of the ulus of Djoci, while the later
Mangfts, between the Volga and the Emba, belonged
to the left wing of the same ulus. Thus the connection
between these two Turkic groupings remains unclear.
The people known to the Russians as Nogai was
known in Central Asia and Iran only as Mangft; on
the other hand, Crimean and Ottoman sources of the
16th-18th centuries know only the Nogay. In the 14th
and 15th centuries, this was a large tribal confedera¬
tion in the central part of Dasht-i Kipcak [q.v. in
Suppl.] which included, besides the Mangft proper,
also a number of other Turkic tribes. Since at least the
second half of the 14th century, the confederation was
ruled by the chiefs of the Mangft tribe. The most
famous among them was the founder of this dynasty
Edigu (Yedigey of the Russian sources), a contem¬
porary and adversary of Toktamish and Timur and
for a long time an actual ruler of the Golden Horde
(d. 822/1419). In the middle of the 15th century, the
Mangft (under Edigu’s grandson Wakkas Biy) played
an important role in the nomadic state of Abu T
Khavr Khan [q.v.]. After the dissolution of this em¬
pire, the Mangft dominated the western part of Cen¬
tral Asian steppe till the end of the 15th century.

With the decline of the so-called “Great Horde”
(the Golden Horde’s successor in the lower Volga
basin) in the late 15th and early 16th century, a part
of the Mangft migrated to the Crimean Khanate,
where their chiefs became the senior begs (on the
Mangft in Crimea, see V. Ye. Sfroyeckovskiy.
Mukhammad- Geray i ego vassali, in Uceniye_ zapiski
Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta , lxi (Moscow
1940], 32-4, 36-7). At the same time another part of

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

418

MANGlT — MANGITS

the Mangit tribe joined the Uzbek confederacy
restored by Shavbam Khan [see shaybanids] and par¬
ticipated in his conquest of Transoxania; the Mangfts
in the troops of Shavbam Khan are mentioned in the
Shaybam-nama by Muhammad Salih (ed. Vambery,
Budapest 1885, 272, 276). Yet the bulk of the Mangit
confederacy still remained between the Volga and the
Emba rivers for another century, until they were
driven from this territory by the Kalmuks [q. v. ] in the
1620s. After this, the greater part of the confederacy
moved to Northern Caucasus, where they have been
known only as the Nogays (about the Mangit as one
of the tribal units of the Caucasin Nogays, cf. N.G.
Volkova, op. cit., 80-3), while another part migrated
to the Kh anate of Kh lwa. where they first established
themselves in the Amu-Darya delta. Abu ’1-Ghazi
mentions the Mangfts only outside Kh w arazm, in
their old territory, and as distinct from the Uzbeks
(see Shadjara-yi Turk , ed. Desmaisons, text, 212-13,
230, 267, 270, 290; tr., 228-9, 246-7, 286, 289, 311).
However, the same Abu ’1-Ghazi is said to have
divded all the Uzbek tribes of Kh w arazm into four
groups, one of which was formed by the tribes Mangit
and Nukuz (Mu^nis, Firdaws al-ikbal, ms. of the Len¬
ingrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, C-
571, fol. 65b). Probably, the migration of the Mangits
and other Turkic groups of the Mangit ulus to
Kh w arazm happened in the reign of Abu ’1-Ghazi
(1053-74/1643-63), and it was perhaps this movement
that caused the redistribution of the Uzbek tribes and
their territories in the khanate.

In Kh w arazm, the Mangit tribe contended for
power with the tribe of Kongrat [see kungrat]; the
historian of the Kongrat dynasty Mu 5 ms [q.v. ] traced
this rivalry back to the time of Nokay Noyan (see Fir-
daws al-ikbal, ms. cit., fol. 94b). At the end of the 17th
and the 18th centuries, the Mangit who inhabit the
central part of the Amu-Darya delta (Aral) with the
fortresses Mangft-kal c a and Shah-Temir, together
with several other Uzbek tribes of the same region,
had their local rulers who did not recognise the
authority of the khans of Khiwa. In their struggle with
the Kongrats, the Mangits of Kh w arazm were sup¬
ported by their tribesmen in Transoxania, whose
chiefs founded a new dynasty in Bukhara in the mid¬
dle of the 18th century [see mangits). After some suc¬
cess in 1740s (when two chiefs of the Mangit, Artuk
Inak and then his brother Kh uraz Bek, were the ac¬
tual rulers of the khanate), the Mangit were finally
overcome by the Kongrat and lost any political impor¬
tance in Kh w arazm. Since the beginning of the 19th
century, they have inhabited mainly a region to the
south of the Amu-Darya delta, where the town
Mangit was founded in 1215/1800 (see Mu-’nis, Fir-
daws al-ikbal, ms. cit., fol. 156b) on a canal of the same
name (Mangit-arna).

In Transoxania, the Mangits were much more
numerous and powerful than in Kh w arazm; their
main territory was the oasis of Karshi [q.v.], in the
Kashka-Darya basin, but a greater number of them
lived also in the oasis of Bukhara, as well as near
Samarkand and Katta-Kurghan. It is not clear,
whether they all were descendants of the Mangits who
came with Shavbam Kh an, or whether some of them
arrived later, as in Kh w arazm (and, probably,
through Kh w arazm), with the dissolution of the
Mangit ulus (cf. above). According to statistical data
of 1923, the total number of the Mangits in Transox¬
ania was 99,200 (of whom 44,000 were near Bukhara
and 31,000 in the region of Karshi), and in
Kh w arazm. 10,435. There seem to be no later data.

The Karakalpaks [q.v.] also include the Mangit as

one of their major tribal sub visions (see T.A.
Zhdanko, Ocerki istoriceskoy etnografii Karakalpakov,
Moscow-Leningrad 1950, 123-4; Dokumenli arkhiva
khivinskikh khanov po istorii i etnografii karakalpakov , ed.
Yu . Bregel, Moscow 1967, see index). This may go
back to the 15th- 16th centuries, when the
Karakalpaks were apparently included in the ulus of
the Mangit.

Bibliography : in addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text, see M.G. Safargaliyev, Raspad
Zolotoy Ordi, Saransk 1960, 225-31; M. Kafali, Altin
Orda Hanligimn kurulus ve yukselis devirleri, Istanbul
1976, 41-2, 132; A.D. Grebenkin, Uzbeki, in
Russkiy Turkestan. Sbornik izdanmy po povodu
Politekhniceskovy vistavki, i, Moscow 1872, 87-9;
Territoriya i naseleniyz Bukhari i Khorezma. Tashkent
1926, pt. 1. Bukhara ( Materiali po rayonirovaniyu
Sredney Azii, 1), 185-6; pt. 2. Khorezm (Materiali ...,
2), 98; G. P. Snesarev, in Khozyastvenno-kul’turniye
traditsii narodov Sredney Azii i Kazakhstana , Moscow
1975, 83. (Yu. Bregel)

MANGITS, a Turkish dynasty which
reigned in Bukhara [q.v. ] from 1166/1753 to
1339/1920.

It was founded by the chiefs of the Uzbek tribe
Mangit [q. t>.], which was dominant in the central
regions of Transoxania after the Uzbek conquest of
the 16th century. Khudayar Biy, the grandfather of
the founder of the dynasty Muhammad Rahim,
became an atalik [q.v. in Suppl.) in 1126/1714 under
the Djanid khan Abu ’1-Fayd ( TaMkh-i Abu ’ l-Fayd -
Khani, Russ. tr. A. A. Semenov, 3). His son Muham¬
mad Hakim Biy was appointed to the same post in
1134/1722 (ibid. , 67), and he became an all-powerful
minister of Abu ’1-Fayd Khan. He was instrumental
in securing the peaceful surrender of Abu ’1-Fayd
Khan to Nadir Shah in 1153/1740 and therefore en¬
joyed special favour of the latter, and began to style
himself amir-i kabir. His son Muhammad Rahim Biy
served as the head of a detachment of Bukharan
troops with the army of Nadir Shah. After the death
of Muhammad Hakim Atalik in 1156/1743 and the
subsequent disturbances in the country, Muhammad
Rahim was sent by Nadir Shah to Bukhara with Ira¬
nian troops to restore order. Having firmly estab¬
lished his authority in Bukhara, he ordered Abu
’1-Fayd Kh an to be killed several days after the
assassination of Nadir Shah in Mashhad in
1160/1747. During the first years of his actual rule, he
enthroned puppet khans (the first of whom, c Abd al-
Mu^min, the son of Abu ’1-Fayd, was killed as early
as 1161/1748), officially remaining only an atalik; but
after 1166/1753 he apparently reigned alone with the
same title, and in 1170/1756 he was proclaimed khan.
After his death in 1172/1758, his uncle and successor
Daniyal Biy Atalik (1172-99/1758-85; according to
some sources, the correct name was Daniyar; how¬
ever, the coins give Daniyal) again enthroned puppet
khans, grandsons of Abu ’1-Fayd. Only Daniyal’s son
Shah Murad (nicknamed “Amir-i Ma c sum”, 1199-
1215/1785-1800) finally deposed the Djanids and ac-
cended the throne himself. The latest known silver
coin with the name of the last Djanid khan Abu T
Ghazi is dated 1203/1788-9 (see Davidovi£, Istoriya
monetnogo dela, 51-2; Burnasheva, Moneti [I], 120).
However, Shah Murad did not adopt the title khan,
and instead of this called himself amir, as did all his
successors. Shah Murad ascribed this title even to his
father Daniyal on the coins which he minted in the
name of the latter. The implied meaning was that of
amir al-mu^minin (this title actually appears on the
coins of amir Haydar, 1215-42/1800-26), which had to

MANGITS — MANGU-TIMUR

419

show that the Mangit rulers considered themselves
Muslim kings par exellence and not continuators of
the nomadic state tradition.

A characteristic feature of Mangit rule was a sharp
decline of power of the Uzbek tribal chiefs, with a
parallel strengthening of the central government in
Bukhara. The Mangits could achieve this because of
the support which they received from the urban
population as well as because of the creation of a small
standing army. The tribal aristocracy was finally
smashed by the seventh ruler of the dynasty, Nasr
Allah (1242-77/1827-60), who in a relentless struggle
against the aristocratic clans killed many of their
members, including those of his own family, and well
deserved the nickname “the butcher amir ” ( amir-i
kassab). As a result, the Khanate of Bukhara became
a despotic monarchy, where the amir, enjoying prac¬
tically unlimited power, ruled through a huge
bureaucratic apparatus. Persons of a mean or at least
non-Uzbek origin (former Persians slaves, Turkmens,
etc.), tied to the sovereign by personal loyalty, held
the key positions in this bureaucracy.

Despite the incessant wars with their neighbours
and some military successes, the most important of
which were the conquest of Marw by Shah Murad in
1204/1789-90 and the temporary capture of Khokand
in 1258/1842, the Mangfts were unable to impose
their authority on all the territories which had been in¬
cluded into the Khanate of Bukhara under the
previous dynasties. The regions to the south of the
Amu-Darya in Afghan Turkestan were lost already
under Shah Murad, and Marw passed under the con¬
trol of Khlwa in 1238/1823; the principality of Shahr-i
Sabz remained independent, under hostile chiefs of
the Keneges tribe, until 1272/1855-6; the principality
of Ura-Tiibe was a bone of contention between
Bukhara and Khokand, but mostly was either in¬
dependent or under Khokand rule; and the mountain
principalities of the Pamir also remained mostly in¬
dependent until the Russian conquest.

Under Nasr Allah’s son, amir Muzaffar al-DTn
(1277-1302/1860-85), the Khanate of Bukhara was
defeated by the Russians and in 1285/1868 lost its in¬
dependence. Samarkand and its province were an¬
nexed by Russia; the amir was slightly compensated by
establishing, with Russian help, his firm control over
the mountainous regions in the upper Zarafshan
valley (1870); in 1895 principalities of the Western
Pamir were also annexed by Bukhara. The Mangits
retained their throne as the vassals of the Russian Em¬
pire. The last two amirs, c Abd al-Ahad (1303-28/1885-
1910) and Sayyid c Alim Khan (1328-39/1910-20),
maintained close relations with the imperial court in
St. Petersburg. They were granted Russian honorary
military ranks and high orders, were frequent visitors
to Russia and used to spend summer in their villa in
Crimea; the last amir was educated during his teens at
a Russian cadet corps in St. Petersburg. All this little
affected the character of their reign, which remained
no less despotic than that of their predecessors. c Alim
Kh an was deposed and the khanate was formally
abolished on 6 October 1920 as a_ result of a revolution
orchestrated by Soviet Russia. c Alim Khan fled to the
mountainous regions of Eastern Bukhara and from
there to Kabul (beginning of 1921), where he died in
1934; it is reported that his descendants were living in
Kabul in great misery (see B. Hayit, Turkestan zwischen
Russland und China , Amsterdam 1971, 258, n. 57).

Bibliography : For the historical works in Per¬
sian on the history of the Mangits, see Storey-
Bregel, 496-9, nos. 361-2, and 1150-82, nos. 1007-
41. On the coins of the Mangits, see V. V.

Vel’yaminov-Zernov, Moneti bukharskiye i khivinski-
ye , in Trudi Vostocnogo Otdeleniya Russkogo
Arkheologiceskogo Obshcestva . iv (St. Petersburg 1859),
409-27; E. A. Davidovif, Istoriya monetnogo dela
Sredney Azii XVH-XVIII vv. , Dushanbe 1964, 163-8,
176-97; R. Burnasheva, MonetiBukharskogo khanstva
pri Mangitakh (seredina XVIII - nacalo XX v.) in [III]
Epigrafika Vostoka , xviii (1967), 113-28, [I] ibid., xxi
(1972), 67-80. For the general history of the
Khanate of Bukhara under the Mangits, see V.V.
Bartol’d, Istoriya kuTturnoy zhizni Turkestana , in his,
Socineniya , ii/1, Moscow 1963, 278-83, 290-2, 400-
11, 416-33; P. P. Ivanov, Ocerki po istorii Sredney
Azii, Moscow 1958, 117-47; Istoriya narodou

Uzbekistana, ii, Tashkent 1947, 119-24, 162-8;
Istoriya Uzbekskoy SSR, i/2, Tashkent 1956, 32-41,
43-5, 47-9; Istoriya tadzhikskogo naroda , ii/2, Moscow
1964, 57-114; S. Becker, Russia's protectorates in Cen¬
tral Asia: Bukhara and Khiva . 1865-1924, Cambridge,
Mass. 1968 (all these with extensive
bibliographies). Also still useful is H.H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols, ii/2, London 1880, 765-816;
A. Vambery, History of Bokhara, is however out¬
dated and should not be used. For valuable infor¬
mation on the personalities of the last Mangit amirs,
court life and the administration of Bukhara in the
early 20th century, see A. A. Semenov, Ocerk
ustroystva tsentral' nogo administrativnogo upravleniya
Bukharskogo khanstva pozdneyshego vremeni {Materiah po
istorii tadzhikov i uzbekov Sredney Azii, ii), Stalinabad
1954, and M.S. Andreev and O. D. Cekhovic. Ark
(kremT) Bukhari v. kontse XIX - nacale XX vv.,
Dushanbe 1972 (esp. pp. 89-127: “The day of an
amir of Bukhara” - ). (Yu. Brecel)

MANGROL, the name of two places in India.

1. A port on the southwestern coast of the
Kathiawar peninsula, in lat. 21° 28' N. and long 70°
14’ E., formerly coming within the native state of
Djunagarh [q.v.) and with a Muslim local chief there
tributary to the Nawwab of Djunagarh; the mosque
there carries a date 785/1383.

Bibliography : Imperial gazetteer of India 2 , xvii,
180.

2. A town in the former British Indian territory of
Rajputana, within the native state of Kotah, in lat.
25° 20' N. and long. 70° 31' E. and 44 miles/70 km.
to the northeast of Kotah city. Here there took place
on 1 October 1821 the battle between two rival Rajput
powers, that of the Maharao Kishor Singh of Kotah
and that of the aged regent of Kotah, the fawdidar
[q.v.] Zalim Singh (1740-1826), the latter aided by
British troops, which resulted in a decisive victory for
Zalim Sing and the retreat of the Maharao to Baroda.

Bibliography : J. Tod, Annals and antiquities of
Rajast' han, Madras 1880, ii, 5-43; Imperial gazetteer
of India 2 , xviii, 180-1. (C.E. Bosworth)

MANGU-TIMUR (thus on his coins: Mong.
Mongke-Temiir, sometimes written also Mungka
(e.g. Rashid al-DTn, ed. Blochet, 109); in Russian an¬
nals Mengutimer and Mengutemer, called also Kuluk
“Glorious”, “Famous”), khan of the Golden
Horde (665-79/1267-80), grandson of the khan Batu
[q.v. ] and son of Tokukan (Toghon).

His predecessor Berke [q.v. ] died, according to al-
Dhahabi, in Rabl< II 665/30 Dec. 1266 - 27 Jan. 1267
(see Tiesenhausen, 210-2; other Egyptian sources
mention only the year). In Safar 666/Oct.-Nov.
1267), an embassy left Cairo which was to bring the
new khan an expression of sympathy and congratula¬
tions from Sultan Baybars I [q. v. ]. In 667/Sept. 1268-
Aug. 1269, an embassy from the khan arrived in
Egypt. The exchange of embassies was maintained

420

MANGU-TIMUR — MANI

throughout the whole of the khan’s reign. When in
670/1271-2 an embassy on the way to Egypt was cap¬
tured by a Frankish ship from Marseilles, the am¬
bassadors and all their goods had to be released on the
sultan’s demand. When in 680/April 1282 an Egyp¬
tian embassy left for the Golden Horde, nothing was
yet known of the death of the khan. Only later did
they learn that he was no more, having died in RabT c
I 679/July 1280 in the district of Aldukiya (apparently
nowhere else mentioned; cf. P. Pelliot, Notes , 62); his
death is said to have been caused by the unskilful
removal of a boil on the neck.

The Egyptian state tried to induce the khan to
resume the war against the Persian Mongols begun by
his predecessor Berke; but already in 667/1268-9
Mangu-TTmur concluded a peace with Abaka and
never again attacked Persia. At the same time,
Mangu-TTmur interfered in the affairs of Central
Asia, sending an army of 50,000 men under Berkecar,
a brother of Batu, to help his ally Kaydu against
Barak [q.vv.}\ as a result of the kuriltay of 667/1269 on
the Talas river under Kaydu, one-third of Transox-
ania (probably one-third of its income) was secured
for Kaydu and Mangu-TTmur together (Rashid al-
Dln, iii, ed. A. Ali-zade, Baku 1957, text, 108-11).
The alliance between Mangu-TTmur and Kaydu is
also mentioned later; when in 1277 two sons of the
emperor Kubilay Khan were taken prisoner in the
war with Kaydu; the latter had the princes sent to the
court of Mangu-TTmur, from which they were later
sent back to their father (Rashid al-DTn, ed. Blochet,
8 ; d’Ohsson, Hist, des Mongols de la Perse , ii, 452-3).

In Russia, Mangu-TTmur continued the policy of
his predecessor Berke. Under him a second census of
Russian population was taken in the 1270s for tax
purposes. The Russian princes of Rostov were close to
Mangu-TTmur and enjoyed his favour; prince Fedor
Rostislavovi£ of Yaroslavl 1 was married to his
daughter. In winter 1277, a great number of Russian
troops, especially those under the Rostov princes, par¬
ticipated in the Tatar campaign against the Alans
[q.v. ] in the northern Caucasus, during which the
Alan city of Dedvakov was captured and destroyed. In
1279 Lev of Galicia received assistance from Mangu-
TTmur against the Lithuanians and Poles, but the
Tatar auxiliaries proved a great burden not only to his
enemies, but also to their proteges. From Mangu-
TTmur dates the earliest extant edict of a khan of the
Golden Horde on the privileges of the Greek Or¬
thodox clergy; it is dated in the year of the hare (prob¬
ably 1267; see M.D. Priselkov, Khanskiye yartiki
russkim mitropolitam, Petrograd 1916, 58-9, 83-5, 96-
8 ). The Bishop of Saray, Theognostes, was sent by
Mangu-TTmur as an ambassador to Constantinople in
1279. This was probably done to counterbalance the
growing influence and involvement in Byzantine and
Russian affairs of Mangu-TTmur’s army commander
and the chief of the Tatar tribes of the right wing, amir
Nokay [q.v.], who became all-powerful after the
khan’s death. However, under Mangu-TTmur, in
contrast to the last two decades of the 13th century,
the Golden Horde was a great power, free from inter¬
nal troubles. Coins were still struck mainly in the old
commercial city of Bulghar [q.v.] and some also in
Crimea, but, unlike those of his predecessors, in his
own name and not in that of the Great Khan. On his
coins, the seal ( tamgha ) of the Golden Horde appears
for the first time.

Mangu-TTmur apparently did not embrace Islam as
his predecessor Berke had done, despite the facts that
Islamic formulae were used on his coins and that some
Egyptian historians praised him for “having followed

the path” of Berke. On his attitude towards Islam
there seems to be no direct evidence; a story is told,
however, about his attempt to make the Saldjuk
prince of Rum Mas c ud marry his stepmother upon
the death of his father c Izz al-DTn Kay-Kawus, ac¬
cording to the Mongol customary law and in con¬
tradiction to the Sharia.

Bibliography : H. Ho worth, History of the
Mongols , London 1880, ii, 125-34; J. Hammer-
Purgstali, Geschichte der Goldenen Horde , Pesth 1840,
248-59; B. Spuler, Die Goldene Horde 2 , Wiesbaden
1965, 52-63; A.N. Nasonov, Mongoli i Rus\ Mos-
cow-Leningrad 1940, 47, 60-8; M. G.

Safargaliyev, Raspad Zolotoy Ordi, Saransk 1960, 52-
5; M. Kafali, Altin Orda Hanligimn kurulus veyiikselis
devirleri , Istanbul 1976, 59-62. All of these works
contain further references to primary sources. For
the Egyptian references, see esp. W. Tiesenhausen,
Sbornik materialov otnosya shcikhsya k istorii Zolotoy Ordi,
i, St. Petersburg 1884. On the correct forms of the
name and the nickname of Mangu-TTmur, see P.
Pelliot, Notes sur Vhistone de la Horde d’Or, Paris
1949, 58-62. (W. Barthold - [Yu. Bregel])

MANI ( <a. ma c na), a form of Turkish
popular poetry.

The mani is, most usually, a piece of poetry made
up of heptasyllabic verses rhymed on the pattern a a
b a; each quatrain may be sufficient to fulfil a certain
function or to transmit a certain message. This norm
of a self-sufficient unity, as well as those in regard to
the ordering of the rhymes, the number of verses and
the metre, does not impose an absolutely watertight
rule. The use of the mani , in certain circumstances, to
form a song in dialogue shape (see below) can give it
a polystrophic nature. Moreover, a considerable
number of folk songs—which are not in dialogue
shape—as well as certain lullabies (the ninnis of
Anatolia and the lay-lays of Adharbaydjan) are made
up of a stringing-together of mdnis, with however the
adding of refrains which provide a thematic unity and
give them their generic character. There are also
mdnis rhymed b ac a, notably those of the northeastern
littoral of Anatolia. In the texts of certain poems, the
first verse is shortened to 3 or 4 syllables (words which
simply set forth the rhyme) or disappears completely;
the piece thus reduced to the schema aba is called kesik
mani “truncated mani', a form which is found most
frequently in the mdnis with djinas, i.e. in the pieces
which play upon the rhyme words of the second and
fourth verses. There are also cases where the quatrain
is made longer by means of several distichs in a a b a
c a ... or in b a c a d a ... A kind of mani, sung by
nightwatchmen at the time of their rounds from door-
to-door during the nights of Ramadan, is octosyllabic.
This form, with its variant in b a c a, is also that of an¬
other genre of popular poetry, the aghits (funeral
dirges) of the peoples of Avshar origin in central and
southern Anatolia.

The term mani is used to denote this form and these
poetical genres in Anatolia, amongst the Turkish¬
speaking Balkan peoples, amongst the Crimean
Tatars, in Adharbaydjan and amongst the Gagaouz of
Bessarabia, sometimes with variant forms: in
Anatolia, mana at Denizli and ma c ani at Urfa; in
Adharbaydjan. mahni ; and in the Crimea, mane. Other
terms are also used to denote poetic pieces with the
same thematic and formal characteristics: bayati in the
two parts of Adharbaydjan and in the Adharl-
influenced provinces of easter Anatolia; khoyrat at Urfa
and Diyarbakir; djir amongst the Crimean and Kazan
Tatars; and cin amongst the Misher.

On the basis of their themes and the circumstances

MANI — MANSA MUSA

421

in which they are cited or sung, mdnis can be classified
as follows:

(1) Mdnis about foretelling the future and divina¬
tion recited at the festival of hidrellez [see khidr-ilyas],
on the occasion of other festivities and on winter even¬
ings by womenfolk;

(2) Work manis recited by women in the course of
communal activities, such as the preparation of provi¬
sions for the winter, fruit-gathering, hay-making, etc.
On the occasion of the latter two types of activity,
mdnis are adressed to passers-by, who are required to
reply in the same fashion in order to avoid mockery
by the womenfolk;

(3) Declamatory mdnis , sung by boys and girls at
the time of certain festivals and excursions into the
countryside;

(4) Mdnis of the watchmen of town quarters sung
during the nights of Ramadan;

(5) Mdnis of certain itinerant sellers of sweetmeats
and delicacies who sing out to announce their ap¬
pearance in the streets;

(6) Mdnis of cafe singers in the tradition of old
Istanbul;

(7) Mdnis of letters, inserted as sentimental
messages in letters exchanged between relatives,
friends or couples; and

(8) Manis of certain c ashtks [q.v.] or reciters and
story-tellers, which they improvise and insert between
the strophes of the poems which make up the sung
part of their prose narratives (see P.N. Boratav, Halk
hikayeleri ve halk hikayeciligi , Ankara 1946, 239-42,
291).

Concerning the origin of the mani , one may suggest
as a hypothesis an adaption of the model of the rubd-
c f to the heptasyllabic and octosyllabic metres peculiar
to the Turkish languages; a first stage in this process
of adaptation of would be the tuyugh , another type of
quatrain peculiar to Turkish classical poetry, com¬
posed in the c arud metre and rhymed according to the
same schema as the rubd c i and mani.

Bibliography : For publication up to 1964, sec
Boratav, Litterature orale, in PTF, ii, Wiesbaden
1964-5, 107-13, 126-7; idem, art. Mani in IA. For
more recent publications, see Hikmet Dizdaroglu,
Halk siirinde turler, Ankara 1969, 51-68; S. DjawTd,
Nomonaha-ye folklor-e Azarbaydjan, Tehran
1344/1965, 14-21; ismail Hakki Acar, Zarajolkloru ,
Sivas 1975, 47-55 (83 mani texts); Ferruh Arsunar,
Gaziantep folklor u, Istanbul 1962, 302-13 (131 texts);
M. Hasan Goksu, Manilerimiz , Istanbul 1970
(2,796 texts); Hayriye Suleymanova and Emil
Boef, Rodop manileri , Sofia, 1st ed. 1962, 2nd ed.
1965 (2,000 texts classified in themes); Ata Ter-
zibasi, Kerkiik hoyrat ve manileri, Istanbul 1975 (2,490
texts). For the subject in general, studies and collec¬
tions of texts, see also the following bibliographical
works: Turk folklor ve etnograjya bibliyografyasi , i-iii,
Ankara 1971, 1973, 1975; East Bozyigit, Mam
iizerine bir bibliyografya denemesi, in Turk folklor arastir-
malan , no. 264 (July 1971); Tuncer Gulensoy,
Anadolu ve Rumeli agizlan bibliyografyasi , Ankara
1981._ (P.N. Boratav)

MANI b. Fattik or Fatik, the form found in
mediaeval Islamic sources (e.g. al-Mas c udI, Murudf, ii
164, 167-8, vii, 12-16, viii, 293, = §§ 589, 594, 2705-
7, 3447) for the founder of the dualist
religion of Manichaeism, Mani son of Patik,
born in southern Mesopotamia in 216 A.D. and mar¬
tyred under the Sasanid Bahram I in 274, 276 or 277,
and whose faith spread from the Persian empire in the
7th century as far as Central Asia, eastern Turkestan
(where after 762 it was the chief religion of the

Uyghur Turks ]) and northern China. In Islamic
sources, the adherents of Manichaeism appear as the
Mananiyya (Manawiyya), as in the important section
on them in al-Nadim’s Fihrist , ed. Rida Tadjaddud,
Tehran 1350/1971, 391-402, tr. Dodge, ii, 773-805,
and in al-Kh w arazmI’s Mafatifi al- c ulum , 37, where
both forms are however registered.

Although Manichaeism was in the early Islamic
centuries largely pushed into Central Asia (thus the
Hududal- c alam, tr. Minorsky, 113, § 113.25, mentions
a “convent of the Manichaeans”, khanagah-i Mdna-
wiyan , in Samarkand in 982, with nighushak or
auditores ) and beyond, it had an important part in the
general phenomenon of zandaka “heresy, unbelief’ in
early c Abbasid c Irak; for a general consideration of
this, see zindIk, and meanwhile, Spuler, Iran, 206-9.

Bibliography : Older references are given by
Spuler, op. cil. Of more recent ones, see G.
Widengren, Mani und der Manichdismus , Stuttgart
1961, Eng. tr. Mani and Manichaeism, London 1965;
Mary Boyce, H. der 0., Abt. 1, Bd. 4. Iranistik,
Abschn. 2. Literatur, Lief. 1, The Manichaean
literature in Middle Iranian, Leiden-Cologne 1968,
eadem, Acta Iranica IX. A reader in Manichaean Middle
Persian and Parthian, Leiden 1975, Introd., 1-14; W.
Foerster, Die Gnosis. III. Der Manichdismus, ed. J. P.
Asmussen, tr. A. Bohlig, Zurich-Munich 1980.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MAN ISA [ see maghnisa].

MANOHAR, Manohargarh, a fortress on a
lofty rock, some 2,500 feet/770 m. high, in lat. 16° N.
and long. 74° 1' E., in the Western Ghats range of
peninsular India. Formerly in the southernmost part
of the British Indian province of Bombay, it is now
just within the southwestern corner of the
Maharashtra state of the Indian Union.

Bibliography : Imperial gazetteer of India 2 , xvii,

200. (Ed.)

MANSA MUSA, king (mansa) of Mali
(712-38/1312-37).

He was apparently the grandson of Abu Bakr
(Manding Bori), who was the brother of Marl Jata
(Sunjata), the legendary hero credited with the
establishment of Mali in the 14th century | q.v.] as a
powerful empire. Mansa Musa reigned at the pin¬
nacle of Mali’s prosperity, and is remembered in the
Arabic sources as a pious and virtuous sovereign.
Following the example of several earlier Malian
rulers, and having appointed his son Magha
(Muhammad) to rule in his absence, he made a
pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 that made a profound
impression on the Egyptians and was chronicled by
Arab writers. According to the 17th-century Tim¬
buktu chronicles Ta^rikh al-Sudan and Ta^rlkh al-
Fattash, whose authors relied extensively on oral
sources, Mansa Musa was accompanied by an en¬
tourage of thousands, including his favourite wife, In-
ari Konte, and he travelled via Timbuktu, where he
caused to be built one of several mosques constructed
during his journey. In Cairo, he flooded the market
with so much gold that its value fell throughout Egypt.
One of al- c UmarT’s informants, Ibn Amir Ha<Jjib,
was often in the company of Mansa Musa when he
was in Egypt, and among the things told him him by
Mansa Musa himself was that he came to power when
his predecessor (Muhammad, of a different branch of
the same family) appointed him deputy before leaving
on a seafaring expedition, from which he never
returned, to discover the limits of the Atlantic Ocean.
While on pilgrimage, Mansa Musa also met the An¬
dalusian poet and architect Abu Ishak Ibrahim al-
Sahill, who accompanied him back to Mali where, ac-

422

MANSA MUSA — MANSAB and MANSABDAR

cording to Ibn Khaldun’s friend Khadldja. Abu Ishak
constructed for the mansa an elaborately decorated
domed building that may have been the first of its
kind in that country. Also accompanying Mansa
Musa were four shurafa 3 from Kuraysh who settled in
Mali with their families. Upon his return, Mansa
Musa continued his policy of diplomatically further¬
ing the interests of Mali in the greater Islamic world
by corresponding with the sultan at Cairo, sending
‘ulama’ to study in Fas, and exchanging embassies and
gifts with the Marlnid ruler of the Ma gh rib. Abu ’1-
Hasan. AKUmarT claims that Mansa Musa had
returned to Mali from his pilgrimage with the inten¬
tion of handing over his sovereignty to his son and
returning to Mecca to live near the sanctuary; but he
died before he could carry out his plan.

Viewed from the local African perspective, Mansa
Musa and his pilgrimage engendered a western
Sudanic oral tradition, the hero of which is Makanta
Jigi (Fajigi), “Father of hope who went to Mecca”.
As an oral record of the local Sudanic interpretation
placed on Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage by his subjects
and their descendants, the Fajigi legend reveals at¬
titudes that helped make it possible for an accom¬
modation between indigenous religious practices and
Islam to be achieved. The basic narrative line of the
legendary oral account tells how Mansa Musa/Fajigi
was motivated to make the pilgrimage because he was
responsible for a regrettable incident involving his
mother Gongo (Kankan), possibly resulting in her
death. Making a pilgrimage to Mecca, he acquires the
most important of the spiritually powerful altars
(boliw) used in traditional Manding religious ritual,
including those of the prestigious Komo society. As
Fajigi returns through the land of the Manding, he
distributes some of the altars, as well as various po¬
tions and amulets to people who help him. When he
reaches the rivers of Mali, he uses a magic canoe to
transport the altars. The canoe encounters rough
waters and some of the cargo falls into the water,
where it is transformed into several life forms such as
fish and scorpions. On arriving home, the location of
which varies according to the informant, the canoe
sinks to the bottom of a lake or river where it remains
to this day, itself a powerful altar that receives
periodic offerings. The most significant feature of this
legend is the paradoxical claim that the mansa most
famous for his devotion to Islam was at the same time
the one who provided his subjects with the essential
paraphernalia of the ancestral non-Islamic Manding
religion. Thus, from the traditional non-Muslim
point of view, Mansa Musa and his pilgrimage
emerge, not as examples of faithful Islamic endeavour
and early Sudanic statesmanship, but as the source of
an oral narrative that provided a framework on which
descendants of the mansa' s subjects based their claim
that certain features of their autochthonous religion
were rooted in the same soil that nurtured the founda¬
tions of Islam.

Bibliography : c Uman, Masalik al-absar (writ¬
ten Cairo 737 or 738/1337-8), French tr.
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, L’Afrique moins TEgypte ,
Paris 1927; Ibn Battuta, Rihla (written Fas
757/1356); Ibn Khaldun, Kitab al-Tbar (written
776-80/1374-8, but information about Mali
recorded in 796/1393-4, partially ed. de Slane as
Kitab Ta^rikh al-duwal al-islamiyya bi 'l-M agh rib, 2
vols. Algiers 1847-51, 7 vols. Cairo 1867, tr. idem,
Histoire des Berberes, 4 vols. Paris 1852-6; al-Sa c di,
Ta^rikh al-Suddn (written Timbuktu ca. 1655), Arab
text and French tr. O. Houdas, Paris 1911, repr.
1964; Ibn al-Mukhtar, Ta\ikh al-Fattash (written

Timbuktu ca. 1664), Arab text and French tr.
Houdas and M. Delafosse, Paris 1913, repr. 1964;
N. Levtzion, The thirteenth- andfourteenth-century kings
of Mali, in Jnal. of African History (1963); idem, An¬
cient Ghana and Mali, London 1973; J.M. Cuoq, ed.
and tr. Recueil des sources arabes concernant I’Afrique oc-
cidentale du VIlie au XVIe siecle (Bilad al-Sudan), Paris
1975; J. F. P. Hopkins and Levtzion, ed. and tr.
Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history ,
Cambridge 1981; arts. Mali, mande.

(D.C. Conrad)

MANSAB and MANSABDAR, terms of the
military system of the Mughals in India.

The Mughal empire possessed a graded official
hierarchy of officers with military and civil duties.
The emperor, his dlwan or other high officials,
assigned to each officer a rank or mansab. The holder
of this rank was termed a mansabdar. Personal or dhat
rank was expressed numerically in even-numbered
decimal increments. Ranks could vary from as low as
20 dhat to a maximum of 7,000 dhat for the highest
nobles (amirs). Princes of the blood held dhat ranks as
high as 20,000 dhat when they reached maturity. The
emperor, or a high-ranking noble acting with the
emperor’s approval, raised or lowered all dhat ranks
on the basis of perceived performance as well as
favour at court. Dhat determined the mansabdar ’s
relative status and his pay. Personal rank also set ap¬
proximate limits upon official assignments, honorific
titles and influence. Those five or six hundred mansab-
dars who, in the mid-1J th/ 17th century held dhat rank
of 1,000 or above, were officially classified as nobles
or amirs. This small group comprised the ruling elite
of the empire. Usually, lesser-ranked mansabdars
served as subordinates to one of the amirs.

A second numerical ranking system existed along¬
side that of dhat ranks. Mansabdars could simultane¬
ously hold trooper or suwar ranks. The latter was
expressed in multiples of five from as low as five to as
much as 7,000 suwar. Those mansabdars receiving
suwar rank received extra pay. In return, they were
obliged to recruit, command and pay a body of heavy
cavalry acceptable to imperial standards. The actual
number of horsemen brought to the muster in a man-
sabdar’s contingent was not equal to the nominal suwar
rank, but was instead a fraction determined by a com¬
plex series of imperial regulations. All cavalrymen
employed by mansabdars to meet suwar rank obliga¬
tions were subject to periodic inspection and iden¬
tification. Cavalrymen were identified in muster rolls
by name and physical appearance; horses by descrip¬
tion and imperial brands. Special du-asbah suwar rank
obliged the mansabdar to employ men bring two, rather
than merely one mount to the muster [see further
dagh u tashiha in Suppl.].

Most mansabdars obtained payment for their fixed
dhat and suwar ranks in the form of salary assignments
known as djagirs [^.y.]. Under this arrangement, the
empire transferred to the mansabdar the right of collec¬
tion of its share of the land tax from a specified
area—a village or portion thereof; or a pargana [q. v. ]
or portion thereof—in an amount equivalent to his
pay claim. Assignment of a djagir ordinarily did not
carry with it any administrative rights or respon¬
sibilities in the area assigned. Many lesser-ranked
mansabdars were paid directly in cash from the provin¬
cial or central treasuries.

The mansabdari system formally expressed the
uniformity and cohesiveness and discipline of the
Mu gh al administrative and military elites. Mansabdars
were the instruments of imperial unification and ex¬
pansion. The honorific ranking system tied all the

MANSAB and MAN$ABDAR — MANSHUR

423

nobles and lesser mansabdars to the person and the
preference of the emperor. All advancement (and
punishment) came directly from the throne. Thus the
loyalty of the mansabdars was bound to the house of
Babur alone. But mansabdars were also bound by es¬
tablished policies, by precedent, and by written
regulations in their conduct of official business.

It is important to note that another body of middl¬
ing and lesser officers also served the empire without
benefit of mansabdari status or rank. Many private
servants of the amirs employed within the massive
households and military camps of their masters held
responsible positions. Some were slaves; many were
free Muslims or Hindu officers in private employ. Ac¬
ting under the supervision of their master—an amir —
and the mansabdars attached to him, these men per¬
formed the essential functions of imperial administra¬
tion and military service. It is difficult to estimate
their numbers, but they must have been at least as
numerous as the lesser and middle-ranking man-
sabdars.

Between 1119/1707 and 1136/1724 discipline and
the integrity of the mansabdari system began to
detoriorate. Ranks rapidly became inflated and, if not
meaningless, were very much distorted. By the late
12th/18th century, the mansabdari ranks so freely given
or so readily coerced from the Mughal emperor were
merely a travesty of what they had once implied.

Bibliography : It is not possible to find a truly
useful or synoptic account of the mansabdari system
in the original sources apart from the passages in
the AHn-i Akbari. But these last do not reflect the
growth and change of the institution in the
11th/17th century. The student may see the work¬
ing of the ranking system and the active role of the
emperor in such works as the memoirs of
Djahanglr, the Tuzuk-i Diahangiri. tr. A. Rogers,
ed. H. Beveridge, DihlT 1909-14, 2nd ed. DihlT
1968. For a similar impression later in the century,
see the Ma^athir-i c Alamgirt of Musta c id Khan, ed.
MaulawT Agha Ahmad c All, Bibliotheca Indica no.
66 , Calcutta 1870-3, Eng. tr. Jadunath Sarkar,
Bibliotheca Indica no. 269, Calcutta 1947. Those
large archival collections of Mughal documents
which have survived are filled with references to
promotions, demotions, transfers and djdgir
assignments for mansabdars. Any official reference
to an individual mansabdar invariably appended his
numerical dhat and suwar rank. See Yusuf Husain
Khan, ed., Selected documents of Aurangzeb’s reign,
1659-1706, Hyderabad-Deccan 1958, for a sampl¬
ing of these documents. The indispensable modern
discussion of the mansabdari system, although
focussed on the nobility, is M. Athar Ali, The
Mughal nobility under Aurangzeb , Aligarh 1966. An¬
other systematic description may be found in I. H.
Qureshi, The administration of the Mughal empire,
Karachi 1966. For a discussion of the role of man-
sabdars in a particular province, see J. F. Richards,
Mughal administration in Golconda, Oxford 1975.

(J. F. Richards)

MAN SH UR (a.) means literally “spread out” (as
in Kurban, XVII, 14, and LII,3: opposite, matwi
“folded”), or “not sealed” (opposite, makhtum ) hence
it comes to mean a certificate, an edict, a
diploma of appointment, and particularly, a pa¬
tent granting an appanage (pi. manashir).

In Egypt in the early Arab period, manshur seems to
be a name for the passes which the government com¬
pelled the fellahin to have in order to check the flight
of colonists from the land, which threatened to
become overwhelming {djaliya). In any case, in the

Fiihrer durch die Ausstellung {Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer ),
no. 631 (cf. also nos. 601-2), such a certificate of the
year 180/796 is called a manshur, and in al-MakrizT,
Khitat, ii, 493, we are told of the period of the financial
controller Usama b. Zayd al-Tanukhl (104/722-3)
that Christians who were found without identification
papers {manshur) had to pay 10 dinars fine (cf. Becker,
Beitrdge zur Gesch. Agyptens, 104). In the texts of such
passports themselves (cf. Becker, Papyr. Schott-
Reinhardt, i, 40, 1.1) however, we have, so far as I can
see, not the word manshur but only kitab.

Manshur seems also to have a quite general meaning
of “pass”, when we are told in al-KalkashandT, Subh
al-a c sha :> , xiii, 142, that it was written on an c Abbasid
grant of a fief dating from the year 373/983-4) that no
one could demand for the holder that he should show
a hu didia or a tawkf or a manshur.

The Egyptian Fatimids usually called all state
documents, appointments, etc., by the general term
sidpill, but they had also special terms for partcular
diplomas of appointment, including manshurs.

Thus among the examples of Fatimid documents
given by al-KalkashandT, x, 452-66, there are several
which in their texts are described as manshurs. Among
these are for example, appointments to the supervi¬
sion of inheritants {musharafat al-mawarith al-hashriyya ),
of the poll-tax {musharafat al-djawalx), to a professorship
{tadris), etc. A grant of an appanage could also be
called manshur at this time, as in al-KalkashandT, xiii,
131 (see ibn khalaf, in Suppl.] from the Fatimid
Mawadd al-bayan of C A1T b. Khalaf; and the regulation
that the manashir must not have an address { c unwan)
and that in place of this, the head of the Diwan must
write the date with his own hand, seems to be first
found in Ibn al-Sayrafr, Kanun Diwan al-Rasa^il, 113
= al-KalkashandT, vi, 198.

Under the Ayyubids also, manshur had quite a
general meaning. Thus in ibid ., xi, 49 f., a “marshall
of the nobles” {nakib al-ashraf) is appointed by a
manshur, and in 51 ff., governors {wulat) of different
provinces. In the text of it, the name manshur is given
to the edict on the equation of taxation and lunar
years {tahwil al-sinin) which is quoted from the
Mutadjaddidat of the Kadi al-Fadil for the year
567/1171-2) in al-MakrizT, i, 281, ed. Wiet, iv, 292
(cf. also al-KalkashandT, xiii, 72 ff.), and according to
a further quotation, for the year 584/1188 (al-
MakrTzT, i, 269 = Wiet, iv, 248) the so-called “lord
of the new year” {amir al-nawruz ) issued his manashir.

The term manshur became limited and specialised in
the Mamluk period, for which we have very full
sources. The increasingly complicated system of the
administration brought a minute distinction between
and special names for the various diplomas of ap¬
pointment, edicts, etc., and the term manshur was
henceforth used exclusively of the grants of ap¬
panages. These manashir were always written in Cairo
in the chancellery {diwan al-insha 5 ) in the name of the
sultan; only in exceptional cases might they be in the
name of the al-na^ib al-kafil (see al-KalkashandT. iv,
16; xiii, 157). According to the very full description in
al-KalkashandT, xiii, 153 ff., and al-MakrTzT, ii, 211,
the procedure in granting a fief was as follows: if a fief
became vacant {mahlul) in a provincial town, e.g. in
Damascus, the governor there {na^ib) proposed a new
holder and had a document {ruk c a, also called mithal or
murabba c a) drawn up about his proposal by the inspec¬
tor of the army {nazir al-diaysh; cf. al-KalkashandT, iv,
190; xii, 97) in the military Diwan {diwan al-djaysh) of
his town. This document was then sent by courier
{baridi) or pigeon post { c ala adjnihat al-hamam) to the
government {al-abwab al-sharifa ) in Cairo. Here it was

424

MANSHUR — MANSUR

♦

received by the postmaster ( dawdddr ), later by the
private secretary (katib al-sirr = sahib diwan al-insha -*)
who placed it before the sultan in audience ( druids fi
dar al-^adt) for approval, receive the sultan’s signature
(khatt sharif) and the note yuktab (“let it be written
out”; see al-Kalkashandl, iv, 51). The document then
went to the Military Diwan in Cairo ( diwan al-dfaysh,
occasionally also called diwan al-iktd°), where it was
filed, after what was called the murabba^a had been
made out. The latter was sent to the diwan al-insha D ,
and the private secretary, the head of this Diwan,
wrote his requisition ( ta c yin ) for the inshd 3 writer con¬
cerned; now finally the patent of the appanage
(manshur ) proper could be made out in the diwan al-
insha* in Cairo, while the murabba^a of the army Diwan
remained filed in the diwan al-insha* as shahid (proof)
(cf. al-Kalkashandl, vi, 201).

Full particulars are given of the formulae used in
these mandshir and of their external form in Shihab al-
Dln b. Fadl Allah, al-Ta Q rif bi’l-mustalah al-sharif , 88 f.;
al-Kalkashandi, xiii, 153 ff., and Quatremere,
Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks de TEgypt, i/1, 200 f., n.
82. There are many variants of format (kat c [ q.v . ]) and
script according to the military rank of the recipient.
Thus mandshir for the mukaddamu ’l-uluf were written
on kat c al-thulthayn , for the umara* al-tablkhana on kat c al-
nisf , for the umara* al- c asharat on kat c al-thulth and for
the mamalik al-sultaniyya and mukaddamu ’l-halka on kat c
al-^ada. Many rules were laid down for the wording to
be used; the text is to be shorter and less florid than
in the other appointments and there are none of the
usual rules about service (wasdya)', an original
“virgin” ( mubtakarat al-insha *) is recommended as the
finest form of a manshur. Special formulae are further
required for grants of appanages which were con¬
cerned with renewal ( tadjdiddt ), addition (ziyadat) or
substitution (ta c widat). A regular signature of the
sultan, such as is usual on appointments as confirma¬
tion (muslanad), is not found on the mandshir-, instead
of this, the sultan writes formulae like “God is my
hope” ( Allah amali ), “God is my protector” (Allah
waliyyi), “God is sufficient for me” (Allah hasbi ), “To
God belongs the rule” (al-mulk li ’Hah), or “God alone
has grace” (al-minna li ’llahi wahdahu).

Occasionally, the mandshir for the highest ranks
(mukaddamu ’l-uluf and mukaddamu ’ l-tablkhana ) had a
tughra [q. v. ] at the top. The tughras were prepared by
a special official beforehand and gummed on to the
finished diplomas. In al-Kalkashandl, xiii, 165 f., the
tughras of al-Nasir Muhammad b. Kalawun (693-741
with interruptions) and Ashraf Sha c ban b. Husayn
(764-78) are reproduced and described; they differ
considerably from the better-known form of the tughra
of the Ottoman sultans. After Ashraf Sha c ban. tughras
were no longer used on the mandshir, these were only
used for purposes of representation on letters to infidel
rulers.

The completed manshur was then again taken back
by a courier from Cairo to the town concerned, e.g.
Damascus, and handed over to the tenant of the
appanage. The inspector of the army there (nazir al-
djaysh), however, first entered it in his register, for he
had to keep a roll of the holders of fiefs in his province.
Al-Kalkashandl, xiii, 167-99, gives as examples of
mandshir no fewer than 26 texts, beginning with one
drawn up by Muhyl ’l-DTn b. c Abd al-Zahir in the
reign of Kalawun for the latter’s son al-Nasir
Muhammad, which for its remarkable beauty he calls
a regular sultan al-manashir. The other texts are of the
above-mentioned military ranks, as well as for sons of
amirs (awlad al-umara' 3 ) and for amirs of the Arabs,
Turkomans and Kurds.

In the Ottoman Empire, certain patents of appoint¬

ment were called menshur. The menshurs for a vizier,
beylerbeyi and sandjakbeyi were issued by the Grand
Vizier (sadr-i a c zam). But they were also written for the
Ser : asker, Bahreyn hakimi, the mufti , and even for Chris¬
tian patriarchs and bishops. All menshurs were con¬
trolled and if necessary corrected by the chancellor
(nishandji) and registered in the menshur defteri of the
Diwdn-i humayun.

In Persia, many documents, of a great diversity of
subject matter, were called manshur, sometimes with
additions as manshur-i taklid or manshur-i tafwid. In
modern Lahore, Pakistan, the Manshurat-i Ikbal are
edited by the Bazm-i Ikbal.

In modern Egypt, edicts of the government are
called manshur, cf. some texts in Ma c ri(i al-khutut al-
c arabiyya , 1912, nos. 44, 69, 76, 78, 79, and Takwim,
1937, 278, madjmu c at kararat wa-manshurat al-hukuma al-
misriyya, and 279, madjmu c at al-kawanin wa ’l-kararat
wa ’ l-manshurat al-khassa bi-tasdjil al- c ukud. In many
Arabic states, serial publications now are called
manshurat. In conclusion, it may be mentioned that
manshur in mathematical language means “prism”
(varieties: e.g. M. ma^il “oblique prism”, M. kaHm
“straight prism”, M. mutawazi ’l-adtd c “parallel
prism”, M. muntazam “regular prism”, M. muthallathi
“triangular prism”, M. nakis “truncated prism”),
and that in the language of the Persian poets, the
nightingales are called “the manshur-writers of the
garden” (manshur-niwisan-i bagh).

Bibliography : In addition to the passages
quoted, cf. Ibn Shith, Ma^alim al-kitaba , 43; Khalil
al-Zahiri, Zubdat kashf al-mamalik, 100, 102; M.
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie a repoque des
Mamlouks, index; W. Bjorkman, Beitrage zur
Geschichte der Staatskanzlei im islamischen Agypten, in¬
dex 1; i.H. Uzungarsih, Osmanli devletinin saray
teskilati, Ankara 1945, 285; idem, Osmanli devletinin
merkez ve bahriye teskilati, Ankara 1948, 180; J.
Reychinan and A. Zajaczkowski, Handbook of Ot¬
toman Turkish diplomatics, The Hague 1968, 137,
140; H. R. Roemer, Staatsschreiben der Timuridenzeit,
Wiesbaden 1952, 35, 47. (W. Bjorkman)

MANSUKH [see nasikh).

MANSUR, miniature painter of the Mu gh al
period in India.

Mansur had a highly successful career of at least 45
years in the Mughal studio, achieving the distinction
of being the only artist who made his reputation by
nature painting. His progress is interesting as he was
one of few painters whose fortune was improved by
changes in the atelier when the amateur naturalist and
aesthete Djahanglr (1014-37/1605-27 [< 7 . v. ]) suc¬
ceeded his father Akbar [q.v.] as emperor. His evolu¬
tion demonstrates the fact that the Mughal artist was
moulded by his patron’s requests, since the painter’s
earlier work shows he had a proclivity for rendering
animals or plants; however, although his talent was
apparently known, as this type of subject matter was
relatively undeveloped in the 10th/16th century, his
ability was without particular significance. Djahanglr
made animal portraiture one of his primary interests
and because he had a strong scientific curiosity, he
demanded realistic renderings of a very high standard
from his artists. Around the time of his accession, it
appears from the number of animal portraits signed
by other artists that the emperor widely awarded such
commissions, but after a few years Mansur seems to
have been singled out consistently. The painter had to
deal particularly with exotic specimens of animals,
birds or flowers brought to Djahanglr’s attention in
the course of extensive travels or through embassies
and presentations.

Although nothing is known of the painter’s origins,

MANSUR

425

Mansur was working in Akbar’s studio by about
988/1580, when he co-operated as a colourist for
many natural history vignettes from the now
dispersed earliest Babur-nama manuscript (E. Smart,
Paintings from the Baburnama , Ph.D. diss., London
University 1977, 327). Since his last dated painting is
a work of 1033/1624 (see A. Das, Ustad Mansur , in
Lalit Kala , xvii), it can be ascertained that Mansur
was probably one of those recruits who began grin¬
ding pigments and colouring designs during his
teenage years. The memoirs of the Mughal dynasty’s
founder Babur [<?.n.] that record the strange flora and
fauna of his adopted country were among the few
early outlets for Mansur’s talent; he definitely con¬
tributed to three of the four copies of this manuscript
and probably also to the remaining volume (now in
Baltimore and Moscow) which no longer has artist at¬
tributions (Smart, loc. cit.). Mansur’s greatest
achievement for the 10th/16th century Mughal manu¬
scripts is the colouring of a scene filled with animals
which shows Akbar hunting in a kamarg ; this is one of
the most spirited miniatures in the Akbar-nama manu¬
script (998-1003/1590-5), intended to be a uniquely
powerful and impressive volume glorifying the
dynastic position of the reigning sovereign. Although
Mansur did not produce the design, much of the
painting’s impact can be attributed to him and in¬
dicates that he may have attracted some attention in
the studio by this time.

The animal paintings of the four Babur-namas are
quite precise, but the challenge of anatomical studies
on a small scale was perhaps not significant; a larger
picture done about 998/1590 of two birds (rosy
pastors, sturnus roseus Linnaeus) arranged in front of
an imaginary landscape shows the limitations of
AkbarF naturalism (E. Kiihnel and H. Goetz, Indian
book painting , London 1926, pi. 10). It is clear that in
this period Mansur uneasily applied flesh and feathers
over a lumpish inner structure without the kind of
anatomical knowledge that he had derived from
observation of European paintings by about 1021/
1612. Mansur was not a draughtsman; he acquired
modelling skills with more difficulty than some other
artists, and throughout his career there are indications
in his work that he was forced to master formulae con¬
cerning structure. He does produce a few free and im¬
aginative studies of animals poised in motion, such as
that of a chameleon on a branch (S. C. Welch. Indian
drawings and painted sketches , New York 1976, no. 15),
but his greatest innate skill seems to be in transcribing
patterns or textures. In this 10th/16th century com¬
positions of birds, however, he does not render tex¬
tures with as much illusionistic ability as he later did
under the influence of Renaissance art.

Man§ur did both the design and colouring of four
political and courtly scenes for the first portion of an
Akbar-nama begun in 1912/1603. Such commissions
indicate that artists were expected to be versatile
during the AkbarF period in order to maintain their
places in the studio; these compositions, which were
the most usual types in an era devoted to historical il¬
lustration, were expected to be within the scope of all
painters. Mansur is just able to manage the figural
groups competently. The painter was apparently in¬
consistent in his ability to render figures, perhaps suc¬
ceeding in revealing character only when he felt
particular interest in his subjects. Of two portraits
done in ca. 1003/1595, one of a vina player skilfully
reveals an easy, jocular individual, while the other of
a prince on a throne demonstrates the artist’s
decorative talent (vina player in Welch, Art of Mughal
India , New York 1963, no. 18; prince on throne,

private collection, Hyderabad). Since an ornate por¬
trait of DjahangFr seated on a low throne is inscribed
to both Mansur and his fellow artist Manohar, who
was primarily a portraitist, it is probable that Mansur
contributed the details of costume and throne which
are as intricately as his later bird pictures (A. Ivanova
et alii, Albom indiyskikh i persidskikh miniatur , Moscow
1962, pi. 17).

DjahangFr began his commissions of hunting and
probably animal subjects while still a prince; it is
possible that the picture of rosy pastors mounted in an
extensive murakka c or album prepared for DjahangFr
had also been commissioned by him before
1008/1600. No specific evidence, however, remains to
show how Mansur’s special association with the
emperor developed. By the time of Dj ahangFr’s acces¬
sion, Mansur had commenced signing pictures Ustad
Mansur or Mansur Nakkash (N. Titley, Miniatures
from Persian manuscripts , London 1977, 4), but despite
this assertion of mastery there were many other
painters, some younger than Mansur, who were more
prominent and who had undoubtedly attracted the
emperor’s attention (e.g. Manohar, Abu THasan
and Bishndas). There are only a few pictures which
stylistically appear to have been done early in
DjahangFr’s reign because of the combination of
delicate drawing and tentative modelling. These com¬
positions are notably Mansur’s green chameleon
creeping along a leafy branch and his portrait of a
Himalayan blue-throated barbet (S. C. Clarke, Indian
drawings , London 1922, pi. 15). The latter composi¬
tion has very sensitive details, but the bird is
awkwardly posed, indicating an early date. By
1021/1612, Mansur had acquired a more exact scien¬
tific knowledge. In that year, Djahangir records that
he received several exotic creatures, including a
turkeycock, which he ordered to be painted together
in a special durbar scene by an unspecified artist
(DjahangFr, The Tuzuk-i-Jaha ngiri; or Memoirs of
Jahangir , tr. A. Rogers, ed. H. Beveridge, repr. New
Delhi 1968, i, 215-17). A single portrait of the rare
turkey which has crisp, very sophisticated, decorative
details was probably painted by Mansur in this same
year and demonstrates the evolution of his mature
abilities (Clarke, pi. 15).

Both this composition and that of the barbet deserve
attention because they are inscribed with Mansur’s
title Nadir al- c Asr (“Wonder of the age”) which was
given to him by the emperor at some indeterminate
date. Though such an inscription may have been
placed on these miniatures—which are here presumed
to be early—at any time, it is worth noting the doubt¬
ful possibility that such a tribute had been awarded by
ca. 1021/1612. The most reasonable assessment, how¬
ever, seems to be that the encomium was given after
this date because the painter has left a large body of
consistent work which is slightly more advanced and
complex than the turkeycock; it therefore seems
logical to assume that it is this corpus which would
have won such singular praise from DjahangFr. When
in 1027/1618 DjahangFr himself mentions the title in
his diary, it is clear from the context that he had
bestowed it some time previously, perhaps in ca.
1024/1615 ( Tuzuk , ii, 20). In the diary, the emperor
begins with a discussion of Abu THasan, whom he
had also selected for the reception of a similar title and
whom he asserts to be his best painter. An implicit
comparison of the two artists is made by the emperor
as the foremost in two artistic categories; it is apparent
from the passage that DjahangFr’s appreciation of
natural history drawing was profound and that he had
elevated the subject by his interest in it.

426

MANSUR — al-MANSUR

Of the five artists mentioned by name in
Djahangir’s memoirs (Abu ’1-Hasan, Aka Rida,
Bishndas, Farrukh Beg and Mansur), Mansur
receives most attention because the emperor discusses
animal portraiture in great detail. Several interesting
points emerge from his reminiscences, including the
fact that the Dj ah an girl studio functioned with note¬
worthy artists like Mansur on call and ready to be
summoned in the manner of news photographers for
recording unusual occurences, such as the sighting of
a novel bird species. Djahanglr additionally mentions
his habit of taking artists on trips like the 1029/1620
spring journey to Kashmir during which he requested
Mansur to paint more than one hundred flowers
(Tuzuk , ii, 145). Since the artist also seems to have
sketched a fish that is found in Gudjarat (now in the
Red Fort Museum, New Delhi), it appears that he ac¬
companied the emperor on this long trip in 1026-7/
1617-18 and probably on other journeys, as the studies
of birds like the Himalayan barbet, Himalayan cheer
pheasant and Bengal florican may imply.

Because of the demand for strict scientific accuracy,
Mansur generally concentrates on his subjects with
only rudimentary landscape forms or with no
background. Since he often reconstructed dead
animals and was not requested to focus on movement
or behavioural patterns, his compositions are
generally very still. His work can be divided into
slightly different styles which are really treatments
suggested by the animal or bird species itself. Among
the most sophisticated and decorative of his paintings
are those of birds such as the Himalayan cheer phea¬
sant with striking contrasts of feather texture. An at¬
tributed painting of a nilgai is a much softer study with
the fur of the animal done in small slurred brush
strokes that create a hazy effect (L. Ashton, The art of
India and Pakistan , London 1947, pi. 139). A picture of
peafowl that is unsigned but attributable to the artist
embodies in its design, colour and composition all the
exhibitionist, majestic and coldly intense qualities of
the species (M. Beach, The Grand Mogul ,
Williamstown, Mass. 1978, no. 47).

The date of Mansur’s death or retirement is
unknown, but it is doubtful that he would have con¬
tinued in the atelier much beyond 1033/1624; no
study done for Shah Djahan is known by inscription.
Most of the painter’s work were mounted in the great
royal albums commenced in Djahangir’s reign and
continued into Shah Djahan’s one, indicating the
esteem in which the painter was held, as the albums
include the most significant royal commissions from
these two periods. Many of the miniatures originally
in these album groups that each contained 60 pictures
have been lost; in addition, in the early 19th century,
these groups were rearranged and adulterated with
copies by contemporary imperial artists. Mansur’s re¬
maining works can, however, be distinguished by the
small folio numbers applied to the original leaves of
the Minto and Wantage albums (V. and A., London)
and the Kevorkian one (Met. Museum, New York),
sometimes before the copies were inserted in the 19th
century.

A painting of red tulips which is almost the sole sur¬
vivor from the Kashmiri flower group that Mansur
painted is mounted on an album page like those of the
Kevorkian, Wantage and Minto album groups (Red
Tulips and Butterfly (Aligarh University) published
in N. C. Mehta, Studies in Indian painting , Bombay
1928, pi. 31); however, the folio number which ap¬
pears on the reverse is not positioned as those of the
other album leaves, and it thus seems possible that the
Kashmiri flowers were originally placed together in a

book of their own very similar to the other albums that
were mainly portraits. In the composition of tulips,
Mansur has blended the colour of the blooms very
subtly to express their fragile, waxy quality which he
then contrasts with the powdery wings of a butterfly.
Clearly, by the end of his career he was interested in
the nature of substances and in how the imagination
reacts to sensation.

Other paintings by Mansur not previously men¬
tioned include early work in the DiamT al-tawankh ,
Tehran; the Khamsa of Dihlawi (fol. iv), Baltimore,
and Djahangir’s Murakka c gulshan (fol. 53a), Tehran.
Additional flowers and birds include an iris and nar¬
cissus (Y. Godard, Un album de portraits des princes
timurides de Tlnde, in Athar-e-Iran, ii (1937), nos. 80 and
81 (fig. 113), goldfinch (M.A. Alvi and A. Rahman,
Jahangir the naturalist , New Delhi 1968, pi. XVIIA),
falcon (R. Krishnadasa, Mughal miniatures , New Delhi
1955, pi. IV) and pheasant (G. Marteau and H.
Vever, Miniatures persanes , Paris 1932, no. 259, pi.
CLXXVII). Unfortunately, because of Mansur’s
reputation, most unsigned flower and bird paintings
done in the first half of the 11 th/ 17th century have
been ascribed to him without stylistic consideration.
Mansur’s work is quite bold, his compositions are
generally simple with few objects, and the atmosphere
is often somewhat static, so that it is to great extent
possible to distinguish his mannerisms from those of
other painters. Not only have inferior unrelated
miniatures been atttributed to him, but deliberate
copies of Mansur’s work were done by admiring ar¬
tists of the 12th/18th and 13th/19th centuries. In a few
instances, since it was customary for Djahanglr to ask
several artists to paint the same subject or to request
an artist to produce more than one version of a
miniature, there are two or more excellent pictures
from Djahangir’s reign that should be equally ap¬
preciated; these include another version of the
turkeycock, probably by Mansur, and two others of
the cheer pheasant—one perhaps by Mansur’s fellow
artist Payag. Since Djahangir’s memoirs show that
Mansur produced a vast number of paintings that
have disappeared, what is known of his output should
be evaluated as an accurate but limited indication of
his abilities. It is clearly unfortunate that such a large
percentage of his work should have been lost.

Bibliography (in addition to references given in

the article): T. Ahmad, Nadiru TAsr Mansur , in

Indo-Iranica, xxv (1972), 51-5; Beach, The Grand

Moghul 137-43; Das, Lalit Kala , xvii, 32-9, xix, 40;

Djahanglr, Tuzuk , ii, 20-1, 107-8, 145, 157.

(Linda Y. Leach)

al-MANSUR, the sixth ruler of the Ham-

• * •

madid dynasty, succeeded his father al-Nasir in
the year 481/1088. The latter had witnessed the rise to
the height of its power of the dynasty and the some¬
what artificial development of the Kal c a of the Ban!
Hammad [see hammadids], as a result of the destruc¬
tion of al-Kayrawan by the Arabs. Two years after the
accession of al-Man§ur, the Arabs, who had advanced
towards the West and who had spread over all the
region adjoining the Kal c a, began to make existence
there difficult. The prince moved his capital from the
Kal c a to Bougie, which he considered less accessible
to the nomads; it should be mentioned that his father
al-Nasir had already made preparation for this exodus
by transforming a little fishing port into a regular
town, which was called al-Nasiriyya but which was to
assume the name of Bougie [see bidjaya], while on the
other hand, the Kal c a was not completely abandoned
by al-Mansur and he even embellished it with a
number of palaces. The Hammadid kingdom had there-

al-MANSUR

427

fore at this time two capitals joined by a royal road.

After taking up his quarters at Bougie, al-Mansur
had in the first place to quell the revolt of one of his
uncles, Balbar, the governor of Constantine. He sent
against the rebel another Hammadid amir , Abu
YaknT. The latter after his victory was given the
governorship of Constantine, but shortly after, he in
his turn, together with his brother, who had been
given the governorship of Bone, rebelled. These ris¬
ings over which al-Mansur, thanks to his energy, was
triumphant, brought to the side of the rebels of the
Hammadid family the ZTrids of al-Mahdiyya, who
wished to get back some power in Barbary, the
Almoravids of the Maghrib, who wished to extend
towards the east, and the Bedouins, who were, always
ready to join in the feuds of their powerful
neighbours.

Al-Mansur was, on the other hand, led to oppose
the advance of the Almoravids who were, somewhat
curiously, allied with the traditional opposition of the
Zanata [< 7 . 0 .]. With the probable object of disarming
the opposition, al-Nasir and al-Mansur had married
two sisters of Makhukh. the chief of the Banu
Wamanu, at that time the most powerful of the
Zanata group. This alliance did not hinder the time-
honoured feud from breaking out again. It became
more acute when al-Mansur murdered his wife, the
sister of his enemy. The latter then asked for support
from the Almoravids.

From Tlemcen, where they had been installed for
more than twenty years, the Almoravids had, after
many attempts, endeavoured to expand towards the
east at the expense of their brethen of the same race,
the Sanhadja Banu Hammad. Al-Mansur had twice
reduced them to impotence. It was at this time that
the murder of the sister of Makhukh by al-Mansur
drove the Wamanu chief into an alliance with the
Almoravids of Tlemcen. The alliance formed in this
way was a great blow to the Hammadid kingdom.
Algiers was besieged for two days; Ashfr was taken.

The fall of the latter fortress, the oldest stronghold
of the family, was bitterly resented by al-Mansur. He
got together an army of 20,000 men, composed of
Sanhadja, Bedouins and even Zanata; he marched
against Tlemcen, met the governor Tashln b. T!n-
c amer to the north-east of the town and put him to
flight. Tlemcen was spared at the supplication of
Tash fin's wife, who invoked the ties of relationship
uniting them with the Sanhadja (496/1102).

After the defeat of the Almoravids, al-Mansur
severely punished the Zanata and the rebel tribes of
the Bougie district, whom he forced to flee into the
mountains of Kabylia.

Thus al-Mansur seems on the eve of his death
(498/1105) to have thoroughly re-established the
power of the Hammadids. According to a tradition,
which is not above suspicion, recorded by Ibn
Kh aldun, the two capitals owed very important
buildings to him: Bougie, the Palace of the Star and
the Palace of Salvation; the Kal c a, the government
palace and the Kasr al-Mannar, the beautiful donjon
of which is still in part extant.

Bibliography : Ibn Khaldun. Hist, des Berberes,
i, 227-8, tr. de Slane, ii, 51-5; Ibn al-Athir, x, 110;
tr. E. Fagnan, Annales du Maghreb et de VEspagne ,
448; E. Mercier, Hist, de I’Afrique septentnonale, ii,
53-6; L. de Beylie, La Kalaa des Beni Hammad , 38
ff., 99 ff. (doubtful traditions relating to the
mosque of Bougie which was enlarged by al-
Mansur); G. Margais, Manuel d’art musulman , i,
105, *121-3, 129-30. (G. Mar^ais)

al-MANSUR, Abu Dja c far c Abd Allah b.
Muhammad b. c Al!, the second c Abbasidcaliph,

reigned 136-58/754-75. He was born in ca. 90-4/709-
13 at al-Humayma [q.v. ] to the east of the Jordan,
where the c Abbasid family were living. His mother,
Sallama, was a Berber slave girl. In 127-9/744-6 he
joined the unsuccessful revolt of the Talibid c Abd
Allah b. Mu c awiya [q. v. ] against the Umayyads in
western Iran. He then returned to al-Humayma and
took no part in the early stages of the c Abbasid revolu¬
tion, coming to al-Kufa with his brother Abu T
c Abbas (soon to be the caliph al-Saffah) as the
c Abbasid armies were approaching from the east.

After the establishment of his brother as caliph, he
was sent to conduct the siege of Wasit where the last
Umayyad governor of c Irak, Yazld b. c Umar b.
Hubayra [see ibn hubayra], was holding out. There
he made contact with Khurasan! generals, including
al-Hasan b. Kahtaba, who was to be one of his most
loyal supporters. He also tried to reach an agreement
with Ibn Hubayra but was thwarted by Abu Muslim,
who demanded that the Umayyad leader be executed.
After the fall of Wasit, he was appointed governor of
al-DjazIra and Armenia, where he succeeded in winn¬
ing the loyalty of some of the most important
Umayyad generals, including Ishak b. Muslim al-
c Ukayli. When al-Saffah died in Dhu THidjdja
136/June 754, he had already considerable political
experience and had attracted a powerful body of sup¬
porters.

His brother designated Abu Dja Tar as his heir, to
be succeeded in turn by his nephew c Isa b. Musa, the
governor of al-Kufa; Abu Dja Tar, who was on the
hadidi with Abu Muslim at the time, quickly returned
to take control. However, until the defeat of the c Alid
rebellions of 145/762-3, he faced a series of challenges
to his rule.

The first threat came from his uncle c Abd Allah b.
c Al!, who at the time of al-Saffah’s death was prepar¬
ing to attack the Byzantine Empire with a large army
of Syrians and Khurasams, and he decided to use this
force to make a bid for the caliphate. Al-Mansur was
obliged to seek the support of Abu Muslim, who,
against his better judgment, was persuaded to lead a
large Khurasan! army against the rebel, and c Abd
Allah’s army, by this time composed almost ex¬
clusively of Syrians, was defeated near Nisibfn in
Djumada II 137/November 754. c Abd Allah spent the
rest of his life in disgrace in c Irak, but the caliph
typically, was careful to be reconciled to the Syrian
leaders who had supported him.

The defeat of the rebels left al-Mansur free to deal
with Abu Muslim [< 7 . 0 .]. Tension between the two
men had been growing since the death of Ibn
Hubayra, and a visit by al-Mansur to Abu Muslim’s
court at Marw before he became caliph had convinced
him that Abu Muslim was too powerful to be allowed
to survive. The conflict was not simply about per¬
sonalities, but concerned the whole direction of the
caliphate: Abu Muslim wished that eastern Iran
should be effectively independent, under his rule, and
that its revenues should be assigned to his Khurasan!
supporters, while al-Mansur insisted that the caliph
should appoint governors and collect taxes from the
area. The presence of Abu Muslim in c Irak made him
vulnerable, and he was murdered at al-Mada^in in the
caliph’s presence (Sha c ban 137/February 755). His
murder was followed by disturbances in Iran, notably
the strongly anti-Muslim revolt of Sunbadh, but in
the end, al-Mansur asserted his control over
Khurasan.

The last major challenge which al-Mansur faced
was the threat of an c Alid uprising which eventually
broke out in Radjab 145/September 762 in Medina,
led by Muhammad b. c Abd Allah [< 7 . 0 .]. Attempts to

428

al-MANSUR

spread the revolt to Syria and Egypt failed, whilst
al-Kufa, the traditional centre of c Alid support, was
closely watched by the caliph and his troops. Al-
Mansur ordered that food supplies from Egypt be cut
off and Muhammad, now isolated in Medina, was
easily defeated and killed by an c Abbasid force led by
c Isa b. Musa (Ramadan 145/November 762).

Shortly before Muhammad’s death, his brother
Ibrahim led a rising in al-Basra which attracted wide¬
spread support in the city. Having taken over the
town, he began to march on al-Kufa, but was met by
c Isa b. Musa with an c Abbasid army and was defeated
and killed at Bakhamra after a fierce battle (Dhu ’1-
Ka- C da 145/February 763).

The failure of the revolt left al-Mansur free to con¬
solidate his rule in comparative peace. He was a
political planner of great skill and had a clear vision
of the development of the caliphate. His policy was to
establish a centralised, largely secular state, based on
a reliable, salaried army and an efficient revenue¬
gathering system. His models were the great
Umayyad rulers c Abd al-Malik and Hisham, and he
rejected the demands of those groups like the Rawan-
diyya [gv.] who launched a short-lived but dangerous
revolt in 141/758-9 and who wanted to assume a more
messianic role.

His main support came from the Khurasaniyya,
who had formed the army which overthrew the
Umayyads and who now became a privileged military
group; governors of Khurasan were always chosen
from among their number, and they were appointed
to important posts in other parts of the Caliphate. In
c Irak, garrison cities were established for them at
Ba gh dad and al-Rakka. Al-Mansur also relied heavily
on members of his own family. They were frequently
given key governorates in c Irak and in the western
half of the caliphate, and some, like Sulayman b. C A1I
in al-Basra and Salih b. c AlI in Syria, came near to
establishing semi-autonomous sub-dynasties. The
Syrian leaders with whom the caliph had made con¬
tact during al-Saffah’s reign also proved an important
source of support, notably during the c Alid rising of
145/762-3. Finally, al-Mansur also recruited some
leaders of the YamanI faction in the Umayyad state,
notably the Muhallab! family, who were given gover¬
norates in Egypt, Ifrlkiya and Adharbaydjan as well
as their native al-Basra. This broadly-based coalition
of supporters meant that the caliph retained con¬
siderable political autonomy within the system, since
he was never dependent on any one group; and it also
assured a broad base of support for the regime.

The government of Kh urasan remained a problem,
and demands for local autonomy led to a series of
rebellions. After the rebellion of c Abd al-Djabbar al-
AzdT in 140/757-8, al-Mansur solved the problems of
the province by sending his son Muhammad, later the
caliph al-Mahdl [g.v.], to al-Rayy as viceroy. This al¬
lowed Khurasan a wide measure of autonomy while
ensuring overall c Abbasid control. There were still
sporadic rebellions in the remoter parts of the pro¬
vince, notably that of Ustadhsis in Badhghls [gv.]
from ca. 147/764 to 151/768, but they did not
seriously threaten c Abbasid power.

Other frontier areas of the caliphate also saw
continuing disturbances. In 147/764 the Khazars
[q.v. ] attacked through the Caucasus and briefly took
Tiflis before being driven out. The Byzantine frontier
was the scene of settlement and fortification rather
than important campaigns. In North Africa, Ifrlkiya
was threatened by continuous Kharidj! uprisings, un¬
til in 155/772 Yazld b. Hatim al-Muhallabi finally es¬
tablished c Abbasid rule. In al-Andalus, power was

seized by a member of the Umayyad family, c Abd al-
Rahman b. Mu c awiya [q.v.], who established an in¬
dependant amirate in 138/756

Al-Mansur’s most lasting achievement was the
foundation of the new c Abbasid capital at Ba gh dad.
Al-Saffah and al-Mansur lived at a variety of sites in
central c Irak until in 145/762, the caliph decided to
build a new capital at Ba gh dad. Part of the reason for
this was the need for security, and the outbreak of the
Rawandiyya had shown how vulnerable the caliph
was to even small-scale rebellions. Ba gh dad was also
developed as a centre for the Khurasan! soldiers who
had come westwards and could not be settled in ex¬
isting cities like al-Kufa without arousing the hostility
of the local population. At first, the city was essen¬
tially administrative and military in character, but the
building of the al-Karkh commercial district to the
south from 151/768 onwards and settlement on the
east bank of the Tigris meant that, by the end of his
reign, the new capital was already a thriving
metropolis. On the Euphrates in al-Djazira. al-Rakka
was also developed from 155/772 onwards, as a
Khurasan! base to supervise the affairs of Syria and
the Byzantine frontier.

In 147/764, al-Mansur forced the resignation of
c Isa b. Musa from his position as heir apparent and
designated his own son Muhammad al-Mahdl, who
enjoyed the support of the bulk of the Khurasaniyya.
who now obliged c Isa to content himself with being
heir to al-Mahdl.

Al-Mansur died on the road to Mecca in Dhu ’1-
Hidjdja 158/October 775 in his mid-sixties. The
twenty-one years of his reign had seen the establish¬
ment of the c Abbasid caliphate as a centralised state
under the caliph’s control. He was a politician of
genius who pursued his aims with a single-minded but
prudent determination. He cannot be considered a
popular ruler; he was noted for his hard work and his
almost proverbial meanness (cf. his nickname Abu ’1-
Dawanik “Father of farthings’’), and many felt that
his autocratic style of government had betrayed the
hopes of the c Abbasid Revolution. Yet without his
firm hand, the Muslim world might well have become
prematurely fragmented in the mid-2nd/8th century.

Bibliography : 1. Texts. Tabari, iii, 85-451;
Ya c kubf, TaMkh, ii, 409, 420-5, 430, 433, 436-75;
Khalifa b. Khayyat, Ta^rtkh, ed. c Umari, 415-36;
Baladhurl. Ansdb al-ashraf\ iii, ed. Duri, 182-275;
Mas c udi, Muru&, vi, 156-233 = §§ 2370-2434;
Djahshiyari, Kitab al-Wuzara 3 , ed. al-Sakka 3 , 96-
140; Isfahan!, Makatil al-Tdlibiyyin , ed. Sakr, 178-
399; Aghani, Tables', Tha c alibi, Lata^if al-ma ( 'drif,
ed. Abyar! and SayrafT, 19-22, tr. Bosworth, 48-51
and index. 2. Studies. T. Noldeke, Orientalische
Skizzen , Berlin 1892, 113-51; S. Moscati, La rivolta
di Q Abd al-Gabbar contro il califfo al-Mansur, in Ren.
Lin. ser. 8, ii (1947), 613-5; idem, Studi su Abu
Muslim, in Ren. Lin. ser. 8, iv (1949-50), 323-35,
474-95, v. (1950-1), 89-105; A. Dietrich, Das
politischen Testament des zweiten c Abbasiden Kalifen al-
Mansur, in Isl., xxx (1952), 33-65; D. Sourdel, La
biographie d’lbn aTMuqaffa c d’apres les sources an-
ciennes, in Arabica, i (1954), 307-23; idem, Le vizirat
c abbdside, Damascus 1959-60; F. Omar, The
c Abbasid caliphate, Baghdad 1969; idem, Aspects of
c Abbasid-Husaynid relations, in Arabica , xxii (1976),
170-9; E. Daniel, Khurasan under c Abbasid rule, Min¬
neapolis 1979; J. Lassner, The shaping of c Abbasid
rule, Princeton, 1980; H. Kennedy, The early
^Abbasid caliphate, London 1981. (H. Kennedy)
al- MANSUR [see ya c kub al-mansur]

AL- MANSUR, AHMAD [see ahmad al-mansur]

al-MANSUR

429

al-MANSUR (Madinat-) [see Baghdad]

al-MANSUR, al-Malik Muhammad b. c Umar b.
shahanshah , local ruler of Hamat [q. v. ], historian
and patron of letters, b. 567/1171-2 (al-MakrTzT,
Suluk, i, 205), son of Salah al-DTn’s nephew al-Malik
al-Muzaffar TakT al-DTn c Umar [q. t>. ], and paternal
grandfather of Abu ’1-Fida \q.v. ] (but not
Turanshah’s grandchild, as in vol. i, 805, above).

According to autobiographical remarks in his Mid-
mar (see below), al-Mansur was still a child when tak¬
ing part in campaigns and sieges of Salah al-DTn and
Takl al-DTn. When in 579/1183 the latter was ap¬
pointed governor of Egypt by Salah al-DTn, al-
Mansur accompanied him ( Midmdr , 158, 227), and in
Alexandria he studied hadith with Abu Tahir al-SilafT
[q. v. ] (al-$afadT, Waft, iv, 259, no. 1790), and with
Abu Tahir b. c Awf [<?. ] (al-DhahabT, Hbar, v, 71).
Already in 580/1184, when his father had to leave
Cairo temporarily ( Midmdr, 200), he became his of¬
ficial representative in Egypt. After his father’s death
in Ramadan 587/September-October 1191, he
became ruler of the city state of Hamat and its
dependencies, Ma c arrat al-Nu c man, Manbidj, Kal-
c at al-Nadjm and Salamiyya [q.vv.]. The fiefs on the
eastern side of the Euphrates, however, which Salah
al-DTn had granted to his father in 586/1190, he had
to restore to the sultan, who passed them on to his
brother al- c Adil [qv.\ (Ibn al-AthTr, xii, 82-3; Ibn al-
c AdTm, Zubda , iii, 121-3; Abu ’1-Fida, Mukhtasar, iii,
85). Eight years later in 595/1199, al-Mansur con¬
quered the fortress of BarTn ( mons jerrandus) (Ibn
Wasil, Mujarridi, iii, 101), but was forced by al- c Adil
to substitute for this fortress Manbidj and Kal c at al-
Nadjm (Ibn al- c Ad!m, Zubda , iii, 148; Ibn Wa$il,
Mujarridi, iii, 1 14; Abu ’1-Fida, Mukhtasar , iii, 132).
Thus his territory was at least a compact unit.

Hamat and its surroundings held a key position
against the Crusaders on the one hand, and on the
other they were, after Salah al-DTn’s death, a buffer
state between the main opposing rulers of the
Ayyubids, especially between al-Malik al-Zahir GhazT
in Aleppo and al-Malik al- c Adil in Damascus (see
ayyubids].

Al-Malik al-Mansur Succeeded in maintaining his
sovereignty and keeping his territory together through
all the dangers of the internal struggles of the
Ayyubids. Moreover, for thirty years to come, i.e.
until his death in 617/1220, he made it into a centre
of adab and the sciences. In and around Hamat he
engaged in a busy building activity (Abu ’1-Fida,
Mukhtasar, iii, 132; Yakut, Mu^djam, ii, 300), and
made the town into an almost impregnable fortress.
The results of these activities proved useful during his
victorious battles against the Crusaders (599-
601/1203-4), as well as during the difficulties with his
father’s cousin and his temporary overlord al-Zahir.
For the battles against the Crusaders and the relations
with them, see F. J. Dahlmanns, al-Malik al- c Adil,
118 f.; Ibn Wasil, Mujarridi, iii, 141-50; Abu ’1-Fida,
Mukhtasar, iii, 111-2; al-MakrTzT, al-Suluk, i, 164; Ibn
al-Furat, Ta\ikh, v/1, 22-4. The sources do not agree
in the details: Ibn Wasil, Mujarridi, iii, 163 f.; Ibn al-
AthTr, xii, 195; Ibn NazTf, al-Ta^rikh al-Mansuri, 15 ( =
Gryaznevic, Moscow 1960, fol. 122b); Sibt b. al-
DjawzT, Mir^at, viii/2, 523. For his difficulties with al-
Zahir, see Ibn Wasil, Mujarridi, 121-3; Abu T
Fida, Mukhtasar, iii, 99; Ibn al- c AdTm, Zubda, iii, 149.
Differing from each other are: Ibn al- c AdTm, Zubda ,
iii, 152; Ibn NazTf, al-Ta^rikh al-Mansuri, 8 ( =
Gryaznevic, fol. 111b); Ibn Wasil, Mujarridi, iii, 132,
and after him Sibt b. al-DjawzT, MiPat, ms. Topkapi

Sarayi Ahmed III 2907 /xiii, fol. 292b, 1. 11 (this line
lacking in ed. Haydarabad, viii/2, 510).

During the unrest after Salah al-DTn’s death, al-
Mansur officially took the part of al-Zahir. In 595-
6/1199-1200, he even declared himself ready to enter
into a loose alliance with the latter against al- c Adil
(Ibn al- c AdTm, Zubda, iii, 144. Ibn Wasil, Mujarridi,
iii, 101). However, at an early stage he had also
recognised the political advantage of an alliance with
Salah al-DTn’s brother; already in 590/1194 he openly
showed his sympathy for al- c Adil (al-MakrTzT, al-
Suluk, i, 124). But this again did not prevent him from
playing the Ayyubid rivals off against each other to his
own advantage. Both al- c Adil and al-Zahir wanted
control over northern Syria, while al-Mansur was able
alternately to promote or to foil their plans. In
596/1200, after al- c Adil had become sultan of Egypt,
al-Mansur swore allegiance to him (Ibn Wasil,
Mujarridi , iii, 114) and the sultan confirmed him as
ruler of Hamat. In 598/1201-2 he married one of al-
c Adil’s daughters, and in 603/1206 and 606/1209 he
supported the sultan in his attacks on the Crusaders’
territory and in al-DjazTra (Ibn Wasil, Mujarridi,

172 f., 192; Ibn al-Furat, TaMkh, v/1, 86-90).

In politics, al-Mansur did not have much room for
direct manoeuvring. However, his decision not to
engage in politics on his own account whenever possi¬
ble, but rather to keep a balance between the com¬
peting forces of the Ayyubids, benefited not only his
own city state but in the end also the state as a whole.
He was the first ruler of Hamat to have copper coins
struck with his own name (Balog, The coinage, 249-52).
They also bear the name of the c Abbasid caliph al-
Nasir li-DTn Allah [y.i;.], whose Jutuwwa [q.v.) he had
joined with great pomp (Ibn al-Furat, Tadrikh al-
duwal, in JA, 5th ser., vi [1855], 285 f.) His escort
(mawkib ) was so large that it was compared with the
ones of al- c Adil and al-Zahir (Ibn Wasil, Mujarridi, iv,
81). The ruler of Hamat was not only an important
Maecenas and an c dlim in his own right (Abu ’1-Fida,
Mukhtasar, iii, 132) but also imam and mufti in several
fields (al-MakrTzT, al-Suluk, i, 205). His illness and
death in 617/1220 threw the whole state considerably
out of balance (see Gottschalk, al-Malik al-Kdmil, 103-
4, 167-70). The pretender to the succession, al-
Mansur’s middle son Kflidj Arslan, as well as the
crown prince, his elder son al-Muzaffar, who in the
end secured his rights, were no more than dependents
on al- c Adil’s son al-Malik al-Mu c azzam of Damascus
and al-Malik al-Kamil of Egypt [q.vv.].

Works. 1. Midmdr al-haka^ik wa-sirr al-khald^ik, a
chronicle originally in ten volumes, preserved in parts
(see Bibl.). The full title is given by Shihab al-DTn al-
KusT (d. 653/1255), one of the author’s pupils who
studied part of the work with him (al-SafadT, Waft, iv,
259-60, no. 1 790), as well as by Ibn Wasil who knew
a part of the Midmdr which is lost today {Mujarridi, iv,
78,84), and by Hadjdj! KhalTfa, who apparently saw
only a mukhtasar of the Midmdr (Kashf al-zunun, ii,
1713). HadjdjT KhalTfa’s remark that some historians
were sceptical about the authorship of this chronicle is
refuted by al-KusT’s direct information. The exact size
of the Midmdr cannot be determined, the preserved
part apparently being only a final section of the whole
work (see Midmdr, 4). The text starts with the year
575/1180 and ends abruptly in 582/1186, and there
are moreover lacunae (see 41, 115, 208). The text
shows (38, 72) that the work was to be continued at
least until 583/1187 {Midmdr 122, 144). The Midmdr
was composed after the siege of Jerusalem (Radjab
583/ Oct. 1187), or even after the death of Salah al-

430

al-MANSUR

Din (Safar 589/Feb. 1193), with the purpose of glori¬
fying the deeds and character of the Ayyubid sultan.
It thus stands in the tradition which began with c Imad
al-Dln al-Isfahani, was continued by Ibn Shaddad
and came to its completion in the work of Abu Shama
[q.vv.], in whose eyes Salah al-Din played the role of
a saviour in Islamic history.

The Midmar is one of the principal primary sources
of its time. It contains numerous autobiographical
data as well as reports of eye-witnesses, which are also
of importance for the biography of the author’s father
al-Malik al-Muzaffar [ q.v.] , to whom the son devoted
two chapters. He explaines why his father was unable
to take part in the battle of Mardj c Uyun {Midmar,
18 ff.) and deals with his nomination as governor of
Egypt {ibid., 154-8). Here {ibid., 155-8) the certificate
of investiture ( taklid) as granted by Salah al-Din is for
the first time edited in its full context. The work con¬
tains numerous official documents, several of which
can only be found here. Amongst them are letters of
Salah al-Din’s famous secretaries al-Kadi al-Fadil and
c lmad al-Din al-Isfahani [q.vv.\ {Midmar, 114, 149 f.,
224 f.). The main figures are al-Nasir li-Din Allah,
Salah al-Din and Karakush [q.vv.], to each of whom
the author assigns a section for every year. Salah al-
Din’s politics are described as exemplary, with the caliph
as his direct antagonist. In this context, al-Mansur’s anti-
Shi c I attitude supports the claim to legitimacy which was
so important for the usurper Salah al-Din.

Two different groups of sources, an c Abbasid one
and an Ayyubid one, may underly the Midmar,
although there are only scanty indications of infor¬
mants (see A. Hartmann, an-Ndsir, 14-17, and Index,
s.v. Midmar; L. Richter-Bernburg, in JAOS, cii/2
[1982], 278 f.; A. Hartmann, al-Malik al-Mansur, in
ZDMG cxxxvi (1986), 570-606). For the events in
Baghdad, Ibn al-Maristaniyya is mentioned once
{Midmar, 122), while the informants for Salah al-Din
and Karakush remain anonymous (139, 226),

although al-Mansur received some information on the
last-mentioned from himself or from participants in
his campaigns (e.g. 54). A direct source for much of
the information on Salah al-Din in the Midmar is
found in c Imad al-Din al-Isfahani’s al-Bark al-Shami.
Since the Bark exists only in ms., with its greater part
lost anyway, the Midmar is of interest for the
reconstruction of several passages of the Bark, together
with the text of al-Bundari and Abu Shama (see Hart¬
mann, al-Malik al-Mansur). The author must have
been in very close contact with the state chanceries,
but his sources have still to be investigated, as does
also the influence of the Midmar on later chronicles.
The work was denied a large circulation, as remarked
by Hadjdji Khalifa (Kashf al-zunun, ii, 1713) who calls
it something precious which could only have been
composed by someone who belonged to the learned
men of his time.

2. Akhbar al-muluk wa-nuzhat al-malik wa ’l-mamluk fi
tabakat al-shzfara'* , a lexicon in 10 volumes on poets
from the Djahiliyya period down to the author’s time
{GAL I, 324; S I, 558; Hadjdji Khalifa. Kashf al-zunun,
ii, 1102, 11. 27-9). Only the ninth volume, composed
in 602/1205-6, has been preserved (ms. Leiden, Or.
639). It contains selections from poems and very short
biographies of poets from c Irak, Syria, Egypt, Trans-
oxania and al-Andalus of the 4th-6th/ 10th- 12th cen¬
turies. The poets are arranged according to their
functions: kings, amirs, viziers, judges and secretaries
(see M. c Awis, Kitab Tabakat al-shu^ara^ h-’l-Mansur b.
Shahanshah Sahib Hamat , al-Minya: Dar Hira 5 [1983]).

3. Durar al-adab wa-mahasin dhawi ’l-albdb, an adab
anthology, composed in 600/1203-4, preserved only

in fragments (ms. Leipzig 606; Brockelmann, I, 324;
S I, 558; not mentioned in Hadjdji Khalifa).

Bibliography : Makrizi, al-Suluk, i, Cairo 1934;
SafadI, Wafi, iv, Wiesbaden 1959 (Bibl. Isl., 6d);
Dhahabi, c Ibar, v, Kuwait 1966; Ibn al-Athir, al-
Kamil, xii, Beirut 1966; Ibn al- c Adim, Zubda, iii,
Damascus 1968; Abu ’I-Fida, Mukhtasar, iii, Istan¬
bul 1286/1869-70; Ibn Wasil, Mufarridf , iii, Cairo
1960; Yakut, Mu c djam, ii, Beirut 1955; F. J.
Dahlmanns, al-Malik al- c Adil, Ph.D. thesis, Giessen
1975; Ibn al-Furat, Ta\ikh, v/i, Basra 1390/1970;
the same work in ms. Vienna 814, rendered by J.
v. Hammer-Purgstall, in JA, 5th ser., vi (1855),
285 f.; Ibn Nazif, al-Ta^rikh al-Mansuri, ed. and tr.
B. Doudou, Ph.D. thesis Vienna, 1961, facs. edn.
after the Leningrad unicum by P. A. Gryaznevic,
Moscow 1960, ed. B. Dudu, Damascus 1401/1980-
1; Sibt b. al-DjawzT, MiTdt, viii/2, Haydarabad
1952; P. Balog, The coinage of the Ayyubids, London
1980, Plate xl; H. Gottschalk, al-Malik al-Kamil von
Egypten, Wiesbaden 1958; Midmar al-hakaHk wa-sirr
al-khala^ik, ed. Hasan Habashi, Cairo 1968, after
the unicum Ahmadiyya 4938, Tunis, probably to
be dated shortly after Ramadan 589/Aug.-Sept.
1193.—For al-Kusi: SafadT, Wafi, ix, Wiesbaden
1974 (Bibl. Isl, 6 i), 105-6, no. 4021; J. van Ess,
Safadi-Splitter 11, in Isl., liv (1977), 85, no. 108; J.C.
Garcin, Qus, Cairo 1976, 154. — Hadjdji Khalifa.
Kashf al-zunun , ii, Istanbul 1941-3.—For Ibn al-
Maristaniyya as historian: A. Hartmann, an-Nasir
li-Din Allah, Berlin-New York 1975, 12-13, 184-86,
258, resumed by L. Richter-Bernburg, Ibn al-
Maristaniyya, in JAOS, cii/2 (1982), 276-8.—
Bagdath Pasa, Hadiyyat al-^arifin, ii, Istanbul 1955,
110; al-Zirikll, al-AHam, iii, Beirut 3 1969, 958-9;
Wustenfeld, Geschichtsschreiber der Araber, in Abh. Ak.
W. zu Gottingen, xxviii (1881), 108-9; H.-P.
Kalbhenn, Studien zur Geschichte der Ayyubiden nach der
Chronik Midmar al-haqd^iq ..., unpubl. thesis,
Freiburg [1974]; Cl. Cahen, Some new editions of
oriental sources about Syria in the time of the crusades, in
Outremer: studies in the history of the crusading kingdom
of Jerusalem presented to Joshua Prawer, Jerusalem
1982, 324, 329-31; A. Hartmann, al-Malik al-
Mansur {gest. 617!1220, ein ayyubidischer Regent und
Geschichtsschreiber, in ZDMG, cxxxvi (1986), 570-
606. (AjNgelika Hartmann)

al-MANSUR bi’llah (Almanzor in the mediaeval
Spanish chronicles) is the name by which is known the
man who was, de facto, the real master of al-
Andalus from 368/978 to 392/1002. Since no new
source is available, except as regards the military cam¬
paigns, to expand upon the major features of the
biography of Abu c Ami_r Muhammad b. c Abd Allah
b. Muhammad b. AbI c Amir al-Ma c afirI, as revealed
through the works of R. Dozy {Histoire des musulmans
d'Espagne) and E. Levi-Proven^al {Histoire de TEspagne
musulmane), this article will be confined to a summary
of this material.

Born in 326/938 into a minor aristocratic family
which had settled after the conquest at Torrox, in the
district of Algeciras, and which had fulfilled various
posts in the judicial administration, Ibn Abi c Amir
studied, in Cordova, hadith and fikh as a pupil of Abu
Bakr b. Mu c awiya al-Kurashi, and Arabic language
and literature as a pupil of Abu C A1T al-Kali and of Ibn
al-Kutiyya [q.vv.]. He began his career in the service
of the kadi of Cordova, Muhammad b. al-Salim, and
subsequently, in 356/967, became steward of the
eldest son of al-Sayyida al-kubra, the sultana Subh
[q v.]. He skilfully acquired the friendship and sup¬
port of the latter, according to some accounts, through

al-MANSUR

♦

431

the giving of presents and according to others,
through the exercise of his personal charm. This rela¬
tionship was by no means unconnected with the rapid
advance of his distinguished administrative career:
director of the sikka [< 7 . 0 .], treasurer, curator of in¬
testate property, kadi of Seville and Niebla, etc. After
a brief interlude (he had embezzled from the coffers of
the mint, but his friend Ibn Hudayr made good the
loss before the enquiry), he continued his advance and
was appointed to the functions of chief of al-shurta al-
wusta [see shurta] in 361/972. The construction of his
palace at al-Rusafa dates from this period, and it was
also at this time that he set out to court popularity
among the Cordovans. The fact that he had been sent,
as inspector of finances, to verify the sums by Ghalib
[ 1 q.v. \ during his campaign against Hasan b. Gannun
enabled him to forge solid links with the army.

The death of al-Hakam II [q.v.], in 366/976,
opened a new phase. The caliph had named as his suc¬
cessor his son Hisham II [< 7 . 0 .], who was only eleven
years old, under the tutelage of the vizier al-Mushaff.
The party of palace slaves ( sakaliba [< 7 . 0 .]) wished to
appoint his uncle, al-Mu gh lra. Al-MushafT, foresee¬
ing that this would be the end of his political career,
sent Ibn Abl c Amir to strangle the latter. The c Amirid
was already closely linked to the vizier, through his
personal ambitions and through his relationship with
Subh. It was thus that there fell to him the task of draf¬
ting the act of allegiance ( bay : a [< 7 . 0 .]) to al-Mu^ayyad
bi ’llah and of accepting the oaths of various Cor¬
dovan social groups. The new caliph appointed al-
MushafT as hadjib [ q.v . ] and Ibn Abl Amir as vizier.
These two succeeded totally in destroying the political
influence of the slaves’ party and declared a remission
of taxes as a means of ensuring popular support.

In 366/977, Ibn Abl c Amir left to repel an attack by
the Christians and captured the suburb of al-Hamma
(Banos of Ledesma, in the province of Salamanca).
The campaign was of little importance but, skilfully
exploited, it served to increase the prestige of the new
vizier, attracting to him the sympathy of military men
and especially that of the commander in chief of the
Middle March {al-thaghr al-wusta [q.v. ]), Ghalib, who
soon afterwards received the title of dhu y l-wizaratayn.
As the popularity of al-Mushafi declined on account of
his lack of political vision and his nepotism, Ibn Abl
c Amir succeeded in taking to wife the daughter of the
old general, appointed himself sahib al-madina [q.v.],
accused the hadjib of malpractice, imprisoned him in
978 and caused his disappearance.

Having become hddjib, Ibn AbT c Amir foiled a con¬
spiracy against him but was forced to make conces¬
sions to the opinion of the c ulama 5 who criticised his
conduct, private and public, under the pretext of lack
of orthodoxy. He therefore decided to “censor” the
splendid library of al-Hakam II, and works of philoso¬
phy, astronomy, etc., were destroyed. It was in the
same spirit of ostentatious piety that he made his own
manuscript copy of the Kur’an and ordered the final
expansion of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in
377/987. In order to strengthen his control of the ad¬
ministration of the state, he transferred the offices of
Madinat al-Zahra [q.v.] to his new residence at
MadTnat al-Zahira and obtained from the young
caliph a “delegation of all his powers, so as to permit
him to devote himself to pious observances”. He took
advantage of these powers to seclude the latter in his
palace and to prevent all contract with him. This
delegation thus supplied him with legal ratification of
his de facto authority. But thereby he overstepped the
limits and he was obliged to confront Ghalib. who
died at Torre Vicente in 371/981. The hadjib then took
the title of al-Mansur bi ’Hah.

Al-Mansur conducted 52 expeditions against the
Christian states of Spain (a partial list—the first 25—
with dates of departure and return is given in the
Tarsi* al-akhbar of al- c Udhn: a list of 56—including
two enagements at Algeciras, but undated—is given
in the Dhikr bilad al-Andalus). On these campaigns, the
reader is referred to the substantial and well
documented article by Ruiz Asensio, Campahas de
Almanzor (for the sake of completeness, attention is
also drawn to the very unreliable and presumptuous
article by L. Molina, Las campahas de Almanzor ) and
only the principal ones are mentioned: Zamora 981,
Simanacas 983, Sepulveda 984, Bracelona 985, Coim¬
bra 987, Leon 988, Clunia 994, St. James of Com-
postella 997 and Cervera 1000. The last, in 392/1002,
destroyed San Millan de la Cogolla; but on the return
journey, al-Mansur fell ill and died at Medinacelli,
and it was this which gave rise, two centuries later, to
the legendary “defeat of Calatanazor”.

The king of Leon, Ramiro III, was forced to sur¬
render to him in 984; Sancho Garces Abarca of
Navarra had been his client since 982; Vermudo II of
Leon asked and obtained from the c Amirid an army
which helped him to re-establish his authority; and the
Castilian Count Garci Fernandez surrendered in 990.
Sancho Garces and Vermudo II gave their daughters
in marriage to al-Mansur, who became the true ar¬
biter of the Spanish situation. It is equally certain that
these campaigns ruined a major part of the work of
“reconquest” and almost the entire effort of
repopulating Leon in the 9th century; the whole of
Estramadura was devastated. The effects seem to have
been still more in those eastern states which had no
“frontier” (cf. P. Bonnassie, La Catalogue du milieu du
X* d la fin du XT si'ecle , Toulouse 1978).

The Majakhir al-Barbar [q. v. ] , which reproduces the
chapter of Ibn Hayyan q.v.] on Hispano-Maghribi
relations, is the principa source for the study of his
North African activity. Al-Mansur inherited the
policy of c Abd al-Rahman III [q.v.] and of al-Hakam
II; rather than seeking conquests, he preferred to ob¬
tain submissions and vassalages. This had the double
advantage of not immobilising too many troops while
allowing the recruitment of large numbers of colonial
troops for the purposes of his Spanish campaigns.
There were numerous dangerous moments: when the
pro-Fatimid Buluggin b. Zlri [q.v.] advanced as far as
the gates of Ceuta in 980; the insurrection of Hasan
b. Gannun in 985 (he was executed in defiance of the
guarantee of security given by Ibn c Askaladja, which
aroused a considerable degree of resentment); and the
rebellion of ZTrT b. c Atiyya [q. v. ] in 998, suppressed by
c Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar [q.v.], who went on to
install a sort of “viceroyalty” of Fas.

Almost all the authors stress the politico-military
activity of al-Mansur, which was brilliant, and pass
too quickly over his internal policy. The famous
military reforms have not been correctly assessed and
are generally considered an innovation, whereas they
were in fact simply a systematic application of the
policy inaugurated by the caliph al-Nasir, when the
latter drew conclusions from the disaffection and
subsequent rout of his troops during the campaign of
327/939, that of al-Khandak (on this expedition and
its setbacks, see Chalmeta, Simancas y Alhandega, in
Hispama [1976], 397-464). Al-Mansur confined

himself—in regard to the ethnic basis of
recruitment—to intensifying the policy already ap¬
plied by al-Nasir in 328/939-40 (see Chalmeta,
Simancas-Alhandega: al-aho siguiente, in Adas Jordanas
Cultura Arabe [1978]) and to enlisting only non-
Andalusians. This was therefore an army without at¬
tachment to the country, or to its people; a “neutral”

432

al-MANSUR — MANSUR b. NUH

force, a “Foreign Legion”. These professional war¬
riors, mercenaries, required payment and were ex¬
pensive to maintain. The c Amirid novelty consisted in
taxing heavily all the Andalusians, even the Arab
adfnad. The desired effects were achieved. Powerful
opponents were estranged from the army (thus
deprived of prestige, of command, of access to infor¬
mation and to weapons), the considerable sums raised
compensated the troops, who could be mobilised at 24
hours notice and who were entirely in his pay. The ef¬
fect of his action was, primarily (Tibydn), 17) to forge
for himself an instrument of internal repression and,
subsequently, an army which by its very nature con¬
stituted an offensive machine of quality, but whose
numbers and composition made it unsuitable for use
as an occupying force (hence for the consolidation of
captured positions). This policy also had unforeseen
and undesirable effects in the long term: the im¬
poverishment of the local population; its indifference
towards the government; and its lack of military train¬
ing. The otherwise incomprehensible phenomenon of
the collapse of the caliphate, when confronted by the
Christians of the north at the time of the fitna [q.v. j,
thus becomes understandable and almost inevitable.

The impact of the orthodox “purge” of the library
of al-Hakam II on the intellectual life of Arab Spain
is difficult to assess. It seems inevitable that it took a
heavy toll. Many volumes must have been unique in
al-Andalus, and their destruction must have
prevented, or at the very least delayed, their
dissemination. In an indirect fashion, the library of al-
Hakam also performed, in part, the function of a
public library, and it was dispersed during the siege of
Cordova; furthermore, the economic crisis which ac¬
companied the fitna was hardly propitious for the con¬
stitution or enrichment of private libraries.

The campaigns of al-Man§ur, which assumed a
change in relations between al-Andalus and the Chris¬
tian kingdoms, were to bring about, in the long term,
the birth of a new attitude, a new sense of unity in the
popular Christian consciousness. Hitherto the
Muslim campaigns had only been responses to Chris¬
tian initiatives. In order to avoid conflict, it was suffi¬
cient to abstain from provocation. These campaigns
had also been relatively benign, without too drastic ef¬
fects in terms of destructions and death. After all, the
frontier-dwellers had relatives on the other side; they
could be caught unawares in their turn; etc. The
Christian states had hardly ever struck in any depth,
and the danger had never affected the majority of the
population. However, the c Amirid raids were not
responses, but attacks, and thus difficult to foresee.
They were conducted with a ferocity unprecedented
in the Spanish context, and left behind a long trail of
destruction, of death and of rancour. The Muslims
were no longer Hispano-Arabs, but foreigners, dif¬
ferent people. These campaigns affected the hinter¬
land, it was no longer simply a matter of
frontier-dwellers, of people who had chosen, in ex¬
change for certain fiscal and social advantages, to
“live dangerously”. All sectors of the population, in¬
cluding those people who preferred a peaceful ex¬
istence, far from the exposed territories, were
affected, capital cities were plundered, etc. Since sur¬
vival was at stake, any likelihood of coexistence must
have seemed absurd. These destructive raids pro¬
voked a defensive reflex and a much greater sense of
solidarity between the various Spanish Christian
kingdoms—Cervera is the proof of this—faced with
what was coming to be regarded as a common enemy.

The c Amirid campaigns, which employed a
number of Christians, either as mercenaries or as

vassal troops, for example in the famous raid against
St. James of Compostella, enabled the latter to ac¬
quire, from the inside, a useful knowledge of the
roads, the resources and the structure of the Cordovan
state. This was to prove advantageous, some years
later, when the Christians put into effect, in the
reverse direction, the c Amirid policy. By this time the
damage had been done. The bitterness accumulated
as a result of al-Mansur’s 52 expeditions had
engendered the notion that it was essential at the
earliest possible opportunity to settle accounts with
the adversary, an adversary whose lack of reaction
aroused contempt. The new identification between
the concepts of Christendom and Spain required the
expulsion of the ’’other Spain” (Chalmeta,
Historiografia hispana y arabismo: biografia de una distor¬
tion , in Rev. Inf or. Esp. UNESCO [1982]).

The systematic policy of infiltration, destabilisation
and then reconstruction of the Cordovan state which
had enabled al-Mansur to seize power and above all
to sustain it, led to the annihilation of all the struc¬
tures constituting a system: political, economic,
social, ethnic, cultural, etc. After him, there was to be
no more caliphate, great families, surplus budgets,
social or ethnic coexistence. The Andalusians were
henceforward aware of only one enemy: the Berbers.
They forgot the Christians, or saw them as their allies.
In view of the fact that al-Andalus did not constitute
a feudal society, its chances of resisting the advance of
a society which had the necessary mechanics for wag¬
ing war were limited. According to the Chronicle of
Silos, “In the year 1002, Almanzor died; he was en¬
tombed in Hell”. Such was the Christian verdict. It
could be extended to the whole of Muslim Spain, for
the policies of al-Mansur engendered the mental at¬
titude which spelled the doom of Hispano-Arab Islam.

Bibliography : 1. Sources: Ibn c Idhan. al-
Bayan al-mughrib, ii, 267-321; Ibn Bassam, al-
Dhakhira ft mahasin ahl al-dfazira , vii, 56-78; c Udhn,
Nusus c an ... Tars? al-akhbdr , 74-80; Ibn al-Athlr,
Kamil ; Ibn al-Khatlb. K. A c mal al-a c lam, 59-73, 97-
104; idem, K. al-Ihata\ Ibn Darradj Kastalll, Dlwan ,
ed. M. MakkI, Damscus 1961; Mafdkhir al-Barbar:
fragments historiques. .., ed. E. Levi-Provencal, Rabat
1934; Makkari, Nafh al-lib, i, 257-72; anon., Dhikr
bildd al-Andalus wa-fadliha wa-sifatiha\ one should
add the details to be gleaned from Ibn al-Abbar, al-
Hulla al-siyard x Ibn Sa c id al-MaghribT, al-Mughrib
ft hula ’l-M agh rib\ Humaydl, Diadhwal al-muktabis\
Ibn Khaldun, K. al- c Ibar\ Nuayri, Nihayat al-arab;
etc. 2. Studies. The basic works are still the
Hisloire des Musulmans d’Espagne, of R. Dozy, ed.
Levi-Provengal, Leiden 1932, and the Histoire de
I’Espagne musulmane by Levi-Proven^al, Paris 1950-
3, to be completed by R. Menendez Pidal, Historia
y epopeya , Madrid 1934, 1-27; J. Perez de Urbel,
Historia del Condado de Castilla , Madrid 1945, 667-
802; M. Makki, La Espaha cristiana en el dxwan de Ibn
Darray , in B.R. Acad. Buenas Letras Barcelona, xx
(1963-4), 63-104; J. M. Ruiz Asensio, Campahas de
Almanzor contra el reino de Leon (981-986), in An. Est.
Med., v (1965), 31-64; L. Seco de Luceni, Acerca de
las campahas militares de Almanzor , in MEAH, xiv-xv
(1965 ff.), 7-29; M. Lachica Garrido, Almanzor en
los poemas de Ibn Darray , Saragossa 1979.

(P. Chalmeta)

MANSUR b. NUH, the name of two amir s of
• « *

the Sam an id dynasty of Tranoxania and
Kh urasan.

1. MansOr b. Nuh I, Abu Salih, ruler of Khurasan
and Transoxania (350-65/961-76), succeeded his
brother c Abd al-Malik b. Nuh I. Ibn Hawkal is able

433

MANSUR b. NUH — al-MANSUR BI’LLAH

to describe the internal conditions of the Samanid
kingdom under Mansur as an eye-witness; cf.
especially BGA, ii, 341: fi waktina hddhd\ 344 on the
character of Mansur “thejustest king among our con¬
temporaries, in spite of his physical weakness and the
slightness of his frame”. On the vizier Abu C A1I
Muhammad Bal c aml, see bal c amI, where also infor¬
mation is given about the Persian version of al-
Tabari’s history composed in 352/963 by or by orders
of this vizier. On the rebellion of the commander of
the Samanid bodyguard, Alp-TegTn, and the indepen¬
dent kingdom founded by him in Ghazna and on the
establishment of Samanid rule there in the reign of
Mansur and the son and successor of Alp-Tegln,
Ishak (or Abu Ishak Ibrahim) see alp-tegIn and
ghazna; in Barthold, Turkestan, 251, n. 4, Abu Ishak
Ibrahim should be read for Ishak b. Ibrahim (this
passage is misunderstood in the Russian original). In
other directions also in this reign, the Samanid
kingdom prospered in its foreign affairs; the fighting
with the Buyids [see buwayhids] and Ziyarids [q.v. ]
was as a rule successful.

2. Mansur b. Nuh II, Abu THarith, ruler in
Transoxania only (387-9/997-9). His father Nuh II b.
Mansur, to whom out of all the Samanid empire only
a portion of Transoxania was left, died on Friday, 14
Ra^ijab 387/July 23, 997 but it was not till Dhu ’1-Ka-
c da/November that homage was paid to Mansur as his
successor. The Ghaznawid historian BayhakI, ed.
Morley, 803, ed. GhanI and Fayyad, 640, Russian tr.
Arends 2 , 776, talks highly of his courage and elo¬
quence; on the other hand, he is said to have been
feared by every one for his extraordinary severity.
During his brief and impotent reign he was hardly
able to instil terror into any one. The last Samanids
were quite helpless against the rulers and generals
who were quarrelling over the inheritance of the dying
dynasty. One of these generals, FaTk, succeeded even
in taking Bukhara at the head of only 3,000 horsemen;
Mansur had to fly to Amul [q.v.], but was called back
by Fa 5 ik. The last months of his reign were devoted
to fruitless efforts to settle peacefully the question of
the governorship of Khurasan, which was claimed by
various parties; but before the problem had been
settled by force of arms, Mansur was dethroned on
Wednesday, 12 Safar 389/1 February 999, by his
generals Fa 5 ik and Begtuzun, blinded a week later
and sent to Bukhara.

Bibliography : W. Barthold, Turkestan down to
the Mongol invasion, London 1928, 251-2, 264-6;
Narshakhl. The history of Bukhara, tr. R.N. Frye,
Cambridge, Mass. 1954, 98-9; Frye, in Cambridge
history of Iran, iv, 152-9; C.E. Bosworth, The Ghaz-
navids..., Edinburgh 1963, 45-6; art. samanids. For
the chronology of these reigns, see Zambaur,
Manuel, 202-3. _ (W. Barthold)

al-MANSUR BI’LLAH c Abd Allah b. Hamza b.
Sulayman b. Hamza, Zaydl Imam of the Yemen.
Born in Rabl^ I 561/January 1166, he became Imam
in 583/1187-8 (some sources have 593/1196-7). He
was not a direct descendant of al-Hadl ila ’1-Hakk
Yahya [see zaydids], but of the latter’s grandfather al-
Kasim al-RassIb. Tabataba (Kay, Yaman , 184-5, 314;
Van Arendonk, Debuts, 366). Between 532/1137-8
and 566/1170-1, the Imam al-Mutawakkil c ala Allah
Ahmad b. Sulayman had tried to assure Zaydl power
over al-Djawf, Nadjran, Sa c da, al-Zahir and Zabld
(Kay, Yaman, 317; EI l s.v. al-mahdi li-din allah
ahmad), but his influence had been seriously challen¬
ged by Hamid al-Dawla Hatim and his son C A1I b.
Hatim [see hamdanids] (Smith, Ayyubids, 71-5).
When al-Mansur bi’llah was proclaimed Imam in Ma-
c In al-Djawf (Smith, Ayyubids , ii, 94-5), according to

Tritton [EP s.v. rassids] after a year of probation, the
Ayyubids had already started to interfere in Yemeni
affairs. Turanshah [q.v. ] had arrived from Egypt in
569/1173-4 and had left in 571/1175-6, while his
brother Tughtakln [q.v.] had entered the country in
579/1183-4. He came to San c a :> in 585/1189-90, thus
limiting the influence of the Imam to the north-west.
Ai-Mansur bi’llah took up his residence in $a c da, then
moved southwards and succeeded in entering San c a 5
in 594/1197-8 or the beginning of 595/1198. In the
same year, he took possession ofDhamar [q.v. ] and its
neighbourhood, but in 597/1200-1 he was defeated by
al-Mu c izz Isma c Il, son of Tu gh takln. and forced to
retreat northward (Ibn al-Athlr, xii, 113). He never¬
theless extended his power into the Hidjaz, and in
600/1203-4 he restored the fortress of Zafar. In
601/1204-5 he ordered Sayyid Katada b. Idris (cf. al-
Habshl, Mu^allafat, 47, no. 77) to restore the mashhad
of al-Husayn (Van Arendonk, Debuts , 58/65). About
611/1214, Badr al-Dln al-Hasan b. C A1I, grandson of
Rasul (Muhammad b. Harun) who gave the Rasulid
dynasty its name (see Smith, Ayyubids , ii, 85 ff.),
made contact with the Imam, who had occupied San ^ 5
for a second time, in an attempt to dislodge the
Ayyubid al-Mu c azzam Sulayman, grandson of
Turanshah. In the end, however, the Rasulid came to
terms with the Ayyubid. Meanwhile, the Imam had
also regained possession of Dhamar, and was trying to
subject the Mutarrifiyya. According to Kay (Yaman,
318, repeated in Ghayat al-amam. i, 371, n. 4; cf. ibid.,
390), this term, very generally accompanied by the
epithet shakiyya “vile”, may designate the Sunnis (cf.
B. L. Suppl. 210 II, IV), but see also R. Strothmann,
Die Literatur der Zaiditen , in Isl., ii, 67-9. Ibn
Khaldun—whose statements on the Yemen need
some caution (Kay, Yaman , 284)—relates that al-
Mansur bi’llah displayed a hostile demeanour
towards the c Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-din Allah
[^.u.], with whom he affected a tone of equality. He
sent his da c i s to the DaylamI [see daylam] and to
Djllan [<7 0 ], with the result that the khutba was recited
among these people in his name (the Caspian
Zaydiyya had been merged into the Nuktawiyya [see
tabaristan and al-zaydiyya in EP, and cf. EP , art.
hurufiyya]. The caliph al-Nasir endeavoured to raise
the Arabs of the Yemen against the Imam by means of
subventions, and in 612/1215-16 al-Mas c ud, the last
Ayyubid in the Yemen (see on him Smith, Ayyubids,
ii, 88 ff.), sent Kurdish and Turkish troops, headed
by c Umar b. Rasul, to meet the Hamdanls and
Khawlanls of the Imam. Al-Mansur bi’llah retreated
to the neighbourhood of Kawkaban, where he built a
substantial house for himself and quarters for his
followers, and even set up a mint. After frequent
engagements, a truce was agreed upon in 613/1216-
17. Having removed to Kawkaban and then to Zafar,
al-Mansur bi’llah died in Muharram 614/April 1217
in Kawkaban (Redhouse, El-Khazraji, 80). For a more
detailed survey of the intricate situation in the Yemen
during the life of al-Mansur bi’llah, see San c d :> , ed.
Serjeant, 61-3.

Al-Habshl, Mu^allafat, 37, mentions four slras of al-
Mansur bi’llah : one anonymous, one by Muhyl al-
Dln Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Walld, a third one by
C A1I b. Nashwan b. Sa c Id al-Himyarl, and a fourth
one by Abu Firas Daghtham ( = Du c aym) al-$an c anl,
the Imam's secretary (see Smith, Ayyubids, ii, 8 , 78 n.
4, 98). Al-Mansur bi’llah is also the last Imam treated
by his companion Hamid b. Ahmad al-Muhalll in his
Kitab al-Hadd^ik al-wardiyya ft dhikr (manakib) a^immat
al-Zaydiyya (Brockelmann, I, 325; S I, 560; Stroth¬
mann, Die literatur, in Isl., i, 361).

Like many other Zaydl Imams before and after him,

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

434

al-MANSUR BFLLAH

al-Mansur bi’llah developed a great literary activity.
Besides the 21 titles mentioned in Brockelmann (GAL,
I, 403, S I, 701; cf. also Ahlwardt, Verzeichnis, iv,
4950, XI), al-Habshi, Mu^allafat, 38-48, lists 62 other
titles, some of which may be the same as those sum¬
marised in B.L. Suppl. nos. 210, 211, 1230 IV-VII.
In his Kitab al-Shaft ( Brockelmann, I, 403, S I, 701; al-
HabshT Mu^allafat, 44, no. 53), the Imam often quotes
from the Kitab al-^Umda by al-Hilll al-VVasitl
(Brockelmann, S I, 710; Van Arendonk, Debuts, 15/17
n. 1) and makes use of the kutub al- c amma, i.e. collec¬
tions of traditions favourable to the descendants of
Fatima and c AlI (Strothmann, Die Literatur, in Isl., i,
358, ii, 64). Of historical interest might be the follow¬
ing numbers, mentioned by al-Habshi, Mu^allafdt.
No. 23 is a da c wa to Sunkur of the year 599/1202-3.
This Sunkur is probably the atdbeg Sayf al-DTn
Sunkur, a mamluk of Tughtakln (cf. Smith, Ayyubids ,
97, 98; Ghaya. i, 356 ff.). No. 24 is a da c wa to the
c IrakT amir al-ha didi Tashkm ( = Tashtikln? cf. A.
Hartmann, an-Nasir, 146), while no. 64 is a kitab to
(the same?) amir ha djdi al-Hraki. No. 25 is a da c wa of
the Imam to (al-Mu c izz) Isma c Tl b. Tughtakln when
the latter came down ( hatta ) to Kawkaban, of the year
599/1202-3. (According to^an^, ed. Serjeant, 62, al-
Mu c izz was murdered in 598/1201-2, but see Ghaya .
i, 380). No. 56 is a sura kitab to the Q dmil of the Banu
c Abbas in the Yemen, and no. 60 is a kasida sent to the
c Abbasid caliph = al-Nasir li-dm Allah (see Ghay at. i,
400 n. 1). According to al-Habshi, part of this kasida
is mentioned in Muhammad Yahya Zabara, A^immat
al-Yaman, Ta c izz 1375/1955-6, (but see SanW, ed.
Serjeant, 572), 139-41, and there is a commentary on
it by Hamid b. Ahmad al-Muhalll, d. 652/1254, enti¬
tled Mahdsin al-azhdr (Brockelmann,_I, 325, S I, 560).
No. 63 is a kitab to al-Malik al- c Adil Abu Bakr b.
Ayyub [q.v. ] of the year 598/1201-2, while no. 79 con¬
tains correspondence between the Imam and the Banu
Rasul.

Bibliography : H.K. Kay, Yaman, its early
mediaeval history , London 1892; C. van Arendonk,
Les debuts de TImamat Zaidite au Yemen , Leiden 1960;
G.R. Smith, The Ayyubids and early Rasulids in the
Yemen (567-694!1173-1295), 2 vols., GMS London
1978; Sayyid c Abd Allah Muhammad al-Habshi,
Mu^allafdt hukkdm al-Yaman. The works of the rulers of
Yemen , ed. Elke Niewohner-Eberhard, Wiesbaden
1979; R. Strothmann, Die Literatur der Zaiditen , in
Isl, i (1910), 354-68; ii (1911), 49-78; Sir J.
Redhouse and Muhammad Asal, El-Khazraji’s
History of the Restlli Dynasty of Yemen, GMS, 5 vols.,
Leiden-London 1906-18; Angelika Hartmann, an-
Nasir li-Din Allah (1180-1225). Politik, Religion ,
Kultur in der spdten c Abbasidenzeit, Berlin-New York
1975; San c a 5 , an Arabian Islamic city , ed. R. B. Ser¬
jeant and R. Lewcock, London 1983; Yahya b. al-
Husayn, Ghayat al-amanift akhbar al-kutr al-Yamdnl,
ed. S. A. F. c Ashur, 2 vols. Cairo 1388/1968.

(E. van Donzel)

al-MANSUR BFLLAH, Isma c Il, third caliph
of the Fatimid dynasty in Ifrlkiya (334-41/946-
53). His personality shines with an unparalleled
brilliance under the pens of the Isma c ill authors, who,
as also the Sunni chroniclers, show great wonder in
relating his exalted deeds and who dwell at length on
giving accounts of the battles, rebellions and other
bloody events, especially as his name is linked with the
defeat of the ’’man on the donkey”, the celebrated
Kharidjl rebel Abu YazTd q.v. j, whose remarkable
revolt almost put an end to the caliphate and the c Alid
line.

Sunni and Isma c IlI authors are at one in

acknowledging his exemplary bravery and tenacity in
the face of all odds, shown by him during the long and
dangerous campaign which he had to lead, at the head
of his troops, against the rebel leader, as far as the
massif of the Zab. According to their accounts,
Isma c Il possessed only good qualities: he was generous
and benevolent, level-headed and perspicacious;
above all possessing a brilliant eloquence; since his
youth, he had devoted himself to piety and study, and
was deeply conscious of his high calling as impeccable
Imam and of his grandeur as a monarch.

Isma c il was born at Rakkada in the first ten days of
Ramadan 301 January 914, the son of an Ifrlkiyan
slave concubine called Karima, who had been left by
the last Aghlabid amir Ziyadat Allah III [q.v.) and re¬
ceived as his share by his father, the second Fatimid
caliph al-Ka-fim bi-amr Allah [q.v.]. He was thus an
Ifrlkiyan Arab, for there was as much Ifrlkiyan blood
in his veins through his mother as eastern blood. It
was at the death of his grandfather al-Mahdl bi’llah
[q.v.] that, in accordance with a rule of Isma c ili doc¬
trine, he was secretly designated successor (hu djdia ) of
al-Ka^im. He had accordingly to wait a dozen years
with no involvement in the great civil and military
responsibilities before he became heir presumptive;
his public designation took place only on 7 Ramadan
334/12 April 946, a mere five weeks before his father’s
death, with great suffering, in an al-Mahdiyya
besieged by Abu Yazld.

Thus he had to face up to, immediately, the
heaviest responsibilities without having served any
apprenticeship as ruler. He did not wait for his
father’s death to engage with ardour in the task
awaiting him, sc. to defeat the “accursed one”, the
Kharidjl rebel; he sent reinforcements to Sousse,
which was undergoing siege, on 11 Shawwal 334/16
May 946. Two days later, his father died, but Isma c Il
concealed his death for fear lest Abu Yazld derive pro¬
fit from the news and, without announcing his own
accession, buried his father secretly, and then, on 19
Shawwal 334/24 May 946, began his campaign
against the rebel. His lieutenant Kabun b. Tasula
soon relieved Sousse, whose siege Abu Yazld had to
relinquish in order to fall back towards al-Kayrawan.
Encouraged by this victory, Isma c H decided to under¬
take personally the pursuit of his enemy; he required
less than five months to subjugate him.

Having reached the southern part of the town,
whose shame-faced notables had rushed out to meet
him and to ask for amdn and pardon for support which
they had given to the Kharidjl chief, Isma c H deployed
his troops behind the shelter of a trench (khandak),
from which he doggedly repelled the repeated attacks
of the enemy, undertaken from the time of his camp
being set up at Mams. Abu Yazld, accustomed for
two years to fighting dispirited troops led by timorous
officers, found himself now up against a young amir
full of fighting spirit, always ready to expose himself
to danger under his ceremonial parasol at the head of
troops still weak, but determined to fight fiercely.

The battle for al-Kayrawan began at the end of
Shawwal 334/beginning of June 946, and ended after
two months of fierce fighting in the crushing defeat of
the Kharidjl leader, now driven to retreat into the
region of the Zab, the original seat of his revolt. But
even though this bade allowed the Fatimid ruler to
save his kingdom, it did not mean the end of the
revolt, but only the beginning of the decline of
Kharidjism. It remained for the Fatimid ruler, in
order to extirpate the roots, to continue and subjugate
its adherents the Kamlan, Birzal, Huwwara and other
Zanata elements in their fastnesses of the Aures and

435

al-MANSUR BI’LLAH

the Zab. Also, he still had to kill Abu Yazld. But to
put an end to his formidable enemy, IsmaTl was going
to need less than one year of untiring warfare.

Thus after an interval of two months used to
regroup his forces and to take suitable measures for
restoring a country ravaged by war,—sc. a tax holi¬
day for the current year, exemption of his subjects, in¬
cluding the tributaries, from all legal and
extraordinary levies, and the undertaking by the state
only to levy, during the ensuing years, the tithe and
the sadaka in kind—IsmaTl went off in pursuit o the
enemy. On the spot of his encampment marked off by
the trench, in order to immortalise his brilliant vic¬
tory, he had just marked out a new city, appropriately
called Sabra al-Mansuriyya, his future capital.

The rebel had withdrawn into the massif of Salat,
so that IsmaTl had to dislodge him from there and
force him to fall back to the north of the Zab moun¬
tains, into the massif of c Ukbar, the Djabal Ma c adid.
Thus harassed, Abu Yazld retired into the strong¬
holds of Shakir and Kiyana. It was in this last, which
was taken by storm, that he was at last taken prisoner,
before dying of his wounds a few days later, in the
night of Wednesday-Thursday 28 Muharram 336/
August 947. Having suppressed the rebellion and
killed the “accursed” Kharidji. IsmaTl could now
make public his father’s death and his own accession
to the throne with the title of al-Mansur bi ’Hah. Then
having pacified the Zab from Maslla [q.v. ] onwards,
where the Banii Kamlan, previously uncompromising
participants in the revolt but now submissive, had
come to give him their submission, he proceeded to
Tahart in order to re-establish his authority there and
to punish the rebellious tribes, notably the Lawata
q.v.]. Did he then dream of leading his troops still
urther towards the central Maghrib with the inten¬
tion of making an impression of his rival in al-
Andalus, c Abd al-Rahman III and his Zanata allies?
Some IsmaTl! sources suggest this. In any case, a
serious illness reduced him to inactivity, and when he
at last recovered, he took the road towards Ifrikiya, on
Saturday, 18 RabY II 336/6 November 947. He only
arrived there two months later after a long stay at Setif
amongst his faithful adherents the Kutama, from
whom 14,000 families now accompanied him in order
to settle in the new capital al-Mansuriyya.

It was on Thursday, 27 Djumada II 336/13 January
948 that IsmaTl entered there. His return was
celebrated with great pomp, and in his presence was
held a parade in the course of which the crowd was
amused by the comic spectacle of the “man on the
donkey”, his skin stuffed with straw and hoisted on to
the back of a camel and handed over to the tricks of
an ape and monkey.

Thus only 15 months had been necessary for al-
Mansur to finish off the leader of the Kharidji insur¬
rection. But hardly had he got back when he had to
go personally to pacify the provinces of the Kastfliya
region and the southern part of the Aures and to
reduce to obedience the Manawa, Maghrawa, Kalala
and other Yafran tribal elements stirred up by Fadl,
a son of Abu Yazld. The death of Fadl put an end to
all IbadI threats to the Fatimid kingdom. For the re¬
mainder of his all-too-short reign, less than seven
years, al-Mansur devoted himself to dealing with in¬
ternal and external affairs of his realm, which had suf¬
fered considerably from the revolt of the “man on the
donkey”. He resumed the wars of prestige under¬
taken by his predecessors in the central Ma gh rib
against the Muslim Spanish ruler, who had not failed
to support Abu Yazld; and also in Sicily against
Byzantium, which had, during the opening stages of

the revolt, caused a deterioration of the authority of
the Fatimids there. Order was soon re-established in
Sicily, and rule there was entrusted to the faithful
family of the Kalbids [q.v.], whilst in the farthest
Maghrib, the influence of the Spanish Umayyads was
contained and the Zanata held in check by the tragic
death of Abu Yazld, which intimidated them. In the
east, al-Mansur endeavoured equally to re-establish
the prestige of his dynasty; he found time, before his
demise, to give further weight to the IsmaTl! da c wa
against his c Abbasid rivals and in support of its sup¬
porters in the Yemen and amongst the Karamita of al-
Ahsa. It was on his orders that the chief of these last,
Ahmad al-Djannabl, was made in 340/951 to restore
to Mecca the Black Stone which his father had carried
off after seizing Mecca.

Before dying in his capital, hardly having reached
the age of 40, on 28 Shawwal 341/18 March 953,
IsmaTl al-Mansur could justly pride himself on
having restored in a short period of time, the tottering
edifice of the Fatimid caliphate in Ifrikiya.

Bibliography : The main sources for the cam¬
paign of al-Mansur against Abu Yazfd are Ibn
Tdharl, Bayan al-mughrib , i, ed. G.S. Colin and E.
Levi-Proven^al, Leiden 1948-51; the chronicle of
Ibn Hammado, ed. and tr. Vonderheyden as the
Histoire des rois Obeidites, Algiers 1927; Makrlzl,
Itti c az al-hunafa > , Cairo 1948; Ibn Khaldun, Kitab
al- c Ibar , tr. de Slane as Histoire des Berberes, ii,
355 ff., iii, 209 ff.

The Sunni and IbadI sources have been used by
R. Le Tourneau, in an exhaustive fashion, in La
revolte d’Abu Yazld an X e si'ecle , in CT, no. 2, Tunis
1953. For his part, S.M. Stern has the advantge of
having utilised the IsmaTl! sources ignored by Le
Tourneau in his EP art. Abu Yazld. F. Dachraoui
has used all these sources in his Le Califat faiimide au
Maghreb. Histoire politique et institutions , Tunis 1981,
183 ff., and has especially used the works of the
Kadi al-Nu c man, K. al-Madjalis wa ’l-musayarat, at
that time in ms., now ed. Chabbouh, Fequih and
Yaalaoui, Tunis 1983, and K. Iftitdh al-da c wa, ed.
Dachraoui. But the basic source remains the K.
c Uyun al-akhbar wa-junun al-athar of the daH Idris,
from which Dachraoui has published extracts from
vol. v as Ta^rlkh al-dawla al-fdtimiyya bi ’l-Maghrib,
Tunis 1981, and M. YaTawI has published a com¬
plete edition of the section devoted to the Ma gh rib.
Tunis 1985. _ (F. Dachraoui)

al-MANSUR BI’LLAH al-Kasim b. c AlI al-
TyanI (d. 393/1003), Zaydl imam ofYaman, and
a descendant of al-Kasim b. Ibrahim al-RassI [see
rassids] but not of the latter’s grandson al-Hadl ila ’1-
Hakk, the founder of the Zaydl imamate in Yaman.

The dates given by late sources for his birth
(310/922 or 316/928) are unreliable. More likely he
was born between 330/941 and 340/951. Before his ar¬
rival in Yaman, he lived in Tardj, south of Bisha, in
the country of Khath c am [q.v.]. He gained early a
reputation as a religious scholar and was visited for
over twenty years by Zaydls from Yaman urging him
to revolt. In 383/993 he rose in the Hidjaz, claiming
the imamate. The revolt was quickly subdued by the
amir of Makka, c Isa b. Dja Tar al-Hasanl, who arrived
together with the rebel in Cairo in Muharram
384/February-March 994. The Fatimid caliph al-
c AzIz treated him well, and after a few months permit¬
ted him to return to the Hidjaz together with the amir
(al-Makrlzl, Itti c az al-hunqfd 3 , ed. al-Shayval, i, Cairo
1967, 278, 281-2). In his first invasion of Yaman,
which occured probably in 387/997 or 388/998, he oc¬
cupied Sa c da, the stronghold of the descendants of al-

436

al-MAN$UR BI’LLAH

Had!, and brought Nadjran and the territories of
Khawlan, Wada c a and Bakfl under his control. After
his departure to Tardj, however, his administration
quickly crumbled. In Muharram 389/January 999 he
returned permanently to Yaman. During the next two
years, he extended his sway over much of the
highlands of Yaman. In the heyday of his reign, his
rule extended from the Bilad Khath c am to Sa^a 3 and
Ohamar, anc j included the territory of Khawlan al-
c Aliya, c Ans, Alhan, Himyar with Shibam Akyan,
Kuhlan, La c a, Djabal Maswar and Djabal Tays. His
extensive kingdom, however, had no outlet to the sea,
and his hopes to gain control of the Red Sea port of
c Aththar, ruled by two, presumably Ziyadid, slave
amirs, by diplomacy or military means, came to
nought. For his residence in Yaman he came to prefer
the town of c Iyan, a two days’ trip south-east of Sa c da,
in the territory of the Banu Salman, who were among
his most loyal supporters. He also acquired an estate
which he brought newly under irrigation in Wadi Ma-
dhab, between c lyan and Sa c da, and built a castle
there. In Sa c da he restored the ruined castle of the
Imam Ahmad al-Nasir, son of al-Hadi, which lay
outside the town, for his own use.

His position in the old capital of the Zaydl state
was, however, precarious, as the population and the
tribes of the neighbourhood were predominantly loyal
to the descendants of al-Hadi, whose allegiance to his
imamate proved to be fickle. After his failure to
reduce the rebellious Banu THarith in Nadjran to
obedience in two successive campaigns, the latent op¬
position came out into the open, led by Ibrahim al-
Mallh b. Muhammad b. al-Mukhtar b. Ahmad al-
Nasir and Yusuf b. Yahya b. Ahmad al-Nasir. The
latter had claimed the imamate before the arrival of
al-Mansur with the regnal name al-Da C I ila ’1-Hakk
and had relinquished his claim only under duress. Al-
Mansur’s cause was lost when his governor of
Dhamar, al-Kasim b. Husayn al-Zaydl, turned
against him and captured his son Dja c far, governor of
$an c a 5 , in Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 391/October 1001. When
al-Zaydl voluntarily released his son, al-Mansur con¬
sented to a peace agreement in Safar 392/January
1002. He declined al-Zaydl’s offer to let him keep the
rule over Bakll and Wada c a because of the lack of
support he had received from them, and withdrew to
private life in Madhab and c lyan. Al-Zaydl now sup¬
ported the imamate of Yusuf al-Da c I, who gained
wide recognition, As al-Mansur’s qualifications for
the imamate were now impugned by many, he wrote
an “Answer to the rejectors” ( Radd c ala ’l-rafida)
against his critics. After a severe illness, he died on 9
Ramadan 393/11 July 1003 in c lyan. His shrine there
was left unharmed in the razing of the town of c lyan
by the Imam al-Mansur al-Kasim b. Muhammad
[q.v.\, in Dhu ’1-Ka c da 1026/November 1617. Later
Zaydls generally recognised him as a full imam , no
doubt on account of his scholarship, and denied this
title to his rival Yusuf al-Da c I.

Of his writings, only excerpts from his Kitab al-
Tafri c , a collection of legal opinions, are known to be
extant, besides letters and poems quoted in his Sira.
Other works are known by title (see A. M. al-Hibshl
[al-Habshl], Mu^allafat hukkam al-Yaman , Wiesbaden
1979, 21-3). In his teaching, he generally followed the
doctrine of al-Kasim b. Ibrahim and al-Hadi,
although strict followers of the doctrine of al-Hadi like
the fakih c Abd al-Malik b. Ghitrlf accused him of
deviation and stirred up opposition to him.

Bibliography : al-Husayn b. Ahmad b. Ya c -
kub al-Hamdanl, Sir at al-imam al-Mansur bi ’llah al-
Kasim b. c Ali , ms. Brit. Mus. Or. 3816; Humayd

al-Muhaill, al-Hada^ik al-wardiyya, ii, mss.,
biography of al-Mansur; al-Hadjurl, Rawdat al-
akhbar, iv, ms. Paris 5982 (see JNES, xxxii [1973],
179-80), fob 240; Ibn al-Dayba c , Kurrat al- c uyun,
ed. Muhammad al-Akwa c al-Hiwali, Cairo n.d., i,
228-31 ;_Yahya b. al-Husayn, Ghayat al-amani , ed.
S. C A. c Ashur and M. M. Ziyada, Cairo 1968, 227-
34; W. Madelung, Der Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim ,
Berlin 1965, 194-7. (W. Madelung)

al-MANSUR BI’LLAH al-Kasim b. Muham¬
mad, the imam and eponymous founder of the
Kasim! dynasty ( al-dawla al-kasimiyya ) of Zaydl
imams which dominated much of Yemen from the
early 11 th/17th century to the outbreak of the
republican revolution in 1962. Like almost all
recognised RassI imams, he was descended from al-
Hadl ila ’1-Hakk Yahya b. al-Husayn b. al-Kasim al-
RassI (d. 298/911), who established the temporal
authority of the Zaydl imamate in Yemen. Their
aristocratic pedigree notwithstanding, al-Kasim’s
forbears from the death of Yusuf al-Da c I, the great-
grandson of al-Hadi Yahya, kept a low political pro¬
file, while members of other branches of al-Hadi
Yahya’s descendants filled the imamate. Al-Kasim’s
greatest claim to history is his initiation of the lengthy
but sporadic rebellion against Ottoman rule in
Yemen, which rule had been continuous since
945/1538-9 and ended in 1045/1645 with the expul¬
sion of the last Turks from Yemen by al-Kasim’s son,
Imam al-Mu^ayyad bi’llah Muhammad.

Al-Kasim was born during $afar 967/November
1559, probably in the northwestern Zaydl district of
al-Sharaf. Recognising a strong /mam-like potential in
his noble origins and his marked propensity for
scholarship, and having for some time forestalled any
serious claimant to the imamate, the Turks pursued
the young al-Kasim into a peripatetic life of secluded
study, authorship and preparation for leadership.
Formal proclamation of his claim to the imamate
(da c wa) in late Muharram or early Safar
1006/September 1597 occured at Hadld (possibly
Djadld) al-Kara, a village in the northern district of
Hudjur. It was coupled with an appeal to all Yemenis
to rebel against the Ottoman Turks for their ir¬
religious and corrupt rule. At the time, Yemen was
governed by Hasan Pasha, during whose remarkably
long term (989-1013/1581-1604) local Ottoman for¬
tunes had reached a high point: he had secured the
loyalty of several Zaydl aristocrats, especially among
those descendants of Imam al-Mutawakkil c ala ’llah
Sharaf al-Dln Yahya (d. 965/1558) who survived the
mass exile of their family to Istanbul in 994/1586.

The rebellion began modestly in the Zaydl
heartlands northwest of San c a :) , in the districts of
Hudjur, al-Ahnum and Hadjdja, and spread quickly
southwards into the regions of al-Hayma, Sanhan and
Anis, as local chiefs joined, if often more out of per¬
sonal grievance with the Ottomans than loyalty to the
new imam. After about a year of demoralising
reverses, however, the Turks and their native allies,
led principally by Hasan Pasha’s capable com¬
mander, the ketkhuda Sinan, regained their balance
and turned the tables on al-Kasim. The latter lost all
of his earlier gains, including Shahara, his principal
base, where he was besieged for 15 months before
escaping to Barat, in the remote north, leaving his
eldest son Muhammad to surrender it and to enter
Ottoman captivity at Kawkaban (Muharram
1011/June-July 1602). When local support for the
Turks was eroded during the governorship of the
harsh Sinan Pasha (1013-6/1604-8), al-Kasim
resumed the offensive and recaptured many places.

437

al-MANSUR BI’LLAH

Matters became settled for a time after 11 Dhu T
Hidjdja 1016/28 March 1608, when, on petition from
Dja c fer Pasha, Sinan Pasha’s successor, al-Kasim
agreed to a ten-year peace treaty, by which the Ot¬
tomans recognised his control over much of northern
Yemen and undertook to release his son Muhammad.

Serious disorders within the Ottoman ranks during
1022/1613 induced al-Kasim to breach the peace with
a new offensive in the northern sector. Although at
first it succeeded, with even Sa c da falling to the imam
for a time, Dja c fer Pasha was able to restore Ottoman
unity and achieve some modest gains, including the
capture of al-Hasan, another of al-Kasim’s sons.
Thereafter, each party tasted victory and defeat, until
Qi a c fer Pasha, learning of his recall and wishing to
depart with his province in order, obtained from al-
Kasim a one-year truce by which each side recognised
the other’s gains (1 Radjab 1025/15 July 1616).
Hostilities recommenced the following year when
Mehmed Pasha, Dja c fer’s overconfident replacement,
declined al-Kasim’s offer to extend the truce. Never¬
theless, by Djumada I 1028/April-May 1619 the
Turks, dismayed at how well supplied with firearms
were the imam’s supporters, agreed with al-Kasim to
another ten-year peace based upon the mutual
recognition of each party’s possessions and the release
of all prisoners except al-Hasan b. al-Kasim.

When the Imam al-Kasim died and was buried at
Shahara in mid-RabL I 1029/February 1620, he con¬
trolled substantial territories in almost all directions
from San c a :) , the Ottoman provincial capital. At least
five of his sons survived him, and two of them suc¬
ceeded as imam —al-Mu 3 ayyad bi’llah Muhammad
(1029-54/1620-44) and al-Mutawakkil c ala ’llah
Isma c Il (1054-87/1644-76). It was during al-Kasim's
time that English and Dutch ships first secured limited
commercial privileges in Yemen, although negotia¬
tions were conducted with Ottoman rather than im-
amic officials.

In view of his numerous impressive military gains
against four Ottoman governors over more than two
decades, it is hardly surprising that most accounts of
Imam al-Kasim dwell on his role as a warrior imam ,
so much so that one of his biographers (al-DjurmuzI)
arranged the history of his imamate according to his
four “risings ( nahadat )’’ against the occupying power.
But this should not obscure the fact that he com¬
manded wide respect among fellow-Zaydls for his
scholarly attainments and extensive knowledge of
Islamic law and religious practice. Al-Habshf s study
of the literary output of the various imams attributes to
al-Kasim’s authorship some 41 works, a productivity
surpassed apparently by only four of his peers. His
compositions, both in poetry and in prose, range in
length from one or two folios to several hundred and
deal mainly with jurisprudence and Zaydl dogma.
Although some were produced prior to the proclama¬
tion of his da c wa, others must have been composed
during the military off-season in his wars with the
Turks. Among the more frequently mentioned are al-
Ktisam, a substantial work on hadith uncompleted at
his death; al-Asas ii-^akahd al-akyas, concerning the
fundamental principles of the faith and widely com¬
mented upon; al-Irshad ild sabil al-rashdd, a collection of
articles; and several compilations of his answers to
questions regarding law and dogma.

Bibliography : The principal source for the life
of al-Kasim is a biography by Ahmad b. Muham¬
mad al-Sharafi (d. 1055/1645-6), an early sup¬
porter of the imam and one of his officials. A ms. of
the second part of this sira (title unknown) at Edin¬
burgh formed the basis for A. S. Tritton’s The rise

MANSUR al-NAMARI

of the Imams of Sanaa , London 1925; it is possible
that this sira and another title attributed to the same
author, al-La^ali al-mudiyya ft akhbar ahmmat al -
zaydiyya , are one and the same. However, the best
known account of al-Kasim’s imamate remains al-
Durra al-mudiyya fi ’ l-sira al-Kasimiyya (and its
abridgement, al-Nubdha al-mushua ) by al-Djurmuz!
(d. 1077/1667), who freely acknowledges his debt to
al-Sharafi. Yet a third biography is the anonymous
Sirat al-Mansur bi ’llah al-Kasim described by Ayman
Sayyid ( Masadir taSikh al-Yaman , Cairo 1974, 332)
as a history of Yemen 985-1085/1577-J674. Also
rich in details are the Rawh al-ruh by c lsa b. Lutf
Allah b. al-Mutahhar (d. 1048/1638), Ghayat al-
amam by Yahya b. al-Husayn (d. ca. 1100/1688),
al-Kasim’s grandson (ed. Sa c Td c Abd al-Fattah
c Ashur, Cairo 1968, ii, 770-814), and al-lhsan by
al-Mawza c T (d. ca. 1031/1621), unique among these
accounts for its anti-Zaydi bias. For other ms.
source materials, especially those of the 12th/18th
century, consult al-Habshl. Mu^allafat hukkam al-
Yaman , Wiesbaden 1979, 127 f., which work also
identifies, describes and locates the mss. of all
works attributed to al-Kasim’s authorship (pp. 128-
36). Ottoman archival materials for al-Kasim’s era
are extensive.

An important monograph on this figure is by al-
Maddah, al- c Uthmaniyya wa ’ l-Imam al-Kasim ,
Djudda 1982. Other published secondary materials
include MuhibbT, Khulasat al-athar , Cairo
1284/1867-8, i, 485-7, ii, 73-6, 217 f., iii, 293-7, iv,
296-9; Ahmed Rashid, Ta\ikh-i Yemen we SanW,
Istanbul 1291/1874-5, i, 170-223; Wustenfeld,
Jemen im xi (xvii) Jahrhundert , Gottingen 1884, 38-48;
c Atif Pasha, Yemen ta^rikhi, Istanbul 1326/1908, 86-
96; Zabara, Ithaf al-muhtadin, San^ 1343/1924-5,
78 f.; ShawkanI, al-Badr al-talT, Cairo 1348/1929-
30, ii, 47-51; Djurafi, al-Muktataf min la Sikh al-
Yaman, Cairo 1951, 141-4; c ArshT, Bulugh al-mardm,
ed. al-Karmall, Cairo 1939, 65 f.; Mustafa Salim,
al-Fath al- c Uthmdni , Cairo 1969, 338-69; Bayhani,
A$hi cc at al-anwar, Cairo 1391/1971-2, ii, 244, n.l.

(J. R. Blackburn)

MANSUR al-NAMAR!, Arab poet of the
2 nd/8th century.

1. Life. Abu TFadl or Abu TKasim Mansur [b.
Salama] b. al-Zibrikan al-Namari, from the Namir b.
Kasit, one of the tribes of RabLa b. Nizar, was born
at Ra’s al- c Ayn probably at the beginning of the
2nd/8th century. Since the sources give no precise in¬
formation regarding the various stages of life, it is
useful, indeed essential, to examine his relations with
the poets and leading political figures of his time. In
fact, Mansur al-Namari knew Muslim b. al-Walld (d.
208/823) whom he met at a poetry symposium at the
home of al-Fadl b. Yahya b. Kh alid al-Barmaki (d.
193/808), Marwan b. AbT Hafsa (d. 182/797), Salm
al-Khasir fd. 186/802) and al-Khurayml (d. 214/829),
whom he met at the court of the caliph Harun al-
Rashid (d. 193/809). Two other poets should be men¬
tioned here: the first is a certain Mansur b. Badja,
who was sufficiently wealthy to avoid the need to court
and praise the great and who, according to some
sources, was allegedly the author of the kaslda c ayniyya
dedicated to al-Rashid by al-Namari. The second,
who is far the most important in the life of al-Namari
is Kulthum b. c Amr al- c AttabI (d. 220/835 [q.v. ]). In
fact, it is stated in the sources, and notably in the
Tabakat of Ibn al-Mu c tazz and in the Aghani , that al-
c AttabI was the “teacher in verse composition’’ of al-
Namari, who admired him “for his sobriety, his
dedication, his vast knowledge and his general erudi-

438

MANSUR al-NAMARI — MANSUR al-YAMAN

tion in literary subjects”. Moreover, these contacts
were not limited to the poetic sphere. It was al- c AttabI
who introduced al-Namarl to al-Fadl b. Yahya, who
persuaded him to come from al-DjazIra to Ba gh dad
and introduced him to al-Rashid. Subsequently,
rivalry broke out between the two poets, and it was
through the good offices of the celebrated Tahir b. al-
Husayn (d. 207/822 [q. v. ]) that they were reconciled.

Besides these poets, Mansur al-Naman was ac¬
quainted with numerous political figures. In addition
to the Barmakids and especially al-Fadl Yahya and his
brother Dja c far (d. 187/803) and the afore-mentioned
Tahir b. al-Husayn, he knew al-Fadl b. al-Rabf- b.
Yunus (d. 208/824 [< 7 . v. ]), an enemy of the Barmakids
and himself the vizier of al-Rashid. Al-Fadl b. al-
Rabf' intervened with the caliph to secure the release
of the poet, who had been imprisoned for his pro¬
claimed ShlT tendencies. A similar intervention was
was assured him, we are told, by YazTd b. Mazyad al-
ShaybanT (d. 185/801), the governor of Adhar-
baydjan. Al-Namarl knew al-Ma 3 mun (d. 218/833)
then heir to the throne, at whose court he met
numerous poets. But according to all the evidence, it
was the caliph al-Rashid who influenced the life and
who signed the death warrant of the poet. In fact, al-
RashTd invited al-Namarl to his court, where the lat¬
ter addressed eulogies to him and received gifts from
him. However, when the caliph became aware of his
pro- c Alid tendencies, he cast him into disgrace, im¬
prisoned him and ordered Abu c Isma, a pro- c Abbasid
ZaydT, to torture and execute him. But the latter was
only able, on arriving in Mecca, to attend the obse¬
quies of the poet, probably in 190/805.

2. Works. Of the hundred-page Diwdn attributed by
Ibn al-NadTm (d. 385/995) to the poet and of the an¬
thology or Ikhliyar shiH al-Naman attributed by Yakut
(d. 622/1225) to Ahmad b. Tahir, it has been possible
to assemble only 57 fragments totalling 386 verses
gleaned from various historical or literary sources, of
which the most important are the Aghani (14 pieces),
theAmdli of al-Kall (d. 356/979) and al-Tibyan or Shark
diwdn al-Mutanabbi by al- c UkbarT (d. 616/1219) (10
pieces), the Tabakat of Ibn al-Mu c tazz, the Zahr al-adab
of al-Husri (d. 413/1022), the Muwazana of al-Amidl
(d. 371/981) and the K. al-Sina c atayn of al- c AskarT (d.
395/1005) (7 pieces). On the other hand, two modern
authors, al-Rifa- c I in Q Asr al-Ma^mun (10 pieces) and
especially al- c Amidi in the A c yan al-Shi^a (15 pieces)
have taken an interest, among many others, in Man¬
sur al-Namarl.

These 57 fragments, of which 14 may be
disregarded since they are also attributed to other
poets, are of unequal length; only 15 contain 7 verses
or more and may thus be considered kasidas, 16 others
contain one verse, 11 others three verses, and 8 two
verses.

The poet uses 10 different metres and, in par¬
ticular, tawil, basit, kamil and wafir (respectively 20 , 8 ,
8 and 6 fragments) which are the “noble” classical
metres; ramal, munsarih, hazadf and mulakarib, the
“light” metres, are used only once. For rhyme, al-
NamarT uses 14 of the 28 letters of the alphabet: most
prominently used are lam, ba? , ra 3 , mim, dal and nun
(respectively 14, 9, 8 , 5 and 4 times), a common
phenomenon in Arabic poetry. Hamza , ha?, fa ?, kaf
and kaf are used only once.

Moreover, in his poetry (or in that portion of it
which is available to us) al-Namarl makes use of the
principal poetic genres. While he reserves for satire
(hidfp), description ( wasf ), boastfulness (fakhr ) and la¬
ment ( ritha 3 ) only respectively 1, 2, 3 and 4 pieces, on
the other hand he devotes to erotic poetry (ghazai) 17

fragments which are in fact nothing more than
amorous preludes, where the poet evokes youth and
looks forward with foreboding the old age. But, ac¬
cording to all the evidence, it was laudatory poetry
(madh ) which al-Naman practised most prominently,
In fact, 20 pieces or 200 verses are devoted to madh ,
6 of them for the above-mentioned viziers and gover¬
nors and 14 for al-Rashid; noble lineage, munifi¬
cence, courage, dedication, competence in handling
the affairs of the state, in other words the socio-politi¬
co-religious qualities commonly recognised, are the
principal themes of the laudatory poems and especial¬
ly of those which are dedicated to the caliph. How¬
ever, some authors make the remark that al-Naman
is not at all pro- c Abbasid and that he only praises al-
Rashld with prudent dissimulation ( takiyya ) as do
many poets. Moreover, he displays his Shl- C ism in 9
pieces totalling 69 verses, emanating exclusively, ad¬
mittedly, from Shi- c I sources. The poet expresses his
deep affection for the c Alids, mourns al-Husayn (d.
61/681), displays his hatred of the Umayyads and the
c Abbasids to whom he denies all merit, and calls for
armed revolt with the purpose of avenging the sons of
Fatima.

In conclusion, in poems of classical structure and in
a pure language and a sometimes quite virulent style,
al-NamarT practises the principal genres,
distinguishing himself in “political” or “opposition”
poetry in spite of the contradictions which the ma¬
jority of classical Arab poets display.

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the article, see T. al- c Ashshash, ShiH
Mansur al-Namari, Publications of the Arab
Academy of Damascus, 1401/1981, and the reviews
by Shakir al-Fahham, in MM1A, lvi (Oct. 1981),
and M. Ya c lawT, in Hawliyyat al-Didmi c a al-
Tunisiyya , xxi (1982). (T. El-Acheche)

MANSUR al-YAMAN Abu ’l-Kasim al-Hasan b.
Faradj b. Hawshab b. Zadhan al-Nadjdjar al-
KufI, often known as Ibn Hawshab, was the
founder of the IsmaUli da Q wa in Yaman.
Other forms of his name and genealogy are less well
attested; later Isma c IlT tradition considered him a
descendant of Muslim b. c Akfl b. Abi Talib.

He was a Kufan Imam! Sh i C T, probably from Nars,
a canal near Kufa, learned in the religious sciences,
and was won for the Isma c flT cause by a da % who is
identified in a Fatimid source as the chief da c i FTruz
and by the KarmatT account as Ibn Abi ’l-Fawaris, an
assistant of c Abdan, the chief daH in c Irak. According
to his own account, as related by Kadi al-Nu c man, he
was introduced by the daH to the imam who, after a
training period, sent him together with the YamanT
c AlT b. al-Fadl al-DjayshanT to Yaman. They arrived
there early in 268/late summer 881 and separated. Ibn
Hawshab passed through San c a 3 and Djanad and
stayed some time in c Adan before establishing
himself, allegedly in accordance with the instructions
of the imam , in the village of c Adan La c a in territory
under the rule of the Hiwaiids (Ya c furids). In
270/883-4 he began his mission, publicly proclaiming
the imminent appearance of the Mahdi, and quickly
attracted a large following. After an attack on his
followers by a local Hiwalid garrison he occupied the
stronghold of c Abr Muharram on a mountain below
Djabal Maswar (ca. 272/885-6). Later, he captured
Bayt Fa 3 is on Djabal Tukhla and fortified Bayt Rayb
on Djabal Maswar as his residence. He sent the daH
Abu ’l-Malahim as governor to Djabal Tays and con¬
quered Bilad Shawir. c Ayyan and Humlan. His first
campaign against Shibam, the residence of the
Hiwaiids, failed. Later, he took the town aided by the

MANSUR al-YAMAN — al-MANSURA

439

treason of a Hiwalid client, but was soon forced to
leave again. These events took place before 290/903,
though their exact dates are unknown. It is evident,
however, that he was firmly established before 278-
9/892-3 when the daH Abu c Abd Allah al-ShTl [q. v. ]
was sent to him from c Irak to be trained for his mis¬
sion in the Maghrib. He sent da c is also to other coun¬
tries: al-Haytham, cousin of his wife who was the
daughter of a local ShiT, to Sind; c Abd Allah b. al-
c Abbas al-Shawiri to Egypt; Abu Zakariyya 5 al-
Tamami (al-Zamami?) to al-Bahrayn; and others to
al-Yamama and Hind (presumably Gudjarat). His
lakab al-Mansur or Mansur al-Yaman, which he was
given after his early successes, implied ideas both of a
restorer of Yamani glory and a precursor of the
MahdT (see B. Lewis, The regnal titles of the first Ahbasid
caliphs , in Zakir Husain presentation volume , Delhi 1968,
16-18).

In 282/905 c AlT b. al-Fadl, who had initially estab¬
lished himself further south in the Bilad Yafi c , seized
the territories of Dja c far b. Isma c ll al-Manakhl. in¬
cluding the mountain stronghold of al-Mudhavkhira.
and thus became a powerful rival of Ibn Hawshab. He
had acted independently of the latter from the outset,
and doubts about his loyalty to the Fatimid cause
seem to have induced c Ubayd Allah al-Mahdl to go to
the Ma gh rib rather than to Yaman as previously
planned. c AlT’s conquest of San c a :> from the Hiwalid
As c ad b. Abl Ya c fur in Muharram 293/November 905
gave Ibn Hawshab the opportunity to occupy
Shibam. c Ali came to meet him there; reports that Ibn
Hawshab met him in San c a :> seem unreliable. The
meeting was evidently uneasy, and Ibn Hawshab
warned his rival against overextending himself by fur¬
ther campaigns. The latter did not heed the advice
and had to be rescued by Ibn Hawshab when he ran
into troubles in a raid to al-Bayad. Ibn Hawshab lost
Shibam during the occupation of San ^ 5 by the Zaydi
imam al-Hadi and his allies, but regained the town
before the end of 293/906. He held it during the
following years while $an c a 5 was under the rule of C A1T
b. al-Fadl. In Shawwal 297/June-July 910 his
followers briefly entered San ^ 5 after the withdrawal
of the army of al-Hadi, but left again because of their
small number. As c ad b. Abi Ya c fur occupied San c a 3
and repeatedly raided Shibam, but failed to dislodge
the followers of Ibn Hawshab permanently. In
Muharram 299/August 911, C A1I b. al-Fadl retook
$an c a :> and publicly repudiated his allegiance to the
Fatimid caliph al-Mahdi. He wrote to Ibn Hawshab
demanding his allegiance. When the latter reproached
him for his break with the Fatimid cause, he marched
against him, taking Shibam and Djabal Dhukhar.
After a few battles, he besieged Ibn Hawshab in
Djabal Maswar for eight months. In Ramadan
299/April 912, Ibn Hawshab was forced to sue for
peace and to surrender his son to c Ali b. al-Fadl as a
token of his submission. The latter returned the son to
him a year later with a golden necklace. Ibn Hawshab
died on Djabal Maswar on 1 1 Djumada II
302/December 914. This date, given by the continua¬
tion of the Sir at al-Hadi, is to be preferred to accounts
of later sources suggesting dates two or three decades
later. The dispute about the succession which these
accounts describe as immediately following Ibn
Hawshab’s death was evidently considerable later.

Isma c ili tradition ascribes to Mansur al-Yaman a
Kitab al-Rushd wa ’l-hidaya, of which fragments are ex¬
tant, and a Kitab al- c Alim wa y l- g hulam also ascribed to
his son Dja c far. The authenticity of both, and
especially the latter, must be considered uncertain,
although both appear to belong to pre-Fatimid

Isma c TlI literature. A Risala of an otherwise unknown
Ibn Hamdun which “he ascribed to Mansur al-
Yaman” is quoted by the Yamam da^i Ibrahim al-
Hamidl (d. 557/1162).

Bibliography : al- c AbbasT al- c AlawT, Sirat al-
Hadi ila ’l-Hakk, ed. Suhayl Zakkar, Beirut 1972,
389-402; al-Nu c man b. Muhammad, Iftitdh al-
da Q wa, ed. Wadad al-Kadl, Beirut 1970, 32-62; Ibn
Malik al-Hammadi, Kashf, asrar al-Bdtiniyya , in al-
Isfarayini, al-Tabsir , ed. M. Z. al-Kawtharl,
Baghdad 1955, 201-14; al-Makrizi, IttTdz al-
hunafa?, ed. al-Shayyal, i, Cairo 1967, 166-7; Idris
b. al-Hasan, c Uyun al-akhbar, iv, ed. Mustafa
Ghalib, Beirut 1973, 396-403, vi, ed. M. Ghalib,
Beirut [1979], 31-44; Ibn al-Dayba c , Kurrat al-
<i uyun, ed. Muhammad al-Akwa c al-Hiwall, Cairo
n.d., i, 181-213; Yahya b. al-Husayn, Ghayat al-
amdni , ed. S. C A. c Ashur and M. M. Ziyada, Cairo
1968, 191-202, 219; C. van Arendonk, Les debuts de
Timamat Zaidite au Yemen , tr. J. Ryckmans, Leiden
1960, 119-24, 237-48; H. F. al-Hamdanl, al-
Sulayhiyyun, Cairo 1955, 30-49; I. K. Poonawala,
Biobibliography of 1sma c ililiterature , Malibu 1977, 34,
74; H. Halm, Die Sirat Ibn Hausab: die Ismailitische
da c wa im Jemen und die Fatimiden, in WO, xii (1981),
108-35. _ (W. Madelung)

al-MANSURA, the principal city of the pro¬
vince of Sind under the Arabs. It was founded by
c Amr b. Muhammad b. al-Kasim, the son of the
celebrated conqueror of Sind, in 120/738 or shortly
afterwards (al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 444; al-Ya c kubT, ii,
389; Caetani, Chronographia Islamica, 1507), 47 miles
to the north-east of modern Haydarabad [see hind].
i. Geography, at iii, 407], Al-BirunT’s statement, ac¬
cording to which Mansura is merely a Muslim name
given by Muhammad b. al-Kasim to the ancient city
of Brahmanabad at the time of its conquest (al-
Djamahir fi ma c rifat al-dyawahir , Haydarabad, Deccan
1355, 48; al-Kdnun al-Mas Q udi, Haydarabad, Deccan
1954, 552), is at variance with the earlier traditions,
though the sites of the two cities were certainly close
to each other. The attribution of the founding of Man¬
sura to the Umayyad governor and adventurer Man¬
sur b. Djumhur (Hidayet Hosain, in EI\ s.v.;
al-Mas c udi, Murudj_, i, 379; Yakut, Mu Q djam al-
buldan , s.v.) or to the c Abbasid caliph Abu Dja Tar al-
Mansur (al-Ya c kubi, Buldan, 238; al-Idrisi, Opus
geographicum, Naples-Rome 1970, i, 169; al-Kazwini,
Athdr al-bilad, ed. Wiistenfeld, Gottingen 1848, ii, 83;
Elliot and Dowson, The history of India as told by its own
historians London 1867, i, 136; M. Ikram, Ab-i
kawthar, Lahore 1968, 28-9) stems from the desire to
forge a connection between the name of the city and
the name of its founder. There is, however, no need
to seek such a connection: Abu TFida 3 correctly ob¬
served that numerous cities were named Mansura “as
an omen for victory and durability” Itafa 5 ul an laha bi
’ l-nasr wa ’ l-dawdm ) (Abu TFida 5 , Takwim al-buldan ,
ed. Sehier, Dresden n.d, 194; cf. al-BTruni, al-Kanun
al-Mas c udi, loc. cii. ) Mansura was founded in order to
provide the Arab conquerors with a secure base from
which they could attempt to expand their rule in the
hostile Hindu environment.

Classical Arab geographers of the 3rd/9th and
4th/10th centuries describe Mansura as a flourishing
city, which served as a centre for a number of smaller
towns. It was surrounded by a branch of the Indus
and therefore looked like an island. Its land was fer¬
tile, and it was the scene of both agricultural and com¬
mercial activity. The ruler, who is said to have been
a scion of Kuraysh, bore allegiance to the c Abbasid
caliphs and during the second half of the 4th/10th cen-

440

al-MANSURA

tury also recognised the authority of the Buwayhids
(al-Mukaddasi, 485). It seems, however, that the cen¬
tral government was unable to exercise effective con¬
trol over Sind and the rulers of Man§ura therefore
enjoyed considerable independence.

The importance of Mansura diminished in later
periods. It is briefly mentioned in connection with the
conquests of Mahmud of Ghazna [ q.v .] (in 416/1025-
6 ; Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 243) and with the Kh w arazmian
incursions into India in 623/1226 (DjuzdjanI, Taba-
kat-i Ndsiri, Calcutta 1864, 143). Abu ’l-Fida 5 , who
completed his Takwim al-bulddn in 721/1321, says that
all cities called Mansura, including that in Sind, were
in ruins despite their auspicious name ( loc . cit., cf.
Badayum, Muntakhab al-tawdrikh, Lucknow 1868, 154;
tr. W. H. Lowe, Patna 1973, ii, 70). Though this is
a reflection on the futility of human endeavour rather
than a statement of reliable historical fact, Mansura
was indeed ruined around Abu ’1-Fida 5 s period. The
fact that it is not mentioned by Ibn Battuta is an in¬
dication in this direction.

The exact location of Mansura, the question
whether it was built on the site of Brahmanabad or at
some distance from it, as well as the precise date and
circumstances of its destruction and abandonment,
are inconclusively discussed by several authors, (see
Bibl.).

Bibliography : Baladhurl. Futuh, 439, 445;
Tabari, ii, 1895, iii, 80, 491; Mas c udi, Murudf , i,
207, 378; Istakhri, 35, 175, 177; Ibn Hawkal, 320-
2; MukaddasI, 53, 476, 479, 480, 485; Buzurg b.
Shahriyar, c Adjd :> ib al-Hind, Leiden 1883-6. 2-3,
103; Birum, Tahkik ma li ’l-Hind, Haydarabad,
Deccan 1958, 16; c Allami, A^in Akbari , Calcutta
1948, i, 465, ii, 330, iii, 67 (identifying Mansura
with Bhakkar; a view disputed by Bazmee Ansari in
EP art. bhakkar). J. McMurdo, Dissertation on the
river Indus , in JRAS, i (1834), 20-44; Elliot and
Dowson, The history of India , i, 368-74 and index;
M.R. Haig, On the sites of Bramanabad and Mansura
in Sind, in JRAS, xvi (1884), 281-94; S. Raziajafri,
Description of India (Hind and Sind) in the works of al-
Istakhri\ Ibn Hauqal and al-Maqdisi, in Bull, of the In¬
stitute of Islamic Studies (Aligarh), v (1961), 8-9, 13,
19-20, 35-6 and passim; I. H. Qureshi, The Muslim
community in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. The
Hague 1962, 43; H. T. Lambrick, Sind. A general in¬
troduction. Haydarabad, Sind 1964, index (in¬
cluding extensive bibliography); Mumtaz Husain
A. Pathan, Foundation of al-Mansura and its situation,
in 1C, xxxviii (1964), 183-94; idem, Present ruins of
al-Mansura, in IC, xlii (1968), 25-33; Y. Fried¬
mann, A contribution to the early history of Islam in In¬
dia, in M. Rosen-Ayalon, ed., Studies in memory of
Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem 1977, 314-15.

(Y. Friedmann)

AL- MANSURA, a t own in Lower Egypt near
Damietta (Dimyat [q.v.]), and chief place of the
mudiriyyat al-Dakahliyya. The town was founded in
616/1219 by the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Kamil
[q.v.] as a fortified camp against the Crusaders, who
had conquered Dimyat in Sha c ban 616/November
1219. Situated at the fork of the branches of the Nile
near Dimyat and Ushmum Tannah, the town
dominated the two most important waterways of the
eastern delta and served as an advanced outpost of
Cairo. In July/August 1221, the advance of the
Crusaders under King John of Jerusalem and the
Cardinal-Legate Pelagius was checked before al-
Mansura. When al-Malik al-Kamil ordered the dikes
to be pierced and the land flooded, the Franks, who
had pitched their camp in the angle between the two
branches of the Nile, were forced to surrender and to

purchase an unhampered retreat by giving up their
Egyptian conquests (7 Radjab 618/27 August, 1221).

During the reign of the last Ayyubid Turanshah,
the Crusade of Louis IX of France came to its end
before al-Mansura in exactly the same way. In
December 1249 the Franks, approaching from
Dimyat, appeared before the town and pitched camp
again in the angle between the branches of the Nile.
On 5 Dhu TKa c da 647/10 February, 1250, they
forced the crossing of the Bahr Ushmum and
penetrated into al-Mansura, but were driven back
after heavy street fighting. During the ensuing battle
before the gates of the town. King Louis found himself
facing Baybars I al-Bundukdan [q.v.\. After hesita¬
ting for several weeks, the Franks beat a retreat, but
did not reach Dimyat. On 3 Muharram 648/7 April
1250, the King and the remainder of his army were
taken prisoner, and on 3 Safar/7 May of the same
year were ransomed in exchange for Dimyat.

During the reign of the Mamluk sultans, the town
belonged to the province of al-Dakahliyya, whose
chief place was Ushmum Tannah, the present Ushu
mum al-Rumman (Ibn Dukmak, Intisdr, ed. Vollers,
v ; 71; Ibn al-Dj^an, Tuhfa, ed. Moritz, 50; Halm,
A gyp ten nach den mamlukischen Lehensregistern ,
Wiesbaden 1982, ii, 728). In 933/1527, the ottoman
wall of Egypt, Sulayman Pasha al-Khadim, transfer¬
red the provincial court (diwan al-hukm) from Ushu
mum to the more conveniently situated al-Mansura,
and made this town into the capital of the al-
Dakahliyya province, which it has remained until to¬
day. In 1826, al-Mansura also became the centre of a
kism (an administrative subdivision of a muhdfaza,
renamed markaz in 1871) with 60 villages. As a staple
place of cotton, harvested in the Delta, al-Mansura
witnessed an important increase in population: 27,000
inhabitants in 1900: 49,000 in 1917; and 218,000 in
1970.

Bibliography : Yakut, Mu c dfam, s.v.; MakrlzT,
Khitat, ed. Bulak, i, 231 f. (ed. Wiet, iv, 103 ff.);
c Ali Pasha Mubarak, al-Khitat al-dfadlda xv, 88 ff.;
Muhammad Ramzf, al-Kdmus al-dfughrafi IPl-bilad
al-Misriyya, Cairo 1954-5, ii/1, p. 26 of the intro¬
duction and 215 ff.; Maspero-Wiet, Materiaux,
Cairo 1909, 198 ff. For the 1249-50 crusade: Ibn
al-Athlr, xii, 213 ff.; Ibn Wasil, Mufarridf al-kurub,
iv, ed. Rabi < - c Ashur, Cairo 1972, 94 ff.; H. L.
Gottschalk, Al-Malik al-Kdmil von Egypten und seine
Zeit, Wiesbaden 1958, 87, 109 ff. For the crusade of
Louis IX: Jean de Joinville, Histoire de St. Louis, ed.
N. de Wailly, 2 Paris 1874; Ibn Wasil, Mufarridfal-
kurub, ms. Paris B. N. ar. 1702, fol. 357 ff. (Italian
tr. F. Gabrieli, Storici arabi delle Crociate, Turin 1963,
281 ff.; Engl. tr.: Arab historians of the Crusades,
Berkeley-Los Angeles 1969, 286 ff.; French tr. :
Chroniques arabes des Croisades, Paris 1977, 314 ff.;
German tr.: Die Kreuzziige aus arabischer Sicht,
Zurich-Munich 1973, 346 ff.). (H. Halm)

al-MANSURA, the name of a town, now in ruins,
constructed on two occasions by the Marinid sultans
about 3 miles/5 km. west of Tlemcen, during the
sieges of that town. The desire to control the com¬
merce in gold from Black Africa terminating at
Tlemcen was a continuing concern of the North
African policy of the Marinids and explains their ef¬
forts to control this place. The account given by Ibn
Khaldun enables us to reconstruct the history of this
typical camp-town. In the year 698/1299, the Marinid
Abu Ya c kub Yusuf, who had come to lay siege to the
capital of Banu c Abd al-Wad [q.v.], which he closely
surrounded with entrenchments, set up his camp on
the plain which stretches to the west. As it was a long
drawn-out blockade, he built a few dwellings for

al-MANSURA — MANSURIYYA

441

himself and the leaders of his army and laid the foun¬
dation of a mosque. In the year 702/1302 the “Vic¬
torious Camp” ( al-Mahalla al-Mansura ), was given the
form of a regular town by the construction of a ram¬
part. In addition to the mosque, the dwelling of the
chiefs, the storehouses for munitions and the shelters
for the army, there were baths and caravanserais. As
TIemcen was inaccessible to caravans, al-Mansura, or
New TIemcen, as it was called naturally attracted the
business of the besieged town. Documents in the ar¬
chives of the Crown of Aragon attest to the fact that
it was visited by Christian merchants, and that a Ma¬
jorcan consul lived there. After a siege of eight years
and three months, the MarTnids in 706/1307 withdrew
from TIemcen following the death of sultan Ya c kub,
and al-Mansura was methodically evacuated under
the direction of Ibrahim b. c Abd al-Djalfl, the vizier
of the sultan Abu Thabit. The people of TIemcen
were compelled, by the terms of the treaty made by
the MarTnids, to respect the rival town for some time
later; then, when the entente between the two empires
had collapsed, they demolished its building and
rendered uninhabitable the entrenchments left at their
gate by their hereditary enemy.

The second phase of al-Mansura’s existence began
30 years afterwards, in 735/1335, with the MarTnid
drive eastwards under the great ruler Abu THasan
C AU. TIemcen, once more besieged, was compelled to
surrender (27 Ramadan 737/1337). Al-Mansura was
splendidly restored, according to the indications of
Ibn Marzuk, Abu ’l-Hasan's historian, who had ac¬
companied him to the town, and provided with a kasba
and mosque, a meshwar , a house of justice, palaces,
baths and caravanserais. It was probably at this time
that the great mosque was completed and that the
“Victory Palace” was built (747/1344-5). The
MarTnid court installed itself there and conducted the
affairs of state thence until the defeat of al-Kayrawan
and the re-installation of the Banu c Abd al-Wad at
TIemcen (Djumada II 749/September 1348).

After the retreat of the MarTnids, al-Mansura, once
more abandoned, fell gradually into ruins. Today the
rampart of terre pisee flanked by square towers is still
comparatively intact, but the interior is land under
cultivation. There still exists, however, the ruins of a
palace, no longer distinct, a section of a paved street,
and probably the surrounding wall in terre pisee of the
mosque with half of the great stone minaret which
rose above the principal entrance. Although the inlaid
ceramic work has almost entirely disappeared, the
facade of the square tower, which is 120 feet high, is
one of the finest pieces of MaghribT art of the 8th/14th
century that survives. The columns and the capitals in
marble of the mosque are preserved in the Museums
of TIemcen and Algiers.

Bibliography : Ibn Kh aldun. Histoire des
Berberes , ed. de Slane, ii, 136, 332 ff., 379 ff.; tr. iii,
375; iv, 414 ff., 221 ff.; Yahya Ibn Khaldun.
Bughyat al-ruwwad , ed. Bel, i, 121, 141; tr. i, 164,
189; Ch.-E. Dufourq, L’Espagne catalane et le
Maghrib aux 13 e et 14 e siecles , Paris 1966, 133-6 351,
354-5, 360-3, 365, 372-5, 519; Ibn Marzuk,
Musnad, ed. Levi-Provengal, 25, 35, ed. M. J.
Viguera, Algiers 1981, 125-6, 173, 230-5, 447-8,
491-2, Spanish tr. Madrid 1977, 109-10, 148, 192-
6 , 369-70, 406-7; M. Shatzmiller, Un texte relatif aux
structures politiques merinides , in REI, xlvii (1979),
239-47; Barges, TIemcen, ancienne capilale , 249 ff.;
Brosselard, Inscriptions arabes de TIemcen , in RAfr, iii
(1895) 322-40; W. and G. Margais, Monuments
arabes de TIemcen , 192-222; G. Margais, Manuel d art
musulman , ii, 485-9, 549-50, 568-70, 625-9.

(G. Mar^ais - [M. Shatzmiller])

MANSURIYYA, an extremist ShT c T sect of the
2nd/8th century named after its founder Abu Mansur
al-Tdjli. The latter is also called al-MustanTr in some
sources, but the reading is uncertain.

Abu Mansur was a native of the sawad of Kufa and,
a tribesman rather than a peasant, grew up in the
desert. Later, he owned a house in Kufa. The state¬
ment of some sources that he belonged to c Abd al-
Kays is not necessarily wrong, since c Idjl is often
counted as a branch of c Abd al-Kays. His following
came chiefly from he traditionally ShT c T tribes of c Idjl,
BadjTla and Kinda, and included also mawalt. In¬
itially, Abu Mansur supported the imamate of
Muhammad al-Bakir, exalting him and the imams
preceding him to the rank of divinely-inspired
Messenger prophets. He taught that the line of such
Messengers could never be interrupted. After the
death of al-Bakir ( ca . 1 17/735), he claimed to be his
successor and justified this claim, asserting that the
Family of Muhammad were heaven and the Shf'a,
earth, while he, Abu Mansur, was the miraculous
“fragment” (kisf) fallen from heaven which is men¬
tioned in Kurban, LII, 44; thus he belonged
spiritually to the Banu Hashim. He identified those
who, according to the Kur’anic verse, would not
recognise the miracle and claimed that it was merely
“piled up clouds”, with the followers of al-Mu gh lra
b. Sa c Td, his chief rival among the ShiT ghulat. He
claimed that he had been raised to heaven and that
God had wiped his head with his hand and had told
him in Syriac or Persian, “My son, go and teach on
my behalf’. Abu Mansur taught that the first being
to be created by God was Jesus and the next C A1T. The
rest of mankind was composed of light and darkness.
He maintained that God had sent Muhammad with
the revelation ( tanzil) of the Kurban and himself with
its interpretation (la^wil). Like other ShfT ghulat , he
interpreted the Kurban allegorically, identifying
heaven and hell, religious commandments and pro¬
hibitions with man, friends and enemies of God in the
struggle between good and evil, and repudiating all
religious laws.

Abu Mansur was vainly sought by Khalid al-KasrT,
governor of Kufa, during his campaign of repression
against Sh^T extremists. He was seized and killed by
Khalid’s successor, Yusuf b. c Umar al-Thakafi (120-
6/738-44). After his death, the Mansuriyya split into
two groups. One of them, known as the Husayniyya,
recognised his son al-Husayn as his designated suc¬
cessor. They seem to have held that the imamate
would continue among his descendants, since there
were to be seven prophets from Kuraysh and seven
from c Idjl. the other group, known as the Muham-
madiyya, recognised the Hasanid Muhammad b.
c Abd Allah al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (d. 145/762) as their
imam. They maintained that al-Bakir had appointed
Abu Mansur to succeed him merely as a temporary
depositary ( mustawda c ) in order to forestall discord be¬
tween the descendants of al-Hasan and al-Husayn,
just like Moses had appointed Joshua before the suc¬
cession reverted to the offspring of his brother Aaron.
They reported that Abu Mansur had stated “I am
only a depositary, and have no right to transfer the
imamate to anyone else. The Ka^im is Muhammad b.
c Abd Allah.” Al-Husayn b. AbT Mansur was cap¬
tured under the caliph al-MahdT (158-69/775-85) and
put to death by him. Much money was confiscated
from him, and many of his followers were now sought
out and killed. The sect evidently disintegrated
quickly.

The Mansuriyya were particularly notorious as
stranglers of their religious opponents. They are said
to have considered murdering them a meritorious act

442

MANSURIYYA — MANTIK

and to have used the method of strangling or stoning,
because they held that iron weapons must not be
employed before the coming of the MahdI. They con¬
sidered all belongings of their victims as booty and
turned over a fifth ( khums ) to their leader. Al-Djahiz
describes them as living and travelling together in
groups and acting together, beating their drums and
tambourines and making their dogs bark in order to
cover up the cries of their victims. Abu Mansur’s
“foster mother” (, hadina ), Mayla 5 , is named as a head
of the stranglers in a poem of Hammad al-Rawiya.

Bibliography : Djahiz, Hayawan , ed. c Abd al-
Salam Harun, Cairo 1965, ii, 264-71, vi, 389-91
(cf. Pellat, in Oriens , xvi [1963], 102, 104-6); Ibn al-
Fakih, 185, 191; Nashp, MasaHl al-imama, ed. J.
van Ess, Beirut 1971, 39-40; Nawbakhtl. Firak al-
shTa, ed. H. Ritter, Istanbul 1931, 34-5; Sa c d b.
c Abd Allah al-Kummi, al-Makalat wa ’ l-firak , ed.
M. Dj. Mashkur, Tehran 1963, 46-8; Ash c ari,
Makalat al-Islamiyym, ed. H. Ritter, Istanbul 1929-
33, 9-10, 24-5; KashshI, Ikhtiyar ma c rifat al-ridjal,
ed. Hasan al-MustafawT, Mashhad 1349, 303-4;
Ba gh dadi. Fark , 214-5, 234-5; Ibn Hazm, Fisal,
Cairo 1317-21, iv, 185-6 Shahrastanl. 135-6;
Nash wan al-Himyarl, al-Hur al-Hn, Cairo 1367/i
1948, 168-70; I. Friedlander, The heterodoxies of the
Shiites , in JAOS , xxviii (1907), 62-4, xxix (1908),
89-93; W. H. Watt, The formative period of Islamic
thought , Edinburgh 1973, 46-7, 51-2; W. Tucker,
Abu Mansur al- c Ijli and the Mansuriyya: a study in
medieval terrorism , in Isl., liv (1977), 66-76.

(W. Madelung)

MANTIK (a.), a technical term denoting logic.

1. Etymology.

The LA gives mantik as a synonym of kalam in the
sense of “language”; a book is described as being
natik bayyin as if it does itself speak; God says in the
Kbrian (XXII, 62): “And before Us is a Book which
tells the truth (yantiku bi i-hakk) yy . This telling of the
truth also has a quality of judgment; thus (XLV, 29):
“This is Our Book; it pronounces against you in all
truth {yantiku c alaykum bi ’l-hakk)" . Metaphorically,
mantik expresses the language of all things, for exam¬
ple the language of birds (Kurian, XXVII, 16: mantik
al-tayr). But idols do not speak (XXI, 63, 65). On the
Day of Judgment, the accused will not speak (la yan-
tikun, LXXVII, 35). It is God who makes every thing
speak ( antaka kulla shay 5 , cf. XLI, 20-1). It is thus seen
that the Kurian uses this root with a normative
quality; it is linked to the expression of truth and to
justification. Although man can speak in order to tell
lies and nonsense, this is not the case of the Prophet
and of those to whom God gives the power of telling
the truth. God says of the Messenger (LIII, 3): “And
he does not talk through passion {la yantiku c an al-
hawdf ’. The man who has received wisdom ( hikma )
speaks according to reason. It is understandable that
this root should have been chosen to translate the
Greek XSyo? (word, reason) and Xoytxo^ (reasonable).
Man is defined as hayawan natik , a reasonable animal,
although the LA gives a broader sense to the word
natik, opposing it to samit (that which is silent): every
thing which has a voice (sawt) is natik. But it is certain
that the articulate language of man distinguishes him
from all other animals on the vocal level, just as
reason distinguishes him on the spiritual level.

2. Definition of logic (film al-mantik).
Al-TahanawI, in his Dictionary of technical terms , com¬
ments that this is also called the science of balance
(film al-mfzan), “because this is a means of weighing
arguments ( hudfadf ) and demonstrative proofs
(barahin) ’ ’. Ibn Sin a calls it “the servant of the

sciences” (khadim al- c ulum), “because it is not a
science in its own right, but a means ( wasila ) of ac¬
quiring sciences”. But al-Farabi called it the
“mistress” (raTsa) of sciences “on account of its ef-
ficacity ( nafadh ) in the practice of them”. This science,
al-TahanawT continues, “was called mantik because
the root nutk (action of speaking, elocution) applies in
a general fashion to statement ( lafz ), to the perception
of universals (idrak al-kulliyyat) and to the reasonable
soul {al-nafs al-natika); since this art reinforces the first
of these concepts, through the second it follows the
path of rectitude ( sadad ), and by its means the perfec¬
tion of the soul is realised, a word has been derived
from this root to designate it, sc. the word mantik. It
is the science of rules (kawanin) which explains the
methods for passing from that which is known to that
which is unknown, and the conditions that they pose
(shara^it) so that error (ghalat) will not survive in
thought ifikr). The known extends to the necessary
truths of intuition (< daruriyyat ) and to speculative
truths”. It may be noted that this distinction cor¬
responds to that made by Aristotle (Anal. Pr. i, 10, 76
b 10) between “common axioms” and “entirely
demonstrated conclusions”.

As for the unknown, “it extends to that which is
derived from concepts and to that which is derived
from judgments ( tasawwuriyyat and tasdikiyyat) yy . This
definition is, according to al-TahanawI, preferable to
that which holds that the rules of logic “supply
knowledge of the methods permitting a passage from
the necessary truths of intuition to speculative truths,
because this expression at first sight gives the im¬
pression of a passage which is effected [directly] by
itself ( intikal dhati), while the more general sense is that
this is a passage which is either made directly by itself
or through an intermediary (bi i-dhat aw bi > Fwasita ) yy .
This being so, al-TahanawI points out the difference
between logic and grammar (nahw) on the one hand,
and logic and geometry (handasa) on the other. Gram¬
mar “only explains the general rules which apply to
the quality of elocution in Arabic terms, and that in
general manner; when one wishes to propound a
discourse appropriate to a particular subject ( makhsuf )
in a correct fashion, there is a need for particular
modalities (ahkam djuzHyya) which are drawn from
these rules as are normally the derivations (furu *) of
principles (usul). But this does not apply in the passage
of thought from a known to an unknown. Grammar
is of absolutely no assistance in making passages of
this kind. The name is true of geometry; it is in posing
normative problems ( mas&Hl kanuniyya) that it tackles
objects of research on configurations, in the sense that
it makes these problems the principles of the
demonstrations whereby it reasons on these objects.
As for the particular notions which intervene in these
demonstrations, geometry does not in any way con¬
tribute to their understanding.” Al-TahanawI is no
doubt thinking here of the Euclidian method which
proceeds from problems to arrive at theorems: the
given data of the problems serving as a base for the
demonstrations. As for the particular notions, they
relate to the terms of the syllogism, in particular the
middle term which is the cause of the conclusion in the
minor. Thus Aristotle writes (Anal. Post., ii, 11, 94 a
27-34): “Why is the angle drawn in the semi-circle a
right-angle? Or, from what given information does it
follow that is is a right angle?” J. Tricot explains
Aristotle’s argument in these terms: “We have here
the following Barbara syllogism, in which B, the mid¬
dle term, is the cause of the conclusion: Every angle
which is the half of two right-angles (B) is a right-
angle (A); Every angle drawn in the semi-circle (r) is

MANTIK

443

the half of two right-angles (B); Every angle drawn in
the semicircle (r) is a right-angle (A).” But it is evi¬
dent that the role of geometry is precisely to show that
every angle drawn in the semi-circle is the half of two
right-angles. Although it implicitly uses the preceding
syllogism, it is not by means of the syllogism that it
achieves the end which it seeks. Consequently, the
science of logic is different from the demonstrative
science of geometry. Logic is definitely defined as one
of the instrumental sciences (min al- : ulum al-aliyya).
But if it plays a role in the treatment by each par¬
ticular science of its own object, what is the object of
logic itself?

“It is said,” al-Tahanaw! states, “that it has its ob¬
ject ( mawdu c ) concepts ( tasawwurat ) and judgments
(tasdikat)' ’. It is a process of passing from known con¬
cepts or judgments to unknown concepts or
judgments, by short or long steps: short when a con¬
cept is defined through hadd or through rasm , or when
judgment is by analogy (kiyas), induction ( istikra y ), or
comparison ( tamijul ); long, when there is the added
consideration that a concept is universal or particular,
essential or accidental, or when a judgment is proved
by a contrary or contradictory judgment ( kadiyya wa-
c aks kadiyya wa-nakiduha). The logician also enquires
into concepts in as much as they give access to judg¬
ment when they are considered as subjects ( mawdufat )
and attributes ( mahmulat ). Those who are concerned
with the precise meaning of words (ahl al-tahkik)
reckon that the object of logic is constituted by secon¬
dary intelligibles ( al-ma c kulat al-thaniya) not as such
and taken in themselves, nor as existing in thought,
for it then becomes an issue to be dealt with by philos¬
ophy; but in as much as they give access to the
unknown. “In fact, when the universal intelligible no¬
tion ( al-majhum al-kulli) exists in thought and it is com¬
pared with particular things which are beneath it, it
becomes either essentiality (al-dhatiyya) because it
becomes a part of their quiddity, or accidentality ( al -
^aradiyya) because it is exterior to them, or specificity
(al-nawHyya) because it is their quiddity itself. That
which becomes essentiality is the genre (diins) relative
to its different individuals, and the specific difference
(fast) relative to another thing. Similarly, that which
becomes accidentality is either an attribute ( khassa ), or
a common accident ( c arad c dmm), according to two dif¬
fering points of view”. These “intentions” (ma c ani),
i.e. the fact that the universal notion is essential, ac¬
cidental or specific, do not belong to exterior entities;
they are what becomes of the universal natures ( al-
faba*i c al-kulliyya) when they are found in thought. The
same applies to the fact that a judicative proposition
is attributive or conditional, that an argument is an
analogy, an induction or a comparison, for this is
what becomes of the nature of particular relation ( al -
nisab al-dfuz^iyya) in thought. Consequently, these
secondary intelligibles are indeed the object of logic.
Finally, al-Tahanaw! comments that logic is also con¬
cerned with “intelligibles of the third degree” (al-
ma c kulat al-thalitha) which are essentially what becomes
of secondary intelligibles. Thus the judicative proposi¬
tion (kadiyya) is a secondary intelligible. But inquiry
can be made as to its divisibility ( inkisam ), on the fact
that it contradicts another (lanakud), or that it is con¬
vertible ( in c ikas ), or that a conclusion may be drawn
from it (inlddj)\ these are intelligibles which fall to the
third rank (ai-daradya al-thalitha). These questions are
tackled by Aristotle in De Interpretation and the Prior
Analytics , whence this separation of intelligibles into
three degrees seems to be derived. As for the purpose
(gharad) of logic, it is the discernment of truth and
falsehood (tamyfz al-sidk wa 7 -kidhb) in speech, of true

and false (al-hakk wa ’ l-batil) in beliefs (fi ’l-Ptikadat ),
of good and bad in actions (al-khayr wa 'l-sharr fi 7-
a c mdf). Its utility ( manfa c a ) is thus to give access to the
theoretical sciences (al- c ulum al-nazariyya) and to the
practical sciences (al- c amaliyya).

Such is the survey of logic made by al-Tahanawi at
a late date (12th/18th century). It shows the ideas
which were current in the Muslim world, following a
long history in the course of which it was both at¬
tacked and defended, and cultivated in a more or less
fruitful fashion. It is necessary now to go further back
in time.

3. Discussions of logic among Arab-
Muslim thinkers.

A. Grammar and logic. It is undeniable, and the work
of Aristotle proves this, that there is a connection be¬
tween logic and language in general, and with the
spoken language and its grammar in particular. But
can logic, which aspires to be universal to all men, be
reduced to the grammar of a language spoken by a
particular people? This question was posed in the
course of a famous debate described by Abu Hayyan
al-Tawhldl, between the Christian logician Abu Bishr
Matta b. Yunus and the grammarian and commen¬
tator of Slbawayh, Abu Sa c Td al-Slrafi. Matta defines
the purpose and utility of logic in the same terms as
those employed by al-Tahanawi. Logic is an instru¬
ment comparable to a balance, giving awareness of
“healthy” discourse (kalarn sahih) and distinguishing it
from “sick” discourse (saklm). Abu Sa c id replies then
that, for the Arabic speaker, the quality of discourse
is known by the laws of grammar; but if enquiry is to
be made by means of intelligence ( c akl), it is through
reason that that which is false in an idea (fasid al-
ma c nd) is to be distinguished from the genuine (salih):
As for the balance, it gives awareness of what weighs
the most, but not the nature of that which is weighed.
Furthermore, in bodies, not everything is evaluated
by weights; there are measures other than weight.
The same applies to intelligibles. This reply is
evidently an argument ad hominem which does not ex¬
plain how, alongside the grammar which regulates
discourse, reason would pronounce, in intellectual
problems, on the truth and falsehood of ideas.

Whatever the case, Abu Sa c id returns to his thesis:
it was a Greek who instituted logic according to the
language of his people, on the basis of the technical
terminology (istilah) applied to it by the grammarians
and of knowledge of the traits which characterise it.
How could this logic be imposed upon l urks, In¬
dians, Persians and Arabs? Matta replies that logic is
concerned with intelligibles and ideas; on this level all
men are equal. For all men, two and two make four;
the same applies to the rules of logic, which is denied
by Abu Sa c Td, who declares that these intelligibles are
only reached by the language with its nouns, verbs
and particles. To preach the study of logic is to preach
the study of the Greek language, seeing that the peo¬
ple who spoke it have disappeared and it is known
only through translations into Syriac, then into
Arabic. But, Matta replies, the translations preserve
intentions and ideas. Abu Sa c Td does not insist and
does not pose the problem of the difficulties of transla¬
tion, unlike al-Djahiz (K. al-Hayawan, i, 73-9). Even
admitting, he says, that these translations may be ac¬
curate, there is no reason to think “that there is no
proof other than the intelligence of the Greeks”. To
claims of the importance of their contribution to the
sciences, he replies that “knowledge of the world is
dispersed throughout the world among all the in¬
habitants of the world”, without perceiving that by
this reasoning there could be a logic common to all.

444

MANTIK

If the Greeks do not occupy a privileged position, it is
also true that Aristotle is not the whole of Greece; he
borrowed from his predecessors, and moreover, not
all Greeks are in agreement with him. Here Abu Sa c id
touches on a central problem. Logic should suppress
differences in opinions and in speculation; it should,
as certain falasifa (including al-Farabi) believed, form
a basis of agreement for all philosophers. How could
a single man suppress all these differences “which are
fundamental and natural”? It seems that Abu Sa c Id
has not seen the gravity of his words, for they pose the
question of knowing if there are diverse mentalities ir¬
reconcilable in their diversity, and if there are among
men one or several truths. Should the existence be ad¬
mitted of as many logics as there are languages and
grammars and people? Whatever the implications, he
concludes: “The world has remained the same after
the logic of Aristotle as it was before.” This being so,
he attempts to explain that it is by grammar and not
by logic that one can understand, for example, all the
uses of the particle wa (and), which is undeniable, but
proves nothing. Matta replies that the logician has no
need of grammar, although the grammarian needs
logic: it is by accident that the logician is concerned
with words, as it is by accident that the grammarian
hits upon an idea ( ma c nd)\ but the idea is more noble
than the word. On the contrary, for Abu Sa c Td,
“grammar is a logic, but it is derived from Arabic;
logic is a grammar, but it is included in the
language”. The difference between the word and the
meaning (ma c na), is that the word is a “natural
reality” which is effaced with time, while the meaning
is a “reality of intelligence” which remains fixed
across time. He then shows that, in order to express
his logic, Malta needs the Arabic language and its
grammar; ignorance of the meanings of a single parti¬
cle can invalidate any kind of reasoning.

This being so, Abu Sa c id leaves the consideration of
words in order to turn towards the intellectual content
of their meanings. What is to be made of the state¬
ment “Zayd is the most virtuous of his brothers”?
Matta believes that this is correct. Abu Sa c id retorts
that he is mistaken and that the statement should be:
“Zayd is the most virtuous of the brothers”. Zayd is
one of the brothers, but he is not one of his brothers.
In fact, “the brothers of Zayd are other than Zayd,
and Zayd is exterior to their group.” Abu Sa c Id
claims that Matta does not know why one of the pro¬
positions is correct and the other false. But he himself
does not explain how grammar demonstrates this, and
his own explanation, based on the logical notions of
inclusion and exclusion, has nothing grammatical
about it. It is true that Aristotle does not deal directly
with this type of proposition. Nevertheless, Matta
should have been able to reply, for the notion of a
brother is relative and according to Aristotle
{Categories , 7, 6 a 36) relatives “refer to another
thing.” Zayd, as a brother, is thus the brother of his
brothers who are other than him: he is not one of
them.

Finally, Abu Sa c Id criticises the logicians for having
done nothing more than “frighten people” with the
technical terms of genre, type, specific difference, at¬
tribute, accident, individual, and especially with the
neologisms in iyya , such as halliyya, c ayniyya, kayfiyya ,
kammiyya , dhatiyya, < 'aradiyya , dfawhariyya , etc. I bn
Kutayba had already made a similar critique in the
Adah al-kdtib. Abu Sa c id mocks the “magical” for¬
mulae of the syllogism and concludes, “All of this is
nonsense, trifles, incomprehensible and confused pro¬
positions. Anyone possessing fine intelligence, good
discernment and refined insight, can do without it
altogether.”

This critique poses more problems than it resolves,
in particular that of a grammatical logic. Abu Sa c Id’s
performance is that of a debater seeking only to have
the last word, unperturbed by his self-contradictions
and avoidance of questions. But his critique is in¬
teresting, in that it shows the existence of a certain
Arabism opposed to all things Hellenic, based no
doubt on the religious belief that God has revealed the
Kur 5 an in clear Arabic language (XVI, 103).

B. The doctrine of Ibn Hazm. The ZahirT views of Ibn
Hazm leads him to deliberate on the nature of
languages and to lay the foundations of a Zahiri gram¬
mar which takes account only of the linguistic inten¬
tions expressly contained in the forms of the language
and the speech which makes use of them. He excludes
any psychological intention which might remain im¬
plied, having no clear indication {da til) in what is said
or written. His object is to understand precisely the
Word of God, without the intervention in the exegesis
of any consideration, any human interpretation. The
reason given to Man has no other purpose than to
identify and attest to the revealed truth. Under these
conditions, what role remains for logic? In the K. al-
Takrlb li-hadd al-mantik , Ibn Hazm justified logic by
means of KuHanic testimonies, in particular the verse
LV, 3: “And the Merciful has created man; He has
taught him bayan\ Bayan , Ibn Hazm explains with
reference to the verse II, 31, “And he taught Adam
all the names”, is “the exposition of all existing be¬
ings according to their different manners of being
0 wudyuh ), and the account of their meanings ( ma c ani ),
the differences of which are the cause that their names
necessarily differ; it is the awareness of the way in
which the denominated things are allotted their
names”. It is by this that God distinguishes Man from
the beast: “He that does not know the qualifications
{sifat) of the denominated things which make
necessary the distinction of the names, he that does
not define all things by their definitions ( hudud ), ig¬
nores the greatness of this precious gift... From him
that ignores logic, the structure ( bind *) of the language
of God remains hidden”. Thus the utility of logic is
to make understood the Word of God and , thereby,
the works of God in creation. However, Ibn Hazm
recognises that there were formerly sages who wrote
books on the connection between denominated things
and their names, names “on the meanings of which
all peoples are in agreement, even though they use dif¬
ferent names to express them, for [human] nature is
unique, but the choice [of words] is diverse and
varied”. Ibn Hazm also cites the eight books which
constitute the Organon of Aristotle, among which he
includes the Rhetoric and the Poetics , giving precedence
to the Isagoge of Porphyry. But he declares at once,
“As for us, our resolution is that of the man who
wishes to have his Creator, the Unique and First One,
to guide him, who attributes to himself no power or
strength except through Him, and who has no
knowledge except that which He has taught him”.
With regard to these books, men are divided into four
groups. The first are those who, without having read
and studied them, judge them as impious and tending
towards heresy. The second see in them nothing but
nonsense, but censure those who ignore them. In
third place are those who have read them, but with
defective intelligence and poor understanding. The
fourth group includes those who study them with clear
intelligence and with impartial ideas. They establish
the oneness of God by necessary demonstrative proofs
{bi-bardhin daruriyya ); they see the diversity of creators
and the action of the Creator in them. The last-
mentioned group find that these books have a worth
and a utility like that of a “friend of good counsel”

MANTIK

445

(, al-khadin al-nasih). Unfortunately, translations render
them in obscure terms and arcane usage: “Nor every
expression is right for every notion.” Consequently,
“we shall discuss these meanings in simple, not com¬
plex terms, equally comprehensible to the common
man and the educated, to the scholar and the ig¬
norant, in the same measure as we have understood
them”.

This being so, Ibn Hazm surveys the eight books of
logic. As regard the Isagoge , it is sufficient to mention
what he says of names which can designate several in¬
dividuals, or a single one, as the case is presented in
Arabic. For example. God says (CIII, 2): “In truth,
man is in distress”. Here, the name indicates the
species {naw°). A phrase such as “The man whom you
know has come to see me”, refers to an individual.
But the ambiguity can be removed by the use of the
collective: al-nas instead of al-insan (the man), al-khayl
instead of al-faras (the horse). This reference to the
Kurban and to Arabic is worthy of note. Ibn Hazm
then tackles the works of Aristotle: first the book “of
isolated names” ( al-asma 5 al-murfrada), i.e. the
Categories (Kdtaghuriyds)\ these are the ten makdlat.

He begins by defining synonyms ( al-asma 5 al-
mutawatPa) and homonyms {al-asma^ al-mushtarika), for
example, nasr which denotes the vulture, a star of the
constellation of the Eagle and the shoe of a horse. In
this he follows Aristotle, but he gives a different
definition to paronyms which he calls “derivations”
(. al-asma 3 al-mushtakka), the word Trt&au; used by
Aristotle having the sense of a word formed from an¬
other. It is thus that one speaks of several
denominated things, such as white-clothing, white-
bird, white-man. “Each of these denominated things
has a definition other than that of the other, and a
name which, in its kind, is other than the name of the
other; but they are associated in that they are all called
“white”. They thus concur in one of their qualifica¬
tions which unites them “in a name derived from
these denominated things”. To these three types of
names, Ibn Hazm adds “different names” ( al-asma 5
al-mukfitalifa) when the things denominated differ
although their meanings concur, as is the case with
sinnawr, day war and hur which all signify the cat.
These names are distinguished from synonyms which
are, according to Aristotle, “that which has both com¬
munity of name and identity of notion, for example,
the animal which is both man and ox {Cat. 1, 1 a 5)”.
Then Ibn Hazm develops in an independent fashion
what Aristotle says about expressions that bear a
liaison {Cat. 2, 1 a 16 ff.) and which he calls “com¬
posed discourse” {kaldm murakkab). He introduces the
very Arab notion of khabar (cf. below), as an infor¬
mative or enunciatory discourse to which corresponds
only imperfectly the predicative judgment, and he
adds other forms of discourse: the interrogative, the
vocative, the optative and the imperative (a useful
point of view for the interpretation of the legislative
texts of the Kurban). For example, in order to deter¬
mine the ahkam of the Law, it is important to know
that an enunciative, in the form of a promise or a
threat, can have the weight of a command or a pro¬
hibition. It is necessary also to distinguish the dif¬
ferent qualities of verbal imperatives: the obligatory
and constraining imperative (al-wadyib al-mulzim ); the
imperative of incitement {al-mahdud c alayhi) which is
not constraining; in addition, the imperative which
gives an accord (al-masmuhfihi)\ that which leaves the
subject free {al-tabarru? ) as in “Do as you wish”;
threat {waHd) as in the verse (XII, 40): “Do as you
wish: truly God sees that which you do”; irony {tahak-
kum), as when God mocks the damned in Hell with the

words (XLIV, 49): “Taste [the boiling water): you
are the powerful, the noble one”; the imputation of
powerlessness {ta : djiz), as in “Be stone or iron”
(XVII, 50); and the prayer, the request, the appeal
(du^a 7 ). Finally, there is the imperative kun (Be!)
which brings beings into existence and which is the
prerogative of the Creator. On the other hand, where
Aristotle speaks of the affirmed or not-affirmed beings
of a subject, existing or not existing in a subject, Ibn
Hazm speaks of a division of names into four groups:
bearers {hamila) and qualifiers (naHta), bearers and
qualified {man c uta), born and qualified, born and
qualifying. “Things” ( ashya *) of which the names
belong to the first group, are like Man as a universal
or taken in general {al-insan al-kulli al-mutlak). It is the
bearer of all its attributes and it qualifies all the in¬
dividuals denominated by it; but it is never “born”,
for “the substance ( djawhar ) bears and is not born ”.
Here there is estblished the ambiguity which results
from the substitution of names for beings. Aristotle
had stated clearly, “Among beings, some are affirmed
by a subject, while not being in any subject’ {Cat., 2
1 a 20). Ibn Hazm should have specified that Man, in
the sense of a secondary substance (cf. Cat., 5, 2 a
10 ff.) is not in a subject, but as a universal, he can
be the predicate of an individual subject: Zayd is a
man. The names of the second group are the
“substantial individuals” {al-ashkhas al-djawhariyya)
who bear their qualifications or attributes, but are not
born, for example Zayd. The names of the third
group are like the knowledge of such a man; it is born
in his soul and is qualified by knowledge. The names
of the fourth group are like the knowledge which is a
kind of quality relative to the soul and which includes
such studies as medicine, jurisprudence, etc., par¬
ticular types of knowledge which it qualifies. What is
of interest to Ibn Hazm is names, their meanings and
their relationship within the language and their usage.
The thing denominated is only considered in terms of
the name which renominates it.

Turning to the ten categories, Ibn Hazm follows
Aristotle, while simplifying him. With regard to the
substance which is that which exists in itself, he does
not say that the primary substance is neither in a sub¬
ject ( ? ev c v 7 i:oxet{jLevq>), not attribuable to a subject (xodP
c v 7 i;ox£ipevov), while the secondary substance, once it
has been seen, is not in a subject, but is attributable
to a subject. He insists above all on the fact that the
substance has no contrary {didd). When two
substances are taken to be contraries, the contrarity
derives from their qualities {kayfiyydt). Consequently,
God, having no qualities, is in no sense contrary to
His creation. It is no longer possible to talk of more
and of less: an ass is not more than another ass in
“the-nature-of-the-ass” (fi ’l-himdriyya), nor is a goat
more than another goat in “the-nature-of-the-goat (fi
’l-taysiyya): it is interesting to note this use of abstract
terms in -iyya which in principle Ibn Hazm rejects
since they evoke ideas of the Platonic type existing in
reality. But here there is little risk of “realism”, since
the context shows quite clearly that himdriyya and
lays iyya are nothing more than conventional terms
which designate the ass and the goat in the sense of
secondary substances. Without pursuing further this
analysis of the categories, it is evident that logic has so
far been presented as a means of classifying words, of
specifying their usage and thus developing a method
of explaining the KuUanic text which is often quoted
to illustrate, or to support, such-and-such a significa¬
tion. Nevertheless, in his chapter on the De Interpreta-
tione, which he calls “Book of Enunciations” (K. al-
Akhbar), where there is a discussion of “names joined

446

MANTIK

to express a new signification ( al-madjmu c a ila
ghayriha)”, in other words “composites” ( al -
murakkaba), he denounces pure “nominalism”. “All
qualifications and enunciations bear on the things
denominated, not on the names, for the things
denominated are the significations (al-ma^ani) and the
names are the expressions of them ( al-Hbdrat c anha): it
is thus well established that the name is other than the
thing denominated.” Those of a contrary opinion
seek support from the verse (LXXXVII, 1), “Praise
the Name of your Master...”. But they are mistaken,
since a thing denominated can only be reached
through the name which expresses it; these are the two
inseparable relatives.

It is worth paying attention to what Ibn Hazm says
concerning speech, in order to show how he
understands Aristotle in relating him to the notions of
Arabic grammar. He renders the word c prj(xa by
kalima and says that it is what the grammarians call
qualifications ( naH) and the theologians attribute
(sifa). The Greek word in fact primarily signifies
speech and discourse (and in second place “verb” in
the grammatical sense). J. Tricot writes (De 1’Inter¬
pretation, 81, n. 1), “In the language of Aristotle and
also that of Plato (cf. Sophist, 262 c; Cratylus, 399 b),
the word c prjpL<x espresses the act of qualifying a sub¬
ject or the qualification which is given to it, in a more
general sense that which is stated on a subject.” The
Arab grammarians describe it as “a name derived
from a verb (/i’ c /)”. For example: sahha, yasihhu, fa-
huwa sahih (sense of being in good health). Kalima in¬
dicates a determined time. Thus sahih is a statement
(ikhbar) on the present state of health of a person; sahha
indicates an action in the past (fi ’l-madi); yasihhu , a
future action ( mustakbal). The word sihha (act of being
in good health) is a name (ism), not a kalima. It is what
the grammarians call masdar (verbal noun). These are
of two types: (1) the masdar can express the action of
an agent (fd c il) or the movement of a mobile, for ex¬
ample the blow (darb) of one who strikes (tfarib); or (2)
that which is a qualificative for what is qualified, for
example the fact of being in good health (sihha, masdar
or sahha) for someone who is in good health and is one
of his qualificatives”. There are thus two enunciative
propositions: (1) Zayd strikes ( daraba ), and (2) Zayd is
in good health (sahha), which means that Zayd is the
agent-subject of the act of striking which is his effec¬
tiveness (ta^thir), and that he is the qualified-subject of
the fact of being in good health which is “borne”
mahmuf) on him. With this incursion into Arabic
grammar, Ibn Hazm deviates considerably from what
Aristotle says.

In his study of the first part of the Prior Analytics, Ibn
Hazm follows Aristotle fairly closely. He speaks of
defined propositions (kaddyd mahsura), “those which
are preceded by a word (lafz, cf. below: sur) which ex¬
plains that they are intended to signify a global exten¬
sion (al- c umum): these are universal propositions; or
else a limited extension ( al-khusus ): these are particular
propositions. Next come undefined propositions
(muhmala), “in which the one who enunciates them
does not state explicitly that he means a part (ba c d) of
what is offered by the sense of the noun which they
contain, or in which nothing prevents them from
receiving a signification of global extension”. It is evi¬
dent that it is always the verbal expression (lafz, ism)
which interests Ibn Hazm, where Aristotle speaks of
attribution to such or such a subject ( c vrcox£t|i.eva>).
Furthermore, when he employs the words mawdif
(subject) and mahmul (predicate), he always explains
them by terms borrowed from Arabic grammar:
mukhbar c anhu (that on which an enunciation bears)

and khabar (enunciative). He stresses the means of
concluding in an always true and necessary fashion
(intadf n sahih an abad 071 ). Logical necessity has posed a
problem for theologians (cf. below). But here it is re¬
duced to evidence supplied by the sense of words
themselves. If the noun “man” denotes living beings,
and if the noun “substance” is applied to living and
to inanimate beings, it is evident that the noun
“substance” applies to man. If this is formalised, the
result is a first-figure syllogism of the Barbara type:
Every living being is substance; man is a living being;
thus every man is substance. (N.B. This syllogism is
giving in the order major, minor, conclusion, whereas
Arab logicians enunciate first the minor, then the
major.)

Ibn Hazm devotes several paragraphs to judgments
and to conditional syllogisms (shartiyya). Aristotle does
not deal with these in the Prior Analytics. As in the case
of al-FarabT and Ibn Slna, a Stoic influence is evident
here. The conditional proposition is either conjunc¬
tive (mu c allaka), or disjunctive (mukassama). Conjunc¬
tives are divided into connected propositions
(muttasila): if A, therefore B; and into propositions
with exception ( istithna *) : A (or not A) unless if B. The
disjunctive enumerates cases, two or several, ex¬
clusive of one another, in a manner which is ex¬
haustive (therefore perfect) or non-exhaustive
(therefore imperfect): either A, then B; or C. then
D...; now A, thus B. Ibn Hazm gives examples, well-
known as instruments of the Stoics: if the sun has
risen, it is day. The rising sun is the cause (sabab) of
the day. But he also gives judicial examples, which is
to be expected since in the K. al-Muhalla , among other
texts, he stresses the obligation to take account of the
conditions which are in the Book of God (al-shurut fi
Kitab Allah), without excision or addition. Thus a for¬
nicator who is married, adult and healthy of mind, is
punished by flogging; that which intoxicates is forbid¬
den; now the wine of figs, when (idha) it is fermented,
intoxicates; thus the wine of figs if fermented is for¬
bidden. The conditional particles are if (in), as soon as
(mata ma ), when (idh ma), whenever (mahma, kullama).
This being so, Ibn Hazm examines the different con¬
ditional syllogisms, according to whether their
premisses are universal or particular, affirmative or
negative.

This brief appraisal shows that, without rejecting
logic in general, and that of Aristotle in particular,
Ibn Hazm reduces it to an instrument for the evalua¬
tion of names and of their meanings, whether they are
isolated or connected in speech. By this means,
genres, types, differences, particulars and accidents
serve first to classify names, then, through them, the
things denominated, to define the relations between
names, and thereby between things denominated.
While laying the foundations of a Zahirl grammar, he
has transformed the logic of Aristotle into a Zahirl
logic. It makes no attempt to advance a theory of
quiddities and essences, being designed above all to
serve in commentaries on Kur’anic and prophetic
texts, and the truth that it propounds is that of legal
maxims and of ahkam. It is for this reason that it is il¬
lustrated essentially by examples drawn from
“Islamic law”, and the nature of the work in question
is clearly indicated by the full title, al-Takrib li-hadd al-
mantik wa ’l-madkhal Hay hi bi’l-alfaz al- c ammiya wa 7-
amthila al-fikhiyya.

C. The theologians and logic, (a) The Han balls.
Very attached to the notion that all knowledge comes
from God, they admit however that reason ( c aki),
being a gift of God, is something of which use should
be made. This is stated, for example, by al-Barbaharl

MANTIK

447

[ 9 . 1 /.], although he denounces personal and arbitrary
use of reasoning. He attacks innovations (bida c ) as also
does Ibn Batta [q.v. ], who denounces those “who take
ignorant and deluded beings as their masters,
although the Lord has given them knowledge” and
thus adopt “ideas which have no proof in the Book of
God” ( Profession de foi, introd., ed. and tr. H. Laoust,
Damascus 1958). There is no doubt that logic is envis¬
aged in this attack on bida c .

But the most important text written by a HanbalT
on this subject is the “Refutation of Logicians” (A'.
al-Radd c ala ’ l-mantikiyyin ) by Ibn Taymiyya [f».).
The author is at pains to show the uselessness of the
logic of Aristotle. For example, a theory of definition
teaches nothing about the defined object to those who
do not already have knowledge of it: “There is
nothing more clear than ‘man’, but his definition as
a reasonable animal encounters objections”. There is
no need for a definition in forming a concept
( tasawwur ) of the defined object and of its reality. “All
men of good sense in all nations know the realities of
things without being taught them by the school of
Aristotle.“ However, Ibn Taymiyya admits nominal
definitions which “distinguish between the defined
object and that which is other than it”. But he
reproaches al-GhazalT for having introduced Greek
logic into the usul al-dln and fikh\ he denounces his
works al-Mustasfa, Mihakk al-nazar, Mdyar al-Hlm and
al-Kistas al-mustakim. On the other hand, when the
logicians declare that knowledge of judgments can
only be formed by the syllogism ( kiyds ), this is a
negative proposition ( kadiyya salbiyya) which is not
known through evident intuition ( badiha ), and they
have no proof ( dalil ) of this negation. How can they
claim that no man can acquire knowledge of a non-
intuitive judgment except through the intermediary of
a logical syllogism based on the universal (bi-wasitat al-
kiyds al-mantikial-shumuli)? The difference between the
intuitive and the speculative is relative. A judgment is
intuitive when it is sufficient to observe the two terms
(subject and attribute) in order to recognise that it is
true. But in this men are very different from one an¬
other. Some are capable of understanding a concep¬
tual representation with great rapidity. “In such cases
the two terms of a perfectly accomplished representa¬
tion are presented so well that it serves to clarify the
concomitants ( lawdzim ) which are not clarified by any
other...” It is an error to believe that the medium
(wasat) is in the thing qualified itself and that it is
through its intermediary that the concomitant
qualifications are actually established. This logical
realism is evidently diametrically opposed to HanbalT
doctrine. But if by wasat is meant the proof (dalil) on
which the conviction of thought ( al-thubut al-dhihnf) is
based, not a conviction bearing on that which is ex¬
terior to thought, the differences between men are
seen to reappear. “There is no doubt that the thing by
which one shows (ma yustadall bihi ) can be the cause
( Hlla ) in thought of an affirmation of existence bearing
on the thing itself, whether this demonstration is
called kiyds [q.v. ] or burhan [q. v. ] or any other name;
it is then what is called kiyds al- c illa or burhan al-Hlla,
or burhan lima." But it can be otherwise, and it is then
indication pure and simple (dalil mutlak), called kiyds
or burhan al-dalala and burhan inna. “It is a reasoning
based on verification by evidence.” As Ibn STna ex¬
pressed it, “it gives the why of judgment, not the why
of being” ( Ishdrat , 84). But in this too men differ. It
is an error to claim that every speculative item of
knowledge must have two premisses: a dalil can have
only one, or two, or more than two “according to the
need of the one who speculates and demonstrates”. In

short, logical operations which are the operations of
thought in the interior of thought, even when they
form judgment of things, are relative to the strength
or weakness of the faculty of thought of different in¬
dividuals. In this sense, the logic of Aristotle, indeed
all logic, will be nothing other than methods of exposi¬
tion of known truths, not rules for transference from
a known to an unknown.

In matters of religious tradition, there may be a
need for unversal propositions. If, for example, the
prohibition of nabidh is to be explained, the statement
will be that nabidh is an intoxicating drink and every
intoxicating drink is prohibited (or, nabidh is a form of
khamr (fermented drink), and all khamr is prohibited).
Each of these propositions is known through a text
(KuHanic or prophetic) or through consensus (idjma^).
It there is objection to the minor premiss, the reply
will be that it is established in the Sahih of Muslim that
the Prophet said, “All intoxicating drink is fermented
drink, and all intoxicating drink is forbidden”. Those
who believe that there is a demonstration by means of
two premisses display enormous ignorance, “for the
Prophet is of too eminent a rank to have recourse to
such a method in the dissemination of knowledge”.
But it appears that this method may be applied to the
purpose of those whose intelligence is of a less eminent
rank.

Furthermore, universal propositions are known, in
a general manner, not by demonstrative proof
(burhan), but by an analogy of comparison (kiyds
tamthili). If the demonstration of the logicians requires
a universal proposition, the knowledge that is had of
them must have a cause. If one advances the con¬
sideration of that which is absent by that which is
present (iHibdr al-ghah'b bi ’ l-shahid , cf. below), or the
principle that the judgment borne on a thing is iden¬
tical to that which is borne on a similar thing, then one
has recourse to the analogy in question. If it is said
that at the time of particular perceptions, there is pro¬
duced in the soul a universal knowledge by the grace
of the Giver of Intellect ( Wahib al- c akl = Wahib al-
suwar, dator formarum\ cf. the theory of the Intellect of
al-Farabl) who is the Agent Intellect (al- c akl al-fa cc dl),
or further, that in perceiving particular things, the
soul is “disposed” to receive from the Agent Intellect
the influx of the universal, the reply will be that it is
discourse (kaldm) on particular things which shows
that the universal judgment is knowledge and not
opinion or ignorance. Finally, if demonstrative proof
supplies only a knowledge of the universal, as the
universal is only in thought and there is nothing at the
exterior but the determined existent (mawdiud
mu c ayyan), it follows that, through burhan, no existent
can be absolutely known. The above are a few of the
many criticisms levelled by Ibn Taymiyya against the
logicians.

(b) The Ash c arTs. In his K. al-Tamhid , al-
BakillanT distinguishes between various kinds of
demonstrations (istidlal): (1) those which divide a
thing in the intelligence (fi ’ l- c akl) into two or more
parts which cannot all be true or all false; proof (dalil)
shows that these divisions are false, except one; the in¬
telligence judges as necessarily true that which re¬
mains; (2) that which states in that which is presently
given (fi ’l-shahid), that it is necessary to judge and to
qualify a thing by reason of a cause: it must therefore
be judged that that which has the same qualification
in that which is not presently given (al-gha^ib = the
absent), must have it by reason of this cause (cf.
Gardet and Anawati, Introduction a la theologie
musulmane, 365 and n. 3). “In fact it is impossible
(mustahil) to establish a proof which shows that which

448

MANTIK

justifies the qualification by an attribute in the
absence of that which renders this attribute
necessary.” Thus it is known that a body is qualified
as a body only by reason of the fact that it is com¬
posite; it must therefore necessarily be judged that
everything qualified as a body has a composition; (3)
that which demonstrates the truth or the falsehood of
a thing according to ( c ala) the truth or the falsehood
of another thing which is similar to it and included in
the same notion. For example, it is shown that God
can give back life to the dead by the fact that this is
the same thing as giving it to the living. Other types
of demonstration depend on the exigencies of lex¬
icography, or on the Kur’an, the Sunna, idjma c and
the analogical reasoning of jurists ( al-kiyds al-sharH )
which, likewise, is linked to a “cause” (Hlla, cf.
below). “All these traditional proofs ( adilla samHyyd)
have the same role in the unveiling of truth through
kiyds as have judgments based on reason.”

In his It shad., al-Djuwaynl defines just reasoning ( al-
nazar al-sahih) as “everything which leads to an under¬
standing of the manner in which the proof proves ( al-
c uthur c ala ’l-wadjh alladhi minhuyadull al-dalil)” . As for
proofs, “they are that which, through just reasoning
with regard to them, lead to the knowledge of that
which is not known in a necessary manner by deep-
rooted practice.” Muslim theologians are confronted
here by an important problem, which al-Djuwaynl ex_
plains clearly. “Reasoning (nazar) does not engender
knowledge as a derived effect (la yuwallid al-Hlm ); it
does not necessitate it (layudjibuhu) in the way that the
efficient cause (Hlla) necessitates its effect. “He thus
expresses, on the one hand, the opposition of the
Ash c arls to the Mu c tazilT doctrine of tawallud, and on
the other hand, their opposition to the doctrine of the
falasifa who, following Aristotle, consider that the
minor clause of a syllogism is the cause of its conclu¬
sion by the route of essential necessitation. According
to the Ash c ans, it is God who immediately creates
knowledge of the conclusion as soon as the premisses
have been posed. This is an application to logic of the
doctrine of occasional causes. Logical laws, like the
laws of nature, are for God a custom ( c dda), a rule of
conduct (sunna) which He freely decides to observe,
and the correlation between premisses and conclusion
is purely c adt. Nevertheless, for al-Djuwaynl this cor¬
relation is rational ( c akli) in the sense that God has
created reason and its necessary principles; they can¬
not be incumbent on Him, since He creates them
freely, and it is by the same free act that, having
created them, He decides to observe them habitually.
(On this question, cf. Luciani, El-Irchad , ed. and tr.
Paris 1938, 14-15, n. 2.) This problem of logical
necessity (al-darurt) is of prime importance to
theologians. According to al-Bakillam, in his Tamhid ,
a knowledge is necessary in two senses. First, it is a
knowledge which is attached to the creature itself “by
a connection (luzum) of which it cannot rid itself’.
Doubt is not possible; here there is an act of violence
done to the one who knows, for, in the language, the
word idtirar signifies ikrah (violence), i.e. ildfa? (con¬
straint). It is in this sense that there is talk of a
necessary knowledge. Subsequently, a knowledge can
be said to be necessary when there is a need for it, for,
in the language, darura signifies hadfa (need). In the
first sense, sensible knowledges are necessary, since
they are imposed on the five senses. But there is a
sixth necessity “which has been originally created in
the soul”, arriving through none of the senses, such
as the knowledge that the soul has of itself, and the
knowledge of the principles of necessary intuition,
such as that a statement is true or false; two

statements posing two contrary objects cannot be
simultaneously true or simultaneously false; and this
applies in all cases where the intelligence makes a divi¬
sion by which is applied the principle of the excluded
third. It is this necessity which renders the conclusion
necessary. Here, too, there is recourse to the notion of
the c akli connection. (On the tripartite division of
knowledge, cf. Irshad , 25, and n. 1.)

In his Munkidh min al-dalal, al-Ghazali writes that
questions of logic have no reference to religion, either
to refute it or to prove it. “They are a rational ex¬
amination (nazar) of methods of proof and of criticism,
of conditions relating to the premisses of the
demonstrative syllogism (burhdn) and the manner of
disposing them, of the conditions of correct definition
and the manner of organising it.” However, misuse
of this science leads to the belief that the conditions of
demonstrative proof necessarily engender certitude
(al-yakin). On the level of religious problems, it is not
possible to unite these conditions in an exhaustive
manner. If al-Ghazali thus warns the theologian
against the dangers of logic, he does not fail to
recognise in the Ibiyd} c ulum :> al-dln that logic, as “en¬
quiry into the manner and conditions of proof and of
definition”, enters into the science of kaldm. A branch
of philosophy, it is placed in the second rank, after
mathematics and before metaphysics (al~ilahiyydt) and
the philosophy of nature (al-fab^iyydt). In al-Kistas al-
mustakim, al-Ghazali has shown that there are
syllogistic demonstrations in the Kur 5 an, which he is
concerned to set in form.

4. The logic of the falasifa.

(a) Preliminary comment. The logic of Aristotle
depends on judgments of attribution which express
the inherence of the predicate in the subject (otnne
praedicatum inest subjecto) when it is a case of essential
attributes, or its simple presence in the subject, when
the predicate is accidental. The link between the
predicate and the subject is marked by the copula
“is” (’eoti). But the Arabic language disregards the
copula. The verb kdna indicates a state at which the
subject has arrived, a manner of being; this is why it
is followed by the direct case (nasb) such as a hal.
Grammarians recognise only the relation of the
mubtada 3 (inchoative) and of the khabar (enunciative).
In his commentary on the Mufassal of al-
ZamakhsharT, Ibn Ya c ish [ 9 . r. ] explains that the
mubtada 5 is definite in order to show that it is known
to the two interlocutors who are in accord in discuss¬
ing it, while the khabar is indefinite in order to show
that one of the two is ignorant of that which the other
intends to tell him regarding the mubtada 5 . It is thus
not a case of a discussion expressing the relation of a
predicate to a subject, but of an informative discourse
(ikhbar) of one who addresses a second person regard¬
ing something which is the object of the information
(al-mukhbar c anhu). This concept is close to that of the
Stoics in regard to the Xexxov, that which can be said
of a thing. Their dialectic concerns true or false state¬
ments relating to things; these statements or
judgments (’ajjuopoaa) comprise a subject (substantive
or pronoun) and an attribute expressed by a verb.
They never express the relation of two concepts.
Although the khabar can be something other than a
verb (even an entire proposition, e.g. Zayd, his father
has come) there is evident kinship between the notions
of the Stoics and those of the Arab grammarians.
There is even a relic of this where Muslim thinkers,
especially in matters of fikh (cf. below) adopt formulae
of the Aristotelian type. It may further be noted that
for Ibn Ya c Ish, the true agent of a proposition is not
the grammatical subject, but the one who enunciates

MANTIK

* ♦

449

it: before every statement, there is an understood “I
say that”. Now the verb kdla (say) is constructed with
the particle in or inna (that). Consequently, it may be
said that phrases commencing with inna , the particle
normally introducing the consecutive of kdla, testify to
the reality of this understood preface.

This being so, the falasifa, under the influence of
Aristotle, were obliged to find an equivalent of the
copula. The particle adopted for this purpose was
huwa (he; Zayd, he [is] wise), although its copulative
usage is incorrect. As is shown by A. Taha (Langage
et philosophie, Rabat 1979, 25), “in its ordinary usage,
the pronoun huwa serves to establish a relating of iden¬
tity between the subject and the noun (or rather the
nominal description) attributed to it, for example, Ibn
Khaldun huwa mu^allif al-Mukaddima (Ibn Kh aldun is
the author of the Prolegomena)''. But it is also admitted,
for example by al-FarabT in his commentary on De In¬
terpretation (Shark K. al- c Ibara, Beirut, 103) that the
copula is “potentially” contained in the statement,
since the verb to be is “either expressed in a word, or
contained in the idea” (ibid, 46).

(b) The commentaries. The work of the falasifa rests on
translations and commentaries on a major, medium
and minor scale, of the books of the Organon. In the ar¬
ticle Mantik in EI l , Van den Bergh wrote, “The
Arabic philosophers did not develop this logic, but
they have summarised, reproduced and commented
on it, often with felicity”. But this judgment assumes
a positive contribution on their part. It should first be
stated, with N. Rescher, that the first generations of
Arab writers on logic, including al-KindT, Abu
Zakariyya 3 , al-RazT and al-FarabT, were in a true
sense “the products of Syriac schools”. “The Arab
logicians thus continue the tradition of the Greeks of
the Hellenistic period, and the Muslim Aristotelians,
like al-Farabi and Averroes, are the last link in a chain
of which the first members are the masters of the
Greek language, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Porphyry, Themistius, Ammonius and Joannes
Philoponus” ( Al-Farabi’s Short Commentary on Aristotle’s
Prior Analystics, Pittsburgh 1963, Introd., 23). Nor
should the influence of Galen, and through him of
Stoic ideas, be forgotten. Thus in his Short Commen¬
tary on the Prior Analytics, al-FarabT introduces the
conditional syllogism which Aristotle does not discuss,
although he has promised to do so (Pr. Anal. 50a 40 -
B 1). On the other hand, the theory of propositions-
and modal syllogisms to which Aristotle devotes more
than a half of his treatise, is entirely ignored (cf.
Rescher, ibid ., 38). It is true that al-FarabT has dealt
with this in his Major Commentary. In his disdain for
modal syllogisms, Rescher sees the influence of the
Syriac theologian-logicians. It may be noted that
Galen, in his Institutio Logica , does not speak of them
either.

One original step taken by al-Farabi in this short
commentary is the use of ecthesis (exGeai?: iftirad , apax,
which D. M. Dunlop suggests should be amended to
iftirad or ifrad) in the reduction to the first figure of
syllogisms of the second of the Baroco system and the
third of the Bocardo. The following is an example of
the Baroco system (with the major moved to the
head):

Every mobile (M) is corporel (C) Major A

Some existent (X) is not corporel (C) Minor O

Some existent (X) is not mobile (M) Conclusion O.
If some C is not C, it may be said that a part of the
Xs is not C. Let this part be called P. We then have:
No P is C (E), which provides a second figure
syllogism of the Camestres type:

All M is C Major A

No P is C Minor E
No P is M Conclusion E.

But “no P is C” is converted into “no C is P”, and
by inverting the premisses the result is a definitive
reduction from Camestres to Celarent of the first
figure, with the second concluding:

No C is P Major E
All M is C Minor A
No P is M Conclusion E.

It is thus proved by this reduction to the first figure
that no P is M. But it is given that P is some X.
Therefore, it is true that some X is not M.

Rescher also draws attention to the originality of
the chapter on analogy or transfer, in relation to what
Aristotle says (Pr. Anal, ii, 25, 69 a 20 f.) on this
reasoning which he calls ’axa'fw'frj. Of the latter, the
following is typical: there is an evident major and a
minor which is uncertain, but more probable or at
least no less probable than the conclusion which is to
be demonstrated. For example: Every science can be
taught; justice is a science, therefore justice can be
taught (syllogism of the first figure in the Barbara
system). But al-FarabT’s analysis is different. He
revives the distinction between shahid and gha^ib (cf.
above). Rescher analyses this reasoning as follows:
when A and B are two similars relative to S, and when
T is present in A, it may be concluded that T is pres¬
ent in B. Thus experience seems to teach us that
bodies, such as animals and plants, are created. This
character of being created is transferred from these
bodies to the celestial bodies. But al-FarabT adds, the
resemblance must be “relative to that which characte¬
rises animals as created,” in other words, “a simi¬
larity between animals and the heavens on a point
which gives truth to the judgment that the character
of being created belongs to all these beings”, for ex¬
ample the fact that they are all contingent. This re¬
quirement recalls a passage in the Topics concerning
resemblance (i, 17, 108 a 14-17): “it is in the measure
that they possess an identical attribute that things are
similar.” Therefore the bodies of animals and plants
are created because they have this character of being
contingent. The result is a first figure syllogism of the
Barbara type:

All contingent bodies are created

The celestial bodies are contingent bodies

Therefore the celestial bodies are created.

Al-FarabT is not the only one to achieve originality
in his commentaries. Ch. E. Butterworth has also
drawn attention to the originality of Ibn Rushd,
although the latter is reputed to have followed Aristo¬
tle to the letter. He had “the onerous task of introduc¬
ing the thought of a pagan philosopher to a somewhat
closed Muslim community...” And, since he con¬
ceives that “teaching by means of demonstration is
the apogee of what Aristotle has said on the art of
logic, he sees no objection to presenting everything
which precedes the exposition of this teaching as
preliminaries based on general opinion, provided that
this tactic induces his readers to revise their attitude
towards the philosophy ... of Aristotle” (La valeur
philosophique des commentaires d’Averroes sur Aristote, in
Multiple Averroes. Paris 1978, 117-26). Also worth con¬
sulting is the same author’s very interesting introduc¬
tion to the edition of the Middle Commentary on the
Topics (Averroes' Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Topics,
Cairo 1979).

(c) The original treatises. It is with Ibn STna that logic
is genuinely detached from commentary to become an
integral part of the great treatises. The Shifa 5 , the K.
al-Nadjat and the Ishardt all begin with a section
devoted to logic. In the Shifa \ moreover, Ibn STna

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

450

MANJIK

follows the order of the treatises of the Organon while
making them precede the Isagoge (al-Madkhal), then
moving on from the Categories as far as the Poetics.
Ibrahim Madkour has well demonstrated that this
treatise is not a commentary in the manner of those of
Ibn Rushd; it presents an original development with
“personal hypotheses and analyses of great breadth”
(Le Shifa*, ed. Cairo, General Introd. 16-17). The
connections between the Shifa* and the Nadjat are
close. Both respond to the same principal idea: “ to
combine together logic, physics and metaphysics”
(ibid., 19). The Isharat, which are subsequent to them,
further display “the originality and the personality of
Avicenna. This is why the work is associated with the
c Oriental Philosophy 3 ” (ibid., 22). There has been
much discussion of this philosophy, which Ibn Sina
himself evokes at the beginning of the Madkhal. That
which remains of the Mantik al-Mashrikiyyin (the Logic
of the Orientals) offers no new ideas in relation to the
other works. Ibn Sina shows himself here closely at¬
tached to Aristotle. But he himself indicates the sense
in which this philosophy is different. “We have re¬
vealed in this book the philosophy conforming to that
which is in the nature of the spirit (fi ’l-tab c ) and to
that which expresses the correct point of view (al-ra*y
al-sahih ) without concessions to those who are
associated in this discipline. There is no hesitation in
diverging from their authority, as there is hesitation in
other books” (Madkhal), 10). In fact, he specifies that
the > Shifa* is more in agreement with the Peripatetics
(al-Mashshd*un). It could thus be considered, as a
result of the works of S. Pines on the K. al-lnsaf, that
the Orientals are the thinkers of Khurasan who are
represented by Ibn Sina and that the Occidentals are
the Peripatetics of Baghdad; it is the latter that Ibn
Sina opposes and it is their interpretation of Aristotle
that he criticises, on account of the fact that it is
marked by the influence of “those Christian
simpletons of Baghdad”. It is certainly a fact that
these Christians, Nestorians in the main, had pursued
their studies of logic “in close association with their
theological studies, since Greek philosophy provided a
rational conceptual analysis, in which the theology of
these churches found its articulation” (The development
of Arabic logic, Pittsburgh 1964, 16).

Nevertheless, in the Shifa*, there is already a debate
conducted with various logicians. Nabil Shehaby (The
propositional logic of Avicenna , Dordrecht 1973) has
sought to discover whether these are Ancient Greeks,
contemporary Muslims or Christian Arabs. The
author refers to Aristotle, to the Stoics (Ghrysippus),
to Galien, and he uses information supplied by
Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus, etc. In the
posterity of Avicenna, Fakhr al-Dln al-RazI [q.v.] and
Naslr al-Dln al-TusT, who both commented on the
Isharat , differ on their interpretation. Al-Razi wrote
numerous critiques of Avicenna, while acknowledging
the scale of his debt to him. Rescher writes with
reference to him: “In principle, Fakhr al-DTn was not
only a critic, but also an interpreter and a continuer
of the work of Avicenna. He may, nevertheless, be
considered the founder of an important ‘western
school’ of Persian logicians ... since it constitutes a
focus of opposition to the tradition of Avicenna”
(Development, 184). On the other hand, al-TusI (597-
672/1201-74) criticised the writings of the
“westerners”, specifically those of al-RazT (ibid.,
197). In Spain, the influence of al-Farabi was domi¬
nant, and there are seen perpetuated there the con¬
cepts of the school of Ba gh dad which had been
introduced by Muhammad b. c Abdun (4th/10th cen¬
tury). Worthy of mention among the logicians of this

country are Abu ’1-Salt [q.v.] and Ibn Tumlus [q.v.].
Many of these logicians had maintained an ancient
tradition dating back to the Syrians, that of
associating the study of logic with that of medicine.

Among the successors of Ibn Sina, mention should
also be made of Abu ’1-Barakat al-Baghdadl [q.v.]
who constructed his K. al-MuHabar on the tripartite
division of logic, physics, metaphysics. He sometimes
follows Ibn Sina and sometimes attacks him. His
method is based on immediate, evident a priori forms
of knowledge, which, as S. Pines writes, “disparage
the a posteriori theses” accepted by the Peripatetics.

This arrangement of treatises poses the problem of
deciding whether logic forms an integral part of phi¬
losophy (the Stoics), or is only a methodological intro¬
duction to it (the Peripatetics). Many Arab logicians
support the latter point of view. Ibn Sina and the
Muslim Neoplatonists reconcile these two concepts:
logic is a part of philosophy to which it constitutes an
introduction.

There is room here only to draw attention to the in¬
terest in the study of logic on the part of scholars of the
Arabo-Muslim world in the Middle Ages. Thus it is
known that the great mathematician, astronomer,
[optical] physicist and physician, Ibn al-Haytham (d.
430/1039 [q.v. ] wrote on the “seven books”. Al-
Blruni, a centemporary of Avicenna, considered that
the perfect language of science was the mathematical
language characterised by the bi-univocity of
signifiers and signified. Nevertheless, he mentions in
the introduction to his Pharmacopoeia , the interesting
quality of the Isagoge and the four treatises, from the
Categories to the Secondary Analytics. It may be wondered
what use would have been made of it in cases where
the mathematical language does not apply. In these
matters, much research remains to be done.

(d) The logic of the Ikhwdn al-Safa*. It is from the 10th
to the 14th Epistle that questions of logic are dealt
with, after mathematics (arithmetic and geometry),
astronomy, geography and music. The Ikhwan speak
of the Isagoge and the first four books of the Organon.
Men, being tied to a body, require for its comprehen¬
sion an elocution formed of articulated words (nutk
lafzi). But, having access to intelligibles, they also
possess an elocution formed of thought (nutk fikri).
There are thus two logical sciences to be distin¬
guished: (1) Him al-mantik al-lughawu and (2) Him al-
mantik al-falsafi. It is necessary to start with the first in
order to make the second comprehensible; this is the
object of the Isagoge, the Madkhal. Then the logic of
thought (al-mantik al-fikri) is approached. “Terms
(alfaz) are only the signs which designate ideas, which
are in the thought of souls: they have been instituted
between men, so that each may express to other men
what he has in his soul”. These ideas are forms which
are given to the individual soul by the Creator,
through a series of intermediary emanations: from
God to the Agent Intellect, then to the universal Soul,
then to the primary Matter, then to the human soul.
“They are that by which men express themselves in
their thought relative to knowable things, having seen
material testimony to them by means of the senses.”
Logical philosophy is,thus fundamentally linked to a
cosmology in which man is a microcosm ( c alam saghir )
and the world a makros anthropos (insan kablr). But he
requires verbal logic (mantik lafzi) in order to convey
knowledge to others and to question them. This logic
is thus not an art of discovery, but an art of revealing
and of answering questions. Its object is to inform and
to “popularise” (Rescher).

Lexicographers recognise several senses for the
word “genre”. For the philosophers, there is only

MANTIK

451

one: that which is applied “to the ten terms studied in
the categories ( al- c ashrat al-alfaz allatift KdtighunyasX ',
which they call makulat. Each of these terms is the
name of one of the existent genres. All ideas belong
within these ten terms. From the starting-point of sen¬
sible experience, the philosophers define as matter the
things anterior in existence, and as form the posterior
things (this is evidently a case of logical anteriority
and posteriority ; if there is no matter, there is no form
for a matter). Then they perceive that form is of two
kinds, the one constitutive ( mukawwina ), the other
perfective (mutammima)\ they call the first substance
and the second accident. They declare that
substances, having a unique status ( hukm ), constitute
a single genre, unlike accidents which vary according
to nine genres corresponding to the nine unities. Thus
the logical expression of the reality of beings is in har¬
mony with their arithmological expression, fun¬
damental among the Ikhwan. Furthermore, this
presentation of categories is intimately linked to sensi¬
ble experience on the one hand, to the terms of the
language which express it on the other.

On the De Interpretation, the Ikhwan follow Aristotle
only approximately. They abridge the work con¬
siderably and even mutilate it. On the other hand,
they present some original features. E.g. their analysis
of propositions which “enunciate universally of a
universal” (De Int., 7. 17, a 36-17 b 15); they speak
of enunciations of which the truth or falsehood is
manifest, and which do not lend themselves to inter¬
pretation (ta^wtl), as opposed to those which require
this, an important issue in KuHanic exegesis. A prop¬
osition is not subject to ta^wil, “when it is delimited
(mahsur)\ delimited things are those which are deter¬
mined by a sur y ’. This word denotes an enclosing wall.
AI-Tahanawi explains that it indicates the quantity
(kammiyya) of individuals in an attributive judgment,
such as “every” or “some”. This is the TtpoaBiopiapot;
of Aristotle. This sur can be universal or particular.
Thus: Every man is animal (evidently true); no man
is animal (evidently false), etc. Propositions which do
not have a sur are either indefinite ( muhmal ), for exam¬
ple, the man is (or is not) a writer, or specific, for ex¬
ample, Zayd is (or is not) a writer; the latter is neither
true or false, since it is not known which Zayd is being
discussed. These ideas (which have already been en¬
countered above) can be traced back to the Topics (iii,
6 , 120 a 5 f.). It is worth quoting further from this
typically Muslim passage, which no doubt refers to
what Aristotle says of future contingents, “things
which do not yet exist, but have only the potential of
being or not being” (De Int., 9, 19 b 2); in this case,
affirmation and negation are mutually exclusive, they
can be united in the true or the false when care is
taken to say for example, of a young child, that he is
potentially a writer but not so in fact. This is the sense
which is to be given to the statement of the Messenger
of God, “I was a prophet when Adam was between
the water and the clay”. He was a prophet in poten¬
tial, but not in fact.

As for the syllogism, the Ikhwan note that from two
judgments united as premisses, a conclusion can only
result if there is a common middle term, and they use
the analogy of sexual union (izdiwadf), the conclusion
being like the child which is the object and the result.
But the presence of a middle term does not suffice;
hence the existence of inconclusive modes. The Ikh¬
wan explain the syllogism (kiyas) on the basis of the
root kasa, which means to measure a thing by using a
yardstick of the same type. Thus the scales measure
that which has weight (thikl) with weights (sandpit). It
is the combination of two planes, of an axis, of threads

and weights. The same applies to the logical balance
which is demonstrative reasoning (burhan). What it is
composed of and what it is capable of weighing are
both shown in the Categories ; then in the De Interpreta¬
tion, how it is arranged and adjusted to form a
balance and a scale of measure (mikyas); then in the
Prior Analytics, how this balance should be observed in
such a way that it will not be falsified and twisted;
finally, in the Secondary Analytics, how the weighing
is to be performed and used, with the aim that it will
be just and faultless.

In more than one respect, the ideas of Ibn Sab c m
[q. v. ] on logic are close to those of the Ikhwan. Like
them, he insists on term and names. Ideas are that
which is produced in the spirit as a result of sensible
perceptions. But the absolute monism of Ibn Sab c In
condemns their plurality; knowledge thus obtained
cannot be other than inadequate. In Budd al- c drif, the
beginning of which is devoted to a critical survey of
Aristotelian logic, he takes issue with the plurality of
terms used by the logicians, in relation to the plurality
of perceptions, those of genre, type, difference, par¬
ticular, accident, and a fortiori, of individual. Thus,
definition serves no purpose in the acquisition of gen¬
uine knowledge, that of the c drif. “There is no need
of it for explaining to another that which one knows”.
If there is removed from definition everything which
belongs to discourse expressed between men, all that
remains is the affirmation of an existence. Thus, the
defined is the existent (fa ’l-mahdud huwa ’l-mawdpud).
Now existence cannot be defined, at least, Ibn Sab c In
adds ironically, “unless one wishes to call existence
definition; we do not discuss these expressions, we
seek only true realities”. In a word, logic is in relation
with the thought of men enclosed in a multiple world,
with their awarenesses which bear on the multiplicity
of finite and defined beings. But it is useful, as are the
sciences which follow its rules, to show the inadequacy
of this type of knowledge and the need to pass beyond
it to acquire the awareness of the Absolute One which
is sought by the mustarshid under the guidance of his
master.

5. Logic in the judicial sciences.

There developed very early in Islam a science of the
principles of law ( c ibn usul al-fikh ) of which it could be
said that its function in the law was the same as that
of logic in philosophy and the sciences. There is thus
already a doctrine of reasoning among the usuliyyun.
From the KuHanic verse IV, 83, there has been
drawn the notion of instinbat, elucidation of the divine
word, closely related to istikhradl with the sense of
deduction. The commandment in LIX, 2, fa- Habirdya
dli i-absar (“Draw the lesson from this, you who are
of clear vision”) is also interpreted in the sense of an
obligation to reflect by means of analogy. There has
thus been from the start the practice of informal
modes of reasoning which constitute what is called
in a general fashion idjtihad (personal effort). The
great problem was to apply the revealed Law, often
“approximately” ( c ald ’l-idpnal), to detailed questions
and to particular cases. First to be used were the
hadfths of the Prophet which gave clear guidance in
detail ( c ala ’ l-tafsil ). But when this was insufficient,
there was recourse to analogy.

It is with the Imam al-Shafi c i that analogy (k-iyas)
was properly constituted as a form of reasoning more
rigorous than the simple comparison of similar cases
(tamthff). Al-Shaft c i proceeds from the notion that
every order given by God has a cause (Hlla), which is
more general than the order itself. When a case is
presented on which there is no particular text, if it
resembles a case dealt with by a text, it falls under the

452

MANTIK — MANU

name judgment on account of this same cause. In his
Risdla, al-Shafi c T employs the word ma c na in the sense
of cause or reason; the kiyas which is not based on a
simple resemblance is that which rests on the fact that
“God or his Messenger have in a text ( mansus an ) for¬
bidden or permitted some thing li-ma^na (for a
reason). Consequently, when we find some thing
similar to this ma c na in a case which in itself is the ob¬
ject of no text of the Book or of the Sunna, we permit
it or forbid it, because it is in the ma Q na of the permit¬
ted of the forbidden” ( Risdla , ed. A. M. Shakir. Cairo
1357/1938, 40). In order to extend the application of
the Law, there are disinctions drawn between reason¬
ings a minori ad majus (kiyas al-adna ), a majori ad minus
{kiyas al-awla), a pari or a simili (kiyas al-musawat or al-
mithl) and a contrario {dalil al-khitab). But these first
elaborations of a judicial logic are contemporaneous
with the translation of Greek philosophy. Also no
doubt perceptible, in this distinction of arguments, is
the influence of the Topics , ii, 10 and iii, 6, for exam¬
ple, “An argument may be drawn from more or from
less or from the same degree (119 b 16)”. The influ¬
ence of the methodology of Roman law is in¬
disputable, and comparisons could also be drawn with
the methods of Rabbinic law.

It is with al-GhazalT, in his introduction to the
Mustasfa, that Greek logic is genuinely introduced into
judicial speculations. For him there is no logic
peculiar to the science of law, and therefore use is
made of categorical syllogisms as well as conjunctive
and disjunctive conditional syllogisms. Jurists reason
only on texts or on cases which may be subjected to
texts. The conclusion must demonstrate under which
of the ahkdm (prescribed, forbidden, advisable, inad¬
visable and permitted) the case being considered falls.
But on this point there is a certain parallelism between
the logic of the jurists and that of the philosophers.
Thus the modality of necessity corresponds to that of
obligation; that of the impossible to that of the forbid¬
den; and that of the possible to that of the permitted.

The usuliyyun accept other principles such as istihsan
and istislah [q.vv.]. There is debate on the one hand as
to their value (some reject them), and on the other as
to whether these are forms of reasoning or simply
more or less subjective principles of evaluation with¬
out genuine logical foundation. In a thoroughly
documented article, based in particular on the
testimony of the Hanaffs al-Bazdaw! and al-Sarakhs!
and of the HanbalT Ibn Taymiyya, G. Makdisi has ar¬
rived at the conclusion that “ istihsan can be the aban¬
donment or modification of reasoning by analogy,
being based either on a disposition in the Kurban, the
sunna or consensus which is opposed to it, or on an¬
other reasoning by analogy which contradicts it”
{Legal logic and equity in Islamic law, in The American
Journal of Comparative Law , xxxiii/1 [1985]). Istihsan is
thus not a subjective preference in favour of what is
considered equitable; it is a preference based on an
Hlla which is either a text, or the fact that one
analogical reasoning has more force than another. But
this point is controversial.

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text, attention is due above all to the
work of N. Rescher, The development of Arabic logic,
Pittsburg 1964, of which the second part consists of
a list of the Arab logicians, with biographical data,
lists of logical works, bibliography and assessment
of their status in Arab logic. By the same author,
who is in fact the chief promotor of studies in
Arabic logic, see also Studies in the history of Arabic
logic, Pittsburg 1964; Studies in Arabic philosophy,
Pittsburg 1966; Galen and the syllogism (containing

the Arabic text with an annotated English transla¬
tion of Treatise on the fourth figure of the syllogism by the
mathematician Ibn al-Salah), 1966; Al-Farabi, an
annotated bibliography, Pittsburg 1962; R. Arnaldez,
Grammaire et iheologie chez Ibn Hazm de Cordoue, Paris
1956; La raison et Tidentification de la verite selon Ibn
Hazm de Cordoue, in Melanges Louis Massignon,
Damascus 1956, i, 110-21; R. Brunschvig, Logique
et droit dans l'Islam classique, in Etudes d 'Islamologie,
Paris 1976, ii, 347; idem, Valeur et fondement du
raisonnement juridique par analogic d’apres al-Ghazali, in
ibid. , 363; idem, Rationalite et tradition dans Tanalogie
juridico-religieuse chez le muHazilite c Abd al-Gabbar, in
ibid. , 395; idem, Pour ou contre la logique grecque chez
les theologiens jusristes de TIslam: Ibn Hazm, al-Ghazali,
Ibn Taymiyya, in ibid., 303; Ch. Chehata, Logique
juridique et droit musulman, in SI (1965), 5; G.
Deledalle, La logique arabe et ses sources non aristoteli-
ciennes, in Les Etudes philosophiques, iii (1969), 299-
318; F. Jadaane, L’influence du stoicisme sur le pensee
musulmane, Beirut 1968; Hassan Abdel-Rahman,
La logique des raisonnements juridiques , thesis, Service
de reproduction des theses, Lille 1976; idem,
L’argument a maiori et Vargument par analogic dans la
logique juridique musulmane, in Rivista Internazionale di
Filosofia del Diritto (1971), 127; A. M. Goichon, La
demonstration de Texistence dans la logique d’Avicenne, in
Melanges Henri Masse, Tehran 1963, 168-84; I.
Madkour, L’Organon d'Aristote dans le monde arabe,
Paris 1934; idem, Le traite des Categories du Shifa’ > , in
MIDEO, v (1958), 253-78; A. Turki, Polemique entre
Ibn Hazm et Bagi sur les principes de la loi musulmane,
Algiers; E. Tyan, Methodologie et sources du droit en
Islam: istihsan, istislah, siyasa sar c iyya, in SI (1959),
79; J. van Ess, The logical structure of Islamic theology,
in Logic in Classical Islamic culture, Wiesbaden 1970,
21-_50._ (R. Arnaldez)

MANU (and also Kasr Manu or Tin Manu), an¬
cient locality situated on the Mediterranean
coast, in the western part of the plain of Djafara, be¬
tween Kabis (Gabes) and Atrabulus (Tripoli), and on
the old route leading from IfrTkiya to Egypt.

In our opinion it should be identified with [Ad] Am-
monem of the Ancients, a place situated about 30 km.
west of the town of Sabratha, Sabra of the old Arabic
sources. It was here that there took place, in 283/896-
7, a great battle between the army of the A gh labid
amirs and that of the great IbadT Berber tribe of
Nafusa [q.v.\. The latter people who lived in the
Djabal Nafusa to the south-west of Tripoli (it was
already called Nauusi by Corippus towards the middle
of the 6th century A.D.), were already dominating the
western part of the Djafara before the Arab conquest,
having their main centre in the town of Sabratha. The
Nafusa, being Christians in this period, made their in¬
fluence felt as far as Tripoli, whose inhabitants ap¬
pealed for their help, in the year 22/642-3, against the
Arab general c Amr b. al- c As. Later on, after the Arab
conquest of Tripolitania, the Nafusa, who became or¬
thodox IbadT Muslims and transferred their political
centre to the Djabal Nafusa, continued to extend their
domination over the plain of the Western Djafara.
thus assuring themselves of control of the communica¬
tion routes running along the coast between IfrTkiya
and Egypt. In 267/879-80 Abu Mansur Ilyas, chief of
the Nafusa and at the same time governor of this tribe
nominated by the Rustamid imams of Tahart, was
called upon for help, as the true master of the
hinterland of Tripoli, by the inhabitants of this town,
which was besieged by the Tulunid al- c Abbas b.
Ahmad b. Tulun [ q.v. in Suppl.]. Sixteen years later,
in 283/896-97, the Nafusa barred near Manu the

MANU — MANUF

453

passage of the Aghlabid amir Ibrahim b. Ahmad who
was leading an expedition against Egypt. In the
bloody battle between the two armies, the troops of
Nafusa were annihilated, and the power of his people
broken. From this time onwards, they were to
withdraw into the mountains of the Djabal Nafusa.

Bibliography : E. Masqueray, Chronique d’Abou
Zakaria , Algiers 1878, 194-202; DardjTnl, Tabakat
al-mashayikh , ed. Ibrahim Talla 5 !, Blida 1394/1974,
i, 87-9; Ibn c Idhari, al-Bayan al-mughrib , ed. G.S.
Colin and E. Levi-Proven$al, i, 117-18, 129;
Tidjan!, Rihla , ed. H.H. c Abd al-Wahhab, Tunis
1377/1958, 239; Ibn Kh aldun, Histoire des Berberes ,
Fr. tr. de Slane 2 , i, 226-7; Shammakhl. K. al-Siyar,
Cairo 1301, 267, 268; H. Fournel, Les Berberes,
Paris 1876-81, i, 563-5, 575; T. Lewicki, La reparti¬
tion geographique des groupements ibadites dans TAfrique
du Nord au moyen age , in RO, xxi (1957), 329-30; S.
Reinach, Atlas de la province romaine d’Afrique, Paris
1888, pi. xiv; M. Talbi, L’emirat aghlabide, Paris
1966, J4, 301-2. (T. Lewicki)

MANUCIHRI, Abu ’l-Nadjm Ahmad b. Raws b.
Ahmad, DamghanI, was the third and last (after
c Unsuri and Farrukhi [q.vv.\) of the major
panegyrists of the early Gh aznawid court.

Very little is known of his life, and that little is
derived exclusively from his poetry. Later tadhkira
writers have expanded and distorted this modicum of
information with a few, readily refuted speculations.
What can be ascertained with reasonable certainty is
that he spent his youth, presumably in Damghan, ac¬
quiring an encyclopaedic knowledge of Persian and
Arabic poetry and otherwise honing his poetic skills in
preparation for a career as a court panegyrist. Nine¬
teenth-century scholars speculated that Manucihrl’s
first patron was the Ziyarid prince Falak al-Ma c ali
Manucihr (d. 420/1029 [see ziyarids]), from whose
name the poet took his own pen name. Yet there is no
mention of Falak al-Ma c al! in what survives of
Manucihrl’s diwan, nor any evidence that he was ever
a patron of poets.

Between the years 422/1031 and 424/1033 he
dedicated poems to deputies of Sultan Mas c ud then at
Ray, and he appears to have gone to the court of
Ghazna some time after Ahmad b. c Abd al-Samad
ShlrazI had replaced Ahmad b. Hasan MaymandT
[q. v. ], who died in the spring of 424/1033, as
Mas c ud’s vizier. He remained at Ghazna until the
death of Mas c ud in 432/1041, subsequent to his defeat
at Dandankan [q.v. in Suppl.] at the hands of the
Saldjuks. He may himself have died about this time.
Certainly, no poems of his survive that refer to events
or persons after that date. (There is a detailed ex¬
amination of Manucihrfs biography in ch. 2 of J.W.
Clinton, The Divan of ManuchihriDamghani, see Bibl.).

The latest and best modern edition of Manucihrl's
works (Dablr-Siyakl, Tehran 1347/1968) contains
some 2,800 bayts, of which the majority are in the
form of panegyric kasidas (57) and musammats (11) —
the latter a form which Manucihr! introduced to the
canon of Persian forms — and the remainder make up
a handful of ghazals, rubdH s, brief fragments and in¬
dividual lines. There are no indications that
Manucihr! ever attemped the malhnawi. Of the
panegyrics, roughly a third are addressed to Mas c ud,
and most of the remainder to major officials of his
court. A few of Manucihrl’s patrons cannot be iden¬
tified, or can be identified only with difficulty, and
several of his poems either identify no patron at all or
do so only with the ambiguous shahriyar “ruler”
(Dablr-Siyak!, introd.).

Manu£ihn’s poetry has several qualities which

distinguish it from the work of his contemporaries.
His enthusiasm for Arabic poetry, expressed in imita¬
tions of djahiliyya style kasidas and frequent allusions to
Arab poets, was unknown among the Persian-writing
poets of his day. Even more distinctive, however, is
his delight and great skill in depicting the paradisial
beauty of the royal garden at Nawruz and Mihrgdn,
and the romantic and convivial scenes associated with
them, in the exordium (nasib, tashbib ) of the kasida.
Moreover, he displays a gift for mythic animation in
elaborating such concepts as the battle of the seasons
(poem 17) and wine as the daughter of the vine
(poems 20, 57, 58, 59 and 60). Though it is not uni¬
que to him, Manucihrl’s engaging lyricism is
remarked upon by all commentators.

Bibliography : Diwan , ed. Muhammad Dablr-
Siyakl, 3rd ed., Tehran 1347/1968; J. W. Clinton,
The Divan of Manuchihri Damghani: a critical study,
Minneapolis 1972 (contains an extensive
bibliography); Viktor al-K!k, Ta^thir-i jarhang-i
c arab dar ash c ar-i Manucihri Damghani , Beirut 1971;
C.-H. de Fouchecour, La description de la nature dans
la poesie lyrique persane du XT siecle, Paris 1969;
Muhammad Rida Shaf! c I-KadkanI. Suwar-i khiyal
dar shTr-i parsi, Tehran 1350/1971.

(J. W. Clinton)

MANUF, name of two towns in the Nile delta.

1. Manuf al-Sufla, near the present Mahallat
Manuf in the markaz of Tanta, in Byzantine times a
bishopric in Coptic Panouf Khlt. in Greek ’Ovovcpi^ fj
xctxto. After the Arab conquest, the town became the
centre of a kura | q.v.] (Ibn Khurradadhbih, 82; Ibn al-
Fakih, 74; al-Ya c kubI, 337), but seems to have disap¬
peared already in the Fatimid period (cf. al-
Kalkashand!, Subh, iii, 384). It was replaced by
Mahallat Manuf which, since the administrative
reform of the caliph al-Mustansir and the latter’s
vizier Badr al-Djamal! [q.vv. ], has belonged to al-
Gharbivva province (Ibn Mammati, Kawanin, ed.
c Atiyya, 183). In Mamluk times, the tax-farm lands of
the town were given as ikta c [q.v.] to Mamluks of the
sultan and to officers of the guard (Ibn Dukmak, In-
lisar, ed. Voliers, v, 97), but later revoked in favour
of the diwan al-mufrad (Ibn al-DjPan, Tuhja, ed.
Moritz, 91; Halm, Agypten nach den mamlukischen
Lehensregistern, Wiesbaden 1982, ii, 523 and map 34).

2. Manufal- c Ulya, the modern Manuf/Minuf,
in Byzantine times a bishopric, in Coptic Panouf R!s,
in Greek ■’OvoCcpu;. After the Arab conquest, the town
became the centre of a kura (Ibn Kh urradadhbih. 82;
Ibn al-Fak!h, 74). According to Ibn Hawkal (BGA, ii,
128) there was a tax official ( c amif) and a kadi in the
town in early Fatimid times. At the administrative
reform of the caliph al-Mustansir and Badr al-
Djamall, the kuras were united into greater provinces
(a c mal, sing. c amaf). The southern point of the Delta
then became the a c mal al-Manufiyya, with the town of
Manuf as the residence of the wait (Ibn Mammati,
188; Yakut, Alu^djam, s.v.). During the Mamluk
period, the municipal lands of the town were divided
into several ikta c s (Ibn al-Djl^an, 100; Halm, Lehens-
register, ii, 372 and map 23). Al-Kalkashand! gives the
name “Munuf’, and mentions the ruins of the older
town to the west of the new settlement (Subh, iii, 405;
cf. iv, 66). Under the jurisdiction of the wdli of al-
Manufiyya, there came also the small province of
Ibyar (Djazlrat Ban! Nasr), neighbouring on the
north-west. In 1826, under Muhammad c Ali Pasha,
the town was replaced by the larger Shibin al-Kum as
chief place of the mudiriyyat al-Minufiyya. At present,
Manuf is the centre of the markaz of the same name.

Bibliography : C A1I Pasha Mubarak, al-Khitat

454

MANUF — MANZ1L

al-djadida, 47 ff.; Muhammad RamzT, al-Kamus al-

djughrafi li ’l-bilad al-Misriyya , Cairo 1954-5, ii/2,

107 f., 190, 222 ff.; Maspero-Wiet, Materiaux,

Cairo 1909, 202 ff. (H. Halm)

AL- MANUFI, a nisba referring to the Egyp¬
tian town of Manuf (f v. ]. The vocalisation of the
name of the town and the nisba varies. In the older
texts (cf. Mubarak, Khitat . xvi, 47) the name is
vocalised as Manuf. The recent official vocalisation is
Minuf; cf. Wizarat al-Maliyya (Maslahat al-Misaha),
al-Dalll al-djuehTa.fi li-asma 3 al-mudun wa ’l-nawdhl al-
misriyya, Cairo [Bulak], 1941, 220, and Muhammad
Ramzi, al-Kamus al-dj ugh rafl li ’l-bilad al-misriyya ,
Cairo 1958, i/2, 222. The biographical dictionaries of
Kahhala and al-Zirikli give the old vocalisation, and
this is adopted here. Many persons carried the nisba of
al-Manufi, of whom, in chronological order, the
following deserve mention:

1. c Abd Allah al-Manufi al-Maliki (d. 7

Ramadan 748/11 December 1347), alleged founder of
al-Manufiyya (al-Manayifa) al-Ahmadiyya, one of
the oldest branches of the Ahmadiyya order [< 7 . a.],
which are collectively known as al-bayt al-kablr (F. De
Jong, Turuq and turuq-linked institutions in nineteenth-
century Egypt, Leiden 1978, 14 f.). He was the nephew
of Ramadan al-Ash c ath al-Manufi, one of the
disciples of Ahmad al-BadawT [q.v.\, and appears
third in the silsila ] of the present-day Manayifa
order. His shrine is in the Karafat al-Mudjawirin,
near the mosque of Sultan Kayitbay ( c Abd al-Wahhab
al-Sha c rani, Tabakat, ii, 2; Yusuf b. Isma c Tl al-
Nabhani, Didmi c kardmat al-awliya 5 , ii, 119; Mubarak,
Khitat , xvi, 48).

2. Muhammad b. IsmaTl b. Ibrahim b. Musa
b. Sa c Td b. c All al-Shams b. Abi ’l-Su c ud al-Manufi
(d. 856/1452), head (diqykh al-mashayikh) of the impor¬
tant khdnakah Sa c Id al-Su c ada :> [q.v. ] in Siryakus near
Cairo. Later in his life, he became head of the
khdnakah al-Shavkhunivva (cf. Mubarak, Khitat, xvi,
49 f.) which is also known as takiyyat Shaykhun (cf. De
Jong, op. cit., 17).

3. Abu ’l- c Abbas Ahmad b. Muhammad b.
Muhammad b. c Abd al-Salam b. Musa Shihab al-Din
al-Manufi (847-927/1443-1521), once head of the
khdnakah al-Zahir Baybars (al-Zahiriyya). He was
born and died in Manuf, where he was for some time
kadi, and lived and studied in Cairo and in Mecca. On
his works, see Brockelmann, I, 380, S II, 406. For a
French translation of sections of his al-Fayd al-madld fl
akhbar al-Nll al-sadld, by the Abbe Barges, see JA, iii/3
(1837) 97-164; iv/7 (1846), 485-527; ix/9 (1849) 101-
31 (compilatory; contains fragments from lost texts).
For short biographies and additional references, see
al-Ghazzi, Kawakib, i, 154; al-ZiriklT, i, 232; and
Kahhala, Mu^djam, ii, 184.

4. Abu ’l-Hasan c Ali b. Nasr al-Din b.
Muhammad... b. Khalaf b. Djibril al-Manufi al-
Malikl al-Shadhili (857-939/1453-1532), author of a
number of tracts of Malik !'fifth (Brockelmann, II, 316;
S II, 434; Sarkis, Mu c djam , 1807). He was born in
Cairo, where he studied under c Ali al-Sanhuri [ q.v .]
and Djalal al-Din al-Suyuti [q.v.]. He also wrote on
hadlth and grammar. For additional biographical data,
see Mubarak, Khitat, xvi, 49, and al-Zirikli, v, 11.

5. c Abd al-Djawwad b. Muhammad b.
Ahmad al-Manufi al-Makki (d. 5 Shawwal 1068/6
July 1658), once kadi and mufti of Mecca and author
of numerous tracts in the fields of the traditional
sciences ( c ulum nakliyya). He was born in Manuf and
lived for prolonged periods of time in Mecca, where
in his later life he became the protege of its ruler and
attained high office. He died in al-Ta 5 if; cf. Mubarak,
Khitat, xvi, 48; al-Muhibbi, Khulasat al-athar, ii, 303.

6 . Mansur b. c AlI b. Zayn al- c Abidin al-Manufi
al-Basir al-Shafi c i (d. 1135/1722-3), jurist and hadlth
scholar who studied, and later taught, at al-Azhar
mosque in Cairo. He was born and died in Manuf
(al-Djabari, i, 74; Mubarak, Khitat, xvi, 50; Kahhala,
Mu c djam, xiii, 16).

7. Mahmud Abu ’l-Fayd al-Manufi (1892-
1972), founder of al-Faydiyya, a Shadhiliyya [ q.v.\
branch, and author of more than a dozen .books on
Islam and Islamic mysticism in the modern age. He
was a disciple of Hasanayn al-Hisafi [q.v. in Suppl.]
and had also been initiated into al-Fasiyya, a branch
of al-Madaniyya [q.v.]. In 1918 he founded the
Djam c iyyat al-Faydiyyln al-Mubashshirin al-
IslamiyyTn, which was active in combating Christian
missionary activity in Egypt, and from around 1920
he presented himself as head of his own distinct tarlka
[q.v.], al-Faydiyya al-Shadhilivva (cf. Mahmud Abu
’l-Fayd al-Manufi, Ma^dhm al-tarlk ila Allah , Cairo
1969, 445-7; and idem, Djamharat al-awliya 5 wa-a c lam
ahl al-tasawwuf, Cairo 1967, i, 323-5). His early
writings, which were published and distributed under
the aegis of the Djam c iyya, present a modernist con¬
ception of Islam in conjunction with a reformist ver¬
sion of Shadhili mysticism. In the main works, all
written after 1950, he elaborates an intellectualised
conception of Islamic mysticism which is presented as
Islam itself. He was the original founder, owner and
editor-in-chief of the Cairene monthly Liwd* al-Islam,
which was later bought from him by Ahmad Hamza
(d. 1980), and of the monthly al- c Alam al-Islaml which
appeared from 1949 until his death in 1972. For fur¬
ther references and additional details, see De Jong,
Aspects of the political involvement of Sufi orders in 20th-
century Egypt (1907-1970). An exploratory stock-taking, in
G. Warburg and U. Kupferschmidt (eds.), Islam,
nationalism and radicalism in Egypt and Sudan , New York
1983; and idem, The Sufi orders in post-Ottoman Egypt,
1911-1981 (in preparation), ch. 4.

Bibliography : Given in the article. For the

biographies of other, but insignificant, scholars

from Manuf, see Mubarak, Khitat, xvi, 47-8.

(F. de Jong)

MANZIKERT [see malazcird]

MANZIL (a., pi. manazil), noun of place and time
from the root n - z - l, which expresses the idea of
halting, a temporary stay, thence stage of a
journey.

1. In the central and western Islamic
lands.

In the Kurban (X,5; XXXVII, 39), it appears only
in the plural, designating the lunar mansions (manazil
[q.v. ]). Afanzil may also be a stage in the spiritual
journey of the soul, in the mystical initiation, see e.g.
in the title of c Abd Allah al-Ansarl al-Harawi’s K.
Manazil al-sa^irln.

According to the LA, it is the place where one halts
(mawdi c al-nuzul), where the traveller dismounts after
a day’s march ( marhala, pi. marahil ), of from 6 to 8 far-
sakhs [q.v.], sc. ca. 35 to 48 km. A stage through the
desert could reach 60 km, with a travelling span of 11
hours. In the terminology of itineraries given by Arab
authors, manzil corresponds to the mansio of Latin
texts, “halting place, resting place”, not to be con¬
fused with mutatio, “place where one changes mounts,
staging-post”.

In setting up a manzil, a place of transit, on a road
(darb [q.v. ]), account has to be taken of the topography
and relief for the distances between the manazil, the
presence of a watering-place, spring, well (bPr [q. v. ])
or cistern (birka [q.v.]) and the possibilities of pasture
[see mar c a] for the beasts and camping for the men.
In the 1001 Nights, the manzil al-kaba^il is the place

MANZIL

455

where the tent [see khayma] are erected, and in
general, this term is a synonym for the encampment
of nomadic Arabs and then for the halting place of
caravans.

In the geographical works and travel accounts of
Arabic authors from the mediaeval period, this term
is used for the site or encampment of caravans on the
fringes of some settlement or equally, at the side of a
khan [q.v.] along the highway which might be fortified
to a greater or lesser degree according to the needs for
security. At the opening of the 7th/13th century, the
Ayyubia al-Malik al-Mu c azzam built a lodging-place
(makam) at each manzil on the Pilgrimage Road ( darb
al-ha djdi \q. v. ]), according to Ahmad b. Tulun in his
KalaSd. Ibn Battuta mentions a funduk [ q.v.] at each
stop ( manzil ) along the Cairo-Damascus road; these
must be the foundations of Nasir al-DTn, Tankiz's
dawddar. According to Sauvaget, there was, during the
Mamluk period, a lodging-place ( manzila ) at each
posting-stage ( manzil) of the band [ q.v.\ network. It
could also happen that a manzil could be the origin of
a village, as at Khan Shavkhun in central Syria.

Manzil is thus the equivalent of a dar al-manzila: a
house where one halts, whence a place where one of¬
fers hospitality, a “hospice”, for travellers. Along the
routes through Arabia used by the pilgrims, the manzil
was often a pious foundation, with a wakf this is prob¬
ably why Niebuhr mentions the “free hostelries” in
his Description of Arabia , and why Burckhardt says, in
his Travels in Syria , that these existed all through the
countryside to the south of Damascus and that they
did great credit to the Turks’ sense of hospitality.

At the end of the Mamluk period, at certain stages
there were fortified caravanserais, with kitchens and
farriers attached, which could accomodate military
detachments. In the Ottoman period, Lala Mustafa
Pasha, governor of Damascus, built in 971/1563-4 to
the north of the citadel, in the Taht al-Kal c a quarter,
a khan and also independent lodging-places in its
vicinity; the manzil in this way became an inn meant
for travellers without either mounts or merchandise.
Al-Khiyarl (d. 1083/1672), who in 1080/1669

travelled from Medina to Istanbul, states that there
was, at one stage ( marhala ) from al-Kunaytira [q.v. ] in
the Djawlan, a manzil where one could stay in tents in
summer but live in a khan during the winter. In
1081/1671, the stage of Mada-’in Salih [see al-hidjr],
one of the centres where the pilgrims assembled on the
Pilgrimage Road to the south ofTabuk [q.v.], suffered
a serious attack by the Bedouins. The frequency of
such attacks against this manzil led Asad Pasha to con¬
struct, in the middle of the 12th/18th century, a fort
in order to protect the religious caravans. At the end
of the Ottoman period, there were, according to
Tibawi, two types of hostelries: the maddfa, which was
communal, and the manzil, which was private. In the
first, lodging and food were offered free to travellers
by the better-off members of the community, on a
rota system. In the second, similar hospitality was
given in private houses situated along the roads con¬
stantly used by travellers; the owners who offered this
hosptality had to pay reduced taxes.

At the present time, manzil denotes a lodging, a
house and even an appartment. It is sometimes ac¬
companied by a term which pinpoints its function
more exactly, e.g. manzil al-tdhbdt “home for female
students”, the title of a work by Fawziyya Mahran
which appeared in Cairo in 1961.

The term manzil forms part of certain place names.
We find mention of the main halting-places con¬
sidered to be manazil in such authors as Ibn Kh urrada¬
dhbih (272/885), al-Ya c kubi (287/900), Ibn Hawkal

(366/977) and al-Mukaddasi (390/1000), or later, the
Andalusian ones al-BakrT (487/1094) and al-IdrTsI
(561/1166), who give us the itineraries of the main
commercial routes of the Dar al-Islam and the
Pilgrimage ones. Thus along the darb al-ha djdi of
Egypt, between Fustat and Mecca, one finds the
Manzil Ibn Bunduka (BGA, vi, 111, 149, 190, vii,
183), which al-Mukaddasi (215, 249) and al-ldrlsl
(Opus geographicum , 345) call Manzil Ibn Sad aka, be¬
tween Buwayh and c Adjrud; at the next stage, there
was a manzil at Bi 3 r al-Hudha, but with merely a well
and no provision for travellers. Going westwards from
Egypt, Ibn Khurradadhbih (223) mentions in
Cyrenaica, on the track connecting Barka with Suluk,
in the Wadi T c Arab, the Manzil Shaklk al-Fahml,
which de Goeje translated as “territoire”. Amongst
the best-known manazil of mediaeval Ifrlkiya should
be mentioned Manzil Bashshu [q.v.]\ the Manzil of
Kabis [q.v.] (Brunschvig, Hofsides, i, 313), which in
the 7th/ 13th century was outside the walls and which
Victor Guerin visited in the mid-19th century in the
course of his travels through the Regency of Tunis;
and on the coast, at the end of the 7th/13th eentury,
to the north of Sousse, Manzil Abl Nasr and Manzil
Tamlm, a fishing port with a fertile hinterland [see
djazirat sharTk]. The dependencies of al-Mahdiyya
[q.v.] included Manzil Khayra and Manzil BanI
Ma c ruf (Brunschvig, op. cit., i, 309). In Sicily, there
existed a Manzil al-Amlr which al-Harawi (55/125)
calls Kasr al-Amlr (the present Misilmeri), a famed
pilgrimage place, where, according to some, was the
tomb of Galen (Kabr Djallnus) and according to
others, that of Aristotle. Numerous place names in al-
Andalus recorded by al-ldrlsl as being in the 4th clime
are made up of Manzil followed by a proper noun,
e.g. Manzil Aban (573), Manzil al-Amlr (603), Man¬
zil Yusuf (606) and Manzil Maldja 5 Khalil (615) in a
fertile and populous region. In the province of Valen¬
cia, one finds Manzil c Ata 3 ( = Mislata) and Manzil
Nasr ( = Masanasa); Levi-Proven^al (iii, 318) men¬
tions a manzil at Diezma and one at Mondujar, these
being “kinds of inns”. In the province of Cordova,
there was a lodging-place at one of the stages, Manzil
HanI, two days’ journey from the capital {ibid., i,
478); and on the nearby site of Manzil Ibn Badr was
to be constructed, from 368/979 onwards, al-Madlna
al-Zahira [q.v. j.

Bibliography : (in addition to references given
in the article): Ahmad b. Tulun, al-Kala^id al-
djawhariyya, ed. A. Duhman, Damascus 1949, 147;
Baladhurl, Futuh , Cairo 1932, 228; al-Harawi, K.
al-Ziyarat, ed. and tr. J. Sourdel-Thomine,
Damascus 1957, 34/78 and n. 9, 55/125 and n. 5;
Ibn Battuta, Rihla, i, 151, 152, tr. Gibb, i, Cam¬
bridge 1958, 97-8; Ibn Hawkal, tr. Kramers-Wiet,
117, 158; Ibn al-KalanisI, Dhayl T. Dimashk , ed.
Amedroz, Leiden 1908, 298-309; Ibn al-Kathlr,
Bidaya, Cairo 1929, xiv, 17; Ibn Khurradadhbih.
111-12, 149-51, 190, 223; MukaddasI, 215, 249, tr.
Miquel, 108, 109, 237; Ya c kubl, Buldan , 183;
Butrus al-Bustanl, Muhit , i, 608; Khalil Mardam,
Wakf al- Wazir Laid Mustafa Basha , Damascus
1342/1925, 216; S. Munadjdjid, Madxnat Dimashk,
Beirut 1967, 18, 20, 197; H.H. c Abd al-Wahhab,
Villes arabes disparues, in Melanges William Mar^ais,
Paris 1950, J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the
Holy Land, London 1822, 169, 188, 194, 650-1; R.
Brunschvig, A propos d’un toponyme tunisien au Moyen
Age: Nuba-Nubiya, in Rev. Tun. (1935), 149-54; R.
L. Devonshire, Relations du voyage du sultan Kaitbay,
in BIFAO, xx (1922), 23; M. Gaudefroy-Demom-
bynes, La Syrie a I’epoque de Mamelouks, Paris 1923,

456

MANZIL

p. XCVI; V. Guerin, Voyage archeologique dans la
Regence de Tunis, Paris 1862, i, 190-7; H. Laoust,
Les gouverneurs de Damas , Damascus 1952, 186; E.
Levi-Provengal, Hist. Esp. mus., i, 424, 478, iii,
318; A. Musil, The middle Euphrates, New York
1927, 281; idem, Palmyrena , New York 1928, 175;
idem, Arabia deserta, New York 1927, 523, 524; C.
Niebuhr, Description de TArabic , Paris 1779, i, ch.
XI, 67-9; A. Raymond, Artisans et commerfants au
Caire, Damascus 1973, 255; J. Sauvaget, Caravan-
serails ottomans du Hadjdj de Constantinople , in AI, iv
(1937), 98-121; idem, Caravanserails syriens du Moyen
Age, / and II, in AI, vi (1939), 48-55. vii/1 (1940),
1-19; idem, La poste aux chevaux au temps des
Mamelouks, Paris 1941, 22 n. 101; A.L. Tibawi, A
modern history of Syria , London 1969, 55.

(N. Elisseeff)

2. In the eastern Islamic lands.

In Iran and, especially, in Hindustan, it came to
designate a camp, characteristically the
royal camp, with corresponding verbs like nuzulkar-
dan and manzil giriftan meaning “to encamp”.

This usage is distinct from the sense of urdu [q.v. J,
properly “the royal precinct in camp” from Mongo¬
lian ordo , and of yurt [q.v.] meaning “camp site, ter¬
ritory” as in Turkic, from the time of Djuwavnf
onwards. The camp centre had already been
organised as a rectangle by the K 5 i-tan, with the
emperor’s screened precinct differentiated into an
outer and an inner area, as a mobile extension of the
palace. The concept appears to have been inherited by
the Mongols, but with the orientation shifted from
east to south. The sides were defined by lines of carts
and tents, the royal guard was quartered to the rear,
forming the battle guard, yeke kol, and in front stood
the standards, drums and ceremonial drinkling vessels
(i tuk , gii^urge, ayaka saba)\ a horse park, kirii^e, for
visitors was set at a considerable distance on the ap¬
proach, while the khan’s own horses were probably
behind his tents. The remaining disposition reflected
the division into right wing, bara\n kar, and left wing,
djewiin kar. This corresponds to the late Ilkhanid ar¬
rangement described by Nakh£iwam (sec Bibl .) ii, 62-
3, where a further distinction appears in the placing
of princes, umara^-yi ulus, and Turanian nobles close to
the ruler on the right, and viziers, chancellors and Ira¬
nian ( Tdziki) nobles on the left. The select company of
inaks [q.v.] remained in his immediate neighbour¬
hood. A masdjid-i djami ( had supplanted the earlier
shamans’ tents opposite his own site, i.e. to the south,
with its complement of clerics and secretaries. Al-
c UmarI (see Bibl.), 98-100, adds that so many
scholars, jurisconsults and students accompanied Abu
Sa c Id’s camp that they were known as the “travelling
academy”, mudarrisi ’l-sayyara', there were all kinds of
craftsmen and tradesmen, a fully stocked market,
urdu-bazar, and tents could even be hired by travellers.
At the head of the approach was the court gate, bab al-
kiryds or bab al-khan, where the amirs assembled daily.
The administration of this establishment required
special officers, notably the quartermaster, yurtci, and
the lost-property keeper, buldrghuci , whose tent was
placed conspicuously. The early 7th/13th century
Adah al-harb (see Bibl.), 286, provides comparative
plans of camps, including one of “the infidels of
Khita” which may represent the Mongol form.
Behind the stables are the kitchens, to their right the
treasury, and to their left the wardrobe; the market is
at the very rear. The wings curve out like bull’s horns,
a formation later referred to in the Altan tobci, 116, as
buka. The Iranian ( c Adjam) form differs mainly in
grouping the wings compactly on either side of the
royal enclosure and bedchamber, saray-parda wa kh w -

abgah, and placing the haram behind it, with treasury
and wardrobe to the right, and saddlery and amoury
to the left; the bazaar is now in front, beyond a
triangular area for stables, standards, and drums. A
rather similar Indian form groups the treasury and
wardrobe with the haram, with the armoury on its
right and the saddlery to its left, and after an interval,
musicians and vintners to the rear: the chief
divergence is in an advance guard placed forward of
the bazaar, with ranks of infantry and sentinels on
either side. In spite of this, it seems that by the
10th/16th century, the usual Indian camp enclosure
was rounded, and Humayun made a point of
demonstrating a sardparda to Tahmasp “like a
watermelon” in 951/1544, in contrast to the Iranian
practice of leaving it open behind (Gulbadan, see
Bibl., 58b). The arrangements under Akbar, des¬
cribed in detail by Abu TFadl ( C A Tn , bk. i, nos. 16,
17, with plan datable to ca. 1006-13/1597-1605),
shows an arrangement closer to the Iranian plan
( c Adab al-harb) than the Indian: the basis is strictly rec¬
tangular, with a highly elaborated system of service
departments on either flank of the royal enclosure,
and a new defence for the private area consisting of a
folding wooden trellis, the gulal-bar , covered with red
sheeting (red tentage had remained a royal
prerogative since Saldjuk times). The guard was still
behind the royal enclosure, as in the Mongol plan,
and indeed much of the camp terminology was still
Mongol-fiaghatay, as in urdu, yurt, kol, barankdr,
dpiwdnghdr, and keshik-dar for the guard itself, though
the terms for tentage were by now Persian, as in
bargah, khargah, khayma [q.v.], sardparda and sardca.
Akbar’s main innovation was probably the combina¬
tion of bazaar streets along the perimeter of his own
precinct with diagonal ones at its corners, dividing the
army into manageable corps corresponding to tactical
units. The space required for the centre alone was
1,530 gaz (1,275 metres if ilahi gaz) [see misaha.
2. India], with a security zone around the precinct
300 gaz (250 m.) wide. European reports confirm the
huge size of such camp cities, at about 3 kos across, or
6 English miles, and 20 miles circuit; even so, they
could be pitched in four hours, the tents of the nobility
being pitched in advance of their arrival as a pish-
khana or duplicate set. The movement on royal pro¬
gresses was relatively slow, at 4-5 kos or 10 miles a
day, or every other day (Roe, see Bibl. 324-5, 329,
334, 341, et passim). The camp defences were later
modified by Salabat Kh an for Awrangzib, to protect
the precinct as much from the vast number of camp
followers in moments of panic as from the enemy.
Such numbers (Gemelli-Careri claims half-a-million
at Bidjapur in 1695, iii, 153) led to self-destruction
through the inadequacy of supplies, and immobility,
as at the defeat of Muhammad Shah at Karnal in
1151/1739. In the earlier Mughal period, a high
degree of order had been maintained by the muan-i
manzil or kh w ush-manzildn, with inspectors ( sahib-i
ihtimdman), a superintendent ( darugha ), an auditor
(mushrif), and workmen and labourers from the tent
department, jarash-khana, who levelled the ground and
built platforms for the main tents (Candar-Bhan, see
Bibl., fol; 155b). Royal tentage was carried on
elephants, camels, and mules; eight mules were
loaded with tents for meals and short rests while on
the move. The mobility achieved through such
camps, though nomadic in origin, came to be essential
to the administration of an ever-expanding empire,
yet moves remained seasonal, and Shahdjahan
regularly moved northward in summer for a change of
climate alone.

In the nomadic camps of Central Asia, the greatest

MANZIL

al-MANZILA BAYN al-MANZILATAYN

457

change was from the cart tents which had been
characteristic of the Golden Horde and were still used
as koterme iiy (Mongol ger (ergen) by the Kazak in
915/1509, but survived to this century only among the
Noghay, with their auxiliary baggage carts, kiiyme
araba\ elsewhere, they have been supplanted by trellis
tents. The protective circular camping formation is
already defined by Rashid al-Dln (Mongol gure^en)
(see Bibl.y i, 21).

Bibliography : For the references given above,
see Muhammad b. Hindushah Nakhciwanl, Dastur
al-katib ft ta c yin al-maratib , ed. A. A. Ali-zade,
Moscow 1964-76; Ibn Fadl allah al- c UmarI,
Masalik al-absar ft mamdlik al-amsar , ed. K. Lech as
Das mongolische Weltreich, Wiesbaden 1968; Mu¬
hammad b. Mansur Mubarakshah, Fakhr-i
Mudabbir, Addb al-harb wa ’l-shadfa^a , ed. A.
Suhaylf Kh Vv ansarT, Tehran 1346/1967-8; The
Mongol chronicle Allan Tobci , ed. C. R. Bawden,
Wiesbaden 1955; Gulbadan Begam, The history of
Humayun , ed. A.S. Beveridge, London 1902; Abu
’1-Fadl b. Mubarak c AllamI, A^In-i Akbari, ed. H.
Blochmann, Calcutta 1872-7, and plans in B. L.
mss. Add. 7652, Add. 6552 and Add 6546, etc; Sir
Thomas Roe, The embassy , ed. W. Foster, London
1926; G. F. Gemelli-Careri, Giro del mondo , Naples
1699-1700; Candar-Bhan Brahman, Kawa c id al-
saltanat , in I. O. ms. 3760; Fadl Allah Rashid al-
Din, Dja mi c al-tawarlkh , ed. I. N. Berezin as Sbornik
letopisey: istoriya Cingiz Khana. i, St. Petersburg
1868. For further exploration of the subject, see W.
Irvine, The army of the Indian Moghuls, London 1903,
and P. A. Andrews, The felt tent in Middle Asia, un¬
published Ph.D. thesis, London University 1980
(forthcoming in the Kolner ethnologische Mitteilungen)

(P. A. Andrews)

MANZIL BA SHSH U a place in Ifrlkiya
whose site has been identified as the place called
Djadida.

Under the Aghlabids [ q.v . it was the chief town of
the administrative district o' the peninsula of Cape
Bon or Djazlrat Shank [<7. A.], which al-ldrlsl ( Opus
geographicum, 293, 302) calls moreover Djazlrat

Bashshu. In the 4th/10th century, it was “an exten¬
sive and fertile region”, concerning which Ibn
Hawkal (tr. Kramers-Wiet, 69-70) further says: “ ...
'The tax yield and the population are both numerous.
A small province is attached to it; there are various
kinds of harvests there, and the merchants come there
to get supplies. At more than one spot, there are
polluted waters, whose impurity is obvious; hence all
outsiders entering the town fall ill, with the exception
of Blacks, who retain their good health. These Blacks
can be used in all conditions and perform their tasks
with good humour. All sorts of fruit are to be found
there. Each month, Bashshu has a market which is
held on a fixed day”.

A century later, al-Bakrl mentions at Bashshu a
place, the Kasr Ibn Ab! Ahmad, probably constructed
in dressed stone, according to the remains still on the
site, and whose marble columns were re-used in the
Djami c al-Kasaba in Tunis in 630-4/1232-6. The
town had a Great Mosque, baths, three open places
(rihab) where the markets and bazaars were situated,
but it lacked ramparts, even though it occupied a
strategic site on the ancient highway linking Tunis to
the main centres of the Sahel and the south. This ur¬
ban centre was destroyed in 582/1186-7 by the gover¬
nor of Mayurka [q.v.] C A1I b. Ishak b. Ghaniva.
Al-TidjanT, who in 706/1306-7 visited this manzil one
stage away ( marhala ) from Tunis, gives a description
of it in his Rihla. The region remained abandoned

from the end of the 6th/12th century to the opening of
the 11 th/17th one.

Bibliography : Bakrl, Description de TAfnque
Septentrionale , ed. and tr. de Slane, Paris 1859,
96/45 and index; MukaddasI, 227; TidjanI, Rihla,
cd. H.H. c Abd al-Wahhab, Tunis 1958, 13; c Abd
al-Wahhab, Villes arabes disparues, in Melanges
William Marquis, Paris 1950, 5-10; R. Brunschvig,
A propos d’un toponyme tunisien au Moyen Age: Nuba -
Nubiya, in Rev. Tun. (1935), 153-4; idem, Hafsides,
i, 306, 344; V. Guerin, Voyage archeologique dans la
Regence de Tunis, Paris 1892, i, 190-7; P. Hubac,
Tunisie , Paris 1948, 9-18; M. Talbi, L’emirat
aghlabide, Paris 1966, 294, 698. (N. Elisseeff)
al-MANZILA BAYN al-MANZILATAYN, a
theological term used by Wasil b. c Ata ) [q.v. ] and
the later Mu c tazila [q.v. ] for designating the
salvational status of the mortal sinner (fasik
[q. v. ]). The word manzila alone is attested, in the
technical sense of “salvational status”, in Hadith (cf.
MuttakT al-Hindi, Kanz al- Q ummal : i, 28, no. 519) and,
later than Wasil, in the K. al- c Alim wa ’l-muta c allim
which was probably composed by Abu HanTfa’s pupil
Abu Mukatil Hafs b. Salm al-Samarkandl in the sec¬
ond half of the 2nd century (cf. ed. Hyderabad 1349,
20, 11.4 ff. and Schacht, in Oriens, xvii [1964], 111).
It was used together with, and perhaps derived from
the corresponding verb anzala (cf. a story told in
Murdji 5 ! circles at Kufa where Nafi c b. al-Azrak asks
somebody: “Where do you locate [ayna tunzilu\ the
unbelievers in the Hereafter?” and gets the answer:
“In Hell”; Abu HanTfa, Risala i/a c Uthmdn al-Batti,
ed. Kawtharl, Cairo 1368/1949, 38 n.). The dual al-
manzilatan' is used, with respect to Paradise and Hell,
in a hadith preserved by Ibn Hanbal ( Musnad , iv, 438,
1. 7 from bottom; for the context, cf. Van Ess,
Zwischen Hadlt und Theologie, 47 ff.). The idea of a man¬
zila bayn al-manzilatayn is prepared in a saying at¬
tributed to the Basran ascetic Yazld al-Rakashi (d.
between 110/729 and 120/738): laysa bayn al-dfanna wa
'l-nar manzila (in the presence of c Umar II; cf. Ibn
c Abd al-Hakam, Slrat c Umar b. c Abd al- c AzIz, ed.
Ahmad c Ubayd, Damascus 1374/1953, 90, 1. 9). The
Mu c tazil! phrase appears for the first time in the title
of one of WasiFs books (cf. Ibn al-Nadlm, Fihrist, ed.
R. Tadjaddud, Tehran 2 1393/1973, 203, 1. 5). But
whether he coined it for the purpose of his own
theology must remain doubtful, for all the reports
which we possess agree that, in reality, he did not
dissociate from two positions only, namely those who
regarded the fasik as a “believer” and those who
called him an “unbeliever”, but from three, he
equally rejecting Hasan al-BasrT’s definition of the
fasik as a “hypocrite” ( munafik ) which was taken over
by numerous Basran ascetics and especially by the so-
called Bakriyya, the adherents of Bakr b. Ukht c Abd
al-Wahid b. Zayd (/?. probably in the second third of
the 2nd century). It is possible that this third stand¬
point did not become relevant, and also vexing,
through explicit opposition, for the early Mu c tazila,
until the Bakriyya entered the scene, for even they—
and a fortiori Hasan al-BasrT—ultimately considered
the munafik as a “believer”, though as a believer who
will be eternally punished in Hell (cf. al-Ash c arI,
Makalat al-Islamiyyin , 286, 11. 2 ff.).

The discussion about the different manzils had
always been connected with an attempt to specify the
juridical or theological consequences attached to
them. This is how the Mu c tazill position is proven in
most of our testimonies (which are all much later than
Wasil: cf. al-Djahiz, Risala fi ’l-hakamayn , in Mashrik,
lii (1958), 460, 11. 5 ff.; al-Khayyat, Intisar, ed.

458

al-MANZILA BAYN al-MANZILATAYN — MAPPILA

Nader, 118, 11. 2 ff.; Pseudo-Kasim b. Ibrahim, K.
al- c Adl wa ’l-tawhid , in Rasa-*11 al- c Adl wa ’l-tawhid, ed.
Muhammad c Imara, i, Cairo 1971, 125, 11. 4 ff.):
the unbeliever must be fought and cannot be inherited
from, the believer is loved by God, the mundfik should
be summoned to do penance or otherwise be ex¬
ecuted; all this cannot be said about th efasik. There¬
fore, since these juridical regulations ( ahkdm ) cannot
be applied to him, the corresponding designations
( asmd 3 ) are not valid in his case either. In this presen¬
tation of the problem which became common in the
future, the term manzila was replaced by ism ; thus it
slowly lost its significance for the theological
vocabulary. Dirar b. c Amr (2nd century [q. v. ]) and
Bishr. b. al-Mu c tamir (d. 210/825 [q . 0 . ]) still wrote
treatises about the manzila bayn al-manzilatayn (cf.
Fihrist, 215, 1. 13 and 205, 11. 23 f.). Abu THudhayl
included it among the usul al-khamsa; lbn al-Rewandl
[q.v. J refuted the Mu c tazila in this point (cf. Fihrist,
217, 1. 10). The terms ism and hukm are already
found, though perhaps not yet systematically linked
with each other, in Abu Hanlfa’s Risala ila c Uthynan al-
Batti (e d. Kawtharl, 35, 1. 16 and 36, 11. 12 f.). The
disputation between Wasil and c Amr b. c Ubayd pre¬
served by al-Sharif al-Murtada (Amali, ed. Muham¬
mad Abu TFadl Ibrahim, Cairo 1373/1954, i, 165,
11. 8 ff.) where Wasil uses ism but not hukm , is ap¬
parently a retrojection or a recast possibly taken from
the K. Ma dyara baynahu [sc. bayna Wasil\ wa-bayna c Amr
b. c Ubayd (cf. Fihrist, 203, n. 1) which may have been
composed in the second half of the 2nd century;
nevertheless, it remains our oldest testimony for the
Mu c tazill position and shows archaic features in part
of its argumentation.

Similarities with Christian speculations about
penitence have been pointed out by E. Graf (in OLZ ,
iv [1960], 397; cf. also R. Strothmann, in Isl., xiv
[1931], 215). There is, however, to date no proof for
any influence.

Bibliography : Given in the article. Cf. also W.
Madelung, Der Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim und die
Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Berlin 1965, 10 ff.; W. M.
Watt, The formative period of Islamic thought, Edin¬
burgh 1973, 213; J. van Ess, in REI, xlvii (1979),
51 ff.; M. Cook, Early Muslim dogma, Cambridge
1981, 94. See also fasik and mu c tazila.

(J. van Ess)

MAPPILA, standard Western form of Malayalam
Mappila, the name of the dominantMuslimcom-
munity of southwest India, located mainly in
the state of Kerala, primarily in its northern area
popularly known as Malabar, Significant numbers of
Mappilas are to be found also in southern Karnataka
and western Tamil Nad, as well as in diaspora groups
scattered throughout India, including the Laccadive
Islands, Pakistan, the Gulf States and Malaysia. In
1971 there were 4,162,718 Muslims in Kerala, almost
all Mappilas, and of these 2, 765,747 (est.) were con¬
centrated in Malabar. Mappila growth in the past
century has considerably outpaced that of the general
population. If the rate of increase in the decade 1961-
71 (37.5 %) was maintained, the size of the com¬
munity in 1981 would exceed 5,700,000. Mappilas
share the language (Malayalam) and the culture of the
inhabitants of Kerala (Malayalis), as well as the uni¬
que religious blend of its 25 million people (59,5%
Hindu, 21.0% Christian, 19,5% Muslim). Not only
because of its size but also because of its particular
historical experience, the Mappila community
represents a significant segment of Indian Islam.

1. The Name

The name Mappila ( = Mappila, Moplah) is a

direct transliteration of the current Malayalam term.
Its origin is not settled, but it appears to have been a
title of respect formed by a combination of mahd
“great” and pilla “child”; it was referred to visitors
and immigrants from abroad, both Christians and
Muslims, either in the broad sense of “honoured
ones” (Logan, i, 191; Innes, 186; Hameed Ali, 265;
Kareem, 61) or in the more specific meaning of
“bridegroom” and “son-in-law” (Miller, 33;
Thurston, iv, 458; Gough, 442; Gundert, A
Malayalam and English dictionary). The latter meaning
points to a process of intermarriage and is supported
by contemporary usage in colloquial Malayalam and
Tamil. Other derivations, including Arabic, have
been suggested, but none so persuasive as the above.
In time, the term became the distinctive appellation of
the indigenous Muslim community of Malabar,
although it is still occasionally applied also to Syrian
Christians in South Kerala.

2. The origin of the Mappilas

Mappila culture is the Malayalam culture of Kerala
with an Arabian blend, a fact that points to the an¬
cient intercourse between Kerala and southern
Arabia, founded on the great spice trade. The Map¬
pila community traces its origin to that well-
documented relationship. Arab trade with Malabar
[q.v. ] was going on for centuries prior to the advent of
Islam, becoming particularly energetic from the 4th
century A.D. and continuing until the European era.
Islamicised Arab traders brought their faith with them
to Kerala, where some settled and intermarried with
the native Malayalis. The earliest generally accepted
epigraphic evidence of Muslim presence in Kerala is
represented by the Tarisapally copper plates dated
235/849 (Kunjanpillai, 370), which contain Muslim
names in Kufic script; however, a Muslim tombstone
at Irikkalur dated 50/670 was observed by Mappila
scholar C.N. Ahmed Moulavi before it was washed
away, and another tombstone inscription at
Pantalayini-Kollam dated 166/782 was legible in the
19th century (Logan, i, 197; but note the criticism of
Burgess in Logan, i, p. ix). Because of the Kerala
climate and the impermanence of palm leaf writing
materials, there are no known literary manuscripts in
Malayalam predating the 14th century. Nevertheless,
despite the paucity of material proof, I.H. Qureshi’s
(p. 11) balanced opinion that Islam entered Kerala
“within a few years of the proclamation by the
Prophet of his mission” is very probably correct and
Mappilas, in that light, may be regarded as the first
settled Muslim community of South Asia.

Another view favouring a later 3rd/9th century
dating for Mappila beginnings is dependent on an
unreliable passage of the Akhbar al-Sin wa ’l-Hind [q.v.
in Suppl.]. Arab geographers, who provide the
available materials for the 3rd-6th/9th-12th centuries
of Mappila history, were compelled to rely on such
reports (only al-Mas c udi travelled to India, and he to
the north; cf. Nainar, 3 ff.). The point of view, how¬
ever, is also related to the persistent and much-
debated tradition of the conversion of an important
Hindu ruler, Ceraman Perumal. The form of the
tradition that is generally accepted by Mappilas is that
reported by Shavkh Ahmad Zayn al-Dln (904-
89/1498-1581) (referred to as Zainuddin), who was
the earliest known Kerala Muslim to deal with the
subject of Mappila origins and whose Tuhfat al-
mudyahidin became the basis for later Indian Muslim
writings on the subject (Firishta, iv, 531). Zainuddin
dates the conversion event to 207/822, but most Map¬
pilas prefer an earlier dating, that of 3/624. According
to the story, Ceraman Perumal’s missionary followers

MAPPILA

459

led by Malik b. Dinar established a series of mosques,
thus facilitating the expansion of Islam. While there is
no historical evidence for the strongly-held tradition,
there can be little doubt of the hospitality and tolera¬
tion of native Hindus toward the Arab visitors and
their faith.

The direct relation of Mappilas with Arabian Islam
is as significant as their relative isolation from Indo-
Persian Islam. That original relationship continued
over the years, furthered in recent times by the exten¬
sive employment of Mappilas in the Gulf region, and
it has affected the Mappilas more profoundly than any
other Indian Muslims.

3. Mappila development to 1921

(i) Beginnings to 1498

Through eight centuries from their origin to 1498,
the Mappilas and Islam in Kerala experienced an ap¬
parently calm and peaceful development. Mutual
economic interest and religious tolerance, expressed
in the direct support of Arab traders by the Zamorin
of Calicut, the leading figure in Malabar commerce,
paved the way. Immigration, intermarriage and mis¬
sionary activity were inter-woven strands in the Map¬
pila growth. While occasional stress must be assumed,
there is no record of overt abrasiveness or militant en¬
counter between the religious communities; the long
period of harmonious relationships, including as it did
the delicate areas of religion and marriage, stands as
a model development in the history of the sub¬
continent. Mappilas flourished under these condi¬
tions, especially in coastal areas, as noted by Ibn Bat¬
tuta (704-79/1304-77) during his three stops in
Malabar; Zainuddin estimates that 10% of the
population of Malabar was Muslim by the midpoint
of the 10th/16th century (p. 59).

(ii) The European period

Vasco da Gama’s arrival in Calicut in 1948 ushered
in the European era and signalled a sharp change in
Mappila fortunes. A participant in the events, Duarte
Barbosa (p. 78), summed up the history when he said:
“Thus they continued to thrive until the Portuguese
came to India”. The imperialist aims of the
newcomers, embracing both economic and religious
interests and exercised through military means, intro¬
duced a new tone into Kerala life. They succeeded in
cutting off the Arab trade, and Mappilas who had
been prevented from becoming landowners by the
hereditary system of land tenure and who depended
on commerce, were cast into reduced economic straits
which eventually became a pattern of poverty. As new
alliances developed the warm relationships between
Hindus and Mappilas were also disturbed, and in the
end cordiality was replaced by antipathy. Extreme
cruelty, chiefly on the part of the Portuguese, pro¬
duced an inevitable reaction. The Portuguese attitude
reflected the mediaeval European tradition and was
well represented by the governor of Goa, Afonso
Albuquerque (d. 1515), who dreamt of destroying
Mecca and who bitterly persecuted his Mappila op¬
ponents.

The volatile combination of commercial rivalry and
religious animus produced long-lasting negative ef¬
fects on the Mappila community: economic retrogres¬
sion, estrangement from Hindus, bitterness against
Christians and a new spirit of militancy. These trends
continued in the ensuing period of “pepper politics”
as the Portuguese were replaced by the Dutch (1656),
the British (1662) and the French (1725). Power re¬
mained in the hands of a coalition of Christian
foreigners and their Hindu allies, while the Mappilas
gradually became a society of small traders, landless
labourers and poor fishermen. The Mappila com¬

munity experienced psychological gloom and distress,
and defensive attitudes developed.

During the period 1755-99 the Muslim leaders of
neighbouring Mysore [see mahisur], Haydar c AlI (d.
1782) and Tlpu Sultan (d. 1799) [q.vv.] briefly inter¬
rupted the European hegemony over Malabar. Their
suzerainty provided fresh hope for the Mappilas, who
for the first time in their history were under Muslim
rule. Mappilas were now able to obtain some land
rights and administrative positions. There was a sharp
increase in the community’s growth, especially
through accessions from the outcaste society. The
fanatical religious policy of the Mysore rulers, how¬
ever, served to intensify the spirit of militancy in the
whole region, and the Muslim-Hindu alienation that
had been born in the Portuguese period now became
an established pattern.

The British assumed full power in 1792 (continu¬
ing till 1947), and the newly-raised Mappila hopes
were dashed. The British restored the old order,
adopting a policy of deference to Hindu leadership
and maintaining a wary eye toward the Mappilas.
The latter, disappointed and embittered, displayed
their resentment in a series of 51 militant outbreaks
during the century 1821-1921. The formal causes of
the outbreaks included agrarian discontent, poverty,
religious zeal and resentment toward the rulers, but
underlying these was the emotion of an oppressed
people, who responded to a seemingly hopeless situa¬
tion with often unreasoned and self-destructive
violence. Not all Mappilas shared in the depression-
agression syndrome, and only a small portion of the
populace actively participated in the outbreaks. Those
who did participate, however, did so in the tradition
of militant dpihdd, resulting in violent activities against
those whom they perceived as their oppressors,
whether British administrators or Hindu landlords
(jenmis ), and they very willingly accepted martyrdom.

This course of events reached its final denouement
in the Malabar Rebellion of 1921, frequently called
the Mappila Rebellion. This was a spontaneous upris¬
ing (not one of “systematic preparation”, as stated by
T.W. Arnold, EI\ mappilas) that included the
establishment of a temporary “Moplastan” in Ernad,
South Malabar, under V.K. Kunyahamad Haji. The
new factor that helped to provoke this major upheaval
was Mappila involvement in the Khilafat movement
[q.v.\ y an organised effort within Indian Islam and the
Non-cooperation Movement, to help restore the
caliphate in Turkey [see khalifa]. This ill-fated cause
had helped to generate temporary Hindu-Muslim
unity in the Indian freedom struggle. The message
that came to the Mappila community through the
visits of leaders such as M.K. Gandhi and Shawkat
c AlI was clear: only a free India could effectively plead
this cause, and Malabar must join the struggle. Their
intention to promote a non-violent cooperative effort
of Hindus and Mappilas was initially honoured, but
the message had an explosive effect and a sudden
violent uprising resulted. Distressed by the violence,
most Malabar Hindus withdrew from the struggle
which, by default, became the Mappila revolt. A
minority of Mappilas continued the hopeless battle
against superior British forces, particularly in South
Malabar. Disappointed and resentful they also vented
their anger of the Hindu community in several ways,
including vendettas against landlords and forced con¬
versions (estimates vary widely from “a few” to
2,500). In wider India, this series of events helped
to sunder the newly-established Hindu-Muslim
entente.

The immediate results for the Mappila community

460

MAPPILA

were disastrous. The Rebellion was put down after six
months of bitter fighting in which thousands lost their
lives. Severe reprisals followed: 252 Mappilas were
executed, 502 were sentenced to life imprisonement,
thousands were jailed or transported to the Andaman
Islands, and large fines were levied. A special force
named “The Malabar Special Police” was organised
to provide a permanent solution to the “Mappila
problem”. The community was recumbent in defeat,
ist relations with Hindu neighbours at an all-time low,
its reputation for uninformed zealotry unparalleled on
the sub-continent. The fundamental implication was
that Mappilas were at the end of the kind of road that
had been followed; a fresh philosophy needed to be
developed, and a new life forged. Contemporary
evaluation within India tends to the view that the
Malabar Rebellion was a war of liberation, and in
1971 the Kerala Government granted the remaining
active participants in the revolt the accolade of Ayagi,
“freedom fighter”.

4. From 1921 to the present

Subsequent events have dramatically altered the
shape of the Mappila community from a defeated and
closed society to a community marked by recovery,
change and positive involvement in the modern
world. Factors producing the change include: the new
political situation in India, involving Mappilas in the
democratic process; the necessity to deal with
economic problems, as well as the Communist
challenge to traditional forms or belief and response;
the development of modern education and the growth
of a new generation of leaders who press for dynamic
progress; and theological reform movements that pro¬
vide a basis for conservative rapprochement with the
modern spirit. This reshaping of the Mappila com¬
munity has involved it in severe inner conflicts and
has introduced a series of unresolved dilemmas. In the
process, however, Mappilas have been transformed
from a negative symbol to a positive force in contem¬
porary Indian Islam.

(i) The political factor

In the post-Rebellion period, 1921-47, Mappilas
began to draw away from the Congress Party,
although Mappila leaders such as the highly-esteemed
Muhammad Abdurrahiman Sahib and E. Moidu
Moulavi continued to struggle for the nationalist
cause. Most Mappilas were convinced that a Muslim
party must speak for them, and they aligned with the
Muslim League. They were led by the inspirational
K. M. Seethi Sahib (1898-1960), the chief architect of
the Mappila revival. In the Partition controversy,
these Mappilas upheld the two-nation theory and put
forward an abortive proposal for a separate Muslim-
majority province in the Malabar region, to be called
“Moplastan”. Although the Muslim League suffered
a demise in the rest of India, it continued to remain
a serious political factor in Malabar, and Mappilas
eventually provided the leadership for its resurgence
on a national level.

It was after the linguistic state of Kerala was lormed
in 1956 (including Malabar District, formerly part of
Madras State) that Mappilas became a strong political
force, giving the community a new sense of con¬
fidence and importance. Mappila political views
covered a broad spectrum, and Mappilas were
associated with every major party. Under its able
leaders Syed Abdurrahiman Bafaki Tangal (d. 1973),
P. M. S. A. Pukkoya Tangal (d. 1975) and C. H.
Muhammad Koya (b. 1928), the state Muslim

League, however, held the allegiance of the majority
of Mappilas, and it played a king-making role in the
state. Although never gaining more than 14 seats in

the legislature, through clever alignments it par¬
ticipated in several governments. This success not
only created a taste for power politics, but also en¬
couraged the conviction that the welfare of the Map¬
pila community depended on political prowess. Their
participation in Kerala politics further gave rise to a
psychology of accommodation that took Mappilas into
co-operative relationships with all segments of society,
including coalitions with Marxist parties. The strong
Mappila support for a Muslim party, however, gave
rise to the charge of “communalism”, a criticism that
rose from both within and outside the Mappila com¬
munity. It was noted that Pukkoya Tangal, much
revered for his saintly qualities, was at the same time
the President of the Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-
Ulema and President of the Kerala Muslim League.
The criticisms increased when the Marxist-led state
government granted the wish of the League for the
formation of a Muslim-majority district in 1969
(Malappuram District, 64% Muslim, the fifth largest
Muslim-populated district in India), over vigorous
protests of the Jan Sangh and other right-wing Hindu
organisations. In 1975 the contention of the Muslim
League that it represented the sole legitimate Muslim
voice was seriously weakened when the party, largely
as the result of personality conflicts, split into a conti¬
nuing division. In 1983, the two Muslim parties held
12.8% of the seats in the state assembly (Indian
Union Muslim League, 14; All India Muslim
League, 4).

(ii) The economic factor

Mappila material strength recovered very slowly
during the period 1921-47 and there was only slight
improvement thereafter. Economic disabilities were
keenly felt (e.g. by 1947, only 3% of taluk officers in
Malabar were Muslim, though one-third of the
population was Muslim; in 1971 Muslims held only
30% as many state government posts as did Hindu
Nayars, whose numbers they exceeded). The prob¬
lems of poverty and unemployment, endemic in
densely-populated Kerala, were felt in a special way
by the educationally-backward Mappilas. The situa¬
tion produced within the community an emphasis on
material concerns, self-critical attitudes, a thirst for
education, and an open door to the influences of
Communism.

Traditional Mappila leaders appeared baffled by
the magnitude of their community’s problems, and
many disadvantaged Mappilas were gradually at¬
tracted to the arguments of Comunists that promised
a better life. Communist parties, strong in Kerala,
had down-played religious issues and had become ac¬
cepted as ordinary political alternatives. As did many
Hindus and Christians, Mappilas began to mark their
ballots “Communist” without any sense of contradic¬
tion. It has been suggested (by Mappilas; precise data
unavailable) that more than a fifth of Mappila voters
may have made this choice at one time or another. For
most, it was a statement of protest rather than a affir¬
mation of ideology; some, however, were influenced
by the ideas of the Communist movement, others
became doctrinaire proponents of Marxism, and a few
became prominent Party leaders and officials. Typify¬
ing the latter is Ayesha Bai, the first Muslim woman
to rise to public fame in modern Kerala, who il¬
lustrates the startling impact of Communism on this
conservative Islamic society. Joining the Communist
Party in 1953, she became Deputy Speaker of the
Kerala Assembly (1957), an organiser of the State
Women’s Society (Mahila Samajum), and an ag¬
gressive advocate for the forward progress of Mappila
women.

MAPPILA

461

Within the past five years, a dramatic turn-around
has taken place in Mappila prospects as a result of the
great influx of funds from the earnings of Mappilas
employed in the oil production centres of the Middle
East. The sudden and unevenly distributed wealth is
creating a new set of circumstances, within which the
interplay of economics and religion will take new
forms.

(iii) The educational factor

Pre-independence governments had made special
efforts to advance Mappila education, but Mappilas
had maintained a generally suspicious attitude toward
those efforts (the community’s literacy rate was only
5% in 1931). By the 1950s, however, the Mappila
community had accepted the state programme of
universal education, especially at the elementary
level, and by 1960 nearly half the eligible Mappila
children in Kerala were attending schools: by 1972 al¬
most all were enrolled. Higher education experienced
slower growth. In 1922, the Aikya Sankhum society
was founded in Cochin State to promote higher
education, and it provided strong impetus for the
establishment of Mappila-managed schools. In 1936 a
special Mappila high school was founded at Malap-
puram under the pioneering C.O.T. Kunyipakki
Sahib. Another significant event was the founding of
Farook College in 1948, through the efforts of
Maulavi Abussabah Ahmedali (d. 1971) who had
spent some years in Egypt in association with Taha
Husayn. The Islamic context was deliberately main¬
tained in the College, but modern disciplines were
placed in the foreground. Under the leadership of
K.A. Jaleel (b. 1922), later Vice-Chancellor of
Calicut University, the institution had great impact
on the Mappila community. By 1974 there were over
700 elementary schools, 36 high schools, nine first-
grade colleges, and several technical institutions con¬
ducted under Muslim management. The spirit of
modern education was still the subject of controversy
in the Mappila community, but not the value of
schools.

The explosion of education fostered an increasing
sense of individual independence and intellectual
freedom. The Muslim Educational Society (MES),
founded in 1964 by a group of Mappila professionally
trained men, headed by P. K. Abdul Ghafoor, a pro¬
fessor of medicine, typified the new Mappila spirit
and brought into sharper focus the increasing conflict
between the old and the new. The MES was
characterised by intense dissatisfaction with the
slowness of the community’s forward progress, by the
call for “revolutionary change”, by its attack on what
it regarded as superstition, and by a burst of philan¬
thropic activity. In addition to promoting new col¬
leges and providing support for students, it began
social service activities, including the founding of 14
hospitals. Its influential periodical, MES Journal, led
the cry for change. The response of the Mappila com¬
munity was broadly supportive, and the success of the
MES gave it a wiser prominence in Indian Islam. The
movement, however, came into conflict with tradi¬
tional approaches, and major controversies within the
Mappila community followed in its wake. After in¬
itially supporting the new dynamism, the Muslim
League and Jamiat-ul-Ulema each issued calls to
Mappilas to dissociate themselves from the popular
cause, charging it with advocating changes in the
Sharia. As a result, Mappilas began to be polarised
between progressive and conservative views, but did
not break into sharp and formal division. The MES
itself, however, experienced a schism in 1982;
dissatisfied with its leadership some members formed

a new, parallel organisation called the Muslim Service
Society.

5. Mappila theology

(i) General features

Mappila theological development followed a path
independent of trends in other areas of Indian Islam,
a phenomenon accounted for by the origins of the
community and by its linguistic and geographical
situation. It was the conservative pattern of Arabian
Sunni orthodoxy that provided the major external in¬
fluence. Mappila development has not been merely
imitative, however, but it has been affected by its liv¬
ing experience in the Malayalam cultural context,
especially after 1947.

Mappila isolation from Urdu-speaking Islam is
notable, although never total. Contacts in the post-
Independence period have increased significantly as
Mappilas assumed leadership roles in the Indian
Union Muslim League, as well as in other all-India
Muslim organisations, but these have been primarily
of a political and social rather than theological nature.
The only Malayalam translation (1967) of a major In¬
dian Muslim work on theological themes is that of
Sayyid Amir c AlT’s Spirit of Islam. The views of Sir
Sayyid Ahmad Kh an, of Sir Muhammad Ikbal, and
even of Mawlana Abu 1 Kalam Azad, remain
relatively unknown. Mawlana Abu ’1 '-Ala 5 al-
Mawdudf’s work is better known as a result of the
translation efforts of the Djama c at-i-Islam. A few
Mappilas have studied at Aligarh or Osmania univer¬
sities, and Urdu is offered as a language option in
Kerala schools. These factors, combined with societal
mobility, indicate a probable deepening of relation¬
ships in the future.

The basic Mappila theological orientation is
summed up in the two statements: All Mappilas are
Sunnis ... The majority of Mappilas are Sunnis. Both
statements may be understood correctly. The former
refers to the absence of Shj^a in the Mappila com¬
munity. The latter refers to ordinary Mappila usage
of the term Sunni: in common parlance it signifies the
traditionally orthodox in contrast to adherents of
other movements. Chief among the latter are the
Mudjahids; the Djama c at-i-Islam party has some in¬
fluence, and there are a few Ahmadiyya. In this
secondary connotation, about two-thirds of the com¬
munity are Sunnis, who represent popular Mappila
religious belief marked by conventional doctrine and
practice, and alligiance to Shafi c i law.

(ii) Mappila religious leaders

The major categories of authoritative religious
figures are maulavis, mullas, tangals and kadis.
Maulavis ( = musaliar, the earlier term) are the true
leaders, combining in effect the functions of imam and
khatib , and to some extent those of fakih and mufti, the
latter being dependent on the community’s esteem. A
maulavi must have graduated from an acceptable
training program. Mullas are religious workers of
lesser standing and slight education, whose functions
are primarily Kurban reading and home visitation.
Tangals (Mai. pers. pron.; honorific) are individuals
descended from saintly families; not necessarily
engaged in religious vocations, they are generally
respected and occasionally revered. Kadis are fewer in
number, and though their sphere of influence is
limited, they are well regarded; they may be
hereditary tangals or appointed.

Mappila theological progress is closely related to the
pattern of maulavi training. The older form was set by
the Shaykh Makhdum institution at Ponnani. Said to
have been founded in the 6th/12th century, it reached
its peak under Shaykh Zayn al-DTn b. Shaykh C A1I

462

MAPPILA

(872-928/1467-1521), known as the “senior Makh-
dum”, who wrote religious treatises, and his famed
grandson, Shavkh Ahmad Zayn al-DTn b. Shavkh
Muhammad al-Ghazall. historian and legal scholar.
The office of the Makhdum was hereditary, the style
of education personal and the curriculum narrowly
traditional. Although the institution has lost its earlier
importance, its spirit lives on. It houses the
Maunathul-Islam Sabha, whose key purpose is “in¬
structing new converts to Islamism” {The Maunathul-
Islam Association—Articles of Association, Ponnani 1949,

i).

Contemporary maulavi training follows two paths.
The Ponnani tradition is carried forward by the
Djamria Nuriyya College at Pattikad (founded 1965)
led by T.K. Abu Bekr Musaliar, which has rapidly
become the premier Sunni training college for Map-
pilas. Some Mappilas still attend al-Bakiyat-us-
$alihat College at Vellore, Tamil Nad, and a few have
gone to Deoband. The curriculum at DjamPa
Nuriyya follows the Deoband model, substituting
Shafril law for Hanafi; theological authorities studied
include al-Baydawi, al-Mahalll, al-Nawawi and al-
Ghazall. The basic intent of this educational stream is
that the student becomes a true proponent of taklid
and obtain basic vocational skills, and the educational
style combines the lecture method with memorisation.
The narrow and concentrated learning experience in¬
stils the dedication for which the Mappila maulavi is
noted, and assures that he will remain the symbol of
continuity. Its lack of foundation in modern
knowledge, however, has also made the system the
focus of vehement criticism from within the Mappila
community, and many Mappilas regard the reform of
religious education as the key to Mappila forward pro¬
gress. Reflecting this view a second track of maulavi
training has developed that emphasises a basis in
modern education. A high school degree, and
desirably a college degree in Arabic is a prerequisite,
in addition to the traditional Islamic disciplines.
Within this stream the Rouzathul-Uloom at Feroke is
a representative institution; the Djami c a-i-Dar-us-
Salaam College at Umerabad, Tamil Nad, has long
served the Mudjahid movement, while the Djama c at-
i-Islam maintains its separate centre at Shantapuram
Pattikad.

(ii) Mappila theological reform

Mappila theology remained in a fairly constant
mould until the present century when Wakkom
Muhammad Abdul Khader Maulavi (1873-1932) of
Quilon sparked the beginning of the modern reform
movements. He was influenced by the Egyptian
reform of Muhammad c Abduh and Rashid Rida
through al-Manar [<?.u.], and was to some degree
aware of the ideas of Djamal al-Dln al-Af gh anl [q. v. ]
and Muhammad b. c Abd al-Wahhab [see ibn c abd al-
wahhab]. Wakkom Maulavi exhorted Kerala
Muslims to abandon unTslamic practises, to respect
reason, to adopt English education, and to develop
progressive movements. He spread his views through
the short-lived but influential Arabic-Malayalam
periodical, al-Islam (1919) and by his Malayalam
books A literary view, Progress and literature and The rights
of man. He inspired a group of students at Trivan¬
drum who carried forward his ideals, including K.M.
Seethi Sahib in the socio-political realm and Khatib
Muhammad Maulavi (1886-1964) in the religious
field. A Malabar scholar respected for his skill in tafsir
and fikh, for his important falwas, and for his efforts
to establish the all-Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema, Khatib
Muhammad’s integrity and personality enabled him
to transmit the southern reform to the more tradi¬

tional north. To help express the spirit of the reform,
“K.M.” also joined with his colleagues, E. K.
Maulavi and M. K. Haji, in establishing the major
Mappila orphanage at Tirurangadi.

The islah initiated by Wakkom Maulavi and carried
forward by his followers was basically a conservative
reform, marked by an insistent call to return to the
fundamentals of Islam and a positive reaching out to
the new world. It is this fact, taken together with the
quality of its leaders and their effective teaching and
writing, that accounts for its wide impact. In the end,
the movement affected a broad spectrum of Mappila
leaders: orthodox maulavis, teachers and other profes¬
sionals, and business men. It took on an organisa¬
tional form in 1952 when some Mappilas formed the
Nadvat-ul-Mujahideen as “a progressive” organisa¬
tion to enlighten the Muslim masses “on scientific
lines,” to further “the true injunctions of Islam” and
to promote harmonious relationships” with other
religionists” (cf. imprints on Mudjahid invitations).
Sunni leaders felt compelled to resist many of the new
trends; they called the Mudjahids “Wahhabis” as a
term of reproach and criticised the Mudjahid practice
of establishing separate mosques. Mappila Mudjahids
place strong emphasis on tawhfd , accompanied by
severe criticism of saint veneration and other “super¬
stitious” practices. They lay stress on the Kurian in
contrast to Hadith, and they argue for the validity of
translations and the use of the vernacular in mosque
and madrasa. They support the use of reason in the in¬
terpretation of the Kurian (“how it promotes thinking
and discourages imitation”, C.N. Ahmed Moulavi,
Religion of Islam , Calicut 1979, 53) and its appropriate
application to modern conditions. In that connection,
the principles of idjrnd <i and taklid are attacked, and
idjtihad is affirmed. Modern education is to be pro¬
moted and should include women. C.N. Ahmed
Moulavi (b. 1906), the premier Mudjahid scholar and
the most profilic Mappila theologian writing today,
represents this approach. His six-volume translation
of the Kurian (1951-61) was the first in Malayalam.
His translations and other interpretative works (cf.
Bibl.) comprise an important body of reformist
literature and have made “C.N.” the subject of con¬
troversy in the Mappila community.

The final stream in the contemporary Mappila
theological development was added by the social
reformers represented by such organisations as the
MES (see above). Communist Mappilas had criticised
what they viewed as “other-wordly” religion, but the
orthodox tendency was to resist the critique in view of
the source. The lay leaders of the Mappila social
reform from a stronger base declared in effect that
theology must be judged by its ability to respond to
human problems. Their treatment of zakat , which pro¬
duced a major controversy, is illustrative. Traditional
charitable giving practices should be altered, and a
portion of zakat should be diverted to revolving funds
that will help establish productive enterprises and so
deal with the roots of economic hardship. Science is to
be respected, for there is no conflict with religion, and
co-operation with people of other faiths for mutual
uplift is enjoined. The fundamental emphasis of the
Mudjahids and MES is the same: it is not Islam but
Muslims that need change and reform.

As a result of these influence, Mappila theology
displays an increasingly divided face. Sunni theology,
which has both resisted and absorbed, is no longer a
solid block. There is considerable inner movement
and diversity of approach. The possibility of a new
theological synthesis exists, but may be difficult to
realise.

MAPPILA

463

6 . Mappila religious and social custom

(i) Religious practice

Formal religious life centres on the mosque, of
which there are 5, 350 in Kerala, an estimated one for
every seventy Muslim homes (Kerala Muslim Directory,
668 ). The architecture is unique, following the
general pattern of Kerala Hindu temples, with peaked
roofs and no minarets, Mappilas believe that the
oldest mosques were originally Hindu temples, setting
the pattern for later construction. Newer mosques
tend to an amalgam of style; the explosion of mosque
construction in the early 1980s reflected both Arab
cultural and financial influence. A defined geogra¬
phical area will include a djama^at mosque, other mos¬
ques and a number of small prayer halls ( niskarapalli ).
Each mosque has a maulavi assisted by a mukn ( =
mu :> adhdhin), and other staff, depending on its size and
affluence. Arabic continues to be the primary
language of the khutba , with Malayalam making some
inroads. Women do not ordinarily attend mosque ser¬
vices. The popular Ramadan night services, however,
are open to all and are well attended. Since only a
minority of Mappilas attend the Friday mosque ser¬
vice, religious leaders look to a combination of
Ramadan programmes and madrasa instruction to
nurture the community.

Advanced Arabic studies are conducted at the more
than 25 Arabic Colleges in the state. The majority
follow the older method of rote instruction, but seven
are chartered to grant the Afzal-ul-Ulama degree
which is based on modern language study and which
qualifies the bearer to teach the subject in secondary
schools. The art of chanting has been drawn into
public rhetoric and has created a special Mappila art
form. The i c djaz of the KuHan is taken with great
seriousness, and it has led to the protective use of
KuHanic phrases in amulet form, usually blessed by
a person possessing the grace of karamat , and used
especially to ward off sickness.

Mappilas commonly observe the basic practices of
din, and a disproportionately high percentage of the
annual pilgrims from India to Mecca are Mappilas.
Mawlud readings arc common in Mappila homes.
Even more important are the Arabic-Malayalam
mala s, religious song-stories, which celebrate the lives
of Muslim saints or heroic events in the history of the
community. The most popular is the Moideen Mala
representing the life of al-Djilanl (470-561/1078-
1167), closely followed by RifaHn Mala com¬
memorating al-Rifa c I (500-78/1106-83). Sunni
Muslims also revere local saints, who arc regarded as
having miraculous powers, although the practice of
shrine visitation is falling into some disrepute as the
result of community criticism and the relentless
pressure of modern views. The best-known is Syed
Alavi of Mambram (1749-1843), whose shrine is still
frequently visited; '‘by the foot of the Mambram
Tangal” is a sacred verbal seal to a Mappila agree¬
ment. Other important shrines are those of Shaykh
Zainuddln at Ponnani and the Kondotti shrine of
Muhammad Shah Tangal. The latter was an 18th
century saint, possibly an itinerant Sufi, whose
followers have always denied the Sunni allegation that
he was a Shi g I. In addition to Bakr c Id and c Td al-Fitr,
special festivals called nercas are connected with par¬
ticular localities. The most famous of these, the
Malappuram nerca, recalls the deaths of 44 Mappila
martyrs (1141/1728). These celebrations were tradi¬
tionally accompanied by much fanfare and with very
high emotional expression, but are increasingly
regarded by the educated populace as outmoded ex¬
pressions of religious fervour. A number of Sunni

leaders are waging a determined battle to validate the
concept of waliyat , which is the most hotly debated
issue in contemporary Mappila religion.

(ii) Social custom

Mappila social custom is governed by the Shari^a,
subject to the retraints of national law and the condi¬
tioning influences of Malayalam culture. Mappilas
have generally stood for the inviolability of the Sharia
in the area of personal law. Birth, marriage and burial
ceremonies are strongly traditional, but in other
areas, Mappila customs have been relatively open to
change, including the area of family planning. Map¬
pila women are experiencing a quiet revolution; some
are joining professional vocations and assuming
leadership roles. Polygamy was never common, but
the divorce rate is high. Social classes in the Mappila
community are nor sharply defined, but there is a
continuing distinction of Mappilas of Arab descent,
which is maintained through marriage practice and
special regard for descent from the Prophet’s line.

Mappila adaptation from the Hindu environment is
not pronounced. The most striking example is the
matrilinear system called marumakkathayam, in¬
digenous to the Nayar caste, which played an influen¬
tial role in Mappila history. Although in South
Malabar accessions to Islam were primarily from out-
caste groups, in North Malabar many Nayars joined
Islam through conversion or intermarriage. Through
this process, marumakkathayam took its place alongside
the patrilinear system in Mappila Islam. The practice
traces descent through the female side, assigns
authority to the eldest sister, and controls property
through the joint family system. This pattern,
unusual in Islam (but cf. the Minangkabau Muslims
of Sumatra) is progressively yielding to the develop¬
ment of nuclear families and to the pressure to con¬
form to the more traditional Islamic order.

Other elements of Kerala culture, ranging from
dress habits to architecture, have become part of the
Mappila tradition. It is not possible, however, to
speak of a fundamental cultural inter-penetration be¬
tween Mappilas, Hindus and Christians. Mappila
religious practice and theology, in particular, remain¬
ing relatively unaffected. The notable example of syn-
cretistic practice—that associated with the Muslim
saint, Vavar, at the Hindu Sabarimala shrine in
South Kerala—is an isolated exception to the general
rule.

7. Mappila character

The key clement in Mappila character is devotion
to Islam. Although there is controversy within the
community over the answer to the question “What is
Islamic?’’, the importance of the issue is not doubted.
The intensity of this commitment has given rise to the
Mappila reputation for excessive religious fervour.
The assessment that Mappilas are “religious
fanatics” has followed as a more or less accepted
assumption in many scholarly writings, particularly
Western, contributing to the development of a
caricature that bears little resemblance to reality.

As a result of the stress and reverses of the Euro¬
pean period, Mappila reactions were extreme from
time to time. The emotional and untutored response
of some Mappilas to conditions that seemed hostile to
Islam, however, did not represent an innate disposi¬
tion characterising the entire community, which for
centuries had co-existed with Hindu and Christian
neighbours in practical harmony. Even those who
maintained the “fanatic” assessment were forced to
recognise variations between Mappilas of north and
south Malabar, and in the south between coastal and
inland Mappilas; these generalisations were too

464

MAPPJLA

broadly sweeping, however, to be accurate or helpful.
Since 1947, Mappilas have turned their backs on the
kind of reactions that produced the caricature;
nothing so clearly illustrates that fact as the Mappila
restraint in the anti-Muslim riots that took place in
Cannanore District in 1971.

Mappilas share the emotional traits of Malayali
personality, but Mappila character is especially
marked by simplicity of faith; loyalty to friends,
Muslim and non-Muslims; fortitude and patient en¬
durance; honest and frugality; industriousness,
marked ability in commerce; a sense of community
pride and oneness; and the readiness to follow
recognised leaders. Various influences are modifying
the traditional character. Community loyalty is no
longer blindly granted, and there is a new sense of in¬
dividual freedom, as well as more impatience with un¬
solved problems. Although displaying remarkable
vitality, religious faith is neither so simple nor so
stable as it once was, and as the public attention is
more and more directed to social progress, there is a
growing tendency to view it as a purely private
matter.

8 . Mappila literature

For much of Mappila history, the number of Map¬
pila writers and their influence upon the community
was severely limited by the lack of education. As
Mappila literature developed, religious publications
dominated the field. These continue to increase rather
than decrease in quantity, and the Kur 3 an itself re¬
mains as the best-seller. More recently, however,
Mappila writers have expanded their interests to
general themes, and secular literature is being written
and published in abundance.

The special, and still largely hidden, Mappila
literary achievement is the Arabic-Malayalam body of
religious materials, narrative poetry and songs. It is
estimated (P. Seyd Muhammad, Farook College Annual,
1974, 56) that less than 10% of these materials are
translated into Malayalam. This literary form
emerged about five centuries ago as a complex blend
of Malayalam language, Arabic script with special or¬
thographic features, and some Arabic, Tamil, Urdu
and Persian vocabulary. Particularly loved are the
khissa pattukal , comprising a series of romantic ballads
and battle songs. These heroic epics represent the
private Mappila folk annals, which are memorised
and sung on special occasions, particularly by women.
The poet laureate of the Arabic-Malayalam song
literature is Moyinkutty Vaidyar (1857-91). With the
rise of general education, the Arabic-Malayalam
literary genre is on the decline, although religious
literature is still being produced in considerable quan¬
tities at the publishing centre of Parappanangadi for
use in madrasas.

Mappila periodical literature is extensive and
wisely read, and is especially influential in the
religious sphere. Almost one hundred periodicals have
appeared during the past half-century, the majority in
Malayalam, but many have died an early death.
There are currently about a dozen significant publica¬
tions, representing different points of view. A Map¬
pila newspaper which played a significant role in the
community’s development is the Chandrika (founded
1934). For a more natural picture of Muslim life and
emotion, the works of contemporary Muslim novelists
must be considered. They represent Mappila culture,
views and feelings with realism, freshness, honesty
and a sense of humour. Generally uninterested in
politics, the novelists also tend to be secular in spirit
and deal lightly with religion, showing little hesitation
to smile at its pretensions or to mock its idiosyn¬

crasies. Drawing on universal human issues, they
project a paradoxical mood of hope and pessimism.
Leading authors include U.A. Khader, K.T.
Muhammad, N.P. Muhammad and Moidu
Padiyath, but the outstanding Mappila novelist is the
widely honoured Vaikom Muhammad Basheer (b.
1910). His most noted work, Nduppuppakkoranentarnnu
(“My grandfather had an elephant”, 1951), follows
the interaction between a conservative and pro¬
gressive Mappila family, the elephant symbolising
unrealistic traditionalism; the story illustrates a
dilemma that faces Mappilas both in the present and
in the future.

Bibliography (the non-English titles listed are
Malayalam publications): Full studies of the Map¬
pilas are rare; the only work in English that seeks
to treat critically the whole Mappila tradition is
Roland E. Miller, The Mappila Muslims oj Kerala. A
study in Islamic trends , Madras 1976. The single ma¬
jor investigation of the community’s history by a
Mappila is P.A. Syed Mohammad, Kerala Muslim
charitrum (“Kerala Muslim history”), Trichur
1961; other useful (uncritical) studies are C.N.
Ahmed Moulavi, Mahattaya Mappila sahitya pdram-
bariyum (“The illustrious literary tradition of the
Mappilas”), Trichur 1976, and K. Muhammad’s
thoughtful Mappilamdr engottu (“Whither the Map¬
pilas”), Trichur 1956. V. Abdulla, TheMoplahs , in
The Illustrated Weekly, 1 Feb. 1970, is an example of
a popular presentation by a knowledgeable Map¬
pila leader. The Kerala Muslim directory (Mai.), ed.
P. A. Syed Mohamed, Cochin 1960, assembles a
mass of information of varying quality. I. H.
Qureshi, The Muslim community of the Indo-Pakistan
sub-continent , New York 1962, correctly positions
the Mappilas in the wider Indian Muslim context.
Brief older articles include T. W. Anold, EP, iii,
250 f., who uses mainly British sources, while
Hamid Ali, The Moplahs, in Malabar and its folk, ed.
T. K. Gopal Panikkar, Madras 1929, and G.
Tokinam, Moplah-Nad, Calicut 1924, represent
Muslim and Hindu points of view respectively. For
Mappila statistics, see India Census Reports, 1891-
1971, especially the useful Census of India, 1961,
Paper no. 1 of 1963, Religion , Delhi 1963; the
statistical tables in Miller, Appx. A; H. A.
Gleason, Jr., Religious communities in the Indias, a
regional survey, Fancy Gap, Va. 1946; and N.A.
Siddiqui, Population geography of Muslims in India,
New Delhi 1976.

In general, western studies of the Mappilas from
the British period must be used with great care
because of frequent bias and inadequate sources,
but see P. Holland-Pryor, The Mappilas or Moplahs,
Calcutta 1904, a caste handbook of the Indian
Army; W. Crooke, The Moplahs of Malabar, in Edin¬
burgh Review (1922), 181-93; G. MacMunn, The
martial races of India, London 1933. Much more
useful are the Madras and Kerala government-
published District gazeteers, and of these the best is
William Logan’s oft-quoted Malabar manual , 3
vols., Madras 1887, a mine of information,
meticulously gathered by a relatively objective civil
servant, and generally reliable; C. A. Innes,
Malabar, ed. F. B. Evans 1933, is an up-dating of
this classic. E. Thurston, Castes and tribes of Southern
India, Madras 1909, iv, 455-501, provides
ethnographic information, much of which is now
outdated.

For the immediate cultural context, cf. A.
Sreedhara Menon, A survey of Kerala history, Kot-
tayam 1967. K. P. P. Menon, A history of Kerala , ed.

MAPPILA

465

T. K. K. Menon, 4 vols., Ernakulam 1934-7, and

L. K. Anantha Krisha Iyer, The Cochin tribes and
castes , 2 vols., Madras 1912, include materials for
central Kerala; Travancore State manual , ed. K. K.
Velu Pillai, 4 vols., Trivandrum 1940, and The
Travancore castes and tribes, Trivandrum 1937-9, deal
with the southern area. L. W. Brown, The Indian
Christians of St. Thomas, Cambridge 1956, studies
the parallel “Mappila” community. A. Basham,
The wonder that was India, London 1954; H. G.
Rawlinson, Intercourse between India and the Western
world, Cambridge 1916; A. Das Gupta, Malabar in
Asian trade, Cambridge 1967; and G. Hourani, Arab
seafaring in the Indian Ocean in ancient and early medieval
times, Princeton 1951, study commercial relation¬
ships between Malabar and Arabia. H. Yule,
Cathay and the way thither , rev. H. Cordier, iv, 72 ff.,
provides an exhaustive note on Malabar ports. T.
W. Arnold, The preaching of Islam, London 1913,
and S. Nadvi, Religious relations between Arabia and In¬
dia , in IC, vi, 129-39, 200-11, and idem, The
Muslim Colonies in India before the Muslim conquests, in
IC, viii, 478-89, are dependable sources for the
Arab Muslim expansion and Mappila origins. For
Hadramawt, especially Tarim, to which many
Mappilas trace their origins, cf. D. Van Der
Meulen, Aden to the Hadhramaut , London 1947, and
Van Der Meulen and H. von Wissmann,
Hadramaut, some of its mysterious unveiled, Leiden
1932, and hadramawt in Suppl. For the
Tarisapally plates, see E. Kunjanpillai, Studies in
Kerala history, Kottayam 1970. S.M.H. Nainar,
Arab geographers, Madras 1942, is a valuable outline
of references to Malabar; see also Ibn Battuta,
Muhammad ibn Abd Allah, Travels in Asia and Africa,
1325-1354, tr. H.A.R. Gibb, New York 1929. The
Ceraman Perumal conversion tradition was first
reported by Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa, tr.

M. Dames, London 1918; for the form accepted by
Mappilas, cf. Shaykh Zaynu’d-Dln, Tohfut-al-
Mujahidin, tr. S. M. H. Nainar, Madras 1942. K.
P. P. Menon, i, 429 f., criticises the tradition, and
K. V. Krishna Ayyar, The Zamorins of Calicut, 1938,
treats it as legendary.

The Portuguese incursion into Kerala is
surveyed by K. M. Panikkar, Malabar and the Por¬
tuguese, Bombay 1929; F. C. Danvers, The Por¬
tuguese in India, 2 vols., London 1894; R. S.
Whiteaway, The rise of Portuguese power in India, Lon¬
don 1899; Barbosa, op. cit.; and G. Correa, The
three voyages of Vasco da Gama , tr. H. Stanley, Lon¬
don 1849. The Dutch period is dealt with by Panik¬
kar, Malabar and the Dutch, Bombay 1931; T. I.
Poonen, A survey of the rise of Dutch power in Malabar
(1603-1675), Tiruchirapalli 1947; and P. Baideaus,
A true and correct description of the most celebrated East In¬
dia coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, tr. A. and J.
Churchill, London 1745. Scholarly writing on the
Mysorean interlude tends to widely differing inter¬
pretations. For the Muslim perspective, cf. C. K.
Kareem, Kerala under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan,
Cochin 1973, which includes a helpful
bibliography, and M. H. Khan, History of Tipu
Sultan, 2nd ed., Calcutta 1971; for the variation in
European views, see Reports of a Joint Commtsion ...
Malabar in the years 1792-1793, 3 vols., Bombay ca.
1794; M. Wilks, Historical sketches of South India, 3
vols., Madras 1869; and M. De La Tour, The
history of Haydar Ali Khan, London 1784; C.H. Rao,
History of Mysore, 2 vols., Bangalore 1946, is a
standard gazetteer.

The complex Malabar land tenure system that
Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

has played a major role in Mappila history is intro¬
duced in Sreedhara Menon, The evolution of the Jenmi
system in Kerala, op. cit., 325-69 and P. N. Kunyan
Pillai , Jenmi systems in Kerala, Kottayam 1966. For
observation of the Mysorean impact, cf. F.
Buchanan, A journey from Madras through the countries
of Mysore, Canara and Malabar, 3 vols., London 1807.
The development through the British period may
be traced in the Guide to the records of the Malabar
District , 1714-1935, 9 vols., Madras 1936. For a
British opinion favourable toward Mappilas, see
Logan, i, 621-70, while Innes, 304-72, summarises
the different types of land rights. L. Moore,
Malabar law and custom, Madras 1905, and A.
Mayer, Land and society in Malabar, Oxford 1952,
provide systematic overviews. M. A. Oomen, Land
reforms and socio-economic change in Kerala, Madras
1971, outlines the recent dramatic changes.

Aspects of the British period are analysed by S.
F. Dale, Islamic society on the South Asian frontier-, the
Mappilas of Malabar , 1498-1922, London 1981, with
special attention to the 1921 Rebellion and with
notes on similar Muslim communities. For another
view, stressing economic factors, cf. C. Wood, The
Moplah Rebellion of 1921-22 and its genesis, unpubl.
Ph.D. diss., University of London 1975. Cf. also
Wood-Dale, Correspondence of the Moplah outbreaks, in
Journal of Asian Studies, xxxvi (1977), 391-400. Perti¬
nent materials are found in the Kozhikode (Calicut,
Kerala) and Madras (Tamil Nad) Archives, in the
Madras Record Office, and in the Record Depart¬
ment of the India Office, London; but for the
British viewpoint, cf. especially Correspondence on
Moplah outrages in Malabar, 1848-1853 , 2 vols.,
Madras 1863, while Proceedings of the Legislative
Council of the Government of Madras, 1921-2, report a
broader range of views. On the Rebellion itself,
Mappila sources include K. M. Maulavi, Khilafattu
anusmarana kurippukal (“Khilafat reminiscences”)
Calicut 1981; K. Koyatty Maulavi, 1921 Malabar
lahala (“Malabar Rebellion”), Calicut 1953, and
C.K. Kareem, ed., Charitrum: Malabar lahala
(“History: Malabar Rebellion”). Trivandrum,
1971; Hindu observers were: K. Madhaven Nair,
Malabar kalapum (“Malabar Rebellion”), Manjeri
1971, and K. P. Kesava Menon, Karinya kalum
(“The Past”), Calicut 1969; a Marxist opinion is
found in E. M. S. Namboodiripad, The national
question in Kerala , Bombay 1952; the primary British
source is R.H. Hitchcock, A history of the Malabar
Rebellion, Madras 1925; seealsoJ.J. Banninga, The
Moplah Rebellion of 1921, in MW, xii (1923), 379-89.
The post-Rebellion period is treated by E. Moidu
Maulavi through a biography of Muhammad Ab-
durrahiam, Ende Kuttukuran (“My companion”)
Calicut 1964. Raza Khan, What price freedom ?
Madras 1969, traces the Muslim League and Parti¬
tion questions, see also Debates of the Madras
Legislative Assembly, 1947, Madras 1947, Aboosidi-
que, Seethi Sahib, Calicut 1966 (Mai.). Miller, op.
cit., 158-314, outlines the contemporary
development.

Orthodox Sunni beliefs are found in short
Malayalam or Arabic-Malayalam writings such as
Muslim prarambha catangl (“Basic Muslim tenets”)
Ponnai, 1950; Madrasa textbook, Classes I to V.
Parappanangadi 1972; K. Umar Maulavi, Tarju-
man-ul-Khuran, Tirurangadi 1971; and the al-Munir
Annual, publication of the Djami c a Nuriyya Col¬
lege. The classic SharTa manual is Shaikh Ahmed
Zainuddln, Fathul Mum, Trichur 1968. Uncritical
hagiologies of Muslim saints include M.A.

466

MAPPILA — al-MAR 5 A

Kareem, Sayyid Alavi Tangal, Tirurangadi 1970,
and I. Mitankutty, Hazrat Muhammad Shah Tangal,
Kondotti 1964. For Wakkom Abdul and Khader’s
views, cf. his Islamile cintaprasthanangl (“The pro¬
gress of ideas in Islam”) Perumbavoor 1954, and
for his impact, cf. Muhammad Kannu Vakkam
Maulavi, Calicut 1981. For the development of the
Mudjahid reform, see K.M. Maulavismaraka gran-
tham (“K. M. Maulavi Memorial volume”), Tiru¬
rangadi ca. 1965, and the biographies of Seethi
Sahib. The extensive writings of C. N. Ahmed
Moulavi include his translation and commentary of
the Kurban, Parisuddha Khurdn, 6 vols., Perum¬
bavoor 1951-61, and of al-Bukharl, Saheelhul
Bukhari, 2nd ed., Calicut 1970; idem, Islam, oru sa-
magrapathanum (“Islam, a comprehensive study”),
Calicut 1979; idem, Principles and practice of Islamic
economy, tr. K. Hassan, Calicut 1964. Vernacular
publications such as Chandrika (League-oriented
newspaper), Al-Amin (Congress-oriented tabloid),
Sunni Times (traditionalist weekly), Muslim Education
Society Journal (progressive monthly), and
Prabodhanum (Djama c at-Islam journal), report on
the clash of views on an broad range of subjects.

Neither Mappila religious practice nor social
custom are well documented. For both, cf. Kerala
Muslim Directory {op. cit.). The unique Mappila
mosque architecture is studied by J. Fergusson,
History of Indian and Eastern architecture, London
1876. The Malappuram nerca is reported on in
Mandrama, 7 April 1972, p. 8. See also S.F. Dale
and M.G. Menon, Nerccas: saint martyr worship
among the Muslims of Kerala , in BSOAS, xli/3 (1978),
523-38. For Mappila songs, cf. K. K. Abdul
Kareem’s introduction to Moyinkutty Vaidyar, Ma¬
lappuram khissa pattukal (“Malappuram ballads”),
Alwaye n.d.; O. Abdu, Mappila pattukal (Mappila
songs”), Chandrika Republic Day Edition, Calicut
1961; F. Fawcett, A popular Mappila song , in Indian
Antiquary, xxviii (1899), 64-71; idem, War songs of the
Mappillas of Malabar, in I A, xxx (1901), 499-508,
528-37; and C. N. Ahmed Moulavi, Mahattdya
Mappila Sdhitya Parambariyum , passim. Mappila mar¬
riage practice is treated in V. S. D’Souza, A unique
custom regarding Mahr (Dowry) observed by certain Indian
Muslims of South India, in IC , xxix (1955), 267-74,
and Kinship organization and marriage customs among the
Moplahs on the south-west coast of India, in Imtiaz
Ahmad, ed. Family, kinship and marriage among
Muslims in India, Columbia, Mo. 1976, 141-67; see
also D. M. Schneider and K. Gough, Matrilinear
kinship, Berkeley 1961. Mappila literature is dis¬
cussed in K. Chaitanya, A history of Malayalam
literature, New Delhi 1971, and in I. V. Ittiavar,
Social novels in Malayalam, Bangalore 1968. In 1983
Farook College, Kerala inaugurated a Mappila
Studies cum Research Centre, issuing a draft ver¬
sion of Mappila Muslims of Kerala, a select bibliography ,
ed. A.P. Abdurahiman, with the intent of develop¬
ing a complete bibliography of Mappila materials.

(R.E. Miller)

al-MAR 5 A (a) Woman.

1. In the Arab world.

For a long time, the problem of woman has been
avoided or dealt with only partially or in a biased way,
but now a general twinge of conscience has brought it
to the focus of our attention. Not just one but many
different problems confront the Arab woman and
affect how she is seen by society. There is the legal
aspect, defining the precise relationship between
divine and human law; there is the collection of
“distorted pictures” (the expression used by Etiem-

ble) with which literature in particular presents the
“myth” of woman; and there is feminine behaviour
reported by contemporary witnesses since the begin¬
ning of the Nahda, to which she adds her own version.

Woman and the law. Problems arise within the
systematic framework of law because of the ambiguity
of legal phraseology and because of the growing
confusion over the centuries between human and
divine law with regard to the personal status of
women. The major principles are outlined in the
Kurban, two suras of which are especially relevant:
the one concerned with women (IV, al-Nisa 5 ), and the
other to divorce (LXV, al-Talak). Other verses deal
with different problems such as adultery, modesty and
inheritance (II, V, VII, XXIV, 31, 60/59, XXXIII,
30-3, 55, 59, XLIX, 11). Most of the hierarchies of
human relationships are established in the Kurban; for
Muslims it is a revealed morality rather than a corpus
iuris. “Men have authority over women ... reprimand
those you fear to be unmanageable! Confine them to
their sleeping quarters! Beat them! If they then obey,
you do not look for any other method [of constraint]!
“(IV, 34/38) “Men have pre-eminence over them”
(II, 228). A woman is “worth” approximately half a
man, and there must be two female witnesses where
one man will suffice (II, 282). The woman’s share of
an inheritance is generally half that of a man who has
the same rights of succession (IV, 11-12/12-13).
Polygamy is lawful (IV, 3). Great divine indulgence
is promised to men, for “you could not be fair in your
dealings with your women even if you wanted to; but
do not be too partial!” (IV, 129, 128). But there are
limits: “Do not force your slaves into prostitu¬
tion....!” and certain taboos: “Your mothers your
daughters, your sisters .... are unlawful for you [to
have as wives]” (IV, 23-4, 26-7).

A free wife is described as a “field for ploughing
(hirth); come to your ploughing as you wish!” (II,
223). In the hierarchy, she is placed along with
children and the weak in need of protection. Over the
centuries she has been kept in a state of almost total
subjection by Kur’anic “paternalism”. Her attitude
(“lowered eyes”), her gait and the chaste attire are all
defined whether she is young (XXIV, 31) or old
(XXIV, 60). Even more strict attention is paid to the
“wives of the prophet”, yd nisd^ al-nabi (XXXlll, 30-
3, 55, 59), and, as models of reference, caused women
to be more rigorously restricted, through the veil and
certain other prohibitions.

Rigorous interpretation has made the Kurban very
severe. For example, according to the Kurban,
marriage dowries, sadukat in Kurban, IV, 4/3,
translated muhur in the Tafsir of al-Baydaw! (Cairo
1947, 102), had to be paid “spontaneously” ( nihlat an )
to the woman, but in practice this did not happen.
The act of marriage, in origin stripped of all religious
overtones, and purely “a civil act” concluded by fdjab
and kabul, offer and acceptance, without any obli¬
gatory presence of a religious authority, according to
Santillana, Schacht and Chehata, acquired a
sacralised aura in law and became for the population
at large an act subject to the divine law, contrary to
the principles stressed by legal historians.

The constraints on women have become
progressively worse. Adultery {zina) punished in the
Kurban (XXIV, 2) by a hundred lashes of the whip,
applied to the offending woman and also to the man,
eventually acquired legal sanction for the stoning of
the women to death. What is perhaps even worse is
that the Kurban stipulated that there should be four
witnesses to an act of adultery before punishment
could be authorised (XXIV, 4, 13 and IV, 15/19), but

al-MAR 5 A

467

later practice allowed the husband or the brother to
put the suspected woman to death more expeditiously.
Divorce (II, 226-32 and LXV in toto ) is an absolute
right reserved to the husband (LXV, 2), who must
nevertheless refer to “the evidence of honest men
among you” at all times. But in practice, this control
has been neglected over the centuries. In the end, a
new legal right evolved, allowing a man to use the
police authorities to bring back a wife who has left the
conjugal home (bayt al-ta c a). Nevertheless, there had
been constant reference to the Kur 5 an even when
irrelevant (bayt al-ta c a, stoning the adulterous woman)
and this was used as an argument for “sacralising”
the status imposed on a woman.

This sacralising of her inferiority is perhaps the
main reason for the problems of the Arab woman. She
is regarded from an ontological point of view as a
second-rate human being, coming after man in the
order of God’s creatures. She submits to her duties, is
limited in her powers and is mistress neither of her
own development nor of her own body. Everything
about her is considered taboo, so that “marriage is
dealt with in the same way as a man thinks about
correct behaviour”

However, in the early stages of Islam “correct
behaviour” was still flexible. Verses were revealed at
the appropriate time to allow the Prophet to marry the
divorced wife of his adopted son (XXXIII, 37) or,
according to the exegetes, to expose the depraved
character to public abuse for having accused c A ;> isha
of adultery (XXIV, 11-19; see note in Blachere’s
translation). Later, after the death of the Prophet, the
conquests increased the number of marriages between
Muslims and Jews and Christians. Although there
was clear authorisation for this in the Kur 3 an, the
caliph c Umar temporarily prohibited this type of
marriage for the sake of the welfare of the state. The
revealed text was distorted or even contradicted to
justify the need of the moment (cf. Muhammad
Mustafa Shalabl. TaHil al-ahkam, 244).

In fact, the law was to become the battleground for
two opposing factions. There were the literalists with
their rigorous interpretation, who claimed to take
their stand on the Kur 5 an and the Sunna (al-tafsir bi
7 -mankuf) as well as on “consensus” ( idjma ^) and
“precedent” (laklid), methods essentially formalist or
literalist. On the other hand, there was a body of
rationalist or liberal opinion from the Mu c tazilTs to
Avicenna and to Khalid Muhammad Khalid in the
20 th century who have tried to take into account the
original historical setting of the statutes and the
development of individual interpretation, especially
concerning woman. However, over the period of the
Arab-Muslim evolution, it has been the literalist
tendency which has carried weight, even where in one
region or another of the Muslim world some tradit¬
ional customs favoured women’s rights (cf. G.-H.
Bousquet, 161 ff.).

In modern times, Muslims jurists, influenced by
reformist ideas, have tried to make a distinction
between “human law” and “divine law”; the
iiC ibddat , religious acts which bring the creature into
contact with his creator”, and the ‘‘ mu'dmalat , rela¬
tions between individuals” (Chehata, 11). Since
1897, the institution of marriage (which is included in
the mu c dmaldt ) has been a written contract in Egypt
and, therefore, has implied some means of protection
for women, even though traditionally “it is not
advisable to write it down” (Linant de Bellefonds, ii,
40). It has become more and more the general rule to
draw up a legal document (in Ottoman law, 1911; in
the Tunisian statute book, 1956; in Morocco, 1958;

etc.). By borrowing from articles drawn up by the
most liberal judicial schools, the modernists have
followed a parallel course and tried legally to restrain
the practice of polygamy; they include a “monogamy
clause” taken from the Hanbali school. This is why
the Ottoman law of 1917 allows a wife to obtain the
annulment of her marriage contract if her husband
marries someone else. The Jordanian legal code of
1951 is similar. The Syrian (art. 14.3) and the c Iraki
(art. 3.4) codes do not include the monogamy clause,
but insist that the second marriage is given
preliminary authorisation by a judge. The Tunisian
code of 1959 (art. 18) was the first in an Arabic-
speaking country, and until now (1982) the only one,
to prohibit polygamy completely. As with marriage,
there has been a gradual tendency to embody the
procedure in a written document. It happened in
Egypt in 1931 and in Syria in 1953 where, as also in
Morocco, the judge may sentence the husband to pay
costs and alimony. Several Islamic countries have
forbidden “triple repudiation” in any circumstances.
There has been a complete break with tradition in
Tunisia, where (arts. 31 ff.) the act of repudiation is
not reserved just for the husband, but it is possible to
have “legal divorce”, granted by the court “at the
request of either husband or wife”, each having equal
statutory rights.

In Syria the law of 31 December 1975 (art. 60)
stipulates that “the dowry must be paid to the woman
herself” and almost everywhere, legal limits are
imposed on the minimum age of marriage for young
women and young men.

Although in most Arab-Muslim countries, it
remains true that the witness of two women is worth
that of one man; a marriage between a Muslim
woman and a non-Muslim is null and void; and rights
of inheritance are always regulated in an unjust way,
improvements cannot be systematically denied. The
wishes of a woman herself about her own future are
now being taken into account. For example, the
woman who marries a man with a different natio¬
nality is no longer obliged to lose her own nationality
if she acquires that of her husband. In Trak (J. 0. no.
2217. 1973), she may choose the nationality she.
wishes. In Lebanon (document dated 11 January
1968), she may have dual nationality and will lose her
own only if she makes an official request to have her
name removed from the registers of her native coun¬
try. In Libya (Law no. 7, 1963), she keeps her
nationality unless she is able and wishes to assume
that of her husband; it 'is the same for Egyptian
women (Nationality law, 1958) and for Syrian women
(1969, art. 12). In Tunisia and the Sudan, the
husband’s nationality has no effect on that of the wife,
who always keeps her own. It is also of note that in
two decrees by the Supreme Court of Appeal in
Egypt, in 1972 and 1975, equal weight was given to
the testimony of women and men, and thereby the
principle of the charter of 1962, “Woman must be
equal with man”, was introduced into the judicial
system. Such examples indicate the tendency in recent
times to concede a much greater autonomy in legal
matters to a woman.

Distorted images of women in literature. From earliest
times to the Nahda, poetic and literary compositions
present their heroines with two sides to their charac¬
ter. Poetry of the archaic type always praises the hard
life of the Bedouin with their historical records of
events, their virtue and their sweethearts, who were
not only ravishingly beautiful but were sometimes
perfidious, were small-waisted and heavy-hipped,
mendacious and inconstant (cf. Ka c b b. Zuhayr’s

468

al-MAR?A

Banat Su c ad). They were always moving about,
wandering with their tribes, seeking watering places
as fleeting as the mirages. Later, love poetry evolved
with society and a new image was added to the tradi¬
tional one; there appeared the townswomen of the
holy cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina, and of the
Islamic capitals like Damascus and Ba gh dad. Pilgrims
from Byzantium and Persia, both conquered
territories, brought with them the first musical slave-
girls, who were to play a considerable role in the crea¬
tion of a new female image [see kayna]. Though them
and the popular story-tellers [see kass], foreign influ¬
ences reached different circles of Muslim society. The
inspired stories from the Bible and from folklore
frequently described queens like Zenobia, queen of
Palmyra, and Bilkls [q-v.\, queen of Sheba. The poets
describe her as a silhouette surrounded by social
prohibitions. The love aroused by woman in one
group (Djamil) is chaste and sad because it is always
thwarted. For others (like c Umar b. Abl Rabija), love
has become a game which is always spurred on by
desire. It is played outside marriage with a woman
who is conversant with the art of teasing. She becomes
the object of a demanding “courtship”, she must set
aside her inferiority and inflame the man’s passion,
using her mind, her beauty and her talents. Since a
wife has become the property of her husband (his
“field”), she cannot be his equal and has lost this
power, which is why in literature love affairs outside
marriage were seen to be necessary. Ribald and
mischievous poetry portrays a gallery of free-
mannered women, even libertines. There were two
types of women that could be described in this way in
the early centuries of Islam. There were the beautiful,
cruel slave-singers, and the so-called “free” women
who tried first to imitate the free manner of the former
and then allowed much more boldness in their
behaviour than their successors under the c Abbasid
regime were able to tolerate (Lammens, Mo^awia l er ,
259, 440). Both groups display strong intellectual
qualities, for countless passages from the Kitdb al-
Aghani represent free-women and slaves as being wise
and good, firm advisers as well as well as mocking,
insolent and cunning (i, 75, 76, 89, 126; ii, 86; viii,
133-4, 135, etc.). Again, this shows the dual image of
woman described.

With the development of cities, these two female
types finished on opposite sides of the social hierarchy.
The urban Arabs adopted the values and ways of life
of the peoples with whom they mixed, but they
wanted to “preserve” their wives from them. This
policy resulted in the practice of shutting up the so-
called free townswomen of the wealthy and generally
better-off social groups, especially after the transfer of
the capital to c Irak. Consequently, the influence of the
slave singer became greater since she alone could mix
with the men of the elite classes. She was shrewd,
witty, cultured and often a poetess. She frequented all
the places of social entertainment and constituted
herself as a civilising influence on the sensitivity, the
mind and the tastes of an expanding society
throughout the Muslim empire, from al-Andalus to
Persia.

Perhaps it was under the influence of the
Manichaean beliefs of Persia or of Satkism and
Tantrism in Hindu and Buddhist India, that these
same women of such great cultural importance
gradually became a source of spiritual joy and a way
of salvation. Such an apotheosis is evident in ShI c T
poetry which hails Fatima, the daughter of the
Prophet, as “the mother of her father”, according to
her kunya [see fatima], “an angel of knowledge”; thus

al-Suhrawardl says, referring to the hadith , “He who
knows Fatima as she is, knows himself’. Now “he
who knows himself, knows his God”.

When she is transformed into such an icon, woman
is the idealisation of the qualities of the slave-singer as
well as those of the inaccessible free-woman. Poetry
and prose alike express the sexual frustrations
experienced by writers who have accepted the social
prohibitions and who respect the traditional hier¬
archies. In love with his goddess, (whose social stand¬
ing has been questioned by biographers), al- c Abbas b.
al-Ahnaf claims only to “adore” a free woman. He
says, “Only slaves can love servants” ( Dlwdn , ed.
Khazradjl. 86, poem 161, verses 3, 4, 5). The same
contempt was expressed later by al-Djahiz concerning
slave prostitutes (cf. Ch. Pellat, Le milieu basrien ,
253-4).

Theologians were appalled at the sacralisation of
woman before she became this symbol of mystery. Al-
c Abbas b. al-Ahnaf is said to have “added apostasy to
debauchery in his poetry” {ya c kud al-kufr wa ’l-fudpur fi
shi c rihi), according to Abu THudhayl al- c Allaf, the
Mu c tazill (Agham, viii, 15; concerning Ibn al-Ahnaf,
the poet at the court of Harun al-Rashld, and his love
poetry, see N. Tomiche, Reflexions sur la poesie de c Abbas
b. al-Ahnaf, in Arabica, xxviii/3 [1981], 275-99). In
fact, poetic writing had become an expression of
submission to social prohibitions and a sublimation of
unattainable romantic desire. A poet like Ibn al-
Ahnaf really tortured himself in order to tell of his
desire in a way that none of his predecessors had.
Probably it was at this stage of literary development
that the myth of Madjnun, “the fool of love”, became
established (see Blachere, HLA , i, 122) and was
anachronistically projected back to the beginnings of
Islam. The poet makes an ideal of his frustration, and
through his metamorphoses (the ground trodden on
by the feet of the beautiful woman, or the linen
encircling her beautiful body) he declares an impos¬
sible love.

Despite an apparent sacralisation, this poetry also
carries the connotation of the suppression of the
“game” of love and of reciprocal pleasure. It un¬
doubtedly represents the woman as an idol beyond
man’s reach, but also as an erotic yet passive object,
flattering the fantasies of the poet and of the story
teller. This is why she was also a passive object of
physical pleasure for poets like Abu Nuwas or Ibn al-
Hadjdjadj, who spoke of her in less mystical and less
guarded terms. There was, therefore, an adoration
and total submission of one group before woman, and
a libertine attitude, an ethical debauchery and a revolt
against social prohibitions of another; all these charac¬
teristics feature in the “man of high birth”, the zarif,
the ideal man of the most illustrious centuries of the
empire.

For centuries there has been a fixed dual image of
woman as angel and demon. In Arab literature of the
modern era, since the beginning of the Nahda and in
later audio-visual media, feminine characters retain
some of their traditional aspects. In current art forms,
like modern novels and the theatre, the mediaeval
contrast between angel and demon appears in familiar
guise with the mother and wife on the one hand, and
on the other, the “femme fatale”, with eroticism
aroused by the female form. Sexuality may, of course,
be used to stimulate a wider circulation (magazine
stories and films taken from the works of Ihsan c Abd
al-Kuddus or Yusuf al-Siba c I). In the avant-garde
novels, however, or in the new poetry, it may also
convey a message of revolt against Society and the
Establishment. Eroticism has a structural function

al-MAR 3 A

469

just like that of violence in works like those of Gh itanl
or MadjTd Tubiya in Egypt or Haydar Haydar and
Zakariyya Tamir in Syria.

Old feminine images still persist. Sometimes they
are used to guarantee the old established order
(proud, strong mothers and wives who keep the man
on the right path in social behaviour); but they may
also have an evil effect, threatening the dominant
position of man, his virility, the family and the social
structure (mistresses of restaurants, and brothels,
treacherous women, real Delilahs capable of stripping
any Samson of his vigour). Details are borrowed from
real life and known events in order to bring these
images up-to-date and to allow the stereotypes to be
used again and again. New images show the changing
life experience of women and enrich the discussion of
novels, poetry, theatre and the cinema. There is the
woman who has regained part of her independence by
working and becoming entirely responsible for her
own affairs. Her autonomy is accompanied by
portraying a sexual emancipation in the artistic image
of her, which is on the whole badly tolerated by the
writer and the media. There is also the female student
who is potentially emancipated and who often
preaches looser morals than she practises. In contrast,
there is the peasant woman, the worker and the
servant, who have left their familiar countryside, are
exploited for their work and their sex, and are all
fighting to survive. And there is the freedom fighter,
who struggles beside men for the liberation of the
homeland in Palestinian literature. No judgment is
made on her sexual behaviour, usually.

When issues of daily political and social life are
involved, these images of woman are moulded to suit
the artistic work in which they are used. Real events
are set in a fictional world and then become symbolic
elements within it. It is often difficult to discern what
is true experience and what has been imagined, so
they should not be taken seriously as historical
documents. They do remain as important disclosures
of their authors’ aspirations and ultimately of the
attitudes of their social groups, but not as a real
description of the situation of woman in the Arab-
Muslim society to-day.

Woman in real life. It is hard for official laws and
idealising images in literature to reveal the true life
style of Arab women. We can obtain a much better
description by observing how historians and bio¬
graphers from the past portray her, and then how the
press and audio-visual media of to-day continue to do
so. In ancient texts, she only appeared when some
noteworthy event occurred, like her being expelled
from the harem. But in early Islam she could win a
measure of respect and even evoke fear. There were
frequent political alliances made between the powerful
to ensure the loyalty of influential tribes; and when
wives were selected from a tribe, it gave the woman
a distinctive prestige and respect (see Lammens,
Mo c awia, i, 324, 318). There seems to have been no
need for her to be confined or veiled for several
decades. One Amazon, who exposed the calves of her
legs, took part in the horse racing at Medina, and
women with uncovered faces received strangers and
went out at night to visit friends or to discuss poetry
within the precinct of the mosque (see Aghant, x, 58,
•i, 150). Khadldja. the Prophet’s wife, would not allow
her illustrious husband to marry again while she was
alive, and his daughter, Fatima, imposed the same
restriction on c Ali. These two men became
polygamous only after the death of their first wives.
The Kur 3 an imposed the wearing of the veil only on
the wives of the Prophet (XXXIII, 53, 59), for
originally it was a mark of flattery and distinction.

In the course of time, after the conquests and the
beginning of urbanisation, confining women and
obligatory wearing of the veil became general among
the leisured classes. Generally speaking, women
ceased to participate in social life and only rare
glimpses of a woman’s life are provided. Some of the
most suggestive scenes arc found in the autobiography
of Usama b. al-Munkidh (see H. Derenbourg, Femmes
musulmanes et chretiennes de Syrie au XII e s., episodes tires
de la biographie d’Ousama, in Melanges Julien Havet, Paris
1895, 305-16; also N. Tomiche, La femme en Islam ,
136-7). There women are seen who exemplify the
poetic myth of the “brave woman’’; they help
warriors in their struggles against the Crusaders and
they help to maintain the social order. These are, of
course, exceptional exploits, and apart from them,
women make only rare appearances, whilst their
slaves had less restrictions on their freedom and could
be followed for a longer time in their movements.

In c Irak, Syria, Egypt, and even in al-Andalus, in
the large towns of the Muslim empire of c Abbasid
times, higher-class women ceased to appear in public,
and they concealed themselves under copious layers of
diaphanous material. The female world retracted into
a fringe society and escaped observation. It was only
common women that went about unveiled. They were
no longer accepted in mosques under the pretext that
they would defile them in their periods of impurity or
that they would distract the minds of men who were
over-sensitive to the gracefulness of their form and
movement.

As the Ottoman Empire expanded, the confine¬
ment of free, well-to-do women became severe from
the 14th century onwards, and woman’s position in
society weakened. Isolated in the harem, she deployed
remarkable qualities in order to dominate her
husband (see Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, repr.
1961, 225-6, 230-1; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le
monde musulmane , 387; Clot, i, 331). There was a
mystery surrounding woman, her underhand
activities and her ambitions, which produced in man
a deep distrust of her and an imperious insistence on
her local submission.

Lower-class women were not considered worthy of
interest until the 19th century and afterwards. Then,
many European travellers, especially in Egypt, gave
precise information about their situation (see Mengin,
Histoire de TEgypte , ii, 305; Michaud and Poujoulat,
Correspondance d'Orient , v, 13; vii. 83; 85-6; P.-S.
Girard, in the monumental Description de TEgypte, xvii,
36; Schoelcher, L’Egypte en 1845 , 160-1, 305; Clot;
etc.). Such a woman seemed lively and active, work¬
ing in the factories of Muhammad C A1T or as an almeh ,
“dancing girl’’. She endured “a type of circumci¬
sion’’ performed in Egypt (Clot, i, 321-3) [see
khafd], and in the Sudan, infibulation, probably
through the influence of pagan practices from black
Africa. Following the occupation of Egypt by the
French (1798-1801), the growing influence of the
West, the development of the Arab bourgeoisie, the
modernisation of towns and reformist ideas all had a
disturbing effect on the family and social structures as
well as on general attitudes. Any attempt to defend
the earlier status quo brought about a deterioration in
female segregation and increased restrictions.
However, crises are sometimes salutary in the way
they precipitate a liberation movement.

The year 1839 saw the beginning of the Tanzlmdt
\q.v.], a period of social reform when many schools
were opened for girls in Turkey, but not in the other
Arab regions of the empire. There had been a school
for girls in Beirut opened by the American mis¬
sionaries in Beirut in 1835, but it was the only one of

470

al-MAR?A '

its kind for a long time. The first primary school for
girls in Egypt was opened in 1876, and in c Irak in
1899; tuition was given in Turkish.

The First World War brought about a growing
need for labour, especially female labour, in these
countries: they worked in the spinning and weaving
industries, in companies manufacturing cigarettes
and in factories making preserves, matches, etc.
Women used to work side-by-side with men for the
same pittance. In 1921 the first proto-trade union
organisations demanded equality for men and women
before the law. These rights, though often only
existing in theory, like the nine-hour day and mater¬
nity leave on half pay, were granted from 1933
onwards. They led in turn to the setting up of a legal
labour code in Iraq (1936), Syria and Lebanon
(1946). These laws and guarantees, rarely respected at
first, gradually and slowly are becoming customary.

It was not only in industry that women were
employed. They worked in greater numbers (as they
always have done) in craft and family enterprises. The
patriarchal structure of the family favours an almost
closed economy, and there the woman's fight for
independence has almost no room to develop. The
development of female education and the formation of
a female consciousness has undoubtedly been made
possible because of the wealth generated by oil and
commerce.

The Arab woman’s evolution was inevitably
accompanied by a development of conscience, in the
absence of which, in spite of lengthy periods of
common conflict, she finds herself excluded from
trade union activities through what is in effect
discrimination. Furthermore, because of ignorance
she did not avail herself of the rights which the law
allowed her. Perhaps the quickest stirring of female
consciousness was brought about by the fruitful
activities of the feminist organisations. They were
formed after the First World War and were mostly
philanthropic, although some were definitely political;
they were constantly active despite the sarcasm of the
media.

Of all the Islamic countries, Turkey had the largest
population of literate women, and it led the way in
major changes. Developments in female education led
to the propagation of more liberal thought. With the
revolution of Ataturk in 1923, the country was
laicised, and the wildest dreams of female liberation
were realised—a model for other Arab states. At the
end of the 19th century in Egypt, the first theorist of
eastern feminism, Kasim Amin [q.v.], published a
book entitled Tahnr al-maPa, “The emancipation of
the [Egyptian] woman” which, in the name of the law
of the Kur-’an itself, protested against the breaking of
the law, the obligatory wearing of the veil, unjustified
polygamy, and repudiation without the arbitration of
a judge. He claimed equality of teaching for both
sexes. Egyptian feminists supported him. From 1911
Bahithat al-Badiya demanded that women should
have free access to the mosques and that there should
be compulsory primary education for everyone. After
the First World War, Huda Sha c rawi, a member of
the Turkish aristocracy, opened her salon in Cairo
and in 1923 appeared in public with an uncovered
lace.

At the end of the last century, feminist claims were
expressed only by some women of the aristocracy, but
now they have become increasingly urgent. They
have been taken up by the upper and middle classes,
by writers and journalists of both sexes and they have
been organised into various unions or associations.
The right to vote is now denied only to women in the

Arabian peninsula, and since this right has become
genera], women’s groups have assumed an electoral
significance and have been recognised by the political
authorities. In Egypt, the “Organisation of Arab
Women” was formed by the female Minister of Social
Affairs in 1962. In Syria, in 1968, the “General
Union of Women” was directed by the Ba c th. The
“Women’s Union” was created by law in Libya in
1975 and in c Irak the “General Federation of c Iraki
Women” is one of the organisations ( munazzamat ) of
the Ba c th party.

Trade unions and feminist activity have a value,
but a general spread of education provides a much
more favourable climate for female consciousness.
Laws established after the achieving of independence
have democratised education. The Declaration of
Human Rights signed by the United Nations (art. 26)
decreed that primary education should be free.
Despite this, compulsory education is far from being
generally accepted. Little schooling is available in the
rural areas (in Morocco, Jordan, c Irak and even
Egypt, for example), but elsewhere only half the
population of female school age reaches a primary
school. In Saudi Arabia, the proportion is a third,
with absolute segregation of the sexes (cf. Maghreb-
Machrek , Paris, Doc. frangaise, no. 78 (Oct.-Dec.
1977); L 'Islam, Doc. fr. photogr. 27). The situation is
the same in Syria. These difficulties arise because of
an insufficient number of schools and qualified
teaching staff. There are added problems because
families use their children to work in the fields, in
small industries, or in the home to eke out their
resources.

Even when they are given the chance of a place at
school and they pursue their studies, girls are sub¬
consciously moulded by the cultural outlook fostered
by the school and their view of the world is not
necessarily different from that of their society, at least
not until the final stages of secondary school. Official
Syrian statistics for 1975 can act as a guide for the rest
of the Arab world. In 1970, out of a population of
65,925 women who held certificates of primary educa¬
tion, 8,758 were pursuing an occupation other than
that of housewife ( = 13.4%); for secondary-modern
(secondary and technical levels combined) diploma
holders, the figures were 7,176 out of 8,059 ( =
89.03%); for higher education diploma holders it was
3,365 out of 4,482 (= 75.07%); and for doctorate
holders it was 108 out of 151 (= 71.5%) most of
whom came from the middle classes or were the wives
of diplomats living abroad. Very often (in 38% of the
cases), the women were working for relatives or
private individuals without receiving any payment. In
1970, this was the situation for 64,088 of them. It is
also interesting to compare figures for married and
unmarried women in the same year; there were
1,067,073 married women and 515,751 single,
divorced or widowed, but although there were nearly
twice as many married women, the number of active
unmarried women (71,996) was well over the number
of active married ones (58,886).

Often women agree to sacrifice their career in order
to respond to the wishes of a husband or family. Such
behaviour cannot simply be explained as due to the
state of her mind, but must be influenced by the
almost complete lack of necessary social infra¬
structures like creches, canteens, etc. Pedagogic
activity, therefore, cannot exist without educational
activity, and they must complement each other. At
the present time, there is insufficient integration of the
different claims for equality of the sexes and for the
liberation of women. Deep disturbances can be felt

al-MAR 3 A

4-71

even in the socialist universities of Damascus and
Mawsil concerning the actual segregation of women
and concerning the wearing of the veil on the head or
over the face. It has been an erratic path of develop¬
ment, and any progress that has been achieved by the
work of cultured women, heroines in the fight for
freedom, and trade unionists have been followed by
some spectacular steps backwards, even in the so-
called progressive countries.

The struggle goes on in the Arab-Muslim world
between those who used to be called “literalists” but
now “integrists” and the liberals; old arguments have
been rekindled. The rise of Muslim “integrationisrn”
has been made possible by the new-found power of the
ayatallahs in Iran through the success of their revolu¬
tion against the Shah's regime, and above all by their
resistance against the unfortunate c IrakT aggression.
Even if the Arab-Muslim world accepts modern
techniques in the hope of bettering its way of life, it
still remains attached to the values and religious
beliefs by which it hopes to preserve its identity. The
threats and fulminations of the < 'uldma :> conservatives
of Syria, c Irak, Egypt and Algeria exploit this reli¬
gious attachment and encourage the observance of
passivity and submissive attitudes in the societies
concerned. This has led to a spectacular return to the
veil and long dress, the symbols of female submission.

Once they had given up the signs of their bondage,
the cultured middle-class heroines of the Arab
resistance movement became submerged in the fear of
“integrationist” opposition. In Egypt, the law up¬
holds the right of the husband to beat his wife and a
legal official will even go so far as to stipulate what
length of stick to use. In Kuwayt, members of the
assembly have refused to grant women the right to
vote in February 1982, even though the Dean of the
Faculty of Law at Kuwayt LIniversity was a woman
(Le Monde, 14 February 1982). The project for a
“family code” in Algeria maintains the legal
inferiority of the woman: she is always considered a
minor and must pass from the guardianship of her
father to that of her husband, brother or uncle, or
even to that of her eldest son. Polygamy and repudia¬
tion are allowed and any professional activity a
woman undertakes must be sanctioned by her
husband (Le Monde , 9 January 1982). In the
Assembly, Algerian officals have had to face up to the
disagreements between those of the liberal tendency,
who recognise the equality of men and women, and
the traditionalists, who are faithful to the “Arab-
Muslim heritage”.

When the conflict moves to the political level,
“progressive” and “modernist” tendencies within
Arab socialism are opposed by totalitarian and theo¬
cratic tendencies, legitimised by religious tradition.
Because of the overlap between politics and social life,
the degree of freedom a present-day Muslim woman
enjoys can be seen as an accurate indication of the
degree of political change the society in which she lives
has undergone. In the past, she was given a role which
allowed her to consolidate the family unit and to
perpetuate habits, modes of thought and the cultural
heritage; even so, to-day she has a role which, depen¬
ding on whether it is in a society reflecting archaic
attitudes or one belonging to the secular liberal view¬
point, indicates a stagnant stage of civilisation or a
modern attitude in harmony with the principles of the
“rights of man”—and of woman. A solution will have
to be found, but it is hardly likely to consist of a total
victory for either side, or in its complete crushing.
Too many political interests and deep-seated
attachments are involved. Dialogue between the
“integrationists” and the modernists will probably

have to be re-established. To reach this end, however,
it is essential for the liberal debate no longer to be
resented as a much-hated innovation.

Bibliography. The Kitdb al-Agham , ed. Shan-
kltT, 21 parts in 7 vols., Cairo n.d., and four parts
in two vols. of index, Cairo 1323, has been used.
Although it would be impossible to record all the
poets, prose writers and theorists from the classical
period of Arab-Muslim writing who have discussed
love and women, the following should be
mentioned: Antaki, Tazyin al-aswak\ Djahiz, Risala
fi l- c ishk wa ’ l-nisa 3 and Risalat aTKiyan (see Ch.
Pell at, al- Dja hiz wa 'Trnar^a, in Hawliyyat al-Didmi c a
al-Tunusiyya , 1986); Ibn Dawud, Kitdb al-Zuhra\ Ibn
Hazm, Tawk al-hamama\ Ibn Kayyim al-
Djawziyya, Rawdat al-muhibbin and Kitdb Akhbar al-
nisd?\ Mas c udT, Murudy al-dhahab\ Washsha 3 , Kitdb
aTMuwa shsh a. The 19th-century writers that have
been mentioned are A.B. Clot, Aperfu general sur
TEgyple , 2 vols., Paris 1840; E. W. Lane, An account
of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians,
London 1830; Mengin, Histoire de I'Egypte , 2 vols.,
Paris 1823; Michaud and Poujoulat, Correspondence
d’Orient, 7 vols., Paris 1835; Schoelcher, L’Egypte en
1845, Paris 1846; Volney, Voyage en Egypte el en
Syrie *, 1789. These sources, as well as the

monumental Description de I'Egypte compiled by
scholars in Bonaparte’s army, second ed., Paris
1822 (xi-xxi) and c Adja :> ib al-athar by Djabarti, 4
vols., Cairo 1879-80, have been used exhaustively
by N. Tomiche in The situation of Egyptian women in
the first half of the nineteenth century, in W. R. Polk and
R. L. Chambers (eds.), The beginnings of modernisa¬
tion in the Middle East , Chicago 1968. More recent
important works of reference are: Blachere, HLA\
M. Borrmans, Statul personnel et familie au Maghreb de
1940 a nos jours, Paris 1977; G.H. Bosquet, La
morale de Tlslam et son ethique sexuelle, Paris 1953;
idem, Le droit musulmane. Paris 1963; C. Chehata,
Etudes de droit musulmane , Paris 1971; E. Doutte,
Magie et religion dans TAfrique du Nord, Paris 1909;
Femmes et politiques [collective work] Paris 1980; R.
Holl, Die Stellung der Frau im Zeilgenossischen Islams:
dargestellt am Beispiel Marokkos, Frankfurt 1979;
Kahhala, A c lam al-nisd^fi c dlam al- c Arab wa ’l-Islam,
3 vols., Damascus 1959; Kasim Amin, Tahrir al-
maCa, Cairo 1899; H. Lammens, Etudes sur la regne
du calife omayyade Mo^awia I er , Paris-Beirut 1908; Y.
Linant dc Bellefonds, Trade de droit musulmane
compare, ii, Paris 1965; L. Milliot, Introduction a
Vetude du droit musulman, Paris 1953; J. Minces, La
femme dans le monde arabe, Paris 1980; S.
Munadjdjid, Amthal al-maCa c ind al- c Arab, Beirut
1401/1981; R. Paret, Zur Frauenfrage in der arabisch-
islamischen Well, Stuttgart-Berlin 1934, repr. in
Schriften um Islam, ed. J. van Ess, Stuttgart, etc.
1981; Ch. Pellat, Le milieu basnen et la formation de
Gahiz, Paris 1953; idem, Les esclaves chanteuses de

Gahiz, in Arabica, x/2 (1963); M. Shakankiri, Loi
divine, loi humaine et droit dans Thistoire juridique de
Tlslam, in Revue historique de droit franfais et etranger ,
lix (1981); M.M. ShalabT, Ta c lfl al-ahkam, Cairo
1947; Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot (ed.), Society and
the sexes in medieval Islam, Malibu, Calif. 1979; G.
Stern, Marriage in early Islam, London 1939; Tahir
al-Haddad, Imra'atuna fi 'l-sharCa wa 7 -mudjtama c ,
Tunis 1930; G. TarabishT, Ramziyyat al-maCa fi 7-
riwaya al- c arabiyya, Beirut 1981; G. Tillion, Le harem
et les cousins, Paris 1966 Ai'cha Lemsine, Ordalie des
voix. Les femmes arabes parlent, Paris 1983; N.
Tomiche, La femme en Islam, in Histoire mondiale de la
femme, 4 vols., Paris 1965-6, iii; J.-C. Vadet,
L 'esprit courtois en orient dans les cinq premiers siecles de

472

al-MAR 3 A

Thegire, Paris 1968; Ch. Vial, Le personnage de la
femme dans le roman et la nouvelle en Egypte de 1914 a
1960, Damascus 1979; G.E. von Grunebaum,
Avicenna’s Risala fi l-Hsq and courtly love, in JNES
(Oct. 1952); Wiebke Walther, Die Frau im Islam,
Leipzig-Stuttgart-Berlin 1980 (good bibl.); E.
Westermarck, Marriage ceremonies in Morocco,
London 1914; Women of the fertile crescent [collective
work], Washington, D.C. 1978; Women in the
Muslim world [collective work], Cambridge, Mass.
- London 1978; N.H. Youssef, Women and work in
developing societies, Westport, Conn. 1974.

(N. Tomiche)

2. The Arab woman in customary law

and practice.

a. The material and the problems raised.

The noun maTa is relatively rarely used in the
Qur’an. Although it occurs only 26 times, women are
frequently alluded to as believers, wives, mothers,
daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, slaves, or simply as
“females”, untha. Traditional usages and customs
about women are often mentioned in the hadith as well
as in pre- and post-Hidjra poetry. Research by
ethnographers into both ancient and modern Arab
societies has produced much information on the rights
and obligations of a woman, her social status, her
daily life and her conduct on important occasions in
her life. From the rich and varied material available,
from pre-Islamic sources to contemporary Arab
societies, we can present a reasonably precise account
of her status as it emerges from an analysis of customs
and usages.

Unfortunately, the material is not all of the same
value, and what is found in pre-Islamic poetry must
be treated with special care. It is even more important
to remember that there is a serious gap in the
material. Whereas the different sources all provide, by
a sort of complicity between informants, information
on the women of the North (the Bedouin), there is
hardly any mention of the women of the South (sc. the
Yemeni) ones), who have grown up in an environ¬
ment appreciably different from that of Mecca or the
desert, in religious texts, literature or ethnographic
research work. Here and there references to customs
presumably of South Arabian origin can probably be
found in pre-Islamic sources, but these can be iden¬
tified in one way only, the origin of the tribes where
they were practised. Such information was collected
well after the Hidjra when most of the Yemeni tribes,
like the Tayyi 3 , c Aws, Khazradj. Madhhidj, Murad,
c Udhra, Kinda, Hadramawt, etc., had adopted
customs which were fundamentally Bedouin. To
judge from their poetry, they also spoke the same
language as the Arabs from the North.

It would thus be unwise to consider as Yemeni one
particular custom which does not fit into a group of
well-established customs, just because it was observed
in a society which originated in the South of Arabia.
It could easily have arisen through the external influ¬
ence on a tribe in the course of its many wanderings,
or it could be the relic of behaviour characteristic of
earlier social conditions and subjected to internal
evolution within the tribe. Starting out from this
hypothesis, the most plausible and generally accepted
one, one could artificially bring into a unity an essen¬
tially disparate group of customs, which will then
appear as landmarks in a long cycle of evolution.

That is how Robertson Smith suggested, under the
influence of 19th century evolutionary theory, that
family relationships among the ancient Arabs were
primarily polyandrous. This system gave way to
matriarchy, which was in turn followed by patriarchy.
It is true that just before the birth of Islam, relation¬

ships were centred on the males of the family,
although the old matriarchal system had not disap¬
peared and many relics of it persisted. It is proper to
mention this idea in the introduction to this article
because of the role it gives to women in the evolution
of the Arab kinship system; it has been the cause of
much discussion and is still accepted by more than one
orientalist. It assumes that the whole of the Arabian
peninsula before the Hidjra enjoyed a cultural and
linguistic unity and consequently a unity of behaviour
patterns also. There is a reason to believe that the
theory of evolution devised by this distinguished
British scholar strays noticeably from the facts; the
cultural unity of Arabia probably emerged only
during the first century of Islam.

It is well known that Southern Arabia was regarded
as a separate region from the rest of the country for
a long time. Though moderately influenced by the
desert, it developed a civilisation based on agriculture
and commerce with more leanings to India and the
Mediterranean than to the steppes of the interior. It
seems certain that, before Islam, an area of Arabia
experienced a system based on maternal rights. But
this regime must have existed somewhere in Arabia
felix rather than in Arabia deserta, where exogamy
would seem incompatible with the warring nomads. It
would have reached to other parts of the peninsula
through Southern tribes emigrating, then gradually
being absorbed by the customs of the Bedouin, and
ultimately abandoning their traditional behaviour
which had survived until just before the Hidjra. The
cultural and linguistic unity, which came much later
than Robertson Smith suggested, would have
followed the decline of the kingdoms of the South and
the progress of desertification. The language of the
North, close to but different from the South Arabian
which it ended up by supplanting, finally imposed
itself on the whole peninsula, spreading with itself the
customs and manners of the desert.

Robertson Smith’s serious error has finally led to a
regrettable confusion. At the time of the Hidjra,
Classical Arabic (that of the Kur 3 an) although not
prevalent, was understood in almost all areas of
Arabia. From this fact, he assumed that there was a
linguistic unity long before Islam. Furthermore,
having identified the relics of the old matrilinear
customs in particular tribes, he concluded that these
customs were prevalent in the whole of Arabia, with¬
out taking into account the question of migration.

What was the status of Arab women prior to Islam?
It is quite clear from what has been said that the
inhabitants of Southern Arabia (the “Southern
Arabs”) must be distinguished from those of the
North. Even so, it is not necessary to agree with the
genealogists who suggest a double lineage, Kahtani
for the one and c Adnani for the other, for they have
merely translated into the language of their own
particular discipline the ever-present rivalry between
cultivators and pastoralists. Nonetheless, there were
the well-established agricultural traditions of the
southern Arab farmers. The Northern Arabs were
traditionally dependent on a pastoral economy for
their sustenance; they developed for themselves a
distinctive nomadic civilisation marked by the stamp
of the desert. Research into the South Arabian area
has proceeded, but there is still only fragmentary and
inadequate information on many aspects of social life.
On the other hand, the abundance of information
about the Arabs of the steppes is such that it is
extremely difficult to synthesise.

b. The status of the South Arabian woman

Little is known about the customary status of
woman ( 3 n th t, m r 3 /) in South Arabia before Islam.

al-MAR^A

473

In a recently discovered inscription, anyone of the
Dhu Matara is forbidden to kill their daughter (Chr.
Robin, Mission archeologique et epigraphique franfaise au
Yemen du Nord en autornne 1978, 185, CRAIBL, April-
Jule 1979: this scholar has helped to provide some of
the bibliography in this study of the South Arabian
woman). This practice may quite properly be
compared with wMd. It always denotes an inferior
attitude to girls as compared to boys. In the same text,
it is similarly forbidden to hand over girls by way of
reparation, which leads one to suppose that the man
had control of the woman. As in other Semitic
societies, so here it is probable that the husband
regards his wife as a chattel. Some inscriptions group
wives and possessions together (A. F. L. Beeston, The
position of woman in pre-Islamic South Arabia , in
Proceedings of the 22nd Congress of Orientalists, Istanbul ,
1951 , ii, Leiden 1957, 104). However, it would not be
correct to infer from this that the wife was in a state
of slavery.

In other inscriptions, it is stated that she had a role
in questions of inheritance. Rhodokanakis even dared
to suggest that in South Arabia, the women were
Financially independent. Beeston does not share this
point of view, but he docs admit that the widow could
acquire economic independence in certain conditions,
as, for example, when the male heirs were too young
to exercise their rights (Beeston, op. cit., 105). He also
draws attention to the fact that the woman could
assume high office, especially that of priestess, a role
in which she would have practised sacred prostitution
(idem, The so-called harlots of Hadramawt , in Oriens,
[1952]; cf. J. Ryckmans, Les l< hierodulenlisten” de
Ma c in et la colonisation mineenne , 152). She also had
access to high administrative offices. In one inscrip¬
tion a woman bore the title maktawiya , fern, of
maktawi, a senior official who came under the direct
orders of the king. Could it be that a woman may even
have held the office of the highest magistrate, as
suggested by the legend of the Queen of Sheba?
However, the inscriptions do not mention the name of
any sovereign or kayla. Nevertheless, after the ndda ,
the Banu Mu c awiya in the Hadramawt, who were
called the royal Kinda, were ruled by four brothers as
joint kings in association with their sister, the famous
al- c Amarrada, who was a famous and despotic as they
(Ibn Hazm, Dyamharat ansdb al- c Arab , Cairo 1962,
428).

Information provided by the inscriptions about the
system of family relationships might well lead to
confusion. In most cases, the line of descent is through
the father. However, in every age there are isolated
instances of descent through women. In one text there
is even a case of both types of descent side-by-side (sec
the inscription on the statue in Chr. Robin, L 'Arabic
du sud antique , in Bible et Terre Sainte , 177 [Jan. 1976],
19). Two other inscriptions record a concession
granted by a king to men and women of the same class
Now it seems that the transmission of the concession
was made by the women to their descendants (Ahmed
Fakhry, An archaeological journey to Yemen , ii,
Epigraphical texts, Cairo 1952, inscrs. 3 and 76). In
other inscriptions, women are mentioned only in
terms of their lineage; even their ascendants are
considered from the point of view of the female line.
From there to the conclusion of the existence of a
system of matriliny in South Arabia before Islam is
one step only, easily made. One can even go on to
affirm that polyandry may also have been known to
the South Arabians. The observations of Strabo
already mentioned are relevant here, and certain
scholars like Glaser, Winckler and more recently

Muller, consider that the views of the Greek
geographer have been confirmed by the inscriptions
(for further discussion and bibliography, see J.
Chelhod, Du nouveau d propos du matriarcat arabe, in
Arabica, xxviii [1981], 99 ff.; Chr. Robin has drawn
our attention to a Hasaean inscription where the line
of descent is traced exclusively through women; it
reads “Burial place and tomb of Ghabya, daughter of
Malikat, daughter of Shibam, daughter of Ahadhat,
of the lineage of Yankhal”). However, documents
where this type of union is mentioned arc rare so that
it is wise to treat them with caution. On the other
hand, it is clear that polygamy was practised in
ancient Yemen and, according to Beeston, they even
practised temporary marriage ( Temporary marriage in
pre-Islamic South Arabia , in Arabian Studies, iv [1978],
21-5).

The inscriptions so far discovered do not contain
any reference to the existence of a system of maternal
rights in ancient Yemen before Islam, but the discus¬
sion must necessarily remain open, for ethnographers
have produced several examples of matrilinear succes¬
sion in contemporary Yemen society. Some sexual
freedom before and after marriage has also been noted
as prevalent in some tribes in Yemen. This is no
recent innovation but, as will be shown, has its roots
in the past.

c. The status of women in customary law in modern South
Arabia.

As a rule, the sharCa governs the status of both men
and women in the whole of South Arabia, with slight
modifications in the case of South Yemen. Its
successful application relies on the central government
maintaining effective control. Outside the large urban
societies of San c a\ Ta c izz, c Adan, Say^un, Shibam.
etc. it is well known that the semi-sedentary and
village Yemenis observe customs which do not always
conform to Islamic law. Girls are often disinherited
and marriages are contracted by exchange. This
customary practice is known as laghut, or also ahkdm al-
salaf. It is inspired by strongly-held desert values, and
in accordance with Bedouin customs promotes an idea
of honour among the Yemenis, related to the
“whiteness of the face’’.

The law decrees that woman should be completely
submissive to the will of the man; father, brother,
husband, uncle, paternal cousins, and even her own
adult children. She is considered to be a feeble being,
whose defence depends entirely on the man. In his
eyes, she symbolises his own virility: every thought¬
less action is interpreted by her strong protector as a
challenge to his power, an outrage to his dignity. A
whole mystique has grown up around the concept of
honour which decrees that the modesty of the women
whom he guards should be a sacred object. Any
assault or attempted assault on their chastity is classed
as murder and may be punished extremely severely.
This is the conventional attitude to the love life of
Yemeni women. Among the Humum of the
Hadramawt, however, despite her unfavourable posi¬
tion, the woman enjoys a certain amount of sexual
liberty. Indeed, tradition even permits a girl to
conceive a child outside marriage. If the child is not
recognised by its natural father it will take the name
of its mother or that of its maternal uncle. Even a
married woman can take a lover without fear of her
life and without the risk of being molested.

A girl wanting to take a lover would have to take
him from among the people of her tribe. As a rule, the
lucky man should exhibit all the physical and moral
qualities which a woman would like to find in the
father of her child. The aim of such a liaison is,

474

al-MAR^A

presumably, to produce an ideal child, but the custom
is disappearing; it is called kasb or iktisab. A similar
type of union was known to the Arabs before Islam by
exactly the same name. The Arabs were supposed to
do this to raise children of pure Arab stock, so that the
man who was to father the child should be especially
good. There is some similarity between the two
customs, but here it was the husband who asked the
wife to have relations with another man, whereas
among the Humum it is the girl who takes the
initiative. Within this tribe, as among the ancient
Arabs, no one is at all embarrassed to announce the
birth of a child conceived outside marriage. The child
born this way is called al-Jarkh , “the chicken’’, a
harmless nickname which indicates the “illegitimate”
nature of his birth, even if his father recognises him
as his own. If he does not, he will take the name of his
mother and be raised by her. She may subsequently
be sought in marriage, and the intentions of her suitor
will be judged by asking him if he will take her bi-
hamli-hd wa-shamliha, “with her burden and her coat”.
If he takes both mother and child, then the dowry
would be more significant; but if he will take only the
girl, the child will be brought up by her maternal
uncles.

Custom likewise allows to Humum married women
the right to have affairs during the prolonged absence
of their husbands; when a husband returns, he cannot
inflict reprisals on the unfaithful spouse. He has the
choice of accepting the situation or repudiating his
wife. If he nevertheless ill-treats his wife, he risks legal
proceedings by his parents-in-law, and this appears to
be an old custom. According to Ibn al-Mudjawir, a
woman among the Saru could take a lover called a
mukhlif, “a replacement”, when her husband was on
a journey (Ibn al-Mudjawir, Ta?rikh al-mustabsir ,
Leiden 1951-4, 26).

Whatever the cause of trouble, the Humum never
punish an adultress; but a woman who takes a lover
while her husband is at home is severely condemned.
Despite this, she is generally in a favourable position,
for she can ask her husband to repudiate her so that
she can start a new life, and he cannot deny her this
privilege. All that is necessary is for the dowry and
any wedding expenses to be returned. If she is
repudiated at her own request, the unfaithful wife has
no rights regarding her children; they will remain
with their father and keep his name. Despite this
freedom enjoyed by women in Humum society, the
family is patriloca! and patrilinear, as elsewhere in
Yemen.

How can these obviously matrilinear customs be
reconciled with the prevailing patriarchal way of life?
They seem to be the relics of a system of matrilinear
rule which once was to some extent normal in South
Arabia. It seems that neither virginity nor chastity
was considered as important as modern Arabs
unusually consider them. Ibn al-Mudjawir states that
among the BahTmiyya, the “fiancee” was tried out by
her suitor. If he was satisfied, he left his sandals
behind at her father’s house and the marriage could
then be settled; if he were to put them on when leaving
the house, it meant that he did not want the girl (Ibn
al-Mudjawir, op. cit., 54). The custom of giving a
traveller a girl for the night goes back to the 3rd/9th
century. The founder of the ZaydT state opposed
certain sexual liberties practised in the village of al-
A c sum. It was situated in the high plateaux, and there
a host would honour his guest by offering him his
daughter or his sister after he had dressed her up in
her most beautiful clothes. She would then be
subjected to the most intimate caressing but not
extreme sexual behaviour (C. van Arendonck, Les

debuts de Vimamat zaydite au Yemen , 165). Similar obser¬
vations were made by Ibn Mudjawir, but in his
account the wife was offered to the traveller (Ibn al-
Mudjawir, op. cit., 53). After fourteen centuries of
Islam, it is only recently that a similar custom was
observed in Yemen in the region of Marib, though it
is true that the guest there was made to respect his
partner under the threat of reprisals (private
investigation. Cf. K. al-Iryani, L’organisation social de
la tribu des Hashid , in COC, lxx [1968], 8).

This sexual liberty has ensured that sufficient
scholarly attention has been paid to women in Yemen,
and it seems that in some areas she has been able to
impose her will on her husband. It is public know¬
ledge among the Yemenis that in the Djabal Sabir, the
pleasant mountain overlooking Ta c izz, the village
women rule the roost in financial matters. They have
even gone so far as to send back lazy husbands. It is
still only the man who has the right to repudiate, but
he must nevertheless obey his wife’s commands.
Among the Dihm in the region of the Djawf, a woman
will put a piece of red cloth on the entrance to her tent
when she is displeased with her husband. He knows
from this that he is in disgrace, and docs not dare to
cross the threshold of his home until his wife has
removed the sign of the quarrel with her own hand (A.
FakhrT, al-Yaman madiha wa-hadiruha , Cairo 1970,
110). A similar custom existed among the Tayy-’in
pre-Islamic Arabia. To show Hatim that he should
leave, Mawiya simply moved the entrance to the tent
{Aghani, Beirut 1956, xvi, 207). She was thus mistress
of her own fate, since she could separate at will from
her husband when the latter displeased her. Among
the ancient Arabs, a number of high-society ladies
seem to have enjoyed the same privilege. There is, for
example the case of Salma bint c Amr from Medina,
who belonged to the Nadjdjar, originally from
Yemen. The chroniclers say that she agreed to marry
her husband only on condition that she could leave
him if she wished.

Other accounts confirm how common these
matrilocal customs were. Ezze, Botta’s guide, entered
into a marriage contract, the principal clause of which
stated that the wife could live with her own people and
not follow the husband to his village (Botta, Relation
d'un voyage dans le Yemen , Paris 1880, 125). According
to Ibn Battuta, at ZabTd marriage to a stranger was
freely accepted, but if the husband decided to leave
the town the wife would not follow him under any
circumstances (Ibn Battuta, Rihla, ii, 168). The child
of such a marriage would be brought up by his mother
or some other relative. Ibn al-Dayba c of ZabTd, the
Yemeni historian, was abandoned by his father in his
infancy and entrusted to his maternal grandfather.
When this relative died, the boy was looked after by
his maternal uncle (Ibn al-Dayba c , al-Fadl al-mazxd c ala
bughyat al-mustafid ft akhbar madinat Zabld , ed. J.
Chelhod, San c a> 1983, 217).

When this discussion is analysed, the following facts
emerge:

(a) A Yemeni woman is not required to follow a strict
sexual morality, as is generally the case in the Arab
East.

(b) The sexual freedom enjoyed by the women of the
Humum dates back to ancient times.

(d) Children conceived apart from the husband
belong to the maternal side of the family.

(e) Such matrilocal customs are still to be observed in
some parts of Southern Arabia.

Although it cannot be assumed at all that South

al-MARPA

475

Arabia exerted an influence on North Africa
(Helfritz, L ’Arabic heureuse, Paris 1961, 116), there are
certain similarities between the customs described
above and those observed in Kabylia. The Berber
woman is generally known to enjoy more sexual
freedom than the Arab woman, and many
monographs have been devoted to describing her love
life. Its luxuriance and diversity of customs make any
attempt at synthesis problematical. Prenuptial
chastity is certainly not expected of any girl, but once
married they must be faithful to their husbands. But
if they are freed from their marriage ties by
widowhood, repudiation or the prolonged absence of
the husband, they are allowed to take lovers. Their
sexual freedom is even more marked than that of the
Humum. Many of them still work as prostitutes, and
this is not thought in any way dishonourable. Many
courtesans belong to high-class families and subse¬
quently end up with good marriage arrangements (E.
Dermcnghcm, Le pays d’Abel, Paris 1960, 69).
Children born of these temporary unions belong to
the mother's line.

When the life of the Yemeni woman is compared to
that of her sister in the North, it seems very similar,
except for the sexual freedom, limited in any case to
certain districts, she enjoys. The Northern girl is also
married very young (often before the age of ten) and
her paternal cousin holds the right of preemption. She
will not usually be consulted initially about her choice
of husband; only after she has been widowed or
divorced will she be free to reject a suitor. Analogies
between her situation and that of the Bedouin women
will be discussed later.

d. The Arab woman in traditional law just before the
Hidjra and during the first century of Islam.

The status of women in Western Arabia before the
Hidjra again raises the question of different customs
in different areas. Clear differences in male attitudes
can be detected, when comparing evidence from
nomadic tribes, from the sedentary population, from
a trading city or from a village community, even
though at this particular time almost the whole penin¬
sula was Bedouin in character. The word Bedouin
clearly refers not only to the Arab of the steppe, al-
a c rabl , but also to anyone who follows the desert
customs and conforms to its code of honour. Poets like
al-Akhtal and Djarir called themselves Bedouin
(. Aghdm , vii, 134), and from this point of view, just
before the Hidjra, the Meccans practised Bedouin
customs.

Most of those Arab tribes which, by their nomadic
and war-like life style set great store by their virility,
consider that women are feeble and almost irresponsi¬
ble beings and in need of constant help. At the same
time, she embodies man's ideals and is sometimes
almost venerated as sacred. This ambivalence
naturally leads to the paradoxical description of her as
c awra, nude, shameful and needing concealment and
hurma , sacred, to be defended and protected. This
two-fold attitude gives rise to a series of prohibitions
for women and obligations on men, and failure to
observe them casts a slur on their honour. Female
chastity together with conjugal Fidelity, inter alia ,
constitute Hrd [qv.]. Licentiousness is severely
punished and brings disgrace to a family and to a
tribe. In satirical poetry, the mother of the person
being mocked is often spoken of disparagingly (for
examples, see the dtwdn of Hassan b. Thabit; cf.
Aghdm, iv, 8,10,11,81). Even the custom of waM is
attributed to the fear of dishonour (Aghdm, iv, 248). In
attempting to safeguard the rights of the female
believer from an economic point of view, Islam

confirms the pre-Islamic arrangements in everything
touching her love life.

In fact, it would be unwise to make generalisations.
Epinal's picture of a humble Arab woman submissive
to the wishes of her ba Q l, her lord and master, might
well be the masculine ideal for a wife, but this is not
the picture painted by our evidence. Many tales of the
pre-Islamic and even the Islamic period show woman
as a refined but mischievous creature, resisting super¬
vision and enjoying sufficient freedom to enable her to
embark on a few amorous adventures. The belief in
the child sleeping peacefully in his mother’s bosom is
the incontestable proof of this. We shall see later that,
in sexual matters, traditional customs are not adhered
to so rigidly as is often believed.

The birth of a daughter was not welcomed at all, for
families believed it could bring dishonour (Aghdm, iv,
248) or even poverty (Kurban, VI, 151; XVII, 31).
Fathers sometimes buried their daughter alive, even
though this custom was condemned in the Kur 3 an
(XVI, 58; LXXXI, 8). Among the Kuraysh, this
custom was common, and they buried their daughters
at a place called Abu Dulama, a hill above Mecca
(Aghdm, xi, 246). But for the most part, fathers
seemed to accept the inevitable and to find consolation
in counting up how much the infant girl would bring
him on the occasion of her marriage.

Khafd [q.v.\ “excision” was practised everywhere.
It is not certain whether this happened soon after birth
or just before marriage, but if the latter, it can be seen
as a rite of passage. The girl would be married when
she was scarcely nubile, and often she was promised
from birth; sometimes her father or brother would
exchange her for a wife without spending any money.
This type of union was known as shighar (LA, s.v. sh. -
gh.-r) and even applied to married women. A man
would repudiate his wife and exchange her for another
man’s (Aghdnt, xviii, 356). Marriage by exchange was
forbidden in Islam (Muslim, Sdhfh, Cairo 1334, iv,
136), but nonetheless practised even to the present
day. This emphasises the lack of real concern shown
for the girl's own wishes, regarding her future part¬
ner. Her father, brother or guardian would draw up
an agreement without even consulting her (Aghdnt, x,
104; xix, 131-2, 275) which is not surprising consider¬
ing how young she was when first married. c A 5 isha
was married to the Prophet at the age of six, and the
marriage was consummated when she was nine
(Muslim, Sahih , iv, 142). A widow or a divorced
woman (thayyib), not so much in demand as a virgin
(bikr), would generally make her own arrangements.
This was probably what happened when a woman
offered herself to Muhammad (Kur 5 an, XXX, 50); he
declined the offer. The KuHanic reforms tried to
protect the young girl when her parents abuse the
right to be consulted (but see djabr in Suppl.).

Arab dictionaries use the same word nikah to denote
stable and temporary unions, which often do not last
long and border on prostitution. According to a hadith,
attributed to c A : ’isha and recorded by al-Bukharl. pre-
Islamic society recognised four forms of marriage. (1)
A man may marry the daughter or sister of another
man on payment of a dowry. (2) A man asks his wife,
after her menstruation, to have intercourse with
someone he names so that she can have a child of good
pedigree. He himself avoids all contact with her until
her pregnancy is evident. (3) A group of less than ten
men assemble at a woman’s house and all have inter¬
course with her. For the child which is subsequently
born, the mother chooses one of the ten she prefers to
be the official father. (4) A woman gives herself to any
man as a prostitute. If she becomes pregnant, she

476

al-MAR^A

waits until the child is born and then consults a
physiognomist to decide which of her clients is to be
the father of the child. Once he has been selected, that
man must accept paternity. To these four types,
others can now be added. (5) shighdr , a marriage by
exchange described above. (6) nikdh al-makt , a
marriage to the father’s widow, which was prohibited
by the Kur 5 an (IV, 22). (7) nikdh al-mut c a, temporary
marriage, which was authorised at the beginning of
Islam but forbidden by the sunna, apparently on the
initiative of the caliph c Umar; tolerated however by
the Shf c a. (8) nikdh al-khidn , concubinage, which is
also prohibited by the Kurban (IV, 25, V, 5).

On examination, the various types of “marriage”
listed show two different attitudes to the relationship.
Types 1,2,5 and 6 clearly betray the influence of the
patriarchal system. The woman is completely sub¬
jugated to the man and has apparently little freedom.
He may use her as he wishes, even to the point of
making her share another man’s bed; this is done
either to honour the man or to raise a child of good
stock. Moreover, he can “reserve for himself” a close
relation (a sister or a daughter for example), not to
marry himself but to exchange for a wife. The
domination of women by men in this family system is
absolute, and it is nowhere illustrated better than in
the Arab preferential marriage. Now as before, it
occurs between a man and the daughter of his pater¬
nal uncle, the well-known bint c am7n, a word which has
now become synonymous with “wife”. Similarly ibn
c amm means both paternal cousin and “husband"
(.Aghdni , xv, 263, 275). The son of a father’s brother
has by tradition a preemptory right over the daughter
of his uncle. He is therefore required only to pay a
symbolic dowry imposed by Islam. The mahr [q.v .)
recouped by the father is in inverse proportion to the
degree of the relationship. Strangers to the tribe pay
more than fellow tribesman who are in an
unfavourable position in regard to the hamula; the ibn
c amm would be absolved from payment and could
even compel his uncle to give him his daughter. More
distant cousins were equally favoured, but could not
press their demands. Nevertheless, this unwritten
right is not absolute; the more sedentary the
community, the more it is contested. In literature,
there are many examples of an uncle refusing his
nephew through greed. The fear of weak progeny is
an equally common reason for advising against
marriage to the bint c amm. But the woman who is
called to live in a strange tribe naturally evokes
sympathy. She will be far away from her agnates, her
natural protectors. Once relieved of the constraints
imposed on her, the girl need no longer submit to the
will of her cousin. When the poet al-Farazdak became
the guardian of his bint c amm Nawar, he had to devise
a plan to get her to marry him after she had refused
many times (A gh dni, xix, 12ff.).

Though the nomadic life, which condemns its follo¬
wers to an indrawn existence, may favour endogamy,
it does not explain a man’s domination of his bint
c amm. Robertson Smith likens this type of marriage to
the right of inheritance. It is as though the woman
forms part of the patrimony and many other customs
confirm this point of view.

Marriage to the step-mother was quite widespread
among the ancient Arabs. Al-ShahrastanT tells the
story of three brothers who succeeded to their father’s
widow. It was recorded in both Medina and Mecca,
and can be connected with the levirate, which was
known to the Arabs then and is known now. Greed
was the main reason for marrying a father’s widow.
The Kur’an considered it an abominable practice

(IV, 22), and contemporaries of Muhammad ma¬
ligned anyone who resorted to it; they called him a
dayzan , which means one who is callous to his father
and, not content to have his goods, wants to have his
wile as well. On this point the Kur 3 an expressly says:
“O you who have believed! You are forbidden to
inherit wives against their wishes, or to prevent them
marrying in order that you may appropriate from
them a part of what you gave them” (IV, 19).
Commentators have observed that when a man dies,
leaving a widow, his heir covers her with his cloak to
show the right he has over her. Having done this, he
may either keep her for himself without spending any
money, for the dowry was paid by the deceased; or he
can marry her off on condition that a new dowry is
paid, which will come to him. He can also prevent her
from marrying until she has bought back her freedom
with what she received from her husband; if she does
not, she will remain in his possession until she dies,
and he will become her heir. Such a greedy attitude
is found not only in the son but in the other male
agnate relations, especially when the deceased left
behind very young daughters. Here again the Kur’an
(IV, 127) plainly refers to orphaned girls whose guar¬
dians refuse to give them what has been bequeathed
to them; they would rather keep them in order to
marry them or force them to buy their freedom. In the
same way, the paternal cousin, who is the first clai¬
mant able to marry the girl without committing
incest, tries to seize what will ultimately come to him
by inheritance, even during the lifetime of his uncle.
Al-WahidI, in his commentary on verse xix of the
Sura on Women, refers to this. A woman called
Kubaysha complained to Muhammad about the
behaviour of her stepson who had inherited her; he
did not support her financially, he did not cohabit
with her nor would he grant her her freedom. Once
they knew of her complaint, all the women of Medina
searched for the Messenger of Allah and told him,
“All of us are in the same situation as Kubaysha,
except that the right to marry us is not inherited by
our sons but by the children of our paternal uncles”
(al-Wahidl, Asbdb al-nuzul, Cairo 1315, 108). Thus in
the minds of the women of Medina, marriage to a
parallel cousin was similar to that of a son to his
father’s widow, sc. a right of succession. In neither
case did the woman have any free will; at one time,
she could belong to her husband’s heir, and at another
to her father’s future heir.

All this raises the question of the status of the Arab
woman regarding inheritance before Islam, a much-
debated issue. It is generally thought that at Medina
she was disinherited for the same reason as children:
“Only those who fight and defend property can
inherit.” At Mecca, a trading town, the system of
succession may have been more favourable, although
the sources contradict each other. The words of the
caliph c Umar are often quoted: “We Kurayshites
dominate our wives; at Medina we find the men are
dominated by their wives” (al-BukharT, Sahih, Cairo
1376, vii, 25). Obviously, the writer here is not
concerned so much with the system of inheritance as
with e.g. the behaviour of the women. It is difficult to
imagine that a woman who behaves like a virago to
her husband will display docility when her property is
under attack. In any case, whether the woman was
from Mecca or Medina, she would receive presents
from her khidn “friend”, her husband, and her
relatives. She could even have a personal fortune and
administer it as she pleased, as did Khadfdja, who ran
her own business. She might even receive part of the
inheritance by will.

al-MAR?A

477

Many orientalists feel that the reforms introduced
by the Kurban to help women were inspired by the
system of inheritance used in Mecca; but that thesis
cannot be discussed here. We shall simply observe
that in several verses of the Kurban it clearly states
that the woman, be she mother or wife, had wealth
which on her death reverted to her husband or
children (IV, 12,37,175). In the circumstances, the
Kur 5 an must only have recorded what was a known
fact. It would be difficult to explain in any other way
the compulsion brought to bear on a widow to make
her buy back her freedom by giving up part or all of
what she had received from her husband. Besides
what money she could earn from her own work (weav¬
ing, husbandry, beauty care, singing and dancing),
she had other opportunities to be materially indepen¬
dent, thanks to matrimonial customs approaching free
unions.

The four other types of marriage mentioned above
(types 3,4,7 and 8) could assure the woman of a more
or less comfortable existence. They are rooted in a
matrilinear conception of relationship, and assume
that the woman enjoys a fairly large amount of sexual
freedom. In a society founded on the code of honour
of the desert, even prostitution would be interpreted
as a sign of tolerance in sexual matters, since the
woman can indulge in this activity without fearing for
her life. Furthermore, she is able to take a khidn who
pays for the services thus rendered by a sadak. Group
marriage and mut c a also confirm the existence of
matrilinear customs. In a temporary union, while still
living within the group of relations, she grants her
favour to a man and receives a payment in kind (a
dress, a measure of dates or flour), and it lasts for a
fixed time, usually three days (Muslim, Sahih , iv,
130 ff.). The texts say nothing about any child born
of this union; probably he would belong to his
mother’s clan and take her name, as was the case with
the child born to a prostitute. The famous Ziyad b.
Abihi [q.v. ] was better known by the name Ibn
Sumayya in Arab literature, and many men used their
mother’s name. One cannot for certain whether they
were all born from cohabitation; it simply implies that
the system of matriliny was well-known to the ancient
Arabs. There are several examples: the king c Amr b.
Hind, the poets Sulayk b. Sulaka, Ibn al-Dumayna-
(Aghdni, xv, 350), Ibn al-Tathriyya (ibid, xv, 385), Ibn
al-Haddadiyya (ibid, xiii, 3), Ibn Dabba (ibid., vi,
307), etc.

Very many tribes have a woman as eponymous
ancestor, such as the c Amila, BadjTla. Khindif and
Kayla. There are also numerous examples of
matrilocality. The poet Ma c n b. Aws [q.v.] took
advantage of a visit to Basra to marry a woman whose
guest he was. He spent a year with her and then asked
her permission to go back to his first wife ( Aghdni. x,
352).

Whatever interpretation is put on these customs,
they certainly show that the pre-Islamic Arab woman
enjoyed much more freedom, even in sexual matters,
than is generally supposed. Whenever the outcome of
a battle seemed uncertain, the chief would place his
daughter in a litter among the warriors in the hope
that it would stimulate their excitement, and the
prospect of such a marvellous reward would lead to
victory. On the day of tahaluk, the two daughters of
Find al-Zimmanf, like she-devils, undressed among
the warriors and sang love songs to give them more
courage (Aghdni, xx, 345). On the day of Uhud, the
same song was taken up by Hind bint c Utba among
the ranks of Kuraysh (Aghdni, xi, 238).

It was the custom, especially for the tribes from the

South, like the Kinda, the Djarm and the Banu
c Udhra, to let a man speak to the girl he loved of his
sentiments (e.g. Aghdni , vii, 218, 219, 234, 263).
However, when the suitor pressed his claim, the girl’s
father, fearing a scandal, might ban him from the
house and decline his offer of marriage. The most
famous example is that of Tawba b. al-Humayyir and
Layla al-Akhyaliyya [q.v.]. Imru 3 al-Kays celebrated
his love affairs in his Mu'allaka. Al-Farazdak once
surprised some girls bathing in a pool and exclaimed,
“By God! It’s like the day of djarat djuldjul" (Aghdni,
xix, 52). Men and women might meet on many occa¬
sions, in the pasture lands, at wells and even in the
rents. A woman would converse with men and have
guests when the master of the house was away. The
big annual fairs, which served well for arranging mar¬
riages, were frequented by women, poetesses, trades¬
women, inquisitive women and those eager for a
sexual relationship, whether regular, temporary or
licentious. In the first century after the Hidjra, while
pursuing beauty, c Umar b, AbT Rabi c a took advan¬
tage of the pilgrimage season to embark on some
amorous adventures. On the question of the veil, see
hidjab. Not only could the pre-Islamic woman
converse with men (cf. Aghdni , xix, 306) but by tradi¬
tion she had the right to protect them. Fugitives from
the battle of the Fidjar found sanctuary in the tent of
Subay c a bint c Abd Shams (ibid., 161). When hard-
pressed and in danger of his life, the well-known su c luk
Sulayk b. Sulaka sought refuge with a woman who
belonged to his enemy’s clan. Without hesitation, she
defended him from his pursuers, covered him with her
mantle and took up a sword to drive off those pursu¬
ing him; but, being outnumbered, she uncovered her
hair and called her brothers to the rescue. The fugitive
thus escaped death (Aghdni, xviii, 320; cf. xx, 380 ff.).

However a man might behave himself towards his
wives and female relatives, he expected strangers to
show them the greatest respect. To cast a slur on a
woman’s honour was to throw down the gauntlet.
Chroniclers say that the cause of the war of the Fidjar
(Aghdni, x, 152) can be attributed to a joke in very bad
taste. The victim of the joke was a woman of the Banu
c Amir who let herself be courted by the young men at
the suk of c Ukaz.

There is considerable evidence of a considerate
attitude to women, but nevertheless they did not
escape the hazards of war with the risk of captivity.
Her conqueror would rarely spare her the ultimate
humiliation of making her grace his bed (Aghdni, xix,
340 ff.). Islam permits sexual relations with prisoners
of war (Muslim, Sahih, iv, 158; 170; cf. Aghdni, xii,
370); married women are not excluded (Aghdni, xix,
25, supported by a verse of al-Farazdak); but preg¬
nant women must not be approached (Muslim, iv,
161).

Even before Islam repudiation (talak) was known to
the Arabs. A man could send away his wife simply by
unilateral decision. All he had to do was to recite the
formula anti talika. Another formula, with incestuous
overtones, lent more gravity to the situation, but it
belonged to the zihar and was forbidden by Islam
(Kur-’an, LVIII, 2). The man would say to his wife,
anh c alayya ka-zahri ummi, “To me you are like my
mother’s back”. When the woman desired to sepa¬
rate, the man had recourse to khul*'; he would agree to
restore her freedom on condition that she gave him
back all or most of the property he had given her (cf.
KuHan, II, 229; the arrangement is not prohibited
provided the financial agreement is mutually accep¬
table). There were two other ways, rather more
exigent, by which a man could force a woman to

478

al-MARM

return to him what she had been given by him. The
fia^was a temporary interruption of the marriage and
could last for up to two years. The Kurban reduced the
period to four months (II, 226). There was also the
W/, which was prohibited by the Kur’an (IV. 9).

In the face of all this oppression the woman seemed
helpless, yet there are records of women wanting to
safeguard their independence, who only agreed to
marry if they were granted the right to leave their
husbands. Such women appear to have belonged to
the higher social levels, and appear at Medina as well
as at Mecca, among the sedentary communities as
well as among the nomads. One cannot speak in this
connection of polyandry, but they certainly changed
their husbands very frequently. Al-Maydanf has
recorded the names of some of them, the most famous
one being Umm Kharidja, who is said to have
married about forty times and whose hastiness in
marriage became proverbial ( Amthdl , proverb no.
1871, Cairo 1959, i, 348; according to Ibn Habib,
Muhabbar , 436, she married only about eight times).

Islam, it is true, allowed only men the right of
repudiation, but the women of the Kuraysh
aristocracy sometimes behaved like their independent
sisters of the old regime. Because of their nobility,
they were much in demand, and so they married
many times; in this way, they were able to amass large
fortunes ( Aghdni , xiv, 37; x, 110 ff.) and make life
hard for their husbands [Aghdni, xviii, 468). One of
these women, the famous c A :, Isha bint Talha [q.v. ],
even repudiated her husband by using the ancient
formula of the zihar\ she would not go back on her
oath until she was convinced that it was invalid
(Aghdni, x, 106).

In the pre-Islamic period, a widow would observe
a delay before remarrying. When her husband died
she would be shut away, wear her oldest clothes and
use no perfume. After a year, she would come out
from her place of withdrawal and throw a clod of
mud. From that time onwards, she could lead a
normal life (al-Bukhari, Sahid, vii, 52). This period
was shortened by Islam to four months and ten days
(Kur’an, II, 234), during which she might not use
perfume or kuhl. When she received condolences, if
she wished to remarry she remained seated; otherwise
she would stand (Aghdni, x, 114).

These details have been given so that the status of
women during the period of the Hidjra can be
understood in the light of tradition, but these customs
do not necessarily have any legal force. There are
many problems still to be solved about the position of
women in traditional law, and the pre-Islamic
material is too scanty to help in solving them. The
Kur’an and the early fikh accord a considerable part
to traditional customs, but Islam also provided a new
outlook here by giving women a legal position, even
though it is a diminished one, for she only counts as
half the value of a man. It is not clear whether this is
new legislation, or merely an adaption of old customs.
Rather than waste time in conjecture, it seems worth¬
while to study the behaviour of present-day Arab
nomads.

Being Muslims, they have probably been influ¬
enced by that faith, notably in regard to what
concerns their personal status, even though its influ¬
ence may not be very deep. More than one modern
custom is in direct contravention of the shar c . Woman
is systematically disinherited and her evidence is often
disregarded; marriage by exchange is frequently prac¬
tised, and in blood revenge, equality is demanded.
Clearly, the permanence of pre-Islamic customs here
proves the lasting influence of the tdghut. Traditional

rights are still decided this way in the Yemen. Not all
the pre-Islamic customs still thrive in Bedouin society,
but the prevailing legal framework observed by them
has been inspired by that tradition. They bear the
mark of the desert, the same influence that has shaped
all the Semitic nomads.

c. The legal status of Bedouin women.

The birth of a daughter is no cause for rejoicing.
She is of so little account that if a Bedouin is asked
how many children he has, he deliberately misses out
the females. For the same reason, the strength of a
tribe is measured purely by the number of warriors it
can muster.

A girl’s education is left entirely in the hands of her
mother. From the time she is able to be of the smallest
service, she is made to help with the domestic chores.
From infancy onwards, excision is practised; some¬
times it occurs just before marriage, which can take
place when the girl is very young, often before she is
ten. This occasion is of great importance for the
father, for it falls to him to fix the amount of the
dowry which he generally keeps for himself. It usually
happens that the girl, whose opinion is rarely sought,
has been promised from birth to an agnate relative,
notably to her first paternal cousin, who has a pre-
emptory right over her. He often uses this right and
abuses it, for he can carry off his bint c amm on the day
she is married to someone else if he disapproves of the
union. He also has the right to “reserve’' her for
himself, although he is not required to follow up his
expressed matrimonial intention. There is only one
restriction to this excessive right, that is, the prohibi¬
tion of marriage by exchange, badal, when the girl’s
father or her brother try to get themselves a wife thus.
One should add that the traditional prerogatives of the
ibn c amm are being contested more and more.

Because she is regarded as a source of wealth, the
woman is jealously guarded, if not for the members of
her hamula , at least for own clan. Marriage outside the
tribe is rare; generally it will take place only for
political reasons or to stifle revenge. Of all the
different types of union mentioned above, there
remain only the marriage union as it is practised by
the Muslims, marriage by exchange, profit, and
finally, a special type of matrilocal union which will be
discussed below.

Marriage by exchange, though condemned by
Islam, is much practised, even among the sedentary
Yemeni people. To conform to the sharTa, each side
must offer the other exactly the same rnahr. But things
become complicated when one of the husbands
repudiates his wife, since the other is then pledged to
follow his example or to pay back a suitable dowry. It
is not hard to envisage that law suits and angry scenes
are bound to follow as a consequence of this custom
in a society where the husband has only to repeat a set
formula in order to dissolve his marriage.

Abduction must be carefully distinguished from
taking captive. It is severely condemned in Bedouin
society, even when it is done with a view to marriage.
When it becomes known that a woman has been taken
off, all the agnate relatives set off in pursuit of the
culprit. If they catch him, he does not usually escape
death, and the ravished woman may suffer the same
fate. In fact, the treatment they each receive depends
on the intentions of the abductor and the civil status
of the woman he has taken.

A man who wishes to marry may encounter opposi¬
tion from the girl’s parents, and so he may, with her
consent, resort to abduction. Provided it is carried out
in good taste, his actions are looked on somewhat
indulgently, but it must take place in the presence of

al-MAR?A

479

a trustworthy witness who has been enlisted to help in
the operation. He must guard the girl, bring her to a
safe place and vouch for the fact that everything was
conducted honourably. With such pressure on the
father, the latter will usually give his consent but ask
for a high dowry. If the abduction is followed by illicit
sexual relations, the man and the girl will be punished
with the same severity as lovers who are caught in the
act. If the abduction has been carried out against the
wishes of the girl, the action is treated as rape. The
man must offer to make amends by marrying the girl,
and considers himself lucky if he is accepted. A dowry
will then be required of him equal to the price of her
blood. In addition, he is required to offer in marriage
a girl who is a close agnate relative to the father,
brother or paternal cousin of his future wife without
a dowry.

To abduct a married woman, even with her
consent, brings severe disapproval from Bedouin
society. It can lead to reprisals, often violent from the
husband in the first place, but also, and above all,
from the agnate relatives of the unfaithful wife. Death
awaits the lovers. They will escape their fate only if
they can find refuge with some powerful person or
influential leader. In order to save his guests, this
person must bring the husband to recite the repudia¬
tion formula in exchange for the dowry he paid. He
must also gain the parents’ consent to the marriage.
The abductor in turn must give one or more girls in
exchange for the wife.

If any woman is suspected of having an illicit sexual
relationship, whether she is a girl or a married
woman, widowed or divorced, she finds herself in
great danger. If gossip about her continues, she runs
the risk of being killed by a close agnatic relative, her
brother, cousin or uncle. Absence of proof of the
alleged misconduct is not regarded as proof of
innocence. It is customary to exonerate her or to
condemn her by adopting one of the following
procedures. Her father or guardian may request that
a court of justice summon her lover, about whom the
rumours are circulating, and that they make him
swear that the accusations being made against him arc
untrue. It is remarkable that the woman stays away
from this judicial action, even though her life depends
on it. Her presumed partner must stand before the
judge, and it is he who must take the oath. Women
are considered to be legally incapable, and so are
seldom authorised to appear before a Bedouin court
even as simple witnesses. Certainly, if it should
happen that there are no male witnesses in a
particular case, a judge might agree to hear a
woman’s evidence, but solely for his own information.
A woman’s evidence is only acceptable in law when it
concerns another woman. A quicker way to judge a
woman’s guilt is by subjecting her to the ordeal of
bash c a. If the evidence according to this procedure is
against her, it is not uncommon for her to be put to
death by a close agnatic relative.

The reputation of a woman for whom he is respon¬
sible evokes an uncompromising attitude among the
Bedouin. Abduction, adultery and rape all taint her
honour, and their guilt can be washed away only by
a blood-bath. But it always appears to be the woman
who pays the price, and there is a quick, private
system of justice to punish any girl who has
compromised her reputation. Traditional Bedouin
law relating to illicit love affairs is so complex that it
is impossible to survey the main features briefly and
accurately. Consideration must be given to the civil
status of the woman or girl, whether she is married,
widowed or divorced, her religious status, her

connivance with or opposition to her ravisher, the
resistance she displaced, the circumstances under
which the crime occurred, and the time and place of
the rape or attempted rape. It would obviously be
tedious to dwell on these points. However, the culprits
caught in the act are generally put to death. Their
blood has been spilled, which means that the one exac¬
ting justice will not be pursued for that action and the
diya will not have to be paid. The agnate relations may
be less severe with a young girl who is seduced, and
may let her off with her life, but the abductor must
then marry her and must give a girl from his close
family without asking for a dowry. He will also be
forbidden to repudiate his wife because of these
special circumstances.

It is probably unnecessary here to struggle through
the labyrinthine procedure of the c urj on matters of
illicit love affairs, but two of the previously-
mentioned points are worthy of note: the place and
the time of the crime. It may have been committed
near the camp at dusk after the flock had returned; or
in grazing land when the shepherdess was naturally
far away from her family. In the first case, the woman
is described as c akibat al-sarh , “the one who returns
behind the livestock” and she is entirely responsible
for what has occurred. At that time of day, it is
thought that she should be at home, and the fact that
she was far from her house proves that she was
conniving with her seducer. But if she was away at her
place of work, then her guilt is somewhat lessened, but
she must cry for help (hence the expression musayyihat
al-duha “the girl who cries in the morning”). She is
therefore spared by her family.

In several places previously, we have mentioned
that an abductor must hand over a girl from his close
family, without a dowry, to a member of the injured
family. This custom is sometimes observed in a case
ol murder, when the blood relative forgoes his right of
vengeance and accepts a compromise. The wergeld
that the family of a murderer must give as compensa¬
tion may include a young girl, called a ghurra in these
circumstances. She must be a virgin, white and free.
She is given in marriage without mahr to a near
relative of the victim, and is reduced in effect to a state
of semi-slavery. Although she is legally united to the
man whose life she shares, she is not completely
granted the status of a wife. She is liable to all the
oppressions that a husband metes out to his women¬
folk and endures his ill-treatment without being able
to have recourse to the protection of her family. The
most she can do is to seek refuge with an influential
person and ask for his help. Her role is to correct the
wrong inflicted on the injured family, by giving birth
to a male child to replace the deceased. When the boy
is old enough to bear arms, her mission is completed.
At that time she ceases to be a ghurra, a servant, and
becomes hurra , free. She can leave her husband, who
has no further right over her; if he tries to keep her he
must pay the dowry. She is not thought of as belong¬
ing permanently to the man who takes her, but is
handed over by her family against a guarantee that
she will be returned to them when she has finished her
task. Even when the conditions of a woman’s
marriage are perfectly normal, she is still legally
dependent on her own family. It is their responsibility
to defend her, and it also falls on them in the end to
avenge her blood.

One point of interest here is often passed over in
silence, but deserves to be mentioned. Although by
marriage a woman must be entirely submissive to her
new master’s will and must follow him and live
together with him, for all that, she is not his property.

480

al-MAR?A

She is like a precious investment placed in his hands
and which is entirely at his disposal. He may rebuke
her, he may even hit her, but he is not. allowed to
injure her or to atttempt to take her life, for he is
answerable to his parents-in-law for his conduct. He
is perfectly within his rights to kill her if he actually
catches her in the act of adultery, but then he may not
ask for the return of the dowry he has paid. He would
be entitled to a return of the dowry if he simply
repudiated her, and he would then leave her relatives
to wash away their shame in the culprit’s blood.

The married woman depends, legally speaking, on
her own family in most situations. It falls to her
father, brother, uncle or paternal cousin to chastise
her if she is at fault, and to avenge her blood if she is
a victim of murder. Unless the husband is also the
paternal cousin, he must restrain himself from any
violent action and be content to have the dowry paid
back to him.

The Bedouin woman is not handed over defenceless
to the despotism of her husband. It is even probable
that she often exerts a good influence on him. In his
absence, she may offer hospitality and shelter to a
fugitive. Even if her natural defenders, her agnatic
close relatives, disappear or are at a distance, she is
not left entirely without defence. If she is ill-treated by
her husband she can put herself in the protection of a
distinguished person as a dakhila, a refugee. It is then
up to her husband to ask her if she will resume
married life. To do this, he arranges a delegation of
at least three witnesses to inform her of his wishes.
This procedure can be repeated three times. If,
despite his insistence, his wife remains obstinate in
her refusal the husband then has the right not to
support her financially any more, if he does not want
to dissolve the marriage. If he does not make any of
these customary approaches, a Bedouin court can
condemn him to pay his wife substantial financial
compensation.

The dissolution of a marriage contract may occur in
two different ways: repudiation or widowhood. Only
the man has the right to divorce his spouse. If he does
this without an adequate motive, he cannot reclaim
the dowry, as custom enables him to if the fault is the
wife’s. This financial aspect to marriage plays an
important role when the woman seeks to regain her
independence and her husband refuses to recite the
liberating formula on his own. There is, however, one
circumstance where he is obliged to grant her her
freedom, sc. in the case of his impotency. Since a
woman’s legal incapacity forbids her to appear before
a law court, a relative representing her brings the
action against her husband. The latter then has the
right to only one-half of the dowry he paid. The
divorced woman, like the widow, must observe a
period of restraint before remarrying. The Hdda for
the Jordanian Bedouin is normally one hundred
nights, but often the woman is put back into circula¬
tion before the expiry of the minimal legal delay, for
she is considered a source of wealth.

Like repudiation, widowhood grants a woman
some freedom in her choice of further husband. She
may return to her own family, leaving behind all the
property left by her husband, or she may stay with her
husband’s family and her children. If she is of remar-
riageable age, the dead man’s brother may marry her.
But if the widow has the role of guardian according to
the wishes of the de cujus, in which case she can neither
rejoin her paternal home nor remarry. It is her
responsibility to remain at home looking after the
children and administering the property which she
inherited and which will pass to them when they attain

the age of majority. Since remarriage is unavailable,
she may ensure that she enjoys a normal sexual life by
taking a zawa ^ musarrib “visiting husband’’ This type
of union is very rare and runs counter to the principle
of patrilocality on which Bedouin society is built.
Instead of following her new partner, the widow
receives him at her house almost as a guest. Whether
the man is married or single, he must have his own
home to which he returns after visiting her. In this
way, the woman retains her freedom since she can
dismiss her visiting husband if she no longer wants
him. However, it is still he who has the right of
repudiation. This is one of the very rare times that a
Bedouin woman enjoys much economic inde¬
pendence.

The c urf is very strict with women in financial
matters. It especially disregards the teaching of the
Kur 5 an which decrees that a daughter shall inherit
exactly half the portion inherited by a son. It says that
the only people who are allowed to inherit are the
agnate males. On the father’s death, the sons possess
the property. The heirs must first attend to the needs
of the mother and the widows of the deceased.
Daughters are in their brother’s care until their
marriage. They must also help their sister both finan¬
cially and morally if she is divorced, widowed or ill-
treated. In return for these services, not only do these
brothers exclude them from the inheritance but they
also keep their dowries and exchange their sisters
when they barter for wives. Custom is no more
favourable to daughters in the case of a subsequent
inheritance from the mother’s side. No matter how
important the total, they receive only the jewelry and
the clothes. Even if the price of their mother’s blood
is involved, they do not receive anything more.

The problem of the dtya for the murder of a woman
brings many related complexities. From a purely
formal point of view, the c urf decrees that a woman’s
blood is worth half of a man’s. It is exactly the diya of
an unemancipated slave. In reality, this applies when
the murder was committed by a person of the same
sex or when it happened purely by accident and not
as the result of war or raid. A complete diya is required
when a woman is unfortunately hit by a stray bullet
in a brawl between two families or clans. On the other
hand, the blood money can in effect quadruple in
nominal value, i.e. double that for a man, when the
death follows a struggle with a man, even if that man
was only defending himself. If a woman dies at or
after an attempted rape, the diya becomes from eight
to twelve times its original value. In addition, the c urf
makes a subtle distinction between a single and a
married woman. In the latter case, it seeks to establish
whether she is pregnant or not. If her pregnancy is
confirmed, the sex of the foetus must be determined.
Whatever the cause of death, a pregnant woman
counts as two people. The culprit will have to pay
either the diya for two women or for a man and a
woman; of course, the case can be made worse depen¬
ding on the circumstances and prevailing conditions
at the time of the crime.

In conclusion, two comments should be made on
the legal status of the Bedouin woman. First, it would
be erroneous to pretend that the situation is the same
for all the desert Arabs. Customs more or less local
may vary, and important variations may be seen from
one region to another. But there is good reason to
suppose that these variations reflect differences in the
letter of the traditional law rather than in its spirit, the
perpetuity of the law being firmly guaranteed by its
environment. The c urf represents one kind of
mentality, that of the nomadic Semite, and there are

al-MAR^A

481

many similar customs to those described above
attested among the ancient Hebrew nomads.
Secondly, it would be equally wrong to suggest that
this law, even where women are concerned, is as alive
today to the extent it was at the opening of this
century. The evolutionary process, less or more active
according to the different regions, seems to develope
in two directions. There is a marked return to the
shar c , and many persons have tried to prove, in a
contradictory fashion, that there is no break in the
continuity of tradition between c urf and shar c . On the
other hand, central governments have, in a rather
more discreet manner, endeavoured to move towards
a more modern conception of justice to accord with
the general trends in the country. Despite all this
pressure, there appears to be a part of Q urf which
seems secure against all modern reforms: that of
whiteness of the face, honour and c ird, which in its
very essence is symbolised by woman.

Bibliography : As well as the references in the
text see in general: c AfIfI, al-Mar^a al- c arabiyya,
Cairo n.d.; Alusi, Bulugh al-arab fi ma c rifat ahwdl al-
c Arab, Cairo 1342; HashimI, al-MaPa fi 'l-shi c r al-
djahili, Baghdad 1960; Ibn Kayyim al-Djawzivya,
Akhbar al-nisa 5 , Beirut 1964; I. Lichtenstadter,
Women in the Aiyam al- c Arab, London 1935; A. El-
Yafi, La condition privee de la femme dans le droit de
I’lslam , Paris 1928; W. Walter, Femmes en Islam,
Paris 1981. Kinship and marriage: W.
Robertson Smith, Kinship and marriage in early
Arabia, Cambridge 1885; B. Z. Seligman, Studies in
Semitic kingship, in BSOS, iii (1923), 51-68, 263-80;
G. Stern, Marriage in early Islam , London 1936; R.
F. Spencer, The Arabian malriarchate: an old
controversy, in Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, viii
(1952); J. Henninger, Polyandrie im vorislamischen
Arabien , in Anthropos, xlix (1954); idem, Le probleme
du totemisme chez les arabes apres quatre-vingt ans de
recherche , in Actes du VI e congres des sciences anthropologi-
ques et ethnologiques, Paris 1960; J. Lecerf, Note sur la
famille dans le domaine arabe et islamique, in Arabica, iii
(1956); W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at
Medina , Excursus J. Oxford 1956; J. Chelhod, Le
manage avec la cousine parallele dans le systeme arabe, in
L'Homme , v (1965), 113-74; F. Peltier and G. H.
Bousquet, Les successions agnatiques mitigees, Paris
1935; Ethnography: J. Chelhod, Le droit dans la
societe bedouine, Paris 1971 (with an important bibl.);
idem, La parente et le marriage au Yemen, in
L’Ethnographic, n.s., Ixvii (1973); idem, L’Arable du
Sud , iii, Paris 1985, 63-123. (J. Chelhod)

3. In Persia, a. Before 1900.

The following will not be concerned with the legal
position of women—this has been discussed above in
sections 1 and 2—but will focus on their position and
role in society. The sources are meagre. Women did
not normally leave written accounts of their lives. We
know little of their motives and characters from their
own accounts, and it is not to be expected that others
should write of them except in very general terms. So
far as women are mentioned, they belong for the most
part either to the ruling classes or to those who are
believed to have made some contribution to the
religious life of the community. Among the latter are
women of the family of the Prophet and saints. Their
lives are recorded in biographical dictionaries and
hagiographical works. Their characters are seldom
delineated in any but the broadest terms, and the
virtues ascribed to them are usually characteristic
Islamic virtues. This is to some extent true of the
women of the ruling class also. They are mentioned in
histories and chronicles because they either played a

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

prominent part in events as regents or in some other
capacity and because marriage alliances were an
important element in state policy. Women of the
middle and lower classes are seldom mentioned and
peasant women are virtually ignored. Much inciden¬
tal information on women is, however, to be found in
the historical literature of the 5th-8th/l 1th- 14th
centuries. The anonymous Tarikh-i shahl-i Kara-
Khitdfvdn written in the 7 th/13 th century (ed.
Muhammad Ibrahim BastanI Parlzl, Tehran Shahin-
shahl 2535/1976-7), and the Simt al- c uld of Nasir dl-
Dln MunshI, written between 715/1315-16 and
720/1320-1 (ed. c Abbas Ikbal, Tehran AHS
1327/1949-50) contain lively accounts of the women of
the Kara-Khitay (Kutlugh-Khanid) dynasty of
Kirman, and the DjamT al-tawarikh of Rashid al-Dln
Fadl Allah gives much information on the women of
the Ilkhanid family. The sources for the later centuries
are less rich, until the 19th century, when there are
several important works which give a picture of the
activities of women of the ruling class, notably the
Tdrlkh-i ’'Adudi of Sultan Ahmad Mlrza c Adud al-
Dawla b. Fath c AlI Shah (ed. c Abd al-Husayn
Nawaz 1 !, Tehran Shahinshahl, 2535/1976-7) Yaddasht-
ha^i az zindagani-i khususi-i Nasir al-Dln Shah by Dust
c AlI Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik, who grew up as a page in
the Kadjar court (Tehran n.d.); and vol. i of Sharh-i
zindagi-i man by c Abd Allah Mustawff (3 vols., Tehran
AHS 1324-5/1945-6), which gives an intimate picture
of life in an upper class family in Tehran; while Tadj
al-Saltana, the daughter of Nasir al-Dln Shah, who
was born in 1301/1883-4, wrote an autobiography
entitled Khdtirat-i Tadi al-Saltana in 1343/1924-5) (ed.
Mansura Ittihadiyya and Slrus Sa c dwandiyan,
Tehran AHS 1361/1982). From the 10th/16th century
onwards, Persian sources are supplemented by the
accounts of European travellers. These, by the nature
of things, are the accounts of outsiders, but as inter¬
course increased in the 19th century and European
women began to come to Persia, the information on
the position of women and their daily life becomes
fuller.

At all periods, there was a difference between
townswomen, peasant women and tribal women. The
general consensus of the settled population was
against the participation of women in public affairs.
Townspeople were secluded and played no part in
public life; and little is revealed of their influence in
family affairs. All houses, other than those of the very
poor, were divided into the women’s apartments, the
andarun, public apartments, the birun, where business
was transacted and male guests entertained. In the
richer houselholds, it was customary for eunuchs and
female slaves to be employed in the andarun. Peasant
women worked in the fields. They did not, however,
usually appear unveiled in public before the opposite
sex.

In tribal society, great weight was given to the bond
of blood relationship, and the woman’s role in
establishing this was of great, perhaps paramount,
importance. Marriage alliances consolidated tribal
federations and marked the entry of new tribes into
existing federations. The exchange of women was also
a method of terminating blood feuds. The nature of
tribal society was such that women enjoyed a status
and function which was, on the whole, denied to them
in settled society. Tribeswomen did not normally veil.
They played an active part in the daily life of the tribe
and often in the management of tribal affairs (cf. Sir
John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, London 1845, 154-5).

In all classes and sectors of society, child marriage
and the marriage of cousins were normal practice.

482

al-MAR 5 A

Among the richer classes, polygamy was common.
Rivalry between the inmates of the haram to secure
favour for their own sons was of frequent occurence.
Remarriage of widows and divorced women was also
common [see mut c a and nikah].

With the rise of the Saldjuks [q. v. ] in the 5th/11th
century, women of the ruling class began to play a
more active role in political life. The reason for this is
probably to be sought in their Turkic tribal
background, even though the Saldjuks were to some
extent separated from this once they had become the
rulers of an empire. From the time of Toghril Beg
onwards, marriage alliances with local ruling families
and with the caliphate were an important aspect of
Saldjuk policy. This was also true of the succession
states. The sons of Saldjuk mothers do not appear to
have had precedence over the sons of other wives, nor,
in general do the sons of free women appear to have
had precedence over the sons of slave women or
concubines. Some of the wives of the sultans had their
own diwans and establishments; some held iktiT s [ q.v.
and landed property; and some disposed o'
considerable wealth. The office of wazir to the wife of
the sultan was sometimes a stepping-stone to impor¬
tant office under the sultan. Several “royal” women
played a prominent part in public life. Toghril Beg is
reported to have consulted his chief wife Altun Djan
in affairs, Sibt b. al-Djawz! states that she was a
religious woman, much given to charitable works, of
good judgement and firm determination (MiTat al-
zaman , ed. Ali Sevim, Ankara 1968, 75; cf. also Ibn
al-DjawzI, al-Muntazam , Haydarabad, Deccan 1938-
40, viii, 218). Terken Khatun, the chief wife of
Malikshah, was a masterful and ambitious woman.
She and Zubayda Khatun. another of Malikshah’s
wives, vied with each other in order to secure the
succession of their respective sons after the death of
Malikshah. The former appears to have had a sizeable
force of military slaves at her disposal.

Some of the wives of the amirs and atabegs were also
women of character; and several of them were noted
for their charitable benefactions. One such was
Zahida Khatun, who ruled Fars for twenty-one years
after the death of her husband Boz Aba in 541/1146-7.
Another was the mother of Arslan b. Toghril b.
Muhammad, who was married after_ the death of
To gh ril to Ildeguz, the Atabeg of c Adharbaydjan,
under whose tutelage Arslan was installed as nominal
ruler in Hamadan in 556/1161. Recording her death,
which occurred in 571/1175-6, Zahir al-Din
Nishapun states that “it was as if the good order of
the kingdom and the dynasty depended upon the
existence of that lady” ( Saldjuk-nama , Tehran AHS
1332/1953-4, 82). Abish Khatun. the daughter of the
Atabeg Sa c d of Fars, had a lively though short life.
After the death of the last of the Atabegs of Fars,
Saldjuk-Shah b. Salghur-Shah b. Sa c d in 662/1263-4,
she was put on the throne with the support of the Shut
and Turkoman amirs , although she was only 4 or 5
years old, because no direct male descendant of the
Atabegs survived. She had apparently already before
that been betrothed by her mother to Tash Mongke,
Hiilegu’s son. In due course, she became his chief
wife. Her daughter Kurdiidjin received a contract
(mukata c a) in 719/1319-20 for the taxes of Fars from
Abu Sa c !d, the last Ilkhan. She was married first to
Soyurghatmish, the Kutlugh-Khanid ruler of
Kirman, and secondly and thirdly to Mongol amiirs.

In Kh w arazm. Terken Khatun. the wife of the
Kh w arazmshah Tekesh, played a turbulent role in the
politics of Kh w arazm during the reign of her son
Muhammad (596-617/1199-1220). She finally fell into

the hands of the Mongols, and was sent to Karakorum
where she died in 630/1232-3 (see Barthold, Turkestan ,
index under Turkan-Khatun). Another Terken
Khatun, who was also known after her marriage in
632/1235 to Kutb al-Dm Muhammad, the Kara
Khitay (Kutlu gh - Kh anid) ruler of Kirman, by her
lakab Kutlugh Terken, was an outstanding woman.
She ruled Kirman after her husband’s death in
655/1257 because her two sons, Soyurghatmish and
Hadjdjadj Sultan, were minors. She was a capable
and vigorous woman, who in addition to her attention
to affairs of state, was also given to charitable works
and generous patronage of the c ulama Her daughters
Padishah Khatun and Bib! Khatun also played a
prominent part in the political affairs of the day; the
former was married to the Ilkhan Abaka (see Tarikh-i
shahi-i Kara Khita 3 lydn and Nasir al-Dln Munshi, Simt
al- c uld, passim).

The Mongol conquest brought changes in the posi¬
tion and status of women of the ruling class. The
Ilkhans for the most part appear to have taken their
wives from the Mongol tribes, and through them to
have retained their links with the Mongols in Central
Asia and China. They also concluded marriage
alliances with local ruling families, whose daughters
they took into their harams. Such alliances had benefits
for both parties: the local rulers assured their own
positions, even if only temporarily, while the Ilkhans
were able through such unions to bring outlying prov¬
inces more closely under their control. But while local
women were taken into the establishments of the
Ilkhans. women of the Ilkhanid family and of Mongol
noyans are seldom recorded as having been given to
local rulers. The women of defeated enemies, so far as
they escaped massacre, were regarded as part of the
booty and were taken into the establishment of the
Mongol princes and army commanders._

The wives and daughters of the Ilkhans and
Mongol princes enjoyed a privileged position vis-a-vis
the rest of society. They received a share of the booty
and took part in the kuriltays [q. v. ] held to acclaim or
appoint a new Ilkhan. Many of them accumulated
great wealth. Ogedey’s chief wife Toregene and
Giiyuk’s chief wife both acted as regent on the death
of their respective husbands, pending the appoint¬
ment of a new Great Khan. 7'here are no instances of
women acting as regents in the llkhanate. but after
the death of Abu Sa c id, the last Ilkhan. his sister Sati
Beg was put on the throne with the help of Shavkh
Hasan, the grandson of the Amir Copan, in
799/1338-9, on the grounds that the right of the
throne was hers since no male member of the house of
Hiilegu remained. In fact, however, the kingdom
passed to the Copanids and the Djalahrids. In spite of
the prestige and authority enjoyed by the women of
the Ilkhanid house, their freedom was limited by
custom and their position was, in many respects, one
of subjection. On the death of an Ilkhan. his wife
passed to his successor or to one of his uncles, brothers
or sons. If accused of plotting against the Ilkhan or of
some other misdemeanour, Ilkhanid women were not
immune from trial by yarghu [q-i>.], the bastinado and
even execution, whether guilty of the crime of which
they were accused or not.

The senior wives of the Ilkhanids had their own
ordus. Junior wives were often placed in the ordu of a
senior wife. Imperial concubines were distributed
among the ordus of the Ilkhan’s wives. Some were in
due course promoted to the status of a “full” wife. On
the death (or disgrace) of one of his wives, the Ilkhan
would give her ordu to another of his wives. It is
difficult to determine exactly the composition and size

al-MAR 3 A

483

of the ordus of the Mongol princesses. By the time of
Ghazan, many of them were large and powerful
establishments. The Mongol princesses also took part
in the activities of the trading and money-lending
partnerships known as ortaks. Ghazan apparently
sought to bring the ordus of the princesses under
control and to use their revenues for military and
other expenditure (see further Lambton, Continuity and
change in medieval Persia: aspects of administrative, economic
and social history 5th/ 11th to 8th! 14th century, forth¬
coming; Spuler, DieMongolen in Iran 3 , Berlin 1968, see
index under Frau ; Shinn BayanI, Zan dar Irdn-i c ahd-i
MuehuL Tehran AHS 1352/1974).

The position of women under the Tlmurids
resembled in many ways their position in the
Ilkhanate. Timur himself seems to have chosen wives
mainly of Mongol origin for himself and his family
(H. Hookham, Tamburlaine the conqueror, London
1962, 72). They had their own quarters in the royal
camp ( Clavijo: embassy to Tamerlane , tr. G. Le Strange,
London 1928, 242-3, 268, 271). They appeared in
public at royal feasts and on occasion gave banquets
themselves, at which they appeared only lightly veiled
before their male and female guests {ibid., 237,
244 ff., 275; cf. also Mu c In al-DTn NatanzI’s account
of a great feast given by Timur in 806/1403-4 at which
women were present, Muntakhab al-tawarikh ed. J.
Aubin, Tehran AHS 1336/1957, 398 ff.).

Under the Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu, women
of the ruling class continued to play an influential
role, especially through the establishment of kinship
links (see J. E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu: clan, confedera¬
tion, empire, Minneapolis and Chicago 1976). Mar¬
riage alliances in the early Safawid period also were an
important means of consolidating the ruler’s influ¬
ence. Tahmasp was allied in this way with powerful
amirs and local rulers (see Iskander MunshI, c Alamara-
yi c Abbdst, Tehran AHS 1334/1956, 2 vols., i, 125 ff.,
for mention of his wives); his sister was married to the
religious leader, Islam Shah Ni c mat Allah Yazdl, and
a daughter of this union was married to Tahmasp’s
son, Isma c Il Mlrza {ibid., 132). Zaynab Begum, one
of Tahmasp’s daughters, whose mother was a
Georgian woman, was, according to Iskandar
MunshI, highly intelligent and acquired great influ¬
ence with c Abbas I, into whose haram she passed. She
was known for many charitable works and benefac¬
tions {ibid., 135). Pari Khan Khanum, another of
Tahmasp’s daughters, played an influential part on
her father’s death in promoting the accession of
Isma c Il Mlrza. After his accession, she fell from
favour, but after his death, on the accession of
Muhammad Mlrza, she exercised great influence in
the government of the country. Great rivalry existed
between her and Muhammad Shah’s wife, Mahd
Awliya 3 Khayr al-Nisa 3 Begum. Pari Khan
Khanum’s high handed behaviour aroused the enmity
of the KfzAbash amirs and she was eventually
murdered by them. Khayr al-Nisa 3 Begum then took
upon herself the government of affairs because of her
husband’s defective eyesight. She too was murdered
by the Kizflbash amirs, who resented her interference
(see ibid. , index under Pari Khan Khanum and Mahd
Awliya 3 Khayr al-Nisa 3 Begum , and Mahmud b.
Hidayat Allah Afushta 3 !, Nakawat al-dthdr, ed. Ihsan
IshrakI, Tehran AHS 1350/1971-2, 21, 72, 250).
Khadldja, another of Tahmasp’s daughters, was
married to Djamshld b. Sultan Ahmad, the ruler of
Biya Pas in Gllan (sec c Abd al-Fattah FuminI, Tarikh-i
Gilan, ed. M. Sotoodeh, Tehran AHS 1349/1970,
54-6).

As the Safawids moved away from their tribal

background, the influence of their women was
increasingly confined to haram intrigues. Already
under Tahmasp, large numbers of concubines and
slaves, especially Georgians and Circassians, were
introduced into the royal haram. This trend continued,
and with it the power of the eunuchs of the palace
greatly increased. The general deterioration in the
position and status of the royal women in all probabil¬
ity spread among other ranks of society also (cf. Jean-
Baptiste Tavernier, Voyages en Perse , Geneva 1970,
282-4; Du Mans, Estat de la Perse, Paris 1890, repr.,
1969, 27-8; Chardin, Sir John Chardin's travels in Persia
with an introduction by Brig. General Sir Percy
Sykes, London 1927, 222). The status of the mother
appears to have had little influence on the choice of
the wall Q ahd. The mother of the shah was the most
important lady in the haram; after her came the shah’s
wives and then his favourite concubines (E. Kaemp-
fer. Am Hofe des persischen Grosskonigs 1684-1685 , tr. W.
Hinz, Tubingen and Basel 1977, 232). When the
ladies of the royal haram went out, the district through
which they were to pass was declared kuruk (a reserve),
and those who inadvertently strayed into the road
were beaten and sometimes done to death by guards
and eunuchs (cf. Tavernier, op. cit., 284; Du Mans,
op. cit., 95-6; Chardin, The coronation of Solyman the III,
published with The travels of Sir John Chardin into Persia
and the East Indies, London 1691, 77; Thevenot, The
travels of Monsieur de Thevenot into the Levant, London
1687, repr. 1971, pt. 2, 99). The practice of kuruk
continued in a modified form under the Kadjars.
Males were expected to turn their faces to the wall
when the royal women passed by (see Curzon, Persia ,
2 vols., London 1892, i, 404).

The accession of Shah Sultan Husayn (1105-
55/1694-1722), the last of the Safawids, was largely
secured by his great aunt Maryam Begum, a master¬
ful lady who exercised great influence. The shah took
an inordinate pride in his haram, the scale and
magnificence of which became a drain on the
treasury. It was not uncommon for beautiful women
to be seized by his officers and sent to his haram, as
they had been in the reign of his predecessor, Shah
Sulayman (L. Lockhart, The fall of the Safavi dynasty and
the Afghan occupation of Persia, Cambridge 1958, 36, 41,
47-8). Muhammad Hashim Asaf Rustam al-
Hukama 3 alleges that there were nearly 1,000
beautiful girls of varying provenance in Shah Sultan
Husayn’s haram {Rustam al-tawarikh, ed. Muhammad
Mushlrl, Tehran AHS 1348/1969-70, 70-1).

Aka Muhammad Khan (1193-121 1/1779-97), the
first of the Kadjars, took the daughters and women of
defeated enemies and rebels into the royal haram as
hostages to lessen the likelihood of rebellion and to
consolidate his rule. He also sought to heal the breach
which had occurred between the Koyunlu branch of
the Kadjar tribe, to which he himself belonged, and
the Develu branch, by the marriage of his nephew and
successor Fath C A1I to the daughter of Fath c AlI Khan
Develu [see kadjar]. On one occasion, when Aka
Muhammad Khan, was absent from Tehran, it was
arranged that his sister should receive an envoy from
one of the khans of Turkistan, sitting behind a curtain
to do so. This, however, gave great offence to the head
of the Afshar tribe, either because of its supposed
impropriety or because he had not been consulted
(Mustawfl, op. cit., i, 23-4).

From the reign of Fath c AlI Shah onwards, there
was a great increase in the size and expenses of the
royal haram and in the number of black and white
eunuchs employed in the palace ( c Adud al-Dawla, op.
cit., 54 ff. See also Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, 220; J.

484

al-MAR 5 A

Morier, A journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor
to Constantinople, in the years 1808 and 1809, London
1812, 225, 239; MustawfT, op. cit., i, 40-1). Mu c ayyir
al-Mamalik puts the inmates of the haram of Nasir al-
Dln Shah (1848-96) at over 3,000; when the shah
moved to summer quarters in the hills near Tehran,
he was accompanied by a vast cavalcade (Yaddasht-ha 3 !
az zindagdm-i khususi-i Nasir al-Din Shah . 106, 127. See
also Docteur Feuvrier, Trois ans a la cour de Perse, Paris
1906, 142). Fath C A1T apparently abandoned the prac¬
tice of ranking the princes in his audience according
to their mother's birth ( c Adud al-Dawla, op. cit., 47).
As in Safawid times, the mother of the ruler was the
most important lady in the royal haram. The mothers
of Fath c AlI Shah, c Abbas Mirza, Muhammad Shah
and Nasir al-Din Shah were, in succession, known as
mahd awliya 3 . Fath c Ali’s mother attempted in vain to
mediate between Fath c AlI and his full brother
Husayn Kuli Khan after the former’s accession
(FasaT, Fars-nama-yi nasiri, Tehran lith. 1895-6, 2
vols. in 1, i, 245-6). c Adud al-Dawla describes the
hierarchical order in the royal haram and the rivalries
of the royal ladies ( Tarikh-i c Adudi, 12 ff. Cf. also
Malcolm, History of Persia , 2 vols., London 1829, ii,
394, 396; Morier, op. cit., 369. See also the introduc¬
tion by c Abbas Ikbal to Sharh-i hal-i c Abbas Muza Mulk-
Ara, ed. c Abd al-Husayn Nawa 5 T, Tehran AHS
1325/1946-7, pp. iii ff., on the jealousy and rivalry
between the mother of Nasir al-Din and the mother of
his half-brother Mulk-Ara).

The female establishment of Fath c Ali Shah is in
some ways reminiscent of that of the Ilkhans. One of
his wives, the daughter of Imam Kuli Khan Afshar
Urumi, gave Fath c Ali several of her serving maids
with appropriate outfits and in due course they bore
him children ( c Adud al-Dawla, op. cit., 15). Lady
Sheil relates how one of the wives of Muhammad
Shah, when he was still wall c ahd, bought a Circassian
slave-girl as a present for her husband ( Glimpses of life
and manners in Persia , London 1856, 203-4). Several of
Fath c Ali Shah’s wives were very rich and had their
separate establishments outside and independent of
the royal haram, notably Tadj al-Dawla Tawus
Khanum Isfahan! ( c Adud al-Dawla, op. cit., 18-19)
and Diya 5 al-Saltana. The latter’s mother, Maryam
Kh anum. was a Jewess. She had been in the haram of
Aka Muhammad Khan, and after his death was
married to Fath c Ali. Diya 5 al-Saltana was a good
calligrapher and copied many books of prayers and
ziyarat-narnas. She enjoyed Fath c Ali’s confidence, and
during his lifetime remained unmarried. She often
acted as his scribe and wrote his secret letters (ibid.,
25). Another of Fath c Ali’s wives, Sunbul Khanum.
was among the prisoners taken by c Aka Muhammad
Khan during his Kirman campaign. She enjoyed
great favour with Fath c Ali, and repeatedly interceded
with him for the subjects (ibid., 20). Her daughter,
Husn Djahan Khanum, was a poetess and a Sufi. She
was married to Aman Allah Khan, the governor of
Kurdistan, and for several years exercised great
authority in that province (ibid., 67). Another of Fath
c Ali Shah’s daughters, Zubayda, who was married to
c Ali Khan Nusrat al-Mulk Kara Guzlii, was also a
Sufi. She lived for many years in Hamadan, where
she enjoyed great authority. She went on the
pilgrimage and made several visits to shrines in c Irak
and Mashhad. She gave many gifts to the poor, sayyids
and mullas, and was noted for her charitable benefac¬
tions. Every year, she set aside a sum for her personal
expenses from the income of her estates and gave the
rest to the poor and orphans (ibid., 30-2). Badr-i
Djahan Khanum, the mother of Fath C A1I Shah’s sons

Hasan c Ali and Husayn c Ali, the former of whom
became governor of Fars and the latter governor of
Tehran, lived principally in Shiraz, where she exer¬
cised great influence over her son, interfering in the
administration of affairs and enriching herself greatly
by commerce and monopolies. She was believed to
have made a corner in corn with an accomplice in ca.
1810. Nevertheless, she was reputed to be charitable
to the poor and ready to do justice for the oppressed.
From time to time, she negotiated a visit to the
capital, for which she was generally obliged to make
a considerable present to the king, who then permitted
her to return and reside with him as a wife (Morier,
A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor
to Constantinople, 1810-16, London 1818, 61; idem, A
journey through Persia ... in the years 1808 and 1809,
154-5).

MustawfT describes in detail the haram-khana of
Nasir al-Din Shah and the discipline exercised in it
(op. cit., i, 510 ff.). Nasir al-Din’s mother, who
presided over it, was a capable woman. She was a
granddaughter of Fath C A1I Shah; her father was
Muhammad Kasim Kh an b. Sulayman Kadjar (see
Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik, 172-6; Sheil, op. cit., 9).
Munir al-Dawla, one of Nasir al-Din Shah’s wives,
used to hold a feast for women in Tehran on the birth¬
day of Fatima, after her son Kamran Mirza Na 3 ib al-
Saltana became governor of the city in 1277/1860-1
(Abu ’1-Hasan Buzurg Umid, Az mast kih bar mast,
Tehran ASH 1335/1957, 79). On the occasion of
Nasir al-Din’s first journey to Europe, which took
place in 1873, it was finally agreed that only one of his
wives should accompany him. In the event, the lady
returned to Persia from Moscow. The only other of
his wives to go to Europe was Amina Akdas, one of
his favourite wives, who went blind towards the end
of her life. She was sent to Vienna for treatment,
which, however, proved fruitless. She was accom¬
panied by the eunuch Bahram Khan Kh w adja and
several women nurses and attendants (Mu c ayyir al-
Mamalik, op. cit., 159; Feuvrier, op. cit., 185).

Although women might exercise great authority
within the haram, their liberty outside was gravely
circumscribed. However, Lady Sheil remarks that the
practice of veiling enabled them to move freely in the
streets, the princess being indistinguishable from the
peasant (Glimpses, 212; cf. also Feuvrier, op. cit., 144).
She also notes that the mission doctor’s door and
house was crowded with women of all ages and ranks
(Glimpses, 212-13). Women, other than tribal women,
when they went on journeys normally travelled in
panniers carried by mules or in litters suspended
between two mules. The panniers carrying women of
the higher classes were canopied by semi-circular tops
covered with cloth hanging down like a curtain (Sir
Robert Ker Porter, Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia,
ancient Babylon ... during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and
1820, 2 vols., London 1821-2, i, 398-9). Tribal
women and some of the royal women rode and were
often accomplished horsewomen (cf. ibid. , 259;
Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik, op. cit., 127).

There was in general opposition to the education of
women. So far as provision existed, it was of a
rudimentary kind, though some women achieved
competence in religious studies and were known for
their learning. Girl’s schools were not founded until
the 20th century, apart from the small girls’ school
opened by the American Board of Foreign Missions of
the Presbyterian Church in the United States in
Tehran in 1874, in Tabriz (1879) and Hamadan
(1885) (R E. Waterfield, Christians in Persia, London
1973, 135, 136, 137). Some girls were educated at

al-MAR 3 A

485

home by private tutors (cf. MustawfT, op. cit., i, 296-7,
298). Girls up to the age of seven were allowed to
attend a maktab, but the number who did so was small;
when they were then too old to go unveiled, their
education was sometimes finished at home by female
mullas. Girls in well-to-do households were taught to
sew and embroider and such other accomplishments
as were necessary for the running of the haram. Spinn¬
ing was the ubiquitous occupation of the poorer
classes. Carpet weaving was also carried on by women
and children, mainly as a house industry, in many
districts, and also in tribal areas. Textiles were also
woven by women in many towns and villages. Little
is known of the condition of those so employed until
modern times [see bisat, in Suppl.].

The recreation of women was largely confined to
visiting relatives. Marriages, births, deaths and other
anniversaries also broke the daily round. The weekly
visit to the bath was an occasion which offered the
opportunity of intercourse with female friends. Visits
to shrines and cemeteries, especially on Thursday
evenings, were other recognised outings (see Du
Mans, up. cit., 93-4; Sheil, op. cit., 145 ff.; Morier, A

second Journey , 137, 166). Rawda-kh w dnv. s, especially

in Safar and Muharram, were other occasions for
visiting and recreation. Female rawda-kh w dn s usually
conducted those held for women (MustawlT, op. cit., i,
373, 71 1-12) and also the assemblies for women in
Ramadan (Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik, op. cit.. Ill, 113).
So far as women attended mosques, they sat curtained
off from the men. They were also segregated at
ta c ziyas. In the Tikiya-yi Dawlat in Tehran, the shah’s
women and women of the upper classes had their own
separate boxes, while poorer women sat in a separate
part of the “pit” (Sheil, op. cit., 127-8; Buzurg Urnid,
op. cit., 157-8, and see p. 106 for a description of the
procession taking the shah’s standard ( c alam ) from the
royal haram to the Tikiya-yi Dawlat). Women of the
Prophetic family figured prominently in several of the
passion plays, but their roles were normally played by
men and boys (see P.J. Chelkowski, ed., Ta c ziyeh:
ritual and drama in Iran, New York 1976).

Gradually in the second half of the 19th century,
changes took place in the position of women, partly as
a result of increased intercourse with Fmrope. Eman¬
cipation was slow, but women began from time to
time to take part in public demonstrations (cf. the
account of a bread riot in Tehran in 1861 during the
famine, E.B. Eastwick, Journal of a diplomat’s threeyears ’
residence in Persia, London 1864, repr. Tehran 1976, 2
vols., i, 288-91). The most notable case was their
participation in the movement against the Tobacco
Regie in 1891. They supported the boycott declared
against the use of tobacco, and urged their menfolk to
do the same; some also took part in public protests
against the Regie. It is reported that the movement
spread even to the shah’s haram (Mu c ayyir al-
Mamalik, op. cit., 177). New trends among women
were also to be found in the BabT movement [q.v.\,
who numbered among their leaders the beautiful and
brilliant woman Kurrat al- c Ayn \q.v.\, who was
martyred in their cause in 1852.

Bibliography (in addition to references given
in the article): Spuler, Iran, 381-3; J. Atkinson,
Customs and manners of the women of Persia, London
1832. The accounts of most European travellers
have some information on the composition of
women, but it has not been possible to quote them
all. On Nadir Shah’s women, see Jonas Hanway,
Historical account oj the British trade over the Caspian Sea ,
London 1762, 2 vols., i, 169. On women’s dress,
see libas; see also Tavernier, op. cit., 282;

Thevenot, op. cit., pt. 2, 293-4; Ker Porter, op. cit.,
i, 202, 259. 396, 499; Scott Waring, A tour to
Sheeraz, London 1807, 61-2; Morier, A second journey
... 61; Kay Kawus b. Iskandar, Kabus-nama, ed.
Ghulam Husayn YusufT, Tehran 1967, 129-31;
Nasir al-DTn TusT, Akhlak-i Nasir!, ed. M. MlnovT
and C A1I Rida HaydarT, Tehran ASH 1356/1976,
215-22, 229-30; Fakhrl KawTmT, Karnama-yi zanan-i
mashhur-i Iran, Tehran AHS 1352/1973-4; Dhablh
al-Din Mahallatl, Rayahin al-sharFa dar tardjuma-yi
ddnishmandan-i banuwan-i shfa, 5 vols., Tehran
1375/1955-6; Abu THasan Buzurg Umld, op. cit.,
21-2, 39-40; MustawfT, op. cit., i, 689 ff. On
marriage customs see mut c a and nikah; see also
Ker Porter, op. cit., i, 345; Malcolm, History of
Persia, ii, 426-8, 440-3; Sheil, op. cit., 143 ff. ; c Adud
al-Dawla, op. cit., 59, 68-9; MustawfT, op. cit., i,
287 ff., 456 ff. (A.K.S. Lambton)

b. After 1900

The end of the 19th century marked the beginning of
a long struggle for emancipation by Iranian women,
which culminated in a short-lived success in the 1970s.
The participation of women in the public demonstra¬
tion against the Tobacco Concessions in 1893 was a
watershed for their political activities; for the first time
women, a hitherto invisible sector of society, had
taken part in Iranian street politics. In these
demonstrations, women proved themselves valuable
to the c ulama :> , who subsequently encouraged them to
participate in the uprisings that led to the 1906
constitution. Women mobbed Nasir al-Dfn Shah’s
carriage, organised public meetings and even
marched to the Madfis brandishing guns and
weapons. But although their activities provided actual
and moral support, women were not granted the vote
by the ensuing constitution. The opposition of the
c ulamd : to female suffrage was extreme: when Hadjdjf
Wakfl al-Ra c aya proposed their enfranchisement in
1911, the President of the Madjlis moved that no
record be made “of this unfortunate incident”
(Mangol Bayat 1978).

The active participation of women in the constitu¬
tional revolution, however, served to heighten their
political consciousness and in the years that followed,
women formed a number of secret societies and
organisations seeking three main objectives: access to
education, freedom from the hidjab (veil) and suffrage.
It was in the field of education that women had their
first success.

Since women were physically and socially confined
to the sphere of domesticity, few had had the oppor¬
tunity of obtaining any formal schooling before 1900.
There were, however, exceptional women, some
related to the c ulama \ who had been educated at
home, or, in a few cases, attended schools and were
thus able to educate other women. In 1910 one of
these, Mrs Tuba Azimuda, opened the first private
girls’ school in Iran, Namus. Three years later Mrs
Yazdl, the wife of a leading mudjahid, opened a
second girls’ school, c Iffatiyya. Despite considerable
hostility and repeated attacks by mobs, more schools
were set up, and finally in 1918 the government
capitulated and opened ten state schools for girls as
well as a women’s training college, the Dar al-Mu c -
allimat. This college was subsequently expanded and
its courses extended from three to five years. In 1934
it was renamed the Preliminary Teachers’ Training
College for Girls, Danishsdrd-yi Mukaddimati-yi
Dukhiaran. Much of the material taught in the 1920s
at the college was subsequently compiled in text books
and used for teaching in secondary schools (Badr-ol-
Moluk Bamdad, From darkness to light, ed. and tr.

486

al-MAR 3 A

F.R.G. Bagley, New York 1977, 60). The increasing
secularisation of education and the growing power of
the state administration in this sector was an impor¬
tant factor in enabling women to gain access to educa¬
tion. The next major campaign was directed against
compulsory seclusion and the veil.

In the 30 years that followed the constitutional
revolution, many dedicated women participated in
the prolonged battle for emancipation. Middle-class
and upper-class women, some of whom had been
educated at the foreign schools in Iran and many of
whom were taught by their male relatives at home,
formed secret societies and women’s groups such as
Andjuman-i Azddi Zandn (“Women’s Freedom So¬
ciety”), which included a member of the royal family.
In 1910, one of these groups published the first
journal to be edited by a woman, Danish , and other
journals followed. Some, such as Shukufa , edited by
Maryam UmTd Muzayyin al-Sultan, which began
publishing in 1913, were devoted to literature and
education. Others were more overtly committed to
political emancipation. One such was Zaban-i zandn
edited by Siddlka Dawlatabadi which began publica¬
tion in Isfahan in 1919. Despite repeated threats to
her life and attacks on her newspaper, Dawlatabadi
remained a powerful force in the women’s movement.

By 1930 there were a number of women literary
figures, the best known among whom were Parwln
LtisamI [q. v. ] (1906-41) and Slmln Danishwar, as
well as more than 10 women publishers and jour¬
nalists. In the face of hostility,_ exile and imprison¬
ment, women such as Shahnaz Azad, editor of Ndma-
yi banuwan (“Women’s letter”) and Afak Parsa,
publisher of Djahan-i zandn (“Women’s world”),
continued to oppose the religious establishment and
its more restrictive dicta, and in the event, finally
found an unexpected ally in Rida Shah Pahlawl. (For
a detailed discussion of women journalists and
writers, see Pari Shavkh _ al-Islaml, Zanan-i
ruznamanigar wa andishmandi-yi Iran (“Women jour¬
nalists and women intellectuals of Iran”), Tehran
1351/1972, and in Elizabeth Sansarian, The Women's
rights movement in Iran , New York 1982, 32-7).

After the overthrow of the Kadjars in 1924, Rida
Shah embarked on an extensive programme which
initially did not benefit women very much. For exam¬
ple, the Civil codes of 1930, although intended to
curtail the judicial control of the <i ulamd' > , in fact incor¬
porated much of the Twelver Silica SharTa laws
(Bagley, The Iranian Family Protection Laws , in C.E.
Bosworth (ed.), Iran and Islam , Edinburgh 1971, 50).
women continued to inherit only half as much men on
the death of a spouse and that of parents. Paternal
consent was needed for marriage of spinsters; the
husband remained the legal head of household and his
formal consent was required before a wife could take
employment or travel abroad. Men also retained their
right to polygamy and temporary sigha marriages, as
well as the right to divorce their wives at will with the
custody of their sons at the age of two and daughters
at seven. Divorced women were required to keep the
c idda and remain unmarried for two months in case of
si gha and three for permanent wives. The only depar¬
ture from the SharTa was the stipulation of a minimum
age for marriage: 15 for girls and 18 for boys.

The Penal Code of 1940, though almost wholly
European in conception, retained the SharTa laws for
adultery. The killing of one’s wife, daughter or sister
caught in flagranti delicto , is not considered murder and
carries either no sentence at all or a short discre¬
tionary term of imprisonment. Retribution against an
adulterous husband, father or brother, however, is
not sanctioned in the same way.

Nevertheless, by 1936 Rida Shah felt sufficiently
confident to include women’s education and the ban¬
ning of the veil in his modernisation process. He
began in 1935 by giving state recognition to women’s
groups and setting up a women’s centre, Kanun-i
banuwan , with a budgetary allocation from the
Ministry of Culture and under the patronage of his
daughters Ashraf and Shams, and headed by Hadjar
Tarbiyat. In 1937 Siddlka Dawlatabadi was
appointed as the head of the Kanun and it was
reorganised into an educational and craft training
centre for women. In 1936, Tehran University began
admitting women. It was, however, the outlawing of
the veil in the same year and rigorous enforcement of
this measure until Rida Shah's abdication in 1941
which proved a historical landmark for Iranian
women. Along with access to education, the abolition
of the hidjab finally ended their physical and mental
segregation and enabled them to participate openly in
the public sphere (see Bamdad, op, cit., 80-3;
Sansarian, op. cit., 62-6; Avery, Modern Iran , London
1965, 291-2).

After the departure of Rida Shah, there was some¬
thing of a backlash against women. Nevertheless,
organisations such as the Women’s League,
Diam c iyyat-i Zandn , and the Tudeh (Communist)
party’s Tashkilat-i Zanan-i Iran, continued to agitate for
legal reforms and female suffrage. In this, they met
with the resolute opposition of the Madjlis , which in
1934 had voted and again in 1959 was to vote against
the emancipation of women. Middle-class Iranian
women, many of whom had been educated abroad,
saw the religious establishment as the main opposition
and sought to circumvent the legislature by taking to
the streets. In this they had the tacit support of the
Shah’s twin sister, Ashraf Pahlawl, who headed the
influential High Council of Women’s Organisation,
Shura-yi c Ali-yi Djam c iyyat-i Zandn.

In January 1963, women organised a widely-
publicised and well-supported one-day strike, refused
to celebrate the anniversary of the unveiling of
women, marched to the Senate and insisted on voting
in the Shah’s White Revolution referendum.
Although their vote was counted separately, the high
turnout, the extensive publicity given to the women’s
protests and royal patronage finally enabled them to
obtain the vote in February 1963. A year later, there
were two women senators and four women deputies in
the Madplis. In the struggle between the secular and
the religious establishment, the state scored a tem¬
porary gain and acquired the wholehearted support of
middle-class women.

Once enfranchised, the campaign for legal reforms
was intensified. Assisted by the Women Lawyers’
Union and the newly formed Iranian Women’s
Organisation ( Sazaman-i zandn) headed by members of
the royal household, Iranian women succeeded in
securing radical changes. By 1978 abortion was
legalised and, through the Family Protection Laws of
1967 and 1975, the husband’s right to sigha and
polygamous marriages was curtailed, as was his
discretionary right of divorce and custody of children.
Family Courts were set up and empowered to allow
divorced women to claim an alimony over and above
the customary mahr. Conditions for working women
were also improved, and they gained an entitlement to
twelve weeks’ maternity leave and nurseries in work
places with more than ten nursing mothers.

On the whole, it was the urban middle-class women
who benefited from these measures; rural women,
though theoretically entitled to nurseries and legal
protection, were generally unaffected by these laws
and were unable to get to such law enforcement agen-

al*MAR 5 A

487

cies as the town-based Family Courts. There were,
however, a number of programmes intended spe¬
cifically for rural women. For example, the Literacy
Corps, the Extension Corps and the Flealth Corps,
were set up in 1968, and despatched women
conscripts to teach village women respectively to read,
produce handicrafts and instruct them in family plan¬
ning. Of these, by far the most successful was the
Extension Corps which taught women to improve on
their traditional crafts of weaving and sewing and
embroidery and which facilitated the marketing of
these products through a network of urban shops.
Ironically, the ability of rural women to gain their
livelihood as craft workers reinforced the parental
reluctance to allow them to go to school, since school¬
ing merely deprived the family of their daughter’s all-
too-valuablc labour without giving them any substan¬
tial returns (for a case study on this, see Haleh Afshar,
The position of women in an Iranian village, in Feminist
Review, no. 9 [Autumn 1981], 76-8). Thus despite
numerous literary campaigns, nearly 95% of rural
women remained illiterate (J. Rudolph Touba, Rela¬
tionship between urbanisation and the changing status of
women in Iran, in Iranian Studies, v/1 [Winter 1972], 29,
and Barrassi sosialisti, in Asnad-i Dju nbish-i Trolski-yi
Iran [New York, Summer 1357/1978], 191).

Even for urban women, successes of the 1970s were
short-lived. Although the Shah appointed one women
minister, an ambassadress and nearly 40 women
judges, his modernisation policies did not benefit the
mass of the poor rural and urban dwellers, male and
female. Welfare legislation remained unimplementcd
and the bulk of Iranian women continued working in
the informal sector without security and for minimal
wages. It was the combination of poverty and
illiteracy that made poorer women so responsive to
the extensive campaigns waged by the religious
establishment against the Shah. In the early seventies,
Ayatallah Khumaynl emerged as the charismatic
leader of this opposition. KjiumaynT appealed directly
to women to abandon their unrewarding tasks given
to them by the Shah and return to the sphere of
domesticity, reminding them that the Muslim
husband must fulfil his duty of supporting his wife and
family “whether he has the means or not” (Ayatallah
Ruh Allah Kh umaynl. Tawdih al-masa^ il, ed. Hawza-
yi c IlmT, Kum n.d., mas^ala 2412).

The prospect was an alluring one for the many
women who earned a pittance and often supported an
idle husband or son. Some middle-class women
among the intelligentsia also feared the total
breakdown of the family. The high rate of divorce—
Iran ranked fourth in the world (Iran Almanac,
published by Echo of Iran, Tehran 1974, 434)—and the
predominance of divorce among working women,
(40%), were seen by this group as evidence of social
disintegration, and they espoused the cause of Islamic
fundamentalism. They expected the Islamic Republic
to bestow the dignity of motherhood and domesticity
on women (Zahra Rahnaward, Tulu c -i zan-i musliman,
Nashr-i Mahbuba n.d., 85). In the event, women
appear to have lost everything but the vote. Their
wholehearted support of Khumaynl and active
participation in the street demonstrations marked
women as an important support base and secured
them the vote (H. Alshar, Khumaym’s teachings and their
implications for Iranian women, in A. Tabari and N.
Yeganeh (eds.), In the shadow of Islam, London 1982,
75-90). But all women judges were dismissed, and
women were expelled from the Faculty of Law.
Female education has been segregated; given that
only about 3% of women had any tertiary education,

this measure has condemned them to an inferior
education. In addition, the reversion to the SharTa
laws has meant that husbands have gained the discre¬
tionary right to polygamous and sigha marriages as
well as the custody of children on divorce. Women are
now required to wear the hidjab , and the implementa¬
tion of the new kasas laws has deprived them ol
equality before the law. A man who murders a woman
has a khunbaha, blood money; this must be paid by the
woman’s guardian before the murderer is punished.
Women have a khunbaha only half that of a man.
Iranian women have opposed these measures with
street demonstrations, a refusal to wear the hidjab and
collaboration with the resistance movement. It is too
early to judge whether the restriction placed on
women will prove any more long lasting than the
liberalisation of the Pahlawls; what is certain is that
Iranian women will not easily concede defeat.

Bibliography (in addition to the references
given in the article): 1. General. Maryam
MirhadI, Zindigan-i zan, Tehran 1334/1955; C.
Colliver Rice, Persian women and their ways, London
1923; Olive Hapburn Suratgar, I sing in the
wilderness, an intimate account of Persia and Persians,
London 1951. 2. Legal position. KudsiyI HidjazI,
Arzash-i zan yd zan az nazar-i kadd^i wa idjlimaH ,
Tehran n.d.; Siyid Ali Rida Naghavi, Family laws
of Iran, Islamabad 1971; Hasan Sadra, Hukuk-i zan
dar Islam wa Uruppa, Tehran 1319/1940. 3.
Marriage. Muhammad C A1I Afghani, Shawhar-i
Ahu Khanum. Tehran 1341/1968 (a novel about
marriage marred by polygamy; the setting is a
merchant family in the 1930s); J. Behnam, Popula¬
tion, in The Cambridge history of Iran, i, 479-83; Ruya
Khusrawl, Kdr-i Kham pi wa-makdm-i khanawi-yi zan,
Tehran 1358/1979; Ayatallah Murtada Mutahharl,
Hukuk-i zan, ta c dad-i zawdjdl, izdiwadj-i muwakkat,
Fars wa Khuzistan n.d.; Manucihra K. Muhib-
battl, Sharik-i mard, Tehran 1325/1946; Sayyid
Rida Paknizhad, Izdiwddj wa rawush-i zan dar Islam,
Tehran 1360/1981. 4. Women and religion.
Shirin Mahdavi, Women and the Shii Ulama in Iran,
in MES, xix/1 (January 1983), 17-27; Ayatallah
Murtada Mutahharl, Mas^ala-yi hidjab, Kum nd.;
Mujahedin Khalk, On the question of Hijab, in In the
shadow of Islam, the women’s movement in Iran, ed.
Azar Tabari and Nahid Yeganeh, London 1982,
126; M.H. Shahid! (ed.), Hurmat wa hukuk-i zan dar
Islam, Tehran 1358/1979; C A1I Shariat!, Zan-i
musliman (text of a speech on Muslim women), n.p.
n.d.; Azar Tabari, Islam and the struggle for emancipa¬
tion of Iran’s women, in In the shadow of Islam, 5-25;
Ayatallah TalikanI, On hijab, English tr. in op. cit.,
103-7; Nahid Yeganeh, Women’s struggle in the
Islamic Republic in Iran, in op. cit., 26-74. 5.
Women 's movements. Tal c at Basarl, Zandukht
pifiahang-i nizhdt-i azadi-yi banuwan-i Iran , Tehran
1345/1967; KumitP bara 3 -i azadi-yi zan dar Iran,
Mubanzi bdra : -i azadi-yi zan dar Iran, London,
Summer 1357/1978; Maryam MirhadI, Zindigan-i
zan, in op. cit., (ch. 3 includes a detailed discussion
of the activities of a number of women’s groups
Irom 1297/1918 to 1325/1946; the Kanun-i banuwan
is discussed on 93-9); Azar Tabari and Nahid
Yeganeh (eds.), In the shadow of Islam (present
women’s organisations are discussed in part 4, 143-
230). 6. Women in tribal areas. Lois Beck, Women
among Qashqai nomadic pastoralisis in Iran, in Lois
Beck and Nikki Keddie (eds.), Women in the Muslim
world , 351-73; Erika Friedl, Islam and tribal women in
a village in Iran, in Nancy Falk and Rital M. Gross
(eds.). Unspoken world , New York 1980, 159-73;

488

al-MAR-’A

Nancy Tapper, The women’s sub-society among the
Shahsavan nomads of Iran , in ibid., 374-98; R.
Tapper, Pasture and politics , in G. Stober, Die Afshar.
Nomadismus in Raum Kermans, Marburg/Lahn 1978.
7. Women in literature. Bozorg Alavi, Geschichte
und Entwicklung der Modernen Persischen Literaiur,
Berlin 1964; Sayyid Muhammad C A1I Djamalzada.
Taswir-i zan der farhang-i Irani , Tehran 1357/1978;
Nusrat Allah FathT, A fni-yi Parwin, introd. Tehran
1355/1976; Erika Friedl, Women in contemporary
Persian folktales, in Women in the Muslim world , 629-
50; G. Tikku, Furugh-i Farrukhzad : a new direction in
Persian poetry , in SI, xxvi, 149-73.

(Haleh Afshar)

4. In Turkey [see Supplement].

5. In the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent.
The evolution of Muslim social polity in India,

from the earliest date of advent of Islam in the subcon¬
tinent in the 2nd/8th century, has been constantly
affected and acculturated by the indigenous cultural
environment. In this process, the status and role of
Muslim women also underwent significant changes
throughout the ages. The earliest accounts indicate
that among the Turkish settlers women enjoyed a
respectable position; they even took an active part in
state affairs. Seclusion was not strictly enforced
during the earlier centuries, but began as a rigid prac¬
tice after the 4th/10th century.

During the DihlT Sultanate period (7th/13th
century), despite strict seclusion of women, ambitious
ladies of royal households often played decisive roles
in intricate affairs of succession to the throne. Shah
Turkan (wife of Iltutmish and mother of Rukn al-Din
FTruz Shah I) and Malik-yi Djahan (wife of Djalal al-
Dln FTruz Shah II) had succeeded in effectively
outmanoeuvring the male-dominated courts by
installing on thrones the princes of their choice and
wielding absolute power in their behalf. Iltutmish’s
daughter, Radiyya Sultana, even succeeded in ascen¬
ding to the throne herself and ruled for four years
(634-7/1236-40). The records of the Tughluk and
Lodi dynasties are also full of accounts of royal ladies
often playing leading roles in state politics.

The harem life from the Sultanate period down to
the Lodi dynasty (i.e. in the pre-Mughal era) was
centred around the ladies of royal households, with
their dependents, maids, slaves and eunuchs.
Seniority in rank among royal ladies was a major
factor in commanding both respect and power. Seclu¬
sion was so strictly observed that even outside women
were not permitted to enter the harem enclosures.
The princesses and girls of higher classes received
Kur^anic and literary education at home from learned
tutors (ladies as well as elderly men). In regard to
literary and artistic talents, there are numerous
instances of outstanding achievements by ladies.
Radiyya Sultana was a noted_ poetess; Dukhtar
Khassa, Nusrat BibT and Mihr Afruz had mastered
the art of dancing; Futuha and Nusrat Khatun were
famous musicians of their times.

During the Mughal period (932-1161/1526-1748),
although the practice of seclusion had become more
intensive and was considered as a sign of respect—
even royal decrees were issued for observing strictly
the rules of parda/purdah (seclusion)—women of the
royal households and upper classes played perceptible
roles in state politics and achieved high merits in
literary accomplishment. On occasion, Nur-i Djahan
(wife of DjahangTr) broke the purdah convention and
did not mind coming out in public. In fact, she was
the real power behind the DjahanglrT throne. She also
led an army expedition against Mahabat Kh an [qv.].

In southern India, during the same period. Sultana
Cand Bib! personally defended the fort of Ahmad-
nagar against the mighty forces of Akbar, and
Makhduma-vi Djahan ruled the Deccan as a regent
on behalf of Nizam Shah of the BahmanT family.

In literary achievement, the Mughal period
provides a long list of ladies of distinction. Djahanara
(second wife of Shahdjahan) was a noted biographer;
Gulbadan Begam was the author of the Humayun-
nama. and Djan Begam (daughter of Khan-i Khanan)
wrote a commentary on the Kur’an, for which she
received from Akbar an award of 50,000 dinars.
Among the famous poetesses of this period, Salima
Sultana, Nur-i Djahan, Sitt al-Nisa 5 and ZTb al-Nisa 5
(eldest daughter of AwrangzTb) were outstanding.

The decline of the Mughal dynasty towards the
middle of 12th/18th century heralded the emergence
of the modern era in Indian history. The incoming
European powers (Portugese, Dutch, British) were in
the process of consolidating in the subcontinent their
political and military powers, which eventually
weakened the power bases of Muslim courts in north¬
ern as well as southern India. With this shift of power,
new socio-economic groups gradually emerged in
which the elites of the long-established courts lost their
hold and their dominant status. The centralised feudal
power fragmented into the holdings of local feudal
lords, who started aligning themselves with the Euro¬
pean powers. This basic shift in social organisation
ultimately had its impact on women’s role in society.
The central harems of the past gradually lost their
hold on political manoeuvrings, whilst the artistic and
literary pursuits of these elite ladies also lost much of
their significance as the popularity of Western-type
education gradually spread. For almost a century,
virtually all contributions of Muslim women in art
and literature, and their active participation in educa¬
tion or politics, came to a standstill. It was not until
the second half of the 19th century that a gradual
revival of Muslim women’s participation in active life
of education and artistic and literary manifestations
became visible.

In 1886 Sir Syed Ahmad Khan [see sayyid ahmad
khan] founded the Anglo-Mohammedan Educational
Conference for the general advancement of Western
education among Muslim in India. Under the
auspices of this organisation, the provision of Western
education for Muslim girls was envisaged also. At the
beginning of this century, the first Muslim women’s
college was established at c Aligarh (now a constituent
college of the Muslim University); the basic aim of
this college was to provide facilities for higher Western
education for Muslims girls under the strict rules of
seclusion. Almost at the same time, Hakim Adjmal
Khan opened an exclusive section for women in his
YunanI College (centre of Greco-Arab medical educa¬
tion) at Dihll. The c AlIgarh College, in particular,
contributed a great deal in giving a new direction to
the role of Muslim women in modern India. It was
followed by the establishment of educational institu¬
tions for Muslim girls in Bombay in the 1920s, and in
other parts of the subcontinent in the 1930s.

During the 1920s, two monthly magazines in Urdu
for Muslim women started their publication: c Ismat
from Dihll and Tahdhib-i-Niswan from Lahore. The
objectives of both these periodicals were to publish
reformist material for the average, middle-class
Muslim woman. Their circulation was throughout the
Urdu-speaking region of the subcontinent. The main
themes on which the contributors (male and female)
concentrated were: the stability of family life,
children’s upbringing, women’s role as wives and

al-MARM

489

mothers, religious education, domestic economy, and
light social fiction. Hidjab Imtiyaz c Ali was the first
Muslim woman writer of the modern era who earned
an all-India fame in the late 1920s; most of her
writings appeared in Tahdhib-i-Niswan.

The 1935 Government of India Act had awarded
separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims; female
members of the two communities were also given the
franchise. According to the terms of the new Act,
general elections were held in 1936. By this time, a
few Muslim women of the upper middle class had
come out of seclusion and were actively participating
in various fields: politics, medicine, education, social
welfare, literary pursuits, etc. Thus they had
demanded and were granted a reserved seat for
Muslim women in the United Provinces legislature.
In the 1936 elections, Begam HabTbullah won the
reserved seat and entered the U.P. Legislative
Assembly as the first Muslim woman member.

During the Second World War, India witnessed an
unprecedented political upheaval which had its bear¬
ing on Muslim women’s increasing participation in
political activities and literary expressions. Saleha
Abid Husain, Rasheed Jahan and Ismat Chughtai
emerged as leading Urdu writers of that time. Begam
Mohammad Ali, maintaining her seclusion, fought
and won a seat in U.P. legislature in 1946. Rasheed
Jahan and Hajira Begam were Communist activitists;
both of them were among the organisers of several
industrial strikes, and were imprisoned for a con¬
siderable time in 1949.

In 1947, after Partition, two separate common¬
wealth states came to exist: India with Hindu majority
provinces, and Pakistan consisting of Muslim
majority regions, sc. the North-West Frontier
Province, Sind, West Punjab (as the western wing)
and East Bengal (as eastern wing). Among the
remaining Muslim population in India, after
independence, Muslim women came out of seclusion
in greater number; they started entering the institu¬
tions of higher education in ever-increasing numbers
and competed for specialised jobs. Although up to
higher secondary level, seclusion of sexes has been
maintained in college and university education, the
predominant majority of Muslim girls have been
enrolling in institutions of co-education. Their
participation in active educational, professional and
political fields has been of great significance. At
c Aligarh Muslim University, several Muslim women
professors have chaired various academic depart¬
ments. There have been a number of Muslim women
holding administrative positions in various govern¬
ment establishments. In the political sphere, the tradi¬
tions of Muslim women’s participation have been
continuous. Begam Anis Kidwai was the first Muslim
female minister appointed in the 1970s in the Uttar
Pradesh cabinet, and later on she was elected as Presi¬
dent of Congress (I) of the U.P. Branch. In Assam,
during the most politically troubled period, in the
early 1980s, Begam Anwara Taimur took up the
charge as Chief Minister of that state and headed the
Congress (I) cabinet for several months.

At present, Muslim women are found throughout
India as eminent medical practitioners, educationists,
administrators, and political activists. In all these
fields their status for all practical purposes is equal to
men without significant discrimination.

Soon after the establishment of Pakistan as a
Muslim state in 1947, women’s emancipation became
a key factor in all walks of life and especially in the
provinces of West Punjab and Sind. Muslim women
of the Punjab were already far advanced in education;

a large number of well-educated families from the
U.P. and Hyderabad had migrated after the partition
to Sind province, and women of these families were
demanding better opportunities for themselves in the
newly-established state. Muslim women in the North-
West Frontier Province and East Bengal had not been
able to advance beyond average primary education in
those early years. Thus the establishment of the
All-Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA) during
early 1950s drew upon female activists mostly from
Lahore and Karachi. It remained a middle-class
dominated organisation which aimed at a better deal
for women: it organised meetings and demonstra¬
tions against polygamy and the maltreatment of
women, and it presented a mild programme of social
reforms in favour of women. But any active participa¬
tion of women in politics was at least two decades
away.

In literature, however, several women writers rose
to prominance: Hajira Masroor, Khadija Mastoor,
and Jilani Bano in short story writing; Qurat-ul-Ain
Hyder as a novelist and Zohra Nigar as a poet.
During the early 1960s, Begam Liaquat Ali Khan was
appointed as the first woman ambassador of Pakistan;
she was accredited to Belgium. Her appointment was
not due to her own active participation in political or
social life; she was honoured as the widow of the
assassinated first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Sahib-
zada Liaquat Ali Khan [see liyakat c al! khan].

It was mostly during the 1970s that woman came to
prominence in Pakistani politics. Begam Nasim Wali
Khan had emerged, side-by-side with her husband,
Khan Abdul Wali Khan, as a political activist against
the rule of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Soon after Bhutto’s
execution, his widow—Begam Nusrat Bhutto—and
daughter—Benazir Bhutto—took up the leadership of
the Pakistan People’s Party and have become the focal
point of opposition to the Martial Law Authority.
More and more women arc becoming involved in
political activity; thus Hinda Gilan, a lawyer by
profession, has recently emerged in Lahore as a
dynamic political activist.

Bibliography. Most of the works referring to
the status and role of Muslim women in the Indo-
Pakistan subcontinent from the earliest times down
to the end of the Mughal period comprise the
standard historical sources, see the Bibls. to hind.
iv. History and vi. Islamic culture. For a summary
treatment of the status of Muslim women in pre-
Mughal times, see I.H. Qureshi, Administration of
the Sultans of Delhi*, n.d. Karachi, 150; Rekha
Misra, Women in Mughal India, Delhi 1967, 5-15; R.
P. Tripathy, Some aspects of Muslim administration,
Allahabad 1936, 29; and Ishwari Parasad, History of
Qaraunah Turks in India, Allahabad 1936, 132.
Accounts of the status of Muslim women during the
Mughal period are available, mostly written in
Persian: Gulbadan Begam, Humayun-nama, tr. A.
S. Beveridge, London 1902, provides an elaborate
account of female life inside harems. Other impor¬
tant references to Muslim women’s life can be
found in c Abd al-Kadir Bada ? unl, Munlakhab al-
tawankh, Calcutta 1884, 404-6; Abu ’1-Fadl, Akbar-
nama, tr. H. Beveridge, Calcutta 1912, i, 43, 114,
ii, 39-41, 149-51, 212, 230, 288-93, 317-19, 324-
30, iii, 212-13, 215, 536, 1140; Mu c tamid Khan,
Ikbal-ndma-yi Djahangm. tr. Elliot and Dowson,
Calcutta 1865, 345-6, 424-8, 430-1, 435-6. There
are numerous studies in English on this period; see
Rakha Misra, op. cit., chs. 2-8; P. N. Chopra,
Society and culture during the Mughal age, Agra 1963,
ch. 5, 103-31; B. Andrea, ed. L. Binyon, The life of

490

al-MAR 5 A — MAR C A

a Mughal princess — Jahanara Begum , London 1931.
On the status of Muslim women in modern times,
intensive study is still very much needed; however,
two works which have dealt with this theme should
be mentioned, Cora Vreede de Stuers, Parda: a study
of Muslim women's life in Northern India , Assen 1968,
and Zarina Bhatty, Status of Muslim women and social
change , in Indian women: from purdah to modernity , New
Delhi 1976. (Ghaus Ansari)

MAR C A (a.), pasture. 1. In nomadic Arab
life.

The word mar c a is used only twice in the Kur 5 an,
where it has the purpose of praising the divine power
(LXXIX, 31, and LXXXVII,4). In hadith there are
also two uses of this substantive to be noted (cf.
Wensinck, Concordance ); one of them touches inciden¬
tally on the problem of the exploitation of pastures,
but hadith is more explicit with reference to kala*, dry
and green forage. In fact, a tradition asserts that “the
Muslims are united ( shuraka 5 ) in three things: water,
forage and fire”; it is the principle of the primitive
collectivism of the Arab tribe which is stressed here.
Another tradition conforms this point of view: “three
things cannot be withheld: water, forage and fire”.
According to a third tradition, “it is forbidden to
refuse excess water with the purpose of thereby deny¬
ing forage” (la yumna c fadl al-ma? li-yumna c bi-hi 7-
kala :> ), since cattle eating without drinking will die of
thirst (cf. Muslim, Sahih , Cairo 1334, v, 34; LA, s.v.
k-l->).

Besides these somewhat vague pieces of informa¬
tion, neither hadith nor even the works of fikh seem to
be concerned with the manner in which pastures were
exploited among the Arabs of the open plains. On the
other hand, tracts of religious jurisprudence are often
concerned with the problem of the sharing of water
and its utilisation among riverside communities. One
of the most important sources, in this context, is
presumably the work, still in manuscript form,
intitled al-Mar c a al-akhdarft fatawf al-Bakri wa-bn Hadfar
(in the library of Tarim).

In accounts describing the ayyam al- c Arab, the
contest for pastures is frequently evoked. Each tribe
has its own, where only its members enjoy grazing
rights. If a sayyid considers himself sufficiently power¬
ful to appropriate pasture land, he then declares it
/lima [fl.p.] and forbids even his fellow-tribesmen
access to it. The violent war of Basus between the
sister-tribes of Bakr and of Taghlib came about as a
direct result of trespass on the reserve of Kulayb by a
camel belonging to the Tamlmi Basus.

The romantic tales of Arab chivalry, such as the
story of c Antara, often describe heroic, warlike
exploits in the conquest or defence of pastures. A clan
whose lands are blighted by drought sets out to seek
other grazing land belonging to friendly or allied
tribes, but it cannot proceed there without having
asked for and obtained authorisation from the
proprietors. This approach is usually accompanied by
gifts presented to the chief whose goodwill is sought;
if he consents, the agreement is made conditional on
terms, the most important of which is the duration of
the grazing facilities. The clan which accepts then
takes the visitors und its protection (dhimam), but it
may revoke its decision and insist on the latter leaving
its reserves on the grounds that their presence has
caused friction. This breach of promise can dege¬
nerate into armed conflict.

It is a fact that the information supplied by the
classical Arabic sources on the question of pastures
among the Bedouin is far from satisfactory. To
examine this subject it is necessary to turn to another
source, sc. ethnography.

The Bedouin economy is based essentially on
animal husbandry, sometimes linked with land cul¬
tivation of a more or less intermittent nature. These
two activities could not be developed without at the
same time creating a certain number of rules, deter¬
mined by custom and relating in particular to the
ownership of land and of wells. It might be supposed
that the desert, on account of its aridity and particu¬
larly severe living conditions, is free territory belong¬
ing to anyone who has the courage to dwell there.
This is not at all the case. An expert on the subject,
T. E. Lawrence, states correctly in this regard:

“Men have looked upon the desert as barren land,
the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill
and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged
owner and would quickly assert the right of his family
or clan to it, against agression. Even the wells and
trees had their masters, who allowed men to make
firewood of the one and drink of the other freely, as
much as was required for their need, but who would
instantly check anyone trying to turn the property to
account and to exploit it or its products among others
for private benefit. The desert was held in a crazed
communism by which Nature and the elements were
for the free use of every known friendly person for his
own purposes and no more” ( The seven pillars of
wisdom , London 1935, 83-4).

Each tribe, even the most itinerant, possesses a
fixed centre which serves it as a place of resort and as
a rallying centre where its various clans assemble
during the months of greatest heat. At this time of the
year, everything in the desert has been scorched by
the sun. Then the Bedouin returns to his summer
camp, situated close to an oasis or a major source of
water. When the ferocity of the climate is alleviated,
with the signs of the first rains, he goes back to his
natural habitat in search of grazing for his flocks. But
he cannot wander at will. Each tribe has its pastures
which it frequents periodically. The vast extent of its
nomadic range enables it, in a good or a bad year, in
spite of the rigours of the severest climate, to find
adequate nourishment for its livestock. In this
manner, the Ruwala spend the summer, especially the
months of July and August, in Syria, to the south of
Damascus. With the alleviation of the temperature,
they travel to their winter pastures situated in Saudi
Arabia, crossing the Jordanian desert by way of Wadi
Sirhan.

It can happen, however, that a persistent drought
consumes the hardy desert vegetation, roots and all,
in spite of its legendary resilience. The Bedouin is
then constrained to leave his ancestral territory in
search of a more fertile zone. But he is evidently
obliged to take into account the attitude towards him
of the lawful owner of the coveted pastures. The
latter, however, can in fact refuse to accede to his
request or may offer him grazing rights only in
exchange for the payment of rent. If the supplicant
considers himself strong enought to confront him with
force, he will be inclined to reject any compromise.
Otherwise, he must submit to the conditions
prescribed, or search elsewhere. In Jordan, a nanny-
goat, known as shat al-rita c a, is offered to the owner of
the pastures.

The territory of a Bedouin tribe is jointly owned; it
is communal property, the exploitation and tenure of
which are reserved for its occupants alone, the
members of the group and their proteges. It is divided
into lots, of unequal size, corresponding to the
number of clans belonging to this group. Friends,
even strangers properly introduced, may move about
there freely and use the wells. But the grazing right is
accorded only to fellow-tribesmen and their clients.

MAR C A

491

Even at this level of social organisation, pastures are
a cause of dispute, the best being appropriated by the
strongest clans. Consanguinity and solidarity impose
upon all an obligation to accept here, with apparent
enthusiasm, the least prosperous among them,
especially in times of drought. But the latter would be
wrong to consider an acquired right what is in tact a
duty for mutual aid. The collectivism of the desert is
located essentially at the level of the hamula, the
members of which may pasture their livestock in any
part whatsoever of the communal lot. The members of
another hamula are admitted to it only with the
authorisation of the shaykh, and by reason of their links
of kinship, geographical proximity and good relations
with the titular proprietors.

Among the Kabllis of the high plateaux of the
Yemen, although this people has long been seden-
tarised, the pastures of a tribe arc reserved for its
members, but also for those who are admitted on
account of being refugees: rabi c , mafi c or katir. The
stranger who ventures there without authorisation is
tolerated for three days; this is the right of tenure
( mut c a ) accorded to a friendly clan. Once this interval
is passed, pressure is exerted on the unwelcome visitor
to force him to leave. He is harassed, he is threatened,
his mount may even be seized. But no attempt is
made on his life, even if he insists on remaining; it will
be enough to notify his shaykh. The latter is obliged to
compensate the proprietors and force his subordinate
to leave the place. If the demand is refused, serious
conllict may erupt. To avoid this, the group of
outsiders which has suffered drought must come to an
understanding with more fortunate neighbours to
pasture its livestock on their territory, in a place and
for a period of time prescribed, in exchange for the
payment of an indemnity in kind or in cash. Hence¬
forward it will not be troubled. Furthermore, it enjoys
the right of protected neighbour status ( diiwar [q. v .)),
according to which the lessors are required to act as
official protectors.

There also exist in the Yemen, as among the Arabs
of the desert, treaties of friendship between tribes
which allow each contracting party to use the pastures
of the other if the need arises. This is the case e.g.,
with the alliance known as suhba or sahab which is
based on a kind of fraternal relationship (ta^akhf). It is
an agreement, both defensive and offensive, by which
two tribes undertake to take up arms on one another's
behalf. To conclude the agreement, there is no need
for bloody sacrifices, except for the purpose of
celebrating the event, nor for oaths; this is a pact that
goes beyond sworn pledges. The agreement is set out
in writing and signed by the leading shaykh s. Such
documents ( marakim ) state explicitly that the contrac¬
ting parties consider themselves henceforward “as a
single member, a single arm, sharing the same fear
and the same tranquillity, sharing the loss and the
gains, however meagre they may be, accruing from a
common action against the enemy" (al-Hamdanl,
Iklil, ed. Khatlb, x, 70). Henceforth, the members of
a tribe may go to live on the territories of the other
and also take advantages for its pastures. Excluded
from this treaty are the fornicator and the thief.

It will be understood that here it is the perspective
of an essentially nomadic tribe that is under discus¬
sion. When the process of sedentarisation is initated,
the community of proximity tends to take the place of
consanguinity. Arabs residing in the same region
exploit the pastures in common, even where they
belong to different tribes. But a group from a different
area which seeks to install itself there cannot do so
before obtaining the consent of the leading shaykhs.

The latter can even exact the payment of tribute.

The ownership of land, among the Arabs of the
desert, is controlled by the law of the strongest. For
this reason, it is never definitive. Until recent times,
the Bedouin, even if sedentarised, despised any kind
of bureaucratic administration of land and seldom had
recourse to it. To defend his rights, he trusted his
sword. The demarcation of territories operated in the
most rudimentary fashion, since each clan knew its
own domain, as well as that of its neighbour. For
marking boundaries, very simple means were
employed: a shallow ditch, stakes, mounds, piles of
stones and, more recently, barrels. Those who
occupied themselves with agriculture planted strips of
onions to mark boundaries. Such an administrative
system, clearly precarious and imprecise, often gave
rise to disputes. Litigation was submitted to the
jurisdiction of an c arifa.

Bibliography: A. Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes
au pays de Moab , 235-40; J. Chelhod, Le droit dans la
societe bedouine, ch. viii; idem, Le droit intertribal dans
les hauls plateaux du Yemen, in Al-Bahit (sic), Studia
Instituti Anthropos, xxviii (1976), 49-76; Ruks al-
c UzayzT, Kamus al- c ddat ... al-urduniyya , c Amman
1973, i, 339. 0- Chelhod)

2. In Persia.

The terms marta c (pi. marati c ), c alafzdr, c alafkh w dr,
C alafcar, marghzar, and cardgah arc used interchangeably
in Persian literature to mean pasture. In early works,
giydh-kh w ar is also found (cf. Hudud al- c alam , tr.
Minorsky, 94, 85 and Ibn al-BalkhT. Fdrs-nama , ed. G.
Le Strange, London 1921, 155). Marghzar is also used
to mean meadow-land, while the word caman is
restricted to this meaning. MaraH , Q alafkh w dr and
c alafcar are also used in the sense of pasture tax.

The wide variation in temperature in Persia is
highly important in shaping the general plant
geography, and coupled with the variations in the
annual distribution of precipitation is responsible for
the differences of Persia’s plant cover and pasturage.
Relief is also a decisive factor and affects both climate
and soils; and a striking feature of Persia, especially
the central plateau, is its micro-relief. The bulk of
Persia’s surface, apart from the Caspian region, re¬
ceives its rains in autumn, winter and spring: summer
rains are negligible in most regions. This affects the
development of pastures and results in their exploita¬
tion being largely seasonal. In Islamic times the
phytogeographical boundaries have probably
continued broadly the same. Changes in micro¬
climates may have been experienced, but the over-all
macro-climate has probably remained unaltered.

Millenia of human activity have left their impress
through the cutting of trees and grazing. In many
regions it is probable that the primary vegetation was
a kind ol Artemisietum which included perennial
grasses. Centuries of overgrazing and steady grazing
would appear to have reduced the original vegetation
of much of the plateau to a state of barrenness. In
some places, it has led to the disapppearance of peren¬
nial grasses from the steppe vegetation and their
replacement by anti-pastoral non-palatable
components, such as Amygdalus , Anabasis , Astragalus,
and Artemisia herba-alba. The movement of flocks has
also resulted in the severe cropping of trees, as, for
example, in the oak forests of Luristan, Pusht-i Kuh,
Ilam and Kurdistan, and the disappearance of Quercus
brantii from hillsides in the neighbourhood of
Kirmanshah. The natural vegetation along the travel
routes of nomad and semi-nomad tribes has also been
disturbed in recent centuries.

Another lactor which has led to change in the make-

492

MAR C A

up of vegetation is the collection of plants for industry,
fuel, drugs and food. Fuel collection, especially, has
affected not only the forest regions but also the steppes
and led to the occurence of some barren, almost
unvegetated areas. At the higher altitudes on the
plateau, the climate is often too cold and water too
scanty to produce anything more than a thin vegeta-
tional cover of short grass and low scrub. Large areas
of the country are sterile or almost sterile hammadas
due to very low rainfall or to an excess of salt in the
soil or both. The ecology of hillsides varies greatly
with respect to latitude, altitude, exposure and soil.
Many slopes of low ridges and hills are bare because
of their exposure to wind, heat and drought. Peren¬
nial grasses survive only in the high mountains
beyond the limits of agriculture and in places inac¬
cessible to grazing, on slopes too steep for agriculture
and in those districts which have a long snow cover
(approximately at an altitude of 2,400 m. to 2,600
m.). Seasonal grasses are found in the steppe areas
and a periodic or episodic growth of grasses in some
semi-desert regions (see further E. Ehlcrs, Iran: Grund-
ziige einer geographischen Landeskunde , Darmstadt 1980,
63-127).

Drought, demographic movements, disease, inva-
sian and war have all at different times affected the
local distribution of arable and pastoral land and dead
lands—sometimes temporarily and sometimes per¬
manently. Frontier regions, in particular, tended
frequently to be laid waste, presumably with the
destruction of, or damage to, local pastures. In the
predominantly pastoral regions the maintenance of a
balance between pastures, animal population and
human population was maintained, on a short term,
by the dispersal or concentration of flocks according to
the productivity of the pastures and the utilisation of
widely separated pastures at their different periods of
productivity. If the balance between pastures, flocks
and human population was upset, conflicts between
different groups over pastures and encroachment
upon neighbouring arable land would be likely to
occur. If the settled population increased and produc¬
tivity rose, more land would be brought under cultiva¬
tion and grazing land would be restricted. Changes in
land use, usually on a small scale and sometimes of a
temporary nature, have also occurred from time to
time when nomad tribes have adopted a settled life.

Since most pastures were exploited seasonally, it is
difficult to arrive at any realistic estimate of the
number of animals carried per acre in the different
regions. Masson Smith’s estimate that “a sheep
required something like 10 acres of steppe pasture”
(Turanian nomadism and Iranian politics , in Iranian
Studies , xi [1978], 62) does not appear to take the
seasonal factor into consideration. B. Spooner puts
the stocking rate in the Turan district, east of Simnan,
which was declared a biosphere reserve in 1977 and in
which pastoralism of various types was the dominant
form of land use, at 8.6 acres per animal for the period
October/November to May {The Turan programme , in
Margaret R. Biswas and Asit K. Biswas (eds.), Deser¬
tification , Oxford 1980, 192). Similarly, it is difficult to
determine the relative distribution of sheep and goats.
The matter is to some extent obscured by the fact that
the term gusfand in Persian literature covers both. In
modern times sheep predominate; they probably did
so in the past also. Goats are numerous, especially in
areas where the vegetation is less abundant. They
voraciously crop all green plants and are largely
responsible for the deforestation and decrease in plant
and grass cover which has taken place. Oxen are
widely used as draught animals, but herds of cattle are

not important except in a few, mainly lowland,
districts. Herds of camels are put out to pasture in the
tragacanthic steppes, often in areas where the vegeta¬
tion is unpalatable or too sparse for either sheep or
goats. Herds of horses are (or were) bred and turned
out to pasture in some tribal districts (cf. Sardar Asad,
Tankh-i Bakhtiyari, lith. 1333 AH, 20-1). Rulers
needed large numbers of horses for their armies.
Royal herds and army remounts were grazed in
special reserves and elsewhere (see Sir John Chardin,
Travels in Persia , London 1927, 169-70, on the horses
of the Safawid shah). Flocks of sheep kept to provision
the royal establishments were similarly pastured in
royal reserves.

Seasonal pastures in cool upland regions ( sardslr ,
yayldk ) are exploited mainly by tribal groups. Some of
them make long-range migrations from their winter
quarters in lowland regions {garmsir, kishlak ); others
travel short distances, sometimes only from valley
bottoms to the upper mountain slopes. Most villages
are surrounded by many square miles of waste land in
which the villagers are able to keep a few sheep and
goats and donkeys. Some, in the more fertile regions,
keep Hocks which they take to graze either in the
neighbourhood of their villages or farther afield. Stub¬
ble grazing is an important form of land use. In many
upland regions, notably in the Alburz, villagers prac¬
tise a limited form of transhumance, sending their
flocks to summer pastures in the neighbourhood of
their villages. There is also some winter migration of
village flocks to the coastal plains of the Caspian from
higher regions (see also A.K.S. Lambton, Landlord and
peasant in Persia, Oxford 1953, 354-5, and Tlat).

With the contraction of the frontiers of Persia in the
19th century, the Mughan steppe in the north-west
and the Turkoman steppe in the north-east, both
regions in which there were good pastures, became
frontier districts and tribal groups migrated annually
across the Perso-Russian frontier. The Perso-
Ottoman frontier in Kurdistan also traversed pasture
land and seasonal migration across it took place, and
continued in the 20th century after the creation of
c Irak.

A survey made by H. Pablot in 1967 shows 25% of
the total land as range-land {Pasture development and
range improvement through botanical and ecological studies , in
Report to the government of Iran , FAO 3211, Rome 1967,
quoted by E. Ehlers, Agriculture in Iran , in Encyclopaedia
Iranica , i, fasc. 6, 613). It would, however, be rash to
assume that this percentage was constant throughout
Islamic times, but because of the inadequacy of the
sources for a historical survey it is not possible to
discuss changes in the extent of the land under
agriculture and pasture land at different periods
except in the most general terms.

Pasture was an important resource for villagers,
and for nomads it was vital, while for those dynasties
which relied on the support of tribal and nomadic
forces the ability to ensure the availability of pasture
for their followers was also of critical importance. This
was especially the case during and after the Mongol
invasions, which resulted in a large and permanent
increase in the number of nomads. Throughout the
Ilkhanate (654-736/1256-1335), the demand for pas¬
tures was insatiable. The wars between the Ilkhanate
and the Golden Horde were, in part, over the acquisi¬
tion of the rich pastures of Adharbaydjan (C.J.
Halperin, Russia in the Mongol empire in comparative
perspective, in HJAS, xliii [ 1983],_ 250-1). The war
which broke out between the Ilkhanate and the
Mongols of Central Asia in A.D. 1270 was in part
over the pastures of Badghis (W. Barthold, An

MAR C A

493

historical geography of Iran , tr. S. Soucek and cd. C.E.
Bosworth, Princeton 1984, 49). The possession of
pastures was also important for the succession states to
the Tlkhanate, with the possible exception of the
Muzaffarids, who observed, to some extent, the tradi¬
tions of settled government. It was also the case under
Timur (d. 807/1405), the Turkoman dynasties of the
Ak Koyunlu and the Kara Koyunlu and the Safawids
when they first came to power in the early 10th/l_6th
century; while one of the reasons which led Aka
Muhammad Khan Kadjar to choose Tehran as his
capital was that it was within easy reach of Gurgan,
where the pasture grounds of the Kadjar tribe were
situated.

A comparison of the accounts of the early Islamic
geographers with later accounts will reveal some
changes in the distribution of pasture land. The
accounts of later writers must, however, be used with
reserve unless they are known to be writing from
personal experience. Sometimes they merely repeat
the information available in the works of their
predecessors. What an author records does not
necessarily refer to the time he was writing.

There is little evidence that the Arab invasion had
much effect on the distribution of pastures, though
there probably was some displacement of those who
had previously exploited them. There are references
to the collective reserves of tribes ( hima , himaya [q.v. |)
and to reserves in which the cattle and flocks of the
caliphs and their governors and army remounts
grazed. Al-Baladhurl mentions the pastures of the
flocks of the caliph al-Mahd! (158-69/775-85) in the
neighbourhood of Hamadan ( Futuh al-buldan, 310-11).
The Tankh-i Kumm also mentions that pastures
(ciragahha wa c alafzdrha) were reserved in every village
in the neighbourhood of Nihawand and Karadj for the
beasts ( dawdbb ) of the caliphs and were called hiyazat
(Hasan b. Muhammad b. Hasan KummI, Tarikh-i-
Kumm , Persian tr. by Hasan b. C A1T b. Hasan b. c Abd
al-Malik KummI, ed. Djalal al-Dln TihranI, Tehran
AHS 1313, 185).

It is perhaps significant that Dlnawar, the centre of
Mah Kufa, was within easy reach of rich pastures.
Kirmanshah, also part of Mah Kufa, was similarly a
district with plentiful pastures. Ibn Hawkal, writing
in the second half of the 4th/10th century mentions
that it had abundant pastures where numerous flocks
grazed and much water (A'. Surat al-ard, ii, 359).
Similarly, the availability of pastures in Khurasan
would have facilitated the settlement of large numbers
of Arabs in that province and may perhaps have influ¬
enced the choice of the centres where they established
garrisons. Even if they were not accompanied by
flocks and herds, they would have required pastures
for their remounts and baggage animals (on Arab
settlement in Khurasan, see further M. A. Shaban,
The c Abbasid revolution , Cambridge 1970). Elsewhere,
so far as the Arabs settled in Persia as tribal groups,
they would have required pastures for their flocks. But
on the whole, there do not appear to have been many
conflicts with local groups over pastures. The TarikhA
Kumm , 243-4, states that the Ash c arl leaders c Abd
Allah and Ahwas complained in 102/720-1 to Yazdan-
fadhar. who had allocated to them the villages of
Mamadjan and Djamar near Kumm in 99/717-18,
saying that the pastures were too small for their
camels, horses and sheep. Yazdanfadhar accordingly
allocated to them the village of Faraba also.

The geographers of the 3rd/9th and 4th/l0th
centuries give, on the whole, a picture of a prosperous
countryside practising arable and pastoral farming.
There is mention of pastures and meadow lands in

some districts and of the presence of large flocks in
various regions, which implies the existence of
pastures and grazing land [see Ilat]. Transhumance
was practised in Fars, and al-Istakhrl puts the number
of nomads at 500,000 tents ( Masdlik al-mamalik , 97-9;
Ilat), which suggest that pasturage was extensive.
Yakut, writing in the early 7th/ 13th century, also
states that they were estimated at 500,000 tents
(Barbicr de Meynard, Dictionnairegeographique et histori-
que de la Perse , Paris 1868, 412). It seems likely that he
was merely copying al-Istakhrl, unless it is to be
assumed that the pastures, flocks and tribal popula¬
tion were in a state of absolute equilibrium.

There were extensive pastures and grazing grounds
on the borders of the dar al-islam occupied by the
Ghuzz (cf. Hudud al- c dlam , 100, and ghuzz). One of
the factors behind their migration in the 5th/ 11th
century into the dar al-islam may have been pressure
on pastures in Central Asia and tribal movements
which resulted therefrom. One of their needs on
entering Persia was to secure pasturage for their
flocks. However, the numbers of the Ghuzz coming
into Persia, First as independent groups and then
under the leadership of the Saldjuks, were not large,
and there is little evidence of major displacements by
them of those exploiting existing pastures (see further
Lambton, Aspects of Saljuq-Ghuzz settlement in Persia , in
D.S. Richards (ed.), Islamic civilisation 950-1150 ,
Oxford 1973, 121 ff.), nor, with the exception of
Gurgan, does there seem to have been much change
in the distribution of arable land and grazing land as
a result of their advent into Persia. Whereas Gurgan
in the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries appears to have
been a well-cultivated countryside, in Saldjuk times
much of it was pasture land. By the reign of Sandjar
(511-52/1118-57), large numbers of Turkomans
occupied pastures in Gurgan, Dihistan and the
neighbourhood of Marw ( ibid ., 110), and pasture land
was probably encroaching on arable land.

Fars continued to be rich in pastures in the Saldjuk
period. Ibn al-Balkhl. who wrote in the reign of
Muhammad b. Malikshah (498-511/1104-18), men¬
tions by name extensive pastures in Fars, and states
“From end to end Fars was valleys and mountains.
The whole of it was pasture land ( giydh-kh w ar )’’ ( Fars-
ndma , 155). The pastures of Slkan, Dasht-i Arzhan
and KamfTruz were associated with woodland, in
which were found lions (ibid., 154-5). Ibn al-Balkhl
gives the interesting information that the grass of the
Kali pasture was beneficial in winter but that in
summer it was harmful for animals (ibid., 154). Afdal
al-Dln KirmanI, writing in the second half of the
6th/12th century, mentions the excellence of the
pastures in Rudbar (in the district of Djlruft), and
states that animals thrived in them ( c Ikd al- ( ula li 7-
mawkif al-aHd , cd. c AlI Muhammad c AmirI NaTnl,
Tehran AHS 1311, 70), Earlier, the Hudud al- c dlam,
which was composed in 372/982-3, had mentioned the
woods, trees and meadows of Rudbar (124). Afdal al-
Dln makes no mention of woods. When the Ghuzz
invaded Kirman after the death of Sandjar, there
appears to have been a temporary contraction in
arable land. Afdal al-Dln mentions that land in the
Rawar district was not cultivated because of the
encroachment of nomads ( c Ikd al- c ula, 29) and that
crops were grazed by the flocks of the Ghuzz (al-Muddf
ild badayi c al-azmdn , ed. c Abbas Ikbal, Tehran AHS
1331, 19-20).

The Mongol invasions in the 7 1 h/ 13th century
resulted in widespread destruction and depopulation.
Standing crops were ruthlessly grazed by the Mongol
hordes; much land went out of cultivation. There was

494

MAR C A

a permanent increase in the numbers of the nomadic
population and the flock population and consequently
in the demand for pastures; it is likely that much
arable land was converted into pasture. Hiilegii,
according to Djuwaynl, when preparing his expedi¬
tion to Persia, declared pastures in the districts
through which it was expected that the army would
march to be reserves ( kuruk .) and forbade any grazing
in them other than by the army ( Tdrikh-i Djahaneusha .
ed. Muhammad KazwTnl, London 1912-32, iii, 93).
Later rulers also sometimes declared pastures to be
kuruk. After their invasion of Persia, the Mongol
hordes continued to practise transhumance. Al-
c UmarT, who lived in Mamluk territory in the first
half of the 8th/14th century, states that their summer
residence was in the Karabagh region, which had
many pastures, and that their winter quarters were in
Udjan, which also had extensive pastures, and some¬
times in Baghdad (Masalik al-absar wa-mamalik al-
amsar, ed. and tr, K. Lech, Wiesbaden 1968, Ar. text,
86). Many of the Mongol settlements in Persia were
within easy, or fairly easy, reach of rich pastures.
Maragha, the first Ilkhanid capital, had good pasture
in the neighbourhood and further afield at Ushnu and
other districts in Kurdistan. Tabriz, the capital of
Abaka (663-80/1265-81) and later of Gh azan Kh an
(694-703/1295-1304), had good pastures nearby in
Udjan and summer pastures in Mt. Sablan and Mt.
Sahand. Ghazan also built a city, Mahrnudabad, in
the Mughan steppe, where the Mongols pastured
their flocks and herds in winter (see Le Strange, Lands
of the eastern caliphate, 176). Arghun (673-80/1284-91)
founded the city of Sultaniyya, which was completed
by Oldjeytii (703-16/1304-16) where there were very
rich spring pastures. Another foundation built by
Oldjeytii was Sultanabad-i Camcamal at the foot of
Blsutun, which, because of its excellent pastures, was
a regular camping ground of the Mongol establish¬
ments (Hamd Allah MustawlT, Nuzhat al-kulub, ed. Le
Strange, London 1915, 107).

One of the biggest changes in the distribution of
pasture land brought about by the Mongols was the
expansion of land under pasture in the Mu gh an
steppe and in the country round Sultaniyya. Some of
this had formerly probably been under cultivation.
Both regions continued to afford pasture to nomadic
groups and army remounts down to modern times.
Marco Polo on his journey south-east from Alamut
towards Yazd and Kirman wrote, “When you leave
this castle (sc. Alamut), you ride across beautiful
plains and valleys and charming hill-slopes, rich in
fine grass and excellent pasture, and with abundance
of fruits, and all other good things. Armies are glad to
stop there on account of the great plenty” ( Travels , tr.
A. Ricci, London 1931, 53). Pastures in Gurgan, on
theother hand, do not appear to have been important
in Ilkhanid times: MustawlT states that Gurgan and
Kabud Djama were in a state of ruin (Nuzhat al-kulub
160). It is possible that, apart from the destruction
brought about by the Mongol invasion, they had been
overgrazed. The pastures in Fars of which MustawlT
gives a list were still extensive. He follows Ibn al-
BalkhT’s account but adds one or two details. He
remarks that the pasture of Bid and Mishkan was
extremely large (135) and that the grass of the Shidan
pasture was beneficial (ibid.). He omits any reference
to the pasture of Darabdjird, but mentions an exten¬
sive spring pasture near Kazirun (136). MustawlT also
mentions that there were excellent pastures in
Khalkhal (82) and a large pasture near Karadj-i Abu
Dulaf (69). He states that the pastures of KazwTn were
especially rich in fodder for camels (58), and that the

pasture lands of Isfahan were good for fattening
animals (49). Round Tustar and in the neighbour¬
hood of Dizful there were also many excellent pastures
(110, 111). Curiously, he does not mention the
pastures of Udjan or Ushnuya.

There is hot much information on the pastures of
Luristan [q.v. J in the early Islamic centuries. There
was presumably some exploitation by transhumant
herding, but this may have been more regularly
organised in Ilkhanid times with benefit to the
pastures. Mu c !n al-DTn NatanzT state that when
Hulegii gave the governorate of Luristan to the
Atabeg Shams al-DTn Alp Arghun (d. 670/1271-2),
the province was in a state of ruin and the subjects
dispersed. The Atabeg brought the province back to
prosperity by various measures. One reason for its
renewed prosperity was, according to Mu c !n al-DTn,
the fact that Shams al-DTn adopted the custom of the
Mongols of moving from summer to winter quarters,
spending the winter in Shush and Idhadj and the
summer in the Zarda Kuh (Muntakhab al-tawankh-i
mu c ini, ed. J. Aubin, Tehran 1957, 43-4).

Initially, the basis of the Mongol economy was the
produce of their flocks and herds, hence their primary
need was for pastures; but once they had become the
rulers of a settled empire some more stable basis was
required. Ghazan Khan, towards the end of his reign,
sought to bring about an agricultural revival, and his
efforts may well have restricted the availability of
pasture. One of the measures he took to provide for
the upkeep of the military forces of the state was to
issue a yarligh in 703/1303-4 to allocate ikta c s to the
soldiers. One of its provisions forbade the ploughing
up of permanent pasture (Rashid al-DTn, Tdrikh-i
mubdrak-i ghazam, ed. K. Jahn, 306). The reason for
this prohibition can only be guessed at; perhaps, since
land capable of cereal growing gave a higher yield in
terms of foodstuffs per unit of area than land under
pasture, it was due to a fear that the soldiers might
plough up all the land allocated to them and as a result
would not be able to keep their horses. Ghazan’s
reforms were shortlived and the agricultural revival
ephemeral. With the emergence of new federations of
tribes at the end of the Ilkhanid period and the
apparent resurgence of nomadism in Khurasan from
about 747/1346 (see Mu c In al-DTn NatanzT, op. cit.,
197 ff.), it is likely that the need for pasture again
became paramount.

Timur and his successors appear to have been in
the habit of allocating pastures to their followers (cf.
c Abd al-Razzak Samarkand!, Matla c al-sa c dayn, ed.
Muhammad Shafi c , Lahore 1360-8 AH, ii, 1337).
From the account of Clavijo, who travelled through
Persia in the time of Timur, there does not seem to
have been undue pressure on pastures, in spite of the
new influx of nomads. He states that a certain
Caghatay tribe, who served as Timur’s bodyguard,
was allowed by him to seek pasture and to sow its
crops in all districts, and he mentions meeting
between Andkh w uy and Balkh parties of Ca gh atay
nomads in search of pasture, who encamped in all
places where there was pasture and water (Embassy to
Tamerlane , 1403-1406, tr. Le Strange, London 1928,
196). He also describes extensive pastures in the
neighbourhood of Kh w uy (148), meadow lands in Lar
in the Alburz (169), rich pastures along the Tedjen
River (186-7) and round Samarkand (233) and the
winter pastures of the plains of Karabagh (309). We
know from the Matla < ~ al-sa c dayn that in 866/1461-2 the
Djalayirid tribe [see djalayir, djalay irid] had “long
since” (az dir baz) had 'ns yurt, or tribal pastures, in
Astarabad and had innumerable flocks (op. cit., ii,

MAR C A

495

1253), which suggests that there had been an
improvement in the pastures there since Ilkhanid
times.

The period from the 8th/14th to the early 10th/16th
centuries was one of tribal movement and resurgence
under the Ak Koyunlu, Kara Koyunlu and the early
Safawids, and it is unlikely that there was any reduc¬
tion in the land under pasture, with the possible
exception of the reign of Uzun Hasan (871-83/1466-
78). With the consolidation of the power of the central
government under Shah c Abbas (966-1038/1587-
1629), more land may have been brought under
cultivation. Already before this in the reign of
Tahmasp (930-84/1524-76) one of the Sa 5 in KhanT
Turkoman tribes from Kh w arazm, who had come
from there to Astarabad, arc said by Iskandar MunshF
to have engaged in agricultural activity along the
Gurgan River (f-Alamara-yi c Abbdst , Isfahan AHS
1334, i, 530). The pastures of c Arabistan, Luristan,
BakhtivarL Kurdistan and many of the frontier
regions, which were under provincial governors and
beglarbegs, were presumably exploited by their tribal
followers. The shahs themselves owned large herds of
horses and sheep, for which they needed pasture in the
neighbourhood of the capital and elsewhere. Taver¬
nier, who visited Persia several times between 1632
and 1668, states that the shah kept 40,000 horses
(Voyages en Perse , introd. by V. Monteil, Geneva,
1970, 231; cf. also The travels of Monsieur de Thevendt into
the Levant, London 1687, repr. 1971, ii, 121) and large
Hocks of sheep (Tavernier, 258). The movement of
tribes to border districts and elsewhere by the
Safawids and later by Nadir Shah and Aka Muham¬
mad Khan Kadjar may have resulted in some minor
changes in land use. The Turco-Persian frontier in
Adharbaydjan was deliberately laid waste during part
of the Safawid period, presumably with damage to its
pasture also.

During the 12th/18th century, there is little infor¬
mation on the state of grazing land or the relative
extent of arable and pastoral land. The numbers of
various tribal groups were apparently increasing [see
Tlat], and this may have resulted in pressure on
pastures. The disorders and disturbances which broke
out on the fall of the Safawids, on the death of Nadir
Shah in 1 160/1747 and after the death of Karim Khan
in 1 193/1779, were in any case not conducive to pros¬
perity in regions of either arable or pastoral farming.
We have more information on the condition of
pasture land in the 19th century, thanks to the
accounts of European travellers. Much of this is to be
found in the pages of the various editions of the
Gazeteer of Persia compiled for the Government of India
(this information is also to be found in L. W. Adamec
(ed.), Historical gazeteer of Iran , Graz 1976-, of which
two volumes have so far appeared).

In Khurasan there appears to have been excellent
pasture in the 19th century. It is possible that the
more stable conditions which prevailed compared to
the 18th century may have resulted in an improve¬
ment in the pastures, but in the absence of informa¬
tion on their condition in the 18th century this can
only be conjecture. There was good grazing in spring
in the Djam valley, round Sarakhs. in the Gurgan
plains and along the Gurgan and Atrek Rivers. Parts
of the Gurgan steppe were, however, again converted
into arable land. The Yamut, who inhabited the land
south of the R. Atrek up to Astarabad, are recorded
as regularly firing grass and undergrowth for grazing
purposes (Historical gazeteer of Iran, ii, 665). There were
fine pastures at Cinarud at the head of the R. Kashaf,
and in the mountains of Kucan and Budjnurd. In

Darra Gaz there was good pasture in the plain and
luxuriant herbage on the slopes of the Darra Gaz
mountains. The plains of Fariman also had excellent
pasture. Along the Afghan, border there was abun¬
dant grass in spring and in a good year it lasted well
into the summer. In the Hastadan district of Bakharz,
there was plentiful grass in winter and spring. In
Radkan there were also good but not very extensive
pastures. In the region round Mashhad, Turbat-i
HaydarT and Blrdjand, short-lived spring grass
fattened quantities of sheep.

In the north-west and the south-west there was
probably little change in the distribution of pastures,
which continued to be exploited by various tribal
federations. Kinneir mentions the rich pasture lands
of Sultaniyya (A geographical memoir of the Persian empire,
London 1813, 124), the rich soil and pastures of
Mughan (153) and the luxuriant pasture of Luristan
(138). In Kirmanshah the pasture was very good but
inferior to that of Ardalan (141).

Failure of rains resulting in a partial or total lack of
pasture occurred frequently in different localities. In
the late 1860s and early 1870s there was widespread
drought. From the winter of 1863-4, the rains were
below average for some nine years, with the exception
of 1865-6. In 1869-70, hardly any snow or rain fell in
the valleys. In the south, particularly, there was little
or no grass on the lower plains and there were heavy
losses in flocks and herds (O.B. St. John, Narrative of
a journey through Baluchistan and Southern Persia, in F. J.
Goldsmid (ed.), Eastern Persia, an account of the journeys
of the Persian Boundary Commission 1870-1-2, repr.
London 1976, i, 95). From 1869-72, there was severe
famine in almost all regions, accompanied by a
country-wide outbreak of cholera; but what the effect
of the resulting decline in population was on the
distribution of arable and grazing land is not well
documented.

In the last decades of the 19th century, there
appears to have been some sedentarisation of nomads,
on a fairly small scale, which may have resulted in the
conversion of pasture land into arable land in some
districts (sec G. G. Gilbar, Demographic developments in
late Qajar Persia 1870-1906, in Asian and African Studies,
xi [1976J, 146-7). In the latter part of the 19th
century, there was also an expansion of cultivation in
the piedmont zone round Tehran and Karadj; as a
result of this, various tribal groups which had
formerly grazed this land were forced to extend their
annual migration farther and farther south towards
the heart of the Central Lut, in order to make use of
very inferior and short-lived flushes of pasture that
follow sporadic rainfall (W. B. Fisher, Physical
geography, in Camb. hist, of Iran, i, 58). Similar events
may have taken place elsewhere.

It will have become clear from the foregoing that
much grazing land was situated either in the harim of
villages, i.e. in the land surrounding the cultivated
lands of a village, or in waste or dead land, and so far
as the law books discuss pastures they do so chiefly
under the headings of himd and mawat [q.vv. ]. A hadith
of the Prophet is recorded to the effect that all
Muslims are partners in water, fire and grass. In the
light of this, Abu Yusuf lays down that although the
meadows belonging to a village were similar to other
private property, their owners could not prevent
others from the free use of water and grass unless they
had no pasturage apart from such meadows and
unless no common land was available to them in
which they could graze their flocks (Le livre de I’impoi
fonder, tr. E. Fagnan, Paris 1921, 155 ff.; see also N.
P. Aghnides, Mohammedan theories of finance, repr.

496

MAR C A

Lahore 1961, 513-14). Most Malikis and HanafTs,
however, apparently gave the villagers the exclusive
use of the pasture lands in the harim of their village,
but they nevertheless granted the Imam the right to
make concessions of such lands to individuals should
the public interest required it (ibid., 514). In practice,
a wide variety of usage seems to have prevailed. In
modern times, the pastures round a peasant proprie¬
tor village were usually held in common by the
villagers, while in landlord villages the villagers
usually had a customary right to graze their animals
in the village pastures (Lambton, Landlord and peasant ,
355-7).

In privately-owned land (milk, mulk), the pastures
followed the ownership of the rest of the land and
could be transmitted by sale, gift or inheritance in the
same way. Many pastures constituted, or were
situated in, crown lands [see khalisa], and could be
granted to individuals as permanent, temporary or
life grants like other crown land. Ibn al-Balkhl states
that the pastures of Dasht-i Run in the KuhgTluya
were partly iklaH and partly milki ( mulki ) ( Fars-nama ,
124, 155). At different times and in different regions
there were considerable variations in the ownership of
pastures and grazing rights, particularly in tribal
districts. The allocation of grazing rights within the
tribal areas was largely based on custom. Sometimes,
rights were held jointly by households or tribes, some¬
times individually. In some cases they were transmit¬
ted by inheritance, but in others they were subject to
re-allotment by the chief of the tribe. Information on
these matters is to be found in modern anthropo¬
logical studies (see especially R. L. Tapper, Pasture
and politics , London 1979, on the Shahsivan of Adhar-
baydjan; F. Barth, Nomads of South Persia: the Basseri
tribe of the Khamseh confederacy , London 1961; W. G.
Irons, The Yomut Turkmen: a study of social organisation
among a Central Asian Turkic-speaking population,
Anthropol. papers, Museum of Anthropology, no.
58, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1975; idem,
The Turkmen nomads , in Natural history , lxxvii [1968],
44-51; and G. R. Garthwaite, Khans and shahs: a
documentary analysis of the Bakhtiari in Iran , Cambridge
1983).

On the basis of the hadith of Muhammad quoted
above, al-Mawardl states that no governor could exact
anything for the use of pastures in dead or reserved
land (al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya, Cairo 1966, 187, tr.
Fagnan, Les slatuts gouvernementaux, Algiers 1915, 401).
In practice, however, there was a wide variety of
usage in the matter of pasture taxes generally, and
they are not always easily distinguishable from flock
taxes [see kharadj. ii. In Persia]. The owners of
pastures also levied dues on those who grazed their
flocks in them (for modern usage, sec Landlord and
peasant , 290, 355-8).

Bibliography (in addition to references given
in the article): H. E. Wright, Jr., J. H. McAn-
drews and Willem van Zeist, Modern pollen rain in
Western Iran, and its relation to plant geography and
quaternary vegetalional history , Contribution no. 50,
Humanological Research Center, University of
Minnesota; H. Bobek, Die nalurlichen Wilder in
Geholzfluren Irans, in Bonn. Geogr. Abh., viii (1951),
1-62; idem, Klima und Landschaft Irans in vor-und
fruhgeschichtlicher Zeil, in Geogr. Jahresberichte aus Oster-
reich , xxv (1953-4), 1-42; M. Zohary, On the
geobotanical structure oj Iran, in Bull. Research Council
Israel , Sect. D. (Botany), 11 D, Suppl. (1963);
idem, Man and vegetation in the Middle East, in W.
Holzner, M. J. A. Werger and I. Ikusima (eds.),
Man’s impact on vegetation. The Hague, Boston,

London 1983, 287-95; P.D. Moore and A. C.
Stevenson, Pollen studies in dry environments, in B.
Spooner and H. S. Mann (eds.), Desertification and
development: dryland ecology and social perspectives,
London and New York 1982, 429-67; J. Pullar,
Early cultivation in the Zagros, in Iran, xv (1977), 15-
38; W. B. Fisher, The Middle East, London and
New York 1950; E. Ehlers, Man and the
environment—probems in rural Iran, tr. J. T. Crad¬
dock, Tubingen, Institut fur wissenschaftliche

Zusammen-Arbeit, Applied geography and develop¬
ment, xix (1982), 108-25; idem, Bauern-Hirten-
Bergnomaden am Alvand-Kuh! Westiran. Junge

Wandlungen bauerlich-nomadischer Wirtschaft and
Sozialstruktur in iranischen Hochgebirgen, in 40 th
Conference of German Geographers, Innsbruck 1975,
conference reports and papers, 775-94; idem and G.
Stober, Enlwicklungstendenzen des Nomadismus im
Iran, in Abh. des geogr. Instituts’ Anlhropogeographie,
xxxiii: Nomadismus—ein Enlwicklungsproblem, Berlin
1982, 195-205 (with a comprehensive

bibliography); A. Pour-Fickoui and M. Bazin,
Elevage et vie pastorale dans le Guildn (Iran septentrional),
Pubis, du Departm. de Geogr. de l’Universite de
Paris-Sorbonne, vii, 1978; Garthwaite, Pastoral
nomadism and tribal power, in Iranian Studies, xi, 173-
97; Tapper, Individual grazing rights and social
organization among the Shahsevan nomads of Azerbaijan,
in Pastoral production and society, Cambridge-Paris
(Ed. de la Maison des sciences de 1’homme), 95-
114; Tak! Bahrain!, Djuphrafiyd-yi kishdwarzlyi-Iran ,
Tehran AHS 1333, 614-76, for a list of pastures in
modern Iran. (A. K. S. Lambton)

3. I n Tu rke y.

The legal practice on the pastures appears, from the
ancient legal texts, to have been influenced by custom
and tradition. The Aydfn Edict of 935/1528, issued
during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent, states
in its 8th clause that farming in areas that have been
used from time immemorial as pasture is forbidden as
being against public interest. Likewise, the 13th
clause of the Kutahya Edict of the same year indicates
that the ploughing and private ownership of areas
where cattle are pastured is forbidden, in the interests
of both the urban as well as rural population.

In fact, similar provisions existed even earlier: the
16th clause of the Bursa Edict of 892/1487 suggests
that the arrangements concerning pastures were much
the same previously. It says that “It is forbidden to
cultivate and to establish private property on pastures
where both city and village dwellers graze their herds
because it brings harm to the public.”

Hence we conclude from these measures of the
9th/15th and 10th/16th centuries that:

(1) acceptance of a given stretch of land as pasture
is contingent upon its being used for this purpose from
very old times and its having been allocated as a
pasture for a certain town or village; (2) pasture lands
should not be used for grain production, and frequent
references to this prohibition in the laws of different
periods show that this rule was implicitly admitted by
society as an unchanging principle; (3) pastures
cannot become private property; and (4) only the
dwellers of the village or town to which the pasture is
allocated may use it for this purpose.

The Land Edict of 1274/1858 is by far the most
significant Ottoman legal text on this subject of the
19th century. Though it was a product of the Tanzimat
[q.v.) era when western influence was being felt in an
increasing degree, this Edict combined custom and
tradition with the tenets of the formal Islamic land
law. Articles 91 to 102 of this Edict contained provi-

MAR C A

497

sions regarding the aradi-yi matruka “assigned lands’’,
though the normal term of Islamic law in which such
stretches which are allocated to the use of town or
village dwellers as pastures and winter grazing [see
kishlak] is aradi-yi mahmiya “protected lands’’. Now
according to this new law, there were two kinds of
aradi-yi matruka. The first included areas of public
utility such as roads, and recreational areas, while the
second covered pasture, summer and winter grazing
grounds, and scrubland where firewood might be
gathered. Their salient features may be summarised
as follows: (1) title deeds cannot be released for such
lands; (2) they are not subject to taxation; (3)
prescription is not applicable to them; (4) ex ojficio
settlements of conflicts on these areas are not admissi¬
ble; (5) such areas cannot be increased or decreased;
(6) they cannot be made the subject of gifts; and (7)
proof of collective use of such areas prevails over that
of individual use in conflicts regarding their
allocation.

Article 97 of the law defines pastures, concerning
which the following points may be noted: (1) alloca¬
tion is the conditio sine qua non for any area to be
considered as pasture; (2) where allocation does not
exist, it must have been used as a pasture from time
immemorial; (3) the town or village dwellers to whom
the allocation has been made alone can utilise a
pasture for their herds; (4) pastures cannot be bought
or sold; (5) buildings cannot be constructed on and
trees cannot be planted in pastures, nor can they be
converted into vineyards and fruit farms; (6) the
surface areas of pastures may not be increased or
decreased; (7) pastures cannot become private
property through prescription; (8) the nature of the
pasture cannot be altered, thus it cannot be used as
arable land; (9) the offspring of animals grazing in the
pasture arc allowed there also; (10) summer and
winter grazing grounds are accessible to dwellers of
other town and cities, while the pastures are exclusive
to urban or rural population to whom they are
allocated; and (11) the use of summer and winter
grazing grounds requires the payment of a certain fee,
although the pastures arc at the free disposal of the
herds of towns and villages to which they are
allocated.

There has been much debate among the Turkish
jurists on whether the provisions regarding pastures of
the 1274/1858 Land Edict were annulled by the 1926
Turkish Civil Code modelled on its Swiss counter¬
part. Though article 641 of this Code stated that ad hoc
provisions would be introduced regarding the
administration and utilisation of property for public-
use, such provisions have yet to be adopted, particu¬
larly concerning the pastures. Likewise, article 912
states that immovable property allocated for public
use and not owned by individuals is in general not
subject to the registration procedure. This does not
appear to contradict the spirit of the 1274/1858 Land
Edict or the practical implementation of the provi¬
sions concerning pasture lands. Article 43 of the Law
on the Implementation of the Turkish Civil Code
states unequivocally that the Med^elle-yi ahkdm-i c adhyye
is rescinded, but without making any reference to the
Land Edict; it merely mentions in a general fashion
that the provisions of the previous laws contradictory
to those ot the Civil Code are deemed to have been
repealed. Due to this uncertainty, the status of
pastures has largely been governed by existing law
and the Land Edict, even after the entry into force of
the Civil Code in 1926.

Some of the laws passed after the proclamation of
the Republic in 1923 nevertheless contain a number

Encyclopaedia of Islam, VI

of provisions on pastures. Law no. 442 of 1340/1924
on Rural Administration declares in its article 6 that
the rural population will continue utilising pastures as
in the past and article 8 indicates that infringements
of the arrangements regarding pastures will entail
action appropriate to those usurping State property.
Law no. 1580 of 1930 on Municipal Administration
declares in its article 4 that the right to use the
pastures within city limits is reserved to their previous
users, and article 15 charges the municipalities with
protecting such pastures.

During the period of its implementation, Law no.
4753 of 1945 on Land Distribution to Farmers has
introduced some modifications to the law on pastures.
Article 8 (b) permits the distribution to landless
peasants of such areas of common village, town or city
property as may be declared redundant by the
Ministry of Agriculture. This Law has been
rescinded, however, by no. 1757 of 1973 on Land and
Agrarian Reform. Formally, Law no. 66 of 1966 on
Cadastral Surveys empowers the national cadastral
survey organisation to determine the boundaries of
pastures and their areas (article 35). Law no. 1757 of
1973 mentioned above did not introduce a system
different from that established by the Land Edict and
existing legal practice. Its article 140, however, was
important in that it foresaw the estalishment of a
registry for pastures and winter and summer grazings
as an expression of the state’s determination to get a
firm grip on the pasture land and to keep it from being
nibbled away. At the same time, as a distinct depar¬
ture from the previous principles of free use of
pastures, article 151 required users to pay a certain fee
to the village administration or to the municipality.
This Law was in fact cancelled in 1976 by the
Constitutional Court on procedural grounds, with
effect from 1977. Consequently, it may be contended
that the Turkish pasture law is governed today by the
1274/1858 Land Edict and the existing legal practice.

Statistics show that there has been a continuous
decrease of pasture areas in Turkey:

Years

Pastures (in 1000 ha)

1928

46.298

1938

42.370

1948

38.330

1952

34.789

1957

29.748

1962

28.598

1967

26.135

Under article 639 of the Civil Code governing the
acquisitive extraordinary prescription, any person
who holds immovable property not entered on the
land registry for an uninterrupted and legally un¬
challenged 20 years may request the registration of
such property in his possession. Though this provision
was used in a rather limited fashion in Switzerland,
whence the Civil Code was borrowed, widespread use
had been made of this article in Turkey in order to
establish private ownership of land under state control
and possession, including of pastures. This has been
to some extent facilitated by the inadequacy of the
land registry system and by the incompleteness of the
cadastral survey work, not to mention the rapid
population growth and the accelerating rate of
agricultural mechanism. Finally, when the matter
appeared to have attained significant proportions, the
legislative power felt the need to take action, and a
modification was made to article 639 of the Civil Code
concerning the acquisitive extraordinary prescription
whereby requests for registry were to be directed to

498

MAR C A — MARAGHA

the treasury and the relevant public corporation. In
1972, Law 1617 limited the areas for which registra¬
tion as private property could be requested under
acquisitive extraordinary prescription to 20 donums.
Meanwhile, the over-use of pastures far beyond their
possibilities of natural regeneration has caused major
problems, such as soil erosion. Accordingly, the intro¬
duction of a new legal framework for the regulation of
pasture lands in Turkey should yield considerable
benefits in developing livestock production and in
making the existing pasturelands more productive.

Bibliography. Anon., Aradi Kanunname-yi
Hixmayun sherhi 2 , Istanbul 1330/1914; Omer Lutfi
Barkan, XV ve XVI asirlarda Osmanli imparatorlugunda
zirai ekonominin hukuki ve malt esaslan, i, Istanbul
1943; Ebul’ula Mardin, Toprak hukuku dersleri ,
Istanbul 1947; Bulent Koprulii, Toprak hukuku
dersleri, i, Istanbul 1958; Zerrin Akgiin, Mer’a
hukuku 3 , Ankara 1959; §akir Berki, Toprak hukuku 2 ,
Ankara 1960; Tarim istatistikleri ozeri, 1967; Suat
Aksoy, Tarim hukuku , 1970; Mustafa Resit
Karahasan, Mixlkiyet hukuku , Istanbul 1970; Anayasa
Mahkemesi Kararlar Dergisi, xiv (1977); Halil Cin,
Turk hukukunda mer'a, yaylak ve kislaklar, Ankara
1980. (Adnan Guriz)

MARABOUT [See kubba, murabit and walI],
MARAFIK (a.), sing, marfik , “bribes, dou¬
ceurs”, literally, “benefits, favours”. In mediaeval
Islamic society, various terms in addition to this are
found, such as rashwa/rishwa, manala, dja : ala, hadiyya ,
etc., with varying degrees of euphemism, for the
inducements given either directly to a potential
bestower of benefits or as an inducement for a
person’s intercession or mediation ( shafa c a, wasata).

In the c Abbasid caliphate, this form of bribery
became institutionalised in the caliphate of al-
Muktadir (295-320/908-32 [q. v. )), when the vizier Ibn
al-Furat [ q.v.] instituted a special office, the diwan al-
marafik [see diwan. i] in which were placed bribes and
money from commissions collected from aspiring
candidates for office, above all for the lucrative finan¬
cial ones, in return for a grant of such an office.
Naturally, the vizier himself benefited from this, and
among the accusations against Ibn al-Furat at his fall
was the one that he had kept back a proportion of the
monies received from confiscations ( musadarat [see
musadara]) and bribes for the grant of an office
(presumably above the level at which it was recog¬
nised that a vizier or secretary might by convention
keep back some part of the payment as a recognised
commission, the hakk al-istithna 7 ). Even a vizier with a
reputation for probity and avoidance of the grosser
forms of corruption like C A1I b. c Isa [q.v. j was not
averse to accepting marafik as a normal perquisite of
office.

Bibliography. Material in such sources as
Tabari, Miskawayh and Hilal al-Sabi 5 is utilised in
H. F. Amedroz, Abbasid administration in decay, from
the Tajarib al-umam, in JRAS (1913), 828-9, 834-5;
F. Lokkegaard, Islamic taxation in the classic period ,
Copenhagen 1950, 190-1; D. Sourdel, Le vizirat
c abbaside , Damascus 1959-60, ii, 408, 510-11, 594,
610-13, 636, 741. See also hiba and for a more
detailed treatment of bribery, rashwa.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MARA GH A. the old capital of Adharbay-
dj an.

Position. The town lies in lat. 37° 23' N. and
long 46° 15' E. at a height of 5,500 feet above sea-
level on the southern slope of Mount Sahand (11,800
feet high) which separates it from Tabriz [q.v.]. This
explains the very considerable difference in climate

between the two towns, which are only 50 miles apar
as the crow flies (by the high road 80 miles). Th<
climate of Maragha is mild and rather moist (Harm
Allah and Mecquenem, 1904). The plentiful wate
supply makes the vegetation rich. The fruit o
Maragha is celebrated in Persia and a good deal of i
is exported to Russia via Ardabfl. The district i
watered by the stream which comes down from th<
Sahand and then turns west to Lake Urmiya which i
20 miles from Maragha. The town is built on the lef
bank of the river Safi (Sofi)-cay which then water
Binab. A little distance to the east runs the paralle
river Murdi-cay which waters the district to whicl
Mecquenem gives the name Pahindur (Bayandur?)
on the left bank rise the heights of Mandflsar ( =
“with head bound”). The next stream is the Laylai
which flows into the Djaghatu [cf. sawdj-bulak]. Th<
rivers farther east (Karanghu and its sources, whicl
water the Hashtarud district) belong to the system o
the SafTd-rud [q.v.], i.e. the basin of the Caspian Sea

From the geographical point of view, Maragha i
quite independent of Tabriz. It lies a little off the grea
road from Tabriz to Kirmanshah which runs neare
Lake Urmiya (via Binab). The direct bridle-patl
Tabriz-Mara gh a by the passes of the Sahand is onh
practicable in summer. There is also a direct rout<
along the Sahand on the south and southeast side
joining Maragha to Ardabfl and Zandjan. This roa<
has always been of importance whenever Maragh.
was the capital of Adharbaydjan. The important plao
on the route was Kulsara (cf. below).

At the beginning of the 19th century, Maragha hat
6,000 families ( Bustan al-siyahat)\ in 1298/1880 it hat
13,259 inhabitants, of whom 6,865 were men ant
6,394 women (H. Schindler). Mecquenem (1904
gives Maragha 15-20,000 inhabitants.

At the present day, the inhabitants speak Adhar
Turkish, but in the 14th century they still spok-
“arabicised Pahlawl” (Nuzhat al-kulub: pahlawi-y
mu^arrab) which means an Iranian dialect of the north
western group.

The walls of the town are in ruins. Its gates have th
following names: AhmadI, Kura-Khana, Akdash
Pul-i Binab (or Gilaslik) and Hadjdj-Mlrza. Th
quarters are: Agha-Beg, Maydan, Darwaza ant
Salar- Kh ana.

Prehistory. The valley of the Murdi-cay i
famous for its deposits of fossil vertebrates discoveret
by Khanikov in 1852. Excavations have beei
conducted by Goebel (Russia), Straus, Rodler, Pohli;
(Austria), Gunter (England) and Mecquenen
(France). On the Murdi-cay have been found remain
of the hipparion, of the rhinoceros, etc., dating fron
the period before the eruption of the volcano o
Sahand. Cf. J.F. Brandt, Uber die von A. Goebel.... bt
der Sladt Maragha gefundenen Saugethierreste , in Denkschr
d. Naturforscher-Vereins zu Riga (1870), and th
bibliography in Mecquenem, Contribution a Vetude d
gisement des vertebres de Maragha , 1908; cf. another arti
cle of the same author and title in Annales de paleon
tologie (1924), 133-60.

The name. According to al-Baladhurl, the towi
was at first called Akra-rudh (Ibn al-Faklh, 284
Afrah-rudh; Yakut, iv, 476: Afrazah-rudh). Thi
name which means in Persian the “river ol * Afrah’
recalls very much the name of the town ia <I>paaT<
which Mark Antony besieged in this region on hi
campaign against the Parthians in 36 B.C. (Plutarch
Vita Antonii, ch. xxxviii, Paris 1864, 1113, and Pseud
Appian, Parlhica, ed. Sweighauser, Leipzig 1785, iii
77, 99). It has long been supposed that the names c
Ou&poc in Strabo xi, ch. xiii, and Index, 935, Oapacnta

MAR C A

PLATE XIII

1. Open semi-desert-like vegetation in Adharbaydjan having been browsed extensively for millennia by sheep, goats, horses
and camels and dominated by antipastoral plants. (Photograph by M. Zohary, published in W. Holzner, M. J. A. Werger
and I. Ikusima (eds.), Mans impact on vegetation , The Hague - Boston - London 1983, 292.)

2. Same formation as shown in Fig. 1 but in a still hotter and drier area near Isfahan. Dominants are antipastoral and antipyric
plant species (Artemisia spp., Astragalus spp.). The white dots are plants of Tulipa polychroma ; the flowering shrub to the right
in the foreground is a thorny species of Amygdalus. (Photograph by M. Zohary, ibidem , 292.)

PLATE XIV MAR<A

3. Slope grazed by sheep and goats near Kir- 4. Detail from Fig. 2: Artemisia , probably herba-alba. (Photograph by

manshah originally covered by a low forest of M. Zohary, ibidem , 293.)

Quercus bran lit. (Photograph by M. Zohary, ibidem ,

290.)

5. Another detail from Fig. 2: Astragalus sect. 7 ragacantha. (Photograph by M.
Zohary, ibidem, 293.)

MARAGHA

499

Ptolemy, vi, ch. ii, xck<; npaaa7roi<;, Dio Cass., xlix, 25,
arc variants of the same name, which was probably
that of the ancient capital of Atropatenc; cf. Ritter,
Erdkunde , ix, 770. If the identification of Ta^axa
(summer capital, Strabo) with Takht-i Sulayman
suggested by Rawlinson has been accepted (cf. Hoff¬
mann, Auszuge aus syrischen Aklen, 252; Marquart,
Eransahr , 108; A.V. Williams Jackson, Persia, past and
present , 136), the identification of Opdaxoc is still uncer¬
tain. On general principles, it is improbable that a
town like Maragha so advantageously situated by
nature was not in existence in Roman times, as the
ancient name of Maragha increases the probability of
the identification <t>pdaxa = Maragha (of course with
a reservation as to the exact site of the ancient town).

A place-name Maragha is mentioned in Arabia
(Yakut) and a little town of the same name is in Egypt
near Tanta. The etymology ‘‘place where an animal
rolls” (from m-r- gh ) proposed itself to the Arabs here,
but in Adharbaydjan (cf. also the village of Maragha
near Abarkuh, Nuzhat al-kulub , 122) the name is rather
a popular Arab etymology of some local name. It is to
be observed that Ptolemy, vi, ch. 2, calls Lake
Urmiya Margiane (pixpi T *K Mapyiavfj!; Xip.vr)t;) and
gives the same name to the country along the coast of
Assyria. Lastly, Marquart in Eransahr , 143, 221, 313,
retains the variant Mapxiavrj, but Mapyiavr) seems also
to be based on a good tradition (cf. Ptolemy, cd.
Wilberg, 1838, 391).

The Arabs. Maragha must have been among the
towns of Adharbaydjan conquered by al-Mughlra b.
Shu c ba al-Thakafl in the year 22 (al-Baladhurl, 325;
al-Ya c kubI, Bulddn, 271). Marwan b. Muhammad
returning from his expedition to Mukan and Gllan in
123/740 (cf. al-Ya c kubI, Historiae , ii, 365) stopped
here. As the place was full of dung ( sirdyin < Pers.
sir gin) the old village ( karya ) was given the name of
Maragha (cf. above). Marwan did some building
there. The town later passed to the daughters of
Harun al-Rashld. On the rebellion of Wadjna 5 b.
Rawwad, lord of Tabriz [q.v.], Khuzayma b.
Khazim, who was appointed governor of Adhar-
baydjan and Armenia (probably in 187/803, cf. R.
Vasmcr, Khronologia namestnikov Armenii , in Zap.
Kolleg. Voslokovedov (1925), i, 397), built walls round
Maragha and put a garrison in it. When Babak
rebelled in 201/816-17, the people sought refuge in
Maragha. Al-Ma^mun sent men to restore the walls
and the suburb ( rabad) became inhabited again (al-
Baladhurl, loc. cit.). In 221/836 Mara gh a is men¬
tioned as the winter quarters of Afshln in his
campaign against Babak (al-Tabari, iii, 1186).

In 280/893 the Sadjid Muhammad Afshln b.
Dlwdad seized Maragha from a certain c Abd Allah b.
Husayn, who was killed (al-Tabari, iii, 2137; al-
Mas c udl, Murudy , viii, 143 = § 3281). In 296/908 the
caliph confirmed Yusuf b. Dlwdad in possession of
Mara gh a and the whole of Adharbaydjan. A dirham is
known of this year struck by Yusuf at Mara gh a
(Vasmer, 0 monetakh Sadjidov, Baku 1927, 14).
According to Ibn Hawkal, 238, there was at Maragha
a military camp ( mu c askar ), a governor’s palace (dar al-
imara ), a treasury ( khizana) and government offices
(dawawin al-nahiya), but Yusuf razed the walls of
Maragha and transferred the capital to Ardabil (cf. al-
Istakhrl, 181). Maragha is only mentioned as the
place where the last Sadjid Abu TMusafir al-Fath w'as
killed in 317/929 ( c ArIb, Tabari continuatus , cd. de
Goeje, 145).

The Day 1 amis. In 332/943 (during the rule of the
DaylamI Musafirids) the Russians (Rus) had taken
Bardha c a \q.v. j. Ibn Miskawayh (GMS, vi, 100)

speaks of the diseases which decimated them because
they ate too much fruit in Mara gh a. This reference to
Maragha is quite unexpected in the text, and
Margoliouth has rightly proposed to read in

place of ip'y*. A coin struck at Maragha in 337/948-
9 by Muhammad b. c Abd al-Razzak is a record of the
brief conquest of Adharbavdjan by the general of the
Buyid Rukn al-Dawla (Vasmer, Zur Chronologie d.
Gastaniden , in Islamica, iii/2 [1927], 170). Of 347/958
we also have dirhams of Maragha in the names of the
two sons of the DaylamI Marzuban, Ibrahim and
Djastan (ibid., 172).

The Raw wadis and the Saldjuks. After the
disappearance of the Daylamls, we find in Tabriz the
family of RawwadI Kurds who seem to have been
related to the Musafarids by marriage only. On the
other hand, it is very likely that the Raww^dls are the
descendants of the Arab al-Rawwad al-Azdl, lord of
Adharbavdjan (al-Baladhurl, 331) who became
assimilated by their neighbours in Adharbaydjan.
The best-known of these Rawwadls is Wahsudan b.
Mamlan ( = Muhammad; the change of d to / in
Kurdish is common) who is mentioned between
420/1029 and 446/1054 (Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 279, 351,
410), and who in addition to Tabriz possessed other
strongholds in the mountains (Sahand). When in
420/1029 the Ghuzz reached Maragha and executed
there a great number of HadhbanI Kurds, the latter
united under Wahsudan and drove out the Ghuzz
(Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 270-2). This incident shows that the
district of Maragha was within the sphere of influence
of Wahsudan. In 446/1054 Wahsudan became a
vassal of the Saldjuks, but Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 410, says
nothing about the extent of his possessions around
Sahand.

In 497/1104 the peace between the sons of Malik-
Shah, Barkiyaruk and Muhammad, was signed near
Maragha, and in 498/1105 Muhammad visited
Mara gh a.

The Ahmadllls. In 505/1 111-12 we have for the
first time mention of the Amir Ahmadll b. Ibrahim b.
Wahsudan al-Rawwadl al-Kurdl, lord of Mara gh a
and Kutab (Kulsara?) (Ibn al-Athlr, x, 361). He was
the founder of a little local dynasty, which lasted till
about 624/1227. We know very little of the history of
the Ahrnadllls [q.v.\, which has never been closely
studied.

Ahmadll was certainly the grandson of Wahsudan
b. Mamlan of Tabriz (cf. above), and this explains the
insistence with which the Atabcgs of Maragha tried to
retake Tabriz. Only imprescriptible hereditary rights
can explain the strange fact of the presence of a Kurd
among the amirs of the Saldjuks. The name Ahmadll
is a peculiar formation; the name of Mahmadll, a
village to the south of Maragha, belongs to the same
category of diminutives. The Ahmadlls, however,
very soon adopted Turkisch names.

Ahmadll with a large army took part in the
Counter-Crusade of 505/111 1-12. During the siege of
Tell Bashir, Joscelin came to terms with him (tataraha)
and he withdrew from the town (Kamal al-Dln,
la \ikh Ha lab, in Pec. des hist, des croisades , iii, 599).
Ahmadll soon abandoned Syria entirely, for he
coveted the lands of the Shah-i Arman Sukman who
had just died. We know that Sukman had extended
his sw'ay over Tabriz, and the reference is probably to
this town. According to Sibt b. al-Djawzi, in ibid.,
556, Ahmadll had 5,000 horsemen and the revenues
from his fiefs amounted to 400,000 dinars a year. In
510/1116-17 (or 508/1114-15) Ahmadll was stabbed in
Baghdad by the Isma c llls, to w'hom he had done much
injury (ibid., 556; Ibn al-Athlr, x, 361).

500

MARAGHA

Ak-Sunkur I. In 514/1120 Malik Mas c ud,
governor of Mawsil and Adharbaydjan. rebelled
against his brother Mahmud and gave Maragha to his
Atabeg Kasim al-Dawla al-BursukT, but the rebellion
collapsed and in 516/1122 Ak-Sunkur al-AhmadflT
(client of Ahmadfl?), lord of Mara gh a, who was in
Baghdad, was authorised by Sultan Mahmud to
return to his fief. As the amir Kun-to gh df. Atabeg of
Malik Tughrfl (lord of Arran; Ibn al-AthTr, x, 399),
had died in 515/1121, Ak-Sunkur expected to get his
place with Tughrfl. The latter ordered Ak-Sunkur to
raise 10,000 men in Maragha and set out with him to
conquer ArdabTl, in which enterprise, however, they
failed. In the meanwhile, Maragha was occupied by
Djuyush Beg, sent by Sultan Mahmud. The Georgian
Chronicle (Brosset, i, 368) mentions under 516/1123
the defeat of Ak-Sunkur (whom he calls “Aghsunthul,
Atabeg of Ran” = Arran) during a demonstration
against the Georgians carried out by Tughrfl from
ShTrwan. In 522/1128, Ak-Sunkur took a part, but
not a very active one, in the suppression of the
intrigues of the Mazyadid Dubays [see mazyadids).
In 524/1130 he was one of the promoters of the elec¬
tion of Sultan Dawud, whose Atabeg he was. In
526/1132 Tughrfl, uncle of Dawud, defeated the latter
and occupied Maragha and Tabriz (al-Bundari, ed.
Houtsma, 161). Dawud, along with his uncle Mas c ud
and Ak-Sunkur, sought refuge in Baghdad. With the
support of the caliph and the assistance of Ak-Sunkur,
Mas c ud reoccupied Adharbavdjan. After the capture
of Hamadan, Ak-Sunkur was killed there by the
Isma c TlTs (527/1 133), instigated by Tughrfl’s vizier
(al-Bundari, 169).

Ak-Sunkur II. The name of Ak-Sunkur’s son is
transmitted in different forms. Ibn al-AthTr, xi, 166,
177, calls him, Ak-Sunkur (II); cf. also Ta y rtkh guzlda,
472. Al-Bundari, 231, calls him al-AmTr al-KabTr
Nusrat al-DTn Khassbek and, 243, Nusrat al-Din
Arslan Aba (cf. al-Kashghari, Dlwdn lughat al-Turk, i,
80). The Rdhat al-sudur, 241, 244, 262, gives him the
name of Atabeg Arslan Aba. Al-Bundari treats him as
an equal of the great amir Ildeniz [q.v. ], whose family
finally triumphed over the lords of Maragha. Ak-
Sunkur IPs adversary was the amir Khassbek b.
Paiang-eri (?), who was the favourite of Sultan
Mas c ud and sought to establish himself in Arran and
Adharbaydjan. This Khassbek had besieged Mara gh a
in 541/1146-7 (al-Bundari, 217). In 545/1150-1
Sultan Mas c ud took Maragha and destroyed its walls
(bard), but a reconciliation later took place between
Kh assbek and Ak-Sunkur II under the walls of
Ruyln-diz (cf. below). The execution of Khassbek in
547/1 153 by Sultan Muhammad alienated Ildeniz and
Ak-Sunkur II and they installed Sulayman on the
throne of Hamadan. Muhammad on his return to
power sent an embassy to restore good relations with
the two lords of Adharbavdjan ( sahibay A.). Peace was
concluded in 549/1 154, and the two great amirs shared
Adharbaydjan between them (al-Bundari, 243).
On his deathbed (554/1 159), Muhammad entrusted
his young son Malik Dawud, (cf. the genealogical tree
in the Rdhat al-sudur) to Ak-Sunkur. As Ildeniz was
furthering the interests of his ward Sultan Arslan,
Pahlawan b. Ildeniz advanced against Ak-Sunkur II,
but the latter with the help of Shah-i Arman defeated
him on the SalTd-rud. In 556/1161 Ak-Sunkur sent
5,000 men to the help of the governor of Ray, Inandj,
who was fighting Ildeniz. The latter gained the upper
hand, and in 557/1162 Ak-Sunkur II took part in the
expedition of Ildeniz against the Georgians (Ibn al-
Athlr, xi, 189). In 563/1168, however, Ak-Sunkur II
obtained recognition for his ward from Ba gh dad.

Pahlawan b. Ildeniz at once besieged Ak-Sunkur in
Mara gh a (ibid., 218), but a peace put an end to
hostilities.

In 564/1168-9, the amir of Ray, Inandj, was killed
(Ibn al-Athlr, xi, 230). The Ta\lkh-iguzlda, 72, seems
to suggest that the rebellion in Mara gh a of Kutlugh
(?), brother of Ak-Sunkur (II?), was due to Inandj’s
influence. He was punished by the Atabeg Pahlawan
b. Ildeniz, and Mara gh a was given to his brothers
c Ala 3 al-Din and Rukn al-Din.

Under 570/1 174-5, Ibn al-Athlr (xi, 280) mentions
at Maragha Falak al-Din, son of Ibn Ak-Sunkur (i.e.
son of Ak-Sunkur II), to whom his father had
bequeathed his estates. Pahlawan besieged the fortress
of Ruyln-diz and Mara gh a. On this occasion, peace
was concluded on the cession of Tabriz to the family
of Ildeniz. This important detail shows that down to
570 the fief of the Ahmadllls comprised all the country
round Mount Sahand, including Tabriz.

In 602/1205-6 the lord of Mara gh a c Ala 3 al-Din
came to an agreement with the Atabeg of Arbil,
Muzaffar al-Din Gok-biiri, to deprive the Ildenizid
Abu Bakr of Adharbaydjan of power, on the pretext
that he was incapable of ruling. From Maragha they
marched on Tabriz, but Abu Bakr called to his aid the
former slave of his family Ay-doghmish (cf.
Defremery, Recherches sur quatre princes d'Hamadan, in
JA [1847], i, 160). Gokburi returned to his own lands
and Abu Bakr with Ay-doghmfsh came to Mara gh a.
c Ala 3 al-DTn had to surrender the fortress which was
the bone of contention, but was given in compensa¬
tion the towns of Urmiya and Ushnu. In 604/1207-8
c Ala 3 al-Din, whom Ibn al-Athlr, xii, 157, 182, here
calls Kara-Sunkur, died and left one son, a minor. A
brave servant of c Ala 3 al-DTn assumed the guardian¬
ship of the child, but the latter died in 605/1208-9.
Abu Bakr then took possession of all the lands of the
Ahmadllls except Ruyln-diz, where the servant
already mentioned had entrenched himself with his
late master’s treasures.

It is not clear if c Ala 3 al-DTn Kara-Sunkur is iden¬
tical with the brother of Ak-Sunkur II mentioned in
564/1168-9. For the date of his accession and his
importance we have a hint. According to the preface
of the Haft-paykar of NizamT [q. v. ], this poem (finished
in 593/1197) was composed at the request of c Ala 3 al-
DTn K.r.b (?) Arslan (the Rum and the Rus paid him
tribute [kharadj]; the Georgians suffered reverses at his
hands). This mamduh was definitely identified by
Rieu, Catalogue, ii, 567 and Supplement, 1895, 154,
with c Ala 3 al-DTn of Mara gh a. NizamT mentions two
sons of c Ala 3 al-DTn, Nusrat al-DTn Muhammad and
Ahmad; but to reconcile this with Ibn al-Athlr we
should have to suppose that both died before their
father.

The family of the AhmadflTs was continued for
some time in the female line. In 618/1221 the
Mongols arrived before Mara gh a. and the town was
stormed on 4 Safar/30 March. The Mongols sacked
and burned the town and massacred the inhabitants
(ibid., xii, 246, 263), but the lady of Maragha
(daughter of c Ala 3 al-DTn?), who lived in RuyTn-diz
escaped the catastrophe.

Djalal al-DTn. In 622/1225, the Kh w arazmshah
Djalal al-DTn came to Mara gh a via Dakuka. He
entered it without difficulty, for the inhabitants were
complaining of all kinds of oppressions and raids by
the Georgians (NasawT, Slrat Dj alal al-Dln, ed.
Houdas, 110). Djalal al-DTn tried to restore the pros¬
perity of Mara gh a: cf. Ibn al-Athlr, xii, 280, 282.

In 624/1227, while Djalal al-DTn was in Persian
c lrak, his vizier Sharaf al-Mulk was forced to recon-

MARAGHA

501

qucr Adharbaydjan. In the course of his campaign he
besieged RuyTn-diz, the lady of which was a grand¬
daughter (min hafadat) of the Atabeg c Ala :> al-Din
Karaba (?) (Nasawl, 129). This princess was married
to the deaf-mute Khamush, only son of the Ildenizid
Ozbek. The Atabeg Nusrat al-DTn, son of Khamush.
mentioned incidentally by Djuwaynl, GMS, ii, 242,
must have been his son. As a way out, she offered her
hand to Sharaf al-Mulk. Djalal al-DTn suddenly
arrived from c Irak and married the princess himself.
RuyTn-diz was given to a certain Sa c d al-DTn. The
citadel contained some thousands of houses ( uluj min
dur) occupied by the former inhabitants of the town
(kudamad). Sa c d al-DTn decided to evacuate them, but
as a result of his tactlessness, the fortress closed its
gates again (to Sa c d?) (NasawT, 129, 157). Ibn al-
AthTr, xii, 322, seems to deal with the course of these
events. Under 627/1230 he says that the troops of
Djalal al-DTn besieged RuyTn-diz for some time. The
fortress was about to capitulate when some malcon¬
tents summoned the assistance of a Turkoman amir
Sewindj (Swndj) of the tribe of Kush-yalwa. The
domination of this chief and his relatives who
succeeded him only lasted two years.

RuyTn-diz. This fortress lay “near Maragha”
(Ibn al-AthTr, xii, 322). According to Zakariyya
KazwTnT, who gives a very accurate description of
RuyTn-diz, it was 3 Jarsakhs from Maragha. Its prover¬
bially impregnable position ( duriba bi-hisdnatiha al-
mathal) suggests that is was built on the side of Sahand.
The Russian map marks on the Sofica 10 miles ( ca. 3
Jarsakhs) above Maragha a place called Yay-shiihar (in
Turkish = “summer town”) besides which two
streams flow into the Sofi-£a (on the left bank) and
between them is written the corrupted name “Res or
Eris”. It is very probable that this is the site of the
famous fortress, on cither side of which there was a
stream ( nahr)\ for Res one should read Dez , i.e. RuyTn-
diz. The date of the final destruction of RuyTn-diz
unknown. As late as 751/1350 the Cobanid Ashraf
imprisoned his vizier there (von Hammer, Geschichtc
der Ilchane , ii, 337) but the Nuzhat al-kulub , in
740/1340, only knows the other RuyTn-diz, that of
Sawalan (there is still a Ruyln-dizak 4 Jarsakhs north¬
east of ArdabTl).

Kulsara. Ibn al-AthTr, x, 340, calls AhmadTl
“lord of Maragha and of Kutab”. This last name
(wJjS') seems to be a corruption of Kulsara («,-or
Kusara, a little town well-known to the Arab
geographers on the Maragha-ArdabTl road (10-12
Jarsakhs from Maragha and 20-7 from ArdabTl); cf.
Ibn Khurradadhbih. 120; Kudama, 213; al-Istakhrl.
194; Ibn Hawkal, 252, in particular from his own
experience talks of the importance of Kulsara and its
flourishing commerce. This place may correspond to
the village of Kul-tapa “hill of cinders” (polular
Turkish etymology) which lies on the Karanghu about
35 miles (ca. 10 Jarsakhs) cast of Mara gh a. The fort of
Kal c a-yi Zohak, notable ruins of which were
discovered by Monteith, ca. 15 miles below Kiil-tapa
(cf. Morier , op. cit., 296), must have been a bulwark
for Kulsara and Mara gh a against invasion from the
northeast. Rawlinson, in JRGS (1841), 120, saw a
Sasanid fortress in Kal c a-yi Zohak.

The Mongols. Mara gh a was definitely taken by
the Mongols in 628/1231 (Ibn al-AthTr, xii, 324).
After the taking of Baghdad in 656/1258, Hulegii took
up his quarters in Mara gh a and ordered an obser¬
vatory to be built there from the plans of NasTr al-DTn
TusT (who had as advisers four astronomers, one of
whom, Fakhr al-DTn, was a native of Mara gh a)
(Rashid al-DTn, ed. Quatremerc, 324). The obser¬

vatory was built on a fortified hill to the west of the
town, where only traces of foundation of the walls arc
still to be seen. According to Schindler’s plan (1883),
the levelled area on the hill measures 137 x 347
metres. On the observatory, cf. Jourdan, Memoire sur
les instruments employes a i’observatoire de Maragah , in the
Magas in encyclop, redige par A. L. Millin , Paris 1809, vi,
43-101 (tr. of an Arabic risala belonging to the Bibl.
Nationale and attributed to NasTr al-DTn's colleague
Mu^ayyid al-DTn al- c ArdT); Ritter, Erdkunde, ix, 839-
43; D. Wilber, The architecture oj Islamic Iran. I'he II
Khanid period , Princeton 1955, 107-8, no. 9. To
contain his treasures, Hulegii built a castle on the
island of ShahT, 1-2 days distant from the capital.
Here he was buried. On the fortifications of ShahT, cf.
al-TabarT, iii, 1171. The handsome sepulchral towers,
of which there are four at Maragha (Mecquencm,
1908), date from Hulegii or his immediate successors:
(1) the one at the entrance to the bridge of SafT-cay is
built of red brick on a square foundation and with a
vaulted cellar ( Gunbad-i kirmiz ?); (2) a similar one,
situated in the gardens to the south of the town on the
road from Khanaga; (3) and (4) near the old cemetery
in the interior of the town, the octagonal tower (3)
being of red brick overlaid with blue enamelled
faience ( Gunbad-i kabud), and (4) being round, covered
with plaster which is decorated with arabesques (Koy-
burdi “Tower of the Ram”). There is a photograph of
(1) in de Morgan (1894), 337, and Sarre, op. cit., text,
15-16; of (3) in Sarre, ibid. , and of (4) in the Morgan,
ibid. , 340. According to Sarre, (4) is later than
751/1350. The monuments require to be again
studied on the spot. Lehmann-Haupt says that
inscriptions can still be seen in their interiors. See now
on the Gunbad-i Ghaffariyya, apparently the tomb of
Shams al-DTn Kara-Sunkur, governor of Adhar¬
baydjan under Abu Sa c Td, A Godard, Les monuments de
Maragha , Paris 1934; idem, Notes complementaires , in
Athdr-e Iran , i/1 (1936), 125-60; and Wilber, op. cit.,
171-2, 175-6, nos. 78_, 82.

The early Mongol Ilkhans led a semi-nomadic life,
which explains the absence from Maragha of any
other kind of memorial. It was onlv with Ghazan that

e .

a regular capital was built at Tabriz. Mara gh a
continued to be of some importance on account of its
pastures, and was a station on the road between Adh¬
arbaydjan and Mesopotamia. Its name continually
appears in the history of the Tlkhans. In 703/1304
Oldjeytu received at Maragha the ambassadors from
the KfFan of China and installed at the observatory
the son of NasTr al-DTn TusT.

In 712/1312 Kara-Sunkur, amir al-umara 5 of
Aleppo, fearing the wrath of the sultan of Egypt al-
Nasir Muhammad, sought an asylum in Persia with
Oldjeytu, who gave him Maragha. Ibn Battuta, who
tells this (i, 179), adds that this town was known as
“Little Damascus” ( Dimishk al-saghfra). Kara-Sunkur
died in 728/1328 (d’Ohsson, Hist, des Mongols , iv,
699).

The geographers of the Mongol period.
Zakariyya KazwTnT (673/1275) seems to be personally
acquainted with the town. According to him, there
were in the town memorials of the pre-Islamic period.
He describes the mineral springs (near the village of
Kiyamatabad) and a cave which must correspond to
the Cay-bagh! visited by Morier, Lehmann-Haupt,
Minorsky, etc. KazwTni also mentions the mountain
of Zandjakan with a calcareous spring, the village of
Djnbdk (Gunbadak) with a bottomless well (350) and
gives a description of RuyTn-diz (358).

The Nuzhat al-kulub (written in 740/1340), ed. Le
Strange, 27, estimates the revenues of Mara g ha paid

502

MARAGHA

to the treasury at 70,000 dinars (Ardabll paid 85,000)
and those of its wilayat at 185,000 dinars. The tuman of
Maragha comprised all the southern part of Adhar¬
baydjan; in the north it was bounded by the tuman of
Tabriz, in the west by that of Khoy (Urmiya), in the
south by the lands of Kurdistan (Dlnawar) and in the
east by c Irak-i c Adjam (Zandjan, Sudyas). All the
lands now under the modern Sawdj-Bulak or
Mahabad [q.vv. ] were then ruled from Mara gh a. As
dependencies of Mara gh a. Hamd Allah gives the
towns of Dih-i Kh w arakan (in popular Turkish,
Tukhorghan) to the south of Tabriz, Laylan on the
right bank tributary of the Djaghatu (cf. Rawlinson,
1841, 39: the ruins of Kal c a-yi Bakhta) and Paswe in
Lahidjan, in the valley of the Tigris [cf. sawdj-
bulak]. The tuman comprised six cantons (the names
are much mutilated): Saradjun (?): Niyadjun (?);
Duzakhrud (? cf. the mountain Duzakh on the middle
course of the D j a gh atu): Gawduk (at the confluence of
the river of Laylan with the Djaghatu (the name is
also read Gawdul, Gawdawan. It is remarkable that
FirdawsT (ed. Mohl, vii, 141, 151) mentions in these
regions a Dash-i Duk and Kuh-i Duk where Bahram
Gubin was defeated by Khusraw); Blhistan (probably
the district of Bah! on the Tatawu); and Hashtarud (to
the east of Sahand on the Karanghu). The district of
Anguran on the Kizil-iizen was also a dependency of
Mara gh a.

Christianity at Maragha. In the Mongol
period, Maragha had become an important centre of
Christianity. The celebrated Mar Bar Hebraeus [sec
ibn al- c ibrI] (Jacobite Maphrian) lectured in 1268 on
Euclid and in 1272 on Ptolemy in the “new
monastery” of Maragha; there he wrote the Kitab al-
Duwal. When he died on 30 July 1286, as a sign of
mourning the Greeks, Armenians and Nestorians
closed their shops in the market-place (Assemani,
Bibl. Orientalis , ii, 266; Wright, A short history of Syriac
literature , Oxford 1894, 267, 271, 276, 279). The
history of Mar Yahbalaha III (patriarch of the
Nestorians [1281-1317], tr. Chabot, Paris 1895)
contains valuable notes on Mara gh a. Yahbalaha
rebuilt the already existing church of Mar Shallta and
built a house beside it. In 1289 Arghun had his son
baptised in Mara gh a. In 1294 the patriarch laid the
foundations of the monastery of John the Baptist two-
thirds of a farsakh north of Maragha. After the acces¬
sion of Ghazan (694/1295), the persecution of the
Christians began, instigated by the amir Nawruz. The
mob plundered the residence of the patriarch and the
church of St. George built by the monk Rabban
Sawma (it had been furnished with articles from the
portable church of Arghun’s camp). The patriarch
sought refuge in the suite of the Armenian king
Halton. On his return to Maragha, Ghazan punished
the formenters of the troubles. In 1298 Yahbalaha was
confirmed in his rights. In September 1301 he
finished the monastery of St. John, authorised by
Gavkhatu (see Wilber, op. cit., 14). His biographer
and contemporary gives an account of the beautiful
buildings, the numerous relics and riches of the
monastery (Chabot, op. cit., 133). The village of Dahll
(?) to the east of Maragha was purchased to serve as
a wakf of the monastery (to the north-east of the town
there is still a village of Kilisa-kandi ‘‘village of the
church”). Ghazan and his successor Oldjeytii visited
the monastery. Yahbalaha died and was buried there
in 1317.

On the south side of the hill of the observatory there
are chambers carved out of the rock (3 rooms, 12 feet
high, communicating with one another, and a
corridor). Inside there are niches in the shape of

altars. Local tradition sees a church in these (perhaps
of the Sasanid period); cf. Macdonald Kinneir;
Houtum-Schindler; Lehmann-Haupt; and Minorsky,
in Zvoirao, xxiv (1917), 167.

After the Mongols. In 737/1337 the Djalayirid
Shaykh Hasan inflicted a defeat on Tugha-Tlmur
near Maragha (or at Hashtarud). The pretender
Muhammad was buried at Mara gh a in 738/1337-8
(Shadjarat al-Atrak , 315). Later, the political struggles
of the Turkmens had their pricipal arena in the north¬
ern part of Adharbaydjan. In the same period, the
Kurdish elements of the districts south of Lake
Urmiya became consolidated and received rein¬
forcements from the districts of Mawsil ( Sharaf-nama ,
i, 288). The Mukri Kurd amirs extended their influ¬
ence over Maragha and even as far as Dih-
Kh w arakan. The Turks during their rule over Adhar¬
baydjan included Maragha with Tabriz and levied 15
kharwars of gold per annum on it, which caused its
inhabitants to go away {ibid., 294). In 1002/1593 the
name of the fortress of Saru-kurghan (demolished in
795/1393 by Timur; cf. Zafar-ndrna, i, 628 and rebuilt
by the Mukrls) in the regions of Mara gh a often occurs
in the Sharaf-nama , 294-6; this name recalls that of the
Saruk, the right bank tributary of the D j a gh atu.

During the second Ottoman occupation (1137/
1725), Maragha was governed by c Abd al- c Az!z
Pasha; this administrative unit consisted of 5 sandfaks ,
of which 2 were hereditary and 3 granted by the
government (von Hammer, GOR , iv, 228, according
to Celebizade). In 1 142/1729 Nadir defeated the
Ottomans at Miyan-du’ab on the Djaghatu and
occupied Dimdim, Sawdj-bulak, Maragha and Dih-
Kh w arakan (MahdI-KJian, Ta^rikh-i Nadiri, Tabriz
1284, 66; tr. Jones, i, 104). According to the recently-
discovered history of Nadir, the monarch trans¬
planted 3,000 inhabitants from Maragha to Kalat
(Barthold, in Zvoirao, xxv, 88).

The M u kaddams. As early as the time of Nadir,
the Turkish tribe of Mukaddam is mentioned as
settled in the region of Maragha (Macdonald Kinneir:
15,000 men). Ahmad Khan Mukaddam played a
considerable part in the affairs of Adharbaydjan.
Jaubcrt, Voyage, 160, knew him in 1805 as beglerbegi of
Adharbaydjan under prince c Abbas Mirza. In 1810
he exterminated the Bilbas chiefs whom he had
invited to Maragha [see sawdj-bulak]. According to
Morier, Secondjourney , 293, this patriarch was aged 90
in 1815 (cf. Brydges, Dynasty of the Kajars, 90). The
governor of Maragha Samad Kh an, a partisan of
Muhammad c AlI Shah who besieged Tabriz in 1909,
was of the family of Ahmad Khan. At the present day,
the Mukaddams arc concentrated round Miyan-
du 3 ab.

In 1828 Mara gh a was occupied by Russian troops.
In 1881, the Kurdish invasion by Shaykh c Ubayd
Allah reached the gates of Maragha. The town was
not taken, but the whole country round was in ruins
when Houtum-Schindler visited it in 1882. During
the Great War of 1914-18, Mara gh a was within the
zone of the Russo-Turkish operations [see Tabriz].

Maragha is today a town of 54,106 people ( ca_. 1970
figure) in the province ( ustan ) of Eastern Adhar¬
baydjan. It is also the centre of a district {shahrastan)
of the same name which stretches as far west as Lake
Urmiya and contains four component sub-districts
(bakhshs ), Huma, c AdjabshIr, Bunab and Malik
KardI, the total population of the shahrastan being
252,067. As well as Sunnis and Shfrs, in the main
Turkish-speaking, the district also has some C A1I-
Ilahis [see ahl-i hakk], mainly Kurdish; see Farhang-i
dfughrafiya-yi Iran, iv, 489-91, and L. Adamec,

MARAGHA — MARAKKAYAR

503

Historical gazetteer of Iran. i. I'ehran and north-western Iran ,
Graz 1976, 434-5.

Bibliography. In addition to the indigenous
sources quoted in the text: Sam c anl, Kitab al-
Ansab, GMS, xx, fol. 519a, ed. Hyderabad, xii,
171-5 (he also derives the nisba Maragha from the
clan al-Maragh of the tribe of al-Azd); HadjdjI
Kh alifa. Djihdn-niimd. 389; Ewliya Celebi, Siyahat-
nama , iv, 333 (confused and of doubtful value);
Zayn al- c Abidin, Bustan al-siyaha, 555; Hafiz-i
Abru, Dhayl-i Djami : al-tawdrtkh . i, ed. Kh. Bayani,
Tehran 1317/1938, 95.

The European descriptions of Mara gh a
(only since the 19th century) are not very numerous
and do not exhaust the subject: Macdonald
Kinneir, Geogr. memoir, London 1813, 155-5; S.
Morier, A second journey, London 1818, 281-97
(TabrIz-Maragha-Gultapa[Kul-tapa?]-Saraskand);
R. Ker Porter, Travels, London 1822, ii, 493;
Monteith, Journal of a tour, in JRGS (1833), 4
(Sahand-Saraskand-Kal c a-yi Zohak); H. Rawlin-
son, A march from Tabriz, in JRGS (1841), 39
(Miyan-du 3 ab); Ritter, Erdkunde, ix, 828-52; G.
Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syrischen Akten, Leipzig 1880,
248, etc. (important historical and geographical
notes); A. Houtum-Schindler, Reisen im nord-west
Persien, in Zeitschr. d. Gesell. d. Erdkunde , Berlin
(1883), 334 (cf. the article Maragha in the Encycl.
Brilannica, llthed., 1911); J. De Morgan, Mission
scientifique. Etudes geographiques, i, Paris 1894, 337-40
(several views); Zugmayer, Eine Reise d. Vorderasien,
Berlin 1905, 123-8; S.G. Wilson, Persian life,
London 1890, 71-80; Le Strange, The lands of the
eastern caliphate, 164-5; R. de Mecquenem, Le lac
d’Ourmiah, in Annales de Geogr. (1908), 128-44; C.
Lehmann-Haupt, Arrnenien, i, (1910, 208-16; de
Mecquenem, Contribution a Vetude du gisement des
vertebres de Maragha, in Minis tere Instr. Publique,
Delegation en Perse, Annales d'Histoire naturelle, i/2,
1908, 1-79 (with a geographical introduction);
Isma c Tl Dfbadj, Bindha-yi ta Sikhi-yi bakimanda dar
Adharbdydjan az dawra-yi Ilkhdnan-i Mughul, in
Barrasihd-yi ta : nkhi, ii/5_, 133-50; idem, Rahnama-yi
ditfar-i ta Aikhi-yi Adharbdydjan-i sharkI wa

Adhcirbaydydn-i gharbi, Tabriz i 343/1964, 35-42; M.
Dj . Mashkur, Nazari ba-ta^rikh-i Adharbdydjan wa
dthdr-i bdstdni wa djandiyyat shinasi-yi an, Tehran
1349/1970, 19-21; D. Krawulsky, Iran, das Reich der
llhdne, eine topographisch-histonsche Studie, Wiesbaden
1978, 536-7. (V. Minorsky*)

MARAKKAYAR (Tamil corruption of A. markab
“boat”), an endogamous Tam i 1 - speak i n g
Muslim group of South India located mainly in the
coastal districts of Tamil Nadu State in the Indian
Union. Major concentrations are found in the
districts of Thanjavur, South Arcot, Tiruchi-rapalli
and Tirunelvcli, particularly in the ports of Nagap-
pattinam, sc. Nagor, Porto Novo, Adirampatnam,
Muttupct and Pottalpudar.

No population figures exist, but the Marakkayar
probably number under 100,000. They are Sunnis of
the Shafi c I madhhab and read the Kur 5 an in a Tamil
translation written in Arabic characters. Descent is
claimed from Arab traders, and certainly Nagappat-
tinam was known to early Arab merchants as Malifat-
tan and was an important port of call en route to the
Malay peninsula and Sumatra by the 15th century
A.D.

The division between the Labbai \q.v.] and the
Marakkayar is obscure. In the 19th century, the term
was used in Thanjavur district amongst wealthy
Labbai shipowners and traders to distinguish them

from their poorer co-religionists, and in the 18th
century records of the English East India Company
similar usage is found particularly for Muslims
trading out of ports in the Thanjavur district. As late
as the early 20th century the title was freely adopted
in Tirunelvcli district by Labbais engaged in the rice
export trade to Ceylon.

Despite such loose usage, there was by the 19th
century a clear division between Labbai and Marak¬
kayar in larger ports such as Nagappattinam. The
division was most clearly based on wealth, with the
Marakkayar comprising the more prosperous section
of the Muslim community and dominating indi¬
genous seaborne trade with Burma, Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia and Ceylon. The Marakkayar
Tamil dialect in Nagapattinam also included a smat¬
tering of Arabic words, and socially they followed
fewer Hindu practices than the Labbai. In part, the
division between Labbai and Marakkayar was prob¬
ably confirmed by occupational and wealth differen¬
tiation which occurred during the 18th century and
19th with wealthy Muslim shipowners and overseas
traders separating themselves socially from the larger
and poorer Labbai community.

By the mid- 19th century the Marakkayar were
stereotyped as the wealthiest and most orthodox
section of the Tamil Muslim community. Their
women were unique in observing gosha {purdah ), inter¬
marriage with other Muslim groups was discouraged,
and they deliberately attempted to eliminate Hindu
practices from their social and religious life. In the late
19th century, under the influence of north Indian
c ulama :) , and propagandists from c AlIgarh, there was a
shortlived movement to abandon Tamil in favour of
Urdu.

Despite the tightening of group boundaries in the
19th century, the Marakkayar remain a cosmopolitan
community. Communities exist abroad today in
Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Indonesia, and
formerly in Burma. During the 20th century, they
have broadened their economic base in southern India
to include shopkeeping, hotel development and
industrial development.

The most important Marakkayar religious centre,
which is shared by other Muslim groups and Hindus,
is the nationally-famous tomb of Shah al-Hamld c Abd
al-Kadir (d. 1600), commonly known as Kadir Wall
or Mlran Sahib, at Nagappattinam-Nagore. The
tomb was endowed at foundation by the Hindu Raja
of Thanjavur, and until the late 19th century it was
patronised by the princesses of that family. Similar
centres of pilgrimage patronised by the Marakkayar
exist at Adirampatnam (the tomb of Shavkh c Ala ;> al-
Dln Sahib Andavar) and Muttupet.

Bibliography: The first references to Marak-
kayars are found scattered amongst the voluminous
records of the English East India Company. G.A.
Herklots, Islam in India, London 1832, details the
history and practice of the Nagore shrine. E. Sell,
7 'he faith of Islam, Madras 1880; E. Thurston, Castes
and tribes of Southern India , Madras 1909, and Kadir
Hussain Khan, South Indian Mussalmans, Madras
1910, provide the first modern descriptive and
anthropological analysis of the group. The census of
India, xv (1901), xii (1911), xiv (1931), provides
details of occupation, distribution and social prac¬
tices, but no statistics; the records of the Madras
Presidency are similar. District Gazetteers provide
local information concerning the group: L. Moore,
Tnchinopoly, Madras 1878; T. Venkasami Row,
Tanjore, Madras 1883; F. R. Hemingway, Tanjore,
Madras 1906 and Trichinopoly Madras 1907; W.

504

MARAKKAYAR — MARAND

Francis, South Arcot, Madras 1906; and H. R. Pate,
Tinnevelly , Madras 1917. S. Playne and W. Bond,
Southern India, its history, people, commerce and industrial
resources , London 1914, provides biographical and
descriptive data of the groups’ economic interests;
S. M. Fossil, The Islamic South , Madras 1942,
provides further biographical details. J. Dupuis,
Madras et le nord du Coromandel, Paris 1960, details
group economic diversification. K. McPherson,
The political development of the Urdu- and Tamil¬
speaking Muslims of the Madras Presidency, 1901 to
1937 , M.A. thesis, University of Western Australia
1969, unpublished, and idem, The social background
and politics of the Muslims of Tamil Nad, 1901-1937 ,
in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vi
(1969), provide accounts of the group in their
regional context. M. Mines, Muslim merchants, New
Delhi 1972, describes the economic behaviour of
Muslim merchants in a changing, industrialising
Tamil urban community. (K. McPherson)
MARAND 1. Town in the Persian province
of Adh arbay djan.

Position. The town lies about 40 miles north of
Tabriz, halfway between it and the Araxes or Aras in
lat. 38° 25’ 30" N. and 45° 46" E. at an altitude of
ca. 4,400 feet/1,360m. (it is 42 miles from Marand to
Djulfa). The road from Tabriz to Khoy also branches
off at Marand. A shorter road from Tabriz to Khoy
follows the north bank of Lake Urmiya and crosses the
Mishowdagh range by the pass between Tasudj \q.v.}
and Diya al-Dln. Marand, which is surrounded by
many gardens, occupies the eastern corner of a rather
beautiful plain, about 10 miles broad and sloping
slightly to the west. To the south, the Mishow range
(western continuation of the Sawalan) separates it
from the plain of Tabriz and from Lake Urmiya. The
pass to the south of Marand often mentioned by
historians is called Yam (Mongol = “post-station”).
The pass between the plain of Marand and Tasudj
takes its name from the village of Waldiyan. To the
east of Marand lies the wild and mountainous region
of Karadja-dagh (capital: Ahar). To the north, the
plain of Marand is separated from the Araxes by a
range, a continuation of the central heights of the
Karadja-dagh which is crossed by the defile of the
Daradiz. The plain of Marand is watered by the river
of Zunuz, the southern arm of which called Zilblr runs
quite near Marand. The combined waters of Zunuz
and Zilblr flow into the Kotur-cay (an important
right-bank tributary of the Araxes) about 20 miles
north-east of Khoi. The length of the Zunuz is about
40 miles (Hamd Allah Mustawfl: 8 farsakhs).

History. A lofty tell which rises besides the town
is evidence of the great antiquity of this as an
inhabited site; it must have existed in the time of the
Vannic (Urartian) and Assyrian kings. Its Greek
name MopotivBoc is perhaps connected with the people
MapouvSou who, according to Ptolemy, vi, 2, occupied
the lands as far as Lake Urmiya. A legend of Arme¬
nian origin based on the popular etymology mair and
“mater ibi” locates in Marand the tomb of Noah’s
wife (Hubschmann, Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen, Leip¬
zig 1904, 346, 415; Ker Porter, Travels, i, 217). Moses
of Chorene places Marand (ch. 60) in the district of
Bakurakert. There was another Marand mentioned
by the Armenian historian Orbelian (ca. 1300) in the
province of Siunikh (north of the Araxes) and a village
of Marand still exists east of Tf gh nft in the khanate of
Maku [q v.].

I bn Ba c Ith. After the Arab conquest, a certain
Halbas of the tribe of Rabija took Marand. His son
Ba c Ith, a soldier of fortune (su c luk) in the service of Ibn

al-Rawwad, ruler of Tabriz, fortified Marand.
Muhammad b. Ba c Ith erected castles there (kusur) (al-
Baladhuri, 330; cf. Camb. hist, of Iran , iv, 227). This
chief had acquired considerable notoriety. In 200/815
he had taken from the family of Rawwad the
strongholds of Shahl and Tabriz (al-Tabari, iii, 1171).
(In another passage, al-Tabari, iii, 1379, mentions
Yakdur [?] in place of Tabriz). Ibn Ba c Ith lived at
Shahl, which stood in the centre of Lake Urmiya (the
peninsula of Shahl, where at a later date the II-
Khanid Hiilegu kept his treasure and where he was
buried). Ibn Ba c Ith was at first on good terms with the
Kh urramI Babak [<y.z>.], whose authority must have
prevailed in the Karadja-da gh in particular, in the
north-eastern corner of which was his residence al-
Ba dhdh [q.v. in Suppl.]. Ibn Ba c Ith suddenly changed
his tactics and seized by a ruse c Isma, one of Babak’s
generals, whom he sent to the caliph al-Mu c tasim. In
221/836 Ibn Ba c Ith accompanied Bugha on his
expedition against al-Ba dhdh (al-Tabari, iii, 1190,
1193). Under the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil, Ibn
Ba c Ith committed some crime ( khalafa) and was im¬
prisoned in Samarra or Surra-man-ra 5 a. On the
intercession of Bugha al-Sharabl, 30 people of re¬
pute became guarantors of Ibn al-Ba c Ith’s good
behaviour, and he must have been allowed
considerable liberty, for in 234/848 he escaped to
Marand. Ibn Khurradadhbih, who wrote in 234/848-
9, mentions Marand as being Ibn Ba c Ith’s fief. Al-
Tabarl, iii, 1379-89, gives a very graphic account of
the expedition sent against this town. The wall which
enclosed Marand and its gardens was 2 farsakhs in
circumference. There were springs within it. The
dense forest outside was a further protection to the
town. Ibn Ba c Ith collected 2,200 adventurers who
were reinforced by a number of non-Arabs fuludf)
armed with slings. He had ballistas constructed to
repel the assailants. During the 8 months that the
siege lasted, 100 individuals of note (awliyaf al-sultan)
were killed and 400 wounded. When Bugha al-
Sharabl(al-Baladhun. 330: Bugha al-$aghlr) arrived,
he succeeded in detaching the men of the Rabija tribe
from Ibn Ba c Ith. Ibn Ba c Ith and his relatives were
seized and his house and those of his partisans
plundered. In Shawwal of 235/April-May 850, Bu gh a
arrived with 180 prisoners at the caliph’s court. Al-
Mutawakkil ordered Ibn Ba c ith to be beheaded, but
the latter recited verses in Arabic and the caliph was
astonished by his poetic gifts (inna ma c ahu la-adab an )
and gave him his life. Ibn Ba c Ith died in prison and
his sons entered the corps of mercenaries (al-
shakiriyya). According to one of al-Tabari’s authorities
(iii, 1388), the shaykhs of Maragha who praised the
bravery and literary ability ( adab ) of Ibn Ba c Ith also
quoted his Persian verses (bi ’l-farisiyya). This impor¬
tant passage, already quoted by Barthold, BSOS, ii
(1923), 836-8, is evidence of the existence of the
cultivation of poetry in Persian in northwestern Persia
at the beginning of the 9th century. Ibn Ba c Ith must
have been Iranicised to a considerable extent, and, as
has been mentioned, he relied for support on the non-
Arab element in his rustaks fuludj. rasatikihi).

Later history. The Arab geographers of the
4th/10th century (al-Istakhri, 182; Ibn Hawkal, 239;
cf. Le Strange, Lands, 166-7) mention Marand among
the little towns of Adharbavdjan where the trouser-
bands called likak were manufactured. Al-MukaddasI,
51, 374, 377, puts Marand under Dabll and notes its
gardens, its flourishing suburb and a cathedral
mosque in the centre of the market. The same author,
382, mentions a direct road from Marand to Mara gh a
(via Nurln [?], somewhere west of Tabriz?). Later,

MARAND — MAR C ASH

505

Marand must have shared the fate of Tabriz [qv.].
According to Yakut, iv, 503, the town had begun to
decline after it was plundered by the Georgians
(Kurdj), who carried off its inhabitants. This is
valuable confirmation of the Georgian expedition to
Persia, a detailed account of which is given in the
Georgian Chronicle for 1208-10 (605-7) [see Tabriz
and al-kurdj].

Among the theologians born in Marand, Yakut
mentions one who died in 216/831 and another who
had studied in Damascus in 433/1041-2. In 624/1226,
Marand, which had not sufficient defences, was
occupied by the hadjib c Ali al-AshraiT of Akhiat.
Sharaf al-Mulk, governor for the Kh w arazmshah,
retook the town and wrought great slaughter in it
(Nasawl, ed. Houdas, 166).

The only historical monument in Marand is the old
mosque, Saldjuk in origin, now in ruins, with a mihrab
in stucco bearing the dates of rebuilding 730/1330
(reign of the Il- Kh anid Abu Sa c Td) and 740/1339 by
Kh w adja Husayn b. Mahmud (Cf. Sarre, Denkmaler
persischer Baukunst, Berlin 1910, 24-5 and pi. xvii; the
observations by E. Herzfeld, Die Gumbadh-i
c Alawiyyan, in the Volume ... presented to E. G. Browne ,
Cambridge 1922, 194-5; and D. Wilber, I'he architec¬
ture of Islamic Iran. The II Khanid period , Princeton 1955,
172-3, no. 79. A caravanserai some 8 miles/13 km. to
the north of Marand dates from ca. 730-5/1330-5 but
is known locally as “the caravanserai of Hulcgii
(Wilber, op. cit., 176-7, no. 85).

Around this time, Hamd Allah MustawfT describes
the excellent fruit and cereals of Marand and
mentions that to the south of the town was found the
kirmiz insect (kermes ilicis) for crimson dye. There were
60 villages in the district, and the revenues of the town
and its dependencies amounted to 24,000 dirhams.
The walls of the town were 8,000 paces round, but the
town itself occupied only half this area (Nuzhat al-
kulub, 88, tr. 89). In the Tlmurid period, Marand
appears as a mint-town (in 832/1428-9), see E. von
Zambaur, Die Minzpragungen des Islams, zeitlich und
ortlich geordnet , i, Wiesbaden 1968, 238.

Marand is several times mentioned in connection
with the Turco-Persian wars. According to Ewliya
Celebi (in 1647), Siydhat-nama , ii, 242, Marand was a
hunting-resort of the Tlmurid Shahrukh. In spite of
the damage done by the invasion of Sultan Murad,
the town looked prosperous and had 3,000 houses.
Ewliya enumerates a number of celebrated theolo¬
gians buried north of Marand.

In the autumn of 1724 c Abd Allah Pasha Kopriilu
sent the Kurdish Khan of BitlTs Muhammad c Abid to
occupy Marand, the inhabitants of which had fled.
Resistance centred round the town of Zunuz (10 miles
north of Marand) which had 7,000 (?) houses and a
castle called Diza by the Persians. To dispose of the
threat to their flank, the Janissaries, before advancing
on Tabriz, fought a battle here in May 1725 with the
Persians, of whom a large number were slain. Diza
was taken and dismantled (cf. von Hammer, GOR 2 ,
iv, 226, following Celebi-zade).

Marand has often been mentioned by European
travellers since the time of Hans Chr. von Teufel
(1589), cf. the notices by Chardin (ed. 1811, i, 318)
and by Ker Porter, Jaubert, Moricr, Ouseley and
Monteith, of which a resume is given in Ritter,
Erdkunde , ix, 907. Marand has recently gained in
importance since it lies on the modern high road from
Tabriz to Djulfa built by the Russians in 1906 and
replaced by a railway in 1915-16.

In contemporary Iran, Marand comes within the
third ustdn of Adharbavdjan. and is the centre of a

shahraslan (1951 pop. 128,762) containing three
ba khsh s: the town itself had a population of almost
14,000 in 1951 and about 24,000 some years later (see
Razmara, Farhang-i Diughrafiya-yi Iran , iv, 493; L.
Adamec, Historical gazetteer of Iran. i. 1'ehran and north¬
western Iran, Graz 1976, 435-7).

Bibliography. Given in the article.

2. Town in the district of Khuttal. On this
town to the north of the Oxus, cf. al-MukaddasI, 49,
290-1. (V. Minorsky-[C. E. Bosworth])

MAR C ASH , a town in the Taurus Mountains
region of southern Anatolia, falling within
modern Turkey and now the chef-lieu, as Maras, of
the il (formerly vilayet) of Maras.

It lies about 2,000 fect/610 m. above sea-level on
the northern edge of the hollow ( c Amk of Mar c ash;
now Cakal Owa and south of it Sheker Owa or
Mar c ash Owasi) which lies east of the Djayhan and is
watered by its tributary, the Nahr Hurlth (Ak-Su). As
a result of its situation at the intersection of the roads
which run to Antakiya, to ‘'Ayn Zarba and al-
Masslsa, to Albistan (Abulustain) and Yarpuz, via
Goksiin (Kokussos) to Kaysariyya, via Behesnl
(Bahasna) to Sumaysat and via al-Hadath and Zibatra
to Malatya, Mar c ash was from the earliest times one
of the most important centres of traffic in the Syrian
frontier region. It is repeatedly mentioned as early as
the Assyrian texts as Markasi, capital of the kingdom
of Gurgum [see djaradpma), and several Hittite
monuments have been found there (cf. Unger,
Marqasi , in Ebert’s Reallexik. d. Vorgesch., viii, 1927,
48).

1. History up to the Ottoman period. In
the Roman imperial period it was called Germanikeia
in honour of Caligula (on the coins, Ceasarea Ger¬
man ike; cf. Gregoirc, in Rev. de Tinstr. publ. en Belg.,
!i [1908], 217 ff.). The identity of Germanikeia and
Mar c ash is certain from numerous literary, especially
Syriac, references. The Armenians probably knew,
but probably from learned tradition only, the name
Germanik (Kcrmanig in Vahram; cf. Matthew of
Edessa, ed. Dulauricr, 487 below; St. Martin, Mem.
sur I'Arm., i, 200). The statement in a description of
the district of Halab (B.N. ms. Arab., no. 1683, fol.
72a) that the Armenian name of the town was
Nakinuk (Blochet, ROL , iii, 525-6, 6) is wrong; this
is a mistake for Goyniik, a name later given to the
neighbouring al-Hadath [q .v.]. The Emperor
H eraclius passed through the town in 626
(Theophancs, Chron., ed., dc Boor, 313; Ramsay, in
Classical Review , x, 140; Gcrland, in Byz. Zeitschnft, iii
[1894], 362). The Emperor Leo III came from
Mar c ash (Germanikeia); later authors (like Theo¬
phancs, op. cit., 391) wrongly called him the
“Isaurian” ( a confusion with Germanikopolis; cf. K.
Schenk, in Byz. Zeilschr., v [1896], 296-8).

In the year 16/637 Abu c Ubayda sent Khalid b. al-
Walld from Manbidj against Mar c ash, and the Greek
garrison surrendered the fortress on being granted
permission to withdraw unmolested; Khalid then
destroyed it (Caetani, Annali dell’ Islam , iii, Milan
1910, 794, 806). Sufyan b. c Awf al- Gh amidl in
30/650-1 set out from Mar c ash against the Byzan¬
tines. Mu c awiya rebuilt Mar c ash and settled soldiers
in this “Arab Cayenne” (as Lammens, in MFOB , vi
[1913], 437 calls it). After Yazld I’s death, the attacks
of the Greeks on the town became so severe that the
inhabitants abandoned it.

After Muhammad b. Marwan in 74/693-4 had
broken the truce concluded by c Abd al-Malik with the
Greeks, in Djumada I of the following year the Greeks
set out from Mar c ash against al-A c mak ( = c Amk of

506

MARASH

Antakiya; cf. Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems,
391) but were again driven back in the c Amk of
Mar c ash. Mar c ash was restored by al- c Abbas, son of
al-Walld I, and fortified and repopulated; a large
mosque was also built there.

The people of Kinnasrln [q.v. \ (i.e. probably of the
(fund of Kinnasrln) had to send troops every year to
Mar c ash. During Marwan II’s fighting against Hims,
the Emperor Constantine again besieged Mar c ash.
which had finally to capitulate (129/746) and was
destroyed (al-Baladhurl, 189; Theophanes, Chron.,
ed.de Boor,422; Georgios Kedrenos, ed. Bonn, ii, 7).
The inhabitants emigrated to Mesopotamia and the
djund of Kinnasrln. After the capture of Hims,
Marwan sent troops to Mar c ash, who rebuilt the town
in 130/747; the castle in the centre of the town was
henceforth called al-Marwanl after him (Yakut, iv,
498-9). But by 137/754 the Greeks again sacked the
town. Al-Mansur then had it rebuilt by Salih b. C A1I
(d. 150/767) and gave it a garrison which al-Mahdl
strengthened and supplied with ample munitions (al-

Baladhun, loc. cit.\ Theoph., op. cit., 445: 6 _

[X£T£7toir|0£ ITppavixuav he, IIaXai<mvT}v ). The Arabs in
769 (1080 Sel.) entered the c Amk of Mar c ash and
deported the inhabitants of the region who were
accused of espionage on behalf of the Byzantines, to
al-Ramla (Michael the Syrian, Chron., ed. Chabot, ii,
526). According to the Syriac inscription of c Enesh on
the Euphrates, in 776-7 A.D. (1088 Sel.) the people of
the hollow ( c umka ) of Mar c ash invaded Asia Minor
(Beth Rhomaya) to plunder (Chabot, in JA , ser. 9,
vol. xvi [1900], 286-7; Pognon, Inscr. semit. de la Syrie
et de la Mesopotamie , 148-50, no. 84). A Greek army of
100,000 men in 161-2/778-9 under Michael
Lachanodrakon besieged Mar c ash, which was
defended by c Isa b. C A1I (’IaPaaXi in Theophanes, op.
cit., 451), grand-uncle of the Caliph al-MahdT,
destroyed al-Hadath and laid waste the Syrian fron¬
tier (Weil, Gesch. d. Chalifen, ii, 98). In 183/799 Harun
al-Rashld built the town of al-Hartiniyya near
Mar c ash (al-Baladhun. 171; Yakut, iv, 498, wrongly
calls it a suburb of Mar c ash); he also raised the pros¬
perity of Mar c ash and al-MassIsa (al-Mas c udI,
Murucf , viii, 295 = § 3449). The amir Abu Sa c Td
Muhammad b. Yusuf in 226/841 invaded Asia
Minor; the Greeks drove him back, however, and
took al-Hadath, Mar c ash and the district of Malatya
(Michael the Syrian, iii, 102; Weil, Gesch. d. Chalifen ,
ii, 315-16, n. 1, considers this story unhistorical). The
emperor Basil I in 877 passed via Kouxouao:; (Goksun)
and the Taurus passes (ax£va xou Taupou) against
Mar c ash (ITpfjtavCxsta), but could not take it and had
to be content with burning and plundering the
suburbs; the same thing happened at al-Hadath
(”A8axa; Georgios Kedrenos [Bonn], ii, 214;
Theophanes continuatus, ed. Bonn, 280). According
to the riept itapaSpopfji; 7coX£poo (De velitatione bellica ,
Migne, Patrol. Graec., cxvii, 1000), shortly before
the attack on Germanikeia he crossed the riapd8£taot;
noz<x[i6<; (cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist., v. 93: one of the intus
flumina of Cilicia, probably the Ak-Su, Arabic Nahr
Di urlth or Hurlth; the location by Tomaschek in
SBAk Wien, cxxiv [1891], Abh. viii, 66, is therefore
presumably wrong). The Byzantine Andronicus in
292/904-5) invaded the region of Mar c ash, defeated
the garrisons of Tarsus and MassTsa and destroyed
Kurus (Ibn al-Athlr, vii, 378; al-Tabari, iii, 2298,
Weil, op. cit., ii, 533; Vasiliev, Vizanliya i Arabi, i,
1902, 154). The Armenian Mleh (Arab. Mallh)
plundered Mar c ash in 916; 50,000 prisoners were
carried off from it and Tarsus (Weil, op. cit., ii, 634;
Vasilev, op. cit., 203). In the fighting against Sayf al-

Dawla, the Greeks under John Kurkuas took Mar c ash
in the spring of 337/949 (Kamal al-DTn, in Freytag,
ZDMG , xi, 187; Weil, op. cit., iii, 14, n. 1; Vasiliev,
op. cit., 268). In 341/952 the Hamdanid defeated the
Domestikos at Mar c ash, and in June rebuilt the
defences of the town (Freytag, op. cit., 191; Vasiliev,
op. cit., 291). When the Hamdanid Abu T c Asha 5 ir in
345/956 was taken prisoner by the Byzantines, his
father-in-law Abu Firas followed as far as Mar c ash in
the attempts to rescue him, but could not overtake his
captors (Dvorak, Abu Firas, Leiden 1895, 31; Vasiliev,
op. cit., 297). Nicephorus Phocas in Rab! c I
351/August 962 occupied Mar c ash, Duluk and
Ra c ban (Freytag, op. cit., 199; Rosen, in Zapiski Imp.
Akad. Nauk , xliv, 152, n. 100). Bandjutakln in
382/992 carried out a raid on Mar c ash and came back
with prisoners and great booty (Freytag, 248; Rosen,
250, 263). The Armenian Philaretos Brachamios
(Filardus al-Ruml) who in the second half of the
5th/11 th century, as a leader of a robber band and ally
of the Byzantine emperor, conquered a little kingdom
for himself on the Syrian frontier, belonged to the
village of Shlrbaz in the district of Mar c ash (Michael
the Syrian, iii, 173, 173 n.*).

After the Franks under Godfrey de Bouillon had
taken Mar c ash in 490/1097, they installed a bishop
there (Michael the Syrians, iii, 191). Bohemund of
Antioch was taken prisoner in June 1100 in the c amk
of Mar c ash in the village of Gafina (ibid., iii, 188) on
his campaign against Malatya by Gumushtegln b.
Danishmand (Recueil des hist, or des crois., iii, 589;
Rohricht, Gesch. des Konigr. Jerus., 9; Weil, op. cit., iii,
179). The emperor Alexius later sent the general
Butumites against Mar c ash (to Mdpaaiv) who took the
town, fortified the surrounding small towns and
villages and gave them garrisons and left Monastras
there as riyEpan* (Anna Comnena, Alexiad , ed. Reif-
ferscheid, ii, 132, 11 ff; F. Chalandon, Les Comnene, i,
Paris 1900, 234). The town of Mar c ash was placed
under the Armenian prince Thathul, who had distin¬
guished himself in its defence against Bohemund
(Mattheos Urhayec c i, ed. Dulaurier, ch. clxvi, 229-
30; Chalandon, op. cit., i, 104-5). But by 1104 he had
to abandon it and surrender it to Joscelin de
Courtenay, lord of Tell Bashir (Mattheos, op. cit.,
257, ch. clxxxvi; Raoul of Caens, ch. 148; Rohricht,
op. cit., 49, n. 8, 52, n. 4). This Thatful is perhaps the
same Armenian as had given his daughter in marriage
to Godfrey’s brother Baldwin (in William of Tyre, x,
1, he is called Tafroc; in Albert of Aix, iii, 31, v, 18:
Taphnuz; cf. Chalandon, op. cit., 103). By 1105
Tancred of Antioch seems to have been in possession
of Mar c ash (Rohricht, 56), to whom it was allotted in
the treaty of September 1108 (rj rVppavtxua xal xa utco
xauxrjv noXi/vtot: Anna Commcna, ed. Reifferscheid,
ii, 217; Rohricht, 66). In 1114 the widow of the
recently-deceased Armenian prince Kogh Vasil ( =
“Basil the thief”) of Mar c ash submitted to Ak Sunkur
oi Mawsil (Weil, op. cit., iii, 199); on 28 Djumada II
508/27 November 1114, Mar c ash was devastated by a
disastrous earthquake in which 40,000 lost their lives
(Michael the Syrian, tr. Chabot, iii, 200; Recueil hist,
or. crois,, iii, 607; Mattheos Urhayec c i, 289, ch. ccvii).
King Baldwin granted a monk named Godfrey
(Goisfridus Monachus ) a fief consisting of Mar c ash,
Kaysum and Ra c ban (Michael the Syrian, iii, 211;
Rohricht, op. cit., 161); in 1124 Godfrey was killed at
the siege of Manbidj in the train of Joscelin of Edessa.
The Danishmandid Muhammad b. Amir GhazI in
531/1 136-7 laid waste the villages and monasteries
near Mar c ash and Kaysum (Mattheos, 320, ch.
ccliii). The Saldjuk sultan Mas c ud in 532/1138

MAR C ASH

507

advanced as far as Mar c ash, plundering the country
as he went (Michael the Syrian, iii, 246) as did Malik
Muhammad of Malatya in 535/1141 (ibid., iii, 249)
and Kflidj Arslan II in 541/1147 ibid., iii, 275). The
town then belonged to Raynald, son-in-law ofjoscelin

II of Edessa, who fell in 1149 at Innib (Rohricht, op.
cil., 260). On 5 Djumada I 544/11 September 1149,
Kflidj Arslan and his father Mas c ud set out from
Albistan against Mar c ash, plundered the country
around and besieged the town. The Frankish garrison
capitulated on being promised a safe retreat to
Antakiya; but the sultan sent a body of Turks after
them, who fell upon them on the road and slew them.
On this occasion, all the treasure of the churches of
Mar c ash was lost, which the priests who had rebelled
against the bishop had appropriated (Michael the
Syrian, iii, 290; Mattheos Urhayec c i, 330, ch. cclix;
Chalandon, op. cit., 421; Rohricht, op. cit., 263). After
the capture of Joscelin, Nur al-DTn of Halab in
546/1151-2 took a large part of the country of Edessa
including the towns of Mar c ash, Tell Bashir,
c Ayntab, Duluk, Kurus, etc. (Recueil hist, or crois., i,
29, 481, ii, 54; Weil, op. cit., iii, 296; Rohricht, op.
cit., 265, n. 5). The district was then divided: the
sultan received Mar c ash, Barzaman, Ra c ban,
Kaysum and Bahasna; the Artukid Kara Arslan of
Hisn Ziyad got Babula, Gargar, KYakhta and Hisn
Mansur; Nur al-DTn kept the rest (Michael the
Syrian, iii, 297; William of Tyre, xvii, 16). When
Mas c ud’s son Kflidj Arslan, lord of Mar c ash (Michael
the Syrian, iii, 318), attacked an Armenian village,
the Armenians under Stephan, brother of the prince
Thoros, in 1156 revenged themselves by setting
Mar c ash on Fire and carried off the whole population
into captivity, during the absence of the sultan and his
Turks (ibid., ii, 314 [expanded from Barhebracus,
Chron. syr.}\ differently in Abu Shama, Rec. hist. or.
crois, iv, 92;F. Chalandon, Les Comnene, ii, Paris 1912,
434). Among those carried off was the bishop
Dionysios bar SalTbT, who escaped to the monastery of
Kalsiur (according to Chabot, loc. cil., the xaorpov
KocXiCtEptv of Anna Comnena, ed. Reifferscheid, ii,
219) and wrote three memre about the devastation of
his former diocese of Mar c ash (Michael the Syrian,
loc. cit.-, Baumstark, Gesch. d. syr. Litt., 298). Thoros
of Little Armenia in 1165 plundered Mar c ash
(Barhebraeus, Chron. syr., ed. Bedjan, 331; Rohricht,
op. cit., 319, n. 8; Chalandon, op. cit., ii, 531, n. 1).
Nur al-DTn again took Mar c ash from Kilidj Arslan II
when he was on a campaign against the Danishman-
did Dhu '1-Nun (Michael the Syrian, iii, 350) in the
beginning of Dhu YKa c da 568/14 June 1173) and
Bahasna in Dhu THidjdja (Rec. hist. or. crois., i, 43,
592, iv, 158, Mattheos UrhayecS, ed. Dulaurier, 360;
Abu 'l-Fida 3 , Annal. musl., ed. Reiske, iv, 4;
Rohricht, op. cit., 303, who is followed by Chalandon,
Les Comnene, ii, 463, wrongly puts these events as early
as 1159).

Nur al-DTn perhaps handed Mar c ash over to his
ally Mleh of Little Armenia. When the dynast of
Mar c ash raised the district of Ra c ban, al-Malik al-
Zahir in 592/1195-6 took the field against him,
whereupon the lord of Mar c ash sought forgiveness
and recognised his suzerainty (Kamal al-DTn, tr.
Blochet, in ROI, iv, 212). The Armenian ruler Rupen

III took Bohemund III of Antakiya prisoner in 1185
and forced him to cede the territory from the Djayhan
up to Kastun (Michael the Syrian, ii, 396-7;
Rohricht, op. cit., 403, n. 7, 661). Ghiyath al-DTn
Kav-Khusraw. son of Kflidj Arslan II, in 605/1208,
when on a campaign against Little Armenia, took
Mar c ash (Abu TFida 3 , Annal. musl., ed. Reiske, iv.

232), and made Husam al-DTn Hasan governor of the
town. He was succeeded in this office by his son
Ibrahim, who in turn was succeeded by his son Nusrat
al-DTn, who ruled Mar c ash for 50 years. The long
reign of his son Muzaffar al-DTn was followed by that
of his brother c Imad al-DTn who however in 656/1258
abandoned the town, which was much harassed by the
Armenians and Georgians, after failing to find
support either from c Izz al-DTn Kay-Kawus of Rum
or al-Malik al-Sallh of Egypt. The town then
surrendered to the Armenians (Ibn al-Shihna, Beirut
1909, 192).

Mar c ash did not escape during the great Mongol
invasion of Asia Minor. Baybars I of Egypt in his
campaign against them in 670/1271 sent from Halab
a division under Taybars al-WazTrT and c Isa b. MuhTn
to Mar c ash, who drove all the Tatars from there and
slew them (Rec. hist. or. crois., ii, 246; al-MakrTzT, ed.
Quatremere, Hist, de Sultans Mamlouks, i/2, 101). In
the wars with the rulers of Little Armenia, troops
from Halab went as far as Mar c ash in 673/1274 and
destroyed the gates of the outer town (Weil, Gesch. d.
Chal., iv, 7). In the next few years, Baybars
negotiated with envoys from STs, from whom he
demanded the surrender of Mar c ash and Bahasna;
but he was satisfied instead with a considerable sum
of money (al-MakrlzT, op. cit., i/2, 123 [year

673/1274]; ii/1, 104 [688/1289]). It was not till
692/1292 that sultan Khalil by a treaty received
Bahasna, Mar c ash and Tell Hamdun (Mufaddal b.
Abi ‘l-Fadafil, Hist, des Sultans Mamlouks, ed. Blochet,
in Patrol. Orient., xiv, 557; Weil, op. cit., iv, 186; S.
Lane-Poole, History of Egypt in the Middle Ages, London
1901,287). But the Armenians must have retaken the
two last-named towns not long afterwards (Weil, iv,
213, n. 1), for in 697/1297 Mar c ash was again taken
by the amir Bilban TabakhI, ndSb of Halab, for
LadjTn. A treaty was then concluded with the ruler of
Little Armenia, by which the Djayhan was to be the
frontier between the two countries; Hamus, Tell
Harndun, Kubara, al-Nukayr (for its position, cf. L.
Alishan, Sissouan, 493-6), Hadjar Shughlan, Sirfan-
dakar and Mar c ash thus passed to Egypt (al-MakrlzI,
op. cit., ii/2, 63; Abu ’l-Fida 5 , Ann. musl., v, 140).

In the second half of the 8th/14th century, Zayn al-
DTn Karadja and his son Khalil, the founders of the
house of the Dhu ’l-Kadr-oghlu, conquered the lands
along the Egyptian Asia Minor frontier with Malatya,
Albistan, Mar c ash, Bahasna and Kharput [see dhu
’l-kadr]. In the mosque of Mar c ash, one of his
successors, Malik Arslan, was murdered in 870/1465-
6; his portrait with the inscription “Sultan Arslan”
and that of his sister SittT Khatun with the legend r\
pLEyaX^ x<*tco are painted in the Codex Venetus 516 of
the Geography of Ptolemy, which he apparently
intended to dedicate to this father-in-law Mehemmed
II (Olshausen, in Hermes, xv [1880], 417-42)

Bibliography. Istakhrf. 55-6, 62, 67-8; Ibn
Hawkal, 108-10, 120, 127, 153; MukaddasT, 154;
Ibn Khurradadhbih. 97; Kudama, 216, 253; IdrlsT,
ed. Gildenmeister, in ZDPV, viii, 27; Ibn Rusta,
107; Mas c udT, Tanbih, 58; idem, Murudf, viii, 295;
Abu '1-Fida 5 , Takwim al-bulddn, tr. Guyard, ii/2, 2,
39; DimishkT, ed. Mehren, 206, 214; Yakut, iv,
498; Safi al-DTn, Marasid al-itlilaf, ed. Juynboll, iii,
81; Baladhurl. 150, 188-9; Ibn al-AthTr, index, ii,
806; TabarT, indices, 774; Hamd Allah Mustawfi,
ed. Le Strange, 268; Michael the Syrian, Chronicle,
ed. Chabot, index, 48; Mattheos Urhayec c i, tr.
Dulaurier, Paris 1858, 532; Le Strange, Palestine
under the Moslems, 502-3; idem, The lands of the eastern
caliphate, 128-9; Tomaschek, in SBAk. Wien (1891),

508

MAR C ASH

Abh. viii, 86; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie, ii, Paris
1891, 240-7; H. Grothc, Meine Vorderasienexpedition
1906 u. 1907 , ii, 312, index; Besim Atala 5 !, Marcash
ta^nkhi wa-djughrafiyasi, Istanbul 1339/1920-1; E.
Honigmann, Die Ostgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches ,
index; Canard, H^amdanides , 270. On the ancient
town, cf. Germanikeia, in Pauly-Wissowa, Suppl.-
vol., iv, cols. 686-9. (E. Honigmann)

2. In Ottoman and modern times.

In Ottoman times, Mar c ash lay on one of the major
routes to Syria: in the early 11 th/17th century,
Polonyali Simeon passed through the city when retur¬
ning from Aleppo to Istanbul by way of Kayseri. The
pre-Ottoman or else 10th/16th century bridge, which
still crosses the Ceyhan somewhat to the west of
M a Cash, must have served this traffic. If the
surviving bridge is identical with the bridge
mentioned in an Ottoman tax register of the second
half of the 1 Oth/16th century, this structure should
been the site of a toll gate. According to the kanun
applied in the region, nomads travelling with their
flocks were exempted from toll payment, which was
only demanded from traders.

Mar c ash was considered as lying on a ha djdj or
pilgrimage route, even though the “diagonal road"
crossing Anatolia by way of Konya and Adana seems
to have been much more popular. Ewliya Celebi
passed through Mar c ash on his way to the Hidjaz, and
the suppression of robbery in the district of Mar c ash
was always treated with particular urgency because of
the danger it presented to pilgrims (cf. Ba^bakanhk
Arsivi, Istanbul, Miihimme deftcrleri, 40, p. 42, no.
88, 987/1579-80). Probably for the same reason, a
number of guarded mountain passes ( derbend) was
instituted in the area in the course of the 11 th/17th
and 12th/l8th centuries.

In the second half of the 19th century, the old
thoroughfare passing through Mar c ash had ap¬
parently lost much of its importance, for in 1891
Cuinet reported that no road suitable for wheeled
vehicles existed in the entire sandjak. As a result, not
much of an outlet existed for local industries. Only in
1948 was Mar c ash linked up with the Malatya-
Fevzipasa railway, which in certain sections follows
the area’s historical routes. In addition, asphalted
roads were built, so that by 1960, Mar c ash was easily
accessible from Adana, Iskendcrun, Gaziantcp and
Malatya.

Administrative structure and population. After the
Ottomans had conquered the Dhu TKadr prin¬
cipality in 921/1515, the area was first governed by
Dh u ’l-Kadrlf C AIT Beg b. Shahsuwar under Ottoman
suzerainty. However, after the latter had been killed
in 928/1522, surviving members of the Dhu ’l-Kadrlf
family were appointed to governorships in the Euro¬
pean provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and the
Ottoman wilayet-sandjak structure was established in
the lands which this dynasty had formerly ruled. A tax
register ( tahrir ) dating from the early years of Sultan
KanunT Sulayman’s reign (after 931/1525-6) refers to
a wilayet of Dhu ’1-Kadriyya, governed by two sandjak
begis and divided into five kadad s (Mar c ash; Elbistan;
Kars or modern Kadirli, also referred to as a liwd-
sandjak\ Samanto; and Bozok). This wilayet consisted
of 523 villages, 665 nomadic tribes, and 3,412 mezra c as
(sown, but not necessarily inhabited, agricultural
land). The total adult male population of the wilayet
amounted to 76,181 men. Among the latter, 9, 644
were exempt from the payment of : awarid [q. v. ] taxes,
either because of their former position under the Dh u
’1-Kadr dynasty or because of services rendered to the
Ottoman administration. Total population registered

in the wilayet can thus be estimated at 230,000 to
300,400 persons.

During those years, the town of Mar c ash appears as
an administrative centre with an unusually high
proportion of tax-exempt inhabitants. Of the 1,557
adult males recorded in the town (this should have
corresponded to a population of about 7,500, since
only 85 persons were recorded as unmarried), 836
men were sipahis and sipahizade s, in addition to the
usual contingent of tax-exempt religious func¬
tionaries. This would have left the town with a tax-
paying population of only about 550 adult males, an
anomalous situation which can be explained only by
the fact that the count must have been prepared a
short time after the conquest. At this time, Mar c ash
was inhabited only by Muslims.

During KanunT Sulayman’s reign, the number of
adult males registered in the tahrir as resident in
Mar c ash almost doubled, and before 972/1564-5 had
reached the level of 3,054 men. Of these, 370 were
recorded as unmarried. Thus a total population of
13,000-14,000 is probable, apart from certain tax-
exempt families which may have gone unregistered.
This figure placed Mar c ash among the large towns of
contemporary Anatolia. According to Ewliya Celebi,
who passed through Mar c ash in 1058/1648 and again
in 1082/1672-3, the town consisted of 11,000 houses,
which would seem to point to a much larger settle¬
ment than that described in the 10th/16th century tax
registers. However, the town seems subsequently to
have lost population. Texier, who refers to Mar c ash
as it was in the early 19th century, estimates its
population at 5,000-6,000 inhabitants. Struggles
between the family factions of the Dhu ’l-Kadrlf and
the Bayczldli were brought to an end only during the
reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1223-55/1808-39), and
seem to have contributed to a decline in urban
population. However, according to a British Foreign
Office source, between 1830 and 1840 Mar c ash had
again reached the level of 23,000 inhabitants.

Administrative structure between the late 10th/16th
and the early 19th century showed relatively slight
variations. According to a register containing
appointments to provincial governorships between
975-82/1568-74, the wilayet of Dhu ’1-Kadriyya
consisted of the sandjaks of Marcash, Malatya,
c Ayntab, Sis and Kars (modern Kadirli). In 1041-
6/1632-41, this wilayet had been much reduced, and
now consisted only of the sandiaks of Mar c ash,
c Ayntab and Kars. c AynT c AlI, who wrote during the
reign of Sultan Ahmed I (1012-26/1603-17) mentions
the sandiaks of Mar c ash, Malatya, c Ayntab, Kars and
SamTsad as forming part of the wilayet of Dhu ’1-
Kadriyya. This list has also been reproduced in the
Djihan-numa of Katib Celebi (p. 598). Thus the wilayet
was apparently soon restored to its former size.
Writing at the end of the llth/17th century, Ewliya
Celebi enumerates the following: Mar c ash, Malatya,
c Ayntab, Kars, Samsad and Nigdc.

During the Ottoman-Egyptian conflict of the 1830s,
the troops of Ibrahim Pasha, Muhammad c AlT’s son,
temporarily held Mar c ash, which was returned to the
Ottoman realm in 1840. Administrative structure as
it existed during the second half of the 19th century
has been described by Cuinet: the sandjak of Mar c ash
then formed part of the eydlet of Aleppo and consisted
of the kada^s of Mar c ash, Elbistan, Andirin, Pazardjfk
and Zeytun (modern name: Suleymanh). According
to the same author, the total sandjak population
amounted to 179,853, of whom 52,000 lived in the
town of Mar c ash proper (32,000 Muslims, 20,000
non-Muslims). These figures indicate that a substan-

MAR C ASH

509

tial number of non-Muslims must have immigrated
into the town, probably mainly during the 19th
century.

For the early days of World War I, Besim Atalay
reports 32,700 inhabitants for the town of Mar c ash
proper including 8,500 non-Muslims. In 1927,
when the first census of the Turkish Republic was
undertaken, the impact of the World War, the
occupation of 1919 (first British, then French), and
the War of Independence had reduced population to
25,672. From this low point, the city expanded
continuously (1940: 27,744; 1945: 33,104; 1950:
34,641; 1960: 54, 447, 1970: 110,761; 1980:
178,557), without experiencing the temporary
contraction that many Anatolian towns went through
during and immediately after World War II. Between
1960 and 1980, the vilayet (later if) consisted of the
following kazas (later il;e): Maras-merkez, Afsin,
Andmn, Elbistan, Goksiin, Pazareik and Tiirkoglu.
In 1980, the il of Kahramanmaras contained a total
population of 738,032, of which 281, 382 (38%) lived
in towns and cities.

Economic activities. From the dues recorded in the tax
register compiled before 972/1564-5, the importance
of textile manufacture becomes apparent. Apart from
a sizeable dyehouse, we hear of a tax payable by
bleachers or fullers. The provincial governor claimed
the right to tax the weavers’ pits, ( dpillah cukuru ); at
the end of the 11 th/17th century, complaints on this
score were addressed to the Ottoman central
administration. In the late 12th/18th century, red
cottons were particularly esteemed among locally
manufactured textiles. Even in the last years of the
19th century, Mar c ash still possessed a reputation as
a textile centre. Although by that time many looms lay
idle, 281 workshops were still active in this sector.
Apart from fabrics intended for everyday use, Cuinet
mentions the manufacture of textiles embroidered in
gold and silver thread. A certain revival has taken
place in the second half of the 20th century; in 1960
a state factory for the manufacture of poplin and other
cottons (Siimerbank) began to operate in Mar c ash.

Throughout the Ottoman period, the Mar c ash area
produced ironware; in 983/1575-6, anchors for a
flotilla to be constructed in Basra were being ordered
from Mar c ash. This iron must have been mined in the
kadd 5 of Sulcymanli, for Cuinet records that, in the
second half of the 19th century, soft iron from this
district was being employed by local farriers and
blacksmiths. From the tax register of KanunF Sulay-
man’s early years, we learn that silver was being
mined in Goksun; this latter mine, whose existence
was also known to Cuinet, was apparently not
exploited during the 1890s. In addition, salpetre
mines were worked and powder was manufactured;
during the Cyprus campaign of the 10 th/ 16th century,
the Ottoman armies were using powder from
Mar c ash. However, in the second half of the 20th
century, the most important mines of the province of
Kahramanmaras arc in Elbistan, where abundant
lignite has been discovered, and power plants for the
conversion of this raw material into electric energy are
in the course of being completed.

Mar c ash possesses an ample source of wood in the
forests which are still fairly abundant in the district; in
the 10th/16th century, this wood was used by the
Ottoman central administration for the construction
of a Euphrates flotilla in Blrcdjik. According to
Cuinet, in the second half of the 19th century wood
was employed particularly in the manufacture of
European-style furniture, whose quality and
cheapness the author praised highly.

Agriculture in the Mar c ash area during the
10th/16th century was dominated by the cultivation of
wheat and barley; but in addition, a wide variety of
garden cultures was present. Among the latter, the
vine was particularly prominent, as it also was in
Cuinet’s time and still is today. Apparently fruit
cultivation even by the reign of KanunF Sulayrnan had
given rise to processing activities; for the tax register
compiled before 972/1564-5 specifically mentions the
existence of helva and paste manufacturers. By the
second half of the 19th century, rice had turned into
a major commercial crop of the Mar c ash area; it was
traded mainly within the Ottoman Empire. On the
other hand, fruit, dyestuffs, and other garden and
forest products were at this time also being exported
to Europe, primarily through the port of Iskendcrun.

By the middle of the 1970s, the continued impor¬
tance of fruit and vegetable cultivation (163, 194 tons
of fruit in 1975) had given rise to a certain number of
processing industries, particularly the manufacture of
dried red pepper. Furthermore, since World War II,
agriculture has benefited from a number of state-
sponsored projects for irrigation and swamp drainage.

Throughout the Ottoman period, the nomadic
tribes which were particularly numerous in the
Mar c ash district and in the province of Dhu T
Kadriyya as a whole practiced a pastoral economy. In
the 10th/ 16th century, the province was not infre¬
quently called upon to provide sheep so that Istanbul
could be supplied with meat. Records of the 11th/ 17th
century also refer to the raising of water buffaloes. But
in the late 19th century, the most widely present
animal was the goat, which particularly in the
Mar c ash kadd? , by far outnumbered sheep. By the
mid-1970s, however, this pattern had changed, and
throughout the vilayet of Kahramanmaras, sheep now
substantially outnumbered goats. In addition, the
state has been encouraging cattle raising by the
establishment of the Mara§ Inekhanesi.

Pious foundations and public buildings. The long reign
of c Ala 3 al-Dawla Bozkurd (884-921 /1479-1515)
marks the period during which the Dhu TKadr prin¬
cipality moved from the Egyptian into the Ottoman
orbit. This period is of special importance in the
history of Mar c ash, for it was c Ala :> al-Dawla Beg who
established the capital of his principality in this town,
after Elbistan, the previous scat of the dynasty, had
been sacked and destroyed by the Safawid Shah
Isma c Tl I in 913/1507. A construction programme of
some importance was undertaken by the ruling
dynasty. c Ala :) al-Dawla Beg’s name appears most
frequently in this context, but certain structures were
equally erected in the name of his wife Shams-Mah
(also Shams) Khatun and other members of the ruling
family. Among the surviving buildings, one might
name the Ulu Djami c , the Tash madrasa with the grave
of (possibly) c Ala :i al-Dawla’s son Mehmed, the
Khaznadarli Djami c , the mausoleum of IklFme
Khatun and the Khatuniyya Djami c . In an Ottoman
list of pious foundations compiled before 972/1564-5,
we also find a Djami c -i Sulayrnan Beg, which had
possibly been established by c Ala :> al-Dawla’s father
(846-58/1442-54), and which Ewliya seems to ascribe
to Sultan KanunF Sulayrnan. This foundation is not
mentioned in the secondary literature of the 20th
century, and the same applies to the mosque ofShadF
Beg, although Ewliya knew of its existence; this latter
Inundation had been established at an unknown date.
During the later years of the 10th/16th century, a
madrasa called the Maktubiyya also flourished in
Mar c ash, but nothing is known about the founder.

According to an Ottoman idpndl register going back

510

MAR C ASH — MAR C ASHIS

to the early years of Kanuni Siilayman, Mar c ash at
the time also possessed three zawiyas. However, in
actual fact the number must have been greater, for a
later register (before 972/1564-5) refers to six dervish
foundations as having benefited from the Dhu T
Kadrlf rulers’ generosity. Among the latter, the
zdwiya of Comak Baba continued to function at least
until the late 12th/18th century, and during this latter
period of its existence was inhabited by BektashT
dervishes.

The Ottoman tax registers of the 10th/16th century
also refer to the existence of a covered market or
bedestan , which had been constructed by c Ala :> al-
Dawla Beg. This latter ruler had also established a
kerbansaray and an arasta. It is possible that the last-
named building survived in one of the three covered
streets, lined with shops, which still exist, or until
recently existed, in the centre of Mar c ash. In the early
Ottoman period, further business structures were
added, for it is very probable that Ferhad Pasha, who
caused his rival C A1T Beg b. Shahsuwar to be killed
upon Sultan KanunT Sulayman’s order in 928/1522,
is identical with the Ferhad Pasha who (at sometime
before 972/1564-5) had a hammam and kerbansaray
constructed in Mar c ash. The citadel, which is said to
go back to Hittite times, was according to Ewliya
Celebi adorned with an inscription bearing the date
915/1509-10 (sic) and bore the name of Sultan KanunT
Sulayman (926-74/1520-66), who had ordered a
complete reconstruction of the fortress.

Bibliography : Sources, unpublished:

Basbakanlik Arsjvi, Istanbul, Tapu Tahrir998, pp.
408-638; Tapu Kadastro Genel Mudiirlugu
Kuyudu kadime 101 (inc. kdnun-name and wakif);
Basbakanlik Arsivi, Istanbul, Miihimme defterleri
series; a shikayet defteri from 1085-86/1674-5, in the
National Library at Vienna, catalogued as
“Procolle des divers Fermans Turcs” and in the
course of being published.

2. Sources published: See the Bibls. to 1. above
and Maras in iA; cf. also the arts. Dulkadirlilar in I A
and Dh u ’l-Kadr in EP, and also Ewliya telebi,
Seyahat-name , iii, Istanbul 1314/1896-7, 170-1, ix
(= Anatolia, Syria, Hidjaz), Istanbul 1935, 545-
50; Katib Celebi, Diihdn-numa. Istanbul 1 145/1732;
c Ayn-i c AlT Efendi, Kawanin risalesi, 1018 senesi ,
repr. as Kavanin-i Al-i Osman der hiilasa-i mezamin-
dejter-i divan , introd. by M. Tayyib Gdkbilgin,
Istanbul 1979, 50-1; Polonyah Simeon ’un Seyahat-
namesi , 1608-1619, tr. Hrand D. Andreasyan,
Istanbul 1964, 157 (inc. summary of Inciciyan’s
description).

3. Modern studies: C. Texier, Asie Mineure, i,
Paris 1872, 586; Shams al-DTn SamT, Kamus al-
aHam , vi, Istanbul 1316/1898, 4262-4; E. Banse,
Die Tilrkei, eine moderne Geographie, Berlin-
Brunswick-Hamburg 1916, 222-3; BesTm AtalaT,
Mar c ash tarikhi ve Diughrafyasi . Istanbul 1339/1920-1;
Ismail Hakki Uzungarsili, Anadolu beyhklen ve
Akkoyunlu , Karakoyunlu devletlen , Ankara 1937, 42-5;
Omer Lutfi Barkan, XV ve XVI ina asirlarda Osmanh
imparatorlugunda zirai ekonomimn hukuki ve malt
esaslarli. i. Kanunlar, Istanbul 1943, 114-24; Hasan
Resit Tankut, Maras yollannda, Ankara 1944;
Hadiye Tuncer, Osmanli imparatorlugunda toprak
taksimi ve asar, Ankara 1948, 107-8, 139-40; Faruk
Sumer, Anadolu ’dayasayan bazi U^oklu Oguz boylanna
mens up tesekkiiler, in Istanbul Universitesi, Iktisat
Fakiiltesi Mecmuasi , xi/1-4 (1949-50), 446, 462-4;
Cengiz Orhonlu and Turgut I^iksal, Osmanli
devrinde nehir nakliyati hakkinda arastirmalar : Dicle ve
Firat nehirlerinde nakliyat, in Tanh Dergisi, xiii, 17-18

(1962-3), 81, 96; Mustafa Akdag, Celali isyanlan
Istanbul 1963, 4, 138, 228, 253-4, 268, 275;
Orhonlu, Osmanli imparatorlugunda asiretleri iskan
tesebbiisu, 1691-1696, Istanbul 1963, 22, 37, 78, 91,
92; Lord Kinross, Atatiirk, a biography of Mustafa
Kemal, father of modern Turkey, London and New
York 1965, 235; Hanna Sohrweide, Der Sieg der
Safaviden in Persien und seine Riickwirkungen auf die
Schiiten Anatoliens im 16. Jahrhundert, in Isl., xli
(1965), 95-223; Maras ifyilligi 1967, Ankara n.d.;
Orhonlu, Osmanli imparatorlugunda derbend teykilati,
Istanbul 1967, 16, 62, 97, 103, 104; Metin Sozen,
Anadolu medreseleri , Selfuklular ve Beylikler devri, ii,
Istanbul 1972, 168-70; M. Zafer Bayburtluoglu,
Kahramanmarasa’ta bir gurup Dulkadiroglu yapisi, in
\ 7 akiflar Dergisi , x (1973), 234-50; Devlet Istatistik
Enstitusii, Genel nilfus sayimi, idari bolunils, ...
25.10.1970, Ankara 1973; Cevdet Qulpan, Turk tas
kopriileri, orta(agdan Osmanh devri sonuna kadar,
Ankara 1975, 152; Basbakanlik Devlet Istatistik
Enstitusii, Tanmsalyap, ve ilretim 1974-76 , Ankara
1978; Metin Kunt, Sancaktan eyalete, 1550-1650
arasinda Osmanh iimerasi ve il idaresi , Istanbul 1978,
138-9, 173-4, 188-9; Huricihan Islamoglu and
Suraiya Faroqhi, Crop patterns and agricultural produc¬
tion trends in sixteenth-century Anatolia , in Review, ii/3
(1979), 401-36; Charles Issawi, The economic history
of Turkey 1800-1914, Chicago and London 1980,
35, 273, 299, 316; Basbakanlik Devlet Istatistik
Enstitusii, Genel nifus sayimi, idari bdlunils,
12.10.1980, Ankara 1981; Halil tnalcik, Rice cultiva¬
tion and the Qeltukci - Re c aya system in the Ottoman
empire, in Turcica, xiv (1982), 82, 136-7.

(Suraiya Faroqhi)
al-MAR c A SH I [see nur allah al-shushtarI).
MAR C ASHIS. a line of sayyids originally from
Mar c ash q.v. ], whose nisba became well-known on
account of their dynasty which dominated Mazan-
daran \q.v. ] for most of the period between 760/1358-9
and the second half of the 10th/16th century. The
Safawids [q.v.] were related to them by matrimonial
alliances (see Table B and below, 2). Their descen¬
dants, offspring of the various branches of the
Mar c ashTs, have continued to bear this nisba by which
they are generally known (see below, 3). It was also
attributed over the course of the centuries to various
sayyid and non -sayyid individuals. Concerning the
lakab Mar c ash, another explanation of the origin of
the Mar c ashi sayyids, see Table A.

1. The dynasty of the Mar c ashf sayyid s of
Mazandaran. (a) The first phase. Founded by
Sayyid Kawam al-DTn al-Mar c ashT, known by the
name of MTr-i Buzurg, this dynasty is sometimes
called Silsila-yi muluk-i kawamiyya-yi maTashiyya
(Rayhanat , iii, 323). Its historical context is the
vacuum of political power which—in post-Ilkhanid
Iran—enabled sayyids and dervishes to impose their
influence. Kawam al-DTn traced his lineage to the
Imam c AlT Zayn al- c AbidTn. However, the connection
between his Mar c ashT ancestors and Zayn aI- c AbidTn
remains unclear (see M. Sutuda, ed., TDG, Mukad-
dima). His genealogy, as featured in the work of ZahTr
al-DTn ( TTRM) has been disputed by C A. Shavan.
who established an “exact” genealogy with which the
biographers of the Mar c ashT family concur. A
genealogy, different from the two afore-mentioned,
seems to have been current in the Safawid period (see
Table A.).

The family_ of MTr-i Buzurg resided at Dabu, a
village near Amul [q.v.] where he studied religious
sciences. He made a pilgrimage to the tomb of the
Imam C A1T b. Musa al-Rida at Mashhad [q.v.] and

MAR C ASHIS

511

Tabic A

THE LINE OF MIR KAWAM AL-DIN MAR c ASHl “MIR-I BUZURG”

After:

Zahlr al-Din MaZashl 1 *

Imam C A1T Zayn al- c Abidin

Husayn al-As gh ar

Hasan al-Mar c ashI

Muhammad

Abd Allah

C A1I

Husayn
c Abd Allah
Sadik

Muhammad^ 2 )
c Abd Allah
Kawam al-Dln

The Safawid sources (
Zayn al- c AbidTn
Husayn al-As gh ar
Hasan

Muhammad al-Akbar

c Abd Allah

All al-Mar c ash< 4 )

Hasan

C AIT

Abu Hashim
Muhammad
Abd Allah
Sadik

Kawam al-DTn

c Abbas Shayan
Zayn al-AbidTn
al-Hasan Abu Muhammad
Muhammad Abu TKaram
c Abd Allah Abu Muhammad
C A1T al-Mar c ashT Abu ’l-Hasan
al-Husayn Abu c Abd Allah
C A1I Abu THusayn
Abu Hashim

Muhammad Abu c Abd Allah
c Abd Allah Abu Sadik
al-Sadik
Kawam al-Din

Notes to Table A

(1) TTRM, ed. TasblhT, 166.

(2) Muhammad absent from TTRM, ed. Shayan, 236.

(3) Djahan-ara . 88; YazdT, fol. 2a; ShushtarT, Madjalis , ii, 380.

(4) The lakab al-Mar c ash (a kind of pigeon) is said to have been given in the First place to C A1T Mar c ash, the
eponym of the Mar c ashi Sayyids {Rayhana , iv, 10). In Yazdi, C A1I al-Mar c ash and his son Hasan are made
into a single “al-Mar c ash”.

(5) TTRM. Mukaddima (approved by the Ayatallah Mar c ashI-NadjafT, TTRM, ed. Tasbihl, Mukaddima, 39-40,
with typographical errors).

frequented the khankah of the sayyid c Izz al-Din
SughandT, one of the three influential Sufi shaykhs of
Khurasan, disciple of Shavkh Hasan DjurT, founder
of the Shaykhivya-Djurivva tanka, promotor of the
Sarbadar movement in Khurasan (see J. Aubin, in
Studia Iranica , v [1976], 217-24). Having obtained the
idydzal of c Izz al-Din, Kawam al-DIn founded his own
khankah at Dabu where he attracted numerous
disciples. The control of Tabaristan-Mazandaran was
then the object of keen competition between local
powers. After the reconciliation concluded between
the Kiya-i Culab and the Kiya-i Djaial, in 750/1349,
Fakhr al-Dawla Hasan, last representative of the third
branch of the Bawandids [q.v.\, was assassinated by a
son (or by two sons?) of Kiya Afrasiyab, former
sipahsalar and brother-in-law of Fakhr al-Dawla,
eponym of the Kiya-i Culab who were also known as
Afrasiyabids [q.v.]. Having thus obtained a
precarious control over Amul and Mazandaran, Kiya
Afrasiyab attempted to strengthen his popularity by
becoming a disciple of MTr-i Buzurg, who conferred
on him the lakab of shaykhl. But the other disciples of
MTr-i Buzurg harassed Afrasiyab and his followers.
Afrasiyab imprisoned MTr-i Buzurg, but the latter was
freed by his furious disciples. Having appealed in vain
for the aid of the Kiya-i Djaial, Afrasiyab was
defeated at Djalalakmar-parcTn, near Dabu, by three
hundred dervishes under the command of Kamal al-
DTn b. Kawam al-DTn (760/1358-9). Afrasiyab and
four of his sons were killed; another, Muhammad, the
assassin of Fakhr al-Dawla, was killed by the malik of
Rustumdar; another, Sayf al-DTn, died of kulandy, i.e.
some abdominal illness (an act attributed to the super¬
natural powers of MTr-i Buzurg); the only survivor
was an infant, Iskandar-i ShavkhT (according to
Rabino, in JA [1943-5], 236, three sons were killed at
Djalalakmar-parcTn and c AlT in the same battle as
Muhammad: TTRM , 250 ff.; MahdjurT 15 ff.). The
Mar c ashTs then turned on the Kiya-i Djaial, Fakhr al-
DTn and Vishtasp, who held respectively SarT and
TudjT (a fortress near Barfurush-dih = Babul). After
the First battle, Kawam al-DTn and Kamal al-DTn
entered Barfurush-dih as victors. With some former

followers of Afrasiyab, Vishtasp assassinated c Abd
Allah b. Kawam al-DTn. Fakhr al-DTn and four of his
sons perished in a battle near Barfurush-dih. Vishtasp
took refuge with his family and close associates in the
fortress of TudjT, which was reduced by the Mar c ashTs
after a long siege, in the course of which Vishtasp and
his seven sons were killed (763/1362). Kamal al-DTn
married the daughter of Vishtasp by the daughter of
Hasan Fakhr al-Dawla Bawand, grandmother of the
historian Zahlr al-DTn (see below, 2). Then he under¬
took the restoration and enlargement of SarT.

From the outset, MTr-i Buzurg had indicated his
intention to devote himself exclusively to pious
activities. He entrusted the government of Mazan¬
daran to his sons, and it was only in a non-combattant
capacity that he accompanied them on their expedi¬
tions. The elder son, c Abd Allah (see above) having
refused to assume power, this was exercised in the
name of MTr-i Buzurg by his second son Kamal al-
DTn, who shared responsibilities with his brothers. In
763/1361-2, he entrusted the government of Amul to
Rida al-DTn {TTRM, 255 ff.). With control of Amul,
Barfurush-dih and SarT thus assured, the Mar c ashls
extended their power over Sawadkuh and FTruzkuh,
which were held by the representatives of the last
Bawandids. In the conquest of the fortress of
FTruzkuh, and seizure of the treasury of Fakhr al-
Dawla, they were assisted by their allies, the MalatT
sayyids of GTlan {TTRM, 261 ff.). The conquest of
Rustamdar as far as Natil-rustak was the operation of
Sayyid Fakhr al-DTn (782/1380-1). His conquest of
Kudjur having given to the Mar c ashis control over the
whole of Mazandaran, Kamal al-DTn entrusted
Rustamdar to him. Henceforward, he undertook
to subdue the fortresses of Kudjur, of Kala-rustak
and of Nur; he conquered Talikan and Lawasan,
as well as part of LarTdjan fortresses of Kuhrud or
Kahrud in Dayla-rustak, from Lawandar to Rayna
{TTRM, 271 ff.). Fakhr al-DTn took possession of
KazwTn—then being contested between Adhar-
baydjan and c Irak-i c Adjam—a brief control inter¬
rupted by the death of MTr-i Buzurg (see below).
Subsequently, he reoccupied the town, levied taxes

512

MAR C ASHIS

there, went to Talikan, and then pillaged Alamut
( TTRM , 290 IT.).

At the end of a long retreat to Barfurush-dih, MTr-i
Buzurg died of an illness (781/1379). For a period of
twenty years, by his charismatic leadership, he
controlled Mazandaran through his sons, among
whom there was then a fair degree of unity (four of his
fourteen sons died in infancy). Kamal al-DTn held Sari
and had entrusted Amul to Rida al-DTn, Rustamdar
to Fakhr al-DIn and Karatughan to Sharaf al-DTn.
The power of the MariashTs extended to the west as
far as the frontiers of KazwTn; with their support, the
MalatT sayyids controlled a large part of GTlan. But
their position was threatened in the east by Mir c Imad
al-DTn, founder of the small dynasty of the MurtadaT
sayyids of HazardjarTb and in Astarabad by AmTr
WalT, who attempted to have Kamal al-DTn
assassinated. The latter conquered Astarabad, where
he left a garrison (781/1379). Fearing lest AmTr WalT
would join forces with TTmur Lang, he restored
Astarabad to him; similarly, he handed over Rustam¬
dar to Malik Tus (794/1391-2; TTRM, 293 f 1.;
MahdjurT, 23 ff.). But soon after Timur’s conquest of
Kh urasan and Harat, Iskandar-i Shavkhl. younger
son of Afrasiyab, who had campaigned in Khurasan,
joined forces with him. Twice, TTmur took possession
of Astarabad. The second time, he appointed as
governor there PTrak, with whom Kamal al-Din main¬
tained amicable relations. Kamal al-DTn also sent his
son Ghiyath al-DTn to TTmur on three occasions with
suitable presents, in the hope of persuading him to
protect the MariashTs from persecution by Iskandar.
But animosity towards the MariashTs (ImamT and
RafidT ShT c Ts) was rife among the- predominantly
Sunni military chieftains of TTmur. It was fostered in
the west, in Rustamdar, by Malik Tus and in the east,
in Astarabad, by PTrak, who, inwardly, supported
Iskandar-i ShaykhT (MahdjurT, 27 ff.).

TTmur had given orders to open up the route
through the forests of Mazandaran, and he sent
Ghiyath al-DTn, held as a hostage, with his vanguard
force. Kamal al-DTn had a fortified camp built on a
promontory in the lagoon of Mahanasar. Besides
some property concealed at Sari, the greater part of
the wealth of Mazandaran, including that of
merchants, foreigners and dignitaries, as well as funds
seized from the CulabTs, Djalalis, SawadkuhTs, etc.,
was hoarded at Mahanasar. Informed of TTmur’s
advance, Kamal al-DTn and his supporters left
Mahanasar and took up a position at Karatu gh an.
where the confrontation with the TTmurid forces took
place on 6 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 794/24 September 1392.
Although inflicting losses, the MariashTs were
defeated by numerical superiority and withdrew to
Mahanasar. after two months and six days of siege,
Kamal al-DTn sent c ulama 3 to TTmur to request amdn
or quarter for himself and his associates. They left the
fortress of Mahanasar on 22 Ramadan 795/2 August
1393 and escaped persecution at the hands of
Iskandar-i ShaykhT due to the efforts of Malik Tus,
who interceded with TTmur on their behalf. All the
non -sayyid occupants of Mahanasar were executed
(' TTRM, 300 ff.).

TTmur is said to have obtained the most important
spoils ever conceded to him by a king. Massacres and
pillage continued in all the urban centres from
Mahanasar to Amul as well as at SarT, to where the
sayyids were brought. He then despatched them to
Kh w arazm and to Transoxiana by sea and river
routes, and compelled them to reside in these
mutually isolated places. Before embarkation, three
sayyids were able to take refuge in GTlan: c Abd al-

Muttalib b. Rida al-DTn, c Abd al- c Azfm b. Zayn al-
c AbidTn and c Izz al-DTn HasanT RikabT. Two sons of
Kamal al-DTn ( C A1T and Gh iyath al-DTn) were in the
service of TTmur, who entrusted SarT to DjamshTd
Karin Gh awrT and Amul to Iskandar-i ShaykhT. In
spite of their efforts towards repopulation and
economic restoration, these towns did not regain their
former prosperity. Iskandar destroyed the mausoleum
of MTr-i Buzurg at Amul, which numerous inhabi¬
tants left for SarT. c Izz al-DTn RikabT, returning from
GTlan, was pursued and killed with his five sons.
Iskandar accompanied TTmur in his campaigns,
before leaving him in Adharbavdjan and setting out
for Amul (802/1399-1400). Subsequently, he rebelled
and fortified the fortress of FTruzkuh, which he
entrusted to his son Husayn Kiya. C A1T and Gh iyath
al-DTn MariashT took part in TTmur’s operations
against Iskandar (805/1402-3), whose son C A1T Kiya,
coming to his rescue, was captured. Overtaken in the
forest, Iskandar fought valiantly against the troops of
Hazarasf Muhammad and was killed at ShTr-rud-
duhazar. His severed head was displayed to his sons,
the prisoners c Ali Kiya and Husayn Kiya, who
surrendered the fortress of Firuzkuh. Both sons were
pardoned by TTmur, who then assigned the governor¬
ship of Amu! to C A1T b. Kamal al-DTn, with his brother
Ghiyath al-DTn as his deputy, and promised him the
liberation of the sayyids upon his return to Transox¬
iana. At SarT, DjamshTd Karin died and was replaced
by his son Shams al-DTn. who did his utmost to
discredit Sayyid C A1T (TTRM, 313 ff.; MahdjurT,
29 ff.).

(b) The second phase: return to power and
decline. On the death of TTmur (Sha c ban
807/February 1405), four sons of MTr-i Buzurg were
living in Transoxania (Zayn al- c AbidTn, C A1T, Yahya
and Sharaf al-DTn). Kamal al-DTn and Fakhr al-DTn
had died at Kashghar and three others (Rida al-DTn,
Zahir al-DTn and NasTr al-DTn) in Transoxiana. The
four surviving sons travelled with other sayyids to
Harat for an audience with Shahrukh. who permitted
them to return to Mazandaran. At Astarabad, PTrak
did not believe in the validity of their idjaza and
detained them in order to protect Shams al-DTn Karin
GhawrT. The latter was then attacked and killed by
dervishes, who informed c AlT b. Kamal al-DTn of their
intention of marching on Astarabad. But PTrak freed
the sayyids who, joined by numerous partisans,
entered SarT in triumph. Having controlled Amul for
three years, C A1T b. Kamal al-DTn ( C A1T SarT) took over
the government of SarT and of Mazandaran
(809/1406-7 to 812/1409-10). He retained Yahya and
Sharaf al-DTn at SarT and entrusted Barfurush-dih to
Ghiyath al-DTn. The descendants of Rida al-DTn
wanted to install c Abd al-Muttalib as ruler of Amul,
but c Ali SarT preferred Kawam al-DTn b. Rida al-DTn
(Kawam al-DTn II), replaced in 810/1407-8 by c AlT b.
Kawam al-DTn ( C A1T AmulT) who governed equitably
( TTRM, 317 ff.; HS, iii, 347; ^MahdjurT, 33 ff.).
Gh iyath al-DTn sowed discord between C AIT AmulT
and C A1T SarT who, defeated by a coalition of elements
from Rustamdar and from Hazardjarib (AmTr c Izz al-
DTn and his son-in-law Sayyid Murtada) was forced to
flee to Astarabad. His only ally in this business was his
brother NasTr al-DTn, whom he sent to Harat to
anticipate Shahrukh.

After their victory, the people of Amul set Murtada
b. Kamal al-DTn in control at SarT where, in spite of
the threats of Shahrukh. he continued to hold sway for
almost a year (812-13/1409-10) before being deposed
by the populace on account of his drinking habits. C A1T
SarT regained control of SarT and of Mazandaran

Amir Shah]
(938/1531-2)

Murad 1
(984/1576-7)

Mirza Kh an
(986/1578-9)

Murad IJ

'I'able D

SIMPLIFIED GENEALOGICAL TABLE OI THE M AIT ASH I DYNASTY' 1 -

Kawam al-DTn I b. al-SadikO
d. 781/1379

c Abd Allah

-1--

Kama! ah Din I
d. 801/1379

I-

c Ah San
d. 020/1417-8

Murtada
d. 837/1433

Muhammad
d. 856/1452

-!-

Murtada

Ghiyath al-DTn

Zayn al* c Abidin Djalal al*D\n

Ghiyath al-Din

-1

Nasfr al-Dlji (r '>
d. 836/1433

r- 1 -1

Zahlr al-Din c Abd-al-Hayy

(historian)

cl. m. 894/1488-9

j-1

Ahmad Nasir a!-Dfn

~—I——-J-r-

Rida al-Din Fakhr aJ-Din Zayn ah f Abidin

(795/1392-3)

I- r~

Kawim al-Din II
(822/1419-20)

Murtada

(856/1452-3)

-1

Hasan

Kamal al-Din
m.849/1445-5

Shams al-Din
(865/1460-1)

Murtada

Asad Allah

Ibrahim

(890/1485-6)

Ilusayn

(093/1487-8)

Hasan

(880/1475-6)

—,-t-

Yahya c AlI Amuli
825/1421-2

Zahlr al-Din

Fad) Allah

--1

Sharaf al-Din

Mahmud

c Abd al-Karim I
d. 065/1461

c Abd Allah I
d. 872/1467-8

c Abd al-Karim II

(916/1510-1)

Mirza c AlI Khan

Muhammad

-1

Kamal al-DTn II

Zayn al-LAhidin

Mahmud

c Abd Allah IT
m. 969/1561-2

Ibrahim c Abd al-Kanm III c A/iz

-1

Shams al-Din
(905/1-199-1500)

Kamal al-DTn III
(908/1502-3)

MTr Tayrnur
(historian)

-1

Khayr al-Nisa 5 Shah Muhammad Khulabanda

1 -.- J

Shah c Abbas I

Notey to Tablr. ft

(1) When the death dates arc too uncertain, the dates uf the end of the reign arc shown between parezi-
thescss.

(2) Kawam al-Din had 14 children, of whom four died at an early age.

(3) Grandson of Kiya Vishtasp Djalai by his mother's side, born of the daughter of Fakhr al-Dawla
Bawand.

MAR C ASHIS

513

(814-20/1411-17). Ghivath al-DTn_ took refuge at
Amul under the protection of c AlI Amuli and then at
Rustamdar under the protection of Malik
Gayumarth, and finally returned to Barfurush-dih
with his son Zayn al- c Abidin. Aided by the sons of
Rida al-Din, c AlT Sari expelled C A1I Amuli from
Amul; the latter took refuge at Rustamdar and then
at Gflan under the protection of Sayyid Rida Kiya
( TTRM , 321 ff.). c Ali Sari sent his brother Nasir al-
DTn to Harat with pishkash or presents. Under the
pretext of the agitation maintained by c Ali Amuli and
his supporters over a period of two years, he refused
to pay the annual tribute and expelled the envoy of
Shahrukh. having cut off his beard. By chance, the
punitive expedition mounted by Shahrukh was
obliged to make a detour towards Samarkand, at
which time, on the instructions of Nasir al-Din, who
was being held hostage, Murtada b. Kamal al-Din
came to offer apologies to Shahrukh (816/1413). This
same year, when C A1T Sari was suffering from an
attack of gout, Malik Gayumarth (of Rustamdar)
brought C A1I Amuli back from Gllan and sent him to
Amul with an army in pursuit of Kawam al-Din II.

Once returned to power, c AlI Sari decided to come
to terms with Malik Gayumarth, to whom he
entrusted some territories (Nama-rustak. Dayla-
rustak and Tartiya-rustak). The union was sealed by
matrimonial alliances (his son Murtada married the
daughter of Gayumarth; the daughter of his nephew
Kawam al-Din II (Amuli) married Kawus b. Gay-
umarlh). After a temporary refuge at Tunukabun,
c Ali Amuli regained Amul from Kawam al-Din II
{TTRM, 331 ff.).

Before dying, C A1I Sari named his son Murtada as
successor (820/1417). His brother Na$Ir al-Din prom¬
ised to support the legitimacy of Murtada, which
Ghivath al-Din did not accept. Thus Na§Ir al-Din
installed his nephew at Sari (820-37/1417-33). He
obtained from c Ali Amuli a guarantee not to rebel and
strengthened ties with Malik Gayumarth. But when
Murtada took power into his own hands, he made
strenuous efforts to eliminate his uncle Ghiyath al-Din
and his two sons (whom he held as hostages), using for
this purpose a former officer of Ghiyath al-Din, Iskan-
dar Ruzafzun, whom he had made his sipahsalar.
Disapproving of this conduct, Naslr al-Din left
Murtada. Prompted by Iskandar, Murtada sent
pursuers after Naslr al-Din, who reached Harat by
way of Culaw, Sawadkuh and Damghan. He
returned with Shahrukh’s army and a contract for the
taxation of Mazandaran, but Murtada made a higher
bid and retained Mazandaran. After a fierce battle,
Naslr al-Din was defeated by Murtada and levies
( carlk ) from Rustamdar. He was forced to flee to Nur
by way of Laridjan, then to Natil-rustak, and took up
residence in the region of Rudsar in Gllan. Murtada
expelled c Ali Amuli and Nasir al-Din tried in vain to
recapture Amul. c Ali Amuli returned to Tunukabun,
and Nasir al-Din to Rudsar (824/1421). After a
further attempt, c Ali was wounded and died
(825/1421-2). Nasir lived as a beneficiary of the ruler
of Lahidjan (Sayyid Rida Kiya died in 829/1425-6
and was replaced by his brother Sayyid Husayn Kiya)
until his death in 836/1433. The same year, Gh iyath
al-Din died in prison at Sari {TTRM, 336 ff.).

Malik Gayumarth sought to extend his domain
towards Tunukabun and Daylamistan, and Murtada
was thus drawn, with his ally Amir Ilyas, governor of
Kum, into a conflict from which he emerged
victorious (832/1428-9). After governing firmly and
fairly, Murtada died (837/1433) and was succeeded by
his son Shams al-Din Muhammad (837-56/1433-52).

Although a drinker, the latter was a decent and peace-
loving man, regularly paying the annual revenue to
Shahrukh. On tjie death of Kawam al-Din II, the
governorship of Amul passed to his son Kamal al-Din,
who conscientiously paid tribute to Sari. But Muham¬
mad had five sons, including two favourites, c Abd al-
Karim and Kamal al-Din, to whom he wanted to
award governorships. His sipahsalar Bahram Ruzaf¬
zun suggested that Kamal al-Din and the other
descendant^ of Rida al-Din should be deprived of
control of Amul. Muhammad expelled Kamal al-Din
and established c Abd al-Karim at Amul, which was
soon retaken by Kamal al-Din with the aid of the
people of Tunukabun. Muhammad then sought to
install Murtada b. Rida al-Din (uncle of Kama! al-
Din) at Amul. When Murtada was put to flight by
Kamal al-Din in alliance with Zahir al-Din b. Nasir
al-Din, Muhammad allied himself with Amir
Hinduka of Astarabad. This coalition expelled Kama!
al-Din and Zahir al-Din, who sought refuge with
Malik Gayumarth at Rustamdar and then at Gllan.
Kamal al-Din proceeded to regain from his uncle
control of Amul, which he retained until his death
(849/1445-6). Murtada (a pious and just man) then
returned from exile in Rustamdar and was established
in power at Amul by the inhabitants and by dervishes
{TTRM, 350 ff.).

On the death of Shahrukh (850/447) the Timurid
Abu ’1-Kasim Babur b. Baysunghur undertook the
conquest of Khurasan and fought with Muhammad
for control of Mazandaran. In spite of the losses which
he inflicted, Muhammad was obliged to come to
terms with Babur, and gave him his daughter in
marriage. Subsequently, he was forced to confront
him again and was killed by one of his own officers
acting on behalf of Babur who, with the murder of his
brother Muhammad, controlled Khurasan (Mah-
djuri, 465-6, according to MS and RS).

On the death of Muhammad (865/1452), his son
c Abd al-Karim was held hostage at Harat (in the army
of Djahan Shah Kara-Koyunlu, according to HS, iii,
352). A month after the temporary enthronement of
his son c Abd Allah, c Abd al-Karim I arrived to take
over the government of Sari and of Mazandaran
(856/1452 to 864/1459-60). Soon afterwards,
Murtada died and was replaced at Amul by his son
Shams al-Din, an incompetent drunkard. To obtain
payment of the revenue, Babur was obliged to send an
expedition against c Abd al-Karim, who experienced
difficulties with rival families claiming to be his
sipahsalar. the Babulkanl sayyids ( c Aziz and later
Shams al-Din) to the east of Sari, and Bahram b.
Iskandar Ruzafzun to the west of Sari. Killed at the
instigation of Shams al-Din Babulkanl, Bahram was
replaced by^his brother c Ali Ruzafzun. c Abd al-Karim
entrusted Amul to Asad Allah b. Hasan b. Rida al-
Din {TTRM, 367 ff.).

After the death of Babur (861/1457), Sultan
Ibrahim and Mahmud competed for control of
Mazandaran. Out of patience with the tyranny of
Amir Baba Hasan, the Timurid governor of
Astarabad, Abd al-Karim and the leading citizens of
Mazandaran appealed to Djahan Shah Kara Koyunlu
(d. 872/1467) to come and intimidate them (Mah-
djuri, 48, according to MS and RS). But the Timurid
took control of Khurasan (863/1459), then, on two
occasions, of Mazandaran which he gave in suyurghal
to his son Mahmud. c Abd Allah b. c Abd al-Karim
( c Abd Allah I) succeeded his father (865/1461 to
872/1467-8). Under this ruler, an ineffectual man and
a drunkard, the Ruzafzun and the Babulkanl carried
on their vendettas. The Babulkanl replaced c Abd

514

MAR C ASHIS

Allah I with his uncle Kamal al-Dln even more of a
drunkard and more ineffectual than this nephew, who
returned to power. c Abd Allah I had another uncle,
Mir Kawam al-Dln, a simple and virtuous man who
went to live in Amul, then governed by Asad Allah.
As he gained influence, c Ali Ruzafzun made him
return to Sari. But disorder erupted in Mazandaran
following the elimination of c AlI Ruzafzun by the
BabulkanI sayyids. c Abd Allah I eliminated his rivals.
He had his cousin Murtada castrated and put his
uncle Kamal al-DTn in prison where he died. Zayn al-
c Abidin avenged his father by killing c Abd Allah,
whose son and heir, c Abd al-Karim was only four
years old and lived in the urdu of Abu Sa c Id. The
majority of leading citizens pledged alliance to Zayn
al- c Abidm, but the Pazavarl sayyids took pains to over¬
throw him. The supporters of c Abd Allah attempted
to enthrone his son c Abd al-Karim, whom they
brought back from Adharbaydjan L but when Asad
Allah refused them entry to Amul, Abd al-Karlm was
taken by his mother to the court of Hasan Beg Ak
Koyunlu (Uzun Hasan [<y.f.]) with some pishkashs.
Hasan Beg appointed one of his officers, Shibll, who,
with levies from Gilan, Rustamdar and Mazandaran,
established c Abd al-Karim at Sari. But Zayn al-
c AbidIn retained allies, including Sayyid Haybat
Allah BabulkanI, who betrayed c Abd al-Karim and
joined him. Hiding in the forest, he defied Shibll’s
confederation and recaptured Sari, then helped
Ibrahim to drive his uncle Asad Allah from Amul. But
on the orders of Malik Djahanglr b. Kawus
PaduspanI, he reinstated Asad Allah at Amul. In the
interval before acceding to power, c Abd al-Karim
lived at Gilan under the protection of Kar Kiya
Muhammad (end of 878/1474) and spent seven
months at Kum as the guest of Hasan Beg. Sayyid
Hasan, one of the sons of Asad Allah, left Amul and
went to Sari to serve Zayn al- c Abid!n, who ordered
the detention of Asad Allah and his younger son
Husayn and installed Hasan at Amul. Asad Allah was
imprisoned at Barfurush-dih, but was jreed by the
inhabitants and, when reinstated at Amul, urged
c Abd al-Karim to join him in opposing Zayn al-
c Abidin. But the latter attacked Asad Allah at night,
had him executed and regained temporary control of
Sari (880/1476). c Abd al-Karim went to Amul and
then, with numerous supporters, took Sari and
control of Mazandaran, but was expelled once more
by Zayn al- c Abid!n and was forced to take refuge for
the third time at Lahldjan under the protection of
Sayyid Muhammad and then of his son C A1I Kiya,
who sent him back to Mazandaran with a force
commanded by Sayyid Zahlr al-Dln Mar c ashl. Zayn
al- c Abidm fled to Sawadkuh and sent his brother
Shams al-Dln to appeal to Ya c kub Beg Ak Koyunlu,
who sent an army to confront MIrza C A1I at Gilan and
another army to Mazandaran. Zahlr al-Dln installed
c Abd al-Karim at Sari, but the latter fled once more
to Gilan at the approach of the army of Ya c kub Beg.
In the disorder which ensued, a fiscal officer of
Ya c kub Beg was killed (888/1483) when he tried to
establish himself as independent sovereign at Sari
(TG, 443-4; Woods, 147, n. 38). The continuing
agitation led to an Ak Koyunlu invasion of Mazan¬
daran and to a threat posed to C A1I Kiya, required to
pay a heavy indemnity, and to his protege c Abd al-
Karim, who was extradited to Tabriz. Even after his
annexation of Mazandaran, control remained difficult
for Ya c kub Beg (Woods, 147, n. 40).

On the death of Zayn al- c Abidin, his brother Shams
al-Dln succeeded him at Sari (892/1486-7 to
905/1499-1500). Further bloody battles took place

between c Abd al-Karim with the army of Gilan (rein¬
forced by Malik Bisutun) and the army of Sari.
Temporally ousted, Shams al-Dln regained Sari
through the good offices of his sipahsalar. Aka Rustam
Ruzafzun, who captured twelve sardars of the army of
Gilan ( TKh , 48 IT.). Faced by the unwillingness of
Shams al-Dln and Aka Rustam to return the
prisoners, C A1I Kiya made his way towards Mazan¬
daran (899/1493-4), and was joined by forces from
Tunukabun, Rustamdar and Firuzkuh. These forces
linked up at Tunukabun with an army from
Astarabad sent by BadI* al-Zaman MIrza. In spite of
initial successes, the Gilan confederacy was obliged to
accept a compromise: Sari and Amul reverted to
Shams al-Dln and Barfurush-dih to c Abd al-Karim
(TKh, 65 ff.).

After the death of Shams al-Dln, Aka Rustam
enthroned the son of the former, Mir Kamal al-Dln
(905/1499-1500 to 908/1502-3). c Abd al-Karim made
a further attempt, with the army of Gilan, to regain
Mazandaran. Defeated by Rustam Ruzafzun, he
went to Harat, allied himself with the Timurid
Husayn Baykara, and returned several times with the
army of Khurasan. Finally, Rustam (initially gover¬
nor of Sawadkuh) assigned to him half of the revenue
of Amul and then, having eliminated Kamal al-Dln,
firmly controlled Mazandaran and maintained good
relations with the neighbouring powers. He admired
Shavbak Khan Uzbek and died, it is said, when Shah
Isma c Il $afawl sent him the latter’s hand after killing
him (Ilci, 78-9, AAA , 38-9, tr. 62-3).

After the death of Rustam, c Abd al-Karim was
obliged to negotiate with his sons (Suhrab and
Muhammad) and with the $afawid power in order to
regain a precarious control over Mazandaran
(916/1510-11 to 932/1525-6). Having squandered his
patrimony, Suhrab attempted an alliance with c Abd
al-Karim who eliminated him. Compelled by the
Safawid power to share the government of Mazan¬
daran with Muhammad Ruzafzun (who maintained
amicable relations with the leading Safawid dignitary
Cuha Sultan Tekkelu), c Abd al-Karim regained his
throne by force and subsequently reigned with
benevolence and equity. A learned man, in spite of his
stammer, he was eloquent and conversed with the
c ulama 5 . He was protected by £hah Isma c fl, whose
commensal he was. But under Tahmasp (1524-76),
Cuha Sultan obtained the release of Muhammad
Ruzafzun (imprisoned under Shah Isma c fl) and estab¬
lished him at Sari. Abd al-Karim returned to
Barfurush-dih, where he died at about 24 years old
after an unsuccessful attack on Muhammad.

The sayyids and leading citizens were divided into
two groups regarding the succession, some favouring
the son and heir designate Amir Shahl (932/1525-6 to
938/1531), others his brother Sultan Mahmud. Placed
in power by one faction, Mahmud was quickly
deposed and sought refuge with Muhammad Ruzaf¬
zun who eliminated him (//«, 86). Amir Shahl led a
licentious life, and delegated official business to Amir
C A1I Husayn! who was soon eliminated by the
partisans of Mahmud. Out of patience, the leading
citizens turned towards Muhammad Ruzafzun.
Others allied themselves with c Abd Allah b. Sultan
Mahmud. Amir Shahl joined Tahmasp’s retinue in
Khurasan, and Muhammad Ruzafzun had him
assassinated on his return to Mazandaran, at Ahusar
(near Firuzkuh) by Muzaffar Beg Turkaman.
Muhammad also eliminated some of the Mar c ashl
princes (Sultan Murad b. Mir Shahl. then in Gilan,
escaped the massacre), then dominated Mazandaran
and maintained its security (939/1533-4 to 952/1545-

MAR C ASHIS

515

6; lift, 86 ff.). He entrusted military affairs to Hasan-
mat, a leading citizen of Sawadkuh, who appointed
his brother Surhab-mat to the wikdlat of Aka Rustam,
elder son of Muhammad, and his other brother
Gustahm to the governorate of Sawadkuh. In gradual
stages, all districts of Mazandaran came under the
control of his relations, but jealous parties impelled
Muhammad to depose Hasan-mat and his associates
and disorder ensued. Shah Tahmasp sent an expedi¬
tion (in 952/1545-6) to avenge the blood of Amir
Shahl. But Muhammad maintained a longstanding
friendship with the waktl Katfl Djahan, who was able
to pacify the Shah. Mir c Abd Allah b. Sultan
Mahmud came to Rustamdar to avenge his father,
and defeated the army commanded by Aka Rustam
near Barfurush-dih. Almost a year after this defeat,
Aka Rustam died {Ilei, 89 ff.).

After killing Faramarz b. Muhammad—who was in
the Safawid urdu —at the time of his father-in-law’s
death, and expelling Suhrab, nephew of Muhammad
(enthroned at Sari for a brief period)— c Abd Allah b.
Mahmud ruled over the whole of Mazandaran. Ignor¬
ing the demands of Shah Tahmasp to pay tax and to
restore the funds of Muhammad Ruzafzun, he was
deposed in favour of Sultan Murad b. Amir Shah!
who, under Muhammad Ruzafzun, was part of the
retinue of Shah Tahmasp at Kazwln. Summoned to
repay the funds of Muhammad, c Abd Allah was
tortured by Murad and put to death in the course of
a collective execution involving sayyids and other
leading citizens of Mazandaran (969/1561-2). Shortly
afterwards, Murad died, leaving the government (in
part, see below) of Mazandaran to his son “Mlrza
Khan” Sultan Mahmud (lift, 90-6). Two sons of
c Abd Allah and their sister took refuge at the court of
Shah Tahmasp. The elder of the two, Ibrahim, died
after consuming opium. Tahmasp married the
daughter of c Abd Allah, Khavr al-Nisa 3 Begum
(Mahd-i c Ulya), to his eldest son, Sultan Muhammad
Khudabanda (see below). Mlrza Khan was obliged to
share the government of Mazandaran with the elder
son of Muhammad Khudabanda. Hasan Mlrza,
accompanied by a wakil , Mlrak Div, whom he caused
to be assassinated at the instigation of Mir c AzIz
Khan, another son of c Abd Allah (AAA, 210, 240, tr.
312-13, 358-9). After the death of Shah Tahmasp
(984/1576), control of Mazandaran reverted in
entirety to Mlrza Khan, through the good offices of
Shams al-Dln Div, but in order to avenge the death
of her father c Abd Allah, Mahd-i c Ulya had Mlrza
Khan assassinated and replaced him with her uncle
Mir C A1I Khan b. Mahmud, who died soon afterwards
(AAA, 210-11, 240-1; tr. 312-13, 358-9; on the
campaigns of Mir c AlI Kh an against Mlrza Kh an and
his “reign”, see Mir Taymur, 201-2; on the
successors of c Abd Allah Khan, see also Diahdn-drd .
91-2; Shayan, Mazandaran, 230-1).

In the chaos which ensued, Mahd-i c Ulya was
assassinated in her turn. While kizilbash factionalism
enfeebled Safawid power, Mazandaran was the object
of competition between various local potentates. After
the death of Mir C A1I Khan, his control was shared
between Sayyid Muzaffar Murtatja 3 ! (of Hazardjarlb,
d. 1005/1596-7) and Alvand Div, but the descendants
of the various branches of the Mar c ashr family
continued to struggle for power. Notable among the
latter were Mir Husayn Khan, cousin of Mir c AlI
Khan (Mir Taymur, 282-3) and especially Mir Sultan
Murad II b. Mlrza Khan (ibid., 316-17). This
unstable situation persisted until annexation to the
Safawid crown (see below). At Isfahan, distant
descendants of Mlr-i Buzurg were influential at the
centre of Safawid power (below, 2).

Political, religious and cultural activity. In pre-Safawid
Iran, the Mar c ashl movement represents an
interesting case of political aspirations from which
“Mahdism” is apparently absent. Unlike the militant
messianism professed by the “ShI*I republic” of the
Sarbadars of Sabzavar (1338-81), it remains,
although ShI*I. within the framework of $ufism (Arjo-
mand, 68-9, 83; on the Mar c ashJs in the context of
“popular” movements, see Petrushevsky, Islam dar
Iran, tr. K. Kishavarz, Tehran 1354, 379-80). Few
indications are available, however, as to the doctrine
of the Mar c ashls between the 8th/14th and 10th/16th
centuries, preoccupied as they were with the extension
or defence of their power (very few theological or
literary works have survived, see below). Their
immunity as sayyids saved them from the extermina¬
tion inflicted by Timur on the Sarbadars and other
local potentates, but the charisma enjoyed by the
founders—Mlr-i Buzurg and his sons—suffered from
the erosion of power.

During the “second phase”, after the death of
Timur, their descendants divided into rival groups
competing for control of Sari, Amul, Barfurush-dih
and the frontier zones (in the east, Karat u gh an: in the
west, Rustamdar; in the south, the foothills of the
mountains) which, with Gflan, often provided refuges
for claimants temporarily deprived of power. Control
of Sari, entailing that of Mazandaran, was the most
hotly-contested. Essentially, it belonged to the descen¬
dants of Kamal al-Dln, while Amul was controlled in
the 8th/14th-9th/ 15th centuries by Rida al-Dln and
his descendants. But claimants from both branches
remained in a state of constant rivalry.

Limited to the east by Tlmurid control of Astara-
bad, the influence of the Mar c ashls was more easily
extended on the side of their allies in Gflan, especially
at Lahldjan \q.v.), where they assisted Sayyid C A1I
Kiya to establish himself as master of Biya-plsh and to
extend his control as far as Kazwln, Tarum and
Shamlran. The rivalries between claimants were
complicated by the fact that some were supported by
contemporary powers (Tlmurids, Kara Koyunlu, Ak
Koyunlu and Safawids), while others asserted to vary¬
ing degrees a refusal of allegiance or independence.
Increasingly threatened by local powers, they sought
alliances and even, after the end of the 8th/14th
century, marriages with influential families (Kiya-i
Djalal, Kar Kiya, Pazavari, Rustamdar!, etc.).
Eclipsed in their domains by the Ruzafzun of
Sawadkuh in the early 10th/ 16th century, the
Mar c ashls were in no position to compete with the
increasing power of the Safawids. It was another Shi*!
power, that of Amir Husayn Kiya fiulawl, which was
obliged to tackle Shah Isma c fl I (1501-24) in order to
establish a precarious control over Mazandaran in
909/1504 (Savory, Consolidation, 73-4). It was to assert
his hereditary rights as grandson of Mir c Abd Allah
Khan Mar c ashl (through his mother) that Shah
c Abbas took control of Mazandaran in 1005/1596;
local non-Mar c ashI chieftains (Sayyid Muzaffar
Murtada 3 !, Alvand Div and especially Malik Bahman
Larldjanl) were obliged to defeat or subdue his
general Farhad Khan Karamanlu (AAA, 518 ff.; tr.
693 ff.).

Some important vestiges of the Mar c ashl domina¬
tion have survived in Mazandaran, a region subject to
frequent earthquakes. The mausoleum (sometimes
called mosque) of Kawam al-Dln Mlr-i Buzurg at
Amul, constructed in 781/1379-80, destroyed under
Iskandar-i Shavkhl. rebuilt after the death of Timur,
decorated with kdshis [q. v. j and embellished with gold
under Shah c Abbas I, was in a quite dilapidated state
in the mid-19th century (Stuart, quoted by Rabino,

516

MAR C ASHIS

Mazandaran, 37; drawings from photographs in the
Morgan (1307/1890) reproduced in Mahdjuri, 24;
Rabino, Le Guilan, Illustrations, 87). The Gunbad-i
Naslr al-Hakk or Naslr al-Kablr (i.e. of the da c i
yasan b. C A1T al-Utrush) was built (or restored?) at
Amul by Sayyid C A1I b. Kamal al-Dln ( TTRM,
328 ff.; Mahdjuri, 36, 339). Among the monuments
of Sari, the Imdm-zdda Zayn al- c Abidin shelters the
tombs of Zayn al- c Abidin and Shams al-Dln, son of
Kamal al-Dln b. Muhammad (Rabino, Mazandaran,
55; Mahdjuri, 340; photograph in Rabino, Le Guilan,
Illustrations, 89). On the monuments of Mazandaran
and the tombs of the Mar c ashls, see Sutuda, Astdra,
iv, v (photographs and numerous indices).

2. Some descendants of the Mar c ashi
Sayyids of Mazandaran. Although all related to
All al-Mar c ash/al-Mar c ashI or to Hasan al-Mar c ashI,
the Mar c ashl sayyids are divided into various branches
(in Mazandaran, at Kazwln, Isfahan, Shush tar.
Mashhad, Nadjaf, etc.) in which the lines of kinship
are sometimes hard to trace. The only ones to be
mentioned here are the best-known, in the period
subsequent to the foundation of the dynasty (on other
Mar c ashls, see below, 3).

In spite of their charisma and their acknowledged
status as sayyids, very few of the Mar c ashis of the
dynasty gained renown as c ulamd 5 or udaba 5 . Besides
Kamal al-Dln b. MIr-i Buzurg, a prolific author and
poet ( Rayhdnat , iv, 12), two historians have left vivid
accounts of their family. The best-known, Zahlr al-
Dln b. Naslr al-Dln, spent the greater part of his life
at Gllan, where he had taken refuge with his father.
Becoming one of the senior officers of the sovereigns
of Biya-plsh (Lahidjan), he participated with the army
of the Gilanls in numerous operations in Mazandaran
(see above). Two important works of this author are
available (TTRM, TG , in Bibl.). The date of his death
must have been close to the last events described in
TG (894/1488-9); on the author, his brothers and
sons, his works, see TTRM (ed. Shayan, Mukaddima,
where there is reproduction of an article by Kasravl
and a translation of the Preface of Dorn’s edition; ed.
Tasbihl, with reproduction of an article by Kasravl;
TG, Mukaddima, by M. Sutuda). Little is known of the
works of the second historian, Mir Taymur, identified
by M. Sutuda as a son of c Abd al-Karlm b. c Abd
Allah. His only known work (see Bibl. , s.v. Mir
Taymur) constitutes a kind of supplement to the
TTRM, which comes to an end in 881/1476-7, and
recounts the history of the family until 1075/1664-5.

Beginning at the start of the 9th/15th century, the
migration of the Mar c ashl sayyids beyond the bounds
of Mazandaran accelerated with their decline. Under
the $afawids, many of them settled at Shush tar.
Isfahan, Shiraz, and then in India, at Nadjaf, etc.
These migrations sometimes took the form of deporta¬
tions. Among the descendants of representatives of
the dynasty, Shah Mir b. Mir Kawam al-Dln, grand¬
son of Mir C A1I Khan, deported to Isfahan, was
followed by a group of Mar c ashl sayyids deported to
Shiraz in 1039/1629 (Mir Taymur, 377 ff.).

The Mar c ashl sayyids of Shush tar were related to
C A1I Mar c ash/Mar c ashl and to the sayyids of Mazan¬
daran. Mir Nadjm al-Dln b, Ahmad, coming from
Amul on a pilgrimage to the c atabat, settled in
Shushtar where he was nakib at the beginning of the
9th/15th century. When Shah Isma c Il took the town
(914/1508), he confirmed in office his fourth descen¬
dant, the naktb Mir Nur Allah, who disseminated
Imam! Shiism there. While the Mar c ashls of
Shushtar tended to an increasing extent to migrate
towards Shiraz and India, the Imam! ShlT c alim Kadi
Nur Allah b. Mir Sharif b. Mir Nur Allah (965-

1019/1549-1610), author of numerous works
(including the Madjalis and Ihkdk, see Bibl.), held the
office of kadi at Lahawr, under Akbar. On the instiga¬
tion of Sunni c ulama 5 , he was executed at the orders of
Djahanglr. Imam! Shf-Is conferred on him the title of
Third Martyr. His son, c Ala 5 al-Mulk Husaynl
Shush tarl Mar c ashl, was the author of the Firdaws; his
descendants ultimately settled at Nadjaf (Firdaws,
16 ff.; see also Mukaddima and Ta c likat; Tadhkira-yi
Shushtar, 33 ff.; Rayhdnat, ii, 436-9). Amir Asad Allah
b. Mir Zayn al-Dln Mar c ashl Shushtar! (d. 963/1555-
6) was appointed sadr under Shah Tahmasp in
943/1536-7. His son, Mir Sayyid c AlI, shared the
siddra with Muhammad Yusuf Astarabadl, and later
performed the tawliya of the sanctuary of Imam Rida
at Mashhad (AAA, 144, 316, tr., 251, 450; AT, 362,
510-11; KhT, 435. 797; Firdaws, 21-2 and TaHikdt,
195 ff.). Another descendant, Amir Zayn al-Dln,
received the siddra of Shlrwan, of Khurasan and of
Adharbaydjan in 970/1562-3 (.<47’, 538).

At Isfahan, descendants of Mlr-i Buzurg formed
the influential family of the Khulafa 5 Sayyids, of
which the most eminent representative was the c dlim
Khalifa Sultan Husayn b. Muhammad b. Mahmud
al-Husaynl, son-in-law of Shah Abbas I, appointed
wazir-i-diwan-i a c la (1033/1624), while his father
Mlrza RafY al-Dln held the post of sadr. Under Shah
Safi (1629-42), he was exiled to Kum, and his four
sons were blinded (as were some Safawid princes). He
returned to the wizdra under Shah c Abbas II (1642-66)
and died at Ashraf in 1064/1653-4 (AAA, 1013, tr.
1234 sq.; Mahdjuri, 15; Shayan. Mazandaran, 233).

Other Mar c ashis enjoyed the favour of Safawid
sovereigns. Under Shah Tahmasp, Mir c Ala :> al-Mulk
Mar c ash, kddi-i c askar, was appointed sadr of Gllan
(AAA, 155, tr. 234). The c dlim Sayyid Asad Allah
Husaynl Mar c ashl “Shah Mir” (d. 984/1576-7)—
who also exercised the siddra —was appointed mutawalli
of the sanctuary of Imam Rida at Mashhad (Rayhdnat,
iv, 10-11). Other Mar c ashls continued to exercise this
important function at the shrine-town of Mashhad
Their descendants were even able to claim
double Safawid and Mar c ashl lineage on account of
Mlrza Sayyid Muhammad Mutawalli (1126-76/1714-
63), crowned under the name of Shah Sulayman II at
Mashhad in January 1740 (on this “forty days’ king’’
and his genealogy, see Gulistana, Mudjmal al-tawarikh,
ed. Mudarris Radawl, Tehran 2536/1977, 396 ff. and
index; Madjma c al-tawarikh, 90 ff.). His grandson,
Mlrza Muhammad Kh alil Mar c ashl $afawl (who died
in Bengal ca. 1220/1805-6) was the author of the
Madjma c al-tawarikh (ed. C A. Ikbal, Tehran 1328
A.S.H.; see Mukaddima-, Rayhdnat, iv, 12-13).

Many other Mar c ashls have played important roles
in the religious or political domain since the time of
the Safawids (Mar c ashl-Nadjaf!, in TTRM, ed.
Tasbihl, Mukaddima, 41-2; Fischer, 94-5). The C dlim
Sayyid Ahmad b. Muhammad b. C A1I Musawl
Mar c ashl was a close associate of Fath C A1I Shah
Kadjar (Rayhdnat, iv, 10). Scion of an c ulama 3 lineage,
Mir Muhammad Husayn ShahristanI Hariri b. Mir
Muhammad C A1I b. Muhammad Husayn Husaynl
Mar c ashl (mardja c -i taklid at Karbala) was the author
of numerous works, as was his son Hadjdj Shavkh
Mlrza ‘All ShahristanI. who settled at Kum (ibid.,
362-3). Currently, the most eminent c alim of the
family is the ayatallah Shihab al-Dln Muhammad
Husayn b. Mahmud Husaynl Marcashl NadjafI (born
at Nadjaf in 1315/1897). Having arrived at Kum in
1924, he is best known as mutawalli of numerous
madrasas, of which one, endowed with a wealthy
library, bears his name (brief biography in Rayhdnat,
iv, 11-12; Fischer, index; Momen, 317). Although

MAR C ASHIS

517

TABLE A

THE LINE OF MIR KAWAM AL-DIN MAR C ASHI

“MIRT BUZURG”

Zahir al-Din Marcashi 1 )

After:

The Safawid sources^

c Abbas Shayan^)

Imam c AlI Zayn al- c Abidm

Zayn al- c AbidIn

Zayn al-Abidln

Husayn al-A$ghar

Husayn al-Asghar

al-Hasan Abu Muhammad

Hasan al-Mar c ashI

Hasan

Muhammad Abu ’l-Karam

Muhammad

Muhammad al-Akbar

c Abd Allah Abu Muhammad

Abd Allah

c Abd Allah

C A1T al-Mar c ash! Abu ’1-Hasan

c Ali

All al-Mar c ash( 4 )

al-Husayn Abu c Abd Allah

Husayn

Hasan

C A1I Abu ’l-Husayn

c Abd Allah

C A1I

Abu Hashim

Sadik

Abu Hashim

Muhammad Abu c Abd Allah

Muhammad^ 2 )

Muhammad

c Abd Allah Abu Sadik

c Abd Allah

Abd Allah

al-Sadik

Kawam al-Din

$adik

Kawam al-Dln

Notes to Table A

(1) TTRM, ed. Tasbihi, 166.

( 2 ) Muhammad absent from TTRM, ed. Shay an, 236.

( 3 ) Djahan-drd. 88; YazdT, fol. 2a; Shushtan, Madjalis, ii, 380.

(4) The lakab al-Mar c ash (a kind of pigeon) is said to have been given in the first place to c Alt Mar c ash, the
eponym of the Mar c aghi Sayyids (Rayhdna, iv, 10). In Yazdl, C A1I al-Mar c ash and his son Hasan are made
into a single “al-Mar c ash”.

(5) TTRM, Mukaddima (approved by the Ayatallah Mar c ashI-NadjafT, TTRM , ed. Tasbihi, Mukaddima , 39*40,
with typographical errors).

more and more involved in the world of politics and
public affairs, the Mar c ashls of Iran regard
themselves predominantly as religious “specialists”

(ruhdniyyun ), with the religious line contracting
matrimonial alliances among the elite of the c ulama
Alongside the major branch constituted by the family
of the ayatallah Mar c ashi-Nadjafl—one of the seven
leading mardja^-i taklids in 1975 (a position still held in
1985: Momen, 249)—there exists a junior branch of
Mar c ashl mardjcT-i taklids at Shiraz (see Fischer,
tables, 90, 92, 94).

Like other Imam! c ulama \ the Mar c ashi sayyids
have established themselves in various parts of the
Muslim world (Iran, c Irak, Syria, Turkey and Egypt)
and in countries of the Indian Ocean fringes (East
Africa (Zanzibar) and Java ( Rayhanat , iv, 12)). Sayyid
c Abd al-Husayn Mar c ashl Shushtan was sent to
Zanzibar in 1885 as mulla to guide the newly-
established Imam! community there (Momen, 317).

3. Other Mar c ashls. In the genealogies of
descendants of C A1I Mar c ash/Mar c ashl (or Hasan
Marcashl), mention is found of titles or functions such
as muhaddith, fakih, nakib al-ashraf, wazir, etc., which
indicate that previous to Mlr-i Buzurg, some of them
must have held office or wielded a certain influence in
c Irak and later in Iran, in the capacity of c ulama 3
or nakibs of the sayyids, or in administration. Among
the other sayyid or non -sayyid Mar c ashls, whose lines of
kinship with the various branches of the Mar c ashls are
uncertain, the following are worthy of mention:
Sayyid Hasan b. Hamza b. All Mar* ash, Abu
Muhammad Tabari Mar c ashl, c dlim of Tabaristan
who went to Ba gh dad in 356/966-7 and died there two
years late ( Rayhanat, iv, 11); Husayn b. Muhammad
Mar c ashT, Abu Mansur (d. 421/1030), historian and
close associate of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (ibid.);
Sayyid Ahmad b. c AlawI Mar c ashl (d. 539/1144-5)
extremist Shi*! c dlim (ghuluwwi) who travelled widely
before settling at Sari where he died (ibid. , 10); and
Shibab al-Dln Ahmad b. Abu Bakr b. $alih b. c Umar
Mar c ashl, Abu al- c Abbas, Hanafi fakih (d. 872/1467-
8) (see Dihkhuda. Lughat-ndma, s.v. Mar c ashi).

Bibliography and abbreviations: AAA =
Iskandar Beg MunshI, Tarikh-i c dlam-ara-yi c abbdsi,
ed. Iradj Afshar, Tehran 1334-5/1956-7, tr. R.
Savory, History of Shah c Abbas the Great, Boulder,
Col. 1978 (notes unpubl. variants); Amull, Tarikh-i
Ruyan , ed. M. Sutuda, Tehran 1348 sh.; AT =
Hasan Beg Rumlu, Ahsan al-tawdrikh, ed. C A.
NawaT, Tehran 1357 sh.; S. A. Arjomand, The
shadow of God and the Hidden Imam, Chicago 1984;
Djahan-ard = Kadi Ahmad GhaffarT, Nusakh-i
Diahan-ara. ed. H. NarakI ( Tarikh-i Djahan-drd),
Tehran 1343 sh.; Firdaws = c Ala 3 al-Mulk Shu¬
shtan, Firdaws dar tarikh-i Shushtar wa barkhi az
mashdhir-i an , ed. Muhaddith Urmawl, Tehran
1352 sh.; M. J. Fischer, Iran. From religious dispute
to revolution, Cambridge, Mass, and London 1980;
“The Qum Report” (Fischer 1976) which contains
unpubl. biographical information; Mulla Shavkh
C A1I GilanI, Tarikh-i Mazandaran, ed. M. Sutuda,
Tehran 1352 sh.; HS = Kh w andmlr. Habib al-
siyar, ed. Dablr-Siyakl, 4 vols., Tehran 1333 sh.;
Ihkdk = Nur Allah Shushtan, Ihkak al-hakk, Tehran
1376/1956; Ilci = Khurshah b. Kubad Husaynl,
Tarikh-i Ilci-i Nizdmshah, cited after ed. Schefer,
Chrestomathiepersane, ii, Paris 1885, 56/104; KhT =
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IshrakI, Tehran, i, (1359 sh.), ii (1363 sh.);
Madjalis = Nur Allah Shushtarl, Madjalis al-
Mu^minin, 2 vols., ed. Islamiyya, i, Tehran 1375
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Mazandaran, ii, Sari 1345 sh.; Mir Taymur
Mar c ashl, Tarikh-i khandan-i Mar c ashi-i Mazandaran,
ed. M. Sutuda, Tehran 2536/1977; Moojan
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doctrine of Twelver Shi’ism, New Haven-London
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al-sa c dayn wa-madjma c al-bahrayn , 2 vols., ed.

Lahawr 1941-9, ed. Tehran 1353 sh.; Sayyid
Husayn MudarrisI Tabataba 3 I, Bargi az tarikh-i
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Mar c ashi sadat acting as mutawallis and muhtasib in
Kazwin); H. L. Rabino, Les provinces caspiennes de la

518

MARASIM

Perse , Le Guilan, in RMM, xxxii (1916-17), Illustra¬
tions ; idem, Ter dynasties alaouites du Mazandaran, in
(1927), 253-77; idem, Mazandaran and Astarabad,
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Rayhdnat al-adab , 5 vols. (see also Sam c anl,

13 vols., Hyderabad 1963-81; M. Tihrani, Tabakdt
a c ldm al-shfa, 2 vols., Nadjaf 1954, 5 vols., Beirut
1971-5; R. Savory, The consolidation of Safawid power
in Persia , in I si. , xli (1965), 71-94; RS = Mlrkh-
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c Abbas Shayan, Mazandaran. Dj ughrdfiyi-i tdrikhi wa
iktisadi, I, Tehran 1336 sh.; M. Sutuda, Az Astdrd
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Darvishan-i Mazandaran, in Tdrikh, ii (2536/1977), 7-
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al-Husayni, Tadhkira-yi Shushtar, Calcutta 1343/-
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Tkh = Lahldjl, Tdrikh Khdni. ed. Sutuda, Tehran
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i Tabaristdn wa Ruydn wa Mazandaran, ed. B. Dorn,
St. Petersburg 1850, ed. C A. Shayan, Tehran 1333
sh.; ed. M. Tasblhi, Tehran 1345 sh.; (cited in ed.
Shayan); J. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, Minneapolis-
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Din c Alt Yazdl, Zafar-ndma , ed. M. c AbbasI, 2 vols,
Tehran 1336 sh. (J. Calmard)

MARASIM (a), official court ceremonies,
both processional and non-processional. The whole
range of ceremonial, including protocol and etiquette,
is called also rusum ; other terms found frequently are
mawsim [q.v. ] and mawkib. Mawakib [q.v. ] refer
specifically to solemn processions, but seem also to
have had the more general meaning of audiences (for
the c Abbasids, see references in D. Sourdel, Le vizirat
c abbaside de 749 a 946, Damascus 1960, ii, 684, n. 3;
for the Fatimids, see e.g. al-Kalkashandi, Subh, iii,
494: dfilus \al-khalifa\ fi l-mawdkib\ ayydm al-mawdkib).

1. Under the caliphate and the Fatimids.

The caliph presided over court ceremonies seated
on a throne ( kursi , sarir), a custom dating back to the
Umayyads, surrounded by the insignia of sovereignty
(shTar al-khilafa), and veiled by a curtain (silr). The
insignia, according to al-Kalkashandi, Subh, iii, 269-
72, are: the seal ( khatam \q.v. , the mantle of the
Prophet {burda [q.v.], the staff {kadib [q. v. ]), the
caliphal garments ( thawb [see khil c a and libas]), and
[the dynastic] colour displayed in banners and robes
of honour [see c alam and khil c a]. Most of these
insignia can be traced back to the Prophet himself. To
these, the prerogatives of the khutba and sikka \q.vv.)
can be added. For further discussion of insignia of
sovereignty, see Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, tr. Rosen¬
thal, New York 1957, ii, 48 ff.

Clear distinctions were made between ceremonial
costume and ordinary wear. When summoned to the
palace by al-Muktadir shortly before his arrest in
306/918, the vizier Ibn al-Furat enquired, bi-ihiydb al-
mawkib am bi-durra c a? (“in ceremonial dress or the
durra^a [everyday costume of the scribal class]?”, al-
Sabl, Kitdb al-Wuzara^, 264).

The c Abbasid caliph wore a black kaba 3 and black
rusafiyya (a kalansuwa-t ype turban), and red boots. He
girded himself with the sword of the Prophet. To his
left, another sword was kept, and in front of him, the
Kur 3 an of c Uthman. He wore the burda and held the

kadib (al-Sabi, Rusum ddr al-khilafa, ed. Mikha 3 il
c Awwad, Baghdad 1383/1964, 90-8, tr. Elie A.
Salem, The rules and regulations of the c Abbasid court,
Beirut 1977). Dignitaries, arbab al-mardtib, wore black
kaba^s and black robes of honour ( khila c ) were
conferred on army commanders and honoured
notables (al-$abi, op. cit., 90-4).

For the Fatimids, the sources on caliphal costume
are more plentiful. The ddr al-kiswa (see al-MakrlzI,
Khitat, i, 409-13) provided magnificent costumes to
the caliph and his entourage for each ceremony, as
well as the khil c as bestowed on innumerable occasions.
The Fatimid colour was white, and the caliph’s
garments were often made of white dabikt, a fine silk
stuff [see dabIk]. The most common term for Fapmid
court apparel is badla, an outfit consisting of eleven
pieces (al-MakrlzI, op. cit., i, 413: badla mawkibiyyd).
The caliphs adopted the white / aylasdn of lawyers and
judges during Ramadan and the two festivals {ibid., i,
413; ii. 227. 280).

The prerogative of wearing the dynastic colours was
reserved to the caliphs, their families, their retinue
and the highest officials of the bureaucracy and court.
Red was also a royal colour. We read of a Fatimid
vizier upon whom the caliph bestowed his own red
garment (Ibn Taghribirdl, al-Nudyum al-zdhira , iv, 99),
as well as a warning against wearing red in the
caliph’s residence “[because it] is the colour of the
caliph’s dress as well as those who rebel against him”
(al-$abi, Rusum, 75).

The most frequent of all ceremonies were caliphal
audiences {madjlis\ druids, used in the general sense as
well as for accession) which took place in the palace
(for discussion, see Sourdel, Questions de ceremonial
c abbaside, in REI [1960], 121-48, and M. Canard, Le
ceremonial fatimite et le ceremonial byzantin: essai de
comparaison, in Byzantion [1951], 408 ff.). Al-

Kalkashandi lists three categories of audiences for the
Fatimids: al-madflis al- c dmm ayydm al-mawdkib (general
audiences), the djulus held expressly for the kadi and
shuhud on the four laydlial-wukud (“nights of lights”),
and the diulus on the mawlid al-nabi [see mawlid] and
several other mawlids.

Even these audiences had some processional
elements, manifested primarily in the formal arrival
of the vizier at the palace riding his mount. After the
audience hall had been prepared by covering the walls
and the sarir in fine fabrics {dibddy in the winter, dablki
in the summer), the sahib al-risdla summoned the
vizier and rode with him, in customary haste, to the
palace Qald al-rasm al-muHad ft sur c at al-haraka). The
vizier wore ceremonial costume and rode with his
entourage in the same order as that of the procession
of the New Year (fa-yarkabu ft ubbahatihi wa-djamaT-atihi
c ala 'l-tartib al-mukaddam dhikruhu fi dhikr al-rukub awwal
al- c am)\ cf. al-Maknzi, Khitat, i, 448-9 ff., for details
of the vizier’s arrival at the palace on the New Year.

The prerogative of mounts, even in a non¬
processional setting, was an important symbol of
authority. Caliphs maintained large stables [see
istabl], and horses were often distributed as gifts to
particularly honoured officials. Even within the palace
walls, caliphs were expected to ride from one point to
another. Similarly, gates and doors were symbols of
sovereignty and authority and were the sites of impor¬
tant ceremonial activity. The caliph and vizier usually
mounted and dismounted at a gate or door (see e.g.
al-MakrlzI, Khitat, i, 389-90), and officials sometimes
dismounted at a gate of the palace and kissed it even
when the caliph was not present (idem, Itti c dz al-
hunafd\ Cairo 1967, ii, 71-2).

Under both the c Abbasids and the Fatimids, the

MARASIM

519

vizier enjoyed the privilege of entering the palace
walls while riding his mount, a prerogative normally
reserved to the caliph himself (idem, Khitat. i, 387)
Even the high-ranking kadi al-kuddt, accorded so many
other ceremonial privileges (see below), dismounted
at the avenue running between the two Fatimid
palaces ( bayn al-kasrayn, see ibid. , i, 433). The Fatimid
vizier dismounted at the first dihliz (vestibule of
columns) of the palace, which is referred to in texts as
his makan (ibid., i, 386, 389). Upon his investiture
with the lakab [q.v. ] of Tadj_ al-milla in 367/977, the
Buyid amir c Atfud al-Dawla [q.v. ] requested permis¬
sion to enter the courtyard of the palace (sahn al-salam )
mounted on his horse, as a special mark of distinction
by which his honoured position would be known. The
caliph granted the audacious request, but took the
precaution of having a barrier of baked brick and clay
built across the door to the courtyard, forcing the
vizier to dismount before entering (al-Sabl, Rusum,
80).

Caliphal ceremonies in the palace required keen
attention to rank and dignity. In this sense, the posi¬
tion of each person in attendance with respect to the
caliph can yield important information about social
and political order. The responsibility for ordering the
participants according to rank, presenting them to the
caliph, and observing protocol in general, rested with
the chief chamberlain (hadjib [^.z>.]). He controlled
access to the caliph and shielded him from those
unworthy of his attention. He also supervised the
retinue of the caliph and a corps of assistant cham¬
berlains.

In addition to the had^ib, several other functionaries
supervised the preparations and conduct of caliphal
audiences. The c Abbasids, for whom such informa¬
tion is sparse, employed a fahib al-sitr (master of the
curtain, known already in the Umayyad period) and
sahib al-mardtib (master of the ranks). For the
Fatimids, we are somewhat better informed. The sahib
al-bdb (master of the door) was recruited from the arbdb
al-suyuf (men of the sword) and fulfilled many of the
functions of the chamberlain. He, along with the
isfahsalar of the army [see ispahsalar], had duties in
processional ceremonies as well.

The caliph’s private service was provided by an
elite corps of eunuchs ( al-ustadhun al-muhannakun ) [see
fatimids], who performed a wide range of ceremonial
duties. From this corps were drawn the shadd al-tady
(the official charged with winding the caliph’s turban
in the prescribed manner), and the sahib (or mutawallT)
al-madilis (master of the audience hall), who placed
people in their assigned places and informed the vizier
when the caliph was seated on his sarir , also called
sahib al-sitr , master of the curtain. The sahib al-risala
(messenger), sahib (or mutawallT) bayt al-mdl, the hdmil
al-dawat (bearer of the inkwell) and sahib al-md^ida
(master of the table) performed ceremonial duties (for
enumeration of these functions, see al-MakrizT,
Khitat . i, 386, 411; al-Kalkashandl, Subh, iii, 484-5;
and explanations in Canard, Ceremonial fatimite ,
365 ff.).

The protocol for both c Abbasid and Fatimid
audiences was much the same. The caliph was
concealed behind a silr until all those in attendance
were in their assigned places, according to their rank
( c ald tabakdtihim , c ald maratibihim). The sitr was then
raised to reveal the caliph, who was saluted first by the
vizier and then in descending order of rank by the
highest officials of the state. The salute ( al-adab fi 7-
salam, adab al-khidma ) consisted in greeting the caliph
with the formula al-salam c ald [or: c alayka ] amir al -
mu^minin wa-rahmat Allah wa-barakdtuh. Under the

Fatimids, however, this formula seems to have been
reserved exclusively for the kadial-kuddt (Khitat, i, 386,
and Subh, iii, 496). The second element, takbil al-ard,
kissing the ground, was acknowledged to be a late
introduction. Previously, high-ranking officials
(viziers and amirs) used the verbal salute only. As an
honour to a favoured official, the caliph might offer
his hand, covered by his sleeve, to be kissed. The
custom of kissing the ground seems to have been
thoroughly engrained and observed, regardless of
rank, by the c Abbasid period. Variations included
kissing the caliph’s hand and foot, kissing his stirrup,
and kissing the martaba in front of his sarir.

Those attending a caliphal audience were exhorted
to stand straight and still, not to fidget, to maintain
absolute silence unless spoken to by the caliph, and
then to answer in a low and clear voice. They were to
fix their attention upon the caliph to refrain from
laughing even if there was cause for it, and to avoid
slander, calumny, and criticism at all costs. The
caliph’s mistakes were not to be corrected, nor was his
name or that of his wives to be used. One approached
the caliph only if summoned and in that case,
advanced a few steps at a time, stopped with bowed
head, and waited for the caliph’s command to
proceed. Even the vizier, who was permitted to
approach the caliph to speak about matters of state
with him, was advised to retreat to a distance of five
cubits upon completion of his business.

The diulus for the four laydli al-wukud (at the begin¬
ning and middle of Radjab and Sha c ban) took place
in the belvedere (manzara) overlooking the Bab al-
Zumurrud. The high point of the ceremony occurred
when the caliph opened one of the windows of the
manzara and revealed his head and face. On of his
muhannak eunuchs put his head and right hand,
covered by his sleeve, out of another window and
proclaimed: “The Commander of the Faithful returns
your greeting.’’ The kadi al-kuddt and the sahib al-bdb
were then greeted personally.

The Fatimids celebrated six (according to some
sources four) different mawlids: those of the Prophet,
al-Hasan and al-Husayn, C A1I, Fatima, and the pres¬
ent imam (mawlid al-khalifa [or al-imdm ] al-hddir). The
mawlids took place under the manzara surmounting the
Bab al-dhahab, and included much of the same
ceremony as the laydli al-wukud , with the addition of
distribution of sadakdt and an impressive quantity of
food prepared in the Ddr al-fitra. The powerful vizier
al-Afdal b. Amir al-Djuyush annulled the observance
of these mawlids at the height of his power, but the
caliph al-Amir, encouraged by his muhannak eunuchs,
restored them when he regained power.

Both the Fatimids and the c Abbasids prepared
elaborate receptions of ambassadors, in particular of
the Byzantine embassies. Ambassadors rode to the
palace and dismounted at its gate, then entered the
audience hall through a column of soldiers. The sahib
al-bdb and his na^ib flanked the caliph, who was seated
on his sarir, surrounded by his vizier and high-ranking
members of his retinue. Al-Maknzi describes two
such embassies in Khitat. i, 403, 461, and al-Sabl,
Rusum ddr al-khilafa, describes in detail the reception of
the Byzantine ambassador Ward, 14-17. See also
S.M. Stern, An embassy of the Byzantine emperor to the
Fatimid caliph al-MuHzz, in Byzantion, xx (1950),
425 ff.

The caliphs (at least theoretically) held an audience
every evening for redress of grievances (al-^ulus li 7-
mazdlim). The Fatimids conducted these diulus in the
sakifa of the palace.

Investitures of high officials with robes of honour

520

MARASIM

(khiTas) and titles ( alkab [see lakab]) abound in the
historical literature. These investitures generally
occurred in the context of an audience, and the same
protocol was observed.

Banquets (simat, pi. asmita ) were some of the most
elaborate and impressive ceremonial occasions. They
occurred during Ramadan and on the two Hds ( c id al-
fitr and c id al-a^hd or al-nahr), at the New Year, and at
the maw lid al-nabi. The simat of the Fatimids extended
across the entire length of the audience hall, and was
Filled with all manner of delicacies, including sugar
figurines and castles made entirely of confectionery.
During Ramadan, the amirs would rotate in attending
the banquet every night, although their presence was
not required. They were, as usual, seated according to
their ranks. A significant feature of all banquets was
the permissibility of taking food out of the palace and
distributing (and even selling) it among one’s family
and friends. Descriptions of these banquets are found
in Ibn Taghbirdf, al-Nudjum al-zdhira , iv, 97-8; al-
Makrizi, Khitat, i, 387-8. For further information
about ceremonies on Ramadan and the two c ids , see

MAWAKIB.

Bibliography: (in addition to the works

mentioned in the text): for the Umayyads and
c Abbasids, pseudo-Djahiz, Kitdb al-Tddyfiakhldk
al-muluk, ed. Ahmed Zaki Pasha, Cairo 1914, tr.
Ch. Pellat, Le livre de la couronne, Paris 1954; Ibn al-
Zubayr, Kitdb al-DhakhaHr wa ’l-tuhaf, ed. Muham¬
mad Hamid Allah, Kuwait 1959, for extensive
information on the treasuries of Islamic dynasties;
for the Fatimids in the North African
period, important data on ceremonial in Muham¬
mad b. Muhammad al-Yamanl, Sirat Dyafar al-
Hddyib , ed. W. Ivanow in Mudhakkirat JT harakat al-
Mahdi al-Fatimi, in Bull, of the Fac. of Letters , The
Egyptian University (1936); for prescriptive literature
on court etiquette as well as general theory of the
Fatimid imamate, al-KadT al-Nu c man, Kitdb al-
Himma fi ddab atba c al-a^imma, ed. Muhammad
Kamil Husayn, Cairo n.d.; important sources are
also al-Madyalis al-Mustansiriyya , ed. Muhammad
Kamil Husayn, Cairo n.d., and Diwdn al-Mu^ayyad
fi ’ l-din , da c i al-du c at , ed. Muhammad Kamil
Husayn, Cairo 1949. Secondary literature:
O. Grabar, Notes sur les ceremonies umayyades , in
Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem 1977, 51-
60; idem, Ceremonial and art at the Umayyad court ,
unpublished PhD thesis, Princeton University
1954; K. Inostransev, La sortie solennelle des califes
Fatimides, St. Petersburg 1905 [in Russian]; P.
Kahle, Die Schdtze der Fatimiden , in ZMDG , xiv
(1935), 329 ff.; A. Mez, The renaissance of Islam,
Eng. tr. Patna 1937, chs. ix and xiii; Zaki Muham¬
mad Hasan, Kunuz al-Fatimiyyin, Cairo 1937; M.
Canard, La procession du nouvel an chez les Fatimides,
in AIEOAlger , x (1952), 364-98; A.M. Madjid, Asl
hafaldt al-Fatimiyyin ft Misr, in Sahifat al-Ma c had al-
Misrili ’l-Dirdsdt al-IsldmiyyafiMadrid, ii/1-2 (1954),
Ar. Section 253-57; idem, Le personnel de la corn
fdtimide en Egypte , in Ann. Fac. of Arts, c Ain Shams, iii
(1955), 147-60; A. M. Madjid (Magued), Nuzum
al-Fatimiyyin wa-rusumuhum fi Misr, (“Institutions et
ceremonial des Fatimides en Egypte”), Cairo 1973;
E. Tyan, Institutions de droit public musulman, Paris
1954-6, ii, 495-545. (P. Sanders)

2. In Muslim Spain.

In al-Andalus, as elsewhere, rusum is used, in the
same manner as mardsim, to denote court etiquette
and procedure. On this subject, no treatise is available
comparable to the De Caeremoniis composed by the

Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, or
to the Rusum ddr al-khildfa of Hilal al-$abl; there is
no alternative therefore other than to attempt to
reconstruct Hispano-Arab court etiquette by means of
the meagre information preserved by the chronicles
and to have recourse to descriptions of official acts
(bay c a, [q.v. ]), signings of agreements, receptions,
processions (mawqkib [tf.fl.]).

When, in 138/756, c Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil
[q.v. ] transformed al-Andalus into an independent
amirate, he was the initiator of the (embryonic)
Cordovan etiquette. It is in this sense that the disposi¬
tions of his entourage are best understood. According
to al-Makkarl ( Nafh , ii, 25), “he was obliged to main¬
tain a certain distance and not to mingle to an
excessive degree with the people, nor to show himself
in public”. But it was c Abd al-Rahman II [q.v. ] who
(influenced by Ziryab [<?.t>.]?) instituted Andalusian
etiquette. According to al-Makkari (Nafh, i, 223), “he
was the first to isolate himself, behind a tapestry, from
the public”. Ibn Hayyan (Muktabas, ii, 91) is still
more explicit: “It was he who organised the hierarchy
of the court (rattaba rusum al-dawla/al-khidmaY’. This
information is confirmed by Ibn c Idhan (Baydn, ii, 91)
and Ibn Sa c Id (Mughrib, i, 45); the Dhikr bildd al-
Andalus (117) makes of him “the first to clothe himself
in the pomp of the caliphs”. The separation of the
functions of the shurta [<y. v. ] and of the suk (<?. v. ] which
all authors attribute to him are to be seen in the same
sense.

At the time of his bay c a, in 206/822, his brothers, his
uncles, his kinsmen, his “men” (the senior func¬
tionaries of the court), the judges and the fukahd 5 ,
military officers of every rank, the dignitaries and the
people, pledged allegiance to him (Dhikr. 117). This
order reflects a hierarchy, since the text clearly
distinguishes six “groups” or “categories'’. The
same regulation recurs (with minor variations)
throughout the whole of the caliphate. It is observed
in the allegiance pledged, in 300/912, to c Abd al-
Rahman III al-Nasir ( Chron. anon., 29-30) and

in the list of witnesses who applied their signatures to
the act of surrender of Saragossa in 326/937 (Ibn
Hayyan, Muktabas, v, 277-9). The same hierarchy
appears in the description of the feasts of the Breaking
of the Fast in the years 360-4 and in that of the
Sacrifices in the years 360-4, preserved by the
Muktabas of Ibn Hayyan. Levi-Proven^al (Hist. Esp.
Mus., ii, 117) speaks of pomp and ostentation, of a
rigid etiquette: “The reverential fear (hayba) which is
inspired by the august person of the caliph and the
magnificence (fakhr) which presides over all the
manifestations of his official life encompass him in the
manner of a halo”.

It does not seem that al-Mansur b. Abi c Amir [q.v. ]
introduced any changes into the organisation of the
caliphate. He was obliged to co-exist with the muluk al-
tawa 3 if [q v.], judging by the comments of the amir
c Abd Allah [q.v.], when he examines, in his Memoirs,
the various groups capable of supporting him.

Nothing is known of the norms of Almoravid
etiquette. In the Almohad period, there is no
demonstrative proof of the effective application of the
complex and discordant order described by Ibn al-
Kattan, al-Hulal al-mawshiyya and the K. al-Ansab fi
ma^rifat al-ashdb( 13 categories according to the former,
18 according to the K. al-Ansab; cf. the observations of
J.F.P. Hopkins, Medieval Muslim government in Barbary,
London 1958). The actual gradation was that
relfected by Ibn Sahib al-Salat (al-Mann bi ’ l-imdma ,
232, 420, 437, 445, 457, 511), similar to the Hispano-
Umayyad pattern.

MARASIM

521

In 558/1163, at the time of his proclamation, Abu
Ya c kub b. c Abd al-Mu 3 min was recognised by the
shaykh Abu Hafs, the Almohads and the ashyakh of the
tribes. In the course of the formal audience at
Marrakush in 1170, the hierarchical order was:
Almohad ashyakh, talaba [q. v. ] ashyakh and viziers. In
1171, at the time of his entry into Rabat-Sale, he was
followed by the Almohad ashyakh, the vizier, the
kutlab, the talaba and the Bedouin. During the Feast of
Sacrifices, at Cordova, the “great Almohad ashyakh ,
the abna? al-djama^a [q.v.], and their followers, the
talaba of the capital, the fukaha 5 , the judges, the kuttab ,
the governors, delegations and notables of the town,
were introduced according to their rank. ” At the time
of the Feast of Sacrifices of 568/1172, at Murcia, a
development is observed: “First to present themselves
were his brothers, followed by the Almohad ashyakh
and the great men of the state”. A further develop¬
ment is attested by c Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi ( al -
Mu^dfib, 239); in 610/1213, the proclamation of Abu
Ya c kub Yusuf “took place first—on the Thursday—
in private, attended by his close relatives; on the
Friday, he was recognised by the Almohad ashyakh',
and on the Saturday, by the people”.

The hierarchy of the Nasrids [q.v.] was probably
close to the Hispano-Umayyad tradition. This is
merely a hypothesis, for although Ibn al-Khatib
(Lamha, 38) makes of the second sultan, Muhammad
b. Muhammad (672-701/1273-1302), “the initiator of
the State, the organiser of its administration and its
hierarchy... the creator of the royal protocol
(mumahhid al-dawla wada c a alkdb khidmatiha wa-kaddara
maratibiha... wa-akama rusum al-mulk )” this tells us
nothing of its components.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(P. Chalmeta)

3. In Iran.

Persian society in most, if not all, periods was
intensely formal: the demeanour, manners, dress and
mode of speech of each class was minutely regulated
by custom. The court set the pattern. Respect for age
and position was ubiquitous. An extensive adab [q.v.]
literature, which sought to regulate all aspects of social
life and behaviour, grew up (cf. al-Ghazall. al-Adab fi
’l-din; Kawus b. Iskandar, Kabus-ndma\ and see J.S.
Badeau, I'hey lived once thus in Baghdad, in Sami A.
Hanna (ed.), Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies in honor
of Aziz Suryal Atiya, Leiden 1972, 38-49).

Persian ceremonial was designed to emphasise both
the awe in which the ruler was held and his separation
from the rest of the population. Its influence was felt
already in Umayyad times and became marked under
the c Abbasids. Much of the ceremonial of later times
can be traced back to the early centuries. There was
a long continuity of tradition in respect of the insignia
of sovereignty. The parasol or catr [see mizalla] held
over the ruler’s head was an ancient custom going
back at least to Achaemenid times, while the liwa > or
standard was an old symbol of royalty going back to
Parthian and Sasanid times (see Spuler, Iran, 348),
though neither were confined absolutely to the rules,
but might also be attached to high offices. The beating
of kettle-drums [see nawba] in honour of the ruler and
those elevated to important governorships was also a
practice of great antiquity, the origins of which are
possibly to be found in Mithraism. The office charged
with this ceremony was known as the nakara-khana
[<?.£.]. Drums, trumpets and other instruments were
played daily at sunset and sunrise and on religious
festivals, on the ruler’s birthday and at feasts given by
him. If the ruler was in camp or on a journey, his

musical instruments accompanied him. The nakara-
khana survived in Tehran until 1937. Considerable
importance attached also to the throne. In the early
centuries this was placed on a suffa , or dais, which was
often a considerable structure, consisting sometimes
of a portico or pavilion open in the front in which the
dais was situated. Sometimes on the throne itself there
was another chair or seat on which the ruler sat. Apart
from these ancient insignia, there were also insignia of
Islamic provenance, such as the right of the ruler to
have his name mentioned in the khutba [q.v.] and on
coins [see sikka].

The grant of robes of honour [see khil c a] though
not specifically one of the insignia of royalty, was a
practice followed by all rulers and one attended in
Safawid and Kadjar times, if not earlier, by special
ceremonies. The purpose of the grant was partly to
honour the recipient, but partly also to fill the ruler's
coffers, since the recipient was often expected to make
gifts to the ruler in return, and if the recipient was in
the provinces, to whoever brought the khil c a. Another
practice was the distribution of bags of gold and silver
coins by the monarch on the occasion of his accession
to those who were present at his court (H.L. Rabino,
Coins , medals, and seals of the Shahs of Iran, 1500-1941,
London 1945, 87). The distribution of scattering
(nithar ) of coins, jewels and precious objects, both by
the ruler and by his subjects, was also customary on
festive occasions such as the Naw Ruz (the Persian
New Year). The canonical festivals of the Hd al-adha
and the Hd al-fitr [q.vv. ] were the occasion for public
celebration. It was customary for the ruler to go out
to the the musalla outside the town where the c id
prayers were performed and to take part in them (see
further mawakib. 2. In Iran).

The ruler was expected, especially if his followers
were largely drawn from tribal groups, to keep open
table. Feasting was especially common under the
Ghaznawids, the Ilkhans and the Tlmurids. Mas c ud
b. Mahmud, the Ghaznawid, used to have a large
leather table-cloth ( kh w an ) laid out on the dais on
which he sat to hold audiences, on in some neighbour¬
ing garden or pavilion, and to invite the great men of
the state to sit with him at the kh w an (cf. Abu ’1-Fadl
BayhakI, Tarikh-i Mas^udi, ed. c AlI Akbar Fayyad
Mashhad A.H.S. 1350/1971, 439, 734-5). Wine
flowed freely at these feasts (see ibid., passim). Nizam
al-Mulk considered it indispensable for the ruler to
keep an open table and he claims that To gh rfl Beg
entertained his followers thus in the early morning
(i Siyasat-rama , ed. Schefer, Paris 1891, 115). The court
astrologer, though not essential to court ceremonial,
nevertheless played an important role, especially
under the Safawids and Kadjars, in deciding the most
auspicious moment for the coronation of the ruler or
for some movement such as when the entry into a
town should take place, or even for the proper hour
"to sit, to rise, to depart, to eat, to go to bed” (Du
Mans, Estatdela Perse en 1660, ed. Schefer, Paris 1890,
repr. 1969, 30).

The Ziyarid Mardawldj [q.v. ] (d. 323/935), when
he sat on a golden throne and wore a crown {tadf), was
imitating Sasanid (or what he believed to be Sasanid)
custom (Miskawayh, Tadfarib al-umam, v, 489, and see
A. Mez, Die Renaissance des I slams, Heidelberg 1922,
17). In subsequent centuries, the throne and the tadf
continued to be important elements in royal
ceremonial. The Buyid c Adud al-Dawla [q.v. ] was
surrounded by great magnificence when holding
audiences. Like the caliph, he sat on a throne on a
dais. High-standing visitors sat on stools or chairs
( kursi) in front of his throne. As in the caliph’s court.

522

MARASIM

the right hand side was the place of honour (see
further H. Busse, Chalif and Grosskonig, Beirut 1969,
222 ff., and c AlI A$ghar Fakflit, Shdhinshahi-i c Adud al-
Dawla, Kumm n.d., 215 and passim). Hilal al-Sabl
describes the caliph al-Ta 3 i c ’s reception of c Adud al-
Dawla in Baghdad in 367/977-8 and the royal insignia
which he gave to him in 368/978-9 (Faklhi, op. cit.,
62 ff. See also al-Suyutl, History of the caliphs, tr. H.S.
Jarrett, Calcutta 1881, 427).

The Samanids and Gh aznawids both evolved an
elaborate ceremonial, which was influenced by what
was assumed to be Sasanid practice and by practice at
the caliph’s court. In the Gh aznawid court, every
effort was made to enhance the glory of the ruler. On
formal occasions, the greatest deference was exacted
from all, even the caliph’s envoys. It was Mas c ud b.
Mahmud’s custom to hold court, sitting on a dais
(si+ffa), in one or other of his palaces or gardens (cf.
BayhakI, 438). It seems that his throne was originally
made of wood. This was replaced in 429/1038 .by a
golden throne of great magnificence, which had taken
three years to make. When it was finished, it was
placed on a dais in the new palace which Mas c ud had
built and surmounted by a parasol. BayhakI describes
the splendour of the scene when Mas c ud, wearing a
red satin cloak shot with gold, mounted the throne for
the first time on 21 Sha c ban 429/8 July 1038. Ten
richly dressed ghulams stood on the dais on the right
side and ten on the left, with rows of ghulams, also
finely dressed and bearing arms and the martabadaran
standing in a body the hall. (The meaning of
martabadar is uncertain. The term may have been
applied to a farrdsh who held a switch or some such
implement, whose duty was to keep back the crowds.
On the other hand, one of the meanings of martaba was
a cushion on a dais, see Ibn Battuta, Travels, tr.
H.A.R. Gibb, Cambridge 1956-71, iii, 660, 18n.,
and martabadar may, thus, have been the bearer of the
royal cushion.) The notables from the provinces and
the great men sat on the dais. The “pillars of the
state’’ and the great men of Mas c ud’s entourage scat¬
tered innumerable gifts before him. The ceremony
apparently began early in the morning, for Bayhal^I
states that Mas c ud sat until breakfast time ( castgdh ). At
the close of the audience, Mas c ud’s boon companions
(i nadxmdn ) came forward and scattered their gifts, after
which Mas c ud mounted and rode off to a garden.
Having changed his clothes, he went again on
horseback to another palace or pavilion (the Spring
House) where a feast was held for the great men and
the “pillars of the state”. After this Mas c ud went to
another garden where he drank wine with his boon
companions until the time of the afternoon prayer
(BayhakI, 714-15).

Mas c ud’s reception in Muharram 423/December
1031-January 1032 in Balkh of an envoy sent by the
caliph was marked, according to BayhakI’s descrip¬
tion, by much splendour. Four thousand palace
ghulams , splendidly dressed and equipped, were drawn
up in ranks on either side of the palace. Two hundred
royal ghulams , in full regalia, stood in rows near
Mas c ud, while the great men of the court, the provin¬
cial governors and chamberlains, in their court
dresses, gathered in the assembly. Mas c ud sat on a
dais. The only other person to be seated was the chief
minister, Ahmad b. Hasan al-Maymandl [q.v.].
When the caliph’s envoy was brought in, he greeted
Mas c ud and was led to a seat by the chamberlain, Bu
Na?r. Mas c ud then asked after the health of the
caliph, and the envoy told him of the death of al-
Kadir. After Ahmad b. Hasan had said a few words
to the envoy in Arabic, he gave him a signal to give

the caliph’s letter to Mas c ud. The envoy got up, took
the letter, which was in a black brocade bag, gave it
to Mas c ud and went back to his seat. Mas c ud then
called to Bu Nasr to come up to the throne. He took
the bag, opened it and read the letter and then at
Mas c ud’s command translated it into Persian. The
following day, a mourning assembly for the caliph al-
Kadir was held. Mas c ud and all his court were dressed
in white. The bazaars were closed and the diwdn shut
for three days. When they were reopened, drums were
played and on the following Friday the khutba was read
in the name of the new caliph. Mas c ud sat close to the
minbar, which was covered with cloth of gold (dtba-yi
zar-bdft). The chief minister and the notables of the
court sat nearby, with C A1I MikalT and the caliph’s
envoy rather further off. After the khu(.ba had been
read, the royal treasures placed 10,000 dinars and five
silken purses at the foot of the minbar as a present for
the caliph. The gifts of Mas c ud’s sons, the chief
minister, the great chamberlain, and others were then
brought, after which Mas c ud departed, while the
treasurers’ scribes and mustawfis took the gifts to the
royal treasury. Some days later, the envoy was given
a khil c a , a mule and two horses, and sent back with the
presents to the caliph. The chief minister also sent him
a mule, with a rug (djul) and hood ( burka°), 500 dinars,
and ten garments (ibid., 383 ff.). Similarly, in later
times, the exchange of presents was also not confined
to the two principal parties on the occasion of
ambassies: ministers also expected to receive presents
from envoys and sometimes made gifts themselves to
envoys.

In the following year, 424/1033, another envoy
accompanied by a eunuch (fdiddim) brought a diploma
and khilca from the caliph for Mas c ud, who was then
in Ray. When the envoy was taken to Mas c ud, he
kissed the latter’s hand, while the khddim kissed the
ground. On this occasion, after Mas c ud had enquired
for the health of the caliph, Bu Nasr took the envoy
under the arms and seated him near the throne on
the dais, on which the army commander C A1I Daya
and the c arid, the head of the military department [see
isti c rad] were also sitting—the chief minister was
absent (ibid., 471-2). This custom of taking envoys
under the arms when bringing them near to the
presence of the ruler also prevailed in the Timurid,
Safawid and Afsharid courts (see below). Bu Nasr
then came forward and told the envoy to rise and take
the diploma, which was rolled up in black brocade,
and put it on the throne. The envoy, standing up, told
Mas c ud to come down from the throne in order to put
on the caliph’s khil c a. Mas c ud ordered a prayer rug
(mufalla) to be brought. As he turned to the kibla,
drums were beaten and trumpets blown in the garden
and at the gate of the palace. Bilge Tegln and other
military leaders ran forward to help Mas c ud down
from the throne to sit on the prayer rug. The caliph’s
envoy then called for the box with the khilca and
brought out seven robes and other garments. Mas c ud
kissed them and performed two rak c as of prayer and
remounted the throne. A jewelled crown, necklace
and bracelet were then brought forward, kissed and
placed on the throne at Mas c ud’s right hand, while
the khddim advanced with a turban, which Mas c ud
kissed and placed on his head. A standard ( liwd *) had
also been brought by the envoy, and this Mas c ud held
in his right hand. He also put on the sword and sword-
belt which the envoy had brought and then, having
kissed them, put them aside. Finally, Bu Na?r read
and translated into Persian the caliph’s letter and the
diploma, after which those present began to scatter
coins, jewels and rarities (ibid., 473-4).

MARASIM

523

Mihragan and Naw Ruz appear to have been
regularly celebrated by Mas c ud. In 426/1035
Mihragan fell on the 16 Dhu TKa c da. Bayhaki states
that on this occasion coins and jewels were scattered
before Mas c ud and presents made to him. After
prayers, wine was passed round and the “the customs
of Mihragan were performed” {ibid.., 643, cf. also
655, 697, 743). When recording the celebration of
Mihragan in 430/1039, Bayhaki states that poets and
singers were not given presents on that occasion
because there had been a shortage of rain {ibid., 789-
90). Under later rulers, the festival of Mihragan fell
into desuetude. Bayhaki mentions that in 429/1038
Mas c ud observed the customs of the Naw Ruz and
gave presents and that wine flowed {ibid., 705, cf. also
815). After the Ghaznawids, Naw Ruz was celebrated
as a popular rather than a public festival; under the
Safawids and Kadjars it was again celebrated as a
public festival (see below). Bayhaki also mentions the
celebration of Sada, the festival of fire, in 426/1035,
but this was probably not a public celebration. He
states that Mas c ud sat in a tent pitched beside a
stream with his boon companions. Musicians were
also present and a fire of wood was lit {ibid., 572). (On
Sada, see Cambridge History of Iran , iii/2, The Seleucid,
Parthian and Sasanian periods, ed. E. Yarshater,
Cambridge 1983, 800-1.) The Ziyarid MardawTdj had
before this made an abortive attempt to revive the
feast of Sada. He prepared a great bonfire in Isfahan
in 323/935, but was murdered before the ceremony
could take place (Faklhi, op. cit., 20). The recovery of
the ruler from illness was another occasion for the
offering of presents to him. On 1 Rabl c 428/22
December 1036 Mas c ud, who had just recovered from
an illness, held a court in Bust. His entourage and the
great men of the city came and scattered coins and
presents, while the people offered prayers for him and
sacrificed animals, giving the meat with bread to the
poor (Bayhaki, 278).

It would appear from the Tarikh-i Mas : udi that
Mas c ud b. Mahmud frequently granted khil c as to his
subjects. These appear to have differed according to
the rank of the recipient. A large stock was
presumably held in the royal wardrobe (djama-khana).
Thus C A1I Daya on 1 DjumadT I 432/6 January 1041
was “clothed with a sipahsdlarl khil c a, such as was
customary for army commanders” {op. cit., 436),
while the khil c a given to the caliph’s envoy in
423/1031-2 was “such as is given to the fukahd yy
{ibid., 390). When the hadfib Subashf was made chief
minister (kh w adia-i buzurg ) on 10 Safar 427/13
December 1036, he was given a “complete” khil c a
with a banner, standard, drum and kettle drum, suits
of clothes (takht-ha-yi dyama), bags of silver and other
things which went with this office {ibid., 648). A
special horse was also the mark of certain offices. Tash
Farrash, the army commander, when setting out for
c Irak in 422/1030-1 was presented with “the horse of
the army commander (sipahsalar) of c Irak” (ibid.,
373). Bayhaki also mentions “the horse of the leader
(saldr) of Hindustan” (ibid. , 355). Horses played a
special part in royal processions [see mawakib].

The Saldjuks, when they came into Khurasan, took
over some of the ceremonial forms they found in
existence. When Toghrfl Beg came to Nlshapur in
429/1073-8 he sat on Mas c ud b. Mahmud’s throne,
which was in the front part of a dais, to receive the
welcome of the population. His personal apparel was
modest compared to that affected by Mas c ud. Bayhaki
states that on his entry into Nlshapur he wore a woven
cloak ( kaba-yi mulham), a tawwazi turban and felt
boots, and was fully armed, and carried on his arm a

strung bow with three wooden arrows (ibid., 732). It
is not without interest that a bow and arrows were
part of the insignia of the Kadjars (see below). Even
after the rule of the Saldjuks had become firmly estab¬
lished, their court remained less minutely regulated
and less luxurious than that of the Ghaznawids. This
may have been due in part to a survival of tribal tradi¬
tion (so far as this survived), and in part to the fact
that the Saldjuk sultans were frequently engaged in
military expeditions and spent much time travelling
about their empire. Rawandl states that Malikshah
was not cut off from the people by a curtain (hidpdb)
and that if someone came to him for redress he would
speak to him face to face ( Rabat al-sudur, ed. Muham¬
mad Ikbal, London 1921, 131).

Nizam al-Mulk believed that fixed procedures in
ceremonial matters enabled the subjects to regulate
their conduct. Accordingly, he lays down rules in the
Siydsat-ndma for the holding of audiences by the sultan
(110, 84, 86). These may well have represented his
ideal rather than actual practice. He obviously felt
that the Saldjuk sultans had failed to maintain the
pomp necessary to preserve the awe in which he
believed the monarch ought to be held. However, on
occasion the Saldjuk sultans did observe an elaborate
ceremonial (cf. the marriage of the daughter of
Malikshah to al-Muktadl [see mawakib]). Nizam al-
Mulk also lays down rules for the reception of foreign
envoys. They were to be accompanied by an officer of
the sultan as soon as they crossed the frontier. The
reason for this was not only to honour the envoy but
also to find out the aims and power of his patron (ibid.,
86). The practice of appointing an official, known in
later times as the mihmdndar [q.v.], to conduct impor¬
tant personages through the country is also found
under the Safawids and Kadjars.

Bundari and Ibn al-Athlr both give the impression
that Toghrfl Beg held the caliph in great veneration,
though this did not prevent him from demanding the
same honours as had been accorded to the
Ghaznawids and in insisting on his own marriage to
the caliph’s daughter (see G. Makdisi, Ibn c Aqtl et la
resurgence de VI slam traditionaliste au XI e siecle , Damascus
1963, 78 ff. and passim ; idem, The marriage of Tughril
Beg, in IJMES, i [1970], 259-75). In 449/1057-8 when
he was granted an audience by the caliph, he
dismounted at the gate of the caliph’s palace and went
in on foot. On seeing the caliph sitting on his throne,
he kissed the ground several times. He was then
seated on a chair (kursi) in front of the caliph’s throne.
The caliph, addressing him through the raTsal-ru^asa^,
gave him a khiTa, standard and diploma and girded
him with a sword (Sibt b. al-DjawzI, MiCat al-zamdn,
ed. Ali Sevim Ankara 1968, 24-6; Ibn al-Athlr, al-
Kamil, ix, 436; see also mawakib). The caliph’s envoy
when he came in Sha c ban 453/August-September
1061 to Tabriz for the conclusion of the c akd between
the caliph’s daughter and Toghrfl Beg, appears to
have been treated with great respect. When he
entered the sultan’s presence the latter was sitting on
his throne, around which were standing the amirs and
maliks according to their ranks. After the envoy had
saluted the sultan, c Amid al-Mulk al-Kunduri [<?.*/.],
Toghrfl Beg’s wazir, approached him and greeted
him; under both the Ghaznawids and the Saldjuks it
appears to have been the function of the chief minister
to speak on such occasions on behalf of the sultan. The
caliph’s envoy then stood up and took out his deed of
proxy (kitab al-wikala). The whole company rose and
when he came to the passage stating the “exalted
ceremonies which were to be performed” he bowed,
and those present, including the sultan and c AmId al-

524

MARASIM

Mulk, also bowed. When details of the marriage
portion ( mahr ) were mentioned, voices were raised in
prayer for the caliph. The khutba was read by a certain
Mas c ud al-Khurasanl, after which c AmId al-Mulk
scattered pearls and dinars before the throne (Sib{ b.
al-DjawzI, Mir^at al-zaman, ed. Sevim, 93-4).

Whereas the Ghaznawid Mas c ud b. Mahmud
distributed khil^as in great profusion, the Saldjuk
sultans seem to have been more sparing in their
grants. When Alp Arslan took oaths of allegiance
from his amirs for his son Malikshah as his heir
apparent, he gave them khiTas (Ibn al-Athlr, x, 34).
Similarly, when Sandjar came to Rayy in 543/1148-9
and renewed Mas c ud b. Muhammad’s diploma, he
gave Mas c ud and all the amirs of c Irak valuable khilcas
(Rawandl, 175). Whereas Mas c ud b. Mahmud
appears to have espected his subjects to present him
with gifts on all occasions, under the Saldjuks the
practice was less common. The Salduks adopted the
various insignia of royalty which had prevailed under
earlier rulers. They added to them the ghashiya [q.v.,
and see also mawakib]. They apparently had special
tents when on expeditions. When Mahmud b.
Muhammad spent one month with his uncle Sandjar
in 521/1127 after he had rebelled against him, he was
not allowed a red djahrumi tent. When he was restored
to the government of c Irak at the end of the month,
Sandjar again accorded to him the customary marks
of royalty and a special garment ( kiswat-i khdss), as
well as a bejewelled cloak, a special horse ( asb-i nawbat )
with harness set with jewels and an elephant with a
howdah also set with jewels (Rawandl, 170). Plr
Muhammad, Timur’s grandson, also had a red tent
(Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane 1403-1406), tr. from the
Spanish by G. Le Strange, London 1928, 254), and so
too did Fath C A1I Shah (Feuvrier, Trots ans a. la com de
Perse, Paris 1906, 44).

The Ilkhans brought with them new ceremonial
from Central Asia, some but not all of which survived
their conversion to Islam. On the death of an Ilkhan,
after the mourning ceremonies had been held, the
Mongol princes and princesses and the great amirs
used to hold a kuriltay [q.v. ], or council, to elect (or
acclaim) a new Ilkhan. The procedure was similar to
that held on the enthronement of the Great Khan (for
a description of the enthronement of Giiyuk, see
Simon de Saint-Quentin, Histoire des Tartares, ed. J.
Richard, in Documents relatifs a Thistoire des Croisades,
viii, Paris 1965, 90-2; see also Spuler, Die Mongolen in
Iran 3 , Wiesbaden 1968, 264). The decision to confer
the throne on one of the princes was followed by
feasting and celebrations. During the reign of Kubilay
(d. 1294), confirmation of the election by the Great
Khan was considered necessary. Ghazan had a golden
tent ( khargdh ) and a golden throne which, like the
throne of the Ghaznawid Mas c ud, also had taken
three years to make. It was set up in Udjan in
701/1301-2 and a seat, set with jewels, placed on it.
After three days, during which religious celebrations
were held, Ghazan gave a great feast, at which he put
on garments of gold brocade, placed on his head a
jewelled crown and girded on a belt of similar splen¬
dour to the crown (Rashid al-DTn, Tdrikh-i mubdrak-i
ghazdni, ed. K. Jahn, London 1940, 137-8, 139).
Mongol customs pertaining to the recognition of the
ruler appear to have been adopted in Fars by the
Atabeg Abu Bakr Sa c d b. Zangl. Rashid al-Dln
relates that the umard 5 , when offering allegiance to
him, “took off their girdles and put them on their
necks” (ed. Blochet, ii, 36, quoted by Spuler, op. cit.,
264). Subordinate rulers were given, together with the
yarligh or Jarman entrusting them with their govern¬

ments (which was sealed with a special seal or tamgha),
some or all of the following insignia: a parasol {catr),
a sword, a paTza or tablet of authority in gold, silver
or wood, according to the rank of the recipient, a
standard, kettle-drums and a.khil c a. Some pa^izas were
written in red and had a falcon at their head (cf. Na§Ir
al-Dln MunshI, Simt al- c ula, ed. c Abbas Ikbal, Tehran
A.H.S. 1328/1949-50, 79, 89; Tdrikh-i Sistdn, ed.
Malik al-Shu c ara :> Bahar, Tehran A.H.S. 1314/1935-
6, 406; see also Marco Polo, Travels, tr. A. Ricci,
London 1931, 17, 113). The birthday of the ruler, at
least during the reign of Gh azan Kh an, was
celebrated with great splendour and presents were
given to him (see Spuler, op. cit., 264). There were
apparently special ceremonies concerned with the
presentation of drink to the Ilkhan. These, too, were
modelled on the practice of the court of the Great
Khan (cf. Travels, 132 and also Tdrikh-i shahi-i Kard-
Khitd^idn, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim BastanI Parlzl,
Tehran Shahinshahl 2535/1976-7, 139). One of the
features which differentiated the ceremonies of the
Ilkhanid and Tlmurid courts from earlier and later
courts was the participation, on occasion, of women of
the royal house in public ceremonies. The Ilkhan’s
chief wife sometimes sat on the throne with him. The
Ilkhans were lavish in their grant of khiTas. They and
their wives held large stocks of precious garments.
Some of these were made in royal workshops (cf.
Rashid al-Dln, Tdrikh-i mubdrak-i ghazdni, 333;
KashanI, Tdrikh-i Oljeytu, ed. Mahin Hambly, Tehran
A.H.S. 1348/1969, 121-2). Rashid al-Dln states that
Ghazan gave away on one occasion 20,000 garments
(Tdrikh - i m ubarak - i ghazan f, 185);

Much of the ceremony of earlier times continued to
be found under the Tlmurids. Clavijo, in his account
of Timur’s reception of foreign ambassadors in
Samarkand, describes how they were taken under the
armpits by a series of waiting officials as they
advanced through the palace and its grounds. First
they came to Timur’s nephew, a very old man, seated
on a dais, to whom they made obeisance; then they
came to several of Timur’s grandsons, who were also
seated on a dais and to whom they paid their respects.
Three of the young princes got up, asked for the letter
which the envoys had brought from the king of Castile
and took it to Timur. The envoys followed and found
Timur sitting on a dais in the portal at the entrance
of the palace. He was dressed in a cloak of plain silk,
wearing a tall white hat, ornamented with pearls and
jewels, with a balas ruby on the crown, and sat on a
mattress covered by an embroidered silk cloth with
cushions behind him. On sight of Timur, the envoys
bowed and put their right knees to the ground, cross¬
ing their arms over breasts. Advancing another step,
they again bowed, and on the third occasion remained
kneeling. Timur then commanded them to rise and
approach him. Three chamberlains came forward,
took them under the armpits, led them up to Timur
until they stood immediately before him, and again
made them kneel. At the end of the audience a feast
was held ( Embassy of Tamerlane, 220 ff.). Clavijo
describes another feast given by Timur which was
attended by numerous men and women (ibid.,
227 ff.). At the end of it “one of the lords in waiting
came forward with a silver bowl full of small pieces of
silver money ... and of this money he proceeded to
throw handfuls over us ambassadors as also over the
other guests present, and gathered up all the rest of
the coins that remained in the bowl and threw them
into the skirt of the cloaks we ambassadors were wear¬
ing, this being a gift to us” {ibid., 232). Timur then
presented each of them with a robe of honour. They

MARASIM

525

bowed in acknowledgement three times and then knelt
before him (ibid., cf. also the reception of the Spanish
envoys by Plr Muhammad, Timur’s grandson, 254).
At various other times the ambassadors were given
robes of honour—on one occasion they each received
not only a robe of kincob, but also a skirt to match,
a hat and a horse for riding (ibid., 236), and on
another they were each given a robe of honour of
kincob and for wearing underneath it a close fitting
jacket of silk cloth lined with skins, with a high collar
made of the fur of two marten skins, a hat and a wallet
containing 1,500 silver pieces (ibid., 276-7).

Once when Timur received the envoys in the Great
Pavilion in Samarkand, he was accompanied by a
great crowd of his imperial kinsmen and many foreign
ambassadors, all of whom took their seats in due order
of precedence. Elephants then were brought in and
performed tricks, and minstrels played their
instruments. Round about there stood some 300 wine
jars for the guests and two tripods made of wooden
staves painted red, with a great leather sack hanging
on each filled with cream and mares’ milk. These the
attendants kept stirring and threw in many loaves of
sugar. Timur’s chief wife appeared at the feast, taking
her place beside Timur but slightly behind him on a
low dais, three of her ladies sitting beside her. Seven
others of his wives, and the wife of one of his grand¬
sons also took their allotted places (ibid., 257 ff.).
Describing the ceremonies connected with drinking
that took place at the feast (which appear to have
resembled customs at the court of the Ilkhans),
Clavijo states, “Those who are given to drink at the
hands of Timur have to do so ceremoniously and after
this fashion. They come forward and bending the
right knee kneel, once at some distance before
approaching: then they rise and step forward nearer
to him (Timur) and kneel with both knees on the
ground, receiving the offered cup from his hand.
Then they stand up and go backwards a little distance,
taking care always to face his highness, and they kneel
again and then drink at a draught all that is in the cup,
for to leave any wine undrunk would be against good
manners. Then having swallowed the draught they
rise again and salute, placing the hand to the head.
When we ambassadors were thus called up for presen¬
tation, two of the lords in waiting seized each of us
under the arms and did not let us loose until we had
been subsequently brought back to our seats .... All
round and about there were pitched many smaller
tents and awnings where sat the various other
ambassadors who had come to attend the court of his
Highness but who were not deemed of sufficient rank
to warrant a seat in the Great Pavilion where Timur
himself had his place” (ibid., 262).

Under the Safawids court ceremonial was more
tightly controlled. The Dastuf al-muluk of Mlrza Raf^a
gives an account of the duties of court officials and of
the precedence of civil and military officials and where
they stood or sat in the royal assembly and of the robes
of honour and other insignia given to them on
appointment to office. This manual appears to have
been written in the reign of Shah Sultan Husayn, the
last of the Safawids, but the practices which it
describes probably go back to earlier reigns, and some
of them were later revived under Fath C A1I Shah and
his successors (Muhammad TakI Danish-Pazhuh.
Dastur al-muluk-i Mirza Raff'd wa Tadhkirat al-muluk-i
Mirzd Sam fa, in Tehran University , Rev. de la Faculte des
Lettres et des Sciences Humaines , xv/5-6 [1967], 62-93,
xvi/1-6 [1968-9], 298-322, 416-40, 475-504; see also
V. Minorsky, Tadhkirat al-muluk , London 1943). The
ishikakasi-bashi, the chief chamberlain, was charged

with the supervision of court ceremonial. He normally
belonged to the military classes and was one of the
four “pillars of the state”, the others being the kurci-
bashi, the kullar-akasi and the tufangci-akasi. His
insignia of office was a mace ( daganak ). He regulated
the proceedings of the Bihishta^In assembly. It was his
duty after repasts and feasts to recite the takblr
Danishpazhuh, Dastur al-muluk, in op. cit., xvi [1968],
82-3). Great splendour prevailed in the court. The
reception of envoys was accompanied by banquets
and the giving and receiving of presents.

When Humayun, the Mughal emperor, took
refuge in Persia in 951/1544-5, Shah Tahmasp
welcomed him warmly. Many banquets were held,
and at the final one Tahmasp showered gifts on
Humayun (Iskandar MunshI, Tdrlkh-i c dlamdra-yi
c abbast, Tehran A.H.S. 1334/1956, 99). Similarly,
when Bayazld, the son of the Ottoman sultan, took
refuge in Persia, having been dismissed by his father
from the governorship of Kiitahya, Tahmasp
arranged a magnificient reception for him in Kazwln
(ibid., 102). The Mughal emperor and the Ottoman
sultan were the greatest of the contemporary Muslim
rulers, but the lavishness of Tahmasp’s reception of
Humayun and Bayazld was probably due to the fact
that he hoped through them to extend his own influ¬
ence in India and the eastern provinces of the
Ottoman empire respectively.

Great importance was attached to the custom of
kissing the ground before the ruler (pdbusi, zaminbusi),
his throne and the gates of his palace; not only was it
a means of showing honour to the ruler, but the action
was believed to confer honour also upon the one who
performed it. When the Djalalls, who had defected to
Persia from the Ottoman empire, came to Isfahan in
1016/1607-8 they had, Iskandar MunshI states, “the
good fortune of kissing the shah’s stirrups” in the
audience hall of the Nak§h-i Djahan palace, and the
supports of the shah’s throne (ibid., ii, 777). William
Parry records that Sir Robert Sherley and his
companions, on their arrival in Kazwln, were brought
by the shah’s steward (the shah being absent on an
expedition) to the gate of the palace “to offer that
homage that all strangers do—that is to kiss the
entrance of the palace three times” (Sir Antony Sherley
and his Persian adventure, including some contemporary
narratives relating thereto, ed. E.D. Ross, London 1933,
116). Sir John Chardin describes the ceremony which
took place when a foreign ambassador was presented
to the shah in the following words: “The ambassador
or other person is conducted to within four paces of
the king, and right against him where they stop him,
and make him kneel, and in that posture he makes
three prostrations of his body and head to the ground,
so low that his forehead touches it. This done, the
ambassador rises and delivers the letter he had for the
king to the captain of the gate, who puts it in the
hands of the first minister, and he presents it to the
king, who puts it on his right side without looking into
it: after this the ambassador is conducted to the place
appointed for him” (SirJohn Chardin's travels in Persia,
with an introduction by Sir Percy Sykes, London
1927, 84-5).

Exaggerated respect was shown to any communica¬
tion received from the shah. The recipient of a letter
or Jarman would kiss the document and raise it to his
eyes and head, “a ceremony all Persians religiously
observe” (The journal of Robert Stodart, with an intro¬
duction and notes by E.D. Ross, London 1935, 29).
If a Dill c a was sent to a provincial governor, the reci¬
pient would go out to a set distance beyond the city
gates to meet the khifa, which he would then put on

526

MARASIM

and return to the city accompanied by a concourse of
the local officials and inhabitants (The travels of
Monsieur de Thevenot, London 1687, repr. 1971, ii, 72,
104; Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Voyages en Perse, Geneva
1970, 273). This was also the case under the Afshars
and Kadjars (cf. Jonas Hanway, An historical account of
the British trade over the Caspian Sea , London 1762, i,
101; Malcolm, History of Persia, London 1829, ii, 407,
408; c Abd Allah MustawfT, Sharh-i zindagani-i man,
Tehran A.H.S. 1324/1945-6, i, 546-7). Prior to
taking leave of the shah, envoys were given khil c as,
which they wore at the farewell audience. The quality
of the person regulated the value of the khilca. Some
consisted of a whole suit of clothing, even to the shirt
and shoes. Some were taken out of the king’s own
wardrobe from amongst the garments he had worn.
The common ones consisted of a vest, an upper vest,
a scarf and a turban. The value of khil c as varied enor¬
mously. One given to an ambassador from the
Mughal emperor was valued at 100,000 crowns and
consisted of a garment of gold brocade with several
upper vests, lined with marten furs and enriched by a
clasp of precious stones, 15,000 crowns in money,
forty very fine horses, their trappings garnished with
precious stones, a sword and a dagger covered with
the same and two large boxes filled with rich brocade
of gold and silver, and several chests of dried fruits,
liquors and essences (Chardin, ed. Sykes, 112-13).
KhiVas were also given to ministers, provincial gover¬
nors and others, especially on their appointment to
office and on the accession of the shah (cf. Dastur al-
muluk, in op. cit., xvi/1-2 1968], 71 and passim). In the
latter case, the grant of a khil c a indicated that the
repicient was to continue to hold the office which he
had held under the previous shah. Iskandar Munshi
states that sultan Muhammad Shah (985-96/1578-87)
gave the large stocks of robes of honour which had
been accumulated over the years to officials and
others and that never a day passed without him giving
ten or twenty robes of honour to unknown persons
(Iskandar Munshi, i, 228). Chardin records that when
Shavkh C A1I Khan. SafT II’s first minister, was
restored to favour after he had been in disgrace, he
was sent a khil c a, a horse with a saddle and trappings
of gold, a sword and a dagger both set with diamonds,
with an inkhorn, letters patent and other marks which
denoted the post of prime minister. The next day, C A1I
Khan, clothed in the khil c a, came to kiss the shah’s
feet. Three days later he entertained the shah (Char¬
din, ed. Sykes, 8-9). Minor rulers also gave khiTas to
their followers and to each other (cf. c AlI b. Shams al-
Dln, Tdnkh-i khani, ed. M. Sotoodeh, Tehran A.H.S.
1352/1973-4, 87, 129, 135).

Olearius, describing an audience given by the shah
in 1656, mentions that the ambassadors were held
under the arms by officials as they approached the
shah, and notes that the purpose was both to honour
the envoy and to ensure the security of the shah. At
the end of the audience there was a feast at which
dancers and singers performed (Vermehrte Newe
Beschreibung der Muscowiiischen und Persischen Reyse,
Schleswig 1656, ed. von Dieter Lohmeier, repr.
Tubingen 1971, 510-12). Du Mans, who gives a
detailed description of court ceremonial, does not
mention the practice of taking envoys under the arms.
He states that the ambassador, with his hands crossed
on his chest, would be led by the ishikakasi-bashi,
holding a kind of mace in his hand, to the shah to
perform his obeisance. As they approached the shah,
the ishikakasi-bashi would press his hand on the
ambassador’s shoulder to make him kneel. Then in
that posture he would kiss the feet of the shah, after

which he would retreat backwards to the place asigned
to him by the ishikakasi-bashi (Estat de la Perse en 1660,
ed. Schefer, 30). Whenever an ambassador presented
his letters and kissed the shah’s feet, it was customary
for him to eat with the king and his court and to sit
in his assembly (ibid., 32). According to the Dastur al-
muluk, it was the duty of the wazir of the supreme
diwdn to read the Fdtiha after meals in the royal
assembly ( madjlis-i bihishta^in) (in op. cit., xvi/1-2
[ 1968], 77). Thevenot states that in audiences given to
Christian ambassadors or others there was always
much drinking (op. cit., ii, 100). Kaempfer describes
in detail the farewell audience given by the shah in
Isfahan to the Swedish ambassador Ludwig Fabritius
in 1684 (Am Hofe des persischen Grosskonigs 1684-1685,
tr. W. Hinz, Tubingen-Basel 1977, 252 ff.). Twenty-
two eunuchs stood behind the shah in a half-circle and
six Georgian pages on his right side. One of them
fanned the shah, another looked after the water-pipe
(kaliydn), a third the spittoon, and a fourth had charge
of a censer. One of the black eunuchs held the shah’s
dagger, and others held his gun, quiver, and bow, etc.
(ibid., 259). The various officials, who had their allot¬
ted places, stood in two rows, one on the right and the
other on the left; the bodyguard stood four paces
behind them (ibid., 259-60). After the audience a
sumptuous banquet was held (ibid., 260 ff., 277 ff.).

On the shah’s birthday the amirs, “pillars of the
state”, the intimates of the court and the retinue, each
according to his rank and status, gave the shah a sum
of money. Some of this was handed over to the chief
astrologer ( muna didj im-bashi) to give to the deserving
(arbdb-i istihkak). The garments that the shah wore on
his birthday were given as a khil c a to the muna didi im-
bashi (Dastur al-muluk, in op. cit., xvi/3 [1968], 309).
The Naw Ruz was also an occasion for the giving of
presents (pishkash ) to the shah (Dastur al-muluk, in op.
cit., xvi/1-2 [1968], 71 and passim). It was the duty of
the malik al-shu^ard^ [q.v.) to write a kasida in praise of
the shah, or in description of spring, and to read it at
the public audience held on the Naw Ruz (ibid., in op.
cit., xvi/4 [1969], 424). When the shah was in Isfahan,
the Naw Ruz was celebrated by a great banquet held
usually in the Cihil Sutun palace or in the Naksh-i
Djahan gardens. In 1004/1595-6, the celebrations
went on for several days and there was a public holi¬
day for ten or twelve days. The bazaars were
decorated and in the Sa c adatabad Square there were
polo matches and archery contests (Iskandar Munshi,
i, 506, cf. also 518, 532). In 1011/1602-3 the Naw
Ruz celebrations were held in the Naksh-i Djahan
gardens, which were brilliantly lit for the occasion.
The celebrations lasted three days (ibid., ii, 634). In
1017/1608-9 the celebrations were again held in the
Naksh-i Djahan gardens. The space round the large
pond (hawd) in the middle of the garden was reserved
for the amirs, wazirs, pillars of the state, and intimates
of the court, while the great men and notables of
Isfahan and its districts (bulukat), the people of
Khurasan and Tabriz, merchants and different
groups who happened to be in Isfahan, were given
places along the banks of the irrigation canals accord¬
ing to their different ranks (ibid., ii, 780). In
1022/1613-14 also, celebrations were held in the
Naksh-i Djahan gardens, but they did not begin until
the third day of the Naw Ruz because the shah did not
return to Isfahan from Farahabad until then. On this
occasion, he gave tax remissions to the people of the
province of Isfahan (ibid., ii, 861). If the shah was in
the provinces, the celebrations of the Naw Ruz were
of a minor character. In 1009/1600-1 he was in
Mashhad and the celebrations took the form of games

MARASIM

527

of polo and archery contents in the maydan of the city
(ibid., i, 598). Sometimes owing to the exigencies of
war, the Naw Ruz was not celebrated officially, as was
the case in 1025/1616-17 when the shah was en route
for Georgia (ibid., ii, 897-8).

Sir John Chardin gives an eye-witness account of
the coronation of Shah $afi II (1077-1105/1667-94).
His father Shah c Abbas II having died in Tabaristan
without designating his successor, his chief ministers
decided to put Sulayman (who later took the name
Safi) on the throne. They sent the kurci-bashi to
Isfahan to bring Sulayman out of the haram where he
had been confined on the orders of his father, and to
give him a letter announcing their decision. Every
effort was meanwhile made to conceal the late shah’s
death, to which purpose the chief ministers, other
than the kurci-bashi remained in Tabaristan, sending
only their deputies to Isfahan. Sulayman was
informed of the decision to place him on the throne
and preparations for the coronation were immediately
made. The kurci-bashi, attended by the chief eunuch
and a train of other persons, conducted the prince to
the audience hall, where the deputies of the ministers
of state made their three usual prostrations in the
name of the ministers of state as also did the
muna djdj im - bash i. who had come with them from
Tabaristan (for a description of the hall, see The travels
of Sir John Chardin into Persia and the East Indies .... to
which is added The coronation of the present king of Persia
Solyman the III, London 1691, Coronation , 37 ff.). The
prince then went to the bath to purify himself and put
on new clothes. Meanwhile, the muna djdj im-bashi and
another astrologer who had come with him from
Tabaristan set themselves to observe the most
favourable moment for the coronation to take place.
The shaykh al-islam, who was to perform the ceremony,
was sent for and the hall prepared for the coronation.
Four articles needed for the coronation were placed in
the middle of the hall. The first was the throne or
kursi, “a little square cushion stool, three geometrical
feet in height, the feet of the pillars that supported the
corners being fashioned like so many great apples”.
These and the pillars were plated with gold and set
with rubies and emeralds. When not in use, the
throne was kept in the royal treasury and was so
weighty that it needed two men to carry it (Chardin,
Coronation, 39-40). The second article was the tddj or
crown (for a description of this see ibid., 40-1). The
third was a sword and the fourth a dagger, both of
which were set with precious stones (ibid., 41). The
three last mentioned articles were placed near the
throne. When all was ready, Sulayman came in and
sat down (not on the throne) and the assembled
company ranged themselves in their appointed places
(ibid., 42-3). When the muna djdj im-bashi gave notice
that the propitious moment had arrived, the prince
and those present rose to their feet. The kurci-bashi,
after throwing himself at the shah’s feet, rose to his
knees, opened the bag in which was the letter he had
brought from Tabaristan, took it out, kissed it, raised
it to his forehead, and presented it to the prince and
then rose to his feet. The prince, having received it,
returned it to him and commanded him to open it and
read it. When he had finished reading, the prince
ordered him to send for the shaykh al-islam. The latter,
approaching the prince, threw himself at his feet, rose
after the usual prostrations, and took the letter from
the kurci-bashi. Having laid it on his head, he read it
and examined the seals, and then fell upon his knees
before the prince and made three bows to the ground,
thus declaring the authenticity of the letter and the
elevation of the prince to the throne. The kurci-bashi on

the left and the shaykh al-islam on the right then
conducted the prince to the golden chair or throne in
the middle of the hall. The shaykh al-islam, kneeling,
said a prayer, blessed the tadj, the sword and the
dagger, girded the sword on the shah’s left side and
hung the dagger on his right side. Then having made
a sign to the kurci-bashi to take off the shah’s bonnet,
he put on the tddj, reciting as he did so verses from the
Kurian, which he also did when he girded him with
the sword and the dagger. He then gave way to the
khatib, who read the khutba. As the latter ended the
khutba by praying for the long life of the shah and the
increase of his conquests, those present loudly
repeated five or six times the words in sha? alldh. The
shaykh al-islam then bowed his forehead to the ground
three times, pronounced a second benediction and
bowed again three times, after which those present,
according to their rank, came forward and made the
three customary prostrations. This concluded the
ceremony (ibid., 42 ff.). Subsequently, as a result of
an illness which attacked the shah, a shortage of
foodstuffs, an outbreak of pest and various other
infelicitous events, it was believed that the coronation
had taken place under an unfavourable constellation.
Accordingly, a second coronation was decided upon at
what was hoped would be a more favourable hour.
This took place in the Cihil Sutun palace, and the
shah took the name of $afi (ibid., 132-3).

Under Nadir Shah, court ceremonial was
inevitably much reduced, since he spent much of his
life in camp and on military expeditions. Hanway
describes his camp and the pavilion tent in which he
gave audience and transacted business. Sometimes he
used to sit cross-legged on a large chair or dais and
sometimes on the floor. There was nothing sumptuous
in the pavilion; the front was always open even in the
worst weather; in very cold weather charcoal braziers
were placed in the middle. Behind the pavilion were
his private apartments, to which he retired at meal¬
times. His officers of state and those having business
with him stood in the open air forming a semi-circle
in front of the tent. If anyone was brought to answer
for his conduct, he was held under the arms by officers
to prevent his escape or committing an act of violence.
“The same ceremony with very little difference”,
Hanway continues, “was observed towards foreign
ambassadors, of great men, being made on the
pretence of respect but in reality to prevent an acci¬
dent” (op. cit., i, 166-7). He mentions that there were
two standards in Nadir’s camp when he visited it in
1743. One was in stripes of red, blue and white and
the other in red, blue, white and yellow, without any
ornament. They were very large and extremely heavy
(ibid., i, 169).

Nadir’s coronation was also a break with tradition.
When he had decided to assume the crown, he
summoned governors, kadis, c ulamd 5 and provincial
notables to a kuriltay in the Mughan steppe ostensibly
to choose their ruler, but in fact to acclaim him as
their ruler. Those who assembled were too numerous
to be received simultaneously and so were divided into
groups, each being given a separate audience. Finally,
on 24 Shawwal 1148/8 March 1736, after several days
of charade, Nadir having signified his readiness to
accept the crown subject to certain conditions, the
urmara 5 and other persons of consequence clad in robes
of honour assembled, and Mlrza Zakf placed a golden
crown, adorned with magnificent jewels, on Nadir’s
head. All those present knelt down and prayed, except
the deputy chief mulla, who intoned the prayer. While
chis was being uttered, all kept their arms above their
heads; afterwards, while the Fatiha was being read,

528

MARASIM

they bowed their faces to the ground. When the Fatiha
was finished, everyone rose and seated himself in his
appointed place according to his rank (see further, L.
Lockhart, Nadir Shah, London 1938, 96 ff.). Among
the spoils that Nadir brought back to Persia from his
Indian expedition in 1739 was the Peacock Throne.
This was lost in the troubles after Nadir’s death. The
modern Peacock Throne is of Kadjar manufacture
(see Amir GHanshah, Yak sad u pandjah sal-i saltanat dar
Iran, n.d. Tehran, 28*9 C A1I Asghar Hikmat, Takht-i
tawus , in FIZ , viii, 138-52).

Aka Muhammad Khan (1193-1211/1779-97), like
Nadir Shah, spent much of his life in military expedi¬
tions and had little use for court ceremonial. Under
his successor Fath c AlI Shah (1211-50/1797-1834),
traditional ceremonies were revived. No court,
according to Sir John Malcolm, paid more rigid atten¬
tion to forms and ceremonies, the maintenance of
which were deemed essential to the power and glory
of the monarch. Looks, words, and the motions of the
body were all regulated by the strictest forms. When
the king was seated in public, his sons, ministers and
courtiers stood erect, with their hands crossed over
their chests, and in the exact place belonging to their
rank ( History of Persia , ii, 400). James Morier also
remarks that the king was never approached by his
subjects without frequent inclinations of the body;
and when the person introduced to his presence had
reached a certain distance, he would wait until the
king ordered him to proceed; upon which he would
leave his shoes and walk forward to a second spot and
wait there until the king directed him to advance
further. No one sat before the king except relations of
kings, poets, learned and holy men and ambassadors;
his ministers and officers of state were never permitted
this privilege (A journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia
Minor, London 1812, 286).

The insignia of royalty consisted of the following
articles, all of which were set with jewels and pearls:
the crown (of which there appear to have been
several), the sword of state, a dagger, the royal bow
and its arrows, a shield and staff or mace. These were
held on ceremonial occasions by pages ( ghulams) or
other officials, or by the princes (cf. W. Ouseley,

Travels in various countries of the east __ London 1819,

iii, 130-1; Morier, op. cit., 192, 214-15; Mu c ayyir al-
Mamalik, Yadddsht-ha-laz zindagdni-i Nasir al-Dfn Shah,
Tehran n.d., 25). On the front of the crown was
placed an aigrette (dj igh a). A similar ornament was
also worn on the headdress of the shah and princes.
On state occasions, special bracelets were worn by the
shah and his sons (Morier, A second journey through
Persia, Armenia, and Anatolia, London 1818, 173). A
variety of standards were in existence, some with
religious symbols, such as Dhu ’l-Fikar, the sword of
c All, on them. The royal standard usually had on it
the figure of a lion couchant with the sun rising
behind it, which sign was also commonly sculptured
upon the royal palaces (Malcolm, History of Persia, ii,
406-7). Hanway mentions that this emblem was to be
found on the palace built by Shah c Abbas at Ashraf
(op. cit., i, 199). It was a sign of some antiquity; the
Saldjuk of Rum, Ghivath al-Din Kay Kubad (634-
42/1236-44) had it on one of his coins (Malcolm, op.
cit., ii. 406 n.).

The arrival of a foreign embassy was deemed one
of the occasions when the king ought to appear in all
his grandeur. Fath C A1I vied with the most magnifi-
cient of his predecessors in this respect. The exact
procedure differed, however, in that ambassadors
were no longer required to kneel and kiss the ground
in front of the monarch, but merely to bow at intervals

as they approached his presence (Malcolm, op. cit., ii,
400-1); those who escorted them into the royal
presence no longer took them under the arms; and
banquets were no longer held after audiences. Only
ambassadors and the representatives of sovereign
princes were allowed the distinction of being seated in
the presence of the king at public audiences (Sir
Robert Ker Porter, Travels in Georgia, Persia...,
London 1821, i, 356). There is a curious reference in
the account of the negotiations for the reception of
Sire Gore Ouseley, the British envoy, who brought a
letter from King George III addressed to Fath c AlI
Shah, in 1811. Ouseley wished to present the letter
personally. The Persian ministers insisted that it
should be transmitted through them according, as
they alleged, to Persian usage; and Fath C A1I himself
said that he could not possibly receive the letter
directly from Ouseley at a public audience. A
compromise was reached, by which the shah agreed to
receive the letter at a private audience (W. Ouseley,
op. cit., iii, 123).

It was the custom in early Kadjar times for foreign
envoys, when they were received in audience by the
shah or a prince governor, to wear red cloth stockings
under green leather slippers with high heels, which
they removed on entering the audience hall (Ker
Porter, op. cit., i, 249-50; cf. also Morier, A journey
through Persia, 186; Ouseley, op. cit., ii, 10-11, 222, iii,
129-30). In the early years of the 19th century, if
khiPas had been sent to the envoy and his suite by the
shah or prince governor, they would wear these when
attending his audience. The practice of sending New
Year presents to foreign envoys was discontinued, at
least so far as the British mission was concerned, from
about the middle of the century (Great Britain, Public
Record Office, F.O. 60.130.Sheil to Palmerston, No.
46, Tehran, 23 April 1847).

The Naw Ruz was the most important of the public
festivals celebrated by the shah. Fath C A1I appears
always to have returned to Tehran or Sultaniyya for
it. To each of the chief men and officers of the court
he would send a khiPa, consisting of a complete suit of
brocade with a shawl, and sometimes he would add to
this a horse with its trappings and caparisons (see
further Morier, op. cit., 205; idem, A second journey
through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor, 93). Malcolm
states that it was the custom for the shah to march out
of his capital on the Naw Ruz, attended by his
ministers, nobles, and as many of his army as could
be assembled. The ceremonies of the day would
commence with a review, after which the tribute and
presents of all the rulers and governors of the different
provinces would be laid at the foot of the throne,
which was placed in a magnificent tent pitched for the
purpose in an open plain. The shah would remain in
camp for several days. Horse-races were among the
amusements. (History of Persia, ii, 405; cf. also Morier,
op. cit., 208). Often, however, the Naw Ruz audience
took place in the capital (see Ker Porter for a detailed
account of Fath C A1T Shah’s Naw Ruz audience in
Tehran in 1818, op. cit., 320 ff., also quoted by R.G.
Watson, History of Persia, London 1866, 138 n.).
Under Nasir al-Din Shah also, the Naw Ruz was
celebrated with great magnificence. Three audiences
were held; the first (the salam-i tahwil) took place when
the sun passed into Aries and was held in the hall in
which Fath c All’s throne was kept. A large white cloth
for the Haft Sin stretched from near the door of the
hall to the edge of the dais on which the throne was
placed. The Kadjar princes, military officers, civil
officials, and religious dignitaries proceeded to their
places an hour before the sun entered Aries. Three

MARASIM

529

quarters of an hour later, a curtain was raised and the
shah in a blaze of jewels, preceded by the ishikakasi-
bashi and the I c timad al-Haram, advanced slowly,
towards the throne, but out of respect for the c ulama :> ,
he did not sit on the throne; instead he sat on a chair
(; masnad) covered with gold brocade, placed beside the
throne, holding the sword of Nadir Shah on his knees.
The first minister (the sadr-i afzam), with his cloak and
sword of office, and his subordinates stood near the
throne. The imam djum c a and the great c ulama :> sat
beside the masnad of the shah, while the less distin¬
guished c ulama 3 stood at the foot of the throne. The
khatib al-mamdlik and the muna djdj im-bashi stood facing
the throne. The former, approaching the throne, read
a khutba and at the mention of the names of the
prophet, c Ali and the shah all heads bowed. The
muna djdj im-bashi then came forward and after a
moment or two announced that the sun had entered
Aries. Immediately the trumpeters, who were drawn
up outside, sounded their trumpets and guns were let
off in the Maydan-i Mashk. The shah offered his
congratulations to the c ulamd 5 and then to the rest of
the company. Taking the Kurban in his hands he
reverently read a passage, after which HadjdjT Nizam
al-Islam knelt before the shah and put a little dust
from a packet into water and gave it to him to drink.
Having drunk it, the shah began to give New Year
presents (Hdi) consisting of purses full of gold coins, to
the c ulama :> . When this was finished and the c ulama 5
had left, the bands which were drawn up outside,
hitherto silent out of respect to the c ulama 3 , would
begin to play. The shah then got up from his masnad
and sat on a chair and gave purses full of gold coins
first to the princes, then to the army leaders and
mustawfis and finally to the rest of those present,
saying a few words to each one in turn. The reci¬
pients, on receiving their presents, kissed them and
raised them to their heads. The assembly lasted some
two or three hours, after which the shah withdrew into
the garden, and thence into the andarun , where the
ladies of the haram vied with each other in kissing his
feet (Mu c ayyir al-mamalik, op. cit., 70 ff.).

On the second day of the Naw Ruz, a public
audience was held in the diwdn-khana, attended by the
Kadjar princes and leaders of the Kadjar tribe,
military officers, civil officials and foreign envoys.
When all were assembled, the shah entered the diwdn-
khana , mounted the marble throne and sat on a chair,
set with jewels, which was placed on it. Bands then
played the special music for the salam ( muzik-i salam-i
iran ), trumpeters sounded their trumpets, guns were
fired, and the instruments of the nakara-khana were
played. When this was over the khatib al-mamdlik read
the khutba , and the court poet recited a kasida , after
which the hakim al-mamdlik brought the special kaliyan
kept for audiences on a tray set with jewels and placed
it at the feet of the shah, who, according to custom,
began to smoke it. At this audience presents were
given only to the military and the bureacracy; the
munshi al-mamdlik, with two others, took round large
trays of coins and each person to whom it was offered
took a handful ( ibid ., 82 ff.). The audience held on the
third day was of an informal nature; the mustawfis and
military officers were not present, only the shah’s
intimates. On this occasion he would watch the
various activities which went on in the grounds and
streets around the palace. These included ram fights,
cock-fighting, bear-dancing, performances by
conjurers, wrestlers and members of zur-khanas. The
shah would distribute largesse to the performers and
a special armlet to the champion wrestler (ibid. , 86-7).
On the eve of the Naw Ruz there was a firework

display, which the shah would watch with his ladies
from one of the palaces. On the thirteenth day of the
c id, the shah would go to one of the royal gardens with
his haram (ibid., 89).

On the shah’s birthday, three receptions were given
in the reign of Nasir al-Dln Shah. One was given by
Anis al-Dawla, the shah’s chief wife, to which the
wives of ambassadors and other European women
resident in Tehran would be invited, together with
wives of ministers and notables. The shah would
appear at the reception and give the guests presents of
gold coins. A lunch would then be held for the
princes, after which Nasir al-Dln would sit in the
portico of the Shams al- c Amara palace and give them
presents ( c idt). In the evening the Na^ib al-Saltana,
the shah’s son, who was governor of Tehran, would
hold a reception at which he would make a speech in
honour of the shah’s birthday, after which the foreign
envoys who were present would also make speeches;
before each of these the national anthem of the coun¬
try which the envoy represented would be played. The
shah would watch the proceedings with members of
his haram from a window looking on the audience hall
(ibid., 91).

The other major festivals celebrated by Nasir al-
DTn Shah were the religious festivals of the c id al-adha,
the birthdays of the prophet Muhammad, the Imam
c Ali and the Hidden Imam, the Hd-ighadir [see ghapTr
khumm]. the mab c ath and the c id al-fitr. Muzaffar al-
Dln added to these the birthday of Husayn (ibid., 73).

The Kadjars, influenced by European precedent,
made various innovations in ceremonial matters. In
addition to the playing of national anthems on state
occasions, various orders were instituted. One of the
first was the Order of the Sun which Fath c Ali gave to
the French envoy General Gardane; shortly after¬
wards he instituted the Order of the Lion and the Sun
for Malcolm (see Kaye, Life and correspondence of Major-
General Sir John Malcolm, London 1856, ii, 31 ff.).
Nasir al-Dln Shah introduced the custom of giving his
picture (timthal-i humayun) adorned by one, two or
three rows of diamonds to favoured recipients. The
first class with three rows of diamonds was given only
to foreign rulers (Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik, op. cit.,
83-4).

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(A.K.S. Lambton)

4. In the Ottoman Empire.

In the Ottoman Empire, ceremonial, protocol and
etiquette are generally referred to as Teshrifat. Alay
[q.v. ] “procession”, “parade”, forms an integral part
of most ceremonies held by the court, in the residence
of the sultans as well as those organised by provincial
governors who, in a lesser way, were expected to
display the splendour of their monarch’s regime.

The same purpose was served by military
ceremonial and display. Splendid occasions were the
mustering of the army setting out on campaign when
the “horsetails” were planted in the field of Davud-
pasa or outside Uskudar. Likewise, the fleet of the
kapudan-pasha lay at anchor in front of the tomb of
Khayr al-Din Barbarossa at Besiktas before putting to
sea on its yearly tour in the Mediterranean (see
bahriyya. iii, and tugh).

Popular entertainment (modern senlik) often had a
processional character as well. Ceremonial festivities
of the sultan’s court, such as weddings, circumcisions
of princes and anniversaries, were coupled as a rule
with extensive popular entertainments like illumina¬
tions ( donanma ) and theatricals.

The great Islamic festivals [see c Id], especially those

530

MARASIM

during Ramadan, were occasions of general enjoy¬
ment. Special dress and the distribution of presents by
the sultan, as well as to his person, by his subjects and
by foreign princes belong to the ceremonial sphere
[see hiba; khil c a; libas, iv; pIshkash] . Ottoman
ceremonial derives on one hand from the ancient
traditions of world rule cultivated by the Mongol and
Turkish empires in Central Asia and the Middle East.
On the other hand, the traditions of leadership in
Islam begun in Medina and developed in the
historical seats of the caliphate in Syria and c Irak
which had adopted much from the pre-Islamic Persian
kingdoms and from elements of provincial Byzantine
administrations, were formative elements. The Mam-
luk sultanate played an important role in the transmis¬
sion of prevalent Islamic political culture to the
Ottomans. Some scholars maintain that the greater
part of Ottoman court ceremonial was in direct imita¬
tion of imperial Constantinople, but recent research
in Islamic history has shown that such a hypothesis is
no longer tenable. The pioneering studies here of
M.F. Kopriilu have been confirmed by the work of
modern scholars such as A.K.S. Lambton and
H.inalcik.

The rules of ceremonies and protocol set by the
Ottoman government were applied within the frame
of Islamic legal usage and custom ( c orf) [see c urf] and
laid down in so-called “law codes” Kanun-name s
q.v.}. Hardly any sources can be dated with certainty
>efore the reign of Bayazld II (886-918/1481-1512).
Dilger’s (1967) and Heyd’s (1973) researches have
shown that the mss. of Kanun-name s used and
published by von Hammer and Mehmed c Arif were
composites or pious frauds of later date than the years
of Sultan Mehemmed II (second reign 855-86/1451-
81). Hence the so-called “Ottoman Kanun-name ” is
unreliable as an unqualified source, and the use made
of these texts by von Hammer and, a fortiori by I. H.
Uzuncarsih, is therefore flawed.

Court ceremonial, appropriately enhanced by
Islamic ritual, was designed to emphasise the awe in
which the ruler was to held by means of a show of
splendour to be seen as evidence of his power. As a
consequence, his separation from the rest of the
population followed. A protective seclusion was a
characteristic of the Ottoman sultans, with their
forerunners in the Islamic Middle East. A reliable
source, Bertrandon de la Brocquiere (1433) describes
already the isolation of the reigning sultans, e.g.
Murad II still dining with the companions, but his
successor sitting at table alone. The increased eleva¬
tion of the sultan’s person and his gradual disap¬
pearance from the public eye led to heightened
ceremonial on the rare event of the ruler showing
himself at appointed occasions.

The audience maintained the link between the
separate spheres of authority of the sultan and of his
ministers united in the Diwan-i humayun [q.v.] presided
over by the Grand Vizier [see sadr-i a c zam]. In the
early days of the Ottoman monarchy, the meetings of
the diwan were still public audiences. Probably during
the reign of Selim I (918-26/1512-20), the public
audience was instituted in front of the Bdb-i Secadet in
the Palace of Istanbul, when a throne was placed there
under an awning. The appearance of the ruler was
formally applauded under the guidance of the Chief
Applauder or Alkishci Bashi. Alkish (applause), accom¬
panied by exclamations like padishahimiz cok yasha
intonated by the Selam Cavush or Du c adji, is a
ceremonial known already in Saldjuk times. The
audience proper ( c ard) implied kissing hands ( destbus )
or kissing the hem of the ceremonial kaftan of the

sultan seated on his throne placed on a dais (sofa) on
such occasions. Ca. 1525 the throne was replaced in a
room specially built for audiences just inside the gate,
the c ard odasi still to be seen in the Topkapi Sarayi
today. The protocol is well-known from numerous
reports of foreign ambassadors thus received. The
guests were led to the sultan while held by their arms.
The traditional explanation that it was a measure of
security originating in the assassination of Murad I
[<? .^.] in 1389 is rendered doubtful by the earliest
sources mentioning this protocol dating from 1518. In
fact, this rigid guidance is known from Saldjuk times
and the Mamluk court (Dilger, 1967, 58-9 and n.;
Lambton).

As tokens of favour, precious kaftans were
presented to those persons received as khila c or robes
of honour. In times of decline, according to diplo¬
matic sources of the 17th and 18th centuries, these
robes were actually bought back by the Ottoman
Porte to be given out another time. Since the days of
Selim I, the ruler would remain immobile and prac¬
tically silent during audiences. An exceptional favour
was a compliment on a speech of an ambassador in the
guise of a word or two, e.g. “ giizel ” or a mere gesture
of the hand. Bayazld II and Mehemmed II still seem
to have entered upon some civil conversation on such
occasions. The throne ( Takht-i hiimayun , serir) did not
have an important ceremonial significance in itself
apart from being of luxury manufacture. The newly-
succeeding sultan would receive the homage or oath of
allegiance of his subjects ( bay c a [q. v.], bfat in Ottoman
usage).

The actual accession to rule was the subject of the
great ceremony of the d)ulus. The ruler proceeded in
state on horseback (or boat) to the shrine of Eyyub on
the Golden Horn, where took place the Girding of the
Sword ( taklid-i sayf , kilic kushatmasi in Turkish) in lieu
of a coronation in Western style. According to tradi¬
tion, this took place for the first time in 824/1421 at
Bursa, where the venerable Sheykh Emir Bukhari
girded Murad II. Since Mehemmed II, the ceremony
was held at the Eyyub turbe till the accession of the last
Ottoman Mehemmed VI, on 3 July 1918, when the
Shevkh Sayyid Ahmad SanusI [q.v.\ performed it. It
is a persistent but erroneous notion that the sword was
fastened by the Grand Sheykh of the Mawlawiyya
[q.v. ] dervish order.

An imperial astronomer had to appoint the exact
date, which was to fall between the third and seventh
day after the actual accession. On the return journey,
the sultan passed the Janissary Barracks of Eski
Odalar. There, this corps offered sherbet, and the tradi¬
tional intention for the next campaign of holy war was
formulated by the ruler’s words “We shall meet at the
Red Apple” (Kizil Elma, in Turkish the symbol of
distant Christian capitals such as Rome and Vienna).
A distribution of money to the Janissary Corps
became usual (Diulus ba khsh ishi ) as was also customary
at the reception of foreign ambassadors by the sultan
and separately by the diwan in full session, a so-called
Ulufe Diwani (“Salary Council”). The swords used
formed part of the collection of the Holy Relics of the
Prophet Muhammad, emanat-i mubareke , still kept in
the room in the Palace appointed for that purpose, the
khirkat-i sherif odasi. These relics acquired by Selim I
comprised inter alia the Holy Mantle itself ( burda ), the
Holy Banner (sandj_ak-i sherif), a fragment of a tooth of
the Prophet (dendan-i secadet), hairs of the Prophet’s
beard ( lihya-yi se c adet), a print of his footstep ( kadem-i
secadet) and swords which belonged to the Prophet, to
the caliphs Abu Bakr, c Umar and c Uthman and to six
of his Companions.

MARASIM

531

These eshya'-i mutebernke were in a way the insignia
of government for the Ottoman sultans in their role
as leaders of Islam, and during the 19th century,
especially from the time of c Abd Hamid II (1293-
1327/1876-1909) became symbolic of Ottoman pre¬
tentions to the caliphate. The true regalia and symbols
of recognition as Muslim ruler were for the Ottomans
as for all others, the right of coinage (sikka [q.v. j); the
mention of the sultan’s name in the Friday Prayers
(khutba [q. v. ]); the seal stamp ( muhur ); the monogram,
i.e. the prestigious tughra [q.v.], the hallmark ol
Ottoman rule par excellence; on some occasions, the
dressing of the Imperial Tent (otdgh-i humayun, also
cadir); and accompanying most ceremonies, the
military music of the Janissaries (mehterkhane [q.v. and
also nakara-khana and nawba]).

The other sovereign eeremony with religious
significance was the expedition of the annual “holy”
caravan to Mecca and Medina carrying the concrete
embodiment of Ottoman devotion toward the Holy
Places. The surre-yi humayun was organised around the
date of 12 Radjab by the Dar al-se c ade( agh ast [q.v.] in
the Harem apartment of the Palace. The first sending
of the sadakat-i rumiyye was ordered by Mehemmed I.
Selim I for the first time received the holy relics,
together with the keys of the Ka c ba. c Abd al-Hamid
II sent a sum of 3,503.610 gh urush with the Mahmal-i
Sharif the “Holy Camel”, thus called by Western
observers. The end of the Ramadan saw a regular
series of splendid religious ceremonials at court and in
the capital. The congratulations on the occasion of the
principal Islamic holidays took place in the sultan’s
palace in the form of a great audience in front of the
Bab-i Se c adet (the mu c ayede). The traditional public visit
to the mosque by the sultan for the Friday salat al-zuhr
each week remained one of few ceremonies during
which a great number of subjects, and also foreign
visitors, had the opportunity to see if the ruling sultan
was alive and well. This so-called selamltk is the
Ottoman ceremony most widely described (and
photographed) through the ages, and was the symbol
of the religious as well as the secular sovereignty exer¬
cised by the Ottoman dynasty.

Ceremonial and protocol were maintained accord¬
ing to traditional standards by a number of court
officials. The Cavush-Bashi was in charge of protocol of
the Diwdn and the sultan’s audiences in the Palace.
The Mir c Alem(Emir-i c Alem) or standard bearer, an
officer of the “Outside Service” of the palace, was
custodian of the regalia, e.g. the ak ''alem , cadir [see
mizalla], the mehter and the “Horse tails” (t ugh
[q.v. ]). He had to distribute standards and banners to
newly-appointed beylerbeys and lesser provincial gover¬
nors. The office of Master of Ceremonies, teshrifatci
bashi, was instituted according to traditional opinion
by Suleyman I. Registers were kept of all expenses
and receipts related to ceremonial occasions. A
journal of day-to-day events at court or at the head¬
quarters of the Commander-in-Chief ( Serdar-i Ekrem)
seems to have been kept by these officials (also see
R.F. Kreutel and K. Teply, Kara Mustafa vor Wien
1683 , Graz, etc. 1982, 103-210). This office by 1683
or at least by 1703 fell under the authority of the
Grand Vizier rather than that of the palace service
(see K. Kepeci, Tarih lugati , Istanbul 1952, s.v.
lesrifatgilik).

The reforms begun by Sultan Mahmud II (1223-
55/1808-39), and completed under the Tanzimat [q.v.],
brought about changes in ceremonial and protocol: if
not in principle and terminology, then certainly in
size, luxury and uniforms. The setting of many occa¬
sions was changed completely by the moving of the

sultans’ residence and court out of Top Kapi Sarayi
to palaces outside town along the Bosphorus near
Besiktas and even across the water, notably the
palaces of Qiragan, Dolmabah<;e and the vast complex
of Yildiz, the last one built upon the initiative of c Abd-
Hamid II.

On the whole, tradition was maintained in a more
sober form. To the ever-increasing number of foreign
visitors to the Ottoman capital, ceremonies never¬
theless still made a deep impression, as is evident from
the mass of travel accounts, private memoirs and
observations of diplomatists. c Abd al-Hamid repu¬
tedly took a great interest in keeping alive the great
traditions, and promoted the study and restoration of
institutions from the Ottoman and Islamic past, for
ceremonial was still considered a useful means to
enhance the pretentions of the Ottoman Sultan-caliph
to great power status and to paramount leadership of
the Islamic world.

During the second half of the 19th century, we see
in ceremonial a blend of ancient oriental and modern
European styles. The Teshrifatci remained an official
attached to the Grand Vizerate, i.e. the Diwan-i
Humayun. The newly-created Ottoman Foreign Office
employed its own Chef-de-Protocole (Kharidiiyye
Teshrifatcisi). Official titles and ranks are
systematically arranged into a hierarchy. The salname
of 1323/1905-6 (164) mentions a Teshrifal-i c Umumiyye
Ndzirl , ranking as a vizier of second class attached to
the Grand Vizier’s office. Next to him functioned a
Teshrifali-yi Diwan-i Humayun carrying the did rank of
civil servants (ibid ., 164). In the Yildiz Palace, a
Merasim Da hresi functioned. The ancient office of
Alkishci Bashi leading a group of official “applauders”
still survived. The classical mehterkhane , however, was
replaced by a western-style military band playing
martial music at all occasions.

A remarkable innovation alia franga was the intro¬
duction at public ceremonies, such as the mucayede,
selamltk or the visit to the Khtrka-yi Sherif , on 15
Ramadan, of the prominent female members of the
Sultan’s household and family. The Walide Sultan
[q.v.] princesses, high-ranking consorts and female
officials of the Harem had to take part in a great
number of ceremonies and to watch the military
parades in front of the Ta c limkhane Koshku inside Yildiz
Park, which was the successor, in a way, of the A lay
Koshku on the wall of the Topkapi Sarayi facing the
Sublime Porte ( Bab-i c Ali\q.v.\). As of old, the births,
circumcisions and weddings of princes and princesses
were occasions for court ceremonies and public enter¬
tainments. The collective circumcision of princes took
place three times during c Abd al-Hamid II’s reign.
The first days of the great Islamic holidays were
celebrated with splendid ceremonial audiences in the
Dolmabahge palace. Foreign ambassadors could
watch proceedings from balconies opened for that
purpose. The deslbus was performed by a long row of
dignitaries. The Sheykh al-lsldm performed the ritual
prayer first but (a sign of the reforms!) was followed
by the Orthodox Patriarch and the Chief Rabbi in
congratulating the Sultan.

The last time Ottoman ceremonial was watched by
multitudes in the streets of Istanbul was the accession
to the throne by the last Ottoman sultan, Mehemmed
VI, in 1918. The Grand Vizier Ahmed Tewfik Pasha
[q.v. ] was the last one to leave the sultan’s palace in
stately procession ( alay ) to proceed to the Sublime
Porte, this time in a carriage instead of on horseback,
on 4 November 1922 (see A. F. Tiirkgeldi (a former
Mabeyn , Chief Secretary to the last sultan) Gorup isit-
tiklerim [= Memoirs], Ankara 1951 2 , 165).

532

MARASIM

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vols., 1940-1, 1965 2 ; A. Tezbasar, Mehter tarihi
teskilati ve marslan, Istanbul-Erenkoy 1975; C.
Tiirkay, Osmanli saray ve idare teskilatindan ornekler
padfahlarin kthc kufanmalan, in Belgelerle Turk Tarihi
Dergisi, xxiv (Istanbul 1969), 3-10; A. Vandal, Une
ambassade frangaise en Orient sous Louis XV. La mission

du Marquis de Villeneuve 1728-1741 , Paris 1887 2 ,
360-7. (A.H. de Groot)

5. In Muslim India.

Ceremonial at the Muslim courts in India, while
deriving much from Islam elsewhere, especially Iran,
has also continued and adapted indigenous traditions.
The pomp and ceremonial of Hindu courts is of
considerable antiquity, and the grandeur of kings is a
favourite theme of Hindu literature and Indian
folklore; no Muslim ruler could have allowed the
splendour of Hindu ceremonial to exceed his own!
The psychological value of state ostentation is of
course considerable, as tending to emphasise the
power of the sovereign, his distance from his subjects,
and the awe in which he is held. This ceremonial is
most in evidence in the state audiences, and in the
royal processions; for the latter, see mawakib.

Ceremonial in the earliest days of the Dihll
sultanate must be presumed, from the fact that the
earliest records of the administration of the sultanate
show such a close connection with that of the
Gh aznawids whose power in the Pandjab it inherited,
to have been modelled on that of the Ghaznawids. for
whom see section 3 above; through them came
c Abbasid connections also, which were undoubtedly
strengthened in the time of Iltutmish when Fakhr al-
Dln c IsamT, who had served as a wazir at Ba gh dad,
was appointed the Dihll wazir. However, the prestige
of the sultanate declined after the death of Iltutmish,
when real power was in the hands of a confederacy of
Turkish amirs (“the Forty”)—with the result that the
sultan was prevented from being adequately distanced
from his subjects—and was not restored until the
reign of Balban who “introduced the Persian
ceremonial” (Diya 5 al-Din BaranT, Ta\ikh-i Firuz-
Shahi, Bibl. Ind. text, 27-9, 30-2). Ibn Battuta (iii,
217-29, tr. Gibb, Cambridge 1971, 658-64), an eye¬
witness, describes that of the court of Muhammad b.
Tughluk; the entrance to his palace (the Hazar Sutun
at Djahanpanah: see dihli. 2. Monuments) was
approached by three gates, each guarded by men-at-
arms and equipped with a band of musicians [see
nakkara-khana, and also nawba]. At the second gate
was the nakib al-nukaba 5 (principal usher; for his func¬
tions see nakib), whose headdress was surmounted
with peacock feathers (a borrowing from Hindu prac¬
tice); he and his assistants scrutinised all who entered.
At the third gate, beyond the antechamber, the names
of all visitors were recorded, and none who had not
the sultan’s permission were permitted to proceed to
the darbar within. Here the ceremonial was under the
direction of the amir hadjib (also called barbek in the
Dihll sultanate). In Ibn Battuta’s description this was
the sultan’s nephew FTruz b. Radjab, who later
succeeded to the throne as Firuz Shah: but it was
common for the amir hadjib to be of royal blood. His
duty was, with the na5b barbek and his assistant hadjibs ,
to marshall those attending the darbar according to
their precedence and seniority, to present all petitions
to the sultan, and to transmit the royal commands to
subordinate officials and to any petitioners; one hadjib
(hddjib-i fasl, hadjib-i fas sal) had the special duty of
making an inventory of all gifts received by the sultan
[see further, hadjib]. The sultan sat in the daily darbar
on a cushioned seat (golden bejewelled thrones were
in use only at darbars on feast days), the wazir and his
secretaries standing before him, followed by the
various hadjibs, and about a hundred nakibs. The
noble appointed to carry the fly-whisk stood imme¬
diately behind the sultan, who was flanked to left and
right by his special armed bodyguard, the sildhdars.

MARASIM

533

ranged in order down the darbar- hall were the kadis.
the khatib , the principal jurists and other c ulamd •*, the
shaykhs of the Sufi brotherhoods in the capital, the
sultan’s relations by blood and marriage, and then the
principal amirs and other commanders. When all these
were in place, some sixty caparisoned horses of the
royal stable, and fifty adorned war-elephants, were
brought in. If anyone waiting at the third gate had
brought a gift for the sultan, this was reported to him
by the hadjibs\ if the sultan approved, the donor and
his gift were brought in, and welcomed by the sultan
who might recompense the donor by a khiTa [q.v. ] and
a purse of money “for washing the head” (sar-shusti);
Ibn Battuta describes a more elaborate ceremonial in
the case of gifts and revenues presented by one of the
provincial officers (ibid., iii, 226-7, tr. Gibb, iii, 663).
When an audience was held on a feast day, the palace
was spread with carpets and the hall was enclosed
beneath vast awnings; on the first day of a feast the
sultan sat on a cushioned seat on the large golden
throne, with heavily jewelled legs, and a jewelled
parasol was held over him; on later days of feasts
smaller golden thrones were in use. All attending the
court would salute the sultan individually, in descen¬
ding order of precedence; then revenue-holders would
bring present, and all would be entertained to a great
banquet, again being served in order of precedence,
while a large golden brazier would fill the hall with the
smoke of different kinds of incense and fragrant
woods, and those present would be sprinkled with
rose-water. The dishes were escorted from the
kitchens by nakibs, and a eulogy of the sultan would be
pronounced by the nakib al-nukaba 5 before those pres¬
ent were assigned to their places. Ibn Battuta
describes some of the dishes presented; last comes pan
(betel-leaves containing chopped areca-nut with lime
and a bitter gum). (This is an indigenous custom, and
the presentation of pan is still used at Indian meals as
a gracious sign of dismissal.) Ibn Battuta further
describes the special ceremonies at the reception at
court of the son of the c Abbasid caliph; since these
involved a processional entry, they are described s.v.

MAWAKIB.

Ibn Battuta (iii, passim) refers often to the insignia
of rulers and amirs', for these see maratib. Shams-i
Siradj c AfTf, whose Ta^rikh-i Firuz Shahi is richer in
administrative details than most chronicles, lists
twenty-one royal prerogatives ( sikkaha-yi tady-daran)
maintained by Firuz Shah, including the khutba [q.v.],
the throne ( takht ), the royal seal cut in agate, use of a
tughra [q.v.], the right to the fiy-fiap (magas-ran), the
royal saddlecover [see ghashiya], a white quiver,
encampments outside the gate, the black umbrella,
the royal headdress ( kulah-i malik ; a crown is not
specified), and others. The right to strike coin [see
sikka] is, curiously enough, not included here, and
also tiraz [q.v.] finds no mention, although the practice
is not unknown in India. For the umbrellas ( rede
chatra , though commonly also catr in Indian Persian
texts) see mizalla; for the special spear used in the
royal escort see durbash. Another common royal
prerogative is the scattering of small coin (and also
small golden stars, arrowheads, etc.) among the
populace at festivals, sometimes by catapult
(;mandyanik ); for this see nithar. Possession of royal
slaves (usually bandagdn in Indian histories; but see
ghulam. iii, and also habshI), and the overlordship of
the state treasuries and workshops ( karkhanas ) should
also be mentioned.

There is little definite information on ceremonial in
the later Dihll sultanate and in the provincial
dynasties, but there is no ground for supposing it to

be different other than in detail (for example, the vast
number of slaves, both male and female, in the later
stages of the sultanate of Malwa) from that already
described. With the coming of the Mughals in the
1 Oth/16th century, however, there are notable innova¬
tions, and also many more sources of information:
autobiographies by Babur, Gulbadan Begam and
Djahanglr, extensive dynastic histories (many
produced under the stimulation of the millennium)
and administrative accounts such as the AHn-i Akbari
and part of the MiPat-i Ahmadi, accounts by European
travellers, and the valuable contributions to social
history of contemporary Mughal painting.

The nakkara-khana was extended both in the number
and the variety of its instruments (A Hn-i Akbari, a^in
19). The ruler in darbar, whether in the hall of general
or special audience, was always seated on one of the
thrones, which were of several kinds and of different
shapes; some, in the Mughal forts, were permanent
structures of marble, with or without a canopy. That
in the diwan-i c dmm of the Red Fort at Dihll is a marble
baldachino (nisheman-i zill-i ilahi) under a marble
“Bengali” roof, all inlaid with precious stones;
Bernier describes a railed space round it, reserved for
the umara 5 , the Hindu rddyds at court, and foreign
ambassadors; further space within the diwan was
reserved for other officials, and the general public
awaiting audience were accommodated in the outer
courtyard; he gives a full account of darbar ceremonial
in Travels, 261-3. The elaborate golden thrones were
in use in the halls of special audience (diwan-i khass),
including the magnificent Peacock Throne (takht-i
tawus) which was later looted by Nadir Shah in
1152/1739 (description in Badshhah-nama, i, 78-81;
Bernier, Travels, 269 ff.; Tavernier, Travels, i, 384 ff.;
for its fate, see G. N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian
question, i, 321-2). Besides the appearance of the ruler
in audience, there had been introduced under Akbar
his appearance on a balcony on the wall of his palace
so that he might be seen by the populace at large; for
this adoption of a Hindu practice, see darshan. The
emperor here and in darbar was usually accompanied
only by the magas ran and a single veiled sword;
outside the palace he was invariably accompanied by
the royal umbrella and the kur, a variety of arms
wrapped in bags of scarlet cloth (other colours also
appear in Mughal painting), the hilts of the swords
often showing, together with c alams and the chatrtok,
and tumantok, standards resembling the common c alam
but with their shafts adorned with Tibetan yak-tails.
The magas ran was commonly a switch of yak-tails
(camari, cawnri ; see Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Chowry),
although the folded towel is not unknown in Mu gh al
painting; in contemporary Deccan painting, however,
the folded towel is invariably depicted. Darbar paint¬
ings of Shahdjahan often show the fly-whisk in the
hands of a Hindu radya at court. Together with these
trappings was carried a flat oval shield-like screen on
a long pole, the aftdbgir (also called sayaban), to shade
the royal person from the rays of the sun. Other
insignia also might be carried; see further maratib.

The dignities of the chatrtok and tumantok, the mahi-
mardtib, the right to an umbrella and to the use of
elephants, might be conferred on royal princes and
favoured nobles. The emperors took the title bahadur
\q. v. ] to themselves, only very rarely conferring it on
distinguished generals; they used also the title badshah;
it would seem that mirza might also be awarded as a
title, as it is found appended to the names of those not
of noble birth, and even to Hindus [see mirza); royal
princes were generally called sultan.

To the privilege of striking coin was added the

534

MARASIM — MARAT HAS

minting of pieces bearing the royal portrait, perhaps
starting with the “symbols of faith”—the likeness of
the emperor and the motto Allahu Akbar— presented by
Akbar to his murids in the Dln-i Ilahi (A 3 in-i Akbart , i,
160), and a shasl wa shabih were given by Djahanglr to
favored members of his court circle—including Roe,
the English ambassador {Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe,
ed. Foster, Hakluyt Socy., i, 244-5). Austin de
Bordeaux (“Hunarmand”) was similarly honoured.
Other portrait medals were presented to nobles (S. H.
Hodivala, Historical studies in Mughal numismatics , xi:
“Portrait muhrs” of Jahangir, 147-70, Calcutta
1923). Gigantic minted pieces of Mu gh al emperors
are also known, some intended as presents, but more
generally retained as treasur^ pieces. Small coin was
also struck specially for the nithar [qv.\, together with
gold and silver fruits and flowers following Caghatay
practice, and was continued at least as late as the reign
of Farrukh-sivar Royal seals [see muhr] were cut in
steel as well as in cornelian and agate, for use on
Jarmans and for accessioning additions to the royal
libraries {A^in-i Akbari, a^in 20).

As well as royal attendance at the public mosques
and at the c id ceremonies (described s.v. mawakib),
new ceremonies were introduced within the Mu gh al
courts: Djahanglr writes of his own regular weighing
against gold, silver and other commodities, on the
lunar and solar anniversaries of his accession, and the
scenes are represented in Mughal painting. He also
writes of the golden chain outside his palace, attached
to a bell, which any suppliant for justice could ring
(but zandjir pish-i dakhul already occurs in c AfTf’s list of
prerogatives of Firuz Shah). The nawruz and ab-pashan
ceremonies were also observed with great pomp in the
palaces, again with painting confirmation available.
Plate 7 of the Leningrad Album shows the scene of
Djahanglr’s investiture (sometimes called “corona¬
tion”: but there was no Mughal crown, merely a
jewelled headband worn on the cap): foreign
emissaries and Jesuit priests are distinguished by their
attire (including perhaps Roe?), wrestlers and
dancing-girls perform, ushers carry trays of money¬
bags, a courtier scatters coin, kettledrums are played
from the back of an elephant which blocks a gateway,
while karnas are blown from the palace walls. Plate 32
shows a darbar scene of Djahanglr, painted by Abu
THasan: Djahanglr wears a jewelled band round his
turban, behind him are the dftdbgir and a small chair
with the kur in a pink cloth; many of the courtiers are
named, and indeed Radja Blr Singh Dev acts as his
chowry-bearer (Leningrad Album publ. as AVbom
indiiskikhi persidskikh miniatyur xvi-xviii vv. , Moscow
n.d.).

Bibliography : In addition to references in the
text, see I. H. Qureshi, Administration of the sultanate
of Dehl'A , Karachi 1958, esp. ch. 4; Shams-i Siradj
c AfTf, Ta^rikh-i Firuz Shahi, Bibl. Ind. text, Calcutta
1890, 107-8; Abu TFadl c AllamI, A^in-i Akbari, and
c Abd al-Hamld Lahawrl, Badshah-nama, cited from
Bibl. Ind. texts; F. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul
empire , ed. London 1901; Tavernier's travels in India ,
ed. V. Ball, London 1889. (J. Burton-Page)

MARATHAS, the name of the “caste-cluster
of agriculturalists-turned-warriors” inhab¬
iting the north-west Dakhan, Maharashtra “the great
country”, a term which is extended to all Marathl-
speakers. The Maratha homeland stretched between
15° N. and 23° N., nearly equidimensional with the
main mass of the Dakhan lavas north of the
Malaprabha river and south of the Satpuras. It lies
within the rain-shadow of the Western Ghats, a
plateau compartmented by mesas and buttes between

which valleys of black soil, watered by a 20” to 30”
annual rainfall, yielded cereals, oilseeds and cotton.
The significance of the Marathas in Islamic Indian
history is that they stopped the Mughal empire in its
prime.

Maratha fighters and revenue agents became
indispensable to the sultanates of Ahmadnagar [see
nizam-shah Is] and Bidjapur [see c adil-shahIs],
Hereditary local notables, desmukhs , despandes and
desajis, and village headmen, patils, dominated rural
society with their armed followings and family
connexions as watandars with rights to land revenue.
Desmukh families, often ensconced in hill forts, became
sardars, cavalry captains, for Muslim rulers, receiving
mukdsa or (additional) revenue assignments. One
such, ShahdjT Bhonsle (1002-74/1594-1664) father of
Sivadji (1036 or 1040/1627 or 1630 to 1680), the
creator of Maratha radj_, helped, along with other
Maratha desmukh families, Malik c Anbar [q.v. ] to
preserve Ahmadnagar against the Mughals in the
1620s. Following the final Mughal absorption of
Ahmadnagar in 1035/1636, ShahdjT served Bidjapur
in South India. In ShadjI’s absence, SivadjI from
1056/1646 onwards used the resources of his father’s
djagir of Puna to extend his own control over the
strongholds of neighbouring, often hostile, desmukh
families. By 1066/1656, SivadjI was sufficiently
important and free from Bidjapur! control for
Awrangzlb, then governor of the Mughal Dakhan
and attacking Bidjapur, to make overtures. In
1070/1659, Sivadjl’s slaying of the BTdjapurl
commander Afdal Khan drew more Marathas to
himself. Hitherto, Sivadji had been a Maratha chief
among many, taking advantage of the agriculturally-
destructive wars between the Mughals and the
Dakhan sultanates, and the dearths that accompanied
them, to recruit larger Maratha war bands for service
under Muslim paymasters. Aftfal Khan, however,
had desecrated the shrine of Tuldjapur and Pandhar-
pur, the latter a major centre of Maratha pilgrimage
as “the focus of a specifically Maharashtrian bhakti
movement”. By 1073-4/1663-4, during which time
Sivadji humiliated the Mughals by successfully
raiding their chief commander’s camp at Puna
(Sha c ban 1073/April 1663) and the port of Surat
(Djumada II 1074/January 1664), Sivadji had created
a distinctively non-Muslim political authority in the
Dakhan.

The massive Mughal campaign under Radja Djay
Singh in 1075/1665, together with the bait of a future
joint Sivadji-Djay Singh campaign against Bidjapur,
led to the treaty of Purandar by which Sivadji was to
surrender 23 oHiis 35 forts. Sivadjl’s attendance upon
Awrangzlb at Agra in 1076-7/1666 and his escape in
a fruit basket illumine the obstacles to his becoming
loyal to the Mughals at the price which they could
pay. Radjput refusal to accord Sivadji ksatriya status,
Mughal anger over the sack of Surat, and reluctance
to reward defiance, limited Awrangzlb’s freedom of
action, while the decay of Bidjapur offered Sivadji
more opportunities than Mu g hal service could have
done.

Sivadjl’s coronation in 1085/1674 according to
“Hindu” rites as chatrapati symbolised the repudia¬
tion of an Indo-Muslim ethos, but not of the
administrative structure of the Dakhan Muslim
sultanates. He tried to curb the larger desmukhs and
assignees in his own territory ( svaradjya ) and his
successful military and political activity furthered
upward social movement among Maratha and Kunbi
djatis and the tribal Kolis.

Prince Akbar’s rebellion in 1091-2/1681 against

MARATHAS

535

Awrangzlb, and his joining Sivadjl’s successor
Sambhadjl (1067-1100/1657-89) following on a
SivadjT-Golkonda alliance from 1084-5/1674 and the
experience of only temporary accommodations with
Sivadjl before the latter’s death in 1091/1680, deter¬
mined Awrangzlb to destroy Bidjapur and Golkonda
and to force Maratha submission. By 1100/1689, with
the capture and brutal execution of Sambhadjl,
following the seizure of Bidjapur (1097/1686) and
Golkonda (1098/1687), Awrangzlb appeared trium¬
phant. But Radjaram, Sivadjl* s younger son,
migrated to Maratha outposts at Tandjur and DjindjT
in South India, and the Mughals were faced with a
mounted guerrilla campaign in the western and
southern regions of the peninsula. Although Djindji
was taken in 1109/1698, several hill forts in Sivadjl’s
former svaradjya occupied, and many Maratha chiefs
apparently won over by the award of Mughal mansabs ,
“the Mughal peace’’ was, south of the Narmada,
only established (temporarily) in Golkonda. The
Mughals indeed succeeded in shattering authority
and in splintering allegiances; they did not weaken
Maratha self-consciousness. At Awrangzlb’s death in
1118/1707, there was no chief Maratha with whom to
conclude an agreement by which all Marathas would
abide, but only Maratha chiefs to be cajoled into a
personal and temporary submission. SambhadjT’s son
Shahu (1093-1163/1682-1749) was being raised in
AwrangzTb’s camp. In 1111/1700 Radjaram’s widow
Tarabai installed her young son Sivadjl II as chatrapati
in one of the Maratha camps.

After Awrangzlb’s death, Mughal-Maratha rela¬
tions became a function of inter-Maratha and inter-
Mughal rivalries. Shahu was allowed to escape: he
was installed as chatrapati at Satara in 1119/1708. In
1121/1709, the Mughal padshah Bahadur Shah
granted both Shahu and Sivadjl II rights to sardesmukhi
(a notional 10% of the land revenue assessment as
desmukh) from the Mughal Dakhan. In 1130/1718,
Husayn c AlI, governor of the Mughal Dakhan, prom¬
ised Shahu cawth (a notional 25% of the land revenue
assessment), sardesmukhi and recognition of his
svaradjya in return for 15,000 Maratha horse for use
against the Mughal padshah Farrukh-siyar, private
concessions which were formally confirmed by the
puppet padshah RafT c al-Daradjat in 1131/1719.
Earlier, Husayn c AlF’s rival, Cm Kilic Khan, had
intrigued with Tarabai’s faction while resisting raids
upon the Mughal Dakhan by Marathas obedient to
Shahu. In 1137/1724, Shahu’s peshwa , BadjT Rao,
assisted Cm Kilic Khan to retain by force (against the
Mughal padshah Muhammad Shah [ 1131-61/1719-
48]) the governorship of the Dakhan. However, fear
of encirclement by BadjT Rao’s Marathas raiding
northwards into Gudjarat and Malwa and southward
into the Karnatak induced Cm Kilic Khan to treat
with Shahu’s rivals (how headed by Radjaram’s
second son Sambhadjl II [1109-74/1698-1760] at
Kolhapur). Defeat by BadjT Rao in 1140/1728 at
Palkhed, and the treaty of Mungi Sivgaon, tilted the
balance in the Dakhan permanently towards the
Satara Marathas.

In 1125/1713, Shahu, struggling to assert authority
over leaders of raiding bands unused to control, and
faced with a rival chatrapati at Kolhapur, had
appointed BaladjT Rao Visvanath (d. 1132/172) as
peshwa or chief minister. A systematic policy of raiding
Mughal territories and of dealing with local Mu gh al
officers enabled the peshwa to bind chiefs to him and
to acquire resources for a Maratha central direction.
Under BaladjT Rao’s^ son BadjT Rao (1132-53/1720-
40), the Satara Marathas secured Mughal recognition

of their claim to cawth and sardesmukhi (supplemented
by rdhdari or transit dues) from Gudjarat (by 1143-
4/1731), and from Malwa (by 1154/1741)—this
following a decisive victory over the Mughals at
Bhopal in 1150/1737. Between 1154/1741 and
1164/1751, the forces of RaghudjT Bhonsle plundered
Bihar, Bengal and Orissa, forcing the granting of
cawth from Bengal and the loss of Orissa. In the 1740s,
the Marathas were ready to intervene in the Gangetic
region, over which Mughal authority had been fatally
weakened by Nadir Shah’s \q. v. ] sack of DihlT in
1151/1739.

Although in wars against the nizam of Haydarabad
in 1164-5/1751-2, 1171/1757 and 1173/1760, the
Marathas acquired the cities of Ahmadnagar,
Bidjapur, Dawlatabad and Burhanpur, their gains
further south proved insecure. After 1145-6/1732, the
Maratha possessions centred upon Tandjur often
became tributary to the nawwabs of Arkat (Arcot), and
in 1156/1743 the then nizam of Haydarabad (CTn Kilic
Khan) captured TiruchirapallT (Trichinopoly). In
1174/1760-1, Haydar C A1I [q. i>.] seized power in
Mahisur (Mysore) [q. v. ] and closed off the south to
Maratha exploitation. Even in the Maratha
homeland, the treaty of Varana (Warna) in 1143/1731
between Shahu and Sambhadjl II of Kolhapur, giving
Shahu control of the latter’s diplomatic relations but
recognising his svaradjya , indicated the segmentary
character of Maratha polity.

Under the peshwa BaladjT Rao II (1153-74/1740-61)
the Marathas led by Malhar Rao Holkar, Djavappa
STndhTya and Raghunnath BadjT Rao, supported now
Safdar Djang of Awadh now GhazT al-DTn

c Imad al-Mulk (grandson of CTn Kili£ Khan), and
now the puppet padshahs Ahmad Shah (1161-7/1748-
54) and c AlamgTr II (1167-73/1754-9) in return for
promises of cawth from the Pandjab or from the
Ganga-Djamna do-db, and of Mughal offices and
subventions. In 1171/1758 Raghannath Rao moved
to Lahawr against the invading Afghan ruler Ahmad
Shah Durrani [q.v.]. In Djumada I-II 1173/January
1760 Ahmad Shah’s forces expelled the Marathas
from DihlT, provoking a grand military riposte under
Sadasiv Rao, the peshwa's uncle. In Djumada II
1174/January 1761 the Afghans savagely defeated the
Marathas at PanTpat, decimating their military
leadership.

The death of many of the peshwa' s principal aides
and a succession of feeble peshwas after the early death
of Madhav Rao in 1186/1772, dispersed authority
among the Marathas to the regional military chiefs,
the Gaikwars of Baroda, the Holkars of Indore, the
SmdhTyas of Gwaliyar and the Bhonsles of Nagpur.
The military power of the Marathas as an uneasy
confederacy was sufficient for MahadadjI Rao
STndhTya (1139-40 to 1208/1727-94) to instal in
1185/1772 the Mughal padshah Shah c Alam in DihlT as
a dependent: it was sufficient for the Marathas to
defeat the East India Company’s army at Talegaon in
1192/1779 and to repulse it from Puna in 1195/1781,
during the indecisive Anglo-Maratha wars of 1192-
96/1778-82; it was sufficient for TukodjT Rao Holkar
and Dawlat Rao STndhTya in 1209/1795 to defeat the
nizam of Haydarabad’s forces at Kharda.

But Dawlat Rao STndhTya and Djaswant Rao
Holkar fell to struggling for control of the peshwa BadjT
Rao II (1211-33/1796-1818) and, in desperation, the
latter turned to the East India Company. Wellesley’s
subsidiary treaty of Bassein (1217/1802) took away
the peshwa' s independence. RaghudjT Bhonsle and
Dawlat Rao STndhTya resorted to arms and in
1218/1803 the latter lost DihlT, the do-db and

536

MARAT HAS — MARATIB

territories in Gudjarat and the Dakhan. Dj as want
Rao HoJkar belatedly intervened in 1219/1804, inflic¬
ting a major defeat on the Company’s troops near
Kotah, a further inducement for Wellesley’s recall to
England. A revised settlement with STndhiya restored
to him territories south of the Cambal; Holkar was left
free in central India. But in 1233/1817, British
pressure on the Pindar! freebooters was recognised as
pressure on the Maratha leaders, so the peshwa , the
Bhonsles and Holkar made one last effort by war to
retain their independence, but were defeated
piecemeal. The peace settlements of 1233/1817-18
incorporated the Maratha home territories into the
Bombay Presidency and reduced the peshwa and the
principal Maratha chiefs to pensionaries or to
mediatised princes under British paramountcy.

The Marathas had hollowed out the Mughal
empire, diverting its resources to themselves and
distressing its peoples. But by accepting Mughal
privileges, grants of revenue and titles, conferred in
due form, they had preserved Mughal “sovereignty”.
Shahu accepted the title of rddya and Mughal faramin
granting cawth and sardesmukhv, in 1154/1741 the
peshwa accepted the na?ib-$ubadari of Malwa; in
1198/1784 Mahadadj! Rao SindhTya received the title
of wakil-i mutlak from Shah c Alam. Mughal political*
and military defeats were accompanied by Mughal
ideological successes. The Marathas behaved like
arrivistes with no faith in themselves. This was not
inevitable. By 1091/1680, Sivadj! had created an
independent polity with (against the backcloth of
Awrangzlb’s Islamising aspirations as expressed in
the formal imposition of ifjizya and some temple
destruction) an alternative religio-political symbolism
(to be represented in Maratha historiography). Sivadj!
moved to protect cultivators in his svaradjya against his
own kind—the overmighty desmukh and mukasa
holder. But by 1118-19/1707, Awrangzib had
occupied sufficient of Sivadji’s svaradjya to force
Maratha warrior bands to live off the Mughal coun¬
tryside by plunder, unable to dominate and rule it

from the urban centres that formed the nuclei of

✓

Mughal power. Wide-ranging Maratha raids
estranged the rural notables, the zamindars, from the
Mughals, without attaching them to the Marathas.

Among the Maratha chiefs, respect for Sivadji's
family, the success of the peshwds against the mzam of
Haydarabad and the Mughals north of the Narmada,
and the pride of confounding the Mughals, provided
sufficient cohesion before Shahu’s death in
1163/1749. Thereafter, the centrifugal possibilities
opened up both by the practice of the chiefs operating
in Mughal territory receiving the larger proportion of
cawth and sardesmukhi collections, and also by their
being granted hereditary assignments and tax farms
in the Maratha homelands, proved to be beyond
thwarting by a succession of sickly and feeble minors
installed as peshwas. How in fact the emergence of
regional and local Maratha chiefdoms affected the
welfare of those living under them remains to be fully
investigated.

Bibliography: Records in Marathi, Persian
and English—N.N. Gidwani and K. Navalani, A
guide to reference materials on India, Jay pur 1974, ii,
1066-72; J.C. Grant Duff, A history of the Mahrattas,
2 vols., Oxford 1921; G.S. Sardesai, New history of
the Marathas, 2 vols., Bombay 1946-8; Jadunath
Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal empire, 4 vols., Calcutta
1932-50; idem, Shivaji and his limes , Calcutta 1920;
V.G. Dighe, Bajirao and Maratha expansion, Bombay
1944; Satish Chandra, Parties and politics at the
Mughal court 1707-1740, Aligarh 1959; A.R.

Kulkarni, Maharashtra in the age of Shivaji, Poona
1969; S.N. Sen, Military system of the Marathas,
Calcutta 1928; idem, Administrative system of the
Marathas, 2nd ed., Calcutta 1925; Percival Spear,
The Oxford history of modern India 1740-1947, Oxford
1965, 43-129 passim-, Hiroshi Fukazawa, A study of
the local administration of Adilshdhi sultanate (A.D.
1489-1686), in Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics (June
1963), 37-67; Satish Chandra, The Maratha polity
and its agrarian consequences, in Ideas in history, ed
Bisheshwar Prasad, London 1968, 173-89; idem,
Social background to the rise of the Maratha movement
during the 17th century in India, in The Indian Economic
and Social History Review { Sept. 1973), 209-17; idem,
Shivaji and the Maratha landed elements, in Indian
Society: historical probings , ed. R.S. Sharma, New
Delhi 1974, 248-63; S.N. Gordon, The slow conquest:
administrative integration of Malwa into the Maratha
empire, 1720-1760, in Modem Asian Studies (1977), 1-
40; M. A. Nayeem, The working of the chauth and
sardeshmukhi system in the Mughal provinces of the
Deccan (1707-1803 A.D.), in The Indian Economic and
Social History Review ( April-June 1977), 153-91; The
Cambridge economic history of India, i. c. 1200-c. 1750,
ed. Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib,
Cambridge 1982, 193-203, 249-60, 471-7; A.
Wink, Land and sovereignty in India: agrarian society and
politics under the eighteenth-century Maratha Svarajya,
Cambridge_1986. (P. Hardy)

MARATHI, the main Indo-Aryan language
[see hind. iii. Languages] spoken by some 40
million in Bombay and the surrounding state
of Maharashtra. It differs from the “central”
HindMJrdu language especially by its retention of the
three genders of Old Indo-Aryan, by retroflex - n - and
-/- consonants, by the presence of a past tense with
infix, and by a vocabulary more dependent on
Sanskrit than on Arabic and Persian. As the chief
language of Barar and the north-west Deccan, it was
the regular demotic language for the populations of
the old Nizam Shah!, c Imad Shah! and part of the
c Adil Shah! sultanates, and later for much of the
Nizam’s dominions in the old Haydarabad [q. v. ]
state, as bilingual (MarathT-Persian) and trilingual
(Marathi-Kannada-Persian) inscriptions, as well as
monoglot ones, testify. These are particularly directed
to conveying official orders (kawl-namas, farmans, etc.)
in the country districts, Marath! has however been
little cultivated as a literary language by Muslims,
except for a few productions of “Sant” poets, i.e.
local Sufis aiming at reaching the local population,
often by reinterpreting well-known Hindu religious or
philosophical works.

Bibliography: J. Bloch, La formation de la langue
marathe, Paris 1920; for the linguistic relations of
Marathi, see Bibl. to hind. iii. Languages. For the
Muslim contribution to Marathi literature, see S.
Dhere, Musulman Marathisanta-kavi, Poona 1967 (in
Marathi). Useful comment on the bilingual inscrip¬
tions is in Z.A. Desai, Arabic and Persian epigraphy,
in H.K. Sherwani (ed.), History of Medieval Deccan,
ii, 378, Hyderabad 1975; see also M.K.
Dhavalikar, Marathi epigraphy, in ibid., ii, 398-9,
401-2. (J. Burton-Page)

MARATIB (a.), literally “ranks, degrees” (sing.
martaba), a term applied especially in Muslim India to
the “honours” or “dignities”, atbal wa- c alamdt,
drums and standards, borne by the sultan or
conferred by him on the great amirs (Ibn Battuta, iii,
106; tr. Gibb (1971), iii, 599), later elaborated (ibid.,
iii, 110; tr. iii, 601) as “standards, kettledrums,
trumpets, bugles and reedpipes” as carried by two

MARATIB — MARDAM

537

ships among the fifteen of the governor of Laharf
Bandar. The practice of Firuz Shah’s troops marching
with 90,000 cavalry under 180 mardtib and nishana-yi
har d}ins ( c AfTf, Ta^rikh-i Firuz Shdhi . Bibl. lnd. text
144), i.e. two such insignia per thousand troops,
indicates that the mardtib could function as battle
ensigns. (One per thousand troops were employed in
Cingiz Kh an’s army, cf. DjuzdjanT, Tabakat-i Nasiri ,
Bibl. Ind. text, 338; tr. Raverty 968.) A phrase in
c AfTf, op. cit. , 374, c alamha wa nishanha-yi mardtib
hamlsha surat taswtr mikardand seems to indicate that
“standards and banners among the mardtib" were
painted with pictures, although Firuz Shah ordered
their removal. The practice of using the mardtib as
battle ensigns continued in Mughal times, as is
demonstrated profusely in Mughal painting; but there
is no lack of painted (or embroidered) pictures here,
including conspicuously the Persian Lion-and-Sun
device (Sol in Leo?); see shIr wa juiurshId. This
device is known elsewhere in Indian Muslim art, e.g.
among the Bahmanl buildings at BTdar [q.v.], with no
evidence however, to connect it with the mardtib.

A special dignity, especially but not exclusively of
Mughal times, is the mahi-maratib , “fish banner”, the
institution of which has been attributed to Khusraw
ParvTz, Sasanid emperor of Persia 591-628, from
whom it passed to the house of Timur, especially to
the Mughal emperors, as a symbol of sovereignty or
of authority emanating from the sovereign (W. H.
Sleeman, Rambles and recollections of an Indian official ,
ed. V.A. Smith, London 1915; the editor states that
he “has been unable to discover the source of the
author’s story”). Originally there was a golden fish
carried upon a long staff, flanked by two metal balls
(kawkaba) similarly carried (possibly commemorating
the inception of a royal reign when the moon was in
Pisces); later the two emblems were separated and the
fish used independently: the fish alone passed through
Mlrza Muklm Abu ’1-Mansur Khan, Safdar Djang,
governor of Awadh under Muhammad Shah, to the
sultans of Awadh, becoming the badge of the royal
house and used freely on their buildings in Lakna 3 u.
“Possessors of [cUdgirs], collectors of districts, etc.,
have permission to use the fish in the decorations on
their flags ... In Oude the fish is represented in many
useful articles—pleasure boats, carriages, etc. Some
of the king’s chobdaars [ cubdar , “mace-bearer”] carry
a staff representing a gold or silver fish.” (Mrs Meer
Hassan Ali, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India...,
1832; ed. W. Crooke, Oxford 1917, 43; her account
is based on 12 years’ residence in Lakna 5 u). The mahi-
maratib was among the favours conferred by Shah
c Alam II on Lord Lake in 1803 after the latter had
delivered Dihll from the Marathas.

The mardtib are also mentioned by Dja c far Sharif
{Kanun-i Islam , ed. W. Crooke as Herklots’ Islam in
India , Oxford 1921), 159 ff., among the standards
carried in procession at the Muharram [q.v.]
ceremonies, later to be laid up at the Imambara; his
list, however, does not specifically distinguish mardtib
from other emblems. He says the mardtib “is [sic] also
a standard fixed on a bamboo, decorated with a rich
cloth. These are carried on elephants, like colours”.
Certainly banners may bear such signs as the
Prophet’s sword Dhu ’1-Fakar [q.v.], the lion, the
hand of c AlI, the shield or dal sahib , the shoe of
Husayn’s horse at the battle of Karbala {na^l sahib);
many of these are also represented as metal objects,
and are then called simply c alam [q.v.]. Dja c far also
remarks that “in all Shi*a houses the fish standard is
conspicuous”; this practice persists today in
Haydarabad. For the possible connexion of the

common device in Bldjapur building of the rosette-on-
bracket with the fish symbol, see J. Burton-Page,
review of E. S. Merklinger, Indian Islamic architecture:
the Deccan. 1347-1686 , in Marg , xxxvii/3 (Bombay
1986), 89.

Other “dignities” and emblems of sovereignty or
nobility such as the chair [see mizalla] and durbash.
[q.v.], the aftabgir and the veiled swords of state do not
seem to be included in the term mardtib , although
treated similarly in practice, as Mughal art shows; for
these see marasim. 5. India. For the use of flags and
banners in the central Islamic lands, see c alam.

Bibliography: Given in the article.

(J. Burton-Page)

MARBAT, Marbit (a., pi. marabit ), the noun of
place from the root r-b-t in the sense of “to fasten,
attach, tie”, which denotes first of all the place
where domestic animals (members of the
camel, equine, canine, and more rarely, of the goat
and sheep families) are tethered. Among the
nomads, the marbat simply involves tying the animal’s
halter to some bush or, failing that, tying the two ends
of a rope {ribal, pi. rubut, mirbat or akhiyya) to a large
stone which is buried in the sand and letting the loop
emerge as a ring for tethering, in the shade of a tent;
the beast thus tethered is called rabit (for marbit). With
the same association of ideas, in Sa c udl Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates, marbat and mirsal are also
the names of the “leash” which holds the falcon down
to its perching-block ( wakar ) or on the falconer’s
gauntlet {mangala).

In regard to the Kur’anic expression (VIII, 62/60)
“... min ribal al-khayl ... (horses held in readiness)”,
the philogist al-Baydaw! [q.v.] in his commentary
{Anwar al-lanzll, ed. H. L. Fleischer, Leipzig, 1896, i,
372) is hesitant about the exact nature of this term
ribal, proposing to interpret it either as a singular, or
as a masdar, or as a plural of rabit ; this last seems most
logical, even though the lexicographers do not give a
plural for this singular.

For sedentary and urban populations, the marbat
takes the form of a kind of shelter, made from palm
leaves or from straw thatching, beneath which
animals can shelter from the sun.

By extension, marbat very soon imposed itself, in the
towns of the East, on istabl [q. y.] and, in the Maghrib,
on riwa/rwa in the general sense of stables, i.e. the
building intended for the guard and the housing of
horses in the palaces; for garrisons, for postal relays
[see barId] and for the open spaces used for equestrian
exercises and racing [see maydan].

Already in the 5th/ 11th century, the hagiographer
al-Tha c labI [q.v.] in his “History of the Prophets” {K.
^Ara^is al-madfalis ft kisas al-anbiya ■'), describing the
fabulous flying city of King Solomon, mentions the
following nomenclature: ... wa-fi asfali-ha marabit wa-
istablat wa-awari wa-awdkhi li-khayli-hi wa-dawabbi-hi
“and in the lower part [of this city] were shelters,
stables, tethering-posts and rings for attaching there
his horses and beasts of burden”. There is hardly
anything one could add to these four terms for defin¬
ing means of restraining domestic beasts.

Bibliography : In addition to references given

in the article, see those in faras and khayl.

(F. Vire)

MARCHES [see thughur].

MARDAITES [see djaradjima].

MARDAM, name of an affluent and distin¬
guished Syrian family, two of whose members,
the cousins Djamil and Kh alil, achieved renown in the
first half of the 20th century, the former in the realm
of politics, the latter in that of literature.

538

MARDAM

1. Djamil, born in Damascus in 1894, received his
primary and secondary education in various schools
in his native city, in particular that of the Lazarist
Fathers, and pursued higher studies in law and
political sciences in Paris and Switzerland. For this
reason, he was residing in Paris when the First World
War broke out. His political activities began in 1913
with his involvement in the Arab Congress which was
convened in Paris to defend the interests of the Arabs
and of which he was elected Secretary-General. In
1919, after making a tour of South America, he
returned to Damascus where he was appointed
adviser to the amir Fay sal. In 1920, he became adviser
to the Ministry of the Interior in the Cabinet of
Hashim al-AtasI.

Having participated in the Syrian Revolution
(1925-6), he escaped to Jaffa in Palestine, but was
arrested and handed over to the French Mandatory
authorities. He spent two months imprisoned at
Arwad/Ruwad, a small island situated close to the
Syrian coastal city of Tartus. In 1928, he was sent to
Paris to negotiate on behalf of the Constituent
Assembly which had recently been instituted in Syria.
Elected deputy for the city of Damascus to the Syrian
Parliament in 1932, Djamil Mardam was subse¬
quently appointed Minister of Finance. In April 1933
he resigned and became involved again in the politics
of resistance.

From January to March 1936, he was placed under
house-arrest by the French authorities at Kirk-Khan,
a little town belonging to the sandjak of Alexandretta.
On his return to Damascus, he was received with
enthusiasm. Subsequently he was a member of the
Syrian delegation which travelled to Paris to discuss
the term of the Franco-Syrian Treaty.

In December 1936 he formed the first Nationalist
cabinet and served as Prime Minister until February
1938. During this period, he travelled to Paris and to
Geneva to defend the Syrian position in the question
of the sandfik of Alexandretta and to continue discus¬
sions relating to the Franco-Syrian Treaty. In the
early part of the Second World War, he lived in c Irak
and in Saudi Arabia, not returning to Damascus until
1941. In 1943, he was again elected deputy for his
native city and became successively Minister of
Foreign Affairs (1943-4) and Minister of National
Defence and of the National Economy (1944-5).

After the proclamation of Syrian independence in
1945, Djamil assumed the functions of Minister
Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Egypt and to the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In November 1946, he
returned to Damascus and formed a Syrian Cabinet
for the second time (from January 1946 to October
1947). In July 1947, he was re-elected deputy for
Damascus and was charged for the third time with the
task of forming a Syrian Cabinet which lasted from
October 1947 to summer 1948. Having resigned, he
was recalled to form yet another Cabinet, and he
remained at its head until the coup d'etat of Colonel
Husnl al-Za c Im (30 March 1949). Djamil Mardam
then left Syria and made his way to Egypt, where he
stayed until the end of his life. He died in Cairo in
1961, and his remains were conveyed to Damascus
and interred in the cemetery of Bab al-Saghlr.

A veteran activist of the Nationalist Bloc ( al-kutla al-
watamyya), a political party linking the eminent Syrian
personalities who led Syria to independence, Djamil
Mardam was a skilful and far-sighted statesman.
Fervent in his speeches, which were sometimes
improvised, he was not lacking in eloquence.

Bibliography: Zirikll, AHam 4 , ii, 138; Georges

Faris, Man hum ji 7 ~ c a/am al- c arabi , i (Syria),

Damascus 1957; Archives of the Syrian Ministry of

Foreign Affairs and of the Syrian Parliament.

2. Khalil, born in Damascus in 1895, received his
primary and secondary education in the schools of his
native city, then studied fikh, hadith and the Arabic
language as a pupil of the great masters of his time,
including the shaykh c Ata 5 al-Kasm, mufti of
Damascus, the great scholar of tradition shaykh Badr
al-Dln al-Hasanl and the shaykh Sa c Id al-Banl.

After the establishment of the Arab government in
Damascus (1918-9), he was appointed, at a very early
age, editor-in-chief of the Bureau of Communication
{diwan al-rasa^il), and then a teacher at the school for
journalists which had recently been founded by the
authorities, but he left his post when French troops
entered Damascus (1920).

In 1921 he founded, with a group of eminent
contemporary scholars, a “literary league” ( al-Rabita
al-adabiyya), of which he was elected president. This
association published a review bearing the same
name, to which he contributed his first poems as well
as his first articles. This review was also the forum for
numerous well-known writers of the period. But the
league was disbanded and its organ ceased to appear
after its ninth issue.

In 1925 Kh alil Mardam was elected a member of
the Arab Academy of Damascus after presenting a
monograph on “The Syrian poets of the 3rd century
of the Hidjra”. The following year he travelled to
Alexandria where he stayed four months, associating
with certain eminent Egyptian literary figures, in
particular, the poet Hafiz Ibrahim. Then, deciding to
pursue his studies in the West, he made his way to
England where, for four years, he studied literature at
the University of London. This journey to the West
and his knowledge of English literature exerted a
profound influence on his poetry.

In 1929, returning to Damascus, he composed a
fine poem entitled “Hail Damascus!”, which was
received enthusiastically by scholars who recognised
in him a great poet. He was subsequently professor of
Arabic Literature in a college renowned in Syria at
that time, al-Kulliyya al- c ilmiyya al-wataniyya y for a
period of nine years (1929-38). Many of his pupils
subsequently became respected literary figures.

In 1933, he published a review entitled al-Thakafa
with the aid of some well-known teachers and men of
letters, including Djamil Sallba, Kamil DaghistanI
and Kamil c Ayyad. Serious literary articles, short
stories and poems were published in this review,
which unfortunately was short-lived.

In 1941 he became Secretary-General of the Arab
Academy of Damascus and in 1953 he was appointed
President of the Academy, a post which he held until
the end of his life. He was also elected a corresponding
member of numerous Arab and European Aca¬
demies, notably those of Cairo (1948) and of Ba gh dad
(1949), the Mediterranean Academy of Palermo
(1952) and the Moscow Academy of Sciences (1958).

Besides his literary activity, Kh alil Mardam
participated in the political life of his country, serving
as Minister of Public Education in 1942, ambassador
of the Syrian Republic to Ba g hdad in 1951 and
Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1953. Therf he aban¬
doned political life and devoted his energies to
literature and to the Arab Academy. He died in
Damascus on 21 July 1959, and was buried in the plot
reserved for his family in the cemetery of Bab
al-Saghlr.

His principal works are: a diwan (edited after his
death by the Arab Academy of Damascus in 1960 in
collaboration with his son, the poet c Adnan Mardam);

MARDAM — MARDIN

539

and studies of al-Djahiz, Ibn al-Mukaffa c , Ibn al-
c AmTd, al-Sahib Ibn ^Abbad and al-Farazdak (pu¬
blished, undated, in Damascus in the AHmmat ai-adab
collection). He also established and published in the
series of the Arab Academy of Damascus the texts of
the diwans of Ibn c Unayn (1946), c AlI b. al-Djahm
(1949), Ibn Hayyus (1951) and Ibn al-Khayyat
(1958). Some biographical works were published in
Damascus and Beirut after his death; most worthy of
mention are Dja mharat ai-mughannin (the singers), al-
A c rdbiyyat (the Bedouin women), c Ayan al-karn al-thalith
c ashar, (the notables of the 13th century A.H.) and
Yawmiyydt al-Khalil (his diary).

The poetry of Kh alil Mardam comprises the tradi¬
tional genres and is distinguished by its lyrical tone.
In his description of nature and in his love poems, the
poet displays extreme sensibility and remarkable
finesse. His patriotic poetry is sincere, and his
cultivated style is always fluent and clear and reflects
the lucidity of his mind.

Bibliography. Kh alil Mardam, Diwan , ed.
Damascus 1960; Zirikll, A c lam 4 , ii, 315; Kahhala,
MiEdjam al-miEallifin, Damascus 1961, xiii, 384;
Georges Faris, Man hum fi’l-'-alam al- c arabi, i
(Syria), Damascus 1957; S. al-Dahhan, in MMIA ,
xxxiv/4 (1949); a collection of speeches in memory
of Khalil Mardam, published by the Ministery of
Culture in Damascus, 1960. (J. Rikabi)

mardanIsh [see IBN MARDANISH].
MARDAWIDJ b. ZlYAR B. WARDANSHAH, AbU ’l-
Hadjdjadj, founder of the Ziyarid dynasty
[q.v. ] in the Caspian regions of Persia.

Mardawidj’s rise as a soldier of fortune in northern
Persia is bound up with the decline of direct caliphal
control there, seen already in the independent role of
the Sadjid governors [q.v.] in Adharbavdjan towards
the end of the 3rd/9th century and in the general
upsurge of hitherto submerged indigenous Iranian
elements, DaylamI, Djlll and Kurdish, forming what
has been called the “DaylamI interlude” of Persian
history [see daylam, and also buwayhids, kakuyids,

MUSAFIRIDS, RAWWADIDS, SHADDADIDS, etc.].

On his father’s side, Mardawldj (literally, “man-
assailant”, see Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, 194) sprang
from the royal clan of the Djllls, and on his mother’s
from the ispahbadhs of Riiyan. He served the Hasanid
ShlT rulers of Tabaristan and then the Djlll condot-
tiere Asfar b. Shlruya or b. Shlrawavh [q. v. ] until the
latter’s tyranny impelled Mardawldj, with the support
of the ruler of Tarum, Muhammad b. Musafir, to
rebel against Asfar, killing him in 319/931 and then
rapidly capturing Hamadan, DInawar and Isfahan in
western Persia from their caliphal governors. He now
clashed with a rival DaylamI commander, Makan b.
KakI [q.v.], who had held Tabaristan, Gurgan and
western Kh urasan since 318/930. Mardawldj
conquered Tabaristan and attacked Makan, but since
Makan obtained the backing of the Samanid amir
Nasr b. Ahmad, Mardawldj agreed to a peace treaty,
retaining only Ray as tributary to Nasr. It was at this
time that the three Buyid brothers C A1I, Hasan and
Ahmad transferred to his service from that of Makan,
and Mardawldj appointed C A1I (the future c Imad al-
Dawla) governor of Karadj. Since Mardawldj was
able to overrun most of Djibal almost to Hulwan, the
c Abbasid caliphs al-Mukt^dir and al-Kahir were
compelled to recognise him as governor there, on
condition that Mardawldj evacuate Isfahan, now
governed by his brother (and eventual successor)
Wushmglr.

By the end of 322/934, Mardawidj’s forces had
even occupied the province of Ahwaz. But the ambi¬
tions attributed to him in the (generally hostile)

sources of planning to conquer Ba gh dad, overthrow
the caliphate and proclaim himself ruler of a renewed
Persian empire, were frustrated by his murder at
Isfahan in Safar 323/January 935, whilst celebrating
the Zoroastrian festival or Sadhak, by his Turkish
ghulams, whom he had treated with contempt and
harshness. Minorsky has described Mardawldj as
“fantasque et barbare”, and al-Mas c udi imputes to
him delusions of grandeur and the assumption of a
messianic role as the awaited “man with yellow-
marked legs” who would rule the world. His brother
Wushmglr and his descendants kept the Ziyarids as a
force in the Caspian region for a further century, but
the main southwards impetus of the DaylamI Volker-
wanderung was to be spearheaded by the Buyids.

Bibliography. 1. Sou rces; Mas c udl, ix, 15-30
= §§ 3578-3603; Miskawayh, in Eclipse of the
c Abbasid caliphate , i, 161-3, tr. iv, 181-4; Gardlzl,
ed. Nazim, 30, ed. Hablbl, 84-5, 153; c ArIb, 154;
HamadhanI, Takmila , ed. Kan c an, i, index; Ibn
Isfandiyar, tr. Browne, 214-17; Ibn al-Athlr,
Beirut 1385-7/1965-7, viii, 227-9, 246-7, 263, 267-
72, 285-7, 298-303; Zahlr al-Dln MariashI, ed.
Dorn, 171 ff. 2. Studies. Cl. Huart, Les Ziyarides,
in Mems. de EAcad. des lasers, et Belles-Lettres , xlii
(1922), 357 ff.; H. L. Rabino, Mazandaran and
Astarabad , London 1928, 141; idem, L'histoire du
Mazandaran, in JA, ccxxxiv (1943-5), 229 IT.; B.
Spuler, Iran , 89-92; V. Minorsky, La domination des
Dailamites, in Iranica, twenty articles , Tehran 1964,
17-19; W. Madelung, in Camb. hist, of Iran, iv, 212-
13. _ (C. E. Bosworth)

MARDIN (written in Arabic as Maridln, in Greek
as MapBris, MapySu;, in Syriac as Marde and in
modern Turkish as Mardin), a town in what was in
mediaeval Islamic times Upper Mesopotamia or al-
Djazlra, in the region of Diyar Rabl c a [q.v.] lying on
a slope rising to an altitude of 3780 ft./1152 m. in lat.
37° 18' N. and long. 40° 44' E. The modern town,
in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border, is the
chef-lieu of the il (formerly vilayet) of the same name.

Position. In Upper Mesopotamia, the watershed
between the Tigris and Euphrates is formed by the
heights which culminate in Karadja-dagh (5,000 feet)
to the south-west of Diyar Bakr. This basalt massif is
continued eastwards in the direction of Djazlrat Ibn
c Umar by the limestone chain known in ancient times
as Masius and later as Izala (I£ocXa<;). The eastern part
of this ridge forms the district of Djabal-Tur or Tur
c AbdIn [q.v.], the capital of which is Midyat. From
the southern slopes of the Masius descend numerous
watercourses, the majority of which join one another
before flowing between the mountains of c Abd al-
c AzIz or Elazig (in the west) and Tell Kawkab and
Sinjdar (in the east); their combined waters form the
river Kh abur [q.v.].

Mardin lies near the point where there is an easy
pass through the Masius from the lands south of the
Tigris (the rivers Gok-su and Shavkhan) to the lands
round the sources of the Khabur (the stream called
Zuwarak which rises north of Mardin), in other
words, Mardin commands the Diyar Bakr-Nislbln
road (which then turns towards Djazlra Ibn c Umar
and Mawsil). On the other side towards the west,
several (Ritter, xi, 356, gives three) direct roads
connect Mardin via Urfa with Blredjik (on the
Euphrates); to the south-west, a road runs from
Mardin to Ra 3 s al- c Ayn and to Harran. The direct
distances are as follows: Mardln-Diyar Bakr 55 miles:
Mardin-Nislbln 30 miles; Mardln-Sawur-Midyat 75
miles; Mardln-BIredjik 160 miles; Mardln-Adana (by
rail) 450 miles.

The advantages of this position at the intersection

540

MARDlN

of important roads are enhanced by the very strong
natural situation of the town, built on an isolated
eminence, on the top of which is a fort 300 feet above
the town (cf. the sketch in Cernik, Technische Studien-
Expedition , in Peterm. Mitt., Erganzungsheft, x [1875-
6], Heft, 45, pi. ii, no. 17). J.S. Buckingham
compared its position with that of Quito in South
America. All travellers (cf. Ibn Hawkal, 152) have
been struck by the unique spectacle of the vast
Mesopotamian plain which from the height of the
town is seen to stretch southwards as far as the eye can
see. Only a hundred years ago, Mardin was still
considered impregnable, but the difficulty of access
sensibly affected its commerce. According to Cernik,
loaded camels could not ascend right up to the town.
A branch line 15 miles in length now connects Mardln
with the station of Derbesiye on the Adana-Nusaybin
section of the Istanbul-Baghdad railway, but the
station for Mardln is five miles from the town.

1. In pre-Ottoman times.

Ancient history. It is noteworthy that in spite of
its remarkable situation, Mardln does not seem to be
mentioned in the cuneiform sources. Ammianus
Marcellinus (xix, 9,4) is the first to mention two
fortresses “Maride and Lome” between which the
road passed from Amid (Diyar Bakr) to Nisibln.
Theophanes Simocatta (ii, 2, 19) mentions too

Map8to<; 9 poupa and (v. 3,17) to Mapo£.<; 3 parasangs
from Dara. Procopius, De Aedificiis, (ii, 4) mentions
EpotpySti; (or Spap8i<;) and Aoopvrj^ and Georgius
Cybrius, ed. Gelzer, 1820, 46, Maporjs Aopvrj^. The
name Maporj in Ptolemy, vi, 1, however, refers to
another place in Assyria to the east of the Tigris.

The Muslim conquest. The Muslims under
c Iyad b. Ghanm occupied the fortress of Mardln along
with Tur c AbdIn and Dara in 19/640 (al-Baladhuri,
Futuh, 176). In 133/750-1 Mardln is mentioned in
connection with a rebellion in Upper Mesopotamia.
The town formed part of the possessions of Burayka,
chief of the Rab^a, who was defeated by the c Abbasid
Abu Dja c far (Tabari, iii, 53). In 279/892, Ahmad b.
c Isa took Mardln from Muhammad b. Ishak b.
Kandadj (ibid. , iii, 2134). The Hamdanid Hamdan b.
Hamdun after his accession in 260/873 seized
Mardln. In 281/894, the caliph Mu c tadid marched on
the town. Hamdan fled and left Mardln to his son.
The latter surrendered the fortress which was
dismantled {ibid., iii, 2142). The “grey fortress” ( al-
bar al-ashhab) was later restored, for Ibn Hawkal (in
366/976-7) attributes its erection to Hamdan b. al-
Hasan Nasir al-Dawla b. c Abd Allah b. Hamdan. On
the death of his father 358/969, Hamdan was
dispossessed by his brother Fadl Allah Abu Taghlib
q. v. in Suppl.]. By the peace of 363/794, concluded
between the Buyid Bakhtiyar and Abu Taghlib.
Hamdan recovered his possessions with the exception
of Mardln (Ibn Miskawayh, ed. Amedroz, ii, 254,
319.

The Arab geographers give few details about
Mardln, but they emphasise its importance. Accord¬
ing to Ibn al-Fakih, 132, 136, the kharddj_ of Mardln
was equal to that of Mayyafarlkln (865,000 dirhams).
Al-Istakhrl. 76 n. k, says that it is a large town on the
summit of a peak, the ascent of which is a farsakh in
length; Dunaysar [q. v. ] was one of its dependencies.
Ibn Hawkal, 143, gives the ascent at two farsakhs. The
quarter of Mardln itself was flourishing, thickly
populated with large markets. The water supply was
brought by subterranean canals from the springs to
the town. The rain-water was also collected in cisterns
(saharidi wa-birak). Yakut, iv, 390 (cf. al-Kazwini,

172), speaks of the splendour of the quarters outside
Mardln (i.e. below the town itself) and its many
madrasas, khankahs, etc.; as to the ka c la, there was
nowhere in the world so strong a defence; its dwelling-
houses rose in terraces one above the other.

The Marwanids and the Saldjuks. It is
probable that Mardln was within the sphere of influ¬
ence of the Marwanids, for according to their
historian (cf. Amedroz, in JRAS [1904], their ancestor
Badh (d. 380/990) had extended his power over Diyar
Rab^a (Ni§Ibin, Tur c AbdIn). The Saldjuks ruled
here next. After the death of Malikshah [q.v. ] Tutush
b. Alp Arslan seized for a time all the lands as far as
Nisibln. Under Berk-yaruk, Mardln was given to his
old bard (mughanni).

The Artukids. At this time arose the dynasty
whose fortunes are especially associated with Mardln.
The Artuk grandson called Yakut! took by stratagem
the fortress in which he had been imprisoned, but it
was taken from him by his brother Sukman b. Artuk,
who died in 498/1104-5. In 502/1108-9, we find at
Mardln Il-GhazI b. Artuk (Ibn al-Athir, x, 269, 321),
whose line ruled there till 811/1408. (On their coins
struck at Mardln in 599, 600, 634, 637, 648, 655, 656,
etc., cf. Ghalib Edhem, Catalogue des monnaies
turcomanes, Constantinople 1894, and S. Lane Poole,
Catalogue of oriental coins in the British Museum, iii, x,
index, s.v. Mardin.)

In 579/1183 $alah al-Dln came to Harzam (6 miles
to the south-west of Mardln) but was unable to take
the town. In 594/1198, al-Malik al- c Adil b. Ayyub
seized the outer suburb, which was pillaged, but the
siege of the town itself was abandoned in the following
year. In 599/1202-3, al- c Adil sent against Mardln his
son al-Ashraf, who appointed governors ( shahna) in its
dependencies. The Ayyubid of Aleppo al-Zahir b.
Salah al-Dln offered his good offices, and al- c Adil was
content with an indemnity of 150,000 dinars and the
acknowledgement of his suzerainty by the Artukid of
Mardln (cf. Abu ’l-Faradj Barhebraeus, Mukhtasar,
ed. Pococke, 412, 425, 427).

The Mongols. In 657/1259, the Mongol Hulagu
Khan demanded the homage of the prince of Mardln,
Nadjm al-Dln Ghazi Sa c Id, who sent his son Muzaffar
to him but maintained a neutral attitude. In 658/1260
the town was besieged for 8 months by the troops of
Yashmut, son of Hulagu. Famine and an epidemic
raged in the town. According to Rashid al-Dln (ed.
Quatremere, 375), Muzaffar killed his father in order
to put an end to the sufferings of the inhabitants (Abu
’l-Faradj and Wassaf give different versions, cf.
d’Ohsson, iii, 308, 358). Muzaffar was confirmed as
lord of Mardin; his descendants also received from the
Mongols the insignia of royalty (crown and parasol).
In the reign of Salih b. Mansur (769/1367), whose
sister Dunya Khatun was the wife of the Ukhan
Muhammad Khudabanda. Ibn Battuta (ii, 142-5)
visisted Mardln; he mentions the fine garments made
there from goats’ hair wool {mirHzz).

Timur. The Artukid sultan c Isa (778-809/1376-
1406) was the king of Mardln at the invasion of Timur
in 796/1394. Malik c Isa came to pay his homage to the
conqueror, but the citizens attacked those of Timur’s
men who ventured into the town. Malik c Isa was put
in chains and taken to Sultaniyya ( Zafar-nama , i, 663,
671-2). In Shawwal 803/April 1401, Timur returned
to the attack and the town was taken by storm. Then
the siege of the upper fortress {al-kaPa al-shahba*) was
begun, but it was never taken. Timur was content
with presents and promises of kharadi, and returned to
the plain {ibid., i, 676-9). The people of Mardln
obtained an amnesty on the birth of Ulugh Beg. Salih

MARDIN

541

was appointed at Mardin in place of his brother, c Isa
(ibid., i, 676-81), but three years afterwards the latter
was pardoned and restored to his fief (ibid., i, 787).
When in 803/1400-1 Timur reappeared in Meso¬
potamia, c Isa shut himself up in Mardln. As the siege
would have taken some time and supplies were short,
Timur did not stop before the town, but ordered Kara
c Uthman Ak-Koyunlu to besiege Mardln (ibid., ii,
354).

The Ak-Koyunlu. This was the beginning of
Ak-Koyunlu interference in Mardln, but Kara
c Uthman’s forces were not yet equal to this task. In
805/1402-3, c Isa came of his own accord to Timur and
was pardoned (ibid., ii, 51).

For a brief period, the Kara-Koyunlu tried to resist
the extension of the power of the Ak-Koyunlu to
Mardln. When, after the death of Timur, Kara Yusuf
left Egypt to re-enter into possession of his territory he
joined c Isa and advanced against Kara c Uthman. The
battle lasted 20 days and was settled by agreement. As
soon as Kara Yusuf had left for Adharbavdjan. Kara
c Uthman returned to the attack, defeated c Isa near
Djawsak (there is a Djawsat 10 miles to the west of
Mardln on the road from Derek) and besieged
Mardln, but once more without success (Munedjdjim-
bashf, ii, 685). It is not clear what connection these
hostilities have with an expedition against Diyar Bakr
conducted by Djaklm or Djakun (governor of Aleppo,
a former mamluk of Barkuk’s) in which Malik c Isa took
part. In the battle which Muhammad (?) son of Kara
Ilik ( = Kara c Uthman) fought against the allies on 15
Dh u TKa c da 809/23 April 1407, c Isa was slain (cf.
the Egyptian sources consulted by Rieu for Howorth,
iii, 685). Salih succeeded a second time to c Isa, but the
Ak-Koyunlu continued to harass him and finally in
811/1408, he ceded Mardln to the Kara-Koyunlu,
who gave him Mawsil in exchange.

We do not know the exact course of subsequent
events, but according to Munedjdjim-bashi, Kara
c Uthman’s successor C A1I Beg (832-42/1429-39, cf.
Ahmed Tewhld, Musee Imp. Ottoman, monn.
musulmanes , part iv, Constantinople 1903) gave his
brother Hamza the task of establishing the
Turkomans in the vicinity of Mardln. Djihangir (848-
57/1444-53), son of c Ali, was already master of the
town. In the reign of Uzun Hasan, Josafa Barbaro
visited Mardln and was lodged in the hostel (ospedale)
built by Djihangir Beg (Ziangir). We have coins struck
at Mardln by Uzun Hasan (875/1470-1) and his son
Ya c kub. After the death of Ya c kub, c Ala 5 al-Dawla,
prince of the Dhu ’I-Kadr Turkomans [q.v.], seized
the land of Diyar Bakr but, as the anonymous Vene¬
tian merchant shows, the Ak-Koyunlu retained
Mardln. In 903/1498, Abu ’1-Muzaffar Kasim b.
Djihangir dated his firman in the name of the prince
of Egil from his capital (dar al-saltana) Mardln; cf.
Basagic, Der diteste Firman der Cengic-begs, in Wissensch.
Mitt, aus Bosnien , vi, Vienna 1899, 497. The coins of
Kasim come down to 908/1502-3. The takiya of
Kasim-Padshah which Niebuhr mentions must date
from the same ruler.

The Persian conquest. In 913/1507, all the
lands as far as Malatya were conquered by Shah
Isma c Il [q.v.\, who appointed his general Ustadjlu
Muhammad over them. According to the Venetian
merchant who travelled there in 1507 ( Travels, 149),
Mardln was occupied without bloodshed. The same
traveller mentions the fine palace and mosques of the
town; there were more Armenians and Jews in
Mardln than Muslims. The battle of Caldiran [q.v.] in
920/1514 shook the power of the Persians. In place of
Ustadjlu Muhammad, killed at Caldiran, his brother

Kara Khan was appointed and established his head¬
quarters at Mardln. Soon the Ottomans occupied
Diyar Bakr, and then the town of Mardln, but the
Persians, who never lost the fortress, restored the
status quo.

Bibliography. IdrlsI, tr. Jaubert, ii, 142; Ibn
Djubayr, ed. Wright-de Goeje, 240-1, tr. R. J. C.
Broadhurst, London 1952, 250-1; Ibn Battuta, ii,
142-7, tr. Gibb, ii, 352-5; Abu TFida, tr.
Reinaud, Paris 1848, ii/2, 55 = Arabic text, 279;
The travels of Josafa Barbaro (1431) and The travels of
a merchant in Persia (1517), Hakluyt Society, London
1873; E. Sachau, Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamia ,
Leipzig 1883, 404-7; Pauly-Wissowa, xiv/2, col.
1648, art. Marde (Weissbach); Le Strange, The lands
of the eastern caliphate, 96; E. Honigmann, Die
Ostgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches von 363 bis 1071,
Brussels 1935, index; M. Canard, Histoire de la
dysnastie des H’amdanides , Algiers 1951, 989 and
index (in Arabica, xviii/3 [1971], 309).

(V. Minorsky*)

2. The Ottoman and modern periods

Finally, in 922/1516, the Persian commander Kara
Kh an was defeated and slain in battle at Kar gh an-
dede near the old town of Koc-hisar, 10 miles to the
southwest of Mardln. Persian domination in Upper
Mesopotamia thus collapsed, but the fortress of
Mardln still remained in the hands of Sulayman
Khan, brother of Kara Khan. The siege lasted a year,
and not till Mehmed Biyikli Pasha [q.v. ] arrived from
Syria with reinforcements was it stormed and its
valiant defenders put to the sword (Iskandar MunshI,
Ta^rikh-i c alam-ara , 24, 32, tr. Savory, i, 72; this
Persian source mentions Olang-i Kuruk in place of
Koc-hisar) (von Hammer, GOR 2 , i, 7367-40, quoting
Abu d-Fadl, son of Hakim Idris and continuer of his
Hasht-bihisht).

In the Baghdad campaign of 941/1534, Mardln was
created a sandjak and included in the eyalet of Diyar-
bakr (for the history of the region at this time, see
Nejat Goyung, XVI. Yuzyilda Mardin sancagi, Istanbul
1969). Ewliya Celebi, iv, 59, gives Mardin 36 zi c amets
and 465 timariots; Mardin could put in the field 1,060
armed men (djebeli) In the 18th century, Mardin
became a dependency of the Pashas of Ba gh dad:
Otter (1737) found at Mardin a voyvoda appointed by
Ahmed Pasha. As late as the time of Kinneir (1810),
Mardln was the frontier town of the pashalik of
Baghdad and was governed by a mutesellim sent from
Ba gh dad.

The reforms of Sultan Mahmud II were badly
received in Upper Mesopotamia. In 1832 (Ains¬
worth), Mardln rebelled. Power in Mardin had
passed to the Kurdish beys. Southgate (1836) speaks
of a hereditary (?) family who ruled in Mardin. The
two brothers of the “ruling bey” seized power and
refused to recognise the authority of the Porte. (It may
be asked if these beys were not of the Milll tribe; on
their chiefs cf. Buckingham, Travels in Mesopotamia,
London 1827, 156.) Rashid Pasha, the pacifier of
Kurdistan, besieged the town and blew up the great
mosque (Ainsworth). Order was temporarily restored.
Considerable works were undertaken to improve the
road giving access to the town. Rashid Pasha died in
January 1837 (Poujoulat). When the Egyptians under
Ibrahim b. Muhammad C A1I Pasha invaded Syria,
their partisan Timawl b. Ayyub of the Mill! tribe
seized Mardln (Sir Mark Sykes, The Caliphs’ last
heritage, 320) but was killed. The defeat of the
Ottomans at Nizlb (June 1839) brought matters to a
head. The Porte entrusted Mardln to Sa c d Allah

542

MARDIN — al-MARDINI

Pasha of Diyarbakr, but the inhabitants preferred to
submit to Ibrahim Pasha of Mawsil, who was opposed
to the Tanzimat reforms. This Pasha appointed a
governor to Mardln, but the rebels still held the
citadel (Ainsworth 1840), and the governor soon
perished in a rising.

By the “wilayet law” of 1287/1870, Mardln became
a sandjak of the wilayet of Diyarbakr. It had 5 kodaks:
Mardln, Nlslbln, Djazlra. Midyat and Avine. The
area of the sandjak was 7,750 square miles and the
number of towns and villages 1,062. The sandjak was
mainly agricultural. The town of Mardln produced a
small quantity of silk, wool and cotton, leather,
shawls, etc., but in spite of the excellence of the work
these articles were mainly used for local consumption
(Cuinet). By the reforms of 1921, Mardln formed a
wilayet with 6 kada* s, 1,018 towns and villages, and
125,809 inhabitants ( Tirkiyye Djemhuriyeti 1925-1926
sdl-ndmesi). In the present-day Turkish Republic,
Mardln is also the name of one of the 12 component
ilce s or counties of the Mardln il. The modern town
lies on the main road from Diyarbekir to Nusaybin
and the Syrian frontier, and is also the terminus of a
railway spur from §enyurt on the Konya-Adana-
Nusaybin-Baghdad line.

Population. Niebuhr (1766) counted 3,000 hou¬
ses in Mardln (of which 1,000 were Christian) with
60,000 inhabitants. Dupre (1808) estimated the
population at 27,000, of whom 20,000 were Turks
(i.e. Muslims), 3,200 Jacobites, 2,000 Armenians and
800 Shamsivva. The statements of other travellers are
as follows: Kinneir (1814): 11,000, of whom 1,500
were Armenians; Southgate (1837): 3,000, of whom

1.700 were Muslims, 500 Armenian Catholics, 400
Jacobites, 250 Syrian Catholics, 100 Chaldaeans;
Muhlbach (1838): 12-15,000 inhabitants; Sachau
(1879): 20,000; Cuinet (1891): 25,000, of whom

15.700 were Muslims. By 1955, the town had an
estimated population of 24,306, and according to the
1970 census, the town had 33,251 inhabitants, the ilfe
of Mardln 66,197, and the whole il 456,415.

According to Southgate, Arabic and Kurdish were
the predominating languages in the town. The rural
population of Tur c AbdIn speaks the ToranT dialect of
Neo-Aramaic; cf. E. Prym and A. Socin, Der neu-
aramdische Dialect des Tur c Abdin, Gottingen 1881; H.
Ritter, Die Volksprache der syrischen Christen des Tur
c Abdin, Beirut-Wiesbaden 1967-79; on the Kurdish
dialect, cf. Makas, Kurdische Texte aus der Gegend
Mardln , Leningrad 1924.

Among the religious sects of Mardln, the
Shamsivva would merit a special study. In the time of
Niebuhr (1766), there were about a hundred families
in the town, and Buckingham (op. cit. y 192) and
Southgate (1837) also mention them. The Shamsivva
probably represent the last survivors of a local pagan
cult. Towards the middle of the 18th century, they
were led to declare themselves Jacobite Christians,
but only formally (cf. Ritter, Erdkunde , xi, 303-5).

Christianity at Mardln. The district of Mar-
din has played an exceptionally important part in the
development of Eastern Christianity. A brilliant
period of the Nestorian church which began in 755 is
closely associated with Mardln. Towards the end of
the 8th century, numerous monasteries were estab¬
lished round the town by the bishop John of Mardin.
In 1171 the Jacobite patriarchate was transferred from
Diyar Bakr (Amid) to Mardln. In 1207 it was moved
to Dayr al-Za c faran, an hour’s journey from Mardln,
to return to Mardln in 1555 (Assemani, Bibl. Orient .,
ii, 110, 221, 470; W. Wright, A short history of Syriac
literature , Oxford 1891, index). On the position of the

Christians before 1914, cf. the works of Southgate,
Parry, Cuinet, etc.

Monuments. Niebuhr noted many Arabic
inscriptions at Mardln. Those of the buildings of the
Artukids and the wakfiyyas of their principal buildings
were studied by c Ali Emlri [q.v. in Suppl.], himself a
native of the Diyar Bakr region; see his edn. of Katib
FerdI (wrote 944/1537-8), Mardin muluk-i Artukiyye
tafrikhi, Istanbul 1331/1931. The citadel of the town
was built or rebuilt in Hamdanid times. Numerous
mosques were erected by the Artukid beys from the
time of Nadjm al-Din Il-GhazI in the early 6th/12th
century onwards, including the great mosque, and an
Artukid hammam remains. They constructed the
Zindjlriyya and Khatuniyya or Sitt Ridwiyya
madrasas, whilst the imposing Kasim Pasha madrasa
was built in 849/1445 by the Ak-Koyunlu Kasim b.
Djihanglr. There are many interesting churches and
monasteries in the town and the surrounding coun¬
tryside, including the Dayr al-Za c faran, where
numerous Syrian Christian patriarchs and
metropolitans are buried. See A. Gabriel, Voyages
archeologiques dans la Turquie orientale, Paris 1940, i, 3-
44, ii, pis. a-d, I, XXIV; IA, art. Mardin, addition on
Eski eserler by T.H.; Metropolit Hanna Dolaponii,
Tarihte Mardin, Itr-el-nardin fi tarih Merdin, Istanbul
1972, 128 ff.

Bibliography: (in addition to references given
in the article): P. della Valle, Viaggi, Brighton

1843, i, 515 (the traveller’s wife was a native of
Mardln); J. B. Tavernier (1644), Les six voyages,
1692, i, 187; C. Niebuhr (1766), Reisebeschreibung,
Copenhagen 1778, ii, 391-8, and plate xlvii; G. A.
Olivier (1795), Voyages, Paris 12 (rep.), iv, 242;
A. Dupre (1808), Voyage, i, 77-82; J.M. Kinneir, A
geogr. memoir of the Persian Empire, London 1813,
264-5; idem (1814), Journey through Asia Minor,
London 1818, 433; J.S. Buckingham, Travels in
Mesopotamia, London 1827, 188-94 (with a general
view of the town); H. Southgate (1837), Narrative of
a Tour through Armenia, London 1840, ii, 272-88;
W.K. Ainsworth (1840), Travels and Researches,
London 1842, ii, 114-16; C. Defremery, Observa¬
tions sur deux points de Thistoire des rois d’Akhlath et de
Mardin, in JA (1843); Southgate, Narrative of a visit
to the Syrian church of Mesopotamia (1841), New York

1844, 215-42; K. Ritter, Erdkunde, xi (1844), 150-3,

379-97 (very detailed resume); F.J. Goldsmith, An
overland journey from Bagdad , in Trans. Bombay Geogr.
Soc. xvii (1868), 29 (the population of Mardin is
22,000, half of whom are Christians); Cernik,
Techmsche Sludien-Expedition, in Peterm. Mitt., Ergan-
zungsheft, x (1875-6), Heft 45, 15-18; H.

Howorth, History of the Mongols, iii, 683-6; Socin,
Zur Geogr. des Tur c Abdin, in ZDMG, xxxv (1881),
237-69 (map), 327-415; Sachau, Reise in Syrien und
Mesopotamien, 404-7, 428; V. Cuinet, La Turquie
d’Asie, Paris 1895, ii, 494-519; Tomilov, Otcet o
poyezdke 1904, St. Petersburg 1907, i, 263-7; Sykes,
The Caliphs’ last heritage, London 1915, index.

(V. Minorsky-[C.E. Bosworth])
al-MARDINI, the nisba of three mathemati¬
cians and astronomers, for whose life and work
we have up to now little information.

1. Abu ’l-Tahir Isma c Il b. Ibrahim b. ghazI al-
NumayrT, Shams al-DIn, known as Ibn Fallus. He
probably came from Mardln [q.v. ]) in al-Djazlra. and
was born in 590/1194, dying in ca. 650/1252. He
made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and was the author of
works on arithmetic (see Suter, 143-4, no. 359, and
Nachtrage, 227; Brockelmann, I 2 , 622, S I, 860).

2. c Abd Allah b. KhalIl b. Yusuf, D^amal al-Din

543

al-MARDINI — MARDJ BANI C AMIR

(d. 809/1406-7), disciple of the great astronomer Ibn
al-Shatir (d. 777/1375), perhaps at Damascus; he later
became a muwakkit at Cairo (list of works in Suter,
170, no. 421; Brockelmann, II 2 , 218, S II. 218). A
good number of these are treatises on the use of
various kinds of astronomical quadrants ( dastur
quadrant, almucantarat quadrant and sinus qua¬
drant). W.H. Worrell and W. Carl Rufus have
translated the introduction to the K. al-Durr al-manthur
fi 'l-^amal bi rub c al-dastur (Alandini's introduction to the
use of the quadrant, in Scripta mathematica, x [1944], 1 70-
80); this introduction is a brief, independent treatise
in which the author sets forth the basic ideas (mainly
definitions) of geometry and spherical astronomy.
The rest of the work (60 chapters) is mostly concerned
with problems regarding the transformation of co¬
ordinates with the dastur quadrant. D.A. King has
edited, translated and studied his R. fi- ’l- c amal bi-rub c
al-shakkaziyya (An analog computer for solving problems of
spherical astronomy, in AIHS, xxiv [1974], 219-42). This
is a treatise on the use of a double quadrant, probably
an evolved version of a similar instrument invented,
in the second half of the 8th/14th century, by the
astronomer of Aleppo Taybugha al-Biklimish! or by
his son C A1L All these instruments derived from the
safiha shakkaziyya of the Spanish astronomer of the
5th/ 11th century al-Zarkalluh or from the universal
plate of his contemporary c Al! b. Khalaf. King has
also edited and translated the introduction to his R. fi
'l- c amal bi ’l-djadawil al-ma : rufa bi \l-shabaka , a work in
which Djamal al-DTn tabulates three functions of
spherical astronomy and elaborates three auxiliary
tables similar to those of Habash al-Hasib (d. perhaps
between 250 and 260/864-74 [< 7 .^. ]), Abu Nasr
Mansur (d. between 416 and 427/1025-36) or al-
KhalilT ( ca. 766/1365), although less useful.

3. Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Ahmad Abu c Abd
Allah, Badr al-DTn, known as Sibt al-MardInI
(826-912/1423-1506), grandson of no. 2 and disciple
of the astronomer Ibn al-Madjd! (d. 850/1506); he
became muwakkit at the Azhar Mosque in Cairo (list
of works in Suter, 182-4, no. 445, and 222 n. 90;
Brockelmann, II 2 , 216-18, S II, 215-17; see also II , 2
468, S II, 484). Like his grandfather, he wrote on the
use of the almucantarat quadrant and the dastur and
sinus ones (cf. P. Schmazl, Zur Geschichte des Quadranten
bei den Arabern, Munich 1929, 34-5, 63, 68 , 72, 84).
He also compiled a collection of tables, computed for
the latitude of Cairo, in order to trace the curves of a
solar quadrant (cf. K. Schoy, Sonnenuhren der
spaterarabischen Astronomie, in Isis, vi [1924], 332-60).
He was also interested in arithmetic, algebra, the divi¬
sion of inheritances (fara^id [q.v. ]) and mental
arithmetic ( al-hisab al-hawa^i), further writing
commentaries on the works of the Egyptian
mathematician Ibn al-Ha^im (d. 815/1412), as well as
on those of the Maghrib! mathematician Ibn al-
YasmTn (d. 601/1204; cf. Mohammed Souissi, Ibn al-
Yasamln, savant mathematicien du Maghreb, in Actas del VI
Coloquio Hispano-Tunecino, Madrid 1983, 217-25). In a
work on the arithmetic of degrees and minutes, he
brings out the periodicity of the sexagesimal fraction
(cf. B. Carra de Vaux, Sur Vhistoire de Tarithmetique
arabe, in Bibliotheca mathematica, ser. 2, xiii [1899]). His
works on the mikat [q.v.] and the astronomical
instruments became very popular, and were still in
use as textbooks at the Azhar in ca. 1800, according
to the testimony of the Egyptian historian al-Djabartl
(d. 1237/1822).

Bibliography. In addition to references in the
text, see King, The astronomy of the Mamluks , in Isis,
lxxiv (1983), 531-55.

(M. Plessner - [J. Samso])

al-MARDJ [see barka].

MAR DJ BANI c AMIR, “the plain of the Banu
c Amir”, the largest of its kind in Palestine,
named after the Arabian tribe c Amir b. Sa c sa c a [q.v.],
parts of which reached Palestine after the Arab
conquests and settled there. Stretching between the
mountains of Nabulus and those of Galilee, it
constituted an important link on the Cairo-Damascus
highway. Ever since the Neolithic era, it has encom¬
passed fortified urban centres, some of which (e.g.
Megiddo) flourished in biblical times. Its strategic
location turned it into a scene of crucial battles in pre-
Islamic periods and after; Salah al-DTn and other
Ayyubids against the Crusaders, the Mamluks
Baybars and Kutuz against the Mongols in the
7th/ 13th century, and Allenby against the Ottomans
in 1918.

Mediaeval geographers usually referred to it rather
by its most famous historical site, c Ayn Djalut [q.v .),
or by the administrative centres to its east (Baysan)
and south (Djinin and Nabulus). The term occurs,
however, occasionally in texts from late Mamluk
times in various forms: “ Wilayat Djinin and Mardj
Ban! c Amir” or as a separate administrative sub-unit
( c amal) of the province of Safad.

Early Ottoman tahrfrs point to a formalisation of the
term and its status: as part of the newly-set
administrative system, a nahiya by this name was
designated, consisting of 38 villages bordering on
Baysan in the east, Nazareth in the north, Kabatiyya
in the south, and extending towards the Mediterra¬
nean. The 74 uninhabited mezra c as included in it
indicate the extent of ruin caused to the population
and economy during the late Mamluk period. In
order to restore law and properity, it was granted to
the local Bedouin amirs of Turabay, who continued to
rule it during the 16th and 17th centuries. The decline
of Ottoman rule in Palestine meant once more a loss
of any central control over this area, which became
increasingly infested with Bedouins and gradually
deserted by its sedentary population. “The whole of
this country is in a state of insecurity... at present
almost entirely deserted” is a description by Burck-
hardt which was invariably repeated by dozens of
travellers who visited the place in the 18th and 19th
centuries.

In the second half of the 19th century, most of its
land was registered in the name of a few urban afdn
[q. v. ] families, of which the Christian Sursuks of
Beirut had the lion’s share. Jewish philanthrophic
societies anxious to purchase lands in Palestine
conducted elaborate negotiations with the Sursuks
during the late 19th century, but actually bought only
a small fraction. In the wake of First World War, the
Jewish National Fund acquired from these a c yan
250,000 dunams, compensated the 700 tenants living
there, and proceeded with similar purchases in later
years when this became a major bone of contention
between Jews and Arabs. The drainage of the infec¬
tious swamps that covered most of the plain, the
establishment of Jewish collective settlements and the
intensive cultivation that resulted there, turned it into
most fertile part of Palestine during the British
Mandate. Ever since, both under the British and in
the State of Israel, the term Mardj Ban! c Amir fell into
disuse and was replaced by the biblical equivalent,
“the valley of Jezreel”.

Bibliography. Ibn al-Furat, Ta\ikh, vii, 191;
Yakut, Mufam, ii, 180; Kalkashandi, Subhal-a c sha,
iv, 154; MakrizT, Kitdb al-Suluk , i, 683; Muham¬
mad c Adnan Bakhit, al-Vsra al-hdrithiyya fi Mardf
Bam c Amir, in al-Abhath (1980), 55-78; B. Lewis, An
Arabic account of the province of Safad, in BSOAS, xv,

544

MARDJ BANI C AMIR — MARDJ RAHIT

483; M. al-Dabbagh, Biladuna Filastin, i, Beirut
1965, 50-2 ff.; Y. Porath, From riots to rebellion, the
Palestinian-Arab national movement 1929-1939, Tel
Aviv 1978, 105-27; K. Stein, The land question in
Palestine 1917-1939. Chapel Hill and London
1984, 52-60, ff. (A. Cohen)

MARDJ DABIK, a plain near Dabik [q.v. ] on
the Nahr al-Kuwayk in northern Syria. The town
of Dabik, was known to the Assyrians as Dabigu
(Sachau, ZA, xii, 47) and is called Aapexov by
Theophanes ( Chron ., ed. de Boor, 143, 451 ff.).

For convenience in his campaigns against the
Byzantines, Sulayman b. c Abd al-Malik moved the
headquarters of the Syrian troops from Djabiya [q.v .]
to Dabik. In 717 with an army under c Ubayda he set
out from Mardj Dabik for Asia Minor and on his
return died there in Safar 99/September-October 717
(al-Mas c udI, Murudj, v, 397 = §2151; Chronica minora,
ed. Guidi, in GSCO, Scr. Syri, ser. iii., vol. iv., text,
234, tr. 177). Harun al-Rashld also encamped in
191/807 on this plain (Syr. Margd Ddbek ) and
composed the differences between the Syrian bishops
(Michael Syrus, Chron., ed. Chabot, iii, 19;
Barhebraeus, Chron. eccles., ed. Abbaloos-Lamy, i,
339). The Mirdasid Mahmud in Radjab 457/ June
1065 defeated his uncle c Atiyya on the Field of Dabik
and then took Halab (Ibn al- c Ad!m, Zubda, ed.
Dahan, i, 296.

When in 491/1098 the Franks conquered Antakiya,
Kerbo gh a of Mawsil assembled a large army on
Mardj Dabik, with which he laid siege to Antakiya.
(Ibn al-Athir, x, 188; Abu ’l-Fida 3 , Ibn al- c AdIm,
etc., in Rec. hist. or. crois., i, 3, 194; iii, 580). In the
spring of 513/1119, Il-GhazI on his campaign against
the Franks crossed the Euphrates at Baddaya (now
Beddai on Sachau’s map) and Sandja and advanced
via Tell Bashir [q.v.], Tell Khalid, Mardj Dabik and
Muslimiyya against Kinnasrln (Ibn al- c Ad!m, ii, 187
Rec. hist. or. crois., iii, 616). In Radjab 518/September
1124, Dubays b. Sadaka was defeated by Husam al-
Dln Timurtash on the Field of Dabik (Rec. hist. or.
crois., v, 645). On his campaign against Leo II of
Little Armenia, al-Malik al-Zahir encamped in
602/1305-6 on Mardj Dabik (Rec. hist. or. crois., v,
155). On Sayf al-Dln Tungur’s campaign against the
Tatars to Malatya [q.v.], in which Abu ’1-Fida 5 of
Hama took part, a halt was made on the way back on
the plain of Dabik from 3 Safar to 2 Rabf- II 715/9
May -6 July 1315) (Abu TFida 5 , in Rec. hist. or. crois.,
i, 3).

On 25 Radjab 922/24 August 1516 was fought at
Mardj Dabik the battle which gave Selim I a decisive
victory by which Syria passed for the next four
centuries under Ottoman rule (H. Jansky, Mitteil. z.
osman. Geschichte, ii [1923-6], 214-25) [see also dabik
and kansawh al-ghawrT].

Bibliography: The geographical texts are
gathered together in Le Strange, Palestine under the
Moslems, 503; cf. R. Dussaud, La topographie de la
Syrie antique et medievale, Paris 1927, 474, to which
should be added c Izz al-DTn Ibn Shaddad. AHak,
ed. S. Dahan, tr. A. M. Edde-Terrasse, index. The
main historical references are: Mas c udl, Murudj,
index; Yahya al-Antakl, ed. Kratchkovsky and
Vasiliev, in Patr. or., 442; Ibn al-Athir, ix, 160, x,
188; Ibn al-Adlm, Zubda, ed. S. Dahan, index.

(E. Honigmann)

MARDJ RAHIT, the name of a plain near
Damascus famous in Islamic history on account of the
battles which took place there.

According to Ibn Hawkal, “a mardj is a wide
expanse of land with numerous estates where large

and small cattle and beasts are raised”. For M.
Canard (H’amdanides, 204), a mardj is ‘‘the place
where agriculture and gardens cease to be found”.
Beyond the mardj[ lies the hamad, the sterile terrain.

Mardj is a term which, in reference to Damascus,
denotes a semicircular zone situated between the
Ghuta [q.v.] and the marches of c Utayba and
Hidjdjana, and the desert steppe which extends
eastwards. In the north, the mardj is bounded by the
foothills of the First chain of the Kalamun, in the west
by the slopes of Mt. Hermon, and in the south by the
lava bed of the Ladja 5 [q.v. ] and the Safa. At the pres¬
ent time, this plain forms parts of the muhafa?a of
Damascus. Certain part of the mardj, have special
names; amongst these, certain ones have played a
great role in the history of Syria, sc. the Mardj
c Adhra 5 or Mardj Rahit in the north-east, and the
Mardj al-Suffar [q.v. ] in the south.

The climate of the mardj is identical with that of
Damascus; at an elevation of 700 m. above sea level
on average, it receives each year between 300 to 400
mm of rain. In February, after the winter rains, the
region is swollen with water, and it is more difFtcult to
get around, since the roads and tracks are impassable.
In the spring, the springs situated at the foot of the
First lines of the Kalamun allow the agglomeration of
c Adhra 5 to be irrigated and give enough water to
Mardj Rahit for the grass and flowers to grow in
April. Towards mid-May, the Bedouin come to camp
and to pasture their flocks on the eastern border of the
mardj. In August, the grass has disappeared, and the
region is dusty until the First rains of autumn.

According to certain authors, like Muhammad
Kurd C A1T, Mardj Rahit is identical with Mardj
c Adhra :> , but for others, Mardj Rahif is situated near
c Adhra 3 . which Yakut mentions as one of the villages
in the vicinity of Damascus. This settlement, which
sometimes give its name to the neighbouring mardj, is
situated between the modern village of Shafunivva
and the Khan al-Kusayr at the foot of the Hill of the
Eagle (Thaniyyat al- c Ukab) on the road from
Damascus to Hims. When going northwards, one
passes by the Kubbat al- c Asafir, the Khan c Ayyash—
identified with the Khan of Ladjin [q.v.] built in
690/1291—and the Khan of al-Kusayr. It is to the
south-east of this district that Musil Fixes the Mardj
Rahit.

In Muharram 13/March-April 634, the general
Khalid b. al-Walld [q.v.] left c Irak in order to take
part, with two other Arab contingents, in the conquest
of Syria. After their defeat at al-Adjnadayn [q.v.], the
Byzantines fell back on Damascus, where they shut
themselves up in Muharram 14/March 635. Kh alid b.
al-Walld, having arrived himself at the beginning of
spring in the region of Damascus, drove out the
Gh assanids who were there and installed himself at
Mardj Rahit, to the north-east of the city, which fact
has led some people to think that he had come via
Tadmur. Some others think that he took the southern
road via Dumat al-Djandal [q.v.]. Whilst Khalid
encamped to the north-east, the general Abu c Ubayda
b. al-Djarrah [q.v.] deployed his troops to the south¬
west in order to besiege Damascus, which had to
surrender in Radjab 14/September 638.

In 64/684 Mardj Rahit was the scene of a great
battle involving an internal struggle of the Arabs. On
the death of Mu c awiya II b. al-Yazid [ 9 . 0 .], a complex
crisis ensued over the succession to the caliphate. The
community became divided into two, with the Kaysls,
partisans of c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr [q.v.] on one
side, and the Kalbis, supporters of Marwan b. al-
Hakam [q. v. ] on the other. Whilst an assembly

MARDJ RAHIT

545

convoked to choose a successor to Mu c awiya II met at
al-Djabiya al-Dahhak b. Kays al-Fihri [q.v .],

head of the Kays and supporter of c Abd Allah b. al-
Zubayr, who had made him governor of Damascus,
concentrated the Kaysl forces at Mardj al-Suffar.
Marwan, having become caliph, had as his prime aim
the dislodging and breaking-up of the forces of al-
Dahhak, who had rallied to Ibn al-Zubayr, in turn
proclaimed caliph at Mecca. A first engagement took
place in the middle of Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 64/mid-August
684 at Mardj al-Suffar; the KaysTs fell back towards
Damascus, but their opponents were in place to the
north-east of Damascus at the foot of the Thanivvat
al- c Ukab; this was “the encounter (wak c a) of Mardj
Rahit”. After some 20 days (“nights”, according to
Ibn al-Athlr) of skirmishes, the final struggle, called
“the day (yawm) of Mardj Rahit”, took place on 1
Muharram 65/18 August 684. If certain sources are to
be believed, Marwan is supposed to have had 13,000
men under the command of c Abbad b. Ziyad [q.v. ],
whilst al-Dahhak had as many as 30,000. Can the
death of al-Dahhak in battle, and the sight of his
severed head presented to Marwan, alone explain the
debacle for the KaysTs, whose main leaders were
killed, only Zufar b. al-Harith al-Kilabl finding safety
in flight northwards? Amongst the dead are
mentioned 80 ashraf of Damascus. According to al-
HarawT and Ibn Shaddad, at Mardj Rahit in the 6th-
7th/12th- 13th centuries there were to be found the
tombs of two Companions of the Prophet, Zumayl b.
Rabl c a and RabT c a b. c Amr al-Djarashl, both killed
fighting Marwan; it was, accordingly, a place of
pilgrimage.

The success of the Kalb party may be explained by
the rallying to Marwan, in the course of the man¬
oeuvres, of elements allied to Kays, as well as the fact
that the Umayyads, having succeeded by means of a
coup-de-main in seizing the state treasury (bayt al-mal)
at Damascus and a store of arms, had at their disposal
means for redressing the balance of forces. Only the
defection, to Marwan’s profit, of an important part of
the Syrian tribes, anxious to preserve their hegemony,
seems able to explain the overwhelming success of the
Umayyad army.

After this victory, Marwan undertook the conquest
of the lands where allegiance had been given to c Abd
Allah b. al-Zubayr. One result of the battle was to
accentuate the rivalry of the Kays and the Kalb. The
victorious Kalb and the family of Bahdal [q.v.)
acquired a preponderance which the Kays, with the
support of Bahila and GhanT [q.vv.\, were to contest
strongly.

The “encounter at Mardj Rahit” was much
mentioned in poetry of the Marwanid period, in
particular by al-Akhtal [^.u.]; and al-Mas c fidT cites in
his Tanbih, in connection with this Umayyad victory,
verses by al-Farazdak [q.v. .

In Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 334/July 946, the Hamdanid
Sayf al-Dawla [q.v.) broke the treaty which he had
made with the I khsh ldid regent Kaffir [q. v. ] and
seized Damascus, but the ruler in Cairo sent troops to
regain the city. The Hamdanid army was put to flight
by the I khsh ldid troops near Nasira in Djumada I
335/December 946, and retreated towards Damascus;
it encamped at Mardj Rahit and then reached Hims
in Djumada II 335/January 947, whilst Kaffir’s forces
reoccupied Damascus. In spring 335/947, Sayf al-
Dawla returned to Damascus, but he was beaten at
Mardj Rahit, whose terrain was suitable for warfare,
and fled towards Aleppo, pursued by the I khsh ldid
forces.

In 381/991 the Fatimid caliph al- c AzTz [q.v. ]

dismissed Munir al-Khadim, the governor of
Damascus, and sent as his replacement the Turkish
general Mangfitakln, who took up his position
initially at c Adhra* at Mardj Rahit before making his
entry into Damascus.

In Djumada I 529/mid-February 1135, the Atabeg
c Imad al-DTn Zangl arrived from Aleppo and went to
encamp at Mardj Rahit between c Adhra ? and al-
Kusayr with the aim of occupying Damascus. Whilst
the city organised its defence, the Atabeg left Mardj
Rahit and took up a position to the south at the
c Akabat al-Kibliyya on the road to Hawran [q.v.). On
7 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 535/22 June 1141, ZangT appeared
again on the outskirts of Damascus in order to cut off
food supplies from the city. A sortie by the defenders
compelled ZangT to lift the siege and beat a retreat; he
then fell back to Mardj Rahit in order to await his
troops. When these last returned, loaded with
plunder, he joined them on the road northwards.

A few years later, in spring 544/1149, Nfir al-DTn
in turn established his camp at c Adhra 5 in the western
part of Mardj Rahit whilst he was besieging
Damascus. Two years later, on 13 Muharram 546/2
May 1151, Nur al-DTn’s vanguard set up its tents at
c Adhra 5 in Mardj Rahit, but then the army,
endeavouring to keep up the pressure on the city,
changed camp several times before falling back at the
approach of the Franks from Jerusalem who had come
to the aid of the Damascenes. When Nfir al-DTn came
back a third time to lay siege to Damascus, in the
second half of Muharram 549/beginning of April
1154, he set up his camp at Mardj al-Kassab to the
north of the Bab Tuma.

Ibn al-Furat [q.v.) tells us that in 680/1280, “al-
Mansfir (sc. the Mamlfik sultan Kalawfin [q.v. ]) got
together his troops in the mardj^ and left with his army
for Hims”; assuming that the sultan journeyed
northwards, this must be Mardj Rahit.

In 698/1298-9, the Mongol troops of the Il-Khan
Ghazan [q.v.) entered Syria, passed by Hamat [q.v.]
and marched on Damascus. In Ramadan 698/June
1299, they regrouped at Mardj Rahit before embark¬
ing on the attack on Damascus. Fighting between the
Mongols and Mamlfiks was fierce. The city was
burnt, the suburbs destroyed, the Ghfita sacked, and
Sayf al-DTn Kipcak al-Mansfirl who, with the amir
Baktimur al-Silahdar had passed into the Mongol
service, was appointed governor of Damascus by
Ghazan. But after the retreat of the troops
commanded by Kutlfishah, Sayf al-DTn Kipcak once
more submitted to the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad b.
Kalawfin, and Djamal al-DTn Akkush al-Afram re¬
assumed the office which he had abandoned when the
Mongols had appeared.

In 702/1303, the Mongols crossed Mardj Rahit in
order to reach Mardj al-Suffar, where they went to
take up positions at Shakhab before confronting the
Mamlfik army.

From the 8th/14th century onwards, the name
Mardj Rahit seems to disappear in local toponomy in
favour of the designation Mardj c Adhra 5 .

Bibliography : 1. Arabic texts: Tabari, ii,
472-4, 480, 482, 483, 485, 486, 643; Mas c fidT,
Tanbih , 309-11; AghanI, ix, 37; x, 161; xiv, 119,
124; xvii, 111, 112, 114; xix, 109; xx, 124, 126; Ibn
al-KalanisT, Dhayl. ed. Amedroz, Leiden 1908, 40,
273; HarawT, K. al-Ziydrat , ed. and tr. J. Sourdel-
Thomine, Damascus 1953, 12/28; Yakfit, Bulddn ,
Beirut 1957, iii, 625; iv, 91; v, 101; Ibn al-Athlr,
Kamil , Cairo 1930, iii, 326-8; Ibn al- c AdTm, Zubda ,
ed. S. Dahhan, Damascus 1951, I, 44, 118; Ibn
Shaddad, al-A^ldk al-khaiira (Dimashk ), ed. S.

546

MARDJ RAHIT — MARDJ al-SUFFAR

Dahhan, Damascus 1956, 181 and n. 7; Ibn
Kathlr, Bidaya, viii, 242-4; Ibn al-Furat, Ta^rikh,
ed. K. Zurayk, Beirut 1942, vii, 213; Ibn
Taghribirdl, Nudjum, i, 281, viii, 159; M. Kurd
C A1I, Khitat al-Sham, Damascus 1925, i, 146-7;
idem, Ghutat Dimashk 2 , Damascus 1952, 218 ff.—2.
Geography and topography: G. Le Strange,
Palestine, 69, 503; H. Sauvaire, Description de Damas,
in JA, c. (1894-6), 476, n. 3, 479, n. 24; R.
Dussaud et F. Macler, Mission scientifique dans les
regions desertiques de la Syrie Moyenne, Paris 1903, 447
n. 2; R. Dussaud, Topographic historique de la Syrie ,
Paris 1927, 294, 299, 306 and n. 12, 317, map XIV
B-4; A. Musil, Arabia Deserta , New York 1927, 546,
554, 558, 560-5, 571-3; idem, The Middle Euphrates ,
New York 1927, 303; idem, Palmyrena , New York
1928, 225, n. 73; R. Thoumin, La geographie
humaine de la Syrie Centrale , Tours 1936, 56, 70, 232-
3; N. Elisseeff, Description de Damas d’lbn c Asakir ,
Damascus 1959, 239, n. 1; E. Wirth, Syrien , Darm¬
stadt 1971, 403, 405; G. Cornu, Atlas du monde
arabo-islamique d’epoque classique, Leiden 1983, 12,
map I, D -4.—3. History. J. Wellhausen, Das
arabische Reich und sein Sturz, Berlin 1902, 107 ff.,
Eng. tr. The Arab kingdom and its Jail, 171 ff.; F.
Buhl, Zur Krisis der Umayyadenherrschajt im J. 684 , in
ZA , xxvii (1912), 50-64; M. Gaudefroy-Demom-
bynes, La Syrie a Tepoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923,
33; H. Lammens, L'avenement des Marwanides et le
califat de Marwan, in MFOB, xii/2, (1927), 57-75; J.
Sauvaget, Caravanserails syriens du Moyen Age, in Ars
Islamica, vii (1940), 1-19; idem, La Poste aux Chevaux
dans VEmpire des Mamelouks, Paris 1941,89 and 337;
M. Canard, H'amdanides , Algiers 1951, i, 204, 586,
587; R. Le Tourneau, Damas de 1075 a 1154,
Damascus 1952, 259; R. Dussaud, La penetration des
Arabes en Syrie avant ITslam, Paris 1955, 28-9; N.
Elisseeff, Nur ad-Din , Damascus 1967, 237, 250,
253, 371, 464, 783; A. A. Dixon, The Umayyad
caliphate, 65-86/664-705 , London 1971, 83 ff.; K.
Salibi, Syria under Islam, New York 1977, 60, 96 and
n. 27; F. M. Donner, The early Islamic conquests,
Princeton 1981, 124-6; G. Rotter, Die Umayyaden
und die zweite Biirgerkrieg (680-692), Wiesbaden
1982, 133-50; H. Zotenberg, Les Omeyyades ( Chroni-
que de Tabari), re-impr. Paris 1983, 61-2.

(N. Elisseeff)

MARDJ al-SUFFAR, the plain stretching from
the south of the Ghuta and falling within the
administrative district of Damascus (arj Dimashk). It
holds an important position in the history of Syria
because of the many battles occurring there over the
centuries and the frequent crossings of it by pilgrims.
It provides a convenient stopping place south of Da¬
mascus, and because of the good water supply there
and excellent grazing, it makes an ideal encampment
for any army travelling from the north or the south.

To the north it is bounded by the right bank of the
Nahr al-A c wadj, which drops down from Hermon to
disappear to the east in the Bahr al-Hidjdjana, and to
the east by the railway line from Damascus to Dar c a
(Adhri c at [^.i>.]) and Amman (‘Amman [<?•*'•])• the
south-east, the Mardj ends in the volcanic area of the
Safa, and in the south the boundary is the lava field
of the Ladja [q.v.], which is roughly situated between
Umm al-Kusur and Gh aba gh ib. To the west, the
village of Kanakir marks the boundary, while in the
north-west it is marked by the lava flow (wa c r) of
Zakiya.

The Syrian Darb al-Hadjdj crosses the Mardj al-
Suffar from north to south after going through the
Shuhura pass, the Djabal Aswad and the Nahr al-

A c wadj. In its course it passes through Kiswa, Kh an
Danun, Shakhab and Gh abaghib. before entering the
Hawran [q.v.].

Here on the Mardj al-Suffar one of the historically
famous battles in the Syrian campaign of the caliph
Abu Bakr was fought, in Djumada 13/August 634.
After the victory of Adjnadayn [ q.v .], the Prophet’s
Companion Khalid b. Sa c Id b. al- c As [q. v. ], who had
been put under the command of Shurahbll b. Hasana,
arrived in the advance party on his way from Djawlan
[q.v. | and camped here with his troops. He was taken
by surprise by the Byzantines under Theodore, the
brother of the emperor Heraclius, who was supported
by the Ghassanid troops of al-Harith b. Abl Sham.
Khalid b. Sa c Td was killed in battle and buried on the
spot. His newly-married wife Umm Hakim bint al-
Harith b. Hisham b. al-MugLira, who had been the
widow of c Ikrima b. Abl Djahl, plunged into the
conflict and killed his enemies. In memory of this
exploit, the bridge on which she fought was named
Kantarat Umm Hakim. With the arrival of Arab rein¬
forcements, the Byzantines fell back and shut
themselves in Damascus, which was besieged by the
Muslims shortly afterwards.

After his victory over the Ghassanids at Mardj
Rahit \qv.), Khalid b. al-Walld [qv] headed
southwards and stayed for some time at the Mardj al-
Suffar before returning to Bosra [q.v.\ by way of
Kanawat.

In Ramadan 64/May 684, partisans of the
Umayyads met at al-Djabiya [<?.».] to nominate a
successor to Mu c awiya II [<?.£.]. The governor of
Damascus, al-Dahhak b. Kays al-Fihrl [q.v.\, the
leader of the Zubayrid party, was also invited to the
meeting and promised to be there. He left Damascus
with a considerable number of troops, but when he
came to the Mardj al-Suffar, half-way to al-Djabiva.
he decided to stop there to await the outcome of the
meeting, whilst at the same time making his way
towards a meeting of the Kays [q.v.] of Syria, who
were in rebellion against the Umayyads.

On 3 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 64/22 June 684, after forty days
of deliberation, the Kalb [q. v. ] and the Umayyad
partisans elected to the caliphate by acclamation
Marwan b. al-Hakam (< 7 .^.]. Immediately, he started
out for Damascus and arrived at the Mardj al-Suffar
in the middle of Dhu’l-Ka c da/the beginning of July.
The Kays were unable to hold their position, and in
an effort to avoid combat al-Dahhak set off hastily
towards Mardj Rahit, to the north of Damascus. In
the battle which followed, the Kaysl leader and a large
number of his men lost their lives.

In 476/1083, while the Saldjuk Tutush [q.v. J was
away leading an expedition against the Byzantines in
the Antakiya region, Muslim b. Kuraysh, the leader
of the Banu ^Ukayl and ruler of Halab [<?.£.] decided
to besiege Damascus. The troops of Halab, joined by
the Banu Numayr [q.v. J and the Banu Shavban [q.v.\
as well as some Turkmen elements, came to lay siege
to the town. The Kays and some Yemenis joined them
there. Muslim hoped for aid from Egypt promised by
the Fatimids, but he hoped in vain. Tutush was
recalled by the townsmen of Damascus, but they had
defeated their attacker before he could get back. The
c Ukaylid was betrayed by some of his troops, and
leaving the walls of the city, he went to make camp on
the Mardj al-Suffar. From there he took the road
eastwards across the Hamad and reached the district
of Salamiyya.

Ridwan b. Tutush [q.v.], the ruler of Halab, came
to besiege Damascus in 489/1096, supported by
Sukman b. Artuk. When he heard that Shams al-

MARDJ al-SUFFAR

547

Muluk Dukak was returning to Damascus with his
troops, Ridwan raised the siege and fell back to the
Mardj al-Suffar, and then went on to pillage the
Hawran. Dukak arrived in Damascus, and set out in
pursuit of Ridwan’s army. As Dukak began to close
in on him, Ridwan broke away, took a northerly route
through the Syrian desert and returned to Halab at
the end of Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 489/mid-December 1096.

In 11 Muharram 507/28 June 1113, the Saldjuk
troops of the Amir Sharaf al-DTn Mawdud of Mawsil
and of the Atabeg Tughtakln of Damascus won
a resounding victory over the Franks at al-Sinnabra,
the former winter residence of the caliph Mu c awiya,
south of Lake Tiberias. The Franks retreated to some
rising ground to the west of Tiberias, whilst the
Muslims camped at the foot of the hill. After thirty-six
days under siege, debilitated by the extreme heat and
the lack-of provisions, they were obliged to surrender
their position on Rab^ I 507/16 April 1113. Heading
north through Baysan, they reached the Mardj al-
Suffar, where Mawdud paid off his troops and they
dispersed. He then accompanied the Atabeg Tugh-
takin to Damascus, arriving there on 21 RabI* I 507/5
September 1113.

At the end of 519/1125, Baldwin II of Jerusalem
decided to launch a surprise attack on Damascus in
reprisal for a raid during the previous autumn by the
Atabeg Tughtakln. He intended to reach the area by
way of the Mardj al-Suffar and Sharkhub. The
Atabeg positioned his troops on the Mardj al-Suffar
and advanced as far as Tell al-SRakhab. On 27 Dh u
’1-Hidjdja 519/25 January 1127, the two armies
confronted each other and fought a little battle which
has become of great interest to military historians, as
noted by Charles Oman, relying upon the accounts of
Fulcher of Chartres and William of Tyre. This was,
in fact, the first time that the Turks had used infantry
to support their cavalry. The Franks were split into
twelve field units each composed of cavalrymen and
footsoldiers. Opposed to them was the Muslim army
made up of Turkmen cavalrymen supported by young
recruits, who were mounted behind the riders and
ready to leap down and fight on foot when the enemy
was near. On the Damascene side also were thousands
of men on foot, for the most part citizens who had
very little military training. It was only in respect of
the irregular foot-soldiers that the Damascenes had a
clear numerical superiority. Although the battle was
extremely hard-fought, the casualties were not ex¬
cessive. The Franks were first surprised by a hail of
arrows and yielded ground, but then rallied, and the
Damascus troops retreated at nightfall, falling back as
far as Djabal Aswad, near Kiswa. Finally, both sides
returned home.

In the first half of Shawwal 523/the second half of
September 1129, the Franks launched a new offensive
against Damascus after the massacre of the Batiniyya
[q.v.\. Tadj al-Muluk Burt in vain solicited the help of
the Fatimid caliph. The Franks encamped at the
entrance to the Mardj al-Suffar before Djisr al-
Khashab and foraged on the plain between Tell
Shakhab and Kiswa. The Muslim army, now
enlarged by Turkmens and Bedouins, halted in front
of the Franks, who clustered round their tents while
one group of them continued foraging in the Hawran.
After launching several attacks the Muslims were at
last able to achieve a decisive victory, taking much
booty and leaving many dead.

During the reigns of Nur al-DTn [q.v. ] and Salah al-
DTn we find hardly any mention of the Mardj

al-$uffar in contemporary chronicles. The Nu^um of
Ibn TaghrlbirdT makes no mention of any conflict on

this plain which the armies used to cross on the way
from Cairo to Damascus. In Djumada II 590/May
1194, the Ayyubid of Egypt al- c AzTz camped at
Kiswa, on the banks of the Nahr al-A c wadj on the
northern edge of the Mardj al-Suffar, on his way to
Damascus to hold discussions with his eldest brother
al-Afdal.

During the battle between al- c Adil and al-Afdal in
595/1199, al-Afdal went to encamp on the Mardj al-
Suffar several times before resuming the siege of
Damascus in Ramadan/July. In the following year
(596/1200), it was the turn of al-Malik al-Zahir to
encamp on the Mardj al-Suffar during the rainy
season before reaching to Halab.

In 614/1217 al- c Adil [q.v.]> the younger brother of
Salah al-DTn, was hard pressed by the Crusaders, and
fell back from Palestine to the north. He travelled
through Baysan, crossed the Jordan, passed through
c Adjlun [q v.\ and then turned northwards to follow
the track of Ra^s al-Ma 3 in order to get the Mardj al-
Suffar. From there he appealed for help to the
Ayyubid princes, but only al-Mudjahid Shlrkuh of
Hims came to his camp. While al- c Adil was in the
Mardj al-Suffar, his elder son, who was governing
Egypt on his behalf, had to confront the Fifth Crusade
when it disembarked at Damietta (Dimyat [j.u.]) on
RabT* I 615/28 May 1218. As soon as al- c Adil had
heard that the Franks had set foot on Egyptian soil,
he left for Damietta. After a day’s forced march he
arrived at c AlikTn where he fell ill, shocked by the
defeat at Damietta. He died in his camp on Friday,
Djumada 11/31 August 1218. He was buried in
Damascus, firstly in the citadel and then in his own
turba. Whenever al- c Adil stayed at Damascus during
the rose blossom season, he would have his tent
erected in the Mardj al-Suffar, being allergic to the
smell of the flowers, and then go back to the city later.

When al-Kamil died in Radjab 635/March 1238,
there was trouble among the Ayyubid princes, and al-
Nasir Dawud [q.v.] had to leave his post as governor
of Damascus. For a time, he took refuge in Kabun,
some 4 km. north of Damascus. But he felt himself
threatened there, so sought refuge in the Mardj al-
Suffar in the old Umayyad castle of Umm Hakim,
from where he fled to Kal c at al-Rabad, the castle of
c Adjlun.

In Sha c ban 702/end of March or beginning of April
1303, the Mongols of Persia again crossed the
Euphrates and marched towards Hamat
Damascus had been occupied for a short while by the
Tatars in 699/1300, and they now went out to wait for
the enemy in the Mardj al-Suffar, where they were to
be joined by the Mamluk sultan of Egypt al-Nasir
Muhammad. The troops of the Ilkhanid Ghazan
Mahmud [qv.] took up their position near Shakhab.
to the west of the Mardj al-Suffar. They launched
their attack on 2 Ramadan 502/21 April 1303 and
were repulsed by the Mamluks, who sustained heavy
losses. The amirs c Izz al-DTn Aydamur al- c Izzi al-
NakTb, together with c Izz al-DTn Aybak al-Turki al-
ZahirT, the governor of the province of Hims, and also
the hddjib [q.v.] Djamal al-DTn Akkush al-ShamT, all
fell “as martyrs’’ on that day.

In 791/1359 and 792/1390, the Mardj al-Suffar was
the theatre for violent fighting between Muslims.
Barkuk, the sultan who had been stripped of his posi¬
tion, left al-Karak [ 0 . 0 .] where he had just been
released from captivity, in Shawwal 791/September-
October 1389, and he arrived in Mardj al-Suffar on
22 Shawwal with, it is said, 500 men, some Mamluks
and some Bedouins. He clashed with the troops from
Damascus near Shakhab on 10 Dhu THidjdja/30

548

MARDJ al-SUFFAR — MARDJA C -I TAKLID

October 1389, and went on to lay siege to Damascus.
The amirs of the main towns of the north of Syria
banded together and came to the help of the city, but
on the way, some of them decided to go over to
Barkuk. When, at the beginning of Muharram
792/end of December 1389 a warning was given of the
approach of TTmurbugha Mintash, Barkuk left
Damascus after a violent battle at Bab al-Djabiva.
within the eastern area of the city. He fell back
towards the Mardj al-Suffar, passed through Kiswa,
and went on to camp at Shakhab. According to Ibn
Sasra, the two armies confronted one another on 17
Muharram/5 January 1390. In this critical situation,
Barkuk was looking for cover when he suddenly came
face to face with the sultan al-Mansur HadjdjI, the
caliph of Cairo al-Mutawakkil I, and the great kadis
who, since they had only a feeble escort, quickly
surrendered. Hence at that point, the situation was
reversed. Mintash tried three times to release Hadjdjr
and his companions but without success, since a
violent storm of hail and rain forced the adversaries to
abandon their conflict. Though the number of dead
on both sides was less than 50, it was nevertheless a
battle important for history. While Mintash sought
refuge in Damascus, Barkuk went back to Cairo with
the caliph and the amirs who had joined his cause, and
was restored to the office of sultan in Safar
792/February 1390, whilst al-Mansur (al-Muzaffar)
Hadjdjl disappeared without any more trouble.

One may note that during the 8th/14th century,
khans [q. v. ] were built in the Mardj al-$uffar, a sign of
a certain prosperity in the district. One khan was built
to the north-west of the Ladja 3 at Shakhab in
716/1316-17 by the amir Tankiz b. c Abd Allah al-
NasirT, the viceroy of Damascus. In 725/1325 another
was built between Kiswa and Ghabaghib in the nahiya
of al-Katf al-Busrl (?) in the Mardj al-$uffar, at the
expense of al-Amir al-Kabir c Izz al-Dln Khattab b.
Mahmud b. Murta c ish (?) al- c lrakl al-Ghazakl, and it
attracted many travellers. The Khan Danun, a very
large khan , built 5 km. south of Kiswa on the road to
Adhri c at, was completed in 778/1376 during the reign
of sultan al-Ashraf Sha c ban. One should also mention
a khan at Ghbaghib, north of Sanamayn, on the
Pilgrimage route, and another, the Khan al-Zayyat,
to the south-west of Kiswa and north-east of Shakhab.

In 1941, during the course of hostilities between the
Free French forces (supported by the British and
Commonwealth troops) and the Vichy troops, there
was a battle on the Mardj al-Suffar, which took place
on the very spot where the Byzantines had been forced
to yield ground to the Arabs 1300 years before, and
this later battle allowed the Allies to enter the Syrian
capital.

Bibliography. Arabic texts. Mas c udl, Tan-
bih, 261, 286; Ibn Hawkal, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 210-
11; Ibn al-KalanisT, Dhayl (Ibn al-Azrak al-FarikT),
Beirut 1908, 115/10, 132/35, 213/65; HarawT, K.
al-Ziyarat , ed. and tr. J. Sourdel-Thomine,
Damascus 1953, 12/28; Yakut, Buldan, Beirut
1957, iii, 413; v, 101; Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, Cairo
1930, ii, 276-78; viii, 132, ix, 216; Ibn al- c AdIm,
Zubdat, ed. S. Dahhan, Damascus 1968, iii, 146;
Ibn Shaddad. al-A c ldk al-khatira (Dimashk ), ed.
Dahhan, Damascus 1956, 182; Ibn Kathlr, Bidaya ,
vii, 4; xiii, 76, 78; xiv, 21, 24; Ibn al-Furat,
TaMkh, ed. K. Zurayk, Beirut 1936-9, viii, 205; ix,
152-3, 185-6; MakrTzT, Khi tat, iii, 58, 92; Ibn Kadi
Shuhba, Ta^rikh, ed. A. Darwfsh. Damascus 1977,
index, s.v.; Ibn TaghribirdI, Cairo, vi, 121, 122,
149, 222, 223, 304, vii, 267, viii, 159, 204-6,
xi, 260, 355, 367, 371.—Geography and

topography. G. Le Strange, Palestine, 482, 503,
504; H. Sauvaire, Description de Damas, in JA (1894-
6 ), ii, 402, iii, 469 n. 139, n. 140, viii, 285, 307 n.
83, xi, 249, 251, 283 n. 59 bis, C, 477 n. 8, O.T.
409 n. 20; R. Dussaud, Topographie historique de la
Syrie, Paris 1927, 218, 306, 317-22, 334, 340, map
II; A. Musil, Palmyrena, New York 1928, 71 n. 17,
100; R. Thoumin, La geographie humaine de la Syrie
centrale, Tours 1936, 56, 232; N. Elisseeff, Descrip¬
tion de Damas dlbn c Asakir, Damascus 1959, 97 n. 5;
E. Wirth, Syrien, Darmstadt, 1971, 403-5; G.
Cornu, Atlas du monde arabo-islamique, Leiden 1983,
12, map I. — History. Ibn Sasra, ed. W.M. Brin-
ner, A chronicle of Damascus 1389-1397 , Los Angeles
1963, 25 (37) b. 26 (38) a, 49 (15) b, 51 a, 51 b, 55
b, 95 a; N. Elisseeff, Nut ad-Din, Damascus 1967,
264, 308, map: 5 - c; R. Grousset, Hist, des
Croisades , Paris 1934-6, i, 275, 637-44, 663, iii, 203;
R. S. Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols, New
York 1977, 111-13, 157, 159, 160, 176, 243; H.
Lammens, L ’avenement des Marwanides et le califat de
Marwan, in MFOB, xii/1 (1927), 39-40, 42, 61-3;
R. Le Tourneau, Damas de 1075 a 1154 , Damascus
1952, 10 and n. 3, 35, 123-5, 165-7, 184-7, 213;
Ch. Oman, A history of the art of war in the Middle
Ages, London 1924, i, 302-4; J. Prawer, Royaume
Latin de Jerusalem , Paris 1969, i, 293, 309; J.
Sauvaget, Caravanserails syriens du Moyen Age, in Ars
Islamica, vii (1940), 1-19; K. M. Setton, History of
the Crusades, Philadelphia 1955-62, i, 401-3, 426,
430, ii, 390, 398, 775; C. Thubron, Mirror to
Damascus, London 1967, 201. (N. Elisseeff)

MAR DJ A C -I TAKLID (pi. maradji c -i taklid, Pers.
for Ar. mardj_a c / mardcjC al-taklid ), title and function of
a hierarchal nature denoting a Twelver Imam
ShT c i jurisconsult (mudjtahid, fakih) who is to be
considered during his lifetime, by virtue of his
qualities and his wisdom, a model for reference,
for “imitation” or “emulation”—a term employed to
an increasing extent by English-speaking authors—by
every observant Imam! ShiT (with the exception of
mudjtahids) on all aspects of religious practice and law.
As in the case of other institutions, the history of this
function (called mardjaHyyat-i taklid or simply mardja-
c iyyat, the term mardja H- taklid often being abbreviated
as mardja c , pi. marddjZ) is to be understood in the
context of the protracted doctrinal development of
Imamism. Although the Arab element played and
continues to play an important part in this develop¬
ment, historical circumstances prevalent in Iran since
the establishment of Imami Shiism as the state
religion under the Safawids (907-1135/1501-1722
[q. y.]) were ultimately responsible for giving to the
Imam! mudjtahids a dominant spiritual and temporal
influence. Under the Kadjars (1794-1925 [q.v. j), the
ImamT c ulama7 developed or re-interpreted various
concepts or points of doctrine ( niyabat , a^lamiyyat,
mardja c iyyat, wilayat) which contributed to the increase
of their power. Having undergone an eclipse since the
1920s—a period corresponding with the renaissance
of Kum [q. v. ] as a theological centre—the influence of
the ImamT mudjtahids and the role of the mardja c -i taklid
were seriously reexamined in the early 1960s as a
result of doubts concerning the succession to
Ayatullah al- c Uzma BurudjirdT (d. 1961 [q.v. in

Suppl.]), sole mardJZ-i taklid since 1367/1947. Discus¬
sions and debates were held by members, religious
and lay, of the Islamic societies ( andjumanha-yi islami)
concerning the method of selection and the functions
of the mardja^-i taklid and the institution of mardja c iyyat
in general, the position of Imamism with regard to
idjtihdd, taklid and the various problems posed by the

MARDJA C -I TAKLID

549

relations between religious and political authorities,
the forms and the degrees of power which could be
exercised by the mudjtahids, etc. It was especially
after the publication of these discussions ( Bahthi ,
1341/l962j cf. Lambton (1964), 120), of which the
authors, Ayatullah Talikam (d. 1979) and Mihdi
Bazargan, were arrested and imprisoned following the
demonstrations of spring 1963 against the “white
revolution” of the Shah (in which Ayatullah Kh u-
maynT played a prominent role) that abroad there
ensued a wide-ranging debate concerning these ques¬
tions, of which the salient points are summarised
below in their historical context.

1. Discussions of idjtihdd and taklid. The

evolution of Imam! attitudes towards idjtihdd and taklid
may be analysed in the context of what has been
called, sometimes retrospectively and anachronis-
tically, the conflict between the Akhbarls/Akhbarivva
[q.v. in Suppl.] and the Usulls/Usuliyya [q.v.]. The
eminent scholars of the period of the Buyids [see
buyvayhids] who formulated the Imam! usul al-fikh (al-
Mufld, d. 413/1022; al-Murtada, d. 436/1044;
Shavkh TusI, d. 460/1067) reject both kiyas and
idjtihdd (although al-Murtada acknowledges a subor¬
dinate role for idjtihad\ Brunschvig, 210; Arjomand
(1984), 53). Even while employing its techniques, the
Imami c ulama 3 continue to reject idjtihdd. At the same
time, Shavkh TusI describes the traditionists as
literalists ( ashdb al-djumal , cf. Kazemi Moussavi
(1985), 36). Akhbarls and UsulTs appear as opposing
factions in the Kitab al-Nakd , an anti-Sunni polemical
work written by the fervent Usull c Abd al-Djalil al-
KazwTni al-RazI (d. 565/1170; on this source, see
Calmard (1971), Scarcia Amoretti (1981)). In the
Ilkhanid period, al-Muhakkik al-Hilli (d. 726/1325)
admits that—although rejecting kiyas —the Imam!
c ulama 5 have practised idjtihdd. His pupil Ibn
al-Mutahhar al- c Allama al-Hilli (d. 726/1325)

formulated the methods of Imam! idfihdd. According
to Mutahharl ( Bahthi , 42), he was the first Imam!
jurist to use the term mudjtahid to describe one who
derives religious precepts (hukm-i sha^i) on the basis of
authentic articles of the shariat. According to other
opinions, al-Mufid is said to have been the first Imam!
fakih to practise idjtihdd, al-TusI having given him a
definitive formulation (]. M. Hussain, 150, quoting
M. Ramyar, 88, 92).

Like idjtihdd, taklid is rejected by the first Imam!
theologians, notably al-Kulaynl (cf. Arjomand
(1984), 139) and al-Mufid (cf. McDermott, 257 ff.).
For al-Murtada, the disciple of al-Mufid, the taklid of
an c dlim is permitted (with reservations). He is
followed three centuries later by Ibn al-Mutahhar al-
HillT who—while no longer basing the competence of
the mudjtahid on the entirety of the shariat —draws a
distinction between idjtihdd al-mukallafin and idjtihdd al-
mudjtahidin or indeed between the mufti and the
mustafti, i.e. between the jurisconsult and the simple
believer (Arjomand (1984), 139 f.; Kazemi Moussavi
(1985), 37).

2. Basis and extent of the influence of the
Imami mudjtahid s. According to Imami tradition,
the world cannot exist for a single moment without a
hu didia (“proof’ or “guarantee” of God), this func¬
tion being supplied, after the Prophet, by the Imams.
During the Minor Occultation ( ghaybat al-sughra , 260-
329/874-941), the fukaha 3 were able to consult the
Twelfth Imam through the intermediacy of his four
safirs or wakils. On the instructions of the Imam, the
fourth wakil did not appoint a successor (Madelung,
(1982), 163 ff.). During the Major Occultation
{ghaybat al-kubra , after 329/941), the Imam! com¬

munity therefore lived in a state of messianic expecta¬
tion which compelled it to seek out solutions for its
spiritual and temporal organisation. Unlike the
Sunnis, the Imam! fukaha 5 generally denied the
legitimacy of powers established de facto during the
ghayba (the basis and the logic of this attitude have
been questioned by Arjomand (1979) who criticises
the interpretations of N.R. Keddie, A.K.S. Lamb-
ton, H. Algar etc.; cf. Calmard (1982), 255, Calder
(1982 A), 3, n. 2).

In the acknowledged absence of an infallible guide
or of a just sovereign, or of transmitters of traditions
(muhaddithun), the Imam! fukaha 5 became scholastic
theologians ( mutakallimun) before extending their
prerogatives in the capacity of mudjtahidun (J.
Hussain, 150). Their influence increased under the
Buyids (who professed ShlTsm), with whom they felt
able to collaborate without sacrificing their loyalty to
their Imam (Kohlberg (1976 A), 532 f.). Numerous
Imamls, including some c ulama\ collaborated with
Sunni authorities and occupied senior posts in the
service of the c Abbasids and the Saldjuks (Calmard
(1971), 55 f.). The theologian Naslr al-Dln Tusf (d.
672/1274) and the Shi* I vizier Ibn al- c AlkamI
promoted, in varying degrees, the accession to power
of the Mongol Ilkhans (Calmard (1975), 145 ff.). The
Ilkhan Oljeytu/Uldjaytu (1304-17) showed favour to
eminent Imam! c ulama 21 such as Ibn al-Mutahhar al-
Hilll and his son Fakhr al-Muhakkikln (d. 771/1369-
70): ibid ., 150 ff.; Arjomand (1984), 57 f.).

Whether accepting or contesting the powers estab¬
lished de facto, the Imam! continued to seek,

within the structural limits of the sharia, a means of
coming to terms with their existence. According to a
theory elaborated under the Buyids, during the ghayba
certain parts of the sharia (such as djihad or hudud,
legal penalties) are inapplicable (this is the doctrine of
the sukut: cf. Calder (1982 A), 4, quoting the same
(1979 A), ch. 3). Points of doctrine concerning
especially djihad and the duties incumbent (such as amr
bi ’l-ma c ruf wa-nahy c an al-munkar, ordering the good
and forbidding the bad) are thoroughly discussed
(Arjomand (1984), 61 ff., see also Kohlberg (1976
B)). But the Imami political ethic expounded
especially by al-Murtada (and adopted by his
successors) recommends in judicial and
administrative matters “a positive and ethically
responsible involvement in the existing political
order” (Arjomand (1984), 65; see also Madelung
(1980)).

With the rise of Sufism in the post-Ilkhanid period
(14th-16th centuries), Shi*! themes began to permeate
the tarikdt and the thought of various messianic or
millenarian politico-religious movements inspired by
charismatic chieftains or miracle-workers who seized
power (the Sarbadars, the Musha c sha c Is, the
Safawids, etc.). Various Sufi movements threatened
the existence of the existing established powers or
compromised with them (Kubrawiyya, Dhahabivva.
Nurbakhshiyya, Ni c matullahiyya, Hurufiyya, etc.).
The case of the ShI c I order of the Mar c ashl Sayyids
[q.v. ] constitutes a separate example of politicisation
of Sufism from which Mahdism is absent (for a socio-
historical study of these movements, see Calmard
(1975), 154 ff; Arjomand (1984), 66 ff.). Although
these socio-political changes were unconnected with
the efforts of the c «/ama ) to formulate and practise the
Imam! doctrine, their advice was sometimes solicited
by politico-religious chiefs, as in the case of the “ShI*I
republic” of the Sarbadars which created a precedent
regarding the functions which could henceforward be
exercised by Imam! c ulama in a ShI c I state.

550

MARDJAM TAKLID

It was in this context of $ufism and extremism that
there came about the rise of the $afawiyya and its
transformation in the course of the 15th century into
a militant order exercising an increasingly extra¬
vagant messianic hold over the Turkoman dervish-
ghazis, the kizilbash [q.v.]. The imposition of Imam!
Shiism as the state religion by Shah Isma c fl (1501-24
(< 7 .t>.]) had the notable consequence of incorporating
into the $afawid state Persian dignitaries who were
men of high religious or administrative rank and the
owners of large properties (Aubin, 39). Since Safawid
“imperio-papism” was based simultaneously on the
ethos of Iranian nationalism and on Shiism, state
policy led to the ruthless suppression of messianic and
Sufi tendencies both outside and inside the Safawid
movement and to the persecution of Sunms. With the
appeal to the dogmatic principles of ShiSsm. this
situation favoured the establishment and the ascend¬
ancy of a hierocracy of Irnanru c ulamd 3 who, from the
outset, under Shah Isma c fl, were subject to the
hostility of Persian religious dignitaries (Glassen, 262;
Arjomand (1984, 133). The decisive initiative for the
establishment of an Imam! hierocracy was taken by
Shah Tahmasp (1524-76). A devout Imami, profess¬
ing no messianic pretensions, he favoured the installa¬
tion of Imam! c ulama?, “imported” from the Arab
countries (Syria, mainly the Djabal c Amil, Arab c Irak
and Bahrayn). With their Persian students or
colleagues recruited from the hostile camp of the
Persian religious dignitaries, they ultimately con¬
stituted a “brotherhood” of religious specialists. The
Jarman through which Shavkh C A1I al-Karakl al- c AmiIi
(d. 940/1534), the “Propagator of Religion” was
awarded the titles of Na^ib (deputy) of the Imam and
of Khaiam al-mudjtahidin (“seal of the mudjtahids ”)
could be considered both as the ratification of the
establishment of the Imam! hierocracy in Iran and as
the definitive transition from extremism to Imamism
(Arjomand (1984), 129 ff., 133 f.).

The principles on which the authority of the Imami
c ulama :> rests were redefined under the Safawids. The
combination of the concepts of taklid and idjtihad is
expressed in various works ( Zubdat al-baydn, by Mulla
Muhammad Ardabfll al-Mukaddas, d. 983/1585;
Zubdat al-usul, by Baha 3 al-DTn c AmilI “Shavkh-i
Baha 3 !”, d. 1030/1621; Ma c dlim al-usul , by Hasan b.
Zayn al-DIn, d. 1011/1602). Although the “Mu-
djtahid al-zamanl” al-Karakl fulminates against the
prospect of imitating a dead mudjtahid (taklid al-mayyit),
the general competence of the mudjtahids in all areas of
the sharZa (idjtihad mutlak ) is confirmed, sometimes
with the intention of restricting its performance to one
or a few jurists, as recommended by Mir Damad [see
al-damad], d. 1041/1631-2 {ibid. , 138 ff.).

The authority of the mudjtahids during the ghayba is
also redefined around the concept of niyaba c amma ,
Pers. niyabat-i c amma (“deputed authority”) of the
Hidden Imam exercised, in principle, collectively
(Madelung (1982), 166). The prerogatives attached to
this concept vary according to the mudjtahids. While
al-Karakl limits their applications, c AlI b. Zayn al-
Dln al- c AmilI, called al-Shahid al-thani (d. 765/1557),
introduces a terminological innovation in describing
the Jakih as the Nd?ib c amm or Hakim-i sharH of the
Hidden Imam. Among the important implications of
the niyaba c amma is the right given to the mudjtahids to
collect and administer legal taxes ( zakdt , khums ) which,
with the management of mortmain property, enjoyed
with other religious dignitaries, gives them financial
autonomy {ibid., 141 f.; Calder (1982 A), 4 f.; on the
development of the doctrine of niyaba c amma, see
Calder (1979 A), chs. 4-6; on zakdt and khums , see

idem, (1981), (1982 B); Sachedina (1980)). The
authority of the mudjtahids also derives formally from
various hadiths, including a declaration by the Twelfth
Imam which describes the c ulamd t 3 as the proof
(hudjdjd) of the proof of God (i.e. of the Hidden Imam)
for all the faithful. The c ulama :> are also said to be the
heirs of the Prophet (Hairi (1977), 59).

Although formulation of the concept of deputed
authority was not pursued systematically in the
Safawid period, some of the attributes of the Imams
were then transferred to the mudjtahids (Arjomand
(1984), 143). But the Imam! hierocracy lacked an
independent “clerical” organisation and needed
political power in order to consolidate its position in
relation to the religious dignitaries, especially the
sayyids, who also enjoyed a certain mystique and
wielded politico-economic influence. Claiming to
represent the Hidden Imam, but incapable of assum¬
ing the heritage of Safawid extremism, it legitimised
the Safawid dynasty only as a purely temporal power
(this was the prudent attitude of Muhammad Bakir
Madjlisi \q v.], d. 1111/1699; cf. ibid. , 184). But in
spite of its efforts and the support of Shah Tahmasp,
the hierocracy did not succeed in taking over the
important religious and administrative function of the
sadr {sidarat), which was increasingly. The mystique of
the na^ib c amm did not fuse with that attached to the
most learned mudjtahid to constitute a hierocratic
institution. These setbacks were due in part to the fact
that in addition to its rivalries with the religious
dignitaries, the new Imami hierocracy experienced
internal dissensions due to the diversity of its
geographical origins and the diverse attitudes of its
c ulama 3 , some of whom directed their attention to
worldy matters, while others sought refuge in philoso¬
phy {ibid., 132 f.). Despite the considerable influence
enjoyed by al-Karaki in the 16th century, it was only
at the end of the 17 th century, with Muhammad Bakir
Madjlisi, that there were established the bases of the
future influence of the Imami* c ulama 3 , with solid
popular roots rendering them independent of the
State {ibid., 159 and below).

3. Aldibarl resurgence and U § u 11 reaction.
After being dormant since the Saldjuk period, the
opposition of the Akhbarls towards the Usull school
was renewed at the beginning of the 17th century,
when Mulla Muhammad Amin b. Muhammad Sharif
AstarabadI (d. 1036/1626-7), encouraged by his
teacher Mlrza Muhammad b. C A1I AstarabadI (d.
1028/1619), formulated the Akhbarl doctrine in his
K-al-Fawa^id al-madaniyya, the basis of the neo-
Akhbarism which flourished in Iran and in c Irak in
the 17th and 18th centuries (on Akhbarism, notably
in this period, see E. Kohlberg, AkbarIya, in
Encyclopaedia lranica , i, 716-18). Both teacher and
pupil belonged to the clique of Persian religious
dignitaries. Neo-Akhbarism was embraced by two
eminent representatives of gnostic ShlSsm. the elder
Madjlisi, Muhammad TakI (d. 1070/1660), and
Mulla Muhsin Fayd KashanI (d. ca. 1091/1680). The
shaykh al-lslam of Mashhad, al-Hurr al- c AmilI (d.
1120/1708-9) was a fervent propagandist on its behalf.
Rejecting the idjtihad and the taklid of anyone who is
not infallible (i.e. other than the Imam), Akhbarism
reflects the thought of religious dignitaries who prefer
philosophy, hermeneutism and mysticism. By extoll¬
ing reverence for the Imams, it constituted, for the
simple believers, an attractive element of Shiism
which gained in popularity. But with the anti-clerical
policies of Shah Safi (1629-42) and of Shah c Abbas II
(1642-66) and the resurgence of Sufism in the mid-
nth century, this tendency was to in part restored

MARDJAM TAKLID

551

before being rejected by the Imam! hierocracy {ibid..,
146 ff. and below).

In fact, despite the advance of Akhbarism at the
time of the decline and collapse of the $afawids and
throughout periods of disorder and instability (Afghan
conquest and domination, 1722-9; reign of Nadir
Shah, 1736-47; Afshari-Zand interregnum, until
1763), an Usull reaction emerged in the very bosom
of the Madjlisf family, under Shah Sultan Husayn
(1694-1722). In an effort to destroy popular devotion
to Akhbarl-inspired Imams, thus regaining it for
himself, and to isolate the Sufi and mystical trend of
the elite, as a prelude to attacking it, Muhammad
Bakir MadjlisI adopted Usulism. This reversal and
this strategy (adopted by other c ulamd y ), had decisive
consequences for the consolidation of an Imam!
hierocracy {ibid., 151 ff.; on the MadyiisI family and
its descendants see Cole (1985), 6 ff.).

During the years 1722-63, neo-Akhbarism was
dominant in c Irak, especially among converts from
Usulism coming from Bahrayn or Iran. But it was not
long before in Iran and even in c Irak, Imam! c ulama 5
were observed moving discreetly from Akhbarism to
Usulism. After a difficult period for the ^ulama*,
involving a kind of Sunni-ShI c I ecumenism (1736-51)
imposed by the religious policy of Nadir Shah, the
U§uli resurgence came about under the Zands, when
Karim Khan moved his centre of government to
Shiraz (1763-79). However, Karim Khan had little
regard for the '•ulama'* (Perry, 220 ff.) and the decisive
struggles took place at the c alabat [ q.v. in Suppl.], the
Shfa holy places of c Irak, where the Akhbarls
exploited alliances with wealthy financiers and even
with heads of criminal gangs (the lutis [q.v. ]). The
leading figure in this resurgence of Usulism was Aka
Sayyid Muhammad Bakir Wahid al-Bihbahanl (d.
1208/1793-4 [< 7 .^. ]), considered the “renovator”
(mudjaddid) of the 13th century of the Hidjra or as the
founder (mu*assis) of Imam! jurisprudence. He was
linked both spiritually and genealogically to Muham¬
mad Bakir MadjlisI. Like other 'ulama* of c Irak, he
enjoyed the support of the merchant-artisan class
(through the intermediary of family alliances).
Forcibly imposing a reformulation of the Usull
doctrine and refuting Akhbarism (K. al-Idjlihad wa 7-
akhbar ), he went so far as to proclaim iakfir (excom¬
munication) against the Akhbarls. sending armed
men (his mirghadabs) to harry them, and persecuted
the Ni c matullahl Sufi order (Cole (1983), 39 ff.;
idem, (1985), 13 ff.). BihbahanI and his followers
succeeded in “converting” to Usulism numerous
Akhbarls, some of whom migrated towards Iran (in
part on account of political tensions between Iran and
the governor c Umar Pasha concerning Iranian
pilgrims, instability and outbreaks of plague). Some
c ulama* of Northern India were then trained in the
Usull doctrine, which they proceeded to canvass in
India (Cole (1985), 21 ff.). The resurgence of
Usulism, which developed during the 1760s in the
'atabat, was spread in Iran during the 1770s (ibid).,
26 ).

In the Final phase of the conflict, the last important
representative of the Akhbarl school, the muhaddilh
Muhammad b. c Abd al-Nabl al-Nishaburl al-
Akhbari, was discredited in the eyes of Fath c AlI Shah
Kadjar (1797-1834), who was at that time sympathetic
towards Akhbarism. by the Shavkh Dja c far Kashif al-
Ghita 5 [q. v. ] who declared him an infidel. In spite of
the protests of the Shah, he was expelled to c Irak and
killed by the mob at al-Kazimayn in 1233/1818 (Algar
(1969), 65 ff.). Although the situation of the Akhbarls
subsequently declined rapidly, some groups survived

and aspects or concepts of their doctrinal positions
remained, especially in Shavkhism (generally
considered as being founded by Shavkh Ahmad al-
Ahsa 5 ! [q.v.], d. 1241/1826; see also McEoin, art. al-
ahsa 5 ! in Encyclopaedia Iranica, i, 674-9). According to
Shavkhism. each believer has, in principle, a vocation
to idjtihad , the only authority to be followed or
imitated (laklid) being that of the Hidden Imam
(Corbin, iv, 252 f.).

4. The institution of mardja'iyyat-i laklid.
Under the Kadjars, relationships of power with the
Imam! hierocracy were ambiguous. Since Nadir
Shah, the state had lost the “imperio-papal” charac¬
ter on which Safawid power had been based. Despite
the continuation of the “separation-collaboration”,
Fath c AlI Shah sought and obtained confirmation of a
certain degree of legitimisation on the part of eminent
c ulama* such as Mlrza Abu TKasim KumI (d.
1233/1817-18), and Aka Sayyid BihbahanI, grandson
of Wahid BihbahanI, who extolled Aka Muhammad
Kh an and Fath C A1I Shah as Zill Allah (“Shadow of
God”) (Arjomand (1984), 221 ff.).

While continuing to express themselves through
fatwas or tafkirs against one or other hostile or rival
tendency or person (Akhbarl. Shaykhl. Sufi), the
Imam! mudjlahids were consulted by the temporal
authority regarding important issues. Anxious to
assure himself of their support, Mlrza c Isa Ka 5 im-
Makam, vizier of the crown prince c Abbas Mlrza,
consulted them in connection with the threat of inva¬
sion on the eve of the first Irano-Russian conflict
(1810-13). Their attitudes and their fatwas which he
collected in his Risala-yi djihadiyya testify to their influ¬
ence. The most significant initiative came from
Shavkh Dja c far Kashif al-Ghita 3 who—in the capacity
of niyabal-i 'dmma of the mudjlahids —authorised Fath
c AlI Shah to conduct the djihad in the name of the
Hidden Imam (on the parallels and divergencies
between the Risala-yi djihadiyya and the positions
adopted by Shavkh Dja c far, see Lambton (1970 A),
187 ff.; cf. also Kohlberg (1976 B), 82 ff., Calder
(1982 A), 6 , and Arjomand (1984), 224 f.). This was
also a time of re-assessment of the notion of niyabal-i
khassa. Relating, in principle, to the only represen¬
tatives of the Imams (initially to the four sufara*), it
became, with the endorsement of the fukaha*,
applicable to the just sovereign. Although the system
of taxation had little connection with djihad, the
subject was discussed at this time, with the mudjlahids
re-affirming their rights concerning kharddj and es¬
pecially khums of which a half, considered to be sahm-i
Imam (“the Imam’s share”), should revert to them
after the period of the djihad (Arjomand (1984),
229 f.).

The sharing of prerogatives between the c ulama*
and the temporal power is well defined by Dja c far
Kashfl in his Tuhfat al-muluk. His dualist theory of
legitimate authority, recalled by eminent mudjlahids
under Nasir al-Din Shah (1848-96), permitted the
<i ulamd :> to acquire financial autonomy and judicial
rights independent of the state (ibid. , 225 ff.). But it
was especially the reformulation of concepts or
doctrines regarding the powers and functions of the
mudjlahids which led to a structuralisation of their
leadership. Long discussions of idjtihdd and laklid
culminated in establishing the competence of the
mudjlahids in guiding the mukallids (“imitators”) in
matters of jurxd-i din (i.e. the “branches” derived
from “roots”, usul), the laklid of a dead mudjlahid
being definitively ruled out. The problem of the
application of the hudud during the ghayba continued to
be thoroughly debated (ibid. , 231 ff.). The faithful

552

MARDJAM TAKLID

Shi*! “being unable to understand the code” must
entrust himself to the instructions of a jurist (Scarcia
(1958 A), 237). The need for recourse to authorised
interpreters of the sharia, in the name of the niyabat-i
c dmma y is energetically reformulated by Mulla Ahmad
Narak! (d. 1245/1829-30) in c AwaHd al-ayyam, where
he employs the terms wildyat-i c dmma and wilayat-i
khassa to describe the delegation of devolved authority
to the muditahids in the name of the Hidden Imam
(Kazemi Moussavi (1984); idem (1985), 40 ff.).
Although making of the government of the juriscon¬
sult (which he calls saltanat al-sharHyya ) an independent
subject of Imam! fikh, he does not seem to have
considered the latter obliged to supplant the existing
power or to function in parallel with it {ibid., 43 ff.).

A new and decisive step was taken, however, with
the doctrinal formulation of the concept of aHamiyyat
according to which the Imam! community must follow
or imitate the precepts of the most learned juriscon¬
sult. Its premisses may be traced back to the Ilkhanid
period (it was then applied to the Imams, but one
celebrated mudfiahid then bore the title of “ c Allama”
al-Hilll). Under the Safawids, the term aHam is clearly
appliedto the Imam! muditahids (Hasan b. Zayn al-
Dln c AmilI, Ma c alim al-usul, quoted by Kazemi
Moussavi, ibid.). When, after many cautious and
hesitant attempts, the politico-religious context forced
the Imam! hierocracy to adopt a hierarchy, the
rehabilitation of the concept of aHamiyyat took on its
full importance, since the title of mardfa^-i taklld was
given to the most learned mudftahid. In view of the
obscurity surrounding the birth of the concept of
mardfaHyyat —the initial signs of which may be traced
back to the Safawid period—the greatest muditahids of
the past have recently been reinstated, a posteriori , as
prototype mardjcL'-i taklids (on the lists, beginning with
al-KulaynT, d. 328/939, generally including sixty-
three names and ending with BurudjirdI, see Bagley
(1970), 31; Hairi, 62 f.; Fischer, Appx. 2, 252 ff.).
This tendency to reassess, in regard to a concept or a
doctrine, the great figures of the past is also found in
the tradition according to which the beginning of each
century of the Hidjra should be marked by a renewer
of the religion (cf. a provisional list of Shi*! mudiaddids
in Momen, 206, Table 7).

Having been in a process of gestation since the
rebirth of Usulism with Wahid BihbahanI, the
concept of mardiaHyyat took on precise form under his
successors. But neither BihbahanI nor Ahmad NarakI
bore the title of mardfa^-i taklld (although BihbahanI
and his immediate successor Sayyid Muhammad
Mahdl Tabataba 5 ! “Bahr al- c ulum”, d. 1212/1797,
are currently called mardfa^-i taklld in Shi*! bio¬
graphical works: cf. McChesney, 168). For numerous
muditahids and ordinary worshippers in Iran and
c Irak, the first to have secured this title and this func¬
tion was HadjdjI Shavkh Muhammad Hasan Nadjafl,
d. 1266/1849-50, known by the name of Sahib al-
Djawahir (i.e. the author of Dja wahir al-kalam, “The
jewels of scholarship”, the most remarkable post-
Safawid work of fikh (Cole (1983), 40 f.; McEoin
(1983), 157). When the Imam! community was riven
by the rise of Babism, Muhammad Hasan Sahib al-
Djawahir appointed Shavkh Murtada Ansar! (d.
1281/1864) as his successor. Having initially offered it
to Sa c Id al- c Ulama :> MazandaranI who refused it,
Ansar! occupied this function for fourteen years and
became the single mardfa^-i taklld ( mardfa c al-taklld al-
mutlak ) for the entire Shi*! world. He encouraged
Usui! studies to a considerable extent and arranged
direct payment of contributions ( sahm-i Imam) to local
centres of education. With him, the institution of
mardfaHyyat attained its zenith. He defined its

functions in the manual of ritual practice entitled Slrat
al-nadfat (“The Way of Salvation”). All the Imam!
ShI c I communities (Iran, *Irak, India, the Caucasus
and the Ottoman Empire) sent contributions to him
representing considerable sums of money, yet he led
a pious, simple and ascetic life. His political attitudes
were moderate and he adopted a conciliatory policy
towards the Babls, who treated him with respect.
Some of his works became manuals ( FaraHd al-usul, al-
Makasib), and many of his pupils became mudftahids
and even mardya^-i taklld (see Algar (1969), 162 ff.;
Hairi, art. ansari, in Suppl.; idem (1977), 63; Cole
(1983), 40 ff.; Murtada al-Ansarl, list of his works,
131-4). Besides the piety and the wisdom of al-Ansarl,
the emergence of a single mudjtahid to occupy the
supreme function of mardiaHyyat owes much to the
disappearance of major Imam! potentates as well as to
the decline of Isfahan and the rise of Nadjaf as an
Imam! religious centre (art. ansari, in Suppl.;
Kazemi Moussavi (1985), 45 f.).

Henceforward, it was in the c atabat, especially at
Nadjaf, but also at Samarra (site of the “catacomb”
of the Hidden Imam), places of residence and instruc¬
tions of the major marddfi^-i taklld , that resistance was
organised to Kadjar autocracy and foreign domina¬
tion. Although not political at the outset, the institu¬
tion of mardiaHyyat became so, as a consequence of
historical circumstances and the respective attitudes of
each of the muditahids. Unlike his predecessor, Ansari
issued no directives concerning his succession. But his
definition of the institutional and ideological role of
mardfa^-i taklld aHa (“supreme model”) offered oppor¬
tunities for the exercise of political prerogatives of
which his followers took advance, beginning with his
immediate successor, Mlrza Muhammad Hasan
Shiraz! (d. 1312/1894), who assumed the respon¬
sibility of issuing the fatwa to revoke a concession on
Iranian tobacco awarded to a British company (the
Excise Affair, fatwd of December 1891; cf. Bibl. in
Hairi (1977), 111, n. 8).

The essential characteristic of the institution of
mardiaHyyat in the 19th century is that the office was
occupied successively by a single mar dial-i taklld. After
the death of Mlrza Shlrazl. a number of muditahids ,
equally qualified and unable to choose among
themselves, were recognised as single marffa c only
after the demise of their colleagues. This tendency
towards selection by longevity—working to the disad¬
vantage of numerous highly-qualified muditahids —was
continued until the death of BurudjirdI. Since the
beginning of the institution, the list of maradfi^-i taklld
who exercised the function in a sole capacity for a
greater of shorter period of time until their death is
summarised as follows:

1. HadjdjI Shavkh Muhammad Hasan Isfahan!
Nadjaf!, “Sahib al-Djawahir” (d. at Nadjaf 1266/
1850).

2. Shavkh Murtada Ansari (d. at Nadjaf 1281/1864).

3. Mlrza Hasan Shlrazl. mudfaddid of the 14th century
of the Hidjra (d. at Samarra 1312/1895).

4. Mulla Muhammad Kazim Khurasan!. “Akhund
Khurasan!” (d. at Nadjaf, 1329/1911).

5. Hudjdjat al-Islam Sayyid Muhammad Kazim
TabatabaT Yazdi (d. at Huwaysh, near Nadjaf,
1337/1919).

6 . Mlrza Muhammad TakI Hariri Shlrazl (d. at
Karbala, 1338/1920).

7. Shavkh Fadl Allah Isfahan! “Shavkh al-SharI*a”
(died 1338/1920, surviving his predecessor by only
four months).

8 . HadjdjI Sayyid Abu ’1-Hasan Musawl Isfahan! (d.
at Kazimayn, 1365/1946).

9. Sayyid Aka Husayn b. Muhammad Tabataba 5 !

MARDJA C -I TAKLID

553

“Ayatullah KumT” (d. at Karbala, 1366/1947,
surviving his predecessor by only three months).

10. Ayatullah al- c Uzma HadjdjI Aka Husayn
Burudjirdi (d. at Kum, 1380/1961).

After the death of Mirza Shirazi, religious leader¬
ship was shared between eminent mudjiahids of Nadjaf:
Mulla Muhammad Kazim Fadil Sharabyanl (d.
1322/1904); Shaykh Muhammad Hasan b. c Abd
Allah Mamakanl(d. 1323/1905); and Mirza Muham¬
mad Kazim Akhund Khurasani, who became sole
mardja' after the death of Tihranl. A disciple of Mirza
Shirazi, Kh urasani was a fervent supporter of the
constitutional revolution of 1905/11. With the
mudytahids Tihrani and MazandaranI, he issued
fatwas, manifestos and telegrams and took part in the
deposition of Muhammad c Alt Shah (July 1909). He
also campaigned against foreign influences and
supported the Young Turk revolution (cf. Hairi, art.
khurasani idem (1976) and (1977), 98 ff. and index;
Momen, 246 f.). His successor, Sayyid Kazim Yazdi,
abstained from political activity, refused to cooperate
with the constitutionalist 'ulamd^ and cultivated
amicable relations with the British after their occupa¬
tion of c Irak (Hairi (1977), 96 ff., 117 ff. and index;
Momen, 247). Mirza Muhammad Taki HaYrI, resi¬
dent at Karbala, declared that he had no part in the
constitutional revolution. He was a determined oppo¬
nent of the British in c Irak, against whom he decreed
a djihad in collaboration with other 'ulamP (Hairi
(1977), 122 ff. and index).

With the revival of the centre of theological studies
{hawda-yi 'ilmiyya ) of Kum, at the initiative of Shaykh
c Abd al-Karim Yazdi HaYri (d. 1937 [q.v. in Suppl.]),
there was during the 1920s a period in which several
high-ranking muditahids were considered as mardja'-i
taklid. For Iran, the role was entrusted, at Kum, to
HaYri; for Nadjaf, to Shaykh c Abd Allah MamakanI
(d. 1933), Shaykh Muhammad Husayn NaYnl (d.
1936) and Shaykh Abu ’l-Hasan Isfahan! (d. 1946),
who became sole jTiardja ' after the death of the others.
On the death of Ayatullah KumI (1947), Ayatullah
Burudjirdi [q.v. in Suppl.] was recognised as sole
mardia c ~i taklid (cf. below). Kum thus became the
leading centre of Shi c i studies, although many
students, especially those from Arab countries and the
Indian subcontinent, continued to frequent Nadjaf.
Following the example of Yazdi HaYri and other
muditahids , Burudjirdi pursued a passive role in
political matters. He occasionally collaborated with
temporal authorities, especially from 1953 to 1958,
and supported the anti-BahaY campaign of 1955. It
was not until shortly before the end of his life (1960)
that he declared his opposition to the agrarian reforms
proposed by the Shah (see Algar (1972) 242 ff.;
Akhavi (1980), 24, 77 ff., 102). Despite his title of
Ayatullah al- c Uzma (see below), and although his
name has been mentioned as a mudiaddid , Burudjirdi
seems to have been acknowledged as the supreme
mardja ' in an organic rather than a charismatic sense
(Binder, 132, MacEoin (1983), 161 f.). He succeeded
no more than other muditahids in structuring the
religious leadership to resist the initiatives of the
Pahlavi regime which favoured as his successor
Ayatullah Shaykh Muhsin al-Hakim (d. 1970), an
Arab mudjtahid resident at Nadjaf (Algar (1972), 244).

In the reformist religious movements of the
“Islamic societies” (cl. above), besides discussion of
doctrinal issues ( idjtihad , taklid, religious taxes, etc.),
the idea was expressed that the function of mardya'iyyat
had become too heavy to be entrusted to a single
mudjtahid and should be exercised by a ‘‘council for
religious decrees” (shura-yi fatwa ): M. Talikani, in

Bahthi, 201-13; M. DjazaYrI, ibid. , 215-30. It was also
proposed (by M. Mutahharl) that, in accordance with
the wishes of c Abd al-Karim Yazdi HaYri, each
mudjtahid should be “imitated” in the field of his
speciality (cf. Lambton (1964), 127; Akhavi, 122 ff.).
But the application of the ideas of this movement,
revived in part in the 1970s by various reformist
trends, did not open the way to a harmonious restruc¬
turing of the religious leadership, which henceforward
became progressively more influenced by politics.

On the death of Burudjirdi, the disintegration of the
institution of mardja'iyyat led to a dispersal of mardja's :
at Kum, the Ayatullahs Sharl c atmadarl, GulpayganI
and Mar c ashI-NadjafT; at Mashhad, Ayatullah Milan!
(d. 1975); at Tehran, Ayatullah Ahmad Kh w ansarl
(d. 1985); at Nadjaf, the Ayatullahs KhuY, c Abd al-
Hadl Shirazi (d. 1961), Kashif al-Ghi^a 3 and Muhsin
al-Hakim. Other less important muditahids were also
considered as mardja' (Momen, 248, n. 2).

While Mashhad [< 7 . 0 .] for some rivalledKum in
importance, the events of 1963 catapulted Ayatullah
Khumaynl into pre-eminence in the capacity of
mardja'- (at Nadjaf, from 1965 onwards). With MllanI
and Sharl c atmadarl, he was regarded as heir to
Burudjirdi (Algar (1972), 245), at least in Iran, since
some consensus on the mardja'iyyat-i kull of Muhsin al-
Hakim seems to have been reached in about 1966
(Bagley (1970), 78, n. 7). In 1975 there were six
mardja' s of senior rank: KhuY and Khumaynl at
Nadjaf; GulpayganI, Shar^atmadarl and Mar c ashl-
Nadjafl at Kum; Kh w ansarl in Tehran (MllanI died
at Mashhad in August 1975). But there are also
numerous lines of mardja'-i taklids linked by
matrimonial alliances to the most important branches
(sec Fischer (1980), 88 ff., Fig. 3. 1. ff.).

After the death of Burudjirdi, the Imam! c ularna 3 ,
together with the laity, were divided into various
groups: radicals wishing to establish Islamic justice;
social reformers; conservative heirs to the line of
Burudjirdi; collaborators with the Pahlavi regime
(Akhavi, 199 ff.). The three first tendencies are to be
found in the Islamic Republic of Iran (since February
1979), where rivalries have rent the religious leader¬
ship. The concept of wilayat-i fakih reformulated by
Ayatullah Khumaynl could be considered as the
logical conclusion to the development of Imam!
religious institutions since the Safawids, absolute
political power being regained and reverting defacto to
the mardja'-i taklid , supporters of the idea of collective
maidja'iyyat (including Ayatullah Talikani, d. 1979)
thus being defeated (Fragner, 98; see also the analysis
of Caldcr (1982) regarding KhumaynI’s position
regarding ShI c I jurisprudence; F. Rajaee (1983) on
Khurnaynl’s attitude towards man, the state and
international politics etc.; see also Rose (1983)). But
this new situation has in fact led to another schism in
the institution of mardya'iyyat ; the most influential of
the maradji' before the Islamic revolution, Ayatullah
Sharlcatmadarl. a man of moderate tendency who
retained numerous supporters, especially among the
people of Adharbavdjan. his native region, was
progressively isolated and then, accused of subver¬
sion. deposed from his position as Ayatullah al- c Uzma
in April 1982 (Momen, 296, 320). Some pious
Imamls follow the leader ol the revolution in political
matters and that of one or other of the maradji' in
religious practice (the one with ^he largest following
now, in 1986, apparently being Ayatullah KhuY who
also enjoys a large following in the Arab world, India
and Pakistan). It seems, however, that for the new
generation of Imam! c ulama > , the doctrine of wilayat-i
fakih has ultimately prevailed (Momen, 296 ff.). It is

554

MARDJA C -I TAKLID

in this context that there is taking place the muted
struggle over succession to Ayatullah/Imam
KhumaynF, the Assembly of Experts ( madjlis-i
khibrigan, created at the end of 1982, a group of
seventy-two experts chosen to appoint the future
supreme mardja c ) having recently (October 1986)
criticized the “heir-apparent”, Ayatullah Muntazirt;
Hudjdjat al-Islam RafsandjanF, President of Parlia¬
ment, now appears to be a possible successor.

5. Qualifications, selection, functions,
consultative role and titles of the mardja^-i
taklid. Among the conditions necessary for assuming
the position of mardja^-i taklid , six are judged indispen¬
sable: maturity ( bulugh ), intelligence ( c ak[), faith
(Iman ), justice ( c adalat ), being of legitimate birth
( tahdrat-i mawlid) and of the male sex ( dhukirat ; some
women may, under exceptional circumstances, attain
the level of idjtihad, but they cannot be mardja c -i taklid).
Other conditions are sometimes required: literacy,
possession of hearing and sight, and being free, i.e.
not a slave (Algar (1969), 8 f., following BurudjirdF,
SangladjF). In addition to these preliminary condi¬
tions, the future mardja c must be qualified to practice
idjlihad , receive the idjaza from c ulama 3 of repute and
demonstrate his knowledge through his teaching, his
sermons, his discussions, his writings, etc. The mardja c
must be generally acknowledged as the most learned
( aHam ) person of his time. However, this title cannot
be awarded to him through appointment, selection or
election. His authority can only be confirmed by the
universal recognition of the Imam! community (Hairi
(1977), 62; it seems however that there was at Kura
a kind of “college of cardinals^ deciding on the choice
of the supreme mardja c , the Ayatullah al- c Uzma; see
Binder, 134).

The essential function of the mardja c -i taklid —also
called mukallad —is to guide the community of those
who “imitate” his teaching and follow his precepts, in
particular concerning the following: application of the
rules of the sharia ( furu c -i din); judicial solutions or
legal qualifications ( ahkam ) in regard to the problems
of contemporary life. Imitation or emulation of the
mardja*- has no connection, in principle, with the usul-i
din which are derived from faith (iman) and from inner
conviction (yakin ). The mudjtahid established as mardja*
must pronounce judicial decisions (fatwas) and write
one or more books to guide his mukallids (risala-yi
c amaliyya , a kind of practical treatise; tawdlh al-masaHl,
“explanation of problems” etc.).

For his part, the mukallid has particular duties,
especially as regards consultation of the mardf-i taklid
to whom access is sometimes difficult. The rules of
conduct in this respect are explained at length by
AnsarF who forbids taklid of a dead mudjtahid and
stresses the role of the most learned (aHam) mudjtahid
in sanctioning worship and ritual. Every mukallid is
obliged to consult him, to follow or to “imitate" him,
either directly, or in a case of obvious impossibility,
through the intermediacy of an honest man who has
himself witnessed to conduct of the mardja c , or through
consultation of a book of rules of behaviour written by
the latter. In cases of doubt or contradiction,
prudence (ihtiyat) is recommended (on these
complicated rules for consultation of the mardja*, see
the analysis in the Sirat al-nadjat of AnsarF, in Cole
(1983), 42 ff.). These criteria represent only general
principles, no specific process having been established
for the choice of a mardja* (cf. Algar (1969), 10).

With the development of the concept of mardjaHyyat ,
the economic power enjoyed by the mudjtahids has
been concentrated in the hands of one man or of a
small group of men. Besides the collection and

distribution of zakat and khums , the administration of
wakf/awkaf (taken under state control by the PahlavFs),
the mudjtahids have economic and family ties with the
merchant-artisan class of the bazar. Imam! S/araa 5
have also sometimes taken advantage of threats posed
to political authority by movements such as the Sufis,
ShaykhFs, BabFs, etc. In fact, they have taken the
initiative in countering or representing the doctrines
and activities of groups seeking to find alternative
solutions to the prolonged absence of the Hidden
Imam (wilayat-i sup, shl*a-yi kamil, rukn-i rdbi* (“fourth
pillar” of Shaykhism), bab, etc.). Despite periods of
tension or confrontation, mudjtahids and maradji*
claiming the niyabat-i *amma have in varying degrees
given a certain amount of support to the existing
temporal power and have formulated a “variable
approach” towards accommodation with an illegal
regime established de facto (cf. Calder (1982), 6 ).
However, remaining generally mistrustful of both
spiritual and temporal powers, the maradji* claimed
for themselves an important role in the political life of
Kadjar Iran (see especially Algar (1969)). Although
abstaining from political activity, AnsarF formulated
the notion of mardja*-i taklid-i a*la which offers the
potential for political utilisation (cf. Cole (1983), 46
and below). Some of his successors have strongly
resisted foreign economic, cultural and political influ¬
ences favoured by the international context and by the
political choices of the Kadjars. They nevertheless
held extremely diverse opinions regarding the events
of the constitutional revolution of 1905-11 (cf. Lamb-
ton (1970 B); Hairi (1976-7), (1977), 55 ff.; Arjo-
mand (1981)). In fact, neither the supporters nor the
opponents of the constitution have ever preached the
establishment of a government directly controlled by
the mudjtahids. It is quite clear that recent events in the
Middle East (in particular the seizure of power by the
religious in Iran (1979), the Iran- c Irak war (since
1980) and the situation in Lebanon) have added to the
difficulties of ShF c F believers, increasingly preoccupied
with political choices and economic problems.

Since the Kadjar period, the number of titles and
functions, civil as well as religious, has increased
considerably in Iran. This has given rise to abuses,
especially as regards the title of Ayatullah [ q.v. in
Suppl.], often used to denote a mardja*-i taklid.
Although the distinctions remain somewhat fluid,
current usage seems to describe a mardja*-i taklid by
the epithet Ayatullah al-*Uzmd, the term Ayatullah alone
being used to describe a mudjtahid and Hu djdj at al-Islam
an aspiring mudjtahid (Momen, 205 f.). According to
a recent decree of KhumaynF (September_ 1984),
certain *ulama 3 who used to call themselves Ayatullah
arc henceforward to bear the title of Hu djdj at al-Islam
(Momen, 298 f.; the two titles having been used inter¬
changeably until the creation of the hawdayi c ilmiyya
of Kum in the 1920s: Djalal MatFnF, 583 ff.). The
question may be asked whether the replacement of the
title of Ayatullah by that of Imam to designate
Kh umaynF implies a change in the religious hierarchy
(i.e. the creation of a title superior to that of Ayatullah
al-*Uzma) or is simply an indication of political func¬
tion (Momen, ibid. ; on these problems of ShF c F titles
and their historical precedents, see Djalal MatFnF; on
the epithet Imam for KhumaynF, 603 f.).

Bibliography and abbreviations : Concer¬
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MARDJA C -I TAKLID

555

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1800-1925. Studies presented to Professor L. P. Elwell-
Sutton, ed. E. Bosworth and C. Hillenbrand, Edin¬
burgh 1983; W. Madelung, A treatise of the Sharif al-
Murtada on the legality of working for the government, in
BSOAS, xliii (1980), 18-31; idem, ShiHte discussions
on the legality of the Kharaj, in Procs. of the Ninth
Congress of the Union Europeenne des Arabisants et
Islamisants, Leiden 1981; idem, Authority in Twelver
ShiHsm in the absence of the Imam, in La notion d ’autorite
au Moyen Age. Islam , Byzance, Occident, ed. G.
Makdisi, Paris 1982, 163-73; Djalal MatinT, Bahthi
dar bara-yi sabika-i tarikhi-yi alkab wa c anawin-i c ulama ?
dar madhhab-i shTa, in Iran Nameh , i/4 (1983), 560-
608; H. Modarresi Tabatabari, Kharaj in ShiH law,
Oxford Univ. Ph.D. thesis 1982, unpubl.; M.
Momen, An introduction to ShiH Islam , New Haven
and London 1985; R. Mottahedeh, Loyalty and
leadership in an early Islamic society, Princeton 1980;

M. Mutahhari, Idjtihad dar Islam, in Bahthi, 35-68;
idem, Mushkil-i asdsidar sazman-i ruhaniyyat, in ibid .,

165- 98; idem, Mazdya wa khidmat-i marhum Ayatullah
Burudjirdi, in ibid. , 223-49; J. R. Perry, Karim Khan
Zand. A history of Iran 1747-1779, Chicago 1979; F.
Rajaee, Islamic values and world view. Khomeyni on
Man, the State and International Politics, Lanham, New
York and London 1983; M. Ramyar, Shaykh Tusf ,
Edinburgh Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1977, unpubl.;
Religion and politics in Iran, ed. N. R. Keddie, New
Haven and London 1983; G. Rose, Velayat-e Faqih
and the recovery of Islamic identity in the thought of
Ayatollah Khomeini, in Religion and politics (1983),

166- 88; A. Sachedina, al-Khums. The fifth in the
Imami ShiH legal system, in JNES, xxxix/4 (1980),
275-89; idem, Islamic messianism: the idea of the Mahdi
in Twelver ShiHsm, Albany 1981; G. Scarcia, A
proposito del problema della sovranita presso gli Imamiti,
in AIUON , N.S. vii (1957), 95-126; idem, Stato e
dottrine attuali della setta sciita imamita degli Shaikhi in
Persia , in Studie e Materiali di Storia della Religioni ,
xxix/2 (1958), 215-41; idem, (1958A) = Intorno alle
controversie tra Ahbari e Usuli presso gli Imamiti di
Persia, in RSO, xxxiii (1958), 211-50; idem, Kerman
1905: La l< guerra tra seihl e baladsarV 1 , in AIUON,

N. S. xiii (1963), 195-238; B. Scarcia Amoretti,

L ’imamismo in Iran nell ’epoca Seldgiuchide: a proposito
del problema della “communita ”, in La Bisaccia dello
Sheikh. Omaggio ad Alessandro Bausani, Venice 1981,
127-40; Scholars = Scholars, saints and Sufis, ed. N.
R. Keddie, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1972;
ShiHsme imamite = Le ShiHsme imamite, ed. T. Fahd,
Paris 1970; A. Tabari, The role of the clergy in modern
Iranian politics, in Religion and Politics (1983), 47-72;
M. H. Tabataba 5 !, Idjtihad wa taklid dar Islam wa
ShTa. in Bahthi, 13-22; idem, Wilayat wa zPamat, in
ibid. , 71-99; M. TalikanT, Tamarkuz wa c adam-i
tamarkuz dar mardjaHyyat wa fatwa, in ibid. , 201-11;
idem, Malikiyyat dar Islam, n.p., n.d.; idem, Dj ihad
wa shihadat, Tehran 1385/1965; W. M. Watt, The
significance of the early stages of Imami ShiHsm, in
Religion and Politics (1983), 21-32; Abu TFadl
Mu saw! Zandjam, SharaHt wa wazdHf-i mardja c ,
dans Bahthi, 25-31. (J. Calmard)

MARDJAN (a.), cor al. As a rule, red coral

(Corallium rubrum) is used as a piece of jewelry; the
black and white coral are also mentioned. The Persian
term bussadh, often employed as a synonym, strictly
speaking is the root of the coral “which grows as a
stone in the sea in the same way as a tree on land” (al-

KazwTni, Cosmography, i, 212,7), as well as the subsoil
to which it is stuck.

With the pearl ( luHu 5 [q.v. ]) and amber (kahruba
[q.v. ]), the coral belongs to the organic products which
were however, as in our time, mostly associated with
the precious stones (djawahir), i.e. the minerals
(ma c adin). The most detailed information on the coral
is given by al-Tlfashl (see Bibl.), according to which
the coral belongs to the mineral kingdom on the one
hand because of its petrification (taha djdj ur ). and to the
vegetable one on the other because it grows on the
bottom of the sea like a tree with branches and twigs.
For the rest, descriptions are taken over from Anti¬
quity. According to Theophrastus, the coral, which
grows in the sea, is like a stone, red and round like a
carrot ( De lapidibus, 38). Pliny ( Historia naturalis, xxxii,
11 ) repeats a number of older tales on the way coral
is won. He describes it as a shrub which, on green
stalks, sprouts green, soft berries which petrify, turn
red the moment they come out of the water and look
like cornelians. According to Aristotle, the coral is “a
red-coloured stone which grows in the sea. If put in
dung and putrescent material, it is often used
[chemically]” (al-Kazwini, Cosmography, i, 238, 5-6).
According to the so-called “Stone-book of Aristotle”,
the coral grows in the way branches do, and puts forth
thin or thick twigs ( Kitab al-Ahdjar, see Bibl.).

As opposed to these relatively sober statements,
Ps.-Apollonius of Tyana [see balInus] enlarges and
speculates upon the double vegetable-mineral nature
of the coral: “It resembles the waterplants; it
originates from fire and earth through the inter¬
mediary of water... its body is mineral-like because
hot fire and dry earth combine in it with the help of
water, but its spirit is vegetable-like because water
acts as a mediator... when water, warmed by the sun,
absorbs the dryness of the earth, it becomes able, in
its turn, to attract the warmth and dryness of the sun,
and so the coral grows gradually like a plant; in cold
air however it petrifies... its vegetable character is
shown by the fact that it grows and branches in
proportion to the warmth which the water, mixed with
dryness, causes to mount in it as nourishment”, see
Sirr al-khallka wa-san c at al-tabCa. Buch iiber das Geheimnis
der Schopfung und die Darstellung der Natur, ed. Ursula
Weisser, Aleppo 1979, 348, 7-351,8; cf. also the
shortened translation by the same author in Das “Buch
iiber das Geheimnis der Schopfung ” von Pseudo-Apollonius
von Tyana, Berlin-New York 1980, 120 f. ( Ars medica,
iii, 2). In al-Tlfashi, who in general quotes Apollonius
extensively, the same passage is found on p. 178 f.

Coral is repeatedly said to be won at Marsa ’1-
Kharaz ( = La Calle in Algeria); from a boat, a
wooden cross, weighted with a stone, is sunk on a rope
to the bottom of the sea; the boat sails up and down
so that the corals get caught at the extremities of the
cross, which then is weighed with a jerk. Then
emerges a body with a brown crust, branched like a
tree. On the markets, these corals are abraded until
they shine and show the desired red colour, then are
sold in great quantities at a low price. Spain, Sicily
and “the Frankish” i.e. probably the European, coast
are given as other finding places. From the western
Mediterranean, still nowadays the main deposit area
of coral, it is shipped to the Orient, the Yemen, India
and East Asia. At the finding places, coral is put on
the market in quantities of 10.5 Egyptian rath,
costing, in Egypt and c Irak, 1,020 dirhams if polished,
1,100 dirhams if unpolished. Otherwise, prices fluc¬
tuate greatly according to the market situation (al-
DimashkT, Kitab al-Ishara ila mahasin al-tidjara, in
Wiedemann, Aufsatze, i, 858).

557

MARDJAN — al-MARGHINANI

In medicine, coral is used above all in collyria
against eye diseases (full description by al-Tamlml,
see Bibi). Dioscurides deals with it under xoupaXiov,
var. xopaXXiov (in the Arabic translation, kuraliyun ),
and mentions the XtGoSevSpov “stone-tree” as a
synonym because of the above-mentioned vegetable-
mineral double nature of the coral. It is astringent and
cooling, reduces proliferations, is effective against
haemorrhage, softens the spleen and is a proved
remedy against blockage of the urinary tracts. The
curative property of the branches and roots is
heightened if they are crushed, put in a clay jar,
burned overnight in an oven and then baked. Mixed
with tooth-powder, pounded coral cleanses and
whitens the teeth, purifies the interstices between
them, strengthens the gums and removes cavities in
the roots. Until today, pulverised coral serves in the
Orient as an anti-epilepticum and as a remedy against
dysentery.

Bibliography. Dioscurides, De materia medica ,
ed. M. Wellmann, lib. V 121 = tr. Stephanos-
Hunayn, Hayula 5 l-tibb , ed. C. Dubler and E.
Teres, Tetuan-Barcelona 1952-57, v, 102; Jutta
Schonfeld, Uber die Steine. Das 14. Kapitel aus dem
“Kitab al-Mursid” des ... at-Tamimi, Freiburg 1976,
71-7, and commentary 164-7 (thorough and
stimulating); BTrunT, K. al-Djamahir fi ma^rifat al-
djawahir , Haydarabad 1355, 137 f., 189-93; Ibn
Biklarish, K. al-MustaHni, ms. Naples, Bibl. Naz.
Ill, F. 65, fol. 23b,9; Ibn Hubal, Mukhtdrdt,
Haydarabad 1362, ii, 42; Musa b. c Ubayd Allah,
Shark asmd 5 al- c ukkar. Un glossaire de la matiere medicale
compose par Maimonide, ed. M. Meyerhof, Cairo
1940, no. 227; Ibn al-Baytar, Diami c . Bulak 1291,
i, 93,20-94,18 (= Leclerc no. 282); Tlfashl, K.
Azhar al-ajkdr fi djawahir aLahdjar , ed. M. Yusuf
Hasan and M. Basyunl KhafadjI. Cairo 1977, 178-
85; cf. J. Clement-Mullet, Essai sur la mineralogie
arabe , new impr. Amsterdam n.d. 173-7; Yusuf b.
c Umar al-Ghassanf. Mu c tamad, ed. Mustafa al-
Sakka, Beirut 1395/1975, 24 f.; KazwTnl, K.
c AdjaHb al-makhlukat wa-gharaSb al-mawdjuddt.

Kosmographie , ed. F. Wustenfeld, Gottingen
1848/49, i, 212, 238, tr. J. Ruska, Das Steinbuch aus
der Kosmographie des... al-Kazwini, 9, 36 f. ( Beilage
zum Jahresbericht 1895/96 der prov. Oberrealschule
Heidelberg ); Ibn al-Kuff, c Umda, Haydarabad 1356,
i, 220, cf. H.G. Kircher, Die “Einfachen Heilmitlel’ ’
aus dem “Handbuch der Chirurgie” des Ibn al-Quff
Ph.D. thesis Bonn 1967, no. 40; AntakI, Tadhkira ,
Cairo 1371/1952, i, 75, 4-20; Tuhfat aLahbdb,
glossaire de la matiere medicale marocaine , ed. H. P. J.
Renaud and G. S. Colin, Paris 1934, no. 73; Dozy,
Suppl. ii, 578 f.; W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du
Levant au Moyen-Age, Leipzig 1885-6, ii, 609 f.; M.
Berthelot, La chimie au Moyen Age, i, 1893 (new
impr. Osnabriick-Amsterdam 1967), 14, 75, 187,
200, 208, 211, 263 (based on Latin sources); K. al-
Ahdjar li-Aristatalls. Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, ed.
and tr. J. Ruska, Heidelberg 1912, no. 53; M. A.
H. Ducros, Essai sur le droguier populaire arabe de
I’Inspectorat des Pharmacies au Caire , Cairo 1930, no.
215; E. Wiedermann, Aufsatze zixr arabischen
Wissenschaftsgeschichte , ed. W. Fischer, Hildesheim-
New York 1970, i, 858, 868 f. (A. Dietrich)
MARDJUMAK AHMAD [see MERDJUMEK,
AHMED B. ILYAS],

MAREA [see marya].

MARGHELAN [see marghinan] .

MAR GH INAN . later form Marghelan, a town
ofFarghana in Central Asia, situated to the

south of the Sir Darya or Jaxartes, on a small
river now called the Margelan Say.

It was a place of modest importance in the first
Islamic centuries as one of the main towns, with inter
alia Andidjan [q. v.) , of the district of Farghana known
as Lower Nasya; according to al-MukaddasI, 272 (see
also Le Strange, Lands, 479; Ibn Hawkal 2 , 513-14, tr.
491; al-Sam c am, Ansab, facs. ed. f. 522a), it had a
Friday mosque and markets. Coins were first minted
there under the Samanids. Then under the Karakh-
anids [see ilek-khans] , coins were occasionally
minted by members of the eastern branch of the
dynasty, e.g. at Marghinan and the neighbouring
towns of Akhsikath and Tunkath by the son of Yusuf
Kadir Khan. Mahmud Toghril Kara Khan (451 -
67/1059-75) and then by the latter’s son c Umar
Toghril Tigin (467/1074-5), see G. C. Miles, in
Camb. hist, of Iran, v, 374, 376; E. von Zambaur, Die
Miinzpragungen des Islams zeitlich und orthch geordnet , i,
Wiesbaden 1968, 233. It was in the later Karakhanid
or Kara Khitay [q. v. ] period that the famous HanafT
jurist Burhan al-Din al-Marghlnani [see next article]
was born.

Marghinan appears on a Chinese map of the 14th
century as Ma-rh-i-nang (Bretschneider, Mediaeval
researches , ii, 54). Under the Mongols, TTmurids and
Ozbegs it continued to play a certain role, e.g. in the
fighting of rival contenders for power amongst the
TTmurids’ epigoni in the opening years of the
10th/16th century, recorded in Mlrza Haydar
Dughlat’s TaSikk-i Rashldi, see tr. N. Elias and E. D.
Ross, London 1895, index. Babur gives a description
of Marghinan as it was at this time in the Babur-name,
tr. Beveridge, 6-7. The town was famed for its fruits,
including a special variety of pomegranates; the
population was mainly of Sarts, i.e. sedentary
Tadjiks, who were rough and turbulent. It was prob¬
ably under the Ozbeg Turks, who replaced these
Sarts, that the form Marghllan/Marghelan appeared,
giving the Russian form Margelan.

It subsequently came within the khanate of
Khokand [q.v.] y and just prior to the Russian occupa¬
tion was already a centre for textile production,
including silk and cotton; the American traveller E.
Schuyler described it in 1873 as an unfortified place,
with a population of ca. 30,000 ( Turkistan. Notes of a
journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and
Kuldja, London 1876, ii, 49-50). When General
Skobelev marched into the region, Mar gh inan was
occupied without resistance (8/20 September 1875). A
settlement, called New Margelan, was founded two
years later as the capital of the oblast of Fergana in the
Governor-Generalship of Turkestan, some 7 miles/12
km. south of Old Marghinan. and the new town was
renamed Skoblev from 1907 till 1924. When the
Bolsheviks began to impose their rule in Russian
Central Asia, Margelan became a centre of Basmaci
[<?.zc] resistance from January 1918 till 1922 (see G.
R. Wheeler, The modern history of Soviet Central Asia ,
London 1964, 108 ff.). Old Margelan is still a place
of significance, with nearly 48,000 inhabitants, but
has been outstripped in growth by New Margelan,
now called Fergana, the administrative centre of the
Fergana oblast of the Uzbek S.S.R., which already in
1951 had a population of ca. 50,000.

Bibliography: Given in the article; see also

Barthold, Turkestan, 158-9, 315.

(C. E. Bosworth)

al-MAR GH INANI . the name of two
families of HanafI lawyers; the nisba comes
from their native town and the scene of their
activities, Mar gh inan [q.v. ] in Farghana.

1.1. The most important was Burhan al-Din Abu
’L-HaSAN C AlI B. AbI BaKR B. C AbD AL-PjALIL
al-FarghanI al-MarghinanI. the author of the

558

al-MARGHINANI — MARIB

al-Bidaya

author’s own commentary

comm, by al-Sighnaki,
al-Nihaya

(written in 700/1300)

comm, by al-Babartl
(d. 786/1384),
al-Hnaya

comm, by al-Kurlanl
(8th/J 4th century),
al-Kijdya

synopsis by Mahmud b. Sadr al-Shari^a I
(7th/13th century),
al- Wikaya

comm, by $adr al-Sharl^a II synopsis by

(d. 747/1346), Sadr al-Shart^a II,

Sharh al-Wikaya al-Nukaya

(written in 743/1342-3) |

comm, by al-Kuhistanl
(d. 950/1543),
Didmi ( al-rumuz

celebrated Hidaya. He acquired his knowledge on his
travels, then still the usual way of studying in Islam.
His principal teachers were Nadjm al-Dln Abu Hafs
c Umar b. Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Nasafi (d.
537/1142-3), al-Sadr al-Shahid Husam al-Dln c Umar
b. c Abd al- c Aziz b. c Umar b. Maza (d. 536/1141-2)
and Abu c Amr c Uthman b. c AlI al-Baykandl (d.
552/1157), a pupil of al-SarakhsI. He studied al-
Tirmidhl’s work on tradition under Diya 5 al-Dln Abu
Muhammad Sa c id b. As c ad with the isnad given in al-
Kurashl, i, 259, no. 679, and also with al-Hasan b.
c AlI al-Marghlnanl (al-Kurashi, i, 198, no. 487). He
himself, as was often done at this time, wrote a record
of his studies, but it does not appear to have survived.
He far surpassed his teachers and won recognition in
his native town also, where he died in 593/1197. Of
his works, the following are known, some surviving in
manuscript and others only known from literary
references: 1. Nadir al-madhhab (Kur., Lak., in
H^djdji Khalifa, no. 13,790, probably wrongly, al-
Madhahib)\ 2. K. Manasik al-ha didi (Kur., Lak., H.
Kh .. no. 12,943); 3. K. fi d-FardAid (Kur., Lak.), also
called Fara at- c Uthmdm (H. Kh., no. 8,989); 4. two
collections of fatwas:K. al-Tadjnis wa ’ l-mazid (Kutl.,
Lak., H. Kh., no. 2,467; mss. in Brockelmann) and
5. Mukhtdrat al-nawazil (Lak.; in Kutl., called K.
Mukhtar Madjmu c al-nawazil , and in H. Kh., no.
11586, called Mukhtar al-fatdwa\ mss. in
Brockelmann); 6. Mazid fifurud al-Hanafiyya (H Kh.,
no. 11,838; identical with no. 4?); 7. a commentary
on al-Shaybanl’s al-DjamF al-kabir (H. Kh ., ii, 567);
8 . his principal work is the legal compendium, K.
Bidayat al-mubtadi (mss. in Brockelmann), based on al-
Kuduri’s Mukhtasar and al-Shaybanl’s al-DidmF al-
saghir. On this work, he himself wrote a large
commentary in 8 volumes, the Kifayat ai-muntaha. But
before he had completed it, he thought it was much
too diffuse and decided to write a second commen¬
tary, the celebrated Hidaya , which later writers
repeatedly edited and annotated. The most important
commentaries and synopses are given in the table
below.

For the manuscripts and printed texts of these
commentaries and synopses and of many supercom¬
mentaries and glosses, see Brockelmann, II 2 , 466-9, S
I, 644-9; a printed edition of the Hidaya appeared in
4 vols., Cairo 1326/1908.

Bibliography : al-Kurashi, al- Dja wahir al-
mudPa, Haydarabad 1332, i, 383, no. 1058: ^Abd
al-Hayy al-LaknawI, al-FawaHd al-bahiyya, Cairo
1324, 141 ff. (synopsis of the Tabakat of Kafawi);
Ibn Kutlubugha, Tadyal-taradjim, ed. Flugel, Leip¬
zig 1862, no. 124; Brockelmann, loc. cit., and the
literature there given.

His sons and pupils were:

2. c Imad al-DIn al-FarghanI: cf. al-LaknawI, 146.

3. c Umar Nizam al-DIn al-FarghanI. Two works
by him are recorded: 1. Fawa^id (H. Kh., no. 9305);
2 . Dja wahir al-fikh, which he compiled from the
Mukhtasar of al-Tahawi and other works (H. Kh., no,
4,291; mss. in Brockelmann, S I, 649; cf. al-Kurashi,
i, 394; al-LaknawI, 149).

4. Muhammad Abu ’l-Fath Djalal al-DIn al-
FarghanI: cf. Kutl., 137 and al-LaknawI, 182; in al-
Kurashl, ii, 99, apparently identical with no. 2.

5. A son of no. 2 and grandson of no. 1: Abu ’l-
Fath Zayn al-DIn c Abd al-RahIm b. AbI Barr
c Imad al-DIn b. c AlI Burhan al-DIn b. AbI Barr b.
c Abd al-DjalIl al-FarghanI al-MarghinanI. He
wrote the work on legal procedure in civil cases enti¬
tled al-Fusul al- c imddiyya, which he completed in Sha-
c ban 651/October 1253 in Samarkand. Cf. H. Kh ..
no. 9,094; Lak., 93; Brockelmann, I 2 , 475-6, S I 656,
where the mss. are given.

II. Another family of HanafT lawyers goes back to
c Abd al- c Az!z b. c Abd al-Razzar b. Nasr b. Dja c far
b.*Sulayman al-MarghInani. who died in 477/1084-
5 in Marghlnan at the age of 68. Of his six sons who
attained fame as mufti s, we may mention Abu 'l-
Hasan Zahir al-DIn c Ali (d. 506/1112-13). His son
and pupil was ZahIr al-DIn al-Hasan b. c AlI Abu ’l-
Mahasin. Four works by him are recorded: al-Akdiya,
al-Fatawa, al-Fawa^id and al-Shurut, of which only the
last survives in manuscript. He was the teacher of the
famous Fakhr al-DIn Kadlkhan (d. 592/1196) and of
Burhan al-DIn al-Marghlnanl \q v.}.

Bibliography : Sam c am, K. al-Ansab, fol. 522a;
KurashI, nos. 487, 850, 1010; Laknawl, 62, 97,
121; Flugel, Classen derhanaf. Rechtsgelehrten , Leipzig
1860, 309; Brockelmann, I 2 , 471, S I, 651.

(W. Heffening)

MARHALA (a.), pi. mardh.il , in mediaeval Islamic
usage, a stage of travel, normally the distance
which a traveller can cover in one day; it was, there-

MARIB

559

fore, obviously a variable measurement of length,
dependent on the ease or difficulty of the terrain to be
crossed. The classical Arabic geographers frequently
use the term. Al-Mukaddasi [q.v. ] in one place (206)
gives as his norm 6 to 7 farsakhs or parasangs (the
farsakh [q.v.] being roughly 6 km.), and has an
ingenious orthographical notation for mardhil of less
than 6 or more than 7 farsakhs (cf. A. Miquel, La
geographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu } au milieu du
ll e sieccle, Paris-The Hague 1967-80, i, 328 n. 1). But
elsewhere (64 n. c), his marhala works out at an
average of 8.6 farsakhs = 50 km. (cf. Miquel, Ahsan at-
taqastm ... (La meilleure repartition ...), Damascus 1963,
139 n. 6).

Bibliography: Given in the article. (Ed.)

MARIB, Ma 5 rib (mryb or mrb in the ancient South
Arabian inscriptions), in classical antiquity, capital
of the Sabaean realm in South-West
Arabia, now the chef-lieu of the muhafaza of the
same name in the Yemeni Arab Republic, lying some
135 km. to the east of San c a 5 . At the last census in
1975, the muhafaza of Marib counted 70,000
inhabitants, and the kada? of Marib—with a popula¬
tion density of 2.4 inhabitants per km. 2 —13,000
inhabitants, consisting of about 10,000 residents,
2,000 Bedouins and 1,000 refugees. The c uzla of
Marib counted 1,900 residents, and the place Marib
itself only 292 inhabitants, of whom 270 were men
and 22 women, in 48 houses.

The ancient town of Marib lies in a plain which
rises 1,160-1,200 m. above sea level, and which forms
the dry delta of the great Adhana wadi (now
pronounced Dhana). The latter drains an extensive
area of over 10,000 km. 2 in the north-eastern
highlands of the Yemen which has an abundant rain¬
fall. Since the Marib region lies at the fringe of the
desert in an arid zone which has an annual rainfall of
less than 100 mm., agriculture is only possible by way
of irrigation through flooding. The Adhana wadi
carries water twice a year, namely for some two weeks
in spring and some six weeks in late summer. Before
reaching the oasis of Marib, this wadi forces its way
through a narrow passage between the Balak moun¬
tains. By constructing a dam, extensive irrigation
became possible and the deposition of fertile clay
easier, so that conditions for a lush vegetation were
created. The Kur 5 anic statement in Surat Saba 5 about
a “good land” ( baldat un tayyibat un : XXXIV, 15) is
rightly applied to Marib and its surroundings (al-
HamdanT, I kill, viii, 57,1). The land of Saba 5 around
Marib is said to have been one of the most fertile and
best irrigated regions of the Yemen (al-Mas c udI,
Murudj _, iii, 366, 9-367,2 = § 1252), with irrigation
creating the possibility of three sowings per year
(\akut, Mu^djam, iv, 383,10). The actual place of the
same name stands inside the ancient urban area on a
great hill of ruins which is increased by the debris of
successive cultures. It lies at 15° 26' N. and 45° 16'
E., about as far from the Red Sea as from the Gulf of
c Adan. By its favourable position in an oasis between
the highland on the one side and the desert on the
other, Marib was predestined to be the capital of the
Sabaean realm, the core of which was formed by the
urban district of Saba 5 with Marib as its centre.
Besides, Marib was one of the most important
halting-places on the ancient caravan-route which
linked the regions producing incense with the
Mediterranean Sea and which, along a chain of water-
places, skirted the spurs of the wadis on the eastern
slope of the range of hills between the mountains and
the sandy plain of the desert. Arriving from Shabwa
in Hadramawt or Timna c in Kataban respectively,

two different routes of the incense-road led on from
Marib, one north-westward through the Djawf, the
other first northward, to unite again before Nadjran
[q.v.]y the next important destination on the route.
Information about the course of these routes and their
halting-places can in many cases be gained from later
Arabic itineraries, because the Islamic pilgrim roads
often followed the ancient trade-routes.

In antiquity, Marib was a large, walled town with
an area of about 110 hectares/275 acres. According to
Pliny (Naturalis historia , vi, 32, 160), it is said to have
had a circumference of six miles. From the shape of
its ruins, still perceptible in our days, the town formed
an irregular quadrangle, with a maximum extension
of 1,430 m. in length and 1,070 m. in breadth. The
remains of the ancient town, such as blocks of stone
from the citywall and other constructions as well as
fragments of columns, have disappeared almost
completely in the last decades through unauthorised
diggings. Consequently, since no scientific
archaeological excavations have been carried out, for
the description of ancient Marib we still depend upon
the information of the European travellers who, in the
19th century, succeeded in penetrating as far as
Marib under adventurous and dangerous
circumstances. These were the two Frenchmen Th.J.
Arnaud (1843) and J. Halevy (1870), and the
Austrian E. Glaser on his third journey to South
Arabia (1888). It is to the latter that we owe the most
detailed, accurate and valuable observations.

More recent investigations in the Marib oasis,
carried out by the German Archaeological Institute in
San c a 5 , have led to the conclusion that the irrigation
sediments in places reach as high as 30 m. At a rate
of sedimentation of 1.1 cm. per year, this height
would lead to an irrigation period of ca. 2,700 years,
i.e., if irrigation ended around the end of the 6th
century A.D. or the first part of the 7th century, its
beginning would reach back as far as the later period
of the third millennium B.C. As for inscriptions,
Marib is mentioned in one of the earliest Sabaean
texts which names a ruler, namely in G1 1719 + 1717
+ 1718 = MAFRAY-al-Balak al-Djanubl 1, a rock-
inscription in which one of the governors (fkyn) of
Marib (mryb), the governor (fkyn) of Yada c 5 il Yanuf,
dedicates some stone-hewn basins to a deity. H. von
Wissmann, whose investigations into the chronology
of ancient Sabaean texts is largely utilised in the
following, dates this text to around 755 B.C.; its
ductus belongs to the oldest paleographic stage of
ancient South Arabian script. But already before this
period, Marib may well have become the capital of the
Sabaean realm and the centre of South Arabia. The
earliest Sabaean inscription bearing directly upon the
town of Marib is probably the three-line
boustrophedon inscription (Ga 46), published by G.
Garbini in Oriens Antiquus, xii (1973), 143. Here
Yitha°amar Bayyin, son of Sumhu c aU, relates that he
has walled in mryb hwkw. The Mukarrib of Saba 5
named here is most probably to be dated to around
715 B.C., while Hawkawu, which figures after the
name of the town of Marib, is likely to indicate a part
of the town or a section of its fortifications.

Rock-inscriptions dating from the same period or
even earlier, and likewise originating from the Marib
region, mention the oasis area of the town. These
inscriptions, containing probably the oldest Sabaean
texts, inform us in ever recurring formulaic phrases
that, during the priesthood of their founder, the god
c Athtar drenched Saba 5 with rain in high summer and
spring. Occasionally the word “Gaww” is added to
Saba 5 , or the variant “Adhana from Yahwir to

560

MARIB

DiadRMk

Southern

oasi

Djabal

Balak

Awsat

*. •• ^ -oouinarn oasis- ■.•••.• s , , o ,

• • ' • a'. • • •t-Oladftte

'.M»hr«m* < IkTi*C/Y> - ’ o ^>■

3*m:Y ***

.• •»* .'
• ,• • % •

Bsf*k*/^farkT ' '•

I '. • . \_J S«dim*ntt in th* oasis

■ irrigation works

- Canal

A Small dam

1 2km

-——— Sattlamant
LilLO Uva/ Volcano
8and dunas
Wadi

Rocky outcrop
A Anciant ruin

Staap stap (within tha
sadimants of tha oasis)

Fig. 2. The Marib oases: physical geography.

fjimarum”. Gaww indicates the lowland, i.e. the
lower course of the wadi Adhana, while the expression
“Adhana from Yahwir to Himarum” probably also
describes the area of the Marib oasis. The name
Saba 5 , emerging here as the name of the region in
which Marib was situated, is originally the name of a
tribe which in the inscriptions is more than once
named together with Marib. So we find e.g. “the
tribe of Saba 5 , the lords of the town of Marib and its
valleys’’ ( ^bn/sbV^l/hgrn/mrb/w^srrhw: RES 3910,
2), or “the Sabaeans, the inhabitants of the town of
Marib’’ ( 5 sb^nlhwrwlhgrnlmryb : Ga 9,3-4 with a
reading corrected after F. Bron, in AION, xli [1981],
163). Still in Arabic tradition, Marib is indicated as
Ma 5 rib Saba 5 (e.g. al-Hamdani, Sifa, 26, 22) i.e. the
Marib which lies in Saba 5 . After Saba 5 , as a byname
of c Abd Shams, had been personified as the alleged
ancestor of the Sabaeans, and had been inserted into
a pedigree by Arab genealogists, Marib could thus
become the town of Saba 5 , that is to say of Saba 5 b.
Yashdjub b. Ya c rub b. Kahtan, who allegedly
founded it or after whom it also occasionally may have
been named (see e.g. Yakut, Mushtarik, ed. F.
Wustenfeld, 239, 17-8; Ibn Sa c id al-Maghribl,
Nashwat al-tarab , 87, 1-2; Ibn al-Mudjawir, Ta\ikh al-
mustabsir , 199, 1-2).

Line 4 of the fragmentary inscription RES 3943
relates that the ruler constructed both gates of Marib
and surrounded the town with towers, that is bastions
of limestone (blk). The ruler, whose name is not
retained in the text, may be Yitha°amar Bayyin, son
of Sumhu c all Yanuf, whose reign can be fixed around
510 B.C. When the Sabaean realm reached the zenith
of its power and founded a colony in Abyssinia, there
were among the colonists also emigrants from Marib,
as is shown by the indications of their origin dh-mryb ,
found in Sabaean inscriptions in Yeha and Melazo.

By its geographical position at the eastern side of the
mountains, Marib was protected only slightly by
nature: to the south, plains stretched out as far as
Timna c , the capital of Kataban, to the east as far as
Shabwa. the capital of Hadramawt, and to the north
as far as the towns of the Minaean realm. With the
rise and strengthening of these other ancient South
Arabian realms, fortification of Marib became an
urgent necessity. The town was not only the capital,
but had also become the eastern fortress of the land¬
locked Sabaean realm: its frontier with Kataban was
only some 25 km. south of Marib, and that with the
Minaeans only some 40 km. to the north. The
improvement of the traffic connections with the
Yemeni highlands and their maintenance became all
the more urgent through the danger threatening from
the south. Inscription CIH 955 + 418, dating from the
period of Sumhu c ali Yanuf around 390 B.C.,
mentions the construction of a road from Marib to
Sirwah, the second important town of the Sabaean
realm, to which refuge could be taken in case of
necessity. “The town which is revered’’ ( hgrnlthrgb) in
CIH 375,2, very probably also indicates Marib. From
this inscription, dealing with the construction of the
Awam temple, we learn that an attack from FCataban
against Saba 5 could be repelled and that its founder
brought peace to Marib. CIH 37, an inscription of the
vassal of Sum c ay in the Yemeni highlands drawn up
under king Karib 5 il Watar at the beginning of the 3rd
century B.C., speaks about the Sabaean overlords as
kings of Marib ( 3 i mlk/mryb ). The next information
about the construction of a wall of Marib cannot be
fitted in accurately, since only the name of the king’s
father, Yitha°amar Watar, has been preserved (RES
4452, CIH 626, G1 1110). The latter, however,
cannot be identified with either of the other rulers of
this name. On palaeographic grounds, the three frag-

Fig. 1

MARIB

561

ments belonging to this text can be dated to the middle
of the 2nd century B.C. The kings of Saba 5 repaired
the walls of their capital, above all at the time in which
danger from the outside was threatening. At that
time, this may still have been the encirclement by
Kataban in the south and Ma c m in the north, which
ended only when Saba 5 conquered the Minaean realm
in the last quarter of the 2nd century B.C. A
monumental inscription, occurring in at least nine
homonymous versions and compiled by H. von
Wissmann from more than fifty fragments (RES
2669, Fa 91 + 92, Gl 1103 and many others), reads as
follows: “Yada c 5 il Watar, king of Saba 5 , son of
Sumhu c ali Yanuf, walled Marib (mryb) in at the order
and promise of c Athtar and Hawbas and Almakah”.
Unfortunately, the name of this ruler is not known
from other inscriptions either, although von Wiss¬
mann plausibly dated him to around 30 B.C.

Shortly after the latter date, in 25-24 B.C., a
Roman army under Aelius Gallus, the proconsul of
Egypt, invaded South Arabia, escorted by Naba¬
taeans, and reached, as Strabo relates, the gates of the
Sabaean capital Marib. Although assaulted during a
period of six days, Marib was able to resist, for the
Romans were forced to withdraw because of scarcity
of water and disease among their troops. Pliny is
certainly not correct in counting Marib among the
destroyed cities. While besieging Marib, the Romans
probably laid waste the neighbourhood of the town
and destroyed the irrigation works of the oasis. After
their retreat, the most urgent task of the inhabitants
of Marib may well have been the reconstruction of the
dam, the sluices and the water-distributors.
Numerous fragments of Yada c 5 il Watar’s inscription
about the construction of the wall were found to have
been used again as building material near the north¬
ern sluice and its distributor installations. From this,
it may be concluded that ashlars were removed from
the city-wall, probably destroyed for the greater part,
in order to set up the irrigation works anew and to
revitalise the oasis of Marib. Is is not known at what
time the city-wall was reconstructed, because no
inscriptions about the construction of the wall are
known from a later period. At the time of E. Glaser’s
sojourn in Marib, the ancient city-wall, only one
metre thick and probably provided with eight gates,
was still preserved almost entirely. Air photographs of
recent years show on the western and northern side
only a few ruins of the ancient city-wall with its
bastions.

During the decades after the Roman campaign
against South Arabia, a period of decline set in for
Marib. The traditional dynasty of the kings of Saba 5
in Marib was pressed hard by rulers of four other
dynasties rising in the Yemeni highland. All of them
assumed also the title of king of Saba 5 and controlled
Marib alternately. Saba 5 and Himyar, which had
grown strong, were hostile to each other, each claim¬
ing the realm of the other. Henceforth, the kings of
both states bore the title “King of Saba 5 and Dh u
Raydan”, the latter being the royal castle in the
Himyarite capital of Zafar. In the same period,
Bedouins from the desert steppes also pressed forward
from the north and the east into the region of Marib,
and were admitted into the army as contingents. In an
inscription, the Bedouins of Marib ( 5C rb/mrb : CIH
353, 10) are explicitly mentioned among the troops
participating in a campaign. But even after South
Arabia, towards the end of the 3rd century A.D., had
come almost entirely under the domination of the
Himyar, and the highlands had become the centre of
the united Sabaeo-Himyarite realm, Marib still

retained a certain importance as the site of the central
sanctuary of the realm. The fact that Marib and its
inhabitants are mentioned even later on in Sabaean
inscriptions leads to the conclusion that the town still
enjoyed prestige and influence. Notwithstanding the
fact that caravan traffic had declined and trade had
been transferred to the sea-route, the prosperity of the
town had by no means disappeared. This is shown, to
a certain extent, by inscription Fa 74, erected in the
year 614 of the Himyarite era ( = 499 A.D.), accord¬
ing to which a citizen of Marib had ordered a stately
house with two bronze statues of lions and other
bronze statuettes to be erected for himself. The
fragments of columns, capitals, friezes and relief-
slabs, and above all the perfectly executed inscriptions
on stones preserved in Marib, bear eloquent witness
of the high level which artistic and manual skill had
reached in this town during antiquity. It had struck al-
HamdanT, too, that elsewhere in Yemen columns
dating from ancient times were not of such beauty and
value as those in Marib ( Iklil , viii, 151, 11-2). Alter
the Abyssinian conquest of the Yemen in 525, a
Christian church was also built in Marib, as we learn
from an inscription set up under king Abraha
( bH/mrb ): CIH 541, 66-7). One of the new churches,
consecrated in South Arabia according to the Vila
Sancti Gregentii , is said to have been in the middle of
Aava, which probably means Wadi Dhana, and thus
the oasis region of Marib.

The royal castle of Marib was SalhTn, which is also
the building of ancient South Arabia most frequently
mentioned in Sabaean inscriptions. If we admit that
the most ancient form of the name was Salhum (. slhm ),
the castle is already mentioned in the ancient Sabaean
inscription RES 3946, set up by Karib 5 il Watar prob¬
ably around 685 B.C. Line 5 relates that he con¬
structed the upper storey of his house Salhum. From
this statement it may even be concluded that the
stronghold was founded in a still earlier period. SalhTn
is mentioned with special frequency in the inscriptions
of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. which originate
from the Awam temple near Marib, the place of ruins
now called Mahram BilkTs. They mostly relate that
the king or one of his commanders returned safely to
SalhTn, or happiness is implored for the house of
SalhTn and its lords. SalhTn was also the place where
indigenous coins were minted on behalf of the
Sabaean realm.

Next to SalhTn, al-HamdanT mentions Hadjar and
al-KashTb as other castles of Marib (Iklil, viii, 99, 10).
From epigraphic tradition, these two are not known so
far. The name al-Hadjar, “the town”, is unusual for
a fortress, and may already raise doubts for that very
reason. According to al-HamdanT (Iklil), viii, 100, 2),
al-KashTb was built by a member of the Dhu Hazfar,
i.e. of that ancient eponymous kin of the KhalTl tribe
resident in and around Marib. According to Yakut
(Mu c diam, iv, 104, 6), the castle al-KashTb is said to
have been built at the order of king Shu rah bT] bin
Yahsib. Such a ruler, is, however, not attested
epigraphically. The name Shurahbll would fit in with
Shurahbi 5 il Ya c fur and the father’s name Yahsib with
Ilsharah Yahdib, with a faulty rendering of the
surname Yahdib. However, the defective title of a
“king of Saba 5 and the Tihama and their Bedouins”
which is also mentioned (Yakut, Mu c dj_am, iv, 104, 7-
8 ), points to a king of the later period, i.e. rather to
Shurahbi 5 il Ya c fur who reigned in the middle of the
5th century A.D. than to Ilsharah Yahdib who lived
more than two centuries earlier. Since kashib means
“new”, both in Sabaean and Arabic—an explanation
given by al-HamdanT himself in another place (Iklil,

562

MARIB

ii, 317,7)—the name of the fortress may correspond to
names like Newcastle, Neufchateau or Neuburg.

The most important temple of ancient Marib was
the sanctuary of Awam of the god Almakah, now
called Haram Bilkls or Mahram Bilkls. It lay at the
eastern edge of Yasran, the southern part of the oasis,
at the other side of the wadi and at a distance of 3.5
km. south-east of the town. Partly excavated in 1952
by an American expedition under Wendell Phillips, it
produced hundreds of dedicatory inscriptions, often
quite extensive, which were erected in the entrance
hall between the middle of the 1st and the 4th
centuries A.D. They are our most important source
for the history of that turbulent period. The sanctuary
consists of a large, oval construction with a spacious
courtyard, surrounded by a high, thick circular wall.
The latter is made up of two mantles, an outer one
and inner one consisting of ashlars, kept together by
lateral walls, the hollow spaces being filled up with
debris. The longitudinal axis between the north¬
western gate and the mausoleum on the opposite side
measures about 105 m., while the latitudinal axis,
which runs from the inner gate of the rectangular
entrance hall, constructed before the circular wall, to
the south-west, measures about 75 m. The temple
court-yard thus had a surface of ca. 6,000 m 2 . The
construction, with its strongly fortified courtyard was
originally perhaps also conceived as a refuge fortress,
as is suggested by the name of the temple, ■’wm, which
very probably means “place of refuge”. The inscrip¬
tion CIH 957, placed in the wall of the temple, relates
that Yada c 5 il Dharih. son of Sumhu c air and Mukar-
rib of Saba 5 , erected the wall of the Awam, the house
of Almakah. According to von Wissmann, this ruler
is to be dated around 670 B.C. The concept of the
entire construction presumably reaches back to this
ruler, who is known as a temple builder, even if the
works were transformed and changed in later times.
Thus the oval enclosing wall, originally no doubt as
high as 29 layers of ashlars i.e. 8.70 m. without the
frieze, was, since the first quarter of the 4th century
B.C., raised by 13 more layers of ashlars (cf. CIH
375). This was done in order to make up for the heap
of sand and deposit which had accumulated in the
precinct of the wall since the time of foundation and
to raise the wall to its original height.

The last constructional renovation which is attested
epigraphically was undertaken in the second half of
the 1st century A.D. under king Karib 5 il Watar
Yuhan c im “for the prosperity of the house of Salhln
and the town of Marib” ( hgrn/mryb : CIH 373). It was
also in this sanctuary that the tribe of Saba 5 , i.e. the
inhabitants of the town and oasis of Marib, offered
thanks for the fertility granted to their land through
the water of wadi Adhana (cf. e.g. Sh 18); or they
went there in a rogation procession when rain held off
unduly (cf. Ja 735). Until the period of the beginning
of monotheism in the second half of the 4th century
A.D., hence during a whole millennium, the Awam
temple of the god Almakah was the central place of
worship of the Sabaean realm, to which people came
in pilgrimage from afar (cf. e.g. RES 4176, 1-2).

Another large, sacred building in the area of the
southern oasis, second only to the Awam sanctuary,
was the Bar 5 an temple ( mhrmn/brM: CIH 400,2), like¬
wise dedicated to the god Almakah. Nowadays it is
called al- c Ama 5 id, “the columns”, because five pillars
with capitals and a pillar stump still rise up from the
debris of the construction so far unexcavated. With
reference to Kur 5 an, XXVII,23, these columns are
occasionally also called c arsh Bilkis “throne of Bilkls”,
a designation which is however also used for a colon¬

nade in Sirwah (see R. G. Stiegner, Die Konigin von
Saba 5 in ihnen Namen, 73).

In Marib itself there was also a temple of the god
Almakah. As proved by an epigraphical discovery in
1982 (Schmidt, Marib , 24), the sanctuary Harunum
(hrwnm or hrnm), already known from numerous
Subaean inscriptions, was situated inside the area of
the ancient town.

The oldest epigraphical evidence of the construct¬
ion of irrigation works in the oasis area of Marib is
found in inscription RES 3946, an account of the
activities of Karib 5 il Watar, the son of Dhamar c ali,
probably dating from 685 B.C. Lines 5 and 6 relate
that the ruler constructed in the wadi Adhana the
foundation TafTsh and the overflow-basin of the main
canal of Yasran, as well as the foundation of Yalit and
the overflow-basin of the main canal of Abyan; that
for Yasran, he further erected Zarib and Milkan and,
in their midst, the construction works of Yasran and
Abyan. In an inscription which unfortunately has
been copied deficiently and published inadequately,
namely text ZI 71 = Sh 6 , Sumhu c all Yanuf, son of
Yada°il Dharih. a ruler who, according to von
Wissmann, is to be dated around 660 B.C., already
proclaimed an instruction which more or less reads as
follows: the water, allotted to a certain area which has
been prepared for sowing, should not be limited if one
lets it flow on that section of Yasran which is irrigated
by opening [the storage works], so that Marib
property ( mlk/mryb ) can be fertilised by water supply.
Yasran is the ancient name of the half of the Marib
oasis which lies south of the river bed of wadi Adhana.
while Abyan indicates the northern half of the oasis,
at whose further lower end the town of Marib lay. In
the Sabaean inscriptions, both oases are occasionally
indicated as “Marib and its two valleys” ( mryb/wsryhw
in Sh 18,3 and mrb/wsryhw in Fa 71,6), which survives
in the Kur 5 an as “the two gardens to the right and to
the left” ( djannatdn' c an yarnin' 11 wa-shimdl in \ Sura,
XXXIV, 15). Recent investigations by the German
Archaeological Institute have shown that downstream
on the southern bank and in the middle of wadi
Adfiana, remains of constructions and works are to be
found in the rocks. They belong to the ancient irriga¬
tion systems and functioned as constructions for
damming up and distributing the water. A natural
lava-barrier served as a dam for the builders of these
ancient reservoirs. There are three ruins in all, two of
which can be labelled, with a fair amount of certainty,
as the oldest damming and distributing constructions
in the Marib oasis. They are perhaps the irrigation
works which are mentioned epigraphically in the
beginning of the 7th century B.C. as the first northern
and southern oases. These ruins of waterworks, lying
in the wadi bed, must be considered as forerunners of
the great dam of later date between the Djabal Balak
al-Kibll and Balak al-Awsat. This dam only came into
existence when the two halves of the oasis had already
risen considerably above the wadi level through
sedimentation. Originally, the irrigation works of
Yasran and Abyan were separated from each other,
for the possibility of building one single great dam for
the two halves of the oasis was only created much
later, due to the difficult constructions at the southern
sluice. The building of this dam and its sluices was
realised under Sumhu c all Yanuf, son of Dhamar c all,
who according to von Wissmann is to be dated
approximately around 528 B.C. In G1 513 and G1
514 = CIH 623, two identical rock-inscriptions
placed almost opposite one another, this Mukarrib of
Saba 5 announces that he has hewn out in the rock the
opening for the reservoir Rahabum of the main canal

MARIB

563

of Yasran, i.e. by cutting through the contiguous
limestone rock of the Djabal Balak al-Awsat he has
built the southern sluice, so that the southern half of
the Marib oasis can be irrigated from a higher water-
level. Although no inscription in situ is known at the
northern sluice which led to Abyan, the northern half
of the Marib oasis, it can be concluded from the
construction of the southern sluice that the great dam
and the northern sluice too were built by the same
Mukarrib, since the entire complex can only have
been executed as a whole, and since the hewing out of
the storage canal Rahabum at the southern sluice
presupposes the construction of the dam which held
back the waters of the wadi. This dam, which lay
about 8 km. west-south-west of ancient Marib,
consisted of sediments heaped on the rocky, solid
stratum. At the surface, it was covered with small,
unhewn stones, strongly joined by mortar; it was at
least 16 m. high, at the bottom at least 60 m. broad,
and about 620 m. long. The dam served less to create
a storage reservoir than to raise the water, brought
down twice a year by the sayl, to a level from which
the fields could be irrigated. So it was in fact a diver¬
ting dam, blocking the total breadth of the wadi, one
which made it possible to irrigate regularly a defined
acreage. The northern sluice too may well have been
constructed at the same period in an analogous way.
From the sluice, a main canal of 1,120 m. led to the
principal distributor at the western edge of the north¬
ern oasis, from where the mass of water, through 15
sluice-like openings and 121 secondary distributors,
was directed to the canal systems of the various arrays
built on the fields which had to be irrigated. The
complicated irrigation works of the northern oasis,
with its constructions of water-distributors and
remains of the network of canals, is partly still discer¬
nible. The next ruler who ordered the canal of the
southern sluice to be hewn further through the rock of
the Djabal Balak al-Awsat was Yitha°amar Bayyin,
the son of Sumhu c alT Yanuf. From him has also been
preserved a boustrophedon inscription of two lines,
recorded in two versions on the smoothened
contiguous rock of the walls of the southern sluice,
namely Gl 523 and Gl 525 = CIH 622. This inscrip¬
tion related that Yitha c;> amar Bayyin hewed out the
opening in the rock for the storage reservoir Hababid
of the main canal of Yasran. The incision of the
southern sluice, which has been hewn out of the rock,
divides after some 30 m. towards the east in a
northern and a southern branch. The northern one,
which lies closer to the wadi, belonged to the
Rahabum basin, as is recorded in the two versions of
rock inscription CIH 623, mounted there. Conse¬
quently, the southern branch could be the Hababid
basin, although the two versions of inscription CIH
622 which relate its construction have been chiselled
on both sides of the entrance to the sluice on the west-
side. Since Yitha c 5 amar Bayyin, through this main
canal which branched off to the right, enlarged the
construction of the southern sluice, a still greater
acreage could probably be irrigated through the
distributing constructions in the Yasran oasis which
were fed by this canal. Line 5 of the fragmentary,
ancient Sabaean inscription RES 3943, preserved
without the name of a ruler, mentions the hewing out
of the storage reservoir Hababid (the text wrongly has
h b d d instead of h b b d). Hence it may be concluded
that the text was set up under Yitha c 5 amar Bayyin.
Besides, the enlargement of the storage reservoir
Rahabum and the building of further irrigation works
in Yasran and Abyan are also recorded. The construc¬
tions of the southern sluice have been best preserved.

According to Glaser, the inhabitants of Marib called
them Marbat al-Dimm “place where the cat was
tied”, because a cat was said to have been tied there
once on a long chain in order to catch the rat which
undermined the dam, and to prevent thus the
calamity of a bursting of the dam.

North-north-east of the great dam lies a smaller
dam construction, probably built relatively late and
called Mabna al-Hashradj. Water, also supplied from
the great dam, was stored here and, through a canal
system, was used to irrigate the fields of Dar al-
Sawda 5 , lying to the east, as far as the town of Marib.

According to the calculations of U. Brunner, the
entire surface irrigated at the lower end of the dam
amounted to 9,600 hectares/24,000 acres, 5,300
hectares/13,250 acres belonging to the southern oasis
and 3,750 hectares/10,740 acres to the northern one.
The rest of the fields lay north-west and north of the
northern oasis near al-Djufayna and Dar al-Sawda 5 .
If the results of the census of 1975, according to which
13,000 people were living in the kada? of Marib, is
taken as a basis, the number of inhabitants in and
around Marib in antiquity may be calculated at
30,000 at the least estimate and 50,000 at the most.

From the later Sabaean period, several dam-bursts
have been recorded epigraphically. From text RES
4775, until today to be found on a wall near the north¬
ern sluice, we learn that, during the reigns of
Dhamar c alT Yuhabirr and his son ThaYan, at some
time or other in the first two decades of the 4th
century A.D., the storage basin Dhu-Amir, in the
Abyan oasis, was repaired after it had been destroyed
and swept away by the rain flood. Inscription Ja
788 + 671 from the Awam temple mentions that, at
the time of the kings Tha^ran Yuhan c im and Malik-
karib Yu-’min, in the beginning of the second half of
the 4th century A.D., the dam broke at the storage
basins Hababid and Rahabum; the whole wall of the
middle section between the two basins mentioned was
destroyed, as well as 70 shawahit , i.e. 350 ells or some
180 m. of the dam. Repair of the constructions took
three months. The first of the two great inscriptions
on the dam works, CIH 540, erected at the northern
sluice constructions, relates that in the year 564 of the
Himyarite era (= 449 A.D.), under ShurahbEil
Ya c fur, the dam was restored after it had broken down
as a result of the floods after late summer rain, but
that in the next year heavy damage occurred again,
which had to be made good through great expense of
people and material. The main victuals are said to
have been flour made from wheat, barley and dhura
(thnm / dhbrmlwsh^rmfw gdhdh tm : CIH 540, 86-7; in
another sequence in CIH 540, 39-40), i.e. from the
three most important kinds of cereals which in the
Marib region nowadays still constitute about three-
quarters of cultivation. The same king ShurahbEil
Ya c fur testifies in an inscription (Garbini, AION, xxix
[1969], 560 = ZM 1) to the building of a castle in the
capital Zafar in the year 572 of the Himyarite era ( =
457 A.D.). It is also said there that at the same time,
repairs were executed at the dam in Marib and
constructions carried out at the storage basin
Rahabum; the first activity involved the removal of
the mud deposits. The second great inscription on the
construction of the dam, CIH 541, set up under king
Abraha, relates to a dam-burst in the year 657 of the
Himyarite era ( = 542 A.D.), which again could only
be repaired after enormous efforts. It remains
undecided whether by the newly-built construction,
erected as high as 35 ells (CIH 541, 107-8), the dam
proper is meant or another part of the storage works.
The last inscription which mentions the great Marib

564

MARIB

dam is the rock-inscription Ja 547 which is certainly
to be united with Ja 545, the latter being dated in the
year 668 of the Himyarite era (= 553 A.D.). The
authors of the text were again engaged, under great
exertion, in removing the mud deposits at the dam.
Researches by U. Brunner on the discordances which
occur in the sediments of the storage area have
revealed that another dam-burst must have taken
place some 35 years after the one described in in¬
scription CIH 541. It was again repaired. The final
catastrophe apparently occurred only at the beginning
of the 7th century. It is the event which is mentioned
in the Kurban as the dam-flood ( sayl al- c arim : Sura
XXXIV, 16), i.e. the flood which broke the dam
(Sabaean ^rm). Afterwards, the Marib oasis became
desolate and, in the words of the Kurban, produced
only briar fruits, tamarisks and a few Zizyphus trees
( loc . cit.). Only small fields which lie at the edge of the
wadi bed, and to which the high water can be directed
through diverting dams, are cultivated. Al-Hamdani
already relates how in Marib the pieces of land are
irrigated from the sayl, and lahaf and dukhn are sown
there until finally, the harvest is reaped and ploughing
prepares the soil for the next sowing (Sifa, 199, 19-22).
In more recent times, more and more extensive areas
have been added, especially in the section lying to the
south of the Adhana wadi; they are irrigated by
subsoil water which has, however, to be brought up by
pumps from as deep as 45-50 m.

Considering that, after a dam-burst, the sediments
deposited by the floods had to be cleared away each
time until the original level of the wadi was reached,
it follows that each rebuilding of the dam became
more difficult. Since the level of the oasis meanwhile
had risen further, the dam had to be built higher each
time. The mud which was carried along with the
floods, and which raised the fields and was
precipitated on to the dam and the storage basins,
must have played an essential role in the dam
construction being completely abandoned in the end.

Air photographs of the neighbourhood of Marib
show so called “dotted fields” standing out promi¬
nently. These accumulations of sediment clods lying
in the ancient fields of the oasis, are relics of ancient
tree and shrub plantations, widely spread, especially
in the southern oasis. This observation is confirmed
by the inscriptions. Text CIH 375 enumerates by
name 13 palm-groves in the area of the Yasran oasis
alone, which is irrigated by the water of the Adhana
wadi by means of sluices and canals conducting the
waters of the dam. Al-Hamdam, too, relates that,
during a visit to the Marib oasis, he saw a sunken arak
shrub, at whose root was a black palm trunk. One of
his companions was of the opinion that this was a
remnant of palms from pre-Islamic times (Ikill, viii,
96, 2-4). In his time, date-palms remained only in
Ruhaba (Sifa, 102, 21), the region lying beyond the
dam on both sides of the Adhana wadi.

The reasons which led to the neglect of the dam
constructions and to their being left continuously to
decay, and which finally reached a point so that they
could not be renewed any more, may also have had a
political and social background. The constant disputes
between the individual principalities and dynasties of
ancient South Arabia resulted in the loss of a strong
central power and the disintegration of a well-
organised society. This led to the growing influence of
foreign powers, namely of Ethiopia and later of
Sasanid Persia. Moreover, the intensified penetration
of North Arabian tribes brought about an increasing
bedouinisation and a decline of rural culture based on
agriculture and irrigation. A decrease of the popula¬

tion as a whole was probably connected with this. The
Arab authors of the early Islamic period hold the same
view. The fact that the last dam-burst is mentioned in
the Kurian as sayl al~ c arim, and the significance of this
event for the town of Marib and its surroundings,
have caused Islamic tradition to deal in detail with this
catastrophe and its consequences. Occasionally,
information about the dam and the oasis themselves
crept in, even if distorted and exaggerated. According
to the Arab authors, too, events which had happened
before the dam-burst, and the bursting of the dam
itself, led to the Marib oasis being abandoned by its
inhabitants. The migration of entire South Arabian
tribes towards the north is to be connected with it.
Thus e.g. the Banu Ghassan and the Azd are said to
have come from there and to have spread over various
regions of the Arabian peninsula. The Banu Ghassan
are even said to have established their era after the
year of the dam-burst ( c am al-sayt) (al-Mas c udf,
Tanbih, ed. de Goeje, Leiden 1894, 202, 14-15). This
would admittedly mean that the sayl al- c arim event has
to be dated much earlier than it in fact took place.
Through late Sabaean inscriptions we meanwhile
know, however, that dating this last catastrophe in the
3rd, 2nd or 1st centuries A.D., or even earlier, as
assumed by many Muslim authors and also some
European scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries, is
untenable. The Arab author who comes closest to the
real date is Yakut, who relates that the bursting of the
dam took place in the period of the sovereignty of the
Abyssinians (Mu c dj_am, iv, 383, 20). Only al-Mas c udI
dares to attribute the bursting to natural causes, when
he writes that the water gradually undermined the
dam constructions built by man ( Murudf , iii, 370, 9-
371, 2 = § 1254). To be sure, it cannot be completely
excluded that traditions about a catastrophic bursting
of the dam of a much earlier date have also crept into
the legends which attached themselves to the sayl al-
c arim. The most current version of the legend of the
migration from the Marib oasis is the following: a
ruler of Marib, c Amr b. c Amir of the Azd, nicknamed
al-Muzaykiya 3 , was married to Zarifa, who had
visions and dreams which she was also able to inter¬
pret. Evil omens being communicated to her, she
warned c Amr, and one day she sent him to the dam,
where he saw how a giant rat with iron teeth and big
claws, called Khuld. was about to trundle away
boulders and to undermine the dam. Thus warned
and informed about the coming catastrophe of the
bursting of the dam, c Amr decided to sell his posses¬
sion at the lower end of the dam and to leave the coun¬
try. However, in order to hide the real motive, he
simulated a brawl with his son during which the latter
slapped his face openly. This feigned defamation of
the family presented him with the pretext of giving up
his possessions, which could then be sold satisfac¬
torily. After that, c Amr, with numerous followers,
migrated from the Marib oasis still in good time
before the bursting of the dam set in (according to
other versions, he only left after the event). His
descendants spread over extensive parts of Arabia.
After c Amr al-Muzaykiya 5 had left, the people of
Marib agreed upon a new king, who is, however, said
not to have been designated as tubba c . (For examples
of detailed and embellished versions of this legend, see
e.g. Wahb b. Munabbih, Kitab al-Tidjan, San^ 5
1979, 273-97; al-Mas c udf, Murudy, iii, 378, 2-392, 7
= §§ 1264-76; Yakut, Mu%am, iv, 383, 20-385, 10;
Ibn Sa c Td al-Maghribi, Nashwat al-tarab, 114, 13-117,
10, 16; al-Khazradjf, al- c Ukud al-lu?lu^iyya, 9, 1-15, 3;
a version which is divergent in some respects is given
by Ibn al-Mudjawir, Ta y nkh al-Mustabsir, 195, 5-197,

MARIB

565

15, where the dam, as in al-Hamdanl, Sifa 110, 26, is
called sadd al-ma^zimayn “the dam of the two closely
joining places”.)

The name of the ancient Sabaean capital has been
transmitted in two forms in the ancient South Arabian
inscriptions. The early inscriptions up to the 2nd
century A.D., have always the form mryb\ after that
time, the form mrb appears. Two texts from the 2nd
century A.D. still have both forms side by side.
Inscriptions Fa 71 has mryb in lines 17-18, but mrb in
line 6 , while inscription Ja 576 has mryb in line 3, but
mrb in line 2. The place-name mryb may originally
have been a nomen loci of a root ryb of unknown mean¬
ing, which possibly has a parallel in Hebrew Mariba,
a spring in the desert (Exodus, xvii, 7, and repea¬
tedly), in as much as one does not admit the meaning
“quarrel”, given in the Old Testament. For the
pronunciation of mryb as Maryab, reference can be
made to the rendering by ancient authors: MocptaPoc as
MrycporcoXu; in Strabo, xvi, 4, 768, after Erastosthenes,
and ibid., xvi, 4,778, after Artemidoros, as well as
Mapouafa, ibid., xvi, 4, 782, distorted either from
Mapuapa or from MaptaPa or Safa, and also the regia
tamen omnium Mareliabata, probably miswritten from
Mareiaba, in Pliny, Naturalis historia , vi, 32, 155. The
pronunciation Marib may be inferred from the
renderings Maribba in Pliny, Naturalis historia , vi, 32,
157, Mariba, ibid., vi, 32, 160, and Mariba or, in the
Greek version, MapiPa in the Monumentum Ancyranum
= Res gestae divi Augusti, 26,5. In his Introduction to
Geography, Book vi, ch. 6 , Ptolemy has the name Mapa
[XTycpoftoXiij, but in his Canon of the noteworthy cities he has
MapaPa. A transition from a form Marib to Marib or
Ma 3 rib is easier to explain than a change from
Maryab to Marib. When describing Marib, al-
Hamdanl too {Ikill, viii, 104, 1-3) still gives both
names Marib and Ma 3 rib side by side, but explains
them as being the names of two Arabian tribes, on the
basis of a line of poetry which he transmits. In one of
the fragments of the Ethiopian inscriptions from
Marib, the name of the town occurs as Marab (DJE
1 + 2, 13; see W.W. Muller, Zwei weitere Bruchsticke der
athiopischen Inschrift aus Marib, in Neue Ephemeris fir
Semitische Epigraphik, i [1972], 62-3 and 66 ). Remark¬
able are the forms in which Marib evidently appears
in Syriac sources, namely mTb (b-mTb mdhitta, in the
town of Marib; see A. Moberg, The Book of the
Himyarites, Lund 1924, 5b, 8-9), and mwrb (men mwrb,
from Marib; see I. Shahid, The Martyrs of Najran. New
documents, Brussels 1971, xxix, 4). MTb is certainly not
the rendering of the mryb of the inscriptions, as
Moberg, op. cit., pp. xcii-xciii, seems to admit, for at
that time the latter had not been in use for a long
period. It is rather a miswriting for m^rb, while mwrb
could reflect a Syriac pronunciation Morib for Marib.
In Arabic tradition, the placename always appears as
Ma 3 rib, which is probably formed secondarily from
Marib. The Arab lexicographers seem indeed
undecided as to the root under which to put the name.
The Lisan al- c Arab and the Tady al- c arus give the name
Ma 3 rib both under 3 r/> and mrb , while Nashwan al-
Himyarl gives it only under mrb (see c AzImuddIn
Ahmad, Die auf Siidarabien beziiglichen Angaben Naswan ’s
im Sams al- c ulum, Leiden 1916, 96,19). Yakut
(Mu^dyam, iv, 382, 17-20) even tries, unsatisfactorily,
to give three explanations at a time for the name
Ma 3 rib, namely as nomen loci of arab or of the verbs
aruba and ariba. Immediately afterwards he remarks
(ibid., iv, 382, 20-1) that Marib is the name of each
of the Sabaean kings. In this connection, one might
think of the ancient South Arabian word mr 3 “lord”,
especially as a designation of the king in his quality of

sovereign of the founders of dedicatory inscriptions,
the more so because Nashwan al-Iiimyar! transmits a
gloss according to which man means “lord” in the
Himyaritic language (see O. Blau, in ZDMG, xxv
[1871], 591, n. 7).

After the death of the Persian governor Badhan
[q.v. in Suppl.], the Prophet Muhammad appointed
representatives for the various towns of the Yemen,
among them Abu Musa al-Ash c ar! [q. v. ] as represen¬
tative for Marib (see al-Tabari, i, 1852, 19-20 and
1983, 9). From then on, Marib is enumerated as a
separate mikhlaf under the makhdlif of the Yemen (al-
Hamdanl, Sifa, 102, 19). For al-Hamdanl, in the first
half of the 4th/10th century, Marib is still a town full
of curiosities (Ikill, viii, 95, 5). He counts it among the
places to which God has shown mercy (Iklil, viii, 191,
7-8), and names it among the towns where treasures
are said to be hidden (Iklil, viii, 194, 3-7). Certainly,
the dam had been destroyed so that the two halves of
the oasis, having been raised too high to be reached by
the floods of the sayl, had become desolate (Iklil, viii,
95, 7-96, 1). But the distributing constructions, which
led the water from the reservoirs of the dam to the
fields, were still standing there as if their builders had
finished their work only the day before (Iklil, viii, 96,
6-7). Moreover, even of the dam itself a piece had
survived on the left-hand side; at the lower part it is
said to have been 15 ells wide (Iklil, viii, 96,10-97,1).
This, however, was probably not the former lowest
part of the dam. According to the words of al-
Hamdanl, the dam was based on the foundation-wall
which, between the side-walls, was joined to the reser¬
voirs with mighty ashlars hewn from the rocks, and to
the base by molten lead (Iklil, viii, 99, 1-2). The
building of such wonderful works as the dam
constructions was therefore ascribed to the legendary
Lukman b. c Ad, according to some (Iklil, viii 99, 3;
al-Mas c udi, Murudy, iii, 366, 3-4 = § 1251; al-Bakrl,
Mu^dyam, 1171, 2; Yakut, Mu c dyam, iv, 383, 1), while
others were of the opinion that they had been erected
by Himyar b. Saba 3 and al-Azd b. al-Ghawth, a
descendant of Kahlan (Iklil, viii, 99, 3 ff.). According
to other traditions, the dam was begun by Yashdjub
b. Ya c rub and finished by Sa c b Dhu TKarnayn al-
Himyarl (Wahb b. Munabbih, Kitab al-Tidydn, 58, 15
and 273, 19-274, 8 ), or built by c Abd Shams Saba 3 b.
Yashdjub (Yakut, Mu^dyam, iv, 382, 22-3), who are
said to have directed there 70 rivers and floods from
far away (Ibn Sa c Id al-Maghribl, Nashwat al-tarab, 86 ,
16-7). It is also said that the dam was begun by c Abd
Shams, continued by Himyar and finished by $a c b
(al-Khazradjl, al- c Ukud al-luduHyya, 7, 6-9). The
building of the Marib dam is occasionally also
ascribed to Bilkls [q.v.\, the legendary queen of Saba 3
(al-Damlrl, Hayat al-hayawan, Cairo 1309/1892, i,
270, 31), or she is said to have repaired it (see R.G.
Stiegner, Die Konigin von Saba 3 in ihren Namen, 75).
Finally, the irrigation works are said to have been
built by a king, not mentioned by name, after he had
consulted wise men (Mas c udl, Murudy, iii, 369, 3-370,
7 = § 1254). As al-Hamdanl rightly observed, the sayl
of the Adhana wadi collected its water from many
places and numerous sites of the Yemen (Iklil, viii, 97,
10; detailed information in Sifa, 80, 12-23). Other
authors even relate that the plantations in the Marib
oasis were so extensive that a horseman needed more
than a month to cross them and that, in doing so, he
found himself continuously in the shadow of the trees
(al-Mas c udi, Murudy, iii, 367, 2-5 = § 1252; Ibn Sa c Id
al-Ma gh ribl. Nashwat al-tarab, 114, 20-115,1; it is
even said that it took him six months (al-Khazradjl,
al- c Ukud al-lu^lufiya, 8,9-10). If a woman or servant

566

MARIB

walked under the trees of the two gardens with a
basket on the head, it used to fill of itself with fruits
in a short time, without it being necessary to pluck
them by hand or to pick them up from the ground
(Ibn Rusta, al-AHak al-nafisa, 114, 7-10; Ibn Sa c Td al-
Maghribl, Nashwat al-tarab , 115, 9-10; al-Khazradjl
op. cit.y 8 , 5-7). According to a tradition, when shown
the kingdom of heaven, Abraham asked for two
earthly items only, namely the Ghufa of Damascus
and the two gardens of Saba 5 in Marib (Ibn c Asakir,
Ta^rikh madlnat Dimashk , ii, 195, 11-2; Ahmad al-RazI,
TaArikh madinat SanAa?, Damascus 1974, 191 and 407,
17-408, 2). The fame and vanished glory of Marib are
also sung in numerous lines of poetry (see al-
Hamdanl, I kill, viii, 98 ff.; Nashwan al-Himyarl, al-
Kasida al-himyariyya; et alii), and until today the former
capital of the Sabaeans has remained an inexhaustible
theme for Yemeni poets, as is shown e.g. by the
anthology published by c Abduh c Uthman and c Abd
al- c Aziz al-Makalih under the tide Ma\ibyatakallamu
“Ma 5 rib speaks” (Ta c izz 1971).

According to al-Hamdanl, there lies, to the east of
Marib in the desert of $ayhad, the Diabal al-milh , the
salt mountain ( Si/a , 102, 25-6), which he mentions
once again among the wonders of the Yemen because
its equal is not found throughout the world and its salt
is rich and pure like crystal ( Sifa , 201, 8-9). The
Prophet Muhammad had given the salt of Marib as a
fief to Abyad b. Hammal when the latter came to him
with a delegation and requested it as such (Abu
Dawud, Sunan , ch. Imara, bab 36; al-Tirmidhf. Sunan ,
ch. Ahkam, bab 39). What is meant here is the salt¬
mine at the Djabal Safir, which can be reached from
Marib with camels in three days’ journey along a
waterless road. In earlier times, the Banu c AbIda
supplied from there almost the entire Yemeni
highlands with salt. Since the salt traffic passes
through Marib, this commodity is called in the
Yemen Marib salt (milh Mdribi; Hayyim Habshush,
Ru^yat al-Yaman, 116, 16) until today. Among the
products of the Marib region, al-Hamdam calls
special attention to the sesame, whose oil is quite
bright, pure and of good quality (fiifa 199, 9-10). Until
today it is considered as the best in all Yemen.

In later Islamic times, the place Marib which
already al-MukaddasI ( Ahsan al-takdsim, 89, 2) quotes
only as karyat Marib, did not play a role of importance.
Its name emerges sporadically in Yemeni chronicles,
mostly in combination with warlike events, as when
troops of the Imam moved from $a c da through the
Djawf to Marib, or opponents of the Imam settled
there. In 418/1027 there appeared in Na c i{ a man who
claimed the imamate. He went to Marib where he was
received, and proclaimed himself imam under the title
al-Mu c Id li-dtn Allah. He succeeded even in obtaining
entrance into San c a 5 and in winning adherents in
various parts of the Yemen until he was killed by
people from c Ans (Yahya b. al-Husayn, Ghayat al-
amani , 243-4). Around 1050/1640, Marib came under
the sovereignty of Sharif Husayn b. Muhammad b.
Nasir who, at the head of a cavalry unit of the Dh u
Husayn, the Dhu Muhammad and the Yam, had
helped to expel the Turks from the Yemen. He
adopted the title of amir and ruled in Marib, which
remained a more or less independent principality. C.
Niebuhr, who also collected in 1763 in San c a 5 infor¬
mation about Marib, called it “the as yet most promi¬
nent town in the Djawf’ ( Beschreibung von Arabien,
Copenhagen 1772, 277). Although consisting of only
300 houses, most of which were in wretched condi¬
tion, it was still surrounded by a wall with three gates.
A poor Sharif was in power, who, apart from Marib,

commanded only a few villages and was hardly able to
defend this area against his neighbours. When E.
Glaser visited Marib in 1888, the place counted
hardly more than 600 inhabitants in some 80 houses
of several storeys. In 1350/1932, Marib was occupied
by the Imam Yahya’s troops, commanded by c Abd
Allah al-Wazfr, and the last amir of the reigning
Ashraf, Muhammad b. c Abd al-Rahman, was
deposed.

In cultural and scientific life in Islamic times,
Marib was hardly of any significance either. The nisba
al-Maribl occurs only very sporadically. Apart from
Abyad b. Hammal already mentioned, it is borne
only by an informant who transmitted the request to
leave the Marib salt as a fief, namely Yahya b. Kays
al-Maribl (al-Dhahabl, Mushtabih , ed. de Jong,
Leiden 1881, 465, 5; according to this source, al-
Mdribi should be read instead of al-Mazini in al-
Baladhurl. Futuh, 73, 7). Other scholars, mostly tradi-
tionists, who bore the nisba al-Maribl in the early
Islamic period, are mentioned by Yakut (Mu c djam, iv,
388, 9-21). For the later time, c Abd Allah al-Hibshl,
Masddir al-fikr al- c arabi al-isldmi ji 7- Yaman, San c a 5
1978, 316, was able to name only one bearer of the
nisba al-Maribl.

During the Yemeni civil war of 1962-6, Marib’s
fate was uncertain. Already in the beginning of
October 1962 it was captured by the Royalists, but in
March 1963 it was conquered by the Republicans who
received Egyptian air support. In summer 1965, the
Royalists succeeded in occupying Marib again.
During these combats, the houses of Marib, which
stand closely together on the ancient site, were largely
destroyed by air attacks. Most of the inhabitants left
the place and settled down in the neighbourhood,
which explains the astonishingly low present number
of the population. Until the present day, numerous
houses of Old Marib lie in ruins. At the foot of the hill
of the old town lie in the Masdfid Sulayman (with
ancient columns), the residence of the governor
( muha/iz ), the police station, the military garrison, a
water-pump installation, a number of huts covered
with sheet-iron, shops and a restaurant. Formerly,
Marib could only be reached from San c a 5 by means of
cross-country vehicles after an eight to twelve hours’
difficult drive on tracks and through passes by three
different routes, with a length between 170 and 220
km. Since 1981 the place has been linked with the
capital San c a 5 by a road of about 150 km. length.
After this convenient connection had been estab¬
lished, the flights between San c a 5 and Marib with
obsolete DC-3 aeroplanes, which had existed for years
with occasional interruption, could be discontinued.

Bibliography. Wahb b. Munabbih, Kitab al-
Tidjan fi muluk Himyar, San c a 5 1979; Hamdani, Sifal
Diazirat al- C Arab . ed. D.H. Muller, Leiden 1884-91;
idem, al-Ikli 7, viii, ed. M. aJ-Akwa c al-Hiwali,
Damascus 1979, 95-107; Ibn Rusta, Kitab al-A c lak
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§§ 1250-77; idem, al-Tanbih wa 1-ishraf; Mukad-
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Kitab al-Mushtarik, ed. F. Wiistenfeld, Gottingen
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himyariyya , ed. R. Basset, Algiers 1914; c AzIm-
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al-Maghribl, Die Geschic.hte der “reinen Araber ” vom
Stamme Qahtan. Aus dem Kitab Naswat at-tarab fita^rlh
gahiliyyat al- c Arab, ed. M. Kropp, Frankfurt 1982;

MARIB — MARIDA

567

Ibn al-Mudjawir, Ta^rikh al-mustabsir, ed. O.
Lofgren, Leiden 1951-4, 195-200; DarmrT, Hayat
al-hayawdn , Cairo 1309/1891; c Ali b. al-Hasan al-
Kh azradjl. al- c Ukud al-lu^luHyyaJTta^rTkh al-dawla al-
rasuliyya, ed. M. c Asal, Leiden-London 1913; Ibn
c Abd al-Mun c im al-Himyari, al-Rawd al-miHdr JT
khabar al-aktdr, ed. I. c Abbas, Beirut 1975, 515-16;
Yahyab. al-Husayn, Ghayat al-amdm JT akhbdr al-kutr
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Fresnel, Etudes sur Vhistoire des Arabes avant I’lsla -
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voyage a Mareb (Saba) dans VArabie meridionale, entrepris
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A. P. Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur Vhistoire des
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1875; D.H. Muller, Die Bilrgen und Schlosser Siidara-
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SB Ak. Wien, xciv, xcvii); Corpus inscriptionum
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continens, i-iii, Paris 1889-1929; E. Glaser, Zwei
Inschrijten uber den Dammbruch von Marib (Mitteilungen
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N. Rhodokanakis, Vienna 1913 (Sammlung Eduard
Glaser, i); Rhodokanakis, Studien zur Lexikographie
und Grammatik des Altsudarabischen, ii, Vienna 1917
(SB Ak. Wien, clxxxv/3); Repertoire d’Epigraphie
Semitique, v-vii, Paris 1929-50; A. Grohmann,
Mariaba in Pauly-Wissowa, xiv (1930), 1713-44;
N.M. al- c Azm, Rihla JT bildd al- ( arabiyya al-saHda,
Cairo 1938; H. Habshush, Travels in Yemen. An
account oj Joseph Halevy’s journey to Najran in the year
1870, ed. S.D. Goitein, Jerusalem 1941; A.
Fakhry, An archaeological journey to Yemen , i-iii, Cairo
1951-2; H. von Wissmann and M. Hofner, Beitrage
zur historischen Geographie des vorislamischen Sudarabien,
Wiesbaden 1953 (Akad. d. Wissensch. u.d. Literalur,
Abh. d. geistes- und sozialwiss. Kl., Jg. 1952, 4); A.
Jamme, Inscriptions des alenlours de Mareb, in Cahiers
de Byrsa, v (1955), 265-81; R. Le-Baron Bowen,
Irrigation in ancient Qataban (Beihan ), in Archaeological
discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore 1958 ( Publica¬
tions of the American Foundation Jor the Study oj Man, ii),
43-131; J. M. Sola Sole, Las dos grandes inscripciones
sudarabigas del dique de Marib, Barcelona-Tubingen
1960; J. Pirenne, Le royaume sud-arabe de Qataban et
sa datation d’apres Varcheologie et les sources classiques,
Louvain 1961 (Bibliotheque du Museon, xlviii); A.
Jamme, Sabaean inscriptions Jrom Mahram Bilqis
(Marib), Baltimore 1962 (Publications oj the American
Foundation Jor the Study oj Man, iii); A. K. Irvine, A
survey oj Old South Arabian lexical materials connected
with irrigation techniques, unpubl. D.Phil. thesis,
Oxford Univ. 1962, 230-320; M. W. Wenner,
Modern Yemen 1918-1966, Baltimore 1967; A. H.
Sharaf al-DIn, I'a\lkh al-Yaman al-thakaJT, Cairo
1967, ii, 17-56; H. Dequin, Eine Wasser-Kultstdtte
am Staudamm von MaSib im Jemen, in Orient, ix/5
(October 1968), 164-7; G. Garbini, Una nuova iscri-
zione di SarahbPil Yajur, in AION, xxix (1969), 559-
66 ; idem, Antichita yemenite, in AION, xxx (1970),
537-48; M. al-Akwa c al-Hiwali, al-Yaman al-hajrd?
mahd al-hajara, Cairo 1971, 281-5, 293-303; D. B.
Doe, -Building techniques in ancient South Arabia,
unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge Univ. 1971;

A.G. Loundine, Qui a bah le mur de Marib?, in
AION, xxxi (1971), 251-5; J. Ryckmans, Un rite
d’istisqaV au temple sabeen de Marib, in Annuaire de
ITnstitut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves,
xx (1968-72), 379-88; G. Garbini, Un nuovo
documento per la storia dell’antico Yemen, in Oriens Anti-
quus, xii (1973), 143-64; A. G. Loundine, Deux
inscriptions sabeennes de Marib , in Le Museon , lxxxvi
(1973), 179-92; W. W. Muller, Aus dem antiken
Jemen (V.): Marib und Saba, in Jemen-Report 6 (1975),
10-13; idem, Neuinterpr elation altsudarabischer

Inschrijten: RES 4698, CIH 45 + 44, Fa 74, in AION,
xxxvi (1976), 55-67; H. von Wissmann, Die Mauer
der Sabderhauptstadt Maryab. Abessinien als sabaische
Staatskolonie im 6. Jh. v. Chr., Istanbul 1976 (Uit-
gaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch
Instituut te Istanbul-Leiden, 38); idem. Die Geschichte
des Sabaerreichs und der Feldzug des Aelius Gallus, in
Aujstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt. Geschichte
und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung, ed.
H. Temporini und W. Haase, ii, 9,1 (1976), 308-
544; Final report on the airphoto interpretation project oj
the Swiss Technical Cooperation Service, Berne, carried out
Jor the Central Planning Organisation , San c a 3 . The major
Jindings oj the population and housing census oj February
1975, Zurich 1978; R. Schoch, Die antike Kulturland-
schajt des Stadtbezirks Saba 5 und die heutige Oase von
MaSib in der Arabischen Republik Jemen, in Geographica
Helvetica, xxxiii (1978), 121-9; Gazeteer oj Arabia. A
geographical and tribal history oj the Arabian peninsula,
ed. Sh. A. Scoville, i, 1979, 45-6; R. G. Stiegner,
Die Konigin von Saba 5 in ihren Namen. Beitrag zur
vergleichenden semitischen Sagenkunde und zur Erjorschung
des Entwicklungsganges der Sage, Ph.D. thesis, Graz
Univ. 1979; J. E. Dayton, A discussion on the
hydrology oj Marib, in Proceedings oj the Seminar Jor
Arabian Studies, ix (1979), 124-9; J. Ryckmans, Le
barrage de Marib et les jar dins du royaume de Saba, in
Dossiers de VArcheologie, xxxiii (March-April 1979),
28-35; R. Wade, Archaeological observations around
Marib, 1976, in PSAS, ix (1979), 114-23; idem,
Takrlr may dam ( an Ma\ib, in al-lklil, i/2 (1980), 207-
11; H.A. as-Sayaghi, Ma c alim al-athar al-yamaniyya,
San c a :> 1980, 49-54; W. W. Muller, Altsudarabische
Miszellen (I), in Raydan, iii (1980), 63-73; J. E.
Dayton, Marib visited, 1979, in PSAS, xi (1981), 7-
26; J. Schmidt, Marib. Erster vorlaujiger Bericht uber
die Forschungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts in
der Umgebung der Sabderhauptstadt. With contributions by
U. Brunner, M. Gerig, W. W. Muller and R. Schoch,
in Archaologische Berichte aus dem Yemen, i (1982), 5-
89, Tables 1-34; Chr. Robin and J. Ryckmans,
Dedicace de bassins rupestres antiques a proximite de Bab
al-Falag (Marib), in ibid. , 107-15; W.W. Muller,
Bemerkungen zu einigen von der Yemen-Expedition 1977
des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts aujgenommenen
Inschrijten aus dem Raum Marib und Baraqis, in ibid.,
129-34; A.H. al-Scheiba, Die Ortsnamen in den
altsudarabischen Inschrijten (mit dem Versuch ihrer Iden-
tijizierung und Lokalisierung), Ph.D. thesis, Marburg
Univ. 1982, 133-4; U. Brunner, Die Erjorschung der
antiken Oase von Marib mit Hilfe geomorphologischer
Untersuchungsmethoden, Mainz 1983 ( = Archaologische
Berichte aus dem Yemen, ii) Y. M. c Abd Allah, Hadith
JT haddrat Saba 5 wa-ramziha sadd Ma^rib, in al-Yaman
al-Diadld. xi/7 (July 1982), 9-20; von Wissmann,
Die Geschichte von Saba 3 . II. Das Grossreich der Sabaer
bis zu seinem EndeimJriihren 4. Jh. v. Chr., ed. W. W.
Muller, Vienna 1982 (= SB Ak. Wien, ccccii); U.
Brunner, Die Erjorschung der antiken Oase von Marib
mit Hilje geomorphologischer Untersuchungsmethoden,
Mainz 1983. (W. W. Muller)

MARIDA, Spanish Merida, from the Latin Erne-

568

MARIDA — MA C RIFA

rita, atown in the south-westofSpain, in the
modern province of Badajoz, where it is the capital of
a partido, on the right bank of the Guadiana. Now
somewhat decayed, it has only about 35,000
inhabitants. It is on the Madrid-Badajoz railway and
is also connected by rail with Caceres in the north and
Seville in the south.

The ancient capital of Lusitania, Augusta Emerita,
was founded in 23 B.C., and under the Roman
empire attained remarkable importance and prosper¬
ity. Numerous remains of Roman buildings still
testify to the position it held in the Iberian peninsula
in those days: a bridge of 64 arches, a circus, a
theatre, and the famous aqueduct of tos Milagros, of
which there are still standing ten arches of brick and
granite. Merida under the Visigoths became the
metropolis of Lusitania and, according to Rodrigo of
Toledo, was fortified and strongly defended, which
explains why the Muslim conquerors led by Musa b.
Nusayr [q. v. ] had some difficulty in taking it. The
Arab leader on landing in Spain in Ramadan 93/June
712 first took Medina-Sidonia and Carmona, then
Seville. He next laid siege to Merida, before which he
stayed for several months; but the inhabitants in the
end capitulated and the town surrendered on 1
Shawwal 94/30 June 713. From Merida, Musa b.
Nusayr continued his advance to Toledo.

Under the Arab governors, Merida seems to have
very soon become a rallying point for a large number
of rebels of Berber and Spanish origin. It was there
that Yusuf al-Fihri endeavoured to organise a move¬
ment against that organised for his own benefit by
c Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil in 141/758. At a later
date, a Berber named Asbagh b. c Abd Allah b.
Wansus rebelled there against al-Hakam I in 190/805
and the amir of Cordova had for the next seven years
to undertake summer campaigns against him before
bringing him to reason. Another rebellion broke out
in Merida in 213/828, and the town had to be
besieged in 217/832 and again in 254/868. In the
reign of the amir c Abd Allah it was the headquarters
of c Abd al-Rahman b. Marwan al-Djilllkl (“the Gali¬
cian”), an Arabic name which concealed that of a
Christian nationalist leader. Merida definitely
returned to its allegiance in the reign of c Abd al-
Rahman III al-Nasir, when it submitted in 316/928 to
the kadid Ahmad b. Ilyas.

From the 5th/llth century, Merida began to
decline in favour of Badajoz, especially when the
latter town became the capital of the independent little
kingdom of the Aftasids [< 7 . 0 .]. It remained in the
hands of the Muslims till the beginning of the 7 th/13th
century. In 625/1228 it was retaken by Alfonso IX of
Leon, but never recovered its former importance.

The Arab geographers who mention Merida
describe its Roman ruins in detail; they also mention
the Muslim citadel, the foundation inscription of
which has been preserved. It was built in 220/835 by
the governor c Abd Allah b. Kulayb b. Tha c laba by
order of the Umayyad c Abd al-Rahman II.

Bibliography: The Arabic historians of
Umayyad Spain ( Akhbar madjmuda ; Ibn c IdharI,
Bayan ; Ibn al-Athir; Nuwayn; Makkarl, Analectes,
passim)-, Idrisi, Description de VAjrique et de I’Espagne,
ed. Dozy and de Goeje, text, 175, 182, tr. 211, 220;
Yakut, iv, 389-90; Ibn c Abd al-Mun c im al-
Himyari, al-Rawd al-miHar , 210-13; E. Fagnan,
Extraits inedits relatijs au Maghreb , Algiers 1924,
index; Dozy, Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne, ii,
37, 40, 62, 96; idem, Recherches 3 , i, 54-6; Codera,
Inscription drabe del Castillo de Merida, in Bol. R. Acad.
Hist., Madrid 1902, 138-42; E. Levi-Provengal,

Inscriptions arabes d’Espagne, Leiden-Paris 1931, 39-

40; idem, Hist. Esp. mus., iii, 350-1 and index.

(E. Levi-Provenqal)

MARIDIN [see mardin].

al- MARIDINI [see al-mardIni].

MA C RIFA (a.) “Knowledge, cognition”.

1. As A TERM OF EPISTEMOLOGY AND MYSTICISM

I. Lexicographical study. Like Hrjan, the
word maHija is a noun derived from the verb c araja.
According to the lexicographers, it is a synonym of
Him [q.v.]. Ibn Manzur {LA) notes that c araja may be
used in place of iHaraja (“to recognise”), in the sense
that maHija is that which enables a person to
recognise, to identify a thing. On the other hand,
iHaraja signifies “to ask somebody for information
(khabar) regarding something”. It is the reply which
makes recognition of this thing possible. When an
animal is lost, “a man comes who recognises it
( yaHariju-ha ), that is to say, he describes it by an
attribute (sifa) which makes known (yu c limu) that it
belongs to him”. According to a tradition related by
Ibn Mas c ud, people were asked if they knew their
Lord. They replied: “If He makes Himself recognised
to us, we know Him.” Consequently, from a
philological point of view, the maHija which causes
recognition and which thereby gives knowledge (Him)
of its subject, always contains the indication of an
attribute through which its subject is identified. The
hadith of Ibn Mas c ud is explained thus: “If God
describes Himself by means of an attribute through
which we can authenticate Him, then we know
Him.”

In his Dictionary of technical terms, al-TahanawT lists
several senses of the word maHija, which he identifies
with the word “knowledge” while noting particular
connotations which are sometimes given to it to
distinguish it from Him. (1) In the first place, maHija
is knowledge, in the absolute sense of perception
(idrak), whether in the form of a concept, or in the
form of a judgment. (2) It is the perception of a
concept; in the case of a judgment it is called
knowledge. (3) It is the perception of what is simple
(basil), whether it is a concept of the quiddity or a
judgment regarding the conditions of this quiddity; or
it is the perception of something which is composite
(murakkab), whether it be a concept or a judgment. But
according to technical terminology, perception of the
composite is specifically called knowledge. In addi¬
tion, according to the lexicographers, the correct
statement is “I have cognition of God {jarajtu 7 lahj"
and not “I have knowledge of God ( <i alimtu-hu)'\
because God is a simple entity. Consequently, that
which is in relation to maHija is simple, whereas that
which is in relation to knowledge is multiple ( muta-
: addid) and thus composite. (4) It is the perception of
the particular, notion (mafhum) or verdict ( hukm ); or
the perception of the universal, notion or sentence.
But the perception of universals is more specifically
called knowledge or speculation (nazar). According to
al-TahanawI, it is most probable that in principle, the
word maHija is used to apply to a concept, and the
word knowledge to apply to a judgment. Then there
are ramifications. Thus it may be considered that
definitions (2) and (4) are ramifications of definition
(3), since the particular and the concept resemble the
simple, and the universal and the judgment resemble
the composite. (5) It is the perception of a particular
by means of a proof or indication ( dalil)\ this is called
maHijat istidaliyya, cognition by proof. This is reminis¬
cent of what the LA states regarding cognition by sifa.
The language itself clearly marks the connection

MA C RIFA

569

between dalil and cognition; it is said daialtu bi ’l-tank
in the sense of “I have made the way known
( c arraftuhu ), as the LA notes. One also considers the
meaning that grammarians give to the word ma c rifa to
indicate the determination of a noun, as opposed to
nakira. It is the condition of a noun applied to a thing
taken in itself ( bi- c aynihi ) and the article which deter¬
mines it (by ta^rif) acts in such a way that the object
that it signifies may be pointed to ( mushar bihi ) with a
positive designation (isharat an wadHyyd). The noun is
furthermore, in a general sense, that which is
indicated by a meaning (md dalla c ala ’l-ma c nd). It thus
seems that there is indeed a connection between
macrifa, in the sense of the perception of a particular
by means of dalil , and ma c rifa in the sense of deter¬
mination of a noun which makes known an “essence”
definable in itself. (6). It is the perception that comes
after ignorance ( djahl ). Thus it cannot be said that
God is cognisant ( c drif) ; it must be said that He is
knowing ( c alim ). In this sense, the word Him has a
general meaning, and the word macrifa a particular
meaning. (7) It is a technical term employed by Sufis.

II. Ma c rija in mystical thought. Al-Tahanawi
relates that it is usually ( c urj hn ) considered to be the
knowledge ( c ilm) which precedes ignorance ( nakara ).
The use of the word nakara in place of djahl is
interesting (cf. above, nakira). It is the knowledge
(Him) which does not admit doubt (shakk) since its
object, the ma c lum, is the Essence of God and his
attributes. Cognition of the Essence consists in know¬
ing (an yu c lama) that God is existent ( mawdjud ), one
( wahid ), sole and unique (fard); that He does not
resemble any thing; and that nothing resembles Him.
Cognition of the attributes consists in knowing Him
as living, omniscient, hearing, seeing, speaking, etc.
It is thus seen how regularly the word “knowledge”
or the verb “to know” intervene in definitions of
maHifa among the mystics.

It is necessary to distinguish macrifa based on prov¬
ing indications which, by means of “signs” (dydt)
constitute the proof of the Creator. Certain people see
things, then see God through these things. In reality,
maHifa is realised only for those to whom there is
revealed something of the invisible ( al-ghayb ), in such
a way that God is proved simultaneously by manifest
and by hidden signs. Such is the macrifa of men
“anchored in knowledge” (al-rasikhin Ji ’l-Hlm; cf.
Kur’an, III, 7; IV, 162). Then there is the macrifa of
direct testimony ( shuhudiyya ) which asserts itself as
evidence ( daruriyya ); it is this which gives cognition of
the signs through Him who has instituted them, and
this is the prerogative of the just ( al-siddfkin , cf.
Kurban, LVII, 19: hum al-siddikun wa 1-shuhada 5 c inda
rabbihim). These are the men of contemplation (ashdb
al-mushahada).

III. Definitions given by the Sufis, and
the mystical tradition. It is related that God said
to David in a revelation. “Do you understand what it
is to know Me? Cognition of Me is the life of the heart
in the contemplation which it has of Me.” Al-Shibli
said, “When you are attached to God, not to your
works, and when you look at nothing other than Him,
then you have a perfect maHifa.'’’ Cognition has been
compared to the sight of God in the Other Life; “Just
as He is known here below without perception, so He
will be seen in the other life without perception
(idrdk)" (al-Tahanawi), for it is said in the Kur’an
(VI, 101), “Vision will not comprehend Him, but
He, He will comprehend vision.” The Sufis cite the
following hadith of the Prophet, “If you knew God by
a true ma c rifa, the mountains would disappear at your
command.” Cognition is linked to various conditions

(ahwaf) with which tasawwuf deals. Thus Abu Yazid
al-Bi§tami [ q.v.\ said, “True macrifa is life in the
memory of God (dhikr)." Similarly, al-Tahanawi
quotes Abu c AlT (perhaps al-Djuzdjani. 3rd/9th
century), “The fruit of ma c rifa is that one bears with
patience ( sabr ) proofs when they come; that a man
gives thanks (shukr) when he receives a benefit; and
that he gives his consent (rida) to God, when he is
struck with a hateful evil.” The father-in-law of al-
Kushayri [q v.] y Abu ’1-Dakkak, said, “One of the
signs of the cognition that a man has of God, is the
entry into him of reverential fear (hayba). One of the
signs that it is growing, is that this fear grows. Macrifa
necessarily entails quietude (sakina) as knowledge
entails rest.” Ma c ri/a assumes not only the abolition of
the consciousness of self at the level of the soul, the
empirical self, but an absence of self at the level of the
heart and the spirit. Abu Hafs ( c Umar b. Maslama al-
Haddad, born near Nishapur, d. ca. 260/874) said,
“Since I have cognition of God, there enters into my
heart neither truth nor falsehood. Cognition neces¬
sarily entails for the man his absence (ghayba) from
himself, in such a way that the memory of God reigns
exclusively in him, that he sees nothing other than
God and that he turns to nothing other than to Him.
For, just as the man who reasons has recourse to his
heart, to his reflection and to his memories, in every
situation which is presented to him and in every
condition which he encounters, so the c drif has his
recourse in God. Such is the difference between him
who sees through his heart and him who sees through
his Lord.” In the same context, al-Bistami said, “The
creature has its conditions, but the c arif , the cognisant
one, does not have them, because his traits are effaced
and his ipseity (huwiyya) is abolished in the ipseity of
One Other than him (God). His features become
invisible beneath the features of God.” Also worthy of
quotation is al-Wasiti (pupil of Djunayd and of al-
NurT, d. 320/932), “Macrifa is not authentic when
there remains in the man an independence which
dispenses with God and the need for God. For to
dispense with God and to have need of Him are two
signs that the man is awake and that his characteristics
remain, and this on account of his qualifications. Now
the Q arif is entirely effaced in Him whom he knows.
How could this—which is due to the fact that one loses
his existence in God and is engrossed in contempla¬
tion of Him—be true, if one is not a man devoid of
any sentiment which could be for him a qualification,
when one approaches existence?” The following are
other conditions which are related to maHifa. Ibn Abi
THawwari (3rd/9th century) said, “He who knows
God best and he who fears Him the most.” Ibn c Ata 5 ,
the friend of al-Halladj, thought that macrifa depends
on three things: reverential fear, modesty (haya*) and
intimacy with God (uns). In fact, he who has cognition
of God is in intimacy (anasa) with Him. The following
are some definitions and qualifications of the one who
knows God. It has been said, “The c arif is he who acts
for the pleasure of his Lord, without gaining anything
for himself by this action.” Seeing that some teachers
taught that having once arrived at cognition, man no
longer acts, al-Djunayd took issue with this opinion:
“Those who have the cognition ( al- : arifun) of God,
draw their actions from God and turn to God in their
actions. If they needed to last for a thousand years,
acts of piety would not be diminished by a jot.” The
same Djunayd said, “That man is not truly an c arif,
so long as he is not like the earth which is trodden by
the pious man and the licentious alike, like the cloud
which extends its shade over all things, and like the
rain which drenches the one that it likes and the one

570

MA C RIFA

that it does not like.” In some instances, the definition
adopts a dialectical twist. Thus Yahya b. Mu < adh (a
native of Rayy, who settled and died in Nlshapur in
248/872), said, “The c drif is the man who is there
without being there.” Al-Djunayd added, “who is
distinct without separation.”

In general, it is to be noted that all these concep¬
tions, while placing maHifa above demonstrative and
speculative knowledge, do not absolutely imply an
esoteric vision. All or most depend on certain features
which make of maHifa an illuminative cognition whose
brightness has the power to stun. Thus Ruwaym, a
Sufi of Ba g hdad (d. 303/915), said, “For the c drif,
maHifa is a mirror; when he looks at it, his Lord shines
there for him ( tadfalld lahu )”, and Sahl b. c Abd Allah
al-Tustan notes that “the final stage of maHifa consists
in two things: amazement ( dahash ) and confusion
(hayrd)” . The same notion is found in the writings of
Dh u ’1-Nun al-Mi?ri.

Some interesting analyses, and important conclu¬
sions, are to be found in the work of Farid Jabre, La
notion de maHifa chez Ghazali , Beirut 1958. Comparing
af-Ghazall with Plotinus, he writes (p. 134), “The
former aspires towards an abstract ideal world, the
‘well-guarded Table’, archetype of revealed
knowledge, the latter seeks to lose himself
ontologically in the One... It is here that maHifa and
gnosis diverge fundamentally: the latter is achieved in
ecstasy... which is not simply vision... but unitive
vision, and the former in the loss of consciousness of
the self.” Al-Ghazall indeed belongs to the line of
mystics whose conceptions have been related in this
article.

IV. Macrifa in the thought of Ibn c Arabi.
It seems that Ibn c Arabi makes no distinction in usage
between the words “knowledge” and “cognition”.
For him, there is one maHifa which is attained through
the light of intelligence ( bi-nur al- c akl ): this is cognition
of the divine nature ( maHifat al-uluhiyya) and of what
is necessary, impossible, possible and not impossible
for it. It is evident therefore that what is in question
is a rational cognition, in other words, knowledge. On
the other hand, there is a maHifa which is attained by
the light of faith ( bi-nur al-iman), by means of which
intelligence (al- c afci) seizes the Essence and the
qualifications which God ascribes to Himself. It is this
second maHifa which has to be that of the mystics (cf.
Futuhdt , ed. c Ulhman Yahya, i, 203, no. 289). Ibn
c Arabi devoted ch. 177 of the Futuhdt to “cognition of
the status of cognition.” Nobody has knowledge ( Him)
except He who knows ( c arafa ) what is through its
essence. Whoever knows what is through some thing
which is added to its essence, is a mukallid who
intimates that which is added thus by means of that
which he receives from it. Every cognisant being that
is not God thus has cognition through taklid in confor¬
ming to the data of the senses and of reason. Since he
is compelled to imitate, the man of good judgment ( al-
c akil) who wishes to know God, must imitate Him in
that which He has made known ( akhbara ) of Himself
in His Books and through the mouths of His
Messengers. When he wishes to know things, not rely¬
ing on his own faculties but through force of
obedience ( bi-kathrat al-ta c at), he comes into a state
where God is his hearing, his sight and all his
faculties. Then he knows all things through God, and
God through God. This was the answer given by Dh u
’1-Nun when he was asked by what means he knew his
Lord: “I know my Lord through my Lord; without
Him, I would not know Him.” Those who rely on
their own senses, know that senses and reason can be
mistaken (as al-Ghazali pointed out in the Munkidh).

They seek to distinguish the cases where they are
mistaken and the cases where they are justified. But
since they make this distinction with faculties which
can be mistaken, they can never know whether what
they classify as true is not false and vice versa. Here
there is a serious malady ( da 3 c udal ), which can be
avoided only by those who in all things have
knowledge only through God. As for knowing what it
is that causes such men to have knowledge from God,
this is something which our error-prone faculties are
incapable of establishing. Since we see that we can
have knowledge only through taklid , all that remains
for us is to imitate “him who is called the Messenger
and that which is designated as the Word of God.”
We conform to these models to the point at which God
becomes the totality of our faculties. We will thus be
able to determine the cases where we shall take posses¬
sion of truth. The man who arrives at this state is
then, as the Kur*an expresses it (XII, 108; LXXV,
14), c ala basirat tn . Macrifa, in its highest degree, is thus
this basira, this interior view of realities which neither
the senses nor reason are capable of attaining.

Ibn c ArabI distinguishes three ranks of categories of
knowledge ( maratib al-Hlum). The first is that of the
knowledge of intelligence, founded on necessary prin¬
ciples and the demonstrations based on them. This is
not under discussion here. The second is that of the
knowledge of states ( Him al-ahwai), to which the only
access is through taste ( dhawk ), such as the knowledge
of the sweetness of honey or the bitterness of bile. This
definition also accords with the taste-oriented cogni¬
tion of the Sufis. The third rank is that of knowledge
of secret things ( c ulum al-asrar). It is superior to the
category of intelligence (fawk tawr al- c akl ); it is the
knowledge of the infusion of the breath of the Spirit of
Holiness in the human spirit (Him nafth Ruh al-Kuds ji
’l-raw c ). It is the prerogative of the prophet (al-nabt)
and of the saint ( al-wali ). It includes two types. The
first is apprehended by the intelligence, as in the first
rank of knowledges, but not as a result of speculation
(nazar). The second type is of two kinds. One is linked
to knowledge of the second rank, to dhawk., but is
superior ( ashraf ). The other is a knowledge of informa¬
tion (min c ulum al-akhbar). This is evidently concerned
with information the veracity (fidk) of which is
guaranteed; this is the information given by the
prophets (cf. Futuhdt , ed. Yahya, i, 138-40, nos. 64-8).
Consequently, macrifa in its highest degree, where
basira is exercised, seems to accord well with the
different aspects of the c ulum al-asrar.

A further division is found (ibid., i, 153, no. 100):
“The axis of the knowledge which belongs to men of
God (ahl Allah) consists of seven questions. For
whosoever knows them ifarafa-ha), there is nothing in
the knowledge of Realities (Him al-hakaHk) which
presents a difficulty. These are: cognition (maHifa) of
the Names of God; the cognition of epiphanic emana¬
tions (tadjalliyat)-, cognition of the Word addressed by
God to man in the form of the language of the Law;
cognition of disclosure through imagination (al-kashf
al khaydli); and cognition of sicknesses and remedies.
A detailed study of these ma c arif forms the object of ch.
177 of the Futuhdt, to which the reader is referred. All
that is noted here is that it seems that among all these
cognitions, there is one which is distinct in the sense
that is operates in all the others; this is the cognition
of disclosure through imagination. In particular, that
which Ibn c ArabI says concerning cognition of the
Names of God depends on a symbolic vision which is
the act of the imagination. Here we refer to the work
of H. Corbin, L’imagination creatrice dans le soufisme
d'Ibn c Arabi , 2 Paris 1977.

MA C RIFA — MARIN1DS

571

V. The Yazdan-shanakht of al-
Suhrawardl. This Persian tide is the equivalent of
ma'Tijat Allah. Corbin has analysed it in his Oeuvres
philosophiques et mystiques d’al-Suhrawardt , Tehran-Paris
1970, ii, 117-31. Here the author examines the
development of human cognition, estimative and
intellective. Corbin writes in this context: “There is
certainly a measure of Avicennism in all this, but it is
possible in addition to discern the premisses of the
philosophy of Ishraq.” In fact, this treatise which
aspires towards prophetic cognition, towards mystical
charismas and visions in dreams or in states of trance,
is definitely less original than Corbin suggests. It calls
to mind the Kitab al-Fawz al-asghar of Miskawayh (tr.
Arnaldez, Tunis 1986). But it is in relation to the
philosophy of ishrak that Corbin defines true ma c rifa:
“In contrast to representative cognition, which is
cognition of the abstract or logical universal ( Him suri),
this is a case of presen tia l cognition, which is unitive
and intuitive, of an essence absolutely true in its
ontological singularity (Him huduri ittisali, shuhudi ), a
presential illumination ( ishrak huduri) which the soul,
the being of light, brings to bear on its object; it makes
itself present in making itself present to itself”
(.Histoire de la philosophie islamique , in the series Idees,
NRF, Paris 1964, 291).

VI. Conclusion. Macrifa has frequently been
translated as gnosis. The Greek yvcoaii; probably
denotes purely and simply cognition. But the word
“gnosis” has taken on a particular sense; it denotes,
not one, but several systems which undoubtedly have
common features, but which differ considerably from
one another. There are thus several gnoses : Basilidian,
Valentinian, Isma c Tli, Ishraki, Shi*!, etc. Corbin has
written (Avicenne et le recit visionnaire, Berg Interna¬
tional, 1979, 23), “But ultimately it remains a case of
a spiritual attitude which is fundamentally the same:
a deliverance, a salvation of the soul obtained not
merely through cognition, but through cognition
which is precisely gnosis.” But this is nothing more
than a nominal definition. The notion of salvation
through cognition is certainly present in the gnoses,
but it is also to be found in the systems inspired by
Plato and by Neo-Platonism, in which it is taught that
the cognition of intelligibles by the human intellect
liberates man and even assures his survival after
physical death. Yet there is nothing gnostic in these
systems. In criticising the gnostics, Plotinus
characterises the gnoses by other features entirely, in
particular by the multiplicities of intermediaries,
standing as so many entities between the First Princi¬
ple and the world below, according to a succession of
manifestations whose link with the mythologies is
apparent. Thus it is undoubtedly true that there is a
ma c rifa in the gnoses, and that ma'rifa can be of gnostic
type, esoteric and initiatory. But it is definitely a
misuse to translate macrifa automatically as “gnosis”.
Were it not so, it would be necessary to render the
plural al-ma^arij by “the gnoses” (listed above), which
would obviously be unacceptable.

Bibliography: Given in the text.

(R. Arnaldez)

2. As A TERM DENOTING SECULAR KNOWLEDGE

Hence opposed to Him and almost synoymous with
adab, see c ilm.

MARINIDS (Banu Marin), a Berber dynasty
of the Zanata group, which ruled the western
Maghrib (Morocco) from the middle of the 7th/l 3th
century to the middle of the 9th/15th.

A considerable number of contemporary sources,
chronicles, literary works, inscriptions, collections of

judicial decisions (fatwds and nawazil), Italian,
Aragonese and French archive documents make it
possible to paint a fairly complete picture of the
history of Morocco under the Marlnid dynasty. The
historian Ibn Khaldun, their most famous contem¬
porary, reproduced in his Kitab al- c Ibar the
genealogical descent, largely mythical, of the Marlnid
tribes in the context of the Zanata family, and
designates the desert between Figuig and Sidjilmasa
as the terrain which they originally frequented. It is to
be believed that the arrival of Arab tribes in the region
from the south during the 5th and 6th/11 th-12th
centuries was the cause of various demographic muta¬
tions which obliged the Marlnid tribes to proceed
towards the north and to settle in the plains of the
north-west of what is now Algeria. Nomadic
shepherds and breeders of sheep, the Banu Marin
gave their name to the wool (merino) that they
produced and which, being of superior quality, was,
as early as the beginning of the 8th/14th century,
exported to Europe through the agency of Genoese
merchants. An Italian document which tells of 49
consignments of wool called “merinus”, purchased in
Tunis in 1307, also supports the theory that the
dynasty was not unconnected with the introduction of
the sheep of this name in the Iberian peninsula.

The appearance of the Marlnids in the works of
Arab chroniclers dates from the 6th/l2th century, first
in reference to local conflicts, then as a political factor,
from the time of their participation in the battle of
Alarcos, in Spain, alongside the Almohads (591/1195)
[see al-muwahhidun]. After 610/1213-14, they main¬
tained a slow but persistent penetration into the
inhabited areas of the zone which they had habitually
frequented, where the Almohad regime was in the
process of rapid disintegration. At the start, their
activity consisted only in claiming dues from the
towns and charging protection dues, and the
Almohads conducted an ambiguous policy towards
them, fighting them at times and collaborating with
them at others. By the middle of the 7th/13th century,
the Almohads were no longer able to resist forcibly the
physical occupation and settlement of the Marlnids in
the large towns. United under the leadership of the
house of c Abd al-Hakk, which at this point became the
dynastic family, they captured Meknes in 642/1244,
Fas in 646/1248, Sidjilmasa in 653/1255 and finally
Marrakesh, the capital, in 668/1269. Only recently
converted to Islam, the Marlnids showed no
particular reformatory zeal at the time of their
occupation of Morocco, unlike their Almoravid and
Almohad predecessors. They did, however, as a result
of their encounters with jurists and city dwellers,
cultivate a sense of mission which had a religious
ingredient, wishing to provide the Muslims with just
and prosperous government, which the Almohads
were no longer able to offer (M. Shatzmiller, Islam de
campagne et Islam de ville: le jacteur religieux a l 'avenement
des Merinides, in SI, li [1980), 123-36).

Following the seizure of Marrakesh, the history of
the Marlnids is divided into two periods of approx¬
imately equal length, corresponding to two phases: a
first phase (668-759/1269-1358) characterised by
military exploits, urban expansion and governmental
stability, and a second phase (759-870/1358-1465)
which sees a slow erosion of the political structures, a
territorial regression and internal division. Almost all
the Marlnid sovereigns of the first phase (see the
dynastic list) were distinguished by the vigour of their
military campaigns and the length of their reigns.
From the start, the Marlnids displayed a remarkably
dynamic military strength: with a series of campaigns

572

MARINIDS

conducted in Spain against Castile (674/1275,
676/1277, 682/1283), the sultan Abu Yusuf Ya c kub
established the central position which the Marinid
factor was to occupy in the diplomatic scene of the
western Mediterranean basin during the 7th and
8th/13th and 14th centuries. For their Ma gh rib! co¬
religionists, this constant Drang nach Osten of Marlnid
policy constituted a permanent threat which was
realised from time to time, the most violent episode
being the prolonged siege of Tlemcen under the sultan
Abu Ya c kub Yusuf (698-706/1299-1307). The high
point of Marlnid history was reached under the sultan
Abu THasan C A1T with the seizure of Tlemcen
(737/1337) and of Tunis (748/1347) and the
temporary subjection of the entire Ma gh rib (R.
Thoden, Abu ’l-Hasan c Ali. Merinidenpolitik zwischen
Nordafrika und Spanien in den Jahren 710-725H! 1310-
1351, Freiburg 1973).

The chroniclers of the period, al- c Uman and Ibn
Marzuk, supply numerous details regarding the
composition, the routine, the equipment and the pay
of the army. Composed of regular and irregular units,
its striking force seems to have been constituted by
Zanata horsemen (40,000 in the time of Abu T
Hasan). The Arab tribes also supplied horsemen,
while Andalusians were recruited as unmounted
archers. In addition to its numerical importance, the
army was frequently engaged in training exercises and
equipped with catapults and fire-throwers. A Christ¬
ian militia, commanded by an “alcayt” and recruited
in Aragon, Castile and Portugal from 1306 onwards,
with other non-indigenous elements including Kurds
and negroes, constituted the regular army and the
personal bodyguard of the sovereign. The Christians,
between 2,000 and 5,000 at the time of Abu ’1-Hasan,
were paid once every three months at the rate of 5 to
50 gold dinars per month, part of their salary being
paid to their respective sovereigns. In the turbulent
years of the second phase, this militia took an active
part in the increasingly numerous palace revolutions.
The remainder of the army was also registered in the
Dlwan and paid in kind. Only the chieftains of tribes
received land in iktd c .

The only point of weakness was constituted by the
fleet, which, in spite of the abundant supply of wood
and the existence of ship-building yards at Ceuta and
Sale, was never large enough to compete with the
Aragonese fleet. The archives of the court of Aragon
testify, in fact, that for naval battles, such as the
seizure of Ceuta in 678/1279, Catalan ships were
hired at a high price by the Marinid sovereigns. On
the other hand, a Marlnid unit of Zanata horsemen
participated in 1285 in the European campaign
against France and in 1307, 7,000 Marinids were in
the service of the Nasrids of Granada.

The first phase of Marlnid history was also an age
of major architectural activity, and the Marinid
monuments of the early period reflect the energy and
the material wealth of the time. These consist
primarily of three new urban conurbations, New Fez,
al-Binya near Algeciras and al-Mansura near
Tlemcen; of zawiyas; of the necropolis of Chella; of the
arsenals of Ceuta and Sale; of a kasaba at Meknes; of
mosques at al- c Ubbad, al-Mansura and Taza; of
fortifications; of a hospital for the insane at Fas; of
hydraulic wheels in numerous towns, of fountains and
gardens; but most of all, of magnificent madrasas, four
at Fas and one at Sale, which, renowned for the
beauty of their decoration and their Hispano-Moorish
style, remain-the Marlnid monuments par excellence.
The material prosperity of the Marinid state and the
image that it adopted at this time, as champion of

Maghrib! Islam, explains the large number of pious
donations ( wakf khayri ) made by members of the
dynasty to the benefit of public institutions in their
own towns and in captured towns, as well as those of
the holy cities of the East. The chronicles, the fatwas
and the inscriptions of wakfs all attests to the donation
of goods, property and land by the sultans Abu Sa c !d,
Abu THasan and Abu c Inan to the benefit of
madrasas , mosques and libraries.

Like its two contemporary dynasties, the c Abd al-
Wadids and the Hafsids [q. vv. ], the Marinid state
maintained the demographic, social and government¬
al structures of the Almohads, as well as the physical
aspects of their civilisation. In addition to the Arab
and Berber ethnic variety—the human wealth of the
Marinid state—the demographic composition of the
countryside, still agrarian and tribal, was coloured by
the distinction between the sedentary population of
the plains and that of the mountain regions. While the
countryside remained linguistically and socially, even
religiously, almost entirely Berber, the nomadic
shepherds, islamised to a small extent, became more
and more arabised. In the towns, largely arabised and
absolutely islamised, tribal loyalty gave way to
familial aristocracy. Under the Marinids, the towns
gathered in Andalusian elements in ever-increasing
numbers. The ethnic variety was completed by the
existence of Jewish and Christian communities in the
urban centres. While the Christians were merchants,
priests and soldiers, more numerous in the coastal
towns but still a small minority, the Jews, an
indigenous element reinforced by immigrants from
Spain, were more numerous and more active in all
aspects of the life of the country.

The Marinid court resided at Fas, which replaced
Marrakesh as the seat of the administrative appa¬
ratus. A Marinid sultan, bearing the title of amir al-
muslimin , and later also that of amir al-mu^minin , was
the supreme sovereign of his country, his involvement
in government varying largely according to his
personal inclination. Thus the sultan Abu THasan
was involved in all the bureaucratic activities of his
state, especially the administration of the army,
taxation—he even introduced a landownership and
fiscal reform in the Ma gh rib—intellectual and
religious activity, and even the administration of
justice to citizens who complained of abuses on the
part of his agents.

The responsibilities of the vizier, who was at certain
times subordinate to the chamberlain, were on a day-
to-day basis in the charge of various functionaries;
head of finances, head of chancellery, chief of police,
admiral, town governor, head of kasaba, senior kadi,
head of the mint and head of the muhtasibs. The
Berber democratic and consultative nature of the
Marinid government was maintained by the
existence, throughout its history, of the council of
chiefs of the Marinid tribes, which was convened at
the invitation of the sovereign and mainly discussed
military affairs. The economic life of Morocco under
the Marinids attests to a prosperity which was uncon¬
nected with the rise, in the 8th/14th century, of the
kingdom of Mali [q. v. ] and the development of the
gold trade. This prosperity was reflected in three
sectors: agriculture, urban industry and trade with
Africa and Europe. Agriculture was dominated by a
system of land-ownership largely similar to that of the
Haf§ids: land was classified into three categories,
these being public land (<§ aza y ), from which territory
was leased to individuals and granted as ikta c ; mulk
(private property); and land endowed for religious
institutions and individuals ( hubus ).

7 he Marinid dynasty

c Abc al-IIakk al-Marlnl

Abu Sa c id c Uthman I

2. Abu Ma c ruf Muhammad

- 1 -

3. Am Yahya Abu Bakr

4. Abu Yusuf Ya c kub

614-38/1217-40

638-42/1240-44

642-56/1244-58

656-85/1258-86

Abu Hafs c Umar

(56-8/1258-9

fi. Abu Sabd c Uthinan II
711-31/1310-31

5. Abu Ya < kub Yusuf
685-706/1286-1307

Abu c All 'Umar
714 33/1314 33

9. Abu 1-J-

asan 'Al:

731-49/1331-51

6. Abu Thabit c Amir
706-8/1307-8

7. Abu 1-RabY Sulayman
708-10/1308-10

Abu 'Abel Allah Muhammad

823-30/1420-7

26. c Abd al-Hakk
823-69/1420-65

MARINIDS

573

According to al- c Umari, the revenues of ikta c land
were reserved for senior chiefs of the army, high
dignitaries of the court, palace secretaries, kadi s and
Sufi shaykhs. The Marinid fatwas attest to the existence
of small and medium-sized plots of land, cultivated by
the owner with one or more tenant-farmers. There is
no indication of the existence of large agricultural
holdings, except those in the possession of members of
the reigning family. All co-operation in this regard
was regulated by one of three agricultural contracts
agreed upon by Muslim jurists, muzdra c a, mugharasa
and musakap khamasa also existed. The sources speak
of abundant yields of fruit and vegetables, cultivated
in the countryside but also in the proximity of towns,
wheat being the major exported product.

The local industries of the towns, textiles,
tanneries, building, metal-working, ceramics, food¬
stuffs and glassware, gave rise to an important craft
milieu which achieved prominence in the 8th/l 4th
century with its participation in royal processions,
where members of each profession marched in a
group displaying a flag showing the tools of its trade,
as well as written texts. Commerce with Christian
countries passed especially through the town of Ceuta,
but other Atlantic ports were also frequented from the
7th/13th century (660/1262), Sale, Safi, Arzila and
Anfa, where in 705/1305 an agent was in residence,
acting on behalf of Majorcan merchants. The duties
levied by Marinid customs on imported and exported
goods varied from one port to another. Christians
imported into Marinid Morocco wine, cotton,
pepper, flour, finished silk, camphor, cinnamon,
metals, cloth, linen, fine fabrics, ropes, tackle, gum,
lac, cloves, gall-nuts, brazil wood, jewellery. They
exported copper, wax, cotton goods, coral, wool, salt,
leather, and above all wheat, which was cheaper than
in Ifrikiya and held as a monopoly by the palace
administration. No less important for Marinid
Morocco was trade with Black Africa across the
Sahara, whence caravans brought salt, ivory, ostrich-
feathers, gum and incense, musk, Guinea pepper,
ambergris, and above all gold from the Sudan in ingot
and powder form, which arrived through the town of
Sidjilmasa. The vigour of external commerce explains
the importance of Ceuta and of Sidjilmasa throughout
the Marinid period, as well as the aggressive
Maghribi policy of the Marinids, which had the object
of gaining control of the revenues of the Oriental,
Saharan and European trade which converged in the
coastal cities of the Ma gh rib. An abundance of yellow
metal characterises the Marinid economy, as is
manifested by the payments in gold (dinars) made by
Marinid sovereigns especially to Spanish monarchs
and recorded in their archive documents. Silver was
scarce. The Marinids struck gold dinars of high
quality; they followed the tradition introduced by the
Almohads in minting a double dinar , the dinar dhahabi
of the sources, of a weight of 4.57 gr., alongside the
traditional dinar with inscription in naskhi and kufi, the
dinarfiddi or : ashri of the Marinid sources, of 2.26 g.,
thus called because it was worth ten dirhams. Coins
found indicate the existence of halves, quarters and
eighths for dinars and dirhams. The Marinids also
maintained the square shape of the Almohad dirham ,
with an inscription also in Almohad style and in naskhi
script. The quality of the striking seems, however,
inferior. Marinid coinage was struck at Azemmour,
Ceuta, Sidjilmasa, Fas, Marrakesh, and Sale, as well
as in Ma gh ribi towns occupied by the Marinids:
Tlemcen, Algiers, Bougie, Tunis and Tarifa. The
taxes levied on the subjects of the Marinid state were
usually numerous, for the most part non-Kurianic

and, except during the reform introduced under Abu
’1-Hasan, leased out to wulat. In addition to magharim
and mukus of all kinds [see maks], three major taxes
were in evidence: the rural population paid the khiras,
which corresponded to the canonical kharadg [q.v. ],
also imposed on citizens who cultivated fruit trees;
city and country dwellers also paid the kanun , a capital
tax similar to the dgizya [q v.\ levied on the Jews;
shepherds paid the hukr , a tax on the lands used for
pasture, and each user of the irrigation systems also
paid a tax on the water.

The diverse manifestations of religious and
intellectual life and of literary production under the
Marinids were to a large extent conditioned by the
changes undergone by urban society and by the
development of new political and social structures.
Thus from the earliest days of the dynasty, the
sovereigns had to deal with a numerically strong and
powerful religious establishment, which claimed for
itself the role of spokesman of society and was in
evidence especially at Fas. The popular revolts which
took place in this city obliged the Marinids to confront
the opposition of an autonomist urban movement to
their regime, and to neutralise it by the creation of
their own religious and intellectual circles. In order to
achieve this aim, there was introduced into Morocco
for the first time the institution of the madrasa [<?.^. ],
which led to the creation of a body of Zanata fukaha 3
whose loyalty to the regime could not be doubted. At
the same time, because of the hostility of the city
dwellers, even the administrative and literary circles
of the court had to be recruited from among the new
immigrants from Andalusia, from Ifrikiya, from the
central Maghrib and even from the countryside
(Shatzmiller, Les premiers Merinides et le milieu religieux de
Fes: l ’introduction des medersas, in SI, xliii [1976],
109-18).

In general, the religious life of the period was
marked by the restoration of Malikism as an official
rite, a process which had been well advanced under
the last Almohads, but even more by the diffusion of
Sufism which, spreading to the countryside and prac¬
tised in a particularly Ma gh ribi form, degenerated
into maraboutism. In the towns, Sufism was also
practised, but in a more refined form, with the partici¬
pation of the sultans, the dignitaries and the men of
letters.

Literary production under the Marinids was multi¬
ple and varied, with Oriental and Andalusian
elements of style and structure playing a dominant
role. The areas cultivated were classical: fikh,
biography, hagiography, poetry, geography (Ibn
Battuta and al- c Abdari) at the same time as philoso¬
phy and natural sciences (Ibn al-Banna 5 ). Only
history experienced an extraordinary development in
this period, both in general and in detail, a pheno¬
menon illustrated by the composition of the great
regional histories of the mediaeval Maghrib (Ibn
c Idhari and Ibn Khaldun) and the appearance of local
history, of towns and of dynasties, the mouthpiece of
the social milieu and of territorial nationalism. The
Marinid sovereigns encouraged the writing of their
history, driven by a desire for legitimisation which
their authority lacked.

The decline which struck the Marinid dynasty,
immediately after its period of greatest prosperity,
continued throughout the second phase of its history.
This process was characterised by a crisis of succession
of which the Kitab al-Hbar provides the details: a
multitude of children of the Marinid family were
successively placed in power by innumerable revolts
on the part of Arab and Berber tribes and by palace

574

MARINIDS — al-MARIS

revolutions, while real power passed into the hands of
viziers. The absence of a strong central authority
provoked a movement of political and territorial
disintegration in the regions far from the capital,
especially in the south, but also in the north, where
the activity of pirates provoked Castilian and
Portuguese attacks on Tetuan and Ceuta. The
weakening of the authority of the Marlnid dynasty
was accelerated by socio-religious changes, which took
place in proximity to the major towns and disrupted
their stability. Since the dynasty was extinguished, in
870/1465, not by a palace revolution but by a popular
uprising led by the sharifs, which was nothing other
than a renaissance of the cult of Idris, it is necessary
to credit these movements with real importance. The
fact that the country passed once again under the
domination of a Berber family, the Wattasids, related
to the Marlnids, demonstrates that in spite of its
development, urban autonomism was not sufficiently
powerful to check the demographic and military
might of the tribal countryside. It remains true,
however, that under the Marlnid dynasty there were
introduced into Morocco, for the first time, the idea
and the political structures of national and
geographical unity which were to become modern
Morocco.

Bibliography : Vol. iii of the Bayan of Ibn
c IdharI. Tetuan 1963, supplies useful information
on the beginnings of the dynasty, but the most
complete account of its history is given by Ibn
Khaldun in the Kitab al- c Ibar , of which the section
dealing with the Maghrib has been edited and
translated into French by M.G. de Slane under the
title of Histoire des Berberes , 2 vols., Algiers 1852-6
(new ed., i-iii, Paris 1925-34, and iv, containing
the history of the Marmids and the index, 1956);
two other chronicles which provided source
material for the Histoire des Berberes are the
anonymous al-Dhakhlra al-saniyya, ed. M. Ben
Cheneb, Algiers 1921, and the Rawd al-kirtas of Ibn
AbiZar c , ed. and Latin tr. C.J. Tornberg, Uppsala
1843 (ed. Rabat 1972); the history of the town of
Fas which occupies the first part of the Rawd al-
kirtas is the theme of the chronicle intitled Zahrat al¬
as , of al-Djazna 5 !, ed. and French tr. A. Bel,
Algiers 1923; an almanac of the Marlnid sovereigns
was composed at about the end of the 8th/14th
century by Ibn al-Ahmar and is preserved in his
two chronicles which are almost identical: the
Rawdat al-nisnn , French ed. and tr. G. Bouali and
G. Margais, Paris 1917, and the al-Nafha al-
nisnniyya, still in manuscript form. Two chronicles
describe Marlnid Morocco under the reign of Abu
’1-Hasan: al-Musnad al-sahlh al-hasan of Ibn Mar-
zuk, ed. and Spanish tr. M. J. Viguera, Algiers
1981 and Madrid 1977 respectively, and the
Masalik al-absar of al- c UmarI, French tr. M.
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris 1927, 137-223;
historical sources on the Marmids are examined in
M. Shatzmiller, L ’historiographs merinide, Ibn
Khaldun et ses contemporains , Leiden 1982, where
there is a more complete bibliography for this
period. A general history of the Marmids was
composed by H. Terrasse in his Histoire du Maroc,
Casablanca 1950, ii, 3-99; Ch.-E. Dufourq
described and analysed the relations of the first
Marinids with Aragon in L’Espagne catalane et le
Maghrib au XIII e et XIV e siecles, Paris 1966; J. Caille
included a chapter intitled Les Marseillais a Ceuta au
XIII e siecle, in Melanges d'histoire et d’archeologie de
rOccident Musulman, Algiers 1957, ii, 21-31; on Fas
under the Marinids, see R. Le Tourneau, Fes avant

le Protectorate Casablanca 1949; Marlnid coinage is
described by H. Hazard, The numismatic history of
late medieval North Africa, New York 1952, 192-227,
275-8; and the architecture by G. Margais,
L’architecture musulmane d’Occident , Paris 1954, 261-
361, and A. Bel, Inscriptions arabes de Fes, in JA
(1915-19). A quite uncritical catalogue of the
literary production of the period is given by M,
Benchekroun, La vie intellectuelle marocaine sous les
Merinides et les Wattasides , Rabat 1974; equally
uncritical and based exclusively on Arab authors
are the articles of M. al-Manunl collected in
Warakat c an al-hadra al-maghribiyya ft c asr Bam Marin,
Rabat 1980. The Jewish communities of Marlnid
Morocco are studied by D. Corcos, The Jews of
Morocco under the Marinids, in JQR, liv, 271-87, 55,
55-81, 137-150; Shatzmiller, An ethnic factor in a
medieval social revolution: the role of Jewish courtiers under
the Marinids, in Islamic society and culture, essays in
honour of Professor Aziz Ahmed, New Delhi 1983, 149-
65; and M. Garcia-Arenal, The revolution of Fas in
869/1465 and the death of sultan c Abd al-Haqq al-
Marini, in BSOAS, xli, 43-66. On the Marlnid wakf,
see Shatzmiller, Some social and economic aspects of
“wakf khayn ’ in fourteenth century Fez, in Internal.
Seminar on Social and Economic Aspects of the Muslim
Wakf, Jerusalem 1979. On Sufism, see P. Nwyia,
Ibn c Abbad de Ronda (1332-1390), Beirut 1961.
Finally to be noted is a new study of the history of
the Marmids by M. Kably, Societe, pouvoir et religion
au Maroc a la fin du Moyen Age. Paris 1986.

(Maya Shatzmiller)

al-MARIS, the term applied to the area of the
ancient kingdom of Nobatia, northernmost of
the Nubian Christian kingdoms, and occasionally also
to its people.

Broadly, it encompassed the area from Aswan to
the northern border of al-Mukurra \q.v.}, and was
under the control of the king of Dunkula [see
dongola], the “Lord of Mukurra and Nubia”. The
northern frontier, according to al-ManufT, quoting al-
Djahiz, was indicated by two rocks jutting into the
Nile five miles beyond Aswan; the southern limit was
at Bastu (and variants) where al-Mukurra proper
began. The capital was at Faras, and there were also
important forts, including Kasr Ibrlm. The adminis¬
tration was vested in the “Lord of the Mountain”
{Sahib al-Diabal. or “Lord of the Horses”, Sdhib al-
Khayl, in Ibn al-Furat), the Eparch of Nobatia, under
the authority of the king at Dunkula. This official’s
duties were to receive correspondence and visitors
destined for the king, and to control passage
southward into Nubia. The population of al-Marls
contained an admixture of Arabs, and al-Mas c udI
mentions a case in 218/833 between the king of Nubia
and the Muslim citizens of Aswan who owned estates
in al-Marls. The king held that land could not be sold
since it was his property, worked by his subjects only
in their capacity as his slaves. The case was judged in
favour of the purchasers. According to Yusuf the
Egyptian, there was a bishop of al-Marls (perhaps the
bishop of Pachoras (Faras)). The provinces of al- c Ali
and al-Djabal, part of al-Marls, were apparently
ceded to Egypt by the treaty of 674/1276, and the
Muslim Banu TKanz \q.v .] gradually became
prominent in the region, eventually taking the throne
at Dunkula. Several of the Arab writers tell of the
Marls! wind, which brought a pestilence to Egypt, so
that people began, when the wind arrived, to buy
ointments and shrouds for their funerals. The
designation “Maurotania” in Abba Mina’s Coptic
Life of the patriarch Isaac (ca. 700 A. D.), would appear

al-MARIS — al-MARIYYA

575

to refer to al-Marls. The term al-Maris is found in
Arabic texts from at least the 1 st/7th to the 10th/16th
centuries.

Bibliography: Abba Mina, Vie d’Isaac, in Pair.
Or., xi, 1916, 3, 377-8; Ibn al-Faklh, 75; Mas c udi,
Muru<£, iii, 32, 42-3, vi, 273 = §§ 874, 880-1, 886,
2479; Ibn Hawkal, 58; Abu Salih, tr. Evetts,
Churches and monasteries of Egypt , 266; Ibn Khalli-
kan, Beirut, i, 228; Yusuf, in Mon. Cart. 1150b;
Nuwayri, Nihaya, Cairo ms. xxviii, f. 259, Paris ms
1578, f. 88b; Ibn al-Furat, ed. Beirut, vii, 44 ff,
51; Ibn Khaldun, v, 922, vi, 10; Ibn Sulaym al-
Uswanl, in al-Manuft, ch. I; idem , in Makrizi,
Khitat, iii, 252 ff., 298-9, 303; Ibn TaghribirdI,
Cairo, vii, 188-9; Y. F. Hasan, The Arabs in the
Sudan , Edinburgh 1967, index; G. Vantini, Oriental
sources concerning Nubia, 1975, index.

(S. Munro-Hay)
MARISTAN [see bimaristan].

MARITSA [see meri£|.

MARIYA, a Copt maiden, according to one
statement, daughter of a man named Sham c un, who
was sent with her sister Sirin by the Mukawkis [ q. v. Jin
the year 6 or 7/627-9 to Muhammad as a gift of
honour (according to another authority there were
four of them). The Prophet made her his concubine,
while he gave Sirin to Hassan b. Thabit [q.v.]. He was
very devoted to her and gave her a house in the upper
town of Medina, where he is said to have visited her
by day and night; this house was called after her the
mashraba of the mother of Ibrahim. To the great joy of
the Prophet, she bore him a son whom he called
Ibrahim, but he died in infancy. According to tradi¬
tion, an eclipse of the sun took place on the day of his
death, an interesting statement by which we can get
the date exactly—if the story is true—as 27 January
632, that is, only a few months before Muhammad’s
death. Mariya’s beauty and Muhammad’s passionate
love for her excited such jealousy among his other
wives that, to pacify them, he promised to have
nothing more to do with the Copt girl, a promise
which he afterwards withdrew. Abu Bakr and c Umar
honoured her and gave her a pension which she
enjoyed till her death in Muharram 16/February 637.
There is no reason to doubt the essential correctness
of this story, as there is no particular bias in it and it
contains all sorts of details which do not look in the
least like inventions, so that it is exaggerated scep¬
ticism when Lammens supposes that the “mother of
Ibrahim”, after whom the mashraba was called, was
some Jewess. On the other hand, in view of the fact
that all the marriages of Muhammad after the hidfra
were childless, it would have been surprising if evil-
minded people had not cast suspicions on the pater¬
nity of Ibrahim, and that this actually happened is
evident from some traditions, the object of which is to
defend Mariya from this suspicion.

On the other hand, it is not so easy to justify the
part which Kur’anic exegesis makes Mariya play in
the exposition of sura LXVI. In this sura, the Prophet
speaks in a very indignant tone against one of his
wives, because she has betrayed a secret to another,
which he had imparted to her under a promise of the
strictest secrecy. At the same time, Allah blames him,
because, in order to please his wives, he had bound
himsell by oath to refrain from something which is not
definitely stated and because he does not use the right
granted him by Allah to release himself from his oath.
In addition, there is a word of warning to the two
women who had disobeyed him and a threat to all his
wives that he might divorce them in order to marry
more pious ones (cf. XXXIII, 28-9). According to the

usual explanation, the two wives are Hafsa and c Al¬
isha, and the revelation is said to have been provoked
by the fact that Hafsa, on returning unexpectedly to
her house, found Mariya and the Prophet in an
intimate tete-a-tete and that on a day which by rota¬
tion belonged to her (or c A :) isha). In his embarrass¬
ment, he pledged himself by oath to have no more
relations with the Copt girl. But after Hafsa’s breach
of faith, Allah tells him to release himself from his
oath. This explanation fits very well in some respects,
and that the promise of continence is connected with
marital complications is illuminating. That there are
hadiths, which explain his quarrel with his wives quite
differently, does not mean very much, for they are no
doubt invented to drive out of currency the popular,
less edifying version. But, on closer examination,
there is one flaw which makes the latter uncertain, for
it does not answer the question how Muhammad
could call the situation in which Hafsa caught him and
Mariya a secret that he is said to have entrusted to
her.

Bibliography: Tabari, i, 1561, 1686, 1774,
1781-2; Ibn Sa c d, i/2, 16-17; viii, 131-8, 153-6; the
commentaries on sura LXVI; Noldeke-Schwally,
Geschichle des Qordns , i, 217; Caetani, Annali dell’
Islam, ii, 211-12, 237, 311-12; Lammens, Fatima
et les filles de Mahomet, Rome 1912, 2-9. F, Buhl,
Das Leben Muhammeds, Leipzig 1930, 297; W.M.
Watt, Muhammad at Medina , Oxford 1956, 286,
396; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet 2 ,
Paris 1969, 228, 230-2; M. Rodinson, Mohammad ,
Harmondsworth 1973, 279-83. On the eclipse of
the sun, see Rhodokanakis, in WZKM, xiv,
78 ff.; Mahler, in ibid., 109 ff.; K. Ohrnberg,
Mariya al-Qibtiyya unveiled, in Studia orientalia,
Finnish Oriental Society, xi/14 (1984), 297-303.

(F. Buhl).

al-MARIYYA is the Arab name for the Spanish
town of Almeria. According to some authors, it
was originally called Mariyyat Badjdjana, for it had
been the port or maritime suburb of Pechina
(Badjdjana) [q.v.], the ancient Roman Urci. Today,
Almeria is the chief town of the province (which has
the same name) in the most easterly part of Andalusia
on the Mediterranean coast. It is surrounded by bare
mountains with steppe-like vegetation, and this means
that its countryside is very similar to that of some
parts of the North African coastline opposite. The
only part not surrounded by rocky mountains is the
area towards Cape Gata, and it has always been
a region of low rainfall. The land is very eroded
and marked by numerous ramlas, which have
been hollowed out by raging torrents during the times
when it does rain. By contrast, the Rio de Almeria
valley, the Andarax (Andarash). is a green fertile
zone producing an abundance of fruit. This land of
violent contrast has been witness to many splendid
years of the Islamic era and has been described often
in great detail by Arab writers, from East and West
alike.

The Islamic history of Almeria is closely linked with
that of Pechina which, thanks to its own location on
the coast, existed before Almeria, gave it birth and
saw it develop. Soon after its rapid conquest from
93/713 to 95/715, it was populated mainly by Yemeni
Arabs throughout a large area extending almost as far
as the Guadix (Wadi Ash), but there were also several
Berber settlements, especially in the region of the
lower Almerian Alpujarra. During its 765 years of
Islamic history, this territory of Almeria experienced
various changes of fortune.

The small village and port of al-Mariyya became

576

al-MARIYYA

more important than the neighbouring Aguilas, and it
was an administrative dependency of the kura (the
iklim, according to al-Idrlsi) of Pechina. Before they
were controlled by al-Mariyya, the towns of Berja
(Bardja) and Dallas (Dalaya) were also dependent on
Pechina. Dallas was the birthplace of al- c Udhn. the
well-known geographer of the 5th/11 th century, who
provided a careful description of al-Mariyya with
much interesting information (see Tarsi c al-akhbar , ed.
c Abd al- c Az!z al-Ah warn, Madrid 1965, index). Other
towns are Adra and the fortresses of Velez Rubio
(Ballsh), Belicena (Balisana), Purchena (Barshana).
Senes (Shanish), Andarax (Andarash), to name but a
few mentioned by al-Idrlsi (Opusgeographicum, v, 537,
562-4) and by Abu TFida. All these towns, as well as
Vera (Bayra) and some others, were taken as
dependencies of Nasrid Granada during the last
centuries of Islamic rule.

The region of al-Mariyya is surrounded by steeply
sloping sierras which make overland communications
difficult. The town was established in 344/955 by
order of c Abd al-Rahman III al-Nasir [q.v. j; its
special maritime importance arises from the fact that
it faces the North African ports of Tenes and other
Algerian and Tunisian ports, as well as Alexandria
and the extreme Eastern Mediterranean. Arab
geographers, therefore, chose an apt name for it, “the
gateway to the East” and “the key to commerce and
trade of every kind”. The name of al-Mariyya (sic,
not al-Mariyya) has given rise to various explana¬
tions. The idea of “watch-tower” could have come
from the time when men reported there for guard
duty, for it was a look-out post during the raids by the
Normans, and later by the Maghribls, which occurred
in the mid-3rd/9th century and the 4th/1 Oth century.
A number of defensive towers ( maharis ) were built
then along the coast to house garrisons and where
people could lead a life of service in ribals [q.v. ]. Al-
Rabita, which is mentioned by al-Idrlsi, is only a
day’s journey away. Yakut, s.v. , gives free rein to his
imagination when he considers the original meaning
of this town name.

All writers seem to agree that this city was a recent
one ( muhdatha ), and not, like the others, from the
distant past (azaliyya), founded by the Arabs as a place
in which “to practise the life of service in a ribdt ",
according to al- c Udhri and the anonymous Dhikr al-
Andalus (Rabat ms.). Al-Nasir turned it into the main
port and arsenal for all the country’s ships and also
into a madfna. He gave it a fortress on a very rocky hill
to the west, at the bottom of which was the district of
al-Hawd; this was an area enclosed by a series of walls
with a great number of markets, inns and baths. The
population of Pechina, situated several kilometres
inland, was absorbed by al-Mariyya, and it was used
as a naval base and the point of embarkation for
maritime raids against Chistian countries. During the
period of the caliphate, it was a defensive bastion
against the threat of the Fatimids. There was more
commercial activity here than in any other port of al-
Andalus, and it was open to the influence of all kinds
of travellers to and from North Africa and the Eastern
Mediterranean. According to L. Torres Baibas ( Al-
meria islamica , in al-And., xxii [1957], 411-53, which
includes a plan of the town in the 14th century) at the
end of the 4th/lOth century the madina comprised a
rectangle of a little more than 19 hectares in area,
excluding the fortress which was called kal c at Khayran,
enlarged by the c Amirid fata Khayran in 410/1019-20.
He had also had a wall constructed from Mt. Laham,
to the north of the town, to the sea. Within this area,
the city was able to shelter about 27,000 people,

according to L. Torres Baibas (Extensiony demografia de
las ciudades hispano-musulmanas , in SI, iii [1955], 55-6).
The town grew and became even more splendid
during the time of Khayran (d. 429/1038) and
Zuhayr, the two slaves who seized Almerfa and its
territory at the time of the fitna, and during that of the
muluk al-tawaHf.

Shortly after the assassination of Zuhayr in
429/1037-8, al-Mariyya passed to c Abd al- c Az!z b.
AbT c Amir of Valencia, who controlled it from Dhu T
Ka c da 429/Sept. 1038 to Radjab 433/Feb.-March
1042. According to Ibn c Idhari (Bayan, iii, 191-2), the
amir of Valencia was also the ruler of Tudmlr
(Murcia) and he sent his son c Abd Allah to be the
governor of al-Mariyya. But he stayed only a short
time; he soon died and was replaced by Abu TAhwas
Ma c n b. Sumadih al-Tudjlbl. In 433/1042 he revolted
against the c Amirid ruler of Valencia, declared his
independence and ruled the town as his own territory
until his death in 443/1052. The town certainly
prospered under him, but it prospered even more so
under his son Abu Yahya Muhammad b. Ma c n b.,
Sumadih, who took the title of al-Mu c tasim; it became
a centre of culture, with one of the most famous of the
literary courts of al-Andalus until the time of the
Almoravids (see R. Dozy, in Recherches 3 , 211-81).
During the period of the muluk al-tawa^if, al-Mariyya
maintained relations (though not always friendly
ones) with the neighbouring taifas of Granada (see
H.R. Idris, Les Zirides d’Espagne, in al-And., xxix
[1964], 39-145), with Denia, Valencia, and even with
Cordova and Seville. This had the effect of reducing
the extent of the territorial possessions of the Banu
Sumadih.

Under the Almoravids, al-Mariyya achieved its
fullest economic potential. It can be argued that it
prospered most in the second half of the 5th/l 1 th
century and the First half of the 6th/12th century; then
it suffered the first Christian conquest, in 1147, by
Alfonso VII of Castile, which is celebrated in the
Chronica Adephonsi Imperatoris. Its economic develop¬
ment and its military and naval importance showed
itself in the commercial and industrial ventures that
were undertaken and its growth as a city and artistic
centre. Beginning with al-Idrlsi, many geographers
from the 6th/l 2th to the 8th/14th centuries, including
the compiler al-Makkarl, agree that the cloth and
brocade (dibadf) produced there were as fine as the
products of Cordova; the town became highly
renowned for this and without rival in al-Andalus.
Among the materials and brocades which had built up
the reputation of the town’s industry were cloth of
gold (washy \q. v. ]) (which was also made at Malaga)
[q.v.], siglaton, baldachin, and all sorts of silk, which
was known to be better (and more expensive) than
that from other areas. There was an obvious eastern
influence on the manufacture of textiles, as can be
seen from the names given to some of the cloths, like
isfahanis and djurdjanis, which sound Persian, and
c attdbi, which was probably c IrakI. Al-Zuhrl (Kitab al-
Dia^rdfiya . ed. M. Hadj-Sadok, in BEO, xxi [1968],
101/206) mentions other white-coloured fabrics
brocaded with gold, which, according to many
sources, were favoured by the women of al-Mariyya
for their garments. Other reliable authorities claim
that there were 800 or 1,000 factories for tiraz in the
town, and that there were as many looms for produc¬
ing other fabrics as well. Naturally, this would have
given employment to a considerable number of
weavers.

Beside textiles, other industries included the
building of warships (in the dar al-sind^a) and the

al-MARIYYA — al-MARKAB

577

manufacture of tools and weapons from copper and
iron. Agricultural products of the region came
especially from the valleys of the Andarax and the
Almanzora ( wadi ’l-Mansura ) where there were olive
trees, vineyards, a large variety of fruit trees, banana
plantations and sugar-cane. The marble from the
Macael quarries in the Sierra Filabres was particu¬
larly famous because it was used for covering plinths
and for paving palaces, especially the one called al-
sumadihiyya (see L. Seco de Lucena, Los palacios del taija
almeriense al-MuHaJm, in Cuadernos de la Alhambra , iii
[1967], 15-20; J. Bosch Vila, Mocdrabes en el arte de la
taija de Almeria?, in Cuad. Hist. Isl ., viii [Granada
1977], 156). Mine-working in the area was to produce
silver and gold; some writers say there were precious
stones. The marble was also used to make columns,
capitals, tombstones ( makbariyya ) and fountains.

From the time when the town was taken by the
Christians in 1147 and its recapture by the Almohads
in 1157, the commercial and cultural prosperity there
dwindled. The most eminent citizens emigrated to
North Africa, and several of the more densely
populated and busier areas of the town were
destroyed. Muhammad b. Yahya al-Ramimt (or
RumaymT), who had recognised the authority of Ibn
Hud [see hudids], was to be assassinated in al-
Mariyya. These factions and subsequent internal
political struggles considerably weakened the influ¬
ence of the capital and, after it had been incorporated
into the kingdom of Granada by Muhammad I in
Shawwal, 635/May-June 1238, it ended its Islamic life
under the Na§rids. There was a major attack on the
town in August 1309 when it was besieged by the
Aragonese of James II (see R. Basset, Le siege
d’Almeria en 709, in JA, 10th ser., x [1907], 275 ff.;
I.S. Allouche, La relation du siege d’Almeria en 709
(1305-1310) d’apres de nouveaux manuscripts de la Durr at
al-hijdl, in Hesperis , xvi [1933], 122-38; E. Levi-
Provengal, Un “zayal" hispanique sur Vexpedition arago-
naise de 1309 contre Aimeria y in al-And ., vi [1941], 377-
99). It continued to suffer from internal troubles and
was involved in the dynastic rivalries and civil wars
which weakened the kingdom of Granada and cast a
shadow over the future of the Muslims of al-Andalus.
Al-Zaghal, the uncle and enemy of Boabdil, took
refuge there, and it was delivered into the hands of the
kings of Castile on 22 December 1489.

Bibliography: References have been given in
the text to Arab authors and the principal
geographical and historical sources relevant to al-
Mariyya and Malaka. See also S. Gilbert, La ville
d’Almeria a Vepoque musulmane, in CT, xviii/69-70
(1970), 61-72; J.A. Tapia Garrido, Almen'a musul-
mana (711-1147y 1147-1482) = vols. ii and iii of
Historia General de Almeria y su provincia , [Almerfa]
1976-8; and finally, E. Molina Lopez, Algunas
consideraciones sobre la vida socio-economica de Almeria en
el siglo XI y primer a mitad del XII, in A etas del IV colo-
quio hispano-tunecino de Mallorca en 1979, Madrid
1982. There is also c Abd al- c Az!z Salim, Algunos
aspectos del jlorecimiento economico de Almeria islamica
durante el periodo de los Taifas y de los Almoravides,
Madrid 1979; idem, Ta\ikh madinat al-Mariyya al-
islamiyya , Beirut 1969. (J. Bosch Vila)

MARKAB, observatory [see marsad].
al- MARKAB, a fortress situated on the
Syrian coast.

The name of al-Markab, from the root rakaba
“observe, watch”, denotes any elevated site from
which it is possible to see and observe, such as the
summit of a mountain, of a fortified castle or of a
watch-tower (LA, ed. Beirut 1955, i, 424-8; Yakut,

ed. Beirut 1957, v, 108-9). Arab authors generally call
this stronghold al-Markab; also found are Kal c at
Markab and Hi$n Markab. There are also Arabic
transcriptions such as Mar Kabus for Markappos,
Mar Kaban for Marckapan, Mar Qhatum for
Margathum or Mar ghat for Margat. In western
works various spellings are encountered, including El-
Marcab, Margat and Margath, Markab or Marqab.

1. Geography of the site. On current maps,
the castle is situated at 35°27' E. by 35° 10' N.,
between Ladhikiyya [q.v. ] and Tar{us, standing at an
altitude of 1,187 ft./362 m. at the summit of a broad
and steeply-sloping basalt promontory, separated
from a plateau of lava deposits. This barely accessible
summit is one of the western foothills of the Djabal
An$ariyya range which extends towards the north,
evidence of very ancient volcanic activity marked by
streams of basalt in the regions of al-Markab.

The castle affords a unique panorama towards the
east over land consisting of calcareous hills with
outcrops of quaternary and pliocene clay, the territory
of the Assassins or Hashishiyya [q.v.], and towards
the west over the coastal plain which is fringed by
basaltic sand and intended with small coves. At the
foot of the castle there is a cove which is sheltered from
the wind and capable of accommodating ships of
limited tonnage; Walpole ( Travels , iii, 289) noticed
here in the 19th century some remains of masonry,
possibly relics of mediaeval harbour installations. At
this latitude the coast is one-and-a-half days’ sailing
distance from Cyprus.

The castle overlooks the main coastal road, at the
point where the coastal expanse is narrowest. It is also
at the foot of al-Markab that the road from Hamat
[q.v.] by way of Masyad [q.v.] reaches the sea.

The barrier constituted by the basalt mass of al-
Markab is skirted to the north by the Nahr Baniyas,
which is swollen by a prolific water-source upstream
from Baniyas, and to the south by the Nahr Markiya,
which flows between al-Markab and Khirab Markiya
(ruins of Maraclea, Marachea); this coastal stream,
according to The initerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem,
constituted the northern frontier of Phoenicia.
According to William of Tyre, this place marked the
frontier between the Principality of Antioch and the
County of Tripoli.

2. History. Among the early Arab geographers
and travellers who made mention of al-Markab, al-
Idrisi (Opus geographicum, 644, tr. Jaubert, 130) says
that “it is a fortress built on a mountain inaccessible
from all directions”; Yakut says in his Mu^djcim that
“it is a town and a castle overlooking the shore of the
Syrian Sea. It protects the city of Bulunyas and the
coast of Djabala [q.v.]. All those who have passed by
it say that they have never seen anything of
comparable might.” At the beginning of the 8th/14th
century, Ibn Battuta (i, 183) visited al-Markab and
mentions it as one of the great castles of Syria
constructed on the summit of a high mountain and
recalls that Sultan Kalawun [q.v.] captured it from
the Christians (in 684/1285). His contemporary al-
Dimashkl (ed. Mehren, 208) says that “Hisn al-
Markab is an impregnable fortress on a ‘tongue of
land’ overlooking the sea”. Abu ’l-Fkja 5 is more
laconic, saying only that “al-Markab and Buluniyas
are situated on the coast of Hims; al-Markab is the
name of the castle overlooking the sea”. Finally, al-
KalkashandT, in the 9th/15th century, stresses that
“al-Markab is mentioned neither in the Ta c rif nor the
Masalik al-absar”; he used material from Abu TFida 3
in his Subh (iv, 145-6), saying that “it is a fortress near
the coast of “the Roman Sea” (al-Bahr al-Rumt) in the

578

al-MARKAB

fourth region and according to the (corrective
tables of the Ptolemaic measures, one dating from
360/961, the other from 691/1292) situated at long.
60°, lat. 34°45’ . It is a powerful and finely-con¬
structed fortress overlooking the sea; at a distance of
about one parasang, the town of Bilinyas (sic =
Baniyas) is located.”

According to the chronicle of Abu Qhalib Humam
b. al-Faqll al-Muha dhdh ib al-Ma c arrI, quoted in
Yakut, and according to the Ta\ikh ak~Kila c wa 7-
husun of Usama b. Munkldh quoted in Abu TFitfa 5
(ed. Reinaud and de Slane, 255), the fortress was built
by the Muslims in 454/1062. Al-DimashkI (ed.
Mehren, 208) states that al-Markab was constructed
with stones from previous ruins, often with well-cut
blocks found on the site, and attributes its foundation
to al-Rashld. It is hardly probable that the person in
question is Harun al-Rashld, considered by Van
Berchem (Voyage, 304, n. 4) to be a proverbial expres¬
sion, and even less likely is the opinion of G. Le
Strange ( Palestine , 506) that the reference is to Rashid
al-Dln (Sinan) a contemporary of Salah al-Dln. It is
not impossible that the Rashid mentioned by Usama
b. Munkidh and then by al-Dimashkl could be
Rashid [al-Dawla Mahmud b. Nasr], who was
Mirdasid amir of Halab in 452-3/1060-1 and again
from 454/1062 to 468/1075, a supposition which is not
contradicted by the secondary use of ancient materials
and which is confirmed by the presence of relics
dating back to the 5th/ 11th century. The citadel was
intended to block the advance of the Byzantines, who
controlled the province of al-Anfakiya, towards the
south.

In 494/1101, al-Markab and its hinterland were in
the hands of the Banu Muhriz, who were also in
command of the castle of Kadmus. In the course of an
expedition conducted in 497/1104 by the Byzantines
against the Syrian coast, the Admiral Cantacuzenus,
having been repulsed before the citadel of Ladhikiyya,
disembarked at Buluniyas (Baniyas) and took posses¬
sion, according to Anna Comnena in the Alexiad
( c AXe?(a$, ed. B. Leib, III, liv, XI, 48), of the impor¬
tant strategic point known as al-Markab (to xocXou-
pevov Mapxocjctv, the Marchapin of the historians) and
of other fortified sites in the region such as Safltha (to
T£ ’Apyupoxocorpov) and Djabala (toc TaPaXa).

In 506/1116-17 the heights of al-Markab
represented the frontier of the principality of Antioch.
In 510/1116-17 the crops failed as a result of inclement
weather and drought and the situation was aggravated
by financial inflation; Ibn Muhriz, master of al-
Markab, was placed in an increasingly difficult posit¬
ion, in that he did not have the means to maintain the
citadel and was threatened by the Franks. He even
went to the extent of offering to cede the castle to
Tughtakln. The Atabeg of Damascus sent the kadi Ibn
Sulayha, the former master of Djabala. to his aid. On
the advice of Tu gh takln. Ibn Sulayha took possession
of the fortress and allowed the family of the Banu
Muhriz to remain there. The same year, Roger of
Antioch, having concluded a treaty with the eunuch
Lu'flu 3 who governed Aleppo, marched against al-
Markab. Pons de Saint-Gilles, Count of Tripoli, came
to his aid, but following a quarrel, they abandoned the
siege.

Soon afterwards the Atabeg of Damascus nego¬
tiated an agreement with the Franks, ceding al-
Markab in exchange for Rafanea and the cessation of
their attacks on Hamat and Hims. Ibn Muhriz
resisted the attacks of Renaud Mazoyer, the master of
Bulunyas/Baniyas, eventually negotiating with him in
511/1117-18. Renaud took possession of the castle,

promising Ibn Muhriz that he would be allowed to
remain, but the new castellan expelled him twenty-
five days later, allotting to him in exchange the
fortress of Manlka in the Djabal Bahra.

Thus Renaud Mazoyer, High Constable of the
principality of Antioch, belonging to an important
family mentioned in the Lignages , became the first
Frankish governor of al-Markab, with territory
embracing the mountainous hinterland as far as Abu
Kubays, which overlooked the valley of the Ghab
[q.v.\. Frankish and Armenian settlers were estab¬
lished at al-Markab.

After the death of Roger of Antioch at the battle of
Ager Sanguinis at Sarmada on 17 Rabi* I 513/28 June
1119, the situation in the principality became tense,
and the Mazoyers had difficulty retaining control of
the stronghold.

If the Syrian historian al- c AzImI [q.v. ] is to be
believed, it seems that the Muslims occupied al-
Markab between 525/1130 and 534/1140 during the
dispute between the Franks of Antioch and the Franks
of Tripoli. The situation caused anxiety to the Franks,
as freedom of movement in the coastal area was
threatened. According to the Genoese historian
Caffaro (d. 1166), the castle of al-Markab was taken
from the Muslims by trickery in 534/1140 and seized
by Renaud II Mazoyer, who proceeded to undertake
fortifications, the relics of which may be found among
the construction works of 582/1186. These fortifica¬
tions had been demanded of him by the Prince of
Antioch, anxious to reinforce the southern frontier of
his domain.

In 551/1156 and 552/1157 several earthquakes
affected the Syrian coast, but the most violent was that
of 12 Shawwal 565/29 June 1170 which was felt
throughout Syria and in Cyprus and which, having
damaged the castles of the Djabal Ansariyya, cannot
have spared al-Markab.

In 577/1181 Bohemond III, excommunicated by
the Latin Patriarch of Antioch Aimery de Limoges,
was obliged to deal with a revolt on the part of the
latter’s partisans, among whom was Renaud II
Mazoyer, who seems to have received the Patriarch at
al-Markab. In order to meet the cost of maintaining
the castle and its garrison, the castellan of al-Markab
was obliged to sell, piecemeal, to the Order of the
Hospitallers, his huge domains, part of which lay in
the Rudj between Antakiya and Afamiya [q v.\. After
the death of Renaud II, his son Bertrand Mazoyer,
having insufficient resources at his disposal,
renounced his claims to the castle; on the advice of the
Patriarch Aimery and with the consent of the Prince
of Antioch, he ceded to Roger de Moulins, Grand
Master of the Hospitallers, by an act of donation
concluded at al-Markab on 9 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 581/1
February 1186, the castle with all its territories and
dependencies including Baniyas, Kadmus, c Ulayka
and Abu Kubays. On 30 June 1186 Pope Urban III
appointed Brother Henry as castellan.

‘‘The fief of Markab corresponded approximately
to the bishopric of Boulouniyas (Valania); after 1188
the bishop of Valania and his hierarchical superior,
the archbishop of Apamea, were constrained by the
military situation to take refuge within the walls of
Markab” (Cl. Cahen, Syne, 519).

After the victory of Hittln [q. &.], Salah al-Dln was
intent on the reconquest of Syria. In Djumada I
584/July 1188, coming from Tartus, he was obliged to
pass by the foot of al-Markab on the narrow coastal
road dominated by the Burdj al-$abl, linked to the
castle by a wall. In his advance along the coast he had
been followed by the Norman fleet of Sicily,

al-MARKAB

579

commanded by the Admiral Margaritus of Brindisi.
The ships moored in the cove of al-Markab, and their
crews showered missiles on the Ayyubid army, which
was only able to continue its northward march with
the protection of a veritable palisade erected along the
sea-shore, as described by c Imad al-Din al-Isfahanl
(tr. Masse, 125-6). In the principality of Antioch, only
the city itself and the fortress of al-Markab remained
in the hands of the Crusaders at the end of $alah al-
Din’s campaign.

The Prince Isaac Comnenus, who became the
independent ruler of Cyprus in 1184, gave the
Crusaders an unfriendly reception on his island and
was taken prisoner, at the battle of Tremithoussia on
5 Djumada I 587/31 May 1191, by Richard Coeur-de-
Lion, who incarcerated him at al-Markab, where he
remained until his death in 591/1195.

By means of the tribute levied on the Assassins of
Djabal Bahra and their own resources, the
Hospitallers were able, after 588/1192, to restore the
defences of al-Markab. This site, with Hisn al-Akrad,
became one of the most important items in the defen¬
sive apparatus of the Crusaders against the Muslim
domain, an apparatus comprising c Akkar, c Arka,
Kulay c at, SafTtha (Chastel Blanc), c Urayma, Kal c at
Yahmur (Chastel Rouge) and Tartus, in addition to
the towers and subsidiary points linking these various
places.

In 601/1204, a general chapter of the Order of the
Hospitallers was held at al-Markab under the
presidency of the Grand Master. From the beginning
of the 7th/13th century, the garrison of al-Markab was
in a state of constant conflict with the chieftain of
Aleppo. In 601/1204-5, al-Malik al-Zahir Ghazi
[q.v.], whose domain bordered on that of al-Markab,
sent an army to attack the castle; several towers were
destroyed but when its leader was killed by an arrow
the army withdrew.

In the account of his travels in Syria in 1212,
Wilbrand von Oldenburg gives the most complete
description available of al-Markab: “A huge and very
strong castle, defended by a double wall and
surrounded by numerous towers. It stands on a high
mountain. This castle belongs to the Hospitallers and
is the most powerful defence of the whole country...
The “Old Man of the Mountains” and the Soudan of
Aleppo pay to it every year a tribute of 2,000 marks.
Each night, four Knights of the Hospital and twenty-
eight soldiers mount guard. In addition to the
garrison, the Hospitallers maintain 1,000 persons
there. The territory surrounding the fortress yields
every year crops in excess of 500 loads of sheaves. The
provisions gathered there are sufficient to last five
years.” (Laurent, Peregrinatores, 170). The same
author informs us that “for quite a long time, Margat
has been an episcopal seat” and that the bishop of
Valania (Baniyas) had transferred his residence there.
In this period, pilgrims embarked from al-Markab en
route for Suwaydiyyya in the Principality of Antioch,
with the aim of avoiding the Muslim towns and
territories of the coast.

On the eve of the Fifth Crusade, in 613/1216, Pope
Honorius III, successor to Innocent III, sent Jacques
de Vitry to preach the Holy War in Syria, where he
visited all the Crusaders’ strongholds and praised
especially the might of al-Markab. In the same
period, Yakut wrote that al-Markab “is a castle such
that all men declare that they have never seen its
equal” (v, 108).

The following year, in Djumada II 614/September
1217, Andrew II, king of Hungary, disembarked at
c Akka with a Crusader army; at the beginning of

Ramadan 614/early December 1217 he suffered a
defeat before Mount Tabor (Djabal Thawr) and
subsequently returned to Europe. Before leaving
Syria, he halted at al-Markab; he was impressed by its
defences and made a substantial donation towards
their maintenance. At the end of 614/early 1218, the
castellan of al-Markab enlarged his territory and
made himself master of Djabala, whose ruler and
inhabitants were obliged to perform an act of
allegiance to the Hospitallers.

Having refused Frederick II, the excommunicated
German Emperor, any support for his crusade in
1229, the Hospitallers received no aid from him
towards the upkeep of al-Markab and Hisn al-Akrad.

In RabI* II 628/February 1231, the troops of
Aleppo began once more to pillage the neighbourhood
of al-Markab; a truce was concluded at the end of
spring 628/1231. In 639/1242, the truce was revoked
and the Grand Master of the Order, Pierre de Vieille
Bride, resumed a campaign of harassment against the
territory of Aleppo from al-Markab.

Towards the middle of the 7th/ 13th century, al-
Markab became an official episcopal seat when the
bishop of Valania (Baniyas) transferred his residence
there.

From 659/1261, Sultan Baybars [q.v .] launched
offensives against the strongholds of the Hospitallers,
who paid a heavy price for their defence. The frantic
appeals of the Grand Master of the Order, Hugues
Revel, went unanswered. But, inasmuch as the
Mamluk sultans feared a revival of the Crusades and
an expedition of Christians from Cyprus or from the
West, al-Markab, like Hisn al-Akrad, retained its
strategic value. An agreement was reached between
the Hospitallers and the Templars regarding the
possessions of the Hospitallers in the region of al-
Markab.

In 665/1267, a treaty was concluded between
Baybars and Hugues Revel in regard to these two
fortresses for a period of ten years, ten months and ten
hours; the enforcement of his treaty, accompanied by
considerable sums of money, was supervised by the
na?ib of the sultan at Hims. In 666/1268, Baybars took
possession of Antioch, and seized Djabala and
Ladhikiyya. In 1270, the sultan pillaged the
neighbourhood of al-Markab and of Hisn aJ-Akrad.
In Sha c ban 669/March-April 1281, after the capture
of Hisn al-Akrad by Baybars, the Hospitallers were
left with only one fortress, al-Markab; the Grand
Master of the Order was only able to obtain a truce
of ten years and ten days—negotiated through the
intermediary of the amir Sayf al-Din Balaban al-
Dawadar ( Manhal , no. 689)—in exchange for the
cession of half of the coastal region (sahit) of Tartus,
al-Markab and Baniyas and on condition that no new
fortresses were to be constructed.

In Djumada II 678/October 1279, taking advan¬
tage of the unrest which broke out in Syria with the
accession of Sultan Kalawun, the Hospitallers laun¬
ched a raid in the direction of Bukay c a [q.v.\, but
withdrew when attacked by the Muslims. On reaching
the coast, they turned and routed the Muslims. After
the defeat of the Armeno-Mongolian troops, the
sultan commanded the amir Sayf al-Din Balaban al-
Tabbakhl ( Manhal , no. 692), governor of Hisn al-
Akrad, to lay siege to al-Markab. In Shawwal
679/February 1281, the Hospitallers made a sortie
and repelled the Muslims, inflicting heavy losses. On
22 Muharram 680/13 May 1281, a truce of ten years
and ten months was concluded between Kalawun and
Nicholas Lorgne, the Grand Master of the Hospi¬
tallers.

580

al-MARKAB

In autumn 680/1281, the latter appealed in writing
for help from Edward I, King of England; in
September 1281 a Mongol invasion took place in
Syria. Kalawun succeeded, in Djumada II/October,
in repelling the Mongols near Hims, whither the
Hospitallers of al-Markab had sent a contingent to aid
the Ilkhan.

In 682/1283, the pilgrim Burchard de Mont Sion
mentions in his account the “castrum Margath” —
whose defensive might he extols—as belonging to the
Hospitallers of St. John and as the residence of the
Bishop of Valania (Laurent, Peregrinatores , 30, 70).

In 1285, the sultan sought to punish the
Hospitallers of al-Markab for the assistance that they
had provided to the Mongols. Having assembled at
Damascus, in great secrecy, a considerable quantity
of siege materials, Kalawun appeared before al-
Markab on 10 Safar 684/17 April 1285. The siege
lasted 38 days, and was especially remarkable for the
work of the Muslim sappers and miners who dug
numerous tunnels under the walls. An exploding mine
caused the collapse of the angle of the salient ( bashura)
near the Ram Tower at the southern extremity and
sowed panic among the attackers, who withdrew on
17 Rabi* 1/23 May. Discovering the number of
tunnels dug around the castle, the Hospitallers aban¬
doned the struggle; the amir Fakhr al-Dln Mukrl
received the surrender, and Kalawun entered the
castle on 19 RabI* 1/25 May, having given amdn to the
vanquished. Aware of the strategic importance of al-
Markab, the sultan, after installing a strong garrison,
repaired the defences as is indicated by the large
inscription on white marble (cf. RCEA, xiii, no.
4858). Among the eye-witnesses to the siege were Abu
’1-Fida’, then eleven years old, and his father, as well
as the historian Ibn c Abd al-Rahim, who completed
the Chronicle of Ibn Wasil. The best account of the
capture of al-Markab is to be found in the biography
of Kalawun entitled Tashrif al-ayy dm wa 7- c usur bi-sir al
al-sultan al-Malik al-Mansur (see the text in M. van
Berchem and Fatio, Voyage, 310-15, where the French
translation by Reinaud is also provided).

In the treaty concluded on 1 Rabi* II 684/6 June
1285 between Kalawun and Leo III of Armenia, al-
Markab is mentioned among the possessions of the
Mamluk sultan; the district (niyaba) of al-Markab is
the sixth dependency of the mamlaka of Tarabulus.
The maintenance of the fortress was charged to the
private resources of the sultan. Curiously, al-Markab
is mentioned neither in the Masalik of al- c UmarI (mid-
8th/14th century), nor in the Ta c rif. When Ibn
Battuta visited al-Markab, he found there outside the
walls a suburb used as a stopping place by foreign
travellers, who were not permitted to enter the castle.

At the end of the 8th/14th century and the begin¬
ning of the 9th/15th ( Subh , xii, 463, 464) the na'ib of
Kal c at al-Markab was an amir of twenty; he was wali
of the eastern regions and had the duty of ensuring
night and day the defence of the coast, the main¬
tenance of observation-posts ( adrdk ) and guard-towers
(shawani) and was also required to deter potential
enemies, the place being only a day’s sailing time
from Cyprus.

In the 9th/15th century, in the Zubda (ed. J.
Gaulmier, 71), Khalil al-Zahirl mentions among the
important sites of the province of Tarabulus, “the
fortress of Markab which is clearly impregnable and
controls a territory containing numerous villages”.

In the course of his travels in Palestine and Syria in
842/1476, the sultan Ka 3 itbay passed by the foot of al-
Markab in Djumada II/mid-October (Devonshire,
10), but did not halt there.

From the time of the period of the Burdjiyya
Mamluks \q.v.\, al-Markab is primarily mentioned in
the texts in its capacity as a state prison. Among the
unwilling guests of this castle were: Sayf al-Dln
Aynabak al-Badrl, alabak al- c asakir {Manhal, no. 622;
Ibn TaghribirdI, Nudjum, xi, 154) and his kinsman
Sayf al-Dln Karatay Ibn c Abd al- c Aziz al-Ashrafi
{Manhal, no. 1850), both imprisoned in 778/1376-7.
Djardamur, known as Akhu Taz {Manhal, no. 831;
Ibn Kadi Shuhba. 84) was sent there on the order of
Kidjmas in Sha c ban 784/October 1382, an experience
which did not prevent him becoming governor of
Damascus in 791/1389 (Laoust, Governeurs , 16). In
785/1383, Sayf al-Dln Ahmad Akbugha b. c Abd Allah
al-Dawadar {Manhal, no. 478; Ibn Kadi Shuhba. 106,
113; Nudjum, xi, 202, 303) joined him there and was
freed a few months later at the same time as the
former.

In 791/1389, three amirs were incarcerated there:
Nasr al-Dln Ibn al-Hadhbanl, naHb of Hamat (Ibn
Kadi Shuhba. 291), Timurbugha known as Mintash
{Manhal, no. 722) and Bahadur al-Shihabl al-Tawashi
{Manhal, 702) who arrived there in Djumada II/June.

In 800/1397-8, Sayf al-Dln Shavkh Ibn c Abd Allah
al-SafawT al-Khassakl {Manhal, no. 1184) arrived as a
prisoner at the castle and died there a year later. The
amir akhur kabir Inal Bay b. Kidjmas al-Zahirl {Manhal,
no. 621) was imprisoned there in 805/1402-3. In the
same year, Sudun min c AlI Bak al-Zahirl known as
Taz {Manhal, no. 1126; Nudjum, xii, 177, 298) was
transferred from the prison of al-Iskandariyya to al-
Markab. Sayf al-Dln Baktimur Djillak al-Zahirl, nd^ib
of Tarabulus {Manhal, no. 676) was present there for
a short period; imprisoned in 810/1408, he was freed
the same year. Sayf al-Dln Manku Bay al-Azdamurl
(H. Sauvaire, Description de Damas, in JA [1895], xi,
308, no. 135) was interned there for a period of time
on the orders of al-Malik al-Mu 5 ayyad Shaykh and
then released in 818/1415. The amir Kanl-Bay b. c Abd
Allah al-Muhammadl {Manhal, no. 1811; Darrag,
L ’Egypte sous Barsbay , 14) governor of Damascus who,
following a rebellion in 818/1415 was recalled to
Cairo, was appointed governor of Tripoli in Rabl* II
821/May 1417; shortly after this he suffered a defeat
at the hands of the Turcomans, was dismissed and
imprisoned at al-Markab, where he stayed for two
years before being freed. Finally, in RabI* II
905/November 1499 (Ibn Iyas, Mamelouks, 466), the
sultan al-Malik al-Zahir Kansawh ordered the
imprisonment at al-Markab of the amir Khavr-Bak.
prefect of the province of al-Gharbivva. but then
released him.

After his return from Florence, in autumn
1027/1618, the amir Fakhr al-Dln b. Ma c n [q.v. ] took
steps to strengthen his power in Syria; he succeeded
in gaining the support of a number of places which
had belonged to Yusuf $ayfa, including al-Markab.

Among the travellers of the 18th century, Richard
Pococke, who passed through Syria ca. 1740, noted in
his Description (ii, 200) that the castle of al-Markab, of
which he gives a good description, was the residence
of the governors of the region and that it could be
reached from Baniyas in an hour and a half by way of
a steep incline, in a south-easterly direction. In his
Voyage (ed. Gaulmier, 284), Volney mentioned, in the
Syrian coast “various villages, which were formerly
fortified towns” including “the precipitous site of
Merkab”. He gives no description of it and in fact
does not seem to have seen it.

3. Description of the fortress. Numerical
and alphabetical references are those of the plan
drawn up by E. G. Rey {Arch, milit.), copied by Max

al-MARKAB

581

van Berchem and Ed. Fatio ( Voyage) and by P.
Deschamps ( Terre Sainte Romane , 140-1).

The configuration of the terrain is responsible for
the plan of the castle, which is shaped like an isosceles
triangle with its base line facing north. The latter
measures 350 m., while the east and west walls each
measure 400 m.; the area is more than three hectares.
In the southern part is the “body of the site”
separated from the remainder of the surface by a wall;
the space located to the north of this internal defence
is the “bailey”, used as a farmyard and containing
some outbuildings, enabling the population and the
livestock of the immediate vicinity to be gathered
within the walls in the event of hostilities.

On the west from of the perimeter wall of al-
Markab, some 50 m. above the southern point of the
triangle, is a rectangular tower (1), in the short
southern side of which a door is located, giving access
to the castle; further along are two square towers (2,3)
both typical of the architecture of the period between
1140 and 1186. At approximately the mid-point of
this slightly concave face, is a large square barbican
(A) to which access is gained by a stepped north-south
ramp, then turning at a right-angle, by a small west-
east bridge with three arches above the ditch. This
entrance permitted access to the “bailey” which
extended towards the north and east and to the
entrance giving access to the “body of site”, the castle
as such. It is fitted with a loggia supported by four
corbels; the door is framed with two archery apertures
and provided with a trap-door and a portcullis.
Continuing towards the north, are found four semi¬
circular towers (4,5,6,7) lacking their battlements and
curtains and in a poor state of repair. In the north¬
west angle is a large tower (8) which was restored after
the siege of 1285. The north face of the perimeter,
slightly concave, measures 350 m. This face is in a
badly ruined state, with the relics of two towers, one
in about the centre and the other (9) further east, 75
m. from the larger tower in the angle (10).

The eastern face is convex as far as tower 16. As on
the remainder of the diagram, the perimeter wall with
its archery apertures is double; it overlooks quite steep
inclines and juts out at this point over a ditch, both
sides of which are bricked from a depth of 5 to 7 m.
There are the remains of five towers (11 to 15). It is
from tower 16 that there began the east-west wall
which separated the “body of the site” from the huge
expanse of the “bailey”, and the stones of which were
used in the 19th century by local peasants for the
construction of their houses.

The semi-circ\ilar tower R, 11.2 m. in diameter,
constructed astride the double perimeter wall,
comprises several stories. On its defensive front it has
a stone “jacket” 17 m. in diameter (16). With the
donjon (L), it is the finest construction of al-Markab.
To the north of this tower, there was a defensive
emplacement (Q) and a square tower (P). In 1211 the
perimeter towers of al-Markab greatly impressed
Wilbrand von Oldenburg, who said of them that they
were “built to support the heavens rather than to
provide defence”.

By the entry A, there is access to the “bailey”;
proceeding further east, a second door (O) is found,
also provided with solid defensive structures and its
right-angled passage opening on the courtyard (G).
The latter is surrounded by a “series of buildings
suitable for the accommodation and subsistence of a
large garrison”; its southern side was limited by the
“body of the site”.

To the west, there is a building with a large vaulted
hall (J), and on the first floor is a room (F). “From the

window of this room,” wrote P. Deschamps (Terre
Sainte , 169), “there is an excellent view of the sea.”
Opposite the large hall, on the facing side of the court¬
yard, are some buildings “which were places of
domestic use. In one of them, are two bread-ovens”
and two millstones. The castle maintained five years'
reserve of food.

Built on to the south-east wall of these premises (I),
there is a building (S) with two superimposed stories,
cradle-vaulted and 46 m. long to correspond with the
tower (R).

To the south of the “body of the site” are located
a chapel (H), a donjon (L), a hall (K) and two other
halls (M, N).

The Gothic chapel (H) dates from 1186. It is of
rectangular shape with two doors, the one to the north
opening on the courtyard (G), the other an ogival
portal opening to the west and allowing descent to the
parvis by way of a flight of steps. The nave, 23 x 10
m., with walls more than 5 m. thick, has two spans of
arched ribs; it is larger than that of Hisn al-Akrad.
Two small sacristies open on the sides of the chancel,
that on the north side apparently showing the
remnants of a fresco. This chapel has retained foliated
capitals which resemble those of the first stage of
construction of the cathedral of Tartus [q v.\. Follow¬
ing the Muslim occupation, a mihrdb was constructed
in the south wall.

The donjon (L), built on the southern angle of the
castle, is a powerful tower with circular south front
facing a nearby and potentially threatening escarp¬
ment. This tower is 21 m. high with basalt walls 5 m.
thick, and in the interior are the remnants of a great
hall.

Lower down, before the donjon, is a projecting
structure (C) the base of which is protected by a
“batter”. The south face, 21 m. in breadth, is
rounded in its central section—hence, by allusion to
the prow of a ship, its technical name of “Ram
Tower”. At the top, under the watch-posts of this
tower, a monumental inscription ( RCEA , xiii, no.
4858), on a long band of white marble, written in
enormous Mamluk naskki characters, commemorates
its construction by sultan Kalawun in 684/1285.

A huge building (K) in three stories was
constructed at the same time as the donjon (L), as is
proved by “the common staircase which serves their
upper rooms”. This structure, shaped like a parallelo¬
gram, has three archery apertures opening towards
the south-east and three doors, including a small one
opening to the west on a triangular space giving access
to the donjon or to the parvis of the church and the
courtyard.

To the west of the donjon and the building (K),
there are two buildings in two stories of vaulted
rooms: M, in which there is a room “decorated with
finely sculpted marble capitals”, and N, closely linked
to the donjon with which it shares a partition and a
common passage.

The birka at al-Markab, as in many other places, is
located outside the perimeter wall. In this case it is a
stone-built reservoir 40 m. long and 10 m. wide;
currently, it is less than 4 m. deep. Laid out on a
north-south bearing, it was fed with water from
mountain springs situated to the north. In times of
peace, it supplied the needs of the men and livestock
living within the perimeter of al-Markab. During
sieges, the garrison made use of a reservoir and above
all a well in the interior of the castle.

Ernest Renan, in 1863, referring to the testimony
of his two colleagues, Thobois and Lockroy, wrote
(Mission , 106) in regard to al-Markab: “Here there is

582

alMARKAB

♦

no sculpture or fine decoration, the design is that of
a French 12th century castle. It is evident that in Syria
the Crusaders did not have a uniform style of
construction. Each of the nations which took part in
its building followed its own taste, and all were subject
to the constraints of the materials which they found.”

According to the testimony of W. N. Thomson, to
which Ritter (Erdkunde, xvii, 883) and M. van
Berchem ( Voyage , 305 n.), refer, “it seems that the
fortress was still in a good state of repair before the
middle of the 19th century”.

4. Thevillageofal-Markab. In an assessment
of tithes, dating from 589/1193, it is noted that al-
Markab exported must, wine, sumac, almonds, Figs
and pottery. The same products are mentioned in an
agreement signed between the Order of the Hospital
and the Templars in 630/1233. The “wine of
Margat” was extolled by the traveller Burchard de
Mont Sion at the end of the 13th century.

This is probably the suburb, built to the north and
east at the foot of the slopes of the castle, which is
mentioned by Ibn Battuta (i, 183). It was in the spring
of 726/1325 that the latter, coming from Ladhikivva.
passed before the fortress of al-Markab, of which he
said that it resembled Hisn al-Akrad, constructed on
a high eminence; he noted that it was forbidden to
enter the castle and that foreigners were obliged to
halt in an exterior suburb.

In the early 19th century, the castle of al-Markab
does not seem to have greatly attracted the interest of
travellers. When George Robinson visited Syria and
Palestine in 1828, he took the coastal road and passed
through Baniyas on his way to Tripoli; he marked al-
Markab on his map, but made no mention of it in the
text of his account (ii, 94).

The Ottoman ka'immakam resided in the castle of al-
Markab, administrative centre of the district of the
same name which comprised some 1,500 inhabitants,
for the most part Nusayrts. In 1884, at the request of
the Kd^immakam, the seat of government was trans¬
ferred to Baniyas.

In 1893, according to V. Cuinet, the kadd 3 of al-
Markab was situated to the south of the sandjak of
Ladhikivva; it was then bounded to the north by the
kadd 3 of Djabala, to the east by the vilayet of Syria, to
the south by the sandjak of Tripoli and to the west by
the Mediterranean. This kadd 5 was divided
administratively “into three nahies which are Marqab ,
Qadmous and Ghaouabi. It contains 393 towns, villages
and hamlets. The nahies are administered directly by
the caimakam (deputy governor), with the exception
of that of Qadmous which has a resident mudir in a
fort of the nahie of Ghaouabi” (Cuinet, 169-70).

The total population of the kadd 5 rose to 39,671
inhabitants, including 27,121 Ansariyya. There were
almost 200 schools there for 2,060 pupils. The main
agricultural products were olives and onions, tobacco
and silk which was sold for the most part to merchants
in Beirut. Also found in the kada 3 of al-Markab was
the raising of livestock, especially goats.

In 1895, Max van Berchem and Ed. Fatio noted
(Voyage , i, 308) that “the mosque, recognised from a
distance by a cupola and a minaret-lantern white¬
washed with lime, contains some Arabic inscriptions.
The most important are two decrees announcing the
abolition of taxes, promulgated by two governors of
the province of Tripoli, one under Sultan Barquq in
795/1393, the other under Sultan Jaqmaq in
868/1463” (Wiet, Decrets , nos. 8, 166).

In 1914 al-Markab was the regional centre, as it
was again in 1920. Between 1920 and 1937, this kadd' 3
comprised three nahiyas: al-Markab, Kadmus and

Ennaya. In 1938 there were, between Baniyas and al-
Markab, five Sunni villages, of which one, close to the
foot of the castle comprised 832 inhabitants in 1945.
These villages were dependent upon the kadd 3 of
Baniyas. In the neighbourhood there were Maronite,
Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox villages.

Since 1968 this region has experienced considerable
economic prosperity with the development of the

l. P.C. pipeline and the petroleum port of Baniyas.

5. The isolated tower. At a distance of 1,500

m. in a direct line from the castle, in the coastal plain,
on an isolated hillock, stands a tower called Burdj al-
Sabl (“Tower of the Boy”).

This is a massive square guard-tower, 15 m. high,
constructed of blocks of black basalt, held together
with white mortar. On each face are constructed Five
archery apertures 2 m. high in walls 2.8 m. thick. A
low door opens in the south-west face, giving access to
a groin-vaulted hall; in one of the walls a staircase is
constructed, leading to an upper room and thence to
a terrace. This guard-tower was closely linked to the
castle; its role was to watch over the small bay of the
port of al-Markab and to control the coastal road. It
is possible that there was a tunnel linking the tower to
the castle, permitting the garrison, in time of siege, an
outlet to the road or to the port.

The traces of a long defensive wall, which was
covered over, are still visible; apparently in the
Middle Ages it linked the coast to the castle. The road
passed through a gate in the wall and, in all probabil¬
ity, there would have been a customs-post here.

6. The place of pilgrimage. Nearby, 150 m.
from the goat to the south of the castle of al-Markab,
is a cave called “el Basiyeh” where, according to
popular belief, the Virgin Mary sheltered with the
Infant Jesus. At the end of the 19th century this was
a place of pilgrimage much visited by the Christian
and Muslim inhabitants, especially on 8 September,
feast of the Nativity of the Virgin.

Bibliography: c Imad al-Dln al-Isfahani, al-
Fath al-kussi, ed. Landberg, Leiden 1888, 485, ed.
Cairo 1322/1904, 110-11, tr. H. Masse, Conquete de
la Syrie , Paris 1972, 125-6; Yakut, iv, 500 = ed.
Beirut 1952, v, 108-9; Ibn al- c Ad!m, TaMkh Halab,
ed. S. Dahhan, Damascus 1968, iii, 140; Abu
Shama, K. al-Rawdatayn, in RHC Hist. Or ., iv, 352-

7. ed. Cairo 1288/1871, ii, 127; Dimashki, ed.
Mehren, 114, 108; Abu ’1-Fida 5 , ed. Reinaud, 255;
Mufadcjal Ibn Abi ’l-Fa^a^il, text and tr. E.
Blochet, Histoire des Sultans Mamelouks , in Patrologia
Orientalis , xii/3, Paris 1911, 536; Ibn Battuta, i,
183, new edn. Paris 1982, i, 155; Ibn al-Furat,
TaMkh, Cambridge 1971, ii, tr., index s.v.;
Kalkashandi, Subh al-a c sha , iv, 145-6, xii, 463, xiv,
382-5; Makrlzl, tr. Quatremere, Sultans Mamelouks,
ii/1, 79-85; Kh alil al-Zahirl, Zubdat kashf al-mamdlik,
Fr. tr. Venture de Paradis, ed. J. Gaulmier, Beirut
1950, 71; Ibn Kadi Shuhba, Ta\tkh, ed. C A.
Darwlsh, Damascus 1977, 84, 106, 291, 293; Ibn
Taghrlbirdl, Manhal , tr. G. Wiet, Cairo 1932; Ibn
Iyas, Histoire des Mamelouks Circassiens , ii, tr. G.
Wiet, Cairo 1945, 466; Ibn Iyas, Journal d’un
bourgeois du Caire , tr. Wiet, Paris 1955, i, 79, 297;
Anna Comnena, Alexiad, ed. B. Leib, Paris 1937-
45, iii, xi, 148; Caffaro, De Liberatione civitatum
Orientis Liber , in RHC Hist. Or., v, 67; Wilbrand
von Oldenburg, Itinerarium Terrae Sanctae, in J. C.
M. Laurent, Peregrinatores medii aevi quattuor, Leipzig
1864, 170; Burchard de Mont Sion, Descriptio Terrae
Sanctae, in ibid., 12, 19, 70; Jacques de Vitry,
Historia Hierosolymitana, chs. 32-3, in Bongars, Gesta
Dei per Francos sive Orientalis , i, Hanover 1611,

al-MARKAB — MARK(I)SIYYA

583

1068 ff.; R. Pococke, A Description of the East and
some other countries, London 1743-5, ii/1, ch. 25, pp.
199-201; Volney, Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie 1 , Paris
1787; ed. J. Gaulmier, Paris-The Hague 1959,
284; G. Robinson, Travels in Palestine and Syria, Fr.
tr. Paris 1837, i; F. R. Chesney, The expedition for
the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, London
1850, i, ch. 19, p. 452; F. Walpole, The Ansayrii and
the Assassins. Travels in the Further East in 1850-1851,
iii, 289 ff.; C. Ritter, Erdkunde, xvii, 917; E. G.
Rey, Etude sur les monuments de Tarchitecture militaire
des Croises en Syrie...., Paris 1871, 19-38. Pis. II, III;
idem, Les Periples des cotes de Syrie..., in Archives de
TOrient Latin, ii, 1882, 334-5; E. Reclus, Geographic
de I’Asie Anterieure, Paris 1884, 775; W. Heyd,
Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age, Leipzig
1885, i, 373; G. Chester, Notes on a journey from
Iskanderun to Tripoli , in PEF. Quarterly (April 1888),
74-5; G. Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems,
London 1890, 504-5; H. Sauvaire, Description de
Damas, in JA (1895), xi, 308, n. 135; V. Cuinet,
Syrie, Lihan et Palestine, Paris 1896-1901, 169-74; Sir
Ch. Oman, A history of the art of war in the Middle
Ages 1 , London 1898, 3rd ed. 1978, 51-2; M.van
Berchem, Inscriptions arabes de Syrie , en MIE, iii
(1900), 486-9; idem, and Ed. Fatio, Voyage en Syrie,
in MIFAO, xxxvii, Cairo, i, 1913, 94-6, 281-325, ii,
1914, Pis. LXIII to LXIX; R. L. Devonshire,
Relation d’un voyage du Sultan Qayt-bay en Palestine et en
Syrie , in BIFAO, xx (1922), 10-12; M. Gaudefroy-
Demombynes, La Syrie a I’epoque des Mamelouks,
Paris 1923, 114, 227-8; R. Dussaud, Topographie
historique de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 94, 127-31, 147,
map VIII, B2; Guide Bleu, Syrie-Palestine, Paris
1932, 250-3; Guide Bleu, Moyen Orient, Paris
1956, 350-2; E. Honigmann, Die Ostgrenze des byzan-
tinischen Reiches, Brussels 1935, 114, 117, 125; R.
Grousset, Histoire des Croisades, Paris 1934-6, index
s.v.; G. Wiet, Repertoire des decrets mamlouks de Syrie,
in Melanges Syriens R. Dussaud, BAH, xxx (1939),
522, 537; Cl. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord a I’epoque des
Croisades et la principaute d’Antioche, Paris 1940, index
s.v.; J. Weulersse, Le pays des Alaouites, Tours 1941,
index s.v.; M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des
Wamdanides, i, Algiers 1951, 206; R. Mantran and
J. Sauvaget, Reglements fiscaux ottomans. Les provinces
syriennes, Damascus 1951, 73, 77; S. Runciman, A
history of the Crusades, ii, Cambridge 1952, 11, 54,
134, 190, 490, iii, Cambridge 1954, 47, 103, 220,
344, 348, 390-1, 395-6, 423; H. Laoust, Les
gouverneurs de Damas, Damascus 1952, v. index M.
Dunand, De VAmanus au Sinai, sites et monuments ,
Beirut 1953, 53-56; J. Sourdel-Thomine, Deux
decrets mamelouks deMarqab, in BEO, xiv (1952-4) 61-
4; P. Deschamps, Terre Sainte Romane , Paris 1964,
138-51; L.A. Mayer, Une lettre sur le tremblement de
terre de 1212, in Studies for A. S. Atiya, ed. S. A.
Hanna, Leiden 1972, 295-310; R. Breton,

Monographic du Chateau de Markab, in MUSJ, x/vii
(1972), 253-74; Deschamps, Les chateaux des Croises
en Terre Sainte. iii. La defense du Comte de Tripoli et de
la Principaute d’Antioche, BAH, xc (1973), 258-5, et
index s.v.; R. C. Smail, The Crusaders in Syria,
London 1973, 38, 56, 113-15, 152; T. S. R. Boase,
Military architecture in the Crusader states in Palestine and
Syria, in K. M. Setton, ed., A history of the Crusades,
Madison 1977, iv, ch. 4, pp. 140-64; Ahmad Fa^iz
al-Humsi, Kal c at al-Markab (guide book in Arabic),
Damascus 1982, 38 pp. (N. Elisseeff)

MARK(I)SIYYA, Marxism.

1. Terminology. Marxism is denoted in numerous
Islamic languages by a pure borrowing from Anglo-

French forms, already adopted by the Russian:
marksizm (or marksism ) in Turkish, Persian, Pushtu,
Uzbek, etc. (Albanian marksizem). Elsewhere, an
abstract form has been derived from the name of Karl
Marx: Arabic marksiyya (often mdrkisiyya on account of
the antipathy of the phonological system to a succes¬
sion of three consonants), Urdu mdrks-vad (“tendency
of Marx”). In some languages there is a distinction,
as there is in Russian, between an individual Marxist,
mdrksist, and a Marxist concept or practice, marksisti in
Persian, Pushtu etc., marksistfk in Uzbek (Russian
marksistski as opposed to marksist). In Arabic, both
adjective and substantive are marksl. On the same
model, more recently terms have been coined for
“Marxism-Leninism”, “Marxist-Leninist” etc.

2. The concept. In the Muslim world as elsewhere,
that which is called Marxism is most often conceived
as a complete doctrine claiming to explain the world
and society, upheld by a school of thought and by a
social and political movement designed to bring into
reality the conclusions which it draws from this
doctrine. There are orthodox forms of the doctrine
and of the movement, in other words forms consistent
with the thought of the founders (Karl Marx, 1818-83
and Friedrich Engels, 1820-95) and with the reality of
things, as opposed to deviant, heretical and erroneous
forms. This orthodox concept, official doctrine in the
USSR, is almost universally adopted, among other
places, in the Muslim world, following the tradition of
religious or classical religious tendencies attached to a
particular founder (cf. manawiyya, hanafiyya, etc.). But
its supporters ultimately make of “Marxism” a
particular (though very general) science, like physics.

Specialists without affiliation to a “Marxist”
organisation tend towards a quite different vision.
“Marxian” ideas (those of Marx and Engels) in ques¬
tions of sociology, economics, philosophy, politics,
etc., qualified, fluctuating and often recast by
themselves, have formed the basis of multiple
doctrinal syntheses, starting with Engels himself.
Groupings of political and social campaigners have set
themselves up, declaring that they take as their guide
one of these syntheses which they claim to be the sole
legitimate interpretation, a “scientific”, complete
and consistent doctrine. One of these groupings, the
Communist Bolshevik Party of Russia, on coming to
power in Russia in November (October in the Julian
calendar) 1917, codified under the title of Marxism-
Leninism the interpretation propounded by its leader
Vladimir Ilif Ulyanov, known as Lenin (1870-1924).
Under its direction, a large number of Communist
Parties were formed, united in the Communist Inter¬
national (Komintem according to the abbreviated
Russian form) between 1919 and 1943, and some of
these gained power after 1945. Differences of inter¬
pretation have continued to appear in these parties
(whether in power or not), with dissident groups and
parties seceding from them.

It is not to be denied that there are common traits
in all these doctrinal syntheses, in certain ideas which
are the basis of them or which derive from them. It is
only in this sense that it is possible to speak of a
“Marxism” which would encompass the many
variants. On the level of history, it is also possible to
speak of a Marxist ideological movement, comprising
numerous branches, derived in the final analysis from
the ideas and activities of Marx. Clearly, these terms
should be used with caution.

3. Knowledge of Marx and of Marxism before 1917. In
the 1890s, when there was for the first time talk of
“Marxism” or “Scientific Socialism” as a complete
and coherent doctrine, there emerged, within the vast

584

MARK(I)SIYYA

European socialist movement, organisations calling
themselves “Social Democrats” (united after 1889 in
the Second International) which claimed inspiration
from this doctrinal synthesis and tolerated numerous
variations.

In the first decade of this century, a few isolated
intellectuals from the Muslim world became aware of
these ideas in Europe, through reading or through
contact with organisations. Thus, in Paris, the Tatar
student from Simbirsk, Yusuf Ak£ura, who published
in 1902 in the Young Turk periodical Shura-yi iimmet
(Cairo-Paris) an economic analysis of the Eastern
question with reference to Marx, and the Copt
Salama Musa in 1908. For them, as for many others,
Marx was an eminent socialist thinker alongside
others.

In the Russian empire, the Russian Social Demo¬
cratic Labour Party, founded in 1898, encompassed
or influenced Marxist factions and study groups
among Muslim intellectuals and workers, at Kazan
from 1902 (among Tatars) and at Baku from 1904
onwards (with Iranians, Armenians, Georgians, etc.).
At Baku, one group adopted the name of “Muslim
Social Democratic Party Hummel ” (with the sense of
energy, effort, co-operation, from the Arabic himma).
In Iran itself, a social-democratic group was in
existence at Tabriz already in 1905 (with many
Armenian members at least), requesting advice from
the Marxist theoreticians Georgii V. Plekhanov and
Karl Kautsky. At about this date, another group
adopted the name of Social Democratic Party of Iran
( firka-yi idjtimd^iyyun- c dmmiyyun-i Iran). In the course of
the Iranian Revolution, the latter seems, through the
intermediary of a more substantial clandestine
organisation, the mudjahidin , to have taken action
aimed at a profound social revolution, invoking the
Kur c an and the Sharia.

In the Ottoman empire, tendencies of the same
order existed within the Christian minorities. From
1911 to 1914, Yusuf Ak£ura, who resided there after
having been one of the leaders of the movement of the
Muslims of Russia during the revolution of 1905,
appointed the German Marxist economist of Russian
Jewish origin Alexander Helphand, known as Parvus,
to edit (with personal editorial responsibility) the
economic column of his journal Turk Yurdu at
Istanbul.

The more radical social democrats of the colonising
countries sometimes supported the nationalists of the
Muslim lands and guided them in the direction oj
social struggle. An outstanding example was the
Dutch social-democrat H. J. F. M. Sneevliet who,
taking up residence in 1913 in the Dutch East Indies,
founded there in 1914 the Indian Social Democratic
Association (Indische Sociaal Democratische Vereeni-
ging) whose members included other Dutchmen,
Eurasians and a few Indonesians.

4. Knowledge of Marx and Marxism after 191 7. Within
the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and the
Second International, V. I. Lenin defended his own
stance and defined the other tendencies as “an anti-
Marxist current in the bosom of Marxism”. He thus
made the struggle for an exclusive orthodoxy a
primary pre-occupation for his own tendency, that of
the majority (Russian bolsheviki) in the Party (a
temporary majority in this case), which became
virtually an autonomous party in 1912 and seized
power in Russia in October/November 1917.

The new Soviet power, endowed with considerable
means and considering itself the first territorial resort
of a world-wide revolution, consequently saw as a
priority the diffusion of the works of Marx and

Engels, as well as those which condensed their
doctrine according to the canonical interpretation, the
writings of Lenin in the first instance.

The same applied to all the communist parties
(united in the Third International from 1919 to 1943)
which were founded throughout the world on the
model and the inspiration of the Russian Communist
(Bolshevik) Party and of the parties and groups
produced by schisms within the communist move¬
ment. Each grouping added to the so-called “classic”
works of the founders other texts, those of the
successive supreme leaders of the Soviet Union
(especially Lenin and Stalin), those of the leaders of
the various national parties, those of heads of groups
of tendencies (above all Leon Trotsky), those of
certain theoreticians considered particularly ortho¬
dox, or text-books defining the various orthodoxies.
Meanwhile the Second (“Socialist”) International
continued to attempt a parallel diffusion of texts, but
on a much smaller scale and with much less exclusive
reference to a Marxist orthodoxy.

This massive activity of editing and diffusion was
naturally performed in the languages relevant to each
party or group. The Soviet state also published
translations of selected texts into the many languages
of the Union or of the outside world. In the Muslim
countries, parties, groups and sub-groups undertook
the diffusion of works published in Soviet (and later
Chinese) editions and (often in association with the
latter) in editions emanating from the Communist
publishers of the major western countries. Often, in
times of isolation or difficulty, they produced and
diffused, by improvised means, their own translations
and the texts of local leaders.

There exists no general bibliography of this
immense literature, written in so many languages.
Only a bibliography of bibliographies of editions of
the “classics” of Marxism, edited in the USSR and
elsewhere in the Azeri, Albanian, Bashkir, Kazakh.
Tatar and Uzbek languages, is to be found in L.
Levin, Bibliografiya bibliografiy proizvedeniy K. Marksa,
F. EngeTsa, V. 1. Lenina , Moscow 1961 (see index by
language).

For the purposes of a typical example, it may be
noted that one of the texts most widely translated and
distributed in the Stalinist era was the second section
of Chapter iv of the Istoriya vsesoiuznoy kommunisticeskoy
partiy (bolshevikov), kratkii kurs, “History of the Party of
the Soviet Union (Bolshevik), short course”, Moscow
1938. The sub-title was “course composed by a
commission of the Central Committee of the C(b)P of
the USSR, approved by the Central Committee of the
C(b)P of the USSR, 1938”. The section in question
(it was leaked out that the author was Stalin himself)
entitled “Historical materialism and dialectical
materialism”, set out to summarise (in 30 pages in the
French edition of Moscow) “the theoretical basis of
communism, the theoretical principles of the Marxist
Party”. Every communist group considered it a duty
to distribute this text, reckoned to be fundamental.
Cf. for example, in Arabic, Yusuf Stalin, al-Maddiyya
al-daylaktikiyya wa ’l-taMkhiyya , Baghdad. Ma£ba c at al-
Rashid, 1944, 50 pp., in the collection Rasa^il al-baHh
“Essays of the Renaissance” (there was no connec¬
tion here with the still embryonic Ba c th Party).

5. The Marxist groupings. Bearing in mind that
which has been stated above, it is difficult to
characterise a group as Marxist unless (directly or
indirectly) it expressly declares itself so. On the other
hand, it is not possible here to give a complete list of
the many Marxist groupings in the Muslim world.
Such a list would have to include: (a) Marxist study

M ARK(I)SIYY A

585

groups; (b) groups and parties which called
themselves “social democrats” before 1919 (some of
them continuing to do so today), those which declared
themselves “communists” (Arabic shuyuH , in other
languages usually transcriptions of the European or
Russian word) after this date; (c) groups and parties
which adopt other designations, but which declare
themselves inspired by Marxism and whose
ideological and political programmes are to be iden¬
tified with those of social democratic and communist
parties, such as the Tuda (“Masses”) Party of Iran;
(d) trade unions and so-called mass or popular
organisations (of women, students, youth, peace
campaigners, etc.), such as communist parties
customarily create around themselves, in order to be
assured permanently of a number of sympathisers,
when it is established that these “popular” groups
closely follow the line of a Marxist movement, mostly
of a communist movement; (e) groups, parties or
organisations which declare themselves “socialist”,
groupings or association which are attached to them,
but only when they state categorically that their main
inspiration is from Marxism.

6. Attitudes to Marxism. In the Muslim world,
attitudes in regard to what is known and understood
from Marxist ideas have varied as much as have
attitudes in regard to organisations, and then states,
which declared themselves Marxist or were supposed
to be so, the whole being most often considered as
constituting a coherent unity.

The attitude of men of religion has been influenced
above all by the atheism which they considered to be
the corner-stone of Marxist thought and even to be
the major innovation of Marx, thus displaying their
ignorance of the irreligious tendencies of European
thought before Marx and alongside the Marxists. The
anti-religious policies and atheistic propaganda of the
Soviet State have inevitably reinforced this concept,
still very widespread. The connection in actual fact of
this philosophical atheism with Marxist economic and
social principles has evoked memories of Muslim
religious history: the IsmaTli heresy being especially
perceived on the basis of accounts of the Carmathian
[see karmatI] “communism” and the Nizari
terrorism [see ismaTliyya], with its supposedly non-
Muslim instigators, the “communists” Plato and
Mazdak. Against these ideas, prominence was given
to the right of private property guaranteed by the
Kurban and the Sunna.

A quite different attitude, developed especially in
certain circles after the Second World War, has seen
in Marxism a kind of encyclopaedic scientific and
philosophical synthesis giving sure guidance on action
in the social sphere. Its role has been compared with
that played by the Aristotelian encyclopaedia in the
mediaeval Muslim world (cf. A. Laroui, L 'ideologic
arabe contemporaine, Paris 1967, 152 f.).

Attitudes have been particularly influenced by the
policies of states claiming to be Marxist. During the
1920s and again after the Second World War, a series
of states and movements have seen in them allies
against Euro-American imperialism. In many cases,
the sympathy engendered by this alliance was
extended into attraction towards the doctrine
reckoned to be basic to the general attitude of Marxist
states and movement. In other cases, alliance of the
external level has been able to coincide with the
persecution of local Marxists.

Nationalists of Muslim countries have been able to
denounce the internationalism which is an essential
principle of the Marxist movement, with its antipathy
towards total and unhesitating adherence to purely

national objectives. Similarly, they have denounced
the nationalisms which could be disguised by this
theoretical internationalism: the Russian nationalism
of the Soviet State, the nationalism of the communist
parties of the colonialist countries (France, Britain,
etc.), Zionist Jewish nationalism, etc.

7. Influence of Marxist ideas. The Marxist movement,
most often indirectly, has diffused in the Muslim
world ideas and elements of Weltanschauung which,
although alien in many cases, it has systematised and
popularised in its own way. They have been widely
adopted, even in circles hostile to theories and
political initiatives emanating from the Marxist
movement.

This applies in the case of appeal in a voluntarist
vein for the structural transformation of the social
sphere, the traditional structures being judged to
constitute permament causes of exploitation and
oppression. Dissatisfaction with the established order
and the demand for justice are given a great value at
the expense of the traditional attitude of Islam (among
other religions and philosophies), which sees in this a
culpable rebellion against the order willed by God.
Transformation cannot be achieved by a moral
change, by conversion, but by an organised struggle
on the part of the disadvantaged against the
privileged, by pressures exerted by strikes, demon¬
strations, electoral campaigns and the like (refor¬
mism) or by a genuine civil war, a revolution.
Circumstances having favoured the revolutionary
options, the term “revolution” (Ar. thawra) and its
synonyms ( inkilab , etc.) have acquired a quasi-
mystical quality.

The Marxist movement, born in Europe, had given
the primary role to the transformation, reformist or
revolutionary according to the tendencies, of
industrial European society. In its communist branch,
it had however also appealed for the revolt of
colonised or dependent peoples, reckoned to be
exploited and oppressed by the western ruling classes
just like the proletarians of the industrial world. This
appeal was taken up to the point of a complete inver¬
sion of priorities. Some doctrinarians, starting with
the Tatar Mir Sa c Id Sultan Ghaliev (see below) in
Soviet Russia in the 1920s, placed on the primary
level the struggle of “proletarian nations” against the
totality of industrial nations, reckoned to exploit and
oppress them with the complicity of and for the partial
benefit of their own proletarians.

This theme of the exploitation of the colonial world
by the industrial capitalist world which robbed it of its
riches had been developed by Lenin as an appendix to
the primary doctrine of internal exploitation. It had
enormous success in all circles of the Islamic world.
The term of imperialism which expressed this process,
often confused with that of “colonialism” (Ar.
isti^mdriyya), was taken up by the most anti-Marxist
elements and became a leitmotif (with some conceptual
efforts to distinguish in a more precise fashion
between “colonialism” and “imperialism” im-
birydliyya , etc.).

The diffusion of these dynamic ideas has been
combined with an internal evolution, complex in
origin, which tended towards a veiled secularisation,
a recoil from specifically religious values (the quest for
salvation, etc.) in favour of the primacy of earthly
activism (which has always been regarded as impor¬
tant in Islam). This activism is often invested in the
defence and promotion of the Muslim umma or one of
its parts, but this objective henceforward takes
precedence over piety and religious observance.
Biographies of Muhammad place far greater emphasis

586

M ARK(I)SIY Y A

on his earthly works than on his role as a messenger
of the divine will.

There are limits to the influence exerted by
concepts more or less Marxist in source in the world
of Islam. The nationalism which is such a dominant
force in this world (including the form of nationalism
attached to the Muslim umma [see kawmiyya])
inspires distrust, to say the least, of any analysis of the
classical Marxist type which identifies, within the
struggling nation itself, exploiters and oppressors to
be resisted. The vision of an end of history and an
egalitarian classless society has not easily taken root,
traditional Islam with its hierarchies of wealth and
power being considered to constitute already a society
without classes as such. Similarly, the interna¬
tionalism which is fundamental to Marxism (although
often abandoned in practice) could hardly be expected
to tempt a public opinion moulded by nationalism.

A very widespread moralism also spurns the essent¬
ial determinism of Marxism (even though Marxists
have often been inconsistent on this subject in pract¬
ice). Finally, in spite of the logical possibility of
dissociating from atheism the political, sociological,
social and strategic conclusions of historical Marxism,
in spite of the sporadic efforts by communist parties to
emphasise this dissociation, there is avoidance of any
affiliation which could be interpreted as a public
proclamation of atheism or (perhaps even more
repugnant) a calling into question of the supra-human
origin of the sacred books, the Kur 3 an in particular.
Atheistic propaganda, often amounting to restraint of
religion in the communist states (without going in
general to the extreme lengths of Albania, which has
radically suppressed churches and mosques), causes
unease, even among the leaders of movements or
states which have chosen for strategic reasons to ally
themselves with the former in a given period.

8. Marxist view of Islam and the Muslim world. Marx
and Engels were not greatly interested in Islam as a
religion, and as such it was subject to their general
criticism of religious consciousness. Only the late
reading by Engels of a book by the Anglican priest
and orientalist Charles Forster, The historical geography
of Arabia (London 1844) awakened in him reflections
communicated to his friend and briefly commented
upon by the latter (Marx and Engels, Briefwechsel, i,
Berlin 1949 (= Moscow 1935), 568-90, letters of 18
(?) May, 2, 6 and 14 June 1853. At the end of his life,
Engels, inspired by the revolt of the Sudanese Mahdi
[see al-mahdiyya], compared Muslim revolts to the
religous uprisings of the Christian Middle Ages, more
“progressive” in his opinion (Zur Geschichte des
Urchristentums , in Die Neue Zeit, xiii/1 (1894-5), 4 ff.,
36 ff. = Marx-Engels, Werke, Berlin 1963, xxii, 446-
73, at p. 450). In general, both authors tend to explain
the religious phenomena of Islam in terms of historical
sociology and insist on the “stagnant” character of
the “Orient” in general (cf. also Marxisme et Algerie,
texts edited by R. Gallissot and G. Badia, Paris 1976).

The two founders followed much more closely the
international events affecting the Ottoman Empire,
the “Eastern Question”. A favourable attitude
towards the Ottoman Empire, inspired by their hatred
of Russia, Turkey’s enemy and supposedly the
bastion of international reaction, led them to take a
certain interest in Ottoman institutions following the
example of their ally against Russia, the passionately
Turcophile (and Turcophone) British parliament¬
arian, David Urquhart (1805-77), a conservative
romantic. Towards the end of his life, Engels was at
pains to dampen the enthusiasm (“sentimentalist”
and “poetic”) of French Marxists (the Guesdists) for

the revolt of c Urabi, in his opinion a pasha like any
other (cf. his letter to E. Bernstein, 9 August 1882, in
Marx-Engels, Werke, Berlin 1967, xxxv, 349 ff.).

The Marxist theoreticians of the Second Interna¬
tional showed even less interest in the world of Islam,
with the exception of Parvus (see above) and some
examples of the destruction of the “natural economy”
by capitalism in Kabylia mentioned Rosa Luxem¬
burg, quoting the Russian sociologist M.M. Kovalev-
skiy. Indignation at the traumas wrought by colonisa¬
tion was counter-balanced, as it had been among the
founders, by the conviction that socialist revolution
•could only be produced in the industrialised world as
a result of the maximum development of capitalism.
Only subsequently would the event have world-wide
repercussions.

After the Russian Revolution, the Third Interna¬
tional included in its strategy the insurrection of
colonies against the capitalist metropolises, while
maintaining the priority of revolution conducted by
the proletariat in these metropolises themselves. This
often led to more or less elaborated attempts at
analysis, both on the part of communist parties (and
eventually dissident factions) established in the
colonial and dependent countries, including Islamic
countries, and on the part of those of the metropolises
whose duty it was to support, even encourage, the
revolt of their colonies.

In Soviet Russia itself (subsequently transformed
into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), the
Tatar Mir Sa c id Sultan Ghaliev and his companions,
originally from nationalist and reformist [see islah. 5.
Central Asia, in Suppl.] circles but impregnated with
Marxist ideas, adhered to the Bolshevik Communist
Party and initially collaborated with the new power.
Sultan Ghaliev then elaborated his doctrine on the
specificity and the globally “proletarian” nature of
Muslim society, the primacy of the Muslim East in
the struggle against world capitalism, the
“progressive” and “democratic” nature of the
Muslim religion. Expelled from the Party in 1923, his
ideas evolved still further. He drew up plans for a
Colonial Communist International and for a Socialist
State of Turan, researching Muslim and Turco-
Mongolian sources for Marxist concepts. He was
forced to go underground and finally eliminated.

Studies of Islam and of the Muslim peoples have
been developed in the USSR, naturally on Marxist
lines as soon as the level of somewhat generalised
conclusions has been reached. Particular attention is
paid to the Muslim peoples of the Union, from among
whom specialists have emerged. Advantage has been
taken of the pre-revolutionary tradition of Russian
orientalism which took a special interest in problems
of economic and social history. In the communist
states of Eastern Europe, studies have followed the
same model on the basis of somewhat different
academic orientalist traditions. In addition to
numerous detailed studies, attempts at synthesis have
been hampered by the ideological monopoly of the
Party which reserves for itself the right to any general
conclusion, however minor. Interpretations have also
been required to follow the lines inspired by fluctuat¬
ions of official ideology in general and above all by
successive strategic attitudes adopted in relation to
Islam, the Muslim populations of the interior and the
Muslim states of the exterior.

The communist parties of the capitalist countries or
of the Third World have undertaken virtually no
general study of Islam. But they have sometimes
encouraged their members to study a particular
Muslim country or patronised their works. Outside or

MARK(I)SIYYA — MARMARA DENIZI

587

on the margin of the orbit of communist states and
parties, Marxist or quasi-Marxist studies have been
published in increasing numbers with, in general, a
great deal more originality.

Among the most interesting studies are economics-
based analyses of contemporary developments in the
Muslim world, some of them written by natives of
these countries. More generally, intellectuals of the
Muslim world tend to take as their guide in numerous
domains the neo-Marxist synthesis codified in the
Soviet Union, presented as “the authentic Marxism”
and regarded as a kind of new science throughout the
Third World. For this reason there is frequent
recourse to the works inspired by this synthesis even
in circles hostile to the political, social and ideological
options of the states and parties laying claim to
Marxism.

Bibliograpy: M. Rodinson, Marxisme et monde
musulman, Paris 1972; W. Z. Laqueur, Communism
and nationalism in the Middle East, London 1956; H.
Braker, Kommunismus und Weltreligionen Asiens. i.
Kommunismus und Islam, Tubingen 1969-71, 2 vols.;
F. Georgeon, Aux origines du nationalisme turc, Yusuf
Ak(ura, Paris 1980; K. S. Abu Jaber, Salamah Musa:
precursor of Arab socialism , in MEJ , xx/2, 196-206; A.
Bennigsen and Ch. Lemercier-Quelquejay, La
Presse et le mouvement national chez les Musulmans de
Russie avant 1920, Paris-The Hague 1964, 120 ff.;
eidem. Lex mouvements nationaux chez les Musulmans de
Russie. i. Le “sultangalievisme ” au Tatarstan , Paris-
The Hague 1960; A. Bennigsen and E. S.
Wimbush, Muslim national communism in the Soviet
Union, a revolutionary strategy for the colonial world,
Chicago-London 1979; Kh. Shakeri, Le Parti
communiste iranien, unpubl. thesis, E.H.E.S.S.,
Paris 1980, 50 ff.; C. Chaqueri, La Social-democratie
en Iran , Florence 1979; J.S. Mintz, Mohammed,
Marx and Marhaen, the roots of Indonesian socialism,
London-Dunmow 1965; J. Th. Petrus Blomberger,
Le communisme aux Indes neerlandaises , Paris 1929; Le
bolchevisme et TIslam , in RMM , li-lii (1922); P.
Dumont, Un economiste social-democrate au service de la
Jeune Turquie, in Memorial 0. L. Barkan , 75-80; H.
Batatu, The old social classes and the revolutionary move¬
ment of Iraq, Princeton 1978; H. Carrere
d’Encausse and S. Schram, Le marxisme et I’Asie
1854-1964, Paris 1965; G. Haupt, Le debut du
mouvement socialiste en Turquie, in Le mouvement social ,
xiv (1963) 121-37; M. S. Sfia, Le socialisme dans les
pays musulmans au debut du XX e si'ecle , aper$u
bibliographique, in ibid., 139-42; G. Haupt and M.
Reberioux (ed.), La Deuxieme Internationale et
I’Orient, Paris 1967; J. Thrower, Marxist-Leninist
‘ ‘Scientific Atheism ’ ’ and the study of religion and atheism
in the U.S.S.R. today. The Hague 1983 (exhaustive
material on the study of Islam in the USSR and
amongst Marxists); R. Gailissot (ed.), Mouvement
ouvrier, communisme et nationalisme dans le monde arabe,
Paris 1978; K. E. Pabst, Zu einigen Ubersetzungen der
Klassiker des Marxismus-Lemnismus ins Arabise he, in
Hallesche Beitrdge zur Orienlwissenschaft, i (1979), 21-
31. _ (M. Rodinson)

MARMARA DENIZI, the Turkish name of the
Sea of Marmara.

1. The Sea itself.

(a) Geography. This is a small sea within the borders
of Turkey, communicating with the Aegean Sea
through the Dardanelles see £anak-kal c e boghazi]
and with the Black Sea through the Bosphorus [see
boghaz-ici] . Istanbul is the most prominent city on its
shore.

The Sea has a surface area of 11,350 km. 2 ; its

greatest length, from the Dardanelles to the end of the
Gulf of Izmit, is 260 km; its width between Silivri on
the Thracian side and Bandirma on the Anatolian side
is 80 km. Its greatest depth reaches 1,355 m.roughly
in its geographical centre, but it is much shallower
around the central depression, mostly under 200 m.
The salinity of its water is relatively low, from 22/1000
near the surface to 38.5/1000 at 30 m. and deeper. A
surface current flows towards the Dardanelles, while
a deeper counter-current moves in the opposite
direction.

In antiquity, it was called Propontis, and was thus
distinguished from the Dardanelles and the
Bosphorus; this distinction was continued by
mediaeval European authors, but not by the Muslim
ones, who usually bracketed all three phenomena
under the term al-Khalidj “The Strait”, often
specified as that of Constantinople: Khalidj al-
Kustantlniyya or al-Khalidj al-Kustantini. This lack
of terminological discrimination on the part of early
Muslim authors was symptomatic of their
unfamiliarity with the exact configuration of the area,
although some seem to have been aware of the
considerable variation in the width of this “Strait”;
thus al-Mas c udi, writing in 345/956 (7 'anbih, 66)
states that the width at “Filas” is 40 miles. A hint of
this sea appears on al-ldnsl’s map of A.D. 1154,
although there too we find the usual single name of
Khalidj al-Kustantiniyya. The attempts by the Arabs
to conquer Constantinople, especially those of 97-
9/715-17, during which their fleets sailed through the
Sea of Marmara, were obviously too brief and trans¬
itory to leave a clearer idea of this sea. The difficulty
of sailing through the Dardanelles, and the fact that
armies and travellers usually crossed from Anatolia to
Thrace through this strait, may also have attracted the
Muslims’ attention thither and have obscured the
small sea between it and Constantinople. A better
understanding of the actual geographical nature of the
area appears in Abu TFida^’s Takwim al-bulddn ,
composed by 721/1321, where the Sea of Marmara is
described without, however, being assigned a name:
“When travellers have entered it [i.e. the Khalidj al-
Kustantiniyya], it widens and resembles a lake
(. birka )...” Abu TFida’s lack of any specific name for
the Sea of Marmara is also illustrated by a reference
to the Marmara Island as “one of the islands of the
Mediterranean (Bahr al-Rum)”, with the remark that
“it is in the midst of al-Khalidj al-Kustantlnl”
{Takwim, 34, 188-9).

(b) History. The Sea of Marmara came
permanently within the Dar al-Islam with the Turkish
conquest of Byzantine territory. The beylik of Karasf
[q.v.] was the first Turkish principality to reach the
Sea of Marmara, occupying, during the first half of
the 8th/14th century, its southern shore from the
Kapidaghi peninsula to the Dardanelles. Karasf,
extending also along the Anatolian side of the Dar¬
danelles and along the adjacent part of the Aegean
shore, became a maritime power: its principal naval
base was Edindjik on the Gulf of Erdek. The
experience of Karasf sailors, gained in their
encounters with the Byzantines, proved useful to the
Ottomans after the latter had absorbed Karasi
towards the middle of the 8th/14th century and after
they had further extended Turkish domination to the
remaining, eastern part of the Anatolian coast of the
Sea of Marmara. At that point, the arsenal of Edin¬
djik was joined by other naval installations such as
Mudanya, Karamiirsel and Izmid. Although these
shipyards and bases were eventually eclipsed by those
of Gallipoli [see gelibolu] and Kasimpasha, those on

588

MARMARA DENIZI — MARRAKUSH

Marmara’s southern shore, so significant in the in¬
cipient period of Turkish maritime history, retained
their importance, some of them to this day.

In contrast to the southern, Anatolian shore of the
Sea of Marmara, the northern, Thracian shore was
occupied by the Turks more gradually and as a by¬
product of the Ottoman penetration into the Balkans
and of the eventual conquest of Constantinople. Lack¬
ing the bays and natural or man-made harbours
characteristic of the southern shore, the northern
shore never played a similar role in Turkish maritime
affairs, except for Istanbul itself, of which the
Kadfrgha Limani was developed by Mehemmed II
and had some importance until Selim I founded the
arsenal of Kasfmpasha on the Golden Horn.

After the Ottomans had established themselves in
Rumelia and had taken Constantinople, the Sea of
Marmara became a Turkish lake and has remained so
to this day; a certain limitation on Turkish sover¬
eignty over this sea, however, has existed since the
19th century, for the special status of the Straits of the
Dardanelles and the Bosphorus affects Marmara as
well. Its secure domination by the Ottomans was in
part responsible for the relatively uneventful place this
sea had in Ottoman naval history, and for the neglect
it received in Ottoman literature. The Sea of
Marmara is not described in the text of the Kitab-i
Bahriyye, the 1 Oth/ 16th century Turkish portolan by
Pin Re 5 is [q.v.], although the first, “draft” version
does include brief chapters on the Marmara Island
and the Princes’ Islands, and its map does appear in
some manuscripts. It is still anonymous in the Tuhfat
al-kibarJi asfar al-bihdr by the 11 th/17th century author
Katib Celebi (<?.*;.]: “It (i.e. the Mediterranean) ends
at Bozdja-ada ( = Tenedos). Between the inner side of
the Strait (i.e. the Dardanelles) and Istanbul, there is
a small sea whose circumference amounts to 700
miles... There are islands in it: Marmara, Imrali,
Kfzfl adalar ( = the Princes’ Islands)...” (1729 ed., p.
2b). In the Djihan-numa . the cosmography by the same
author, however, there is already a reference to this
sea as “Bahr-i Marmara” (1732 ed., p. 667). This
name, derived from that of the Marmara Island, had
begun to appear since the 16th century on European
maps and in atlases in such forms as Mar de
Marmora, and Katib Celebi, whose Dj ihan-numa was
in part a translation of such works, may have followed
their example.

2. The island after which the Sea of
Marmara is named.

Marmara, the classical Proconnesos, is the largest
island in this sea, with an area of 200 km. 2 It is the
principal one in a cluster that includes Avsha (also
called Tiirkeli), Pashalimani, and a few other smaller
ones, near the Kapida gh i peninsula, the latter
originally also an island but eventually linked to the
southern shore by a process of marine sedimentation.
Marble quarries, exploited on Marmara Island since
antiquity, gave rise to its later name. The population
of these islands was until the recent exchange chiefly
Greek-speaking, but was then replaced by Turkish
immigrants from Crete and Bulgaria. While fishing,
fruit and olive growing, and vegetable gardening (and
until recently, lumber exportation, which has disap¬
peared with the completion of deforestation), were the
traditional occupations of the population, tourism has
now taken precedence as the main industry of these
islands, with regular boat service between Istanbul,
Marmara (the chief town and harbour on Marmara
Island) and Avsha. Administratively, the Marmara
Islands form a bucak within the ilfe of Erdek of the il
of Bahkesir.

The second group of islands within the Sea, the
Princes’ or Prince Islands, in Turkish simply Adalar
or Kizil Adalar, is a cluster situated between 13 and
22 km. to the south-east of Istanbul and about 5 km.
from the Anatolian coast. They consist of four larger
islands (Kinali, Burgaz, Heybeli and Biiyukada) and
five small ones. Together they form an ilfe within the
il of Istanbul; Buyiikada, Heybeli, and Burgaz-Kinali
form individual bucaks within this ilfe. The largest of
these, Biiyiikada, lit. “the large island”, was called in
Byzantine times Prinkipo, but its classical name as
mentioned by Pliny, that of Megale ( Naturalis his-
toriae ..., v, 151) was a semantic ancestor of the
Turkish name. In the Byzantine period, these islands
were the occasional place of banishment or seclusion
for members of the ruling family or for other impor¬
tant persons; in recent times, they have been the
favourite resort of Istanbul’s wealthier citizens.
Heybeli harbours two establishments which train
officers for the Turkish navy: the preparatory Deniz
Lisesi, and the higher Deniz Harp Okulu, the latter
the continuation of an older school at Kasimpasha,
whence it had moved in 1851.

Aside from these two groups of islands, there is the
isolated Imrali, Byzantine Kalolimni, an elongated
island near the beginning of the Gulf of Gemlik. After
the departure of its Greek-speaking population during
the population exchange in the early years of the
Turkish Republic, the island remained uninhabited
until in 1935 a penitentiary was placed on it, the
inmates practising some of the traditional occupations
of the former inhabitants.

3. Administrative organisation.

In administrative terms, during the Ottoman
period the greater part of the coasts of the Sea of
Marmara was usually within the eyalet of Djaza 5 ir-i
Bahr-i Saffd [q.v.], the special province under the
Kapudan Pasha [q.v. ) administered from Gallipoli.

Today, these shores are distributed among six i/s,
named after their administrative centres: Istanbul,
Izmit (also called by its historical name of Kocaeli),
Bursa, Bahkesir, Qanakkale and Tekirdag.

Bibliography: In addition to references given
in the text, see BGA, iv, 57 and viii, 418 (indices for
Khalldj al-Kus{antiniyya); Pauly-Wissowa, s.vv.
Propontis, Proconnesos; lurk Ansiklopedisi, s.vv.
Marmara Denizi, Marmara^ Adalan, Adalar,
Imrali; G. Schlumberger, Les lies des Princes 2 , Paris
1925; O. Erdenen, Istanbul adalan , Istanbul 1962;
W. Tomaschek, Zur historischen Topographie von
Kleinasien im Mittelalter , in SBWAW, Phil.-Hist. Cl.,
cxxiv (1891), 1-18; D. E. Pitcher, An historical
geography of the Ottoman Empire, Leiden 1972; J.B.
Lechevalier, Voyage de la Propontide et du Pont-Euxin ,
Paris 1800, i, 1-40; Ali Tanoglu, Sirn Ering and
Erol Tiimertekin, Tiirkiye atlasi, Istanbul 1961, map
1/a and passim ; Ankara, Cografya Encumeni,
Marmaradenizi havzasi , Ankara 1934; K. Miller,
Mappae arabicae, Stuttgart 1926; K. Kretschmer, Die
italienischen Portolane des Mittelalters , Berlin 1909,
639-40, 650-2; t. H. Uzungarsih, Osmanli devletinin
merkez ve bahriye teskilati, Ankara 1948, 389-90; M.
Canard, Les expeditions des Arabes contre Constantinople
dans I’histoire et dans la legende, in JA , ccviii (1926),
61-121; H. N. Howard, Turkey, the Straits, and U.S.
policy , Washington 1974. (S. Soucek)

MARRAKU SH (popular pronunciation Merraksh ,
in French Marrakech, English Marrakesh) a town
in Morocco, and one of the residences of the
sovereign.

The form Marrakech, adopted by the administra¬
tion of the protectorate, is of recent origin. Down to

MARRAKUSH

589

about 1890 the town was always known as Morocco.
The kingdom of Morocco, distinct in origin from
those of Fas and the Sus, finally gave its name to the
whole empire. At one time it only consisted of the
country south of the wadi Umm Rabi* as far as the
range of the Great Atlas.

Marrakesh is situated in 31° 37' 35 " N. lat. and
7° 59' 42" E. long. (Greenw.). Its mean height
above sea-level is about 1,510 feet. The town is 150
miles south of Casablanca. It is through the latter that
almost all the traffic with the coast passes at the pres¬
ent day. It used to go via Safi which is the nearest port
(100 miles). Sldl Muhammad b. c Abd Allah [q.v. ] in
1765 tried to supplant it by Mogador (115 miles)
where he built a town and harbour through which at
the end of the 18th century most of the trade between
Marrakesh and Europe passed.

The temperature which is very mild in winter is
very hot in summer. The average maxima of 39°6 in
the month of August 1927 have nothing unusual and
imply extreme temperatures reaching or passing 50°
on certain days. Rainfall is low (284.5 mm. in 1927,
against 706.5 in Rabat and 1,007.3 in Tangier). But
water fed by the snows of the Atlas is found at no great
depth. It is collected by a system of long subterranean
tunnels ( khattara , plur. khatdtlr [see kanat] which bring
it to the surface by taking advantage of the very slight
slope of the surface. This method of obtaining water
has enabled the vast gardens which surround the town
to be created. The Almohads and the dynasties which
succeeded them also built aqueducts and reservoirs to
supply the town with water from the springs and
streams of the mountains.

Contrary to what was until quite recently believed,
Marrakesh has for long been the most thickly
populated town of the empire. The census of 7 March
1926 gave 149,263 as the total population, 3,652
Europeans, 132,893 Muslims, 12,718 Jews. In 1936
the figures were respectively 190,314, 6,849, 157, 819
and 25,646; in 1947, the city had a total of 241,000
inhabitants. The probable growth of the population is
not sufficient to explain the difference between the
present-day figures and the old estimates, almost all
far below the truth and varying greatly among
themselves: from 20,000 (given by Diego de Torres in
1585 and Host in 1768), 25,000 (Saint Olon, 1693),
30,000 (Ali Bey al-Abbassi, 1804), 40 to 50,000
(Gatell, 1864, and E. Aubin, 1902), 50,000 (Lambert,
1868), 60,000 (Beaumier, 1868), 80 to 100,000
(Washington, 1830) up to the obviously exaggerated
figure of 270,000 given by Jackson in 1811.

About 40 miles north of the Atlas, the vast
silhouette of which, covered by snow for eight months
of the year fills the background, Marrakesh is built in
a vast plain called the Hawz which slopes very gently
towards the wadi Tansift, which runs 3 miles north of
the town. The extreme uniformity of the plain is
broken only in the north-west by two rocky hills called
Gilllz (1,700 feet) and Kudyat al- c Ab!d. In 1912 at the
time of the French occupation, there was built a fort
which commands Marrakesh. The European town
called the Gueliz lies between this hill and the walls of
the old town.

The wadi Issll, a left-bank tributary of the Tansift,
a stream often dried up but transformed into a raging
torrent after storms, runs along the walls of the town
on the east. To the north of Marrakesh as far as the
Tansift and to the east stretches a great forest of palm-
trees, the only one in Morocco north of the Atlas. It
covers an area of 13,000 hectares and possesses over
100,000 palm-trees but the dates there only ripen very
imperfectly.

The town is very large. The ramparts of sun-dried
mud which run ail round it measure at least 7 miles
in length. The town in the strict sense does not occupy
the whole of this vast area. The part built upon forms
a long strip which starting from the zdwiya of Sldl bel
c Abbas in the north runs towards the kasaba ( kasba )
which stands at the southern end of the town. On the
two sides lie great gardens and estates among which
we find in the neighbourhood of the chief gates inside
the walls, isolated quarters grouped like so many
villages around their suk and the mosque.

The town consisted mainly of little low houses of
reddish clay, often in ruins, among which were scatt¬
ered huge and magnificent dwellings without particu¬
larly imposing exteriors built either by the viziers of
the old Makhzen (e.g. the Bahiya, the old palace of Ba
Hmad [^. v. in Supp!.], vizier of Mawlay al-Hasan) or
by the great kd\ds, chiefs of the tribes of the country
around. The narrow and overhung streets in the
central area broaden towards the outskirts into sunny
and dusty squares and crossroads. The colour, the
picturesque architecture, the palm trees, the branches
of which appear over the walls of the gardens, the
presence of a large negro population, all combine to
give the town the appearance of a Saharan ksar of vast
dimensions.

The centre of the life of the city is the Djama c al-
Fna, a vast, irregular, ill-defined open space,
surrounded in the early years of this century by wret¬
ched buildings and reed huts, overshadowed by the
high minaret of the Kutubiyya Mosque. Its name
comes, according to the author of the TaMkh al-Sudan,
from the ruins of a mosque which Ahmad al-Mansur
had undertaken to build there; ‘‘As he had planned it
on a wonderful scale, it had been given the name of
mosque of prosperity (at-hand); but his plans being
upset by a series of unfortunate events, the prince was
unable to finish the building before his death and it
was therefore given the name of mosque of the ruin
(didmi c at-/ana 7 ) , \ This origin having been forgotten;
an attempt was later made to explain the name of the
square from the fact that the heads of rebels used to
be exposed there. It was there also that executions
took place. Lying on the western edge of the principal
agglomeration of buildings at its most thickly
populated part, close to the suk, connected with the
principal gates by direct and comparatively quiet
roads, Djama c al-Fna is the point of convergence of
the roads. At all hours swarming with people, it is
occupied in the morning with a market of small
traders: barbers, cobblers, vendors of fruit and
vegetables, of medicines, of fried grasshoppers, of tea
and of soup ( harira ); in the evening, it is filled with
acrobats and jugglers (Awlad Sldl Ahmad u Musa of
Tazerwalt), sorcerers, story-tellers, fire-eaters, snake
charmers and shtuh dancers. The audience consists
mainly of people from the country who have come
into town on business and want to enjoy the distrac¬
tions of the town for a few hours before going home.
These visitors are always very numerous in
Marrakesh. Besides the regular inhabitants there is a
floating population, the number of which may be of
the order of 10,000 persons. For Marrakesh is the
great market for supplying not only the Hawz but also
the mountain country, the Sus and especially the
extreme south, Dades, Dar c a (Dra c ) and the Anti-
Atlas. Marrakesh used to be the starting-point for
caravans going through the Sahara to trade with
Timbuktu. They brought back chiefly Sudanese
slaves for whom Marrakesh was an important market.
The conquest of the Sudan by France put an end to
this traffic.

590

MARRAKUSH

To the north of the Djama c al-Fna begin the suks ,
which are very large. As in Fas and in the other large
towns, the traders and artisans are grouped by trades
under the authority of the muhtasib [q. v. ] The most
important suks are those of the cloth merchants
(kisariyya), of the sellers of slippers, of pottery, of
basket work, of the embroiderers of harness, of the
dyers and of the smiths. An important Thursday suk
( al-khamis) is held outside and inside the walls around
the old gate of Fas which has taken the name of the
market (Bab al- Kh amls). This suk was already in
existence in the 10th/16th century.

There is no industry to speak of in Marrakesh. The
most important is the making of leather (tanning).
The manufacture of slippers occupied 1,500 workmen
who produce over 2,000 pairs each working day.
There are the only articles manufactured in the town
that are exported. They are sold as far away as Egypt
and West Africa. For the rest, Marrakesh is mainly an
agricultural market. The whole town is a vast fondouk
(funduk) in which are warehoused the products of the
country, almonds, carraway seeds, goat-skins, oils,
barley, wool, to be exchanged either for imported
goods (sugar, tea, cloth) or for other agricultural
produce (wheat, oil, which the tribes of the mountains
and of the extreme south for example do not have).

The town is divided into 32 quarters, including the
mellah or Jewish quarter. We may further mention
outside the walls near the Bab Dukkala a quarter
called al-Hara where the lepers lived. Until the 1920s,
the gates of the town were closed during the night.
The superintendents of the quarters ( mukaddamin ) had
watchmen ( c assasa) under their orders. The old
custom long survived of Firing a salvo at midnight on
the Djama c al-Fna as a curfew.

Marrakesh being an imperial town, the sultan, who
only stayed there at long intervals, was represented in
his absence by a khalifa , a prince of the imperial family
(usually the son or brother of the sovereign). The role
of this khalifa was not purely representative, for he was
a true viceroy, who formerly governed the territories
to the South. The governor of the town is today a
pasha , assisted by a delegate (naHb) and several
khalifas. One of the latter supervises the prisons and
the administration of justice. Another has the title of
pasha of the kasba. He governs the southern part of the
town which includes the imperial palace and the
Jewish quarter. Formerly, the pasha of the kasba was
independent of the pasha of the town and served to
counterbalance the power of the latter. He com¬
manded the gish, aji armed contingent furnished by
the warlike tribes (Udaya, Ayt Immur, etc.) settled in
the vicinity of the town by the sultans of the domain
lands. The pasha, of the kasba only retains of his former
powers certain rights of precedence and honorary
privileges.

Muslim law is administered in Marrakesh by three
kadis: one is established at the mosque of Ibn Yusuf;
the other at the mosque of al-MwasIn and the third at
the mosque of the kasba. The latter’s competence does
not extend beyond the limits of his quarter. That of
the others extends over the whole town and even over
the tribes of the area governed from it who have no
local kadis.

Marrakesh is not numbered like Fas, Rabat and
Tetuan among the liadariyya towns, i.e. it has not, like
them, an old-established citizen population, of non-
rural origin, with a bourgeoisie whose tone is given by
the descendants of the Moors driven from Spain. In
the 10th/l6th century, however, Marrakesh did re¬
receive a colony of Moriscoes large enough to give one
quarter the name Orgiba Djadida, a reminiscence of

Orgiba, a town of Andalusia from which they came.
The foundation of the population consists of people of
the tribes for the most part Berbers or Arabs strongly
mixed with Berber blood. Shluh ( tashelhil) is much
spoken in Marrakesh although the_ language of the
tribes around the town (Rhamma, Udaya) is Arabic.
The movements of the tribes, the coming and going
of caravans, the importation of slaves from the Sudan
have resulted in a constant process of mixing in the
population, and the old Masmuda race which must,
with the Almoravids, have been the primitive popula¬
tion of Marrakesh is only found in combination with
amounts difficult to measure of Arab, Saharan and
negro blood. Even to-day this process is going on: the
newcomers come less from the valleys of the Atlas
than from the Sus, the Dra c and the Anti-Atlas, from
the extreme south which is poor and overpopulated.
The greater number of these immigrants soon become
merged in the population of the town; but the Enquete
sur les corporations musulmancs, conducted by L.
Massignon in 1923-4 (Paris 1925) yielded some very
curious information about the survival in Marrakesh
of vigorous groups of provincials, specialising in
particular trades: the makers of silver jewellery (at
least those who are not Jews) owe their name of
tagmutiyyin to the fact that they originally came from
Tagmut in the Sus; the Mesfiwa are charcoal-burners
and greengrocers, the Ghlghaya, salters; the people of
the Todgha, gatherers of dates and khatatiriyya , i.e.
diggers of wells, who specialise in water-channels
(khatatir ); those of Tafilalt, porters and pavers; those
of Warzarat, watercarriers and of Tatta c (Anti-Atlas),
restaurateurs; of the Dra c , water-carriers and
khatatiriyya , etc. This division is not the result of
specialisation in their original home nor of privileges
granted by the civic authorities but arises from the fact
that artisans once settled in Marrakesh have sent for
their compatriots when they required assistance. Thus
groups grew up, sometimes quite considerable. The
list of the corporations of Marrakesh gives a total of
about 10,000 artisans. These corporations lost much
of their power under the pressure of the Makhzen.
Some of them, however, still retained a certain social
importance: in the first place that of the shoemakers
which is the largest (1,500 members); then come
the tanners (430), the cloth (237) and silk (100)
merchants; the Fasi wholesalers, then some groups
of skilled artisans, highly esteemed but of less influ¬
ence, embroiderers of saddles, makers of mosaics,
carpenters, sculptors of plaster, etc.

R eligious and intellectual life. Mosques
are numerous in Marrakesh. Some of them will be the
subject below of brief archaeological studies. Those
which play the most important part in the religious life
of the city are the mosque of al-MwasIn, the mosque
of c All b. Yusuf, both close to the suks, that of Sfdl bel
c Abbas and that of the kasba. Then come the
Kutubiyya, the mosque of the Bab Dukkala, of the
Bab Aylan, of Berrima, and the Djama c Ibn Salih.
There are also many little mosques in the various
outlying quarters. But although it can claim illustrious
men of learning, Marrakesh is not like Fas, a centre
of learning and of teaching. The Almohads built
schools and libraries there, brought the most
illustrious scholars, philosophers and physicians from
Spain, like Ibn Tufayl, Abu Marwan Ibn Zuhr
(Avenzoar) and Abu ’l-Walld Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
who died at Marrakesh in 595/1198. These great
traditions did nor survive the dynasty. At the begin¬
ning of the 10th/16th century, in the time of Leo
Africanus, the library of the Almohad palace was used
as a poultry house and the madrasa built by the

MARRAKUSH

591

Marlnids was in ruins. In the inter-war period, in the
town of the Kutubiyya there was not a single
bookseller. A certain number of tolba still live in the
madrasas (Ibn Yusuf, Ibn $alih, SidT bel c Abbas,
Berrlma, Kasba) but the teaching in Marrakesh has
neither the prestige nor the traditions which still give
some lustre to the teaching at al-Karawiyyln in Fas,
much decayed as it is. Although they attempt to
imitate the customs of Fas (they celebrate notably the
“festival of the sultan of the tolba ’ [see fas] every
spring), the students are far from holding in
Marrakesh the position their comrades enjoy in Fas,
even though a dahir of 1357/1938 established a
madrasa of Ibn Yusuf intended, like the Karawiyyin,
for the training of kadis. One should note that the city
now possesses a modern university.

The devotion of the people of Marrakesh expends
itself particularly on the cult of saints, not at all
orthodox but dear to the Berbers. Their town has
always been famous for the great number of waits who
are buried in its cemeteries and who justify the saying:
“Marrakesh, tomb of the saints”. But in the time of
Mawlay Isma c il, the Shavkh Abu c AlI al-Hasan al-
YusI by order of the prince organised, in imitation of
the old established cult of the Sab c atu Ridjal (the
seven saints of the Ragraga, around the Djabal al-
Hadid, among the Shyadma), a pilgrimage to the
Sabcatu Ridjal of Marrakesh, including visits to seven
sanctuaries and various demonstrations of piety. The
following are the names of the seven saints in the
order in which they ought to be visisted: (i) Sldi Yusuf
b. C A1T al-Sanhadji, a leper, d. 593/1196-7, buried
outside the Bab Aghmat on the spot where he had
lived; (2) the kadi c Iyad, 476-544/1083-1149 [<?.y.],
kadi of Ceuta, then of Granada, a learned theologian,
author of the Shifa'*, buried beside the Bab Aylan; (3)
Sldi bel c Abbas al-Sabtl, patron saint of Marrakesh
and the most venerated of the saints of the region,
542-601/1130-1204. He came to Marrakesh when the
town was being besieged by the Almohads and settled
there, at first in a hermitage on the Djabal Gilllz
where a kubba dedicated to him can still be seen. But
the principal pilgrimage is to his tomb at the northern
end of the town over which Abu Faris b. Ahmad al-
Mansur built a zawiya and an important mosque at
the beginning of the 11th/17th century; (4) Sid!
Muhammad b. Simian al-DjazulI, d. in 870/1465 at
Afughal among the Shyadma, a celebrated Sufi,
founder of the Djazuli brotherhood. His body was
brought to Marrakesh in 930/1523 by Ahmad al-
A c radj the Sa c dian; (5) Sldi c Abd al- c AzTz al-Tabba c ,
a pupil of al-DjazulI, d. 914/1508; (6) SidT c Abd Allah
al-Ghazwani, popularly called Mawla (Mul) ’1-Ksur,
d. 935/1528; (7) Sldi c Abd al-Rahman al-Suhayll,
called the Imam al-Suhayll, a native of the district of
Malaga, d. 581/1185, and buried outside the Bab
al*Rabb.

It is quite an arbitrary choice that these seven
individuals have been chosen as the Sab c atu Ridjal.
Others could equally well have been chosen, as the
town of Marrakesh and the cemeteries which stretch
before it, contain a very large number of other
venerated tombs. The principal ones are mentioned in
the article by H. de Castries, Les Sept Patrons de
Merrakech, in Hesperis (1924). Legend of course plays a
great part in the cults of the various saints. We may
mention for example the sayings_ and songs which
perpetuate the memory of Lalla c Uda, mother of the
sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, a real personage much
transformed by the popular imagination. The various
trade corporations have chosen patron saints. Thus
Sldi Ya c kub is the patron of the tanners, Sldi bel

c Abbas of the soapmakers and lacemakers, Sldi
Mas c ud “slave” of SidT Muhammad b. Sliman is the
patron of the masons, Sldi c Abd al- c Aziz al-Tabba c
of the dyers, etc. The majority of the artisans are
also affiliated to the religious brotherhoods. In
Massignon’s investigation may be found details of the
attraction which some of the latter had for certain
trades.

The J ews. At the foundation of Marrakesh, the
Jews had no permission to settle in the town. They
came there to trade from Aghmat Aylan where they
lived. Al-IdrlsI relates that under C AH b. Yusuf they
had not even the right to spend the night in
Marrakesh and that those who were caught within the
walls after sunset were in great danger of losing their
lives and property. They settled there at a later date.
At the beginning of the 10th/16th century there was,
according to Marmol, in Marrakesh a ghetto of over
3,000 houses. It lay near the suk on the site now
occupied by the mosque of al-MwasIn. When this
mosque was built by sultan c Abd Allah al-Ghalib, the
more scrupulous refused to pray there for some time
on the pretext that it occupied the site of a Jewish
cemetery. It was c Abd Allah al- Gh alib who, in about
967/1560, settled the Jews on the site they occupied
lately, along the wall of the kasba to the east, where the
stables of the palace had been. At the beginning of the
11 th/17th century, there was here, according to the
French traveller Mocquet, “like a separate town,
surrounded by a good wall and having only one gate
guarded by the Moors; here live the Jews who are
over 4,000 in number and pay tribute”. A century
later, there were about 6,000 Jews and many
synagogues. The Jewish quarter, called melldh [see
mallah] after the example of the Jewish quarter of
Fas (the name melldh is attested for Marrakesh as early
as the end of the 10th/16th century), was placed, as
regards policing, under the authority of the pasha of
the kasba but otherwise is administered by an elected
Jewish committee. Questions of personal law were
judged by a rabbinical tribunal of three members
nominated and paid by the Makhzen. The Jews of
Marrakesh early began to leave the bounds of the
melldh. The older ones wore the ritual costume: gaber¬
dine, skullcap and black slippers, but the younger
generations emancipated themselves from this dress.
The Jews have little influence on the corporations
of Marrakesh. They are limited to certain trades
(jewellers, tinsmiths and embroiderers of slippers) and
share with the people of Fas the wholesale trade. They
trade particularly with the Shluh of the mountains.

His tory. The Roman occupation never extended
so far as the region of Marrakesh. It is quite without
probability that some writers, following the Spanish
historian Marmol, have sought at Aghmat or at
Marrakesh the site of Bocanum Emerum (Boxxavov
c H(j,£poaxorcetov of Ptolemy), a town of Tingitana, the
site of which is now unknown. The earliest historians
agree that the place where Marrakesh was built by the
Almoravids was a bare marshy plain where only a few
bushes grew. The name Marrakesh gives no clue to
the origin of the town. The etymologies given by the
Arab authors are quite fanciful (see Deverdun,
Marrakech , 64 ff.). It was, it appears, in 449/1057-8
that the Almoravids advanced from Sus north of the
Atlas and took Aghmat Urika. It was there that they
settled at first. But after the campaign of 452/1060 in
the course of which they conquered the country of
Fazaz, Meknes and of the Lawata near Fas, they
wanted to make their position more permanent and
independent by creating a kind of camp, which could
be used as a base for their further campaigns and

592

MARRAKUSH

would threaten the Masmuda of the mountains and
could be used as a connecting link between the south
from which they came and the kingdom of Fas. Yusuf
b. Tashfin therefore purchased from its owner an
estate on the frontier between two Masmuda tribes,
the Haylana and the Hazmlra, and pitched his camp
there. So far was he from thinking of founding a great
capital, a thing for which this Saharan nomad felt no
need, that at first he lived in a tent here, beside which
he built a mosque to pray in and a little kasba in which
to keep his treasures and his weapons; but he did not
build a surrounding wall. The native Ma$muda built
themselves dwellings surrounded by palisades of bran¬
ches beside the Almoravid camp. The town grew
rapidly to a considerable size, if it is true, that, in the
reign of C A1T b. Yusuf it had at least 100,000 hearths,
but it did not lose its rural character until Ibn Tumart
appeared and the threat of the Almohad movement
revived by him forced C A1T b. Yusuf to defend his town
and surround it by a rampart which was built in eight
months, probably in 520/1126. Some historians give
the date 526/1132, but it is certain that the walls were
already built in 524/1130, when the Almohads
attacked Marrakesh for the first time. Marrakesh, the
creation and capital of the Almoravids, was to be the
last of their strongholds to yield. When Ibn Tumart
had established his power over the tribes of the moun¬
tains he tried to attack Marrakesh; he then sent an
Almohad army under the command of the shaykh al-
BashTr, who, after defeating the Almoravids in the
vicinity of Aghmat, pursued them to the gates of
Marrakesh. The Almohads could not enter the town
but established themselves before its walls. After 40
days’ siege, C A1I b. Yusuf received reinforcements and
made a successful sortie which forced the attackers to
retreat. This was the battle of al-Buhayra (Djumada
Til 524/May 1130 from the name of a large garden,
Buhayral al-Raka*ik, near which it was fought. It lay to
the east of the town before the Bab Dabbagh and the
Bab Aylan. Al-Bashir was slain and Marrakesh
respited for 17 years. Ibn Tumart died a few months
later. It is hardly likely that c Abd al-Mu-’min should
have made soon after his accession, as the Kirtas says,
a new attempt to take Marrakesh. The memoirs of al-
Bavdhak which give such full details of all the events
of this period make no mention of it. They show on
the contrary the Almohad armies busied at first in
conquering the country before occupying the capital,
taking Tadla, Sale, Taza, Oran, Tlemcen and Fas
and only returning to lay siege to Marrakesh after the
whole country had been occupied and the capital
alone held out as the last stronghold of the doomed
dynasty. It was in the summer of 541/1146 that c Abd
al-Mu^min laid siege to Marrakesh. He made his
headquarters at Gilllz and, seeing that the siege would
be a long one, at once had houses built in which to
instal himself and his army. The siege lasted eleven
months. An unsuccessful sortie by the Almoravids
seems to have hastened the fall of the town. Disgusted
by lack of success and by famine, a number of chiefs
of the besieged went over to the enemy. c Abd al-
Mu 5 min had scaling-ladders made and distributed
them among the tribes. The assault was made and,
according to Ibn al-Athlr, the defection of the Christ¬
ian soldiery facilitated its success. The Almoravid
sultan Ishak, a young boy who had sought refuge in
the fortress, was slain, along with a large number of
the Almoravids. This event took place in 541/
Shawwal 6 March-3 April 1147, according to the
majority of the historians.

The Almohad dynasty which came from the south
naturally took Marrakesh as its capital. It was here

that c Abd al-MuYnin and his successors usually
resided when they were not in the country. The town
prospered exceedingly under their rule. They gave it
many important public buildings: the kasba , mosques,
schools, a hospital, aqueducts and magnificent
gardens. During this period of prosperity, there were
very few events of particular interest in the history of
Marrakesh. In 547/1152-3 according to Ibn Khaldun,
in 549/1154-6 according to al-Bavdhak and the Kirtas ,
the Banu Amghar. brothers of the Mahdi Ibn
Tumart, entered the town and tried to raise the
inhabitants against c Abd al-Mu^min who was away at
Sale. The rising was speedily put down and ended in
the massacre of the rebels and their accomplices. But
on the decline of the dynasty, i.e. after the battle of
Las Navas de Tolosa (609/1212 [see al- c ikab]) and
the death of al-Nasir, son of al-Mansur, Marrakesh
became the scene of the struggle between the royal
family descended from c Abd al-Mu^min and the
Almohad shaykhs descended from the companions of
Ibn Tumart who, quoting traditions of the latter,
claimed the right to grant investiture to the sultans
and to keep them in tutelage. Abu Muhammad c Abd
al-Wahid, brother of al-Mansur, was strangled in
621/1224. His successor al- c Adil was drowned in a
bath in the palace (624/1227) and the Almohad shaykhs
appointed as his successor the young Yahya b. al-
Nasir, while Abu ’l- c Ula Idris al-Ma^mun, brother of
al- c Adil, was proclaimed in Spain. The whole country
was soon in the throes of revolution. Yahya, fearing
the defection of the fickle Almohads, fled to Tinmal
(626/1228). Disorder reigned in Marrakesh, where a
governor named by al-MaYnun was finally ap¬
pointed. But four months later, Yahya returned to
Marrakesh with fresh troops, put al-Ma 5 mun’s gover¬
nor to death and after staying seven days in the town
was forced to go to Gilliz to fight a battle (627/1230),
for al-Ma^mun had arrived from Spain to take posses¬
sion of his kingdom. Ferdinand III, king of Castile,
had given in return for various concessions, a body of
12,000 Christian horsemen with whose assistance al-
Ma-’mun defeated Yahya and his followers, entered
Marrakesh and installed an anti-Almohad regime
there, marked not only by a terrible massacre of the
shaykhs and their families but by a new orientation in
religious matters quite opposed to that of the
preceding reigns. On his arrival in Marrakesh, al-
Ma^mun mounted the pulpit of the mosque of the
kasba, recited the khutba, solemnly cursed the memory
of Ibn Tumart and announced a whole series of
measures, some of which are given by the Kirtas and
Ibn Khaldun and which show he intended to do
everything on opposite lines to his predecessors. His
innovations revived the discontent so that two years
later (629/1232) while al-Ma^mun and his militia were
besieging Ceuta, Yahya again occupied Marrakesh
and plundered it. Al-Ma^mun at once turned back to
the rescue of his capital but died on the way (30 Dh u
'1-Hidjdja 629/17 October 1232). His widow, al-
Habab, succeeded in getting her son al-Rashid, aged
14, proclaimed by the leaders of the army, including
the commander of the Christian mercenaries. In
return she gave them Marrakesh to plunder if they
could reconquer it. But the people of the town, learn¬
ing of this clause in the bargain, made their own terms
before opening their gates to the new sultan. The
latter had to grant them amdn and pay the Christian
general and his companions the sum they might have
expected from the plunder of the capital—according
to the Kirtas, 500,000 dinars.

In 633/1235-6, a rebellion of the Khlot [see khult]
drove al-Rashid out of Marrakesh, and he took refuge

MARRAKUSH

593

in Sidjilmasa while Yahya recaptured Marrakesh. Al-
Rashld, however, succeeded in retaking it and Yahya
finally was assassinated. It was in the reign of the
Almohad al-Sa c Td (646/1242-8) that the Marmids who
had arrived in the east of the country in 613/1216,
seized the greater part of the kingdom of Fas. His
successor c Umar al-Murtada proclaimed in 646/1248,
found himself in 658/1260 reduced to the solitary
kingdom of Marrakesh, to the south of the Umm al-
Rabl*. In 660/1261-2, the Marlnid Abu Yusuf
Ya c kub b. c Abd al-Hakk came to attack Marrakesh.
He encamped on mount Gilllz, whence he threatened
the town. Al-Murtada sent his cousin, the sayyid Abu
T c Ula Idris, surnamed Abu Dabbus, to fight him.
The amir c Abd Allah b. Abu Yusuf was slain in the
battle and his father lost heart, abandoned his designs
on Marrakesh and returned to Fas at the end of
Radjab 661/beginning of June 1262.

From this time, one feels that the dynasty was lost
although peace was made, which moreover showed
the humiliation of the Almohads who consented to pay
tribute; but they were to destroy themselves. Falling
into disfavour with his cousin al-Murtada, Abu
Dabbus, this great-grandson of c Abd al-Mu^min, who
in the preceding year had defended Marrakesh
against the Marinid sultan, sought refuge with the
latter and obtained from him the assistance necessary
to overthrow al-Murtada, on condition that he shared
the spoils. Victorious and proclaimed sultan in
Muharram 665/October 1266, Abu Dabbus forgot his
promises. Abu Yusuf Ya c kub came in person to
remind him of them. He laid siege to Marrakesh in
665-6/1267, but Abu Dabbus had a .stroke of good
fortune, for the Marlnid had to raise the siege to go
and defend the kingdom of Fas against an attack by
the sultan of Tlemcen, Yaghmurasen. The campaign
being over, Abu Yusuf Ya c kub returned to
Marrakesh. He entered it in Muharram 668/Sept.
1269. The Kinds tells us that he gave aman to the
inhabitants and to the surrounding tribes, whom he
overwhelmed with benefits and ruled with justice and
remained seven months to pacify and organise the
country. By accepting Marlnid rule, however,
Marrakesh lost for two-and-a-half centuries its posi¬
tion as a capital. The new dynasty made Fas its
capital.

Its sultans however, did not neglect Marrakesh,
especially during this period (end of the 7th/13th and
first half of the 8th/14th century). The chronicles
record many sojourns made by them there but its
great days were over. The town began to lose its
inhabitants. Abu THasan c AlI was the only Marinid
to undertake buildings of any importance at
Marrakesh (a mosque and a madrasa). In the absence
of the sovereign, the government of the town and
district was entrusted to powerful governors as befit¬
ted a large town remote from the central authority.
For nearly 20 years, from 668 to 687/1269-88, this
office was held by Muhammad b. c AlI b. Muhalll, a
chief greatly devoted to the Marmids, says Ibn
Khaldun, and allied by marriage to the family of their
ruler. But in Muharram 687/ February 1288, fearing
treachery from Muhammad b. C A1I, Abu Ya c kub
Yusuf threw him into prison and gave his office to
Muhammad b. c Attu al-Djanatl, a client and confi¬
dant of the royal family, to whom the sultan further
entrusted his son Abu c Amir. Abu Yakub had not left
Marrakesh six months when the young prince Abu
c Amir rebelled there and proclaimed himself sover¬
eign at the instigation of the governor Ibn c Attu
(Shawwal 687/November 1288). Abu Ya c kub
hastened to Marrakesh which he took after several

days siege. The young Abu c Amir had time to escape
and seek refuge in the mountains among the
Masmuda tribes, after plundering the treasury.

The custom of giving the governorship of
Marrakesh to a prince of the ruling family was kept
up. Towards the end of Dhu TKa c da 706/May 1307,
under the walls of Tlemcen, the sultan Abu Thabit
gave his cousin Yusuf, son of Muhammad b. Abi
c Iyad b. c Abd al-Hakk, the governorship of Mar¬
rakesh and the provinces depending on it. By the end
of the year, Yusuf rebelled and proclaimed himself
independent at Marrakesh after putting to death the
governor of the town, al-Hadjdj Mas c ud. Defeated by
the imperial troops on the banks of the Umm al-
Rabl*, the rebel fled to the mountains, plundering
Marrakesh on his way (Radjab 707/January 1308).
The punishment inflicted on the rebels was severe.
Yusuf b. Abi c Iyad, handed over by a shaykh with
whom he had taken refuge, was put to death and the
heads of 600 of his followers went to adorn the
battlements of the town. Abu Sa c Id c Uthman stayed at
Marrakesh on several occasions. He did much
rebuilding in 720/1320. Peace and comparative pros¬
perity seem to have reigned there under the rule of
Abu ’I-Hasan until this prince, as a result of reverses
suffered in his struggle with the Hafsids, found his
own son, the ambitious Abu c Inan, rebelling against
him. During the troubles which now broke out, Ibn
Khaldun tells us, the town was seriously threatened
with being sacked by the Masmuda of the mountains
led by c Abd Allah al-Saksiwi. Abu c Inan was able to
consolidate his power and avert this danger. The
struggle between father and son ended in the region
of Marrakesh. Abu THasan, defeated at the end of
Safar 757/May 1350, near the town, sought refuge in
the mountains with the amirs of the Hintata and died
there just after becoming reconciled to his son and
designating him his successor (RabI* II 753/June
1352).

During the course of the 8th/14th century, the amirs
of the Hintata played a very important part in the
country. The position of the tribe on an almost inac¬
cessible mountain, from which it commanded
Marrakesh, gave its chiefs comparative independence
and predominating influence among the other
Ma§muda. Abu c Inan took no steps against the amir
c Abd al- c AzIz who had given asylum to the fugitive
Abu ’1-Hasan. He retained him in the command of his
tribe, which he gave a few years later to his brother
c Amir. In 754/1353 the latter, becoming chief of all
the Masmuda tribes and sufficiently powerful to keep
under his thumb the governor of Marrakesh al-
Mu c tamid, son of Abu c Inan, very soon succeeded in
making himself completely independent. He received
and for a time held as hostages two rebel Marinid
princes Abu TFadl, son of the sultan Abu Salim, and
c Abd al-Rahman, son of sultan Abu C A1I. Quarrelling
with his protege Abu TFadl whom he had made
governor of Marrakesh, he retired into his mountains
and for several years defied the armies of the sultan.
He was in the end captured and put to death in
771/1370.

After the death of c Abd al- c Aziz, the pretender Abu
T c Abbas, son of Abu Salim, had himself proclaimed
in Fas with the help of his cousin c Abd al-Rahman b.
Abi Ifellusen, himself a pretender to the throne. The
latter as a reward for his services was given the
independent governorship of Marrakesh and the
country round it (Muharram 776/June 1374). The
empire was thus completely broken up. The two
rulers soon began to quarrel but then signed a treaty
of peace in 780/1378. There was a new rupture and a

594

MARRAKUSH

new truce two years later after Marrakesh had been
besieged for two months without result. Abu ’1-Abbas
in the end took Marrakesh in Djumada 784/July-
August 1382, and c Abd al-Rahman was slain. Abu ’1-
c Abbas, dispossessed in 1384 and exiled to Granada,
succeeded in reconquering his kingdom in 789/1387
and sent to Marrakesh as governor his son al-
Muntasir. This event is the last recorded by Ibn
IGialdun. From the time when his record ceases and
throughout the 9th/15th century, we are incredibly
poor in information about the history of Marrakesh.
The south appears to have continued to form a large
governorship in the hands of princes of the royal
family. The only information at all definite that we
have comes from a Portuguese historian who records
that during the three years which followed the capture
of Ceuta by the Portuguese (1415-18), Morocco was
a prey to the struggles among the pretenders. While
Abu Sa c id c Uthman was ruling in Fas, Mawlay Bu
C A1T, king of Marrakesh, was Fighting against another
MarTnid prince called Faris. The “kingdom” or
governorship of Marrakesh does not seem to have
completely broken the links which bound it to the
kingdom of Fas, for the governors of Marrakesh
supplied contingents to the army which tried to retake
Ceuta. But they very soon ceased to take part in the
holy war in the north of Morocco, and their name is
not found among the opponents of the Portuguese.
Marrakesh by 833/1430 seems to have become de facto
if not de jure independent but we do not know within
Fifty years at what date the Hintata amirs established
their power; they were descended from a brother of
c Amir b. Muhammad. They were “kings” of
Marrakesh when in 914/1508 the Portuguese estab¬
lished themselves at Safi, taking advantage of the
anarchy prevailing, for the power of the Hintata amirs
hardly extended beyond the environs of their capital
and they could not effectively protect their tribes
against the attacks of the Christians. By 1512 the
Portuguese governors of Safi had succeeded in
extending their power over the tribes near Marrakesh
(Awlad Mta c ) and the town lived in fear of the bold
raids which on several occasions brought the
Portuguese cavalry and their Arab allies into the
district. The king of Marrakesh, overawed, entered
into negotations in 1514, but the terms were nothing
less than his paying tribute as vassal and the building
of a Portuguese fortress at Marrakesh. Agreement
could not be reached. The occupation of Marrakesh
remained the dream of the Portuguese soldiers. An
attack on the town led by the governors of Safi and
Azemmur failed (9 Rabi* I 921/23 April 1515). This
was the period when in reaction against the anarchy
and foreign invasions the Sa c dian sharifs began to
come to the front in Sus. Ahmad al-A c radj, who
appeared in 919/1513 to the north of the Atlas, had
himself recognised as leader of the holy war and
accepted as such by the local chiefs, even by al-Nasir,
king of Marrakesh. In Safar 920/April 1514, it is
recorded that he was in Marrakesh with the king. At
the end of 927/1521, al-A c radj established himself
peacefully in Marrakesh which he found partly
depopulated by famine and married the daughter of
the king Muhammad b. Nasir called Bu Shentuf. The
latter in 930/1524 having tried to kick against the
tutelage of his too powerful son-in-law al-A c radj and
his brother Mahammad al-Shaykh, seized the kasba,
which seems till then to have been held by Bu
Shentuf. They disposed of the latter by having him
assassinated in the following year (932/1525).
Marrakesh became the Sa c dian capital. The king of
Fas, Ahmad al-Wattasi, tried unsuccessfully to take it

in Ramadan 933/June 1527. It remained in the hands
of al-A c radj till 961/1554, when it was seized by his
brother Mahammad al-Shaykh. up till then king of
Sus. After the assassination of Mahammad al-Shaykh
in 964/1557, al-A c radj was put to death at Marrakesh
with seven of his sons and grandsons, so as to secure
the crown for Mawlay c Abd Allah al-Ghalib. The
whole of the latter part of the century was for
Marrakesh a period of great prosperity. c Abd Allah
al-Ghalib built a series of important public works:
rearrangement of the palace and of the provision
storehouses in the kasba ; in the town, the madrasa Ibn
Yusuf and the al-Mwasin mosque, etc. Ahmad al-
Mansur Finished his brother’s work by building in the
kafba from 986 to 1002/1578 to 1594 the famous al-
Badl* palace. The sultan, enriched by several years of
peace and good government, and by the gold brought
from the conquest of the Sudan (1000/1591-2), lived
almost continually in Marrakesh, to which he restored
a splendour and a prosperity that it had not enjoyed
since the end of the 6th/12th century. But the death of
al-Mansur opened a period of trouble and civil war
“sufficient to turn white the hair of an infant at the
breast”, to use the expression of the historian al-
Ifranl. While Abu Faris, son of al-Mansur, was
proclaimed at Marrakesh, another son, Zaydan, was
chosen sultan at Fas. A third brother, al-Shaykh.
came and took Fas, then sent against Marrakesh an
army led by his son c Abd Allah, who seized the town
on 21 Sha ( ban 1015/22 December 1606. But Zaydan,
who sought refuge first in Tlemcen, then made his
way to the Sus, via Tafilalt and coming suddenly to
Marrakesh, had himself proclaimed there while c Abd
Allah b. al-Shaykh. while escaping with his troops,
was attacked in the midst of the gardens {jndn Bekkar)
and completely defeated (29 Shawwal 1015/25
February 1607). In Djumada 11/October of the same
year, c Abd Allah returned after defeating Zaydan’s
troops on the Wadi Tifalfalt (10 Djumada II/2
October, 1607), fought a second battle with them at
Ras al- c Ayn (a spring in Tansift), regained possesion
of the town and revenged himself in a series of
massacres and punishments so terrible that a portion
of the population having sought refuge in the GillTz,
proclaimed as sultan Muhammad, great-grandson of
Ahmad al-A c radj. c Abd Allah was forced to fly (7
Shawwal 1016/25 January 1608). Zaydan, recalled by
a section of the populace, regained possession of his
capital in a few days. The struggle between Zaydan
and his brother al-Shaykh, in the year following,
centred round the possession of Fas. Zaydan failed in
his plans to retake it and henceforth Fas, given over
completely to anarchy, remained separate from the
kingdom of Marrakesh. On these happenings, a
marabout from Tafilalt, named Abu Mahalli [</.&.in
Suppl.], attempted to intervene 1020/1611) to put an
end to the fighting among the pretenders, which was
inflicting great suffering on the people. His interven¬
tion only made matters worse. He took Marrakesh on
19 Rabi* I 1021/20 May 1612. Zaydan took refuge in
Safi and succeeded in again gaining possession of his
capital with the help of an influential marabout in
Sus, called Yahya b. c Abd Allah. After a battle near
GillTz, Zaydan withdrew into Marrakesh on 17
Shawwal 1022/30 November 1613. But Yahya,
succumbing to ambition, rebelled himself at the end of
1027/1618, against the ruler whose cause he had once
so well sustained. Zaydan had again to take refuge in
Safi. He was soon able to return to Marrakesh, taking
advantage of the discord that had broken out in the
enemy ranks. c Abd al-Malik, son and successor of
Zaydan, has left only the memory of his cruelty and

MARRAKUSH

595

debauchery. He was murdered in Shawwal 1040/May
1631. The renegades, who killed him, also disposed of
his brother and successor al-WalTd in 1636. A third
brother, Mahammad al-Shavkh al-Asghar, succeeded
him but had only a semblance of power. He managed
however to reign till 1065/1655, but his son Ahmad al-
c Abbas was completely in the hands of the Shabbana,
an Arab tribe who assassinated him and gave the
throne to his kafid c Abd a]-Karim, called Karrum al-
Hadjdj, in 1659. “The latter”, says al-Ifranl, “united
under his sway all the kingdom of Marrakesh and
conducted himself in an admirable fashion with
regard to his subjects”. His son Abu Bakr succeeded
him in 1078/1668, but only reigned two months until
the coming of the Fllall sultan al-Rashld, already lord
of Fas, who took Marrakesh on 21 Safar 1079/31 July
1668. Called to Marrakesh by the rebellion of his
nephew Ahmad b. Muhriz, al-Rashld met his death
there in the garden of al-Agdal, his head having been
injured by a branch of an orange tree against which
his horse threw him when it stumbled.

Mawlay Isma c Il had some difficulty in getting
himself proclaimed at Marrakesh, which preferred his
nephew, Ahmad b. Muhriz. Isma c Il forced his way in
on 9 Safar 1083/4 June, 1672. In the following year,
Marrakesh again welcomed Ahmad b. Muhriz. After
a siege of more than two years (Dhu THidjdja 1085-
Rabl* II 1088/March 1675-June 1677), Isma c Tl reoc¬
cupied Marrakesh and plundered it. He passed
through it again in 1094/1683 on his way to the Sus
to fight Ahmad b. Muhriz who was still in rebellion.
Marrakesh was no longer the capital. Mawlay Isma c Il
took an interest in it and destroyed the palaces of the
kasha to use the materials for his works in Meknes. In
Ramadan 1114/February 1703, a son of Mawlay
Isma c fl, Muhammad al- c Alim, rebelled against his
father, seized Marrakesh and plundered it. Zaydan,
brother of the rebel, was given the task of suppressing
the rising, which he did, plundering the town once
more.

Anarchy again broke out after the death of Isma c il.
Its centre was Meknes. Mawlay al-Mustadl,
proclaimed by the c AbId in 1151/1738, was disowned
by them in 1740 and replaced by his brother c Abd
Allah. He sought refuge in Marrakesh. His brother
al-Nasir remained his khalifa in Marrakesh till
1158/1745, while al-Mustadl tried in vain to recon¬
quer his kingdom. Marrakesh finally submitted in
1159/1746 to Mawlay c Abd Allah, who sent his son
Sldi Muhammad there as khalifa. The governorship
and then the reign of the latter (1171-1204/1757-90)
formed one of the happiest periods in the history of
Marrakesh. Sldi Muhammad completely restored the
town, made it his usual residence, received many
European embassies there, including a French one led
by the Comte de Breugnon in 1767, and developed its
trade. Peace was not disturbed during his long reign
except for a riot raised by a marabout pretender
named c Umar, who at the head of a few malcontents
tried to attack the palace in order to plunder the public
treasury. He was at once seized and put to death
(between 1766 and 1772, according to the sources).
On the death of Sldi Muhammad b. c Abd Allah, the
situation remained very unsettled for several years.
After taking the oath of allegiance to Mawlay Yazid
(18 Sha c ban 1204/ 3 May 1790), the people of
Marrakesh took in his brother Mawlay Hisham and
proclaimed him. On hearing this, Yazid abandoned
the siege of Ceuta, returned to Marrakesh, plundered
it and committed ail kinds of atrocities (1792).
Hisham, supported by the c Abda and the Dukkaia,
marched on Marrakesh. Yazid, wounded in the

battle, died a few days later in the palace (Djumada
II 1206/February 1792). Marrakesh remained faithful
to the party of Mawlay Hisham, but very soon the
Rhamna abandoned him to proclaim Mawlay
Husayn, brother of Hisham. He established himself
in the kasha (1209/1794-5). While the partisans of the
two princes were exhausting themselves in fighting,
Mawlay Sllman, sultan of Fas, avoided taking sides in
the struggle. The plague rid him at one blow of both
his rivals (Safar 1214/July 1799), who had in any case
to submit some time before. The last years of the reign
of Mawlay Simian were overcast by troubles in all
parts of the empire. Defeated at the very gates of
Marrakesh, he was taken prisoner by the rebel
Shrarda. He died at Marrakesh on 13 Rabl c I 1238/28
November 1822. Mawlay c Abd al-Rahman (1824-59)
did much for the afforestation of Agdal and restored
the religious buildings. His son Muhammad
completed his work by repairing tanks and aqueducts.
These two reigns were a period of tranquillity for
Marrakesh. In 1862, however, while Sldi Muham¬
mad b. c Abd al-Rahman was fighting the Spaniards at
Tetwan, the Rhamna rebelled, plundered the Suk al-
Khamls and closely blockaded the town, cutting off
communications and supplies, until the Sultan,
having made peace with Spain, came to relieve the
town (Dhu THid j d j a 1278/June 1862). Mawlay al-
Hasan hardly ever lived in Marrakesh, but he stopped
there on several occasions, notably in October 1875,
to punish the Rhamna and the Bu ’1-Sba c , who had
rebelled, and in 1880 and 1885, to prepare his expedi¬
tions into the Sus.

During the last years of the reign of Mawlay c Abd
al- c Az!z (1894-1908), it was at Marrakesh that the
opposition to the European tastes and experiments of
the sultan made itself most strongly felt. The
xenophobia culminated in the murder of a French
doctor named Mauchamp (19 March 1907), and the
spirit of separatism in the proclamation as sultan of
Mawlay c Abd al-Hafiz, brother of c Abd al- c Aziz and
governor of the provinces of the south (24 August
1907). But c Abd al-Hafiz becoming ruler of the whole
empire (24 August 1907) and having signed the treaty
of 24 March 1912 establishing the protectorate of
France and of Spain over Morocco, the anti-foreign
movement broke out again in the south. The
Mauritanian marabout al-Hlba [see ahmad al-hIba
in Suppl.] had himself proclaimed and established
himself in Marrakesh. He only held out there for a
brief period. His troops having been defeated at Sldi
Bu c Uthman on 6 September 1912, the French troops
occupied Marrakesh the next day.

Relations with Europe. Five minor friars
sent by St. Francis were put to death at Marrakesh on
16 January 1220, for having attempted to convert
Muslims and having insulted the Prophet Muham¬
mad in their discourses. Their martyrdom attracted
the attention of the Holy See to Marrakesh. A mission
and a bishopric were established by Honorius III in
1225 to give the consolations of religion to the Christ¬
ians domiciled in Morocco: merchants, slaves and
mercenaries in the sultan’s army. In the Almoravid
period, the sultans had Christian mercenaries
recruited from prisoners reduced to slavery or from
the Mozarab population of Spain whom they had
from time deported to Morocco by entire villages. In
1227, Abu T c Ula Idris al-Ma^mun, having won his
kingdom with the help of Christian troops lent by the
king of Castile, found himself bound to take up quite
a new attitude to the Christians. He granted them
various privileges, including permission to build a
church in Marrakesh and worship openly there. This

596

MARRAKUSH

was called Notre Dame and stood in the kasba, prob¬
ably opposite the mosque of al-Mansur: it was
destroyed during a rising in 1232. But the Christian
soldiery continued to enjoy the right to worship, at
least privately, and the bishopric of Marrakesh
supported by a source of income at Seville, existed so
long as there was an organised Christian soldiery in
Morocco, i.e. to the end of the 8th/14th century. The
title of Bishop of Marrakesh was borne till the end of
the 10th/16th century by the suffragans of Seville (cf.
Father A. Lopez, Los obispos de Marruecos desde el siglo
XIII, in Archivo Ibero-Americano , xlii [1920]). A Spanish
Franciscan, the prior Juan de Prado, who came to re¬
establish the mission, was put to death in 1621 at
Marrakesh. A few years later (1637), a monastery was
re-established beside the prison for slaves in the kasba.
It was destroyed in 1659 or 1660 after the death of the
last Sardian. Henceforth the Franciscans were obliged
to live in the melldh where they had down to the end
of the 18th century a little chapel and a monastery. As
to the Christian merchants, they had not much reason
to go to Marrakesh in the Middle Ages. Trade with
Europe was conducted at Ceuta from which the
Muslim merchants carried European goods into the
interior of the country. In the 16th century, c Abd
Allah al-Ghalib had a jondak or “bonded warehouse”
built in the suk where the Christian merchants were
allowed to live; but the majority of those who came to
Marrakesh preferred to settle in the Jewish quarter. It
was here also that foreign ambassadors usually
lodged, at least when they were not made to encamp
in one of the gardens of the palace.

Monuments. The present enceinte of Marrakesh
is a wall of clay about 20 feet high, flanked with
rectangular bastions at intervals of 250 to 300 feet.
Bab Aghmat, Bab Aylan and Bab Dabbagh which still
exist more or less rebuilt, are mentioned in the
account of the attack on Marrakesh by the Almohads
in 524/1130. Bab Ylntan and Bab al-Makhzen. men¬
tioned at the same time, have disappeared. Bab al-
$aliha (no longer in existence: it stood on the site of
the melldh) and Bab Dukkala (still in existence) figure
in the story of the capture of the town by the
Almohads (542/1147). The plan of the wall has there¬
fore never changed. It has been rebuilt in places from
time to time, as the clay crumbled away, but it may
be assumed that a number of pieces of the wall,
especially on the west and south-west, are original, as
well as at least three gates all now blocked up, to
which they owe their survival, but have lost their
name. According to Abu TFida 3 (8th/14th century),
there were in Marrakesh seventeen gates; twenty-four
at the beginning of the 10th/16th century, according
to Leo Africanus. It would be very difficult to draw up
an accurate list, for some have been removed, others
opened, since these dates or the names have been
altered. Ibn Fadl Allah al- c UmarI (beginning of the
8th/14th century) adds to the names already
mentioned those of Bab Nfis, Bab Muhrik, Bab
Messufa, Bab al-Raha, all four of which have disap¬
peared, Bab Taghzut, Bab Fas (now Bab al-Khaims)
and Bab al-Rabb, which still exist. The only impor¬
tant changes, which have been made in the walls of
Marrakesh since they were built, have been the
building of the ka$ba in the south and in the north the
creation of the quarter of Sldl bel c Abbas. The zdwiya
which as late as the 10th/16th century stood outside
the walls beyond the Bab Taghzut, was taken into the
town with all its dependencies.

The Kasba. The little ka$ba and the palace of Dar
al- c Umma built by Yusuf b. TashfTn, lay north of the
present “Mosque of the Booksellers” or Kutubiyya.

C A1I b. Yusuf added in the same quarter other palaces
called Sur al-Hadjar, or Kasr al-Hadjar because they
were built with stones from the Gilllz, while all the
other buildings in the town were of brick or clay. It
was here that the first Almohads took up their
quarters. According to a somewhat obscure passage of
the Istibsar, Abu Ya c kub Yusuf seems to have begun
the building of a “fort” in the south of the town but
it was Ya c kub al-Mansur who built the new kasba
(585-93/1189-97); that is to say he joined to the south
wall of the town a new walled area within which he
built palaces, a mosque, and a regular town. Nothing
remains of the Almohad palaces, but from pieces of
wall and other vestiges one can follow the old wall, at
least on the north and the east side. There also the line
of the wall has hardly changed. The magnificent
gateway of carved stone by which the kasba is now
entered, must be one of al-Mansur’s buildings. Its
modern name of Bab Agnaw (the dumb mute’s =
Negro’s Gate) is not found in any old text. It probably
corresponds to Bab al-Kuhl (Gate of the Negroes?),
often mentioned by the historians.

Ibn Fadl Allah al- c UmarI, in the 8th/14th century,
Leo Africanus and Marmol in the 10th/16th have left
us fairly detailed descriptions of the kasba, in spite of
a few obscure passages. In the Almohad period, the
kasba was divided into three quite distinct parts. One
wall in the northwest, around the mosque of al-
Mansur which still exists, contained the police offices,
the headquarters of the Almohad tribes and the
barracks of the Christian soldiery. From this one
entered through the Bab al-Tubul a second enclosure
in which around a huge open space, the “Cereque”
of Marmol (asarag), were grouped the guard houses,
the offices of the minister of the army, a guest-house,
a madrasa with its library and a large building called al-
sakaHf (the porticoes), the “Acequife” of Marmol,
occupied by the principal members of the Almohad
organisation, the “Ten”, the “Fifty”, the tolba and
the pages (ahl al-ddr). The royal palace, sometimes
called the Alhambra of Marrakesh, in imitation of
that of Granada, was entered from the Asarag and
occupied the whole area east of the ka$ba. The palaces
of al-Mansur were still in existence at the beginning
of the 10th/l 6th century when the Sa c dians took
possession. c Abd Allah al-Ghalib incorporated them
in the new palaces which he was building. Afrmad al-
Mansur added, in the gardens to the north, the
famous al-BadY palace celebrated for its size and
splendour. Only a few almost shapeless ruins remain
of it, but its plan is perfectly clear. Mawlay Isma c Il
had it destroyed in order to use its materials. The
kasba remained so completely in ruins that Sldl
Muhammad b. c Abd Allah, when he became gover¬
nor of Marrakesh in 1159/1746, was obliged to live in
a tent until his new buildings were finished. It is to
him that we owe an important part of the present
palace with its inner garden, c Arsat al-Nll. Other
works were later undertaken by Mawlay Sliman and
his successors. Some large unfinished buildings date
only from Mawlay c Abd al-Hafiz. A number of gates,
in addition to the Bab Agnaw, give admittance to the
kasba: these are Bab Berrima and Bab al-Ahmar in the
east, Bab Ighli and Bab Kslba in the west. The palace
has vast gardens belonging to it: Jnan al- c Afiya,
Agdal, Jnan Ridwan, Ma ? muniyya and Manara. The
latter, two miles west of the town, contained in the
10th/16th century a pleasure house of the sultans. The
palace of Dar al-Bayda 5 , situated in the Agdal, took
the place of a Sa c dian palace. It was rebuilt by Sldl
Muhammad b. c Abd Allah and has since been
restored. As to the gardens of the Agdal, they seem to

MARRAKUSH

597

have been created in the 6th/12th century by c Abd
al-Mu 5 min.

Mosques. Nothing remains of the early Al-
moravid mosques, in the building of one of which
Yusuf b. Tashftn himself worked along with the
masons as a sign of humility. But the Friday mosque
of C A1F b. Yusuf, where Ibn Tumart had an interview
with the sultan, although several times rebuilt, still
retains its name. The Almohads, on taking possession
of Marrakesh, destroyed all the mosques on the
pretext that they were wrongly oriented. The mosque
of C A1I b. Yusuf was only partly destroyed and was
rebuilt. c Abd Allah al-Ghalib restored it in the middle
of the 10th/l6th century. The present buildings and
the minaret date from Mawlay Sliman (1792-1822).

Kutubiyya. When the Almohads entered
Marrakesh, Abd al-Mu^min built the first Kutubiyya
of which some traces still remain and it has been possi¬
ble to reconstruct its plan. As it was wrongly oriented
he built a new mosque, the present Kutubiyya, in
prolongation of the first but with a slightly different
orientation. It takes its name from the 100
booksellers’ shops which used to be around its
entrance. It is a very large building with seventeen
naves, which with its decoration in carved plaster, its
stalactite cupolas, the moulding of its timberwork, its
capitals and magnificent pulpit ( minbar) of inlaid
work, is the most important and the most perfectly
preserved work of Almohad art. The minaret, begun
by c Abd al-Mu ? min, was only finished in the reign of
his grandson al-Mansur (591/1195). It is 230 feet high
and its powerful silhouette dominates the whole town
and the palm groves. It is the prototype of the Giralda
of Seville and of the tower of Hassan at Rabat. It is
decorated with arcatures the effects of which were
formerly heightened by paintings still visible in places,
with a band of ceramic work around the top.

The mosque of the kasba or mosque of al-Mansur is
the work of Ya c kub al-Mansur. It was begun in 585-
91/1189-95 and built in great splendour. It has been
profoundly altered, first by c Abd Allah al-Ghalib the
Sa c dian, then in the middle of the 18th century by
Muhammad b. c Abd Allah, then more recently by
Mawlay c Abd al-Rahman (1822-59). The minaret of
brick is intact and magnificently ornamented with
green ceramics. The lampholder supports a djamur of
three bowls of gilt copper, which occupy a
considerable place in the legends of Marrakesh. They
are said to be of pure gold and to be enchanted, so that
no one can take them away without bringing on
himself the most terrible misfortunes. This legend is
often wrongly connected with the dyamur of the
Kutubiyya.

Among the religious monuments of Marrakesh of
archaeological interest may also be mentioned the
minarets of the mosque of Ibn Salih (dated 731/1331)
and of the sanctuary of Mawla TKsur, built in the
Marlnid period in the Almohad tradition, and two
Sa c dian mosques: the mosque of al-MwasIn or mos¬
que of the Sharlfs, which owes its origin to c Abd Allah
al-Ghalib, and that of Bab Dukkala, built in
965/1557-8 by Lalla Mas c uda, the mother of the
sultan Ahmad al-Mansur.

Madrasas. An Almohad madrasa , built “to teach
the children of the king and others of his family in it”,
formed part of the buildings of Ya c kub al-Mansur.
This royal school was presumably different from what
were later the Marlnid madrasas. It stood on the great
square in front of the palace and was still in existence
in the time of Leo Africanus. The Marlnid Abu ’1-
Hasan in 748/1347 built another madrasa, also
described by Leo. It lay north of the mosque of the

kasba, where traces of it can still be seen. The madrasa
of Ibn Yusuf is not, as is usually said, a restoration of
the Marlnid madrasa. It was a new building by c Abd
Allah al-Ghalib, dated by an inscription of 972/1564-5
and the only surviving example of a Sa c dian madrasa.

Sa c dian tombs. The two first founders of the
dynasty rest beside the tomb of Sldl Muhammad b.
Sliman al-Djazul! ln the Riyad al- c Arus quarter.
Their successors from 964/1557 were buried to the
south of the mosque of the kasba. There was a
cemetery there, probably as early as the Almohad
period, which still has tombs of the 8th/l4th century.
The magnificent kubbas which cover the tombs of the
Sa c dian dynasty must have been built at two different
periods. The one on the east under which is the tomb
of Mahammad al-Shaykh seems to have been built
by c Abd Allah al-Ghalib. The other, with three
chambers, seems to have been erected by Ahmad al-
Mansur (d. 1012/1603) to hold his tomb.

Bibliography: Arab writers: see the
indexes to the editions of Bakrl (tr. de Slane, 1859);
Idris! (ed. tr. and Dozy and de Goeje, 1866); Ibn
al-Athlr (tr. Fagnan, 1901); Documents inedits
d’histoire almohade (ed. and tr. E. Levi-Provengal,
1928); Chronique almohade anonyme (ed. and tr. E.
Levi-Provengal, in Melanges Rene Basset, ii, 1925);
ZarkashI (tr. Fagnan, 1895); MarrakushI (tr.
Fagnan, 1893); Abu ’l-Fida 5 (tr. Solvet, 1839); Ibn
Fadl Allah al- c UmarI, Masalik (tr. Gaudefroy-
Demombynes, 1927); Ibn Khaldun. c Ibar (tr. de
Slane, 1852); IfranI, Nuzhat al-hadt (ed. and tr.
Houdas, 1889); ZayyanI (ed. and tr. Houdas,
1886); Naslrl, Istiksa 5 (part tr. in AM, ix, x, xxx,
xxxi); Extraits inedits relatifs au Maghreb (tr. Fagnan,
1924); see also: Kitab al-Istibsar { tr. Fagnan, 1899);
al-Hulal al-mawshiyya, Tunis 1329, Ibn Abl Zar c ,
Rawd al-kirtas (ed. Tornberg, 1846, tr. Beaumier,
1860); Leo Africanus (tr. Epaulard, Paris 1956);
Ibn al-Muwakkit, al-Sa c ddal al-abadiyya, Fas 1336;
al- c Abbas b. Ibrahim al-Marrakushl, Izhdr al -
kamal , Fas 1334.

European authors: Damiao de Gois, Cronica
do jelicissimo Rei D. Manuel, ed. D. Lopes, Coimbra
1926, tr. R. Ricard, Les Portugais au Maroc, Rabat
1937; Marmol Carvajal, Descripcion general de
Affrica, ii, Granada 1573, French tr. 1667; H. de
Castries, Sources inedites de l 'Histone de Maroc, passim,
cf. the indexes to the French and Dutch series;
Matias de S. Francisco, Relacion del viage... que hizo
a Marruecos el V r en. P. Fr. Juan de Prado, Madrid
1643, 2nd ed. Tangier 1945; G. Host, Nachrichten
von Marokos und Fes, Copenhagen 1781; L. de
Chenier, Recherches historiques sur les Maures, iii,
1787; Jackson, Account of the Empire of Morocco, 1809;
Ali Bey el Abbassi, Voyages, i, 1814; P. Lambert,
Notice sur la ville de Maroc, in Bull, de la Soc. de Geogr.
(1868); Gatell, Viages por Marruecos, Madrid 1869;
E. Doutte, Merrakech, 1905; P. Champion, Rabat et
Marrakech, Les villes dart celebres, 1926; H. de
Castries, Du nom d‘Alhambra donne au palais du
souverain a Marrakech et a Grenade, in JA (1921); P. de
Cenival, L’Eglise chretienne de Marrakech , in Hesperis
(1927); H. Basset and H. Terrasse, Sanctuaires et
forteresses al mo hades, in Hesperis (1925-7); Gallo tti, Le
Lanternon du minaret de la Koutoubia de Marrakech, in
ibid. (1923); G. Rousseau and F. Arin, Le mausolee
des princes sa c diens a Marrakech, 1925; de Castries, Le
Cimetiere de Djama el-Mansour , in Hesperis (1927); G.
Aimel, Le Palais d'el Bedi c a Marrakech , in Archives
Berberes (1918); Ch. Terrasse, Medersas du Maroc,
1928; Capt. Begbeder, Notes sur l’organisation
administrative de la Region de Marrakech , in Bull, de la

598

MARRAKUSH — MARRASH

Soc. de Geogr. du Maroc (1921); Voinot, Les tribus
guich du Haouz de Marrakech , in Bull, de la Soc. de
Geogr. et dArcheologie d’Oran (1928); in France-Maroc,
1919-21, a number of articles signed Aimel,
Doutte, Guichard, etc.; Doctoresse Legey, Contes et
legendes populaires recueillis a Marrakech , 1926; Guides
Bleus, Maroc. There is a detailed list of the archival,
manuscript, cartographic and iconographic
sources, followed by an exhaustive bibliography
(works in both Arabic and European languages), in
G. Deverdun’s monograph, Marrakech des origines d
1912 , 2 vols., Rabat 1959-66, complemented by the
work of idem. Inscriptions arabes de Marrakech, Rabat
1956. _ _ (P. de Cenival)

al-MARRAKU SH I [see c abd al-wahid; ibn

AL-BANNA 3 ].

al-MARRAKUSHI. Abu c AlI al-Hasan b. c Ali,
astronomer of Maghrib! origin who worked in
Cairo. In ca. 680/1281-2, he compiled a compendium
of spherical astronomy and astronomical instruments
entitled Kitab Djami c al-mabddP wa ’l-ghaydt fi Him al-
mikat, which is perhaps the most valuable single
source for the history of Islamic astronomical
instrumentation.

In this work, which exists in several manuscript
copies, al-Marrakush! presented a detailed discussion
of the standard problems of spherical astronomy [see
mIkat. 2. Astronomical aspects], and then dealt with
different kinds of plane sundials, the armillary sphere,
the planispheric astrolabe, the universal plate known
as the shakkdziyya , the trigonometric grid called al-ruN
al-mudfiyyab , and a variety of aquadrants for deter¬
mining time from solar altitude [see asturlab and
rub c ]. Most of the material was apparently culled
from earlier sources which are not identified by the
author and which have not yet been established.
Those earlier scholars whom he does mention do not
appear to be his major sources. The compendium
does contain several tables computed specifically for
Cairo, and these appear to be original to al-
Marrakush!. Rather surprisingly, he makes no
reference to and does not exploit the Ztdj hakimi of the
4th/10th century Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus
[qv.], which included an exhaustive account of
spherical astronomy and also contained numerous
tables for Cairo.

Al-Marrakush!’s work was highly influential in
later Islamic astronomy in Rasulid Yemen, in
Mamluk Egypt and Syria, and in Ottoman Turkey.
Most of the surviving manuscripts are of Egyptian,
Syrian or Turkish provenance. His work was
apparently unknown in the Maghrib and the Islamic
East.

The first half of al-Marrakush!’s treatise dealing
with spherical astronomy and sundials was translated
by J.J. Sedillot, and the second half dealing with
instruments summarised by L.A. Sedillot. Al-
Marrakushi’s sundial theory has been studied by K.
Schoy. A detailed study of this work, and an
investigation of its sources, has yet to be conducted.
An uncritical edition was prepared by the late Egyp¬
tian scholar Shavkh Hasan al-Banna 3 , but this has not
been published.

Al-Marrakush! is usually described as a Ma gh rib!
scientist because of his nisba. Unfortunately, we have
no biographical information on him of any conse¬
quence. Whatever his origin, his magnum opus was
clearly compiled in Cairo. Apparently neither of the
Sedillots realised that he was writing there, and
Sedillot pere misdated him to 660/1261-2 in spite of the
fact that his solar tables and star catalogue are
computed for 680/1281-2.

Bibliography: See H. Suter, Die Mathematiker
und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke, in Abh. zur
Gesch. der mathematischen Wissenschaften, x (1900)
(repr. Amsterdam 1982), no.363; M. Krause,
Stambuler Handschriften islamischer Mathematiker, in
Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik
Astronomie und Physik, iii/4 (1936), 437-532, no. 363;
Brockelmann, I 2 , 625, S I, 866; L. A. Mayer,
Islamic astrolabists and their works, Geneva 1956, 46
(on an unusual astrolabe made by him); and D. A.
King, A survey of the scientific manuscripts in the Egyp¬
tian National Library, Malibu, Calif. 1985, no. Cl7.
See also idem, The astronomy of the Mamluks, in Isis,
lxxiv (1983), 531-55, esp. 539-40.

Studies of his works: J.J. Sedillot, Traite des
instruments astronomiques des Arabes..., 2 vols., Paris
1834-5; L. A. Sedillot, Memoire sur les instruments
astronomiques des Arabes, in Mems. de TAcad. Royale des
Inscrs. et Belles-Lettres de Tlnst. de France, i (1844), 1-
229; K. Schoy, Die Gnomonik der Araber, Band I,
Lieferung F, of E. von Bassermann-Jordan (ed.).
Die Geschichte der Zeitmessung und der Uhren, Berlin-
Leipzig 1923. (D. A. King)

MARRASH, Fransis b. Fath Allah b. Nasr,
Syrian scholar and publicist of the Nahda
(1835-74 according to M. c Abbud and S. al-Kayyal!,
or 1836-73 according to Brockelmann, Daehir and al-
Zirikli).

He was born and died at Aleppo, coming from a
Melkite Christian family of literary men (Brockel¬
mann, S II, 755), and in the opening stages of the
modern Arabic literary renaissance, the Nahda [q.v .],
tried to introduce “critical reasoning” into a sphere at
that time in a state of cultural effervescence. For this,
he employed pseudo-scientific terms in order to prove,
in his early works, the need for freedom and peace in
the world, and then in his later works, the existence
of God and the divine law (the sharPa which, in his
eyes, goes beyond the sphere of the Islamic law alone).
In order to free human thought from the yokes of
tradition and respect for the ancients, he used extra¬
literary methods, the discoveries of the botanical,
geological and zoological sciences; but, so as not to
frighten off his public, he did not endeavour to free
himself from traditional forms of expression (sadf, the
makama genre, numerous poetic citations). The whole
of his work involved religion and history in an
epistemological revision, and in this, he contributed
with Faris al-Shidyak and Farah Antun [q.vv. ] in the
development of critical reasoning, fed by multi¬
disciplinary aspects of knowledge, in contemporary
Arab thought.

He was aided in this by his milieu. Aleppo was at
that time a lively centre of thought about the Arab
future, within a society still under Ottoman rule. It
was in the French religious schools that the Marrash
family learnt Arabic with French and other foreign
languages (Italian and English). The father, Fath
Allah, and the brother, c Abd Allah, achieved a certain
literary fame. A young sister, Maryana, born in 1848
(Brockelmann, S II, 756, erroneously calls her
“daughter”; Daghir, ii, 697), was to conduct a
literary salon and seems to have been the First Arab
woman to write in the daily newspapers (al-Diinan and
Lis an al-hal).

Since he was 4 years old, as a consequence of
measles, Fransis Marrash began to lose his sight. He
studied science and learnt medicine with an English
physician in Aleppo. He continued his studies in 1867
at Paris, where he had already been in 1850 for treat¬
ment for his eyes. But as his sight deteriorated, he had
to return to Aleppo completely blind. During the last

MARRASH — MARSAD

599

years of his life, he was able to dictate a relatively
abundant body of work.

His biographers reproach him for using a linguistic
style at times incorrect and inelegant (Daghir, ii, 693;
al-Zirikll; KustakT; M. c Abbud, 115), but they speak
with appreciation of the quality of his personal
thought and insight (kdtib mabadP wa-tafkir ... min al-
tiraz al-awwal , Daghir, ii, 693) at a time when bid c a,
innovativeness and originality, were still viewed with
disfavour by traditional cultural circles. From the
titles onwards, his works reveal a clearly marked-out
form and a new range of contents: Dalil al-hurriyya al-
insaniyya “Guide to human liberty”, Aleppo 1861, 24
pp.; al-MiPat al-safiyya fi d-mabddP al-fabPiyya “The
clear mirror of natural principles”, Aleppo 1861, 60
pp. of pseudo-scientific text; Ta c ziyat al-makrub wa-
rahat al-maPub “Consolation of the anxious and repose
of the weary one”, Aleppo 1864, a philosophical and
pessimistic discourse on nations of the past ; Ghabat al-
hakk “The forest of truth” (Brockelmann, S II, 756:
Ghayat al-hakk ). Aleppo 1865, Cairo 1298/1881, Beirut
1881, his most famous and most often printed work,
“almost a novel” (Da gh ir. ii, 695; c Abbud, 131;
Kayyall, 57), a kind of apocalyptic vision and
pleading for the liberty of peoples and for peace; Rihla
ila Baris , a description of his trip to Paris, Beirut 1867;
al-Kunuz al-fanniyya fi d-rumuz al-maymuniyya “Artistic
treasures concerning the symbolic visions of
Maymun”, a poem of almost 500 verses, a kind of
symbolic vision whose hero is called Maymun;
Mashhad al-ahwdl “The witnessing of the stages of
human life”, Beirut 1870, 1883 (Brockelmann, S II,
756, gives an edition of 1865 (?]), these editions testi¬
fying to the work’s success, as confirmed by
c Abbud—with its 130 pp. (this in the 1870 edition, 75
being in verse and 55 in prose), the book sets forth the
author’s philosophical ideas on beings and things:
minerals, vegetable and plant life, animals and
human kind; Durr al-sadaffigharadb al-sadf“ The pearl
of nacre concerning the curious aspects of change”, a
social narrative which appeared at Beirut in 1872;
MiPat al-hasna 5 “The mirror of the beautiful one”,
Beirut 1872, 1883, a collection of poems; and his
posthumous work, Shahadat al-tabPa fi wudjud Allah wa
’1-sharPa “The proofs of nature for the existence of
God and the divine law”, Beirut 1892.

In his articles published in al-Djinan. Bufrus al-
Bustanl’s journal [see al-bustani, 2., in Suppl.], he
reveals himself as favourable to women’s education,
which he limited however to reading, writing, and a
little bit of arithmetic, geography and grammar. He
wrote that it is not necessary for a woman “to act like
a man, neglect her domestic and family duties, or that
she should consider herself superior to the man” ( al-
Dfinan , 1872, 769-70, cited by A. al-MakdisI, 268-9).
He nevertheless closely followed his sister Maryana’s
studies not suspecting that the first poem which she
would publish in the public press—actually in al-
Djinan —would be her elegy on him ( c Abbud, 173).

Bibliography. Marun c Abbud, Ruwwad al-
nahda al-haditha , Beirut 1966, 115, 121, 123-36,
173, 193, 208; Brockelmann, II 2 , 646, S II, 755;
Y.A. Daghir, Masadir al-dirasa al-adabiyya , Beirut
1956, ii, 693-6; S. al-Kayyali, al-Adab al- c arabi al-
mu c asir fi Suriya (1850-1950 2 , Cairo 1968, 53-9;
Kustakf al-Himsi, Udabd 5 Halab dhawu d-athar fi 7-
karn al-tdsi c c ashar, Aleppo 1925, 20-30; Anfs al-
MakdisT, al-lttidjahat al-adabiyya fi d- c alam al- c arabi
al-hadith 2 , Beirut 1967, 205, 268-9, 275 (on
Maryana); Sarkis, MPdjcim al-matbuPat al- c arabiyya
wa d-mu c arraba, Cairo 1346/1928, col. 1730; L.
Cheikho, al-Adab al- c arabiyya fi d-karn al-tasP c ashar,

Beirut 1926, ii, 45; Tarrazi (Philippe de Tarrazi),
TaPrikh al-sihafa al-^arabiyya, Beirut 1913-33, i, 141;
Dj . Zaydan, Taradjim mashdhir al-shark fi d-karn al-
tdsi c c ashar , Cairo 1900, ii, 152; idem, TaPrikh adab
al-lugha al- c arabiyya , Cairo 1913-14, iv, 237; Zirikli,
AHam : 3 , v, 344b. (N. Tomiche)

MARRIAGE [see C MAHR, mar 5 a, nikah, c urs].
MARS Jsee al-mirrikh].

MARSA [ see mina 5 ].

MARSA C ALI [see sikilliyya].

MARSAD (a.) originally means a place where one
keeps watch, whence comes the meaning of obser¬
vatory, also described by the word rasad.

The first astronomical observations carried out in
the Islamic world seem to date back to the end of the
2nd/8th century, i.e. to the period when Indo-Persian
astronomical materials were introduced and the first
Ptolemaic data appeared. According to Ibn Yunus (d.
399/1009), Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Nihawandl
(174/790) made some observations in Djundishapur
in the time of the minister Yahya b. Khalid b. Barmak
(d. 190/805) and used their results in his Zidj
mushtamil , unfortunately lost. The same Ibn Yunus
informs us, on the other hand, that in 159/776 the first
determination of the obliquity of the ecliptic was made
with a result of 23 0 31' , but he does not cite the one
responsible for these observations, who may have
been al-Nihawandl himself.

The first systematic programme of observations
concerning which we have solid information is that
which was implemented under the patronage of the
caliph al-Ma 5 mun [tf.f.] (198-218/813-33) who gave
an impulse to this research, perhaps because of his
own interest in astronomy or his desire to achieve a
permanent solution of the problem presented by the
contradictory parameters used by the three astrono¬
mical schools known to Muslims: Indian, Persian and
Greek (D. Pingree, The Greek influence on early Islamic
mathematical astronomy , in JAOS, xciii [1973], 38-9).
This second hypothesis would also explain the careful
measurement of a meridian degree undertaken on al-
Ma 5 mun’s order, in the Syrian desert (between the
towns of al-Rakka and Palmyra) and in c Irak
(between Baghdad and Kufa and on the Sindjar plain;
see T. Bychawski, Measurement of one geographical degree
undertaken and carried out by the Arabs in the IXth century ,
in Actes du IX € Congres International d'Histoire de Sciences ,
Barcelona-Paris 1960, 635-8). The observations
encouraged by al-Ma^mun were undertaken in
Baghdad and Damascus, not simultaneously, it
seems, but consecutively, although we possess a
reference to the collation of the results of an observa¬
tion of the autumnal equinox carried out in the two
towns. In Ba gh dad, the observations took place in al-
Shammasiyya quarter, but the sources do not say if
there was an observatory, properly speaking, in a
building reserved for this purpose; in any case, the
insistence in the introduction of the zidj attributed to
Hayha b. Abl Mansur (d. ca. 215/830) on the use of
the “circle” ( dadra ) of al-Shammasiyya makes us
think of a large scale instrument requiring a fixed
installation and a minimal permanent space (cf. J.
Vernet, Las “ Tabulae Probatae'\ in Homenaje a Mi Has
Vallicrosa, ii, Barcelona 1956, 508, repr. in Estudios
sobre historia de la ciencia medieval , Barcelona-Bellaterra
1979, 198). The situation was the same in Damascus,
where the observations took place in the monastery of
Dayr Murran on Mount Kasiyun [ q. v. ]; a sun-dial ten
cubits high (about 5 m.) was built there and a marble
wall dial, whose interior radius also measured ten
cubits. In any case, it was not necessary for the
installations to be of a permanent character, for the

600

MARSAD

programmes were brief; in Ba gh dad the observations
were carried out in 213/828 and 214/829 under the
direction of Yahya b. Abl Mansur with the collabora¬
tion of Sanad b. C A1I and al- c Abbas b. Sa c Td al-
Djawharl. They had to be interrupted for a year, to
be repeated later in Damascus, where they took place
at the end of a solar year between 216 and 217/831-2,
under the direction of Khalid b. c Abd al-Malik al-
Marwarrudhi, perhaps with the assistance of Sanad b.
C A1I and C A1T b. c Isa al-Asturlabl. The question as to
whether Habash al-Hasib (d. between 250 and
260/864-74) was involved in these observations,
especially as head of the team in Damascus, has been
much discussed, but there does not seem to be suffi¬
cient proof and Habash himself, in the introduction of
his zidj_ where he alludes to these observations, does
not say that he took part personally. The caliph’s
death, in 218/833, interrupted, according to some
sources, the programme of observations, but the
matter is not clear, for, on the one hand, some
evidence shows that this work preceded al-Ma^mun’s
death and, on the other, we possess some references to
later observations carried out by al-Ma^mun’s astro¬
nomers in Damascus (Khalid in 219/834) and in
Baghdad (Khalid, c Ali b. c Isa al-Harrani and Sanad
b. C A1I in 230-1/843-4). It is furthermore possible that
the observations in question survived to be followed
up by a later imitator or that the latter to which allu¬
sion is to be made (such as those of Habash in
Baghdad between 210 and 220/825-33 and in
250/864) were carried out on the fringe of the official
programme laid down by the caliph.

The observers of al-Ma^mun’s time seem to have
given themselves to the systematic observation of the
sun and moon, although observations were also made
of the fixed stars and no doubt of the planets. The
results of these labours were recorded in a certain
number of zxdf s, outstanding among which are those
attributed to Yahya b. Abl Mansur and Habash. As
far as the sun is concerned, these zifjj ,s improve upon
the Ptolemaic parameters, and it is also known that al-
MaYnun’s astronomers established a new method,
which offers some advantages as against that of
Ptolemy, for establishing the parameters of the solar
(W. Hartner and M. Schramm, Al-Bwuni and the theory
of the solar apogee: an example of originality in Arabic science,
in A.C. Crombie (ed.), Scientific change , London 1963,
208-9). Various calculations of the obliquity of the
ecliptic (see al-Blrunl, Tahdld nihaydt al-amakin, ed. P.
Boulgakov, in RIMA, viii [1962], 90-1) and of the
duration of the tropical year were undertaken.
However, the observation of the moon, stars and
planets proved to be less fruitful, and we can only say,
by way of example, that the estimation of the preces¬
sion of the equinoxes (1 every 66 years) obtained by
Yahya b. Abl Mansur (following an observation of the
autumnal equinox carried out on the 27 Radjab
215/19 September 830) is suspect, for D. Pingree
(Precession and trepidation in Indian astronomy before A.D.
1200, in Jnal. of the Hist, of Astronomy, iii [1972]), has
demonstrated that the parameter cited above is of
Sanskrit origin.

The status given to astronomical observations by al-
MaYnun’s patronage was to be followed by a period
during which the same work had to be pursued, on a
lower level, in small private observatories: this is the
case with the brothers Muhammad and Ahmad b.
Musa b. Shakir who observed the sun and fixed stars
between 225 and 225/840-69, principally in Ba g hdad,
but also in Samarra and Nlshapur. This activity of the
Banu Musa is easily explained, for they had at their
disposal a considerable fortune and became patrons of

other scholars, among whom figured Thabit b. Kurra
[q.v. ] (d. 288/901), who also made observations
himself, but is distinguished essentially by his use of
the results of those which dated back to antiquity and
al-Ma-'mun’s period. Between the 3rd and 4th/9th-
10th centuries, attention should be drawn to the work
undertaken by al-Mahanl (observation of conjunc¬
tions and eclipses of the sun and moon between 239
and 252/853-66), the 30 years (273-305) of systematic
observations of al-Battani [<?. v. ] in al-Rakka which are
crystallised in his famous zidj_ (edited by C.A. Nallino,
Milan 1899-1907) and the labours of the Banu
Amadjur in Ba gh dad between 271 and 321/885-933,
who made observations not only of the sun but also of
the moon and planets.

The 4th/10th century had already begun when the
interest of the Buwayhid dynasty in astronomy
brought a revival of official patronage which
facilitated the undertaking of very extensive work;
Abu TFadl Ibn al- c Amid [q.v. ], minister of the ruler
of al-Rayy, Rukn al-Dawla (d. 366/977), subsidised
the construction of a large-scale instrument with
which Abu TFadl al-Harawi and Abu Dja c far al-
Khazin [q.v.] made solar observations in 348/950.
This same minister also had in his service c Abd al-
Rahman al-SufT (d. 376/986), who was also

patronised, in Isfahan, by another Buwayhid, c Adud
al-Dawla (d. 372/983). Al-Sufi’s important stellar
observations resulted in a systematic revision of
Ptolemy’s catalogue of stars; simultaneously, Ibn al-
A c lam, also for c Adud al-Dawla, made some
planetary observations which are recorded in his
famous zldf (cf. E. S. Kennedy, The astronomical tables
of Ibn al-AHam, in JHAS, i [1977], 13-21). This work
was further developed under Sharaf al-Dawla (372-
9/982-9), who commanded Abu Sahl al-Kuhi to
observe the seven planets, which resulted in the
construction of an observatory in the royal palace
garden at Baghdad where some large-scale
instruments were used. Astronomers such as Abu T
Wafa 3 al-Buzdjani [q.v. ] and Ahmad b. Muhammad
al-$agham must have taken part in the first observa¬
tions, which took place in 378/988. Unfortunately,
this Baghdad observatory had an ephemeral
existence, for its activities ended with the death of
Sharaf al-Dawla. Even so, the patronage of Fakhr al-
Dawla (366-87/977-97) supported the solar observa¬
tions of al-Khudjandl [q. u.] (d. 390/1000) carried out
in Rayy with the help of a large sextant called al-sudus
al-fakhn. The Buwayhids’ example must obviously
have awakened a desire to emulate it among members
of other dynasties, and this was the case with the
Kakwayhid c Ala 5 al-Dawla Muhammad (d. 433/1041-
2) who supplied Ibn Slna [q.v.] (370-428/980-1037),
with funds to carry out observations of the planets in
Hamadan around 414/1023-4, and with Mahmud of
Ghazna (d. 421/1030), under whose patronage al-
Birum [q.v.] (362-442/973-1050) also made certain
observations and wrote a main part of his astrono¬
mical work.

From the 4th/10th century onwards, observations
began to take place further west. In Egypt, there
emerges the remarkable figure of Ibn Yunus (d.
399/1009), despite the fact that the account according
to which this astronomer is said to have had at his
disposal a well-equipped observatory, thanks to the
patronage of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim (386-
411/996-1021), appears entirely legendary; he prob¬
ably had at his disposal only a private observatory,
although a number of his observations (described in
the introduction to his ztdj) were carried out in various
places in the town between 367/977 (or 380/990) and

MARSAD

601

398/1007), such that we may assume that he used
essentially portable instruments and obtained
excellent results. In al-Andalus, the first observations
known from documents are those of Maslama al-
Madjriti [q. v. ] (d. ca. 398/1107; seej. Vernet and M.
A. Catala, Las obras matematicas de Maslama de Madrid,
in al-And., xxx [1965], 15-47; repr. in Estudios sobre
historia de la ciencia medieval, Barcelona- Bellaterra 1979,
241-71), while far more remarkable work in this
respect was carried out by Azarquiel/al-Zarkall (d.
493/1100), of whom we know that, with the assistance
of several collaborators, he made observations of the
sun, moon and fixed stars for more than 25 years, first
in Toledo, then in Cordoba (J. M. Millas-Vallicrosa,
Estudios sobre Azarquiel, Madrid-Granada 1943-50,
279); yet there does not seem to be any proof of an
organised observatory.

The observatory as an institution, if not perma¬
nent, at least longer lasting than the examples
mentioned until now, seems to be an Eastern develop¬
ment dating from the later Middle Ages. The most
obvious antecedent, although not well-known, is the
observatory founded by Malik Shah (465-85/1072-92)
around 467/1074, perhaps in Isfahan and where
c Umar al-Khayvam [< 7 . p.] (440-526/1048-1131), in
collaboration with other astronomers, completed a zidf
and effected the reform of the Persian solar calendar
[see further, djalal!]. This observatory stayed active
for about 18 years, until the death of the ruler, whose
son, Sandjar b. Malik Shah, patronised the planetary
observations carried out in Marw by al-Khazinl
(between about 509 and 530/1115-35). With regard to
the observatory of Malik Shah, there appears for the
first time the idea that the minimum time necessary to
complete a programme of observations is 30 years (a
revolution of Saturn). Nasir al-Dln al-Tusi [ q.v.]
(597-672/1201-74) was to recall this minimum period
in the course of his negotations with the Mongol
sultan Hiilegii with a view to creating the Maragha
observatory; facing resistance from the ruler, the as¬
tronomer agreed to complete the same work in twelve
years (a revolution of Jupiter). In the 9th/l5th
century, al-Kashi (d. 833/1429), the principal as¬
tronomer of the Samarkand observatory, was also to
speak of a minimum period of between 10 and 15
years.

Hiilegii Khan (d. 663/1265) founded, at the
suggestion of Nasir al-Dln al-Tusi, the Maragha
observatory, on a hill situated near the town. It is the
first large-scale Islamic observatory whose organisa¬
tion and structure we know about in detail; it
contained several buildings, including a residence for
Hiilegii, a mosque and a rich library (the sources
speak of 400,000 volumes, which is a traditional
figure). It had large-size instruments and was
financed by the official revenues of pious foundations
( 1 awkdf ); this is the first time that we see an observatory
subsidised in a manner ordinarily reserved for
schools, hospitals and libraries. The motives behind
this undertaking seem to have been, for Hiilegii,
basically astrological. The most important
astronomers of the age, whose names are mainly
associated with important modifications to the
Ptolemaic system and undertakings, before the obser¬
vatory’s foundation, by Mu 5 ayyad al-Dln al- c Urdi (d.
666/1266; see the work of G. Saliba, in JHAS , iii
1979], 3-18 and iv [1980], 220-34, and in Isis, Ixx
1979], 571-6), participated in the observatory’s
work. Outstanding among them, apart from al-Tusi
and al- c UrdI, are Muhyi ’1-Din al-Maghribi (d.
between 680 and 690/1281-91) and Kutb al-Dln al-
Shirazi [ 9 . 0 .] (634-710/1236-1311). The observatory,

founded in 657/1259, survived Hiilegii. On the death
of al-Tusi (672/1274), the Zidf-i Ukhani had already
been composed, i.e. some astronomical tables which
constitute the basic result of the work completed in
Maragha. The observations thus lasted more than 12
years, and we know that they were pursued after al-
Tusi’s death, until the end of the period of 30 years
corresponding to a revolution of Saturn: following
these new observations (around 672-703/1274-1304)
some corrections were made to the Zidf-i Ukhani. It
seems, on the other hand, that there was some activity
at the observatory until around 715/1316 and that it
was in ruins in 740/1339. So it was the first Islamic
observatory to enjoy a remarkable longevity (55 or 60
years) and give birth not only to al-Tusi’s zidf but also
to that of Muhyl ’1-Din al-Maghribl.

Maragha provided a model for several imitations
among which may be cited the observatory of Sham
(a suburb of Tabriz) which was built by the ruler
Ghazan Khan (694-703/1295-1304) and survived 15
or 16 years (ca. 701-17/1300-17). However, no obser¬
vatory of the size of that at Maragha appears before
the 9th/15th century. Thanks to the patronage of the
great prince Ulugh Beg [q.v.], governor of the
Samarkand region, in 823/1420 an important madrasa
was founded in that town. It specialised in the
teaching of astronomy at the heart of what constituted
the nucleus of a scientific circle frequented by Ulu gh
Beg, who was himself a mathematician and astro¬
nomer of note (see A. Sayili, A letter by al-Kashi on
Ulugh Bey’s scientific circle in Samarquand , in Actes du IX e
Congres Intern. d’Hist. des Sciences, Barcelona-Paris
1960, ii, 586-91; E.S. Kennedy, A letter of Jamshid al-
Kashi to his father. Scientific research and personalities at a
fifteenth century court, in Orientalia, xxix [1960], 191-213,
republ. in idem (ed.), Studies in the Islamic exact sciences,
Beirut 1983, 722-44). It was in this same year that the
observatory of Samarkand was to be founded, situated
on a hill near to the town, consisting of several
buildings and equipped with huge instruments such as
a large meridian axis, remains of which were
excavated in 1908. The principal astronomers who
made observations in Samarkand were Ghiyath al-
Dm al-Kashi [q. v. ] (d. ca. 833/1429), Kadizada al-
RumT (d. between 840 and 850/1436-46) and c Ali b.
Muhammad al-Kushdji (d. 879/1474). Ulugh Beg
was assassinated in 853/1449, but the observatory
continued to function under his son and successor
c Abd al-Lapf, and the building remained standing for
the 50 years which followed the death of its founder.
Some systematic observations were carried out there,
at least during the key period of 30 years, and it was
then that the Zidf-i gurgdni or zidf of Ulugh Beg was
prepared (see L. Sedillot, Prolegomenes des tables
astronomiques d'Oloug Beg, Paris 1847, 1853).

The Samarkand observatory was twice imitated,
firstly in the 10th/16th century, in Istanbul, where
Taki ’I-Din b. Ma c ruf b. Ahmad (932-93/1525-85)
founded one in 982/1575 thanks to the patronage of
Sultan Murad III (982-1004/1574-95); the building
was completed in 985/1577. This establishment is said
to have been a large observatory in a category
analogous to those of Mara gh a and Samarkand, but
an unfortunate astrological prediction about a comet
carried out by Taki ’1-Din in this same year 985/1577,
as well as the hostility of the most conservative sectors
of society, made the sultan order the destruction of the
buildings in 988/1580.

The last large Islamic observatories are those which
were founded by Djay Singh (Savai Jayasimha II),
maharadja of Amber from 1111/1699 (d. 1156/1743)
who, wishing to bring up to date the astronomy of his

602

MARSAD — MARTHIYA

time, dedicated himself to collecting manuscripts of
Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic astronomical works, as
well as European printed books of astronomy (D.
Pingree, Islamic astronomy in Sanskrit, in JHAS, ii
[1978], 315-30; D. A. King, A handlist of the Arabic and
Persian astronomical manuscripts in the Maharaja Mansingh
II Library in Jaipur , in ibid ., iv [1980], 81-6). Not
satisfied with the results obtained with the zidjs of
Ulugh Beg and Ibn al-Shapr (705-77/1306-75), he
constructed five observatories in Djaypur (the capital
which he had founded in 1141/1728), DihlT, Banaras,
Mathura and Udjdjayn. Those of Banaras and
Mathura seem to have been built after 1147/1734.
These observatories were equipped with large metal
and stone instruments (the stone ones are mostly still
standing), conforming to their models in Maragha
and Samarkand. Djay Singh also patronised the
preparation of astronomical tables with rules in
Persian, which were dedicated to the Mughal
Emperor Muhammad Shah in 1141/1728 and were
given the title Zidfi djadid-i Muhammad Shahi. This zidj
was later to be rewritten (the introduction was written
after 1147/1734) and we are not clear as to their rela¬
tionship with the work carried out in the obser¬
vatories, which were abandoned on the death of their
founder (see G. R. Kaye, The astronomical observatories
of Jai Singh, Memoirs of the Archeological Survey of
India. Imperial series, Calcutta 1918, repr. Varanasi
1973; idem, A guide to the old Observatories at Delhi, Jaipur,
Ujjain and Benares , Calcutta 1920; W. A. Blanpied,
The astronomical program of Raja Sawai Jai Singh II and its
historical context, in Jap. Stud. Hist, of Science, xiii [1974],
87-126).

Bibliography. Given in the article. The basic
monograph which has been quite extensively drawn
upon is the work of A. Sayili, The observatory in Islam
and its place in the general history of the observatory,
Ankara 1960. On the connections between obser¬
vatories and zidj. s, see E. S. Kennedy, A survey of
Islamic astronomical tables, in Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society, N.S., xlvi (Phila¬
delphia 1956), 123-75; A. Bausani, The observatory of
Maraghe, in Quaderni del Seminario di iranistica, ix
(Venice 1982), 125-51. (J. Samso)

AL- MARSAFI, al-Husayn, Egyptian scholar
and teacher (1815-90) from a family originating
from the village of Marsafa, near Banha; his father
taught at the al-Azhar Mosque. Al-Husayn became
blind at the age of three; however, he underwent the
programme of studies usual for boys destined to teach
at al-Azhar and reached the rank of master in 1840-5.
He was remarkable for the interest that he showed in
his classes in belles-lettres, something rare among
teachers at that period in Egypt. In 1872, C AU Pasha
Mubarak [q.v. ] Minister of Public Education, ap¬
pointed him professor of Arabic linguistic disciplines
in the Dar al- c Ulum [qv.], the school that he founded
for teachers, with a more modern orientation than al-
Azhar. Al-Marsafi taught there until 1888. His
importance as a teacher and author stems from the
fact that he is regarded as the first to have formulated
what was to become the attempt at a renaissance
(nahda) in regard to literature. His lectures were first
published in the review Rawdat al-Madaris, then in a
separate work, al- Wasila al-adabiyya ila ’l- c ulum al-
c arabiyya (i, 216 + 7 pp., 1289/1875; ii, 704 pp.,
1292/1879); a second work on the art of writing
remains unpublished: Daltl al-mustarshid fi fann al-
insha ? ; it was described and analysed by Muhammad
c Abd al-Djawad in his study on al-MarsafT (see
Bibi).

The thought of Husayn al-MarsafT is entirely

favourable to the spread of the European “enlighten¬
ment”; in this he is very close to men such as Rifa c a
al-Tah^awi [q.v.] and c AlI Mubarak, who enlivened
the new schools’ system founded and developed in
Egypt by Muhammad c AlI [q.v. ] and his successors. A
revival of the art of writing ( insha •*) is necessary for the
use of the elite of modern Egypt, after the centuries of
decadence, and in view of the catastrophic situation of
this art in the 19th century. Al-Marsafi takes as his
guide Ibn Khaldun, in the chapters of his Mukaddima
where he speaks of teaching language and belles-
lettres; in al- Wasila, he presents both a synthetic, clear
account of the disciplines of the Arabic language
(lugha. sarf nahw , balagha. badif, c arud [q. vv. ]), stripped
of the commentaries and glosses which until then
almost always accompanied them, and also a choice of
relatively numerous examples, referring especially to
Umayyad and c Abbasid prose. Al-Marsafi’s teaching
was regarded as formulating the general programme
to be followed, if one wished to revive Arabic
language and letters, by a great number of Egyptian
writers and teachers who had a diffuse but effective
influence on the educational system. The best known
are c Abd Allah FikrT and Hifni Na§if. This
programme for reviving the language was gradually
spread through almost all the Arab countries—with or
without reference to al-Mar§afi—from the last years of
the 19th century, thanks to the efforts of the reformists
[see islah. i and muhammad c abduh].

Al-Marsafi was also interested in the history of
political ideas; in October 1881, he published an
essay, the Risdlat al-Kalim al-thaman (Cairo 68 pp.) on
eight words of political vocabulary in frequent use, he
said, in modern debates; umma, nation or community
according to language, territory or religion; watan,
fatherland; hukuma, government; W/, justice; zulm,
injustice; siyasa, politics; hurriyya, liberty; and tarbiya,
education. If it is read in the light of the debates of the
time, his position appears to be that of a moderate, an
advocate of a reasonable modernity, legitimised by
constant reference to moral and cultural examples
from the glorious ages of Islam; the author seems
reserved and anxious about the haste of some
(doubtless the partisans of c Urabi, officers, groups of
intellectuals and notables) who would like to modify
institutions prematurely to create a true parliamen-
tarianism. The matter of greatest urgency for al-
Marsafi is the spreading among the elite as well as the
masses of a reformed education ( tarbiya, adab), modern
in some of its forms, but based on an Islam whose
faith and practices would be purified of the innova¬
tions ( bida c , sing. bid c a [q.v.]) accumulated during the
ages of decadence. This essay was re-published in
1903 by Muhammad Mas c ud, one of the men
involved in editing al -Mu^ayyad, the journal with a
moderate Islamic bias run by Shavkh c AlI Yusuf; this
is an indication that he could still represent those
expressing a moderate, stable opinion.

Bibliography : Muhammad c Abd al-Dja¬
wad, al-Shaykh al-Husayn al-Marsafi, Cairo 1952, 160
p.; G. Delanoue, Moralistes et politiques musulmans
dans TEgypte du XIX e siecle ( 1798-1882 ), Cairo 1982,
ii, 357-79, 650-1; for the political debates of the
period, see A. Scholch, Agypten den Agyptern! Die
politische und gesellschaftliche Krise der Jahre 1878-1882
in Agypten, Ziirich-Fribourg 1973 (Eng. tr. Egypt for
the Egyptians! The socio-political crisis in Egypt 1878-
82, London 1981). (G. Delanoue)

MAR TH IYA or marthat (A.. pi. mardthi) “elegy”,
a poem composed in Arabic (or in an Islamic
language following the Arabic tradition) to lament the
passing of a beloved person and to celebrate his

MARTHIYA

603

merits; ritha 3 , from the same root, denotes both
lamentation and the corresponding literary genre.

1. In Arabic literature.

The origin of the marthiya may be found in the
rhymed and rhythmic laments going with the ritual
movements performed as a ritual around the funeral
cortege by female relatives of the deceased, before this
role became the prerogative of professional female
mourners (cf. M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Ibn
Qotaiba. Introduction au Livre de la poesie et des poetes, Paris
1947, pp. xvii-xviii). It was in fact customary for the
mother, a sister or a daughter of the deceased,
originally perhaps with the intention of appeasing his
soul, and in any event as a means of perpetuating his
renown, to commemorate his noble qualities and
exploits and to express the grief of the family and the
tribal group, in a short piece composed in sadf,
normalisation in verse form being a later develop¬
ment. These improvisations, probably of a rather
stereotyped nature, have not been handed down to
posterity, but one fairly scanty specimen (see J.
Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, i, 1884, 47), said
to be the work of the mother of Ta 5 abbata Sharr 311
[q.v .] has survived.

With the transition from sadf to verse, it seems that
women retained their role in the lamentation and the
celebration of the deceased, and there are many
mardthi traditionally credited to more or less obscure
pre-Islamic poetesses; outstanding examples are
Dakhtanus, mourning the death of her father LakTt b.
Zurara [q.v. ] in the Shi c b Djabala (Aghdni, ed. Beirut,
xi, 137-8) and al-Khirnik, who was responsible for a
number of elegies, most of them concerning her
brother Tarafa [q.v. j and her husband, preserved by
the ruwdt (see L. Cheikho, Shu c ara 3 al-Nasraniyya, 321 -
7); the most renowned is unquestionably al-Khansa 5
\q.v.\ , who gave ritha 3 a polished form and to this very
day enjoys unanimous admiration (see N. Rhodokan-
skis, al-Hansa 3 und ihre Trauerlieder, Vienna 1904).

In the early years of Islam, Layla al-Akhyaliyya
[q.v. ] enhanced her reputation with elegies, much
appreciated by local critics, in which she mourns the
death of Tawba b. al-Humayyir ( Aghdni , ed. Beirut,
xi, 212-20) and even that of c Uthman b. c Affan (Ibn
Kutayba, Shi c r, ed. Cairo, ii, 123, 417-8). On account
of their extreme sensivity (and, according to Ibn
Rashik, c Umda, ii, 123, their low capacity for
endurance), women are able to express unreservedly
their grief at the death of a member of the family and
to celebrate merits which ultimately reflect upon the
entire group; they give to their compositions a
passionate tone of such intensity and spontaneity that
the expert connoisseur of Arabic poetry, Pere
Cheikho, did not hesitate to gather together the more
or less authentic works of these poetesses in his Riyad
al-adab fl mardthi shawaHr al- c Arab, Beirut 1897.

Men were also active in this area, and without
entirely taking the place of women, composed verse
pieces of various lengths which offer variations on the
common themes. It is worthy of note that a number
of pre-Islamic poets, Mutammim b. Nuwayra [q.v. ]
for example, owe their reputations almost entirely to
their elegies, and that among the four compositions
regarded as most successful by the critics, there
figures, alongside the mardthi of Ibn al-Rumi, al-
Sharff al-Radi and Mihyar al-Daylami (see below), an
c ayniyya which has become proverbial (although it is
probably in part apocryphal on account of the
Kur’anic influence discernible in it) by a poet of the
last years of the Djahiliyya, Labid [q.v.], who mourns
his half-brother Arbad, killed by lightning (Ibn

Kutayba, Shi c r , ed. Cairo, 236-7; Aghdni , ed. Beirut,
xv, 300-1). Some authors, no doubt sensitive to the
sincere expression of profound emotions, go so far as
to place the mardthi of the Bedouin above their other
poetic works; al-Djahiz {Bayan, ed. Harun, ii, 320)
quotes without comment the reply given by one of
them when asked why their elegies were the best of
their poems: “Because we speak [our verses], as our
hearts burn [with grief]’’. This affirmation of the
sincerity and the poignancy of their feelings does not
however explain the fact (judging from the texts
currently available, which probably reflect the true
position) that these poets continue to refrain from
expressing their sorrow at the death of a mother, a
wife, a daughter or a sister (the lines of a Bedouin on
his wife in the c Ikd of Ibn c Abd Rabbih, ed. Cairo
1348/1926, ii, 181, are perhaps of a later date).

In fact, it is to a male parent or member of the
group that the mardthi are addressed; the intention is
to exalt the deceased by presenting his death as a loss
felt by the entire clan or tribe; there is, on the other
hand, the hope of continuing to benefit from his
protection, and to this end he is implored not to go far
away (la tab'-ad-, the reading la tab c ud, in LA, root b c d,
is inappropriate since it would mean “do not
perish’’), he is promised revenge if he has been a
victim of murder, and there are forceful expressions of
hatred for his enemies. In spite of the repetition, in the
prologue, of cliches and hackneyed themes (“weep,
mine eye”; the impossibility, since the event, of
finding sleep; etc.), the lyrical passages are not of a
solely conventional nature, and images of some
originality are sometimes to be found.

In the guise of consolation, the themes of lamenta¬
tion and eulogy are supplemented by a leitmotif concer¬
ning the unavoidable and irreparable nature of death.
The fact that nobody, neither man nor animal, is
capable of escaping it, is sometimes illustrated by the
imagery of the hunt; outstanding examples are three
episodes inserted in the masterpiece ascribed to the
mukhadram poet Abu Dhu^ayb [q.v. ], a sixty-seven
verse elegy of questionable authenticity in which the
poet mourns the passing, in the same year (or the
same day), of five of his sons, in variously described
circumstances (see Dlwdn al-Hudhaliyyin , Cairo
1384/1965, i, 1-21).

It might be expected that a radical change would
affect the concept of the marthiya following the birth of
Islam, but the teachings of the Kur’an inspire only
minor additions and slight differences in tone which
do not significantly alter the content of the poems,
except perhaps where the author mourns the death of
a group rather than that of an individual or members
of the same family. During the wars and expeditions
which took place in the lifetime of the Prophet, there
were many poets, in both camps, who mourned the
deaths of their comrades and hurled defiance at their
adversaries. This applies, for example, to Dirar b. al-
Khattab, giving to the Kurayshites notice of the death
of Abu Djahl [< 7 .^.] at Badr and calling upon his
fellow-tribesmen to avenge him (Ibn Hisham, Sira,
ed. Sakka et alii, ii, 27-8), also to Umayya b. Abi T
Salt [q.v.] who, after the same battle, mourns the
Kurayshites slain by the Muslims, against whom he
likewise incites the members of his tribe (Sira, ii, 30-3;
Ibn c Abd Rabbih, Hkd, Cairo 1346/1928, ii, 194-5);
the Prophet is said to have forbidden the circulation of
this poem (Aghdni, ed. Beirut, iv, 126). Jewish poets
did not hesistate to lament the massacre of their co¬
religionists and to threaten their enemies (e.g.
Sammak, in Sira, ii, 198, 200, after the death of Ka c b
b. al-Ashraf [q.v. ]).

604

MARTHIYA

Compositions of this type are sometimes ripostes
addressed to Muslim poets, who were not slow to
reply in their turn; the Sira echoes these exchanges,
while it gives prominence to the poems of Muslims,
significant among whom are Ka c b b. Malik, Ibn
Rawaha and in particular Hassan b. Thabit [q.vv.\.
The Diwan of the last-named contains a number of
marathi inspired by the death of Hamza b. c Abd al-
Mutfalib [q.v.], also by the deaths of the combatants
who fell at Bi 5 r Ma c una and at Mu 3 ta (Diwan, ed. W.
c Arafat, GMS, xxv/1, London 1971, respectively 321,
450 and 504 (?); 207; 98, 295, 323). Among some
thirty elegies which figure in this Diwan , it is to be
noted that one of them (234) breaks with tradition in
that it concerns the poet’s daughter, that two or
possibly three, where Kur'anic inspiration is more
clearly discernible, are dedicated to the Prophet (269,
272, 455), one to Abu Bakr (125), two to c Umar (273,
499), eight to c Uihman (96, 120, 122, 311, 319, 320,
511) and the others to various individuals, but a large
part of this enormous composition is definitely
apocryphal. In general, it may be said that the
difference between the works of the early Muslim
poets and those of their pagan predecessors consists in
the fact that they refrain from calling for vengeance
and confine themselves to promising the fires of Hell
to their adversaries killed in combat, while they stress
the consolation gained by the certain knowledge that
the Muslims who have achieved the status of martyr¬
dom are already in Paradise (e.g. Hassan, Diwan ,
338, vv. 17-18; tr. R. Blachere, in HLA, 432). The
expression salla l-ildh c ald... “May God bestow his
blessing upon (the deceased)’’ would also appear to be
characteristic. To all these elements, and to the eulogy
addressed to the departed, there is added a sense of
the superiority of Islam, a concept belonging to the
mufakhara [q. v. ] which to some extend takes the place
of the glorification of the group typical of the work of
pre-Islamic poets.

Thus ritha* may become an instrument of politico-
religious propaganda. Following the defeat of the
pagans, it is the opponents of established authority,
ShrTs and Kharidjls. who make use of it. Conversely,
the Umayyads and, later, the c Abbasids, also have
recourse to this medium, in their case as a means of
self-defence. In a brief survey it is impossible to take
account of all the poems inspired by dramatic
incidents such as the execution, for the crime of
proclaiming his Shi*! beliefs in Mecca, of a certain
Khandak (see the two eulogies dedicated to him by
Kuthayyir [q.v.] in Aghani, ed. Beirut, xii, 170-1, 173-
5; Diwan , ed. H. Peres, ii, 148-54, 156-66). The
assassination of c Al!b. AbTTalib understandably gave
rise, over the centuries, to a considerable number of
maraihi , but a drama which deeply affected the Shi*!
poets was the murder of his son al-Husayn and his
companions at Karbala 5 [q.v.]; this tragic event,
which later inspired the emergence of the genre
known as the “passion play’’ ( la c ziya [<?.y.]) has been
evoked by poets relatively close, chronologically, to
the deed itself, for example, al-A c sha of Hamdan
[q.v.] (see R. Geyer, K. al-Subh al-munir, London
1928, no. 5); one Ibn al-Ahmar author of a piece on
the episode (a piece of popular verse? see R. Blachere,
HLA, 514); Sulayman b. Katta (see Mus c ab al-
Zubayri, Nasab Kuraysh, 41; al-Mas c udi, Murudi, §
1910 and ref.); al-Sayyid al-Himyar! [ 9 . 0 .], who
hopes that the grave of the martyr will be well-tended,
according to the pure pre-Islamic tradition (Diwan,
Beirut, n.d., 470-2) or even Muslim b. Kutayba
(Murudi, § 1906); the tradition was preserved by later
poets, the most prominent being Di c bil (Shi c r Dicbil,

ed. Ashtar, Damascus 1384/1964, 141) and al-Shanf
al-Radl [ 9 . 0 .], who appeals for vengeance in five
lengthy and highly-regarded poems. Di c bil [q.v. ]
bemoans the fate of the Ahl al-Bayt [qv.] in a poem
which has enjoyed wide acclaim (rhyme -dti, metre
tawil; op. laud., 71-7), while in his ritha 5 al-Rida takes
the opportunity to recall the misfortunes of members
of the Prophet’s family, celebrating their merits and
abusing their enemies rhyme -ari, metre basil, (op.
laud., 110-13). However, the Makdtil al-Talibiyyin of
Abu ’1-Faradj al-Isfahanl (Cairo 1949, 2 1970)

constitutes a long lament studded with verses
borrowed from various elegies. Contrary to these, one
may point out the poem of al-Sanawbari (d. ca.
334/945-6 [?.p.]) on the pilgrims killed by the
Carmathians [see karmaji) in 317/930 discussed and
translated by C.E. Bosworth in Arabica, xix/3 (1972),
222-39.

The Kharidjls. far from mourning the losses that
they have suffered, celebrate their dead in often-
improvised pieces, rejoicing in the idea that the slain
have earned the palm of martyrdom in the course of
heroic action and include in their poetry passages
from the Kurban which testify to their religious
fervour (see Ihsan c Abbas, Shi c r al-Khawaridi. Beirut
1963, 32-3, 79 and passim).

To a certain extent, these compositions are reminis¬
cent, with the sincerity of the feelings expressed, of the
marathi of the Bedouin. The latter are also perpetuated
in the works of the major poets of the Umayyad era;
thus some twenty elegies of classical construction are
to be found in the Diwan of al-Farazdak [q. y.] and in
that of DjarTr [q.v.]; the latter, however, breaks with
tradition—much to the indignation of the former
(Diwan, ed. Saw!, Cairo 1354/1936, 465-74, in
particular 471)—in devoting several verses to the
death of his wife Khalida, at the beginning of a rather
mixed but nonetheless moving poem (Diwan, ed.
$awT, Cairo n.d., 199-210; tr. Blachere, HLA, 579);
it is for mourning the passing of a woman and not for
expressing his own grief that al-Farazdak rebukes
DjarTr, for he himself has no scruples about lamenting
the demise of his father (Diwan, 210, 611, 674, 676)
and of his two sons (270-3, 764-5, 885-6), besides
various individuals and the victims of an epidemic
(491). It is nevertheless possible to discern the
presence of a number of women among the departed
loved ones of poets (see e.g. Ibn c Abd Rabbih, c Ikd,
ed. Cairo 1346/1928, ii, 179-81; Abu Tammam,
Hamdsa, Cairo n.d., i, 380: poetry of a certain
Malik/Muwaylik al-Mazmum), and at a slightly later
date a Muslim b. al-Waltd [q.v. ] is observed refusing
to drink wine after the death of his wife, an event
which he evokes in a few discreet verses (Diwan, ed.
S. Dahhan, Cairo n.d., 341).

The 2nd/8th century sees the birth of the poetic
genre known as “ascetic poems’’ (zuhdiyyat [<?.fl,]),
which involves reflection on death and no doubt influ¬
ences ritha*, in which gnomic themes, present since the
pre-Islamic period, become increasingly numerous.
Abu Nuwas [q.v.\, himself the author of zuhdiyyat (see
C A.A. al-Zubaydl, Zuhdiyyat Abi Nuwds, Cairo 1959),
has left no less than twenty marathi in memory of
distinguished persons, scholars and poets, friends and
parents (although in some cases the individuals
mourned were not yet dead), and even including
himself (Diwan, ed. GhazalT, Cairo 1953, 572-95; cf.
E. Wagner, Abu Nuwds, Wiesbaden 1965, 349-60). It
is often, in fact, the natural or violent death of an
eminent person, the death in battle of an acquaintance
or the demise of a distinguished scholar which inspires
the poets. Thus Ibn Durayd [< 7 . a.] writes funeral

MARTHIYA

605

orations for al-ShafTl and al-Tabari [q.vv.) and for his
relatives slain in battle, demanding that they be
avenged ( Diwan , ed. Ibn Salim (A. Ben Salem), Tunis
3973, 67-72, 89-97). Being unable to revive the classic
themes, the poets of the 3rd/9th century concentrate
their efforts on the form, but they are not the first to
act in this manner, since the fact that many of their
predecessors, beginning with Hassan, dedicated more
than one elegy to the same person would seem to
prove that they were at pains to revise their composi¬
tions. Nevertheless, we may still find some masterly
works which are appreciated by Arab critics. Ibn al-
Ruml [q.v.], in his mardthi , allows his sentiments to
overflow, gives expression to his sensivity and
develops his own philosophy of existence; in
particular, he mourns his wife, his mother, his
brother, his sons (see Diwan , ed. K. Kaylanl, Cairo
1924, 13, 80, 97, 104, 224, 326, 351), and his ddliyya
{ibid., 29) on the death of his younger son is regarded
as one of the finest examples of the genre.

It is worth noting in passing that from the 2nd/8th
century onwards, even more so from the 3rd/9th
century onwards, a new form becomes frequent, the
letter of condolence (ta c ziya [< 7 .^.]) addressed to the
parents of the deceased; when it is in verse, it is
virtually indistinguishable from the marthiya proper,
but it is often written in prose (see e.g. Ibn c Abd
Rabbih, c Ikd, ed. cit., ii, 197-202), even when
produced by the pen of poets like Ibn al-Mu c tazz
q. v. ] (see al-SulI, Awrak, ii, 288 ff.), and it should be
noted that at least one writer composed a true marlhiya
in prose form; in fact, in the course of his campaign
aimed at opposing the supremacy of poetic composi¬
tion in Arabic literature, al-Djahiz [ q.v.] wrote a long
risala on the death of Abu Harb al-Saffar in which free
prose, albeit blended with poetic reminiscence,
permits an extent of detail and an expression of feel¬
ings which the constraints of metre would render
impossible (ed. T- al-Hadjin, in al-Katib al-Misri, iii/9
[1946], 38-44; translated in Pellat, The life and works of
Jahiz, 116-24 = Arabische Geisteswelt, 187-97).

The theorists of poetry (Kudama, Nakd al-shFr, ed.
S. A. Bonebakker, Leiden 1956, 49-55; Ibn Rashlk
c Umda , ii, 117-26; etc.) do not give inordinate atten¬
tion to the marthiya , essentially because they regard it
as comparable with panegyric [see madIh], in the
sense that it is a celebration of one or several
individuals. It is in fact a kind of bipartite kasida \q.v. ],
of which the dominant characteristic is the absence of
the nasib [q.v.] which would in effect have been out of
place. There exist, however, a few exceptions, of
which the most significant is a kasida by Durayd b. aT
Simma [q.v.] where he mourns the death of a
murdered brother (in AsmaHyyat, ed. Ahlwardt, Leip¬
zig 3902, 23-4); however, Ibn Rashlk ( c Umda , ii, 121-
2 ) justifies this deviation from the rule on the grounds
that the poem was composed a year after the murder
and that in the meantime the victim had been
avenged. Further examples are supplied by Ibn al-
Ziba c ra {Sira, ii, 141-2), al-A c sha of Hamdan and a
few others.

Laments over the remains of an abandoned
encampment are thus replaced by a prologue, in
which sorrow ignites and tears flow freely, also by
more or less banal observations concerning the
fragility of human life, the cruelty of destiny {dab),
the patience {sabr) which is necessary and always
displayed, and other cliches among which the
equivalents of “a single person is lacking and all is
desolate” or “ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere”
are not uncommon (see Becker, Ubisunt...., Festschrift
E. Kuhn, Munich 1916, 87-105; M. Lidzbarski, Ubi

sunt..., in Isl. viii [1918], 300; cf. P. Keseling, Ubi
sunt..., in ibid., xvii [1928], 97-100). The rahil is
similarly omitted, sometimes being replaced by an
account of the circumstances of the death, especially
of a violent death, but it is virtually impossible to
delineate an overall scheme, since the various
elements overlap one another, and reflections on
death intrude on more than one occasion into the
posthumous eulogy. The latter effectively resembles
the madih , to the point of confusion with it, not
however without certain differences of detail.
Kudama {op. laud., 49) in fact recommends the use of
the past tense to indicate that the portrait drawn by
the poet is no longer a present reality, not however
saying, for example, “he was generous” but employ¬
ing expressions such as “generosity has vanished”,
“after his passing, generosity is no more”, etc. (this
dictum does not inhibit Mukatil b. c Atiyya from
saying of Nizam al-Mulk “the vizier was {kan) a
jewel...”, al-Ibshlhl, Mustatraf, Cairo n.d., ii, 365).
There is no rule that forbids lamentations over the
destruction of an object (see below, with regard to
cities) or the loss of an animal (the funeral eulogy of
a cat figures in Madpani ’l-adab, v, 135), and the poet
is entitled to make reference to the sadness of Nature
and of domestic animals; but he must beware of
committing blunders, saying for example that a horse
subjected by his master to harsh treatment in the
course of his exploits is saddened by the latter’s pass¬
ing, whereas in fact this is for him liberation. It is the
moral qualities of the deceased which should be
celebrated: intelligence, courage, generosity, decen¬
cy. Thus Kudama approves particularly of three
verses by Aws b. Hadjar [q.v.], who enumerates
generosity, valour, energy, strength (or munificence,
since the reading al-tuka cannot be accepted) and
perspicacity (see the Diwan of Aws, ed. M.Y. Nadjm,
Beirut 1381/1960, 53-5). It need hardly be said that
the poets do not restrict themselves to these qualities,
but the rule enunciated by the critic proves that, even
in the context of ritJuP, spontaneity is bridled, or tends
to be so. The anthologists of the Middle Ages (see
Bibl.) reserve an important amount of space for
mardthi , but, always inclined to include only poems
which are to their own personal taste, they adopt a
system which precludes an overall judgment of the
real structure and content of compositions arranged
separately and often in the form of brief fragments,
quite insufficient to allow generalisation without
excessive risk of error.

The disintegration of the c Abbasid empire brought
virtually no change to the various aspects of marthiya,
which seems however to become more and more influ¬
enced by “professional” exigencies. It is at the begin¬
ning of the 5th/ 13 th century that Mihyar al-Daylaml
[q.v. ] achieves renown with his successful ritha? of C A 1 I
or of al-Husayn (see Diwan , Cairo 1344-50/1925-31,
ii, 259-62, 367-70, iii, 109, etc.) and especially with
the mimiyya in which he mourns the death of his
master al-Sharlf al-Radl {Diwan, iii, 366-70),
regarded as a masterpiece. Previously, the prolifera¬
tion of provincial dynasties had increased the number
of occasions for the composition of elegies of a nature
more formal and elaborate than personal and spon¬
taneous; a tendency which has already been seen to
emerge takes on a definitive form in the work of al-
Mutanabbl [q.v.], who revives the classical theme of
destiny, pays tribute to the deceased and adds a
panegyric in praise of an heir from whom he expects
some reward, but without making mention of his own
qualities (see R. Blachere, Molanabbi, 46, 119, 250).
This is not unlike the approach to the family of the

606

MARTHIYA

deceased noted by C A1T Dj. al-Tahir in the poetry of
the Saldjuk period (al-ShVr al-^arabi fi 7- Irak wa-bilad
al- c A$<am fi 3 l- c a?r al-saldfuki, Baghdad 1958-61, ii,
108-113). This author holds in high regard a raHyya
and a kdfiyya of al-TughraT [q.u. ] dedicated, respect¬
ively, to the memory of a wife and of a concubine (see
Diwan al-Tughrd% ed. C A. Dj. al-Tahir and Y. al-
Eyaburf, Ba gh dad 1396/1976, 151-5, 264-5), and
rightly criticises the matla c of the famous elegy of
DjarTr (see above), who in his long kasida manages to
devote only a few verses to the memory of his wife.
Otherwise, the marthiya continues to be largely
conventional in character, and c Umar Musa Basha
{Adah al-duwal al-mutatdbi c a: c usur al-Zankiyyin wa 7-
Ayyubiyyin wa ’l-Mamalik, Beirut 1386/1967, 579) finds
nothing new that is worthy of note in traditional rithd y .;
he does however make one honourable exception in
the case of Usama Ibn Munkidh [q.v.\, who mourns,
in a moving kasida, the demise of members of his
family who were victims of an earthquake at Shavzar
(Diwan, Cairo 1953, 304-5, 307-9). This same literary
historian lays emphasis on the marathi of Muslim
warriors slain during the Crusades and is appreciative
of certain poems by c Imad al-DTn al-Isfahanl [q.v. ] on
the death of c Imad al-Din ZangT, the death of Nur al-
Dln and in particular that of $alah al-DTn (Abu
Shama, K. al-Rawdatayn, Cairo 1287-8, i, 45-6, 244-5,
ii, 215-6) which lack neither emotion nor vigour in the
description of events (Adab al-duwal al-mutatdbVa , 505-
12). As with the Kharidjls of former times, warriors
are impelled to seek the palm of martyrdom (talab al-
shahada) which is the supreme reward (cf. E. Si van,
L’Islam et la Croisade, Paris 1968, 62). But this is not
the only theme to be developed by the poets of the
period, who engage in a propaganda whose elements
E. Sivan (op. laud.) has analysed on the basis of a
meticulous study of the poetry of the time; they reveal
their fear of seeing recaptured cities falling again into
the hands of the Christians, criticise those in authority
for not having foreseen the defeats and mourn the loss
of places seized from the Muslims.

The characteristic feature of this type of marthiya is
the introduction, as objects of lamentation, on the one
hand, of cities destroyed or damaged by wars and
conquests, on the other, of local dynasties which are
overturned. Omissions excepted, the oldest specimen
of this type is the long kasida of 135 verses in which
Abu Ya c kub al-Khurayml [q.v. ] describes in pathetic
terms the desolation of Baghdad during the war which
saw the confrontation between al-Amln and his
brother al-Ma 5 mun (see al-T^bari, iii, 873-80; Diwan
al-Khuraymi. ed. C A. Dj. al-Tahir and M. Dj. al-
Mu c aybid, Beirut 1971, 27-37); this poet is also the
author of several interesting elegies, for his brother
(Diwan), 24), for Khuraym (40-4, 44-6, 55) and for
his own son (56-8). Another well-known kasida is the
mimiyya which begins, conventionally, with the evoca¬
tion of sleeplessness and tears, and was dedicated by
Ibn al-RumT to Ba§ra, describing the condition of the
town following its sacking by the Zandj (Diwan, ed. K.
Kaylani, 419). The conquest of Baghdad by the
Mongols and the death of the caliph al-Musta c sim
were also to inspire compositions in similar vein, in
particular two kasidas in which §hams al-DTn
Mahmud al-KufT bewails the tragic fate of the capital
(see Ibn Shakir al-KutubT, Fawat, ed. c Abd al-Hamld,
Cairo n.d., i, 497-501).

Previous to this, in IfrTkiya, where traditional ritiuP
was extensively cultivated (and still by women; see
H. H. c Abd al-Wahhab, Shahirat al-Tunisiyyat , Tunis
1353, 25), the invasion by the Banu Hilal and the
destruction of al-Kayrawan (Kairouan) gave rise to

the composition of poems describing “the pitiable lot
of the people of Kairouan, the ruin of the once
glorious city, the emotion inspired by the disaster”
(Ch. Bouyahia); the best-known of these poems are
the work of poets contemporary with the events: Ibn
Sharaf (in Ibn Bassam, Dhakhira, iv/1, 177-9); Ibn
RashTk (Diwan, ed. Ya gh I, Beirut n.d., 204-12) and
al-HusrT (Diwan, ed. M. MarzukT and al-Djilanl b. al-
Hadjdj Yahya, Tunis 1963, 125-7); all three have
been the object of a study by Ch. Bouyahia, in La vie
litteraire en Ifriqiya sous les Zirides , Tunis 1972, 332-40.

In al-Andalus, where the tradition of classical ritha 5
remained strong and vigorous, it is again the collapse
of dynasties and the loss of towns to the Christians
during the reconquista which inspire poems much
appreciated by critics and enthusiasts. Quite apart
from descriptions of the dramatic events in Cordova
during the fitna which preceded the fall of the
Umayyads (such as e.g. Ibn Shuhavd. Diwan, ed.
Pellat, Beirut 1963, 64-6 (authenticity of attribution
suspect), 154-6, vv. 54 ff.) and from a series of elegies
collected by H. Peres (Poesie andalouse, 99 ff.), notably
those by Ibn al-Ghassal on the conquest of Barbastro
by a Norman army, by al-Wakkashl (preserved in a
Spanish translation only) on the conquest of Valencia
by the Christians (to the references in Peres, 107 add
A. R. Nykl, La elegia arabe de Valencia, in Hispanic
Review, viii [1940], 9-17) or by Ibn Khafadja [q.v.) on
the burning of that city by the Cid, three poems
deserve particular attention. The first comes from the
pen of Ibn al-Labbana [ q.v.) and concerns the exile of
al-Mu c tamid and the end of the c Abbadids (in Ibn
Khakan. Kala^id al- c ikyan, ed. Paris, 25-6; cf. 32-5);
the second was composed by Ibn c Abdun [q. v. ] after
the fall of the Aftasids, and the historical allusions
which it contains inspired Ibn Badrun to compile a
lengthy commentary on it (ed. Dozy, Leiden 1846);
finally, the greatest significance is accorded to the
nuniyya of al-Sharlf al-Rundl (d. 584/1285), on the fate
of al-Andalus after the loss, in 664/1266, of several
places in the provinces of Murcia and Jerez (see al-
MakkarT, Azhdr al-riyad, i, 47-50). However, a poem
well-known in North Africa was inspired by the
capture of Granada in 897/1492, the work of an
anonymous poet who describes the advance of the
Christians and the progressive loss of the last places
occupied by Muslims, while evoking the hardships
suffered by citizens under siege and the feelings of
sadness of those Andalusians driven from their land
(see M. Soualah, Une elegie andalouse sur la guerre de
Grenade, Algiers 1914-19). This work is largely
documentary in character, as is also another
(anonymous) kasida composed in 1501 and appealing
for aid to the Ottoman Sultan BayazTd II ( 886 -
918/1481-1512) and depicting the dramatic predica¬
ment of the Moriscoes after the reconquest (text in al-
MakkarT, Azhdr al-riyad, i, 108-15, edited and
translated with commentary by J.T. Monroe, A
curious Morisco appeal to the Ottoman Empire, in al-And.,
xxxi/1-2 [1966], 281-303).

In general, when the lamentation is applied to
places, the poets mourn over the atlal, ruins not to be
regarded with greater significance than in the pre-
Islamic period; they bewail the destruction of
buildings (mosques in particular), atrocities commit¬
ted by the enemy and the slaughter of peoples
condemned to exile; the emotions experienced by the
survivors give rise to lyrical developments which are
supplemented by the nostalgia of emigres and their
desire to return to their lost homeland, where life was
so enjoyable. Mustapha Hassen (Recherches sur les
poemes inspirees par la perte ou la destruction des villes dans

MARTHIYA

607

la litterature arabe du l!I e / lX e siecle a la prise de Grenade en
897/1492, unpubl. thesis, Sorbonne 1977) has, in the
course of his analysis of the poetical texts, noted a total
of 96 items, containing slightly fewer than 2,000
verses, of which almost half were composed by-
Andalusians, a little more than a quarter by
easterners, and the rest by Ifrikiyans. No doubt it
would be possible to find a number of specimens of the
same type dating back to a period earlier than the
conquest of Granada, but the total collected so far is
quite sufficiently instructive. It would be appropriate
at this stage to add to the list more recent poems w r hich
the end of Islamic domination in al-Andalus has
continued to inspire.

In Morocco, the destruction of the zawiya of al-Dila 5
[i q.v. in Suppl.] inspires to this very day (see M.
HadjdjT, al-Zawiya al-dilaHyya, Rabat 1384/1964, 270-
2 ) occasional poems, having been lamented by
numerous poets, whose number probably includes al-
YusT who has the most compelling of nuances

(see C A. Gannun, al-Nubugh al-maghribi 2 , Beirut 1964,
80, 277-8; Lakhdar, Vie litteraire, 101-2).

Still in the Ma gh rib, there is also a kasida by a Tuni¬
sian, Ahmad al-Klibi, on the conquest of Algiers by
the French (see H.H. al-Ghazzi, al-Adab al-tunisifi 7-
c ahd al-husayni, Tunis 1972, 54-62). This event was
also to be bewailed in poems of dialectical Arabic [see
malhun], specimens of which are reproduced by, for
example, Gen. E. Daumas, Moeurs et coutumes de
VAlgerie 3 , 1858, 160-74. In dialectical Algerian

Arabic, an interesting poem is the Complainte arabe sur
la rupture du barrage de Saint-Denis-du-Sig (in 1885),
published and translated by G. Delphin and L. Guin,
Paris-Oran 1886. The popular poetry of the Ma gh rib,
which is so full of panegyrics of the Prophet, some of
which are sung at funeral ceremonies along with the
Burda [g.t>. ], are hardly marathi proper; the most
remarkable is probably that which c Abd al- c Aziz al-
Ma gh rawl composed on the death of the sultan al-
Mansur al-DhahabT in 1012/1603 (see Abu c Ali al-
Ghawthl. Kashf al-kina c c an alat al-sama c , Algiers
1322/1904, 85). The review Huna 'l- Dj azaSr = Ici-
Alger, in its 19th issue (1953), 14-5, published an elegy
of 162 verses, also in malhun , by Muhammad Ibn
Gltun on the death of his wife, but this piece appears
quite exceptional.

We thus arrive at the contemporary period, in the
course of which the tradition has been perpetuated in
Arabic-speaking circles. More or less improvised
pieces of verse are still recited over the grave of the
deceased, even in the countryside (see e.g. P.A.
Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab 2 , Paris
1948, 96-7, who gives an idea of what the pre-Islamic
conventions may have been), while more polished
poems are published in newspapers and periodicals or
prepared with a view to public recitation at
ceremonies taking place forty days after the demise
{haflat al-arba : in) or on the occasion of its anniversary
(ta ■‘bin al-fakid). Some celebrated individuals in the
Muslim world have inspired a host of marathi (about
twenty, for example in memory of Muhammad
c Abduh) and it is to be noted that the Diwan of the
c IrakT poet al-Zahawi [q. v. ] contains several pages of
lamentation over the death of Sa c d Za gh lul [q.v.].
This politician has also been celebrated by a
considerable number of poets, prominent among
whom is Ahmad ShawkI [q.v.], a remarkably prolific
writer of nthd^\ in fact, he has left a legacy of no fewer
than 53 elegies (the whole of vol. iii of the Shawkiyydt ,
ed. Mahmud Abu ’1-WafiP, Cairo 1384/1964)
relating to parents, personalities of Egypt, the Muslim
world and even of Europe (Hugo, Tolstoy, Verdi); as

in classical marthiya , gnomic themes dominate the
prologue and are followed by an appeal to the
deceased, then by a eulogy in his honour; these
compositions also convey an echo of the major
political, cultural and social events of the time (see A.
Boudot-Lamotte, Ahmad Sawqi ’ Vhomme et Vceuvre,
Damascus 1977, 158-77). A similar point is made by
J. Majed {La presse litteraire en Tunisie de 1904 a 1955,
Tunis 1979, 350-1) with reference to the funeral
tributes paid to poets by their colleagues, who take
advantage of the occasion to proclaim their deter¬
mination to maintain the struggle in the literary,
political or social domain. Finally, with the marthiya
may be associated the laments on the hardships of the
times, on the deterioriation of morals and on the
deplorable situation in the world to be found in such
prose works like the Dhamm al-zaman by al-Djahiz or
such verse works like the Marthiyat al-ayyam al-hddira by
Adonis.

From this brief survey, it emerges that ritha 3
occupies a position of importance in Arabic literature,
both on account of its volume and its content and in
spite of distinct differences, belongs to the same
overall scheme as panegyric, to which it is subsidiary.
Many poets, major or minor, have cultivated this
genre which has enabled some of them to express
sentiments all the more sincere because, in most cases,
they had no reason to expect reward from the heirs of
the deceased. No doubt attention should be drawn to
the role of convention and of “professionalism” —
which is by no means scanty—but the impression is
often gained that of all verse, marathi contain the
greatest essence of true poesy.

Bibliography: More or less complete marathi
Figure in a large number of diwans, some published,
others unpublished, and the present article has
been able to give only an imperfect idea of them;
some editors have taken the trouble to classify the
poems by genre or at the very least to indicate
separately, in the table of contents (which is other¬
wise of no great importance) those which belong to
ghazal, madih, etc., with the result that the task of
researchers is made much easier. Furthermore, the
anthologists of the Middle Ages (Abu Tammam,
Buhturi, Ibn al-Shadjan, Kurashf, etc.) have
generally reserved a special section for ritha 5 (and it
is worth noting that the Bab al-marathi follows
immediately after the Bab al-hamasa which gives its
name to Abu Tammam’s selection). Ibn c Abd
Rabbih, in his c Ikd (ed. Cairo 1346/1928, ii, 158-
202 ) classes the chosen specimens according to the
nature of the deceased: son, brother, husband,
concubine, wife, daughter, ashraf, and he includes
epitaphs and ta c dzi. Several scholars have even
devoted monographs to marathi, among which that
of Ibn al-A c rabi survives in part (ed. W. Wright,
Opuscula arabica, Leiden 1859, 97-136); the K. al-
Ta c azi wa 1-marathf of Mubarrad is said to exist in
ms. in the library of Mahmud Muhammad Shakir.
Some texts figure in collections of biographies (Ibn
Sallam, Ibn Kutayba, Aghdni, Ibn Khallikan. Ibn
Shakir al-Kutubl, etc.), in works of criticism, adab,
and also in historico-literary works (see e.g.
Mas c udl, Murudl, ed. Pellat, Ar. index, root r-th-y).
To the works of criticism and literary history
mentioned in the article may be added A. Trabulsi,
La critiquepoetique des Arabes , Damascus 1955, 226-8.
General histories of Arabic literature do not reserve
a separate place for rilhqd, but useful information is
to be found in R. Blachere, HLA (index, s.v.
threne). Finally, a very exhaustive study, of which
much profitable use has been made in the present

608

MARTHIYA

article, is that of M. Abdesselem, Le theme de la mort

dans la poesie des origines a la fin du III e IIX e si'ecle,

Tunis 1977. (Ch. Pellat)

2. In Persian literature.

The term marthiya in Persian is used primarily to
designate poems in memory of someone who has died,
wherein that person’s good qualities are mentioned
and regret is expressed at his death. This discussion
will include marthiyas written for secular public
figures, those written for family members and close
friends, and those written for religious figures, es¬
pecially for al-Husayn. Sometimes included in the
category marthiya but not discussed here are poems
lamenting old age and the loss of youth, poems
complaining about the unfortunate state of the times,
conventional gravestone inscriptions and chro¬
nograms.

Unlike the classical elegy, the marthiya is not a genre
defined by its form. It is a thematic category of
Persian poetry, appearing principally in the mono¬
rhyme forms of the kasida, the kifa, the rubd c i and the
ghazal : the strophic forms of tarkib-band and tardfi c -
band; and the mathnawi form of rhyming hemistiches.
After 1500, the popular religious marthiya began to
develop certain formal characteristics of its own. In
general, the language and style of marthiyas followed
the language and style of the times in which they were
written. The conventional imagery differs, however,
among the public, private, and religious marthiyas.

The earliest known marthiya in New Persian is a
kasida in Manichaean script reconstructed by Henning
(A locust's leg , London 1962, 98-104) and dated before
the first half of the 3rd/9th century. It shows a blen¬
ding of Islamic and Manichaean elements and is prob¬
ably a crypto-Manichaean allegory. It is spoken from
the grave by the deceased himself. The poem that
established many stylistic characteristics of the
Persian marthiya is FarrukhI Slstanl’s [ q.v .] striking
kasida of 69 lines for Sultan Mahmud of Qhazna [?. v. ]
( Diwan , ed. Dablr-Siyakl, Tehran 1335/1956, 90-3).
The poem begins with the speaker describing the
changed look of Ghazna as he walks about the city
after a years’s absence. He notices the grief expressed
by different classes of society, questions an
anonymous companion about what has happened,
and begins to imagine reasons why the ruler has not
appeared that morning. Not until line 21 does he
allude to Mahmud’s death. He expresses his own grief
at the loss, calls upon the dead ruler to arise and
resume his normal activities, finally becomes recon¬
ciled to the situation, and concludes by mentioning
Mahmud’s successor and praying for the dead
sultan’s happiness in heaven.

Some specific characteristics of Farrukhl’s poem
that often appear in later marthiyas are (1) the device
of the speaker questioning a companion, or posing
rhetorical questions about what has happened; (2) the
use of euphemisms for dying, such as “he has gone’’;
(3) the speaker addressing the deceased directly as if
he were still living; (4) the speaker making excuses for
the absence of the deceased; (5) the frequent use of
words such as dardd and darigha meaning “alas”; (6)
the use of images appropriate to the status of the
deceased, often as a means to enumerate the subject’s
praiseworthy qualities; (7) descriptions of man and
nature grieving for the dead; (8) the frequent use of
anaphora; (9) the mention of the successor to the
deceased; and (10) the use of a prayer for the
happiness of the deceased in heaven.

The influence of FarrukhI can be seen in marthiyas
written up to the 20th century. For example, Mas c ud

Sa c d Salman [q. v. ] (d. 515/1121-2) in a marthiya for
c Imad al-Dawla Abu ’l-Kasim has the speaker refuse
to believe the bad news, address the deceased directly,
praise his successor and wish the subject well in
heaven. The theme of the infidelity and unpredic¬
tability of fortune, which becomes very common in
marthiyas after this, is used prominently in this poem
{Diwan, ed. R. YasimI, Tehran 1339/1960, 215-18)
Amir Mu c izzl \q.v.\ (d. 519-21/1125-7) in a marthiya
for Nizam al-Mulk, has the speaker ask questions in
disbelief, uses anaphora, addresses the deceased
directly and wishes him well in heaven {Diwan, ed. C A.
Ikbal, Tehran 1318/1939, 476). Anwari [q. v. ] begins
his marthiya for Madjd al-Dln b. Abi Talib b. Ni c ma,
the nakib of Balkh, by stating that the city of Balkh is
in an uproar because Madjd al-Dln did not hold his
audience that day. The speaker questions a
chamberlain, thinks up excused for the nakib's
absence, blames fortune for this loss, uses anaphora
and the word darigha, and prays for his well-being in
heaven {Diwan, ed. Mudarris Ra^awi, Tehran
1337/1958, i, 46-8). Among other famous marthiyas
that display these conventions one can mention
Sa c dl’s marthiya for Sa c d b. Abu Bakr, Muhtasham
KashanI’s for Shah Tahmasp and Abu ’l-Kasim
Lahutl’s for Lenin.

A variation of this form of public marthiya is the
poem which combines mourning for the deceased and
congratulations to the successor in approximately
equal proportions. The earliest example is by Abu ’1-
c Abbas RabindjanI (Jl. 331/942-3) where he mourns
the death of the Samanid ruler Nasr b. Ahmad and
congratulates his successor Nuh b. Nasr (text and tr.
in G. Lazard, Les premiers poetes persons , 2 vols., Paris
and Tehran 1964, i, 87; ii, 68). Other examples may
be found in the diwans of Djamal al-Dln Muhammad
b. c Abd al-Razzak I§fahanl, Kh w adju KirmanI, and
c Urfi Shlrazl.

The marthiyas written for relatives and close friends
are very personal in tone, in contrast with the more
formal and distant tone of those written for public
figures. Less emphasis is placed on the universal
mourning of man and nature and more on the poet’s
own feelings. The poet does not adopt the persona of
a puzzled observer who must discover what has
caused the public grief, although other themes and
devices typical of FarrukhI may be present, such as
the use of anaphora, the direct address of the
deceased, words meaning “alas”, and prayers for
well-being in heaven. Fate is often blamed for the
untimely death, and if the deceased died young, much
use is made of images of gardens, flowers, young
shoots, and the seasons of spring and autumn. An
early example is Firdawsl’s [q.v.] marthiya for his son
which comes at the beginning of the story of Bahram
fiubln in the Shah-ndma. Mas c ud Sa c d Salman’s
marthiya for his son is apparently the first use of the
tarkib-band form for a marthiya {op. cit., 543-8). The
most moving expressions of grief for the loss of a
relative in all of classical Persian poetry are those of
KhakanI Shlrwanl [q.v. ] for his son Rashid al-Dln.
KhakanI was one of the most prolific writers of
marthiyas before the Safawid period, and his Diwan
(ed. M. c AbbasI, Tehran 1336/1957) contains over 50
of these poems. In three of his marthiyas for his son,
KhakanI displays his mastery of language and the
poetic tradition, and his freedom from the restraints of
conventional imagery. He begins one {Diwan, 147-50)
with the son’s illness and ends with his death. The
father orders many preparations to cure the boy, but
when he dies, Kh akanI demands these back. In a
powerful use of the radif“baz dihid f” (“give back”) the

MARTHIYA

609

poet proceeds through a long list of folk medicines and
spells, and ends by asking for his son back. Another
(op. cit., 142-6) begins with 33 lines containing
imperative verbs expressing the sense “weep and
mourn and contemplate this tragedy”. He then
orders various parts of his house and articles of
clothing to be destroyed, his hair to be cut, and his
face scratched. The abundant use of images of death
and mourning and imperative verbs constitutes an
unusual and striking innovation within the poetic
tradition. Equally as compelling is a third marthiya
(ibid., 371-4) cast in the words of the dying son to his
father. This is reminiscent of the crypto-Manichaean
poem mentioned above, and also anticipates certain
characteristics of the post-Safawid religious marthiyas,
especially the motif of a speaker anticipating his own
death and describing the mourning that will follow it.

Some other particularly moving marthiyas of this
sort are Kamal al-Din Isma'H's for his son who was
drowned (Diwan, ed. H. Bahr al- c UlumI, Tehran
1348/1969, 429-32), and Humam TabrizFs cycle of
16 short ghazals on the death of his beloved (Diwan, ed.
R. c AywaqlI, Tabriz 1351/1972, 170-6). DjamT’s [ q.v.\
marthiya for his brother in the form of a tarkib-band of
seven stanzas (Diwan, ed. H. Radi, Tehran
1341/1962, 115-18) echoes closely in the first stanza a
line from Sa c dfs marthiya for Abu Bakr b. Sa c d Zangi
(Hanuz dagh-i nakhustin durust na-shuda bud...), and
includes ( tadmin ) a ghazal written by his brother.
Muhammad Taki Bahar’s [q.v. marthiya for his father
(Diwan, Tehran 1344/1965, i, 1-2) with its images of
the setting sun, night, dark mourning clothes, and of
poetry and writing, shows a clear departure from
convention.

A special category of “personal” marthiyas consists
of the poems that poets write on the death of other
poets. Among these may be mentioned Rudakl’s short
marthiya for Shahid BalkhI, Labibi’s for Farrukhi (with
invective against c UnsurI), Sanaa’s for Mu c izzi,
Bahar’s for Djamil Sadiki al-DhahawI. Iradj Mlrza,
Parwin Ttisami and c Ishki, and the collection of
marthiyas by twelve contemporary poets for Furugh
Farrukhzad which were published in Djawiddna-yi
Furugh Farrukhzad (Tehran 1347/1968).

An unusual exception to the rule that marthiyas are
composed in verse is the prose marthiya for Muham¬
mad b. Gh ivath al-Din Balban (d. 683/1284-5) by
Hasan Dihlawi [q.v. ] (in M.A. Ghani, Pre-Mughal
Persian in Hindustan , Allahabad 1941, 428-34). This
begins with a complaint about the tyranny of fate,
then recounts the circumstances of Muhammad’s
death, describes all nature as mourning and ends with
prayers for his happiness in heaven. It uses many of
the conventional images of verse marthiyas , and has
poetry interspersed throughout.

With the spread of Shf-i Islam in the early Safawid
period came the mourning ceremonies associated with
the month of Muharram and centring on c dshur<P , the
day of al-Husayn’s death. The religious marthiyas that
were written to recall the events at Karbala 5 developed
in two directions: long courtly poems in the classical
tradition, and various less formal popular genres.

Just as Farrukhi had established a model for writing
secular courtly marthiyas , so Muhtasham Kashanl (d.
996/1587-8) created the model for the courtly religious
marthiya with his famous twelve-stanza tarkib-band on
the death of al-Husayn (Diwan, ed. M. C A. KirmanI,
Tehran 1344/1965, 280-5). Reminiscent of Farrukhl’s
marthiya, Muhtasham’s begins with questions asking
why the world and the heavens are in tumult.
Anaphora are used prominently. Important images
are those of shipwreck, floods of tears, waves and seas

of blood, thirst, date palms and gardens, and the
world and the heavens weeping. These images, and
those of light and darkness which later became
common in the ta c ziya [< 7 . 0 .], are the basic images of
the religious marthiya in Persian. A great number of
tarkib-bands were written after the example of
Muhtasham, and this remained the principal courtly
form for the religious marthiya until the 20 th century.
Kasidas were also written, the most strikingly original
being that of Ka 5 anl [q.v.} for al-Husayn. Employing
the device, first used by RudakI, of short questions
and answers in each line, Ka 5 anl produced a power¬
ful, ritual-like poem describing and lamenting the
tragedy at Karbala 5 (text and tr. in Browne, LHP, iv,
178-81).

The popular forms of the Shf-j marthiya are the
ta c ziya, the rawda and nawha. The rawda takes its name
from Kamal al-Din Husayn b. C A1I KashifT’s [q.v.]
Rawdat al-shuhad(P , from which readings and recita¬
tions, called rawda-kh w ani , were given. The marthiyas
in rawda-kh w ani sometimes involve considerable oral
improvisation on well-known Karbala 5 themes, and
thus do not necessarily follow a prescribed literary
form. Two popular 19th century books of marthiyas
and Karbala 5 accounts which have been reprinted
many times are the Tu/an al-buka 5 of Muhammad
Ibrahim b. Muhammad Bakir Harawl Kazwlnl
“Djawhari” (d. 1253/1837-8) and Muhammad

Husayn b. c Abd Allah ShahrabI Ardjastanl’s Tank al-
buka*. The latter seems to have been written especially
for nakkals and rawda-kh w ans.

The nawhas , which are sung on occasions involving
breast-beating ( sina-zani) of self-flagellation with
chains (zandjir-zani), are a genre of strophic poems in
classical metres which often have unconventional
rhyme-schemes and arrangements of lines and
refrains within the stanza. The number and place¬
ment of stresses in each line are important in nawhas,
those for breast-beating having a more rapid rhythm
than those for chain-flagellation.

Bibliography (in addition to references given
in the text): a popular anthology of marthiyas was
compiled by H. Kuhl KirmanI under the title
Sugwariha-yi adabi dar_ Iran, Tehran 1333/1954
(uncritical); Zayn al- c AbidIn Mu 5 taman, Shi c r wa
adab-i Farsi, Tehran 1346/1967, 74-106; Zahra
Ikbal (Namdar), Elegy in the Qajar period , in P.
Chelkowski, ed., Ta c ziyeh: ritual and drama in Iran,
New York 1979, 193-209 (uncritical).

(W. L. Hanaway. Jr.)

3. In Turkish literature.

Funeral laments, inscribed in stone or recorded in
Uyghur manuscripts, belong to the pre-Islamic
heritage of the Turks. For the marthiya proper to
Islamic Turkish literature, the poetic forms were the
kasida, or among the Ottoman Turks, preferably the
stanzaic tardjp-band or tarkib-band . Ottoman marthiyas
present the same varied and cultivated style which we
know from diwan poetry. Bald’s (d. 1008/1600) elegy
on sultan Suleyman is regarded as the classical
masterpiece, but it has behind it a long tradition of
formal marthiyas by AhmedI, SheykhI, KiwamI,
Ahmed Pasha, Nedjatl, Kemalpashazade and Lami c I,
who composed “parallels” in the same metre and
with the same radif( N. M. Qetin, art. Terci, in IA, xii,
172). Underneath the high-flown imagery, a current
of real feeling could flow. Closeness to the sultan could
give power, office, and wealth; it was small wonder
that the death of a sovereign caused real anxiety. The
favour of the princes, too, potential successors to the
throne, could raise poets to high positions. When a

610

MARTHIYA

prince or a high dignitary died, the poets in his
entourage lost not only a friend but often their
livelihood. Nedjatl (d. 915/1509), who mourned two
princes in moving marthiyas, lived on a pension, but
survived his last patron prince Mahmud by only two
years. The abolition of the princes’ courts in the
10th/16th century removed from the Anatolian coun¬
tryside many centres of culture. At the central court
in Istanbul, fear and flattery did not always prevail.
When the much-loved prince Mustafa was executed
(960/1533), poets and prose writers expressed their
grief, and Tashlidjalf Yahya (d. 990/1582) in his
famous marthiya took some risk when he openly
accused the Grand Vizier.

Ghazall (d. 942/1535 [q. v. ]) lived in retirement in
Mecca after he had written in praise of the executed
Iskender Celebi. In the grand tradition of Ottoman
marthiyas , but in a different vein, is the Marthiya-yi
gurba, in which the urbane Me 3 all [q.v.] (d. 942/1535-
6 ) commemorates his deceased cat with a mock solem¬
nity in stanzas, from which also genuine affection
emerges. In this way, the imagery of the marthiya ,
steeped in the panegyric convention, could be used for
a deeper vein of feeling, for political criticism or for
gentle irony. The form was in use until the end of the
19th century. The elegy written by Ghalib Dede [q.v. ]
on the death of his friend Esrar Dede belongs to the
last great examples of Turkish diwan literature. c Akif
Pasha (d. 1845) wrote a short moving marthiya on the
death of his child. The lyrical poem Makber , written by
c Abdiilhakk Hamid Tarhan upon the death of his
young wife in 1885, has been classed as the greatest
marthiya after Bakl’s elegy (S. E. Siyavu$gil, in IA, i,
71). Not completely removed from the urban tradi¬
tion, the unlettered and the peasants have marthiyas of
their own. In Turkish folklore, lyrical compositions
expressive of grief, aghit, have survived; they
commemorate the deceased, treat of general aspects of
death or express sorrow over collective calamities (P.
N. Boratav, in PhTF , ii, cf. chanson funebre). Whereas
the sufferings caused by the Russo-Turkish war of
1877-8 inspired Namik Kemal [q.v. ] to write his
impassioned Watan merthiyesi , popular poets had
already since 1683 turned to elegies upon the loss of
Rumelian cities to the Christian enemy, such as
Buda, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Banyaluka and Bugur-
delen. The popular aghit lives to this day; about
twenty such compositions lamenting Ataturk’s death
are known. Religious marthiyas on the martyrs of
Karbala 3 belong to the maktal genre.

Bibliography : H. A. Yiicel, Ein Gesamliiberblick
uber die tilrkische Literatur (tr. O. Re§er), Istanbul
1941. Several marthiyas are printed in F. Iz, Eski lurk
edebiyatinda nazim, i/1, Istanbul 1966. On the genre
and the writers of religious marthiyas , K. E.
Kiirkguoglu, ed., Tahir' ill-Mevlevi, Edebiyat liigati ,
Istanbul 1973. F. K. Timurta$, BakVnin Kanuni
mersiyesi, in TDED, xii (1962), is a philological
analysis. Kemalpashazade on the death of Sultan
Selim I: §. Turan, introduction to Defter vii of the
Tevarih-i Al-i Osman , Ankara, p. xviii. On the
princes’ courts, P. Kappert, Die osmanischen Prinzen
und ihre Residenz Amasya im 15. u. 16. Jahrhundert ,
Istanbul 1976; E. Ambros, Candid penstrokes. The
lyrics of Me^ali, an Ottoman poet of the 16th century ,
Berlin 1982, 35-9, 175-80. On TanzTmat merthiye s,
M. Kaplan, I. Enginiin and B. Emil, Yeni tiirk
edebiyati antolojisi, i, Istanbul 1974, 324, ii, Istanbul
1978, 169-75. On saz poets: S. Plaskowicka-
Rymkiewicz, Les lamentations ou agitlar dans la creation
populaire turque, in Zagadnienia Rodzajow Literackich,
viii (1965), 89-107; K.-D. Wannig, Der Dichter

Karaca Oglan, Freiburg 1980; V. Boskov, Tiirk
edebiyatinda sehir siirleri ve sehir mersiyeleri , in Ataturk
Univ. Edeb. Fak. Arastirma Dergisi , xii (1980), 69-76.
Aghils on Ataturk: cf. M. Fuad Koprulii, Tiirk
sazsairleri, iii, Istanbul n.d., 729 (Asik Suleyman);
P. N. Boratav, La guerre de liberation el Ataturk dans la
tradition populaire, in Turcica , xiv (1982), 274.

(B. Flemming)

4. In Urdu literature.

Marthiya (pis. in Urdu, marthiye , mardthi ) is one of
the oldest forms of Urdu poetry. Two types exist,
secular and religious, but the second is by far the more
important; indeed, it is almost always assumed
whenever Urdu writers mention marthiya. Moreover,
it is usually about the Karbala 3 martyrs, especially the
Imam al-Husayn b. C A1T b. Abi Ta.1 ib. Shorter poems
on this theme may be termed nawha or salam, the latter
normally containing a word such as salam, salami,
mudjra or mudfrdT in the first few verses. Urdu critics
often begin their accounts with the pre-Islamic Arabic
marthiya, and also postulate some slight debt to Persian
elegists such as Muhtashim (Shibll, Muwazana, 1-9).
Yet they regard the form it took in 19th century
Lucknow as peculiarly Indian—perhaps the only truly
indigenous major Urdu poetical genre.

Its early development goes back to Dakkani, that
form of Urdu used in southern India, which is related
to the literary language which emerged in northern
India somewhat as Chaucer’s English is to that of
Shakespeare. The c Adil Shah [q.v.\ sultans of
Bldjapur (895-1047/1489-1686) and the Kutb Shahs
[q.v. ] of Golkonda (901-1098/1496-1687) were Shills,
patrons of poetry, and sometimes poets themselves.
They encouraged the reciting of marthiye in Muhar-
ram, and even had c Ashura-khanas built specially for
the purpose. Thus though, like other Urdu poetical
forms, it was at first court poetry, because of its
religious nature it was taken by princes to the people,
to form a corporate religio-literary and social activity.
It probably played an important part in the develop¬
ment of the musha c ara (public poetical recital or
competition) which became—and still remains—a
phenomenon of Indo-Pakistani literary and social life.
In the Deccan, from the 10th/16th century onwards,
numerous poets composed marthiyas-, some specialised
in it. The researches of Nasir al-DTn HashimT and
MuhvI al-DTn Kadirlzor (see Bibl.) have brought
hundreds of examples to light from manuscripts in the
Subcontinent and Europe, including an important
two-volume collection in Edinburgh University
Library. Thus the Dakkani marthiya can now be seen
as the ancestor of the north-Indian marthiya which
reached its apogee in the works of Anls and DabTr in
the mid-19th century. Its spread northward was a by¬
product of the subjugation of the Deccan sultanates by
the armies of the Emperor Awrangzlb (1097-8/
1686-7).

Nevertheless, the 19th century Lucknow marthiya,
varied in content but invariably in musaddas form, and
frequently extending to between 100 and 200 stanzas
(300-600 vv.), is a far cry from the modest elegies of
early Dakkani poets. To begin with, musaddas was
rarely used in the Deccan. An isolated exception by
Yatlm Ahmad (HashimT, 379, gives two stanzas)
dates from the Mughal period. It would appear that
in Bldjapur and Golkonda, the great majority of
mardthi were in “ ghazal form”—that is, monorhyme,
the rhyme also coming at the end of the first hemistich
of the first verse. Among other forms occasionally
used were mathnawi and quatrains. To take an early
poet, Sultan Muhammad KulT Kutb Shah (976-

MARTHIYA

611

1020/1568-1611) wrote 5 marathi ( Kulliyyat , ^ - *8~,
57-60), one in mathnawi , the rest in^aza/ form. Of the
latter, the longest, no. 5, has a good deal of internal
rhyme, usually in the middle of the hemistich, thus
suggesting quatrains. After the Mughal conquest,
quatrains gained ground, and this trend continued in
northern India in the 18th century. But ghazal form
was not completed eliminated, as can be seen from the
marathi of Sawda 5 (1125-95/1713-81) ( Kulliyyat , ii,
134-333) and Mir Taki Mir (1135-1223/1722-1810)
(.Kulliyyat Mir , 1203-1325). The quatrains used in
marthiya differed from ruba c iyyat in their rhyme
scheme, which was aaaa, bbba, ccca, etc., that is tarkib-
band. They are called murabba c or caw-masra c . By the
end of the 18th century, this was considered the
normal verse-form for marthiya.

Certainly, both Sawda 5 and Mir tried out musaddas
of various kinds in about 10% of their elegies; but it
was in Lucknow, where both poets gravitated late in
life, that marthiya became inextricably associated with
musaddas , with the rhyme scheme aaaabb , ccccdd , eeeeff,
etc. The credit is usually given to Mir Damir, of the
generation before AnTs. It may be that Anls’ father,
Mir Khalik. also had a hand in it, if only we could
date poems attributed to him and could be sure they
were not composed by his celebrated son (see Shibli.
op. cit., 15).

The disturbed situation in Dihli, due to Afghan and
Marafha incursions, attracted many of its poets to
Lucknow, whose Nawwabs were poets and patrons of
poetry; and as they were also ShlTs. they encouraged
elegiac poetry. In its progress from the Deccan via
Dihli to Lucknow, the marthiya changed in length,
scope and content, as well as in prosody. In the
Deccan, it began as a short lament, ranging from 5
verses (10 hemistiches) to 20—rarely 30, even allow¬
ing for the possibility that some examples which have
survived may be mere fragments. Nor did its length
increase significantly in the early Mughal era. In fact,
it resembled the nawha or saldm of northern India. The
poet’s task was rona awr rulana (lit. “to weep and cause
weeping”). Thus the rhyme often included repeated
interjections of sorrow, such as wa?e, wd, wayla , ah,
ha^e and hayf: other evocative words such as Husayn ,
Husayna , Karbala and musibata were also used in
rhyme. The effect was heightened by the chanting (soz
kh w ani) in which elegies were recited. There were also
realistic, if brief, descriptions of the blood-stained
body or shroud or the martyr. Heaven and earth were
said to be thunderstruck by his death. Yet despite its
small compass, the DakkanI marthiya foreshadows,
spasmodically, almost all the elements in the content
of that of the 19th century. The various characters,
their words, their feelings, and their exploits, are to be
found. For example, the unhistorical marriage of al-
Husayn’s daughter Saklna to his nephew Kasim is
alluded to by Hashim C A1I (d. after 1169/1756) and his
contemporary GhulamI (Kadiri, 293, 297).

Brevity inhibited the development of these themes.
But some long mathnawis on the Karbala' 5 martyrdoms
were written in the Deccan, predating the 19th
century Lucknow “epic” marthiya. Whether they had
any direct influence on it is hard to say. Both Shah
Muhammad’s Djang-nama and Wall Welurl’s Rawdat
al-shuhadd 5 date from around 1730. However, the
latter, which begins with the Prophet’s death and ends
with Karbala 5 , might better be described as a
sequence of separate elegies. Another Rawdat al-
shuhadd 5 , by a certain Muhkam, dates from 1806.

Sawda 5 was a major elegist, and composed 91
marathi. Though their average length is only about
fifty verses, he was able to extend the battle-scenes,

characterisation and dramatic content. He seems an
obvious half-way house between the marthiya of the
Deccan and that of Lucknow. He was often been
criticised for his lack of sincerity in lamentation.

The Lucknow “epic” marthiya may be said to have
begun with Mir Damir and reached its climax with
Mir Babar C A1I Anls (1802-74) and Mlrza Salamat
C AII Dablr (1803-75), who composed more than a
thousand marathi each. Sdz-kh w dni often gave way to
declamation (iaht al-lafz), thus enhancing the dramatic
impact. Despite the great length of many elegies,
which has already been mentioned, so varied and
extended was the content that no one marthiya told the
whole Karbala 5 story in full. This was doubtless
necessitated by the circumstances and the popularity
of the form which led the poets to go on writing
marthiye. Variety was achieved by the selection of
incidents as well as variation in treatment. Yet some
readers may regret that no full-fledged Karbala 5 epic
resulted. Characterisation, dialogue, description of
scenes and nature, battle preparation and the battle
itself, all played their part, without neglecting the
original aim of lamentation. From the literary point of
view, no devices of fasahat-o-bal agh at were neglected,
with rich vocabulary and telling similes and
metaphors. Critics have analysed the content-
sequence as follows (Ridwl, Ruh-i-Anis, Introd., 14-
15: Afdal Husayn, Haydt-i-Dabir , i, 137-40):

1 . cihra (matla c ltamhid) - introductory verses setting
the tone, with no restriction at to details.

2 . rukhsat - the martyr-hero’s farewell to his nearest
and dearest.

3. sarapd - a description of the hero from head to foot.

4. dmad - the army’s preparation for battle, perhaps
including a detailed description of the hero’s horse.

5. rajjaz - the hero’s battle oration.

6 . dyang (lar'a'i) - the actual battle, stressing the hero’s
valour, often including a description of his sword.

7. shahadat - the death of the martyr, either al-Husayn
or some member of his family.

8 . bayn - the lamentation of the martyr’s family and
friends, of the poet himself, and of all believers.

But the above scheme was not mandatory: there were
really only two thematic essentials to qualify a poem
as a marthiya —it must be a lament, and must involve
the martyrs of Karbala 5 .

There was both mutual influence and intense
rivalry between Anls and Dablr. Lucknow split into
two camps, and a considerable literature of com¬
parison was generated. Both were outstanding poets,
and some consider Anls the greatest of all Urdu poets.
If he is preferred to Dablr, it may be because on the
whole he exhibits less pedantry and straining after
effect. Two such giants were hard to equal; and before
their deaths, the Lucknow principality ended with the
exile of Nawwab Wadjid C A1I to Calcutta after the
Indian Mutiny (1857-8). Though marthiya continued
into the present century, with encouragement at other
courts such as Rampur and Hyderabad, its great days
were over. Those interested in the contemporaries
and successors of Anls may consult Siddlkl, 713-39,
and Saksena, 137-9. To the present writer, the marathi
of Anls’s brother Mu 5 nis seem to merit reassessment.

The importance of marthiya in Urdu literary history
has been widely recognised. Hall ( Mukaddima-yi-shi c r-
o-shd c iri, 182-91) describes Anls’s marthiya as “the
creation of a new form which greatly extended the
range of Urdu poetry, increasing its vocabulary,
ending its stagnation and breathing new life into it.”
It is also said to have demonstrated the suitability of
musaddas for long poems, Hall’s famous musaddas,
Madd-o-jazr-i-Islam, being a prime example.

612

MARTHIYA

Secular marthiya has existed alongside the religious
type throughout its history, but it has received scant
attention, and examples are hard to come by. Zor
(130-31, 258) gives an elegy on Awrangzib in 5 verses
of mixed Dakkam-Persian mathnawi. The poet, Mfr
Dja c far c AlI (1068-1125/1658-1713), was born in
north India, but accompanied the Emperor’s son to
the Deccan.

In the 19th century, the c Aligarh Movement
revived interest in secular marthiya. Halt himself
composed five of them plus two shorter elegiac pieces
(Kulliyydt-i-nazm-i-Hali, Lahore 1968, i, 327-62), in
various verse-forms. His elegy of the poet Ghalib in
ten stanzas of ten verses each is an often-quoted
masterpiece. Among others often praised are that of
Shibll Nu c mam (1857-1914) on his brother and that of
MunshI Nawbat Ra 5 e Nazar on his son. Nationalism
and independence in the Subcontinent have led to a
proliferation of the form in newspapers and
magazines.

Bibliography : For general accounts, Ram
Baku Saksena, A history of Urdu literature , Allahabad
1927, 123-39; Muhammad Sadiq, A history of Urdu
literature , London 1964, 145-63, contains useful
extracts with English translations, including two
DakkanI elegies; c Abd al-Salam Nadwl, Shi c r al-
Hind , A c zamgarh n.d., ii, 353-68, concentrates on
generalities and the secular marthiya ; most studies of
individual poets and introductions to diwans
contain short histories of the form; for DakkanI
elegy, Naslr al-Dln HashimI, Dakkan men Urdu , 6th
enlarged edition, Lucknow 1963, 62-4, 90-7, 183-
5, 287-319 (fundamental), 321-45, 362-84, 489-98,
545-6; Sayyid Muhyl al-Dln Kadirl Zor, Urdu
shahpdre , Hyderabad, Deccan n.d., i, 130-1, 137-8,
144-6 (on Wall Welurl), 152-71, 258, 264-79, 293-
316; both these two books give the Urdu texts of
many marathi, those in the second being more
substantial, especially for DakkanI elegists of the
early Mughal period; for individual DakkanI
elegists, Muhammad Kull Kutb Shah. Kulliyyat,
ed. Sayyid Muhyl al-Dln Kadirl Zor, Hyderabad,
Deccan 1940, 57-60; Shahl (Sultan c AlI

c Adil Shah II) Kulliyyat Shahi , ed. Sayyid Mubariz
al-Dln Rif-at, c Aligarh 1962, 90, 192-215, though
of 16 marathi included, only one, no. 16 in 28 vv.,
can confidently be attributed to this poet; Bahrl,
Kulliyyat Bahrl, ed. Muhammad Hafiz Sayyid,
Lucknow 1939, 96-7, including the text of 5 marathi
for the 18th century northern Indian elegy; Shaykh
Cand, Sawda Hyderabad n.d., 282-315; Kulliyyat
Sawda ed. c Abd al-Barl Asl, Lucknow 1932, i
(Introd.) 17, ii, 134-333; Mir TakI Mir, Kulliyyat
Mir , ed. c Ibadat Brelwl, Karachi-Lahore 1958,
1203-1333; Afsos, Kulliyyat Afsos, ed. Sayyid Zahlr
Ahsan, Patna 1961, 262-86; for the 19th century
Lucknow marthiya, Abu T.Layth Siddlkl, Lakhna^o
ka dabistan-i sha^iri, Lahore 1955, 661-743; Shibll
Nu c manl, Muwazana-yi-Anis-o-Dabir , Lucknow
1924; Mir Damir, Madpmu c a-yi-marthiye-yi-Damir, i,
Cawnpore 1898; art. Ants , by Sayyid Amdjad
Altaf, in Urdu Encyclopaedia of Islam , iii, 500-5;
which lists editions of this poet’s works from the
Lucknow five-volume ed. of 1876 onwards; Sayyid
Mas c ud Hasan RidwI’s Ruh-i-Anis, Allahabad n.d.,
contains selected marathi and a useful introduction;
art. Dabir , by Muhammad ShaflL in Urdu
Encyclopaedia of Islam, xii, 208-10; Afdal Husayn,
Hayat-i-Dabir, i, Lahore 1913, ii/1, 1915; Mu 5 nis,
Madfmu < 'a-yi-mardthi-yi-Mu\is, 3 vols., Cawnpore
1912; for an account of Lucknow in the era of Anls
and Dabir, Abdul Halim Sharar, Lucknow: the last

phase of an oriental culture, tr. and ed. E. S. Harcourt
and Fakhir Hussain, London 1975, esp. 83-4, 147;
for the c Aligarh attitude to marthiya , see Altaf
Husayn Hall, Mukaddima-yi-shjfr-o-shaHri , Lahore
1950, 180-93. ’ y. A. Haywood)

5. In Swahili literature.

The word marthiya is not used in Swahili literature;
the word for an elegy is lalamiko “lament”. It is very
much a living tradition among Swahili men of letters
to compose praising poems for great men who have
died. The custom is well-known in Bantu Africa
outside the sphere of Islamic influence, so that it may
well have been in use among the Swahili before the
advent of Islam in the late Umayyad period. Among
the Bantu peoples, songs of lament have been
recorded by De Rop, Rycroft, Van Wing and others.

Few songs of lament in Swahili have come down to
us from any earlier period than the present century,
except the Inkishafi , which laments in eighty stanzas
the fall of the ancient city of Pate (the ruins of which
have not yet been excavated) written probably before
1232/1820, by Sayid Abdallah bin Ali bin Nassir, a
Swahili of Arabic origin. His contemporary Muyaka
bin Hajji al-Ghassaniy (whose family name also
betrays his Arabic ancestry) (d. ca. 1250/1837) wrote
secular verse on personal as well as political subjects,
and quatrains on love and philosophy. One of his
poems may be called an elegy. It begins thus:

“Do not remind me of that time

when both my parents were alive

when friends and kinsmen filled the house...

Today I have remained alone

with none to help or counsel me

alone with thoughts that no-one shares...”

In Tanga, Hemedi al-Buhriy, who also wrote in the
second quarter of the 19th century, composed the
Utenzi wa Kutawaju Nabii, the Epic on the Death of the
Prophet, in which he inserts a few lines of what may
have been an elegy on Muhammad, see J. W. Allen’s
edition, p. 39. In Lamu, Muhammad bin Abu Bakari
Kijumwa wrote an elegy on the death of Professor
Alice Werner, of the School of Oriental Studies in
London, whom he had served as an informant in
1913. The poem is dated 1354/1935-6. It begins:
“The hearts are full of grief and their
sadness cannot be measured...”

Mohamed Bin Nasor Shaksi wrote an elegy on the
death of the Governor of the Kenya Coast, Sir
Mbaraka Ali Hinawy, in 1959. It begins: “We pray
to Thee, O Majesty, O Lord without a peer...” Some
of the best elegies were written in the last twenty
years, first at the death of the author Shaaban Robert
(1962), then at the death of the poet and Minister of
Justice in Tanzania. Sh. Amri K. Abedi, in 1964.
The latter had himself composed a now famous
lament at the death of his friend Shaaban Robert,
which begins thus: Hae msiba mzito “Woe! A grave
misfortune..”. The complete text was published,
together with many other elegies that were composed
by Swahili poets in both Kenya and Tanzania for the
same sad occasion, by the present writer in Swahili.
Journal of the East African Swahili Committee, xxxiii
(1963), in Dar es Salaam. The same journal published
the elegies written at the death of Amri Abedi ( Swahili,
xxxv/1 [1965], 4-18).

It is evident that the majority of Swahili elegies
which have been published belong to the secular tradi¬
tion of mourning the death of great men. Some of the
finest pieces of Swahili lyric are among them, which
is all the more remarkable since very little real lyric
verse in the Western sense has been written in

MARTHIYA — MA C RUF al-KARKHI

613

Swahili; there is for instance hardly any nature-
lyricism. The probable reason for the excellence of
elegiac poetry in Swahili is the popular predilection
for nostalgia common not only among the Swahili but
also among other Bantu-speaking peoples, notably the
Zulu. The mood of feeling that in the past everything
was better, when good men and great leaders were
still alive, is a natural one for people who are so deeply
attached to their parents, their grandparents, their
aunts and uncles, that they will always go to their
elders for advice and guidance. The demise of such
senior friends creates a mood of loneliness and
aimlessness which explains the refrains of several of
the elegies, e.g. Amri Abedi’s on Shaaban Robert (tr.
in the original metre): “Our language is still
tender/who will be its foster father? Now that Shaaban
has departed,/he that nursed it like an infant!”

In the purely Islamic elegies, these feelings of
nostalgia and solitude are projected on the demise of
the Prophet Muhammad, as in the elegiac hymn
probably composed by Sharifu Badruddini in Lamu,
which begins: “Longing fills the hearts of people...”
The people need guidance in all matters of daily life
and so, in Swahili literature, the time when the Holy
Prophet walked on earth is described as one of
happiness, since all men knew then what to do.

Bibliography : On songs of lament in a Bantu
language, see especially A. de Rop, Gesproken
Woordkunst der Nkundo, Tervuren 1956, 62-85. On
the Inkishafi, see Knappert, Four centuries of Swahili
verse , London 1979, 127-37; on Muyaka bin Hajji,
see op. cit ., 146, where the full text and translation
of this elegy are given; for text and full translation
of Amri Abedi’s elegy on Shaaban Robert, see op.
cit., 285-7. The same work gives a bibliography of
Swahili poetry, including the works of J. W. T.
Allen, on 314-16. For Ahmad Basheikh Husayn’s
elegy on Sir Mbarak Ali Hinawy, written in 1959
a few years before his own death, see Knappert, op.
cit., 258-60. (J. Knappert)

MARTOLOS, a salaried member of the
Ottoman internal security forces, recruited
predominantly in the Balkans from among chosen
land-owning Orthodox Christians who, retaining
their religion, became members of the Ottoman c askeri
caste The word almost certainly originated

from the Greek, either amartolos (ocpap-raAoi;),
“corrupt”, “gone astray”, or armatolos (appotToXoc),
“armed”, “weapon-carrying”. It was shortened to
martolos (sometimes martuloz, with the occasional
plural martulosdn , ol~_^U) in Ottoman Turkish, whence
it entered Bulgarian and then Serbian. By the end of
the 9th/15th century it had entered Hungarian and
was often used by Europeans to describe Christian
sailors on the Danube River who served the Ottomans
as rowers on light wooden barques called nassad. Its
use by the Ottomans, however, was much broader.

In the mid-9th/mid-15th century, the conquering
Turks assigned martolos in the Balkans as armed
police, mounted and foot, who occasionally
participated in war, but usually acted in their locales
as peacetime border patrols, castle guards, security
forces for important mines, guards for strategic passes
(derbend) and, occasionally, tax collectors. Because of
their military positions, martolos were able to keep
their lands within the timar system [ q . v. ], Martolos were
not limited to the Balkans, however, as some were
used as spies and messengers as early as the 8th/14th
century conquest of western Anatolia (see Anhegger,
in iA , vii, 342). Martolos in the Balkans were almost
always led by Muslims {martolos basht, martolos aghast,
martolos bashbughu). They remained loyal to the Sultan

for more than two centuries because the Ottomans
rewarded them with daily-wage c askeri status, though
they remained Christian; their positions were
heritable; and they were exempt from the dfzya {q.v.}
and various local taxes.

When in the 11th/17th century local Balkan
antagonisms against Ottoman rule increased, Christ¬
ian martolos serving against rebellious haiduks caused
hostility, some martolos joining with the anti-Ottoman
revolutionaries. By 1104/1692 Istanbul no longer
allowed Christians to serve as martolos in the Balkans,
and by 1135/1722 the Rumeli governor, < Othman
Pasha, merged the institution of martolos with the
Muslim pandor (local security police) (Orhonlu, 89).
By the 13th/19th century, a few martolos persisted in
northern Macedonia, but these were effectively
replaced by new institutions brought about by the
Tanzimat reforms.

Bibliography. The term is briefly explained in
Pakalm, s.v. Martulos , ii, 409-10, and Midhat
Sertoglu, Resimli Osmanh tarihi ansiklopedisi, Istanbul
1958, 197. It exists in numerous western language
studies, e.g. S. Kakuk, Recherches sur I’histoire
osmanlie des XVF et XVIF siecles , les elements osmanlis
de la langue hongroise, Budapest 1973, 268.

References to the institution in standard sources for
Ottoman history may be found in E. Rossi’s EF
article and in his addition in EF Suppl. The most
extensive bibliography on the formation of the
institution is in R. Anhegger, Martolos, in iA, vii,
341-4, and in C. Orhonlu, Osmanh imparatorlugunda
derbend teskilati, Istanbul 1967, 79-90. For the
Balkans, see M. Vasic, Die Martolosen im Os-
manischen Reich , in Zeitschr. fur Balkanologie ,
Jahrgang ii (1964), 172-89, or the Turkish trans¬
lation, M. Vasic, Osmanli imparatorlugunda
martoloslar, in TD xxxi (1977), 47-64; and M.
Vasich, The Martoloses in Macedonia, in Macedonian
Review , vii/1 (1977), 30-41.

(E. Rossi - [W. J. Griswold])
MARTYR, MARTYRDOM [see shahid; sha-
hada].

MA C RUF al-KARKHI, Abu Mahfuz b. Firuz or
FTruzan, d. 200/815-16, one of the most celebrated of
the early ascetics and mystics of the Ba gh dad
school.

While it is possible that the nisba al-Karkhl may be
connected with the eastern c IrakI town of Karkh
Badjadda, it is more likely that it derives from his
association with the Karkh area of Baghdad. It is
generally thought that his parents were Christians,
although Ibn Taghribirdi (ed. Juynboll and Matthes,
i, 575) maintains that they were Sabians of the district
of Wasit. Among his teachers in the tenets of Sufism
were Bakr b. Khunays al-KufT and Farkad al-SabakhT
(al-Makkl, Kut al-kulub, Cairo 1310, i, 9). He himself
was an important influence on another famous Sufi of
the earlier period. Sari al-Sakatl [q.v.\, who was in
turn the teacher and master of one of the most famous
exponents of Sufism, al-Djunavd [q.v.]. The story of
his conversion to Islam at the hands of the Shf c T Imam
C A1I b. Musa al-Rida and his attempt to persuade his
parents to the same course is now generally regarded
as untrue. Among the sayings attributed to him are:
“Love cannot be learned from men; it is in God’s gift
and derives from His Grace”; “Saints may be known
by three signs; their concern for God, their preoc¬
cupation with God and their taking refuge in God”;
and “Sufism means recognising the divine realities
and ignoring that which bears the mark of created
beings”. Ma c ruf has always been venerated as a saint,
and his tomb at Ba gh dad, on the west bank of the

614

MA C RUF al-KARKHI — MA C RUF al-RUSAFI

Tigris, is still an object of pious resort and pilgrimage.
Al-Kushayri relates that prayer at his tomb was
generally regarded as propitious in obtaining rain.
Ma c ruf s name appears in many of the silsilas of the
Sufi orders.

Bibliography: Kush ay rl. Risala, Cairo 1319,
11; Hudjwiri, Kashf al-mahdfub , ed. Zhukovski,
Leningrad 1926, 141, tr. Nicholson, 113; Sulaml,
Tabakat al-Sufiyya , Cairo 1953, 83-90; Abu

Nu c aym, Hilyat al-awliya* , Cairo 1932-8, viii, 360-
8 ; Khatlb. Ta\ikh Baghdad 1931, xiii, 199-209;
c Aftar, Tadhkirat al-awliya? , ed. Nicholson, i,
269 ff., tr. Arberry, Muslim saints and mystics ,
London 1966, 161-5; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat ,
Cairo 1948, iv, no. 700, tr. de Slane, ii, 88 ; Yafi c T,
MiPdt al-djanan , Hyderabad 1337-9, i, 460-3;
Djami, Nafahat al-uns , ed. Nassau Lees, Calcutta
1859, 42; Ibn al- c Imad, Shadharat al-dhahab, Cairo
1350-1, i, 360; R. A. Nicholson, The origin and
development of Sufism , in JR AS (1906), 306, and A
saying of Macruf al-Karkhi, in JRAS (1906), 999; L.
Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de
la mystique musulmane, 207.

(R. A. Nicholson - [R. W. J. Austin])
MA C RUF al-RUSAFI (1875-1945), leading
poet of modern c Irak and one extremely
audacious and outspoken in expressing his political
views. He was born in Ba gh dad in 1875 to his father
c Abd al-Gham Mahmud, of Kurdish descent and
from the Djabbariyya tribe (between Kirkuk and
Sulaymaniyya in N. c Irak), who was a pious man and
worked as a gendarme outside Baghdad; for this
reason, Ma c ruf was brought up and educated by his
devoted mother Fatima bint Djasim at her father’s
house (she was of the Karaghul Arabic tribe, a branch
of Shammar. who inhabited the Karaghul quarter in
Baghdadi.

Ma c ruf was sent to a kuttab in Ba gh dad where he
learnt reading and reciting the Kur 3 an by heart. After
three years of primary school, he joined al-Rushdiyya
al- c Askariyya school. In his fourth year there, he
failed his examinations and was unable to continue his
secular studies which would have paved him the way
for high military or government service. Hence he
switched to religious studies under the supervision of
the celebrated scholar Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi
(1857-1924 [<?.&>.]), and others such as Shavkh c Abbas
al-Kassab and Kasim al-Kaysi, for twelve years. He
was a distinguished student and became a devoted
Sufi. In appreciation of this, his master al-Alusi gave
him the name of Ma c ruf al-Rusafi, in contrast to the
name of the celebrated $uf! scholar Ma c ruf al-Karkhi
(which derived from the name of the western bank of
the river Tigris), and thus Ma c ruf s family name
became attributed to the eastern bank of the river.

There is no indication in the various biographical
sources as to how he sustained himself during these
years of his religious and literary studies and how he
became a completely secular poet. What is known is
that he was compelled to work as a teacher in two
primary schools in Ba gh dad until he left for a third
school in Mandali in Diyala because of a higher
wages.

Later, he attempted to return to Ba g hdad and
passed there an examination in Arabic language and
literature with distinction, so that he was appointed a
teacher at a secondary school until 1908. During these
years, he published poems in well-known Egyptian
periodicals such as al-Mu^ayyad and al-Muktataf, as did
other famous poets of c Irak, e.g. al-Zahawi [<?.z/.],
there being no periodical of distinction in c Irak at that
time. He became well-known in other Arab countries
as well as among the Arab emigrants in America.

However, by this stage of his life, his poetry was
already devoid of religious tendencies and completely
secular, favouring freedom of thought, against
tyranny, urging his people into scientific and cultural
revival following the European model, describing and
praising modern inventions, defending the victims of
social injustice and lamenting the deteriorating condi¬
tions to which the Ottoman Empire, and especially
c Irak, was reduced. He also supported the slogan of
the French Revolution, adopted by the Committee of
Union and Progress (C.U.P.) as Hurriyya. c Adala,
Musawat (“Liberty, Justice and Equality”), as it
appears in his poems published in Diwan al-Rusafi ,
Beirut 1910.

After the Young Turk Revolution of 10 July 1908,
he translated into Arabic the rallying-song of their
poet Tewfik Fikret, which became a school song in
many Arab countries. It seems that his sympathy with
the ideology of the C.U.P. induced the Ba gh dad
branch of C.U.P. headed by Murad Bey Sulayman
(the brother of Mahmud Shewkat [< 7 . v. ]), to invite him
to edit the Arabic part of the bilingual political and
cultural journal ( Baghdad (6 August 1908) which was
the party’s bulletin.

Al-Rusafi celebrated the declaration of the Dustur
(or Constitution of 10 July 1908) with both poetry and
action. According to Kasim al-Khattat (Macruf al-
Rusafi, shaHr al- c Arab al-kabir , Cairo 1971, 52-5), al-
Rusafi with a group of his Jewish and Christian
friends entered the al-WazIr mosque on a Friday and
removed forcibly the Muslim preacher from his pulpit
and delivered a speech in favour of the C.U.P.
ideology. Al-Ru§afi’s behaviour roused tremendous
anger among the religious and conservative circles of
Baghdad, who demanded that he be hanged and who
demonstrated in front of the Wall or governor Nazim
Pasha, so that the latter, out of fear for al-Rusafi’s
life, put him in preventive custody.

However, at the beginning of 1909, at the request
of Ahmed Djewdet, the editor of the newspaper Ikdam ,
al-Rusafi arrived in Istanbul via Beirut in order to
produce an Arabic version of his periodical, which it
was hoped would create a new understanding between
the two main groups of the Ottoman Empire, the
Turks and the Arabs, and would serve as the voice of
the C.U.P. Al-Rusafi was disappointed to learn that
the editor had not been able to get the financial
support needed to publish the Arabic part. So he left
for Salonika, and there Mahmud Shewkat. the
commander of the 3rd Army Corps of Macedonia,
marched with his army on Istanbul, deposed the
Sultan c Abd al-Harmd II [q. u.] on 13 April 1909, and
removed his supporters, the reactionaries headed by
Darwlsh Wahdati, who had been raised to power on
31 March 1909. In his poem Rukyat al-sarf (“An
incantation for the fallen victim”) {Diwan, 6 th ed.,
Beirut (?) 1958, 162-4), al-Rusafi rebuked the Otto¬
man government for its tyranny, as being against
Islamic tradition, and he called for a republican
government {djumhuriyya) , in order to achieve progress
and freedom as in Europe. In his poem Fi Silanik
(ibid., 382-8), he described the revolution and his
journey with the army to Istanbul againt the Sultan.
In his poem Tammuz al-hurriyya (“July, the month of
freedom”) {ibid. , 388-9) he greeted the Young Turk
Revolution, and expressed his joy at the deposition of
c Abd al-Hamid.

On his return to c Irak via Beirut, where he was
received with courtesy by men of letters headed by
Amin al-Rihani, he became short of money, but
fortunately the owner of al-Maktaba al-Ahliyya
helped him by buying his Diwan. The poems were
edited and rearranged by Muhyl al-Dm Khayya{ and

615

MA C RUF al-RUSAFI

provided with a preface (Beirut 1910). This edition as
well as the following ones were full of printing errors.
The edition of Dar al- c Awda, Beirut 1970, contains
less errors, but the new edition annotated by Mustafa
*AlT, al-RusafT’s close friend and disciple, published in
4 vols. by the c Iraki government, Ba gh dad 1974, is
the only authorised and complete edition. The
pornographic poems of al-RusafT, except his poem
Badd c a la khald c a (Diwdn, 6th edn., 283-5), are
excluded from all editions, and the c Iraki authorities
never allowed their publication. In the former editions
many verses and poems which were against King
Faysal I, his officials, and against the Regent c Abd al-
Ilah, NurT al-Sa c Td and others, were not included.

Back home he resumed his work at the newspaper
Baghdad , but soon, in 1909, he reviewed a new invita¬
tion, this time from “The Arab Friends’ Association”
headed by al-ZahawI and FahmT al-Mudarris in Istan¬
bul, to edit their daily newspaper Sabil al-rashdd (“The
Path of Reason”). In Istanbul he also gave lectures in
two high schools on Arabic language and literature
(collected in Nafh al-tib ji ’l-khitaba wa ’ l-khatib , Istan¬
bul 1331/1917), and taught Tal c at Pasha, a leading
member of C.U.P., the Arabic language. It may be
that his connection with Tal c at helped him to be
elected as a deputy in the Ottoman Chamber of
Deputies on behalf of the Muntafik district of c Irak
from 1912 onwards. He also married a widow named
BalkTs, but they had no children. He mentions her
twice in his Diwdn (78, 244): in the first poem, when
she is asking him “not to depart, while his ambitions
forced him to”, and in the second poem dedicated to
the al-Djamil family, asking them for support to be
able to travel to Turkey in order to see “the person
whom his heart is longing for”. It seems that he later
divorced her officially in 1925 because he was not able
to sustain her.

Al-RusafT’s main concern was the maintenance of
the unity of the Ottoman Empire through the unity of
all its religious and national groups, as well as its
revival according to the ideology of the C.U.P. For
this reason, he attacked the Arab Congress in Paris
(17-23 June 1913) and censured its members in his
satiric poem Ma hdkadhd (“Not in this way”) ( Diwdn ,
402-5, cf. also 405-7), accusing them of jeopardising
the unity of the Empire, besides encouraging French
ambitions in Syria and causing enmity between
Christians and Muslims. In fact, al-RusafT was a great
defender of the Arab spiritual and cultural revival
within the framework of the Ottoman Empire, and a
vehement critic of the European powers who were
aiming at its destruction. When World War I broke
out, he composed a poem al-Watan wa d-djihad (“The
homeland and the holy war”) (Diwdn, 489-91) calling
all the Muslims to defend Islam and criticising the
Egyptians for backing the British, and he expressed
his hope that c Irak would defeat the approaching
enemy. This solidarity with the Ottoman Empire
explains also why al-RusafT, in his poetry, did not
lament those Arab nationalists who were hanged by
Djamal Pasha (1916). On the other hand, he attacked
the Sharif Husayn of Mecca for his revolt against the
Ottomans (10 June 1916); he neither celebrated an
Arab government being established in Damascus and
headed by Prince Faysal b. al-Husayn (1918) nor
lamented the latter’s expulsion from Syria (1919); and
in his poetry he did not as much as mention the TrakT
revolt against the British in 1920.

After the war ended in 1918, al-RusafT left Istanbul
for Damascus, where Prince Faysal formed his Arab
government, but he was given the cold shoulder
because of his former satirical poems against Faysal’s

father the Sharif Husayn and the Arab nationalists. In
fact, al-RusafT did not expect a reception of this kind
from his former colleague in the Ottoman Parliament
Prince Faysal, and was disappointed, because he
considered his stand as having been honest and proper
in the interests of the Ottoman Empire (Diwdn,
420-3).

For this reason, he accepted a job at the Teachers’
Training College (Dar al-Mu c allimin) in Jerusalem
(1918-21), where he became the focus of social and
literary activities together with the Palestinian writers
Is c af NashashTbT, Khalil Sakaklnl and c Adil Djabr
(Diwdn, 141, 428, 515). In 1921 the Director of the
College, Khalil Tutah, published al-RusafT’s collec¬
tion of 17 school songs with their musical settings
under the title Madyrnu c at al-andshid al-madrasiyya (lith.,
Jerusalem 1921, with an introduction by Is c af
al-Nashashibi).

Safa Khulusi in his article Ma c ruf al-Rusafi in
Jerusalem (in Arabic and Islamic garland... Studies presented
to Abdul-Latif Tibawi ... London 1977, 147-52) has
discussed this period in the life of al-RusafT. Khulusi
thinks that the poem which al-RusafT composed after
attending a lecture which Prof. A. Sh. Yehuda gave
on Arab civilisation at the invitation of Raghib
NashashTbT, the Mayor of Jerusalem, and which was
attended by Sir Herbert Samuel, the British High
Commissioner for Palestine, succeeded in diverting
the attention from the resolutions of the Palestinian
Arab Congress held at Haifa in December 1920 and
deflated the opposition to Samuel’s policy. In this
poem, al-RusafT praised the lecturer and the speech of
Sir Herbert Samuel, as well as the Arab-Jewish blood
ties, denying the accusation of their mutual enmity,
and finally expressing the Arab’s fear of being
expelled from their homeland Ila Herbert Samuel,
Diwdn, 429-37). The poem evoked strong protests
from Arab nationalists, and the Lebanese Maronite
poet Wadi* al-BustanT, who lived in Haifa, composed
a poem rebuking al-RusafT. This strong campaign
against him persuaded al-RusafT to accept an invita¬
tion to return to Baghdad in order to become the
editor of a newspaper in support of Talib Pasha al-
Naklb, who claimed the throne of c Irak.

One of the main questions asked by some Arab
writers, and especially by the c Iraki writer Hilal NadjI
in his al-Kawmiyya wa d-ishtirdkiyya fi shi c r al-Rusafi,
Beirut 1959, 108-9, is why al-RusafT did not deal with
the Palestinian question and why he did not attack in
his poetry the Zionist Movement in Palestine. The
answer may be that al-RusafT was a great supporter of
science, progress, socialism, woman’s liberation,
equality, freedom of thought and self-determination,
as Hilal NadjT himself observed in his work and as is
clear from several poems in al-RusafT’s Diwdn (see
e.g. Yawm Singhdfura, 473). It seems that he found all
these qualities among the Jewish settlers in Palestine,
hence admired them and did not criticise their
projects.

Al-RusafT left for c Irak, but the expulsion of al-
NakTb to India by the British in order to pave the way
for Prince Faysal to become King of c Irak put an end
to the publication of the newspaper. Instead, al-
RusafT was appointed a deputy director of the office of
translations, which he considered below his capability
and his glorious previous career. He felt that he was
being neglected and humiliated, at the time when
what he called “flatterers and those devoid of talents”
were attaining high and influential positions (Diwan,
426-8). At the end of 1922 he left for Beirut and
decided not to return to c Irak, but when he heard of
the elections to the first * Iraki Parliament he returned

616

MA C RUF al-RUSAFI

to Baghdad. There he published his daily newspaper
al-Amal (1 October-20 December 1923) whose edi¬
torials were his own, flattering British policy in c Irak.
He also tried to make peace with King Faysal I, but
to his great disappointment was not elected as an
M. P. At the end of 1923 he was appointed Inspector
of Arabic language in the Ministry of Education and
gave lectures at the Teachers’ College in Baghdad on
Arabic Literature, lectures that were partly published
in Durus ft ta^rikh adab al-lugha al- c Arabiyya , Ba gh dad
1928.

During this period he was in bad financial
circumstances, and wrote the most vicious poems
against King Faysal I, his government (especially
against officials of the Ministry of Education) and the
British (Diwan, 448-50, 460-71); some of these poems
remained unpublished and circulated orally or in
handwriting. In his poem Hukumat al-intiddb (“The
Mandatory Government”) ( Diwan , 461), he satirised
the c Iraki government as “False flag, constitution and
parliament”, and affirmed that the government was
enslaved by the British. In a poem, not included in his
Diwan (see Khattat, Rusafi, 139, and Hilal NadjI,
Safahat min hayal al-Rusafi, Cairo 1962, 80), he accused
King Faysal I of doing nothing but “counting days
and receiving his salary” and cursed him and his
palace, imploring its destruction. In order to escape
from his poverty, he wrote panegyrical poems to c Abd
al-Muhsin al-Sa c dun and others, asking for financial
support.

By the help of Sa c dun, he succeeded in being
elected as a member of the c Iraki Chamber of
Deputies (19 May 1928), but Sa c dun’s suicide on 13
November 1929 was a great loss to him, and he
elegised him in several poems (Diwan, 318-26). Later
on, however, al-RusafT succeeded several times in
being elected for a period of eight years in all between
11 November 1930 and 22 February 1939.

Between 1933-4 al-Rusafi lived in Falludja in
Diyala; there he wrote his work al-Shakhfiyya al-
Muhammadiyya, aw hall al-lughz al-mukaddas (“Muham¬
mad’s personality, or the solving of the holy
mystery”). S. A. Khulusi called it a magnum opus ,
adding that “according to his closest friends, he
advised that it should not be published before the year
A.D. 2000,” and stated that the book was described
as “heretical and ... that it abounds in many objec¬
tionable views” (Macruf ar-Rusdfi , in BSOAS, xiii/3
[1950], 619). A microfilm of the ms. is kept in the
Iraki Academy of Sciences.

From the middle of 1941, after the coup d'etat of
Rashid c AlI al-Kilanl, he returned to Ba gh dad, where
he lived in poverty. He supported the coup with his
poetry, satirising the British and the Regent c Abd al-
Ilah, as well as Nurl al-Sa c Id and other officials whom
he accused of corruption. With the failure of the coup,
followed by a massacre of the Jews known as the
Farhud , the British occupied Baghdad (2 June 1941).
Later on, al-Kflanl’s four lieutenant-colonels (“The
Golden Square”) were caught and hanged. Al-Ru$afT
composed a long elegy on the failure of the coup and
the hanging of some of its leaders, and threatened that
a day would come and that the royal family would be
destroyed by the army (Khattat, 159-60; NadjI, al-
Ishtirdkiyya , 44-5). However, he was not arrested, and
was left without support until he was forced to sell
cigarettes in a small shop.

In 1944 he published his Rasd^il al-taHikat (Ba gh dad
1944), which contained three refutations of two of
ZakI Mubarak’s works al-Tasawwuf al-Islami (1938)
and al-Nathr al-fanni (1934), and a third one of
Caetani’s work on the life of Muhammad in his Annali

de Flslarn (Milan 1905). Al-RusafT’s views on monism
expressed in his refutation of al-Tasawwuf al-Islami
caused tremendous criticism and anger and he was
accused of blasphemy. Fatwas were given against him
and for the banning of his book. It seems that these
attacks induced him to write his will, in which he
affirmed that he was a Muslim who believed in God
and in Muhammad, and that he believed in the
essence of the religion but not in its trivialities
(Mustafa C A1I, al-Rusafi, silati bihi, wasiyyatuhu,
mu^allafdtuh , Cairo 1948, 43, and Khattat. 188-9).

By the end of 1944, he was allotted 40 c IrakT dinars
a month by a rich and influential political personality,
Muzhir al-Shawl (d. 1958), to the end of his life,
which came on 16 March 1945.

The great fame of al-RusafT is based upon his
political and social poetry. The 6th edn. of Diwan al-
Rusafi (Beirut ? 1958) is divided into 11 sections of
different length: (1) On the universe (8 poems); (2)
Social topics (63 poems); (3) Philosophy (9 poems);
(4) Descriptions (59 poems); (5) Conflagrations (3
poems); (6) Elegies (24 poems); (7) On women (8
poems); (8) History (11 poems); (9) Politics (42
poems); (10) War (8 poems); (11) Short Poems (111
poems, the shortest being of 2 verses, some of them
improvised at receptions and parties and the longest
being of 29 verses). These sections contain altogether
346 poems. The longest poem is of 104 verses of
monorhyme, a biographical poem on Abu Bakr al-
Razi (Diwan, 358-66), and a narrative poem (Poverty
and illness) (ibid., 94-102) in 51 quintets. However,
the division of the poems into these precise sections is
arbitrary. Most poems are of monorhymes, in which
each verse is divided into two hemistichs, and in the
opening ones, both hemistichs are rhymed. A few
poems are of stanzaic form, such as one poem in
couplets; one poem is of three hemistichs to each
stanza; two in quartets; four in quintets, and three
muwa shsh ahs in the classical ten hemistichs form. Of
the four quintets, one is a versification according to
the modern theory of the formation of the universe
entitled al-Ar(l (“The globe”) (Diwan, 27-32), and the
second is a narrative poem on the consequence of
poverty in c Irak (ibid., 94-102). He composed poems
in difficult rhymes which are avoided by other poets
such as z,s,z,d,t and n, and at least eight poems, in the
last hemistichs of which the numerical value of letters
gives the date of their composition ( c ald hisab al-
djummal), a method which was used in the post-
classical period. However, most of his poems are
undated. Others were composed on the metre and
rhyme of well-known classical examples, especially
those of al-Mutanabbl and al-Ma c arrI [q.vv.], and
some have even quotations from pre-Islamic poets
and others.

At the end of his life, he became free of this classical
influence on style and metaphors and was able to use
in his political poetry a spontaneous and more flexible
style. The influence of al-Mutanabbl is clear also in
his personal behaviour, his pride, his honesty and his
endearing way in expressing his ideas. Like al-
Mutanabbl, he used proverbial sayings, and boasted
of his character and poetry in his panegyrics in which
he asked for alms, while the influence of al-Ma c arrI on
him was clear in his philosophical outlook and his
ideas on religion and God, including his scepticism
and monism. Unlike Ibn Sina [q.v.], al-RusafT was
sceptical about the eternity of the soul and its ascent
to heaven (Diwan, 182, 116, 189) and about religion
as a divine revelation: for him, religion was, rather,
an invention of wise thinkers for the benefit of
mankind (ibid., 187, 189). But like William Blake, he

MA C RUF al-RUSAFI — MARW al-RUDH

617

believed in the harmony and unity of body and soul
(; ibid ., 192-3), and even if the soul was supposed to be
eternal, he would be inclined to think that it had no
awareness of life. On the other hand, he urged on the
Arabs the need for a scientific and cultural revival, for
unity and liberty, and he defended the freedom of
women, especially of Muslim ones, in his poems on
women’s affairs and in others. He also defended
freedom of thought, behaviour and the press, and held
that it was up to a free man to violate customs and
traditions if he felt it necessary. He backed the
oppressed, the persecuted and the victims of society,
poverty and illness, and called for social security and
equality. He rebuked the Arabs for their stagnation
and apathy and for boasting of their old and glorious
history. A unique poem which shows his attitude
towards the oppressed and against religious fanaticism
is his poem “The orphan’s mother” ( Dvwdn , 39-42).
In this, he relates the story of an Armenian widow and
her orphaned son, both victims of religious fanaticism
and racial hatred, her husband having been killed in
the massacre of the Armenians in Turkey in 1915,
and he declares that Islam is innocent of such cruelty.
He also described new technical inventions such as the
telegraph, the railway, the car, the watch, etc., and
admired the inventions of the steam engine and of
electricity.

He favoured long metres which suited his
declamatory and rhetorical tone, such as tawil, wafir,
kamil , basil and khafif. Thought, not the emotions,
dominated his poetry. He expressed his ideas in a
direct and denotative style, not metaphorically or
symbolically, and was fond of a classical vocabulary.

In his scientific works, he witnessed to his wide and
profound knowledge of Arabic language and literature
as well as of Islam and its history; yet he depended
more on his talent and what he had studied during his
youth. His published works, according to the
chronological order of appearance are as follows:

(1) al-Ru^ya [a novel] by Namik Kemal, tr. from
Turkish into Arabic by al-Rusafi, Ba gh dad
1909.

(2) Diwan al-Rusafi , Beirut 1910, 2nd ed. Beirut
1932, 6 th ed. Beirut (?) 1958, with new poems
added. New edn., Beirut, Dar al- c Awda 1971,
with new poems added. Also Baghdad, Matba-
c at al-IJukuma 1974, 4 vols. ed. and annotated
by Mustafa c AlI.

(3) MadfinvPat al-anashid al-madrasiyya , lith., with
notes, Jerusalem 1921.

(4) Dafi al-hudfiia fi irtidakh al-lukna, Istanbul
1331/1912 (Arabic vocabulary used in the
Turkish language and vice versa).

(5) Nafh al-tib fi 'l-khitaba wa l-khatib, Istanbul
1336/1917.

( 6 ) TamaHm al-tarbiya wa ’ 1-taHim , Beirut 1924
(versified didactic and scientific subjects, for
school children).

(7) Muhddardt'al-adab al- c arabi, Baghdad 1339/1921.

(8) Muhadara fi salah al-lugha al- : arabiyya h ’l-tadris ,
Baghdad 1926.

(9) Durus fi tafikh al-lugha al- c arabiyya , Baghdad
1928.

(10) RasaHl al-taHikdt, Baghdad 1944.

(11) c Ala bab sidjn Abi al- x Ala* , Ba gh dad 1946 (a
commentary on Taha Husayn’s Ma c a Abi al-
x Ala? fi sidjnih).

( 12 ) c Alam al-dhubab , Baghdad 1945 (a commentary
on Risalat < alam al-dhubab by Dr. Fahk Shakir).

(13) al-Adab al-ra.fi- fi mizdn al-shPr, Baghdad 1968
(on Arabic prosody—metre and rhyme).

There are 6 other unpublished works which are still in

ms., the most important of which is al-Shakhsiyya al-
M uhammadiyya.

Bibliography: The first detailed biography on
al-Rusafi was written by the Egyptian scholar
Badawl Tabana, Ma c ruf al-Rusafi, dirdsa adabiyya li-
shdHr al- ( Irdk wa-bPatihi al-siydsiyya wa ’ l-idftimdHyya ,
Cairo 1947. Mustafa c AlI, al-Rusafi’s close friend,
corrected many details of this book which he
thought wrong in his work A dab al-Rusafi , Ba gh dad

1947. Later on, Mustafa c Afi wrote another book,
al-Rusafi, silati bihi, wasiyyatuhu, mu c allafdtuh , Cairo

1948, and his lectures in the Ma c had al-Dirasat al-

c Aliya in Cairo were published in his book
Muhddardt c an Ma c ruf al-Rusafi , Cairo 1953. Other
friends of al-Rusafi wrote also about him, including
Nu c man Mahir aI-Kan c am and Sa c id al-Badrf, al-
Rusafifiafiudmihi al-akhira , Ba gh dad 1950; Sa c Id al-
Badri, c Ard? al-Rusafi , Ba gh dad 1951; c Abd al-
Sahib Shukr, c Abkariyyat al-Rusafi , Ba g hdad 1958;
Sa c Id al-Badrl, Dhikrd al-Rusafi , Ba g hdad 1959;
Talib al-Samarrafi, al-Rusafi dhalika al-insan ,
Ba gh dad 1959. Other books on Rusafi are Hilal
Nadji, Safahat min hayat al-Rusafi wa-adabih , Cairo
1962, which contains poems and letters by al-
Rusafi praising the generosity of c Abd al-Madjld
and Muzhir al-Shawi. Another important book by
NadjT is al-Kawmiyya wa 'l-ishtirdkiyya fi shi c r al-
Rusafi, Beirut 1959. See also c Abd al-Latlf Sharara.
al-Rusafi , Beirut 1964; Djalal al-Hanafi, al-Rusafifi
awdfih wa-hadidih , Baghdad 1962; and Kasim al-
Khattat. Mustafa c Abd al-Latlf al-Saharti and
Muhammad c Abd al-Mun c im Khafadji. Ma c ruf al-
Rusafi shdHr al- c Arab al-kabir, hayatuh wa-shi x ruh,
Cairo 1971; at the end of this last book there is a
comprehensive bibliography of books and articles
in Arabic language only (381-9). Beside the two
articles in English by Safa Khulusi mentioned
above in the text, see Brockelmann, S III, 488-9; L.
Massignon, EI\ art. s.v.; Y. A. Dagher, Masadir
al-dirdsa al-adabiyya, HI 1: al-Rahilun (1800-1955),
Beirut 1956, 388-92; Yusuf c Izz al-Din Shu^ara^ al-
c Irak fi d-karn al- c ishrin Baghdad 1960, 17-28, where
he gives an interview made by Kamil al-Djadirdjl
with al-Rusafi before his death; Salma Kh. Jayyusi,
Trends and movements in modern Arabic poetry , Leiden
1977, i, 188-93. (S. Moreh)

MARUN AL- NAKKASH [see al-nakkash].
MARUT [see harut wa-marut],

MARW AL- RUDH. a t own on the Murghab
river in mediaeval Khurasan, five or six stages up
river from the city of Marw al-Shahidjan [q.v.], where
the river leaves the mountainous region of Gharcistan
(see ghardjistan] and enters the steppe lands of what
is now the southern part of the Kara Kum [q~v.\. The
site seems to be marked by the ruins at the modern
Afghan town of Bala Mur gh ab (in lat. 35° 35' N. and
long 63° 20' E.) described by C. E. Yate in his North¬
ern Afghanistan or letters from the Afghan Boundary Commis¬
sion , Edinburgh and London 1888 , 208; the modern
settlement of Marucak or Marw-i Kucik apparently
marks the dependency of Marw al-Rudh mentioned
by the mediaeval geographers as-Kasr-i Ahnaf. At
present, Bala Murghab falls within the post-1964
administrative reorganisation Badghls province of
A fgh anistan.

Marw al-Rudh’s name, “Marw on the river”, or
that ol “Little Marw” served to distinguish it from
the larger centre of Marw al-Shahidjan. The pre-
lslamic name of the place was in MP Marvirot, Arme¬
nian Mrot, later, giving the Arabic nisbas of al-
Marwarrudhr and al-Marrudhl. The foundation of
the town was attributed to Bahram Gur. In 553 a

618

MARW al-RUDH — MARW al-SHAHIDJAN

Nestorian bishopric of Marw al-Rudh is mentioned,
and at the time of the Islamic conquest in 32/652 the
local governor Badham became a client of the Arabs
(Marquart, Erdnsahr, 75-6; Markwart-Messina, A
catalogue of the provincial capitals of Erdnshahr, Rome
1931, 44; M.A. Shaban, The c Abbasid revolution,
Cambridge 1970, 21-2). In the early c Abbasid period,
ca. 160/777, in the governorships of Humayd b.
Kahtaba and c Abd al-Malik b. Yazid, Marw al-
Rudh, Talakan and Guzgan were in the hands of the
Kharidjite rebel Yusuf al-Barm al-Thakafi (Gardlzl,
Zayn al-akhbar, ed. HabibT, 126).

The geographers of the 4th/10th century describe it
as being in a flourishing agricultural region, with
dependent settlements such as Diza and Kasr (or
Diz)-i Ahnaf and with its Friday mosque built on
wooden columns in the middle of the covered market.
Al-Mukaddasi states that in his time (ca. 370/980) it
depended administratively on the local rulers, the
Shirs, of Gharcistan and that the appearance and
speech of the local people resembled that of the moun¬
tain peoples of Gharcistan (314; see also al-Istakhrl.
269-70; Ibn Hawkal 2 , 441-2, tr. Kramers and Wiet,
427; Hudud al- c alam, 105, comm. 328, spelling the
name as Marud). The district flourished under the
Saldjuks. Malik-Shah built defences at the nearby
town ofPandj-dih, and Sandjar built Marw al-Rudh’s
wall, 5,000 paces in circumference and still standing
in MustawfT’s time (158-9, tr. 155). The area was
much fought-over in the warfare of the Ghurids and
Kh w arazm-Shahs, and a sharp battle took place near
Marw al-Rudh between the Ghurid rivals for
supremacy in Khurasan Ghiyath al-Dm Muhammad
and Sultan-Shah (Djuwaynl-Boyle, i, 298). Marw al-
Rudh must accordingly have escaped the devastations
which the Mongols wrought at Marw al-Shahidjan.
but appears to have become ruinous in Timurid
times.

Bibliography (in additions to references given
in the article): Le Strange, Lands, 404-5; Barthold,
Merverrud, in ZVOIRAO, xiv (1902), 028-032; idem,
Istoriko-geograficeskiy obzor Irana, St. Petersburg
1903, 25, Eng. tr. S. Soucek, An historical geography
of Iran, Princeton 1984, 35-6; Barthold, Turkestan 3 ,
79. _ _ (C. E. Bosworth)

MARW al- SH AHI DJ AN or simply Marw, the
city which dominated the rich but notoriously
unhealthy oasis region of classical and mediaeval
Islamic times along the lower course of the
Murghab river on the northeastern fringes of
Persia, also called “Great Marw”. Formerly within
the historic province of Khurasan [q.v.\, the seat of
pre-Islamic wardens of the marches and often of
provincial governors in Islamic times, its site (“Old
Merv”) and the nearby modern settlement of Bairam
Ali (see below) fall today within the Turkmenistan
SSR. The name Marw al-Shahidjan “Royal Marw”
clearly relates to Marw’s role as the seat of represen¬
tatives of royal authority, guarding this bastion of the
Iranian world against barbarians from the Inner
Asian steppes, and is contrasted with the name of the
smaller town of Marw al-Rudh [q. v. ] “Marw on the
river”, situated further up the river. Concerning the
basic element of the name, Marw, we find in Avestan
Mo u ry-, and in OP Marghu, MP Marv, indicating
the existence of both a labialised form like Marv and
a spirantised one like Margh (see Markwart-Messina,
A catalogue of the provincial capitals of Erdnshahr, Rome
1931, 45-6). The Arabic nisba is al-Marwazi, cf. al-
Sam c anl, Ansdb, facs. ed. Margoliouth, f. 523b.

As a result of the work of V. A. Zhukovski
(Razvalim starogo Aierva) and W. Barthold ( K istorii

orosheniya Turkestana, reprinted in Socineniya , iii,
Moscow 1965, see 136-56), we are better informed on
the history of Marw than on that of any other town in
Persia or Central Asia. Literary sources alone are not
sufficient to enable us to fix the date to which history
goes back in the valley of the Murghab. Archaeology
alone could supply the information, but the
archaeology of this region has not yet adequately been
studied. We are therefore only able to give the follow¬
ing facts. In the Achaemenid period (6th-4th centuries
B.C.), we find a highly developed agricultural
community in the region of the Murghab incor¬
porated in the Persian state. Details on this point are
given by Greek writers of antiquity, in particular, the
geographers and historians of the campaigns of Alex¬
ander the Great (336-323 B.C.). The Greeks found in
this region not only a settled population but also a
rural society practising agriculture on a very high
level. They grew the vine and made good wine.

Classical sources refer to the Murghab as the
Margus river and to the region of Marw as Margiana;
authors like Pliny attribute the foundation of the city
to Alexander, but it seems that we are on surer
ground in attributing this, or conceivably its refoun¬
ding, to the slightly later Seleucid king Antiochus I
Soter (280-261 B.C.). To this same period belongs the
building of the wall intended to protect the
agricultural zone from the nomads of the steppe, then
inhabited by the predecessors of the Turkish people.
There is no reason, it seems, to doubt the date of the
foundation of Marw, but only archaeology can settle
the question definitely. To what date does the earliest
building in the area of Marw, that is, the citadel,
belong? The fact that already several centuries before
our era we find agriculture highly developed shows
that the valley of the Murghab had a system of
artificial irrigation. The rapid development of the
oasis of Marw was due not only to this but also to the
fact that in the Parthian period the great caravan
route which linked Western Asia with China passed
through Marw. The caravan from Western Asia went
from Marw to Balkh. thence via the Darwaz and the
northern part of Badakhshan, then on to the Alay,
Kashgar and finally to China. In the Sasanid period,
the trade-route was moved further north. Caravans
went from Marw to Cardjuy, Samarkand and
Semirecye or the land of the Seven Rivers. Marw was
not only an emporium on the trade-route but a great
industrial city. It is, however, only after the Arab
conquest that history gives us ample details of the life
of the city.

By utilising the information supplied by the Arab
historians and geographers, we can obtain a fair
picture of what Marw was like in their period and in
antiquity. To understand the part played by Marw in
the economic life of Western Asia and Central Asia,
we have to study ail that the Arab geographers and
administrative historians of the 4th/ 10th century tell
us about the system of irrigation. These sources
record a highly-organised system of supervision and
upkeep of the irrigation canals, under a mutawalli or
mukassim al-ma? , corresponding to the general Persian
term for a local irrigation official, vnir-ab [see ma\ 6.
Irrigation in Persia]. Ibn Hawkal and al-MukaddasT
report that this chief of irrigation had an extensive
staff to keep the channels in repair, including a group
of divers ( gh awwdsun). There was a dam across the
Mur gh ab above the city, and the supply of water from
this store was regulated and measured by a metering
device, called by al-Mukaddasi a mikyas on analogy
with the famous Nilometer [see mikyas], comprising
essentially a wooden plank with intervals marked at

MARW al-SHAHIDJAN

619

each shaHra. An office called the diwan al-kastabzud (<
Pers. hast u afzud “decrease and increase”) kept a
record of all those entitled to shares in the water. See
on all this, E. Wiedemann, Beitrag X. Zur Technik bei
den Arabern, in SBPMS Erlg., xxxviii (1906), 307-13 =
Aufsdtze zur arabischen Wissenschajtsgeschichte, i, Hildes-
heim 1970, 272-8; C.E. Bosworth, Abu c Abdallah al-
Khwdrazmi on the technical terms of the secretary's art , in
JESHO, xii (1969), 151 ff.

It is to the 2nd-7th/8th-13th centuries that the great
economic prosperity of the oasis of Marw belongs,
with a highly developed system of exchanges.
Numerous technical and agricultural methods of
cultures were developed, except the cultivation of
wheat, which was imported from the valleys of
Kashka-Darya and Zarafshan. The people cultivated
the silkworm. Shortly before the coming of the
Mongols, there was at Kharak to the south-west of
M^rw a “house” called al-Dlwakush, where
sericulture was studied. Al-Istakhri. 263, says that
Marw exported the most raw silk; its silk factories
were celebrated. The oasis was also famous for its fine
cotton which, according to al-Istakhri, was exported,
raw or manufactured, to different lands; see on the
textiles of Marw, R.B. Serjeant, Islamic textiles, material
for a history up to the Mongol conquest , Beirut 1972, 87-90.
The district of Marw also contained a number of large
estates which assured their owners considerable
revenue. According to al-Tabari (ii, 1952-3), in the
2 nd/8th century whole villages belonged to one man.
In the absence of legal documents, little is known of
the life of the peasants. It is evident, however, that
they were bound by feudal bonds to their lords
(<dihkans ), and paid them at the time of the Arab
conquest in kind and in the 2nd-4th/8th-10th
centuries in kind and money. No evidence of the
amount of these payments has come down to us. The
town, built in the centre of a highly cultivated area,
was destined to have a brilliant future. If we also
remember that it had become one of the great
emporiums on the caravan routes between Western
and Central Asia and Mongolia and China, we can
easily realise how the city grew so rapidly with its
manufactures, markets and agriculture. At the pres¬
ent day, within the area of the old region of Marw, we
can see three sites of ancient towns: 1. Gavur-Ka c Ia,
corresponding to the town of Marw of the Sasanid and
early Muslim period; 2. Sultan-Kal c a quite close to
the preceding on the west side. This is the Marw of
the 2nd-7th/8th-l 3th centuries, which was destroyed
by the Mongols in 1221; and lastly 3. c Abd Allah-
Khan-Kal c a south of Sultan-Kal c a-Marw, rebuilt by
Shah Rukh in 812/1409. This is all that remains of the
famous city, including its nearer environs.

The citadel of Marw, contemporary with the town
built on the Gavur-Kal c a area, goes back to a date
earlier than that of the town itself. The latter (Gavur-
Kal c a) must be recognised as the earliest site (called
shahristan ); it grew up around the castle of a great lord
(dihkan ), i.e. around the citadel itself. The shahristan
can hardly be earlier than the beginnings of the town
of Marw, but it will only be by excavation that the
problem of the date of the earliest habitations in the
citadel will be settled.

The Arabs on their arrival found the western
quarter so much increased that it was by then the most
important part of the town. It is to this part that the
Arab geographers give the name of rabad. The market
was at first on the edge of the shahristan near the “Gate
of the Town”, not far from the western wall, and one
part of it extended beyond this wall as the Razik
canal. The great mosque was built by the Arabs in the

middle of the shahristan (al-MukaddasI, 311). Little by
little, with the moving of the life of the town towards
the rabad , the administrative and religious centre of
the town was moved thither also. On the bank of the
Razik Canal was built the second mosque which at the
beginning of the 3rd/9th century was allotted by al-
Ma 3 mun to the Shaft c Is. In the middle of the 2nd/8th
century, in the time of the revolutionary leader Abu
Muslim, the centre was moved still farther westward
to the banks of the Madjan Canal. At this date, the
town was gradually occupying the site of the rabad.
The town of Marw in the 2nd-7th/8th-13th centuries
was therefore no longer Gavur-Kal c a, but the town of
which ruins still exist to the west of the latter, now
known as Sultan-Kal c a. But the shahristan did not lose
its importance at once. The site of the old town on
Suftan-Kal c a is in the form of a triangle, elongated
from north to south with an area equal to that of
Gavur-Kal c a. It is surrounded by a fine wall built of
unbaked brick, with several towers and other
buildings belonging to the fortress. The latter was
rebuilt by order of Sultan Malik-Shah [q.v. ] in 462-
72/1070-80. It is one of the most splendid buildings of
the period.

In the time of the Arab geographers, the two towns
with their suburbs were surrounded by a wall,
remains of which still exist. As regards the wall built
in the time of Antiochus I, its remains were still visible
in the 4th/10th century and are mentioned by al-
Istakhrl. 260, under the name of al-Ray.

The social structure of the town of Marw in the
period when it took the place of Sultan-Kal c a changed
a great deal, like the social and economic life of
Western and Central Asia generally. The growth of
cities, the development of urban life, the exchange of
city products for those of the country and those of the
nomads of the steppes, the expansion of caravan traf¬
fic, now no longer limited to the trade in luxuries, all
these encouraged the growth of new classes of society.
It was no longer the dihkans who were the great lords
of the town of Marw in the 2nd-7th/8th-13th
centuries, although in Gavur-Kal c a, however, their
kushks existed down to the end of the 6th/12th century;
it was the rich merchants and an aristocracy of
officials who were masters. Although both were
connected with the local aristocracy, it was no longer
agriculture but trade and property in the town which
were their sources of wealth. Similarly, a change was
taking place in the position of the artisans who had
long ceased to be the serfs of the dihkans. Down to the
3rd/9th century, a number of men still paid feudal
dues to the dihkans. From then onwards, they seem to
have been free. The appearance of the town also
changed as regards both topography and buildings.
While in the shahristan (Gavur-Kal c a) the bazar was at
the end of the town and in part outside of it, when the
rabad attracted urban life to it, the markets and
workshops became the centre of the town. Marw
(Sultan-Kal c a) became in the 5th/11th century a
commercial city of the regular oriental type. It was
traversed by two main streets, one running north and
south, and the other east and west; where they
intersected was the carsu, the centre of the market,
roofed by a dome; the shops had flat roofs. It was
there also that were to be found the little shops of the
artisans, and although the literary sources only
mention the money-changers’, the goldsmiths’ and
the tanners’ quarters, there also must have been the
quarters of the weavers, coppersmiths, potters, etc. It
was not only the administrative and religious centre,
for it also contained the palaces, the mosques,
madrasas and other buildings. For example, to the

620

MARW al-SHAHIDJAN

north of the car six was the great mosque, already built
in the time of Abu Muslim, which survived till the
Mongol invasion, if we may believe Yakut. It must,
however, have been frequently rebuilt. Yakut also
says that beside the great mosque was a domed
mausoleum, built on the tomb of Sultan Sandjar; its
mosque was separated from it by a window with a
grill. The great dome of the mausoleum of turquoise
blue could be seen at a distance of a day’s journey.
Within the walls which surrounded the mosque was
another mosque built at the end of the 6th/12th
century which belonged to the Shafi c Is. In the period
of Yakut, it seems that the domed building erected by
Abu Muslim in baked brick, 55 cubits in height, with
several porticoes—which is said by al-Istakhri to have
served as a dar al-imdra or “house of administra¬
tion”—no longer existed. It used to stand close to the
great mosque built by Abu Muslim. The town of
Marw in this period—in addition to its great wall—
had inner ramparts which separated the different
quarters of the town. The city was famous for its
libraries, and Yakut spent nearly two years there just
before the Mongol cataclysm working in these
libraries (on the topography of mediaeval Marw, see
Le Strange, Lands, 397-403).

Regarding the history of Marw, the city was under
the Sasanids the seat of the Marzbdn of the north¬
eastern marches, Marw being the farthest outpost of
the empire, beyond which lay the city-states of
Soghdia, the kingdom of Kh w arazm and steppe
powers like the Western Turks. Marw may be the Ho¬
mo (for Mo-ho) of the Chinese Buddhist traveller
Hiuen-tsang, and on a Chinese map of the early 14th
century it appears as Ma-li-wu (Bretschneider,
Mediaeval researches, ii, 103-4). Nestorian Christianity
flourished there until the Mongol period, and its
ecclesiastical leaders are often mentioned as present at
synods; before 553 it was a bishopric, and thereafter
a metropolitanate (see Marquart, Eransahr , 75-6). It
was the metropolitan Iliya who buried the body of the
slain Yazdigird III at Pa-yi Baban (al-Tabari, i, 2881,
2883), and there was a monastery of Masardjasan
lying to the north of Sultan-Kal c a (ibid., ii, 1925;
Yakut, Buldan, ii, 684).

The last Sasanid Yazdigird fled before the invading
Arabs to Marw and was killed there in 31/651 by the
Marzbdn Mahul Surf, so that the city acquired in
Persian lore the opprobrious name of khudah-dushman
“inimical to kings” (al-Tabari, i, 2872). It was
conquered in this year for the _Arabs by the governor
of Khurasan c Abd Allah b. c Amir b. Kurayz [q.v.},
who made a treaty with Mahul on the basis of a large
tribute of between one and two million dirhams plus
200,000 djaribs of wheat and barley; the local dihkans
of the oasis were to be responsible for the tribute’s
collection, and the soldiers of the Arab garrison were
to be quartered on the houses of the people of Marw.
There was thus from the start a basic difference in
settlement pattern from that in the great amsarof c Irak
and Persia, where the Arabs built distinct encamp¬
ments as centres of their power. c Abd Allah b. c Amir
left a garrison of 4,000 men in Marw, and then in
51/671 Ziyad b. Ablhi [q. v. ] sent out 50,000 families
from Basra and Kufa, who were then settled in the
villages of the oasis by the governor al-Rabi* b. Ziyad
al-Harithl. A process of assimilation with the local
Iranian population now began, especially as some
Arabs began to acquire taxable land in the coun¬
tryside, and so became financially subject to the
dihkans. These atypical social conditions of the Marw
oasis may have contributed to Marw’s role in the later
Umayyad period as the focal point in the east for the

c Abbasid da c wa , for the propaganda of the
Hashimiyya du c at seems early to have made headway
among the settled and assimilated Arab elements.
Some c Abbasid agents were discovered there and
executed in 118/736, and soon afterwards, a commit¬
tee of twelve nukabad, headed by Sulayman b. Kathlr
al-Khuza c I, was formed. Abu Salama al-Khallal [q.v. ]
was in Marw in 126/746, and two years later Abu
Muslim [q.v.] arrived as representative of the
c Abbasid imam Ibrahim b. Muhammad b. C A1I b.
c Abd Allah b. c Abbas. Abu Muslim took advantage of
the tribal strife of Kays and Yaman, and the
assimilated population of Arabs, whose fiscal
grievances had not been fully redressed by the
tentative reforms of the Umayyad governor Nasr b.
Sayyar [q.v.] in 121/739, aided by Yamanls against
Nasr and his North Arab supporters, so that by early
130/748, Abu Muslim was in control of Marw (thus
the interpretation of M.A. Shaban, The c Abbasid
revolution , Cambridge 1970, 129 ff., 138 ff.; idem,
Islamic history A. D. 600-750 (A. H. 132), a new interpreta¬
tion, Cambridge 1971, 84-5, 173-5, 177, 182-5).

Under the early c Abbasids, Marw continued to be
the capital of the east, despite a humid and unpleasant
climate (it was notorious for the guinea worm, filaria
medinensis ), and was for instance the seat of al-
Ma 3 mun whilst he was governor of the eastern prov¬
inces and whilst he was caliph until the year 202/817,
when he left for Baghdad. The Tahirid governors of
Khurasan, however, followed here by their
supplanters the Saffarids, preferred to make their
capital at Nlshapur, although Marw remained the
chief commercial centre of Khurasan, and continued
to flourish under the Samanids. Nevertheless, the
disorders in Khurasan during the last decades of
Samanid rule, when power was disputed by ambitious
military commanders, seem adversely to have affected
Marw’s prosperity. Al-MukaddasI, writing ca. 980,
says that one-third of the rabad or outer town was
ruinous, and the citadel too had been destroyed;
moreover, the city was racked by the sectarian strife
and factionalism which seems to have been rampant
in the towns of Khurasan at this time (311-12; on the
Shaft C I madhhab in Marw—where the Hanafis in fact
had a preponderance—see H. Halm, Die Ausbreitung
der safiHtischen Rechtsschule von den Anfangen bis zum
8.114. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 1974, 83-90).

But under the Saldjuks, the fortunes of Marw
revived. It transferred its allegiance from the
Gh aznawids to the Turkmens in 428/1037, and
became the capital of Caghrt Beg Dawud [q.v.], ruler
of the eastern half of the newly-established Saldjuk
empire, and from ca. 1110, that of Sandjar [q.v.],
viceroy of the east. The latter’s father Malik-Shah had
built a wall of 12,300 paces round the city, which in
Sandjar’s time underwent attack from various of the
Saldjuk’s enemies, such as the Kh w arazm-Shah Atsiz
[q.v.], who in 536/1141-2 raided Marw and carried off
the state treasury. It was at Marw that Sandjar built
his celebrated mausoleum, 27 m. square in plan and
called the Dar al-Akhira “Abode of the hereafter” (see
on this, G. A. Pugacenkova, Puti razvitiya arkhitektun
Yuzhnogo Turkmenistana, Moscow 1958, 315 ff.).
Under Sandjar’s rule, the Turkmens of the steppes
around Marw were under the control of a Saldjuk
shihna or police official, but when in 548/1153 these
Oqhuz or Ghuzz rebelled against this control and
defeated Sandjar, Marw fell under the nomads’
control, and the latter held on to it, together with
Balkh and Sarakhs, until the Kh w arazm-Shahs
imposed their rule in northern Khurasan. Marw
suffered terribly in the time of the first Mongol inva-

621

MARW al-SHAHIDJAN — MARWAN I

sions, when Kh w arazmian rule was overthrown. It
was savagely sacked by Toluy’s followers (beginning
of 618/1221). According to Ibn al-Athlr, xii, 256,
700,000 people were massacred, and according to
Djuwayni, tr. Boyle, i, 163-4, 300,000; even if one
allows for the customary hyperbole, it nevertheless
remains true that Marw’s prosperity was dealt a blow
from which it took two centuries to recover. MustawfT
found Marw still largely in ruins in the mid-8th/14th
century, and with the sands of the Kara Kum
encroaching on the arable lands of the oasis ( Nuzha,
156-7, tr. 153-4).

What then remains of the town of the 2nd-7th/8th-
13th centuries—in addition to the wall already
mentioned? The whole site of Sultan-Kal c a is covered
with mounds and hillocks, formed on the sites of
ancient buildings. Everywhere one sees great piles of
bricks, whole and broken, and fragments of pottery,
plain and glazed. In the centre, like a memorial of the
great past, rises the domed mausoleum of Sultan
Sandjar mentioned by Yakut, one of the finest
buildings of the 6th/12th century. The question arises
whether it had any connection with the “house of
administration’’ with a dome and several porticoes
mentioned by al-Istakhri. The Marw of this period
contains numerous buildings within the area of
Sultan-Kal c a, as well as outside its walls, especially
the western suburb, the subject since 1946 of
archaeological investigations by M.E. Masson. In
808/1406 the TTmurid ruler Shahrukh endeavoured to
restore prosperity to this region, which had at one
time been a flourishing oasis. Hafiz-i Abru gives us
details of his scheme. The dam was rebuilt on its old
site and the water restored to its old channel; but only
a portion of the oasis could be irrigated. The town was
rebuilt, but not on the old site because water could not
be brought in sufficient quantity to Sultan-Kal c a. The
town of Marw of this period corresponds to the old
town of c Abd Allah-Khan-Kal c a (popular legend
wrongly attributing its building to the Shavbanid
c Abd Allah b. Iskandar (991-1006/1583-98 [^.i>.]), the
area of which was much less than that of Marw of the
Mongol period, covering about three hundred square
poles. The town of Marw of this period cannot be
compared with that of the pre-Mongol period. In
time, Marw and its oasis declined more and more. In
the period of the Safawid kingdom, it was the object
of continual attacks on the part of the Ozbegs, which
could not help affecting it.

An almost mortal blow was dealt it at the end of the
18th century. Ma c sum Khan (later called Shah
Murad), son of the atalik [q.v . in Suppl.) Daniyal Biy
of the newly-founded Mangit [q. v. ] dynasty of amirs in
Bukhara, attacked the Kadjar Turkmen local lord of
Old Marw, Bayram c Ali Khan, killing him in 1785.
Shah Murad also destroyed the Sultan-Band, the dam
across the Murghab 30 miles/48 km. above Marw,
and thereby reduced the economic prosperity of the
region (F.H. Skrine and E.D. Ross, The heart of Asia,
a history of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian khanates
from the earliest limes, London 1899, 206). Conse¬
quently, the traveller Alexander Burnes found Marw
in ruins and the surrounding district in complete
neglect (Travels into Bokhara, London 1834, ii, 23 ff.,
37-8, 258-60).

In 1884 the Marw oasis was occupied by the
Russian army, and secured in the following year from
an Afghan threat by General Komarov’s victory.
From 1887 onwards, attempts were made, with
considerable success, to revive the agricultural pros¬
perity of the devastated region by the building of two
dams on the Murghab, that of Hindu-Kush and that

of Sultan-Band. The Transcaspian railway line from
Krasnovodsk to Bukhara. Samarkand and Tashkent
passed through c Ashkabad and Marw, and from
Marw a branch was built southwards to Kushka on
the Afghan frontier. In Tsarist times within the oblast
of Transcaspia, Marw has since 1924 come within the
Turkmenistan S.S.R. In 1935 the modern settlement
of Bairam Ali was founded in the Marw region, and
this town is now the chef-lieu of the rayon of the same
name. In 1969 it had a population of 31,000, with
flourishing cotton textile and dairy products industries
(see BSE 3 , ii, 534).

Bibliography (in addition to references given
in the article): E. O’Donovan, The Merv oasis.
Travels and adventures east of the Caspian during the years
1879-80-81 , London 1882; V. A. Zhukovskii,
Razvalini starogo Merva, St. Petersburg 1894; W.
Barthold, K istorii Merva, in ZVORAO , xix (1910),
115-38= Socineniya, iv, 172-95; idem, Istoriko-
geograficeskii obzor lrana, St. Petersburg 1903, ch.
2 = Socineniya, vii, 60-9, Eng. tr. Princeton 1983,
35-46; idem, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion,
index; E. Cohn-Wiener, Die Ruinen der Seldschuken-
Stadt von Merv und das Mausoleum Sultan Sandschars , in
Jahrb. der Asiatische Kunst, ii (1925), 114-22.

(A. Yu. Yakubovskii - [C. E. Bosworth])
al- MARW A [ see al-safa].

MARWAN I b. al-HAKAM b. Abi ’l- c As, Abu T
Kasim and then Abu c Abd al-Malik, fi rst cali ph of
the Marwanid branch of the Umayyad
dynasty [q.v.], reigned for several months in
64-5/684-5.

Marwan, born of al-Hakam’s wife Amina bt.
‘■Alkama al-Kinaniyya, stemmed from the same
branch of the Umayyad clan of Kuraysh, sc. Abu
T c As, as the Rightly-guided caliph c Uthman, and
was in fact c Uthman’s cousin. The sources generally
place his birth in A.H. 2 or 4 ( ca. 623-6), but it may
well have occurred before the Hidfra\ in any case, he
must have known the Prophet and was accounted a
Companion. He became secretary to c Uthman when
he already had a considerable reputation for his
profound knowledge of the Holy Book (al-Mada 3 im,
in al-Baladhurl. Ansdb, v, 125: min akra 3 al-nas li'l-
Kur^dn), and doubtless helped in the recension of what
became the canonical text of the Kurban in that
caliph’s reign [see kur^an. 3]. Also during this reign,
he took part in an expedition into North Africa, and
it was apparently his share of the rich plunder from
this which laid the foundations of Marwan’s extensive
personal fortune, invested in property in Medina; and
it is further mentioned that he was for a while a gover¬
nor in Fars. He was wounded at the Yawm al-dar, the
defence of c Uthman’s house in Medina against the
insurgents of the Egyptian army in_ 35/656, and
fought at the Battle of the Camel with c A 3 isha and her
allies [see al-djamal], but seized the opportunity
personally to slay Talha, whom he regarded as the
most culpable person in the murder of c Uthman.
Somewhat surprisingly, he then gave allegiance to
c Ali after the battle.

During Mu c awiya’s caliphate, Marwan was gover¬
nor of Bahrayn and then had two spells as governor
of Medina, 41-8/661-8 and 54-7/674-7, alternating
with his kinsmen Sa c Id b. al- c As and al-Walld b.
c Utba. It was during these years that he acquired from
the caliph the estate, with its lucrative palm groves, of
Fadak [q.v.\, which he subsequently passed on to his
sons c Abd al-Malik and c Abd al- c AzTz. It is possible
that Mu c awiya latterly grew suspicious of Marwan’s
ambitions for his family, especially as the family of
Abu T c As was perceptibly more numerous than that

622

MARWAN 1

of Harb, Mu c awiya’s grandfather; Marwan himself
had, according to al-Baladhurl, Ansab, v, 164, ten
sons and two daughters, and al-Tha c alibi. LataHf ,
136, tr. 107-8, states that he further had ten brothers
and was the paternal uncle of ten of his nephews. It
may have been fears of the family of Abu ’l- c As that
impelled Mu c awiya to his adoption ( istilhak ) of his
putative half-brother Ziyad b. Sumayya [see ziyad b.
abThi] and to the unusual step of naming his son
YazTd as heir to the caliphate during his own lifetime.
There was certainly a lack (with the exception of al-
Walld b. c Utba, Mu c awiya’s nephew) of mature,
experienced Sufyanids to succeed Mu c awiya, whereas
at the time of the expulsion of the Umayyads from the
Hidjaz (see below), Marwan was the most senior of
the Umayyads and the only one whom the Prophet
had known {shoykh kablr in ihe sources, probably refer¬
ring as much to his prestige and authority as to his
age).

When the difficulties arose in 60/680 over Yazid b.
Mu c awiya’s succession, involving a refusal of
allegiance by the cities of the Hidjaz, Marwan advised
the governor of Medina, al-Walld b. c Utba, to use
force against the rebels. After the withdrawal of the
expeditionary force of Muslim b. c Ukba al-Murrl and
its return to Syria (beginning of 64/autumn 683), the
Umayyads and their clients who had been previously
expelled but had returned with Yazld’s troops,
comprising principally members of the lines of al- c As
under c Amr b. Sa c Td al-Ashdak ( q. v. ] and of Abu ’1-As
under Marwan, were forced by the partisans of the
anti-caliph c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr [ q.v .] to abandon
their properties in the Hidjaz and flee to Syria for a
second time. Marwan was back in Syria by the begin¬
ning of 684, and some accounts say that he went in the
first place to Palmyra rather than to the court of the
ephemeral caliph Mu c awiya II b. YazTd [q.v.] at
Damascus. With the latter’s death, and in face of the
widespread support, even in Palestine and northern
Syria, for a Zubayrid caliph, Marwan despaired of
any future for the Umayyads as rulers, and was him¬
self inclined to give his allegiance to c Abd Allah b. al-
Zubayr. But heartened by the urgings of c Ubayd
Allah b. Ziyad b. AbThi [q.v.], Marwan allowed his
own candidacy to go forward at the meeting of Syrians
at al-Djabiya [?.y.] convoked to hail a successor to
Mu c awiya II, and with the support of the leader of
Djudham, Rawh b. Zinba c , was hailed as caliph, with
Khalid b. YazTd b. Mu c awiya [q.v. ] and c Amr b.
Sa c Td al-Ashdak named as next heirs. With this
acclamation and the support of the Kalb under Ibn
Bahdal [see hassan b. malik], Marwan was able to
defeat the Kays under al-Dahhak b. Kays al-FihrT
q.v.] at the battle of Mardj Rahit [ 9 . 0 .], probably to
ue placed in July or early August 684. Then shortly
after his installation as caliph in Damascus, Marwan
married Umm Hashim Fakhita bt. AbT Hashim b.
c Utba, the widow of YazTd I and mother of his two
sons; this diplomatic alliance gave him a link with the
Sufyanids.

Marwan was now able to consolidate his position in
Syria and Palestine. His short reign was filled with
military activity, beginning with the expulsion of the
Zubayrid governor, c Abd al-Rahman b. c Utba al-
FihrT, called Ibn Djahdam, from Egypt. Marwan
seems to have secured that province by Radjab
65/February-March 685, leaving there as governor
his son c Abd al- c AzTz. Although the sources are
confused here, it seems that Marwan’s forces also
repelled a Zubayrid attack on Palestine led by Mus c ab
b. al-Zubayr [g.y. ]. It is possible, but not certain, that
a Marwanid army itself invaded the Hidjaz under

Hubaysh b. Duldja, but was repelled at al-Rabadha
[q.v. ) to the east of Medina. Marwan certainly took
steps to secure c lrak, which had declared for the
Zubayrid cause, sending an army under c Ubayd
Allah b. Ziyad which by-passed the hostile KaysT
centre of KirkTsiya in al-DjazIra and had reached al-
Rakka when the news of Marwan’s death arrived.

This last event took place in the spring of 65/685,
possibly as a result of a plague which was affecting
Syria at this time. The date of Marwan’s death is
variously given in the sources: Elias of Nisibin has 7
May, and the Islamic historians such dates as 3
Ramadan/13 April (al-Mas c udi, Tanbih) and 29
Sha c ban-1 Ramadan/10-11 April (Ibn Sa c d, al-
KhalTfa b. Khayvat. al-Tabari). The place of his
death is given by several authorities as Damascus (Ibn
Sa c d, al-Tabari, al-Mas c udT, Tanbih ), but by al-
Ya c kubT and al-Mas c udT, Muridy, , as al-Sinnabra on
the Lake of Tiberias, a place used, it seems, as a
winter residence by the early Umayyads. The length
of his reign is placed at between six and ten months.
Even less certain is Marwan’s age when he died; the
sources make him at least 63, but he may well have
been over 70.

On the occasion of the successful outcome of the
Egyptian expedition, Marwan had taken the oppor¬
tunity to vest the succession in his own sons c Abd al-
Malik and c Abd al- c AzTz [q.vv.], and it was accord¬
ingly the former who succeeded to the caliphate in
Damascus after Marwan’s death, apparently without
opposition (at least, at this moment) from the two
heirs designated at al-Djabiya, c Amr b. Sa c Td and
Khalid b. YazTd, but now set aside.

Marwan’s life had been crowded with action, above
all in its later years, filled with military campaignings
and the negotiations surrounding his succession to the
caliphate. He seems to have suffered severe after¬
effects from various wounds, and his tall and
emaciated frame earned him the nickname of khayt
bdtil “insubstantial, gossamer-like thread” (see al-
Tha c alibi, Latd^if, 35-6, tr. 56). His brusqueness and
lack of the social graces resulted in his being described
as jahish “uncouth”. Later, anti-Umayyad tradition
stigmatised him as tarid ibn tarid “outlawed son of an
outlaw”, associating him with his father al-Hakam
who was allegedly exiled by the Prophet to Ta 3 if, and
as abu ’ l-djabdbira “father of tyrants” because his son
and five of his grandsons subsequently succeeded to
the caliphate. But he was obviously a military leader
and statesman of great skill and decisiveness, amply
endowed with the qualities of hilm [q. v. ] and dahiya,
shrewdness, which characterised other outstanding
members of the Umayyad clan. His attainment of the
caliphate, starting from a position without many
natural advantages beyond his own personal qualities
(for he had no power-base in Syria and had spent the
greater part of his career in the Hidjaz), enabled his
successor c Abd al-Malik to place the Ummayyad
caliphate on a firm footing so that it was able to
endure for over 60 years more.

Bibliography : 1. Sources. The main his¬
torical sources for early Islam all contain relevant
material. See al-Khallfa b. Khayyat, Ta^rikh,
index; Ya c kubl, Ta\ikh , ii, 304-6 and index;
Tabari, index; Kindi, Wuldt Misr, ed. Guest, 42-8;
Mas c udT, Murudy. , iv, 271-4, 277-9, v, 197-209 =
§§ 1596-7, 1601-2, 1961-72 and index; idem,
Tanbih , 292, 304, 307-12, tr. Carra de Vaux, 383,
395, 399-404. There are biographical sections de¬
voted to Marwan in Ibn Sa c d, v, 24-30; BaladhurT,
Ansab al-ashraf , v, ed. Goitein, 125-64; Ibn
Kutayba, Aia c ariJ ’, ed. c Ukkasha, 353-5; Ibn al-

MARWAN I — MARWAN II

623

Athlr, Usd al-ghaba, ii, 33-5 (al-Hakam), iv, 348-9
(Marwan). Adab works like Ibn c Abd Rabbihi’s
Hkd , IsfahanI’s A g hdni and Tha c alibl’s Lata?ij al-
ma c arif (fvzvz cited ed. Abyarl and Sayraft, and Eng.
tr. Bosworth, The book of curious and entertaining infor¬
mation) contain much anecdotal material.

2. Studies. Th. Noldeke, Zur Geschichte der
Omajjaden , in ZDMG, lv (1901), 683-91; H.
Lam mens, Etudes sur le regne du calife Mo c awia I n , in
MFOB, i (1906), 27-9, 34-9, ii (1907), 94-132;
idem, Le califat de Yazid I a , in MFOB , iv (1910),
294-5, v (1913-12), 88-9, 93, 115; F. Buhl, Zur
Krisis der Umajjadenherrschaft im J. 684, in ZA, xxvii
(1912), 50-64; Lammens, Mocawia II ou le dernier des
Sofianides , in RSO, vii (1915), 37-8; idem, L'avene-
ment des Marwanides et le califat de Marwan I er , in
MFOB, xii (1927), 43-147; A. A. c Abd Dixon, The
Umayyad caliphate 65-86/684-705 (a political study),
London 1971, 17-19; G. Rotter, Die Umayyaden und
der zweite Burgerkrieg (680-692), Wiesbaden 1982,
115-26, 135-65; G. R. Hawting, The first dynasty of
Islam : the Umayyad caliphate A.D. 661-750 , London
and Sydney, 1986, 46-8. (C. E. Bosworth)

MARWAN II b. Muhammad b. Marwan b. al-
Hakam, the last of the Umayyad caliphs of
Syria (reigned 127/744 to 132/749-50) was, on his
father’s side, a grandson of the caliph Marwan I
[q.v.], but there are variant accounts concerning his
mother and the year of his birth. It is frequently
reported that his mother was a non-Arab woman
(sometimes specified as a Kurd) who passed into the
possession of Marwan’s father Muhammad after
c Abd al-Malik’s defeat of Mus c ab b. al-Zubayr and
his general Ibrahim b. al-Ashtar in 72/691. Some
reports say that the woman was already pregnant
when Muhammad took possession of her and that she
gave birth to Marwan “on the bed of Muhammad”.
A number of the nasab works fail to refer to Marwan’s
mother, a fact which perhaps confirms that at least she
was not known to belong to one of the important Arab
families. If his mother was indeed pregnant when
taken from the Zubayrids, then 73/692 would be a
likely year for his birth, but al-Tabari, ii, 940, has a
specific reference to it under 76/695-6. Statements of
his age at the time of his death in 132/750 vary
between 58 and 69. In tradition two lakabs, again
variously explained, are attached to Marwan’s name:
al-Dja c dT and Himar al-DjazTra (or simply al-Himar,
“the ass”). The former is usually said to be derived
from the ism of Dja c d b. Dirham [see ibn dirham]
who, it is asserted, acted as Marwan's tutor (mu^addib;
see Fihrist, i, 337-8; cf. Ibn al-Kalbl, Diamharat al-
nasab , Kuwayt 1983, 156-7). The explanation of the
name al-Himar is equally uncertain; in modern works
it is often claimed that it refers to Marwan's resolution
and bravery in battle, but Bar Hebraeus ( Chron -
ography , tr. Wallis Budge, i, 111) says that it referred
to Marwan’s fondness for “the ass’s flower” (for the
ward al-himar , i.e. the peony?, or chrysanthemum?,
see Dozy, SuppL, s.v. ward). Al-Tabari's story (ii,
1912) about the Abyssinian who insulted Marwan’s
forces by performing lewd actions involving an ass’s
penis on the walls of Hims does not seem to be an
attempt to account for the name but rather implies
that it was already current.

Information on Marwan’s career before his seizure
of the caliphate centres on his activities in the Adhar-
baydjan, Armenia and Caucasus region. Following
the defeat of al-Djarrah b. c Abd Allah al-Hakaml by
the Khazars in 112/730, it seems that Marwan accom¬
panied his cousin Maslama b. c Abd al-Malik [q. tr]
who had been appointed over the region by the caliph

Hisham with the task of restoring the position of the
Muslims in Armenia and the southern Caucasus.
Having distinguished himself in the fighting, Marwan
became governor of Adharbaydjan and Armenia for
Hisham. although there is some confusion as to
whether he immediately succeeded Maslama as gover¬
nor in 114/732, as al-Tabari (ii, 1562, 1573) implies,
or whether he rather followed Sa c Id b. c Amr al-
Harashi in the office (al-Baladhurl, Futuh, 207). If the
latter is the case, then the beginnings of Marwan’s
governorship should probably be dated to 116/734 or
117/735. As governor, he supported in Armenia the
Bagratids against the rival Mamikonians, sending
Gregory and David Mamikonian into exile when they
refused to accept his appointment of Ashot Bagrat as
Bitrlk of Armenia. Faced with the continuing threat
from the Khazars to the north, the Armenians
cooperated with the Muslims, and Armenian forces
played an important part in the expedition which
Marwan led into the Caucasus in 119/737 (J.
Laurent, L’Armenie entre Byzance et I'Islam , Paris 1919,
339-40 (2nd ed. by M. Canard, Lisbon 1980, 422); R.
Grousset, Histoire de TArmenie, Paris 1947, 315-19; D.
M. Dunlop, The history of the Jewish Khazars , Princeton
1954, 80-7). It is noteworthy too that Armenian
troops are later reported to have played a part in
helping Marwan to establish his authority over Syria
following the death of Yazid b. al-Walld (e.g.,
Dennett, Marwan b. Muhammad, 240, citing the
chronicle of Levond).

Two passages of al-Tabari (ii, 1941, 1944) refer to
Marwan’s adopting the military formation known as
the kurdus (pi. karadis) and abandoning that called the
saff (pi. sufuf). A kurdus was a relative small and
compact detachment of soldiers (usually cavalry),
while the sufuf were the more traditional long lines in
which the Arabs organised themselves for battle. It
has sometimes been suggested that Marwan was the
first to introduce the kurdus formation into the Muslim
armies and that his experience in fighting on the
northern borders where Byzantine influence was
strong (xoopxK has been proposed as the source of the
Arabic word; S. Fraenkel, Aramdischen Fremdworter,
239) led him to do so. However, whether Marwan was
really the first to use this formation among the
Muslims is doubtful (R. Levy, The social structure of
Islam , Cambridge 1957, 430) and it is notable that al-
Tabarl’s reports do not, in any case, relate to the
period of Marwan’s fighting on the northern frontier
but to the later fighting against Kharidjites in
Mesopotamia after he had seized the caliphate.

It seems that Marwan had already contemplated
marching south into Syria and taking a hand in affairs
when Walld II was overthrown and killed and Yazid
III became caliph in Djumada II 126/April 744, but
had been foiled by the dissent of the Kalbls in his
army led by Thabit b. Nu c aym. During the short
caliphate of Yazid III, Marwan then acted as gover¬
nor of Mesopotamia, basing himself in the Kaysi
centre of Harran. With the death of Yazid III in Dh u
THidjdja 126/September 744, he refused to accept
the authority of the nominated successor, Ibrahim
brother of Yazid III, and crossed the Euphrates with
his army. At this stage, it seems that he did not put
himself forward as a candidate for the caliphate but
merely as the champion of the two sons of the
murdered Walld II, who were imprisoned in
Damascus. With the support of the Kays! contingent
of Kinnasrln, he established control over Hims and
northern Syria and then defeated a Kalb! force led by
Sulayman b. Hisham at c Ayn al-Djarr on the road
from Damascus to Baalbek. In the aftermath of this

624

MARWAN II

battle the two sons of Walld II were murdered in
Damascus, Ibrahim and Sulayman b. Hisham fled to
the Kalbi centre of Palmyra, and Marwan was able to
enter Damascus. There, it is said on the initiative of
Abu Muhammad of the Sufyanid branch of the
Umayyad family, who claimed that the two sons of
Walld II had named Marwan as their successor, he
was recognised as caliph and given the bay 1 'a in Safar
127/December 744. Subsequently, Ibrahim and
Sulayman b. Hisham accepted his authority and were
granted aman. Marwan did not, however, choose to
remain in Syria but moved back to Harran in
Mesopotamia where, presumably, he felt more
secure. For the First time an Umayyad caliph attemp¬
ted to rule from outside Syria.

Faced, however, with a rebellion in Syria he soon
had to return there. The rebellion started among the
Kalb of Palestine led by Thabit b. Nu c aym and
quickly spread to the north where Hims came out in
opposition to Marwan. In Shawwal 127/July 745
Marwan in person obtained the resubmission of Hims
and then sent a force south to relieve Damascus,
under attack from Yazld b. Khalid al-Kasrl. Yazld
was defeated and killed, and Marwan’s army went on
to capture Thabit b. Nu c aym who was attacking
Tiberias. Thabit was executed and the KalbT settle¬
ment of al-Mizza near Damascus put to Fire. Finally,
al-Abrash al-Kalbi in Palmyra agreed to surrender to
Marwan, and it seemed that his rule over Syria was
again secure. At this point he called the Umayyad
family together and had the bay c a given to his two sons
as his successors. But the opposition to Marwan in
Syria was not yet over. When he raised a Syrian
contingent to join the Mesopotamian army under
Yazld Ibn Hubayra [see ibn hubayra], which was
attempting to establish Marwan’s authority in c Irak,
it deserted as it passed by al-Rusafa where Sulayman
b. Hisham lived, and the Syrians recognised
Sulayman in opposition to Marwan. Sulayman took
possession of Kinnasrin and attracted support from
the rest of Syria. Withdrawing most of his Mesopota¬
mian troops from Ibn Hubayra’s force, Marwan
attacked and defeated Sulayman near Kinnasrin and
the vanquished Umayyad fled with the remnants of
his army to Him? and thence, leaving his forces there
under the command of his brother, to Kufa via
Palmyra. Marwan now besieged Hims for the second
time, and when the town Finally submitted after
several months he had its walls rased together with
those of several other major Syrian towns. By the
summer of 128/746 Marwan had finally established
his control over Syria.

The extension of his authority over c Irak and all of
Mesopotamia took even longer. Initially, he had
attempted to weaken the governor of c Irak appointed
by Yazld III, c Abd Allah b. c Umar b. c Abd al- c Az!z,
and to replace him with the Kaysl al-Nacjr b. Sa c Id al-
Harashl. Both rival governors were then over¬
whelmed, in 127/745, by the Kharidjite movement
which had begun in Mesopotamia among the tribe of
Shayban and which is associated with the leadership
of al-Dahhak b. Kays al-Shavbam. The latter estab¬
lished himself in Kufa but in the spring of 128/746
returned north and occupied Mawsil, seeking to take
advantage of Marwan’s difficulties in Syria.
Marwan’s son c Abd Allah, however, was able to hold
the Kharidjites in check until Marwan had completed
his subjugation of Hims and could divert his forces to
the east to deal with the threat. In the late summer
Marwan defeated and killed al-Dahhak, under whom
Sulayman b. Hisham now fought, and the Kharidjites
had to abandon Mawsil. In the following year they

were Finally driven out of Mesopotamia and their
danger ended when Marwan was able to withdraw
men from c Irak to deploy against them and their new
leader Abu Dulaf. That Marwan was able to
withdraw men from c Irak was a consequence of the
victories there in late 129/spring 747 of his general
Yazld Ibn Hubayra, who had defeated both the
Kharidjite governor of Kufa and the c Alid c Abd Allah
b. Mu c awiya \q . v. ], until then holding sway over large
areas of western and south-western Iran.

The domination which Marwan had established by
the end of 129/summer of 747 was to be ended two
years later by the rising of the Hashimiyya which had
already begun in Khurasan in Ramadan 129/June
747. By Rabi* II 132/November 749 the armies of the
Hashimiyya had destroyed Umayyad rule in Persia
and c Irak and the c Abbasid caliphate had been
proclaimed in Kufa. In Djumada II 132/January 750
Marwan himself led his forces in a last attempt to
defeat the insurgents at the battle of the Greater Zab,
and the destruction of his army there signalled the end
of Umayyad power. Marwan himself escaped with a
small band of supporters and fled through Syria to
Egypt pursued by an c Abbasid force. They Finally
caught him in Dhu ’1-Ka c da 132/June 750 at Bu§ir in
the province of Ushmunayn in Upper Egypt, and
there the last Umayyad caliph fell after a short
struggle.

Marwan’s career illustrates some of the weaknesses
affecting the later Umayyad caliphate. He had
obtained power as a result of his close links with the
predominantly Kaysi army of the north Mesopota¬
mian frontier in opposition to the Kalbl-based regime
of Yazld III. This close identiFication of the caliph
with a particular faction clearly diminished the
religious and moral claims of the Umayyad caliphate.
Furthermore, his attempt to move the centre of the
caliphate to Mesopotamia reflects the way in which
Syria, hitherto the base of Umayyad rule, had itself
been engulfed by the factionalism among the Arabs.
It may seem that Marwan was unfortunate in that,
having Finally consolidated his authority over the
central provinces, he was so soon overthrown by a
movement which originated outside his control. In
reality, however, the Umayyad state had been so
weakened by its fundamental inability to satisfy the
demands of Islam and by the factionalism among the
Arab soldiers that it is doubtful whether even
Marwan’s forceful and energetic personality could
have signiFicantly prolonged it.

Bibliography: In addition to the indices to the
more important Arabic works of ta^rikh and adab,
such as Tabari, Ya c kubl, Baladhurl. Futuh ,
Mas c udl, Murudi, and Ibn c Abd Rabbihi, c Ikd (for
which the Analytical indices , to the Cairo 1321
edition, prepared by M. Shafi c . Calcutta 1935, are
useful), see the entries on Marwan II in Baladhurl.
Ansab al-ashraf, and Ibn c Asakir, Ta^rtkh madinat
Dimashk , the relevant parts of which are still in ms.;
for a summary of the latter, see the article on
Marwan in $alah al-Dln al-Munadjdjid, Mu c djam
Bant Umayya, Beirut 1970; for the references to
Marwan in the K. al-Aghani , the compiler of which,
Abu ’1-Faradj al-Isfaham, is claimed as a descen¬
dant of his, see Aghani, Tables alphabetiques .
Furthermore, the Syriac, Armenian and Georgian
sources listed in the secondary literature cited in the
second paragraph above are important for specific
aspects of Marwan’s career from a non-Muslim
viewpoint. Among modern works see J. Well-
hausen, Das arabischc Reich und sein Sturz, Berlin
1902 (Eng. tr., The Arab kingdom and its fall , Calcutta

MARWAN

625

1927); D. C. Dennett, Marwan Ibn Muhammad: the
passing of the Umayyad caliphate , unpubl. Ph.D.
thesis, Harvard 1939; Abu Djayb al-Sa c di, Marwan
b. Muhammad wa-asbab sukut al-dawla al-umawiyya,
Beirut 1972; P. Crone, Slaves on horses, Cambridge
1980; Hannelore Schonig, Das Sendschreiben des
c Abdalhamid b. Yahya (gest. 132/750) und den Kron-
prinzen c Abdallah b. Marwan 11, Stuttgart 1985.

(G. R. Hawting)

MARWAN al-Akbar b.ABI HAFSA and MAR¬
WAN al-Asghar b. ABI i- DT ANUB. the most
famous members of a family which included
several poets; al-Tha c alibi characterises it as the
most poetic of families in Islam, with six poets
amongst its members.

The origins of the family’s ancestor Abu Hafsa
Yazld are obscure. He was a mawld of the Umayyad
Marwan b. al-Hakam, whom he aided on various
historical occasions during the caliphate of c Uthman
and under C A1I. It is impossible to decide exactly
whether he was of Persian or Jewish origin. Freed by
Marwan, he was entrusted with certain posts,
including the collecting of the taxation from Medina.
He married a girl from B. c AmIr of the Yamama, and
his descendents were always to have close relations
with that region of Arabia. One of them, Marwan al-
Asghar, claimed that this woman was the grand¬
daughter of al-Nabigha al-Dja c dI, which would
explain the poetic talent of the family. The ancestor
Yazld wrote verses (the Fihrist however, describes him
as mukill). His son Yahya was held in esteem by c Abd
al-Malik b. Marwan and had relations with Djarlr.
The Fihrist attributes to him a diwan of 20 leaves, of
which only a small part has come down to us. The
eulogy which he addressed to al-Walld b. c Abd al-
Malik on the occasion of his accession to the caliphate
is especially prosaic and conventional.

It is his grandson, Abu ’l-Simt Marwan b.
Sulayman, who can be considered as the first impor¬
tant poet of the family. He left the Yamama for
Baghdad, thus confirming the fact that it was impos¬
sible to attain literary fame when living remote from
the capital. With a personality which was moreover
strange, sordidly avaricious, clumsy and unscru¬
pulous, he would arrive at the palace clad in rags,
despite the enormous sums which the caliphs gave him
for his poems. He seems to have steered his career
forward with intelligence and prudence, and attached
himself to the great personality of Abu ’l-Walld Ma c n
b. Za 3 ida [q.v. ], to whom he came to owe his fame. He
wrote for him numerous eulogies and a famous elegy
in -Id considered as a model of its kind, and so fine
that both al-Mansur and al-Mahdl took offence at a
piece of praise which they considered excessive. Each
of them is reputed to have excluded him from their
madjlis for a whole year for this reason. But he was
always recalled and found fresh favour with the ruler.
This is attributable to the fact that he showed himself
as a fierce opponent of the c Alids and on every occa¬
sion proclaimed forth the legitimacy of the c Abbasids.
He was one of that group of poets who, like e.g.
Mansur al-Namarl, based their existence on their
fidelity to the ruling power. He was accordingly
rewarded with a prodigality which all the historians of
literature stress. He was assassinated and died in ca.
181/797 in obscure circumstances.

Marwan b. Abl Hafsa must be considered as a great
classical poet. His supple and lexically straightforward
vocabulary, and his clear syntax, contributed to his
aim as a panegyrist who carefully sought formulae
which would appear striking to his audience’s minds.
He was a master of the well-turned utterance; his

poetry is expansive, strongly rhythmical, and his
phrases follow each other in a continuous movement
which gives his kasida the strength of an oratorical
period. He was thus, at the end of the 2nd/8th
century, one of the best representatives of shFr
minbarT. Moreover, he worked over his poems with
great care, as e.g. Zuhayr and al-Hutay 5 a had done
before him. He would read them over to grammarians
in order to get their advice on his language, which
does not seem to have been of the purest. It is said that
Bashshar corrected his verses. Al-Asma c I, a severe
judge if ever there was one, considered him as a
muwallad who never mastered the language. In the
halka of the philologist Yunus, which he frequented in
company with Khalaf al-Ahmar, he was caught out
over the explanation of a word used by Zuhayr. Yet
Ibn al-A c rab! considered him to be the last of the great
poets. In fact, these verdicts are not contradictory, but
simply show an evolution. The poets of the 2nd/8th
century no longer mastered all the Arabic lexicon, and
scholars could thus catch them out. Marwan
represents indeed the type of these utterers of set
pieces who, illustrating the academic tradition of
poetry, were to serve in the 3rd/9th century as the
definition of the aesthetic of that kind of beauty
described as poetic.

The Fihrist attributes 100 leaves to Idris, Marwan’s
brother, but it is the name of his grandson Abu ’1-
Simt Marwan b. Abi ’1-Djanub which found a niche
in posterity as the last good poet of this family. It is
correct that this particular person knew how to take
up a central position on the scene. He was even more
a professional eulogist than his grandfather, and was
successively brought into the circles of al-Ma^mun, al-
Mu c tasim and then al-Wathik. The latter reproached
him for being excessively close to his brother al-
Mutawakkil and exiled him. Al-Mutawakkil’s succes¬
sion signalled his return to grace, and he went on to
become one of the liveliest elements of the caliphal
circles of literature. As well as the considerable sums
which he got for his poems, he was awarded the gover¬
norship of the Yamama and Bahrayn. Al-Muntasir
ordered him to return to the Yamama, where all trace
of him is lost.

Marwan b. Abi ’l-Djanub kept up the anti- c Alid
tradition characteristic of the whole family since the
time of its founder. The most shining part of his fame
came from his remarkable gift as a satirist. Recover¬
ing once more the verse of the swashbucklers of the
lst/7th century, he directed his shafts against several
members of the court circle, in particular, C A1I b. al-
Djahm, his favourite target, and C A1I b. Yahya b. al-
Munadjdjim. He was savage and coarse, and quick to
discover chinks in people’s armour; he used any
weapon to hand, and did nor scruple to use mendacity
when he was short of arguments, all of which gave
great joy to the caliph, who took a keen pleasure in
following these kinds of clashes.

Marwan al-Asghar seems to us inferior as a poet to
his grandfather. He was most at ease in attacking
people, and his eulogies, even if they contain some
Fine verses, use above all the conventional material of
this type of poetry. Caught between Abu Tammam
on one side, and al-Buhturi and Ibn al-Ruml on the
other, it was hard for him to aspire to the top posi¬
tions. Moreover, he lacked the inspiration of Di c bil
and the nobility of tone of C A1I b. al-Djahm. After
him, talent left the family. His son Muhammad and
his grandson Futuh, to whom the Fihrist attributes 50
and 100 leaves respectively, were merely hack
versifiers.

Bibliography. Agham, x, 74, xii, 71, xxiii, 96;

626

MARWAN — MARWANIDS

$ull, Akhbar al-Buhturi, index; Fihrist, Cairo edn.,
234-5; Ibn AbT Tayfur, Kitab Baghdad, 126, 156;
Shabushti, Kitab aTDiydrat, 8 and n. 24; Ibn
Kutayba, Shi c r, 649, 739; Marzubanl, Mu'-djam,
137, 321-2; idem, Muwa shsh ah. 390 ff, 462 ff.; Ibn
al-Mu c tazz, Tabakdt al-shu'-ara? , 392-3; Khatlb
Baghdadi. Ta^rikh Baghdad , xiii, 142, 153-5;

Tabari, index; Ibn Rashlk, < Umda, index;
Tha c alibl, Lata'if al-ma^arif, Cairo 1960, 70-4, tr.
Bosworth, The book of curious and entertaining informa¬
tion, Edinburgh 1968, 75-8; Ibn Khallikan.

Wafayat , v, 189, no. 716, 244, no. 732 (notice on
Ma c n b. Za 5 ida); Ibn al-Djarrah, Waraka, 44-6; J.
E. Bencheikh, Le cenacle poetique du calife al-
Mutawakkil (m. 247), contribution a Tanalyse des
instances de legitimation socio-litteraires , in Melanges H.
Laoust. /, BEO, xxix (1977), 33-52; Muneerah al-
Rasheed, The Abu Hafsah family of poets, together with
a critical edition of the poetry of the principal members of
the family, unpubl. Manchester Ph.D. thesis 1980.

(J.E. Bencheikh)

MARWANIDS, the branch of the Umayyad
dynasty of Arab caliphs in early Islam, who
formed the second, and most long-lasting line of this
dynasty, the first line being that of Sufyanids, that of
Mu c awiya I b. Abl Sufyan b. Harb [q.v.], his son and
his grandson (41-64/661-83). With the death of the
child Mu c awiya II b. Yazid [q. v. ], the caliphate
passed to Mu c awiya I’s second cousin Marwan b. al-
Hakam b. Abi T c As, of the parallel branch of the
A c yas [q.v. in Suppl.]. Marwan and his descendants
now formed the Marwanid line of the Umayyads (64-
132/684-750), his son and successor c Abd al-Malik
[q.v.] being the progenitor of all the subsequent
caliphs with the exceptions of c Umar II [q.v.], son of
c Abd al-Malik’s brother c Abd al- c Az!z, and the last
caliph Marwan b. Muhammad b. al-Hakam.

For the general history of the dynasty, see
umayyads, and also the articles on individual rulers.

(Ed.)

MARWANIDS, a dynasty of Kurdish ori¬
gin who, having ousted the Hamdanids [q.v.], ruled
Diyar Bakr from 380/990-1 to 478/1085. The founder
of the dynasty, a Kurdish chief named Badh. seized
the city of Mayyafarikln [q.v. ] after the death of the
Buyid ruler c Adud al-Dawla (373/983), and then took
Amid, Na$Ibm and Akhlat (Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 25; Ibn
al-Azrak, 49-52). Badh successfully fended off attacks
both from a Buyid army sent against him and from
the Hamdanids, but was killed by a coalition of
Hamdanid and c Ukaylid forces after his unsuccessful
attempt to take Mawsil (380/990).

The dynasty itself, however, takes its name not
from Badh but from Marwan, a miller who had
married Badh’s sister. It was their son Abu c AlI al-
Hasan b. Marwan who, having withdrawn after
Badh’s death in 380/990 to Hisn Kayfa, married his
uncle’s widow, routed the Hamdanids on two occa¬
sions and took possession of Mayyafarikln and Amid
(Ibn al-Azrak, 59-60; Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 50). After his
murder at Amid in 387/997, his brother Mumahhid
al-Dawla Sa c Id ruled until 401/1011. These two
precarious reigns paved the way for the accession of a
third brother, Nasr al-Dawla Ahmad [</.i>.], whose
rule marks the apogee of Marwanid power.

Nasr al-Dawla was recognised as ruler of Diyar
Bakr by the Buyid amir Sultan al-Dawla, by the
Fafimid caliph al-Hakim, and by the Byzantine
emperor, all of whom soon sent envoys and
congratulatory messages to him (Ibn al-Azrak. 103).
Indeed, Nasr al-Dawla in his long reign (401-83/1011-
61) was to practise a skilful policy of accommodation

and self-preservation with all three powers. He also
had to contend with Bedouin Arab dynasties such as
the c Ukaylids and the Mirdasids [q.vv.], who wielded
power in Northern Syria and al-Djazira, and to whom
he was forced to cede Naslbln and Edessa res¬
pectively.

The 6th/12th century chronicler of al-Djazira. Ibn
al-Azrak al-Farikl, gives in his chronicle a very full
account of Marwanid rule. Nasr al-Dawla was
fortunate to have the services of two capable viziers,
Abu ’1-Kasim al-Husayn al-Maghribl, who died in
office (428/1037), and whose biography is given by
Ibn Khallikan [see al-maghribi. banu] and the even
more famous Fakhr al-Dawla Ibn Djahlr [see djahir,
banu]. Under Na§r al-Dawla, Diyar Bakr enjoyed a
high level of stability and commercial and cultural
prosperity. The Marwanid court at Mayyafarikln was
frequented by prominent c ulama :> and poets, such as
the Shafi c I c alim c Abd Allah al-Kazarunl (d. 455/1063)
(Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 52) and the poet al-Tihami (d.
416/1025-6) (Ibn al-Azrak, 82). Nasir-i Khusraw
visited Mayyafarikln in 438/1046 and was much
impressed by it ( Safar-nama, ed. Muhammad Dablr-
Siyakl, Tehran 1335/1956, 8-11).

Nasr al-Dawla emerges as a flamboyant ruler with
political acumen and extravagant tastes. His religious
stance appears to have been a pragmatic one, suitable
for the ruler of a vulnerable buffer state surrounded
by greater powers of the most divergent confessional
loyalties. It seems likely that he ruled a predominantly
Christian population in the towns of Diyar Bakr and
that he enjoyed a good relationship with Byzantium.
Indeed, the emperor Constantine X asked him for
help in procuring the release of the Georgian prince
Liparit from the Saldjuk sultan Toghrfl (Ibn al-Athlr,
ix, 372-3). It is probable that Nasr al-Dawla was
persuaded for a short while from 430/1038-9 to give
the khutba in favour of the Fatimid al-Mustan§ir (Ibn
Khaldun, Hbar, iv, 318), but it is also noteworthy that
in that same reign, c Abd Allah al-Kazaruni went to
Mayyafarikln and spread the Shafi c T madhhab through¬
out Diyar Bakr (Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 52).

In traditional fashion, Nasr al-Dawla is praised for
strengthening the frontiers and for building bridges
and citadels, and these laudatory statements of Ibn al-
Azrak are confirmed by the evidence of Marwanid
inscriptions found on the walls of Amid. Indeed,
according to the evidence of an inscription dated
445/1053-4 on a marble slab in the Bab Hifta in
Jerusalem, Na§r al-Dawla was also responsible for
establishing two houses for the use of pilgrims there
(Burgoyne, 118-21). The sources comment on the
immense wealth accumulated by Nasr al-Dawla. He is
also said to have possessed 360 concubines who did
not, however, prevent him from meticulous observ¬
ance of the morning prayer. He was interested in
gastronomical pleasures, too, and sent his cooks to
Egypt to learn to culinary arts of that country (Ibn al-
Athlr, x, 11).

When the Saldjuk sultan Toghrfl advanced into
Diyar Bakr (448/1056-7), he did not aim at abolishing
the Marwanid state, so Na$r al-Dawla recognised his
suzerainty and kept his lands. Toghrfl wrote to him
confirming his role as a frontier lord fighting the
infidels and exhorting him to continue in this task
(Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 275).

On the death of Na§r al-Dawla (453/1061), the
power and prestige of the dynasty declined markedly.
His son Nizam al-DTn Nasr succeeded him, at first
only in Mayyafarikln and then two years later (having
overcome his brother Sa c id) in Amid too. On the
death of Nizam al-Dln (472/1079) his son Nasir al-

MARWAN1DS — al-MARWAZI

627

Dawla Mansur, the last Marwanid ruler, came to
power. The vizier Ibn Djahir, who had left Diyar
Bakr for Baghdad, used his influence with Malik-
Shah and Nizam al-Mulk to persuade them to bring
the Marwanid dynasty to an end and to seize their
treasures. In 478/1085 Diyar Bakr fell to lbn Djahir
and direct Saldjuk control was imposed (Ibn al-Athlr,
x, 93-4). Ibn Djahir took their treasury for himself
and the last Marwanid ruler Mansur was given
Djazlrat Ibn c Umar, where he lived on until
489/1096.

Bibliography. 1. Primary sources: Ibn al-
Azrak al-Farikl, Ta^rikh Mayydfarikin wa-Amid , ed.
B. A. L. Awad, Cairo 1959, passim ; Ibn al-Athir,
ix, 25, 49-52, 272-6, 372-3, 416, x, 11,86, 93, 151,
174; Ibn Khallikan, tr. de Slane; Ibn Khaldun,
Cairo 1847, iv, 315-21. 2. Secondary sources:
H. F. Amedroz, The Marwanid dynasty at Mayya .-
fdriqin in the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D., in JR AS
(1903), 123-54; M. van Berchem and J.

Strzygowski, Amida, Heidelberg and Paris, 1910,
22-37; A. Gabriel, Voyages archeologiques dans la
Turquie orientale , Paris 1940; C. E. Bosworth, in
Camb. hist, of Iran, v, 24, 97-8; M. H. Burgoyne, A
recently discovered Marwanid inscription in Jerusalem , in
Levant , xiv (1982), 118-21; Zambaur, Manuel , 135.
See also EI l marwanids, nasr al-dawla; and EP
DIYAR BAKR. (CAROLE HiLLENBRAND)

MARWANIYYA, a branch of the Khal-
watiyya Sufi order [q.v. J in Egypt, named after
Marwan _b. c Abid al-Muta c al (d. 1329/1911). His
father, c Abid al-Muta c al b. c Abd al-Muta c al (d.
1299/1881-2), had been initiated into the Khalwatiyya
order by Husayn al-Musaylihl (cf. Mubarak, Kbit at.
xv, 45), a khalifa \q .».] of Muhammad al-Hifnl’s disci¬
ple Muhammad b. c Abd Allah al-ShintinawI. c Abid
al-Muta c al later obtained al-khildfa and acted as a
sjiaykh of his own Khalwatiyya order, which had not
yet differentiated itself, either in name or in practice,
from Mustafa Kamal al-Dln al-Bakrl’s version of the
Khalwatiyya. as transmitted by al-Bakrl’s khalifa al-
Hifnl. From early 1912 onwards, under c Abid al-
Muta c al’s son, Marwan, the order was presented
under a name of its own, al-Marwaniyya. The
original silsila [q. v. ] going back to al-Bakrl was drop¬
ped and replaced by another silsila which was identical
with c Abid’s genealogy (cf. c Abd al-Muta c al al-
HamzawT al-Marwanl, Tahdhib al-is c afat al-rabbdniyya
bi 'l-awrad al-Marwaniyya, Cairo 1330/1912, 61-4). In
addition, the order’s link with the Khalwatiyya tradi¬
tion, which had been cultivated and propagated by
Mustafa Kamal al-Dln al-Bakrl, was cut when the
reading of Yahya al-Shirwanl al-Bakubl’s Wird al-
sattdr —which according to al-Bakrl, is the pivot of
Khalwatiyya ritual—was abandoned and when, at the
same time, private and communal reading (in the
hadras [q. v. ]) of al-Bakrl’s ahzab [see hizb]) was
replaced by the reading of salawat and other liturgical
texts attributed to c Abid’s ancestor Marwan al-
Khalfawi (d. 730/1329-30).

A discussion of the various factors which account
for the introduction of these alterations and for the
concomitant rise of the Marwaniyya, in conjunction
with additional details and references, is to be found
in F. de Jong, The Sufi orders in post-Ottoman Egypt,
1911-1981 (in preparation), ch. 3. The Marwaniyya is
one of the officially recognised Sufi orders in Egypt
(cf. Mashvakhat c Umum ai-Turuk al-$ufiyya, Kanun
rakm 118 li-sana 1976 m. bi-sha : n Nizam al-Turuk al-
Sufiyya...., Cairo n.d., 29).

Bibliography. Given in the article.

(F. de Jong)

MARWAR [see djodhpur]

al-MARWAZI, Abu Bakr Ahmad b. Muhammad
b. al-Hadjdjadj b - c Abd al- c Aziz, the preferred
disciple of Ahmad b. Hanbal [q.v.], who, it is
said, appreciated al-MarwazT’s piety and virtues. His
mother was originally from Marw al-Rudh, whence
his nisba , whilst his father was a Kh w arazmian.
Hardly any of the events of his life are known, in as
much as he seems to have lived within his master’s
shadow, although he is depicted as once setting out on
an expedition in the midst of a crowd of admirers.

The biographical notices devoted to him stress Abu
Bakr al-MarwazI’s role in the transmission of hadiths
gathered by Ibn Hanbal, as well as in the formation
of quite a number of Hanballs, amongst whom al-
Barbaharl [q.v. ] is especially cited. They also contain
responsa of the Imam in reply to various questions
concerning, for example, outside the sphere of fikh
properly defined, the rules of conduct which a Muslim
should observe in society.

He was so close to his master that it was he who
closed his eyes at the latter’s death, and on his own
death, on 7 Djumada I 275/17 September 888, he was
buried at his feet in the Cemetery of Martyrs ( makdbir
al-shuhadaj in Ba gh dad.

Bibliography: Kh atlb Ba gh dadi, Ta^rikh Bagh¬
dad, iv, 123-5; Abu Ya c la al-Farra 3 , Jabakdt al-
Handbila, Cairo 1371/1952, 56-63; NabulusI,

lkhtisar Tabakdt al-Hanabila, Damascus 1350/1931-
2, 32-4; H. Laoust, La profession de foi d 'Ibn Batta,
Damascus 1958, index; idem, Le Hanbalisme sous le
califat de Bagdad, in REI, xxvii (1959), 76. (Ed.)
al-MARWAZI, Abu ’l-Fadl Ahmad b. Muham¬
mad al-Sukkari, Arabic poet of Marw, floruit later
4th/10th or early 5th/ 11th century. Al-Tha c alibl
quotes specimens of his light-hearted and witty
poetry, and also of an interesting muzdawadfa in which
he turned Persian proverbs into Arabic radjaz
couplets, a conceit said to be one of his favourite
activities.

Bibliography: Tha c alibl. Yatima, Damascus
1304/1886-7, iv, 22-5, Cairo 1375-7/1956-8, iv, 87-
90; C. Barbier de Meynard, Tableau litteraire du
Khorassan et de la Transoxiane au lV e siecle de Thegire,
in JA, Ser. 5, i (1853), 205-7. (Ed.)

al-MARWAZI, Abu Talib c AzIz al-DIn Isma c !l
b. al-Husayn b. Muhammad... b. C A1I b. al-Husayn
b. C A1I b. Abl Talib, a Husayn! who seems to have
devoted himself to the study of genealogies,
although he is also credited with knowledge of
astronomy and, like so many others, he was a
composer of verse. His ancestors had left Medina and
settled first in Baghdad, then in Kum(m) and finally
in Marw, where he was born on 22 Djumada 572/26
December 1176. He embarked on traditional studies
in his native city, then, when 22 years old, he followed
the pilgrims as far as Ba gh dad but refrained from
completing the pilgrimage; he concluded his educa¬
tion as a pupil of eminent teachers of the period, in the
capital of the caliphate, at Nlshapur, Rayy, Shiraz.
Tustar, Harat and Yazd. In 614/1217, when Yakut
met him in Marw, he already had to his credit a series
of works dealing especially with genealogies, but
consisting in some cases of presenting in the form of
ancestral trees (ta shdn r) the information contained in
earlier works. Among his original writings figures a
Kitab al-Fakhri on the genealogies of the Talibis which
was commissioned from him by Fakhr al-Dln al-RazI
(543-606/1149-1209 [q.v.]) when the latter passed
through Marw; it is not inconceivable that this
explains the attribution to al-MarwazI of the Fakhri of
Ibn al-Tiktaka (7th-8th/13th-14th century [<?.y.j),

628

al-MARWAZI — MARYAM

which was dedicated to Fakhr al-Drn c Isa b. Ibrahim
al-Mawsil (see the edition of the Fakhri by H. Deren-
bourg, Paris 1895, 14, no. 2, 16).

The information available on Abu Talib al-
Marwazf (see for example al-Suyuti, Bughya. 194; F.
BustanT, DaPirat al-mafdrif, iv, 401-2) is derived
exclusively from the article which Yakut (d. 626/1229)
devoted to him (in Udabd 5 , vi, 142-50) during his
lifetime; this explains the fact that the date of his death
is nowhere mentioned.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(Ch. Pellat)

al-MARWAZI, Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir, pre¬
sumably a native of Marw [see marw al-shahidjan]
or a descendant of such a native, physician and
writer on geography, anthropology and the
natural sciences, died after 514/1120. He acted as
physician to the Saldjuk sultan Malik-Shah [q.v. ] and
possibly to his successors down to the time of Sandjar
[q. v. ]; little else is known of his life. His main fame
comes from his book the Tabari*- al-hayawan, which is
essentially zoological in subject, but also with valuable
sections on human geography, i.e. the various races of
the world, extant in an India Office ms., Delhi, Arab
1949. Sections of this, in which the author reveals
borrowings from inter alia the lost Kitab al-Masalik wa
’l-mamalik of Abu c Abd Allah Muhammad b. Ahmad
al-DjavhanT and his family [see al-djayhan! in
Suppl.], have been edited and translated by Minorsky
as Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir Marvazf on China, the Turks and
India , London 1942.

Bibliography : Minorsky, op. cit.; Brockel-

mann, S I, 903. (C. E. Bosworth)

MARY [see maryam],

MARYA or MAREA, aTigre-speakingtribe
some 40,000 strong in the upland region on the left
bank of the river c Ansaba, north-west of Keren in
western Eritrea [q. v. ] They claim descent from a Saho
warrior of the same name, who is said to have settled
in the region with seventeen soldiers during the 14th
century. This data seems to be confirmed by the Gadla
Ewostatewos (Turaiev, Acta S. Eustathii , 37-8), where
the Ethiopian saint Ewostatewos is said to have visited
“the two Marya” on his way to Jerusalem in ca. 1337
(cf. C. Conti Rossini, in RSO , ix, 452-5; Bermudez,
Breve rela^ao, 117). Until today, the tribe is indeed split
into two sections of nobles, the Marya Kayih or “Red
Marya” and the Marya Sallim or “Black Marya”, who
are by far the most numerous. The distinction must
represent two migrations, for the “Black” are tradi¬
tionally regarded as “the first born” and in a higher
position than the “Red”, which is contrary to the
meaning of kayih (kayy ) in Amharic. On several occa¬
sion, such as the death of the chief of the “Black”, the
“Red” had to give presents to the other group. The
tribe consists further of families who are vassals to the
nobles. The descendants of the warrior Marya
became very numerous and subjugated the local
tribes. Called tigre because of their origin—the term
means “serf caste” in this context—these vassal tribes
were in fact Ethiopians and Bedja [^.u.], whose
language was taken over by the ruling class. The
latter’s Saho language has been long since for¬
gotten.

The distinction between “Black” and “Red” is
now entirely a territorial one, the two groups living in
strictly defined plateaux, divided by deep ravines.
The “Black” occupy the lower regions with abundant
water, keeping camels and vast numbers of goats. The
“Red” live in more elevated regions with little water,
do not keep camels but have many sheep. The land
around the semi-permanent encampments is culti¬
vated by the tigre , who also care for the animals. They

have to supply the nobles with milk, butter and grain,
make special offerings of animals at the marriages and
deaths of the ruling class, and help them to pay off
blood money, which with the Marya is very high
amounting to 800 head of cattle.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, the Marya
were Ethiopian Christians. Ruins of churches are
scattered about their land, e.g. at Erota. Somewhere
between 1820 and 1835 (Miinzinger, Ostafrikanische
Studien, 228), the Marya and the Bayt Asgede were
among the first of the Tigre-speaking tribes to join
Islam under the influence of Muslim traders, the
revival of missionary activities caused by Wahhabism
and the preaching of Sayyid Ahmad b. Idris al-Fasi
(1760-1837), a Maghrib! shaykh settled in Mecca, the
serf caste having already adopted Islam earlier.
Foremost among the Islamic missionaries were the
c Ad Shaykh. descendants of Shaykh al-Amln (gener¬
ally corrupted to Lamin) b. Hamad, who gained a
great reputation through his miracles and whose tomb
became the centre of a special cult. Although some of
the clans still bear Christian names, like the c Ad Te-
Mika 3 el, a section of the “Red”, the Marya and their
vassals are all Muslims. In many respects, Islamic law
has considerably, and positively, influenced the life of
the tribe. The right of the first-born son to inherit his
father’s estate to the exclusion of the daughters has
been modified, while the old custom of enslaving the
vassals who were unable to pay the nobles has been
weakened. Differences in the penal code between
punishments for crimes committed by nobles or by
vassals have been disappearing. Under Italian rule,
the more onerous duties of the vassals were
considerably lightened. The rigid noble-serf relation¬
ship was, however, still very strong until recently.

Bibliography: E. Cerulli, art. marya in El 1 ;
B. Turaiev, Acta S. Eustathii, Ethiopic text in
Monumenta Aethiopiae hagiologica, iii, St. Petersburg
1905, Latin text tr. in CSCO, Script. Aeth., ser.
altera, xxi (1906), 1-97; J. S. Trimingham, Islam in
Ethiopia , Oxford 1952; S. F. Nadel, Races and tribes
in Eritrea. British Military Administration, Asmara
1943; W. Miinzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, Schaff-
hausen 1864; C. Conti Rossini, Principi di diritto
consuetudinario delTEritrea, Rome 1916; E. Littmann,
Publications of the Princeton expedition to Abyssinia , iv,...
1913-15; G. K. N. Trevaskis, Eritrea, a colony in
transition, 1914-1952, London-New York 1960.

(E. Cerulli - [E. van Donzel])
MARYAM, Mary, the mother ofjesus. The
Arabic form of the name is identical with )q* ;x> and
liapiap. which are used in the Syriac and the Greek
Bible, in the New as well as in the Old Testament. In
the latter it corresponds to the Hebrew Al-

Baydaw! considers the name to be Hebrew; but the
vowelling would seem to indicate a Christian source,
according to A. Jeffery, Foreign vocabulary of the QuCan,
Baroda 1938, s.v. The name Maryam, like others
with the same suffix, such as c Amram, Bil c am, points
to the region between Palestine and Northwestern
Arabia as its home. According to Muslim interpreta¬
tion, the name means “the pious” (al- c dbida; cf. the
commentaries on sura 111,31). It occurs frequently in
the Kur 3 an in the combination [ c Isa] Ibn Maryam
“[Jesus] the son of Mary” (sura 11,82, 254; III, 31-2;
IV, 156, 169; V, 19, 50, 76, 82, 109, 112, 114, 116;
IX, 31; XIX, 35; XXIII, 52; XXXIII,7; XLIII, 57;
LVII, 27; LXI, 6, 14), no father being mentioned,
because, according to Muslim tradition also, c Isa had
no earthly father. In the majority of these passages,
c Isa is clearly regarded as the higher of the two. Yet
Maryam’s place is important [see c !sa and the Bibl.
there listed].

MARYAM

629

Maryam is mentioned in the Kurian, from the
earliest to the later Medinan suras.

(a) Maryam’s special privileges; the
annunciation.

To the first Meccan period belongs sura XXIII, 52:
“And we made the son of Maryam and his mother a
sign; and we made them abide in an elevated place,
full of quiet and watered with springs”. Here some
have seen the first allusion in the Kurban to the virgin
birth. This idea is accentuated in sura XIX,20, where
Maryam says to the spirit (i.e. the angel) who
announces to her the birth of a male child: “How
should I have a male child, no human man having
touched me?” In sura LXVI, 12, the conception is
ascribed to this divine spirit (cf. Luke, i, 34-5: “And
Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I have
no husband? And the angel said to her, The Holy
Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you”).

The virgin birth is also mentioned in sura LXVI,
12 (Medinan): “And Maryam bint c Imran who kept
her body pure. Then we breathed into it from our
spirit. She acknowledged the truth of the words of her
Lord and of his book and she belonged to the
obedient”.

A third mention of the annunciation and the virgin
birth is in sura III, 37-8: “When the angels said, O
Maryam, verily Allah has elected thee and purified
thee and elected thee above the women of all created
beings. O Maryam, be obedient unto thy Lord and
prostrate thyself and bow down with those who bow
down” (cf. Luke, i, 28). The commentators remark
on these verbs: istafa (chosen: twice) and tahara :
Maryam was miraculously preserved from all bodily
impurity and from spiritual failings. There is discus¬
sion too as to whether Maryam is the best of all
women without exception, bearing in mind the
veneration accorded to Fatima. Al-RazI, followed by
al-Kurtubl, takes it in an absolute sense, while most
say “of that time” (R. Arnaldez, Jesus fils de Marie
prophete de TIslam , Paris 1980, 77). Maryam is
generally held, in Muslim tradition, to be one of the
four best women that ever existed, together with Asiya
[q.v.], Khadldja [< 7 . ] and Fatima [q.v. ] (Ahmad b.
Hanbal, Musnad , iii, 135), and the chief of the women
of Paradise (Ibn Hanbal, iii, 64, 80). For a
comparison of Mary with Fatima, based on Sunni and
Shi c I interpretations of verses in sura III and XIX, see
J.D. McAuliffe, Chosen of all women : Mary and Fatima
in Qur'anic exegesis, in Islamochristiana, vii (1981),
19-28.

According to tradition, the annunciation took place
in the following way: Djibril appeared to Maryam in
the shape of a beardless youth with a shining face and
curling hair, announcing to her the birth of a male
child. She expressed her amazement, but, on the
angel’s reassuring answer, she complied with the will
of God.

Thereupon the angel blew his breath into the fold
of her shirt, which she had put off. When the angel
had withdrawn, she put on the shirt and became preg¬
nant. The annunciation took place in the cavern of the
well of Silwan, whither Maryam had gone, as usual,
to fill her pitcher; she was then 10 or 13 years of age;
and it was the longest day of the year. In Christian
tradition also, the voice of the angel was heard by
Mary for the first time when she had gone to fill her
pitcher. According to a different tradition, c Isa’s spirit
entered Maryam through her mouth (al-Tabari,
Tafsir, vi, 22).

(b) Maryam’s religious importance.

It has been pointed out that the Kurian seems to

refer to a belief that Maryam was considered as a third
deity, or a divine person; and that she and her son
were venerated together as gods. Such may be
reflected in sura V, 79: “Al-Masih, the son of
Maryam, is an Apostle only, who was preceded by
other Apostles, and his mother was an upright
woman; and both were wont to take food”. This verse
would appear to refute any veneration of c Isa and his
mother as divine persons, elevated above human
needs. With it may be compared sura IV, 169: “O
people of the book, beware of exaggeration in your
religion and say of Allah nothing but the truth. c Isa b.
Maryam is only the Apostle of Allah and his word,
which he conveyed unto Maryam and a spirit that
came forth from him. Believe, therefore on Allah and
his Apostles and say not ‘three’. Beware of this, this
will be better for you. Allah is but one God”, etc.
Clearer is sura V, 116: “And when Allah said, O c Isa
b. Maryam, hast thou said to the people, Take me
and my mother as two Gods besides Allah? He
answered: Far be it, that I should say to what I am not
entitled. If I should have said it, thou wouldst know
it”, etc.

The commentaries^ also describe the Trinity as
consisting of Allah, c Isa and Maryam. Al-Baydawi,
however, admits that in sura IV, 169, there could be
an allusion to the Christian doctrine of one God in
three hypostases: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The question has often been asked why the Kurian
sees fit to refute an apparent belief in Maryam as one
of the persons of the Trinity. It seems likely that what
is here reflected is a background of folk-religion, and
the veneration accorded to Mary within the Church,
rather than any specific beliefs. Christian sects giving
undue importance to Mary were not very significant.
The Trinity is a notoriously difficult concept: and in
an expression quoted by al-Tabari, vi, 171, Father,
Son, wa-zawdj_mutabbi c at un minhumd, zawdj_ is probably
a misreading of the same consonantal outline, ruh (cf.
J. Abd el-Jalil, Marie et l"Islam, Paris 1950, 66 ).

Attempts, however, have been made to trace the
background of the Kurian’s statements. Maracci has
made a reference to Epiphanius, Adv. Haereses,
Haeres. lxxviii, § 23, where this author speaks of
women in Arabia who venerated Mary as God, and
offered her cakes, from which the heresy is often called
that of the Collyridians. Sale, in his Preliminary
discourse , 45, mentions the Mariamites, who worship¬
ped a Trinity consisting of God, Christ and Mary,
referring to a passage in the work of al-Makln. There
could have been an identification of c Isa with the Holy
Spirit (cf. sura IV, 169, as translated above) thus leav¬
ing a vacant place in the Trinity. A different explana¬
tion is attempted by Sayous, op. cit., in Bibl., 61.

The Story of Maryam and c Isa.

Many of the features narrated in the Kur’an agree,
partly or wholly, with narratives in the apocryphal
gospels. Sura XXIII, 52 (see above), mentions the
elevated place that was prepared for c Isa and his
mother. It is not clear which tradition might be here
alluded to. According to Luke, i, 39, Mary went to
mountains to visit Elisabeth. In the Protoevangelium
Jacobi (ch. xxii; Syriac text, 20) it is Elisabeth who
flees together with John to a mountain, which opens
to protect them against their presecutors. The Muslim
commentators mention Jerusalem, Damascus, Ramla
and Egypt as being possibly meant by the “elevated
place”. Maracci thinks of Paradise.

In two passages of the Kurian there is a fuller
narrative of c Isa’s birth and what is connected with it:
sura XIX (named Maryam), 1-35, and in sura III, 31-

630

MARYAM

42 (for a very detailed analysis of relevant passages,
cf. Schedl, op. cit., in Bibl., 189-99, 402-10).

Sura XIX opens with the story of Zakariyya 5 and
Yahya (1-15); then follows the story of Maryam and
c Isa (16-34). Sura III, 31-42, contains: (a) the birth of
Maryam; (b) the annunciation of Yahya (33-6); and
(c) the annunciation of c Isa (37-41). The comparison
of sura XIX with sura III makes it probable that
Muhammad became acquainted with the story of the
birth of Maryam later than with those of Yahya and
c Isa.

(a) The birth of Maryam. This story is found
in a Christian tradition corresponding closely with
that which is contained in the Protoevangelium Jacobi and
De nalivitate Mariae. Mary’s father is called c Imran in
the Kur 5 an, Joachim in Christian tradition; Ibn
Khaldun ( c Ibar , ii, 144) is also acquainted with the
name Ioachim. Maryam is called a sister of Harun
(sura XIX, 29), and the use of these three names
c Imran, Harun and Maryam, has led to the supposi¬
tion that the Kur’an does not clearly distinguish
between the two Maryams, of the Old and New
Testament. The Kurban names two families as being
especially chosen: those of Ibrahim and of c Imran
(sura III, 32). It is the family of c Imran, important
because of Moses and Aaron, to which Maryam
belongs. It is not necessary to assume that these
kinship links are to be interpreted in modern terms.
The words “sister” and “daughter”, like their male
counterparts, in Arabic usage can indicate extended
kinship, descendance or spiritual affinity. This second
c Imran, together with Harun, can be taken as purely
Kurianic. M. Hamidullah’s literal rendering of ukht
Harun in a marginal note of his translation of the
Kurban (p. 289) as “Soeur Aaronide” would indicate
this (Arnaldez, 33-4). M. Hamidullah also refers to
Maryam as “membre par adoption de la famille de
c Imran” ( Le Prophete de ITslam, Paris 1959, i, 415).
Muslim tradition is clear that there are eighteen
centuries between the Biblical c Amram and the father
of Maryam.

c Imran’s wife, c Isa’s grandmother, is not men¬
tioned by name in the Kurian. In Christian as well as
in Muslim tradition, she is called Hanna. It is only in
Muslim tradition that her genealogy is worked out.
She is a daughter of Fakudh and a sister of Ishba c , the
Biblical Elisabeth.

Fakudh

1 -- 1

Hanna Ishba c

married c Imran married Zakariyya 5

Maryam

Yahya

c Isa

According to a different genealogy, Ishba c and
Maryam were sisters, daughters of c Imran and Hanna
(al-Mas c udI, Murudf, i, 120-1 = §§ 117-18; al-Tabari,
Tafsir , iii, 144).

c Imran

Ishba c Maryam

| I

Yahya c Isa

For further discussion, cf. A.M. Charfi, Christianity in

the Qur 'an commentary of Tabari (English translation), in
Isiamochristiana, vi (1980, 110; and A. Ferre, La vie de
Jesus dans Tabari , in Isiamochristiana , v (1979), 11.

c Imran and Hanna were old and childless. One day
the sight of a bird in a tree, which was feeding her
young, aroused Hanna’s desire for a child. She prays
God to fulfil her desire, and vows, if her prayer should
be heard, to dedicate the child to the temple. She had,
however, forgotten that, according to Jewish law, this
would be impossible if she should give birth to a
female child (cf. Protev. Jacobi , chs. iii, iv; Syriac text,
4). Compare with this sura III, 31: “How the wife of
c Imran said, O my Lord, I have vowed to thee what
is in my womb. Now accept [this vow] from me, thou
art the hearing, the knowing. And when she had given
birth to the child, she said, O my lord, I have given
birth to a female child... and I have called her
Maryam”.

Then the Kurian relates how she invoked on behalf
of Maryam and her posterity Allah’s protection from
Satan. On this verse is based the well-known hadtth
“Every child that is born, is touched (or stung) by
Satan and this touch makes it cry, except Maryam
and her son” (al-Bukhari, AnbiyaP, bab 44; Tafsir, sura
III, 31; Muslim, FadaHl , trad. 146, 147; Ahmad b.
Hanbal, Musnad, ii, 233, 274-5, 288, 292, 319, 368,
523). This tradition is used in support of the impec¬
cability (Hsma) of c Isa, Maryam and the Prophets in
general (cf. al-NawawI, ad Muslim, loc. cit., and al-
Baydawi, ad sura III, 31).

A modern commentator, Muhammad c Abduh,
insists that their privilege of preservation from Satan
does not set them on a higher plane than Muhammad;
all three share the quality of c isma (Tafsir al-Manar ,
Cairo 1367/1947, iii, 291-2). It has also been
suggested that this idea of unique privilege could
come from a Christian source (Arnaldez, 46-7).

The Kurian further relates (vs. 32) that the child
grows up in a chamber in the temple (mihrab) cf. the
xorro>v in Protoev. Jacobi , vi; Syriac text 5-6) under the
divine grace and under Zakariyya^’s care. According
to Muslim tradition, c Imran had died before the birth
of Maryam, and Zakariyya 5 claimed authority over
her on account of his being her uncle; the rabbis did
not recognise his claim; his right was proved by an
ordeal, consisting in the parties throwing their pens or
arrows ( akldm ) in a river; the only one that floated was
that of Zakariyya 5 (cf. sura III, 39). Christian tradi¬
tion knows of an ordeal only in the case of Joseph,
who, because a dove comes forth from his staff, is
recognised as Maryam’s guardian.

As often as Zakariyya 5 enters Maryam’s mihrab, he
finds her provided with food in a miraculous way (vs.
32). This feature also belongs to Christian tradition
(Protoev. Jacobi, ch. viii; Syriac text. 7). The person of
Joseph is not mentioned in the Kurian. In Muslim
tradition, he takes care of Maryam, his cousin,
because Zakariyya 5 is no longer able to do so, on
account of old age.

Muslim tradition speaks of one Djuraydj a
carpenter who is betrothed to Maryam; he is the first
to notice her pregnancy and to be convinced by her of
its miraculous nature, as brought about directly by the
power of God. (A. Charfi, 115-16; Abd al-Jalil; L.
Cheikho, Mawlid Maryam al- c adhra :> fi taklid al-Islam, in
Machriq, xxiv [1926], 682-6).

The undoubted parallels between the Kurianic
account and material found in the apocryphal gospels
do not, however, indicate direct dependence, but are
more indicative of the folklore aspect of religion,
much fuller than would be implied by the canonical
text of the Gospels, itself the product of careful selec-

MARYAM

631

tion. Possibly apocryphal gospels and the Kur’anic
stories reveal a common folklore tradition. For such
stories, cf. J. Robson, Muhammadan teaching about Jesus ,
in MW, xxi (1939), 37-54, and idem. Stories of Jesus and
Mary , in MW , xl (1950), 236-43.

(b) The annunciation of Yahya. See this art.
and also zakariyya 5 .

(c) The annunciation and birth of c Isa. The
more detailed narrative is that of sura XIX, 16-17.
Maryam retires to “a place situated eastward”, where
she hides herself behind a curtain. The commentaries
do not know whether a place to the east of Jerusalem
is meant, or the eastern part of her house, to which
she retired every month. It is said that this is the
origin of the kibla of the Christians.

In 17-21 the story of the annunciation is given (cf.
above), followed by that of c Isa’s birth, which, accord¬
ing to some Muslim traditions, followed the concep¬
tion either immediately or very soon. The pains of
childbirth came upon Maryam when she was near the
trunk of a palm. “She said, would to God I had died
before this, and had become a thing forgotten, and
lost in oblivion. And he who was beneath her [i.e. the
child, or Djibrfl, or the palm) called to her, saying. Be
not grieved; God has provided a rivulet under thee;
and shake the trunk of the palm and it shall let fall ripe
dates upon thee, ready gathered. And eat and drink
and calm thy mind”. This story may, perhaps, be
considered as a parallel to the Christian tradition in
which it is related that, during the flight to Egypt, the
babe Jesus ordered a palm in the desert to bow down
in order to refresh Mary by its dates; whereupon the
palm obeyed and stayed with its head at Mary’s feet,
until the child ordered it to stand upright again and to
open a vein between its roots in order to quench the
thirst of the holy family (Apocryphal Gospel of
Matthew, ch. xx). The Kurban goes on (v. 26): “And
when thou seest any man, say, I have vowed a fast
unto the Merciful; so I may not speak to any man to¬
day”. The commentaries say this was meant to avoid
importunate questions. This feature is not in Chris¬
tian tradition; yet in the Proloev. Jacobi it is said (ch.
xii; Syriac text, 11) that Mary, who was then 16 years
of age, hid herself from the Israelites. According to
Muslim tradition, she stayed in a cavern during forty
days. The Kur’an continues (XIX, 28): “Then she
brought him to her people, carrying him. They said,
O Maryam, now thou hast done a strange thing. O
sister of Harun, thy father was not a bad man, neither
was thy mother a harlot. Then she pointed to the
child”. Then the child begins to speak, one of the
well-known miracles ascribed to c Isa. The “very
shameful calumny” which the Israelites brought forth
against Maryam is also mentioned in sura IV, 155.

As to the words “O sister of Harun” (cf. above), it
may be added that, according to the commentaries,
this Harun was not Moses’ brother, but one of
Maryam’s contemporaries, who was either a wicked
man, with whom she is compared in this respect, or
her pious brother.

A legend about loaves of bread which Maryam gave
to the Magi is mentioned by al-Mas c udI, iv, 79-80 =
§ 1405.

The flight to Egypt is not mentioned in the Kurban,
unless the “elevated place” (sura XXIII, 52; cf.
above) should be an allusion to it. According to
Muslim tradition, which is acquainted with it, the
abode lasted 12 years. After the death of Herod the
family returned to Nasira.

After his alleged death (according to Muslim
teaching: see c Isa), he consoled his mother from
heaven. According to others it was Mary Magdalene.

The stories of the Transitus Mariae have not obtained
a place in Muslim tradition. Instead of these, there is
a narrative of how Maryam went to Rome in order to
preach before Marut (Nero), accompanied by John
(the disciple) and Shim c un the coppersmith. When
Shim c un (Simon Peter?) and Tadawus (Thaddaeus?)
were crucified with their heads downward, Maryam
fled with John. When they were persecuted the earth
opened and withdrew them from their persecutors.
This miracle was the cause of Marut’s conversion.

Maryam in popular Muslim devotion.

Maryam is much venerated in Muslim folk tradi¬
tion, often along with Fatima (see above). Muslim
women have taken her as an example and as a
recourse in time of trouble, often visiting Christian
shrines. Christian and Muslim traditions both honour
her memory at Matariyya near Cairo, and in
Jerusalem. In Jerusalem is Hammam Sittl Maryam
(the bath of Maryam), near St. Stephen’s Gate, where
it was believed Maryam once bathed; the place would
be visited by women seeking a cure for barrenness (R.
Kriss and H. Kriss-Heinrich, Volksglaube im Bereich des
Islam. I. Wallfahrtswesen und Heiligenverehrung ,
Wiesbaden 1960, 169; T. Canaan, Mohammedan saints
and sanctuaries in Palestine , in Jnal. of the Palestine Oriental
Soc., iv/1-2 [1924], 1-84).

Some plants have been nemed after Maryam; (a)
Maryamiyya or meramiyeh , Salvia triloba , Labiatae , said to
have acquired its sweet scent when Mary wiped her
forehead with its leaves (T. Canaan, Plant-lore in
Palestinian superstition , in JPOS , viii/3 [1928), 129-68).
G.M. Crowfoot and L. Baldensperger, From cedar to
hyssop. A study of the folklore of plants in Palestine , London
1932, describe the Miriamiya or “Sage of Vertue”,
and mention references to it by earlier travellers in
Palestine (79-81). (b) Kaff al- c Adhrd :> , Anastatica
hierochuntia, Cruciferae, the dried seed-heads of which
can last for years and are blown around the desert, the
seeds germinating when water is available. The seed-
head is thought to resemble a fist, hence the name; the
kaff or “hand ” is well-known as a protection against
the evil eye [see khamsa): it can be seen painted or
carved, or worn as an amulet, generally known in
Muslim circles as kaff Fatima. This plant, however,
has in time past been used not to avert the evil eye—
though this concept may also have been present—but
as a birth charm, soaked in water when a woman was
in labour, and the water sometimes given to her to
drink. Known as kaff Fdima bint al-Nabi or kaff Maryam,
it was sold in Egypt (Crowfoot and Baldensperger, op.
cit., 196; idem, The Rose of Jericho, in JPOS, xi/1 [1931],
7-14); Violet Dickson, Wild flowers of Kuwait and
Bahrain, London 1955, 16, remarks on its frequency in
Central Arabia. Cf. Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in
Palastina, Giitersloh 1935, i, 54, for its location in
Palestine. The plant can still be found, but its folk
usage seems to have died out.

Bibliography. Ibn Hisham, 407; Tabari, i,
711-12; idem, Tafsir, iii, 144-5; vi, 21, 179; vii, 82;
xvi, 28-9; xviii, 17; Ya c kubl, TaMkh, i, 74-5;
Mas c udl, Murudf, , i, 120-1, ii, 145, iv, 79-80;
Kisa 3 !, Kisas al-anbiya?, ed. Eisenberg; Ibn al-Athir,
i, 211; Tha c labl, c Arafis al-madjalis , Cairo 1290,
326-7; the commentaries on the Kurban; Maracci,
Prodomi , Padua 1698, iv, 85-7, 104-5, 178-9 and the
notes to his translation of the Kur’an; C. F.
Gerock, Versuch einer Darstellung der Christologie des
Korans , Hamburg und Gotha 1839, 22-3, 72-3; G.
Weil, Biblische Legenden der Musulmdnner , Frankfurt
1845, 280-1; E. Sayous, Jesus-Christ d’apres

Mahomet , Paris-Leipzig 1880; G. Smit, Bijbel en

632

MARYAM — MARZBAN-NAMA

legende bij den arab. schrijver Jaqubi, Leiden 1907, 86 -
7; J. Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen, Berlin and
Leipzig 1926, 138-9; A. Pieters, Circumstantial
evidence of the Virgin Birth, in MW, x (1929), 350 ff.;
Evangelia apocrypha, rec. C. de Tischendorf, 2nd
ed., Leipzig 1876; Apocrypha syriaca, 2nd ed., Leip¬
zig 1876; Apocrypha syriaca, the Protevangelium Jacobi

and Transitus Mariae _, ed. and tr. A. Smith Lewis,

Stadia Sinaitica, xi, London 1902; E. de Strycker, La
forme la plus ancienne du Protoevangile de Jacques,
Brussels 1961; Protoevangelium of James , Eng. tr. in
E. Hennecke, New Testament apocrypha, ed. W.
Schneemelcker, Eng. tr. ed. R. McL. Wilson,
London 1963, i, 370-88; J.M. Abd al-Jalil, Marie et
TIslam, Paris 1950; V. Courtois, Mary in Islam,
Oriental Institute, Calcutta 1954; M. Hayek, Le
Christ de TIslam, Paris 1959; H. Michaud, Jesus selon
le Coran, Cahiers Theologiques, Neuchatel-Paris
1960; G. Parnnder, Jesus in the Qur'an , London
1965; O. Schumann, Der Christus der Muslime.
Christologische Aspekte in der arabischen-islamischen
Literatur, Gutersloh 1975; D. Wismer, The Islamic
Jesus : an annotated bibliography of sources in English and
French , London-New York 1977; G. Schedl,
Muhammad und Jesus: die christologische relevanten Texte
des Koran , neu ubersetzt und erklart, Vienna 1978; R,
Arnaldez , Jesus fils de Marie prophete de TIslam, Paris
1980.

(A. [. Wensinck - [Penelope Johnstone])
MARZBAN-NAMA (also known in the Arabicised
form Marzuban-nama), a work in Persian prose
containing a variety of short stories used as moral
examples and bound together by one major and
several minor framework stories. It is essentially
extant in two versions written in elegant Persian with
many verses and phrases in Arabic. They were made
from a lost original in the Tabari dialect indepen¬
dently of each other in the early 13th century. The
oldest version, entitled Rawdat al-hikul, was completed
in 598/1202 by Muhammad b. GhazI al-Malatyawi
(or Malati) and was dedicated to the Saldjuk sultan of
Rum, Rukn al-Dln Sulayman Shah. Manuscripts are
preserved in Leiden (described in detail by M. Th.
Houtsma, Eine unbekannte Bearbeitung des Marzbdn-
ndmeh, in ZDMG , lii [1898], 395-92) and Paris (cf. E.
Blochet, Catalogue des manuscrits persans , iv, Paris 1934,
18-21; extracts are contained in the introduction to
Kazwlnl’s edition of the Marzban-nama - , the first
chapter was edited and translated into French by
Henri Masse, Le Jardin des Esprits, I re partie, in Publica¬
tions de la Societe des etudes iraniennes , 14, Paris 1938).
Much better known is the second version by Sa c d al-
Dln al-WarawInl who presented his work to Abu ’1-
I^asim Rablb al-DTn, vizier to the Ildenizid Atabeg of
Adharbvdjan. Ozbek b. Muhammad (607-22/12JO-
25) [see ildenizids]. It bears the title of the original
and still exists in many copies. This version was
published by Mlrza Muhammad Kazwlnl in the Gibb
Memorial Series (London-Leiden 1908; repr. Tehran
1352/1973 with additional notes).

According to Malatyawl, the author of the Marzban-
nama was a descendant of the Ziyarid Kabu^ b.
Wushmaglr (reigned 366-71/977-81 [q.v. ]), but

Warawlnl mentions Marzban b. Sharwln as the
“originator of the book” ( wadi c -i kitab). He belonged
to the Bawandids, a dynasty of Tabaristan claiming
descent from the Sasanid prince Kawus who was a
brother of Khusraw Anushirwan. He was the father
of Kay-Kawus’s grandmother and is named al-
Marzuban b. Rustam b. Sharwln in the Kdbus-nama
(ed. Tehran 1345/1967, 5). This form of the name
corresponds to that given by Ibn Isfandiyar in Ta^rlkh-

i Tabaristan, written in 613/1216-17, where it is
specified that he ruled as an isfahbad of Pirim, or Firlm
[see firrim in Suppl.], the stronghold of the Bawand¬
ids which is also called Shahriyarkuh (cf. An abridged
translation of the history of Tabaristan, by E.G. Browne,
Leiden 1905, 86 ). It is most likely that he should be
identified with al-Marzuban b. Sharwln whose name
occurs on coins dated 371/981 and 374/984-5 (cf. W.
Madelung in Cambridge history of Iran , iv, Cambridge
1975, 217; see also the discussion in Kazwlnl’s intro¬
duction). The language used in the ancient Marzban-
nama was, in the words of Warawlnl, “the language
of Tabaristan and old, original Persian (farsTyi kadtm-i
bastan)" . He refers probably to an archaic form of
Persian, perhaps not unlike the pahlawi in which the
source of Gurganl’s Wis u Ramin is said to have been
written, with an admixture of the local dialect. During
the 4th/10th century a language of this kind was used
in Mazandaran for literary purposes, but only a few
lines of poetry have survived. Ibn Isfandiyar ascribes
to Marzban a dlwdn in Tabari verse called the
Niki-ndma.

The Marzban-nama is mainly a collection of moral¬
istic fables like the book of Kalila wa-Dimna , to which
it is often compared. It also contains, however, tales
in which animals play no part and anecdotes about
ancient kings and philosophers. The major framework
is provided by the story of a prince who, after the
succession of his brother to the throne, wants to
withdraw to a life of seclusion. At the request of the
grandees of the state he agrees to compose a book
containing “wise counsels and useful directions for
the conduct of life in this world”. Through this book
the new king should be made aware of the wicked
character of his vizier. In the course of a disputation
with the king and the vizier concerning his intentions,
the prince starts to tell a long series of stories.

The versions in classical Persian were both made
by members of the caste of secretaries serving in the
chancelleries of mediaeval Islamic states. Their prin¬
cipal aim was to transform a comparatively simple
text into a model of the style which was current in
official correspondence. Warawlnl mentions in his
preface several works which are stylistically akin to his
own work. Among these are the Makdmat of Hamid!,
historical texts, insha 3 collections as well as other
collections of tales.

The differences between the two versions are
considerable. Warawlnl states that the original
Marzban-nama had nine chapters. In the Rawdat al-
c ukul, an additional chapter contains moral teachings
of an Islamic nature which contrast with the rest of the
book. The latter version has also many stories which
are not present in the work of Warawlnl, who declares
that he made a selection from the contents of the
original. Houtsma suggested that the two adapters
may have had access to different versions of the
ancient text. The principal story is only in Warawlnl’s
case a true framework story, as Gabrieli noted, but it
is impossible to make out whether this is conformable
to the original design or not.

The Marzban-nama of Warawlnl was rendered into
Turkish by Sadr al-Dln Sheykhoghlu in the second
half of the 8th/14th century. The latter work was
translated again into Arabic by Ibn c Arabshah [q. v. ]
in 852/1448 under the title Fakihat al-khulafa 5 wa-
mufakahat al-zurafa?. Another Turkish translation, also
based on Warawlnl, is the Diewahir iil-hikem by Urfali
Niizhet c Umer Efendi (d. 1191/1778).

Bibliography: Ch. Schefer, Notice sur le Merz-

ban Nameh, in Chrestomathie persane, ii, Paris 1885,

194-211; Fr. Gabrieli, II settimo capitolo del Marzban-

MARZBAN-NAMA — MARZPAN

633

Nameh ( Introduzione, versione et note), in RSO, xix
(1941), 125-60; Muhammad TakI Bahar Malik al-
Shu c ara 5 , Sabkshindsi, Tehran 1321/1942, iii, 14-20;
A.J. Arberry, Classical Persian literature, London
1958, 179-85; The Tales of Marzuban, tr. Reuben
Levy, London 1959; A. Bausani, Letteratura neoper-
siana , Milan 1960, 811-4; Dh. Safa, TaMkh-i
adabiyyat dar Iran , ii, Tehran 1339/1960 3 , 1003-8;
idem, Gandjina-yi sukhan, iii, Tehran 1348/1969,
117-22, 201-9; Sigrid Kleinmichel, Das Marzuban-
name, in Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-
Universitdt zu Berlin. Gesellschafts- und Sprachwissen-
schaftliche Reihe, xviii/3 (1969), 519-34 (the

Sheykhoghlu version in transcription); Ahmad
MunzawT, Fihrist-i nuskhahd-yi khatti-yi farsi, v,
Tehran 1349/1970, 3626-8; Sadru’d-dln §eyhoglu,
Marzubdn-ndme terciimesi. Inceleme-metin sozliik tipki-
basim, ed. Zeynep Korkmaz, Ankara 1973; E. W.
Davis, The tales of Marzban-ndmah , diss., Univ. of
Michigan 1977, unpubl.

(J. H. Kramers - [J. T. P. de Bruijn))
MARZPAN, Arabised form Marzuban,
“warden of the march”, “markgrave”, from Av.
mardza and M. Parth. mrz “frontier”, plus pat
“protector”. The MP form marzpdn suggests a north
Iranian origin. It began to be used as the title of a
military governor of a frontier province in the Sasanid
empire in the 4th or 5th centuries A.D. when marz,
marzpan , and marzpanutHn (marzpanate) appear as
loan words in Armenian, and marzbana as a loan word
in Syriac. The NP form marzbdn, marzvdn or marzaban
was Arabised as marzuban (pi. mardziba , marazib),
possibly as early as the 6th century A.D. Arabic also
formed a verb marzaba (“to appoint someone as
marzuban ’), the noun marzaba (“marzubanate”) and
the adjective marzubdni. The later Syriac forms
marzuband and marzuwana, and the later Armenian
form marzavan, probably came from the Arabic or NP.

A marzpdn of Beth Aramaye is attested from the
time of Shapur II (309-79) until the early 6th century,
while the marzpanate of Firuz Shapur (Anbar) and
that of the land irrigated by the Euphrates are also
said to have been established by Shapur II. In the 5th
and 6th centuries, Naslbln was under a marzpdn who
commanded at least 7,000 men in 504, and a marzpdn
was in command of Amid during the Byzantine siege
of 504-5. After the reorganisation of the Sasanid
empire into four quarters under Khusraw I Anushir-
wan (531-79), the marzpdn became a high-ranking
military and administrative official in the new system.
According to al-Ya c kubI, the marzpdn was a provincial
governor ( ra^is al-balad) after the ispabadh [q.v. ]) and
patkospdn and above the district governor or shahrid'y
But in a description of this system anachronously
ascribed to Ardashlr I (226-41), al-Mas c udi claims
that the marzpdn was the deputy of the ispabadh , and
under Hurmizd IV (579-90) and Khusraw II Parwiz
(591-628), military officials of the imperial quarters
are sometimes called marzpdn. In fact, al-Mas c ud! also
says that a marzpdn was the lord of a quarter of the
empire, a general, a wazlr or the governor of an
administrative district. Such military officials were
not supposed to assist each other without royal
permission.

There seems to have been a category of great marz-
pans in the late Sasanid period who were haughty
grandees ( nakhawira ), brave horsemen, officers in
charge of people just below the king, who lived at the
capital and were employed as royal envoys and
generals. Abu Muhammad al- c AbdI described
Khusraw II Parwiz as surrounded by noble mardziba,
and the land of the mardziba of Kisra was confiscated

by the Muslims in the Sawad, along with that of the
royal family. The great nobleman al-Hurmuzan is
sometimes called a marzuban. However, in the early
7th century marzpdn was still used for the military
governor of the frontier districts of al-Hlra, Hadjar
and the Djazlra. as well as for the governors of Babil
and Khutarniyya and of Balad.

Arabic accounts of the Muslim conquest of Sasanid
territories use marzuban for local leaders who organised
the defence or concluded treaties at Anbar, al-
Madhar/Maysan, _ Dast-i Maysan, Sus, Isfahan,
Rayy, Ardabfl/Adharbaydjan, Fars, Kirman,
Zarang/Sidjistan, Nlshapur, Tus, Sarakhs and
Marw. This may be due to the military nature of their
activity or because some of them, such as al-
Hurmuzan, were great nobles, and it need not be
taken as a title in every case. Marzuban appears to have
been used in a generic sense for the shahridf of Fars
(just as Papak is called the marzpdn and shahridar
of Pars in the Kar-namak ), for the padhghosban of
Isfahan, for the ispahbadh of Sidjistan and for the
kandrang of Kh urasan. The Hephthalite ruler of
Harat, Badghis and Pushang is also called a marzuban.
At Marw and Marw al-Rud, marzuban survived as the
title of local Iranian officials under Muslim rule, and
in 105/723 Muslim b. Sa c Id al-Kilabl appointed
Bahram Sis as marzuban at Marw to collect taxes from
the Zoroastrians or Madjus [qv.\. Marzuban was also
used for the local notables and the ispahbadh of
Tabaristan from the lst/7th until the 3rd/9th century.

Meanwhile, Marzuban or Marzaban came to be
used as a proper name, at first for powerful officers
such as the second Persian governor of al-Yaman, al-
Marzuban b. Wahrlz. It is also said to have been the
name of Dhu ’1-Kamayn, of a sword belonging to the
Banu c A > idh of Makhzum and of a district north of
Samarkand. Marzubana was used as a woman’s
name, and al-Marzuban! was used as a nisba for some¬
one who had an ancestor named al-Marzuban.
Marzuban was also used metaphorically in poetry for a
ruler or master, or for a leader of the Madjus; mardziba
were compared to lions, and a lion was called “the
marzuban of roaring” and marzubdni.

Bibliography. For lexical matters, see Asad!
TusI, Lughat-i Furs, Tehran 1336/1957, 144;
Djawallkl, al-Mu c arrab min al-kaldm al-a c dj_ami, Cairo
1969, 365-7; Ibn Manzur, Lisan al- c arab, Beirut
1956, xii, 406; Ibn Khalaf, Burhan-i kati c , Tehran
1330-42/1951-63, iv, 1987; P. Horn, Grundriss der
neupersischen Etymologie, Strassburg 1893, 218; H.
Hiibschmann, Armenische Grammatik, Leipzig 1897,
repr. Hildesheim 1962, i, 193; J. Payne-Smith,
Syriac dictionary , Oxford 1903, 300; A. Shir. Kitab al-
alfaz alfdrisiyya al-md'arraba , Beirut 1908, 145; A.
Siddiqi, Studien uber die persischen Fremdworter im
klassischen Arabisch , Gottingen 1919, 82-3; W.
Lentz, Die nord-iranische Elemente in der neupersischen
Literatursprache bei Firdosi , in ZII, iv (1926), 255,
295; S. Isfahan!, Vazha-ndma-yi farsi, Tehran
1337/1958, 345-46; M, Kamil, Persian words in
ancient Arabic , in Bull, of the Fac. of Arts, Cairo, xix
(1957), 63; W. Eilers, Iranisches Lehngut im arabischen
Lexikon, in IIJ, v (1962), 215-16, 219; M.
Shushtarl, Farhang vazhahd-yi farsi dar zaban-i c arabi,
Tehran 1347/1969, 631-2; H. Nyberg, A manual of
Pahlavi, Wiesbaden 1974, ii, 127.

For Beth Aramaye, see G. Hoffmann, Ausziige
aus syrischen Akten persischer Martyrer, Leipzig 1880,
38, 485, 496; O. Braun, Ausgewahlte Akten persischer
Martyrer , Munich 1915, 146; J.B. Chabot, Synodicon
orientale, Paris 1902, 532-3; A. Scher, Histoire
nestorienne, ii/1, in PO, vii, 1905, 129, 154. For Firuz

634

MARZPAN — al-MARZUBANI

Shapur and the Euphrates, see Dlnawarf, al-Akhbar
al-tiwdl, 51; Tabari, i, 839; Th a c alibi, Ghurar, ed.
Zotenberg, 529; Yakut, Buldan , i, 367-8, iii, 929.
For Nasibin and Amid, see Chabot, 526-9, 523-7;
W. Wright, The Chronicle of Joshua the Sty lit e,
Cambridge 1882, 61-2; Scher, ii/1, 176, ii/2, in PO ,
xiii, 1919. For the marzpdn as a late Sasanid military
official, see Ya c kubT, Ta\lkh , i, 203; Tabari, i,
2037; Mas c udi, Murud£, ed. Daghir. i, 269, 287,
319 = §§ 545, 581, 647 and index; Tha c alibi,
Ghurar . 643, 701; R. N. Frye, The golden age of
Persia , London and New York 1975, 9.

For the great marzpdns, see Abu Yusuf, Kharddj.
Paris 1921, 57; i-Mubarrad, al-Kamil , 118;
Dinawari, 83, 94, 112, 133; Tabari i, 2053, 2555;
Ibn al-Fakih, Mukhtasar Kitdb al-bulddn, 216; Scher,
ii/1, 178; Ibn al-Djawaliki. 364, 367; LA, xiii, 406;
Ibn Khallikan. Wafayat, Beirut 1968, iii, 281.

For the marzpdn as the governor of a local or fron¬
tier district in the early 7th century 1 see Markwart,
Catalogue of the provincial capitals of Eranshahr, Rome
1931, 14, 21; Baladhuri, 78, 85, 242-43; Dinawari,
115; Tabari, i, 2019, 2037-9, 2184, 2191, 2202;
Hamza al-Isfahani, Ta^rlkh sinl muluk al-ard wa 7-
anbiyd 5 , Beirut 1961, 96; Agapius of Manbidj, Kitdb
al- c Unu>dn in PO, viii, 1912, 459; Scher, ii/2, 546,
549, 554.

For the use of marzubdn in Arabic accounts of the
conquest, see Nyberg, i, 1; Ibn Sa c d, vii/1, 3; Bala¬
dhuri, 310, 312, 313, 315, 325-6, 342, 386, 393,
404, 405-6, 408-9; Ya c kubi, Buldan, tr. Les pays,
Cairo 1937, 166; Dinawari, 121-4, 140; Tabari, i,
2385, 2386, 2638-9, 2887-90, ii, 1462, 1688; Ibn
Isfandiyar, Tdrlkh-i Tabaristdn, Tehran 1912, i, 158;
E.G. Browne, History of Tabaristdn, abridged tr.
Leiden and London 1905, 86, 101, 108, 113, 149;
Yakut, iv, 468; C. E. Bosworth, Sistdn under the
Arabs, Rome 1968, 13, 15, 16-17; Frye, op. cit., 97.

For Marzuban as a proper name, see Ibn
Hisham, ed. Wustenfeld, Gottingen 1858, 46, 197,
457; Baladhuri. 105-6; Ibn Kutayba, c Uyun al-
akhbdr, Cairo 1964, i, 179; Dinawari, 402; Istakhri.
292, 323; Ibn Hawkal, ed. Leiden 1938-9, 468,
497, 499-500; Mukaddasi, 279; Ibn Miskawayh,
Tadjarib al-umam , ed. Margoliouth and Amedroz,
London 1921, ii, 133; Ibn al-Athir, v, 291; Ibn
Khallikan, iii, 281, iv, 354-6; F. Justi, Iranisches
Namenbuch , Marburg 1895, 197-8. For its use in
poetry, see Djawaliki, 366-7; Ibn Khalaf, iv, 1987;
Sa c di, Bustan , Vienna 1858, 73; Shir. 145;
Shushtari, 631-2.

(J.H. Kramers - [M. Morony])
MARZUBAN b. RUSTAM [see marzban-nama].
al-MARZUBANI Abu c Ubayd Allah Muham¬
mad b. c Imran b. Musa b. Sa c id b. c Ubayd Allah
al- Kh urasani al-Baghdadi al-Katib, was one of the
most versatile and prolific of Arab scholars in the
vast field of adab during the 4th/1 Oth century.

1. Life. His wealthy and influential family resided
in Khurasan, and his father was deputy to the sahib
Khurasan at the caliphal court in Ba gh dad, where al-
Marzubani was born in Djumada II 297/February-
March 910 or in the year before. Here he devoted
himself to the study of hadlth under the guidance of
well-known traditionists such as Abu Bakr c Abd Allah
b. Abi Dawud al-Sidjistani and c Abd Allah b.
Muhammad b. c Abd al- c Aziz al-Baghawi. He studied
lugha and akhbar with the most renowned scholars of
his time, such as Ibn Durayd, Ibn al-Anbari,
Niftawayh and Abu Bakr al-Suli. His house was
situated in the c Amr al-Rumi road in the eastern half
of the city, not far from the Tigris, set in the midst of

gardens, and was a centre for Baghdadi scholarly and
literary circles. His madjalis frequently lasted several
days and were accompanied by food and drink, and
whoever felt inclined towards staying found accom¬
modation in al-Marzubani’s hospitable house.
According to his own report, he could accommodate
up to fifty people. Echoes of these assemblies are
found in literature, e.g. in the so-called Amdll of al-
Sharif al-Murtada (d. 436/1044) i.e. the Ghurar al-
fawd^id wa-durar al-kala?id , Cairo 1373/1954, index.
The personality of this distinguished and generous
man, who, as his works show, stood above the con¬
stant quarrels of the religio-political parties and
trends, must have been extremely impressive. The
powerful Buyid amir c Adud al-Dawla (d. 372/983 in
Baghdad) thought very highly of him. Whenever he
was in town and riding past al-Marzubani’s
residence, he would wait at the gate until the
honoured shaykh had shown himself, so that the amir
al-umara 5 was convinced of his well-being. Al-
Marzubanl died at about 85 years old, according to
our calendar, on Friday, 2 Shawwal 384/9 November
994. At his burial on his estate, Abu Bakr al-
Kh w arazml (d. 403/1012), the shaykh al-Hanafiyya , led
the funeral prayers.

It is striking that only a few of his pupils are named
in the biographical literature, in particular, two
HanafT kadis , a Rafidi from Kum [q.v. ] and a relater
of akhbar. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 463/1071 \q.v.\)
refers to them in his Ta^rlfch Baghdad , iii, 135 f., as well
as to his own teacher al-Azhari (x, 385), a narrow¬
minded traditionalist. The latter accused the unor¬
thodox and active scholar of being a drunkard, a
Mu c tazili, an untrustworthy relater and—according
to others—a liar. The last accusation is corrected by
al-Khapb with the remark that he was not a liar, but
that it was the madhhab and riwaya which he followed.
Both seemed ambiguous to the average intellect.
Someone who published the akhbar of Abu Hanifa
alongside the akhbar of the Mu c tazila, or who collected
the Shi*! ashlar alongside the Jifr of Yazid b.
Mu c awiya, or who mingled the principle of idjaza with
that of sama c , could not possibly pass the rigid criteria
of form accepted by the guardians of tradition. Once
these accusations, against a man who frequently
moved in ShFl circles, had been taken up by the
eloquent and influential Ibn al-Djawzi (d. 597/1200
[< 7 .t>.]) ( Muntazam , vii, 177) in Baghdad—at that time
under the influence of Hanbalism—then a like judge¬
ment, more or less founded on prejudice, was decisive
and emphatic. The reputation of the sahib akhbar wa-
riwaya li ’l-adab , as al-Khatib spoke of him, was
thereby marred. The fact that al-Marzubani’s
contemporaries valued his works more than those of
al-Djahiz [q.v. ] or that his colleague in Ba g hdad, the
well-known philologist Abu c Ali al-Farisi (d. 377/987
[q.v.]) counted him, the younger of the two, amongst
the mahasin al-dunya, could not improve his impaired
reputation. His admirable—and admired—monu¬
mental work was soon neglected and, later on,
became almost completely obscured. This must have
happened because it was not in agreement with the
criteria of the customary forms of tradition and
because people were prejudiced about the author.

Al-Marzubani’s contemporary and admirer, the
renowned bookseller in Baghdad. Ibn al-Nadim (d.
380/990 [<?.&.]), has listed more than Fifty titles, along
with the number of folios and often with a short
summary of the contents in his Fihrist, 132 ff. (tr.
Dodge, 289-95) of the year 377/987. The later bio¬
bibliographers like Yakut, Udaba?, vii, 50 ff., Ibn al-
Kifti, Inbdh , iii, 182 ff., and al-Safadi, Wafl, iv,

635

al-MARZUBANI — al-MARZUKI

236 f., more or less took over this bibliography, coun¬
ting altogether more than 45,000 folios. Only
remnants of this tremendous work survive and
these—with only one exception—are not even the
original versions, but excerpts and adaptations. For
this, the fault may well lie not only with the already-
mentioned prejudices but also with the terrible floods
which befell Baghdad a few years before the Mongol
conquest of the city (656/1258).

2. Works. We know concerning al-Marzubanl’s
18-volume collection of biographies of scholars, the K.
al-Muktabas fi akhbar al-nuhat wa ’l-udaba? wa ’l-shu c ara :>
wa ’l- c ulama 5 , that the autograph, consisting of over
3,000 folios, was kept in the library of the Nizamiyya
Madrasa, situated on the east bank of the Tigris.
During the opening years of the 7th/ 13th century, two
excerpts were made of this single manuscript, namely
a muntakhab in four volumes and a mukhtar in at least
two volumes. In the middle of the same century, the
Muntakhab was extracted into one volume, which has
been preserved and bears the title Nur al-kabas al-
mukhtasar min al-Muktabas ( = Die Gelehrtenbiographien
des Abu c Ubaidallah al-Marzubdnl in der Rezension des
Hafiz al-Yagmuri, ed. R. Sellheim, Teil I. Text,
Wiesbaden-Beirut 1964 [Bibliotheca Islamica, 23a]).
It contains 125—of about 150 in all—biographies,
hence approximatively one-seventeenth of the original
version. The other excerpt, the Mukhtar , of which only
the first part has survived, has not as yet been
published. The traditions in this volume which, as a
rule, begin with an isnad, only partially correspond to
those in the Nur al-kabas. The compiler diverges
considerably, in the sequence of the 33 biographies as
well as in the transmission within the individual
biographies, from those of the Nur al-kabas.

(2) His K. al-Muwa shsh ahfima^akhidh al- c ulama 3 c ala
’l-shu^ara^ consisted of 300 folios according to the
bibliography of Ibn al-Nadlm. It exists in its complete
form and in two editions: Cairo 1343/1924 and ed.
C A1I Muhammad al-BidjawI, Cairo 1965. In this
delightful piece of adab writing, an anthology
compiled under the aspect of erudite critical stan¬
dards, the author refers to numerous oral and written
sources. For details, see Munir Sultan, al-Marzubanl
wa ’ l-Muwa shsh ah . Alexandria 1978, and Muhammad
c AlawI Mukaddam in Madjalla-yi Danishkada-yi
Adabiyyat wa- c ulum-i insani, Mashhad, xiii/1 = fasc. 49
(1356/1978), 1-34.

(3) His K. al-Mu^djam fi asma 5 al-shu c ara 5 originally
consisted of 1,000 folios with the famous verses of
about 5,000 poets, arranged in alphabetical order.
Only the second half has been preserved, and that
moreover with numerous omissions and lacunae. It
exists in two editions: ed. F. Krenkow, Cairo
1354/1935, repr. Beirut 1402/1982 and ed. c Abd al-
Sattar Ahmed Faradj, Cairo 1379/1960; cf. Ibrahim
al-Samarra 5 !, Min al-da^T min Mu c dfam al-shufara*li 7-
Marzubani, Beirut 1404/1984.

(4) His K. Ash c ar al-nisa? is supposed to have
included 500 or 600 folios. c Abd al-Kadir al-Ba gh dadi
(d. 1093/1682 [< 7 -fl.]) still quoted from it in his Khizanat
al-adab , i, 10, and iv, 565. In an old manuscript, 59
folios of the third part are preserved and contain
akhbar and verses by almost 60 women, members of
sixteen different ancient Arabian tribes. The fragment
was published by Sami MakI al- c AnI and Hilal NadjI,
Ba gh dad 1396/1976.

(5) The Akhbar al-Sayyid al-Himyari (d. 179/795?;
Sezgin, ii, 458 ff.) is not listed in al-Marzubanl’s
bibliography. This booklet, published in Nadjaf by
Muhammad Had! al-Amlnl in 1385/1965, was prob¬
ably just a fragment of al-Marzubanl’s 6,000 or even

10,000-folio anthology, bearing the title al-Mustanir,
with accounts of the recent poets ranging from
Bashshar b. Burd up to Ibn al-Mu c tazz [q.vv.]. Also,
it could possibly be from his anthology of 5,000 folios
called al-Mufid , containing works of the lesser known
poets of the Djahiliyya an d °f Islam. The K. al-Mufid
was subdivided into several sections, e.g. sections on
the one-eyed, the blind, etc., poets, and on ShI c I.
KharidjI. Jewish, Christian, etc. poets. It also had a
section on Sayyid al-Himyari (see Fihrist, 132, tr.
Dodge, 289 f.). Of course, al-Marzubam also dealt
with the above-named poet in his Mu^djam (see above
no. 3), but only briefly (the passage has not been
preserved); furthermore, he is quoted with verses by
al-Himyari by the Sharif al-Murtada (see above) in
his Jay} al-khaydl, Cairo 1381/1962, 104-7.

(6) Akhbar shu c ard^al-Shfia is a short talkhis made by
Sayyid Muhsin al-Amln al- c AmiiI(d. 1371/1951), ed.
Muhammad Had! al-Amlnl, Nadjaf 1388/1968. It
contains akhbar and verses by 27 Shf 1 ! poets, without
however one single isnad. If this piece really does go
back to al-Marzubanl, whose name is only on the title
page, then it could be a fragmentary piece from al-
Marzubanl’s al-Mufid (see no. 5).

(7) His K. al-Riyad (or al-Mutayyamin), consisting of
3,000 folios, is also about poets, viz. those enslaved by
love. Quotations, though sparse, can be found in the
genre of amatory literature, see L.A. Giffen, Theory of
profane love among the Arabs : the development of the genre ,
New York 1971, 18 ff., and S. Leder, Ibn al-Gauzi und
seine Kompilation wider die Leidenschaft, diss.
Frankfurt/Main 1982, Beirut 1983, index.

(8) His K. ShTr Yazid b. Mu c awiya, which Ibn
Khallikan (tr. de Slane, iii, 67), impressed by the
poetry, himself memorised, comprises three sheets,
hence approximately 30 folios; cf. Shi c r Yazid b.
Mucawiya b. AbiSufyan, collected and edited by Salah
al-Dln al-Munadjdjid, Beirut 1982.

Bibliography (in addition to the works men¬
tioned in the article): Brockelmann, S I, 190 f.
S III, 1217; F. Krenkow, in Islamica , iv (1930),
272-82; O. Rescher, Abriss der arabischen Litteratur-
geschichte, Stuttgart 1933, ii, 264; Zirikll, AHam, vii,
210; Kahhala,_xi, 97 f. (R. Sellheim)

al-MARZUKI, Abu c AlI Ahmad b. Muhammad
b. al-Hasan, philologist who acted as a tutor to
certain of the Buyids of Isfahan and who died in Dh u
THidjdja 421/December 1030. The vizier the Sahib
Ibn c Abbad \q.v. ], whom he had antagonised by
neglecting to rise on his entry, nevertheless recognised
al-Marziikf s value, at the same time dubbing him (in
Yakut, Udabad , xviii, 215) a weaver (hadk), probably
without any pejorative intention, since it is possible
that he worked at this trade in his youth. Apart from
this, we have hardly any details about his life, and it
is merely known that he studied the Kitab of Slbawayh
under the direction of al-Farisi (d. 377/987 [q.v.]) and
himself became a master to whom al-Suyutl (B ughy a,
159) gives the unexpected title of imam.

The Arab authors who devote a brief notice to him,
Yakut (UdabeP, v, 34-5) and al-Suyutl (loc. cil.), and
also Brockelmann (S I, 502), enumerate a series of
philological works (Amali, Gharib al-Kur^dn, Alfdz al-
shumul wa ’l-fimum ) and commentaries concerned
mainly with such poetical anthologies as the Mufad-
daliyyat, the Diwan al-Hudhaliyyin and above all the
Hamdsa of Abu Tammam whose introduction taken
from ms. Koprulu 1308 has been commented upon by
al-Tahir Ibn c Ashur, Tunis 1377/1958.

However, the sole work of al-Marzukl to have been
published is his Kitab al-Azmina wa 5 l-amakin , printed
at Hyderabad in 1332/1914. This is a work on the

636

al-MARZUKI — MASA’IL WA-ADJWIBA

anwa? [q. v. ] and is characterised by the fact that the
author adds to the traditional ideas gathered by the
ruwdt in the Arabian peninsula and put in order by
philologists of the Ibn Kutayba type, more general
concepts and ideas in which outside pieces of informa¬
tion, which are used to make instructive comparisons,
are also taken into account.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(Ch. Pellat)

MAS C _A [see sa c y].

MASA>IL WA-AJ)JWIBA (a.), “questions and
answers’’, a technique of argumentation in
mediaeval Islam. The pattern of question (su^al, pi.
su^dlat, as^ila) and answer ( djawdb , pi. djawdbdt ,
adjwiba) has strongly influenced, both in form and
content, numerous Arabic writings in virtually all
fields of knowledge. Unsolved problems, or questions
and objections propounded by a third person, are fol¬
lowed by answers/ or explanations and refutations.
Sometimes the author, at the request of a third per¬
son, composed a monograph on a group of themes,
and even dedicated it to him. Besides, the pattern of
questions and answers often became a literary topos:
as a justification for his work, the author, in his intro¬
duction, advances the plea that he composed it
because of solicitations and requests of another person
(Freimark, 36 ff.). Finally, the pattern also turned
into a technique of scientific research or presentation,
without any dialogue between teacher and pupil or
between two opponents. Ancient and Patristic-
Byzantine literatures show parallels with these struc¬
tures: cf. dp(oxr)CT£u;, owropiai, £r|xr]paxa-a7toxpt<J£i<;,
Xuati;, 7cpopXfipaxa and the Byzantine ep<oxoacoxpicr£t<;,
in evidence since the 12th century A.D. The
mediaeval quaesliones et responsiones also belong to this
genre. Since the pattern may have sprung from
motives which are inherent in the matter, external
influence from similarly-structured works of Christian
origin or from Aristotelian-Peripatetic methodology
(cf. Aristoteles, Metaphysics , iii, 1; Prior and posterior
analytics, Topics) can only be proved after study of each
individual case.

The oldest Islamic questions-and-answer literature
endeavours to solve philological and textual problems
of the Kur 5 an text. Mention may here be made of the
answers given by c Umar to questions about kira^at,
i c rab , tanzil and meanings {ma c ant) of the Kur ? an
(Abbott, 110), and of the Mas&Hl {su'dlat) of the
Kharidji leader Nafi c b. al-Azrak (d. 65/685) on 200
difficult words in the Kurban, to which c Abd Allah b.
c Abbas answered with references to ancient Arabic
poetry. This philological interest, especially present in
the oldest Kur-’an exegesis, increasingly made way for
textual interpretation as a source of Islamic law and as
a starting-point of Islamic theology. Thus there have
come down to us masd^il collections of Malik b. Anas
and Ahmad b. Hanbal [q. uv. ] containing answers to
legal, dogmatic and ethical questions, transmitted and
partly edited by their pupils. Probably the most
important masd^il collection of Ahmad b. Hanbal
comes from al-Khallal (d. 311/923) and is called Kitdb
al-Djdmi : li- c ulum (or al-Musnad min masa^il) Ahmad b.
Hanbal. Its aim to give answers on legal questions
culminates in the development of the Islamic institu¬
tion of the futya, the act of giving a Jatwa q.v.\. This
institution can be compared with Roman jus
respondendi ; as Goldziher has shown, it has influenced
Jewish circles.

On the basis of KuPanic texts, an apologetic
literature was developed which tried to prove the
superiority of Islam by means of the question-answer
pattern. An example is the Kitdb al-Masa^il attributed

to c Abd Allah b. Salam (d. 43/663-4), a Jew from
Medina, and probably composed by a Jewish
renegade. It consists of a collection of questions put
before the Prophet, at whose answers Ibn Salam is
said to have been converted to Islam. The work is
based on a scholastic principle which appears in an
already developed stage in the disputation of Leontius
of Byzantium (d. ca. 543) with the heretics. Reaching
back to Aristotelian dialectics, this Aristotelian, in¬
fluenced by Neo-Platonism, was familiar with the
scholastic technique of question and refuting answer
(cf. Grabmann, i, 104 ff., 107 f.). It is conceivable
that Leontius’ contest with the Nestorians, which was
to be continued and which, more than 200 years later,
reached a climax in John of Damascus and, after him,
in Theodorus Abu Kurra (cf. Griffith, Controversial
theology , 33 ff.), favoured in Syrian circles the develop¬
ment of a similar scholastic technique. Through
disputations and polemics between Christians and
converts to Islam, this technique may have become
known to Islamic circles and have been accepted as a
stimulating example in the practice of Islamic disputa¬
tion (cf. Cook, Origins). The pattern of question (in
the form of a conditional clause) and refuting answer
or argument ( hu djdj a ) (often presented in the form of
a main clause expressing an irrealis) is already found
in al-Hasan b. Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya (d. ca.
100/718), al'Risalafi ’ l-radd c ala 'l-Kadariyya (ed. Van
Ess, Anfdnge). Further examples from the early Islamic
period are the discussion between the caliph al-Mahdl
and the patriarch Timothy I, which took place
between 170/786-7 and 178/794-5 (see Putman, 191,
etc.), and the Kitdb al-Masd^il wa ’ l-adjwiba (ed.
Hayek; cf. Griffith, c Ammar, 149 ff.), a defence of
Christian doctrine against the Mu c tazila by the Chris¬
tian apologist c Ammar al-Basrl (first half of the
3rd/9th century). The principle of thesis and
antithesis used here follows the tradition of the Chris¬
tian Aristotelians, and marked the apologetic
literature of Christian converts to Islam. One may
compare al-Hasan b. Ayyub (4th/10th century) in Ibn
Taymiyya (al-Djawdb. ii, 318,6, 319 in fine , etc.).
Moreover, the question-answer pattern is also found
in the dogmatic literature of Islam, as well as in its
learned literature in general.

At an early stage, debates with opponents from
their own circles took the place of disputes with non-
Islamic doctrines. One may quote the above-
mentioned refutation of the Kadariyya by al-Hasan b.
Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya; the debate on know¬
ledge {ma c rifa ) inside the Mu c tazila as related by al-
Djahiz (d. 255/868-9) in his al-Masa^il wa ’l-djawabat
fi 'l-ma c rifa ; the discussion on the theodicy problem
between al-Nazzam, c Ali al-Aswari, Abu ’l-Hudhayl,
Bishr b. al-Mu c tamir, al-Murdar, al-Asha djdj . al-
Iskafi) and Dja c far b. Harb (see Daiber, Mu c ammar ,
260 f.), noted down in a protocol by c Abd al-Kahir b.
Tahir al-Ba gh dadi ( al-Fark , 198,15-200,17; shorter
version in al-Milal , 136,11-138,3); and also the pro¬
tocol of a discussion on the Kurban between the Han-
ball Ibn Kudama al-MakdisI and an Ash c arl opponent
from Damascus (ms. Leiden Or. 2523), which took
place between 589/1193 and 595/1199. This protocol,
rewritten as an independent theological treatise (ms.
Manisa 6584-5), clearly shows the traces of the tradi¬
tional technique of debating by way of question and
answer, as well as the reductio ad absurdum. An example
from the fields of philosophy and cosmology is the col¬
lection of question and answers of al- Gh azall. inspired
by his Makasidal-falasifa and preserved in Hebrew (ed.
Maker). The disputes {munazarat), held and after¬
wards written down by Fakhr al-Dm al-RazT, have a

MASA 3 IL WA-ADJWIBA

637

theological-philosophical and juridical character. For
an example of the discussion on grammar in the
5th/llth century, see Samir.

The Islamic technique of disputation is directly
linked to the questions discussed (cf. Van Ess, Begin¬
nings) and in particular cases, Christian peripatetical
examples of perhaps Syriac origin may have been fol¬
lowed (cf. Cook, Origins). Like Judaeo-Christian
Hellenism (see Van Ess, Disputationspraxis , 54 ff.),
Islam in the sphere of disputation developed a techni¬
que which became more and more the pattern of
scientific treatises. In IbadI circles [see ibadiyya) in
the Maghrib, there was even compiled a handbook of
theological disputation, the Kitdb al-Diahdlat . whose
actual form (terminus ante quern 5th/11 th century) cer¬
tainly contains older material (Van Ess, Unter-
suchungen , 43 ff.). The question-answer pattern has
become here a didactic principle, used to prepare
future missionaries for their task. Later, this techni¬
que was elaborated in the so-called djadal literature,
developed under the influence of the Organon of
Aristotle, and intended to teach Islamic theologians as
well as jurists the art of dialectic discussion. One may
compare the HanbalTs Ibn c Akil (see G. Makdisi,
Scholastic method , 650 ff.; idem, Dialectic) or Ibn Surur
al-MakdisI, whose Kitdb al-Diadal (composed ca.
630/1232) has survived in manuscript (ms. Berlin
5319, fols. 17a-32). Makdisi has drawn attention to
the resemblance between Ibn c Akfl and the sic et non
method used by Peter Abelard (Scholastic method,
648 f., 657 ff.; revised in Rise, 253 ff.). It remains to
be proved in detail whether the method of Abelard
(see for this, Grabmann, ii, 200 ff.) and his
predecessors offers more than “mere parallels’’, and
whether its origin is due to Arabic models (Makdisi).

In medical literature, the question-answer pattern
served an exclusively didactic purpose, namely the
transmission of specific knowledge. The al-Masd HI al-
tibbiyya , or al-Masd 3 il Ji ’ l-tibb , of Hunayn b. Ishak
[<?.t>. ], preserved also in Syriac and Latin, which sum¬
marises in catechetical form the most important
medical knowledge (see Ullmann, Medizin , 117 f.;
idem, Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften , 458), became
widely spread. Medical works of Galen and Hip¬
pocrates were summarised in the same way by
Hunayn (see Ullmann, Medizin , 117, 206). For other
medical handbooks in the question-answer pattern,
see ibid ., 110, 166, 209, etc. From the fields of philos¬
ophy, physics and logic, mention may be made of the
Masa 3 il mutafarrika of al-Farabi, and of the anonymous
Syriac collection of definitions (ed. Furlani). From
such didactical question-answer books it is only one
step to the hudud (definition) literature [q. v. ] which
could fall back on classical models (see Fuhrmann,
part ii). Examples are al-Kindi’s Kitdb Hudud al-ashyd 3
wa-rusumihd , and Ibn Slna’s Kitdb al-Hudud. Like in
Syriac (cf. Baumstark, 131 ff.; Daiber, Bar Zo c bi),
traditions of Greco-Hellenistic dihairesis literature
may have been of influence here.

To the list of the above-mentioned works, which
might be divided into question-answer literature of
“dialectical” and “didactical” character, should cer¬
tainly be added the Greco-Arabic tradition of the Pro-
blemata physica ( al-Masd 3 il al-tabi c iyya). The Problemata
physica study the reasons and causes (8ia tt) of
phenomena in nature, and often use the following
paradox: “Why does phenomenon X have the effect
Y, but does phenomenon Xa not have the effect Ya”?
The very complex history of the tradition of the Greek
texts (see Flashar, 297 ff.) is reflected in the Arabic
material (see, for the time being, Ullmann, Medizin ,
92-6; idem, Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften, 458;

Daiber, in Gnomon , xlii [1970], 545 f.; Sezgin, iii, 50;
vii, 216; on further mss., see Daiber, Graeco-Arabica
and Philosophica in Indian libraries , forthcoming).
Numerous Arabic collections of the Problemata ,
ascribed to Aristotle, are closely related to the Pro¬
blemata inedita, ascribed to Alexander of Aphrodisias,
while others appear to be extracts from the Problemata
physica, ascribed to Aristotle (cf. e.g. Book x in ms.
2234 of Tehran University, and see for this R. Kruk).
The only, almost complete, manuscript of Hunayn b.
Ishak’s Arabic translation in 17 makaldt (mentioned
also by Ibn Abl U§aybi c a \q.v. ] in his History of physi¬
cians), is ms. Manisa 1790/3; an edition of the Arabic
text, with its translation in Hebrew, is in preparation.
The Arabic text goes back to a Greek original, which
was definitely more complete than the Greek text
known so far. Moreover, Syriac (Job of Edessa, 769-
835 A.D.) and Arabic (Ballnas, at the turn of the 8th
century A.D.) traditions seem to have utilised collec¬
tions of the Problemata of Greek origin, which have not
been preserved (cf. Weisser, 55 ff., 210, 215). For
other collections of the Problemata, which have not
been identified so far, and which, in the Arabic texts,
are ascribed to Theophrastus, Proclus and Galen, see
Ullmann, op. cit. The Problemata physica are often
quoted and commented upon in Arabic: Rhazes,
Kusta b. Luka, c Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (Makalatani
fi y l-hawass wa '1-masaHl al-tabi c iyya, Kuwait 1972),
Ibn al-Haytham, Fakhr al-Dln al-Razi and c Isa b.
Massa. To this can be added the adaptations of two
different collections of Problemata by Abu ’1-Faradj b.
al-Tayyib in ms. Nuruosmaniye 3610 (new number
3095), written before 1076/1665: fols. lb-2 lb (Alex¬
ander of Aphrodisias) and fols. 22a-33b (Aristotle).
Moreover, there is the short extract (starting with
Aristotle. Problemata physica , ii, 3) in ms. Princeton
2988 by Sulayman b. Ahmad, not further known.

Not related to the Problemata physica is the Risala fi
'1-asHla al-tabiHyya (ms. Washington, Army Medical
Library A 82), a question-answer discussion, possibly
fictitious, between al-Harith b. Kalada [ q.v . in
Suppl.] (an older contemporary of the Prophet) and
the Sasanid ruler Kisra Anushirwan on practical
questions of human health. This Risala has become
known (Sezgin, iii, 203) and published (by al-
c Azzawi) under the title al-Muhdwardt fi 'l-tibb baynahu
wa-bayna Nushirwan. The text is one of the numerous
examples in which the question-answer pattern serves
only to transmit knowledge, and thus has a didactic
purpose. The master, the scholar, answers questions
of a pupil, someone who tries to find information, but
whose name is often not mentioned. This transmis¬
sion of knowledge occasionally takes the form of
learned correspondence. Thus the Christian Yahya b.
c AdI (d. 974 A.D.) answers fourteen questions on
logic, physics and metaphysics asked by Ibn Abi
Sa c id b. c Uthman b. Sa c Id al-Mawsili (see Endress,
97 f.); the Buyid vizier Abu TFadl Ibn al- c AmTd (d.
360/970) informs c Adud al-Dawla [q.v. ), at the latter’s
request, on all sorts of questions on natural science in
letters, preserved in manuscript ( c Irak Museum,
Ba gh dad 594; a different text in ms. Leiden Or. 184)
(see Daiber, Briefe ); Ibn Ya c Ish (d. 643/1245) answers
grammatical questions put before him by a group of
scholars from Damascus (ed. R. Sellheim). A famous
example is the change of ideas between Frederick II of
Hohenstaufen and the Orient. In his Adjwiba^an al-
asHla al-sakaliyya (cf. Kattoura 42 f.; al-Taftazam,
108 ff., 178 ff.), the Spanish mystic and philosopher
Ibn Sab c in, between 1237 and 1242 A.D., informs
Frederick II about the problems of the eternity of the
world, the essence of theology (ed. Yaltkaya, 24-26;

638

MASA 5 IL WA-ADJWIBA

tr. M. Grignaschi), and the categories, the soul and
the difference, in this subject, between Aristotle and
his commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias. In his
Kitab al-Istibsar fi-ma tudrikuhu al-absdr, preserved in
manuscript (Brockelmann, i, 385), the Egyptian
scholar al-Karafi reports on physico-astronomical and
physiological-optical questions which Frederick II put
before the Arab scientist Kamal al-Din b. Yunus (tr.
Wiedemann). The texts mentioned show the extent of
the scientific relations of Frederick II with the Orient
(see also Suter).

Occasionally, reciprocal criticism went hand in
hand with the exchange of ideas between scholars. We
may mention the AsHla wa'l-adjwiba between al-
BTrunT, Ibn Sina and the latter’s pupil Abu Sa c Td al-
Ma c suml on questions about Aristotle’s De caelo and
about physics, or the answers of Ibn Sina to al-
Blrunl’s questions on metaphysics (ed. Ulken, Ibn
Sina risaleleri, ii, 2-9; ed. M. Turker, in Beyruni’ye
armagan, Ankara 1974, 103-12). Other correspondents
of Ibn Sina (ed. Ulken, op. cit., and ed. al-Kurdi,
Djd mf al-badaH c , 152 ff.) were Abu TFaradj b. al-
Tayyib, Abu Sa c Td b. AbT ’1- Kh ayr. Abu c Ubayd al-
Djuzdjanl. c Ala 3 ’1-DawIa b. Kakawayh, Abu Tahir
b. Hassul, Miskawayh (A lasdHl c an ahwdl al-ruh; cf.
Michot) and Abu ’1-Husayn al-SahlT; also Ibn Zayla
] and his Madjalis al-sab c a bayn al-shaykh wa 7-
c Amin , preserved in manuscript (Ragip Pasa 1461,
fols. 150a-162b).

Finally, from the fields of metaphysics and mysti¬
cism we may mention the correspondence between
( Umar Khayyam and Ibn Slna’s pupil Abu Nasr
Muhammad b. c Abd al-Rahlm al-NasawI (ed.
Nadwi, 375 ff. = ed. al-KurdT, 165 ff.), and the
exchange of letters between c Abd al-Razzak al-
Kashanl (al-Kashi) and Simnani (8th/l4th century)
on the unity of being (see Landolt). In some cases
there were also personal attacks during the learned
arguments, as is clear from a polemic altercation in
the 5th/ 11th century between Ibn Butlan and Ibn
Ridwan on medical and philosophical questions.

The examples given above and taken from Arabic
literature show the overall importance of the dialogue.
In the search for truth and its causes, the striving for
knowledge ( Him) found expression in the question-
answer literature, in which the didactic element often
appears consciously linked to the dialectic one which
tried to persuade and refute. The technique of the
reductio ad absurdum was developed and afterwards
refined under the influence of the methods of
Aristotelian logic. The result was often a quasi-logical
reasoning, consisting in an attempt to show the
incompatibility of certain theses by proving the
untenability of their conclusions (cf. Perelman/Ol-
brechts-Tyteca, § 45 ff., 48). This type of reasoning
became a standard pattern of learned Arabic
literature. In this connection, it is important to note
that dialogue and discussion in different cultures have
led to similar techniques. This does not however,
exclude the possibility that questioning and answering
in Islam were stimulated by Hellenism and by Chris¬
tian, and to a lesser extent Jewish, converts and
opponents.

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Azrak ila c Abd Allah b. c Abbas , ed. Sulayman al-
Samarra 5 !, Ba gh dad 1968 (also under the title
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Die Abhandlung des Abu Hamid al-Gazzali. Antworten
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Leipzig-Berlin 1914, 483-5. _ (H. Daiber)

al-MASALIK WA ’L-MAMALIK (a.) “routes
and kingdoms”, name given by R. Blachere ( Extraits
des principaux geographes arabes du Moyen Age, Beirut-
Algiers 1934, 110-200; 2nd corrected printing by H.
Darmaun, Paris 1957) to what he considered as a par¬
ticular genre of Arabic geographical litera¬
ture, because several works, which bear the title of
Kitdb al-Masdlik wa d-rnarndlik, present common char¬
acteristics. Nevertheless, not all those which, in his
eyes, constitute this genre were given the title which
has been retained, and furthermore, the K. al-Masdlik
wa ’ l-mamalik which is perhaps the oldest, that of Ibn
Khurradadhbih (d. between 272 and 300/885 and
912), does not form part of the genre, for we may see
it simply as a manual for the use of the secretaries of
the administration. Blachere thus places under this
rubric the K. al-Buldan of al-Ya c kubi (d. after
278/891), then as a group, the K. Suwar al-ard of al-
Balkhl (d. 322/934), the K. al-Masdlik wa ’ l-mamalik of
al-Istakhri (d. after 340/951) and the K. Surat al-ard of
Ibn Hawkal (d. after 367/977), the K. Ahsan al-takasim
of al-MukaddasT (d. after 378/988), the K. al-Masdlik
wa ’ l-mamalik of al-Bakri (d. 487/1094) and finally the
Nuzhat al-mushtdk of al-Idris! (d. 560/1166), an
expanded version of which, the Rawd al-uns or K. al-
Masdlik [wa ’ l-mamalik), does not seem to have come
to light. A. Miquel, who often cites the masalik wa 7-
masalik (in La geographic humaine du monde musulman , i,
Paris 1967, 2nd ed. 1973, index), devotes to this genre
a fairly long chapter (267-330) which he entitles the
“advent of genuine human geography” and in which
he studies separately the works of al-Istakhri and Ibn
Hawkal, adds to Blachere’s list the K. al-Masdlik wa 7-
mamdlik of al-MuhallabT (d. 380/990) and simply men¬
tions al-Bakri and al-IdrTsi who (269, n. 1) “hardly do
anything more than complete the data of the masalik
works for Spain and the Ma gh rib”.

Leaving aside the two latter ones cited, all the
authors illustrative of the genre isolated by Blachere
are easterners living at the end of the 3rd/9th century
or in the 4th/10th one, i.e. in a period when the Shr c I
movement began to enjoy some remarkable successes.
As against the geographers who preceded them, they
were for the most part travellers who, to the data
already taken traditionally by their predecessors from
treatises of cosmography and geography based
directly or indirectly on Greek science and particu¬
larly on Ptolemy [see batlamiyus], and to the infor¬
mation relating to the routes, distant lands and
peoples who inhabit them that they could derive from

640

al-MASALIK WA ’L-MAMALIK — MASARDJAWAYH

various written or oral sources, now added first-hand
documentation gathered in the regions that they des¬
cribe. In this regard, a passage of the K. Surat al-ard
of Ibn Hawkal is very revealing, for it presents a
totally characteristic lay-out (see Blachere, Extraits ,
110-1; Ar. text in the 2nd ed. of the Surat al-ard, 329,
and Fr. tr. Kramers-Wiet, almost identical to that of
Blachere, i, pp. IX-X and ii, 321-2).

Regarding the form given to these works, these
authors (with the exception of al-Idrisi) do not follow
the division of the world into climates [see iklim], but
distinguish large regions, roughly corresponding to
the mamalik [see mamlaka], within which they des¬
cribe the routes that they traverse, their localities and
the men who live there. “The authors of whom we are
about to speak”, writes Blachere ( Extraits , 115), “are
concerned purely with description. All their attention
is directed to the recording of the general features of
a country, assessing how the details relating to each
place, in the past, bear on their present life. All this
is no doubt written down in a generally monotonous
style”. However, this genre assumes a literary aspect
which contrasts with the dryness of the administrative
manuals, without giving as important a place to adab
as do a Djahiz or an Ibn al-Fakih, just as it avoids the
fables and marvellous accounts of certain other
travellers who had the opportunity to go beyond the
borders of the Islamic empire. Nevertheless, the
eastern authors of the group do not know the Chris¬
tian world and even have a poor acquaintance with
the Muslim West, with the exception of Ibn Hawkal
whose work constitutes, on certain points, a unique
historical source, for his chapters on the Maghrib,
Spain and Sicily can be regarded as original.
Generally, history in these works occupies a place
which is not negligible, but it is doubtless the seden¬
tary al-Bakri who supplies in this regard the most
information, while al-Idrisi, who questioned, at the
court of the Normans of Sicily, some travellers and
Christian pilgrims, is quite well-informed on the
routes, towns and states of Europe, not to mention the
fact that he himself navigated the length of the coasts.

It was with a purely didactic purpose that Blachere
marked out from the rest of the geographical literature
the genre of the masalik wa ’ l-mamalik, whose limits are
far from being settled. In fact, even if the adoption of
the title in question by a certain number of Arab
authors of the Middle Ages has not failed to be noted
by the historians of literature, other classifications can
be proposed. For example, in his article djughrafiya
of the Suppl. of the EI l , although dating from 1936,
J. H. Kramers puts into the same “literary group”
Ibn Khurradadhbih, al-Sarakhsi, aI-Ya c kubi, Ibn al-
Fakih, Ibn Rusta, Kudama, al-Djahiz and al-
Djayhani, and treats separately the school of al-
Balkhi. As for S. Maqbul Ahmad, who was entrusted
with the same article djughrafiya in the EP, he also
alludes (ii, 579a) to the works which have received
“the generic title of al-Masalik wa 'l-Mamalik'", but he
divides the geographical literature of the 3rd and
4th/9th-10th centuries into two large categories, com¬
prising firstly (described as the c IrakI school) Ibn
Khurradadhbih. al-Ya c kubI, Ibn al-Fakih, Kudama,
Ibn Rusta, al-Mas c udi and al-Djayhani, and secondly
(the school of al-Balkhf) al-Istakhrl, Ibn Hawkal and
al-Mukaddasi. Despite a certain convergence, the
classifications, as we see, are appreciably different and
invite us to proceed with some caution in handling the
concept of masalik wa ’ l-mamalik.

Bibliography : Apart from the works cited in
the article, see the articles of the El regarding the
geographers concerned. (Ch. Pell at)

MASAMUA, members of a Basran familyof
the tribe of Shavban of the confederacy of Bakr b.
Wa 3 il, prominent in the Umayyad period. They
traced their ancestry to Djahdar b. Dubay c a, a partici¬
pant in the war of Basus [q.v. ] (Ibn al-Kalbi-Caskel,
Gamharat an-nasab, i, table 155; Hamasa, ed. Freytag,
i, 252 ff.; AghanP, v, 43 f., 48 ff, 55). But apart from
the report that Misma c b. Shihab died as an apostate
from Islam in eastern Arabia (according to the poetry
cited by al-Baladhuri, Fuiuh , 84; differently al-Tabari,
i, 1971), little is heard of them until they settled in
Basra in the wake of the conquests. Here they joined
the ranks of the tribal chiefs ( ashraj , ru^us al-kabd^it)
around whom Sufyanid politics revolved. They were
one of the four families on which the Basrans prided
themselves (see Ibn al-Fakih, Bulddn, 170, tr. H.
Masse, Damascus 1973, 207-8; Pellat, Milieu, 33 and
index).

Malik b. Misma c ,_the most famous member of the
family, fought for c A 3 isha at the battle of the Camel
(allegedly already then as commander of the Bakr b.
Waril) and threw in his lot with the Umayyads
thereafter (al-Tabari, i, 3179, 3220 f.; ii, 765 f.). In
the civil war which broke out at the death of Yazld b.
Mu c awiya, he negotiated the alliance (hilf [q. v. ])
between the Bakr b. Waril and Azd in Basra and
played a major role in the subsequent feud between
these two tribes and the Tamlm (64/683-4), emerging
as the undisputed leader of the Bakr b. Waril, whom
he later conducted in battle against al-Mukhtar in
67/686-7 (al-Tabari, i, 448 ff., 720, 726; al-

Baladhuri, Ansab , ivb, 105 ff.; v, 253, 259). Having
joined the pro-Umayyad Djufriyya, a group of
Basrans who unsuccessfully tried to oust Mus c ab from
Basra in 69/688-9 or 70/689-90 (not 71/690-1, as
stated by Caskel, Gamhara , ii, s.v. “Malik b.
Misma c ” and Crone, Slaves on horses, Cambridge 1980
117; cf. Wellhausen, Arab kingdom, 190; al-Mas c udi,
ed. Pellat, Arabic index, s.v.), he lied to the Yamama,
but returned on c Abd al-Malik’s reconquest of c Irak
in 72/691. He died shortly thereafter (al-Tabari, ii,
799 ff.; al-Baladhuri. Ansab , ivb, 156 ff., 160 ff., 165;
VtW&l,Milieu, 270)). His brothers Mukatil b. Misma c
and c Amir b. Misma c were also men of some promi¬
nence (for references, see Crone, loc. cit.).

Under the Marwanids, the family retained its
leadership of the Bakr b. Waril and, on the whole, its
Umayyad sympathies. Thus Nuh b. Shavban b.
Malik b. Misma c commanded the khums of Bakr b.
Waril against the Muhallabids in Basra in 101/720 (al-
Tabari, ii, 1380), while other members of the family
were at various times governors of Fasa and Darab-
djird, Slstan and Sind (Crone, op. cit., 117 f.). But
they played no role in the third civil war or the
c Abbasid revolution.

In the caliphate of al-Mahdi, c Abd al-Malik b.
Shihab al-MismaT commanded a naval expedition to
Sind and acted as deputy governor there for a short
while (al-Tabari, iii, 460 f., 476 f., 491). Yet, unlike
the Muhallabids or the Kutaybids, also Basran
families of major importance in the Umayyad period,
the Masami c a failed to effect a political comeback
under the c Abbasids.

Bibliography : Practically all chronicles deal¬
ing with the Umayyad period have something to
say about the Masami c a. The most important
references are given in the article, to which how¬
ever should be added Ibn Hazm, Dja mhara. ed.
Harun, 320-1. (P. Crone)

MASAMIDA [see masmuda].

MASARDIAWAYH (in Persian Masargoye),
sometimes called Masardjis, is one of the few physi-

MASARDJAWAYH — MASAWWA C

641

cians from the Umayyad period who are known by
name, and probably the first to translate a medical
book into Arabic.

So far, endeavours to identify and date him have
been unsuccessful. He is said to have been ofJudaeo-
Persian origin and to have lived in Basra. Occa¬
sionally he is indicated as a Syrian {suryanT), which is
probably to be explained by the translation which he
allegedly made from Syriac into Arabic of the Kunnash
(xavoex 1 ^) °f Ahrun [ q.v. in Suppl.], translated into
Syriac by a certain Gosios. According to lbn Djuldjul
[q. v. ], this was done under the caliphs Marwan (64-
5/684-5) or c Umar b. c Abd al- c Az!z b. Marwan (99-
101/717-20). The latter is said to have drawn the Kun-
nash out of the oblivion of his library and to have taken
care that the translation became widely known.
According to other authors, Masardjawayh met Abu
Nuwas, and so must have lived at the end of the
2nd/8th or the beginning of the 3rd/9th centuries.
Totally mistaken are two places in Abu Sulayman al-
Sidjistanl, mentioned here only for completeness’s
sake. This author dates him back to Greek Antiquity,
see The Muntakhab Siwan aThikmah of ... as-Sijistdnf, ed.
D. M. Dunlop, The Hague, etc. 1979; on p. 20, 1.
341, Masardjawayh appears amidst the pupils of Hip¬
pocrates; and on p. 88, 11. 1860-3, he is ranged after
Aesopus and Theophrastes and before the sophist
Murun (?) and Brasidas.

Two of the works ascribed to Masardjawayh have
not come down to us: one about the benefit and harm
of the potency of food-stuffs ( Kitab Kuwa ’ 1-aVima wa-
mandfpihd wa-madarriha), the other about the benefit
and harm of the potency of medicinal drugs ( Kitab
Kuwa ’ l- c akdkTr wa-mandfiHhd wa-madarriha). On the
other hand, a treatise on substitute drugs has been
preserved: FT Abddl al-adwiya wa-ma yakum rnakdrn
ghayrihi minha , see H. Ritter and R. Walzer in SB Pr.
Ak. W., Phil.-Hist. Kl. (1934), 831; Eng. tr. M.
Levey, Substitute drugs in early Arabic medicine , with
special reference to the texts of Masarjawaih, al-Razi, and
Pythagoras , Stuttgart 1971, 35-45. This short treatise
has great similarity with the corresponding works of
Galen and Paulus Aiginetes. It shows also that,
during this early stage of translating activity,
botanical nomenclature was already highly developed.
In medical literature, Masardjawayh is often quoted,
especially in al-RazI’s Hawi, who calls him either
Masardjawayh or, more often, al-Yahudi. The quota¬
tions have been put together by Ullmann, Medizin, 24,
to which may be added lbn al- c Awwam, Filaha, tr.
Clement-Mullet, ii/1,88; the two quotations from lbn
Kutayba, c Uydn, Cairo 1343-9/1925-30, ii, 102,4-
103,3 and 108,3-5, have been translated by E.
Wiedemann, Aufsalze zur arabischen Wissenschaftsge-
schichte, Hildesheim-New York 1970, ii, 168 f. and
172 (the last quotation contains a remarkable observa¬
tion about the beneficial effect of green colour on the
eyes). These fragments still need careful analysis in
order to answer the question whether the term “the
Jew” indeed always indicates Masardjawayh. For lbn
Abl Usaybi c a, i, 163, 24 f. this question is settled in
the affirmative.

A son of Masardjawayh, c Isa b. Masardjls, who,
according to his name, was probably converted to
Christianity, also followed the medical profession,
and is said to have composed writings on colours (K.
al-Alwan), smells and tastes ( K. al-Rawa^ih wa 7-
tu c um), see lbn al-Nadlm, Fihrist , 297, 17-8; lbn al-
Kifti, 247, 4-6; lbn Abi Usaybi c a, i, 204, 9-10.

Bibliography : lbn al-Nadlm, Fihrist , ed.

Flugel, 297, 11. 6-8; lbn I^juldjul, Tabakat al-atibba^

wa d-hukamd 5 , ed. F. Sayyid, 61; Sa c id al-AndalusT,

Tabakat al-umam, tr. R. Blachere, Paris 1935, 157;
lbn al-KiftT, Hukamd 5 , ed. J. Lippert, 324-6; lbn
Abi Usaybi c a, c Uyun al-anba 5 , ed. A. Muller, i.
163-4 and 204, 22. 7-8; lbn al- c Ibn (Barhebraeus),
Ta\ikh mukhtasar al-duwal, ed. Saliham, 192-3; L.
Leclerc, Histoire de la medecine arabe, Paris 1876, i,
79-81; M. Steinschneider, Masardjaweih, einjiidischer
Arzt des VII. Jahrhunderts , in ZDMG, liii (1899), 428-
34; idem, Die arabische Literatur der Juden, Frankfurt
1902, 13-15; Brockelmann, S I, 417; M. Ullman,
Die Medizin im Islam , Leiden-Cologne 1970, 23 f.,
293; Sezgin, GAS, iii, 206 f. (A. Dietrich)
MASAWWA C Ar. form, also Musawwa c ; in
Ethiopic, Meswa c , Metwa c , in Tigre and Tigrinna,
Base c , in Bedja, Bade c = Ar. Basi c /Badi c (see al-
Mas c udr, Murudf, ed. Pellat, vi, 184 s.v., but also S.
Tedeschi ( Bibl .), an island and port in Eritrea
[q. v. ] on the Red Sea, at 15° 38’ N. and 39° 28' E.,
opposite the Dahlak [q.v.] archipelago. The islands of
Masawwa c , the site of the deep-water harbour, and
Tawlud are linked to each other and to Arkiko on the
mainland (for this name, see Basset, Histoire, i, 128-9;
Crawford, The Fung kingdom , 127) by causeways.
From the north, the roadsteads are protected by the
Djarar and c Abd al-Kadir peninsulas. With a
recorded annual average temperature of 31° C., the
port is among the world’s hottest places, the annual
rainfall being only 7 inches.

According to popular etymology, the name is
derived from Ethiopic rriesuwaf “cry, loud call’’. A
fisherman from Dahlak, driven by a storm to the then
inhabited island, is said to have related that its size
was such that a man, shouting in a high voice (rait> c ),
could make himself heard from one end to the other
(Conti Rossini, II Gadla Filpos, 162). According to
another version (Conti Rossini, Documenti, 16; cf.
Esteves Pereira, Historia de Minas , 62), Ethiopian
caravan leaders, arriving at Djarar, had to cry aloud
for the barks of the island to come and fetch them.
The island is in fact one km. long and ca. 250 m. wide.

The Masawwa c region, known as Samhar, may
have been visited as early as the third millennium
B.C. when Egyptian ships sailed down the Red Sea.
It became better known in history when the Greek
Ptolemies developed a series of stations along the
African coast [see badw, i, 887a]. The region, but not
the actual port, is mentioned in the famous inscription
carved in the port of Adulis about 240 B.C. at the
time of Ptolemy III Energetes (246-221 B.C.), and
copied by Cosmas Indicopleustes who visited the area
about 525 A.D. (Me Crindle, The Christian topography ,
57). Artemidoros of Ephesus {ca. 100 B.C.), whose
work is known through extracts by Strabo {ca. 20
B.C.), mentions on this coast the port of Saba, iden¬
tified with Djarar by Conti Rossini ( Storia , 60, 103;
Comenli e notizie , 17). In connection with Adulis, now
Zula, the region is also mentioned in the well-known
Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (tr. Schoff, 22-3, cf. 60).
This Aksumite port in the gulf of the same name must
have ceased to function somewhere about the middle
of the first millennium A.D. (Kammerer, Essai , ch.
5), and its role may then have been taken over gradu¬
ally by Masawwa c , lying about 30 miles to the north.

In early Islam, Masawwa c is mentioned as a place
of exile and thus considered by Conti Rossini {Storia,
212) as being in Muslim hands. Because of his love of
wine, the Arab poet Abu Mihdjan [q.v. ) was banished
by c Umar to Basi c in 14/634 (Caetani, Annali, v,
224 ff.; Brockelmann, I, 40, S I, 701; Conti Rossini,
Storia , 212). At the death of Marwan, the last
Umayyad caliph, his son c Abd Allah, on his flight to
Djudda, arrived at Badi c (al-Mas c udr, TanbTh, 330).

642

MA$AWWA C

According to al-Mas c udT, who wrote in the 4th/10th
century, the coastal plains, and consequently
Masawwa c , were tributary to Ethiopia, and Badi c lay
on the littoral of aLma^adin, “the mines”, the ter¬
ritory of the Bedja [q.v. ]. If by this term the hinterland
of Masawwa c is meant (Badi c is not to be identified
with Badi or Airi island lying further north, see
Crowfoot, Some Red Sea ports), al-Mas c udi indicates
that the Bedja were working the Eritrean gold mines
(Conti Rossini, Storia , 278) and that the port played a
role in the gold traffic.

During the 6th-8th/12th-14th centuries, Masawwa c
was under the sovereignty of the amir of Dahlak, who
called himself sultan. The Ethiopians, however, as in
the time when the amir depended on Aksum, con¬
tinued to indicate him as seyuma bahr “prefect of the
sea”, in opposition to the bahr nagas “ruler of the sea
(-province]”, who resided at Debarwa (Debaroa).
Relations between Ethiopia and the na?ib of the amir
at Masawwa c must have been uneasy, at least occa¬
sionally, as may be concluded from the capture of the
port by Isaac, son of Negus Dawit I (1381- ca. 1410).
In the 10th/16th century still, the sovereignty of
Masawwa c was linked to that of Dahlak (de Barros,
Decada, ii, 1. viii, ch. 1; Basset, Inscriptions ; Esteves
Pereira, Os Portugueses ) The (Is) di mas(ua) on Fra
Mauro’s map is perhaps identical with Masawwa c
(Kammerer, La Mer Rouge, iii/3, 20). An impression
of the commercial activity in this and other ports on
both sides of the Red Sea in the early 16th century can
be gained from Ludovico di Varthema ( Travels, 31,
37-8). Andrea Corsali ( Histonale description , 32-3),
Tome Pires (Suma oriental, 43) and Duarte Barbosa
(The Book, 16). According to the author of the Cartas
das novas (Thomas, Discovery of Abyssinia, 67), there
was a large number of boats at anchor at Masawwa c ,
including two from Gudjarat, when he arrived there
in 1521. Soon, however, foreign trade in the Horn of
Africa was to suffer severely from the Portuguese
interference with local commerce. The discovery and
development of the trade route round Cape of Good
Hope, Ahmad Gran’s invasion of the highlands (see
habash, habasha] and the emergence of Turkish in¬
fluence in the Red Sea caused the decline of Masaw-
wa c , which remained however the main port of
Ethiopia.

When a Portuguese exploratory mission landed in
Masawwa c in 1520, the town was completely Muslim.
According to Alvarez (Beckingham-Huntingford, The
Prester John, i, 58), the Portuguese transformed the
mosque into a church, but did not occupy the port,
although the Ethiopian king Lebna Dengel strongly
wished them to build a fortress there (ibid. , ii, 479 ff.).
The information of the “Zorzi Itineraries” (Craw¬
ford, Ethiopian itineraries, 90, 159), according to which
king David ( = Lebna Dengel) gave the port to the
Portuguese, may refer to the mission of 1520, to some
earlier expedition, to negotiations, or to mere rumour.

With the disembarkation of Cristovao da Gama in
1541 [see habash]. Masawwa c began its role as
entrance-gate into Ethiopia for Western missionaries
and travellers, even after Ozdemir Pasha {q.v.} had
conquered the port and Arkiko in 1557, which then
became one of the sandjaks of the Ottoman province of
Habesh ([q. v. ], and also Orhonlu, Habes eyaleti, 33 ff.).
The difficulties between Turks and Western mis¬
sionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, are described
in the former’s correspondence (Beccari, Rerum;
Lobo, A voyage, 140 ff.; Aren, Evangelical pioneers; M.
Kropp, in Oriens Christianus, lxvi [1982], 247). Turkish
relations with Ethiopia, hostile at first, remained
uneasy later on. After the combined forces of the

Ottomans and bahr nagas Yishak had been defeated in
1578 by the Ethiopian king Sarsa Dengel (Conti
Rossini, La guerra), Masawwa c and Arkiko remained
in Turkish hands, but Turkish power declined
rapidly. A pasha was first established in Dahlak, and
later in Ma§awwa c , but actual power was soon left to
a local Balaw chieftain from a Bedja family of the
Samhar region, who acted as naHb (see Bombaci,
Notizie, 79-86; idem, II viaggio , 259-75) or deputy of
the Turkish pasha, who had taken up residence in
Su 5 akin [q.v. ]. After the expulsion of the Roman
Catholic missionaires from Ethiopia in 1633, King
Fasiladas made an agreement with the pasha that the
latter should execute all priests who might try to enter
Ethiopia. The situation at Masawwa c in 1634 is des¬
cribed by Barradas (Beccari, Rerum, i, 295-302). The
Turkish presence in the port, and especially the extor¬
tions by the na^ib, remained a source of irritation to
the Ethiopian kings (al-Haymi, Sirat al-Habasha; Van
Donzel, Foreign relations, index s.vv. Turks, Massawa),
the more so because imports and exports were not
unimportant (Van Donzel, op. cit., Appendix iv;
Bruce, Travels, iii, 54; Beccari, Rerum, index s.v.
Magua). In 1693 the na <:> ib Musa b. c Umar b. c Amir
b. Kunnu tried to use extortion against the Armenian
merchant Khodja Murad, who had returned from the
Dutch East Indies with gifts for the Ethiopian king.
When Murad refused to pay, his goods were con¬
fiscated. King lyasu I ordered the delivery of
foodstuffs to Ma§awwa c to be suspended, and started
preparations to attack the naHb, who then submitted
(Van Donzel, op. cit., 83). According to the French
traveller Charles Jacques Poncet (ca. 1700, see Foster,
The Red Sea, 154), the fortress in Masawwa c was not
very strong, and the arrival of an English vessel “cast
terror into the whole island”. On learning of the
arrival of this ship at Masawwa c , the Ethiopian monks
made a disturbance before the palace in Gondar,
probably fearing a punitive expedition from what they
thought to be Portuguese. Poncet also relates that the
Pasha received him with great civility, at the recom¬
mendation of the emperor of Ethiopia, who was
greatly afraid because he could easily starve the port
or refuse to furnish it with water. The inhabitants of
the island were obliged to fetch it from Arkiko on the
mainland (Foster, op. el loc. cit. On the cisterns on the
island, according to local tradition built by the
“Furs”, see Conti Rossini, Storia, 295-6; Puglisi,
Alcuni vestigi, 35-47). Although claiming power over
the port, the Ethiopian kings were never in fact master
over it, as is also clear from the Annals of King lyasu
II (1730-55) (see Guidi, Annales lyasu II, 127-30, 143-
7, 155). Power remained in the hand of the naHb.
When Bruce arrived in Masawwa c in 1768, the Porte
had annexed the government of the port to the pasha
of Djudda, but the na^ib did not pay tribute either to
him or to the Ethiopian king (Bruce, Travels, iii, 5-6).
The number of Banians or Indian merchants, in
whose hands trade had formerly been (Van Donzel,
Foreign relations, index s.v. ), was reduced to six, who
made but a poor livelihood (Bruce, Travels, iii, 55).

In the first decades of the 19th century, the nadib
still exercised some power. According to Salt (A
voyage, 138, 147), the na^ib Idris tried to prevent the
English from opening a communication with Ethio¬
pia, but came then under pressure from both the
Sharif of Mecca on the one side and from Ras Wolde
Sellasie of Tigre on the other. Salt was told by the Ras
that the road by Bure, south of Amphila Bay (see the
map in Salt, A voyage, opp. p. 137), was preferable to
the route by Masawwa c , but Nathaniel Pearce wrote
to him that the only road into Ethiopia was by

MASAWWA C

643

Masawwa c (ibid., 152). He added that the ndHb would
not allow guns to pass through his country. In 1844,
almost three centuries after their first attempt, the
Turks tried again to get a foothold on the mainland by
occupying Arkiko. But again they were forced back on
to Masawwa c , which in 1846 was leased to Muham¬
mad C A1T [q.v.], and now became an important ele¬
ment in Egyptian, British, Italian and Ethiopian
policies. The lease, having expired at the death of
Muhammad C A1T in 1849, was renewed in 1865 in
favour of Isma c Tl Pasha [q.v. ]. Egyptian rule was
welcomed by the local nomads who, during the anar¬
chy of the last years of king Tewodros of Ethiopia, had
been suffering from the hill tribes. Soon some of the
latter too began to seek Egyptian protection. In 1872
the Swiss Werner Miinzinger, consul of France in
Masawwa c since 1865, resigned from his post and
entered the service of the Egyptians. Having allegedly
paid £ 1,000,000 to the Porte, Isma c Tl Pasha created
the so-called Eastern Sudan, i.e. Taka, Su^akin and
Masawwa c , and appointed Miinzinger as governor in
1873. Miinzinger initiated a plan to link Masawwa c
with the Egyptian possessions in the north-east, and
constructed the causeways to the mainland. On each
of them was a gate, watched by a guard who collected
a toll from every passer-by (Rohlfs, Meine Adission,
31 ff.; Conti Rossini, Documenti , 16). He also fortified
the port, made himself “protector’' of the Bilen tribes
and occupied the Keren region. The Turkish practice
of having a na^ib of Balaw origin was continued, and
a member of his family was appointed sirdar [q.v.\ of
the troops in MasawwaL When the European powers
left Egypt with a free hand with regard to Ethiopia,
Isma c Il Pasha appointed the Dane Soren Adolph
Arendrup as commander of the Egyptian troops in
Masawwa c , and three Egyptian expeditions set out
against Ethiopia [see habash. i). After the Egyptian
debacle near Gura in 1876, rumours spread in
Masawwa c that the Ethiopian King Yohannes was
going to attack the port. But the king wanted peace
with Egypt, insisting however that Masawwa c should
be restored to his kingdom. The peace treaty,
arranged by C. G. Gordon, left Egypt still in control
of the Keren region and the port, where the anti-
Ethiopian policy was continued by Mukhtar Bey, the
Egyptian governor of Masawwa 0 . He gave asylum to
Fitawrari Debbeb, an Ethiopian rebel and cousin of
King Yohannes, who sold his loot openly in the
markets of Arkiko and Masawwa c and who had
brought trade with the coast to a standstill. After
Mukhtar Bey had been replaced by Mason Bey, an
American who had been in the service of the Egyptian
government, a treaty between Great Britain, Egypt
and Ethiopia was signed at Adowa in 1884 by king
Yohannes and Rear-Admiral Sir William Hcwett.
The actual control of Egypt, and consequently of the
ports on the Red Sea coast which had been occupied
by the Egyptians, lay indeed in the hands of Great
Britain after the revolt of c UrabT Pasha [q.v. ]. Under
British protection, free transit through Masawwa c was
given for all goods, including arms and ammunition,
to and from Ethiopia. A general reservation with
respect to the lawful claims of the Porte, explicitly
mentioned in Lord Granville’s instruction to Admiral
Hewett, was ignored in the Treaty. Nor did the
Treaty contain any concrete agreement about the
possession of MasawwaL In a letter to Queen Vic¬
toria, King Yohannes, aware that the removal of the
Egyptian garrison would leave the port open to him,
expressed the hope that “the gates of heaven would
open for her as she had opened Masawwa c for him”.
In her answer, the Queen regretted being unable to

accede to the King’s wish regarding the port (Zewde
Gabre-Sellasie, Yohannes IV , 152). Indeed, by now
another European power had appeared on the scene.

Wary of the French expansion in the Red Sea [see
djibutT], and in view of financial difficulties in Egypt,
Great Britain had been seeking an alliance with Italy.
Already in 1881, an Egyptian appeal to use force
against Italy after the establishment of an Italian col¬
ony in Assab [q.v. , had been rejected by the British
government. In 1882 Italy had even been invited to
participate in restoring order in Egypt. In the years
1881-3 expenditure had exceeded revenue in the port
of Masawwa c (Zewde Gabre-Sellasie, op. cit., 160);
hence retaining possession of the port was not con¬
sidered to be “in the true interests of Egypt” (ibid.,
161). Having thus been given a free hand in the Red
Sea, Italy landed a military expedition in Masawwa c ,
where on 5 February 1885, the Italian flag was flying
side-by-side with the Egyptian one over the palace and
the forts. King Yohannes was outraged, while
Menelik, who was building up his own power in Shoa
and had signed a secret treaty of friendship and trade
with the Italians in 1883, acted as mediator between
the Ethiopian king and Italy. The Italians quickly
occupied Arafale and Arkiko, and when the Egyptian
garrisons were gradually withdrawn, almost all major
places between Assab and Masawwa c came into their
power. Notwithstanding the Treaty of Adowa, the
Italians did not allow free transit of ammunition and
arms to King Yohannes, nor in the quantities which
he desired. They also rejected any form of Egyptian
authority, although this was recognised at first. Ten¬
sion between the Ethiopians and the Italians led to an
armed encounter at Dogali (1887), where the latter
suffered defeat. Menelik offered mediation, which
was accepted by Yohannes but refused by the Italians,
who concluded another treaty with the future Negus.
Yohannes, meanwhile convinced that Great Britain
and Italy were acting in accord, and considering Sir
Gerald Portal’s mission to him as a feint, marched
against Masawwa c in 1887. However, before reaching
it he turned his attention again to the Mahdist forces.
After his death in the battle of Kallabat (Metemma),
the Italians signed the Treaty of Ucciali (Wuchali)
with Menelik in 1889. Italian possession of Masawwa c
was confirmed, but Menelik was permitted to import
arms duty-free through the port (see the text of the
famous Treaty in Zaghi, Crispi, 152; cf. Marcus,
Menelik II, index s.v. Treaties). After their defeat at
Adowa in 1896, the Italians were able to retain Eritrea
and the port of Masawwa c , which played an impor¬
tant role during the Italo-Ethiopian war. Conquered
by British forces in 1941, Masawwa c remained under
British administration until the federation of Eritrea
with Ethiopia in 1950.

In 1931 the population was estimated at 9,300 and
in 1970 at 18,490. Imports consist mainly of industrial
goods, while exports comprise oilseeds, nuts, hides,
coffee, salt, fish and pearl. Local industries include a
salt works, fish and meat processing enterprises, a
cement plant and an ice factory. A thermal power
plant serves outlying areas where manganese ore is
mined. The volcanic deposits of the Danakil Plains
contain sulphur, sodium and potassium, gypsum,
rock salt and potash.

During their brief occupation of Eritrea, the coastal
settlements on the Red Sea and the Harar region, the
Egyptians introduced their HanafT legal code, which
was kept on by the Italians. Thus the HanafT madhhab
is predominant in the coastal towns of Masawwa c ,
Arkiko, Zula, Assab, etc. Of the Sufi orders in Islam,
the Kadiriyya are well represented in MasawwaE Its

644

MASAWWA C — MASDJID

founder, c Abd al-Kadir al-Djllanl [qv.\, is said to
have died at the place of the mosque dedicated in his
name. His anniversary (ziyarat al-Djildni) is celebrated
by a pilgrimage and the accompanying ceremonies on
11 Rabi c al-Awwal of each year.

Bibliography : R. Basset, Histoire de la conquete
de rAbyssinie (XIVe siecle) par Chihab eddin Ahmed ben
Abdel QadersurnommeArab-Faqih. 2 vols. Paris 1897-
1901; O. G. S. Crawford, The Fung kingdom of Sen-
nar, Gloucester 1951; C. Conti Rossini, II Gadla
Filpos e il Gadla Yohannes di Dabra Bizan, in Atti della
R. Accademia dei Lincei, anno CCXVII (1900), Ser.
V a , classe di Sc. mor., vol. viii, Parta l a , Rome
1903; idem, Storia d'Ethiopia, Bergamo 1928; idem,
Comenti e notizie di geographi classici sovra il Sudan Egi-
ziano e VEtiopia, in Aegyptus , vi (1925); idem,
Documenti per lo studio della lingua tigre , in Giornale della
Societa Asiatica Italiana , xvi (1903); F. M. Esteves
Pereira, Historia de Minds, Ademas Saged, rei de
Ethiopia , in Boletin de Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa,
7 a ser. xii, (1887-8); J. W. McCrindle, The Chris¬
tian topography of Cosmas , an Egyptian monk , London
1897; A. Kammerer, Essais sur l'histoire antique
d’Abyssinie, Paris 1926; idem, La Mer Rouge ,
l'Abyssinie et I’Arabie aux XVIe et XVlie siecles et la car-
tographie des portolans du Monde oriental, iii/3, Cairo
1952; Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, tr. W. Schoff, New
York 1912; L. Caetani, Annali; J. W. Crowfoot,
Some Red Sea ports in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in GJ
(May 1911), 523-50; Joao de Barros, Decadas da
Asia, Lisbon 1777; on the name Masawwa c , see I.
Guidi, Le canzoni ge c ez-amarihha in onore di Re
A bis s ini, in RRAL, ser. ii, vol. v (1889), 57; S.
Tedeschi, La questione di Badi c , in RSO Ixiii (1984),
179-99; J. Peruchon, Histoire d’Eskender, de c Amda
Seyon II et de Na^od, in JA (1894), 22; R. Basset,
Etudes sur l’histoire d’Ethiopie, in JA (1881), 1, 24;
idem, Les inscriptions de Tile de Dahlak, in JA (1893);

F. M. Esteves Pereira, Os Portugueses em Mafua , in
Revista das sciencias militares (1889); G. P. Badger,
The travels of Ludovico di Varthema, London 1863; A.
Corsali, Historiale description de EEthiopie, Antwerp
1558; M. L. Dames, The Book of Duarte Barbosa , 2
vols. London 1918-21; C. F. Beckingham-G. W.

B. Huntingford, The Prester John of the Indies, a true
relation of the lands of the Prester John. .., 2 vols., Cam¬
bridge 1961; O. G. S. Crawford, Ethiopian itineraries
circa 1400-1524, Cambridge 1958; H. Thomas, The
discovery of Abyssinia by the Portuguese in 1520, London
1938; C. Orhonlu, Osmanli imparatorlugu nun giiney
siyaseti: Habes eyaleti, Istanbul 1974; R. Pankhurst,
History of the Ethiopian towns from the Middle Ages to the
early nineteenth century, Athiopistische Forschungen,
8, Wiesbaden 1982, index s.v.; C. Beccari, Rerum
Aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI
adXIX, 15 vols., Rome 1903-13; G. Aren, Evangel¬
ical pioneers in Ethiopia, Uppsala 1978; C. Conti
Rossini, La Guerra turco-abissina del 1578, in OM, i
(1921-2), 634-6, 684-91, ii (1923), 48-57; A. Bom-
baci, Notizie sull'Abissinia in fond turche, in Rassegna
di Studi Edopici, iii, (1943), 79-86; idem, Il viaggio in
Abissina di Evliya Celebi, in AIUON, n.s. ii (1943),
259-75; al-Hayml, Sirat al-Habasha, ed. E. van
Donzel, A Yemenite embassy to Ethiopia 1647-1649,
Athiopische Forschungen, 21, Stuttgart 1986;
idem, Foreign relations of Ethiopia 1642-1700, Leiden
1979; J. Bruce, Travels to discover the Source of the Nile,
in the years 1768-73, 5 vols., Edinburgh 1790; W.
Foster, The Red Sea and adjacent countries at the close of
the seventeenth century, London 1949; G. Puglisi,
Alcuni vesdgi delV isola di Dahlac Chebir e la leggenda dei
Furs, in Procs. of the Third International Conference of

Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa 1966, i, 35-47; I.
Guidi, Annales Regum lyastu II et Iyoas, CSCO lxi
(1910), Ixvi (1912), repr. Louvain 1954; H. Salt, A
Voyage to Abyssinia, and Travels into the interior of that
Country, London 1814, repr. 1967; W. Miinzinger,
Ostafrikanische Studien, Schaffhausen 1864, 114 ff.;

G. Rohlfs, Meine Mission nach Abessinien, Leipzig
1883; Zewde Gabre-Sellasie, Yohannes IV of
Ethiopia, a political biography, Oxford 1975; C.
Zaghi, Crispi e Menelich nel Diario inedito del conte
Augusto Salimbeni, Turin 1956; H. G. Marcus, The
life and times of Menelik II, Ethiopia 1844-1913,
Oxford 1975. (E. van Donzel)

MASCARA [see al-mu c askar].

MASCULINE [see mudhakkar],

MASDJID (a.), mosque, the noun of place from
sadjada “to prostrate oneself, hence “place where one
prostrates oneself [in worship]”. The modern
Western European words (Eng. mosque, Fr. mosquee,
Ger. Moschee, Ital. moschea ) come ultimately from the
Arabic via Spanish mezquita.

I. In the central Islamic lands

A. The origins of the mosque up to the Prophet’s
death

B. The origin of mosques after the time of the
Prophet

C. The mosque as the centre for divine worship

D. The component parts and furnishings of the
mosque

E. The mosque as a state institution

F. The administration of the mosques

G. The personnel of the mosque

H. The architecture of the mosque

II. IN MUSLIM INDIA

A. Typology

B. The actual monuments

III. In Java

IV. In the rest of South-East Asia

V. In China

VI. In East Africa

VII. In West Africa

I. In the central Islamic lands

A. The origins of the mosque up to the
Prophet’s death.

The word msgd 5 is found in Aramaic as early as the
Jewish Elephantine Papyri (5th century B.C.), and
appears likewise in Nabataean inscriptions with the
meaning “place of worship”, but possibly, originally
“stele, sacred pillar”. The Syriac form msgd 5 and
Amharic masged are late loans from Arabic, though
Ge c ez meshgdd “temple, church” may be a genuine
formation from the verbal root s - g- d (itself certainly
borrowed from Aramaic). The form ms l gd “oratory,
place of prayer” occurs also in Epigraphic South Ara¬
bian (A. F. L. Beeston et alii, Sabaic dictionary, Lou-
vain-Beirut 1982, 125). The Arabic masdjid may thus
have been taken over directly from Aramaic or
formed from the borrowed verb (see A. Jeffery, The
foreign vocabulary of the Quran, Baroda 1938, 263-4).

1. The Meccan period. The word is used in
the Kur 5 an especially of the Meccan sanctuary ( al-
Masdjid al-haram, sura II, 139, 144, 145, 187, 192,
214; V, 3; VIII, 34; IX, 7, 19, 28; XVII, 1; XXII,
25; XLVIII, 25, 27); according to later sources, this
was already the usage in the Meccan period ( ca . al-
Ya c kubi, Ta^rikh. i. 285, 12). According to tradition,
the term al-Masdjid al-aksa (sura XVII, 1) means the
Jerusalem sanctuary (according to B. Schrieke, in Isl.,
vi [1915-16], 1; cf. Horovitz, in ibid. , ix [1919],
159 ff., the reference is rather to a place of prayer in
heaven); and in the legend of the Seven Sleepers,

MASDJID

645

masdjid means a tomb-sanctuary, probably Christian,
certainly pre-Islamic (sura XVIII, 20). The word is
also applied to pre-Islamic sanctuaries, which belong
to God and where God is invoked, although Muham¬
mad was not always able to recognise the particular
cult associated with them. It is undoubtedly with this
general meaning that the word is used in this verse of'
the Kur’an: “If God had not taken men under his
protection, then monasteries, churches and places of
prayer ( salawat ) and masadjid would have been
destroyed” (sura XXII, 41). The word is also used in
a hadith of an Abyssinian church (al-Bukharl, Salat, bab
48, 54; Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 3) and in another of
Jewish and Christian tomb-sanctuaries (al-Bukharl,
Salat , bab 55; Muslim, Masadjid , tr. 3). Even Ibn
Khaldun can still use the word in the general meaning
of a temple or place of worship of any religion ( Mukad -
dima,fasl 4, 6 at the end). There is therefore no ques¬
tion of a word of specifically Muslim creation. This is
in entire agreement with Muhammad’s original
attitude to earlier religions. Just as Abraham was a
Muslim, so David had a masdjid (al-Tabari, Tadrikh, i,
2408, 7 ff.).

To the Prophet, the Meccan sanctuary always
remained the principal mosque, known as Bayt Allah
even before the time of the Prophet. It was a grave
charge brought against the Kuraysh in the Meccan
period that they drove the believers out of al-Masdjid
al-haram (sOra II, 214; V, 3; VIII, 34; XXII, 25;
XLVIII, 25), which was considered all the more
unjust as they worshipped the true lord of the sanc¬
tuary. To the true God belonged al-masadjid (sura
LXXII, 18, Meccan); it was therefore an absurdity
for the godless to prevent the worship of God in
“God’s own mosques” (sura II, 108). The result was
that it was revealed in the year 9/630-1: “It is not
right for polytheists to frequent the mosques of God”
(sura IX, 17 f.) and the opponents of the new religion
were therefore excluded from the sanctuary. The Sira
agrees with the KuCan, that the sanctity of al-Masdjid
al-haram to which Muhammad had been used from
childhood was always regarded by him as
indisputable. Like other Meccans, he and his
followers regularly made the tawaf around the Ka c ba
and kissed the Black Stone (e.g. Ibn Hisham, 183,
12 ff.; 239, 8; 251, 15); it is frequently stated that he
used to sit in the masdjid like his fellow-citizens, alone
or with a follower or disputing with an opponent (Ibn
Hisham, 233, 16; 251, 15; 252, 14; 259; 260; 294;
18 f.). It is related that he used to perform the salat
between the Yaman corner and the Black Stone,
apparently from the narrator’s context, very fre¬
quently (Ibn Hisham, 190, 9 ff.). After his conver¬
sion, c Umar is said to have arranged that believers
performed the salat unmolested beside the Ka c ba (Ibn
Hisham, 224, 13 f., 17 f.). How strongly Muham¬
mad felt himself attached to the Arab sanctuary is evi¬
dent from the fact that he took part in the traditional
rites there before the hidjra (sura CVIII, 2); in the year
1/622-3, one of his followers, Sa c d b. Mu c adh, took
part in the pilgrimage ceremonies, and in the year
2/623-4 he himself sacrificed on 10 Dhu ’l-Hidjdja on
the musalla of the Banu Salima. He therefore, here as
elsewhere, retained ancient customs where his new
teaching did not directly exclude them. But when an
independent religion developed out of his preaching,
a new type of worship had to be evolved.

In Mecca, the original Muslim community had no
special place of worship. The Prophet used to perform
the salat in secret in the narrow alleys of Mecca with
his first male follower C AII and with the other earliest
Companions also (Ibn Hisham, 159, 166, 13 ff.). The

references are usually to the solitary salat of the
Prophet, sometimes beside the Ka c ba (Ibn Hisham,
190, 9 ff), sometimes in his own house (Ibn Hisham.
203, 6 f.). That the believers often prayed together
may be taken for granted; they would do so in a house
(ef. Ibn Hisham, 202). Occasionally also c Umar is
said to have conducted the ritual prayer with others
beside the Ka c ba (Ibn Hisham, 224) because c Umar
was able to defy the Kuraysh. When the Prophet
recited in the mosque the revelation, later abrogated,
recognising Allat, al- c Uzza and Manat, according to
the story, not only the believers but also the
polytheists present took part in the sudjud (al-Tabari,
i, 1192 f). Abu Bakr is said to have had a private
place of prayer ( masdjid) in Mecca in his courtyard
beside the gate; the Kuraysh, we are told, objected to
this because women and children could see it and
might be led astray by the emotion aroused (Ibn
Hisham, 246; al-Bukharl, Salat, bab 86; Kafala , bab 14
etc.; Mazalim, bab 22).

In the dogma taught by Muhammad, a sanctuary
was not a fundamental necessity. Every place was the
same to God, and humility in the presence of God, of
which the ritual prayer was the expression, could be
shown anywhere; hence the saying of the Prophet that
he had been given the whole world as a masdjid , while
earlier prophets could only pray in churches and
synagogues (al-Wakidl, tr. Wellhausen, 403; Corpus
iuris di Zaid b. c Ali, ed. Griffini, 50 and p. clxxix; al-
Bukharl, Salat, bab 56; Tayammum , bab 1; Muslim,
Masadjid, tr. 1), and also the saying: “Wherever the
hour of prayer overtakes thee, thou shall perform the
salat and that is a masdjid ” (Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 1).
That he nevertheless remained firmly attached to the
traditional sanctuary of the Ka c ba, produced a confu¬
sion of thought which is very marked in sura II,
136 ff. When in Medina he was able to do as he
pleased, it must have been natural for him to create
a place where he could be undisturbed with his
followers and where they could perform the ritual salat
together.

2. The foundation of the Mosque in
Medina. According to one tradition, the Prophet
came riding into Medina on his camel with Abu Bakr
as ridf surrounded by the Banu Nadjdjar. The camel
stopped on Abu Ayyub’s find*. Here (according to
Anas) the Prophet performed the salat, and
immediately afterwards ordered the mostque to be
built and purchased the piece of land from two
orphans, Sahl and Suhayl, who were under the guar¬
dianship of Mu c adh b. c Afra :i , for 10 dinars, after
declining to accept it as a gift; he lived with Abu
Ayyub until the mosque and his houses were com¬
pleted. During this period he performed the salat in
courtyards or other open spaces ( al-Bukharl. Salat, bab
48; Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 1; Ahmad b. Hanbal,
Musnad, iii, 212 above; Ibn Hisham. 336; al-Tabari,
i, 1258 f.; al-Mas c udI, Murudj, iv, 140-1 = § 1469).
According to this tradition, the building of the
mosque was intended by the Prophet from the first
and the choice of the site was left to the whim of his
mount. According to another tradition, the Prophet
took up his abode with Abu Ayyub, but during the
first period of his stay in Medina he conducted the
salat in the house of Abu Umama As c ad, who had a
private masdjid, in which he used to conduct salats with
his neighbours. The Prophet later expressed the desire
to purchase the adjoining piece of ground, and he
bought it from the two orphans, who according to this
tradition, were wards of As c ad (al-Baladhurl, Futuh al-
buldan, 6; cf. Wiistenfeld, Gesch. d. Stadt Medina, 60).
The site was covered with graves, ruins ( khirab ; also

646

MASDJID

harth, al-Tabari, i, 1259, 17; 1260, 1; cf. Ahmad b.
Hanbal, Musnad, iii, 212, 7, perhaps due to an old
misreading) and palm-trees and was used as a place
for keeping camels (and smaller domestic animals, al-
Bukhari. Wudv?, bdb 66). The site was cleared, the
palms cut down and the walls built. The building
material was bricks baked in the sun ( labin ) (Ibn
Hisham, 337; al-Bukharl, Salat, babs 62, 65; according
to one tradition they were baked at the well of Fatima,
Wustenfeld, Stadt Medina, 31); in plan it was a court¬
yard surrounded by a brick wall on a stone foundation
with three entrances; the gateposts were of stone. On
the kibla side (i.e. the north wall), at first left open, the
stems of the palm trees which had been cut down were
soon set up as columns and a roof was put over them
of palm-leaves and clay. On the east side two huts of
similar materials were built for the Prophet’s wives
Sawda 3 and c A 3 isha; their entrances opened on to the
court and were covered with carpets; they were later
increased so that there were nine little houses for the
Prophet’s wives. When the kibla was moved to the
south, the arbour at the north wall remained; under
this arbour called suffa or zulla the homeless Compan¬
ions {Ahl al-Suffa [q.v. ]) found shelter (al-Bukharf,
Salat, babs 48, 62; Wustenfeld, Medina , 60 f., 66; al-
Diyarbakrl, Ta\ikh al-Khamts. Cairo 1302, i, 387 ff.;
on the suffa, 387 in the middle; 391 after the middle;
cf. L. Caetani, Annali dell’ Islam, i, 377 f.). In seven
months, the work was completed (Wustenfeld,
Medina, 59), according to others in the month of Safar
of the year 2 (Ibn Hisham, 339, 18 f.). The mosque
was very simple. It was really only a courtyard with
a wall round it; the suffa already mentioned supplied
a shelter on the north side, while on the south side,
later the kibla side, an arbour was probably built also,
for the Prophet used to preach leaning against a palm-
trunk and this must have been on the kibla side. How
large the arbours were cannot be ascertained. The
mosque was the courtyard of the Prophet’s houses and
at the same time the meeting-place for the believers
and the place for common prayer.

According to the sources, it was the Prophet’s
intention from the very first to build a mosque at once
in Medina; according to a later tradition, Gabriel
commanded him in the name of God to build a house
for God (al-Diyarbakrl, i, 387 below); but this story
is coloured by later conditions. It has been made quite
clear, notably by L. Caetani ( Annali dell y Islam, i, 432,
437 ff.) and later by H. Lammens (Mo c awia, 8, 5, 62;
idem, Zidd, 30 ff., 93 ff.) that the earliest masdjid had
nothing of the character of a sacred edifice. Much can
be quoted for this view from Hadith and Sira (cf. Annali
deW Islam, i, 440). The unconverted Thakafis were
received by the Prophet in the mosque to conduct
negotiations and he even put up three tents for them
in the courtyard (Ibn Hisham, 916; al-Wakidl-
Wellhausen, 382); envoys from TamTm also went
freely about in the mosque and called for the Prophet,
who dealt with them after he had finished prayers (Ibn
Hisham, 933 f.; al-Wakidi-Wellhausen, 386). Ibn
Unays brought to the masdjid the head of the HudhalT
Sufyan, threw it down before the Prophet and gave his
report (Ibn Hisham, 981; al-Wakidi-Wellhausen,
225). After the battle of Uhud, the Medina chiefs
spent the night in the mosque (al-Wakidl-Wellhausen,
149). The AwsTs tended their wounded here {ibid.,
215 f; al-Tabari, i, 1491 f.); a prisoner of war was
tied to one of the pillars of the mosque (al-Bukharl,
Salat, bab 76, 82; cf. 75). Many poor people used to
live in the suffa (al-Bukharl, Salat, bab 58); tents and
huts were put up in the mosque, one for example by
converted and liberated prisoners, another by the

Banu Ghifar, in whose tent Sa c d b. Mu c adh died of
his wounds {ibid., bdb 77; Ibn al-Athir, Usd al-ghaba ,
ii, 297). People sat as they pleased in the mosque or
took their ease lying on their backs (al-Bukharl. c Ilm,
bdb 6; Salat, bdb 85; Ibn Sa c d, i, 124, 14); even so late
as the reign of c Umar, it is recorded that he found
strangers sleeping in a corner of the mosque (al-
Mubarrad, Kamil, 118, 15 ff.); the Prophet received
gifts and distributed them among the Companions
(Bukhari. Salat, bdb 42); disputes took place over
business {ibid., babs 71, 83) and in general, people
conducted themselves as they pleased. Indeed, on one
occasion some Sudanese or Abyssinians with the
approval of the Prophet gave a display with shield and
lance on the occasion of a festival {ibid., Salat, bdb 69;
c Idayn, bdb 2, 25; Djihdd . bdb 81); and on another a
stranger seeking the Prophet, rode into the mosque on
his camel {ibid., Him, bdb 6). So little “consecrated”
was this, the oldest mosque, that one of the Munafikun
or “Hypocrites”, ejected for scoffing at the believers,
could call to Abu Ayyub “Are you throwing me out
of the Mirbad Bam Tha^laba?” (Ibn Hisham, 362,
10 f.).

All this gives one the impression of the head¬
quarters of an army, rather than of a sacred edifice.
On the other hand, the mosque was used from the
very first for the general divine worship and thus
became something more than the Prophet’s private
courtyard. Whatever the Prophet’s intentions had
been from the first, the masdjid, with the increasing
importance of Islam, was bound to become very soon
the political and religious centre of the new com¬
munity. The two points of view cannot be distin¬
guished in Islam, especially in the earlier period. The
mosque was the place where believers assembled for
prayer around the Prophet, where he delivered his
addresses, which contained not only appeals for obe¬
dience to God but regulations affecting the social life
of the community (cf. al-Bukharl, Salat, babs 70, 71);
from here he controlled the religious and political
community of Islam. Even at the real old sanctuaries
of Arabia, there were no restrictions on what one
could do; what distinguished the mosque from the
Christian church or the Meccan temple was that in it
there was no specially dedicated ritual object. At the
Ka c ba also, people used to gather to discuss every day
affairs and also for important assemblies, if we may
believe the Sira (Ibn Hisham, 183 f., 185, 1, 229, 8,
248, 257, 19). Here also the Prophet used to sit;
strangers came to visit him; he talked and they
disputed with him; people even came to blows and
fought there (Ibn Hisham, 183-4, 185-6, 187-8, 202,
19, 257, 259; Chron. d. Stadt Mekka, ed. Wustenfeld, i,
223, 11). Beside the Ka c ba was the Dar al-Nadwa,
where important matters were discussed and justice
administered {ibid., see index). From the Medina
mosque was developed the general type of the Muslim
mosque. It depended on circumstances whether the
aspect of the mosque as a social centre or as a place
of prayer was more or less emphasised.

3. Other mosques in the time of the
Prophet. The mosque of the Prophet in Medina was
not the only one founded by Muslims in his lifetime,
and according to tradition not even the First, which is
said to have been the mosque of Kuba 3 . In this
village, which belonged to the territory of Medina (see
Wustenfeld, Geschichte der Stadt Medina, 126), the
Prophet on his hidjra stopped with the family of c Amr
b. c Awf; the length of his stay is variously given as 3,
5, 8, 14 or 22 days. According to one tradition, he
found a mosque there on his arrival, which had been
built by the first emigrants and the Ansar, and he per-

MASDJID

647

formed the salat there with them (see Wustenfeld, op.
cit., 56; al-Baladhurl, Futuh al-buldan, 1; al-
Diyarbakrl, i, 380-1). According to another tradition,
the Prophet himself founded the mosque on a site,
which belonged to his host Kulthum and was used as
a mirbad for drying dates or, according to others, to a
woman named Labba, who tethered her ass there
(Wustenfeld, Medina, 131; Ibn Hisham, 335; al-
Tabari, i, 1260, 6; Ibn Sa c d, i/1, 6; Mas < udl, Murudj_,
iv, 139; al-Diyarbakri, 1, 381; al-Sira al-Halabiyya ,
Cairo 1320, ii, 58-9). Out of this tradition arose a
legend based on the story of the foundation of the
principal mosque in Medina. The Prophet makes
(first Abu Bakr and c Umar without success, then) C A1I
mount a camel, and at the place to which it goes builds
the mosque with stone brought from the Harra; he
himself laid the first stone, and Abu Bakr, c Umar and
c Uthman the next ones (al-Diyarbakrl, i, 381). The
Prophet is said to have henceforth visited the mosque
of Kuba 5 every Saturday, either riding or walking,
and the pillar is still shown beside which he conducted
the service (al-Bukhari, Fadl al-saldt JT Masdjid Makka
wa ’ l-Madina, bab 2, 4; Muslim, Ha didi . tr. 94; al-
Diyarbakrl, i, 382; al-Baladhurl, 5). We are occa¬
sionally told that he performed his salat on the Sabbath
in the mosque at Kuba 5 when he went to the Banu T
Nadlr in Rabl c I of the year 4/625 (al-Wakidl-
Wellhausen, 161).

It is obvious that the customs and ideas of the later
community have shaped the legend of this mosque.
The only question is whether the old tradition that the
mosque was founded either by the Prophet himself or
even before his arrival by his followers is also a later
invention. We thus come to the question whether the
Prophet founded or recognised any other mosques at
all than that of Medina. Caetani, in keeping with his
view of the origin of the mosque, was inclined to deny
it, pointing to the fact that there was later an obvious
tendency to connect mosques everywhere with the
Prophet and that sura IX, 108, strongly condemns the
erection of an “opposition mosque” (Masdjid al-
Dirdr). The Kur’an passage is as follows: “Those who
have built themselves a masdjid for opposition ( dirdr )
and unbelief and division among the believers and for
a refuge for him who in the past fought against God
and his Prophet; and they swear: We intended only
good! God is witness that they are liars! Thou shalt
not stand up in it, for verily a masdjid which is founded
on piety from the first day of its existence has more
right that thou shouldest stand in it; in it are men who
desire to purify themselves” (sura IX, 108-9).
According to tradition, this was revealed in the year
9/630-1; when the Prophet was on the march to
Tabuk, the Banu Salim said to him that they had built
a mosque to make it easier for their feeble and elderly
people, and they begged the Prophet to perform his
salat in it and thus give it his approval. The Prophet
postponed it till his return, but then his revelation was
announced, because the mosque had been founded by
Munafikun at the instigation of Abu c Amir al-Rahib,
who fought against the Prophet. According to one
tradition (so Ibn c Umar, Zayd) the “mosque founded
on piety” was that of Medina, from which the people
wished to emancipate themselves; according to
another (Ibn ^ Abbas), the reference was to that of
Kuba 5 ; Abu c Amir and his followers were not comfor¬
table among the Banu c Amr b. c Awf and therefore
built a new mosque. According to some traditions, it
was in Dhu Awan, The Prophet however had it
burned down (al-Tabari, i, 1704-5; Ibn Hisham, 357-
8, 906-7; Ibn Sa c d, i/1, 6; al-Wakidl-Wellhausen,
410-11; al-Tabari, Tafstr, xi, 17 ff.; Wustenfeld,

Medina, 131; al-Sira al-Halabiyya , ii, 60; al-Baladhurl.
1-2; Muslim, Hadidi. bab 93). If the connection with
the Tabuk campaign is correct, the Masdjid al-Dirdr is
to be sought north of Medina; the “mosque founded
on piety” would then be the mosque of Medina rather
than that of Kuba 3 which lies to the south of it. There
is in itself nothing impossible about the rejection in
principle of any mosque other than that of Medina.
We should then have to discard the whole tradition,
for, according to it, the Prophet was at first not
unfavourably disposed to the new mosque, and his
wrath, according to the tradition, arose from the fact
that it had been founded by a refractory party. But as
a matter of fact, there are indications that a number
of mosques already existed in the time of the Prophet;
for example, the verse in the Kurban, “in houses,
which God hath permitted to be built that His name
might be praised in them, in them men praise Him
morning and evening, whom neither business nor
trade restrain from praising God and performing the
salat and the giving of alms”, etc. (sura XXIV, 36-7).
If this revelation, like the rest of the sura, is of the
Medinan period, it is difficult to refer it to Jews and
Christians, and this utterance is quite clear: “Observe
a complete fast until the night and touch thou them
(i.e. women) not while ye are in the mosques” (sura
II, 183). This shows that there were already in the
time of the Prophet several Muslim mosques which
had a markedly religious character and were
recognised by the Prophet.

That there were really public places of prayer of the
separate tribes at a very early date is evident from the
tradition that the Prophet in the year 2 offered his
sacrifice on 10 Dhu ’l-Hidjdja/3 June 624 on the
musalla of the Banu Salima. In addition, there are con¬
stant references to private masadjid where a few
believers, like Abu Bakr in Mecca, made a place for
prayer in their houses and where others sometimes
assembled (al-Bukhari, Salat, babs 46, 87; Taha didj ud.
bab 30; cf. also Adhan, bab 50).

B. The origin of mosques after the time
of the Prophet.

1. Chief mosques. What importance the Me¬
dina mosque had attained as the centre of administra¬
tion and worship of the Muslims is best seen from the
fact that the first thought of the Muslim generals after
their conquests was to found a mosque as a centre
around which to gather.

Conditions differed somewhat according as it was a
new foundation or an already existing town. Impor¬
tant examples of the first kind are al-Basra, al-
Kufa and al-Fust at. Basra was founded by
c Utba b. Gh azwan as winter-quarters for the army in
the year 14/635 (or 16/637 or 638). The mosque was
placed in the centre with the Dar al-Imara, the dwelling
of the commander-in-chief with a prison and Diwan in
front of it. Prayer was at first offered on the open
space, which was fenced round; later, the whole was
built of reeds and when the men went off to war the
reeds were pulled up and laid away. Abu Musa al-
Ash c arl [q.v.\, who later became c Umar’s wall, built
the edifice of clay and bricks baked in the sun ( labin )
and used grass for the roof (al-Baladhurl. 346-7, 350;
Ibn al-Faklh, 187-8; Yakut, Buldan, i, 642, 6-9; cf. al-
Tabari, i, 2377, 14 ff.). It was similar in Kufa,
which was founded in 17/638 by Sa c d b. Abl Wakkas.
In the centre was the mosque, and beside it the Dar al-
Imara was laid out. The mosque at first was simply an
open quadrangle, sahn, marked off by a trench round
it. The space was large enough for 40,000 persons. It
seems that reeds were also used for building the walls
here and later Sa c d used labin. On the south side (and

648

MASDJID

only here) there was an arbour, zulla, built (cf. al-
Baladhuri. 348, i: suffa). The Dar al-Imara beside the
mosque was later by c Umar’s orders combined with
the mosque (al-Tabari, i, 2481, 12 ff., 2485, 16,
2487 ff., 2494, 14; YakGt, Mu c dfam, iv, 323, 10 ff.; al-
Baladhuri, 275 ff., cf. Annali delV Islam , iii, 846 ff.).
The plan was therefore an exact reproduction of that
of the mosque in Medina (as is expressly emphasised
in al-Tabari, i, 2489, 4 ff.); the importance of the
mosque was also expressed in its position, and the
commander lived close beside it. There was no dif¬
ference in al- Fust at, which, although there was
already an older town here, was laid out as an entirely
new camp. In the year 21/642, after the conquest of
Alexandria, the mosque was laid out in a garden
where c Amr had planted his standard. It was 50 dhira c s
long and 30 broad. Eighty men fixed its kibla, which,
however, was turned too far to the east, and was
therefore altered later by Kurra b. Shank [q.v. ]. The
court was quite simple, surrounded by a wall and had
trees growing on it; a simple roof is mentioned; it
must be identical with the above-mentioned zulla or
suffa. c Amr b. al- c As lived just beside the mosque and
around it the Ahl al-Raya. Like the house of the
Prophet, the general’s house lay on the east side with
only a road between them. There were two doors in
each wall except the southern one (Yakut, Buldan, iii,
898-9; al-MakrizI, Khitat, iv, 4 ff.; Ibn Dukmak, K.
al-Intisar, Cairo 1893, 59 ff.; al-Suyutl, Husn al-
muhadara , i, 63-4; ii, 135-6; cf. Annali dell ’ Islam , iv,
554, 557, 563 ff.). We find similar arrangements
made in al-Mawsil in 20/641 (al-Baladhurl, 331-2).

In other cases, the Muslims established themselves
in old towns either conquered or surrendered by
treaty; by the treaty, they received a site for their
mosque (e.g. al-Baladhurl, 116, 14, 147, 2). But the
distinction between towns which were conquered and
those which were surrendered soon disappeared, and
the position is as a rule not clear. Examples of old
towns in which the Muslims established themselves
are al-Mada^in, Damascus and Jerusalem.—
In MadTin, Sa c d b. Abl Wakkas after the conquest
in 16/637 distributed the houses among the Muslims,
and Kisra’s Iwdn was made into a mosque, after Sa c d
had conducted the salat al-fath in it (al-Tabari, i, 2443,
15 f.; 2451, 7 ff.). In Damascus, which was oc¬
cupied in 14/635 or 15/636 by capitulation, according
to tradition, the Church of St. John was divided so
that the eastern half became Muslim, from which
Muslim tradition created the legend that the city was
taken partly by conquest and partly by agreement (al-
Baladhuri. 125; Yakut, Buldan , ii, 591; Ibn Djubayr,
Rihla, 262; JA, ser. 9, vii, 376, 381, 404). As a matter
of fact, however, the Muslims seem to have laid out
their own mosque here just beside the church [see
dimashk]; and close beside it again was the Khadra 3 .
the commander-in-chiePs palace, from which a direct
entrance to the maksura was later made (al-
MukaddasI, 159, 4). Conditions here were therefore
once more the same as in Medina. But the possibility
of an arrangement such as is recorded by tradition
cannot be rejected, for there is good evidence of it
elsewhere; in Hi ms, for example, the Muslims and
Christians shared a building in common as a mosque
and church, and it is evident from al-Istakhrl and Ibn
Hawkal that this was still the case in the time of their
common authority, al-Balkhl (309/921) (al-Istakhrl 1 ,
61, 7 f.; Ibn Hawkal 1 , 117, 5; al-MukaddasI, 156,
15), and a similar arrangement is recorded for Dabll
in Armenia (al-Istakhri 1 , 188, 3 f.; Ibn Hawkal 1 , 244,
21; cf. al-MukaddasT, 377, 3 f.).

There were special conditions in Jerusalem. The

Muslims recognised the sanctuary there, as is evident
from the earlier kibla and from sura XVII, 1 (in the
traditional interpretation). It must therefore have
been natural for the conquerors, when the town
capitulated, to seek out the recognised holy place.
Indeed, we are told that c Umar in the year 17/638
built a mosque in Jerusalem on the site of the temple
of Solomon (F. Baethgen, Fragmente syr. u. arab. Hist.,
17, 110, following Isho c d e nah, metropolitan of Basra
after 700 A.D.; cf. for the 2nd/8th century Theo-
phanes, quoted by Le Strange, Palestine under the
Moslems , London 1890, 91 n.). That the Kubbat al-
Safdira [q.v.\, which the Mosque of c Umar replaced,
stands on the old site of the Temple is undoubted.
How he found the site is variously recorded [see al-
kuds]. The building was, like other mosques of the
time of c Umar, very simple. Arculf, who visited
Jerusalem about 670, says “The Saracens attend a
quadrangular house of prayer ( domus orationis, i.e.
masdjid) which they have built with little art with
boards and large beams on the remains of some ruins,
on the famous site where the Temple was once built
in all its splendour” ( Itinera Hierosolymitana , ed. P.
Geyer, 1898, 226-7, tr. P. Mickley, in Das Land der
Bibel, ii/2, 1917, 19-20). It is of interest to note that
this simple mosque, like the others, was in the form of
a rectangle; in spite of its simple character it could
hold 3,000 people, according to Arculf.

As late as the reign of Mu c awiya, we find a new
town, al-Kayrawan, being laid out on the old plan
as a military camp with a mosque and Dar al-Imara in
the centre (Yakut, Mu^dfam, iv, 213, 10 ff.). As al-
Baladhurl, for example, shows, the Muslim con¬
querors even at a later date always built a mosque in
the centre of a newly-conquered town, at first a simple
one in each town, and it was a direct reproduction of
the simple mosque of the Prophet in Medina. It was
the exception to adapt already existing buildings in
towns. But soon many additional mosques were
added.

2. Tribal mosques and sectarian mosques.
There were mosques not only in the towns. When the
tribes pledged themselves to the Prophet to adopt
Islam, they had also to perform the salat. It is not clear
how far they took part in Muslim worship, but if they
concerned themselves with Islam at all, they must
have had a Muslim place of meeting. Probably even
before Islam they had, like the Meccans, their madflis
or nddl or dar shura, where they discussed matters of
general importance (cf. Lammens, Mo c awia, 205; Ziad
b. Abihi , 30 ff., 90-1; Le Berceau de /’ Islam, 222 ff.). As
the mosque was only distinguished from such places
by the fact that it was also used for the common salat,
it was natural for tribal mosques to come into
existence. Thus we are told that as early as the year
5/626-7 the tribe of Sa c d b. Bakr founded mosques
and used an adhan (Ibn Sa c d, i/2, 44, 7, not mentioned
in Ibn Hisham, 943-4; al-Tabari, i, 1722); it is also
recorded of the Banu Djadhlma, who lived near
Mecca, that they built mosques in the year 8/629-30
and introduced the adhan (al-Wakidl-Wellhausen,
351). How far one can rely on such stories in a par¬
ticular case is however uncertain. A later writer like
al-Diyarbakri says of the Banu TMustalik that they
aslamu wa-banaw masadjida (Ta^nkh al-Khamts , ii, 132,
20; cf. Annali dell Islam, ii, 221); in the early sources,
this is not found. Nor is the story told by Ibn Sa c d at
all probable, that envoys from the Banu Hanlfa
received orders to destroy their churches, sprinkle the
ground with water and build a mosque (Ibn Sa c d, i/2,
56, 11 ff., while Ibn Hisham, 945-6, al-Tabari, i,
1737 ff., and al-Baladhurl. 86-7, say nothing about

MASDJID

649

it). But that there were tribal mosques at a very early
date is nevertheless quite certain. The mosque at
Kuba 5 was the mosque of the tribe of c Amr b. c Awf
(Ibn Sa c d, i/1, 6, 6 and cf. above) and according to
one tradition, the Banu Gh anm b. c Awf were jealous
of it and built an opposition mosque (al-Baladhuri, 3;
al-Tabari, Tafstr, i, 21). A Companion who had taken
part in the battle of Badr, c Itban b. Malik, com¬
plained to the Prophet that he could not reach the
masdjid of his tribe in the rainy season and wanted to
build a mosque for himself (al-Bukharl, Salat, bab 46;
Muslim, Masadjid, bab 47). The Prophet himself is
said to have visited the masdjid of the Banu Zurayk (al-
Bukharl, Dj ihad . babs 56-8) and in the masdjid of the
Banu Salima during the prayer, there was revealed to
him sura II, 139, which ordered the new kibla,
wherefore it was called Masdjid al-Kiblatayn
(Wustenfeld, Medina , 62).

The tribal mosque was a sign that the independence
of the tribe was still retained under Islam. Indeed, we
hear everywhere of tribal mosques, for example,
around Medina that of the Banu Kurayza, of the
Banu Haritha, of the Banu Zafar, of the Banu Wjpil,
of the Banu Haram, of the Banu Zurayk (said to have
been the first in which the Kurban was publicly read),
that of the Banu Salima, etc. (see Wustenfeld, Gesch.
d. Sladt Medina, 29, 37 ff., 44, 50, 57, 136 ff.); the
“mosque of the two kiblas" belonged to the Banu
Sawad b, Ghanm b. Ka c b b. Salima (Wustenfeld,
Medina , 41). This then was the position in Medina:
the tribes usually had their own mosques, and one
mosque was the chief mosque. This was probably the
position within the Prophet’s lifetime, for in the
earliest campaigns of conquest, mosques were built on
this principle. c Umar is said to have written to Abu
Musa in Basra telling him to build a mosque li 7-
djama^a and mosques for the tribes, and on Fridays the
people were to come to the chief mosque. Similarly,
he wrote to Sa c d b. Abl Wakkas in Kufa and to c Amr
b. al- c As in Misr. On the other hand in Sy r i a, where
they had settled in old towns, they were not to build
tribal mosques (al-MakrlzI. Khitat. iv, 4 below). It is
actually recorded that the tribes in each khitta had
their own mosques around the mosque of c Amr in
Fustat (cf. Ibn Dukmak, 62 below -67), and even
much later, a tribal mosque like that of the Rashida
was still in existence (al-MakrlzI, Khitat , 64, 4 ff.).
Even in the chief mosque, the tribes had their own
places (ibid., 9, 12-10). We have similar evidence
from c Irak. In Basra, for example, there was a
Masdjid Ban! c Ubad (al-Baladhuri, 356, 2), one of the
Banu Rifa c a (Ibn Rusta, 201, 16), one of the Banu
c AdI (Ibn al-Faklh, 191, 4) and one of the Ansar (cf.
Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, i, 77, n. 5); in
Kufa we find quite a number, such as that of the
Ansar (al-Tabari, ii, 284, 13 f.), of the c Abd al-Kays
(ibid., ii, 657, 2, 9), of the Banu Duhman (ibid., 670,
4), of the Banu Makhzum (ibid. , 734, 19), of the Banu
Hilal (ibid. , 1687, 8), of the Banu c AdI (ibid. , 1703, 4),
of the Banu Dhuhl and Banu Hudjr (ibid., 532, 8 f.),
of the Djuhayna (ibid., 533, 8), of the Banu Haram
(ibid., iii, 2509, 10), and the c AbsIs even had several
masadjid (al-Baladhuri. 278, 12 f., see also 285, and
Goldziher, loc. cit.).

During the wars, these tribal mosques were the
natural rallying points for the various tribes, the
mosque was a madjlis, where councils were held (al-
Tabari, ii, 532, 6 ff.) and the people were taught from
its minbar (ibid. , 284); battles often centred for this
reason round these mosques (e.g. al-Tabari, ii, 130,
148, 6, 960). “The people of your mosque” ahl
masdjidikum (ibid., 532, 19) became identical with

“your party”. Gradually, as new sects arose, they
naturally had mosques of their own, just as
Musaylima before them is said to have had his own
mosque (al-Baladhuri. 90, 4 from below; Ibn Hanbal,
Musnad, i, 404 below). Thus we read later of the
mosques of the Hanballs in Baghdad, in which there
was continual riot and confusion (Hilal al-Sabl, Kitab
al-Wuzara\ ed. Amedroz, 335). It sometimes hap¬
pened that different parties in a town shared the chief
mosque (al-Mukaddasi, 102, 5), but as a rule it was
otherwise. In particular, the Sunnis and Shi c Is as a
rule had separate mosques (cf. Mez, Die Renaissance des
Islams, 63). It sometimes even happened that Hanafrs
and Shafi c Is had separate mosques (Yakut, Buldan, iv,
509, 9; al-Mukaddasi, 323, 11). These special mos¬
ques were a great source of disruption in Islam, and
we can understand that a time came when the learned
discussed whether such mosques should be permitted
at all. But the question whether one might talk of the
Masdjid Bam Fulan was answered by saying that in the
time of the Prophet, the Masdjid Bani Zurayk was
recognised (al-Bukhari. Salat, bab 41; cf. Djihad, babs
56-8, and al-Tabari, Tafsir, xi, 20, after the middle of
the page).

3. Adaptation to Islam of older sanctua¬
ries; memorial mosques. According to the early
historians, the towns which made treaties with the
Muslims received permission to retain their churches
(al-Baladhuri, 121, in the middle; al-Tabari, i, 2405,
2407), while in the conquered towns the churches fell
to the Muslims without any preamble (cf. al-
Baladhuri, 120 below). Sometimes also it is recorded
that a certain number of churches were received from
the Christians, e.g. fifteen in Damascus according to
one tradition (ibid., 124, 8, otherwise on 121; cf. JA,
Ser. 9, vii, 403). It is rather doubtful whether the pro¬
cess was such a regular one; in any case, the Muslims
in course of time appropriated many churches to
themselves. With the mass conversions to Islam, this
was a natural result. The churches taken over by
the Muslims were occasionally used as dwellings (cf.
al-Tabari, i, 2405, 2407); at a later date, it also hap¬
pened that they were used as government offices, as in
Egypt in 146/763 (al-MakrlzI, iv, 35; cf. for Kufa, al-
Baladhuri, 286). The obvious thing, however, was to
transform the churches taken into mosques. It is
related of c Amr b. al- c As that he performed the salat
in a church (al-MakrlzI, iv, 6) and Zayd b. C A1I says
regarding churches and synagogues, “Perform thy
salat in them; it will not harm thee” (Corpus iuris di
Zaid b. c 4 It, ed. Griffini, no. 364). It is not clear
whether the reference in these cases is to conquered
sanctuaries; it is evident, in any case, that the saying
is intended to remove any misgivings about the use of
captured churches and synagogues as mosques. The
most important example of this kind was in
Damascus, where al-Walld b. c Abd al-Malik in
86/705 took the church of St. John from the Christians
and had it rebuilt; he is said to have offered the Chris¬
tians another church in its stead (see the references
above, in I. B. 1; and also JA, 9 Ser., vii, 369 ff.;
Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/1, 262 ff. and art.
dimashk). He is said to have transformed into mos¬
ques a total often churches in Damascus. It must have
been particularly in the villages, with the gradual con¬
version of the people to Islam, that the churches were
turned into mosques. In the Egyptian villages there
were no mosques in the earlier generations of Islam
(al-MakrlzI, iv, 28-9, 30). But when al-Ma > mun was
fighting the Copts, many churches were turned into
mosques in (ibid., 30). It is also recorded of mosques
in Cairo that they were converted churches. Accord-

650

MASDJID

ing to one tradition, the Rashida mosque was an un¬
finished Jacobite church, which was surrounded by
Jewish and Christian graves (al-Makrfzf, iv, 63, 64),
and in the immediate vicinity al-Hakim turned a
Jacobite and a Nestorian Church into mosques {ibid.,
65). When Djawhar built a palace in al-Kahira, a dayr
or monastery was taken in and transformed into a
mosque (ibid. , 269); similar changes took place at later
dates {ibid. , 240) and synagogues also were

transformed in this way (Masdjid Ibn al-Banna 5 , ibid.,
265). The chief mosque in Palermo was previously a
church (Yakut, Buldan, i, 719). After the Crusades,
several churches were turned into mosques in
Palestine (Sauvaire, Hist, deJerus. et d'Hebron, 1876, 7;
Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., i/2, 40).

Other sanctuaries than those of the “people of the
scripture’’ were turned into mosques. For example a
Masdjid al-Shams between al-Hilla and Karbala 5 was
the successor of an old temple of Shamash (see
Goldziher, Muh. Stud., ii, 331). Not far from Istakhr
was a Masdjid Sulayman which was an old fire-
temple, the pictures on the walls of which could still
be seen in the time of al-Mas c udf and al-Mukaddasf
(4th/10th century) (al-Mas c udf, Murudj, iv, 77 = §
1403; al-Mukaddasi, 444). In Istakhr itself there was
a djami c , which was a converted fire temple {ibid.,
436). In MassTsa, the ancient Mopsuestia, al-Mansur
in 140/797-8 built a mosque on the site of an ancient
temple (al-Baladhurf, 165-6) and the chief mosque in
Dihlf was originally a temple (Ibn Battuta, iii, 151);
as to Ta 5 if, cf. Abu Dawud, Salat, bab 10. Thus in
Islam also, the old rule holds that sacred places sur¬
vive changes of religion. It was especially easy in cases
where Christian sanctuaries were associated with
Biblical personalities who were also recognised by
Islam: e.g., the Church of St. John in Damascus and
many holy places in Palestine. One example is the
mosque of Job in Shavkh Sa c d, associated with sura
XXI, 83, XXXVIII, 40; here in Silvia’s time (4th
century) there was a church of Job (al-Mas c udf, i, 91
= § 84; Baedeker, Paldst. u. Syrien 1 , 1910, 147).

But Islam itself had created historical associations
which were bound soon to lead to the building of new
mosques. Even in the lifetime of the Prophet, the
Banu Salim are said to have asked him to perform the
salat in their masdjid to give it his authority (see above,
in I. A. 3). At the request of c Itban b. Malik, the
Prophet performed the salat along with Abu Bakr in
his house and thereby consecrated it as a musalla ,
because he could not reach the tribal mosque in the
rainy season (al-Bukharf, Salat , bab 47; Taha didi ud. bab
36; Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 46; a similar story in al-
Bukharf, Adhan, bab 47, Taha didi ud . bab 33, is perhaps
identical in origin). After the death of the Prophet, his
memory became so precious that the places where he
had prayed obtained a special importance and his
followers, who liked to imitate him in everything, pre¬
ferred to perform their salat in such places. But this
tendency was only an intensification of what had
existed in his lifetime; and so it is not easy to decide
how far the above stories reflect later conditions.
Mosques very quickly arose on the road between
Mecca and Medina at places where, according to the
testimony of his Companions, the Prophet had prayed
(al-Bukharf. Salat, bab 89; al-Wakidf-Wellhausen,
421 ff.); the same was the case with the road which the
Prophet had taken to Tabuk in the year 9/630-1 (Ibn
Hisham, 907; al-Wakidf-Wellhausen, 394; there were
19 in all, which are listed in Annali delV Islam, ii-246-
7). Indeed, wherever he had taken the field, mosques
were built; for example, on the road to Badr, where
according to tradition Abu Bakr had built a mosque

(al-Wakidf-Wellhausen, 39, also Wustenfeld, Medina ,
135). The mosque of al-Fadfkh was built on the spot
where the Prophet had prayed in a leather tent during
the war with the Banu ’1-Nadfr in the year 4/625-6 (al-
Wakidf-Wellhausen, 163; Wustenfeld, Medina, 132).
He is said to have himself built a little mosque in
Khaybar during the campaign of the year 7/628-9 (al-
Diyarbakrf, ii, 49-50; cf. Annali delV Islam, ii, 19).
Outside Ta 5 if, a mosque was built on a hillock,
because the Prophet had performed the salat there
during the siege in the year 8/629-30, between the
tents of his two wives, Umm Salama and Zaynab (Ibn
Hisham, 872-3; al-Wakidf-Wellhausen, 369); in
Liyya, the Prophet is said to have himself built a
mosque while on the campaign against Ta 3 if (Ibn
Hisham, 872; al-Wakidf-Wellhausen, 368-9).
Mosques arose in and around Medina, “because
Muhammad prayed here’’ (Wustenfeld, Gesch. d. Stadt
Medina , 31, 38, 132 ff.). It is obvious that in most of
these cases, later conditions are put back to the time
of the Prophet; in connection with the “Campaign of
the Trench” we are told that “he prayed everywhere
where mosques now stand” (al-Wakidf-Wellhausen,
208). Since, for example, the Masdjid al-Fadfkh is
also called Masdjid al-Shams (Wustenfeld, Medina,

132) , we have perhaps here actually an ancient
sanctuary.

Mosques became associated with the Prophet in
many ways. In Medina, for example, there was the
Masdjid al-Baghla where footprints of the Prophet’s
mule were shown in a stone, the Masdjid al-Idjaba
where the Prophet’s appeal was answered, the
Masdjid al-Fath which recalls the victory over the
Meccans, etc. (see Wustenfeld, Medina, 136 ff.). In
Mecca, there was naturally a large number of places
sacred through associations with the Prophet
and therefore used as places of prayer. The most
honoured site, next to the chief mosque, is said to
have been the house of Khadfdja, also called Mawlid
al-Sayyida Fatima, because the daughter of the
Prophet was born there. This house, in which the
Prophet lived till the hidjra , was taken over by c Akfl,
c Alf’s brother, and bought by him through Mu c awiya
and turned into a mosque {Chroniken d. Stadt Mekka,
ed. Wustenfeld, i, 423; iii , 438, 440). Next comes the
house in which the Prophet held his first secret
meetings. This was bought by al-Khayzuran [q.v. ],
mother of Harun al-Rashfd, on her pilgrimage in
171/788 and turned into a mosque {Chron. Mekka, iii,
112, 440). She also purchased the Prophet’s birth¬
place, Mawlid al-Nabi, and made it into a mosque
{ibid., i, 422; iii, 439). If Mu c awiya really bought the
Prophet’s house from his cousin, it was probably the
right one; but the demand for places associated with
the Prophet became stronger and stronger, and we
therefore find more and more places referred not only
to the Prophet, but also to his Companions. Such
are the birthplaces of Hamza, c Umar and c Alf {Chron.
Mekka, iii, 445), and the house of Mariya, the mother
of the Prophet’s son, Ibrahim {ibid., i, 447, 466), who
also had a mosque at Medina (Wustenfeld, Medina,

133) . There were also a Masdjid Khadfdja {ibid., i,
324) and a Masdjid c A 5 isha {ibid. , iii, 454), a Masdjid
of the “granted appeal” in a narrow valley near
Mecca, where the Prophet performed the salat {ibid .,
453), a Masdjid al-Djinn, where the Djinn overheard
his preaching {ibid., i, 424; iii, 453), a Masdjid al-
Ra 5 ya, where he planted his standard at the conquest
{ibid., ii, 68 below and 71 above; iii, 13, 453), a
Masdjid al-Bay c a where the first homage of the
Medinans was received {ibid., i, 428; iii, 441). In the
Masdjid al- Kh ayf in Mina is shown the mark of the

MASDJID

651

Prophet’s head in a stone into which visitors also put
their heads {ibid., iii, 438). Persons in the Bible are
also connected with mosques, Adam, Abraham and
Isma c Tl with the Ka c ba, beside which the Makdm
Ibrahim is shown, and in c Arafa there is still a Masdjid
Ibrahim {ibid., i, 415, 425) and another in al-Zahir
near Mecca (Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, Leiden-London
1907, 112). To these memorial mosques others were
later added, e.g. the Masdjid Abl Bakr, Masdjid Bilal,
the Mosque of the Splitting of the Moon (by the
Prophet), etc. (see Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 114 ff.; al-
MukaddasI, 102-3; Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, ii, 27;
al-Batanunl, al-Rihla al-Hidjaziyya 2 , Cairo 1329/1911,
52 ff.).

In al-Hidjaz, the Muslims thus acquired a series of
mosques which became important from their associa¬
tion with the Prophet, his family and his Companions,
and made Muslim history live. On the other hand, in
lands formerly Christian, they took over sanctuaries
which were associated with the Biblical history
which they had assimilated (see Le Strange, Palestine,
passim). Other mosques soon became associated with
Biblical and Muslim story. The mosque founded by
c Umar on the site of the Temple in Jerusalem was, as
already pointed out, identified as al-Masdjid al-Aksa
mentioned in sura XVII, 1, and therefore connected
with the Prophet’s night journey and the journey to
Paradise. The rock is said to have greeted the Prophet
on this occasion, and marks in a stone covering a hole
are explained as Muhammad’s footprints (sometimes
also as those of Idris; cf. Le Strange, Palestine, 136; al-
Batanunl, Rihla, 165; Baedeker, Palastina, 1910, 52-3;
cf. aI-Ya c kubI, Ta^rlkh, ii, 311). The name al-Masdjid
al-Aksa was used throughout the early period for the
whole Haram area in Jerusalem, later partly for it,
and partly for the building in its southern part (Ibn al-
Faklh, 100; Sauvaire, Hist. Jerus. et Hebron, 95, 121;
cf. Le Strange, Palestine, 96-7). Then there were the
mosques which had specifically Muslim associations,
like the Masdjid of c Umar on the Mount of Olives
where he encamped at the conquest (al-Mukaddasi,
172).

In Egypt not only was an old Christian sanctuary
called Ma c bad Musa (al-MakrlzI, iv, 269), but we are
also told, for example, that the Mosque of Ibn Tulun
was built where Musa talked with his Lord (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 36); according to al-Kurda c I, there were
in Egypt four Masdjids of Musa (Ibn Dukmak, ed.
Vollers, 92); there was a Masdjid Ya c kub wa-Yusuf
(al-Mukaddasi, 200) and a Joseph’s prison, certainly
dating from the Christian period (al-MakrlzI, iv,
315). There was also a Mosque of Abraham in
Munyat Ibn al-KhasIb (Ibn Djubayr, 58). The chief
mosque of San c a 5 was built by Shem, son of Noah
(Ibn Rusta, 110). The old temple near Istakh r men¬
tioned above was connected with Sulayman (al-
Mas c udl, Murudj, iv, 76-7 = § 1403; Yakut, i, 299).
In the mosque of Kufa, not only Ibrahim but one
thousand other prophets and one thousand saints,
described as was!, are said to have offered their
prayers; here was the tree Yaktln (sura XXXVII,
146); here died Yaghuth and Ya c uk, etc. (Yakut, iv,
325; also Ibn Djubayr, 211-12), and in this mosque
there was a chapel of Abraham, Noah and Idris (Ibn
Djubayr. 212); a large number of mosques were
associated with Companions of the Prophet. What
emphasis was laid on such an association is seen, for
example, from the story according to which c Umar
declined to perform the salat in the Church of the
Resurrection in Jerusalem, lest the Church should
afterwards be claimed as a mosque.

4. Tomb-mosques. A special class of memorial

mosques consisted of those which were associated with
a tomb. The graves of ancestors and of saints had
been sanctuaries from ancient times and they were
gradually adopted into Islam. In addition, there were
the saints of Islam itself. The general tendency to
distinguish places associated with the founders of
Islam naturally concentrated itself round the graves in
which they rested. In the Kur 5 an, a tomb -masdjid is
mentioned in connection with the Seven Sleepers
(sura XVIII, 20) but it is not clear if it was
recognised. As early as the year 6/627-8 the compan¬
ions of Abu Baslr are said to have built a mosque at
the place where he died and was buried (al-Wakidl-
Wellhausen, 262). The Prophet is also said to have
visited regularly at al-Bakl* in Medina the tombs of
martyrs who fell at Uhud and paid reverence to them
{ibid., 143). Whatever the exact amount of truth in the
story, there is no doubt that the story of the tomb-
mosque of Abu Baslr is antedated. The accounts of
the death of the Prophet and of the period
immediately following reveal no special interest in his
tomb. But very soon the general trend of development
stimulated an interest in graves, which led to the erec¬
tion of sanctuaries at them. The progress of this
tendency is more marked in al-Wakidl, who died in
207/823, than in Ibn Ishak, who died in 151/768.

The collections of Hadlth made in the 3rd/9th cen¬
tury contain discussions on this fact which show that
the problem was whether the tombs could be used as
places of worship and in this connection whether mos¬
ques could be built over the tombs. The hadlths answer
both questions in the negative, which certainly was in
the spirit of the Prophet. It is said that “ Salat at the
graves {fi ’ l-makabir ) is makruh ” (al-Bukharl, Salat, bab
52); “sit not upon graves and perform not salat
towards them’’ (Muslim, Diana Hz. tr. 33); “hold the
salat in your houses, but do not use them as tombs’’
(Muslim, Salat al-musdfirin, tr. 28). On the other hand,
it is acknowledged that Anas performed the salat at the
cemetery (al-Bukharl. Salat, bab 48). We are also told
that tombs cannot be used as masadjid (al-Bukharl.
Salat, bab 48; Djana^iz, bab 62). On his deathbed the
Prophet is said to have cursed the Jews and the Chris¬
tians because they used the tombs of their prophets as
masadjid. Hadlth explains this by saying that the tomb
of the Prophet was not at first accessible (al-Bukharl,
Salat, bab 48, 55; Djana^iz. bab 62; Anbiya 5 , bab 50;
Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 3); as a matter of fact, its
precise location was not exactly known {Djana^iz, bab
96). The attacks in Hadlth insist that tomb-mosques
are a reorehensible Jewish practice: “When a pious
man dies, they built a masdjid on his tomb”, etc. (al-
Bukharl, Salat, bab 48, 54; Muslim, DjanaHz, bab 71).
Although this view of tomb-mosques is still held in
certain limited circles (cf. Ibn Taymiyya and the
Wahhabis), the old pre-Islamic custom soon also
became a Muslim one. The expositors of Hadlth like
al-NawawI (on Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 3, lith. Dihll
1319, i, 201) and al- c AskalanI, (Cairo 1329, i, 354)
explain the above passages to mean that only an exag¬
gerated ta c zlm of the dead is forbidden so that tombs
should not be used as a kibla; otherwise, it is quite
commendable to spend time in a mosque in proximity
to a devout man.

The name given to a tomb-mosque is often kubba
[^.y.] a word which is used of a tent (al-Bukhari,
Dja nahz . bab 62; Ha djdj . bab 64; Fard al-khums, bab 19;
al-Dnzya. bab 15; Tarafa, Dlwan , vii, 1), but later
came to mean the dome which usually covers tombs
and thus became the general name for the sanctuary
of a saint (cf. Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 114, 115; cf. Dozy,
Supplement, s.v.). Makdm also means a little chapel and

652

MASDJID

a saint’s tomb (van Berchem, CIA, i, no. 72, etc.; cf.
index). The custom of making a kubba at the tomb of
a saint was firmly rooted in Byzantine territory, where
sepulchral churches always had a dome (Herzog-
Hauch, Realenzyclopadie 3 , x, 784). The usual name
however for a tomb-sanctuary was mashhad ; this is
applied to places where saints are worshipped, among
Muslim tombs particularly to those of the friends and
relations of the Prophet (van Berchem, CIA , i, nos.
32, 63, 417, 544; al-MakrlzI, iv, 265, 309 ff.), but
also to tombs of other recognised saints, e.g. Mashhad
Djirdjis in Mawsil (Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 236), etc.

The transformation of the tombs of the Prophet
and his near relatives into sanctuaries seems to
have been a gradual process. Muhammad, Abu Bakr
and^Umar are said to have been buried in the house
of c A :) isha; Fatima and c AlI lived beside it. c A 3 isha
had a wall built between her room and the tombs to
prevent visitors carrying off earth from the tomb of
the Prophet. The houses of the Prophet’s wives
remained as they were until al-Walld rebuilt them. He
thought it scandalous that Hasan b. c Ali should live in
Fatima’s house and c Umar’s family close beside
‘Misha’s home in the house of Hafsa. He acquired
the houses, had all the houses of the Prophet’s wives
torn down and erected new buildings. The tombs
were enclosed by a pentagonal wall; the whole area
was called al-Rawda “the garden’’; it was not till later
that a dome was built over it (Wiistenfeld, Medina ,
66 ff., 72-3, 78 ff., 89). In the cemetery of Medina,
al-Bald* [see bakT al-gharkad], a whole series of
mashahid came to be built where tombs of the family
and of the Companions of the Prophet were located
{ibid. , 140 ff.; Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 195 ff.). It is often
disputed whether a tomb belonged to one or the other
(e.g. al-Tabari, iii, 2436, 2). Such tomb-mosques
were sacred ( mukaddas ; Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 114, 13,
17), and they were visited li ’ l-baraka. The name al-
Rawda of the Prophet’s tomb became later applied to
other sanctuaries {ibid., 46, 16; 52, 11). Separate
limbs were revered in some mosques, like the head of
al-Husayn in Cairo, which was brought there in
491/1098 from c Askalan ( C A1I Pasha Mubarak, al-
Khitat al-djadida. iv, 91 ff.; cf. Sauvaire, Hist. Jerus. et
Hebr. ,16); his head was also revered for some time in
the Mashhad al-Ra^s in Damascus (according to Ibn
Shakir, JA, ser. 9, vii, 385).

Gradually, a vast number of Muslim tombs of
saints came into existence; and to these were added
all the pre-Islamic sanctuaries which were adopted by
Islam. No distinction can therefore be drawn between
tomb-mosques and other memorial mosques. It was
often impossible to prove that the tomb in question
ever really existed. In the Mashhad C A1I, for example,
c All’s tomb is honoured, but Ibn Djubayr leaves it in
doubt whether he is really buried there {Rihla, 212)
and many located his grave in the mosque at Kufa and
elsewhere (al-Mas c udI, Murudi, iv, 289, v, 68 = §§
1612, 1825; Ibn Hawkal 1 , 163). In c Ayn al-Bakar
near c Akka there was also a Mashhad C A1T (Yakut,
iii, 759) and also in the Mosque of the Umayyads (Ibn
Djubayr. 267); on this question, cf. al-MukaddasI,
46. Names frequently become confused and
transferred. In Mecca, between Safa and Marwa
there was a kubba, which was associated with c Umar
b. al-Khattab; but Ibn Djubayr says that it should be
connected with c Umar b. c Abd al- c Aziz {Rihla, 115,
11 ff.). In Djlza there was a Mashhad Abi Hurayra,
where the memory of this Companion of the Prophet
was honoured; it is said to have been originally the
grave of another Abu Hurayra (Makrlzl, i, 335, 19).
Wherever Shi c Is ruled, there arose numerous tomb-

mosques of the Ahl al-Bayt. In Egypt, Ibn Djubayr
gives a list of 14 men and five women of the Prophet’s
family, who were honoured there {Rihla, 46-7). Islam
was always creating new tombs of saints who had been
distinguished for learning or asceticism or miracle-
working, e.g. the tomb of al-Shafi c I in Cairo and
Ahmad al-Bad awl in Tanta. There were
mosques, chiefly old-established sanctuaries, of
Biblical and semi-Biblical personages like Rubfl
(Reuben) and Asiya the wife of Pharaoh {ibid. , 46). In
and around Damascus were a number of mosques,
which were built on the tombs of prophets and
unnamed saints (Ibn Djubayr. Rihla, 273 ff.). In
Palestine could be seen a vast number of tombs of
Biblical personages (cf. Le Strange, Palestine under the
Moslems, index, and Conder, in Palestine Explor. Fund ,
Quarterly Statement, 1871, 89 ff.), usually mosques with
a kubba.

After the sanctuaries of persons mentioned in the
Bible came those of people mentioned in the Kur’an.
For example, outside the Diami c in c Akka was shown
the tomb-mosque of the prophet Salih (Nasir-i
Khusraw, Safar-nama , ed. Schefer, 15, 1, tr. 49), and
in Syria that of his son (Ibn Djubayr. 46); that of Hud
was also shown near c Akka (Nasir-i Khusraw, 16, 5,
tr. 52), farther east, that of Shu c ayb and of his
daughter {ibid., 16, 12, tr. 53); the tomb of Hud was
also pointed out in Damascus and in Hadramawt
(Yakut ii, 596, 16); then we have peculiarly Muslim
saints like Dhu ’1-Kifl, the son of Job (Nasir-i
Khusraw. 16, 4, tr. 52). Then there are the sanc¬
tuaries of saints who are only superficially Muslim but
really have their origins in old popular superstitions,
like al-Khadir. who had a mashhad in Damascus
(Yakut, ii, 596, 9), or a saint like c Akk, founder of
the town of c Akka, whose tomb Nasir-i Khusraw
visited outside the town (15, 6 from below, tr. 51).
Such tombs were much visited by pious travellers and
are therefore frequently mentioned in literature (on
mashahid of the kinds mentioned here in c Irak, see al-
MukaddasI, 130; for Mawsil, etc., ibid. , 146). In this
way, ancient sanctuaries were turned into mosques,
and it is often quite a matter of chance under what
names they are adopted by Islam (cf. Goldziher, Muh.
Studien, ii, 325 ff.). It therefore sometimes happens
that the same saint is honoured in several mosques.
Abu Hurayra, who is buried in Medina, is honoured
not only in the above-mentioned tomb-mosque in
Djlza but also at various places in Palestine, in al-
Ramla and in Yubna south of Tabariyya ( Kh alil ed-
Dahiry, Zoubdat Kachf el-Mamalik ed. P. Ravaisse, 42,
1 from below; Nasir-i Khusraw. 17,1 from below, no.
59; Yakut, iii, 512, 20; iv, 1007, 12; cf. Symbolae
Osloenses Fasc. Supplet., ii [1928], 31). The tomb of the
Prophet Jonah is revered not only in the ancient
Niniveh but also in Palestine.

Just as the kubba under which the saint lay and the
mosque adjoining it were sanctified by him, so vice-
versa a kubba and a mosque could cause a deceased
person to become considered a saint. It was therefore
the custom for the mighty not only to give this distinc¬
tion to their fathers but also to prepare such buildings
for themselves even in their own lifetime. This was
particularly the custom of the Mamluk sultans,
perhaps stimulated by the fact that they did not found
dynasties in which power passed from father to son.
Such buildings are called kubba (van Berchem, CIA, i,
nos. 82, 95, 96, 126, 138, etc.), exceptionally zawiya
{ibid., no. 98), frequently turba {ibid., no. 58, 66, 88,
106, 107, 116, etc.); the formula is also found: “this
kubba is a turba ” (no. 67); the latter word acquired the
same meaning as masdyid, mashhad, partly saint’s grave

MASDJID

653

and partly sacred site (cf. Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 114,
196); but this word does not seem to be used of
ordinary tomb-mosques, although the distinction
between these and mosques in honour of saints often
disappeared. In these kubbas , the regular recitation of
the Kurban was often arranged and the tomb was pro¬
vided with a kiswa. The mausoleum might be built in
connection with a great mosque and be separated
from it by a grille (Yakut, iv, 509, 6 ff.).

5. Mosques deliberately founded. In the
early period, the building of mosques was a social
obligation of the ruler as representative of the com¬
munity and the tribes. Very soon a number of
mosques came into existence, provided by
individuals. In addition to tribal mosques, as already
mentioned, there were also sectarian mosques, and
prominent leaders built mosques which were the cen¬
tres of their activity, for example the Masdjid c AdI b.
Hatim (al-Tabari, ii, 130), the Masdjid Simak in
Kufa (ibid., i, 2653), the Masdjid al-Ash c ath, etc. As
old sanctuaries became Islamised, the mosque
received more of the character of a sanctuary and the
building of a mosque became a pious work; there
arose a hadith , according to which the Prophet said:
“for him who builds a mosque, God will build a home
in Paradise”; some add “if he desire to see the face
of God” (Corpus iuris di Zaid b. c Alf, ed. Griffini, no.
276; al-Bukhari. Salat, bab 65; Muslim, Masadjid , tr.
4; Zuhd , tr. 3; al-Makrizi, iv, 36). Like other sanc¬
tuaries, mosques were sometimes built as a result of a
revelation in a dream. A story of this kind of the
year 557/1162 is given by al-Samhudl for Medina
(Wustenfeld, Medina, 91); and a similar one of a
mosque in Damascus (JA, ser. 9, vii, 384); a mosque
was also built out of gratitude for seeing the Prophet
(al-Madrasa al-Sharifiyya, al-Makrizi, iv, 209). It was of
course particularly an obligation on the mighty to
build mosques. Even in the earliest period, the
governors took care that new mosques were built to
keep pace with the spread of Islam (cf. al-Baladhurf,
178-9). About the year 390/1000 the governor of
Djibal, Badr b. Hasanawayh, is said to have built
3,000 mosques and hostels (Mez, Die Renaissance des
Islams , 24, Eng. tr. 27). The collections of inscrip¬
tions, as well as the geographical and topographical
works, reveal how the number of mosques increased
in this way.

In Egypt, al-Hakim in the year 403/1012-13 had
a census taken of the mosques of Cairo, and these
were found to amount to 800 (al-Makrizi, iv, 264); al-
Kuda c T (d. 454/1062) also counted the mosques, and
his figure is put at 30,000 or 36,000 (Yakut, iii, 901;
Ibn Dukmak, ed. Vollers, 92; al-Makrizi, iv, 264),
which seems a quite fantastic figure (there is probably
a ie<z-lacking before alf, i.e. 1,036). Ibn al-Mutawwadj
(d. 730/1330) according to al-Makrizi counted 480,
and Ibn Dukmak (about 800/1398) gives in addition
to the incomplete list of djami c s a list of 472 mosques,
not including madaris , khanakahs, etc.; the figure given
by al-Makrizi is smaller. The fantastic figure of
30,000 for Baghdad is found as early as al-Ya c kubi
(Buldan, 250). It is also an exaggeration when Ibn
Djubayr was told in Alexandria that there were
12,000 or 8,000 mosques there (43). In Basra, where
Ziyad built 7 mosques (Ibn al-Faklh, 191), the
number also increased rapidly, but here again an
exaggerated figure (7,000) is given (al-Ya c kubi, op.
cit. ,361). In Damascus, Ibn c Asakir (d. 571/1176)
counted 241 within and 148 outside the city (JA, ser.
9, vii, 383). In Palermo, Ibn Hawkal counted over
300, and in a village above it 200 mosques. In some
streets there were as many as 20 mosques within a

bowshot of one another; this multiplicity is con¬
demned: everyone wanted to build a mosque lor
himself (Yakut, i, 719; iii, 409, 410). As a matter of
fact, one can almost say that things tended this way;
al-Ya c kubi mentions in Ba gh dad a mosque for the
Anbari officials of the tax-office (Buldan, 245), and
several distinguished scholars practically had their
own mosques. It occasionally happened that devout
private individuals founded mosques. In 672/1273-4
Tadj al-Din built a mosque and a separate chamber in
which he performed the salat alone and meditated (al-
MakrizT, iv, 90). The mosques thus founded were
very often called after their founders, and memorial
and tomb-mosques after the person to be com¬
memorated. Sometimes a mosque is called after some
devout man who lived in it (al-Makrizi, iv, 97,
265 ff.) and a madrasa might be called after its head or
a teacher (ibid., iv, 235; Yakut, Udaba 5 , vii, 82).
Lastly, a mosque might take its name from its situa¬
tion or from some feature of the building.

6. Al-Musalla. In addition to the mosques
proper, al-Makrizi mentions for Cairo eight places for
prayer (musalld) mainly at the cemetery (iv, 334-5).
The word musalld may mean any place of prayer,
therefore also mosque (cf. sura II, 119; cf. al-Makrizi
Khitat, iv, 25, 16; idem, IttZaz , ed. Bunz. 91, 17;
Yakut, Buldan, iv, 326, 3-5) or a particular place of
prayer within a mosque (al-Tabari, i, 2408, 16; al-
BukharT, Ghusl, bab 17; Salat, bab 91). In Palestine,
there were many open places of prayer, provided only
with a mihrab and marked off, but quite in the open
(cf. for Tiberias, Nasir-i Khusraw, ed. Schefer, 36).
It is recorded of the Prophet that he used to go out at
the two festivals (al-Fitr and al-Adha) to the place of
prayer (al-musalla) of the Banu Salima. A lance which
the Negus of Ethiopia had presented to al-Zubayr was
carried in front of him and planted before the Prophet
as sutra. Standing in front of it, he conducted the salat,
and then preached a khutba without a minbar to the
rows in front of him (al-Tabari, i, 1281, 14 ff.; al-
Bukhari. Hayd, bab 6; Salat, bab 90; Hdayn, bab 6). He
also went out to the musalld for the salat al-istiska 3
(Muslim, Istiskd 5 , tr. 1). This musalld was an open
space, and Muhammad is even said to have forbidden
a building on it (Wustenfeld, Medina, 127 ff.). This
custom of performing the salat on a musalld outside the
town on the two festivals became sunna. There is
evidence of the custom for several towns. In Medina,
however, a mosque was later built on the musalld
(ibid., 128) which also happened in other places. An
early innovation was the introduction of a minbar by
Marwan (ibid., 128; al-Bukhari, c Idayn, bab 6). When
Sa c d b. Abl Wakkas built a mosque in Kisra’s Iwan in
al-Mada 5 in, at the festival in the year 16/637, it was
expressly stated that it was sunna to go out to it; Sa c d,
however, thought it was a matter of indifference (al-
Tabari, i, 2451). Shortly after 300/912-13 a musalld
outside of Hamadhan is mentioned (al-Mas c udi,
MurudJ, ix, 23 = § 3595). There was al-Musalla al-
c Atik in Baghdad; here a dakka was erected for the
execution of the Karmatian prisoners (al-Tabari, iii,
2244-5; cf. 1659, 18); in Kufa, several are mentioned
(ibid., ii, 628, 16; 1704, 8; iii, 367, 8-368) two in
Marw (ibid., ii, 1931, 2; 1964, 19; cf. Nasir-i Khus¬
raw, tr. 274), one in Farghana (Ibn Hawkal 1 , 393,
11). In Tirmidh, the musalld was within the walls (Ibn
Hawkal 1 , 349, 18) which also happened elsewhere
(ibid., 378, 6-377). In Cairo, the two festivals were
celebrated on the Musalla Khawlan (a Yemeni tribe)
with the khatib of the Mosque of c Amr as leader:
according to al-Kuda c I, the festivals were to be
celebrated on a musalld opposite the hill Yahmum,

654

MASDJID

then on al-Musalla al-Kadim where Ahmad b. Tulun
erected a building in 256/870. The site was several
times changed (al-MakrlzI, iv, 334-5; cf. al-
Mukaddasi, 200, 14-20). In 302, 306 and 308 the salat
al-Hd was performed for the first time in the Mosque
of c Amr (al-MakrlzI, iv, 20, 8 ff.; al-Suyutl, Husn al-
muhadara , ii, 137 below; I bn Taghribirdl, ii, 194,
9 ff.). Ibn Battuta notes the custom in Spain (i, 20)
and Tunis (i, 22) and also in India (iii, 154). Ibn al-
Hadjdj (d. 737/1336-7) says that in his time the
ceremonies still took place on the musalla but con¬
demns the bida c associated with them {K. al-Madkhal,
Cairo 1320, ii, 82). It is also laid down in Muslim law,
although not always definitely (see Juynboll, Handbuch
d. Islam. Ges., 1910, 127; I. Guidi, II Muhtasar, i,
1919, 136). The custom seems in time to have become
generally abandoned. In the 9th/15th century the
Masdjid Aksunkur was expressly built for the khutba at
the Friday services and at festivals (al-MaknzI, iv,
107, 17).

C. The mosque as the centre for divine
worship.

1. Sanctity of the mosque. The history of the
mosques in the early centuries of Islam shows an
increase in its sanctity, which was intensified by the
adoption of the traditions of the church and especially
by the permeation of the cult of saints. The sanctity
already associated with tombs taken over by Islam was
naturally very soon transferred to the larger and more
imposing mosques. The expression Bayt Allah “house
of God”, which at first was only used of the Ka c ba
came now be applied to any mosque (see Corpus iuris
di Zaid b. c Ali, no. 48, cf. 156, 983; Chron. Mekka, ed.
Wustenfeld, iv, 164; van Berchem, CIA , i, no. 10, 1.
18; Ibn al-Hadjdj, K. al-Madkhal , i, 20, 23; ii, 64, 68;
cf. Bayt Rabbihi, ibid., i, 23, 73; ii, 56). The alteration
in the original conception is illustrated by the fact that
the Mamluk al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars declined to
build a mosque on a place for tethering camels
because it was unseemly, while the mosque of the
Prophet had actually been built on such a place (al-
MakrlzI, iv, 91; Abu Dawud, Salat, bab 22).

In the house of God, the mihrdb and the minbar
enjoyed particular sanctity, as did the tomb, especially
in Medina (al-Bukhari, Fadl al-saldt Ji masdjid Makka
wa ’ l-Madlna, bab 5). The visitors sought baraka , partly
by touching the tomb or the railing round it, partly by
praying in its vicinity; at such places “prayer is
heard” {Chron. Mekka, iii, 441, 442). In the Masdjid
al-Khavf in Mina, the visitor laid his head on the print
of the Prophet’s head and thus obtained baraka {ibid.,
iii, 438). A mosque could be built on a site, the sanc¬
tity of which had been shown by the finding of hidden
treasure (al-MakrlzI, iv, 75). There were often places
of particular sanctity in mosques. In the mosques at
Kuba 5 and Medina, the spots where the Prophet used
to stand at prayer were held to be particularly blessed
(al-Baladhurl, 5; al-Bukharl. Salat, bab 91; Wiisten-
feld, Medina , 65, cf. 82, 109). In other mosques,
places where a saint had sat or where a divine
phenomenon had taken place, e.g. in the Mosque of
c Amr and in the Azhar Mosque (al-MakrlzI, iii, 19,
52) or the Mosque in Jerusalem (al-MukaddasI, 170),
were specially visited. Pious visitors made tawaf [see
hadjdj] between such places in the mosque (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 20). Just as in other religions, we find
parents dedicating their children to the service of a
sanctuary, so we find a Muslim woman vowing her
child or child yet unborn to the mosque (al-Bukharl.
Salat, bab 74; al-MakrlzI, iv, 20). The fact that
mosques, like other sanctuaries, were sometimes
founded after a revelation received in a dream has
already been mentioned (see 1. B. 5).

This increase in sanctity had as a natural result that
one could no longer enter a mosque at random as had
been the case in the time of the Prophet. In the early
Umayyad period, Christians were still allowed to
ehter the mosque without molestation (cf. Lammens,
Mo c awia, 13-14; Goldziher, in WZKM , vi [1892], 100-
1). Mu c awiya used to sit with his Christian physician,
Ibn Uthal, in the mosque of Damascus (Ibn Abl
Usaybi c a, i, 117). According to Ahmad b. Hanbal,
the A hi al-Kitab (or Ahl al- c Ahd) and their servants, but
not polytheists, were allowed to enter the mosque of
Medina ( Musnad, iii, 339, 392). At a later date,
entrance was forbidden to Christians and this regula¬
tion is credited to c Umar (Lammens, op. cit., 13, n.
6). A strict teacher of morality like Ibn al-Hadjdj
thought it unseemly that the monks who wove the
mats for the mosques should be allowed to lay them
in the mosque ( Madkhal, ii, 57). Conditions were not
always the same. In Hebron, Jews and Christians
were admitted on payment to the sanctuary of
Abraham until in 664/1265 Baybars forbade it
(Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., i/2, 27).

According to some traditions, a person in a state of
ritual impurity could not enter the mosque (Abu
Dawud, Tahara, bab 92; Ibn Madja, Tahdra , bab 123).
In any case, only the pure could acquire merit by
visiting the mosque (Muslim, Masadjjd, tr. 49; Corpus
iuris di Zaid b. c Ali, no. 48), and in a later period it is
specially mentioned that the wudu 5 cannot be under¬
taken in the mosque itself {Madkhal, ii, 47 below) nor
could shaving {ibid., 58-9).

It is always necessary to be careful not to spit in a
mosque, although some traditions which are obvious¬
ly closer to the old state of affairs say, “not in the
direction of the kibla, only to the left!” (al-Bukharf.
Salat, babs 33-4). The custom of taking off one’s san¬
dals in the mosque is found as early as the time of
Abu c Ubayd (2nd/8th century) (Yakut, Udaba 5 , v,
272, 13-237) and according to Ibn al-Hadjdj’s Mad¬
khal (see below) is also mentioned by Abu Dawud. Al-
Tabari puts the custom back to the time of c Umar (i,
2408). That it is based on an old custom observed in
sanctuaries is obvious (cf. on the history of the
custom, F. Cumont, Fouilles de Doura-Europos, 1926,
60-1). The custom, however, seems not to have been
always observed. In the 2nd/8th century in the
Mosque of the Umayyads, the shoes were taken off
only in the maksura, because the floor was covered with
mats; but in 212/827 an Egyptian superintendent
ordered that the mosque should only be entered with
bare feet (JA, ser. 9, vii, 211, 217). The visitor on
entering should place his right foot first and utter cer¬
tain prayers with blessings on the Prophet and his
family (which Muhammad is said to have done!) and
when he is inside perform two rak^as (al-Bukharl,
Salat, bab 47; Taha djdj ud , bab 25; Muslim, Salat al-
musdfirin, trs. 12-13; al-Tabari, iii, 2464, 2532). Cer¬
tain regulations for decent conduct came into being,
the object of which was to preserve the dignity of the
house of divine service. Public announcements about
strayed animals were not to be made, as the Bedouins
did in their houses of assembly, and one should not
call out aloud and thereby disturb the meditations of
the worshippers (al-Bukharl, Salat, bab 83; Muslim,
Masadjjd, tr. 18; more fully in Madkhal, i, 19 ff.). One
should put on fine clothes for the Friday service, rub
oneself with oil and perfume oneself (al-Bukharl
Djum c a. babs 3, 6, 7, 19) as was also done with lib for
the Ha djdj (al-Bukharl, Ha djdj , bab 143).

A question which interested the teachers of morality
was that of the admission of women to the
mosques. That many did not desire their presence is
evident from the hadith that one cannot prevent them

MASDJID

655

as there is no filna connected with it, but they must not
be perfumed (Muslim, Salat , bdb 29; al-Bukhari,
Djum c a. bdb 13; cf. Chron. Mekka, iv, 168). Other
hadith s say they should leave the mosques before the
men (al-Nasa 5 !, Sahw, bdb 77; cf. Abu Dawud, Salat,
babs 14, 48). Sometimes a special part of the mosque
was railed off for them; for example, the governor of
Mecca in 256/870 had ropes tied between the columns
to make a separate place for women {Chron. Mekka, ii,
197 below). According to some, women must not
enter the mosque during their menstruation (Abu
Dawud, Tahara, babs 92, 103; Ibn Madja, Tahara, babs
117, 123). In Medina at the present day, a wooden
grille shuts off a place for women (al-Batanunl, al-
Rihla al-Hidjaziyya , 240). At one time, the women
stood at the back of the mosque here (Yakut, Udaba > ,
vi, 400). In Jerusalem there were special maksuras for
them (Ibn al-Fakih, 100). Ibn al-Hadjdj would prefer
to exclude them altogether and gives c A :> isha as his
authority for this.

Although the mosque became sacred, it could not
quite cast off its old character as a place of public
assembly, and in consequence, the mosque was visited
for many other purposes than that of divine worship.
Not only in the time of the Umayyads was con¬
siderable business done in the mosques (al-Tabari, ii,
1118; cf. Lammens, Ziad, 98) which is quite in keep¬
ing with the hadith (al-Bukhari, Salat, babs 70-1) which
actually found it necessary to forbid the sale of wine
in the mosque (ibid., bdb 73), but Ibn al-Hadjdj
records with disapproval that business was done in the
mosques: women sit in the mosques and sell thread,
in Mecca hawkers even call their wares in the
mosques. The list given by this author gives one the
impression of a regular market-place (Madkhal, ii, 54).
Strangers could always sit down in a mosque and talk
with one another (see al-Mukaddasi, 205); they had
the right to spend the night in the mosque; according
to some, however, only if there was no other shelter
available (Madkhal, ii, 43 below, 49 above; see below
I.D.lb). It naturally came about that people also ate
in the mosque; this was quite common, and regular
banquets were even given in them (e.g. al-MakrizI,
iv, 67, 121-2; cf. in Hadith : Ibn Madja, AtHma, babs
24, 29; Ahmad b. Hanbal, ii, 106, 10 from below).
Ibn al-Hagy^y laments that in the Masjljid al-Aksa
people even threw the remains of their repast down in
the mosque; animals were brought in, and beggars
and water-carriers called aloud in them, etc. (Madkhal,
ii, 53 ff.). It is even mentioned as a sign of the special
piety of al-ShirazI (d. 476/1083) that he often brought
food into the mosque and consumed it there with his
pupils (Wiistenfeld, Der Imam SchafTi , iii, 298).
Gradually, the mosques acquired greater numbers of
residents (see below, I.D. 2b). In the Azhar Mosque,
it was the custom with many to spend the summer
nights there because it was cool and pleasant (al-
MakrizI, iv, 54). This was the state of affairs about
800/1398. Similar conditions still prevail in the
mosques.

2. The mosque as a place of prayer. Fri¬
day mosques. As places for divine worship, the
mosques are primarily “houses of which God has per¬
mitted that they be erected and that His name be
mentioned in them” (sura XXIV, 36), i.e. for His
service demanded by the law, for ceremonies of wor¬
ship (mandsik), for assemblies for prayer (djama c at) and
other religious duties (cf. Chron. Mekka, iv, 164). The
mosques were ma c abid (al-MakrizI, iv, 117, 140). In
Medina after a journey, the Prophet went at once to
the mosque and performed two rak c as, a custom which
was imitated by others and became the rule (al-

Bukhari, Salat, babs 59-60; Muslim, Salat al-musdfirin,
tr. 11; al-Wakidl-Wellhausen, 412, 436). In this
respect, the mosque played a part in public worship
similar to that of the Ka c ba in Mecca at an earlier date
and the Rabba sanctuary in Ta 5 if. The daily salats,
which in themselves could be performed anywhere,
became especially meritorious when they were per¬
formed in mosques, because they expressed adherence
to the community. A salat al-djamd'-a, we are told, is
twenty or twenty-five times as meritorious as the salat
of an individual at home or in his shop (Muslim,
Masddjid, tr. 42; Bukhari. Salat, bdb 87; Buyu : , bdb 49).
There are even hadiths which condemn private salats :
“Those who perform the salat in their houses abandon
the sunna of their Prophet” (Muslim, Masddjid, tr. 44;
but cf. 48 and al-Buldiari, Salat, bdb 52). If much rain
falls, the believers may, however, worship in their
houses (al-Bukhari. Dium c a. bdb 14). In this connec¬
tion, a blind man was given a special rukhsa ; it is
particularly bad to leave the mosque after the adhan
(Muslim, Masddjid, tr. 45). It is therefore very
meritorious to go to the mosque; for every step a man
advances into the mosque, he receives forgiveness of
sins, God protects him at the last judgment and the
angels also assist him (Muslim, Masddjid, babs 49-51;
al-Bukhari. Salat, bdb 87; Adhan, babs 36, 37; Dium c a.
babs 4, 18, 31; Corpus iuris di Zaid b. c Ali, nos. 48, 156,
983).

This holds especially of the Friday falat (salat al-
djum c a), which can only be performed in the mosque
and is obligatory upon every free male Muslim who
has reached years of discretion (cf. Juynboll, Hand-
buch, 86; Guidi, Sommario del diritto Malechita , i, 125-6.
According to Ibn Hisham (290), this salat, which is
distinguished by the khutba, was observed in Medina
even before the hidjra. This is hardly probable and
besides is not in agreement with other hadiths (see al-
Bukhari, Dj um c a. bdb 11) but the origin of this divine
worship, referred to in sura LXII, 9, is obscure. The
assemblies of the Jews and Christians on a particular
day must have formed the model (cf. al-Bukhari.
Djumca, bdb 1). Its importance in the earlier period lay
in the fact that all elements of the Muslim camp, who
usually went to the tribal and particular mosques,
assembled for it in the chief mosque under the leader¬
ship of the general. The chief mosque, which for this
reason was particularly large, was given a significant
name. They talk of al-masdjid al-a c zam (al-Tabari, i,
2494; ii. 734, 1701, 1702, Kufa; al-Baladhuri, 5; al-
Tabari, Tafsir, xi, 21, centre; ibid, also al-masdjid al-
akbar, Medina; cf. al-masdjid al-kabir, al-Ya c kubi,
Bulddn, 245) or masdjid al-djama c a (Yakut, iii, 896,
Fustat; also al-Tabari, ii, 1119; Ibn Kutayba, Ma c arif,
ed. Wiistenfeld, 106). masdjid li 'l-djamd^a (al-MakrizT,
iv, 4); masdjid djami c (al-Baladhuri. 289, Mada 5 in;
Yakut, i, 643, 647, Basra); then masdjid al-djamT
(Yakut, iii, 899; iv, 885; Ibn Hawkal 1 , 298, 315, 387;
al-Ya c kubt, 110, etc.). As an abbreviation we find also
al-djama^a (Yakut, i, 400; Ibn Battuta, iv, 343; cf.
masdjid al-djama^a , al-Baladhuri. 348) and especially
djami c . As the khutba was the distinguishing feature,
we also find masdjid al-khutba (al-MakrizI, iv, 44, 64,
87), djdmi c al-khutba (ibid., iv. 55) or masdjid al-minbar,
al-Mukaddasi, 316, for djami c , 1.8).

Linguistic usage varied somewhat in course of time
with conditions. In the time of c Umar there was pro¬
perly in every town only one masdjid djami c for the Fri¬
day service. But when the community became no
longer a military camp and Islam replaced the
previous religion of the people, a need for a number
of mosques for the Friday service was bound to arise.
This demanded mosques for the Friday service in the

656

MASDJID

country, in the villages on the one hand and several
Friday mosques in the town on the other. This meant
in both cases an innovation, compared with old condi¬
tions, and thus there arose some degree of uncer¬
tainty. The Friday service had to be conducted by the
ruler of the community, but there was only one gover¬
nor in each province; on the other hand, the demands
of the time could hardly be resisted and, besides, the
Christian converts to Islam had been used to a solemn
weekly service.

As to the villages (al-kura), c Amr b. al- c As in
Egypt forbade their inhabitants to celebrate the Fri¬
day service for the reason just mentioned (al-MakrizT,
iv, 7). At a later period, then, the khutba was delivered
exceptionally, without minbar and only with staff, until
Marwan b. Muhammad in 132/749-50 introduced the
minbar into the Egyptian kura also (ibid., 8). Of a
mosque in which a minbar had been placed, we are told
djuHla masdjid an li 'l-a^ydn (al-Tabari, i, 2451) and a
village with a minbar is called karya djdmi'a (al-Bukharl.
Djum c a. bab 15; cf. madina djami c a, Ibn Hawkal 1 , 321),
an idea which was regarded by al-Bukharl (d.
256/870) as quite obvious. In introducing the minbars
into the Egyptian villages, Marwan was apparently
following the example of other regions. In the
4th/10th century, Ibn Hawkal mentions a number of
mandbir in the district of Istakhr (1st edn., 182 ff.) and
a few in the vicinity of Marw (ibid. ,316) and in Trans-
oxania (ibid. , 378; cf. 384), and al-MukaddasT does
the same for other districts of Persia (309, 317) and he
definitely says that the kura of Palestine are dhat
mandbir (ibid. , 176; cf. al-Istakhrf 1 . 58); al-Baladhur!
(331) also uses the name minbar for a village mosque
built in 239/853-4; in general, when speaking of the
kura , one talks of mandbir and not of djawami c (cf. al-
Istakhr! 1 . 63). Later, however, the term masdjid djami c
is used for a Friday mosque (Ibn Djubayr, 217). The
conditions of primitive Islam are reflected in the
teaching of the Hanafis, who only permit the Friday
service in large towns (cf. al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam al-
sultaniyya, ed. Enger, 177).

As to the towns, the Shafi c Ts on the other hand
have retained the original conditions, since they per¬
mit the Friday service in only one mosque in each
town (see jdjum c a and op. cit., 178-8), but with the
reservation that the mosque is able to hold the com¬
munity. The distinction between the two rites was of
importance in Egypt. When in 569/1173-4 Salah al-
Dln became supreme in Egypt, he appointed a Shafi c I
chief kadi and the Friday service was therefore held
only in the al-Hakim mosque, as the largest; but in
665/1266, al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars gave the Hanafis
preference, and many mosques were therefore used as
Friday mosques (al-Makriz!, iv, 52 ff.; al-Suyutl,
Husn al-muhadara, ii, 140; Quatremere, Hist. Suit.
Maml. i/2, 39 ff). During the Umayyad period, the
number of djawami*- in the towns were still very small.
The geographers of the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries
in their descriptions of towns as a rule mention only
“the djami° y . Ibn al-Faklh, ca. 290/903, sometimes
says masdjid djdmi c wa-minbar (304-6, also minbar
simply, 305). In keeping with the oldest scheme of
town planning, it was very often in the middle of the
town surrounded by the business quarters (Ibn
Hawkal 1 , 298, 325; al-Mukaddast, 274-5, 278, 298,
314, 316, 375, 376, 413, 426, 427, etc.; Nasir-i
Khusraw, ed. Schefer, 35, 41, 56) and the ddr al-imdra
was still frequently in the immediate vicinity of the
chief mosque (Ibn Hawkal 1 , 298, 314; al-Mukaddasi,
426).

Al-Istakhr! mentions as an innovation in Islam that
al-Hadjdjadj built a dyami* in al-Wasit on the west

bank, although there was already one on the east bank
(al-Istakhri, 1 82-3; cf. al-Ya c kubI, Buldan, 322). Ibn
Djubayr ( Rihla , 211) mentions only one djdmi*- in
Kufa, called Masdjid al-Kufa by Ibn al-Faklh,
although he also mentions other mosques (173; cf.
174, 183 and al-Mukaddasi, 116). In Basra, where
al-Ya c kubI (278/891) already mentions 7,000 mosques
(Buldan, 361), al-Mukaddasi (375/985) gives 3
djawami* (117). In Samarra 5 , among many mos¬
ques, there was one djami* (al-Ya c kubt, Buldan, 258,
259), which was later replaced by another (ibid., 260-
1); al-Mutawakkil also built one outside the original
town (ibid., 265; see also P. Schwarz, Die *Abbasiden-
Residenz Sdmarra, 1909, 32). In Baghdad, al-Ya c kub!
mentions only one djami* for the eastern town and for
the western (Buldan, 240, 245, 251, 253; the almost
contemporary Ibn Rusta just mentions the old
western town and its djami*, 109) although he gives the
fantastic figures of 15,000 mosques in the east town
(ibid., 254) and 30,000 in the west (or in the whole
town?, ibid. , 250). After 280/893-4 there was added
the djami* of the eastern palace of the caliph (Mez,
Renaissance, 388, Eng. tr. 410, quoting al- Kh atlb al-
Baghdadi, TaSikh Baghdad-, a private djami* of Harun
al-Rashld in the Bustan Umm Musa is mentioned by
Ibn al-Kift!, Ta^rikh al-Hukama?, ed. Lippert, 433
below). These three djawami* are mentioned about
340/951 by al-Istakhr! (84), who also mentions one in
the suburb of Kalwadha. Ibn Hawkal in 367/977
mentions the latter and also the Djami c al-Baratha
(164-5, of 329/940-1; Mez, loc. cit.), a fifth was added
in 379/989, a sixth in 383/993 (Mez, 389, Eng. tr.
410-11); thus al-Khat!b al-Baghdad! in 460 (1058
gives 4 for West Ba gh dad. 2 for the east town (cf. Le
Strange, Baghdad, 324). Ibn Djubayr in 581/1185
gives in the east town 3, and 11 djawami* (Rihla, 228-
9) for the whole of Ba gh dad. For Cairo, al-Istakhri
gives two (frames: the c Amr and Tulun Mosques (49)
besides that in al-Karafa, which was regarded as a
separate town (cf. Ibn Rusta [ca. 290/903], 116-17).
Al-Mukaddas!, who wrote (375/985) shortly after the
Fafimid conquest, mentions the c Amr mosque (al-
Azhar), also one in al-Djazira, in Djlza and in al-
Karafa (198-200, 209; the djami* in al-Djazira. also
Djami c Mikyas [cf. al-Makrizi, iv, 75] is mentioned in
an inscription of the year 485/1092; see van Berchem,
CIA, i, no. 39). As these places were all originally
separate towns, the principle was not abandoned that
each town had only one djami*. The Fatimids, how¬
ever, extended the use of Friday mosques and, in
addition to those already mentioned, used the Djami c
al-Hakim, al-Maks and Rashida (al-Makriz!, iv, 2-3).
Nasir-i Khusraw in 439/1047 mentions in one passage
the djawami* of Cairo, in another seven for Misr and
fifteen in all (ed. Schefer, 134-5, 147). This was
altered in 569/1173-4 by Salah al-Din (see above), but
the quarters, being still regarded as separate towns,
retained their own Friday mosques (cf. for the year
607/1210-11 in al-Karafa, al-Makriz!, iv, 86).

After the Friday worship in Egypt and Syria was
freed from restriction, the number of djawami*
increased very much. Ibn Dukmak (ca. 800/1397-8)
gives a list of only eight djawami* in Cairo (ed. Vollers,
59-78), but this list is apparently only a fragment (in
all, he mentions something over twenty in the part of
his book that has survived); al-Makriz! (d. 845/1442)
gives 130 djawami c (iv, 2 ff.). In Damascus, where
Ibn Djubayr still spoke of “the djami° y , al-Nu c aym!
(d. 927/1521) gives twenty djawami c (JA, ser. 9, vii,
231 ff.), and according to Ibn Battuta, there were in
all the villages in the region of Damascus masadjid
djamica (i, 236). The word djami c in al-Makriz! always

MASDJID

657

means a mosque in which the Friday worship was held
(vi, 76, 115 ff.), but by his time this meant any
mosque of some size. He himself criticises the fact that
since 799/1396-7 the salat al-djum c a was performed in
al-Akmar, although another djami'' stood close beside
it (iv, 76; cf. also 86).

The great spread of Friday mosques was reflected in
the language. While inscriptions of the 8th/14th cen¬
tury still call quite large mosques masdjid, in the
9th/15th most of them are called djami c (cf. on the
whole question, van Berchem, CIA, i, 173-4); and
while now the madrasa [q.v.\ begins to predominate
and is occasionally also called djami c , the use of the
word masdjid becomes limited. While, generally
speaking, it can mean any mosque (e.g. al-Makrlzi,
iv, 137, of the Mu^ayyad mosque), it is more
especially used of the smaller unimportant mosques.
While Ibn Dukmak gives 472 masadjid in addition to
the djawami c , madaris, etc., al-Makrlzi only gives nine¬
teen, not counting al-Karafa, which probably only
means that they were of little interest to him. Diami < '
is now on the way to become the regular name for a
mosque of any size, as is now the usage, in Egypt and
Turkey at least. In Ibn al-Hadjdj (d. 737/1336-7), al-
djawami c is occasionally used in this general meaning
in place of al-masadjid (Madkhal, ii, 50). Among the
many Friday mosques, one was usually distinguished
as the chief mosque; we therefore find the expression
al-djdmi c al-a c zam (Ibn Battuta, ii, 54, 94; cf. the older
expression al-masdjid al-a c zam, in ibid. , ii, 53). The
principal djami c decided on such questions as the
beginning and ending of the fast of Ramadan (. Mad¬
khal , ii, 68).

3. Other religious activities in the
mosque. “The mentioning of the name of God” in
the mosques, was not confined only in the official
ritual ceremonies. Even in the time of the Prophet, we
are told that he lodged ThakalT delegates in the
mosque so that they could see the rows of worshippers
and hear the nightly recitation (al-Wakidl-
Wellhausen, 382). Although this story (which is not
given in Ibn Hisham, 916) may simply be a reflection
of later conditions, the recitation of the Kur 5 an must
have come to be considered an edifying and pious
work at quite an early date. In the time of al-
MukaddasI, the hurra 5 of Naysabur used to assemble
on Fridays in the dj_ami <i in the early morning and
recite till the duha, (328), and the same author tells us
that in the Mosque of c Amr in Egypt the a^immat al-
kurra? sat in circles every evening and recited (205). In
the time of Ibn Djubayr, there were recitations of the
Kur’an in the Umayyad mosque after the salat al-subh
and every afternoon after the salat al- c asr (Rihla , 271-
2). Besides the recitation of the KuUan, there were
praises of God, etc., all that which is classed as
dhikr, and which was particularly cultivated by
Sufism. This form of worship also took place in the
mosque. The ahl al-tawhid wa d-ma^rija formed madjalis
al-dhikr, and assembled in the mosques (al-Makkl, Kut
al-kulub , i, 152). In the Mosque of the Umayyads and
other mosques of Damascus, dhikr was held during the
morning on Friday (al-Makrlzi, iv, 49). In the
Masdjid al-Aksa the Hanafis held dhikr, and recited at
the same time from a book (al-MukaddasI, 182). In
Egypt, Ahmad b. Tulun and Khumawaravh allowed
twelve men quarters in a chamber near the minaret in
order to praise God, and during the night, four of
them took turns to praise God with recitations of the
Kur-’an and with pious kasidas. From the time of Salah
al-Dln, an orthodox c akida was recited by the
mu 3 a dhdh ins in the night (al-Makrlzi, iv, 48). Ibn al-
Hadjdj demands that the recitation of the Kur 5 an

aloud should take place in a mosque for the special
purpose ( masdjid madjhur ), as otherwise pious visitors
are disturbed ( Aladkhal, ii, 53, 67). Mosques and, in
particular, mausoleums, had as a rule regularly-
appointed reciters of the KuUan. In addition there
was, e.g. in Hebron and in a mosque in Damascus,
a shaykh who had to read al-Bukhari (or also Muslim)
for three months (Sauvaire, Hist. Jerus. el Hebr., 17;
JA , ser. 9, in. 261). In Tunis, al-Bukharl was read
daily in a hospital (al-Zarkashl, tr. Fagnan, Rec. Soc.
Arch. Constantine [1894], 188).

Sermons were not only delivered at the salat al-
djurn^a. In c Irak, even in al-Mukaddasfs time, one
was preached every morning, according to the sunna
of Ibn c Abbas (130), it was said. Ibn Djubayr, in the
Nizamiyya in Baghdad, heard the Shafi c I rail's preach
from the minbar on Friday after the c asr. His sermon
was accompanied by the skilled recitations of the
kurra ? who sat on chairs; these were over twenty in
number (Ibn Djubayr, 219-22). In the same way, the
calls of the mu^adhdhins to prayer to the Friday khutba
were delivered to a musical accompaniment (see
below, I. H. 4). The unofficial sermons, which more¬
over were not delivered in mosques alone, were
usually delivered by a special class, the kussas (pi. of
kass) (on these, cf. Goldziher, Muh. Stud., ii, 161 ff.;
Mez, Die Renaissance des Islams, 314 ff.; and kass). The
kussas, who delivered edifying addresses and told
popular stories, were early admitted to the mosques.

Tamlm al-Darl is said to have been the first of
these; in Medina in the caliphate of c Umar before the
latter’s decease, he used to deliver his orations at the
Friday salat, and under c Umar he was allowed to talk
twice a week in the mosque; in the reign of c All and
of Mu c awiya the kussas were employed to curse the
other side (al-Makrlzi, iv, 16-7). In the Mosque of
c Amr in Cairo, by the year 38/658-9 or 39/659-60 a
kass was appointed, named Sulaym b. c Itr al-Tudjlbl,
who was also kadi (ibid., iv, 17, wrongly: Sulayman;
al-Kindl, Governors and judges, ed. Guest, 303-4).
There are other occurrences of the combination of the
two offices (Ibn Hudjayra [d. 83/702], al-Kindl, 317;
Khayr b. Nu c aym in the year 120/738, ibid., 348; cf.
al-Suyutl, Husn al-muhddara, i, 131, Djabr, according
to Thawba b. Nimr, Husn, i, 130 below; Ibrahim b.
Ishak al-Karl [d. 204], Kindi, 427; see also al-
Makrlzl, iv, 18), which shows that the office of kass
was quite an official one. There is also evidence of the
employment of kussas in the mosques of c Irak in the
c Abbasid period (Yakut, Udaba 5 , iv, 268, v, 446). The
kass read from the KuHan standing and then delivered
an explanatory and edifying discourse, the object of
which was to instil the fear of God into the people (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 18). Under the Fatimids also, the kussas
were appointed to the mosques; for example in
403/1012-13 the imam undertook the office in the
Mosque of c Amr (al-Makrlzi, iv, 18, below) and the
rulers had also a kass in the palace. The kussas were
called ashab al-kardsi, because they delivered their
discourses on the kursi (al-Makkl, Kut al-kulub, i, 152;
Ibn al-Hadjdj, Madkhal, i, 159; cf. al-Makrlzi, iv,
121). Their discourse was called dhikr or wa c z or
mawhza, whence the kass was also called mudhakkir (al-
MukaddasI, 205) or waHz. Specimens of their
discourses are given by Ibn c Abd Rabbihi (al- c I/cd al-
farid , Cairo 1321/1903, i, 294 ff.). It was not only the
appointed officials who delivered such discourses in
the mosque. Ascetics made public appearances in
various mosques and collected interested hearers
around them (cf. e.g. al-Makrlzi, iv, 135). In the
Djami c al-Karafa, a whole society, the Banu Djawha-
rl, delivered wa c z discourses from a kursi for three

658

MASDJID

months on end; their servant collected money in a
begging-bowl during the discourse, and the shaykh
distributed some of it among the poor {ibid. , iv, 121).

The kasas was completely taken over by popular
$ufism and later writers would hardly reckon, as al-
Makkl does, the “story-tellers” among the
mutakallimun (Kut al-kulub, i, 152). The whole system
degenerated to trickery and charlatanry of all kinds,
as may be seen in the Makama [q.v.\ literature (cf.
thereon Yakut, Udabd vi, 167-8, and see also Mez
and Goldziher, op. cit.). Al-MakrizI therefore distin¬
guishes between al-kasas al-khafsa, the regular and
seemly edifying discourse in the mosque, and al-kasas
al- c dmma, which consisted in the people gathering
round all kinds of speakers, which is makruh (iv, 17).
Others also have recorded their objections to the
kussas. Ibn al-Hadjdj utters a warning against them
and wants to forbid their activities in the mosque com¬
pletely, because they deliver “weak” narratives ( Mad-
khal, i, 158-9; ii, 13-14, 50). He says that Ibn c Umar,
Malik and Abu Dawud rejected them and C A1I ejected
them from the masdjid of Basra. It is of little
significance that al-Mu c tadid in 284/897 forbade peo¬
ple to gather round them, for he issued a similar inter¬
dict against the fukaha 3 and the reasons were evidently
political (al-Tabari, iii, 2165); it was for political
reasons also, but with a very different motive, that
c Adud al-Dawla forbade their appearing publicly in
Baghdad because they increased the tension between
Sunnis and ShlSs (Mez, op. cit., 319). As late as
580/1184, the wu cc az still flourished in the mosques of
Baghdad, as is evident from the Rihla of Ibn Djubayr
(219 ff., 224), and in the 9th/15th century there was
in the Azhar mosque a madjlis al-wa c z as well as a halak
al-dhikr (al-MakrizI, iv, 54).

When Ibn al-Hadjdj denounces speaking aloud in
the mosque, it is in the interest of the pious visitors
who are engaged in religious works and meditation.
IHikaf \q.v.], retirement to a mosque for a
period, was adopted into Islam from the older
religions.

The word c akf means in the Kurian the ceremonial
worship of the object of the cult (sura VII, 134; XX,
93, 97; XXI, 53; XXVI, 71; cf. al-Kumayt,
Hashimiyyat, ed. Horovitz, 86, 15) and also the ritual
stay in the sanctuary, which was done for example in
the Meccan temple (sura II, 119; XXII, 25). In this
connection, it is laid down in the Kurian that in the
month of Ramadan believers must not touch their
wives “while ye pass the time in the mosques” {fakifun
fi 'l-masadjid, sura II, 183), an expression which
shows, firstly, that there were already a number of
mosques in the lifetime of the Prophet, and secondly,
that these had already to some extent taken over the
character of the temple. The connection with the early
period is evident from a hadith, according to which the
Prophet decides that c Umar must carry out a vow of
iHikaf for one night in the Masdjid al-Haram made in
the Djahiliyya (al-Bukhari, IHikaf, bab 5, 15-16; Fard
al-khums , bab 19; MaghazI, bab 54; Ayman wa ’ l-nudhur,
bab 29). It is completely in keeping with this that the
Prophet, according to the hadith , used to spend ten
days of the month of Ramadan in iHikaf in the mosque
of Medina (al-Bukhari, IHikaf, bdb c ; Fadl Laylat al-
kadar, bab 3), and in the year in which he died, as
many as twenty days {ibid., IHikaf, bab 17). During
this period, the mosque was full of booths of palm
branches and leaves in which the c dkifun lived {ibid.,
bab 13; cf. 6, 7). The Prophet only went to his house
for some very special reason {ibid., bab 3). This custom
was associated with the ascetism of the monks. The
faithful were vexed, when on one occasion he received

Safiyya in his booth and chatted for an hour with her
(al-Bukhari, Fard al-khums, bab 4; IHikaf, bab 8, 11,
12). According to another tradition, his iHikaf was
broken on another occasion by his wives putting up
their tents beside him, and he postponed his iHikaf till
Shawwal (al-Bukhari, IHikaf, babs 6, 7, 14, 18).
According to Zayd b. c AlI, the iHikaf can only be
observed in a chief mosque ( djdmi *■) {Corpus iuris di Zaid
b. C AII, no. 447). During the early period, it was one
of the initiatory rites for new converts. In the year
14/1635 c Umar ordered the retreat {al-kiydm) in the
mosques during the month of Ramadan for the people
of Medina and the provinces (al-Tabari, i, 2377). The
custom persisted and has always been an important
one among ascetics. “The man who retires for a time
to the mosque devotes himself in turn to $aldt, recita¬
tion of the Kurian, meditation, dhikr, etc.” says Ibn
al-Hadjdj {Madkhal, ii, 50). There were pious people
who spent their whole time in a mosque {akdmuflhi; al-
MakrizI, iv, 87, 97); of one we were told that he spent
his time in the mandra of the Mosque of c Amr ( iHakafa,
ibid. , 44). Al-SamhudI says that during the month of
Ramadan, he spent day and night in the mosque
(Wustenfeld, Medina, 95). Sa c d al-Din (d. 644/1246-7)
spent the month of Ramadan in the Mosque of the
Umayyads without speaking (Ibn Abl Usaybi c a, ii,
192). Nocturnal vigils in the mosque very early
became an established practice in Islam. According to
Hadith , the Prophet frequently held nocturnal salats in
the mosque with the believers (al-Bukhari. Dj um c a.
bab 29), and by his orders c Abd Allah b. Unays al-
Ansarl came from the desert for twenty-three suc¬
cessive nights to pass the night in his mosque in rites
of worship (Ibn Kutayba, Ma^arif, ed. Wustenfeld,
142-3). Out of this developed the tahadidjud [^.u.] salat,
particularly recommended in the law and notably the
tarawlh falats [q v.]. In Dihll on these occasions,
women singers actually took part (Ibn Battuta, iii,
155).

During the nights of the month of Ramadan, there
were festivals in the mosques, and on other occa¬
sions also, such as the New Year, sometimes at the
new moon, and in the middle of the month. The
mosque on these occasions was illuminated: there was
eating and drinking; incense was burned and dhikr
and kira^a performed.

The Friday salat was particularly solemn in
Ramadan, and in the Fatimid period, the caliph
himself delivered the khutba (see al-MakrizI, ii, 345 ff.;
Ibn TaghrlbirdI, ii/1, ed. Juynboll, 482-6, ii/2, ed.
Popper, 331-3). The mosques associated with a saint
had and still have their special festivals on his mawlid
[q.v.\, they also are celebrated with dhikr, kira^a, etc.
(cf. Lane, Manners and customs, chs. xxiv ff.). The
saint’s festivals are usually local and there are
generally differences in the local customs. In the
Maghrib, for example, in certain places the month of
Ramadan is opened with a blast of trumpets from the
manabir {Madkhal, ii, 69).

The mosque thus on the whole took over the role of
the temple. The rulers from c Umar onwards dedi¬
cated gifts to the Ka c ba(Ibn al-Faklh, 20-1, and EGA,
iv, Indices, glossarium, s.v. shamsa ), and, as in other
sanctuaries, we find women vowing children to the
service of the mosque (al-Bukhari. Salat, bab 74; al-
MakrizI, iv, 20). Tawaf was performed, as at the
Ka c ba, in mosques with saints’ tombs as is still done,
e.g. in Hebron; Mudjlr al-Din sees a pre-Islamic
custom in this (Sauvaire, Hist. Jems, et Hebron , 5).
Especially important business was done here. In times
of trouble, the people go to the mosque to pray for
help, for example during drought, for which there is

MASDJID

659

a special salat (which however usually takes place on
the musalla) [see istiska 5 ], in misfortunes of all kinds
(e.g. Wiistenfeld, Medina, 19-20; al-MakrizI, iv, 57);
in time of plague and pestilence, processions, weeping
and praying with Kurbans uplifted, were held in the
mosques or on the musalla, in which even Jews and
Christians sometimes took part (Ibn Taghribirdi, ii/2,
ed. Popper, 67; Ibn Battuta, i, 243-4, cf. Quatremere,
Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/1,35, 40; ii/2, 199) or for a period
a sacred book like al-Bukhari’s Sahih was recited
(Quatremere, op. cit. ii/2, 35; al-Djabartl, Merveilles
biographiques, French tr., vi, 13). In the courtyards of
the mosques in Jerusalem and Damascus in the time
of Ibn Battuta, solemn penance was done on the day
of c Arafa (i, 243-4), an ancient custom which had
already been introduced into Egypt in the year
27/647-8 by c Abd al- c Aziz b. Marwan ( ku c ud after the
c asr; cf. al-Kindl, Wulat, 50). Certain mosques were
visited by barren women (Wiistenfeld, Medina, 133).
An oath is particularly binding if it is taken in a
mosque (cf. J. Pedersen, Der Eid bei den Semiten, 144);
this is particularly true of the Ka c ba, where written
covenants were also drawn up to make them more
binding {ibid., 143-4, Chron. Mekka, i, 160-1). It is in
keeping with this idea of an oath that Jews who had
adopted Islam in Cairo had to take oaths in a
synagogue which had become a mosque (al-Makrizi,
iv, 265). The contract of matrimony ( c akd al-nikdh)
also is often concluded in a mosque (Santillana, II
Muhtasar , ii, 548; Madkhal, ii, 72 below; Snouck
Hurgronje, Mekka, ii, 163-4), and the particular form
of divorce which is completed by the li c an [q.v.] takes
place in the mosque (al-Bukharl, Salat, bdb 44; cf.
Pedersen, Der Eid, 114).

It is disputed whether a corpse may be brought
into the mosque and the salat al-djindza performed
there. According to one hadith, the bier of Sa c d b. AbF
Wakkas was taken into the mosque at the request of
the Prophet’s widow and the salat held there. Many
disapproved of this, but 'Alisha pointed out that the
Prophet had done this with the body of Suhayl b.
Bayda 5 (Muslim, Djana*iz, tr. 34; cf. also Ibn Sa c d,
i/1, 14-15). The discussion on this point is not uncon¬
nected with the discussions regarding the worship of
tombs. In theory, this is permitted by al-Shafi c I. while
the others forbid it (see Juynboll, Handbuch, 170; I.
Guidi, II Muhtasar, i, 151). The matter does not seem
to be quite clear, for Kutb al-Din says that only Abu
Hanlfa forbids it, but he himself thought that it might
be allowable on the authority of a statement by Abu
Yusuf {Chron. Mekka , iii, 208-10). In any case, it was
a very general practice to allow it, as Kutb al-Din also
points out. c Umar conducted the funeral salat for Abu
Bakr in the Mosque of the Prophet and c Umar’s own
dead body was brought there; later it became a
general custom to perform the ceremony in Medina
close to the Prophet’s tomb and in Mecca at the door
of the Ka c ba; some even made a sevenfold tawdf with
the corpse around the Ka c ba. This was for a time for¬
bidden by Marwan b. al-Hakam and later by c Umar
b. c Abd al-Aziz (Kutb al-Din, loc. cit., Wiistenfeld,
Medina, 77). The custom was very early introduced
into the Mosque of c Amr (al-MakrlzI, iv, 7, 1 ff.).
That later scholars often went wrong about the pro¬
hibition is not at all remarkable; for it is not at all in
keeping with the ever-increasing tendency to found
mosques at tombs. Even Ibn al-Hadjdj, who was anx¬
ious to maintain the prohibition, is not quite sure and
really only forbids the loud calling of the kuna*,
dhakirun, mukabbirun and muridun on such occasions
{Madkhal, ii, 50-1, 64, 81). When a son of Sultan al-
Mu 3 ayyad died and was buried in the eastern kubba of

the Mu 3 ayyad mosque, the khatib delivered a khutba
and conducted the salat thereafter and the kuna*
recited for a week at the grave, while the amirs paid
their visits to the grave (al-Makrizi, iv, 240, 2 ff.). In
Persia, it was the custom for the family of the deceased
to sit in the mosque for three days after the death and
receive visits of condolence (al-MukaddasI, 440
below).

4. Mosques as objects of pilgrimage. As
soon as the mosque became a regular sanctuary, it
became the object of pious visits. This holds especially
true of the memorial mosques associated with the
Prophet and other saints. Among them, three soon
became special objects of pilgrimage. In a hadith the
Prophet says “One should only mount into the saddle
to visit three mosques: al-Masdjid al-Haram, the
Mosque of the Prophet and al-Masdjid al-Aksa” (al-
Bukharl, Fajl al-saldt Ji masdjid Makka wa d-Madina,
bdb 16; Dja za* al-sayd. bdb 26; Sawm, bdb 67; Muslim,
Ha djdj . tr. 93; Chron. Mekka, i, 303). This hadith
reflects a practice which only became established at
the end of the c Umayyad period. The pilgrimage to
Mecca had been made a duty by the prescription of
the ha djdj in the Kur’an. The pilgrimage to Jerusa¬
lem was a Christian custom which could very easily
be continued, on account of the significance of al-
Masdjid al-Aksa in the Kur ? an. This custom became
particularly important when c Abd al-Malik made it a
substitute for the pilgrimage to Mecca (al-Ya c kubi,
Ta*rikh, ii, 311). Although this competition did not
last long, the significance of Jerusalem was thereby
greatly increased. Pilgrimage to Medina developed
out of the increasing veneration for the Prophet. In
the year 140/757-8, Abu Dja c far al-Mansur on his
hadidi visited the three sanctuaries (al-Tabari, iii, 129)
and this became a very usual custom. Mecca and
Medina, however, still held the preference. Although
those of Mecca and Jerusalem were recognised as the
two oldest (the one is said to be 40 years older than the
other; Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 1; Chron. Mekka, i, 301),
the Prophet is however reputed to have said “A salat
in this mosque is more meritorious than 1,000 salats in
others, even in al-Masdjid al-Haram ” (al-Bukhari, Fajl
al-salat}i masdjid Makka wa ’ l-Madina, bdb 1; Muslim,
Hadjdj, tr. 89; Chron. Mekka, i, 303). The hadith is
aimed directly against Jerusalem and therefore prob¬
ably dates from the Umayyad period. According to
some, it was pronounced because someone had com¬
mended performing the salat in Jerusalem, which the
Prophet was against (Muslim, loc. cit. ; al-Wakidi-
Wellhausen, 349). The three mosques, however,
retained their pride of place (Ibn Kh aldun. Mukad-
dima,fasls 4, 6; Ibn al-Hadjdj, Madkhal, ii, 55), and as
late as 662/1264 we find Baybars founding awkaf for
pilgrims who wished to go on foot to Jerusalem
(Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., i/1, 248).

Although these three mosques officially hold a
special position, others also are highly recommended,
e.g. the mosque in Kuba 5 [see al-madIna]. A salat in
this mosque is said to be as valuable as an c umra or two
visits to the mosque in Jerusalem (al-Diyarbakri,
Kham is. i, 381-2). Attempts were also made to raise
the mosque of Kufa to the level of the three. c Ali is
said to have told someone who wanted to make a
pilgrimage from Kufa to Jerusalem that he should
stick by the mosque of his native town, it was “one of
the four mosques” and two rak c as in it were equal to
ten in others (Ibn al-Faklh, 173-4; Yakut, Mu c djam,
iv, 325); in another tradition, salats in the provincial
mosques are said to be generally worth as much as the
pilgrimage (al-Makrizi, iv, 4), and traditions arose
about the special blessings associated at definite times

660

MASDJID

with different holy places of Islam (al-Mukaddasf,
183) and especially about their superior merits (Ibn
al-Faklh, 174). The Meccan sanctuary, however,
always retained first place, which was marked by the
ha djdi . It was imitated by al-Mutawakkil in Samarra 5 :
he built a Ka c ba as well as a Mina and an c Arafa there
and made his amirs perform their ha didi there (al-
MukaddasT, 122).

D. The component parts and furnishings
of the mosque.

1. The development of the edifice. Except
in the case of Mecca the earliest mosques as described
above (B. 1) were at first simply open spaces marked
off by a zulla. The space was sometimes, as in al-
Fustat, planted with trees and usually covered with
pebbles, e.g. in Medina (Muslim, Ha didi . tr. 95; al-
Baladhuri. 6) and Fustat (al-MakrlzI, iv, 8; Ibn
Dukmak, iv, 62; Ibn TaghribirdF, i, 77), which was
later introduced in Basra and Kufa, the courtyards of
which were otherwise dusty (al-Baladhuri. 277, 348).
These conditions could only last so long as the Arabs
retained their ancient customs as a closed group in
their simple camps. The utilisation of churches was
the first sign of a change and was rapidly followed by
a mingling with the rest of the population and the
resulting assimilation with older cultures.

c Umar made alterations in the mosques in Medina
and in Mecca also. He extended the Mosque of the
Prophet by taking in the house of c Abbas; but like the
Prophet, he still built with labin, palm trunks and
leaves and extended the booths (al-Bukhari, Salat, bab
62; al-Baladhuri. 6). In Mecca also, his work was con¬
fined to extending the area occupied by the mosque.
He bought the surrounding houses and took them
down and then surrounded the area with a wall to the
height of a man; the Ka c ba was thus given its/firiMike
the mosque in Medina ( al-Baladhuri. 46; Chron.
Mekka, i, 306; Wiistenfeld, Medina , 68). c Uthman also
extended these two mosques, but introduced an
important innovation in using hewn stone and plaster
(diass) for the walls and pillars. For the roof he used
teak (sadj). The booths, which had been extended by
c Umar, were replaced by him by pillared halls ( arwika ,
sing, riwak ) and the walls were covered with plaster
(al-Bukhari, Salat, bab 62; al-Baladhuri. 46; Wiisten-
feld, Medina , 70). Sa c d b. Abi Wakkas is said to have
already taken similar steps to relieve the old simplicity
of the barely-equipped mosque in Kufa. The zulla
consisted of pillars of marble adorned in the style of
Byzantine churches (al-Tabari, i, 2489; Yakut, iv,
324).

This was little in keeping with the simple architec¬
ture of the original town, for Basra and Kufa had
originally been built of reeds and only after several
great fires were they built of labin (see above, I. B. 1;
cf. Ibn Kutayba, Ma c arif, ed. Wiistenfeld, 279). As to
Kufa, Sa c d by c Umar’s orders extended the mosque
so that it became joined up with the Dar al-lmara. A
Persian named Ruzbih b. Buzurdjmihr was the
architect for this. He used fired bricks ( adiurr ) for the
building, which he brought from Persian buildings,
and in the mosque he used pillars which had been
taken from churches in the region of Hira belonging
to the Persian kings; these columns were not erected
at the sides but only against the kibla wall. The
original plan of the mosque was therefore still re¬
tained, although the pillared hall, which is identical
with the zulla already mentioned (200 dhira c s broad),
replaced the simple booth, and the materials were bet¬
ter in every way (al-Tabari, i, 2491-2, 2494). Already
under the early caliphs we can therefore note the
beginnings of the adoption of a more advanced
architecture.

These tendencies were very much developed under
the Umayyads. Even as early as the reign of
Mu c awiya, the mosque of Kufa was rebuilt by his
governor Ziyad. He commissioned a pagan architect,
who had worked for Kisra, to do the work. The latter
had pillars brought from al-Ahwaz, bound them
together with lead and iron clamps to a height of 30
dhiraS s and put a roof on them. Similar halls, built of
columns (here like the old booth in Medina called
sujffa: al-Tabari, i, 2492, 14; but also zulla, plur. zilal:
al-Tabari, ii, 259-60) were added by him on the
north, east and western wall. Each pillar cost him
18,000 dirhams. The mosque could now hold 60,000
instead of 40,000 (idem, i, 2492, 6 ff., cf. 2494, 7;
Yakut, iv, 324, 1 ff.; al-Baladhuri. 276). Al-

Hadjdjadj also added to the mosque (Yakut, iv, 325-
6). Ziyad did similar work in Basra. Here also he
extended the mosque and built it of stone (or brick)
and plaster and with pillars from al-Ahwaz, which
were roofed with teak. We are told that he made al-
sujfa al-mukaddima, i.e. the kibla hall, with 5 columns.
This seems to show that the other sides also—as in
Kufa—had pillared halls. He erected the Dar al-lmara
close to the kibla side. This was taken down by al-
Hadjdjadj, rebuilt by others, and finally taken into the
mosque by Harun al-Rashid (al-Baladhuri. 347, 348
above, 349; Yakut, i, 642, 643). In M ecca also in the
same period similar buildings were erected. Ibn al-
Zubayr and al-Hadjdjadj both extended the mosque,
and Ibn al-Zubayr was the first to put a roof on the
walls; the columns were gilded by c Abd al-Malik and
he made a roof of teak (Chron. Mekka , i, 307, 309).
The Mosque of c Amr was extended in 53/673 with
Mu c awiya’s permission by his governor Maslama b.
Mukhallad to the east and north; the walls were
covered with plaster (nurd) and the roofs decorated; it
is evident from this that here also the original booth
of the south side was altered to a covered hall during
the early Umayyad period. A further extension was
made in 79/698 in the reign of c Abd al-Malik (al-
Makrizi, iv, 7, 8; Ibn Dukmak, iv, 62). Thus we find
that during the early Umayyad period, and in part
even earlier, the original simple and primitive
mosques were in some cases extended, in other cases
altered. The alteration consisted in the old simple
booth of the Mosque of the Prophet being gradually
enlarged and transformed into a pillared hall with the
assistance of the arts of countries possessing a higher
degree of civilisation. In this way, what had originally
been an open place of assembly developed impercep¬
tibly into a court, surrounded by pillared halls. Very
soon a fountain was put in the centre of the court, and
we now have the usual type of mosque. The same plan
is found in the peristyle of the houses and in the
aithrion of a basilica like that of Tyre (Herzog-Hauch,
Realencyclopadie 3 , x, 780).

The great builders of the Umayyads, c Abd al-Malik
and his son al-Walld I, made even more radical pro¬
gress. The former entirely removed the original
mosque in Jerusalem, and his Byzantine architects
erected the Dome of the Rock as a Byzantine building
(cf. Sauvaire, Jerus. et Hebron , 48 ff.). Al-Walid like¬
wise paid equally little attention to the oldest form of
mosque, when, in Damascus, he had the church of St.
John transformed by Byzantine architects into the
Mosque of the Umayyads. As al-MukaddasT distinctly
states, they wanted to rival the splendours of the
Christian churches (159). The new mosques, which
were founded in this period, were therefore not only
no longer simple, but they were built with the help of
Christians and other trained craftsmen with the use of
material already existing in older buildings. Al-
Hadjdjadj, for example, used materials from the sur-

MASDJID

661

rounding towns when building his foundation of
Wasit (al-Tabari, iii, 321; al-Baladhurl, 290). Col¬
umns from churches were now used quite regularly
(e.g. in Damascus: al-Mas c udI, Murua iii, 408 =

§ 1292; Rami a: al-Mukaddasi, 165; cf. al-Bala-
dhuri, 143 ff.; for Egypt, see al-MakrizI, iv, 36,
124-5). Sometimes, remains of the older style
remained alongside the new. In Iranshahr, al-Mukad-
dasl found in the chief mosque wooden columns of the
time of Abu Muslim along with round columns of
brick of the time of c Amr b. al-Layth (316). The
building activities of al-WalTd extended to Fustat,
Mecca and Medina (cf. Ibn al-Faklh, 106-7) where no
fundamental alterations were made, but complete
renovations were carried out. With these rulers, the
building of mosques reaches the level of older
architecture and gains a place in the history of art.
There is also literary evidence for the transfer of a
style from one region to another. In Istakhr. for exam¬
ple, there was a dj_ami c in the style of the Syrian mos¬
ques with round columns, on which was a bakara (al-
MukaddasI, iii, 436-7; cf. for Shiraz. 430). Al-Walld
also rebuilt the Mosque of the Prophet, in part in the
Damascus style ( ibid ., 80; al-KazwInl, ed.
Wiistenfeld, ii, 71).

This revolution naturally did not take place without
opposition, any more than the other innovations,
which Islam adopted in the countries with a higher
culture which it conquered. After the Mosque of the
Prophet had been beautified by Christian architects
with marble, mosaics, shells, gold, etc. and al-Walld
in 93/712 was inspecting the work, an old man said:
“We used to build in the style of mosques; you build
in the style of churches” (Wiistenfeld, Medina , 74).
The disccusions on this point are reflected in hadiths.
When c Umar enlarged the Mosque of the Prophet, he
is reported to have said: “Give the people shelter from
the rain, but take care not to make them red or yellow
lest you lead the people astray”, while Ibn c Abbas
said: “You shall adorn them with gold as the Jews and
Christians do” (al-Bukharl, Salat , bab 62). Ibn c Abbas
here takes up the Umayyad attitude and c Umar that
of old-fashioned people, according to whom any
extension or improvement of the zulla was only per¬
missible for strictly practical reasons. The conser¬
vative point of view is predominant in Hadith. It is
said that extravagant adornment of the mosques is a
sign of the end of the world; the works of al-Walld
were only tolerated from fear of the jitna (Ibn Hanbal,
Musnady iii, 134, 145, 152, 230, 283; al-Nasa 3 !,
Masad^id, bab 2; Ibn Madja, Masatjjid, bab 2). The lack
of confidence of pious conservatives in the great mos¬
ques finds expression in a hadith, according to which
the Prophet (according to Anas) said: “A time will
come over my umma when they will vie with one
another in the beauty of their mosques; then they will
visit them but little” (al- c AskalanI, Fath al-Bari , i,
362). In fikh, we even find divergence from the oldest
quadrangular form of the mosque condemned (Guidi,
II Muhtasar, i, 71). Among the types which arose later
was the “suspended” ( mu c allak ), i.e. a mosque
situated in an upper storey (e.g. in Damascus,^, ser.
9, vol. v, 409, 415, 422, 424, 427, 430).

2. Details of the component parts and
equipment of the mosque. — a. The
Minaret [see on this, manara], — b. The
Chambers. The old mosque consisted of the court¬
yard and the open halls running along the walls: these
were called al-mughatta (al-Mukaddasi, 82, 158, 165,
182) because they were roofed over. When we are told
that in Palestine, except in Jericho, towers were
placed between the mughatta and the courtyard (ibid .,

182), this seems to suggest that the halls were closed,
which would be quite in keeping with the winter
climate of this region. The halls were particularly
extensive on the kibla side, because assemblies were
held here. The space between two rows of pillars was
called riwak , pi. arwika or riwakdt (ibid., 158, 159; al-
Makrlzl, iv, 10, 11, 12, 49). Extension often took the
form of increasing the number of the arwika. In some
districts, a sail-cloth was spread over the open space
as a protection from the sun at the time of the worship
(al-Mukaddasi, 205, 430).

The courtyard was called sahn. The open space
around the Ka c ba is called Find 3 al-Ka c ba ( Chron.
Mekka, i, 307; Ibn Hisham, 822; cf. Find : Zamzam\
Yakut, Udaba^y vi, 376). Fina^ is also the name given
to the open space around the mosque (al-Makrlzf, iv,
6). Trees were often planted in the courtyard: e.g. in
the mosque of c Amr (see above, I. B. 1; when we read
in al-MakrizI, iv, 6, that it had no sahn , this probably
means that this space, planted with trees, between the
covered halls was very narrow). In Medina, at the
present day, there are still trees in the Rawda (al-
Batanunl, Rihla , 249); in Ibn Djubayr’s time there
were 15 palms there (Rihla, 194). Other mosques in
Cairo had trees growing in them (al-MakrizI, iv, 54,
64, 65, 120; in al-Masdjid al-Kafurl, there were as
many as 516 trees: ibid. , 266), as is still the case to¬
day. In other cases the court was covered with pebbles
(see above, I. D. 1); but this was altered with a more
refined style of architecture. Al-Mukaddasi mentions
that this was only found in Tiberias, out of all the
mosques in Palestine (182). Frequently, as in Ramla,
the halls were covered with marble and the courtyard
with flat stone (ibid. , 165). In the halls also, the
ground was originally bare or covered with little
stones; for example in the mosques of c Amr until
Maslama b. Mukhallad covered it with mats (see
below). The floor of the Mosque of c Amr was entirely
covered with marble in the Mamluk period (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 13-14, cf. in Shiraz. Ibn Battuta, ii, 53).
But in the mosque of Mecca, the sahn is still covered
with little stones (al-Batanunl, Rihla, 99 below); 400
dinars used to be spent annually on this (Chron. Mekka,
ii, 10-11). In Medina also, little pebbles were used
(Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 190; Ibn Battuta, i, 263).

There were not at first enclosed chambers in the
halls. A change in this respect came with the introduc¬
tion of the maksura (on this word, cf. Quatremere,
Hist. Suit. Maml., i/1, 164, n. 46). This was a box or
compartment for the ruler built near the mihrab. Al-
Samhud! gives the history of the maksura in Medina
(Wiistenfeld, Medina, 71-2, 89). The traditions all
agree that the maksura was introduced to protect the
ruler from hostile attacks. According to some
authorities, c Uthman built a maksura of labin with
windows, so that the people could see the imam of the
community (ibid. , and al-Makrlzf, iv, 7). According
to another tradition, Marwan b. al-Hakam, governor
of Medina after an attempt had been made on him by
a YamanI in the year 44/664, was the first to build a
maksura of dressed stone with a window (al-Baladhurl.
6 below; al-Tabari, ii, 70). Mu c awiya is then said to
have followed his example. Others, again, say that
Mu c awiya was the first to introduce this innovation.
He is said to have introduced the maksurat with the
accompanying guard as early as the year 40/660-1 or
not till 44/664-5 after the Kh aridjf attempt (al-Tabari,
i, 3465, 9; Ibn al-Faklh, 109, 3; al-MakrizI, iv, 12,
11 ff.); according to one story because had had seen
a dog on the minbar (al-Bayhakl, ed. Schwally, 393
below; cf. on the whole question, H. Lammens,
Mo c awiya, 202 ff.). This much seems to be certain,

662

MASDJID

that the maksura was at any rate introduced at the
beginning of the Umayyad period, and it was an
arrangement so much in keeping with the increasing
dignity of the ruler that, as Ibn Kh aldun says, it
spread throughout all the lands of Islam ( Mukaddima ,
Cairo 1322/1904-5, 212-13, fasl 37). The governors
built themselves compartments in the principal
mosques of the provinces, e.g. Ziyad in Kufa and
Basra (al-Baladhurl. 277, 348) and probably Kurra b.
Shank in Fustat (al-Maknzi, iv, 12). In Medina, we
are told that c Umar b. c Abd al- c Az!z as governor (86-
93/705-12) raised the maksura and built it of teak, but
al-Mahdl had it taken down in 160/777 and a new one
built on the level of the ground ( ibid., 7; Wustenfeld,
op. cit.; al-Baladhun, 7 centre). We are further told
that in 161/778, al-Mahdl prohibited the makdsir of the
provinces, and al-Ma^mun even wanted to clear all
the boxes out of the masadjid djdmi c a, because their use
was a sunna introduced by Mu c awiya (al-Maknzi, iv,
12; al-Ya c kubi, Ta^rlkh, ii, 571). But this attempt did
not succeed. On the contrary, their numbers rapidly
increased. In Cairo, for example, the Djami c al-
c Askar built in 169/785-6 had a maksura (al-Maknzi,
iv, 33 ff.) and the mosque of Ibn Tulun had a maksura
beside the mihrab which was accessible from the Dar al-
Imara {ibid., 36, 37, 42; Ibn Taghribirdi. ii, 8, 14).
The maksura was found in the larger mosques. In the
Djami c al-Kal c a, Muhammad b. Kalawun in
718/1318 built a maksura of iron for the sultan’s salat
(al-Makrlzi, iv, 132). According to Ibn Khaldun, the
maksura was an innovation peculiar to the Islamic
world. The question must however be left open,
whether in its introduction and development there
may not be some connection with the boxes of the
Byzantine court, at least, for example, when the
Turks in the Yeshil Djami c in Bursa put the sultan’s
box over the door (R. Hartmann, Im neuen Anatolien ,
27).

Although the maksura was introduced with the
object of segregating the ruler and was therefore con¬
demned by the strict as contrary to the spirit of Islam
(e.g. Madkhal , ii, 43-4), makdsir were probably intro¬
duced for other purposes. Ibn Djubayr mentions three
in the Mosque of the Umayyads: the old one built by
Mu c awiya in the eastern part of the mosque, one in
the centre, which contained the minbar , and one in the
west where the Hanafis taught and performed the
salat. There were also other small rooms shut off by
wooden lattices, which could be sometimes called
maksura and sometimes zawiya. As a rule, there were
quite a number of zawiyas connected with the mosque
which were used by students {Rihla, 265-6). We Find
the same state of affairs in other mosques.

While the groups of the kurra?, the students, the
lawyers, etc. had originally to sit together in a com¬
mon room, gradually the attempt was made to intro¬
duce separate rooms for some of them. Small com¬
partments were either cut off in the main chamber or
new rooms were built in subsidiary buildings. In the
former case, we get the already mentioned makasir or
zawdya. Ibn al-Hadjdj says that a madrasa was often
made by the simple process of cutting off a part of the
mosque by a balustrade ( darbazin ) {Madkhal, ii, 44).
Thus in the halls of the Mosque of c Amr there were
several compartments for teaching, which were called
maksura and zawiya , in which studies were prosecuted
(al-Makrlzi, iv, 20, 16, 25). In the Azhar Mosque, a
maksurat Fatima was made in the time of the Fatimids,
where she had appeared, and the amirs in the follow¬
ing period made a large number of such makdsir {ibid.,
52, 53). In the Aksa Mosque about 300/912-13, there
were three maksuras for women (Ibn al-Fakih, 100).

These divisions might be a nuisance at the great Fri¬
day assemblies, and this is why al-Mahdl wanted to
remove them in 161/778 from the masadjid al-dj_amd ( 'dt
(al-Tabari, iii, 486), and Ibn al-Hadjdj condemned
them as works of the mulk and numbers them like
other embellishments with the ashrat al-sd^a (Madkhal,
ii, 43-4).

The mu^a dhdh ins not only lived in the minarets,
where, at any rate in the Tulunid period, they held
vigils (al-Makrlzi, iv, 48). They had rooms {ghuraf,
sing, ghurfa) on the roof and these rooms in time came
to be numerous {ibid., 13, 14). All kinds of rooms
were put in subsidiary buildings, for the khatib {ibid.,
13), for judges, for studies, etc. In addition, there
were dwelling-houses, not only for the staff but also
for others. As already mentioned, devout men used to
take up their residence in the mosque for a con¬
siderable period for iHikdj and any one at any time
could take up his quarters in the mosque; he could
sleep there and make himself at home. It therefore
came quite natural to the devout to reside per¬
manently in the mosque. Ascetics often lived in the
minaret (see above), a zdhid lived on the roof of the
Azhar mosque, others made themselves cells in the
mosque, as a shaykh in Naslbln did (Ibn Djubayr,
Rihla, 240; cf. in Harran, 245) and as happened in
Salah al-Dln’s time in the Mosque of the Umayyads
(Ibn Abl Usaybi c a, ii, 182). It was, however, very
usual for them to live in the side rooms of the mosque,
as was the case for example, in the Mosque of the
Umayyads (Ibn Djubayr, 269; Ibn Battuta, i, 206). In
particularly holy mosques like that in Hebron, houses
for al-muHakifun were built around the sacred place
(Sauvaire, Hist. Jerus. et Hebron, 11-12) and also beside
the Masdjid Yunis at the ancient Niniveh (al-
MukaddasI, 146). Kitchens were therefore erected
with the necessary mills and ovens and cooked food
{djashisha) and 14-15,000 loaves (raghif) were daily
distributed to those who stayed there and to visitors
(Sauvaire, 20; cf. Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., i/1,
231). Bread was also baked in the mosque of Ibn
Tulun (Quatremere, op. cit., i/1, 233) and kitchens
were often found in the mosques (for al-Azhar, see al-
Djabartl, Merveilles, iii, 238-9; Sulayman Rasad, Kanz
al-djawhar fi ta^rikh al-Azhar , 71 ff., 107 ff.). Those
who lived in and beside the mosque were called
mudpdwirun (cf. al-MukaddasT, 146; for Jerusalem,
Nasir-i Khusraw, 82, 91; for Mecca, Ibn Djubayr.
149; for Medina, Ibn Battuta, i, 279, where we learn
that they were organised under a kadim , like the North
Africans under an amin in Damascus; Ibn Djubayr.
277-8). They were pious ascetics, students and some¬
times travellers. The students generally found accom¬
modation in the madaris , but large mosques like that
of the Umayyads or al-Azhar had always many
students, who lived in them. The name of the halls,
riwak, was later used for these students’ lodgings (cf.
van Berchem, CIA , i, 43, n. 1; perhaps al-Maknzi, iv,
54, 23). Strangers always found accommodation in
the mosques (cf. above, I. G. 1). In smaller towns, it
was the natural thing for the traveller to spend the
night in the mosque and to get food there (Yakut, iii,
385; al-Kiftl, Ta^rikh al-Hukama 3 , ed. Lippert, 252).
Travellers like Nasir-i Khusraw. Ibn Djubayr. Ibn
Battuta and al- c AbdarI (JA, ser. 5, iv [1854], 174)
were able to travel throughout the whole Muslim
world from one mosque (or madrasa or ribat) to the
other. The traveller could even leave his money for
safe keeping in a mosque {Safar-nama, 51). Large
endowments were bequeathed for those who lived in
the mosques (Ibn Djubayr. op. cit.; Ibn Ta gh ribirdi,
ii/2, 105 f.).

MASDJID

663

In later times, the rulers often built a lodge or
pavilion ( manzara ) in or near the mosque (al-MakrizI,
ii, 345; iv, 13; cf. on the word, Quatremere, Hist.
Suit. Maml., ii/2, 15).

There was often a special room with a clock in the
mosques; this also is probably an inheritance from the
church, for Ibn Rusta talks of similar arrangements in
Constantinople (126 above). Ibn Djubavr (270)
describes very fully the clock in the Mosque of the
Umayyads (cf. JA, ser. 9, vii, 205-6). It was made in
the reign of Nur al-Dln by Fakhr al-DTn b. al-Sa c ati
(Ibn Abl Usaybi c a, ii, 183-4; an expert was kept to
look after it, ibid. , 191). There was a clock in the
Mustansiriyya in Ba gh dad (Sarre and Herzfeld, Arch.
Reise, ii, 170), and the Mosque of c Amr also a ghurfat
al-sd c at (al-MakrizI, iv, 13, 15). In the Mosque of Ibn
Tulun is still kept a sundial of the year 696/1296-7; cf.
van Berchem, CIA , i, no. 415), but the clocks were
usually mechanical (see also Dozy, Supplement , s.v.
mindjana, and on the clock generally, E. Wiedemann,
in Nova Acta der K. Leop. Carol. Akad. , c [Halle 1915]).
In the Maghrib also we find mosqueclocks, e.g. in the
Bu c Inaniyya (JA, ser. 11, xii, 357 ff.).

The very varied uses to which the mosques were put
resulted in their becoming storehouses for all sorts of
things. In 668/1269-70, the Mosque of the Umayyads
was cleared of all such things; in the courtyard there
were, for example, stores for machines of war, and the
zawiya of Zayn al- c Abidin was a regular khan (JA , ser.
9, vii, 225-6).

c. The prayer-niche or Mihrdb [see for this,
mihrab].

d. The pulpit or Min bar [see for this, minbar].

e. The platform or Dakka. In the larger
mosques, there is usually found near the minbar a plat¬
form to which a staircase leads up. This platform
(dakka, popularly often dikka ) is used as a seat for the
mu 3 a dhdh ins when pronouncing the call to prayer in
the mosque at the Friday service. This part of the
equipment of a mosque is connected with the develop¬
ment of the service (cf. below, under I. H. 4, and C.
H. Becker, Zur Geschichte des islamischen Kultus, in Isi,
iii [1912], 374-99 = Islamstudien , i, 472-500; E. Mitt-
woch, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des islamischen Gebets und
Kultus , in Abh. Pr. Ak. W. 11913], Phil.-Hist. Cl., no.
2). The first adhan call is pronounced from the
minaret, the second (when the khatib mounts the min¬
bar) and the third (before the salat, ikdma) in the
mosque itself. These calls were at first pronounced by
the mu^adhdhin standing in the mosque. At a later date,
raised seats were made for him.

Al-klalabl records that Maslama, Mu c awiya’s
governor in Egypt, was the first to build platforms
(here called manabir ) for the calls to prayer in the
mosques (Sira Halabiyya , ii, 111 below). This story,
however, given without any reference to older
authorities, is not at all reliable. It seems that a
uniform practice did not come into existence at once.
In Mecca, the mu^adhdhins for a time uttered the
second call (when the preacher mounted the minbar )
from the roof. As the sun in summer was too strong
for them, the amir of Mecca, in the reign of Harun al-
Rashld, made a little hut (zulla) for them on the roof.
This was enlarged and more strongly built by al-
Mutawakkil in 240/854-5, as his contemporary al-
Azrakl relates (Chron. Mekka, i, 332-3). The position
in the mosque of c Amr in Cairo was similar. Here also
the adhan was uttered in a chamber (ghurfa) on the
roof, and in 336/947-8 there is a reference to its
enlargement (al-MakrizI, iv, 11). As late as the time
of Baybars, when the many chambers were removed
from the roof of the Mosque of c Amr,. the old ghurfa

of the mu^a dhdh in was left intact (ibid., 14; cf. al-Kindl,
Wulat, ed. Guest, 469, n. 2). In the Mosque of Ibn
Tulun, the adhan was pronounced from the cupola in
the centre of the sahn (al-MakrizI, iv, 40). Al-
MukaddasT records in the 4th/ 10th century as a
notable thing about Khurasan that the mu 3 a dhdh ins,
there pronounced the adhan on a sarir placed in front
of the minbar (327). The dukkan “platform” in front of
the minbar in the mosques of Shahrastan must have
had the same purpose (ibid., 357).

In the 8th/14th century, Ibn al-Hadjdj mentions the
dakka as a bidPa in general use, which should be con¬
demned as it unnecessarily prevents freedom of move¬
ment within the mosque (MadHial, ii, 45 above). In
the year 827/1424 a dakka in the mosque of al-Hakim
is mentioned (al-MakrizI, iv, 61); the dakkas men¬
tioned in inscriptions from Cairo all date from the
period before and after 900/1495. Ibn al-Hadjdj men¬
tions that, in addition to the large dakka used for the
Friday worship, there was sometimes a lower one for
ordinary salats (Madkhal, ii, 46-7) and says that in the
larger mosques there were several dakkas on which
mu 3 a dhdh ins pronounced the adhan in succession so that
the whole community could hear it (tabligh; ibid., 45-
6). Lane also mentions several muballighs in the Azhar
Mosque (Manners and customs, Everyman’s Library
edn., 87, 2).

f. The reading-stand or Kursi; Kurbans
and relics. In the mosques there is usually a kursi
[q.v.], that is, a wooden stand with a seat and a desk.
The desk is for the Kurban, the seat for the kass, or
reader, kdrP. Ibn Djubayr attended the worship in
Ba gh dad at which a celebrated preacher spoke from
the minbar , but only after the kurra sitting on karasi
had recited portions of the Kurban (Rihla, 219, 222).
The waHz , often identical with the kass, sat on a kursi
made of teak (Ibn Djubayr, 200. Yakut, Udaba 3 , ii,
319; al-MakrizI, iv, 121); sometimes he spoke from
the minbar to which the waHz often had access (cf. Ibn
Djubavr: see Mez, Renaissance des Islams, 320, Eng. tr.
332). The kussas are called by al-Makkl ashab al-karasi,
which is in keeping with this (Kut al-kulub, i, 152,
quoting K. al-Madkhal, i, 159). Several karasi are often
mentioned in one mosque (cf. for the Mosque of
c Amr, al-MakrizI, iv, 19). Whether the karasi men¬
tioned for the earlier period always had a desk cannot
be definitely ascertained. The karasi with dated
inscriptions given by van Berchem in his Corpus all
belong to the 9th/15th century (nos. 264, 302, 338,
359k' s , 491). According to Lane, at the Friday ser¬
vice, while the people are assembling, a kdrP on the
kursi recites sura XVIII up to the adhan (Manners and
customs , 86). The same custom is recorded by Ibn al-
Hadjdj and condemned because it has a disturbing
effect (Madkhal, ii, 44, middle).

The Kur’an very soon received its definite place in
the mosque, like the Bible in the church (cf. al-
Bukharl, Salat, bab 91: they prayed at a pillar beside
al-mushaf). According to one tradition, c Uthman had
several copies of his Kurban sent to the provinces (e.g.
Noldeke-Schwally, Gesch. d. Qor., ii, 112-13); al-
Hadjdjadj, a little later, is said to have done the same
thing (al-MakrizI, iv, 17). The mosques had many
other copies beside the one kept on the kursi. Al-
Hakim put 814 masahif in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun,
where the founder had already put boxes of Kurbans
(al-MakrizI, iv, 36, 40; cf. al-Suyutl, Husn al-
muhadara , ii, 138) and in 403/1012-13, he presented
1,289 copies to the Mosque of c Amr, some of which
were written in letters of gold (al-MakrizI, iv, 12; al-
Suyutl, ii, 136). Even earlier than this there were so
many that the kadi al-Harith b. Miskln (237-45/851-9)

664

MASDJID

appointed a special amtn to look after them (al-Kindl,
Wuldt , 469); there are still a very large number in the
Mosque of the Prophet (see al-Batanunl, Rihla, 241
above). Of particular value was the mushaf Asmd 5 ,
belonging to the Mosque of c Amr, prepared by c Abd
al- c Az!z b. Marwan, later bought by his son and after¬
wards by his daughter Asma 3 ; her brother left it in
128/746 to the mosque and it was used for public
readings (see its whole history in al-MakrizI, iv, 17-
18). Besides it, another copy was for some time also
used for reading, which was said to have lain beside
c Uthman, when he was killed and to have been
stained with his blood, but this one was removed by
the Fatimids ( ibid ., 19). In the time of Ibn Battuta, a
Kur 3 an for which the same claims were made was kept
in Basra (ii, 10). On New Year’s Day, when the
Fatimid caliphs used to go in procession through the
town, the caliph at the entrance to the Mosque of
c Amr took up in his hands a mushaf said to have been
written by C A1I and kissed it (Ibn Ta gh rlbirdl. ii/1,
472 middle); it was perhaps the mushaf Asma\ In
Syria, Egypt, and the Hidjaz, in the 4th/10th century,
there were Kurbans which were traced back to
c Uthman (al-Mukaddasi, 143; cf. Ibn Hawkal 1 , 117).
One of the Kurbans made for c Uthman was shown in
the Mosque of the Umayyads in Damascus in the time
of Ibn Djubayr. It was produced after the daily salats
and the people touched and kissed it ( Rihla, 268). It
was brought there in the year 507/1113-14 from
Tiberias (al-Dhahabl. Ta\ikh, Haydarabad, 1337, ii,
25). Other Kurbans of c Uthman were shown in
Ba gh dad and Cordova (see Mez, Renaissance des
Islams, 327, Eng. tr., 338-9) and Ibn Djubayr saw
another in the Mosque of the Prophet; it lay in a desk
on a large stand, here called mihmal (Rihla, 193; cf.
thereon Dozy, Supplement, s.v.). The Fadiliyya madrasa
also had a mushaf c Uthmdn , bought by the Ka<^T al-
Fadil for 30,000 dinars (al-MakrizT, iv, 197) and there
is one in Fas (Archives Marocaines, xviii [1922], 361).
Valuable Kur 5 ans like these had the character of relics
and belonged to the khizana of the mosque. They were
often kept in a chest (sanduk) (Ibn Djubayr, op. cit. ; for
al-musfiaf , al-Bukhari, Salat, bdb 95, Muslim has al-
sanduk ; see al- c Askalam, Fath al-Bdri, i, 385), also
called tabut (Ibn Djubayr. 104). In the Ka c ba, Ibn
Djubavr saw two chests with Kurbans (84, 3). Ibn al-
Faklh mentions 16 chests with Kur’ans in the
Jerusalem mosque (100). In the mosques there were
also sanadik for other things, such as lamps (al-
MaknzT, iv, 53; Wustenfeld, Medina , 82 = Ibn
Djubayr, 194), a tabut for alms Madkhal, ii, 44, below),
for the bayt al-mal or the property of the mosque (see
below). There were also chests for rose-wreaths (Mad¬
khal, ii, 50) which were in charge of a special officer.
In the Mosque of c Amr there was a whole series of
tawdbit (al-Makrizt, iv, 9).

The Kur 3 ans were not the only relics to be kept
in the mosques. Bodies or parts of the bodies of saints
(cf. above, B. 4, C. 1) and other athar were kept and
revered in mosques: the rod of Moses (in Kufa,
Yakut, iv, 325, previously in Mecca, see Goldziher,
Muh. Stud. , ii, 361), the Prophet’s sandals (in Hebron,
Ibn al-Faklh, 101, also in Damascus, where the
Madrasa Ashrafiyya had his left and the Dam-
maghiyya his right sandal;^, ser. 9, iii, 271-2, 402),
his cloak (in Adhruh, al-MukaddasI, 178), hair from
his beard (in Jerusalem among other places, al-
Batanum, Rihla, 165) and many other things (see
Goldziher, Muh. Stud., ii, 358 ff.; Mez, Renaissance des
Islams, 325-6, Eng. tr., 337-9). These relics were often
kept in valuable reliquaries. The head of Husayn was
buried in a tabut in his mosque in Cairo (Ibn Djubayr.

45). There was a black stone like that in the Ka c ba in
a mosque in Shahrastan (al-Mukaddasi, 433).

On the other hand, pictures and images were
excluded from the mosques, in deliberate contrast to
the crucifixes and images of saints in churches, as is
evident from Hadith (al-Bukhari, Salat, babs 48, 54;
Diand?iz. bdb 71; Muslim, Masadjid, tr. 3; cf. on the
question, Becker, Christliche Polemik und islamische
Dogmenbildung, in ZA, xxvi [1911] = Islamstudien , i,
445 ff.). It is of interest to note that in the earliest
period, Sa c d b. AbT Wakkas had no scruples about
leaving the wall-paintings in the Iwdn of Kisra at
Mada 3 in standing, when it was turned into a mosque
(al-Tabari, i, 2443, 2451). The case was somewhat
different, when, before the chief mosque in DihlT,
which had been a Hindu temple, two old copper idols
formed a kind of threshold (Ibn Battuta, iii, 151),
although even this is remarkable (cf. Snouck
Hurgronje, Verspreide Geschriften, ii, 451 ff. = ZDMG,
lxi [1907], 186 ff.). In some circles the opposition to
pictures extended to other relics also. Ibn Taymiyya
condemned the reverence paid to the Prophet’s foot¬
print, which was shown, as in Jerusalem, in a
Damascus mosque also (Quatremere, Hist. Suit.
Maml., ii/2, 246).

g. Carpets. Carpets [see on these, bisat in
Suppl.] were used to improve the appearance of the
mosques. The custom of performing the falat upon a
carpet is ascribed by Hadith to the Prophet himself.
Anas b. Malik performed the salat with him in his
grandmother’s house and the Prophet used a cloth or
mat (hasir), which had become black through wear; as
a rule, he used a mat woven of palm leaves, khumra (al-
Bukhari, Salat, babs 19, 20, 21; Hayd, bdb 30; Muslim,
Masadjid, tr. 47; Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, iii, 145).
In any case, it is clear from al-Baladhuri that the salat
was at first performed in the mosque simply in the
dust and then on pebbles (al-Baladhuri, 277, 348; cf.
al-Zurkani, Sharh c ala ’ l-Muwattd^, i, 283-4). Later,
when the halls were extended, the ground, or the pav¬
ing, was covered with matting.

The first to cover the ground in the Mosque of
c Amr with h^sur instead of hasba 5 was Mu c awiya’s
governor Maslama b. Mukhallad (al-MakrizT, iv, 8;
al-Suyup, ii, 136; Ibn Taghrlbirdl, i, 77). The dif¬
ferent groups which frequented the mosque (cf.
above) had their places on particular mats: when a
kadi (middle of the 3rd/9th century) ejected the
Shaft c is and HanafTs from the mosque, he had their
husur torn up (al-Kindi, Wuldt, 469). Ibn Tulun
covered his mosque floor with c AbbadanI and SamanT
mats (al-MakrizT, iv, 36, 38). For the mosque of al-
Hakim in the year 403/1012-13, al-Hakim bought
1,036 dhird*- s of carpeting for 5,000 dinars (al-MakrizI,
iv, 56; cf. for al-Azhar, ibid. , 50). In the year
439/1047-8 in the Mosque of c Amr, there were ten
layers of coloured carpets one above the other (Nasir-i
Khusraw, ed. Schefer, text, 31, tr. 149). In the
Mosque at Jerusalem, 800,000 dhira c s of carpets were
used every year (Ibn al-Faklh, 100). In the Mosque in
Mecca they were renewed every Ramadan (loc. cit.).
On ceremonial occasions, the minbar was also draped
with a carpet (sa djdj dda): in Medina, the minbar and
the sacred tomb was always covered like the Ka c ba in
Mecca (Wustenfeld, Medina, 83; cf. Quatremere,
Hist. Suit. Maml , ii/1, 91) and some, especially the
teachers, had their skins (farwa ), in some cases, also a
cushion to lean upon. The doors were also covered
with some material (al-MakrizI, iv, 56). On feast-
days, the mosques were adorned with carpets in a
particularly luxurious fashion (see Ibn Ta gh rlbirdl.
ii/1, 483). The puritanical rejected all this as bid c a and

MASDJID

665

preferred the bare ground ( Madkhal , ii, 46, 49, 72, 74,
76), as the Wahhabis still do.

h. Lighting. Where evening meetings and vigils
were of regular occurrence, artificial lighting became
necessary. Al-AzrakI gives the history of the lighting
of the Meccan Mosque. The first to illuminate the
Ka c ba was c Ukba b. al-Azrak, whose house was next
to the Mosque, just on the makdm\ here he placed a
large lamp ( misbdh ). c Umar, however, is said
previously to have placed lamps upon the wall, which
was the height of a man, with which he surrounded
the mosque (al-Baladhurl, 46). The first to use oil and
lamps (kanadil) in the mosque itself was Mu c awiya (cf.
Ibn al-Fakih, 20). In the time of c Abd al-Malik,
Khalid b. c Abd Allah al-Kasrl placed a lamp on a
pillar of the Zamzam beside the Black Stone, and the
lamp of the Azrak family disappeared. In the reign of
al-Ma^mun in 216/831, a new lamp-post was put up
on the other side of the Ka c ba, and a little later two
new lanterns were put up around the Ka c ba. Harun
al-Rashld placed ten large lamps around the Ka c ba
and hung two lanterns on each of the walls of the
mosque ( thurayyat; cf. Ibn Djubayr, Rihla , 149, 150,
155, 271; van Berchem, CIA, i, no. 506). Khalid al-
Kasrl had the mas c a also illuminated during the
pilgrimage, and in 119/737 the torches called nafatat
were placed here, and c Umar b. c Abd a!- c Az!z
ordered the people, who lived in the streets of Mecca,
to put up lamps on 1 Muharram for the convenience
of those visiting the Ka c ba ( Chron. Mekka , i, 200-2, cf.
458-9). In 253/867 Muhammad b. Ahmad al-
Mansurl erected a wooden pole in the centre of the
sahn and kanadil on ropes were hung from it. This was,
however, very soon removed (ibid., ii, 196-7). About
100 years later, al-Mukaddasi saw around the tawaf
wooden poles on which hung lanterns (kanadil), in
which were placed candles for the kings of Egypt,
Yemen, etc. (74). Ibn Djubayr describes the glass
kanadil , which hung from hooks in the Meccan Haram
(Rihla, 103) and lamps (mashd c il) which were lit in iron
vessels (ibid., 103, cf. 143). Similar silver and gold
kanadil were seen by him in Medina (ibid., 192 at the
top; see also Wiistenfeld, Medina , 83 ff.). According to
Ibn al-Fakih (before 300/912), 1,600 lamps were lit
every evening in Jerusalem (100), and in the next
century al-Mukaddasi says that the people of Palestine
always burn kanadil in their mosques, which were
hung from chains as in Mecca (182). The illumination
was thus very greatly increased. In the year 60/679-
80, when c Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad was searching for his
enemies in the mosque of Kufa, the lamps were not
sufficient, and large torches had to be used in sear¬
ching the pillared halls (al-Tabari, ii, 259-60). This,
like what has already been said about Mecca, shows
out of what modest beginnings this part of the
mosque’s equipment developed.

In the time of the c Abbasids, lamps and lanterns
were part of the regular furniture of the mosque. Al-
Ma 3 mun is said to have taken a special interest in this.
He ordered lamps to be put in all the mosques, partly
to assist those who wanted to read and partly to pre¬
vent crime (al-Bayhakl, 473). For this purpose, the
kanadil , already mentioned, hung on chains were
used, as at the building of the mosque of Ibn Tulun
(al-MakrlzI, iv, 36, 38), in the Azhar Mosque and
elsewhere; they were often of silver (ibid. , 56, 63).
Golden kanadil were also used and were of course con¬
demned by Ibn al-Hadjdj (Madkhal, ii, 54) as osten¬
tatious. At the same time, candles ( : sham c or shama c )
were used in large numbers, the candle-sticks ( atwar,
sing, tawr) often being of silver (Ibn Djubayr, Rihla ,
45, 151, 194; cf. Wiistenfeld, Medina, 95, 100). About

400/1009-10, large candelabra were made in Egypt,
which from their shapes were called tannur, stoves. Al-
Hakim presented the Mosque of c Amr with a tannur
made out of 100,000 dirhams of silver; the mosque
doors had to be widened to admit it. He also gave it
two other lamps (al-Suyutl, ii, 136 below; cf. Nasir-i
Khusraw, text 51, tr. 148; Ibn Ta gh rlbirdi, ed. Pop¬
per, ii/2, 105). In the Mosque of al-Hakim, in addi¬
tion to lamps and candle lanterns, he also put 4 silver
tananir and he made similar gifts to the Azhar and
other mosques: the lamps were of gold or silver (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 51, 56, 63; cf. Ibn Taghrlbirdi, ii/2,
105). The tananir and other lanterns could also be
made of copper (see van Berchem, CIA, i, nos. 502,
503, 506, 507, 511), as, for example, the celebrated
candelabrum of the Mosque of Mu^ayyad (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 137) which was made for the mosque of
Hasan but sold by it (ibid., 118).

This great interest in the lighting of the mosque was
not entirely based on practical considerations. Light
had a significance in the worship and Islam here, as
elsewhere, was taking over something from the Chris¬
tian Church. When, in 227/842 the caliph was on his
deathbed, he asked that the salat should be performed
over him with candles and incense (bi ’l-sham c wa 7-
bukhur) exactly after the fashion of the Christians (Ibn
Abl Usaybi c a, i, 165; cf. ii, 89). The dependence of
Islam on Christianity is also seen in the story that
c Uthman, when he was going to the evening salat in
Medina, had a candle carried in front of him, which
his enemies condemned as bid c a (al-Ya c kubI, Ta^rikh,
ii, 187). The ShI c I bias does not affect the significance
of this story. A light was used particularly in the
mihrdb, because it represented the holy cell, to which
light belongs (cf. sura XXIV, 35). Then, in Mecca,
lamps were placed before the imams in the mihrabs and
there were considerable endowments for such mihrdb
lamps (Ibn Djubayr, Rihla , 103, 144). Light, as was
everywhere the custom in ancient times, was
necessary in mausoleums, and the documents of
endowment show that a large number of oil-lamps
were used in this way (cf. e.g. the document for al-
Malik al-Ashrafs mausoleum, van Berchem, CIA, i,
no. 252). But in the mosque generally the use of lights
had a devotional significance and lamps might be
endowed for particular individuals (cf. al-Mukaddasi,
74, quoted above). The lamps so given by al-Hakim
were therefore placed in the mosques with great
ceremony, with blasts of trumpets and beating of
drums (Ibn Taghrlbirdi, ii/2, 105).

On ceremonial occasions a great illumination was
therefore absolutely necessary. In the month of
Ramadan, says Ibn Djubayr, the carpets were
renewed and the candles and lamps increased in
number, so that the whole mosque was a blaze of light
(Rihla, 143); on certain evenings, trees of light were
made with vast numbers of lamps and candles and the
minarets were illuminated (ibid ., 149-51, 154, 155).
In the Mosque of the Prophet in the time of al-
Samhudl, forty wax candles burned around the sacred
tomb, and three to four hundred lights in the whole
mosque (Wiistenfeld, Medina, 100). On the maw lid al-
nabi, says Kutb al-Dln, a procession went from the
Ka c ba in Mecca to the birthplace of the Prophet with
candles, lanterns (fawanis) and lamps ( mashd c il) (see
Chron. Mekka, iii, 439). In the haram of Jerusalem,
according to Mudjir al-Dln, 750 lamps were lit by
night and over 20,000 at festivals (Sauvaire, Hist.
Jems, et Hebron, 138). In the dome of the Kubbat al-
Sakhra in 452/1060, a chandelier and 500 lamps fell
down (ibid., 69); at the taking of the town in
492/1099, the Franks carried off 42 silver lamps, each

666

MASDJID

of 3,600 dirhams , 23 lamps of gold and a tannur of 40
rails of silver (ibid., 71). It was similar, and still is, in
Cairo and elsewhere in the Muslim world. For the
laylal al-wukud in the Mosque of c Amr, 18,000 candles
were made for the Mosque of c Amr, and every night
eleven-and-a-half kintars of good oil were used (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 21 and more fully, ii, 345-6). The four
“nights of illumination” fell in the months of Radjab
and Sha c ban, especially nisf Shacban (Quatremere,
Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/2, 131; cf. also Snouck-Hur-
gronje, Mekka , ii, 77). In 1908 electric light was intro¬
duced into the Mosque of the Prophet (al-Batanunl,
Rihla, 245-6).

(On the question in general of illumination, see
Clermont-Ganneau, La lampe el Volivier dans le Coran,
in Recueil d’Archeologie Orientale, viii [1924], 183-228;
on the copper candelabra, see A. Wingham, Report on
the analysis of various examples of oriental metal-work, etc. in
the South Kensington Museum , etc., London 1892; F. R.
Martin, Altere Kupferarbeiten aus dem Orient, Stockholm
1902; on glass lamps, see G. Schmoranz, Altorien-
talische Glass-Gefdsse, Vienna 1898; van Berchem, CIA,
i, 678 ff.; M. Herz Bey, La Mosquee du Sultan Hasan
(Comite de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe ),
1899, 8 IT.; see also the Bibliography in Isl ., xvii
[1928], 217 ff.).

i. Incense. According to some traditions, even
the Prophet had incense burned in the mosque (al-
Tirmidhl, i, 116; see Lammens, Mo c awia, 367, n. 8)
and in the time of c Umar, his client c Abd Allah is said
to have perfumed the mosque by burning incense
while he sat on the minbar. The same client is said to
have carried the censer (midjmar: cf. Lammens, loc.
cit.) brought by c Umar from Syria before c Umar when
he went to the salat in the month of Ramadan (A.
Fischer, Biographie von Gewdhrsmdnnem, etc., 55 n.).
According to this tradition, the use of incense was
adopted into Islam very early as a palpable imitation
of the custom of the Church. In keeping with this is
the tradition that, in Fustat as early as the gover¬
norship of c Amr, the mu ?a dhdh in used to burn incense
in the mosque (Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, 132; cf. Annali
dell’ Islam, iv, 565). The Kubbat al-Sakhra Mosque
had incense burned in it during the consecration
ceremony (Sauvaire, Hist. Jerus. et Hebron, 53).

Under the Umayyads, incense was one of the
regular requirements of the mosque (tib al-masdiid: al-
Tabari, ii, 1234, 10). Mu c awiya is named as the first
to perfume the Ka c ba with perfume (khaluk) and
censer (fayyaba: Ibn al-Faklh, 20, 12). It became the
custom to anoint the sacred tombs with musk and tib
(Chron. Mekka, i, 150, 10; Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 191, 9).
Baybars washed the Ka c ba with rose-water (al-
MakrizI, iv, 96, 14). Incense, as well as candles, was
used at burials (cf. de Goeje, ZDMG, lix [1905], 403-
4; Lammens, Mocawia, 436, n. 9). Al-Mu c tasim’s
desire to be buried with candles and incense (bukhur)
exactly like the Christians (Ibn U$aybi c a, i, 165, 12 f.,
cf. above) shows that they were aware that the custom
bore much the same relation to the Christian usage as
the mosque building did to the church. The consump¬
tion of incense in the mosques gradually became very
large, especially at festivals (see for the Fatimids, Ibn
TaghribirdI, ii/1,484, 12; ii/2, ed. Popper, 106, 3; al-
MakrizI, iv, 51; on vessels for holding incense, see the
Bibliography in Isl ., xvii [1928], 217-18, and ma c din.
4. In Islamic art).

j. Water-supply. Nothing is said of a water-
supply in connection with the oldest mosques. The
Mosque of Mecca occupied a special position on
account of the Zamzam well. In the early days of
Islam, two basins (hawf) are said to have been sup¬

plied by it, one behind the well, i.e. just at the side of
the mosque for wudu 5 and one between the well and
the rukn for drinking purposes; the latter was moved
nearer the well by Ibn al-Zubayr. In the time of
Sulayman b. c Abd al-Malik, a grandson of c Abd Allah
b. c Abbas for the first time built a kubba in connection
with Zamzam (Chron. Mekka, i, 299). At the same
time, the governor Khalid al-Kasrl laid down lead
piping to bring water from the well of al-Thabir to the
mosque, to a marble basin ( fiskiyya ) with a running
fountain (fawwara ) between Zamzam and the rukn,
probably on the site of the earlier hawd. It was
intended to supply drinking-water in place of the
brackish water of Zamzam, but a branch was led on
to a birka at the Bab al-$afa, which was used for ritual
ablutions. The people, however, would not give up
the Zamzam water and immediately after the coming
to power of the c Abbasids, the provision for drinking-
water was cut off, only the pipe leading to the birka
being retained (ibid., i, 339-40). In Ibn Djubayr’s
time, there was, in addition to Zamzam, a supply of
water in vessels and a bench for performing the wudu?
(Rihla, 89). Khalid’s plan, arrangements for ablutions
at the entrance and a running fountain in the sahn,
seems to have been a typically Umayyad one and to
have been introduced from the north. Such fountains
were usual in the north, not only in private houses,
but also for example in the aithrion (atrium) surrounded
by pillars, which, from Eusebius’s description,
formed part of the church of Tyre (see Hauch, in
Herzog-Hauch, Realenzyclop. f. prot. Theol. u. Kirche 3 ,
x, 782).

The usual name for the basin, fiskiyya (in Egypt now
faskiyya ), comes from piscina, which in the Mishna and
in Syriac takes the form piskin (see Levy, Neuhebr. u.
chald. Worterbuch, iv, 81b; Fraenkel, Fremdworter, 124;
fiskina, found in al-Azrakl, Chron. Mekka , i, 340 is
probably due to a slip). At the same time, however,
birka or sikdya or sihrtdi, which probably comes from
the Persian (cf. Fraenkel, op. cit., 287), or the old
Arabic hawd, are also used. The arrangements for
ablutions were called matdhir or mayddP, sing. m?do?a
(now usually meda), “place for wudu'. The accom¬
modation in Mecca just mentioned was later
extended. Ibn Djubayr mentions a building at al-
Zahir, 1 mil north of Mecca which contained matdhir
and sikdya for those performing the minor c umra
(Rihla,' 111).

In Medina, Ibn Djubayr mentions rooms for
wudu? at the western entrance to the mosque (Rihla,
197, 13 f.; cf. the plan in al-Batanunl, Rihla, facing p.
244). At the same time, Ibn Zabala mentions seven¬
teen receptacles for water in the sahn in the year
199/814-15, probably for drinking-water; later
(8th/14th century) a large basin surrounded by a rail¬
ing is mentioned in the centre of the court. It was
intended for drinking purposes, but became used for
bathing and was therefore removed. Baths and
latrines were built anew by al-Nasir’s mother
(Wustenfeld, Medina, 99 ff.).

In Damascus, where every house, as is still the case,
was amply supplied with water, Yakut (d. 626/1229)
found no mosque, madrasa or khanakah which did not
have water flowing into a birka in the sahn (Yakut, ii,
590). Ibn Djubayr describes the arrangements in the
Mosque of the Umayyads. In the fahn, as is still the
case, there were three kubbas. The centre one rested on
four marble columns, and below it was a basin with
a spring of drinking-water surrounded by an iron
grille. This was called kafas al-md 5 “water-cage”.
North of the sahn was a Masdjid al-Kallasa, in the sahn
of which there was again a sihridi of marble with a

MASDJID

667

spring (Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 267). There was also run¬
ning water in an adjoining mashhad (269), in the
khanakah and madrasa (271), and in a hall beside the
living apartments there was again a kubba with a basin
{hawd) and spring water (269). There were also sikayat
against the four outer walls of the mosque, whole
houses fitted up with lavatories and closets (273); a
century earlier, we are told that at each entrance to
the mosque there was a mPdaPa (159). The whole
arrangements correspond exactly to those made by
Khalid al-Kasri in Mecca in the Umayyad period and
must therefore date from the Umayyads.

It was the same in other Syrian and Mesopota¬
mian towns. In Samarra 3 , al-Mutawakkil built in his
new djami c a fawwara with constant running water (al-
Ya c kubT, Buldan, 265). In Naslbln, the river was led
through the sahn of the mosque into a sihridj, ; there was
also a sihridy at the eastern entrance with two sikayat in
front of the mosque (Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 239). In
Mawsil in the mosque, which dated from the
Umayyad period, there was a spring with a marble
cupola over it {ibid., 235). In Harran, there were in
the sahn three marble kubbas with a bPr and drinking-
water {ibid., 246), in Aleppo, two {ibid., 253). In
Kufa, there were three hawds with Euphrates water in
front of the Djami c {ibid., 212), but in the mosque in
a zawiya, a domed building with running water
(Yakut, iv, 325, 326, here called tannur; cf. Ibn al-
Fakih, 173, Ibn Djubayr, 89, 267). It was the same in
Amid (Nasir-i Khusraw, ed. Schefer, 28) and in
Zarandj in Sidjistan (Ibn Hawkal 1 , 298-9). The prin¬
cipal mosques of c Irak had mayadP at the entrances,
for which, according to a remarkable note by al-
MukaddasI, rents were paid (129, read karasi ?; cf.
mastaba: Ibn Djubayr. 89). In Palestine also, in al-
MukaddasT’s time, there were conveniences for ab¬
lutions at the entrances to the dfawamP (matahir : 182;
mayadP : al-Istakhr! 1 , and in San c a 3 in the 4th/1 Oth
century, beside each mosque, there was water for
drinking and for wudu* (Ibn Rusta, 111). In Persia
also, it was the custom to have a hawd in front of the
mosque (al-MukaddasT, 318) and there was drinking-
water in the mosque itself on a bench {kursi) in iron
jars into which ice was put on Fridays {ibid. , 327). Not
only at the Zamzam well but also in the mosques of
c Irak, men were appointed whose duty it was to
distribute drinking-water (al-Tabari, iii, 2165). The
regular custom, therefore, was to have at the entrance
to, or in front of the mosque, conveniences for wudu*,
and in the court of the mosque itself a fountain as the
traditional ornament and for drinking water. It was
the exception for the wudu* to take place in the mosque
itself.

In Egypt, at First the Mosque of Ibn Tulun was
arranged similarly to the Syrian mosques. In the cen¬
tre of the sahn there was a gilt dome, supported by six¬
teen marble columns and surrounded by a railing.
This upper storey was supported by nineteen marble
columns and below was a marble basin {kas c a) with a
running fountain {fawwara ); the adhan was called from
the dome (al-Makrizi, iv, 37; the description is not
quite clear). People complained that there were no
arrangements for washing (mi*da*a) there. Ibn Tulun
replied that he had not made them because he had
concluded the mosque would be polluted thereby. He
therefore made a mi*da*a with an apothecary’s shop
behind the mosque {ibid., 38, 39; al-Suyuli, ii, 139; Ibn
Ta gh ribirdl. ii/10). This suggests that previously in
Egypt, the washing arrangements had been directly
connected with the mosque. After the Fire of the year
376/986-7, the fawwara was renovated by al- c Az!z (al-
MakrizI, iv, 40), and again in 696/1297 by Ladjln,

whose inscription still exists {CIA, i, no. 16). A new
mi*da*a was built in 792/1390 beside the old one on the
north, outside the mosque (al-Makrizi, iv, 42).

The Mosque of c Amr first got a fawwara in the time
of aI- c Aziz. In 378-9/998-9 his vizier Ya c kub b. Killis
installed one in the cupola, already in existence for the
bayt al-mal. Marble jars were put there for the water
(probably drinking-water) (al-Makrfzf, iv, 9, 11; cf.
al-Suyutl, ii, 136; Yakut, iii, 899). A new water basin
was installed by Salah al-Dln beside his manzara in the
mosque. The water was led to the fawwarat al-fiskiyya
from the Nile. This was prohibited in the reign of
Baybars al-Bundukdari (658-76/1260-77) by the chief
kadi, because the building was being affected by it (al-
MakrizI, iv, 14; al-Suyutl, ii, 137). The amir, who
restored it, brought the water for the fiskiyya from a
well in the street (al-Makrizi, iv, 15).

Like Ibn Tulun, the Fatimids do not seem to have
considered the mi*da*a indispensable. For the Azhar
Mosque had originally no mi*da*a: as late as al-
Hakim’s wakf document for the provision of mi*da*a,
money is given only with the provision that something
of the kind should be made (al-Makrizi, iv, 51, 54).
At a later date we hear of two mi*da*a’s, one at the
adjoining Akbughawiyya {ibid., 54). On the other
hand, there was already a fiskiyya in the centre of the
court, but whether it had existed from the first is not
known. It had disappeared, when traces of it were
found in 827/1424 in laying-out a new sihria £ {ibid.,
54). The fiskiyya of the Mosque of al-Hakim was not
erected by the founder. Like that of the Mosque of
c Amr, it was removed in 660/1262 by the kadiTH^ al-
Din, but after the earthquake of 702/1302-3, it was
again rebuilt and provided with drinking-water from
the Nile {ibid., 56, 57) and again renovated after
780/1378 {ibid. ,61). A small mi*da*a, later replaced by
another, was in the vicinity of the entrance {ibid. ,61).
Other Fatimid mosques had basins in the sahn, which
were supplied from the Nile and from the Khalldj
{ibid. , 76, 81, 120).

The traditional plan was retained in the period
following also. For example, we know that the amir
Tughan in_815/1412 placed a birka in the centre of the
Djami c of Aksunkur which was covered by a roof sup¬
ported by marble pillars and supplied by the same
pipe as the already existing mi*da*as (al-Makrizi, iv,
107, cf. 124, 138, 139, etc.). At the ceremonial
dedication of mosques, it was the custom for the
patron to fill the birka in the sahn with sugar, lemonade
or other sweet things (e.g. at the Mu^ayyadT, in
822/1419, al-Makrizi, iv, 139; at the Madrasa of
Djamal al-Din in 811/1408-9, ibid., 253; another in
757/1356, ibid. , 256).

The importance of the birka of the mosque, as a
drinking-place, diminished as pious founders erected
drinking fountains everywhere (cf. for Mecca, Chron.
Mekka, ii, 116-18; also BGA, Glossarium, 211, s.v.
hubb; 258, s.v. sabil) and especially when it became the
custom to build a sabil with a boy’s school in part of
the mosque (see below, I. E. 4, end). A hawd for
watering animals was also sometimes built in the
vicinity of the mosque (al-Makrizi, iv, 76). Sometimes
also the birka of the sahn was used for washing. In the
year 799/1397 the amir Yalbu gh a made arrangements
for this in the Akmar mosque so that one could get
water for wudu* from taps from a birka put up in the
sahn (al-Makrizi, iv, 76). Al-Makrizi condemns this
addition, but only because there was already a mi*da*a
at the entrance and the sahn was too small for the new
one {ibid. ), and not on grounds of principle; and it was
only because the wall was damaged that the amir’s gift
was removed in 815/1412 {ibid. , 77). The custom of

668

MASDJID

using the water supply of the sahn for wudu 5 survived
in many places in Egypt. The arrangements were
therefore usually called mPdaPa or rather meda (which
is not found in the inscriptions). If they had taps, they
were called hanafiyya ; according to Lane’s suggestion,
because the HanafTs only permitted ablutions with
running water or from a cistern 10 ells broad and deep
(Lexicon, s.v.; cf. Manners and customs. Everyman’s
Library, 69; cf. on the question M. Herz, Observations
critiques sur les bassins dans les sahns des mosquees, in BIE,
iii/7 [1896], 47-51; idem, La mosquee du Sultan Hasan,
2; Herz wrongly dates the modern usage from the
Turkish conquest in 923/1517). In quite recent times,
the mPdaPa s have often been moved outside to special
buildings. Ibn al-Ha djdj condemns bringing water
into the mosque, because the only object is for ablu¬
tions and ablutions in the mosque are forbidden by
“our learned men” (Madkhal, ii, 47-8, 49); like shav¬
ing, ablutions should be performed outside the
mosque in keeping with the Prophet’s saying idj_ c alu
matdhirakum c ald abwdb 1 masadjidikum (ibid., ii, 58). It
was in keeping with this principle that in earlier times
the mPda^a was usually put at the entrance and the
barbers took up their places before the entrance (cf.
the name Bab al-Muzayyinln “The Barbers’ Gate” for
the main entrance to the Azhar mosque). MPda?a%
were also to be found in hospitals; thus the “lower
hospital” was given two in 246/957, one of which was
for washing corpses (Ibn Dukmak, 99 below).

E. The mosque as a state institution.

1. The mosque as a political centre. Its
relation to the ruler. It was inherent in the char¬
acter of Islam that religion and politics could not be
separated. The same individual was ruler and chief
administrator in the two fields, and the same building,
the mosque, was the centre of gravity for both politics
and religion. This relationship found expression in the
fact that the mosque was placed in the centre of the
camp, while the ruler’s abode was built immediately
adjacent to it, as in Medina (and in Fustat,
Damascus, Basra, Kufa). We can trace how this dar
al-imdra or kasr (so for Kufa: al-Tabari, ii, 230-1; kasr
al-imdra, ibid., 234) with the growth of the mosque
gradually became incorporated in it at Fustat and
Damascus and was replaced by a new building. The
tradition remained so strong that, in Cairo, when the
new chief mosque Djami c al- c Askar was being
planned in 169/785-6, a Dar Umara > Misr was built
beside it with direct access to the mosque (al-Makrizi,
iv, 33-4), and when Ibn Tulun built his mosque, a
building called the Dar al-lmara was erected on its
south side, where the ruler, who now lived in another
new palace, had rooms for changing his robes, etc.,
from which he could go straight into the maksura (ibid.,
42).

The c Abbasids at the foundation of Baghdad intro¬
duced a characteristic innovation, when they made
the palace the centre of the city; the case was similar
with Fatimid Cairo; but Sulayman b. c Abd al-Malik
in Ramla had already built the palace in front of the
mosque (al-Baladhuri, 143). Later rulers, who no
longer lived just beside the mosque, had special
balconies or something similar built for themselves in
or beside the mosque. Salah al-Dln built for himself a
manzara under the great minaret of the mosque of
c Amr (al-Makrizi, iv, 13; al-Suyuti, ii, 137) and just
to the south of the Azhar mosque, the Fatimids had a
manzara from which they could overlook the mosque
(al-Makrizi, ii, 345).

The caliph was the appointed leader of the salat and
the khatib of the Muslim community. The significance
of the mosque for the state is therefore embodied in

the minbar. The installation of the caliph consisted in
his seating himself upon this, the seat of the Prophet
in his sovereign capacity. When homage was first paid
to Abu Bakr by those who had decided the choice of
the Prophet’s successor, he sat on the minbar. c Umar
delivered an address, the people paid homage to him
and he delivered a khutba, by which he assumed the
leadership (Ibn Hisham, 1017; al-Tabari, i, 1828-9;
al-Diyarbakri, ii, 75; al-Ya c kubI, Tahikh, ii, 142); it
was the same with c Umar and c Uthman (ibid., 157,
187).

The khutba, after the glorification of God and the
Prophet, contained a reference to the caliph’s
predecessor and a kind of formal introduction of
himself by the new caliph. It was the same in the
period of the Umayyads and c Abbasids (see for al-
Walid, al-Tabari, ii, 1177 ff.; al-Amln, ibid., iii, 764;
al-Mahdl, ibid., iii, 398, 451, 457; cf. on this question
also al-Bukhari. Ahkdm , bdb 43). The minbar and the
khutba associated with it was still more important than
the imamate at the salat, it was minbar al-mulk (Hamasa,
ed. Freytag, 656, v, 4). According to a hadith, the
Prophet carried the little Hasan up to the minbar and
said, “This my son is a chieftain”, etc. /al-Bukhari.
Mandkib , bdb 25). This reflects the later custom by
which the ruler saw that homage was paid to his
successor-designate; this also was done from the min¬
bar (cf. khutiba yawm al-dj_um c a li ’ 1-MuHadid bi-wilayat
al- c ahd, al-Tabari, iii, 2131). The Fatimid caliph
showed honour to a distinguished officer by allowing
him to sit beside him on the minbar (al-Suyuti, ii, 91);
in the same way, Mu c awiya allowed Ibn c Abbas to sit
beside him c ala saririhi (Ibn AbT Usaybi c a, i, 119), but
whether the reference is to the minbar is perhaps
doubtful. The bay c a could also be received by another
on behalf of the caliph, but it had to be accepted on
the minbar. Thus the governor of Mecca in 196/811-12
accepted on the minbar homage to c Abd Allah al-
Ma^mun and the deposition of Muhammad al-Amln
(al-Tabari, iii, 861-2; cf. for al-Mahdi: ibid. , 389).
There are other cases in which the solemn deposition
of a ruler took place on or beside the minbar (AghanP,
i, 12; Wustenfeld, Medina , 15). Even at a much later
date, when spontaneous acclamation by the populace
was no longer of any importance, the ceremonial
installation on the minbar was still of importance (al-
Makrizi, iv, 94). It had become only a formality but
still an important one. Homage was paid to the
c Abbasid caliphs in Egypt in the great Iwdn of the
palace or in a tent in which a minbar had been put up,
and similarly to the sultans whose investiture was read
out from the minbar (cf. Quatremere, Hist. Suit.
Maml., i/1, 117, 149 ff., 183 ff.). If one dreamt that
he was sitting on the minbar , it meant that he would
become sultan (ibid., ii/2, 103). The c Abbasid caliph
had, however, long had his own throne after the old
Persian fashion in his palace (Ps. -al-Djahiz, al-Tddj_ ft
akhlak al-muluk, ed. Ahmad Zakl, Cairo 1914, 7 ff.; tr.
Pellat, Le livre de la couronne , Paris 1954, 35 ff.) and so
had the Fatimids (Ibn Ta gh rlbirdl. ii/1, 457) and the
Mamluks (Quatremere, op. cit., i/1, 87; cf. 147).
When later we find mention of the kursi 'l-khilafa (van
Berchem, CIA, i, no. 33), sartr al-mulk (Chron. Mekka,
iii, 113), sarir al-saltana (al-Makrizi, ii, 157; cf. al-sarir,
royal throne: Ibn Hawkal 1 , 282, 285; kursi similarly:
cf. Ibn c Arabshah, Vita Timuri, ed. Manger, ii, 186)
or martabat al-mulk (Quatremere, op. cit., i/2, 61), the
reference is no longer to the minbar. This does not
mean that the ruler could no longer make public
appearances in the mosques: thus in 648/1250, al-
Mu c izz Aybak regularly gave audiences in al-maddris
al-salihiyya (Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml. , 17) and

MASDJID

669

memorial services for Baybars were held a year after
his death in several mosques, madaris and khawanik in
Cairo (677/1278; ibid., i/2, 164-5).

The caliph spoke chiefly from the minbar of the
capital, but when he made the pilgrimage he also
spoke from the manabir in Mecca and Medina (cf. e.g.
al-Tabari, ii, 1234; al-Ya c kubI, ii, 341, 501; Chron.
Mekka, i, 160). Otherwise, in the provinces, the gover¬
nor stood in the same relation to the mosques as the
caliph in the capital. He was appointed “over salat
and sword” or he administered “justice among the
people” and the salat (al-Tabari, iii, 860), he had
“province and minbar ” under him (ibid., ii, 611), al-
wilayat wa ’ l-khutba (al-Mukaddasi, 337). Speaking
from the minbar was a right which the caliph had
delegated to him and it was done in the name of the
caliph. c Amr b. al- c A§ therefore refused to allow peo¬
ple in the country to hold djtlma < ' except under the
direction of the commander (al-MakrizI, iv, 7). This
point of view was never quite abandoned. The khutba
was delivered “in the name of’ the caliph (ibid., 94)
or “for” him (lahu, ibid., 66, 74, 198; Ibn Taghri-
birdl, ii/1, 85 below; al-Mukaddasi, 485 above), and
in the same way an amir delivered a khutba “for” a
sultan (al-Makrlzi, iv, 213, 214). The sultan did not
have the “secular” and the caliph the “spiritual”
power, but the sultan exercised as a Muslim ruler the
actual power which the caliph possessed as the
legitimate sovereign and had formally entrusted to
him. During the struggles between the different
pretenders, there was thus a confession of one’s
politics if one performed the salat with the one or the
other governor (al-Tabari, ii, 228, 234, 258; Chron.
Mekka , ii, 168). The pretenders disputed as to whether
the one or the other could put up his standard beside
the minbar (al-Tabari, iii, 2009).

Like the caliph, the governor also made his for¬
mal entry into office by ascending the minbar and
delivering a khutba ; this was the symbol of his
authority (e.g. al-Tabari, ii, 91, 238, 242; Chron.
Mekka , ii, 173; cf. Hamasa, 660, vv. 2-3; al-Djahiz,
Bayan , iii, 135). After glorifying God and the Prophet,
he announced his appointment or read the letter from
the caliph and the remainder of his address, if there
was a war going on, was exclusively political and often
consisted of crude threats. The khutba was not
inseparably connected with the Friday service. The
commander-in-chief could at any time issue a sum¬
mons to the salat and deliver his khutba with admoni¬
tions and orders (see al-Tabari, ii, as above and 260,
297-8, 300, 863, 1179) and it was the same when he
left a province (ibid. , 241); a governor, who could not
preserve his authority with the khutba was dismissed
(ibid. , 592). Since war was inseparably associated with
early Islam, and since the mosque was the public
meeting-place of ruler and people, it often became the
scene of warlike incidents. While the governor in his
khutba was issuing orders and admonitions relating to
the fighting, cheers and counter-cheers could be
uttered (ibid., 238) and councils of war were held in
the mosque (al-Tabari, i, 3415; ii, 284; al-Baladhuri,
267). Soon after his election c Abd al-Malik asked from
the minbar who would take the field against Ibn al-
Zubayr, and al-Hadjdjadj shouted that he was ready
to go (Chron. Mekka , ii, 20). After the Battle of the
Camel, C A1I sent the booty to the mosque of Basra and
c A : ’isha looked for another mosque (al-Tabari, i,
3178, 3223). Rowdy scenes occasionally took place in
the mosques (al-Kindl, Wulat , 18); Ziyad was stoned
on the minbar (al-Tabari, ii, 88); one could ride right
into the mosque and shout to the governor sitting on
the minbar (ibid. , 682); fighting often took place in and
beside the mosque (ibid., 960, 1701 ff.; Wustenfeld,

Medina, 13-14). Sometimes for this reason, the gover¬
nor was surrounded by his bodyguard during the salat
or the minbar or even clothed in full armour (al-Walld:
al-Tabari, ii, 1234; al-Ya c kubi, ii, 341; al-Hadjdjadj:
al-Tabari, ii, 254). Salat and sword were thus closely
associated in reality.

It thus came to be the custom for the enemies of the
ruler and his party to be cursed in the mosques.
This custom continued the old Arab custom of regular
campaigns of objurgation between two tribes, but can
also be paralleled by the Byzantine ecclesiastical
anathematisation of heretics (cf. Becker, Islamstudien ,
i, 485, Zur Gesch. d. islamischen Kultus).

The first to introduce the official cursing of the
c Alids from the minbar of the Ka c ba is said to have
been Khalid al-Kasri (Chron. Mekka, ii, 36). The
reciprocal cursing of Umayyads and c Alids became
general (cf. al-Tabari, ii, 12, 4; Aghani 1 , x, 102; Ibn
Taghribirdl. i, 248; see also Lammens, Mo c awia,
180-1). Like the blessing upon the ruler, it was uttered
by the kussas (al-MakrlzI, iv, 16); it was even recorded
in inscriptions in the mosque (Ibn Taghribirdl, ed.
Popper, ii/2, 63, 64; cf. also Mez, Renaissance, 61,
Eng. tr., 64). As late as 284/897, al-Mu c tadid wanted
to restore the anathematisation of Mu c awiya from the
minbar but abandoned the idea (al-Tabari, iii, 2164).
Anathemas were also pronounced on other occasions,
for example, Sulayman had al-Hadjdjadj cursed
(Chron. Mekka, ii, 37), and al-Mu c tamid had Ibn
Tulun solemnly cursed from the manabir (al-Tabari,

iii, 2048, 5 ff.); and other rulers had Mu c tazili
heretics cursed from the pulpits (see Mez, op. cii. ,198,
Eng. tr. 206; cf. against Ibn Taymiyya, Quatremere,
Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/2, 256). Ibn Battuta describes the
tumultuous scene with thousands of armed men utter¬
ing threats in a mosque in Ba gh dad when a Shl c I
khattb was on the minbar (ii, 58).

In was very natural to mention with a blessing
upon him the ruler in whose name the Friday khutba
was delivered. Ibn c Abbas, when governor of Basra,
is said to have been the first to pronounce such a duW
over c Ali (Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, fasl 37, end); it
is not improbable that the custom arose out of the
reciprocal objurgations of c Alids and Umayyads; the
kussas , who had to curse the c Alids in the mosques,
used to pray for the Umayyads (al-MakrlzI, iv, 17).
Under the c Abbasids, the custom became the usual
form of expressing loyalty to the ruler (Ibn
Ta gh ribirdl. ii/1, 151). After the caliph, the name of
the local ruler or governor was mentioned (ibid. , 156,
161): even in Ba gh dad in 369/979-80 by order of the
caliph al-Ta^iS the actual ruler c Adud al-Dawla was
mentioned in the duW (Ibn Miskawayh, vi, 499; ed.
Cairo 1915, 396) and the Buyids, according to al-
Mukaddast, were generally mentioned in the khutba
even in the remotest parts of the kingdom (this is evi¬
dent from the above-mentioned expression khutiba
lahu, for which we also find c alayhi : see Ibn Hawkal 1 ,
20; al-MukaddasI, 337, 338, 400, 472, 485; cf.
Glossarium, s.v.). There is also evidence that prayers
used to be uttered for the heir-apparent (al-MakrlzI,

iv, 37; Kitab al-Wuzara 5 , ed. Amedroz, 420). Under
the Mamluks also, the sultan’s heir was mentioned
(Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/1, 101; ii/2, 3).
Under the Fatimids, it was even the custom to call
salam upon the ruler from the minaret after the adhan
al-fadjr (al-Makrizi, iv, 45); this also took place under
the Mamluks, e.g. in 696/1297, when Ladjin was
elected (Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/2, 45). The
prayer for the sovereign in the khutba did not find
unanimous approval among the learned (see Snouck
Hurgronje, Verspreide Geschriften , ii, 214-15).

In general, the mosque, and particularly the minbar,

670

MASDJID

was the place where official proclamations were
made, of course as early as the time of the Prophet (al-
Bukhari. Salat, babs 70, 71), c Uthman’s bloodstained
shirt was hung upon the minbar (al-Tabari, i, 3255);
messages from the caliph were read from it (ibid., iii,
2084). Al-Walld announced from the minbar the
deaths of two distinguished governors (Ibn Taghri-
birdi, i, 242); the results of battles were announced in
khutbas (Yakut, i, 647; al- c Ikd al-farid, Cairo 1321, ii,
149-50). In the Fatimid and c Abbasid periods also,
proclamations, orders, edicts about taxation, etc., by
the ruler were announced in the principal mosque (al-
Tabari, ii, 40; iii, 2165; Ibn Taghribirdi, ii/2, 68; al-
Makrlzl, Itti c az , ed. Bunz, 87 above; Quatremere,
Hist. Suit. Maml., i/2, 89; ii/2, 44, 151); documents
appointing the more important officers were also read
upon the minbar (al-Kindl, Wuldt , 589, 599, 603, 604,
etc ., passim\ al-Makrizi, ii, 246; iv, 43, 88); frequently
the people trooped into the mosque to hear an official
announcement (al-Kindl, Wuldt, 14; cf. Dozy, Gesch.
d. Mauren in Spanien, ii, 170).

After the position of the caliph had changed, tradi¬
tion was so far retained that he still delivered the
khutba in the principal mosque on special occasions,
particularly at festivals. Thus the Fatimid al- c Az!z
preached in the Mosque of al-Hakim on its comple¬
tion (al-Makrizi, iv, 55) and in the month of
Ramadan he preached in the three chief mosques of
Cairo, one after the other (ibid., 53, cf. 61-2; Ibn
Ta gh ribirdi. ii/1, 482 ff.; exceptionally also in al-
Rashida: al-MakrlzT, iv, 63). The c Abbasid caliph
also used to preach at festivals (e.g. al-Radl: Yakut,
Udaba 5 , ii, 349-50); it was the exception when a zealot
like al-Muhtadl in the year 255/869 followed the old
custom and preached every Friday (al-Mas c udI,
Murudy, viii, 2 = § 3110). Even th z faineant caliph in
Egypt preached occasionally (al-Makrizi, iv, 94;
Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/1, 138-9). Although
the mosque lost its old political importance in its later
history, it has never quite lost its character as the place
of assembly on occasions of public importance. This
is evident from al-Djabartl’s history, and even quite
recently large meetings have been held in the mosques
of Egypt on questions of nationalist politics.

2. The mosque and public administra¬
tion. The actual work of government was very early
transferred from the mosque into a special diwan or
madjlis (see al-Tabari, Glossarium, s.v.) and negotia¬
tions were carried on and business frequently done in
the kasr al-imara (cf. al-Tabari, ii, 230-1). But when
financial business had to be transacted at public
meetings, the mosque was used; of this there is par¬
ticular evidence from Egypt. Here the director of
finance used to sit in the Mosque of c Amr and auction
the farming out of the domains, with a crier and
several financial officers to assist him. Later, the
Diwan was transferred to the Djd mi c of Ahmad b.
Tulun, but even after 300/912-13, we find Abu Bakr
al-Madhara 3 ! sitting on such occasions in the Mosque
of c Amr. Under the Fatlmids, the vizier Ya c kub b.
Killis used first the dar al-imara of the Mosque of Ibn
Tulun (see above); later his own palace and after¬
wards the caliph’s kasr was used (al-Makrizi, i, 131-2).
In the same way, in the reign of Mu c awiya, the Coptic
churches were used and the taxation commission took
up their offices in them (Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer ,
Fuhrer durch die Ausstelling, no. 577); and Ibn Rusta (ca.
290/903) says that the officials in charge of the
measurement of the Nile, when they noticed the rising
of the river, went at once to the chief mosque and
announced it at one halka after another, at the same
time scattering flowers on those seated there (116).

The connection with administration was also seen
in the fact that the treasury-chest, the bayt al-mdl (iden¬
tical with the tdbut; al-Kindl, Wuldt, 70, 117) was kept
in the mosque. In Fust at, Usama b. Zayd, the direc¬
tor of finance, in 97/715-16 and 99/717-18 built in the
Mosque of c Amr a kubba on pillars in front of the min¬
bar for the bayt al-mdl of Egypt. A drawbridge was
placed between it and the roof. In the time of Ibn
Rusta, it was still possible to move about freely below
the kubba, but in 378-9/988-9 aI- c Aziz put up a run¬
ning fountain below it (Ibn Rusta, 116; al-Makrizi,
iv, 9, 11, 13; al-Suyutl, ii, 136; Yakut, iii, 899). Al-
Kindl records an attempt to steal the chest in 145/762
(Wuldt, 112-13). In the disturbed period around the
year 300/912, the wall al-Nushari closed the mosque
between the times of salat for the safety of the chest,
which was also done in Ibn Rusta’s time (al-Kindl,
Wuldt, 266; Ibn Rusta, 116). New approaches to the
bayt al-mdl were made in 422/1031 from the khizana of
the mosque and from the Diwan (al-Makrizi, iv, 13).

In Kufa, the buyut al-amwal, at least during the
early period, were in the Dar al-lmara (al-Tabari, i,
2489, 2491-2); in the year 38/658-9, during the
fighting, it was saved from Basra and taken with the
minbar to the Mosque of al-Huddan (ibid., 3414-15).
In Palestine, in the chief mosque of each town,
there was a similar arrangement to that in the Mosque
of c Amr (al-Mukaddasi, 182). In Damascus the bayt
al-mdl was in the most western of the three kubbas in
the court of the Mosque of the Umayyads; it was of
lead and rested on 8 columns (ibid. ,157; Ibn Djubayr,
264, 267; Ibn Battuta, i, 200-1); it is still called kubbat
el-khazne (“treasure-cupola”, earlier kubbat c AHsha (cf.
Baedeker, Palastina und Syrien). In the time of the two
travellers mentioned, the kubba only contained pro¬
perty of the mosque. Ibn Djubayr saw a similar kubba
in the chief mosque of Harran and says that it came
from the Byzantines (246). In Adharbaydjan, also
by the time of al-Istakhrl. the Syrian custom had been
everywhere introduced (184); in I ran shah r, in the
centre of the court, there was a building with marble
colums and doors (al-Mukaddasi, 316), which
perhaps points to a similar state of affairs, and in
Armenia, it is recorded that the bayt al-mdl was kept
in the Diami c in the time of the Umayyads as in Misr
and elsewhere (Ibn Hawkal 1 , 241). The kubba was
usually of lead and had an iron door. Ibn al-Hadjdj
considers it highly illegal to shut off a diwan in a
mosque, since this is the same as forbidding entrance
to it. This shows that the custom still survived in his
time.

Ibn Djubavr’s remark about Harran suggests that
here again we have an inheritance from Byzantium.
It was probably the building belonging to the piscina
(cf. above) that the Muslims put to a practical use in
this way. For the Byzantines had the treasury (sakelle)
in the palace, and it is doubtful if the treasure-
chambers of the church (skenophylakion) were built in
this way (cf. F. Dolger, in Byzantinisches Archiv, Heft
9 [1927], 26, 34).

3. The mosque as a court of justice. That
the Prophet used to settle legal questions in his
mosque was natural (see al-Bukhari. Ahkam, babs 19,
29, etc.; cf. Salat, bab 71; Khusumat, bab 4), but he
could also deliver judgments in other places (ibid.,
passim). In Hadith, it is recorded that some kadis of the
earlier period (Shurayh, al-Sha c bI. Yahya b. Ya c mar,
Marwan) sat in judgment beside the minbar, others
(al-Hasan, Zura c a b. Awfa) on the open square beside
the mosque (al-Bukhari, Ahkam, bab 18). The custom
had all the better chance of survival, as churches were
used in the same way (Joshua Stylites, ed. Wright, ch.

MASDJID

671

29; cf. Mez, Renaissance, 223, Eng. tr., 224). Sitting
in judgment was primarily the business of the ruler,
but he had to have assistants and Abu Bakr’s kadi is
mentioned as assisting c Umar (al-Tabari, i, 2135),
and a number of judges appointed by c Umar are men¬
tioned (Ibn Rusta, 227). In the reign of c Uthman,
c Abd Allah b. Mas c ud is said to have been judge and
financial administrator of Kufa (Ibn Kutayba,
Ma c arif, ed. Wiistenfeld, 128). On the other hand, we
are told that c Abd Allah b. Nawfal, appointed by
Marwan in 42/662, was the first kadi in Islam (al-
Tabari, iii, 2477); it is recalled that in the year
132/749-50 the kadi of Medina administered justice in
the mosque (ibid. , 2505). In Basra, we are told that al-
Aswad b. Sari* al-Tamlml immediately after the
building of the mosque (i.e. in the year 14/635)
worked in it as kadi (al-Baladhurl. 346). In the early
period, c Umar wanted to choose a kadi, who had been
already acting as a judge before Islam (al-Kindl,
Wuldt , 301-2; al-Suyutl, ii, 86). Even the Christian
poet al-Akhtal was allowed to act as arbiter in the
mosque of Kufa (see Lammens, Mo c awia, 435-6).

In Fustat, as early as 23^643 or 24/644 by command
of c Umar, c Amr b. al- c As appointed a kadi named
Kays (al-Suyutl, ii, 86; al-Kindl, 300-1). The kdjli
held his sessions in the Mosque of c Amr but not
exclusively there. The kdji Kh ayr b. Nu c aym (120-
7/738-45) held his sessions sometimes before his
house, sometimes in the mosque, and for Christians
on the steps leading up to the mosque (al-Kindl, 351-
2). A successor of his (177-84/793-800) invited Christ¬
ians who had lawsuits into the mosque to be heard
(ibid. , 391); of another judge (205-11/820-6), it is
recorded that he was not allowed to sit in the mosque
(ibid., 428). It seems that the kdrji could himself choose
where he would sit. A judge, officiating in the year
217/832, sat in winter in the great pillared hall, turn¬
ing his back towards the kibla wall, and in summer, in
the sahn near the western wall (ibid., 443-4). During
the Falimid period, the subsidiary building on the
north-east of the Mosque of c Amr was reserved for the
judge. This judge, called from the year 376/986
onwards kdjX 'l-kudat (cf. al-Suyutl, ii, 91; al-Kindl,
590), sat on Tuesday and Saturday in the mosque and
laid down the law (al-MakrizI, ii, 246; iv, 16, 22; cf.
al-Kindl, 587, 589; cf. Nasir-i Khusraw, tr. Schefer,
149).

In a!-Ya c kubI’s time in Baghdad, the judge of the
east city used to sit in its chief mosque (Buldan, 245),
in Damascus the vie e~ka<ji in the 4th/10th century had
a special riwak in the Mosque of the Umayyads (al-
MukaddasI, 158), and the notaries (al-shuruliyyun) also
sat at the Mosque of the Umayyads at the Bab al-Sa c at
(ibid., 17). In Naysabur, every Monday and Thurs¬
day, the madjlis al-hukm was held in a special mosque
(ibid., 328). In course of time, the judge was given a
madjlis al-hukm of his own (cf. al-Suyutl, ii, 96), and in
279/892 al-Mu c tadid wanted to forbid the kadis to hold
sessions in the mosques (Ibn TaghrlbirdI, ii/1, 87
above; perhaps, however, we should read kasy. see
Goldziher, Muh. Stud., ii, 164, n. 4). Justice was also
administered in the ddr a/-W/(Quatremere, Hist. Suit.
MamL, ii/2, 79). But the administration of justice did
not at once lose all connection with the mosque.
Under the Fatimids, the custom had been introduced
that the kdji should hold sittings in his house, but Ibn
al- c Awwam, appointed just after 400/1009-10, held
them either in the Didmi c at the Bayt al-Mdl or in a
side-room (al-Kindl, 612; cf. Ibn Ta g hrlbirdI. ed.
Popper, ii/2, 69; al-Kalkashandl, Subh al-aSsluC, iii,
487: for 439/1046, see Nasir-i Kh usraw. ed. Schefer,
text, 51, tr. 149). In Mecca, the ddr al-kddi was in

direct connection with the mosque (Ibn Djubavr.
104). In the 8th/14th century, Ibn Battuta attended a
court presided over by an eminent jurist in a mosque
(madrasd) in Shiraz (ii, 55, 63; cf. also Madkhal, ii, 54
below), and in Damascus the Shafi c I chief kadi held his
sessions in the c Adiliyya Madrasa (so Ibn Khallikan.
in Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/1, 22; cf. also for
Egypt: ibid., 87, ii/2, 253), the vice-kadis sat in the
Zahiriyya Madrasa (Ibn Battuta, i, 218). The judg¬
ment might even be put into execution in the madrasa
(ibid., 220). During the Mamluk period in Egypt, we
occasionally find a small mosque being used as a
madjlis for judges (al-MakrizI, iv, 270; Ibn Dukmak,
98 above); Ibn Khaldun held legal sittings in the
Madrasa al-Salihiyya ( c Ibar, vii, 453).

A mufti, especially in the large mosques, was also
frequently appointed; he sat at definite times in a halka
li ’l-fatwa, e.g. in Cairo (al-KazwInl, in al-Suyutl, i,
182; Djalal al-Dln, ibid. , 187), in Tunis (al-Zarkashl.
Chronicle, tr. Fagnan, in Rec. Mem. Soc. Arch. Constan¬
tine, xxi [1895], 197, 202, 218, 248). In Ba gh dad. Abu
Bakr al-Dlnawarl (d. 405/1014-15) was the last to give
fatwds in the Mosque of al-Mansur according to the
madhhab of Sufyan al-Thawn (Ibn Ta gh rlbirdI. ed.
Popper, ii/2, 120).

F. The administration of the mosque

1. Finances. The earliest mosques were built by
the rulers of the various communities, and the
members of the community did all the work necessary
in connection with the primitive mosques. The later
mosques as a rule were erected by rulers, amirs, high
officials or other rich men in their private capacity and
maintained by them. The erection of the mosque of
Ibn Tulun cost its builder 120,000 dinars, the Mosque
of Mu^ayyad 110,000 (al-MakrizI, iv, 32, 137, 138).
The upkeep of the mosque was provided for by estates
made over as endowments (wakf, habs) (cf. thereon
besides the fikh books, I. Krcsmarik, Das Wakfrecht, in
ZDMG, xlv [1891], 511-76; E. Mercier, Le code du
hobous ou ouakf selon la legislation musulmane, 1899). In
the 3rd/9th century we thus hear of houses which
belonged to the mosque and were let by them (Papyrus
Erzherzog Rainer , Fiihrer, nos. 773, 837), and Ibn Tulun
handed over a large number of houses as an endow¬
ment for his mosque and hospital (al-MakrizI, iv, 83).
This custom was taken over from the Christians by
the Muslims (see Becker, in Isl., ii [1911], 404).
According to al-MakrizI, estates were not given as
wakf endowments until Muhammad Abu Bakr al-
Madhara^I (read thus) bequeathed Birkat al-Habash
and Suyuf as endowments (about 300/912-13; this was
however cancelled by the Fatimids again (ibid.). Al-
Hakim made large endowments not only for his own,
but also for mosques previously in existence, such as
the Azhar, al-Hakiml, Dar al- c Ilm and Djami c al-
Maks and I>jami c Rashida; the endowments consisted
of dwelling-houses, shops, mills, a kaysariyya and
hawdnit, and the document (ibid., 50-1) specifies how
and for what purposes the revenues are to be
distributed. Baths were also given as endowments for
mosques (ibid., 76, for 529/1135; cf. 81 for the year
543/1148-9). Salah al-Dln granted lands to his
maddris: in 566/1170-1, for example, a kaysariyya to the
Kamhiyya and a day c a in al-Fayyum, and the teachers
received wheat from al-Fayyum; in the same year he
endowed the Nasiriyya with goldsmiths’ shops and a
village (ibid., 193-4; cf. another document, 196-7).
During the Mamluk period also, estates were given as
endowments (for documents of this period, see van
Berchem, CIA, i, nos. 247, 252, 528; Moberg, in MO,
xii [1918], 1 ff.; JA, ser. 9, iii, 264-6; ser. 11, x,
158 ff., 222 f.; xii, 195 ff., 256 ff., 363 ff.). They

672

MASDJID

were often a considerable distance apart: the mosques
in Egypt often had estates in Syria (van Berchem,
CIA , i, no. 247; al-Makrizi, vi, 107, 137). Not only
were mosques built and endowed, but already existing
ones were given new rooms for teachers, minbars,
stipends for Kurban reciters, teachers, etc. There were
often special endowments for the salaries of the imam
and the mu c a dhdh ins . for the support of visitors, for
blankets, food, etc. (see Ibn Djubayr, 277 with refer¬
ence to the Mosque of the Umayyads). The
endowments, and the purpose for which they might be
used, were precisely laid down in the grant and the
document attested in the court of justice by the kadi
and the witnesses (cf. al-Makrizi, iv, 50, 196 below).
The text was also often inscribed on the wall of the
mosque (cf. ibid. , 76; the above-mentioned inscrip¬
tions amongst others. For documents from Tashkent,
see RMM, xiii [1911], 278 ff.). Certain conditions
might be laid down, e.g. in a madrasa that no Persian
should be appointed there (al-Makrizi, iv, 202 below),
or that the teacher could not be dismissed or some
such condition (van Berchem, CIA , i, no. 201); that
no women could enter (JA , ser. 9, iii, 389); that no
Christian, Jew or Hanbali could enter the building
{ibid., 405); etc. Endowments were often made with
stipulations for the family of the founder or other pur¬
poses. That mosques could also be burdened with
expenses is evident from an inscription in Edfu of the
year 797/1395 (van Berchem, CIA , i, no. 539). If a
mosque was founded without sufficient endowment, it
decayed (e.g. al-Makrizi, iv, 115, 201, 203) or else the
stipends were reduced {ibid., 251), but in the larger
mosques as a rule the rulers provided new
endowments. According to al-Mawardi, there were
also special “Sultan mosques” which were directly
under the patronage of the caliph and their officials
paid from the bayt al-mdl {al-Ahkam al-sultdniyya, ed.
Enger, 172 above, 176 above).

Just as the bayt al-mdl of the state was kept in the
mosque, so was the mosque’s own property kept in it,
e.g. the kanz or khizdnat al-Ka c ba, which is mentioned
in c Umar’s time and may be presumed to have existed
under his predecessors (al-Baladhuri. 43 above;
Chron. Mekka , i, 307, ii, 14). The Bayt Mai al-Diami c in
Damascus was in a kubba in the sahn (al-Mukaddasi,
157; Ibn Djubayr, 267; Ibn Battuta, i, 201. cf. for
Medina, Wustenfeld, Medina , 86). Rich men also had
their private treasure-chambers in the mosque (see
above, I. E. 2), as used to be the case with the Temple
at Jerusalem (see E. Schiirer, Gesch. d. jiid. Vo Ikes*, ii,
1907, 322-8; F. Cumont, Fouilles de Doura-Europos ,
1926, 405-6).

2. Administration. As Imam of the Muslim
community, the caliph had the mosques under his
charge. This was also the case with the sultan, gover¬
nor or other ruler who represented the caliph in every
respect. The administration of the mosques could not
however be directly controlled by the usual govern¬
ment offices. By its endowment, the mosque became
an object sui generis and was withdrawn from the usual
state or private purposes. Their particular association
with religion gave the kadis special influence, and, on
the other hand, the will of the testator continued to
prevail. These three factors decided the administra¬
tion of the mosque, but the relation between them was
not always clear.

a. Administration of the separate mos¬
ques. The mosque was usually in charge of a ndzir or
wall who looked after its affairs. The founder was
often himself the ndzir or he chose another and after
his death, his descendants took charge or whoever was
appointed by him in the foundation charter. In the

older period, the former was the rule and it is said to
have applied especially in the case of chief mosques,
if we may believe Nasir-i Khusraw, according to
whom al-Hakim paid the descendants of Ibn Tulun
30,000 dinars for the mosque and 5,000 for the
minaret, and similarly to the descendants of c Amr b.
al- c As 100,000 dinars for the Mosque of c Amr ( Safar -
nama, ed. Schefer, text 39-40, tr. 146, 148). In 378/
988 we read of an administrator {mutawallT) of the
mosque in Jerusalem (al-Makrizi, iv, 11). In the case
of mosques and madaris founded during the Mamluk
period, it is often expressly mentioned that the
administration is to remain in the hands of the descen¬
dants of the founder, e.g. in the case of a mosque
founded by Baybars (al-Makrizi, iv, 89), in the
Djami c Maks when the vizier al-Maksi renovated it
{ibid., 66), the Sahibiyya {ibid., 205), and the
Karasunkuriyya {ibid., 232), etc.; so also in the
Badriyya in Jerusalem (“to the best of the descen¬
dants”, cf. van Berchem, CIA , ii/1, 129). Other cases
are also found. Sometimes an amir or official was
administrator, e.g. in the Mu^ayyad (al-Makrizi, iv,
140), the Taybarsiyya {ibid., 224), the Azhar {ibid.,
54-5) or the Mosque of Ibn Tulun (al-Kalkashandl,
$ubh, xi, 159-62). In Djamal al-DTn’s madrasa, it was
always the katib al-sirr (al-Makrizi, iv, 256), in the
khanakah of Baybars the khazindar and his successors
(van Berchem, CIA, i, no. 252); but it was more fre¬
quently a kadi ; for example, in the mosque of Baybars
just mentioned, the HanafT kadi was to take charge
after the descendants (al-Makrizi, iv, 89); in the
Akbughawiyya, the Shall c I kadi was appointed but his
descendants were expressly excluded {ibid. , 225). In
the Mosque of the Umayyads, during the Mamluk
period the Shafi c I chief kadi was as a rule the ndzir (al-
Kalkashandl, iv, 191), and thus also in the Nasir
mosque in Cairo {ibid., xi, 262-4). In this city, we find
during the Mamluk period that amirs and kadis alter¬
nately acted as ndzirs in the large mosques (e.g. the
Mosque of Ibn Tulun, al-Makrizi, iv, 42). Cases are
also found, however, in which descendants of the
founder unsuccessfully claimed the office of ndzir (al-
MakrizI, iv, 218, 255). This was the result of the
increasing power of the kadis (see below). In the
madaris, the ndzir was often also the leading professor;
the two offices were hereditary {ibid. , 204, the
Sahibiyya al-Baha^iyya; and 238 above, the Djamal -
iyya). In Tustar, a descendant of Sahl as ndzir and
teacher conducted a madrasa with the help of four
slaves (Ibn Battuta, ii, 25-6).

The ndzir managed the finances and other business
of the mosque. Sometimes he had a fixed salary (in
Baybars’ khanakah, 500 dirhams a month, van Ber¬
chem, CIA, i, 252; in the Dulamiyya in Damascus in
847/1443-4, only 60 dirhams a month, JA, ser. 9, iii,
261), but the revenues of the mosque were often
applied to his personal use. His control of the funds of
the mosque was however often limited by the central
commission for endowments (see below). The nazir
might also see to any necessary increase of the
endowments. He appointed the staff and he fixed their
pay (cf. e.g. al-Makrizi, iv, 41). He could also
interfere in questions not arising out of the business
side of administration; for example, the amir Sawdub,
the nazir of the Azhar in 818/1415-16, ejected about
750 poor people from the mosque. He was however
thrown into prison for this by the sultan {ibid. , 54).
Generally speaking, the nazir's powers were con¬
siderable. In 784/1382 a nazir in the Azhar decided
that the property of a mud^dwir, who had died without
heirs, should be distributed among the other students
{ibid., 54). In Mecca, according to Kutb al-Dln, the

MASDJID

673

Nazir al-Haram was in charge of the great festival of the
mawlid of the Prophet (12 Rabi c I) and distributed
robes of honour in the mosque on this occasion ( Chron .
Mekka , iii, 349). In the Azhar, no nazir was appointed
after about 493/1100 but a learned man was
appointed Shavkh al-Azhar, principal and adminis¬
trator of the mosque (Sulayman Rasad al-Zayyati,
Kanz al-djawharJi ta^rikh al-Azhar , 123 ff.). Conditions
were similar in Mecca in the late 19th century
(Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka , ii, 235-6, 252-3).

As we have seen, kadis were often nazirs of mosques.
This was especially the case in the madaris, where the
kadi, s were often teachers (cf. al-MakrizT, iv, 209, 219,
222, 238, etc.); the kadis were particularly anxious to
get the principal offices in the large schools (cf. al-
KalkashandT, xi, 235). Their influence was however
further increased by the fact that, if a nazir qualified
by the terms of the founder’s will no longer existed,
the kadi of the madhab in question stepped into his
place (cf. ZDMG, xlv [1897], 552). By this rule, which
often gave rise to quarrels between the different kadis
(e.g. al-MakrizT, iv, 218, the Zahiriyya), a kadi could
accumulate a larger number of offices and “milk the
endowments” {ibid., iii, 364). Sometimes their
management was so ruthless that the schools soon
declined (e.g. the Sahibiyya and the Djamaliyya, al-
MakrizI, iv, 204-5, 238). They also exercised influ¬
ence through the committee of management of the
mosque.

b. Centralisation in the management of
the mosques. The large mosques occupied a special
position in the Muslim lands, because the caliph had
to interest himself particularly in them, especially
those of Mecca and Medina, where the rulers and
their governors built extensions and executed renova¬
tions (cf. Chron. Mekka , i, 145; iii, 83 ff.). During the
c Abbasid period, the kadi occasionally plays a certain
part in this connection; for example al-Mahdl (158-
69/775-85), presented the kadi with the necessary
money to extend and repair the Meccan mosque
{ibid., i, 312; ii, 43). In 263/877, al-Muwaffak ordered
the governor of Mecca to undertake repairs at the
Ka c ba {ibid. , ii, 200-1). In 271/1884-5, the governor
and the kadi of Mecca co-operated to get money from
al-Muwaffak for repairs, and they saw the work
through {ibid., iii, 136-7). In 281/894, the kadi of
Mecca wrote to the vizier of al-Mu c tadid about the
Dar al-Nadwa and backed up his request by sending a
deputation of the staff there {sadana). The caliph then
ordered the vizier to arrange the matter through the
kadi of Baghdad and a man was sent to Mecca to take
charge of the work {ibid., iii, 144 ff.).

The importance of the kadi was based primarily on
his special knowledge in the field of religion. A zealous
kadi like al-Harith b. Miskln in Cairo (237-45/851-9)
forbade the kurra 5 of a mosque to recite the Kurian
melodiously; he also had the masahif in the mosque of
c Amr inspected and appointed an amin to take charge
of them (al-KindT, Wuldt, 469). After the building of
the Tulunid mosque, a commission was appointed
under the kadi ’ l-kudat to settle the kibla of the mosque
(al-MakrizT, iv, 21-2). But at a quite early date they
also obtained a say in the management of the funds.
The first kadi to lay his hands on the ahbas was Tawba
b. Namir al-Hadraml; while hitherto every endow¬
ment had been administered by itself by the children
of the testator or someone appointed by him, in
118/736 Tawba brought about the centralisation of all
endowments and a large diwan was created for the
purpose (al-Kindl, 346). How this system of cen¬
tralisation worked is not clear at first, but it was car¬
ried through under the Fatimids.

Al-Mu c izz created a special diwan al-ahbas and
made the chief kadi head of it as well as of the djawami*-
wa ’l-mashahid (al-MakrizI, iv, 83 and 75; cf. al-Kindi,
585, 587, 589, according to whom al- c Aziz specially
appointed the chief kadi over the two d^ami c s), and a
special bayt al-mal was instituted for it in 363/974; a
yearly revenue of 150,00 dirhams was guaranteed;
anything left over went to form a capital fund. All
payments were made through his office after being
certified by the administration of the mosque (al-
MakrizI, iv, 83-4). The mosques were thus
administered by the kadis, directly under the caliph.
The diwan al-birr wa ’ l-sadaka in Baghdad (Mez,
Renaissance, 72, Eng. tr., 80) perhaps served similar
purposes.

Al-Hakim reformed the administration of the
mosques. In 403/1012-13 he had an investigation
made, and when it proved that 800 (or 830) had no
income {ghalla), he made provision for them by a pay¬
ment of 9,220 dirhams monthly from the Bayt al-Mdl ;
he also made 405 new endowments (of estates) for the
officials of the mosque (al-MakrizI, iv, 84, 264).
Under the Fatimids, the kadis used to inspect all the
mosques and mashdhid in and around Cairo at the end
of Ramadan and compare them with their inventories
{ibid., 84). The viziers of the Fatimids, who also had
the title kadi, did much for the mosques (Djawhar,
Ya c kub b. Killis, Badr al-DjamalT, cf. van Berchem,
CIA, i, nos. 11, 576, 631).

Under the Ayyubids, conditions were the same
as under the Fatimids. The diwan al-ahbas was under
the kadis (al-MakrizI, iv, 84). $alah al-Dln gave a
great deal to the mosques, especially the madaris:
20,000 dirhams a day is a figure given {ibid. , 117).
When Ibn Djubayr says that the sultan paid the
salaries of the officials of the mosques and schools of
Alexandria, Cairo and Damascus 43, 52, 275), he
must really mean the Diwan already mentioned.

The same conditions continued for a time under the
Mamluks. In the time of Baybars, for example, the
chief kadi Tad] al-Dln was nazir al-ahbas. He caused the
Mosque of c Amr to be renovated, and when the funds
from the endowments were exhausted, the sultan
helped him from the Bayt al-Mdl (al-MakrizI, iv, 14);
after conferring with experts, the chief kadi forbade a
water-supply brought by Salah al-Dln into the
mosque {ibid. , 14; al-Suyutl, ii, 137). In 687 the chief
kadi TakT al-DTn complained to Kalawun that the
c Amr and Azhar mosques were falling into ruins,
while the ahbas were much reduced. The sultan would
not however permit their restoration but entrusted the
repairs of the mosques to certain amirs, one to each
(al-MakrizT, iv, 14, 15). This principle was several
times applied in later times, and the amirs frequently
gained influence at the expense of the kadis. Thus after
the earthquake of 707/1303 (cf. thereon Quatremere,
Hist. Suit. Maml., ii/2, 214 ff.), the mosques were
allotted to amirs, who had to see that they were rebuilt
(al-MakrizT, iv, 15, 53). From the middle of the
7th/13th century, we often find amirs as adminis¬
trators of the chief mosques. The kadi had however
obtained so much authority that he was conceded “a
general supervision of all matters affecting the
endowments of his madhhab ” (al- c Umari, al-Ta c rif bi
’ l-mustalah al-sharif, 117; cf. ZDMG , xlv [1891], 559);
according to this theory the kadi could intervene to
stop abuses. In Syria in 660/1262 Ibn Khallikan
became kadi over the whole area between al- c Arish
and the Euphrates and superintendent of wakfs,
mosques, madrasas, etc. (Quatremere, Hist. Suit.
Maml., i/1, 170).

Sultan Baybars reformed these endowments and

674

MASDJID

restored the office of nazir al-awkdj or ndzir al-ahbas al-
mabrura or n. djihat al-birr (al-Kalkashandi, iv, 34, 38;

v, 465; ix, 256; xi, 252, 257; cf. Khalil al-Zahirl, Zub-
dat kashf al-mamalik, ed. Ravaisse, 109). According to
al-Maknzi, the endowments were distributed among
the Mamluks in three departments (dj.that ): 1. djihdt al-
ahbas , managed by an amir , the Dawddar: this looked
after the lands of the mosques, in 740/1339-40, in all
130,000 jadddns ; 2. djihat al-awkdj al-hukmiyya bi-Misr
wa ’ l-Kahira, which administered dwelling-houses; it
was managed by the Shafi c I kadi y l-kuddt, with the title
Nazir al-Awkdj. This department came to an end in the
time of al-Malik al-Nasir Farad] because an amir , sup¬
ported by the opinion of the Hanafi chief kadi, spent
a great deal and misused the funds; 3. djihat al-awkdj
al-ahliyya, comprised all the endowments which still
had particular nazirs , either descendants of the testator
or officials of the sultan and the kadi. The amirs seized
their lands and Barkuk, before he became sultan,
sought in vain to remedy the evil by appointing a
commission. The endowments in general disappeared
somewhat later because the ruling amirs seized them
(al-MakrlzT, iv, 83-6). In modern times, as a rule,
endowments in Muslim lands have been combined
under a special ministry, a Wizarat al-Awkaj.

To be distinguished from the administrators of the
mosque is the ndzir who is only concerned with the
supervision of the erection of mosques. Anyone could
be entrusted with the building of a mosque (e.g. al-
MakrizI, iv, 92). Under the Mamluks, there was also
a clerk of works, mutawalli shadd al-^amdHr or nazir al-
: imdra\ he was the overseer of the builders {ibid., 102;
see Zubdat kashjal-mamalik, ed. Ravaisse, 115, cf. 109;
van Berchem, CIA, i, 742, no. 751).

The caliph or the ruler of the country was in this,
as in other matters, supreme. As we have seen, he
intervened in the administration and directed it as he
wished. He was also able to interfere in the internal
affairs of the mosque, if necessary through his usual
officers. In 253/867 after the rising in the Fayyum, the
chief of police issued strict orders by which it was for¬
bidden to say the basmala aloud in the mosque; the
number of prayers in the month of Ramadan was cut
down, the adhan from the minaret forbidden, etc.
{Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, Fuhrer, 788). In the year
294/908, the governor c Isa al-Nusharl had the
Mosque of c Amr closed except at the salats, because
the bayt al-mdl was kept in it, which however produced
protests from the people (al-MakrizI, iv, 11; al-Kindl,
Wulat, 266; Ibn Rusta, 116). Many similar examples
could be mentioned, especially during periods of
unrest. In 205/821 the na^ib, in conjunction with the
kadis, revised the budget of the Mosque of the
Umayyads and made financial reforms (JA, ser. 9,
vii, 220). The adhan formulae were laid down in edicts
by the ruler (al-MakrizI, iv, 44, 45). In the year
323/935 the vizier in Ba gh dad had a man whipped
who had recited a variant text of the Kurban in the
mihrdb, after he had been heard in his defence in the
presence of the kadis and learned men (Yakut, Udabd 5 ,

vi, 300). The importance of the sovereign in connec¬
tion with the mosque depended on his personality. As
a rule, he recognised the authority of the regular
officials. When, for example, al-Khatlb al-Ba gh dadl
asked the caliph al-Kifim for authority to read hadith
in the mosque of al-Mansur, the latter referred the
question to the nakib al-nukaba > { Yakut, Udaba > , i, 246-
7; cf. Wiistenfeld, SchajiH, iii, 280).

The consecration of the mosque was attended by
certain ceremonies. When, for example, the midday
worship was conducted for the first time in the Djami c
al-Salih in Cairo, a representative from Ba gh dad was

present (al-MakrizI, iv, 81). At the consecration of the
Mosque of Ibn Tulun, the builder gave al-Rabl* b.
Sulayman, a pupil of al-Shafi c I. who lectured on
hadith there, a purse of 1,000 dinars (al-SuyujI, ii,
139). Al-Maknzi describes the consecration ceremony
at several mosques. In the Mosque of al-Mu^ayyad
the sultan was present seated on a throne surrounded
by his officers; the basin of the sahn was filled with
sugar and halwa, the people ate and drank, lectures
were given, then the salat was read and khutba
delivered and the sultan distributed robes of honour
among the officials of the mosques and $ufis (al-
Maknzi, iv, 139); similarly at the Zahiriyya in
662/1264 where poems were also recited: cf.
Quatremere, Hist. Suit. Maml., i/1, 228), Madrasat
Djamal al-Din, in 811/1408-9; al-Sarghitmishiyya,
757 (al-MakrizI, iv, 217-18, 253, 256).

G. The personnel of the mosque.

1. The Imam. From the earliest days of Islam, the
ruler was the leader of the salat', he was imam as leader
in war, head of the government and leader of the com¬
mon salat. The governors of provinces thus became
leaders of the salat and heads of the kharddy, and when
a special financial official took over the fiscal side, the
governor was appointed c ala y l-saldt wa y l-harb. He had
to conduct ritual prayer, especially the Friday salat, on
which occasion he also delivered the khutba. If he was
prevented, the chief of police, sahib al-shurta, was his
khalija (cf. al-MakrlzT, iv, 83). c Amr b. al- c As permit¬
ted the people of the villages to celebrate the two
festivals, while the Friday divine service could only
take place under those qualified to conduct it (who
could punish and impose duties; ibid., 7). This was
altered under the c Abbasids. The caliph no longer re¬
gularly conducted the salats (after the conquest of the
Persians; al-MakrizI, iv, 45), and c Anbasa b. Ishak,
the last Arab governor of Egypt (238-42/852-6), was
also the last amir to conduct the salat in the <&dmi c . An
imam, paid out of the bayt al-mdl, was now appointed
{ibid., 83), but the governor still continued to be for¬
mally appointed c ala y l-saldt. Henceforth, the ruler
only exceptionally conducted the service, for example,
the Fatimids on ceremonial occasions, especially in
the month of Ramadan (Ibn TaghrlbirdI, ed. Juyn-
boll, ii, 482 ff.; al-Kalkashandi, iii, 509 ff.); in many
individual mosques, probably the most prominent
man conducted the service; according to the hadith,
the one with the best knowledge of the Kur’an and,
failing him, the eldest, should officiate (al-Bukharl,
Adhan, babs 46, 49).

The imam appointed was chosen from among those
learned in religious matters; he was often a Hashimite
(Mez, Renaissance, 147, Eng. tr., 150); he might at the
same time be a kadi or his na^ib (see al-Kindl, 575,
589; Ibn Battuta, i, 276-7). During the salat he stood
beside the mihrab; al-MukaddasI mentions the
anomaly that in Syria one performed one’s salat “in
front of the imam yy (202). He could also stand on an
elevated position; on one occasion Abu Hurayra con¬
ducted the salat in the Meccan mosque from the roof
(al-Bukharl, Salat, bab 17). In Mecca, in Ibn
Djubayr’s time, each of the four recognised madhahib
(with the Zaydls in addition) had an imam; they con¬
ducted the salat, one after the other each in his place,
in the following order: ShafYls. Malikls, Hanafis and
HanbalTs; they only performed the salat al-maghrib
together; in Ramadan, they held the tardwih. in dif¬
ferent places in the mosque, which was also often con¬
ducted by the kurra 3 {Rihla, 101, 102, 143-4). This is
still the case; very frequently one performs the salat,
not after the imam of one’s own madhhab (Snouck
Hurgronje, Mekka, ii, 79-80). In Jerusalem, according

MASDJID

675

to Mudjlr al-Dln, the order was: Malikls, Shafi c Is,
HanafTs and Hanballs, who prayed each in their own
part of the Haram; in Hebron the order was the same
(Sauvaire, Hist. Jer. et Hebron, 136-7). In Ramadan,
extraordinary imams were appointed (ibid. , 138).

When the imam no longer represented a political
office, each mosque regularly had one. He had to
maintain order and was in general in charge of the
divine services in the mosque. In al-MukaddasI’s time
the imam of the Mosque of c Amr read a djuz* of the
Kurban every morning after the salat (205). It was his
duty to conduct every salat, which is only valid jl
djama^a. He must conform to the standards laid down
in the law; but it is disputed whether the salat is invalid
in the opposite case. According to some, the leader of
the Friday salat should be a different man from the
leader of the five daily salats (al-Mawardl, al-Ahkam al-
sultdniyya , ed. Enger, 171; Ibn al-Hadjdj, Aladkhal , ii,
41, 43 ff., 50, 73 ff.; al-Subkl, Mu c ld al-ndam, ed.
Myhrman, 163-4; for hadlths, see Wensinck, Hand¬
book, 109-10). Many misgivings against payment
being made for religious services were held by certain
authorities, who quoted in support of their view a say¬
ing of Abu Hanlfa (al-MukaddasI, 127).

2. The Khatib or preacher [see khatIb],

3. The Kass and Kari On these, see above, I.
C. 3. Sometimes, in later usage, waHz is used of the
official speaker, very like the khatib (cf. Ibn Battuta,
iii, 9), while al-kass is only applied to the street story¬
teller (al-Subkl, Mu c ld al-ndam, 161-2). The kuna 5
were also frequently appointed to madrasas and partic¬
ularly to mausoleums (al-MakrlzI, iv, 223; Yakut, iv,
509; al-Subkf, 162; van Berchem, CIA, i, no. 252).

4. The Mu* adhdhin. According to most tradi¬
tions, the office of mu\a dhdh in was instituted in the
year 1, according to others only after the isra*, in the
year 2, according to some weak traditions, while
Muhammad was still in Mecca. At first, the people
came to the salat without being summoned. Trumpets
(buk) were blown and rattles (nakus) used, or fires lit
after the custom of Jews, Christians and Madjus.
c Abd Allah b. Zayd learned the adhan formula in a
dream; it was approved by the Prophet and when Bilal
proclaimed it, it was found that c Umar had also
learned the same procedure in a dream (Ibn Hisham,
357-8; al-Diyarbakrl, i, 404-5; al-Bukharl. Adhan, bab
1; al-Zurkanl, i, 121 ff.). There are also variants of
the story, e.g. that the Prophet and c Umar had the
vision, or Abu Bakr or seven or fourteen of the Ansar.
According to some, the Prophet learned it at the
mdradj, from Gabriel, hence the introduction of the
adhan is dated after the isra*; among the suggestions
made, the hoisting of a flag is mentioned (Sira
Halabiyya , ii, 100 ff.). Noteworthy is a tradition which
goes back to Ibn Sa c d, according to which at c Umar’s
suggestion, at first a munadl, Bilal, was sent out who
called in the streets: al-salata dj>ami c at an . Only later
were other possibilities discussed, but the method
already in use was confirmed by the dream, only with
another formula, the one later used al-Diyarbakrl, i,
404; Sira Halabiyya, ii, 100-1). According to this
account, the consideration of other methods would be
a secondary episode, and probably the tradition in
general represents a later attitude to the practices of
other religions. But in Islam, other methods were cer¬
tainly used. In Fas, a flag was hung out in the
minarets and a lamp at night (JA, ser. 11, xii, 341).
The flag is also found in the legend of the origin of the
practice.

The public crier was a well-known institution
among the Arabs. Among the tribes and in the towns,
important proclamations and invitations to general

assemblies were made by criers. This crier was called
munddi or mu''a dhdh in (Sira Halabiyya, ii, 170; Lam-
mens, La Mecque, 62 ff., 146; idem, Berceau, i, 229 n.;
idem, Mo c awia, 150). Adhan therefore means pro¬
clamation, sura IX, 3, and adhdhana, mu*adhdhin, sura
VII, 70, “to proclaim” and “crier”. Munadl (al-
Bukhari, Fard al-khums, bab 15) and mu*adhdhin {ibid .,
Sawm, bab 69; Salat, bab 10 = Djizya, bab 16; Sira
Halabiyya , ii, 270) are names given to a crier used by
the Prophet or Abu Bakr for such purposes. Official
proclamations were regularly made by criers (cf. al-
Tabari, iii, 2131, 3). Sadjah and Musaylima used a
mu*a dhdh in to summon the people to their prayers (al-
Tabari, i, 1919, 1932; cf. Annali dell Islam, i, 410;
638-9). It was therefore a very natural thing for
Muhammad to assemble the believers to common
prayer through a crier ( nada IVl or ild ’ l-salat, sura V,
63; lxii, 9); the summons is called nida 5 and a dhdh an .
the crier munadl (al-Bukharl. Wudu*, bab 5; Adhan , bab
7) and mu*a dhdh in : the two names are used quite
indiscriminately (e.g. ibid., Wudu*, bab 5; al-Tabari,
ii, 297 sq.). Munadl 'l-salat, al-MukaddasI, 182, 12,
also sd*ih “crier” is used (al-Tabari, iii, 861; Chron.
Alekka, i, 340).

In these conditions, it was very natural for the crier
in the earliest period to be regarded as the assistant
and servant of the ruler; he is his mu *a dhdh in (Ibn
Sa c d, i, 7; Muslim, Salat, tr. 4; al-MakrlzI, iv, 43,
etc.; cf. al-Tabari, ii, 1120). c Umar sent to Kufa
c Ammar b. Yasir as amir and c Abd Allah b. Mas c ud
“as mu*a dhdh in and wazir ” (Ibn al-Faklh, 165); he is
thus the right hand of the ruler. Al-Husayn had his
munadl with him, and the latter summoned to the salat
on al-Husayn’s instructions (al-Tabari, ii, 297, 298;
cf. Ibn Ziyad, ibid. , 260 and in the year 196/811-12,
the c amil in Mecca, ibid., iii, 861, 13; also, Chron.
Alekka, i, 340). During the earliest period, the
mu*a dhdh in probably issued his summons in the streets
and the call was very short: al-salata djamdat cn (Ibn
Sa c d, 7, 7; Chron. Alekka, i, 340; al-Tabari, iii, 861; cf.
also in the year 196/811-12, Sira Halabiyya, ii, 101 al-
Diyarbakrl, i, 404-5). This brief summons was,
according to Ibn Sa c d, also used later on irregular
occasions (i, 7 ff.; cf. the passage in al-Tabari).
Perhaps also the summons was issued from a par¬
ticular place even at a quite early date (see I. D. 2a).
After the public summons, the mu*adhdhin went to the
Prophet, greeted him and called him to prayer; the
same procedure was later used with his successor;
when he had come, the mu*adhdhin announced the
beginning of the salat (akama ’ l-salat: cf. al-Bukharl.
Wudu?, bab 5; Adhan, bab 48; Sira Halabiyya, ii, 104-5;
al-MakrlzI, iv, 45; and ikama). The activity of the
mu *a dhdh in thus fell into three sections: the assembling
of the community, the summoning of the imam and
the announcement of the beginning of the salat. In the
course of time, changes were made in all three stages.

The assembling of the community by crying aloud
was not yet at all regular in the older period. During
the civil strife in c Irak, c Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad in the
year 60/680 had his munadl summon people with
threats to the evening salat in the mosque, and when
after an hour the mosque was full, he had the ikama
announced (al-Tabari, ii, 260). When a large number
of mosques had come into existence, the public call to
prayer had to be organised lest confusion result, and
the custom of calling from a raised position became
general after the introduction of the minaret. While
previously the call to prayer had only been
preparatory and the ikama was the final summons, the
public call (adhan) and the ikama now formed two
distinct phases of the call to prayer. Tradition has

676

MASDJID

retained a memory of the summoning in the streets,
now completely fallen into disuse, when it tells us that
c Uthman introduced a third adhan , a call in al-Zawra 3 ,
which was made before the call from the minaret: this
call, however, was transferred by Hisham b. c Abd al-
Malik to the minaret (al-Bukharl, Dj um c a. babs 22, 25;
Sira Halabiyya, ii, 110; Ibn al-Hadjdj, Madkhal, ii, 45).
This may be evidence of the gradual cessation of the
custom of summoning the community by going
through the streets. Ibn Battuta (but this is excep¬
tional) tells us that the mu ^a dhdh ins in Kh w arazm still
fetched the people from their houses and those who
did not come were whipped (iii, 4-5), which recalls
Wahhabi measures. When exactly the Sunni and, in
distinction to it, the ShI c I formula, finally developed
can hardly be ascertained [see adhan]. The call hayya
c ala 'l-falab is known from the time of c Abd al-Malik
(65-85/685-705) (al-Akhtal. ed. SalhanI, 254; see
Horovitz, in Isl. , xvi [1927], 154; on takbir , see ibid.;
on adhan formulae, see further Sira Halabiyya , ii, 105-
6). At first, the call was only made at the chief
mosque, as was the case in Medina and Misr (al-
Makrlzl, iv, 43 below), but very quickly other mos¬
ques were also given mu^a dhdh ins : their calls were suf¬
ficiently audible in the whole town. The chief mosque
retained this privilege, that its mu^a dhdh in called first
and the others followed together (al-MakrlzI, iv, 43
below, 44).

The summoning by the imam in Medina was
therefore quite a natural thing. The custom, at first
associated with the ruler’s mosque, was not observed
in Medina only (see for c Uthman and C A1I, al-Tabari,

i, 3059-60), but was also usual under the Umayyads.
The formula was al-saldm c alayka ayyuhd 'l-amir wa-
rahmatu y llah wa-barakatuhu, hayya c ala 'l-salat, hayya c ala
’ l-falah al-saldt , yarhamuka y lldh (al-MakrlzI, iv, 45; Sira
Halabiyya, ii, 105). After the alteration in the adhan
and the greater distance of the ruler from the mosque,
to summon him was no longer the natural conclusion
to the assembling of the community. In the c Abbasid
period and under the Fatimids, there was a survival of
the old custom, in as much as the mu 3 a dhdh ins ended
the adhan call before the salat al-fadjr on the minarets
with a salam upon the caliph. This part of the
mu^a dhdh in’s work was thus associated with the first
adhan call. When Salah al-Dln came to power, he did
not wish to be mentioned in the call to prayer, but
instead he ordered a blessing upon the Prophet to be
uttered before the adhan to the $alat al-jadgr, which after
761/1360 only took place before the Friday service. A
muhtasib ordered that after 791/1389 in Egypt and
Syria at each adhan a salam was to be uttered over the
Prophet (al-MakrlzI, iv, 46; Sira Halabiyya, ii, 110).
Ibn Djubayr relates that in Mecca after each salat al-
maghrib, the foremost mu J a dhdh in pronounced a du^a*
upon the c Abbasid Imam and on Salah al-Dln from the
Zamzam roof, in which those present joined with
enthusiasm (103), and according to al-MakrlzI, after
each salat prayers for the sultan were uttered by the
mu 3 a dhdh ins (iv, 53-4). Another relic of the old custom
was that the trumpet was sounded at the door of the
ruler at times of prayer; this honour was also shown
to c A<jud al-Dawla in 368/978-9 by order of the caliph
(Miskawayh, vi, 499; ed. Cairo 1315, 396).

The ikama always remained the real prelude to the
service and is therefore regarded as the original adhan
(al-Bukharl. Dj um c a. bab 24). In the earliest period, it
was fixed by the arrival of the ruler and it might hap¬
pen that a considerable interval elapsed between the
summoning of the people and the ikama (cf. al-Tabari,

ii, 260, 297-8). The times were later more accurately
defined; one should be able to perform one to three

salats between the two calls (al-Bukharl, Adhan, bab 14,
16). Some are said to have introduced the practice of
the mu *a dhdh in calling hayya c ald ’ l-salat at the door of
the mosque between the two calls ( Sira Halabiyya, ii,
105). From the nature of the case, the ikama was
always called in the mosque; at the Friday service, it
was done when the imam mounted the minbar (al-
Bukharl, Dj umca. bab 22, 25; Sira Halabiyya, ii, 110; al-
Makrlzl, iv, 43) while the mu^adhdhin stood in front of
him. This mu ^a dhdh in, according to some, ought to be
the one who called the adhan upon the minaret (Sira
Halabiyya, ii, 109), while Ibn al-Hadjdj ignoring the
historical facts only permits the call from the minaret
(Madkhal, ii, 45). In Tunis, the ikama was announced
by ringing a bell as in the churches (al-Zarkashl, tr.
Fagnan, in Rec. Soc. Arch. Constantine [1894], 111-12).
A similarity to the responses in the Christian service
is found in the fact that the call of the mu *a dhdh in.
which contains a confession of faith, is to be repeated
or at least answered by every one who hears it (al-
Bukharl. Djumca, bab 23); this is an action which con¬
fers religious merit (Ibn Kutlubugha, Tabakdt al-
Hanafiyya, ed. Fliigel, 30). It is possible that we should
recognise in this as well as in the development of the
formulae the influence of Christians converted to
Islam (cf. Becker, Zur Gesch. d. islam. Kultus, in Isl., iii
[1912], 374 ff., and Islamstudien , i, 472 ff., who sees
an imitation of the Christian custom in the ikama in
general; on the possibility of Jewish influence, see
Mittwoch, in Abh. Pr. A. W. [1913], Phil.-Hist. Cl.
2 ).

The mu ^adhdhin thus obtained a new importance.
His work was not only to summon the people to divine
service, but was in itself a kind of religious service.
His sphere of activity was further developed. In Egypt
we are told that Maslama b. Mukhallad (47-62/667-
82) introduced the tasbih. This consisted in praises of
God which were uttered by the mu \a dhdh ins all through
the night until jadjr. This is explained as a polemical
imitation of the Christians, for the governor was
troubled by the use of the nawakis at night and forbade
them during the adhan (al-MakrlzI, iv, 48). In the time
of Ahmad b. Tulun and Kh umarawavh. the
mu 3 a dhdh ins recited religious texts throughout the
night in a special room. Salah al-Dln ordered them to
recite an c akida in the night adhan and after 700/1300-
1, dhikr was performed on Friday morning on the
minarets (ibid. , 48-9, Sira Halabiyya , ii, 111). In Mecca
also, the mu *a dhdh ins performed dhikr throughout the
night of 1 Shawwal on the roof of the kubba of the
Zamzam well (Ibn Djubayr. 155, 156; cf. for

Damascus, al-MakrlzI, iv, 49). Similar litanies are
kept up in modern times, as well as a special call about
an hour before dawn (ebed, tarhim : see Lane, Manners
and customs, Everyman’s Library, 75-6, cf. 86; Snouck
Hurgronje, Mekka ii, 84 ff.).

The original call of the mu *a dhdh in thus developed
into a melodious chant like the recitation of the
Kur 3 an. Al-MukaddasI tells us that in the 4th/l0th
century in Egypt during the last third of the night, the
adhan was recited like a dirge (205). The solemn effect
was increased by the large number of voices. In large
mosques, like that of Mecca, the chief mu^a dhdh in
called first from a minaret, then the others came in
turn (Chron. Mekka, iii, 242-5); Ibn Djubayr. 145 ff.;
(cf. Ibn Rusta, 111, 1 ff. and above). But in the
mosque itself, the ikama was pronounced by the
mu*a dhdh ins in chorus on the dakka (see above, I. D.
2e) erected for this purpose, which is also traced to
Maslama. In the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries we
hear of these melodious recitations (tatrib) of the
mu ? a dhdh ins on a raised podium in widely separated

MASDJID

677

parts of the Muslim world (San c a 3 , Egypt, Kh urasan,
al-Mukaddasi, 327; Ibn Rusta, 111; the expression al-
mutala cc ibln, “the musicians”, if correct, probably
refers to the mu*adhdhins, al-Mukaddasi, 205; cf. also
al-Kindi, Wuldt, 469; for Fars we are expressly told
that the mu*a dkdh ins call without tatrib , al-Mukaddasi,
439, 17). Sometimes in large mosques, they were sta¬
tioned in different parts of the mosque to make the
imam' s words clear to the community ( tabligh ). The
singing, especially in chorus, like the tabligh, was
regarded by many as bid : a (al-Kindi, op. cit.; Madkhal,
ii, 45-6, 61-2; Sira Halabiyya, ii, 111). In other ways
also, the mu *a dhdh ins could be compared to deacons at
the service. The khatlb on his progress to the minbar in
Mecca was accompanied by mu*adhdhins, and the chief
mu*a dhdh in girded him with a sword on the minbar (Ibn
Djubayr, 96-7).

The new demands made on the mu*a dhdh ins
necessitated an increase in their number, especially in
the large mosques. The Prophet in Medina had two
mu*a dhdh ins . Bilal b. Ribah, Abu Bakr’s mawld, and
Ibn Umm Maktum, who worked in rotation.
c Uthman also is said occasionally to have called the
adhan in front of the minbar, i.e. the ikdma (al-Makrizi,
iv, 43). It is therefore regarded as commendable to
have two mu*a dhdh ins at a mosque (Muslim, Salat, tr.
4; cf. al-Subki, Mu c Id, 165). Abu Mahdhura was also
the Prophet’s mu'*a dhdh in in Mecca. Under c Umar,
Bilal’s successor as mu*a dhdh in was Sa c d al-Karaz, who
is said to have called to prayer for the Prophet in
Kuba 5 (al-Makrizi, op. cit.; cf. Sira Halabiyya, ii,
107 ff.). In Egypt under c Amr, the first mu*a dhdh in in
al-Fustat was Abu Muslim; he was soon joined by
nine others. The mu*a dhdh ins of the different mosques
formed an organisation, the head ( c arlf) of which, after
Abu Muslim, was his brother Shurahbil b. c Amir (d.
65/684-5); during his time, Maslama b. Mukhallad
built minarets (al-Makrizi, iv, 44).

The office of mu * a dhdh in was sometimes hereditary.
The descendants of Bilal were for example mu *a dhdh ins
of the Medina Mosque in al-Rawda (Ibn Djubayr,
194). We also find in Medina the sons of Sa c d al-
Karaz officiating (Ibn Kutayba, Ma c arif, ed.
Wustenfeld, 132, 279), in Mecca, the sons of Abu
Mahdhura (ibid., 278; Sira Halabiyya , ii, 106), in
Basra, the sons of al-Mundhir b. Hassan al- c Abdi,
mu*adhdhins of c Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad (Ibn Kutayba,
279); it is, however, possible that this was really the
result of a system of guilds of mu*adhdhins. In the
dxawami c of the Maghrib in the 8th/14th century, each
had regularly four mu*adhdhins who were stationed in
different parts of the mosque during the falat (Mad¬
khal, ii, 47 above); but there were often quite a large
number. In the Azhar mosque in the time of al-
Hakim, there were fifteen, each of whom was paid
two dinars a month (al-Makrizi, iv, 51). Ibn Battuta
found seventy mu*a dhdh ins in the Mosque of the
Umayyads (i, 204). About 1900, in Medina there
were in the Mosque of the Prophet fifty mu*a dhdh ins
and twenty-six assistants (al-Batanunl, Rihla, 242).
Blind men were often chosen for this office; Ibn Umm
Maktum, for example, was blind (al-Bukharl. Adhan,
bab 11; Sira Halabiyya, ii, 104; cf. Lane, op. cit., 75).
The Prophet is said to have forbidden Thaklf to pay
a mu*a dhdh in (al-Wakidi-Wellhausen, 383). c Uthman
is said to have been the first to give payment to the
mu*adhdhins (al-Makrizi, iv, 44) and Ahmad b. Tulun
gave them large sums (ibid. , 48). They regularly
received their share in the endowments, often by
special provisions in the documents establishing the
foundations.

The mu*a dhdh ins were organised under chiefs

( ru*asd*: al-Makrizi, iv, 14). In Mecca, the ra*Is al-
mu *a dhdh inln was identical with the mu *a dhdh in al-
Zamzaml who had charge of the singing in the upper
story of the Zamzam building (Chron. Mekka, iii, 424-
5; Ibn Djubayr. 145; cf. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka , ii,
322). The ra*Is was next to the imam but subordinate
to him; in certain districts, it was the custom for him
to mount the pulpit during the sermon with the imam
(when the latter acted as khatlb) (Madkhal, ii, 74). The
position which they originally occupied can still be
seen from the part which they play in public proces¬
sions of officials, e.g. of the Kadi ’ l-Kudat, when they
walk in front and laud the ruler and his vizier (al-
MakrizT, ii, 246).

Closely associated with the mu *a dhdh in is the muwak-
kit, the astronomer, whose task it was to ascertain the
kibla and the times of prayer (al-Subki, Mu c Id, 165-6
and see mikat); sometimes the chief mu*a dhdh in did
this (Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, ii, 322).

5. Servants. According to Abu Hurayra, the
Mosque of the Prophet was swept by a negro (al-
Bukharl. Salat, bab 72, cf. 74). The larger mosques
gradually acquired a large staff of servants ( khuddam ),
notably bawwdb, jarrdsh, and water-carriers (cf. e.g.
van Berchem, CIA, i, 252). In Mecca there have
always been special appointments, such as supervisor
of Zamzam and guardian of the Ka c ba (sadin, pi.
sadana, also used of the officials of the mosque: al-
MakrizI, iv, 76; cf. Ibn Djubayr. 278). In Ibn Bat¬
tuta’s time, the servants (khuddam) of the Mosque of
the Prophet were eunuchs, particularly Abyssinian;
their chief (shaykh al-khuddam) was like a great amir and
was paid by the Egyptian-Syrian government (i, 278,
348); cf. the title of an amir of the year 798/1395-6,
shaykh mashd*ikh al-sada al-khuddam bi 'l-haram al-sharlj
al-nabawi (van Berchem, CIA, i, no. 201). In the
Mosque of Jerusalem in about 300/912-13, there were
no less than 140 servants (khddim; Ibn al-Faklh, 100);
others give the figure 230 (Le Strange, Palestine, 163)
and according to Mudjlr al-Dln, c Abd al-Malik
appointed a guard of 300 black slaves here, while the
actual menial work was done by certain Jewish and
Christian families (Sauvaire, Hist. Jer. et Hebr., 56-7).

In other mosques, superintendents (kayyim, pi.
kawama ) are mentioned, a vague title which covered a
multitude of duties: thus the Madrasa al-Madjdiyya
had a kayyim who looked after the cleaning, the staff,
the lighting and water-supply (al-Makrizi, iv, 251),
the Azhar Mosque had one for the mi*da*a, who was
paid twelve dinars (ibid., 51) and also 4 kawama, who
were paid like mu*a dhdh ins (two dinars a month) and
are mentioned between them and the imams, probably
supervisors of the staff (ibid., 51). In other cases, a
kayyim al-djami c , sometimes a kadi, is mentioned, who
is apparently the same as the imam, the khatlb or some
similar individual of standing (ibid., 75, 121, cf. 122;
cf. Ibn Djubayr. 51). A mushrif, inspector, is also men¬
tioned, e.g. in the Azhar (al-Makrizi, iv, 51).

Bibliography : given in the article.

(J. Pedersen)

H. The architecture of the mosque.

I. Introduction. Attemps to generalise about
regional variations in mosque architecture are fraught
with difficulty and have often miscarried. One solu¬
tion, admittedly a compromise, is to select a few of the
most celebrated mosques, to imply in more or less
arbitrary fashion that they are typical, and to base the
requisite generalisations on them. This approach has
at least the merit of clarity, and it could indeed be
argued that it is in the finest mosques of a given period
and region that local peculiarities are apt to find their
fullest expression. Nevertheless, such a broad-brush

678

MASDJID

approach, for all its superficial attractions, is simply
not specific enough. Another approach, which might
be termed typological, cuts across regional and tem¬
poral boundaries in order to isolate the significant
variants of mosque design and trace their develop¬
ment. Yet, precisely because it ignores such bound¬
aries, this approach tends to minimise the significance
of regional schools and fashions. The categories and
sub-species which it proposes tend to have a somewhat
academic flavour; while technically defensible, they
somehow miss the point. A third approach might be
to rely on statistics and, by chronicling all known mos¬
ques of pre-modern date, to discover the types and
distribution of the most popular varieties. The picture
to emerge from such a study might indeed be literally
accurate, but it would not distinguish between the
dj_dmi c and the masdjid, that is, between the major
religious building of a town or city and the
neighbourhood mosque (on the djdmi c and its func¬
tions, see above, I. C. 2.). Since virtually all the mos¬
ques under discussion here fall into the category of
djdmi c , such a study would be of limited value in this
context, and would assuredly blur the sharp outlines
of regional peculiarities of mosque design. After all,
the simplest types of mosques not only vastly out¬
number the more complex ones but are also to be
found throughout the Muslim world. It is such mos¬
ques, therefore, which make up the standard distribu¬
tion of this building type. They dominate by sheer
weight of numbers, but—by the same token—they
distort the overall picture, suggesting a uniformity
that actually exists only at the level of the most
primitive buildings. Only when a statistical survey of
this kind is relieved of the effectively dead weight of
such buildings can regional and temporal distinctions
stand out in their full clarity.

Such are the difficulties attendant on venturing a
tour (Thorizon of formal developments in the pre¬
modern mosque. What, then, is the best way of tack¬
ling this problem? The most promising line of
approach is probably to identify those mosque types
which are most distinctive of a given area and period,
describing their constituent features but avoiding a
detailed analysis of individual buildings. It should be
emphasised that the over-riding aim of highlighting
significant regional developments entails the suppres¬
sion of much corroborative detail and, more impor¬
tantly, of those periods when a given region was
simply continuing to build mosques in a style already
well established. Admittedly the lulls in innovation
have their own part to play in the history of mosque
architecture; but that part is too modest to rate any
extended discussion here.

For that same reason, areas in which the pace of
change was sluggish are allotted less attention in the
following account than those which were consistently
in the forefront of experiment. The Ma gh rib. for
example, receives less space than Iran, while c Irak
and the Levant take second place to Egypt and
Anatolia. These emphases, moreover, reflect the basic
truth that the design of a mosque was often less liable
to take on a distinctively local colouring than were its
decoration, its structural techniques or even specific
components of that design, such as the minaret [see
manara]. The time-span covered by this article is also
limited. The mosque architecture of the last two cen¬
turies, which have seen the gradual invasion of a long-
established Islamic idiom by European ideas and
motifs, and in which a general decline is unmistak¬
able, is omitted from this account. One final caveat
should be sounded: the ensuing generalisations
deliberately exclude the peripheral areas of the Islamic

world, notably Indonesia, Malaysia, China and sub-
Saharan Africa, for which see sections III-VII below.
Nearly all the mosques in these areas are of post-
mediaeval date, and therefore lie in the shadow of
developments in the Islamic heartlands. There is,
moreover, a strong vernacular element in these
regional traditions, for they draw very heavily on a
reservoir of ideas, practices and forms which owe very
little to Islam. Thus for reasons which are as much
historical and cultural as geographical they do not
belong in the mainstream of mosque architecture.

This survey, then, will cover the central Islamic
lands from al-Andalus to Afghanistan. The very
nature of the material, however, makes it undesirable
to embark directly on a series of regional summaries:
the sheer lack of surviving monuments would require
each summary to start at a different date. In most
areas of the Islamic world it is not until the 5th/11th
century that mosques survive in sufficient quantities
for the lineaments of a local style to emerge. To
explain that style would in most cases entail reference
to earlier mosques in other regions, with consequent
repetition and overlap. The crucial decisions which
dictated the subsequent formal development of the
mosque were taken in the early centuries of Islam;
and the buildings which embodied those decisions are
themselves thinly scattered over the entire area
bounded by al-Andalus and Afghanistan. Yet the
interconnections between these buildings are such as
to make light of their geographical remoteness from
each other.

Accordingly, a pan-Islamic survey of the early
architectural history of the mosque will preface the
individual accounts of local developments. These
accounts in turn will be of unequal length. Pride of
place will go to the Arab mosque plan, which not only
had the widest diffusion but also covers the longest
chronological span. Next in length will be the survey
of the Persian tradition, almost as ancient as that of
the Arab plan but more restricted in geographical
scope. Shortest of all will be the discussion of the
Turkish mosque type, whose creative development is
confined in time to the 8th-11th/14th-17th centuries
and in space to Anatolia.

2. Early history of the mosque: 622-1000
A.D.

(a) The house of the Prophet. Beyond doubt,
the genesis of the mosque is to be sought in a single
seminal building: the house of the Prophet, erected to
Muhammad’s own specifications in Medina in 1/622.
It was a near-square enclosure of some 56 x 53 m.
with a single entrance; a double range of palm-trunk
columns thatched with palm leaves (a feature of many
African mosques to this day) was added on the kibla
side, with a lean-to for destitute Companions to the
south-east and nine huts for Muhammad and his
wives along the western perimeter. By a curious
paradox, it was not built even secondarily as a
mosque. This fact cannot be over-emphasised, since
to ignore it is to misinterpret the subsequent history of
mosque architecture. The venerated model for all
later mosques itself became a mosque only, as it were,
by the way and in the course of time. How is this to
be explained? The accumulated deposit of many cen¬
turies of reverence makes it difficult to disinter the full
original context of the building. Yet this much is
clear: it was first and foremost a house for Muham¬
mad and his family to live in. It was also conceived
from the beginning as a gathering place for the grow¬
ing band of Muslims: in fact a kind of community
centre, complete with the attendant associations of
welfare. At the same time it served political, military

MASDJID

679

and legal functions, while its high walls and single
entrance allowed it at need to act as a place of refuge
for the community. To be sure, by degrees people
began to pray in it; but they prayed in many other
places too and there is no evidence that it was used as
the regular place of worship in the earliest years of the
community. The mere fact that dogs and camels were
allowed free access to it effectively disposes of such a
notion. In short, Muhammad had, it seems, no inten¬
tion of creating a new type of building here. It is in
no sense radical. In its extreme simplicity and
austerity it well reflects his own life-style at that time.
Its substantial scale may seem to contradict this, but
is in fact somewhat deceptive, for some 80% of the
interior consists of a vast empty courtyard. Yet it was
this very emptiness that gave the mosque its innate
flexibility, and in subsequent centuries a large open
space became a standard feature of most large
mosques. It is surely a propos to note that the earliest
Christian places of worship, the so-called tituli , were
also ordinary houses. (For a detailed discussion of the
Prophet’s masdjid and its various functions, see above,
I. A. 1.).

(b) The so-called “Arab plan”. Although
there was thus a large measure of accident in the
adoption of Muhammad’s house as the model par
excellence of later mosques, that form could not have
enjoyed the popularity it did unless it had answered to
a nicety the needs of Muslim liturgy and prayer. Its
components—an enclosed square or rectangular space
with a courtyard and a covered area for prayer on the
kibla side—could be varied at will so as to transform
the aspect of the building. Thus there evolved the so-
called “Arab” or “hypostyle” mosque plan. From
the First it showed itself capable of quite radical
modification according to circumstances. At Kufa in
17/638 the location of the mosque within one of the
garrison cities (amsar) allowed the builders to dispense
with the element of security, and the perimeter—its
dimensions fixed, according to al-Baladhuri. by four
bowshots—is marked by ditches; elsewhere, as at
Basra in the year 14/635, a reed fence served the same
purpose. At Fustat in the rebuilt mosque of ( Amr
(53/673), corner turrets served simultaneously to
articulate the exterior, to single out the mosque from
afar and to provide a place from which the call to
prayer could be made: the germ of the future minaret.
Multiple entrances became a feature as early as the
first mosque of c Amr at Fustat (22/643), admitting
light to the mufalla [q.v. , and also above, I. B. 6] and
allowing maximum ease of circulation.

The sunny climate of the southern Mediterranean
and the Near East allowed the courtyard to accom¬
modate the huge numbers of extra worshippers atten¬
ding the Friday service. This was when its large
expanse justified itself. For the rest of the week it was
largely empty, and the heat and light emitted by this
expanse could cause discomfort. This was especially
likely if there were no provision for shade on three of
the four sides, as in the early versions of the Great
Mosques of Cordova (170/787), Kayrawan (221/836)
and Tunis (250/864). Hence there arose the practice
of adding arcades along the three subsidiary sides, so
that people could walk around the mosque in cool
shade. In time these arcades could be doubled, tripled
or even quadrupled. A change in the alignment of
their vaulting from one side of the mosque to another
brought welcome visual relief and excluded the
danger of monotony; so too did variations in the depth
or number of the arcades (the second c Amr mosque in
Cairo). As the surface area of the covered sanctuary
was increased so did new spatial refinements suggest

themselves, such as the progressive unfolding of seem¬
ingly endless vistas in all direction. Rows of supports
(often spolia) with fixed intercolumniations created
hundreds of repetitive modular units, perhaps
deliberately mirroring the long files of worshippers at
prayer.

Externally, the accent was on simplicity, with
regular buttresses giving the structure a warlike air.
At the Great Mosque of Samarra (completed 238/852)
there are a dozen of these on each long side, not coun¬
ting the corners, with doorways after every second
buttress. At Susa the exterior dispenses with but¬
tresses in favour of rounded corner bastions, while in
the mosque of al-Hakim in Cairo (381/991 onwards)
the minarets at the corner of the facade rise from two
gigantic square salients. The emplacement of the
mihrdb [ q.v.\ was marked by a corresponding rec¬
tangular projection on the exterior wall. Entrances
were commonly allotted a measure of extra
decoration—as in the series of shallow porches along
the flank of the Cordova mosque—but massive portals
on the scale of those in Western cathedrals found no
favour in the early mosques of Arab plan. The
absolute scale of some mosques (the mosque of
Samarra, for instance, could have accommodated
100,000 people) encouraged the adoption of fixed pro¬
portional ratios such as 3:2, which contributed in
large measure to the impression of satisfying harmony
which these mosques produced. The Karakhanid
mosque of Samarkand (5th/11 th century) illustrates
the continuing use of such ratios. Sometimes the scale
of the mosque was illusionistically increased by the
addition of a broad open enclosure (ziyada) on three of
the four sides (Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo, finished
264/878, presumably copying the mosques of
Samarra). In comparison with later mosques of
similar scale, which catered for multiple subsidiary
functions by adding appropriate purpose-built struc¬
tures to the central core, these early mosques maintain
simple and symmetrical lines, especially for their
outer walls.

The architectural vocabulary of these early
mosques brought further scope for diversity. In the
first half-century of Islamic architecture, the system of
roofing was still primitive, and even when columns
and roof-beams had replaced palm-trunks and thatch¬
ing, the basic scheme remained trabeate (Basra;
Kufa; and Wasit, 83/702) whether the roof was flat or
pitched. Thus the post-and-lintel system long familiar
from Graeco-Roman buildings was perpetuated, and
the pervasive classical flavour was strengthened by the
lavish use of spolia. Sometimes, however, as in the
bull-headed capitals of the Istakhr mosque, these were
of Achaemenid origin.

By degrees, wooden roofs resting on arcades gained
popularity, and this was the prelude to full-scale
vaulting in durable materials (especially in Iran:
Tarikhana mosque, Dam gh an, and Fahradj djami Q y
both perhaps 3rd/9th century; Na 5 m (£dmi c , perhaps
4th/l0th century). The earliest mosques all use col¬
umns, and were thereby restricted to relatively low
roofs. By the 3rd/9th century the pier had ousted the
column as the principal bearing member, though it
occurs as early as the mosques of Damascus,
Ba c labakk and Harran, and though the column was
still used for some mosques (Kayrawan; al-Azhar,
Cairo, 362/973). This change made it possible to raise
the height of the roof, an important development
given the oppressive sensation produced by a low roof
extending over a large surface area. At the Cordova
mosque the column shafts bore piers braced by
strainer arches; but this device, for all its ingenuity,

680

MASDJID

could not rival the popularity of superposed arcades in
the fashion of Roman aqueducts (Damascus mosque,
finished 98/716).

The apparently minor detail of whether the arcades
ran parallel to the kibla or at right angles to it was suf¬
ficient to transform the visual impact of the roof. In
the latter case, it focused attention on the kibla , and
this was the solution that recommended itself to
Maghrib! architects (mosques of Cordova, Tunis and
Kayrawan). Syrian architects, on the other hand, with
only one major exception (Aksa mosque, Jerusalem),
preferred arcades parallel to the kibla (Damascus;
Ka§r al-Hayr East, ca. 109/728; Ba c labakk, ca.
6th/l2th century; Harran, ca. 133/750; and Rakka,
ca. 3rd/9th century), possibly reflecting in this the
influence of the Christian basilica ubiquitous in that
region, and several Egyptian mosques followed suit,
including those of Ibn Tulun, al-Azhar and al-Hakim.
It was a natural development to build mosques with
arcades running in both directions (Great Mosques of
Sfax and Susa, both finished 236/850), but with these
exceptions the early experiments with this idea are all
on a relatively modest scale which betrays some
uncertainty of purpose. They comprise a small group
of 9-bayed mosques with a dome over each bay and no
courtyard: a type represented in Toledo, Kayrawan,
Cairo and Balkh and dating mainly from the 4th/10th
century. These buildings inaugurate the much more
ambitious use of vaults in later mosques. No such
solutions are to be found in the larger mosques built
before the 5th/llth century. This early Islamic
vaulting drew its ideas impartially from the Romano-
Byzantine tradition and from Sasanian Iran, and
quickly developed its own distinctive styles, in which
the pointed vault soon dominated.

(c) The secular element in early mosque
architecture. In some mosques, the desire to
emphasise the covered sanctuary ( musalla ) was
achieved simply by adding extra bays and thus
increasing its depth. In other mosques, especially
those with royal associations, the requisite emphasis
was achieved by some striking visual accentuation of
the musalla: a more elaborate facade, a higher and
wider central aisle, a gable or a dome. Once this idea
of glorifying the musalla had taken root it was
enthusiastically exploited, for example by furnishing
this area with several carefully placed domes (Cor¬
dova, al-Azhar). On occasion, indeed, the musalla —
complete with such distinguishing features as wider
central aisle, dome in front of the mihrab and
transversely vaulted bays adjoining the kibla —could
itself become the mosque, with no attached courtyard
(al-Aksa).

The effect of singling out the musalla by these
various means is to emphasise that this area is more
important than any other in the mosque. Since this
latter notion runs counter to the widely-expressed
belief that all parts of the mosque are equally sacred,
and that gradations of sanctity within it run counter
to the spirit of Islam, its origins are worth investigat¬
ing. It should be stressed at the outset that these
various articulating devices cannot all be explained as
attempts to draw attention to the kibla. Some measure
of emphasis for this purpose was certainly required.
Hence, no doubt, the greater depth of arcades on that
side and the provision of an elaborate facade for the
mufalla alone. Similarly, the use of a different align¬
ment or type of vaulting for the bays immediately in
front of the kibla would make sense as a means of
signposting this crucial area. Yet the addition of a
dome or gable, or both, along the central aisle of the
musalla, and the greater width and height of that aisle,

cannot be explained—as is so often the case—simply
as a means of highlighting the mihrab. After all, the
entire kibla wall served to mark the correct orientation
for prayer, so that the mihrab was technically redun¬
dant. The relatively late appearance of the mihrab (no
lst/7th century mosque appears to have possessed one
and it is described as an innovation introduced by al-
Walid I in his re-building of the Mosque of the
Prophet in Medina in 84/703) further suggests that it
was not devised to meet some liturgical imperative.

The evidence points rather to the desire to assert in
as public a way as the dictates of religious architecture
would permit, the importance of the ruler in religious
ceremonies. It was the duty of the caliph or of his
representative to lead his people in prayer and to pro¬
nounce the khutba [ q. v. ]. The political overtones of the
latter ritual, which proclaimed allegiance to the ruler
in much the same spirit as the diptychs in the contem¬
porary Byzantine liturgy, in large part explain the
physical form of the minbar [ q.v. ] from which the khutba
was pronounced. Similarly, the mihrab , another
latecomer to mosque architecture, can be interpreted
in secular terms, most conveniently as a throne apse
transposed into a religious setting. These royal con¬
notations could only be intensified by the addition of
a dome over the bay directly in front of the mihrab.

Underneath that same dome was the preferred loca¬
tion for the maksura (see for this, above, I. D. 2.b.),
usually a square enclosure of wood or stone reserved
for the ruler, and ensuring both his privacy and his
physical safety. Each of these elements in the
mosque— mihrab, minbar, maksura, dome—drew added
power from the proximity of the others, and together
they stamped a secular and princely significance on
this particular area of the mosque. The earliest sur¬
viving mosque which illustrates this emphasis, the
Great Mosque of Damascus, adds a further refine¬
ment: a high transverse gable with a pitched roof cuts
across the lateral emphasis of the musalla and thus
highlights not just the mihrab area but also the way to
it. The extra height of the gable and the way it cleaves
across the grain of the mosque underscore its pro-
clamatory role. Sometimes, as in the djamih of Tunis
and Kayrawan, another dome over the central
archway of the musalla facade sufficed to create an axis
focused on the mihrab. As at Damascus, this axis
asserted itself both inside the musalla and—by virtue of
its greater width and the consequent break in the even
tenor of the roofing—externally, at roof level. In later
mosques, such as al-Azhar and al-Hakim (which
possibly derive in this from al-Aksa) the notion of the
external gable is toned down to a broad flat strip pro¬
jecting only modestly above roof level; but internally,
the emphasis on the broader central nave terminating
in the dome over the mihrab remains unchanged. It
seems likely that these articulating devices were
intended to mark out a processional way, presumably
the formal route by which the ruler approached the
mihrab.

So much, then, for the various elements in mosque
design for which princely associations have been pro¬
posed. Yet their mere enumeration does not tell the
full story. For it is above all the occurrence of these
features in mosques located next to the residence of
the ruler that places their political associations beyond
doubt. This close juxtaposition of the secular and the
religious may well have had its roots in the Prophet’s
house. Be that as it may, at Basra, Kufa, Fustat,
Damascus, to name only a few very early examples,
the principal mosque and the private residence of the
ruler adjoined each other, and the viceroy Ziyad b.
Ablhi [q.v.] said of this arrangement “it is not fitting

MASDJID

681

that the Imam should pass through the people”—a
sentiment, incidentally, not shared by many later
Islamic rulers. The analogy with the palatine chapel
in Byzantium and mediaeval Europe—at Constan¬
tinople and Ravenna, Aachen and Palermo—is strik¬
ing. Perhaps the most public expression of the idea in
the mediaeval Islamic world was in the Round City of
Ba g hdad, where the huge and largely empty space at
the heart of the city held only two buildings: the
palace and the mosque, next door to each other. It
would be hard to find the concept of Caesaropapism
expressed more explicitly, or on a more gargantuan
scale, than this.

The local expression of the articulating features
under discussion varied from one part of the Islamic
world to another, but they had come to stay.
Henceforth, the didmi c of Arab plan only rarely
returned to the simplicity of the 1 st/7th century. Such,
however, was the strength of the traditions formed at
that time that the basic nature of the earliest mosques
remained substantially unchanged. They were proof,
for example, against immense increases in size and
against a growing interest in embellishment by means
of structural innovations and applied ornament. Even
the conversion into mosques of pre-Islamic places of
worship, as at Damascus and Hama, was powerless to
affect their essential nature. The component parts of
the Arab mosque could be redistributed and re¬
arranged almost at will without impairing their func¬
tional effectiveness.

In much the same way, their idiosyncrasies of struc¬
ture and decoration were purely cosmetic. The range
of options in these areas was gratifyingly wide. Win¬
dows and lunettes bore ajoure grilles in stone or plaster
with geometric and vegetal designs (Damascus
mosque); wooden ceilings were painted or carved and
coffered ($an c a 3 mosque, lst/7th century onwards); a
wide range of capitals, at first loosely based on
classical models but in time featuring designs of Cen¬
tral Asian origin (Samarra) was developed; and piers
with engaged corner colonnettes (Ibn Tulun mosque,
Cairo) rang the changes on the traditional classical
column. Finally, the aspect of these early mosques
could be varied still further by the type of flooring
employed—stamped earth, brick, stone or even mar¬
ble flags—and by applied decoration in carved stone
or stucco, fresco, painted glass, embossed metalwork
or mosaic.

3. Later history of the ‘‘Arab plan”
mosque.

The essentially simple components of the Arab plan
set a limit to the degree of diversity that could be
achieved within these specifications. Most of the room
for manoeuvre had been exhausted within the first
four centuries of Islamic architecture. Thus the subse¬
quent history of the Arab plan cannot match the early
period for variety and boldness; the later mosques,
moreover, lie very much in the shadow of their
predecessors, to such an extent, indeed, that it is hard
to single out significant new departures in these later
buildings. It can scarcely be doubted that the presence
of the great Umayyad and c Abbasid mosques, built at
the period when the Islamic world was at the peak of
its material prosperity, acted as a signal deterrent to
later architects with substantially less money, men
and materials at their disposal. In these early cen¬
turies the caliphal permission, not readily granted,
had been required for the construction of a $dmi c
making it therefore a major undertaking, and cor¬
respondingly hard to emulate. By the 5th/l 1th cen¬
tury, moreover, most of the major Muslim cities had
their own $ami c , so that the need for huge mosques
had much declined.

Although mosques of Arab plan have continued to
be built throughout the Islamic world until the present
day, in the mediaeval period there were only two
areas where they achieved dominance: in the Western
Islamic lands before they fell under Ottoman rule,
and in pre-Ottoman Anatolia. These areas will there¬
fore provide the material for most of the discussion
which follows. Nevertheless, sporadic references will
be made to mosques elsewhere, for instance in Egypt
and the Yemen.

(a) The Maghrib. The Ma g hrib rightfully takes
pride of place in this account because for almost a
millennium virtually no mosque that was not of Arab
type was built there. Here, then, is to be found the
most homogeneous and consistent development of
that type. Its sources lie, like so much of Maghrib! art,
in Syria, and specifically in the Great Mosque of
Damascus. Its transverse gable becomes a leitmotif in
Maghrib! mosques, and in some cases (such as the
Karawiyyln Mosque [</.y.], Fez, founded 226/841 but
largely of the 6th/12th century) is associated with the
same proportions as the Syrian building, including
the relatively shallow oblong courtyard imposed on
the Damascus mosque by the classical temenos but
copied thereafter in other mosques as a deliberate
feature. In the Mosque of the Andalusians at Fez
(600-4/1203-7) the Damascus schema is retained
despite a jaggedly irregular perimeter and trapezoidal
courtyard; and, as at the Karawiyyln mosque, the
main entrance to the mosque is aligned to it, a refine¬
ment not found at Damascus. The length of the gable
has also increased considerably, though its height is
modest.

In later Maghrib! mosques especially, the emphasis
shifted from the exterior elevation of the gable to its
impact from within the building. It attracts unusually
intricate vaulting, often of mukamas [ q.v . ] type, or may
be marked by domes ranging in number from two
(TIemcen, 531/1136) to six (second Kutubiyya, Mar¬
rakesh, mid-6th/mid-12th century). The latter
mosque has a further five cupolas placed three bays
apart along the transverse kibla aisle. Thus by means
of vaulting alone is created a T-shape which combines
the secular and religious emphases of the djami c .
Fewer vaults or domes, more strategically placed—for
example at the mihrdb , the musalla entrance and the
corners of the kibla wall—could suffice to carry the T-
shape into the elevation, but the form could be created
at ground level alone by means of a wider central nave
and by ensuring that the vaults stopped one bay short
of the kibla, thus opening up dramatically the space
immediately in front of it. The T-shape can indeed
claim to be the principal Ma gh rib! contribution to the
development of mosque form, though horseshoe
arches and square minarets were equally characteris¬
tic of the style.

Three other features distinguish Ma g hrib! mosques
from those found elsewhere in the Islamic world,
though all have their origins in al-Andalus: the use of
pierced ribbed or fluted domes, especially over the
mihrdb ; the manipulation of arch forms to create
hierarchical distinctions by means of gradual enrich¬
ment; and a readiness to alter the size, shape and loca¬
tion of the courtyard in response to the imperatives of
a specific design. The ribbed domes (e.g. diami c s of
Taza, 537/1142 and 691/1292, and Algiers, ca.
490/1097) derive from those of the Cordova mosque,
but elaborate on them by cramming them with vegetal
designs in carved stucco or by increasing the number
of ribs from the usual eight to twelve (TIemcen ifrdmi 0 )
or even sixteen (Taza (jjdmi c ). This practice gives free
rein to the characteristically Ma g hrib! obsession with
non-structural arched forms, here used as a lace-like

682

MASDJID

infill between the ribs; the overall effect is one of
feathery lightness and grace. The light filtered
through these domes suffuses the area of the mihrdb
with radiance, perhaps as a deliberate metaphor ol
spiritual illumination, an idea rendered still more
potent when, as is often the case, that mihrdb bears the
popular text of sura XXIV, 36-7, “God is the Light
of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His Light
is as a niche wherein is a lamp...”

Long files of arcaded columns stretching in multiple
directions and generating apparently endless vistas
are a particular feature of Maghrib! mosques. The
distinctive “forest space” thereby created finds its
fullest expression in the fourth major rebuilding of the
Cordova mosque, the supreme generative master¬
piece of Western Islamic architecture, and the major
Almoravid and Almohad mosques are best inter¬
preted as reflections of this great original. Where the
Cordova mosque, however, employed systems of
intersecting arches and carefully differentiated types
of capital to establish hierarchical distinctions, later
Maghrib! djami c s typically use a wide range of arch
profiles to the same end. These include, besides the
ubiquitious horseshoe type already noted, lobed,
multifoil, interlaced cusped, trefoil, lambrequin and
other varieties. They spring from piers, not columns,
and this, coupled with the low roof, dim lighting and
the general absence of ornament unconnected with
vaulting, lends these interiors a ponderous austerity.
Against this general background of parsimonious
simplicity, the sudden switch from plain arch profiles
for most of the sanctuary to elaborate ones for the
axial nave alone constitutes a dramatic enrichment of
the interior. Sometimes the transverse aisle in front of
the kibla wall attests a third type of arch profile, and
thus a further gradation of importance is emphasised.

In most western Islamic mosques the courtyard is
something of an appendage. It is almost always very
much smaller than the covered space. Custom decreed
that it was isolated at the opposite end of the mosque
from the mihrdb , and that it should either be con¬
tiguous to the outer wall or be separated from it by no
more than a single aisle. By contrast, the sanctuary
tended to be of disproportionate depth and extent.
This meant that the courtyard was never able to func¬
tion as the heart of the mosque. Only when the sanc¬
tuary was reduced, as in the Kasba mosque in Mar¬
rakesh (581-6/1185-90), with its pronounced
cruciform emphasis, was the courtyard able, both
literally and figuratively, to play a more central role.
In narrow rectangular plans, it can be a diminutive
square box hemmed in by deep lateral aisles (Mosque
of al-Mansura, 704-45/1304-44) or an extended
shallow oblong (Mosque of Seville, ca. 571/1175). In
oblong plans, it faithfully mirrored that emphasis on
a diminutive scale (Tinmal, 548/1153; first Kutu-
biyya, Marrakesh, ca. 555/1160). Exceptional on all
counts is the gigantic but unfinished mosque of
Hasan, Rabat (ca. 591/1195), whose scale of 180 x
139 m. makes it the second largest mosque in the
world, after the Great Mosque of Samarra. Here the
typical shallow oblong courtyard is supplemented by
two lesser and narrow courtyards perpendicular to the
kibla and along the lateral walls. These were, it seems,
intended for men and women respectively, but they
would also have served for ventilation and lighting,
besides offering visual relief to the endless march of
columns.

(b) Anatolia. For all that pre-Ottoman Anatolia
was a fertile field for innovation in later mediaeval
experiment with the hypostyle mosque, its contribu¬
tion cannot seriously match that of the Ma g hrib and

al-Andalus, not least because of the much shorter time
span, a mere three centuries; discussion of it will
accordingly be brief. The earliest surviving mosques
well illustrate the dependence of local builders on
more developed traditions of Arab and Persian origin.
The Great Mosque of Diyarbakir (484/1091) follows
the transept schema of Damascus, while those of
Mayyafarikin (550/1155), Dunaysir (601/1204) and
Mardin (largely 6th/12th century) follow Iranian
precedent in their emphasis on a monumental dome
rearing up out of the low roofing of the sanctuary and
set squarely in front of the mihrdb bay. Their
foreshortened courtyards, however, owe nothing to
Iranian precedent and instead presage later develop¬
ments. So too did the increasing tendency to use
domical forms rather than modular trabeate units as
the principal means of defining space.

The buildings of the 6th/12th and 7th/ 13th cen¬
turies sufficiently demonstrate the embryonic state of
mosque design in Anatolia, for the variety of plans is
bewildering and defies easy categorisation. The
absence of direct copies of the classical Arab type of
plan is striking, though modifications of it were
legion. A common solution was to do without the
courtyard altogether—perhaps a response to the
severe Anatolian winter—and reduce the mosque to a
wooden-roofed hall resting on a multitude of columns
or pillars ( c Ala :) al-D!n mosque, Konya, 530/1135 to
617/1220; Sivas, ca. 494/1101; Afyon, 672/1273;
Beysehir, 696/1296). Usually the minaret was outside
the mosque and therefore not integrated into the
layout. Sometimes a similar design was executed in
multiple small vaults (Divrigi, castle mosque,
576/1180; Niksar, 540/1145; Urfa, 6th/12th century),
and indeed the preference for vaulted as distinct from
trabeated construction is well marked even at this
experimental stage. Whatever the roofing system
adopted in these enclosed mosques, the scope for
development in either direction was small, while poor
lighting, a sense of cramped space and inadequate
ventilation were virtually inevitable. Huge piers and
low vaults gave many of these mosques a crypt-like
appearance ( c Ala 5 al-D!n mosque, Nigde, 620/1223;
Sivas, Ulu Cami).

The obvious way forward was to allot a more
significant role to the dome, a decision made at an
early stage (Great Mosque of Erzurum, 530/1135;
Kayseri, 535/1140; and Divrigi, 626/1229) but by no
means universally accepted. In such mosques the
domed bay is invariably the largest of all and is placed
along the axis of the mihrdb. This emphasis on the
totally enclosed covered mosque was to remain the
principal feature of Turkish mosque architecture, and
as a natural corollary fostered a compact and
integrated style. Sometimes a small courtyard is
integrated into this design (Malatya, 635/1237;
Kayseri, Mosque of Kh w and Khatun. 635/1237;
Harput, 560/1165). By degrees, however, the court¬
yard was relegated to one of two functions: as a
forecourt, akin to the atrium of Byzantine churches
and thus heralding the mosque proper, instead of
being co-equal to the sanctuary; and as a bay within
the musalla, furnished with a skylight and a fountain
as a symbolic reminder of the word outside. Some¬
times these two uses coincided. The skylight bay
(shadirwan) was normally placed along the axis of the
mihrdb and thus served as a secondary accent for it, in
much the same manner as a central dome.

The 8th/14th century saw no major developments
in hypostyle plans. Flat-roofed prayer halls, some with
wooden-roofed porches (Meram mosque, Konya,
804-27/1402-24), others, especially in the Karaman

MASDJID

683

region, without them, continued to be built. So too
did hypostyle mosques with vaulted domical bays
(Yivli Minare mosque, Antalya, 775/1373; the type
recurs both in eastern Anatolia and Ottoman territory
in Bursa and Edime). Variations in the Damascus
schema, with the transept replaced by one or more
domes, a raised and wider central aisle, a skylight
bay, or any combination of these were frequent ( c Isa
Bey mosque, Selcuk, 776/1374; Ulu Cami, Birgi,
712/1312; mosque of Akhi Elvan, Ankara, ca.
780/1378). Finally, mosques with an enlarged domed
bay in front of the mihrdb spread from their earlier
base in south-eastern Anatolia, an area bounded to
the east by the Ulu Cami in Van (791-803/1389-1400)
and to the west by that of Manisa (778/1376). In the
latter mosque the kibla side is dominated by the dome
and takes up almost half the mosque; a large arcaded
courtyard with a portico accounts for the rest. With
such buildings the stage is set for Ottoman architec¬
ture and Arab prototypes are left far behind.

These Anatolian mosques depart still further from
the norm of the hypostyle type in their predilection for
elaborate integrated fagades. While earlier mosques of
Arab type frequently singled out the principal en¬
trance by a monumental archway, often with a dome
behind it, the tendency was to keep the fagade
relatively plain. Only in the highly built-up areas of
the major cities of the Near East, such as Cairo,
Jerusalem, Damascus and Aleppo, did the extreme
shortage of space, and often the small scale of the
mosques themselves, oblige architects to decorate
mosque fagades if they wished to draw attention to
them, e.g. the Akmar mosque, Cairo, 519/1125. In
Anatolia the tenacious Armenian tradition, which
favoured extensive external sculpture and articula¬
tion, may well have predisposed Muslim architects in
Anatolia to develop integrated decorative schemes for
the main fagades of their mosques. A monumental
stone portal or pishtak [q.v.], often an fwan [q v.\ was
the standard centrepiece for such designs. It could be
strongly salient and tower well above the roofline
(Divrigi Cami). Further articulation was provided by
ranges of recessed arches with decorative surrounds
(Dunaysir), open or blind arcades along the upper
section of the fagade (Mayyafarikln and c Ala 5 al-Din
mosque, Konya), and windows with densely carved
frames ( c Isa Bey mosque, Selcuk).

(c) Egypt and Syria. It seems possible that
some of the more elaborate Mamluk mosque fagades
in Cairo, such as those of Baybars (660/1262) and
Sultan Hasan (757/1356) may derive, if at several
removes, from Anatolian prototypes of the kind dis¬
cussed above. It is noteworthy, however, that in
general the mosques of the Ayyubid and Mamluk
period offer little scope for large-scale reworking of the
hypostyle plan, since they were too small. The
mosque of Baybars and that of al-Nasir Muhammad
b. Kalawun in the Cairo citadel (718/1318), which is
a free copy of it, provide exceptions to this rule; in
both cases a monumental dome over the mihrdb bay is
the principal accent of an extensive covered space.
The relative scarcity of major mosques in this period
not only reflects the primacy of the great early djdmi c s
which were still in use, and which made further such
buildings redundant; it also marks a shift in patronage
away from mosques towards mausolea, madrasas,
khdnkahs and the like. In time, not surprisingly, joint
foundations became the norm, in which the mosque
was a mere oratory, a component in some larger com¬
plex. Eventually, too, the forms of mosques came to
reflect those of contemporary madrasas more than the
hypostyle plans of earlier periods. Hence the

dominance of small domed mosques such as the
7th/14th century Mamluk djcimiH of Tripoli. Such
buildings have no bearing on the history of the Arab
mosque plan.

(d) The Yemen. Apart from the Maghrib, it was
principally in the Yemen that the large hypostyle
mosque maintained its popularity throughout the
mediaeval period. Inadequate publication has meant
that these buildings are less well known than they
deserve, and without excavation the dating of many of
them will remain problematic. This is particularly
regrettable because several of them were built on the
site of pre-Islamic temples, churches or synagogues
(e.g. al-Djila 5 mosque, San c a 5 ), and spolia from these
earlier buildings—such as columns, capitals, inscrip¬
tions and even sculptures of birds—are used very
widely. Persistent local tradition attributes the djami c s
of $an c a :> and al-Djanad to the time of the Prophet;
both were probably rebuilt by al-Walld I. The former
has preserved much more of its original appearance:
perimeter walls of finely cut stone in stepped courses
enclose a roughly square shape with a central court¬
yard with the musalla only slightly deeper than the
other sides. Al-Djanad, on the other hand, has had its
similar original layout transformed by a domed
transept and numerous subsidiary buildings. This
gradual transformation by the addition of prayer
halls, mausolea, ablutions facilities and the like is a
recurrent pattern in the Yemen (djdmi c s of Zabid and
Ibb).

Small hypostyle mosques of square form (al-
c Abbas, 7th/ 13th century), or of rectangular shape,
whether broad and shallow oblongs (Tithid, 7th/13th
century) or narrow and deep (Tamur, 5th/11th cen¬
tury or earlier), are common, and a few larger
mosques of this kind, still without a courtyard, are
known (Dhibin. after 648/1250). The commonest
form, however, comprises a structure that is rec¬
tangular or trapezoidal (Masdjid al-^awma^a, Hut,
7th/13th century) with a central courtyard and exten¬
sive covered riwaks on all sides (Rawda djami c ,
7th/13th century). Often this formula is enriched by
a lavishly carved or painted wooden ceiling over the
sanctuary area alone (Shibam djami c , 4th/10th cen¬
tury) or by the incorporation of mausolea (Zafar
Dhibin, 7th/13th century; funerary mosque of the
Imam al-Hadl Yahya, Sa c da, 4th/10th century and
later) or of minarets (Djibla, 480/1087; Dhu Ashrak,
410/1019). Influences from the central Islamic lands
explain the use of wider central aisles in the musalla
(Zafar Dhibin, Ibb, Djibla, Dhu Ashrak) and a con¬
centration of domes along the k.ibla wall (enlargement
of Ibb diami c ; Djami c al-Muzaffar and Ashrafivya
mosque, both 7th/13th century, Ta c izz). The glory of
these Yemeni mosques as a group lies in their decora¬
tion: exceptionally long bands of stucco inscriptions
(mosques of Dhamar and Rada, 7th/13th century and
later), frescoes with epigraphic, floral and geometric
designs (Rasulid mosques of Ta c izz) and a matchless
series of carved and painted wooden ceilings (Zafar
Dhibin, al- c Abbas, Sirha, Dhibin, Shibam. Sa^a 5
and others).

4. The Iranian tradition.

(a) The early period. Such was the prescriptive
power of the “Arab plan” that its influence per¬
meated mosque architecture in the non-Arab lands
too. It would therefore be an artificial exercise to con¬
sider the development of the Iranian mosque in isola¬
tion, the more so as many early mosques in Iran
(Blshapur, Slraf, Susa, Yazd) were of Arab plan.
Some also had the square minarets which were an
early feature of that plan (Damghan; Slraf). Rather

684

MASDJID

did the Iranian mosque acquire its distinctive charac¬
ter by enriching the hypostyle form by two elements
deeply rooted in pre-Islamic Iranian architecture: the
domed chamber and the iwan, a vaulted open hall
with a rectangular arched facade. The domed
chamber derived from the mostly diminutive Sasa-
nian fire temple with four axial arched openings, the
so-called dahar tak. Set in the midst of a large open
space, it served to house the sacred fire. This layout
obviously lent itself to Muslim prayer, and literary
sources recount how such fire temples were taken over
and converted into mosques (e.g. at Bukhara) by the
simple expedient of blocking up the arch nearest the
kibla and replacing it with a mihrdb ; but conclusive
archaeological evidence of this practice is still lacking,
though the mosques of Y^zd-i Khast and Kurwa may
be examples of it. Such domed chambers, whether
converted fire temples or purpose-built Muslim struc¬
tures, may have served as self-contained mosques,
with or without an attached courtyard; certainly the
earliest part of many mediaeval Iranian mosques is
precisely the domed chamber.

The associations of the iwan, by contrast, were
markedly more secular than religious; its honorific
and ceremonial purpose in Sasanian palaces is
epitomised by the great vault at Ctesiphon, where it
announced the audience chamber of the Emperor.
The iwan form was therefore well fitted to serve as a
monumental entrance to the mosque, to mark the cen¬
tral entrance to the musalld (Tankhana, Damghan;
Na 3 In) or, indeed, itself to serve as the sanctuary (as
at NTriz perhaps 363/973 onwards?). Thus both the
domed chamber and the iwan quickly found their way
into the vocabulary of Iranian mosque architecture,
and by their articulating power gave it a wider range
of expression than the Arab mosque plan could com¬
mand. It was in the interrelationships between the
domed chamber, the iwan and the hypostyle hall that
the future of the Iranian mosque was to lie.

(b) The Saldjuk period. The tentative experi¬
ments of early Iranian mosque architecture
crystallised in the Saldjuk period, especially between
ca. 473/1080 and ca. 555/1160. The major mosques
built or enlarged at this time have as their major focus
a monumental domed chamber enclosing the mifirdb
and preceded by a lofty iwan. This double unit is com¬
monly flanked by arcaded and vaulted prayer halls.
This arrangement represents the final transformation
of the musalld in Iranian mosques, using the
vocabulary of Sasanian religious and palatial architec¬
ture for new ends. The sanctuary iwan opens onto a
courtyard with an iwan at the centre of each axis punc¬
tuating the regular sequence of riwaks. These arcades
attain a new importance as facade architecture by
their arrangement in double tiers. Yet the focus of
attention is undoubtedly the great domed chamber.
The simplicity of the prototypical cahar tak is scarcely
to be recognised in these massive Saldjuk mafoura
domes with their multiple openings in the lower walls
and their complex zones of transition. This concentra¬
tion on the domed chamber was often achieved at the
expense of the rest of the mosque (Gulpayagan d£ami c ,
ca. 510/1116). The new combination of old forms
created the classical, definitive version of the already
ancient 4 -iwan courtyard plan that was to dominate
Iranian architecture for centuries to come, infiltrating
not only other building types such as madrasas and
caravansarais, but also spreading as far west as Egypt
and Anatolia and eastwards to Central Asia and
India. The 4 -iwan mosque thus became in time the
dominant mosque type of the eastern Islamic world.

Up to the end of the Saldjuk period, however, the

way was still open for numerous other combinations
of hypostyle hall, domed chamber and iwan. Bash an,
for example (4th/10th century) has a square layout
with courtyard, hypostyle hall, domed sanctuary and
sanctuary iwan , but lacks any further articulation of
the courtyard fagade by iwans. The mosques of Dan-
dankan [^.p. in Suppl.] and Mashhad-i Misriyan
[^.y.] (both 5th/11 th century) are typologically
related. At Urmiya/Rigla^iyya (7th/13th century) the
mosque is an extensive shallow oblong with the domed
chamber at one end of a hypostyle hall, and no iwan.
Sometimes the mosque is entirely covered by five
(Masdjid-i Diggaron, Hazara, 5th/ 11th century) or
nine domed bays (Car Sutun mosque, Tirmidh,
5th/Uth century; Masdjid-i Ku£a Mir, Natanz,
6th/12th century). In its Saldjuk form the mosque at
Ardabfl comprised a domed chamber with an iwan in
front of it, while at Sin (528/1136) the sanctuary, com¬
prising a deep iwan with mukarnas vaulting, engulfs
one side of the diminutive courtyard. The huge court¬
yard of the Firdaws djami*' (597/1201) is dominated by
its single iwan which heralds a low vaulted sanctuary.
The djdmi z s of Faryumad (7th/13th century?) and
Gunabad (606/1210) have only two iwans facing each
other across a narrow courtyard, and no domed
chamber. Other mosques in Kh urasan are simpler
still, comprising only the domed chamber itself
(Sangan-i Pa^In, 535/1140; Birrabad and c Abdal-
lahabad, both possibly Saldjuk) or with insignificant
bays adjoining it (Takhlatan Baba, 6th/l 2th century).
Often too, the various elements were added in an
unpredictable sequence, for instance at Simnan where
a probably 5th/11th century columned hall had a com¬
plete mosque “unit” comprising a domed chamber,
iwan and courtyard tacked on to its side. Even within
the classical 4 -iwan model, considerable diversity
could be attained by varying the scale of the com¬
ponents: from long narrow courtyards (Simnan) or
small square ones of domestic scale (Zawara,
527/1133) to huge open expanses broken up by trees
(Shiraz djami c , mainly 10th/16th century), pools or
fountains.

The principal emphasis on the internal fagade was,
however, unchanging. The exterior, by contrast, was
unadorned and unarticulated to the point of austerity.
Variations in the height or breadth of iwans reinforced
axial or hierarchical distinctions. By common consent
the sanctuary iwan was the largest and deepest; the
opposite iwan was next in size, though often very
shallow, while the two lateral iwans were usually the
smallest. Minarets at the corner of the sanctuary iwan
underlined its importance, while the twin-minaret
portal iwan first encountered in the Saldjuk period
(Nakhcivan, ca. 582/1186; Ardistan, Masdjid-i Imam
Hasan, 553/1158) became increasingly monumental
and elaborate in later centuries ( djdmi^s of Ashtardjan,
715/1315, and Yazd, 846/1442). Iwan minarets of this
kind gradually replaced the freestanding cylindrical
minarets so popular in the Saldjuk period.

(c) The Ilkhanid period. As in Mamluk
Egypt, so too in Iran the later mediaeval history of the
mosque is sometimes hard to disentangle from that of
the madrasa-, tomb- or shrine-complex. Prayer and
communal worship were, after all, integral to the
operation of such “little cities of God” as the shrines
of Ardabfl, Natanz, Turbat-i Djam, Bastam and
Lindjan—all of them the scene of much building
activity in the 8th/14th century—to say nothing of the
great shrines of Kumm and Mashhad. Such new
foundations as these were simply perpetuated Saldjuk
models (Hafshuya, early 8th/14th century), though
these were subtly altered by having their proportions

MASDJID

685

attenuated or otherwise modified. At Ashtardjan
everything is subordinated to the principal axis
announced by the double minaret facade, an
emphasis which is taken up and intensified by the
single great fwdn which takes up the full width of the
courtyard and leads into the domed sanctuary. At
Waramln, too (722/1322 onwards), which is of
standard 4 -fwdn type, the sense of axial progression is
strong, and is made rather more effective than at
Ashtardjan by the absolute length of the mosque and
the extended vestibule. The djami c of c AlI Shah in
Tabriz, by contrast ( ca . 710-20/1310*20) deliberately
returned, it seems, to much earlier models, for it com¬
prised essentially a huge cliff-like fwdn preceded by a
courtyard with a central pool and clumps of trees in
the corners—perhaps a deliberate reference to the
Tak-i Kisra itself. For smaller mosques, Saldjuk
models were again at hand; hence, for example, the
trio of domed chamber mosques with fwans at Aziran,
Kadj and DashtI, all datable ca. 725/1325. Yet
another compliment to earlier masters was the
Ilkhanid tendency to add new structures to existing
mosques: a madrasa to the Isfahan djami c (776-8/1374-
7), an twan to the mosque at Gaz (ca. 715/1315), and
so on.

(d) The Timurid period. The Timurid period
took up still further ideas which had been no more
than latent in earlier centuries. While some mosques
of traditional form were built such as the Mosque of
Gawhar Shad, in Mashhad, of standard 4 -iwdn type
(821/1418), attention focused particularly on the por¬
tal and kibla twans, which soared to new heights. Tur¬
rets at the corners magnified these proportions still
further. This trend towards gigantism is exposed at its
emptiest in the 4 -twan djami c of Ziyaratgah, near
Harat (887/1482), where the absence of decoration
accentuates the sheer mass of the sanctuary iwdn
looming over the courtyard. At its best, however, as
in the mosque of Bib! Khanum, Samarkand
(801/1399) where these exceptional proportions are
consistently carried through to virtually every part of
the mosque, the effect is overwhelming. Here the 4-
iwan plan is transformed by the use of a domed
chamber behind each lateral fwan; by the profusion of
minarets—at the exterior corners and flanking both
portal and sanctuary fwans —and by the four hundred-
odd domes which cover the individual bays.

As in the Mongol period, however, the fashion for
building khanfcahs, madrasas and funerary monuments,
all of them capable of serving as places of worship
(shrine of Ahmad Yasawl, Turkestan, begun
797/1394; the Rlgistan complex, Samarkand, begun
in its Timurid form in 820/1417; Gawhar Shad com¬
plex, Harat, 821/1418) excluded an equal emphasis
on architecture. This may explain the continued
popularity of so many standard mosque types—the
domed hypostyle (Ziyaratgah, Masdjid-i 6ihil Sutun
ca. 890/1485) and the two -iwdn type so long familiar
in Khurasan (Badjistan and Nlshapur d£dmi c s, both
later 9th/15th century)—to say nothing of the
emphasis on refurbishing earlier mosques (djdmi^s of
Isfahan, 880/1475 and Harat, 903-5/1497-9), which,
in accordance with the Timurid predilection for
innovative vaulting, often took the form of trans¬
versely vaulted halls (djdmi c s of Abarkuh, 808/1415;
Yazd, 819/1416; Shiraz, ca. 820/1417; Maribud,
867/1462; and Kashan, 867-8/1462-3; and the mos¬
ques of Sar-i Rig, 828/1424 and Mir 6akinak, 840-
1/1436-7, at Yazd). There was also still ample room
for surprises. The winter prayer hall added to the
Isfahan djdmP in 851/1447 has multiple aisles of huge
pointed arches springing directly from the ground and

lit by ochre alabaster slabs let into the vaults and dif¬
fusing a golden radiance. The hoary 4-fwdn formula
was given a new twist by the addition of twin domed
chambers flanking the sanctuary fwdn (Harat djami c ,
9th/15th century), an idea which infiltrated other plan
types too (Rushkhar djami c , 859/1454). At Djadjarm
(late 9th/late 15th century?) the central axis marked
by the domed chamber and the courtyard is flanked
on each side by a trio of vaulted bays.

Yet perhaps the most original mosque designs of the
period were those which focused on the single dome
and thus echoed, if only distantly, the preoccupations
of contemporary Ottoman architects. This concept
manifested itself in several different ways. In the
Masdjid-i Gunbad, Ziyaratgah (ca. 887-912/1483-
1506), a square exterior encloses small corner
chambers and a cruciform domed central area, a
layout more reminiscent of a palace pavilion than a
mosque. The core of the Masdjid-i Shah. Mashhad
(855/1451), is again a large domed chamber, but this
is enclosed by a vaulted ambulatory and preceded by
a long facade with corner minarets and a portal fwdn.
Most ambitious of all, however, is the Blue Mosque
in Tabriz (870/1465) in which a similar idea is given
much more integrated expression by virtue of the
open-plan arrangement of the central space. The
dome springs from eight massive piers, but this
octagon has further piers in the corners, making it a
square with twelve openings, and thus offering easy
access to the multidomed ambulatory. A similar open¬
ness characterises the gallery area and ensures that
this mosque, though entirely covered, was airy,
spacious and flooded with light. The range and
subtlety of its polychrome tilework makes this mosque
an apt coda for a period which exploited to an
unprecedented degree the role of colour in archi¬
tecture.

(e) The Safavid period. The restoration and
enlargement of existing mosques, a trend already
noted in Timurid times, continued apace in the
Safavid period, and involved over a score of mosques
in the 10th/16th century alone. Yet not one new
mosque of the first importance survives from this cen¬
tury, though the Masdjid-i C A1I in Isfahan (929/1522),
a classic 4 -fwdn structure, has a sanctuary whose open-
plan dome on pendentives provides a bridge between
the Blue Mosque in Tibrlz and the Lutfallah mosque
in Isfahan (1011-28/1602-10). The latter, a private
oratory for Shah c Abbas I, makes a very public break
with tradition, for it is simply a huge square chamber.
Its lofty dome rests on eight arches via an inter¬
mediary zone of 32 niches. The whole interior is
sheathed in glittering tilework whose smooth surfaces
simplify all structural subtleties. Though the mosque
is correctly oriented towards Mecca, it is set at an
angle to the great square (maydan) from which it is
entered, an angle dissimulated by the portal fwdn
which instead obeys the orientation of the maydan
towards the cardinal points of the compass. A low
vaulted passage linking fwdn and dome chamber, but
invisible from either, resolves these conflicting axes. It
also draws attention to a discrepancy which could
easily have been avoided and is therefore deliberate.

In the nearby Masdjid-i Shah (1021-40/1612-30),
which also fronts the maydan, the problem of discor¬
dant axes is solved with sovereign ease, for the portal
leads into a diagonal vestibule which in turn opens
into a 4-fwdn courtyard now correctly orientated. Both
portal and kibla iwdns have paired minarets to assert
their importance. The scale is vast, but the entire
mosque is conceived in due proportion to it. As at the
comparably large mosque of BIbl Khanum, dome

686

MASDJID

chambers behind the lateral twans give extra space for
prayer, while two madrasas with courtyards flank the
main courtyard to the south. Thus even at the height
of its popularity, the 4 -Iwdn mosque could accom¬
modate quite major innovations without impairing its
essentia] character. Later Safavid mosques, such as
the djamiH of Sarm and 6ashum, the Masdjid-i Wazir
in Ka§han and that of C A1I Kull Agha in Isfahan,
serve by their very modesty, however, to highlight the
altogether exceptional status of the two mosques on
the Isfahan mayddn. Even such a spacious and hand¬
some version of the traditional 4 -iwdn schema as the
Masdjid-i Hakim, Isfahan (1067/1656) could not fail
to be an anticlimax in their wake.

5. The Turkish tradition.

(a) Early domed mosques. The earliest Ana¬
tolian mosques follow Arab prototypes, and by
degrees some of them take on an Iranian colouring,
especially in their free use of twans for portals and for
sanctuary entrances. Already by the 7th/13th century,
however, an emphasis on the isolated domed chamber
as a mosque type began to make itself felt. This idea
too might have had Iranian origins, but it soon
developed in ways that owed nothing to Iran, since the
contemporary preference for entirely covered
mosques with no courtyard was itself enough to
encourage experiments in the articulation of interior
space. The dome quickly became the most favoured
device to this end. In Iran, by and large, the domed
chamber behind the kibla Iwdn remained spatially
isolated from the rest of the mosque. In Anatolia, by
contrast, architects were always seeking new ways of
integrating the main domed space with the area
around it. A consistent emphasis on domical forms
created the necessary visual unity to achieve this.
Already in the Saldjuk period tentative experiments in
this direction may be noted, for example the c Ala 3 al-
Dln mosque, Nigde (620/1223), whose kibla is marked
by three domed and cross-vaulted bays with further
parallel aisles behind. In the Ulu Cami of Bitlis
(555/1160), a single great dome replaces these smaller
bays, while in the Gok mosque and madrasa , Amasya
(665/1266), the masfaid comprises a series of triple-
domed aisles. Experiment with domical forms was
therefore deeply rooted in Anatolian architecture from
the beginning. It is above all, however, the hallmark
of mosques erected by the Ottomans, and can be
traced to the very earliest years of that dynasty.

(b) Ottoman architecture before
857/1 453. The sequence begins very modestly with
a series of mosques comprising a simple domed cube
with a lateral vestibule (‘Ala 3 al-Din mosque, Bursa,
736/1335, a structure typical of well over a score of
such Ottoman mosques built in the course of the
8th/14th century) and minor variants of this schema,
such as the mosque of Orhan Gazi, Bilecik, and the
Ye$il Cami, Iznik, 780/1378. Such structures have a
natural affinity with larger mausolea throughout the
Islamic world, and with the simplest forms of Iranian
mosques. It is only with hindsight that their signi¬
ficance for later developments, in which the theme of
the single, and (above all) central, dominant dome of
ever-increasing size becomes steadily more important,
can be appreciated. This, then, is the main line of
evolution in Ottoman mosque architecture, and the
discussion will return to it shortly.

Meanwhile, two other types of mosque, in which
the dome also loomed large, deserve brief investiga¬
tion, especially as they bade fair in the formative early
years to oust the domed, centrally planned mosque as
the favoured Ottoman type, and also because they had
their own part to play in the final synthesis of the

10th/16th century. The presence of three major types
of domed mosque in the same century is a reminder
that the pace of change was uneven. Several mosques
conceived on an altogether larger scale rejuvenated
the hypostyle form by investigating the impact of
multiple adjoining domes. In some cases, like the Ulu
Cami, Bursa, of 797/1394, a simple square sub¬
divided into 20 domed bays of equal width though of
varying height—the choice of the dome as the agent
of vaulting is a diagnostic Ottoman feature—the effect
was distinctly old-fashioned. At ground level this is an
Arab mosque, even if its elevation is Anatolian. Con¬
temporary with this, but marking a very different
attitude to interior space, are two mosques in Bursa,
that of Yfldinm Bayazld, 794/1390, and the Ye$il
Cami of 816/1413, which use the dome motif on
various scales and thus far more imaginatively. They
represent a second preparatory stage on the way to the
mature Ottoman mosque, and their large layout is by
turn cruciform, stepped or of inverted T-type. Their
distinguishing feature is the use of several domes of
different sizes. In the two cases under discussion, the
inverted T-plan highlights the mihrab aisle by two
adjoining domes along the central axis flanked by a
trio of domed or vaulted bays on each side, the whole
knit together laterally by a 5-domed portico. Sand¬
wiched between these two buildings in date is the Ulu
Cami of Edirne, 806/1403, where the square is sub¬
divided into nine equal bays, eight of them domed,
with a domed and vaulted portico tacked on. At the
mosque of 6elebi Sultan Mehemmed, Dimetoka, this
arrangement is refined by an increased concentration
on the central dome, which is enveloped by vaults on
the main axes and diagonals, the whole preceded by
a 3-domed portico. Such a combination cannot fail to
recall the standard quincunx plan, complete with nar-
thex, of mid-Byzantine churches, and it was of course
these buildings which dominated the Anatolian coun¬
tryside in the early centuries of Turkish occupation.
Steady Byzantine influence can be seen to have
affected the evolution of Ottoman architecture even
before the capture of Istanbul brought Turkish
architects face to face with Hagia Sophia. Yet it would
be grossly mistaken to regard mature Ottoman mos¬
ques as mere derivatives of Hagia Sophia. The Us
§erefeli mosque, Edirne, of 851/1447, with its huge
central dome on a hexagonal base flanked on either
side by a pair of much smaller domes and preceded by
a lateral courtyard enclosed by 22 domed bays, makes
excellent sense within a purely Ottoman perspective
as a key stage in the evolution which terminated in the
great masterpieces of Sinan. The divergence between
the great dome and the lesser ones flanking it has
already become acute and was to end in their total
suppression.

Yet one significant element, crucial to Hagia
Sophia and a cliche of Ottoman architecture after
857/1453, had not yet entered the architectural
vocabulary of the Turkish mosque before that date.
This was the use of two full semi-domes along the
mihrab axis to buttress the main dome. The long-
rooted Islamic custom of marking the mihrab bay by a
great dome rendered such a feature otiose. Once the
decision had been taken to make the largest dome the
central feature of a much larger square, the way was
open for the adoption of this Byzantine feature, and
with it the transformation and enrichment of interior
space was a foregone conclusion. Otherwise, most of
the architectural vocabulary used in mature Ottoman
mosques was already to hand by 857/1453: flying but¬
tresses, the undulating exterior profile created by
multiple domes, tall pencil-shaped minarets and a cer-

MASDJID

687

tain parsimony of exterior ornament allied to
exquisite stereotomy. It has to be admitted, however,
that these features had yet to find their full potential,
notably in the failure to develop a suitably imposing
exterior to match the spatial splendours within. That
potential could be realised only when these features
were used in tandem with each other by masters seek¬
ing to express a newly-won confidence and bent on
creating an integrated style for that purpose. The
mosque was, moreover, their chosen instrument;
indeed, Ottoman architecture is, first and foremost,
an architecture of mosques.

(c) Ottoman architecture after 857/1453.
The capture of Constantinople in 857/1453 provided
both a terminus and an impetus to a radical rethink¬
ing of mosque design. Appropriately enough, the first
building to express the new mood was a victory monu¬
ment, as its name indicates: the Fatih Mosque (867-
75/1463-70). This has a single huge semi-dome but¬
tressing the main one but also displacing it off the
main axis; clearly, the spatial, aesthetic and structural
implications of such a semidome had not yet been
fully grasped. Within a generation, this anomaly at
least had been rectified; the mosque of Bayazid II
(completed 913/1506) has two such semi-domes on the
mihrdb axis, with four lesser domes flanking this cen¬
tral corridor on each side. On the other hand, the pro¬
jecting portico sandwiched between dome chamber
and courtyard is a clumsy and lopsided expedient with
little functional justification. Yet the resultant
emphasis on the portico is wholly typical of a period
in which this feature re-appeared under numerous
guises, especially in doubled form (Mihrimah
mosque, completed ca. 973/1565). The §ehzade
mosque (955/1548) presents a much more streamlined
appearance, with dome chamber and courtyard of
approximately equal proportions. Within the sanc¬
tuary, the great central dome opens into semi-domes
on all four sides, with small diagonal semi-domes
opening off the main ones and corner domes. It is
instructive thus to see Ottoman architects developing
the possibilities of the centralised plan like the builders
of Christian churches and martyria a millennium
before, and coming to very similar conclusions.
Smaller mosques with domes on hexagonal (Ahmed
Pasa, completed ca. 970/1562) or octagonal bases
(Mihrimah mosque) were scarcely less popular than
domed squares. A small number of wooden-roofed
mosques perpetuating earlier modes, and with their
roots in the Arab tradition, survive (e.g. Ramazan
Efendi in Ko^amustafapa^a, 994/1585, and Tekkeci
Ibrahim Aga, 999/1590) as reminders of a very wide¬
spread type of Ottoman mosque now almost entirely
eclipsed by more durable structures.

In the ferment of experiment which marks
10th/16th century Ottoman architecture, the key
figure was undoubtedly Sinan, an Islamic equivalent
to Sir Christopher Wren, who transformed the face of
the capital city as of the provinces with some 334
buildings (mostly mosques) erected in his own
lifetime, and whose pivotal role as chief court architect
(effectively Master of Works) allowed him to stamp
his ideas on public architecture from Algeria to c Irak
and from Thrace to Arabia in the course of a
phenomenally long career which spanned virtually the
entire century. The Suleymaniye mosque in Istanbul
(963/1556) is by common consent the masterpiece of
his middle age. It takes up and refines the model of the
Bayazid II mosque by adding ideas taken from the
§ehzade mosque, like the succession of semi-domed
spaces billowing out from the main dome, though
only along the principal axis. Huge arches serve to
compartmentalise the spatial volumes.

All these mosques are preceded by an open court¬
yard whose cloister is roofed by long files of adjoining
domes. This standard feature typifies the new
emphasis on subsidiary structures, mausolea, Hmareis ,
madrasas and the like, and the consistent attempt to
integrate them visually with the sanctuary itself, for
example by subordinating them to the principal axes
of the design. All this implies a marked increase in
scale and a new sensitivity to the landscaping of the
ensemble. Hence the recurrent choice of dramatic
sites for these mosques, especially in Istanbul with its
built-in vistas along the Bosphorus. This awareness of
topography as a feature of mosque design is evident as
early as the Fatih mosque; its three parallel axes are
grouped around and within an enclosed open piazza
measuring some 210 m. per side. The climax of
mature Ottoman architecture is reached with Sinan’s
final masterpiece, the Selimiye at Edirne (982/1574),
in which the largest of Ottoman central domes (31.28
m. in diameter, hedged externally by the loftiest
quartet of Ottoman minarets (70.89 m. high) rests on
eight piers pushed as close to the walls as safety will
allow so as to create the largest possible open space.

While the increase in the absolute height and
breadth of these great domed chambers is striking, the
amount of articulation and detail crammed into these
spaces is scarcely less impressive. All is subordinated
to a formidable concentration of purpose—for exam¬
ple, the carefully considered fenestration, surely a
legacy from Hagia Sophia, with its superposed group¬
ings of eights and sixes or sevens, fives and threes. In
the interests of creating the maximum untrammelled
space, thrusts are concentrated onto a few huge piers
with spherical pendentives between them, and thus
the layout is a model of clarity and logic. Flooded with
light, their volumetric subdivisions apparent at a
glance, these interiors are at the opposite pole from
the dim mysteries of Hagia Sophia. Frescoes reminis¬
cent of manuscript illumination and of carpet designs
vie with Iznik tiles to decorate the interior surfaces,
and often (as in the case of fluted piers) to deny their
sheer mass.

Externally, these mosques attest a well-nigh fugal
complexity by virtue of their obsessive concentration
on a very few articulating devices like windows,
arches and domes. The repetition of the same forms
on varying scales intensifies the sense of unity. Even
the minarets which mark the outer limits of the
mosque’s surface area are brought into play; for
example, those of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (com¬
pleted 1025/1616) have the bases of their balconies so
calibrated as to coincide with the top of the main
dome, its collar and the collar of the main subsidiary
half-domes, while their location at the corners of the
building binds it together and defines the sacred space
from afar. Detailing is sparse and crisp, with a strong
linear emphasis, a flawless sense of interval and a pro¬
nounced attenuation of features like wall niches and
engaged columns (Suleymaniye mosque). Nothing is
allowed to impair the primary aesthetic impact of cliff¬
like expanses of smooth grey stone. Most notable of all
is a dramatic but ordered stacking of units culmin¬
ating in the great dome which crowns and developes
the entire ensemble. These individual units are each
locked into place within a gently sloping pyramidal
structure whose inevitable climax is the central dome.
From this peak the subsidiary domes, semi-domes and
domed buttresses cascade downwards to form a rippl¬
ing but tightly interlocked silhouette. These highly
articulated exteriors are a triumphant reversal of the
standard Islamic preference in mosque architecture
for stressing the interior at the expense of the exterior.
As the viewpoint changes, so too does the profile of

688

MASDJID

these mosques, from a continuous smoothly
undulating line to a series of sharp angular projections
formed by stepped buttresses and roof-turrets. The
preference for saucer domes rather than pointed
domes with a high stilt fosters the sense of immovable,
rock-like stability, with the topmost dome clamped
like a lid onto the mobile, agitated roof-lines beneath
it.

This, then, can justly claim to be architects’
architecture. It merits that term by virtue of its
unbroken concentration on the single germinal idea of
the domed centralised mosque. It is against that con¬
sistent unity of vision that the role of the Hagia Sophia
must be assessed. Of course, Turkish architects were
not blind to its many subtleties, and they freely quar¬
ried it for ideas. But it was as much a challenge that
inspired them to emulation as it was a source for
technical expertise. Finally, it was the Ottomans who
succeeded where the Byzantines had failed: in devis¬
ing for these great domed places of worship an
exterior profile worthy of the splendours within. The
triumphant issue of their labours to that end can be
read along the Istanbul skyline to this day.

Bibliography : C. Gurlitt, Die Baukunst Kon-
stantinopels, 3 vols., Berlin 1907-12; F. Sarre and E.
Herzfeld, Archdologische Reise im Euphrat- und
Tigrisgebiet, 4 vols., Berlin 1911-20; M. S. Briggs,
Muhammadan architecture in Egypt and Palestine ,
Oxford 1924; A. Gabriel, Les mosquees de Constan¬
tinople , in Syria, vii (1926), 353-419; E. Diez,
Masdyid. 111. Architecture , in El 1 , III, 378-89; E.
Pauty, Vevolution du dispositif en T dans les mosquees
a portiques, in Ber.Or., ii, (1932), 91-124; L. Y.
Hautecoeur and G. Wiet, Les Mosquees du Caire, 2
vols., Paris 1932-4; Gabriel, Monuments turcs
d'Anatolie , 2 vols., Paris 1934; M. B. Smith,
Material for a corpus of early Iranian Islamic architecture.
Mil., in Ars Islamica, ii (1935), 153-71, iv (1937),
1-40, vi (1939), 1-10; A. Godard, Les anciennes mos¬
quees de Vlrdn, in Athdr-e Iran, i/2 (1936), 187-210,
continued in Arts Asiatiques, iii (1956), 48-63, 83-8;
idem, Historique du Masdjid-e Djum c a d'Isfahdn, in
Athdr-e Iran, i/2 (1936), 213-82; B. Maslow, Les mos¬
quees de Fes, Paris 1937; J. Sauvaget, Observations sur
quelques mosquees seldjoukides, in AIEO Alger, iv
(1938), 81-120; A. U. Pope and P. Ackerman
(eds.). A survey of Persian art from prehistoric times to the
present, 6 vols., Oxford 1938-9; K. A. C. Creswell,
Early Muslim architecture. II. Early c Abbdsids,
Umayyads of Cordova, Aghlabids, Tulunids and
Samanids, A.D. 751-905 , Oxford 1940; Gabriel and
Sauvaget, Voyages archeologiques dans la Turquie Orien¬
tal, 2 vols., Paris 1940; M. Akkush, Contribution a
une etude des origines de Varchitecture musulmane. La
Grande Mosquee de Medine (al-Haram al-Madanl), in
Melanges Mas per o, iii (1940), 377-410; Sauvaget, La
mosquee omeyyade de Medina, Paris 1947; G. Margais,
L'eglise et la mosquee, in L'Islam et VOccident. Cahiers
du Sud, Marseilles 1947, 174-84; E. Kiihnel, Die
Moschee. Bedeutung, Einrichtung und kunsthistorische
Entwicklung der islamischen Kultstatte, Berlin 1949; E.
Lambert, La synagogue de Dura-Europos et les origines
de la mosquee, in Semitica, iii (1950), 67-72; H. Stern,
Les origines de Varchitecture de la mosquee omeyyade, in
Syria, xxviii (1951), 269-79; L. Torres Baibas,
Origen de las disposiciones arquitectonicas de las mezquitas,
in Al-Andalus, xvii (1952), 388-99; Creswell, The
Muslim architecture of Egypt. 1. Ikhshids and Fdtimids,
A.D. 937-1171. II. Ayyubids and Early Bahrite
Mamluks, A.D. 1171-1326. Oxford 1952-60; U.
Vogt-Goknil, Turkische Moscheen, Zurich 1953; E.
Egli, Sinan, der Baumeister osmanischer Glanzzeit,

Zurich 1954; Mar^ais, U architecture musulmane
d7 Occident: Tunisie, Algerie, Maroc, Espagne et Sidle,
Paris 1955; D. N. Wilber, The architecture of Islamic
Iran. The Il-Khanid Period, Princeton 1955; Lam¬
bert, Les origines de la mosquee et /’architecture religieuse
des Omeyyades, in SI, vi (1956), 5-18; Gabriel, Une
Capitale turque Brousse, Bursa, 2 vols., Paris 1958; G.
A. Puga£enkova, Puti razvitiya arkhitekturi Yuzhnogo
Turkmenistan pori rabovladeniya feodalizma . in Trudi
Yuzhno-Turkmenistanskoi Arkheologiceskoi Ekspeditsii,
vi, Moscow 1958; L. Golvin, La Mosquee. Ses
origines. Sa morphologie. Ses diverses fonctions. Son role
dans la vie musulmane, plus specialement en Afrique du
Nord, Algiers 1960; M. Useinov, L. S. Bretanitski
and A. Salamzade, Istoriyq arkhitekturi Azerbaidzhana ,
Moscow 1963; A. Dietrich, Die Moscheen von Gurgan
zur Omaijadenzeit, in I si ., xl (1964), 1-17;

Puga£enkova and L. I. RempeP, Istoriyq Iskusstva
Uzbekistana, Moscow 1965; A. Lezine, Architecture de
ITfriqiya, Paris 1966; Bretanitski, Zodcestvo
Azerbaidzhana XII-XV v. v., i ego mesto v arkhitekture
perednego vostoka, Moscow 1966; A. Kuran, The
mosque in early Ottoman architecture, Chicago and Lon¬
don 1968; O. Grabar, La Grande Mosquee de Damas
et les origines architecturals de la mosquee, in Synthronon.
Art et Archeologie de la fin de V Antiquite et du Moyen Age.
Recueil d'Etudes, Paris 1968, 107-14; idem , The
architecture of the Middle Eastern city from past to present:
the case of the mosque, in Middle Eastern cities, ed. I. M.
Lapidus, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1969, 26-46;
Creswell, Early Muslim architecture. Umayyads. A.D.
622-750, 2 vols., Oxford 1969; J. Sourdel-
Thomine, La mosquee et la madrasa. Types monumen-
taux caracteristiques de Part islamique medieval, in Cahiers
de civilisation medievale X e -XII e siecles, Universite de
Poitiers, Centre d7Etudes Superieures de Civilisation
Medievale, xiii/2 (1970), 97-115; Golvin, Essai sur
l'architecture religieuse musulmane, i-iv, Paris 1970-6;
G. Goodwin, A history of Ottoman architecture, London
1971; O. Aslanapa, Turkish art and architecture, tr. A.
Mill, London 1971; Kuran, Thirteenth and fourteenth
century mosques in Turkey, in Archaeology, xxiv/3
(1971), 234-54; S. Ogel, Der Kuppelraum in der
tiirkischen Architektur, Istanbul 1972; R. A. Jairaz-
bhoy, An outline of Islamic architecture, Bombay 1972;
R. Bourouiba, L'art religieux musulman en Algerie,
Algiers 1973; Grabar, The formation of Islamic art.
New Haven 1973; D. Kuban, Muslim religious
architecture, 2 vols., Leiden 1974-85; R. Hillen-
brand, Saljuq dome chambers in North-west Iran, in
Iran, xiv (1976), 93-102; D. Hill, Golvin and
Hillenbrand, Islamic architecture in North Africa, Lon¬
don 1976; J. D. Hoag, Islamic architecture, New York
1977; Vogt-Goknil, Die Moschee. Grundformen sakraler
Baukunst, Zurich 1978; C. Ewert and J.-P.
Wisshak, Forschungen zur almohadischen Moschee.
Lieferung 1: Vorstufen. Hierarchische Gliederungen
westislamischer Bet sale des 8. bis 11. Jahrhunderts: Die
Hauptmoscheen von Qairawan und Cordoba und ihr Bann-
kreis, Mainz 1981; B. Finster, Islamische Bau- und
Kunstdenkmaler im Yemen, in Archdologische Berichte aus
dem Yemen, i (1982), 223-75; R. B. Serjeant and R.
Lewcock (eds.), San c a\ An Arabian Islamic city, Lon¬
don 1983; Hillenbrand, The mosque in the medieval
Islamic world, in Architecture in continuity. Building in
the Islamic world today, ed. S. Cantacuzino, New
York 1985, 30-51. (R. Hillenbrand)

II. In Muslim India
A. Typology.

The nature of the regional building styles and their
characteristic decoration have been treated s.v. hind.

MASDJID

689

vii. Architecture, in Vol. Ill above. This section deals
with the essentia] typology of mosques in India, and
excludes the simplest structures used only for occa¬
sional. prayer such as the foWa-indications at some
tombs and graveyards [see makbara. 5. India], and
the special structures ( c idgah) provided for the Hds\ for
these see mu$alla. 2.

The continuous history of the mosque begins with
the M. Kuwwat al-Islam in DihlT, founded
immediately after the Muslim conquest in 587/1191.
There are however records of mosques founded
earlier, e.g. under the c Abbasid caliphate in Sind
[g.p.], by small communities of Muslim traders,
especially in Gudjarat and the Malabar coast, and by
individual $ufl ptrs who gathered a community
around them. The remains of these are mostly too
exiguous to be of value in a general statement. Recent
explorations by M. Shokoohy, not yet published, have
revealed a few structures, of'a century or two before
the conquest, at Bhadreshwar in Gudjarat. These, in
common with the first structures of any fresh conquest
of expansion, are constructed from the remains of
Hindu buildings; in the case of mosques built after a
conquest there has been a deliberate pillaging of
Hindu or Djavn temples, as an assertion of
superiority as well as for the expediency of making use
of material already quarried and of local impressed
labour before the arrival of Muslim artisans.
Examples of this are cited for different regions of
India s.v. hind, vii. Architecture, in Vol. Ill, p. 441
above. (It should be pointed out that the practice of
pillaging the buildings of the conquered is known in
India in the case of rival Hindu kings also.)

Where a mosque is actually constructed on the
plinth of a destroyed Hindu building (e.g. M.
Kuwwat al-Islam at Dihli; Atala M. at Djawnpur) the
kibla [ q . v. ] will probably not be accurately located and
the original cardinal west made to serve the purpose;
but in general an effort is made to observe the correct
kibla , which varies between 20° north of west in the
south of India to 25° south of west in the extreme
north, with a conventional west used only rarely in
original buildings.

Mosques which might be described as “public”—
i.e. not only the Masdjid-i djamt c of a particular locality
(and of course in a conurbation there may be a
separate dj.dmi c for each original mahalla ) but also the
individually-founded or endowed mosques within a
town—are enclosed on all sides. This has not been
required of mosques within a sard^i or a dargah, or
when the mosque is an adjunct of a tomb, and there
are countless instances of small private mosques
where there seems never to have been any enclosure.
The enclosure for the public mosque is particularly
necessary for Islam in partibus infidelium , and those
courtyards which are not enclosed are protected from
the infidel gaze in some other way, e.g. by the sahn
standing on a high plinth (examples: the Djami c M.
at Shahdjahanabad, DihlT, Atala M. at Djawnpur.
where in both the courtyard is limited only by an open
arcade or colonnade). The principal entrance is
usually on the east, although any gate may be on occa¬
sion specified as a royal entrance; it is rare, though
not unknown, for any entrance to be made in the
western wall, and where this has happened it is not
designed for access by the general public. The internal
position of the principal mihrab [q. v.], sometimes of
subsidiary mihrabs also, is indicated on the outside of
the west wall by one or more buttresses; a feature of
mosques in India is the way the exterior elevation of
the west wall is brought to life by decorative expe¬
dients.

The interior of the mosque admits of little variation
outside two well-defined types. In one the western end
(known in India as liwan) is a simple arrangement of
columns supporting a roof, usually of at least three
bays in depth but possibly of many more; the roof
may be supported by beam-and-bracket or by the
arch; the former arrangement being by no means con¬
fined to compilations of pillaged Hindu/Djayn
material. The liwan openings may be connected
directly with the arcades or colonnades of other sides
of the sahn. Where Hindu material has been used it is
usually necessary to superimpose one column upon
another in order to gain sufficient height, for not
infrequently a mezzanine gallery may be incorporated
in the structure, in the liwan or in the side riwaks.
These are frequently referred to as “women’s
galleries”, but this is surely impossible unless they are
placed to the rear of the structure so that women may
not make their prayers in front of men; gallery struc¬
tures in the liwan are more likely to be either reserved
for royal (male) use or to be cillas for the use of a local
pir. In the other type, the liwan is physically separated
from the sahn by a screen of arches ( maksura ), which
may conceal a columnar structure to the west, as in
the M. Kuwwat al-Islam where the maksura is a later
addition to the original structure, or in the mosques of
Gudjarat where the arch is not used with as much
freedom as in other styles. More commonly, however,
the arches of the maksura are part of a vaulting system
whereby the liwan is composed into one or more halls;
there is always an odd number of maksura arches, and
it is common for the bay which stands in front of the
principal mihrab to be singled out for special treat¬
ment, either by being made taller than the rest, or by
being specially decorated (the latter treatment com¬
mon in the mosques of BTdjapur [ q.v .]). (This is not
invariably the central bay, as mosques are not
necessarily symmetrical about the principal mihrab
axis; cf. the “Stonecutters’ M.” in Fathpur SikrT,
where a cilia occupies two additional bays at the north
end of the liwan , or the Arha^T Kangura M. at Kashi
Banaras, where the side riwaks of the liwan are of une¬
qual length.) In one mosque at BTdjapur (Makka M.),
the liwan stands within and unattached to the surroun¬
ding courtyard. A staircase is commonly provided to
give access to the liwan roof, either separately or incor¬
porated within the walls or the base of a minaret, as
this is a favourite place from which to call the adhdn ;
a staircase may be provided within a gateway for the
same purpose. The liwan roof may be surmounted by
one or more domes. Inside the liwan , the principal
mihrab stands within the west wall opposite the main
opening; if there are other mihrabs , the central one is
always the most sumptuously decorated and may be
set deeper within the west wall than the other. The
minbar is usually a permanent stone structure, with an
odd number of steps, only occasionally made an
object of decoration (splendid examples in the older
Bengal mosques and in the Malwa sultanate). A sim¬
ple minbar is often provided when not liturgically
necessary, as in the mosque attached to a tomb. There
is an exceptional case at BTdjapur, at the mosque
building for the cenotaph of Afdal Khan: the mosque
is two-storeyed, the two halls being exactly similar
except that a minbar is provided only in the lower one.
(In another first-floor mosque at BTdjapur, the Anda
M., there is no minbar ; the ground floor is apparently
a well-guarded sara^i, and the suggestion has been
made that the whole structure was intended for zandna
use.) The floor of the liwan is often marked out into
musallas of mihrabi shape for each individual worship¬
per. Lamps may be suspended from the liwan ceiling.

690

MASDJID

The hwan facade is open to the sahn; i.e. there is never
any portion closed off like the zimistan of Persian
mosques.

The sahn is usually an open courtyard, containing
a hawd [q-v.\ for the wudu\ this is usually placed cen¬
trally, except that in some Shl c I mosques the hawd
may be placed to one side of the central axis. There
are rare cases where the sahn is completely or partially
covered (e.g. the Djami c M. at Gulbarga [q. v. ] is com¬
pletely covered; in two mosques of the Tughlukid
period at Dihll, Khirki M. and Sandjar (Kali) M.,
additional riwaks leave only four small open court¬
yards in the middle of the sahn). In such cases provi¬
sion must be made for the wudu 5 outside the sahn;
some major mosques may also make provision,
outside the sahn, for the ghu$l. In some Gudjarat
mosques there is a water reservoir under the floor of
the sahn , sometimes with chambers wherein to take
refuge from the heat of the sun, with some sort of
kiosk standing in the sahn from which water may be
drawn; the idea is imitated on a small scale in the floor
of the Djami c M. in Fathpur SikrI. In one complex
(Radjon kl ba^In) south of the M. Kuwwat al-Islam
the mosque and an associated tomb seem subordinate
to an enormous step-well (bandit [<?.a.]).

One or more bays of the side or end riwaks may be
closed off for a special purpose, e.g. to make a room
for relics, or to serve as a room for the kadi or
mutawalli; in ShI c I mosques, sometimes to house the
c alams, etc., but these are usually accommodated in
the Imambard or c Ashura-khana where there is one. The
use of part of the mosque as a madrasa [q.v. ] is com¬
monplace, and many instances could be cited at the
present day where there is no special provision for
such a purpose; but there are instances of a special
building forming an integral appendage of the
mosque designated as a madrasa; e.g. M. Khayr al-
Manazil, near the Purana Kil c a in Dihll, where the
northern riwdk , of two storeys, forms the madrasa of
the foundation.

The sahn may be used also for graves, from the
simplest tombstone to elaborate mausoleums (see
makbara. 5); e.g. the DjamI* M. of Fathpur SikrI,
where most of the northern side of the sahn is occupied
by the tomb of Salim CishtI, the Zanana Rawda, and
the tomb of Nawwab Islam Khan (not so designed
originally, and possibly a dp 2 md c at-khdna for the saint’s
disciples).

A minar is by no means an invariable appendage to
the Indian mosque; apart from a few occasional early
instances, only in the Gudjarat sultanate, and in
Burhanpur in Kh andesh. was a functional minar pro¬
vided for the adhan before the Mughal period; after the
10th/16th century, the minar becomes common, but
not invariable. See further manara. 2. India.

The administration of the mosque may be under
the kadi [q. v. ] or, in the case of larger foundations, a
committee headed by a mutawalli Where a

mosque stands on a high plinth there may be openings
in it sufficiently large to be rented off as storerooms or
to traders, in which case the revenues accrue to the
mosque; see also wakf.

Bibliography : There are no studies dealing
with mosque typology alone; for works on all
architectural aspects, see the Bibliographies to
hind. vii. Architecture, and Section B. below.

(J. Burton-Page)

B. The monuments.

The development of the mosque in the subcontinent
can be recognised as an adaptation of the Arab pro¬
totype, largely as already modified by Iranian
builders, to local materials, climate, and the pro¬

clivities of a long-established tradition of architecture
and ornament. The Arab elements in this fusion were
those basic to the expression of the djamd^t, the collec¬
tive act of prayer and the simple, egalitarian liturgy:
the courtyard and its protective enclosure, the kibla
wall, here on the western side, the zulla or prayer hall,
here known as liwan, along the western wall, and col¬
onnades, riwak or daldn , along the other sides, with an
essential severity of outline and a spare orthogonal
framework. The Iranian elements were rhythmic
arcading, the prominent use of pishtak [q. v.} or fron¬
tispiece alcoves, the voussoired dome, ultimately dou¬
ble, and a particular sense of proportion; minarets did
not become general until relatively late, and then
often as decorative rather than functional features. A
gamut of Iranian decorative devices including ceramic
tiles [see kashI], cut plaster-work, gac-bari, plaster
relief work, munabbat-kari, and pietra dura inlay,
parcin-kari , besides the pseudostructural pendentive-
work, kalub-kdri, or squinch-netting. The Indian
elements, within the context of an elaborated stone¬
cutting technique, were initially a certain heaviness
due to the stone itself (especially in corbelled domes),
complexity in individual forms, a vibration set up by
the reiteration of forms at different scales, an interest
in diagonal axes, and an overwhelming fertility of
imagination in carved ornament. Indian traditions of
massing only influenced mosque design in a limited
way, and then largely through changes in dome form
and grouping. The traditions of temple building were
in strong contrast, creating massive, highly ornate
enclosures within which progressively more intimate
cells led to individual confrontation with a deity; the
vertical extension was frequently emphasised as much
as the horizontal. Despite this difference, a reconcilia¬
tion of these traditions led to an enlivening of the
mosque outline, especially on the skyline, with a fre¬
quent play of pinnacles and pavilions, much use of
receding planes, and in some cases a culminating cen¬
trality comparable with the Ottoman achievement.
The underlying Arab archetype retained its simplicity
of arrangement in most regions, though periodically
transformed in others. Evidence for the direct transfer
of skills from temple-building to mosque building,
which can be deduced from the earlier forms, is pro¬
vided by a Maru-Gurdjara architectural manual of
the 15th century A.D., the Vrksarnava , in a chapter on
the Rehmdna-prdsada , or temple of Rehmana, i.e. of
Allah, giving instructions for layout, orientation,
superstructure and exclusively floral decoration, all
within prescribed norms. The principal modifications
attributable to the climate are a tendency to raise the
courtyard level to catch wind currents and escape dust
and noise, a tendency to pierce the courtyard walls to
allow the currents through, and a preference for river¬
side sites. Specific architectural features are incor¬
porated, notably the finaly pierced dpali screen to
reduce glare, and the cha djdjd or eaves pent to throw
off monsoon water and increase shade. A general
trend in the chronological development is the move¬
ment from trabeated construction towards arcuate or
vaulted forms, though this is achieved with some
hesitation. This is in parallel with a progression from
a somewhat provincial emulation of Iranian or Cen¬
tral Asian types through local technique to a much
more accomplished creation of local types in which
influence from the Vildyat can still be traced. Although
the relative neglect of the madrasa [q-v.] as a building
form may have been due in part to a practice of
teaching within the mosque, this seems not to have
produced any overall adaptation of layout, unless in
the development of the undercroft.

MASDJID

691

The Arab conquest of Sind. It is recorded
that the first mosque in Sind was built by Muhammad
b. Kasim at Daybul [<?.t>.] after his capture of the city
in 92/711, followed by another at Multan [q. v. ] , next
year; he was urged to build mosques in every town,
the resources seized having proved unexpectedly
large. A third great mosque was built at Mansura
[g'.&.J either by his son ca. 120/738, or in the early
years of Abu Dja c far al-Mansur, i.e. after 136/754,
with teak columns. Little remains of these. If Daybul
is correctly identified with Bhambor, and the uncer¬
tain date of 109/727 is right, then the mosque there
may be among the oldest in Islam. Its plan is certainly
close to that of Kufa [q.v.], as rebuilt in 50/670, with
the same double rows of columns for the riwak, but
only three aisles (of twelve bays) parallel to the kibla
wall in lieu of five for the prayer hall; no trace has
been found of a mihrab recess, but neither has one
been found at Wasit [see mihrab], as built under the
same governor, al-Hadjdjadj b. Yusuf. Outer bays of
the riwak were walled off to form cells, hudjra , and
stone bases contain traces of timber pillars. Another
inscription gives 239/853-4; one in flowered Kufic for
294/906-7 probably refers to rebuilding after the
earthquake of 280/893. The building thus conforms to
the early c IrakI type, even to its strip foundations;
though in yellow freestone, it lacks the stone columns.
Pivots for gates in front of the liwan suggest some kind
of maksura. At Man$ura, the Djami c Masdjid appears
to have had a six-aisled prayer hall, built on an earlier
Hindu site; three smaller mosques show careful align¬
ment and external buttressing for a mihrab. In the
absence of detail, the influence of these buildings is
imponderable, but Daybul and Mansura survived
until the 7th/13th century, and Mansura like Multan
was taken by Mahmud of Ghazna; they can hardly
have been ignored. A further early mosque in Ka£h,
at Bhadresvar, has been identified by Shokoohy as a
rebuilding with purposely-carved stone ca. 560/1165.
This has a prayer hall of two aisles, a double riwak
colonnade at the sides, and a single one to the east.
The prominent mihrab is echoed outside the east wall,
which faces an open hypostyle hall, no doubt for an
overflow congregation. The roof is trabeated through¬
out, mostly on the east-west axis.

In the period preceding the Dihll Sultanate, the
principal mosques must have been at Lahawr [q.v.\,
the Gh aznawid centre (as MahmudpGr) from
412/1021, including the KhishtI Masdjid., of which
nothing remains, though brickwork is still typical of
the area.

Sultanate. At Dihll [q.v.] the victory of Kufb
al-Din [q.v. ] was proclaimed by the creation
(587/1191) of the Masdjid Kuwwat al-Islam, “The
Might of Islam”, on a temple plinth, with stonework
taken from 27 other temples by elephant-power. The
plan, of the same c IrakI type, is here elongated on the
east-west axis, and includes formally symmetrical
entrances to the east, north and south. The colon¬
nades in the prayer hall are four aisles deep, those to
the east three, and those down the long sides two. The
hall is now modified to include a row of five corbelled
domes, above five mihrabs , by adjustment of the bay
spacing to carry octagonal systems of lintels; this roof
was set higher than the riwak roofs, and mezzanines
were built at the four angles of the court, possibly for
women. Ingenious use of the strongly articulated tem¬
ple pillars, with cruciform capitals and internally
tiered domes, achieved a relatively light, harmonious
building, whose Hindu character was scarcely
disguised. In 595/1199, however, a great frontal
screen of five pointed arches was added to the hall. Its

clearly-framed format, with the central arch much
taller, is Iranian, and related to the Ghurid Shah-i
Mashhad in Ghardjistan (571/1175-6), or the Ribatd
Sharaf [q. v. ] (508/1114-15), but its construction is
limited to Indian techniques, with corbelled arches.
The marvellously vigorous combination of sinuous
Hindu carving with tughra inscriptions makes fresh use
of Indian skills for a Muslim purpose. The exag¬
gerated height of this screen, with no direct relation to
the hall behind, set a pattern for later buildings. In the
same year Ku{b al-Dln began the immense Ku{b
Mlnar [q. v. ] outside the southeast corner of the
mosque, much like that at Kh w adja Siyah Push in
Slstan, as a symbol of the centrality of faith; minarets,
if used at all in Hindustan, are usually symbolic rather
than functional until Mu gh al times. The exception is
at Adjmer. There the equally symbolic re-use of
temple components as “the annihilation of idolatry”
achieved more orderly expression in the ArhaT-din-
ka Djhonpra (595/1199), under Abu Bakr al-HirawI,
with some evidence of specially-cut masonry in the
lower column-shafts and tiered domes (see Meister,
op. cit. ), and a single, exquisite, cusped marble mihrab.
The court is almost square, and probably had nine
domes on all four sides, though there are five aisles in
the prayer hall to three elsewhere; the effect is
spacious, well-lit and calm. A reeded shaft graced
each external angle, and the site on a mound allowed
a grand approach stair to the east. Here too a great
screen wall was added, with seven arches, under Iltut¬
mish (607-33/1211-36), two lateral arches on each side
reflecting the cusped form of the mihrab ; the central
arch is less dominant than at Dihll, but is surmounted
by two minaret shafts (now stumps), reeded and
creased like the Kufb, so emulating a Saldjuk [q.v.]
pishtak. Iltutmish was to extend the work at Dihll.
Accepting Aybek’s plan, he enlarged the prayer hall
by a further three domes to north and south, with cor¬
responding mihrabs and screen wall. Corbels on the
latter suggest a double storey in each central bay, as
in later work in Gudjarat. The riwak , built as before,
now enclosed the first mosque, including the Mlnar,
to which he added three storeys [see dihlI for plan and
details] (completed 1229). The Shah! Djami c Masdjid
at Bari Khatu is of the same period and type, set on
a high plinth; it introduces an ornate domed gallery
over the east entrance. At Bada 5 un [q.v. ] the great
Djami c Masdjid built by Iltutmish in 620/1223-4
adheres to the same basic layout, but has been heavily
rebuilt.

c Ala :> al-Dln Khaldjl’s scheme to double the
Kuwwat al-Islam again fell victim to its own ambi¬
tion, for it was abandoned at his death. Remnants
show that it respected the existing alignments in
prayer hall, screen wall, and north gateway, and even
in the immense c Ala > I Mlnar which was to rise from
the centre of the new prayer court. The inherent sym¬
metry cannot have mitigated the disruption of wor¬
ship by three courts set within each other. The only
complete element to survive is the southern gateway,
or c Ala 5 I Darwaza (710/1311), set as a cdrfak on the
palace approach: an elegant, accomplished building of
a new order. Its vocabulary is recognisable in the
I>jama c at Khana at the dargah of Nizam al-Din (dated
for his death 725/1325), fully Muslim in style, and
built with new stone. This has no courtyard, but only
a prayer hall of three domed chambers, to each of
which there is a broad archway in the eastern facade.
The square central space, almost the same size as the
Darwaza, has a similar system of concentric keel
arches for its squinches, as in earlier Khurasanian
work (cf. Kirk Kiz near Termez), here carved,

692

MASDJID

framed, and supporting an octagonal cornice; above,
round the base of the smooth dome, are 32 arched
niches, four of them pierced to admit light. The grace
of the interior is achieved by a balance between the
four main arches, the squinches, and at a reduced
scale the mihrab and pairs of small arches at each cor¬
ner, sustaining interest at each level. Each arch, inside
or out, is contained by bands of inscriptions on the
extrados (derived from fiisht?), set off by lotus buds
lining the intrados, in recessed planes above the angle
shafts first introduced in Iltutmish’s screen. The now-
voussoired arch construction is masked by the carv¬
ing. The lateral bays have two domes each on
triangular pendentives, and may have been added
rather later. Externally, the lateral bays are sunk, and
the central one advanced and raised as a modest fron¬
tispiece; all are joined by a string course at mid-height
and a lotus-bud parapet. Each archway is latticed. A
provincial variant of the same style can be seen in the
Ukha Masdjid at Bayana, erected by Kutb al-Dln
Mubarak (716-20/1316-20). The mosques of the same
period at Djalor, Dawlatabad, Patan and Bharoc are
built from temple spoil, but that at Dawlatabad con¬
tinues the use of tapering, fluted corner buttresses,
and Bharoc, with its more conscious blending of
Hindu with Muslim elements, provides a starting
point for the Gudjaratl style, with latticed windows,
coffered ceilings over carefully-grouped columns, and
domes of two sizes over the liwan. The Djami c
Masdjid at Khambayat (ca. 1325) owes a more direct
debt to Dihli in its arches and massing, but local
features are evident in the merlon parapet, pinnacles
on the frontispiece, latticework set in a grid-like
frame, and pillars carrying a cusped arch just inside
the main archway. These examples attest to the diffu¬
sion of the style in western Hindustan.

An altogether different treatment of the mosque
was to characterise Tughluk building. Most of the
examples at Dihli are undated, and have been
ascribed to Firuz Shah, but it has been suggested
(Burton-Page, op. cit. in Bibl. , 1974, 15) that the large
Begampur Masdjid is better explained as built by
Muhammad b. Tughluk for his new city of Djahan-
panah (ca. 725/1325). Raised on a high plinth, it is
important in introducing the Iranian four-wan plan to
India. North and south, the twans are advanced well
into the court between heavy walls, boxing entrances
at the centre of each side; to the east, the projection
is outwards to a flight of steps, and to the west the tall
arch rises to twice the roof height between tapering-
octagonal stair turrets, framing a triple entrance to the
prayer hall. Here the main chamber is square, under
a large pointed dome completely masked by this
pishtak. The hall on either side is three-aisled, with
lesser domes, and 44 more domes cover the single
riwak all round the court, above arcades, and match¬
ing arched windows (for plan see ASIAR, iv [1871-2],
pi. x). Muhammad’s transfer of DihlT’s population to
Dawlatabad in 729/1329 appears to have depleted the
skilled labour force and led to its dispersion elsewhere,
notably in the BahmanI Sultanate; southward expan¬
sion emptied the treasury. Nevertheless, the change of
attitude introduced by Firuz Shah (752-90/1351-88)
was primarily an ethical one, in which his religious
integrity required a return to prescribed simplicity
and lack of ostentation. His building programme
encompassed many mosques and 120 khdnakahs in
Dihli and Flruzabad alone, under the architect Malik
Gh azi Shahna; given his stringent financial control, a
modest but durable type of construction was
inevitable. The fortified appearance of these mosques
probably owes more to Kh urasanian prototypes,

whose tapering round towers and massive walls had
met the needs of mud construction, than to the need
for defence (Ghiyath al-Dln, a Kara-’una Turk, may
have mediated this influence). The Djami c Masdjid at
FTruzshah Kotla (755/1354), now ruined, was built to
incorporate a tahkhana or undercroft, with arcaded
vaults accessible from three sides, the east fronting the
river. It once had three-aisled riwaks with multiple
domes, and 216 stone pillars about 16 ft. (4.87 m.)
high, around a central octagonal pool with its own
dome. To the north, one of the Ashoka’s stone pillars
was re-erected on a three-storey, arcaded pyramid as
a marker. The materials for this and Firuz Shah’s
other mosques are rough rubble stonework faced with
cund plaster, once whitewashed or painted, with a
minimum of mouldings. The common repertoire
included tall plain walls with merlons, plain lintels on
plain, squared quartzite piers set in twos or fours,
with elementary scrolled cross-brackets and capitals,
still Hindu in type, and two-centred arches of variable
width sunk in panels, sometimes concentric. Domes
were of a similar, helmet-like profile, set on framed,
recessed squinch arches. Externally, the mass is
emphasised by long flights of steps, projecting por¬
ches, and battered towers at the angles. The device of
the tahkhana , which allowed the lease of shop spaces to
sustain the mosque, is repeated at the Kalan Masdjid
(798/1387?) which exhibits these features, and an
unusual corridor around the prayer hall, besides
cannon-like guldasta pinnacles crowning the angle-
towers of the porch. The KhirkI Masdjid, also on a
tahkhana , repeats the three-aisled riwak , but in com¬
bination with three-aisled passages which traverse the
court on both axes, dividing it into four smaller
square courts. This four-court plan is to be seen in a
perhaps earlier form at the Sandjar Masdjid
(772/1370-1) at Nizam al-Dln, though there the riwak
and the passages are only one aisle deep, and the
courts are rectangular. This scheme, possibly derived
from Djayn temple plans, was presumably intended to
provide shade; the courts themselves were probably
covered by awnings, as in palaces at the time. It
intruded on the essential unity of the sahn and its con¬
gregation, and theexperiment was not repeated. The
mosque of Shah c Alam includes an early example of
a mezzanine gallery in the northwest corner; the inac¬
cessibility of such retreats leaves their purpose
uncertain.

The Djami c Masdjid at Iric (815/1412), some 40
miles north of Jhansi, demonstrates the transition
from the Tughluk to the Sayyid manner. The plan,
with single-aisled riwaks , is centred on a prayer
chamber whose dome spans the full depth of the hall,
with two aisles and six smaller domes on each side.
The structure is wholly arcuate, on low piers carefully
detailed to articulate both axes, with frequent use of
recessed planes; the arches are now stilted, with
marked corbelling at the impost giving a shouldered
effect, and set in deep panels. The riwak has groined
vaulting. The dome is single, a little pointed inside,
with ribs, and still set on concentric squinch arches.
The generally ponderous effect is offset by the assured
but simple proportions, and the skyline is relieved
with merlons (see Mem. ASI, xix, Calcutta 1926, for
drawings).

The Lodi mosque (Tughlukid) at Khavrpur
(900/1494) incorporates similar features, while its
massing shows the continuity of Tughlukid tradition
despite Timur’s incursion. Attached by a walled court
to the Bara Gumbad, it is balanced by an arched
structure opposite: a significant precedent for later
tombs. An arcaded basement makes up the change in

MASDJID

693

level at the rear, with tapering round buttresses at
each rear corner, and at each angle of the projecting
bay of the central mihrab, whose tops are alternately
reeded below guldasta pinnacles; a Hindu window is
corbelled out from the middle, and from either end
wall. The hall has five bays; the three in the middle
are domed, but the ends have low, flat vaults. The
elevation reiterates the pattern, with three broad
shouldered arches, and narrow ones at the
extremities. As at Iri£, the central pishtdk is raised a lit¬
tle, but here it is set between narrow, niched piers,
and the outer two bays are united by the line of a
cha djdja . Like its dome, the central arch, thrice
recessed, is a little higher than the others, and a
muscular tension results from the contrast of line. The
surfaces, worked outside and in with deeply cut
plaster, vibrate with countless arabesques; each
extrados is inscribed, and inscribed rosettes fill the
spandrels. Inside, they enhance pendentive systems of
oversailing lintels carved with mukarnas [q.v.] niches.
The vocabulary is further enlarged by blind merlon
parapets, counterset trefoils around the octagonal
dome bases (precursors of later foliation), and
spreading lotus finials, mahapadma. The development
of this type is apparent in the Moth kl Masdjid ( ca .
911/1505), where the lateral domes are shifted to the
end bays, in a much freer spacing. There they are
supported on similar corbelled pendentives, as long
used in Iran, while the central dome rests on squinch
arches. The five facade arches are narrower, and a
lancet window is added at each end. The pishtdk now
encloses a lofty blind arch reacing the parapet, which
frames the entrance arch below, and a window above,
as anticipated in the mihrab at Khayrpur. The two cor¬
ner buttresses give way to polygonal towers, arcaded
in two storeys. White marble is used to set off the red
sandstone, with coloured tilework, notably on chains
at the courtyard corners, and painted carved plaster.

Despite his dissatisfaction with this style, Babur
appears to have secured little improvement at his
mosques (932/1526) at Kabuli Bagh, Panipat and
Sambhal, beyond introducing Timurid squinch net¬
ting. Humayun, however, developed it further in the
Djamall Masdjid (943/1536) at Dihli, in the same five-
bay format. This only has one dome. The pishtdk is
contained between engaged reeded shafts that
anticipate the Mughal use of minarets. The four-
centred arches on either side are separated by large
superimposed niches, which help to maintain the
rhythm, and their haunches are slight. Kh aldjl lotus
buds are re-introduced on the central intrados. The
Masdjid-i Kuhna at the Purana Kil c a (ca. 1535-60?)
shows further refinement. Each of its five arches is
contained within a taller blind one, and that in a
panel. The end bays, broken forward, resemble the
Djamall pishtdk , but the three middle ones are set
deeper, with delicate angle shafts, and are propor¬
tionately taller. The fine ashlar incorporates the first
geometric marble mosaic, after Timurid models, and
elaborate moulding profiles. Inside, the rippling
recessed arches carry squinch arches below the promi¬
nent central dome, niched pendentives on either side,
and arched cross ribs with vaulting at either end,
again of a Timurid type.

Regional developments. Bengal.

Remains from the early Muslim annexation are
very limited. At Tribeni, an inscription framing the
mihrab is dated 698/1298, but the mosque has been
rebuilt, as has the Salik mosque at Basirhat
(705/1305). At (Shota Pandua [see pandua, Chota]
ruins of a large brick mosque include basalt Hindu
columns supporting well-rounded, two-centred arches

of a type that remained typical of Bengal, and mihrabs
with carved trefoil heads above ringed shafts, plainly
derived from Hindu niches, though within diapered
Muslim frames, and a kiosk-like minbar [< 7 . 0 .]. It may
have been the model for the huge Adina Masdjid
at Hadrat Pandua (776/1374-5)( 154.70 x 87 m.),
which has similar features. There the broad courtyard
resembles that of the Great Mosque at Damascus in
its proportions and the dominance of a maksura-hkt
bay at the centre of the prayer hall, once vaulted over.
This runs through the hall, with five arches leading to
five aisles of 18 bays on either side, but the presence
of a royal mezzanine in the north wing leaves its pur¬
pose in doubt. Triple-aisled riwaks surround the court
behind plain, stone-faced arcades, each arch recessed
once within a panel. The simple pillars support brick
cross arches between which spherical pendentives of
corbelled brick carry 378 identical low domes, punc¬
tuated only by the maksura. Outside, the ashlar wall is
advanced and recessed in alternate vertical strips
traversed by cornice and string course, each set off by
an aedicule containing a cusped arch and lamp.
Although never repeated at this scale (32 mthrabsl)
such treatment of detail was to inform most subse¬
quent work. From the 9th/15th century onwards,
mosques took a closed form in response to the wet
climate, with the characteristically curved Bangall
eaves line, but still with the massive polygonal corner
buttresses of the period. Thus the Camkatta Masdjid
at Gawr (ca. 880/1475?) has a single square chamber
of brickwork surmounted by a single dome; it has
single openings centred north and south, and three to
the east giving on to a vaulted verandah running the
full width, again with single doors to north and south,
and three to the east. The piers between the arched
openings carried aedicules set high, and glazed
tilework. The Lattan Masdjid (880/1475-6) is similar,
but with a more complete symmetry, having three
openings to north and south, and three mihrabs
opposite the doors, three domes over the verandah,
and intermediate “corner” buttresses; the central
verandah dome has a roof with four curved eaves—a
cawcdla. It was once tiled outside and in. The Gun-
mant Masdjid at Gawr (889/1484?) encloses four bays
of three aisles, all domed, on either side of a central
maksura , the stonework of whose vault is carved in
relief. A further variant is illustrated by three mosques
at Gawr. The Thantipara Masdjid (885/1480) is rec¬
tangular, enclosing five bays of two aisles, with a
single line of four stone pillars to carry its ten domes.
Fine terracotta reliefs fill the spandrels and the two
registers of aedicules on the piers outside. At the
Chota Sona Masdjid, built between 899/1493 and
925/1519, the plan is comparable, but of three aisles;
its central bay is wider, and has three cawcdla roofs in
lieu of domes. Its ashlar front is finely carved, and the
dome was once gilded. The Bara Sona Masdjid
(932/1526) combines eleven bays of three aisles with
a verandah forming a further aisle down the front,
facing an open quadrangle with arched gateways; the
stone is remarkably plain. Such forms continued well
into the Mughal period, as seen in the Kutb Shah!
mosque at Hadrat Pandua (990/1582).

Dj awn pur. A mosque begun in 778/1376 by
Flruz Shah Tughluk was completed under the
independent SharkI sultans (811/1408); its name,
Atala Masdjid, apparently refers to the pylon-like
pishtdk which was to become the dominant trait of
subsequent buildings here (Sk. attdla = “watch
tower”, see Lehmann, op. cit., 23), exaggerating the
great screen-arch at Dihli. The four -iwan plan is
apparently derived from the Begampur Masdjid at

694

MASDJID

Dihli, though the Twdn walls are reduced to massive
spurs outside the enclosure, and those to north and
south have domes carried on clustered columns, leav¬
ing the three-aisled riwak unimpeded. Only the
western Twdn still boxes in space in the prayer hall,
accessible through triple doors as before, but with bi¬
axial symmetry, three arches on either side maintain¬
ing the continuity of the three prayer hall aisles; the
frontal turrets are now resolved as square towers
tapering five stories to accommodate the pTshtdk arch,
whose recessed tympanum is pierced in three registers
to reveal the open air beyond. This pylon, used for
giving the a<jhdn, is echoed at 1/3 scale on either side
in the liwan wings, and in the remaining Twins outside
the remarkable two-storey colonnade; it may have
been suggested by the pierced archway of the Shavkh
Barha mosque at Zafarabad (711/1311), though its
scale perhaps owes something to Pandua [for further
description, see djawnpur]. Tapering cylindrical tur¬
rets at the angles of the rear wall attest to Tughlukid
influence. At the Lai Darwaza Masdjid (ca.
852/1447), built on the same pattern, the structure
behind the main Twdn is still lighter, minimising
obstruction of the prayer hall below the central dome,
though mezzanines are set on either side; the absence
of lateral domes, due to the smaller scale, leaves that
at the centre uncluttered. The dome piers, with
massive Hindu brackets, contrast oddly with the
Iranic slenderness of the colonnades. In structural
terms, the Djami c Masdjid (842/1438, but finished
under Husayn Shark!) is a reversion to the Begampur
type, with boxed-in, domed Twins on all four sides,
and the same high undercroft. In the prayer chamber
the colonnades are eliminated except under the mez¬
zanines either side of the central chamber, where the
pillars are paired to match its piers, for the wings are
again boxed in by heavy masonry supporting the roof
of a single pointed barrel vault spanning east and
west, on either side. The prayer hall is thus divided
into three spaces free of supports, but separated by
their cross walls and the two-storey mezzanines. The
same triality is seen in the facade. The simply niched
towers and arcaded tympana of the earlier pTshtdks are
transmuted into a rhythmic display of framed and
fretted openings. The dichotomy between high frontal
screen and the dome hidden behind is nowhere more
pronounced than here. Related mosques are to be
found at Itawa (Djami c Masdjid) and Banaras
(Arha 3 ! Kanguar).

Gudjarat. In a sandstone architecture, drawing
more than that of any other region on the Hindu and
Jain traditions, two tendencies in mosque design had
already emerged in the Kh aldj! phase already referred
to: the screening of the prayer-hall front between a
series of archways, as at Khambayat (after Nizam al-
D!n at DihlT), or the treatment of the hall as an open
colonnade, given additional rhythm by the surge of
domes above the cha didia line, as at Bharoc. In either
case the domes were carried by the Hindu device of
beams spanning between two columns grouped to
convert each square bay to an octagon. Remaining
square bays were panelled in intricately recessed
layers of coffering, whose cellular carving matched
that of the domes. Pillars with markedly stratified
round shafts above squared, faceted pedestals, carry
vigorously curved brackets never far from living
movement. The proportions of the three-arched
screen are carefully repeated at Dholka in the mosque
of Hilal Kh an Kadi (733/1333), but with bracketed,
tiered pinnacles marking the pTshtdk so prominently as
to suggest the minarets which followed; the central
dome, raised a storey above the roof, is surrounded by

pierced screens. The same scheme, with its lower
wings on either side, recurs at Ahmadabad in Sayyid
c Alam’s mosque (815/1412), with half-rounded,
tiered and bracketed buttresses framing the central
arch as bases for fully functional mTndrs in a com¬
parable style. The larger domes are now true,
hemispherical ones. The development reaches fruition
in the Djami c Masdjid at Ahmadabad (826/1423)
where the roof at the front of the three central bays is
raised for a clerestory, with mezzanine galleries
between, and the central dome is raised a further
storey, so that light can enter indirectly at two levels,
filtered by a pierced screen set in the usual Gudjarat!
gridframe of stone: the remaining domes, three deep
and five in the length of the hall, surround these three
at the lower level. The mTndrs, once four times this
height, fell in 1819 (see J. Forbes’ drawing of 1781 in
ASWI, vii [1906], 30). The Masdjid of Malik c Alam
(1422?) combines a single arch with such minarets
and an open front. Continuing interest in the open
type of hall is seen, as at the mosque at Sarkhedj
(855/1451), where 140 pillars, grouped as usual to
support two rows of five equal domes, are set through¬
out in pairs to achieve an elegantly simple unity below
a continuous roof line; there is little carving but for
the mihrabs. The Djami c Masdjid at Campaner
(Mahmudabad) (924/1518-9) works variations on that
at Ahmadabad. The eleven main domes are stag¬
gered, the central one being set over a single central
bay rising through three roof levels, behind a pTshtdk
which now overlaps the mTndr on either side, and
incorporates three corbelled bay windows. The hall
wings ( bdzdha) thus maintain a single roof line, with a
plain walled front pierced by two arches each side, but
there are now corner turrets to match the octagonal
mTndrs. The main dome is ribbed inside, the side ones
still corbelled, and the carved panels have filigree
tendril-work. As at Ahmadabad, the riwak is one aisle
deep; three entrance pavilions outside the wall carry
prominent chains, and the wall itself is strongly mod¬
elled. The mosque of Ran! Rupawat! (ca. 916/1510)
shows a hall of only three domes treated similarly,
with bay windows playing a more conspicuous role in
modulating the front and ends. The culmination of
the open hall design at the mosque of Ran! Sipri
(Saban), also at Ahmadabad (920/1514), fronting her
tomb, has two rows of three corbelled domes, with
only one row of pillars down the centre, and another,
paired, in front, enlivened by alternate spacing. The
extreme delicacy of this small-scale scheme is most
evident in the slender, but solid and purely decorative
mTndrs now set at each end of the facade—a device
already introduced at the mosque of Muhafiz Kh an
(897/1492) with full minarets. These two traditions
were reconciled in the mosque of Shavkh Hasan
Muhammad Cisht! (973/1565-6), a pillared hall of
three mihrabs in which the front is arcaded between
terminal mTndrs, and the central five bays are raised in
an upper storey of verandahs around a single dome.
Sid! Sa c !d al-Habshl’s mosque (980/1572-3), still at
Ahmadabad, has five bays of three aisles with
intersecting arches, supporting shallow domes over
squinches, lintels and corbels, but is remarkable for its
ten large tracery lunettes, of which two are unrivalled
in the sinuous naturalism they bring to the interior.

Malwa. An initial phase of redeployed temple
material is distinguished by a simple grace which
remained typical of the kingdom. At the Djami c
Masdjid (or Lat Masdjid) at Dhar (807/1404-5) the
proportions of a single smooth hemispherical dome
impart a spaciousness to the centre of the prayer hall
colonnades, complemented by a pattern of flagstones,

MASDJID

695

and a peaked, cusped mihrdb arch; outside, its coronet
of merlons enhances the traces of a tiled merlon
parapet over the open front. One domed porch is sur¬
rounded by coved vaults, and in another false arch
profiles are inserted between the pillars as in
Gudjaratl temples. The first mosque at Mandu, that
of Dilawar Khan (808/1405-6) is spartan, however,
with its hall of elemental columns relieved only by
seven mihrabs. Its successor, that of Malik Mughlth
(835/1432) presents a more Tughlukid exterior, with
an arcaded undercroft in front between domed tur¬
rets, and the prominent stair often used here. The
open, pillared prayer hall has three low, helmet-like
domes. These, though still supported by an octagon of
lintels, are partly enclosed by similar false arches
below, with web spandrels, well integrated with the
mihrabs behind. The Djami c Masdjid (858/1454) has
the same undercroft and steps, and the three main
domes again span three rear aisles of the hall, but
there are now two aisles in front of them, which with
the triple aisles of the side riwak s are covered with
ranks of small domes, one to each bay, 158 in all. The
building is mature, wholly Muslim, and of a sturdy
dignity. The heaviness of strongly stilted domes is
balanced by the grace of matching arcades round the
court; the lofty hall is intersected by arches over plain,
squared pillars, and articulated with blind wall arches
and a characteristic flaring squinch. Each end dome
covers a mezzanine set on nine bays of cross-vaulting.
The pink stone is almost plain. The Djami c Masdjid
at Canderi is comparable, though remarkable for
serpentine brackets developed from those of the minbar
at Mandu.

Khandesh. A similar restraint in the Djami c
Masdjid at Burhanpur is conspicuous in its open hall
front of 15 uniform arches, relieved only by a dancing
alternation of large and small trefoil merlons, and the
reiteration of cha djdjd brackets, the arcaded court
appearing larger thereby (997/1589). The interior of
the hall is equally regular, with five aisles of cross
vaulting sustained by plain squared pillars decorated
only on their bases, and a crested mihrdb to each bay,
rising above the string course, with three recessed
arches finely chiselled in the dark stone. A substantial
octagonal minor rises from a faceted square base at
each end of the hall front, topped by a square lantern
and a dome. Similar tall but plain minors appear else¬
where in the city, and most notably as a pair flanking
the pishtak arch of the BTbT ki Masdjid, with four
djharokha windows below their domes. Their tiered
form otherwise resembles that at Campaner, there is
even a djharokha on either side fronting the three-
domed hall, whose organisation is apparently based
on Rani Rupawatl’s mosque at Ahmadabad (see ASI,
NIS, ix, 1873-5).

Bahmani Sultanate. The interpretation of the
liwdn as a simple repetition of arched bays is already
present in the Shah Bazar Masdjid at Gulbarga ( ca .
761/1360?), in an open-fronted hall of 15 bays of
crossed arches in six aisles, all of them domed. The
arches, set on tall piers, are recessed once, shouldered
at the impost and stilted; the domes are low. At the
Djami c Masdjid (769/1367, thus contemporary with
the KhirkI and Sandjar mosques at Dihli) similar
arches and squared piers are deployed quite dif¬
ferently to cover what would normally be the court
with 63 domes on pendentives of corbelled work on
angle. The riwaks are replaced by broader aisles
roofed by rows of transverse pointed barrel vaults
countering the thrust of these, with a large dome at
each corner; these vaults rest on arches set on very low
imposts, the contrasts in height adding interest to the

interior, while light floods in from arcades in the outer
wall. A still larger dome is set in front of the mihrdb ,
heavily stilted, over trilobed squinches echoing the
mihrdb itself, and set in a square clerestory (cf. that in
the mosque of Karim al-Dln at Bldjapur, 720/1320).
The ensemble recalls bazar architecture in Iran; it was
without sequel, like the experiments at Dihli. A
variant of the arcaded open liwdn at the Dargah of
Mudjarrad Kamal (ca. 802/1400) has carved stucco
archivolts and rosettes, with an extraordinary
“entablature” of depressed cusped arches on sinuous
brackets. The Djami c Masdjid (Solah Khamba) in the
Fort at BTdar [q.v. ] is another version (827/1423-4),
whose long front of 19 arched bays has square piers,
and the five-aisle interior round pillars, carrying small
domes on squinches. Heavy piers form a maksura
enclosing the central three bays, from which squin¬
ches on sinuous brackets carry a tall 16-sided drum lit
by fine djdlis, and a single large dome whose outer
form is close to the domes at Multan [q.v. ] while its
supports recall the Tughlukid Twin at Begampur. The
small three-bayed Langar ki Masdjid at Gulbarga (ca.
838/1435?) introduces a single pointed brick vault
over two arched ribs.

Barld ShahI. At Bldar, the use of tall arches on
low imposts is resumed at the Djami c Masdjid (ca.
926/1520?), recessed once, with angular matching
squinches articulated with great clarity below plain
domes (cf. those in southern Iran). A transition to the
Bldjapur vocabulary can be seen in the Kali Masdjid
(1106/1694-5), where the three front arches are
framed by a pair of slender, formalised minors , and the
decagonal mihrab recess is housed in a square rear
tower carrying a cartdk lantern, and a slightly bulbous
dome as introduced at the Madrasa of Mahmud
Gawan (877/1472); a domical vault roofs the central
bay. A small mosque at the tomb of C A1I Barld
(984/1576), handled similarly, has three domes on
squinch-net pendentives, and a fretted cresting.

c Imad Shahi. The Djami c Masdjid at Gawilgarh
[q.v.\, rebuilt in 893/1488, already combined a seven-
arched hall facade on square piers with a square pylon
at either end topped by a chatri with djdli -work in the
sides, and cha djdja s on serpentine brackets, but other¬
wise follows the Bahmani pattern of a dome over
every bay, and a larger one raised on a tall drum at
the centre; an arcaded screen wall surrounds its court.
This is repeated at a smaller scale in the Djami c
Masdjid at Rohankhed (990/1582), where four pylons
with chatris now form the hall ends, with a single cen¬
tral dome: the imposing south gateway has extensive
carving.

Nizam Shahi. The Damn Masdjid at Ahmad -
nagar, small and precise, has a three-arched facade
flanked by ornate pylons, which carry four graceful
minors capped by bud-like domelets. Octagonal pillars
form two arched aisles supporting a flat roof. At the
centre of a decorative parapet two slim minarets frame
an arch profile, as in the Badal Mahall Darwaza at
Canderi. No superstructure remains on the corner
piers of the Dilawar Khan mosque at Khed, but the
exterior is enhanced by cusped arches, with two
panelled bands running all round, and lotus
medallions in relief. The central dome set on a square
base imitates a tomb, complete with cha djdja s and cor¬
ner chatris. Inside, columns with volutes carry a coved
ceiling.

c A d i 1 Sh ah I. At Ray£ur [<?. v. ] in the disputed Do-
ab, a series of liwans were built with flat ceilings over
black basalt Calukyan pillars whose short, heavy pro¬
files are compensated by a deep parapet; the Ek
Mlnar ki Masdjid has a tapering, free-standing minor

696

MASDJID

20 m, high (919/1513). In Bldjapur [q.v. ] the Bldar
vocabulary was elaborated in dark stone. Thus in the
Djami c Masdjid of Yusuf (918/1512-3) the slightly
bulbous dome, set on a tall cylindrical drum, is
familiar but for the foliation around its base, as is the
dominance of the central arch, its form, and the
articulation of line and squinch within; what is new,
and characteristic, is the prominence given the dome,
and the domed cdrtdk lanterns at each comer, well
above the roof line. The same three-bay format is used
in the Djami c Masdjid of Ibrahim (ca. 957/1550?),
where a flat, domeless roof with sturdy domed guldasta
pinnacles at each corner is relieved by a panelled mindr
set over each front pier. Cusped arches surround its
mihrdb. The mosque of Ikhlas Kh an (ca. 968/1560?) is
similar, with the addition of a lantern in two storeys
above the mihrab , and a cusped central arch. All three
arches are cusped, and repeatedly recessed, in the
mosque of c AlI Shahid Plr where a pointed vault (as
at Gulbarga) runs parallel to the front, and a tall
domed shaft rises over the mihrdb. In all of these
carved stucco decoration, notably rosettes, is promi¬
nent. A mosque in the fort at Naldrug (968/1560) may
have one of the first double domes in India. At the
Djami c Masdjid of Bldjapur, the largest in the Deccan
(985/1577-8?), these elements achieve mature expres¬
sion. Its prayer hall, nine bays long and five aisles
deep, is articulated with a calm strength, only an
alternation of squinch detail varying a uniform struc¬
ture with shallow domes; four piers at the centre are
omitted, and intersecting pendentive arches are
inserted in a miraculous change of scale to carry the
dome (as already found in the tomb of Sultan Kallm
Allah at Bldar and based on Tlmurid antecedents.
Clerestory arches with fine (Ijdlis light it through a
square base rising above the roof, but the dome, still
of the Multan shape above its foliation, remains dim,
as usual here. Two features are innovations. At the
east end of each seven-bayed riwdk is an octagonal
base for an unbuilt mindr; the entire external wall is
modelled with two registers of arcading, the upper a
corridor, and the lower blind. Both may be derived
from the Musalla at Harat (841/1437-8) [q.v.]. A cen¬
tral courtyard tank anticipates Mughal practice.
Stucco is partly replaced by carved stone at Malika
Djahan Begam’s mosque (ca. 995/1586-7), in which
the dome now suggests a sphere in its collar of leaves,
repeated at each stage of four corner minarets; guldasta
lanterns, fretted cresting, and pendant stone chains
compound a new elegance. The same character
informs the Anda Masdjid (1017/1608) in fine ashlar,
set back above a sard > i, with a gadrooned dome, and
the mosque at the Mihtar-i Mahal], domeless, with
rod-like minars , and four prolonged cha djdjd brackets
engaged to the piers. Its acme is the mosque at the
Ibrahim Raw<^a (1036/1626), facing the tomb across
a plinth within a walled garden; brilliant use is made
of elements repeated at a miniature scale to comple¬
ment the whole. Aftfal Khan’s mosque (1064/1653) is
on two floors, the upper probably for women, as at the
Anda mosque. The style was taken as far south as
Sante Bennur. Much of the extravagant ornament is
discarded in the Makka Masdjid, in the latter half of
the century, free-standing within a riwdk continued to
the west.

✓

Kutb ShahI. At Golkonda [q.v.], the first capital,
the ruins include a Djami c Masdjid built by Sultan
Kult Kutb al-Mulk in 924/1518 near the Bala Hisar
Darwaza. The regional achievement is best
represented by the mosques at Haydarabad [#.*/.],
which were given a new emphasis on height, accen¬
tuated by the concentration of external detail in the

fascia between the cha djdj d and the skyline, and com¬
plemented by arcaded galleries around powerfully
contoured minars. The multiple guldastas on fretted
parapets, and foliated bulbous domes are, like the
stucco, inherited from Bldjapur. The Djami c Masdjid
(1006/1597-8) has a spacious arched hall behind a
front of seven bays divided unusually into two
registers, the upper one of cusped arches being carried
on struts from the pier imposts; the central arch,
broader and taller than the others, is surmounted by
a plain profile in the upper section. The Makka
Masdjid, begun ca. 1026/1617, and continued until
finished by Awrangzlb in 1105/1693, is set behind a
square courtyard reputed to hold 10,000 worshippers,
with a hall two aisles deep and five tall bays wide. In
the plain ashlar facade, the central arch is slightly
larger, as the only variation below the strong horizon¬
tal of a cha djdjd on linked brackets, spanning between
the broad galleries of the turrets at either end, each of
which is crowned by a bulbous dome on a marked
necking. The columns carry arched pendentives and
domes, with a coved central bay. Verticality is partic¬
ularly pronounced in the Toll Masdjid (1043/1633-4),
where the five narrow arches of the front are stilted
above impost blocks on the tall piers, and a tall
parapet of arched screens joins the mindr galleries for
their full height; each shaft has two further galleries
above roof level. Extensive use is made of cut plaster,
syncretic in style. For other developments in the
south, see mahisur. 2. Monuments.

Kashmir [q.v.]. The combination of a mountain
climate and plentiful timber have resulted in a tradi¬
tion of mosque building in a blockhouse technique of
laid dewddr logs and pitched roofs with birchbark sark-
ing topped by turf. In parallel with Dakhani mosques,
the basic constructional unit had much in common
with the local tomb type, a near-cubical volume set on
a stone base, the corners emphasised by timber join¬
ting, and roofed by a pyramid, sometimes tiered, with
a slim spire at the centre. Frequent renewal after fires
renders dating unreliable, though the type seems to
have been used since the 8th/14th century. At
Shrinagar in the mosque of Shah Hamadan, the
volume is modulated by large roofed balconies on
each outside face, and the roof by a square arcaded
mu^a dhdh in *s gallery below the peaked spire. Four
tapering octagonal columns support a painted ceiling,
with small rooms ranged to north and south. Cusped
round arches contrast with the rhythms of varying
timber lattices and panelling. At the I)jami c Masdjid
(last built 1085/1674), a variant of the iour-iwdn plan
places four of these units symmetrically around a
square court, joined by four-aisled riwdks full of
timber columns. Three form arched gateways, while
the larger one to the west rises between walls of arched
panelling over paired columns at the riwak ends in an
expansion of light and space, focussed on the simple
arches of a large mihrdb in a fenestrated wall. In this
case the outer walls are of brick with a simple repeated
window, contrasting with the four spired roofs. In
Baltistan and Kuhistan simple open tiwans of one or
two aisles are supported on wooden columns, often
fluted above a waisted base, and with brackets carved
in repeated waves supporting beams on the long axis;
here the connection with Turkestan building is
evident.

Mughal Empire. During Akbar’s minority, the
Tlmurid innovations introduced under Humayun
remained in currency, associated with the harem fac¬
tion, as in the mosque and madrasa of Maham Anaga
(Anga), the Khavr al-Manazil (969/1561-2) whose
three bays to the court are close in format to the cen-

MASDJID

697

tral three at Purana Kil c a with a slightly raised pishtdk
advanced between clustered shafts, and four-centred
arches whose tympana are pierced with archways at a
lower level; only the single dome has an awkward,
old-fashioned stilt. The arch spandrels are inlaid. The
screened upper storey of rooms enclosing the court on
three sides appears to be unique for the period, while
the portal is the first to use a semidomed iwdn. At
Fafhpur Slkri [g.u.] these forms are less in evidence.
Although the front of the Stonecutters’ Mosque ( ca .
973/1565) is arched, originally in five bays, the arch
profile is cut from thin slabs set between thicker posts,
the cha didjd is supported by long, sinuous brackets,
and the internal row of pillars is Hindu. The organisa¬
tion of the great Djami c Masdjid (979/1571-2) stems
from Djawnpur via Bayana, where the technique of
assembling cut stone components was already well-
developed a century earlier (fieldwork by Shokoohy
1981). Three domed spaces at the centre and amid
either wing of the liwdn are each contained within
massive walls pierced by symmetric arches to com¬
municate with the columned spaces between, where
flat, beamed roofs are supported on Hindu brackets,
all in red sandstone; the central dome set on squinch
arches is painted with swirling floral patterns, and the
lateral ones are ribbed, lit through the drum, and car¬
ried on corbelled pendentives. The front of the hall
with its alternation of broad and narrows bays, thin
spandrels, long cha djdjd s. and the form of the pillars
appears to be Gudjarat! in origin, as does the great
tank under the courtyard. At the centre, however, is
a great pishtdk of the Dihll type, with a semi-dome,
completely screening the stilted and lumpish dome
behind. The wings are of half the height, and relieved
by queues of little chatris along the skyline, like the
riwaks with their central twans : these once served as
lanterns. Although the awkward column-spacing
under the lateral domes of the Atala Masdjid has been
resolved, and much is made of the three main spaces,
their walls still interrupt the unity of the hall.

The Mosque of Maryam Zamam (1023/1614) at
Lahawr [q.v.], known as the Begam Shah! Masdjid,
and built of brick following local practice, achieves an
unencumbered prayer hall of five square, domed com¬
partments in line, interconnected by single arches
springing from heavy piers at front and rear. The cen¬
tral compartment is wider, with a larger dome than
the others, still stilted, but housing an inner shell
which, though only of plaster, was probably the first
used in a mosque in the north. The new arch shape
extends to the squinches, with mukarnas semi-domes,
and the domes are articulated with netting, the whole
being elaborately painted with floral, geometric, and
inscriptional designs. Outside, the liwdn front follows
the model of the Djamal! Masdjid, with blind
superimposed niches on the pier faces, but the arches
are now simple in profile, the front is in one plane but
for the vaulted iwdn, and there are square, domed tur¬
rets at either end. The Masdjid-i Wazlr Khan
(1044/1634-5) in the same city has a liwdn of the same
kind, both outside and in, as before punctuated by a
mihrab below a semidome in each bay, with penden¬
tives rising to carry the inner dome shells in the wings,
and squinches at the centre. The dome profile is
lower, with minimal stilting, but still unlike the profile
of the five arches. The turrets are here full-sized
octagonal minars with chatris above the galleries, and
are echoed by a second pair at the east of a long court.
The brickwork forms shallow panels between
orthogonal fillets, containing a sumptuous variety of
tile mosaic; the interior is painted.

A series of court mosques faced entirely in white

marble—seen as “pure 1 like the heart of the austere”
( Badshah-nama , ii/1, 155)—was probably initiated at
Agra [q.v.] with the tiny, perfectly simple Mina
Masdjid and the larger, three-bayed Naglna Masdjid
within the Fort. The latter, in which the lower dome
profile has been transformed by necking above a torus
moulding into a smooth bulbous shape with a large
pointed mahdpadma (Bldjapuri influence is suggested
by the crescent above), represents an attempt to
eliminate the conflict between emphasis on the central
bay, and that on the dome behind, by replacement of
the pishtdk with an upward curve of the cha didjd and
parapet, in the new Bangall fashion, at the middle.
This accommodates the larger central arch; the arches
are engrailed, probably to reduce glare when viewed
from inside. In the mosque at the Tadj Mahall [q.v.],
the same conflict is resolved by raising the level of the
facade over the two lateral arches almost to pishtdk
level, and including a blind arched panel above each.
This scheme is repeated at Lahawr in the mosque of
Da 3 ! Anga (1045/1635-6), the corner turrets contain¬
ing the taller front as before; the side arches are sur¬
mounted by great cusped arch heads, and the Lahawr!
panelling is of tile mosaic inside and outside the three
interpenetrating square compartments. The treat¬
ment of the Madrasa Masdjid at Patna (ca.
1_040/1630) is comparable. The Fathpur! Masdjid at
Agra, flanked by the same flaring turrets, has a fully
bulbous dome, but a tall marble pishtdk in front over
a deep iwdn , and low wings; its red stone is finely
worked in relief, notably in the pendentives and inner
dome. Like it, the Mot! Masdjid at Lahawr (ca.
1055/1645) is fronted by cusped arches flanking a
plain central one, but it offers a further solution to the
problem with a barely raised pishtdk linked to the
wings by a continuous parapet in parcin-kdri. The
three marble domes still have the cavetto and profile
of Da 3 ! Anga’s mosque, now clearly visible. These
smaller mosques owe much to the consonant detail of
arcuate screens which separate their courts from the
outside world, and a finesse that extends to sa didia da
inlaid in the floor. On a larger scale, the Shah Djahan!
Masdjid at Adjmer (1048/1638-9), with a prayer hall
two aisles deep with arched piers, presents a long,
unbroken facade of eleven bays, accented only by a
needle-like guldasta over each octagonal column, to a
balustrated court adjoining the dargdh of Mu c !n al-D!n
Cishtf: the whole is in marble.

Some of these tendencies are resolved at the Djami c
Masdjid at Agra, completed in red stone in
1058/1648. Its plan is essentially that of the five-
compartment prayer hall from Lahawr, complete with
its corner turrets and another pair at the east corners
of the court. Its capacity is increased by the addition
of a second row of compartments in front of the first,
the central one forming a deep iwdn , whose pishtdk is
thus spaced well forward from the domes over the
main row behind; the two lateral domes are placed
over the ends, for better balance, and all three are
double and distinctly bulbous, with a pointed profile
accentuated by inlaid chevrons of white marble (struc¬
tural inner domes were from henceforward the norm).
The front is of the tall type, with panels above and
between the well-spaced plain arches, and two promi¬
nent shafts frame the marble pishtdk. Chatris enliven
the whole skyline. The interior is a smooth progres¬
sion of netted pendentives and plain arches with a
broad extrados, at a noble scale. Its equivalent at
Dihl! (1066/1656), also raised on a high podium, and
approached by three great pyramids of steps on the
axes, is the largest enclosed mosque in northern India.
Gateway iwdns on these axes regain their prominence,

698

MASDJID

and the riwaks are open to the external air on all three
sides. A collision between these and the liwdn, a
weakness at Agra, is avoided by returning them along
the west, and then advancing the hall forward
between full-size minarets at the corners. The liwdn
plan fuses those of Agra and Fathpur Slkri, with alter¬
nating main compartments, and slimmer piers at the
front; cusped arches are used throughout. The domes,
now on tall drums are, like the minars and the iwan,
striped with marble inlay, and the entire front is
panelled in marble, with plain merlons above. Such
detail, and especially the marble calyces topping the
angle shafts, introduce a mannered deviation from the
former simplicity. The scale is such that the iwan itself
forms a mifyrdb to the courtyard.

The Mot! Masdjid at Agra Fort (1063/1653), the
largest of the marble series, complete with riwdk and
axial gateways, combines a restraint of outline and of
plan with an extravagance in the intersecting, cusped
arch profiles. Eighteen identical piers in three aisles
carry plain coved ceilings alternating with three
domes on smooth pendentives, that rise bulbous
among the chatris outside. That in the Dihl! Fort
(1074/1663-4) shows the full extent of the stylistic
change at a small scale, with a Bangall curve in the
cha didia over the central bay, set off by Bangall vaults
within, reticulated coving, clustered guldastas with
calyces, and floral relief playing on many surfaces; the
domes, rebuilt after the Mutiny, were originally
lower, and gilded.

The last of the great congregational mosques, the
Badshah! Masdjid at Lahawr (1084/1673-4) derives its
plan almost entirely from the great mosque at Dihll,
the principal differences being that the three-storey
octagonal minars are now set at the four corners of the
court, and the liwdn itself reverts to the local scheme
with a domed octagonal turret at each corner. The
riwaks , too, are subdivided into an alternating series of
hudjras for teaching, accessible only through door¬
ways, and though raised as before, the court is thus
closed in. The liwdn , of brick faced with red stone, is
rather taller than at Dihl!, and panelled in the local
manner, but the surfaces swarm with relief carving;
the marble domes formerly had dark drums to relate
them to the wings. Internally the squinched dome
chambers alternate with Bangall vaults, and the walls,
arch soffits and domes are panelled or worked in net-
patterns, islim-i khafa 5 f, of plaster relief, or else
painted. The mosque is claimed as the largest in the
world. The gateways of such structures served to
house the imam and other staff. The Sonahrl Masdjid
at Dihli (1164/1751) repeats the Mot! Masdjid at the
Fort in fawn sandstone. In subsequent work in Awadh
the curvilinear and vegetal elements were to become
dominant [see lakhnaw], and were still vigorous in
the Djami c Masdjid of ca. 1840 in the capital.

Provincial developments within the Mughal empire
predictably show an adaptation of the court style to
local practice. In Bengal, the mosque of the Lalbagh
Fort at Dhaka (1089/1678) has the closed appearance
and panelled front typical of the area, but the height
of the prayer hall, its three cusped and netted front
iwdns, its three low domes and the four octagonal tur¬
rets at its corners all refer to the experience of Lahawr.
The interior of the lateral bays is remarkable for
semidomes set below the apical dome, with two sets of
pendentives. Other mosques at Dhaka follow the same
format, as in that of IGian Muhammad Mirdha
(1118/1706), with tall minars at the liwdn corners, or
the Satgunbadh mosque with octagonal corner
towers.

The brick architecture of Sind is extensively clad

in fine glazed tilework, owing much to Iranian influ¬
ence, and apparently that of Harat [q.v.\ in particular.
This is already apparent in the Dabgir Masdjid at
Thatta (997/1588-9), of which the liwdn remains in a
ruined state, containing a square central compart¬
ment flanked by a rectangular one at each side, with
arches connecting them between massive piers, and
three deep iwdns, set in slightly raised pishtaks. The
central dome, like the iwan below it, is notably larger
than those either side, but all three are set on double
octagonal drums of an Iranian type. The walls of the
central compartment each house one well-shaped arch
within another; at the west the interval contains an
arched window set on either side of the buff carved
sandstone mihrab. The tilework, floral, geometric and
calligraphic, in cobalt and azure on a white ground,
filled arch spandrels and soffits. The Djami c Masdjid
of Shahdjahan (1057/1647) in the same city is unusual
in plan, with repeated heavy piers forming the two
aisles of the broad riwaks , and the three of the prayer
hall, around a very deep court, focussed on a great
pishtak , with small subsidiary courts on each side of an
east entry passing under two domes in series (cf. the
Masdjid-i £)jami c at Kirman). The multiple bays are
roofed by 80 small domes, with larger single ones over
the central iwdns, backed to the west by a single shell
dome replacing four bays in front of the mihrab ; this
rises from intersecting pendentive work over a zone of
16 arches, pierced for a clerestory at the angles, and
tiled throughout in mosaic (more than 100. pieces per
sq. ft.) in ranks of wheeling stars. The smallest sound
at the mihrab can be heard throughout the mosque,
perhaps by virtue of its domes. In both these mosques
the red brick is defined by white pointing which
accents the arches. Further excellent tilework at the
Djami c Masdjid of Khudabad has been badly
damaged. The treatment of its facade shows stronger
Lahawr! influence in proportions and panelling; the
external walls, however, are noteworthy for three
superimposed registers of repeated blind arches, a few
being pierced at the lower levels.

At Ahmadabad, the mosque of Nawwab Sardar
Khan {ca. 1070/1660?) combines a relatively orthodox
Gudjarat! treatment of a three-bayed liwdn, having
three plain arches between narrow piers, a djharokha
bay on each end wall, and balconied minars framing
the front, with features that seem to bridge the styles
of Bidjapur and Agra. The three closely-spaced domes
are bulbous, above torus mouldings, with steep
mahapadmas as in the Nagma and Mot! Masdjids. The
minars, however, carry long foliations, lotus buds and
the elongated, bulbed finial of the later c Adil Shah!
style, close to those at the similar and contemporary
Mosque of Afdal Khan in the Dargah of Gisu Daraz
at Gulbarga. The mosque, unlike its counterparts, is
of brick and stucco. The mosque of Nawwab
Shadja c at Khan (1107/1695-6) has a five-arched front,
with Gudjarat! merlons, and minars placed to contain
the central three bays, but the piers are panelled with
rows of little niches, and a line of cartouches runs
overhead, with three low domes of the Da 5 ! Anga
type; the minars once more have foliations, but have
lost their tops. In its ceiling, the domes alternate with
coved bays, as in the Mot! Masdjid at Agra, and it is
finished with marble and polished plaster.

In general, it may be seen that whereas the
enclosure of the court only achieves full architectural
expression in cathedral mosques, or the later court
mosques, the prayer hall is the subject of consistent
architectural development. The particular structural
means adopted in each region for enclosing the space
become the vocabulary for a series of variations which

MASDJID

699

in most cases go far beyond the immediate needs of
the liturgy or of mere shelter, and can be recognised
as successive resolutions of the need for balance, har¬
mony, and unity at the chosen scale.

Bibliography : For general works, see
hind. vii. Architecture. To these may be added Z.
Desai, Indo-lslamic architecture. N. Delhi 1970; J. D.
Hoag, Islamic architecture, New York 1977, 280-307,
364-88; R. A. Jairazbhoy, An outline of Islamic
architecture, Bombay etc. 1972; B. Gray, ed.. The arts
of India , Oxford 1981. Works on mosques in
general include E. La Roche, lndische Baukunst, II.
Teil: Moscheen und Grabmaler , Munich 1921; Z.
Desai, The mosques of India , N. Delhi 1971; and Y.
K. Bukhari, The mosque architecture of the Mughals, in
Indo-Iranica ix/2 (1956), 67-75. For the early
Arab mosques, see H. Cousens, The antiquities of
Sind, Calcutta 1929, repr. Karachi 1975, 48 ff.,
and S. M. Ashfaque, The grand mosque of Banbhore,
in Pakistan Archaeology , vi/1 (1969), 182-209. The
Kuwwat al-Islam is still best described byj. A.
Page in A guide to the Qutb , Delhi, Delhi 1938, but see
also M. C. Joshi, Some Nagari inscriptions on the Qutb
Minar, in Medieval India—a miscellany, ii, Aligarh
Muslim University 1972, 3-7, and S. K. Bannerji,
The Qutb Minar: its architecture and history, in Jnal. of
the United Provinces Historical Soc ., x/1 (1937), 38-58.
The Arha 3 f-din-ka Djhonpra is described by
M. Meister, The two-and-a-half-day mosque, in Orien¬
tal Art, xviii (1972), 57-63, and plan in ASIAR, ii,
1864-5; and see R. Hillenbrand, Political symbolism
in early Indo-lslamic mosque architecture: the case of
Ajmxr, in Iran, JBIPS, xxvi (1988), 105-18. For the
mosque at Bad a 3 un, seej. F. Blakiston, The Jami
Masjid at Badaun and other buildings in the United Prov¬
inces, MASI, xix, Calcutta 1926, and A. Cunn¬
ingham, ASI, xi, 1880. The Djama c at Khana is
given a brief description by M. Zafar Hasan in A
guide to Nizamu-d Din, MASI, x, 1922, 14-6. The
early mosques at Pa tan are described by J.
Burgess and H. Cousens in Architectural antiquities of
northern Gujarat, ASI, NIS, xxxii, London 1903, and
those of BharoC and Khambayat in Burgess’s
On the Muhammadan architecture of Bharoch, Cambay,
Dholka, Champanir and Mahmudabad in Gujarat, ASI,
NIS, xxiii, London 1896 (these two vols. being
ASWI, ix and vi). The mosque at Ffruzshah
Kotla is treated somewhat inadequately by Page
in A memoir on Kotla Firoz Shah, Delhi ( = MASI, Hi)
Delhi 1937; a few details and a plan of the Sandjar
Mosque are in M. Zafar Hasan, op. cit., 35-6. See
J. Burton-Page, Indo-lslamic architecture: a commentary
on some false assumptions, in AARP, vi (Dec. 1974),
15, for the Begampur Masdjid. The mosque at
I ri£ is well illustrated in Blakiston, op. cit. pis. xxii-
v, but without description. For the identification of
the Kh avrpur mosque, see S. Digby, The tomb of
Buhlul Lodi, in BSOAS, xxxviii (1975), 550-61.
Sultanate work in general is admirably illustrated
with measured drawings in T. Yamamoto, M. Ara,
and T. Tsukinowa, Architectural remains of the Delhi
Sultanate period (text in Japanese), 3 vols. Tokyo
1967. For Bengal, refer to A. H. Dani, Muslim
architecture in Bengal, Dacca 1961; S. M. Hasan,
Muslim monuments of Bangladesh, Dacca 1980; idem,
Mosque architecture of pre-Mughal Bengal, Dacca 1979,
and his unpublished Ph.D. thesis Development of
mosque architecture with special reference to pre-Mughal
Bengal, 2 vols., University of London 1965; some
useful photographs and plans in Marg, xxviii/2
(March 1972). Dj awn pur: A. Fuhrer and E.
Smith’s The Sharqi architecture offaunpur, A SI NIS, i,

Calcutta 1889, is still unsurpassed; also F.
Lehmann, The name and origin of the Atala Masjid,
Jaunpur, in IC, lii/1 (1978), 19-27; Cunningham,
ASI, xi. Gudjarat: besides the volumes by
Burgess and Cousens given above, see Burgess, The
Muhammadan architecture of A hmadabad, 2 vols., ASI,
NIS, xxiv, xxiii ( = ASWI, viii and vii), London
1905, 1906, with excellent drawings and

photographs. Malwa: E. Barnes, Mandu andDhar,
ARASI, 1903-4, Calcutta 1906; G. Yazdani,
Mandu, the city of joy, Oxford 1929; D. R. Patil,
Mandu, N. Delhi (-d»S7) 1975, the current official
guidebook; M. B. Garde, Guide to Chanderi, Gwalior
1928. Khande§h: no adequate sources other than
general works, and Cunningham, .-4.S7, ix, Central
Provinces, 1873-5. Dakhani architecture is
reviewed by E. S. Merklinger, Indian Islamic
architecture, the Deccan, 1347-1686, Warminster
1981, with a chronological catalogue and useful
thematic treatment. For Bahmani buildings, see
G. Yazdani, The Great Mosque of Gulbarga, in IC, ii
(1928), 14-21, and idem, Bidar, its history and
monuments, Oxford 1948, with full descriptions and
good plans. BarTd Shahl: ibid. c Imad Shahf:
see bibl. to gawilgarh. Nizam Shahf: see bibl.
s.v. c Adil Shahf: excellent coverage in Cousens,
Bijdpur and its architectural remains, ASI, NIS, xxxvii,
Bombay 1916. Kufb Shahf: for Golkonda, s.v.;
for Haydarabad, see the Annual reports of the
Archaeological Department, Hyderabad for 1916-17,
3 ff. and pis. ii-iii; for 1924-5, 2-4 and pis. iii-vi; for
1936-7, 2 ff. Kashmir: W. H. Nicholls, Muham¬
madan architecture in Kashmir, in ARASI, 1906-7,
164-70. Mughal: for the Khavr al-Manazil, see
ASI, NIS, xxii, 6 and pi. i, ARASI, 1903-4, 25-6
and pi. x-xi; for Fathpur Sfkrf, E. W. Smith’s
superb Mughal architecture of Fathpur-Sikri, ASI, NIS,
xviii, Allahabad 1894-7, now augmented by the
intelligent discussion in S. A. A. Rizvi and V. J. A.
Flynn, Fathpur-Sikri, Bombay 1975 (but beware
error in description of domes, p. 74a). For
Lahawr, see Ahmad Nabi Khan, Maryam Zamani
Mosque, Lahore-Karachi 1972, and M. A.
Chaghatai, The Wazir Khan Mosque, Lahore, Lahore
1975, with good plans, sections, and photographs;
also J. Burton-Page, Wazir Khan’s mosque, in Splen¬
dours of the East, ed. Mortimer Wheeler, London
etc. 1965, 94-101. For Agra, see Nur Ba khsh . The
Agra Fort and its buildings, in ARASI, 1903-4, 185,
and M. A. Husain, Agra Fort, N. Delhi 1956, 22
and 27; also R. Nath, Agra and its monumental glory,
Bombay 1977, 35-8, and idem, The immortal Taj
Mahal, Bombay 1972; The Fathpur! Masdjid is
illustrated in ARASI, 1902-3, pi. xii. For the Da 3 f
Anga mosque, see W. H. Nicholls, in ARASI ,
1904-5, 20-22 and pi. iv; and for the Motf
Masdjid, idem in ARASI, 1903-4, 26-7 and pi.
xii-xiii, and M. Z. Hasan, Moti Masjid or the Pearl
Mosque in the Lahore Fort, in Proceedings of the Pakistan
History Conference, 2nd session, Lahore 1952 , 8-16. For
the Motf Masdjid at Agra, see Nur Bakhsh, op.
cit., 181-4, and Nath, op. cit. (1977), 39-42; for that
at Dihlf, see G. Sanderson, A guide to the buildings,
Delhi Fort, Delhi 1937, 55-7, and idem in ARASI,
1911-12, 13. Chaghatai gives comprehensive treat¬
ment to The Badshahi Masjid, history and architecture,
Lahore 1972, with useful comparative plans of the
djdrni c masdjids at Agra and Dihlf. The later mos¬
ques in Sind are reviewed in Cousens, The anti¬
quities of Sind, ed. cit., though not in full detail, and
by M. A. Ghafur in Muslim architecture in Sind area,
Karachi 1961; for those in Ahmadabad, see

700

MASDJID

Burgess, op. cit. (ASWI, viii, 1905). Epigraphy
is mainly available in EIM\ a useful index is pro¬
vided by V. S. Bendrey, A study of Muslim inscrip¬
tions , Bombay 1942, for 1907-38, supplementing J.
Horowitz, A list of the published Mohammedan inscrip¬
tions of India in EIM, 1909-10, 30-144. Much
material relating to mosques in Pakistan is set
out by S. Mahmood in Islamic inscriptions in Pakistani
architecture to 1707 , unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Edin¬
burgh University 1981. Some of the principal
mosque inscriptions are also quoted at length by R.
Nath in Calligraphic art in Mughal architecture ,
Calcutta 1979. (P. A. Andrews)

III. In Java.

In Java, the Arabic form masdjid is practically
limited to religious circles. The Indonesian languages
have developed the derivatives mesigit (Javanese, in
Central- and East Java), masigit (Sundanese, in West
Java) and maseghit (Madurese, on the island of
Madura and in part of East Java). In general, these
terms are used only for the mosques in which on the
Friday salat al-djum^a is held. Smaller mosques serving
for the daily cult and religious instruction alone, are
called langgar (Javanese), tadjug (Sundanese) and bale
(in Banten).

Indonesian Islam has produced its own type of
mosque, clearly to be distinguished from that of other
Islamic countries. Since this type was probably first
developed in Java, it can be termed the Javanese type
of mosque. Its standard characteristics are the follow¬
ing: (1) The ground plan is a square one. (2) The
massive foundations are raised. The Friday mosque is
not built on piles, as is the case with the classical
Indonesian houses and the smaller mosques men¬
tioned above. (3) The roof is tapering, and consists of
two to five storeys narrowing towards the top (4) An
extension on the western or north-western side serves
as mihrdb (5) At the front—sometimes also at

the two lateral sides—is an open or closed veranda.
(6). The courtyard around the mosque is surrounded
with a stone wall with one or more gates. Another
characteristic is that in Java the mosque stands on the
west side of the alun-alun , the grass-covered square
which is found in virtually all chief towns of regencies
and districts. In Tjeribon, Indramayn, Madjalengka
and Tjiamis—all regions in West Java—even each
desa has an alun-alun with a mosque at its west side.

In Java, the direction of the kibla [q.v.\, is, however,
not west but north-west, and so, in order to indicate
the exact kibla, the mihrdb or niche is sometimes built
obliquely against the back wall. There are, however,
also regions, like the Priangan, where the exact kibla
is taken into consideration at the time of construction
of the mosque.

The gate at the front which gives access to the
courtyard surrounding the mosque is sometimes
covered. The mosques of Central and East Java are
characterised by their monumental entrance gates.

The veranda (Javanese: surambi, serambi, srambi;
Sundanese: tepas masdfid, tepas masigit) is not con¬
sidered as belonging to the mosque itself, as is evident
from the various purposes which it serves. It is the
place where, at night, after the mosque has been
closed, the $alat is performed; where travellers and
other people who have no home pass the night; where
marriages are concluded; where in former times (see
Raffles, The history of Java ) religious courts were func¬
tioning; where sometimes religious instruction is
given and where riyalat (Javanese; in Arabic riyada =
ascetic abstinence from sleep, food and sexual inter¬
course) is practised. It is also the place for religious
meals ( walima ) on feast days like Mawlid al-nabi and
MTradf [q. vv. ].

The walls of the mosque itself are rather low, but
the roof tapers and ends in a sphere, on top of which
is an ornament, called mastaka or mustaka in those
regions where Javanese is spoken. It later times, this
ornament was crowned by a crescent as the decisive
symbol of Islam. This type of roof, in fact a piling-up
of ever-smaller roofs, dates from pre-Islamic times
and recalls the meru on Bali. In the present century,
the cupola-shaped roof (Ar. kubba [q.v. J), an imitation
of the mosques in other Islamic countries, and in par¬
ticular India, is competing with the traditional piled-
up roof of ancient Indonesia. Already before its
restoration in 1935, the Mas^id Kemayoran in
Surabaya diverged from the usual architectural pat¬
tern in that its base was not square but octagonal. In
that year, two kubbas were constructed to the left and
the right of the veranda. Another kubba was added to
the monumental minaret, which is said to be an imita¬
tion of the Kutb Minar in Dihll [q.v.\. At the same
period, the kubba was also introduced into West Java.
The use of the cupola-shaped roof became firmly
established after Indonesia’s independence in 1949.
Impressive, huge mosques, all with kubbas, have been
constructed since that time. The Masd^id al-Shuhada 5 in
Yogyakarta and the Masdfid Istiklal in Jakarta can be
considered as examples of a new type of architecture
applied to the mosque.

The interior of a mosque built in the ancient
Indonesian style can be described as a closed hall,
sometimes provided with pillars, of a sober character,
reflecting the simplicity which is the characteristic of
the masdjids in Java. There are no pictures of man or
animal on the walls, only sacred Arabic names and
some religious texts like the shahada [q.v.\ and the
hadith in which the builder of a mosque is praised:
“Allah has built a house in Paradise for whoever has
built a mosque for Allah”. Since the floor of the
mosque has to be clean, it consists of cement, tiles or
marble. The grey colour of cement is occasionally
alternated with rows of red tiles, indicating the rows
(Arabic saff) of the faithful when performing the salat.
Mats are usually spread on the floor. In mosques
which have not been constructed in the exact direction
of the kibla, these mats are laid out in the right direc¬
tion. Regular mosque-goers have their own small mat
or rug (Ar. sadjdjada), preferably one brought back by
pilgrims to Mecca.

The mihrdb at the rear side of the mosque is usual¬
ly rather narrow, consisting of a small gate with a
round arch. Sometimes the niche, or rather the exten¬
sion, is large enough to contain the minbar on the right
side. There are, however, also mosques with two or
even three niches next to each other, each provided
with a small gate. Occasionally, the mihrdb is built out
into a large pentagon with the minbar in the centre and
the place of the imam to the left, the front side being
fenced off by a wooden fencing with green and yellow
sheets of glass and decorated with religious texts.
Sometimes the mihrdb is built out into a large, square
place with the minbar in the centre, the place of the
imam for the daily salat to the left, and to the right a
small movable construction with an open front, this
being the place of the regent of the region. The minbar
(Javanese and Sundanese: mimbar, Javanese and Sun¬
danese of Banten: imbar) is always found to the right
of the mihrdb. Unlike other Islamic countries where the
minbar is reached by a high flight of stairs, the minbar
in Java is father low. The height may vary from one
to five steps, three steps being the average. Some min-
bars are very simple, but many others are conspicious
for their woodcarving. As Islam permits, decorations
consist of plants and flowers which sometimes look
like pictures of men and animals. On closer inspec-

MASDJID

701

tion, however, they prove to be representations of
flowers and leaves of the lotus, arranged as wings and
birds. Sometimes the naga (serpent) motive can be
recognised on the arms of the minbar , as is the case in
the holy mosque of Demak in Central Java and in the
ancient, holy mosque of Ku{a Dede in the same
region.

Each mosque in Java possesses a drum, called
bedug , stretched with buffalo-skin. Before the adhdn
[?•*'•] 0 avanese an d Sundanese: adaii) this drum is
beaten vigorously at least five times a day. The adhdn
itself is made either from the minaret (Javanese:
rnenara, Sundanese: munara ) or, more often, in the
mosque itself since not every mosque has its minaret.
The mu ^a dhdh in . called modin or bilal, stands at the
entrance of the mosque or on its roof.

The highest official of the mosque is the panghulu
(thus in Sundanese; Javanese: pangulu; Madurese:
pangolo, pangoloh ; Malay, pengkulu), often a learned
man (Ar. c dlim) who has studied theology and is a
pupil of the pesantren, the Indonesian religious school,
or of the more modern madrasa ; he may even have
studied in Mecca. Traditionally, the panghulus are
highly-considered in Indonesian society. Sometimes
the function is hereditary. One of his tasks is to super¬
vise and coordinate the functions of the lower officials
of the mosque: the imam , the khatib, the mu^a dhdh in
[q. v . ] and the marbuf , the official who is responsible for
maintenance. According to the linguistic area, these
officials are called imam, ketib or ketip, modin or bilal,
and mfrbot, merebot or occasionally marbot.

In Java the mosque is also used for iHikdf
especially during the last ten days of Ramadan.

Bibliography : H. Aboebakar, Sedjarah Mysd-
jid , dan amal ibadah dalamnja , 1955 [in Indonesian];
P. A. Hoessein Djajadiningrat, Islam in Indonesia, in
Islam, the straight path, Islam interpreted by Muslims, ed.
W. Morgan, 1958; G. F. Pijper, De Moskeeen van
Java, and De Panghulu s van Java, both in Studien over
de geschiedenis van de Islam in Indonesia 1900-1950,
Leiden 1977; idem, The minaret in Java, in India
Antiqua, a volume of oriental studies presented to Jean
Philippe Vogel, Leiden 1947. (G. F. Pijper)

IV. In the rest of South-East Asia.

That the traditional South-East Asian mosque
originated in Indonesia and that it is formally sui
generis cannot be disputed. Whether, as has been
claimed, it developed in Java is less certain. Indeed,
the history of Islam in Indonesia would suggest
another possibility. The building in question was of
wooden construction. It consisted of a simple struc¬
ture on a square groundplan, erected on a substantial
base. This distinguished it from the classic Indonesian
house on stilts. The existence of internal pillars prob¬
ably depended on its size. It had openings in the walls,
probably closed with shutters, and an entrance in the
east side, opposite the later mihrdb. It is not known
how the kibla was originally indicated, but some mark
on the west wall seems likely. Above this groundfloor
hall, which had relatively low walls, there were a
number of upper storeys of decreasing area, up to a
total of four: each individual storey, including the
main hall, had its own roof, usually in palm thatch,
with widespreading eaves. The upper stories con¬
tained loft-like rooms which were functional. The
whole building was topped by a finial which, in later
times, seems to have been crowned by a crescent. The
whole building was enclosed within a wall which had
a more or less elaborate gateway in the east side.
Occasionally there was more than one gate. There is
some evidence to suggest that the main structure was
surrounded by an irregular moat which may have

formed part of a stream which traversed the enclo¬
sure. There was no manara; the adhdn was given either
from the doorway of the mosque or from its top
storey. This was probably preceded by the vigorous
beating of a large skincovered drum, as is generally
the practice today. A more simple structure, essen¬
tially a traditional Indonesian dwelling on stilts,
serves as the model for a prayer hall which does not
have the status of the mosque. It is still to be found in
communities which cannot muster the requisite forty
souls to constitute a congregation or, on occasions, as
a supplementary building in a compound where -it
serves as a meeting place, a rest-house for visitors, an
administrative centre as well as for salat when the
mosque proper is closed.

This Indonesian prototype did not have the veran¬
dah, Javanese serambi, which is such a distinctive
feature of the Central Javanese mosque. There is no
evidence that this formed an original part of the
mosque, from which it is, in fact, separated, both
architecturally and dogmatically: shoes may be worn
there. It seems to have derived from a royal building
in pre-Islamic Central Java. Neither it, nor the ex¬
ternalised mihrdb, belong to the original square
mosque.

Various origins have been proposed for the basic
Indonesian mosque. It has been derived from: (1) the
cahdi, a temple of either Hindu or Buddhist intention,
ultimately of Indian origin but modified by Indone¬
sian religious concepts; (2) the traditional bamboo
and thatch cockpit used in Bali for the quasi-ritual
cockfighting; (3) the multi-tiered sacred mountain
which is of widespread significance in Indonesian
religions (the Balinese temple with multi-tiered
thatched roofs known as a meru, after the Indian
sacred mountain, is an architectural example of this).
The objection to (1) is that, quite apart from its possi¬
ble unacceptability to Muslim teachers, the candi does
not occur in those parts of Indonesia where conver¬
sions to Islam first took place. The cockpit hypothesis
appears to suffer from inherent implausibility. There
is, however, good reason for holding the concept of
the sacred mountain as one component in the
undoubtedly complex origin of the Indonesian
mosque. It differs so profoundly from mosques else¬
where in the Islamic world, not least in Cambay [see
khambayat] and other parts of Gudjarat [<?.*>.] from
which the main impetus towards conversion seems to
have come.

South-East Asia lies across the sea route from the
Middle East and the Indian sub-continent to China
and beyond. The Malay Peninsula and Sumatra mark
the area where the monsoon system of the Indian
Ocean meets that of the Pacific, and constitute a
natural interchange point. For two millennia or more
merchants have travelled and traded through this
region. After the coming of Islam many of these
travellers were Muslims, but, although there were
without doubt Muslim communities in the ports and
harbours of the region, some of whose members may
have traded in the interior, there is no evidence at all
for conversion to Islam among the local peoples. (Nor,
incidentally, is there any evidence for mosques to
serve the needs of such Muslim traders.) The first
instances of such conversion comes at the end of the
7th/13th century. A hint in a Chinese source dated
683/1281 receives striking confirmation from Marco
Polo who spent several months in Sumatra, on his
way home from China ten years later. Of Ferlec
(Perlak) he noted “the people were all idolaters, but,
on account of the Saracen traders who frequent the
kingdom with their ships, they have been converted to

702

MASDJID

the Law of Mahomet”, adding that this was only the
townspeople, those of the mountains being like wild
beasts. The ruler of Samudra (Pasai), where Polo
spent some months waiting for the wind to change,
and who died in 699/1297, certainly died a Muslim
for his tombstone, which was imported from Cambay,
gives his name as Malik al-Salih. It was from this
remote, in Javanese terms, area of Aceh that Islam
spread to the Malay Peninsula, above all to Malacca,
[q.v.], to the north coast of Java and thence to other
parts of Sumatra, to the coasts of Borneo and to the
sources for the much sought-after spices, by way of the
ports of Sulawesi and Maluku. Over a period of some
three centuries, Islam followed the trade routes and
with it there went the Indonesian masdjid, with its
tiered, overhanging roofs. More than a dozen have
been identified, notably by De Graaf. What is
noticeable is that it was precisely in areas which had
not been strongly influenced by Indo-Javanese
architecture of Hindu or Buddhist tradition that the
mosque of this type developed. Its origins have to be
sought in the socio-religious structures of northern
Sumatra in the communal house which, as elsewhere
in Indonesia, once constituted the men’s house. Now
without windows or its original interior divisions, in
Aceh it has become the meunasah which serves as a
prayer house, a meeting place, and an administrative
centre as well as a Kur 5 anic school. It had the advan¬
tage that it had never housed idols, but this does not
explain how the teachers from Gudjarat and elsewhere
were persuaded to permit the adoption of such an
aberrant form of mosque.

Bibliography : Illustrations of many of the
mosques are in Francois Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw
Oost Indien , 5 vols., Dordrecht-Amsterdam 1724-6.
See also H. J. de Graaf, De oorsprong der javaanse
moskee, in Indonesie, I, 289-305; B. Schrieke, The
shifts in political and economic power in the Indonesian
Archipelago in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , in
Indonesian Sociological Studies, i. The Hague 1955, 1-
82, W. F. Stutterheim, De Islam en zijn komst in de
Archipel , Groningen 1952. (A. H. Christie)

V. In China.

The Chinese term is Ch’ing-chen ssu, lit. “Pure and
True temple”. Ch’ing-chen chiao (“Pure and True
Religion”) being a Chinese synonym for Islam. The
first Muslim settlements in China, dating from the
early centuries of Islam, were established either by the
sea route along the southern and eastern coasts (Can¬
ton and Hainan Island in Kwantung Province;
Chuan-chou in Fukien Province, Hang-chou in
Chekiang Province, Yang-chou on the lower Yangtze
in Kiangsu Province); or by the overland “Silk
Road” route at the ancient city of Ch’ang-an (some
miles south of present-day Sian, Shensi Province),
T’ang dynastic capital between 618-906 (correspond¬
ing approximately to the first three centuries Hidjrt).

Chinese Muslim tradition holds that numbers of
mosques were established in these and several other
cities by Sa c d b. Abl Wakkas and various Compan¬
ions of the Prophet or itinerant holy men during the
first century, quite probably during the Rashidun
caliphs’ period. Pending further archaeological
excavation, however, most of these oral traditions
must be treated with caution, and according to Leslie
(op. cit. , in Bibl. , 40), but few sites “merit serious con¬
sideration”, the most important of which are:

1. Canton (the Huai-sheng mosque and Kuang-t’a
minaret). This mosque, claimed by Muslim tradition
as the first and oldest in China, may well date back to
T’ang times, but the earliest extant reference dates
from ca. 603/1206, whilst the earliest mosque inscrip¬

tion (in Chinese and Arabic) records the re-building
of the Huai-sheng ssu in 751/1350 after its destruction
by fire seven years before. The presence of a mosque
in Canton in 755/1354 is attested by Ibn Battuta.

2. Chuan-chou (the Sheng-yu mosque), also some¬
times claimed as the earliest mosque in China, though
Leslie considers this to be “a priori, less convincing”
than the claim of the Huai-sheng ssu. The mosque
inscription of 710/1310-11 (in Arabic) dates the first
building of the mosque to 400/1009-10, com¬
memorating a restoration which took place over three
centuries later. It claims that the Sheng-yu ssu was the
first mosque “in this land”, and calls it “The Mosque
of the Companions” (al-Ashab).

3. Hang-chou (the Chen-chiao or Feng-huang
mosque), ascribed by late Ming (11 th/17th century)
inscriptions to T'ang times, though Leslie rejects
these unsubstantiated claims in favour of a Sung
Dynasty establishment, Hang-chou being the capital
of the Southern Sung (ca. 521-678/1127-1279), and by
Yuan times “the greatest city in the world” (accord¬
ing to Marco Polo), with a substantial Muslim
population living in its own ward (Ibn Battuta,
Odoric).

4. Ch’ang-an (the Ch’ing-chiao or Ch’ing-ching
mosque), which differs from those other mosques
listed so far in that its foundation is ascribed to the
arrival of Muslim soldiers travelling overland, rather
than sailors coming by sea. Undated epigraphic
evidence and long-established tradition date this
mosque to the early T’ang (late Umayyad) period,
but this remains inconclusive, and Leslie suggests that
“until further evidence is forthcoming its is better to
reject a T’ang date and query a Sung one, whilst tak¬
ing for granted a Yuan Mongol] presence”.

Leslie continues by providing “Desultory Notes”
for numerous other cities in Eastern. Central and
Northern China (49-53), before concluding that many
thousands (or even tens of thousands) of Muslims,
mostly of Persian and Arab origin, were resident in
China during T’ang Dynasty times, though little
definitive evidence exists for the number of mosques
which had been established during this early period of
Chinese Islam. It is clear, however, that most of these
Hsi-yu Jen or “Westerners” were semi-permanent or
permanent residents, many of whom would have
intermarried freely with the indigenous Chinese
population, thereby giving rise to a nascent Chinese¬
speaking, increasingly Sinicised Muslim population
which would, by Ming times, develop into the Hui
Chinese Muslim community. Certainly by T’ang
times, the distinction was already being made
between “foreigners” and “native-born foreigners”.
SharTa law requires the establishment of congrega¬
tional mosques wherever communities of more than
forty adult male Muslims are gathered together; the
presence of many small mosques along the Chinese
coast and (to a lesser extent) in the interior may,
therefore, be taken for granted by late T’ang/Sung
times. Doubtless, except in the more important
coastal towns such as Canton (Khanfu) and Chuan-
chou (Zaitun) these mosques would have been fairly
insubstantial buildings, long since altered beyond
recognition or destroyed; thus, definitive proof of the
extent of mosque-building in China during this early
period will depend upon future archaeological
excavations.

The Yuan period (ca. 678-770/1279-1368) was
characterised by a substantial expansion of Islam in
the central and western parts of China, most particu¬
larly in Yunnan, where Sayyid Adjall Shams al-Din
Bukhari (who conquered and c,, bsequently admin-

MASDJID

703

istered the former Nan-ch’ao area for the Mongols) is
credited with establishing two mosques in the region.
Sayyid Adjall and his family may be seen as the
archetypical example of Muslims in service under the
Mongols—by whom they were employed as soldiers,
administrators and financial middlemen—and from
Yuan times the central focus of Islam in China moved
definitively away from the southern coastal ports
towards the north and west. Certainly, the oldest mos¬
ques in Yunnan and the north-west are likely to have
been established during this period, a trend which was
continued under the Ming Dynasty ( ca. 771 -
1054/1368-1644) which is also known as a period of
Sinicisation for the Chinese Muslim community—
indeed, it may be that the Chinese-speaking Hui
Muslim community emerged as a separate and
distinct entity (paralleling, for example, the Swahili
[q. v. ] in East Africa and the Mappila [ q. v. ] of southern
India) during this period.

It is probable that the mosques of the Hui (Chinese¬
speaking) Muslims, which are scattered throughout
China but are particularly numerous in the provinces
of Kansu, Ningsia, Tsinghai and Yunnan, evolved in
their characteristic form during this period. Certainly
under the Ming, the nascent Hui community ex¬
panded greatly as a result of intermarriage, overt
(and, perhaps more frequently, covert) missionary
work, and their success in the fields of military and
commercial venture. Wherever Hui settled in any
numbers, halal establishments (caravanserais,
restaurants, inns), mosques and attendant madrasas
soon followed. As Israeli notes ( op.cit . in Bibl. , 29),
many mosques constructed during the Ming period
were built in a style reminiscent of indigenous
Chinese temple architecture, either eliminating the
minaret altogether, or eschewing the distinctive styles
associated with the mosques of Central Asia, South
Asia and the Middle East in favour of Chinese-style
pagodas. As a result of this architectural development,
the muezzin could no longer call the faithful to prayer
in the usual way, but stood inside the mosque instead,
calling the adhan behind the main mosque entrance.
“And when one entered the mosque, one was struck
by the traditional Muslim flavour; cleanliness and
austerity. Except for the Emperor’s tablets that were
mandatory in any house of prayer, there was no sign
of Chinese characters or Chinese characteristics. On
the walls there were Arabic inscriptions of verses from
the Qur’an and the west end ( qibla ) was adorned with
arabesques. Once the believers were inside, they put
on white caps, shoes were taken off, elaborate ablu¬
tions were ritually performed, and the prayers began
in Arabic, with heart and mind centred on Mecca.
When prostrating themselves before the Emperor’s
tablets, as required, the Muslims would avoid bring¬
ing their heads into contact with the floor... and thus
did they satisfy their consciences in avoiding the true
significance of the rite—this prohibited worship was
invalid because it was imperfectly performed”
(Israeli, op.cit ., 29).

Israeli defines this combination of external Sinicisa¬
tion of mosque building and internal Islamic
orthodoxy as a manifestation of the dichotomy of
Chinese Islam. Certainly, the functions of the mosque
remained immediately recognisable in their Islamic
purpose. Thus, besides the area set aside for prayer,
the interior of larger Chinese mosques is generally
divided between lecture hall, dormitory, conference
rooms, community leaders’ offices, and the “dead
man's room” for washing and otherwise preparing
deceased Muslims for burial. Amongst the best-
known and most beautifully decorated of these tradi¬

tional Chinese mosques are the Niu-chieh ssu (Ox
Street mosque) in Peking, and the Hua-chueh ssu in
Sian.

By contrast with the Sinicised Hui Chinese mos¬
ques scattered throughout “China Proper”, the mos¬
ques of the periphery are often very different. Thus
the mosque architecture of Sinkiang conforms closely
to that of neighbouring Western Turkestan, whilst in
the far north-east (Heilungkiang Province), an area
formerly much influenced by Russian culture,
mosque may sometimes outwardly resemble Ortho¬
dox churches. In this context, an informative tril¬
ingual study illustrating many of the best-known mos¬
ques in China and clearly depicting the different
architectural forms has recently been published by the
China Islamic Association ( op.cit . in Bibl ., 1981).

Bibliography : K. Himly, Die Denkmaler der
Kantoner Moschee, in ZDMG xli (1887), 141-74; G.
Phillips, Two mediaeval Fuh-Kien trading ports: Chuan-
Chow and Chang-Chow, in T’oung Pao, vii (1896),
223-40; G. Arnaiz and M. van Berchem, Memoire
sur les antiquites musulmanes de Ts duan-tcheou, in TP,
xii (1901), 677-727; Cl. Huart, Le texte turc-oriental
de la stele de la mosquee de Peking , in ZDMG , Ivi (1902),
210-22; W. Bang, Uber die Mandschu Version der
Viersprachigen Inschrift in der Moschee zu Peking, in
Keleti Szemle, iii (1902), 94-103; H. Saladin,
Monuments musulmans de Chine et d\Extreme-Orient, in
Manuel d’art musulman , Paris 1907, 579-83; “N.”,
Les Mosquees de Pekin, in RMM, ii (1907), 570-73; E.
Blochet and A. Vissiere, Epigraphie musulmane
chinoise , in ibid ., v (1908), 289-93; R. Ristelhuber,

L. Bouvat, F. Farjenel, Etudes chinoises, in ibid ., iv
(1908), 512-30; anon., Liste des mosquees de Pekin , in
ibid., vi (1908), 699; M. Broomhall, Islam in China:
a neglected problem, London 1910, 83-120, 183-90; Le
Commandant D’Ollone, A. Vissiere, E. Blochet, et
alii, Recherches sur les Musulmans chinois , Paris 1911,
passim ; G. Cordier and Vissiere, Etudes sino-
mahometanes: deuxieme serie. Renseignements envoyes par

M. G. Cordier sur la chambre funeraire et le temple com-
memoratif du Seyyid Edjell a Yun-nan-fou, in RMM, xv
(1911), 60-9; eidem, (Note on two photographs of the
Mosque of Seyyid Edjell Omar), in ibid., xxv (1913),
306; Vissiere, Etudes sino-mahometanes: deuxieme serie.
VII. L’Islamisme a Hang-tcheou, in ibid., xxii (1913),
1-84; Cordier, Etudes sino-mahometanes: troisieme serie.
Les Mosquees de Yun-nan-fou, in ibid., xxvii (1914),
141 -61; Vissiere, Inscriptions sino-mahometanes de Fou-
tcheou, in ibid ., xxvii (1914), 162-73; A. Von le Coq,
Buried treasures of Chinese Turkestan , London 1928
(photographs); Ito Chuta, Shina kenchiku soshoku
(“Chinese architectural decoration”), Tokyo 1941,
i, 107-9; ii, plates 42-8; A. Hutt, The Central Asian
origin of the Eastern Minaret form, in Asian Affairs, viii
3 (June 1977), 157-62 (with reference to Sinkiang);
R. Israeli, Muslims in China ; a study in cultural con¬
frontation, London 1980; China Islamic Association,
The religious life of Chinese Muslims, Peking 1981; D.
D. Leslie, Islam in traditional China , Canberra 1986,
esp. 40-68 (plus extensive Chinese language
bibliography, glossary, etc.; a uniquely competent
and useful reference work).

(A. D. W. Forbes)

VI. In East Africa.

In East Africa the mosque is commonly spoken of
in Swahili as msikiti, pi. misikiti, but msihiri, misihire in
the Comoro Islands; and cf. Swahili sijida, the act of
adoration, and verb sujudu “to prostrate oneself”,
trom Ar. sadjada. Nineteenth-century traditional
histories claim the setting up of Muslim cities on the
eastern African coast in the 7th and 8th centuries

704

MASDJID

A.D. Of this there is no earlier literary evidence, but
a mosque is mentioned in the Arabic History of Kilwa
named Kibala (possibly a Bantu form from kibla) as
existing on that island ca. 950 A.D. In spite of recent
excavations at Kilwa [^.».] by H. N. Chittick, there
has so far been no positive identification of a mosque
of this period. The first reliable evidence is from
inscriptions. Cerulli reports one in the Friday Mosque
at Barawa, Somalia, dated 498/1104-5, while on Zan¬
zibar Island there is the well-known Friday Mosque at
Kizimkazi [q.v. ] which has an inscription dating its
foundation to 500/1107. The inscription is certainly of
Slrafi provenance, which does not argue that Zan¬
zibar was much Islamicised at this period. The
4th/l0th century Kitdb c Adjanib al-Hind of Buzurg b.
Shahriyar of Ramhurmuz contains, however, the tale
of the conversion of an eastern African king of a place
of which no identification is given; he was followed by
his people. In the same century al-Mas c udI, who
visited eastern Africa, speaks of the people and their
sovereigns as pagan. By the 6th/12th century al-ldrisl
says that “the people, although mixed, are actually
mostly Muslims”, which would accord with the
epigraphical evidence.

Between 1962 and March 1964 the greater number
of known mosques, from mediaeval times to the 18th
century, both standing and ruined, were planned and
photographed by P. S. Garlake. He omitted, how¬
ever, an important series of foundation inscriptions of
mosques at Lamu [q.v.], some twenty in all, and rang¬
ing from the 14th to the 19th century. He rightly says
that “the most sensitive indicator of change and
development in style and decoration is bound to be
the mosque mihrab”: he distinguishes a clear and
unbroken development of style and technique from
the early classic mihrab with a plain architrave of the
14th and 15th centuries; a developed classic mihrab in
which the plain surfaces of the architrave are broken
by decoration; a neo-classic mihrab of greater elabora¬
tion, both this and the foregoing in the 16th century;
a simplified classic mihrab restricted to northern
Kenya, and a derived classic mihrab on the Tanzanian
coast in the 18th century, in which, however, there
were new developments that led to multifoliate arches
of an elaborate character. The dating of some of these
mihrabs derives from inscriptions, but is based to a
great extent upon the evidence of imported pottery
and Chinese porcelain, the latter coming to be used as
a decoration by insetting it into the architrave of the
mihrab.

All the 19th century Swahili settlements in eastern
Africa are on the edge of the shore: Gedi, two miles
from the Mida creek, is the sole exception. Some
earlier mosques, however, are found on cliffs or
headlands, where they may have been placed to serve
as mariners’ marks. Some of them are still of special
veneration for seafarers. The population in these
places was on the whole small, and only at Kilwa [q. v. ]
and at Mogadishu [see makdishu] was the need felt
for mosques of more than modest size. Throughout
the coast from Somalia to Mozambique, the only
available building material of a permanent character
was coralline limestone, obtained either from old
raised beaches or directly from coral reefs. Mould¬
ings, arches, and all features wherever precision was
required, were of finely dressed coral blocks. A fine
concrete, whose aggregate was coral rubble, was used
for circular and barrel vaults. The method of burning
it has survived to this day. From it also was made the
plaster which in the 18th century was used to decorate
not only the mihrab but also elaborately decorated
tombs. There was a limited repertoire of mouldings,
used also on tombs, and—more sparingly—in

domestic architecture. The planning of all buildings,
religious and domestic, was restricted by the span of
the timber rafters, always of mangrove wood, which
never exceeds 2,80 metres or approximately 9 feet.
Even the vaulted buildings conform to this as to a
fixed and unalterable convention. Thus even in the
Great Mosque of Kilwa, with its five aisles and six
bays, there is a sense of constriction rather than of
spaciousness. Walls may be built of dressed coral
limestone but quite commonly of coral rubble
plastered over. Piers occur in mosques in Kenya and
Pemba during the 14th to 16th centuries, but not in
the south. After the 13th century in Tanzania, col¬
umns alone are found, some square and some
octagonal. Generally, these were of dressed coral, but
occasionally, as at Kaole (southern mosque) and in
the northern musalla of the Great Mosque of Kilwa,
wooden columns fitted into coral sockets were used.
Because of the difficulty imposed by the length of the
rafters, the master-builders—for only rarely can
architects have been employed, and perhaps only for
the Fakhr al-Din Mosque at Mogadishu—in seeking
to erect a building of a particular breadth, frequently
encumbered the perspective of the mihrab by con¬
structing a central arcade of pillars. This clumsy
feature (which occurs quite unconnectedly in certain
mediaeval European churches) appears not only in
two-aisled mosques such as those of Tongoni and
Gedi but also in the four-aisled Friday Mosque of
Gedi and the original North Mosque which forms part
of the Great Mosque of Kilwa.

Minarets [see manara. 3. In East Africa] are very
rare, and minbars [q.v. ] have certain idiosyncratic
features. In all, the mosques of the eastern African
coast have a distinct regional character of their own,
deriving in earlier times from the common use of
ogival or returned-horseshoe arches, and in later
times from the elaborate plaster decoration of the
mihrab and its architrave.

Bibliography : H. N. Chittick, Kilwa, 1975,
describes the Kilwa mosques, bringing up to date
P. S. Garlake, The early Islamic architecture of the East
African coast, Nairobi 1966, with its numerous plates
and plans and exhaustive bibliography up to that
date; G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, Some preliminary
observations of medieval mosques near Dar es Salaam, in
Tanganyika Notes and Records , no. 36 (1954), is
wholly superseded by the finding of better evidence
for date; see also J. S. Kirkman, Men and monuments
of the East African coast, London 1964, and Fort Jesus,
Oxford 1974; and, for inscriptions, G. S. P. Free¬
man-Grenville and B. G. Martin, A preliminary
handlist of the Arabic inscriptions of the eastern African
coast, in JRAS (1973).

(G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville)
VII. In West Africa.

In Muslim West Africa, the smallest hamlet has its
mosque, and the quarters of an individual town com¬
pete with one another in the construction of cultic
sites. In most villages, the mosque is situated in the
middle of the public square, near the tree which is the
traditional place for bargaining and discussion
(“palaver”); it is generally constructed in the style of
a large shed, roofed with zinc plates and bamboo par¬
titions or with banco or with moulded clay, and has
the appearance, in the majority of cases, of the most
attractive building in the locality, often surrounded by
bushy trees. The mosque is regarded with pious
respect, and is kept clean. Volunteers, often women of
a certain age, accept responsibility for maintenance,
cleaning and the supply of drinkable water for the
faithful.

In towns, the mosque is a more substantial building

MASDJID

705

and it dominates the neighbourhood with its minaret
or minarets. Sometimes, as in the case of the Great
Mosque of Dakar, it has only one, while that of
Touba, the most important centre of the religious
brotherhood of the Murids, has three, of which the
tallest, known as the “Lamp” {Fall) measures 83 m.
In fact, it is the modern mosques which possess
minarets; the most ancient have none, but still
dominate their surroundings with cubic pillars. In
small villages, the floor of the mosque is covered with
matting or with fine sand which is sifted every day. In
the urban setting, oriental carpets cover the floor. A
palisade of bamboo or zinc plates or even a cement
wall forms an enclosure within which a spacious court¬
yard is set out, to enable those worshippers who can¬
not pray at the times when the mosque is crowded to
perform their religious duties. On the left side of the
larger mosques, the place reserved for women is
separated from that where the men pray by a metal

griU-

The imam leads the prayer standing in a niche {min-
bar) in the kibla wall. The Great Mosque is furnished
with a throne, a kind of raised dais where the imam
takes his place to preach his sermon and to harangue
the faithful, first in Arabic and then in the local
language.

All the other facilities, including lavatories and taps
for ablutions, are located on the exterior. In a corner
of the courtyard there is a hut for the washing of
corpses.

Each imam is served by a nd^ib or deputy who
officiates in his absence. Two or more muezzins make
the call to prayer from the tops of the minarets. In the
larger mosques loud-speakers have been installed, to
relay either the call to prayer or the sermon of the
imam. The majority of imams receive no monthly
salary. The imam of the Great Mosque of the
Senegalese capital is one of the few who receives
regular payment and occupies an official residence;
more often, the imam and his family are accom¬
modated in the mosque.

The architectural style reproduces especially that of
the Maghrib. It is thus that the Great Mosque of
Dakar, inaugurated by King Hasan II, was built
under the supervision of a Moroccan architect, as was
the Islamic Institute which adjoins it. However the
ancient mosques of northern Senegal, including those
of Halwar, Ndioum, Guede and Dialmath, are in the
Sudanese style of the mosque-institutes of the towns of
Mali (Djenne, Mopti, Timbuktu, etc.) and of the land
of the Sahel (cf. J. Boulegue, Les Mosquees de style
soudanais an Fuuta-Tooro (Senegal), in Notes africaines ,
136 (Oct. 1972), 117-19). This is a style characterised
by its massive buttresses exceeding the height of the
roof, in a rounded, conical form, with a small cubic
minaret; the whole is constructed in brick made from
dried earth and covered with a facing of the same
material and ochre or beige in colour. The walls are
very thick. An elaborate system of ventilation main¬
tains a freshness similar to that provided by air-
conditioning.

Religious function. In West Africa, the principal func¬
tion of the mosque is still religious; each quarter
possesses several, and in this context a genuine rivalry
prevails between quarters or between members of dif¬
ferent brotherhoods. It is thus that the mosque of the
Tidjanls is found alongside those of the Murids [see
murid], of the Kadiris [see kadiriyya] or of the
Hamallites [see hamaliyya]. The faithful fill the mos¬
ques without regard for their particular affiliation.
The Tidjanls organise gatherings in the mosque after
morning and evening prayers to recite, in chorus, the

litanies (dhikr) peculiar to their religious order. This
ritual is performed around a carpet and in darkness.
But on Fridays or at times of canonical festivals, great
crowds of Muslims are seen streaming towards the
mosques clad in their splendid boubous or flowing
robes.

Special prayers for the dead are also offered in the
mosque. In this case, the bier is placed before the
faithful, who pray upright without bowing or sitting.
After these funeral rites, the parents of the deceased
arrange a ceremony of recitation of the Kur’an “for
the repose of his soul”.

The veneration of which the mosque is the object
inspired Cheikh El-Hadji Malik Sy (1853-1922),
founder of the zawiyya tidjaniyya of Tivaouane, to com¬
pose a poem in Arabic consisting of forty verses in
radjaz style and revealing the details of a whole system
of etiquette. Cheikh Aliou Faye, the chief marabout of
the Gambia, revised and embellished his master’s
poem, entitling his version Tabshirat al-mund or “The
way of success for the disciple”. The following are a
few of the verses:

Whosoever wishes to enter Paradise without
punishment and without the need to give an exact
account of his actions at the Resurrection, should
build a mosque for God the Merciful, and he will be
granted one hundred and thirty palaces in Paradise.

Every believer who enters this mosque to pray will
obtain a pleasant dwelling in Paradise.

A mosque may be built in any place, even in the
square of a church or a or a synagogue.

There it is forbidden to grow crops, to dig wells, to
sew and to compose [profane] poetry.

There it is forbidden to eat garlic, leek, onion, to
shave, to cause an injury to a human being, to cut the
nails, to cast lice or fleas and to kill them.

To tie animals, confine the mentally ill, to allow a
criminal to enter and be seated.

All mosques are of equal worth, with three excep¬
tions: those of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, which
are the best mosques.

Social function. Besides this predominant religious
role, the mosque also performs a very important social
function. It is there, in fact, that, under the patronage
of the imam , marriages are contracted between the
parents of the betrothed parties. The father or guar¬
dian of the prospective bride gives her hand to the
father or guardian of the suitor and receives the
dowry. This function is so important that when infor¬
mation is sought regarding the marital status of a
female person, the question is asked: “Have the men
gone to the mosque for her?” (in Wolof: Ndax dem -
nahu jaka ja?). As a form of pleasantry and to tell a girl
that she is nubile, the remark is made: “1 shall go to
see the imam about it.” Parents or guardians may be
accompanied to the mosque by other parents and
friends who act as witnesses. The relatives of the
suitor bring the dowry which they entrust to the imam ;
the latter gives it to the father or guardian of the pro¬
spective bride and recites the sacramental formula. In
the presence of all, the imam blesses the couple. Cola,
non-alcoholic drinks or delicacies are distributed.

Even though, since the promulgation of a “Family
Code” in Senegal, for example, some ten years ago,
marriages must be contracted before the mayor or the
representative of the public authorities, it is con¬
sidered that, without the mosque playing a part, the
matrimonial union is not valid. Thus the imam in fact
represents the municipal magistrate.

Often the elders of the village hold meetings not
under the traditional tree, but inside or in the court¬
yard of the mosque at any hour of day or night to

706

MASDJID

discuss public matters; finance for the sinking of wells,
construction of a market, division of the produce of
common land, preparations for the reception of distin¬
guished guests, etc. In this case, the mosque
represents a kind of national assembly where all the
affairs of the village community are the object of wide
and democratic debate.

Sometimes the mosque performs the role of a
tribunal where disputes between members of the
village are laid public and closely examined. Solutions
are always formed on the basis of the Shari^a, or of
local custom, or of both. These may be disputes
between spouses, between two dignitaries, between
two families, between herdsmen and stock-breeders,
between a representative of the state and local land-
owners, between traditional chiefs and religious
leaders. Sometimes the division of bequests is per¬
formed in the mosque under the supervision of the
imam.

Some mosques provide places of lodging for
strangers. It is in this way that travelling Muslims are
accommodated. Furthermore, any person who is
regarded as having lived a pious life and who has con¬
tributed to the building of the mosque, is buried there
after his death. Such is the case of Cheikh Ahmadou
Bamba Mbacke, Cheikh El-Hadji Malik Sy, Cheikh
Ibrahima Niasse, Cheikh Ahmadou Anta Samb, and
Bouh Kounta respectively at Touba, Tivaouane,
Kaolack, Kebemer and Ndiassance (Senegal).

Many other men renowned for their piety or for
their work in the service of Islam are entombed within
or in close proximity to the mosque.

Economic junction. The economic function of the
mosque is explained by the fact that the temporal is
always closely linked with the spiritual. Thus, for
example, the sums raised from legal alms ( zakat ) are
in most cases entrusted to the imam of the mosque
who, as an expert in the matter, ensures that they are
distributed to those entitled to them. Sometimes cattle
are led to the mosque to be slaughtered by the imam ,
who distributes the meat to the needy. Every Friday,
a whole army of beggars is seen flocking to the mos¬
ques, attracted by the prospect of receiving charity
from the wealthier believers. The same spectacle is
witnessed during the major Islamic feasts of Tabaski
and Korite.

The imam received a gratuity for his services when
marriage is celebrated. Even though the sum is by no
means considerable, it is important for the imam who
is not salaried. In the course of one Sunday afternoon
he may preside over several marriage ceremonies.
Furthermore, numerous mosques receive requests for
readings of the Kurban in exchange for a certain sum,
the amount being left to the discretion of the
customer.

Mosques which incorporate tombs receive a pro¬
fitable income as a result of daily, weekly, monthly
and annual pilgrimages or on the occasion of major
Islamic feasts. This applies in the case of the mosque
of Touba during the well-known feast of Magal, which
commemorates the departure into exile (in 1895) of
Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke, founder of the
brotherhood of the Murids, and that of Tivaouane at
the time of the Mawlud [see mawlid].

Cultural junction. Although the mosque in West
Africa fulfils a considerable economic role, its function
in the cultural sphere is more striking. In the majority
of cases, the courtyard of the mosque is the setting for
a Kur^anic school. Sometimes dozens of young
children, boys and girls, are seen squatting in a half¬
circle before their master, who sits either on the
ground, on a sheepskin rug or reclining on a couch,

holding a cane. Each pupil places on his knees a tablet
on which the lesson to be learned is inscribed in ink
made from soot from cooking-pots. In the evening,
after twilight and before the meal, a large fire is lit and
the verses to be learned are read by the light of the
flames. By this educational method, in the shadow of
the mosque, many scholars arrive at the point where
they can recite the entire Holy Book by heart.

The mosque also serves as a high school and univer¬
sity when, having memorised the Kurban, the pupils
become students and learn the other Islamic sciences:
exegesis, hadith , theology, mysticism, Muslim law and
even literature, history, logic, astronomy, rhetoric,
etc.

It is also in the mosque that lectures are held on
various subjects relating to religion, as well as educa¬
tional lectures given by scholars or distinguished
guests from other Muslim countries. In the mosque,
throughout the month of Ramadan, marabout
exegetes expound and comment on the Kur 5 an before
an audience, either to recall the teaching of the Holy
Book or to instruct the faithful. On the “Night of
Destiny” nobody sleeps, and reverent vigil is held in
the mosque. Also in the mosque, particularly at
Tivaouane, the sanctuary of Tidjanism in Senegal,
the head khalifa of the disciples of the brotherhood
founded by Ahmad al-Tidjam (1737-1815 [< 7 . 1 ;.])
expounds and comments on the Burda of al-Bu$In
(608-ca.695/12 12-ca. 1295 [ q.v. in Suppl.]).

Political junction. Finally, the mosque performs in
West Africa a political function which is far from
insignificant, because the region contains a very
substantial percentage of Muslims. This figure is
increasing as a result of large-scale conversion to
Islam of followers of other religions (Christianity and
animism). Islam has enjoyed a revival of activity
under pressure exerted both from the interior of this
zone and, to a lesser extent, from the exterior. In
Senegal, for example, the quite recent appointment of
M. Abdou Diouf to the post of chief magistrate has
had a considerable influence in this domain, to such
an extent that, unlike his predecessor, the head of
state, accompanied by the presidents of the National
Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, par¬
ticipates behind the senior imam in the prayers con¬
ducted on the occasion of major festivals. In his
khutba, the latter invariably affirms his loyalty to the
authorities and invites the believers present to pray,
with him, for the President of the Republic and the
members of his government, whom he mentions by
name, appealing to God to “perpetuate their rule and
assist them, giving peace, health and long life to them,
to their families and to Senegal”.

This account of the activity of the present President
of the Republic of Senegal applies to the other Muslim
Heads of State of West Africa.

The imam often uses the occasion of the Friday
Prayer to draw attention in his khutba to themes of
concern to the government such as the misappropria¬
tion of public funds, corruption, juvenile delin¬
quency, drugs, prostitution, the degradation of
morals, the urgent need to combat bush-fires and
desertification.

After this survey of the functions of the mosque in
West Africa, it may be affirmed that it performs a
multifarious role in this region by virtue of its status
as the supreme place of prayer.

Bibliography : J. M. Cuoq, Les Musulmans en
Ajrique, Paris 1975, 103-271, gives information and
bibliographies concerning religious life in West
Africa; see also, in particular, J. Schacht, Sur la dij-
jusion des jormes d' architecture religieuse musulmane a.

MASDJID — al-MASDJID al-AKSA

707

travers le Sahara, in Travaux de l'Inst, de Rech.

Sakariennes, xi (1954), 1L27. (A. Samb)

al-MAS DJ ID al-AKSA, literally, “the re¬
motest sanctuary.” There are three meanings to
these words.

1. The words occur in Kurban, XVII, 1: “Praise
Him who made His servant journey in the night ( asra )
from the sacred sanctuary ( al-masdjid al-haram ) to the
remotest sanctuary ( al-masdjid al-aksa), which we have
surrounded with blessings to show him of our signs.”
This verse, usually considered to have been revealed
during the Prophet’s last year in Mecca before the
Hidjra, is very difficult to explain within the context
of the time. There is no doubt that al-masdjid al-haram
is the then pagan sanctuary of Mecca. But whether the
event itself was a physical one and then connected
with a small locality near Mecca which had two
mosques, a nearer one and a farther one (A.
Guillaume, Where was al-Masjid al-Aqsa?, in Al-
Andalus, xviii [1953]), or a spiritual and mystical
night-journey (isra 7 ) and ascension ( mi c radj [q.v. ]) to a
celestial sanctuary; a consensus was established very
early (perhaps as early as the year 15 A.H., cf. J.
Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen , Berlin 1926, 140)
that al-masdjid al-aksa meant Jerusalem. By the time of
Ibn Hisham’s Sira, nearly all the elements of what was
to grow into one of the richest mystical themes in
Islam were in place. Their study and the diverse and
at times contradictory interpretations found in early
commentaries of the Kur 5 an derive from a complex
body of religious sources (references in R. Blachere,
Le Coran, Paris 1949, ii, 374) which have not yet been
completely unravelled.

2. The words were occasionally used in early
Islamic times for Jerusalem, and, during many cen¬
turies, more specifically for the Haram al-Shartf
q.v.], the former Herodian Temple area transformed
:>y early Islam into a restricted Muslim space.

3. The most common use of the words is for the
large building located on the south side of the Haram
platform and, next to the Dome of the Rock (Kubbat
al-Sakhra [#.*>.]), the most celebrated Islamic building
in Jerusalem. Its archaeological history has been
superbly established by R. W. Hamilton, The structural
history of the Aqsd Mosque, and his conclusions were
entirely accepted by K. A. C. Creswell and incor¬
porated in his Early Islamic architecture , Oxford 1969,
373-80. Such points of debate as do exist (H. Stern,
Recherches sur la Mosquee al-Aqsa et ses mosaiques, in Ars
Orientalis, v [1963]) deal only with the precise dating
of the archaeologically-determined sequences of
building, not with their character. From the 4th/10th
century onward, precious descriptions by al-
MukaddasI, Nasir-i Khusraw and, much later,
Mudjir al-Dln’s chronicle of Jerusalem, provide a
unique written documentation which has been made
accessible in several books, of which the more impor¬
tant ones are G. Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems ,
London 1890, and M. S. Marmardji, Textes geographi-
ques arabes sur la Palestine , Paris 1951, 210-60. An easily
accessible survey of drawings and plans is found in Eli
Silad, Mesgid el-Aksa, Jerusalem 1978. For inscrip¬
tions, one should consult M. van Berchem, CIA,
Jerusalem, Cairo 1927, ii/2, and S.A.S. Husseini,
Inscription of the Khalif El-Mustansir, in QDAP, ix
(1942); A. G. Walls and A. Abul-Hajj, Arabic inscrip¬
tions in Jerusalem, London 1980, 24-5, for a checklist.
Finally, it is possible that a unique picture of Zion in
the celebrated 9th century A.D. Byzantine manu¬
script known as the Chludoff Psalter is a represen¬
tation of the Aksa Mosque ca. 850 A.D.; cf. O.
Grabar, A note on the Chludoff Psalter, in Harvard Ukrai¬

nian Studies, vii (1983) ( = a volume in honour of Pro¬
fessor Ihor Sevcenko). The recent excavations carried
out south of the Haram have brought a lot of contex¬
tual information pertinent to the uses of the Aksa
mosque, but, at least to the writer’s knowledge,
nothing immediately pertinent to its forms or history.

The latter can be summarised in the following man¬
ner: (a) There was an Umayyad hypostyle mosque
consisting of several aisles (their exact number cannot
be ascertained) perpendicular to the kibla, with a cen¬
tral, wider, aisle on the same axis as the Dome of the
Rock. This mosque, like many Umayyad ones, re¬
used a lot of materials of construction from earlier
buildings and was either built from scratch or com¬
pleted under the caliph al-Walld I. The only item of
contention is whether it already contained a large
dome in front of the mihrab which would have been
decorated with mosaics (Hamilton and Creswell argue
that it did not, Stern that it did; the argument of the
latter has historical logic on his side, as al-Walld was
lavish in his imperial buildings, but the archaeological
arguments against it are weighty indeed). Many
decorative remains of painted and carved woodwork
(kept in various Jerusalem museums) which have
been preserved probably date from the Umayyad
period, but they, as well as numerous fragments of
mosaics, marble, etc., whose records remain in the
archives of the Palestine Archaeological Museum (the
so-called Rockefeller Museum), still await a full
investigation. This first Aksa mosque was the con¬
gregational mosque of the city of Jerusalem, but it was
also seen as the covered part (mughatta) of the whole
Haram conceived as the mosque of the city.

(b) A series of major reconstructions took place in
early c Abbasid times, possibly because of a destructive
earthquake in 746. But the extent of the reconstruc¬
tions carried out under al-Mansur, al-Mahdi and
c Abd Allah b. Tahir between 771 and 844 suggests
more than a simple restoration. It was certainly a
major attempt to assert c Abbasid sponsorship of holy
places. It is essentially this c Abbasid building which is
described by al-Mukaddasi (ca. 985). It consisted of
fifteen naves perpendicular to the kibla, of a fancy
porch with gates inscribed with the names of caliphs,
and of a high and brilliantly decorated dome. Its
greatest pecularity is that it was open to the north,
towards the Dome of the Rock and the rest of the
Haram and to the east. The latter is unusual and is
probably to be explained by the ways in which the
Muslim population, mostly settled to the south of the
Haram, ascended the holy place. We know that the
main accesses to the Haram were through under¬
ground passages, and the eastern entrances of the
Aksa may indicate that the Triple Gate and the so-
called Stables of Solomon in the southeastern corner
of the Haram played a much greater role in the life of
the city than has been believed.

(c) The earthquake of 1033 was a devastating one,
leading, among other causes, to a major reorganisa¬
tion of the whole city [see al-kuds], The Aksa was
rebuilt under al-Zahir between 1034 and 1036 and the
work completed under al-Mustansir in 1065. Except
for the latter, it is the mosque described by Nasir-i
Khusraw in 1047, and most of the central part of the
present mosque dates from that time. Shrunk to seven
aisles only, probably without side doors, it was a very
classical mosque adapted to the peculiar circum¬
stances of Jerusalem, whose major characteristic was
the brilliance of its mosaic decoration. The triumphal
arch with its huge vegetal designs surmounted by a
royal inscription in gold mosaics, the gold pendentives
with their huge shield of “peacock’s eyes,” and the

708

al-MASDJID al-AK$A — al-MASDJID al-HARAM

drum with its brilliant panels of an idealised garden
with Umayyad and possibly Antique reminiscences,
transformed the mosque into a true masterpiece of
imperial art and exemplified the political ambitions of
the Fatimids in Jerusalem.

(d) The Crusaders used the mosque as a palace and
as living areas for the Knights Templar, and much of
the present eastern and western fagades date from this
occupation. In 1187, when the mosque was recon¬
secrated to Islam, Sal ah al-Din re-did the decoration of
the whole kibla wall, including the beautiful mihrab and
the long inscription along the kibla wall. He also
brought in the minbar made in 1169 by order of Nur
al-Din for the reconquered Holy City, but this great
masterpiece of Syrian woodwork was destroyed by an
arsonist in 1969 before it had been possible to study
it fully. The northern porch was restored in 1217 and
the eastern and western vaults re-done in 1345 and
1350. Under the later Ottomans, numerous repairs,
often of dubious quality, and plasterings or repain¬
tings altered considerably the expressiveness of what
was essentially a Fatimid building with major Cru¬
sader, Ayyubid and Mamluk details. It was only in
the nineteen-twenties and especially between 1937
and 1942 that a major and carefully supervised pro¬
gramme of restoration took place.

In spite of scholarly debates which will continue to
grow about this or that detail, and this or that date for
some aspect of the building, the history of the monu¬
ment is reasonably set. What is far more difficult to
define and to explain is its function, and on that issue
the debate has barely begun. As a work of art, should
it be considered as a finite monument to be explained
entirely in its own architectural terms? Or should it
always be understood as physically and visually part
of a broader vision, whether even completed or not,
of the Haram as a unit? Socially and culturally, was
it always, as it has become today, the city’s mosque,
different from its other sanctuaries, or was it, at times,
simply the covered part of a single sanctuary? In all
likelihood, the answers to these questions will differ
according to the periods of the city’s history. But
beyond the fascinating vagaries of meaning of an
extraordinary building in a unique setting, the prob¬
lem is still unresolved of when it became known as the
Masdjid al-Aksa. The Kur 3 anic quotation XCII,1,
appears for the first time in the 5th/11th century
official Fatimid inscription on the mosque’s triumphal
arch, and it is possibly at that time that it acquired its
name. But in the early 10th/16th century, Mudjlr al-
Dln still calls it a djami c , while acknowledging that it
is popularly known as the Aksa.

These confusions are all part of the complexities of
Jerusalem’s meaning in the Muslim world. Yet it
should be noted that the spiritual and onomastic
impact of the mosque extended much beyond its loca¬
tion, since in the Javanese city of Kudus the main
mosque is also called the Masdjid al-Aksa.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(O. Grabar)

al-MAS DJ ID al-HARAM, the name of the
Mosque of Mecca. The name is already found in
the pre-Islamic period (Horovitz, Koranische Studien,
140-1) in Kays b. al-Khatlm, ed. Kowalski, v. 14:
“By Allah, the Lord of the Holy Masdjid and of that
which is covered with Yemen stuffs, which are
embroidered with hempen thread” (?). It would be
very improbable if a Medinan poet meant by these
references anything other than the Meccan sanctuary.
The expression is also fairly frequent in the Kurban
after the second Meccan period (Horovitz, op. cit.)
and in various connections; it is a grave sin on the part

of the polytheists that they prohibit access to the
Masdjid Haram to the “people” (sura II, 217, cf.
V,2; VIII, 34; XXII, 25; XLVIII, 25); the Masdjid
Haram is the pole of the new kibla (sura, II, 134, 149);
contracts are sealed at it (sura IX, 7).

In these passages, masdjid haram does not as in later
times mean a building, but simply Mecca as a holy
place, just as in sura XVII, 1, al-Masdjid al-Ak§a
[q.v. ] “the remotest sanctuary” does not mean a par¬
ticular building.

According to tradition, a salat performed in the
Masdjid al-Haram is particularly meritorious (al-
Bukharl. al-Salat fi masdjid Makka, bdb 1). This masdjid
is the oldest, being forty years older than that of
Jerusalem (al-Bukhari, Anbiya 5 , bdb 10, 40).

This Meccan sanctuary included the Ka c ba [q.v.],
the well of Zamzam [q. v. ] and the Makam Ibrahim
[q.v.], all three on a small open space. In the year 8,
Muhammad made this place a mosque for worship.
Soon however it became too small, and under c Umar
and c Uthman, adjoining houses were taken down and
a wall built. Under c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr, the
Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, successive enlarge¬
ments and embellishments were made. Ibn al-Zubayr
put a simple roof above the wall. Al-Mahdl had colon¬
nades built around, which were covered by a roof of
teak. The number of minarets in time rose to seven.
Little columns were put up around the Ka c ba for
lighting purposes. The mosque was also given a
feature which we only find paralleled in a few isolated
instances: this was the putting up of small wooden
buildings, or rather shelters for use during the salat by
the imam , one for each of the four orthodox rites. The
fact that one of these makams might be more or less
elaborate than another occasionally gave rise to
jealousies between the HanafTs and the Shafi c Is.
Ultimately, the ground under the colonnades, origin¬
ally covered with gravel, was paved with marble slabs,
also in the mataf around the Ka c ba as well as on the
different paths approaching the mataf.

The mosque was given its final form in the years
1572-7, in the reign of the Sultan Selim II, who, in
addition to making a number of minor improvements
in the building, had the flat roof replaced by a number
of small, whitewashed, cone-shaped domes.

A person entering the mosque from the mas c a or the
eastern quarters of the town has to descend a few
steps. The site of the mosque, as far as possible, was
always left unaltered, while the level of the ground
around—as usual in oriental towns and especially in
Mecca on account of the dangers of sudden floods
(suyul) —gradually rose automatically in course of cen¬
turies (cf. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, i, 18-20).

The dimensions of the Haram (interior) are given
as follows (al-Batanuni, Rihla , 96): N.W. side 545,
S.E. side 553 feet, N.E. side 360, S.W. side 364 feet;
the corners are not right angles, so that the whole
roughly represents a parallelogram.

Entering the mataf from the eastern side, one enters
first the Bab BanI Shavba. which marks an old boun¬
dary of the ynasdjid. Entering through the door, the
Makam Ibrahim is on the right, which is also the
Makam al-Shafi c I. and to the right of it is the minbar.
On the left is the Zamzam building. As late as the
beginning of the 19th century, there stood in front of
the latter, in the direction of the north-east of the
mosque, two domed buildings ( al-kubbatayn ) which
were used as store-houses ( Chron. der Stadt Mekka, ii,
337-8). These kubbas were cleared away (cf. already,
Burckhardt, i, 265); they are not given in recent
plans.

Around the Ka c ba are the makams for the imams of

al-MASDJID al-HARAM — al-MASH c ALA ’l-KHUFFAYN

709

the madhhabs, between the Ka c ba and the south-east of
the mosque, the makam (or musalla) al-Hanbali , to the
south-west the makam al-Maliki and to the north-west
the makam al-Hanafi. The latter has two stories; the
upper one was used by the mu?a dhdh in and the
muballigh, the lower by the imam and his assistants.
Since Wahhabi rule has been established, the Hanball
imam has been given the place of honour; it is also
reported that the fatiU is conducted by turns by the
imams of the four rites ( OM, vii, 25). The makam al-
Hanafi stands on the site of the old Meccan council-
chamber ( ddr al-nadwa ) which in the course of cen¬
turies was several times rebuilt and used for different
purposes. The matdf is marked by a row of thin brass
columns connected by a wire. The lamps for lighting
are fixed to this wire and in the colonnades. In the
1930s, the mosque was provided with an installation
for electric light ( OM, xvi, 34; xviii, 39).

The mosque has for centuries been the centre of the
intellectual life of the metropolis of Islam. This fact
has resulted in the building of madrasas and riwaks for
students in or near the mosque, for example, the
madrasa of Ka-’it Bey on the left as one enters through
the Bab al-Salam. Many of these wakfs have however
in course of time become devoted to other purposes
(Burckhardt, i, 282; Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka , i, 17).
For the staff of the mosque, cf. shayba. banu; Burck¬
hardt, i, 287-91.

Bibliography : F. Wiistenfeld, Die Chroniken der
Stadt Mekka, ii, 10-11, 13-16, 337 ff.; i, 301-33,339-
45; iii, 73 ff; iv, 121, 139, 159, 165, 190, 203, 205,
227-8, 268-9, 313-14; Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, in CMS,
v, 81 ff.; Ibn Battuta, ed. and tr. Defremery and
Sanguinetti, i, 305 ff.; Yakut, Mu c dj_am, iv, 525-6;
Istakhri. BGA , i, 15-16; Ibn al-Fakih, v, 18-21;
index to vols. vii and viii, s.v.; Ibn c Abd Rabbihi,
tr. Muh. Shaft*, in * Ajab-namah, a volume of oriental
studies presented to E. G. Browne, Cambridge 1922;
423 ff; Muhammad Labib al-Batanuni, al-Rihla al-
hidjaziyya, Cairo 1329, 94 ff.; Travels of Ali Bey,
London 1816, ii, 74-93 and pis. liii, liv; J. L.
Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, London 1829, 243-
95; R. F. Burton, Personal narrative of a Pilgrimage to
Mecca and Medina, London 1855-6, iii, 1-37; C.
Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, The Hague 1888-9, i,
ch. i; ii, 230 ff.; Bilderatlas, nos, i, ii, iii; ibid., Bilder
aus Mekka, Leiden 1889, nos. 1 and 3; P. F. Keane,
Six months in Mecca, London 1881, 24 ff.; Eldon
Rutter, The Holy Cities of Arabia, London 1928; E.
Esin, Mecca the blessed, Madinah the radiant, London
1963; G. Michell (ed.), Architecture of the Islamic
world, its history and social meaning, London 1978, 17,
209-10. _ (A. J. Wensinck)

MAS DT IDI (a.), pi. masdjidiyyun, an adjective
formed from masdjid , but specifically concerning the
Friday mosque of Basra and used to designate
groups (see al-Djahiz, Hayawan, iii, 360) of adults
or young people who were accustomed to meet
together in that building, near the gate of the Banu
Sulaym, as well as of poets, popular story¬
tellers ( kussas [see kass]), and transmitters of
religious, historical and literary traditions, in par¬
ticular, those regarding poetic verses. The informa¬
tion which we possess on the masdjidiyyun in general
comes from al-Djahiz, who seems clearly to have
acquired from them, in his youth, part of his cultural
formation and perhaps also some of the traits of his
character. He was especially interested in a group
which was probably composed of Basran bourgeois or,
at all events, of idlers who exchanged ideas and held
conversations on subjects which were probably more
varied (see e.g. Bayan, i, 243) than those for which he

puts forward some examples in his K. al-Bukhald ? (ed.
Hadjiri, 24-8; tr. Pellat, 41-8); the conversations thus
reproduced are concerned essentially with how to
spend as little money as possible, and allow us to
classify the persons taking part in these conversations
as part of the class of misers.

Nevertheless, al-Djahiz frequented other masdfidiy-
yun\ not only poets—al-Amidl ( Muwazana, 116) could
not appreciate their verses, and al-Marzubam
( Mu^djam , 379) states that Abu c Imran Musa b.
Muhammad, e.g., was a masdjidi —but also tradi-
tionists who themselves wrote books, since, in regard
to two hadiths, he states that he did not gather them
directly from the mouth of some scholar but that he
had read them in some book of masdjidiyyun {Bayan, iii,
57-8). He mentions however {ibid., iii, 220) that one
shayfdi of the mosque only wanted to frequent persons
amongst whom were included traditionists handing
on hadiths on the authority of al-Hasan (sc. al-Basrl
[q. v. ]) and ruwdt [see raw!] who were reciting the
verses of al-Farazdak [q.v.]. It should be noted that it
is concerning the transmiters of classical poetry
installed at the Mirbad \q.v.\, the mirbadiyyun, or in
the Friday mosque, that al-Djahiz observes the
changes of taste among lovers of poetry which were
discernable precisely in these ruwat's audience {Bayan,
iv, 23 )\

Bibliography : Given in the article. See also

Pellat, Le milieu basrien et la formation de Gahiz, 244-

5. (Ch. Pellat)

al-MASH c ALA ’l-KHUFFAYN (a.), literally:
“act of passing the hand over the boots”, designates
the right whereby Sunni Muslims may, in certain cir¬
cumstances, pass the hand over their shoes
instead of washing their feet as a means of preparing
themselves for the saying of the ritual prayer. Al-
Djurdjani {TaGifat, ed. Tunis 1971, 112) proposes a
definition of the mash : “passing the moistened hand
without making (water) flow” {imrar al-yad al-mubtalla
bi-la tasyil ), which justifies the translation by “wetting
of the shoes” which is adopted by L. Bercher and G.
H. Bousquet (see below), but the term in question
nevertheless remains ambiguous. In fact, if in the
verses IV, 46/43, and V, 8-9/6, of the Kur 3 an, the
verb masaha refers to ablutions which necessarily entail
the use of a certain quantity of water and conse¬
quently has the sense of “to wash”, as is suggested by
the Lisdn, it is also employed in the same verses in
reference to ritual purification with sand or soil
{tayammum [q. v. ]) and therefore no longer has the same
meaning. In his translation of the Kur 5 an (iii, 1115),
R. Blachere points out moreover that it is quite inac¬
curate to render this verb by “to wipe” or “to rub”,
since it properly signifies, in these contexts, “to pass
the hand over”.

Unlike the tayammum, the mash c ala ’ l-khuffayn is not
envisaged by the Holy Book, and it is probable that
the practice in question, although ancient, was only
tolerated at a relatively late date, to take into account
difficulties which could face armies in the field, and
after provoking debate in the very bosom of the
Medinan school. Ultimately it constituted, along
with, especially, mut c a [f f.], one of the most manifest
signs of the rift between Sunnis and Shi c is, for the lat¬
ter, like the Kharidjls, do not recognise it. The dif¬
ferent Sunni schools now base their doctrine, in this
context, on a half-dozen hadiths whose authenticity is
accepted by al-Bukhari and Muslim, and on a
number of other more liberal, but nevertheless for
that reason more suspect traditions.

From “authentic” hadiths it emerges that the
Prophet was observed to practise the mash c ala 7-

710

al-MASH c ALA ‘l-KHUFFAYN — MASHA 3 ALLAH

khuffayn. However, Dj arlr b. c Abd Allah al-Badjall,
who was converted after the revelation of the
Medinan sura al-MdHda (V), which contains instruc¬
tions relating to ablutions and to the tayammum (see
above), claimed that he himself had seen Muhammad
passing the hand over his shoes; but his colleagues
contested the validity of his statements and declared
that the revelation of the verses in question had ipso
facto put an end to the legality of this practice. This
testimony, which has not been retained by al-Bukharl,
does not seem to have shaken the conviction of later
fukaha?, any more than another more or less con¬
troversial tradition which official doctrine has
retained, no doubt because it provides an additional
benefit: according to Khuzayma b. Thabit and Abu
Bakra, the Prophet was reported to have permitted the
Muslim to observe the mash c ala ’ l-khuffayn for a day
and a night when he is in fixed residence (mukim), and
for three days and three nights when he is travelling.

According to another “authentic” hadith , al-
Mughlra b. Shu c ba, who travelled in the company of
Muhammad, bent down to take off his shoes in order
to perform his ablutions, but the Prophet said to him:
“Leave them, for I put them (= the feet) into [my
boots], when they were in a state of ritual purity
(, tahiratdn 1 )”, and he passed his hand over his shoes.
From this hadith , the fukahd 3 have retained the obliga¬
tion, for the believer who wishes to cleanse himself of
a minor defilement (hadath [q. v. ]) by means of this
indulgence, to wash his feet and polish his shoes
before putting them on, and not to take them off in the
meantime.

Regarding the legal manner of performing the
mash, Ibn Abi Zayd al-Kayrawani, of the Malik!
school, describes it clearly in his Risdla (ed. and tr. L.
Bercher, Algiers, 1949, 50/51): “The believer will
place the right hand on the upper part of the shoe [foi
the right foot], beginning with the extremity of the
toes. He will place his left hand underneath and thus
make the hands glide as far as and including the pegs.
He will do the same for the shoe of the left foot, put¬
ting his left hand above and his right hand
underneath. But he will not let his hand touch the
ground which may be under his shoe, or touch the
dung of a beast of burden. He must previously raise
his foot when rubbing or washing.” The author adds
that, according to another opinion, “the believer
must wet the underside of the shoes, beginning with
the pegs and ending with the extremities of the toes.”

The classical manual of Western Malikism, the
Mukhtasar of Khalil b. Ishak (tr. G. H. Bousquet,
Algiers 1956, i, 34-5) presents an even more detailed
account of the mash c ala ’ l-khuffayn. It envisages in fact
the use of a kind of slipper ( djawrab ) inside the boot
proper, and prescribes that the mash should be per¬
formed on both pieces of leather; it forbids the use of
a slipper which is too large or tom, because it must be
firmly fixed to the foot, cover it completely and not let
water penetrate through any crevice. This author also
considers cases where the mash is invalidated, for
example if the ghusl [q.v.] is obligatory, if the
individual has forgotten to pass his hand over the
upper part of the shoe, etc.

Bibliography : All the hadiths concerning the
mash have been conveniently assembled by Ibn al-
Djarud al-Naysaburl (d. 307/919-20) in his Kitdb al-
Muntaka min al-sunan al-musnada c an Rasul Allah, ed.
Cairo 1382/1963 by c Abd Allah Hashim al-Yamam
al-Madanl, who has taken care to indicate in his
notes (37-9) the more or less important collections
in which they figure; the same editor has proceeded
in the same fashion with the Dja m c al-fawa^id min

djdmi c al-usul (Medina 1381/1971, i, 104-7) of the
Moroccan Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Sulay-
man (1039-94/1630-83). See also R. Strothmann,
Kultus der Zaiditen , Strasburg 1912, 21 ff.; A. J.
Wensinck, The Muslim creed, Cambridge 1932,
index, s.v. shoes; J. Schlacht, The origins of Muham¬
madan jurisprudence, Oxford 1950, 263-4.

(Ch. Pellat)

MA SH A 3 ALLAH (a.), a phrase occurring in the
Kur 3 an (VI, 128; VII, 188; X, 50; XVIII, 37;
LXXXVII, 7; cf. XI, 109-10, LXXII, 8) and widely
used in the Islamic lands of the Middle East with the
general meaning of “what God does, is well
done”. The formula denotes that things happen
according to God’s will and should therefore be
accepted with humility and resignation. In a cognate
signification, the phrase is often used to indicate a
vague, generally a great or considerable, but some
times a small, number or quantity of time (Lane, Lexi¬
con, s.v., who refers to S. de Sacy, Relation de lEgypte ,
246, 394). One might compare ild md sha^a Allahu
“forever and ever” (Wehr, Dictionary of modern written
Arabic , s.v.). The phrase is also the equivalent of the
English “God knows what”, and, as signifying “what
God has willed”, expresses admiration or surprise.

According to TA, in Lane, Lexicon, s.v., a Jew
addressed the Prophet, objecting to his people’s say¬
ing md sha^a Allahu wa-shPtu “what God has willed and
I have willed”, as implying the association of another
being with God. The Prophet then ordered them to
say md shd^a Allahu thumma shi^tu “what God has willed
and then I have willed”.

In Konya, blue hemispheres are found, represen¬
ting half an eyeball, covered with silver-thread textile
with which the phrase is embroidered. Because of the
decorative character of the Arabic script, the
hemispheres are also worn as ornaments (R. Kriss
and H. Kriss-Heinrich, Volksglaube im Bereich des Islam,
ii, 12, 65 and pi. 7). As a charm to protect from the
effect of the evil eye, the phrase is found on zar [q.v.]
amulets and on amulets worn by children and
domestic animals (ibid. , ii, 43, 66, 67, 153, and pi. 76;
F. Th. Dijkema, The Ottoman historical monumental
inscriptions in Edirne, Leiden 1977, 137; the amulet col¬
lection of the Ethnographical Museum, Cairo; Lane,
Manners and customs , ch. xi). According to L. Einnsler,
Das bose Auge, in ZDPV, xii (1889), 200 ff., there were
silver amulets in Jerusalem with the formula on the
obverse, the reverse bearing the invocations^ kdfi, yd
shaft, yd hdfiz, yd amin. In Turkey, the phrase is often
( found on the fronts of trucks and cars.

Bibliography : In the article, and see also M.
Piamenta, Islam in everyday Arabic speech, Leiden
1979; idem. The Muslim conception of God and human
welfare as reflected in everyday Arabic speech, Leiden
1983. _ _ (Ed.)

MA SH A 3 ALLAH b. Athar! or b. Sariya,
Jewish astrologer of Basra (although the fre¬
quent confusion between BasrI and MisrI has some¬
times led to him being considered an Egyptian). His
Hebrew name was perhaps Manasseh (the Fihrist,
273-4, and Ibn al-Kiftl, 327, call him Misha) and in
Persian he was known as Yazdankh w ast which, like
Masha 3 allah, signifies “that which God wills”.

According to the Fihrist, the period of his activity
extended from the reign of al-Man§ur (135-58/754-75)
to that of al-Ma 3 mun (198-218/813-33), but the last
date to be placed definitely within his lifetime is
193/809 (in Ft kiyam al-khulafa' 3 , he shows in fact that
he knew that of the death of al-Rashld). With
Nawbakht, c Umar b. Farrukhan al-Tabari and al-
Fazarl, he drew the horoscope favourable to the foun-

MASHA 5 ALLAH

711

dation of Baghdad (3 Djumada I 145/30 July 762);
this horoscope, which has been preserved (see al-
BTruni, al-Athdr al-bdkiya, ed. Sachau, Leipzig 1923,
270-1), had probably been calculated on the basis of
the Pahlavi original text of the Zidj_ al-Shah. On the
evidence of his Kitab al-Kiranat, he seems to have been
of pro-Iranian and anti- c Abbasid sentiment; he hoped
in fact that the caliphate would be overthrown in
200/815 and that power would pass to the Persians.

In the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadlm mentions 19 works of
Masha 5 allah, and al-Kifti reproduces this list in his
TaPrikh al-Hukamd 5 The generally most complete and
most recent studies which mention the titles of these
works and the mss. in which they are preserved are
those of D. Pingree, MdshjDalldh, in Diet, of scientific
biography , New York 1974, 159-62, and F. Sezgin,
GAS , vi, 127-9, viii, 102-8.

Of the corpus of known works, discussion here will
be limited to the following:

— Fi 'l-kirdndt wa ’ l-adydn wa ’ l-milal (“On conjunc¬
tions, religions and communities”), an astrological
history of mankind, and of Islam in particular, which
is known to us by means of a summary by Ibn
Hibinta. E. S. Kennedy and D. Pingree (The astro¬
logical history of Mdshd^alldh, Cambridge, Mass. 1971,
1-25) have published a facsimile of the ms., with a
translation and a study of the summary of this work,
which is based on an amalgam of the Sasanid theory
which explains the major changes which have taken
place in human history by reference to conjunctions of
Jupiter and Saturn, and of the Zoroastrian theory of
millennia which attributes a thousand years to each
planet from the time of the creation of the world
(-8291), the cycle being repeated up until the figure of
12 millennia which will be reached in the year 3709
A.D. Ibn Hibinta’s summary also contains 16
horoscopes, probably those of Masha 5 allah himself
and calculated on the basis of the Zifa al-Shah : Ken¬
nedy and Pingree have made use of the numerical
figuring in these horoscopies, combined with the
sparse information supplied by other sources (essen¬
tially al-Bfrum) to reconstruct the principal
parameters employed in the Persian tables mentioned
above (see also J. J. Burckhardt and B. L. van der
Waerden, Das astronomischen System der persischen Tafeln
/, in Centaurus, xiii [1968], 1-28).

— Fi kiydm al-khulafd 5 wa-ma Gif at kiydm kull malik
(“On the accession of caliphs and knowledge of the
accession of each king”), of which the original Arabic,
preserved, has been translated and studied by Ken¬
nedy and Pingree, in The astr. history , 129-43. After a
general theoretical survey, the work contains
horoscopes of the spring equinoxes at which the
Prophet and 18 caliphs (from Abu Bakr to Harun al-
Rashid) acceded to power. To calculate these,
Masha 5 allah also made use of the Zifa al-Shah.

— Kitab al-Mawaltd (“Book of genethliac themes”),
known only through some quotations made by a disci¬
ple of the author, Abu c AlT al-Khavvat. and through
a Latin translation edited and studied by Pingree (The
astr. history , 145-74). It contains 12 natal horoscopes
dating from between 36 and 542 A.D.; three of them
derive from the Pentateuch of Dorotheus of Sidon (50-
75 A.D.), and the other nine from an unknown Greek
astrological work dating from the 6 th century. He
interprets the horoscopes according to the doctrine of
Dorotheus, whose work he probably knew through the
Pahlavi translation. The influence of this writer is also
perceptible in the Super significationibus planetarum in
nativitate of Mash a 5 all ah. which survives only in Latin
translation.

— De receptione , preserved in Latin translation (ed. J.
Heller, Norirbergae 1549), comprises 6 horoscopes

dating between 791 and 794. One of them figures in
the Peterhouse ms. 75.1, which contains the treatise of
Chaucer (ca. 1340-ca. 1400) on the equator (E. S.
Kennedy, A horoscope of Messehalla in the Chaucer
Equatorium manuscript , in Speculum , xxxiv [1959], 629-
30; repr. in E. S. Kennedy (ed.), Studies in the Islamic
exact sciences, Beirut 1983, 336-7; cf. Kennedy-Pin-
gree, The astr. history , 175-8).

— De scientis motus orbis or De dementis et orbitus
coelestibus or De sphaera mota, preserved in Latin
translation, contains a study of the Physics of Aristotle
(ehs. 1-7), as well as an introduction to astronomy
(chs. 8-24), both of these based on Syriac sources. The
astronomical source mentions Ptolemy and Theo of
Alexandria, but the planetary models described are
pre-Ptolemaic Greek (they do not, in fact, employ the
equant and introduce no specific apparatus for the
moon and Mercury) and similar to those found in
Sanskrit texts since the end of the 5th century (cf. D.
Pingree, Masha ■’allah: some Sasanian and Syrian sources , in
G. F. Hourani (ed.), Essays on Islamic philosophy and
science, Albany 1975, 5-14).

— Kitab al-Amtar wa ’ l-riydh (“Book of the rains and
the winds”), ed. and tr. by G. Levi Della Vida (Un
opusculo astrologico di MaPdlldh , in RSO, xiv [1933-4],
270-81), concerns the astrological procedure for
predicting rain. A Latin version also exists.

— Epistola de rebus eclipsium, De ratione circuli et stellarum,
Liber Messehalla in radicis revolutionum or Epistola
Messallach de planetarum efficacis (cf. J. M. Millas
Vallicrosa, Las tables astronomicas del rey don Pedro el
Ceremonioso , Madrid-Barcelona 1962, 87), preserved
in Latin translation (by John of Seville, ed. Basle
1551) and Hebrew translation (by Abraham b.
c Ezra). The latter, which is entitled Sefer li-Masha’allah
bi-kadrut ha-levanah we ha-shemesh, has been translated
by B. R. Goldstein (The Book on eclipses by Mas ha ■’allah,
in Physis, vi [1964], 205-13). It is divided into 12
chapters, of which the first contains a curious
reference to magnetism in a cosmological context: the
ascending node, the stars and the planets exert an
influence on the earth in the same manner that
magnetic stone attracts iron. It is appropriate also to
mention the use, in this text, of a classification of
planetary conjunctions distinct from that which
figures in Fi ’ l-kirdndt.

— Ibn al-Nadim attributes to Masha 5 allah a Kitab
San c a( al-asturldbdt wa d-^amal bi-ha (“Construction
and use of astrolabes”), often identified with the
treatise on the astrolabe in Latin, which has been
edited, notably by R. T. Gunther (Early science in
Oxford, v, Oxford 1929, 195-231). A second treatise on
the astrolabe in a Latin version, likewise attributed to
Masha 5 allah, has been edited by Millas Vallicrosa (in
Las traducctiones orientals en los manuscritos de la Biblioteca
Catedral de Toledo , Madrid 1942, 322-7). P. Kunitzch
has rejected the attribution of the two texts to
Masha 5 allah (see Typen von Sternverzeichnissen in astro¬
nomischen Handschriften des zehnten bis vierzehnten
Jahrhunderts, Wiesbaden 1966, 313-21; idem, On the
authenticity of the treatise on the composition and use of the
astrolabe ascribed to Messahallah, in AIHS, xxxi [1981],
42-62). A part at least of the text edited by Gunther
appears to be linked to the school of Maslama al-
MadjrltT (d. ca. 398/1007-8; cf. R. Marti and M. Vila-
drich, in J. Vernet (ed.), Textos y estudios sobre astro-
nomia espanola en el siglo XIII, Barcelona 1981, 79-99,
and in idem (ed.), Neuvos estudios sobre astronomia
espanola en el siglo de Alfonso X, Barcelona 1983, 9-74;
M. Viladrich, On the sources of the Alphonsine treatise deal¬
ing with the construction of the plane astrolabe, in JHAS, vi
[1982], 167-71).

The work of Masha 5 allah is that of a writer who has

712 MASHA 3 ALLAH

little interest in astronomy, but has cultivated all the
branches of astrology which he has widely pro¬
mulgated and popularised; nevertheless, it has con¬
siderable interest from the astronomical point of view
on account of the sources used (Persian, Syriac and,
directly or indirectly, Greek), which throw light on a
very early period in the history of Arab-Islamic
astronomy.

Bibliography : Given in the article. See also L.
Thorndike, The Latin translations of the astrological
works by Messahala , in Osiris, xii (1956), 49-72; F. J.
Carmody, Arabic astronomical and astrological sciences
in Latin translation , Berkeley-Los Angeles 1956, 23-
38; E. S. Kennedy, The Sasanian astronomical hand¬
book Ztj-i Shah and the astrological doctrine of “transit”
(mamarr), in JAOS , lxxviii (1958), 246-62 (re-ed.
in Kennedy and others. Studies, 319-35); Kennedy,
D. Pingree and F. I. Haddad, The Book of the reasons
behind astronomical tables by c Ali ibn Sulaymdn al-
Hdshiml, New York 1981, 183, 186-7, 191, 264,
284, 321-3. 0 - Samso)

MASHAF [see mushaf]

MA SH AKA. Mikha 3 il. a person of secondary
importance of the Nahda [q.v.] (b. Rashmaya 20
March 1800, d. Damascus 6 July 1888). Born in the
Greek Melkite rite, he began his studies in Egypt in
astronomy, mathematics and the natural sciences. As
a silk weaver, he studied music ( Risdlaft fann al-musikt,
ed. Ronzevalle, in al-Machriq [1899], pp. 146). As an
official, a representative of Shihab and vice-consul for
the United States, and then merchant, he took up
medicine (doctor of medicine at Cairo, 1845). In 1848
at Damascus he joined the Protestant faith. The ensu¬
ing polemics can be found in al-Dalil ila ta c at al-IndjiB,
Beirut 1860, pp. 332, and in K. al-Barahin al-indjfliyya
didd al-abatil al-bdbawiyya, Beirut 1864, pp. 187. As the
Arabic translator of Voltaire, a close connection of the
al-Shidyak family and of Butrus al-Bustanl, he
reacted, through his attitude and his writings, against
confessionalism, and opened the way, through his
advocacy of reason, to scientific attitudes. His chroni¬
cle of Syria (1783-1841) remains in manuscript; the
autograph is in the AUB Library, ms. 956, 9 M 39a.

Bibliography : Kasatill, in al-Muktataf, xii
(August 1888), 703-5; Zaydan, Taradjim mashdhir
al-shark, ii, 156-9; Shavkhu. in al-Karn al-tasi c c ashar,
ii, 140-1; Kurd c Ali, Khitat al-Sham, xxiv, 71;
Sarkis, 1747-8; Brockelmann, II, 496 S II, 779-80;
Graf, GCAL , iv, 297-9; Baghdadi, Idah, i, 175,
178, 221, 565; Kahhala, xiii, 57-8; Zirikll, viii,
295-6; Muntakhabat min al-djawab c ala iktirdh al-ahbdb,
ed. As c ad Rustum and $ubhl Abu Shakra. Beirut
1955, pp. 180; Ruwwad indjiliyyun, in al-Mash c al
(1962), 24-42; A. Hourani, Arabic thought in the
liberal age, 58; Travaux et jours, xl (July-Sept. 1971),
57-67; Daghir, iii/2, 1212-14. (J. Fontaine)

MA SH ARIKA (a.), the Arabs and Arabised
peoples of the East (Mashrik) in contrast to those
of the West ( Maghrib ) called Maghariba [q.v.']. The
history of the Masharika in the East, a history which
is inseparable from the region itself, will not be treated
here. The concern here is rather with the Masharika
who were perceived as such in the West by the
Ma gh ariba. The distinction between the two great
groups, with a certain specificness proper to Muslim
Spain, becomes perceptible less than half-a-century
after the expansion of the Arabs in the West, i.e.
around 122/740 [see maghariba].

It is impossible to determine, even with an approx¬
imative exactness, the number of Masharika who, in
successive waves and during periods stretching from
the middle of the 1st century to the middle of the 5th

— MASHARIKA

one/last quarter of the 7th to the middle of the 11th,
established themselves in the West and especially in
Ifrlkiya, where their settlement was the densest and
most enduring. As the newcomers became “Maghri-
bised”, i.e. at the latest from the second generation
onwards, they thereby ceased to be perceived as
Masharika. The first waves of them, up to the last
quarter of the 2nd century/beginning of the 9th one,
were made up of sedentaries who founded new towns
or who settled in already existing towns. Their
number cannot have exceeded a quarter of a million:
fighters for the faith, often coming with wives and
children; officials; men of religion; merchants; and all
kinds of persons attracted by the prospect of profits
offered by a new land (see M. Talbi, L’emirat aghlabide,
Paris 1966, 21-2, and art. al- c arab, v, at 542-3). The
towns where they settled formed at one and the same
time centres for religious Islamisation and cultural
Arabisation, i.e., for the orientalisation of the
Maghrib. A certain number of the Sahaba, the
Companions of the Prophet, are said to have died in
the Maghrib (see Abu M- c Arab, Tabakdt, ed. Ben
Cheneb, Paris 1915, 16-18; and al-Malikl, Riydd, ed.
B. al-Bakkush and M. A. al-MitwI, Beirut 1981, i,
60-98, where, in the notes, the editors refer in a vir¬
tually exhaustive fashion to the other sources), and
certain towns have retained the memory of them till
this day, embodied in sanctuaries and tombs, as
features of great glory. Thus at al-Kayrawan, the
presumed tomb of Abu Zam c a al-BalawI, transformed
into the centre of a sanctuary—the Zawiya Sldl al-
Sahib—enjoys a particular prestige (see B. Roy and
P. Poinssot, Inscriptions arabes de Kairouan, Paris 1950,
ii/1, 65-76). Nevertheless, the sources attach a par¬
ticular importance to ten Successors or Tabi c un who
were sent by the caliph c Umar b. c Abd al- c Az!z (99-
101/717-20) into Ifrlkiya in order to spread Islam in
the Maghrib (al-Malikl, Riydd, i, 99-118, with
reference to other sources). One should however note
that there was no figure of the first rank among these
Masharika.

Politically, the most outstanding of the eastern
dynasties who reigned in the Islamic West were the
Aghlabids of al-Kayrawan, the IdrTsids of Fez, the
Umayyads of Cordova and the Fatimids [q.vv.], the
founders of al-Mahdiyya [q.v.] on the Tunisian coast.
The last Masharika who infiltrated into the Maghrib
and then Spain in large numbers—several hundred
thousands?—were the nomadic Banu Hilal [q.v. ], who
were victorious in 443/1052 at Haydaran [q.v.] and
were backed up by the Banu Sulaym. Views on the
extent of his “catastrophe” of the Hilalian invasions
vary considerably (see Talbi, Droit et economic en
Ifnkiya..., in Etudes d'histoire ifrikiyenne, Tunis 1982,
205 and n. 4, Eng. tr. in The Islamic Middle East, ed.
A. L. Udovitch, Princeton 1981, 222-3 and n. 77).
But the Hilal and Sulaym were not perceived in the
Muslim West as Masharika stricto sensu.

This term too, together with those of c Iraki and
Kufi, denoted fairly frequently in the Muslim West,
though not inevitably and constrainedly, the
geographical connection with a socio-cultural area,
but equally, the belonging to a religious school. In
particular, the Shi c Is are often described in Ifrlkiya,
after the coming of the Fatimids, as being mashrikis,
even when the persons in question were authentic
Maghribls. Thus Ibn Ghazi was a pious Sunni of al-
Kayrawan and a zealous frequenter of ribats. “When
c Ubayd Allah made his entry [into al-Kayrawan], he
embraced Shl c ism (tasharrakay ’ (Talbi, Biographies
aghlabides, Tunis 1968, 284). Another similar person
was “a mashriki who had abandoned Islam” (al-

MASHARIKA — MASHHAD

713

Malik?, Riyad, ii, 502) in order to convert to the ShT c T
heresy. An assembly at al-Kayrawan brought together
“Sunnis and masharika ” {ibid., ii, 338), i.e. Shi c Is.
See other examples in ibid. , ii, 425, 427, and in Talbi,
op. cit. , 369, 383, 394.

The terms Hrdki (or ahl al-Hrak ) and Kufi were, on
the other hand, more often reserved for Ifrlkiyan
HanafTs (al-Malikl, Riyad, i, 181, 256, 263, 264, 266,
277, 374, 375, 451, 452, 463, 500, ii, 29, 73, 207,
339; and Talbi, op. cit., index s.v. c Irakiyyun). These
last, in contradistinction from the Malikls who made
up the spear-head of opposition to the Fatimids,
showed themselves as much more receptive to ShI c I
propaganda, which may be a contributory cause to
their disappearance from the North African scene,
after having formed the majority there (Talbi,
V emir at aghlabide , 233), once Shl c ism was finally
extirpated.

Above all, it was in a dual role, religious and
cultural, that the Masharika played an outstanding
part in the Muslim West. Certainly, none of their out¬
standing stars went beyond the Nile valley. The
Maghrib was to some extent a land of exile where only
persons relatively in the second rank sought their for¬
tune, which does not however mean that their role was
any the less decisive. Let us mention, for example,
that c Iyad [q. t>. ] had among his masters two
Masharika who had visited Ceuta, Abu ’l-Hasan al-
Rab c I al-MakdisI (d. at al-Nasiriyya in 531/1137,
c Iyad, Ghunya . no. 81) and the Shafi c I Sahl b.
c Uthman al-Nlsaburl (no. 89; al-Makkarl, Nqfh, ed.
Ihsan c Abbas, Beirut 1968, iii, 67). Naturally, one
cannot give here an exhaustive survey. Such a survey,
which has not yet been done, would however show
itself as very suggestive and open up many directions
for research. The sources at our disposal at present
have not, in any case, kept note of everything. Al-
Makkarl, who devotes 86 biographical notices to the
Masharika who resided in al-Andalus {Nqfh, iii, 5-
149), remarks that “one cannot give an exhaustive list
of them, even when limiting oneself to the most out¬
standing ones {ibid., iii, 5). For his part, Ibn
Bashkuwal provides us with over 50 names of
Masharika established in Muslim Spain {al-Sila,
classified in an approximately alphabetical order at
the end of each section, under the rubric wa-min al-
ghuraba 3 ...).

Among the top figures, three are especially
representative of the role played by the Masharika in
the Muslim West, comprising two philologist adtbs
and a musician. Abu C A1I al-Kall (288-356/901-67
[q.v. ]) arrived in Cordova in 330/942 and was
received with great pomp (al-Makkarl, iii, 71-2).
Drawing on his rich library, and also on his memory,
he spread eastern culture over a wide range, and he
thus occupies the position of “the key figure in the
c IrakI tradition in the West” (R. Sellheim, EP art.
s.v.). The figure of Sa c id al-Baghdadi (d. ?417/1026
[q.v.]) is in a sense even more representative and of
heightened relief (see R. Blachere, Un pionnier de la
culture arabe orientale en Espagne au X e siecle: Sa c id de
Bagdad, in Analecta, Damascus 1975, 443-65). This
was that of “a fairly picturesque Bohemian” {op. cit.,
445), certainly, enough of a flamboyant figure to
shine at court. Having been compelled to “give up the
idea of making a name for himself in Iraq”, he took
the road for Cordova, where he became “something
like the type of the pioneer of oriental literary culture
in Spain during the second half of the 10 th century”
(465). Ziryab (173-243/789-857 [q.v.]) was a black
musician who had first of all gravitated into the orbit
of the c Abbasid court in Ba gh dad. Having aroused

jealousies there, he also had to renounce making an
impression in c Irak, and, after a brief stay in al-
Kayrawan, went to seek his fortune at Cordova, arriv¬
ing there in 207/822. His enormous influence was not
just in the muscial sphere. “Under the unchallenged
arbitration of Ziryab, the court and the town altered
their dress, their furnishings [and] their cuisine” (E.
Levi-Proven<;al, Hist. Esp. mus., Paris 1950, i, 272).

Bibliography : There is no specific biblio¬
graphy for this topic. In addition to references
given in the text, information can be gleaned from
all the historical works, from the adab literature
and, above all, from the tabakat. (M. Talbi)
MASHHAD (a.), noun of place from the verb
shahida “to witness, be present at” > “be a martyr,
shahid ” (a post-Kur 3 anic semantic development which
Goldziher thought was influenced by Eastern Chris¬
tian Syriac parallel usage; see Muh. Studien , ii, 387-9,
Eng. tr. ii, 350-2). In post-Kur’anic times also, the
noun mashhad developed from its designating any
sacred place, not necessarily having a construction
associated with it, but often in fact a tomb in general,
the burial place of an earlier prophet, saint or forerun¬
ner of Muhammad or of any Muslim who had had
pronounced over him the shqhdda or profession of
faith. Later, it might mean a martyrium specifically
or be used for any small building with obvious
religious features like a mihrdb [q. v. ] (see O. Grabar,
The earliest Islamic commemorative structures , notes and
documents , in Ars Orientalis, vi [1966], 9-12). Literary
sources, e.g. the early geographers, mention mashhads
of what are clearly highly varying natures (see e.g. al-
MukaddasI, tr. A. Miquel, La meilleure repartition,
Damascus 1963, 6 n. 15), but an early epigraphic
instance of the term’s usage is on the frieze of the Mll-
-i Radkan, the tomb tower in Gurgan erected by the
Bawandid local ruler, the Ispahbadh Muhammad b.
Wandarln, in 407-11/1016-21, where this edifice is
described as a mashhad (see M. Van Berchem, Die
Inschriften der Grabturme, 1, in E. Diez, Churasanische
Baudenkmaler, i, Berlin 1918, 87-90; RCEA, vi, nos.
2312-13; kitabat. 9. Iran and Transoxiana and PI.
XIX no. 22).

For the tomb of the caliph and First Imam of the
Shi c Is. C A1I, the Mashhad C A1I, see al-nadjaf; for that
of the Third Imam, al-Husayn, the Mashhad (al-)
Husayn, see karbala; and for that of the Eighth
Imam, C A1I al-Rida, the Mashhad in Khurasan, see
the next article.

Bibliography : (in addition to references given
in the article): See M. Hartmann, in ZDPV, xxiv
(1901), 65-6 and 65 n. 2; Van Berchem, Opera
minora, ed. A Louca and Ch. Genequand, Geneva
1978, index s.v.; and the arts. buk c a in Suppl.,
kubba, masdjid. I. b. 4 Tomb-mosques, and
TURBA. (C. E. BoSWORTH)

MA SH HAD, a city of northeastern Persia, the
capital of the present province of Khurasan [q.v. ] and
the location since medieval times of one of the
most important shrines of the ShI c I world built
round the tomb of the Eighth Imam c AlI al-Rida
[q.v.].

1 . Geography, history and topography to
1914. Mashhad lies 3,000 feet above sea level in 59°
35' E. long, and 16° 17‘ N. lat. in the valley from 10
to 25 miles broad of the Kashaf-Rud, also called Ab-i
Mashhad, which joins the Harl Rud [q.v.] about 100
miles S.E. of Mashhad on the Russo-Persian frontier.
Mashhad lies about 4 miles south of the bank of the
Kashaf-Rud. The hills which run along the valley rise
to 8,000 or 9,000 feet near Mashhad. In consequence
of its high situation and proximity to the mountains,

714

MASHHAD

the climate of Mashhad is in the winter rather
severe, in the summer, however, often tropically hot;
it is regarded as healthy.

Mashhad may in a way be regarded as the successor
of the older pre-Islamic Tus [^. v .], and it has not
infrequently been erroneously confounded with it.

The fact that Tus is the name of both a town and
a district, together with the fact that two places are
always mentioned as the principal towns of this
district, has given rise among the later Arab
geographers to the erroneous opinion that the capital
Tus is a double town consisting of Tabaran and
Nukan; e.g. Yakut, iii, 560, 5 (correct at iv, 824, 23)
and in the Lubdb of Ibn al-Aihlr quoted by Abu *1-
Fida 5 ( Takwim , 453). Al-Kazwlnl {Athar al-bilad, 275,
21 ) next made the two towns thought to be joined
together into two quarters ( mahalla ). This quite
erroneous idea of a double town Tus found its way
into European literature generally. Sykes (JRAS
[1910], 1115-16) and following him, E. Diez

(Churasanische Baudenkmaler, Berlin 1918, i, 53-4) have
rightly challenged this untenable idea. The older Arab
geographers quite correctly distinguish between
Tabaran and Nukan as two quite separate towns.
Nukan, according to the express testimony of the
Arabic sources, was only parasang (farsakh ) or one
Arabic mile from the tomb of Harun al-Rashld and
c Alt al-Rida (see below) and must therefore have been
very close to the modern Mashhad. The ruins of
Tabaran-Tus and Mashhad are about 15 miles apart.

In Nukan, or in the village of Sanabadh belonging
to it, two distinguished figures in Islamic history were
buried within one decade: the caliph Harun al-
Rashld and the c Alid c Ali al-Ri<ja b. Musa

[?•»»•]■

When Harun al-Rashld was preparing to take the
field in Khurasan, he was stricken mortally ill in a
country house at Sanabadh where he had stopped,
and died in a few days (193/809). The caliph, we are
told (al-Tabari, iii, 737, 13-17), realising he was about
to die, had his grave dug in the garden of this country
mansion and consecrated by Kurban readers.

About 10 years after the death of Harun, the caliph
al-Ma 3 mun on his way from Marw spent a few days
in this palace. Along with him was his son-in-law C A1I
al-Rida b. Musa, the caliph designate, the eighth
imam of the Twelvers. The latter died suddenly here
in 203/818; the actual day in uncertain (cf. Stroth-
mann, Die Zwolfer-Shi^a, Leipzig 1926, 171).

It was not the tomb of the caliph but that of a highly
venerated imam which made Sanabadh (Nukan)
celebrated throughout the Shfa world, and the great
town which grew up in course of time out of the little
village actually became called al-Mashhad (Mashhad)
which means “sepulchral shrine” (primarily of a mar¬
tyr belonging to the family of the Prophet). Gf. on the
conception of mashhad, masdjid. I. B. 4; the previous
article; and M. van Berchem in Diez, op. cit. , i (Berlin
1918), 89-90. Ibn Hawkal (313) calls our sanctuary
simply Mashhad, Yakut (iii, 153) more accurately al-
Mashhad al-Riglawi =' the tomb-shrine of al-Rida; we
also find the Persian name Mashhad-i mukaddas = “the
sanctified shrine” (e.g. in Hamd Allah al-Mu§tawfi,
157). As a place-name, Mashhad first appears in al-
MukaddasT (352), i.e. in the last third of the 4th/10th
century. About the middle of the 8th/14th century the
traveller Ibn Battuta (iii, 77) uses the expression
“town of Mashhad al-Ri^a”. Towards the end of
the Middle Ages, the name Nukan, which is still
found on coins in the first half of the 8th/14th century
under the Ilkhans (cf. Codrington, A manual of
Musalman numismatics , London 1904, 189), seems to

have been gradually ousted by al-Mashhad or
Mashhad. At the present day, Mashhad is often more
precisely known as Mashhad-i Ritfa, Mashhad-i
mukaddas, Ma§hhad-i Tus (so already in Ibn Bat¬
tuta, iii, 66). Not infrequently in literature, especially
in poetry, we find only Tus mentioned, i.e. New Tus
in contrast to Old Tus or the proper town of this
name; cf. e.g. Muhammad Mahdi al-^Alawf, TaPrikh
Tus aw al-Mashhad al-Ri(lawt y Baghdad 1927, 3.

The history of Mashhad is very fully dealt with
in the work of Muhammad Hasan Khan $anl < al-
Dawla entitled Matla c al-shams (3 vols., Tehran 1301-3
A.H.). The second volume is exclusively devoted to
the history,and topography of Mashhad; for the
period from 428/1036-7 to 1302/1885 he gives
valuable historical material. On this work, cf. C. E.
Yate, Khurasan and Sistan , 313-14, and E. G. Browne,
LHP , iv, 455-6. The Matla c al-shams forms the chief
source for the sketch of the history of the town in Yate,
314-26. Cf. also the chronological notes in Muham¬
mad Mahdi al- c Alawi, op. cit. y 13-16.

The importance of Sanabadh-Mashhad continually
increased with the growing fame of its sanctuary and
the decline of Tus. Tus received its death blow in
791/1389 from Miranshah, a son of Timur. When the
Mongol noble who governed the place rebelled and
attempted to make himself independent, Miranshah
was sent against him by his father. Tus was stormed
after a siege of several months, sacked and left a heap
of ruins; 10,000 inhabitants were massacred (see
Yate, 316; Sir Percy Sykes, in JRAS [1910], 1118 and
Browne, op.cit., iii, 190). Those who escaped the
holocaust settled in the shelter of the c Alid sanctuary.
Tus was henceforth abandoned and Mashhad took its
place as the capital of the district.

As to the political history of Mashhad, it coin¬
cides in its main lines with that of the province of
Khurasan [?.y.]. Here we shall only briefly mention a
few of the more important events in the past of the
town. Like all the larger towns of Persia, Mashhad
frequently saw risings and the horrors of war within
its walls. To protect the mausoleum of c Ali al-Rida in
the reign of the Ghaznawid Mas c ud [q.v.], the then
Ghaznawid governor of Khurasan erected defences in
428/1037. In 515/1121 a wall was built round the
whole town which afforded protection from attack for
some time. In 556/1161 however, the Ghuzz [q.v. ]
succeeded in taking the place, but they spared the
sacred area in their pillaging. We hear of a further
visitation by Mongol hordes in 695/1296 in the time
of Sultan Ghazan [q.v.\. Probably the greatest
benefactors of the town and especially of its sanctuary
were the first Tlmurid Shah Rukh (809-50/1406-46
[q.v.]) and his pious wife Djawhar-Shadh.

With the rise of the Safawid dynasty [< 7 . 0 .], a new
era of prosperity began for Mashhad. The very first
Shah of this family, Isma c Tl I (907-30/1501-24 [q.v. ]),
established Shiism as the state religion and, in keep¬
ing with this, care for the sacred cities within the Per¬
sian frontier, especially Mashhad and Kumm, be¬
came an important feature in his programme as in
those of his successors. Pilgrimage to the holy tombs
at these places experienced a considerable revival. In
Mashhad, the royal court displayed a great deal of
building activity. In this respect Tahmasp I, Isma c fl
I’s successor (930-84/1524-76 [q.v. ]), and the great
Shah c Abbas I (995-1037/1587-1627 [q.v.]) were
especially distinguished.

In the 10th/16th century the town suffered con¬
siderably from the repeated raids of the Ozbegs
(Uzbeks). In 913/1507 it was taken by the troops of
the ShaybanI Khan [see shaybanids]; it was not till

MASHHAD

715

934/1528 that Shah Tahmasp I succeeded in repelling
the enemy from the town again. Stronger walls and
bastions were then built and another attack by the
same Ozbeg chief was foiled by them in 941/1535. But
in 951/1544 the Ozbegs again succeeded in entering
the town and plundering and murdering there. The
year 997/1589 was a disastrous one for Mashhad. The
Shaybanid c Abd al-Mu^min after a four months’ siege
forced the town to surrender. The streets of the town
ran with blood, and the thoroughness of the pillaging
did not stop at the gates of the sacred area. Shah
c Abbas I, who lived in Mashhad from 993/1585 till his
official ascent of the throne in Kazwln in 995/1587,
was not able to retake Mashhad from the Ozbegs till
1006/1598.

At the beginning of the reign of Tahmasp II in
1135/1722, the Afghan tribe of Abdall [q.v. ] invaded
Khurasan. Mashhad fell before them, but in
1138/1726 the Persians succeeded in retaking it after
a two months’ siege. Nadir Shah (1148-60/1736-47
[q. v. ]) had a mausoleum built for himself in Mashhad.

After the death of Nadir Shah, civil war broke out
among the claimants to the throne, in the course of
which the unity of the Persian empire was broken.
The whole eastern part of the kingdom of Nadir Shah,
particularly Khurasan (except the district of
Nishapur), passed in this period of Persian impotence
under the rule of the vigorous Afghan Shah Ahmad
Durrani [q.v.]. An attempt by Karim Khan Zand
[q.v.] to reunite Khurasan to the rest of Persia failed.
Ahmad defeated the Persians and took Mashhad after
an eight months’ siege in 1167/1753. Ahmad Shah
and his successor Timur Shah left Shah Rukh in
possession of Khurasan as their vassal, making
Khurasan a kind of buffer state between them and
Persia. As the real rulers, however, both these Afghan
rulers struck coins in Mashhad.

Otherwise, the reign of the blind Shah Rukh. which
with repeated short interruptions lasted for nearly half
a century, passed without any events of special note.
It was only after the death of Tlmur-Shah (1207/1792)
that Agha Muhammad Khan, the founder of the
Kadjar [q.v. ] dynasty, succeeded in taking Shah
Rukh’s domains and putting him to death in
1210/1795, thus ending the separation of Khurasan
from the rest of Persia. The death soon afterwards of
Agha Muhammad (1211/1796) enabled Nadir Mlrza
b. Shah Rukh, who had escaped to Harat, to return
to Mashhad and take up the reins of government
again. A siege of his capital by a Kadjar army
remained without success; but in 1803 Fath C A1I Shah
was able to take it after a siege of several months when
Nadir’s funds were exhausted.

From 1825 Khurasan suffered greatly from the
raids of Turkoman hordes and the continual feuds of
the tribal leaders (cf. Conolly, Journey , i, 288 and
Yate, 53). To restore order, the crown prince c Abbas
Mlrza entered Khurasan with an army and made
Mashhad his headquarters. He died there in 1833.

The most important political event of the 19th cen¬
tury for Mashhad was the rebellion of Hasan Khan
Salar, the prince-governor of Khurasan, a cousin of
the reigning Shah Muhammad-i c Abbas. For two
years (1847-9) he held out against the government
troops sent against him. At the time of the accession
of Na§ir al-Dln (1848), Khurasan was actually
independent. It was only when the people of
Mashhad, under pressure of famine, rebelled against
Salar that Husam al-Sal^ana’s army succeeded in tak¬
ing the town.

In 1911 a certain Yusuf Khan of Harat declared
himself independent in Mashhad under the name of
Muhammad C A1I Shah, and for a period disturbed

Kh urasan considerably with the help of a body of
reactionaries who gathered round him. This gave the
Russians a pretext for armed intervention, and on 29
March 1912, they bombarded Mashhad in gross
violaton of Persia’s suzerain rights and many innocent
people, citizens and pilgrims, were slain. This bom¬
bardment of the national sanctuary of Persia made a
most painful impression in the whole Muslim world.
Yusuf Khan was later captured by the Persians and
put to death (cf. Browne, The press and poets of modern
Persia , Cambridge, 1914, 124, 127, 136; Sykes,
History of Persia , London 1927, ii, 426-7).

Mashhad is now the centre of eastern Persia, the
capital of the province of KLurasan which,
since its eastern part was taken by the Afghans in the
18th century, is barely half its former size (cf. Le
Strange, Lands , 383-4; Isl., xi, 108-9). In the middle
ages it was not Tus, Mashhad's predecessor, but
Naysabur (modern Persian Nishapur) that was the
capital of this extensive and important province. A
royal prince has usually been governor since the fall of
the Nadirids. Since 1845, the lucrative and influential
post of Mutawalll-BashI, the controller or treasurer of
the sanctuary of the Imam, has usually been com¬
bined with the governorship (cf. Yate, 322).

Like most pre-modern Persian towns, Mashhad
was enclosed by a great girdle of walls. The lines
built to stiffen the defences, namely a small moat with
escarpment before the main wall and a broad ditch
around outside, were by the early 20th century in
ruins and in places had completely disappeared.

The citadel (ark) in the southwest part of the town
was directly connected with the system of defences. It
was in the form of a rectangle with four great towers
at the corners and smaller bastions. The palace begun
by c Abbas Mlrza but finished only in 1876, with its
extensive gardens, was connected with the fortress
proper, by the end of the 19th century fallen into
disrepair (cf. Yate, 327). It was used as the governor’s
residence. The whole quarter of government
buildings which, according to MacGregor, occupied
an area of 1,200 yards, was separated from the town
by an open space, the Maydan-i Top (Cannon Place)
which was used for military parades.

There were six gates in the city walls.

The town was divided into six great and ten smaller
quarters ( mahalla ) (see Yate, 328). The six larger
bore the names of their gates; see al-Mahdl al- c AlawI,
op. cit.

The principal street which divides the whole
town into two roughly equal halves, the Khiyaban, is
a creation of Shah c Abbas I, who did a great deal for
Mashhad (see Yate, 319; cf. the pictures in Sykes, The
glory of the Shia world , 231). This street, a fine pro¬
menade, is, being the main thoroughfare, filled all
day with a throng of all classes and nationalities,
including numerous pilgrims, and caravans of camels
and asses; the bustle is tremendous, especially in the
middle of the day.

The canal, which flowed through the Khiyaban in
a bed about 9 feet broad and 5 feet deep, was fed, not
from the Kashaf Rud (see above) which runs quite
close to Mashhad, for it has too little water, but from
the Ceshme-yi Gllas, where the river rises, and which
used to provide Tus with water. When this town had
been almost completely abandoned, Shir C A1I, the
vizier of Sultan Husayn b. Mansur b. Baykara (1468-
1506 [see husayn mirza]), at the beginning of the
10th/16th century had the water brought from this
source to Mashhad by a canal 45 miles long, thus seal¬
ing the ruin of Tus; cf. Yate, 315; al-Mahdl al- c AlawI,
13.

The making of this canal (see Yate, 315; Mahdl al-

716

MASHHAD — MASHHAD-I MISRIYAN

c AlawI, 13) contributed essentially to the rise of
Mashhad: for the greater part of its inhabitants relied
on it for water, although after entering the town, the
canal became muddy and marshy (which was often a
subject of satire; cf. c Abd al-KarTm, Voyage, 74), and
used it for drinking, washing and religious ablutions
without hesitation. There were also large and deep
reservoirs before the main gates. The water was saline
and sulphurous and therefore had an unpleasant taste
(cf. Conolly, i, 333-4; Khanikoff, 105; Curzon, i,
153).

The Haram-i Sharif or sacred area, often called the
Bast \q.vf, literally “place of refuge, asylum”, strad¬
dles the lower part of the main street; for a detailed
consideration of the shrine, see 3. below.

Bibliography : In addition to references
already given: BGA, i, 257; ii, 313; iii, 25, 50, 319,
333; vi, 24; vii, 171, 278; Hudud al-^dlam, tr.
Minorsky, 55, 103, 185, 326; Yakut, Mu^djam, iii,
113, 486, 560-1; iv, 824; Kazwml, Athdr al-bildd
262, 275; Abu TFida 5 , Takwtm al-buldan, 450, 452;
Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Nuzhat al-kulub, 150-1; Ibn
Battuta ii, 79; c Abd al-KarTm (1741), Baydn-i
waki : a, French tr., Voyage de Vlnde a la Mekke par
Abdoul-Kerym by Langles, Paris 1797, 69-74; Nasir
al-Dln Shah’s Reise nach Khordsan (1866), Pers. text,
Tehran 1286/1869, 180-225; Ibrahim Beg, Siydhet-
ndme, ed. Istanbul, tr. W. Schultz, Zustdnde des
heutigen Persiens, wie sie das Reisetagebuch Ibrahim Beys
enthiillt , Leipzig 1903, 40-9; Sami Bey Frasherl,
Kamils al-aHam, Istanbul, 1316, vi, 4290-1;
Muhammad Mahdl al- c AlawI, Ta\ikh Tus aw al-
Mashhad al-Ridawi, Ba gh dad 1346/1927. Cf. also
the manuscript diary of a pilgrimage to Mashhad in
1819-20 by Husayn Khan b. Dja c far al-MusawI in
the Berlin State Library, see Pertsch, Verzeichniss der
persisch. Hdschr... zu Berlin , Berlin 1888, 378-9, no.
360. On the Matla c al-shams of SanI* al-Dawla, see
above.

As to descriptions of Mashhad by Europeans,
we owe the first full description to Fraser (1822);
Conolly (i, 260) and Burnes (ii, 78) both say it is
thoroughly reliable. Valuable notes on the town are
given by Conolly, Ferrier, Khanikoff, Eastwick,
MacGregor, Bassett, O’Donovan, Curzon, Massy,
E. Diez, and especially by C. E. Yate and P. M.
Sykes, each of whom spent several years (1893-7
and 1905-12 resp.) in Mashhad as British Consul-
General for Khurasan.—Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo
(1404), Embassy to the court of Timur , ed. C. R.
Markham London 1859, 109-10; Truilhier (1807),
in Bulletin de la Societe de Geogr., ix, Paris 1838, 272-
82; J. B. Fraser (1822), Narrative of a journey into
Khorasan in the years 1821-1822 , London 1825, 436-
548; A. Conolly (1830), Journey to the North of India ,
London 1834, i, 255-89, 296-368; A. Burnes
(1832), Travels into Bokhara, London 1834, ii, 76-87;
J. B. Fraser (1833), A winter's journey from Constan¬
tinople to Teheran, London 1838, i, 213-55; J. Wolff,
Narrative of a mission to Bokhara in the years 1843-
1845*, London 1846, 177-96, 386-408; J. P. Ferrier
(1845), Caravan journeys and wanderings in Persia 2 ,
London 1857, 111-33; J. J. Benjamin, 8 Jahre in
Asien und Europa 2 , Hanover 1858, 189-90; N. de
Khanikoff (1858), Memo ire sur la partie meridionale de
I'Asie centrale, Paris 1861, 95-111; idem, Meched, la
ville sainte et son territoire , in Le Tour du Monde, Paris
1861, nos. 95-6; Eastwick (1862), Journal of a
diplomat's three years residence in Persia, London 1864,
ii, 190-4; H. Vambery (1863), Reise in Mittelasien 2 ,
Leipzig 1865 (1873), 248-58; identical with H.
Vambery, Meine Wanderungen und Erlebnisse in Per-

sien, Pesth 1867, 313-27; H. W. Bellew (1872),
From the Indus to the Tigris, London 1874, 358-68; F.
J. Goldsmid (and Evan Smith, 1872), Eastern Persia,
London 1876, i, 356-66; H. C. Marsh (1872), A
ride through Islam, etc., London 1877, 96-112; V.
Baker (1873), Clouds in the East, London 1876, 177-
94; C. M. MacGregor (1875), Narrative of a journey
through the province of Khorasan, London 1879, i, 277-
309; ii, 4; J. Bassett (1878), Persia, the land of the
Imams, London 1887, 219-47; E. O’Donovan
(1880), The Merw Oasis , London 1882, i. 478-502;
ii, 1-14; A. C. Yate (1885, brother of C. E. Yate),
Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission, Edin¬
burgh 1889, 367-84; G. Radde(1886), Transkaspien
und Nordehorasan, in Petermanns Geogr. Mitteil., Erg.-
H. 126, 174-8; G. N. Curzon (1889), Persia and the
Persian Question, London 1892, i, 148-76; H. St.
Massy (1893), An Englishman in the shrine of Imam
Reza in Mashad, in The Nineteenth Century and after,
London 1913, Ixxiii/2, 990-1007; C. E. Yate (1885,
1893-7), Khurasan and Sistan, Edinburgh 1900, 40-
50, 53, 140-9, 249-346, 406, 418-21 (with pictures);
P. Sykes (1893, 1902, 1905-12), Ten Thousand Miles
in Persia, London 1902, 24-6, 256, 301, 367, 385,
401; idem, Historical notes on Khurasan, in JRAS

1910, 1114-48, 1152-4;. idem, (and Khan Bahadur
Ahmad Din Khan), The glory of the Shia world, Lon¬
don 1910, 227-69 (with pictures); Ella C. Sykes,
Persia and its people, London 1910, 88-105; H. R.
Allemagne (1907), Du Khorassan au pays des
Bakhtiaris, Paris 1911, iii, 75-114 (with very fine
illustrations); A. V. W. Jackson (1907), From Con¬
stantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam, New York

1911, 263-77; H. H. Graf von Schweinitz (1908),

Orientalische Wanderungen in Turkestan und im nordostl.
Persien, Berlin 1910, 15-28; E. Diez (1913),
Churasanische Baudenkmaler , i, Berlin 1918, 52-61,
66-9, 76-8, 85-6, with index; ii, 19-20, 23-9, 36,2;
32, 38; idem, Persien: Islamische Baukunst in

Churdsdn, Hagen i. W. 1923, 43-79, 91, 154; O.
von Niedermayer (1913, 1915-16), Unter der Glut-
sonne Irons , Dachau 1925, 207; A. Gabriel, Die
Erforschung Persiens, Vienna 1952, index s.v.
Meschhed\ L. Lockhart, Persian cities, London 1960,
32-41; W. Barthold, An historical geography of Iran, tr.
S. Soucek, ed. C. E. Bosworth, Princeton 1984.—
In the general works of K. Ritter, Erdkunde, viii
(1838), 11, 127, 238-308, 310; ix (1840), 904, and
G. Le Strange, The lands of the Eastern Caliphate,
Cambridge 1905, 388-91, 431. Tus and Mashhad
are not satisfactorily distinguished.

(M. Streck)

2. History and topography from 1914 to the present
day [see Suppl.]

3. The shrine, and Mashhad as a centre of ShI c I
learning and piety [see Suppl.]

MA SH HAD c ALl [see al-nadjaf],

MASHHAD HUSAYN [see KARBALA 5 ].
MASHHAD-I MISRIYAN, a ruined site in
Transcaspia (the modern Turkmenistan SSR)
north-west of the confluence of the Atrak and its right
bank tributary the Sumbar, or more exactly, on the
road which runs from Cat at right angles to the road
connecting Cikishler with the railway station of
Ay dm.

The ruins are surrounded by a wall of brick and a
ditch and have an area of 320 acres. The old town,
situated in the steppes which are now peopled by
Turkomans, received its water from a canal led from

the Atrak about 40 miles above Cat. Near the latter
place, the canal diverged northwards from the river,
crossed the Sumbar by a bridge and finally followed

MASHHAD-I MISRIYAN — MASHRABIYYA

717

an embankment 6 feet high on which the bed of the
canal was 12 feet broad.

The ruins of a fine mosque can still be seen, the
gateway of which, decorated with faience, has an
inscription according to which this tak was built by
c Ala 5 al-Dunya wa '1-Din Ghivath al-Islam wa T
Muslimln Zill Allah fi 7- c Alamin Sultan Muhammad
b. Sultan Takish Burhan Amir al-Mu 5 mimn. The
Kh w arazmshah Muhammad in question reigned 596-
617/1200-20 [see kh w arazm-shahs]. On one of the
two towers (minarets?) is written: bismillah ...
barakat un min Allah 1 , mimma amara bihi Abu Dja far
Ahmad b. Abi ’ l-A c azz (?) sahib al-ribat , a c azzahu y llah u .
c Amal c Ali R .... (?). The identity of this Ahmad is
unknown but the title “lord of the ribaf ’ which he
gives himself, confirms the fact that Mashhad-i
Misriyan was a frontier fortress ( ribdt ). Near the east
gate stood another white mosque.

Tradition (Conolly) ascribes the destruction of
Misriyan to the “Kalmuk Tatars”. 7'he appearance
of the Kalmuks in these regions may be dated about
1600.

The name Mashhad-i Misriyan (variants: Mesto-
rian, Mest-Debran, Mest-Dovran, Mastan) is
obscure, unless Mestorian is to be explained as
* Nestoriyan i.e. “Nestorian Christians”; it may be
recalled that during his campaign in the Col
to the east of the Caspian, Yazdagird II
persecuted the Christians (Hoffmann, 50; J. Labourt,
Le christianisme dans l'Empire Perse , Paris 1904, 26).

The site of the ruins (to the north of Djurdjan) is
given the name Dihistan in Muslim sources; for the
town of this name, and the promontory of Dihistanan-
Sur, as the Hudud al-^dlam calls it, see dihistan. 2.

The ruins of Mashhad-i Misriyan (as the inscrip¬
tion on the mosque suggests !) must correspond to the
ribdt of Dihistan which al-Mukaddasl, 358 (cf. also
312, 367, 372), mentions as distinct from Akhur. This
rib at, situated on the borders of the steppes, had fine
mosques and rich markets. Relying on Yakut, i, 39,
Barthold thought that in the 6th/12th century the ribdt
(and not Akhur to the east of the Djurdjan-rifaf/ road)
was the capital of the district of Dihistan.

Bibliography : 7'he Muslim sources as given
in the text; Hududal- c alam , tr. Minorsky, 60, 133-4,
385-6; A. Conolly, Journey to the North of India, Lon¬
don 1838, i, 76-7; A. Vambery, Reise in Mittelasien 2 ,
Leipzig 1873, 85 (fantastic statements on the Greek
origin of the ruins); Lomakin, Razvalini dvukh drev-
nikh gorodov Mesteriyan i Me shkh eda v Turkmenskoi stepi ,
in Izv. Kavk. Otd. Russ. Geogr. Obshc., iv/1, 15-17;
A. Kohn, Die Ruinen d. alien Stadte Aiesched und (sic!)
Mesterian, in Globus (1876), no. 71; Blaramberg, Die
Ruinen d. Stadt Mestorian, in Pet. Mitt. (1876), xxii/1;
Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syrischen Akten, Leipzig 1880,
277-81 (lucid analysis of the Arabic statements);
Marquart, Eransahr, 51, 73, 310; Barthold, Istor.-
geogr. obzor Irana, St. Petersburg 1903, 82, Eng.tr.,
An historical geography of Iran , Princeton 1984, 118-
19; A. A. Semenov, Nadpisi na portale meceti v
M eshkh edi-Misriyane. in ZVORAO , xviii/4 (1908),
0154-0157; Barthold, K istorii orosheniya Turkestana,
St. Petersburg 1914, 31-7; S. Flury, Notes on the
mihrab of Mashhad-i Misriyan , in Survey of Persian art,
iii, 2721-4; L. I. RempeT, Arkhiteklurm ornament
yuzhnogo Turkmenistana x.-nacala xiii. v.v. u problema
“ Sel’dzhukskogo Stilya ’', in Trudi Yu TAKE , xii
(Ashkhabad 1963), 249-308. (V. Minorsky)

MASHHUR (a.), technical term used in the
science of hadith [q.v. ] for a well-known tradition
transmitted via a minimum of three different isnads
{q.v.}.

Bibliography : Nur al-DTn c Itr, Mu c djam al-
mustalahat al-hadithiyya, Damascus 1976, 98, and the
literature quoted there. (G. H. A. Juynboll)
MA SH RABIYYA (a.) designates a technique of
turned wood used to produce lattice-like
panels, like those which were used in the past to
adorn the windows in traditional domestic archi¬
tecture.

1. In Egypt. The term derives from Arabic
fiariba “to drink”. The connection between the
turned wood technique and drinking was established
last century by E. W. Lane, who describes the
mashraba as a niche attached to such lattice wooden

1. (Top third) al-sahb al-malyan, “filled cross”;
(lower two-thirds) kana isi kibti ‘‘Coptic church style”.

718

MASHRABIYYA

2. Nudiumi “star-shaped”.

windows and used to keep the water jars cool and
fresh for drinking. This interpretation is confirmed by
wakf[q.v. ] documents, which since the 1 Oth/16th cen¬
tury refer to such niches as mashraba and also to the
turned wood technique as mashrabiyya. Muhammad
C A1I [q.v. ] is said to have prohibited the use of
mashrabiyya windows, in order to replace traditional by
European architecture. The mashrabiyya technique is a
speciality of Cairo, where it was used with a multitude
of patterns and combinations, as the collection of the
Islamic Museum in Cairo shows, as well as the
remains of some old houses of the Ottoman period.
Each type of mashrabiyya has its own name, such as
nudiumi “star-like”, sakiya “like a water-wheel”,
muthallath “triangular”, salibifddi “cross-shaped and
empty”, salibi malyan “cross-shaped and filled in”,
kana^isi kibti “Coptic church type”, kand^isi fddi
“church type and empty”, c ayn al-katkut “chick’s eye,
maymuni mudawwar “circular maymuni ’’, maymuni
nudiumi “star-like maymuni ” and ma c kus “reversed”.

Mashrabiyya panels are composed of small pieces of
wood which are turned in various forms and are fixed
together without glue or nails, but simply by being
inserted into each other, thus giving the panel more
resistance towards the flexibility of the wood with the
change of temperature. Geometric patterns of great
complexity and diversity can be obtained with the
combination of the wooden pieces. The result is a
transparent screen which is very decorative due to the
variation of patterns and density, according to which
the pieces, of various shapes, can be fixed together.
The panel filters the light and the sun rays in a plea¬
sant manner; at the same time, it allows a view to the
exterior without exposing the interior to outside view.
This device had an important impact on the fenestra¬
tion system, since it allowed large surfaces, like a

whole wall in a room, to be made in turned wood and
thus offered a panorama to the inhabitants at the same
time as the introduction of fresh air. This could be
combined with the use of glass panels or curtains for
additional protection. Mashrabiyya windows could be
made of painted wood in various colours, or could
simply show the natural colour of the wood. Hence
Cairo’s fagades in the 19th century as seen by orien¬
talist painters and in early photographs, were
characterised by the multitude of projecting mashrabiy¬
ya windows that almost touched each other on both
sides of the narrow streets.

Historically, the technique of turned wood in Cairo
seems to have been used first on other architectural
objects before it was applied to windows. Mamluk
wakf deeds, which include detailed descriptions of
buildings, refer to turned wood, though not usually in
connection with windows. Only in the very late
Mamluk wakf deeds in the early 10th/16th century do
we find, and then only sparsely, references to turned
wood used on windows. It is referred to as khashab khart
or sometimes as shughl al-kharrat , i.e. “made by the
turner”, to distinguish it from shughl al-na didi ar. which
means “made by the carpenter”.

Whereas Lane reports that in his time, the houses
of the rich differed from those of the poor by their
larger display of mashrabiyya panels, in the Mamluk
period the windows of the rich had iron or bronze
grills that were gilded like those of the royal palaces at
the Citadel, whereas the more common ones were
made of wood. Al-Makrlzl, deploring the ruins of the
palace of Tashtimur, writes that its marble was
replaced by stone, and its iron windows by wooden
ones. Mamluk wakf deeds describe the windows of
residences of the period as having the same system of
fenestration used in the mosque architecture: the
lower windows were rectangular, large and adorned
with iron or bronze grills, whilst above them were

3. Nudiumi maymuni “star-shaped maymuni style”.

MASHRABIYYA

719

arched windows with stucco grills filled with coloured
glass. The more common house type, or the less visi¬
ble windows in a residence, were made of wood, in
general without turned wood panels, according to the
wakj descriptions. Whenever this technique is men¬
tioned in Mamluk wakj descriptions, it usually refers
to balustrades, like that which adorns the mak c ad, i.e.
loggia, or the wooden lantern which surmounts the
central part of a ka c a or reception hall, also found in
late Mamluk mosques. Khashab khart is also mentioned
in connection with maghani, also called aghdnu which
are a pair of loggias that flank a ka c a on both sides and
which, as the name indicates, were intended for the
singers and musicians, who traditionally performed
behind curtains or screens.

There are three mediaeval mosques in Cairo that
display magnificent examples of mashrabiyya techni¬
que. The mosque of al-Salih Tala 3 i c , built in the
Fatimid period (555/1160) and restored more than
once under the Mamluks, has a screen of turned
wood, today at the portico but originally inside the
mosque. The present one is a modern copy made after
a 19th century illustration. The mausoleum of Sultan
Kalawun (built 683-4/1284-5) also has a turned wood
screen around the cenotaph, restored at the beginning
of this century. Further, the mosque of al-Maridanl
(739-40/1340) has its sanctuary screened by a
mashrabiyya wall from the courtyard.

Regular reference to turned wood mashrabiyya in
connection with windows in domestic architecture,
starts after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt (923/1517)
and is found in wakj descriptions. Although windows
of turned wood are a characteristic feature of the
domestic type of architecture, there is one Ottoman
mosque in Cairo that has a large mashrabiyya window,
the mosque of Yusuf Agha al-Hin (1035/1625), which
was erected along the shore of the Canal of Cairo. The
mashrabiyya window must have been intended to allow
the worshippers to enjoy the view of the water and the
greenery.

Nowadays, after modern European architecture
was definitely adopted in Cairo from the first half of
the 19th century under the initiative of Muhammad
C A1T Pasha, mashrabiyya windows have disappeared
from Cairo’s facades. In the second half of that cen¬
tury, European architects introduced a kind of orien¬
talist style in architecture and decoration which
revived some traditional crafts, and turned wood
became again fashionable, this time, however, with
purely decorative functions. It was no more used in its
original architectural context, but as decoration for
European-style furniture and on small objects. With
time, the mashrabiyya technique became a touristic
craft only practiced in the bazaar, and the term
mashrabiyya itself became equivalent to local traditional
handicraft.

Bibliography : MakrizI Khitat, Bulak 1270, ii,
68 , 71; Lane, Manners and customs ojthe modern Egyp¬
tians, introd.: wakj documents of the Mamluk and
Ottoman periods in Cairo, at the Ministry of Wakf
(Daftarkhana) and at the Dar al-Watha^ik al-
Kawmiyya, Citadel (Hudjadj al-Muluk wa ’1-Uma-
ra- 1 ). (Doris Behrens-Abouseif)

2. In Iran. As in many other Islamic countries,
so too in Iran the use of mashrabiyya serves both prac¬
tical and aesthetic functions. The former includes the
protection of the private environment from indiscreet
glances, the ability to see without being seen, and the
requirements of ventilation. The latter operates in the
context of an architecture which lacks deep voids and
which strives for an effect of large surfaces over which
decoration can extend.

The type most frequently encountered consists of
rectangular grilles, grilles with ogee arches and grilles
of larger dimensions containing three or more panels
with a vertical and stepped movement ( urusi ). The
material most frequently used is wood, and in par¬
ticular, plane ( cindr or platanus orientalis) which, since
it could secure optimum durability, and, since it had
a high and straight trunk, also came to be used for col¬
umnar porticoes {talar). Sometimes grilles of plaster or
of coloured glass were employed (e.g. the specimen
removed from the Darb-i Imam at Isfahan), as were
grilles of stone or plaster and tile mosaic (e.g. the
Masjid-i Shavkh Lutf Allah and the Masdjid-i
Djum c a, both in situ in Isfahan).

The main decorative themes comprise vegetal,
figural and animal motifs (cf. the above-mentioned
grille of the Darb-i Imam); inscriptions (e.g. the large
urusi of the Haftdah Tan at Shahr-i Kurd); and, above
all, geometric motifs.

In all the types recorded to date—rectangular,
ogival, and stepped—the wooden grille is always sub¬
divided for decorative purposes into two main parts,
sc. an outer border and an inner field. The first of
these, namely the border, always comprising a series
of square “modules”, is obtained by the repetition of
a single decorative motif all along the edge of the
grille. This establishes an exact correspondence
between the width and height of a single grille. By
contrast, the second—namely the inner field—
constitutes the principal motif of the whole composi¬
tion and is therefore subject to certain regulatory
“laws”.

Such laws are illustrated above all by the use of
rotations around precisely located axes; or of rotations
of a single basic motif; or of various renderings of a
given decorative theme—unless, indeed, a single part
of the design is isolated. This makes it possible to
obtain, with minimum artifice, a most varied range of
compositions.

The geometric schemes highlighted in these various
compositions consist in the main of equilateral or
isosceles triangles or of squares often rotated at an
angle of 45°, and, more rarely, of rectangles. The
geometrical figures are above all regular polygons
such as hexagons, octagons, decagons and dodeca¬
gons, which, with their numerous symmetrical axes,
allow the creation of complex ensembles. The
decorative motifs employed have very ancient origins
and go back to the first centuries of Islamic art and
even to the period of Near Eastern late antiquity.

This repertoire was used and elaborated for cen¬
turies, with the result that today it is possible to find
identical decorative motifs in periods far removed
from each other in time. With the Safawids, the
decorative motif, initially simple and with a wide
mesh, tends to thicken and to become more com¬
plicated with the creation of complex stellar figures or
those with polygonal matrices. There is an increasing
use of coloured glass, mirrors and perforated elements
with a progressively increasing use of curvilinear
motifs.

With the advent of the Kadjars, this love of cur¬
vilinear motifs increases apace and the decorative
design changes totally. The mesh widens yet again,
the geometric motifs disappear almost entirely while
curvilinear motifs prevail. These include floral
themes, in which large areas of coloured glass occur;
their colour scheme is dominated by blue, red and
green.

Bibliography : B. Denike, Quelques monuments

de bois sculpte au Turkestan occidental , in Ars Islamica ,

ii (1935), 69-83; M. S. Dimand, Dated Persian doors

720

MASHRABIYYA — MASHRUBAT

of the fifteenth century , in Bull, of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, xxxi (1936), 79-80; L. Bronstein,
Decorative woodwork of the Islamic period, in Pope,
Survey of Persian art , London 1939, iii, 2607-27 and
pis. 1434, 1460-77; Amy Briggs, Timurid carpets. I.
Geometric carpets, in Ars Islamica, vii (1940), 20-54;
R. Orazi, Wooden gratings in Safavid architecture,
Rome 1976. (R. Orazi)

MA SH RIK (a.), the East, linked with and op¬
posed to the West (Maghrib [q. d.]), either in general
or from the strictly geographical point of view; for the
Arab world, the Ma gh rib embraces all the lands to the
west of Egypt, and the Mashrik all those to the east.
Nevertheless, the parallelism is not absolute; whilst
the term Ma gh rib is particularly applied either to the
grouping North-Africa-Tripolitania or to North
Africa properly so-called or to its most western part,
Morocco (Maghrib, al-Maghrib al-Aksa [q.v. ]), the
word Mashrik seems to cover the Orient in general,
without reference to any one country or another (the
name of one of the mikhlafs of Yemen, cited in Yakut,
Buldan , s.v., but not in al-Hamdanl, can only be
understood, from all the evidence, in a local context).

An interesting attempt was, however, made in the
4th/10th century to take to its logical conclusion a
rigorous parallelism between the two geographical
groupings. It emanated from the Arabic geographer
al-MukaddasI, whose originality of thought and con¬
ceptions is well-known. For him, the land of Islam
(mamlakat al-Islam), going beyond its fourteen prov¬
inces, embraces several binary oppositions. Just as
there exist two seas (those of Rum and Sin) and two
deserts (the badiyat al- c Arab and the mafaza of Iran),
there likewise exist two particular provinces ( iklim ),
hence binary also (a third province, Arabia, further
has, like the two preceding ones, two capitals, Mecca
and Zabld, for the two lands of the North and the
South, and this last, Yemen, is also described to us as
having two lands, one of seacoast and one of the
mountains (Ahsan al-takasim , 56, 69-70, 260-1); but
the parallelism with the other two great provinces is
not pushed any further). To the Ma gh rib, made up of
two djdnibs (al-Andalus and the Ma gh rib properly
speaking) and with two metropolises (misr) of Cordova
and al-Kayrawan, there corresponds the Mashrik.
defined as the assemblage of lands more or less strictly
under the aegis of the Samanids, including Sidjistan,
Kh urasan and Transoxania ( md ward ’ al-nahr), this
assemblage being divided into two djdnibs separated
by the Djayhun river (sc. the Oxus); to the south,
Kh urasan and its misr, Naysabur and to the north,
Haytal and its misr, Samarkand. It should be noted
that al-MukaddasI, in the introduction to his work,
adds to the distinction Maghrib/Mashrik a further
parallelism between Gharb and Shark, one which
does not however seem to be operative in the rest of
the book; for the author, Gharb embraces the ensem¬
ble Maghrib-Egypt-Sham (sc. Syria-Palestine) and
Shark the ensemble Mashrik-Fars-Kirman-Sind.

Bibliography : In addition to the references
given in the text, see MukaddasI, 7, 47, 57, 260 ff.
and passim. (A. Miquel)

MA SH RIK al-A DH KAR. a term used in the
Baha’i movement for four related concepts: 1. In
Iran (loosely) to describe early morning gatherings for
reading of prayers and sacred writings. 2. Generally
of any house erected for the purpose of prayer. 3.
Most widely, to refer to Baha’i temples (ma c bad) or
“houses of worship”, of which six have been built on
a continental basis. The earliest was constructed in
Ashkabad, Russian Central Asia by the expatriate
Iranian Baha’i community there (begun 1902; com¬

pleted 1920; damaged by earthquake 1948; demol¬
ished 1963). The others are: Wilmette, Illinois (begun
1912; dedicated 1953); Kampala, Uganda (1961);
Sydney, Australia (1961); Frankfurt, W. Germany
(1964); Panama City, Panama (1972). Temples are
under construction in India and Western Samoa,
while land has been acquired for over 100 national
buildings. Architecturally, temples differ widely, but
conform to minimum requirements of a nine-sided
circular construction. Internal ornamentation is
sparse, with prohibition on images and use of a min-
bar; seating is provided for congregations on the
Western church pattern, facing the Baha’i kibla
(BahdjI, near Acre, Israel). In the absence of for¬
malised clergy, worship takes the simple pattern of
reading from Baha’i or other scriptures; sermons,
instrumental music, and communal prayer are forbid¬
den, although chanting ( tildwa ), unaccompanied sing¬
ing, and a capella choral singing are permitted.
“Elaborate and ostentatious ceremony” is pro¬
scribed, and set forms of service are not laid down;
private salat may be performed (communal salat is for¬
bidden in Baha’i law). Temples are open to non¬
adherents for private worship. 4. In its widest applica¬
tion, to refer to a central temple in conjunction with
various dependencies regarded as intrinsic to the
overall institution. These include a school for
orphans, hospital and dispensary for the poor, home
for the aged, home for the infirm, college of higher
education, and traveller’s hospice. With the exception
of a home for the aged in Wilmette, no dependencies
have as yet been established. Temples may be erected
on a national or local basis; administrative buildings
(hazirat al-kuds) are kept separate from the mashrik al-
adhkar.

Bibliography : c Abd al-Hamld Ishrak Khavari
(ed.), Gandjina-yi hudud wa ahkam, Tehran 1961,
188-9, 230-40; The Baha'i World, xiii (Haifa 1970),
699-748; xiv (1974), 475-95; xv (1976), 629-49;
Mlrza Asad Allah Fadil MazandaranI, Amr wa
khalk, iv (Tehran 1970), 147-53. (D. MacEoin)
MASHRUBAT (ar.), drinks.

I. Problems of identification and of permissibility.

The problem of the distinction between “permit¬
ted ’ ’ and ‘ ‘forbidden ’ ’ in relation to drinks is a subject
of great interest to Islamic religious literature, on
account of the prohibition, in the Kur’an, of the con¬
sumption of wine [see khamr]. By extension,
everything alcoholic is forbidden, and doctors of law
devote entire chapters, and even independent works,
to the subject of drinks ( ashriba ; for example: Kitab al-
Ashriba by Ahmad b. Hanbal, numerous editions).
The use of certain receptacles is forbidden to
Muslims, because of the ease with which they may be
employed for the fermentation of liquids (see for
example, dubba?, hantam, nakir, in the Concordance de la
tradition musulmane ; the epistle of al-Djahiz, al-Sharib
wa ’ l-mashrub\ the art. khamr; and especially the legal
and literary sources quoted in Sadan, Vin—fait de
civilisation, in Studies in memory of Gaston Wiet, 129-60;
one of the best later sources (somewhat polemical) is
Ikrdm man yaHsh bi-ahkam al-khamr wa ’ l-hashlsh by al-
AkfahsI, B.L. ms. 9646, fols. lb-7a, which makes a
distinction, from a judicial point of view, between all
kinds of musts, beers, etc.; drinks composed of fruits
(dates, etc.) mixed in water are called fadikh, naki c (cf.
c Ilm al-tilmidh bi-ahkam al-nabidh, Princeton, Yahuda
2090, ms. 5084, fols. 15a-20a). Liquids which tend to
ferment are produced on the basis of fruits, various
berries, cereals or honey (mead is called bit c , nabidh al-
c asai); from syrup or from preserves of fruit there
derives the dushab which is sometimes non-alcoholic,

MASHRUBAT

721

but which al-Djahiz and other authors mention in the
context of drinks ( diishdb, dadhi, etc.) which can fer¬
ment and become alcoholic (see the references cited
above, as well as Abu Hilal al- c Askari, Diwan al-
ma^ani, i, 331: nabidh al-dibs —identical to dushdb; M.
Ahsan, Social life under the c Abbasids, 111). Certain
jurists of the Hanafi and Mu c tazil! schools had a
tendency to permit the consumption of some of these
drinks, under certain conditions, excluding only wine
made from grapes. A more limited group of the
Mu c tazilTs (to which al-Djahiz did not belong) even
tried to legalise wine made from grapes, and it is for
this reason that Ibn Kutayba, al-Ashriba, ed. M. Kurd
c A1j, calls them “theologians of debauchery”
(mu djdjd n ahl al-kalam) (for other details, see Sadan, op.
cit. , and for dadhi, see also al-Balawi, al-Alif ba y , ii, 80,
and S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean society , iv, 1983,
260).

Now these tendencies count for nothing in Islamic
jurisprudence at present (even among the Hanafis),
and these numerous and rich testimonies from
mediaeval texts are cited only to show the difficulty,
in a given historical context, of distinguishing
between the “permitted” and the “forbidden”, the
“soft” and the alcoholic, and above all, to underline
the rich variety of fermented drinks, soft or relatively
so, musts and beers. The term nabidh [q.v.], for exam¬
ple, most often denotes a true wine made from dates
(very potent according to pre-Islamic poetry; see
Sadan, op. cit.), or from various berries, but—with
reference to the nabidh consumed by the Prophet—the
religious texts stress the non-alcoholic nature of this
drink, which was lightly fermented (or, rather,
exposed to the sun for only a few hours, according to
the definitions of the texts themselves), in order to
prevent any other interpretation of this term in the
context of the biography of the Prophet (see Ibn
Hayyan, Akhldk al-nabi, Cairo 1959, 225-8; Ibn al-
Djawzi, al-Wajd\ Cairo 1966, 617; cf. al-Badjurl,
[Commentary on] al-Shamd^il by al-Tirmidhi, Cairo
1301).

II. Beers.

In fact, beers were well-known in the civilisation of
that time. For example: 1. Mizr, see Concordance, s.v.;
Dozy, Suppl., under mizr , mazr, mizdr ; S. D. Goitein,
op. cit., iv, 261 (under “beer”) and cf. al-HalabT,
Nuzhat al-udabd 5 , Camb. ms. or. 1256(8), fol. 218b,
where the Egyptian author describes mizr as the
favourite drink of the Negroes living in Egypt. See
also al-AkfahsT, op. cit., fol. 5a, who calls mizr by the
name of nabidh al-dhura, “beer” of maize or of
sorghum, while “beer” of wheat is called in Egypt,
apud al-Akfahsi, hati c d; as for barley beer, ma ' 3 shaHr,
see below under the heading fukka c . On mazzdr =
“brewer”, see Ibn Mawlahum, Makama fi khamsin
maHa, B.L. ms. Add. 19, 411, fol. 94a: mazzara ( =
“brewer” in the fern.) and her implements, her recep¬
tacles and the preparation of the drink. 2. Dja^a. see,
for example, Ibn Hadjar, Bath al-Bdri , x, 258-9; on the
revived use of this term in this century, in place of the
more widespread borrowing bira ( = modern beer),
see Machnq , xii, 401-7. 3. Ma } shaHr and aksima, see
below. 4. Boza, see towards the end of the article. 5.
Fukka c , see Ibn Kutayba, c Uyun, iii, 280; Kushadjim,
Diwan , 1313, 84; al-Sari al-Raffa 3 , Diwan, Ba gh dad
1981, ii, 180: fukka c = sparkling drink; al-Husrl,
Zahr, ed. al-BidjawT, i, 116: fakka c = producer and
vendor of this drink; al-Raghib al-Isfahani, Muhddarat
al-udabd^, Beirut 1961, ii (4), 379; P. Kahle, in ZDMG
(1935), 344; Darrag, L’acte de waqf de Barsbay, Cairo
1963, 52; Sadan, in REI (1977), 50, 56, n. 18; Goi¬
tein, loc. cit. The long and narrow vessels which,

among their others functions, were used for the
preparation or storage of this “beer”, were the kizdn
(sing, kuz, see above). The kuz, often fitted with a han¬
dle (see al-GhuzulT, MatdlE al-budur , Cairo 1299-1300,
ii, 72) is frequently mentioned and described in
Arabic literature. However, Goitein, op. cit., iv, 146,
translates kizdn as “bowls”, a sense which the word
possesses in certain dialects. With reference to the
producer/vendor of this drink (fakkd c ), see also the
popular Story of the Caliph Harm al-Rashid and the JukkaH
(= fakkd c ), B.N. Ar. ms. 3658 fols. 26b-34a. On the
Jakkd^lfukkdH = brewer, see also al-Nawadjl, MaratE
al-ghizlan , B.N. ar. ms. 3402, fol. 36a; al-Sarihi,
Nuzhat al-afrah , Oxford ms. Marsh 2, fol. 46a; al-
Khafadjl. Tiraz al-madjalis, Cairo 1284, 71-3; S. de
Sacy, Expose de la religion des Druzes , i, pp. cccxxxii-iii.

There existed numerous kinds of fukka c : they are
mentioned in culinary literature, among sauces and
drinks (see the mss. mentioned below and M. Rodin-
son, in REI [1949], 131, whose material is based on
al-Wusla (see below); art. GHiDHa 5 and H. Zayyat, in
Machriq , xli, 25). The sense of “beer” is clearly evi¬
dent when the text describes the fermentation (yakh -
mar, yathur) of this drink. In addition to the references
given above concerning the fukkd c , see anon., Kanz al-
fawd^id, Camb. ms. Qq. 196, fols. 108a-b, 109a:
Jukkd c sweetened and flavoured with fruit (the
mediaeval equivalent of “shandy” or almost so; it
may thus be with justification that Ahsan, loc. cit.,
attempts to conclude from a very partial reference of
adab that this drink was invariably soft or even non¬
alcoholic; however, apud al-Ghuzulf, op. cit., who
accurately reflects life in mediaeval Egypt, various
kinds of fukka c were sweetened to a considerable
extent), 108b, 109a-b: ma 5 shaHr , literally “barley
water”, when fermented becomes “barley beer”, of
which a special variety exists for the nights of the
month of Ramadan (according to this text and accord¬
ing to anon., K. al-Tabikh, Chester Beatty ms. 4018,
fol. 48a), 107a, 110a, 111a: aksima = liquid, syrup,
but, since one of these recipes mentions the presence
of yeast among the ingredients of this drink, it must
presumably be a variety of sweetened beer and not a
simple syrup as it is usually translated (for the Egyp¬
tians, according to al-GhuzulI, loc. cit. , both the term
and the recipe of aksima often replace those of fukka c ,
180a-b, 111 b, 112 a: shish, a drink or sauce which
Rodinson, loc. cit., reads as lass, defining it as an
unidentified liquid (without examining the recipes for
it in the Kanz), but a humorous treatise in B.L. ms.
Add. 19.411, fol. 15a, supplied the plural ashyash
(which would seem to justify the reading accepted
here, shish; the suggestion that it derives from the
Turkish shishe “bottle”, cf. Lane, Manners and customs,
331, does not seem plausible). See also al-Warrak, K.
al-Tabkh, ms. Oxford, Hunt. 187, which contains
recipes of fukka c , fols. 148b, 151b, and cf. Zayyat, loc.
cit.; anon. al-Wusla, B.L. ms. 6388, fol. 27a-b: aksima
and fukka c , 28b-29a: aksima prepared with yeast, and
various kinds of fukka c ; cf. Rodinson, loc. cit. Certain
physicians are inclined to define fukkd c , made of
barley or rice, as a relatively soft drink, when com¬
pared to real intoxicants (al-Razi, ManafE al-aghdhiya,
Beirut 1982, 91; who notes, on the other hand, that
the fukka c “goes to the head”), but for the jurists, the
mediaeval experts in Islamic law, this drink brings up
some difficult legal questions (see al-TusI, Mas^ala fi
tahrim al-fukka c , Bodl. MS.Arab.f.64, fols. 94v-97v).
III. Milk.

The same works of culinary art also provide a wide
range of recipes of which the primary ingredient is
milk, but it may be assumed, judging by the method

722

MASHRUBAT

of preparation, that in the majority of cases the
references are to sauces accompanying food rather
than to drinks as such (cf. also Ahsan, op. cit., 97-8,
and the references given below). In fact, without
refrigeration, it was not easy to preserve milk, except
with the addition of preservative elements, e.g. salt,
or allowing it to curdle. In fact, ever since the pre-
Islamic period the Arabs were well aware of the
importance of milk as a nutritive element, with
numerous terms denoting its varieties and properties
and verbs and adjectives used to identify the stages of
curdling (raHb = clotting, for example), and it is thus
that numerous pages are devoted to milk in the lexical
literature (specialised works, including Kitab al-Laban
wa ’ l-liba’ by Abu Zayd al-Ansan, ed. Haffner-
Cheikho, in Dix traites, as well as entire chapters in
longer works; see also the references in Sadan, op.
cit.). The pre-Islamic Arabs were great breeders of
camels and dromedaries, and it is often to their milk
that these terms apply. Muslim civilisation was
familiar with the milk of all kinds of beasts (see for
example the work attributed to al-Suyutl [Sidi-Siouti],
Lime de la misericorde, Paris 1856, 19-21) and

geographical literature refers to it at times (see e.g.
Ibn Hawkal, tr. Kramers and Wiet, ii, 364). Ibn
Kutayba ( al-Ashriba ) knew that it was possible to fer¬
ment these milks, e.g. that of the camel, although it
was the milk of the mare which was more popularly
used for fermentation a few centuries later (koumiss
[see kumis] was often produced from fermented
mare’s milk, as was kefir , generally less potent; some
varieties still exist today which are even given to
children to drink). This came about through the influ¬
ence of the peoples of Central Asia and those from the
native lands of the Mamluks; the latter also drank
koumiss, in spite of the hot climate of Egypt [see
khamr].

As has already been mentioned, curdling, or even
salting, were effective means of preserving lactic
drinks, in a period when refrigeration was still un¬
known, and in relatively hot regions. It is thus that a
land may be renowned beyond its geographical
borders for the quality of its lactic products (the Syro-
Palestinian region, for example, is praised for its
yoghourts, etc., in a humorous work on the
gastronomic art which does not however include
recipes: untitled B.L. ms., Add. 19.411, fols. 4b-5a).
Moreover, it is thus that certain of these drinks are
still known today, for example laban (originally laban
means nothing more than “milk”, but in certain
dialects the distinction has arisen of halib = milk,
laban = fully or partially curdled milk), ay ran, among
the Turks, and there is an Iranian equivalent, dugh,
sometimes a little more salted. Some ancient texts des¬
cribe yoghourts {yoghurt ) and give the recipes: Kanz,
the above-mentioned Cambridge ms., fol. 132a, with
instructions on how to dilute it with water, producing
a drink which would resemble the above-mentioned
ayran; al-Warrak, op. cit., fols. 54b-56a (see also fols.
28b-30a): types of milk and their treatment; the
untitled ms. mentioned above, B.L. Add. 19.411, fol.
4b; curdled milk and various yoghourts, including
that made from the milk of the buffalo. Ibn Razin al-
Tldjanl, ed. Ibn Shakrun, Fadalat al-khiwan (La cuisine
andalou marocaine au XIII teme siecle), Rabat 1981, 147:
ra?ib (explained above).

In the course of the last two centuries, Egyptian
scholars and physicians have developed a genre of
polemical debate in favour of and against milk and its
products: Ali al-Dabbagh al-HalabT, Rad c al-dyahil c an
dhamm al-kishk wa ’ l-ma^dkil , ms. Taymuriyya, Adab
370 (replying to a treatise against certain lactic pro¬

ducts); and Ahmad al-Tabi c i, Fayd al-minan, Cairo
1315 (replying to a treatise, al-Wadjh. al-hasan, in
favour of fish and against milk).

IV. Literary and semiotic questions.

In works of a moral and religious nature, milk is
also a literary symbol (even a semiotic value) of the
purity of Islam: it was chosen by the Prophet at the
time of his nocturnal travels through the heavens ( isra 3
and mFrddf), when he was offered water, wine, milk,
etc. (on this and other symbolic senses attributed to
milk, see Sadan, op. cit. ; and, regarding the impor¬
tance of milk in the eyes of the Prophet, see also Ibn
Kayyim al-Djawzivva. al-Tibb al-nabawi, Beirut 1957,
299 ff.). For certain madjin poets, wine characterises
the sedentary life of Muslim society, especially that of
c Abbasid society (the relatively more affluent circles),
while milk, of less worth in their eyes, characterises
the pre-Islamic Arabs. This is not a case of true con¬
tradiction, but of two semiotic and literary levels.
After all, this is not an objective notion (in fact, the
ancient Arabs were not unaware of the existence of
wine, but they did not drink it very very often) but
one that arises from a variety of literary elements,
showing, among other topics, the different roles that
the pair “milk” and “wine” play as symbols in the
various genres (see Sadan, op. cit.).

V. Water as a drink.

In spite of the afore-mentioned preference for milk
over other drinks on the part of the Prophet, he is also
credited with such remarks as “Water is the mother
of all drinks”, or “the master of all drinks” (on the
importance of water in Muslim legal tradition, see
also al-KulIm, al-Kafi, vi, 380-1; Ibn Kayyim al-
Djawziyya, op. cit., 302 ff.; al-UrmawI, Siyasa , ms.
Kopriilu 1200, fol. 164a; al-MadjlisT, Bihar, xiv,
752-5).

Water was an element of prime importance in the
life of the ancient Arabs, especially those who lived in
desert regions (see E. Braunlich, in Islamica , i, 41-76,
288-343, 454-528). The literature of medical tradi¬
tions speaks of the importance of this element as a
drink, and gives detailed accounts of its properties and
different varieties (see e.g. Sidi-Siouti, op. cit. , 38). In
fact, geographical and topographical conditions made
it necessary for each region to be content with a given,
and often unalterable, quality of water: water from
wells ( abdr ), from canals, rivers, etc. [see ma 5 ], a sub¬
ject of frequent interest to Arab geographers (in par¬
ticular the so-called “classical” ones of the 4th/10th
century; al-Mukaddasi, in his Ahsan al-takasim, often
adds at the end of each description of a region a sub-
chapter entitled dyumal shu^un hadha L-iklim which con¬
tains, .among other things, information concerning
the different waters of the region, their qualities, etc.).
Similarly, culinary literature (fols. 13a ff. of the Kanz,
Cambridge ms., and cf. al-GhuzulI, op. cit., ii, 74-7)
also devotes special chapters to water, in its capacity
as a drink. Well-organised systems of provision of
water were rare, but not unknown in the mediaeval
period (see e.g. R. B. Parker and R. Sabin, A practical
guide to Islamic monuments in Cairo, 91). The water of
certain rivers was often neither pure nor clean (al-
Djahiz, al-Bukhala y , ed. al-Hadjiri, 113, describes how
sewage was dumped in one of the channels of the
Tigris; see also E. Levi-Provencal, Trois traites hispani-
ques de hisba, 33; idem, Seville musulmane, 70). The
quality of drinking water often depended on the social
condition of the consumer, in particular the money
available to him to pay the water-bearer (sakka\ see
Lane, op. cit. , 327-31), but there were also receptacles,
or even special constructions ( sabtl, pi. subul, testifying
to the generosity of the benefactors who built them)

MASHRUBAT — MASHRUJIYYA

723

designed for the use of the general public. By such
means, water was distributed to travellers or to the
visitors of markets.

VI. Water mixed with snow.

The wealthy were not satisfied with ordinary water;
they were not only prepared to pay more highly for
water of good quality but they sought also to
refrigerate it. In addition to porous jugs (which had
the effect of lowering the temperature of water by a
few degrees), it was possible, even at the height of
summer (al-Sarl al-Raffa 3 , op. cit. , ii, 23) to buy snow,
which was one of the most expensive products. The
caliph al-Mahdl even ordered a supply of snow to be
brought to him at the time of his pilgrimage (al-
Tabari, iii/1, 484). The vendors of snow ( thalladjun ),
in Ba gh dad for example, had their own storehouses
which were filled with snow (often brought from afar:
al-Shabushl, al-Diyarat , Baghdad 1966, 88, in winter;
al-Kalkashandl, Subh, makdla 10, ch. 3; al-Hanl, al-
Thaldi wa ’ l-thalladjun, in Suwar c abbasiyya , Sidon-
Beirut, n.d., 89-130; in his edition of al-Sabl, Rusum
dar al-khildfa, M. c Awwad mentions (24, n. 7) that he
has published two articles on this subject in Ahl al-naft
(Beirut), xxxviii and xxxix [1954]; it may be—added
that the afore-mentioned Oxford ms. of the K. al-
Tabkh contains a chapter devoted to “water with
snow”, fol. 147b; cf. fob 148b: water cooled simply
by air; cf. H. Zayyat, in Machriq, xli, 25). Water
mixed with a small quantity of snow (ma 3 mutha/ladj)
was such a “rarity” that it was preferred to lemonade
(A. Mez, Renaissance , 408). One of the doctors of law
even went so far as to write a short treatise on the
question of whether it was permitted occasionally to
distribute water mixed with snow to less affluent peo¬
ple and to the poor (al- c Ayni, Ahkam al- c inaya, Chester
Beatty ms. 4400 (8), fols. 92a-95b). It is thus that
social stratification and its problems are reflected in
the domain of mashriibat. See the series Le voyage en
Egypte, I.F.A.O., Cairo, passim (e.g. volume for 1587-
8 , tr. and annot. by U. Castel and N. and S.
Sauneron, n.d., 257).

VII. Fruit-flavoured water, juices and other fresh drinks.

Typical examples of the great variety of drinks

based on fruits (or pure juice, or mixtures of juice
with spices and other ingredients) emerge clearly from
books of culinary recipes, including, for example, the
afore-mentioned Cambridge ms., fol. 107a
(lemonades and a drink made from ginger). The
afore-mentioned London ms., fol. 30a (lemonade,
orangeade, drinks flavoured with sumac); see A.
Huici Miranda, Kitab al-Tabfkh, in RIEIM, vi (1961-
2), 235-48 (and now B.N. ms. 7009, fols. 76a-81a; a
variety of soft drinks, sugared and flavoured with
fruits, flowers, vegetables, spices etc., e.g. jujubes,
apples, lemons, tamarinds, pomegranates and
violets); the afore-mentioned ms., fols. 152a-154a
(one ch. on vegetal-based drinks, and another on
fruit-based drinks). A luxury drink was often a com¬
bination of one of these kinds of mineral waters with,
in addition, fukka c (see above) and a little snow (see
above and al-GhuzulI, op. cit., ii, 88-9). This may be
compared with Mez, loc. cit., and especially idem,
Abulkasim, Heidelberg 1902, 38, 39, mentioning the
same drinks as early as the 4th/10th century (for
example ma? laymun = lemonade, probably made
from green lemons/limes; ma 3 hisrim = verjuice drink
which is described in a more detailed manner, with
two recipes in the mss. mentioned above).

Since certain of these drinks were considered to be
medicines or tonics, some of them may be
encountered in medical literature, often in a chapter
entitled ashriba “drinks” and there even exist
independent medical treatises on this subject (see e.g.

Sezgin, GAS, iii, index, s.v. K. al-Ashriba), but this
topic is beyond the scope of the present article. How¬
ever, some literary works show a fairly profound
knowledge of the secrets of medicine (or of popular
medicine), including for example al-Djahiz in his epis¬
tle concerning drinks; in another mediaeval literary
work, written in colloquial or quasi-colloquial Arabic,
a drink made from jujubes is found in the shop of a
popular perfumer-pharmacist (Sadan, in St. Isl.
[1982], 46); this may be compared with al-Sakatl, ed.
G. S. Colin and E. Levi-Proven^al, Un manuel hispani-
que de hisba , 46: Sharab al-^unnab ( = drink made from
jujubes sold in the streets in marketplaces). There is
a certain continuity with a whole range of mediaeval
drinks, extending into the contemporary period,
where fresh or cold drinks are still sold in the streets,
often by itinerant traders (see Lane, op. cit., 154-5,
331), such as, e.g., tamarind drink [tamr hindi, see
above, and al-Sakatl, loc. cit.) and liquorice drink
(rwi), which are very popular; the drink made from
dried grapes ( zebeeb according to Lane, loc. cit., zabib
or zbtb in colloquial speech), djallab (which was known
to the mediaeval world, see the above-mentioned
Cambridge ms., fol. 133; al-GhuzulI, loc. cit.; Huici
Miranda, loc. cit. ). These recipes are not always based
on dried grapes and the drink is most often non¬
alcoholic, but, even today, some devout Muslims abs¬
tain from consuming this drink made from dried
grapes when it is prepared by non-Muslims, since it
is feared that over-long soaking of the fruit produces
alcohol. Also worthy of mention here is the boza of the
Ottomans (whence buza in the Egyptian dialect, see
Spiro, Dictionary, defining it as biere; but it is necessary
to distinguish this term from boza, buza “ice cream”
in some dialects of colloquial Arabic, which must
rather be derived from Turkish buz “ice”). This may
contain alcohol (see, the series Le voyage en Egypte,
I.F.A.O., Cairo, passim (e.g. vol. for 1634-6, tr. and
annot. by V. Volkoff, n.d., 255 and n. 157; bouso).
But soft varieties of boza/biiza are known (see E. G.
Gobert, Usages et rites alimentaires des Tunisiens, in
Archives de TInstitut Pasteur de Tunis [1904], 64; see also
43, 72, on other drinks such as bsisa, for which see
Beaussier, s.v. bsisa and the other terms). The last-
mentioned drinks recall the problem of the “permit¬
ted” and the “forbidden” explored in detail at the
beginning of the present article (e.g. the nakT, men¬
tioned above).

In this context of continuity, we may also compare
the subiyya of the ancient texts (afore-mentioned Cam¬
bridge ms., fols. 112a-113a, and afore-mentioned
London ms. al-Wusla, fol. 26b, although the
references here are to a fairly thick liquid) with the
soobiya described by Lane, op. cit., in the 19th century
(a similar drink, prepared from the pips of melons, is
also described by R. Khawam, La cuisine arabe, 172:
bouzo urate ).

VIII. Hot drinks.

As regards hot drinks, see the arts, kahwa “coffee”
(see also on this, R. J. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses,
Washington D.C. 1985) and shay “tea”, but besides
these two drinks, the lands of the Near East are
familiar with a wide variety of infusions of flowers,
leaves, etc.

Bibliography : In addition to the references
given in the article: F. A. c Ukkaz, al-Khamrfi’l-fikh
al-islami, Djudda 1982; Faradj Zahran, al-Muskirat,
adraruha wa-ahkamuha, Cairo 1983; Ahmad C A. T.
Rayyan, al-Kiuskirat , atharuhd wa-Hladjuha, Cairo
1984; Salih A1 Mansur, Mawkif al-islam min al-
khamr , Cairo 1985; c lzzat Hasanayn, al-Muskirat al-
mukhaddirat, Cairo 1986. (J. Sadan)

MASHRUTIYYA [see dustur].

724

MASHWARA

MASHWARA (a.) or Mashura. a common term
for consultation, in particular by the ruler of his
advisers, the latter being various defined. The term
sometimes also appears to mean some kind of
deliberative gathering or assembly.

The practice of consultative decision was known in
pre-Islamic Arabia [see madjlis, and mala 5 in Suppl).
Two passages in the Kur 5 an (III, 153/159, wa-
shawirhum fi ’l-amr and XLII, 36/38, wa-amruhum shurd
baynahum ) are commonly cited as imposing a duty of
consultation on rulers. The merits of consultation
(mushdwara and mashwara ) and the corresponding
defects of arbritary personal rule ( istibdad) are sup¬
ported by a considerable body of material both in
hadith and adab (on hadith , see Wensinck, Concordance ,
iii, 212; for examples of adab , see Ibn Kutayba, c Uyun ,

i, 27-36; Ibn c Abd Rabbihi, c Ikd, Cairo 1953, i, 46-8).
Similar recommendations are made by the Kur 5 an
commentators (e.g. al-Zamakhsharl, Ka shsh df. Cairo
1373/1953, i. 322-3, iv, 179; i, 226; al-RazI, Mafdtih
al-ghayb , iii, 120). The desirability of consultation by
rulers becomes a commonplace in Islamic political
literature. It is urged by representatives of the scribal
and bureaucratic tradition (see for examples c Abd al-
Hamld, Risdla ... fi nasihat wall al- c ahd, in Muhammad
Kurd c AlI, ed., RasdHl al-bulagha 5 , Cairo 1374/1953,
185; Ibn al-Mukaffa c , Hikam, in ibid. , 155; Nizam al-
Mulk, Siyasat-ndma , ch. 18, “On having consultation
with learned and experienced men”, ed. Ch. Schefer,
Paris 1891, 84-5; French tr. idem, Paris 1893, 124-6;
Eng. tr. H. Darke, London 1960, 195-6; etc.).

In general, bureaucrats urge the need to consult
bureaucrats, while c -uldmd' i lay greater stress on the
importance of consulting the c -uldmd > . Ibn Taymiyya
{Minhady al-sunna, Bulak 1321, ii, 86; idem, al-Siydsa
al-sharHyya, Cairo 1961, 161-4, French tr. H. Laoust,
Le traite de droit public d’Ibn Taimiya , Beirut 1948, 168-
9) goes further than most of his colleagues. Citing
Kur 5 an and hadith, he insists that the ruler must con¬
sult not only with the c ulama 5 and with his political and
military officials, but also with spokesmen of the
general population.

In the early Islamic centuries there seems to have
been no formal procedure of consultation. As Gibb
remarks: “There is, in fact, nothing in the texts to
justify the suggestion that c Umar’s consultation was
more than informal, or that there was at Medina any
recognized consultative committee, still less a
cabinet” (H. A. R. Gibb, in Law in the Middle East ,
ed. Majid Khadduri and H. J. Liebesny, Washington
D.C. 1955, 16). The nearest approach to a con¬
sultative body was the famous committee appointed
by the caliph c Umar on his deathbed, with the func¬
tion of choosing one of their own number as his suc¬
cessor [see shura]. The Umayyad caliphs, at least the
earlier ones, do however seem to have continued the
old Arabian practice of consultation with the elders of
the tribes [see wufud]. The increasingly authoritarian
character of government after the accession of the
c Abbasids is vividly expressed in a passage quoted by
many authors. Sudayf, a mawla of the Hashimis, is
quoted as complaining of the changes resulting from
the c Abbasid accession: “By God, our booty, which
was shared, has become a perquisite of the rich; our
leadership, which was consultative ( mashwara ), has
become arbitrary; our succession, which was by the
choice of the community, is now by inheritance ...”
(Ibn Kutayba, c Uyun , ii, 115; Eng. tr. in Lewis, Islam,

ii, 54-55; cf. c Ikd, iii, 32; Aghdni, xiv, 162; Ibn
c Asakir, vi, 68; Ibn Kutayba, Shi c r , 419; etc.).

The mediaeval literary tradition, though generally
in favour of consultation, is not uniformly so. Some

texts indeed, without formally condemning consulta¬
tion, indicate that in excess it may lead to anarchy and
destruction. Thus the traveller Ibn Fadlan, describing
the system of government of the Volga Bulgars whom
he visited in 309/921, remarks that their form of
government was consultative (quoting the Kur 5 anic
verse wa-amruhum shurd baynahum) and goes on to
remark that whenever they agree among themselves
to do anything, their decision is nullified by the
meanest and lowest among them (Ibn Fadlan, Rihla,
ed. Sami Dahhan, Damascus 1379/1959, 91-2,
French tr. M. Canard, AIEO, xvi [1958], 68). An
equally harsh judgment on democracy in action is
given by al-Kalkashandl, Subh , viii, 30, who, in
speaking of the city of Sis in Asia Minor, notes that
“authority became consultative, the populace became
anarchic, the fortifications fell into disrepair” and the
city thus fell prey to Christian conquest. Consultation
as usually interpreted meant that the ruler before
reaching a decision should discuss matters with com¬
petent and experienced persons and not act in an
arbitrary fashion on his own. It did not mean that* he
should set up any consultative body, still less share
authority with it.

The existence of such bodies is first attested in the
period following the Mongol conquest, and may be a
reflection of Mongol practice in east Asia. The
Ilkhans in Iran seem to have adopted the practice of
covening a great council of high dignitaries ( Diwan-i
Buzurg), presided over by the Vizier. Regular
meetings of a council are attested under the Safawid
Shahs, by both Persian and western sources [see
diwan. iv]. The name DjankI, applied to this council,
indicates a Mongol origin (see V. Minorsky, Tadhkira,
44, 53, 113 n. 5, 120; G. Doerfer, Turkische und
Mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen, i, Wiesbaden
1963, 280-2; H. H. Zarinezade, Ears dillinde Azer-
baydyan sozleri , Baku 1962, 248-50).

The Ottoman historian, Kemalpashazade, in
discussing the eastern campaigns of the Ottoman
sultan Mehemmed II, describes the holding of such a
council in Persia. When the Persian monarch received
a spy’s report that the Ottoman sultan was moving
eastward, he convened a meeting of “the dignitaries
of his state and the notables of his realm and consulted
with them ( erkdn-i dewletini we a c yan-i memleketini biryere
dirub onlarinla meshweret etdi )”, Ibn Kemal, Tewdnkh-i
dl-i c Othman, vii, Defter, ed. §. Turan, Ankara 1957,
544).

In Egypt, under the Bahrl Mamluks there appears
to have existed a supreme council of high ranking
amirs. The members of this council were variously
known as Amir Mashwara and Mushir al-Dawla. Its
head was called Ra 5 is al-Mashwara. References to
appointments to this council and to its meetings are of
frequent occurrence in the Mamluk chronicles for the
Bahrl period (see D. Ayalon, Studies on the structure of
the Mamluk army. Ill , in BSOAS, xv [1954], 69; E.
Tyan, Institutions de droit public musulman , ii, Paris -
Beirut 1956, 171-81; Bjorkman, Beitrdge, 153; al-
Kalkashandl, Subh , vi, 28, xi, 153-6; al-MakrlzI,
Suluk, ii, 64, 85-6, 182, 485, 551, 626, 634, 645, 746,
890, with an editorial note; idem, Khitat, ed. Bulak,
ii, 64; Abu TMahasin, Nudyum , ed. Cairo, x, 190; see
further mushir). Under the Circassian Mamluks,
references to this council become extremely rare.

According to an Ottoman historical tradition, the
very foundation of the Ottoman dynasty and state was
due to a deliberative act. According to this version,
the Beys and Ketkhudas of that region met together
and held a mashwara. After much discussion they came
to c Othman Bey and asked him to become their chief

MASHWARA — MASHYAKHA

725

(Lutfi, TaMkh, 21; Yazidjfoghlu C A1I, Seldpuk-name ,
cited in Agah Sirri Levend, Turk dilinde gelisme ve
sadelesme safhalan, Ankara 1949, 34). Ottoman
authors, like other Islamic authors, urged the impor¬
tance of consultation by the ruler, and in the Ottoman
empire such was indeed the practice. The high council
(dlwan-i humayun [q. v. ]) was an important part of the
Ottoman governmental system. Presided over in
earlier times by the Sultan, in later times by the
Grand Vizier, it had a prescribed membership and
prescribed times of meeting. The term mashwara
(Ottoman meshweret ) is used commonly by the
Ottoman historians to denote ad hoc meetings and
councils of military and other dignitaries to consider
problems as they arose. Such meshwerets were already
held in the course of the wars in Europe in the 15th
century (see for example Kemalpashazade, 127).
References to such meetings are common in the
Ottoman chronicles in the 16th, 17th and 18th cen¬
turies. Na c ima offers many accounts of military
meshwerets held in the field by the commanders as well
as of civilian gatherings held in Istanbul by official
dignitaries. The Sultan was not normally present at
such gatherings (see for example Na c Ima, i, 131, 146,
155, 180, 273, 413, ii, 354, 360, iii, 54, iv, 298, 413,
v, 60, 203, 281-3). Towards the end of the 18th cen¬
tury such gatherings become more frequent, particu¬
larly in the periods of crisis associated with the Rus¬
sian and other wars, and were sometimes held in the
presence of the Sultan (examples in Wasif, i, 316-18,
221, 222, 274; Djewdet, ii, 276 ff., iv, 289). A new
phase began with the accession of Sultan Selim III
who, at the start of his reign, on 20 Sha c ban 1203/16
May 1789, convened a consultative asembly (meshwe¬
ret) of leading officials to discuss the problems of the
Empire and the way to remedy them. Such gatherings
were often held under Selim III and his successors.
The early 19th century historian Shanizade [ q.v.
makes frequent reference to such gatherings anc
ascribes to them a representative character and
significance not mentioned by previous authors
(Shanizade, i, 66, 73-5, 199-201, 365, iv, 2-5, 201,
37 ff., 155-8, etc.). For a full treatment of these infor¬
mal consultative assemblies, see madjlis al-shura.

Shanizade’s account marks the transition from a
purely traditional Islamic interpretation of mashwara
to a new approach influenced by the practice of Euro¬
pean states, to which indeed he alludes under the
polite euphemism diiwel-i muntazame “well-organised
states’’. He may have been thinking of the British
parliament, a description of which, by the young
Ottoman diplomatist Mahmud Ra^if was available to
him in Istanbul. Shanizade notes that the holding of
such meshwerets was common in these states, where
they served a useful purpose. At the same time, he
was naturally concerned to justify the holding of such
meetings with both Islamic and Ottoman precedents
[see further hurriyya. ii].

Perhaps the earliest use of the term in a clearly
western context occurs in the Turkish translation of
the first volume of Carlo Botta’s History of Italy from
1789 to 1814, first printed in Cairo as Bonapart ta 3 rtkhi
in 1249/1833. This speaks of the parlamento meshwereti
established by the liberals in that country.

In the course of the 19th century, the term mashwara
or meshweret was much used by Turkish and Arabic
authors, first to describe European representative
institutions, and then to justify their introduction into
the Islamic lands. Thus the Egyptian shaykh Rifa c a
Rafi c al-Tahtawi, discussing the functioning of
French parliamentary institutions, makes common
use of the term mashwara to describe the various con¬

sultative bodies ( Takhlis al-ibriz fi lalkhis Bdriz , ed.
Mahdi c Ailam et alii , Cairo n.d., ch. 3, 138-43). This
important book was published in a Turkish transla¬
tion as well as in the original Arabic and provided the
first detailed and documented description, in these
languages, of constitutional and representative
government. The term was adopted by the young
Ottoman liberal patriots of the mid-century [see yeni
c othmanlilar] and was much used in their writings.
By 1876 it was sufficiently well-accepted in Ottoman
usage to figure in the Sultan’s speech from the throne
at the opening of the first Ottoman parliament
(Ka^ide-yi Meshweret , in Dabltlar Djeridesi, 10), and in
1909 the speech from the throne even speaks of con¬
stitutional and consultative government (Meshrutiyyet
we-meshweret ), “as prescribed by the holy law as well
as by both reason and tradition” ( Taswlr-i efkar of 15
November 1909).

Bibliography : Given in the text. In general,
see L. Gardet, La cite musulmane , Paris 1954, 172-5;
H. Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de
Taki-d-dln Ahmad b. Taimlya , Cairo 1939, 301-2;
Muhammad Diya 5 al-Din al-Rayyis, al-Nazariyyat
al-siyasiyya al-islamiyya , Cairo 1952, 224-8. See also
madjlis. 4. A. In the Middle East and North
Africa, sections i-ii, and madjlis al-shura, the lat¬
ter with full bibliography. (B. Lewis)

MASHYAKHA or mashikha, one of several plural
forms of A. shaykh , literally “an elder, i.e. a distin¬
guished person usually of an advanced age [q.v.]. In
its classical usage, mashyakha also served as an abstract
noun denoting a shaykh7 s position or authority (e.g. in
mashyakhat al-Islam, the authority of the shaykh al-Islam

In the Muslim West mashyakha was used to
designate the collectivity of urban elders and notables
often wielding considerable political influence in the
cities. Such groups of dignitaries sometimes acted as
virtual advisory councils of local rulers, hence
mashyakha also carried the sense of “a municipal coun¬
cil”. This was so in Muslim Spain (D. Wasserstein,

' The rise and fall of the Party-Kings , Princeton 1985, 142-
45) and, according to clues offered by Ibn Khaldun,
in North Africa as well (ref. in Dozy, Suppl. , s.v.
shaykh ; Mukaddima, ed. Quatremere, ii, 269; tr.
Rosenthal, ii, 305).

During Bonaparte’s Egyptian expedition, the word
acquired a new meaning. Seeking an Arabic expres¬
sion for “republic”, Bonaparte’s orientalist experts
came to use mashyakha. This was apparently an
intended allusion to the Directoire of five who were
governing France at the time; endeavouring to
simplify an idea novel to their audience, the
translators chose to refer to the persons making up the
governing body (“the elders”) rather than to the
abstract principle underlying it. The French
administration employed the term extensively in its
proclamations to the Egyptians—issued “on behalf of
al -mashyakha al-faransawiyya" —using it inter¬
changeably with djumhur , the common Ottoman word
for the notion [see djumhuriyya]. Mashyakha then
became a popular name for “republic” in Arabic
writings as well, in which it was considerably more
common during the first half of the 19th century than
either dyumhur or djumhuriyya\ the latter term was intro¬
duced by al-Tahtawi [q.v. ] in the 1830s.

The choice of a word with established connotations
to express a new idea was bound to produce some con¬
fusion. Certain writers of Arabic thus understood
“republic” to mean “government by elders”,
erroneously identifying the foreign notion with a more
familiar concept (e.g. Nikula Turk, Mudhakkirat.

726

MASHYAKHA — al-MASIHI

Cairo 1950, 3, 97, 98; Rifa c a Rafi c al-TahtawI.
KaldHdal-mafdkhir, Bulak 1833, i, 52, ii, 104). In addi¬
tion, the simultaneous application of the word, by
similar logic, to other notions—such as al-mashyakha
al-baladiyya (“city council”), mashyakhat al-bilad (“the
country’s government”), mashyadhat Bdriz (“the Paris
Commune”) etc.—further attested to the vagueness
of the term and, perhaps, of some of the concepts it
was chosen to express.

In the second half of the 19th century, mashyakha in
the sense of republic gradually gave ground to
djumhuriyya, although some writers continued to vin¬
dicate the older usage until the 1870s. Thereafter,
mashyakha lost this meaning, retaining only the loose
import of an institution of elders at large or a
sheikhdom.

Bibliography : For the classical usage, see
Lane, Lexicon , s.v.; KalkashandT, Subh al-a c sha , s.v.
in index (ed. Muhammad Kandil al-Bakll), 425.
For its use in French proclamations, see examples
in Ahmad Husayn al-SawI, Fadjr al-sihdfa fi Misr,
Cairo 1975, pis. 43, 48, 49, 70, 79, 87A, 90-7. See
further A. Ayalon, Language and change in the Arab
Middle East , Oxford 1987, ch. vii.

(A. Ayalon)

al-MASIH, the Messiah; in Arabic (where the
root m-s-h has the meanings of “to measure” and “to
wipe, stroke”) it is a loanword from the Aramaic,
where m € shtha was used as a name of the Redeemer.

Horovitz ( Koranische Untersuchungen , 129) considers
the possibility that it was taken over from the Ethiopic
(masth). Muhammad of course got the word from the
Christian Arabs, amongst whom the personal name
c Abd al-Masih was known in pre-Islamic times, but it
is doubtful whether he knew the true meaning of the
term (see K. Ahrens, Christliches im Qoran, eine
Nachlese, in ZDMG, lxxxiv [1930], 24-5; A. Jeffery,
The foreign vocabulary of the Qur’an , Baroda 1938, 265-
6). In Arab writers we find the view mentioned that
the word is a loanword from Hebrew or Syriac. Al-
Tabari ( Tafsir on sura III, 40 = iii, 169) gives only
purely Arabic etymologies, either with the meaning
“purified” (from sins) or “filled with blessing”.
Horovitz, op. cit., calls attention to the occurrence of
the word in inscriptions, proper names and in the old
poetry.

In the Kurban, the word is first found in the
Mecca suras: (a) alone: sura, IV, 170, IX, 30; (b)
with Ibn Maryam; sura, V, 19, 76, 79; IX, 31; (c)
with c Isa b. Maryam: sura III, 40; IV, 156. None of
these passages make it clear what Muhammad
understood by the word. From sura III, 40: “O
Maryam, see, Allah promises thee a word from Him,
whose name is al-Masih c Isa b. Maryam”, one might
suppose that al-Masih was here to be taken as a proper
name. Against this view, however, is the fact the the
article is not found with non-Arabic proper names in
the Kur 5 an. One can assume with reasonable cer¬
tainty that al-Masih is a title of Jesus in the Kurban,
but not a messianic one; clearly, no eschatological
interpretation of Christ’s mission could have been
known in Arabia (see J. S. Trimingham, Christianity
among the Arabs in pre-Islamic times, London 1979, 267).

In canonical Hadith al-Masih is found in three
main connections: (a) in Muhammad’s dream, in
which he relates how he saw at the Ka c ba a very hand¬
some brown-complexioned man with beautiful locks,
dripping with water, who walked supported by two
men; to his question who this was, the reply was
given, “al-Masih b. Maryam” (al-Bukhari, Libas , bab
68; Ta c bir, bab 11; Muslim, Imdn, trad. 302); (b) in the
descriptions of the return of c Isa [q. v. ]; (c) at the Last

Judgment, the Christians will be told; “What have
you worshipped?”. They will reply, “We have wor¬
shipped al-Masih, the Son of God”. For this they shall
wallow in Hell (al-Bukhari. Tafsir , sura IV, bab 8;
Tawhid, bab 24; Muslim, Imam, trad. 302).

In Hadith also, we frequently find references to al-
Masih al-Kadhdjal; see al-dadjdjal.

Bibliography : In addition to references given
in the article, see T. P. Hughes, A dictionary of
Islam, 328; O. H. Schumann, Der Christus der
Mus lime: Christologische Aspekte in der arabisch-
islamischen Literatur, Gutersloh 1975; D. Wismer,
The Islamic Jesus: an annotated bibliography of sources in
English and French, New York 1977; G. Schedl,
Muhammad und Jesus , die christologische relevante Texie
des Koran , neu ubersetzt und erklart, Vienna 1978; R.
Arnaldez , Jesus fils de Marie, prophete de l’Islam. Paris
1980; Abdelmajid Charfi, Christianity in the Qur’an
commentary of Tabari, in Islamochristiana, vi (1980),
105-48; and the Bibls. to c isa and maryam.

(A_. J. Wensinck - [C- E. Bosworth])
al- MASIHI al-djurdjanI, c Isa b. Yahya Abu
Sahl, Christian physician born in Djurdjan, and
one of the teachers of Ibn Slna, who dedicated some
of his works to him.

He studied in Ba g hdad, and then taught in
Kh urasan and later in Kh w arazm. He had no social
intercourse with his coreligionists, but performed
religious worship alone in his house (al-Bayhaki,
TaMkh, 95). In 401/1010, together with a number of
other scholars who had settled in Kh w arazm—among
them al-BTrunl—, he was summoned-by al-Mahmud
of Ghazna [q.v. ] to this city under the suspicion of
heresy. In the company of Ibn Slna he succeeded in
fleeing to Mazandaran, but met his death in a sand¬
storm. So far, none of his works, in large part pre¬
served, has been edited. The most important, existing
in numerous manuscripts, is the K. al-MPa (“hun¬
dred [treatises]”), a comprehensive medical
encyclopaedia, arranged in a hundred sections, prob¬
ably the oldest work of its kind and perhaps the model
for Ibn Slna’s Kanun. An edition of this work is most
desirable. A very much smaller work, the K. al-Tibb
al-kulli, gives in 39 chapters an introduction to the
general fundamentals of medicine. The third work to
be mentioned here is the K. Izhdr hikmat Allah ta c ala ft
khalk al-insdn, dealing with the physiology of the
human organs and their meaning and purpose as
intended by God. Ibn Abl U?aybi c a (i, 328,2) says
explicitly that this work is based on Galen’s [see
djalInus] K. ft manafi c al-a ^ept XP^ a C ROptwv, see
G. Bergstrasser, Hunain ibn Ishaq uber die syrischen und
arabischen Galen-Ubersetzungen (AKM, xvii/2), no. 49.
Already the title of al-MasThl work reflects Galen’s
teleological way of thinking: in the latter’s work just
mentioned, the single chapters deal with “God’s
wisdom with regard to the perfect creation of the
hands” and of the other organs (see Bergstrasser, loc.
cit.). Al-Maslhl indeed was “a philosopher for whom
medicine was dominant” ( hakim istawla c alayhi ’ l-tibb ,
al-Bayhakl, 95); with some exaggeration, Nizami
c ArudI even calls him, together with Ibn Slna, “suc¬
cessor of Aristotle in philosophy, which includes all
sciences” ( Cahar makala, 118, 8-9). His special
investigations, which are smaller in extent, deal with
smallpox, the pulse, and also with matters of
geometry, psychology and the interpretation of
dreams, and contain also an extract from the K. al-
Midjisti. A work on the plague he dedicated to his
patron, the Kh w arazmshah Abu ’l- c Abbas MaYnun
b. Ma 3 mun.

Al-Maslhi’s knowledge of theoretical and practical

727

al-MASIHI — MASILA

medicine, his lucid terminology and the clear com¬
position of his writings are generally praised. The K.
al-MPa, in particular, has been commented upon and
recommended to posterity by prominent experts like
Amin al-Dawla Ibn al-Tilmldh. Only one single
voice—but then a powerful one—is of an opposite
opinion: al-Madjusi gave a harsh verdict on the K. al-
MPa , and in particular denounced the arrangement of
the book, unsystematical in his eyes (al-Madjusi,
Kamil al-sina c a al-tibbiyya, Bulak 1294/1877, i, 4,
29-33).

Bibliography : Nizami c ArudI, Cahdr makdla,
ed. M. Kazwlnl and M. Mu c In, Tehran 1955-7,

118,11-121,1, and the Ta c ltkdl, 415-17, 423-5 (with
a divergent version on al-MasIhl’s death); BayhakI,
Ta 7 rikh hukama > al-Islam, ed. M. Kurd c AlI,
Damascus 1365/1946, 95-7; Ibn al-Kifti, Hukama \
ed. J. Lippert, 408-16-409,2; Ibn Abl Usaybi c a,
c Uyun al-anbd\ ed. A. Muller, i, 327,30-328,29;
Ibn al- c lbrl (Barhebraeus), Ta 7 rikh mukhtasar al-
duwal , ed. SalihanI, 330,9-11; L. Leclerc, Hisloire de
la medecine arabe, Paris 1876, i, 356 f.; Brockelmann,
GAL 2 , I, 273 f., S I 423 f.; Graf, GCAL, ii, 257 f.;
A. Dietrich, Medicinalia Arabica, Gottingen 1966,
69-73; M. Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Leiden-
Cologne 1970, 151; idem, Die Natur- und Geheim-
wissenschaften im Islam , Leiden 1972, 26; Sezgin,
GAS, iii, 326 f., v, 336 f.; Ghada al-Karml, A
mediaeval compendium of Arabic medicine: Abu Sahl al-
MasihVs “Book of the hundred", in Jnal. Hist. Arabic
Science, ii (Aleppo 1978), 270-90 (detailed sum¬
mary). (A. Dietrich)

MASILA (current orthography M’sila), a town
in Algeria founded by the Fatimids in 315/927 on
the northern edge of the depression of Hodna as an
outpost of their rule in the Zab. This remote province
of their domain was in fact to play, from the founda¬
tion of their caliphate, the role of a military frontier to
the west of Ifrikiya. As with his predecessors, the
Aghlabid amirs, the primary task of the First Fatimid
sovereign, al-Mahdl c Ubayd Allah [q.v. ], in ensuring
the defence of the western side of the realm consisted
in raising a powerful barrier on the desert route
leading towards al-Kayrawan: this entailed the block¬
ing of the natural course of penetration which fol¬
lowed, at the southern limit of Numidia, the defile of
al-Kantara known as “mouth of the Sahara” (fam al-
Sahra 7 ) and proceeded to the north-east by way of
Wadi Miskyana and Wadi Mellegue, thus offering to
the desert tribes access to the wealthy provinces of
Ifrikiya.

As early as the ancient period, in Roman and
subsequently Byzantine Africa, a line of fortresses
{limes), including the powerful stronghold of
Lambesus (Lambaesis), sealed this gateway to the
Sahara at the western limit of the Zab, where the
renowned Third Augustan Legion was stationed on
desert guard for a considerable period of time.

Intended as a military base, Maslla was founded
not far from the ancient Zabi, to the west of Lam¬
baesis, inheriting from the latter the role of giving
protection against the Berber tribes always eager to
pillage the prosperous Ifrlkiyan regions, sc. the Birzal,
Muzata, Kamlan and other Huwwara clans. The
threat that they posed became still more serious since
the Ifrlkiyan realm had come just under the control of
the Shi*! c Alids, who were just as accursed, from the
point of view of the KharidjI doctrines which the tribes
professed, as were the Sunni Aghlabids. Furthermore,
the “auxiliaries” of these new masters of the coveted
land of Ifrikiya were none other than the Kutama,
long-standing enemies of the Zanata clan of which
they had taken advantage.

It was thus with the object of holding these hostile
tribes in check that the presumptive heir of al-Mahdl,
Abu ’1-Kasim Muhammad, the future al-Ka^im bi-
Amr Allah [q took the decision to found Masila at
the time of the expedition which he conducted in the
Zab and then in the region of Tahart in 315/927-8, on
territory occupied by the most troublesome tribe, that
of the Kamlan. He entrusted the task to his officer C A1I
b. Hamdun, ordering him to station himself there
with his troops, c AdjIsa elements and slaves, and
instructing the Kamlan to join with his army before
going to establish themselves in the region of al-
Mahdiyya on the route leading to al-Kayrawan.
Called Muhammadiyya after its founder, the new
town was soon to bear the name of Masila on account
of its position on the edge of a water-course, the Wadi
Sahr, currently the Wadi Ksob.

It soon supplanted Tobna as regional capital of the
Zab and became, under the rule of Ibn Hamdun, in
addition to its importance as a military base, a pros¬
perous city and the seat of a powerful principality
within the Fatimid realm. The father of c AlI, Ham¬
dun, also known as Abu c Abd Allah al-Andalusi,
scion of a DjudhamI family of Yemen, had counted
among the most valued Arab “auxiliaries” (awliya 7 )
of the Fatimid cause, those who had been loyal from
the outset. Sent to the canton of Elvira in Muslim
Spain and then to the region of Bougie, he had been
one of the disciples of al-Hulwanl, the first Sh^I mis¬
sionary in Ifrikiya, before becoming a loyal com¬
panion of Abu c Abd Allah al-Sh^I [q.v.] at Ikdjan
where he died, apparently before the fall of the
Aghlabids. As for c AlI, he joined al-Mahdl at
Sidjilmassa before entering his service at Rakkada in
297/910, barely a year after the conquest of Ifrikiya by
Abu c Abd Allah. He rapidly distinguished himself in
the entourage of the sovereign, along with other
Yemenis, notably the Kalbis, acting as a counter¬
weight to rebellious KutamI elements and to certain
elements of the Mudari Arab aristocracy who had
remained loyal to the A gh labids.

But it was with the foundation of Masila that he
reinforced his role in supporting the cause of his
Fafimid masters. Surrounded by a fortified wall, the
new town was soon to be endowed with a second
perimeter wall and its defences were strengthened by
a canal dug between the two walls and fed by the
river, in such a way as to provide water for the needs
of the population and for irrigation. This permitted
the development of extensive plantations of fruit, as
well as fertile ground for the growth of cereals and a
prosperous stock-breeding sector. These agricultural
resources were supplemented by the produce of
flourishing trade favoured by the town’s position at
the crossroads of the mercantile routes linking Ifrikiya
to western Barbary. Varied victuals and provisions
supplied vast reserves for the purpose of feeding
troops in the course of punitive expeditions against the
rebel tribes.

Thus during the revolt of Abu Yazid [q.v.], Masila
played its role of a base for operations effectively.
When the KharidjI rebel arrived at the gates of al-
Mahdiyya, C A1I b. Hamdun attempted to take the
enemy from the rear and to unite his forces with those
of Ibn al-Kalbl who had left Tunis to come to the aid
of besieged Mahdiyya. But he was defeated by the son
of Abu Yazid, Ayyub, on the banks of the Medjerda
and perished in RabI* I-II 334/November 945. His
son Dja c far, brought up at the court of Mahdiyya with
his brother Yahya, and foster-brother of the amir
Ma c add, the future al-Mu c izz li-Dm Allah, succeeded
him in command at Maslla. Subsequently, when,
defeated before al-Kayrawan, Abu Yazid was obliged

728

MASILA — MA 5 SIR

♦

to fall back towards Hodna and to entrench himself in
the mountains of Koyana, it was from Maslla that the
Fatimid Isma c Tl al-Mansur [?.«.] conducted the cam¬
paign against the rebels and ultimately crushed them
in Muharram 336/August 947.

Henceforward, MasTla became, in addition to its
strategic role, one of the most important provincial
capitals of the realm and underwent rapid develop¬
ment, while, in the mountain range of Titteri, the amir
of the powerful neighbouring Sanhadja, ZTrT b.
Manad, founded Ashlr. an impregnable fortress
intended to reinforce Fatimid control over the
troublesome Zanata. MasTla inspired its foundation
and assisted its development.

Bordered, on the one hand, by Zanata hostile to the
Fatimids, on the other, by Sanhadja, who had
recently become supporters of the c Alid cause on the
side of the Kutama, Dja c far began to rule, within the
limits of his prerogative, as a veritable suzerain, thus
acting in rivalry to ZTri, and to raise MasTla to the
status of a principality. Endowing it with castles and
palaces and lavishing there large sums of money, he
succeeded in making himself a conspicuous per¬
sonality and even maintained a literary court fre¬
quented by numerous poets and scholars. The emi¬
nent Ibn HanT [<y.y.], who spent some time there and
sang the praises of Dja c far and his family, did not
hesitate, in lauding the Zab, to compare it to c Irak.
Moreover, the administrative status accorded to
MasTla by the Fatimid monarch, which endowed
Dja c far with almost unlimited authority over his ter¬
ritory, was that of istikfa 3 , which conferred upon the
governor of a province the right to exercise, like a
viceroy, full powers and thus to maintain a high
degree of military, judicial, financial and religious
control. Dja c far was enabled to administer his ter¬
ritory “with trustworthiness” (bi ’ l-amdna ) without
first being obliged to pay a fixed sum to the State
Treasury (daman). The process of autonomous
administration then being developed in the provincial
organisation of the realm thus authorised him to
deduct from the annual revenues of the Zab, which
were considerable, all his public expenses before pay¬
ing only the surplus as tax. Such a favourable status
did not fail to arouse jealousy in the Fatimid court
against the all-powerful suzerain of MasTla. In addi¬
tion, his disagreements with the chieftain of the
Sanhadja, BuluggTn b. ZTrT, and his good-neighbourly
relations with the Zanata who were the implacable
enemies of the Kutama and of his sovereign, caused
severe irritation to al-Mu c izz. The presence at the
court of MasTla of Umayyad agents, and the sen¬
timents of allegiance to the Andalusian monarchy
flaunted by the Zanata with the blessing of Dja c far.
gravely worsened his relations with his sovereign. Not
hesitating to defy his anger, Dja c far espoused the
cause of the Zanata in their contentions with his rival,
the amir of the Sanhadja, then embarked upon open
rebellion against al-Mu c izz. Subsequently, he pro¬
claimed his allegiance to the Umayyad al-Hakam II
and made haste to abandon MasTla with his family,
arriving at Cordova in 360/971.

With the defection of the Banu Hamdun, MasTla
began to lose its importance to the advantage of AshTr,
already its rival. The predominance of AshTr was con¬
firmed with the designation of BuluggTn as viceroy of
al-Mu c izz in Barbary, when the latter finally left the
region for Egypt, to which the seat of the caliphate was
transferred.

Under the first Sanhadja dynasties, supremacy over
the Zab and its regional capital MasTla became the
object of the struggle in which they were continually

embroiled with one of the components of the Zanata
clan, the powerful tribe of the Maghrawa commanded
by ZTrT b. c A{iyya. In the course of this struggle
during the reign of BadTs, distinction was achieved by
his uncle Hammad who conceived the idea of foun¬
ding, a score of kilometres to the northeast of MasTla,
a new town, al-Kal c a [see kal c at ban! hammad],
destined to supplant the former in its role of provincial
capital and military base capable of controlling the
Zanata tribes.

There then began for MasTla a long period of
decline. Abandoned, to the advantage of its neighbour
during the first half of the 5th/llth century, it con¬
ceded to it its status as the major city of the Zab,
where the Kal c a became in its turn the seat of a prin¬
cipality founded by the powerful branch of the
Sanhadja, the Banu Hammad. Then with the Hilalian
invasion, the regions of the Zab and of Hodna were,
like IfrTkiya, devastated by nomadic Arab tribes, the
Athbadj, Riyah, Zughba and other elements of
Sulaym. MasTla was ravaged, as was the Kal c a. How¬
ever, it outlived both the latter and AshTr. which was
laid to ruin under the empire of the Almohads, to the
advantage of a new provincial capital, Bougie [see
bidjaya]. Then, despite the destruction caused by the
Banu Ghaniva in revolt against the Almohads, it
regained during the 6th/l 2th century a little of its lost
glory in the wake of Bougie, with the renown of
scholars such as Abu c AlT al-MasTlT or Ahmad b.
Harb. But MasTla was to suffer again under the Haf-
sids as a result of their struggles with the c Abd al-
Wadids \q.vv.]. The Dawudiyya attempted in the
meantime to assert their domination over the region.
It regained for the last time some political importance
and reputation with scholars such as Ahmad al-
MasTlT, a disciple of Ibn c Arafa, and especially as a
result of the role played there in the mid-8th/14th cen¬
tury by the renowned Ibn Khaldun and his brother
Yahya in the service of the c Abd al-Wadid sultan Abu
Hammu. Finally, with the ascendancy of nomadic
Arab tribes over the Zab and Hodna, during the
9th/l5th century MasTla definitely lost its status as a
major city, becoming nothing more than an
undistinguished locality eking out a meagre existence
through manufacturing and agriculture.

Bibliography : Besides the information sup¬
plied by the chroniclers and the writings of Arab
geographers, especially those of Ibn Hawkal and
BakrT used by G. Margais in, notably, Les Arabes en
Berberie du XI € au XlV e siecle , Constantine-Paris
1913, see the accurate Fatimid documentation used
by M. Canard, in Une jamille de partisans, puis
dadversaires des Fatimides en Afrique du Nord, in
Melanges G. Mar^ais, ii, 33-49, and Vie de Vustadh
Jawdhar , Algiers 1958 (tr. of the Sira of Djawdhar.
ed. M. K. Husayn and M. c Abd H. Sha c ira). See
also F. Dachraoui, Le califat fatimide au Maghreb ,
Tunis 1981, and ibn hanT in EP\ M. Yalaoui, Un
poete chPite d’Occident au IV e /X e siecle , Ibn Hani al-
Andalusi , Tunis 1976. Also to be consulted is a
general work, exhaustive but uneven, by P.
Massiera, M'Sila du X e au XV e siecle , reprinted in
CT, xxii/85-6 (1974). (F. Dachraoui)

MA^SIR, a technical term of fiscal prac¬
tice in the hydraulic civilisation of early Islamic
c Irak, doubtless going back to earlier periods there. It
is defined by al-Kh w arazmT in his Mafatih al- c ulum ,
70, as “a chain or cable which is fastened right across
a river and which prevents boats from getting past”,
and more specifically by Ibn Rusta, 185, tr. Wiet,
213, as a barrier across the Tigris at HawanTt near
Dayr al- c Akul [q. v. ] consisting of a cable stretched

MA>SIR — MASIRA

729

between two ships at each side of the river, preventing
ships passing by night (and thus evading the tolls
levied by the official traffic and toll house regulators,
ashab al-sayyara wa ’l-ma y asir). The term has no obvious
Arabic etymology from the root 5 - s-r , but may be con¬
nected with Akkadian masaru “to delimit, set a boun¬
dary”, mussuru “to fix a borderline”, massartu
“watchman, guard, watch house” (Von Soden,
Akkadisches Handworterbuch , ii, 619-21, 659; Chicago
Assyrian dictionary. Letter M, x/1, 333 ff., x/2, 245).

From being a barrier across the river to halt shipp¬
ing, it soon acquired the meaning of “customs house
where tolls are collected” (for such tolls, see maks and
ma c una), and then the actual tolls themselves. In the
caliphate of al-Mu c tadid (279-89/892-902) one hears
of a body of officials attached to the shurta [q. v. ] or
police guard of Baghdad, called ma^asiriyyun, who col¬
lected tolls from river traffic on the Tigris.

Bibliography : Le Strange, Lands , 36; M.
c Awwad, al-Ma?asir ft bilad al-Rum wa ’ l-Is lam,
Baghdad 1948; A. S. Ehrenkreutz, Al-Buzajam
(A.D. 939-997) on the “ Mdfir'\ in JESHO , viii
(1965), 90-2; C. E. Bosworth, Abu c Abdallah al-
Khwarazmi on the secretary’s art ... in JESHO , xii
(1969J, 155. (C. E. Bosworth)

MASIRA, an island to the north of a gulf of the
same name, lying parallel to the eastern coast of
Arabia, some 150 miles south-west of Ra-’s al-Hadd.
It is part of the Sultanate of Oman ( c Uman). The
irregular oblong island, which is composed almost
entirely of igneous rocks, is some 40 miles in length
and has a maximum breadth of nearly ten miles. Its
total area is approximately 200 square miles, and
Maslra is therefore the largest island in the Arabian
Sea after Socotra (Sukutra). A low mountain ridge
traverses the island reaching a maximum height of
740 feet at Djabal Madhrub (lat. 20° 34' N, long. 58°
53’ E) in the north. The shallow channel which
separates Maslra from the mainland of Arabia is from
8 to 12 miles wide, but the existence of a large number
of shoals and coral outcrops makes it hazardous for all
except local craft. From mid-December until March,
the northeast monsoon adds to the dangers of naviga¬
tion in this Strait.

The landscape of the island is largely barren and
vegetation is scant, consisting of a few stunted trees,
some shrubs and scattered tufts of grass. In the past
this lack of grazing has greatly restricted the number
of domesticated animals kept by the local people. In
1845 an Indian Navy survey party put the total
number of inhabitants at about 1,000—the over¬
whelming majority of whom belonged to the Djanaba
tribe [qv.\, while a smaller number were said to be
Hikman. Water supplies were then reported to be
adequate. In 1957 de Gaury estimated the population
to be just under 2,000. The climate is generally good;
in May—the hottest month—the average maximum is
96° F., while in January—the coolest—the average
minimum is 66° F.

The islanders have long derived their livelihood
from the sea. Large numbers of turtles provided both
food and tortoise shell for export; dried fish and shark
fins were also traded for rice and dates from the
mainland. The presence of sperm whales off the east
coast of the island meant that lumps of valuable
ambergris were sometimes washed ashore, and these
too were exported. Lead and copper ores are known
to exist on the island. Some apparently ancient
smelting sites have been located, and it has been sug¬
gested that these may constitute evidence of an early
Persian presence on Maslra.

The history of the island is, however, obscure, for

clear and reliable documentary sources are few, and

archaeological evidence is slight. Sprenger suggests

that the classical geographers may have had some

knowledge of the island under several different

names. The author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

refers to it as the Island of Sarapis (2apa7u&o<; vrjaot);

he also notes that the inhabitants ate fish and exported

tortoise shell. The former fact was also observed by

Ibn Battuta, who anchored off Maslra but did not

land there. According to de Gaury, there are some

vestigial ruins from the Portuguese period at Sur

Maslra in the west of the island.

•

Several foreign vessels are known to have
foundered in the dangerous coastal waters, and some
of the local tribes, who were extremely reluctant to
acknowledge any external authority, indulged in
wrecking and plundering as recently as the early years
of the 20th century. (When the tribesmen did
recognise such suzerainty, it was apparently that of
the Shaykh of Sur in c Uman). On 2 August 1904 a
British vessel, the Baron Inverdale , went aground on the
island of Djubayla in the Kh urvan-Murvan [ q.v.
(Kuria-Muria) group. Some of the passengers anc
crew took to two boats, one of which was lost at sea.
The other, carrying 17 people, landed on the northern
shore of Maslra in mid-August. Those survivors were
robbed and murdered by local inhabitants. After an
abortive investigative visit in mid-September, the
Sultan of Maskat, Faysal b. Turk! A1 Bu Sa c Id,
returned to the island at the end of that month and
arrested several tribesmen who were taken to the
capital for trial. Those found guilty were then
returned to the island, and shot at the scene of their
crime. A monument recording the execution of the
murderers was erected nearby, and so too was a
memorial slab in honour of the victims of the outrage.
These events were very important in helping to
establish the control of the Sultan of Maskat over
Maslra.

The inauguration of air routes across the Middle
East in the 1930s began to give the island a new
significance. During the Second World War, the
British Royal Air Force and the United States’ Air
Force made use of the staging-post airfield, which was
constructed at the northern tip of the island, in mov¬
ing men and supplies to and from India and the Far
East. A new agreement was reached in July 1958
between the Sultan of Maskat and the British govern¬
ment which permitted the Royal Air Force to continue
its use of that base. In 1962 a 9,000 feet hard-surface
runway was added to the two shorter natural-surface
landing strips which were already in operation. New
fuel storage tanks and better communications equip¬
ment were also installed at this time. The Royal Air
Force withdrew from Maslra in 1977, and control of
the facilities then passed to the government of Oman.
The Britsh Broadcasting Corporation maintains a
radio-relay station on the island. A severe and pro¬
longed hurricane struck Maslra in June 1977, causing
considerable loss of life and destroying most of the
buildings there.

Bibliography : References to Maslra are scat¬
tered and often fragmentary. There is also a degree
of repetition involved in some of the works cited
here. Admiralty (Great Britain) Hydrographic
Department, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden pilot , London
1955 and later; H. J. Carter, A geographical descrip¬
tion of certain parts of the southeast coast of Arabia , to
which is appended a short essay on the comparative
geography of the whole of this coast , in JBBRAS, iii/2
(1841), 224-317; J. R. Povah, Gazetteer of Arabia ,
Calcutta 1887; J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian

730

MASIRA — MASJUMI

Gulf, 3 Oman and Central Arabia, Calcutta 1908-15;
Admiralty (Great Britain) Intelligence Divison, A
handbook of Arabia, i, London 1916; S. B. Miles,
Countries and tribes of the Persian Gulf, ii, London
1919; Arabian American Oil Company (Research
division) Oman and the southern shore of the Persian Gulf,
Cairo 1952; H. J. Carter, Reports accompanying cop¬
per ore from the Island of Maseera and on lithographic
limestone from the southern coast of Arabia, in JBBRAS,
ii (1847), 400-3; G. de Gaury, A note on Masira
Island , in Geogr. Jnal., cxxiii (1957), 499-502; A.
Sprenger, Die alter Geographic Arabiens, Berne 1875;
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, tr. and ed. G. W.
B. Huntingford, Hakluyt Society 2nd series, cli,
London 1980; I bn Battuta, ii, 219-20, tr. H. A. R.
Gibb, ii, 394; C. F. Beckingham, Some notes on the
Portuguese in Oman, in Jnal. of Oman Studies, vi/1
(1983), 13-19; D. Lee, Flight from the Middle East,
London 1980; D. Watts, Severe cyclone in the Arabian
Gulf, in Weather, xxxiii/3 (1978), 95-97.

(R. M. Burrell)

MASJUMI ( Madjelis Sjuro Indonesia, “Consultative
Council of Indonesian Muslims”), the name of two
different Indonesian Islamic organisa¬
tions: (a) during the Japanese occupation of
Indonesia 1942-5, and (b) in independent Indonesia.

(a) During the Japanese occupation. The
Japanese Military Government, during the first stage
of its occupation of Indonesia after 1 March 1942,
tried to mobilise the Islamic groups for its anti-
Western political and military aims. Most of the
Islamic leaders had, in different degrees, opposed
actively Dutch rule and a number of Islamic
nationalist organisations had been established in pre¬
war Indonesia, with the Madjelis Islam A ’la Indonesia
(MIAI, “Supreme Indonesian Islamic Council”) in
1937 as their co-ordinating organ.

In November 1943, Masjumi was founded more or
less as the successor of MIAI. Membership was open
only to those organisations which had been granted
legal status by the Japanese authorities. These were,
at that time, the traditionalist-oriented Nahdatul Ulama
( NU, “Renaissance of the Scholars”), and the moder¬
nist social organisation Muhammadiyah, joined later by
two smaller organisations. In addition, personal
membership could be granted to those <i ulamd' > and
kiyai (religious leaders) who had obtained the consent
of the Office for Religious Affairs ( Shumubu ), estab¬
lished by the Japanese in March 1942 and since 1
October 1943 under Indonesian leadership. The aim
and purpose of Masjumi was defined as sponsoring
and coordinating the relations between the different
Islamic associations in Java and Madura, guiding and
guarding the activities of these associations in order to
improve cultural life and thus enable the Muslim
community to help and contribute their efforts for
establishing the Commonwealth of Greater Asia
under the leadership of Dai Nippon, “in accordance
with God’s commandments” (cf. van Nieuwenhuijze,
155; Soebagijo, 67). Masjumi’s pro-Japanese stand
resulted in a certain estrangement with the more
radical Islamic organisations which were still waiting
for their legalisation, with the associations of Arab
Muslims, and with the religiously “neutral”
nationalists whose activities were severely restricted.

Masjumi was not a merger, but “constituted a
working agreement between Muhammadiyah and
Nahdatul Ulama” (Benda, 152). It may be presumed
that the interest of the Japanese authorities originated
in the personal influence and respect which most
leaders of Muhammadiyah and NU exercised on the
populace, mainly in the villages, as religious teachers.

Winning their support would mean for the Japanese
a guarantee for a certain degree of quiescence and
stability among the people. As a consequence of this
policy, the traditional power balance in the Muslim
society shifted from the jurisdictional and
administrative representatives, the penghulu, who had
obtained some support from the Dutch administra¬
tion, to the Muslim teachers and scholars. On 1
August 1944, the Shumubu was reorganised, its new
leading personnel taken mostly from Masjumi. Thus
Masjumi functioned practically as part of the govern¬
ment and was linked to its goals more than before. As
go-betweens, the religious leaders had to explain the
Japanese policy to the people, endeavouring to gain
their support in spite of all kinds of increasing shor¬
tages and suffering; at the same time, they were
responsible to the military administration, especially
in cases of turmoil or revolt.

On 7 September 1944, the Japanese government
had announced its plan to prepare Indonesia for
independence. Now, Masjumi’s political agitation
received new momentum. During a rally sponsored
by Masjumi and held in Jakarta on 12-14 October, a
statement was adopted which stressed the task to
prepare the Indonesian Muslim community so as “to
be ready and able to receive freedom for Indonesia,
and freedom for the religion of Islam” (cf. also W.
Hasjim, 341). Independence was understood as an
opportunity to establish the nation on Islamic prin¬
ciples, without restrictions imposed by a foreign or
non-Islamic power.

The growing militancy in the country finally led to
the formation of a military branch of Masjumi, the
Barisan Hizbullah (“The Front of God’s Party”), in
December 1944. Already in September 1943, Mas¬
jumi had urged the Japanese, although in vain, to
establish a Muslim volunteer corps, after the
“secular” nationalists had made a similar plea and
were allowed to form Peta ( Pembela Tanah Air ,
“Defenders of the Home Country”). Hizbullah’s aim
was defined as to realise the solidarity of the Indone¬
sian Muslim community, to stand and fight together
with Japan, in the path of God (ft sabil Allah), and to
realise Indonesian independence, all in accordance
with the commandments of Islam (van Nieuwen¬
huijze, 159; van Dijk, 73). Japanese officers were in
charge of the military training, whereas religious
instruction was given by Indonesian Islamic teachers,
preferably members of Masjumi.

After January 1945, Masjumi broadened its field of
activity and started to infiltrate into the
“Neighbourhood Associations”, a “grass roots con¬
trol apparatus to the Djawa Hokokai ” (“People’s Ser¬
vice Association in Java”), which was under direct
Japanese control and staffed with priyai. This move,
although apparently profitable for Masjumi, indicated
that it had passed its climax as the favourite of the
Japanese. These felt that Masjumi’s agitation against
the “infidel” (Western) imperialists became more
and more ambiguous and could include the Japanese
occupiers as well. The Japanese, therefore, began to
deal with the different nationalist groups on more
equal terms. This encouraged non-Masjumi Muslims
to appeal for a larger basis of the Islamic movement.
Finally, Masjumi lost its political monopoly among
the Muslims, although its leaders remained the most
eminent spokesmen of the Muslim community.

With the re-emergence of the “secular”
nationalists, a fierce contest for ideological leadership
in the national movement was inaugurated. This con¬
test dominated the discussions in the “Study Commit¬
tee for the Efforts to Prepare Independence” ( Badan

MASJUMI

731

Penyelidikan Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan ), established
by the Japanese on 1 March 1945, of whose 62
members only six were from Masjumi. After
Soekarno, as a representative of the “secular"
nationalists, had presented his concept of Panca Sila
(“Five Pillars") on 1 June, in which not Islam but
more generally the belief in One Divinity ( ketuhanan )
should be the religious element in the state ideology,
the Masjumi members led by Wahid Hasjim agreed
to this principle on 22 June, after it was amended with
the “seven words": dengan kewajiban menjalankan
Syari’at Islam bagi pemelukpemeluknya (“with the obliga¬
tion for its adherents to practice the Islamic Law"),
and some other Islamic provisions. This “com¬
promise", later known as the “Jakarta Charter",
stimulated the acceptance of other religions con¬
sidered to be monotheistic in the state, but it made it
also obligatory for the state to force Muslims into obe¬
dience to the sharia.

In the last weeks before Indonesia’s independence,
Masjumi as a political force speedily declined. Its aim
to maintain the identification of nationalist and
Islamic goals proved to be unrealistic. Opposition
against the “Jakarta Charter" and its “seven words"
were not only voiced by non-Muslims but also by
Muslims, especially those coming from the Outer
Islands. Some considered the sharia as a foreign
juridical concept with only particular applicability,
and they therefore favoured traditional or adat law as
an inclusive Indonesian basis for legislation and
ideology. Thus, when after the Proclamation of
Independence issued by the “secularists", and not
Masjumi, on 17 August 1945, the draft of the Con¬
stitution was discussed, their repeated efforts to main¬
tain, or include, Islamic preceptions, were finally
refuted, and even the “seven words" of the “Jakarta
Charter" were dropped. Masjumi as an organisation
vanished together with its former protectors.

(b) In independent Indonesia. After the
proclamation of Independence, Soekarno aimed at
establishing only one party, a Partai Nasional Indonesia ,
in which all frictions in society would be overcome
through consultation followed by unanimous deci¬
sions. The government was headed by the President,
and power lay in his hands. There was, however,
growing opposition against Soekarno’s understanding
of “unity" and leadership, and a desire to form
political parties increased. On 7 November 1945, the
Muslim leaders from various groups and orientations
who had gathered at Yogyakarta in a national con¬
gress, transformed the old Masjumi into “the only
political Islamic party in Indonesia". In contrast to
the old Masjumi, the new party seems to have laid
more stress on individual membership than on
membership of organisations. There were granted
extraordinary membership only, and were considered
as mere “social organisations" not questioning Mas-
jumi’s political monopoly. The leadership mainly
originated from NU, Partai Serikal Islam Indonesia
{PSII, the oldest nationalist Islamic party founded in
1911), and Muhammadiyah.

Masjumi’s pretensions to represent all Muslims in
Indonesia presented an alternative, and challenging,
conception of “unity" against the all-inclusive one of
Soekarno. In the field of doctrine, this meant that dif¬
ferences about the role of the madhhabs and other ques¬
tions ol khildfiyyat were considered to belong to the
fun Z- c , not the usul al-fikh. In actual policy-making, this
call for Islamic unity actually urged co-operation
between a number of Islamic leaders who had been
bitterly opposed against each other before the war,
and new controversies about Pancasila and its meaning

for the Muslims added to the difficulties of this task.

Under the leadership of Masjumi, a women’s
organisation was founded to promote knowledge and
political as well as religious awareness, and to
strengthen their feeling of responsibility at home and
in society. Besides this women's organisation, Mas¬
jumi established also an Islamic Youth Movement, an
Islamic Labour Union, an Islamic Farmers’ Union,
and it was closely related to the Islamic Students
Organisation HMI (Himpunan Mahasiswa Indonesia ),
established in 1947.

Although the original Islamic goals were not
achieved in the Republic proclaimed in August 1945,
the leaders of Masjumi called for a general mobilisa¬
tion of the Muslims to defend it against the returning
Allies. Internally, it intensified its strife for controlling
the state. There has been much discussion whether the
aim of Masjumi at this time was to erect the Islamic
State {Negara Islam), or whether its intention was to
develop an Islamic society in the state which
implemented the Islamic law, without changing for¬
mally the constitution or abrogating Pancasila. Both
tendencies had their protagonists. Social respon¬
sibility, sometimes even expressed in socialist terms,
was a constant factor in Masjumi’s working pro¬
grams. In some areas with a strong feudal system,
Masjumi presented itself as a forerunner of social
renewal, or even social or Islamic revolution (H. Feith
and L. Castles, Indonesian political thinking 1945-1965 ,
Ithaca and London 1970, 55 ff.).

After 1946, Masjumi became more and more
dominated by intellectuals who had received a moder¬
nist or western education. Some of them had been
expelled by PSII before the war and were, more or
less, affiliated with organisations like Muham¬
madiyah, Persatuan Islam, and others. This led to
internal conflict which finally caused the exodus of
former adherents of PSII and the re-foundation of this
party in 1947. A similar exodus, although less spec¬
tacular, had already taken place in 1946 when the
traditionalist “Movement for Islamic Education"
(Pergerakan Tarbiyah Islamiyah Perti) of Central
Sumatra, declared itself as a political party.

After the secession of PSII, there were three main
groups within Masjumi (Ward, 10). The first one
may be styled as “religious socialist", and indeed,
they were occasionally political partners of Sutan
Sjahrir’s Socialist Party. Its members were mainly the
above-mentioned intellectuals like Dr. Soekiman,
Moh. Natsir, Mohammed Roem, Sjafruddin
Prawiranegara, Jusuf Wibisono and others. After
1948 especially, they sometimes took over leading
positions in government activities, including the
negotiations with the Dutch which finally led to the
recognition of Indonesia’s sovereignty in 1949.

Another group left in Masjumi after 1947 were the
traditionalist c ulama :) related to NU under the leader¬
ship of K. H. Wahid Hasjim. Their participation in
the government was usually focussed on the Ministry
of Religious Affairs, founded in January 1946.

The third group of Masjumi members, and the
smallest one, was that of the “radical fundamen¬
talists". They represented the militant wing of the
modernist movement, being more illiberal and anti-
Western than the moderates of the first group. Isa
Anshary, chairman of Masjumi’s branch in West
Java, became their spokesman. They became the
most outspoken advocates of an “Islamic state".

A serious blow to the integrity of Masjumi was
launched in 1948. S. H. Kartosoewirjo, a Masjumi
leader in West Java, renounced the Renville Agree¬
ment of January 1948 between the Indonesians and

732

MASJUMI

the Dutch, which called for a withdrawal of
Republican troops from West Java. He let himself be
declared as the Imam (Head of State) of the provisional
“Islamic State of Indonesia” proclaimed in West Java
as an alternative to the Indonesian Republic. His
rebellion, known as the Darul Islam movement, lasted
until 1962, when he was captured and executed. The
leaders of Masjumi, although disagreeing with the
measures which he had taken, were eager to avoid a
definite break, but in 1951 they had to accept the
demand of the army leaders and approve military
actions against the rebels.

In the meantime, a new crisis developed in Mas¬
jumi. The AT/-oriented c -ulama :> felt a growing
decrease of their influence. In both the Natsir and
Soekiman cabinets of 1950 and 1951, only the port¬
folio of Religious Affairs was entrusted to a represen¬
tative of NU. When in the Wilopo cabinet of 1952,
Faqih Usman from Muhammadiyah was appointed as
Minister of Religious Affairs, the time had come for
NU to separate from Masjumi and establish itself as
a political party on its own (H. Feith, Decline of con¬
stitutional democracy , 233-7).

With two great rival Islamic parties, the political
atmosphere in Indonesia changed considerably. The
cabinet presided over by Ali Sastroamidjojo (PNI)
from July 1953 to July 1955 was supported by NU ,
whereas Masjumi opposed it as being too much com¬
promised with the Communists.

The uncompromising attitude against the Com¬
munists had been a characteristic of Masjumi since its
very beginning. This led to conflicts with Soekarno,
for whom Communism was one of the most powerful
and therefore indispensable anti-imperialist
ideological forces. In combining it with his under¬
standing of nationalism, he outlined the ideology of
his Parlai Nasional Indonesia (PNI). A compromising
attitude among some of Masjumi’s leaders with the
PNI had, however, already been apparent before the
secession of NU, when Soekiman succeeded Natsir as
Prime Minister, leading a Masjumi-/W7 cabinet.
Soekiman, being a Javanese, tried to counteract a
PNI-PKI co-operation by strengthening ties with NU.
On the other side, Natsir was more linked to the
“radical fundamentalists” in his own party, and to
the Socialist Party which was also strictly anti-
Communist and opposing PNI.

After Soekarno’s speech in Amuntai in January
1953 in which he attacked the concept of a Negara
Islam and praised Pancasila as a guarantee for freedom
of religious practice and civil rights of every single
Indonesian, the different basic convictions of Mas¬
jumi leaders and their cultural and ideological roots
became more apparent. Isa Anshary and his team
stressed that their conception was based on divine
revelation and therefore not open to compromise like
the human-made concepts of Christians, secularists
and others. He questioned the religious sincerity of
Soekarno and those Muslims who were in favour of
Pancasila as understood by the “religious neutral”
nationalists, and he accused them of being hypocrites
or unbelievers.

Natsir, like Soekiman, took a much more moderate
position in this matter. He felt that the voters would
reveal their aspirations in the coming elections and
stressed that the people should be well prepared to cast
their votes for the “right” party. Therefore he urged
the start of new efforts in the Fields of Islamic educa¬
tion and self-awareness.

During the election campaign in 1954-5, the voices
heard from Masjumi and launched through its party
organ Suara Masjumi, the daily newspaper Abadi and

other media, became more and more adapted to the
language of the radical fundamentalists. This was
pardy due to other Islamic revolts, besides the Darul
Islam in West Java, which were shaking Aceh and
South Sulawesi since 1953. Both provinces had a
strong Islamic, and generally pro-Masjumi, popula¬
tion. They justified their revolt by pointing to, among
other grievances, the neglect by the central govern¬
ment of the development of their provinces, and the
growing influence of atheistic Communism in the
state. If Masjumi wanted to obtain the votes of these
groups, it had to show clearly its opposition to the
incriminating trends and its struggle for Islamic goals.

The other Islamic parties taking part in the cam¬
paign had formed an Islamic anti-Masjumi bloc.
Thus Masjumi became isolated; it was denounced as
being extremist and even in sympathy with the Darul
Islam, and therefore disturbing the national
brotherhood based on the Pancasila which had even
been accepted by the PKI in 1954.

In the Parliamentary elections on 29 September
1955, Masjumi gained 20.9% of the votes. It was thus
the second largest party, after PNI with 22.3%. Next
were NU with 18.4% and PKI with 16.4%. There
were no major differences in the elections to the
Konstituante (cf. H. Feith, Elections, 57 ff.). All
Islamic parties together gained 43.7% of the valid
votes. During the years after the elections, Masjumi
remained in opposition to the governments, after a
short initial period of co-operation. But in the debates
in the Konstituante which started working on 10
November 1956 in Bandung and which had to draft
the final Indonesian Constitution replacing those from
1945, 1949 and 1950, Masjumi was joined by NU and
the other Islamic parties in its struggle for a constitu¬
tion which would base state and society on the prin¬
ciples of Islam. Against this Islamic bloc, a Pancasila
bloc formed itself from the other parties. Regarding
the basic question, Pancasila or Islam, none was strong
enough to reach the two-thirds majority needed for
any decision. This deadlock encouraged Soekarno
Finally to dissolve the Konstituante on 5 July 1959 and
to decree a return to the 1945 Constitution, together
with the proclamation of Guided Democracy.

In these years after the elections, Masjumi
experienced its political decline. This was partly due
to its futile position, in that it still claimed to defend
the interests of the Muslims or 90% of the Indonesian
population and thus refrained from defining its role as
constructive partner in the midst of Indonesia’s
pluralism of ideologies and religions. But more
decisive for its decline than these failures was the
involvement of some of its leaders like Moh. Natsir
and Sjafruddin Prawiranegara in new regional upris¬
ings which had broken out in North Sulawesi and in
West Sumatra in 1957.

This again led to serious clashes in Masjumi
between the “regionalists” and the “Javanese” wing
led by Soekiman, who was in favour of Soekarno’s
centralisation policy. Others like Moh. Roem feared
that another split in Masjumi could only serve the
Communists and their growing influence on
Soekarno, and thus endanger Masjumi’s political
role. He therefore urged the maintenance of the unity
of the umma. But Finally, some leaders like Soekiman
left Masjumi in early 1960 and joined PSII. Muham-
madiya, too, terminated its affiliation as a “special
member”. Thus the remaining faithful had to bear
the consequences of Masjumi’s image as “a party of
separation and rebellion” (A. Samson, quoted by
Ward, 14). They were viewed, moreover, with suspi¬
cion by the military leaders who, although outspoken

MASJUMI — MASKANA

733

anti-Communist themselves, had to fight the rebels.
On 17 August 1960, Soekarno announced his decree
that Masjumi, together with Sjahrir’s Socialist Party
(PSP), were to be dissolved because both parties
refused to condemn their party members who were
active in the regional rebellions.

Bibliography : H. E. Saifuddin Anshary, The
Jakarta Charter oj June 1945, M. A. thesis, Kuala
Lumpur 1979, Indonesian tr. Bandung 1981; H.
Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun, The Hague
- Bandung 1958; B. J. Boland, The struggle oj Islam
in modern Indonesia, The Hague 1971 ( = VKI, 59);
B. Dahm, Soekarnos Kampf um Indonesiens
Unabhangigkeit, Frankfurt/M and Berlin 1966 ( =
Schriften des Instituts fur Asienkunde Hamburg,
18); C. van Dijk, Rebellion under the banner oj Islam.
The Darul Islam in Indonesia , The Hague 1981 ( =
VKI, 94); H. Feith, The Indonesian elections oj 1955,
Ithaca 1957 (Cornell Interim Report Series); idem,
The decline oj constitutional democracy in Indonesia,
Ithaca 1962; Wahid Hasjim, Serajah Hidup K. H. A.
Wahid Hasjim dan karangan tersiar , Djakarta 1957;
Oey Hong Lee, Indonesian government and press during
Guided Democracy, Zug 1981 (= Hull Monographs
on South-East Asia, 4); D. Lev, Political parties in
Indonesia, in Jnal. oj South East Asian History, viii/1
(1967); M. P. M. Muskens, Indonesia. Een slrijd om
nationale identiteit, Bussum 1969; Moh. Natsir,
Capita selecta, i, Bandung and The Hague 1955, ii,
Djakarta 1957; idem, Islam sebagai Dasar Negara,
Bandung 1957; C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze,
Aspects oj Islam in postcolonial Indonesia, The Hague
and Bandung 1958; Deliar Noer, Masjumi. Its
organization , ideology, and political role in Indonesia,
unpubl. M. A. thesis, Ithaca 1960; D. Noer, The
Modernist Muslim movement in Indonesia, Singapore
and Kuala Lumpur 1973 (Indonesian tr., with
extensive introd., Jakarta 1980); idem, Contem¬
porary political dimensions oj Islam, in M. B. Hooker
(ed.j, Islam in South East Asia, Leiden 1983, 183-
215); Soebagijo I. N., K. H. Mas Mansur. Pembaharu
Islam di Indonesia, Jakarta 1972; K. E. Ward, The
joundation oj the Partai Muslimin in Indonesia, Ithaca
1970 (Cornell Interim Report Series); W. Wawer,
Muslime und Christen in der Republik Indonesia,
Wiesbaden 1974. (O. Schumann)

MASKANA, Greek Maaxavrj, from the Syriac
Maskene (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, xiv/1, col. 2963), a
small town, now a village, in the northern
part of Syria. The name is mentioned by
Stephanus of Byzantium in regard to the war of Sep-
timius Severus against the Parthians in 224 A.D. The
Arabic geographers and chroniclers of the Middle
Ages only mention Balis [q. v. ] in this region, situated
4 km./2!^ miles to the south-east of Maskana.

The place is situated in long. 38° 05' N. and 36°
lat. E. at about 100 km./63 miles to the east of Halab
[q. v. ] or Aleppo on a Pleistocene terrace which forces
the Euphrates (al-Furat [< 7 . 0 .]) to turn eastwards after
having flowed from northwards to southwards on
leaving the Taurus, like its two left-bank affluents the
BalTkh and Khabur \q.v.). Being on the 25 mm.
isohyet, at the southern limit of the cultivable steppe
land and the desert zone, Maskana is on the line of
contact between the sedentary, peasant world and that
of the nomadic pastoralist. The region has been
populated since the Bronze Age, as is attested by
numerous ancient sites, the most notable being Tell
Muraybat, above the left bank.

Having developed down-stream from Kafiat
Nadjm [q.v. ] and at a distance of 5 km./3 miles to the
north-north-west of Balis at a spot where the route

coming from Halab rejoins the route which follows the
right bank of the Euphrates towards Ba gh dad,
Maskana has since Antiquity experienced the
vicissitudes of warfare, for it lies on a bend of the river
in a region where there are fords. It should be noted
that the Euphrates has in the course of the centuries
several times changed its bed in the region of
Maskana, a fact which may perhaps explain the varia¬
tions in distance given in the written sources between
the river bank and the actual course of the river. It is
at this point that the Euphrates becomes navigable,
and flat-bottomed barges (shakhtura, pi. shakhatir) con¬
structed from wood are used for river navigation.

In pre-Islamic times, the tribe of the HadTdln
pastured their sheep in the region of the middle
Euphrates, and one of the tombs attributed to their
mythical ancestor Shavkh Hadid lay in the
neighbourhood of Maskana. In the second half of the
6 th century, members of the c Anaza [q.v.] and Bakr
moved into the region and installed themselves there
definitively. Over a thousand years later, there took
place a new migration of the c Anaza towards this mid¬
dle Euphrates region, and then a further one ca. 1800.
In the 20th century, the Shammar and the c Anaza are
the main sheep-rearing tribes of the region.

During mediaeval times, the history of Maskana is
intertwined with that of Balis, and it passed under the
rule of the master of Halab like all the region to the
west of the Euphrates between Kal c at Nadjm and al-
Rakka [q.v.]. At the beginning of the 6 th/ 12th cen¬
tury, the Atabegs of Mawsil disputed with the rulers
of Halab for this region which, at Nur al-DTn’s death
(569/1174) suffered successive blows from the rivalries
of his successors and then those of the heirs of Salah
al-Din. From the second half of the 7th/ 13th century
onwards until the end of the 8th/14th century, the
invasions of the Mongols were to provoke damage in
this region, which always remained the inevitable
route for anyone heading from Baghdad towards
Halab via the Euphrates valley.

At the time of Mamluk control in Syria ( 8 th-
9th/14th-15th centuries), Maskana does not seem to
have been a place worthy of mention. In Ottoman
times, the population of the region was made up of
turbulent nomads. When c Abd al-Hamld II [q.v. ]
became sultan in 1876, he confiscated the fertile lands
of the wilayet of Halab in order to bring them into his
own personal domains administered by a special
organisation ( cijtlik [q.v.]). In 1908, c Abd al-Hamid
accepted the integration of his personal domains into
those of the state, so that the cijtlik lands became miri
ones, i.e. lands of the empire. The measures taken in
1326/1908 and in the following year were still
regulating land ownership in the district of Maskana
in 1923. Until the mid-20th century, this region
remained almost exclusively one of traditional large
ownership.

In May 1915, Alois Musil mentioned at Maskana
a barracks for gendarmes, a large khan and the
residence of the head of the telegraph service
(Palmyrena, 89). At this time, camels browsed below
the settled part. There was in the valley an ancient
canal whose branches received, when the waters were
high, water from the Euphrates for irrigating the
cultivated lands.

Under the French mandate, the kadd 5 of Maskana,
the second in the region of the province of Aleppo in
1923, was made up of 80% lands administered by the
office of domain lands ( al-amldk al-mudawwara), follow¬
ing the system of tenant farming; 15% lands with the
system of metayage; and 5% small landowners. In
this kadd 3 , situated on the periphery of the province,

734

MASK AN A — MASKAT

and only linked with Aleppo in 1922 by a single track
impracticable for cars which went along the telegraph
line, hence lacking any means for transport or com-
mincations, the price of land was markedly less than
that in other kadah. There were two classes of lands in
this region. Those alongside the Euphrates, called
kawi, with a covering of alluvium left by the river at
periods of high water, were irrigated for both summer
and winter crops. Yields were 15 to 30 for one
measure for corn and barley, whilst maize and
sorghum gave 100 for one measure (Parvie, 104). The
lands in the second category were to be found on the
old slopes of the river some 10-15 m./33-50 feet above
the distant river level, at the beginning of the 20 th
century, a distance of one to 5 km. These were less
good, and corn, barley, cats and lentils were grown
there.

Until a recent date, the construction material of this
region was mud brick made from earth and chopped
straw dried in moulds by the sun. In times farther
back, there was also used clay from the Euphrates
baked in kilns. In the opening years of the 20th cen¬
tury, Maskana became in spring time one of the cen¬
tres for producing milk from cows for Aleppo, and this
milk was used to make butter for exporting. In May
could also be found dromedaries put out to pasture.
Like Kal c at Nadjm and al-Rakka, it was one of the
points where flocks of sheep coming from Mawsil and
heading for Aleppo crossed the Euphrates. Trans-
humance was practised on the pastures of Maskana.

In 1945 the village had 430 inhabitants. At the pres¬
ent time, the modern road network allows in this
region, thanks to road bridges at al-Rakka, Dayr al-
Zor z». ] and Mayyadm, the transporting of sheep in
two-level lorries to Aleppo without any need to halt at
Maskana.

Bibliography : F. Chesney, Expedition for the
survey of Rivers Euphrates and Tigris , London 1850, i,
48, 415-16; V. Chapot, Frontieres de TEuphrate de
Pompee a la conquete arabe, Paris 1907, 283 n. 1; G.
Bell, Amurath to Amurath , London 1911, 24; K.
Baedeker, Palestine et Syrie, 4th Fr. ed., Leipzig
1912, 428; Ch. Pavie, Etat dAlep , Renseignements
agricoles , Aleppo 1924, 5, 55, 67, 73, 91, 103-4, 118,
125-30, 170-1; R. Dussaud, Topographie historique de
la Syrie , Paris 1927, 453, 462 n. 7; A. Musil, The
Middle Euphrates, New York 1927, 320; idem,
Palmyrena , New York 1928, 189, 219; Guide Bleu,
Syrie-Pales tine, Paris 1932, 219; R. Grousset, Histoire
des Croisades, Paris 1934, i, 501; A. Latron, La vie
rurale en Syrie et au Liban, Beirut 1936, 78, 119; R.
Mouterde, A. Poidebard, Le Limes de Chalcis , Paris
1945, 127 ff. Syrie, Repertoire alphabetique des noms de
lieux habites, 3rd. ed., Beirut 1945, 124; J.
Weulersse, Paysans de Syrie, Paris 1946, 50, 253; R.
Dussaud, La penetration des Arabes en Syrie avant
Vlslam, Paris 1955, 19; L. Dillemann, Haute
Mesopotamie, Paris 1962, 35; N. Elisseeff, Nur ad-
Din , Damascus 1967, i, 99, 148, 170, ii, 303, 323,
488, iii, 776, 782; E. Wirth, Syrien , Darmstadt
1971, 71, 92, 145, 156, 172, 268, 350.
maskana is also the name of a village ofSyria
situated in a zone of cultivated land on the road link¬
ing Aleppo with Damascus, near al-Kara and in the
kadd? of Him?; in 1945 it had 900 inhabitants.

Bibliography : A. Musil, Palmyrena , 819; Syrie,
repertoire alphabetique, F. F. L. Beirut, 3rd ed. 1945,
125. (N. Elisseeff)

MASKAT (lat. 23° 28' N., long. 58° 36’ E.),
Eng. Muscat, Fr. Mascate, a port on the Gulf of
Oman and since the end of the 18th century
notionally the capital of what came to be called the

Sultanate of "Muscat and Oman, since 1970
the Sultanate of Oman. c Umam sources often write
the name as Maskad, and even as Maska/Muska with
ta? marbuta, the former in accordance with local dialec¬
tal pronunciation.

1. Geographical situation and demo¬
graphy.

The site of the town is a constricted one, in a cove
where the mountains come almost down to the sea,
with the Portuguese Fort Mlranl at the western end of
the cove and a second Portuguese fortress, that of
Djalall, on one of the two off-shore islets. The town
itself is on a gravel plain, but until modern times,
access to Maskat by land has always been difficult,
and communication with it has more often been by
sea. In effect, it is the cul-de-sac of the Batina coastal
plain, and the nearby port of Ma{rah [q.v. ] is in many
ways the more favoured centre. But the natural
mountain defences plus a line of fortifications have
given Maskat a strategic significance, despite the
limited space for settlement and the unattractive
climate, with its high temperature and humidity.

The 19th century travellers and visitors commented
unfavourably on the town’s squalor and its narrow
streets. Lorimer, in his Gazetteer, estimated the town’s
permanent population at 8,000, of which 3,000 lived
within the town and the rest in the suburbs, whereas
he estimated that of Matrah at 14,000, reflecting the
latter’s superior commerical role. After a period of
steep decline, the population of Maskat has been
reliably estimated in 1970 at 6,000, mainly
detribalised c UmanT Arabs or foreigners, including
Bahraynis, Baluc, Persians and Hadarim (southern
Arabian tribesmen) and a lowest stratum of the
bayasira, slaves and ex-slaves from Africa. In the 19th
century there was also a small Jewish population. But
the most significant element was that of the Banians,
Hindu merchants and middlemen, who had certainly
been there since Portuguese times; see C. H. Allen,
op. cit. in Bibl. Their quarter was in the east of the
town, where they have had their temples, traditionally
since the 17th century.

2. History.

Maskat’s real rise to prominence goes back to the
Hurmuzl period of the late 15th century, just before
the arrival of the Portuguese; up to the 12th century,
the main emporium of the c Umam coast has been
Suhar [ 4 . 0 .], and the town of Maskat’s main impor¬
tance was as the last watering place on the Arabian
coast for ships trading with India (see the mediaeval
Arabic sources, notably al-Mukaddasi, 93; Ibn al-
FakTh, 11; Yakut, iv, 529; Ibn al-Mudjawir, ed.
Lofgren, ii, 284; ?the merchant Sulayman, Akhbdr al-
Sin wa ’ l-Hind, ed. and tr. J. Sauvaget, Paris 1948, §§
13-14). Now, in the later 15th century, Maskat grew
at the expense of Kalhat [q v.\, apparently under the
patronage of the Hurmuzl ruling family, and Ibn
Madjid [q. v. ] stresses that his home port had become
the main centre of the c Umam coast for trade with
India (see G. R. Tibbetts, in Arabian studies, i, 87-
101 ), the export trade in horses, bred in eastern
Arabia as far away as al-Hasa, being especially impor¬
tant (see S. Digby, War horse and elephant in the Delhi
Sultanate, Oxford 1971; Serjeant, op. cit. in Bibl. , 27;
J. Aubin, in Mare Luso-Indicum, ii, 112).

On 2 September 1507 Afonso d’Alboquerque
arrived at Maskat after subduing Kalhat and destroy¬
ing Kurayyat, seizing and sacking the town and
massacring its population, perhaps amounting to
7,000 at that time, three days later. The Portuguese
soon realised Maskat’s strategic value, and it came to
play an important part in their control of the Gulf,

MASKAT

735

above all after their loss of Hurmuz in 1622; previous
to that, the Portuguese operated as nominal vassals of
the ruler of Hurmuz, whilst nevertheless requiring an
annual tribute from him, by 1523, of 60,000 ashrafts.
In the middle years of the 16th century, the Por¬
tuguese faced threats from the Ottoman occupation of
al-Basra 61546) and of al-Katif (1550), but above all
from the Ottoman fleet operating in the Indian Ocean
from its base at Suez; in 1552 the Ottoman admiral
Pin ReTs [q v.\ temporarily captured Maskat, but
was subsequently defeated by D. Fernando de
Menezes in a naval battle off the c UmanI coast.
Maskat now became integrated into the Portuguese
trading empire, and although the Portuguese creamed
off the main profit, seems to have benefited also,
whereas Kalhat declined pari passu with Maskat’s rise.
In the later 16th century new threats appeared from
the Dutch and English, but the two main fortresses,
still surviving today, San Joao or Djalali and Fort
Capital (now known as MTranI, ? < almirante), were
built in 1587-8 as a reply to Turkish corsair raids.
When the Portuguese were dislodged from Hurmuz,
Maskat received most of Hurmuz’s Portuguese gar¬
rison and was built up against the Safawids and the
native c Umanis, now uniting under the YaTabid
Imam Nasr b. Murshid. Further defences were con¬
structed, and the town had two churches according to
Pietro della Valle, who visited it in 1625 ( Travels , Lon¬
don 1665, 223-36), and soon afterwards, a Carmelite
staging-house, at some later_period erected into a
“cathedral”; used under the A1 Bu Sa c Id as a stable,
remains of it were visible till the 1890s.

The Ya c ariba [see ya c rabids] first attacked Maskat
in the 1630s, forcing the Portuguese to seek peace and
possibly to pay tribute or protection money; by 1643
the YaTabids had taken Suhar and now had indepen¬
dent access to the sea which enable the Imams to
bypass the Portuguese export licensing system. In
1649 Sultan b. Sayf al-Ya c rab! finally stormed Maskat
and took it from the Portuguese, and though the war
continued at sea, with the Portuguese blockading and
harassing the port, by 1697 they had to give up all
hope of retaking it. The Imams now built up Maskat’s
trade with India, South Arabia and East Africa for
themselves, skilfully using the Dutch and English to
further their own interests, though no foreign power,
then or later, was allowed to establish a factory in
c Uman. c UmanI aggression and buccaneering in the
Gulf of Oman, in effect taking over the role of the old
European powers, led to tension with Persia. With the
decline of the Ya c ariba and increased disorder within
c Uman, involving the Hinawl- Gh afirl civil war, there
arose possibilities for Persian intervention. Persian
military help was summoned by Sayf b. Sultan in
1737, and for a while in 1738 Maskat was occupied by
a force under Muhammad Taki Kh an. Beglerbeg of
Fars.

Eventually during these years of anarchy in
c Uman, Ahmad b. Sa c Id was recognised as Imam ca.
1167/1743-4 [see bu sa c Id], and Maskat now began to
develop again in importance during this period when
Ottoman and Persia power in the Gulf was weak and
when there were no foreign rivals for the trade there,
until the Kawasim and the c Utub \q.vv.\> who cap¬
tured Bahrayn island in 1783, emerged as maritime
rivals. Maskat’s main trade was at this time directed
at South India, and close relations developed between
Maskat and Tlpu Sultan (1782-99 [<y.y.]) of Mysore,
who established a trade mission there (the Nawwab’s
house was still in existence in the mid-19th century);
fear that Maskat might follow TTpu Sultan into the
camp of the French was one of the reasons for the First
agreement ( kawl-nama ) with the British in 1798.

A further factor operative at this time in c Umani
affairs was internal division within the country,
although it was not until after 1913 that the split
between Sultan and Imam , coastal c Uman and the
interior, became a significant factor; before that,
c Umams from the interior had been as strongly
involved as any others in maritime expansion and
trade until German and Belgian expansion in Central
Africa excluded them from Africa and British
intervention along the c UmanT coast excluded them
from Maskat. Now, after the arbitration of the Cann¬
ing Award in 1861, the two separate Bu Sa c IdI rulers
of c Uman and Zanzibar became in effect British pup¬
pet rulers [see bu sa c Id and Zanzibar].

Under the Bu Sa c IdTs, Maskat nourished as the
naval and commercial centre of c Uman until in the
19th century, Zanzibar became the main centre for
the dynasty’s political control of overseas commerce.
The rule of Sultan b. Ahmad (1792-1804) saw the
apogee of Maskat’s florescence as the basis for
c UmanI control of Gulf trade, with 15 ships of 400-500
tons each based there; fine houses were constructed
there, including a residence for the ruler, the Bayt
Grayza, by the site of the old Portuguese igrezia
(“church”) complex. After his death, however,
pressure on c Uman from the Kawasim, the Wahhabl-
Su c udl state and the c Utub increased. Protection
increasingly came from the British, and when the
Kawasim were quelled in 1819, the ruler Sa c Id b.
Sultan, after attempts to assert the old c UmanI control
in the Gulf ended in disaster at Bahrayn in 1829,
eventually turned c UmanI interest away from the
Gulf-Indian trade axis in order to concentrate on the
South Arabian-East African one. Also, during this
first half of the 19th century, Banian (Hindu) and
other Indian merchants were encouraged to settle in
Maskat and then Zanzibar, and they built up a
dominating position in the increasingly monetarised
c Umam-East Afriean-Indian commercial system,
especially as customs-tax farmers, in which role they
were protected by the British. One effect of this was
that the Indians came to own most of the property in
Maskat and Matrah. In the decades 1880-1910
Maskat was for a while incorporated into a wider pat¬
tern of world trade, as a port of call and coaling sta¬
tion; port facilities were therefore extended, a new
palace built and foreign consulates set up. But already
before World War I, decline was setting in. Attacks
on Maskat from the interior were resumed, till in
1920, (Sir) Ronald Wingate arranged terms which
effectively divided c Uman into two, with the sultanate
of Taymur b. Faysal based on Maskat and the
coastlands only. Maskat became a commercial
backwater, whilst Matrah grew in trade and in
population at its expense. Taymur's son Sa c Id (1932-
70) effectively moved his capital to Salala in Zafar
[q.v.] and after 1954 ceased to visit Maskaf. With this
increased isolation, Maskat had no foreign represen-
tives beyond those of Great Britain and India, one
bank and one mission hospital. When Sa c Td’s son
Kabus succeeded after the coup of 1970, the latter had
never seen Maskat, let alone the rest of c Uman.

At the present time, Maskat continues to be a
backwater, within the capital area extending outwards
beyond al-STb (ancient Dama). The problem of road
access has been solved by the construction of a cor-
niche round the rocky RaT Kalbuh, but the whole
question of communication along a narrowly-
constricted area of settlement has led to major
developments now occurring at the southern end of
the Batina plain. Various facilities have grown up at
nearby points, such as the oil port of Mina al-Fahl and
at the commercial centre of Matrah, with its moder-

736

MASKAT — MASKH

nised port of Mina Kabus. Since the Sultan’s real
capital is Salala, Maskat proper remains only a
notional capital, devoid of almost all functions and in
effect a museum piece.

Bibliography : The Bibl. of A. Grohman in his
EP art. contains detailed references to the classical
and mediaeval Arabic geographical and historical
sources on Maskat; see also that to c uman.

For basic geographical information, J.
G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf , •*Oman and
Central Arabia, Calcutta 1908-15, repr. 1970, is
probably the most useful source and may be sup¬
plemented by various British Admiralty handbooks
and charts, notably the Persian Gulf Pilot 1942. For
details of the Arab population of the area, al-Siyabl
(Salim b. Humud) Is c af al-afanftansab ahl c Umdn,
Beirut 1965 (esp. 163-4) is useful, whilst C. H.
Allen, The Indian merchant community of Masqat, in
BSOAS, xliv (1981), 39-53, provides further details
about the Banians.

Travellers’ accounts are useful adjuncts,
and D. G. Hogarth, The penetration of Arabia , New
York 1904, still contains useful material. A
valuable summary of their descriptions can be
found in R. Bidwell, Bibliographical notes on European
accounts of Muscat 1500-1900, in Arabian Studies, iv,
123-59. To his list of references may be added the
account and drawings of E. Kaempfer discussed in
G. Weisgerber, Muscat in 1688: Engelbert Kaempfer’s
report and engravings, in J. Oman Studies, v (1979), 95-
101; and C. G. Miles, The countries and tribes of the
Persian Gulf, London 1919, where descriptions of
Maskat (1966 repr., 462-9) really describe the
period when he was living there (1872-86). Collec¬
tions of photographs also provide interesting
details, notably the Fuad Dabbas Collection in
Harvard University Semitic Museum, and W. D.
Peyton, Old Oman, London 1983. This last contains
a map which seems to derive from the unpublished
Muscat City planning survey of 1972, a useful source
for the state of the town before the impact of
modern development; a description of that period
may also be found in I. Skeet, Muscat and Oman: the
end of an era, London 1974.

For the history of Maskat, the following
sources contain material which is particularly
useful. J. Aubin, Cojeatar et Albuquerque , in Mare
Luso-Indicum, i (1971), 99-134, and Le Royaume
d'Ormuz au debut du XVI e siecle, in ibid., ii (1972,
publ. 1973), 77-179, provides a detailed study of
the Gulf in the late Hurmuzl and early Portuguese
period with extensive critiques on the sources,
notably de Barros, Correia and Albuquerque. In
Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf,
1534-1581, in Jnal. of Asian History, vi (1972), 45-
87, Salih Ozbaran uses both Portuguese and
Ottoman sources; whilst R. D. Bathurst’s unpubl.
D. Phil, thesis, Oxford 1967, entitled The YaGubI
dynasty of Oman, completes the Portuguese period.
See further R. B. Serjeant, The Portuguese off the
South Arabian coast, Oxford 1963, and N. Steen-
sgaard, Carracks, caravans and companies. The structural
crisis in the European-Asian trade in the early seventeenth
century, Copenhagen 1972. A vast number of Por¬
tuguese engravings and charts have been collected
in the Portugaliae monumenta cartografica, but the Livro
das cidades e fortelezas da India in its various original
forms repays further study. Additionally, some
useful notes on Mlrani have been compiled in the
mimeographed notes (nos. 2 and 3) of the Oman
Historical Association.

For the post-Portuguese period down to the rise

of the A1 Bu Sa c Id, Bathurst, op. cit. , remains the
main study until the end of the Ya c ariba period,
while Anne Kroell, Louis XIV, la Perse et Mascate,
Paris 1977, adds material from French sources.
Then comes a lacuna, for which A. A. Amin,
British interests in the Persian Gulf, London 1967, pro¬
vides some background to the end of the 18th cen¬
tury and for which Mrs P. Risso’s forthcoming
thesis (Toronto University) should help fill the gap
(non vidi).

From the 19th century to the early 20th century,
there is no shortage of studies. The most useful
summary of material in the India Office archives is
in Lorimer’s Gazetteer, whilst J. B. Kelly, Britain and
the Persian Gulf 1795-1880, Oxford 1968, is a
massive study based on British records. See also C.
H. Allen, The State of Masqat in the Gulf and East
Africa, in IJMES, xiv (1982), 117-27 and his full
thesis, Sayyids, Shaykhs and Sultans: politics and trade in
Masqat under the Al Bu Sa’id 1785-1914, University
of Washington 1978, unpubl.; R. G. Landen,
Oman since 1856, Princeton 1967; and J. E. Peter¬
son, Oman in the twentieth century, London 1978.

The two great c UmanI sources for Maskat!
history are (down to 1856) Ibn Ruzayk (Humayd
b. Muhammad), tr. G. P. Badger as History of the
Imams and Seyyids of Oman, Hakluyt Society, London
1971, and al-Saliml ( c Abd Allah b. Humayd, d.
1914) Tuhfat al-a c yan bi sirat ahl c Uman (ed.
Atfayyish, many printings). Further details of
c Uman! sources can be found in Bathurst, op. cit.,
and J. C. Wilkinson, in ;4.S, iii, iv. The latter’s
Water and tribal settlement in South-East Arabia, Oxford
1977, and his forthcoming The Imamate of Oman pro¬
vide further information on the Maskat setting.

(J. C. Wilkinson)

MAS KH (a.) “metamorphosis”, that is,
according to LA, s.v., “transformation of an exterior
form (sura) into a more ugly form”; the product of the
metamorphosis is itself called maskh/miskh or
maslkhlmamsukh.

Belief in the fact that, as a result of supernatural
intervention—divine punishment in the majority of
cases—humans have been transformed into animals,
statutes or even into stars was as widespread, before
Islam, among the Arabs as among the peoples of Anti¬
quity whose mythologies are known to us. The growth
of the concept of punishment inflicted by God has led
to the survival of this belief under Islam, not only
among a populace conscious of ancestral tradition,
but also in religious doctrine, since numerous
Kur’anic verses justify it: “You know of those among
you who have broken the Sabbath; We have said to
them: ‘Be abject monkeys’ ” (II, 61/65; cf. VII, 166);
“Those whom Allah has cursed, those on whom His
wrath has fallen, those whom He has turned to the
monkeys and the pigs” (V, 65/60); “If We wished,
We would have transformed them where they stood”
(XXXVI, 67). The verb masakha occurs only in the
last-mentioned verse, which concerns deviants in
general, whereas the others are applied to the Banu
Israeli. Al-Djahiz (Hayawdn, iv, 39) explains that God
has chosen monkeys and pigs because they are uglier
and more antipathetic than other animals, and adds
(iv, 39) that if monkeys only are mentioned in II,
61/65 and VII, 166, it is because the punishment in
question is more severe.

Jews are also the subject of the principal hadith
relating to rnaskh (apud al-Damlrl, Hayat al-hayawan, i,
573, s.v. dabb ; cf. ii, 182, s.v. kird\ see also al-Kurtubl,
al-Djami c li-ahkam al-KuTan, i, 439-40). Seeing
somebody eating the flesh of the lizard, the Prophet

MASKH

737

said, “A nation of the Banu Isra 3 il has been
transformed, and I fear lest this creature is a part of
it; I do not eat this meat, but I do not forbid it”. This
text is absolutely characteristic because, while testify¬
ing to the growth of traditions concerning
punishments inflicted on the impious (cf. al-Damm, i,
386, s.v. khinzir , where God changes to swine some
Jews who have molested Jesus), it relates to an animal
which is never mentioned in the Kur 5 an and is cor¬
roborated by various anecdotes. In particular, al-
Djahiz ( Hayawan , vi, 77) describes how a jakth , also
seeing a person eating the flesh of the lizard, says to
him: “Know that you have eaten a shaykh of the Banu
Israeli”. The popular belief is in fact that two Israelite
tribes have been transformed, one into lizards which
have remained on dry land, the other into eels ( djirrT)
which have gone to live in the sea; the reason for this
transformation is not indicated, and it is simply stated
that it is likely because the foot of the lizard resembles
a man’s hand. Ibn Kutayba ( Mukhtalij , 10, 362-3, tr.
G. Lecomte, §§ 15, 300 c) refutes the interpretation of
the proverb a z akk min dabb “more irreverent than a
lizard”, according to which a Jew showing disrespect
towards his parents had been transformed (al-
Maydanl, Madpna c al-amthdl, i, 509-10, proposes a dif¬
ferent explanation). According to another ancient
legend, all dishonest tax collectors were transformed
(al-Djahiz, Hayawan, vi, 80), and there is reference to
one of them who changed into a lizard ( Hayawan , vi,
81, 155); of two others, one became a hyena and the
other a wolf {Hayawan, vi, 80, 148), while Canopus
(Suhayl, Hayawan , iv, 69, vi, 81, 155; Tarbt c , § 41;
Ibn Kutayba, Mukhtalij, 10, tr. Lecomte, § 15) is none
other than the fourth metamorphosed tax-collector.
As for Venus (al-Zuhara), she was a prostitute who
ascended into the sky by virtue of her knowledge of
the greatest name of God ( bi-smi llah al-a c zam) which
Harut [q.v. ] and Marut had communicated to her (al-
Samarkandi, Bustan al- c arijtn, Kazan 1298/1880, 131)
and was transformed into a comet {Hayawan, iv, 69;
Tarbt § 41 and index; Ibn Kutayba, Mukhtalij, 10 =

§ 15).

The story of Isaf [q. v. ] and Na 3 ila, turned to stone
in the Ka c ba, is well known, but it will be noted that
the Kurban (XI, 83/81) does not say that the wife of
Lot “became a pillar of salt” (Genesis, xix, 26); al-
Djahiz {Hayawan, vi, 70) makes the comment in this
context that the Ahl al-Kitab refer to no case of the
metamorphosis of an human being into a pig or a
monkey and simply state that this guilty woman was
changed into a pillar of stone {sic ). There are also
encountered in the pre-Islamic period some individual
instances of transformation into animals, but, after
Islam, divine punishment does not seem frequently to
take this form. There are however ShI c I legends
according to which c Umar b. al-Khattab wanders in
the guise of an owl, and the murderer of Husayn b.
c Ali, Shimr, “runs about incessantly in search of
water, transformed into a dog with four eyes; he
observes at least one spring which he never reaches,
because at Karbala 3 he forbade the family of Husayn
to approach the water” (H. Masse Croyances et coutumes
persanes, Paris 1938, 185). On the other hand, the Ira¬
nians attribute to post-Islamic metamorphoses the
origin of several species of animal: the bear, the
elephant, the tortoise, the vulture, the crow, the owl,
the hoopoe, the hornet, in addition to the monkey, the
pig, the dog and the lizard {op. laud., 185-6).

To these latter attributions relating to Iran, should
be added some cases of collective metamorphosis
mentioned in the ancient Arab world. For example, it
is stated, without undue emphasis, that the mouse

( fa?r [q.v. in Suppl.]) has for its ancestor a miller’s wife
{Hayawan , i, 297) and that the shrimp (or the lobster,
irbiyana ) was a dressmaker who stole thread: this is
why the creature has threads, to remind her of the
crime that she committed {Hayawan, i, 297; Ibn
Kutayba, Mukhtalij, 364 = § 300 c); the snake {hayya)
had the form of a camel but, as a punishment
{Hayawan, i, 297), God compelled it to crawl on the
ground. According to popular belief, the dog is also
the result of a metamorphosis {Hayawan, i, 222, 292,
297, 308, vi, 79), but in i, 297-8, al-Djahiz conjec¬
tures that the wolf would be the more likely case! Ibn
c Abbas {apud Ibn Kutayba, Mukhtalij, 167 = § 172 a)
comes close to believing in this metamorphosis; he has
elsewhere handed down a tradition according to which
the elephant, the hare, the spider, the eel and,
naturally, the mouse, the monkey and the pig, are
humans transformed {Hayawan, i, 309).

Obliged by the Kur-’an to accept the reality of
maskh, jurists and theologians ponder the real mean¬
ing of such transformation and pose the question as to
whether it is effected gradually or at a single stroke,
whether it has led to the creation of new animal
species and, consequently, whether the animals that
are the result of it have survived and become
numerous, in other words, whether the monkeys, pigs
and lizards that we see today are their descendants
and theirs alone. Al-Djahiz {TarbT, § 44) adds this
secondary question, which he refrains from answer¬
ing: “Do they recognise one another and do they
know what has brought about their origin?”.

To the first question, the author of K. al-Hayawan
(iv, 70), one of whose most original ideas is the influ¬
ence exerted by the soil and the climate on the somatic
and psychological characters of living beings, replies
by conveying, without however associating himself
with it explicitly, the opinion of certain of the
Dahriyya [q.v. ] who accept the concept of gradual
modifications capable of leading ultimately to a total
transformation; conversely, there are others who do
not deny the existence of collective divine
punishments such as khasj or engulfment (of Sodom
and Gomorrah in particular), poisonous wind and
flood, but do not recognise maskh. On the part of the
Mu c tazflis, al-Nazzam accepts the phenomenon and
considers that it falls within the category of divine
miracles, while Abu Bakr al-Asamm and Hi§ham b.
al-Hakam reject it and accept only kalb , modification
{apud Hayawan, iv, 73). According to al-Baytjawi (on
II, 61/65; cf. al-Damm, ii, 183, s.v. kird), Mudjahid
[q.v. ] interpreted in a limited fashion the verse
relating to the maskh of the Banu Israel, stating that
they were not metamorphosed, but that their heart
was transformed and their spirit rendered similar to
that of monkeys; he was, however, the only one to
hold this opinion.

As to the question of whether the monkeys and pigs
of which the Kurban speaks and the above-mentioned
animals in general derive exclusively from metamor¬
phosis and were thus, originally, humans, or whether
such species existed before the event in question, the
answers are by no means unanimous, since points of
view vary perceptibly, even though in II, 61/65, the
words kirada and khandzw are defined by the article,
which would seem to allow no freedom of interpreta¬
tion. For some {Hayawan, iv, 68 ), the Kur 3 an refers
only to individual cases designed simply to impress
minds and teach a lesson. For others, on the contrary,
the lizards, pigs and monkeys, as well as the eels,
dogs, etc., which are alive today are the descendants
of those who have been transformed. It is thus that,
for example, Ibn Kutayba, in referring to verse V,

738

MASKH — MA$LAHA

65/60, accepts {Mukhtalif, 326 = § 284 a) that
monkeys are indeed the product of a transformation
and that this product has increased and multiplied (cf.
167, 37 = §§172 a, 280 h). According to al-Kurtubl
{loc. cit.) the kaii Abu Bakr Ibn al- c Arabi (468-
543/1076-1148 [see ibn al- c arabi] professed the same
opinion, on the basis of a hadi(h handed down by Abu
Hurayra, according to which the Prophet said: “A
nation of the Banu Israeli has disappeared and nobody
knows what has become of it. I consider this the origin
of the mouse. Do you not agree that when mice are
offered the milk of the camel, they do not drink it, but
if it is the milk of the ewe, they drink it”. Al-Djahiz
himself, at the end of the Tarbt c (§ 206), complains
that God has radically transformed for the worse
(masakha) this temporal world, as He has changed cer¬
tain polytheists into monkeys and certain nations into
pigs, with the difference however that in the world at
large nothing survives of the previous situation,
whereas the animals in question have retained some
characteristics of their former humanity (cf. what has
been said above concerning the foot of the lizard); this
author thus implies that they were not previously
created, although he does not believe in the reality of
the phenomenon and in this passage has simply
allowed himself to be carried away by his pen.

However, according to the prevailing opinion, the
metamorphosed animals have died without leaving
descendants, since, as objects of the anger and
chastisement of God, they would be incapable of sur¬
viving. Al-Kurtubl (loc. cit., cf. al-Damlrl, ii, 182, s.v.
kird) states that, for Ibn c Abbas, they survived no
longer than three days, during which they neither ate,
drank nor copulated; these details are attributed to the
Prophet, who affirmed elsewhere (see al-Damln, ii,
183) that monkeys and pigs existed previously; having
related the hadith concerning the lizard which is
quoted at the beginning of the present article, al-
Damiri adds the curious comment: ‘‘It is probable
that the Prophet said this before he knew that
metamorphoses do not reproduce themselves ( anna 7-
mansukh layu^kib)”.

The same of course does not apply to the animals
that have undergone a simple modification. Such is
the case of the gecko {wazagha) struck deaf and leprous
for having stirred up the fire that was to burn
Abraham {Hayawan, iv, 68, cf. iv, 289-91; Ibn
Kutayba, Mukhtalif, 10 = § 15; al-Damlrl, ii, 379,
s.v. wazagha ); the geckos that are seen today are
indeed the descendants of the one that was modified
and, although they are innocent, it is permitted, even
recommended, to kill them. H. Masse {op. laud. , 187),
also cites the case of the mule, rendered sterile for
having, unlike the other beasts of burden, caused
weariness to C AH at the time of the assault on
Khaybar, and the camel, whose organ of generation
was made to point backwards so that the rider,
Abraham, would not be soiled by the animal’s urina¬
tion; this last-mentioned case is clearly different from
all the others.

All the excam pies mentioned, including the
Kur’anic verses, belong ultimately to folklore, and
there is no cause for surprise in that al-Djahiz treats
them with irony in various passages of the K. al-
Hayawdn (in particular, i, 297). Also to be noted in
this context is the belief according to which, ‘‘when an
angel disobeys God in Heaven, he is sent to the earth
in the form and with the nature of a man” {Hayawan,
i, 187); this applies in the case of the father of
Djurhum (see Tarbt c , § 40 and index) and also of
Harut and Marut.

The notion of metamorphosis as a magical process

was a natural source of inspiration for the writers of
fabulous tales. In the Thousand and one nights (see N.
Elisseeff, Themes et motifs des Mille et Une Nuits, Beirut
1949, 127, 141-4), it is generally by means of sprinkl¬
ing with water that humans are changed into animals
(cow, calf, gazelle, dog, mule, monkey, bird, ass,
bear) or that metamorphosed beings are returned to
their initial form. Culprits are sometimes petrified
{ibid. , 151), like Isaf and Na 5 ila, and rocks which pres¬
ent a vaguely human appearance are invariably con¬
sidered to represent men who have suffered divine
punishment (as, for example, the rocks of Hammam
Maskhutln in eastern Algeria).

It may be noted finally that the metamorphoses of
insects, well-known to the authors of zoological works,
are not designated by the term maskh (a detailed exam¬
ple is to be found in al-Damlrl, s.v. dud).

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(Ch. Pellat)

MASLAHA, the concept in Islam of the public
interest or welfare.

Maslaha (pi. masalih) is the abstract noun of the verb
salaha (or saluha), ‘‘to repair or improve”. Strictly
speaking, maslaha , like manfa c a, means “utility” and
its antonyms are madarra and mafsada (“injury”); but
generally speaking, maslaha denotes “welfare” and is
used by jurists to mean “general good” or “public
interest”. Anything which helps to avert mafsada or
darar and furthers human welfare is equated with
maslaha. As a legal concept, maslaha must be distin¬
guished from istislah, a method of legal reasoning
through which maslaha is considered a basis for legal
decisions [see istihsan and istislah]. In this article,
maflaha will be dealt with as a concept and a legal
principle.

The first important case in which the notion of
public welfare (al-khayr and naff was invoked as a
basis for legal decision was the land of southern c Irak
(al-Sawad), which the caliph c Umar decreed should
become state-land and a land tax {al-kharadj) was
imposed on it. Earlier, the practice of the Prophet in
such a situation varied from dividing the land among
the participants in djihad , as in the case of the land
taken from the Banu Kurayza, to turning it into state-
land as in the case of tGiaybar (Abu Yusuf, Kitdb al-
Kharadj. 51). Some of the Companions, like al-Zubayr
and Bilal, urged c Umar to divide the Sawad among
the warriors, but others, like c Uthman, c AlT and
Talha, suggested that it should become state-land.
After consultation with several other Companions, the
caliph came to the conclusion that the interests of the
community as a whole would be better served if the
Sawad were brought under state control rather than
divided. “If it were divided among the warriors”, the
caliph c Umar asked, “what would be the position of
the believers as a whole and their descendants?”
Retention of the land under state control would, he
argued, bring about greater welfare and utility for the
believers {al-khayr li-^ami^ al-Muslimin ... [and] c umum
al-naf li-^ama c atihim (Abu Yusuf, 27). Though
c Umar did not use the word maslaha per se, its notion
was clearly implied in the words khayr (“welfare”) and
c umum al-naf (“public utility”). Supported by the
opinion of leading Companions, he issued instruc¬
tions to immobilise the land of al-Sawad and required
its people to pay the kharady (Abu Yusuf, 23-7; Yahya
b. Adam, Kitab al-Kharddi. 17-21; M. Khadduri, War
and peace in the law of Islam, 181-3). c Umar’s decision
on the basis of public interest may be said to have
influenced other caliphs to make similar decisions,
e.g. concerning the compilation of the KuHan. But
these cases, though often cited as precedents, did not

MASLAHA

♦ «

739

establish maslaha as a principle or source of law. It was
indirectly used through the derivative sources of kiyas
and istihsan (al-Shatibl. al-IHisdm , ii, 287-8).

Malik b. Anas (d. 179/795) is reputed to have been
the first jurist to make decisions directly on the basis
of maslaha through the use of istislah or al-maslaha al-
mursala. Although no reference to maslaha or istislah is
to be found in Malik’s writings, his disciples cited
cases in which maslaha as a concept of law had been
used by him. Both al-Shafi c I in the Risala and Sahnun
in al-Mudawwana cite the c ariyya sale (the sale of fresh
for dried dates, contrary to the rule that fresh fruit
cannot be sold for dried) as a case in point in which
maslaha was the basis of Malik’s rulings (al-Shafi c i,
Risala , 331-5, tr. M. Khadduri, Islamic jurisprudence ,
235-6; and Sahnun, al-Mudawwana , x, 93-4). As a
method of legal reasoning, however, istislah wa*
developed later and used by jurists who claimed that
Malik was the first to initiate the use of it (al-Shatibi,
al-IHisdm , ii, 281-316). No clear evidence, however,
has yet come to light indicating that Malik had used
maslaha as a concept of law. Djuwayn! (d. 478/1085)
is mentioned as the first to call attention to it (al-
Shatibi, op. cit., 282), and other jurists must have
made their contribution before it suddenly appeared
as a mature concept in the writings of Abu Hamid al-
Ghazal! (d. 505/1111).

Al-Ghazall states that in the narrow sense, maslaha
may be defined as the furthering of the manfa c a and
the averting of majarra, but in a broad sense it is the
ultimate purpose of the Sharia, consisting of the
maintenance of religion, life, offspring, reason and
property. “Anything which furthers these aims,’’ he
adds, “is maslaha , and anything which runs contrary
to them is mafsada" ( al-Mustasfd , i, 139-40). Consider¬
ing istihsan and istislah as imaginary (i.e. subjective)
legal methods, he confirms the use of kiyas as a
positive method of legal reasoning on the grounds that
the achievement of maslaha is a necessity (ft rutbat al-
darurat ) and develops the doctrine of necessity ( darura )
as a means by which to realise the ultimate purpose of
the Sharia. Al-maslaha , he maintains, consists of three
categories: al-darurdt (“necessities”), al-hddjiyydt
(“needs”) and al-tahstnal (“improvements”). In order
to make a decision on the basis of the second and third
categories, the jurists must find a textual reference by
means of kiyas; but the first category — the darurat —
constitutes by itself a basis for legal decision without
resort to kiyas or any other method, on the grounds
that the maslaha of that description is the ultimate pur¬
pose of the Sharing. Thus by al-Ghazalf’s time, maslaha
had become a definite concept of law on the basis of
which jurists could make legal decisions. Other jurists
called legal reasoning istislah, but al-Ghazall rejected
istislah. If such a method is needed, kiyas can ade¬
quately provide it. In the case of darurat , he argued, no
dependence on a textual reference is needed. Thus
maslaha of the highest rank itself becomes a source of
the Sharia. Al-Ghazall cites as an example the case of
unbelievers who shield themselves with a group of
Muslim captives. He maintains that the killing of
innocent Muslims, though not allowed by the ShaiTa,
would allow the unbelievers to gain mastery over the
dar al-Islam and kill both the Muslims and the
prisoners. Since minimising killing and the preserva¬
tion of the community as a whole is closer to the pur¬
pose of the Sharing, a decision to strike at the enemy
shielded with Muslims can be justified on the strength
of maslaha, since its protection is a darura (i.e. a
necessity) and an implied purpose of the Sharia {op.
at., i, 141). But al-Ghazali warns against the use of
cases other than darurat, such as if a few men in a ship,

afraid of sinking or starvation, should kill one of them
to save the rest.

It was, however, not a Malik! or Shafi c I jurist who
went further in the use of maslaha, but the Hanball
jurist Nadjm al-D!n al-Tawfi (d. 716/1316). In princi¬
ple, he agreed with al-Ghazall on the use of maslaha as
a basis for legal decisions irrespective of others
sources. He also argued that the other sources of the
Sharia recognised maslaha as the ultimate purpose of
the Divine Legislator. Al-Ghazall restricted its use to
only the vital necessities {darurat). So far, al-Tawfi
seems to have said nothing innovative save that he
universalised the principle to all cases of public
interest. But then he went further by holding that,
even if the principle of maslaha contradicts a primary
source, it should override on the grounds that the
SharTa itself was laid down to protect maslaha as the
ultimate purpose of the Divine Legislator (for the text
of al-Tawfi’s treatise on maslaha, see the appendix in
Mustafa Zayd, al-Maslaha ji ’l-tashn c al-Islami, 7-48).
Although he cites textual references from the Kurban
and Tradition in support of his argument, the prin¬
cipal textual evidence is the tradition la darar wa-la
dirar (“no injury should be imposed nor an injury to
be inflicted as a penalty for another-injury”). From
this and other citations, he asserted that the principle
of ri c ayat al-maslaha must be overriding in all legal
aspects of human relationships {mu c amaldt), though
not in matters relating to Hbadat (devotional duties),
because these are relating to worship of God and are
fundamentally different from maslaha.

The principle of ri c ayat al-maslaha, though ably
defended by some of its adherents, like the Malik!
jurist Abu Ishak al-Shatib! (d. 790/1388) and others,
found no great supporters in an age in which idjtihad
was discouraged and taklid prevailed, mainly because
it stressed dependence on evidence that cannot be
clearly identified by kiyas or other derivative sources.
In the modern age, however, under the impact of
Western legal thought, the concept of maslaha has
become the subject of an increasing interest among
jurists who have sought legal reforms in order to meet
the needs of the modern conditions of Islamic society.
Muhammad c Abduh (d. 1905) equated the Sharia
with natural law (M. H. Kerr, Islamic reform, 103 ff.)
and opened the door for modern jurists to use reason
as a basis for legal interpretation. Pursuing this line of
thought, Rashid Rida (d. 1935) might be regarded as
the most effective protagonist of the use of maslaha as
a source for legal and political reform. In his treatise
al-Khildfa wa H-imama al- c uzma (1923) (“The caliphate,
or the supreme authority”; tr. H. Laoust, Le Calif at
dans la doctrine de Rasid Rida), Rida tried to re-interpret
the SharTa on the basis of maslaha and darura as the
expression of public interest. Like al-Tawfi, he made
a distinction between mu c amalat and Hbadat, and
sought to reform the Sharia by an elected assembly in
which the c ulama 5 would be represented on the basis of
the principles of maslaha and darura, presumably by the
method of idjtihad , guided by reason, which Muham¬
mad c Abduh had eloquently explained. This approach
to legal reform, partly on the basis of maslaha (often
expressed by the modern usage of “national
interest”) and other legal devices, encouraged
modern jurists such as c Abd al-Razzak al-Sanhur! (d.
1968) and others to provide modern civil codes based
partly on the Sharia, but mainly on Western law.

Bibliography : Abu Yusuf, Kitab al-Kharadi.

Cairo 1352, tr. Ben Shemesh, Taxation in Islam,

Leiden 1958-69; al- Gh azall, al-Mustasfd, Cairo
1356; Abu Ishak al-Shatibi, al-IHisam, Cairo 1331;

Nadjm al-Din al-Tawfi, Risala fi ’ l-masalih al-

740

MA$LAHA — MASLAMA al-MADJRIJI

mursala, in MadfmiF rasa ■HI fi uful al-fikh , Beirut
1324, 37-70; a more critical edition of Tawfi’s
Risala is in Mu?£afa Zayd, al-Maslaha fi ’ l-Shari c a al-
Isldmiyya, Cairo 1954; Rashid Rida, al-Khilafa. aw
al-imama al- c uzmd, Cairo 1341; M. H. Kerr, Islamic
reform , Berkeley 1966. (Madjid Khadduri)
MASLAMA b. C ABD al-MALIK b. MARWAN,
son of the caliph c Abd al-Malik and one of the
most imposing Umayyad generals, whose
siege of Constaninople 98-9/716-18 earned him
lasting fame. Like his uncle Muhammad b. Marwan
[q.v.], whom he succeeded in Asia Minor in many
respects, he was, as the son of a slave-girl, excluded
from the succession to the caliphate. His date of birth
is unknown. He died on Muharram 121/24 December
738.

Starting in 86/705, the last year of his father’s
reign, Maslama led the regular summer campaigns
(sawaHf), sometimes prolonged over the winter, into
the Byzantine territories of Asia Minor, often accom¬
panied by al- c Abbas b. al-Walid [ q.v .] and/or other
sons of his half-brother, the caliph al-Walid. The
range of these campaigns stretched from the region of
Malatya in the east to Amasya in the north and to
Pergamon in the west. Among his early conquests,
those of Tuwana (Tyana) and c Ammuriyya
(Amorium) in 88/707 and 89/708 are best known. In
91/710 he succeded Muhammad b. Marwan in the
governorship of al-DjazIra, Armenia and Adhar-
baydjan after having already served as governor of
Kinnasrln. In this capacity, he advanced as far as Bab
al-Abwab (Darband) [q. v. ] on the Caspian Sea, an
operation which he repeated in 95/714 and in the
course of which he conquered and destroyed the town.
After Sulayman had succeeded al-Walid in the
caliphate during the following year, Maslama was
given chief command of the expedition against Con¬
stantinople which was carried out by land and sea [see
kustantiniyya]. The siege proper started in the
beginning of 99/mid-August 717 and ended exactly
one year later without success. The fiasco was caused
mainly by supply difficulties, the plague and the use
of the Greek fire by the Byzantines against the Arab
fleet. The loss did not injure Maslama’s military
reputation, but marked an interruption of his
activities in Asia Minor for some years. Legend
actually transformed the failure into a victory.
Already in 100-1/719 he was ordered by c Umar II
again to lead the saHfa , but he had to use this army in
c Irak, first against the Kharidjites and then, under the
caliphate of Yazid II, against the rebellious Yazid b.
al-Muhallab [q.v.], whom he defeated completely in
Safar 102/August 720 at c Akr in the vicinity of Wasit.
Together with this expedition, he was entrusted with
the governorship of both c Iraks at the beginning of
102/July 720, but lost his office a year later because he
apparently had not delivered the surplus taxes to
Syria. This and his interference in the question of suc¬
cession in favour of his half-brother Hisham and
against Yazid’s son al-Walld adversely affected his
relations with the caliph, so that he did not exercise
any military or administrative functions in the
remaining years of Yazld’s caliphate. Hisham, how¬
ever, reverted to the experienced general soon after
his assumption of power, and conferred upon him the
governorship of Armenia and Adharbaydjan from
107/725 until 111/729 and again from 112/730 until
114/732. Maslama began this last phase of his military
activities with a saHfa in the summer of 108/726 which
resulted in the conquest of Caesarea in Cappadocia.
His main attention, however, was turned further to
the east against the Khazars [q. v. ], who in these years
threatened Adharbaydjan and Armenia. The

culminating point of these activities was his new
expedition to Bab al-Abwab in 1 12-13/730-1, during
which he reconstructed and fortified the town and sta¬
tioned a permanent Syrian garrison in it, whereby he
became the founder of Islamic Darband. In 114/732
he retired from the political stage, and seems to have
passed the remaining years of his life in northern
Syria, where he possessed large estates, especially in
the region between Harran and Rakka.

Bibliography : See the general histories of
Khalifa b. Khayyaf, Baladhurf ( Futuh as well as
Ansab), Ya c kubl, Tabari, Ibn al-Athir, etc.; Aghdni,
index; Ibn c Asakir, Ta^rtkh Dimashk , Zahiriyya
3380, vol. xvi, fols. 222a-226b; J. Wellhausen, Die
Kampfe der Araber mit den Romaern in der Zeit der Umai-
jaden, in NGW Gott., phil.-hist. Klasse (1901), Heft
4; F. Gabrieli, II califfato di Hisham. Studi di storia
omayyade, Alexandria 1935 (Memoires de la Societe
Royale d’Archeologie d’Alexandrie, vii/2); idem,
L ’eroe omayyade Maslamah Ibn : Abd al-Malik, in Rend.
Lin. (1950), serie VIII, vol. v, 22-39; R. Guilland,
L 1 expedition de Maslama contre Constantinople (717-
718), in Al-Machriq (1955), 89-112 ( = Etudes Byzan¬
tines, Paris 1959, 109-33). (G. Rotter)

MASLAMA b. MUKHALLAD b al-$amit al-
AnsarI, Abu Ma c n or Sa c Id or c Umar), Com¬
panion of the Prophet who took part in the con¬
quest of Egypt and remained in the country with the
Muslim occupying forces. Subsequently, loyal to the
memory of c Uthman b. c Affan and hostile to C A1I b.
Abl Talib, whose accession to the caliphate he had not
recognised (see al-Tabari, i, 3070), he opposed, with
Mu c awiya b. Hudaydj [q.v.], the arrival of Muham¬
mad b. Abl Bakr [q. v. ] who, having had a hand in the
murder of the third caliph, had been appointed gover¬
nor of Egypt, and it is probable that he was involved
in the campaigns which took place in 38/658 and
ended with the death of the son of Abu Bakr. He
faithfully served c Amr b. al- c As [q.v.], who governed
the country until his death (43/663), and lived unob¬
trusively under his two successors, c Utba b. c AbI
Sufyan and c Ukba b. c Amir. Al-Tabari (ii/1, 84, 93)
says that in 47/667-8 Mu c awiya b. Hudaydj was
appointed governor of Egypt and performed this func¬
tion until 50/670, but other sources claim that
Maslama governed Egypt from 47 onward; he was
retained in his official responsibilities by Yazid b.
Mu c awiya, from 60/680 until his death on 25 Radjab
62/9 April 682 aged 62 or 66 years, since he was 10
or 14 years old on the death of the Prophet. During
his period of office, he conducted regular operations
against the Byzantines and rebuilt the mosque of
c Amr which he endowed with minarets [see manara).
Some authors state that, from the time of his nomina¬
tion, he had responsibility for the Ma g hrib and
Ifrlkiya, and Ibn c Abd al-Hakam for example (partial
ed. and tr. A. Gateau, 66-7) specifies that it was he
who, in 51/671, replaced c Ukba b. Nafi c [q.v.] with
Abu TMuhadjir Dinar al-Ansarl; but the chronology
is not easily established and Ibn c IdharI (i, 17) dates
in the year 55/675 the decision on the part of
Mu c awiya to join Ifrlkiya to Egypt and the subse¬
quent appointment of Abu ’l-Muhadjir.

Bibliography : Besides the references in the
text, see Djahiz, c Uthmdniyya , 174; Ibn c Abd al-
Barr, Istfab, commentary on the If aba , iii, 463; Ibn
al-Kalbl-Caskel, Diamhara . Tab. 187; Ibn Sa c d, v,
195; Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, Futuh Misr, partial ed.-tr.
A. Gateau, Algiers 2 1947, 67, 69, 71; Ibn al-Athir,
sub annis; c AskalanI. Isaba, no. 7989; Ibn al- c Imad,
Shadharat, i, 70; Ibn TaghribardI, Nud^um, i, 132-57
passim ; see also al-kayrawan. (Ed.)

MASLAMA al-MA DJ RITI [see al-madjritI] .

MASMUDA

741

MA$MUDA (the broken plural Masdmida is also
found), one of the principal Berber ethnic
groups forming a branch of the Baranis.

If we set aside the Ma$muda elements mentioned
by al-Bakri in the neighbourhood of Bone, the post-
Islamic Ma$muda seem to have lived exclusively in
the western extremity of the Maghrib: and as far back
as one goes in the history of the interior of Morocco,
we find them forming with the Sanhadja [<?.o.],
another group of Baranis Berbers, the main stock of
the Berber population of this country. Indeed, from
the first Arab conquest in the lst/7th centuty to the
importation of the Hilalls by the Almohad sultan
Ya c kub al-Man$ur in 586/1190, it was the Ma$muda
who inhabited the great region of plains, plateaux and
mountains, which stretches from the Mediterranean
to the Anti-Atlas to the west of a line from north-east
to south-west passing through Miknasa (Meknes) and
Damnat; the only parts of this territory which were
not occupied by them were three small $anhadja
enclaves: the $anhadja of Tangier, of the valley of the
Wargha and of Azammur. To the north and to the
west, the land of the Ma$muda was bounded by the
Mediterranean and the Atlantic. To the east and
south it was bounded by the land of the $anhadja. To
the north were the Sanhadja of the region of Taza and
those of Wargha; in the centre, the Zanaga or
Sanhadja of the Central Atlas, to which should be
added the Zanata of Fazaz; to the south, the Haskura,
the Lamta [q. v. ] and the Gazula [see djazula].

It was from the presence of this Masmuda block,
extending continuously from Sus to the Mediterra¬
nean, that eastern Morocco generally must have
received the name of Sus, a name found for example
in Yakut (s.v. Sus) who distinguishes a Hither Sus
(capital Tangier) and a Farther Sus (capital Tarkala?)
separated from the other by two months’ journey. It
is also to this racial unity that are due the legends
according to which all the northwestern corner of
Morocco was once inhabited by the people of Sus (ahl
Sus).

Before the coming of the Hilali Arabs, the
Masmuda peoples were divided into three groups:

1. In the north, from the Mediterranean to the
Sabu and Wargha, the Ghumara [q.v. J.

2. In the centre from the Sabu to the Wadi Umm
Rabl*, the Baraghwata [see barghawata],

3. In the south, from the Wadi Umm RabI* to the
Anti-Atlas, the Masmuda in the strict sense of the
word.

Like the majority of the Baranis, who in this respect
are a contrast to the Butr, who are inclined to be
nomads, the Masmuda were all settled; for if, in one
passage, Ibn Khaldun mentions two nomad tribes,
the Lakha and the Zaggan, as forming part of the
Masmuda confederation of the Haha, he also points
out that they were tribes of the Lamta, i.e. of the
nomadic Sanhadja, who finally became incorporated
in the Dhawu Hassan, Ma c kill Arab nomads [see
ma c kil] of Sus. Ibn Khaldun further makes special
mention of the fortresses and fortified villages ( ma c akil
wa-husun) of the Masmuda who lived in the mountains
of Daran or the Great Atlas. Other Arab historians
and geographers mention the many little towns (karya)
in the plains occupied by the Dukkala or the
Baraghwata, a pastoral and agricultural people; but
these were gradually ruined and destroyed in the
course of the fighting which went on without interrup¬
tion in their country from the establishment of the
Zanata principalities of Shalla, Tadla and Aghmat:
the Almoravid and Almohad conquests, repeated
campaigns against the heretical Baraghwata, the

Hilali occupation, the struggle between the Almohads
and the Marinids, the rivalry between the Marlnid
kingdom of Fas and that of Marrakush and lastly the
wars with the Portuguese. Exterminated as heretics,
dispossessed of their lands and driven from them by
the Arab or Zanata nomads brought into their ter¬
ritory, transported to a distance (region of Fas) by the
Wattasid sultans, for whose taste they showed too lit¬
tle hostility to the Portuguese, the central Ma$muda,
the original inhabitants of the Azghar, of Tamasna
and of the land of the Dukkala, finally disappeared;
their place was taken by nomads, Hilali Arabs (in the
north, in Hab{ and Azghar. the Riyah; in the south,
the Djusham, Sufyan, Khult and Banu Djabir) and
the Berbers (Zanata Hawwara); in the 10th/ 16th cen¬
tury the coming to power of the Sa c did dynasty
brought about the immigration of Ma c kil Arab tribes
to the same region: c Abda, Ahmar, Rahamina,
Barablsh, Udaya, Awlad Dulaym, Zu c ayr, etc.

From the 10th/16th century onwards, as a result of
the occupation of their central plains by the Arabs,
Hilali then Ma c kill, the Ma$muda only survived in
the mountainous regions which formed the northern
and southern extremes of their old domains.

The Masmuda of the north (or Masmudat al-
Sdhii. “M. of the shore” of al-Baydn) were chiefly
represented by the Ghumara group. But, alongside of
them, we find two small groups having the same racial
origin:

a. The Masmuda of the Straits, settled between the
district of Ceuta, which belonged to the Ghumara and
that of Tangier, a Sanhadja country. It was they who
gave their name to the fortified port of Ka?r
Masmuda, also called Kasr al-Madjaz, the modern al-
Kasr al-Saghir. Their presence here is attested in the
4th/10th century, for it was while fighting here against
them that Ha-Mlm, the prophet of the Ghumara. was
slain; al-Bakri (5th/ 11th century) knew them in the
same area corresponding to that of the modern
Andjra.

b. Al-Bakri mentions another group of Masmuda
(tribe of the As$ada) settled in the land lying between
al-Kasr al-Kablr and Wazzan; there is still a small
Ma$muda tribe between these two towns.

The Ma$muda of the south, who inhabited
the lands between the Wadi Umm RabI* and the Anti-
Atlas, were divided into two groups: those of the plain
and those of the mountain.

2. The Southern Masmuda of the plain
lived to the north of the Great Atlas. The chief tribes
were the Dukkala; the Banu Magir (around Safi); the
Hazmlra; the Ragraga and the Haha (to the south of
the lower course of the Tansift). The chief town in this
region was Safi [see asfI], for the town of Azammur
[q. v. ] and the ribdt of Tl{ [q. v. ] were in the enclave of
Sanhadja; beside the port of Safi, we must also men¬
tion that of Kuz (the Agoz of the Portuguese) at the
mouth of the Tansift, which gave A gh mat access to
the sea and had a ribdt, and that of Amagdul (the
Mogador of the Portuguese) which served the district of
Sus. Besides these three centres, there were, as in
Tamasna, a large number of fortified little towns
(karya) many of which survived down to the 10th/ 16th
century; the Portuguese chroniclers, Leo Africanus
and Marmol have preserved for us many names of
these places which have now disappeared, their very
memory being lost; the local hagiographic collections,
and notably the Kitdb al-Tashawwuf of al-Tadili
(7th/ 13th century), have preserved a good deal of
valuable information on this subject. At the present
day, all the country to the north of the Atlas is
arabicised and if the old Berber element has not com-

742

MASMUDA

pletely disappeared, it is at least overwhelmed by
Arabs, of whom the majority seem to be of Ma c kill
origin. The Haha alone, between Mogador and
Agadir, have remained almost intact and have
retained the use of the Berber language.

b. The Southern Masmuda of the moun¬
tains occupied the Great Atlas ( Dja bal Damn), the
massif of Slrwa (anc. Slrwan) and the Anti-Atlas or
mountains of the Naglsa (Berber, I n Gist).

In the Great Atlas, the Ma$muda extended to the
east as far as the upper course of the Tansift (a pass
called Tizi-Telwet). From east to west, the following
were the chief groups: the Glawa; the Haylana (or
Aylana), the WarTka and the Hazradja, near Aghmat;
the Assadan, including the Masfiwa, the Maghus and
the Dughagha or Banu Daghugh; the Hintata,
including the Ghayghaya; the people of Tin-Mallal,
on the upper course of the river of Naffis; the $awda
or Zawda, in the lower valley of the Asif al-Mal; the
Gadmlwa and lastly in the west, the GanfTsa, the chief
tribe of which was the Saksawa or Sakslwa.

The massif of Sirwa and the high valley of the Wadi
Sus were inhabited by the Banu Wawazglt and the
Saktana. The northeastern part of the Anti-Atlas was
occupied by the Hargha.

Farther to the south, the Sus, properly so-called,
was inhabited by heterogeneous elements of
Ma§muda origin (al-ldrlsl, akhlal min al-Barbar al-
Masamida). Describing the road leading from Taru-
dant to Aghmat, al-ldrlsl mentions between Tarudant
and the land of the Hargha, four tribes the names of
which, corrupted by the copyists, are unfortunately
hardly identifiable.

Besides these highlanders, who were strictly
Masmuda, we must mention the Haskura (or
Hasakira). These were highlanders of Sanhadja
origin, brethren of the Lamta and Gazula, who led a
nomadic existence to the south of the Great Atlas and
the Anti-Atlas. The Haskura were settled in the high
valley of Tansift and the Wadi al- c Ab!d, on the two
slopes of the mountain range which links the Great
Atlas, the home of the Masmuda, with the Central
Atlas, the home of the Zanaga ( = Sanhadja) of Tadla;
their chief tribes were the Zamrawa, the Mughrana,
the Garnana, the Ghudjdama. the Fatwaka, the
Mastawa, the Hultana, and the Hantlfa, who, accord¬
ing as they lived on one slope or the other, belonged
to the Haskurat al-Kibla (H. of the south) or to the
Haskurat al-Dill (H. of the north [< zil[\). Ibn
Khaldun, who calls attention to the $anhadja origin of
the Haskura, adds that, as a result of their taking up
the Almohad cause, it became customary to associate
them with the Masmuda tribes, but that they never
enjoyed the same privileges as these latter.

History. In 62/682, c Ukba b. Nafi c [ q.v .] mar¬
ched against the Masmuda of the Atlas with whom he
fought several battles. On one occasion, he was sur¬
rounded in the mountains and owed his safety solely
to the help given him by a body of Zanata. In the
same year, he attacked and took the town of Naffis
which was occupied by “Rum” and Berbers profess¬
ing Christianity. Thence he went to Igli, a town of Sus
which he also took. Legend adds that he even thrust
his way to the Atlantic where he rode his horse into the
water, calling God to witness that there were no more
lands for him to conquer.

This first submission of the Masmuda does not
however seem to have lasted after the departure of
c Ukba. In 88/707, Musa b. Nu?ayr had to reconquer
Morocco; he in person took Dar c a and Tafilalt and
sent his son to the conquest of Sus and the land of the
Ma?muda.

In 114/732 c Ubayd Allah b. al-Habhab was
appointed governor of the Ma gh rib: he appointed his
son Isma c Tl as assistant to the governor of Morocco
and gave him particular charge of the district of Sus.

In 117/735, the same c Ubayd Allah sent Habib,
grandson of c Ukba, to make an expedition into Sus
against the Masmuda and the Sanhadja (Massufa).
Later the latter’s son c Abd al-Rahman al-Fihrl (d.
127/745) becoming semi-independent governor of the
Ma gh rib occupied Igli and built a camp there, the
remains of which could still be seen in al-Bakrl’s time.
It is to the same governor that is attributed the making
of the wells which supply the road from Tamdalt to
Awdaghost [q.v.] via Waddan, through the modern
Mauritania.

The land of the Masmuda then disappears from
history till the 3rd/9th century. The conquests of Idris
I did not extend in the south beyond Tamasna and
Tadla. But in 213/812 Idris II made an expedition
against the town of Naffis; on his death in 213/828, his
son c Abd (or c Ubayd) Allah obtained as his share of
the kingdom, A g hmat. Naffis, the lands of the
Ma?muda and of the Lamta as well as Sus. Al-Bakrl
records that some of his descendants ruled as lords of
Naffis and among the Banu Lamas, not far from Igli.
Other Idrlsids, descendants of Yahya b. Idris, were at
this time lords of Dar c a.

With the decline of Idrlsid power in the 4th/10th
century, the Masmuda again became independent
and were ruled by elected chiefs or imgharen (sing.
amghar [q.v.], Arabic shuyukh)\ al-Bakrl tells us that
those of Aghmat were appointed by the people for a
term of one year. When at the end of the 4th/10th cen¬
tury, Zanata principalities became established in
Morocco (at Fas, Shalla and Tadla), Maghrawa
established themselves at Aghmat; but all we know of
them is that they were attacked by the Almoravids. In
449/1057, after receiving the submission of Sus and of
the Masmuda (Zawda, Shafshawa, Gadmlwa,
Ragraga and Haha), the Almoravid chief c Abd Allah
b. Ya-Sln took Aghmat, the last Ma gh rawa ruler of
which, Lagut b. C A1I, fled to Tadla. His wife, the
famous Zaynab, who was one of the Nafzawa, finally
became the wife of Yusuf b. Taghfin, whom she
initiated into the fine art of diplomacy.

From 449/1057, Aghmat was the capital of the
Almoravids till 454/1062, when Yusuf b. Tashfin
founded Marrakush [q.v.]. In 466/1074 the same
ruler, having divided his empire among several gover¬
nors, gave his son Tamlm the governorship of Mar¬
rakush, Aghmat, of the Masmuda and of Sus, then of
Tadla and Tamasna.

The Masmuda seem to have remained subject to
the Almoravids till the rebellion in 515/1121 provoked
by the mahdl Ibn Tumart [q. v. ] of the tribe of Hargha.
who, supported by c Umar Inti, shaykh of the Hintata,
and by c Abd al-Mu^min [q.v.], brought about the
foundation of the Almohad dynasty. The history of
the Masmuda is henceforth involved with that of the
dynasty which they brought to power and which was
to last till 1269. The Ma§muda, together with the
Almohad dynasty, thus contributed to the rise of the
Hafsids [< 7 . 0 .], who ruled over Ifrlkiya from 625/1228
to 982/1574, through the descendants of Abu Hafs
c Umar Inti, shaykh of the Hintata.

During the first half of the 7th/13th century, the
power of the Almohads, routed by the Christians of
Spain at the battle of Hisn al- c Ukab (Las Navas de
Tolosa) in 609/1212 and vigorously attacked in
Morocco by the Banu Marin, soon began to decline.
The Masmuda of the Atlas, indifferent to the fate of
the dynasty, took advantage of its plight to regain

MASMUDA

♦

743

their independence. It was the tribes of the Hintata
and the Haskura, which in 621/1224 at the proclama¬
tion of al- c Adil assumed the leadership in the move¬
ment; frequently allied with the Hilall Arabs of the
plains, Sufyan and Khult, we find them fighting in all
the civil wars and supporting various pretenders to the
throne.

When in 667/1269, the Marin ids had definitely
crushed the Almohads, the Ma?muda retained a cer¬
tain amount of independence and lived more or less in
submission to the central power, ruled by chiefs
chosen from the great local families: Awlad Yunus
among the Hintata; Awlad Sa c d Allah among the
Gadmiwa; among the Saksawa, c Umar b. Haddu was
an independent chief who went so far as to claim the
Berber title agellid ( = king). In Sus, the Banu Yaddar
(Idder) founded an independent principality which
lasted from 652/1254 till about 740/1340. As to the
Haskura, the power among them was exercised by the
Banu Khattab.

Down to the 9th/15th century, except during the
first half of the reign of the Almohad dynasty of which
they had been the principal supporters, the Masmuda
of the Atlas were hardly ever under the direct rule of
the Moroccan government; only the tribes of the
plains, Dukkala and Haha, in a position of inferiority
as a result of their geographical situation, were able to
offer less resistance and had to submit. The later
dynasties, Sa c did and c AlawI, were no better able to
subdue the Masmuda of the highlands; but instead of
gathering round local chiefs with temporal power, the
latter now placed themselves under the leadership of
holy men with religious prestige.

In the beginning of the 1 Oth/16th century, the land
of the Ma$muda was in a state of anarchy. Some
askyakk of the tribe of the Hintata held the lands of
Marrakush; the most famous was Abu Shantuf; to the
south of Tansift, the 8th/14th century saw the rise of
the warlike group of the Ragraga; in the 9th/15th cen¬
tury, the power of the mystic al-DjazulI [tf.fl ] spread
among the Haha. In the adjoining country of Dar c a,
the Sa c did dynasty was rising, which, after occupying
Sus, imposed its domination on the whole of
Morocco. But it did not, however, succeed in subjec¬
ting completely the highlanders of the Atlas. The
powerful Ahmad al-Man$ur himself had to fight
against a pretender who had proclaimed himself king
of the Saksawa. After the death of al-Mansur, the
Atlas and Sus were all under the authority of local
religious leaders of whom the most important were to
be found among the Haha and in Tazarwalt (family
of Ahmad u-Musa).

It was the c Alawid Sultan Mawlay Rashid who
restored Sus and the Atlas to the Moroccan empire.
The only episode to note is the constitution in Tazar¬
walt, by a marabout SayyidI (Sldi) Hisham of a kind
of independent kingdom, the capital of which was
Hi gh and which lasted from the end of the 18th cen¬
tury till 1886.

Henceforth, the Masmuda disappear from history.
The Atlas remained more or less independent, accord¬
ing to the degree of power of the ruling sovereigns,
but all the important events in the region took place
among the Haha or in Sus [ q. ?.]. The French occupa¬
tion found the old Masmuda grouped, since the death
of the c Alawid Sultan Mawlay al-Hasan, into three
bodies each under the authority of a local family: the
Glawa in the east, the Guntfafa in the centre, ad the
Mtugga in the west.

The name Masmuda, still preserved in the north of
Morocco in the name of a little tribe of al-Ka§r al-
Kablr, seems to have completely disappeared in the

south, where the former Masmuda peoples, continu¬
ing to talk Berber, bear the name of §huluh (French
Chleuhs [ q.v.\ . It may even be asked if the name
Masmuda, which is found so often in the Arab
historians and geographers, was ever in regular use
among the peoples to whom they apply it; it is,
indeed, suggestive that it is not found in the long lists
of ethnics given in the Kitdb al-Ansab , published in the
Documents inedits d’histoire almohade.

Social structure. The Masmuda of the Atlas
lead a settled life, living by a little agriculture and
breeding a poor type of cattle; they live in villages or
hamlets of stone houses with clay roofs. Ibn Khaldun
notes the existence among them of numerous little
strongholds and fortified villages ( ma c akil wa-kusun),
the ancestors of the modern tighremts and agadirs [q.v.].
There were no towns among the mountains; Tin
Mallal, famous for the mosque where Ibn Tumart was
buried, was never a town. Before the Alm&ravid ruler
Yusuf b. TashfTn founded Marrakush in 454/1062,
built moreover in the plains out of reach of the
highlanders, whom it was to control, the only urban
centres in the district were situated at the foot of the
Atlas on its lowest slopes. The principal towns were in
the north, the double town of Aghmat [q.v. ] and that
of NaffTs on the river of the same name; in the south,
in Sus, Igli and Tarudant; as places of less importance
we may mention in the north, Shafshawa (mod.
Shlshawa), Afifan and Tamarurt; in the east, among
the Haha and in the borders of Sus, Tadnast. The
great trade-routes which traversed the region started
from Aghmat for the port of Kuz (at the north of the
Tansift), Fas (via Tadla), Sidjilmassa (through the
land of the Hazradja and the Haskura), and Sus (via
Naffis, the land of the Banu Maghus and Igli; no
doubt using the pass now called Tizi n-Test). Al-BakrI
particularly mentions the industry and application
and the thirst for gain, characteristic of the Ma$muda
of the Atlas of Sus. The principal products of the
country were fruits (nuts and almonds), honey and oil
of argan [<?.z>.], a tree peculiar to the country, of which
there were regular forests among the Haha. The
Masmuda could cast and work iron and also copper,
which they exported in the form of ingots or “loaves”
(tangult); they also worked and chased silver jewellery.
In Sus also the cultivation of the sugar-cane enabled
sugar to be made.

From the intellectual point of view, the Masmuda
seem to occupy a place of First rank among the
Berbers. Each of their three principal groups has pro¬
duced a “reforming prophet”, the author of sacred
works in the Berber language: Ha-Mlm of the
Ghumara; Salih b. Tarlf of the Baraghwata: Ibn
Tumart of the Masmuda of the Atlas. It may also be
noted that Sus is one of those few districts in which
books were written in Berber down to a quite recent
date (cf. H. Basset, Essai sur la litterature des Berberes,
73-81).

Religious life. The Masmuda were converted to
Islam in the lst/7th century by c Ukba b. Nafi c , who
left his comrade Shakir among them to teach the new
religion. The latter died among them and was buried
on the banks of the Tansift where his tomb is still
venerated. The place is now called Ribaf SayyidI
Shikar near the confluence with the river of the
Shlshawa. The Mosque of the town of Aghmat of the
Haylana was founded at the beginning of the 2nd/8th
century in 85/704.

Ibn Khaldun describes the Masmuda of the Atlas as
being attached to Islam from the first conquest, in
which they differed from their brethren of the north,
the Baraghwata and the Ghumara. who remained

744

MASMUDA — MA$MUGHAN

faithful to their heretical beliefs. At the beginning of
the 2nd/8th century, several of them accompanied
Tarik on his conquest of Spain; the best known of
these was Kuthayyir b. Waslas b. Shamlal. of the
tribe of the Assada, who settled in Spain and was the
grandfather of Yahya b. Yahya, one of the ruwdt of the
Muwatta\ many others also settled in Spain and their
descendants played important parts under the
Umayyads.

In the 5th/11 th century, however, al-Bakrl notes
Rafidi heretics among the Masmuda; these were the
Banu Lamas settled to the north of the Hargha and
the town of Igli. In this district he also mentions the
existence of idolators who worshipped a ram; perhaps
we have here a relic of the cult of the god Ammon
among the ancient Berbers. The towns, however,
formed important centres of Muslim culture, the
influence of which was felt not only by the Masmuda
of the district but also by the Sanhadja of the adjoining
deserts, Lam{a and Gazula. We know that it was in
the town of NaffTs, with Ugg w ag b. Zallu, a learned
jurist of Lamta origin and a pupil of Abu c Imran al-
FasI [q. v. in Suppl.] of al-Kayrawan, that in 430/1039
Yahya b. Ibrahim al-Gudall recruited c Abd Allah b.
Ya-STn al-Gazuli who was the promoter of the
Almoravid movement. For the Almohad period, al-
Tadill’s hagiographic collection, entitled Kitab al-
Tashawwuf , shows us the land of the Ma$muda of the
south full of wonder-working saints. Later, the tribe
of the Ragraga, settled on the lands now occupied by
the Shavadima. was the cradle of a movement at once
religious and warlike, the details of which are little-
known but the memory still alive. In the first half of
the 11 th/17th century, religious activity seems to be
concentrated in the south of Sus, in Tazarwalt where
the descendants of the saint Sldl Ahmad u-Musa
carved themselves out an independent marabout prin¬
cipality.

Bibliography : See the indices to the
geographers, especially BakrT and Idris!; Tadill, K.
al-Tashawwuf ila (ma c rifat) ridjal al-tasawwuf, ed. A.
Faure, Rabat 1958; Leo Africanus, ed. Schefer, i,
181-231; Ibn Khaldun. K. al-^Ibar, chapters
devoted to the Masamida; E. Levi-Proven^al,
Documents inedits d’histoire almohade, Paris 1928, prin¬
cipally 55-67; R. Montagne, Les Berberes et le
Makhzen dans le Sud du Maroc , Paris 1930; H. Basset
and H. Terrasse, Timmel, in Hesperis (1924), 9-91.

, (G. S. Colin)

MASMU GH AN. (“great one of the Magians”) a
Zoroastrian dynasty which the Arabs found in
the region of Dunbawand (Damawand [q. v. ]) to the
north of Ray.

The origins of the Masmughans. The
dynasty seems to have been an old, though not partic¬
ularly celebrated, one, as is shown by the legends
recorded by Ibn al-Faklh, 275-7, and in al-Blrunl,
Athar, 227. The title of masmughan is said to have been
conferred by Faridun upon Arma 5 fl, Bewarasp’s
former cook (Zohak), who had been able to save half
the young men destined to perish as food for the
tyrant’s serpents. ArmaTl (according to Yakut, ii,
606, a Nabataean, a native of the Zab) showed to
Faridun in the mountains of Daylam and Shirriz, a
whole nation of these refugees, which caused Faridun
to exclaim was mand kata azad kardi , which is explained
to mean: “What a large number of people of the
house ( ahl bayt in ) thou hast saved’

The first historical reference to a masm ugh an is
found in al-Tabari’s (i, 2656) account of the taking of
Ray by Nu c aym b. Mukarrin in the time of the caliph
c Umar (according to Ibn al-Athlr in the years 18, 21

or 22; Marquart, however, puts these events as late as
98/716-17). The King of Ray, Sivawa khsh b. Mihran
b. Bahram-Cubin, had received reinforcements from
the people of Dunbawand, but when he was defeated,
the masm ugh an of Dunbawand made peace at once
with the Arabs and received honorable terms ( c ala
ghayi* nasr* n wa la ma c unat m ) promising an annual pay¬
ment of 200,000 dinars. The charter given by Nu c aym
was addressed “to the masmughan of Dunbawand,
Mardan-shah, to the people of Dunbawand, of
Kh w ar, of Lariz (Laridjan) and of Shirriz”. This
gives us an idea of the extent of the sway of the
masmughan. His possessions included the country
round Mount Damawand and stretched down the
plains as far as the east of Ray. The district of Dunba¬
wand (* Duba-wand, [the land occupied by] the
* Duban clan?) did not form part of Tabaristan. The
Arabs mention it along with Ray (al-Tabari, i, 2653-
6 ; al-Mukaddasi, 209; Ibn al-Faklh, 275-7); but as we
have seen, at the time of the conquest, Ray and Dun¬
bawand were under different dynasties. The old
capital of Dunbawand may have been at Mandan,
where, according to Ibn al-Faklh, Arma 3 Il had built a
wonderful house of teak and ebony, which in the reign
of Harun al-Rashld was taken to pieces and
transported to Ba gh dad. In the Arab period there
were two towns in Dunbawand, sc. Wima and
Shalanba (the latter is marked on Stahl’s map to the
south of the modern town of Damawand, which lies
on the slopes of Mount Damawand). According to
Yakut, the masmughan' s principal stronghold was
called Ustunawand or Djarhud. This should be
sought above the village of Rayna, which must corre¬
spond to the old Karyat al-Haddadln. (Ibn al-Faklh’s
story of the shops ( hawanit) in which worked the
smiths, the noise of whose hammers exorcised the
enchained Bewarasp, must refer to the chambers
carved out of the rock near Rayna; cf. E. Crawshay-
Williams, Rock-dwellings at Reinah, in JRAS [1904],
551; [1906], 217.)

An attempt made by Abu Muslim in 131/748-9 to
conquer the masmughan was a disastrous failure: his
general Musa b. Ka c b was attacked by the
masmughan' s men and on account of the difficult
nature of the country ( li-dik' biladihi) was forced to
return to Ray (Ibn al-Athlr, v, 304; cf. Hafiz-i Abru,
in Dorn, Auszige, 441).

The principality was not conquered until 141/758-
9. In this period, there were dissensions in the family
of the masmughan. Abarwlz b. al-Ma§mughan quar¬
relled with his brother and went over to the caliph al-
Mansur, who gave him a pension (al-Tabari, iii, 130).
The Kitab al-^Uyun wa ’l-hada^ik, 228, testifies to his
bravery in the rising of the Rawandiyya and calls him
“al-Masmughan Malik b. Dinar, malik of Dunba¬
wand”. This Abarwlz (or Malik) had enjoyed con¬
siderable influence, for, according to Ibn al-Faklh, the
appointment of c Umar b. c Ala :> as commander of the
army sent against Tabaristan was made on the advice
of Abarwlz, who had known him since the trouble
with Sunbadh (on the partisans of this “Khurrami”
in Tabaristan, cf. al-Mas c udI, Murudg, vi, 188 = §
2400) and with the Rawandiyya.

In the year 141/748-9, the brother of Abarwlz who
occupied the throne of Dunbawand was at war with
his father-in-law, the ispahbad Khurshld of
Tabaristan; but when he heard that the forces sent by
al-Mansur were on their way to Tabaristan, he
hastened to effect a reconciliation with his adversary
(al-Tabari, iii, 136; Ibn al-Athtr, v, 386).

The stories of the campaign against Tabaristan
directed by al-Mahdl by order of his father al-Mansur

MASMUGHAN — MASRAF DEFTERI

745

are very contradictory, as is shown by their very
detailed analysis in Vasmer, op. cit., in Bibl. After the
defeat of the ispahbad, the Arabs conquered the
masmughan and captured him and his daughters Bakh-
tariyya (?) and Smyr (? or Shakla). Of these
princesses, one became the wife of al-Mahdi b. al-
Man$ur and the other the umm walad of C A1I b. Rayta.
According to a story in Ibn al-Faklh, 314, Khalid b.
Barmak (Vasmer, op. cit. ,100, thinks that his expedi¬
tion was sent especially against the lord of Dunba-
wand) sent the masmughan and his wife and his two
daughters to Ba gh dad, but in another passage, 275,
the same writer says that the masmughan obtained amdn
from al-Mahdi and came down from the mountain of
al- c Ayrayn (?). He was taken to Ray, and there al-
Mahdl ordered him to be beheaded.

After the death of the masm ugh an . the people of these
mountain regions lapsed into barbarism (hawziyya)
and became like wild beasts (al-Tabari, iii, 136).
According to Ibn al-Faklh (276), however, the descen¬
dants of the masmughan (= Armani?) were still
well-known.

Spiegel’s and Marquart’s hypotheses.
Yakut, i, 244, interprets masm ug han as kabir al-madjus
“the great one of the magi’’ ( mas “great”, N.W. Ira¬
nian form). Spiegel thought of connecting this dynasty
with the prince-priests of Ray, whose existence is
known from a well-known passage in the Avesta
(Yasna , ix, 18, tr. Darmesteter, i, 170; cf. Jackson,
Zoroaster , 202-5). In spite of Marquart’s criticisms,
who says it is impossible to quote the authority of
Avestan traditions which relate to much earlier state
of affairs, Spiegel’s suggestion is still of interest. We
have certainly to deal with vague memories and not
with actual facts. In the time of the Arab conquest, the
descendants of Bahrain Gubin were ruling in Ray, but
the Arabs (al-Tabari, i, 2653-6) installed there a cer¬
tain al-Zaynabl, son of Kula and father of al-
Farrukhan. It remains to be seen if this family of
ZaynbadI “whom the Arabs call al-Zaynabl” (al-
Baladhurl, 317) is connected with Dunbawand. Their
stronghold in Ray was called c ArIn (?), which
resembles the name of the mountain al- c Ayrayn from
which the last masm ugh an came down (cf. the note by
de Goeje in Ibn al-Faklh, 275). Marquart wanted to
connect the masmughans of the Bawandid dynasty, the
eponymous ancestor of which Baw, a descendant of
Kawus, brother of Kh usraw I, is said to have lived in
the time of the later Sasanids [see bawand]. This Baw
was a man of piety, and after the fall of Yazdagird III
had retired to his father’s fire-temple. Marquart
regards him as a “magus” and identifies him with the
father of the Christian martyr Anastasius, who bore
this name ((tao) and was a “master of Magian lore”.
Lastly, he quotes the fact that the Bawandids
appeared in 167/783-4 only after the disappearance of
the masmughans (after 141), as if to continue their line.
Unfortunately, several details of the ingenious argu¬
ment are not accurate: our sources (Ibn Isfandiyar;
Zahlr al-Dln, 204-5) give not the slightest suggestion
that Baw belonged to the priestly caste. According to
Ibn Isfandiyar (tr. Browne, 98), his grandfather’s
temple was at Kusan, which Rabino, Mdzandaran and
Astarabad, 160, locates a little distance west of Ashraf
i.e. quite remote from Dunbawand. The passage in
al-Tabari, iii, 1294, which Marquart quotes to prove
the occurrence of the name Masmughan among the
Bawandids refers to the cousin of Mazyar of the
Karinid dynasty [?.£;.], which is quite different from
the Bawandids (cf. below).

The Karinid masmughans. It is curious that
neither Ibn Isfandiyar nor Zahlr al-Dln speaks of the

dynasty of the masmughan of Dunbawand, perhaps
because they do not include this region in Tabaristan
proper. On the other hand, they mention a masmughan
(madm ugh dn > * mazm ughd n ) Walash. who was the
marzubdn [^.t>.] of Miyan-du-rud (Zahlr al-Dln, 42,
says that this canton was near the Sari between the
rivers Kalarud and Mihriban and that on the east it
adjoined Karatughan; Miyan-du-rud is thus quite
close to where Rabino puts Kusan !). This masmughan
Walash (Ibn Isfandiyar, 101; Zahlr al-Dln, 42) lived
in the time of Djamaspid Farrukhan the Great (709-
22?) and belonged to the elder branch of the Karinids
descended from Zarmihr b. Sukha. (it is unclear why
Justi, Iranische Namenbuch, 430, takes this Walash to be
the son of the last masm ug han of Dunbawand). The
Karinid Wandad Hurmuzd (of the younger line,
descended from Karin, brother of Zarmihr) in his ris¬
ing against the caliph (al-Mahdi, 158-69/775-85) had
combined with the ispahbad Sharwln (772-97) and the
masmughan Walash of Miyan-du-rud. This latter (Ibn
Isfandiyar, 126; Zahlr al-Dln, 155) seems to have
been one of the successors of the masm ug han Walash
mentioned above.

Under 224/838 al-Tabari (iii, 1294) mentions a
cousin of the Karinid Mazyar, who was called
Shahriyar b. al-Masmughan. According to this, al-
Masmughan would be identical with Wandad
Ummld, uncle of Mazyar (cf. Justi, 430). On the
other hand, under the year 250/864, al-Tabari, iii,
1529, mentions a Masmughan (jic) among the allies of
the c Alid Hasan b. Zayd. Ibn Isfandiyar, 165, calls
him Masmu gh an b. Wanda-Ummld. One must
either suppose there is an error in al-Tabari’s
genealogy or admit that the title of masmughan was
borne both by Wanda-Ummld and his son, but the
form of the designation of the latteri (oUw-u with¬
out the article) would rather show that the title had
become a simple proper name (Browne was thus
wrong in translating “the Masmu gh an”).

To sum up then. Alongside of the masmughans of
Dunbawand, we have the masmughans of Miyan-du-
rud. These marzubans , if we may rely on Zahlr al-Dln,
belonged to the Zarmihrid branch of the dynasty of
Sukhra (Sasanid governor of Tabaristan descended
from Karin, son of the famous smith Kawa [see
kawan]). Later we find the title (or proper name!) of
masm ugha n recurring in the younger branch of the line
of Sukhra (the Karinid branch), which occupied a
position in Tabaristan subordinate to the Bawandid
ispahbads (Zahlr al-Dln, 154, 14).

Bibliography : Tabari,_ i, 2656; iii, 130, 136
(1294, 1529); Blrunl, al-Athar al-bakiya, 101, tr.
109, 227, 213; Kitab al- c Uyun wa 'l-hada^ik, ed. de
Goeje and de Jong, 228; Ibn al-Athlr, iii, 18; v,
304, 386-7; Ibn Isfandiyar, index; Yakut, i, 243-4
(Ustunawand); ii, 606-10 (Dunbawand); £ahir a j.
Din, index; F. Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde,
1871, iii, 563; idem, Uber d. Vaterland d. Avesta , in
ZDMG, xxxv (1881), 629-45; F. Justi, Iranische
Namenbuch, 199 and 430 (tables); J. Marquart,
Beitrage, in ZDMG , xlix (1895), 661; idem, Eransahr,
127; R. Vasmer, Die Eroberung Tabaristans ... zur Zeit
des Chalifen al~Mansur, in Islamica , iii (1927), 86-150;
see also karinids. (V. Minorsky)

MASRAF DEFTERI, the household account
book of high-level Ottoman administrators such as
viziers or governors, or of palace personnel such as
waterbearers. The account book covered, for time
periods of a month up to several years, detailed mon¬
thly inventories of household economic transactions.
These inventories are often organised under subject
headings such as kitchen, clothing, or food expenses,

746

MA$RAF DEFTERI — MASRAH

purchases of household goods from merchants and
artisans, salaries of household members, or gifts given
and received during religious holidays. Each entry of
the inventory usually contains a description of the
transaction, the price, quantity and the names of the
people involved in the transaction. No systematic
study of these books, hundreds of which are to be
found in the Topkapi and Ottoman State archives,
has yet been undertaken. (F. Muge GopEK)

MASRAH (a.), “scene”, increasingly employed as
‘theatre” (in the same sense as “Buhne” in Ger¬
man); frequently synonymous with iiydtro (from the
Italian).

1. In the Arab East.

Primarily an artistic and literary phenomenon of
the last two centuries, the Arab theatre has its roots in
local performances of passion plays [see ta c ziya],
marionette and shadow plays [see karagoz], mimicry
and other popular farces, and was affected by the
then contemporary (rather than the classical) foreign
theatre as well. Although some popular open-air plays
in Arabic have occasionally been presented publicly
since the 12th/18th century, if not earlier, an Arabic
theatre in the modern sense of this term has been in
existence only since the mid-19th century. It was in
1847-53 that Marun al-Nakkash [f.».] t under the
impact of the Italian theatre, wrote and produced
several plays, chiefly adapted from Moliere, before
select audiences in Beirut. His plays arabicised the
locale, the names of the dramatis personae and certain
elements of the plot, in order to increase the appeal;
with the same intent, the language combined the
literary with the vernacular, and both vocal and
instrumental music was added. To moderate possible
opposition from religious circles, men and boys acted
the female parts (later on, non-Muslim—and after¬
wards, Muslim—women joined theatre troupes).
These features, which remained characteristic for
some time, were introduced into Egypt by Syrian-
Lebanese immigrant actors, who soon rendered Egypt
(and, most particularly, Cairo) the centre of Arab
theatrical activity. Performances continued in Syria as
well, and gradually spread to other Arab lands in the
Middle East and North Africa. Most troupes were
made up of amateurs, e.g. students, or at most, of
semi-professionals; gradually, however, the number
of the professional actors increased, although they had
to await the establishment of semi-independent states,
following World War I, in order to benefit from the
public funds which were vital for their unhampered
activity.

These developments were parallelled by play¬
writing. At first, most plays were written by people of
other professions. Marun al-Nakkash was a clerk and
merchant; his successors were journalists or, even
more often, troupe directors, stage managers or
actors. Only much later did the writing of plays
become a full-time profession. Adaptations, mostly
from the French, came first, as al-Nakkash’s literary
output indicates. An even more prolific writer was
Muhammad c Uthman Djalal (1829-98) of Egypt, who
adapted into Arabic French tragedies and comedies *
introducing appropriate changes, chiefly in the latter;
in general, the former were performed in literary
Arabic, the latter in the vernacular. Increased educa¬
tion and changes in taste led to more literal trans¬
lations (although adaptations did not disappear for
some time). One typical translator was the Beirut-
born Nadjib al-Haddad (1867-99), who wrote in
Egypt. Although he changed the names of the plays
and some of the characters and added music, al-
Haddad usually remained faithful to the originals

(mostly translated from the French); his works served
as a model for the strictly literal translators which soon
followed. These generally translated from French or
English and, to a lesser extent, from Italian and other
languages. There followed an impressive number of
original playwrights, whose output continued
simultaneously with active translation work (and*
initially at least, adaptations). These cover the entire
gamut of dramatic writing, contributing to the reper¬
toire of farces, historical plays, melodramas, dramas,
tragedies, comedies, political and symbolic plays, as
well as works pertaining to the theatre of the absurd.
One of the most deservedly-famous of these
playwrights, who successfully tried his hand at several
of these genres, is TawfTk al-Haklm (botn in ?1902),
one of Egypt’s prominent 20th century men-of-letters.

There was evident interaction between dramatic
output and the further development of the troupes.
While the musical theatre continued to attract crowds,
the acting, the stage-directing and theatrical criticism
achieved gradual professionalisation: the number of
theatre halls increased, and troupes performed an
increasing variety of plays to a steadily growing public
of diverse interests and tastes. Of all the troupe direc¬
tors and actors in Egypt after World War I, perhaps
the ones with the most impact were Djurclj Abyad
[q.v. in Suppl.] who, having studied acting in the
Paris Conservatoire, promoted an Arabic classical
theatre in the grand style; Yusuf Wahbl (1899-1981),
promoter of the often tear-jerking melodrama with
social background; and Nadjib al-Rihani (1891-1949),
nicknamed “The Oriental Moliere”, whose comedies
amused the crowds while criticising the social mores of
his time. Numerous other troupes have joined these
during the Inter-War period and since World War II,
particularly in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and c Irak, less
so in Jordan, and hardly at all in the Arabian Penin¬
sula. Most are ephemeral unless supported by public
funds, while usually means government allocations.
Obviously, schools for the dramatic arts and theatre
halls are dependent on such funds. All this has, again,
led to a certain politicisation of the Arab theatre, dif¬
fering from one country to the other. This process has
been evident from the early days of the Arab theatre,
e.g. in the plays of Ya c kub Sanu c Abu Naddara [ 17 . z>.]
in the Egypt of the 1870s; since World War II, how¬
ever, it has acquired an obvious social content, often
fully committed and starkly realistic. Theatrical
criticism, too, has become increasingly outspoken,
with critics generally vying among each other in their
caustic remarks on play-writing, acting and stage¬
directing. They readily find an outlet not only in jour¬
nals specially devoted to theatrical criticism (see Bibl .,
below, for examples), but in many Arabic dailies and
periodicals as well. All this is yet another indication of
the great interest in the theatre throughout much of
the Arab East.

Bibliography : Few bibliographies are devoted
exclusively to the Arab theatre, e.g. $alah Djawad
al-Tu c ma, Bibliyughrafiyyat al-adab al- c Arabi al -
masrahi al-hadith , 1945-1965 , Ba g hdad 1969; or al-
Nufiis al-masrahiyya al-mahfuza Ji masarih al-Kdhira
mundhu nasPatihd hatta al-an , in al-Katib al-^Arabi, xlv
(April 1969), 60-83. For a list of plays in Arabic
(both original and translated), see Dar al-Kutub,
Kajima c an al-tamthiliyydt al- c Arabiyya wa 7-
mu c arraba, Cairo 1960. Bibliographies concerning
the Arab countries or modem Arabic literature are
relevant, in part, as are some bibliographies of the
theatre, like N.B. East (ed.), African theatre: a
checklist of critical materials , New York 1970, 15-19
(for Egypt and the Maghrib). Several of the books

MASRAH

747

mentioned below also comprise useful
bibliographical lists. Source materials, as well as
memoirs (but excluding plays) include Salim al-
Nakkash, FawaPid al-riwdydt aw al-tiyatrat, in al-
Diindn (Beirut), vi (1875), 521; al-Tamthil al-^Arabi,
in al-Hilal (Cairo), xiv (1 Dec. 1905), 141-9; xv (1
Nov. 1906), 117-18; al-Tamthil al- c Arabi: madihi wa-
mustakbaluhu, ibid., xxxii (1924), 481-4, 638-41,
751-3 (a referendum); al-Masrah aw al-marzah, in al-
Muktataf (Cairo), lxix (1 Aug. 1926), 223-4; Fatima
al-Yusuf, Dhikraydt. Cairo 1953; Nadjlb al-Rlhanl,
Mudhakkirdt, Cairo 1959; Fatima Rushdi, Fatima
Rushdi bayn al-hubb wa ’l-fann, Cairo 1971; eadem,
Kifahifi ’l-masrah wa ’l-sinima , Cairo 1971; Futuh
Nashatl, Khamsun c am an ft khidmat al-masrah, i-ii,
Cairo 1973-4; Nazik Baslla (ed.), Mudhakkirdt
BadiSa Masdbni, Beirut n.d.; Muhammad Rif c at
(ed.), Mudhakkirdt c Abd al-Halim Hafiz, Beirut, n.d.;
idem (ed.), Mudhakkirdt c Abd al-Wahhab, Beirut
n.d.; idem, Mudhakkirdt c amid al-masrah al-cArabi
Yusuf Wahbi , Beirut n.d.; idem (ed.), Mudhakkirdt
BadiS Khayri: 45 sana taht adwa 5 al-masrah , Beirut
n.d.; idem (ed.), Mudhakkirdt Fatima Rushdi, Sarah
Bernhardt al-shark wa-mumaththilat al-masrah al-cArabi,
Beirut n.d.; idem (ed.), Mudhakkirdt Fatin Hamama
wa- c Umar al-Sharif\ Beirut n.d.; idem (ed.),
Mudhakkirdt Umm Kulthum , Beirut n.d. In addition,
several Arabic periodicals dealing with the threatre
might be profitably consulted, of which one of the
most important is al-Masrah, edited in Cairo until
his death (in 1981) by Salah c Abd al-Sabbur. See
also E. W. Lane, An account of the manners and customs
of the modern Egyptians, London 1846, ii, 113 ff.; D.
Urquhart, The Lebanon (Mount Syria): a history and a
diary , London 1860, ii, 178-81; H. Brugsch, Das
morgenlandische Theater, in Deutsche Revue (Breslau),
xii/3 (1887), 25-34; K. Vollers, Der neuarabische Tar-
tujfe , in ZDMG, xlv (1891), 36-96; M. Sobernheim,
Zur Metrik einiger in’s Arabische ubersetzter Dramen
Moliere, in MSOS (1898), part 2, 185-7; Nadjlb
Hubayka, Fann al-tamthil, in al-Mashrik (Beirut), ii
(1899), 20-3, 71-4, 156-60, 250-7, 341-5, 501-7; al-
Tamthil al- c Arabi: nahdatuhu al-akhira c ala yad al-
djanab al- c dli, in al-Hilal, xviii (1 May 1910), 464-
72; in ibid. (1 June 1910), 545-7; C. Prufer, Drama
(Arabic), in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, iv
(1911), 872-8; Djawk Abyad. in al-Hilal, xxi (1 Nov.
1912), 125-6; al-Tamthil fi Misr: Djawk Abyad, in
ibid., xx (1 April 1912), 436-8; Sulayman Hasan al-
Kabbanl, B ughy at al-mumaththilin, Alexandria n.d.
[1912-14]; Djurdj Tannus, al-Shaykh Saldma Hidjazi,
in al-Hilal, xxvi (1 Nov. 1917), 186-9; W. H. Wor¬
rell, Kishkish: Arabic vaudeville in Cairo, in MW, x/2
(Apr. 1920), 134-7; Khalil Mutran, al-Tamthil al-
cArabi wa-nahdatuh al-djadida, in al-Hilal, xxix (1
Feb. 1921), 465-72; Ahmed Abdul Wahhab, A
thesis on the drama in the Arabic literature, n.p. (Dacca
?) 1922; Dhikra Mulyir wa-riwayatih fi ’l-lugha al-
c Arabiyya, in al-Hilal, xxx (1 Mar. 1922), 555-8; F.
J. Bonjean, Une renaissance egyptienne, in Europe
(Paris), i (June-July 1923), 83-95, 199-217; al-
Tamth.il fi Mi$r: nahdatuhu al-djadida, in al -HUM,
xxxiii (1 Nov. 1924), 185-6; A. and L. Lewisohn,
Little theatre in Egypt, in Atlantic Monthly (Boston),
cxxxiv (July 1924), 93-103; Muhammad Ahmad,
Fann al-tamthil, Cairo 1925; Tawfik Habib, Shiksbir
ft Misr, in al-Hilal, xxxvi (1 Dec. 1927), 201-4; al-
Masrah wa-mustakbaluhu wa-ma hazzund minhu, in
ibid. , 175-6; Mahmud Kamil al-Muhaml, al-Masrah
al-djadid, Cairo 1932 (Arabic summaries of foreign
plays); I. Kratschkowsky, art. Arabia. Modern Arabic
literature, II. c. Drama, in EI l , Suppl.; Ed war

Hunayn, Shawki c ala ’l-masrah, in al-Mashrik, xxxii
(1934), 563-80; xxxiii (1935)", 68-92, 273-88, 394-
427 (reprinted as a booklet, Beirut 1936); N. Bar¬
bour, The Arabic theatre in Egypt, in BSOS, viii (1935-
7), 173-87, 991-1012; Sa c Id c Akl, al-lttidjdhat al-
djadida fi 'l-adab al-cArabi: al-masrah, in al-Mashrik,
xxxv (1937), 41-52; E. Fabre, Le theatre arabe, in
L’illustration (Paris), cxcvii (15 May 1937), 71;
Bishr Faris, Fi ’ l-ta : lf al-masrahi, in al-Thakdfa
(Cairo), 7 March 1939, 44-5; Skandar Fahmy, La
renaissance du theatre egyptien moderne, in Revue du Caire,
iv (1940), 107-12; Brockelmann, S III, 264-81 and
index; U. Rizzitano, II teatro arabo in Egitto: opere
teatrali di Tauftq al-Hakim, in OM, xxiii/6 (June
1943), 247-66; ZakI Tulaymat, al-Riwaya al-
tamthiliyya wa-li-ma-dhd al- c Arab, in al-Kitab (Cairo)
(Nov. 1945), 101-8; idem, Kay fa dakhala al-tamthil
bilad al-shark, in ibid. (Feb. 1946), 581-7; idem, al-
Masrah al-misrift < dm, in ibid. (July 1946), 481-8;
idem. Drama in Egypt, in M. L. Roy Choudhury
(ed.), Egypt in 1945, Calcutta 1946, 207-17; C.
Alexander, Theatre in Egypt, in Theatre Arts (New
York), xxx (June 1946), 367; Rushdi Kamil,
Shahriyyat al-masrah, in al-Katib al-Misri (Cairo), i
(June 1946), 139-40; c Abd al-Rahman Sidkl

Shahriyyat al-masrah, in ibid., xv (Dec. 1946), 540-4;
J. M. Landau, c Al ha-tey■’atron etsel ha- c Aravim
(Hebrew, About the theatre of the Arabs), in Bamah
(Tel-Aviv), xlvii (Jan. 1946), 48-53; xlviii (June

1946) , 65-75; xlix (Sep. 1946), 48-60; 1 (Jan.

1947) , 107-15; idem, ha-Tey^atron ha- c Aravi be-Erets-
Isra'el ba-shanah ha-ahardna (Hebrew, The Arab theatre
in Palestine during the past year), in ibid., lii (Dec.
1947), 43; Salah DhuhnI, al-Firka al-misriyya ft c am,
in al-Kitab (July 1947), 1418-22; M. Jacobs, Neguib
el-Rihani, in The Bulletin (of the Egyptian Educational
Bureau, London), xii (Nov. 1947), 16-18; idem,
Egyptian stage actresses, in ibid., xxii (March 1948),
15-17; Mahmud Hamid Shawkat, al-Masrahiyya fi
shi^r Shawki, n.p. 1947; Landau, Shadow plays in the
Near East, Jerusalem 1948; Habib Moutran, La
troupe nationale egyptienne et Khalil Bey Moutran, in Le
Semaine Egyptienne, xxii/23-4 (1948), 25-6; G. R.
Orvieto, La genesi del teatro arabo in Egitto, unpubl.
Ph D. diss., Rome Univ. 1948; Yusuf As c ad
Daghir, Fann al-tamthil fi khilal kam, in Machriq, xlii
(1948), 434-60; xliii (1949), 118-39, 271-96;
c Uthman al- c Antabli, Nadjib al-Rihdni, Cairo 1949;
M. Jacobs, The Cairo opera house, in The Bulletin...,
xxxiii (March 1949), 17-18; Jeanette Tagher, Les
debuts du theatre moderne en Egypte, in Cahiers d’Histoire
Egyptienne (Cairo), serie I, 1-2 (1949), 192-207;
Ahmad Haykal, al-Adab al-kasasi wa ’ l-masrah ft Misr
min a c kab thawrat 1919 ila kiydm al-harb al-kubra al-
thaniya, Cairo 1951; Abdel M. Ramadan, Egypt’s
theatre is international, in United Nations’ World
(Vienna), v (March 1951), 61-2; Landau, Li-
shUelat reshito shel ha-tey ■’atron be-Mitsrayim (Hebrew,
The problem of the beginnings of the theatre in Egypt), in
Hamizrah Hehadash (Jerusalem), ii/4 (July 1951),
389-91; Jabbour Abdel Nour, La contribution des
Libanais a la renaissance litteraire arabe au XIX e si'ecle,
unpubl. diss., Univ. of Paris 1952, esp. 172-6; G.
A. Astre, Le theatre philosophique de Tewfiq el Hakim,
in Critique (Paris), lxvi (1952), 934-45; c Abd al-
Fattah al-Barudl, al-Mawsim al-masrahi, in al-Kitab,
vii (June 1952), 753-5; idem, al-Mawsim al-sayfi, in
ibid., vii (Oct. 1952), 1003-5; Ch. Pellat, Langue et
litterature arabes, Paris 1952, 208-13; c Abd al-
Rahman Sidkl, Mawasim al-tamthil al-misriyya wa 7-
adjnabiyya, in al-Kitab, vii (Jan. 1952), 94-8; Lan¬
dau, Abu Naddara: an Egyptian Jewish nationalist, in

748

MASRAH

♦

Jnal. of Jewish Studies (Cambridge), iii/1 (1952), 30-
44; idem, The Arab theatre , in MEA , iv/3 (March
1953), 77-86; idem, Dramaturgiyya mitsrit: A. Shawki
(Hebrew, Egyptian play writing: A. Shawki), in Bamot
(Jerusalem), i (1953), 305-9; Ibrahim c Abduh, Abu
Naddara, Cairo 1953; Abdel Rahman Sidky, Le
theatre , in Revue du Caire , xxxi (Feb. 1953), 161-206;
F. Ga. (= Gabrieli) and U. Ri. (= Rizzitano),
Arabo, teatro, in Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo (Rome), i
(1954), cols. 769-74; Yahya Hakki, Masrah al-
Rihani, in al-Adtb (Beirut), xiii/4 (April 1954), 14-
18; Landau, Aziz Domet, d’origine or aba, scrittore di
romanzi e opere drammatiche di soggetto orientale in lingua
tedesca (1890-1943), in OM, xxv/6 (June 1955), 277-
89; Muhammad Yusuf Nadjm, Ahmad Abu Khalil al-
Kabbdni , in al-Adib, xiv/1 (Jan. 1955), 19-22; xiv/2
(Feb. 1955), 17-21; idem, Madrasat Martin al-
Nakkash, in ibid., xiv/3 (March 1955), 24-6; Tournee
officielle de la nouvelle troupe egyptienne sous la direction de
Youssef Wahbi, n.p. n.d. [1955]; Yusuf As c ad
Daghir, Mayadir al-dirasa al-adabiyya, ii-iii/2, Beirut
1955-72, indexes; A. Papadopoulo, La saison
theatrale au Caire , in Revue du Caire, xix (April 1956),
325-38; M. Perlmann, Memoirs of Rose Fatima al-
Yusuf, in MEA, vii/1 (Jan. 1956), 20-7; Mahmud
Taymur , Mushkilat al-lugha al- c Arabiyya, Cairo 1956,
partial Engl. tr. Landau, in Landau (ed.), Man,
state and society in the contemporary Middle East, New
York 1972, 332-40; O. Kapeliuk, The Theater in
Egypt, in New Outlook (Tel-Aviv), i/4 (Oct. 1957),
32-8; c Umar al-Dassuki, al-Masrahiyya: nash^atuhd
wa-taMkhuha wa-usuluha 2 , n.p. n.d. [1958]; J.
Stetkewycz, Reflexiones sobre el teatro arabe modemo, in
Revista del Instituto de Estudios Isldmicos (Madrid), vi
(1958), 109-20; Landau, Studies in the Arab theater and
cinema, Philadelphia 1958 (Fr. tr. Etudes sur le theatre
et le cinema arabes, Paris 1965; Arabic tr. al-Masrah
wa ’ l-sinima c ind al- c Arab, Cairo 1972); Muhammad
Mandur, al-Masrah al-nathri, Cairo n.d. [1959]; L.
c Awad, Dirasdt ft adabina al-hadifh, Cairo 1960, 1-
150; Muhammad Kamil Husayn, Ft ’l-adab al-
masrahi, Beirut 1960; Akram Midani, New forms in
Arab literature and drama, in Arab World (New York)
vii/10 (Nov. 1960), 12-13; Fu 3 ad Rashid, Ta^rikh
al-masrah al- c Arabi, Cairo 1960; Revival of the theatre,
\n Asiatic Review (Woking, Surrey), i/8 (Nov. 1960),
24-8; Muhammad Zaki al- c Ashmawi, Dirdsat fi 7-
adab wa 'l-masrah, Cairo 1961; I. L. Genzier, James
Sanua and Egyptian nationalism, in MEJ, xv/1 (Winter
1961), 16-28; Rashad Rushdy, The impact of the
revolution on literature', the drama , in Asiatic Review ,
ii/19 (Nov. 1961), 56-8); Our theatre ... old and new,
in ibid., ii/23 (April 1962), 25-33; U. Rizzitano,
Reactions to Western political influences: c Ali Ahmad
Bakathir’s drama, in B. Lewis and P. M. Holt (eds.),
Historians of the Middle East, London 1962, 442-8;
Fu 3 ad Dawwara, Fi ’l-nakd al-masrahi, Cairo 1963;
Khalil Hindawi et alii, al-Thakdfa al-masrahiyya,
Damascus 1383/1963; Muhammad Mandur, al-
Masrah 2 , Cairo 1963, 14-122; Mahmud Hamid
Shawkat, al-Fann al-masrahi fi ’l-adab al- c Arabi al-
hadith, Cairo 1963; Mahmud Taymur, Tulu c al-
masrah al- c Arabi, Cairo 1963; V. Sol. (= V.I.
Solov’yev), Yegipyetskiy tyeatr i dramaturgiya, in
TyeatraVnaya Entsiklopyediya, Moscow 1963, ii, cols.
628-33; S. A. Abulnaga, Theatre revival in the
U.A.R., in New Africa (London), vi (1964), 13; I.
Brown, The effervescent Egyptian theatre, in Theatre
Annual (Cleveland), xxi (1964), 57-68; Muhammad
c Abd al-Rahim c Anbar, al-Masrahiyya bayn al-
nazariyya wa ’l-tafbik, Cairo 1966, 209 ff. (list of
Arabic theatrical terms and English equivalents:

243-71); Fikri Butrus, Min aHam al-masrah al-
ghina’i, Cairo 1966; A. Faradj, Dalit al-muiafarridf
al-dhaki ild ’ l-masrah, Cairo 1966; Gendzier, The
practical visions of Ya c qub Sanu c , Cambridge, Mass.
1966, 31-40; al-Masrah (Cairo), xxxi (July 1966)
(special issue on the Egyptian theatre, 1952-66);
Zaki Tulaymat, al-Tamthil, al-tamtjnliyya, fann al-
tamthil al- c Arabi, Kuwayt n.d. [1966); G. Wiet,
Introduction a la litterature arabe, Paris 1966, 281-307
and index; c Apyya c Amir, Lughat al-masrah al-
c Arabi, Stockholm 1967; J. Berque (ed.), Les arts du
spectacle dans le monde arabe depuis cent ans, Paris 1967
(mimeographed); Ali El Rai, The spirit of the Arab
theatre from the early beginnings to the present day, in ibid.,
1-13; Nabil Selame, Le theatre en Republique Arabe
Unie et en Irak, in ibid., 23 ff.; P. Cachia, The use of
the colloquial in modem Arabic literature, in JAOS,
lxxxvii/1 (1967), 12-22; Abdel Monem Ismail,
Drama and society in contemporary Egypt, Cairo 1967;
Yusuf Mustafa, Antecedents of modern Arabic drama,
unpubl. Ph.D. diss. Cambridge Univ. 1967, 57-68;
Rushdl Salih, al-Masrahiyydt: c ard li-funun al-masrah
ft sab c at mawdsim, n.p. [Cairo] n.d. [1964]; Collo¬
quium on the modern Arab theatre , in World Theatre
(Brussels-Paris), xiv/2 (March-April 1965), 187-91;
Tewfiq al-Hakim, A reply, in ibid., 134-5; L. F.
Gad, The Puppet theatre in Cairo, in ibid. , xiv/5
(Sept.-Oct. 1965), 452-3; A glance at the origins of the
Arab theatre, in ibid., xiv /6 (Dec. 1965), 607-10;
Muhammad Ghanlml Hilal, Fi ’ l-nakd al-masrahi,
Cairo 1965; al-Sayyid Hasan c Id, Tatawwur al-nakd
al-masrahi ft Misr, Cairo 1965; Abdal Ghaffar Mik-
kawy, Neue Wege agyptischen Theaters, in Orient, vi/1
(April 1965), 15-19; Abdel-Fattah I. El Mously,
The contemporary theatre and its application to a national
theatre center in Cairo, Egypt, (JAR, Washington.
D.C. 1965, 79 ff.; Radja 3 al-Nakkagh, Fiadwd? al-
masrah. Cairo 1965; B. Sabry, Shakespeare’s reputation
in Egypt 1900-50, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Exter Univ.,
1965-6; Muhammad Yusuf Nadjm, al-Masrafiyya fi
’ l-adab al- c Arabial-hadith, 1847-1914 2 , Beirut 1967,
index (1st edition, Beirut 1956); Radja 3 al-
Nakkash, al-Zawba c a wa ’ l-masrah al-fjadid, in
Mahmud Diyab, Masrahiyyat haditha: al-Zawba c a, al-
Gharib. n.p. [Cairo] n.d. [1957 ?], 3-33; The precur¬
sors of the Arab theatre, in World Theatre, xvi/2 (1967),
188-93; c Ali al-Zubaydt, al-Masrahiyya al- c Arabiyya fi
’l-^Irak: muhddarat, n.p. [Cairo] 1967; Laila Nessim
Abou-Saif, The theatre of Naguib al-Rihani: The
development of comedy in modem Egypt, unpubl. Ph.D.
diss., Univ. of Illinois 1968; H. Aboul Hussein, Les
mille et une nuits dans le theatre egyptien, unpubl. Ph.D.
diss., Univ. of Paris 1968; Leila Gad, Documentary
theatre in Egypt, in World Theatre, xvii/5-6 (1968),
415-17; Ibrahim Muhammad Hamada, Treatments
of Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King ” in contemporary French
and Egyptian drama, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Indiana
Univ., Bloomington 1968; Ahmad Haykal, al-Adab
al-ka$a$i wa 'l-masrahifi Mi$r min a c kab thawrat sanat
1919 ila kiydm al-harb al-kubra al-thaniya, Cairo 1968;
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Miyri, Cairo 1968; Mustafa C A1T c Umar, al-
WakiHyya fi ’ l-masrah al-Misri, Cairo 1968; Moham¬
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Arabe Unie, Cairo 1969; Rashid Bencheneb, Les
grands themes du theatre arabe contemporain, in Revue de
l’Occident Musulman et de la Mediterranee (Aix-en-
Provence), vii (1969), 7-14; idem, Les sources fran-
(aises du theatre egyptien, in ibid. , viii (1970), 9-23.
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MASRAH

749

ans, in Nada Tomiche (ed.), Le theatre arabe, Paris
1969, 15-38; Ali al-Rai, Le genie du theatre arabe des
origines a nos jours, in ibid. , 81-97; Tomiche, Niveaux
de langue dans le theatre egyptien, in ibid. , 117-32;
Cherif Khaznadar, Le theatre en Syrie et au Liban au
corns des dix dernieres annees , in ibid., 141-51; Nabil
Maleh, Radio, television, cinema et theatre en Arabie
saoudite, in ibid. , esp. 169-72; Nasser al-Din al-
Assad, Le theatre en Jordanie, in ibid., 173; Muham¬
mad Kamal al-Din, Diurdi Abyad wa 'l-tamthil al-
tradjidi, in al-Masrah (Cairo), lxvi (Oct. 1969), 46-9;
C. W. R. Long, Taufiq al-Hakim and the Arabic
theatre, \nMES, v/1 (Jan. 1969), 69-74; Paul Nodet,
Theatre et cinema dans les pays arabes et asiatiques, in
Travaux et Jours (Beirut), xxxiii (Oct.-Dec. 1969),
45-52; Rizzitano, Letterature araba, Milan 1969, 212-
29; Kh.I. Semaan, T. S. Eliot’s influence on Arabic
poetry and theater, in Comparative Literature Studies
(Urbana, Ill.), vi (1969), 472-89; HilmI c Abd al-
Djawad al-Siba c I, al-Masrah al- c Arabi, ruwwaduhu
wa-nudjumuhu, Cairo 1969; Nadjib Surur, Hiwar fi
'l-masrah , Cairo 1969, 1-212; Su c ad Abyad, Diurdi
Abyad, al-Masrah al-Misrift mpat c am, Cairo 1970;
Mohamed Aziza, Regards sur le theatre arabe contem-
porain, Tunis 1970, 13 ff.; A. M. Elmessiri, Arab
drama, in J. Gassner and E. Quinn (eds.), The
reader’s encyclopedia of world drama, London 1970, 21-
5; c Adnan Ibn Dhurayl, Fi 'l-shi c r al-masrahi,
Damascus 1970; Muhammad Kamal al-Din,
Ruwwad al-masrah al-Misri, n.p. [Cairo] 1970;
Mahmud Hamid Shawkat, al-Fann al-masrahi fi 7-
adab al- c Arabi al-haditjp, Cairo 1970; Mahmud
c Awad, Muhammad c Abd al-Wahhdb, Cairo 1971;
Mohamed Aziza, Moliere et le theatre arabe, in Etudes
Philosophiques et Litteraires (Temara, Morocco), v
(1971), 129-32; Nahman Bar Nissim, An approach to
Tawfiq al-Hakim the dramatist, unpubl. Ph.D. diss.,
Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1971; Cachia,
Themes related to Christianity and Judaism in modern
Egyptian drama and fiction, in JAL, ii (1971), 178-94;
Nadia Raouf Farag, Yussef Idris and modern Egyptian
drama, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Columbia Univ., New
York 1971; Ibrahim Hamada, Mu^djam al-
mustalahdt al-dramiyya wa 'l-masrahiyya, Cairo 1971;
Mahmud Kamil, Muhammad al-Kassabdji hayatuhu
wa-a c maluhu, n.p. [Cairo] 1391/1971, 35 ff.; A. Ye .
Krimskiy, Istoriya novoy Arabskoy lityeraturi XIX-
nacalo XX vyeka, Moscow 1971, index; Muhammad
Mandur, Fi 'l-masrah al-Misri al-mucasir, Cairo
1971; Radja 3 al-Nakkash, Mak Q ad saghir amdm al-
sitar, n.p. [Cairo] 1971; c Ali al-Ra c I, al-Kumidiya
min khayal al-zill ild Nadjib al-Rihani, Cairo 1971;
Djalal al-SharkawT, al-Masrah abu 'l-funun: fi 'l-nakd
al-tatbiki, Cairo 1971; c Umar al-Talib, al-Masrahiyya
al- c Arabiyya fi 'l- c Irak, i-ii, n.p. 1971; ZakT
Tulaymat, Fann al-mumaththil al-^Arabi: dirasat wa-
ta^ammulat fi madihi wa-hadirihi, Cairo 1971; El
Sayed Attia Abul Naga, Le theatre arabe et ses origines,
in Journal of World History (Boudry, Switzerland),
xiv/4 (1972), 880-98; idem, Les sources fran^aises du
theatre egyptien (1870-1939), Algiers 1972; Layla
Naslm Abu TSayf, Nadjib al-Rihani wa-tatawwur al-
kumidiya fi Misr, Cairo 1972; Arab drama, in M.
Matlaw (ed.), Modern world drama: an encyclopedia,
London 1972, 34-5; Ramsls c Awad, al-Ta\ikh al-
sirrili 'l-masrah kabla thawrat 1919, Cairo 1972; c Abd
al- c Aziz Hammuda, Masrah Rashad Rushdi: dirasa
tahliliyya c an Nut wa-Zaldm, n.p. 1972, 7 ff.; A.S.A.
Hassan, La societe onentale a tracers le theatre arabe en
vers , 1876-1966, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Univ. of
Paris 1972; Sami Khashaba. Kadaya mu c asira fi 7-
masrah, Baghdad 1972; Matti Moosa, Naqqdsh and

the rise of the native Arab theatre in Syria, in JAL, iii
(1972), 106-17; L. Abou Saif, Najib al-Rihani: from
buffoonery to social comedy, in ibid., iv (1973), 1-17;
Atia Abul Naga, Recherches sur les termes du theatre et
leur traduction en arabe moderne, Algiers 1973; S.A.
A.N. ( = Abul Naga), Le theatre dans le monde arabe,
in Encyclopaedia Universalis, Paris 1973, xv, 1058-60;
Mahmud Amin aI- c Alim, al-Wadjh wa 'l-kina c fi
masrahina al- c Arabial-mu c asir, Beirut 1973; FathI al-
c AsharI, Dikkat al-masrah, Cairo 1973; c Adnan Ibn
Dhurayl, al-Shakhsiyya wa 'l-sird c al-ma^sawi: dirasa
nafsiyya fi tald^P al-masrah al-shi c ri aUArabi,
Damascus 1973; Sa c d al-DTn Hasan Dughman, al-
Usul al-ta ^rikhiyya U-nadPat al-dramd fi 'l-adab al-
c Arabi, Beirut 1973; C A1I al-Ra c I, Masrah al-dam wa
'l-dumu c , Cairo 1973; Farouk Abdul-Wahab,
Modern Egyptian drama: an anthology, Minneapolis
and Chicago 1974, esp. 9-40; Badr Eddin Aroudky,
Theatre in Syria, in Lotus: Afro-Asian Writings (Cairo),
xix (Jan. 1974), 74-93; Rachid Bencheneb, Les
dramaturges arabes et le recit-cadre des Mille et Une Nuits,
in ROMM, xviii (1974), 7-18; Sami Hanna and R.
Salti, Ahmad Shauqi: a pioneer of modern Arabic drama,
in American Journal of Arabic Studies (Leiden), i
(1973), 81-117; J. M. L. [= Landau], Islamic dance
and theatre, in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica
(Micropaedia part), ix (1974), 976-82; Matti
Moosa, Ya c qub Sanu c and the rise of Arab drama in
Egypt, in IJMES, v/4 (1974), 401-33; Ghassan
Salame, Le theatre politique au Liban (1968-73), Beirut
1974 ( = Homines et Societes du Proche Orient, 7);
Ahmad al-Haggagi, European theatrical companies and
the origin of the Egyptian theater (1870-1923), in AJAS,
iii (1975), 83-91; idem, al-^Arab wa-fann al-masrah,
Cairo 1975; idem, al-Ustura fi 'l-masrah al-Misri al-
mu c asir, 1933-1970; Cairo 1975; Ibrahim Hamada,
Le theatre au Koweit, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Univ. of
Paris 1975; Muhammad GhanimT Hilal, Fi 'l-nakd
al-masrahi, Beirut 1975; Muhammad Kamal al-
DTn, al- c Arab wa 'l-masrah, Cairo 1975; S. Moreh,
The Arabic theatre in Egypt in the eighteenth and nineteenth
century, in Actes du 29 e Congres des Orientalistes, Paris
1973, section II, vol. iii, Paris 1975, 109-13; S.
Somekh, Two versions of dialogue in Mahmud Taymur's
drama, Princeton 1975 (= Princeton Near East
Papers, 21); Stetkevich, Classical Arabic on stage, in
R. C. Ostle (ed.). Studies in Arabic literature, London
1975, 152-66; C A1T al-Ra c I, Some aspects of modern
Arabic drama, ibid., 167-78; L. c Awad, Problems of the
Egyptian theatre, in ibid. , 179-93; c Ala :> al-Din
Wahid, Masrah Muhammad Taymur, Cairo 1975; N.
K. Kotsaryev, Pisatyeli Yegipta XX vyek: materiali k
biobibliografii, Moscow 1976; index; Edwar Sami
Sabanikh al-YafT, Nadjib al-Haddad al-mutardjim al-
masrahi, Cairo 1976; Nasr al-DTn al-Bahra, Ahadith
wa-tadjarib masrahiyya, Damascus 1977; c Adnan Ibn
Dhurayl, al-Adab al-masrahifiSuriya, Damascus n.d.
[1977], index; Mahmoud Menzalaoui (ed.), Arabic
writing today: drama, Cairo 1977; T. A. Putintsyeva,
Tisyaca i odin god Arabskogo tyeatra, Moscow 1977,
index; P. Starkey, Philosophical themes in Tawfiq al-
Hakim's drama, in JAL, viii (1977), 136-52; c Adil
Abu Shanab, Bawakir al-ta fif al-masrahi fi Suriya,
Damascus 1978; Yusuf As c ad Daghir, Mu^djam al-
masrahiyyat al- c Arabiyya wa 'l-mu c arraba, 1848-1975,
Ba gh dad 1978; Hayat Jasim Muhammad al-Jabir,
Experimental drama in Egypt 1960-1970, with reference
to Western influence, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Indiana
Univ. 1978; Chakib El-Khouri, Le theatre arabe de
I'absurde, Paris 1978, 63-143; Amel Amin Zaki,
Shakespeare in Arabic, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Indiana
Univ. 1978; Sami Munir Husayn, al-Masrah al-

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Misri ba c d al-harb al- c alamiyya al-thaniya bayn al-fann
wa ’ l-nakd al-siyasi wa d-irjjtimaH, 1945-70, i-ii,
Alexandria 1978-9; Salah Abolsaud, Theaterproduk-
tion und gesellschaftliche Realitdt in Agypten (1952-
1970), unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Cologne Univ. 1979;
R. Allen, Egyptian drama after the revolution, in
Edebiyat (New York) iv/1 (1979), 97-134; Ramsls
c Awad, Ittidjdhat siyasiyya fi d-masrah kabl thawrat
1919 , Cairo 1979; Abdel-Aziz Hammouda, Modern
Egyptian theatre : three major dramatists, in World
Literature Today (Norman, Okla.), liii/4 (Autumn
1979), 601-5; c Izz al-Dln Isma c il, Kadaya al-insdn fi
'l-adab al-Misri al-mu c asir , n.p. 1980; R.
Karachouli, Nationale Problematik und intemazionaler
Bezug des modernen Theaters in den arabischen Landern,
in Weimarer Beit rage (East Berlin), ix(1980), 94-103;
C A1I al-Ra c i, al-Masrah fi d-watan al- c Arabi, Kuwait
1980; Rotraud Wielandt, Das Bild der Europder in der
modernen arabischen Erzdhl- und Theaterliteratur, Beirut
1980; Halim El-Dabh, The state of the arts in Egypt
today, in MEJ, xxxv/1 (Winter 1981), 15-24; Hind
Kawwas, al-Madkhal ild al-masrah al- c Arabi, Beirut
1981; Cachia, The theatrical movement of the Arabs, in
MESA Bulletin, xvi/1 (July 1982), 11-23; L. c Awad,
al-Masrah al-Misri , Cairo n.d.; M. Aziza, Le theatre
et VIslam, Algiers n.d.; c Abd al-Halim al-Bayurm,
Nadjib al-Rihdni wa d-kumidiya al-Misriyya, Cairo
n.d.; FawzI Shahin. al-Tamthiliyya al-idhaHyya,
Cairo n.d.; Mahmud Taymur, Dirasat fi ’l-kissa wa
’l-masrah, Cairo n.d.; idem, Tald^i c al-masrah al-
c Arabi, Cairo n.d.; Mohammed A. al-Khozai, The
development of early Arabic drama 1847-1900, London
1984; P. Chelkowski, Islam in modern drama and
theatre, in WI, xxxiii-xxxiv (1984), 45-69; Ahmad
Samir Baybars, al-Masrah al- c Arabifi d-karn al-tasi c
c ashar, Heliopolis 1985; Chelkowski, Western Asian
and North African performance: general introduction, in:
B. Fleshman, ed. Theatrical movement: a
bibliographical anthology, Metuchen, N.J. and Lon¬
don 1986, 480-560; Landau, Popular Arabic plays,
1909 , in JAL xvii (1986), 120-5.

(J. M. Landau)

2. In North Africa.

Tunisia. — The first attempt at introducing theatre
into Tunisa dates back to the early years of the 20th
century. It owed much to the initiative of a fine actor
of Syrian origin, Sulayman al-Kardahi, who, in the
course of his long career, travelled along the Nile
Valley between Cairo and Asyut, mounting perfor¬
mances of an extremely varied nature (tragedy,
drama, melodrama and comedy), featuring music and
dance and with themes borrowed almost entirely from
the Thousand and one nights and from the European
repertoire (Shakespeare, Racine, Moliere and
Voltaire). Al-Kardahl’s influence was consolidated by
the fact that his troupe included talented performers
such as the comedienne HanTna, the singer Layla and,
in particular, the singer Salama al-HidjazI.

When he arrived in Tunis in 1907, al-Kardahi
found support on the part of the Bey Muhammad al-
Nasir, and he obtained a municipal subsidy towards
the realisation of his objectives. He was to devote the
last two years of his life to training young comic
actors, founding the first Tunisian drama company
and performing various items from his vast repertoire
in partnership with his best pupils, of whom the most
gifted seem to have been Brahim Lakudf and Muham¬
mad Bourguiba. It was the latter who, on the death of
the master, continued in his footsteps. In 1909, he
formed his own troupe, with which that of C A1I al-
Khazm was soon to be a serious competitor.

In the period following the First World War,

groups of amateur performers proliferated in all the
major towns. They toured the country, playing Egyp¬
tian tragedies and dramas in literary Arabic, as well
as comedy and farce in colloquial language. But it was
the popular entertainments which appealed most to
the public. Nevertheless, the Egyptian influence
remained apparent, especially in the more serious
genre as a result of the tours which the major troupes
of Cairo made periodically in the Ma g hrib, visiting
Tunis in particular: F>jurdj Abyad in 1921, Yusuf
Wahbl in 1927, Fatima Rushdl in 1932 and Nadjib al-
Rlhanlin 1935.

In a theatre quite openly dependent on foreign
material, a play such as al-Sudd (“The Dam”) by
Mahmud al-Mas c adi takes on the nature of an
original experiment. This transparently symbolic
drama evokes the failure of a person engaged in an
enterprise which is beyond him and which ultimately
testifies in favour of the man and of his destiny. The
action is stark, the scene set at the foot of a mountain.
Two persons arrive, Ghaylan and Maymuna, leading
a heavily-laden mule. The man decides to construct a
dam, but he encounters enormous difficulties. Barely
begun, the work is stopped, the scaffolding soon aban¬
doned. To add to his misfortune, the man is swept
away by a storm with his work unfinished, while his
consort rushes headlong towards the plain exclaiming:
“The Land, it is the Land that I discover!”. Written
ca. 1940 in a very pure prose style, intended to be read
rather than performed, al-Sudd, on its publication in
1955, came to be regarded as a kind of masterpiece by
Tunisian and Egyptian scholars and French Arabists.

However, dramatic production after 1940 seldom
strayed from the beaten tracks. Authors were not con¬
cerned with presenting scenes that were new, true and
pertinent to the human condition. Whether engaged
in serious or in comic vein, they made strenuous
efforts to achieve pathos or, on the other hand, con¬
tented themselves with facile gaiety. Innovations were
rare, and performances of mediocre quality. For their
part, the majority of actors were young amateurs
whose enthusiasm did not compensate for their lack of
training. Moreover, the absence of producers and
technicians meant poor preparation and clumsy per¬
formance. Ultimately, the achievements gained by
each troupe were all the more precarious in that the
public was heterogeneous and fickle. The theatre thus
underwent a crisis which found an echo in the local
Arabic and French language press, where con¬
siderable space was devoted to exposing the problems
with which it was faced: too few writers, insufficient
training of actors, poor standards of performance-
venues, diversity and unreliability of the public, etc.
At this stage, Tunisian theatre seemed doomed to
failure. It was certainly in a state of stagnation.

It was not until the years following Independence
that significant efforts were made at various levels
with a view to reviving the theatre. Writers, mostly of
dual Arab and French culture, generally occupying
posts in public administration which guaranteed their
material security, set about laying the ground-work
for a new dramatic movement. The example set by
the foreign plays which were frequently produced in
Tunis encouraged them to give freer rein to the
imagination. In this process of renovation, producers,
hitherto an unknown breed, played a role of the
highest importance. The greatest of them was
undoubtedly the Egyptian Zaki Tulaymat, a man of
expertise and experience, who for a long time enjoyed
a well-deserved reputation in artistic circles of the
Near East and the Ma gh rib.

When he arrived in Tunis in 1956, eight competing

MASRAH

♦

751

companies of amateur comic actors shared between
them the patronage of a sparse and eclectic public.
Actors variously performed Egyptian plays in literary
Arabic, adaptations of European works, comedies and
farces in the colloquial style of the locality, normally
concluding the show with singing, dance and music.
There were among them some talented individuals,
whom Tulaymat chose in order to form a company of
quality. He strove to make the scenery more authen¬
tic, the performance of actors more natural; he
required his casts to rehearse thoroughly, to work in
a spirit of team collaboration, to present well-
constructed, living productions in which the element
of convention is mingled with fantasy. The training
which he gave bore fruit. In fact, when ZakI
Tulaymat left Tunisia in 1961, the theatre
experienced a new era of prosperity through the
efforts of some of his young successors, including C A1T
Ben c Ayad.

The latter was then director of the Municipal
Theatre of Tunis. Both a man of grand aspiration and
a man of the people, he was active in all spheres of
artistic pursuit, with imagination and zeal as well as
with realism. He adopted a dramatic technique which
consisted in transposing the themes of works bor¬
rowed from the foreign repertoire to ancient or con¬
temporary Arab-Islamic society, with the appropriate
beliefs, costumes and conventions. Thus for example,
his Caligula (1961) is set in the Middle Ages, at the
court of a Maghrib! sultan surrounded by his viziers,
amirs and Arab retainers. There is nothing in common
with the historical character nor with the protagonist
of Camus’ play, whom the Tunisian dramatist takes
as the symbol of a sovereign ruling in bloody tyranny
over his people. Ben c Ayad applied similar treatment
to a series of foreign works which he presented in
Tunis and at the international cultural centre of Ham-
mamet before performing them before the
heterogeneous audiences of provincial towns and
rural villages: Measure for Measure and Othello by
Shakespeare, L’Ecole des femmes und L’Auare by
Moliere, En attendant Godot (1965), La Derniere bande
and Oh les beaux jours! (1966) by Samuel Beckett, etc.
In a few years, he became acquainted with a vast
comic and tragic repertoire. The success of his pro¬
ductions earned him renown both in Tunisia and
abroad, especially in Paris, at the Theatre des
Nations.

At the same time, other young dramatists who
favoured strong characters, violent emotions and local
colour, attempted to find new sources of inspiration in
drawing their themes from Arab-Islamic history.
They preferred the ages of glamour, retaining the
facts but moulding them according to their imagina¬
tion, developing the classical ideals of love, faith,
honour and valour. The heroes, princes, military
chieftains or simple waariors are obliged to risk their
lives for the glory of Islam and the love of the
homeland. Thus for example, Ahmad Khavr al-Dln
dramatised the epic of the Berber queen al-Kahina
who, at the end of the lst/7th century offered fierce
resistance to the Arab army of Hasan b. al-Nu c man
before finally collapsing under his onslaught (al-
Kahina). For his part, Fattah Wall devoted his Pearl of
Sicily (Diawhar al-Sikilli) to the exploits of the Muslims
who, embarking from Sousse in 210/827 under the
command of Asad b. al-Furat, flung themselves into
the conquest of Christian Sicily. Nor is romance
absent from these pseudo-historical tableaux. c Abd al-
Razzak Karabaka brings alive on the stage the famous
couple Ibn Zaydun and Wallada, with a nostalgic
evocation of the Cordova of the 5th/11th century

(Wallada wa-Ibn Zaydun). In this category of plays of
heroic or historical pretensions, Murad III (1966) by
Habib Boulares (Bu ’l- c Ans) is reminiscent of Caligula
by C A1I Ben c Ayad rather than of Shakespeare’s
Richard III which the Tunisian playwright seems to
claim as his inspiration. The net result is that these
dramas borrow the methods of melodrama, com¬
pounded by inferior dialogue and action filled with
sensation and interludes of pathos. Written by young
authors, they show the exuberance of youth. On the
other hand, the wealth of invention, the intensity of
colour and the epic grandeur of the subjects create an
atmosphere of heroic legend capable of capturing the
imagination of the spectators. Ultimately, the charac¬
ters are of quite elementary simplicity, entirely good
or totally evil, clad in their symbolic guises.

Alongside this serious theatre, the comic genre has
made a worthy contribution; In the relaxed
atmosphere of the period 1960-70, numerous
humorists provided comedies, farces or simple enter¬
tainments of circumstance, introducing hilarious,
pathetic or cynical characters. It was during this time
that Ahmad Khayr al-Dln enjoyed his greatest
popular success with the creation of the character of
Hadj Kluf, distant cousin of the Egyptian Kish Kish
Bey. All such plays, a little simplistic but well-
constructed, have delighted popular audiences.

It may be added that the efforts made over the past
twenty-five years to interest all classes of society in
theatre in its most diverse forms have succeeded well.
In the context of decentralisation, provincial drama
companies have evolved, so that today every town
boasts its own troupe of comic actors, whose active
members contribute both to improvement in stan¬
dards of production and to the opening up of the
theatre to new audiences. On the other hand, theatre
has made its presence felt in the school, the academy
and the university, and every years competitions are
organised to reward the best young dramatists. Thus
a new spirit is alive in theatrical life. Attendance at
dramatic performances, formerly the preserve of a
narrow circle of intellectuals, has become within a few
years a social event shared by the scholar, the artisan
and the peasant. It is beyond doubt this fact which,
more than the number and quality of works, best
characterises the rebirth of theatre in Tunisia.

Algeria. — It was only in the years following the
First World War that Arab theatre appeared for the
first time in Algeria. In 1921, the Egyptian troupe led
by Djurdj Abyad, after performing in Tunis,
presented in Algiers two historical dramas by Nadjib
al-Haddad written in classical Arabic: Salah al-Dln al -
Ayyubi (“Saladin the Ayyubid”) and Thar at al-^Arab
(“Vengeance of the Arabs”). Although encountering
only limited success before a public generally ignorant
of the literary language, these performances made the
Algerian elite aware of the existence of a militant and
didactic Arabic theatre. Drawing on this experience a
few months later, a handful of young intellectuals, for
the most part former madrasa students, formed a
cultural association, al-Mu^addiba (“The Educating
[Society]”) one of whose leaders, Tahir c AlI Sharif,
organised the performance in the capital of three plays
in literary Arabic which had the purpose of awakening
the national sentiment of his compatriots and
educating them concerning the horrendous conse¬
quences of social scourges such as alcoholism: al-Shifa 5
ba c d alcana 5 (“Recovery after the trial”, 1921),
KhadT'at al-gharam (“Perfidy of Love,” 1923) and
Badi c (1924). Another company, that of al-Tamthll al-
c arabl (“The Arab Theatre”), founded in 1921, had as
its leading personality a former student of Arabic

752

MASRAH

literature, Muhammad al-Mansali. This company
performed in Algiers two plays in literary Arabic bor¬
rowed from the Egyptian repertoire: Fi sabil al-watan
(“For the homeland”, 1922) and Futuh al-Andalus
(“The conquest of Andalusia,” 1923). This attempt
at the introduction of dramatic art was hindered by
two apparently unsurmountable obstacles: on the one
hand, it encountered the incomprehension of a public
barely familiar with Arabic literature; on the other
hand, it incurred the disapproval of the bourgeois
elite, which had little taste for performances whose
themes seemed incompatible with the principles of
Arab-Islamic ethics.

Taught by this experience, some young enthusiasts
performed during the same period plays which would
be universally accessible, drawing their themes from
contemporary life and from popular t radii ip n. They
shared their predecessors’ concern with moral and
social, even political issues, and their simplistic philos¬
ophy, but they were at pains to express them in the
daily patois of their fellow-citizens. During the inter¬
war period, three names are pre-eminent: c Allalu,
Ksentini and Bachtarzi. With quite dissimilar gifts, all
three gained reputations in comedy and in song,
perpetuating in the theatre the tradition of popular
poetry whose rhythms lend themselves particularly to
music and dance. They embody, in varying degrees,
the tastes and the spirit of their time.

In many respects, c Allalu is a pioneering figure.
Born in Algiers in 1902, he first participated as a
singer in public concerts which a musical society, al-
Mutribiyya , organised during the evenings of
Ramadan. Later he began performing in local
cinemas, at Bab el Oued in particular, short sketches
in the style of farces dramatising domestic situations.
Enriched by this experience and confident of his
methods, he formed in 1925 his own drama company,
the Zahia troupe, and composed satirical, romantic
comedies and comic ballets, written entirely in dialect,
which he presented successfully in Algiers and the sur¬
rounding region, between 1926 and 1931: “Djeha”
(Djha, 1926),” The marriage of Bou-Akline” (Abu
c Aklin, 1926), “Abou-Hassan or the sleeper
awakened” (Abu ’ l-Hasan , 1927), “The Fisherman
and the Genie” (1928), “Antar el-Hachaichi” ( c Antar
al-Hashayishi, 1930), El-Khalifa oues-Sayyad (al-Khalifa
wa ’ l-sayyad , “The Caliph and the Fisherman,” 1931)
and Hallaq Guernata (Hallak Gharnatad' The Barber of
Granada,” 1931). However, his company, the
beneficiary of neither public nor private aid, was not
a commercial success and c Allalu soon found himself
beset by serious financial difficulties. As writer, actor
and director of the troupe, he led an exhausting life
and consequently his health suffered. Disillusioned, in
1932 he decided to renounce all his theatrical
activities.

c Allalu had no pretentions to originality, and little
interest in novelty. Three of his productions were
adaptations of very well known stories from the Thou¬
sand and one mights : Abou-Hassan or the sleeper awakened ,
The Fisherman and the genie and El-Khalifa oues-Sayyad.
His Djeha does indeed contain numerous humorous
episodes traditionally attributed to the popular char¬
acter of the same name, but the general theme is bor¬
rowed, via Le Medecin malgre lui, from a mediaeval
fable, Le vilain mire , which depicts the triumph of a
cunning woman. In The Marriage of Bou-Akline there
are numerous echoes both of Arab folklore and of the
French theatre. However, c Allalu does not venture to
follow Moliere in the direction of comedy of charac¬
ter. His figures confine themselves to stereotyped
theatrical roles; they never become authentic human

beings. Nevertheless, he excels in devising plots and
situations which automatically arouse laughter: in
Djeha , the hero is soundly beaten by the emissaries of
the sultan before admitting that he is indeed the
famous physician capable of curing the son of the
sovereign. Similarly, the wife of Bou-Akline, finding
the door closed on returning from an assignation with
her lover, simulates suicide by throwing a great stone
into the garden well; later, when everyone believes
her dead, she appears before her husband who, ter¬
rified, imagines himself confronted by the ghost of his
wife. Thus, the plays of c Allalu appear to be a com¬
promise between farce and comedy of intrigue.
Invariably, the audience is held in suspense by
theatrical sensations or amused by the disguises: Abu
’l-Hasan, a nonentity dressed as a caliph and flaun¬
ting the trappings of his temporary authority; Harun
al-Rashid and his vizier Dja c far disguised as mer¬
chants; etc.

Furthermore, ‘■Allalu is a skillful writer, deploying
many witticisms, puns, amusing expressions: he gives
to the hero of his first play, Djeha , the name of a
popular character in the Arab world and to his wife
that of Hi la (“Stratagem, trick”); the aged retainer of
Bou-Akline, Mekidech (Mkidash) is the homonym of
another fictitious character whose adventures have for
a long time been a feature of Algerian popular tradi¬
tion. Furthermore, the choice of names often reveals
the parodic intention of the author: Harun al-Rashid
becomes Karun al-rdshi (“Karim the Corrupt”), his
vizier Pi far al-markhl (“Dja c far the soft-witted”) and
his sword-bearer Masrur is named Masrvd (“The
Sot”). Following the same procedure, a wretched cob¬
bler is made to appear ridiculous by bearing the
prestigious name of c Antar, the chivalrous hero so
much admired by Arabs past and present. All such
pitiful dupes he places in the gallery of legendary char¬
acters who inhabit the popular imagination and still
influence minds.

In addition, he endows them with a popular, vivid,
colourful style of language. As well as their
demeanour and their gestures, their speeches provoke
laughter. Their verbal comedy is constituted partly by
aphorisms, maxims and proverbs in current Algerian
usage, partly by the repetition of exclamations
habitually employed by the people to express joy, sur¬
prise or sadness (will will, “Alas for me”; yd sa^di,
“Just my luck!”). The borrowings from the spoken
language and the verbal novelties are evidently
designed to make the audience share the gaiety of the
actors. In sum, there is no profundity, but the revela¬
tion, through laughter, of a good humour free from
vulgarity, a joyous, irrepressible, infectious enthu¬
siasm. This cheerful mood makes everything accep¬
table: Djeha and his wife Hila are arrant rogues, Bou-
Akline is not entirely honest, and no more so is Abu
’l-Hasan. It would be folly to object and to attach any
importance to their actions or their concerns. c Allalu
has succeeded in the gamble of turning quasi-serious
issues into the material of farce, without any preten¬
sion of displaying to the audience the illusion of
reality. His principal achievement has been the
definitive establishment in Algeria of a theatre of
essentially popular inspiration and expression,
adapted to the taste of his contemporaries.

The second actor-writer who has contributed
significantly to the growth of the theatre in Algeria
during the 1930s is incontestably Rashid Ksentini,
but in this instance the reader is referred to the
lengthy article devoted to him, s.v. al-KUSANTiNi.

The third motive force of Algerian theatre between
the two World Wars is Bachtarzi (Muhyi ’1-Din Bash

MASRAH

753

Tarzl), who was born and died in Algiers (1896-
1985). When he came to prominence in the 1930s, he
was already a veteran of the stage where he had
acquired a fine reputation as a singer and an actor.
Initially, he confined himself to repeating the prin¬
cipal successes of his predecessors in a slightly
amended version. His players merged with those of
c Allalu and Ksentini, and the company thus formed
comprised Algerian actors (al-Mansali, Bash Djarrah,
Dahmun and Hamel) and French ones (Louis
Chaprot, Georges Baudry and Georges Hertz), who
were joined by comic actresses such as Kalthum and
Marie Soussan, the last named being Jewish. On the
other hand, Bachtarzi created a repertoire: to the
comedies, farces and sketches of his predecessors he
added his own works, the first composed in collabora¬
tion with Ksentini, Chaprot and Hamel, and some
seventy plays in all, all written in colloquial speech
and several containing scenes where the actors express
themselves in French. Among those which delighted
the Algerian audience are the following: Faqo ( Fdku ,
“That’s no good!”, 1934); El Bouzerii fel Askaria ( al-
Buzrt^i fi ’ l- c askariyya, “The Bouzarian at the bar¬
racks,” 1934); Alennif ( c Ala *l-nif , “From self-
respect”, 1934); Beni oui-oui (1935); Syndicat des
chomeurs (1935); Le Manage par telephone (1936); El-
Kheddaine (al-KhaddaHn. “The Traitors”, 1937); El
Keddabine ( al-Kaddabxn ,” The Liars” 1938); El
Mechehah ( al-Mashhah , “The Miser,” 1940); and
Sliman Ellouk (Sliman al-lukk , “Sliman wax,” (1942),
the two last-named being adaptations of, respectively,
VAvare and Le Malade imaginaire by Moliere.

Bachtarzi was indeed a performer, but he was
above all an impresario of performances. He was also
a writer conscious of the role which the theatre had to
play in the evolution of Algerian society. Eager to
encourage the broadest public to discover new
horizons, he organised tours throughout Algeria and
in Morocco, France and Belgium, playing to the
significant Algerian communities present in these
countries. However, his situation was precarious, as
may be judged from the account in his Memoires: in
1934, his troupe gave 61 performances in 44 localities;
the following year it appeared in 55 urban centres; in
1936 and in 1937, the number of towns visited was
respectively 59 and 89. Audiences varied between 150
in small towns and 2,000 in Algiers, Constantine,
Oran and Tlemcen. Successes were inconsistent and
receipts poor.

Such signs are a clue to understanding the dif¬
ficulties faced by the new guiding spirit of Algerian
theatre encountering a society which remained
backward and an admininistration uneasy about the
intentions of a potentially subversive movement. In
fact, Bachtarzi did not content himself, like his
predecessors, with exploiting the public taste for
entertaining spectacles. He saw it as his mission to
inform and educate his Muslim fellow-citizens regard¬
ing the various issues then exciting public opinion. In
his plays and dramatic tirades, he denounces the
danger posed to the Algerian community by the relax¬
ation of morals, the adoption of a poorly understood
modernism and the revival of social evils: unemploy¬
ment, alcoholism, prostitution and usury. With the
same zeal, he condemns the disunity of his com¬
patriots, the compromises of elected administrators,
religious busybodies and hypocrites. In this mood, he
readily employs terms of ideological connotation
(,hukuk , “political rights;” ittihad , “union; “ ittifak ,
“accord; “ watan , “homeland;” umma, “nation”),
henceforward to become part of the normal
vocabulary of every Algerian of any degree of educa¬

tion, and evidence of a willingness to take political and
cultural initiatives in accordance with the social fer¬
ment dominating the country from the year 1930
onward. Inevitably, the irreverent style of Bachtarzi
aroused serious hostility. His plays were banned or
subjected to censorship. His career declined and he
was only able to ensure the survival of his company by
compromising with the authorities. However, he was
appointed during the Second World War to entertain
the Muslim soldiers receiving treatment in military
hospitals.

The year 1947 marked the revival of Algerian
theatre with the formation at the Algiers Opera of an
Arab troupe and the appointment of Bachtarzi as its
director. This initiative created conditions of a degree
of professionalism and of greater stability. In fact, the
players henceforward had facilities for rehearsing at
leisure before every performance; they were
guaranteed at least one performance per week; and
finally they received a regular income as a result of a
municipal subsidy. This company initially comprised
about a score of actors, actresses, singers and musi¬
cians, most of them quite young: Mustapha Kateb,
Muhammad Touri, Muhammad Hattab, Djalal
SissanI, Rida Falakl, c Ayad Rouiched, Kalthum,
Dallla and Layla Hakim. Most often, they played
comedy in the colloquial language, but they also on
occasion performed serious plays such as Hannibal , a
historical drama by Tawfik al-Madani (1952). They
remained active until the dissolution of the troupe in
1956.

Meanwhile, numerous troupes of players made
their appearance in Algeria. Four of them were based
in Algiers: Les fervents du theatre arabe algerien , which was
managed by Muhammad Tahir Fuqlala; Firkat al-fann
al-tamthili (“The Company of Dramatic Art”) whose
main guiding spirit was Mustapha Gribi; al-Masrah al-
djaza^irt (“The Algerian Theatre”) of Mustapha
Kateb and Masrah al-ghad (“Theatre of Tomorrow”)
of Rida Falakl, the two last-named being former
members of Bachtarzi’s team. Other dramatic
activists made their appearance in the provinces:
Ahmad Rida Huhu at Constantine, Hasan Derdour
at Bone, Musa Khaddawl at Blida, etc. While Falakl
specialised in producing children’s programmes for
Radio Algeria, the others composed comedies, farces,
entertainments, romances, plays full of enthusiasm
and fantasy, mostly written in dialect, but with a
rapidly increasing number in classical Arabic. It
seems that the impression made by Egyptian produc¬
tions performed by the major companies of Cairo in
the course of their tours of Algeria encouraged the
activists of the Algerian theatre to give more scope to
the literary language.

In the same period, companies of actors were
formed in the major cities with the encouragement of
organisers of the association of reformist c ulama ’ and
of the M.T.L.D. ( Mouvement pour le triomphe des libertes
democratiques). The former presented, on the occasion
of the celebration of religious feasts or of the annual
distribution of prizes in private Arab schools, small
dramas of cultural instruction intended to glorify
Islam and the Arabic language. The latter were
clearly oriented towards political and social action.
Fof example, the play Aimak and Rouibah , performed
in Algiers in the 1950s, dramatises the career of a
young Algerian who “joins the party of the struggle
for liberty” and evokes “the most noble cause”. Such
a committed theatre naturally had recourse to history
with the object of exalting national sentiment: Han¬
nibal, al-Kahina, Barbarossa and Salah Bey, each of
these characters being seen as a champion of

754

MASRAH

patriotism. On the other hand, in numerous plays a
conspiracy is forged against the sovereign to put an
end to “the servitude of the people” and to “deliver”
the country from tyranny. These transparent allusions
enable the audience to make straightforward com¬
parisons and offer as a desirable prospect “the punish¬
ment of the despot” and “the revenge of the
oppressed”. The performance normally ends with the
singing of patriotic anthems (antiskid wafantyya). It
need hardly be stressed that all these performances
took place in private places, before a limited audience
of militants and sympathisers. After the rebellion of
1954, the Arab theatre virtually ceased to exist in
Algeria. Some of its guiding spirits, members of the
F.L.N., took refuge in Tunisia where they occa¬
sionally performed propaganda pieces.

The years following 1962 saw considerable changes
taking effect in the theatre. At the Algiers Opera,
renamed the Algerian National Theatre, there were
efforts, under the guidance of Mustapha Kateb, to
renew theatrical presentation and communication
with the public by introducing aesthetic and
ideological preoccupations. In this spirit numerous
national companies were invited to perform, from
Black Africa, Eastern Bloc countries, Asia and Cen¬
tral America. The actors performed in their own
languages and boasted of the benefits accruing to the
people as a result of revolution in their countries. On
the other hand, there were dialectal adaptations of
foreign works such as those of Bertold Brecht and
Sean O’Casey, but it must be admitted that neither
the satire on rural and clerical society of the latter, nor
the parables employed by the former to illustrate his
communist principles, genuinely interested the
public, which was thoroughly bored by these spec¬
tacles and found in them none of the entertainment
for which it had come to the theatre. Other producers
including KakI, Rais, Rouiched, SafTrl, dramatised
episodes from the war (Les Enfants de la Casbah and
Hassan Tend) or popular tales borrowed from oral
tradition (El-Ghoula and Diwdn al-Garagouz).

After 1965, Algiers no longer held a monopoly over
theatrical life. While, in the context of cultural decen¬
tralisation, five regional theatres were progressively
established in Constantine, Oran, Sidi Bel Abbas,
c Annaba and Bejaia, groups of amateurs proliferated
in the provinces. In 1970, seventy such groups were
counted as regularly attending the annual festival of
Mostaganem. Their members gave dramatic treat¬
ment to topics of contemporary interest: agrarian
reform, socialist development of commerce, emigra¬
tion, education of the young and the position of
women in Algerian society. This last problem formed
the subject of lengthy public debates at the conclusion
of plays devoted to it which the troupe Theatre et culture
performed in Algiers in 1970. Similarly, Le groupe
thedtral de l'action culturelle des travailleurs scored a major
success both in Algeria and among expatriate com¬
munities in France with the performance in 1972 and
1973 of a dual Arabic and dialect version of
Mohammed , pick up your easel by Kateb Yacine, in
which the protagonist, a modern follower of Djha,
condemns the activity of all those who shamelessly
exploit workers. Agrarian reform gave numerous
dramatists the opportunity to reveal their attitude to
the subject, notably in El-Meida ( al-Mayda , “The
Table”), and Beni Kelboun by KakI, El Khobza ( al~
Khubza. “Bread”) by Abdelkader c Allula and El Agra
(. al- : Agra , “The Sterile”) by Zahir Bouzrar (1972-4).

The intentions of other authors are not displayed so
overtly, but they are discernible. Such for example is
the case of Simian Benaissa who, in Boualem zid el-

goudem (BuHam zid al-gudLdam, “Boualem, come for¬
ward!”) and Youm el djemaa(Yum al-$am c a> “Friday,”
1979) deals in a Marxist perspective with the relation¬
ships of politics, culture and religion and the social
conflicts provoked by their confrontation. Further¬
more his work, like that of his colleagues who have
read Ionesco and Beckett, breaks with traditional
technique and approaches anti-theatre. Scenery is
almost non-existent: a deserted island in Babour eghraq
(Babur ghrak, “A ship has foundered,” 1982); the
action is reduced to a few gestures, barely-scripted
dialogues between two or three characters without
substance who behave like puppets. Similar
experiments have been undertaken to reform the
presentation and the language of the theatre. But
already, since the first seminar of young writers held
at Saida in 1973, discussions have given rise to the
following concepts: the man of the theatre needs the
cooperation of all those who, in various ways, con¬
tribute to the staging of the play. Dramatic work is
thus a collective creation. It is, furthermore, based on
a close collaboration between actors and audience. In
order to achieve this objective, it must be performed
in the language common to both. It is to this trend of
popular expression that the majority of Algerian
dramatists adhere today.

Born out of private initiative, Algerian theatre has
long suffered from poor material and financial
resources. It has neither hierarchy nor organisation.
Combination of style is the norm: drama,
melodrama, comedy in each of its different elements.
Plays rarely display a unity of tone. Written in dialec¬
tal prose—the use of literary Arabic is exceptional—
they reflect familiar modes of conversation. This is
nevertheless a good style of theatre, and it would be
a mistake to attribute to it a literary quality which it
does not have and which it does not claim. The con¬
cepts of authors evidently vary according to their
temperament, but all are in agreement on one point:
the primary objective is to please and to move the
audience. c Allalu, Ksentini and Bachtarzi understood
this well. Of the three, it is without doubt the second
who, both as a man of the theatre and as a man of the
people, best interprets the taste and the nature of his
contemporaries with the composition of comedies and
lively, jovial farces, often leavened with rational con¬
templation. His successor, Bachtarzi, aware of the
educactive role of the theatre, is mainly concerned
with familiarising his audience with the issues of con¬
cern to Muslim opinion during the inter-war period.
In his view, the man of the theatre is a creator and the
spectacle that he presents consists only in dramatising
serious or comic situations: it is a kind of celebration
of novelty and hope.

Like other cultural activities, since 1962 the theatre
has been brought under state control. Many national
companies are invited to perform, most of them from
self-styled socialist and Third World countries, and
their performances are aimed essentially at exhibiting
communist and anti-imperialist doctrines. At the
same time, youth has leapt to the forefront of the
stage. Scores of regular and amateur companies,
established in the towns, tour the provinces, perform¬
ing plays in dialect with themes generally borrowed
from contemporary life. Their promoters are obsessed
with conceptual debates, seeking only to promote the
principles dear to them. The public follows such
ideological debates with passionate interest, but by
excessively stereotyping characters they make for poor
theatre. The best dramatists among the contem¬
poraries are those who, avoiding extreme didacticism,
are capable of going beyond narrative or pictorial

MASRAH

755

analysis and taking the measure of the human con¬
dition.

Morocco. —As in Algeria, it was not until after the
First World War that theatre made its appearance in
Morocco. In 1923, an Egyptian troupe led by c Izz al-
Dm al-Masri made a tour of the country during which
its most notable production was Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi,
a historical drama in literary Arabic by Nadjib al-
Haddad, which Djurdj Abyad had performed two
years earlier before Muslim audiences in Algiers. This
event inspired several young intellectuals of Fez to
present similar spectacles to their compatriots. They
formed a company whose principal organisers were
Muhammad al-Durrl, MahdT al-Mniai and Ibn
Shaykh. The first wrote about a dozen plays on
themes dealing with the political and social scene: he
denounced the protectorate regime, extolled national
sentiment and stressed the poverty and ignorance
which were the lot of the popular masses. Soon
arrested, he died prematurely. His successors, who
shared the same ideas, embraced political theatre with
increased vigour. In 1929, there were enough of them
to justify the holding at Fez of a contest to find the best
dramatic actor. The winner was a student of the
university of al-KarawiyyTn who celebrated in literary
Arabic the virtues of education in the cause of pro¬
gress and of the struggle for the liberation of the
country.

From 1934 onward, the theatre reflected the
demands of the Comite d'action marocaine of c Allal al-
FasT which, in particular, sought the reform of Arab
education, freedom of the press and the repeal of the
dahir of 16 May 1930 codifying traditional Berber
law. In the wake of violent public demonstrations at
Fez and Meknes in 1934 and 1937, public meetings
were forbidden. This measure had a severe impact on
the theatre which took refuge in semi-secrecy.
Henceforward, groups of players performed only in
private sessions on the occasion of family celebrations.
Short, humorous and sometimes satirical plays were
shown, featuring known characters or current events,
and these were much enjoyed by the audience. The
state of limbo to which this theatre of controversy was
reduced, banned or legalised according to changing
circumstances, persisted until Independence.

The years following 1956 were marked by an
intense intellectual ferment, to which the theatre con¬
tributed a major part. In the chief cities of the coun¬
try, numerous amateur companies mounted spec¬
tacles combining all elements: evocations of the recent
past and of ancient history, borrowings from Arab
folklore or from foreign literature. To this scintillating
period belong several remarkable works, including Les
Fourberies de Joha by AtawakTl, adapted from Moliere’s
Les Fourberies de Scapin, which achieved a huge success
both in Morocco and in France, where it was awarded
a prize at the Paris Festival of the Nations in 1956.

The public authorities encouraged initiatives aimed
at popularising the theatre and took various measures
with the purpose of putting its activities on a sound
footing. It was thus that there was established in 1959
a centre for drama studies designed to train actors and
theatre technicians. At the same time, a national com¬
pany was founded, bringing together the best actors of
the time: al-Tayyib al-Siddlki, Ahmad al-Tayyib al-
c Aldj, c Abd al-Samad Dinya and Bashir SkTradj.
Finally, financial support was henceforward offered to
groups of amateurs who were invited to participate in
the annual festival of dramatic art. This official
attempt at imposing structure on the theatre was a
failure. It encountered difficulties which twenty years
later were still not fully surmounted and which had as

much to do with the conflicting ambitions of men of
the theatre, their personal concepts of dramatic art
and the use of the means laid at their disposal, as with
the refusal of some of them to join in a process which
would integrate them in a bureaucratic system. The
combination of these various factors soon put an end
to an experiment which had barely begun. In 1962,
the centre for drama studies closed its doors. Soon
afterwards, the national company broke up and
fragmented into several competing groups, while
amateur actors were as destitute of support as they
had been in the past.

The theatre born immediately after Morocco’s
accession to independence produced diverse works of
very inconsistent quality. The different comic genres
continued to enjoy popular approval: sketches, farces,
comedies based on mime and gesture, humorous and
satirical playlets featuring traditional types such as the
naive and miserly Berber, the cunning and selfish
MarrakshI, the greedy Jew, etc. On the other hand,
adaptations of foreign works abounded: a
characteristic example is supplied by The Inquisitive
ones by Ahmad al-T a yyib al- c Aldj, after Moliere’s Les
Femmes savantes. Finally, serious theatre was enriched
by historical dramas which, written by young authors,
sometimes display the exuberance of youth. In this
spirit c AzIz Saghrushm describes, in The Battle , the
heroic attitude of the inhabitants of al-Djadlda
(formerly Mazagan) in their opposition to the occupa¬
tion of their town by the Portugese at the beginning
of the 16th century. Similarly, c Abd Allah Shakrun
devotes numerous plays to the past of his country and
develops the theme of resistance to foreign occupa¬
tion, especially in al-Waki c a (“The Battle”).

Around the year 1965, changes took place in the
world of the theatre. The majority of those who, for
ten years, had contributed to the development of
dramatic art, abandoned the stage to enter public
administration. Among the pioneers, only one
remained at the forefront: al-T a yyib al-Siddiki.

Born at Mogador in 1938, his father a teacher of
Arabic and his mother of rural origin, al-Siddlki spent
his childhood in his native town. After studying at the
High School of Casablanca and a brief period of work¬
ing in postal administration, he began his stage career
at eighteen years old, in an Arabic adaptation of Les
Fourberies de Scapin which, as indicated above, enjoyed
major success in Morocco and in France. Al-Siddlki
then spent two years in Paris, where he learned
techniques of production from Hubert Ginioux at the
Comedie de l’Ouest before acting for a season at the
Theatre National Populaire, under the direction of
Jean Vilar. Returning to Morocco in 1958, he
devoted himself entirely to the theatre. Under the
auspices of the Union marocaine du travail , he established
the Theatre travailliste, setting up his stages on the
Casablanca waterfront and mounting productions
adapted from plays by Aristophanes and Gogol. This
experiment lasted no longer than two years, after
which he formed his own company, consisting of a
dozen players who followed him to the Municipal
Theatre of Casablanca when in 1964, at twenty-six
years old, he took over its direction. Simultaneously
actor, producer, director and administrator, al-
Siddiki exerted himself unstintingly in efforts to draw
the masses of his fellow-citizens to the theatre.

In ten years, he wrote, translated, adapted,
presented—almost invariably in dialect—about fifty
plays with widely varied themes. First, productions,
or more precisely, large-scale exhibitions dramatising
events of the past or of the present: Maroc 1, La Bataille
d'Oued Meghezem , Maroc 1973, or huge pseudo-

756

MASRAH

historical tableaux performed in the open air on the
occasion of the annual festival of the tolba. Next came
pieces inspired either by classical Arabic literature,
such as the makamat of al-Hamadhanl. or by the oral
tradition as expressed, for example, in the rhymes of
al-Madjdhub [q.v.] which are still today recited on
many occasions in the Maghrib. Finally, al-Siddlki
adapted some forty foreign plays, from Jeu de Vamour
et du hasard by Marivaux to Amedee by Eugene Ionesco
and En attendant Godot by Samuel Beckett. In sum, we
have burgeoning repertoire continually enriched.

In fact, al-Siddlki sought to provide himself with a
lasting supply of material by vigorously seizing
everything suited to his purposes, as much in the liv¬
ing popular culture as in foreign works. This ver¬
satility corresponded, in his personality, to a threefold
concern: to try to interest the largest possible public
by offering it numerous and varied productions; to
make it aware of the problems faced by contemporary
man in the political as well as the social and cultural
domain; and to engage it in debate by establishing a
dialogue between actors and audience. These parties
could not communicate except by using the language
of daily conversation. Al-Siddikl knew that he was
risking the disapproval of the partisans of literary
Arabic, but he believed that this was a price worth
paying for the development of the theatre in his
country.

The prestige of al-$iddlki should not obscure the
efforts of writers and actors of lesser importance who
for the most part have shared his motivations. There
are several scores of them contributing to theatrical
life in the main cities of the kingdom, Rabat, Fez, and
especially Tangiers. Radio and television regularly
devote broadcasts to the theatre, both in literary
Arabic and in dialect. Studies of the traditional
methods of performance ( bisat, halka and sirr ) are fol¬
lowed at centres of popular arts. As in Algiers and
Tunisia, annual competitions are formed to reward
the best dramatists. In short, significant efforts are
being made in Morocco to promote and to popularise
the theatre.

In the three countires of North Africa, there is
periodic talk of crisis in the theatre, expressed in
various terms of which the most often heard related to
the paucity of writers, poor standards of performance-
venues, public apathy, meagre patronage and the
excessive cost of seats. In fact, it is perhaps in the very
prosperity of the theatre that the true reasons for the
crisis should be sought. Dramatic art in the Ma gh rib
is suffering from inflation. There, as elsewhere, many
are called and few chosen. The quite considerable
number of mediocre works, hastily mounted produc¬
tions, insufficiently trained actors, the excessive
publicity applied to performances or performers of
average quality, the constant confusion between
original works and those which only pretend to be
such, the urge to educate at any price—all these fac¬
tors are liable to hinder the progress of the theatre
without, however, truly threatening its existence. On
the contrary, one is constantly surprised by its vitality,
the constant innovation on the part of the young
people who devote their daily energies to it—writers,
producers, designers and actors—even if the co¬
ordination necessary between these elements is not
always evident and the style of the particular period is
not accurately invoked. What is clear, in any case, is
that theatrical people are not doomed, as were their
predecessors, to work in isolation. The problem of the
relationship that they must establish with the
public—one involving all classes of society-—has been
better addressed than ever before. In conclusion, the
basis of hope for the future is founded as much on the

development of communication between actors and
audience as on the success of an art form.

Bibliography : I.—Tunisia. Muh. al¬

ii abib, La marche du theatre tunisien, in al-Nahda al-
adabiyya, no. 6 (Tunis March 1944); H. Ben
Halima, Un demi-siecle de theatre arabe en Tunisie (de
1907 a 1957), these complem. (Sorbonne) 1968,
unpubl.; Bu Snlna, La crise du theatre tunisien, in al-
Thurayya, no. 11 (Tunis, Nov. 1945); R. Darmon,
Le theatre a Tunis de 1850 a 1914, lecture of L’Essor.
Revue de la vie tunisienne, no. 12 (Tunis, Dec. 1945);
c Uthman al-Ka c ak, Histoire du theatre tunisien, in al-
Mabahith. nos. 15-22 (Tunis, June 1945-January
1946, and no. 33 (Dec. 1946); J. L. Maurve, Situa¬
tion du theatre tunisien, dipl. d’etudes super., Paris,
d.s.; Abu Zakariyya Murabij, Evolution nouvelle du
public de theatre a Tunis, in al-Nahda al-adabiyya, no.
6 (Tunis, March 1944); L.V., Le theatre arabe a
Tunis (14932-1933), in RE1, vi (1932), 537-44; X.,
Le theatre tunisien, in al-Sa c ada, Rabat, Dec. 1946;
X., La Societe theatrale “El Aghalibah" de Kairouan, in
al-Salam, no. 5 (Algiers, Nov. 1946); Le Renouveau
du theatre tunisien, in ibid. , no. 8 (Febr. 1947); Hasan
Emerli, Echec du theatre a Tunis, in Al-Nahda al-
adabiyya, 8 (March 1944); idem, Le theatre encore et
toujours: causes de Tinsucces du theatre, in ibid., no. 9
(March 1944); idem, Comment nous “ renaissons ” par
le theatre, in ibid. , no. 10 (April 1944).

II. Algeria. Allalou, L’aurore du theatre algerien
(1926-1932), in Cahiers du C.D.S.H., no. 9 (Oran
1982); Abdelkader El Arabi, Theatre et musique
arabes. Une soiree a Alger, in Afrique, no. 51 (Algiers,
June 1929); M. Bachetarzi (sic), Memoires (1919-
1939), i, Algiers 1968, ii ( 1939-1951), Algiers 1984;
R. Bencheneb, Rachid Ksentini (1887-1944), le pere
du theatre arabe en Algerie, in Documents Algeriens, no.
16 (Algiers 1946); idem, Aspects du theatre arabe en
Algerie, in L Islam et TOccident, Cahiers du Sud, 1947,
271-6; idem, Litterature et arts arabes en Algerie, in Le
Monde Illustre , no. 4412 (Paris May 1947); idem,
Les Memoires de Mahieddine Bachlarzi ou vingt ans de
theatre algerien, ROMM, no. 9 (1971), 15-20; idem,
Une adaptation algerienne de L ’Avare, in ibid. , nos. 13-
14 (1973), 87-95; idem, c Allalu et les origines du theatre
algerien, in ibid., no. 24 (1977), 29-37; S. Ben¬
cheneb, Le theatre arabe a Alger, in R. Afr., lxxvii
(1935), 72-85; idem, La litterature populaire (en
Algerie), in Initiation a TAlgerie, Paris 1957, 307; M.
Blanchet, L’art dramatique en Algerie, in Le Journal
d’Alger, 24 Aug. and 2 Sept. 1961; H. Cordeaux,
Theatre et publics algeriens, in La Revue theatrale, no.
31, Paris 1955, 44-9; J. Dejeux, La litterature
algerienne contemporaine, Paris 1975, 119-20; El
Boudali Safir, Theatre arabe en Algerie, in Simoun,
Oran 1953; P. Enckell, Le theatre populaire selon
Slimane Benaissa, in Les Temps Modernes, nos. 432-3
(July-Aug. 1982), 341-7: Huna al-Djazd^ir — Ici-Alger
(Revue mensuelle des emissions en langue arabe et kabyle de
Radio-Algerie), Algiers, no. 12 (April 1953), 8-9 and
23, no. 15 (July 1953), 10-11, 16-17, no. 16 (Aug.
1953), 6-9; Mustapha Kateb, Theatre d’expression
arabe, in Consciences Algeriennes, no. 1 (Algiers, Dec.
1950), 74-6; idem, Theatre d’expression arabe: langue et
repertoire, in ibid. , no. 2 (Feb.-March. 1951), 73; A.
Roth, Le theatre algerien de langue dialecale, 1926-1954,
Paris 1976; N. Tomiche-Dagher, Representations
parisiennes dujeune theatre algerien, in BE (1952); X.,
Le theatre musulman algerien, in al-Salam, Algiers, no.
10 (Feb. 1947); X., Theatre: “Rentree” des profession-
nets, El-Moudjahid, Algiers, 8-9 Aug. 1986; N.
Zand, Kateb, le premier des beurs, in Le Monde, 26 Dec.
1986.

III. Morocco. Hassen El Mnia’i, Du cote des

MASRAH

757

amateurs , in Le Monde, 21-2 Nov. 1976, 14; J. P.
Peroncel-Hugoz, Profit d’un intellectuel arabe: Tayyeb
le Vmdique , in ibid. , 4-5 Feb. 1973; Abdallah
Stouky, Ou va le theatre au Maroc? in Souffles, no. 3
(1966); X., Deux pieces de theatre en arabe jouees par une
troupe marocaine , in al-Sa c ada, no. 6692 (Rabat, May
1946); X., Le theatre musulman en Algerie et au Maroc ,
in al-Salam, no. 9 (Feb. 1947); Le theatre au Maroc,
in ibid., no. 1 (April 1947); A. Bennani-Mechita,
Le theatre de Taieb Saddiki, unpubk diss., Universite
de Provence 1985; A. Lhachimi, Le theatre amateur
marocain contemporain, unpubl. diss., Univ. de Pro¬
vence 1986. (R. Bencheneb)

3. In Turkey.

The art of theatre in Turkey developed from the
same religious, moral and educational urge to imitate
human actions that accompanied its growth in ancient
Greece. There are four main traditions of theatre in
Turkey: folk theatre, popular theatre, court theatre
and Western theatre. Improvised theatre developed in
two complete different social environments: as part of
the popular theatre tradition in big cities, such as
Istanbul, and as part of folk-literature. Although the
two traditions seem poles apart, they are essentially
not so different in spirit as external characteristics
might suggest. Both are extempore and non-literary.
In both theatres, the action gains naturalism and
vividness by spontaneity, and in both the language is
simple, direct and strong. Performances were held at
ground level in an arena, thereby lending flexibility to
the acting and helping to create intimacy with the
audience. Although highly different in presentation,
techniques and conventions, both theatres have
approximately the same genres: puppetry, story¬
telling (acted out), dramatic dancing and rudimentary
play by actors.

Unlike most Asiatic countries, Turkey had no
greatly individualised and distinctive court theatre
tradition. Until the period of Westernisation, court
theatre simply imitated popular theatre. The courts of
mediaeval rulers all over Anatolia attracted dancers,
actors, story-tellers, clowns, puppet masters and con¬
jurors. They performed only for the aristocracy of the
palace, and hence they were more refined and
literary. But the court also supported theatrical enter¬
tainment outside the palace. The birth of a prince or
his circumcision, a court marriage, the accession of a
new ruler, triumph in war, departure for a new con¬
quest or the arrival of a welcome foreign ambassador
or guest, were occasions for public festivities, some¬
times lasting as long as forty days and nights. These
served the double purpose of amusing the courtiers
and the people and impressing the world at large with
a display of magnificence. The festivities included not
only processions, illuminations, fireworks, equestrian
games and hunting, but also dancing, music, poetry
recitations, and performances by jugglers,
mountebanks, and buffoons. Beginning in the 19th
century, in reaction to Western influence, sultans
started building theatres in their palaces. c Abd al-
Medjid constructed a theatre near the Dolma Baghce
Palace in 1858, and the theatre that c Abd al-Hamld II
built in his Yfldiz Palace in 1889 has survived. In
these theatres, dramatic and operatic performances
were given by both professional and amateur players.

The development of the Turkish Western theatre
tradition is fairly recent, and can be conveniently
divided into three periods, which are determined not
only by theatrical developments but also by political
and constitutional changes. The first period, from
1839 to 1908, is subdivided into the Tanzimdt and
Istibddd periods—that is, the periods of “reorganisa¬

tion” and “despotism”; the second major period,
from 1908 to 1923, is that of the Revolution of 1908;
and the third from 1923 to the present can be called
the Republican period.

Four public playhouses were built in the first year
of the Tanzimdt period: a Western theatre, a playhouse
for performances of traditional Turkish theatre, and
two large amphitheatres for circus-like spectacles.
(Before this date, however, there were probably
several temporary theatres. For instance, documents
have established that in 1830 a theatre was under con¬
struction in Izmir.) This theatre construction was
important to the development of Western theatre in
Turkey. As the Tanzimdt intelligentsia pointed out,
what distinguished Turkish traditional theatre from
Western theatre was the latter’s reliance on
playhouses and written texts. With the opening of
four theatre buildings in 1839, the first major distinc¬
tion had been breached. The second, the development
of written text, was to follow.

To go ahead in time, 1908 saw the restoration of the
constitution of 1876, and what is commonly called the
“Declaration of Freedom” (Hurriyyetih i c lani). The
political change brought a reawakening of the nation’s
creative theatre life, and the years that followed have
been identified by drama historians as the theatre of
the constitutional period. A new theatrical period can
be said to have begun with the declaration of the
Republic on 23 October 1923, first of all because the
Republican period finally saw the removal of an
obstacle which had been blocking the development of
Turkish theatre: the ban against the appearance of
Turkish Muslim women on the stage. Though some
courageous Turkish women had previously attempted
to break this ban, legal proceedings and police
persecution had discouraged them. In July 1923,
however, Atatiirk attended a performance in Izmir,
given by a group of actors from the Istanbul
Municipal Theatre. He assured them that from then
onwards, Turkish women would be free to appear on
the stage and that the theatre arts would be supported
by the government. In that same year, Turkish
women appeared in a musical comedy called The
fugitives from the ballroom (Bala kacaklari), and the picture
of the leading actress Sedad Nazire Khanfm, was
featured on the cover of a women's magazine. The
following year two women appeared in a performance
of Shakespeare’s Othello, Bad c iyya Muwahhid as
Desdemona and Neyyire Neyyir as Emilia. With this
general view in mind, the development of Western-
style theatre in Turkey can be analysed in detail.

In 1839 the Royal Decree of Giilhane inaugurated
the Tanzimdt period, important as a period when an
audience for theatre was created, professional person¬
nel developed and playwrights emerged to write hun¬
dreds of plays. Among the factors which helped
facilitate the establishment of European theatre in
Turkey, the following are important:

The sultan and his environment. Three
reformist sultans were especially important to this
development: Selim III and Mahmud II, both prior to
1839, and c Abd al-Madjld. In 1836 Mahmud II’s
library contained 500 plays, of which 40 were
tragedies, 40 were dramas, 30 were comedies, and the
rest farces and vaudevilles. The sultans sometimes
attended public performance, and were a kind of
insurance against opposition from fanatical orthodox
quarters. When the latter attacked the notion of
theatre, intellectuals could use the sultan’s support as
a defence: “Would you know better than His Maj¬
esty, not only our Sovereign but the Caliph of all
Muslims, who is building a theatre in his own palace,

758

MASRAH

and rewarding foreign and native actors? He himself
honours performances on many occasions. ” c Abd al-
c Aziz was not so keen on the theatre as his
predecessors, but it was during his rule that Turkish
theatre had its golden age. During the thirty-three
year reign of his successor, c Abd al-Hamid II,
despotism and rigid censorship halted positive
developments in the theatre, and public theatre
almost ceased. Nevertheless, he himself had two
theatres built in his palace, where he maintained two
permanent, salaried theatrical companies, one foreign
and the other native.

Turkish statesmen and ambassadors also
contributed to the development of Western-style
theatre. Early in 1870, the Grand Vizier c AlT Pasha
unsuccessfully tried to establish a national theatre, but
later that year he achieved his objectives by granting
Gullii Agop, director of the Ottoman Theatre Com¬
pany, a ten-year monopoly.

The press was another important factor in pro
moting Western-style theatre. Newspapers appeared
in Turkey at just about the same time as the theatre,
and many journalists began to write plays. Naturally,
newspaper reports and reviews of theatre activities
helped stimulate and guide public opinion. Foreign
embassies, especially the French and Italian ones,
played an important role, since many of these
embassies had their own theatres, to which Turks
were often invited to private performances. The
embassies were also instrumental in bringing theatre
and opera troupes to Turkey from their own coun¬
tries. Non-Muslim minorities contributed greatly to
the development of Western theatre in Turkey, most
importantly, the Armenian community. An impor¬
tant role was also played by the cultural centres of
other minorities of residents: the German one with
their Teutonia, the French with their Alliance Fran-
Caise and the British and Italians through various
theatre organisations.

Western theatre was perhaps most strongly pro¬
moted by visiting foreign troupes, many of which
stayed as long as a whole season and gave regular per¬
formances. Some of these companies included the
leading actors and artists of their times, and Turkish
actors often learned their profession by watching these
performances. Some seasons were so rich that the
several foreign companies gave parallel performances,
as for example on 11 September 1896, when there
were three different performances of Verdi’s Aida in
Istanbul. Some of the operas of Verdi, Donizetti and
Bellini were performed in Turkey before they were
seen in Paris or other European capitals. Because of
the influx of foreign companies, many more theatres
were built. Often when these companies returned
home, some of their members remained in Turkey,
and it was from these actors, directors, set designers
and conductors that Turkish theatre people learned
their skills.

As has been pointed out, for the intelligentsia of the
Tanzimat period, the establishment of a Western
theatrical tradition in Turkey was dependent on the
building of theatres and the availability of written
texts. The First modern Turkish play dates from 1859.
Called The poet's marriage (Sir shaHr evlenmesi), this
satire on prearranged marriages by the poet Ibrahim
Shinasi had been commissioned for the newly-
completed court theatre of the Dolma Baghce Palace.
Though it was the First Turkish play written by a Turk
in Turkey, it was not the First Turkish play. The First
theatre texts in Turkish are those of the Azerbaijani
playwright MIrza Fath C A1I Akhundov (1812-78), who
wrote six comedies between the years 1850 and 1855.

His popular plays were translated into Russian and
later into the various languages of the present-day
Soviet Union, as well as into Persian, French, English
and German. Though Akhundov preceded Ibrahim
Shinasi and enjoyed wide popularity outside his own
country, Shinasi’s short play demonstrates greater
skill.

Mention should also be made of a Turkish manu¬
script found in Viennese archives by Professor Fahir
Iz, The strange and curious tale of Ahmet the Cobbler
( Wakayi c -i c afjibe we hawadith-i gharibe-yi kef sher Ahmed).
Dated 1809, the manuscript, contains translations of
the play in Italian, German and French; the name
Iskerlec on it is probably that of the copyist. Two
more plays were subsequently found: one, Godefroi de
Bouillon, dealing with the First Crusade; the other, in
both Turkish and French, was by a foreigner,
Thomas Chabert, and its long title can be shortened
to H ddidi i Bektdsh or the founding of the Janissaries. The
source of these texts was the Paris Ecole des Langues
Orientales, which trained translators for the European
embassies in the Middle East countries. Some of these
plays were actually produced in the school. Years
later, the catalogue of Turkish and Persian manu¬
scripts in Poznan listed another version of Ahmed the
cobbler and another work entitled Nasreddin Hoca’s
appointment to an official post (Nasreddin Khodja ’nih
mansibt). The manuscript, translated into German,
Italian and French was like the earlier-found version
of Ahmed the cobbler dated 1809, but the Poznan copy
of Ahmed the cobbler bore the signature Dombay,
instead of Iskerlef, and the Nasreddin Khodja play was
signed Johann Lippa. The evidence suggests that in
the School of Oriental Languages, Turkish was taught
by members of the Turkish embassy staff. Though
they no doubt wrote these plays, they chose as profes¬
sional diplomats to remain anonymous. They prob¬
ably dictated them as exercises to students, who in
turn translated them into the three major languages of
the Austrian Empire. Written from dictation, the
manuscripts contain spelling errors, but since the
authors were Turks, there are not many mistakes in
syntax.

Other plays in Turkish that pre-date Shinasl’s were
only translations, some of which were performed but
never published. For instance, c Abd al-Medjld’s
chamberlain, Saffet Bey, translated Moliere’s plays
for performance by the young Turkish musicians of
the imperial band, and in 1845 the sultan invited
three of his doctors to be present at the Turkish per¬
formance of two of Moliere’s plays, one of which
ridiculed the medical profession.

Many foreign plays were translated into Turkish
and performed by the Armenian theatre companies
prior to the foundation of the Ottoman Theatre. Some
copies of the translations that predate Shinasl’s play
are in Armenian characters. The earliest, published in
1813, is a translation of Moliere’s Le medecin malgre lui.
Four plays by Metastasio were translated into Turkish
and published in Armenian in 1831. Since the source
of these latter plays was the Bible, it seems likely that
they were used to propagate the Christian faith.
Unlike contemporary Turkish texts, they do not con¬
tain Persian or Arabic words. Lithographed translated
texts of opera libretti for Tukish audiences are very
rare, but there are some in the Topkapi Museum and
in private collections. An Italian opera on Turkish
subject, The siege of Silistria, written in Turkey and per¬
formed there, has libretti in both Italian and Turkish.

Some students of Turkish theatre consider the first
Turkish play to be Khayr Allah Efendi’s Hikaye-yi
Ibrahim Pasha , a 19th century version of a 16th century

MASRAH

759

story about Ibrahim Pasha of Sulayman the Magnifi¬
cent’s time. The manuscript of this play by the father
of the well-known Turkish poet and playwright c Abd
al-Hakk was discovered by Ismail Hami Dani^ment in
1939. Written in 1844, fifteen years before Shinasl’s
play, when Khayr Allah was a student in medical
school, it is little more than a rough draft by an
amateur, probably never meant to be seen by others.

The Armenians and Levantines of Istanbul gave
Turkey its first Western theatre in the Turkish
language, generally adapted to local theatre tastes and
conditions. Before the Armenians became active in
theatre, the private residences of foreign embassy per¬
sonnel were the only places in which Turks could see
Western theatre and opera companies in their own
languages. By the third quarter of the 19th century,
however, the Istanbul Armenians had established two
companies that sought a wider Turkish audience.
First, a company called Shark (“The Orient”) and,
later, one called Vaspuragan, came into existence,
both of which translated, adapted, and performed
European plays in both Armenian and Turkish.

The most important effort in this Armeno-Turkish
development was that of the Ottoman Theatre Com¬
pany at the Gedikpasha Theatre in Istanbul. Headed
by an Armenian Agop Vartovian (Giillu Agop), the
company prepared the way for a genuinely national
Turkish theatre by introducing Turkish actors in
original Turkish plays. Sometimes given minor roles,
the Turkish actors helped correct the pronunciation
Armenian performers, and Turkish writers were
employed to make sure that the translations were
idiomatically correct. The proceedings inevitably
aroused the enthusiasm and support of university
students.

But the guiding spirit remained Giillu Agop, who
completed this Armeno-Turkish integration by even¬
tually becoming a Muslim. In 1868 he committed his
company to performances of plays in Turkish, and in
April of that year he offered Istanbul its Turkish-
language modern theatre production, a translation of
a French play entitled Cesar Borgia. This production
was received somewhat unenthusiastically, and Giillu
Agop immediately followed it with a tragedy based oiv/
the Turkish romance Leyld and Med^ixun by Mustafa
Efendi. The following year saw a marked increase in
original Turkish plays.

As noted earlier, in 1870 the Grand Vizier C A1T
Pasha granted Giillii Agop a ten-year monopoly of the
production of dramas in the Turkish language. This
patent, however, required him to open new theatres
in various parts of Istanbul within a given time. Other
would-be-producers barred from producing plays in
Istanbul by Giillii Agop’s monopoly, were encour¬
aged, occasionally by prominent statesmen, to open
theatres in the provinces. One such man, Diya 5 Pasha
(1825-80), brought a company from Istanbul, and
another theatre was opened in Trabzon by the gover¬
nor c AlI Bey, who was a playwright. In Bursa, the
governor Ahmed WefTk Pasha adapted nearly all of
Moliere’s plays into Turkish and personally ran his
own theatre, training and directing his actors and
inspiring talented Turkish authors to write plays.

In Istanbul, Giillii Agop’s monopoly was soon
challenged, first by an open company which claimed
that his patent did not apply to musical performances
on stage, and then by ortaoyunu [q.v.] actors, who used
every subterfuge to put on plays indoors as well as
outdoors. They charged Giillu Agop with having
failed to build the new theatres called for in his patent,
and that in any case their performances were
improvised, without text or employment of a

prompter, and therefore not covered by the
monopoly. Thus the seed was sown for a new theatre
that could perhaps better nourish itself in the native
tradition than the borrowed theatre translated from
European literatures or directly imitative of them.
With their lulu c at (improvisatory) theatre, which filled
the outline of a vague plot with local events, incidents
picked up from the newspapers, or from street gossip,
the ortaoyunu players gave their generation a kind of
commedia deWarte which stands midway between the
traditional Turkish theatre and the imported Western
theatre. However, after the Ottoman Theatre Com¬
pany, was abruptly abolished by an order of the sultan
in 1884, theatre activity in Turkey generally suffered
an eclipse.

The second phase of the Western theatre tradition
in Turkey is considered to have begun in 1908, the
year of the constitutional revolution and to have
ended in 1923, the year of the proclamation of the
Republic. It was an important transitional period, a
time of political turmoil. It also marked the restora¬
tion of theatre and some attempts to develop in new
directions. The early months of 1908 were full of ten¬
sion and excitement, as the new regime was being
greeted with understandable delight. The theatres
shared this enthusiasm, and put on productions suited
to special occasions. Many new theatres sprang up
under the stimulus of the events of this year, and
during the next fifteen years they changed names and
administration in rapid succession, some managing to
survive only briefly. Too often, dramatic offerings
were supplanted by political speeches and demonstra¬
tions meant to fire audiences with liberal enthusiasm.
Plays previously banned by c Abd al-Hamld’s censor¬
ship were revived to stir up the populace against the
former regime. The dominant genre of theatre was
the piece de cirConstance. These works were set in con¬
temporary Turkey, and their protagonists were the
Young Turks, the leaders of the Union and Progress
Party, who were shown as patriots, while the sup¬
porters and followers of c Abd al-Hamid were por¬
trayed as opportunistic villains. Playwrights of the
time saw theatre as a vehicle for the abasement of the
former regime on the one hand and for enthusiastic
praise of the constitutional reforms on the other. Thus
the deluge of bad plays continued.

The theatre was also an ideal instrument for the
strengthening of civilian and military morale. Wars
followed in dizzy succession during that period,
among them the Turco-Italian War of 1911, the
Balkan War of 1912, World War I, and finally the
Turkish War of Independence. A long series of
Turkish plays were loosely constructed from topical
scenes derived from some recent ware, glorifying the
struggle of the Turkish people against their enemies.
Other plays dealt with Ottoman history, lauding
Turkish heroes of the past. The emphasis was always
on solidarity and preparedness for war. Needless to
say, most of these plays were extremely ephemeral.

Nevertheless, this period saw a number of signifi¬
cant developments in the theatre. Religious and
official attitudes militating against the appearance of
Turkish Muslim women on stage began to give way
in 1919, when for the first time an actress—her name
was c Afife—appeared in a play on the Turkish stage.
Though her career was not without difficulties, her
example was soon followerd by others.

The same period also saw the establishment of a
school of drama and music in Istanbul. It was
organised in 1914 by Andre Antoine (1859-1943),
founder of Paris’s Theatre Libre, who had come to
Turkey at the invitation of the mayor of Istanbul. In

760

MASRAH

1916, it started giving public performances, gradually
becoming more of a theatre than a school and leading
to the establishment of the present Istanbul Municipal
Theatre.

It was also during this period that many native
playwrights and theatre men of distinction started
their careers. Until the Constitution of 1908 and the
dethroning of c Abd al-Hamfd, government censorship
discouraged the development of playwrights. After the
reforms, however, there appeared dramatists who
treated a variety of previously forbidden subjects.

Several professional, semi-professional, and
amateur companies were active in this period. Among
these were the Sahne-yi Hewes (formed by amateurs,
among whom there were playwrights), and the short¬
lived Sanayi c -i Neffse. Amateurs later formed other
troupes, such as MurebbT His?iyyat, which was
housed in the c Othman Agha Theatre. Burhan al-DTn
Tepsi, a pupil of Silvain, studied drama in Paris and
subsequently formed a company which gave regular
performances. It was followed by another company
called Dar al-Tamthil-i c OthmanI, formed by the
actor Hiiseyn Kami Bey. Certain playwrights,
intellectuals and actors unsuccessfully planned to
found a national theatre. Other attempts in this direc¬
tion were the c Othmanlf Tiyatro Kulubii (Ottoman
Theatre Club), the Istanbul Kumpanyasi, and the
Ertu gh rul Tiyatrosu. To raise money for the purchase
of warships, the c Oihmanlf Donanma Djem c iyyeti
was formed. Other important companies included
Minakian’s Ottoman Theatre and the Binemedjiyan
Company.

The present period of Turkish drama dates from
the proclamation of the Republic. This and the
reforms of 1925-8 opened a new era and quickly
brought about official approbation and government
support of culture and drama in Turkey. The Turkish
language was revivified, and there was increased
interest in bringing to audiences works based on
national history and folklore. Because the state con¬
sidered drama to be an essential element in the
modernisation of Turkey, it assumed full respon¬
sibility for the actor’s professional career. The state
conservatory established in 1936 in Anakara for train¬
ing actors, acresses, opera singers and ballet dancers
has since then greatly advanced the development of
Turkish dramatic arts. When the course at that school
has been completed, the student is taken on as a
member of the leading State Theatre Company,
which is founded by the government and functions
under the Ministry of Culture. Additional funds are
obtained from the sale of low-priced tickets. Providing
security and opportunities for work in the theatrical
profession, the State Theatre now operates with ten or
eleven stages. In recent years it has produced excellent
productions of foreign playwrights, from Sophocles to
Edward Albee, and has introduced new Turkish
dramatists. Along with several private theatres, it has
been sending companies on one or two-month tours
throughout the country.

The Halk evleri (People’s houses) [see khalk evi]
were established in 1931 and furthered cultural eman¬
cipation through a concerted programme of literary,
artistic and mainly drama projects. Despite its suc¬
cess, this movement was disbanded on political
grounds. The present trend is toward the establish¬
ment of regional theatre companies.

Theatre activity in Turkey is still mostly confined to
the two largest cities, Ankara and Istanbul. The latter
has about 25 private theatres, as well as 5 owned by
the municipality. Privately-owned and managed
theatres do not receive government subsidies or tax

relief. In addition to the 4 theatres of the State
Theatre Company, Ankara has several private com¬
panies, although the number varies from season to
season. Owing to the competition of television, most
theatres are almost invariably half-empty; therefore,
while there appears to be a highly active theatre life in
Turkey, this is now only superficially so.

From the point of view of the development of
Turkish drama, the Republican period can be sub¬
divided into two main sub-periods: from 1923 to
1960, and from 1960 to the present day. Though
rooted in a relatively short tradition, recent Turkish
drama has shown considerable promise.

Until 1960, the works seen on the Turkish stage
reflected few of the changes which had overtaken the
country. Some were poor copies of Western plays, in
which an effort was made to assimilate the latter’s sur¬
face qualities. The pre-1960 dramatists tended toward
pseudo-symbolism or psychological realism, in which
characters worked out their fate in an almost society¬
less vacuum. Highly popular were the traditional
lightweight comedies that amused the audiences with¬
out ruffling their composure: plays focusing on
unusual or off-beat characters: plays hammering on
the theme that money is the root of all evil; plays on
the inevitability of fate; plays involving dreams and
psychoanalytic themes; plays on the eternal triangle;
plays on the vicissitudes of married life; plays con¬
trasting big city and provincial life; plays in verse
which failed to be poetic; and sentimental plays on
themes of love, altruism and self-sacrifice. Dramatists
most often provided only a sketchy treatment of these
themes.

After the Army junta overthrew the Menderes
government in i960 and promulgated a new constitu¬
tion in the following year, the theatre turned to a more
outspoken treatment of contemporary problems.
Though theatre was excluded from preliminary cen¬
sorship, a long list of moral and political taboos
remained in effect. Nevertheless, the new values
imposed by the 1961 constitution lie behind every
problem play of the period. Turkish dramatists were
working toward some moment of release from con¬
strictions, both self- and externally-imposed. Not only
did new dramatists emerge, but many playwrights
writing before 1960 suddenly seemed to find new
energy and new forms of expression. This lasted until
the 1970s. During those memorable ten years,
Turkish theatre enjoyed a vitality that enabled it to
deal with problems of current social and political
importance. In 1969 serious social, economic, and
political unrest descended upon Turkey. Rural
inhabitants were flocking to the big cities in search of
work and student violence was erupting in the streets.
Severe new codes were enacted which subjected the
big cities to martial law. People naturally prefered to
spend their evenings at home watching television,
then quite a recent innovation in Turkey.

Between 1960 and the 1970s, private theatre had
mushroomed in Istanbul and Ankara, but many now
closed their doors, leaving others that are still struggl¬
ing to survive. Two theatres deserve special mention:
Dostlar Tiyatrosu (Friends’ Theatre) in Istanbul, and
Ankara Sanat Tiyatrosu (Ankara Arts Theatre). Both
are private theatres, and are socially and politically
committed to the left. Thanks to their loyal audiences
and staffs, they have been able to resist the tide.

A new generation of aspiring playwrights began to
appear in the 1960s, and a changing society provided
them with ever-new material. For convenience, the
considerable dramatic output of the Republican
period can best be broken down by its main focus and

MASRAH

761

theme. Contemporary man’s sense of isolation,
alienation, and loss of identity are dealt with in
various plays. Plays about individuals caught in the
cultural conflict between traditional values and
modem Westernised ideas and manners are the sub¬
ject of a number of plays. Peasants flooding into the
big cities and being forced to live in slums are another
topic. Many plays involve lower-middle class or
working-class families in the grip of financial dif¬
ficulties, and show the family as a microcosm of world
problems as they fight against disintegration. Since
1960s there have been plays highlighting and reveal¬
ing the role, the problems, and the social position of
modern Turkish women. Some plays can best be des¬
cribed as village or peasant plays offering authentic
pictures of village life in out-of-the way places. They
deal with such problems as corrupt landlords and local
administrators, marriage customs, jealousy
intolerance, superstitions and family feuds. Some
playwrights take their inspiration from mythology,
old legends, local history and the history of previous
civilisations. Plotless plays presenting glimpses of
assorted characters and their everyday lives are often
introduced by a narrator and depend largely on their
atmospheric quality. Often they contrast an “inner”
and an “outer” world. Many plays highlight political
and social revolutionary ideals, the conflict between
capital and labour, business ethics, and the fight
against Fascism. Idealists whose zeal alienates them
from contemporary Turkish reality are dealt with in
a number of plays. Of a more general nature are those
symbolic dramas concerned with such themes as
man’s place in the universe, analyses of social
organisation and criticism of contemporary mores. In
recent years, Turkish dramatists and theatre groups
have been experimenting with new forms and
unconventional structures. Western culture is now
seen not as an ideal model but as a contrasting tradi¬
tion. Playwrights have also become aware that
“modern” theatrical trends in Europe have their
counterparts in Turkish traditional theatre, and this
has facilitated their absorption into contemporary
Turkish theatre. For example, the tradition of
Karagoz [q. v. ] or shadow theatre has been supplied
with new scripts designed for performance by live
actors. The contribution of traditional Turkish
theatre far transcends mere borrowing or superficial
treatment. It stems from the very essence of tradi¬
tional theatre: a sense of anti-illusionistic rapport
between the actors and the audience, an open or flexi¬
ble form, the attempt to give the impression of
improvisation and total theatre in performance, and
the use of music, dance and songs as adjuncts to
drama.

Bibliography : Metin And, A history of theatre
and popular entertainment in Turkey, Ankara 1963-4;
C.-U. Spuler, Das Tirkische Drama der Gegenwart, in
WI, xi (1968), 1-229; O. Nutku, Darulbedavi’nin elli
ytli , Ankara 1969; M. And, Mesrutiyet doneminde tiirk
tiyatrosu (1908-1923), Ankara 1971; idem, Tanzimat
ve Istibdat doneminde tiirk tiyatrosu (1839-1908),
Ankara 1972; idem, Cumhiiriyet doneminde tiirk
tiyatrosu, Ankara 1983; idem Osmanh tiyatrosu.
Kurulusu-gelisimi-katkisi, Ankara 1976; Sevda §ener,
Qagda§ tiirk tiyatrosunda ahlak. Ekonomi, kiiltiir sorunlan
(1923-1970), Ankara 1971; eadem, Qagdas tiirk
tiyatrosunda insan, Ankara 1972; B. Robson, The
drum beats nightly. The development of the Turkish drama
as a vehicle for social and political comment in the post¬
revolutionary period 1924 to the present, Tokyo 1975; T.
S. Halm an, Modern Turkish drama. An anthology of
plays in translation, Minneapolis and Chicago 1976.

(Metin And)

4. In Iran.

The history of the theatrical arts in Iran is obscured
by the fact that they have only recently acquired a
place among the manifestations of Iranian culture
considered to be serious. Written drama as a branch
of polite literature emerged under the influence of the
West in the second half of the past century, and the
development of a theatrical tradition with formal
institutions started at an even younger data. This does
not mean, however, that before that time no
indigenous types of drama were in existence.
References to performances of various kinds are
known from pre-Islamic times onwards, although they
do not become numerous enough to allow us to des¬
cribe their origin and development in detail until the
last few centuries. Iran even made a unique contribu¬
tion to Islamic civilisation by creating a form of
religious drama [see ta c ziya]. A common feature of
these types of drama is that they are based almost
entirely on improvisation so that they only rarely have
left traces of their past existence in the form of written
plays. They belong essentially to popular culture,
even if they were adopted by the courts and by
members of the educated class as forms of enter¬
tainment.

Religious objections to the impersonation of living
beings, and to frivolous entertainment in general,
being as they were prevalent during the Islamic
period, have undoubtedly been an impediment to the
development of serious drama. Already before Islam,
however, dramatics did not play a prominent part in
Iranian culture, at least not in that section of it about
which we possess any knowledge. The Greek theatres
which existed in some places after the invasion of
Alexander remained a foreign element and soon
disappeared without having exerted a noticeable
influence.

The Sasanid kings amused themselves with the per¬
formances of minstrels, singers and musicians, as well
as with many other kinds of entertainment. Descrip¬
tions of these court traditions can be found in the
Pahlawi book Khusraw and his page and in many
Islamic sources (cf. M. Boyce, in JRAS [1957], 10-
45). They provided a model for the amusements of
polite society in later times. This tradition continued
without fundamental changes till it came under the
attack of modern types of entertainment. It remained
close to the popular tradition of performances, called
ma c rika, hangama or tamasha, which mostly took place
in public squares. The performer ( ma c rika-gir ) could
be a storyteller (kissagu), a rope-dancer, an acrobat, a
magician or a leader of dancing animals. Literary
sources seldom pay attention to these types of folk art,
but a remarkable exception is the Futuwwat-nama-yi
sultan! by Kashifi (q. v. ; see also Galunov, Iran , iii, 94).
The earliest observations of such performances made
by European travellers date from the 17th century (cf.
e.g. J. B. Tavernier, Les six voyages... en Turquie, en
Perse et aux Indes, Amsterdam 1678, i, 442-3 (perfor¬
mances at the maydan of Tabriz); J. Chardin, Voyages
en Perse, ed. L. Langles, Paris 1811, iii, 326 f. (variety
at Tabriz), 180 ff. (wrestlers, sword fighters and
fighting animals at Isfahan), 436-64 (“Exercices et
jeux des Persans”)). At the social occasions held at the
courts or in private mansions, singing, playing and
dancing were among the principal amusements. Cen¬
tral figures were the minstrel ( khunyagar ; cf. the des¬
cription of his craft in ch. 36 of the Kabus-nama by Kay
Kawus \q.v.], ed. Tehran 1345/1967, 193-7), and the
singer-musician ( mutrib ), who appears frequently in
Persian poetry. A picture of the entertainment at a
local court about the end of the 5th/11th century is
presented in a short mathnawi poem by Mas c ud Sa c d-i

762

MASRAH

Salman [q.v. ] ( Diwan , ed. Tehran 1339/1960, 562-
79), which makes mention of musicians playing
various instruments, singers and dancers.

The art of the narrator (nakkdl), who accompanied
his recitation with musical and gesticular means of
expression, may rightly be regarded as a branch of
indigenous dramatics. The relationship with polite
literature, which often exists, puts this performer in a
special category. Until the beginning of this century,
the narrator was a man of some education whose per¬
formances were appreciated at all levels of society. His
role as a transmitter of epics in prose or in poetry must
have been considerable throughout the history of Per¬
sian literature, although he usually remained in the
shadow of the writers and the poets. He also provided
the latter with much of raw material, consisting of
stories of all kinds, for their prose works and mathndwi
poems. Several terms were in use to differentiate
between specialisations within the profession of nar¬
rator. In more recent times, the best-known religious
narrator is the rawda-kh w an [q.v.]. The national epic
provided the subject matter to the shdh-ndma-kh w dn,
who narrated fragments from Firdawsl’s poem. His
popularity at the court of the Safawids has been
recorded by the historians of the period, together with
the names of the most celebrated narrators of this type
(for further details, see Bayda 5 !, Namdyish, 60-81).

To the common people, the nakkdl , performed in
particular at the coffee- or teahouses which are known
to have existed in Iran since the 17th century [see cay-
khana in Suppl.]. Sitting on a platform ( takht ), he
chanted his text using only a small stick ( mitrdk ,
cubdasti) to accentuate his gesticulations. Sometimes
his recitation was accompanied by one or two musi¬
cians. Pictures on the walls representing scenes from
the Shah-nama or from the tales about the Imams called
shamayil , often helped him to make his audience
visualise his narrative. Story-telling with the help of
pictures was also practiced outdoors by people named
pardazan or shamayil-gar dan who mainly dealt with
religious subjects. Subsequent scenes were usually
combined on one canvas covered by a curtain which
was gradually uncovered as the narration proceeded.
A remarkable tool, described by Galunov as it could
be seen at Isfahan in the twenties of of this century,
was the shahr-i firang (a name referring probably to its
European origin), a metal case inside which a roll
( tumdr ) could rotate to show pictures one by one
through an opening at the front of the case ( Narodniy
teatr Irana, 67 ff.).

Puppet-shows were known in Iran already during
the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by many references
in the works of classical poets to puppets ( khiyal, lu c bat)
as well as to certain props of the puppet-player, e.g.
the curtain (fiarda), the cloth ( na c t ) on which the plays
were enacted, and the box (sanduk) into which the
puppets were put away after the show had ended.
Mention is also made sometimes of a magic lanterm
( fanus-i khiyal), but it is uncertain whether any of the
known references may be interpreted as evidence of
the existence of shadow play in mediaeval Iran (see P.
N. Boratav, art. karagoz). Whenever mention is
made of puppet-shows in these sources, the intention
is to use them as symbols pointing to the thought that
the existence of this world and its inhabitants is depen¬
dent entirely on God’s will. In the Ushtur-nama, a
mystical mathnawi poem attributed by tradition to
c Attar [q.v.], a Turkish puppet-player is presented as
an emblem of the divine rule over human destiny.
This is also the proper meaning of the puppet-play
according to the description in the Futuwwat-ndma of
KashifT (see Galunov, Iran, ii, 72-4).

The most important types of puppet-play which
until quite recently were current in Iran belong to the
kind in which the puppets are shown directly to the
public. The shadow-play never gained in Iran the
prominence which it had in the folklore of other
peoples of the Middle East [see khayal al-zill] and
disappeared already quite early without leaving many
traces. A variety making use of glove puppets was
called pahlawan kacal (“the bald hero”) after its
leading character who also appears however in other
forms of popular theatre. It was sometimes called
pandy because Five figures were required to play the
stock parts of the show. Much more elaborate was the
khayma-shab-bazi, a marionette theatre operating, as
the name implies, at night and enacted, at least
originally, in a tent. The performers were itinerant
artists who were reckoned among the lutfs [</.y.] or the
gypsies. In the present century, the khayma-shab-bazi
was also played at a fixed locality such as the kafa-yi
shahrddri at Tehran between 1941 and about 1950
(Bayda 3 !, Namdyish , 110 f.). The puppet-player ( ustdd )
and his assistant ( shdgird) manipulated the figures
from behind a screen and let them speak. They used
a small whistle ( sutsutak ) to imitate high-pitched
voices. In front of the scene, the leader ( murshid) intro¬
duced the performance and argued occasionally with
the characters of the play. Musical accompaniment
was played on the darb, the tar or the kamanca.

The variety shows performed by live actors
originated from the acts of individual performers of
different types. There is perhaps a historical connec¬
tion with folk traditions, such as the installation of a
mock king at the time of the New Year festival, which
was practised in parts of Iran until quite recently (cf.
M. Kazwini, Mir-i Nawruzi , in Yadgar , i/3, 13-6, who
described an instance of the custom witnessed at
Budjnurd in 1923). Wandering groups of actors used
to perform humorous sketches during this holiday.
One of the stock figures was known as Hadjdji FTruz,
a clown with a blackened face. Jesters, called dalkak
(originally talkak) or maskhara , have been common in
Iran since ancient times. They were present in the
private madjlis [q.v.], as well as in the public square.
Miniatures of the 10th/16th century depict groups of
itinerant performers wearing high, pointed hats or
animal masks and goatskins. Their comic dances were
accompanied by tambourines. Comparable represen¬
tations can be recognised already in the decoration of
objects dating from the Muslim Middle Ages (cf. R.
Ettinghausen, The dance with zoomorphic masks, in G.
Makdisi, ed., Arabic and Islamic studies in honour of H.
A. R. Gibb, Leiden 1965, 211-24). A bald clown by the
name of Kal c Inayat was, according to Chardin (op.
cit., viii, 124-30), an entertainer at the court of Shah
c Abbas I. Mimic dancing combined with singing,
which constituted a kind of bawdy “opera”, is men¬
tioned in the same travel account (iv, 61) as the
amusement of an aristocratic audience.

According to Bayda 5 ! (168), the popular theatre
gradually expanded from the middle of the Safavid
period onwards. This began with the appearance of
itinerant groups of musicians and dancers, who per¬
formed at private houses, usually during the night.
Their repertoire consisted of ballets featuring local
dances as well as some element of mime, e.g. in a
piece called kahr u dshti (“quarrel and reconcilia¬
tion”). The curtain raisers (pish-parda) introducing
such performances gave rise to more elaborate farces,
called mudhika. In addition to tamasha, the term taklid
became a general designation for secular theatre,
although it refers more in particular to mime, which
was a prominent element in most plays (see for an

MASRAH

763

example of a farce performed about 1838, A. Chod-
zko, Theatre persan, Paris 1878, pp. x-xiv).

A special type of popular theatre was known as
bakh.al-ba.zi because the play’s main character was a
rich grocer who claimed to be a ha didi i and was made
fun of by his insolent servant. The latter was often
represented as a negro, and plays in which he
appeared in a major role were also called siydh-bdzi. A
variety show including various kinds of entertainment
is the ru-hawdi or takht-i hawtfi, which derives its name
from the stage where it was commonly performed: a
platform on a pond in the courtyard of a house. Occa¬
sions when the artists could be summoned, such as
weddings and circumcisions, were especially impor¬
tant days in the life of a family. Popular theatre also
attracted the attention of the court, where perfor¬
mances are on record from the time of the Zand
dynasty onwards. Under Nasir al-DTn Shah, the
favourite court-jester Karim Shlra 5 ! led a group who
performed bakkal-bazis. Plays were also enacted in tea¬
houses and, in the present century, in small theatres,
notably at Tehran.

In spite of its great popularity, popular drama was
always under attack from the side of the religiously
minded. In the thirties of this century, the govern¬
ment, suspicious of the satire of the popular per¬
formers, tried to censure it by demanding that scripts
should be made and submitted to the authorites
beforehand. Perhaps its most formidable opponent,
however, presented itself in the form of modern enter¬
tainment as offered by cinema and television. Yet the
oral tradition of drama somehow managed to survive
long enough to make its impact on the development of
modern drama.

The theatrical arts were an element of such promi¬
nence in Western civilisation during the 19th century
that they could not fail to impress Iranians who
travelled to the West, including Nasir al-Dln Shah
himself. In comparison with other countries in the
Middle East, however, the introduction of Western-
style drama to Iran proceeded at a very slow pace.
The only instance of a theatre fitted up to stage
modern plays before the end of the century was an
auditorium in the building of the Dar al-Funun at
Tehran. It was used merely for private performances
attended by the Shah and his retinue, and even these
were discontinued after some time. Plays by Moliere
were the first to be translated, or rather adapted to a
Persian audience: Guzdrish-i mardumgunz (Le Misan¬
thrope) was published at Istanbul 1286/1869-70 (cf.
Browne, LHP , iv, 459-62); other early translations were
Jabib-i idjbdri (Le Medecin malgre lui) and Gidi
(.L’Etourdi ).

A separate development was the use of drama as a
medium for criticism about social conditions and the
spread of modern ideas. The anonymous Bakkal-bazi
dar hudur , which contains comments on the
administrative reforms introduced by Mlrza Husayn
Khan Sipahsalar (1871-3) and has been preserved in
a written form, shows how drama of the traditional
type could be used in this manner. Much more impor¬
tant was the example set by Mlrza Fath- c AlI Akhund-
zada [q.v.] who between 1850 and 1855 wrote six com¬
edies in the Turkish of Adharbaydjan. In Tiflis he was
in close contact with the Russian tradition of drama,
which contained an influential strain of critical com¬
edy, its most famous product being Gogol’s The
Inspector (1834). The plays of Akhundzada were
translated into Persian by Mlrza Dja c far
KaradjadaghT, who in his preface stressed their educa¬
tional intent. The translations appeared first at
Tehran (1291/1874) and were subsequently edited as

well as translated in Europe by several scholars (cf.
Browne, iv, 462; see also H. W. Brands, Azer-
baidschanisches Volksleben und modernistische Tendenz in den
Schauspielen Mirza Felh-^Ali Afrundzade’s (1812-1878),
’s-Gravenhage-Wiesbaden 1958). The foreign interest
in Karadjadaghi’s translations was roused in par¬
ticular by his use of colloquial Persian. Most Western
editions are for that reason accompanied by
vocabularies.

For a long time, Malkum Khan [q.v. ] was regarded
as the author of three original Persian plays, the
publication of which began in the newspaper Ittihdd
(Tabriz 1326/1908) but was left unfinished (cf. E. G.
Browne, The press and poetry of modem Persia , Cam¬
bridge 1914, 34); a complete edition based on a ms.
then owned by Fr. von Rosen appeared at Berlin,
KaviyanI Press, 1340/1921-2. The discovery of a let¬
ter by Akhundzada preserved in the Akhundov
Archive at Baku has made it more than likely that the
recipient of this letter was the real author. He was
Mlrza Aka Tabriz!, a Persian secretary at the French
embassy in Tehran. The plays must have been written
already about 1870 (cf. A. E. Ibrahimov and H.
Memedzade, Trudi Instituta Yazika i Literaturi imeni
Nizami , ix, Baku 1956; Guseyni Abul’Fas, in Narodov
Azii i Afriki [1965-6], 142-5; see also H. Evans, in Cen¬
tral Asian Review , xv [1967], 21-5; G. Scarcia, in OM ,
xlvii/2-3 [1967], 248-66). The plays satirise the
political conditions in Kadjar Iran, especially the
oppression exerted by local governors and their cor¬
ruption. Tabriz! gave them lengthy titles, which in an
abbreviated form run as follows: (1) Sargudhasht-i
Ashraf-Khdn hdkim-i c Arabistdn dar ayydm-i tawakkuf-i u
dar Tihran...; (2) Tarika-yi hukumat-i Zaman Khan-i
Burudjirdi ... (3) Hikayat-i Karbala raftan-i Shah-kuli
Mirza... wa tawakkuf-i land ruza dar Kirmanshahan ... (the
plays were recently published by H. $ad!k, together
with two others by the same author, Tehran
2536/1977; they were translated into French by A.
Bricteux, Les comedies de Malkom Khan , Liege 1933,
and into Italian by G. Scarcia, Tre commedie, Rome
1967). They are closet dramas written without much
concern for the requirements of theatrical per¬
formance.

The beginning of theatricals performed in public
cannot be dated earlier than the first decade of this
century. Tabriz seems to have preceded other cities.
The Russian consul B. Nikitine saw performances at
Rasht in 1912. They included at least one original
Persian play, on the problem of alcoholism. The
female parts were played by men (Iraniki man shindkhta
am, Tehran 1329/1951, 127-8). In the capital,
theatrical activities started about the same time.
Among the first companies which gave regular perfor¬
mances were Kumidi-yi Iran (1915^, led by Sayyid C A1I
Na?r, and the drama section of Irdn-i dfawan (1921),
an organisation of progressive intellectuals. The
Kumidi-yi muzikal( 1919) brought musical shows on the
stage which were modelled on shows performed in
Caucasian Russia. Non-Muslims were at this stage
very prominent in the Iranian theatre. From their
midst came especially the female actors, as the
religious objections to the appearance of Muslim
women on the stage were still very strong.

Although translated plays continued to hold their
important place in the repertoire of the Iranian com¬
panies, original plays were also produced. The bi¬
weekly magazine TPdtr published already in 1908
dialogues which criticised the government. A
playwright of the earliest period was Ahmad
Mahmud!, also known as Kamal al-Wizara (1875-
1930). In his Ha didi i Riya^i Khan he presented a Per-

764

MASRAH

sian Tartuffe, and in Us tad Nawruz-i pambaduz a type
similar to the bakkdl of the popular farce. Hasan
Mukaddam (1898-1925) published, under the name
C A1T Nawruz, his Dja far-Khan az Firang dmada. This
successful comedy ridicules the type of the westernis¬
ing Iranian (cf. I. DjamshTdi. Hasan Mukaddam wa
Djafar Khan az Firang dmada , Tehran 1357/1978 repr.
Oakland 1984, with a French translation by the
author himself). Its First performance at the Grand
Hotel, Tehran, on 23 March 1922, was an important
event in the history of the modern theatre in Iran. The
drama was used as a literary genre by the poet
Muhammad Rida Mlrzada c Ishki (1894-1924) for
works like IdPdl , Kafan-i siydh and the “opera”
Rastdkjnz. Sadik Hidayat [q. v. ] and many others wrote
plays on episodes from the History of Iran. Notable as
a playwright was also Dhablh Bihruz (1891-1971).

Under the Pahlawl regime, the theatre was sub¬
jected to censorship, but it also received for the First
time official recognition as an important section of
modern Iranian culture. In 1939 a college for the
training of actors, the Hunaristan-i hunarmandan, was
founded. The leading personality of the theatre in
Iran during the Rida Shah period was the actor and
playwright Sayyid c Ali Na$r (d. 1961). A similar role
was later played by c Abd al-Husayn Nushln (1905-70)
who was active as a director and a translator of foreign
drama, and wrote the handbook Hunar-i tPdtr (1952).

The rise of the cinema and afterwards of television
in Iran broadened the scope of the dramatic arts.
Together with the theatre, they benefited from the
remarkable flourishing of these arts, which took off in
the 1960s and continued until the revolutionary tur¬
moil began about a decade later. The promotion of
indigenous theatre became a matter of official con¬
cern. A special department ( Idara-yi tPatr), which
became a part of the Ministry of Culture and Arts,
was created for this purpose. Dramatic education at
an academic level was introduced in Tehran and the
production of original Persian plays was encouraged.
Shahln Sarklsiyyan, C A1I Nasiriyyan, c Abbas Djawan-
mard and BTzhan MufTd were prominent stage direc¬
tors and theatrical leaders. They also write a number
of new plays based either on modern Persian
literature (e.g. the short stories of $adik Hidayat) or
popular theatre, from which the type of the black
clown (siydh) was borrowed. Mu fid’s Shahr-i kissa
(1968) is a social satire based on children’s stories, and
put on stage with the use of animal masks. Active in
all fields of drama were Bahram Baydak and Ghulam-
Husayn SadighT (1935-85), a distinguished writer of
short stories who under the name Gawhar Murad wrote
many plays and film scripts.

The facilities for dramatic productions were
enlarged through the opening of new auditoriums at
Tehran and Isfahan. Of particular importance was
the Festival of Arts (Diashn-i Hunar ) of Shiraz (1967-
76), organised at the initiative of the National Iranian
Television. It brought leading foreign directors to
Iran, where they received the opportunity to stage
experimental theatre of the most advanced kind. At
the same time, special symposia on national drama
were held featuring the epic tradition, the passion play
and popular traditions. Another offshoot of the
Festival was a theatre workshop ( Kargah-i namayish).
The Iranian film attracted a great amount of attention
at international festivals during the 1970s.

The Islamic revolution of 1979 changed the course
of these developments considerably, but did not bring
the dramatic activities in Iran to a standstill. They
have also been continued outside the country by
emigrants, especially in the United States.

Bibliography : The best survey of indigenous
drama is Bahram Bayda 5 !, Namayish dar Iran,
Tehran 1344/1965 (a new and revised edition has
been announced). See further: Y. N. Marr, Koecto
o Pehlevan kecele i drugikh vidakh narodnogo teatra v Per-
sii, in Iran , ii (1928), 75-88; R. A. Galunov,
Pakhlavan Kacal - persidskiy petrushki, in Iran , ii
(1928), 25-74; idem, Kheyme shab bazt - persidskiy teatr
marionetok, in Iran, iii (1929), 1-50; idem, Ma’rike
gin, in Iran , iii (1929), 94-106; idem, Narodniy teatr
Irana , in Sovetskaya Etnografiya , 1936/4-5, 55-83; M.
Rezvani, Le theatre et la danse en Iran, Paris 1962
(repr. 1981); J. Cejpek, Dramatic folk-literature in
Iran, in J. Rypka et alii, History of Iranian Literature,
Dordrecht 1968, 682-93; U. Gehrke and H.
Mehner, Iran. Natur-Bevolkerung-Geschichte-Kultur-
Sjaat-Wirtschaft, Tiibingen-Basel 1975, 101-4; Y.
Aryanpur, Az $aba td Ntma, Tehran 2535/1976, i,
325-66, ii, 288-315; M. Isti c lamT, Barrasi-yi
adabiyyat-i imruz-i Iran, Tehran 2535/1976, 155-70;
M. H. Farahnakianpoor, A survey of dramatic activity
in Iran from 1850 to 1950, Brigham Young Univer¬
sity 1977 (diss.; ed. University Microfilms Interna¬
tional, Ann Arbor 1979); W. O. Beeman, A full
arena: the development and meaning of popular performance
traditions in Iran, in M. E. Bonine and N. R. Ked-
die, eds., Modern Iran. The dialectics of continuity and
change, Albany 1981, 361-81; idem, Why do they
laugh?, in Journal of American Folklore, xliv (1981),
506-26; idem, Culture, performance and communication
in Iran , Tokyo 1982; F. Gaffary, Evolution of rituals
and theatre in Iran , in Iranian Studies, xvii/4 (1984),
361-89; idem, Secular theatre, in L. P. Elwell-Sutton,
ed., Bibliographical guide to Iran, Brighton 1983, 343-

4. Abstracta Iranica has had a special section on
music and theatrical arts since vol. v (1982).

(J. T. P. de Bruijn)

5. In Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Islamic Central Asia—Western Turkistan

including Kazakstan, Eastern Turkistan (Shinjiang)
encompassing the area of the present Uyghur
Autonomous Province, Afghanistan and contiguous
territory where Islam was or is professed and Central
Asian Iranian or Turkic languages are spoken—has
known three main types of theatre. Oral folk art prob¬
ably pervaded the region long before the advent of
Islam, although documentation is as yet unavailable
to prove it. Muslim religious drama, known especially
to ShTTs [see ta c ziya], received performance as late as
the end of the 19th century in certain areas. Modern
indigenous drama and theatre using written scripts,
fixed stages and enclosed auditoria began activity
within the region no earlier than the second decade of
the 20th century.

Historical precedents for organised, formal
theatrical presentations long existed in the region. A
great, 35-tier, semi-circular outdoor Greek theatre
was built and ruins survive at Ay Khanum, a fortified
capital city located on the left bank of the Oxus River
(Amu Darya) at the confluence of the Kok£a River
under the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in the 3rd-2nd
centuries B.C. Additional archaeological finds from
the vicinity of Termez (Tirmidh) and Bukhara—in
the form of Hellenic carvings, dishes, frescoes and
sculptures dating from the 1st to 8th centuries
A.D.—have depicted the head of Dionysus, the
youthful god, patron of drama and wine, as well as
musicians playing harps, drums and local stringed
instruments. A ceramic ossuary dated to the early
centuries A.D. unearthed at Afrasiyab, near
Samarkand, shows the clear depiction of several actors
holding tragic masks. A comic figure originated from

MASRAH

765

the same sites. More direct evidence for theatrical life
in that period is difficult to come upon. No clear
evidence has been reported conclusively linking that
ancient legacy with the development of indigenous
Central Asian theatre art in the Islamic epoch, begin¬
ning there no earlier than the lst/7th century in
western Central Asia. It has been surmised that the
obligatory attributes of recent folk performers from
Kh w arazm known to follow the oldest traditions of
maskharabaz (clown) art in Central Asia—such as the
goatskin mask and two-horned, cone-shaped or
simply dishevelled cap of goat’s wool—refer to the
ancient Dionysian cult, and particularly to the 5th-6th
centuries A.D. in Kh w arazm. (L. A. Avdeeva, in
Uzbekskii sovetskiii teatr, Tashkent, Izdatel’stvo
“Nauka” Uzbekskoy SSR, 1966, 22, 18; Annaya F.
Korsakova, Uzbekskii opernyi teatr , Tashkent,
Gosudarstvennoe. Izdatel’stvo Khudozhestvennov
Literatim, 1961, figure facing p. 24, 33).

Oral folk art. Undoubtedly the oldest con¬
tinuous forms of Central Asia theatre still existing late
in the 20th century belonged to the folk tradition. At
their most uncomplicated level came performances by
bear trainers, jugglers, stilt walkers, wrestlers and
acrobats, horsemen, slight-of-hand artists, balancing
artists, animal imitators and dancers. The last two
categories often differed from the other entertainers
by representing imagined actions to an audience
rather than merely executing certain practiced skills.
From at least the 9th/15th century onwards in Harat
and Samarkand, the existence of the maddah [see
meddah] is recorded. He was a professional story
teller who, with gesture and facial expression, added
action to words with an extensive repertory of saint’s
lives, legends and tales told in public. Several
storytellers continued actively to render their
dramatic oral narratives as late as the reign of the
Amir c Abd al-Ahad of Bukhara (1885-1910) in towns
such as Mazar-i Sharif, A fgh anistan (Muhsin H.
Qadiraw, Ozbek khalk tamasha san c ati, Tashkent,
“Okituwci”, 1981, 8).

Puppeteers went even further in the direction of
dramatisation. One of the two best-known varieties of
puppet theatre seen in Central Asia was cadirkhayal , a
marionette show with full-bodied miniature
koghircaklar (marionettes) suspended and activated
from above on strings. The second sort of puppet,
usually a half-torso figure, was manipulated from
below by the hand of the kol koghircakbaz (puppeteer).
Both kinds of shows presented in confined space the
interactions of lively figures whose sounds or words
came from behind the scene, uttered by the puppet
master, who sometimes talked through a tube or thin
disk in order to alter his voice for different puppets.
Musicians habitually accompanied both puppet
shows. Rather elaborate playlets could be offered by
accomplished puppeteers. Well-known to Western
Turkistanis were the hand-puppet characters, long-
nosed (and therefore un-Central Asian and
“ridiculous”) Palwan Kacal, also to be found in Iran,
and his wife, Pu£ukkhan-avim or Bice Khanim-avim.
with their marital squabbles. One marionette play,
called Sarkardalar (“The mighty ones”), has a certain
Karparman acting as master of ceremonies at a royal
gathering. He requires the chieftains, who enter the
scene one after another in order of increasingly high
rank, to announce themselves. The chief figure is the
Yasawul, a Cossack officer embodying the Tsarist
Russian administration, and there is a drunk who also
shows Christians in a repulsive condition (T. Menzel,
Meddah , Schattentheater und Orta Ojunu, Prague 1941,
37-41; Avdeeva, 66-8). Then begins a spectacle within

the shows, as the powerful men observe monkey
trainers, various sensuous dancers in costume, and a
military parade. At the end, a devil sometimes
abruptly rushes these high-ranking sinners off to
Hades in punishment for watching idle, profane
theatricals. Puppet theatre came rather late to the
A fgh anistan of c Abd al-Rahman Khan (1880-1901)
[q.v. ] from Bukhara and Samarkand, whence a court
storyteller brought it and called it butley bawz (“puppet
play”), from the Urdu. For this show, the storyteller
invented the long-popular females, Onion Lady and
Lady Sweet (S. Heuisler, Two years and two months oj
involvement with theatre in Afghanistan , Mimeographed
Essay, Kabul, 18 Jan. 1975, 4). This emphasis upon
movement and brusque gesture to entertain viewers
was carried over to a notable degree into skits and
farces by human actors in folk theatricals. Among
Central Asians a form of tamasha (“show”) could be
seen that edged much closer than other folk art to
modern comedy.

Typical was the short play, Ra'is (“The Keeper of
morals”), in which a governor’s beadle, the main
figure, enforces the injunctions of religion and keeps
order as well as verifying the correctness of weights
and measures in the marketplace. The keeper of
morals suddenly appears in a bazaar, creating con¬
sternation among shopkeepers and tradesmen, who
must submit their scales and measuring rods to his
men for inspection. Violators bribe the officials
flagrantly. In both Tajik and Uzbek versions of The
keeper of morals , the traits of a semi-amateur folk perfor¬
mance are well exemplified. Flexible, unstable
dialogue typifies the improvisation in the absence of
any written script. Audience volunteers and other,
less-experienced performers are openly coached
during a show by the master of the troupe. The comic
vein is almost invariably ribald, and the subject of the
skit confined to everyday activity in town or coun¬
tryside. No specific site or stage was used or needed
for the presentation. This brief comedy placed
emphasis, like the puppet shows, upon slapstick, pan¬
tomime, and stock characters. The skit depended for
its effect largely upon minimal, repeated variants of
one action. In The Keeper of morals , peddler after ped¬
dler encounters the same treatment at the hands of
inspectors. The action moves forward through reitera¬
tion and rough jokes made at the expense of offenders
publicly humiliated and by the surprisingly varied
sorts of bribes offered to ward off extortion. The
second part of the same farce portrays the keeper of
morals similarly cross-examining hapless Muslims
concerning their religious duties and the obligatory
rituals, and meting out harsh discipline for infractions
(Nizam Nurdzhanov, Tadzhikskii narodnyi teatr ,
Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1956,
145-50, 309-14; Muhsin Qadiraw, Ozbek khalk aghzaki
dramdsi, Tashkent, Uzbekistan SSR Fanlar
Akademiyasi, Nashriyati, 1963, 57-63).

The many playlets extant differed greatly in size of
cast. The Keeper of morals used as many as 50 per¬
formers, but some required only one or two. Many
received command performances at the Central Asian
courts, and most diverted townspeople or villagers as
late as the early 20th century. A sizeable troupe of
kizikcis (buffoons) at the Kokan (Khokand) court of
c Umar Khan (1809-22) was led by a star, Bedashim.
Succeeding generations of buffoons consider him to be
their patron and founding father. ( Uzbekii sovetskii
teatr, i, 1966, 47). Troupes of buffoons were main¬
tained also at the Khlvan and Bukharan courts,
except during the reign of an amir or khan whose piety
prompted a ban on public theatricals. In Kashghar,

766

MASRAH

♦

under Ya c kub Beg (1865-77) [q.v.], the ra y is and his
muhtasibs strictly enforced the £hari c at. They actively
prevented mimes, storytellers and actors from diver¬
ting bazaar-goers. Before Ya c kub Beg’s day. Chinese
administrators had allowed all sorts of amusements
there (D. Boulger, Central Asian questions , London
1878, 6). Popular folk plays included Uylanish (“The
wedding”), humorously revealing a bridgeroom’s
reluctance to start life with an unknown woman,
especially when it is discovered at the unveiling that
she is not the promised bride. Another favourite skit,
Zarkakil (“Golden tresses”), portrays forbidden
dances and rituals engaged in by a group of men and
women. They make their bacchanal so alluring that
even the keeper of morals sent to censure them joins
in the festivities. In Muddrris (“The seminary
teacher”), the vices of a Marghilan schoolman
become the subject of the farce. Mazar (“The tomb”)
turns on the interaction between a venal custodian of
a sacred shrine and women and men who bring offer¬
ings to the saint buried there.

Plays in this genre depended for their appeal not
only upon the familiar themes but upon theatrical
style and verve of the performers, as well as on special
effects utilising such devices as flashes of gunpowder,
fire, the antics of animals imitated by human per¬
formers, and stylised, rudimentary costuming. Most
of these playlets would not have required more than
20 minutes to perform unless the characteristic repeti¬
tions were greatly multiplied. Their bawdy nature
and irreverence offended the strict religious leaders of
the capitals and repelled the urban literati with their
crudity. Thus although folk theatre prepared the way
for new developments in Central Asian stage activity
by whetting an appetite among the public for more
plays, it also created obstacles and provoked prohibi¬
tions which affected what was to follow.

Muslim religious drama. Strictly speaking,
Muslim miracle plays also constituted a part of folk
theatre, but their content and tone made a significant
difference between the two genres and set religious
drama far apart from the folk comedy found in Cen¬
tral Asia. Performances of mystery plays associated
with the Shf-I holy festival during the first ten days of
al-Muharram have been reported in Central Asia
relatively seldom. This is because the region has
remained almost entirely Sunni beginning from
around the 4th/11 th century. The earliest presenta¬
tions of Muslim mystery plays anywhere are conven¬
tionally dated to the mid-18th century in Iran (P. J.
Chelkowski, Ta c ziyeh: indigenous avant-garde theatre of
Iran , in Ta c ziyeh. Ritual and drama in Iran, ed. idem,
New York University Press and Soroush Press, n.p.
1979, 4). None seems to be attested in Central Asia
before the late 1200s/1800s. But in at least three
zones—in Turkmenistan along the Iranian frontier;
in the Farghana valley; and in the city of Bukhara and
its environs—Shi*! ritual ceremonies connected with
c Ashura received much attention in the 13th-
14th/19th-20th centuries. Descendants of over 30,000
Persians had been transferred to the Uzbek-Tajik
state of Bukhara after Shah Murad (1785-1800) cap¬
tured and devastated Merv (Marw) in 1790. They
augmented an existing core of mainly enslaved Shi*!
population already there. As late as January 1910,
bloody riots erupted in the city of Bukhara when Shi*!
processions, usually confined to the Persian quarter,
moved by permission of a Shi*! Kushbegi (Prime
minister) through Sunni sections of the city during
c Ashura. They very likely performed mystery plays on
that occasion as well. Not far from Bukhara city was
a well-known Persian garden called Q Ashurdkhdni,

whose name meant that it was a place connected with
rites linked to the martyrdom of Husayn, grandson of
the Prophet Muhammad (Sadriddin Aini,
Vospominaniya, Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo
Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1960, 1021; G. Tsvilling,
Bukharskaya smuta, in Srednyaya Aziya , no. 2 [Feb.
1910], 79-95; O. A. Sukhareva. Islam v Uzbekistane ,
Tashkent: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoy
SSR, 1960, 27-8). In the Farghana valley among
Sunni Muslims, performances consisted mostly of
readings, recitations, and ritual feasting, but atins
(women mourners), especially, were famed for their
eloquence during c Ashura in dramatically rendering
poetry devoted to Hasan and Husayn. Certainly, the
people of southwestern Tekke Turkmen villages such
as Muhammadabad or Derguez in the holy days fol¬
lowed extended daily presentations of the mystery
plays. Known as shabih (“imitation”), among them,
and as ta c ziya in Iran and India, the episodes attracted
fascinated attention of all villagers. These perfor¬
mances, with lines chanted in Turkmen—one source
who observed the plays between 1878-81 says that
they were in Caghatay—were offered by professional
players who travelled from town to town during al-
Muharram (E. O’Donovan, The Merv Oasis , London
1882, ii, 40-50).

The main segments of this cycle portray the suffer¬
ing of Hasan, Husayn, adolescent Rasim the
bridegroom, and other members of the Muslim Holy
Family and their offspring and retinue. The martyr¬
dom of Husayn, in particular, the bereavement of
their women, and the death of some children in the
unequal battle on the field at Karbala 3 in 60/680,
comprise the central theme of the drama. Besides the
sacred religious power of these episodes, tremen¬
dously effective theatrical use is made in them of
physical suffering, acute thirst and hunger, personal
sacrifice and loss, heroism, and inevitable human
destruction. European witnesses have declared that
these village presentations offered the most realistic
acting the outsiders had ever seen (O’Donovan, ii,
42). Nevertheless, the producers and performers
firmly rejected the notion that the shabih qualified as
drama and theatre at all. If universal participation of
those off-stage in such ritualistic performances
deprives these presentations of a separated audience
to watch without acting, and if that lack thus removes
the requirement obligatory for theatre, the Central
Asians may be justified in distinguishing such celebra¬
tions from what they otherwise call “theatre”. No
serious person denies that the Islamic mystery or
miracle play, as it is designated in Western literature,
exerts dramatic force and theatrical effect upon both
Muslim and non-Muslim. Notwithstanding this fact,
no vestige of this precedent, except possibly in
historical tragedy, seems to have carried over into the
new drama and stage that overlapped chronologically
with it in Central Asia.

Modern drama and theatre. Nearly all forms
of theatre known actively to the region began to coex¬
ist in the civilisation of Central Asia once the modern
genre appeared. That innovation occurred separately
in the three main sectors of the region only after the
first decade of the 20th century. Two factors delayed
adoption of the new theatre by Central Asians long
after visiting troupes began touring in Tashkent and
other cities of the Tsarist Russian sector. Racy folk
skits had given “theatre” in Central Asia a bad name
in polite society. In addition, the Armenian or Rus¬
sian troupes that acted there after the Russian con¬
quest in 1865 were not merely Christian but included
women who showed their faces openly. Only after

MASRAH

767

Azerbaijani and Tatar troupes brought their ail-male,
Muslim casts and plays to Western Turkistan’s cities
were educated Central Asians able to accept
European-style drama and theatre as their own
institution. Central Asian women initially performed
on stage in Tashkent and Samarkand, when several
actresses were recruited as trainees for the Model
Uzbek Troupe established in December 1920.
Women could not act publicly in Kabul theatres until
1959, much later than they went on stage in Kashghar
and Urum£i in Eastern Turkistan, where, following
Societ Central Asian models, they freely played roles
beginning around the mid-1930s.

Modern indigenous drama and theatre of the
region drew its initial audience in Samarkand, Rus¬
sian Turkistan, in January 1914. Padarkush yakhud
okumagan balaning halt (“The patricide, or the plight of
an uneducated boy”), written by the Samarkand
author Mahmud Khodja Behbudiy (1874-1919) in
1911, provided the premier performance of a play by
a local dramatist. Thereafter, the short tragedy
quickly went on tour throughout the Tsarist Russian
sector among Uzbeks, Tajiks, Uyghurs and others.
Behbudiy’s theme—the crying need for education—
became a standard subject for Central Asian
playwrights. Like some folk plays, these Djadld
(Reformist) dramas invariably focused upon some
social problem or abuse, though the DjadTdis would
not have acknowledged any link with folk theatre. The
patricide influenced the entire theatrical development
for years to come by inspiring many young poets to
begin writing for the theatre. They as a rule created
didactic works meant to edify or reform the public and
its behaviour, and usually avoided politics or outright
comedy. Kolbay Toghfs uli (b. and d. unknown)
wrote the first Kazak-language drama, Nadandik kur-
bandari (“Victims of ignorance”), which was printed
at Ufa in 1914 and performed at Orenburg in 1916,
both towns being located in the Tatar-Bashkir sphere
at or beyond the northern fringe of Kazak territory.
The play explored serious difficulties arising among
the nomads from the practice of polygamy, again
blaming abuses upon a lack of enlightenment in the
society. Another theme, the curse of pederasty, also
persisted in early Reformist drama and literature,
reflecting public concern over the prevalence of that
practice in the sexually segregated urban life of Cen¬
tral Asia. Abdurrauf Shahidi (Shashudilin) (b. and d.
unknown), a Tatar schoolteacher living in Kokan,
wrote the play first published (1912) in the Turki
(later, “Uzbek”) language of southern Central Asia.
The plot of Md.hrdmlar (“Forbidden to marry”)
dramatised the destructive effect upon young
Turkistan boys of the organised homosexual circles in
which many were kept by older men of means.

An acknowledged follower of what was termed
Behbudiy akimi (the Behbudiy tendency), Abdullah
Kadiriy (1894-1939), chose the second most common
serious plot, after backwardness, for his drama, Bakht-
siz kuyaw (“The unfortunate bridegroom”), published
in 1915 and staged the same year. In it, Kadiriy
explored the practice and often unhappy conse¬
quences of arranged or forced marriage in Central
Asian life. That theme emerged, as well, in one of the
earliest original plays presented in Kabul,
Afghanistan, in the 1920s, in Izdewadfe idfbdri (“A
girl’s forced marriage”). Similar social themes
animated the modern Uyghur theatre in Kashghar
during its first period, starting after 1933. Drug addic¬
tion, polygamy, bribery, stupid pretension and forced
or arranged marriage led the list of subjects in the
Chinese sector of the region. Exposure to modern

theatre in capitals of the Near and Middle East
strengthened the conviction of reform-minded Cen¬
tral Asians that the theatre offered a compelling
medium with which to educate and indoctrinate the
woefully illiterate population (96.8% of the total, on
average, in 1920) of Central Asians (E. Allworth, Cen¬
tral Asian publishing and the rise of nationalism, New York
1965, 22). In 1913, for example, the disgruntled,
socially alienated Kokan poet, Hamza Hakimzada
Niyaziy (1889-1929), visited Egypt, Syria, Turkey
and Russian Azerbayjan, each of which had enjoyed
lively indigenous modern stage activity beginning in
the 1850s to the 1870s (Mamadzh Rakhmanov.
Khamza i uzbekskii teatr , Tashkent: Gosudarstvennoye
Izdatel’stvo Khudozhestkvennoy Literaturi UzSSr,
1960, 58, 70, 81). He returned to write several plays,
similarly focused upon social abuses, during 1915-16.
His works, unlike the better-known Djadld drama,
aimed not so much toward constructive persuasion
and change as at exacerbating social tension and
increasing civil strife. For this reason, Niyaziy
remained little staged and outside the mainstream of
new Central Asian dramaturgy in the initial period.
But the same antagonistic quality was to earn this pro-
Russian writer an ideological approval from Com¬
munist leaders in the 1920s that persisted long after
his death. Niyaziy’s first play, the four-act Zahdrli
hayat yakhud c ishk kurbanldri (“A poisoned life, or, vic¬
tims of love”), written 1915, published by the author
in 1916 at Tashkent, dramatises the anguishing forced
marriage already portrayed in Central Asian poetry,
fiction and drama. His version blames religion for
permitting the practice. The playwright staged,
directed, publicised and organised a company to act in
this tragedy in Kokan’s military assembly building at
the end of 1915. Religious controversy closed the
show and he disbanded his troupe after two perfor¬
mances (Mamajan Rahmanaw, Ozbek teatri tarikhi,
Tashkent, Uzbekistan SSR “Fan” Nashriyati, 1968,
313-16).

Plays that avoided treating contemporary life,
usually historical dramas, in the beginning mainly
served patriotic purposes, and often ended tragically.
They started appearing about 1918, initially in the
Russian-controlled sector of the region, notably in
works written by another protege of Behbudiy, the
prolific Bukhara author Abdurauf Abdurahim-oghli
Fitrat (1886-1937) [q.v.]. He employed actual historic
figures from early to late mediaeval times for many
stage portraits. Fitrat composed Begijan in 1917, Abu
Muslim in 1918, Timurning saghanasi (“Timur’s
mausoleum”) in 1919, Oghuzkhan in 1919, Abul Fayz
Khan in 1924, c Isyan-i Vose (“Vose’s uprising”) in
1927, and others, either in Turki or Farsi. Like many
educated authors or poets of that period, Fitrat was
bilingual in Turkic and Iranian languages. Among his
historical dramas, only the final two, the first in
Turki, the second in Farsi, came out in print, though
troupes staged all of them in various towns of Central
Asia (V. Ya., art. Fitrat, Abdul Rauf, in BSE 1 , lvii, 656;
M. Rakh., art. Fitrat, in Teatral’naya Entsiklopediya'',
1967, col. 475). Historical drama rapidly spread to
other parts of Central Asia. Among the first modern
plays staged, starting in the 1920s in Afghanistan, was
Fath-i Andluz (“The conquest of Andalus”), translated
from Arabic and dealing with the Moorish invasion of
southern Spain in 92/711, the very year in which Arab
forces firmly planted Islam in Bukhara. Another treat¬
ment, seen in the Russian sector of Central Asia, was
Andalis songgilari (“The last days of Andalus”). The
conquest of Andalus, along with Shahawn-i Afghan (“The
A fgh an kings”) were among the very first modern

768

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dramas staged, like most Afghan plays, in the Dari
language. King Aman Allah (1919-29) [q.v. in Suppl.]
took another step towards westernising Afghanistan in
1926 when he caused a theatre building to be con
structed in the Paghman suburb of Kabul (Heuisler,
loc. cit.). Historical themes likewise attracted A fgh an
dramatists in later decades, despite the risk entailed in
writing about kings unflatteringly in a monarchy.
Abdur Ghafur Breshna (1907-74) wrote his Haji Mir-
wais Khan about an 8th-century clan leader and khan
who leads intrigues and battles for possession of the
fortress of Kandahar (Breshna, Haji Mirwais Khan. A
historical play in 3 scenes and 17 acts , in Afghanistan:
Historical and Cultural Quarterly , xiii/2 [Summer
1349/1970], 59-81).

In the Russian sector, the earliest historical plays
served supra-ethnic patriotic, but not nationalistic,
purposes. They represented Islam at the height of
expansion against Christianity or made allegories for
the Central Asian situation under foreign rule. After
the coup d'etat in November 1917, and the increasing
Russian Communist domination of cultural develop¬
ment in the sector, historical drama became explicitly
civil- (i.e. class-) war-minded and anti-patriotic. Such
plays were meant to depict rulers and most other past
leaders as “class enemies”, a procedure that persisted
into following decades. An exception was made in
works devoted to a few approved potentates who were
usually also poets or scholars. Thus Uzbek drama fur¬
nishes an example; the Timurids Ulugh-Beg (1394-
1449), Mir c Ali Shir Nawa 3 ! (1441-1501), and Zahlr
al-Dln Muhammad Babur Padishah (1493-1530), or
c Umar Khan’s talented wife Nadira Khanim (1792-
1842) has each furnished the subject for at least one
full-length stage work in Uzbekistan alone. Selected
historical figures served similar ends elsewhere in
Central Asia.

Most active among the first prominent local
Uyghur playwrights of Eastern Turkistan became the
poet Abdurahim Tilash Otkur (1922-), from Komul
district. He wrote his initial play, “A million flowers
from one drop of blood” ( Tamca kandin miliyon cicekldr)
(1943) in a patriotic vein. With the poet Lutpulla
Mutallip (1922-45)—author of several other,
ideological plays—Otkur wrote “The Steadfast
peony” ( Cing modangul) (1943), soon staged in
Urum£i. And, when Otkur served as Editor-in-Chief
of Shinjiang gazeti, the principal East Turkistan
newspaper, he published his drama, Niyazkiz (1948)
(Yusup Khojayef, Cakmak kabi hayat, in Bizning watan,
no. 2 (Jan. 1983), 3; personal interview, Istanbul
1956, with Mr Polat Kadir, former Managing Editor,
Shinjiang gazeti).

At Urum£i and Turpan in Chinese Turkistan in
1982, Uy gh ur troupes staged a new historical drama,
Kanlik yillar (“Bloody years”) that had been published
in the revived, modified Arabic script in 1981. The
Uyghur author Tursun Yunus (b. and d. unknown),
issued it in the unusual Uy gh ur language journal,
Shinjian sanHti (“Art of Shinjiang”) from Urum£i.
Sidik Zalili, an 18th-century Uyghur poet and hero of
this six-act play, affirms the identity of his country
within the world of Islam when he prays for an end to
religious conflict, rhetorically asking in his final
speech: “When will the sectarian slaughter of the
world of Islam ( lslamiyat dunyasi) come to an end?”
Commenting to Chinese critics upon his reason for
creating this long historical drama, Yunus once
remarked that he meant it to oppose the old Muslim
sect of I§hans which had “raised its head again in
recent years in some parts of southern Shinjiang”.
(Tursun Yunus, Kanlikyillar, in Shinjiang . sanHti , no.

1 [July 1981], 24-93; Zhorhilimizning mukhbiri.
Tarikhiy dirama ‘ ‘ kanlikyillar ’ sohbat y igh inining khatirisi .
in Shinjiang sd^niti, no. 4 [1982], 123).

Alongside historical plays there came staged ver¬
sions of legendary tales, heroic epics and popular
romances. Mukhtar Auez ulf (1897-1961) not only
gave Kazak audiences such a rendition of legendary
motifs based upon oral epic and entitled his four-act
work Englik Kebek (1922), but directed the first perfor¬
mance in Semey (Semipalatinsk) himself that same
year {Kazak teatrining tarikhi , Alma Ata: Kazak SSR-
ning “Ghllim” Baspasi; 1975, 353). Numerous selec¬
tions of instrumental and vocal music often entered
into these productions. The musician Sharahim
Shaumar adapted well-loved motifs from the classical
Central Asian cycle Shashmakam to the text of the
Turki-language scenarios written by Shamsiddin
Sharafiddinaw Khurshid (1892-1960) for Farhad wd
Shirin and Layla wd Majnun (1922) (Khurshid.
Tanldngdn. dsarlar, Taskent: Uzbekistan SSR “Fan”
Nashriyati, 1967, 10-11). Music added great feeling
and appeal to the stage presentation of these tragic,
mystical romances and made them increasingly
popular throughout the region. Complete opera
started relatively late. Conventionally, it is said to
have begun in the Russian sector of Central Asia with
Boran (1937, staged 1939), by Kamil Nu c manaw
Yashin (1909-). The work speaks about the tragic love
and death of young Djora and his beloved Nargul
during the Central Asian uprising against Russian
colonists in 1916. Music, based upon genuine Uzbek
melodies, was arranged by the Uzbek composer M.
Ashrafi and the Slavic musicologist, S. N. Vasilenko.
In the Chinese sector, indigenous opera began at
Kashghar with Rabija Sa c din (1948), in five acts, by
the Uyghur author, Ahmad Ziya 3 i (b. unknown). It,
too used a traditional eastern Romeo and Juliet theme
to the accompaniment of indigenous music. Accord¬
ing to an eye-witness, audiences jammed the theatre’s
opera performances (A. Korsakova, Uzbekskii opernyi
teatr..., 142-7; Ziya’i Ahmad, Rabi Q d Sa Q din , in
Tozomas ciceklar , Kashghar: Shinjiang Gazita
Idarasida Basildi, 13 February 1948, 73-169;

Ghulamettin Pahta, personal memoir, 30 January
1983).

More pleasant to audience taste in the region than
opera were musical comedy and a form of serious
theatre termed “musical drama” which combines
spoken and sung parts for the personages. This type
of theatre became institutionalised first in the Soviet
Russian sector, then appeared in Afghanistan as well
as Shinjiang. Ghulam Zafariy (1889-1944) wrote one
of the earliest regional musical dramas, the four-act
Halima , 1918-19. A Tashkent cast with a woman in
the lead role staged it in 1919-20. Uyghur theatre in
Kazakstan saw its first formal Uy gh ur musical drama,
Anarkhan , by Dj. Asim and A. Sadir, and based again
upon popular folk songs, staged in 1934 at Djarkent.
now Panfilov, located just eleven miles from the
Shinjiang frontier near Kuldja [g.y.]. Like the refor¬
mist plays of two decades earlier in Samarkand and
Kokan, Anarkhan elaborates the unhappy conse¬
quences of a forced marriage between a young bride
and an unloved older and wealthy man. In
Kazakstan, among the small Uyghur population of
109,000 recorded for the USSR in 1926, a succession
of Uzbek theatrical directors, producers and actors
from Uzbekistan helped with the first staging oi Anar¬
khan. Mannan Uyghur (1897-1955) and c Ali Ardobus
Ibrahim (1900-59) infused those initial Soviet Uy gh ur
endeavours with the brief Uzbek experience in drama.
Ibrahim had also worked earlier in Stalinabad

MASRAH

769

(Dushanbe) with the fledgling modern Tajik theatre.
This government-sponsored cooperation between
nationalities imitated the frequent collaboration and
borrowing in stage work initiated earlier by Central
Asians themselves. For directing his first staging of
The patricide , Behbudiy had brought in an Azerbayja-
nian, c Ali Askar Askar-oghli (b. and d. unknown).
The first decade and a half of modern Uyghur drama
and theatre, including its repertoire, starting ca. 1933
in Shinjiang, also came to life under direct influence
of the Soviet Central Asian theatre. In the folk tradi¬
tion, when 19th-century puppetry came to
Afghanistan from the Russian sector, it became more
than simple borrowing. A puppeteers’ troupe
immediately formed around it and acquired the name
Madkharawi-yi Sayin (“Clowns of Sayin”, i.e. sugar)
from the leading puppeteer, Sayin Kanad (Heuisler,
op. cit. , 4).

Organised troupes, amateur or professional,
coalesced wherever traditional or modern theatre was
performed. The Kokan Khanate’s next-to-the-last
indigenous ruler, Khudayar Khan (1854-8, 1862-3,
1866-75) [see ioiokand], maintained a well-known
folk troupe at court. Itinerant troupes of performers
often presented Muslim religious drama in the
villages. Neither folk nor religious drama troupes
could effectively adapt themselves to the modern stage
when it appeared. The first Reformist dramas
necessitated creation of entirely new theatre groups to
perform them. At Samarkand in 1913, Behbudiy
acknowledged his difficulty in forming the initial
indigenous troupe of amateurs because of lack of
interest and experience. His group soon turned semi-
professional through rehearsals and exposure during
active road tours outside Samarkand, playing also in
Bukhara. Kokan, Andidjan and other towns until it
disbanded in 1916 (Mamajan Rahmanaw, 281-2).
The future playwright, Abdullah Awlaniy (1878-
1934) established one of the earliest of these troupes,
the semi-professional “Turkistan” group, basing
itself on Tashkent, in 1914. Like the first Samarkand
group, “Turkistan” began assembling a repertoire
around Behbudiy’s The patricide , presenting various
additional Central Asian plays and some translations
from Turkish, Azerbayjani, and the like. Numbers of
other private theatre groups came into being, mirror¬
ing the custom in folk theatricals. Traditionally,
ensembles of clowns, buffoons, puppeteers, conjurors,
stilt walkers, equilibrists, horn players, bellringers
and related performers had been combined in one
kdsaba-yi sazanda or mihtdrlik (guild of musicians) rather
than separated into guilds for each special art. As late
as the early 20th century, this guild still possessed its
own risala (statute or treatise), giving a legendary
history of the art’s origins, naming saintly protectors,
and setting forth religious duties and prayers linked to
each phase of the vocational activity. In 1926, political
authorities in the Soviet sector incorporated these folk
performers into a “Union of Art Workers” and con¬
tinued their performances under government auspices
(A. Samoilovic, Turkestanskii ustav-risolya tsekha artistov ,
in Materialy po etnografii, Leningrad: Izdanie
Gosudarstvennogo Russkogo Muzeya 1927, 54-6),.
Thus sponsorship by provincial governors, added to
some patronage of the khans and amirs, along with
guild structure and tradition, gave performers in folk
theatre systematic recognition and status comparable
to the position enjoyed by many artisans of the region
in different vocations.

In the initial modern period, amateur troupes
attempting new productions regularly drew to them in
various centres as actors persons who were already

accomplished teachers, poets or playwrights. A Tatar
author, Abdullah Badriy (b. and d. unknown), later
a playwright, originally acted to acclaim the women’s
roles offered by Behbudiy’s Samarkand troupe. As
“Bay”, Abdullah Awlaniy had the lead in the first
Tashkent presentation of The patricide on 27 February
1914. Hamza Hakim Zada Niyaziy acted in his
drama A poisoned life in Kokan on 22 October 1915.
Mannan Uyghur and Awlaniy performed in the
“Turkistan” troupe when it put on Abdullah
Kadiriy's The unfortunate bridgeroom in Tashkent,
November 4, 1915. Ubaydullah Kh odja’s troupe
toured all over the Farghana valley. Following the
March and November 1917 changes in Russian
governments, some private theatricals had continued
in Central Asia. Except for folk art shows, most of
their activity was soon curtailed by political
authorities. All theatre houses and properties became
government-owned after 2 October 1918. By 1922, in
the Russian sector among the Central Asians, only
state theatre groups received approval or support, and
political censorship was again firmly established.
Uzbekistan’s comprehensive law code in this field
became a model for all Soviet Central Asia. It con¬
trolled repertoires as well as productions. The decree,
enacted by the Turkistan Autonomous SSR on 16
April 1923 and codified by the successor Uzbekistan
SSR on 8 February 1927, provided for Union republic
censors in publishing houses and press and at all levels
of local political hierarchy down to the county (okrug)
(Uzbekistan IdjtimaH Shoralar Dioralar Diomhoriyati Ishci
wa Dihkan Hokomatining Kanon wa Boyroklarining Yighin-
disi , no. 9 [7nci Mart 1927in£i yil], 199-202).

Nevertheless, the legacy of theatres, troupes and
faithful audiences had already created the environ¬
ment needed for enlarging modern drama perfor¬
mances on a regular basis. A network of new troupes
and theatres quickly grew up in the Russian sector,
though there were setbacks. The “Karl Marx Drama
Troupe” organised there in October 1918 was led in
1921 to Bukhara, which was at the time still semi¬
independent from Soviet Russia, by Mannan
Uyghur, to propagandise for the new regime’s
ideology. During a performance of Fitrat’s Abu
Muslim in 1922, opponents burned down the theatre
and dispersed the troupe, leaving Bukhara again with¬
out a professional theatre group for years. At Alma
Ata in Kazakstan, in order to lay a stable foundation
for guided theatrical growth in its area, the Kazakstan
Autonomous S.S.R. Ministry of Education ordered
the establishment of a Kazak Theatre Studio to
accommodate 40 students from January 1933
onwards. This followed by almost a decade the foun¬
ding of a studio for Uzbek theatre trainees in
Moskow. The 24 young people sent to Moscow from
Uzbekistan had included several who contributed
greatly, as authors, directors, actors or translators, to
the development of Central Asian theatre. They
included the mature c Abdulhamid Sulayman Colpan
(1896-1938), a promising 14-year old actress Sara
Ishanturayewa (1911-), Mannan Uyghur, and Abrar
Hidayataw (1900-57). The latter subsequently
achieved fame in the role of Hamlet during 21 con¬
secutive Uzbek performances after the premiere in
1935. Cultural leaders dispatched another group of 17
from Uzbekistan to Baku in Azerbayjan for a
theatrical apprenticeship (Kazak, teatrining tarikhi, Alma
Ata: Kazak SSRnfng “Ghflim Baspasi, 1975, 201-2;
Uzbekskii sovetskii leatr, i, Tashkent: Izdatel’stvo
“Nauka” Uzbekskoy SSR, 1966, 246-8). In 1937,
there were 24 theatres, including both Russian and
Uy gh ur ones, functioning in Kazakstan.

770

MASRAH

By 1934, the quantity of regularly performing local-
language theatres in all Uzbekistan had reached its
peak of 32, after which the numbers gradually sub¬
sided to a fairly constant 22 to 28. This did not include
provincial Uzbek houses operated in the Kirgiz SSR
at Osh and Tajik SSR at Now (Nau). The quantity of
Tajikistan’s theatres working in various languages
rose from four in 1934 to 24 by 1941. (Mamajan
Rahmanaw, 413-5; N. L’vov, Kirgizkii teatr. Ocerk
istorii, Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo
“Iskusstvo”, 1953, 127; Yakov Mosheev, My recollec¬
tions of Now Raion: the status of a peripheral theater in Soviet
Tajikistan, in Central Asian Survey , nos. 2-3 [1982-3],
108-22; Nizam Kh abiblullavewic Nurdjanaw, Istoriya
tadzhikskogo sovetskogo teatr a (1917-1941 gg),
Dushanbe: Izdatel’stvo “Donish”, 1967, 401). Thus
the quantity of theatres in all Central Asia multiplied
strikingly from 1913 onwards, reaching an estimated
150 official houses, government sponsored and sup¬
ported, in the three sectors, during the 1950s and
thereafter. The capital cities saw a division of labour
among serious drama theatres, musical drama houses,
opera, and comedy or children’s playhouses, as well
as between the major languages and traditions. In
1983, Tashkent possessed nine of Uzbekistan’s 28
active theatres. Leading administrators in the three
principal theatrical organisations of Uzbekistan in
1983 were the drama critics and historians, Professor
Hafiz Sh. Abdusamataw (1925-), former Editor of
Shark yulduzi, the principal Uzbek journal publishing
drama, and Director of the Hamza Institute for the
Arts of the Ministry of Culture, Uzbekistan SSR;
Professor Mamadjan R. Rahmanaw (1914-), Rector
of the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatre Arts Institute, the
main training centre for theatre arts; Sara Ishan-
turayeva, Bahriddin Nasriddinaw and other officers
of the sole membership organisation for stage, the
Uzbekistan Theatre Society (Djamiydat). The vigour
of the theatrical institution implied a constant need for
an attractive repertory, and, especially, for many
original indigenous plays. The numbers of original
Central Asian stage works written had risen from
about 20 altogether by the end of 1916 to many hun¬
dreds by the 1980s. New Uzbek scripts of varying
quality were being received at the rate of some 25
annually in the early 1980s. Yet critics and historians
spoke soberly at the same time about a decline in
drama, attributed generally to the emergence of
radio, television and new popular music. Most keenly
missed were good serious plays about contemporary
subjects. Even before the strong growth of mass media
in broadcasting, Central Asian theatre had endured
slumps in attendance to a marked degree. Many
auditoria remained nearly empty night after night in
the 1920s and 1930s owing to public indifference to
the offerings being brought to the stage, especially to
those heavily ideological in content.

From the beginning, modern Central Asian drama
bore three distinct traits: it was socially or politically
didactic; purely entertaining and comic; or the plays
were historical and patriotic, sometimes legendary.
Newer drama combined some of these characteristics,
remaining resolutely instructive in the Russian and
Chinese sectors, but more balanced in spirit and aims
in Afghanistan until the late 1970s. The theatre of all
three sectors began to explore contemporary life
seriously, in particular, after an opening period that
was notably tendentious. Since the coming of Com¬
munist regimes to the three sectors, the nature of
drama has shifted remarkably in the direction of pro¬
pagandising political-social directives from the central
authorities. In each case, the acknowledged

ideological base is a kind of official Marxism. As a
result, plays written and staged in the period following
that political change in each sector have become at
first outspokenly rhetorical and sloganeering. Themes
announced by political authorities for each period can
be found reflected in the dramaturgy and repertories.
In addition, plays have persistently enunciated such
principles as atheism, espoused by Communist
regimes. Many Central Asian stage works originating
in the Russian sector, far more than in the others,
have openly and specifically opposed the religion of
Islam. This paralleled the intensification of political
and social tensions in the USSR in the 1930s, when
Central Asian plays, too, mirrored the times. Zinnat
Fathullin (1903-) wrote a drama typical of the period
in 1932 entitled Nikab yirtildi (“The mask torn
away”), one which is engrossed with a search for
“enemies” ostensibly hidden inside Central Asian
society. A related obsession with “external enemies”
and “traitors” coloured political plays such as Kanli
sdrab (“Bloody mirage”) (1961-4) in two acts and ten
scenes, by Sarwar Azimaw (1923-), a political activist
and diplomat.

In the 1960s, dramas with a more human content
began to appear increasingly. It was indicative of this
evolution that Bahram Rahmanaw (1915-61) turned
to themes such as Yurdk sirldri (“Secrets of the heart”)
(1953), a play that ignored political topics and simply
concentrated upon the private lives of its people.
Rahmanaw, a Communist Party member, headed the
Administration for Art Affairs in Uzbekistan from
1953-5; thereafter, he became Director of the Scien¬
tific Research Institute for Studies of the Arts, and
finally, in 1958, took the post of First Secretary of the
powerful government-controlled Union of Writers of
Uzbekistan. Another influential intellectual, Izzat
Sultan (1910-), in his play Iman addressed the ethical
dilemma put before a family that finds a dishonest
scholar in its midst. The senior Uzbek poet and
playwright, Rahmatulla Atakoziyew Uyghun (1905-),
soon made audiences face the crucial test of social and
political ethics in Soviet Central Asia. He looked, in
his play Dostlar (“Friends”) (1961), at the havoc
raised among farmers by the Stalinist terror and false
denunciations that had resulted in unlawful treatment
to the extremes of execution and exile. For Central
Asian theatre this was a pointed theme, for many of
the important earlier playwrights and other theatre
people, including the Kazaks Mir Djakib Duwlat-ulf
(1885-1937) and Saken Sadvakas Seyfullah-uli (1894-
1937) and the Uzbeks Colpan, Fitrat, Kadiriy, Ziya
Said (1901-38) and Zafariy, had lost their lives in the
political repression.

The Kirgiz dramatist and novelist, Cingiz Ayt-
mataw (1928-) and the Kazak author, Kaltay
Muhammadjanaw (1928-), joined in examining that
very controversial ethical subject. They translated
their Kazak language drama, Koktobedegl kezdesu
(“Mountain top encounter”) (1972) based upon a
story by Aytmataw, into Russian as Voskhozhdenie na
Fudziyamu (“The ascent of Mount Fuji”) and gave it
its premiere in Moscow in 1973. They recreated the
tension in society over collective indifference and guilt
toward innocent victims of political repression and
social discrimination. But the writers in the end con¬
cern themselves more forcefully with basic problems
of individual honesty and responsibility for personal
actions and outlook.

After those ethical dramas during the 1970s-1980s
in the Soviet sector, historical tragedy and domestic
comedy seemed to predominate, leaving assertively
political and ideological plays less in the forefront that

MASRAH

771

they had been previously. Yashin returned to the
story of climactic events in early 20th-century Central
Asian history with a three-act musical drama he called
Inkilab tangi (Bukhara) (“Dawn of the Revolution:
Bukhara”^. published in 1973. Its dramatis personae
included the Bolshevik dictator Vladimir I. Lenin, the
Young Bukharan politician Fazil Khodjavew. the last
Amir of Bukhara Sa c Id c Alimkhan and other historical
figures, portrayed on stage with a cinematic flashback
technique. Yashin represents the prominent old-time
and doctrinaire Central Asian dramatists educated
almost entirely in the Soviet period. Like Rahmanaw,
he held key positions in the administration of the
theatrical arts and served as Secretary of the Govern¬
ment’s Union of Writers in Uzbekistan. The con¬
tribution of these playwrights hardly lay in the comic
genre.

Comedy originally defined Central Asian theatre,
for it was the essence of folk skits and acts long before
and well after religious or modern drama appeared on
the scene. In the early decades of the 20th century,
both the Djadids and the very first Communist Soviet
playwrights, as well as Afghan writers, initially for the
most part rejected light comedy. They believed their
message to be paramount and serious. In the first
decade, the official bulletin, Ishtirakiyun, published by
the Central Committee of the Turkistan Autonomous
S.S.R. at Tashkent, demanded that theatre cease to
be “a place of amusement and love intrigues’’, and it
specifically criticised attempts to present “diverting
comedy’’ ( Ishtirakiyun, 11 December 1919, 12 October
1920). Consequently, from the 1920s to the 1950s in
Soviet Central Asian theatre, most stage comedy
spoke with a heavy satirical voice. Hamid Ghulam
(1919-) wrote Tashbalta c ashik (“Tashbalta in love’’)
(1962), a musical sharply attacking religion and the
practice of Islam in Central Asia. Folk humour incor¬
porated in modern plays from the 1920s onward
repeatedly conformed to the vision of comedy pre¬
ferred by cultural managers. The Uyghur dramatist
Yusufbek Muhlisi (1920-), who emigrated from the
Chinese sector to Soviet Central Asia at about the
same time as other writers, sc. around 1964, provided
Uyghur performers in Kazakstan and Uzbekistan
with a later specimen of this genre. Muhlisi’s Nasrid-
din Apandim (1966), a musical staged in 1967 at Alma
Ata, adapted several anecdotes from the widely
popular Nasriddin tradition to fashion, in the Uyghur
idiom, what critics called an anti-Islamic satirical
comedy. (Akhme dzh an Kadyrov, Godi stanovleniya (Iz
istorii uygurskogo teatra muzikaTnoy komedii) Alma Ata:
Izdatel’stvo “Zhalyn”, 1978, 62-3).

Subtler, often lighter, humour characterised more
of the works written later in the 1960s by younger
dramatists. The new generation of playwrights
interests itself directly in personal feelings, contem¬
porary values and ways of life. Most notable in
Uzbekistan in the 1970s-80s became Olmas
Umarbekaw (1934-) and Abdukahhar Ibrahimaw
(1939-), both natives of Tashkent. Ibrahimaw’s initial
play, Birinci bosd (“First kiss’’) (1969), which the
author calls “a lyric drama’’, ran for 500 perfor¬
mances between 1971-5 on the “Young Guard
Theatre” stage in Tashkent. The comedy focuses
exclusively upon the personal motives, lives and loves
of several teenagers, shown as growing into young
adulthood by the end of the second and final act.
Ibrahimaw’s unideological but bitter comedy, the
two-act Arra (“The saw”), 1970, staged in the
Farghana Oblast Theatre, is about the Mansuraw
family. It dramatises the character and ideals of
Murad, the head of the family. He is an influential

medical administrator and professor who is the cut¬
ting “saw” of the play Mansuraw is convinced that
everyone acts only out of selfishness or, out of what is
closely related, a sense of obligation rooted in the
principle of quid pro quo. He disallows the elements of
affection, generosity, spontaneity and similar affir¬
mative forces in human relationships. Ibrahimaw’s
two-act play Meni dytdi demdng (“Not a word about
me”) satirises a hearty but impervious country town
borough politician and educator, Hashim-aka. His
callousness, like that of Professor Mansuraw in The
saw, permits any positive human urge to wither and
die. This is symbolised in Not a word... by the corrup¬
tion and demoralisation of the borough’s best, most
generous part-time gardener, a roofer, Ali, whose
small courtyard plot has decorated, pleased and fed
the whole neighbourhood well up until he acquires
false values from a chain of irresponsible bureaucrats,
including Hashimaka, and allows the lush garden to
dry up. Ibrahimaw’s later play, Tusmal (“Supposi¬
tion”), ran at the Samarkand Alimdjan Uzbek Drama
Theatre in 1983, and another one, Cakana sdwda
(“Retail trade”), was published in 1984. Six of
Ibrahimaw’s plays, including First kiss, The saw and
Not a word about me, came out in Russian translation
in 1982. (Abdukahhar Ibrahimaw, Birinci bosd. Arra.
P’esalar, Tashkent: Ghafur Ghulam namidagi
Adabiyat wa San c at Nashriyati, 1978; Abduka khkh ar
Ibragimov, Obo mne ni slova. P’esy, translated from the
Uzbek, Moscow: Sovetskii Pisatel’, 1982; Cakana
sdwda, in Shark yulduzi, no. 8 [Aug. 1984], 73-99;
Abdukahhar Ibrahinaw, Tusmal. P’esalar, Tashkent:
Ghafur Ghulam namidagi Abdabiyat wa San 5 at
Nashriyati, 1985). Crimean Tatars, Tajiks and
Turkmens also contributed new plays.

After the earliest days of modern Central Asian
theatre, translations and borrowings from plays writ¬
ten outside the region were frequently published in
Central Asian languages and included in the reper¬
tory. Although Tsarist Central Asians originated their
own earliest dramas, the relatively few local produc¬
tions soon required supplementing by adaptations
from playwrights of Azerbayjan, Tatarstan and
Turkey in order to make an adequate repertoire
available. Into Afghanistan, modern stage plays first
came from the Arabic, English or Turkish. To Shin-
jiang in the 1930s, the active theatre of Soviet Central
Asia supplied numbers of its plays, easily adapted to
the linguistic needs of Uy gh ur and Kazak actors and
audiences. Throughout the region, the range of
dramaturgy widened further with renditions of Euro¬
pean and Russian dramas. Moliere’s comedies,
especially L Avare, Le Medecin malgre lui, Georges Dandin
and Les fourberies de Scapin became perhaps the most
popular in Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan, as
they had been in Egypt and Turkey. Shakespeare,
most often represented by Hamlet, The merchant oj
Venice and Othello, appeared nearly everywhere.
Colpan made the first published Uzbek translation of
Hamlet in 1934. It was staged, along with Othello, in
Tashkent in the mid-30s. By the 1960s and 1970s,
A fgh anistan’s city theatres were staging recent
American plays by Eugene O’Neill ( Desire under the
elms), Tennessee Williams ( The glass menagerie),
Edward Albee {The zoo story) and others. Translations
of standard Russian plays seen in Soviet Central Asia
included Gogol’s comedy, The Inspector-General,
Ostrovsky’s melodrama, Thunderstorm, Gorky’s
ideological Yegor Bulicev and others , and many dozens of
works from Soviet Russian dramatists concerning
selected political and historical themes. The impor¬
tance of foreign sources for the Central Asian reper-

772

MASRAH

tory is emphasised in the fact that translations sup¬
plied around one-half of the 130 to 140 plays staged
each year in Uzbekistan as late as the early 1980s
(Ozbekistan dddbiyati wa sdn c ati, no. 8 [19 February
1982] 4, 7).

Bibliography : A critical bibliography of Cen¬
tral Asian theatre and drama has not been pub¬
lished. Selected bibliographies are found in E.
Allworth, Drama and theater of the Russian East:
Transcaucasus, Tatarstan , Central Asia, in Middle East
Studies Association Bulletin, xvii/2 (December 1983),
151-60; a short version of the same survey appears
in R. Fleshman (ed.), Theatrical movement: a
bibliographical anthology. New Orleans 1986; in
Soviet Central Asia some lists for subdivisions of
the region are in print: Uzbekskoy iskusstvo (Teatr,
muzyka, kino na stranitsakh pecati). Bibliograficeskii
ukazateT , Tashkent 1936 [in Uzbek]; E. Baybulov et
alii, Saken Seyfuliin. (UkazateT literatury k 70-letiyu so
dnia rozhdeniya), Alma Ata 1965; editions of plays:
Mahmud Khodja Behbudiy, The patricide or the plight
oj an uneducated boy, in Ural-Altaic Yearbook, lviii
(1986), 65-96; Cingiz Aitmatov and Kaltai

Mukhamedzhanov, The ascent of Mount Fuji, New
York 1975; Abdulla Kakhar, Silk Suzanei, in Soviet
Literature, no. 8 (1958), 43-98; writings about
drama and theatre: L. Hughes, The Soviet theatre in
Central Asia, in Asia, xxxix/10 (October 1934), 590-
3; Nabi Ganiev, Fifteen years of the Khamza Uzbek
Academic Dramatic Theater, in Sovietland, no. 3 (1935),
25-7, 42; Drama in the Central Asian Republics and cen¬
tralization of art, in Bull, of the Inst, for the Study of the
History and Culture of the USSR, i/3 (June 1954), 37-
40; K. Stolz, Le theatre afghan, in Afghanistan
(Kabul), ix/3 (1954) 34-44; O. Spies, Tiirkisches
Puppentheater. Versuch einer Geschichte des Puppentheaters
im Morgenland, Emsdetten 1959, 41-4; A. Bombaci,
On ancient Turkish dramatic performances, in Uralic and
Altaic Series, xxiii (1963), 81-117; H. Wilfrid
Brands, “Askiya”, ein wenig bekanntes Genre des
usbekischen Volksdichtung , in Ural-Altaische Jahrbucher,
xliii (1971), 100-6; M. N. Kadyrov, Women’s Folk
Theatre in Uzbekistan, in Trudi VII Mezdunarodnyi
kongress antropologiceskikh i etnograficeskikh nauk, vi
(Moscow 1969), 94-9; N. Kh. Nurdzhanov, Old
Tadjik pantomimes, in ibid. , vi, 87-93; Allworth, The
beginnings of the modern Turkestanian theater , in Slavic
Review, xxiii/4 (December 1964), 676-87; idem,
Drama and the theater, in Uzbek Literary Politics, 1964,
215-35; idem, Reform and revolution in early Uzbek
drama, in Central Asian Review, xii/2 (1964), 86-96;
idem, A document about the cultural life of Soviet Uzbeks
outside their SSR, in Central Asian Survey, i/2-3 (1982-
3), 103-25; idem, Mahmud Khoja Behbudiy . in Encycl.
of World Literature in the Twentieth Century, i, 1981,
219; idem, Abdalrauf Fitrat, in ibid. , ii, 1982, 143-4;
idem, Murder as metaphor in the first Central Asian
drama, in UAYb, lviii (1986), 65-97; Imin Akhmidi
et alii, Moljar tagh boranliri, Urum£i 1985; Saypidin
Azizi, Amannisakhan (Tarikhiy diramma), Beijing
1983; Akhmatjan Kadiraw (compiler), P’esilar
(Uyghur dramaturgliri p’esilirining toplimi), Alma Ata
1978. (E. Allworth)

6. In Muslim India and Pakistan.

The classical Sanskrit drama in India had reached
its apogee two centuries before the first Muslim
penetration. Its gradual decline—often blamed partly
on the religious objections of the new Muslim
rulers—was probably due as much to linguistic
developments, through the mediaeval local Prakrits to
the modern regional languages. But whilst Sanskrit
drama, which was essentially court theatre, died out,

popular vernacular drama prospered. Strolling
players went from village to village performing
various types of plays, pageants, monologues or other
entertainment (Haywood, 294-6), often on familiar
Hindu themes such as Krishna and Radha, with sing¬
ing, dancing and, at times, coarse humour. Among
the actors were Muslims: female parts were per¬
formed by men or boys.

Some efforts were made in the 17th and 18th cen¬
turies to write plays in various languages such as
Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and Gujarati of literary,
and not merely of entertainment value. But there is no
doubt that it was the influence of European—
especially British—drama which provided the main
impetus for the growth of a new interest in the theatre,
though the heritage, both classical and popular,
played part. Towards the end of the 19th century,
English plays were performed in Calcutta, and two
were performed in Bengali translation (Guha
Thakurta, 40 ff.). Lord Macaulay’s Minute of 1833
led to the spread of English higher education in India.
This in its turn led to the study, then the translation
or adaptation of English plays, and especially of
Shakespeare. R. K. Yajnik, 270-8, lists 200 versions
of 29 Shakespeare plays in nine languages between
1864 and 1919. These languages are Urdu-
Hindustani, Hindi, Panjabi, Gujarati, Marathi,
Bengali, Tamil, Telegu and Kanarese. In this period,
the Indian government regarded Hindustani as a
lingua franca and official language which could be
written in either Persian or Devanagari script, depen¬
ding largely on whether one was a Muslim or Hindu.
People spoke of High Urdu and High Hindi, but the
distinction was one of vocabulary, style and script
rather than grammar. The entry of Muslims into
play writing led to the development of Urdu or Hin¬
dustani drama. Very occasionally, they used other
scripts such as Devanagari or Gujarati. However, it is
fair to say that practically all their plays—certainly all
plays of note—were written and published in the Per¬
sian script, and may fairly be described as Urdu
drama.

The form of popular drama which appealed to
Muslims was called Rahas (cf. Sanskrit rasa '‘senti¬
ment”, a technical term of the Classical dramaturgy),
which was on Hindu themes and included singing and
dancing and formed a sort of operetta. This became
popular in Lucknow, thanks to the patronage of the
last Nawwab of Awadh (Oudh.), Wadjid C AU Shah,
who himself wrote a number of them. It was there that
what is considered as the first real Urdu drama,
Amanat’s Indar Sabha, was performed in 1853. So suc¬
cessful was it that it was translated into several
languages and performed all over the subcontinent.
The scene is Indar (Indra)’s court, and the play
recounts how a peri falls in love with a mortal, and
finally wins Indar’s approval. Songs predominate in
this play, which is almost entirely in verse. The cur¬
tain is lowered and then raised again whenever a new
character comes on stage, and characters announce
their identity, as in English Miracle plays.

In some strange way, this play heralded the
development of modern drama in several Indian
languages. The commercial instincts of the Parsis led
to the establishing of a number of theatrical com¬
panies in Bombay, but they soon opted for Urdu,
rather than Gujarati, Marathi or Hindi, as the
language medium. This new drama thrived until the
first quarter of the 20th century, and not only did
companies tour outside Bombay, but new companies
were formed in distant cities such as DihlT and
Benares. Drama prospered rather as it did in

MASRAH — MASSA

773

Elizabethan England. Each company had a resident
playwright, most of them Muslims. Plots were often
taken from Islamic Persian or Indian folk-lore or
history, but contemporary social themes gradually
emerged. The leading dramatist was Agha Hashar
Kashmiri [q.v. in Suppl.]. Plays were largely in verse,
but rhymed prose, and increasingly prose, were also
used. Plays by Shakespeare were adapted. There were
sub-plots and many short scenes, and the general tone
tended to be melodramatic.

This Urdu drama was certainly lively, but it was
decried by purists on both moral and literary grounds.
Its influence on drama in other languages, such as
Hindi and Gujarati, has often been deplored (Tindal,
180-1, and Munshi, 304-5).

The theatre declined after the First World War, due
to the emergence of the cinema, and especially of the
talkies. Agha Hashar became a film-star in Calcutta,
and then founded his own film company in Lahore.
On the other hand, radio, and even more, television,
have given a new impetus to drama. Thus in Urdu,
Mirza Adib (b. 1914), who has specialised in one-act
plays on social themes, has worked for Radio
Pakistan. Imtiyaz c Ali Tadj, (1900-70), who wrote for
radio and films, excelled in comedy. His chef d’oeuvre
is Andrkali. On the other hand, c Ishrat Rahmani, who
is best-known as a critic and editor of dramas, has
continued the tradition of translation of Western
plays, with Hansi hansi men (Brandon Thomas’s farce,
Charlie's Aunt) and Eh hamdm man (Booth Tarkington’s
Clarence).

The limited scope of this article precludes reference
to some leading dramatists with no Islamic connec¬
tions, particularly in Bengali, Marathi and Hindi.
Information on them will be found in the works listed
in the Bihl. There has not yet been sufficient theatrical
activity to warrant reference to regional languages of
Pakistan such as Sindhi and Pashto.

Panjabi, however, spoken in adjacent provinces of
India and Pakistan, is a special case. The Gurmukhi
script, a variety of Devanagari, is used by Sikhs, most
of whom live in India; whilst the Arabic-Persian script
has long been used by Muslims, and has been encour¬
aged by the Pakistan Government. Plays have been
written and published in both scripts. They are not
numerous, but Mohan Singh, 87-8, lists 6 prose
plays, 6 translations or adaptations from Shakespeare,
and 3 from Sanskrit.

Bibliography : The following should be sup¬
plemented by reference to the art. agha hashar
Kashmiri, and the footnotes in J. A. Haywood,
Urdu drama—origins and early development, in Iran and
Islam. In memory of Vladimir Minorsky, ed. C. E.
Bosworth, Edinburgh 1971, 293-302.

General works include R. K. Yajnik, The
Indian theatre, London 1933, which has much to say
about Western influence, especially of
Shakespeare. Hemendra Nath Das Gupta, The
Indian Stage, 4 vols., Calcutta 1934-44, despite its
title, deals mostly with Bengali drama, though
there are useful chapters on other languages and on
the English theatre in Calcutta. For classical
Sanskrit drama, see Biswanath Bhattacharya,
Sanskrit drama and dramaturgy , Varanasi [Benares]
1974; and, for a more popular account, E. P. Hor-
rowitz, The Indian theatre, a brief survey of the Sanskrit
drama , Glasgow 1912, repr. New York 1967, which
aims to convey the spirit and atmosphere rather
than factual details. For drama in various
languages, the following may be consulted: K.
B. Jindal, A history of Hindi literature, 1955, 271-88;
Kanayalal M. Munshi, Gujarat and its literature,

London, Calcutta, etc., 1935, 248-9, 304-5, 373; P.
Guha Thakurta, The Bengali drama, its origin and
development , London 1930. For Urdu drama.
Ram Babu Saksena, A history of Urdu literature.
Allahabad 1927, 346-67, lists many plays by A gh a
Hashar Kashmiri and his contemporaries. Collect¬
ions of the works of many of them have been pub¬
lished by Madjlis-i-Tarakki-yi-Urdu in Lahore. Of
more recent dramatists, Mirza Adib’s Lahu awr
kdlin—cand khel 2 , Lahore 1959, contains 13 one-act
plays. Of c Ishrat RahmanI’s translations, Hansi
hansi man was published in Lahore 1964, and Ek
hamdm men, in Lahore n.d. For Panjabi drama, see
Mohan Singh, A history of Panjabi literature 2 , Amrit¬
sar 1956. (}. A. Haywood)

MASSA (Berber Masst), the name of a small
Berber tribe of the Sus of Morocco, from
which comes the name of the place where it is
settled, some 30 miles south of Agadir at the mouth of
the Wadi Massa; the latter is probably the flumen
Masatat mentioned by Pliny the Elder (v. 9) to the
north of the flumen Darat , the modem Wadi Dar c a,
and the Masata of the geographer would correspond to
the modern ahl Massa.

The name Massa is associated with the first Arab
conquest of Morocco: according to legend, it was on
the shore there that, after conquering the Sus, c Ukba
b. Nafi c drove his steed into the waves of the Atlantic,
calling God to witness that there were no more lands
to conquer on the west. In any case, Massa appears
very early as an important religious and commercial
centre. Al-Ya c kubi ( Bulddn , 360, tr. Wiet, 226) notes
that the harbour was a busy one, where ships built at
al-Ubulla and “sewn” (i.e. not nailed) anchored, and
mentions a ribat already renowned, that of Bahlul. Al-
Bakrl ( Descr. de l Afrique septentrionale, 306) and al-Idrlsi
(Opus geographicum, 240) mention the harbour of
Masst; al-Bakri emphasizes the fame of the ribat and
the importance of the fairs held there. Ibn Khaldun
devotes several passages (Hist, des Berberes, ii, 181,
279) to the ribat of Massa, where according to popular
belief the expected Mahdi [q.v.] will appear; this belief
induced many devout people to go and settle in this
ribat and also sent many adventures there to raise
rebellions.

Towards the middle of the 15th century A.D., the
Portuguese began to become interested in Massa,
where they very soon acquired a privileged position
(see R. Ricard, Etudes sur Vhistoire des Portugais au
Maroc, Coimbra 1953, 133, 136) and, at the opening
of the 16th century, the Genoese came there to pur¬
chase gold, wax, cow and goat hides, lac and indigo.

Towards the end of the 15th century, the religious
movement begun by al-Djazuli [q. v. ] made Massa one
of the great zawiyas of Sus, a remarkable centre for
culture and piety (see M. Hajji, Vactivite intellectuelle
au Maroc a I’epoque Sa c dide, Rabat 1976-7, ii, 626-8 and
index). In the middle of the 9th/16th century, Leo
Africanus (tr. Epaulard, 87-9) describes Massa as a
group of three little towns surrounded by a drystone
wall in the middle of a forest of palmtrees; the
inhabitants were agriculturists and turned the rising
of the waters of the Wadi to their advantage. Outside
the town on the seashore was a highly venerated
“temple”, from which the Mahdi was to come; a
peculiar feature of it was that the little bays in it were
formed of ribs of whalebone. The sea actually throws
up many cetaceans on this coast and ambergris was
collected here; local legend moreover says that it was
on the shore of Massa that Jonah was cast up by the
whale.

After the fall of the Sa c dids, the development of the

774

MASSA — al-MA$$I$A

Marabout principality of Tazerwalt again made
Massa a commercial centre. The port was frequented
by Europeans, but it was soon supplanted by that of
Agadir. The rapid decline of the principality of Tazer¬
walt and the steadily increasing influence of the cen¬
tral Moroccan power finally destroyed almost com¬
pletely any religious and economic importance of
Massa.

Bibliography : In addition to references in the
article, see Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, tr. de Slane,
ii, 201-202; R. Basset, Relation de Sidi Brahim de
Massat, Paris 1883; E. Fagnan, Extraits inedits relatifs
au Maghreb, Algiers 1924, index; R. Montagne, Une
tribu berbere du Sud Marocain: Massat, in Hesperis, iv
(1924), 357-403; D. Jacques-Meunie, Le Maroc
saharien des origines a 1670, Paris 1982, index.

(G. S. Colin*)

MASSALAJEM, the name given to two Islamic
settlements in North-West Madagascar: Old
Massalajem, otherwise Langani, is also known as
Nossi Manja, and the daughter settlement of New
Massalajem, also known as Boeny (Swa. correctly
Bweni). The original town is reputed to have been
founded from Kilwa [q.v.], and to have had regular
trade relations with it and with Malindi and Pate,
until its destruction by the Sakalava at the end of the
18th century. Sherds found there do not antedate the
14th century. New Massalajem served the Sakalava
first as their northern capital, until they moved to
Majunga, also a town of Islamic origin.

Bibliography : H. Deschamps, Histoire de
Madagascar 2 , Paris 1961; M. C. Poirier, A propos de
quelques mines arabes et persanes, in Bulletin de
VAcademic Malgache, Tananarive, n.s. xxv (1942-3);
P. M. Verin, Les recherches archeologiques a
Madagascar, in Azania , i (Nairobi 1966); idem,
Histoire ancienne du Nord-Ouest de Madagascar, numero
special, Taloha 5, Revue du Musee d’Art et
d’Archeologie, University of Madagascar,
Tananarive 1972.

(G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville)
al-MASSI$A, the Arabic form of the classical
Mopsuestis, Byzantine Greek form Mapiorpa, Syriac
Maslsta, Armenian Msis, Ottoman Tkish. Missis, or
Missis, modern Tkish. Misis, a town of Cilicia on
the western or right bank of the Djayhan [ q.v .], 18
miles/27 km. to the east of Adana [<y.] and now in
the modern vilayet of Adana.

In antiquity it was called M6<|>oo earta, a name,
which (like that of Mo<|>oo xp7)vr) in the Cilician passes)
is derived from the cult of the legendary seer Mopsos
(cf. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altert., i/2 2 , § 483). In ancient
times, the town was chiefly famous for its bishop
Theodorus (d. 428), the teacher of Nestorius and
friend of the suffragan bishop and inventor of the
Armenian alphabet, Masht c oc c .

The emperor Heraclius is said to have removed the
inhabitants and laid waste the district between
Antioch and Mopsuestia on the advance of the Arabs,
in order to create a desert zone between them (al-
Tabari, i, 2396; al-Baladhurl. Futuh 163: between al-
Iskandarun and Tarsus), and under the Umayyads all
the towns taken by the Arabs from al-MassIsa to the
fourth Armenia (Malatya) are said to have been left
unfortified and uninhabited as a result of the inroads
of the Mardaites (Theophanus, ed. de Boor, i, 363,
17). According to Abu TKhattab al-Azdl (in al-
Baladhurl, 164), the Arabs conquered al-MassIsa and
Tarsus under Abu c Ubayda, according to others
under Maysara b. Masruk, who was sent by him and
who thereafter advanced as far as Zanda (in 16/637:
Caetani, Annali delV Islam, iii, 805, § 311). Mu c awiya,

on his campaign against c Ammuriyya in 25/645-6,
found all the fortresses abandoned between Antakiya
and Tarsus (see above). According to th e/Maghazi
Mucawiya, he himself destroyed all the Byzantine for¬
tresses up to Antakiya in 31/651-2 on his return from
Darawliyya (AopuXouov in Phrygia) (al-Baladhurl,
164-5). After the Syrian rebellion against c Abd al-
Malik, the emperor Constantine IV Pogonatos in
65/684-5 advanced against the town and regained it
(al-Ya c kubI, ii, 321). Yahya b. al-Hakam in 77/696
marched against Mardj al-Shahm between Malatya
and al-MassIsa (al-Ya c kubI, ii, 337). It was only in
84/703 that c Abd al-Malik’s son c Abd Allah retook the
town and had the citadel rebuilt on its old foundations
(al-Baladhurl, 165; al-Ya c kubI, ii, 466; al-Wakidl, in
al-Tabari, ii, 127; Ibn al-Athlr, iv, 398; Theophanus,
Chron., ed. de Boor, 372, 4; Michael Syrus, tr.
Chabot, ii, 477; Elias Nisiben, Opus chronolog., ed.
Brooks, 156, tr. 75; Script. Syri, chronica minora , ed.
Guidi, 232. tr., 176, under 1015 Sel. year; Weil,
Gesch. d. Chalifen, i, 472). In the following year, he
installed a garrison in the fortress, including 300
specially picked soldiers, and built a mosque on the
citadel hill (Tall al-Hisn); a Christian church was
turned into a granary ( huryun , hurya. = horreum, horrea;
al-Baladhurl. 165; Ibn al-Shihna, ed. Beirut, 179).
To the same event no doubt refers the wrongly-dated
reference in the Chronicle of the Armenian Samuel of
Ani of the year 692 A.D. to the fortification with
strong walls of the town of “Mamestia, i.e. Msis” by
the Muslims under c Abd al-Malik (Ratio temporum
usque and suam aetatem presbyteri Samuelis Aniens is, in
Euseb. Pamphil., Chron., ed. A. Mai and I. Zohrab,
Mediolani 1818, App. 57; Alishan, Sissouan, 286).
Every year, from 1,500 to 2,000 men of the advance
troops ( tawali°) of Antakiya used to winter in the
town. According to Michael Syrus (tr. Chabot, iii,
478), c Abd al-Malik died in 1017 Sel. (705 A.D.) in
al-MassIsa.

c Umar II is said to have intended to destroy the
town and all the fortifications between it and Antioch
and to have been either prevented by his own death
(al-Baladhurl. 167) or dissuaded by his advisers;
according to this version, he then had a large mosque
built in the suburb of Kafarbayya in which there was
a cistern with his inscription. It was called the
‘‘Citadel Mosque” and kept up till the time of al-
M u c tasim (al-Baladhun, 165; but Kafarbayya was
probably not really built till the time of al-Mahdl or
Harun al-Ra§hId, see below). Yazld b. Djubavr
(’A£i8o<; 6 tov ^ovvei (in 85/704 attacked Sis (to Eiaiov
xapTpov, in al-Tabari and Ibn al-Athlr: Susana in the
nahiya of al-MassI§a) but was driven off by Heraclius,
the emperor’s brother (Theophanus, ed. de Boor,
372, 23: A. M. 6196; according to al-Tabari, ii, 1185,
and Ibn al-Athlr, iv, 419, wrongly not till 87 A.H.).
Hisham built the suburb (al-rabad), Marwan II the
quarter of al-Khusus east of the Djayhan, which he
surrounded with a wall with a wooden door and a
ditch. The bridge of Djisr al-Walld between al-
Masslsa and Adhana. 9 mils from the former, was
built in 125/742-3 and restored in 225/840 by al-
Mu c tasim (al-Baladhurl. 168; Yakut, Mu c djam, ii, 82;
Safi al-Dln, Marasid, ed. Juynboll, i, 255). In the first
half of the 2nd/8th century the caliphs al-Walld II and
Yazld III brought the gipsy tribe of the Zutt [q.v.],
who had been deported to Basra by Mu c awiya in
50/670, and settled them with great herds of buffalo in
the region of al-Massisa in order to fight the plague of
lions in the district of the Djabal al-Lukkam (al-
Baladhurl, 168; De Goeje, Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis
der Zigeuners, Leiden 1875, 17-22).

al-MASSISA

♦ ♦ ♦

775

The first c Abbasid, Abu T c Abbas al-Saffah, on his
accession strengthened the garrison by 400 men, to
whom he gave lands; the same estates were later allot¬
ted to them by al-Mansur. The latter in 139/756-7
restored the wall, which had been damaged by an
earthquake in the preceding year, and increased with
8,000 settlers the much diminished population of the
town, which he called al-Ma c mura (al-Baladhurl,
166; Ibn al-Athlr, v, 382; Yakut, iv, 579, s.v. al-
Ma c muriyya; Ibn Shihna. 179). On the site of a
heathen temple, he built a large mosque which far sur¬
passed the mosque of c Umar in size. When c Abd
Allah b. Tahir was governor of the West (i.e. in
211/826), it was enlarged by al-Ma 5 mun. Al-Mansur
increased the garrison to 1,000 men and settled in the
town the inhabitants of al-Khusus, Persians, Slavs
and Christian Arabs (Nabataeans), whom Marwan
had transplanted thither (see above), and gave them
allotments of land. It is probably to the same event
that the story refers that Salih b. C A1I, when in the
c Abbasid period the inhabitants of al-MassIsa,
harassed by the Byzantines, resolved to migrate, sent
Djibrll b. Yahya al-Badjall al-Khurasanl in 140/757-8
to rebuild the town and settle it with Muslim
inhabitants (al-Baladhurl. 166; according to al-
Tabari, ii, 135 in the year 141). Under al-Mahdl, the
garrison was increased to 2,000; in addition, there
was the Antakiya corps of almost the same size which
wintered here regularly until Salim of Burullus
became their wall and increased the garrison by 500
men instead. There is a brief reference in the Syriac
inscription of c Enesh to a raid by al-Mahdl to the
]3jayhan (Syr. Gihon) in 780 A.D. (1091 Sel; Chabot,
in JA, ser. 9, xvi [1900], 287; Pognon, Inscr. semit. de
la Syrie et de la Mesop. , 148-50, no. 84). Harun al-
Rashld built Kafarbayya or, according to another
story, altered the plans for this suburb prepared by al-
Mahdl and fortified it with a ditch; he also built walls
which were only completed after his death by al-
Mu c tasim. In 187/803 an earthquake laid waste the
town (al-Tabari, iii, 688). In the following year, the
Byzantines invaded and pillaged the region of al-
Masslsa and c Ayn Zarba and carried off the
inhabitants of Tarsus into captivity, whereupon
Harun al-Rashld attacked and defeated them
(Michael Syrus, iii, 16). According to al-Tabari (iii,
709) and Ibn al-Athlr (vi, 135), the Byzantines in
190/806 invaded c Ayn Zarba and Kanlsat al-Sawda 5
and took prisoners there; but the people of al-MassIsa
regained all their loot from them. If, as it seems, the
curious story in the Byzantine chroniclers
(Theophanes, Chron., ed. de Boor, 446, 18; Georg.
Kedren, Bonn, Corpus, ii, 17) that in 771-2 (A. M.
6264) ’AXcpocSaX BaStvap, i.e. al-Fadl b. Dinar, who
had 500 Byzantine prisoners with him, lost 1,000 men
and all his booty through a sortie of the Mo(i(j>ou£pteTi;,
refers to the same events, the latter would appear to
be wrongly reported and wrongly dated.

On 13 Hazlran 1122 Sel. (811 A.D.), the walls and
many houses in the town and three adjoining villages
fell in a great earthquake; near al-MassIsa the course
of the Djayhan was dammed for a week so that the
boats lay on the dry bed (Michael Syrus, iii, 17). In
198/813-14 Thabit b. Nasr al- Kh uza c I was fighting in
the Syrian marches of al-MassIsa and Adhana (al-
Ya c kubl, ii, 541). On his campaign into Bilad al-
Rum, al-MaYnun passed through al-MassIsa and
Tarsus in Muharram 215/March 830 (al-Tabari, iii,
1103; Ibn al-Athlr, vi, 294; Abu ’l-Fida 3 , Annales
Moslem ., ed. Reiske, ii, 152; Weil, Gesch. d. Chal. , ii,
239). In revenge, the emperor Theophilus in 216/831
raided the lands around these two towns and slew or

took prisoner 2,000 men (al-Tabari, iii, 1104; Ibn al-
Athlr, vi, 295).

After the emperor’s campaign against Zibatra (837
A.D.) in which he also defeated the Mop^oueamou
(Const. Porophyrog., De caeremoniis, ed. Bonn, 503;
Vasilev, Vizantiya i Arab i, in Zapiski ist.-filol. fak. imp.
S.-Ptbg. Univ ., cast lvi [1900], 88-9, n. 4), al-Mu c tasim
in the following year attacked c Ammuriyya; his
general Bashir commanded a part of the army which
included the Masslsa contingents (Michael Syrus, iii,
96). In 245/859, the town was again visited by an ear¬
thquake which destroyed many places in Syria,
Mesopotamia and Cilicia (al-Ya c kubI, iii, 1440). The
caliph al-Mu c tadid after restoring order in the
Thughur al-Shamiyya (287/900) returned from al-
Massisa via Funduk al-Husayn, al-Iskandariyya and
Baghras to Antakiya, Halab and al-Rakka (al-Tabari,
iii, 2198-2200; al-Funduk, a place in the thughur near
al-MassIsa: Yakut, iii, 918; Safi al-Dln, Marasid, ii,
365).

When in 292/904-5 the Byzantine Andronicus
invaded the district of Mar c ash, the people of al-
MassIsa and Tarsus met him, but were defeated and
lost their leader Abu TRidjal b. Abl Bakkar (al-
Tabari, iii, 2251; Ibn al-Athir. vii, 371; Vasilev, Zap.
ist.-fil. fak. imp. S.-Ptbg. Univ., cast lvxi [1902], 154,
2 )'

In 344/955-6, the Hamdanid Sayf al-Dawla was
visited by horsemen from the frontier towns of
Tarsus, Adana and al-MassIsa and with them an
envoy from the Greek king, who concluded a truce
with him (al-Nuwayrl and Kamal al-Dln, in Freytag,
ZDMG , xi, 192); Ibn Zafir al-Azdl. Kitab al-Duwal al-
munkatFa , tr. Vasilev, op. cit ., Prilozen., 86). Defeated
by Leo Phocas in 349/960 in the pass of al-Kiicuk,
Sayf al-Dawla spent the night in al-Hawanlt and
returned to Halab via al-MassIsa (Kamal al-Dln, in
Freytag, op. cit., 196; Yahya b. Sa c Id, TaArikh, ed.
Krackovskiy-Vasilev, in Patrol. Orient., xiii, 1924,
782).

In 352/963, the emperor Nicephorus took Adana,
the inhabitants of which fled to al-MassI§a, and sent
the Domesticus John Tzimisces (Yanis b. al-
Shimishlk al-Dumistik) against this town. The latter
besieged it for several days but had to withdraw as his
supplies were running short, and after laying waste
the country round burned the adjoining al-Mallun
(MocXXos) at the mouth of the Djayhan (Yahya b.
Sa c Id, 793-4). The emperor himself came again in
Dh u TKa c da 353/Nov. 964 to the marches (al-th agh r)
and besieged al-MassIsa for over 50 days, but had
again to abandon the siege owing to shortage of sup¬
plies and retired to winter in Kaysariyya. Finally, the
town was stormed by John Tzimisces (Arm. Kuir
Zan) on Thursday 11 Radjab 354/13 July 965. The
inhabitants set it on fire and fled to Kafarbayya. After
a desperate struggle on the bridge between the two
towns, the Greeks took this suburb also and carried off
all the inhabitants into captivity (Yahya b. Sa c Id, 795;
Ibn al-Athlr, viii, 408-11; Abu TFida 5 , Ann. Mosl.,
ed. Reiske, ii, 482-3; Michael Syrus, iii, 128; Elias
Nisiben., ed. Brooks, 218, tr. 106; Georg., Cedren.,
ed. Bonn, ii, 362; Leon Diakon., ed. Bonn, 52-3;
Matt c eos Urhayec c i, ed. Dulaurier in Rec. hist, crois.,
Doc. arm. , i, 5; Step c an Asotik of Taron, Armen. Gesch.,
tr. H. Gelzer and A. Burckhardt, Leipzig 1907, 134,
24). They were, to the number of 200,000, it is said,
led past the gates of Tarsus, which at that time was
being besieged by the emperor’s brother Leo, to ter¬
rify the people of the town (Ibn Shihna, Rawdat al-
manazir, in Freytag, ZDMG , xi; Elias Nisiben., op.
cit.). The gates of Tarsus and of al-MassIsa were

776

al-MASSISA

gilded and taken as trophies to Constantinople, where
one set was put in the citadel and the others on the
wall of the Golden Gate (Georg. Cedren., ii, 363).

The town remained for over a century in the hands
of the Byzantines; the Emperor Basil II Bolgaroctonus
stayed for six months in the region of al-Massisa and
Tarsus before going to Armenia, after the death (31
March 1000 A.D.) of the Kuropalates Davit c of
Tayk c , to take possession of his lands by inheritance
(Yahya b. Sa c Td, Ta^rikh, ed. Rosen, 39, in Zap. Imp.
Akad. Nauk, xliv, St. Petersburg 1883). In 1042 the
Armenian prince Aplgharib, son of Hasan and grand¬
son of Khac c ik of the house of the Artsrunians, was
sent by the emperor Constantine Monomachos as
governor to Cilicia (St. Martin, Man. sur I’Arm., i,
199). In 1085 Philaretos Brachomios, who was
appointed in Constantinople perhaps as Sebastos
(Michael Syrus, iii, 173) or at least Kuropalates
(Mich. Attal., Bonn ed., 301) and whose ephemeral
kingdom comprised the land from Tarsus to Malatya,
Urfa and Antakiya, held al-Massisa (Michael Syrus,
loc. cit.; Laurent, Byzance et Antioche sous le curopalate
Philarete, in Rev. des Et. Arm., ix [1929], 61-72).
Shortly before the arrival of the Crusaders, the
Saldjuk Turks took Tarsus, al-Massisa, c Ayn Zarba
and the other towns of Cilicia (Michael Syrus, iii,
179). About the end of September 1097, the Franks
under Tancred, who had been invited thither from
Lambron by Oshin III, took the town, which was
stormed after a day’s siege: the inhabitants were slain
and rich booty fell into the hands of the victor (Albert.
Aquens., iii, 15-16, in Migne, Patrol. Lat. , clxvi, col.
446-7; Radulf. Cadom., Gesta Tancredi, ch. 39-49).
William of Tyre describes al-Massisa on this occasion
(iii, 21, in Migne, Patrol. Lat., cci, col. 295): Erat autem
Mamistra una de nobilioribus eiusdem provinciae civitatibus ,
muro et multorum incolatu insignis , sedet optimo agro et gleba
ubere et amoenitate praecipua commendabilis. Count
Baldwin, who had quarrelled with Tancred, followed
him along with the admiral Winimer of Boulogne and
encamped in a meadow near the Djayhan bridge;
Winimer left him there and went with his fleet to al-
Ladhikiyya, while the two rivals had a desperate fight,
after which Baldwin withdrew to the east (Albert.
Aquens., iii, chs. 15, 59, in Migne, op. cit., cols. 446,
472). Tancred followed him, after he had imposed on
the city plus patanas quam principis leges (Radulf.
Cadom., ch. 44). The Byzantine general Tatikios,
who had joined the Crusaders to take over their con¬
quests in name of the Emperor, left them in the lurch
in the beginning of February 1098 at the siege of
Antakiya and ceded to Bohemund the town of Tursol
(Tarsus), Mamistra and Addena (Adana) (Raymond
of Agiles, in Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, Hanover
1611, 146, 5). Bohemund only took possession of the
towns of Tarsus, c Ayn Zarba and al-Massisa in
August (William of Tyre, vii, 2). After the town had
again fallen to the Greeks for a period, Tancred again
took it in 1101 (Rad. Cad., ch. 143), but had to hand
it over with Tarsus, Adana and c Ayn Zarba to Bohe¬
mund on his return from captivity in 1103 (William
of Tyre, vii, 2, in Migne, op. cit., col. 379). In the
following year, however, Longinias, Tarsus, Adana
and Mafitpxa were regained for Byzantium by the
campaign of the general Monastras (Anna Comnena,
Alexaid, ed. Reifferscheid, ii, 140, 5, who apparently
did not recognise the identity of Mdfjupxa with Mo<J)OU
epxtou, which she mentions several times). In the treaty
between Bohemund and the emperor Alexius of
September 1108, the town was promised to the former
(Anna Comnena, op. cit., ii, 218), Tancred having,
taken it in the preceding year with 10,000 men from

the Byzantine general, the Armenian Aspietes (ibid.,
ii, 147). At this time, of the quarters of the town one
(probably Kafarbayya) was in ruins (ibid.). Baldwin of
Burg and Joscelin of Courtenay, who allied
themselves against Tancred with Kogh Vasil of
Kaysum, were supported by the latter with a detach¬
ment of 800 men and a body of Pecenegs, who were
stationed in al-Massisa as Greek mercenaries
(Matt c eos Urhayec c i, tr. Dulaurier, 266-7 = RHC,
Doc. arm., i, 86). The great earthquake of 1114
destroyed the town, like many others in Cilicia and
Syria (Smbat, in Doc. arm., i, 614).

Under the Frankish patriarchate of Antioch,
Mopsuestia-Mamistra was separated from the
ecclesiastical province of Anazarbos and made an
autocephalous metropolis (Michael Syrus, iii, 191;
recensions of the Notitia Antiochena of the Crusading
period). The evopiot Mo<|>ou£cma<; stretched (according
to Notitia Antiohena on the boundaries of the
Antiochene dioceses, ed. Papadopoulo-Keramevs, 67)
from Seleuceia in Syria and Adana octco xou fAefdXou
EripO7tOT0cpoC (now Ozerlu or Rabatca?) "eax; xou
peYotXou Ttoxapou <pupa>v. The latter is undoubtedly
identical with auxo? 6 Ttoxapos ’ABqcvok;, the

Sayhan.

In 1132-13 the Rupenid Levon I (AePouvt^) , son of
Constantine, took the town (Arm. Msis, Mises,
Mamestia or Mamuestia) from the Greeks (Cin-
namos, i, 7; iii, 14; Smbat Sparapet, Chronicle , in Doc.
arm., i, 615). The brother of the emperor John II
Comnenus went to him, and Levon gave his sons his
daughters as wives with the towns of al-Massi§a and
Adana as dowries. But when they quarrelled he took
back from the Greeks all that he had given them, and
Isaac had to flee with his sons to sultan Mas c ud
(Michael Syrus), ii, 230). Levon, falling through
treachery into the hands of Raymond of Poitiers, had
to cede (1136-7) al-Massisa, Adana and Sarvantik c ar
(now Sawuran Kal c e?), but regained his liberty in a
couple of months; he very soon retook these towns
(Doc. arm., i, 152-3 = Chron. de Matthieu d’Edesse, tr.
Dulaurier, 457; Smbat, op. cit., 616). The emperor
John in 1137 (1448 Sel.) had his revenge on Levon.
He invaded Cilicia, took Tarsus, Adana and al-
Massisa, seized Levon himself with his wife and
children and took them to Constantinople, where
Levon subsequently died (Ibn al-Athir, xi, 35;
Michael Syrus, ii, 245; Gregor, presbyt., Forts, d.
Chronik des MatCeos, tr. Dulaurier, 323; cf. Docum.
arm., i, p. xxxii, 1 and 153, 4; William of Tyre, xiv,
24; Rohricht, Gesch. d. Kgr. Jerusalem, 211). John
installed Coloman (Calamanus), son of Boris and
grandson of Cilicia (William of Tyre, xiv, 24, xix, 9,
in Migne, Patr. Lat., cci, cols. 603, 756; a Dux Ciliciae
mentioned in Regum et principum epistolae, no. 24, in
Bongars, Gesta Dei per Franc., 1182, 1. 46 and passim).
When the emperor John died at Mardj al-DTbadj on
8 April 1143 (William of Tyre, xv, 22; Rohricht,
Gesch. d. Kgr. Jerus., 228, 4), his successor Manuel I
Comnenos had his body brought by boat from Mop-
suestia down the Pyramos to the sea and taken by sea
to the capital (Niketas Choniat., Man. Komn., i, Bonn
ed., 67).

Thoros II, the son of Levon, who had escaped home
from his confinement in Constantinople, was again
able to cast off the Byzantine yoke. When in 1151 he
took Msis and T c il (Tall Hamdun) from the Byzan¬
tines (Smbat, in Doc. arm., i, 619) and made their
general Thomas prisoner, the emperor Manuel in the
following year sent against him with 12,000 cavalry
Andronicus Comnenus, whom he had appointed
governor of Tarsus and al-Mas§isa (Gregor, presbyt.,

al-MASSISA
♦ • ■

777

in Doc. arm., i, 167 = Matthew of Edessa, tr.
Dulaurier, 334; Smbat, Chron., in Doc. arm., i, 619).
Andronicus, who did not recognise Thoros as ruler of
Asia Minor, advanced against al-Massisa, but was
surprised by the Armenians and put to an
ignominious flight with his 12,000 men. Thus not
only the town, which was very well supplied with pro¬
visions and military material of all kinds, fell into his
hands, but also a great part of Cilicia (Gregor,
presbyt., tr. Dulaurier, 334-6 = Doc. arm., i, 167 ff.;
Smbat, op. cit.). The emperor, himself too weak to
avenge the insult, twice induced by gifts the sultan
Kflidj Arslan II (Gregor, wrongly; Mas c ud) of Konya
to attack Thoros. The sultan, who on the first occa¬
sion (548/1153) was content with the defeat of the
Armenian and the return of the lands taken from the
Greeks, again attacked al-Massisa, c Ayn Zarba and
Tall Hamdun (Arm. T c iln Hamtunoy) in 1156, but
could do nothing against them and had finally to retire
after heavy losses (Gregor., op. cit., 338 = Doc. arm.,
i, 171).

The emperor Manuel himself passed through
Cilicia in 1159 with a large army to the assistance of
the Crusaders. Thoros had already retired to Vahka
in the desolate mountains (Armen. Rhymea Chron. , in
Doc. Arm., i, 505) when the emperor entered al-
Massisa at the beginning of November, but he did no
injury to any one there (Gregor., tr. Dulaurier, 353-4
= Doc. arm., i, 187). The Frankish kings led by
Baldwin came to pay homage to him in the town or
on the adjoining pratum palliorum (as William of Tyre,
xiii, 27, translates Mardj al-Dibadj) where his court
was held in camp for seven months (Gregor., tr.
Dulaurier, 358; Rohricht, Gesch. d. Kgr. Jerusal., 298).
Thoros was also able with great tact to become recon¬
ciled with him, and on acknowledging Byzantine
suzerainty and ceding several towns in Cilicia, was
recognised as Sehastos of Msis, Anazarbos and Vahga
(Doc. arm., i, 186; Smbat, ibid., 622). His brother
Mleh, who attempted his life while out hunting
between al-Massisa and Adana, was banished by
Thoros and given by Nur al-Dln the town of Kurus
(Kyrrhos; Smbat, loc. cit.). After the death of Thoros
of Msis (1168-9; Smbat, 623), Mleh (Arab. Malih b.
Liwun al-Armani) succeeded him and at first ruled
only over the district of the passes (Bilad al-Durub). In
1171 he surprised Count Stephen of Blois at Mamistra
and plundered him (William of Tyre, xx, 25-8). In
568/1172-3, supported by troops of his ally Nur al-
Dln, he took from the Greek Adana, al-Massisa and
Tarsus (Ibn al-Athir, xi, 255; Kamal al-Din, tr. in
Rohricht, in Beitrage z. Gesch. d. Kreuzzuge, i, Berlin
1874, 336).

When Mleh’s successor Rupen III fell through
treachery into the hands of Bohemund of Antioch, his
brother Levon (II) obtained his release in 1184 by
ceding al-Massisa, Adana and Tall Hamdun (T c iln)
and paying 3,000 dinars-, immediately afterwards,
Rupen retook these strongholds from the Franks
(Michael Syrus, iii, 397; Doc. arm., i, 394).

Het c um, jhe nephew of the Catholicos Grigor IV
and son of C c ortvanel of Taron, who came to Cilicia
in 1189 with his brother Shahinshah, received from
Levon II (1185-1219) his niece Alice, daughter of
Rupen III, in marriage and the town of Msis, but
died in the same year (Smbat, in Doc. arm., i, 629;
Marquart, Siidarmenien und die Tigrisquellen , Vienna
1930, 481-2). The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in
586/1190 was about to go to Syria via Tarsus and al-
Massisa when he met his tragic end in the Kalykadnos
(alleged}?] letter of the Armenian Catholicos in Ibn
Shaddad, in Rec. Hist. Orient, des Crois., iii, 162); a

portion of his army thereupon went to Antioch via
Tarsus, Mamistria and Thegio (Hisn al-Muthakkab;
not Portella , the Syrian passes, with which Rohricht,
Gesch. d. Kgr. Jerus., 530, 4, identifies it).

Wilbrand of Oldenburg, who visited the East in the
train of Duke Leopold VII of Austria and Styria and
the Teutonic Grand Master Hermann von Salza,
came in the beginning of 1212 to Mamistere which he
describes as follows: (Wilbr., ch. 18, ed. Laurent,
Peregrinatores, Leipzig 1864, 175): Haec est civitas bona,
super flumen sita, satis amoena , murum habeas circa se tur-
ritum, sed antiquitate corrosum, paucos in quodam respectu
habens inhabitatores , quibus omnibus rex illius terrae imperat
et dominatur. In the vicinity lay quoddam castrum quod erat
de patrimonio beati Pauli .... sed nunc temporis possidetur a
Graecis. In hac civitate [Mamistere] habetur sepulchrum
beati Pantaleonis. Ipsa vero distal a Canamella (cf.
Tomaschek, SB Ak. Wien [1891], app. viii, p. 71)
magnam dictam. Levon II granted the republics of
Genoa and Venice the privilege of having their own
trading centres in al-Massisa, which could be reached
by ship from the sea before the mouth of the Djavhan
became silted up (Alishan, Sissouan ou lArmeno-Cilicie,
287). The attempt of Raymund Rupen of Antioch to
seize the throne of Armenia after Levon’s death in
1219 failed; he was, it is true, able to take Tarsus and
attack al-Massisa but he was taken prisoner by Con¬
stantine of Barzberd and died in prison in 1222 (Doc.
arm., i, 514; Rohricht, Gesch. d. Kgr. Jerus., 741-2).

For a century the Rupenids ruled almost
undisturbed in the town. Their glory reached its
height under the splendour-loving Het c um I (1219-
70). Here were held the annual festivals of the Church
at which numerous princes and nobles used to gather
down to the last and difficult years of the king. Here
was held the brilliant ceremony at which his 20-year
old son Levon was dubbed knight. Hither the king
brought the seat of government after the destruction
of STs (Alishan, Sissouan, 287-8).

Baybars sent a punitive expedition against Het c um
in 664/1266 under al-Malik al-Mansur of Hama, who
advanced as far as Kal c at al- c Amudayn and into the
district of Sis, while Sayf al-Dln Kalawun took al-
Massisa, Adana, Ayas and Tarsus (al-Makrizi, Hist,
d. Suit. Maml., tr. Quatremere, i/2, 34-5; Abu ’1-
Fida'f Annal. Most., ed. Reiske, v, 18; al-Nuwayn, in
Weil, Gesch. d. Chal. , iv, 56). Three years later (1269),
the district of al-Massisa was visited by an earthquake
(al-Suyuti, in Doc. arm., ii, 1906, 772, n. f.). Baybars
(Arm. Pntukhtar = Arab. Bundukdar) himself in
673/spring of 1275 took the field against Levon III,
son of Het c um, laid waste the whole of Cilicia as far
as Koricos and stormed al-Massisa and Sis, the
former on 26 March. The inhabitants were
massacred, almost all the houses burned and the great
bridge destroyed (Arm. Kandarayn Msisay, i.e. Kan-
tarat al-Massfsa; cf. al-Makrizi, i/2, 123-4, with n.
154; Mufaddal b. Abi ’l-Fada^il, Gesch. d. Mamluken-
sultane, ed. Blochet, in Patrol. Orient., xiv, 389;
Barhebraeus, Chron. syr., ed. Bedjan, 531, 6; Smbat,
Chromk , in Doc. arm., i, 653; Rohricht, Gesch. d. Kgr.
Jerusalem , 967; van Berchem, CIA , i, 688, n. 2). When
in 697/1297-8 an army under the amirs Sayf al-Din
Kipcak, the NaSb of Dimashk, Faris al-Din Ilbeki al-
Saki al-Zahiri, the NaSb of Safad, Sayf al-Din Bizlar
al-Mansuri and Sayf al-Din c Azaz al-Salihi invaded
the land of Sis, al-Massisa is not specially emphasised
among the unimportant places taken like Tall Ham¬
dun, Hammus (Humaymis), Ka c lat Nadjima, al-
Massisa, Sirfandikar, Hadjar, Shughlan, al-Nukayr
and Zandjfara (al-Makrizi, ii/2, 60-5; Mufaddal, op.
cit., 602; al-Nuwayri, in Blochet, ibid.). In 722/1322,

778

al-MASSISA

the Egyptians crossed the Djayhan by a bridge of
boats, got behind the Armenians who had retired to
Msis and inflicted a severe defeat upon them; among
those who fell are mentioned the barons Het c um of
DjlnocL his brother Constantine, Wahram Lotik,
Oshin, the son of the marshal, along with 21 knights
and many men (Smbat’s Continuator, in Doc. arm. , i,
688). This authority also mentions a raid by an Egyp¬
tian force against al-MassIsa (Mamuestia), Adana, al-
Mallun (Mlun) and Tarsus in 735/1334-5 {Doc. arm.,
i, 6/1; Tomaschek, in SB Ak. Wien [1891], part viii,
68). The last Egyptian invasion took place in
775/1373-4. Among the towns destroyed were Sis,
Adana, al-MassIsa and c Ayn Zarba, and Levon IV
had to surrender in 1375 after a siege of nine months
in Ghaban (Doc. arm., i, 686, n. 3). The town thus
passed nominally into the Futuhdt al-Diahdniyya of the
Mamluk empire; it had, it is true, by now sunk into
insignificance and it is not mentioned, for example,
among the towns taken by Shahsuwar in 871/1467
(Alishan, Sissouan, 290).

Armenian sources mention eight archbishops of the
town from 1175 to 1370 (1175-1206 David, 1215
Johannes, 1266 Sion, 1306 Constantine, 1316 John,
1332 Stephen, 1342 Basil, 1362-1370 unnamed; cf.
Alishan, op. cit. , p. 290). Michael Syrus knows only
Job of about 800 A.D. ( Chron ., tr. Chabot, iii, 23-4,
451, no. 27), and the Frankish writers from 1100
onwards Bartholomaeus, before 1234 Radulphus and
in the years from 1162-1238 three or four more
unnamed bishops (Albert. Aquens., ix, 16; William of
Tyre, xiv, 10; Le Quien, in Oriens Christianus, iii,
1198-1200; Rohricht, Gesch. d. Kgr. Jerusal. , 42, 202).
On account of the many Egyptian invasions, the Latin
archbishopric was removed to Ay as by Pope John
XXII in 1320 (Alishan, Sissouan , 290).

After the fall of the kingdom of Little Armenia, the
power of the Ramadan-Oghlu [q. v. ] and Dhu 1-
Kadr-Oghlu [see dhu ’l-kadr] gradually spread in
Cilicia. Selim I on his campaign against Egypt in
922/1516 and on his return also preferred to keep to
the east of their land (Taeschner, Anatol. Wegenetz, ii,
32). Al-Ma$slsa has been Turkish-controlled since
that year, in which the decisive battle was fought on
Mardj al-Dabik [q.v.].

In Kafarbayya, a khan was built for caravans pass¬
ing through in 949/1542 and restored in 1830 by
Hasan Pasha. The X)jayhan bridge became useless in
1736 when the central arch collapsed; in 1766 this was
repaired but was blown up in 1832 on the retreat of
the Turkish troops from the fighting at Baylan in
order to hold up the advance of Ibrahim Pasha’s pur¬
suing army. As late as the middle of the 19th century,
it could only be crossed by an improvised wooden
footbridge.

In modern times, al-Ma$$Isa is mentioned mainly
by western pilgrims and travellers, who as a rule only
spent a short time there. Thus it was visited in 1432
by the Burgundian Bertrandon de la Brocquiere
(“ Misse-sur-Jehanj, in the 16th century by P. Belon,
1682 the Mecca-bound pilgrim Mehmed Edlb, 1695
the Armenian Patriarch of Antiochia Makarios, 1704
Paul Lucas, 1736 Chevalier Otter, 1766 the Dane
Carsten Niebuhr, 1813 Macd. Kinneir, 1834 Aucher
Eloy, 1836 Colonel Chesney, 1840 Ainsworth and
1853 Victor Langlois, whose reports were
exhaustively used by Carl Ritter (Erdkunde, xix, 66-
115). The “Merges Galles” visited by Ludwig von
Rauter on 8 July 1568, is not (as in Rohricht-
Meisner, Deutsche Pilgerreisen nach dem hi. Lande, 1880,
434, n. 43) al-MassIsa, but Merkez Kal c esi on the Bab
Iskandarun (Cilic.-Syr. passes). Somewhat fuller

descriptions of the recent Missl§ and its ancient and
mediaeval ruins were given in the 19th century by
Langlois, Alishan and at the beginning of the 20th one
by Cousin (see Bibl.).

The stretch of the Baghdad railway from Dorak
south of the Taurus via Adana and Missis to
Ma c inura at the foot of the Amanos was opened on 27
April 1912. Asa station on the railway (the station is
actually 1 Vi miles north-west of the place) the town
gained a certain strategic importance in the Cilician
campaign of the French in 1919-20 (1919: settlement
of about 1,200-1,500 Armenians; 27-8 May 1920:
futile Turkish blockade of the garrison there, about a
company strong; end of July: withdrawal of the troops
to Adana; cf. E. Bremond, La Cicilie en 1919-1920, in
Rev. Etud., Arm. [1920], i, 311, 360, 363, 365). After
the Turkish occupation, the newly-settled Armenians
were probably exterminated in the usual way. The
importance of the town has now passed to the
neighbouring Ceyhan.

According to the Arab geographers, al-MassIsa lay
on the Djayhan (IIupapo$, sometimes confused by the
Byzantine authors with the Eapoi;, Arabic. Sayhan,
with which it seems to have had at one time a common
mouth: George Cedren, ii, 362; Anna Comn., ii,
147), 1-2 days’ journey from Bayyas and one from
c Ayn Zarba and Adhana, 12 mils from the Mediterra¬
nean coast. The sea could be seen from the Friday
mosque in the town; in front of the town lay a
beautiful fertile plain (the ancient ’ AXrjtov rctBtov) . Al-
Masslsa lying on the right bank was connected with
Kafarbayya by an ancient stone bridge built by Con-
stantius and restored by Justinian. The country round
was rich in gardens and cornfields, watered by the
Djayhan. According to Yakut, the town originally had
a wall with 5 gates, and Kafarbayya, one with 4 gates.
A speciality of the town was the valuable fur-cloaks
exported all over the world. Ten miles from al-
Mas§I?a, which is somewhat inaccurately placed by
I bn Khurradadhbih, Yakut and others on the Djabal
al-Lukkam (Amanus), was the plain of Mardj al-
Dibadj, which is often mentioned in the records of the
fighting between the Mamluks and Little Armenia
(probably the ager Mopsuestiae on which Cicero
encamped: Ad jam., iii, 8). In it, to the north-east of
the town on the road to Sis, was the fort of al-
c Amudayn_(al-MakrTzI, ed. Quatremere, ii/2, 61; cf.
Kal c at al- c Amudayn in Abu ’l-Fida 3 , Ann. Mosl., ed.
Reiske, v, 18; located by Alishan, Sissouan, 225-6 too
far east in “Hemetie-Kalessi”). A field of Mardj al-
Atrakhun is also mentioned near al-MassIsa (Yakut,
iv, 487; $afi al-DTn, Marasid, iii, 74). Tall Hamid, a
strong fortress of the Thughur al-Ma§§i$a, cor¬
responds to the recent Ottoman Hamidiyye, now
called Ceyhan (ZDMG, xi, 191, 200; Yakut, i, 866;
Safi al-Din, Marafid, i, 211; Ibn al-Shihna, 339).
There also was Tall Hum (Yakut, i, 867; Marasid, i,
211; Ibn al-Shihna, ibid. ; exact site unknown). Al-
c Ayn at the foot of the Djabal al-Lukkam, over which
the Darb al- c Ayn pass went, was also one of the forts
of al-MassIsa (Yakut, iii, 756; Marasid, ii, 293); on the
frontier against Halab lay Buka \q.v. ; cf. van Ber-
chem. Voyage en Syrie , i, 257, 8]. Hi$n Sinan (al-
Baladhuri, 165; Yakut, iii, 155) is probably also to be
sought near al-MassIsa. A pass called Thaniyyat al-
c Ukab, to be distinguished from that of the same
name near Damascus, was in the region of al-Ma§§Tsa
(Yakut, i, 936; Marasid, i, 230). Even the remote for¬
tress of Samalu (on its site cf. Tomaschek, in Festschrift
f. H. Kiepert , 144) was sometimes reckoned in the
Syrian thughur and located near al-MassT§a and al-
Tarsus (al-Baladhurl, 170: Dhamalu; Yakut, iii, 416;

al-MASSISA — M A STUDJ

779

Marasid, ii, 167; Byzantine to xaaxpov Xr)pocXouo<;), al-
Safsaf on the present Sugudli-$u (. ZDMG , xi, 180;
Reiske on Abu TFida 5 , AnnaL, ii, 649, n. 76, accord¬
ing to Hadjdjl Khalifa: “Hisn Safsaf, that is Sogud”)
is also reckoned by Yakut (iii, 401) to the marches of
al-Massisa. Not far from the town was a Syrian
monastery, Gawlkath (mentioned in ca. 1200 A.D.:
Barhebr., Chron. eccles ., ed. Abbeloos-Lamy, i, 624; in
Alishan, Sissouan, 295: Djokhath. probably identical
with Joacheth). The neighbouring fortress of
Adamodana (now Tumlu-Kal c e) and Cumbetefort (in
territorio Meloni , i.e. of Mlun, Ar.: al-Maliun) were,
according to Wilbrand of Oldenburg (op. cit.), in ca.
1212 in the possession of the Teutonic Order
(Allemani). The Venetians had a church in al-Massisa
(Gestes des Chiprois, in Doc. arm., ii, 831). Armenian
authors mention there the churches of St. Sarkis,
Thoros and Stephan (Alishan, 288-9).

The present Misis is a large village or small town
whose population was, according to the 1950 census,
1,177. A stone bridge with nine arches (in Baedeker,
Konstantinopel und Kleinasien , 1914, 303, wrongly:
“five-arched”), the foundations of which are in part
ancient (picture in Alishan, Sissouan , 289; Lohmann,
Im Kloster zu Sis, 15), leads to the left bank of the
Djayhan where pieces of walls and inscriptions still
mark the site of the ancient Mopsuestia. Here lay the
mediaeval Kafarbayya; while this form is the one in
general use in Arabic texts and in modern authors,
Hadjdjl Khalifa (Djihan-numa, Constantinople
1145/1732, 602) has Kafarbina (Taeschner, op. cit.,
145, 1), as Langlois ( Voyage, 462) and others

apparently heard it on the spot. The name is unknown
there now (Heberdey-Wilhelm, Denkschr. Ak. Wien,
xliv, part vi, 11-12; the Turkish General Staff map in
the German version of July 1918, Adana Sheet, calls
the two halves of the town “Misis Nahijesi” and
“Huranije”). According to Ibn al-Shihna, 179,
Kafarbayya was also called “Little Baghdad”.

Misis lies where the river emerges from a gorge
with walls of yellow loess at which the last foothills of
the highlands between the Sayhan and Djayhan in the
north-west and the Djabal Nur (Nur Dagh, 2,200
feet; picture in Alishan, 284), a part of the Djabal
Missis (Stadiasm. mar. magn.: riocpiov opoij), in the
south-east meet. This ridge, which takes its name
from the town, lying in the centre of the Cilician plain
on the left bank of the lower Djayhan and linked up
with the Amanus in the east, is celebrated, particu¬
larly in the Djabal Nur, for its rich flora, which was
studied by the Austrian Theodor Kotschy on 24-6
April 1859. On account of its medicinal herbs, Ibn al-
Rumiyya in his commentary on the book of
Dioscurides says that many writers took al-Massisa to
be the city of the wise Hippocrates (Ibukrat) who,
however, according to others, belonged to Hims
(Mufaddal b. Abi ’l-Fada’il, in Patrol. Orient., xiv,
393; Ibn al-Shihna, 180).

Near the mouth of the Djayhan, which at one time
was navigable for small ships up to al-Massisa, lay al-
Mallun, the site of which is not known (MocXXo?; now
rather Bebeli than Karatash; cf. R. Kiepert, Form,
orb. antiqu. , viii, text, 19a). The Frankish writers also
speak of a portus de Mamistra (Raimundus de Aigulers,
Historia Francor. qui ceperunt Iherusalem, c, xi; cf. Doc.
arm., i, p. xlvi, n. 1), probably on the fauces Jluminis
Malmistrae, where al-ldrlsl mentions the place al-Busa
(ZDPV, viii, 141; Tomaschek, SB Ak. Wien, cxxiv
[1891], fig. viii, 69, writes al-Busa).

Bibliography : Kh w arazml. Kitdb Surat al-ard,

ed. von Mzik, in Bibl. arab. Histor. u. Geogr., iii,

Leipzig 1926, no. 275; BattanI, al-Zia ed. Nallino,

ii, 173; iii, 237, no. 121; Istakhrl. 63; Ibn Hawkal,
122; MukaddasI, 22, 35; Ibn al-Faklh, 7, 25, 112,
113, 116, 118, 123, 295, 300; Ibn Khurradadhbih,
99, 108, 170, 173, 177; Kudama, 229, 253, 258;
Ibn Rusta, 83, 91, 97, 107; Ya c kubl, Bulddn, 238,
362; Mas c udl, Tanbih , 58, 152; idem, MuruaIp, viii,
295 = § 3449; HamdanI, Sifat Djazirat al- z Arab, ed.
Muller, i, 2; IdrlsI, ed. Gildemeister, in ZDPV, viii,
24; DimashkI, ed. Mehren, 214; Abu ’l-Fida 5 , ed.
Reinaud, 251; Baladhurl, Futuh, 165-6. 168; Ibn
al-Athlr, Kamil, indices, ii, 809; T a barl, indices,
778; Ya c kubl, TaMkh, ii, 321, 337, 466, 541;
Yakut, Mu z djam, ii, 82, iv, 287, 558, 579; Safi al-
Dln, Marasid al-iltild z , ed. Juynboll, i, 255, ii, 502,

iii, 112, 124; Hamd Allah al-Mustawfi, Nuzhat al-
kulub, ed. Le Strange, 209, tr. 201; al-MakrlzI,
Hist. d. Suit. Mamlouks de I'Egypte, ed. Quatremere,
i/2, Paris 1840, 123, 124, 154; ii/1, Paris 1842,
260; Kalkashandl, Subh al-a z shd :> , iii, 237, iv, 77,
82, 134, tr. in Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie d
Fepoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, p. cvi, 9, 19,
100; Ibn al-Shihna, al-Durr al-muntakhab JT ta^rikh
Halab , ed. Sarkis, Beirut 1909, 178-81, cf. index,
292; Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 26-7,
37-8, 62-3, 78, 82, 505; idem. Lands, 128, 130-2,
141; RHC, Doc. armen., i, index, 824; K. Ritter,
Erdkunde, xix, Berlin 1859, 95-115 (the older
travellers are given there); Saint Martin, Memoir
hist, et georgr. sur l'Armen., i, Paris 1818, 199
(according to P. C c am£ c ian, Armen. Gesch., ii, 995,
iii, 50, 157, 335); W. M. Leake, Journal of a tour in
Asia Minor, London 1824, 217; W. B. Barker, Lares
and Penates , London 1853, 34, n. 2, 111; J. von
Hammer, Gesch. der Ilchane, i, Darmstadt 1842,
291; V. Langlois, Voyage en Cilicie, Mopsueste, in
Rev. Arch, xii (1855), 410-20; F. X. Schaffer,
Cilicia, in Peterm. Mitteil., Erg.-Heft, cxli, 40; C.
Favre and B. Mandrot, in Bulletin de la Societe de
Geographie (Jan.-Feb. 1878), and in Globus, xxxiv
(1878), 236; W. R. Ramsay, Histor. geogr. of Asia
Minor, London 1890, 385 and index, 483; W.
Tomaschek, in SB Ak. Wien (1891), part viii, 68-71,
76; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie, ii, Paris 1891, 42-
3; Heberdey-Wilhelm, in Denkschr. Ak. Wien, xliv
(1896), part vi, 11-12; Levond Alishan, Sissouan ou
VArmeno-Cilicie, Venice 1899; E. Lohmann, Im
Kloster zu Sis, Striegau 1901, 3, 15, 31; A. Janke,
Auf Alexanders d. Gr. Pfaden, Berlin 1904, 76; G.
Cousin, Kyros le Jeune en Asie Mineure, Nancy 1904,
277-8, 436-8; G. L. Bell, in Rev. Arch., Serie IV,
vol. vii (1906), 386; F. Taeschner, Das anatolische
Wetenetz nach osmanischen Qiiellen, i (Turk.
Bibliothek, xxii), 1924, 102, 145, 151, ii (ibid.,
xxiii), 1926, 30; idem, al- c Uman’s Bericht iiber
Anatolien in seinem Werke Masalik al-absar ft mamalik
al-amsar , i, Leipzig 1929, 66; E. Honigmann, Die
Ostgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches von 363 bis 1071,
Brussels 1935, index s.v. Mopsuhesia.

(E. Honigmann)

MASTUDJ., village, fort, and district in
the upper Yarkhun valley formerly included in
the Dir, Swat and Citral Political Agency of the
North-West Frontier Province of British India and
now in Pakistan. It apparently formed part of the
ancient territory of Syamaka (Sylvain Levi, in JA , ser.
11, vol. v, 76; and H. Liiders, Weitere Beitrage zur
Geschichte und Geographie von Ostturkestan, 1930, 29 ff.).
Stein identifies Mastudj with the territory of Cu-wei
or Shang-mi which was visited by the Chinese pilgrim
Wu-k’ung in the 8th century A.D. (Ancient Khotan,
Oxford 1907, i, 15-16, Serindia, i, 18). An inscription
discovered at Barenis points to the fact that Mastudj

780

MASTUDJ — MAS C UD b. MAWDUD b. ZANGI

was included in the dominions of the Hindushahivva
dynasty of Wayhind [see hindu-shahIs]. The village
of Mastudj lies at an altitude of 7,800 feet, and is 71
miles north-east of Citral town and to the west of
Gilgit [q. v. in Suppl.].

The history of Mastudj is closely connected with
that of Citral ]. British relations with these two
states arose as a result of their relations with Kashmir,
which state recognised British suzerainty in the year
1846. During the viceroyalty of Lord Lytton, it was
deemed expedient, in view of Russian military
activities in Central Asia, to obtain a more effective
control over the passes of the Hindu Kush. With this
objects in view, the Maharadja of Kashmir was
encouraged to extend his authority by means of
peaceful penetration over Citral, Mastudj and Yasln.
(The fullest account of early British relations with
these states is to be found in Foreign Office mss. no.
65, 1062.) After the introduction of Lord Curzon’s
tribal militia scheme, Mastudj became the head¬
quarters of the Citrall irregulars.

Bibliography : J. Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo
Koosh , Calcutta 1880; Public Record Office , London,
Foreign Office mss. no. 65, 1062; Sir Aurel Stein,
Serindia, Oxford 1921, i, and iii, appendix C; C.
Collin Davies, The problem of the North-West Frontier
1890-1908 2 , London 1975,'80, 103; D. Dichter,
The North-West Frontier of Pakistan , a study in regional
geography , Oxford 1967, 28-9, 42.

(C. Collin Davies*)

MAS C UD b. MAHMUD, Abu Sa c id, Shihab al-
Dawla, Djamal al-Milla, etc., sultan of the
Ghaznawid [Q v \ dynasty, reigned
421-32/1030-40.

The eldest son of the great Mahmud b. Sebuktigin
[q.v.\, he was born in 388/998. In 406/1015-16, as wall
c ahd or heir apparent, he was made governor of Harat
and in 411/1020 led an expedition into the still-pagan
enclave of Ghur [q.v. ] in central A fgh anistan. When
in 420/1029 Mahmud annexed the northern Buyid
amirate of Ray and Djibal and attacked the Kakuyids
[q.v. ] of Isfahan and Hamadhan. Mas c ud was placed
in charge of these operations in western Persia.

Shortly before his death, Mahmud had changed his
mind and made another son, Abu Ahmad Muham¬
mad, his heir, despite the latter’s lack of experience as
compared with Mas c ud. When Mahmud died in
Rabl c II 421/April 1030, Muhammad accordingly
succeeded in Ghazna, but was unable to retain sup¬
port there when Mas c ud marched eastwards with his
army, and later that summer, Muhammad was
deposed, sent into captivity and succeeded by Mas c ud
as sultan in Gh azna (Shawwal 421/October 1030),
receiving caliphal confirmation and a grant of fresh
alkdb or honorific titles from Baghdad.

Mas c ud’s aim was doubtless to carry on his father’s
tradition of military conquest, but he was in fact less
able than Mahmud and faced problems which
demanded qualities of skill and foresight which he did
not possess. Mas c ud in 422/1031 successfully
intervened in a succession dispute in the client state of
Makran and in 426/1035 asserted his authority

in Gurgan and Tabaristan, where the local ruler Abu
Kalldjar was two years in arrears with tribute. In
India, raids were made into Kashmir (424/1032-3),
but policy regarding India in the middle years of his
reign was taken up with lengthy operations against the
rebellious commander of the army of India at Lahore,
the Turkish officer Ahmad Inaltigin, against whom
Mas c ud appointed as his commander the Hindu Tilak
(424-6/1033-5). When order was restored in the Pan-
djab, the sultan in 427/1036 led a successful expedi¬

tion against HansI, leaving his son Madjdud as gover¬
nor in the Pandjab.

This concentration on India meant that Mas c ud
could not give adequate attention to the western parts
of the empire, where the situation grew increasingly
menacing. On the death in 423/1032 of the Ghaz-
nawid governor in Kh w arazm, the Kh w arazm-Shah
Altuntash [ 9 . 9 .], that distant province, which had
been annexed by Mahmud less than twenty years
before, fell away from Ghaznawid control under less
amenable governors there. The loss of this outpost,
guarding approaches from the steppes to northeastern
Persia, hampered Mas c ud in dealing with the incur¬
sions of the Turkmens led by the Saldjuk family, who
had been repulsed from Harat and Farawa early in
the reign but who were by 425/1033-4 making
systematic raids into Khurasan. Although the Ghaz¬
nawid armies were better armed, they lacked the
mobility of the Turkmen cavalrymen, who were able
to defeat a Ghaznawid army under the Hadjib
Begtoghdi in 426/1035, and then temporarily to
occupy Balkh and Nishapur whilst Mas c ud was
involved in India (429-31/1038-9). The sultan
mounted a final effort against the Saldjuks, but in the
desert, en route for Marw, was decisively defeated at
Dandankan [q.v. in Suppl.] (Ramadan 431/May
1040).

Mas c ud’s prestige and military reputation were
now shattered. Fearing that even eastern Afghanistan
and Ghazna might fall to the Saldjuks, he resolved to
leave for India, but after crossing the Indus his army
rebelled at the rib at of Marlkala, deposed him and
soon afterwards killed him, having set up his brother
Muhammad again for a brief second reign (RabI* II
432/December 1040), before Masud’s son Mawdud
[q.v. ] was able to avenge his father.

The verdict of contemporaries such as the official
Abu TFadl BayhakI [q-v.] was that Mas c ud was
inferior in capability and determination to his father;
his advisers complained of this capriciousness and lack
of sound judgement. But in retrospect, one may well
conclude that the Ghaznawid empire had reached a
high point by the end of Mahmud’s reign which no
successor of his, however competent, could have sus¬
tained.

Bibliography : The primary sources are
copious; they include Gardlzl, BayhakI, Ibn Baba
al-Kashanl, Ibn al-Athlr, DjuzdjanI and Sayf al-
Dln Fadll c UkaylI’s Athdr al-wuzara 5 . Of secon¬
dary sources, see W. Barthold, Turkestan down to
the Mongol invasion , London 1928, 293-303; M.
Nazim, The life and times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna.
Cambridge 1931, index s.v.; R. Gelpke, Sultan
Alas c ud I. von Gazna. Die drei ersten Jahre seiner Herr-
schaft (42H1030-424!1033), Munich 1957; C. E.
Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, their empire in Afghanistan
and eastern Iran 994-1040 , Edinburgh 1963, index
s.v.; idem. The later Ghaznavids, splendour and decay.
The dynasty in Afghanistan and northern India 1040-
1186 , Edinburgh 1977, 6-20; idem, arts, on the
Ghaznavids in The medieval history of Iran, Afghanistan
and Central Asia , London 1977, index s.v.

(C. E._ Bos worth)

MASUD b. MAWDUD b. ZANGI, c Izz al-DIn,
fifth Zangid Atabak of al-Maw$il (Mosul)
(576-89/1180-93).

Mas c ud’s public career was entangled from begin¬
ning to end with that of his great adversary Salah al-
Din, and it is easy to regard him as no more than a
troublesome shadow in the latter’s path. But Mas c ud
had a positive policy of his own—to maintain, under
his leadership, the legacy of Zangl and Nur al-Din in

MAS C UD b. MAWDUD b. ZANGI

781

North Syria and the Djazlra. Though he had neither
the material resources nor the political imagination to
block Sal ah al-Dln’s ambitions altogether, he never¬
theless proved a tenacious opponent, and in the end
was able to retain in the hands of his family al-Maw§il
and the core districts of Diyar RabT c a. We should also
note that he seems to have enjoyed the active support
of his subjects, whose energy and stubbornness were
decisive factors in the defence of al-Mawsil in
581/1185.

Like every other Syro-DjazTran prince of the
6 th/l 2th century, Mas c ud operated within the
framework of a family confederation. Once he came
to the throne of al-Maw§il, he was the senior member
of a group of Zangid princes, but he had little capacity
to intervene in the affairs of their appanages or to
compel them to accept his leadership. At the time of
his accession in 576/1180, Halab (Aleppo) was held by
his cousin al-Salih Isma c n b. Nur al-DTn Mahmud;
Djazlrat Ibn c Umar by his nephew Mu c izz al-DTn
Sandjar Shah b. Sayf al-DTn Ghazf II; and Sindjar by
his younger brother c Imad al-Din Zangi II. But with
Salah al-Dln’s occupation of Aleppo (Safar 579/June
1183), Zangid rule was restricted to the principalities
of al-Mawsil (always the principal one), Sindjar and
Djazlrat Ibn c Umar. These three towns remained in
fact the main elements of the Zangid conferation
down to its end in the early 7th/l 3th century. As
always in such political formations, the princes were
seldom united among themselves, and Salah al-Din
played with great skill on the petty ambitions of San¬
djar Shah and c Imad al-DTn Zangi II. On the other
side, Mas c ud hoped to establish a close supervision
over his relatives, but Salah al-DTn’s presence
prevented that.

Mas c ud began his career in the service of his older
brother, Sayf al-DTn GhazI II (565-76/1170-80). He
was commander of al-Maw$il’s contingent at the
disastrous battle of Kurun Hamat (Ramadan
570/April 1175), which marked Salah al-DTn’s first
great military triumph in Syria, and was likewise
present at the equally unfortunate Tall al-Sultan the
following year, though on this occasion his brother
GhazI was in command.

After this we hear nothing of Mas c ud until the
death of QhazI ($afar 576/June 1180). GhazI had
intended to name his twelve-year-old son Sandjar
Shah to succeed him, but was persuaded by the amir
Mudjahid al-DTn Kaymaz—the eminence grise of
Zangid politics throughout this period—to assign al-
Mawsil to his brother Mas ud and to compensate San¬
djar Shah with Djazlrat Ibn c Umar. In spite of these
beginnings, Mas c ud’s succession went without inci¬
dent and was never seriously challenged throughout
his reign.

Mas c ud now had the primary responsibility for
checking Salah al-Dln’s evident ambitions, and the
first six years of his reign were almost entirely taken
up with this problem. The first crisis came with the
death of al-Salih Isma c Il of Aleppo (Radjab
577/December 1181). Isma c il bequeathed Aleppo to
his cousin Mas c ud as the only Zangid prince with suf¬
ficient resources to hold the city. Masud in fact did
occupy Aleppo during the winter of 577/1182. But he
soon negotiated an exchange of Aleppo for Sindjar
with his younger brother c Imad al-DTn Zangi II. Ibn
al-Athlr states that the reason was Zangi’s threat to
turn Sindjar over to Salah al-DTn; equally a factor, no
doubt, was Mas c ud’s desire to consolidate his ter¬
ritories around al-Mawsil. The exchange was con¬
summated in Muharram 578/May 1182, and at once
provoked Salah al-DTn’s great Syro-DjazTran cam¬

paign of the same year. Al-Mawsil was subjected to a
short siege in the autumn of 578/1182, but far more
important was Salah al-DTn’s capture of a string of
major Djazlran towns, including Sindjar itself.
Mas c ud’s effort to assemble a defensive alliance
(including Kutb al-DTn 11-Ghaz! of MardTn and the
Shah-Arman of Khilat) failed, and in the spring of
579/1183 Salah al-Din captured Amid and Aleppo.
The latter city was taken through negotiations with
Zangi, and this prince was compensated with the
restoration of his old seat of Sindjar together with
several other towns. Mas c ud’s strategy had thus
utterly failed; he was now isolated, while Salah al-DTn
had gained a powerful new client in c Imad al-DTn
Zangi II. Worse, a moment of turbulence in the
palace politics of al-Mawsil caused Mas c ud to lose
control of a traditional client-state in Irbil, whose
ruler also went over to Salah al-DTn.

At this juncture, Mas c ud sought thesupport of the
powerful Atabak of al-Djibal and Adharbaydjan,
Pahlawan Muhammad b. Eldigiiz [see ildenizids].
Pahlawan never really intervened effectively in the
region, but the possibility that he might seems to have
Induced a certain caution in Salah al-DTn’s policy
until his death early in 582/1186.

In the spring of 581/1185, $alah al-DTn launched
his last offensive in the Djazlra; among his allies this
time was Sandjar Shah of Djazlrat Ibn c Umar. He
was hoping for an easy victory over a presumably
demoralised Mas c ud, but it did not happen. The gar¬
rison and townspeople of al-Mawsil put up a spirited
defence, and the caliph’s envoys made it quite clear
that Salah al-DTn’s venture did not enjoy the support
of Baghdad. Finally, a grave illness forced Salah al-
DTn to withdraw to Harran in late autumn, and
negotiations throughout the winter at length led to a
treaty in Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 581/March 1186. Mas c ud
would retain al-Mawsil and would have full autonomy
in internal affairs, but he would recognise Salah al-
DTn’s supremacy in the khutba and sikka and would
supply him with military aid as demanded. These
terms did in fact govern relations between the two
princes for the rest of their lives. Mas c ud’s support to
Salah al-DTn during the reconquest and the Third
Crusdade even earned for him permission to attack
his troublesome nephew Sandjar Shah in Djazlrat Ibn
c Umar in 587/1191. He did not succeed in taking the
city, but did compel Sandjar Shah to concede him half
his lands.

With Salah al-DTn’s death (Safar 589/March 1193),
Mas c ud hoped to recoup the fortunes of his house.
Joining forces with Zangi of Sindjar, he moved to
occupy as much of the Djazlra as possible. But before
any major results could be achieved, Mas c ud fell ill
and returned to al-Mawsil. Meantime, Ayyubid
forces under al- c Adil were able to compel the hapless
Zangids to make a quick peace before they suffered
irreparable territorial losses. After an illness of some
two months, Mas c ud died on 29 Sha c ban 589/30
August 1193. He left al-Mawsil to his son Nur al-DTn
Arslan Shah (d. 607/1211), who would be the last
effective ruler among the Zangid Atabaks of al-
Mawsil.

Bibliography : The Arabic sources for
c Izz al-Din Mas c ud are essentially those for Salah
al-DTn. Of particular importance are Ibn al-Athlr,
Atabegs, ed. Tulaymat, Cairo 1963, and with a
French translation by Barbier de Meynard in RHC ,
histonens orientaux , ii, 1876; idem , al-Kamil, xi-xii,
passim; Ibn Kh allikan. Wayfayat al-a c ydn, ed. I.
c Abbas, Beirut 1972, nos. 236, 521, 721 (Ibn
Khallikan follows Ibn al-Athlr closely but adds

782

MASUD b. MAWDUD b. ZANGI — MAS C UD BEG

some fresh details). Modern works: the Zangid
background is given in N. Elisseeff, Nur al-din, 3
vols., Damascus 1967; of the many works on $alah
al-DTn, the most useful are A. Ehrenkreutz, Saladin,
Albany, N.Y. 1972, and M. C. Lyons and D. E.
P. Jackson, Saladin , Cambridge 1982. On the later
Zangids, see R. S. Humphreys, From Saladin to the
Mongols , Albany 1977, passim. There are no
specialised monographs or articles on Mas c ud.

(R. Stephen Humphreys)
MAS C UD b. MUHAMMAD b. MALIK-SHAH.
Abu ’l-Fath Gh iyath al-Dunya wa ’l-Din,
Saldjuk sultan in c Irak and western Persia
529-47/1134-52.

Like the other sons of Muhammad b. Malik-Shah
[q.v. ], Mas c ud was entrusted as a child to the tutelage
of Turkish Atabegs [see atabak], latterly with Ay-Aba
Djuyush Beg acting thus, and given the appanage of
Adharbavdjan and al-Djazira; at Djuyush Beg’s
prompting, Mas c ud unsuccessfully rebelled in
514/1120 at the age of 12 against his elder brother
Sultan Mahmud b. Malik-Shah [q.v.], but was
pardoned.

When Mahmud died in 525/1131, a period of con¬
fusion ensued, during which various Saldjuk princes
contended for power: Mahmud’s son Dawud, and his
brothers Mas c ud (with a power base in c Irak),
Saldjuk-Shah (in Fars and Khuzistan) and Toghril
(the preferred candidate of the ruler in the east, San-
djar [< 7 .t».]). After complex military operations and
several changes of fortune, Toghril secured the
throne, but died in 529/1134 after a reign of only two
years, and Mas c ud was then proclaimed sultan by the
amirs of c Irak.

Mas c ud now began a reign of 20 years, the longest
of any sultan since Malik-Shah’s day, relying for his
vizier first of all on Anushirwan b. Khalid \q.v.]> then
on c Imad al-Dln Darguzlm and then on the former
treasurer Kamal al-Dln Muhammad. Mas c ud’s effec¬
tive power was confined to central c Irak and Djibal,
and for many years, his nephew Dawud, installed in
Adharbavdjan. remained a potential rival. Then after
Dawud’s death in 538/1143-4, northwestern Persia
was in the hands of powerful and ambitious Turkish
amirs , by the end of Mas c ud’s reign, in those of
Eldigiiz or Ildeniz [q. v. ] of Arran and most of Adhar-
baydjan, Atabeg of Arslan b. Toghril (the later
sultan), and Ak Sunkur Ahmadill of Maragha, both
of whom were to found Atabeg lines in the region [see
ahmadilis and ildenizids). Fars was under the con¬
trol of Mas c ud’s enemy, the amir Boz-aba, until the
sultan defeated and killed him in 542/1147-8, having
before his death espoused the cause of Mahmud b.
Muhammad’s two sons Muhammad [q.v. ] and Malik-
Shah [see malik-shah. 3].

Within c Irak, Mas c ud asserted his authority at the
outset by deposing the c Abbasid caliph al-Raghid
[q.v.] in 530/1130 after disputes over the caliph’s non¬
payment of tribute due to the Saldjuk. This marked
the apogee of the sultan’s influence in c Irak, for the
new caliph al-MuktafT [q.v. ] gradually proved to be a
much more powerful and effective force in Ba g hdad.
Mas c ud, meanwhile, had over the next years to deal
with various hostile coalitions involving at times the
caliph, the sons of the Mazyadid of Hilla Dubays, the
Turkish amir of Maw$il ZangT b. Ak Sunkur, and his
own brothers and their Atabeg backers. Despite some
successes, the combined strength of the Turkish amirs
restricted his freedom of action. They compelled him
in 533/1139 to dismiss his vizier Kamal al-DTn
Muhammad. In the latter part of his reign, he fell
more and more under their control, with much of the

land in his dominions appropriated by the amirs as
iktaH, thus reducing the sphere of his direct control
and consequently his financial resources. He was now
increasingly forced to accept nominees of the amirs for
the vizierate and other high offices of state. Mas c ud
defeated a coalition of discontented amirs in 542/1147
and killed a major thorn in his flesh, Boz-aba; but
jealousy of the sultan’s favourite, the amir Khass Beg
Arslan, provoked further warfare in the next year,
with the rebel group endeavouring, unsuccessfully, to
place Malik-Shah b. Mahmud on the throne in
Ba gh dad. Mas c ud later gave him one of his daughters
in marriage and made him his heir, and when Mas c ud
died at Hamadhan on 11 Djumada 547/13 September
1152, Malik-Shah succeeded briefly to power as the
protege of Khass Beg. Ibn al-Athir regards the for¬
tunes of the Saldjuk dynasty as going into steep
decline on Mas c ud’s death.

Bibliography : 1. Sources: See the general
chronicles, Ibn al-Athir, Ibn al-DjawzI and Sibt
Ibn al-DjawzT sub annis ; and of the specifically
Saldjuk sources, Bundarl, Zubdat al-nusra, 163-6,
172-227; RawandT, Rabat al-sudur , 234-49; Sadr al-
din Husayni, Akhbar al-dawla al-saldjukiyya, 106-27,
Eng. tr. Qibla Ayaz, An unexploited source for the
history of the Saljuqs..., Edinburgh Univ. Ph.D.
thesis, 1985, unpubl., 290-319; Zahir al-DTn
Nishapuri, Sald^uk-nama, 55-65; Yazdl, c Urada,
117-28; a brief biography in Ibn Khallikan, ed.
Ihsan c Abbas, v, 200-2, no. 720, tr. de Slane, iii,
355-6.

2. Studies. See M. A. Koymen, Buyiik Selfuklu
imparatorlugu tarihi. ii. ikinci imparatorluk devri,
Ankara 1954, 250-305; Bosworth, in Cambridge hist,
of Iran , v, 124-34; C. L. Klausner, The Seljuk
vezirate, Cambridge, Mass. 1973, index.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MAS C UD BEG, minister in Central Asia of
the Mongol Khans in the 13th century A.D.

Soon after 1238, in the reign of the Great Khan
Ogedey (1227-41), parts of Transoxania and
Mogholistan [q.v.] (the region of the steppes to the
north of Transoxania) were ceded to Caghatav as an
intffu or appanage [see Eaghatay khan and ma wara 5
al-nahr. 2. History). Mas c ud Beg’s father Mahmud
Yalawac [q.v. ] was transferred from his governorship
of the sedentary population of Transoxania and
Mogholistan to China, and the son then appointed to
succeed him there. Indeed, according to Rashid al-
DTn, tr. J. A. Boyle, The successors of Genghis Khan ,
New York and London 1972, 94, cf. 183, 218,
Mas c ud Beg administered the affairs of the entire
sedentary population, sc. all but the nomadic Turks
and Mongols, throughout Inner Asia from
Kh w arazm to Kashgharia and Uyghuria, Muslims
and non-Muslims alike. Djuwaynl praises him for his
just rule over the Muslims of Transoxania. His
benefactions included such buildings as the Khaniyya
madrasa (built by him with money given by the Christ¬
ian Queen Sorkotani, widow of Toluy and mother of
Mongke Khan and Hiilegu) and the Mas c udiyya
madrasa , both situated near the RTgistan of Bukhara,
and also, it seems, the Mas c udiyya madrasa in
Kashghar (DjuwaynT-Boyle, i, 108).

Mas c ud Beg remained governor of Inner Asia
under Mongke and Batu, during the civil strife of
Alghu and Berke and after the victory of Kaydu over
his rivals in 1269, showing remarkable powers of sur¬
vival. He died in 1289 and was buried in the rebuilt
Bukhara Mas c udiyya. He was succeeded in turn as
minister to the Khans by his three sons, the first two
under Kaydu till the latter’s death in 1301, and the

MAS C UD BEG — MAS C UD

783

third in Kashghar under Kaydu’s son and successor
Capar.

Bibliography (in addition to references already
given): Djuwaynl-Boyle, index s.v.; W. Barthold,
Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion 3 , London 1968,
469-93 et passim ; V. Minorsky, Four studies on the
history of Central Asia , i, Leiden 1962, 46-8, 50.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MAS C UD-I SA C D-I SALMAN, eminent Per¬
sian poet of the 5th/11th century ( ca. 440/1046 to
ca. 515/1121-2) who early and late in his life enjoyed
position and fame at the Ghaznawid court, but spent
some eighteen years of his maturity in onerous
imprisonment. As a poet, he is most famous for the
powerful and eloquent laments he wrote from his vari¬
ous places of incarceration [see habsiyya in Suppl.J.

Mas c ud-i Sa c d was born in Lahore to a family of
means and education. The family’s original home was
Hamadan, but had been settled in the region long
enough for his father to have become a responsible
official at court. About Mas c ud-i Sa c d’s early life no
reliable information survives. He makes his first
dateable appearance in 460/1076-7 as a panegyrist in
the retinue of prince Sayf al-Dawla Mahmud, son of
the ruling sultan (Zahlr al-Dawla Ibrahim [see ghaz-
nawids]), who was appointed governor-general of
India in that year. The kasida-yi madiha which Mas c ud-
-i Sa c d composed on that occasion is the work of a
mature and accomplished poet. By his own assertion
in other poems from about this period, he was also a
brave warrior, and a responsible and highly-regarded
member of the prince’s court. In about his fortieth
year, Mas c ud-i Sa c d went to Ghazna to reclaim land
that had been seized from him by persons unspecified
in the sources. While there, he fell under suspicion,
and possibly more because of the suspected disloyalty
of his patron than of his own, he was imprisoned. This
period of imprisonment, which he spent in the for¬
tresses of Su, Dahak and Nay, lasted some ten years
despite the repeated entreaties of a number of officials
friendly to the poet, and the supplications of Mas c ud-i
Sa c d himself.

He was released early in his reign by sultan
Ibrahim’s successor, c Ala 5 al-Dawla Mas c ud (III) who
also made the poet curator of the royal library.
Mas c ud-i Sa c d also enjoyed the patronage of Abu
Nasr-i Farsi, deputy to the current governor of India,
c Adud al-Dawla Shlrzad, and was appointed by him
to the governorship of Djalandhar/Calandhar, a
dependency of Lahore. When shortly thereafter Abu
Nasr-i Farsi was disgraced and fell from favour, his
protege suffered a like fate and was again imprisoned,
this time in the Indian fortress of Marandj, and for a
period of eight or more years.

Mas c ud-i Sa c d was released from his second and
final period of incarceration in ca. 500/1106-7, shortly
after the opening of the reign of Sultan Mas c ud’s suc¬
cessor, Kamal al-Dawla Shlrzad. but he remained in
obscurity throughout both his reign and that of his
successor, Sultan al-Dawla Arslan Shah. Only toward
the close of his life, with the beginning of the reign of
Yamln al-Dawla Bahram Shah, a notable patron of
literature, did the now aged poet once again enjoy the
recognition that his poetic talents merited.

Mas c ud-i Sa c d was a skilful court panegyrist who
continued the style of his eminent predecessors,
c Un§urI, Farrukh! and Manu£ihri [q.vv.]. His work
does not reflect either the shift toward mystical sub¬
jects nor the more complex metaphorical structure
that can be seen in the poetry of his contemporaries
Sana 5 ! and Azrakl. His panegyrics have a special
interest for the historian because they contain a

measure of historical data about a period for which
other sources are rare. However, his most enduring
contribution as a poet has been his prison poems ( hab-
siyyat), in which, through the skilful deployment of
conventional language, he conveys with originality
and power the wretchedness of his days. One hears in
these poems that intensely personal voice whose lack
is so frequently decried in studies of Persian poetry.

Bibliography : The notices of Mas c ud-i Sa c d-i
salman in mediaeval Tadhkiras are not to be trusted,
and the only reliable source for his biography is his
Diwan, which has been capably edited by Rashid
YasimI, Tehran 1338/1939, and frequently
reprinted. Although he boasted of his knowledge of
Arabic, no Arabic poetry by him has survived. The
best study of his life and work remains that of
Mlrza Muhammad b. c Abd al-Wahhab Kazwlnl,
Mas c ud-i Sa c d-i Salman. Translated by E. G. Browne/m
JR AS (1905), 693-740, and (1906), 11-15. C. E.
Bosworth makes a number of comments on the life
of Mas c ud-i Sa c d and the general literary situation
at the Gh aznawid court in his The Later Ghaznavids,
splendour and decay: the dynasty in Afghanistan and north¬
ern India 1040-1186 , Edinburgh 1977. There is a
lengthy chapter on his imagery in M. ShafYl-
Kadkani, Suwar-i khiyal dar shi ( r-i Farsi , Tehran
1350/1971. (]. W. Clinton)

MAS C UD, Sayyid Salar, called GhazI Miyan, a
legendary hero and martyr of the original
Muslim expansion into the Gangetic plain of India.

He is alleged to have been the son of a sister of
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna [q. v. ], to have been born
at Adjmer [q.v.] in 405/1014, and to have been killed
in battle against Hindu idolaters, aged 19, in
424/1033. His tomb is on a pre-Muslim sacred site in
Bahraic, in the sub-Himalayan plain of northern
Uttar Pradesh, and is the centre of a widespread cult.
The hero-cult was well-established by the beginning of
the 8th/l4th century, and is succinctly described by
Ibn Battuta. The Sultans Muhammad b. Tughluk
and Flruz Shah Tughluk visited the tomb. The pro¬
cession of the hero’s neza (“lance”, a tall tufted pole)
was prohibited by Sultan Sikandar Lodi (d. 923/1517)
but remains a highlight of the annual festival (cf.
similar poles of Lai Beg of the Cuhras, and of Shahbaz
Kalandar at Sehwan). The myth of Salar Mas c ud was
elaborated in Persian in the early 11th/17th century in
the MiHat-i A / fas c udi, a heroic romance which owes
something to the Dastan-i Amir Hamza though it strives
for a greater air of historical authenticity. GhazI
Miyan’s cult extends to Bengal and the Pandjab,
probably sometimes conflated with the cult of other
local Muslim shahids. The main c urs or death anniver¬
sary is celebrated on the first Sunday of the solar
month of Djyesht’ha/Djet’h, between 14 and 21 May,
but an c urs is also mentioned on the significant date of
11 Muharram. The martyr-cult is combined with a
fertility-cult (cf. the secondary sexual symbolism of
the pole, and the “mystic-marriage” implication of
c urs). Legends and songs of the marriage of GhazI
Miyan before his last battle are widely distributed and
were sung at Muslim weddings. At an extreme
popular level a conflation may occur (e.g. in west
Nepal), with the celebration of the martyrdom of
Husayn at Karbala, with the bridegroom figure of
Kasim b. Hasan, lamented in Indian marthiyas. The
c urs of GhazI Miyan is celebrated by lower-class
Hindus as well as Muslims. Mendicant followers of
GhazI Miyan carry a daff (tambourine) and are known
as dafali fakirs.

Bibliography : Amir Khusraw Dihlavl, I c djaz-
i Khusravi, Lucknow 1872, i, 155; Ibn Battuta,

784

MAS C UD — al-MAS c UDI

Rihla , iii, 155, tr. M. Husain, Baroda 1953, 110;
Barani, Ta^nkh-i Firuzshahi, Calcutta 1862, 491;
c Afrf, TaMkh-i Firuzshahi, Calcutta 1891, 372; c Abd
Allah, Ta^rifih-iDaw^udi, Aligarh 1954, 38; c Abd al-
Rahman Cishti, Mir^at-i Mas c udi, Storey no.
1329(7), extracts tr. in Elliot and Dowson, History
of India , ii, 513-49; Dja c far Sharif, tr. G. A.
Herklots, ed. W. Crooke, Islam in India , London
1921, 67, 141; R. C. Temple, Legends of the Panjab,
Bombay-London (1884), i, 98-120; J. A. Subhan,
Sufism: its saints and shrines , Lucknow 1969, 123-6;
M. Gaborieau, Legende et culte du saint musulman
QhazP Miya au Nepal occidental et en Inde du nord, in
Objets et Mondes, xv/3 (Autumn 1975) 289-318, with
further bibl. _ (S. Digby)

al-MAS c UDI, Abu l-Hasan c Al! b. al-Husayn,
Arab writer whose activity, in the words of
Brockelmann (in El 1 , s.v.) “has been undertaken
outside the well-trodden paths of professional scholar¬
ship”, with the result that he has been rather
neglected by biographers and copyists and that a nor¬
mally well-informed writer like Ibn al-Nadlm, who
has obviously not read his works, takes him (Fihrist,
154) for a Maghrib! and devotes to him only a short,
moreover probably truncated, article. In fact, the only
reliable account which is available concerning the
biography of this eminent individual must be drawn
from his two surviving works, the Murudi al-dhahab
(abbreviated here as M , refering to Pellat’s edition-
translation) and the Tanbth (ed. De Goeje = T).

Al-Mas c ud! was born in Baghdad ( M , 987; T, 19,
42) into a Kufan family which traced back its
generalogy and connected its nisba to the Companion
lbn Mas c ud [q.v. ]. He himself does not record his
ancestry in entirety, but it could well be as follows (see
lbn Hazm, Diamharat ansab al- c Arab, ed. Cairo 1962,
197; Ibn Khaldun. Hbar, ii, 319): c Al! b. al-Husayn b.
c Al» b. c Abd Allah {M, § 522) b. Zayd b. c Utba b.
c Abd al-Rahman b. c Abd Allah b. Mas c ud (for the
rest of the genealogy, see Ibn al-Kalbi-Caskel,
Diamhara . Tab. 58: Hudhavl. who does not however
allot to c Abd al-Rahman a son named c Utba). The
date of his birth is unknown; however, if we are to
take literally the expression ( haddatha-na) preceding
the reference ( T , 254) to Ibrahim b. c Abd Allah al-
Kashsh! (d. 292/904) or that ( shdhadna) which is used
( T , 396) to introduce a series of authorities which
includes al-Nashi 3 (d. 293/906 [q. v. ]), he must have
been born no later than some years before 280/893,
and not ca. 283/896, as is suggested by A. Shboul (Al-
Mas c udi and his world , London 1979, p. xv).

His youth was spent in Baghdad, but he gives no
information regarding the development of his studies.
From a reading of the M. and T ., it may however be
deduced that he had the opportunity, during the
period of his religious, judicial and literary education,
to attend classes given by a number of eminent
teachers who died in the early years of the 4th cen¬
tury, notably (T., 296) Waki* (d. 306/918 [q.v. ]), (M,
§ 2242) al-Fadl b. al-Hubab (d. 305/917 [q.v. in
Suppl.]), (M, §§ 159, 2282) al-Nawbakht! (d. at the
beginning of the 4th century [q.v. ]), ( T , 396) Abu C A1T
al-Djubba 5 ! (d. 303/915, see al-djubbA 5 !), (. M , § 3382)
al-Anbarl (d. 304/916 [q.v. ]); he may also have been
acquainted at this time with: ( T , 267) al-Tabari (d.
310/923 [<?.tc]), ( M , passim) al-Zadjdjadj (d. 311/924
[q. v. ]), (T, 396) Abu ’l-Kasim al-Balkh! (d. 319/931,
see al-balkh!), (M, § 764) Ibn Durayd (d. 321/934
fa.*]), (T, 396) al-Ash c ar! (d. 324/935 [q.v.]), (M,
passim) Niftawayh (d. 323/934 [q.v .]), and others
besides; it is also known that in 306/918 (al-Subkl,
Tabakat al-ShafiHyya, ii, 307) he was present at the

death bed of Ibn Suraydj [q.v.]. It would be tedious to
list the personalities with whom he associated in the
course of his career, but a further exception is to be
made in the case of (M, § 3382) Dja c far b. Muham¬
mad b. Hamdan al-Mawsill (d. 323/934; see Sezgin,
GAS, ii, 625) and of (M, passim) Abu Bakr al-Sul! (d.
336/946, see al-sulT), who seem to have played a
particularly important role in his life. The scholars
and men of letters cited above represent, at the highest
level, the principal disciplines cultivated in this period
(see, in this context, A. Shboul, op. laud., 29-44; T.
Khalidi, Islamic historiography , Albany 1975, 148-50; in
the encyclopaedic index which follows the new edition
of the Murudi , brief biographies of the contemporary
personalities mentioned in this work are to be found).

Whatever may have been the interest and the value
of the knowledge thus acquired through direct
transmission, an echo of which is also to be found in
his work, al-Mas c ud! would never have attained his
eminence had he not been endowed with an extraor¬
dinary intellectual curiosity which impelled him, on
the one hand, to educate himself with books, and, on
the other, to enrich his human experience by under¬
taking long journeys both within and outside the
Muslim world. For the composition of his principal
surviving work, the Murudi, he had recourse to no
fewer than one hundred and sixty-five written
sources, including, in addition to Arabic texts,
translations of Plato, Aristotle and Ptolemy, as well as
Arabic versions of monuments of Pahlavi literature.
In one paragraph of the Tanbih (154), he mentions
Christian authors with whom he was in the majority
of cases personally acquainted, and passes judgment
on their works; he seems to have had them make
translations of or to explain passages which provided
documentation for chapters of his own works (e.g. M,
§§ 523 ff.), and the transcription into Greek charac¬
ters of the name Helen (M, § 735) is proof of his
breath of interest and his curiosity.

The latter are also exhibited in the accounts, unfor¬
tunately dispersed, of his travels, a topic which raises
the question of his profession, which he does not
reveal, and thereby of the resources which enabled
him not only to live but furthermore to undertake
expensive foreign expeditions. By all appearances, he
had no connection with regular commerce and he was
neither an official representative nor a religious
authority who could depend on hospitality from
Muslim communities visited. The hypothesis of A.
Miquel (Geographic humaine , i, 205-6) according to
which he could have been an emissary of the lsma c !lis
seems hard to sustain, and ultimately it has to be
assumed that this traveller possessed a personal for¬
tune out of which he met the costs of his travels and
that he perhaps drew some profits from the occasional
commercial venture.

In 300/912, al-Mas c ud! was still in Ba gh dad (M, §
2161); three years later (303/915), he is found visiting
Persia (T, 106, 224), then India (M, §§ 269, 417-8; T,
224); it is hardly probable that he travelled as far as
Ceylon and China (M, §§ 175, 342) since, when he
speaks of these lands, he copies from Abu Zayd or the
Akhbar al-Sin wa 'l-Hind [q.v. in Suppl.]. In 304/916,
he returned to his own country by way of c Uman and
the island of Kanbalu (M, § 246). From 306 to
316/918-26 he was travelling around c Irak and Syria
(M, § 3326) and it was perhaps during this time that
he made his way to Arabia (cf. Shboul, op. laud., 8,
12-13). In 320/932 or a little later he visited the prov¬
inces of the Caspian and Armenia (M, § 494), then,
from 330/941 or 331 onward, he resided in Egypt,
where, in 332/943, he composed the Murudi (M* § 874

al-MAS c UDI

785

and passim ), also returning to Syria in the same year
(M, § 220) and visiting Damascus (T, 194) and
Antioch (M, §§ 704-5) in 334/946. Naturally he
visited Alexandria ( M , §§ 679, 841) and Upper Egypt
(M, §§ 811-18, 822, 893 ff.). It is in Fustat that he
seems to have spent his last years, reviewing his works
and writing some new ones, in particular the Tanbih ,
completed in 345/956 (T, 401), shortly before his
death, which came about in Djumada II
345/September 956. On his travels, see especially
Maqbul Ahmad, Travels of ... al-Mas c udi, in 7C, xxviii
(1954), 509-21; A. Shboul, op. laud., 1-28.

It is not known exactly at what period al-Mas c udT
began the composition of his work and committed
himself fully to his vocation as a writer, but the titles
that he quotes in the Murudj_ suggest that he began
with relatively short treatises before embarking on his
major works and before turning to account the notes
which he must have accumulated in the course of his
travels. The first point that commands attention is the
care which he devoted to the correction and enrich¬
ment of the original versions of his writings, in par¬
ticular the Murudi, of which the first “edition” dates
from 332/943 and the last, from 345/956 ( T, 154).
The second point is the fact that this abundant and
diverse corpus of work has, in total, been curiously
neglected by posterity, with the exceptions,
specifically, of the Murudi, the success of which has
never ceased but of which only the “edition” of 332,
revised in 336, has been preserved, and of the Tanbih,
which, owing to its conciseness, responds to the
Muslim taste for abstracts; a third text that has been
attributed to him, the Ilkbai al-wasiyya, has survived
for obvious reasons (see below) but it is of doubtful
authenticity.

The content of the surviving works, which are
presented in a historico-geographical framework,
shows that this prolific writer has a close interest in
various disciplines which are not to be arbitrarily
classified as history or geography; since he displays in
addition an active sympathy for the Ahl al-Bayt and
Twelver Imam! Shiism, it is, to say the least, surpris¬
ing that the Imamis, who mention al-Mas c ud! as one
of their partisans, but are principally familiar with the
Murudi (and subordinately with the Ithbat al-wasiyya ),
have not devoted their efforts to the preservation of his
works, beginning with the most “committed”; in
fact, even if it can be understood that his major work,
the Akhbar al-zaman , might not have tempted the
copyists on account of its volume, it is hard to see the
reason for a general indifference with regard to the
majority of his other writings which ought to have
been interesting and more easily manageable. While
IBn al-Nadim and later biographers have conscien¬
tiously enumerated the works, now lost, of so many
less prestigious writers, not one of them has
apparently entertained the idea of going through the
Murudi and the Tanbih, in which thirty-four titles are
mentioned, enabling us to establish thirty-six as the
total number of al-Mas c udI’s writings. It must be sup¬
posed that the article in the Fihrist has been truncated
by a few lines, because it contains only five titles,
whereas Yakut, who revised it and therefore must
have known it well, refers to eleven ( Udaba 5 , xiii, 90-
4) and the same number recurs in the work of al-
Kutubr ( Fawat, ii, 94-5); the ShYf al-Nadjashl ( Ri^al ,
178) increases the number to fourteen, and Had j d j l
Khalifa (passim) to sixteen. Ibn Hadjar al- c Askalan!
(Lisan al-Mizan , iv, 224-5) confirms the general
impression when he asserts that with the exception of
the Murudi, copies of the work of al-Mas c udT are rare.
In the West, a number of authors have attempted to

compile inventories of his work: De Goeje in the
Introduction to his edition of the Tanbih (vi-vii), Carra
de Vaux in his translation of the latter (569-70), Sar-
ton in his Introduction to the history of science (Baltimore
1927, i, 637-9), Brockelmann (I, 150-2, S I, 220-1),
Sezgin (GAS, i, 333-4), but more recently, Khalidi
(op. laud., 154-64) and Shboul (op. laud., 55-77) have
made strenuous efforts, working on the basis of the
titles mentioned in M and T and especially of such
references to their content as are available, to identify
the subjects of the lost works. When the researcher is
confronted by such a discursive writer as al-Mas c udT,
this method is often dangerous, but there is no reason
why it should not be used in order to gain an impres¬
sion of at least some of the questions examined and to
establish an approximative classification.

I. A first category comprises works of general
culture set in a framework of geography and history
or of the latter alone:

1. — K. Akhbar al-zaman wa-man abadahu ’ l-hidthan min
al-umam al-madiya wa ’ l-adjyal al-khaliya wa 'l-mamalik
al-dathira (before 332/943); the author draws attention
in M (§§ 1-2) to its general content and refers to it fre¬
quently in M and T, thus giving the impression that
it contained a great deal more detail than the two sur¬
viving works; history was presented here in the form
of annals (M, §§ 1498, 3240). The K. Akhbar al-zaman
published in Cairo, in 1938, by Saw!, has nothing in
common with that of al-Mas c udI; it had been
translated as early as 1898, under the title Abrege des
merveilles, by Carra de Vaux, who considered it a
popular work (JA , 9th series, vii [1896], 133-44; cf. D.
M. Dunlop, Arab civilization to AD 1500, London-
Beirut 1971, 110 ff.).

2. — K. Rabat al-arwah (before 332/943); despite the
title, it is a supplement to the above-mentioned work
and it concerns expeditions and wars (especially those
of the mythical kings of Egypt) which did not figure
in the preceding (M, § 819).

3. — al-Kitab al-awsat (before 332/943); this “Middle
book” must have followed the same format as the
Akhbar al-zaman, since it was both an abridgement and
a supplement on points of detail. The Oxford and
Istanbul mss. mentioned by Brockelmann (in ET, s.v.
al-mas c udi) and Sezgin (GAS, i, 334) do not corre¬
spond with al-Kitab al-awsat (see Shboul, op.laud., 89,
n. 127, who has examined them).

4. — K. Murudi al-dhahab wa-ma c ddin al-^awhar (ft
luhaf al-ashraf min al-muluk wa-ahl al-dirayat, T, 1): it is
to this work, written in 332/943, revised in 336/947,
again in 345/956 (T, 97, 110-1, 155-6, 175-6) that al-
Mas c udl owes his reputation. The text of 332-6, the
only version that has survived, was published at Bulak
in 1283 and in Cairo in 1313, in the margins of the
Nafh al-tib of al-Makkarl in Cairo in 1302 and of the
Kamil of Ibn al-Athlr at Bulak in 1303; Muhyi TDTn
c Abd al-Hamtd has made from it an annotated edition
which has enjoyed a degree of success (2nd ed. Cairo
1368/1948, 3rd ed. 1377/1958, further ed. by Yusuf
Daghir, Beirut 1973). As early as 1841, the first
volume of an English translation, the work of A.
Sprenger, appeared in London, and later Barbier de
Meynard and Pavet de Courteille edited and
translated the entire text into French (Paris 1861-77,
2nd ed. 1913-30); this work has been extensively
exploited by orientalists, notably by Marquart (Streif-
ziige, Leipzig 1903) and A. Seippel (Rerum norman-
nicarum fontes arabici, Oslo 1896-1928), who amended
it on points of detail; finally. Ch. Pellat has revised the
edition-translation by Barbier de Meynard and Pavet
de Courteille (5 vols. of text, Beirut 1966-74 and 2
vols. of index in Arabic, Beirut 1979; 3 vols. of

786

al-MAS c UDI

translation, Paris 1962-71, have so far appeared, but
the last two and the French index have been complete
for some years); this revision has been based on secon¬
dary sources rather than on new mss. (which are listed
in Brockelmann, I, 151, SI, 220 and Sezgin, i, 334).

Brockelmann (in EI l , s.v.) and other authors have
accepted without reservation the interpretation by
Gildemeister, who (in WZKM, v [1894], 202) asserted
that Murudj al-dhahab should be rendered as “gold-
washings” rather than “meadows” of gold; taking as
a basis the fact that the earth “makes gold to grow”
(tunbit al-dhahab: M, § 796); the author of the present
article regards this suggestion as nonsensical, and in
this respect is followed by Khalidi (op. laud., 2, n. 2)
and Shboul (op. laud., 71).

The Murudj_ comprise two essential parts. The firs
(§§ 34-663) contains “sacred” history up to the time
of the Prophet, a survey of India, geographical data
concerning seas and rivers, China, the tribes of
Turkey, a list of the kings of ancient Mesopotamia,
Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Egypt, and
chapters on Negroes, Slavs, Gaul and Galicia. Next
come the ancient history of Arabia and articles on the
beliefs, the various calendars, the religious
monuments of India, of Persia, of the Sabaeans, etc.,
and a summary of universal chronology. In this first
part, which takes up roughly two-fifths of the work,
al-Mas c udi has set down, so as not to have to return
to them, generalities regarding the universe and infor¬
mation of a historical nature on non-Muslim peoples
(including the pre-Islamic Arabs), In the second part
(§§ 664-3661), by contrast, there are only exceptional
references to the peoples of countries outside the
Islamic world, and it is the history of Islam, from the
Prophet up to the caliphate of al-Mutl*, which is
recounted; the khulafa 3 rashidun, the Umayyad
“kings” (only c Umar b. c Abd al- c AzTz has a right to
the title of caliph, while al-Ha djdj adj enjoys special
treatment) and the c Abbasid caliphs each form the
subject of a chapter in which a brief biographical arti¬
cle is followed by accounts (ahhbar), anecdotes and
digressions on various subjects. In view of the fact that
the author declares (§3) that this work contains a
summary of studies which had been more fully
developed in the Ahhbar al-zamdn and al-Kitab al-awsat,
as well as supplementary notices on certain points, the
table of contents of the Murua J .£ allows an impression to
be formed of the general format of these two works,
where the points are perhaps presented with greater
rigour.

5. —The K. Wasl al-mad^alis bi-dj_awdmi : al-akhbar
wa-mukhtalit!mukhallat al-ddab/al-athar, foreshadowed in
M (§§ 3014, 3428, 3608) and mentioned in T (333),
was a collection of various traditions, especially con¬
cerning al-Andalus (the history of which is neglected
in the Murudj)\ it was probably composed in an
unsystematic way and would certainly have appeared
in a form closer to adab than to methodical history.

6. —The K. al-Akhbar al-mas c udiyydt, also composed
after M, dealt (T, 259, 333) with the history of pre-
Islamic Arabia and of al-Andalus.

7. —The K. Makatil jursan al-^Adj_am (332/943) was
no doubt a collection of traditions concerning Persian
heroes, which was some sort of a counterpart of the K.
Makatil jursan al- c Arab by Abu c Ubayda (T, 102).

8. —The K. Funun al-ma c arij wa-ma djxrd ji ’ l-duhur
al-sawalij (after 332/943), which is mentioned several
times in T(121, 144, 151, 153, 158, 160, 174, 182,
261), seems to have dealt especially with the Greeks,
the Byzantines and North Africa and to have filled in
the gaps left in preceding works.

9. —The K. Dhakha^ir al- c ulum wa-ma kana ft salijal-

duhur (after 332/943) seems to have been more
detailed than the Tanbih (T, 97, 175, 400) on certain
questions, particularly on the history of Byzantium.

10. —The K. al-Istidhkar li-md djard ji salij al-a c sar ,
mentioned in T ( 1, 53-4, 102, 137, 144, 176, 271,
279, 401) was perhaps a kind of aide-memoire.

11. —The K. Takallub al-duwal wa-t agh ayyur al-dra?
wa *l-milal (T, 334) must have been a reflecting upon
history with regard to the events which culminated in
the seizure of power by the Fatimids in North Africa.
This suggestive title makes one regret the loss of a
work which I bn Khaldun, who had a high regard for
al-Mas c udI (see below), probably did not have the
leisure to consult.

12. —Finally, the K. al-Tanbih wa ’ l-ishraj , com¬
posed in 344-5/955-6, is probably the last work of al-
Mas c udl. It is not exactly an abridgement of the major
historico-geographical works which came before it,
although it does return to and express, with greater
rigour and precision, their essential points of informa¬
tion concerning astronomical and meteorological
phenomena, the divisions of the earth, the seas,
ancient nations, universal chronology, and then the
history of Islam until the caliphate of al-MutT*. As its
title indicates, it is basically a combination of overall
review and a setting in temporal perspective. The
Tanbih has been edited by De Goeje, in the BGA, viii,
1893-4, and by Saw!, in Cairo, in 1357/1938; Carra
de Vaux has translated it under the title Le Livre de
Vavertissement et de la revision, Paris 1897.

II. A second category is also of historical
nature, but it is devoted especially to C A1I b. Abl
Talib, the Ahl al-Bayt and the Twelver Imams.

13. —The K. al-Zahi (before 332/943) concerned
C A1I and the controversies to which he gave rise (M,
§ 1463).

14. —The K. Hada^ik al-adhhdn ji ahhbar AhllAl Bayt
al-Nabi wa-tajarruki-him ji 'l-buldan (before 332/943)
was apparently the history of the twelve Imams and of
the partisans of c AlT (M, §§ 1013, 1943, 2506, 2742,
3023).

15. —The K. Mazahir al-akhbar wa-tara^j al-athar ji
ahhbar Al al-Nabi [al-akhyar?], also prior to M, must
have been, like the preceding, a history, or, doubtless,
a “sacred history” of c AIT and of his partisans (M, §§
1677, 1755, 3032).

16. —The Risalat al-Baydn ji asmd 5 al-aHmmd al-
kittiHyya min al-ShTa. written before 332/943, con¬
tained (M, §§ 2532, 2798; T, 297) detailed
biographies of the Twelve Imams who, unlike the
Wakifiyya, maintained that Musa al-Kazim [q. v. ] was
dead and had designated as his successor their eighth
Imam, C A1I al-Rida [q . 0 .].

III. His Imam! Sh c T beliefs inspired al-Mas c udT to
write two works on the question of the Imamate
from the point of view of different sects and schools,
as well as on other points of doctrine, such as tem¬
porary marriage, the religion of the ancestors of
Muhammad, the beliefs of c AlI before his conversion,
etc.:

17. — K. al-Istibsar ji wasf akawil al-nas ji 'l-imdma
(M, §§ 6, 1138, 1463, 1952, 2190), and

18. — K. al-Sajwa ji ’ l-imama (M, §§ 6, 1138, 1463,
1952).

IV. These writings border upon heresiography
and comparativism, subjects to which the author
devoted numerous articles of a more or less polemical
nature:

19. —The K. al-Makalat ji usul al-diyanat, prior to
332/943, was a survey, probably polemical, of the
beliefs of Islamic sects and schools (Shills, Kharidjls,
Mu c tazilTs, Khurramls. etc.) and of non-Islamic

al-MAS c UDI

787

religions (Sabaism, Mazdaism, Judaism and Christ¬
ianity). Judging by the number of passages where it
is cited (M, §§ 783, 1138, 1205, 1715, 1945, 1994,
2078, 2225, 2291, 2359, 2420, 2741, 2800, 3156; T,
154, 161-2), this work must have been regarded as
quite important by its author.

20. —The K. al-Ibdna c an usul al-diyana, also prior to
332/943, dealt with the differences between Imamism
and Mu c tazilism (from which al-Mas c udI admits
having borrowed some doctrines, M , § 2256) and
attacked Mazdaism, Manichaeism, Daysanism, etc.
(M, §§ 212, 2256; T, 354).

21. —The K. al-Intisar was a refutation of
Kharidjism (M, § 2190); this must be the text which
Yakut {UdabP, xiii, 94) mentions under the title
Akhbdr al-Khawaridj.

22. —The K. al-Istirdfd c fi d-kalam must also have
been a refutation, but of certain beliefs of the Maz-
daeans, the Manichaeans, the Christians, etc. ( M , §
1223).

23. —The K. al-Da c awi/al-Da c dwd al-shanTa, men¬
tioned only once ( M , § 1195, where the translation
needs correction) was directed against “abominable"
beliefs such as the transmigration of souls.

24. —The K. Khazadn al-din wa-sirr al-^alamin, writ¬
ten after 332/943, dealt with the opinion of various
sects, especially the Carmathians, and revealed the
differences between Manichaeism, Mazdaism and
Mazdakism (7\ 101, 161-3, 385).

V. Various passages of the Murua £ show that al-
Mas c udl was interested in general philosophy,
to which he devoted a number of treatises, and that he
was by no means indifferent to political philosophy.
Since the question of the transmigration of souls has
been raised in no. 23 above, the first to be cited is:

25. —The K. Sin al-hayat , which took up the same
subject, but dealt more generally with the soul and
also touched on themes such as the Trinity, th e ghayba,
the mahdi, etc. (M, §§ 533, 988, 1195, 1248, 2800,
3156; T, 155, 353).

26. —The K. al-Zulaf also dealt with the soul, but a
number of other subjects were also discussed: the
qualities of sovereigns, cosmology, diseases, music,
animals, etc. (M y §§ 533, 630, 743, 928, 1325, 1335).

27. —The K. Tibb al-nufus was also devoted to the
soul ( M , §§ 988, 1247), as was:

28. —The K. al-Nuha wa ’ l-kamal ( M , § 1247).

29. —The K. al-Ru^us al-sab c iyya (?) min al-siydsa al-
mulukiyyalal-madaniyya wa-Hlali-ha wa-milali-hd al-
tabtfiyya seems to have been a treatise of political phi¬
losophy (M, §§ 928, 1222-3, 1232, 1336), as was

30. —The K. Nazm al-dyawahirfi tadbir al-mamalik wa
d- c asdkir , which is mentioned only in T (400-1),
whereas the preceding were prior to the Murudf.

VI. Two major works of scien tific nature may
legitimately be classed separately:

31. —The K. al-MabadP wa d-tarakib, where there is
a discussion of the influence of the two luminaries (M
§ 1325) and

32. —The K. al-Kadaya wa d-tadjarib, in which al-
Mas c udl gives an account of observations made in the
course of his travels of various phenomena, the three
domains of Nature, etc. (M, §§ 369, 705, 815, 817,
846, 1208, 2247).

VII. Finally, although he can hardly be described
a priori as a fakih, he did take an interest in the
Sharl c a and its principles, as is shown by four
treatises:

33. —The K. al-Wadfib fi d-furud al-lawazim, on
points of fikh on which Sunnis and ShYls were in
disagreement (M, § 1952) and

34. —The K. Nazm al-adilla fi usul al-milla, both of
them prior to 332/943 ( M , § 5; T, 4);

35. —The K. Nazm al-aHam fi usul al-ahkam, men¬
tioned only in T (4), but probably composed much
earlier; it is not impossible, in fact, that this text was
known to al-Subkl, who had in his possession (Tabakdt
al-ShdfiHyya, ii, 307) a treatise by al-Mas c udT com¬
pleting the notes that he had taken in 306/918 when
Ibn Suraydj recited his Risalat al-Baydn c an usul al-
ahkam ; this was a survey of the principles of the law
according to al-ShafTl. Malik, Sufyan al-Thawrl,
Abu Hanlfa and Dawud al-Isfahanl. Lastly,

36. —The K. al-Masadl wa d-Hlal fi d-madhahib wa
d-milal, mentioned in T (4, 155).

It will be noted that, in the introduction to the
Tanbth , al-Mas c udI lists in chronological order nos, 1,
3, 4, 8, 9, 10, then the three last (nos. 34, 35, 36) and
considers the Tanbth to be the seventh of the first
series.

It is appropriate to note in addition that the Fihrist
(154) and Yakut (Udabd 5 , xiii, 94) mention a K. al-
Rasadl, while al-Kutub! ( Fawdt , ii, 94) refers to a K.
al-RasaHl wa d-istidhkar bi-ma man a fi salif al-a c sar (cf.
above, no. 10). Similarly, the K. al-Ta^rikh ft akhbdr al-
umam min al- c Arab wa d- c Adjam (Fihrist, Udabd ■>, Fawdt )
must be the K. Akhbdr al-zaman. Finally, Ibn Abl
Usaybi c a (fUyun al-anba 5 , i, 56, 82) credits al-
Mas c udi, as a result of a confusion, with a K. al-
Masalik wa d-mamalik.

However, there remains one little book, the K.
Ithbat al-wasiyya li d-Imam c Ali b. Abi Talib, published
at Nadjaf (n.d.; ca. 1955 for the 1st ed.), which poses
a problem difficult to solve. Omissions excepted, this
title is not mentioned by any Sunni author, although
the ShlTs unreservedly attribute it to al-Mas c udI, and
the anonymous editor identifies it with the Bayan fi
asma 3 al-admma (no. 16 above). In spite of elements
which militate in favour of this identification, it is
doubtful whether the Ithbat al-wasiyya comes from the
pen of the author of the Murudf; but the question
remains open, and is unlikely ever to be settled
definitively (see Ch. Pellat, Mas c udi et Flmdmisme , in
Le Shfisme imamite , Paris 1970, 69-80).

Even if it is decided that this “anti-history” or this
“sacred history" of the twelve Imams is apocryphal,
and speculation on the titles of the works catalogued
above under the nos. 13-18 is abandoned, it is impos¬
sible to deny the ShlSsm or, more accurately the
Imamism, of al-Mas c udI. ShlT authors are
unanimous in considering him one of their number,
and a reading of the Murudf largely confirms this opin¬
ion. Among the Sunnis it is quite curious that al-
Subkl( loc. cit.) and Ibn TaghrlbardI( Nudfum , iii, 315-
6) follow al-Dhahabl in seeing him only as a
Mu c tazill, while Ibn Taymiyya ( Minhadf al-sunna , ii,
129-31) is one of the few who recognises his Shl c ism.
and Ibn Hadjar al- c Askalan! reconciles all points of
view in pointing out, quite rightly (Lisan al-Mizan, iv,
224-5), that his writings “abound with signs showing
that he was Shf-I and Mu c tazill”. Al-Mas c udl in fact
acknowledges this dual allegiance when he declares
6Af, § 2256) that he has chosen some Mu c tazill doc¬
trines for his own use (cf. above, no. 20), and such an
eclecticism was by no means astonishing in the
4th/10th century. As for his madhhab, it would seem to
be largely Shafi c I, but nothing can be definitely
asserted and it is possible that, in his treatises of fikh,
he confined himself to dealing with comparative law.

Although J. D. Pearson, in his Index islamicus,
reserves for al-Mas c udI a special mention under the
rubric “Muslim geographers”, it is in the ranks of the
historians that he is normally counted, because he is
characterised and classified on the basis of the Murudf
and the Tanbth and because the opinion of the Arab
authors who qualify him as musannif li-kutub al-tawarikh

788

al-MAS c UDI

wa-akhbar al-muluk (Ibn al-Nadlm), mu^arrikh kabir (al-
KutubT), imam (= model) IV l-mu^arrikhin (Ibn
Khaldun. Mukaddima, i, 52; tr. Slane, i, 67; tr. Rosen¬
thal, i, 64) is accepted. The esteem in which he was
held by Ibn Khaldun (who mentions him frequently
but does not hesitate to criticise him) seems to have
been inspired by his historical method, his interest in
nations foreign to Islam, whether ancient or contem¬
porary, and in the religions practised there, by his
open-mindedness and his universal vision of history
(on the links between the two authors, see in par¬
ticular M. Mahdi, Ibn Khaldun’s philosophy of history ,
London 1957, 152-3, 164 ff., 255 ff.; W. J. Fischel,
Ibn Khaldun and al-Mas c udf, in al-Mas c udi Millenary com¬
memoration volume , Aligarh 1960, 51-9).

To be sure, the Tanbth is presented in the form of
a universal history from Adam to al-Muff-, preceded
by a survey of general geography; to be sure also, the
table of contents of the Murudj_ given the same impres¬
sion. But this voluminous work does not contain only
history and geography; in addition, it has been
observed that, in the list of works of al-Mas c udI, at
least twenty are generally of a heresiographical, doc¬
trinal, philosophical or legal nature. Even if it is con¬
sidered that disciplines thus cultivated belong to
global history, the qualification of “historian” in the
normal sense of the term is only partially appropriate
to this polygraph. A. Shboul has not hesitated to des¬
cribe him, in the subtitle of his treatise, as A Muslim
humanist, and A. Miquel ( Geographic humaine, i, 202)
confers on him the title of “imam of encyclopaedism”,
thus justifying the quality of adtb of the Djahizian type
which the author of these present lines has been led to
acknowledge in him (in Jnal of the Pakistan Historical
Soc. y ix [1961], 231-4). Eager to acquire all available
types of knowledge, of whatever origin, and anxious
to present them in a form responding to the exigencies
of adab which seeks to instruct without burdening the
reader, al-Mas c udI writes for a public which seeks to
educate itself, to escape from the narrow confines of
traditional instruction and to extend the field of Arab-
Islamic culture, while not regarding as negligible
everything that happens outside the Muslim world.
On the subject of Gaul, B. Lewis recalls (in Mas. Mill,
commem. vol. , 10) that, from the first millenium of
Islam, there have survived only three works dealing
with the “history” of Western Europe, and that the
oldest of these is by al-Mas c udI, the Murudf. This
author established no school, and in this there is no
cause for surprise, in the sense that the last-named
work was in itself adequate to satisfy the curiosity of
readers for many years, to say nothing of the
encyclopaedists of later times who continued to exploit
it without reservation (e.g. al-Kalkashandl cites him
forty-two times in the Subh, the editor of which finds
no other reference to the Persian calendar (ii, 385)
than that contained in the Murudf); these authors give
the impression that nothing of equal substance has
been written in the course of the intervening centuries
on questions which nevertheless appear to have been
broadly set forth.

In a period when rhymed prose was beginning to
invade literature, it is remarkable that al-Mas c udI did
not seek to elaborate his style, and only a few rhymed
sentences are to be found in his writings. It will be
observed, however, that he himself gave rhymed titles
to around fifteen of his works, and that in only three
of them is the first unit artificial. To the extent that it
is possible to verify his quotations, he has sometimes
introduced modifications in them, but he seldom
voluntarily embellishes the form. The general
arrangement of his works is not exempt from defects,

and attention should be drawn to his numerous
digressions, without however reproaching him for
them, since they constitute one of the characteristics of
adab. On his style, see Khalidi, op. laud., 19-23.

Finally, even if it may be reckoned that the Akhbar
al-zamdn and al-Kitdb al-awsat , in spite of their
documentary worth, were too voluminous to be pre¬
served, the fact remains that the loss of thirty-four
works out of thirty-six is hard to explain, especially
considering the enduring success of the Murudf. Essen¬
tially, it is perhaps this very success which has con¬
tributed most to the casting of a shadow over the
major historico-geographical works and has driven the
Shfls to take no further interest in the other writings
of an Imami author who was sufficiently independent
to play into the hands of the Sunnis by giving pride of
place, not to the Imams (as in the Ithbat al-wasiyya ) but
to the caliphs, and by preferring, as he emphasises on
numerous occasion, objective accounts ( khabar) to
speculation ( nazar ). It can easily be understood how
the Sunnis, for their part, should have concentrated
their attention on the MuruaIf and it may be supposed
that al-Mas c udI has been a victim of the suspicion
which was attached to both the Shfls and the
Mu c tazills, since he was regarded as belonging to this
school.

Bibliography : The Arabic biographical
sources are not particularly detailed, see Ibn al-
Nadlm, Fihrist, 154 (ed. Cairo, 219-20); NadjashI,
Ridjal, Bombay 1317, 178; Yakut, Udabd °, xiii, 90-
4; KutubI, Fawat, Cairo 1951, ii, 94-5; Subkl,
Tabakdt al-ShdfiHyya, ii, 307; Ibn Hadjar, Lis an al-
Mtzan, iv, 224-5; Ibn TaghribirdI, Nudfum , iii,
315-6; HadjdjI Khalifa. Kashf al-zunun, index; Ibn
al- c Imad, Shadhardt, ii, 371; Kh w ansari. Rawflat al-
djanndt, 379-82; Nurl, Mustadrak , iii, 310; c AmilI,
A c yan al-ShVa, xli, 198-213; Zirikll, v, 87; Kahhala,
vii, 80.

Studies: The many orientalists who have
exploited the Murudy and, to a lesser extent, the
Tanbih, have been led to review certain passages
and, where appropriate, to amend them; this is
especially the case with V. Minorsky, in the com¬
mentary on the Hudud al- c alam, London 1937. Dif¬
ferent aspects of the work of al-Mas c udi have been
the object of independent studies: particularly
worthy of mention are: the writings of T. Lewicki
(in Polish) on the Slavs and other peoples; A.
Czapkiewics, Al-Mas c udt on balneology and
balneotherapeutics, in Fol. Or., iii (1962), 271-5; Ch.
Pellat, La Espaha musulmana en las obras de al-
Mas^udi, in Adas del primer congreso de estudios arabes
e isldmicos, Madrid 1964, 257-64; and especially, S.
Maqbul Ahmad and A. Rahman (eds.), al-Mas c udi
Millenary commemoration volume, Aligarh 1960, which
contains some twenty contributions on particular
subjects. J. de Guignes appears to have been the
first to draw attention to the MuruaIf in Notices et
extraits, i, 1787, 27, but the earliest monograph is
the work of E. Quatremere, Notice sur la vie et les
ouvrages de Masoudi, in JA , 3rd series, vii (1839), 1-
31; see also are Wustenfeld, Geschichtsschreiber der
Araber, no. 119; Marquart, Streifzuge, Leipzig 1903,
pp. xxxiv-xxxv; Brockelmann, I, 141-3, S I, 220-1,
I 2 , 150-2; Sezgin, GAS, i, 332-6; F. Rosenthal,
Muslim historiography, index. The works of S.
Maqbul Ahmad, Al-Mas c udi’s contribution to medieval
Arab geography, in IC, xxvii (1953), 61-77, xxviii
(1954), 275-86, and The travels, in ibid. , xxviii, 509-
25, in fact mark the beginning of a resurgence of
interest in the author of the Murud}_, illustrated by
A. Miquel, Le geographic humaine du monde musulman

789

al-MAS c UDI — MASYAD

jusqu’au milieu du II e siecle, Paris, i, 1967, 202-12,
and index, ii, 1975, index; then by two successive
works based on dissertations: T. Khalidi, Islamic
historiography. The histories of Mas c udt, Albany 1975
(an important study of the historical method of this
author) and A. Shboul, Al-Mas c udiand his world. A.
Muslim humanist and his interest in non-Muslims, Lon¬
don 1979 (fundamental monograph, with com¬
prehensive bibliography). (Ch. Pellat)

MASUNIYYA [see faramush-khana and far-
MASUNIYYA in Suppl.].

MASYAD, a town of central Syria on the
eastern side of the Djabal al-Nusayriyya situated at 33
miles/54 km to the east of Baniyas [q.v. and 28
miles/45 km to the east of Hamat [q.v.], in ong. 36°
35’ E. and lat. 35° N., in the massif of the Djabal
Ansariyya at the foot of the eastern slopes of the
Djabal Bahra 3 , at an altitude of 1,591 ft./485 m. and
to the west of the great trench of the fault of the Ghab
[q.v.]. The pronunciation and orthography of the
name varies between the forms Masyad, Masydf (in
official documents and on the inscriptions mentioned
below of the years 646 and 870 A.H.), Masydt and
Masydth (on the interchange of / and th, see O.
Rescher, in ZDMG, lxxiv, 465; Praetorius, in ibid .,
Ixxv, 292; Dussaud, Topographic hist, de laSyrie, 143, n.
4, 209, 395, n. 3). The variants Masydb (Yakut,
Mu^djam, iv, 556), Masydh (Khalil al-Zahirl, Zubda,
ed. Ravaisse, 49), Messiat in tr. Venture, 73 and
Masydt (al-NabulusI, in Von Kremer, in SB Ak. Wien ,
1850, ii, 331) are no doubt due to mistakes in copying
(Van Berchem, in JA , Ser. 9, ix [1897], 457, n. 2). At
a later period, the pronunciation Misydf , Misydd,
became usual (al-Dimashkl, ed. Mehren, 208; al-
Kalkashandl, Subh al-a^sha*, iv, 113; Ibn al-Shihna,
ed. Beirut, 265; cf. Mesydf on von Oppenheim’s map
in Petermans Mitteilungen, lvii [1911], ii, Taf. 11). The
name is perhaps a corruption of a Greek Mapaua ( =
Maaaua) or Mapaou which presumably lay on

the Marsyas amnis, the boundary river of the Nazerini
(ancestors of the Nusayrls? Pliny, Nat. hist. , v. 81) (cf.
Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realenzyklopadie , xiv, cols.
1985-6, s.v. Marsyas, no. 3).

Masyad is an important settlement which has
developed under the protection of a powerful citadel
whose traces are visible on a limestone outcrop. The
region gets an average of 31.5 inches/800 mm of rain,
and the climate is good. Various small watercourses
have allowed not only the cultivation in the region of
barley and wheat but also the existence of gardens and
orchards ( basatin ). In her travel account, Gertrude L.
Bell noted the abundance of flowers—anemones, iris,
narcissus, and white and red orchids (Syria: the desert
and the sown, 217).

The main communication routes between northern
and southern Syria do not pass through the Orontes
valley, but more to the east on the fringes of the desert
steppes. In order to travel from Masyad to northern
Syria, one has to reach the Orontes valley by a road
passing through Lakba and Dayr al-Shamll. where a
road coming from Hamat is crossed, leaving to the
west, on the mountain flank, the fortresses of Khariba
and Abu Kubays [q. v. ]. The Ghab is descended into,
and then the Orontes is crossed at the bridge of
c Asharna, a bridge from the Roman period 8
miles/15 km below Shavzar [q.v.]. Beyond the bridge,
the route passes by Kal c at al-Mudik and then reaches
the plateau and goes through Afamiya [q. v. ] to reach
Antakiya [q.v. ] in northern Syria. There also exists a
route linking Masyad with Shavzar via Tell al-Salhab.
Finally, at the beginning of the 20th century the traces
of the paved way (rasif) of a Roman road which linked

Hamat with the Mediterranean (Bell, op.cit., 232)
could still be seen; it then crossed the Nahr Sarut by
a bridge before passing through the settlement of
Masyad in the direction of the sea. The coast could
also be reached after Masyad by going through
Rafaniyya, where there was a bifurcation of the ways
either towards Kal c at Yahmur in the direction of
Tartus q.v.] or towards Tell Kalakh if the journey to
Tarabu us [q.v.] or Tripoli was intended. At the pres¬
ent day, asphalted roads allow access to Masyad with¬
out any difficulty.

Masyad is not mentioned in the early Middle Ages;
the first mention of the fortress is probably in a
Frankish account of the advance of the Crusaders in
1099: pervenimus gaudentes hospitari ad quoddam Arabum
castrum (Anonymigesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolymita-
norum , ed. Hagenmeyer, 1890, 418 with n. 29;
Dussaud, Histoire et religion des Nosairis , Paris 1900, 21
n. 4). In the course of the campaign which he con¬
ducted in Syria during the autumn of 389/99 to regain
Antioch, threatened by the Fatimids, the Byzantine
Emperor Basil II occupied the Djabal Bahra 5 , at the
limits of his empire, and dismantled the defences of
Hisn Masyad and Rafaniyya, which at this time
formed part of the province ( dj_und) of Kinnasrln
[q.v.]. When, after the capture of Tripoli on 11 Dh u
’l-Hidjdja 502/12 July 1109, the Franks advanced on
Rafaniyya, Tughtakln set out to relieve it; by the
terms of the peace concluded between them, the
Franks bound themselves to abandon all designs on
Masyath and Hisn al-Akrad and in compensation,
these two places and Hisn Tufan were to pay them
tribute (Sibt Ibn al-DjawzI, Mir^dt al-zamdn , in Rec.
hist. or. crois., iii, 537). This agreement did not last
long. Around this time, the frontiers between the
Latin states began to be precisely delimited; on the
other hand, one may note the presence of Isma c llls,
who profited from the anarchy of the years following
the arrival of the First Crusade and tried to find places
of refuge in the mountainous region to the west of the
middle Orontes.

Before 521/1127 the fortress was in possession of a
branch of the Mirdasids [q.v.], who sold it to the Banu
Munkidfi [q. v. ]. The Isma c flls, having in 524/1130
ceded to the Franks the stronghold of Baniyas in the
Wadi al-Tayim, which the Burid Tu gh takln had
given to them, now tried to establish themselves in the
Djabal Bahra’ around Masyad. In 527/1132-3, Sayf
al-Mulk Ibn c Amrun, the lord of al-Kahf, sold to them
Kadmus, seized from the Franks in the previous year,
after which they soon occupied al-Kahf and Kh ariba.
In Ramadan 535/April-May 1141, they also seized
the fortress of Masyaf by outwitting the commandant
Sunkur, a mamluk in the service of the Banu Munkidh
of Shavzar. who was surprised and slain (Abu TFida,
Mukhlasarfi akhbar al-bashar, in Rec. hist. or. crois., i, 25;
Ibn al-Adilr, Kamil, in ibid., i, 438; al-Nuwayrl, Cod.
Leiden 2 m , fol. 222b, in Van Berchem, JA [1897],
464, n. 1). Masyad now became the residence of the
Syrian “Master” of the sect, as we may call him, with
Van Berchem, to distinguish him from the Grand
Master in Alamut [q.v.], known as Shaykh al-Djabal.
The Isma c Ilis now proceeded to make themselves
independent there for a century-and-a-half. In
543/1148, after the check to the Second Crusade, the
Isma c IlTs of Masyad made common cause with the
Franks against Nur al-Dln, but in 552/1157 these
same Isma c Ilis joined in the defence of the fortress of
Shayzar, besieged by the Crusaders. Whilst the
Isma c llls had just been regrouped in the mountainous
region of Kadmus by the Master ( mukaddam) Abu
Muhammad, there appeared in Syria around

790

MASYAD

557/1162 Rashid al-Dln Sinan b. Salman b. Muham¬
mad al-Ba§rI [q. v. ] as envoy of the Grand Master of
Alamut, the head of the Nizarl Isma c flls, sometimes
known as the Assassins [see nizaris, hashIshiyya] .
He soon took over the direction of them in this region,
and until his death in 588/1192, showed an extraor¬
dinary talent for organisation, making the sect a for¬
midable military force which sowed terror amongst
both the Crusaders and the Syrian Muslims. Salah al-
Dln, who wanted to punish them for two attempts on
his life, invaded the land of the Isma c flls in Muharram
572/July-August 1176, laid it waste and laid siege to
Sinan in Kal c at Masyad. Whilst besieging Masyad,
Salah al-Dln learnt that the Crusaders had attacked in
the Bika c [q. v. ]. Since the siege became a lengthy one,
he decided to negotiate through the mediation of his
uncle Shihab al-Dln Mahmud b. Takash al-Hariml,
the master of Hamat, and at the beginning of
Safar/August, he retired with his army in the direc¬
tion of Hamat (Abu ’1-Fida and Ibn al-Athlr, in Rec.
hist. or. crois. , i, 47, 626). The exact terms of the agree¬
ment are not now known, but it is certain that Salah
al-Dln never again attacked the Isma c ills and that the
latter ceased to plot against him. Shortly before he
raised the siege of Masyad (about 1 $afar), he
received from Usama b. Munkidh, who was in
Damascus, a letter containing a panegyric of his great
patron (Derenbourg, Vie d’Ousama, Paris 1893, 400-
1). Rashid al-Dln died in 588/September 1192. The
Syrian Masters, as the official epithet al-Dunya wa 7-
Dtn henceforth regularly borne by them shows, were
raised by him to a position with power and privileges
equal to those of sovereign rulers (Van Berchem, op.
cit., 470). While Sinan had completely emancipated
himself from the suzerainty of the headquarters of the
sect in Alamut, in 608/1211-12 we find the old condi¬
tions completely restored (Abu Shama, al-Dhayl fi 7-
rawdatayn, in Van Berchem, op. cit.y 475ff., n. 1).

The fortress of Masyad lies to the northeast of the
settlement, at the foot of the Djabal Bahra 3 and within
the town wall, a few traces of which are still today visi¬
ble. The fortress is perched on a rocky limestone block
and has a situation running from north to south; the
eastern edge of this bluff rises vertically for some ten
metres and gives the appearance of a cliff. Like
Shayzar, Masyad is an Arab citadel antedating the
Crusades and having no connection with them; in its
dimensions and size, it cannot be compared with such
great mediaeval fortresses of Syria as Hi?n al-Akrad,
Markab [q. vv. ] or Sahyun. For Van Berchem and
Fatio ( Voyage en Syrie, 115,172), this fortress resembles
in silhouette those of al-Musayliha and Shumaymis. It
is one of the best-preserved of the Isma c llls castles of
Syria (Dussaud, Topographie, 138-48). It is made up of
a curtain wall of only modest appearance with
numerous rectangular salients. A donjon or keep, also
rectangular, is built in the centre and dominates the
ensemble. According to P. Deschamps ( Tripoli , 39),
the Isma c ills are said to have repaired in the 7th/13th
century, with good-quality materials, a Byzantine
building of minor importance, of which a certain
number of columns and capitals embedded in the
doorways of the fortress (partially reproduced in Ger¬
trude Bell, op. cit., 217-19) are still visible witnesses.
The castle is entered by a grand gateway on the north
side reached by several steps; the entrance is vaulted
like that of Hisn al-Akrad; and the fitting-out of the
interior is the work of the Isma c Hls. The keep is in
poor condition, and later accretions over the course of
the centuries of shacks and constructions have
disfigured this piece of military architecture, which
merits study and publication of the results. A certain

number of Arabic inscriptions mention the various
building works made in the castle. The oldest, dating
from the middle of the 6th/12th century, is the
signature of a master of works, the mamluk Kusta
(RCEA , viii, 3197); another inscription from
560/1165 bears the signature of a certain Ibn
Mubarak (RCEA, ix, 3264). According to two inscrip¬
tions on a doorway inside the castle (RCEA, x, 3890-
1 ), the building was put into a state of repair by the
Syrian Master Kamal al-Dunya wa ’1-Din al-Hasan
b. Mas c ud under the suzerainty of the Grand Master
of Alamut c Ala 3 al-Dln Muhammad III (618-53/1221 -
55). The reference is probably to the al-Kamal, who,
according to al-NasawI (Hist, du Sultan Djelal al-Din
Mankobirti, ed. Houdas, 132), was for a period before
624/1227 governor in Syria for the Grand Master of
the Isma c Hls. It is uncertain whether the commandant
(mutawalli) Madjd al-Dln, who received in 624/1227
the ambassadors of Frederick II (al-HamawI, in
Amari, Bibl. arabico-sicula, App. ii, 30) was one of the
Masters (Van Berchem, in JA [1897], 501, n. 1).
About 625-6/1228-9 and still in 635/1237-8, Siradj al-
Dln Muzaffar b. al-Husayn was Syrian Master
(Nasawl, op. cit., 168; inscription of al-Kahf, in
RCEA, x, 4143). In the village, there remain the
traces of a mediaeval rampart provided with gateways
and three inscriptions recording the repairs and works
carried out.

A Persian from Alamut, Tadj al-Dln, was in
637/1239-40 mukaddam of the Syrian Isma c HTs (Ibn
Wasil, Mufarridj. al-kurub, Paris, ms. ar. 1702, fol.
333b, in Van Berchem, 466, n. 2). As Tadj al-Dln
Abu ’1-Futuh he appears in an inscription in Masyad
of Dhu ’1-Ka c da 646/February-March 1249, accord¬
ing to which he had built the city wall of Masyaf and
its south gate. The commander of the fortress under
him was c Abd Allah b. Abi ’1-Fa<jl b. c Abd Allah
(inscriptions A and B in Van Berchem, JA [1897], 456
= Van Berchem-von Oppenheim, Beitr. z. Assyr. , vii,
no. 19). Probably it was Tadj al-Dln to whom the
Dominican monk Yvo the Breton, a member of an
embassy sent by Louis IX to the “Old Man of the
Mountains” in May 1250, sent a naive and fruitless
appeal for his conversion (Jean de Joinville, Hist, de
St. Louis, ed. Wailly, 246; Van Berchem, in JA
[1897], 478-80).

After having got possession of Alamut in 654/1256
and having sacked Ba gh dad two years later, the
troops of Hiilegu or Hulaku [q. v. ] invaded northern
Syria in 658/1260 and temporarily occupied Masyad.
In this year, in the time of the Master Rida al-Dln
Abu ’1-Ma c all, the Mongols seized and held the for¬
tress for a time, but after the victory of the Egyptian
Sultan Kufuz at c Ayn Djalut [q.v.\, they abandoned
it. About two years later, Baybars began to interfere
in the affairs of the Isma c Tlis and to demand tribute
from them. He very soon deposed the Master Nadjm
al-Dln Isma c H and appointed his son-in-law $arim al-
DTn Mubarak in his place and took Masyad from him.
When the latter returned there, Baybars had him
seized and brought to Cairo, where he was thrown
into prison. Nadjm al-Dln was again recognised as
Master for a brief period and then his son Shams al-
DTn, on payment of an annual tribute before the
sultan definitely incorporated Ma$yad in his kingdom
in Radjab 668/1270 (Abu TFida, in Rec. hist. or.
crois., i, 153; Mufaddal b. Abi ’1-Fada 3 il, Gesch. d.
Mamlukensultane, ed. Blochet, in Patrol. Orient., xiv,
445; Van Berchem, in JA [1897], 465, n. 2). Having
now become a Sunni Muslim possession, Masyad
presumably at first belonged to the “royal province of
fortunate conquests” the capital of which was Hisn al-

MASYAD

791

Akrad, then to Tarabulus (after its capture in
688/1289).

Within the scheme of administrative reorganisation
within the Mamluk empire, a route was established in
the 7th/13th century for the band [q.v.] or postal ser¬
vice between Hims [q.v.] and Masyad, which was at
the time an important strategic point under the
authority of a commander responsible directly to the
sultan because of the fortress’s role in the defence of
the dar al-Islam [q.v.\ just like Hisn al-Akrad and
Rahba [q.v.].

Abu ’l-Fida 3 (about 720/1320) describes Masyad as
an important town, with beautiful gardens through
which streams flowed; it had a strong citadel and lay
at the eastern base of the Djabal al-Lukkam (more
accurately Djabal al-Sikkln) about a jarsakh north of
Barm and a day’s journey west of Hama (not Hims,
as Le Strange, Palestine , 507 erroneously says; Abu T
Fida 3 , Geogr., ed. Reinaud, 229 ff.). As a result of its
high situation, it has a more temperate climate than
the low ground on the Nahr al- c AsI; the young Usama
in 516/1122-3 brought to Masyad the wife and
children of the amir of Shavzar. his uncle c Izz al-Dln
Abu ’l- c Asakir Suljan, from the heat of Shavzar which
was causing the amir anxiety about their health
(Derenbourg, Vie d’Ousama , 43).

Ibn Batjuta, who visited Masyad in 756/1355, men¬
tions ( Rihla, i, 166-7, tr. Gibb, i, 106) as lying near
this stronghold the Isma c fll fortresses of Kadmus, al-
Manayka, c Ullayka and al-Kahf. These five places,
the kila c al-da c wa “fortresses of the [Isma c fll] mis¬
sion”, formed, with the castle of al-Rusafa, the niydba
of Masyad which, in the 8th/14th century, was a
dependency of Tarabulus. Later, it was separated
from this province and attached to the niydba of
Damascus, to which it still belonged in the time of al-
Kalkashandl ( Subh , iv, 113, 202, 235), ca. 814/1412.
Its nadib was nominated from Cairo and was at various
times an amir of tabalkhana or an amir of ten, and it had
a garrison of Mamluks. In 826/1423, under Barsbay
[q. v. ] there was no longer a barid service, but there was
a road which allowed one to travel from Tarabulus to
Masyad and then to reach, via al-Rusafa and
Khawall, Kadmus, where it passed through al-Kahf
and then c Ullayka to end up at Balafunus [q.v.]. In the
middle of the 9th/15th century, Khalil al-Zahirl, in his
Zubda (ed. Ravaisse, 49, tr. Venture, 73), tells us that
around 850/1446 “the town of Masyad is still within
this province (sc. Hamawiyya); it is a pleasant town
with an extensive surrounding countryside”. An
inscription of Masyad of Ramadan 870/April-May
1466 contains a decree about taxes of the Sultan al-
Malik al-Zahir Khushkadam (Van Berchem-von
Oppenheim, Beitr. z. Assyr., vii, 20, no. 23: no. 22 is
perhaps of the same al-Malik al-Zahir).

Under Egyptian rule, the position of the lands of
the Isma c flTs with Masyad as capital was to some
extent exceptional (Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie
a I’epoque des Mamelouks , Paris 1923, 182, no. 3).

In the 10th/16th century, after the Ottoman con¬
quest of Syria, Masyad is mentioned in the cadastral
survey amongst the kild c al-da c wa situated to the west
of Hamat; these villages of the Isma c IlTs paid a special
tax. Masyad formed part of the liwa of Hims; there
was situated there a khan [q. v. ] on which the Ottomans
levied tolls which were abolished in the middle of the
10th/16th century (Mantran and Sauvaget, Reglements
Jiscaux , 92). In 1105/1693-4 c Abd al-Gham al-
Nabulusi [q.v.] passed through Masyad and mentions
a certain Sulayman, from the tribe of Tanukh, as
governor of the town at that time. In 1697 d’Herbelot
cited the place in his Bibliotheque orientale as

“Massiat”. In the middle of the 12th/18th century,
Ma§yad continued to be the residence of Isma c ilT
amirs. On the map drawn up by the Sieur d’Anville in
1750, the place is called “Masiat”. Of more recent
date are two inscriptions of an amir Mustafa b. Idris:
one from the year 1203/1788-9 relating to the building
of a fountain ( sabil) (Van Berchem-Von Oppenheim,
op. cit. , 21, no. 24), and the other to the building of
the house of the Isma c IlI amirs {ibid. , no. 25).

The Isma c flls lived constantly in open or secret
enmity with the Nusayrls, although various tribes of
the latter had offered their services to the Isma c TlI
Masters, for example, as early as 724/1324 to Rashid
al-DTn (S. Guyard, Un grand maitre des au

temps de Saladin , in JA [1877], 165; R. Dussaud,
Histoire et religion des Nosairis, 80). A number of
Nusayrls of the tribe of Raslan, whom the amir of
Masyad had allowed to settle in the town under their
Shaykh Mahmud, in 1808 murdered the amir , his son
and about 300 Isma c flls, and seized the town. The
other inhabitants, who had sought refuge in flight,
applied for protection to Yusuf Pasha, the governor of
Damascus. He sent a punitive expedition of 4-5,000
men against the Nusayrls; Masyad had to be sur¬
rendered by the Banu Raslan after three month’s
stubborn resistance, and the fugitive Isma c flls
returned to Masyad in 1810 (Dussaud, op. cit. , 32;
Burckhardt, Reisen in Syrien , 258). In 1812 Burckhardt
estimated the population of Masyad at 250 Isma c ill
and 30 Christian families. The population since then
seems to have diminished still further. Burckhardt
and Lammens found many houses in the town in
ruins and large gardens within its walls. According to
Burckhardt, the land east of the town was a desert
heath, while in the north at the foot of the hills the
citadel stands on a high steep rock; on the west side is
a valley, in which the inhabitants grow wheat and
oats. The town, which lies on the slope of a hill, is
about half an hour’s walk in circumference. Three
older gates have been incorporated in the present
more modern walls. The mosque is in ruins. The old
citadel is for the most part destroyed; only a few
buildings have been roughly restored and in parts
were still inhabited at the beginning of the 20th
century.

From the 19th century onwards, the “Assassins” of
Masyad, the generations of whom had lived since the
7th/12th century under the authority of delegates
from the Nizarls of Alamut before becoming subjects
of first the Mamluks and then the Ottomans, were
exposed to repeated attacks by the Nusayrls. In
February 1919 the region between Masyad and
Tartus [q.v. ] was shaken by the revolt of Shaykh Salih
against the French, whose troops were held in check
on the road from Shaykh Badr to Masyad. According
to Latron, Vie rurale, 208, the Government of
Ladhikivva compelled some of the large landowners of
Hamat to hand over to it in 1929 their villages in the
kadad of Masyad: Bayadiyya, Miryamln, c Akakir and
Rusafa, whose cultivated lands have been distributed
amongst the peasants working them. In this way, the
c AlawI part of the kadd 5 of Masyad, including the for¬
tress of Abu Kubays, was taken away from the sandjak
of Hamat for attachment to the new State of the
c Alawites.

In the mountain regions to the west of Masyad
there exist deposits of iron known since Antiquity and
still capable of exploitation. In order to provide a legal
framework for disputes over the division of water, a
list of the sharers and their entitlements was set down
in writing and registered officially (Latron, op. cit .,
160).

792

MASYAD — al-MATALI c

Until 1938, the mintaka of Masyad was part of the
province of Hamat, but in 1939 the kada? of Ma§yad
was integrated in toto into the muhafaza of the
c Alawites, the kada? then having a population of 4,059
people.

In 1945, according to Robin Fedden, the road link¬
ing Hamat and Masyad climbed westwards up a small
valley whose watercourse is an affluent of the Orontes.
At the approach to the village one met, among the
orchards, pathways lined with pomegranate trees.
The village, with its stone houses, was formerly
enclosed by a wall, and formed a compact unit of
Isma c ili cultivators. In our own time, Masyad still
preserves an aspect different from that of the plains
villages. The region situated beyond and to the south
of the region of the Ghab does not benefit directly
from the investment in the “Ghab Project”. Never¬
theless, the plans for this region and the settlement of
nomads have favoured a perceptible development of
the mintaka which has, according to the 1970 census,
75,437 inhabitants, 37,922 men and 37,515 women.
Since 1965, the Syrian government has set up at
Masyad a centre for carpet weaving, with workshops
having an essentially female working force. Produc¬
tion amounted to 740 m 2 of carpets in 1979 but only
410 m 2 in 1980.

At present, Masyad is linked with the new
autoroute which travels along the eastern bank of the
Orontes northwards. There is a loop 7 km to the east
of Masyad running northwards from the asphalt road
linking Hamat with Baniyas via Masyad. An oil pipe¬
line connecting Hims with the Mediterranean coast
passes just to the south of Masyad and then follows the
road across the mountain as far as the sea.

Bibliography: Yakut, iv, 556, ed. Beirut, v,
144 (the article Safad, Yakut, iii, 399, ed. Beirut,
iii, 412, according to Dussaud, in Syria, iv, 332 b , is
based on a misspelling of Masyad); $afT al-Din,
Marajid al-itpla c , ed. Juynboll, iii, 111; Usama b.
Munkidh, K. al-IHibar, tr. A. Miquel, Paris 1983,
321,323; Ibn al-Athir, xi, 52; Abu ’l-Fida, Takwim
al-buldan , ed. Reinaud, 229 ff.; DimashkI, ed.
Mehren, 208; Ibn Battuta, i, 166; Ibn Muyassar,
Akhbdr Misr, ed. H. Masse, Annales d’Egypte, Cairo
1919, 65, 96-7; Khalil al-Zahirl, Zubdat kashf al-
mamdlik , ed. Ravaisse, 49, tr. Venture de Paradis,
ed. J. Gaulmier, Beirut 1950, 73; Ibn al-Shihna, al-
Durr al-muntakhab ft ta^rikh mamlakat Halab, Beirut
1909, 265; c UmarI, Ta c rif, Cairo 1312, 182, tr. R.
Hartmann, in ZDMG , lxx (1916), 36 with n. 11;
KalkashandT, $ubh al-a^sha^, iv, 113 (where in 1. 13
the words Hama wa- should be deleted, cf. 1. 14);
NabulusI, tr. A. von Kremer, in SB Ak. Wien
(1850), ii, 331; G. Le Strange, Palestine under the
Moslems, 81, 352, 507; M. Gaudefroy-Demom-
bynes, La Syrie a I’epoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923,
77, 108, 116, 143, 182-227, 246, 249; J. L. Bur-
ckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, London
1822, 150 ff., German tr. by Gesenius, 254; E.
Quatremere, in Fundgruben des Orients, iv, 340, n. c;
Ritter, Erdkunde, xvii, 822, 918, 922, 935, 967-8,
972-3; E. G. Rey, Rapport sur une mission scientifique
dans le Nord de la Syrie (1864-1865), in Archives des
missions scient. et litt. , ser. ii, iii, Paris 1866, 344;
idem, Etudes sur les monuments de l’architecture militaire
des Croises en Syrie, Paris 1871, 6, 42; R. Rohricht,
Regesta regni Hierosolymitani, 191, no. 715 (1193
A.D.); H. Derenbourg, Vie d’Ousama, Paris 1893,
8 , 43, 281, 399-400; M. Van Berchem, Epigraphie
des Assassins de Syrie, in JA, Ser. 9, ix (1897), 453-
501; R. Dussaud, in Rev. Archeol. (1897), i, 349;
idem, Histoire et religion des Mohair is ( = Bibl. de Vecole
des hautes etudes, fasc. cxxix), Paris 1900, 21, n. 4,

23, 32, 80; idem, Topographie historique de la Syrie
antique et medievale, Paris 1927, 142-3, 153, 187, 209,
395; H. Lammens, Au pays des Nosa'iris, in ROC, v
(1900), 423-7; G. L. Bell, Syria: the desert and the
sown, London 1907, 217-18, German tr. Durch die
Wusten u. Kulturstdtten Syriens, Leipzig 1908, 2 1910,
211-12; M. von Oppenheim, in ZG Erdk. Berl.,
xxxvi (1901), 74; Van Berchem, Inschriften aus
Syrien, Mesopot., Kleinasien, 1913 (= Beitrage z.
Assyriol., vii/1), 17-22; Van Berchem and E. Fatio,
Voyage en Syrie, MIFAO, Cairo 1914, 113-16, 172;
Dussaud, P. Deschamps and H. Seyrig, La Syrie
antique et medievale illustree, Paris 1931, pi. 128;
Guide Bleu, Syrie-Palestine, Paris 1932, 256-9; E.
Honigmann, Die Ostgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches
von 363 bis 1071, Brussels 1935, 107, 109; A.
Latron, La vie rurale en Syrie et au Liban, Paris 1936,
160, 208; J. Weulersse, Le pays des Alaouites, Tours
1940, index s.v., and Album, pi. XCVIII figs. 219-
20; Cl. Cahen, La Syrie du nord, Paris 1940, 170,
174-6, 255, 354; J. Sauvaget, La poste aux chevaux
dans I’empire des Mamelouks , Paris 1941, 26 n. 114,
27 n. 116; R. Fedden, Syria, an historical appreciation,
London 1946, 192-5; M. Canard, Histoire de la
dynastie des H’amdanides, i, Algiers 1951, 206; R.
Mantran and Sauvaget, Reglements jiscaux ottomans.
Les provinces syriennes, Beirut 1951, 92; S. Run-
ciman, A history of the Crusades, Cambridge 1951 2 , i,
269, ii, 410; N. N. Lewis, The IsmdHlis of Syria today,
in JRCAS, xxxix (1952), 69-77; R. Le Tourneau,
Damasde 1075 a 1154, Damascus 1962, 89, 260; M.
Dunand, De VAmanus au Sinai, Beirut 1953, photo
at p. 65; M. G. S. Hodgson, The order of Assassins,
The Hague 1955, 105, 107, 133-4; B. Lewis, The
IsmaHlites and the Assassins, in K. M. Setton and M.
W. Baldwin, eds., A history of the Crusades,
Philadelphia 1955, i, 99, 132, see also index s.v.
Masyaf, and ii, 789; Guide Bleu, Moyen-Orient, Paris
1956, 355-8; Deschamps, Terre Sainte Romane, Paris
1964, 139; N. Elisseeff, Nur al-Din , Damascus
1967, 224-5, 351, 427, 521, 687; B. Lewis, The
London 1967, index s.v.; Deschamps,
Chateaux des Croises. iii. Comte de Tripoli et Principaute
dAntioche, Paris 1973, index s.v., and Album, pi.
XCIIa; A. Raymond, ed., La Syrie d’aujourd’hui.
Paris 1980, 18, 108, 419.

(E. Honigman - [N. Elisseeff])
MASYAF [see Masyad].

al-MATALI c (a, pi. of matla 0 ), ascensions, an
important concept in mediaeval spherical
astronomy and astronomical timekeeping
[see mikat]. Ascensions represent a measure of the
amount of apparent rotation of the celestial sphere,
and are usually measured from the eastern horizon,
hence the name ascensions. Two kinds were used: (1)
right ascensions, or ascensions in sphaera recta; and (2)
oblique ascensions, or ascensions in sphaera obliqua [see
also falak and matla c ].

(1) Right ascensions refer to the risings of arcs of
the ecliptic over the horizon of a locality with latitude
zero, and were called in mediaeval scientific Arabic al-
matali c fi ’ l-falak al-mustakim. In Fig. 1, which displays
the horizon of such a locality and the celestial equator
(perpendicular to the horizon) as well as an instan¬
taneous position of the ecliptic, an arc X of the ecliptic
(measured from the vernal equinox y) rises in the
same period of time as the arc oc of the celestial
equator. The function a (X) called the right ascensions
measures the rising time of the ecliptic arc X. Such
ascensions were called matali c min awwal al-hamal,
since they were measured from the first point of Aries,
that is, the vernal equinox y.

The function a(X) was often tabulated in the

al-MATALI c

793

astronomical handbooks known as zifas [see zipj] for
each degree of X to two or three sexagesimal digits.
The underlying formula expressed in modern nota¬
tion is:

a(X) = arc sin (tan 8 (X) cot e),
where e is the obliquity of the ecliptic and 8 is the
declination [see mayl]. The function p(X) = tan 8 (X)
(multiplied by an appropriate constant related to the
bases used for the various trigonometric functions)
was also tabulated separately to facilitate computation
of a(X)—it was called al-matali c li-kull al-ard , “ascen¬
sions for all the earth”. More commonly, however,
the quantity a’ = a + 90°, called al-matali c min awwal
al-djady , that is, ascensions measured from the first
point of Capricorn, was tabulated. The use of this
function, now referred to as “normed ascensions”, is
explained below.

The ascensions of celestial bodies not on the eclip¬
tic, such as stars, were also called matali c . Fig. 2 shows
a star with equatorial coordinates a for ascensions and

8 for declination. Islamic star tables displayed either
ecliptic longitudes and latitudes (X and (3) or equatorial
ascensions (regular or normed) and declinations (a
and 8) for a specific epoch. Since stellar longitudes
increase steadily with time and stellar latitudes are
constant, star tables could be modified for a different
epoch by simply adding the amount of longitude
increase (known as precession). Tables of equatorial
coordinates could be prepared either by direct obser¬
vation or by calculation from tables of ecliptic coor¬
dinates; in mediaeval times they could not be
prepared from earlier tables of coordinates of the same

kind because both stellar right ascension and declina¬
tion are not linear functions of time. Formulae for the
conversion of ecliptic to equatorial coordinates and
vice versa , that is (X, (3) — (a, 8 ) were available to
Muslim astronomers from Ptolemy’s Almagest , and
were simplified by them. The universal astrolabe [see
shakkaziyya] was particularly useful for performing
transformations of ecliptic and equatorial coordinates.

(2) Oblique ascensions, associated with a specific
latitude, were called matali c al-balad or al-matdli c al-
baladiyya. In Fig. 3, the arc X of the ecliptic rises in the
same time as arc a of the equator over the horizon of
a locality with latitude p. Muslim astronomers
tabulated a ? (X) for specific latitudes. From ca.
400/1010 onwards, they often tabulated it for each
degree of terrestrial latitude, usually for each degree
of X. The oblique ascensions, a ? (X), are related to the
right ascension, a(X), by the identity:

a v (X) = a(X) — X)

where d ( 9 , X) is half the excess of daylight over 180°,
called in Arabic the nisf fadl al-nahar. In Fig. 3, YH =

X, YE = a ? , and EG = d. The formula for d ( 9 , X) used
by mediaeval astronomers was equivalent to the
modern formula:

8 ( 9 , X = arc sin (tan 8 (X) tan 9 .

Again, the function e (X) = tan 8 (X) was used to
generate values of d ( 9 , X) and, hence, tables of a ? (X)
for different latitudes.

Oblique ascensions are of singular importance in
timekeeping and in mathematical astrology. In both
disciplines, the point of the ecliptic instantaneously
rising over the horizon, which is known as the
horoscopus [see tali 4 ], is of interest. In Fig. 4, it is
labelled H. Clearly, from the geometry of the sphere,
the oblique ascensions of the horoscopus (with ecliptic
longitude X H ) are given by the relation:

( x h) = % ( X Q ) + T

where X is the longitude of the sun and T is the time
in equatorial degrees since sunrise. In order to
measure the time of day, it is thus sufficient to control
the oblique ascensions of the horoscopus and the solar
longitude. Similar procedures hold for timekeeping by
the stars at night. Muslim astronomers, following a
tradition started in Ptolemy’s Handy tables , generally
preferred to use the normed ascensions a' = a + 90°
because of the relation

= a

(^m)»

where X M is the longitude of upper mid-heaven, the

794

al-MATALI c — MATBA C A

♦ ♦

point of the ecliptic culminating on the meridian. If a
star whose ecliptic longitude is known is observed to
be culminating, then the longitude of the horoscopus
can be found immediately from tables of oc (p (X) and
a'(X). Once the latter is found, the astrological houses
can be determined using tables of ascensions. Ascen¬
sions, then, were important in both timekeeping and
astrology. In all zidjs and treatises on astronomical
timekeeping they figure prominently.

Ascensions were also important in determinations
of lunar crescent visibility [see ru 5 yat al-hilal].
Since one of the most popular conditions for crescent
visibility was that the difference in setting times of the
sun and moon be twelve equatorial degrees ( = 48
minutes of time), the problem could easily be
expressed in terms of ascensions. The situation is
shown in Fig. 4. Note that the “descensions”
(magharib) of an ecliptic arc X are a ? (X + 180°). Thus
if X and X m = X + AX represent the longitudes
of the sun and moon, the condition may be expressed
as:

(180° + X m ) — a, (180° + X ) - 12 °

Using tables of (X) for a specific latitude, as well as
linear interpolation ( al-ta c dil bayn al-satrayn ), it is possi¬
ble to calculate values of AX satisfying this condition
for each range of X . Tables of such values, for each
zodiacal sign of solar longitude, were compiled
already in the 3rd/9th century for the latitude of
Baghdad. Certain later Islamic lunar visibility tables
display such information for several latitudes.

Bibliography : E. S. Kennedy, A survey of
Islamic astronomical tables , in Trans. American
Philosophical Soc ., N.S., xlvi/2 (1956), 140, 170; D.
A. King, Spherical astronomy in medieval Islam: the
HakimiZijof Ibn Yunus, forthcoming, sections II.4-5
and III.13-15; J. Hamadanizadeh, A medieval inter¬
polation scheme far oblique ascensions , in * Centaurus, ix
(1963), 257-65; Y. Id, An analemma construction far
right and oblique ascensions, in * The Mathematics
Teacher, lxii (1969), 669-72; King, Studies in
astronomical timekeeping in medieval Islam (forth¬
coming), part I, section 7 (on auxiliary tables for
computing ascensions).

On a highly sophisticated method for converting
ecliptic and equatorial coordinates, see idem, Al-
KhalFli’s auxiliary tables far solving problems of spherical
astronomy, in Jnal. far the History of Astronomy, iv
(1973), 99-110, esp. 105-7. On the use of ascen¬
sions in astrology, see, for example, Kennedy and
H, Krikorian-Preisler, The astrological doctrine of
projecting the rays, in *al-Abhath, xxv (1972), 3-15.

On the use of ascensions in lunar crescent
visibility determinations, see Kennedy and M. Jan-
janian, The crescent visibility table in al-Khwarizmi’s
Zij, in * Centaurus, xi (1965), 73-8, and King, Some
early Islamic tables for determining lunar crescent visibility,
in King and G. Saliba (eds.), From Deferent to

Equant: Studies in the History of Science in the Near East
in Honor of E. S. Kennedy, Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences d( = 500) (1987), pp. 185-225.

* Articles marked with an asterisk are reprinted in
E. S. Kennedy et alii. Studies in the Islamic exact
sciences, Beirut 1983. (D. A. King)

al- MATAMIR [see matmura].
al-MATAMMA, a town in the Democratic
Republic of the Sudan, located in Shandl
District, western bank of the Nile, opposite Shandl
town [q.v.]. The number of households there in 1973
was 1,108.

Its origins are unknown, but its development was
closely connected with caravan traffic that crossed the
Nile there, and its status as a sister-town of Shandl is
indicated by the fact that it was also known as Shandl
al-Gharb. At the end of the 18th century it became
involved in the upheavals of the Fundj kingdom [q. v. ];
and around 1801 a rival faction of the Sa c dab royal
family of Shandl settled in al-Matamma, eventually
becoming an ally of the Sha^ikivva in their struggle
against Fundj domination. By the time of the Egyp¬
tian invasion (1820-1), the population of al-Matamma
numbered about 6,000, being ruled by King Musa c id
who was subordinate to his cousin Nimr, king of
Shandl. Subjected to foreign rule, the rival kings
united in a plot to kill the Egyptian commander
Isma c fl Pasha [q.v.] (1822). After the subsequent
reprisals in 1823, which hit Shandl more severely than
al-Matamma, the latter grew into the most important
tribal and commercial centre of the Dja c aliyyun [q.v .),
with a large merchant class, and served as a transit
point for caravans as in former times. By the middle
of the century it was celebrated throughout the Sudan
for the manufacture of coarse cotton scarfs. During
the Mahdiyya [< 7 .^.], on the eve of the British invasion
in 1897, the people of al-Matamma refused to
evacuate the town in order to make it a stronghold,
and instead established contact with the invaders. A
battle ensued in which the Mahdist forces killed most
of the rebels (30 Muharram 1315/1 July 1897).
During the present century, al-Matamma has
gradually recovered but has not regained its commer¬
cial role.

Bibliography: Early references to al-
Matamma are mostly found in the travel
literature: G. B. English, A narrative of an expedi¬
tion to Dongola and Sennaar, London 1822, 133-5; F.
Caillaud, Voyage a Meroe, Paris 1826, ii, 180; E.
Riippel, Reisen in Nubien, Kordofan und dem petraischen
Arabien, Frankfurt-am-Main 1829, 110-11; G. A.
Hoskins, Travels in Ethiopia, London 1835, 123-4;
J. Petherick, Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa,
London 1861, 177-8; R. Hill (ed.), On the frontiers
of Islam. Two manuscripts concerning the Sudan under
Turco-Egyptian rule, 1822-1845, Oxford 1970, 165.
Sudanese tribal traditions: H. A. Mac-
Michael, A history of the Arabs in the Sudan, London
1967, i, 233, ii, 376-7. Valuable secondary
sources: O. G. S. Crawford, The Fung kingdom of
Sennar, with geographical account of the middle Nile
region, Gloucester 1951, 61-4; P. M. Holt, The
Mahdist state in the Sudan, Oxford 1966, 213-18;
idem, A modern history of the Sudan, London 1974, 40,
46, 72, 106; R. S. O’Fahey and J. L. Spaulding,
Kingdoms of the Sudan, London 1974, 96-7, 102-3.

(A. Bjgrkelo)

MATBA C A (a.), printing.

1. In the Arab World

The Arabic verb taba c a, in the sense of printing a
book, is a neologism probably inspired by the Italian
or the French. This meaning is already attested in the

MATBA c A

795

Dictionnaire fran^ais-arabe of Bocthor (1829): “prin¬
ting”, “the art of printing” is tiba c a or sina c at al-tab c ,
while “printing-house”, “printing-press” is matbaca
or dar al-tiba c a. It is the art of printing, in the context
of the three technical processes that it comprises,
xylography or wood-block printing (the discovery of
which dates back to remote antiquity), printing by
means of moving type (developed during the second
half of the 15th century), and lithography (invented
by G. A. Senefelder in 1796), which is the subject of
this article.

Of the three processes, it seems that the Arabs, and
the Muslims in particular, preferred lithography,
especially during the 19th century. According to
Demeerseman (see below, Tunisia) there are
numerous reasons for this preference. The first reason
is technical: lithography is more versatile than prin¬
ting, and offers a greater range of possibilities in the
production of designs and of maps. The second is
artistic: it is an art which lends itself remarkably well
to the reproduction of writing. As a corollary, there is
the cultural reason: lithography causes no problem to
the reader who is accustomed only to the manuscript
style adopted for the writing-tablets of the Kurban
school. Finally, there are social and economic reasons.
In the East, the profession of copyist was highly
developed, giving prestige and prosperity to a large
section of the urban working class. According to the
Bolognese scholar Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli (1658-
1730), the number of Turkish copyists in Constan¬
tinople, when he visited the city, was as high as
80,000. The creation of printing-presses would there¬
fore have caused devasting unemployment among the
educated population. Further reasons are moral, doc¬
trinal and political, and these may easily be imagined.

Regarding the relatively late date of the introduc¬
tion of printing in the Arab countries (except in
Lebanon and Syria, the practice did not emerge until
the beginning of the 19th century) two other factors,
besides those already mentioned, played an important
role. In the first place, the majority of the Arab coun¬
tries had been under the Ottoman domination since
the beginning of the 16th century. Before establishing
its own official press in 1726, the Sublime Porte had
hitherto forbidden (edicts of Bayezld II in 1485 and of
Selim I in 1515) the Muslims to print texts in Arabic
characters (although it permitted the Jews to print
texts in Hebrew). The second factor is the economic
problem which would have faced the innovators. To
found presses of even modest size required the invest¬
ment of substantial capital sums, which the book
market, revolutionised by the availability of large-
scale mechanical production, remained incapable of
repaying properly. It should not be forgotten that the
Medici Press in Rome was virtually bankrupt in 1610,
because it? proprietor-director, Raimondi, lacked the
expertise to distribute the books that he printed. And
such must have been the fate, undeserved, of many
other presses, whose record is confined to the produc¬
tion of a single work! A copyist, on the other hand,
worked to a contract, and his only capital outlay was
the purchase of paper.

A. Xylography

Xylography, or printing by means of plates or char¬
acters engraved on wood, was used by the Arabs,
judging by the specimens which have been noted in
the collections of manuscripts and papyri possessed by
certain libraries in Europe (Vienna, Heidelberg,
Berlin and the British Library). America (Museum of
the University of Pennsylvania), or the Arab countries
(National Library of Cairo and the c Abd al-Wahhab
Collection in Tunis). There is no precise indication of

the dates of these specimens, of which the majority are
amulets. According to Moritz, six printing-plates in
the collection of the ancient Khedival Library of Cairo
date from the Fatimid period. A study of xylographed
Arabic texts would be a worthwhile undertaking,
rendering it possible to observe whether the Arabs
confined themselves to plates or whether whole books
were composed according to this process. See G. Levi
Della Vida, An Arabic block print , in The Scientific Mon¬
thly , lix (December 1944), 473-4; F. Bonola Bey, Note
sur Vorigine de Timprimerie arabe en Europe, in BIE, 5th
series, iii (1909), 75; A. Demeerseman, L’imprimerie en
Orient et au Maghreb , in IBLA , xvii (1954), 21-3; R. W.
Bulliet, Medieval Arabic tarsh: a forgotten chapter in the
history of printing, in JAOS , cvii (1987), 427-38.

B. Printing and lithography

1. In Europe.

Arabic printing with mobile characters originated
and developed, through a curious combination of cir¬
cumstances which have yet to be fully explained, in
Europe in the 16th century. It was in fact with the
purpose of publishing Christian religious texts in
Eastern languages and in Arabic in particular, that
the Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, on the advice of
Pope Gregory XIII, in 1585 entrusted to the orien¬
talist Giovan Battista Raimondi the task of
establishing and administering the Typographia Medicea
linguarum externarum. Until the death of Raimondi in
1614, this press was to print a whole series of Arabic
works including the translation of the Bible and of the
Four Gospels, the Canon Medicinae of Avicenna, and
the anonymously-edited text of the Kitdb Nuzhat al-
mushtdk, by al-ldrlsl \q.v.\.

There exist, however, numerous works printed well
before the Typographia Medicea began to operate, such
that printing in Arabic characters must be deemed to
have emerged at the beginning of the 16th century, or
even in the final year of the 15th. The first book in
Arabic characters seems in fact to have been a KuUan
printed in Venice by Paganino de’ Paganini (the dates
given vary between 1499 and 1530); many authors
speak of this work but no specimen of it survives, all
copies having been destroyed by fire (see Maria
Nallino, Una cinquecentesca edizione del Corano stampata a
Venezia, in Atti delTIstituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed
Arti , cxxiv, Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti
[Venice 1965], 1-12).

The earliest Arabic text that has reached us is a
book of Christian prayers, the Kitdb Salat al-sawa c i (or
Horologium breve). It was produced at Fano, in the
region of the Marches which constituted part of the
States of the Church, in 1514, by the master printer
Gregorio de’ Gregori (or de’ Gregoris). Two years
later, in Genoa, the typographer Pier Paolo Porro
printed the trilingual Psalterium (Greek, Hebrew and
Arabic), or else the Book of Psalms (Kitdb al-Mazdmir )
with an Arabic preface. In 1556, in Rome, the press
of the Collegium Societatis Jesu produced an
anonymous religious treatise in Arabic (probably to
be attributed to the Jesuit Giambattista Eliano or
Romano) with the Latin title Fidei orthodoxae brevis et
explicata confessio and the Arabic title IHikad al-amana,
which was to be reprinted many times during the
same century and in the following century.

The first work of a non-religious nature was
printed, again in Rome, by the Venetian master
printer Domenico Basa at his Roman printing-press
in 1585, the book in question being the Kitdb al-Bustan
ft c adid y ib al-ard wa ’l-bulddn , a work of descriptive
geography by an author of whom nothing is known
but his name, Salamish b. KundukdjT al-Saliht.

Outside Italy, worthy of note is an Arabic grammar

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MATBA C A

by Guillaume Postel, printed in Paris, probably in
1538, of which the Arabic characters are unfor¬
tunately almost illegible. At Neustadt in 1582, with
characters engraved on wood, there was published an
Alphabetum arabicum by Jacob Christmann, professor of
Arabic at Heidelberg. The same characters were used
in Heidelberg, the following year, for the printing of
a translation by Ruthger Spey of the Epistle to the Gala¬
tians of St. Paul.

Again at Rome, in 1627, there began the intensive
typographical activity of the press of the Sacra Con-
gregatio de Propaganda Fide, responsible for the prin¬
ting of two particularly monumental works. The first
is the Arabic translation of an abridged version of the
Annales ecclesiastici, or history of the Church edited in
twelve volumes by Cardinal Cesare Baronio, pub¬
lished between 1653 and 1671, and the second, the
Biblia arabica ad usum Ecclesiarum orientalium, in four
folio volumes.

At least three other presses, active in the 17th cen¬
tury, are worthy of mention. The first is that of the
Collegio Ambrosiano of Milan where, in 1632, there
was printed the Latin translation of the well-known
Kdmus of al-Flruzabadi, made by Antonio Giggei
under the title of Thesaurus linguae arabicae in four large
folio volumes.

The second is that of the Seminary of Padua, in the
state of Venice, which ceased to operate in 1698 after
printing, in two large volumes, the Arabic text of the
Kur 5 an, with Latin translation, an introduction and
a commentary (drawn from as yet unedited Arabic
works) by Ludovico Marracci, confessor to Pope
Innocent XI, at the latter’s request.

The third is the Reale Stamperia of Palermo, in
Sicily, which published the first collection of accounts
relating to the Arab occupation of Sicily intitled Rerum
arabicarum, quae ad hisloriam Siculam spectant, ampla collec-
tio, the Libro del Consiglio d’Egitto, or Kitdb Diwdn Misr,
by the notorious forger, the Abbe Giuseppe Vella,
and finally the first Italian edition of the Grammatica
arabica of Erpenius.

It is extremely difficult to establish even a rudimen¬
tary list of the Arab presses of Europe (nevertheless,
see J. Balagua, L’imprimerie arabe en Occident. (XVI e ,
XVIT et XVIIB-siecle), Paris 1984). Documentation is
often fragmentary, sometimes non-existent. Certain
presses are known only because they are mentioned in
the works that have survived from them and available
for study. Four editions of the Kurban, published in
Europe between the end of the 17th and the first half
of the 19th century, indicate the existence of other
Arabic presses in Germany and in Russia. The first is
that of Hinckelmann, produced in the Free City of
Hamburg in 1694. Two Russian editions represent
the first two Kurbans published by Muslims: the first
in 1787 in Saint Petersburg, the then capital of the
Tsarist Russian Empire; and the second in 1803 in
Kazan, in the region of the Volga, today the capital
of the Tatar Republic. Finally, in 1834, at Leipzig in
Saxony, the centre of the book trade, Gustav Flugel
published the first edition of his Kur’anic text, later
to be used by several generations of orientalists.

See Olga Pinto, La tipografia araba in Italia dal XVI
al-XIX secolo, in Levante, 1-2 (1964), 8-16; Angelo
Piemontese, I fondi dei manoscritti arabi, persiani e turchi
in Italia , in Gli Arabi in Italia, Milan (privately printed
edition by Credito Italiano-Libri Scheiwiller) 1979,
661-88; idem, Les fonds de manuscrits per sans conserves
dans les Bibliotheques dTtalie , in JA, cclxx/3-4 (1982),
273-93.

In Eastern Europe, it should be noted that towards
the end of the 17th century, at the request of the

Melkite patriarch of Aleppo, Athanasius Dabbas, the
Voivode of Wallachia (a tributary of the Ottoman
sultanate in the kingdom of Rumania) Constantin
Bassaraba Brancoveanul, installed at Sinagovo an
Arabic press which edited numerous liturgical books
in Arabic. This press seems to have ceased production
in 1704, when Athanasius returned to Syria (see
below, Syria) and took the initiative of installing a
printing-press in the city of Aleppo, his patriarchal
seat. See J. Nasrallah, Les imprimeries Melkites jusqu’a la
fin du 18 e siecle, in al-Magarrat, 34th year (1948),
438-40.

2. In the Near East.

a. Lebanon. The Lebanese claim the honour of
having printed the first book in an Arab country. The
work in question is a Psalter printed in 1610 at the
Convent of Saint Antony of Quzhaya (Dayr Mar
Antuniyus or Dayr Qizhayya ?). The pages are
divided into two columns, that on the right being for
the text in Syriac, and that on the left for the Arabic
text in karshuni script [ 9 . 0 .]. According to a note
appended to the work, the printing was done under
the supervision of the master ( mu c allim ) Pasquale Eli,
a native of Camerino in central Italy. This edition
marked a short-lived enterprise. More than a century
was to elapse, and numerous unsuccessful attempts
were to be made, before the Shammds c Abd Allah
Zakhir, with his second experiment in typography
(the first having been in Aleppo) established a press at
the Convent of Mar Yuhanna al-Sabigh in 1734.
Subsequently, other presses were founded, invariably
among religious communities.

The American Press and the Imprimerie Catho-
lique deserve special mention, particularly for their
editing activities. The Protestant Mission of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis¬
sions had installed an Arabic press in Malta, where it
functioned from 1822 to 1842. When the Mission
transferred its headquarters to Beirut, on 10 July
1823, the decision was taken to move the Arabic press
to the Lebanese capital. This was accomplished on 8
May 1834.

The Imprimerie Catholique was founded to some
extent with the object of countering the activity of
Protestant missionaries. Its operations commenced in
1848, but the press soon developed into one of the
best-equipped publishing houses of the Near East. See
J. Joseph Nasrallah, L’imprimerie au Liban , Beirut
1949, 160.

b. Syria. In Syria, it was the same Melkite
Patriarch, Athanasius Dabbas, who, on his return
from Europe, undertook to install a press in the city
that was his patriarchal seat, Aleppo, and with the aid
of the Shammds c Abd Allah Zakhir the press operated
from 1706 to 1711. More than a century was to pass
before a Sardinian printer, Belfante (?), came, in
1841, to establish a lithographic press at Aleppo.
Curiously, the first book printed under his supervi¬
sion was the Diwdn of Ibn al-Farid. See Kh. Sabat,
Ta\ikh al-Tibd c a, ch. iv, 96-128, and Wahid Gdoura,
Le debut de Vimprimerie arabe a Istanbul et en Syrie , Tunis
1985.

c. Palestine. Palestine—and Jerusalem in
particular—has throughout history been a centre of
interest for all the revealed religions. As early as 1830,
a Jew, Nessim Bak (?) had opened a press in
Jerusalem for the printing of religious texts in
Hebrew. (The Jews were the first Ottoman subjects to
use printing for this purpose; in Constantinople their
typographical activity dates back to 1490 !) In 1848,
it was the turn of the Franciscans, encouraged by the

MATBA C A

797

young Emperor of Austria, Franz Josef, through the
intermediary of a monk of Austrian origin, Frotchner,
to establish the Tipografia dei Padri Francescani di
Gerusalemme. Again in 1848, a printing press was
founded, called the London Press, by Protestant mis¬
sionaries whose aim was the propagation of the Gospel
among the Jews. Within a short time, the city of
Jerusalem was full of presses producing works in
Arabic and other oriental languages including Rus¬
sian, Armenian, Greek and Turkish, invariably
operated by religious organisations or on their behalf.
See $abat, op. cit. , ch. vii, 319-24.

d. Jordan. Jordan did not become an indepen¬
dent Arab state in the form of an emirate until after
the First World War, in 1921 (even though it was sub¬
ject to British Mandate until 1946). It was in fact in
1922 that a printing-press belonging to the typo¬
grapher Khalil Nasr, who had founded it in Haifa in
1909, was transferred to Amman. It was used for
printing the journal al-Urdunn. Three years later, the
Government Press was established. See Sabat, op. cit.,
ch. vii, 325-6.

e. c Irak. Historians do not agree as to the date at
which printing was introduced to c Irak. According to
Razuk c Isa, the first c Iraki lithographic works was
founded at al-Kazimiyya and the first and only work
printed was Dawhat al-wuzard* ft ta\ikh wakd 3 / c al-
Zawra* by the Shaykh Rasul Efendi al-Kirkukl, in
1237/1821 or, according to others, in 1246/1830.

Rufa 3 fl But! (?), states that Dawud Pasha al-
Kurdji, the last independent Mamluk, published in
Baghdad in 1816, by means of lithography, an official
bilingual Turkish-Arabic journal intitled Diurnal al-
c Irak. Although no copy has survived, But! claims that
the existence of the journal was mentioned by foreign
travellers who visited c Irak in this period.

After the creation of another lithographical press,
this time in Karbala 3 , the first press using mobile
characters was established by the Dominican Fathers
in Mawsil in 1859. One year later, it received sets of
Arabic, Syriac and Latin types offered by the
Imprimerie Nationale of Paris. The latter was the
only establishment which possessed machinery for the
casting of type.

The first official press was founded by Midhat
Pasha, who used it for the publication of a bilingual
Turkish-Arabic journal, al-Zawrd 3 (15 June 1869).
See Sabat, op. cit., ch. vi, 293-313; Khalid Habib al-
Rawl, Min ta^rtkh al-fahdfa al-Hrdkiyya , Ba gh dad 1978.

3. In the Arabian Peninsula.

a. Saudi Arabia. The first printing-press intro¬
duced in the country was that of the Ottoman wildyet
of the Hidjaz in the year 1300/1882. It was used to
print the official journal entitled al-Hidjaz. Two years
later, a lithographical press was also introduced. With
the creation of the Kingdom of the Hidjaz, the new
king, the Sharif Husayn, installed a small printing-
press at Mecca. This was in 1919, and the press was
used to print the official journal al-Kibla. According to
some, the Sharif personally performed the roles of
writer, publisher and printer. See Sabat, op. cit. , ch.
vii, 331-6.

b. North Yemen. In 1877, the Ottoman Sultan
c Abd al-Hamld II ordered the establishment of a press
at San c a 3 , capital of the Yemen, for the publication of
an offical Turkish-Arabic weekly paper intitled San c a 3
after the name of the city. The same press was put to
use by the Imam Yahya after the recognition of the
independence of his country in 1923. See Sabat, op.
cit., ch. vii, 327-30.

c. Bahrayn. It was a poet known by the name of

ShaHr al-Khalidj (“The Poet of the Gulf’), c Abd Allah
C A1I al-Zif’id, who in 1938 purchased a printing press
in England and called it Matba c at al-Bahrayn. The press
was used for the printing of material required by local
administration and trading-houses, as well as for text¬
books. In 1939 it began printing the journal al-
Bahrayn, published by its proprietor. See Sabat, op.
cit., ch. viii, 339-42.

d. Kuwait. Before 1947, Kuwait imported all its
printed materials from abroad. The al-Ma c drif Press
was founded with the importation of a small press and
a set of characters bought second-hand in c lrak. Three
years later, it was repurchased by the DdHrat al-Ma c drif
(a kind of local education authority). In 1954, the
Kuwaiti government decided to set up an official
organisation for printing and publishing ( DaHrat al-
matbu c dt wa ’l-nashr) equipped with modern machi¬
nery. See Sabat, op. cit., ch. viii, 343-6.

e. Katar. In spite of its small size, the emirate of
Katar has, since 1956, possessed a typographical
establishment known as Matabi c al- c uruba. Since 1961,
this has printed al-Diarida al-rasrniyya (“The Official
Journal”) and a monthly information sheet in Arabic
intitled al-Mash c al, organ of the Qatar General
Petroleum Corporation. See Sabat, op. cit., ch. viii,
347-8.

4. In the Nile Valley.

a. Egypt. It was with the expedition of Bonaparte
that printing was introduced to Egypt in 1798. The
Arabic characters used were those of the official Press
of the French Republic, in addition to those of the
Arabic Press of the Propaganda of Rome. The latter
also supplied a number of its staff, to serve as
overseers, typographers and printers. The first French
and Arabic printed works were produced on board the
flagship Orient, the headquarters of Bonaparte and his
staff, and bear the mention “printed on board the
Orient by the naval military press”. After disembarka¬
tion at Alexandria, a press was installed there and
given the name of the “Imprimerie Orientale et Fran-
gaise”. A second press was established in Ezbekieh
Square in Cairo, and this was known as the
Imprimerie Nationale. Alongside the latter, there
existed for some time a private press belonging to
Joseph Marc Emmanuel Aurel, a printer and
bookseller from Valence (France) and a friend of
Bonaparte. His press was entrusted with the printing
of the Courrier d’Egypte, a journal of local information,
and of the Decade Egyptienne , a literary journal repor¬
ting the activities of the Institut des Sciences et des
Arts d’Egypte. When the National Press began to
operate at full capacity, this put an end to the activity
of Marc Aurel, who sold his press and returned to
France in 1800.

It should be noted that, among the administrative
or political texts published, the orientalist Jean Joseph
Marcel, who was responsible for the supervision of
these presses, published the Arabic text of the Fables
of Lukman, accompanied by a French translation.
The activities of the expedition’s presses ceased in
1801 with the evacuation of the French troops.

Official typographical activity was revived some
twenty years later, on the instructions of Muhammad
C A1I Pasha, with the establishment of a press at Bulak.
This began to function ca. 1822. The staff consisted
partly of Egyptians, including a certain Nicolas
Masabki (Masabikf) who had been sent for training to
Milan, Italy, and partly of Europeans, among them
some Italian typographers who had worked in the
presses of the French expedition and remained in the
country.

798

MATBA C A

The significance of this event is immense; the
inauguration of this “Press of the Pasha” in fact
marks the beginning of the movement towards the
renaissance of the Arab world which has characterised
these past two centuries.

Alongside the Bulak Press, which was later to be
known by the name of al-Matba c a al-ammyya , a
number of private presses, large and small, were
established, usually combined with a publishing
house, managed by Egyptians or by Europeans. The
history of these presses has yet to be written, but with
their publications they contributed in a significant
manner to establishing the primacy of Egypt in the
great process of evolution which the Nahda was to be.

See A. Geiss, Histone de Vimprimerie en Egypte, in
Bulletin de I’Institut Egyptien, 5th series, i, (1907), 133-
57. 2nd part, in ibid. , ii (1908), 195-220; on the
publications of the expedition’s presses, see R. G.
Canivet, LTmprimerie de Vexpedition d’Egypte. Les jour -
naux et les proces-verbaux de I’Institut (1798-1801), in
ibid. , iii (1909), 1-22; on the first publications of the
Bulak press, see T. X. Bianchi, Catalogue general des
livres arabes, persons et turcs imprimes a Boulac, en Egypt,
depuis l’introduction de Vimprimerie dans ce pays , in JA, 4th
series, ii (1843), 24-63; on the private presses, see O.
Pinto, Mose Caslelli, tipografo italiano al Cairo , in Univ.
di Roma—Studi Orientali pubblicati a cura della
Scuola orientale, v. A Francesco Gabrieli. Studi orien-
talistici offerli nel sessantesimo compleanno dai suoi colleghi e
discepoli, Rome 1964, 217-23.

b. Sudan. It was during the Turkish-Egyptian
occupation of this country (1820-85), at a date which
cannot be fixed precisely, that a lithographic work was
introduced with the object of responding to the needs
of the administration. It is known that it was used by
Gordon Pasha, when he was appointed Governor of
Sudan, to print paper money as a replacement for the
metal coinage which gave out during the siege of
Khartoum, between the end of 1884 and January
1885. After the capture of the town, the press fell into
the hands of the Mahdists [see al-mahdiyya], who
used it to print the khitabat al-da c wa (messages for
religious dissemination) of the MahdT and other books
of a religious nature. See Muhammad Ibrahim Abu
Salim, al-Haraka al-fikriyya fi *l-Mahdiyya, Khartoum

1970, 58-62; idem, Ta^rikh al-Khartum. Khartoum

1971, 212.

5. In the Maghrib.

a. Libya. The first press was the official one intro¬
duced by the governor of the wilayet of Tripoli in 1866.
Installed in the fortress of the town, it possessed
lithographical and typographical facilities. It was here
that the first issue of Tardbulus Gharb. the official
Turkish-Arabic journal of the local Ottoman admi¬
nistration, was printed. According to R. L. Playfair,
The bibliography of the Barbary States, Pt.I ., Tripoli and the
Cyrenaica , London-Royal Geographic Society Suppl.
Papers, ii, 1889, 557-614, in 1827, a journal entitled
L’lnvestigateur Africain was published in Tripoli. How¬
ever, researches, especially by E. Rossi, have shown
that the work involved was in fact a manuscript
journal, a sort of ante litteram newsletter, composed by
the Swedish Consul, Graberg de Hemso, with the col¬
laboration of his European colleagues resident in
Tripoli. See also M. Scaparro, La stampa di Tripoli
turca (1866-1911), in Tripolitania, iii/3-4 (1933), 10-20;
idem, La stampa di Tripoli (1866-1933), in ibid, iii/7-8,
13-21.

b. Tunisia. Tunisia is one of those instances
where printing was not introduced at the official level.
Under Ahmad Bey (1837-55), the Abbe Francois

Bourgade, with the aid of a refugee from Leghorn,
Pompeo Sulema, opened in Tunis, in the first months
of 1845, the St. Louis College, to which a small
lithographical press was attached. It was here that
there appeared, in 1849, the first Arabic text printed
in Tunisia, a translation into Arabic by Sulayman al¬
ii ara^iri, Arab secretary to the French Consulate, of
a text by the Abbe Bourgade, of which the French title
is Soirees de Carthage ou dialogue d’un pretre catholique, un
mufti et un cadi. The subsequent history of this press is
not known in detail, but it is known that it was closed
by the Ottoman authorities in the wake of a scandal
involving forged banknotes.

The official lithographical press was founded in
1857. The first text was, according to Demeerseman,
the c Ahd al-aman (see Dustur. i. Tunisia) solemnly pro¬
mulgated at the Palace of the Bardo by Muhammad
Bey on 9 September 1857.

On 7 November 1859, a decree of the Bey
authorised an English merchant, Richard Holt, to
establish a press and to publish a gazette in Arabic
and Italian which would provide “commercial news,
statistical information and extracts from other
publications, with the exception of anything of a
political nature”. Following difficulties raised
especially by foreign representatives, Sadok Bey
decided on 18 July 1860 to establish an official press.
This was to print al-Ra ? id al-tunisi (a title rendered in
French by L’indicateur tunisien), the first issue appear¬
ing in fact on 23 July of the same year. See A.
Demeerseman, Une etape importante de la culture islami-
que. Une parente meconnue de Vimprimerie arabe et tuni-
sienne: la lithographie, in IBLA , xvi/64 (1953), 347-89;
idem, Une etape decisive de la culture et de la psychologie
sociale islamique. Les donnees de la controverse autour du pro-
bl'eme de Vimprimerie, in ibid. , xvii (1954), 1-48, 113-40.

c. Algeria. The first journal printed in Algeria
was the Estafette d’Alger, which first appeared at Sidi
Ferruch on 14 June 1830, produced by French troops
who had landed in this small bay to the west of Algiers
and who used a field printing-press. Apparently the
same press was used to print the Moniteur Algerien, a
bilingual French-Arabic journal, two years later. It is
interesting to note that the Arabic text was
lithographed. Almost a hundred years were to elapse
before, in 1925, the founder of the Islamic orthodox
reformist movement in Algeria, Ibn Badis, was able to
establish an Algerian press in Constantine, al-Matba c a
al-isldmiyya al-djaza^iriyya, subsequently known as
Mafba c at al-Shihdb, after the name of the monthly
magazine which it published until 1939. See Chris-
tiane Souriant-Hoebrechts, La presse maghrebine, Paris
1975; c Abd al-Malik Murtad, Ma^alim al-adab al- c arabi
al-hadithfi ’l- Dja zdVir . in al-Aklam, xiv/11 (1979), 44-51
(Insha^ al-matabV al- c arabiyya fi ’l-Djaza 3 ir. 45).

d. Morocco. The first press in Morocco was a
state foundation, founded on the instructions of the
Filali Sharif Muhammad b. c Abd al-Rahman (1859-
73). This was a lithographical press (matba c at hadjar)
supervised by an Egyptian master printer, Muham¬
mad al-Kabbani, which operated from January to
August 1865 at Meknes, and was subsequently
transferred to Fas. The first book printed seems to
have been al-ShamaVil al-Muhammadiyya (according to
Ayache, “The portrait of the Prophet”) by the
author, compiler of one of the six canonical sunan,
died at the end of the 3rd/9th century, Muhammad b.
c Isa al-Tirmidhi. See. G, Ayache, L’apparition de
Vimprimerie au Maroc, in Hesperis-Tamuda, v (1964),
143-61; M. Ben Cheneb and E. Levi-Proven^al, Essai
de repertoire chronologique des editions de Fes, Algiers 1922.

General bibliography : There exists no gener-

MATBA C A

799

al work covering all the Arab countries. The most
important works concerning the various regions are
mentioned at the end of each section. On printing
with movable characters, the most complete survey
remains that of Khalil Sabat, TaMkh al-tiba c a fi 7-
shark al- c arabi , Cairo 1966, 378 ff., with an ample
bibliography of works in numerous languages; the
Ma gh rib is however completely excluded. Other
countries, including Oman, the United Arab
Emirates and South Yemen, also pass without men¬
tion in this work.

On the question of the slow pace of the diffusion
of printing in the Arab countries, see, besides
Demeerseman (cited in the bibliography relating to
Tunisia), T. F. Carter, Islam as a barrier to printing ,
ch. xv of The invention of printing in China , in MW,
xxxiii (1943), 213-16.

Finally, on the Arabic works published in
Europe, reference may be made to the biblio¬
graphical works of C. F. de Schnurrer, Bibliotheca
arabica , Halle-a.-S. 1811, covering the period from
1505 to 1810, and V. Chauvin, Bibliographie des
ouvrages relatifs aux Arabes publies dans TEurope chre-
tienne de 1810 a 1885 , Liege 1892. (G. Oman)

2. In Turkey

Books in Turkish, primarily grammars and dic¬
tionaries and phrase-books, were printed in Western
European countries within a century or so from the
beginning there of printing in Arabic characters by
means of movable type, whilst the Christian (Greek
Orthodox and Armenian) and Jewish communities of
the Ottoman empire also at an early date took the new
invention for the production in their own languages
and scripts.

The printing of books in Arabic characters from
Italian presses (see section 1 above) soon began to
acquire an additional motive to that of the interests of
Arabic and Italian scholarship in the West, sc. the
hope of finding export markets for the new books in
the Islamic East itself, and in particular, in the
Ottoman Empire, In Dhu ’1-Ka c da 996/September-
October 1588, two merchants, Branton and Orazio
Bandini, acquired a firman from Sultan Murad III
(982-1003/1574-95) for the import of printed books
(this is reproduced at the end of the Arabic text of the
mathematical text of Euclid, K. Tahrlr usul li-Uklidis ,
produced at the Medici Press in Rome in 1594 from
typeface made by Robert Granjon), indicating that
official opinion in Istanbul, at this time at least, was
not implacably opposed to the new invention (see
Bonola Bey, 74-6; Gergek, 23-4).

The French ambassador to the Porte, Francois
Savary de Breves (ambassador 1591-1605), had
Arabic type cast in Istanbul intended for future use in
his own printing house, and these were improved
when he returned to Paris by the engraver Guillaume
Le Be the Elder (Bernard, 4; Brun, 170). Then when
he was stationed in Rome, he printed at his own
house, Ex Typographia Savariana, an Arabic version of
the Book of Psalms ( al-Mazamxr ), together with a Latin
translation {Liber Psalmorum Davidi Regis et Prophetae ),
but the origins of the type used for printing this
Psalter are uncertain (see Vaccari, 37-43). It was
Savary de Breves’ diplomatic skill which brought
about the agreement on trade, involving a grant of
capitulations [see imtiyazat], between Sultan Ahmed
I and Henry IV of France, signed on 20 May 1604,
and in 1615 Savary de Breves printed the text of this
agreement with the help of the printer Etienne Paulin
in Paris, with the Turkish and French versions on
alternate pages and with the Turkish title of Fransa

padishahi He dl-i c Othmdn padishahi beyninde mun c akid olan
c akidnamedir ki dhikr olunur. After Savary de Breves’
death in 1627, the famous printer Antoine Vitre
bought his typefaces from his heirs in the name of
King Louis XIII (Bernard, 5-6, 8 ff.).

It should be noted that the first work on Turkish
grammar printed in the west, at Leipzig in 1612 by
Hieronymus Megiser, in Latin with Turkish
examples in the Arabic script, Institutionum linguae tur-
cicae libri quattuor, dates from this time also.

Jewish presses. The first Jewish press in Istan¬
bul was established by David and Samuel Nahmias,
immigrants who had moved into the Ottoman lands
from the West, but there are disputes over the date of
the first book produced from this press. The date on
this book, in letters rather than in numbers, is Friday,
4 Tebet 5254/13 December 1493, but it has been
argued (cf. Steinschneider, 17) that this date cannot
be right, because (a) it would have been difficult for
immigrants from Spain to have established and been
able to print books only a year after their arrival in
1492, and (b) there is an otherwise inexplicable gap
between this date and that of the printing of the
second book at this press, a Torah (Nisan 5265/April
1505) (Yaary, 17-18); but the earlier date still has
wide acceptance. In any case, it is certain that this first
book, whatever its date, the Arba c ah Turim of Rabbi
Jacob ben Asher, was the earliest to appear from this
press (Posner, 91, no. 126).

Armenian presses. In 1562 the future
Catholicos of Etchmiadzin, Michael I of Sivas
(Catholicos 1567-76), sent a mission led by Abgar
Tibir of Tokat to Pope Pius IV in Rome to discuss
certain religious issues. Whilst nothing concrete was
in fact achieved by this mission, Abgar Tibir stayed
on and subsequently received permission from the
Pope and the Doge to visit Venice, with the aim of
learning the art of printing in order to produce Arme¬
nian books (Zarpanelyan, 43). In 1565, whilst still in
Venice, he printed with the aid of his son Sultan Shah
(who later took the name of Marc Antonio) the single-
paged Harnapuntur dumari (perpetual calendar) and the
Sagmos (Psalter) (Anasyan, 6, nos. 8, 10). In their
second book produced, they included an engraving of
the Pope with some of his cardinals (Teotik, 41). But
Abgar Tibir became estranged from the Pope and
found the censorship prevailing in Italy oppressive,
hence returned to Istanbul in 1567. He probably set
up his printing press in the Church of Surp Nigogos
(the present Kefeli Mescid), which was used jointly by
the Armenians and the Latin Dominicans, and using
the founts brought from Venice and with the help of
a monk named Hotor, printed six books between 1567
and 1569 (Ishkhanyan, 212). The first book printed,
in 1567, was Pokir keraganutyan gam ayppenaran
(“Elementary Armenian alphabet ”) (Anasyan, 6, no.
11). The first Turkish language book printed in the
Armenian alphabet came much later, this being
Mekhitar of Sivas’s (1676-1749) Turun keraganutyan
ashkharapar levzin hayotz ..., a grammar written in
Turkish and teaching spoken Armenian, printed in
Italy, at Antionio Bortoli’s press in Venice in 1727
with the proviso that the Papal imprimatur, Con
Licenza de ’ Superiori e Privilegio, was to be printed on the
book’s cover (Anasyan, 91, no. 354). However, the
first Turkish language book printed in the Armenian
alphabet in Istanbul was Bagdasar Tibir’s Bu kitab
oldur ki Knsdoneyaghan hayatimiza iktidali (“This is a
book containing what is necessary for our Christian
life”) of 1742 (Anasyan, 115-16, no. 465).

Greek presses. Nicodemus Metaxas of
Cephalonia, who graduated from Balliol College,

800

MATBA C A

Oxford, in 1622, started a business in London for
printing religious books and with the financial back*
ing of his merchant brother. These books were proba¬
bly printed under Metaxas’s supervision by William
Jones or at the Elliot’s Court press, and it may be that
the first book published by Metaxas in Istanbul was
printed in London at the latter press (Roberts, 19-24;
Layton, 155). The Oecumenical Patriarch Cyril
Lucaris (1572-1638), who held views similar to those
of Calvinism, invited Metaxas to Istanbul in order to
use his press against Jesuit Roman Catholic prop¬
aganda, to educate the Orthodox and to reform his
Church (Roberts, 13). Arriving in 1627 on a Levant
Company ship, he brought with him his Greek fount,
the books he had printed in London and two skilled
Dutch printers (Layton, 145). His printing house
began in rented premises near to the English and
French embassies, and the first book produced there
in 1627 was a treatise against the Jews (Legrand, no.
166); but Jesuit intrigue aroused the Janissaries
against the innovation of the press, and the latter
destroyed it in January 1628 (Hadjiantoniou, 80-3).

The first Turkish text printed in the Greek alphabet
(originally written by the Patriarch in Greek and then
translated into the Turkish dialect of Karaman,
Karamdnlidja), was the profession of faith of the first
post-Ottoman conquest Orthodox Patriarch, Gen-
nadios Scolarios, addressed to Sultan Mehemmed II
Fatih, the I c tikad~ndme; the Sultan requested that it be
translated into Turkish and it was also printed by
Martin Crusius in Turco-Graeciae libri octo, Basel 1584,
109-20. Another religious work in Karamanlidja is the
Gulzdr-i fmdn-i Mesihi: ; no press or place of printing is
mentioned in it, but it may have been produced at the
Armenian press in Istanbul by Panoggiotis Kyriakides
(Salaville and Dalleggio, 3-4).

In all these cases, the presses of these minority
faiths had to be imported from outside, and none of
them were able to construct them within the Ottoman
borders.

One inevitably wonders why no Turkish press
existed at this time, when printed books imported
from Europe were sold in Turkey and when the non-
Muslim communities were printing books. A section
on printing in Pecewl’s Ta^rikh. Istanbul 1283/1866, i,
107, argues that the printing press was no longer an
alien thing and that Turkish society was slowly accep¬
ting it, because of the great speed with which a large
number of books can be produced once the tedious
work of type-setting has been done; clearly, this
historian approved of printing; yet it was to be 78
years after Pecewl’s death before the first Turkish
Muslim press was to be established. The reason for
the Muslims’ aversion from printing doubtless
included motives of religious conservatism but also
the vested social and economic interests of the profes¬
sions of calligraphers ( khattat ) [see khatt], book
illustrators, binders, etc.; and when printing even¬
tually was established in the 18th century, only small
numbers of books were produced and demand
remained at a low level.

Ibrahim Muteferrika and his press. Some
eight years before the establishment of his press in
1140/1727, Ibrahim Miiteferrika had in 1132/1719-20
printed a map of the Sea of Marmara, probably
dedicated to the Vizier Damad Ibrahim Pasha and
presented to him, since a note on the map’s bottom
right-hand corner reads “If Your Excellency my
master so commands, larger ones can be produced.
[Dated] year 1132”. It seems therefore that attempts
at setting up a printing press antedated 1132 by some
years (see Kortoglu, 14-15). A second map, of the

Black Sea, followed in 1137/1724-5, and a third one,
Memdlik-i Iran , in 1142/1729-30. A fourth map, Iklim-i
Mifr , was known to have existed (Ersoy, 37), but
remained lost until it surfaced recently for sale (see
Brill’s Turcica catalogue no. 484 , June 1976, 16).

Concerning Ibrahim Miiteferrika’s Transylvanian
origins, his conversion to Islam, his career in the
Ottoman service as a diplomat and as an author, see
the article ibrahim muteferrika. Here is mentioned
too his written proposal, the Wesilet al-tiba c a , to the
Grand Vizier Damad Ibrahim Pasha of 1139/1726-7
on the benefits of printing: the benefits for the masses
needing instruction and for the ruling classes alike,
the perpetuation of books by printing when manu¬
scripts could and had been destroyed by war (as in the
Christian Reconquista of al-Andalus and in the
Mongol invasions) and the general usefulness of the
new technique for Islam (this opuscule was printed as
the first five pages of the first book which he printed,
Wankuli’s Turkish version of al-Djawharl’s famous
dictionary, the Sihah). He feared religious opposition,
and made a formal approach to the Vizier, requested
a fatwa from the Shavkh al-Islam on the licitness of
printing and asked Sultan Ahmed III for a firman
authorising him to print books, promising that the
first work undertaken would be Wankuli’s dictionary,
enclosing a few specimen pages of this already
printed, explaining the process of proof-reading, set¬
ting forth how he had been working towards the pro¬
ject for eight years with the patronage and financial
assistance of the high official Sa c Id Efendi and promis¬
ing that at the end of each book printed the sale price
would be given (see the specimens from this applica¬
tion at the end of Gergek, and also Sungu).

With the help of Sa c Id Efendi, the Grand Vizier
Damad Ibrahim Pasha and the Shavkh al-Islam c Abd
Allah Efendi’s fatwa, Ahmed III was persuaded to
issue a firman to Sa c Id and Ibrahim Muteferrika in
Dh u ’1-Ka c da 1139/1727 authorising the opening of a
printing-works and enjoining the printing of books
not on such subjects as fikh, hadith, tafsir, kalam, but on
practical subjects like medicine, crafts, geographical
guides, etc., based on the authority of the fatwas of the
former kadis of Istanbul, Salonica and Gh alata and of
the Shayldi al-Islam (whose names were recorded in
the written petition to the sultan); these last are to take
charge of the proofreading, for which great care is to
be exercised.

With this security behind them, Sa c id and Ibrahim
went ahead with the setting-up of the ddr al-fiba c a
(popularly known as the basma-khane) in Ibrahim’s
own house in the Sultan Selim neighbourhood of the
Fatih quarter. Documents dated 29 Rabl c II 1140/14
December 1727 and 2 Djumada I 1140/16 December
1727 show that the press had begun work on
Wankuli’s dictionary, and this was completed and the
book ready by 1 Radjab 1141/31 January 1729. In the
16 years up to Ibrahim’s illness of 1156/1743, only 17
books were produced, explicable partly by his own
carefulness but also by an apparent lack of enthusiasm
for printed books in Ottoman society. The Patrona
Khalil revolt of 1143/1730 which led to the Sultan’s
abdication [see ahmad hi] did not affect the progress
of Ibrahim’s work, but the idea of printing does not
seem to have made a deep impression on society. In
this same year, that of the new Sultan Malimud I’s
[q.v.] accession, a pamphlet on military organisation,
Usui al-hikamji nizdm al-umam, was printed, and on 11-
20 Sha c ban 1144-1145/early February 1732, Mall-
mud renewed the firman originally granted to Sa c Id
and Ibrahim by Ahmed III, but this time to Ibrahim
only. Ibrahim’s 13th book, the History of Na c Ima

MATBA C A

801

[q.v. ], was printed in two volumes in 1147/1734-5.
Then followed five years of inactivity, till between
1153/1740-1 and 1156/1743 four more books were
produced, bringing the total to 17. In this last year,
Ibrahim fell ill and died in 1158/1745.

The books printed between 1141/1729 and
1156/1743 are as follows:

1. Kitdb-i lughat-i Wankuli — 1 Radjab 1141/31 January
1729

2. Tuhfat al-kibdr ft asfar al-bihdr —1 Dhu TKa c da
1141/29 May 1729

3. TaMkh-i sayyah dar baydn-i zuhur-i Aghwaniydn wa
sabab-i inhidam-i bina^-i dawlat-i shahan-i Safawiydn —1
$afar 1142/26 August 1729

4. Ta^nkh al-Hind al-Gharbi al-musammd bi-hadith-i
naw —middle third of Ramadan 1142/beginning of
April 1730 (illustrated)

5. Ta^rikh-i Timur-i Gurkhdn — 1 Dhu ’1-Ka c da

1142/18 May 1730

6. TcTrikh-i Misr al-Diadid . TaSikh-i Misr al-Kadim —1
Dhu THidjdja 1142/17 June 1730

7. Giilshan-i khulafd 3 —1 Safar 1143/16 August 1730

8. Grammaire turque —1730

9. Usui al-hikam ji nizam al-umam —middle third of
Sha c ban 1144/beginning of February 1732

10. Fuyuddt-i miknatisiyya —1 Ramadan 1144/27
February 1732

11. Diihdn-numd —10 Muharram 1145/3 July 1732

12. Takwim al-tawarikh —1 Muharram 1146/14 June
1733

13. Ta^rikh-i Na c ima —vol. i, middle third of Muhar¬
ram 1147/middle-late June 1734, vol. ii, Djumada I
1147/middle October 1734

14. Ta^rikh-i Rashid Efendi —1 Dhu THidjdja 1153/17
February 1741^

15. Ta\ikh-i Celebi-zade Ejendi —1 Dhu THidjdja
1153/17 February 1741

16. Ahwal-i ghazawat dar diydr-i Bosna —1 Muharram
1154/19 March 1741

17. Farhang-i Shu c uri —1 Sha c ban 1155/1 October 1742
With the exception of no. 8, Holdermann’s Gram¬
maire turque , the size of the editions of these books
printed at the ddr-i fiba c a-yi c amira is given at the end
of the second volume of NaTma’s History: 1,000 each
for nos. 1 and 2; 1,200 for no. 3; and 500 each for the
rest.

After Ibrahim’s death, his foreman Kadi Ibrahim
Efendi (who is thought to have been his son-in-law
also) and Kadi Ahmed Efendi got a firman from
Mahmud I, but for unknown reasons were unable to
start printing (Ger^ek, 92). At the beginning of Rabl c
II 1168/1755 they got a new firman from c Othman III
and started printing, their First publication being a
second edition of Wankull’s dictionary, but soon after
this, Kadi Ibrahim Efendi died and the press was
abandoned. Subsequently, two secretaries of the
Sublime Porte, the Wak c a-niiwis Rashid Mehmed
Efendi and the Wak c a-nuwis Wasif Efendi, bought the
press from Ibrahim Miiteferrika’s heirs, obtained a
firman from Sultan c Abd al-Medjld I and in
1198/1783-4 printed the histories of Sami, Subhl and
Shakir in one volume; in the following year they
printed the history of c IzzI, a sequel to the preceding
three ones. After the grammatical work I c rab al-
Kdfiyya of the next year, no book was printed, and
then between 1207/1792-3 and 1209/1794-5 three
books on military topics were produced. Rashid
Mehmed Efendi died in 1212/1796-7 and the press
was closed down. It had hardly been a shining success
in its 64 years of existence; for only 18 of these had it
been actually operated, and it had printed just 24
books (including the second edition of Wankuli).

The books printed between 1169/1755-6 and
1209/1794-5 are as follows:

1. Kitdb-i lughat-i Wankuli , 2 vols., the first in
1169/1755-6 afnd the second in 1170/1756-7

2. Tawarikh-i Sami wa Subhi wa Shakir — 1198/1783-4

3. TaMkh-i Uzzi — 1199/1784-5

4. I c rdb al-Kdfiyya — 1200/1785-6

5. Fann-i harb — 1207/1792-3

6. Fann-i l agh im — 1208/1793-4

7. Fann-i muhdsara — 1209/1794-5.

In the meantime, another press has been estab¬
lished in the French Embassy in Istanbul, founded by
the ambassador, Choiseul-Gouffier, which printed
three books, two on military topics and one on
Turkish grammar. These books are as follows:

1. Usui al-rruL'anf fi tartib al-ordu — 1201/1787

2. Usui al-ma c dnffiwadfi tasnif safd^in-i donanma ... —
1202/1787-8

3. Elemens de la langue turque — March 1790

A second Turkish printing-works was opened in the
School of Engineering and Artillery {Muhendiskhdne) at
Haskoy in 1210/1795-6. The state purchased the
equipment for this and the books which were in the
possession of Rashid Efendi, and appointed c Abd al-
Rahman Efendi, a teacher in the School, as director
of the press. The first book produced was Ahmed
c Asim Efendi’s translation of the Persian dictionary,
the Burhan-i kdti ( , entitled Kitdb-i tibydn-i ndfi c , pub¬
lished on 23 RabI* I 1214/25 August 1799 under the
supervision of c Abd al-Rahman Efendi and at the dar
al-tiba c a al-ma c mura. The first foreign-language book to
appear from it was a French manual of the Turkish
language for foreigners written by ReHs al-Kuttab
Mahmud Ra 5 if Efendi, Tableau des nouveaux reglemens de
l'Empire Ollomane, illustrated, published in 1798 (see
Sungu, 9-12).

A third press was opened in 1217/1802-3, again
under the supervision of c Abd al-Rahman Efendi but
whilst the Muhendis-khane press was itself still active,
at Uskudar and in the Boyadji Khan built by Sultan
Selim III at the head of the slope running up from the
Harem pier. The first volume of the third edition of
Wankuli was printed in 1217/1802 at the Muhendis-
khane press, described as the dar al-libd c a y but the
second volume, printed at the Uskudar one in
1218/1803-4, records this as the dar al-tiba c a al-dfidida.
The newer press expanded and was used for general
printing, whilst the Muhendis-khane press, after a
period of inactivity, was used to print school books,
and continued in use till the First World War. The
Uskudar press continued in its original premises till
1247/1831-2, issuing books on language, history and
medicine, when Mahmud II transferred it to the
building known as the Bath of Kapudan Ibrahim
Pasha, which stood where the Central Library of
Istanbul University now stands. The house next to
this building was also bought, and a fourth press
started here under the name of the Takwim-khane-yi
c amire to print the official newspaper Takwim-i wakd
(1 November 1831).

The Bulak press. During this same period, the
governor of Egypt Muhammad c AlI Pasha [q.v.) set
up the press at Bulak in direct competition with the
Istanbul presses, and which was known as the matba c a-
yi dar al-tibaca or matba c at sahib al-sa c ada or al-matba c a al-
amiriyya or simply matba c at Bulak. It issued as its first
book Don Rafael’s Dizionario italiano e arabo, printed in
1822 (Heyworth-Dunne, 333). This press had the
responsibility of printing the official newspaper al-
Waka 5 / c al-Misriyya, starting on 25 Djumada I 1244/3
December 1828 (al-Futuh, 263), as well as the texts of
laws, calendars and general books. It printed books in

802

MATBA C A

Turkish, Arabic and Persian, the majority however
being in Turkish (Heyworth-Dunne, 334-5).

Cayol’s lithographic press. Lithographic
printing, invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder of
Munich (1771-1834) and further developed after
Senefelder in 1818 published his technical manual on
the process, was in use in Istanbul not much more
than 30 years after its invention. Henri Cayol (1805-
65) of Marseille and his cousin Jacques Cayol came to
Istanbul and under the patronage of Khusrew Pasha
set up a lithographic press in the grounds of the
Ministry of War, at a location whose exact spot can¬
not be traced today (Ger^ek, 13), with machinery
ordered from Paris. Fifty soldiers were assigned to the
Cayols to work with them and learn the trade, and for
five years books on military subjects, including drill,
were produced, the first book printed by lithography
being Mehmed Khusrew Pasha’s Nukhbat al-taHim in
1247/1831-2 and with 79 illustrations.

On Kh usrew Pa gh a’s removal from office, the
Cayols moved in 1836 to Kulekapi and opened a press
there on the basis of a firman from Sultan Mahmud II
(Zellich, 47). On 27 RabI* II 1267/1 March 1851
Henri Cayol applied to the Medjlis-i Wala Presidency
and received permission to print books in any
language, as well as printing the Armenian monthly
journal Panacer (“The Philologist’’) ( Kh avr al-Din
NedTm, 73-4). In January 1852 he printed the only
issue of the Journal Asiatique de Constantinople (Bianchi,
248-9), but in mid-1852 the printing-works were
burnt down during type-casting. It re-opened on 1
November 1855 in Beyoglu at the corner of the street
leading to the French Embassy (Zellich, 52). Henri
Cayol died of cholera on 18 August 1856, and after his
death, his family worked the press in his name but
under the management of Antoine Zellich.

In 1840 the Djerid-khane press was opened to print
the official newspaper Djeride-yi hawadith ; and in
1299/1881-2 the Ebu ’1-Diya 3 (Ebuzziya) press, which
was to have a special place in the history of Turkish
printing, was opened by Ebu ’l-Diya 3 Mehmed
TewfTk Bey in Ghalata in the Mahkeme Street. In
1864 the Dar al-Tiba c a and the Takwim-khane had been
combined and moved to a building within the grounds
of the Topkapi Palace, at first called the Dar al-Tiba c a
al- c Amira , then up to Republican times as the Matba c a-
yi c Amire, and later, the Milli Matbaca and Dewlet
Matba^asi; in 1939 it was given over to the Ministry of
Education.

With the “alphabet revolution” of 1928 introduced
by Kemal Ataturk [q. v. ] as part of his westernising
reforms, and the consequent change from the Arabic
to a Latin system for the writing of Turkish, Turkish
printing henceforth became divorced, typographically
speaking, from the history and development of prin¬
ting in Arabic characters.

Bibliography: 1. General. P. K. Hitti, The
first book printed in Arabic , in The Princeton University
Library Chronicle, iv/1 (Nov. 1942), 5-9; F. Bonola
Bey, Note sur Torigine de Timprimerie arabe en Europe,
in Bulletin de Tlnstitut Egyptien. 5 e Serie, Vol. iii
(1909), 74-84; A. Bernard, Antoine Vitre et les
caracteres orientaux, Paris 1857; R. Brun, Le hvrefran-
fais, Paris 1948; A. Vaccari, I caratteri arabi della
Typographia Savariana , in RSO, x (1923-5), 37-47;
Yasin H. Safadi, Arabic printing and book production ,
in Diana Grimwood-Jones et alii (eds.), Arab Islamic
bibliography , the Middle East Library Committee guide,
Hassocks, Sussex 1977, 221-34.

2. Jewish printing. M. Steinschneider,
Judische Typographic, Jerusalem 1938; Abraham
Yaary, Ha-Defus ha- c ivri be-Konstantinopl (“Hebrew

printing at Constantinople, its history and
bibliography”), Supplement to Kirjath Sepher, xlii,
Jerusalem 1967 [in Hebrew]; Israel Mehlman,
Genuzol sefarim (“Bibliographical essays”),
Jerusalem 1975 [in Hebrew]; Raphael Posner and
Israel Ta-Shema (eds.), The Hebrew book, an
historical survey. New York 1975; see also A. M.
Habermann, The history of the Hebrew book,
Jerusalem 1968 [in Hebrew]; A. Freimann, A gazet¬
teer of Hebrew printing, Jerusalem 1946 [in Hebrew];
Ch. B. Friedberg, History of Hebrew typography in
Italy, Spain-Portugal and Turkey, 2nd, enlarged edn.,
Tel Aviv 1956 [in Hebrew].

3. Armenian printing. Karekin Zar-
panelyan, Badmutyun Haygagan Dibakrutyan (“The
history of Armenian printing”), Venice 1895 [in
Armenian]. Hagop Anasyan (ed.), Hay Hinadib
Kirki Madenakidagan Tzutzak 1512-1800, (“Biblio¬
graphy of the old Armenian printed books”),
Erivan 1963 [in Armenian]; Teotik (Lapcinciyan),
Dip u Dar (“Armenian printing and characters”),
Istanbul 1913 [in Armenian]; Raphael Ishkhanyan,
Hay Kirki Batmudyun (“History of the Armenian
book”), Erivan 1977 [in Armenian]; see also
anon., Les Armeniens et Timprimerie, Istanbul 1920;
Kinarik Gorgodyan, Hay Dibakir Kirki Gos-
dantnubolsun 1567-1850 (“Armenian books printed
in Istanbul”), Erivan 1964 [in Armenian].

4. Greek printing. R. J. Roberts, The Greek
press at Constantinople in 1627 and its antecedents, in The
Library, Ser. 5, vol. xxli (1967), 13-43; E. Layton,
Nikodemos Metaxas, the first Greek printer in the Eastern
world, in Harvard Library Bulletin, xv/2 (April 1967),
140-168; E. Legrand, Bibliographic Hellenique, i,
Paris 1894; G. Hadjiantoniou, Protestant Patriarch.
The life of Cyril Loucaris 1572-1638, Patriarch of Con¬
stantinople, Richmond, Va. 1961; Severien Salaville
and Eugene Dalleggio, Karamanlidika. Bibliographic
analytique, i, Athens 1958; see also Nikos E.
Skiadas, Hroniko tis Ellinikis tipografias. Sklavia-
Diafotismos Epanastasii I. 1476-1828 , Athens 1976.

5. Muslim Turkish printing. Feyzi (Kur-
toglu), Tiirkiyede matbaacihk nasil basladigim gosteren
birvesika, in Resimi §ark, sayi 42 (Haziran 1934), 14-
15; Osman Ersoy, Turkiye’ye matbanin girifi ve ilk
basilan eserler, Ankara 1959; Niyazi Berkes, ilk Turk
matbaasi kurucusunun dini ve fikri kimligi, in Belleten,
sayi 104 (Ekim 1962), 715-37; Ihsan (Sungu), Hk
Turk matba c asina da?ir yeni wethikalar, in Hay at, sayi
73 (1928), 409-15; Selim Niizhet Ger^ek, Turk mat-
baaciligi. I. Istanbul 1939; Ihsan (Sungu), Mahmud
Rd^if Efendi ve etherleri, in Hay at, sayi 16 (1927), 9-
12; see also G. B. Toderini, De la litterature des Turcs.
Paris 1789; F. Babinger, Stambuler Buchwesen im 18.
Jahrhundert, Leipzig 1919; Server Iskit, Tiirkiyede
nesriyat hareketleri tarihine bir baskif, Istanbul 1939;
W. J. Watson, Ibrahim Miiteferrika and Turkish
incunabula, in JAOS, lxxxviii (1968), 435-41; Jale
Baysal, Miiteferrika ’dan birinci me$rutiyete kadar
Osmanh Turklerinin bastiklan kitaplar, Istanbul 1968.

6. The Bulak Press. Ahmad Ridwan al-
Futuh, Ta^rikh Matba c at Bulak, Cairo 1953; J.
Heyworth-Dunne, Printing and translation under
Muhammad Ali of Egypt, in y7L46 , (1940), 325-49; A.
Geiss, Histoire de Timprimerie en Egypte, in Bull, de
Tlnstitut Egyptien, Ser. 5, vol. i (1907), 133-57; R.
N. Verdery, The publications of the Bulaq Press under
Muhammad c Ali of Egypt, in JAOS, xci (1971),
129-32.

7. The Cayol Lithographic Press. G.
Zellich, Notice historique sur la lithographie et sur les
origines de son introduction en Turquie, Constantinople

MATBA C A

♦

803

1895; Selim Nuzhet Gergek, Turk ta$ basmacihgi ,
Istanbul 1939; Kh ayr al-Dln Nedim, Wethd^ik-i
ta^rikhiyye we siyasiyye , Istanbul 1326/1908; X. Bian-
chi, Bibliographie, in JA, Ser. 4, vol. xx (1852),
248-9. (Gunay Alpay Kut)

3. In Persia

1. Under the Mongols.

Wood-block printing was introduced into Persia in
693/1294. In that year Gaykhatu Khan ordered the
printing of paper money (ca ; Persianised as caw) in
imitation of Chinese practice. The paper money was
printed in Tabriz and circulated for the first time on
19 Shawwal 693/12 September 1294. The paper
money was probably printed with wooden blocks,
which were manufactured by Chinese artisans living
in Tabriz. Despite the threat of capital punishment in
case of refusal to accept paper money, the popula¬
tions’s reaction was one of outright rejection.
Gaykhatu Khan was forced to abandon his experi¬
ment in Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 693/November 1294, as a
result of which the art of printing was momentarily
lost to Persia (see Jahn, Paper currency , 125-35).

2. Under the Safawids.

Although the Torah was printed in Persian (with
Hebrew characters) in Istanbul in 1594, it was not
until 1629 that printing was reintroduced to Persia,
this time in the form of typography. For in January
1629, Carmelite friars received a printing press from
Rome. It had matrices of 349 Arabic letter types and
two instruments to set up type. It is not known
whether the press produced any actual books. The
Carmelites certainly tried, but “because of the
dryness of the country” they failed, according to Fr.
Angelus (Gazophylacium). Their printing ( basma ,.
tiba c a) experiments took place between 1629 and 1642,
when Fr. Bernard of St. Theresia handed the printing
press over to the Vicar-General of the Carmelites in
Isfahan. From 1648 till 1669 the press was kept in
storage by the Dutch East Indies Company, which in
1669 handed the press over to Fr. Raphael Du Mans.
In 1676 Fr. Angelus reports that the Carmelites still
had the press, but from the context it is clear that it
had not been used for a long time (Floor, The first prin-
ting press).

About the same time that the Arabic-Persian prin¬
ting press was introduced in Persia, an Armenian
press also was established in Djulfa [q.v. in Suppl.],
the Armenian suburb of Isfahan. This was done at the
initiative of Bishop Khac c atur Kesarac c i in 1637.
After 17 months of trial and error he succeeded in
printing the Psalms in 1638. The Bishop’s main
problem was how to produce good quality paper and
ink. Moreover, his type was not made out of lead, but
of wood, copper and iron. He preserved and printed
another two religious books, one in 1641 and the other
in 1642. Both the letter types and the books can be
seen in the Armenian museum at Djulfa (see Richard,
Un temoignage ...).

Despite his success, Bishop Kasarac c i was troubled
by technical problems. He therefore sent one of his
pupils, Hovhannes, to Europe to obtain the required
technical expertise. In 1644 Hovhannes printed a
book in Armenian in Leghorn. He returned to Persia
in 1646 to continue the work of Bishop Kesarac c i, who
had died in that year. To that end, Hovhannes
brought lead types and a printing press with him. It
was his intention to print the Bible, but “not having
the way of making good Ink, and to avoid the ill con¬
sequences of the Invention, he was forc’d to break the
press. For on one side the Children refus’d to learn to
write, pretending they wrote the Bible themselves,

only to get it sooner by heart: on the other side many
persons were undone by it, that got their living by
writing”, according to Tavernier. The latter argu¬
ment also had constrained the introduction of the art
of printing in, for example, the Ottoman empire (see
section 2, above). Tavernier was wrong in believing
that the Armenian press had been broken, for in 1687
it was used again and this time nine books were
printed. For unknown reasons, it fell into disuse
again. It was only in 1771 that an Armenian printing
press was established in Etchmiadzin, in 1786 in
Nakhcewan and in 1796 in Astrakhan (Ra 3 Tn,
Armanlha).

3. Under the Kadjars.

The art of printing was thus lost for a second time.
Although the printing of the Armenian language was
resumed fairly quickly, printing in Persian took some¬
what longer. Persian language books were regularly
printed since 1639, when in Leiden the first books in
both the Persian language and characters were
printed. After that date, both in Europe and towards
the end of the 18th century also in India, many books
in Persian were printed. The generally accepted date
for the first book printed in Kadjar Persia is
1233/1817, when in Tabriz the Dji hadiyya by MTrza
c Isa Ka 5 im-Makam was printed on a typographic
press. Because there is no thorough analytical study
on Persian incunabula, it is impossible to settle the
question of the earliest printing date. The author of
the Mahathir al-mamalik ascribes the introduction of the
art of printing ( c amal al-tiba c a or basma) to c Abbas
MTrza, the heir-apparent and governor-general of
Adharbavdjan. Ptimad al-Saltana ( al-Ma?athir wa 7-
athar , 100), mistakenly, ascribes this initiative to
Manucihr Khan Mu c tamid al-Dawla, an influential
Tehran courtier. The early books were printed by
Mulla Muhammad Bakir Tabriz!, who in 1241/1825
also printed c Abd al-Razzak Dunbuli’s Mahathir al-
sultaniyya. In 1825 another printer in Tabriz, C A1T son
of Hadjdj! Muhammad Husayn, printed the Nasab al-
sibyan a well-known school text by Abu Na§r Farahl.
By 1825, Tabriz therefore boasted already of at least
two typographic printing presses (cap-i surbi).

In that same year, Mu c tamid al-Dawla established
a typographic press in Tehran, which was operated by
Mlrza Zayn al- c Abid!n Tabriz!. With the support of
Mu c tamid al-Dawla, who is said to have financed the
printing of 8,000 copies, he printed many books,
mainly religious, which were known as “Mu c ta-
madTs”. In 1815 c Abbas MTrza had sent seven
students to Great Britain to learn modern techniques.
One of these students was MTrza Salih Shiraz!, who
apprenticed himself in London to a master printer
(cap-saz) who specialised “in printing (cap zadan) the
Bible in Persian, Hindi, and Arabic and other
languages”. MTrza Salih returned to Persia in
1234/1819, where he established himself as a printer
in Tabriz. He shortly thereafter (1829) was sent to
Russia as member of an embassy, from which he
returned with a printing press. He was later engaged
in printing in both Tabriz and Tehran.

Mirza Salih in his turn sent a certain Mlrza Asad
Allah to Russia to learn the printing trade. On his
return to Persia in 1835, Mirza Asad Allah stayed in
Tabriz and, together with Aka Rida, operated the
first lithographic press (cap-i sangT) in Iran. In that
same year, Fath c Al! Shah summoned MTrza Asad
Allah to Tehran to start working there.

Because “printing in types is not relished by Per¬
sians, the characters being necessarily stiff and
uncouth, and very displeasing to an eye accustomed
to the flowing written hand” (Binning, i, 312),

804

MAJBA C A

lithography became very popular in Iran. Especially,
the fact that lithography permitted Iranian artists to
practice both calligraphy and illustrations in their nor¬
mal way was an important advantage. Moreover,
illustrated printed books became very popular, of
which an increasing number, after the first items
printed in 1259/1843, were produced in this way.

By 1850 there were five lithographic presses in
Tehran (Sheil, 201) and in 1845 not less than 15 in
Tabriz (Schwarz, 85). However, books also continued
to be published “both in types and lithograph; but the
execution is rather coarse; in the latter style in par¬
ticular”, Binning observed in 1851 (i, 312, ii, 217). In
1256/March 1840, American missionaries in Urmiya
printed the first text in Syriac; moreover, this press
could also print Persian and English (Perkins, 456).
Other presses followed in Shiraz. Isfahan, Bushire,
Mashhad, Enzell, Rasht, Ardabll, Hamadan, Khov.
Yazd, Kazwln, Kirmanshah, Garrus and Kashan
(MahbubI ArdakanI, i, 217).

The list of early prints shows that a great variety of
books were printed. Apart from religious texts, there
were historical texts, popular works such as the Thou¬
sand and one nights , Iskandar-nama, and a comic text
such as Duzd wa Kadi. With the establishment of the
Dar al-Funun [q. v. ] in 1852, a great number of scien¬
tific texts were printed on the school’s own printing
press. The publications were in the field of engineer¬
ing, chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology,
medicine, geography, military science and music.
With the establishment of the government press ( dar
al-tibd c a) and the state translation institute {dar al-
tardfuma ), hundreds of translations were made from
European authors. Further, Persian and Arab classics
were printed, while contemporary official chronicles
were solicited and published, such as the Rawdat al-
safa-yi Nasiri and the Nasikh al-tawarikh. Under the
direction of Ftimad al-Saltana, who was in charge of
the state press, translation, and censor’s bureau,
many of these books were published. He himself also
published a great many useful official chronicles, such
as the MiHat al-buldan (3 vols.), the Muntazam-i Nasiri
(3 vol.), and the Malta c al-shams (3 vols.).

A separate development was the publication of
newspapers (ka gh adh-i akhbar), of which the first
lithographed issue was printed by Mlrza Salih in
Tehran on 25 Muharram 1253/1 March 1837. This
paper had no special time, but only a long general
heading, a shortened rendering of which is “Current
news from Tehran” {Akhbar-i Wakayi°). The paper,
which lasted three years, offered foreign and local
news, the latter focussing on the reforms initiating
and progress promoted by Muhammad Shah (1834-
48). In 1267/February 1851 the second newspaper to
appear in Persia was published at the initiative of
Mlrza TakI Khan Amir Kablr [ q.v . in Suppl.]. This
paper was edited by Edward Burgess and published
under the name of Ruz-nama-yi WakayT-i Ittifakiyya.
Burgess also printed an uncensored newspaper for the
eyes of Nasir al-Din Shah (1848-96) and the Amir
Kablr. In 1868 Nasir al-Din Shah ordered the
establishment of four newspapers, viz. an official
gazette, both with and without illustrations, a semi¬
official newspaper and a scientific newspaper.
Towards the end of the 19th century, many semi¬
official and private periodicals were published in
increasing numbers. In 1874 one issue of a French
newspaper, La Patrie , was published, which, because
of its outspokenness, was immediately forbidden by
the Shah. It was soon followed by other French
newspapers, one of which, Le Journal de Perse, was pub¬
lished by I c timad al-Saltana.

Since the press was mainly an instrument of the
government, the latter in the 1850s established a Cen¬
sor’s Bureau ( Iddra-yi Sansur). All books and
newspapers had to be approved by the censor before
these could be printed or imported. Despite this cen¬
sorship, these newspapers were carriers of some new
ideas. Because all government officials were obliged to
subscribe to the official papers, new ideas reached all
parts of the kingdom. However, in general these
“semi-official” newspapers were dull, mainly offering
repetitious court activities. More effective in
disseminating new political ideas were Persian
newspapers printed outside Persia such as Kdnun
(London), Akhtar (Istanbul), Habl al-Matin (Calcutta)
and Thurayya (Cairo), which often had to be smuggled
into Persia because of their unsettling contents. It was
only with the advent of the constitutional movement
in 1906 that newspapers started to play a very impor¬
tant role in political and cultural life of Persia.

Bibliography: Angelus a S. Joseph, Gazophy-
lacium lingua Persarum, Amsterdam 1684 (see Stam-
paria ); R. A. Binning, Two years 3 travel, 2 vols.,
London 1857; E. G. Browne, The press and poetry in
Persia, London 1914; Mlrza Hasan Khan, Ttirnad
al-Saltana, Kitab al-Ma^dthir wa ’l-atjiar, Tehran
1306/1889; H. Farmanfarmayan, The forces of
modernization in nineteenth century Iran , in W. Polk and
R. Chambers, eds., The beginning of modernization in
the Middle East , Chicago 1968, 119-151; W. M.
Floor, The first printing-press in Iran, in ZDMG, cxxx
(1980), 369-71; K. Jahn, Paper currency in Iran, in
Journal of Asian History, iv (1970), 101-35; Husayn
MahbubI ArdakanI, TariHi-i Mu^assasat-i tam-
madduni-yi dpadid dar Iran, Tehran 1352/1972, i, 211-
20; J. Perkins, A residence of eight years in Persia ,
Andover 1845; Cap-i surb wa sangi, in Rahnamd-yi
Kitab, xix (2535/1976), 208-16; Ismail Ra 3 In,
Armamha, Tehran 1352/1971 (chapter Nafdiustln
capkhdna dar Iran)\ Fr. Richards, Un temoignage sur les
debuts de Timpnmene a Nor Jula, in Revue des Etudes
Armeniennes, n.s., xiv (1980), 483-84; Safar-nama-yi
Mlrza Shlrazl, ed. Isma c H Ra 3 In, Tehran
1347/1968; Muhammad §adr HashimI, Tarlkh-i
Dja ra'id wa madja.llat-i Iran, 4 vols., Isfahan
1338/1959; B. Schwartz, Letters from Persia written by
Charles and Edward Burgess , New York 1942; J. B.
Tavernier, The six voyages in Turkey, Persia and the
Indies, 6 vols., London 1677, v, 229.

(W. Floor)

4. In Muslim India

South Asia below the Himalayas remained beyond
the diffusion of xylography from the Far East. Prin¬
ting reached the subcontinent as European movable
type technology introduced by Portuguese Jesuits who
set up the first press in the College of St. Paul at Goa
in 1556. In 1580 the Mughal emperor Akbar was
presented with a copy of the Royal Polyglot Bible
printed by Plantin at Antwerp, one of the finest pro¬
ducts of the 16th-century European press, but the
Mughal court did not adopt printing technology,
being well served by its studio of calligraphers and
artists. From the 1570s to the 1670s vernacular prin¬
ting by the Portuguese in India to aid conversion was
confined to Tamil, Konkani and Syriac, and that of
the German and Dutch missionaries in the 18th cen¬
tury to Tamil and Sinhalese. Until the early 19th cen¬
tury, Christian literature in Arabic, Persian or Urdu
was imported from Europe, such as Benjamin
Schultze’s Urdu New Testament printed at Halle in
1758.

The earliest known specimen of Arabic printing in

majba c a

805

India is a small woodcut New Testament quotation on
the title-page of Dialogus inter Moslimum et Christianum,
a Tamil polemic against Islam printed at the Tran-
quebar Mission Press in 1727. But Arabic, Persian
and Urdu printing in India really began in Calcutta
under the East India Company from the 1780s
onwards. Of the three languages, Persian was para¬
mount to the Company’s interests and the medium of
the law-courts and the land-revenue system inherited
from Mughal Bengal. In the late 1770s the Governor-
General Warren Hastings engaged Charles Wilkins, a
Company servant with a gift for oriental languages, to
manufacture Bengali and Nasta c llk types. With the
Nasta c IIk, Wilkins in 1780 printed Francis Gladwin’s
A compendious vocabulary, English and Persian at Malda in
north Bengal. In 1781 he became first superintendent
of the Honorable Company’s Press in Calcutta which
issued a plethora of Persian translations of the regula¬
tions, notices and blank-forms required for the
administration of Bengal. The first of these was a
selection of Diwan! c Adalat regulations translated by
William Chambers in 1781. From 1793 until 1837,
when Persian ceased to be the language of the courts,
Persian translations of Company regulations were
reprinted in annual volumes. At Madras also Persian
translations of local Company regulations were
printed from 1802 onwards. Persian historical works
valuable as sources on the Mughal system of govern¬
ment were printed at Calcutta, such as William
Davy’s edition of Tuzukat-i Timuri (1785), Muham¬
mad SakT’s Muntakhabdt-i c Alamgir-nama prepared by
Henry Vansittart (1785) and Amir Haydar Bilgramfs
Risala, a treatise on land-revenue and tenure with
Gladwin’s translation (1796). A Siyakat fount (the
earliest such?) was specially cast for printing Glad¬
win’s A compendious system of Bengal revenue accounts
(1790 and 1796). Some linguistic works were printed
to help Company servants master Persian, Gladwin
again preeminent with A vocabulary, English and Persian
(1791, 1800), The Persian moonshee (H9b, 1799, 1800)
and The Persian guide (1800). As the classical literary
language of Muslim India, Persian was studied by the
British orientalists forming the nucleus of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal (founded 1784). The first work of
Persian literature printed was Insha-yi Harkaran edited
by Francis Balfour (1781). Other important texts
printed were Gladwin’s edition of Sa c dl’s Pand-nama
(1788) followed by Kulliyyat-i Sa c di prepared by J. H.
Harington (1791-5), Sir William Jones’ edition of
Hatifl’s Layli Madjnun (1788), the Diwan of Hafiz
(1791) and Nakhshabl’s Tuti-nama with Gladwin’s
translation (1792). Arabic printing was far less exten¬
sive, but one important text printed before 1800 was
al-Sadjawandl’s al-Siradjiyya (1792), published as part
of Jones’ digest of Hindu and Muslim law. A con¬
cordance to the Kur’an was printed at Calcutta in
1811, but the Arabic text (together with c Abd al-
Kadir’s Urdu translation) was not printed till 1829.
The most famous translation of the Kur’an printed in
the subcontinent was Shah Wall Allah’s Persian
rendering (DihlT 1866, etc.). The leading scholar of
Urdu in 18th-century Calcutta was John B. Gilchrist,
who published A dictionary, English and Hindoostanee
(1786-7 to 1790), A grammar of the Hindoostanee language
(1796) and The Oriental linguist (1798). In 1789 The new
Asiatick miscellany contained the first Urdu literary text
to be printed, a rekhta of Wall Dakham. In the same
year, W. H. Bird’s The oriental miscellany also printed
the words and music of several Urdu songs. From
1793 onwards, Urdu translations of Company regula¬
tions in Bengal were required to be printed as well as
Persian. At Madras in 1790 the physician Henry

Harris published A dictionary, English and Hindostany ,
but his grammar was never printed.

Fort William College, founded at Calcutta in 1800,
provided a further stimulus for the printing of Arabic,
Persian and particularly Urdu texts needed to instruct
Company servants in those languages. Gladwin
presented Nasta c lik types to the College, and these
Gilchrist used as Professor of Urdu to equip the Hin¬
doostanee Press, which issued many celebrated Urdu
works: Mir Amman’s version of “The Four Der¬
vishes’’, Bagh-o-bahar (1802); Mir Shir C A1I Afsus’
translation of Sa c dl’s Gulistdn, B dgh -i Urdu{ 1802); Mir
Hasan’s Nasr-i bi-nazir (1803); Haydar Ba khsh
Haydarl’s Tolakahani based on the Tuti-nama (1804);
etc. The largest book issued by this press was
Kulliyyat-i Mir Taki with 1,085 pages (1811). Besides
some forty Urdu works, by 1820 about twenty Arabic
and another twenty Persian texts were also printed for
the College’s use at various Calcutta presses: John
Baillie’s Arabic syntax (1801); Joseph Barretto’s edition
of the Shams al-lughat (1806); Wall al-Dln’s Mishkat al-
masabih (1809); Matthew Lumsden’s A grammar of the
Arabic language (1813) and the Diwan al-Mutanabbi
(1814); Anwar-i Suhayli (1805); Lumsden’s A grammar
of the Persian language (1810); Nizami’s Sikandar-nama
(1812); Mlrza Abu Tallb Khan’s European
travelogue Masir-i Talibi (1812); etc. At Madras, the
equivalent College of Fort St. George also stimulated
the printing of texts, such as the Anwdr-i Suhayli issued
by the College Press in 1826.

The munshis of Fort William College and the Rev.
Henry Martyn were equally important in early mis¬
sionary printing in Islamic languages in India. Mlrza
Muhammad Fitrat’s translation of St. Matthew into
Persian and of the Gospels into Urdu (edited by
William Hunter) were both printed at Calcutta in
1805. In 1809 the Persian St. Matthew prepared by
Nathaniel Sabat under Martyn’s direction was
printed at Serampore, the complete New Testament
at Calcutta in 1816, and the Old Testament in parts
(1828-38) by the Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society.
Sabat’s Arabic New Testament was printed at
Calcutta in 1816. Martyn’s own translation of the
New Testament into Urdu (the basis for all sub¬
sequent editions) was printed in 1814 at Serampore,
where the Sindhi St. Matthew was issued in 1825.
The mass of early 19th-century evangelical literature
in Urdu, Persian, Panjabi, Sindhi, etc., was mainly
printed by the various Christian tract and book
societies formed (those of Calcutta, Benares, Agra,
North India, Punjab, Madras (for Dakham), Bom¬
bay, etc.).

The East India Company introduced lithography to
India in the early 1820s, which rapidly displaced
typography for Islamic printing as presses were estab¬
lished right across Northern India: Patna 1828; Kan¬
pur 1830, Dihll and Meerut 1834, Agra 1835,
Ludhiana 1836, Mlrzapur and Allahabad 1839,
Benares 1844, etc. The earliest Urdu works
lithographed were medical treatises by Peter Breton,
the first being Bayan zaharon ka on poisons (Calcutta
1826), and in Persian editions of Sa c dl’s Gulistdn and
Busfan (Calcutta 1827, 1828). The development of
Lakhnaw as a major centre of Urdu and Persian prin¬
ting exemplifies the transition to lithography.
Nawwab GhazI al-Dln Haydar set up the royal press
about 1817, its most famous product being the type¬
set Persian dictionary Haft kulzum (1820-2). His suc¬
cessor Nasir al-Dln Haydar brought Edward Archer’s
Asiatic Lithographic Press from nearby Kanpur to
Lakhnaw in 1830, and the Arabic dictionary Tadf al-
lughat begun by typography was then completed (vois.

806

MATBA C A

iv-viii) lithographically. Under Wadjid C A1I Shah, all
lithographic presses in Lakhnaw were closed because
the Nawwab disliked a history of his family
lithographed by one Kamal al-Dm Haydar. Some
presses moved to Kanpur, while others continued sur¬
reptitiously and books were often issued without
details of printer, etc., so that many early Lakhnaw
and Kanpur imprints are indistinguishable. The
single most important Lakhnaw press was that of
Munshi Nawal Kishor founded in 1858. By his death
in 1895 he had issued about 500 titles, mainly
religious, historical and poetical texts, particularly
Urdu translations from Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit,
subsidised by his newspaper and his printing for
government-. Sikandar Djah, Nizam of Haydarabad
(Deccan), acquired a press as a curiosity of western
technology during Lord Minto’s vice-royalty (1807-
13), but did not apparently use it.

Bombay was not important for Persian printing
until the introduction of lithography, although the
Dasatir of 1818 printed with Naskh types deserves
mention. Among the earliest works lithographed there
were the Anwar-i Suhayli and the Dtwan of Hafiz, both
in 1828. Bombay and KaracI were the twin centres of
early Sindhi printing, one of the first Sindhi books
lithographed being Sadasukh Lala’s drawing manual
Citra ji par (KaracI 1852). KaracI had been the first
city in what is modern Pakistan to acquire printing in
the mid-1840s. The American Presbyterian Mission
Press, Ludhiana, printed extensively in Panjabi (as
well as Persian and Urdu) from the 1840s, but the
main centres of Muslim Panjabi printing were
Lahawr and Siyalkut, from the 1860s issuing kissas
and other popular literature. The first press in
modern Bangladesh was at Dhaka in the 1850s, but
printing became widespread in East Bengal by the
1870s at Sylhet, Rajshahi, Barisal, Jessore, etc., and
Calcutta also remained an important centre of
Muslim Bengali printing. A number of Pashto works
were printed in Dihli, Peshawar and Lahawr in the
1870s.

Bibliography. For the history of printing in
the subcontinent generally, see A. K. Priolkar, The
printing press in India , Bombay 1958. N. Ahmad,
Oriental presses in the world , Lahawr 1985, contains
much useful information on Islamic printing in
South Asia. On early Persian, Arabic and Urdu
printing in the 18th century, see G. Shaw, Printing
in Calcutta to 1800, London 1981; C. A. Storey, The
beginnings of Persian printing in India , in J. D. Cursetji
Pavry (ed.), Oriental studies in honour of Cursetji Erachji
Pavry , London 1933; and (on Gilchrist) N. Ahmad,
A Scottish orientalist and his works , in Libri , xxviii
(1978), 196-204. On Fort William College, see S.
K. Das, Sahibs andmunshis , New Delhi 1978; and on
early missionary printing, see J. Murdoch, Cata¬
logue of the Christian vernacular literature of India ,
Madras 1870; H. U. Weitbrecht, A descriptive cata¬
logue of Urdu Christian literature , London 1886; and
The British and Foreign Bible Society, Scriptures of
the Indian subcontinent, London 1977. On Lakhnaw
printing, see K. S. Diehl, Lucknow printers 1820-
1850 , in N. N. Gidwani (ed.), Comparative librarian-
ship , Dihli 1973, and S. J. Haider, Munshi Nawal
Kishore (1836-1895): mirror of Urdu printing in British
India, in Libri, xxxi (1981), 227-37. On Sindhi prin¬
ting, see A. R. Butt, Origin and development of printing
press in Sind, in Pakistan library bulletin, xii/3-4
(1981), 1-10. (G. W. Shaw)

5. In Afghanistan

The printing-press was only introduced to
Afghanistan, geographically remote and beyond sus¬

tained British control, towards the end of the 19th
century and then only for printing in Persian, the
language of the court and of literature. The national
language Pashto was therefore first printed, whether
from scholarly, evangelical or military and admi¬
nistrative motives, in Europe and, more extensively,
in India. With British expansion north-westwards in
the subcontinent, printing spread into the regions
bordering Afghanistan itself. The first Afghan of note
to encounter printing at first hand was the exiled king
Shudja c al-Mulk, who visited the American
Presbyterian Mission Press at Ludhiana (Pandjab) in
the mid 1830s.

The pioneer of Pashto studies in Europe was Bern-
hard Dorn of the Russian Imperial Academy of
Sciences, whose Chrestomathy of the Pushtu or Afghan
language (St. Petersburg 1847) included selections
from poets such as c Abd al-Rahman, Mlrza Khan
Ansar! and c Ubayd Allah. Other notable early
scholars were Ernest Trumpp, whose grammar of
Pashto was published at London (1873), and James
Darmesteter, whose monumental collection of Chants
populaires des Afghans was issued at Paris (1888-90).
Selections from both Pashto prose and poetry com¬
piled by H. G. Raverty appeared as Gulshan-i roh
(London 1860), adopted by the Government of India
as the text-book for its Pashto examination from 1866
onwards. This work included verses by the national
poet Khushhal Khan Khatak [q.v.], whose complete
diwan was lithographed at the Jail Press, Peshawar, in
1869 under the superintendence of H. W. Bellew.

The earliest Pashto printing in India was at the
Serampore Mission Press in Bengal: the New Testa¬
ment in 1818 followed by the Pentateuch 1820 and
Historical Books (incomplete) about 1832. British
occupation of land between the Indus river and the
Takht-i Sulayman mountains in 1849 renewed mis¬
sionary interest in Pashto and in 1856 revision of the
Serampore editions began under Isidor Loewenthal of
the American Presbyterian Mission. The resulting
New Testament was published at Hertford (1863) by
the British and Foreign Bible Society. From 1859
onwards Pashto tracts were lithographed at the press
of the Peshawar Church Mission founded specifically
for the conversion of the Afghans, as well as primers
such as T. Tuting’s Kitdb al-Durr. In 1883 a Pashto
Revision Committee was formed under T. J. L.
Mayer of the Church Missionary Society and the
translation of the complete Old Testament was pub¬
lished at London (1889-95).

Most early Pashto linguistic works were compiled
by officers of Pathan troops in India. Lt. Robert
Leech, Bombay Engineers, who had accompanied a
mission to Kabul, published A grammar of the Pashtoo or
Afghanee language (Calcutta 1839), describing the Kan¬
dahar! dialect and including a specimen of verse by
c Abd al-Rahman. Capt. John Vaughan, who had
commanded the 5th Punjab Infantry at Dera GhazI
Kh an, compiled A grammar and vocabulary of the Pooshtoo
language (Calcutta 1854). Most successful of all was
Major H. G. Raverty, Bombay Native Infantry, who
first studied Pashto while stationed at Peshawar 1849-
50. His Pashto grammar went into three editions
(Calcutta 1855; London 1860 and 1867) and he also
published a dictionary (London 1867) and The Pushto
manual (London 1880). All these works were printed
using Naskh types with extra sorts specially cut for the
letters peculiar to Pashto. As lithographic presses
spread across north-western India, more Pashto
works began to be printed, e.g. Kanun al-kira^a, rules
for Kurban recitation (Dihli 1865), Kalid-i Afghani.
verse and prose selections (Peshawar 1872), Sayr al-
salikin, Pilgrim’s progress {Amritsar 1877), Kissa-yi hirni,

MATBA C A — MATBAKH

807

Muhammad and the deer (Abbottabad 1883) and T. C.
Plowden’s Idiomatic colloquial sentences , English-Pakkhto
(Jail Press, Dera GhazT Khan 1884).

According to c Abd al-Rahman Khan’s auto¬
biography, there was no printing-press in A fg hanistan
before he became Amir in 1880. But the first
lithographic press (Matba c a-yi Mu§tafawl) was set up
under his predecessor Amir Shir C A1I Kh an whose
Persian polemic against the Wahhabis, Risala-yi
shihab-i thakib, was printed at Kabul in 1288/1871, fol¬
lowed by c Abd al-Kadir Khan’s religious tract Tuhfat
al-^ulama? in 1292/1875. c Abd al-Rahman attributed
the introduction of printing to MunshI c Abd al-
Razzak of Dihll who trained many Kabuli
lithographers before dying of fever. Several of the
Amir’s own works in Persian were printed, including
NasaHh-namca , advice on Afghanistan’s relations with
Russia (1303/1886), and Mir^at al-^ukul , on human
intelligence (1311/1894). Most famous of all was his
tract advocating djihad, Kalimdt Amir al-biladJi 'l-ta rgh ib
ila ’ l-djihad (1304/1887), printed at the Humayun
Press which also issued an almanac in the same year.
The press was also used to promulgate laws, e.g.
Kanun-i kar-gudhari relating to crimes and their
punishments (1309/1892) and KawaHd-i siradj al-milla
relating to foreign imports and issued by c Abd al-
Rahman’s son, Amir Habib Allah Khan \q.v.], in
1321/1904. c Abd al-Rahman’s desire to modernise his
army is reflected in several military tracts printed,
e.g. Mizak-i tupkhana on gunnery manoeuvres
(1303/1885) and KawaHd-i risala on cavalry drill
(1304/1887).

Bibliography. Given in the article.

(G. W. Shaw)

MATBA KH (a), kitchen, cookhouse, a noun
of place, defined by lexicographers as “the cook’s
house” (< bayt al-tabbakh ) from the verbal root meaning
“the cooking of flesh meat”. The root t-b-kh is com¬
mon to the Semitic family. Already in Akkadian, OT
Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic and post-Biblical Hebrew
we find the further, related connotation of “slaughter¬
ing” in addition to that of “cooking”. Undoubtedly,
the mediaeval domestic matbakh combined both these
functions. By extension of the root meaning, the mat¬
bakh was the place where every conceivable kind of
food, including fleshmeat, was transformed from its
raw state for consumption at the table.

1. In the mediaeval caliphate.

The kitchen has been described as the “birthplace”
(Forbes) and the “foster home” (Needham) of
innumerable terms, operations and apparatuses in the
early stage of man’s development of technology.
Laboratory operations employed by the ancient phar¬
macist and cosmetician reveal their origin in the
preparation of food; so too do the techniques of
crushing or disintegration (pressing, grinding, impac¬
tion), the technology of fermentation, the methods for
the preservation of perishable organic material and,
the oven. The chemistry and technology of cooking
were thus realms of practical knowledge which the
Islamic world inherited from the ancient centres of
Middle Eastern civilisation. This inheritance was not,
however, shared equally by all the population. Tech¬
niques which had perhaps originated or else been
refined in the kitchens of the ancient temple and the
palace were appropriated by the mediaeval urban
cook, whereas the rural and nomadic populations
retained the more primitive methods of food prepara¬
tion. The technological gap between the urban and
rural domains can be explained as a function of the
distribution of power in the economic sphere and
ultimately of social stratification and its ramifications
in the political sphere.

Data relating to the kitchen in the classical period
(ca. 200-800 A.H.) are found most abundantly in the
specialist culinary treatises. Few of these, unfor¬
tunately, are extant. The social milieu reflected by the
cookbook is clearly that of prosperous urban
households, although it would be safe to assume that
both palace and domestic kitchens shared a culinary
lore and a range and type of utensils in common.
Apart from this we know little of the operations and
personnel of the palace kitchens in particular, except
that they were of a far greater scale than those in the
domestic sphere. For example, Hilal al-Sabl reports
that in the time of al-Mu c tadid (d. 289/902) the
imperial “cook houses” ( matabikh ) were separate from
the bakeries ( makhabiz ) and the caliph was served from
his own private kitchen while the public’s needs were
catered to from a different one. ( Tuhfat al-umara? fi
taHikh al-wuzara ed. c Abd al-Sattar Faradj, Cairo
1958, 20-2). Domestic households of a comfortable
standard would have had their bread baked and food
cooked in the same complex.

The concept and design of the kitchen in a tradi¬
tional open courtyard house has probably remained
unchanged from mediaeval times to the last surviving
examples in modern-day Baghdad. Indeed, the essen¬
tial characteristics of the mediaeval open courtyard
house in c Irak are said to be the Mesopotamian in
origin and inspiration (see Subhl al- c AzzawI, A
descriptive, analytical and comparative study of traditional
courtyard houses and modern courtyard houses in Baghdad ,
Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, Univer¬
sity of London Ph.D. thesis, unpubl.). The kitchen
(the contemporary expression bayt al-matbakh being
equivalent to the lexicographers’ bayt al-tabbakh and
matbakh ) in multi-courtyard dwellings was a whole
complex comprising the kitchen proper, opening on to
its own courtyard with adjoining ancilliary areas such
as store rooms, latrine and bathroom, well and
possibly a cook’s room. The upper part of the court¬
yard, level with the first floor of the house, was sur¬
rounded by blank walls and open to the sky. The kit¬
chen of a single courtyard house faced directly on to
the courtyard itself and had either fewer or no ancil¬
liary areas attached to it. Larger multi-courtyard
houses might have a second kitchen adjacent to the
rooms where guests were entertained. Palaces of the
caliph and the c Abbasid princes were doubtless
fashioned on a much larger scale but along essentially
similar lines. Contrast this special function kitchen
complex with Lane’s description of a peasant’s house
in Lower Egypt in the 19th century, in which one
room generally had an oven (Eg. furn) “at the end far¬
thest from the entrance and occupying the whole
width of the chamber. It resembles a wide bench or
seat and is about breast high: it is constructed of brick
and mud, the roof arched within and flat on top.’’
During the cold months, the inhabitants would sleep
either on top of a warmed oven or on the floor of the
same room (Manners and customs of the modern Egyptians ,
London 1837, i, 30). Along the social spectrum,
therefore, food preparation was performed in areas
ranging from greater to lesser specialisation: from the
separate public and private kitchens and bakehouses
of the palaces to the shared kitchen-habitable area of
the peasant’s dwelling.

The well-equipped kitchen in an urban household
generally contained two major appliances. One was
the baking oven, the tanniir, of Mesopotamian origin
(Akkadian tinuru; see A. Salonen, Die Ofen der alien
Mesopotamier , in Baghdader Miiteilungen, iii [1964], 1 GO-
24). Cylindrical and bee-hive shaped, it gave the
appearance of a large, inverted pot, from which it
probably evolved. Fuel, preferably good charcoal, was

808

MATBAKH

inserted through a side opening, ignited, and when
the oven was sufficiently hot, baking could com¬
mence. The oven’s temperature could be adjusted to
some extent by closing its open top, the so-called
“eye” c ayn, or “mouth”/am, and its other apertures,
athkab (see Fawzi Rasul, al-Tannur wa-sind c atuhu fi
’l-Kazimiyya , in al-Turdth al-Sha c bf, iii/12 [1972], 95-
116). The earliest extant culinary manuscript, of late
4th/10th century c IrakI provenance, provides a list of
implements specifically used in baking bread in a tan-
nur (see Kitdb al-Tabfkh wa-islah al-aghdhiya al-ma^kulat
wa-tatyib al-atHma al-masnu c dt, by Abu Muhammad al-
Muzaffar b. Nasr b. Sayyar al-Warrak, Oxford,
Bodleian, ms. Hunt. 187; now ed. K. Ohrnberg and
S. Mroueh, Helsinki 1987). These include a dough
board ( lawh ); a small rolling pin ( shawbak ) for the
ordinary loaf (raghif) and a large one for the thin rikak;
a feather for coating the dough in certain prepara¬
tions; a wooden bowl ( djafna or mTdfan) in which the
dough was mixed and a metal scraper ( mihakk ) for
cleaning it afterwards. Yeast was kept in a wooden
container called a mihlab. A cloth ( mandit) was used to
wipe a loaf clean before baking and another was used
for wiping down the oven to remove unwanted
moisture or condensation. A poker ( sinnara ) was used
to remove the loaf from the oven if it fell upon the
floor inside, and a metal instrument ( mihrak ) was used
for raking out the embers and ash from the oven when
baking was finished.

The tannur was not used exclusively for baking
bread. A recipe for a kind of chicken pie made in a
pan (mikld) is described as being lowered into the oven
to cook and another dish, a meat, rice and vegetable
casserole made in a pot (kidr) was placed in the oven
to finish cooking. Both these dishes were called tan-
nuriyya, or oven-dish, which were often left to stew
gently overnight in a slowly cooling oven and served
the following day (al-Warrak, bab 87).

The second major cooking contrivance found in the
kitchen was known simply as the “fire-place”,
mustawkad. This was designed to accommodate several
cooking pots and/or pans side-by-side at the same
time. It was erected to about half-a-person’s height,
giving easy access to the cooking food and was pro¬
vided with vents allowing for an intake of air over the
coals and for the expulsion of smoke. It is evident that
many dishes required more than one pot in their
preparation, hence several “elements” might be used
in the preparation of a single meal. Another,
apparently independent, type of mustawkad was
recommended for the preparation of sweetmeats. Its
single element accommodated a mikld or tandjir, the
vessels in which sweetmeats were commonly made.
These dishes required long cooking over a low heat
accompanied by vigorous stirring of the pan’s con¬
tents. The shape and position of this mustawkad would
have made it easier to hold the pan and to control the
heat (al-Warrak, fol. 13a).

Al-Warrak’s depiction of the mediaeval batterie de
cuisine continues with a list of utensils employed in the
preparation of the innumerable main dishes. Cooking
pots ( kudur , sing, kidr) made of stone, earthenware,
copper or lead came in various sizes. The largest pots
were reported to hold the careasses of four goats (al-
Mas c udT, Murudi, viii, 54 =§3173). Such cauldrons,
however, were more apt to be found in the palace kit¬
chens or an army field mess than in a domestic kit¬
chen; contemporary recipes do not suggest such crude
bulk of ingredients. Judging from certain archaeolo¬
gical evidence, kiln pottery vessels of the “cooking
pot” and “casserole” types appear more modest in
size. Remains from a Byzantine pottery factory in

Cyprus reveal that the largest restored cooking pot
item was 0.27 m high and 0.31 m at its greatest
diameter; the smallest was 0.135 m high and 0.21 at
its greatest diameter. Casseroles with lip-edge type
rims which were probably provided with lids were
smaller still, the largest restored item being 0.11 m
high and 0.27 m in diameter (H. W. Catlong, An early
Byzantine pottery factory at Dhiorios in Cyprus , in Levant ,
iv [1972], 1-82). These vessel sizes seem appropriate
to the needs of even large domestic households.

Pans (sing, mikld or mikldt ) generally used for frying
fish and the like were made of iron. A stone-made
mikld was used for other purposes, although the
distinction between it and the former is unclear.
Other utensils found in the kitchen were roasting
skewers (sing, saffud ); a copper basin ( nukra ) for
washing smaller containers and vessels in hot water;
a large copper rod-like instrument (miha shsh ) for stuff¬
ing intestines; a large knife for jointing meat and
smaller ones for cutting up vegetables; several kinds of
strainer ( misfat ) made of wood or metal; a ladle
( mighrafa ) and a mallet ( midrab ). Spices were crushed
or powdered in a mortar ( hawun) and kept in glass
vessels. A similar but larger stone mortar (dfawun) was
used for pounding meat or crushing vegetables; while
meat was cut up on a wooden table or large wooden
surface ( khiwdn ).

As with bread-making operations, al-Warrak lists
separately implements for making sweetmeats (halwa).
Frequently these dishes were served shaped in the
form of a fish or bird fashioned thus by means of a
mould ( kdlab , pi. kawdlib). In other cases sweetmeats
were presented at a table decorated in a manner
appropriate for the occasion. The thick syrupy
substance which was the base of many kinds of halwa
was stirred slowly in a pan over the fire with utensils
called an istam and a kasba fdrisiyya. Some preparations
were rolled out after cooking on a marble slab
( fukhdma ) before being cut into individual pieces. (The
above data may be compared with Athenian
household utensils in the classical period in B. A.
Sparkes, The Greek kitchen, in J. of Hellenic Studies , lxxxii
[1962], 121-37.)

The separate lists of utensils for different tasks men¬
tioned in al-Warrak’s work suggests that at least in the
larger, prosperous households both a baker and
possibly a sweetmaker might have been retained in
addition to a cook and other assistants. It may indeed
be the case too, as Pellat has proposed, that the
baker’s ( khabbaz ) initial function evolved into that of a
chief kitchen steward or even household majordomo
(al-Djahiz, Bukhald 5 . tr. Ch. Pellat, Le livre des avares,
213, 258). The sweetmaker, on the other hand, may
have been more often a market-based specialist com¬
missioned to make his wares in people’s kitchens
when the need or occasion demanded. By and large,
therefore, a household’s status was marked socially, in
part, by its degree of independence from the commer¬
cial cooked food establishments of the market which
catered more to the needs of other sections of the
population. Despite allusions in the Thousand and One
Nights to “sending out” for food cooked in the
market, the hisba manuals convey the impression that
such fare was to be regarded with some suspicion.
This impression is underlined by the existence of one
market institution which must have served many
urban households. Dishes initially prepared in the kit¬
chen could be taken to the communal oven (furn ),
cooked there and returned to the kitchen to be gar¬
nished with chopped vegetable leaves and additional
spices. Preparation of such a dish in the kitchen
ensured a control over its quality; for its part, the furn

MATBAKH

809

served the needs of households which possessed
neither adequate kitchen space, equipment or labour
for meal preparation or else catered for a household’s
special festive occasions. In any event, the very
affluent establishments would seldom, if ever, require
the services of a communal oven manager.

Although we do not possess data on the day-to-day
details of kitchen management, food preparation was
a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. So
too were the efforts to keep the cooking pots and pans
clean in order to prevent the food becoming spoiled.
Al-Baghdadl’s instructions in his mid-7th/13th cen¬
tury cookbook run briefly as follows: “The utmost
care must be taken when washing the utensils used in
cooking and the pans; let them be rubbed with brick
dust, then with powdered dry potash and saffron and
finally with the fresh leaf of citron” (A Baghdad cookery
book , tr. A. J. Arberry, in IC, xiii [1939], 33). The
opening chapter of al-Warrak’s work deals with many
of the causes of spoiled food and how to avoid such
results. Meat must be thoroughly cleaned of any
blood and washed in pure cold (not hot) water in a
clean bowl; a knife used to cut up vegetables should
not be used at the same time to cut up meat; spices
which are old, have lost their essential flavour and
have become “bitter”, should not be used lest they
“corrupt the pot”. Likewise, salt and oil should be
tasted before adding them to the cooking food so as to
ensure they are still in good condition; attention must
be paid to see that the liquid of stews or bits of onion
and the like has not dried on the inside of pots and so
might spoil the food when next they were used; and
only fuel which does not give off acrid smoke should
be used, as the smoke could alter the taste of the food.

Finally, the kitchen or kitchen complex of the single
or multi-courtyard house ( bayt maftuh) allowed a sheep
or goat and several fowl to occupy the yard awaiting
slaughter and the cooking pot; thus meat could be
kept and cooked fresh. Fruits, herbs and certain
vegetables were also dried and then stored in the kit¬
chen’s ancilliary area along with food prepared by
pickling and special condiments such as murrl. Home¬
made beer and wine could be stored there as well. The
wide range of activities associated with the transfor¬
mation of food from its “raw to cooked” state (clearly
reflected in the treasury of contemporary recipes)
indicates the central importance of the kitchen and its
management not only to the smooth running of day-
to-day family life but also to the broader social and
political aspects of food preparation and consumption
which existed within the enclosed world of the
domestic compound.

Bibliography : In addition to works cited in the
article, the following items have been selected
which contain data more closely related to kitchen
technology than to cooking as such: R. J. Forbes,
Food and drink , in A history of technology , ed. C. Singer
et alii , Oxford 1957, ii, 103-45; idem. Chemical,
culinary and cosmetic arts, in ibid., i, 270-85; J.
Needham, Science and civilisation in China , Cam¬
bridge 1980, v/4, 1-210; M. M. Ahsan, Social life
under the Abbasids, London 1979, 76-164; Margaret
Arnott (ed.), Gastronomy: the anthropology of food and
food habits , The Hague 1975; D. Waines, Pro¬
legomena to the study of cooking in Abbasid times , in
School of Abbasid Studies, Occasional Papers , no. 1, St.
Andrews University 1986, 30-9.

(D. Waines)

2. In Ottoman Turkey.

In Ottoman society, matbakh , in vernacular Turkish
mutfak, the kitchen, had a central importance not only
because the members of the ruling elite had to feed

their large retinues but also because, as a social
institution, it served to establish and symbolise
patrimonial bonds in society. Feeding people gave rise
to a variety of elaborate organisations related to the
Sultan’s palace, to the elite and to the charitable
institutions. By fulfilling charitable duties as pre¬
scribed by Islam and by leading to the accumulation
and redistribution of wealth, these organisations
played a crucial role in Ottoman social life and in the
economy in general.

a. Special feasts and foods. Feeding people
or giving public feasts had an important ritualistic-
ceremonial and political function among the pastoral
nomads of Eurasia. In the Kok-Tiirk inscriptions
dated 732-5 A.D. (ed. H. N. Orkun, 1C 10, ID 16,
17), the primary task and accomplishment of a
Kaghan was described as “the feeding and clothing of
his people”. In the Kutadgu bilig, a royal advice book
written in 1070 in Turkish, being generous and
“entertaining people with food and drink” are
counted among the chief virtues of a prince (tr. R.
Dankoff, 107; Inalcik, Kutadgu Bilig’de..., 270).

Later references to this custom indicate that
“feeding his people” was institutionalised within the
state organisation. To give a public feast was a
privilege and a duty of the ruler. The institution was
known as toy in Turkish (in Mongol toyilan : Manghol-un
Niuca Tobca^an, tr. A. Temir, 53), sholen (in Mongol,
shulen: Temir, 202) or ash. It was originally associated
with the institution of a potlatch (Abdiilkadir Inan,
“ Han-iyagma" deyiminin kokeni , in Turk Dili , vi, 543-
6). Ogedey ordered that one sheep from each herd was
to be taken annually and given to the poor. This
institution was called shulen (A. Temir, ibid.). Follow¬
ing his election to the khanate, Cingiz Khan had set
up a kitchen as part of the state organisation (Temir,
58; cf. ch. on the qualifications of a chief cook in the
Kutadgu bilig , 133). In the public feast given by the
Kaghan at the meeting of the tribal chiefs, the
customarily-determined seat (orun) and share of mut¬
ton served ( uliish ) to each chief was scrupulously
regulated, for this was considered a ceremonial
recognition of his rank (see Inan, Orun ve iiliis meselesi,
in THIM, i, 121-33; cf. A. Z. V. Togan, Oguz destam,
Istanbul 1972, 47-48; Abu TGhazf Bahadur Kh an.
Shedjere-yi Terdkime, ed. R. Nur, Istanbul 1925, 31).
Arbitrary change in the order and hierarchy might
lead to a rebellion. At such toys or shiilens, important
issues concerning the khanate were discussed and
decisions taken. The practice was apparently intro¬
duced into the Islamic world by the Saldjuks. Nizam
al-Mulk ( Siyasat-nama , ed. Darke, 162) speaks of it as
a custom, scrupulously observed by the Saldjuks;
To gh ril Beg held an open eating table in his palace
every morning. Because it was interpreted as a proof
of the ruler's care for his subject, he was personally
interested in the quality of the food served. The
Karakhanids. says Nizam al-Mulk (ibid. ), considered
toy an jmportant state affair. Early Ottoman traditions
(see c Ashik-Pasha-zade, ed. N. Atsiz, 98), tell us that
in the Ottoman palace it was the custom for a band to
play every afternoon to invite people to come and eat.
At any rate, it was a carefully observed custom to
offer, in the second court of the Ottoman palace, food
to anyone who came to submit a case to the imperial
council (see S. Cantacassin, 75).

The Ottomans also followed the Islamicised forms
of the ancient Iranian rituals of Mihragan [q.v.] and
Nawruz [q.v. ] which became occasions for public
festivities. The offering of pishkash or presents by high
officials and governors to the Sultan at such times was
an occasion for the renewal of bonds of loyalty, as had

810

majbakh

been the case in ancient Iran (Dhabih Allah Safa, Gdh-
shumdriwa djashnhd-yi Iraniydn, n.d., n.p., 43-5, 47-51,
55, 81-102; I. H. Uzungar^ili, Saray, 366, 371, 507).
The 21st (in the old calendar, 9th) of March was
accepted by the Ottomans as nevruz (nawruz) or the
beginning of the new year (for different dates, see
Safa, ibid.). On that day, it was a widespread custom
to eat and offer a special paste, ma c djun, called
nevruziyye (M. Celal, Eski Istanbul , 99; Uzungarsili,
Saray , 366). Nawruz was also the beginning of the fiscal
year in the Ottoman financial calendar.

Festivals of Iranian origin were, in the course of
time, identified with the memorable events of Islam.
For Bektashis, nawruz is the most important festival,
celebrated with a special feast, since 9 March is
believed to be the birthday of c AlT. It is a religiously
meritorious act to celebrate nights of special impor¬
tance in the history of Islam. The night of the
Prophet’s birth, 12 Rabf : I, as well as those of r agh a^ib.
3 Radjab; of the prophet’s mi c rddj_ [q.v.], 27 Radjab;
of bara^a or barat, 15 Sha c ban; and the laylat al-kadr, 3
Ramadan, are celebrated with special prayers. After
prayers, special dishes or sweets ( helva ) are offered
which are an important part of the ritual: special wakfs
[q. v. called ta c amiyye were established specifically for
the distribution of food in the zawiyes and c imarets on
these days (examples of Ayverdi and Barkan, Istanbul
vakiflan, nos. 1788, 1790). The day of c ashurd [q. v. ], 10
Muharram, had special meaning for the tankas of
ShiT tinge. It was the occasion of a ritual at the der-
wish convents, the elements of which were reminis¬
cent of the ancient Iranian nawruz ritual (cf. Safa, 88,
101). The preparation of a special food for the day
called ashure ( c ashura ) at the convents had its own
elaborate ritual (see Grace M. Smith, c Ashure and, in
particular, the Q Ashure of Muharrem, in Jnal. of Turkish
Studies, viii, 229-31; eadem, Food customs at the Kadirihane
Dergah, in JTS, vii, 403). The day of c ashura was
observed commonly by all classes of society, including
the Sultan’s palace.

During the month of Ramadan, it was a custom for
the Sultan and the principal dignitaries to invite their
subordinates to the iftar meals in the evening, which
were occasions for the renewal of the nisba or
patrimonial relations among the elite (see M. Celal,
93-5; B. Felek, Yasadigim Ramazanlar, in the
newspaper Hurriyet, June 1985). Special dishes were
expected at the iftar meals. The introduction of a
Western menu in the 19th century drew criticism
regarding this. On the c Id al-adha , Turkish Kurban
bayrami, thousands of sheep were slaughtered and
distributed to the poor by the Sultan and well-to-do
citizens. Offering sweets was customary at the c Id al-
fitr (Ali Riza, Bir zamanlar Istanbul, 120-81; M. Celal,
89-100).

Also on special occasions, such as the Sultan’s
accession to the throne, a major victory on the bat¬
tlefield, weddings or burials, elaborate public feasts
were given which in their size and character
resembled old Turkish toys (for the Sur-name s which
contain full description of the feasts, A. S. Levend,
Turk edebiyati tarihi, 641; Edirne, 265-96; 6. Nutku,
IV. Mehmed’in Edirne senligi; on the toy given by
Mehemmed II after the conquest of Constantinople,
Ewliya Celebi, i, 60-2; the kh w an-iyaghma given to the
Crimean troops was a typical toy, described by
Findiklfli Mehmed, Silahdar taMkhi, ii, 27).

The festival of Khidr-Ilyas, in vernacular Turkish
Hidrellez [see khidr and ilyas], celebrated universally
in the Ottoman lands, was also an occasion for a com¬
munal ritual feast usually called tafarrudf. Like nawruz,
it was associated with a cult celebrating the beginning

of spring with the difference that Hidrellez was
celebrated on 6 May (or 23 April, O.S.). It is to be
noted that the Christian festival of St. George, who
was identified with Khidr. was held on the same day
(Hasluck, i, 48, 319-26).

The halwa (Turkish helva) gathering, celebrated on
1 May, is a ritual related rather to the jutuwwa [q.v.]
tradition of the craft guilds and the tankas [q.v.] (I.
Melikoff, Le ritual du Helva; A. Y. Ocak, Islam-Turk
inanclannda Hizir). Ritual foods, tuz-ekmek (§. Elgin,
Tuz-ekmek hakki deyimi uzerine), sherbet, lokma, helva,
were all prepared and served ritually along with
suitable prayers (see Grace Smith, ibid.).

In general, ritual food signified submission and
mystical union in the tanka ceremonies (see Haci Bektay
vilayetnamesi, ed. A. Golpinarh, 17-18, 27).

The Janissary [see yeni£eri] corps was symbolically
organised on the model of a kitchen. The explanation
may lie in the jutuwwa and BektashI connections of the
corps, or in the old Turkish custom of toy (see above).
The kazan-i sharij, or sacred cauldron of corba (soup),
attributed to HadjdjI Bektash [q.v. ] was the emblem of
the whole Janissary corps. The Janissary headgear
was ornamented with a spoon. High officers were
called corbadjj. Also, each orta, or division, had its own
kazan , and the head cook of the orta kitchen was the
most influential officer in the division. The kitchen
was also used as a detention place. Important
meetings were held around the kazan-i sharij. Overtur¬
ning it meant rejecting the Sultan’s food, i.e.
rebellion, whilst to accept one’s food meant submis¬
sion in general (see §. Elgin, Tuz-ekmek hakki...).

b. The Matbakh-i c Amira or Palace Kit¬
chen. In addition to visitors, there was in the
Sultan’s palace a large body of palace servants who
had to be fed every day. In 933/1527 servants in the
Birun, Outer Service, alone, numbered 5,457 ( IFM,
xvii, 300). The annual account books of the New
Palace (the Topkapi Palace) (in Belgeler, ix, 72-81,
108-49) list separately the following kitchens: the
Matbakh-i c Amira, or Imperial Kitchen; the Helwa-
khane (formerly sherbet-khane, confectioner’s kitchen);
and the two bake-houses for simid and jodula. Within
the Matbakh-i c Amira itself, reference is made to par¬
ticular kitchens: Matbakh-i A gh a-yi Saray (K. for the
Chief Eunuch of the Palace), the Matbakh-i Aghdyan
(K. for the Chief Eunuchs), and the Matbakh-i
Ghulamdn-i Enderun (K. for the Palace pages). A
special kitchen called ku shkh ane (not to be confused
with the Palace aviary) was reserved exclusively for
the Sultan himself. The entire southern part of the
Second Court in the Palace was occupied by kitchens,
storerooms, apartment for the Kitchen personnel and
offices (see Plan I, in B. Miller, Beyond the Sublime
Porte, 8). After a destructive fire, ten kitchens were
rebuilt under Suleyman I by the architect Sinan [q.v.],
who created a grandiose construction with domes and
chimneys. Each of the ten kitchens served a special
group.

There were two storehouses, kilar or kiler, one in the
Birun, the other in the Enderun (Andarun) where provi¬
sions for the Palace were stored. The more valuable
items such as sugar and spices mainly provided from
Egypt (Misir irsaliyyesi) were preserved in the inner
kiler under the direct supervision of the kilerdfi-bashi.
The bulkier goods were stored in the outer kiler under
the supervision of the Matbakh kilerdjisi. Other palaces
in Istanbul, such as the Saray-i c AtIk, Uskudar Sarayi
and Ghalata Sarayi, and the palaces in Edirne and
Bursa, had their own kitchen organisations similar to
those of the Topkapi Palace.

During the classical period (1400-1600), all the

MATBAKH

811

work involved in the procurement of provisions and
the preparation and distribution of food within the
Palace was under the responsibility of the kilerdfi-bashi,
also known as sar-kildri-i khdssa, or the Head of the
Imperial Larder. He was the chief of the third of the
Imperial Chambers which were in direct contact with
the Sultan. The staff under the kilerdfi-bashi grew con¬
siderably over the course of time, from 20 in the early
16th century to 134 in 1090/1679 (Uzungar^ih,
315).The number of cooks in the ten Imperial Kit¬
chens also increased considerably, as follows:

tasnifi, Matbakh-i c Amir a muhasebe defterlerv, for
Ottoman cookery in the mid-17th century, see Seyyid
Mehmed, Sohbet-name , Topkapi Sarayi Library,
Hazine K. 1425 and 1418).

Provisions were to be supplied regularly to the
imperial kitchens under the supervision of a matbakh
emini, who organised their delivery. Also responsible
for book keeping and accounts, he was assisted by a
katkhuda, two kdtibs (scribes) and a larder attendant
( hilerdfi ). A bureaucrat of the rank of kh w ddje , the emin
was nevertheless a dependent of the kilerdji-bashi (for

Table I

Cooks of the Imperial Palace (Topkapi )

Date

Number

Salary

Source

916/1510

260 (50 of the usta)

—

S. Cantacassin, 74

933/1526

277

654,900

IFM, xv, 308-12

978/1570

1570

2,536,056

IFM y xvii, 333-5

(includes staff of

storerooms and ovens)

ca. 1060/1650

1370

2,500,000

Eyyubf Efendi

The cooks, dshdjis or tabbakhs, were organised in an
odfak (corps), which was divided into boliiks, in the
same way as other military corps at the Porte. The
corps was headed by the sar-tabbakhin-i khdssa , also
known as bash-dshdji-bashi with the rank of dghd. As in
other corps, the dghd was assisted by a katkhuda
(lieutenant) and a katib, secretary. As professionals,
the cooks were subjected to a hierarchy as in any craft,
which consisted of usta or ustad, kalfa or khalifa, and
shagird (master, foreman and novice). As a rule, a
shagird joined the corps from the corps of c adfemi-
oghlans [see kapi-kulu]. He learned the profession
while working under an usta or ashdji-bashi, later
becoming an a shdi i , then being promoted to ashdji-
bashi.

Servants under the kilerdfi-bashi in the storerooms in
the Birun formed a separate corps in ten boliiks. Under
him were the following: khabbazan (bakers), kassdbdn
(butchers), halwadjiyan (helva -makers), yoghurtdjiydn
(yoghurt-makers), sebzedjiyan (keepers of vegetables),
simiddfiydn (makers of ring bread), buzdjiyan and kar-
djiyan (keepers of ice and snow), c a shsh abdn (keepers of
herbs), tavukdjiyan (keepers of poultry), kalaydjiyan (tin¬
ners of the copper ustensils), mumdjiydn (makers of
candles), sakkdyan (water-carriers), gandum-kubdn
(wheat-pounders). Cashnigiran (waiters), made a com¬
pletely independent group under a cashnigir-bashi in
the Birun section. The Sultan was served by the
kilerdji-bashi and his staff in the Enderun.

Table II

Cashnigirs

Date

Number

Source

900/1494

IFM, xv, 308

916/1510

Cantacassin, 70

ra. 920/1514

IFM y xv, 313

1018/1609

117

c AynI C A1I, 97

1079/1668

IFM, xvii, 228

The Sultan’s cooks competed to please the Sultan
by preparing special dishes of their own cooking. The
Sultan showed his pleasure by giving a reward (in c am)
(records in Belgeler , ix, 300, 305). Thus the Ottoman
palace was considered as a centre where Ottoman
Turkish cooking excelled and where creative chefs
were trained (see A. Muhtar, As-evi). Detailed records
on the ingredients used are to be found in the kitchen
expenditure books (see the registers called Muhasebe-yi
ikhradjat-i khdssa published by O. L. Barkan, Belgeler,
ix; and the Basvekalet Archives, Istanbul, K. Kepeci

the functions of the emin , see, e.g. Muhasebe defteri, BA,
K. Kepeci no. 7291). Provisions were bought either
from the market or as irsdliyye or odjaklik (see
mukata c a] procured regularly from the resources
under the control of the finance department.

The tremendous amount of meat consumed at the
imperial palaces give rise to a vast organisation under
a kassab-basht, who was financially dependent on the
matbakh emini. For the kitchens of the Topkapi Palace
alone, the annual consumption of lamb was about
1,270 tons, costing 12 million akcas. The other three
palaces consumed 458 tons annually ( IFM, xvii,
295-8).

The kitchen expenditures of the temporary
embassies were met by the Porte. In 1079/1669, e.g.,
the Russians received provisions worth 347,000 akce s.

Table III

The total annual expenditure for the provisions of the Palace

Kitchens

Under Suleyman I

Million akces
4.8

In gold pieces
80,000

,, Selim II

6.3

105,000

,, Murad III

175,000

In 1072/1661

44.3

369,000

In 1164/1750

900,000 ghurush

328,000

The organisation of the kitchen in the houses of the
elite was a miniature replica of the Sultan’s one. It
included two separate kitchens, one for the lord and
the other for the servants. Both had master cooks
(usta) and apprentices or assistants (shagird). In
1082/1671 a vizier-governor, c Umar ( c Omer) Pasha’s
kitchen personnel (see M. Kunt, 15-22) consisted of
one matbakh emini , also known as wakll-khardj, six
cooks, six pantrymen (kildri), two shopping boys and
one butler. Expenditure for provisions through the
wakil-kharcQ amounted to about 8,600 gold pieces or
16.7% of the Pasha’s total expenditure. Members of
the elite spent an unusual amount of money for kit¬
chen expenses, not only because they had large
retinues to feed (in c Umar Pasha’s case, 220 persons)
but also because they were expected “to keep the
house open’’ to visitors.

In the houses of the elite and well-to-do, the matbakh
and th e furun (oven) were to be found often as separate
constructions in the courtyard.

c. The c Imaret and Zdwiye. The Hmdrets func¬
tioned as an extensive network of social aid in
Ottoman society, particularly in the cities. Numerous

812

MATBAKH

Hmfirets provided food for thousands of people who did
not have an independent source of income. Charity,
materialised through the institution of Hmfiret, was
accepted as an integral part of the Islamic wakf
system, but considered extensively, the Hmfiret system
might also be related to pre-Islamic Turkish
traditions.

Through this system, the immense wealth, which
was accumulated in the hands of the ruling elite, was
redistributed among the unprivileged and dependent
people. Built within a religious complex, an Hmfiret
compound usually included a matbakh, a ta c fim-khfine or
dfir al-diyfifa (eating hall), hudjras (rooms for visitors),
an anbfir or kilfir (larder), a furun (oven), an istabl
(stable) and a mahtab or odunluk (store for firewood).
The entire Hmfiret compound was put under a shaykh-i
Hmfiret, while each section came under the respon¬
sibility of an employee specialising in that service.
The Matbakh personnel of a large Hmfiret (see Belgeler,
i, 235-377; Kara Ahmed Pasa vakfiyyesi, in Vakiflar
Dergisi, ii, 83-97) included first a wakll-hhard)
(steward), kilfin (larder attendant), anbfin (keeper of
the storeroom for bulky provisions), nakibs
(distributors and supervisors), tabbfikhs (cooks), a head
cook, and khabbfizs (bakers); in the second category
came a gandum-kfib (wheat-pounder), a kfise-shuy (bowl-
washer), hammfils (porters) and bostfinis (gardeners).
There were also kapidiis (gate-keepers), leberdfirs
(halberdiers), fikhfiri (stable boy), cirfighdii (candle-
lighter), kfise-kes/ch (waiter), ferrfish (sweeper) and
mezbele-kesh (carrier of garbage). At smaller Hmfirets or
zfiwiyes, there were to be found only a shaykh, cooks,
bakers and a store-keeper. At the derwish zfiwiyes , the
main services were assumed by the babas and others by
dervishes, in a hierarchical order. According to the
$ufi interpretation, each service represented a station
in the training of a disciple. In the Bektashi order, the
ekmekdji-baba and fishdji-baba came second and third
after the pust-nishin in the hierarchy, which cor¬
responded to the ekmek-evi and fish-evi in the tekke (J. K.
Birge, The Bektashi order, 175, 250; S. Faroqhi, Der
Bektaschi-Orden, 105; eadem, Seyyid Gazi, in Turcica,
xiii, 94, 103; A. Golpinarh, Mevlanadan soma

mevlevilik, Istanbul 1953, 391). The administrators
comprised a mutawalli (trustee and administrator), a
nfizir (supervising trustee), a kfitib (secretary) and
djfibis (collectors of revenues). All this gives an idea of
how an Hmfiret or zfiwiye was organised and func¬
tioned.

The word Hmfiret is sometimes used synonymously
with khfinakfih or zfiwiye ; but in all categories, the run¬
ning of a matbakh and cooking and distributing food
for the needy constituted the most important function.

Imfirets founded by the sultans in large cities were
the most developed form of public soup kitchen. The
Hmfiret of Fatih, part of the charitable complex estab¬
lished by Mehemmed II [q.v.], had an annual income
of about 20,000 gold ducats. This income was derived
from 57 wakf villages and the djizya tax of the non-
Muslims (8,677 taxpayers) of Istanbul. At least 1,117
persons received food from this Hmfiret. The figure
included 957 students, employees and servants of the
Hmfiret and 160 travellers ( IFM, xxiii, 306-41). For
better service, a tawzih-nfima, or regulation for
distribution (ed. A. S. Unver, Fatih ashanesi tevzi'
namesi , Istanbul 1953) was drawn in 952/1545. The
food, when left over, was further distributed among
the poor in the neighbourhood, with widows and
orphans getting priority. Those benefiting from an
Hmfiret are listed, in order, as the fukarfi? (destitute)
coming first, and then masfikin (those unable to make
a livelihood) and musfifinn (travellers). Sometimes

poor orphans (yatim ) and school children are also men¬
tioned in the wakf deeds among the beneficiaries. Der¬
vish zfiwiye s are included in the category of
establishments which offer food and shelter to
travellers and the needy. In the documents granting
arable land as mulk/wakf to the shaykh of a zfiwiye, it is
always stipulated that his primary duty is to provide
food and shelter to travellers (see Vakiflar Dergisi , ii,
304-53). In the countryside, the zfiwiye was thought
indispensable for people travelling and a factor pro¬
moting settlement and prosperity. Anyway, helping
travellers was included among the zakfit [q.v. ] duties
and the performance of this duty in the name of the
Sultan was given to the care of a dervish community,
as an old Islamic tradition. The zfiwiyes of the akhis
[q.v. ] were particularly active during the first period of
Ottoman expansion and settlement, when hundreds
of zfiwiyes and similar institutions were established
throughout the empire; in 936/1530 there were 626
zfiwiyes and khfinakfihs , 45 c imfirets , 1 kalender-khfine and
1 mevlevl-khfine in the province of Anatolia (western
Asia Minor).

As a rule, a zfiwiye encompassed two sections, a tekke
(convent), where the dervishes performed their
religious rites, and a matbakh or fish-evi, where food was
prepared and distributed to the dervishes, to travellers
and to the needy. The matbakh was considered so
important that usually it dominated the whole zfiwiye
structure, and took up by far the largest share of the
zfiwiye’s revenue (see Faroqhi, Der Bektashi-Orden, 48-
75). In the urban zfiwiyes, the residents of the quarter
where the zfiwiye was built set up additional wakfs to
supplement the salaries of the servants or to pay for
the preparation and distribution of food on holy days
(kandils). Thus the zfiwiye, like the mosque of the
quarter, constituted a common religious centre as well
as a charitable institution (see Istanbul vakiflan, ed.
Ayverdi and Barkan) in the mahalla [?. t>. ].

Bibliography. Ba^vekalet Archives, Istanbul:
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MATBAKH

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854. For folk des tans on food, see Halk kultiirii,
i (1984), 59-63; Seyyid Mehmed, Sohbet-ndme,
Topkapi S. K. Hazine, nos. 1425 and 1418. For an
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H. Karpuz, Eski Turk evlerinin bolmeleri , in Turk
folklor araptirmalan , ii (Ankara 1982), 37-48. For
coffee houses, see A. Galland, De Torigine et du
progres du Caffe, Caen 1669; Pe£flyi, Ta\ikh, i,
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general de Vempire ottoman , ii, Paris 1790, 123-6; R.
Hattox, Coffee and coffeehouses, Seattle and London
1985. For the Matbakh-i c Amire or imperial
kitchens, in addition to the documents men¬
tioned above, see Idris-i BidllsT, Hasht bihisht ,
Topkapi P. Lib. H. no. 1655, p. 651; Th. Span-
douyn Cantacassin, Petit tr aide de Torigine des Turcqz,

ed. C. Schefer, Paris 1892, 71-4; i. H. Uzungarsih
Saray ieskilati, Ankara 1945, 313-15, 379-84, 455-
60; B. Miller, Beyond the Sublime Porte, New York
1931, 185-200; Koih Bey, Risale, ed. A. K. Aksiit,
Istanbul 1939, 81-2, 114-15; Hafiz Khidir Ilyas,
Ta^nkh-i Enderun, Istanbul 1276/1859, 384-85. For
eating and table manners, see Kay Kawus b.
Iskandar, Kabus-nama, tr. R. Levy, London 1951,
55-60; Mustafa c AlI, MawaHd aTnafd } isfikawaHd al-
madjalis, ed. C. Baysun, Istanbul 1951, 87, 117-20.
For Turkish cuisine, see a Turkish tr., with
additions, of Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Katib al-
Baghdadl, Kitdb al-Tablkh (on this work see above,
Arberry, and Giinay Kut, 13. yiizyila ait bir yemek
kitabi, in Kaynakalar , iii [Istanbul 1984], 50-7);
Mehmed Kamil, MaldfoT al-tabbdkhin, ms. in
Topkapi S. K. Hazine 1186, Istanbul 1275/1859;
N. Sefercioglu, Turk yemekleri , Ankara 1985;
Ahmed Mukhtar. Ash-evi, Istanbul 1319/1901;
Hadiyye Fakhriyye, Yemek kitabi, Istanbul
1340/1924; eadem, Tatlidjj bashi, Istanbul
1342/1926; Suheyl Unver, Fatih devri yemekleri,
Istanbul 1952; idem, Tarihte 50 Turkyemegi, Istan¬
bul 1948; idem, Fatih afhanesi tevzi’-namesi, Istanbul
1953; H. Z. Ko$ay and A. Ulkiican, Anadolu
yemekleri ve Turk mutfagi, Ankara 1961; E. Z. Oral,
Sel(uk devri yemekleri ve ekmekleri, in Turk etnografya
dergisi, i, ii; M. K. Ozergin, Bolvadin yemekleri, in
Turk folklor arastirmalan , no. 227 (1968); S. Yiice,
Bucak’ta sofra ve yemek gelenekleri, in ibid., no. 210
(1967); N. Gozaydin, Bazi Anadolu yemekleri, in
ibid., 223 (1968); A. Turgut Kut, Aciklamali yemek
kitaplan bibliyografyasi, Ankara 1985.

(Halil Inalcik)

3. In Persia [see Suppl.].

4. In Mughal India.

It is not easy to determine to what extent the
Mughal commissariat perpetuated earlier Indian
models: consistent information comes only from the
times of Akbar and his successors, and although there
are copious references to banquets from earlier reigns,
and some allusions to favourite articles of food, there
is almost nothing recorded about kitchen orga¬
nisation.

Under Akbar, the Imperial kitchen, matbakh (called
in Humayun’s time bawarci-khana), including its
dependent branches of dbddr-khana (the court water-
supply), mewa-khana (supply of fruits both fresh and
dried) and rikdb-khdna (pantry, specially where bread
is prepared), was one division of the imperial
household under the control of the Kh an-i Saman.
The kitchen itself was controlled by a mir bakawal, on
whose staff were several assistant bakawals, a treasurer
and his assistants—for the kitchen estimates and
accounts were kept separately—clerks, marketers, a
large retinue of cooks “from all countries”, food-
tasters, table spreaders and servers, and perhaps most
important, a large number of storekeepers, for the
Imperial Kitchen had to be ready to move a day in
advance of the Emperor when he went on tour.

The mir bakawal was required, according to the
AHn-i Akbari, to prepare both annual and monthly
estimates for his department, to determine the rates of
materials required, and to make the necesary pur¬
chases, entering all these in a day-book; he had also
to pay the monthly wages of the staff. Provisions such
as rice from various sources, other grains, ghi
(clarified butter), live goats and sheep, ducks and
fowls, etc., were collected at the beginning of each
season (doubtless to take advantage of seasonal fluct¬
uations in prices); the livestock would be fattened
under the care of the cooks; a kitchen-garden was also

814

MATBAKH

♦

established to provide a continual supply of fresh
vegetables. Livestock was slaughtered outside the city
or camp by a river or tank, and the meat washed and
sent to the kitchen in sealed sacks; within the kitchen
it would again be washed in selected water taken from
sealed vessels before being cooked. During the cook¬
ing processes, in which every dish would be under the
supervision of one of the sub-bakawals , awnings would
be spread and lookers-on carefully kept away; the
finished dishes, after being tasted by the cooks and the
bakawals, would be served in utensils of gold or silver,
tinned copper or earthenware, tasted by the mir
bakawal, tied up in cloths and sealed, with a note of
their contents, before being sent to the table; as an
additional precaution a storekeeper would send also a
list of the vessels used, so that none of the dishes might
be substituted by an unauthorised one, and the used
vessels had to be checked against the list when they
were returned. As the food was carried from the kit¬
chen by the bakawals, cooks and others, guarded by
mace bearers, a similar procession would be sent from
the bakery, the abdar-khana, and the mewa-khana , all
dishes again sealed by a bakawal. Some dishes from the
Imperial table might be sent, as a mark of special
favour, to the queens and princes; but of course the
kitchen was kept busy the whole time, apart from the
meals required for the emperor's table, in providing
meals for the zanana.

As remarked above, s.v. ganga, the water of the
Ganges had a special reputation for purity, and here
perhaps pre-Mughal usage is perpetuated in that
Muhammad b. Tughluk is known to have used
special couriers to bring Ganges water to his court;
Akbar while at Agra or Fathpur Sikrl is said to have
obtained Ganges water from Soron (miscalled Sarun
in Blochmann’s tr. of A^in-i Akbari, a?in 22), a town of
some antiquity now no longer on the main channel of
the Ganges, and while in Lahawr from Hardwar. His
practice was followed by later Mughal rulers. This
was used for drinking water; but even water for cook¬
ing purposes had a small amount of Ganges water
mixed with it. Trustworthy persons drew the water
and despatched it to court in sealed jars. Drinking
water was at first cooled in sealed containers stirred in
a vessel containing a solution of saltpetre, although
after the court moved to the Pandjab, ice was
regularly used, brought from the Pandjab hills by land
or water. For all these arrangements the abdar-khana
was responsible, and also for the provision of sharbat
when required; indeed, in the reign of Djahanglr
[q.v.] the abdar-khana was known as the sharbat-khana.
On the march or in camp, drinking water was cooled
by being carried in a tinned flask covered with a cloth
wrapping which was kept constantly moist, so that the
contents were cooled by evaporation from the surface,
as in the modern army water-bottle (the evidence of
Mughal paintings shows a simpler method, still in
use: the water is kept in a large earthenware vessel
(surahi ), only lightly glazed or unglazed, mounted on
a simple stand and placed so as to catch any breeze).

The mewa-khana received much attention from the
Mughal emperors. Babur, in a touching passage in
the Tuzuk , recalls the delights of the grapes and
melons of his homeland and regrets their absence
from India; but such luxuries were later regularly
imported after the conquest of Kabul, Kandahar and
Kashmir, and Akbar settled horticulturists from
“Iran and Turan” for the cultivation of fruit trees in
India. Abu ’1-Fadl, AHn-i Akban, a^in 28, gives a list
of some two dozen imported fruits and nuts, three
dozen native Indian sweet fruits, and a score of sour
and sub-acid fruits. A special “fruit” described in this

section is the pan, a heart-shaped green leaf smeared
with lime and catechu, to which is added slices or
granules of betel-nut with aromatic spices, sometimes
camphor, musk, or costly perfumes, and rolled into a
bird, which may then be finished with silver or even
gold leaf. A pan was often presented to a courtier as
a mark of royal favour, and Mughal brass pdndans,
with compartments to hold the leaves, nuts and other
requisites, were also presented as gifts.

Abu ’1-Fadl’s account shows further what kinds of
dishes were prepared for the Imperial table, and he
gives thirty specimen receipts—or rather lists of ingre¬
dients, since there is no information about the cooking
processes involved. These are divided into three
categories: be-gosht (meatless), “commonly called
sufiyana ”; go fit ba-birandi, meat with rice; and abazir,
spiced dishes. The categories, however, do not seem
to be mutually exclusive. There is already ample
evidence for the Indianisation of the Mughal fare, in
both the ingredients (including cardamoms, cin¬
namon, saffron, ample fresh ginger root, asafoetida,
turmeric and others among the spices; chillis are con¬
spicuously absent, and summak , a favourite Persian
condiment, appears only once) and the nomenclature
(dal, lentils; sag , a spinach dish; capati among the
breads; khicrl among the rice dishes). Abu 'l-Fa^l’s list
of current market prices for common commodities
(aTn 27) refers to many by Indian names (e.g. milng
and moth among the lentils) and includes such Indian
favourites as mangoes-in-oil and lemons-in-oil,
among the pickles.

The large number of meatless dishes calls for com¬
ment. Akbar declared a number of sufiyana days in
which he ate no meat, including Fridays, Sundays
(because, according to Djahanglr, it was the day of his
birth), the first day of each solar month, and through¬
out the month of Aban and at least part of Farwardln,
and on many other days detailed by Abu '1-Fadl; he
increased the number of sufiyana days each year, and
on these days no animals were permitted to be
slaughtered. Djahanglr, whose Tuzuk shows him to
have been a connoisseur of good food, ate sufiyana
meals on Sundays in his father’s memory, and on
Thursdays to commemorate his own accession.

The kitchen department had also obviously to
provide for the wine and other intoxicants used in the
court, for although the official chroniclers are
understandably reticent on the subject it is
inconceivable that similar precautions to those taken
for foodstuffs and water should not be applied also to
wine. Kh w andamTr records ( Kanun-i Humayum , 49)
that a suci khana issuing wines existed apart from the
abdar-khana. Besides wine from the grape, c arak, such
drugs as opium, bhang (hemp, Cannabis saliva) and the
electuary ma : djun, of variable components, were freely
used by many of the Mughal rulers and the nobles
(too freely, to judge by the fate of Akbar’s sons Murad
and Daniyal, and many others!).

A subordinate kitchen department, not part of the
household, existed to provide food in the langar-khana,
soup-kitchen, established as a charity around many of
the royal courts to provide simple food for the poor.

Bibliography: The most complete information
is to be found in Abu ’1-Fadl c AllamI, A Tn-i Akban,
i, a^ms 22-8. Sporadic information in Tuzuk-i
Baburl; Gulbadan Begam, Humayun-nama ; Kh w an-
damir, Kanun-i Humayum; Tuzuk-i Dj ahangin. Occa¬
sional light is thrown by the accounts of European
travellers, especially Manucci, Storia do Mogor;
Monserrate, Mongolicae legationis commentarius , Eng.
tr. J. S. Hoyland, 1922, 199; Bernier; Tavernier;
Peter Mundy; and Sir Thomas Roe, Embassy ...to

MATBAKH — MATHAL

815

the court of the Great Moghul , cd. Hakluyt Soc., 1926.

M. Azher Ansari, The diet of the great Mughals, and

The Abdar Khanah of Mughals , in /C, xxxiii (1959),

219-27 and 151-60 respectively.

(J. Burton-Page)

MATERIALISTS [see DAHRIYYA, MADDIYYa].

MAT GH ARA. the name of a Berber tribe
belonging to the great family of the Butr [q.v. ]; they
were related to the Zanata and brethren of the Mat-
mata, Kumiya, Lamaya, Saddlna, Madyuna,
Maghfla, etc., with whom they form the racial group
of the Banu Fatin. Like the other tribes belonging to
this group, the Matghara originally came from
Tripolitania; the most eastern members of the
Matghara, however, known to al-Bakrl and Ibn
Kh aldun were those who lived in the mountainous
regions along the Mediterranean from Milyana and
Tenes to the north of Oujda (port of Tabahrlt); those
of the western part of this zone were allied with the
Kumiya; their mountains rose not far from Nadruma
and the fortress of Tawunt was in their territory.

Three sections had reached the western Ma gh rib as
early as the 2nd/8th century and formed there an
important bloc. These were:

1. The Matghara of Fas and the corridor of Taza;
al-Bakrl observes that the source of the Wadi Fas was
on their territory, in the region where Leo Africanus
still mentions the Suk al-kharms of the Matghara “fif¬
teen miles west of Fas”.

2. The Matghara of the Middle Atlas in the Djabal
Matghara, which Ibn Khaldun locates to the south¬
east (kiblt) of Fas and which Leo Africanus says is five
miles from Taza (to the south?). The reference then
is to the mountain region now occupied by the Ayt
Warayn; an important section of the latter, the Ayt
Djellidasen, represents the Banu Gallidasan whom al-
Bakrl gives as a section of the Matghara, settled near
Tenes in Algeria. We still find among the Ayt Warayn
several sections of the Imghilen who represent the
Maghila, brethren of the old Matghara. The name of
Mtaghra is today applied to all the eastern splinters of
the Ghavvatha tribe; Taza is situated in their ter¬
ritory. In al-Bakri’s time (5th/11th century) these two
sections of the Matghara had as neighbours in the
west the Zawagha of Fazaz and of Taza.

3. The Matghara of the oases of the Sahara settled
in the region of the Sidjilmassa and in the town itself,
in which they constitute the main element of the
population, in the region of Flglg, in Tuwat, Taman-
tit and as far away as Wallen (Ouallen).

At the beginning of the Arab conquest, the
Matghara are represented by Ibn Khaldun as settled
and living in huts built of branches of trees (khasasf
those of the Sahara lived in fortified villages ( kusur )
and devoted themselves to growing dates. In the time
of Leo Africanus, the Matghara of the Central Atlas
occupied about fifty large villages.

Like other peoples belonging to the group of the
Banu Fatin, the Matghara took an active part in the
events at the beginning of the Arab conquest and
weakened themselves considerably in the fighting. As
soon as they had become converted to Islam, a
number of groups of Mat gh ara went over to Spain
and settled there. Later, like their brethren, the Mat-
mata [q.v.], they adopted the principles of the
Sufriyya [q.v.]\ one of their chiefs, Maysara, pro¬
voked the famous schismatic rising of 122/740, which
was the beginning in Morocco of the Baraghwata
heresy [see barghawata]. In a list of the tribes which
adopted this heretical teaching, we find the Matmata
and Matghara of the Central Atlas, as well as the
Banu Abr Nasr, the modern Ayt Bu-Nsar, the eastern
section of the Ayt Warayn.

With the rise of Idris, the chief of the Mat gh ara.
Bahlul, declared himself at first a supporter of the
caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid. then rallied to
the new dynasty. Later and down to the 11 th/17th
century, the Matghara of the Central Atlas do not
seem to have played any part in politics; but they
nevertheless retained their independence. From the
11th/17th century, they seem to have been supplanted
on their territory by invaders from the south. As to the
Matghara of the shore, settled in the region of
Nadruma, their alliance with the Kumiya gained
them considerable political importance, when the lat¬
ter became supporters of the Almohads. It was at this
period that they built the fortress of Tawunt. They
then rallied to the MarTnids [q.v.] but this brought
upon them the wrath of the ruler of Tlemcen, the
celebrated Yaghmurasen, who finally crushed them.

Ibn Hazm, Diamharat ansab al- c Arab, ed. Levi-
Proven^al, 496, and Ibn Kh aldun use the form Mad-
ghara instead of Matghara ; in Moroccan texts of late
date we also find Madghara.

Bibliography. Bakrl and IdrisI, indices; Ibn
Khaldun, Kilab al- c Ibar, tr. de Slane, i, 237-41; Leo
Africanus, Description de l'Afrique, tr. Epaulard, 303-
4, 353 and index. (G. S. Colin)

MA TH AL (a., pi. amthdl) proverb, popular
saying, derives—similarly to Aram, mathla , Hebr.
mashal and Ethiop. mesl, mesale —from the common
Semitic root for “sameness, equality, likeness,
equivalent” (cf. Akkad, mashalum “equality”, mishlum
“half’). In Arabic, to create a proverb is fa-
arsala(t)ha, or dfa Q ala(t)hu mathal an , fa-daraba(t) bihi 7-
mafhal a \ to become proverbial is duriba bihi ’l-malhal u ,
mathal un yudrabu fa-dhahaba(t), or dfara/dfarat mathal an ,
or, simply, fa-sara mathal an .

1. In Arabic

Definition

Arabic

proverbs

(i)

Earliest layer

(a) fables

(b) stories

(d) hikma

(2)

Second layer

(a) C A1I

(b) turns of speech

(3)

Third layer

(a) mouthes of people

(b) parallels

(4)

af~al u min

(5)

muwallada

(6)

NT and OT, etc.

(7)

stories

(8)

only locally current

(9)

quoted verses

(10)

Kurban and hadith
(a) “wisdom”

Arabic collections

Abu c Ubayd

(a) al-Mufaddal

(b) Mu 5 arridj

(2)

Muhammad b. Habib

(18)

Ibn c Asim

Modern collections

(i)

European

(2)

Oriental

Bibliography
i. Definition.

The Arabic philologists have since Abu c Ubayd
(d.224/838) repeatedly defined the concept of mathal.

816

MATHAL

They have discerned and set forth its three essential
characteristics: comparison, sc. the metaphorical way
of expression (tashbih i); brevity (Jdjaz al-lafz); and
familiarity (sd^ir). They have established (a) that
amthdl are based on experience and therefore contain
practical commonsense ( hikma ); (b) that by their use
facts can be stated pointedly and intelligibly in an
indirect way ( kinaya); and (c) that by making use of
amthdl it becomes possible to communicate matters
that it would be difficult to communicate in a more
straightforward way. This quality of the mathal is
owing to the fact that it can be used individually to
represent all, even only remotely, analogous cases and
can always remain unchanged in the process, even
though the origin of the mathal may long be forgotten.
Abu c Ubayd stresses the fact that the mathal “accom¬
panies” the discourse; in doing so he exactly defines
the etymological meaning of proverb, ^apoipta in
Greek (cf. also the more recent rcapapoXri) and in the
Latin adagio, adagium as well as in the later proverbium.
Al-Zam akhsh arl (d. 538/1144) correctly remarks,
that—corresponding to its true etymological mean¬
ing— naztr should be considered to be the basic mean¬
ing of mathal ; cf. R. Sellheim, Die klassisch-arabischen
Sprichwortersammlungen, insbesondere die des Abu c Ubaid,
Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Frankfurt am Main 1953, The
Hague 1954, 8-20; idem, Arabic, revised and
enlarged edition, al-Amthdl al- c arabiyya al-k.odima, tr.
Ramadan c Abd al-Tawwab, Beirut 1391/1971 (repr.
1402/1982 and 1404/1984), 2 21-35; W. Heinrichs,
The hand of the north wind , Wiesbaden 1977, 7.

The totality of these characteristics and qualities do
not apply to each and every mathal . Many amthdl can
only lay claim to two of them. This shows that by
mathal we have to understand something wider than
our(l) proverb; mathal includes, in addition, the (2)
proverbial saying, also comprising the extensive
group of comparisons involving a comparative in the
form afaP min, (3) adages (gnomes, dicta), that is,
hikam and akwdl which, like many a proverb, can also
be found among the ahddith as maxims and saws,
including mottoes, personal maxims, apophthegms
and aphorisms, (4) set turns of speech, that is
kalimat and muhawarat (characteristic modes of expres¬
sion) as used in optative and maledictive exclamation,
in address and salutation, in prayer, and in speech
generally, and, at some time or other, (5) parable,
fable, just as in the Ancient Orient; cf. O. Eissfeldt,
Der Maschal im Alien Testament, Giessen 1913; K.-M.
Beyse, in Theologisches Worterbuch zum AT, v (1984),
69ff., E.I. Gordon, in BiOr, xvii (1960), 130; O. E.
Moll, Uber die dltesten Sprichwortersammlungen , in Prover¬
bium, vi (1966), 114ff.; c Abd al-Hadl al-Fu^adf, Bahth
fi ’l-amthdl al-Hrdkiyya, dirasa mukdrana li-amthdl al-
muditama c al- c iraki al-kadtm wa ’l-mu c asir, in Sumer, xxix
(1973), 83-106, xxx (1974), 27-46; J. M. Sasson (ed.),
Oriental wisdom, six essays of the sapiental traditions of
Eastern Civilisations , Worcester, Mass. 1981 (= JAOS,
ci/1 [1981], 1-131).

ii. Arabic proverbs.

The Kitdb al-Amthdl of Abu c Ubayd (d. 224/838) is
the oldest collection of amthdl in the form of a genuine
book compiled by the author. It contains a little less
than 1,400 amthdl in systematic order, arranged in 19
chapters with, in all, 259 sub-chapters and 11 more in
an appendix. This material can be classed as belong¬
ing in three layers: (1) amthdl from pre-Islamic times,
(2) amthdl from the early times of Islam and its
religious-political centres, and (3) amthdl dating back
to the emergence of the Islamic centralised state,
chiefly under the first c Abbasid caliphs.

(1) The amthdl of the earliest layer in their

majority are derived from the narrative tradition of
the 2nd/8th century. In the context of a recall of the
glorious Arabic past, favoured by early anti-
Shu c ubivva tendencies, stories (akhbar), poems (ashlar)
and other relics (dthdr) of the pre-Islamic times were
very much alive in the centres of urban civilisation
and much in demand at court and in various offices.
Whatever in them ran counter to Islamic notions,
laws and bans, was excused as having happened in the
Djahiliyya and as being worth preserving. In the
struggle for survival under desert conditions,
solidarity at any price among tribesmen is insisted
upon: unsur akhaka zdlim an aw mazlum an “assist thy
brother whether he is right or wrong” (Abu c Ubayd
[see below, iii, 1], no. 397: 519, further references
here, as for all the following quotations); the father
sets an example for the son: man ashbaha abdhu fa-ma
zalama “who does as his father does, cannot be
wrong—whatever be the merits of the deed” (ibid.,
no. 408; 833), and the daughter admires him and his
exploits unreservedly: kull u fatdt in bi-abtha mu c diabat un
(ibid., no. 402). In the permanent search for new
pastures for his never-satisfied livestock, the Bedouin
must necessarily be irked when he stumbles on
pasturages without having his camel with him: c ushb un
wa-ld ba c tr un “fresh herbage and no camel” (ibid., no.
581); of course, he knows how to appreciate the qual¬
ity of the fodder, so he measures a normal pasture
with the sa c dan plant, which is optimal for camels:
mar c an wa-ld ka ’l-sa^dan 1 (ibid., no. 370), Figurative
and metaphoric speech has with great tenacity held its
ground among the Semites and especially among the
Arabs, and plays an important part even in the higher
forms of literature. To the Bedouin, illustrations
taken from the animal world around him most easily
come to mind. He knows the habits and the reactions
of wild animals from his own lifelong experience and
observation: md yadjma^u bayna ’l-arwa wa > l-na : dm'
“what could bring a mountain goat and an ostrich
together?” (ibid., no. 898), if two things are incom¬
patible, for the goat lives among the rocks and the
ostrich on the desert plain! Allusions to human beings
are expressly added: innahu la-akhda Cu min dabb in
harashtahu “he is trickier than a hunted lizard” (ibid.,
no. 1229; cf. no. 597), or laysa katan mithl a ku{ayy‘ n “a
kata- hen is not like a fo/a-chicken (ibid., no. 953), or
al-dhPb u ya c du hd-ghazal 1 “the wolf waylays the
gazelle” (ibid., no. 180), or, expressed in the earthy
Bedouin style: la-kad dhalla man balat : alayhi , l-tha : dhb u
“contemptible is he who is pissed on by foxes” (ibid.,
no. 319), the comparison involving a comparative (cf.
below, ii, 4) as a figure of speech is widely used (af'al 11
min): anwam u min fahd in “sleepier than a cheetah”
(ibid., no. 1215 [see fahd]), or innahu la-ahdhaf 1 , azhd,
absar u min ghurdb tn “more watchful, or shining, or
sharp-sighted than a raven” (ibid., no. 12lOff.); cf. T.
Fahd, Psychologic animale et comportement humain dans les
broverbes arabes, in Revue de Synthese, iii serie, lxi-lxii
(1971), 5-43; lxv-lxvi (1972), 43-63; lxxv-lxxvi (1974),
233-56; xcii (1978), 307-56.

(a) Some such amthdl about animals occur in con¬
nection with a fable. In these, different kinds of
animals customarily are assigned well-defined parts:
the hyena (< dabu°), e.g., appears as stupid (ibid. , nos.
77-80), and the lizard (dabb) as clever (ibid., nos. 296,
597, 1229); cf. C. Brockelmann, Fabel und Tiermarchen
in der alteren arabischen Literatur, in Islamica, ii (1926),
96-128 (cf. below, iii, 1, b); Gholam-Ali Karimi, Le
conte animalier dans la litterature arabe avant la traduction de
Kalila wa Dimna, in BET. Or., xxviii (1975), 51-6; M.
Ullmann, Das Gesprdch mil dem Wolf, Munich 1981 ( =
SB Bayer. Ak., 1981, 2).

MATHAL

817

(b) Much more numerous than these fables with
animals for characters are the stories of the type of the
akhbar of the ayydm al- c Arab, which are rendered with
preference according to al-Mufaddal al-Dabbl or Ibn
al-Kalbl; cf. the lists of ayydm al- c Arab in al-Fdkhir (see
below, iii, 4), no. 442 (360), and al-Maydam (see
below, iii, 12), ch. xxix. The “heroes” in these stories
are sometimes known from tradition or genealogy, as
e.g. al-Basus [qv.\, whose she-camel triggered a forty
years’ war between the Banu Bakr b. Wa 5 il [q.v. ] and
their kinsmen, the Banu Taghlib b. Wa^il (ibid., no.
1280), or al-Mundhir, or al-Nu c man b. al-Mundhir.
the prince of the Lakhmids, who had the innocent
poet c AbTd b. al-Abra§ [< 7 .^.] killed in order not to
break an oath (ibid., nos. 1048, 1130), or the nameless
poor butter dealer, who was violated by a ruffian after
he had caused her to close tightly the necks of two
butter-filled skins with both her hands at the same
time (ibid., no. 1278). Many of these mostly short
stories may have originated in an actual happening.
Time and place however remain, as a rule, undefined.
Their etiological character is obvious: the storyteller is
interested in the question of who used the saying first,
or of how it came to be coined at all, that is, in the
awdHl [q.v.] problem. The information which they
contain can be exploited to answer questions concern¬
ing names and genealogies, but they are not
historical, at the most anecdotal; cf. esp. the Kitdb al-
Amthal of al-Mufaddal al-Dabbi (see below, iii, 1, a;
Sellheim, op. cit., 47f., 2 73ff., and 27-39, 2 50-63).
Many of them are overgrown with myths, legends,
and fairy tales; internationally disseminated themes
have thus found their way into them, most likely by
way of the Lakhhmid court at al-Hlra as an
intermediary: the letter of Uriah (sahifat al-Mutalammis
q.v.]), the legend of Zenobia, the reward of Sinimmar
see al-khawarnak], “bailment” (Biirgschaft),
Gothamites of Arabia, etc.; cf. I. Lichtenstaedter, in
Folk-Lore (London), li (1940), 195-203 (cf. below, ii, 4
and 7). It is striking that at times these amthdl are
linked up with the c AmalIk [q.v.]\ one of these is, e.g.,
c Urkub in Yathrib who makes “empty promises” to
his brother, mawdHd? c Urkub tn (Abu c Ubayd, no.
195)—could this be a reminiscence of the Jacob-Esau
story according to Genesis, xxvii (cf. Escorial [Deren-
bourg], no. 651)? There were Jews in Yathrib! Often
stories and explanations about a mathal widely or com¬
pletely diverge from one another, because its origin
and its original meaning had long been forgotten,
when the paroemiographers collected the material,
e.g. in the case of “the gatherer of acacia shoots of the
tribe of c Anaza” (ibid., no. 1142; al-Bayhaki [see
below, iii, 14], no. 71), or in that about “the shoes of
Hunayn” (ibid., no. 779; al-Fdkhir , no. 159; al-
Bayhakl, pp. 87ff.), or in that about “the naked
warner” (al-Fdkhir, no. 146; al-Bayhakl, no. 261), or
in that about “the repentance of al-Kusa c i” (ibid., no.
155), or in that about the poor Ku c ays of whom we
know no more than that his aunt once gave him as a
surety and never redeemed him (ibid., no. 61), a story
called in question by the transmitter. Not infre¬
quently, stories may have been spun out of a mathal.
Thus the saying hida hida ward^aki bunduka (ibid., no.
93) probably only means “O kite, O kite, a pellet
(projected from a bow) is behind thee”, which Abu
c Ubayda refers to a children’s game; Ibn al-Kalbl and
al-Sharkl b. al-Kutaml however take Hida and Bun¬
duka as names of South Arabian tribes who had fought
with one another. Al-Asma c T rightly takes the proverb
tarakahu djawf 1 himaf n (ibid., no. 18) at its face value:
“he left him like the belly of an ass”, i.e. like a useless
thing, while again the two genealogists identify Himdr

with an Amalekite or Azdite and dj_awf with wadi in the
Syrian dialect (cf. Ibn Durayd, Ishtikak, 287, 2 490).

(c) Beyond any doubt, the proverbs which
demonstrably occur in Thamudic inscriptions date
back to pre-Islamic times, as e.g. man c azza bazza “he
who overcomes takes the spoil” (Abu c Ubayd, no.
285). But also amthdl in the verse of pre-Islamic
poets—assuming they are genuine—can be assigned
to this oldest level (cf. below, ii, 9). The question
whether the poet created them, or whether—already
in current use as mathal —they were only adopted by
him, as a rule, remains undecided, so e.g. wa-hasbuka
min ghinan shiba Cun wa-riyy u (ibid., no. 479) in a wafir
verse of Imru 5 al-Kays, or ayy u ’l-ridjal 1 ’ l-muhadhdhab u
(ibid. , no. 67) in a tawil verse of al-Nabigha al-
Dhubyanl, or md ashbaha ’l-laylat 0 bi ’ l-bdriha h (ibid.,
no. 423) in a sari < verse of Tarafa, or al-dhPb u yukna
Aba Dia^da (ibid. , no. 198) in a mutakdrib verse of c Abid
b. al-Abras, or innamayadyzi ’l-jata laysa ’l-dyamal (ibid.,
no. 380) in a ramal verse of LabTd. In verses of this
time, internationally-known proverbs (cf. below, ii, 3,
bff.) can also be shown to exist (cf. Sellheim, op. cit.,
40, 2 65f.), e.g. the much discussed one of the goat
(sheep, bull) who digs up his own slaughtering knife
out of the ground with his hooves, in Greek: at£ xrjv
paxatpav. Abu c Ubayd gives four different versions: Id
takun ka ’ l- c anz‘ tabhathu c an } ’ l-mudyat 1 (Abu c Ubayd,
nos. 1088, 797, I086f.). Furthermore, ka-talib l ’l-karn l
fa-djudPat udhunuhu “like the one (ostrich) who wanted
horns and ended up with cut-off ears” (ibid. , no. 796;
cf. no. 527 and al- c Askari [see below, iii, 7], no. 47),
a mathal which has equivalents in Greek (camel): r\
xaprjXoi; iiuGupfjaaaa xepaxwv xal xa coxa rcpoaaircoXeaev,
in the Talmud (Sanhedrin, 106a) and in the different
versions of Kalila wa-Dimna (ch. x, 2: ass for camel).
Zuhayr b. Abl Sulma was wont to insert amthdl into
his verse, and Ka c b b. Sa c d al-Ghanawi, who already
extends into early Islam, was for the same reason
called Ka c b al-Amthal. In their majority, these amthdl
belong to the category of gnomic sayings, as e.g. the
tawil verse of Zuhayr: ... wa-man Id yazlim' ’l-nas 11
yuzlam' “and whoever does not wrong his fellow-men,
will be wronged [by them]” (Abu c Ubayd, in no.
282); cf. A. Bloch, Zur altarabischen Sprue hdichtung, in
Westdstliche Abhandlungen (Festschrift R. Tschudi), ed. F.
Meier, Wiesbaden 1954, 181-224.

(d) Amthdl of this kind are likely to have been writ¬
ten down already in ancient times as hikma on, e.g.,
small scrolls of leather or parchment (madjalla),
papyrus, or palm-leaves (sahifa), bone, wood-tablets,
or on stones (see below, iii). In the Kurban, these dicta
of ethic content usually are ascribed to the legendary
Lukman [q v.] (cf. Sura XVIII [Lukman], 18), and
all the more in later literature (cf. Solomon’s Book of
Proverbs in the Old Testament!). The paroemio¬
graphers have joined to him the no less legendary
umpire of the ancient Arabs Aktham b. $ayfT [q.v.]
(cf. al-Mawrid, x/3-4 [1402/1981], 161-8); small collec¬
tions of his amthdl can be found in books on adab, e.g.
in the Kitdb al-Mu c ammarin of Abu Hatim al-Sidjistam
(ed. I. Goldziher, Leiden 1899, 9-18), or, together
with amthdl of the equally legendary Sasanid wazir
Buzurdjmihr [q.v., see djawidhan khirad in Suppl.]
in the Kitdb al-Hkd al-farid of Ibn c Abd Rabbih (ed. A.
Amin et alii, Cairo 1372/1952, iii, 76-80; cf. E. Garcia
Gomez, in al-And., xxxvii [1972], 249-323). It ought
to be stressed that among the sayings of Aktham can
be found Matt, vii, 16, innaka la tadyni min a ’l-shawk 1
’l-^inab 0 “you cannot pluck grapes from thorns”
(Abu c Ubayd, nos. 849, 870; cf. Ibn Hisham, 124f.).
This and related material, e.g., the parable of the
“beam in thine own eye” (Matt, vii, 3) quoted by

818

MATHAL

Abu c Ubayd (no. 152; cf. below, ii, 6), seems to have
been in circulation as amthdl al-hukama?. In the same
direction points, too, the parable of the “camel and
the eye of a needle” (Matt, xix, 24; Mark x, 25; Luke
xviii, 25; cf. G. Aichler, Kamel und Nadelohr, Munster
1908) in the Kurban (VII, 40; cf. M. B. Schub, in
Arabica, xxiii/3 [1976], 31 Iff.; S. Khalil, in ibid. , xxv/1
[1978], 89-94; A. Rippin, ibid., xxvii/2 [1980], 107-
13). Concerning the Arabic-Hebrew-Aramaic-
correspondences, e.g., man nahashathu ’l-hayyat u hadhira
’l-rasan a , “he who has been bitten by a snake is afraid
of a rope” (Abu c Ubayd, no. 686), cf. S. D. Goitein,
The present-day Arabic proverb as a testimony to the social
history of the Middle East , in his Studies in Islamic History
and Institutions , Leiden 1966, 2 1968, 361-79, esp. 375;
M. Grunbaum, Neue Beitrdge zur semitischen Sagenkunde,
Leiden 1893, 40-9, esp. 42; O. E. Moll, op. cit., 113-
20; S. P. Brock, A piece of wisdom literature in Syriac, in
JSS, xiii (1968), 212-17; Anls Furayha (Frayha),
Ahikdr hakim min al-shark al-adnd al-kadtm , Beirut 1962;
G. E. Bryce, A legacy of wisdom, the Egyptian contribution
to the wisdom of Israel, Lewisburg-London 1979; esp.
D. Gutas, Classical Arabic wisdom literature: nature and
scope , in JAOS, ci (1981), 49-86 ( = J. M. Sasson [ed.],
op. cit.).

(2) The formation of the young Islamic community
into a new society was an effect of the word. This pro¬
cess is also reflected in the amthdl of the second
layer. Here pagan lore was adapted and integrated,
old concepts were filled with new meaning, sup¬
plemented, changed, or formulated in a different way.
The akh of the Djahiliyya, for instance, became a
brother in the faith, a brother in Islam. If the formula
up to that time was akhuka man fadakaka “your brother
is he who gives you a frank piece of advice”, the
Prophet now says al-mu^min 11 miTdt u akhihi “the
believer is the mirror of his brother” (Abu c Ubayd,
no. 530), i.e., he tells him openly what he sees, or, to
put it more directly, rahima \llah u radjul an ahdd ilayya
c uyubi “God be merciful on the man who shows me
my faults!” (ibid., no. 531). The ancient Arabic
solidarity in right or wrong (cf. above ii, 1) causes
was—supposedly by the Prophet, too (cf. al-Bukharl,
al-Sahih , Kitab 46 [al-Mazalim], bab 4)—interpreted to
the effect that the brother helps his brother when he
is in the right but restrains him from doing wrong
(ibid., no. 519; cf. e.g. Kur 5 an, XLII, 39ff. Caetani,
Annali, x, 45). As this method had thus been
authorised by the Prophet, ancient hikma which he
liked (Ibn Hisham, 285 = al-Tabari, i, 1208), could
live on to be elaborated by himself, his Companions
and his Successors. He knew the power of words: inna
min a \l-bayan 1 la-sihr* n “verily there is a kind of elo¬
quence that is enchantment” (ibid., no. 13), also in
the negative sense, for instance if the word of a poet
hurts or tempts (cf. Kur 5 an, XXVI, 224; I. Shahid,
in JAL, xiv [1983], 1-21; below, ii, 10); the great
c Umar is said to have pronounced the words walli har-
rahd man tawalld kdrrahd “appoint over what is evil one
who has been appointed over what is good” (ibid.,
nos. 702, 920; cf. Lane and Diet, arabe-frangais-anglais,
s.v. h-r-r).

(a) The number of amthdl like this—mostly maxims
and aphorisms—attributed to c AlI, is, as is known,
great. Most widely spread is a quite recent collection
of 100 dicta, also in Persian and Turkish translation;
cf. the collection in al-Tuhfa al-bahiyya, Constantinople
1302/1884, 107-114, etc., the latest up to date being
A. Zajaczkowski, Sto sentencyj i apoftegmatow arabskich
kalifa c AlTego w parafrazie mamelucko-tureckiej , Warsaw
1968; al-Kuda c i, Dustur ma c alim al-hikam wa-maHhur
makarim al-shiyam min kaldm amir al-mu^minin c Alib. Abi

Tdlib, Beirut 1401/1981; al-Sharif al-Radl or his
brother al-Murtada, Nahdj_ al-balagha, i-ii, ed.
Muhammad Abu ’1-Fadl Ibrahim, Cairo 1383/1963.
Al-Maydam (d. 518/1124), Madfma c al-amthal, chap,
xxx (see below, iii, 12 ) has compiled dicta (kaldm) by
the Prophet, by the first four caliphs, by Ibn c Abbas,
Ibn Mas c ud, and others. Cf. Oriens, xxxi (1988),
354-7.

(b) Down to this level in time extend, too, the roots
of those numerous amthdl —in this case turns of speech
in the more restricted sense of the word—which not
infrequently contain the name of the Lord, and which
in the collections of amthdl are usually introduced with
the words min du^aHhim, e.g. balagha ’llah u bika akla\
’l-^umur*, “may God grant you an extremely long
life” (ibid., no. 132; cf. WKAS s.v. k-l- y ), or,
negatively djada c a ’lldh u masdmTahu “may God cut off
his organs of hearing” (ibid., no. 166).

(c) The ancient mathal: andjaza hun un md wa^ada “an
ingenuous man fulfils what he promises” (ibid., no.
145), could naturally be maintained in Islam as well
as the negative statement dfat u ’l-muru^at 1 khulf 1 7-
maw c id l (ibid., no. 144), but in common speech only
as the Islamic form of the same thought: al-wafa**
min a \llah 1 bi-makan tn “with God, fulfilling a promise
has its worth” (ibid., no. 146; cf. Kur 5 an, XIX, 54;
WKAS, s.v. k-w-n). Whereas up to then you said laysa
<i abd un bi-akh in laka “a slave is not your brother” (ibid.,
no. 522), that is, treat him as you like!, the Muslim
now said, because a believer could happen to be a
slave: c abd u ghayrika hun 4in mithluka “the slave who is
not your slave is a free man like your” (ibid., no. 377),
or, similarly, sdwdka c abd 11 ghayrika (ibid. , no. 376),
meaning, do not be arrogant, someone else can easily
perform this or that! Success and victories won against
the infidels made the faithful self-confident: layulsa c u
’l-m^min" min djuhr* n marratayn 1 “the believer is not
bitten twice out of the same nest (of snakes)” (ibid.,
no. 683), a mathal that is traced back to the Prophet
himself (cf. Ibn Hisham, 591). The more the young
community had to face the tasks of political routine,
the more often it was forced to make use of its ways
and means: inna la-nakshiru ft wudfuh 1 akwam in wa-inna
kuluband la-taklihim “we outwardly smile at people,
while inwardly we hate them (ibid., no. 451; WKAS,
s.v. k-sh-r), a statement which the companion of the
Prophet Abu TDarda 5 [q.v. ] is said to have uttered.

(3) The Arabisation of the ancient civilised areas of
the Near East, conquered under the first caliphs, has
greatly enriched the treasures of amthdl", on the one
hand, by new creations, on the other by loans and by
newly-developed ones by way of analogies taken from
the languages of the aborigines. These amthdl form the
third layer. Its level extends into the lifetime of
Abu c Ubayd, that is, into the time of the early
c Abbasids. Setting apart the popular wisdom
expressed in sayings, which are more or less correctly
ascribed to currently known personalities of the
political or religious sphere, as e.g. Mu c awiya (d.
60/680), al-Had j d j adj b. Yusuf (d. 95/714), c Umar II
(d. 101/720) and al-Hasan al-Ba$ri (d. 110/728), they
are, first of all, proverbs, the “place in life” (“Sitz im
Leben”) of which is to be looked for in the towns and
in the country.

(a) Abu c Ubayd has heard many of them from the
mouth of people engaged in conversation; occa¬
sionally he notes min amthdl al- c awamm (e.g. no. 779)
or al- c amma (no. 1141), ibtadhalathu ’l- c awamm (no.
1269) or al- c dmma (no. 81), mubtadhal fi 7- c dmma (no.
919) or al-nds (no. 524), etc. (nos. 42, 65, 146, 560,
636, 954, 1058, 1068). Some examples: asma c u
djcTdfcTat? 111 wa-la ard tihn an “I hear a sound of the mill,

MATHAL

819

but I see no flour” (Abu c Ubayd, no. 1057), in
English “much talk and little wool”, or inn a 7-
bu/ agh dth a bi-ardina yastansiru “verily in our land the
small bird (e.g. the sparrow) becomes/plays an eagle”
{ibid., no. 212), or biHu djari wa-lam abi c dart “I sold
my neighbour, but not my house” {ibid., no. 894), or
akl an wa-dhamm a1 ' “eating and (afterwards) dispraising
(the benefactor)” {ibid., no. 861), or al-nas u shadjarat u
baghy in “people are the tree on which all evil grows”
{ibid., no. 891).

(b) If it can be said in a very general way that
parallels to the Arabic proverbs in other languages
and related cultures can be shown the more frequently
to occur the younger these are, the question whether
any particular mathal has in fact been newly coined, or
borrowed, or modelled on an existing proverb must be
left unanswered in most cases; for, as concerns the
social surroundings against the background of which
the am.th.dl must be observed, there are scarcely any
differences any more (cf. above, ii, 1, c). In the case
of similes and comparisons which spontaneously offer
themselves to the mind, foreign models must not
always be sought, much as they may obtrude on our
attention, e.g. man hafara mughawwat 0 ” wakafa fiha
{ibid., no. 872; al-Tabari, ii, 1142), in English “hoist
with one’s own petard”, a proverb which can already
be found in Ps. vii, 16 and Ivii, 7, as well in Prov.
xxvi, 27. In the case of rare metaphors, however, an
appropriation of foreign material can be assumed with
a greater degree of probability, e.g. in kunta rth an fa-
kad lakayta i c sar an {ibid., no. 225), a proverb—albeit
with a slightly different meaning—that can likewise be
shown to occur in the Old Testament, Hosea viii, 7:
“for they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the
whirlwind”, and which probably has an echo in the
New Testament, Galatians vi, 7 (cf. below ii, 6).
There is a high degree of likelihood that the well-
known Latin saying res ad triarios redit , rediit, or venit,
that is, in order to arrange a completely bungled
affair, is at the bottom of the mathal. sara ’l-amr* ila 7-
naza c at‘ {ibid., no. 438). The question is more difficult
to answer in the case of a mathal like the following one:
man 1 star c a ’ 1-dhPb a zalama “he who makes the wolf a
shepherd, is in the wrong” {ibid. , no. 959), a saying
familiar to the Greeks as of old: Xuxo? troip^v. The
Romans know the simile of the hawk who is entrusted
with pigeons: accipitri columbas credere’, in English it is
“to give a wolf the wether to keep”, similarly in
French “donner la brebis (sheep) a garder au loup”,
while in German, as in Greek, it is the wolf who
becomes a shepherd, or, in a parallel phrase, the ram
a gardener. In all these cases we cannot advance much
beyond a simple registration of parallels (cf. E. Moll,
op. cit., 114f.; Ch. Speroni, The beauties of a woman",
in Proverbium , vi [1966], 139ff. and ix [1967], 216;
below, ii, 5).

The Arabic paroemiographers of the succeeding
three centuries augmented Abu c Ubayd’s amthal
materials from all three layers and beyond these to
five times the original number, i.e. to approximately
7,000 amthal. Among these there are more than 1,200
amthal in the form of a comparison involving the (4)
comparative, afal u min (cf. above, ii, 1), and more
than 1,500 which are called (5) “new ones”, al-amthal
al-muwallada. Those of the first group have come to
light in their majority in the 3rd/9th century, and
those of the second one in the two subsequent cen¬
turies. The amount of “wandering” international
motifs among them is remarkable.

(4) Amthal in the form of aj x al u min. Reminiscences
of Penelope come to the surface in akhrak u min
nakithat tn gpazlaha “stupider than a woman who con¬

tinually undoes her spinning (weaving)” (Hamza [see
below iii, 6], no. 204), a simile that certainly has its
source in Kur’an, XVI, 92, or of Sisyphus, atma Cu
min kdlib 1 ’ l-sakhrat 1 “more covetous than the one who
turns over the rock” (Hamza, no. 431). As a matter
of course, both persons, female and male, from the
pre-Islamic past are designated by their names and
genealogies! How much or how little account can be
taken of this so-called “historical” tradition becomes
still more evident in the following instance: amhal u
min hadith 1 KhurafaP “fuller of artifices than the stories
of Khurafa” (Hamza, no. 641). Here khurafa, “fairy
tale” (actually “nonsense”, cf. EP, iii, 369 b, s.v.
hikaya), is personified, as happens, too, in the pro¬
verbs and sayings of other peoples (cf. Sellheim,
op.cit., 35-8, 2 59-62). Even the Prophet is reported to
have told his wives the story of Kh urafa {al-Fakhir, no.
280: typical fairy tales)! This group of amthal of the
aj x al“ min type, in which—like in Greek—attributes
from “intelligent” to “stupid”, from “clearsighted”
to “trusty”, etc., and names—among them that of
the Owlglass character Djuha [q.v. ] (Hamza, no.
125)—pseudo-names, animals, plants, etc. can be
exchanged indiscriminately, has proliferated into our
own times.

(5) Amthal muwallada. The widely spread Latin say¬
ing lupus in fabula , that is, “if you talk of the wolf, he
is not far off’, is probably present in the “new” say¬
ing idha dhakarta l-dhPb a fa ’llafit (al-Maydani [see
below, iii, 12], i, 57u/Freytag, ch. i, no. 436), which
already Abu c Ubayd knows in its abstract form
udhkur 1 l-ghdlb 41 yaktarib, or udhkur ghd : ib an tarahu (Abu
c Ubayd, nos. 140f.), in English “speak of an angel,
and you hear his wings”. Of internationally-known
sayings we may list inna li 1-hitdn' ddhan an (al-
MaydanT, i, 57, 21/ ch. i. no. 427), just as, e.g., in the
Midrash, in Persian (cf. M. Griinbaum, op.cit., 43)
and in English “walls have ears”; or idha kunta sin -
dan au fa ’sbir wa-idha kunta mitrakaP n fa-aw dfp {ibid., i,
58, 18/ch. i, no. 465), in English “hammer and
anvil”; or farra min° 1-mat ai 4 wa-ka c ada tahta l-mlzab l
“fleeing the rain he is sitting under the drippings
(from the roof)” {ibid., ii, 25, 9/ch. xx, no. 112; just
as in German; cf. R. Jente, German proverbs from the
Orient, in Pubis, of the Modern Lang. Assoc, [of America],
xlviii [1933], 17-37), in English “he jumps out of the
frying-pan into the fire”; or al-harakat a barakat un {ibid .,
i, 155, 20/ch. vi, no. 244), in English “bliss is in
action” (Pope) or “action gives satisfaction”
(modern). To this category belong, even if not
expressly identified as amthal muwallada, e.g. in kunta
kadhub an fa-kun dhakur an {ibid., i, 49, 13/ch. i, no. 366),
in English “a liar must have a good memory” (just as
in Latin); or ka 1-sdkit 1 bayna l-firashayn 1 {ibid. , ii, 64,
7/ch. xxii, no. 89), in English “between two stools one
sits on the ground” (just as in Latin); or ka-annahu
kd c id un c ala 1-radf {ibid., ii, 74, 18/ch. xxii, no. 197),
in English “to be on tenterhooks” (cf. above, ii, 1, c;
3, b; 4).

(6) In al-Maydani’s collection of amthal can be
found anonymous sayings from the New Testament;
mainly taken from the Sermon on the Mount, partly
they are very close, corresponding almost literally to
the New Testament text, partly they only render its
meaning, e.g. Matt, vii, 3; Luke vi, 41, kayfa tubsiru
1-kadha fl c ayn l adhika watada c u 1-dfidhfa l-muHarid a ft
c aynika {ibid., ii, 67, 26/ch. xxii, no. 115 = Abu
c Ubayd, cf. above, ii, 1, d), or ya c uddu (ya c kidu) fiyjA
mithl a ’l-su^db 1 wa-fx c ay nay hi mithl u l-dyarrat 1 (7-
dfa/izzat 1 ) “he counts things (e.g. faults) with regard
to me like nits, whilst there is in his own eyes some¬
thing like ajar” {ibid., ii, 254, 17/ch. xxviii, no. 78),

820

MATHAL

with a verse that renders the NT text word by word;
cf. I. Goldziher, in ZDMG, xxxi (1877), 765ff.; idem,
Muh. Stud., ii, 391; further, A. Muller, in ZDMG,
xxxi (1877), 513, 519*20, 524. There is Matt, vii, 15,
with its generally-known simile of “the wolf in sheep’s
clothing”, in dhPb un ft mask 1 sakhlat tn (ibid., i, 192,
23/ch. ix, no. 70). There are several versions of Matt,
vii, 16, the parable of “the grapes picked from
thorns”, an older one (ibid. , i, 34, 8 /ch. i, no. 210 =
Abu c Ubayd, cf. above; ibid. , ii, 120, 8 /ch. xxiii, no.
358), and a younger one (ibid. , i, 336, 31/ch. xviii, no.
255, according to Hamza [no. 498], with further
variants, one of them in verse = ibid. , ii, 182, 4/ch.
xxiv, no. 367). Matt, xix, 24, with its well-known
parable of the “camel and the ear of a needle” (ibid.,
ii, 113, 23/ch. xxiii, no. 316) was known already to
Muhammad (Kurban, VII, 40; cf. above). Matt,
xxiii, 24—the parable of the “straining at gnats and
swallowing camels”—is known in a slightly changed
form as a mathal: yaPkulu } l-fil a wa-yaghtaffu bi ’l-bakkat 1
“he eats an elephant, but a gnat obstructs his throat”
(ibid., ii, 259, 16/ch. xxviii, no. 157). Galatians vi, 7,
is there in a literal translation: kama tazra c u tahsudu
(ibid., ii, 73, 2/ch. xxii, no. 185; cf. Ibn Hisham,
124f.; cf. above, ii, 3, b). As for wise sayings that can
be shown to have parallels in the Old Testament, see
above (= al-MaydanI, ii, 168, 11/ch. xxiv, no. 256;
i, 20, 14/ch. i, no. 113); there are also reminiscences
of Noah’s Ark and his raven (ibid. , i, 79, 14/ch. ii, no.
168; ii, 9, 29/ch. xix, no. 66 ; cf. ii, 210, 20/ch. xxv,
no. 154), as well as echoes of sayings in Deut. xxxii,
15 (ibid. , i, 228, 20/ch. xii, no. 50), and in Ecclesiastes
and Proverbs; cf. J. Barth, Arabische Parallelen zu den
Proverbien, in Festschrift D. Hoffmann, Berlin 1914, 38-
45; Muller, op.cit., 520, 524.—The Mandaean creator
Fitahl owes his inclusion into a mathal probably to two
verses of the widely known Radjaz poet Ru 5 ba
(Diwan, ed. W. Ahlwardt, xlvi, 14 = al-Maydam, i,
334, 26/ch. xviii, no. 246 [ = Hamza, no. 486]; cf. ii,
169, 25/ch. xxiv, no. 264).

(7) The historical yield of the many stories which
the later paroemiographers know how to tell about
several amthal is as poor as that of the earlier story¬
tellers (cf. above, ii, 1 , b); for, as a rule, these stories
also belong to the realm of worldly or pious legend,
fairy-tale, fable, droll tale, and anecdote. Quite fre¬
quently they can be traced back—as concerns their
central idea—to a “wandering” international motif.
On the following occasion we might be reminded of
the legend of the Seven Sleepers (al-Fakhir, no. 239;
al-Kali, al-Amdli, Cairo 1344/1926, i, 61) which is
already mentioned in the Kurian (XVIII, 9-12: ashab
al-kahf q.v.\\ cf. R. Gramlich, in Asiatische Studien,
xxxiii 1979], 99-152), or of the martyrdom of
Djurdjus (al-Fakhir, no. 517). Each of the following
reminiscences is attached to a historical personage or
occurrence; there is an allusion to Mu c awiya’s
delighted shout when he hears of the poisoning of al-
Ashtar (Abu c Ubayd, no. 555; Ibn Kutayba, c Uyun al-
akhbar, Cairo 1343/1925, i, 201; see al-Ashtar); or to
his remark when his ambassador is returning from the
Byzantine court (Abu c Ubayd, no. 1052; Ibn
Kutayba, op.cit., i, 198; Ibn al-Athir, al-Nihaya, s.v.
h-s-s); or to the fine voices of the beloved girl-singers
of the caliph Yazid II (Hamza, no. 624; see yazId b.
c abd al-malik), or to the defeat and death of the
Khakan of the Khazars [q. v. ] at the hands of
Hisham’s governor Sa c id b. c Amr al-Harashi (al-
Fakhir, no. 160; al-Tabari, iii, 1531; Zambaur,
index); or to the assassination of al-Mahdl’s governor
c Ukba b. Salm (al-Fakhir, no. 158; al-Tabari, iii,
367f., 520). The realistic account of a devastating

nightly storm, which frightened the Baghdadis out of
their wits and provoked the caliph al-Mahdi and his
retinue to do such penance (al-Maydam, i, 176/ch.

vii, no. 140), is not reported in other collections. It is
a striking fact that the paroemiographers do not
record any stories that deal with events after al-
Mahdl, except for occasional references to the fact
that a certain person used a certain mathal', the most
recent of these personalities referred to in connection
with a mathal muwallad (ibid. , i, 80, 7/ch. ii, no. 189)
is Ibn al-Mu c tazz (d. 296/908). In this respect, a pupil
of al-MaydanT, Abu ’1-Hasan al-Bayhakl, proves a
great exception (see below, iii, 14).

( 8 ) At times the paroemiographers make note of the
fact that a certain mathal is current locally, e.g., in
Syria (Abu c Ubayd, no. 1070), or in c Uman (Hamza,
no. 443), or in Medina (Hamza, nos. 56, 224, 340,
397), or in Mecca (Hamza, no. 115), or in al-Ba§ra
(al-Maydanl, i, 145, 16/ch. vi, no. 149; cf. Abu
c Ubayd, no. 1144; below, iii, 8 ). It is interesting to
learn by way that in Syria in the 3rd/9th century the
Greek c|> 7 ]aiv “says he” was much used by the Arabs
(al-Fakhir, no. 137), a fashionable expression then,
similar to to day’s American “O.K.” of worldwide
acceptance. Already Abu c Ubayd (no. 1349) has
recorded: ayy u ’ l-barnasa —or ’ l-baransa*—huwa (cf. al-
Djawallkl, al-Mu c arrab , Cairo 1361/1942, 45), in other
words, the Aramaic bar nasha “Son of Man” or the
obscure tdlaPmur “any one, anything” (Abu c Ubayd,
nos. 1344f.; J. Barth, Nominalbildung, Leipzig 2 1894,
300; Th. Noldeke, Belegworierbuch, Berlin 1952, 40b).
Actually, at times the collectors admit that the mean¬
ing of some mathal or other has remained dark to them
(ibid., no. 185), or that people in the streets use it but
do not correctly understand (ibid. , no. 919), or that
they had altered an ancient (kadim) mathal for just this
reason. As an example, one may cite tadju c u ’l-hurrat u
wa-la ta^kulu bi-thadyayha “a free woman starves herself
rather than eats for the price [she is paid for] her
breasts” (ibid. , no. 569), i.e., she prefers starving to
hiring herself out as a wet-nurse, which becomes
distorted into the quite meaningless la ta^kulu thadyayha
“and does not eat her breasts”. From a
misunderstanding of a verse of al-Farazdak in which
the way to al- c Un$ulayn (ibid. , no. 1127; Yakut and
Lane, s.v.) is mentioned, this expression became
typical of taking the wrong way (cf. al-Fakhir, no. 496;
Hamza, no. 423).

(9) The few examples adduced here show that for
the majority of the amthal a certain formative process
can be shown at work, and that includes the inner
form—the shaping of the thoughts—and an outer
form which exists in the shape of linguistic, stylistic,
and metrical peculiarities. Both these phenomena can¬
not be pursued here (cf. ai-Dhubaib, Study [cf. below,
iii, 12]; Ch. Pellat, Sur la formation de quelques expressions
proverbiales en arabe, in Arabica, xxiii [1976], 1-12).
Well-known, appreciated and much-quoted verses,
so-called abyat sa^ira, were compiled in special collec¬
tions, e.g. Hamza al-l§fahanl’s Kitab al-Amthal al-
sadira c an buyut al-shi^r (Brockelmann, I, 152; Sezgin,

viii, 200f.; a Cairo edition is under way). Poets like
Salih b. c Abd al-Kuddus or Abu T c Atahiya have also
made use of many amthal in their verse (cf. above, ii,
1 , c); the figurative sayings which can be found in al-
MutanabbT’s diwan, were, e.g., already extracted and
arranged in the poet’s own century by al-Talakani (d.
385/995). Such abyat saPira and countless amthal are
spread far and wide across the whole body of Arab
literature (cf. Sellheim, op.cit., 21-2, 2 39ff.); one finds
it richly represented especially in the adab literature
from al-Djahiz to al-Abi (cf. Mahmud Ghanayim, in

MATHAL

821

al-Karmil, Haifa, vi [1985], 165-87; U. Marzolph, in
OC, lxix [1985], 81-125) and al-Tha c alibi (regarding
his K. al-Amthal, cf. Sezgin, viii, 235, 276; further,
A.U.B. Library, ms. no. 398, 9 T.35, cf. al-Mashrik,
xlvi [1952], 407), from the poets of the makdmdt to the
encyclopaedists of the post-Mongol times like al-
Nuwayri or al-Suyutl and Baha 5 al-Dln al- c AmilI.
The amthal presented here would be especially
numerous, exceptionally so in the case of al-amthdl al-
muwallada (cf. above, ii, 5), with parallels in other
languages, e.g. c usfur UTl fi ’l-kaff khayr* n min kurkiyy tn ji
3 l-djaww 1 “a sparrow in the fist is better than a crane
in the air” (al-Hamadhanl, RasaHl , Constantinople
1298/1881, 44; al-Tha c alibI, al-Tamthil, Cairo

1381/1961, 372; Burckhardt [see below, iv, 1], no. 3
etc.), in English, “a bird in the hand is worth two in
a bush”.

(10) In the case of amthal contained in the Kur’an
and in the tradition ( hadlth )—specifically named al-
amthdl al-nabawiyya —they were treated in books of
their own (cf. R. Sellheim, op.cit., 20f., 2 36ff.), e.g.
(most recent publications), al-Hakim al-Tirmidhl
(3rd/9th century), al-Amthal min al-Kitab wa ’l-Sunna ,
ed. C A1I M. al-BidjawI, Cairo (1395/1975); Abu
Muhammad al-RamhurmuzI (d. ca. 360/970), Kitdb
al-Amthal , ed. Amatulkarim Qureshi, Ph.D. thesis,
University of Bonn 1959, Hyderabad-Pakistan
1388/1968; Abu TShaykh (d. 369/979), Kitdb al-
Amthal, ed. Ibrahim Yusuf c Irsan, M.A. thesis,
University of Riyad 1403/1983; Ibn Kayyim al-
Djawziyya (d. 751/1350), al-Amthal Ji ’l-Kurban al-
kartm, ed. Sa c Id M. Nimr al-Khatib. Beirut
1401/1981; c Abd al-Madjld Mahmud, Amthal al-
hadith, Cairo 1395/1975; Muhammad al-GharawI. al-
Amthal al-nabawiyya, i-ii, Beirut 1401/1981; L. Pouzet,
Une hermeneutique de la tradition islamique: le commentaire
des Arbahun al-Nawawiya de Muhyi al-Din Yahyd al-
Nawawi (m. 676!1277), introduction, texte arabe,
traduction, notes et index du vocabulaire, Beirut
1982.

(a) For “wisdom” from classical sources, one
should refer to the most recent publications: D.
Gutas, op.cit., in JAOS, ci (1981), 49-86; idem, Greek
wisdom literature in Arabic translation, a study of the Graeco-
Arabic gnomologia, New Haven, Conn. 1975; idem, The
life, works, and sayings of Theophrastus in the Arabic tradi¬
tion, in W. W. Fortenbaugh, Theophrastus of Eresus,
New Brunswick-Oxford 1985, 63-102; I. Alon,
Isocrates’ Sayings in Arabic, in IOS, vi (1976), 224-8;
J. K. Walsh, Versiones peninsulares del “ Kitab ddab al-
jaldsifa ’ ’ de Hunayn ibn Ishaq, hacia una reconstruccion del
“Libro de los buenos proverbios”, in al-And., xli (1976),
355-84; Hunayn b. Ishak, Addb al-faldsifa, ikhtasarahu
Muhammad b. C A1I al-An§ar! (d. before 594/1198),
ed. c Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Kuwait, 1406/1985.
For Islamic wise sayings ( hikma [<?.t>.]), consult al-
Mawardl (d. 450/1058), al-Amthal wa ’l-hikam , ed.
Fu 3 ad c Abd al-MunSm Ahmad, Katar 1403/1983; P.
Nwyia, Ibn c Atd* Allah (m. 709/1309 ) et la naissance de
la confrerie safilite, edition critique et traduction des
Hikam, Beirut (1972); V. Danner, Ibn ^Ata^illah’s Sufi
aphorisms (Kitdb al-Hikam), translated with an intro¬
duction and notes, Leiden 1973, etc.; for personal
observations, cf. furthermore the biographical
literature from Ibn Sa c d (d. 230/845) to al-Sulaml (d.
412/1021), from Abu Nu c aym (d. 430/1038) to al-
Sha c ranl (d. 973/1565).

iii. Arabic collections.

In no other branch of classical Arabic Literature
can beginning, development and termination be dem¬
onstrated as clearly as in its amthal branch. The results
up to now will be summed up as follows (cf. Sellheim,

op.cit., 45-153, 2 71-225; idem, al-Qali[c f. below, iii, 5,
a]; idem, al-Baihaqi [cf. below iii, 1]; R. Blachere,
Contribution a l’etude de la litterature proverbiale des Arabes
a I’epoque archaique, in Arabica, i [1954], 53-83).

The first setting down of amthal and amthal stories in
writing occurred at the instigation of the caliph al-
Mahdl (158-69/775-85) in Baghdad by the hand of his
tutor al-Mufaddal al-Dabbl [q.v. ] (al-Tabari, iii, 536).
He had already compiled for him an anthology of 30
ancient Arabic poems, which later on became widely
known under the title of al-Mufaddaliyydt [^.t>.]. Both
these works have not been preserved in their original
form, but only in late versions, in parts, widely differing
from each other. The text of the amthal that has come
down to us goes back to al-TusI, a pupil of Ibn al-
A c rabl (d. 231/845), the stepson and pupil of the
author (d. ca. 170/786). This proves that al-Mufaddal
left behind him and others no definite edition. Rather,
his amthal in conjunction with the stories were handed
on by word of mouth in different forms and put down
in writing only by pupils or the pupils of pupils,
because the booklet, composed for the use at court,
was not at the disposal of the transmitters any more
than the anthology. Similar was the fate of the Kitdb
al-Amthal ascribed to Mu^arridj (d. 204/819?). We
have it in a version dictated by his pupil Abu C A1I al-
Yazldl from the year 263/876. These written notes
taken down during lectures cannot be said to conform
at all with the Mu-’arridj quotations in the amthal
literature from Abu c Ubayd to al-Maydanl. These
two examples—as well as others from other branches
of literature—cause us to look at later assertions, as
e.g. in the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadlm (d. 380/990), that
well-known early philologists, as for instance Abu
c Amr b. al- c Ala 3 , Yunus b. Habib, Abu Zayd al-
An§arl or al-A§ma c I also wrote books of amthal, with
a wary eye. Information of this kind is all the more
doubtful, as also later authorities on the matter, as,
e.g., al- c lrakl (Pseudo-al-WakidI; see below, iii, 11),
expressly spreak of a book “ascribed” ( al-mansub) to
him in the case of the Kitdb al-Amthal of al-Asma < I (see
below, iii, 1, b; 2; 5, a). Amthal become available in
book form—and moreover in the original draft of
their author himself—only in the Kitdb al-Amthal of
Abu c Ubayd (d. 224/838). He is indebted for his plen¬
tiful materials—in so far as he has not gathered them
himself (cf. above, ii, 3, a)—to the tradition, chiefly
according to his teachers, among others, to the above-
named philologists. This clearly results from instances
where he writes “I do not know from whom I have
heard the mathal (nos. 349, 1088), or “I have heard it
from somebody other than Abu c Ubayda, I think,
from Ibn al-Kalbl” (no. 59), or similarly (nos. 1228
and 134, 253, 492, 744). His quotations in the name
of al-Mufaddal which he uses to introduce in an
impersonal way, e.g. hukiya ( an ..., ruwiya c an ..., md
balagham c anhu ..., or correspondingly, can only partly
be found in the Kitdb al-Amthal of the author in the ver¬
sion of al-TusI (see above); of his quotations in the
name of Mu 3 arridj, whom he always introduces with
kala —as he also does with the other philologists (see
above)—none at all can be exemplified in the Kitdb al-
Amthal of that authority in the version of al-YazIdl (see
above). The kutub al-hikma quoted by Abu c Ubayd
once (no. 663; cf. nos. 152, 250 and 48, 250, 271,
658; above, ii, 1, d) probably stand for nothing but
loose leaves ( kitdb [q.v. ]) on which wise sayings were
written, for the purpose, e.g., of being stuck up on the
wall of a room. His contemporary al-Djahiz [<?.p. ]
knows a collection like that with sayings of the caliph
al-Mansur which was familiar to the scribes of
Baghdad ( al-Bayan , Cairo 1368/1949, iii, 367). Ibn al-

822

MATHAL

Mu c tazz’s collection exists in the form of his Kitdb al-
Addb, ed. I. Kratchkovsky, in Le Monde Oriental, xviii
(1924), 56-121. Wise sayings of this kind were also
called al-dthdr , not only by Abu c Ubayd (nos. 153,
704).

After the death of Abu c Ubayd in Mecca, one of his
pupils, C A1I b. c Abd al- c Aziz al-BaghawI. who sur¬
vived his master there for 60 years, had his text
glossed by authorities on the Arabic and Islamic past,
as, e.g., by_ al-Zubayr b. Bakkar (d. 256/870), or
Salama b. c Asim, a pupil of al-Farra 5 . This annotated
text he would read and explain to pilgrims in his
circles ( halakdt ). In consequence, Abu c Ubayd’s collec¬
tion of proverbs—in conjunction with these and fur¬
ther glosses—was spread far and wide, in the West as
far as al-Andalus, and in the East as far as Khurasan.
His collection has not only been supplemented and
commented on six times, but has become, more or
less, a point of departure for all subsequent collec¬
tions. Its materials were adopted, while this fact was
frequently not signalised specifically, as well as the
glosses, which again and again were added to these
copies in their entirety, in selections, or with further
additions; in Cordova they were standardised in the
form of “editions” in the 4th/10th century by Kasim
b. Sa c dan or integrated into al-Bakrfs commentary in
the 5th/llth century. One such “edition” of Kasim’s
existed in Naysabur in the 6th/l2th century, where al-
Maydanl compiled his Madfma c al-amthal , the most
comprehensive of all collections of Arabic proverbs.

At the present moment, the following collections
exist in print or are in the press or in preparation:

(1) Abu c Ubayd al-Kasim b. Sallam (d. 224/838),
Kitdb al-Amthdl , ed. c Abd al-Madjid al-Katamish,
Damascus 1400/1980 (here quoted according to nos.),
as to its systematics, see above, ii; parts in print since
J. Scaliger and Th. Erpenius, Leiden 1614; etc.; Libri
proverbiorum Abi c Obaid elQasimi jilii Salami elChuzzami
lectiones duae, octava et septima decima ed. E. Ber-
theau, Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Gottingen 1836; ed. G.
W. Freytag, in Arabumproverbia (see below, iii, 12), iii;
arranged alphabetically according to the first letter
(ms. Esat 3542?), in al-Tuhfa al-bahiyya wa ’l-turfa al-
shahiyya, Constantinople 1302/1884, 2-16 (repr.
Beirut 1401/1981). Abu c Ubayd al-Bakri (d.
487/1094) has shortened the text and commented on
it on the strength of glosses (see above, and below, iii,
1, b) under the heading of Fasl al-makdl fi shark Kitdb
al-Amthdl, ed. c Abd al-Madjid c Abidin and Ihsan
c Abbas, Khartoum 1378/1958 (cf. Oriens , xiii-xiv
[1960-1 , 469ff.), new edn. Beirut 1391/1971.

(a) Abu ’1-Hasan al-Tusi, a pupil of Abu c Ubayd,
who put down in writing a Kitdb al-Amthdl of al-
Mufaddal [I] b. Muhammad al-Dabbl (d. ca.
170/786) which is lacking any discernible structure, in
doing that following al-Mufaddal’s stepson and pupil
Ibn aI-A c rabI (d. 231/845), printed (ms. Esat 3598?)
Constantinople 1300/1882 = Cairo 1327/1909; new
edition, considerably enlarged and emendated by
Ihsan c Abbas, Beirut 1401/1981. The more than 200
amthal have been ensconced within 88 akhbar al- c Arab
(cf. above, ii, 1, b).

(b) Abu c Ali al-YazIdi, who dictated more than 100

amthal in the name of his teacher Abu Fayd Mu 5 arridj
al-Sadusi (d. 204/819?) in the course of a lecture
(mat^lis) in the year 263/876 thus recording in written
form a Kitdb al-Amthal by Mu 5 arridj; ed. Ahmad
Muhammad al-Dubayb, in Madyallat Kulliyyat al-Adab,
Riyad, i (1390/1970), 231-345 (cf. MML C A,

Damascus, xlvi [1391/1971], 786f.); ed. Ramadan
c Abd al-Tawwab, Cairo 1391/1971. Also, this text
with its stories, among them fables (cf. above, ii, 1, a),

and philological explanations, together with verses
commenting on the amthal in the stricter sense of the
word muhawarat, conveys in its loose, unsystematic
form the atmosphere of spontaneous lecturing and
conservation. In the madfalis of this generation, the
roots of the pseudepigraphic collections of the time of
the Umayyads must be looked for, sc. c AbTd b. Sharva
al-Djurhuml, c Ilaka b. Kurshum (Karim) al-Kilabi,
Suhar b. al- c Abbas (al- c Ayyash) al- c Abdi and the
somewhat younger al-Sharki b. al-Kutaml; cf. Oriens,
ix (1956), 135; below, iii, 12 and 14; to the early
philologists, above, iii (rectify Sezgin, i, 260ff. and
viii, 7, etc.).

(2) A small fragment containing 7 amthal of the
af-al u min type, allegedly by Muhammad b. Habib (d.
245/860) of whom—as the literature about proverbs
and biographical literature maintains—a Kitdb al-
Amthdl c ala af-al min said to be containing 390 amthal,
is known; ed. Muhammad Hamidallah, in MM C I C I,
Ba gh dad, iv (1956), 44 f. (cf. R. §esen, Nawadir al-
makhtutat, Beirut 1975, i, 68, no. 63). According to
Hamza (see iii, 6), he owes his materials chiefly to the
collection of Abu c Ubayd and to the “books” (notes
taken down in lectures, cf. iii, 5, a) of al-AsmaT and
al-Lihyam. For two further “quotations”, see Abu T
^Ala 3 al-Ma c arri, al-Fusul wa ’l-ghdyat , Cairo
1356/1938, 61, and al-Khafadji. Shifa^ al-ghalil, Cairo
1325/1907, 173.

(3) Abu c Ikrima c Amir b. c Imran al-Dabbl (d.
250/864), Kitdb al-Amthdl, ed. Ramadan c Abd al-
Tawwab, Damascus (1394/1974). Ill amthal , chiefly
muhawarat, with many verses of reference, no system;
quotations in the name of al-Mufaddal in only one
instance in the text of al-Tusi; judging from the intro¬
duction, the booklet was conceived as such and not
dictated.

(4) al-Mufaddal [II] b. Salama v. c Asim al-Dabbi
(d. after 290/903), al-Fakhir, ed. C. A. Storey, Leiden
1915 (here quoted according to nos.; repr. Cairo
1402/1982); ed. c Abd al-Rahman b. al-Nuri b. al-
Hasan, Tunis 1353/1934 (?); ed. c Abd al- c Alim al-
Tahawl and Muhammad c Ali al-Nadjdjar, Cairo
1380/1960 (nos. identical, exception Storey
442 = Nadjdjar 360; 361-441 =361-442; 443 = 443;
etc.); printed in part, nos. 1-123; Ghayat al-arab fi
ma c dni md yadfri c ala alsun al- c amma ft amthalihim wa-
muhdwardtihim min kalam al- c Arab, in Khams rasa ^il,
Constantinople 1301/1884, 232-63. A total of 521
amthal, partly muhawarat , mostly circumstantial amthal
stories (cf. above, ii, 1, b); quotations in the name of
al-Mufaddal can, as a rule, be demonstrated in the
text of al-Tusi (cf. no. 123!), likewise, the only quota¬
tion in the name of Mu^arridj in the lecture-notes of
263/876. The author was the son of that Salama who
glossed the amthal of Abu c Ubayd (see above).

(5) Abu Bakr Ibn al-Anbarl (d. 328/940), al-Zahirfi
macdni kalimat al-nas, ed. Hatim Salih al-Damin, i-ii,
Baghdad-Beirut 1399/1979. A total of 896 amthal,
similar to iii, 3; authorities are mentioned; the cited
materials can, in part, be found in their works, e.g.,
in Abu c Ubayd’s Gharib al-hadith and al-Qharib al-
musannaf, and in part they are derived from the oral
madfalis- tradition, e.g., the quotations from Abu
c Ikrima. Cf. furthermore Husam Sa c Id al-Nu c aymI,
in MM C I C I, xxxi/3 (1400/1980), 383-97.

(a) The so-called Kitdb Afal min kadha of Abu C A1I
al-Kali (d. 356/967) represents an example of the oral
madjalis tradition, ed. Muhammad al-Fadil Ibn
c Ashur, Tunis 1392/1972. A total of 363 amthal c ala
af'al min contained in notes taken in lectures (cf.
above), no systematics; quotations, for instance in the
name of Muhammad b. Habib (see iii, 2), diverge

MATHAL

823

widely, in parts completely from the parallel tradition
(cf. iii, 6 and 12). This fact shows that the oral
handing-on of amthdl materials, too, was common
practice still in the 4th/10th century, and that it was
very variable and loose into the bargain; about par¬
ticular ones, cf. Sellheim, Abu c Ali al-Qdli, in Studien
zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Orients, Festschrift
fur Bertold Spuler , Leiden 1981, 362-74.

(6) Hamza al-Isfahan! (d. between 350/961 and
360/970) [qv.], Kitab al-Amthdl c ald afal min , or al-
Durra al-fakhira fi ' l-amthdl al-sa^ira, (i-ii), ed. c Abd al-
Madjid Katamish, Cairo 1391-2/1971-2; supplements
in a!-Tha c alibi Khdss al-khdss, ch. 3, Cairo 1326/1908,
29-37. The author has enlarged the collection of
Muhammad b. Habib to more than 1,800 amthdl of
the afal u min- type, among them more than 500
muwallada, arranged alphabetically according to the
first letter, augmented by 500 more linguistically
special features ( nawddir : compounds containing abu,
umm, ibn etc., and dual forms); partly circumstantial
amthdl stories; he distinguishes, occasionally, between
al-mathal al-kadim , al-isldmi and al-muwallad.

(7) Abu Hilal al- c Askar! (d. after 395/1005),
Diamharat al-amthdl , Bombay 1307/1889; idem, i-ii
(printed in the margin of the text of al-Maydan! [see
iii, 12]), Cairo 1310/1893; idem, i-ii, ed. Muhammad
Abu ’ -Fadl Ibrahim and c Abd al-Madjld Katamish,
Cairo 1384/1964 [1389/1969] (quoted here). Barely
2,000 amthdl, including approximately 800 amthdl c ala
af-al min, arranged alphabetically according to the first
letter. The author proceeds from Hamza’s work
whom he, being a purist, reproaches with having
included too many “new ones” ( muwallada ), and
accumulates the materials transmitted from his
teachers, and their authorities, in the madjalis; the
only quotation in the name of Abu c Ikrima (i, 266) is
missing in latter book (see iii, 3); he takes pain to
tighten the innumerable philological and “historical”
annotations, rejects amthdl which are linguistically
incorrect and now and then distinguishes between al-
mathal al-kadim. and al-muwallad or al-muhdath. The
amthdl of his collection are largely “literary” ones and
have not too much in common any more with every¬
day life in the streets.

(8) Abu ’1-Hasan C A1T b. al-Fadl al-Mu ? ayyad! al-
Tal(a)kanl, Risalat al-Amthdl al-baghdadiyya , ed. L.
Massignon, Cairo 1331/1913. The most ancient local
collection with more than 600 amthdl (muwallada), in
contrast to iii, 7, topical and not literary, arranged
alphabetically according to the first letter, as a rule
accompanied by short explanations, in many cases for
the proper application of the mathal in question;
forerunner of later collections containing amthdl in
dialect; compiled by the author and read during lec¬
tures in Balkh in 421/1030; cf. too c Abd al-Rahman
c Abd al-Djabbar Talib, in Sumer, xxxii (1396/1976),
237-338; al-Abi, above, ii. 9.

(9) Abu ’1-Fadl al-Mlkall (d. 436/1044) [see

mIkalIs], Nubadh min amthdl al-amtr al-Mikdli, edition
in preparation. Small collection ( ca. 250 nos.),

arranged alphabetically, divided up into sub-chapters,
each one beginning with one or more sayings from the
Kur’an and hadith (cf. Oriens, xxxi [1988], 353 and
xxxii).

(10) Anonymous (5th/11th cent.), Kitab al-Amthdl,
Hyderabad 1351/1932. Just under 1,400 amthdl', a
“medium-sized al- c Askar!” (see iii, 7). For no
obvious reason, the catalogue of the Dairatu’l-
Ma c arifiI-Osmania, and consequently Brockelmann,
I, 237, ascribe the book to Zayd b. Rifa c a (d. ca.
400/1010), while Brockelmann, S III, 1195, lists it
among the writings of Ibn al-Sikkit (d. 243/857).

(11) Pseudo-al-Wahid! (see iii, 15), al-Wasit fi 7-
amthdl , ed. c Af!f Muhammad c Abd al-Rahman,
Kuwait 1395/1975; cf. Muh. Ahmad al-Dali, in
MMM C A Kuwait, xxix/2 (1405/1985), 781-99.

(12) Abu ’1-Fadl al-Maydan! (d. 518/1124),

Madjma c al-amthdl, i-ii, Bulak 1284/1867; idem,
Tehran 1290/1873 (re-arranged in more or less strict
alphabetical order by al-Husayn b. Ab! Bakr al-
Nadjm al-Kirmam); idem, i-ii, Cairo 1310/1893
(quoted here); idem, i-ii, Cairo 1352-3/1933-4; idem,
i-ii, ed. Muhyi ’1-Din c Abd al-Ham!d, Cairo
1374/1955 (repr.), 2 1378-9/1959 (revised) and
3 1393/1972(1) ( = 2 1 + 1 2!); idem, i-ii, Beirut

1382/1962; idem, i-iv, ed. Muhammad Abu ’1-Fadl
Ibrahim, Cairo 1397-9/1977-9 (more or less identical
with Muhyi ’1-Din’s first edition, including number¬
ing of the amthdl', poor index); parts in print since J.
Scaliger and Th. Erpenius, Leiden 1614; E. Pocock,
Cambridge 1671; etc.: G. W. Freytag, Arabum prover-
bia, i-iii, Bonn 1838-43 (i-ii: the complete proverbs
according to al-Maydan! in Arabic with Latin transla¬
tion, shortened and revised commentary in Latin; iii:
3,321 proverbs according to Abu c Ubayd and others,
according to al-Maydan! ayydm al- c Arab, dicta of the
Prophet, the first four caliphs, etc., Arabic with Latin
translations, alphabetically, useful indices [repr.
Osnabriick 1968]); Ibrahim al-Ahdab(d. 1308/1891),
Fard^id al-la^dl fi Madjma < al-amthdl, i-ii, Beirut
1312/1894 (versification with commentary). The
author has, so he maintains in his preface, perused
and excerpted more than 50 works containing amthdl,
among them some pseudepigrapha (cf. iii, 1, b and
14). He has compiled in all just about 6,200 amthdl in
alphabetical sequence according to the first letter,
including about 900 of the afal u min type according to
Hamza (see iii, 6), about 1,000 “new ones”
{muwallada), more than 200 ayydm al- c Arab and more
than 200 sayings of the Prophet and others (cf. ii, 1,
b; 2, a). His Ma&ma^ was the most comprehensive
and therefore most widely spread collection and has
remained so to this day, witness the numerous manu¬
scripts, of which the oldest dates from the year
533/1138 (Paris [de Slane] 3958?; cf. Hilal Nadj!, c Ala
’l-hamish, Baghdad 1395/1975, 79, no. 16), the
abridgements, comments and printings [see al-
maydan!]. A critical edition is still overdue; as to the
sources, compare now also c Abd al-Rahman al-
Tikrlt!, Masddir al-Maydani fi kitdbihi “ Madjma c al-
amthdl ’’, in al-Mawrid, iii/2 and 3 (1394/1974), 11-32
and 99-122 (uncritical compilation); Ahmad M. al-
Dhubaib, A critical and comparative study of the ancient
Arabic proverbs contained in al-Maidani’s collection,
unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Leeds 1968; Samir
Kazim Kh alil. Madjma c al-amthdl, in al-Mawrid, xii/3
(1403/1983), 161-78. Cf. Oriens, xxxi G988L 359.

(13) Abu ’1-Kasim al-Zama khsh ar! (d. 538/1144),
al-Mustakfd ft amthdl al- c Arab, i-ii, Hyderabad
1381/1962. Nearly 3,500 amthdl with good philological
and concise “historical” annotations, in strict
alphabetical order; in spite of these merits, the work
of the great scholar could not emerge from the shadow
of the more comprehensive collection—along with
favourite “new ones” {muwallada)— of his senior col¬
league al-Maydan!, which overshadowed it from the
first. A second work of his is known to us only by its
title Sawder al-amthdl. His major collection of adab,
including sayings, Rabi* al-abrar wa-nusus al-akhbar, a
source of al-Ibsh!h!’s (d. after 850/1446) al-Mustatraf,
has been printed repeatedly in an abridgement, newly
complete edited by Salim al-Nu c aymi, i-iv, Ba gh dad
1396-1402/1976-82, His minor collections of say-

| ings—with added translations—appeared in print in

824

MATHAL

Europe already in the 18th and 19th centuries [see al-

ZAM AKHSHARl].

(14) Abu ’1-Hasan al-Bayhakl (d. 565/1169), Ghurar
al-amthal wa-durar al-akwal , ed. in part Hussam El-
Saghir, Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Frankfurt/Main 1984
(complete edition in preparation). About 2,900
amthdl , including the “new ones” ( muwallada ), in
alphabetical order according to the first letter. Al-
Maydanl’s pupil has retained a high degree of
independence in regard to his teacher, clear grouping:
mathal, lugha, i c rab , ma c na, sabab, darb, hall, hikaya ; good
philological comments; many of the amthdl are
inserted into the context of “world”, local and family
history and personal experience by lively stories and
reports; a revealing document of its time, esp. as
regards Kh urasan: at some time or other the author
quoted pseudepigrapha (cf. El-Saghir, op.cit.y 88-9,
97-8, 116-17; iii, 1, b, and 12) and, like Hamza and
al- c AskarI (see iii, 6 and 7), Persian proverbs. A
second work containing amthdl in four volumes and
two collections of sayings (?), which he itemises in his
autobiography (Yakut, Udaba' > , v, 212) have not
apparently survived; cf. Sellheim, Eine unbekannte
Sprichwortersammlung, in Isi, xxxix (1964), 226-32.

(15) Radi al-DTn Abu Sa c Id (Abu c Abd Allah)
Muhammad b. ^Ali al- c lrakl (d. 561/1166), Nuzhat al-
anfus wa-raudat al-madjlis, a collection— disregarded
up to now—containing about 900 amthdl, partly
muhdwardt, and old, frequently rather long-winded
stories dealing with the azua ^’/-problem ( awwal u man
kalahu) (cf. above, ii, 1, b). It is arranged alphabe¬
tically in 29 chapters. The author, a pupil of the well-
known philologist Abu Zakariyya 5 al-Tibriz! [q.v.],
draws from the c Iraki madpalis tradition. Only one
manuscript, damaged at the beginning, is known to
exist (Gotha [Pertsch], no. 1250, cf. Brockelmann, I,
333); an edition is being prepared. Al- c Irak!’s Kitab al-
Wasft ji ’l-amthal is mainly only an abridgment of the
Nuzha, comprising about a quarter of its volume. Its
editor (cf. iii, 11) has erroneously ascribed this
“median” collection to Abu ’1-Hasan al-Wahid! (d.
468/1076), the teacher of al-Maydant, following in
this (?) the defective unicum in a Ma gh rib! hand
(Rabat, al-Khizana al- c amma, no. 102). In al- c Irak!’s
preface to his Kitab al-Wasit, we read that, besides the
Nuzha, which he repeatedly quotes, he has written two
more collections of amthdl, to wit, a “large one”, Kitab
al-Basft, and a “small one”, Kitab al-Wadfiz. Of both
these works, as far as is known, no manuscripts have
come down to us. For details, see Sellheim, in Oriens,
xxxi (1988), 82-94.

(16) Abu TMahasin al-Shayb! (d. 837/1433),
Timthdl al-amthal, i-ii, ed. As c ad Dhubyan, Ph.D.
thesis, Lebanese University, Beirut 1402/1982;
printed in part as First half of the book Timthdl al-amthal
of Jamal al-Din al-Shaibi, ed. Muhammad Baha 5 al-
Haqq Rana, unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Punjab Univ.
Lahore 1961. The majority of the 441 amthdl in
alphabetical order were extracted by the author from
the two collections of al-Maydan! and al-Za-
makhshari; the remainder he owes to literature as, for
instance, to the Kitab al-Aghani, or to the verses of
poets; only in a few cases is the source not mentioned;
not infrequently, he reproduces stories at length.

Of other collections of this time and of later times
(cf. the list in Ahlwardt [Berlin], no. 8729) little can
be expected to be forthcoming in regard to the
classical amthdl —witness the work of al-Shayb!, or
Mustafa b. Ibrahim’s Zubdat al-amthal of 999/1591
(Brockelmann, II, 557, S II, 631; Flugel [Vienna],
no. 339), and Ibrahim Sarkis’(d. 1302/1885) al-Durra
al-yatlma fi ’l-amthal al-kadima, Beirut 1288/1871. In

any case, the Madjma c al-akwal ft ma c ani \l-amthal of
Muhammad b. c Abd al-Rahman b. Abi ’l-Baka 3 ,
hence the grandson of the noted Baghdadian
philologist Abu ’l-Baka 3 al- c Ukbar! (d. 616/1219),
deserves the attention of the researcher. Of his work
in six volumes, parts are preserved in the author’s
autograph of the year 665/1267; he makes use of 30
sources which are conscientiously identified by char¬
acters the meaning of which is given in the preface; cf.
A. J. Arberry, in JAL, i (1970), 109-12, and in
reference to that, Sellheim, in Isi, 1 (1973), 341 ff.

New and revealing are the collections of amthdl in
dialect form which date from the 7th/13th century
onwards:

(17) Abu Yahya al-Zadj^jall (d. 694/1294), Amthdl
al- c awamm fi ’l-Andalus, i-ii, ed. Muhammad b.
Sharffa (M. Bencherifa), Ph.D. thesis, Cairo Univ.
1969, Fas 1391-5/1971-5 (containing further literature
on the subject). A total of 2,157 amthdl without
illustrations, but with extensive explanations, etc. by
the editor.

(18) Abu Bakr Ibn c Asim (d. 829/1426), Hadd^ik al-
azhdr, ed. c Abd al- c Az!z al-Ahwani (who was the
teacher of Bencherifa), in Ila Tdhd Husayn {Melanges
T.H.), Cairo 1382/1962, 235-367, text 295-364/A
total of 851 amthdl without illustrations.

iv. Modern collections.

In Europe the interest in Arabic proverbs was
aroused towards the end of the 16th century (cf.
Sellheim, op.cit., 1-7, 2 13-20). These literary amthdl
survived for generations into the 19th century in
readers and exercise-books, especially for the sup¬
plementation of Hebrew studies. E. Pocock’s plan of
1671, to edit the whole of al-Maydan!’s collection, was
only realised by G. W. Freytag in the years 1838-43
(cf. above, iii, 12). Since that time, European learned
travellers and linguists have recorded and published
Arabic proverbs—mostly in dialect form—in great
numbers. They have been succeeded by Oriental col¬
lectors, especially after the end of the Second World
War. The following deserve to be quoted:

(1) J. L. Burckhardt, Arabic proverbs or the manners and
customs of the modern Egyptians [Cairo 1817], London
1830, 2 1875 (repr. London 1972, paperback ed.
1984), in German, Weimar 1834; A. Socin, Arabische
Sprichworter und Redensarten, Tubingen 1878 (repr.
Wiesbaden 1967); C. de Landberg, Proverbes et dictons
de la province de Syrie, section de Sayda, Leiden-Paris
1883; C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekkanische Sprichworter
und Redensarten, The Hague 1886; K. L. Tallqvist,
Arabische Sprichworter und Spiele, Helsingfors 1897; M.
Ben Cheneb, Proverbes arabes de TAlgerie et du Maghreb,
i-iii, Paris 1905-7; E. Westermack, Wit and wisdom in
Morocco, a study of native proverbs , London 1930, New
York 1931; E. Littmann, Arabic proverbs, collected by
Mrs. A. P. Singer, Cairo 1913; idem, Kairiner
Sprichworter und Ratsel, Leipzig 1937 (repr. Nendeln
1966); S. D. F. Goitein, Jemenica: Sprichworter und
Redensarten aus Zentral-Jemen, Leipzig 1934 (repr.
Leiden 1970); Sa c !d c Abbud, G. Kampffmeyer, M.
Thilo, 5000 arabische Sprichworter aus Paldstina, i-iii,
Berlin 1933-7; M. Feghali, Proverbes et dictons Syro-
Libanais, Paris 1938; A. Frayha, Modem Lebanese pro¬
verbs, i-ii, Beirut 1953 = A dictionary of modern Lebanese
proverbs (Mu^dyam al-amthal al-lubnaniyya al-haditha), i-ii,
Beirut 1394/1974; Fatma M. Mahgoub, A linguistic
study of Cairene proverbs , Bloomington-The Hague 1968
(cf. Oriens, xxiii-iv [1974], 55Iff.); Omar al Sasi,
Sprichworter und andere volkskundliche Texte aus Mekka,
Ph.D. Thesis, Univ. of Munster 1972; R. Y. Ebied
and M. J. L. Young, A collection of Arabic proverbs from
Mosul, in AIUON, xxxvi (1976), 317-50; E. Garcia

MATHAL

825

Gomez, Hacia un “Refranero” arabigo-andaluz , I-II, in
al-Andalus, xxxv (1970), 1-68, 241-314; III: xxxvi
(1971), 255-328; IV-V: xxxvii (1972), 1-75, 249-323;
cf. xlii (1977), 375-90, 391-408; F.-J. Abela, Proverbes
populaires du Liban Sud, Saida et ses environs , i-ii, Paris
1981-5 (3,694 proverbs; bibliography).

(2) Na cc um Shukayr, Amthal al- c awamm fi Misr wa
’l-Sudan wa ’1-Sham, Cairo 1302/1894; Mahmud Ef.
c Umar al-Badjurl, Amthal al-mutakallimin min c awamm
al-misriyyin , Cairo 1311/1893; Ahmad Taymur, al-
Amthdl al-^ammiyya , Cairo 1368/1949, 2 1375/1956,
3 1390/1970; idem, al-Kinayat al- c ammiyya, 3 Cairo 1970
(cf. ZDMG, cxxiii [1973], 403ff.); Fa^ika H. R. Rafik,
HadaPik al-amthal al- c ammiyya , i-ii, Cairo 1358-
62/1939-43; Ibrahim A. Sha c lan. al-Sha c b al-misrl fi
amthdlihi al-^ammiyya, Cairo 1391/1972; al-Tahir al-
Khumayrl (Khmiri), Muntakhabdt min al-amthal al-
cammiyya al-tunisiyya , Tunis 1387/1967; Isma c Il b. c AlI
al-Akwa c , al-Amthdl al-yamaniyya, i-ii, 2 Beirut
1405/1984; c Abd al-Karlm al-Djuhayman, al-Amthal
al-shaSbiyya fi kalb Djazirat al- c Arab , i-iii, Beirut
1383/1963, 2 i-vi, Riyad 1399-1400/1979-80; Ahmad
al-Siba c I, al-Amthdl al-sha c biyya fi mudun al-Hidjdz ,
Jeddah 1401/1981; HanT al- c Amad, al-Amthdl al-
JuTbiyya al-urdunniyya, Amman 1398/1978; Nitar
Abaza, al-Amthdl al-sha.cbiyya al-shamiyya , Beirut (in
print); c Abd al-IGialik al-Dabbagh, MuCdfam amthal al-
Mawsil al-cammiyya , i-ii, Mosul 1375/1956; Djalal al-
HanafT, al-Amthdl al-baghdadiyya , i-ii, Baghdad 1382-
4/1962-4; c Abd al-Rahman al-Tikrltl, al-Amthal al-
baghdadiyya l-mukarana , i-iv, Baghdad 1386-9/1966-9
(containing further literature to the subject); Muham¬
mad Sadik Zalzala, MadjmaC al-amthal al- c ammiyya al-
baghdadiyya wa-kisasuha, Kuwait 1396/1976; Ahmad al-
Bishr ar-Ruml and Safwat Kamal, al-Amthal al-
kuwaytiyya al-mukarana , i-ii, Kuwait 1398-1400/1978-
80; etc. A thesaurus of Arabic proverbs is being
prepared by c AfTf c Abd al-Rahman (Irbid); until now
he has published: Mu c dj_am al-amthal al- c arabiyya al-
kadima, i-ii, Riyad 1405/1985; another one by Riyad
c Abd al-Hamld Murad (Damascus), 4 vols., is under
way.

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the article, see W. Bonser and T. A.
Stephens, Proverb literature, a bibliography of works
relating to proverbs, London 1930, 355-68, 394-8
(repr. Norwood, Pa. 1977); A. Fischer, in MSOS
As., i (1898), 197-201; Ch. A. Ferguson and J. M.
Echols, Critical bibliography of spoken Arabic proverb
literature , in Journal of American Folklore, Ixv, no. 255
(1952), 67-84; O. E. Moll. Sprichworter-Biblio¬
graphic, Frankfurt/Main 1958, 489-502, 573; W.
Mieder, International proverb scholarship, an annotatea
bibliography , New York—London 1982, index s.v.
Arabic; c AfTf c Abd al-Rahman, in al-Mawrid, ix/3
(1400/1980), 248-52, 260; Pearson, ch. vii, d; E.
Rehatsek, Some parallel proverbs in English , Arabic, and
Persian , in JBBRAS , xiv (1878-80), 86-116; C.
Brockelmann, Alttilrkestanische Volksweisheit , in
Ostasiatische Zeitschrift , viii (1920), 50-73 (with
Arabic and other parallels); S. L. Khazradji, A
paroemiological experiment (comparison of Russian pro¬
verbs and sayings with Arabian, Tadjiko-Persian and
English), in Narody Azii i Afriki, xx/1 (1974), 147-51
(in Russian); W. P. Zenner, Ethnic stereotyping in
Arabic proverbs, in Journal of American Folklore, lxxxiii
(1970), 419-29; R. A. Barakat, A contextual study of
Arabic proverbs, Helsinki 1980; Anonymi, al-Hikam
wa ’l-amthal (preface by Hanna al-Fakhurl). Cairo
(ca. 1956) (Funun al-adab al- c arabi, al-fann al-
ta c limi, 3); c Abd al-Madjld c Abidm, al-Amthdl fi 7-
nathr al- c arabial-kadim, Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Cairo

1375/1956; Muhammad Abu Sufa, al-Amthdl al-
Carabiyya wa-masadiruha fi ’ l-turath , Amman
1402/1982; Yusuf c Izz al-Dln, al-Ta c bir c an al-nafs fi
’l-amthal al- c arabiyya, in MM C I C I, xxxi/1
(1400/1980), 149-67; Salah al-Dln al-Muna djdj id.
Amthal al-maPa c ind al- c Arab, Beirut 1401/1981;
Muhammad Kamil c Abd al-Samad, al-Amthal al-
sha c biyya allatitukhalifu ma dfiPa fi nuyus al-Islam wa 7-
ruhihi, Cairo 1405/1985; R. C. Trench, Proverbs and
their lessons, ed. A. Smythe Palmer, London-New
York 1905; A. Taylor, The proverb, Cambridge,
Mass. 1931; idem, An index to “The proverb”,
Helsinki 1934 (repr. of both, Hatboro, Pa.-
Copenhagen 1962); P. Grzybek (ed.), Semiotische
Studien zum Sprichwort, simple forms reconsidered I,
Tubingen-Philadelphia-Amsterdam 1985 ( Ko-

dika/Code, Ars semeiotica, vii/3-4 [1984]). On a frag¬
ment of Abu Zayd al-Ansarl’s (d. 215/830) alleged
Kitdb al-Amthal, cf. Sellheim, in Festschrift J. Blau,
Jerusalem 1989, and on al-YusI’s (d. 1102/1691)
collection, cf. Oriens, xxxi (1988), 357-9.

(R. Sellheim)

2. In Persian

Persian, despite its elegant literary uses, has always
remained a true speech of “the folk”, the language
(until very modern times) of an essentially simple,
unlettered society based on agriculture and
pastoralism, crafts and trading. It is therefore hardly
surprising that it should be extremely rich in idioms
and proverbial expressions. Most of these are brief
and pithy, but some are fairly elaborate in both con¬
cept and construction. The high-culture literature
itself—particularly ethical works and such edifying-
entertaining writing as Sa c dl’s Gulistdn —abounds in
proverbial material; and (as, for example, with
Shakespeare) it is often virtually impossible to deter¬
mine if the author himself invented a proverbial story
or coined an aphorism which subsequently gained
general currency, or whether he merely appropriated
anecdotes and saws already in common use. Even
such ostensibly remote literature as the ghazals of
Hafiz lend themselves, by their often atomistic, line-
by-line structure, to easy sententious quotation or
divinatory employment.

Overall, at least until affected by a marked modern
tendency towards updating, the corpus contains
obviously archaic features of vocabulary, grammar
and style, most of which are undoubtedly genuine,
though some may have been more or less consciously
manufactured in an urge to offer authenticity of the
“ye olde” type. Part of the material seems to have
been rendered from Arabic (probably in the early cen¬
turies of Islam); other items have parallels or
equivalents in Turkish, and the traffic may not always
have been from Persian to the latter language. A con¬
siderably body of proverbs is dialectal, with the most
generally attractive and appropriate instances being
also rendered into more or less standard Persian at
some point. Given all these varied factors, as well as
the rapid transformation of Iranian society and the
decline of traditional education over the last 50 years,
the same tendency has arisen as in Western culture for
many proverbs no longer to be perfectly understood,
accurately cited, or rightly applied. Fortunately,
individual scholarly (and even amateur) initiatives
have assured their survival, at least in libraries both in
Iran and around the world.

While there must inevitably be a certain common
humanity to all proverbial literature, generally con¬
sidered, it is rarely true that any given adage in Per¬
sian will exactly match an item in almost unvaried use

826

MATHAL

across the broad spectrum of Western languages. A
good sampling of the uniquely Persian flavour and
idiosyncratic reference-frame can be gained from the
following works, where it is possible to compare
translations, parallels, and originals: R. Levy, Persia
viewed through its proverbs and apologues, in BSOAS, xiv/3
(1952), 540-9; L. P. Elwell-Sutton, Persian proverbs,
London 1954; L. Bonelli, Detti proverbiali persiani,
Rome 1941; S. Haim, Amthdl-i Farsi-Ingilisi, Tehran
1334 M/1955. As usual, stupidity, incompetence and
dishonesty are deprecated, but the terms used extend
to such items as donkeys. Islamic religious func¬
tionaries, minarets and water-melons; resignation to
modest station is enjoined by the consideration that a
grand house demands hard work to clear its vast, flat
roof of the winter snows that fall on the Iranian high
plateau; everything should be in season, like a sheep¬
skin cloak worn for the month of Day (December-
January), and not at the sudden arrival of the Persian
spring; and so on. As in other cultures, many of the
proverbs contradict each other if taken too literally.

Bibliography : (in addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text): The major Iranian study is still
C A1I Akbar Dihkhuda. Amthdl u hikam, Tehran 1338
M/1959-60 (4 vols.); also Abu TKasim Andjawi
ShlrazI, Tamthil u mathal, vol. i only, Tehran 1352
M/1973 and again 1357 M/1978; Yusuf Djam-
shldipur, Farhang-i amthdl-i fdrsi, Tehran
1347M/1968; Amir Kuli Amin!, Farhang-i c awamm,
n.d., n.p., (but probably Tehran in the 1960s);
Kamal al-Dln Murtadawlyan (FarsanI), Ddstdnhd-yi
amthdl, Isfahan 1340M/1961 (purports to give
plausible anecdotal background to many proverbs).
For proverbs of dialectal provenance: Mahmud
Payanda, Mathalhd u istildhdt-i Gil u Daylam , Tehran
1352M/1973; c AlI NakI Bihruzl, Wdzhaha u
mathalha-yi Shirazi u Kdziruni, Shiraz 1348M/1969.
Additional minor or peripheral items can be found
at the head of the article by Levy cited above.

(G. M. Wickens)

3. In Turkish

In Turkish, A/aMa//Modern Turkish mesel is often
used in the phrase darb-i methel (pi. durub-i emthdl ); this
pedantic form which may be translated as “stated by
an example”, has also passed into the spoken
language.

The terms mesel and its variants metel, matal, metal
are also used to designate a riddle, and masal is a story.
Other terms attested in the written sources, in oral
tradition and in learned terminology to denote a pro¬
verb are: sav (Karakhanid Turkish), atalarsozii (plural
atasozleri, old Osmanli, Azerbaijani, Turkmen and
Karakalpak as well as in the modern terminology of
Turkey), sin-soz (dialect of Chinese Turkestan), ulgar-
sos (Altay), iilgur-soz (Nogay), temsil, makal (Kara¬
kalpak), zarpumesele (Karayfm of the Crimea), nakil
(Turkmen), hikmet (plural hikam, Iranian Azerbaijani)
and deyiset (dialect of Igel in Turkey).

The proverb being the concise and stereotyped
enunciation of a rule of conduct, an axiom or a state¬
ment and the fruit of long experience, is used as a
means of giving speech a greater persuasive force; this
being the case, it has no independent existence, but is
integrated into speech. Besides its frequent usage in
day-to-day conversation, it constitutes a corroborative
and ornamental element of literary, scholarly or
popular creation. In the epic tradition, for example, a
series of linked proverbs, often alliterated or rhymed
together and in the metre adopted for the epic narra¬
tion, serve as a kind of preamble to the story proper.
Through this functional characteristic, the proverb is

distinguished from the other genres of oral literature.
It has been noted, however, that among the Karayfm
of the Crimea and in the popular tradition of Igel in
Turkey, the proverb is used independently as the
essential element of a verbal game. This is in the con¬
text of a competition in the course of which two teams
(or two persons) confront one another; each in turn
utters a proverb beginning with the same letter of the
alphabet; the winning team—or person—is the one
who succeeds in reciting the greatest number of
proverbs.

Classified according to their themes, a first category
of proverbs contains those which pronounce a simple
judgement; among them, some imply a moral or sug¬
gest a rule of conduct. In a second category, are those
which make a statement, on daily life, on human
nature, on natural phenomena, or on “works and
days”, sometimes implying criticism or practical
advice. Finally, a third category, of exclusively local
or regional origin and usage, consists of the opinions
regarding one another held by various
communities—ethnic, religious, etc.

In the formal and stylistic context, there are four
categories to be distinguished: (1) Proverbs stated in
simple prose; (2) Proverbs containing prosodic
elements. In this category the texts are of various
types: in one type, the proverb is stated in the form of
a verse or a distich in traditional metre (the two lines
are rhymed in the latter case); in a second type, the
text is composed with alliterations or internal rhymes
between the various component parts. Finally, a third
type is that where several proverbs of different
themes, rhymed or alliterated together, are joined in
sequence, such as are encountered in the epic texts,
e.g. in the Oghuz Kitdb-i Dede Korkut and in the Kirgiz
Manas [< 7 . ]; (3) Proverbs and proverbial statements
which have an anecdotal structure. Sometimes, this is
a “miniature narrative” without direct speech; else¬
where, the narrative is reduced to a minimum, or
disappears completely, and the text takes the form of
a dialogue. (4) The proverbs of this third group are to
be distinguished from those which have an anecdotal
“origin”. The latter allude to a historical event, or to
an anecdotal character; such are the proverbs and
proverbial sayings which refer to one or another of the
facetious stories of Nasreddin Hoca.

From the 2nd/8th century, some proverbs are
attested in the Kok Turk inscriptions. Later, after the
4th/10th century, a greater number of examples is
found in the Uyghur texts. As many as 290 proverbs,
of which a large number have survived into the pres¬
ent day, are contained in the dictionary of Mahmud
Kashgharl [ q.v .] (5th/l 1th century). The two most
ancient Ottoman Turkish collections, both the work
of anonymous compilers, are the Risdle min kelimat-i
Oghuzname el-meshhur bi-atalarsozi, undated, probably
from the 9th/15th century; and the Kitdb-iAtalar, com¬
piled in 885/1480-1. The Pend-ndme, by the Ottoman
poet Giiwahl (10th/16th century), is a collection of
proverbs from oral tradition cast in the form of
classical prosody. (For collections of more recent date,
still in manuscript, see the bibl. in Aksoy, 1977,
1267-70.)

Numerous poets of the Ottoman era, including
Thabit (15th/17th century) and Hifzi (12th/18th cen¬
tury), have a reputation for embellishing their poetry
with proverbs. (For a more complete list of the prov¬
erbs used in literary works, see Eyiiboglu, 1973-5.)
Others, including Ruhl of Baghdad (10th/16th cen¬
tury), NabI (11th/17th century), Raghib Pasha and
Kan! (12th/18th century) Diya 5 Pasha and Seyran!
(13th/19th century), are, on the contrary, admired for

MATHAL

827

their verses and couplets which, with the passage of
time, have acquired the status and usage of proverbs.

It was in the second half of the 19th century that
westernised Turkish intellectuals began to show an
interest in the collection and comparative study of
proverbs. The first anthology of this type is the Durub-
i emthal-i c Othmdniyye (1863) of ShinasT; in the second
edition (1870), the number of proverbs and proverbial
sayings amounts to 2,500; in the third, edited by Abu
TDiya- 3 (Ebiizziya) Tawflk in 1885, 4,000. The col¬
lection of Ahmed WefTk Pasha, intitled Muntakhabat-i
durub-t emthal-itiirkiyye (1871) contains 4,300 proverbs.
(On later collections and studies, see the bibliography
of the present article and that of Aksoy, 1977, 1271-
1328, which included 716 titles.)

Bibliography. Omer Asim Aksoy, Atasozleri ve
deyimler, Ankara 1965; idem, Bolge agizlarinda
atasozleri ve deyimler , Ankara 1971; idem, Atasozleri ve
deyimler sozliigii, i. Atasozleri sozliigii, Ankara 1971; ii.
Deyimler sozliigii, Ankara 1976; iii. Dizin ve kaynak^a,
Ankara 1977; Ilhan Ba^goz and A. Tietze, Bilmece.
A corpus of Turkish riddles, Berkeley-Los Angeles-
London 1973; Ferit Birtek, Divdn-i lugdt-it Tiirkten
derlemeler. i. En eski Turk savlari, Ankara 1944; P. N.
Boratav, Quatre vingt quatorze proverbes turcs du X V*™ e
siecle restes inedits , in Oriens, vii/2 (1954), 223-49;
idem, Le «Tekerleme». Contribution a Tetude typologique
et stylistique du conte populaire turc , Paris 1964 (Cahiers
de la Societe Asiatique, xvii); idem, Les proverbes, in
PhTF, ii, Wiesbaden 1964, 67-77; idem, 100 soruda
Turk halk edebiyati* , Istanbul 1982, 118-25; C.
Brockelmann, Alttiirkestanische Volksweisheit , in
Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, viii (1911-20), 49-73; Ahmet
Caferoglu, Orhon abidelerinde atalarsozii, in Halk
Bilgisi Haberleri, i/3 (1930), 43-6; H. F. von Diez,
Denkwiirdigkeiten von Asien, i-ii, Berlin 1811; Kemal
Eyiiboglu, On iifiincii yiizyildan guniimiize kadar fiirde
ve halk dilinde atasozleri ve deyimler , i-ii, Istanbul 1973,
1975; A. von Gabain, Die alttiirkische Literatur, in
PhTF, ii, Wiesbaden 1964, 213-14; Avram Galanti,
Eski sawlarin eskilighi, in Edebiyydt Fakiiltesi
Medfmu^asi, ii/6 (1923); Orhan §aik Gokyay, Dedem
Korkudun kitabi , Istanbul 1973, pp. cxxix ff., ccxlvii;
Velet Izbudak, Atalarsozii, Istanbul 1936; NedjTb
c Asim, Eski sawlar, in Edebiyydt Fakiiltesi MedjmiTasi,
ii/2, 4, 5, 6 (1922); idem, Diwan-i Lughat-it Tiirkden
me^khudh eski sawlar, Istanbul 1924; W. Radloff,
Proben der Volksliteratur der tiirkischen Stamme, St.
Petersburg, i-vii, 1866-96, in viii, 1899 (texts col¬
lected by I. Kunos), ix, 1907 (texts collected by N.
F. Katanov), x, 1904 (texts collected by V.
Moshkov). (P. N. Boratav)

4. In Urdu

In Urdu, proverbs are variously called mathal
( masal ), darb al-mathal (zarb ul-masal) or kahawat , and
they are often associated with muhawarat (idioms—
proverbial figures of speech). The language is rich in
them, and they are used not only in conversation but
in official and formal language, and in literature,
especially poetry. Yet little has been written about
them, and few collections have been published. The
pioneer work is by an Englishman, S.W. Fallon, A
dictionary of Hindustani proverbs, Benares-London 1886.
It was published after Fallon’s death, edited and
revised by Capt. R. C. Temple, with free English
translations. About 12,500 proverbs in Romanised
Urdu are arranged alphabetically according to their
first words, and there is no subject index. Important
as it is, it would probably have contained much more
information had the author lived to complete it. Many
of the proverbs are better set-out in Fallon’s earlier

New Hindustani-English dictionary, Benares-London
1879; and his example has been followed by Urdu¬
speaking lexicographers in their monolingual Urdu
dictionaries, which contain numerous references to
proverbs. The best in this respect is Kh w adja c Abd al-
Madjid’s Dj dmE al-lughat (4 vols., Lucknow 1933-5).
There is also a section on proverbs in the Introduction
(16), while the Bibl. (17-18) gives the titles of several
Urdu-Hindi works on proverbs. Unfortunately,
neither authors nor publication details are given. But
one, Darb al-amthal , may refer to a little book, Urdu
proverbs and idioms, published in Dihli, undated and
with no author’s name, for the benefit of “junior and
senior boys, teachers and professors'’. It contains
1,122 Urdu d& r b al-amthal and 325 Urdu muhawarat.
There are English equivalent proverbs and expres¬
sion—not in any sense translations—on alternate
pairs of pages. Other collections of Urdu proverbs
include Subhan Bakhsh, Muhawarat-i-Hind , Dihli
1913, and SayfT Nawganwi, Darb al-amthal wa
muhawarat, Karachi 1982.

Bibliography. In addition to that Didmi c al-
lughat mentioned in the text, proverbs are found in
the following general Urdu dictionaries: Khan
$ahib Mawlawl Sayyid Ahmad Dihlawi, Farhang-i-
Asafiyya, 4 vols., Dihli 1896, repr. 1974; Mawlawi
Nur al-Hasan Nayyir Kakorawi, Nur al-lughat, 4
vols., Lucknow 1924-5, repr. Karachi 1957; Sayfi
Promt, Kahawat awr kahani, Dihli 1977, contains
110 proverbs and proverbial idioms each amplified
by a short story. For an example of a poet (Sawda 5 )
quoting a proverb, see mazhar, mirza djandjanan.

(J. A. Haywood)

5. In Swahili

In Swahili, the majority of known proverbs have
been collected from oral sources, i.e. from the
memory of the elders among the people. The most
important collection is still W. Taylor’s African
aphorisms of 1891. The written sources will, when tap¬
ped, yield an even richer harvest. Most of the written
literature in Swahili is poetry, and poets love weaving
proverbs into their poems, both religious and secular,
both lyrical and epic. Even the political poetry in con¬
temporary Kenya and Tanzania is full of proverbs,
behind which the poets conceal their true opinions of
the political situation; these are to be guessed only by
their close associates and by Swahili scholars who can
follow all the allusions. Even love songs and other
lyrical songs are full of proverbs; a special type of
short (36 syllables) song exists which may be called
“proverb song”, in which the proverbs actually con¬
tain the message of the song to the beloved, concealed
from the ears of those whose wrath is to be feared.
This type of political poetry composed with proverbs
is at least 300 years old, as witness certain allusions to
it in the chronicles. If one considers that there are
numerous expressions, set phrases, idioms and con¬
ventional metaphors in the Swahili language which
are to a high degree the building bricks, as it were, of
the proverbs, one realises that these same expressions
permit the Swahili speakers, and, a fortiori the poets,
to refer to these proverbs without even mentioning
them (e.g. “hen” may refer to a good wife; “kite” to
an adulterous visitor; compare the English expression
"crocodile’s tears” for hypocrisy), showing how
Swahili proverbs are enmeshed in the very thoughts of
the people. The proverbs from the purely written
tradition may include quotations from Islamic
sources, often couched in strongly Arabicised Swahili.
The two main sources are the KuUan and the Hadith.
Scholars will quote the Kurban in Arabic, then inter-

828

MATHAL — MATHALIB

pret its contents for the people in Swahili. Every
quotation from the Kurban is accepted as an (often ill-
understood) proverb. Especially popular are the
“forty hadiths ”, of which there is more than one
Swahili translation in print.

Bibliography : The classical work on the sub¬
ject is W. E. Taylor, African aphorisms. Saws from
Swahililand, London 1891. Most of these proverbs
are in the Mombasa dialect, but a few are in the
Nyika dialect of the hinterland. For a classification
of Swahili proverbs, see J. Knappert, On Swahili
proverbs, in African Language Studies , xvi (1975), 117-
46; idem, Rhyming Swahili proverbs, in Afrika und
Uebersee, xlix (1965), 59-68; idem, Swahili proverb
songs , in ibid. , lix (1976), 105-12. A. Scheven,
Swahili proverbs , is the most important publication to
date on the subject; it has a full bibl. including S.
S. Farsy’s work on proverbs from Zanzibar. The
only work that, it seems, escaped Scheven’s net, is
C. K. Omari, E. Kezilahabi and W. D. Kamera,
Misemo na methali toka Tanzania, Dar es Salaam
1975-6.

Proverbs of the prophets are very popular; there
are various editions of the Hadithi arobaini (“Forty
hadiths ’) in Swahili. The largest collection is one of
130 Hadithi compiled by the famous Mombasa
scholar A1 Amin Bin Aly El-Mazrui and his cousin
M. Kasim Mazrui, published in Zanzibar in
1356/1937-8 in Swahili and Arabic; the Arabic title
is al-Ahadith al-mukhtdra al-d^dmi c a al-mPa wa-
thalathin hadith an nabawiyy° n fi ’l-hikma wa’ ’l-dddb wa
’l-akhlak al-mardiyya. Many of the sayings of the
Prophet Muhammad and of other prophets (Yusuf,
Yunus, Musa, c Isa, Zakariyya 3 ) have been woven
into the Swahili epics, see Knappert, Traditional
Swahili poetry , Leiden 1967. (J. Knappert)

MA TH ALIB (a.), pi. of mathla/uba, from the root
th.l.b., which means “to criticise, to blame, to
slander, to point out faults with the intention of being
hurtful”. Although it is not a Kur 5 anic term, it is
attested from ancient times and has been used con¬
tinuously until to-day to mean “faults, vices, defects,
disgrace, etc.” (see further, Wehr).

In earliest times and in the first centuries of Islam,
it had a specialised usage, for it was broadly applied
to what were regarded as subjects of shame for
the tribes, the ethnic groups or even clans, rather
than separate individuals. Later, it appeared in the
titles of a number of works usually written by
genealogists and collectors of historical traditions, but
the origin of which the Kitdb al-Aghdm (ed. Beirut xx,
21) attributes to Ziyad b. Ablh, who indeed is said to
have written a Kitdb al-Mathdlib. The word mathdlib
can be contrasted in meaning with mafakhir or ma?athir,
“exploits, feats, glorious titles” as well as with
mandkib [q.v.] in its original meaning (see, for exam¬
ple, al-Djahiz, in the Risala ft mandkib al-Atrdk , ed.
Harun, Rasa^il, i, 22: landal-ta c dyur bi ’l-mathalib wa 7-
tafdkhur bi ’l-manakib “we reproach each other for our
faults and we vie in praising ourselves for our virtues ”;
see also i, 36, 70). It is used in connection with themes
in hidja 3 [<?. v. ] or satire to denigrate an enemy (see for
example, NakaHd, ed. Bevan, 907-8: mdyuhdja bihi\ al-
Djahiz, Bukhala^, ed. Hadjiri, 184). it is well known
that the pre-Islamic poets never failed to recall the
disgrace of the other side (see R. Blachere, HLA ,
index, s.v. mafahir wa-matalib). Since hidjfl? tried to
make much of the dishonourable aspects of the group
that was under attack, it is possible that mathdlib is a
word indicating an amalgam of these features and that
it was used a little indiscriminately, with no special
emphasis on one particular shameful matter. This

much can be deducted from the examples given of the
use of mathdlib and from many other also.

However, I. Goldziher {Muh. Studien, i, 43; Eng. tr.
i, 48) stated that the mathdlib were intended to
discredit the enemy, and in particular his ancestors,
and that they aimed at casting doubt on the authen¬
ticity of his genealogy. The nobility of one’s ancestry
(nasab) was a basic requirement of honour (see B.
Fares, L’honneur chez les Arabes avant TIslam, Paris
1932, 84ff.), and it was normal for genealogies to be
closely examined, and any weak point would be
exploited by the enemy. Furthermore, even if mathdlib
were not exclusively concerned with ansab , it is not
surprising that some relatively objective genealogists
should be eager to take up the faults mentioned in
them and make them more widely known, at the risk
of attracting dangerous hostility (see, e.g., the case of
c Akfl b. Abi Talib, who was keenly disposed to take
note of mathdlib-, al-Djahiz, Bayan, ii, 323-4). Those
who specialised in such descriptions were accused of
nourishing deep hatred, and this became something of
a proverbial expression (daghinat huffaz al-mathdlib , in
al-Djahiz, Risala fi ’l-djidd wa ’l-hazl, ed. Kraus and
Hacljin, 65; ed. Harun, RasdHl, i, 236).

Goldziher again refers to the relationship between
mathdlib and genealogies when discussing the famous
Daghfal (see al-Mas c udT, Murudl , index, s.v.).
Among the authors of works which contain this term
in their titles, he mentions Hisham Ibn al-Kalbi and
al-Haytham b. c AdT; these last remarks appear in the
chapter on the £hu c ubiyya an d its different manifesta¬
tions in Muh. Studien, i, 191, Eng. tr. i, 176-7.
Although accusations are made against him (see
Goldziher, op.cit ., i, 187, Eng.tr. i, 173), it would
probably be wrong to count as an opponent of the
Arabs and a supporter of the c Adjam the famous
writer Ibn al-KalbT (d. 204/819 [^.f. ], the author of a
Kitdb Mathdlib al- c Arab (Fihrist, ed., Cairo 141; Yakut,
Udabd 5 , xii, 191, where it is stated that c Allan (see
below) used the same classification of the tribes;
Brockelmann, S I, 212; Sezgin, GAS, i, 270, ii, 61).
However, it should be noted that Ibn al-Kalbi had
already used the same term as this of a work contain¬
ing a severe criticism of the three first caliphs, the
Kitdb Mathdlib al-Sahdba. This pro- c Alid manifesto
caused “a great stir” and was used by al-Hilli (d.
726/1325 [<?. v. ]) to defend Shiism (see H. Laoust, Les
schismes dans 1’is lam, 78). His contemporary, al-
Haytham b. c Adi (d. ca. 206/821) [qv.], who had an
extremely poor reputation, produced for his part
another Kitdb Mathdlib al- c Arab (Brockelmann, S I,
213; Sezgin, GAS, i, 272) in two versions (one longer,
the other shorter, according to Ibn al-Nadim ( Fihrist ,
Cairo, 145), as well as the Mathdlib Rabi c a, the Arabs
from the North.

Abu c Ubayda (d. ca. 209/824) [q.v. ]) was vigorously
criticised for having provided the Shu c ubiyya with
arguments for their cause, just as all the other writers
of mathdlib were criticised, and even accused of
Shu € ubl doctrines. However, he does seem to have
shown some objective judgement when he wrote not
only a Kitdb Mahathir al- c Arab and a Kitdb Mahathir
Ghatafan. but also the Mandkib Bahila in opposition to
his Mathdlib Bahila (Fihrist, Cairo, 80; Sezgin, GAS, ii,
61, 321). Al-Mas c udl {Murutpf, vii, 80 = § 2765) refers
to his Kitdb al-Mathalib (cf. Brockelmann, S I, 162),
and shows that recording the Arab genealogies with
all the vices that were embodied in them naturally led
him to make certain serious accusations which, by
their very nature, must have displeased a considerable
number of individuals and families. In addition, al-
Mas c udl {Murudi, v, 480-1 = § 2235) mentions a work

MATHALIB — al-MATHAMINA

829

attributed to Abu c Ubayda, “or to another Shu c ubT”,
though the exact title of this work cannot be estab¬
lished. It must presumably have contained the mandkih
and the mathalib of the Arabs as well as the
entitlements to glory and shameful deeds of the vari¬
ous tribes of the north and south of Arabia, as
presented by their supporters and by their detractors
in the meeting-room of Hisham b. c Abd al-Malik,
who apparently inaugurated discussions on these
questions in the manner of those which made up the
genre of al-mahdsin wa ’l-masawi [q.v.\.

A few decades earlier, Ziyad b. Ablhi [q.v. ] could
have dedicated his efforts to such an activity; he is
credited with having written a book of mathalib , which
was used by some of the authors already mentioned
(see Sezgin, GAS , i, 261, as well as 249, 257, 265, ii,
24, 60). According to Hammad c Adjrad [q.v.], the zin-
dik named Yunus b. [AbT] Farwa sent a book (or a let¬
ter, kitdb) to the Emperor of Byzantium about the
mathalib of the Arabs and the vices ( c uyub) of Islam (al-
Djahiz, Hayawan , iv, 448; cf. al-Djahshiyari, 125; al-
Husn, Djam c al-d^awahir, 256; al-Murtada, Amali , i,
90; Ibn Hadjar, Lisan al-mxzan, vi, 334; Brockelmann,
S I, 109). This appears to be the one real case of
treason which has been recorded; since the Persian
c Allan al-Warrak al-Shu c ubi. who maintained rela¬
tions with the Barmakids as well as doing the job of
copyist at the Bayt al-Hikma [q.v.] for al-Rashld, and
subsequently for al-Ma^mun, cannot really be blamed
for his work; he is indeed the author of a Kitdb al-
Maydan which collects together, tribe by tribe, all the
matjidlib of the Arabs, from Kuraysh to the Yemenis.
The list of tribes and clans which have their shameful
matters recorded occupies a whole page of the Fihrist
(Cairo, 154), where it is stated that the classification
adopted there is the same as that of Ibn al-KalbT.
c Allan himself also seems to have been objective in his
judgement, for he wrote other works, among which
may be mentioned a Kitdb Fada^il Kinana and a Kitdb
Fada^il Rab^a (see Yakut, Udaba 5 , xii, 191-6, with a
passage borrowed from al-Djahshiyan, which does
not appear in the Kitdb al-Wuzara 3 , but which has been
reproduced by M. c Awwad in Nusus da^i c a min Kitdb
al-Wuzara , Beirut 1384/1964, 49; Sezgin, GAS, i, 271,
ii, 61). Sezgin (i, 603) also mentions a Kitdb al-
Mathdlib of Ibn Bishr al-Ash c arT (d. 260/874), and (ii,
62) the Mathalib Thakif wa-sa^ir al-^Arab by someone
named al-Daymartl.

Although it is possible, it is not likely that later
authors continued to use the word mathalib in the titles
of polemical works against some tribes, for the general
situation hardly encouraged this kind of literature to
survive. It must have come to an end quite quickly.
We have seen that mathalib are to be contrasted with
ma^athir, mafakhir and manakib (see above); even so, it
proved impossible for a parallel to be maintained
between works devoted to the praise of groups of
people and individuals and those which aimed at
discrediting an enemy. The short list that has been
given here and what we know of comparable works
suggest that Goldziher was correct, for over the cen¬
turies the divisions between the tribes weakened so
that a growing feeling of fellow-citizenship could
develop. Moreover, writers seem to have heeded the
hadith which condemns al-ta c n ji ’ l-ansab wa ’l-niyaha wa
’ l-anwa and consequently they avoided the tempta¬
tion of attacking genealogies. On the other hand, as a
result of an understandable semantic evolution the
term mathalib has been used in a meaning close to that
of hidjji* and has been applied to individuals; see e.g.
the Kitab Mathalib Abi Nuwas by Ahmad b. c Ubayd
Allah al-Thakafi (d. 314/926; see Yakut, Udaba 5 , iii,

240) and the famous Mathalib al-wazirayn by Abu
Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. 414/1023 [<?.t>.])-

Bibliography : Given in the article. See also J.

Sadan, Perennite et karts conceptuels Gahiliyya-Islam a

travers les belles-lettres et les recueils de Mathalib. in From

Jahiliyya to Islam , Jerusalem 1987.

(Ch. Pellat)

al-MA TH AMINA. the name given by the
Yemenite historians to eight noble families of
South Arabia who, before Islam, enjoyed impor¬
tant political privileges, either in the kingdom of
Himyar (from the end of the 3rd century AD to 520
[or 525]), or under the Abyssinian and Persian
regimes which followed. Mathamina is a plural noun
whose singular, which is not attested, could be
*Muthamman or *Muthman (since these participles
mean “repeated eight times”, “to the number
eight”). It is certainly from the Arabic number
thamaniya “eight”, and not from the concept of price
or value also contained in the root, that the name of
these eight families is derived, since they could also be
called al-Thamaniya (“the Eight”), as in al-
Hamdanl, al-Damigha , 64.

Mention of the Mathamina is to be found in the
works of only three authors, all Yemenite. The oldest
is al-Hasan al-Hamdanl (280-after 360/893-after 971)
[q.v.]. Next comes Nashwan al-Himyan, who died in
Dh u ’1-Hidjdja 573/June 1178 (on this author see al-
Akwa c , Naschwan). The third is the Rasulid ruler al-
Malik al-Ashraf c Umar b. Yusuf b. Rasul, who
reigned from 694 to 696/1295-7 (Sayyid, Sources , 396).
It is to be noted that the non-Yemenite Arab
historians, notably Hisham Ibn al-Kalbl [q.v.] appear
to ignore these Mathamina.

The definitions of the historians. These
three authors give somewhat divergent definitions of
the Mathamina. Dealing with the descent of Dh u
Djadan, al-Hamdanl ( al-Iklil , ii, 283 ff.) mentions
incidentally that four of the sons of Shurahbil b. al-
Harith belonged to the Mathamina “eight lineages
(abyat ) between whom power was shared after the
death of Dhu Nuwas” (a phrase follows whose mean¬
ing is obscure). This scholar, like the other Yemenite
historians knew that Dhu Nuwas [<?.£•) was the
nickname of a Himyarite king called Yusuf (for al-
Hamdanl, see for example al-Damigha . 63-4, and al-
Iklil , x, 22; for Nashwan. we may refer to Muluk , 147-
8). The full name and exact title of this ruler are
known thanks to a South Arabian inscription en¬
graved by the commanders of one of his armies and
dated d-mdr’n 633 of the Himyarite era (July 518 or
July 523 AD, since there is some question as to
whether the Himyarite era begins in 115 or 110 before
the Christian era): “Yusuf As^ar Yath^ar, king of all
the tribes” ( Yws 1 / *s 1 r YUr mlk kl in Ja 1028, line
1) (the name of the king should thus be corrected in
the article dhu nuwas).

The dates of the reign of Yusuf, a ruler especially
known for having persecuted the Christians of
Nadjran, which led to an Abyssinian intervention that
challenged him and drove him to suicide, are not
established with certainty. He came to power between
June 516 (or 521) and June 517 (or 522) (according to
the evidence of Ry 510 and Ja 1028/8-9) and was
overthrown by the Abyssinians shortly after Pentecost
520 (or 525) (Beeston , Judaism, 272 ff.; Huxley, Mar-
tyrium , 51). After the death of Yusuf, the kingdom of
Himyar passed under the tutelage of Abyssinia for
fifty years; then, in the year 570, it was conquered by
the Sasanids and remained under Persian domination
until it was won over to Islam during the lifetime of
Muhammad. For al-Hamdam, the Mathamina were

830

al-MATHAMINA

thus the noble lineages who dominated Yemen after
the fall of the Himyarite dynasty, that is, during the
Abyssinian occupation and perhaps after that. This
scholar in the meantime neglects to mention that the
Himyarite throne did not remain vacant; the Abyssi-
nians placed on it a Himyarite Christian, Samyafa c
(i S J myf c ), then one of their own people, Abraha \q v.].

The definition of the Mathamina that Nashwan
gives differs somewhat from that of al-Hamdanl. In
Muluk , 157, he states that “these eight kings and their
descendants are eight lines called the Mathamina of
Himyar; in order for the royal dignity of a king of
Himyar to be effective, these eight had to establish
him and if they agreed on his removal, they deposed
him”. In Shams al- c ulum, 16, under the root ThMN.
he adds: “ Thamaniya : rulers ( amldk ) descended from
Himyar the Younger b. Saba 5 the Younger, called the
Mathamina; this is made into a proper noun for them
so as to distinguish it from the number eight without
the article”. For Nashwan, the Mathamina were thus
great barons who exercised strict control over the
Himyarite ruler, since they confirmed him in office
and could also remove him. The reference to such a
ruler probably implies an earlier date for the Abyssi¬
nian invasion; the Mathamina were thus an institu¬
tion dating from the splendour of the Himyarite
kingdom.

A modern Yemenite scholar, Muhammad BafakTh,
has linked this definition of Nashwan with a passage
of al-Hamdanl ( al-Iklil , ii, 114), where it is noted that
the Himyarite king was enthroned by a college of 80
kayls [<?.u.], supposing that this number 80 should be
corrected to eight (which should be another mention
of the Thamaniya/Mathamina) (Bafakih, al-Hamdanl ,
106). This possible correction is not imperative, for it
is not necessary for a good understanding of the text,
especially as the pre-Islamic inscriptions acquaint us
with a number of kayls, far more than eight.

As for the Rasulid ruler al-Malik al-Ashraf, he
gives two different definitions of the Mathamina
several pages apart {Turfat al-ashab, 73, 77); it is clear
that he copied two divergent sources without
investigating or succeeding in harmonising them. He
states firstly (73): “among (the kayls), (are counted)
the Mathamina: these are eight men who belonged to
Himyar and who were kings of their people; they were
subordinate to the kings of Himyar, and their descen¬
dants are the tribes of Himyar; they are called the
Mathamina; their powers included the fact that a king
of Himyar could not reign without their goodwill and,
if they agreed on his removal, they deposed him”.
This text, like the list of the Mathamina which follows
(see below), is a simple paraphrase of Nash wan’s text,
Muluk , 157-8.

Several pages later (77), al-Malik al-Ashraf returns
to the subject: “the Mathamina — of the Himyarites
— are eight kayls who arose after Sayf b. DhT Yazan
and to whom the Yemenites gave power”. Here is a
new evaluation; these Mathamina are seen as reign¬
ing after the arrival of the Persians, called to Yemen
by Sayf b. DhT Yazan to chase out the Abyssininans
(in the year 570).

Variants in the list of the Mathamina. The
list of the Mathamina was already disputed in the time
of al-Hamdanl, who gives two different versions of it
with two of the eight names varying; other variants
were defended by later authors. We can sum up these
diverse opinions in the following table:

HI = al-Hamdani, list no. 1: see al-Iklil , ii, 294. It
is this which the present author takes into account. In
the only available edition of al-Iklil, ii, by M. al-

Dhu Sahar

XXX

(x)

Dhu Tha c Iaban

XXX

Dhu Khalil

XXX

Dhu c Uthkulan

XXX

Dhu Djadan

XXX

Dhu Manakh

Dhu §irwah

XXX

Dhu Makar

XXX

Dhu Hazfar

XXX

Dhu Kayfan

Dhu Murathid

Dhu Yazan

Dhu Ma c afir

(the crosses indicate the number of occurrences of the
list in the work of the author considered)

Akwa c , it is necessary to correct Dhu c Ushkulan to
Dh u c Uthkulan; besides, the list only consists of seven
names (in place of the eight announced in the text),
without our knowing whether it is a case of an error
by the editor or a deficiency in the unique manuscript.
In fact, it is necessary to add Dh u Makar, as is proved
by the five verses attributed to c Alkama b. Dh T
Djadan, which al-Hamdanl cites to justify this list and
which he takes from Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. al-
Mahabl al-Kala c I. In this fragment of c Alkama (a
great Yemenite poet who was a contemporary of the
Prophet Muhammad: al-Iklil, ii, 300-1; on this poet,
see also Lofgren, c Alqama), the Mathamina are treated
as if they already belonged to past times. Unfor¬
tunately, we cannot conclude anything from this, for
the authenticity of these verses seems doubtful; al-
Hamdanl himself did not find any trace of them in the
work of c Alkama.

H2 = al-Hamdanl, list no. 2: see al-Iklil , ii, 294-5.
It is given in two pieces of verse. The first is that
which serves as a justification for HI, but with some
variants, notably the replacement of Dhu Manakh
and Dhu Sirwah by Dhu Hazfar and JQhu Kayfan; al-
HamdanT takes it from an Arab of San^a 3 who
attributes it, not to c Alkama, but to a Himyarite. The
second piece, which numbers six verses, is “the
famous saying of c Alkama b. DhT Djadan on the
Mathamina in his poem”; it gives the same names as
the preceding.

Nl = Nashwan, list no. 1: see Muluk, 156-7. It is
provided by the Kasida himyariyya , a nostalgic poem
that Nashwan devoted to the annals of the Himyarite
Empire. It is a compromise between the HI and H2
versions: of the two innovations in H2, it retains only
the replacement of Dhu Manakh by Dhu Hazfar. The
author justifies his list by citing, in the commentary
on his poem, c Alkama’s verses already encountered
with the support of HI (but attributed in H2’s state¬
ment to a Himyarite), with new variants. The same
list is found in a piece of three verses, without the
author’s name, that Nashwan cites in the
encyclopaedic dictionary that he composed entitled
Shams al- c ulum, under the root SHR, 48.

N2 = Nashwan, list no. 2: see Shams al- c ulum, under
the root ThMN, 16. It follows Nl, but replaces Dhu
Sahar with A1 Murathid. This list is provided by a
poem attributed to an Arab from the North (from the
tribe of c AtIk b. Aslam b. Yadhkur b. c Anaza b. Asd
b. Rab^a b. Nizar). It is a variant without real
significance, seeing that Dhu Murathid is, according
to the genealogists, the “son” of Dh u Sahar (see
notably Nashwan, Muluk, 158, and al-HamdanT, al-

al-MATHAMINA

831

Iklil, ii, 317-18). Al-HamdanT himself ( al-Iklil , viii,
159) considers Dhu Murathid as one of the
Mathamina, although this lineage does not appear in
his own lists. The preference shown for Dh u
Murathid in this text of Nashwan may have a per¬
sonal motive; this author claimed descent from
Hassan Dhu Murathid b. DhT Sahar (Shams al- c ulum,
under the root RThD. 40).

N3 = Nashwan, list no. 3: see Shams al- c ulum, on
the word dhu , 39. It differs from N1 in one name, Dh u
Yazan, who takes the place of Dhu Makar. It may be
a slip by the author for, in his works, he never puts
Dh u Yazan among the Mathamina, not even in the
article devoted to this line in the same work (116). All
the other names on the list, by contrast, are explicitly
described as Mathamina, when Nashwan discusses
them. Moreover, it will be noted that this list is not
supported by any poetic reference.

Ml = al-Malik al-Ashraf, list no. 1: see Turfat al-
asbiab , 73. The list of the Mathamina comprised,
following the manuscripts used by Zettersteen: Yazld,
Sakhar. Tha c laban the Elder, Murra Dhu c Uthkulan,
Makar b. Malik, Dhu Hazfar b. Aslam, c Alkama
Dh u Djadan and Dhu Sirwah. This passage is
actually a rather corrupt citation and taken from the
commentary of the Kastda himyariyya of Nashwan
( Muluk , 157-8). Also, the two first names (“Yazld wa-
Sakhar”) may be a corruption of the double name
Barll Dhu Sahar. When the correct reading is estab¬
lished, the list, a simple repetition of Nl, only consists
of seven persons. But al-Malik al-Ashraf intended to
give eight names, and not seven. So it is probable that
the copying error already existed in the source that he
used.

M2 = al-Malik al-Ashraf, list no. 2: see Turfat al -
ashab, 77. It takes the name Dhu Yazan, already given
in N3, and provides an entirely new name, Dh u
Ma c afir. If comparison is made with Hi, these two
names take the place of Dhu Sahar and Dhu Sirwah.

The Mathamina in the pre-Islamic in¬
scriptions and in tradition. Almost all the lines
of Mathamina cited by the traditionists are confirmed
in the South Arabian inscriptions. This allows us to
determine their origin, which has been totally
obscured by tradition. It is established that they were:

— Sabaeans from Ma 5 rib: Dhu Sahar, Dhu Khalil,
Dh u c Uthkulan, Dhu Djadan, Dhu Makar, Dh u
Hazfar.

— Sabaean from a region adjoining Ma 5 rib: Dh u
Sirwah, hypothetically since this line has not been
attested before Islam with this name; but Dhu Sirwah
clearly refers to the important ancient site of Sirwah,
at least 40 km. west of Ma 5 rib.

— Sabaean from the Highlands (to the north of
$an c a 5 ): Dhu Murathid

— Himyarites: Dhu Manakh and Dhu Ma c afir

— Hadramite: Dhu Yazan

— Nadjranites: Dhu Tha c laban and possibly Dh u
Kay fan.

If we discard from the lists of Mathamina the most
doubtful names, Dhu Murathid (a doublet of Dh u
Sahar), Dhu Kay fan (mentioned in only one list and
furthermore a descendant, in the genealogies, of Dhu
Djadan), Dhu Yazan and Dhu Ma c afir (who only
appear at a late date), of the 9 remaining names, 6 are
of Sabaean lineages of MaYib, plus a seventh (Dhu
Sirwah) who can be assimilated with them. The
preponderance of lines originating from the Sabaean
capital is overwhelming. On the other hand, it is
curious to find so few lines drawn from Himyar and
any of the Sabaean tribes of the highlands, whereas
the traditionists have preserved the memory of a

number from among them. The Mathamina are thus
essentially the old Sabaean nobility of Ma 5 rib. This
observation reminds us that al-Hamdanl mainly
invokes the authority of the poet c Alkama b. Dhl
Djadan, himself originating from one of these old
lines of Ma 5 rib: it is probable that it is he, and he
alone, who is at the origin of this tradition.

It is further to be noted that, in the genealogy of
Himyar composed by al-Hamdanl, the great majority
of the lines of Mathamina, and notably all those of
Sabaean origin, are grouped in the same branch (see
al-lklil , ii), parallel to that in which are grouped the
Himyarite kings (on this, see Bafaklh, al-Hdrith). It
would seem that the traditionists had integrated in the
same branch of this genealogy two bodies of tradi¬
tions, on one hand that of the tribe of Himyar in the
strict sense, on the other that of the Sabaeans of
Ma 5 rib. Finally, we will observe that in Yemen in the
9th-12th centuries AD, numerous clans, lines and
even villages were claiming descent from the
Mathamina; an eloquent picture is supplied by the
works of al-Hamdanl, notably in the genealogies of
Himyar.

The later vogue of the Mathamina. The
tradition of the Mathamina is certainly ancient: it is
based on some fragments of reputed archaic poetry,
whose antiquity can be confirmed by the mention of
Dh u c Uthkulan, an authentic pre-Islamic Sabaean
line which is known to the historians only from these
fragments. We may assume that it dates back to the
Himyarite period (end of the 3rd century AD -
beginning of the 6 th), after Himyar had annexed
Saba 5 around 275 and at a time when the ancient
noble Sabaean lines had to defend an authority that
was being increasingly threatened.

Meanwhile, this tradition seems to have been
neglected by the earliest of the great traditionists,
whose work established the genealogical outline of the
Arab tribes, notably Hisham Ibn al-Kalbl (around
120-204 or 206/around 737-819 or 821) and Ibn
Durayd al-Azdi(223-321/837-933) [q.v.]. Ibn al-Kalbl
knew, however, 7 of the 13 lines of Mathamina
recorded above (Caskel, Gamhara, index): Dh u
Shahar (sic), Dhu Khalil, Dhu Djadan, Dhu Manakh.
Dh u Sirwah, Dhu Kayfan and Dhu Yazan, to whom
we may add the two tribe names, Tha c laban and al-
Ma c afir (without dhu).

So it is at a late date that the tradition of the
Mathamina enjoyed a certain vogue, when the
Yemenite scholars, beginning with al-Hamdanl,
raised it from oblivion. It is probable that they only
had at their disposal in order to db this some allusions
from archaic poetry, which would explain the notable
differences of definition from one author to another.

The interest that the Yemenites showed in these
Mathamina from the 9th-10th centuries onwards
probably has a political cause. The dissolution of the
c Abbasid empire left the field open to many ambi¬
tions, particularly in Yemen where the struggles for
power became fierce. In this context, prestigious
Himyarite ancestors gave an incontestable historical
legitimacy, even if the religious authorities saw in it a
manoeuvre against Islam. It was probably impossible
to claim a royal ascendancy, whether it was owing to
public knowledge that the rulers of Himyar had had
no posterity or because their engagement in favour of
Judaism had disqualified them. But there were the
Mathamina, mentioned in archaic poetry, and they
resorted to this idea which had fallen into oblivion. It
is probable that the Dja c farids who appealed to Dh u
Manakh for their authority and the Yu c firids (and
perhaps the Zawahids) who claimed descent from Dh u

832

al-MATHAMINA — MATHNAWI

Makar owed their success, among others, to the
prestige of these ancestors. The addition of Dh u
Ma c afir in list no. 2 of al-Malik al-Ashraf could be
explained in the same way; would the Rasulids not
have needed a prestigious local ancestry in order to
establish their power better? Many other lines, even
modest ones, attempted to ennoble themselves in the
same way, by claiming to have one of the Mathamina
for an ancestor.

To supply arguments for certain princes seeking
historical legitimacy and roots, it is probable that
some scholars did not hesitate to replace one name
with another in the poetical fragments and in the list,
to such an extent that the number of variants
increased. We know the bad reputation that the
genealogists had; was not al-Hamdanl himself accused
of falsification for payment (Bafaklh, al-Harith, 428)?

Finally, one should mention that the name
Mathamina was also borne by a branch of the c Alids
of Yemen (see al-Malik al-Ashraf, Turfat al-afhab,
116).

Bibliography : Isma c il b. c Ali al-Akwa c , Na-
schwan lbn Sa c Id al-Himyari und die geistigen, religidsen
und politischen Auseinandersetzungen seiner Epoche, in
Werner Daum (ed.), Jemen, Innsbruck-
Frankfurt/Main 1987, 205-16; Muhammad c Abd
al-Kadir Bafaklh, al-Hamddni wa ’l-Malhamina, in
Yusuf Mohammad Abdallah (ed.), al-Hamddni, a
great Yemeni scholar, Studies on the occasion of his
millenial anniversary , $an c a 3 1407/1986 (Arabic title:
al-Hamddni, Lisdn al-Yaman), 99-110; idem, al-
Harith al-Rd^ish “wa-nasabu-hu al-mukhtalaf JThi", in
Chr. Robin, Melanges linguistiques offerts a Maxime
Rodinson, C. R. du G.L.E.C.S. , xii, Paris 1985, 411-
34 (Fr. summary, 411); A. F. L. Beeston , Judaism
and Christianity in Pre-Islamic Yemen, in J. Chelhod
(ed.), LArabie du Sud, histoire et civilisation, i, Paris
1984, 271-8; al-Hamdani, Kitab Kafidat al-Damigha,
ed. al-Akwa c al-Hiwall, Cairo 1978; idem, Kitab al-
Iklil , ii, ed. al-Akwa c , Cairo 1386/1967, viii, ed. N.
A. Faris, Princeton 1940 (repr. $an c a 5 -Beirut n.d.
[1978]), x, ed. Muhibb al-Dln al-Khatib. Cairo
1368[/1948-9]; idem, al-Makdla al- c ashira min sard^ir
al-hikma, ed. al-Akwa c , n.p. n.d. [1981]; G. L.
Huxley, On the Greek Martyrium of the Negranites, in
Proc. R. Ir. Acad., 80c (1980), 41-55; Ja 1028= A.
Jamme, Sabaean and Hasaean Inscriptions from Saudi
Arabia, Studi semitici, 23, Rome 1966, 39 fT.; O.
Lofgren, c Alqama lbn di Gadan und seine Dichtung nach
der lklil-Auswahl in der Bibliotheca Ambrosiana , in al-
Hudhud, Festschrift Maria Hofner, ed. Roswitha G.
Stiegner, Graz 1981, 199-209; al-Malik al-Ashraf,
Turfat al-ashabfima c rifat al-ansdb, ed. K. V. Zetters-
teen, Damascus 1949 (repr. San^ 3 1406/1985);
Nash wan b. Sa c Id al-Himyari, Muluk Himyar wa-
akydl al-Yaman, kasldat Nashwan..., ed. c AlI b.
Isma c fl al-Mu^ayyad and Isma c fl Ahmad al-DjirafT.
Cairo 1378[/1958-9]; idem, Die auf Sudarabien
bezuglichen Angaben Naswan’s im Sams al- c ulum, ed.
c AzImuddIn Ahmad, Leiden-London 1916; Ry
510= G. Ryckmans, Inscriptions sud-arabes . Dixieme
se'rie, in Le Museon, lxvi (1953), 307 ff.; Ayman
Fu 3 ad Sayyid, Sources de Vhistoire du Yemen a Vepoque
musulmane, Cairo 1974 (in Arabic).

(Chr. Robin)

al- MATHANI [see aL'KUR^an].
MATHEMATICS [see DJABR, HANDASA, HISAB].
MA TH NAWI (a.), the name ofapoem written
in rhyming couplets.

1. In Arabic literature, see muzdawidj.

2. In Persian.

According to the prosodist Shams-i-Kays (7th/13th

century), the name refers to “a poem based on
independent, internally rhyming lines (abyat-i
mustakill-i musarra 0 ). The Persians call it mathnawi
because each line requires two rhyming letters....
This kind (naw c ) is used in extensive narratives and
long stories which cannot easily be treated of in poems
with one specific rhyming letter” (al-Mu^djam, ed.
Tehran 1338/1959, 418f.). The first part of this defini¬
tion mentions the single characteristic which separates
the mathnawi from all other classical verse forms,
namely its rhyme scheme aa bb cc, etc. Otherwise, the
name is given to poems differing greatly in genre as
well as in length.

Etymologically, it is often explained as a nisba
adjective to the Arabic word mathna, “two by two”;
but mathndt m (according to al-DjawharT, the equi¬
valent of the Persian du-bayti, “which is a song”) is
mentioned as another possibility in the Tddj_ al- c arus
(cf. Lane, r.i;.). It is reasonable to think that the term
was coined by the Persians in spite of its Arabic
derivation. The Arabs used the term muzdawidf [q.v.]
instead. By this they designated poems with rhyming
couplets, usually written in the trimeter of the radfaz
which has either eleven or twelve syllables. Such
poems were composed at least since the beginning of
the 8 th century A.D., but the verse form remained of
little importance in Arabic literature (cf. G. E. von
Grunebaum, On the origin and early development of Arabic
muzdawij poetry, in JNES, iii [1944], 9-13, repr. in
Islam and medieval Hellenism, London 1976).

The much more successful Persian mathnawi is first
known from the Samanid period (4th/10th century).
Although it made its appearance at a much later date
than the muzdawidf, the mathnawi is regarded by nearly
all modern scholars as a continuation of an Iranian
verse form and not of its Arabic counterpart. Yet this
theory meets with a few thorny problems pertaining to
the history of prosody in Iran. Prior to the Islamic
period, rhyme—the most prominent feature of a ma¬
thnawi —was apparently not in use as a characteristic
of a verse form. The metrical system of pre-Islamic
Iranian poetry is still very imperfectly understood.
The early opinion of modern scholarship was that it
must have been governed by the principle of syllable
counting. On the basis of this assumption, an Iranian
origin of some Persian metres, which were frequently
used in early mathnawis, was held to be likely (cf. G.
E. von Grunebaum, Islam. Essays in the nature and
growth of a cultural tradition, London 1955, 177-80).

The syllabic principle was rejected by W. B.
Henning and M. Boyce in favour of the theory that
the pre-Islamic metres were accentual and allowed a
variable number of syllables within certain limits. It
has been shown more recently that a rather great
irregularity in the length of verse lines was permitted,
probably under the influence of the accompanying
music (see S. Shaked, Specimens of Middle Persian verse ,
in W. B. Henning memorial volume , London 1970, 395-
405, with further references). L. P. Elwell-Sutton, on
the other hand, arguing in support of his thesis that
the metres of classical poetry continue the system used
in pre-Islamic Iran, opted for the principle of syllabic
quantity ( Persian metres, 168ff.). It has often been
observed that the Persian mathnawis are written in a
restricted number of metres. These metres always
have eleven or, more rarely, ten syllables. A verse
form marked by such inflexible rules for its rhyme and
the number of its syllables can only have developed in
the early Islamic period. It is most likely, therefore,
that the mathnawi came into being through a process
of adaptation of pre-Islamic verse forms to the pros¬
ody of the Islamic period which was dominated by the

MATHNAWI

833

metric principles of Arabic poetry. The stages of this
process can no longer be traced from the scant
remains of pre-classical Persian poetry which have
been preserved (cf. e.g. Chr. Rempis, Die altesten
Dichtungen in Neupersisch in ZDMG , ci [1951], 235-8;
Fr. Meier, Die schone Mahsati, Wiesbaden 1963, 9ff.;
G. Lazard, Les premiers poetes persons, Paris 1964,
10 ff.).

In the view of the classical poets, the mathnawi was
undoubtedly on a par with other forms of poetry. To
GurganI [q.v. ], the treatment in a mathnawi of the
story about Vis and Ramin, known up to his days
only in an unadorned “Pahlawl” form, amounted to
bringing it to the level of poetic expression ( Vis-u
Ramin , ed. Tehran 1337/1959, 20). The poems of
Nizami [q.v. ] show which heights of stylistic art could
be reached in this form. In some respects, however, it
was also akin to prose. The narrative and didactic
contents of many poems could equally be dealt with in
prose works. In principle, there were no limits to the
length of a mathnawi. A few works of exceptionable
size like the Shah-nama, some of the later heroic poems,
and the Mathnawi-yi ma c nawi left aside, most of the
better-known poems fall within a range of 2,000 to
9,000 bayts, but the form was also used for texts of a
much lesser extent. Fragments of no more than a few
lines with the rhyme scheme of the mathnawi can be
found as inserted lines in prose works, for example in
the Gulistdn of Sa c dl [< 7 . ], who sometimes wrote an
entire story on this scheme in 10 or 12 bayts.

Other poems were occasionally inserted into a
mathnawi text, either with or without the use of their
specific rhyme scheme. The first poet to do the former
was, to our knowledge, c Ayyuki (Jl . in the early
5th/llth century), who put short poems in
monorhyme into the mouths of the protagonists in his
Warka u Gulshah (ed. by Dh. Safa, Tehran 1343/1964).
This insertion of ghazals was also a characteristic of the
Dah-nama genre and occurs sometimes in versions of
the legend of Madjnun Layla [q.v.], notably in the
poem of MaktabI (9th/15th century). Lyric poems
adjusted to the pattern of the mathnawi can be found
frequently in the works of FirdawsI [q.v.], GurganI,
Nizami and others.

Prose and poetry were in some cases used alter¬
natively, e.g. in the Walad-nama of Sultan Walad
[qv.\. The Tuhfat al-Hrakayn of KhakanI [q.v. ] is in
most copies introduced by a prologue in ornate prose;
a similar prologue belongs to one of the early versions
of the Hadikat al-hakika of Sana 3 ! [q.v.], but was cer¬
tainly not written by the poet himself. Djalal al-Dln
Rum! [q.v. ] added a composition of this kind to each
of the six books into which his Mathnawi is divided.

The composition of mathnawis shows the same
variety as most of their other features. Yet certain
conventions can be recognised in a number of poems
and can be used therefore as the basis of a classifica¬
tion. A common type is exemplified in mathnawis with
a clear distinction between introductory sections and
the proper text of the poem concerned. The former
(which are often collectively designated as the dibaca,
a term also applied to prologues in prose) deal with a
series of topics, some of which can be regarded as
obligatory whereas others were added at the pleasure
of the poet. To the first category belonged praise of
the One God and prayers ( tawhid , munadjat), a eulogy
of the Prophet ( na c t ), which usually included the
praise of his Family and his Companions, a dedication
to the poet’s patron, and digressions on the occasion
for writing the poem, its subject matter, etc. Reflec¬
tions of the value of poetry, usually referred to as
sukhan, meaning both “speech” and “logos” (see e.g.

J. Chr. Biirgel, Nizami iiber Sprache und Dichlung, in
Festschrift fur Fr. Meier, Wiesbaden 1974, 9-28), and
other sections of a moralising nature have frequently
been added. A dibaca of this kind can already be found
in the Shah-nama together with a series of sections on
the origin of the world which form a prelude to the
subject-matter of Firdawsl’s epic. The obligatory part
of the scheme was further enlarged by Nizami, who
added it to the treatment of the mFrddf [q.v.] of
Muhammad following upon the naH. Sufi poets like
Amir Khusraw and DjamI [q.vv.] inserted the praise
of their spiritual guides. In some poems, a few sec¬
tions of the dibaca were placed at the end by way of an
epilogue.

Less frequently found is a type of poem introduced
by the description of one particular object treated as
an emblem from which symbolic meanings relevant to
the following poem are derived. This device may have
been borrowed from the nasibs of kasidas. Such
emblems were: the wind in SanaTs Kdr-ndma and Sayr
al-Hbad ila 'l-ma^ad, the sun in Tuhfat al- c Irakayn , the
flute in the Mathnawi-yi ma c nawi, and the rabab in
Sultan Walad’s Rabab-nama.

A distinction between an introduction and the
poem itself cannot always be recognised. This is
especially not possible in many of the shorter
mathnawis and in some didactic works like the Hadikat
al-hakika.

Several devices could serve to articulate the con¬
tents of poems. FirdawsI inserted passages of various
kinds into the Shah-nama to introduce the major stories
contained in the text. The night scene describing how
the poet was inspired by a “beloved idol”, who
brought him a lamp, and the theme of the tale of
Blzhan and Manlzha, is the best known example. The
genre of nature poetry provided Nizami with the
means to mark transitions in the structure of his
romances; reflective intermezzi could fulfil the same
purpose. More systematic was his use of short
addresses to the cupbearer (saki) and the singer
C mughanni) respectively in the two parts of the Iskandar-
nama as introductions to each section of the narrative.
Didactic poems were often, like treatises in prose,
divided into chapters styled bab, makdla or otherwise.

The genres cultivated in mathnawis are not
restricted to the heroic [see hamasa], the romantic
and the didactic, the three usually associated with this
verse form. Panegyrics and satire, topical events, love
and wine, and many others subjects could also be
dealt with in a mathnawi. The larger poems nearly
always contain passages of other genres than the one
they are mainly concerned with. Sections dealing with
ethical, philosophical or religious themes are hardly
ever missing in narrative poems. The didactic poet,
on the other hand, used both long and short tales to
exemplify the ideas propounded in his works. They
can be found already in one of the oldest specimens of
the didactic genre, the Afarin-ndma of Abu Shakur
BalkhI [q.v. in Suppl.].

The mathnawi was also a useful tool to present fac¬
tual information on account of its memotechnic
advantage. An early example of this is Hakim
MaysarFs Danish-nama, the oldest integral text in
rhyming couplets which has been preserved. It was
completed in 370/980-1 and treats of medical matters
(partial edition and translation by G. Lazard, Les
premiers poetes persons , Tehran-Paris 1964, ii, 178-94; i,
163-80, see also 36-40). A wide range of subjects per¬
taining to the religious and the natural sciences,
astrology, occultism and the arts were treated in the
same fashion.

The choice of a metre for a mathnawi was deter-

834

MATHNAWI

mined by convention and not by some intrinsic qual¬
ity of the metre concerned. A clear example is pro¬
vided by the metre mutakarib-i muthamman-i mahdhuf
which, because of its occurrence in the Shah-nama, was
chosen by most poets who subsequently wrote heroic
mathnawi. s. Already in the time of Firdawsi, however,
it was used also in a didactic poem by Abu Shakur and
in a love story by c AyyukI. Similar divergences of use
can be noticed in the case of other metres. A decisive
factor was the tendency towards the imitation of
authoritative models according to their most impor¬
tant characteristics of form and content. The classical
poets tried to bring their originality to bear through
the emulation of predecessors. This consisted both of
repetition and of change. The former made it clear
that they were following the example of a great
master; the latter that they were clever enough to find
new variations on one aspect or the other of their
model. The long series of imitations based on the
khamsa [q.v .] of Nizami provides the best-known
instance of the workings of this artistic principle. The
metre was usually among the features which were
retained in an imitating poem. The metre of a genu¬
ine work was also carefully maintained in pseud-
epigraphical forgeries as they were based, e.g., on the
works of Sana 5 !’ and c Attar [q.v.]. On the other hand,
a change of the metre could also serve to demonstrate
a poet’s independence with regard to a model followed
in other respects, e.g. in the case of Nizami’s replac¬
ing the khafif of Sanaa’s Hadikat al-hakika for the sari*
of his own Makhzan al-asrdr (cf. E. E. Bertel’s, Nizami
i Fuzuli , Moscow 1962, 183).

Sometimes the imitation of one particular element
of a poem gave rise to an independent genre of
mathnawi s. The exchange of ten letters between Wls
and Ramin in GurganI’s poem became the source of
the Dah-namas , short works in mathnawi and ghazals ,
which were written from the beginning of the 8th/14th
century onwards (cf. T. Gandje'i, The Genesis and defi¬
nition of a literary composition: the Dah-ndma (“Ten love-
letters'”), in Isl. , xlvii [1971], 59-66). Another example
is the even longer sequence of Saki-ndmas which had its
origin in the call of the cup-bearer used by Nizami in
the first book of his Iskandar-nama. It was a genre of
anacreontic verse written in the mutakdrib metre of its
original. The authors of Saki-ndmas were numerous
enough to become the subject of a special tadhkira , the
Maykhdna of c Abd al-Nabl Fakhr al-Zamanl, com¬
pleted in 1028/1619 (Storey, i/2, 813; ed. by A.
Gulcin-i Ma c anl, Tehran 1340/1961).

During the later Middle Ages, new subjects were
added to the repertoire of the narrative mathnawi by
poets like Kh w adju Kirmanl [gu».], c Imad al-Dln
Faklh-i Kirmanl [q.v. in Suppl.] and Djaml. At the
same time, mystical poems continuing the examples
set by Sana 5 !, c Attar and Djalal al-Dln Rum! pro¬
liferated. The didactic genre includes several master-
works of Persian poetry, such as Sa c di’s Bustan , the
often-imitated Makhzan al-asrdr and the didactic poems
of Djaml’s Haft awrang. Among the many writers of
short Sufi mathnawis, Mahmud Shabistarl [q.v. ] and
Husaynl Sadat Amir [q.v.] should be mentioned. The
Indo-Persian poet Bldil [q.v.] was the most versatile
author of mystical mathnawis in later centuries. The
narrative and the didactic strains were intertwined in
allegoric poems, for which Fattahl [q.v.] provided
influential models. The great variety of subjects dealt
with in shorter poems cannot be completely described
here. Mention should be made, however, of a few
genres which were fashionable in the 10 th -11 th/16th-
17th century: shahrashub or shahrangiz, poems dealing
with the playful description of young craftsmen and

artisans which also exist in the form of series of
quatrains (cf. A. GulSn-i Ma c anl, Shahrashub dar shih-
ifarsi , Tehran 1346/1967); sarapay, devoted to the des¬
cription of an ideal human body “from top to toe”;
suz-u gudaz, the description of painful experiences (see
for a specimen, Talib-i Amuli, Kulliyydt-i ashfar , ed.
Tehran 1346/1967-8, 193-208); and kadch u kadar,
stories about the workings of fate (cf. Armaghan , viii
[1306/1927], 120-3; x [1308/1929], 458-64, 554-60:
specimens by Rukna Maslh-i KashanI and Muham-
mad-KulI Salim). Biblical themes were taken as the
subject of mathnawis in Judaeo-Persian literature
[q.v.].

In modern literature, the mathnawi proved still to be
a useful medium for the Persian poets as long as they
were mainly interested in a renewal of contents.
Imitations of the Shah-nama with a nationalist
tendency were the Nama-yi bdstdn or Saldr-nama
(1313/1895-6) by Aka Khan Kirmanl [q.v. in Suppl.],
the Kaysar-nama by Adlb Plshawarl q.v. in Suppl.]
and the Pahlawi-nama, an unfinished history of Islamic
Iran in heroic verses by Nawbakht. published in 1926-
8. Social and political criticism was voiced in
mathnawis by Amiri [q.v. in Suppl.] and Parwln [q.v.].
Iradj Mlrza (1874-1924) used the form for satire in his
< Arif-nama and for a modern love story in Zuhra wa
Manucihr. The Indo-Persian poet Muhammad Ikbal
[q.v.] adopted it for some of his most famous works,
like the Djawid-nama and Gulshan-i rdz-i djadid, an
imitation of the short mystical poem of Mahmud
Shabistarl. The last major mathnawi to be written by
a Persian poet was the Kdr-nama-yi zindan by Malik al-
Shu c ara Bahar [q.v. ]. It contains the account of the
poet’s imprisonment and exile during the 1930s in the
style of the great didactic poets of the past ( Diwan-i
asjfiar, ed. Tehran 1345/1966, ii, 2-126).

Other prosodic forms—stanzaic poems and even
kasidas —were however increasingly used for epic
poetry, even by poets who remained faithful to the
classical canons. The experiment with a mathnawi-yi
mustazdd made by Bahar (op. cit. , ii, 234-8) was not
pursued. Under the influence of the theories of Nlma
Yushldj [q.v.], the shhr-i naw poets of the period after
the Second World War abandoned the mathnawi ,
mainly because the rigid isochronism of its verse was
considered to be an impediment to the expressive use
of metre (see e.g. Mahdl Akhawan-Thalith (M.
Umld), Bida c athd wa badayT-i Nimd Yushidf , Tehran
1357/1978, 70 ff.).

Persian literary theory had little to add to the brief
definition of the mathnawi given by Shams-i Kays. A
few remarks on the subject by later writers were
assembled by H. Blochmann, The prosody of the Per¬
sians , Calcutta 1872, 87-90. Works on insha 5 [q.v.]
sometimes pay attention to the corrections of the
dibaca of a mathnawi (one of such works is quoted by
Ahmad c AlI, Haft Asman or History of the Masnavi of the
Persians , ed. Blochmann, Calcuta 1873, 41-2; c All’s
book contains the introduction to an unfinished work
on mathnawi poets).

Bibliography. M. C A. Tarbiyat, Mathnawi wa
mathnawi-guy dn-i Iran , in Mi hr, v (1316-7/1937-9),
225-31 and continuations; A. Bausani, II Masnavi,
in A. Pagliaro and A. Bausani, Storia della letteratura
persiana, Milan 1960, 579-777; M. Dj. Mahdjub,
Mathnawisard y i dar zaban-i farsi ta pay dn-i karn-i
pandjum-i hidjrl , in Nashriyya-yi Danishkada-yi
adabiyyat-i Tabriz , xv (1342/1963), 183-213, 261-85;
Fr. Machalski, La litterature de Than contemporain, i-
ii, Wroclaw 1965-7, passim; J. Rypka et alii, History
of Iranian literature , Dordrecht 1968, passim; A.
Munzawl, Fihrist-i nuskhaha-yi khatti-yi farsi , iv,

MATHNAWI

835

Tehran 1349/1970 (with an alphabetical list of the
opening lines of all the mathnawis mentioned in this
catalogus catalogorum); L. P. Elwell-Sutton, The
Persian metres , Cambridge 1976, 243-5; F. Thiesen,
A manual of classical Persian prosody , Wiesbaden 1982,
passim,}. T. P. de Bruijn, Of piety and poetry , Leiden
1983, 185ff. (J. T. P. de Bruijn)

3. In Turkish.

The Turkish mathnawi developed late under the
influence of that of Persia and alongside it. The oldest
monument of Muslim Turkish literature that has
chanced to be preserved, the Kutadghu bilig [^.u.], is a
long didactic mathnawi (R. Dankoff, Yusuf Khdss Hajib.
Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig). A Turko-Islamic
Mirror for Princes, Chicago 1983). Turkish and Persian
mathnawis shared a great stock of authoritative
models, ranging from the themes themselves to the
choice of the appropriate metres ( mutakdrib for the
heroic genres [see hamasa], ramal for the religio-
didactic type and hazadj_ for the romance). Up to now,
this division into three genres has served as the main
principle of organisation. But more attention needs to
be paid to the social and cultural context in which
these works were written, and to the way in which the
three genres overlap. Turkish mathnawis had the same
architectural framework as their Persian counterparts
[section 2 above]. The authors’ possibilities lay in the
“internal” significance of the details rather than in
the “external” aspects of plot and metre, the choice
of the formal means being largely determined by the
theme, for which terms as kissa [<7.0.], dastan, or hikaya
[see hikaya. iii] were used.

The chief element of the narrative mathnawi was the
plot, turning on love between two chief characters,
male and female, who gave it its title. Opening
chapters dealt with the reason for writing and its true
purpose, incidentally drawing the patron’s attention
to his skills as a poet. Structure and contents of the
framework could be modelled on that of the kaslda
[q.v.], without the tautness of that form. Changing
metres could be used as structural boundaries
dividing parts of the prologue. In his religious exor¬
dium, an author could combine the praise of the One
God with a meditation on the works of creation. The
eulogy of the prophet Muhammad and his heavenly
journey [see mi c radj| have been treated in all Islamic
poetry, whereas the praise of the four first caliphs
would only be found in the mathnawi of a Sunni
author. In the dedicatory passage, a local patron could
be praised next to the ruler. If there was no response,
the dedication might be removed and replaced with a
complaint to Fate. Since it was the poets’ desire to
prove their own superiority, they hardly ever felt the
need to mention their immediate predecessors. An
attitude of reverence for the great classical models was
present in the poets’ reflections on the value and
essence of poetry. A favoured way of expression was
that of mystically-coloured love poetry, depicting the
author in a dialogue with the “speaker of the heart”,
the cupbearer, sdkl, or the pen, kalem. In the epilogue,
the date and the author’s name could be transmitted.
The author would seek to disarm adverse criticism,
justifying his adaptation of a foreign classic or an old
“native” story in the Turkish of his own time and
environment. Disavowal of the vernacular in general
need not prevent a poet from praising his own elegant
idiom which he had substituted for the obsolete
language of the original.

As for his narrative, the themes being familiar and
speaking for themselves, a mediaeval author could
trust his audience to appreciate the significance of his
particular treatment. In this way, the mathnawi could

combine religious teachings, offer historical truth,
serve as tool of learning or simply offer entertainment.
Chapter headings divided the more voluminous texts.
Short lyrical insertions belonging to ghazal [q.v. , iii. In
Ottoman Turkish literature, in Suppl.] poetry acted
as breathing spaces. Without shifting his point of
view, the author presented the inmost thoughts of his
protagonists, using lyrical monologues, dialogues of
the lovers or the old technique of inserting letters; he
could also express his own feelings in signed ghazals ,
using mystical images (R. Dankoff, The lyric in the
romance , in JNES, xliii [1984], 9-25). Much research is
needed into the great mass of Turkish mathnawis in
order to relate them to the social and cultural contexts
which define their significance. Most of the old poems
did not appear in print before the Republic. Only a
fragment of this material has been translated into a
modern language.

Mystic-didactic mathnawis were introduced into
Anatolia by Djalal al-Dln Rum! [q.v. ] and his son
Sultan Walad [<7 . p. ]. The short Carkh-name seems to
have been overvalued as compared with Giilshehrl’s
[q.v. ] Mantik al-tayr and c Ashfk Pasha’s [q.vfGharlb-
name. Suleyman Celebi’s Wesilet el-nedjdt (Mewlid) on
the birth and miracles of the Prophet, completed in
1812/1409, has remained immensely popular (N.
Pekolcay, art. Suleyman Qelebi , in IA ). Khusraw and
Shir In [see farhad wa-shirin], Madjnun and Layla
[q.v.\ and Yusuf and Zulaykha were loved as moving
romances; such compositions were often religious in
their purport, even though the actions and emotions
they displayed did not always accord with an orthodox
ethical code.

In Caghatay, Azeri and Ottoman literatures, great
poets like Mir c Ali Shir NawPi [q. v. ] and Fudull [^. v. ]
deployed all the resources of Persian and Turkish
literature in the perfection of this form. From the
8th/14th century onwards, Turkish poets supplied
inventive translations and adaptations of Persian
originals. The anonymous author of the ''Ishk-name ( S.
Yiiksel, Mehmed. Isk-Name. Inceleme metin , Ankara
1965) already made satirical use of the stock formulas
of the epic with its exciting adventures in strange
lands. Darlr [q.v. ] composed early versions of the
Yusuf-Zulavkha theme, to which the great mufti
Kemalpashazade [q.v. ] later was to contribute a
mathnawi ; Kutb and Fakhrl (both 8th/14th century),
must now be looked upon as pioneers in the Turkish
Khusraw-Shmn versions. Weighted with a heavily
Persianised vocabulary, Sheykhl’s version (F. K.
Timurtas, §eyhi’nin Husrev ii $irin’i, Istanbul 1963), in
which Fakhrl’s verses can be traced, had a great influ¬
ence on later poets. Under the Ottomans, new sub¬
jects were added to the repertoire. Da c T [q.v. ] con¬
tributed an allegorical Ceng-name; Lami c T [q.v. ] dealt
with comparatively new (Salaman and Absal) or
nearly forgotten themes, such as Vis and Ramin [see
gurganI], and Wamik and c Adhra. It is doubtful
whether he ever saw a complete copy of the latter
poem in the version of c UnsurI [q.v.], who ultimately
drew from a Greek source (see M. Nazif §ahinoglu,
art. Unsuri , in L4; art. Vamik u Azra, in IA\ B. Utas,
in Orientalia Suecana, xxxiii-xxxv [1984-6]). Lami c I and
Dhatl [q.v. ] both composed a Shem c u Perwane ; Fadll
[c/.v. ] introduced the Gill we Bulbul theme. Dja c far
Celebi [q.v. ] wrote an original Heves-name ; to Mesihl
(d. 918/1512 [q.v. ]) the first Ottoman shehr-englz is
attributed, a genre later to be elaborated as a social
satire by Fakir! [q.v.]. Indeed, as in the kaslda , praise
could turn into satire and invective; Ahmad! [<7.^. ] in
his medical Tarwlh el-erwah flung abuse at the people
of Bursa who had obstructed his work; the Khar-name

836

MATHNAWI

by SheykhT [ q. v. ] contains a vigorous satire on the bad
luck of a poet who is robbed of his timdr (F. Timurta§,
§eyhi’nin Harndmesi , Istanbul 1971). In 933/1526
Guwahr completely rewrote c Attar’s [q. v. ] popular
moral Pand-ndma, using colloquial expressions and a
whole collection of Turkish proverbs (P. N. Boratev,
in Oriens, vii) and fables (R. Anhegger, in TM, ix).
Ahmad! appended the First versified chronicle of the
Ottomans to his lskender-name. The term gh azdwdt-ndme
is used with reference to narrative poems celebrating
the military triumphs of the Ottomans. Epics to
honour contemporary sultans in Persian and Turkish
in the shah-name style, sumptuously produced in the
10th/16th century (see lukman; H. Sohrweide, in Isl .,
xlvi), were already criticised by contemporaries for
their lack of literary or historical merit. Sur-name s
celebrated royal festivities in the capital. Prognostics
deduced from meteorological phenomena of the solar
year had been the subject of an old mathnawi entitled
Shemsiyye by Yazfdjf Salah al-Din; the poet-
calligrapher Djevrl reworked them in his Melheme
(Gibb, HOP, iii, 298; Levend, Ummet Qagi Turk
edebiyati, Ankara 1962, 46-7), Apocalyptic aspects of
history [see djafr] dominated Mewlana c Isa’s rhymed
chronic e Didmi c el-meknunat, which predicted the
advent of the Mahdl after Sultan Suleyman (B. Flem¬
ming, in Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen
Orients [ = Festschrift Spuler], ed. H. H. Roemer and A.
Noth, Leiden 1981, 79-92).

Not every poet had the time and concentration to
work with this epic form; sultans and princes wrote
ghazals. But an author who had composed one
mathnawi from hundreds or thousands of beyts could go
further and compose a set of five [see khamsa]:
Bihishti, Hamdi, c Ata 5 i \q.vv.] and others performed
this feat. Dukaginzade Yahya Beg (d. 990/1582), who
turned his back on “the dead Persians”, brought
homoerotic love to the traditionally heterosexual
romance by giving the (Persian) theme of the King
and the Beggar, Shah u Gedd, an Ottoman background
and including it in his Khamsa {istanbul kutiiphaneleri
Tiirkfe Hamseler katalogu, Istanbul 1961). By the end of
the 10th/16th century, the straightforward versified
adventure story seems to have lost its appeal, while
allegorical, didactic and descriptive mathnawis
remained in demand. Nabi’s long didactic Khayriyye,
addressed to his son in plain Turkish, and his
Khayrdbdd . “out-Persianising” the Persians, are
typical for the late 11th/17th and early 12th/18th cen¬
turies {HOP, iii, 370-74), Shevkh Gh^lib [ q.v.] Dede’s
allegorical subject is the mystic devotion of Beauty
and Love. Fadil-i Enderunl [q.v. ] described the attrac¬
tions of young men and women. Subtlety remained
the stock-in-trade of the inevitable Sdki-ndme. But as
more people learned to read for themselves, there was
a great increase in the quantity of Turkish prose
works of all sorts; standard ingredients of the rhymed
romances of action found their way into prose; c Ali
c AzIz [ q.v.\ stands out with his famous collection. He
is a forerunner of literary westernisation, which led to
the introduction of the novel and the drama. In the
19th century, the mathnawi form was cultivated for
some last Zafer-ndmes “Books of victory” on the wars
with Russia and on uprisings of the Greeks and Ser¬
bians. c Izzet Molla [q.v. ] revived the narrative
mathnawi for his great autobiographical elegy Mihnet-
keshan, completed in 1825. As late as 1874. Diya 5
(Ziya) Pasha [q.v.\ prefaced his Khardbdt, a three-
volume anthology of classical poetry, with a long and
elaborate mathnawi in the old manner {HOP, v, 78-
83); Namlk Kemal [see kemal, namik] responded in
prose. The vitality of the mathnawi was sustained right

to the end of Ottoman literature; the Islamist poet
Mehmed c Akif [q.v.] Ersoy brought a new ease to it,
using it for conversational verses as well as rhetorical
passages in his written sermons on religious and moral
subjects.

Bibliography. Given largely in the article, but
see further M. Fuad Kopriilu, art. Aruz (Turk), in
IA; A. S. Levend, Gazavat-ndmeler ve Mihaloglu Ali
Bey in Gazavat-namesi, Ankara 1956; A. Ate§, art.
Mesnevi in iA; PTF, ii; A. Bombaci, La letteratura
turca, Milan 1969; N. Qetin, art. §iir, in iA; T.
Gandje’i, The Dah-nama, in Isl. , xlvii (1971); a full
list of Turkish mathnawis has been compiled by A.

S. Levend, Turk edebiyati tarihi. I. cilt. Giri$ , Ankara

1973, 103-13; A. Qelebioglu, XIII-XV yiizyil

mesnevilerinde Mevlana tesiri, Mevlana veyafama sevinci,
Konya 1978, 99-126; H. Ay an, XIV. yiizyil Turk
edebiyatinda biiyiik mesnevi, in 1. Milli Tiirkoloji
Kongresi, Proceedings, Istanbul 1980, 83-9; H.
Tolasa, 15 yy. edebiyati Anadolu sahasi mesnevileri, in
Turk Dili ve Edebiyati Araftirmalan Dergisi, i (1982),
1-13.

Printed editions of mathnawis in
Anatolian Turkish: J. H. Mordtmann, Suheil
und Nevbehar, Hanover 1925; N. H. Onan, Fuzuli.
Leyld He Mecnun, Istanbul 1956; A. Zaja^zkowski,
Najstarsza wersja ffusrav i Sirin Qutba, Warsaw 1958-
61; F. Iz, Eski Turk edebiyatinda nazim. I. Divan fiiri,
Istanbul 1967; N. Hacieminoglu, Kutb’un Husrev ii
$irin’i, Istanbul 1968; G. Alpay, Ahmed-i Da y i ve
Qengnamesi. Eski Osmanlica bir mesnevi, Cambridge,
Mass. 1973; B. Flemming, Farris ffusrev u Sirin.
Eine turkische Dichtung von 1367, Wiesbaden 1974;

T. Karacan, Nev’i-zade Atayi: Heft-hvan mesnevisi.
inceleme, metin, Ankara 1974; M. Akalin, Ahmedi.
Cemsid ii Hurfid. inceleme-metin, Erzurum-Ankara
1975; G. M. Smith, Varqa ve Giityah. A fourteenth-
century Turkish Mesnevi, Leiden 1976; H. Ayan,
Seyhoglu Mustafa. Hursid-name (flurfid u Ferahfdd),
Erzurum 1979; M. Qavusoglu, Yahya Bey. Yusuf ve
Zelihd , Istanbul 1979; I. Olgun and t. Par-
maksizoglu, Firdevsi-i Rumi. Kutb-ndme, Ankara
1980; T. Gandje'i, The Bahr-i diirer: an early Turkish
treatise on prosody, in Studia turcologica memoriae Alexii
Bombaci dicata, Naples 1982, 237-49; K. Yavuz,
Muini. Mesnevi-i Muradiye, Ankara 1982; M.
Hengirmen, Giivahi. Pend-name, Ankara 1983; M.
Demirel, Kemal Payazade. Yusuf u Ziileyha, Ankara
1983. I. Unver, Ahmedi. Iskender-name. inceleme-
tipkibasim, Ankara 1983; A. Gallotta, II “Gazavat-i
Hayreddin Pasa” di Seyyid Murad, Naples 1983.

Individual mathnawis have been studied by
T. Gandje’i, Zur Metrik des Yusuf u Zulaifaa von Sayydd
Hamza, in UAJb , xxvii (1959); A. Bombaci, in D.
Huri, Leyld and Mejnun, London 1970; Gandje'i,
Notes on the attribution and date of the << Carf}name ,> , in
Studi preottomani e ottomani, Naples 1976, 101-4; H.
Sohrweide, Neues zum “Hsqname” , in ibid. , 213-18;
Flemming, Die Hamburger Handschrift von Yusuf Med-
ddhs Varka vii Giilsdh, in Hungaro-Turcica. Studies in
honour of Julius Nemeth, Budapest 1976, 267-73; A.
Karahan, Un nouveau mathnawi de la litterature turque
ottomane: Le Mevlid Haticetiil-Kubrd, ou la description du
manage de Khadija avec le Prophete, in VII. Kongress fur
Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft, Proceedings, Got¬
tingen 1976, 230-5; I. Unver, AhmedVnin Iskender-
ndmesindeki Mevlid bdliimii, in Tiirk Dili Arastirmalan
Yilhgi Belleten 1977 (1978), 355-411; C.’ Dil^in,
XIII. yiizyil metinlerinden yeni biryapit: Ahval-i kiyamet,
in Omer Asim Aksoy armagani, Ankara 1978, 49-86;
N. Tezcan, LdmiHnin Guy u (fevgdn mesnevisi, in
ibid., 201-25; A. Ugur, $iikru-i Bitlisi ve Selimnamesi,

MATHNAWI

837

in tldhiyat Fakultesi Dergisi , xxv (1981), 325-47; M.
A. Qatikkas, Turk Firdevsi’si ve Suleymanname-i kebir,
in Turk Dunyasi Arastirmalari, xxv (1983), 169-78.
M. Anbarcioglu, Turk ve Iran edebiyatlannda Mihr u
Mah ve Mihr u Mufteri mesnevileri, in Belleien , xlvii
(1985), 1151-89. I. E. Eriinsal, The life and works of
Taci-zade Cafer Qelebi, with a critical edition of his
Divan , Istanbul 1983; M. N. Onur, Ak-§emseddin-
zdde Hamdullah Hamdi’nin Yusuf ve Zuleyha
mesnevisindeki onemli motifler , in Turk Kulturu, xxii
(1984), 651-58; M. Kohbach, Die Parabel vom
gefundenen Dirhem in der fruhen anatolischen Versepik , in
Turk Edebiyati Dergisi , xii (1981-2), 499-506; S.
Aktas, Roman olarak Hiisn u Ask , in Turk Dunyasi
Arastirmalari , xxvii (1983), 94-108.

(B. Flemming)

4. In Urdu.

The development of the Urdu mathnawi falls
broadly into three periods: early, middle and modern.
The early period is associated mainly with the Dak¬
kanl phase of Urdu literature. In Dakkanl verse, the
mathnawi constitutes the most popular form, and is
represented by a large output of both religious and
secular poems. Many of these are long pieces compris¬
ing several thousand couplets. Often they are
translated or adapted from Persian sources, but not a
few of them are works of an original character.

The growth of the early mathnawi reached its most
productive stage in the 10th/16th and 11 th/17th cen¬
turies with the emergence of BIdjapur and Golkonda
as the main centres of DakkanT literature. Hitherto,
the mathnawis were more concerned with religious
subjects, but subsequently stories of love and heroism
began to Find increasing prominence in their content.
In BIdjapur, under the enlightened patronage of the
c Adil §hahl dynasty (895-1097/1490-1686 [?.<>.]),
there flourished many important poets who are known
exclusively for their mathnawis. One of them was
MIrza Muhammad Muklml (d. ca. 1075/1665),
author of Candarbadan u Mahyar, which was the first
mathnawi with a purely literary motif. Its subject deals
with a contemporary incident involving the tragic love
of a Muslim merchant, Mahyar, for Candarbadan,
daughter of a Hindu rajah. Another poet living at the
same time was Kamal Kh an RustamI, who composed
in 1059/1649 the first artistic work of epic poetry in
Urdu, the mathnawi Khdwar-ndma (“The book of the
East’’). This poem, written in imitation of Ibn
Husam’s Persian epic of the same name, follows the
model of Dastan-i Amir Hamza, and also borrows some
topics from Firdawsl’s Shah-nama. At the court of c All
c Adil Shah II (1068-83/1656-73) was the poet laureate
Muhammad Nusrat Nusratl (d. 1095/1684), who has
left behind several mathnawis , the most famous being
the Gulshan-i Hshk (“The rose-garden of love”). This
poem, written in 1067/1657, is a fairy tale describing
the love between prince Manohar and princess
Madhumaltl. His other notable mathnawi is the long
historical epic c Ali-ndma (“The book of c AlI”), which
contains a narrative of the wars fought by C A1I c Adil
Shah with the Mughals and the Marathas. He also
composed the historical mathnawi Ta^rikh-i Iskandari
(“The history of Iskandar”), a poem dealing with
events during the reign of C A1I c Adil Shah’s son and
successor, Sikandar (1083-97/1673-86). Other com¬
monly known mathnawis produced by c Adil Shahi
poets include Bahram u Bano Husn, a love poem begun
in about 1029/1620 by Amin and completed in
1049/1639 by Dawlat; Kissa-yi benazir (“The incom¬
parable story”), written by San c atl in 1054/1644 to
describe the exploits attributed to Abu Tamim
An§arl, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad; the

poetical adaptation of Amir Kh usraw’s mathnawi
Hasht bihisht, executed by Malik Khushnud in about
1056/1646; and Yusuf u Zulaykhd , composed in
1098/1687 by the last major poet of the c Adil Shahi
era, Sayyid MIran HashimI (d. 1108/1697).

Rivalling BIdjapur in the patronage of literature
and literary men was the Kutb Shahi dynasty (918-
1098/1512-1687 [ q.v .]) of Golkonda. Several of its
rulers were poets themselves, and their generous sup¬
port of literary activities provided encouragement to
the development of Dakkanl verse. Many outstanding
mathnawis were written during this time. In 1018/1609
Mulla WadjhI, poet laureate of Muhammad Kull
Kutb Shah (988-1020/1580-1611), composed a
mathnawi entitled Kutb u Mushtari (“Polar Star and
Jupiter”), which allegedly describes the love affair of
his patron with a famous courtesan of the day. In
1034/1625 the most outstanding poet of c Abd Allah
Kutb Shah’s reign (1034-83/1625-72), Ghawwasl.
composed for the ruler the mathnawi Sayf al-Muluk wa
Badi c al-DjamaL which took its theme from a story of
the Arabian Nights. Another mathnawi, the Tuti-nama
(“The book of the parrot”), which he wrote in
1050/1640, was a poetical rendering of Diya 3 al-Dln
Nakhshabl’s earlier Persian adaptation of the same
name. Ghawwasl’s contemporary, Mazhar al-Dln
Ibn Nishatl, was the author of the mathnawi Phulban
(“The flower garden”), which he completed in
1065/1655 and dedicated to c Abd Allah Kutb Shah.
Adapted freely from a lost Persian work, Basatin
(“Gardens”), written under Muhammad Shah II
Tughluk (725-52/1325-51), Ibn Nishatl’s mathnawi
provides a picture of the life in Deccan in the late
11 th/17th century, and is interesting both from a
literary as well as historical point of view. During the
reign of Abu ’l-Hasan Tana Shah (1085-98/1674-87),
who was the last ruler of the Kutb Shahi dynasty, two
important mathnawis were written. The first was
Bahrdm u Gulandam, composed in 1081/1670 by Tab c I
in imitation of Nizami’s Haft Paykar, and the second
was Ridwan Shah u Ruhafza, a romance by Fa 3 iz writ¬
ten in 1094/1683 and based upon a Persian prose tale
describing the love between the Chinese prince Rid¬
wan and the princess of the djinns.

The middle period of the Urdu mathnawi may be
said to begin from the early 12th/l8th century, when
the language of Urdu poetry acquired an idiom
distinct from the Dakkanl. This period, known also
for the impetus received in it by the ghazal [q.v.],
witnessed the appearance of some excellent mathnawis
which have left their mark on Urdu literature. Heroic
mathnawis lost favour during this period, but romantic
mathnawis continued to prosper and gained a richness
in their diction and approach. Of particular
significance was the growth of mathnawis dealing with
love themes based upon personal experience.

The poem Bustan-i khayal (“The garden of imagina¬
tion”) must be regarded as the first important
mathnawi of the middle period. Written in 1160/1747
by Siradj al-Dln (1126-76/1714-63) of Awrangabad, it
describes a love episode in the life of the poet. The
chief distinction of the poem lies in its intimate note
and, especially, in its refined language which almost
verges on the modern idiom. Personal love found an
outspoken exponent in Mir Athar (d. 1208/1794),
best known for his mathnawiKh w db u khayal (“Dream
and imagination”), which represents a plaint by the
poet suffering the loss of his mistress. The famous poet
Muhammad TakI Mir (1136-1225/1724-1810 [<y.p.]),
who excelled in the ghazal, is equally noted for his
mathnawis , some of which express the disappointment
of love, and are regarded as autobiographical by the

838

MATHNAWI

critics. The mathnawl s of Muhammad Mu 3 min Khan
Mu-*min (1215-67/1800-51), like those of Mir, pro¬
vide a record of the poet’s emotional involvements,
whether real or imaginary, and have won recognition
from literary authorities.

In the poetic creations of Nawwab Mlrza Shawk
(1197-1288/1783-1871), whose real name was Ta§ad-
duk Husayn, the Urdu romantic mathnawl with a per¬
sonal motif reached its maturity. Shawk, who devoted
his talents almost exclusively to the writing of
mathnawls, is the author of three works in that genre,
namely Farlb-i c ishk (“The deception of love”), Bahdr-i
Hshk (“The spring of love”) and Zahr-i c ishk (“The
poison of love”). The last-named poem, written prob¬
ably in about 1860, is Shawk’s masterpiece, and
indeed stands out as one of the great narrative pieces
of Urdu literature. Both in diction as well as theme it
displays a level of realism seldom attained by any
other Urdu mathnawl.

Among the writers of non-personal romantic
mathnawls , Mir Ghulam Hasan (d. 1200/1786),
generally known as Mir Hasan, holds a distinguished
position. He is the author of one dozen known
mathnawls of varying length. His reputation rests
chiefly on his long mathnawlSihr al-bayan (“The magic
of eloquence”), which was finished in 1199/1784-5,
and comprises approximately 2,500 couplets. It is a
fairy tale of the conventional type containing a des¬
cription of the love between prince Benazir and
princess Badr-i Munir. Besides its literary qualities,
such as simple and elegant language, faithful inter¬
pretation of emotions, effective portrayal of nature
and convincing characterisation, it also provides de¬
tails regarding such contemporary topics as people’s
dress, social etiquette, customs and ceremonies.

Sharing honours with Mir Hasan’s Sihr al-bayan is
the poem Gulzar-i Naslm (“The rose-garden of
Naslm”) written in 1838 by Pandit Daya Shankar
Naslm (1811-43). This work has left a marked impact
on contemporary and later poets, as seen from the
mathnawls composed after its example. Its central plot
revolves around the adventures of prince Tadj al-
Mulflk, whose search takes him into a fairyland where
he expects to find the magical flower needed to cure
his father’s blindness. The poem has been praised for
its terse description, its flights of fancy, and its choice
of similes, words and idioms.

The Urdu mathnawl in its modern phase dates from
the latter part of the 19th century, and its origin is
linked with the campaign initiated at that time to
achieve literary reforms. The reformers, dissatisfied
with the ghazal, advocated the adoption of the nazm or
“thematic poem” patterned after Western models.
The mathnawl, with its tradition of continuous themes
and a comparatively less inhibiting rhyme scheme,
provided a ready-made form for the nazm, and it came
to be employed by the reformers as an effective
literary instrument to popularise the new trends in
Urdu poetry.

The predominant theme of the modern Urdu
mathnawl is social. As such, it differs from the earlier
mathnawl which was identified with romantic subjects.
In other respects also, it evokes differences from older
models. Lengthy mathnawls like those composed in the
past are now extremely rare, and the restriction
imposed by custom on the type of metres to be
employed by the mathnawl is no longer observed.

It was the poet Altaf Husayn Hall (1837-1914
(<?. v. ]) who critically examined the role of the mathnawl
in Urdu poetry and laid the foundation for its future
development. He pointed out that the mathnawl pro¬
vided a medium best suited for expressing continuous

themes. The mathnawls he wrote reflect his social and
reformist leanings. Conspicuous among them are
Hubb-i watan (“Patriotism”), Ta c assub u insaf
(“Bigotry and justice”) and Munddfdt-i bewa (“The
widow’s prayer”), which appeared respectively in
1874, 1882 and 1884.

Following the pioneering efforts of Hall, the
mathnawl acquired a new dimension. It was used by
Muhammad Isma c fl MerathI (1844-1917) for his
short, descriptive poems which, written in a simple
language and dealing with everyday subjects, repre¬
sent the first successful attempts in Urdu to compose
. children’s poetry. Ahmad c AlI Shawk Kidwa 5 ! (1853-
1925) gave special attention to mathnawls, his most
famous work being the c Alam-i khaydl (“The world of
imagination”), a sentimental poem expressing the
feelings of a lonely woman whose husband has gone
on a journey. Shawk’s contemporary Sayyid c AlI
Muhammad Shad c AzImabadI (1846-1927) was an
avid mathnawl writer displaying a maturity of style.
The greatest Urdu poet of the 20th century, Muham¬
mad Ikbal (1877-1938 [q. v. ]) adopted the mathnawl for
many of his poems, of which the Sakl-nama (“The
book of the cup-bearer”) is undoubtedly one of the
great masterpieces of Urdu literature. Mention must
also be made of Hafiz Djalandharl’s (1903-82)
mathnawl- style narrative Shah-nama-yi Islam, which
appeared in four volumes from 1929 to 1947, and
represents a lengthy attempt to record the history of
Islam in a versified form.

Bibliography: I. Works on literary
history and criticism: Alfaf Husayn Hall,
Mukaddama-yi shi c r u sha c iri, ed. Wahid KurayshI,
Lahore 1953; Muhammad Husayn Azad, Ab-i
haydt , repr. Lahore 1967; Garcin de Tassy, Histoire
de la litterature Hindoue et Hindoustani , 3 vols., Paris
1870-1; R. B. Saksena, A history of Urdu literature,
repr. Lahore 1975; T. G. Bailey, A history of Urdu
literature, Calcutta 1932; c Abd al-Salam Nadwl,
ShiH al-Hind, 2 vols., A c zamgarh 1939; A. Bausani,
Storia della letteratura de Pakistan, Milan 1958;
Muhammad Sadiq, A history of Urdu literature, Lon¬
don 1964; Annemarie Schimmel, Classical Urdu
literature from the beginning to Iqbal , Wiesbaden 1975;
Naslr al-Dln HashimI, Dakkan men Urdu , repr.
Lakhnaw 1963; Muhyl al-Dln Kadirl Zor, Dakkanl
adab kl taHlkh, repr. Karachi 1960; c Abd al-Kadir
Sarwarl, Urdu mathnawl kd irtika, repr. Karachi
1966; S. M. c AkIl, Urdu mathnawl kd irtika ,
Allahabad 1965; Giyan Cand Djayn, Urdu
mathnawl shimall Hind men, c Aligarh 1969; Farman
Fathpuri, Urdu kl manzum dastanen, Karachi 1971;
Khushhal Zaydl, Urdu mathnawl kd khaka, Dihll
1978.

II. P oetical works: Kissa-yi Candarbadan wa
Mahyar, ed. Muhammad Akbar al-Dln SiddTkl,
Hyderabad 1956; Rustam!, Khawar-nama, Karachi
1968; Nu§ratl, Gulshan-i Hshk, ed. c Abd al-Hakk,
Karachi 1952; idem, Dlwan-i Nufratl, ed. Djamil
Djalibi, Lahore 1972; idem, c All-ndma, IO ms. P.
834; San c atl, Kifsa-yi Benazir, ed. c Abd al-Kadir
Sarwarl, Hyderabad 1938; Wadjhi, Kutb u
Mushtarl, ed. c Abd al-Hakk, Karachi 1953;
GhawwasI, Sayf al-Muluk wa Badi c al- Dj amal . ed.
Mir Sa c adat C A1I Ridwl, Hyderabad 1938; idem,
Tutl-nama , ed Mir Sa c adat C A1I Ridwl, Hyderabad
1939; Ibn Nishatl, Phulban, ed. c Abd al-Kadir Sar¬
warl, Hyderabad 1938; Fa 5 iz, Ridwan Shah u
Ruhafza, ed. Sayyid Muhammad, Hyderabad
1956; Siracjj al-Dln AwrangabadI, Bustan-i khaydl,
ed. c Abd al-Kadir Sarwarl, repr. Hyderabad 1969;
Mir Athar, Kh w ab u khaydl, ed. c Abd al-Hakk,

MATHNAWI — al-MATLA c

839

Karachi 1950; Muhammad Taki Mir, Kulliyydt-i
Mir, ii, ed. Maslh al-Zaman, Allahabad 1972;
Muhammad Mu-’min Khan Mu 5 min, Kulliyydt-i
Mu^min, ii, Lahore 1964; Kulliyydt-i Nawwab Mirza
Shawk Lakhnaw!, ed. Shah c Abd al-Salam, Lakhnaw
1978; Mir Hasan Dihlawl, Mathnawiydt-i Hasan, i,
ed. Wahid Kurayshi, Lahore 1966; idem, Mathnaw!
sihr al-baydn, ed. Wahid Kurayshi, Lahore 1966;
Daya Shankar Naslm, Mathnaw! gulzar-i Naslm, ed.
Amir Hasan NuranI, Dihll 1965; Altaf Husayn
Hall, Kulliyydt-i nazm-i Hall, 2 vols., ed. Iftikhar
Ahmad $iddlkl, Lahore 1968-70; Shawk Kidwa 5 !,
c Alam-i khaydl , Lakhnaw 1918; SaytT PremI (Khalil
al-Rahman), Haydt-i Isma c !l, Dihll 1976; Shad
c AzImabad! k! mathnawiyan, ed. NakI Ahmad Irshad,
Dihll 1971; Muhammad Ikbal, Kulliyydt-i Ikbal
(Urdu), Lahore 1973; Hafiz Djalandharl, Shdh-
nama-yi Islam, 4 vols., Djalandhar 1929-47.

(Munibur Rahman)

MATHURA (earlier English spelling, now dis¬
carded, “Muttra”), an Indian city lying between
Dihll and Agra, of considerable antiquity and of high
reputation in India as a place of high religious sanctity
for Hindus and, formerly, for Djayns and Buddhists
also; it was already a place of some renown when it
became the eastern of the two Kushana capitals.

It is, surprisingly, not mentioned in the Hudud al-
c alam, and only incidentally by al-Blrunl, although for
Ptolemy it had been Mo&oupa xa>v Orjcov. Its great
reputation led to its being plundered by Mahmud of
Ghazna in 408/1018 and by many later Muslim
rulers, more in an excess of iconoclastic zeal than in
a settlement of the district; notably by Sikandar Lodi
ca. 905/1500, who is reported to have destroyed many
idols and to have prohibited head-shaving and ritual
bathing. Some temples were allowed to be built in the
tolerant reign of Akbar (the temple of Govind Deva at
Brindaban in the Mathura district, built by Man
Singh [q.v.\, even shows architectural borrowings
from north Indian Muslim art); but Shahdjahan in
1046/1636-7 appointed a governor to “extirpate ido¬
latry”, Awrangzlb some thirty years later destroyed
its finest temple and built a mosque on top of it, and
Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1 170/1757 not only
plundered the temples but butchered a large group of
pilgrims. Otherwise, it saw little of Islam, the
Mewatls, in whose territories it lay [see mevvat] not
being renowned for their orthodoxy. A Djami c
mosque, built in 1071/1660-1 (inscr. chronogram) by
c Abd al-Nabl, a governor under Awrangzlb, is an
excellent building for its period, with fine inlay in
encaustic tilework, four tall mlnars, and two side
pavilions with the curved-cornice “Bengali” roof
flanking the courtyard which stands 4 m. above road
level; Awrangzlb’s own mosque is rather effete.

Bibliography : F. S. Growse, Mathura: a district
memoir, Benares 1874 and many subsequent
reprints, is highly praised but barely acknowledges
the presence of Muslims. The mosque has not been
adequately published. (R. F. Chisholm’s account
of “Tiroomal Naik’s palace, Madura”, listed in
Creswell, Bibliography, s.v. Mathura, is not at
Mathura at all but at Madurai, the former capital
of the Madura sultanate = Ma c bar [q.v. ].)

(J. Burton-Page)

al-MATLA c (a.), the rising point of a
celestial body, usually a star, on the local
horizon. This concept was important in Islamic folk
astronomy [see anwa 5 and manazil on some aspects of
this tradition], as distinct from mathematical astro¬
nomy [see < tlm al-Hay>a], because it was by the ris¬
ings and settings of the sun and stars that the kibla

[q. v. ] or direction of Mecca was usually determined in
popular practice. The terms used for the rising and
setting points of the sun were usually mashrik and
maghrib , matla c being generally reserved for stars. The
directions of sunrise at the equinoxes and solstices
were usually associated with the corresponding
zodiacal signs [see mintaka] or seasons, thus e.g.
mashrik al-djady and mashrik al-shitd 5 both refer to
winter sunrise, since the sun enters the sign of
Capricorn at midwinter.

In pre-Islamic Arabian folklore, the directions of
the winds (see rih) were defined in terms of
astronomical risings and settings (see Fig. 1) and one
such wind scheme is associated with the Ka c ba itself
(see Fig. 2). These wind schemes are recorded in later
Arabic treatises on lexicography, folk astronomy,
cosmography, as well as in encyclopaedias and vari¬
ous legal treatises on the kibla. The major axis of the
rectangular base of the Ka c ba points towards matla c
Suhayl, the rising point of Canopus, and the minor
axis roughly towards mashrik al-say j, the rising point of
the sun at midsummer. The later Islamic attempts to
define the kibla for different localities in terms of
astronomical risings and settings stem from the fact
that these localities were associated with specific
segments of the perimeter of the Ka c ba, and the kiblas
adopted were the same as the astronomical directions
which one would be facing when standing directly in
front of the appropriate part of the Ka c ba [see Makka

iv i

The term matla c was also used to denote the “time
of rising” in the expression matla c al-fadjr , daybreak or
the beginning of morning twilight.

Bibliography. That given in the article kibla

is to be supplemented with the information con-

1 1

d 4 C

Fig. 1. Four early Arabian wind schemes defined in
terms of astronomical risings and settings and
attributed to early Muslim authorities.

I Khalid b. Safwan. Limits of winds: 1-4 cardinal
directions (defined in terms of the Pole Star and
sunrise and sunset at the equinoxes); names of the
winds: a saba, b djanub, c dabur, d shamal.

II c AlI b. Abl Talib. Limits: 1, 2, 4 cardinal direc¬
tions; names: as in I.

III Ibn Djandab. Limits: 1 north, 2 summer sunrise,
3 winter sunrise, 4 south, 5 winter sunset, 6 summer
sunset; names: a nakhba b saba or kabul, c mahwa, d
djanub, e dabur, f shamal.

IV Ibn al-A c rabi. Limits: 1 setting (or rising ?) of the
Banat Na c sh, 2 rising of the Pleiades, 3 rising of
Canopus, 4 setting of Vega; names: as in I.

840

al-MATLA c — MATMATA

sab a or
kabul

Fig. 2. The most popular early Arabian wind scheme,
in which the four winds strike the walls of the Ka c ba
head-on. The rectangular base of the Ka c ba points in
astronomically significant directions, and so the limits
of the four winds are likewise astronomically defined.
The rising of Canopus and the solstitial risings and
settings of the sun were widely used for finding the
kibla in popular practice, in order to ensure that one
would be “facing” a particular wall of the Ka c ba,
that is, standing in a direction “parallel” to the
appropriate axis of the Ka c ba.

tained in D. A. King, Astronomical alignments in
medieval religious architecture , in Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences , ccclxxxv (1982), 303-12, and The
sacred geography of Islam, in Islamic Art, iii (to appear);
G. S. Hawkins and King, On the orientation of the
Ka c ba, in Jnal. for the History of Astronomy , xiii
(1982), 102-9. For a survey of the whole problem,
see King, The world about the Ka c ba: a study of the
sacred direction in Islam (forthcoming); summaries are
given in Proceedings of the Second International QuHdn
Conference, New Delhi, 1982 and Interdisciplinary
Science Reviews, ix (1984), pp. 315-328. See also
matali c . (D. A. King)

MATMATA, name of a large Berber people
mentioned as early as the middle of the 3rd/9th cen¬
tury in the geographical work of Ibn Khurradadhbih
as being among the thirty most important Berber
tribes of this period. According to the majority of
Berber genealogists cited by Ibn Khaldun (including
Sabik al-Matmatl), the Matmata, who were brothers
of the Matghara, Sadlna, Malzuza, Madyuna and
Lamaya, belonged to the great Berber family of the
Butr; they constituted, with the above-mentioned
tribes, the family of Fatin, son of Tamzlt. However,
some other genealogists mentioned by Ibn Khaldun
hold that the Matmata belonged, along with the
Barghawata and Azdadja, to the Berber stock of
Baranis (Branes). There is also another genealogy of
the Matmata, according to which this tribe is
regarded as belonging, along with the Bar g hawata
and Azdadja, to the great Berber family of the Zanata,
being descended from Djana, ancestor of the Zanata.

1. Tunisia. It seems that the original homeland
of the Matmata, a people who were early converts to

Islam and who adopted, around the middle of the
2nd/8th century the beliefs of the IbadT sect, was the
land situated in the south-east of Tunisia and more
exactly to the west and south of the town of Gabes,
ancient Tacapae, Kabis of the mediaeval Arab
geographers. They were called by this name by
around 196/811, at the time when the IbadT imam of
Tahart c Abd al-Wahhab b. c Abd al-Rahman b.
Rustam sent, on the occasion of his siege of the town
of Tripoli, the Ibadi general Kat c an b. Salma al-
Zawaghi to Kabis with orders to besiege it. We owe
this information to the IbadT historian Abu ’l- c Abbas
al-Shammakhl (928/1522), who used in his work
several much older sources. In speaking of Kat c an b.
Salma (in another passage of al-Shammakhl’s work
this person is called Salma b. Katfa), who was
appointed governor of Kabis in this period by the
imam c Abd al-Wahhab, the Ibadi historian in question
adds that under this governor’s regime, the Berber
tribes of the Matmata, Zanzafa, Dammar, Zawagha
and others were still living outside Gabes. It seems
that the Matmata in this period were already occupy¬
ing the mountainous country called Djabal Matmata,
situated about 30 or 40 km. south of Gabes. This
country was also at one time called Djabal Lawata,
owing to the Lawati population which lived there with
the Matmata. The survivors of the Matmata and
Lawata still live there today. Apart from this area, the
Matmata also inhabited, in times gone by, the town
of al-Hamma (ancient Aquae Tacapitanae), situated
23 km. to the west of Gabes. According to Ibn
Khaldun’s Histoire des Berberes, al-Hamma was
founded by the Matmata. According to the Kitab al~
Istibsar of ca. 587/1191, al-Hamma was a very ancient
town inhabited by the Matmata. The Tunisian
scholar of the 7th-8th/13th-14th century al-Tidjanl
mentions, in his account of a journey from Tunis to
Tripoli, this place by the name of Hammat Matmata,
although in the view of this scholar, the Matmata may
already have left, ceding the place to the Zanata who
were divided into three groups: the Banu Tudjln,
Banu Wartadjln and Awlad Yusuf.

The later history of the Tunisian Matmata (who,
apparently having adopted in the 4th/10th century the
beliefs of the IbadT sub-sect of the Nukkariyya [<?.*;.],
as had their neighbours the Banu Dammar, estab¬
lished in the south of the area occupied by the Mat-
mata in the Djabal Dammar) is little known. It seems
that the Matmata living in the Djabal of this name
recognised the authority of the last representative of
the Almoravid family of the Banu Ghaniya, Yahya,
who, having his seat and base of operations in the
Bilad al-Djarld, extended his power, around 1200
A.D., over the whole of Ifrlkiya. In any case, the
sayyid Abu Ishak who pursued, in 603/1207, in the
name of his brother the Almohad caliph al-Nasir, the
Almoravid rebels in Ifrlkiya, subdued the country
situated behind Tripoli and chastised, according to
Ibn Khaldun, “the Banu Dammar, the Matmata and
the Nafusa”, the inhabitants at that time of the vast
mountainous crescent which stretches from Gabes to
ancient Leptis Magna, on the edge of the plain of
Djefara (Djefiara). Under the domination of the
Turks, the inhabitants of the Djabal Matmata and the
Djabal Dammar who, until this period, had remained
practically independent and had not recognised the
authority of the sovereigns of Ifrlkiya, refused to pay
taxes. The Turkish bey of Tunisia, Muhammad Bey
(1631-63 A.D.), had a fort built in the Matmata Mts.
in order to contain the rebels. We owe this informa¬
tion to the Tunisian historian Ibn Abi Dinar, who
dealt with this event in al-Mu^nis ft akhbdr Ifrlkiya wa~

MATMATA

♦ *

841

Tunis , probably written in 1092/1681 or 1100/1698.
In the 18th and the first part of the 19th century, in
the reign of the Husaynid dynasty (from 1705), there
took place various rebellions by Berber and Arab
tribes in south-east Tunisia, whose instigators sought
refuge in the Matmata Mts.

The survivors of the Matmata, partially Arabised,
still live in their old homeland in south-east Tunisia.

2. Algeria. It seems that at an unknown period,
probably* in the 2nd/8th century, or perhaps even
before this date, one or several important clans of the
Matmata detached themselves from the main body of
this people inhabiting south-east Tunisia and may
have come to settle in western Algeria and Morocco.
If it is a case of some Matmata elements being settled
in western Algeria, it is necessary to mention firstly a
clan which was settled on the plateaux of Sersu to the
north-east of Mindas and to the north of the town of
Tahart and in the Ouarsenis Mts. According to Ibn
Khaldun, these Matmata adopted the beliefs of the
Iba^Is at a time when the Kharidjl doctrine was wide¬
spread among the Berbers, i.e. around the middle of
the 2nd/8th century. Besides, it is not impossible that
the Matmata of the Tahart district may have been
settled in this area in the time of Abu ’1-Khattab.
Ibadi imam of Tripoli (from 140/757-8), who also
seized al-Kayrawan and the whole of Ifrlkiya. This
man entrusted the government of al-Kayrawan to
c Abd al-Rahman b. Rustam. After the defeat of the
Ibadi Berber army of Abu ’l-Khattab by the c Abbasid
general Muhammad b. al-Ash c ath al-Khuza c I in
144/761-2, c Abd al-Rahman b. Rustam then
hastened, if we are to believe Ibn Khaldun, to
evacuate al-Kayrawan and to take his sons and
household to the Ibadi Berbers of the central
Ma gh rib. Having reached his old friends and allies
the Lamaya, he rallied them to his side and decided
to found the town of Tahart, future capital of the
Rustamid imamate. It is not impossible that a party
of the Matmata who were neighbours of the Lamaya
in south-east Tunisia, original homeland of the first of
these peoples, may already have been in the vicinity
of the future Tahart around 144/761-2. In any case,
the Matmata belonged by the reign of the Rustamid
imam Aflah b. c Abd al-Wahhab b. c Abd al-Rahman b.
Rustam ( ca. 308-58/823-71) to the rich and powerful
Ibadi Berber tribes of the Tahart district. We owe this
information to Ibn Saghlr, historian of this town and
of the Rustamid dynasty, who wrote his chronicle ca.
290/902-3. After the fall of the Rustamid imamate,
the Matmata of the Tahart district were forced (ca.
298/910) to abandon, in the words of Ibn Khaldun.
‘Tor ever” Ibadi beliefs and to embrace ShI c I doc¬
trines. To judge by the Arabic sources, the Matmata
later rejected ShI c I doctrines and became Sunnis.

Some groups of the Matmata, having come to settle
in the central Ma gh rib, occupied the plateaux of
Sersu in the neighbourhood of Tahart, in the north¬
east of the Mindas area, which was inhabited in the
first place by a clan of the large Berber tribe of the
Hawwara. Later, these Matmata came to settle in the
Mindas area, having driven out the Hawwara in
question. Then the Matmata were expelled from the
plateaux of Sersu by the Zanata tribe of Banu Tudjin,
and were forced to seek refuge in the mountainous
massif of Wansharls (present day Ouarsenis), where
al-Bakrl mentions them in the 5th/11 th century, al-
IdrlsI in the 6th/l 2th century and Ibn Khaldun in the
8th/14th century.

We know also, thanks to al-Ya c kubi, the name of
another clan of Matmata living, around the end of the
3rd/9th and beginning of the 4th/10th century, in the

central Ma gh rib. One should mention here a clan of
this tribe living to the west of Ouarsenis and Sersu
and to the west of the town of Yalal (Hilil of our maps)
under the domination of the dynasty descended from
Muhammad b. Sulayman b. c Abd Allah b. al-Hasan
b. al-Hasan, related to the Idrlsids of Morocco, who
ruled in this period in Tlemcen and the district
around it. This clan of the Matmata had nothing in
common with the Matmata of Ouarsenis, who were
Ibadls and who recognised the suzerainty of the
Rustamid imams of Tahart. One of the clans of the
Matmata of Tlemcen was in control of the town of
Ayzradj (?) situated near the western fringes of
Tlemcen, probably in the area of the modern Algero-
Moroccan frontier.

The history of the Matmata of the Tahart district,
after the fall of the Rustamid imamate and the forced
conversion of this clan to ShI c I beliefs at the begin¬
ning of the 4th/10th century, is little known to us. We
know, however, that they took an active part in the
war which broke out between the Zlrid princes Ham-
mad b. Buluggin (405-19/1015-28) and Badls b. al-
Mansur (396-406/996-1016), Ibn Kh aldun even men¬
tions a famous amir of the Matmata of the Tahart
district; he was called Zlrl and lived towards the end
of the 4th/10th century and beginning of the 5th/11th;
defeated by the Sanhadja Zlrids, he was forced to go
to Spain.

The survivors of the powerful Matmatl clan of the
Tahart district were still living in this area in the 19th
century. They were living to the north of the plateau
of Sersu, in Thaza (Taza) and the surrounding
district.

3. Morocco. Some advanced groups of the Mat¬
mata pressed on, probably a little before the 4th/10th
century, as far as Morocco. A group of this people
settled in the territory of Nukur, in the eastern Rif,
where they are mentioned by al-Bakrl in the 5th/l 1th
century. Al-Ya c kubi (3rd/9th century) mentions also
the clans of Matmata settled in the town of Falusen (?)
situated to the east of the town of Nukur. Another
clan of the Matmata lived on the upper course of
Wadi Moulouya, in an area called Matmata Amas-
kur, to the south of Fas. It is mentioned by al-Bakri
and by Ibn Khaldun. The latter author also speaks of
a mountain called Matmata situated between Fas and
Sefrou (Sufruy). One should add that there were also
some Matmata between Fas and Taza; furthermore,
a place in this area still bears the name Matmata.

Finally, there was also a group of Matmata settled
in the far west of Morocco, in the region called
Tamasna, where there existed in the Middle Ages a
kingdom founded by the anti-Muslim Berber tribe of
Barghawata [q.v.\. The Matmata of Tamasna formed
part of the confederation of Barghawata and professed
the faith of this tribe. We know of it through the
account of Zammur, sent by the Bar gh awata to the
caliph of Cordova in 352/963, which is cited in the
Kitab al-Masalik wa ’ l-mamalik of al-Bakrl. Zammur
gives in this account two lists of Berber tribes of
Tamasna under the suzerainty of the Bar gh awata
empire, that is, those who profess the Bar gh awatl
faith and the Muslims. The Matmata of Tamasna are
mentioned in the first of these lists. The history of this
clan of the Matmata is entirely unknown to us; how¬
ever, we know, thanks to al-ldrlsl, that it still existed
in the 6th/12th century.

4. Spain. There were also some Matmata groups
among the Berber tribes who went across to Spain at
different periods. We know this from Ibn Khaldun,
who gives us some details in his Histoire des Berberes.
We have already mentioned a famous Matmati amir of

842

M ATM AT A — MATMURA

the central Ma gh rib called Ziri, who lived towards the
end of the 4th/10th century and beginning of the
5th/11 th century; this amir was originally chief of the
Matmata of the Wansharlsh (Ouarsenis) plateaux, as
well as of Ghazul, a mountain dominating the country
around Tahart. Defeated by the Sanhadja, he crossed
into Spain, where he went to see the powerful
Umayyad wazir al-Mansur b. Abi c Amir [<?.o. ], who
received him with alacrity and enrolled him among
the Berber amirs admitted to his service. It is very
likely that ZTri was accompanied, on his journey to
Spain, by members of his household and perhaps by
several Matmati warriors; he soon became one of the
most distinguished officers in al-Mansur’s Berber
corps. After the latter’s death in 392/1002, his sons al-
Muzaffar (d. in 398/1008) and c Abd al-Rahman con¬
tinued to treat ZTri with the same favour as their
father. However, from the time of the revolt of the
Umayyad Muhammad II b. Hisham b. c Abd al-
Djabbar (399-400/1008-10), ZirT and all the other
Berber amirs and officers, recognising the lack of
ability in their chiefs, went over to the side of Muham¬
mad b. Hisham b. c Abd al-Djabbar, who had become
caliph with the title of al-MahdT. The end of ZirT is
unknown to us. According to Ibn Khaldun, he stayed
in the service of al-MahdT until the great revolt of the
Berbers in Spain. The year of his death is unknown.

Another great Matmati figure, probably originally
from Wansharlsh and Ghazul and who crossed into
Spain, is Kahlan b. Abi Lawa, one of the most famous
Berber genealogists. He made his way to al-Nasir,
first ruler of the Banu Hammud dynasty (is this the
Muhammad, lord of Algeciras who reigned in 428-
40/1036-48, or the Hammudid prince c AlI, lord of
Malaga in 1001-21 and 1022-25?).

Finally, one should add that the greatest Berber
genealogist, Sabik b. Sulayman b. Harath b. Mulat.
Ibn Dunas, who is one of Ibn Khaldun’s sources,
belonged to the Matmata tribe.

Bibliography: Ya c kubi, Buldan, 356, 357; Ibn
Khurradadhbih. 90, Fr. tr. 65; Chronique d’Ibn
Saghir sur les imams rostemides de Tahert , ed.-Fr. tr. A.
de C. Motylinski, in Actes du xiv e Congres Interna¬
tional des Orientalistes, Algiers 1905, Part 3, Paris
1908, Ar. text 27, Fr. tr. 86-7; BakrI, Description ,
text 66, 67, 75, 90, 140-1, 152 (Fr. tr. de Slane,
Algiers 1913, 137, 139, 154, 180-1, 270, 281, 290);
IdrlsT, Description de VAjrique et de I’Espagne, ed.-Fr.
tr. Dozy and De Goeje, Leiden 1866, Ar. text, 85,
Fr. tr. 98; Kitab al-Istibsar, Alexandria 1958, 193,
200; TidjanT, Rihla , ed. H. H. c Abd al-Wahhab,
Tunis 1377/1958, 134; Ibn Kh aldun. Berberes 2 , i,
169, 172, 236, 239, 241-8, ii, 287, iii, 154-55, 187,
188, 301-4, iv, 515; Shammakhl. Kitab al-Siyar ,
Cairo 1301/1883-4, 161, 203, 596 (appendix); Ibn
Abi Dinar, Kitab al-Mu^nis, Fr. tr. in Pelissier and
Remusat, Histone de VAjrique , 1845, 391; R.
Brunschvig, Hafsides, i, 314; H. Fournel, Les
Berberes , i-ii, Paris 1875-81, passim ; H. R. Idris,
Znides, ii, 464; J. Lelainville, Les Troglodytes du Mat¬
mata, in Bull. Soc. Normande de Geographie, 1909, 119-
42; T. Lewicki, Les Ibadites en Tunisie au moyen age,
Accademia Polacca di Scienze e Lettere, Biblioteca
di Roma, Conferenze, Fasc. 6, Rome 1959, 5-7; A.
Louis, Aux Matmata et dans les ksars du Sud, Volivier et
les hommes, iii, 1970, 44-5; Tunisie du Sud, Paris
1975, 17, 20, 27-30; Piesse, Itineraire de VAlgerie,
1882-3, 139. (T. Lewicki)

MATMURA (a), from tamara, which signifies in
particular “to hide”, denotes a natural or man-made
cavity used for the concealment of victuals (ta c am) or
of riches (mat); such is the definition adopted by the

LA (s.v.), which specifies that it is the plural matamir
which should be applied to underground silos
where grain is stored. In fact, the singular cur¬
rently denotes a silo, and the plural, a group of silos
garded by a tammar and called mars in Morocco (ratba
in Takruna, where the guardian is known as rattab;
W. Margais, Glossaire de Takrouna, v, 2408-9, with
discussion of the figurative expressions drawn from
the root).

In the Ma gh rib, in addition to the communal
granaries [see agadir], silos were the most usual
method of storing cereals. The authorities sometimes
dug out such silos, which reached vast sizes. Thus the
c Alawid sultan Muhammad b. c Abd Allah [q. v.
caused to be built at Marrakesh, between 1173 anc
1181/1760-8, two enormous silos on top of which was
an inclined plane from which the grain, brought
thither by beasts of burden, was despatched down
chutes to the different parts of the subterranean
storehouse, which was not visible from the outside (G.
Host, Nachrichten von Marokos und Fes, Copenhagen
1781, 75-7; cf. J. Delarozieres, Habs Zebbala a Fes
Djedid, in IV e Congres des Soc. savantes, ii, Algiers 1929;
G. Deverdun, Marrakech , i, 495). In Algeria, as early
as 1848, an officer had presented a project for setting
up reserve silos (or “matmores”) and this was
actually done some years later (see Capasset, Memoires
sur la colonisation ..., Algiers 1848). The CNRS has
recently organised in Paris a series of conferences on
Les techniques de conservation des grains a long terme, vol. iii
of whose proceedings was published in 1985.

The technique for the excavation of silos differs lit¬
tle from one region to another. In general, the open¬
ing is narrow in such a way that it may be her¬
metically sealed, and the cavity is enlarged lower
down, although attaining no great depth. If the nature
of the soil requires it, the interior walls are lined with
the object of protecting the cereals stored from
humidity. But the latter must also be shielded from
some subtle dangers, so that ensilage, entry into a silo
and the withdrawal of a quantity of grain, are sur¬
rounded by precautions of a magical nature which, as
regards Berber Morocco, have been fully documented
by E. Laoust, Mots et choses berberes, Paris 1920, 403-5.

The plural matamir (or matamir, from matmar, which
also has the sense of “pit”) is a toponym which may
be quite frequently encountered (see Le Strange,
Lands, 138). It is in any case the name of a locality in
c Irak close to Hulwan (see al-Mas c udi, Murudj, §
3597; Ibn Hawkal 2 , 358, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 350;
Yakut, iv, 562), while Dhat al-Matamlr, or simply
Matamir, was the name for homes of cave-dwellers
situated in the “Syrian March” (see A. A. Vasiliev,
Byzance et les Arabes , ii/1, Brussels 1968, 82; M.
Canard, H’amdanides, 730; cf. Ibn Hawkal, 200, tr.
194-5; al-Mas c udi, Tanbih, ed. Sawi, 151, which
seems to give to matmura the sense of “village of cave-
dwellers”). It should be noted that the (sub¬
terranean?) cells of monks are called matamir by al-
Djahiz, Hayawan , iv, 458-9.

Besides the character from the Spanish comedy
(Matamoros) whose (masculine) name in French is
Matamore, the traveller Jean Mocquet has noted in his
Voyages en Afrique, etc., 1617, 166, a feminine matamore
denoting a large and deep pit, and C. P. Richelet
(Dictionnaire jran^ais, ed. of 1693) supplies the follow¬
ing definition of the same term: “It is a prison where
slaves are confined underground every night ... The
matamore is very uncomfortable and cruel, and it
seems that it was invented solely with the purpose of
tormenting the slaves. A flight of 20 or 30 steps leads
down to it. Air and light are supplied only through a

MAJMURA — MATRAKCI

843

small aperture. The slaves there are horribly over¬
crowded ... A. Gallard, Histoire (Tune esclave ” (F.
Nasser, Emprunts lexicologiques du fran$ais a Tarabe,
Beirut 1966, 472). It is a fact that, among the mean¬
ings of matmura recounted by Dozy ( Suppl., s.v.), there
figures the sense of “a cave, large or small and very
deep, in which prisoners or Christian slaves are con¬
fined; in these subterranean prisons, which are
beneath fortresses or in the country, the only contact
with the world outside is through very narrow ven¬
tilators” (see also R. Brunschvig, Hafsides, i, 449-50
about a matmura in Tripoli). Dozy’s account applies to
Muslim Spain, where matmura has given rise to the
Spanish word mazmorra (see J. Corominas, Diccionario
critico etimologico de la lengua castellana , Berne 1954-7, iii,
306-9), which denotes, like the Portuguese masmorra or
matamorra , a subterranean prison (on those which have
been discovered at Granada, see L. Torres Baibas,
Las mazmorras de la Alhambra , in al-And. , ix/1 (1944),
198-218; see also R. Arie, L’Espagne musulmane au
temps des Nasrides, Paris 1973, 322).

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(Ch. Pellat)

MATN (a.), a term with various meanings, of
which that of text of a hadlth [q.v.\ is to be noted.

Main already appears with the sense of “text” in
pre-Islamic poetry, and has been used thus in Arabic
literature up to the present day. It denotes especially
the text of a book as distinguished from its oral
explanation or its written or printed commentary.

In connection with traditions, main denotes the con¬
tent or text itself, in distinction from the chain of
traditionists who have handed it down ( isnad [q.v. ]).
The choice of this term to designate the body of a
hadith led Goldziher to put forward the view that the
traditions were put into writing at an early date, but
he recognised that he was unable to determine the first
occurrence of this. However, it should be remarked
that the main has rarely been the subject of textual
criticism on the part of the JukahP and, as G. H. A.
Juynboll observes {The authenticity of the tradition
literature, Leiden 1969, 139), if the criteria which
modern authors enumerate had been applied, there
would have been very little left of the “authentic” col¬
lections.

Bibliography : Goldziher, Muhammedanische

Studien , ii, 6ff., Eng. tr. Muslim studies, ii, 20ff.

(A. J. Wensinck*)

MATRAH (lat. 23° 38 N., long. 58° 34 E.) the
largest city and major port of the Sultanate of
c Uman. Matrah was only a small fishing village in
September 1507 when Afonso d’Albuquerque an¬
chored his fleet there in preparation for the sacking of
Maskat [9.0.]. The Portuguese later fortified Matrah
with one fort on the waterfront and a second on a hill
at the southwest corner of the town. The Ya c ariba
imam Sultan b. Sayf expelled the Portuguese from
Matrah in 1651. During the c Umani civil war of the
early 18th century, the city was occupied by Persian
troops, who were driven out by Ahmad b. SaTd of the
Al Bu Sa c Id in 1741. Since the establishment of
the Al Bu Sa c Id dynasty, Matrah has been subjected
to attacks by opponents of the regime on several
occasions.

Matrah’s rise to commercial prominence began
during the period of Portuguese occupation. Maskat
was the entrepot for Portugal’s trade, but that city was
made inaccessible to the rest of c Uman by the moun¬
tains surrounding it. Matrah, with its excellent har¬
bour and ease of access to both Maskat, only 4 km.
distant by water, and to the population centres of
interior c Uman via Wadi Sama D il, came to dominate

the domestic trade. In addition, Matrah had impor¬
tant weaving and ship-building industries. With
Maskat’s decline as an entrepot during the 19th cen¬
tury, Matrah’s commercial importance increased,
and the construction of Mina Kabus in the early 1970s
has insured the city’s dominant position.

Because of its commercial activity, Matrah
historically has had a cosmopolitan population, with
Arabs, especially Banu Djabir and Banu Hasan
tribes, Balucls, Africans, Persians and Indians all
residing there. Among the Indians, the Liwatiyya
from Sind are distinctive. The Liwatiyya (sing. Lutf),
who were originally Khodja Isma c flls but converted to
Ithna c Ash an Shiism in the 1860s, have been in
Matrah for more than 100 years. Although very active
in business, the Liwatiyya were, until recent times,
socially isolated in a walled portion, probably the
original Portuguese fort, of Matrah known as Sur
Liwatiyya, from which all outsiders were excluded.
During the 19th century, many Hindu Banyans
began leaving Maskat and settling in Matrah to take
advantage of the better business opportunities.
c Uman’s recent economic development has served to
increase Matrah’s international flavour.

Bibliography: The best description of Matrah
during the Portuguese period is Pedro Barretto de
Resendes, Livro do Estado da India Oriental, 1646,
mss. B.L., Sloane 197, Sch. no. 11690, fols. 124-7.
The principal Arabic sources are: to 1728, Sirhan
b. Sa c Td al-AzkawI, Kashf al-ghumma, and a con¬
tinuation to the 1780s by al-Ma c wali, Kisas wa-
akhbar, ed. c Abd al-Madjld Haslb al-KaysI, TaMkh
c Uman [Beirut 1976], 101-2, 140, 142, 157; two
works by Ibn Ruzayk (Humayd b. Muhammad),
al-Shu c d c al-sJidY [Cairo] 1398/1978, 206, 215, 234-
5, 297, 312, 337-8, 340, 343-5, 347, and al-Fath al-
mubin, Maskat 1397/1977, 275, 284-90, 345-9,.
356, 364, 374-5, 396, 412-3, 516, tr. G. P. Badger,
History of the Imams and Seyyids of ^Omdn ..., London
1871, see index, concluded in 1856; and c Abd Allah
b. Humayd al-Saliml, Tuhfat al-a^yan 5 , Kuwayt
1394/1974, ii, 10, 64-7, 153-8, 242-4, 298, con¬
cludes with 1910. Modern descriptions of Matrah
are to be found in J. R. Wellsted, Travels in Arabia,
London 1837, i, 31-3; W. S. W. Ruschenberger,
Narrative of a voyage round the world, London 1838, i,
120-5; G. B. Brucks, Memoir descriptive of the naviga¬
tion of the Gulf of Persia, in Selections from the records of
the Bombay Government, n.s. xxiv, Bombay 1856,
629; J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ii,
Calcutta 1908, 1197-1200; I. Skeet, Muscat and
Oman, London 1974, 53-9. Important secondary
works include: S. B. Miles, Countries and tribes of the
Persian Gulf, London 1919; R. G. Landen, Oman
since 1856, Princeton 1967; J. Peterson, Oman in the
twentieth century, London 1978; and C. H. Allen,
Jr., The Indian merchant community of Masqat, in
BSOAS, xliv (1981), 48-52, which discusses the
Liwatiyya. o (C. H. Allen, Jr.)

MATRAKCI, Nasuh al-Silahi al-MatrakI, or
Nasuh b. Karagoz b. c Abd Allah al-BosnawI (?-971 /-
? 1564), outstanding knight, inventor of some
new forms of the game of matrah (a contest
with a stick, cudgel or rapier for training and knight-
errantry), mathematician, historian, calli¬
grapher and painter of the period of Suleyman
the Magnificent (926-74/1520-66).

He was a student in the Palace School during the
reign of the Bayezid II (886-918/1481-1512). His first
book Djamal al-kuttab wa-kamal al-hussab on mathe¬
matics was written in 923/1517 and dedicated to Selim
1 (918-26/1512-20). He had started by this time also

844

MATRAKCI — MATTA b. YUNUS

to distinguish himself as a knight. He began his career
as an historian to translate al-Tabari’s famous history
from Arabic into Turkish in 926/1520. The title of his
translation was Madjma c al-tawarlkh , and the manu¬
scripts of this translation constitute three huge
volumes. He wrote also a Turkish supplement to his
translation as the fourth volume of his work, which
includes the history of the Ottomans from the begin¬
ning to the year of 958/1551. But we have manu¬
scripts from this period dealing only with the time of
Bayezld II, Selim I and Suleyman I, such as Ta?rlkh-i
Sultan Bayezld wa-Sultan Selim, the illuminated Tahlkh-i
Sultan Selim, the illuminated Ta^rlkh Sultan Bayezld , the
illuminated Beyan-i menazil-i sefer-i '-Irakeyn (944/1537),
Suleyman-name (926-44/1520-37), Feth-name-i Kara-
boghdan (945/1538), the illuminated Ta^rlkh-i Feth-i
Shiklos (950/1543), and the second part of the
Suleyman-name (950-8/1543-51).

He was also the painter, with a group of other
artists, of his illuminated historical works indicated
above. He participated in different expeditions and
sketched at least the outlines of his documentary
paintings of townscapes in their own localities. Mean¬
while, a letter of 936/1529 of Sultan Suleyman praises
him as the master knight of his time, incomparable in
the whole Ottoman Empire. He completed his Tuhfat
al-ghuzat on the art of using various weapons in
939/1532, and his c Umdat al-hisab in 940/1533.
Finally, he produced a second version of al-Tabari’s
history, the Didmi c al-tawarlkh, by abridging its
original with the encouragement of Rustem Pasha,
the famous Grand Vizier of Suleyman, in 957/1550.
The part of the Djd mi c al-tawarlkh which concerns
Ottoman history, in one large volume containing the
events of the reign of Suleyman until 968/1561, is
attributed to Rustem Pasha himself. When he died on
16 Ramadan 971/28 April 1564, he was the head of
the office of the ketkhudd-yi barglr (ketkhiida-yi istabl-i
c dmire).

Bibliography. c Ashik Celebi, MeshaHr al-
shu c ara 3 , B. L. Or. 6434, fol. 153a; Djelal-zade
Mustafa, Tabakat al-memalik ve deredjat al-mesalik ,
Vienna, Nat. Bibl., H. O. 41, fol. 136a; C A1I, Kiinh
al-akhbar, B.L. Or. 7892, fol. 34a; idem, Menaklb-i
hunerveran , ed. Ibnii ’l-Emln M. Kemal (Inal),
Istanbul 1926, 61; HadjdjI Khalifa. Kashf al-zunun,
i, 594, ii, 1166, 1520; Isma c Il Pasha al-Ba gh dadi.
Hadiyyat al- c drifin, asma 5 al-mu^allifln wa-dthdr al-
musannifln , ii, 494; Evliya Celebi, Seyahat-ndme,
Istanbul 1314, i, 257; Mustaklm-zade, Tuhfe-yi
khattatln, Istanbul 1928, 568; Habib, Khatt ve khat-
tatdn , Constantinople 1305, 159; C. Rieu, Catalogue
of the Turkish manuscripts in the British Museum , Lon¬
don 1888, 22; Bursalf Mehmed Tahir, c Othmdnli
miPellifleri, Istanbul 1343, iii, 150, 305; F. Bab-
inger, GOW, 67; A. Gabriel, Les etapes d’une cam-
pagne dans les deux Irak d’apres un manuscrit turc du
XVI e siecle, in Syria , ix (1928), 328-45; E. Blochet,
Catalogue des manuscrits turcs, Paris 1932-3, 21; H. S.
Selen, XVI. asirda yapilmif Anadolu atlasi: Nasuh
SilahPnin Menazil’i, in II. Turk Tanh Kongresi
Tebligleri, Istanbul 20-25 Eyliil 1937, Istanbul 1943,
813-17; A. Decei, Un Fetih-name-i Karabogdan”
(1538) de Nasuh Matrakcl, in Fuad Kopriilii armagam,
Istanbul 1953, 113-24; F. Taeschner, The itinerary of
the first Persian campaign of Sultan Suleyman, 1534-
1536, according to Nasuh al-Matrakl, in Imago Mundi,
xii (1956), 53-5; H.^ G. Yurdaydin, Matrakcl
Nasuh ’un Siileyman-ndmesi, in V Turk Tarih Kongresi,
Ankara 12-17 Nisan 1956, Kongreye sunulan tebligler,
Ankara 1960, 374-8; F. Taeschner, Das Itinerar der
ersten Persienfeldzuges des Sultans Suleyman Kanum

1934-35 nach Matrakcl Nasuh, in ZDMG, cxii (1962),
62-93; Yurdaydin, Matrakfi Nasuh, Ankara 1963;
idem, Two new illuminative works of Matrakcl Nasuh,
in II Congresso internazionale di Arte Tuna, Venezia 26-
29 Septembre 1963, 133-6; idem, Matrakcl Nasuh’un
minyatiirlii iki yeni eseri, in Belleten, xxviii, no. 110
(1964), 229-33; idem, Matrakfi Nasuh’un hayati ve
eserleri He ilgiliyeni bilgiler, in Belleten, xxix, no. 114
(1965), 329-54; Taeschner, Mafrakfi, in Isl., xl
(1965), 200-6; W. B. Denny, A sixteenth-century
architectural plan of Istanbul, in Ars Orientalis, viii
(1970), 49-63; N. J. Johnston, The urban world of
Matraki manuscript, in JNES ( 1971), xxx, 159-76; M.
K. Ozergin, Sultan Kanuni Suleyman Han fagina ait
tarih kayitlan, Erzurum 1971, 28; Yurdaydin, An
Ottoman historian of the XVI 1 * 1 century: Nasuh al-Matrakl
and his Beydn-i Menazil-i Sefer-i c Irakeyn and its impor¬
tance for some Iraki cities, in Turcica, vii (1975), 179-
87; Nasuhu’s-Silahl (Matrakcl), Beydn-i menazil-i
sefer-i c Irakeyn-i Sultan Suleyman If an, ed. Yurdaydin,
Ankara 1976; idem, Matrakcl Nasuh’a gore Istanbul-
Budapefte arasi menzilleri, in VIII. Turk Tarih
Kongresi, Ankara 11-15 Kasim 1976, Kongrese sunulan
bildiriler, II, Ankara 1981, 1247-56. (Huseyin G.
Yurdaydin)

MATRAN, KhalIl [see mutran].

MATRUK, a technical term of Ottoman Turkish
law concerning a category of land, See mar c a. 3.
Turkey.

MATTA b. YUNUS (Yunan) al-Kunna 5 !, abu
bishr, translator of and commentator on
Aristotle, was one of the principal initiators of the
reception of Peripatetic philosophy through Arabic
translations from Syriac in its final phase in the
4th/10th century. He was a Nestorian Christian who
studied and taught at Dayr Kunna [q.v. ] (see also J.
M. Fiey, Assyrie chretienne, iii, Beirut 1968, 187-93) in
the schola of the convent of Mar Mari before he came
to Baghdad during the caliphate of al-Radl (i.e., after
322/934). He died on Saturday, 11 Ramadan 328/20
June 940.

Among his teachers were some of the Syrian Christ¬
ians who brought the tradition of the Alexandrian
school, which had been continued in Antioch and
Harran, to Baghdad, as reported by al-Farabl and al-
Mas c udl (see Meyerhof, Von Alexandrien nach Bagdad,
19-21, 27-8; Zimmermann, Al-Farabi’s commentary, pp.
cv-cviii): Abu Yahya al-MarwazI, a doctor who
taught logic in Syriac (with him Matta read Aristotle’s
Analytica posteriora; I bn al-Nadlm, Fihrist, 249 14 ,
263 16 ; Walzer, Greek into Arabic, 100f.), and Abu
Ishak Ibrahim Kuwayra (sic, i.e. Kyros), who com¬
mented on the Organon (Fihrist, 262; his commentary
on the Sophistici elenchi, I, 1-11, mentioned in Badawi
[ed.], Mantik Aristu, 951); also the Muslim Abu
Ahmad al-Husayn b. Ishak I bn Karnlb, a mutakallim
interested in natural philosophy ( Fihrist, 263).

His own translations—which were all made from
Syriac versions of the 8th and 9th centuries—go far
beyond the Aristotle reading (confined to elementary
logic) of both the Nestorian scholae, where the Alexan¬
drian curriculum of Ammonius and his disciples had
been all but forgotten, and the medical schools which,
for logic, preferred Galen’s De demonstratione (cf. Zim¬
mermann, Al-Farabi’s commentary, pp. lxxvi, ciii-cviii).
They represent a revival of Aristotelian studies which,
relying on the available commentaries of Alexander of
Aphrodisias and Themistius, recovered an Aristotle
more complete and more authentic than had been
known heretofore to Arabic readers. The works of
Aristotle known to Ibn al-Nadlm in Matta’s transla¬
tion ( Fihrist, 249-51, 263-4) comprise the Analytica

MATTA b. YUNUS

845

posteriora, including the commentary of Alexander and
Themistius’s paraphrase, the Sophistici elenchi (revision
of an older version, cf. BadawT (ed.), Mantik Aristu,
785 n. 2, 1018), the Poetica , De caelo (“part of book I”)
and its paraphrase by Themistus, De generatione et cor-
ruptione with the commentaries of Alexander and
Olympiodorus, the Meteorologica with Olympiodorus’s
commentary, and book Lambda of the Metaphysica with
Alexander’s commentary as well as Themistius’s
paraphase. Only three of these have survived:

(a) The Paris ms. of the Arabic Organon (Bibl. nat.,
ar. 2346) contains the Analytica posteriora in Matta’s
version as copied from the exemplar of his pupil
Yahya b. c AdI (ed. c Abd al-Rahman BadawT, Mantik
Aristu , Cairo 1948-52, 309-465); for the revised ver¬
sion of Book I read by Ibn Rushd and translated into
Latin by Gerard of Cremona, see H. Gatje and G.
Schoeler, Averroes’ Schriften zur Logik. Der arabische Text
der zweiten Analytiken im Grossen Kommentar des Averroes,
in ZDMG , cxxx (1980), 556-85, esp. 564-83.

(b) His version of Alexander’s commentary on
Metaph. A, 1-7 (1069 a 18-1072 b 16), including the
lemmata of Aristotle’s text, served Ibn Rushd as the
basis of his Tafsir (ed. M. Bouyges, Averroes. Tafsir Ma
ba c dat-tabTat, Beirut 1938-52; cf. Notice, pp. cxxx f.);
see also the quotations from a commentary of Matta
on Metaph. a, B, and 0 in Ps.-MadjrTtT, Picatrix. Das
Ziel des Weisen, ed. H. Ritter, Leipzig-Berlin 1933,
282-3 = tr. H. Ritter and M. Plessner, London 1962,
290, 292.

(c) Matta’s translation of the Ars poetica (edd. D.S.
Margoliouth, London 1887; J. Tkatsch, Vienna
1928-32; c Abd al-Rahman BadawT, Cairo 1953;
ShukrI c Ayyad, Cairo 1967) has become notorious for
its inadequacies rather than for its merits [cf.

BALAGHA, HAMASA, HIKAYA, HIDJA 3 , ISTI C ARa], but it

must be kept in mind that the Poetics, as well as the
Rhetoric —both regarded as part of the Organon in the
Alexandrian curriculum (Walzer, Greek into Arabic,
129-36)—were read for the study of certain types of
“logical’’ argument, but not with regard to a literary
tradition which had become extinct already in late
Hellenism.

The commentaries of Matta and his school, if we
may judge from the little that is preserved, were in the
form of more or less extensive notes, marginal or
annexed to lemmata of the texts ( ta c dlik) and in some
cases combined with those of other teachers in the
style of the late Patristic catenae on the Bible. An
important number of such notes is to be found in the
Paris Organon, referring to An.pr. (see Walzer, Greek
into Arabic , 78), An. post, (see ibid. , 102), the Topica
(ed. BadawT, Mantik Aristu 630 n. 3), and Porphyry’s
Isagoge (ibid. , 1046 n. 1, 1048, n.l. 3, 1053, n. 2, 1054
n. 1), in a 10th-century catena commentary on the
Categories (see M. [Kuyel-] Tiirker, El- c Amiri ve
Kategonler ’in serhleriyle ilgili pargalar, in Araftirma , iii
[1965], 65-122), and on the margins of Alexander’s
treatise on the differentia specifics ( M. fi ’l-Fusul, ed.
BadawT, Aristu Hnd al- c Arab, 295-308, cf. J. van Ess,
Uber einige neue Fragmente des Alexander, etc., in Isl., xlii
[1966], 146-68, esp. 154-8); others are quoted by his
pupil Yahya b. c Ad! (Endress, The works of Yahya ibn
‘'Adi, 52, 93) and by Ibn al-Mutran (d. 587/1191, see
M. Rida al-ShabTbT, Bus tan al-atibba ) wa-rawdat al-
alibba 3 , in MMIA, iii [1923], 2-8 [p. 7, nos. 9, 19, 20]:
notes on I sag ., Cat., De int.); still others were available
to Ibn al-NadTm (who also mentions two introductory
treatises on the Analytica, Fihrist, 264) and c Abd al-
LatTf al-Baghdad! (R. fi Mudyadalat al-hakimayn al-
kimiya^i wa’l-nazari, ms. Bursa, Hiiseyin Qelebi 823,
fol. 113b 5-7, see S. M. Stern, A collection of treatises by

c Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, in Islamic Studies, i [Karachi
1962], 55, 66).—Fairly extensive commentaries of his
on the Physica , books II, 3-111,4, have survived in ms.
Leiden, Or. 1433 (containing Ishak b. Hunayn’s
Arabic translation and a course on the Physics edited
in 395/1004 by Abu ’1-Husayn al-Basr! from the lec¬
tures of Abu C A1T Ibn al-Samh, ed. BadawT, Aristutalis.
al-Tabi c a, Cairo 1965-6). His view of Nature as an
immanent creative being ( al-tabica al-fa cc ala, ed.
BadawT 151, cf. Ioh. Philoponus, In Phys., ed. Vitelli,
317 ]8 ) was explicitly attacked by Ibn STna (H.V.B.
Brown, Avicenna and the Christian philosophers in
Baghdad, in Islamic philosophy and the classical tradition,
Oxford 1972, 35-47, esp. 43-5).

Among his Christian and Muslim contemporaries
of the faldsifa, he was recognised unanimously as the
scholarch of logic in his time ( Fihrist, 263 25 ; al-
Mas c udT, Tanbih, 122). With him, al-Farab! \q.v. ]
studied the Organon , and the Jacobite Yahya b. c AdT
[q. v. ] transmitted his teaching to the subsequent
generation of Muslim and Christian philosophers in
Baghdad, notably c Isa b. Zur c a, al-Hasan b. Suwar,
and the Muslim Abu Sulayman al-Sidjistan! [q.v.].
On the other side, a vehement polemic, surging since
the traditionalist reaction of the mid-9th century, was
directed by the religious establishment of the c ulum al-
shar c iyya against the claim of Greek logic and philoso¬
phy to universal truth, and more especially against the
influence of logic apparent in the usul al-nahw of con¬
temporaries like Ibn al-Sarradj [q.v.] and his pupil al-
Rummani [q v.] (cf. Fihrist, 62; Ibn al-Anbari, Nuzha,
ed. Amer, 189). The attack led by Abu Sa c Id al-STrafT
against Matta in the madfis of the vizier Abu ’1-Fath
Ibn al-Furat in 326/937-8, as reported by al-
RummanT to Abu Hayyan al-Tawhldf (al-Imta c wa 7-
miTanasa, i, 107-28), is an impressive illustration. The
leader of the logicians (depicted by al-TawhTdT’s infor¬
mants as a covetous drunkard who sells his learning
for profit) is shown, not without malicious tricks, to be
unable to defend the philosophers’ claim that logic is
a tool necessary “to know truth from falsehood,
veracity from lying, good from bad”, and to dispute
his opponent’s argument that the only way to “logical
speech” (nutk) is through the grammar of a particular
conventional language. But if Matta had no more to
say to his unsympathetic audience than the report
credits him with, his pupils al-Farabl (cf. Zimmer-
mann, Al-Farabi's commentary , pp. cxxvi ff.) and Yahya
b. c Ad! (cf. Endress, The works of Y. b. C A., 45f.),
defending logic as universal grammar while assigning
to grammar the rules peculiar to the utterances ( alfaz )
of a particular language, made up for his silence.

Bibliography : 1. Texts. Ibn al-NadTm, Fih¬
rist, 248-51, 263-4; Abu Hayyan al-TawhTdT, al-
Imta c wa ’l-mu ?anasa , ed. A. AmTn and A. al-Zayn,
i, 107ff.; al-Mas c udT, al-Tanbih wa ’ l-ishraf\ ed. de
Goeje, 122; al-Bayhak!, Tatimmat Siwan al-hikma,
no. 14; al-Kifti, TaMkh. al-hukama 323; Ibn Ab!
Usaybi c a, c Uyun al-anba^ fi tabakdt al-atibba ed.
Muller, i, 235; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat, ed. c Abbas,
v, 153-4; Ibn al-Tbrl, TaMkh, 285, 296 = 2 164,
170. 2. Studies. Brockelmann, I, 228, S I, 370;
Graf, GCAL, ii, 153-4; G. Endress, The works of
Yahya ibn c Adi, Wiesbaden 1977, 5-6, 52, index;
idem, Grammatik und Logik, in Sprachphilosophie in
Antike und Mittelalter, ed. B. Mojsisch, Amsterdam
1984, §6; W. Heinrichs, Arabische Dichtung und
griechische Poetik , Beirut-Wiesbaden 1969, 118-23;
M. Mahdi, Language and logic in classical Islam, in
Logic in classical Islamic culture, Wiesbaden 1970, 51-
83; D. S. Margoliouth, The discussion between Abu.
Bishr Matta and Abu Sa c id al-Sirdfi on the merits of logic

846

MATTA b. YUNUS — al-MATURIDI

and grammar, in JRAS (1905), 79-129; M. Meyer¬
hof, Von Alexandrien nach Bagdad, Berlin 1930, 29;
N. Rescher, The development oj Arabic Logic, Pitts¬
burgh 1964, 119-22; J. Tkatsch, Die arabische
Ubersetzung der Poetik des Aristoteles , Vienna and Leip¬
zig 1928-32, i, 126-8; R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic,
Oxford 1962, 66, 77f., 99f., 102; F. W. Zimmer-
mann, Al-Farabi’s commentary and short treatise on
Aristotle’s De interpretatione, London 1918, pp. ciii-
cviii, cxxii-xccix. (G. Endress)

MATTER [see_HAYULA].

al- MATURIDI, Abu Mansur Muhammad b.
Muhammad b. Mahmud al-SamarkandI, Hanafi
theologian, jurist, and Kurban commentator,
founderof a doctrinal school which later came
to be considered one of the two orthodox Sunni
schools of kaldm [see maturidiyya].

His nisba refers to Maturld (or Maturlt), a locality
in Samarkand. On the basis of a misunderstood
reference of al-Sam c am (fol. 498b) to his son-in-law,
some late sources consider him of distinguished
Medinan descent and call him al-Ansarl. His main
teacher, Abu Nasr Ahmad b. al- c Abbas al- c Iyadi, was
killed between 261/874 and 279/892, probably closer
to the latter date. Al-Maturldl thus must have been
born before 260/873, especially since he is described
as having been highly esteemed by his teacher, who
would not engage in scholarly debate except in his
presence. According to some late authors, al-Maturld!
also studied under al- c Iya<JI 5 s teachers Abu Sulayman
al-Djuzdjanl, Nusayr b. Yahya al-Balkh! (d. 268/881-
2) and Muhammad b. Mukatil al-RazI (d. 226/841).
The latter cannot have been his teacher, and the
report is most likely unreliable also in respect of the
other two. Not much else is known about his career.
He is described as leading an ascetic life and as occa¬
sioning miracles (, karamdt ). The death date given by
the later sources, 333/944, may be approximately cor¬
rect, though the earliest biographer, Abu ’l-Mu c In al-
Nasafi (d. 508/1114), did not know it. Alternate dates
mentioned in two late sources are 336/947 and
332/943. Al-Maturldl’s tomb in the cemetery of
Djakardlza in Samarkand was still known in the
9th/15th century. Among his students were Abu
Ahmad al- c lyadl, son of his teacher Abu Na$r, Abu T
Hasan al-Rustughfanl, and c Abd al-Karlm b. Musa
al-BazdawI (al-PazdawI), great-grandfather of Abu ’1-
Yusr al-Bazdawi.

Of al-Maturldl’s works, the published text of the
Kitdb al-Tawhid (ed. F. Kholeif, Beirut 1970) is
definitely authentic. The book, however, seems to
have existed in different versions since some quota¬
tions from it in Abu ’l-Mu c In al-Nasafi’s Tabsirat al-
adilla are missing in the edited text (see D. Gimaret,
Theories de l’Acte humain et theologie musulmane, Paris
1980, 175-8). Al-Maturldfs extensive KuUan com¬
mentary K. Ta^wildt al-Kur^an (vol. i, ed. Ibrahim
c Awatfayn and al-Sayyid c Awacjayn, Cairo
1391/1971) was, according to its commentator c Ala 5
al-Dln Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Ahmad al-
Samarkandl (d. ca. 540/1145), assembled by his pupils
and therefore less obscure than his other works which
were written by himself. Also attributed to al-
Maturldl are three short published texts, a Risala fi 7-
c akd :> id, a K. al-Tawhid (both ed. Y. Z. Yoriikan, Islam
akaidine dair eski metinler, Istanbul 1953), and a shark on
Abu Hanifa’s al-Fikh al-akbar. These works appear to
have been composed by later representatives of the
school on the basis of his doctrine. Abu TMu c In al-
Nasafi does not list them among his works. He men¬
tions, on the other hand, the following, apparently
lost, books: K. al-Makdlat; K. Bayan wahm al-Mu c tazila;

refutations of three books of the Mu c tazill Abu ’1-
Kasim al-Balkhl al-Ka c b! (d. 319/932), his K. Awd^il
al-adilla , K. Tahdhib al-dgadal, and his K. Jt waHd al-
fussak; a refutation of al-Usul al-khamsa by the
Mu c tazill Abu c Umar al-Bahill, a close companion of
Abu C A1I al-Djubba^I; a refutation of a K. al-Imama by
an Imam! ShlT author; two refutations of the Isma c llls
(Karamita); and two books on legal methodology
(Usui al-fikh), K. Ma^khadh al-shard^T and K. al-djadal.

In contrast to al-Ash c arI, the founder of the other
Sunni kaldm school, who espoused the doctrines of
Hanball traditionalism, al-Maturldl adhered to the
doctrine of Abu Hanlfa as transmitted and elaborated
by the Hanafi scholars of Balkh and Transoxania. He
developed previous eastern Hanafi teaching
systematically in arguing against the positions of the
Mu c tazila, in particular, their chief representative in
the east Abu ’1-Kasim al-Balkhl: of the Karramiyya,
Sunni traditionalists (Hashwiyya); of the Imam!
Sh^a; and of the Isma c flls, represented in Trans¬
oxania by Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Nasafi (d.
332/943). Of other religions, he refuted the views of
Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Manichaeans,
Bardesanites and Marcionites (see G. Vajda, Le
tbnoignage d’al-Maturidi sur la doctrine des Manicheens, des
Daysanites et des Marcionites, in Arabica, xii [1966], 1-38,
113-28). His doctrine was in substance generally more
rationalist and, with the exception of his MurdjPl def¬
inition of faith (man), closer to Mu c tazilism than al-
Ash c arl’s. In his concepts and technical terminology
he was, however, less influenced by the Mu c tazila
than aI-Ash c arI, who had been a trained Mu c tazill
before his break with them.

In substantial agreement with the Mu c tazill posi¬
tion, al-Maturldl held that man is able and obliged to
gain knowledge of God and his obligation to thank
Him through reason independent of prophetic revela¬
tion. In respect of the attributes of God, he, like the
Mu c tazila, allowed and practised metaphorical inter¬
pretation of anthropomorphic expressions in the
KuUan, though he rejected some specifically
Mu c tazill interpretations. In other instances he relied
on the traditionalist bild kayf formula, insisting on
unquestioning acceptance of the revealed text.
Against the Mu c tazila, he considered divine attributes
like knowledge and power as real and eternally sub¬
sisting in his essence (ka^ima bi ’l-dhat). Although he
accepted the terminological distinction between
attributes of essence and attributes of act, he main¬
tained, against the Mu c tazila and al-Ash c ari, that the
attributes of act are equally eternal and subsistent in
the divine essence. Thus he insisted that the expres¬
sions “God is eternally the Creator” and “God has
been creating from eternity (lam yazal khalifa’ 1 )” are
equally valid, even though the created world is tem¬
poral. In particular, his doctrine that the takwin,
bringing into existence, was eternal and distinct from
the mukawwan, the existing things, became a famous
point of controversy with the Ash c arls. Al-Maturldl
affirmed the vision ( ru ya) of God by the faithful in the
hereafter, but consistently rejected the possibility of
idrak, which he understood as grasping, of God by the
eyes. He held speech (kaldm) to be an eternal attribute
of God which could, however, not be heard. Like the
Mu c tazila, he thus affirmed, in respect to Kur’an, IV,
165, wa-kallama lldhu Musa taklim an , that God created
a voice which He made Moses hear.

In regard to predestination and human free will, al-
Maturldl’s position was intermediate between the
Mu c tazila and al-Ash c arI. He affirmed that the acts of
man are created by God, subject to His will and
decree. While they are thus acts of God in one respect

847

al-MATURIDI — MATU R1DYYA

(djiha), they are in another respect really, and not
metaphorically, man’s acts and his free choice
(; ikhtiyar ). Al-MaturldT insisted that God will lead
astray ( adalla) only those who, He knows, will choose
the wrong way and will guide only those who. He
knows, will choose the straight path. The initial choice
is man’s, not God’s as for al-Ash c arI. Al-MaturTdT
thus also rejected the predestinarian interpretation of
the primordial covenant ( mithak , according to Kurban,
VII, 137), according to which God separated the
chosen from the condemned before creation and the
latter confessed belief in His Lordship falsely under
duress. Man’s power ( kudra ), given by God, is valid
for opposite acts. Capability ( istita c a ) is of two kinds,
one preceding the act, the other simultaneous with it.
The imposition by God of something beyond man’s
capacity (laklif ma layulak) is in principle inadmissible.

Faith (man) was defined by al-Maturidi essentially
as tasdik bi ’l-kalb, inner assent, expressed by verbal
confession (, ikrar bi ’ l-lisan ). Works ( a c maf) are not part
of faith. Faith cannot decrease nor increase in
substance, though it may be said to increase through
renewal and repetition. Al-MaturldT condemned
istithna 3 , adding the formula “if God will” to the affir¬
mation “I am a believer”. The faithful sinner may be
punished by God but will eventually enter Paradise.
The traditionalist tenet backed by al-Ash c arI that
faith is uncreated was rejected by al-MaturldT.

Bibliography: BazdawT, Usui al-din, ed. H. P.
Linss, Cairo 1383/1963, index s.v.; Abu TMu c Tn
al-NasafT, Tabsirat al-adilla, quoted in Muhammad
b. TawTt al-Tandjl, Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, in IFD,
iv/1-2 (1955), 1-12; Ibn Abi ’1-Wafa 5 , al-Diawahir
al-mudPa , Haydarabad 1332/1914, ii, 130-1;
BayadI, Isharat al-maram , ed. Yusuf c Abd al-
Razzak, Cairo 1368/1949, 23; ZabTdl, Ilhaj al-sada,
Cairo n.d., ii, 5; Laknawl, al-Fawadd al-bahiyya,
Cairo 1924, 195; M. Allard, Le probleme des attributs
divins dans la doctrine d’al-As c ari, Beirut 1965, 419-
27; M. Gotz, Maturidi und sein Kitab Ta^wilat al-
QuUdn , in Isl. , xli (1965), 27-70; H. Daiber, Zur
Erstausgabe von al-Maturidi, Kitab al-Tauhid, in Isl., lii
(1975), 299-313; Sezgin, GAS, i, 604-6. Further
relevant literature is given under the article on al-
maturIdiyya. (W. Madelung)

MATURIDIYYA, a theological school na¬
med after its founder Abu Mansur al-MaturTdT [q.v. ]
which in the Mamluk age came to be widely
recognised as the second orthodox Sunni kalam school
besides the Ash c ariyya. The name MaturTdiyya does
not appear to have been current before al-Taftazan!
(d. 792/1390), who used it evidently to establish the
role of al-MaturTdT as the co-founder of Sunni kalam
together with his contemporary al-Ash c arT. In view of
the late appearance of the name, the reality of a
theological school founded by al-MaturTdT has been
questioned. In earlier times, the school was commonly
called that of the scholars of Samarkand or of Trans-
oxania. It claimed to represent the doctrine of Abu
HanTfa and sometimes identified itself as the ahl al-
sunna wa '1-djamaSa and “the great mass”, al-sawad al-
a c zam. The dominant influence of al-MaturTdT’s
thought and works on the later representatives of the
school is, however, evident, and the latter did not
deviate more substantially from his doctrine than did
the later Ash c ar!s from the doctrine of al-Ash c arI. The
latter was more readily recognised as the founder of a
new school both because he was originally a MuTazili
and because he was repudiated by the HanbalT tradi¬
tionalists whose doctrine he claimed to defend, while
al-Maturidi was considered fully representative of
traditional Transoxanian Hanafism whose theology
he elaborated.

The theological doctrine of the HanafT scholars of
Samarkand spread in the 4th/10th and 5th/11 th cen¬
turies throughout Transoxania, eastern Khurasan.
Balkh and among the newly converted Turks in the
Karakhanid territories of Central Asia. In the
4th/l0th century there were some differences on a few
theological questions with the HanafT scholars of
Bukhara, who were more strongly influenced by tradi¬
tionalist, anti-rationalist tendencies. These were
mostly harmonised by later MaturTdT scholars with
compromise solutions. MaturTdT teaching remained
virtually unknown west of Khurasan, where the
HanafTs adhered to other theological schools, many of
them to Mu c tazilism. Only the Saldjuk expansion into
the central Islamic world since the middle of the
5th/ 11th century brought a radical change. Ash c ari
authors now took note of MaturTdT doctrine concern¬
ing the divine attributes, characteristically describing
it as an innovation propounded only after the year
400/1009. The militant support of the Turks for
eastern Hanafism including its theological doctrine
led to a major clash with the ShafYls, now identified
with Ash c arl theology. This is the background of the
official cursing of al-Ash c ar! from the pulpits in
Khurasan ordered by the Saldjuk Toghrfl Beg in
445/1053 and of the persecution of Ash c arls and the
extensive factional warfare between HanafTs and
Shafi c Is in the major towns of Iran in the later Saldjuk
age. MaturTdT works of this period are highly critical
of Ash c arism, excluding the Ash c ariyya from the ahl
al-sunna wa d-djama^a and describing some Ash c arl
doctrines as kufr. As a result of the Turkish expansion,
eastern Hanafism and MaturTdT theological doctrine
were spread throughout western Persia, c Irak,
Anatolia, Syria and Egypt. Numerous Transoxanian
and other eastern HanafT scholars migrated to these
regions and taught there from the late 5th/11th to the
8 th/l4th century. MaturTdT doctrine thus gradually
came to prevail among the HanafT communities
everywhere. In Damascus and Syria it was first prop¬
agated by Burhan al-D!n C A1I b. al-Hasan al-
Sikilkand! al-Balkhl (d. 548/1153), to whom the
HanafT scholars of Samarkand send a copy of Abu
Hafs al-NasalT’s ^Akadd with their explanations,
describing it as the creed of the ahl al-sunna wa d-
diama c a on which they had agreed.

As the antagonism between the HanafTs and
Shafi c !s subsided in the Mamluk age, the Ash c arT
Shafi c I Tadj al-Dln al-Subkl (d. 771/1370) composed
a numyya poem about the points of difference between
al-Ash c ar! and “Abu HanTfa”, meaning MaturTdT
doctrine. He listed thirteen such points, defining
seven of them as merely terminological ( lajziyya) and
six as objective ( ma c nawiyya ). The latter were in his
view so minor that they could not justify mutual
charges of infidelity or heresy (tabdi*). A commentary
on the Nuniyya was composed by al-SubkT’s student
Nur al-Dln Muhammad b. Abi ’l-Tayyib al-ShlrazI,
This commentary with al-SubkT’s thirteen points of
difference was largely copied by Abu c Udhba, writing
ca. 1125/1713, in his well-known K. al-Rawda al-
bahiyya ji ma bayn al-AshaHra wa 'l-Mdtundxyya (a sum¬
mary of the thirteen points is given by A. S. Tritton,
Muslim theology, London 1947, 174-6).

Notable representatives of the school of al-MaturTdT
in the later 5th/11 th century were Abu Shakur al-
Saliml al-Kishsh!, author of a K. al-Tamhidfi bayan al-
lawhid, and Abu ’1-Yusr al-Bazdaw! (d. 593/1099),
kadi of Samarkand and author of the K. Usui al-din.
Most influential in expounding and elaborating the
doctrine of al-MaturTdT was, however, Abu ’l-Mu c Tn
al-NasafT al-MakhulT (d. 508/1114), who wrote the
largest comprehensive work of MaturTdT theology

848

MATURIDYYA — MAURITIUS

entitled K. Tabsirat al-adilla, a shorter K. Bahr al-kaldm
and a K. al-Tamhld U-kawaHd al-tawhld.

Most important in the dissemination of MaturidI
dogma was the creed ( c Akd*id) of Nadjm al-Dln Abu
Hafs al-NasafT (d, 537/1142) which closely followed
Abu ’1-Mu c in’s formulations in his Tabsirat al-adilla. It
received many commentaries and glosses for
scholastic teaching and was repeatedly versified.
Another popular MaturidI creed in verses, known as
al-Ldmiyya fi ’l-tawhid or Bad* al-amall, was composed
by C A1I b. c Uthman al-Ushi (d. 569/1173) and was
later explained in numerous commentaries, some in
Persian and Turkish. Also in the 6th/12th century,
there wrote Nur al-Dm al-$abum al-Bukharl (d.
580/1184), whose K. al-Bidaya min al-kifaya, extracted
from his larger K. al-Kifdyafi ’l-hidaya, has been pub¬
lished.

Among the later Matundl authors, Abu TBarakat
al-NasafT (d. 710/1310) composed a popular brief
treatise c Umdat al- c aklda li-ahl al-sunna with his own
commentary entitled K. al-lHimdd fi ’1-iHikad, both
strongly influenced by Abu ’l-Mu c In al-NasafT’s Tab¬
sirat al-adilla. A theologian with a more personal pro¬
file was c Ubayd Allah b. Mas c ud al-Mahbubl (d.
747/1346), who dealt with theological questions in the
context of both his K. Ta c dil al- c ulum and his K. al-
Tawdih , a work on legal methodology (usul al-fikh).
Sa c d al-Dln al-Taftazanl (d. 792/1310) wrote the best-
known commentary on Abu Haf§ al-NasafT’s c Aka*id.
A student of c Adud al-Dln al-Idji, representative of
the philosophical kalam of late Ash c arism, he himself
seems to have progressively moved towards Ash c ari
positions. This is apparent in his later K. al-Makasid
and his own commentary on it, which were patterned
after al-Idji’s K. al-Mawakif, and its commentary by
the Sharif al-Djurdjanl. The Egyptian HanafT
theologian Kamal al-Dln Ibn al-Human (d.
861/1457), author of a K. al-Musayara fi ’l- c aka*id al-
mundjiya fi ’ l-akhira , fully accepted the now prevailing
view of the equal orthodoxy of Ash c arism and
Maturldism, but showed a degree of independence in
regard to both schools. In contrast, the Ottoman
UanafT Kamal al-Dln al-Bayadl (d. 1078/1687) in his
K. Isharat al-maram min Hbarat al-imam emphasised the
independence and priority of MaturidI /<zm, founded
on the teaching of Abu Hanlfa, in relation to
Ashcarism.

Unlike Mu c tazilism and Ash c arism, MaturidI
theology always remained associated with only a
single legal school, that of Abu Hanlfa. It also
generally lagged behind the other two kalam schools in
methodical sophistication and systematisation,
especially in the questions of natural science treated
by them, and was less subject to the pervasive influ¬
ence of the terminology and concepts of falsafa on later
Ash c arism and later, particularly Imam! Shf-I,
Mu c tazilism. While the conflict of the Maturidiyya
with the Mu c tazila was obviously most fundamental,
the differences with the Ash c ariyya were more
substantial than the later harmonising theologians
would admit. They involved mainly Matundl doc¬
trine affirming the eternity of God’s attributes of act
subsisting in His essence, the rational basis of good
and evil, the reality of free choice ( ikhtiyar ) of man in
his acts, and the MurdjPl definition of faith as assent
and confession excluding works (aW/). However,
other, less significant points of difference dominated
at times the controversy between the two schools.

Bibliography : In addition to the works cited in

al-maturTdi, see L. Gardet, De quelques questions

pose'es par Tetude du Him al-kaldm , in SI, xxxii (1970),

135-9; W. Madelung, The spread of Maturldism and

the Turks, in Adas do IV Congresso de Estudos Arabes e
Islamicos Coimbra-Lisboa 1968, Leiden 1971, 109-68;
W. M. Watt, The formative period of Islamic thought,
Edinburgh 1973, 312-16; idem, The problem of al-
Maturldl, in Melanges dTslamologie. Volume dedie a ...
Armand Abel, Leiden 1974, 264-9; idem, The beginn¬
ings of the Islamic theological schools, in Islam et Occident
au Moyen Age: Tenseignement en Islam et en Occident au
Moyen Age, Paris 1976, 19-20; D. Gimaret, Theories
de l*Acte humain en theologie musulmane, Paris 1980,
171-234; J. M. Pessagno, The uses of evil in Maturl-
dian thought, in SI, lx (1984), 59-82.

(W. Madelung)

MA C UNA (a., pi. maundt, ma ^awin), “assistance”,
an administrative term of early Islamic history
with several meanings.

In texts relating to the pre- c Abbasid period, it refers
to allocations comparable with, but distinct from,
stipends (fata* [^.t/.]) and rations (rizk [</.y.]). Ma c una
was sometimes a gratuity paid to those who were not
in receipt of stipends (al-Tabari, i, 3410; ii, 1794),
sometimes a bonus supplementary to stipends (al-
Tabari, ii, 407; al-Baladhurl, Futuh, 187-8; cf. idem,
Ansab, ivb, 33), and sometimes a regular (more
precisely annual) payment made to those in receipt of
stipends and rations alike (al-Tabari, i, 2486, 2524; ii,
755; Ibn Sa c d, v, 277); ma c unat is even used as a
global term for private income from public funds (al-
Tabarl, i, 3026). One would assume the c amil or sahib
al-ma c una of this period to have been a fiscal officer,
especially as he was often appointed to the khardall
[q.v. ] as well, or to the civil administration in general
(al-Tabari, ii, 822, 929, 1069; cf. iii, 863); but it is
possible that he was an officer charged with the
maintenance of law and order (al-Tabari, ii, 1470f.
could be read in support of either view).

From the 3rd/9th century onwards, there is at any
rate no doubt that the leader of the ma c una was
charged with police duties. He might be identical with
the leader of the shurta (later shihna) [q. vv. ] or with the
military governor (al-Tabari, iii, 1816, 1822, 1875).
In so far as he was not, he performed functions such
as bringing accused persons to court, executing ver¬
dicts and collecting fines (Hilal al-Sabl, Rusum dar al-
khilafa, ed. M. c Awwad, Ba gh dad 1964, 9 and n. 3
thereto; A. A. Duri, Governmental institutions, in R. B.
Serjeant (ed.), The Islamic city, Paris 1980, 61; R.
Levy, The social structure of Islam, Cambridge 1969,
332, 381; see also E. Tyan, Histoire de Vorganisation
judiciaire en pays d*Islam , Paris 1938-43, ii, 69, 365-6;
and c amil). The actual police building was called
macuna too, at least by the time of the Geniza
documents (S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean society, ii,
Berkeley and Los Angeles 1971, 368, cf. also Tyan,
op.cit ., ii, 401, 432.

Bibliography. Given in the article.

(P. Crone)

MAURITANIA [see muritaniya].

MAURITIUS, an island of the south¬
western Indian Ocean, one of the three
Mascarene Islands (together with Reunion and
Rodrigues), located some 2,300 miles (3,680 km)
north-west of Cape Town, a similar distance south
south-east of Aden, and 2,000 miles (3,200 km) south¬
west of Colombo.

Although probably known to Arab navigators from
as early as the 12th century A.D., none of the
Mascarene Islands (or of the more northerly
Seychelles) were ever colonised by Muslim—or any
other—peoples before their discovery by Europeans in
the early 16th century A.D.

During subsequent centuries, the Island of

MAURITIUS — MAWAKIB

849

Mauritius (named by the Dutch, after the Stadthouder
Maurice of Nassau in 1598) passed successively under
Dutch, French and British suzerainty, falling to the
latter power during the Napoleonic Wars on 3
December 1810. Whilst the Portuguese discoverers of
Mauritius in the early 16th century made no attempt
to settle or develop the Mascarenes, Dutch settlers
began the colonisation of Mauritius in 1638 when
numbers of European convicts, together with slaves
from Indonesia and Madagascar, were landed on the
island. It is probable that most of the Indonesians,
and certainly some of the Madagascans, were
Muslims. By 1710, however, Dutch attempts at sett¬
ling Mauritius ended in failure, and during the subse¬
quent French administration of the island slave labour
was imported almost exclusively from Madagascar
and the Swahili Coast. Few of these enforced settlers
are likely to have been of Muslim origin, however, for
the African Muslims of the Swahili Coast tended to be
the controllers, rather than the victims, of the Arabian
Sea slave traffic.

Muslims, therefore, came to Mauritius in large
numbers only after the British seizure of power in
1810 and, more particularly, after the abolition of
slavery in 1835 and the introduction of large-scale
indentured labour from the Indian subcontinent, for
work in the sugar plantations, at about the same time.
Indian migrants to Mauritius during the mid-l9th
century tended to be drawn mainly from the poor
labouring classes of Bihar, the United Provinces
(Uttar Pradesh), Orissa and Bengal (migrating via
Bombay and Calcutta), or from similar social groups
in Tamil Nadu and southern India (migrating via
Madras). In this way, nearly 450,000 Indians entered
Mauritius between about 1835 and 1907, with a few
additional South Asians entering the colony in 1922-
3. The indentured labourers who made up the great
majority of Indian migrants were generally engaged
on five-year contracts, but during the whole period of
immigration only 160,000 were returned to India, the
great majority remaining beyond the end of their con¬
tracts to swell the population of Mauritius. In addition
to these poorer, indentured classes, comparatively
well-to-do Indians, particularly Muslim traders from
Gudjarat (erroneously known as “Arabs” in contem¬
poraneous Mauritian circles) and Chettiars from South
India also began to settle in the island, where they
soon became to dominate the trade of Port Louis and
the outlying provincial centres.

Thus in 1835 Indo-Mauritians numbered a minute
and demographically insignificant portion of the
Mauritian population, whilst by 1845 their numbers
had grown to ca. 33%, and by 1861 fully 64% of the
total population. The process of Indian migration to
Mauritius was officially halted in 1909, but by this
time the ethnic composition of the island had been
radically transformed, with Indo-Mauritians compris¬
ing the overwhelming majority of the population, a
situation which continues today; other important sec¬
tions of the Mauritian population include Creoles,
Chinese, and an influential French community.

Among Indo-Mauritians, approximately 25% (or
16% of the total population) are of Muslim faith.
They live scattered throughout the island, with about
43 % of their number located in urban communities
(especially in Port Louis, the capital), and 57%
located in smaller rural communities. Within Port
Louis, the Gudjarat! Muslims are chiefly engaged in
trade, whilst those descended from poorer indentured
labourers form an urban labour force.

The great majority of Muslim Mauritians are
Sunnis, especially of the HanafT madhhab (83%);

Sunni Shaffls are also well represented (ca. 7%),
whilst smaller identifiable groups include the Shfa
(0.8%), the Bohras [q v.] (0.3%) and (counted as
Muslim for census purposes) a flourishing Ahmadiyya
[< 7 -y.] community (ca. 9%). According to Benedict
(1965), in general terms Muslim Mauritians are more
highly organised on a religious basis than the Hindu
Indo-Mauritians. This is related to their minority
status, to the appearance early in Mauritian history of
wealthy Muslims who supported their religion
through wakf endowments, and “most of all to the
nature of Islam itself, which lays down tenets for a
religious community”. In 1965, there were 65 mos¬
ques on the island, governance of each being in the
hands of a mutawali or manager, usually elected by the
congregation. All but one of these mosques have been
constituted as a wakf endowment for purposes of sup¬
port. The mosque is the focal point of Mauritian
Muslim society, around which are formed jammats or
religious associations. In 1952 the total Muslim
population of Mauritius was listed as 77,014; by 1962
this had reportedly risen to 110,332.

Bibliography : R. N. Gassita, L’Islam a Bile
Maurice , in RMM, xxi (1912), 291-313; B.
Benedict, Mauritius: the problems of a plural society ,
London 1965; Moomtaz Emrith, The Muslims in
Mauritius , Port Louis 1967; A. Tousaint, History of
Mauritius , London, 1977; L. Riviere, Historical dic¬
tionary of Mauritius, Metuchen, N.J. 1982, esp. arts.
“Indian immigration” (58-9), “Indo-Mauritians”
(59-60) and “Muslims” (86-7).

(A. D. W. Forbes)
MAWAKIB (a., sing, mawkib ), processions.

L Under the c Abbasids and Fatimids

The basic meaning of procession (mounted or
unmounted), cortege, is found in hadith (al-Bukhari,
Bad 3 al-khalk, 6; Ibn Hanbal, iii, 213; al-Dariml,
2695). This is the precise sense given in the dic¬
tionaries, and that used by the Umayyads, c Abbasids
and Fatimids, often to describe the cortege of an amir,
wazir, or other official (see, e.g., al-Tabari, ii, 1731;
Hilal al-Sab!, Rusum dar al-khilafa, 9-10, 12, 14ff.).

By the 4th/10th century, it had acquired the
broader meaning of audience as well as procession.
Examples of this usage of mawkib abound in the
literature. In addition to the references for the
c Abbasids in Sourdel, Vizirat , ii, 452, 653, 684, 685,
see also Tadfarib al-umam, 195 (yawm mawkib wa-dawla
dpadfda), and al-$ab!, Rusum , 71-2 (under rules for
hidpaba), 78, 90; for the Fatimids, al-Kalkashand!,
Subh, iii, 481, 494 (dpilus al-khallfa fi ’l-mawakib). The
phrase most often designating an audience is ayyam al-
mawakib. In both c Abbasid and Fapmid sources, this
seems to refer specifically to the general audiences
held on Mondays and Thursdays (Hilal al-Sabl,
Historical remains ..., ed. Amedroz, Leiden 1904, 242,
244 (Thursday); Tadjcirib, 195, refers to a Monday; al-
Kalkashand!, Subh , iii, 494, 496, 518, 523). For
details on audiences, see marasim).

There was a strict protocol to be observed when
accompanying the ruler (al-musdyara) in procession.
The most important and oft-repeated exhortation was
to be vigilant in keeping to one’s assigned place
(yalzam al-mawdi c alladhf ft hi rutbatuhu), reflecting the
emphasis on tartib, arrangement of the mawkib accord¬
ing to rank. The rider must know the position of the
caliph, without, however, turning too often to see
him. He must maintain a silent and dignified bearing,
speaking only in response to the caliph’s questions.
He should not ride where the caliph will get wind of
his horse or where dust will be kicked up into his face.

850

MAWAKIB

He should not enter the caliph’s shadow; but he must
ride on the sunny side of the mawkib to shade the
caliph from the sun.

If a person was chosen to accompany the caliph, he
was cautioned not to consider this as a permanent
position but rather as a privilege granted each time
the caliph invited him. If the caliph decided to walk,
all had to follow suit. If he were to dismount because
of a call of nature, everyone had to dismount because
they may not be mounted while he stands on the
ground. If he dismounts to prayer, they should pray
with him. And if he drinks something, they should
avert their glance (further elaboration in al-Sabi,
Rusum , 86-9; al-Katfl al-Nu c man, Kitab al-Himma,
116-19; al-Djahiz, K. al-Tadi, , 72, 77-83).

There are precious little data on the processions of
the c Abbasids, almost certainly a reflection of the
static and non-processional character of c Abbasid
ceremonial. Neither of the two mawakib about which
we have significant details (al-Sabi, Rusum, 9-10, the
mawkib of Nazuk; 12-14, Byzantine embassies)
describes a caliphal procession.

The Fatimids had, perhaps, the most elaborate pro¬
cessions of any of their contemporaries. This has been
attributed to the influence of Byzantium (see M.
Canard, Le ceremonial fdtimide et le ceremonial byzantin:
essai de comparaison, in Byzantion , xxi [1951], 408ff.).
Where there is a dearth of information for the
c Abbasids, there is an abundance for the Fatimids.
This is probably due largely to the fact that most of the
sources for the Fatimids were transmitted by Mamluk
authors, reflecting the Mamluk predilection for
elaborate public processions.

The Fatimids staged grand processions on the New
Year, the first of Ramadan, the last three Fridays of
Ramadan, the Two Festivals and the inundation of
the Nile. The most complete descriptions are those of
Ibn al-Tuwayr, the late Fatimid-early Ayyubid
historian. Both Ibn Taghribirdi and al-Kalkashandl
rely almost exclusively (albeit without attribution) on
his undated descriptions. Only al-Makrlzi, in the
monumental Khitat and his history of the Fatimids,
Itti c az al-hunafa 3 (published in 3 volumes, Cairo 1967-
72), relies on the dated accounts of Ibn Zulak, al-
Musabbihl and Ibn al-Ma^mun al-Batafihl, in addi¬
tion to Ibn al-Tuwayr. These dated accounts reveal
considerable changes in processions over the course of
time, although many general features remained
constant.

Al-Kalkashandl enumerates the insignia of so¬
vereignty ( al-alat al-mulukiyya) used in processions
( Subh , iii, 468-71; cf. Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, tr.
Rosenthal, ii, 48-73, and Canard, Ceremonial fatimite,
388-93): crown ( tadf —not a crown per se, but an
elaborate turban wound in a particular fashion); scep¬
tre ( kadib al-mulk ), held by the caliph during the pro¬
cession; sword ( al-sayf al-khass)\ inkstand ( dawdt );
lance ( rumh ); shield ( daraka)\ hdfir, “horseshoe”, a
crescent-shaped ruby affixed to a piece of silk and
attached to the top of the tadf, parasol ( mizalla, carried
over the head of the caliph); flags (a c ldm)\ fly-swatters
( midhabba)', arms (silah)', drums ( nakkarat ); and tents
( al-khiyam wa ’l-fasatit).

Not all of these insignia appeared in every proces¬
sion. For example, on the processions for the c id al-
nahr and the anointment of the Nilometer during the
time of Ibn al-Ma^mun, the caliph carried no kadib
(al-Makrlzi, Khitat. i, 436, 473). Ibn al-Tuwayr notes
that the caliph did not have a mizalla on the procession
to the anointment (ibid., i, 476). The mizalla was not
carried in the palace. When the caliph rode in a pro¬
cession in which the mizalla was carried, it was

customary for him to visit the tomb of his ancestors
(al-turba al-mu Hzziyya) upon his return to the palace
(ibid., i, 407). The costumes of the caliph and his
retinue, and of the wazir, produced in the ddr al-kiswa
(see ibid., i, 409-13) were different in each procession;
the caliph sometimes changed costume for the return
to the palace (ibid., i, 436, 471).

The rukub on the New Year (awwal al~ c am) is con¬
sidered as the prototype for Fatimid processions by
Ibn al-Tuwayr, a claim not made by other historians
of the Fatimid period, and perhaps representing later
practice (see al-MakrizI, Khitat, i, 446-50; Ibn
Ta gh ribirdi. Nudj.um, iv, 79-94; al-Ralkashandl, Subh,
iii, 499-505; and Canard’s translation of al-Makrizi’s
text, La procession du nouvel an chez les Fatimides, in A1EO
Alger, x [1952], 364-98, with copious annotation,
based on Inostrantsev, La sortie solennelle des Califes
Fatimides, St. Petersburg 1905 [in Russian]).

The preparations for the New Year procession
began in the last ten days of Dhu ’1-Hidjdja, when the
arms, swords, saddles, shields, spears, flags, banners,
mounts and costumes were brought out of their
respective treasuries for inspection. On the 29th, the
caliph sat in the shubbak (grilled loge) to review the
horses and costumes chosen for the procession.

On Muharram, the caliph’s mawkib was arranged
in bayn al-kasrayn, the parade ground between the two
palaces. When the caliph appeared at the gate of the
palace, wearing a mandil with th e yatima, girded with
the maghribi sword and holding the sceptre, the drums
were struck and trumpets sounded. The mizalla,
which matched the costume of the caliph, was
unfurled. The caliph’s entourage mounted up, and
the whole cortege began to move.

The prefect of Cairo (wall al-Kahira) and the
isfahsaldr rode up and down the length of the proces¬
sion, keeping the route clear and maintaining order.
The caliph was surrounded by his sibyan, who were
followed by the wazir and his entourage. Then came
the bearer of the lance, detachments of soldiers,
standard bearers, and squadrons of the cavalry. The
mounted soldiers numbered more than 3,000.

The mawkib departed from Bab al-Na$r and re¬
entered through Bab al-Futuh (sometimes vice-versa),
returning to bayn al-kasrayn. The procession dispersed,
and coins struck for the New Year were distributed.

A procession inaugurated the month of Ramadan.
The sources provide almost no details other than the
fact that the procession was modelled exactly on the
rukub of the New Year (al-Makrlzi, Khitat . i, 491; al-
Kalkashandl, Subh, iii, 509). Only two accounts are
imbedded in a historical narrative. Al-Musabbihl
describes the procession of the caliph al-Zahir and his
troops on 1 Ramadan 415/6 November 1024 with a
mizalla and rumh (al-Makrlzi, Itticaz, ii, 158-9; al-
Musabbihl, Akhbar Misr, ed. Ayman Fu^ad Sayyid
and Thierry Bianquis, IF AO, 1978, 61). Ibn al-
Ma } mun provides a very brief account of the proces¬
sion of al-Amir in 517/23 October 1123 (Itti c az, iii,
102 ).

The caliph rode in procession to lead the prayer on
three Fridays during Ramadan. The locations of the
prayers varied somewhat. Ibn al-Tuwayr reports Fri¬
day prayers at the Anwar, Azhar and c AtIk mosques.
Under al-Hakim, the Rashida mosque was also the
site of Friday prayer (see Subh, iii, 509-12; Ibn
Ta gh ribirdi. Nudjum, iv, 102-4; Khitat. ii, 280-2;
Itti c dz, ii, 20, 58, 96-7, 104, 109, 118-19, 160).

The mosque was furnished and carpeted with
tapestries and rugs by the sahib bayt al-mal (director of
the public treasury). On each side of the minbar, cur¬
tains embroidered in red silk, containing the basmala,

MAWAKIB

851

fatiha , and Sura LXII on one and Sura LXIII on the
other, were hung. The caliph delivered the khutba
under a perfumed kubba, which was fastened to con¬
ceal him from view (mentioned as early as 388/998
and 415/1024, al-Makrizi, Itti c az, ii, 20, 161). Then
the caliph descended to the milirab and led the prayer
from inside the mafcsura [see masdjid].

On the Hd al-fitr and Hid al-adhd (or al-nahr), the
caliph rode in procession to the musalla outside of Bab
al-Futuh. Muezzins, sitting upon mastabas from Bab
al- c Id to the musalla , pronounced the takbir con¬
tinuously while the caliph was en route. The caliph
wore his full- costume with the mizalla and the yatima.
Like prayer during Ramadan, the mihrab was hung
with two curtains, the one on the right with the
basmala and Sura LXXXVII, on the left with Sura
LXXXVIII (Khitat. i, 451-7; ltti c az, i, 137-8; ii, 5, 58,
79, 82, 87, 97, 109, 160-1; iii, 60, 83-168-9).

Upon returning from the musalla , a banquet was
held in the Xwdn (in some periods, in the ka c at al-
dhahab ), when the silver ma\da called al-mudawwara
was set up, covered with magnificent foods, including
sugar castles made in the ddr al-fitra. There were two
banquets on Hd al-fitr , one before and one after
prayer. People were encouraged to carry food away
from the banquet and redistribute it (on banquets, see
Khitat , i, 387-8).

On the Hd al-nahr , the caliph sacrificed animals
either in the musalla or the manhar , which were then
distributed to notables of the state (see Khitat , i, 436-8;
Subh , iii, 523-4; Nudfiim , iv, 97-8). Ibn al-Ma^mun
describes in detail the inventory of sacrifices and
distributions for the years 515 and 516 ( Khitat. i, 437,
and Itti c az, iii, 95-6). Ibn al-Tuwayr reports three con¬
secutive rukubs: on the first day to the musalla ; on the
second and third to the manhar next to Bab al-Rih (cf.
Ibn al-Tuwayr’s description of the way the caliph
slaughters, with the general rules as described in art.
dhabiha]. These rich details about the distribution of
portions constitute important data for the as-yet
unwritten social history of ritual (for individual years,
see Itticaz, i, 141-2; ii, 7, 37, 41, 59, 79, 83, 88, 91,
104, 110, 124).

Two processions took place at the time of the inun¬
dation of the Nile ( wafa 3 al-Nil): one to anoint the
Nilometer (takhlfk al-mikyds) and the other to cut the
canal ( kasr al-khalXdi, fath al-khalXdf). When the water
reached sixteen cubits, the kayyas, Ibn Abi ’l-Raddad
(always called thus), sent a formal announcement to
the caliph. The height of the rising water was
measured every day, but a policy established under al-
Murizz prohibited public announcement until it was
only a few marks short of sixteen (Khitat . i, 61; Itticaz,

i, 138-9).

The preparations for the anointment of the Nilo¬
meter began as soon as the caliph received word that
the water was close to inundation. The kurrad* spent the
night in the Nilometer, reciting the Kurian con¬
tinuously. The next day, the caliph went in an c ushart
(Nile boat) to the Nilometer (without a mizalla, Ibn al-
Tuwayr, Khitat. i, 476, 1. 16). He entered along with
the wazir and the muhannak ustadhs. The caliph and the
wazir each prayed two rak c as. Then the director of the
public treasury brought out saffron and musk, which
the caliph mixed in a vessel and then handed over to
Ibn Abi ’l-Raddad. The kayyas threw himself into the
fiskiyya, took hold of the pillar with his feet and left
hand, and anointed it with his right hand, while the
kuna 3 recited.

The next day, Ibn Abi ’l-Raddad received a robe of
honour (khil c a [q.v.]\ see an early reference in Itticaz,

ii, 150). On the third or fourth day following the
anointment, the caliph went out in procession to the

banks of the Nile, passing through Fusfat (decorated
by its residents) and crossing to the west bank, where
grand tents had been erected for the occasion. The
magnificent khayma known as al-Katul (so-called
because someone was invariably killed when it was set
up) was put up ( Khitat. i, 471; Itticaz, iii, 72-3). The
canal was cut and the c usharis sailed in it. The caliphs
used to take up residence in one of two pleasures-
houses ( manzaras ) during the days of these festivities
(for complete descriptions, see Khitat. i, 470-9; Subh,
iii, 518ff.; Nudjum, iv, 99-100; Schefer, Relation du
voyage de Nasiri Khosrau en Syrie, en Palestine, en Egypte,
en Arabie, Paris 1881, 136-7; particular years, in Ibn
Muyassar, Akhbar Misr, 44; Itticaz, i, 319, ii, 59, 148-
50, iii, 72-3, 81, 108, 129).

These major processions were announced to the
provinces in letters from the dXwdn al-insha y . A number
of these literary specimens remain, most from the pen
of the celebrated katib Ibn al-SayrafT {fid al-fitr ; Khitat .
i, 456-7 (536/1141-2); al-Sidjillat al-mustansiriyya, ed.
c Abd al-Mun c im Madjid, Cairo 1954, no. 1
(451/1059), no. 13 (445/1053); Subh, viii, 320-4. c Id
al-nahr: Khitat, i, 437-8; Subh, viii, 324-8; Sidfillat , no.
64 (476/1083). New Year: Subh, viii, 314-15. Rama¬
dan and Friday prayer: Subh, viii, 316-19. Nile:
Khitat, i, 479; $ubh, viii, 328-9. An unidentified pro¬
cession is described in Rasa^il al- c AmidX, ms. 4059
[Cat. 4365], fols. 24-5, in the Garrett Collection,
Princeton University Library).

There were several minor processions, called
“abbreviated” ( al-mawdkib al-mukhtasara) between the
New Year and Ramadan, but there are almost no
details on them except that they took place on Tues¬
day and Saturday, four or five times. They were
much less elaborate than the major processions (see
Subh, iii, 521-2).

The only ShT c I holiday marked by a procession was
the c Id al-ghadtr on 18 Dhu THidjdja, commem-
morating the wasiyya to c All by the Prophet [see
ghadir khumm]. In the early part of the Fatimid
period, it was essentially a popular celebration of the
Shl c i population. During the time of Ibn al-Ma 3 mun,
it had become a court ceremony modelled on the
rituals of Hd al-nahr, with a procession to the manhar.
At the end of the Fatimid period, it had acquired a
much different and complex character. Now an inter¬
nal palace procession, attended only by professed
IsmaTlTs, it took place at the Shrine of Husayn and
the Xwdn. The caliph delivered a khutba, but rode with¬
out insignia or mizalla. Upon returning to the Xwdn,
the text of the nass of c Ali was read to the assembly.
This late procession was, in fact, a ceremonial polemic
against the Tayyibls (on the history of the celebration,
see al-MakrizI, Itticaz, i, 273, 276, 280, 284, ii, 24, 67,
74, 91, 168, iii, 96; Khitat, i, 388-90, 436, 492-3; al-
MusabbihT, Akhbar Misr, 84-5; on the late Fatimids,
see S. M. Stern, The succession to the Fatimid Imam al-
Amir, the claims of the later Fatimids to the Imamate, and the
rise of TayyibX Ismailism, in Oriens, iv [1951], 193-255).

Bibliography: In addition to the citations in

the text, see the bibliography at the end of

marasim. 1. (P. Sanders)

2. In Muslim Spain

The sovereign power of the amirs and caliphs of al-
Andalus showed itself in the etiquette [see marasim] of
public audiences and during their official movements
when, surrounded by their processional retinue
(mawkib), they went into or came out of their
residence. This was generally at the departure for a
military campaign, to review the troops or to travel
from one residence to another.

According to Ibn Khaldun’s Mukaddima, “the

852

MAWAKIB

insignia of sovereignty are the displaying of flags, the
beating of drums and the sounding of trumpets and
horns”, but as it happens, the historical sources for
Muslim Spain have not preserved any traces of this
use of wind instruments. Already under Hisham I
(172-80/788-96), “the hubbub and din of the proces¬
sion ( ladjab al-mawkib) prevented the complaint of a
petitioner being heard” ( Akhbar, 121). This was the
occasion for the people to see the amir c Abd Allah; the
latter was surrounded by cavalrymen at the moment
when the future al-Nasir’s mule bolted; before the
battle of Polei, the amir had his canopy ( mazall) raised;
that of the prince Aban was carried off by a gust of
wind at the same time as the kd*id* s kubba (Ibn
Hayyan, Muktabas, iii, 36, 40, 95, 120). These proces¬
sions were festivals, in the words of Ibn c Abd Rabbihi
(Cronica anonima, 40).

The first riding forth of al-Nasir was in order to go
hunting. In 322/934, it seems, at the time of his
departure for the Osma campaign, “dressed in a coat
of mail, with his sword at his side, mounted on a
chestnut-coloured charger and surrounded by his
generals and his troops”, this was the first time that
“the eagle standard was unfurled”. In 326/938,
Muhammad b. Hashim al-Tudjtbi had the honour of
accompanying him on horseback from the caliphal
palace to the residence at al-Ramla. For the attack on
Osma and on Ega, the caliph had his mazall raised. It
would thus appear that we have here a tent or a fixed
canopy and that the mazall is synonymous with the
kubba. But there was also a mobile “parasol” or sun¬
shade, for at the time of the attack on Calatayud, al-
Nasir rode along until the evening in full exposure to
the sun {ghayr mu^allal). The caliph used to travel
along surrounded by guards, who on one occasion
killed a madman who threw himself at his mount’s
head. The caliphal procession was regarded as some¬
thing of a serious occasion, and imitating or parody¬
ing it was considered to be a “crime” on the part of
al-Nasir “when he set astride a mount his female buf¬
foon Rasls, rigged out in a kalansuwa and a sword”
{Muktabas, v, 22-3, 34, 109, 124, 225, 269, 287). Ket¬
tledrums were known and must have formed an ele¬
ment of the procession since al-Nasir sent some
of them to the rallied Maghribls {ibid., 239, 290,
312).

In 361/972, the street of the Furn Burriel proved
too narrow for the procession of al-Hakam II; it was
after one of these march-pasts that he ordered the
burning of the Berber saddle of one of his gh ulams.
Surrounded by his chief fatas, his approach was
regulated by the ashdb al-madina of Cordova and al-
Zahra 5 , and the people kissed the ground and greeted
and blessed the caliph before making known their
petitions. The route was always “lined with the
troops”. To march past was a signal honour which
was given to the emigres Dja c far and Yahya b. C A1I,
who marched along preceded by the heads of the
fallen Zlrids and by flags and escorted by the troops,
Abu T c Aysh, th cfata Fa 3 ik and Ghalib, returned vic¬
torious from his campaigns in the Ma gh rib. The
mazall continued to be an attribute of the sovereign
which he delegated for the expedition against the
Madjus [ q.v .] in 361/972 or else to the Dhu ’1-Sayfayn
Ghalib {Muktabas, vi, 45, 67, 79, 115, 152, 173, 190,
195-6, 212).

In 387/997, after having thwarted the plot of Subh,
al-Mansur [<?.&.] decided to show to the people the
caliph Hisham II “clothed in a kalansuwa wound
round with a white turban, whose ends were flowing
free, and with a sceptre in his hand” {mu^ammam™
c ala ’l-tawila sddil an li ’l-dhu^aba wa ’l-katfib Jiyadihi); to
his left rode forward al-Mansur, preceded by the

hadjib c Abd al-Malik who went on foot, followed by
the army, djund , gh ilmdn and fityan, “in front of an
enormous crowd” (Ibn Bassam, Dhakhira. vii, 73;
Dhikr, 156). In 393/1003, al-Muzaffar went forth
“armed from top to toe in a new coat of mail, with a
new golden helmet on his head, surrounded by
generals, freedmen, etc.” (j Sayan, iii, 5). The as¬
sassination of c AlI b. Hammud in his bath was
discovered because “the army was waiting for the
order to march forth, with its standards unfurled and
the kettledrums ready” (Dhikr. 170). If Ibn c Ammar
[q. v. ] entered Silves at the head of “a splendid proces¬
sion, followed by black slaves and guards”, al-
Mu c tamid [q.v. ] mockingly made him enter Cordova
“in the most shameful manner, mounted on a mule,
between two sacks of straw, bare-headed and loaded
with fetters, and having ordered everybody, nobles
and plebs, to come out and see the spectacle” (al-
Marrakushl, Mu^dgib, 80, 86). When the kadi Ibn
Djahhaf [q.v.] of Valencia got rid of al-Kadir b. Ph i
’1-Nun [q.v.], “he behaved like a sovereign ruler, sur¬
rounded by royal pomp ... he only mounted his horse
when preceded by black soldiers and guards, escorted
by troops, whilst his creatures decorated the streets,
shouting out blessings and praises” (Ibn c IdharI.
Nuevosfragmentos ..., 69-70).

The processions of the Almohads or Muwahhidun
[q. v. ] were rich and complex. The caliph rode forth
surrounded by the great leaders of the Almohads,
preceded by a richly-caparisoned camel bearing the
Kur 5 an of c Uthman and followed by another with that
of the MahdT. The caliph was accompanied by his
sons, standard-bearers and a hundred kettledrum-
mers, and followed by the high dignitaries of state.
The caliph would mount at the entrance of his tent or
his residence, whilst the vizier walked at the side of his
stirrup. The order of precedence was immutable and
fixed by custom { c ada) (Ibn $ahib al-Salat, al-Mann bi
’l-imdma ; al-Marrakushi, Mu c djib\ Ibn c Idhari, Baydn,
ed. Huici Miranda, Tetouan 1963). Certain items of
clothing were special to the caliph. In 582/1186,
during his campaign of Gafsa, “al-Mansur inspected
his retinue and observed that the majority of his
brothers and uncles had distinguished themselves by
wearing violet-coloured mantles and musk-coloured
burnouses {libas al-ghafdHr al-zabibiyya wa \1-barq.nis al-
miskiyya). He reproached them for this, since these
adornments formed part of the caliph’s prerogatives
of state, whether he were mounted on horseback or
seated in his audience chamber ... he reminded them
of the usages of royal power which they should respect
and should refrain from imitating the royal privileges
and using the royal colours”. In 568/1172, during the
siege of Huete, Abu Ya c kub was “surrounded by his
guard, accompanied by the sons of the djama ( a and by
those of the Fifty, by the ahl al-bayt and by the slaves;
behind him came his brother, the Sayyid Abu Hafs
and his other brothers, followed by standards and by
a hundred kettledrums playing” {Mann, 493). When
in 578/1182 his remains were brought from Santarem
to Seville, the great men of state, in order to conceal
his death, “began to walk, in accordance with the
customary procedure, at the side of the animals bear¬
ing his litter, then they mounted their horses and the
litter was covered with a green flag” {Mu c dpib, 192).

We do not possess any exact information about the
processions of the Nasrids [q. v. ]; one can only suppose
that they were very simple, in view of the exiguous¬
ness of their territories. Ibn Kh aldun seems to con¬
firm this, mentioning that “the Banu TAhmar used
only seven musical instruments in their processions”.

Bibliography: Given in the article.

(P. Chalmeta)

MAWAKIB

853

3. In Iran

From ancient times, processions were connected
with court ceremonial. Religious and triumphal pro¬
cessions are illustrated on ancient monuments. In
Islamic times, the purpose of processions was mainly
to emphasise the glory and power of the ruler. Only
those concerned with the ruler and his entourage will
be considered in this article. (For the Muharram pro¬
cessions see ta c ziya.) On the whole, processions do
not appear to have been highly organised, but often to
have consisted of a great concourse of men, mainly
mounted but also on foot. Only in the immediate
vicinity of the ruler was there a certain order and
discipline. It was customary for the ruler to ride in
procession from time to time to the Friday mosque for
the performance of the Friday prayers and also to the
musalld, the place outside the town where prayers were
held to celebrate the breaking of the fast at the end of
Ramadan ( c id al-fitr) and on the Hd-i kurbdn ( c id al-
adha). On such occasions, he would be accompanied
by a cortege formed by his officials, officers and
followers, and standard-bearers would bear his stan¬
dards before him ( liwa*, c alam [q. 0 .]; see also Spuler,
Iran , 349). Sometimes a parasol (catr, see mizalla)
would be held over his head.

Whereas the mule was customarily the mount of the
caliph and religious dignitaries, the horse was the
mount of him who held temporal power. The point at
which a visiting ruler or envoy dismounted was a fre¬
quent cause of contention and the privilege of remain¬
ing mounted when entering the presence of another
ruler was eagerly contested (see further Spuler, Iran,
343). c Adud al-Dawla, the Buy id, sent a message to
the caliph al-Ta 3 i c in 367/977-8 asking permission to
enter the court ( sahn ) of the caliph’s palace (dar al-
khildfa) mounted (Faklhl, Shahinshahi-i c Adud al-Dawla,
Tehran, AHS 1347/1969, 59; Hilal al-Sabl, 80).

The custom of having a saddled horse ( asb-i nawbati,
faras al-nawba) at the palace gate on which the ruler
could mount in an emergency or on other occasions
apparently existed from the 2nd century A.H. The
practice appears to have been started by Abu Muslim.
According to DjuzdjanI, a saddled horse was always
kept ready at the gate of the palace which had been
built for him in Marw-i Shah-Djahan until the
Mongol invasion in 617/1220-1 ( Tabakdt-i Nasiri, ed.
c Abd al-Hayy Hablbi, Kabul 1964, i, 107; see also
Muhammad TakI Danishpazhuh, Asp-i nawbati bar
dar-i kdkh-i Abu Muslim, in Rahnamd-yi kitab , xii [AHS
1348/1967-8], 225-8). The anonymous author of the
Mudjmal al-lawdrikh states that the c Abbasid caliph al-
Mansur mounted the asb-i nawbati during operations
against the Rawandis (ed. Malik al-Shu c ara > Bahar,
Tehran AHS 1318/1939-40, 329). The Samanid
rulers Ahmad b. Isma c !l (295-301/907-14) and Nasr
II (301-31/914-43) always had a saddled horse ready
at the gate of the palace (Spuler, Iran, 352; see also
Browne, LHP, i, 317). The Saldjuks of Kirman also
appear to have kept a saddled horse ready. Afdal al-
Din Kirman! relates an occasion when Muhammad b.
Arslanshah (537-51/1142-56) gave the asb-i nawbati —
an Arab horse with maghribi harness—to one of his
intimates, Mukhtass al-Dm c Uthman ( BadayT al-
azman wa wakayT Kirman, reconstructed text by Mihdl
Bayani, Tehran AHS 1326/1947-8, 26; Muhammad
b. Ibrahim, Tdrikh-i Saldjukiyan-i Kirman, ed. Th.
Houtsma, Leiden 1886, 31).

Whether the asb-i nawbati was used for processions
or not, saddled horses, magnificently caparisoned,
were an important part of royal pageantry. They were
also often given by rulers, together with khil c as [ q. v. ]

to high officials, visiting envoys and others [see
marasim. 3]. The Ghaznawids kept many elephants,
and Mas c ud probably more often rode an elephant
than a horse on ceremonial occasions. Bayhak! states
that when Mas c ud went from Ghazna on 5 Shawwal
422/29 July 1031 to the Dasht-i Shabahar to hold a
mazalim court, he was mounted on an elephant. It was
an occasion of great pomp and splendour. Three hun¬
dred ghulams, magnificently apparelled, and many
elephants and led horses, including 30 caparisoned
with jewel-encrusted harness and 50 with golden
harness, were in his train. The ghulams of the palace,
equipped with bows and arrows and golden and silver
staff's went on foot in front with armour-bearers from
Marw and 3,000 footmen of various origins and other
soldiers and the notables and the “pillars of the state”
(Abu TFadl Bayhak!, Tdrikh-i Mas^udi, ed. c Al! Akbar
Fayyad, Mashhad AHS 1350/1971, 372-3).

When the ruler rode out to a garden or to summer
quarters, or made a progress through his domains, he
would be accompanied by his retinue. Royal mar¬
riages and betrothals, the sending of the marriage por¬
tion of the bride ( mahr, saddk), and funerals were other
occasions for processions. When the daughter of the
Kara Khanid Kadir Khan Yusuf of Turkistan, who
had been betrothed to Mas c ud b. Mahmud, was
brought to Ghazna in Shawwal 425/August-
September 1034, the martabadaran (for the meaning of
this term, see marasim. 3), the head of the royal guard
(wdli-yi haras) and the officials charged with the recep¬
tion of envoys ( rasuldaran) went out with led horses to
meet the envoys of Kadir Khan, who had come with
the bride, and to bring them to Ghazna. The city was
decorated from end to end and when the envoys
arrived coins were cast at their feet. Then, at the time
of the afternoon prayer, the women of the great men
of Mas c ud’s court, accompanied by eunuchs, set out
to greet the bride with a cortege “such as no one could
remember” (Bayhak!, 548-9).

Processions took place when envoys and others
came to the ruler’s court. When the caliph’s envoy
arrived at the court of Mas c ud b. Mahmud in Balkh
at the end of 422/1032 to announce the death of the
caliph al-Kadir and the accession of al-Ka 3 im, he was
brought with great ceremony into the presence of
Mas c ud on 1 Muharram 423/19 December 1031.
Four thousand palace ghulams, magnificently attired,
were drawn up at the palace in several lines; half of
them held silver maces and half were armed with
swords and carried bows and three wooden arrows.
Three hundred ghulams of the royal bodyguard with
golden maces stood near the throne. The great men of
the court, provincial governors and chamberlains in
their court dresses were also there. The martabadaran
stood outside the palace. There were also large
numbers of elephants [see f!l. 2. As beasts of war];
soldiers with their arms and standards were drawn up
in two lines, between which the envoy was to pass.
The rasuldar with led horses and a great crowd went to
fetch him from his lodging, mounted him on one of
these horses and, amid the sound of drums and
trumpets, brought him to the palace where Mas c ud
was awaiting him (ibid., 382). On the following Fri¬
day, Mas c ud went to the Friday mosque for the pro¬
nouncement of the khutba in the name of the new
caliph. The scene was again one of great splendour.
The procession was led by 4,000 splendidly dressed
foot ghulams, followed by the Gh aznawid general Beg
To gh di and the royal ghulams with the ruler’s banner,
the martabadaran and chamberlains. After them
Mas c ud, preceded by the chief chamberlain, set out
along the road from the palace to the mosque, which

854

MAWAKIB

had been decorated on his orders by the notables of
the city. Behind him came his chief minister, more
chamberlains and the notables of the court. They were
followed by the ra^is, Kh w adja C A1I Mlkali [see
mikalis], with the caliph’s envoy on his right, the
kadis, jukaha? and c ulama 5 and the headman ( zaHm ) of
Balkh. As the procession slowly approached the
mosque, “no sound was heard except the sound of the
whips and the shouts of the martabaddrdn to clear the
way” (ibid. , 384-5).

The following year when an envoy from al-Ka-hm
reached Rayy on his way to Mas c ud’s court, with a
diploma from the caliph, Mas c ud ordered a reception
(istikbdl) to be prepared for him. An escort was sent
with him from Rayy and when he reached Nlshapur
on 8 Rabr* I 424/11 February 1033, the fukahdkadis
and notables of the city went out to meet him. On the
following day, the martabaddrdn and rasuldaran also
went to welcome him. The road from the Rayy gate
to the Friday mosque was decorated, as also was the
bazaar. Dirhams and dinars and valuable objects were
scattered before him. A week later, after the envoy
had rested from his journey, he was brought to
Mas c ud’s presence with great ceremony. Crowds
assembled along the road from the residence of the
envoy to the gate of the garden in Shadvakh. where
Mas c ud was to receive him. The soldiers, notables
and army leaders were mounted and held standards in
their hands. Heavily-armed foot soldiers stood in
front of the mounted soldiers. The martabaddrdn were
drawn up in two rows. Army leaders ( salardn ) and
chamberlains were also present. A chamberlain,
together with several attendants, led horses and a
mule, was taken early in the morning by the rasuldar
with twenty khiTas to the envoy’s residence to bring
him to Mas c ud, who was to receive him sitting on his
throne on a platform (suffa). The rasuldar caused the
envoy and the eunuch ( khadim ), who accompanied
him, to mount and had the khiTas which the caliph
had sent with them put in boxes on mules. The cor¬
tege set out amid the sound of drums and trumpets
preceded by treasury officials (shagirdan-i khazina) and
eight horses with golden saddles and harness led by
their bridles. Then came the envoy, preceded by the
royal chamberlains and martabaddrdn, followed by the
envoy and behind him two horsemen, one carrying a
standard and the other the diploma and letter of the
caliph rolled up in black brocade (ibid. , 471-2; see also
MARASIM . 3).

A new feature of royal ceremonial was introduced
by the Saldjuks, namely the ghashiya \q.v. ]. This was
a kind of saddle-cover, probably covered with
precious stones, which was carried before the sultan in
processions. This custom appears to have died out in
Persia after the Saldjuks, but was found later in Egypt
(see ghashiya. and also Ibn Battuta, Travels, tr.
H.A.R. Gibb, Cambridge 1956-71, iii, 664). When
Toghrfl Beg brought the c Abbasid caliph al-KiPim
back to Ba gh dad after he had left the city on the attack
of al-Basashi in 450/1059, he dismounted at the gate
of Baghdad but was told by the caliph to remount
(Rawandl, Rahat al-sudur, ed. Muhammad Ikbal,
London 1921, 110, and see Spuler, op.cit., 343). On
entering Ba gh dad, it appears that To gh rfl Beg again
dismounted and carried the ghashiya in front of the
caliph until they came near to the caliph's palace,
when To gh rfl took the bridle of the caliph’s mule and
walked beside him until they entered the Bab al-
Hudjra (the Privy Chamber Gate) (Sadr al-Dm al-
Husaym, Akhbar al-dawla al-Saldjjlkiyya , ed. Muham¬
mad Ikbal, Lahore 1933, 21).

On an earlier occasion, when To gh rfl Beg was to

have an audience with the caliph in 449/1057-8, the
caliph’s boat was sent to bring him down the Tigris to
the caliph’s palace. He was accompanied by his
intimates (khawass), some in boats and some mounted
on elephants. Alighting from the boat, To gh rfl
mounted one of the caliph’s horses which had been
sent to meet him and entered the caliph’s palace,
preceded by the sons of Abu Kalidjar b. Buya and
Kutlumush, army leaders and Daylarms and nearly
500 unarmed Turkish and GflanT ghulams. When he
reached the gateway of the passage (dihliz) leading to
the audience hall, he was kept waiting for a long time
on his horse until the gate was opened for him and
then he entered on foot (Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi, Mir^at al-
zamdn, ed. Ali Sevim, Ankara 1968, 25). On a subse¬
quent occasion in Muharram 455/January 1063 when
Toghrfl came to Baghdad, the caliph excused himself
from going to meet him and sent instead his wazir Ibn
Djahir. who took with him two horses and other
presents. On the following day, To gh rfl entered the
Dar al-Mamlaka in a boat sent by the caliph (ibid.,
97).

In 480/1087, when the caliph invited Malikshah to
the Dar al-Khilafa. he sent a boat for him. Disem¬
barking at the Bab al-GhurabaL Malikshah mounted
a richly caparisoned horse sent for him by the caliph,
which carried him to the gate of the caliph’s audience
chamber (ibid. , 244-5). In Muharram of that year,
when Malikshah sent the marriage portion (d£ahaz) of
his daughter to the caliph, to whom she had been
betrothed, it was carried by 130 camels (a second
instalment being apparently carried by 74 mules on
the following day), preceded by 30 led horses, all
splendidly caparisoned. The cortege was led by Sa c d
al-DawIa Gohar-ATn, the shihna of Baghdad, and the
amir Bursuk. The city was decorated for the occasion
and as the cortege went through the Nahr M^alla
quarter the people cast dinars and precious stuffs
before it. The sultan had meanwhile left Baghdad on
a hunting trip, and so the caliph sent his wazir Abu
Shudja c to Terken Khatun, Malikshah’s chief wife
and mother of the bride, with some 300 men bearing
lanterns with a litter to bring the princess to the
caliph’s palace. She set out by night riding in the lit¬
ter, surrounded by 200 Turkish slave girls on splendid
mounts, preceded by the women of the amirs and
others, led by Nizam al-Mulk, the mustawfi Abu Sa c d
and the amirs, all bearing lanterns (ibid. , 245-6; Ibn al-
Athir, sub anno 480; Ibn al-Djawzi, al-Muntazam,
Hyderabad 1359/1940-1, ix, 36-7).

Processions do not appear to have been a special
feature of Ukhanid or Timurid ceremony. Women of
the royal house took part from time to time in public
ceremonies. Clavijo describes the cortege which
accompanied Timur’s chief wife on the occasion of a
public audience which he gave in the Great Pavilion
in Samarkand. She was attended by some 300 women
and eunuchs. “Over the head of the princess was
borne a parasol, a man holding it, and the stick was
a pole the size of a lance. This parasol was of white
silk, dome-shaped and round like the top of a tent,
with wooden ribs that kept the stuff extended: it was
very carefully held over her head as she walked to
keep the sun off her face. In front preceding her and
the ladies of her suite marched many eunuchs ... Thus
the procession advanced entering the Pavilion where
Timur was already seated. The Great Khanum now
took her place beside his Highness but slightly behind
on a low dais’’ (Embassy to Tamerlane 1403-1406, tr.
from the Spanish by G. Le Strange, London 1928,
259-60). Others of the Timurid princesses in succes¬
sion then came into the pavilion with similar proces-

MAWAKIB

855

sions (ibid. , 260-1). Clavijo also mentions the presence
of elephants at Timur’s court. They appear to have
been used to entertain visitors (ibid., 257).

Information on processions and court ceremonial in
Safawid times is fuller than for earlier periods; and it
would seem that both became more elaborate. Much
importance was attached to the procedure for welcom¬
ing the shah when he returned to his capital after some
expedition or when he entered some city, and
similarly for welcoming honoured guests. This
ceremony was known by the term istikbdl. When Shah
c Abbas returned to Kazwln in 1007/1598 after
crushing the Ozbegs in Khurasan, Sir Antony Sherley
and his party, which included, among others, Abel
Pingon, had already been some three weeks in KazwTn
awaiting the return of the shah. When the shah
approached within five miles of the city, he en¬
camped. He ordered Sherley and his party to come
out two miles outside the gates of the city to meet him.
Abel Pingon describes the shah’s triumphal entry in
the following words. “When our company had
approached to within five or six steps of the King, the
steward made a sign to Monsieur Sherley, his brother
and myself to dismount in order to kiss His Majesty’s

feet . He was five or six steps ahead of a large

squadron of cavalry, and while he stretched out his leg
he pretended the whole time to look in another direc¬
tion. After we had kissed his boot he spurred his horse
sharply and, guiding it dexterously, dashed across the
camp after the manner of the country .... In his hand
he carried a battle-axe, playing with it, carrying it
now high, now low, and now and then placing it on
his shoulder with rather strange movements.

“In his triumphal entry he caused to be carried on
the end of strong and heavy spears twenty thousand
heads of Tartars whom he had defeated in Usbeg,
which appeared to me a hideous spectacle. After those
who carried the heads came young men dressed like
women richly decked, who danced in a manner and
with movements which we had never seen elsewhere,
throwing their arms about and extending them above
their heads even more than they raised their legs from
the ground, to the sound of atabales (sc. drums), flutes
and certain instruments which are provided with
strings, and to the sound of a song composed on the
victory which they had gained, this being sung by four
older women. In the midst of these young men were
two grown men who carried while dancing, two
lanterns like those of the largest galleys at the end of
a stick which was attached to their girdle. On these
lanterns were painted flowers, crowns, laurel-leaves,
and birds, and along the stick hung mirrors and other
glittering things. Among all this crowd was a large
troop of courtesans, riding astride in disorder, and
shouting and crying in every direction as if they had
lost their senses, and frequently they approached the
person of the King to embrace him. Behind the noble
squadron there came on foot a number of pages who
carried good bottles and flasks of wine and cups,
which they presented very frequently to the King and
his nobles. On either flank followed the cavalry, and
in the first ranks there were four trumpeters who
played on certain trumpets and sackbuts of extraor¬
dinary dimensions, which gave a bitter and broken
sound very alarming to hear. The cavalry numbered
two thousand five hundred horse; the first and those
which were near the King were in good condition,
covered with large cloths of brocade on which were
represented angels and horses and other animals of all
kinds, after the manner in which they decorate their
materials in this country. All the inhabitants of
Casbin and of the neighbourhood were come to

receive their King two miles outside the gates of the
city. They were separated into two groups between
which the King was to pass with his triumphal
retinue. And so the King on entering the town would
go straight to the Midan (sc. the maydan), which is the
public square, in which they have horse-races and
training and shooting with the bow and other exer¬
cises” (Sir Antony Sherley and his Persian adventure,
including some contemporary narratives relating thereto » ed.
E. Denison Ross, London 1933, 153-5. See also the
accounts of William Parry, in ibid. , 116-7, and
George Manwaring, in ibid. , 204-6).

Chardin, describing Shah Sulayman’s coronation
in Isfahan in 1077/1677, states that after the ceremony
he sat until 10 o’clock in the Talar-i Tawfla to receive
the homage of the grandees of Isfahan who came to
kiss the ground before him, and then “rising from his
Seat took Horse; and that was the first time that ever
he rode out of the Place where he was born [having
been immured in the haram}. And according to the
Custom of the Persians , he made a Cavalcade round
his Palace very leisurely, and with little attendance,
riding in the middle of the distance of twenty Paces
from them that marched before, and those that fol¬
lowed after, only twelve Footmen went on each side
before and behind his Horse; and all this to the end
he might be the better seen by the People” (The corona¬
tion of Solyman III. The present king of Persia , published
with The Travels of Sir John Chardin into Persia and the
East Indies, London 1691, 56). Normally, however,
when the shah rode abroad he was accompanied by a
large retinue. Kaempfer describes the procedure
under Shah Safi (by which name Shah Sulayman was
known after his second coronation). In the case of his
daily ride, when he came out of the haram and
prepared to proceed along the 6ahar Bagh, the
master of the horse would lead out three horses, one
of which the ruler would choose. Two groups of the
bodyguard, on foot and armed, would set out in front,
followed by the ishikakasi-bashi on horseback and the
kurci-bashi, and behind them some twenty mounted
troops with their leader, all wearing red twelve-sided
head-dresses, adorned in the case of some by a
magnificent plume of feathers. They rode without
discipline, but watched over the safety of the shah.
The shah followed, surrounded by twelve shatirs (run¬
ners); behind him rode the grand wazir or some other
high dignitary. The presence of the shah was
indicated by his catr carried by a standard-bearer.
Among the retinue, not in any special order, there
would also be some twenty eunuchs, some white,
some black, who carried the weapons, water-pipe and
other paraphernalia of the shah. Then came those
courtiers whom the shah had bidden to his table and
the sons of the great men, for whom it was considered
an honour to be allowed to accompany the shah.
When possible, there was also a physician and an
astrologer present. Officials armed with axes would be
sent in front of the procession to remove any obstacles
in the way of the shah’s progress (Am Hofe des persischen
Grosskonigs 1684-1685, tr. W. Hinz, Tiibingen-Basle
1977, 237-8. Cf. also Du Mans, Estat de la Perse en
1660, ed. Schefer, Paris 1890, repr. 1969, 33).

On certain special occasions, the shah also rode out.
Kaempfer describes the celebration of the c Id-i kurban
in 1095/1684 in the Hazar Djarib district of Isfahan.
A large and fine camel was prepared for the sacrifice.
For ten days preceding the Hd on 10 Dhu ’l-Hidjdja,
it was paraded through the different quarters of the
town. On the day of the sacrifice it stood in the
appointed place, with its feet tied, surrounded by
thousands of people, waiting for the arrival of the

856

MAWAKIB

shah. As soon as he arrived, he dismounted and was
given a lance with which he struck the camel. After its
throat had been slit and its head cut off, its corpse was
divided into twelve parts, one for each quarter of the
city. The shah then remounted and rode back as he
had come, while the people of the city assembled
round their banners and accompanied their portion of
the camel, which was laid on a horse and went before
them to their several quarters to the sound of trumpets
and drums (< op.cit ., 239-40; see also Du Mans, op.cit .,
74-5; The Travels of Monsieur de Thevenot into the Levant ,
London 1687, 107 (6 £s)-108(6m)).

Exceptionally, the shah rode out himself to welcome
distinguished guests. In the case of a guest of royal
blood, he would go half-a-mile, having sent his
representative with a company of kurcis one jarsakh (or
one hour’s ride) in advance. The townspeople, in
festal dress, would line the streets and spread precious
stuffs in front of the horses of the royal guest. Such
was the procedure when the Ozbeg khan c Abd al-
c AzTz came back after performing the ha didi in 1670
and when Akbar the son of Awrangzlb came to Persia
in 1099/1688 (Kaempfer, op.cit ., 242).

If the shah went out hunting and took his women
with him, he was accompanied by a large cavalcade,
and when he moved to summer quarters in Mazan-
daran an enormous train accompanied him. Men
would be sent in front to choose a suitable place for the
camp. When they came back with their report, if the
shah approved, some 7,000 camels with tents, carpets
and household equipment would be sent in advance.
Some days later the kurukcis would follow to clear all
males from the neighbourhood of the road along
which the royal cavalcade would travel. The shah’s
women, or those of them whom he decided to take
with him, travelling in litters and accompanied by
eunuchs, would follow. After them would come the
shah with his retinue. In front would be the master of
the horse with his subordinates and five or six led
horses richly caparisoned, with sixty or so of the
bodyguard, also mounted. Then would come the
standard-bearers followed by the ishikakasi-bashi , the
kurci-bashi , and the master of the hunt ( mir-shikar ),
accompanied by falconers with falcons on their wrists,
and the chief kennelman with hunting-dogs led by
attendants on foot. Then would come the shah with
twelve personal attendants. Immediately behind the
shah came the great men of the court, and finally
numerous mounted slaves, among them the water-
pipe carriers and those in charge of boxes of ice, sugar
and other condiments carried on mules, and carpet-
spreaders with carpets, mats and cushions for use on
the way and light tents, and lastly water-bearers with
water-pipes on camels or mules for the use of men and
animals. Twelve dancing girls of great beauty, who
were always present when the shah went on a journey,
followed several hours behind (ibid. , 242-5). The
Dastur al-muluk mentions an official called the kurci-yi
rikab, who was always in attendance on the shah.
When the latter went riding, it was the duty of the
kurci-yi rikab to hold the bridle of the horse which the
shah was to mount with one hand and to help him
mount with the other. In the royal assembly, the kurci-
yi rikab sat below the muhtasib al-mamdlik (ed. Muham¬
mad TakI Danishpazhuh, in Rev. de la Faculte des
lettres et des sciences humaines , Tehran, xvi/3 [1968],
318).

Hanway describes the procession of the Afghan
Mahmud on his entry to Isfahan after Shah Sultan
Husayn had resigned his throne to him on 29 Dh u
’1-Hidjdja 1134/11 October 1722): “The procession
was opened by ten officers on horseback, and about

two thousand cavalry, among whom were several
lords of the PERSIAN court. Next came his master of
the horse, at the head of fifteen led horses
magnificently caparisoned: this officer was followed
by some musketeers on foot, and these by a thousand
common infantry. Immediately after came the grand
master of the ceremonies, in the midst of three hun¬
dred negroes dressed in scarlet cloth: these negroes
had been chosen from among the slaves of ISFAHAN
to compose the conqueror’s guard. Forty paces from
thence was MAGHMUD, mounted on a horse, of
which the VALI of ARABIA had made him a present,
on the day of the abdication. The unfortunate HUS¬
SEIN rode on his left. The princes were followed by
about three hundred pages on horseback” (The
Revolution of Persia , 3 London 1762, ii, 182). Mahmud’s
chief officials followed, and behind them came the
principal officials of the dethroned monarch. The pro¬
cession was closed by a hundred camels carrying
arquebuses, preceded by a great band of musicians
and followed by nearly six thousand horse. Having
crossed the Shiraz bridge, §hah Sultan Husayn was
sent to his place of confinement, and Mahmud con¬
tinued alone. Arriving at the gates of the town the
inhabitants laid rich stuffs under his horse’s feet and
filled their air with perfumes. The guns on the camel’s
backs were often fired as they marched along; “and in
the intervals, the ten AFGHANS who walked at the
head of the procession, pronounced loud imprecations
against the followers of ALI” (ibid.).

The practice of kuruk, i.e. the prohibition of men
and boys from any place where the king’s wives were
to pass, though probably not new, was rigorously
enforced under the Safawids and caused great
inconvenience to the population. Olearius states that
when the shah went hunting, taking his haram with
him, runners were sent in advance through the streets
so that the population remained in their houses and
the streets were empty ( Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung der
Muscowitischen und Persischen Reyse, Schleswig, 1656,
ed. Dieter Lohmeier, repr. Tubingen 1971, 529).
Chardin claims that Shah $afT commanded no less
than 62 kuruks as he went abroad with his wives
visiting places around Isfahan during the five months
from his coronation till the year 1078/1667 (Corona¬
tion, op.cit ., 77. Cf, also Jean-Baptiste Tavernier,
Voyages en Perse , Geneva 1970, 186-7, 188). The
custom continued under later rulers. According to
Hanway, the consequences to those who failed to get
out of the way when notice of Nadir Shah’s approach
was given were sometimes fatal (op.cit., i, 169).

Under the Kadjars, processions took place very
much on the same sort of occasions as under earlier
rulers. Special importance was attached to the
ceremony of istikbdl. This was de rigueur when the shah
or one of the princes visited some town or village or
when he returned to his seat of government after
absence on some expedition or other. On these occa¬
sions, civil and military officials and local notables
would take part in the istikbdl , while wrestlers,
jugglers, tumblers and other would display their skills;
the slaughter of oxen, cows and sheep and the break¬
ing of vessels containing sugar candy in the way of the
prince was also customary. Morier states that when
Fath c AlI approached Tehran on his return after an
expedition to Khurasan in 1815, rows of well-dressed
men were drawn up at some distance from the road
and made low bows as he passed, while members of
the religious classes were drawn up nearer the city.
Oxen and sheep in great numbers were sacrified as he
passed and their heads thrown under his horse’s feet.
Glass vases, filled with sugar, were broken before him

MAWAKIB

857

and their contents strewed on his road. Dervishes
made loud exclamations for his prosperity, while
wrestlers and dancers twirled their clubs and per¬
formed all sorts of antics to the sound of drums.
“Amongst the crowd”, Morier continues, “I
perceived the whole of the Armenians headed by their
clergy bearing crosses, painted banners, the Gospels,
and long candles. They all began to chant Psalms as
His Majesty drew near; and their zeal was only sur¬
passed by that of the Jews, who also had collected
themselves into a body, conducted by their rabbis,
who raised on high a carved representation of wood of
the tabernacle.... In all the bustle I perceived the King
constantly looking at the watch carried by Shatir
Bashi, anxious that he should enter the gates exactly
at a time prescribed by his astrologers” (A second
journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor to Constan¬
tinople 1810-16 , London 1818. 387-8).

Fraser, describing the return of Fath C A1I to Tehran
in April 1833 after a visit to Kumm, states that half
the town went out to welcome him, while the other
half lined the bazaars to make a show upon his
entrance. “A confused assemblage of horsemen of all
ranks and distinctions, from whom were continually
issuing individual pairs to skirmish and show off, were
followed by those of more respectability ... gholaum-
peishkhidmats, nassakchees, and personal attendants
on his majesty; then a number of shatirs, or running
footmen; and then after a long vacant space came
Futeh Alee Shah himself, mounted on a horse ...
Behind, at a due distance, came a group of princes
and nobles ... a dense crowd of horsemen, gholaums,
jeloodars, peishkhidmats, and servants of all sorts,
brought up the rear, crossing the road and country in
a line at right angles to the line of march; from these
it was that most of the skirmishers issued ... tearing
across the plain, and firing guns at each other or
nothing at all, and showing off some very fine horses
with great spirit and address (A winter’s journey (Tatar)
from Constantinople to Tehran , London 1838, ii, 76ff.).

It was the custom of Fath C A1I to march out of his
capital on the Naw Ruz, attended by his ministers and
as many of the army as could be assembled [see
marasim. 3]. He would be mounted sometimes on a
horse, sometimes on an elephant (cf. Morier, A journey
through Persia , 210). Among the amusements were
horse-racing (Malcolm, History of Persia, London
1829, ii, 405). Naw-Ruz audiences were also held in
the capital. Ker Porter describes the royal procession
as it came into the audience hall on one such occasion.
First, the elder sons of the shah entered, c Abbas Mlrza
went to the right side of the throne, followed by his
brothers; his younger brothers then took up their
places opposite. They were all superbly dressed. Near
the front of the palace, mullas and astrologers were
drawn up. Fath c AlT’s entry into the gate of the citadel
was announced by a volley fired by the camel corps
and the clang of trumpets and “the appalling roar of
two huge elephants” (Travels in Georgia, Persia,
Armenia , ancient Babylon, London 1921, i, 320ff.

The Naw-Ruz races were a state occasion under
Nasir al-Din Shah, who would attend them either on
horseback or in a carriage drawn by eight horses
(Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik, Yadddshtha-i az zindaganl-i
khususi-i Nasir al-Din Shah, Tehran n.d., 120-1). When
the shah mounted his carriage at the races, or his
horse to go to his special stand, the camel corps would
fire a volley. Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik describes the
scene in the following words. “Runners (shatirs) on
either side and the camels bearing the ruler’s kettle¬
drums would set off in front followed by the shah in
his carriage. Covered in jewels and wearing the

aigrette (djigha) on his headdress, with a red parasol
with diamond tassels held over him, he would look out
benevolently on the people who hurried forward to
welcome him. Thus, surrounded by this pomp and
magnificence, he would drive up to the special stand
from which he would watch the races, where the great
men and ministers would be awaiting the arrival of
the royal cortege” (ibid., 121-2).

The reception of foreign envoys was also the occa¬
sion for processions and cavalcades. Morier states that
at every place through which the Harford Jones’ mis¬
sion passed in 1808 on its way to Tehran, the local
people came out to welcome him. They were fre¬
quently armed with pikes, matchlocks, swords and
shields, and would often fire a volley as a salute (A
Journey into Persia, 76). At Kazirun, “a bottle, which
contained sugar candy, was broken under the feet of
the Envoy’s horse, a ceremony never practiced in Per¬
sia to any but royal personages” (ibid., 84-5).
Displays of wrestlers, jugglers and tumblers, as in the
case of receptions welcoming the shah, often formed
part of the istikbdl. Lady Sheil describes the welcome
given to her husband in Tabriz on his way to Tehran
as envoy to the court of Persia in 1849 in the following
words: “There were princes and priests, and mer¬
chants, and mollas, and mountebanks, and dervishes,
and beggars; there were Koordish and Toork
horsemen of the tribes, and soldiers, and Ghoolams...
The cavalcade began four miles from the town, and
each step brought a fresh reinforcement to the proces¬
sion” (Glimpses of life and manners in Persia, London
1856, 86). Writing of the procedure for her husband’s
istikbdl in Tehran, she states: “The village we were
residing in was three miles distant from Tehran, and
etiquette requires the ceremony to commence four
miles from the city ... A tent was pitched at the
requisite distance; and my husband was accordingly
obliged to return a mile towards Tabreez, to receive
the congratulations of the Shah’s representatives”
(ibid ., 120-1).

The shah or one of the royal princes used to take
part in the procession on the Hd-i kurban. Fraser,
describing the celebration in Tehran on 20 April
1833, states: “It was customary for the king himself,
or, in his default, for one of the elder princes, with a
grand cortege of the rest, and their followers, to
superintend the ceremony, which consists of a proces¬
sion to a particular appointed place, where a camel is
provided for the sacrifice. The king or elder prince,
taking a knife, draws it across the animal’s throat,
which is then despatched and cut up on the spot ....
On the present occasion not one of the princes
attended, except Saheb-keran Meerza (aged about

ten). nor was he accompanied by a single person

of distinction.

“The first part of the show which issued from the
gate was a parcel of ragamuffin musicians with kettle¬
drums, and horrid screeching pipes, who preceded a
number of mules and horses, strangely caparisoned
and painted, having tawdry trappings on, and gold
and silver tinsel, with ostrich feathers on their heads,
and along with these came sundry flags of silk, red,
green, and scarlet, and some striped like shawls; and
the animals were mounted and ridden to and fro at
speed by the fellows who brought them. These, as I
understood, were intended to carry away pieces of the
unhappy camel when he should be cut up: they were
attended also by a number of dervishes, in their caps
and patched robes. Next came six of the King’s
kernechees, or trumpeters, in their scarlet coats, with
spears and horns; then came three or four led horses;
than a couple of hundred topechees, or artillerymen, in

858

MAWAKIB

two lines, forming a street, through which rushed
thirty or forty furoshes with sticks, and gholaums with
shields. After these came the little prince, gallantly
dressed in a scarlet coat, well bedizened with
embroidery of pearls and diamonds, his sword-belt to
match, and having handsome diamond ornaments on
his cap and on his breast, and a pretty little sabre
depending from his side. He was mounted on a fine
horse .... Behind the prince at due distance, came a

rabble of horsemen, tofungchees, etc. Before the

gates of the Nigaristan.the poor camel lay bound

and ready” ( A Winter’s journey, ii, 73-5; see also
Mu c ayyir al-Mamalik, op.cil. , 93-5; and for a descrip¬
tion of the procession in Isfahan, see Mlrza Husayn
Khan b. Muhammad Ibrahim Khan Tahwfldar,
Diuphrafiya-yiIsfahan, ed. Manu£ihr Sotoodeh, Tehran
AHS 1342/1963, 88-90).

Towards the end of the 19th century the tendency
was for royal processions to become less elaborate.
Curzon writes that formerly the Shah’s court
ceremonial was a blaze of splendour but that “he now
affects a simplicity of costume in striking contrast to
his predecessors. The bediamonded sword and the
flashing aigrette, which was so familiar on his first
visit to England in 1873, had disappeared in 1889;
and in Tehran I have seen him walking in the streets
in a braid frock coat with prodigious skirts ... holding
a walking stick in his hand. Upon other occasions he
either appears on horseback, or, more commonly, is
driven through the streets of the town in a sort of
coach with glass panels drawn by six or eight white
horses with henna-dyed tails. In front and behind ride
a small detachment of the royal bodyguard or
gholams, whose full number stands at 2,000, or two
corps of 1,000 apiece, who are recognizable by their
gold-braided tunics and by the muskets, wrapped up
in red cases, which they wear slung across their
shoulders. A number of the liveried harlequins, or

royal runners . are also in attendance to clear a

way, while the less ornamental ferashes, with their
long switches, keep back the crowd” {Persia, London
1892, i, 396). The royal runners or shafirs (whose dress
was a faithful representation of that worn by the shafirs
of the Safawid kings) preceded the shah whenever he
went out riding or in his carriage {ibid., i, 332).

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(A. K. S. Lambton)

4. In the Ottoman empire

Ottoman processions (Tk. dldy ) were frequently
assembled on festive and solemn occasions. The
Ottoman court celebrated the birth and circumcision
of a prince, or the marriage of a princess, a victory of
the army, a new campaign of a sultan, or his succes¬
sion to the throne, the arrival of a royal guest, or an
important foreign ambassador, with imperial
festivities, which sometimes lasted 50 days and nights
(like that of the circumcision festival of Prince
Mehmed, later Mehemmed 111, in 990/1582) or more
(the festival of 853/1449, under Murad II, to celebrate
the wedding of his son, Prince Mehmed—later
Mehemmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople in
857/1453—and Sitt Khatun, which continued for
three months). Sometimes an occasion for a public
rejoicing was created after an unsuccessful campaign
or a defeat of the Ottoman army, with the intention
of turning the attention of Sultan’s subjects elsewhere
and to falsify the result of a battle (the best examples
of such festivities are in 862/1457, after Mehemmed II
was compelled to draw back from Ba gh dad: and in
937/1530, when Suleyman the Magnificent had to

retreat from the siege of Vienna; and also in
990/1582, after the failure of Murad III in the war
against the Persians). The wedding and circumcision
ceremonies very often and deliberately coincided with
kurbdn bayrami [see c Id]. There were also court
festivities, which were organised merely to solemnise
the pilgrimage of the Prophet (among others, a recent
one was in 1866, under Sultan c Abd al- c Az!z). All
these festivals were enriched by spectacular and col¬
ourful processions, which consisted inter alia, of
architectural displays, festival palms, sugar work in
figures and of artificial flower gardens; these are con¬
sidered below. One should note as a preliminary the
following three definitions, before proceeding to
examine the different types of processions: 1. Alay-i
Humdyun, Imperial procession. A customary
procession organised when the Sultan or the Grand-
Vizier started for or returned from a campaign, on a
route between the palace and the barracks at Dawud
Pasha (a district in Old Istanbul). 2. Aldy Kdnunu,
Code for processions: the Ottoman code per¬
taining to the rules for the arrangement, order and the
costuming of the viziers, scholars, high officials, staff
and the military personnel, who were prescribed by
the government to participate in the imperial proces¬
sions. 3. Aldy Koshku, Kiosk for spectacles: a
kiosk built especially for the Sultan and his harem,
from where they watched the processions, celebrations
and the festivities. This kiosk was generally used by
the Sultanas and the ladies of the court. The Sultan
had a special room with attendants.

Bibliography: A detailed description of such
processions is to be found in Djelal-zade, (Mustafa
b. Djelal), Tabakat al-memdlik ve deredjdt el-mesalik,
ms. Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, H.O. 41; and in
Teghrlfatlzade Mehmed b. Ahmed’s Dejter-i
teshrifat, ms. Nationalbibliothek, Handschriften-
Sammlung, Mxt. 301; the processions in the
festival of 1086/1675, in Edirne, under the reign of
Mehemmed IV, are given by Huseyin Hezar-fenn,
Telkhis al-beydn fi kawdnin-i Al-i c Othman, ms. B.N.,
Fonds Turc, 40; c AbdT, Sur-i pur surur-i humdyun,
ms. Millet Kiitiiphanesi, Istanbul, Ali Emir! Kit.
343; John Covel, Diary, ms. B.L., Add. 22,912;
vivid sketches of the processions in the 18th century
may be seen in Sur-name, ms. Nationalbibliothek,
Vienna H.O. 95, written for the festival of 1724,
under the reign of Ahmed III, and also in c Akff
Bey’s Teshnjdt-ndme , Suleymaniye Kit. Es c ad Ef.
no. 2108, written for the birth of a prince, during
the reign of Mustafa III, modern Tkish. tr., Befik
Alayi, by §evket Rado, in Tarih Mecmuasi, x (Nov.
1972), 4-5; for the etymology of alay , see Fuat
Koprulii, Bizans muesseselerinin Osmanli muesseselerine
te’siri , in Turk hukuku tarihine dair tetkikler, Istanbul
1931, 277, in which the author indicates that the
Byzantine Greek word alagion is the source of the
Ottoman word alay. In the beginning, alagion meant
a ceremonial detachment of troops in an emperor’s
suite and later, in the 13th century, it meant a regi¬
ment. E. Stern, Untersuchungen zur Verfassung und
Wissenschaftsgeschichte, in MOG, ii/1-2, 49, supports
Kopriilii’s statement; an illuminating book about
the processions is i. H. Uzungar^ih’s Osmanli
devletinin saray teskildh, Ankara 1945, 168-71; also
see Ozdemir Nutku, IV. Mehmet’in Edirne fenligi,
Ankara 1972, 57-60, 62-76; the basic books on the
Aldy Koshku are by Ibrahim Hakki Konyali, Istanbul
saraylan , Istanbul 1942; Oktay Aslanapa, Edirne’de
Osmanli devri abideleri, Istanbul 1949; and Rifat
Osman, Edirne sarayi, ed. Siiheyl Unver, Ankara
1957.

MAWAKIB

859

The different types of procession.

1. bayram alayi, “Holiday procession”, tradi¬
tionally organised to accompany the Sultan to the
mosque and back to the palace, on the first days of two
religious holidays, Kurban Bayrami (festival of
sacrifices) and Sheker Bayrami (the feast during the first
three days after the Ramadan fast). The respective
order of the participants in this procession was
generally as follows:

— the khodjas of the imperial palace, on foot;

— the Chief White Eunuchs, on foot;

— the Director of the Registry of landed property, on
horseback;

— the second and third Accountants, on horseback;

— the Finance Minister, on horseback;

— the Master of Orders, on horseback;

— the Steward to the Grand Vizier, on horseback;

— the Grand Vizier and the viziers, on horseback, on
both sides the Janissaries, on foot;

— the Steward to the chief white eunuchs, carrying a
silver sceptre in his right hand, and wearing a short
fur-coat, a selimi turban, Tatar baggy trousers of
violet velvet and a pair of Circassian shoes, on
foot;

— the first and the second Masters of the horse, on
foot;

— the Sultan, on horseback: on each side walked the
bodyguards with their red and light brown conical
hats and five-edged sceptres in their hands; lackeys
and messengers; the clothing masters, wearing
large wadded headgears with bejewelled crests;

— the Chief Lifeguard of the Janissaries and the
Chief Clothing Master, both wearing bejewelled
knitted caps with tassels, loose robes embroidered
with gold threads, over it valuable robes of honour,
girdles made of pearls and bejewelled daggers;

— the Head of the Black Eunuchs, wearing a selimi
turban, an embroidered robe with a bejewelled gir¬
dle and a four-sleeved sable skin coat;

— the Masters of the Porte, with selimi turbans;

— the Chief Treasurer and the officials of the palace,
wearing headgear, bejewelled daggers and knives
and with bracelets of solid gold.

Bibliography. For designs and colours of the
costumes, see Johannes Lewenklaw, Bilder tiirkischen
Herrscher , Soldaten, Hofleute , Stddte, Vienna 1586;
anon., Bilder aus dem tiirkischen Volksleben , Vienna
1586; anon., Tiirkische Trachten , Vienna (17th cen¬
tury); anon., Tiirkische Trachten , 3 volumes, Italy
(18th century); the most reliable source for the
Bayram procession is Tayyar-zade c Ata, Enderun
tadrikhi, i, Istanbul 1293; a short section in Paul
Rycaut’s The present state of the Ottoman Empire , Lon¬
don 1668, 162-4; a description of such a procession
may be seen in Hezar-fenn, Telkhis , fols. 32b-33a;
a detailed description, with a personal view of an
English lady, of Mahmud II, may be found in Julie
Pardoe, The City of the Sultan , London 1837, ch. vi;
for further information, see R. E. Ko£u, Osmanli
sarayinda Bayram tebriki ve Bayram Alayi , in TM, xii
(Jan. 1972), 6-11; for an extensive article, see Das
Fest des Kurban-Beiram in Konstantinopel, in Globus ,
xiii (1866), 148-52.

2. beshik alayi, “Cradle procession”, customarily
organised to conduct the cradle of a new-born prince
or a princess through the streets to the birth place of
the baby. There were two specific processions for such
an occasion: one was the procession disposed by the
Sultana-Mother, and the other was arranged by the
orders of the Grand-Vizier. The procession of the
Sultana-Mother took place subsequent to the birth of
the baby. The cradle, the bejewelled quilt and the

valuable blanket were all taken from the old Saray and
brought to the Topkapi Palace. This procession con¬
sisted respectively of the following participants:

— the guide, in uniform;

— the officers of the Harem, two in a row;

— all the stewards of the lady who gave birth to the
child, with their ceremonial girdles, equipments
and headgears;

— numerous itinerant vendors, carrying trays of
fruits, candies, flowers and cakes;

— the master vendors of sweetmeats, carrying the
silver cradle;

— numerous coaches with lattice-windows, and two
eunuchs at the sides of each coach: in these coaches
were the visiting ladies;

— the Messenger to the Chief of the Flag, and the
Head of Musicians;

— the musicians.

The procession walked most of the way to the
accompaniment of rhythmical beats of a kettledrum.
When the procession was over, various presents were
given to the participants.

The procession disposed by the Grand Vizier was
much more spectacular and crowded. It was a custom
to put on this display six days after the birth of the
child. The Grand Vizier, immediately after the
imperial baby was born, ordered a cradle, a quilt and
a blanket, embroidered with pearls, diamonds,
emeralds and with other precious stones. The proces¬
sion comprised the following participants in respective
order:

— the guide, together with the attendants of the
imperial house;

— the officers of the Grand Vizier’s Harem;

— the Clerk of the Attendants and the Superinten¬
dent to the Attendants;

— the adjutants and the messengers of the court;

— the Steward to the Chief White Eunuchs of the
Grand Vizier, and the Superintendent to the
Grand Vizier;

— the vendors, carrying trays of fruits and flowers;

— the telkhisi (an official charged with making sum¬
maries and reports);

— the bodyguards;

— the Assistant of Ceremonies, and the Treasurer of
Ceremonies;

— the Master of Ceremonies;

— the stewards to Sultanas;

— the Head of Musicians, carrying the blanket, and
the footmen holding the blanket from its four
corners;

— the Second Clothing Master, carrying the quilt;

— the First Clothing Master, carrying the cradle;

— the Steward to the Grand Vizier;

— the military band.

When the procession was completed, presents were
given to all the participants, according to their ranks.
The procession looked like a huge flower garden. The
coloured turbans, caps and headgears, various fur-
coats, yellow, red, green shoes, light boots, top-boots,
etc., the artificial flower gardens, and hundreds of
sugar boxes in different colours gave the atmosphere
of a spectacular celebration.

Bibliography: The principal source is c Akif
Bey’s Teshrifdt-ndme ; the author was the master of
ceremonies of the court during the reign of Mustafa
III (second half of the 18th century), tr. Rado, 4-5;
for the festivities of 1189/1775, to celebrate the
birth of Khadfdje Sultan, the daughter of c Abd al-
Hamld I, on 20 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 1189/14 February
1775, see Topkapi Archive E. no. 1562; for an
illuminating example of a letter of congratulation,

860

MAWAKIB

see the letter of the Grand Vizier written for the
birth of Kh ayriyve Sultan, the daughter of
Mahmud II, on 8 Shawwal 1246/21 March 1830,
Topkapi Archive, E. no. 5932, for the celebrations
of the birth of $aliha Sultan, the daughter of
Mahmud II, see Uzuncarsili, op.cil., Qagatay
Ulugay, Harem , ii, Ankara 1971, 78-9.

3. dja^iz alayi, “Procession of the trousseau”
arranged to transport the trousseau of an imperial
bride to the house of the bridgeroom. Before the pro¬
cession started, the festal palms ( nakkils ) were brought
to the palace very early in the morning, and were
included in the procession as symbols of fecundity of
the bride; for this reason, the festal palms prepared for
a bride should be made of fruits, candies and flowers.
The procession started after the prayer for the newly-
wedded was completed. The respective order of the
participants in this procession was generally as
follows:

— the Commander-in-Chief of the Janissaries, with
ceremonial dress;

— the Steward to the Commander-in-Chief, with
crest;

— the chiefs of various Janissary corps, with crests;

— the Chief of Cavalry and the Chief Lifeguard of
Janissaries, with their men;

— the Chief Reciter of the Kurban, accompanied by
his assistants;

— the Chief of Police, accompanied by the
policemen;

— the Police Superintendent, with his men;

— the court messengers;

— the court adjutants;

— the court assayers;

— the khodyas and the scholars of the court;

— the Chief of the White Eunuchs;

— the Steward to the Sultana-Mother, and the
Steward to the favourite wife of the Sultan;

— the Chief Architect, and the Steward of the
Dockyards;

— two artifical sugar gardens with figures made of
sugar, and numerous festal palms of gold and
silver, adorned with fruits, candies and flowers;

— the vendors and attendants, carrying the boxes
containing the trousseau: mosquito-nets with gold
lanterns; bejewelled clogs, slippers, boots, shoes;
crowns full of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, tur¬
quoises, jades; necklaces, bracelets, earrings set
with pearls, emeralds and brilliants; trays of
precious stones; bejewelled cases for reed pens and
ink; hundreds of embroidered cushions. At both
sides of the vendors and the attendants, walked the
guards to watch over;

— the Chief of Messengers;

— the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the two Chief
Military Judges;

— the viziers;

— the Grand Vizier and the Shaykh al-Islam ;

— the Captain of the festal palms;

— artificial fruit gardens;

— the imperial military band;

— pure-bred rams guarded by the black eunuchs, one
at each side;

— the concubines of the trousseau, and the Chief of
Palace Guards, accompanied by his men. The fur¬
niture and the big pieces were carried by mules,
adorned with precious clothes, such as brocade,
satin and silk.

When the procession arrived at its destination, the
participants were rewarded according to their ranks,
with gold coins fur coats and silk robes.

Bibliography : For information on how the

payments were realised for transporting a
trousseau, see Topkapi Archive, E. no. 7004; for a
detailed description of the dja^iz alayi in the festival
of 1086/1675, Hezar-fenn, fols. 174b, 176a, 177b;
Covel, Diary , fols. 200a, 217b; for such processions
in the 18th century, Sur-ndme , ms. National-
bibliothek, Vienna, cod. H.0.95; there were three
different processions of the trousseau in the
festivities of 1137/1724, during the reign of Ahmed
III, for princesses Urnm Kulthum, see 7a-10b,
Khadldje. 19a-b, c Atika, 20a-21b; see Topkapi
Archive E. no. 7029 for the imperial mandate of
c Abd al-Harmd I, stating the obligatory trousseau,
whatever the economic situation of the bridegroom
was; for further information on the obligatory
trousseau, Topkapi Archive E. nos. 361, 692, 962;
for the gifts given by this same Sultan to the high
officials of the state, during the wedding festivities
of 1202/1787, Topkapi Archive E. no. 247; for a
recent procession of the trousseau, see von Moltke,
Tiirkiye’deki durum ve olaylar iizerine mektuplar , Tkish.
tr. Hayrullah Ors, Ankara 1960, 46-7; a detailed
description of the same procession in 1252/1836,
Julie Pardoe, op.cil. , ch. xi; another example is the
procession of Fatima Sultan’s trousseau, the
daughter of c Abd al-Medjid, in 1271/1854, see
Topkapi Archive E. no. 8270; Q. Ulu^ay, Fatma ve
Safiye Sultanlann dugiinleri, in Istanbul Enstitiisu Mec-
muasi y iv (Istanbul 1958); idem. Harem , ii, 104;
Nutku, op.cit., 63-4.

4. esnaf alayi, “Procession of the guilds or cor¬
porations”, held in the presence of the Sultan, where
each guild displayed its own profession, as well as
acted scenes mostly concerning the special field with
which the guild was occupied. Some of the guilds,
however, had clowns, rope dancers, illusionists,
equilibrists, some others, mimics and actors; and the
bigger corporations possessed all of these.

It was a custom in the imperial festivals that the
procession of the guilds should take place always in
the afternoons, and that they should appear in
alphabetical order. Only four or five guilds were
allowed each day to have a procession; for example,
the processions of 181 guilds in the festival of
990/1582 first started on 11 June and ended on 6 July.
Before the procession was over, each guild had to give
to the Sultan its gifts, which were determined long
before by the treasurer of the court. The represen¬
tatives of the guilds, after presenting their gifts, would
pray for the Sultan. After the ceremony, all members
of these guilds would take their seats at dinner tables
prepared for them as guests at the feast given by the
Sultan.

All the guilds and the corporations had their own
pennants; for example, the guild of lady’s slipper-
makers had a pennant with golden and silver threads
and tassels, the cord-makers had a red and a white
pennant, and the sword-makers had a red and green
one. The weavers had two different pennants: one,
red, and the other red, yellow and green. Sometimes
these guilds included wild animals in the procession,
just for the sake of attracting the interest of the spec¬
tators. Some guilds, which preserved the tradition of
having warriors, namely swordsmen and archers,
would include them into the procession as symbols of
traditional combatants; these men walked with their
traditional uniforms and demonstrated their skill
when the time came.

The representative scenes of each guild, showing
the profession, were exhibited on carts, pulled by
horses or oxen. The bakers, for instance, while pass¬
ing ceremonially, displayed their profession on two

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861

successive carts: on the first, the millers ground wheat
with an all-functioning miniature mill, while on the
next the bakers baked bread in a burning furnace; and
the products were presented to the Sultan and given
to the spectators. The guild of tailors, in the festival
of 990/1582, sewed an interesting and valuable dress,
which could be worn on both sides; one side of this
dress was red and yellow, the other white and blue.

Another kind of demonstration was either to show
skills or to perform farces of mythological stories, in
which the actors and clowns generally had stylised
phalluses in their hands and wore costumes of cloth,
paper and grass.

Most of the guilds presented gifts related to their
profession: for example, the weavers presented the
cloth they had been weaving during the procession. A
few of the guilds presented things other than their pro¬
fession: the haberdashers, for instance, presented to
the Sultan, in the festival of 1086/1675, the following
items: 2 silver decanters, 2 silver trays, 4 ornamented
silver candlesticks, 8 silver candlesticks, 1 okka (ukiyye,
equivalent to 1283 gr.) of rose-water, 2 plates with a
case, 3 plates full of cloves, 4 plates full of walnuts, 3
plates full of coconuts, 2 plates full of cinnamon, 1
tray full of musk-soap, 4 jars of sugar candy, 18 bot¬
tles of incense water, 60 bottles of flower-water, 3
trays full of dates, 6 plates full of sugar, 15 plates of
candy, 4 plates full of sugar candy (of a different sort)
and 7 Ka c ba glasses.

In every festival, the procession of the guilds were
the centre of attraction, with presentations of pro¬
ducts, displays of professional occupations,
demonstrations of skills and performances of plays.

Bibliography: For the display of professional
occupations, see Georges Lebelski, La Description des
yeux et magnijiques representez a Constantinople. .., 1584,
63-4; Nicholas von Haunolt, Particular Verzeichnuss
mit das Ceremonien Gepraeng und Pracht das Fest der
Beschneidung. .., in Lewenklaw, Neuewe Chronica
Turkischer Nation..., Franckfurt am Mayn 1595,
481-509; Hezar-fenn, fols. 154a-172b; Covel,
Diary, fob 216a; for the costumes of the furriers,
Petis de la Croix, Memoires , ii, Paris 1684, 119;
Seyyid Hiiseyin Wehbl, Sur-ndme, ms.
Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, cod. 94, and BL no.
Or. 7218: Mehmed Khazln, Sur-name-i Khazin. ms.
Beyazit Kit., Nurettin Pasha, 10267, fols. 73b-
120a; for a detailed description of clowns, c Abdi,
fols. 3a, 5b, 7b, 9a; Nabi, WakayT-i khitan-i
Shehzddegan-i Hadret-i Sultan Mehemmed-i Ghdzi li-
Nabi Efendi , ed. A. S. Levend, Istanbul 1944, 48,
51; for the farces, see Mary Wortley Montagu, Let¬
ters of Milady Montagu, London 1764, 64; a sum¬
mary description of the procession of guilds may be
seen in Tietz, Ceremonien und Festlichkeiten bei der
feierlichen Beschneidung eines tiirkischen Prinzen von
Geblut in Konstantinopel, in Ausland (22 May 1836),
572-84; G. F. Abbot, Under the Turk in Constantino¬
ple: a record of Sir John Finch’s embassy, 1674-1681,
London 1920; for the rules of ceremony, Fmdfklflf
Mehmed Agha, Silahtar ta^nkhi, ii, Istanbul 1928,
645; further reference to the procession of the
guilds is to be found in Nutku, op.cit., 73-6; and in
Metin And, Osmanh senliklerinde Turk sanatlan,
Ankara 1982, 227-48.

5. gelin alayi. “the Procession for the bride”, to
chaperone the bride to the house of the bridegroom.
Up till the 18th century it was deemed lucky to have
the bridal procession on Thursdays. This solemnity
surpassed the pomp of the procession organised for
the transportation of the trousseau. Almost all the
viziers, the scholars and the high officials of the state

took their places in this ceremony. The respective
order of the train was generally as follows:

— the Chief of Police;

— the messengers of the palace;

— the holders of the fief;

— the khodias, the scholars of the court, and the Chief
of Artillery, the Chief Armourer and the Steward
to the Commander-in-Chief;

— the Master of Janissaries and a commanding
officer of a division;

— the chiefs of various Janissary corps, cavalry and
the Chief Lifeguard;

— the Chief White Eunuch;

— the Minister of Finance, Master of Orders and the
Commander-in-Chief;

— the Chief of Messengers and the memoranda
officials;

— the Shenf of Mecca and the Kadi of Istanbul;

— the Chief Military Judges;

— the pashas, who act as intimates of the
bridegroom;

— the Grand Vizier and the Shaykh al-lslam ;

— the Inspector and the Accountant of the Prophet’s
Tomb at Medina;

— the Revenue-collector and the Senior official of
Mecca and Medina;

— the Stewards to the Sultana-Mother and to the
bridegroom;

— the Steward to the bride;

— two big festival palms carried by the dockyard
stewards, the stewards walking at each side, and
the white eunuchs in the middle;

— the Steward to the palace guards and the Secretary
to the Chief Black Eunuch of the Sultan’s Harem;

— two smaller festal palms of silver carried by the
dockyard stewards;

— the guards of the old serail;

— two other silver festal palms, followed by the
secretary of the guards of the old serail, on
horseback, holding a Kur 3 an with a bejewelled
cover and case;

— the Chief Saddler to the Chief Black Eunuch,
leading thoroughbred horses, which were richly
equipped;

— the Chief Black Eunuch; the guards of the old
serail at each side, and in front of the Chief, the
men carrying purses and throwing gold pieces to
the spectators;

— the bride in a silver or a bejewelled coach;

— numerous carriages of accompaniment, with the
ladies of the court;

— the military band;

— numerous coaches carrying the ladies of the
Harem.

The horses of the coaches were generally covered with
expensive cloths, such as brocade, silk and satin. All
the coaches were surrounded by the black eunuchs on
horseback. The stewards, who carried the silver palms
were richly dressed. This procession was so long that
it usually took one hour or more from the beginning
to the end.

Bibliography : A detailed description of the
bridal procession of the eldest daughter of Murad
III may be seen in von Haunolt, Verzeichnuss des
Hochzeitlichen Fest..., in op.cit., 532-5; the bridal
procession in the festival of 1086/1675, c Abdi, fol.
17a; Hezar-fenn, fols. 177a-178b; Covel, Diary, fol.
216a; and also Thomas Coke, A True Narrative of the
Great Solemnity of the circumcision of Mustapha, Prince of
Turkic, eldest son of Sultan Mahomed present Emperor of
the Turks, London 1676; Sur-i Hiimayun, National¬
bibliothek, Vienna, cod. H.O. 88; Sur-name,

862

MAWAKIB

Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, cod. H.O. 95, fols.
10a-14b; a brief section on the wedding of Salifia
Sultan, the daughter of Ahmed III, may be seen in
Topkapi Archive, E. no. 277; Hash met, Veladet-
name-yi Hibetalldh Sultan, ms. Suleymaniye Kit.
Es c ad Efendi, no. 2511/2, Istanbul Univ. Kit. T.
1940 and Topkapi Sarayi Kit. no. 1603; Pardoe,
op.cit., ch. xii, describes in detail the procession of
Mihrimah Sultan; for the bridal processions during
the reign of c Abd al-Hamid II, Archive of the
Prime Ministry, Cevdet tas. Saray no. 6212, ms.,
Ankara; Marquis de Nointel, L’Odyssee d’un
ambassadeur, les voyages du Marquis de Nointel 1670-
1680, ed. A. Vandal, Paris 1900; Topkapi Sarayi,
ms., new. no. 151; R. Lubenau, Beschreibung der
Reisen des Reinhold Lubenau, ii, ed. W. Sahm,
Konigsberg 1914, 276-82; for further information,
Uzungarsili, op.cit .; Ulugay, op.cit., ii, 105-7;
Nutku, op jit., 63.

6. kadir alayi, “Procession for the ‘Night of
Power’”, sc. of Ramadan, ( Kadir Gedjesi), because it
is the night when the Kurban was revealed, and it was
the custom to organise a procession. One of the
squares of the city, where a big mosque existed, was
illuminated by lamps and lanterns. The sultanas and
the women in the Harem would go to the square with
coaches to watch the procession. The black eunuchs
offered them light food, fruits, ice cream and coffee on
silver trays. In front of each coach two attendants
waited, with silver-framed lanterns of camel skin in
their hands. The Sultan came to the mosque with a
train, resembling that escort of the Bayram Alayi, with
khodjas of the imperial palace, the Chief White
Eunuchs, the Minister of Finance, the Master of
Orders, the Grand Vizier, the Shaykh al-Islam, the
viziers, the Head of the Black Eunuchs, the Master of
the Porte, etc., guarded by Janissaries and the
cavalry. When the Sultan entered the mosque, pide (a
kind of bread baked in thin flat strips), candy and
sherbet were distributed to the soldiers. While the pro¬
cession was on its way back to the palace, fireworks
would begin illuminating the sky with various kinds of
rockets.

Bibliography : This is only very limited for this
procession; see, however, Halit Ziya U^akligil,
Saray ve otesi, ii, Istanbul 1941, 129-34; Leyla Saz,
Saray ve harem hatiralan, in Yeni Tarih Dergisi, ii,
Istanbul 1958, 539; Ayse Osmanoglu, Babam
Abdiilhamid, Istanbul I960, 88; Safiye Uniivar,
Saray hatiralanm, Istanbul 1964, 110; Ulugay,

op.cit., ii, 163.

7. Kiufi alayi, “The Procession to gird on the
sword”. The Sultan, as Caliph of all Muslims, had to
take the oath of allegiance when he succeeded to the
throne. The procession would usually take place two
weeks later. The place of this ceremony was the tomb
of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari in Eyiip (a district named
after this tomb). The Sultan, with a long train of high
officials and soldiers would go to Eyup either by boat
or on horseback. If he went to Eyiip via the sea, then
he would return via the land, or vice-versa.

The procession was generally composed of the
following persons: the Grand Vizier, the Shaykh al-
Islam, the Chief Military judges, the Sherif of Mecca,
the Viziers, and certain number of high officials.

The ceremony was usually directed by the Shaykh al-
Islam and sometimes by the Sherif of Mecca. After the
ceremony, the Sultan visited the tombs of his
ancestors, and returned to the palace in processional
order.

This tradition was started by Selim I. It was a
custom that every Sultan issued money, sacrificed

sheep and distributed these to the poor. It was the task
of the Steward to the Chief White Eunuch and the
First Master of the Horse to take the petitions of the
subjects while the procession was on its way to the
palace.

Bibliography : Teshrifatl-zade Mehmed b.
Ahmed, Defter-i teshrifdt, ms., Nationalbibliothek,
Vienna, cod. mixt. 301; IA, i, 293; Meydan-
Larousse, vii, Istanbul 1972, 234-5.

8. mekteb (amin) alayi, “School (or Amen) pro¬
cession”, to celebrate the first school day of a prince.
In this ceremony, the Shaykh al-Islam and the khodjas of
the court would stand on the right side of the throne,
and on the left were the Grand Vizier, viziers, chief
military judges and the captains of the sea. The prince
would come, with his escort, towards the throne and
would kiss the skirt of his father, the Sultan. He would
then sit on a sofa placed between the throne and the
Shaykh al-Islam. After the prayer, the prince was
delivered to the Uiodjas for his education. One such a
celebration was ordered by Mahmud II for his elder
son c Abd al-Medjld in 1248/1832, when the Prince
was nine years of age.

The procession took place both on the Marmara
Sea with war-galleys and on land with the army. The
Sultan and the Prince had an escort of high officials
and soldiers amounting to 24,000 men. The escort
included the infantry, the cavalry and the artillery.

Bibliography : For a vivid description of the
procession in 1832, see Ein Volksfest in Konstan-
tinopel, in Magazin fur Literatur des Auslands, Berlin
1833, 531; also Ulugay, Haremden mektuplar, Istan¬
bul 1956; Ayse Osmanoglu, op.cit., 106; Safiye
Uniivar, op.cit., 27, 88; Ulugay, Harem, ii, 87.

9. mewlid alayi, “The imperial procession
organised to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet”,
on 12 Rabl* al-Awwal, for which the Sultan went to
the mosque for the ceremony and returned to his
palace. The high officials of the state gathered in the
mosque, which was, until the second half of the 18th
century, the Blue Mosque (sc. of Sultan Ahmed), and
waited for the Sultan to come. The Shaykh al-Islam, the
Chief Military Judges of Rumeli and Anadolu, all
provincial kadis, who were at that time in Istanbul, the
scholars and the khodjas, had to take their places on the
left side of the pulpit ( minber ) according to their ranks.
The viziers had to sit on the prayer rugs on the left
side of the niche ( mihrdb ). Next to them were the
Comrnander-in-Chief of the Janissaries, the Minister
of Finance, the First Adjutant, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, the Steward to the Commander, the
second and third accountant, the Chief of the Flag,
the Chief of Messengers, the Chief Lifeguard, the
First Master of the Horse, the commanding officers of
Cavalry, the Chief Armourer, the Chief of Artillery
and other high officials in their places. If the
Commander-in-Chief were not present, because of a
war or of any reason, the senior commanding officer
had to represent him in the mosque.

The high officials of the palace, namely, the com¬
manding officers of various regiments, were arranged
standing in a line from the door of the pulpit to the
desk, and the Janissaries would form a square
arranged in rows between the centre columns of the
mosque.

The Grand Vizier (wearing his ceremonial kallawl
turban) was accompanied by the palace guards to the
mosque, where he was to be before the Sultan arrived.
The Chief White Eunuch (wearing the ceremonial
selimi turban) would go to the palace, in order to
escort the Sultan to the mosque, together with the
palace guards. This procession was not as spectacular

MAWAKIB

863

as the others, but was nevertheless effective and col¬
ourful.

On entering the mosque, the Sultan was met by the
Commander-in-Chief and the Trustee of the Pious
Foundations. It was the duty of the Commander-in-
Chief to take off the boots of the Sultan and offer him
slippers. It was an honour given to him by the Sultan.
If it was the first time that the Commander was doing
this, he was rewarded with a dagger with diamonds on
the handle. After this welcome, Sultan was escorted to
his private pew by the Commander and the Chief
Lifeguard. On leaving the mosque, the boots of the
Sultan were put on again by the Commander.

In the procession back to the palace, the Com¬
mander walked in front of the Sultan’s horse and the
Trustees, carrying censers at each side, until they
were dismissed by the Sultan.

Bibliography: For such a procession, see
Hezar-fenn, fols. 170b- 171b; Ceshmi-zade
Mustafa Reshld, Ceshmi-zade ta^rikhi (1180-2/1766-
8), ed. Bekir Kiitukoglu, Istanbul 1959, 47; a vivid
description may be seen in Ay$e Osmanoglu’s
autobiography, 59-61; and in Safiye Unuvar’s one,
103; also see, Midhat Sertoglu, Osmanli impara-
torlugu devrinde mevlid alayi , in TM, iv (April 1976),
45-9; also op.cit ., ii, 160.

10. nishan alayi. “Procession of engagement”,
held on the engagement of a sultan or a princess. In
this procession, the gifts of the bridegroom were
taken to the bride’s house with an escort, which was
generally composed of the following persons:

— the guide;

— the Chief Saddler of the palace;

— the Steward to the Chief White Eunuch;

— the Superintendent to the Grand Vizier;

— the Steward to the Grand Vizier;

— the Steward to the bride;

— the vendors and attendants carrying the gifts;

— twenty festal palms, each carried by two Janis¬
saries;

— thirty large, ornamented trays full of confect¬
ionery;

— two artificial gardens made of sugar;

— one silver festal palm, at each side of which silver
boxes of jewelry, carried by the attendants;

— bejewelled girdles, diamond rings, earrings with
emeralds and diamonds, mirrors covered with
precious stones, bejewelled clogs, shoes, light
boots, slippers, all carried by the white eunuchs
and guarded by palace watchmen;

— the Stewards to the bridegroom;

— the pashas, who act as intimates of the
bridegroom;

— the Captain of the Sea, with his men;

— the Janissaries;

— the military band.

The gifts were delivered to the Chief Black Eunuch,
who showed them to the Sultan, and upon the
Sultan’s approval sent them to the Harem with the
black eunuchs.

Bibliography: Sur-name, Nationalbibliothek,
Vienna, cod. H.O. 95, fols. 2b-4a; N. M. Penzer,
The Harem , London 1936; for the values of the gifts,
Ulugay, op.cit ., 100-1.

11. sunnet alayi, “Procession of circumcision”.
This escorted the prince, who was going to be circum¬
cised, from his residence to the field where the
festivities took place. The respective order of the train
was generally as follows:

— the Janissary corps;

— the adjutants, the messengers, and the white
eunuchs of the court;

— forty small festal palms, twenty at each side, each
carried by three Janissaries;

— the Chief Architect and the Steward to the
Dockyards;

— two giant festal palms, “as high as pine trees”,
each carried by 160 to 200 dockyard slaves, who
according to the custom, were released for this
occasion. These palms were balanced by the cap¬
tains of the sea, holding ropes tied to the top of the
palms; on each rope hung three different kinds of
expensive cloth, each adequate in size for one
dress;

— artificial gardens made of sugar: these gardens
were full of trees, flowers, birds, domestic and wild
animals; and in these gardens were jets of water
running from the fountains, with nightingales
singing;

— the viziers;

— the Grand Vizier and the Shaykh-al-lslam;

— the Master of the Horse, followed by thorough¬
bred horses, the harnesses of which were adorned
with jewels;

— the Prince on horseback, with the private
bodyguards on each side of him;

— the Chief Black Eunuch, followed by black
eunuchs;

— the gentlemen-in-waiting, and the Chief White
Eunuch;

— the Chief Ushers;

— the military band;

— the Chief Lifeguard, followed by the guards;

— the Chief of Cavalry, followed by the cavalry
corps;

— the Chief of Artillery, with artillerymen;

— the Chief Armourer, with armourers.

When the procession was over, some of the festal
palms would be set up in front of the imperial tent,
and the others would be stuck up before the kiosk
where the prince was going to be circumcised, as sym¬
bols of power and virility.

Bibliography: For the order of this procession,
Georges Lebelski, A True Description of the Magnificall
Tryumphes and Pastimes, represented at Constantinople, at
the solemnizing of the Circumcision of the Soldan Maumet,
the sonne of Amurath, the thyrd of that name, in the year
of our Lorde God 1582, in the Monathes of Maie and
June, in Francois de Billerberg, Most Rare and Strange
Discourses of Amurathe, the Turkish Emperor that now is,
London 1585 (no page number); Haunolt, Par¬
ticular Verzeichnis _, in op.cit., 468-9, 472-3; Jean

Palerne, Peregrinations du S. Jean Palerne, Foresien
Secretaire de Francois de Valois Due d’Anjou et d’Alencon.
Ensemble un Bref discours des Triomphes et Magnificences
Jaides a Constantinople en la solennite de la circoncision de
Mahomet fils de Sultan Amurath 111 de ce nom Empereur
des Turcs, Lyons 1606, 465-70; Sur-name-i Humayun,
ms., Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, cod. H.O.70;
Hezar-fenn, fols. I66a-b; Covel, Diary, fol. 198a;
and also < Abdi, fols. lOa-b; for the day of circum¬
cision, apart from the afore-mentioned sources,
Thomas Coke, A True Narrative of the Great Solemnity
of the circumcision of Mustapha, Prince of Turkie, eldest
son of Sultan Mahomed present Emperor of the Turks.
Together with an account of the Marriage of his Daughter
to his favorite Mussaip at Adrianople, London 1676;
Petis de la Croix, Memoires, ii, Paris 1684; Wehbl,
Sur-name, British Museum, ms., cod.Or 7218 and
Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, ms., cod. H.O. 94;
KhazTn. Sur-name, Beyazit Kit. ms., Nurettin Pa§a,
no. 10267; Lebib, Surname-yi Lebib , ms., 1st. Univ.
Kit. T. no. 6197; Sur-name-yi Khidir. 1st. Univ. Kit.
T. ms., no. 6122; Nointel, L’Odysse d’un Ambas-

864

MAWAKIB

sadeur, 195-6, 197; Lubenau, op.cit., ii, 55-7; Roger
North, The lives of Francis North, Dudley North and
John North , London 1826, 213 (gifts submitted to
the Sultan); for the practice of the circumcision, see
Silahtar ta^rikhi, 645; NabI, Sur-name, ed. A. S.
Levend, Istanbul 1944, 39-40; Salih Zorlutuna,
XVII. yuzyihn ikinciyansinda Edirne’nin sahne oldugu
sahane sunnet ve evlenme dugunleri , in Edirne’nin 600.
Jethiyildonumu armagan kitabi , Ankara 1965, 279-80;
Nutku, op.cit ., 42-62.

12. surre alayi, “Procession of the Purse”,
organised when the donation was sent by the Sultan,
as the Caliph of Islam, to the people of Mecca and
Medina. This procession took place at the courtyard
of the palace. The camel carrying the gift made tours,
together with a small group of participants, in the
presence of the Sultan and his suite. The procession
was directed by the Chief White Eunuch. Before the
group set forth on its journey, the Kurban was recited.
After leaving the palace, the crowd waiting for the
procession hailed and blessed the small caravan as far
as the city limits.

Bibliography. Penzer, op.cit .; Ceshmi-zade,
TaMkh , 10; Ayse Osmanoglu, op.cit. ; Ulu^ay,
op.cit ., ii, 161; Meydan Larousse, xi, Istanbul 1973,
628.

13. walide alayi, ‘‘Procession of the Sultana-
Mother”. This had become a custom since the
enthronement of Ahmed I (1012/1603), and with it
the Sultana-Mother was brought to the palace. When
a Sultan succeeded to the throne, he would invite his
mother to the palace; and for this occasion a cortege
was organised, the order for it being given a few days
before his accession to the throne. It was generally
composed of the following officials:

— the messengers of the court;

— the hunters of the court;

— the Chief White Eunuch;

— the trustees of the Sultan’s Pious Foundations;

— the high officials of the pious foundations of
Mecca and Medina;

— the black eunuchs;

— the palace guards;

— the Chief Black Eunuch;

— the Steward to the Sultana-Mother;

— the Sultana-Mother, formerly on a closed palan¬
quin, and later in a coach with lattice windows;

— the attendants, scattering silver and gold pieces to
the crowd;

— the ladies of the court, in 80 to 100 carriages;

— the military band.

Bibliography. For a detailed description of the
procession, Wasff Efendi, Wasif ta^rikhi, Matba c a-yi
c Amire, Istanbul 1219/1804, 42, 44; further,
Uzun^ar^ili, op.cit ., 155-6; and Ulu^ay, op.cit., ii,
62-3.

Adjuncts of the processions included:

1. nakhil, “Festal palm”. This phallophoric sym¬
bol sometimes took the form of a wreath or a fir
branch, but generally it was made in the form of a
cypress. In earlier periods it was in the shape of a date
palm decorated with different kinds of ornaments,
mouldings, fruits and emblems. We observe such
emblems in Anatolia as far back as the Hittites and
Phrygians (terracotta panels with reliefs decorated in
coloured glaze from the Phrygian city of Pazarh, near
Ankara, show such palms as fertility symbols). The
excavations at Altintepe, situated on the plain of
Erzincan (eastern central Anatolia), have revealed
panels decorated with palmettes belonging to the
period of Urartu in Anatolia; also, the sculptures of

the main gallery in Yazihkaya (east of Ankara) show
the Hittite phallophoric symbols. In the region of
Afyon and Konya (central Anatolia), during the reign
of the Phrygian kings, the symbols headed ritualistic
processions, mostly in spring.

In the Ottoman processions, these nakhils had an
important place not only in the weddings, but also in
the circumcision ceremonies. For the weddings, they
were prepared by the bride’s family, and in the cir¬
cumcisions by the parents of the boy. In these
ceremonies, the palms were carried in front of the pro¬
cession, and if it was an imperial celebration, the
Grand Vizier, the viziers and the high officials walked
behind them. If the nakhils were in various sizes, the
biggest would generally be carried first, and it would
be followed by other smaller ones, together with
gardens of sugar work, sweets in gold, silver and
bronze trays, gold and silver decanters of sherbet (a
sweet, cold drink, made of various fruit juices),
bundles of the bride’s trousseau, coloured purses full
of silver coins, and caskets full of precious stones. Of
course, the arrangement of nakhils differed according
to the taste of the superintendent of the procession.

There were special craftsmen who constructed these
festal palms. Ewliya described them in his travel
journal as esnaf-i nakhildliyan-i sur-i himayun (“guild of
nakhil- makers for imperial festivities”). According to
him, the guild had four workshops in Istanbul, with
55 skilled members in the 17th century. The founder
of this guild was Meyser Ezherl. These craftsmen,
Ewliya writes, “constructed nakhils in wax as tall as
the minaret of the Siileymaniyye Mosque, with col¬
oured ribbons, silver and golden threads, which could
also be illuminated”. The iron-structured gigantic
nakhils “were carried by hundreds of galley-slaves
supervised by guards, who gave with whistles such
orders as: ‘pull it to the right, to the left,’ etc.” A
similar scene is described in detail by an English
priest, Dr. John Covel, who had the occasion to see
the festivities of Sultan Mefimmed IV, in the summer
of 1086/1675 in Edirne. He witnessed these guards—
generally dockyard stewards—with whistles, directing
each group, carrying gigantic nakhils, approximately
25 metres high. The lower end (approximately 4.50 to
5.50 metres in diameter) had eight or ten long parallel
bars, and the slaves carried the nakhils , holding these
bars. There was someone who directed them: he com¬
manded the slaves to rest or to carry on at the sound
of the whistle.

The gigantic nakhils were so big that in order to
carry them through the narrow streets of old Istanbul,
very often, the projecting parts of the houses, such as
eaves and balconies, were pulled down and afterwards
rebuilt. Although the rebuilding of the houses
required a great deal of money, the value of the nakhils
were almost twice the expenses thus incurred. The
most important fertility symbols were each a work of
art and very expensive. Some of them were entirely in
silver and some were adorned with jewelry. At the
wedding in 931/1524 of Khadidje Sultan, sister of
Suleyman the Magnificent, one of the nakhils con¬
sisted of 40,000 and another of 60,000 pieces of hand¬
work; and they were skilfully ornamented with
beautiful, precious stones, in the shape of legendary
birds.

In sum, the nakhils represented the virility of men
and the fecundity of women, as well as the economic
power and marks of supremacy in society.

Bibliography: Sur-name-i hiimayun, National-

bibliothek, Vienna, cod. H.O.70; Lebelski, A True

Description...-, Palerne, op.cit. , 442-88; von Haunolt,

Verzeichnuss des hochzeitlichen Fest...., in op.cit., 532,

MAWAKIB

865

534; idem, Particular Verzeichnuss. .., 4b9, 473;
Melchior Besolt, Dess Wolgeborenen Herrn Heinrichs
Herrn von Lichtenstein von Nicolspurg u. Rom. Keys.
Maiest. Abgesandten Reyss auff Constinopel im 1584, in
Lewenklaw, 515-31; Salomon Schweigger, Ein newe
Reisbeschreibung aus Deutschland nach Constantinopel und
Jerusalem, Nurnberg 1608; Stephan Gerlach (d.
Aeltere), Tagebuch..., Franckfurt am Mayn 1674,
265; Hezar-fenn, op.cit ., fol. 178a; c AbdI, fol. 8a-b;
Na c Ima writes that, in the festival of 1056/1646 to
celebrate the wedding of Fatima Sultan, the
daughter of Sultan Ibrahim, who was then four
years of age, since the two minarethigh nakhils were
too tall and too wide to pass through the streets of
Istanbul, terraces, balconies and the eaves of vari¬
ous houses had to be pulled down, and the streets
to be widened, see his Ta\ikh, Matba c a-yi c Amire,
Istanbul 1280/1863; the case was the same in the
festival of 1086/1675. Dr. Covel witnessed the
demolishing process in Edirne: some of the houses
were completely pulled down, see his Diary, fol.
200a; WehbT states that in the festival of 1133/1720,
the money for the reconstruction was granted to the
owners of the houses while the process of
demolishing was under way, see his Sur-name-yi
Sultan Ahmed, Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, H.O.
94; KeshfT, Sur-name, Nat. bibl. Vienna, H.O.95,
fols. 3b, 13a-b; also Haunolt, Verzeichnuss des
Hochzeitlichen Pest..., 432; he describes some of the
expensive nakhils constructed for the wedding of
^ishe Sultan, one of the daughters of Murad III,
in 1586, which were decorated with gilded balls, big
pieces of turquoise and hundreds of pearls. One
such palm cost forty or fifty thousand golden
ducats; J. von Hammer, GOR, iv, Vienna 1829,
451 (von Hammer is the first Ottoman historian to
have drawn attention to the symbolical significance
of the nakhils). According to him, the size of these
palms implied the power of virility of the
bridegroom, and the fruits on their branches
alluded to the fecundity of the bride. He indicates
that while the nakhils represented the phallophores,
the red tulle on the wedding palanquin suggests the
flammeum and the torches the flambeau of Cupid
and Hymen; here the fescennium and corybantes
are replaced by sensual songs and orgiastic dances
in unison with the pulsating beats of drums and
castanets; he shows 24 kinds of festal palm, see
ibid., iv, 312; Ewliya, Seyahat-name, i, Istanbul
1314/1896,612; Lubenau, Beschreibung der Reisen...,

1, 111, ii, 50; Konyali, Istanbul saraylan , Istanbul
1942, 137-8: here the author describes how the
Arabic word nakhl later became nahil, nakil or nakil
in common Turkish usage; t. H. Danismend, Istan¬
bul saraylan, Istanbul 1943, ii, 104; Nabl, Sur-name,
57-8; Uzun^ar^ih, op.cit., 162; M. And, Osmanli
diigiinlerinde nahillar , in TM , xii (January 1969), 16;
O. Nutku, The Nahil: a symbol of fertility in Ottoman
festivities, in Annales de TUniversite d Ankara, xii
(Ankara 1972), 63-71; And, Osmanli senliklerinde
Turk sanati, 210-24.

2. sheker taswIrler, “Sugar figures”. The con¬
fectionery displayed in various processions was one of
the most attractive spectacles in this event. The sugar
figures made by skilled confectioners had always been
a colourful public attraction. These figures, together
with artificial gardens, were almost indispensable
parts of the festal palms; and that is why they had
always been considered all together. If the festal palms
were necessary, so were the sugar figures and the
artificial gardens, all being meaningful in the
matrimonial and circumcisional processions as sym¬
bols of fertility and fecundity.

The confectionery played an important role in the
Ottoman celebrations from the beginning. The
figures of lions, birds, fishes, peacocks, camels,
elephants, gazelles, horses and a variety of monsters
made of sugar in different colours and flavours, were
generally between 75 cm. and 1.35 m. in size. These
and the figures of mermaids, lanterns, ewers, pots,
fruits, flowers, festal palms and jugs filled with water
were all made by the skilled confectioners. Yet the
most astonishing works in sugar were the ones in big¬
ger sizes, such as models of a mosque, a castle, a
town, a kiosk, a garden or a fountain with running
water.

Apart from these models and the figures, there were
also large circular trays or large boxes of confec¬
tionery, carried by two attendants and sometimes by
three or four. In the festivities of 1086/1675, for
instance, there were 200 coffers of confectionery, all
distributed to the spectators.

Bibliography : An illuminating description of
sugar figures may be seen in Gerlach’s Tagebuch...,
97, 265; for the confectionery and the confectioner,
Haunolt, Particular Verzeichnuss... , 472, 476, 489-
90; and idem, Verzeichnuss des Hochzeitlichen Fest...,
528, 534; c AbdI, Sur-name, fol. 8b; Covel, Diary, fol.
215a; Hezar-fenn, fols. 168a, 174b; Sur-name of
1137/1724, ms., Nat. bibl. Vienna, H.O.95, fols.
3b, 7a; for Nointel’s letter to his friend Pomponne,
de Nointel, L’Odyssee d’un ambassadeur , 197; a later
description of confectionery may be seen in Leblb’s
Sur-name, ms. 1st. Univ. Kit. T. no. 6197, fols. 13b,
89a-90b; for the skill of confectioners, Beschreibung
der Reisen, ii, 50; a detailed description may be
found in Dursun Bey’s TaMkh-i Ebu ’ l-Feth, Istan¬
bul 1330/1911, 80; Nabl, Sur-name, 62; for recent
information, Nutku, IV. Mehmet’in Edirne penligi,
72; and And, Osmanli senliklerinde Turk sanatlari,
209-24.

3. yapma baghCe, “Artificial garden”. In the pro¬
cessions organised for weddings, and circumcision
celebrations, the artificial gardens were one of the
exhibits, which interested the spectators, together
with the festal palms and the sugar figures. These
models were approximately 2.70 m 2 or 3.60 m 2 in
size, with fruit trees, flowers, kiosks and fountains.
There were nightingales singing on the trees, and
water running from the hill tops. If the model was
going to be presented to the Sultan, it was decorated
with precious stones, mostly turquoise and mother-of-
pearls. These artificial gardens moved on four, six or
sometimes eight wheels, and each garden were pulled
by four or six dockyard slaves, who were later
liberated by the Sultan. In some cases, there were also
real musicians on these models, playing for the public.
In short, the artificial gardens were pieces of artistic
composition.

Bibliography. For the miniatures showing the
artificial gardens, Sur-name-i Himayun , Nat. bibl.
Vienna, cod. H.O./70; and WehbT, Sur-name , Nat.
bibl. Vienna, H.O. 94; c AbdI, Sur-name, Millet
Kit. no. 277, fol. 10a; Covel, Diary, fols. 15b, 215a,
217a; Hezar-fenn, fols. 165a, 166b, 177a; de
Nointel, op.cit., 199; Hiiseyin Yurdaydin, Matrak^i
Nasuh, Ankara 1963, 12-5, and for the pictures of
the models, see 86; Nutku, op.cit., 73; And, op.cit.,
220. (O. Nutku)

5. In Muslim India

Many of the terms used here have already been
defined in the account of court ceremonial above, for
which see marasim, 5.

Processions in India are of great popular appeal,
from the panache of the simple wedding ceremonies to

866

MAWAKIB

the pomp of royal ceremonial; and even these
extremes have something in common.

The wedding (for full details see nikah) involves a
procession to escort the first contractual presents from
bridegroom to bride, the preliminary exchange of
presents (sacak) between bride and groom, the bride’s
night procession (mehndt) to anoint the bridegroom
with henna, and the bridegroom’s procession in which
he comes to carry away his bride; even in the simplest
forms the bridegroom is mounted on a decorated
horse, or the bride carried in a palanquin (palki) or on
a litter ( dolt) [see nakl] accompanied by friends on
foot and by a musical escort. The essentials of Muslim
weddings in India (which incorporate many details
derived from Hindu customs) are described,
especially for the Deccan, in Dja c far Sharif, ch. viii;
but the difference is only one of degree from such an
elaborate wedding ceremonial as that of the (Anglo-
Muslim) granddaughter of Col. W. L. Gardner at
Kasgandj in 1835 to a grandson of Shah c Alam II,
sultan of Dihli, described in Fanny Parks, Wanderings
of a pilgrim in search of the picturesque , London 1850
(repr. Karachi 1975), i, 420-50, and similar in its
lavish ostentation to the processions, for various pur¬
poses, of the royal court: the escort for the bride’s
dress in c amaris on elephants and in covered bullock-
carts ( ratha ) and palanquins with 100 trays of presents
carried on men’s heads; a similar procession to escort
the bridegroom’s dress; the sacak procession, with
fully caparisoned elephants and horses, nalkis, palan¬
quins and rathas [see nakl], 200 earthen pots, covered
with leaf silver, containing sweetmeats and carried on
men’s heads, “a number of men dressed up as horses
... playing antics”, and ten travelling platforms
(takht-i rawan), each supporting two dancing-girls and
a musician, also carried on men’s heads and accom¬
panied by kettle-drums; the mehndi procession, the
grandest of all, when the road was enclosed with bam¬
boo screens and had triumphal arches at intervals, all
lighted with thousands of small lamps, Fireworks were
let off all along the route, and the usual elephants,
horses, nalkis , palanquins, rathas , and the portable
stages, were lit up by men carrying 5,000 torches; and
the bridegroom’s procession to carry away his bride
(described as an old Tatar, or Tlmurid, custom; but
Ibn Battuta, iii, 275, tr. Gibb, iii, 687, writes of a
similar ceremony at the marriage of the sister of
Muhammad b. Tughluk), similarly accompanied by
many musical bands and innumerable flags, with the
young prince at the head on a horse with an ornamen¬
tal armour made of flowers, flanked by an dftdbgir and
followed by a gold-embroidered chatr; besides the
usual train of elephants and horses, etc., carrying the
escort, and the portable stages, there were added a
great number of led horses, and a small forest of
artificial trees of wax and paper, decorated with gold
and silver foil and mica. Not mentioned in the above
account, but known from other sources, are the
distribution of small copper coins from one of the
elephants to the bystanders lining the route, and the
liberation of caged birds at frequent intervals.

Descriptions of royal processions are less frequent
than notices of other ceremonial observances. Ibn
Battuta does, however, describe, sketchily, certain
processions in the time of Muhammad b. Tu gh luk:
on his return to his palace from a journey, wooden
pavilions were set up at intervals on the road from city
gate to palace gate, several storeys high with well-
dressed singers and dancing girls on each storey; the
street walls were hung with silk cloths, and silk cloths
carpeted the space between the pavilions for the
sultan’s horse to walk on. He was preceded by several

thousand of his own slaves on foot, sixteen brocaded
and jewelled elephants bearing sixteen parasols, and
th z ghashiya, and followed by mounted troops; three or
four small catapults set up on elephants might scatter
silver coin among the populace (iii, 237-8, tr. Gibb,
iii, 668; another ceremonial entry is described at iii,
395-6, tr. Gibb, iii, 744). At the reception of a person
of rank (e.g. the amir Ghivath al-Din Muhammad,
descendant of the c Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir
bi’llah) the sultan sent envoys to a distance to meet
him, and himself rode out ten miles to greet him per¬
sonally, dismounting to pay homage and offer a khil c a
before both mounted for the journey to the palace
shaded by the one royal umbrella (ibid. , iii, 260, tr.
Gibb, iii, 680). When the sultan rode out to the great
festival of the Hd al-afhd [q.v.\ the procession was
headed by the kadis and by mu^a dhdh ins. calling out
allahu akbar , mounted on elephants; then came the
slaves and mamluks on foot and some 300 nakibs, all
wearing gold caps and girdles; then the sixteen royal
elephants with their sixteen parasols, one of them
bearing the sultan himself, preceded by his ghashiya.
Foreign dignitaries later in the procession were also
mounted on elephants. Behind the sultan were his
“honours” [see maratib] and all the members of his
personal entourage, and then his half-brother, his
father’s adopted son, his nephew Flrfiz b. Radjab, the
wazir, and some half-dozen “great amirs who are
never separated from his company”, all mounted and
followed by their maratib and troops; other amirs rode
without “honours”; those riding in the procession
wore armour, both on themselves and on their horses.
At the gate of the c idgah , the procession halted and the
judges, the principal amirs and the “chiefs of the
foreigners” (envoys from other courts?) entered
before the sultan; after the prayers and the address by
the imam , the sultan protected his dress by a silk
overall and himself stabbed the sacrificial camel in the
throat with a spear before returning to his palace. Ibn
Battuta also describes (iii, 109ff., tr. Gibb, iii, 600-2)
a river-journey with the governor of Lahari in Sind:
the governor rode in a central raised cabin in an
ahawra (possibly connected with the Hindi hold , a
cargo boat of some 35-55 tonnes; here evidently a
state barge) rowed by 40 men; of the fifteen vessels
which made up his baggage-train, four flanked the
ahawra , two carrying his maratib and two carrying
singers. Singers and the instruments of the maratib
performed alternately until the midday meal, when
the ships closed up and gangways were set between
them; at dusk the parties disembarked and set up
camp on the river bank. When the procession moved
to land, six horsemen rode ahead with drums and reed
pipes, followed by the governor’s hddjibs , flanked by
singers, and his personal troops, and the governor
himself.

There is little difference on the composition of royal
processions over the years, as far as can be determined
from the limited evidence available; certain practices
mentioned later, such as water-carriers walking ahead
of the procession to lay the dust, may in fact not be
innovations. When the Mu gh al ruler moved out of his
palace he was accompanied almost always by the
bearer of the fly whisk, and invariably by the kur, as
described above s.v. marasim. 5; the ruler’s person
would be further guarded by mace-bearers ( gurz-
bardar), who obviously inherited the functions of the
durbash [ q.v.] as described by Amir Khusraw and
Baranl. Processions are the subject of frequent
illustration in Mughal painting; the use of the ghashiya
seems by now to have been discontinued. There is
evidence of some rulers taking part in processions on

MAWAKIB — MAWALIYA 867

foot on grounds of piety; Akbar so covered part of the
journey to the shrine of Mu c in al-Dih CishtT at
Adjmer, and Djahangir visited Akbar’s tomb on foot
in 1017/1608; in 1028/1619, however, he rode to the
tomb in full procession, as shown by a superb
miniature painting in the Chester Beatty collection.
The height of ostentation and opulence is perhaps best
expressed in the royal participation in the Hd al-adha
celebrations at Lucknow [see lakhna^u] in the first
quarter of the 19th century, as described by Mrs.
Meer Hassan Ali, Observations on the Mussulmanns of
India..., [1832], ed. Crooke, London 1917, 142-4;
here the procession started with 50 camels carrying
swivelguns, each with two gunners and driver, then a
body of artillery, two troops of armed cavalry, and a
regiment of militia, all in new uniforms of different
colours; the horses were caparisoned with em¬
broidered horsecloths, silver ornaments and
necklaces, with tails and manes dyed red with henna.
These were followed by the mounted kettledrums,
these with horse and rider ornamented with the royal
fish emblem (representing the mdhi-mardtib\ see under
maratib. 5. Fanny Parks remarks, op.cit ., i, 178, that
the royal pleasure-boat on the river Gomatl was
“made in the shape of a fish, and the golden scales
glittered in the sun”). The ruler followed in an open
silver carriage drawn by four elephants with costly
caparisons, flanked by chowry-bearers and the dftabgir
and guarded by cavalry, and followed by the king’s
horses, led by grooms; other elephant-carriages, with
two elephants apiece, conveyed the British Resident,
the wazir , and other favoured nobles. The golden ndlki
followed, with a golden palanquin and a state carriage
drawn by eight horses with a European coachman.
Some fifty ridden elephants followed, wtih the Euro¬
peans of the King’s court and the umard 5 and the great
officers of state, and the regiments, both horse and
foot, marching with their colours unfurled, and their
bands “playing English pieces”. After the sacrifice at
the c Idgdh, the procession returned to the royal palace
in the same order, where the king held court firstly to
receive nadhrs \q.v.] y then to garland his favoured
guests and to award distinctions and present khiFas; a
feast followed, with animal fights, music and dancing,
and fireworks. “This magnificent style of celebrating
...is perhaps unequalled by any other Native Court
now existing in Hindoostaun.”

The royal hunt—highly esteemed in India since it
kept the army ready and exercised—involved the
sultan and his retinue and troops marching out in bat¬
tle array; BaranI (Ta^rikh-i Firuz-Shahi, Bibl. Ind. ed.,
55) estimates that the sultan might be accompanied by
500-600 courtiers, 1,000 mounted troops and 1,000
foot-soldiers (the beaters, perhaps 3,000 in number,
were probably engaged locally); the trainers of the
hunting-leopards [see fahd], dogs and hawks [see
bayzara] would also have marched out with the sultan
from the karkhanas specialising in breeding and train¬
ing these animals (Shams-i Siradj c Afif, Ta^rikh-i
Firuz-Shahi , Bibl. Ind. ed., 317-18). When Ibn Battuta
accompanied Muhammad b. Tughluk (iii, 414-15, tr.
Gibb, iii, 752-3) the royal procession was similar to
those described above, and each traveller of impor¬
tance had to provide his own camping enclosure
(saraca) and tent to be erected within it, carpets, cook¬
ing utensils, litter ( dold ), and camels and men to carry
everything, grass-cutters for fodder for the animals,
and torch-bearers for night travel. The sultan selected
each camping site, and his own red saraca was erected
before any other saracas (white trimmed with blue)
were allowed to be set up. (A story is told of Akbar by
Manucci, Storia do Mogor , i, 87, Eng. tr. W. Irvine, i,

133, who while graciously dismissing a Hindu prince
demanded the surrender of his scarlet tents, reserving
this colour for himself and for princes of the blood
royal.) It is notable that in depictions of the hunt in
Mughal painting, the kur is almost always present,
close to the royal person, no matter how attenuated
the retinue has become during the chase. (For the
royal hunt, see sayd; for the camp, see urdu.)

The processions at the Muharram are described
s.v. ta c ziya; certain features of them must however be
noticed here. The Muharram procession at Lucknow,
as described by Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, op.cit ., 42ff.,
is scarcely less elaborate than the royal procession des¬
cribed above, except that the ruler himself does not
take part; but the royal umbrella is carried over the
head of the Duldul, a mule representing that which
the Prophet gave to c AlI. There is also much distri¬
bution of food to the poor as the cavalcade passes
along; and the kettledrums are muffled. There are
many extraneous events, however, in the Muharram
processions as celebrated in the Deccan; besides the
orthodox fakirs there are many who personate the
fakirs, and others, such as those intended to represent
paddy-birds (the heron Ardeola grayii) and the hawk
who catches them; the Crow King, who carries a cage
of crows and makes jokes; the ha djdj i bi-wukuf the
sham hakim , the sharabi, the kadi bi-din , whose
irreverent names reveal their functions, join with men
dressed as tigers or camels, or personating Hindu
shopkeepers or Djayn moneylenders, in coarse buf¬
foonery all along the procession, rather like the men
“dressed as horses and playing antics” mentioned
earlier. There are many similar by-plays, nothing at
all to do with, or in keeping with, the solemnity of the
occasion. (Dja c far Sharif. Kanun-i Islam , ed. as
Herklots’ Islam in India by W. Crooke, Oxford 1921,
168-82). The author has observed quarter-staff fights,
doubtless derived from the idea of the battle of
Karbala 5 , enacted in the Muharram procession at
Udaypur q. v. ] by obviously non-Muslim Radjputs,
showing the Indian love of turning any procession
into a tamasha.

Bibliography. In addition to references in the

article, see Bibl. to marasim. 5. Muslim India.

(J. Burton-Page)

MAWALI [see mawlaJ.

MAWALIYA (a., pi. mawaliyat) or mawaliyya , also
reportedly mawali and muwalayat, a non-classical
Arabic verse form. Together with the cognate
mawwal , this is best considered in three contexts.

1. In written sources.

Among the “seven arts” al-funun al-sab c a [see kan
wa-kan]) —non-classical verse forms are always made
to number seven, although the lists are not
identical—the mawaliya is given pride of place next to
the muwa shsh ah and the zadjal, on the ground that its
metre is classical and its language either classical or
colloquial.

Two traditions place its beginnings in c Irak in early
c Abbasid times. One is that non-Arab ( mawali )
labourers in the orchards of Wasit sang it, using the
words yd mawaliya (“O, my master!”) as a refrain.
The other is that a slave-girl of the Barmakfs, herself
called Mawaliya, created the form to circumvent
Harun al-Rashld’s ban on poetry praising her
disgraced masters, the contention being that since the
language was uninflected, the composition could not
be said to be shi c r. Both accounts are suspect as they
occur only in late sources and appear to have been
fabricated to account for the otherwise unexplained
appellation.

The form was, however, well-established by the

868

MAWALIYA

6th/12th century, when it always occurs as four
hemistichs of basit, all with the same rhyme. Later,
perhaps from the 11 th/17th century onward, it was
elaborated into a variety of multi-rhyme compositions
(see section 2, below).

The composer of mawaliyas was sometimes called a
mawwdl.

2. In folk-verse.

The form is a favourite in Arab lands, extending all
the way from c Irak to North Africa. Variations are
almost innumerable, and the observations that follow
relate to prevalent practice in Egypt alone.

The terminology is often vague and inconsistent.
The word mawaliya itself is still used, especially in
writing, but in common parlance the composition
itself is almost always called a mawwdl, and a master
of the art is known as rayyis il-mawwal.

The metre is seldom as regular as the pundits would
have it, but if the composition can be scanned at all
it is recognisably in the basit, with two variations
added to those allowed by the classical prosodists: the
faHlun foot is often reduced to two long syllables even
in the body of the line, and the mustafilun foot is occa¬
sionally changed to mutafdHlun. It may therefore be
scanned:

— — — w—

— w —

What in classical prosody is a hemistich is here
clearly the basic metrical unit, for it is always rhymed,
occurs more often in odd than in even numbers, and
is never enjambe. In this entry, it will be referred to
as a line.

The most marked development has been in rhyme
schemes. The monorhyme quatrain ( aaaa ), called
ruba c f or mirabba c , is now comparatively rare. Varia¬
tions appear to have been created mostly by insertions
between the third line and the last. The first three
lines are then called the c ataba (“doorstep”)—
although the term is also sometimes applied to each of
the three lines—or the far$ha (“spread, mat”), and the
last line is then the ghaid (“cover”) or, in longer com¬
positions, the tdkiyya (“skull-cap”).

The simplest elaboration consists of the addition of
an unrhymed line in fourth place: aaaxa. This line is
said to be c ardja (“lame”), and the mawwdl itself is
a c ra&.

Another augmented form has the rhyme scheme aaa
zzz a. The composition is then called sab c ani or
misabba c (“sevener”), nu c mdni, or baghdadi.

Yet another elaboration is brought about by adding
a number of lines, usually six, with alternating
rhymes after the farsha—aaa bcbcbc zzz a —the last line
also having an internal z rhyme. The sestet of alter¬
nating rhymes is called shadpira (“tree”) or ridfa
(“alternate”), or else each of the two rhymes is called
a ridfa , and they are distinguished from each other as
dakar and intdya (“male” and “female”). The mawwdl
is then said to be marduf or SaHdi (“Upper
Egyptian”).

By multiplying the number of sestets, or by using
any variety of the mawwdl as a stanza, the composition
can be extended indefinitely, particularly for nar¬
rative purposes.

A somewhat rare further refinement is the addition
of internal rhymes to some of the lines; these are then
called misakkaf (“clapping or roofed”).

Another feature strongly associated with the folk
mawwdl but not exclusive to it is the expansion of the
rhymes into polysyllabic paronomasias, achieved by
deliberate distortion of the normal pronunciation.
The art is called zahr (“flower’). A mawwdl devoid of

it is described as abyad (“white, blank”); if so
ornamented, it is either ahmar (“red”) or akh(lar
(“green”), the distinction most often made—but not
consistently applied—between these two being that
the first deals with sad themes and the second with
joyful ones.

The following illustrates the rhyme scheme,
metrical variations, and the zahr, with the normal pro¬
nunciation of the punning rhymes added between
square brackets:

ya dakhil il-karm(i) khud balak min ill! f!h
You who enter the vineyard, beware of what is in it;

wi giss(i) nab(j il- c inab w ihras min illifTh [lTfuh]
Feel the pulse of the grapes, be watchful of its fibres,
w ittabba c il-^as^i) law tit c ab min illifTh [il-laffa]
And trace back the root, though you weary of the winding trail.

il-hilw(i) fok ish-shawashl w il-wihish c a l-^ard
What is good is high on the trellises; what is bad is on the
ground.

i c lam bi 5 inn il-hawa li l-hukm(i) 5 aw‘adT [’aw c ad]
Take note that passion is a threat to wisdom.

il-ward(i) lamma zuhT ka{afu 1-gaban ‘al-^anj ( c ala
ritfa]

Roses when deluded consent to being plucked by the unworthy;

khallani tayhan m a c raf ? ahli ' , aw c adT paw : ’a-
c adiyya]

They so befuddle me, I make out neither my kinsmen nor my
foes.

shuft il- gh azal mal min hubb il-fulus c al- :> ard [ c ala
1-kird]

I have seen the gazelle, for love of money, lean towards the
monkey.

ya ma kult(i) li l-kalb(i) bu$$(i) w shuf 5 a c wadT
piw c a di]

How often have I told my heart: Look! Consider! Guard
against this!

ben il-milih wi 1-kabTh fark(i) b-dalfl wisabat [wi
5 isbat]

The fair and the ugly differ~for this there is evidence and
proof.

wi t-tab c (i) wi r-ruh ft 1-gasad is-sallm wisabat
[wasabat]

In a healthy body, one’s nature and spirit leap up.

il-hurr(i) c anduh shahamah fi I-karam wi sabat
The freeborn man is resolute and staunch in his nobility,
wi n-nadl(i) law mat ma ytubshT c an illifTh [il- 5 afa]
Whereas the vile one—though he die—never turns away from
shame.

3. In folk music.

The word mawwdl stands for an interpretative
freesong, with no set tune. The words sung may fall
within the norms detailed above, but more often than
not metrical regularity and even rhyme are sacrificed
to dramatic effect.

Bibliography : ror earlier works, see the Bibl.
to ET art. Mawaliya (Moh. Bencheneb). Of more
recent ones, see Safiyy ad-Dfn al-Hilll, Die
vulgdrabische Poetik — al-Kitab al- c Atil al-Hdli wal-
Muraj}l}as al-Gali, ed. W. Hoenerbach, Wiesbaden
1956; c Abd al-Karlm al- c Allaf, al-Mawwal al-
Baghdddl, Ba gh dad 1964; Ahmad MursI, al-Ughniya
al-sha c biyya, Cairo 1970; P. Cachia, The Egyptian
Mawwdl, in JAL, viii (1977), 77-103; Serafin Fan-
jul, El Mawwdl Egipcio, Madrid, Institute Hispano-
Arabe de Cultura 1976; Tiberiu Alexandru, The
folk music of Egypt (booklet and two discs), Cairo,
Ministry of Culture n.d. [ca. 1970].

(P. Cachia)

At the end of his article in ED Mawaliya, Mawwal,
M. Bencheneb adds numerous bibliographical
references, amongst which should be given here the
following in particular: Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, tr.

MAWALIYA — MAWAT

869

de Slane, iii, 451 ff., tr. Rosenthal, iii, 475 ff.; Sayyid
Amin, Bulbul al-ajrdh ... fi ’ l-mawawil al-k^ujr wa 7-
humr, Cairo 1316/1898-9; J. David, Les Maouals, Caen
1864. To these may be added Muhammad b. Abl
Shanab. Tuhjat al-adab 2 , Paris 1954, 129-31.

(Ed.)

al-MAWARDI, Abu ’l-Hasan c Ali b. Muham¬
mad b. HabIb, Shafi c i Jakih , was born in Ba§ra in
364/974 and died in Ba gh dad on 30 Rabl c I 450/27
May 1058, aged 86 years.

After completing his studies in Basra and in
Baghdad, he became a teacher. The renown which he
acquired, owing to the extent and the variety of his
knowledge, drew to him the attention of the
authorities; he was appointed kadi and fulfilled the
responsibilities of this post in various towns, in par¬
ticular at Ustuwa, near Nishapur, before being
entrusted with the role in Ba gh dad itself. In 429/1038,
he was awarded the honorific surname ( lakab ) of akja
’l-kudat or supreme kadi in spite of the opinions of
eminent jurists, including al-Tabari, who denied the
legality of this title. In addition, he was on four occa¬
sions chosen by the caliph al-Ka-’im (422-67/1031-74)
to perform diplomatic missions in 422/1031, 428/
1037, 434/1042-3 and 435/1043-4. Anecdotes confirm
that his rank and his vast learning did not in any way
detract from his modesty and that he was an
enthusiastic and eloquent speaker. He was further¬
more highly regarded by the preceding caliph al-
Kadir (381-422/991-1031), who employed him not
only in the conduct of his negotiations with the Buyids
who were then the rulers of c Irak (al-Mawardi was
thus the contemporary of two caliphs known for their
pro-Sunni policy), but also for the purpose of restor¬
ing Sunnism, this accounting for the composition of
manuals propounding the doctrines of each of the four
orthodox schools.

Other details regarding the biography of al-
Mawardl are supplied by Arab writers. From the
account given by the £hafi c I al-KhaJIb al-Baghdadi
(d. 463/1072), in his TaMkh Baghdad , i, 53-4, ix, 358,
it is known that his father was a manufacturer and
seller of rose-water and that our Jakih was buried in
Baghdad. Ibn Kathlr (d. 774/1373) in al-Biddya wa
’l-nihdya (xi, 80, xii, 79) says of him that he was gentle,
dignified and polite, qualities which had been at¬
tributed to him even earlier by the Hanball Ibn al-
DjawzI (d. 597/1200) in the Muntazam (viii, 199-200).
Al-DhahabI (d. 748/1348) in the Mizdn al-i HidalJi nakd
al-rijjal (no. 342) and Ibn Hadjar al- c AskalanI (d.
852/1449) in the Lisan al-Mizan (iv, 260) give
examples of the perfect rectitude of al-Mawardi even
when confronted by the powerful. The most striking
example is that of the Jatwa declared in 429/1037-8
against the Buyid Djalal al-Dawla, who was demand¬
ing from al-Ka^im the right to bear the title of
shahanshah. However, al-Mawardi did not escape the
suspicions of the orthodox, and the great Shaft C I jurist
al-Subkl (d. 756/1355) speaks of Mu c tazill views for
which he was criticised (Tabakat al-ShaJiHyya , iii, 303,
v, 12).

As regards the works of al-Mawardi, the classifica¬
tion followed is that of Mustafa al-Sakka 5 , in the intro¬
duction to the Adab al-dunya wa ’l-din :

1. Religious works: Tajsir al-Kurban, also known
as al-Nukat wa ’l- c uyun (still in manuscript); Kitdb al-
Hawi al-kabir Ji ’TJuru c , on the legal system of the
Imam al-£hafi c I, of which the various portions (more
than thirty) are scattered throughout the East and the
West; Kitdb aTIknd c , a summary in 40 pages of the
preceding, which numbered 4,000 pages, mentioned
by Ibn al-DjawzI in al-Muntazam (viii, 199); Kitdb

AHam al-nubuwwa (ed. Cairo 1319, 330); Kitdb Adab al-
dunya wa ’l-din (ed. in the margins of the Kashkul of al-
c AmilI, Cairo 1316/1898-9; ed. M. al-Sakka 3 , Cairo
1955).

2. Works of a political and social nature:
Kitdb al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya, translated notably by
Fagnan (Algiers 1915; new edition, Paris 1982) under
the title of Trade des statuts gouvernementaux or Constitu-
tiones politicae; this is the work which made al-Mawardi
known in the West, and it is considered a classic work
of public law; Kitdb Kawdnin al-wizdra wa-siydsat al-
mulk, on the adab of the vizier (ms. in Vienna); Kitdb
Tashil al-nazar wa-ta^djil al-zajar , on politics and dif¬
ferent forms of government (ms. in Gotha); Kitdb
Nasihat al-muluk (ms. in Paris).

3. Studies of language and of adab : Kitdb Ji 7-
nahw , on grammar (lost); Kitdb al-Amthal wa ’l-hikam,
collection of 300 traditions, 300 proverbs and 300
verses (ms. Univ. of Leiden); Kitdb Adab al-takallum
(selection from works of al-Mawardi chosen by
Muhammad b. c Ali al-Zuhra; ms. Univ. of Leiden,
Or. 989-9); Kitdb Adab al-kaji , which in fact represents
two of the thirty sections of the Hawi (ed. Baghdad
1971); Kitdb Ma c rijat al-Jada?il, Tractatus paroeneticus de
virtutibus moralibus, attributed to al-Mawardi (ms.
Escurial).

Bibliography. Besides the sources mentioned,
see Ibn Khallikan, Wajayat al-alyan, ed. Cairo 1299,
i, 410, ed. Ihsan c Abbas, Beirut 1968-72, iii, 382-4;
Yakut, Udaba 3 , xv, 52-5; Brockelmann, I, 386, S I,
668 for the mss.; H. A. R. Gibb, Al-MawardTs
theory ojthe Khilajah, in IC, xi (1937), 291-302, repr.
in Studies on the civilization oj Islam , Boston 1962,
151-65; E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political thought in me¬
dieval Islam, Cambridge 1958, 27-37; H. Laoust, La
pensee et Taction politique d 1 'al-Mawardi, in REI xxxvi
(1968), 11-92. See also mazalim.

(C. Brockelmann)

MAWAT (a.), juridical term designating dead
lands.

Fikh makes the practical distinction between dead
land (ard mawdt) and living land. According to Abu
Hanlfa, dead land is that which is not well cultivated
and is without water; for al-Shafi c I. it is all that is
neither cultivated nor dependent on a cultivated
place. Dead land is of two kinds: that which, from
time immemorial, has always been in this state, of a
kind that bears no mark of cultivation and concerning
which no property right has been established; whereas
dead land of the second category is that which, once
cultivated, has then been neglected, become dead and
allowed to lie fallow.

But dead land can be brought to life. Revivification
(ibya 7 ) is a task performed on the land and intended to
make it usable. Both near neighbours and those at a
greater distance have the right of revivification. For
Malik, however, the nearest neighbours are the most
qualified to undertake the work of revivification.
Giving value to the land allows the one who has car¬
ried out the task of revivification to become a man of
property. A piece of dead land that has been revivified
becomes the property (milk) of the revivifier. Accord¬
ing to the Hanafis, revivification of the land is only
allowed with the caliph’s authorisation, but, accord¬
ing to al-Shafi c I, the one who revivifies dead pieces of
land becomes the owner with or without the caliph’s
permission.

On the nature of what constitutes giving value to
land so as to create a property right, the different
juridical schools are not in agreement: according to
the Malikls, it is not enough to enclose the land, to
sink a well in it or to pasture a flock on it. One must,

870

MAWAT — MAWDUD b. c IMAD al-DIN ZANKI

for example, find a spring and then exploit the spring
by means of water channels, or else clear the land in
such a way as to make it usable, or even build; in
short, giving value to it must consist of useful and pro¬
ductive work. The Malikls, however, appear less
demanding than the other juridical schools on the sub¬
ject of the conditions required to acquire the soil by
revivification.

The land surrounding the revivified land (harm)
also becomes revivified land, but on this the four
juridical schools are not in agreement on the extent of
these neighbouring lands which satisfy the juridical
condition of revivified land. As for that which has
channels dug in it to revivify the dead lands, it
becomes the property of those who have them dug,
and no-one else has the right to draw water there or
to make a side channel leading off from them. It
should be noted that the channel or water-pipe, is
regarded simply as a hidden water-course.

Dead lands can be made into reserves and charges
levied on them. To reserve dead lands is to protect
them from revivification and private ownership, so
that they may remain accessible to all and so that catt¬
le can be put out to pasture on them. They can also
be granted as a concession. A piece of dead land that
has been reserved can lose its character as a
“reserve”, under certain conditions, if someone
comes to revivify it. In the same way, if dead land
granted as a concession is revivified by an individual
who takes possession of it to the detriment of the one
who has been granted the concession, the right of the
revivifier does not prevail over that of the conces¬
sionary; in any case, where dead lands are granted as
concessions, the beneficiaries of the concessions do not
really become the owners before having revivified
them. According to fikh, this is explained by the
Prophet’s saying “To the one who quickens a dead
piece of land, that land belongs.” In practice, one can
understand all the importance that could be attached
to making an ownerless and abandoned land usable
and productive, a fiscal importance especially, since
quickening involved the payment to the public
treasury of the tax for the land, tithe or kharadi , in
accordance with regional conditions.

Bibliography : Khalil. 183 = Fr. tr. Perron, 11,
tr. Seignette, 384; MawardI, Les statuts gouvememen-
taux , Fr. tr. and notes E. Fagnan, ch. xv, Ger. tr.
of this ch. by Kremer, in SBAk. Wien , iv (1850),
267-81; Abu Yusuf, Kitdb al-Kharadi. 36, 37, 54; V.
Chauvin, Le regime legal des eaux chez les Arabes , Liege
1899; G. H. Bousquet, Le droit musulman , Paris
1963, 139. (A.-M. Delcambre)

MAWAZIN [see makayIl].

MAWDUD b. C IMAD AL-DIN ZANKI, Kutb
al-DIn, Atabeg [see atabak] of al-Mawsil.

c lmad al-DIn ZankI, on his death on 6 Rabf- II
541/15 September 1146, left four heirs: of these
Mawdud b. c Imad al-DIn ZankI, Kutb al-DIn al-
A c radj, the youngest of his sons, was only sixteen
years old. The eldest, Sayf al-DIn GhazI represented
his father at al-Mawsfl of which ZankI \q.v. \ held only
the usufruct; the second son, Nur al-DIn Mahmud
[q.v.], twenty-nine years old, accompanied his father
in his campaigns; the third, Nusrat al-DIn Amlr-
Amlran was named as heir presumptive when the
former was ill, in Ramadan 552/October 1157, and
later sent to Harran as governor. Mawdud also had a
sister who married the amir Nasir al-DIn al-Surl. The
task of appointing ZankI’s successor was in the hands
of two trusted counsellors: the vizier Djamal al-DIn
Muhammad b. C A1I al-Djawad al-Isfahanl, and the
chamberlain (ha^ib) Salah al-DIn Muhammad al-
Yaghlsiyanl, titulary amir of Hamat.

At the time of his illness, Sayf al-DIn GhazI I
transferred power to his youngest brother Kutb al-DIn
Mawdud at the request of his loyal counsellors Djamal
al-DIn and Zayn al-DIn Kiicuk, who had previously
served ZankI. The young prince was placed under the
supervision of the vizier and the Begteginid [q.v. ]
amir. Some weeks later, in Djumada II 544/October
1149, Sayf al-DIn died at about forty years old, leav¬
ing a son of tender years. Mawdud, on his succession,
maintained in office the two loyal retainers of his
father and of his eldest brother. The council was com¬
pleted with the appointment of the amir c Izz al-DIn
Abu Bakr al-DubaysI. Also associated with this trium¬
virate was another loyal supporter of ZankI, a jurist,
the kadi Kamal al-Din Abu ’I-Fadl Muhammad al-
Shahrazurl. On his assumption of power, Kutb al-Din
Mawdud, succeeding to the eldest of the family, took
up residence in the governor’s palace and ordered the
imprisonment of his elder brother Nu§rat al-Din
Amir-Amiran who had sought to establish a faction of
amirs. Nur al-Din, for his part, had favoured the
installation of Mawdud at al-Mawsil. Recognised by
the army and the population as sovereign of the entire
Djazlra, his position was confirmed by the investiture
of the Saldjuk sultan Mas c ud b. Muhammad \q.v.\
and that of the caliph al-Muktafi [q.v.]. Shortly after
his accession to power, Kutb al-Din Mawdud married
the princess Zumurrud Khatun. daughter of Tlmur-
tash, the Artukid prince of Mardin [?.i>.] who had
previously offered her to Sayf al-Din as a means of
sealing an alliance with the Zankids.

A crisis soon erupted in 544/1149 between Kutb al-
Dln and his elder brother Nur al-Din regarding the
town of Sindjar [< 7 .^.], where a third of the treasure of
ZankI was stored in the citadel. The amir c Abd al-
Malik, governor of Sindjar, receiving no reply from
Aleppo to the overtures that he had made to Nur al-
Dln, made his way to al-Mawsfl to pledge allegiance
to Mawdud. Meanwhile, his son Shams al-DIn had
offered Sindjar to Nur al-Din on condition that he
himself should retain the treasure. On Monday 10
Radjab 544/13 November 1149, Nur al-Din occupied
Sindjar and succeeded in winning over to his side the
amir Fakhr al-Din Kara Arslan b. Dawud of Hisn
Kayfa, a rival of Tlmurtash of Mardin, the father-in-
law of Kutb al-Dln. Learning of the forthcoming
alliance of the Aleppo and the Artukid troops,
Mawdud returned to Sindjar. Accused of improperly
appropriating the treasure. Nur al-Din was able to
argue his right of superior age in his defence; he
expressed his wish to discuss with Mawdud the
problems raised by the succession to Sayf al-Din, and
drew his attention to the considerable number of amirs
who had rallied to his cause. Mawdud’s counsellors
feared desertions to the side of Nur al-Din and con¬
sidered that if the ruler of Aleppo were to emerge the
victor in the confrontation, the sultan would come to
attack al-Mawsil which, enfeebled, would be
incapable of resisting him. On the other hand, if Nur
al-Din were to be defeated, the most reliable bastion
against the Crusaders would collapse and the Franks
would then be able to extend still further. With the
threat from common adversaries, the Saldjuk sultan to
the East and the Crusaders to the West, the only solu¬
tion was to make peace between the members of the
Zankid family. The negotiations, skilfully conducted
by Djamal al-Din al-Djawad, led to an agreement
between the two brothers. Nur al-Din returned Sin¬
djar in exchange for Hims which had been given to his
brother Sayf al-Din to reward him for his support
against the second Crusade. Nur al-DIn also received
al-Rahba and al-Rakka on the Euphrates as well as
Edessa or al-Ruha [£.».]. The portion of the treasure

MAWDUD b. C IMAD al-DIN ZANKI — MAWDUD b. MAS c UD 871

of ZankT stored at Sindjar was to be used to finance the
djihad of Nur al-Dln.

In 553/1158, when ill, Nur al-Dln named his
brother Kutb al-DTn Mawdud as eventual successor
and made his own amirs promise to obey him.
Mawdud, crossing the Euphrates between Siffin [q. v. ]
and al-Rakka, made his way towards Damascus to
visit his brother. Meanwhile, having recovered, Nur
al-DTn had returned to northern Syria; the two Zankid
princes set out to take Harran, which they entrusted
to the isfahsdldr Zayn al-Din c AlT Ku£iik.

In the following year, Mawdud arrived with power¬
ful reinforcements to assist Nur al-Din, who was
threatened at Aleppo by the advance of a Frankish-
Byzantine coalition. In Dhu THidjdja 554/December
1159-January 1160, news came of the death of the
Saldjuk sultan Muhammad b. Mahmud [q.v. ] at
Hamadhan. This event was of importance to
Mawdud, who was holding prisoner at al-Mawsil
Sulayman Shah, one of the candidates for the succes¬
sion. After long negotiations, Mawdud agreed to
release his prisoner on condition that he be appointed
Atabeg of the new sultan and that the latter take
Djamal al-Din al-Djawad as vizier and C A1T Kuciik as
commander of the sultan’s armies. Escorted by troops
from al-Mawsil, Sulayman Shah set out for Hama¬
dhan, but, the victim of a conspiracy, he was poisoned
and died on the way. Mawdud’s troops turned back,
and there were no further links between al-Mawsil
and Khurasan. In Ramadan 559/August 1164,
Mawdud received an appeal yet again from Nur al-
Din, who wanted the assistance of his allies in causing
a diversion in northern Syria with the aim of averting
an invasion of Egypt by the Franks. Mawdud
responded by sending considerable contingents which
laid siege to HarTm [q.v. ], but on hearing of the
presence in the region of the Byzantine troops of the
Emperor Manuel, the army of al-Mawsil withdrew,
linked up with the contingents of Nur al-Din and con¬
tributed to the victory of c Imm which enabled the
Zankid princes to take Harlm.

During the second campaign of the amir Shlrkuh in
Egypt, Mawdud sent, at the request of Nur al-DTn,
reinforcements to take part in operations against the
Count of Tripoli.

At the end of summer 562/1167 he returned to al-
Mawsil with troops exhausted by the campaign and
by the fast of Ramadan. In token of gratitude to his
brother, Nur al-Din ceded al-Rakka to him. Having
learned that after the death on 27 Ramadan/17 July
of Kara Arslan, the prince of Hisn Kayfa and of Diyar
Bakr, his succession reverted to his son and
designated heir, Nur al-DTn Muhammad (562-
81/1167-85), Mawdud wanted to attack the territories
of the young Artukid prince; but Nur al-DTn
Mahmud ordered his brother to abstain from any
hostile action. In 563/1168, the Begteginid amir Zayn
al-DTn C A1T Kiiciik, who had served ZankT and then
Mawdud, asked leave to go into retirement; he then
returned to his master all the places that he had
received in ikta c in order to cover the expenses incur¬
red by his professional duties. The amir Tahir, the
lieutenant of Zayn al-DTn at TakrTt [q.v. ], refused to
concede his charge to the representatives of Mawdud,
but promised his continuing loyalty to him. In order
to avoid any intervention on the part of the caliph, the
Zankid princes accepted the status quo at TakrTt. As a
replacement for the retired amir, Mawdud appointed
as vizier at al-Mawsil one of his own mamluks, the
eunuch Fakhr al-DTn c Abd al-MasTh. When Maw¬
dud’s illness worsened, he decided to name as his suc¬
cessor his eldest son c Imad al-DTn ZankT, who had

married one of his cousins, the daughter of Nur al-
DTn Mahmud. Fakhr al-DTn, who conducted affairs of
state at al-Mawsil, did not approve of this decision,
since he wanted to withdraw from the tutelage of the
ruler of Aleppo, who did not like him. He decided to
engineer the downfall of c Imad al-DTn, and allied
himself with one of the wives of Mawdud, the
daughter of the Artukid Husam al-DTn Timurtash b.
IlghazT and mother of Sayf al-DTn GhazT. The vizier
succeeded in making his master revoke his decision.
Mawdud, being close to death, summoned his amirs
together and made them pledge allegiance to his
youngest son. It was thus that the young Sayf al-DTn
GhazT acceded to the throne as legitimate heir when
his father died following his illness on 22 Dh u
THidjdja 565/6 September 1170. Fakhr al-DTn c Abd
al-MasTh continued to administer all the business of
al-Mawsil, while Nur al-DTn lost the control which he
had exercised over the city during the lifetime of his
youngest brother.

One of the daughters of Mawdud, c AzTzat al-DTn
A khsh awra Khatun, wife of al-Malik al-Mu c azzam,
constructed in 610/1213, on the banks of the river
Tawra, at Salihiyya, the HanafT funerary madrasa of
al-Maridaniyya. One of his grand-daughters, Tarkan
Khatun. daughter of c Izz al-DTn Mas c ud b. Kutb al-
DTn Mawdud, wife of al-Malik al-Ashraf Musa, who
died in 640/1242, constructed at Kasiyun [q.v.] in the
same suburb of Damascus the ShafiT funerary madrasa
of al-Atabakiyya.

In the writings of western chroniclers of the
Crusades the name of Mawdud is transcribed in such
renderings as Malducus, Maldutus or Manduit.

Bibliography : 1. Arabic texts. Ibn al-
KalanisT, tr. H. A. R. Gibb, Damascus chronicle of the
Crusades, 295, 296, 307, 350-3; Usama b.

Munkidh, Kitdb al-lHibdr, ed. H. Derenbourg, i,
298, 301-3, 350-3; Ibn al-Djawzi, K. al-Muntazam,
ed. Hyderabad 1359/1940, x, 119, 121, 138; c Imad
al-DTn al-IsfahanT, al-Fath al-kussl, Fr. tr. H.
Masse, Paris 1972, 205; Ibn al-AthTr, Atabegs,
RHOrC, ii/2, Paris 1876, 171, 175-6, 221, 224,
264-5; Ibn al-AthTr, Kamil, ed. Cairo 1348/1929,
ix, 23, 24, 49, 69, 86, 97, 109; Ibn al- c AdTm, Zubdat
al-Halab, ed. S. Dahhan, Damascus 1954, ii, 296-8,
310-11,318, 331; Abu Shama. K. al-Rawdatayn , ed.
Hilmy M. Ahmad and Mustafa Ziyada, Cairo
1962, i/2, 339-40, 348, 368, 374, 375, 384, 471-5;
Ibn Khallikan, tr. de Slane, ii, 441, 535, iii, 295,
458; Ibn Wasil, Mufarridj al-kurub, ed. Cairo 1953,
i, 143-4, 152, 159, 188-9; Ibn KathTr, Biddya, ed.
Cairo 1929, xii, 225-6, 233, 236, 261; RHOrC , see
Index.

2. Non-Arabic text. Michael the Syrian,
Syriac chronicle , reimpr. Paris 1962, iii, 339-42.

3. Studies. S. Lane-Poole, The Mohammadan
dynasties, London 1893, 163; H. Sauvaire, Descrip¬
tion de Damas, 1894-6, iii, 386-7, iv, 282-3; Zam-
baur, Manuel, 226-7; J. Sauvaget, Les Monuments
historiques de Damas, Beirut 1932, 100, nos. 96, 98;

R. Grousset, Croisades, Paris 1935, ii, 464-5, 557;
Cl. Cahen, Syriedu Nord, Paris 1940, 398-9, 409-10;

S. Runciman, History of the Crusades, Cambridge
1952, ii, 244, 336, 385, 390, 412; K. M. Setton
(ed.), History of the Crusades, Philadelphia 1955, ch.
XVI (H. A. R. Gibb), 516, 522-6; N. Elisseeff, Ndr
al-Din, Damascus 1967, 438-42 and index.

(N. Elisseeff)

MAWDUD b. MAS C UD, Abu ’l-Fath, shihab
al-DTn wa ’l-Dawla, Kujb al-Milla, sultan of
the Ghaznawid [q.v. ] dynasty, reigned 432-
40/1041-winter of 1048-9.

872

MAWDUD b. MAS C UD — MAWDUDI

He was probably born in 401/1010-11 or 402/1011-
12 as the eldest son of Mas c ud b. Mahmud \q. v.}, and
during his father’s reign was closely associated with
the sultan on various military expeditions. When
Mas c ud was deposed and then killed in Djumada I
432/January 1041, Mawdud made himself the
avenger against the rebellious commanders and their
puppet, his uncle Muhammad b. Mahmud. He
marched from Balkh, secured the capital Ghazna, and
met Muhammad’s army coming from India near
Djalalabad. at a place subsequently named Fathabad,
for Mawdud completely defeated the rebels in Radjab
432/March 1041. Muhammad and all but one of his
sons were executed, and a threat from Mawdud’s
younger brother Madjdud, governor of Multan,
scotched by the latter’s mysterious death, so that
Mawdud became unchallenged ruler now in Gh azna.

He faced formidable problems in combatting the
Saldjuks in eastern Khurasan and Sistan. He attemp¬
ted an alliance with the Saldjuk’s Karakhanid enemies
in Transoxania [see ilek-khans], and in 435/1043-4
invaded Tukharistan. but was repulsed by Caghrf
Beg’s son Alp Arslan. Northern Afghanistan now
passed definitively to the Saldjuks, and a further
endeavour by Mawdud to organise a grand coalition
of anti-Saldjuk princes in Transoxania and Persia was
cut short by his own death. Early in his reign,
Mawdud sent forces into Sistan in order to retain
Ghaznawid overlordship over the Saffarids there and
to exclude Saldjuk influence, but the local amir Abu ’I-
Fadl Nasr b. Ahmad had to pursue a policy of balance
between his two powerful neighbours. The concerns
of India had latterly much occupied Mas c ud, but his
violent end provided an opportunity for the reasser¬
tion of independence by various Indian tributary
rulers. A coalition of radjas recaptured Hans!, Tha-
nesar, etc., but was however driven back from Lahore
in 435/1043-4.

Mawdud died of an internal complaint just at the
beginning of his new attempt at a revanche against the
Salcyuks, probably in Djumada II 440/December
1048, although the sources diverge on this. He was
clearly a skilful commander and able ruler who
managed to pull the empire together after the
cataclysms which had come upon it and who
withstood the eastwards pressure of the Saldjuks; but
even had he been granted a long reign, it is doubtful
whether he would have been able to recover the lost
western provinces.

Bibliography: The main primary sources are
GardTzI, Djuzdjam, Ibn al-Athlr, Ibn Baba and
Fakhr-i Mudabbir; these are used in C. E. Bos-
worth, The later Ghaznavids, splendour and decay. The
dynasty in Afghanistan and Northern India 1040-1186 ,
Edinburgh 1977, 20-37. (C. E. Bosworth)

MAWDUDI, sayyid abu ’l-a^la (commonly angli¬
cised to Maudoodi), jou rnalist, fundamentalist
theologian, major influence in the politics of
Pakistan and one of the leading interpreters
of Islam in the twentieth century. He was
born on 3 Radjab 1321/25 September 1903 at
Aurangabad in India’s Hyderabad State. His family
claimed direct descent from Kh w adja Kutb al-Dm
Mawdud 6isht! (d. 577/1181-2); his ancestors

migrated to the subcontinent in the later 9th/l5th cen¬
tury and produced many spiritual leaders. His father,
a lawyer, came from Dihli and was associated with
Sayyid Ahmad Khan [q.v.], but preferred to live in
Hyderabad, which was the last significant centre of
the Mughal tradition. When young, Mawdud! was
carefully insulated from western culture and the
English language; educated at home, and briefly in

one of Hyderabad’s madrasas, he experienced neither
the typical schooling of the c alim nor that of the British
Indian government. After Mawdudi’s father died
when he was sixteen, he supported himself for a
decade as a journalist, most notably as editor of al-
DiamHyyat from 1924 to 1927, the organ of the
Diam^iyyat-i ^Ulamd^-i Hind. During this decade he was
involved in the Khildfat movement [see khilafa],
came to know many c ulama 3 and became thoroughly
versed in Arabic. He also learned English, went clean¬
shaven and wore western dress.

In the mid-1920s, Mawdud!’s activities gained a
significant new focus. Stung by Hindu accusations
that Islam was spread by the sword, after a Muslim
assassinated the Arya Samaj leader, Swami Shrad-
dhanand, he embarked on an exhaustive study of the
doctrine of djihad [q. v. ]. This work, which was first
serialised in al-DiamHyyat and then published under
the title al-Diihddfi ’l-Islam, heralded most elements of
his later thought. The effort of composition greatly
intensified his understanding of his faith, and in 1928
he retired to Hyderabad to do further research and
writing. In 1932 he undertook the editorship of the
monthly journal Tardjuman al-Kur^an, which was to be
the main vehicle of his ideas for the rest of his life. He
knew now what he had to do: “The plan of action I
had in mind was that I should first break the hold
which Western culture and ideas had come to acquire
over the Muslim intelligentsia, and to instil in them
the fact that Islam has a code of life of its own, its own
culture, its own political and economic systems and a
philosophy and an educational system which are all
superior to anything that Western civilisation could
offer. I wanted to rid them of the wrong notion that
they needed to borrow from others in the matter of
culture and civilisation.” (Sayyid Abul Ala Mau¬
doodi, Twenty-nine years of the Jamaat-e-Islami, in The
Criterion , v/6, 45). The intensity of this feeling runs
through the pages of his Risala-yi Diniyydt of 1932; the
fear of the corrupting influence of western civilisation
is manifest in his articles on pardah first published in
1935.

The last decade of British rule brought new fears:
that independence would bring the absorption of the
Muslim identity into a secular Hindu-dominated
nation-state, and that the Muslim response of aiming
to found a separate Muslim nation-state of Pakistan
was not the right one. Mawdud! now intervened in
politics. In a series of articles, later published under
the title Musalman awr mawdiuda siyasi kashmakash, he
reminded Muslims that they were a separate nation in
the Indian environment, while at the same time
emphasising that they were not one in any European
sense, as the All-India Muslim League was sug¬
gesting. Muslims were in danger of forgetting that
they had a message for all humanity. The way to carry
this message forward was to establish not a nation
state of Muslims but an Islamic state in which every
constituent part would reveal Islam in ideal and prac¬
tice. In August 1941 Mawdud! founded the Diamd^at-i
Islami, a carefully-selected righteous elite of which he
was the leader, to put these ideas into effect.

The emergence of Pakistan in 1947 gave Mawdud!
a forum in which he could act. From 1948 to 1956 his
writings and deeds, supported by the Diamd c at-i
Islami, played the key role in directing Pakistan away
from developing the form of the secular state which its
founders had in mind towards the goal of an Islamic
state. His pressure was primarily responsible for the
Islamic content of the “Objectives Resolution” of the
Constituent Assembly (March 1949) which laid down
the main principles on which Pakistan’s constitution

MAWDUDI

873

was to be based. His leadership brought the represen¬
tatives of all groups of c ulamaV to agree in January
1951 on twenty-two principles of an Islamic state,
which were to remain for all concerned in consti¬
tution-making the benchmark of the “conservative”
position. His authority brought him to the fore in the
agitation of 1952-3 against the Ahmadiyya com¬
munity of Pakistan, which helped to keep these
twenty-two principles alive in the constitution-making
process. It was in large part his achievement that the
first constitution, which was promulgated in 1956,
looked towards reconstructing “Muslim society on a
truly Islamic basis and revising all existing laws in the
light of the QuHan and Sunna”. In 1953 Mawdudi
was for a period condemned to death; he was
imprisoned during the years 1948-50 and 1953-5.

From 1956 the discussion of the role of Islam in the
constitution died down and Mawdudi, until restricted
by ill-health in 1969, travelled widely outside Pakis¬
tan. He was a particularly frequent visitor to Saudi
Arabia, where he took part in both the establishment
and the running of Medina’s Islamic university and
the World Muslim League. Whenever an Islamic
issue arose in Pakistan, like the Muslim Family Laws
Ordinance of 1961 or the Ahmadiyya question in
1974, he was prominent. Throughout he opposed the
regimes governing Pakistan and, although he resigned
from the headship of the DiamaSat-i Islam! in 1972, he
was behind its involvement in the movement to over¬
throw Z. A. Bhutto in 1977. General Diya 5 (Ziya) al-
Hakk’s regime, with its promise of Islamisation, was
the first that he felt able to support. When Mawdudi
died on 22 September 1979, he did so knowing that
Pakistan was at last ruled by a government that was
trying to realise a version of his Islamic order.

Mawdudi’s academic output was voluminous:
tradition, law, philosophy, history, politics, econo¬
mics, sociology and theology being amongst the sub¬
jects covered. Many of his works have been
translated, some into over a dozen languages. His
masterwork is his Kurban commentary, Tafhtm al-
Kur^an, which took him thirty years to finish. His
Islamic vision, nevertheless, is scattered through
many different publications, many of which were
written to meet problems of the moment. Good points
of access are a series of radio talks he gave in 1948,
Islam ka nizam-i hayat, and the collection of his writings
on the Islamic state The Islamic law and constitution.

Central to Mawdudi’s vision is the belief that God
alone is sovereign; man has gone astray because he
has accepted sovereigns other than God, for instance,
kings, nation states or custom. All the guidance which
man needs can be found in the Sharing, which offers a
complete scheme of life where nothing is superfluous
and nothing lacking. Political power is essential to put
this divinely-ordained pattern into effect; the Islamic
state has a missionary purpose. Moreover, because
God’s guidance extends to all human activity, this
state must be universal and all-embracing, and
because the state’s purpose is to establish Islamic
ideology it must be run by those who believe in it and
comprehend its spirit—those who do not may just live
withing the confines of the state as non-Muslim
citizens (dhimmfs). Naturally, this state recognises that
God not man is the source of all law. The state is
merely God’s vicegerent ( khalifa ) on earth. It is a
vicegerency, however, which is shared by all Muslim
citizens of the state with whom, in consequence, the
ruler must consult in the process of government. So
Mawdudi describes his policy as a “theo-democracy”
in which the whole community of Muslims interpret
the law of God within the framework supplied by the

Sharia. The ruler {amir) is to be elected by whatever
means are appropriate, providing that they ensure
that the man who enjoys the greatest mesure of
national confidence is chosen. His legislature {madjlis-i
shura ) is also to be elected by whatever means are
appropriate, provided that they ensure the choice of
men with the confidence of the people. Legislation
itself takes place in four ways: by interpretation, by
analogy, by inference, and, in that area of human
affairs about which the Sharing is silent, by indepen¬
dent judgement.

The major feature of Mawdudi’s thought is to have
transformed Islam into an ideology, an integrated and
all-embracing system. He aimed to set out the ideal
order of the time of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs. The
outcome is the most comprehensive statement of the
nature of the Islamic state in modern times, and one
which, while conjuring an ideal from the past, has
been shaped by contemporary concerns and modes of
thought. His exposition, as might be expected from a
man who was primarily a theologian, is strong on
general principles but weak on detail.

Mawdudi is amongst the most influential of those
Muslims who have felt, as the 20th century has pro¬
gressed, that the answer to western domination need
not be formulated in terms of nationalism and
secularism but in terms of Islam. Himself inspired by
Ibn Kh aldun. Shah Wall Allah, Muhammad Ikb^l
and Hasan al-Banna 5 [q.vv. ], he has influenced in his
turn men ranging from the leaders of Islamic move¬
ments in Egypt, Syria and Iran to many ordinary
Muslims throughout the Islamic world.

Bibliography. A list of Mawdudi’s 138 works,
with the details of English translations, and an
indication of translations into other languages, plus
a list of writings about Mawdudi, can be found in
Khurshid Ahmad and Zafar Ishaq Ansari (eds.),
Islamic perspectives: studies in honour of Mawlana Sayyid
Abul AHa Mawdudi , Leicester 1979, 3-14. Among
Mawdudi’s more important publications the
following should be noted: Dtn-i hakk , Lahore 1952,
Eng. tr. The religion of truth , Lahore 1967; Insan ka
ma Q dsh! mas^ala awr us ka islami hall , Lahore 1941,
Eng. tr. Economic problem of man and its Islamic solu¬
tion , Lahore 1947; Islam ka akhldk.1 nukta-yi nazar ,
Lahore 1955, Eng. tr. Ethical viewpoint of Islam ,
Lahore 1966; Islam ka. nazariyya-yi siyasl, Lahore
1939, Eng. tr. Political theory of Islam , Delhi 1964;
Islam ka nizam-i hayat, Lahore 1948, Eng. tr. Islamic
way of life, Lahore 1950; The Islamic law and constitu¬
tion, ed. and tr. Khurshid Ahmad, Lahore 1955; al-
Djihadfi \l-Islam , A c zamgarh 1930; Khutbat, Lahore
1957, Eng. tr. Fundamentals of Islam, Lahore 1975;
Musalman awr mawdjuda siyasi kashmakash, 3 vols.,
Lahore 1937-9; Pardah, Lahore 1939, Eng. tr.
Purdah and the status of women in Islam , Lahore 1972;
Kadiyam mas^ala, Karachi 1953, Eng. tr. The
Qadiani problem, Karachi 1953; Risala-yi diniyyat,
Hyderabad, Deccan 1932, Eng. tr. Towards under¬
standing Islam, Lahore 1940; Tafhim al-KuPan , 6
vols., Lahore 1949-72, Eng. tr. The meaning of the
QuPan (incomplete), Lahore 1967-

The following writings about Mawdudi should
be noted: Freeland K. Abbot, Maulana Maududi and
Quranic interpretation, in MW, xlviii/1 (1958), 6-19,
and Islam and Pakistan, Ithaca 1968, 171-228;
Charles J. Adams, The ideology of Mawlana Mawdudi,
in D. E. Smith (ed.), South Asian politics and religion,
Princeton 1966, 371-97, and Mawdudi and the Islamic
state , in J. L. Esposito (ed.), Voices of resurgent Islam ,
New York 1983, 99-133; Aziz Ahmad, Islamic
modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857-1964, London

874

MAWDUDI — MAWLA

1967, 208-23; Sayed Riaz Ahmad, Maulana
Maududi and the Islamic state, Lahore 1976; Kalim
Bahadur, The Jama c at-i-Islami of Pakistan; political
thought and political action, New Delhi 1977; L.
Binder, Religion and politics in Pakistan, Berkeley
1961; Maryam Jameelah, Who is Maudoodi?,
Lahore 1973; Khalid bin Sayeed, The Jamaat-i-
Islami movement in Pakistan, in Pacific Affairs, xxx/1
(March 1957), 59-68; Cheila McDonough, Muslim
ethics and modernity: a comparative study of the ethical
thought of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Mawlana Mawdudi,
Waterloo, Ont. 1984; H. Mintjes, Mawlana Maw¬
dudi ’s last years and the resurgence of fundamentalist
Islam, in al-Mushir, xxii/2 (1980), 46-73; E. I. J.
Rosenthal, Islam in the modern national state, Cam¬
bridge 1965, 137-53, 221-72.

(F. C. R. Robinson)

MAWKIF (a.), nomen loci from w-k-f “to
stand” hence “place of standing”. Of the technical
meanings of the term, three may be mentioned here:

(a) The place where the wukuf [q.v.] is held during
the pilgrimage, viz. c Arafat [q.v. j and Muzdalifa
[q.v.] or Djam c . In well-known traditions, Muham¬
mad declares that all c Arafat and all Muzdalifa is
mawkif (Muslim, Ha didi . trad. 149; Abu Dawud,
Manasik, bab 56, 64, etc.; cf. Wensinck, Handbook of
early Muhammadan tradition, s.v. c Arafa). Snouck
Hurgronje (Hei mekkaansche feesl, 150 = Verspreide
Geschriften , i, 99) has conjectured that these traditions
were intended to deprive the hills of c Arafat and Muz¬
dalifa of their sacred character, which they doubtless
possessed in pre-Islamic times.

(b) The place where, on the day of resurrection,
several scenes of the last judgment will take place; cf.
al-Ghazali, al-Durra alfdkhira, ed. Gautier, 577,
683,12, 813; cf. Kitab Ahwal al-kiyama, ed. M. Wolff,
65ff.

(c) In pre-Islamic times, mawkif was one of the
terms (together with mashfar, nusub , mansak, etc.) used
to designate the religious shrines, usually in the form
of stones, to be found along tracks and at camping
sites, of the nomadic Arabs; cf. Wellhausen, Resle 2 ,

101 ff., and T. Fahd, Le pantheon de TArabie centrale a la
veille de Thegire, Paris 1968, 238ff.

Bibliography : Given in the article; see also
HAmoj and kiyama. (A. J. Wensinck)

MAWLA (a.), pi. mawali, a term of the¬
ological, historical and legal usage which
had varying meanings in different periods and in dif¬
ferent social contexts. Linguistically, it is the noun of
place of the verb waliya, with the basic meaning of “to
be close to, to be connected with someone or some¬
thing” (see LA, xx, 287ff.; TA, x, 398-401), whence
acquiring the sense “to be close to power, authority”
> “to hold power, govern, be in charge of some
office” (see Lane, s.v.) and yielding such
administrative terms as wall “governor”, and wilaya
[q.v.] “the function of governor” or, in a legal con¬
text, “sphere of jurisdiction, competence”.

I. In the Kur 5 an and Tradition

Here we find mawla used in two meanings.

(a) Tutor, trustee, helper. In this sense, the
word is used in the Kurban, XLVII, 12: “God is the
mawla of the faithful, the unbelievers have no mawla
(cf. Ill, 143; VI, 62; VII, 41; IX, 51; XXII, 78;
LXVI, 2). In the same sense, mawla is used in the
Shl c i tradition, in which Muhammad calls c AlI the
mawla of those whose mawla he is himself. According
to the author of the Lisan, mawla has the sense of wall
in this tradition, which is connected with Ghadfr
Khumm (q. v. ; cf. C. van Arendonk, De opkomst van hei

Zaidietische imamaat, 18, 19). It may be observed that
it occurs also in the Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal (i,
84, 118, 119, 152, 330-1; iv, 281*, etc.).

(b) Lord. In the Kur^anit it is in this sense
(which is synonymous with that of sayyid) applied to
Allah (11,286; cf. VI,62; X,31), who is often called
Mawlana “our Lord” in Arabic literature. Precisely
for this reason, in Tradition the slave is prohibited
from calling his lord mawla (al-Bukhari. Djihad. bab
165; Muslim, Alfaz, trad. 15, 16).

It is not in contradiction to this prohibition that
Tradition frequently uses mawla in the sense of
“lord of a slave”, e.g. in the well-known hadith
“Three categories of people will receive a two-fold
reward ... and the slave who fulfils his duty in regard
to Allah as well as to his lords” (al-Bukhari, Him, bab
31; Muslim, Aymdn, trad. 45).

Composition of mawla and suffixes are frequently
used as titles in several parts of the Muslim world, e.g.
mawlay(a) (mulay), “my lord (especially in North
Africa and in connection with saints); mawlawi (mulla
[^.t/.]), “lordship” (especially in India and in connec¬
tion with scholars or saints).

The term mawla is also applied to the former lord
(patron) in his relation to his freedman, e.g. in the
tradition “Who clings to a [new] patron without the
permission of his [legal] mawla, on him rests the curse
of Allah” (al-Bukhari, Diizya. bab 17; Muslim, Htk,
trad. 18, 19).

Bibliography. Given in the article. See also

Wensinck, A handbook of early Muhammadan tradition,

Leiden 1927, 148. (A. J. Wensinck*)

II. In Historical and Legal Usage

Here the meaning of mawla, a person linked by
wala D (“proximity”) to another person, similarly
known as mawla, varies according to the context in
which it is found. In pre-Islamic poetry, it usually
designates a party to an egalitarian relationship of
mutual help, that is, a kinsman (ibn c amm), con¬
federate {half), ally or friend, a meaning also attested
in the KuUan (IV, 37; XIX, 5; XLIV, 41) and some
later literature (P. Crone, Slaves on horses , Cambridge
1980, appendix VI). In later literature, however, it
more commonly designates a party to an unequal rela¬
tionship of assistance, that is a master, manumitter,
benefactor or patron on the one hand, and a freed¬
man, protege or client on the other. This sense too is
attested in the Kurban, where the typical mawla is God
(VIII, 41; XXII,78, and passim-, cf. XXXIII,5, where
it means protege). Applied to the inferior party in an
Islamic context, mawla almost always means a client of
the type recognised in early Islamic law, though its
use in the opposite sense was more flexible. The
Islamic world has of course known many other types
of client, but not by this name.

The client recognised in early law was a non-Arab
freedman, convert or other newcomer in Muslim
society. Since non-Arabs could only enter this society
as clients, mawla came to be synonymous with “non-
Arab Muslim”, and the secondary literature usually
employs the word in this sense (though the lex¬
icographers fail to list it, cf. LA and TA, s.v. w-l-y).
It is also with non-Arab Muslims that this article will
be concerned.

1. Pre-Islamic Arabia.

The Islamic institution of wala^ is generally
assumed to be of Arabian origin (cf. Goldziher, Muh.
Stud., i, ch. 3; J. Juda, Die sozialen und wirlschaftlichen
Aspekle der Mawali in fruhislamischer Zeit, Tubingen
1983), but this is scarcely correct. Leaving aside

MAWLA

875

foreign merchants and colonists under imperial pro¬
tection, the non-Arab population of pre-Islamic
Arabia consisted of Jews, slaves and freedmen of
African and Middle Eastern extraction, half-bred
descendants of colonists, and presumably also ethnic
and occupational pariah groups of the type attested in
modern times (Kawawila, Bayadlr, Sulubbls, etc.).
There is no reason to doubt that all were known as
mawdli in the sense of “kinsmen”, in so far as they
were free and came under Arab protection (cf. the
modern use of the word akh “brother”), but the ques¬
tion is, what this implied. Are we to take it that all
non-Arabs were individually assigned to Arab patrons
and acquired partial membership of Arab tribes
through them, having no social organisation of their
own? Or did they form social groups of their own, so
that they were collectively placed under the protection
of Arab tribes in which they acquired no membership
at all, merely becoming their satellites? The first solu¬
tion is that enshrined in Islamic wala 3 , but it is the
second which is attested for Arabia.

Thus it is well known that the Jews of Arabia
formed tribal groups of their own. In fact, Jewish
tribes were sometimes strong enough to escape Arab
protection altogether (and thus also the status of
mawdli). But this was hardly the common pattern. The
Jews of Fadak, for example, paid protection money to
Kalb (M. J. Kister, On the wife of the goldsmith from
Fadak and her progeny , in Museon , xcii [1979], 321); the
Jews of Wadi ’1-Kura similarly paid what would
nowadays be known as khuwwa to Arab overlords (al-
Bakrl, Mu c djam md ista c dyam, ed. F. Wiistenfeld, Got¬
tingen 1876-7, i, 30); and those of Yathrib were
reduced to client status by the Aws and Khazradj
[q.vv.] some time before the rise of Islam (J.
Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, iv, Berlin 1889,
7ff.). Naturally, client status weakened the tribal
organisation of the Jews; the same is true of modern
pariah groups. But the Jewish tribes were not
dissolved, nor were the Jews assigned to individual
patrons: clientage was a relationship between groups.
Similarly, the Arabised descendants of the Persian
workmen and prostitutes of Hadjar clearly formed a
quasi-tribal group of their own under c AbdI protec¬
tion, for all that they adopted the nisba of their protec¬
tors (al-Tabari, i, 986).

The question is thus, whether freedmen were
treated differently? On this point, the evidence is less
conclusive. Continuing relations between manumitter
and freedman were clearly common, and there is
evidence that the pre-Islamic Arabs practised
manumission with what the Greeks called paramone, a
clause requiring the freedman to stay with the
manumitter for a specified number of years or until
the latter died (P. Crone, Roman, provincial and Islamic
law , Princeton 1987). But continuing relations
between manumitter and freedman in no way imply
that the latter was incorporated in the manumitter’s
kin; the paramonar freedman only became a member
of his household, and then only for a specified time;
and one would in general have thought the pre-
Islamic Arabs as reluctant to contaminate their
agnatic kin with non-Arab freedmen as were their
descendants in more recent times. The freedmen (and
indeed slaves) of modern Arabia formed lineages of
their own, and it was through them, not through their
manumitters, that they acquired their rights and
duties in respect of marriage, succession and ven¬
geance; and it was to the manumitters’ tribe as a
political entity that they stood in a relationship of
dependence, paying it military assistance and/or
khuwwa (J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and the

Wahabys, London 1830, i, 181 f.; A. Jaussen, Coutumes
des Arabes au pays de Moab 2 , Paris 1948, 125f.; cf. A.
Musil, The manners and customs of the Rwala Bedouins ,
New York 1928, 276).

It should be noted that non-Arabs were not
generally affiliated as confederates. Hilf [q. v. ] was a
mechanism for the partial or total incorporation of
foreigners, individually or as groups, and it is fre¬
quently regarded as ancestral to Islamic wala\ But hilf
was used only for Arab foreigners, or more precisely
for foreigners with full tribal status. The Jews thus
qualified on occasion, as did others such as the Abna 3
[q.v. ] but only to the extent that they escaped client
status (though there are admittedly ambivalent cases);
non-Arab freedmen never qualified (cf. Goldziher,
Muh. Stud., i, 106). The half is thus irrelevant to the
question. By the same token, so is most of pre-Islamic
poetry. The vast majority of mawdli mentioned in this
poetry (where the word is exceedingly common) are
Arabs from whom help of one sort or another could be
expected: real, fictitious or metaphorical kinsmen (cf.
ibid. , 105 n.; many more examples are given in
Crone, Roman, provincial and Islamic law). Con¬
federates are occasionally singled out as mawdli 7-
yamin, “kinsmen by oath”, as opposed to mawdli
’ l-wilada or karaba , “kinsmen by birth/kinship” (G.
W. Freytag, Hamasae carmina , Bonn 1828, 187; C.
Lyall, ed. and tr., The Mufaddaliyat, Oxford 1918-21,
no. 12:3; Ibn Hisham, 467; Nabigha al-DjaMl,
Diwan, ed. and tr. M. Nallino, Rome 1953, no.
12:41). But the distinction is usually quite neutral,
and though confederates could obviously find them¬
selves in a subservient position so that the dividing
line between them and client groups was blurred (as
it is in Nabigha; cf. Juda, Aspekte, 14-15) they were
followers of a type quite different from that of non-
Arab clients. It is only when the poets distinguish
between samim (or sarih) and mawdli that the latter
would seem regularly to encompass servile and non-
Arab elements, and the same is perhaps true when
they speak of “tails” and “fins” of tribes (cf.
Goldziher, Muh. Stud., i, 105-6); but these passages
are perfectly compatible with the proposition that
freedmen and other non-Arabs should be seen as
members of satellite groups rather than as persons
“assimilated to the tribe by affiliation” (Goldziher).

2. The Rashidun caliphs and the Umay-
y ads.

With the conquests, the Arabs found themselves in
charge of a huge non-Arab population. Given that it
was non-Muslim, this population could be awarded a
status similar to that of clients in Arabia, retaining its
own organisation under Arab control in return for the
payment of taxes [see Dh imma]. But converts posed a
novel problem in that, on the one hand they had to be
incorporated, not merely accommodated, within Arab
society; and on the other hand, they had “forgotten
their genealogies”, suffered defeat and frequently also
enslavement, so that they did not make acceptable
halfs; the only non-Arabs to be affiliated as such were
the Hamra 5 and Asawira, Persian soldiers who
deserted to the Arabs during the wars of conquest in
return for privileged status (al-Baladhurl, Futuh, 280,
373). It was in response to this novel problem that
Islamic wala 3 was evolved, presumably by the
authorities and at an early stage, though nothing can
be said with certainty about its emergence.

(a) Early Islamic wald\ What follows is based
on a collation of information in classical law (below,
section 5), hadith and historical sources. All non-Arabs
who aspired to membership of Arab society had to

876

MAWLA

procure a patron (an “upper” mawld in the ter¬
minology of the lawyers). Freedmen automatically
acquired a patron in their manumitter, unless the lat¬
ter renounced the tie. Free persons and those freed
without wala^ had to acquire one by agreement. Con¬
tractual clientage was known as wald 5 of muwdldt
(“inclination”, “attachment”, the term generally
used in HanafT literature), tiba c a (“following”, al-
Tabari, ii, 1853), khidma (“service”, Aghani, xii, 48)
or islam , conversion: whoever converted “at the hands
of’ another became a client of the other according to
a famous hadith (man aslama c ald yad ghayrih fa-huwa
mawldhu). Wala* was a solution to the problem of
affiliating non-tribesmen to a tribal society, and
though most such non-tribesmen were clearly con¬
verts, conversion was not necessary for the legal
validity of the tie. A fair number of non-Muslim
clients, both freeborn and freed, are attested (Crone,
Slaves, n. 358; al-Tabari, i, 3185).

From the point of view of the authorities, the main
role of the patron was to provide the client with an
c akila [q.v. ]. The patron and his agnates were required
to pay compensation ( c akl, diya [ft».]) for bodily harm
inflicted by the client, to the extent that the latter had
no agnates of his own. Refusal to pay seems to have
been a common problem (al-Kindi, The governors and
judges of Egypt, ed. R. Guest, Leiden and London
1912, 333f., 335f.). Conversely, if the client was killed
they were entitled to blood-money in compensation
for him (cf. al-KindT, op.cit., 333f.). In return for his
obligations, the patron acquired a title to the client’s
estate, though not an indefeasible one. The classical
rules of exclusion are not, on the whole, favourable to
the patron, but it is not known whether they applied
in pre-classical law. The role of the client, on the other
hand, was purely passive. He did not contribute to
blood-money payable for damage inflicted by the
patron, nor did he share in the receipt of blood-money
if the patron was killed or acquire a title to his estate.
He was not formally obliged to render obsequium. The
patron by manumission could make over the patro-
nate to a third party by sale, gift or bequest, and the
parties to the contractual relationship could terminate
theirs (in which case the client would need a new
patron). If not, it would pass to the descendants of the
two parties in perpetuity, though it would lose legal
(but not necessarily social) importance as the client
acquired agnates in Islam, Muslim clients could and
frequently did have clients of their own.

From the point of view of the client, the main role
of the patron was to provide him with access to a
privileged society, and in practice the patron’s
rewards were far greater than those provided by the
authorities. For one thing, the patron might qualify
his grant of freedom with stipulations requiring the
freedmen to pay regular sums, gifts or labour services
to himself or a third party for a specified period, or
reserving part or all of the freedman’s estate for
himself regardless of the presence of heirs (practices
condemned in early hadith', cf. Crone, Roman, provin¬
cial and Islamic law). For another thing, freedmen were
notoriously loyal. They would stay by their manumit-
ters in danger (al-Tabari, i, 3001 f., ii, 1959; cf. Ch.
Pellat (tr.), The life and works of Jdhiz, London 1969,
215, 260), share their sorrows (cf. al-Tabari, ii, 384),
assist them in need (though for one who refused, see
Aghani 3 , xvi, 107), attend to them in death (al-Tabari,
i, 3046, ii, 1751) and seek to avenge them {ibid., ii,
1049; al-Baladhuri, Ansdb, v, 338). Concerning the
services provided by contractual clients, we are less
well informed. Like freedmen, they clearly went to
swell their patrons’ retinues, both military and

civilian (M. J. Kister, The Battle of the Harra, in Studies
in memory of Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem 1977, 44; Crone,
Slaves , 53f.), and they must have performed other
types of khidma too. But patrons preferred freedmen to
mawdli tiba c a (al-Tabari, ii, 1852f.).

(b) The mawdli in Umayyad society. No
formal disabilities seem to have attached to the status
of client in public law. In principle, clients were in a
dependent position only vis-a-vis their patrons, enjoy¬
ing the same rights and duties as other Muslims in
society at large {lahum ma land wa- c alayhim md c alaynd).
In practice, of course, there was massive prejudice
against them. The Arabs generally equated them with
slaves, partly because they were unwarlike agricul¬
turalists (Hassan b. Thabit, Diwan , ed. and tr. H.
Hirschfeld, Leiden and London 1910, no. 189:8; cf.
Dh u ’1-Rumma, Diwan , ed. C. H. H. Macartney,
Cambridge 1919, no. 29:48), partly because they had
suffered spectacular military defeat (“O men, do you
not see how Persia has been ruined and its inhabitants
humiliated? They have become slaves who pasture
your sheep, as if their kingdom was a dream”,
Nabigha al-Dja c dI, no. 8:12f.), and, finally, because
the majority of clients were freedmen. Christian and
Muslim sources are agreed that the Arabs took enor¬
mous numbers of prisoners-of-war during the wars of
conquest. “He killed and took prisoners” is the
standard expression for the activities of a conqueror in
the Muslim ones (Khalifa b. Khayyat, Ta 3 rikh, ed. S.
Zakkar, Damascus 1967-8, i, 127, 163, 168, 171, 178,
237, 242; Sebeos, Histoire d’Heraclius, tr. F. Macler,
Paris 1904, 100f., 110, 146; Bar Penkaye in A.
Mingana, ed. and tr., Sources syriaques, Leipzig [1907],
*147 = *175; Michael the Syrian, Chronique, ed. and
tr. J.-B. Chabot, Paris 1899-1910, iv, 417 = ii, 422);
and the usual fate of prisoners-of-war was enslave¬
ment. Moreover, many localities were required by
treaty to supply a specified number of slaves to the
Arabs, such as 30,000 or 100,000 once and for all or
a smaller number annually (al-Tabari, ii, 1238, 1245,
1246, 1321, 1329, 1667; al-Baladhuri. Futuh, 208; C.
E. Bosworth, Sistan under the Arabs, Rome 1968, 17;
M. Hinds and H. Sakkout, A letter from the governor of
Egypt to the King of Nubia and Muqurra concerning
Egyptian-Nubian relations in 141/758, in Studia Arabica et
Islamica I. c Abbds, ed. W. al-QadL Beirut 1981; Juda,
Aspekte, 64-5). Victims of war and their descendants
thus outnumbered freeborn clients, and “slaves” was
the standard term of abuse for a client of any kind (al-
Tabari, ii, 1120, 1431; al-Baladhuri. Ansdb. iva, 247,
v, 356; Aghani 3 , xvi, 107). Naturally, such men were
subject to numerous disabilities in the society of their
conquerors. Slaves and clients were “vile” (TA, s.v.
h-w-y), and clients of clients were “the most miserable
persons to walk on earth” (al-Baladhuri. Ansdb , ivb,
10; cf. al-Farazdak in LA and TA, s.v. w-l-y). Thus a
mawld who married an Arab woman risked both
penalties and the dissolution of his marriage (Aghani 3 ,
xvi, 106f.; cf. also Goldziher, Muh. Stud., i, 128ff.),
though such marriages are unlikely to have been
officially prohibited (below, (d)). A mawld’ s life was
felt to be worth less than that of an Arab, so that an
Arab should not be killed in retaliation for a client (al-
Baladhuri, Ansdb, iva, 220), while conversely, retalia¬
tion inflicted upon a client failed to compensate for
harm suffered by an Arab (al-Tabari, ii, 1849). A
mawld was not worth avenging (though Kutayba b.
Muslim [q.v. ] invoked a moral obligation to do so in
an unusual situation where the client was a Transoxa-
nian prince, al-Tabari, ii, 1249); it was by way of
insult to their victim that Arab avengers would claim
to have killed so-and-so for a mere mawld or slave (al-

MAW LA

877

Azdl, Tadrikh al-Mawsil, ed. C A. Hablba, Cairo 1967,
62; al-Dlnawari, al-Akhbar al-tiwal, ed. V. Guirgass,
Leiden 1888, 350; al-Tabari, i, 3276, ii, 710). Above
all, mawali were felt to be unsuitable for positions of
authority, such as that of prayer-leader, judge or
governor (Goldziher, Muh. Stud., i, 109 n., 116; S. A.
al- c AlI, al-Tanzimdt al-idjtimaHyya wa ’l-iktisadiyya fi
’l-Basra 2 , Beirut 1969, 96f.; Ibn Kudama, al-Mughni,
ed. T. M. al-Zaynl and others, Cairo 1968-70, vii, 33;
Juda, Aspekte , 182-4); as late as 133/750-1 the
inhabitants of Maw$il objected to the appointment of
a mawld as governor (al-Azdl, Mawsil , 146). Con¬
fronted with this prejudice, non-Arab Muslims
initially made their careers mainly in the service of
their patrons, and the tie between patron and client
remained important throughout the Umayyad period;
but their education, skills and sheer number was such
that they rapidly achieved positions of influence in
their own right.

Civilian careers. Many non-Arabs had worked
as labourers, craftsmen, traders and shopkeepers
while still slaves, and many continued in such occupa¬
tions on their manumission (cf. Juda, Aspekte, 109ff.)
But we hear more about those who remained mem¬
bers of their patrons’ households, especially those of
governors, who would employ them as messengers,
spies, executioners and other agents of various kinds
(al-Tabari, i, 2138, ii, 40, 246f., 268, 1276, 1649).
Governors and caliphs alike also employed their own
freedmen as ha^ibs [q.v.], see the information at the
end of each reign in Khalifa. Ta^rikh, and al-Mas c udI,
Tanbih, 284ff.; al-Baladhurl. Ansdb. v, 172; al-Tabari,
ii, 1650). But mawali played a more important role as
administrators. Some administered their patron’s
estate (al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 8; al-Tabari, ii, 1734;
Juda, Aspekte, 119-20); a great many administered the
empire. Thus a secretary {katib [q.v.]) was usually a
non-Arab, sometimes a non-Muslim (al-Mas c udI,
Tanbth, 302, 307, 312; al-Baladhurl. Ansdb, xi (=
Anonyme arabische Chronik, ed. W. Ahlwardt, Greifs-
wald 1883, 343), but more commonly a convert (cf.
al-Djahshiyarl, Kitdb al-wuzara^ wa \l-kuttab , ed. M. al-
Sakka 3 and others, Cairo 1938, 61) or a freedman;
being appreciated for their skills rather than their per¬
sonal loyalties, such men were employed not only by
their own patrons (e.g. al-Djahshiyarl, 54, 64; al-
Tabari, ii, 837ff.) but also by others (e.g. al-Mas c udI,
Tanbth, 302, 312, 316, 317, etc.; al-Tabari, loc.cit.', al-
Djahshiyarl, 66).

The various sections of the diwan [q.v. ] in a par¬
ticular province, or indeed the entire diwan, were
commonly headed by mawali (al-Tabari, ii, 837ff.,
1649, 1650; al-Djahshiyarl, 42, 69; al-Baladhurl.
Ansdb, ivb, 83, 123). Moreover, mawali soon came to
be appointed as fiscal governors, sometimes on behalf
of top Arab governors, but frequently in their own
right. We hear of such appointments in Mecca and
Medina (Ibn Habib, al-Muhabbar, ed. I. Lichten-
stadter, Hyderabad 1942, 379). Transoxania (al-
Tabari, ii, 1253, 1421, 1509), and c Irak, where non-
Arab fiscal governors played a major role in Arab
politics {ibid., 1282f., 1648; al-Djahshivarl. 42f., 49,
63; Ibn c Idhari. i, 39; al-Baladhurl. Ansdb, ivb, 123),
as well as in Egypt, where three non-Arabs rose to the
position of effective governor thanks to their control of
the taxes, that is Usama b. Zayd al-Sallhl, a mawld of
Mu c awiya (al- Dj ahshivarl. 51) under Sulayman,
c Ubayd (or c Abd) Allah b. al-Habhab [q.v.], a mawld
of Salul under Hisham, and c Abd al-Malik b. Mar-
wan b. Musa b. Nusayr, a mawld of Lakhm (or the
Umayyads) under Marwan II (al-Kindl, Governors,
93). Lesser administrative jobs were also in the hands

of mawali (al-Tabari, ii, 1845; in general, see also
Juda, Aspekte, 119-20).

Outside the administration, non-Arab Muslims
rapidly came to dominate the world of scholarship.
Mawali , mainly descendants of captives, played a
crucial role in the formation of the Islamic faith [see
al-hasan al-basrI], Islamic law [see abu hanIfa,
al-awza c I, tawus], Kur 3 anic studies [see abu
c ubayda] and the Prophet’s biography [see ibn ishak],
as well as in the collection of pre-Islamic poetry [see
hammad al-rawiya]. They also produced some
notable poets [see ba shsh ar b. burd]. Contem¬
poraries were well aware of the preponderance of
mawali in scholarship (Goldziher, Muh. Stud., i,

114f.), and in the second half of the Umayyad period
it was usually mawali who were accorded the role of
tutor to the caliph’s children (Ibn Habib, Muhabbar,
476ff.; al-Tabari, ii, 1741). In the same period they
also began to receive appointment as judges (al- c AU,
Tanzimdt, 96 n).

Careers in the army. Leaving aside the Per¬
sian soldiers enrolled during the wars of conquest,
non-Arabs initially entered the army only as private
servants of their patrons. Every soldier had a number
of slaves and freedmen registered under him in the
diwan', some governors acquired sizeable bodyguards
of slaves and freedmen; and towards the end of the
period it was common for governors and generals to
have semi-private retinues of freedmen, contractual
clients and other proteges (Crone, Slaves, 38, 53,

198f.). The haras, or palace-guard, of the caliphs and
their governors also seems usually to have been com¬
posed of and headed by mawali, though not necessarily
mawali of the employer (cf. Khalifa, Ta^rikh, at the
end of each reign; al-Tabari, ii, 1384, 1499, 1569,
1650; al-Baladhurl. Ansdb, v, 172f.). But already
Mu c awiya placed a mawld in command of troops in an
expedition against Byzantium (Khalifa. Ta^rikh, i,
198, cf. 102), an example followed by c Abd al-Malik
(al-Tabari, ii, 1487; al-Baladhurl. Futuh, 160f.); and
the Second Civil War decisively undermined the Arab
monopoly of military power. Non-Arabs being
available, everybody made use of them: thus Mukhtar
[q.v.\, adherents of Ibn al-Zubayr (Kister, Battle of the
Harra, 44f.); and the Umayyads themselves (Crone,
Slaves, 198; Kh alifa. Ta^rikh, i, 335; al-Baladhuri.
Ansdb, v, 356ff.), with the result that a mawld became
military governor of Medina for c Abd al-Malik (al-
Tabari, ii, 834, 852, 854). Thereafter, non-Arabs
were regularly admitted as soldiers in their own right
(cf. the rich documentation in Juda, Aspekte, 120ff.).
Some were placed in special corps for mawali with
native skills of their own, such as the Berber Wad-
dahiyya or the Indian Kikaniyya. Others joined the
ordinary army, mawld divisions being set up for their
reception. According to a Kitdb Mawaliahl Misr cited
by Yakut (i, 734), there were mawld divisions in the
Egyptian army already at the end of the First Civil
War, when a freedman from Balhlb was made c arif
[<?.y.] of the mawali of Tudjlb. But the c arif in question
belongs to the end of the Second Civil War (cf. al-
Kindl, Governors, 51), and it is only after the Second
Civil War that such divisions are regularly men¬
tioned, be it in Egypt, Khurasan or elsewhere (Crone,
Slaves, 38). There were mawali in the Syrian army too,
for all that mawld divisions are not mentioned here
after c Abd al-Malik (cf. ibid. , 274); we are incidentally
given to understand that the Syrian troops in Egypt in
125/742-3 included mawali ahl Hims (al-Kindl, Gover¬
nors, 83), and that those brought to Spain by Baldj b.
Bishr [q.v.) included mawali of the Umayyads, clearly
among others (Levi-Provengal, Hist. Esp. mus., i y8;

878

MAWLA

cf. also Juda, Aspekte, 84-5). Mawali also participated
in the revolt against al-Walld II, but whether as
regular soldiers or private retainers is not clear (al-
Tabari, ii, 1800, 1806f., 1809).

The proportion of non-Arabs to Arabs in the late
Umayyad armies cannot be estimated. In 96/714-15
the mawali of Kh urasan were numerically on a par
with Bakr b. Wa D il [g.v. ], numbering 7,000 out of a
total of 54,000 (al-Tabari, ii, I290f.). They must have
become more numerous thereafter. Contrary to what
is often stated, the Umayyads did not try to keep non-
Arabs out of the army (cf. below); and the attempt to
show that their numbers decreased after 96, at least in
Kh urasan, rests on a misreading of the sources (M. A.
Shaban, The ^Abbasid revolution, Cambridge 1970, 113,
115 and passim\ the figure of 1,600 given for the
rearguard in the Battle of the Pass scarcely refers to
mawali, and at all events, not to their total number; we
are explicitly told that the governor had dispersed his
troops before the battle and that two mawld com¬
manders, one in charge of 10,000, were among those
who had gone elsewhere, cf. al-Tabari, ii, 1532f.,
1538, 1549, 1551). In fact, mawali must have been
particularly numerous in Kh urasan, where they are
constantly mentioned and their participation in all
military activities is taken for granted, be it in cam¬
paigns (ibid., 1023, 1080, 1225, 1447, 1478, 1485,
1516, 1518, 1538, 1630f., cf. 1184f.) feuds (ibid .,
1856), or revolts and their suppression (ibid., 1582,
1589, 1605, 1920f., 1926, 1933, cf. 1163, 1867,
1918f., 1922).

Once admitted to the army, mawali began to receive
both military and fiscal governorship. Thus the gover¬
nor and general of Kinnasrin in 75/694-5 was a mawld
of c Abd al-Malik (al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 188), and we
incidentally learn that the governor of Ba c labakk in
126/743-4 was also a client of the Umayyads (al-
Tabari, ii, 1790). The Djazlra received its first non-
Arab governor under c Umar II and/or Yazid II in
Maymun b. Mihran, a mawld of B. Nasr (or Azd) who
had been tutor to c Umar ITs children and who was
later to command the Syrian army against Byzantium
(al-Azdi, Mawsil, 37; Ibn Habib, Muhabbar, 478; al-
Tabari, ii, 1487). Mawali appear as sub-governors in
Transoxania from the time of Kutayba onwards (al-
Tabari, ii, 1206, 1448, 1694f.), and they regularly
ruled North Africa. Abu TMuhadjir, who
administered North Africa for ten years under
Mu c awiya, was appointed by his own patron, the
governor of Egypt (al-Tabari, ii, 94; al-Baladhuri,
Futuh, 228). Similarly, Musa b. Nusayr [ q.v .), a mawld
of disputed origin who enjoyed the protection of c Abd
al- c Az!z b. Marwan \q.v.\, c Abd al-Malik’s governor
of Egypt, was appointed by his protector. He in turn
appointed a mawld of his own, Tarik b. Ziyad [q.v. ] as
commander in the conquest of Spain (al-Baladhuri,
Futuh, 230f.; Ibn c IdharI, i, 39f., 43). Thereafter, a
succession of mawali were appointed by the caliphs
themselves. Sulayman chose Muhammad (or c Abd
Allah) b. Yazid, a mawla of the Umayyads (Ibn
c Idhari, i, 47). c Umar II appointed Isma c Il b. c Abd
Allah b. Abi TMuhadjir, a mawld of Makhzum who
had worked as tutor to his children (al-Baladhuri.
Futuh, 231; Ibn Habib, Muhabbar, 476). Isma c Il was
followed by Yazid b. Abi Muslim, a freeborn mawld
of al-Hadjdjadj’s [q.v. ] appointed by Yazid II (al-
Dj ahshivari. 42; al-Baladhuri. Futuh, 231); and when
he in turn was murdered for his harsh policies, a
mawld of the Ansar by the name of Muhammad b.
Yazid was elevated from the troops by popular choice
and, subsequently, caliphal appointment (al-Tabari,
ii, 1435; al-Djahshiyari, 57; according to al-Tabari,

he was identical with the previous governor of that
name). Hisham appointed c Ubayd Allah b. al-
Habhab, mawld of Salul, to Egypt, North Africa and
Spain, and c Ubayd Allah neatly reversed the pattern
by appointing his own patron to Spain (Ibn c IdharI.
i, 5Iff.; al-Baladhuri. Futuh, 231).

Local influence. From the Second Civil War
onwards, mawali begin to appear in Muslim society
and politics as men of local importance. Thus
Humran b. Aban, a captive from c Ayn al-Tamr [q.v. ]
and former secretary of c Uthman’s, joined the pro-
Umayyad Djufriyva in Basra in the Second Civil War
and briefly achieved the position of governor there
(Ch. Pellat, Le milieu basrien et la formation de Gahiz,
Paris 1953, 270, 278; cf. 268, probably a doublet).
Similarly, the wealthy family of c Abd Allah b. Hur-
muz, mawali of the Umayyads and directors of the
Basran diwdn al-djund from the time of al-Hadjdjadj
onwards, are said to have been very influential in this
city (al-Baladhuri, Ansdb , ivb, 123). In Khurasan, the
B. Suhayb, mawali of the B. Djahdar, enjoyed a posi¬
tion of eminence among the Rab^a and intervened in
the local feuds during the Second Civil War (al-
Tabari, ii, 491 ff.). In the Third Civil War, a certain
Muharib b. Musa, mawld of the B. Yashkur, emerged
as c azim al-kadr in Fars, where he took to expelling
Umayyad governors (ibid., 1976f.). And of Harlsh, a
mawld of Khuza c a who joined the c Abbasid revolu¬
tion, we are told that he was c azim ahl Nasd (al-
Dlnawarl, Akhbar, 341).

All in all, the mawali must thus be said to have
penetrated Arab society extremely fast. They played
a predominant role in most activities outside the world
of politics, controlled the civil administration almost
from the start and made their presence felt in military
politics within a generation of the conquests. Cer¬
tainly, the Arabs retained their control of military
politics until the end of the Umayyad period, most
governorship and other politically influential posts
being allocated to them; but the popular image of
mawali as an excluded people passively exposed to
Arab whim and prejudice is quite wrong. Given the
cultural and numerical discrepancy between the con¬
querors and their subjects, it is not really surprising
that the latter acquired influence so fast: the con¬
querors simply could not govern without non-Arab
help, as later Shu c ubls were to point out; indeed, they
needed their advice even in matters of food and drink
(al-SulI, Adab al-kuttab , ed. M. B. al-Athari, Cairo
1341, 193). What is surprising is that the Arab integu¬
ment of Muslim society withstood the pressure.

(c) Fiscal status. The secondary literature ge¬
nerally associates mawali with fiscal disabilities. Thus
all the Umayyads other than c Umar II are said
wrongfully to have collected poll tax (djizya [q. v. ]) from
converts and to have refused them registration in the
army, being assisted in this by the leaders of the non-
Muslim communities who had an interest in penalis¬
ing conversion (J. Wellhausen, The Arab kingdom and
its fall , Calcutta 1927, ch. 5; D. C. Dennett, Conversion
and poll-tax in early Islam, Cambridge Mass. 1950; H.
A. R. Gibb, The fiscal rescript of''Umar 11, in Arabica ii/1
[1955], 1-16). But this view is in need of modification.
On the one hand, the vast majority of mawali were
freedmen and descendants of freedmen who had never
paid any poll-tax at all; and free converts who
acquired a respectable patron also escaped fiscal
disabilities (Crone, Slaves , 52). The conventional pic¬
ture applies only to a special type of convert, the
fugitive peasant. On the other hand, the Umayyad
treatment of such mawali should not be seen as a viola¬
tion of the law; the law on this question was what the

MAWLA

879

Umayyads themselves decreed. The fact that the
classical rules of taxation have been attributed to
c Umar I does not mean that they in fact existed so
early (cf. K. Morimoto, The fiscal administration of
Egypt in the early Islamic period, Kyoto 1981); and they
would not have helped the Umayyads even if they
had. Thus the classical rules lay down that the convert
should be freed of his poll-tax, but not of his land-tax
[kharadj [q.v. ]). In the Umayyad period, however, no
villager converted without leaving his villages and
thus also such land as he might possess: the distinction
between a dhimmi poll-tax and a religiously neutral
land-tax was quite irrelevant. Converts invariably left
their land because the attraction of conversion lay in
its promise of access to the ranks of the conquerors:
converting without joining these ranks would have
been pointless and, locally, extremely unpleasant. To
convert was thus to make a hidjra [q v.\ from the land
of unbelief to the land of Islam, that is, the garrison
cities, as c Umar II explained (Ibn c Abd al-Hakam,
Sirat c Umar b. c Abd al- c Aziz, ed. A. c Ubayd, Beirut
1967, 93f.); and the problem confronting the

Umayyads was not whether converts should be freed
of this or that part of their fiscal burden, but whether
they should be allowed to make their hidjra and thus
escape their fiscal burden altogether. Naturally,
Umayyad policies varied. c Umar II accepted such
converts (his problem was thus the fate of their land,
cf. ibid.). But most Umayyads adopted a harsh policy
vis-a-vis fugitives regardless of whether they claimed
conversion or not (cf. Morimoto, Fiscal administration,
120ff.; Crone, Slaves , 52), resettling them in their
villages or at best allowing them to stay where they
were in return for continuing fiscal liability. Three
points follow from this. First, the fugitives in question
were required to pay all their customary taxes,
whatever these might be, not merely a religiously
neutral land-tax: having been denied access to the
conquest society, they were not Muslims at all in the
eyes of the authorities; and all their taxes, not merely
the poll-tax, were regarded as dhimmi taxes at this
stage. Secondly, such converts were not eligible for
membership of the army. Naturally, when c Umar II
decided to admit them to Muslim society, he admitted
them to the army as well; but the fact that others
refused them entry to the army does not mean that
mawali as such were kept out of the diwan. The
numerous mawali who fought in the army without pay
were runaway peasants who were still being held to
their fiscal obligations and who fought as volunteers in
the hope of being picked up by a patron, as is clear
from the story of Yunus b. c Abd Rabbih, who
acquired a patron in Nasr b. Sayyar (Crone, Slaves ,
52f.). Thirdly, it was such converts, not converts in
genera], who were open to penalisation by the leaders
of the Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian com¬
munities; had their hidjra been accepted, they would of
course have been placed under Muslim administra¬
tion (cf. al-Tabari, ii, 1688; Dennett, Conversion,
124ff.).

It should be clear that the entire problem of the
fiscal treatment of converts was a problem for dhimmis,
not for mawali. It was dhimmis who were frustrated by
the closure of “the gate of the hidyra ’ (cf. Ibn c Abd al-
Hakam, Sira , 94); a mawla, by contrast, was
somebody already admitted. It was accordingly also
dhimmis, not mawali, who would enrol in the service of
anyone who promised them tax-relief. “Whoever
converts is freed from kharddf' is a slogan on a par
with that addressed to slaves, “whoever joins us is
free” (cf. Crone, Slaves, nn. 399-400, 647). Both are
addressed, usually by rebels, to malcontents outside

free Muslim society, not to oppressed elements within
in; it was only on responding to such slogans that the
non-Muslims and slaves in question acquired client
status.

(d) The issue of assimilation. The Umay¬
yads are generally credited with an active policy of
discrimination against non-Arab Muslims (cf. most
recently, M. A. Shaban, Islamic history, i, Cambridge
1971). This impression arises largely from their treat¬
ment of fugitive peasants. But though they
discouraged flight from the land and no doubt shared
the common prejudice against non-Arabs, they do not
seem to have had an actual policy of discrimination
against accredited members of Muslim society. Prac¬
tically every Umayyad caliph is known to have
appointed a mawla governor. Al-Hadjdjadj, a man
notorious for his harsh treatment of runaway
peasants, appointed the first non-Arab judges in c Irak
(al- c AH, Tanzimat, 96 n); he also appointed a mawla to
his shurta (al-Yakubl, ii, 328), an unusual step (for a
later example, see al-Kindl, Governors, 70). c Umar II,
a caliph famous for his encouragement of conversion,
is said to have disapproved of intermarriage between
Arabs and mawali (al- c Ali, Tanzimat, 96 n). But no
prohibition of such unions has been recorded, and
mawali are known to have married female relatives of
other Umayyads (al-Baladhun, Ansab, iva, 247; al-
Tabari, ii, 1420); the right to repudiate or endorse
such unions presumably rested with the guardians of
the bride (cf. also Juda, Aspekte , 178ff.). The fact that
mawali formed quasi-tribal groups of their own in the
army reflects the tribal organisation of this army, not
a policy of segregation; and it was the Umayyads
themselves, not Abu Muslim, who abolished this
organisation in Khurasan (Crone, Slaves, 38). The
belief that mawali were relegated to the infantry rests
on a failure to distinguish mawali inside Muslim
society from runaway peasants trying to enter it:
governors and generals such as Tarik b. c Amr, Dinar
b. Dinar, Musa b. Nusayr, Tarik b. Ziyad or Ibrahim
b. Bassam were scarcely disqualified from riding
horses. (See also al-Tabari, ii, 1118f., 1599; Levi-
Proven^al, Hist. Esp. mus., i, 98.) Conversely, the
enemies of the Umayyads do not seem to have
regarded assimilation as an issue of political opposi¬
tion. No rebel of the Umayyad period mentioned the
treatment of non-Arab Muslims in his proclamations,
and the belief that the c Abbasids [q.v. ] regarded
assimilation as their prime objective is gratuitous.
Obviously, assimilation accelerated on the fall of the
conquest society, but scarcely as a result of official
encouragement. The legitimacy of favouring Arabs
over non-Arab Muslims in matters of appointment,
vengeance and marriage clearly did become an object
of debate in the Umayyad period, as did the refusal to
accept runaway converts as Muslims, and in principle
the question could have been taken up by politicans.
In practice, however, the debate remained divorced
from politics, and it continued long after the
Umayyads had fallen.

(e) Mawla grievances. As the prominence of
non-Arab Muslims in Muslim society increased, so
did their contribution to revolts. It is customary to
interpret their participation in rebellious and/or
heterodox movements as an expression of protest
against a social inequality which ultimately led to the
fall of the Umayyad dynasty. But for one thing, it is
by no means clear that mawali were disproportionately
represented in movements of protest. For another,
they scarcely clamoured for social equality. Not one
revolt of the Umayyad period was conducted
exclusively by mawali in the name of concerns

880

MAWLA

exclusive to them; and the only two revolts in which
such concerns came to the forefront, revealed some¬
what different aims. The first is that of Mukhtar, an
Arab opportunist whose non-Arab followers are des¬
cribed as slaves and freedmen ( c abfd wa-mawdli) in the
Muslim sources, and as prisoners-of-war in the con¬
temporary Christian work of Bar Penkaye (Mingana,
Sources syriaques , *156ff. = *183ff.). They were thus
captives trying to escape their Arab masters, not con¬
verts seeking equality with them (indeed, the extent to
which they were Muslims is disputable); and though
Mukhtar was of course forced to extend Arab
privileges to them in order to gain their co-operation,
neither he nor they would seem to have had any views
on the position of non-Arab Muslims in general. The
second is that of the Berbers, recruited into Kha-
ridjism [see kharidjites] by Basran missionaries; and
Berber Kharidjism did not of course express a desire
for social equality, but rather for political
independence in Islam. Once more, the conventional
picture rests on a failure to distinguish between
dhimmis denied recognition as Muslims on the one
hand and mawdli within Muslim society on the other.
The former did indeed clamour for Arab privileges,
such privileges being denied them altogether; but the
latter clamoured for such privileges (social, cultural or
political) as were appropriate to the social group in
which they happened to find themselves. The fact that
all non-Arabs were exposed to insult and prejudice
does not mean that they responded by forming a
trade-union. A non-Arab peasant in search of a
patron such as Yunus b. c Abd Rabbih had little in
common with non-Arabs who had long been members
of Muslim society; and of these, a general such as
Ibrahim b. Bassam had little in common with mawdli
working as secretaries, scholars or businessmen, let
alone as domestic servants. To attribute the fall of the
Umayyads to “mawla discontent” is accordingly
meaningless; what grievances did Hammad al-
Rawiya, an c IrakI collector of Arabic poetry at home
at the Umayyad court, share with an uncouth Berber
general such as Tarik b. Ziyad, and what sympathy
did either feel for the miserable peasants rounded up
by Umayyad governors (Arab and non-Arab)
throughout the caliphate? Non-Arab Muslims simply
did not form a single social group. The fact that
numerous mawdli participated in the c Abbasid revolu¬
tion is accordingly also meaningless unless it is
specified what kind of mawdli they were. In fact, they
were of three quite different kinds: long-standing
members of Muslim society such as the family of the
above-mentioned Ibrahim b. Bassam (al-Tabari, ii,
1996-7, iii, 17f., 21, 37, 48, 75ff.; for their origin, see
al-Baladhurl, Futuh, 393); freedmen and other clients
who automatically followed their (Arab or non-Arab)
patrons (e.g. al-Tabari, ii, 1954); and dhimmi villagers
for whom joining the rebel armies constituted both
conversion and admission to Muslim society, as it did
for Sunbadh [<?. v. ] and other recruits of Abu Muslim’s
who were later to opt out of this society as followers
of prophets of their own. The causes of the revolution
are clearly to be sought in the first type of mawla and
his Arab counterpart (from whom he is frequently
indistinguishable), the long-standing member of
Khurasan! society. Such men were subject neither to
fiscal disabilities nor to exclusion from the army, the
cavalry, high office or general respect. The identifica¬
tion of their aims depends on whether one regards
them as coming from inside or outside the local army,
the evidence suggesting the former (on this question
see Shaban, c Abbasid revolution ; M. Sharon, Black ban¬
ners from the East, Jerusalem 1983; cf. also E. L.

Daniel, The political and social history of Khurasan under
Abbasid rule, Minneapolis and Chicago 1979).

3. The c Abbasids.

The c Abbasid revolution deprived the Arabs of such
social and political privileges as they retained. Access
to political office, influence and wealth now rested
overwhelmingly on membership of an army recruited
mainly in Khurasan and a bureaucracy recruited
mainly in c Irak, as well as of the ruler’s household.
Non-Arab Muslims reached top positions through all
three institutions (Crone, Slaves, appendix 5; cf.
baramika), while at the same time the majority of
Arabs and mawdli found equality as ordinary subjects.
Since Muslim society was no longer constituted by
Arab privilege, non-Arab Muslims ceased to require
a patron for membership of it. Freedmen continued to
become clients of their manumitters, but most of the
classical schools rejected the patronate over converts
as offensive (below, section V), and the careers of free
converts and the descendants of freedman ceased to be
shaped by wald Yet Arab superiority on the one
hand and the institution of wala* on the other were still
to be of major importance in other ways.

(a) The Shu c ubiyya. In cultural and religious
terms, the Arabs continued to be regarded as a
superior people, a fact which underlay the so-called
Shu c ubl movement, the ‘‘movement of the gentiles”.
Shu c ubl sentiments had undoubtedly been common
already in the Umayyad period, but it was only in the
early c Abbasid period that they came into the open,
clearly because the mawdli were now in a position to
get a hearing for their case: the exponents of
Shu c ubism were drawn primarily from among
members of the caliphal bureaucracy and court.
Purely literary in manifestation (cf. Goldziher, Muh.
Stud., i, chs. 4-5), the movement campaigned for
cultural rather than social or political objectives, its
ultimate aim being to break the nexus between Islam
and Arabism, partly because this nexus stood in the
way of non-Arab self-esteem and more particularly
because it obstructed the reception of non-Arab
culture. Ultimately, the issue behind the controversy
was the cultural orientation of Islam (cf. H. A. R.
Gibb, Studies on the civilization of Islam, Princeton 1962,
ch. 4). The controversy only petered out in the
6th/12th century (cf. R. P. Mottahedeh, The
Shu c ubiyah controversy and the social history of early Islamic
Iran, in IJMES, vii [1976]), and the issue was never
properly resolved, though in practice the Shu c ubls lost
(cf. P. Crone and M. Cook, Hagarism, Cambridge
1977, 102 f.). For further details, see shu c ubiyya.

(b) Wald 5 . Having lost its social importance, the
institution of wald? acquired a new political
significance. Unlike the Umayyads, the c Abbasids
trusted their freedmen and other private servants bet¬
ter than the public servants of the state. Thus al-
Mansur [q. v. ] is said to have esteemed mawdli (in the
sense of clients, not non-Arab Muslims) for their
loyalty and to have accumulated more of them than
any caliph before him, recommending them to his son
(al-Tabari, iii, 414, 444, 448). Clients of the caliphal
household appear as a separate group at court soon
after the revolution, and both al-Mansur and al-
Mahdl [q. v. ] selected a fair number of governors from
their ranks (al-Tabari, iii, 429, 545, 1027; Crone,
Slaves, appendix Vb). Al-Mahdl, who similarly
expressed a preference for mawall (al-Tabari, iii, 531),
turned them into an army of their own (ibid. , 459).
Mawdli of domestic origin continued to form troops of
their own side by side with Turks and others far into
the c Abbasid period, as well as in Tulunid Egypt

MAWLA

881

(ibid., 1400, 1501; al-Ya c kub!, ii, 606, 624; cf. Agham ,
xii, 52). Already al-Man§ur, however, recruited non-
Muslims for military use, attaching them to the
c Abbasid house by contractual wala?, and this exam¬
ple was followed by Harun [q. v. ] (Crone, Slaves, 74).
And from the time of al-Mu c tasim \q.v. ] onwards, the
core of the caliph’s armies typically consisted of men
who were both slaves and non-Muslims by origin [(cf.
djaysh and ghulam]: D. Ayalon, Preliminary remarks on
the Mamluk military institution in Islam, in V. J. Parry
and M. E. Yapp, eds., War, technology and society in the
Middle East , Oxford 1975; D. Pipes, Slave soldiers and
Islam, New Haven 1981; Crone, Slaves, ch. 10).

As political power came to rest on private ties with
the caliph, the title mawld amir al-mu^minin became a
common honorific. First attested under al-Mansur, it
was bestowed on governors and other dignitaries of
non-Arab origin regardless of whether they were
clients of the caliph in a legal sense. From the time of
al-Mu c tasim onwards, it was regularly granted to
Turkish generals and other favourites. It was also the
title usually held by non-Arab rulers of successor
states (Crone, Slaves, 75, appendix Vb, note 610; al-
BaladhurT, Futuh, 134, 330; al-Ya c kub!, ii, 597; Hilal
al-Sabi 3 , Rusum dar al-khildfa, ed. M. c Awwad,
Baghdad 1964, 122 f.).

4. Muslim Spain.

The relationship between Arab and non-Arab
Muslims in Spain differed from that of the east in
three major respects. First, wala* played virtually no
role in it. On the one hand, many of the conquerors
were Berbers, and such ties of wala* as they had with
Arab patrons lost all significance when they acquired
the status of conquerors themselves. On the other
hand, the conquerors settled all over the land, not
merely in garrison cities. Muslim Spain thus lacked
not only the purely Arab conquest elite characteristic
of the east, but also the privileged amjar which else¬
where attracted dhimmi immigrants and caused the
Muslims to exclude from their ranks all converts with¬
out a patron. Conversion in Spain did not normally
involve either hidjra or wala?, the converts adopting
Islam wherever they happened to be. Indeed, they
were not normally known as mawdli at all, but rather,
in the first generation, as musalima and thereafter as
muwalladun (originally meaning home-born slaves;
Levi-Provengal, Hist. Esp. mus., i, 75). Having
adopted Islam in their own homes, the non-Arab
Muslims of Spain failed to penetrate Arab society.
Naturally Spain had its freedmen who, here as else¬
where, entered Arab society as clients. But whereas
freedmen of the most diverse origin were exceedingly
numerous in the cosmopolitan East, they were
relatively few in Spain. Spanish society thus came to
be characterised by the coexistence of three quite
distinct ethnic groups, Arabs, Berbers and muwallads,
rather than by relationship of dependence between
Arabs and ethnically heterogeneous clients. Further¬
more, since Spain escaped Khurasan! conquest, these
groups were able to retain political importance right
down to c Abd al-Rahman III [q.v.].

Secondly, Spain saw armed conflicts between Arabs
and indigenous Muslims. Throughout most of the
Umayyad period, the mawdli of the East were
ethnically too diverse and socially too dispersed in
Arab society to rebel as mawdli against Arabs, while at
the same time non-Arabs who had stayed together had
also failed to adopt Islam. Only shortly before and
after the c Abbas id revolution, when on the one hand
whole localities adopted Islam together, while on the
other hand government was still identified as Arab,

did non-Arab Muslims rebel against Arab rule. They
did not, however, rebel as mawdli, but rather as
heretics (as in North Africa) or even non-Muslims,
rejecting the Arabs and Islam together (as in both
North Africa and Iran). In Spain, where Arabs and
muwallads coexisted as distinct groups, such revolts
could in principle have erupted any time. In practice,
they only came in the 3rd/9th century, perhaps pro¬
voked by the growth of the Umayyad state (Arab and
Berber leaders also rebelled, and the upshot was the
centralised state of c Abd al-Rahman III); and here for
once the rebels took action as mawdli, explicitly invok¬
ing the cause of the non-Arab Muslims ( da c wat al-
muwalladin wa ’l-^adjam, Ibn Hayyan, al-Muktabis, ed.
M. M. Antuna, Paris 1937, 24) under the leadership
of men such as c Umar b. Hafsun [q.v.]. Being short
of traditions of their own, partly because they were
natives of provincial Spain and partly because they
were Muslims of long standing, they had no alter¬
native to Cordovan Islam. Accordingly, they did not
deny the legitimacy of the Cordovan state as heretics;
and though Ibn Hafsun did in the end reject Islam for
Christianity, few muwallads followed suit (cf. Levi-
Provengal, Hist. Esp. mus., i, 295 ff.).

Thirdly, there were practically no Shu c ub!s in
Spain. The fact that the muwallads did not have much
of a cultural legacy to vindicate would hardly in itself
have prevented them from adopting Shu c ub!
arguments in response to Arab prejudice: the one
Shu c ub! author attested for Spain, a Slav secretary
equally lacking in cultural traditions of his own,
simply adopted the arguments of eastern writers (cf.
J. T. Monroe, The Shu c ubiyya in al-Andalus, Berkeley
and Los Angeles 1970). But having avoided enslave¬
ment and migration, the muwallads had also failed to
acquire culture and positions of influence in the
society of their conquerors. Where eastern mawdli had
spokesmen among bureaucrats and courtiers, the
leaders of the muwallads were country squires more
noted for their virtu than for their polish; indeed, the
smarts and insults suffered by such rural lords at the
court of Cordova played a role in the outbreak of
several muwallad revolts. The muwallads thus lacked
both the education and the influence required for a
literary onslaught on Arab superiority. Instead, how¬
ever, they were in a position to take up arms in their
castles, as they did until c Abd al-Rahman III reduced
both them and their opponents to docile subjects.

In political terms, however, the institution of wala 3
played much the same role in Spain as it did in the
c Abbasid East. Thus c Abd al-Rahman I [q.v.], who
relied considerably on freedmen and clients of the
Umayyads for the conquest of Spain, is said by some
to have recruited an army among non-Arab Muslims;
al-Hakam I [q.v. ] expanded this army and created the
palatial guard of khurs (“mute ones”), i.e. foreign
slaves and freedmen as well as local Christians (Levi-
Provengal, Hist. Esp. mus., i, 129 f., iii, 71 IT.). The
dyund [q.v.], however, survived much longer in Spain
than it did elsewhere, being abolished only by Ibn Abi
c AmTr [see al-mansur]; and thanks to the geopolitical
position of Spain, it was Berber mercenaries rather
than Turkish slaves and freedmen who replaced it.

5. Wald* in classical law.

(a) Sources of wala*. All schools accept
manumission as a source of wala*. Only the Hanafis,
Imarms and Kasim! Zaydis, however, accept contrac¬
tual agreement as such, and then in different ways.
According to the Hanafis and Imarms, contractual
clientage ( wala* al-muwaldt or, in the terminology of
the Imamis, al-tadammun bi ’ l-d^arira ) arises from a

882

MAWLA — MAWLANA KHUNKAR

contractual agreement distinct from the act of conver¬
sion at the hands of another; conversion does not in
itself give rise to the tie. But according to the Kasimis,
it arises from conversion at the hands of another; mere
agreements cannot create wald 3 .

(b) Wald 5 al- c itk. All the schools are agreed that
wala* arises automatically on manumission, but they
disagree about the invariability with which it does so.
According to the Imamis, it only arises when the
manumission is gratuitous, i.e. not expiatory, not
made in fulfilment of a vow or other legal require¬
ment, and not made by kitdba [see c abd]; and both the
Imamis and other schools enable the manumitter to
exempt himself from wald 5 by declaring the freedmen
sa^iba, though the Sunnis disapprove of the practice.
In Hanafi and Shafi c I law, however, manumission
invariably gives rise to wald 3 , whatever the cir¬
cumstances or the inclinations of the manumitter. If
the freedman is a non-Muslim, the tie is deprived of
most of its legal effects.

The manumitter acquires responsibility for the pay¬
ment of diya on behalf of the freedman and qualifies
for the role of marriage guardian to his freedwoman
or freedman’s daughter. In return, he is granted a
title to the freedman’s estate in all schools except that
of the Ibatfls (not that of the Zahirls, as stated in
c abd). In Sunni and Kasim! Zayd! law, he inherits as
the remotest agnate of the freedman; he is thus
excluded by the freedman’s own agnates (e.g. a son),
but inherits together with Kurianic heirs (e.g. a
daughter) and himself excludes remoter relatives
(<dhawu ’ l-arham , e.g. a sister’s son). In Imam!, Isma c IlI
and Nasirl Zaydl law he is excluded by any blood rela¬
tion of the freedman, though he inherits together with
the spouse.

The freedman does not, on the whole, acquire any
corresponding rights and duties. Only the Isma c llls
call him to succession, and only in default of all other
heirs. The Malikls do hold him responsible for the
payment of diya on behalf of the manumitter if the lat¬
ter has no agnates, ahl al-diwan or patrons of his own;
but a similar opinion transmitted from al-Shafi c i
failed to become school doctrine, and all other schools
exempt him. The possibility that he might act as mar¬
riage guardian is not considered.

The relationship survives the death of both parties,
passing to their heirs in perpetuity, though it loses
practical importance as the client acquires agnates of
his own. It also extends to the freedmen of the freed¬
man and their freedmen in perpetuity, again with
decreasing practical significance.

(c) Wald 3 al-muwdlat. The prospective patron
must be a free, male and adult Muslim. The prospec¬
tive client, according to the HanafTs and Imamis,
must be a free and adult non-Muslim of either sex
who has no agnates or patrons in Islam, that is a
dhimmt , convert, foundling or (in ImamI law) a freed¬
man without wala*\ the Kasimis, however, require
him to be a harbi convert: conversion of a dhimmi does
not give rise to wald 5 . The patron agrees to pay blood-
money on behalf of the client in return for a title to the
latter’s estate; the parties may stipulate mutual suc¬
cession. Either way, the heir by contractual wald? is
excluded by any blood-relation of the deceased.
Whether the contractual patron may act as marriage
guardian is disputed. Unlike wala' 3 al-Htk , the contrac¬
tual relationship may be terminated as long as the
patron has not had occasion to pay, but it becomes
permanent thereafter.

(d) The nature of wala 3 . Practically every
lawbook states that wald? should be regarded as a fic¬
titious kinship tie ( al-wala 3 luhma ka-luhmat al-nasab, as

a famous maxim has it), and this view underlies a
number of subsidiary rules generally accepted by
Sunnis and non-Sunnis alike. Thus wala 3 cannot be
alienated by sale, gift or bequest in classical law,
though such transactions were permitted in pre-
classical law; one cannot sell or give away nasab, as
various authorities point out in hadith. Equally, wala 3
cannot be inherited in the strict sense of the word; the
devolution of the rights and duties vested in the tie
follows special rules ensuring that the relationship
functions like an agnatic tie (cf. R. Brunschvig, Un
systeme pen connu de succession agnalique dans le droit
musulman , in his Etudes d’Islamologie, Paris 1976). Pace
Brunschvig, however, this view of wala 3 is not an
archaic survival, but on the contrary a juristic inter¬
pretation of the late Umayyad and early c Abbasid
periods. It was adopted with particular forcefulness
and consistency by the Sunnis, to whom the essence
of wala-* lies in ta c $ib, “agnatisation”.

In fact, however, the legal nature of wald 3 is quite
different from that of an agnatic tie even in classical
law. For one thing, it is only in Sunni law that the
patron inherits as an agnate, and then only if he is a
manumitter, not a contractual patron. For another
thing, the relationship lacks reciprocity. The client is
a purely passive member of the patron’s agnatic kin.
Indeed, for some purposes he is not a member of it at
all. Thus Sunni lawyers do not usually consider clients
of Kuraysh [q.v.] eligible for the caliphate; and the
question whether clients of the Hashimites were
excluded from receipt of zakdt [q.v. ] on a par with their
patrons remained controversial; as Ibn al-Athlr
pointed out, the maxim mawla l-kawm minhum (which
originated in this very context) could be interpreted in
a purely metaphorical vein (ai-Nihdya, Cairo 1963, v,
228). In legal terms, wala 3 is a tie of dependence which
derives its efficacy from the fact that the client is
detached from his natal group without acquiring full
membership of another. The tie undoubtedly owes its
existence primarily to administrative convenience,
though the administrators may well have been influ¬
enced by the legal institutions of the pre-conquest
Near East (see further Crone, Roman provincial and
Islamic law, with full references).

(e) Mawali and kafa 3 a [q.v.]. Classical law does
not in general attach any legal significance to servile
and/or non-Arab origin outside the private relation¬
ship between patron and client, but there is one major
exception. Non-Arabs and freedmen cannot marry
Arab women, according to the HanafTs and the
§hafi c Is. The same view prevails among the Hanballs,
while contradictory views are found in the Zaydl
schools. The Malikls, who see no harm in such
unions, nonetheless allow an Arab woman to have her
marriage dissolved if she marries a freedman in the
belief that he is an Arab (as opposed to merely
freeborn (Khalil b. Ishak, Mukhtasar , tr. I. Guidi and
D. Santillana, Milan 1919, ii, 37). Only the Ibadls,
the Imamis and, following them, the Isma c llls, con¬
sistently refuse to distinguish between Arab and non-
Arab, freeborn and freed for purposes of marriage [cf.
nikah]. The complete assimilation of Arab and non-
Arab Muslims allegedly brought about by the
c Abbasids cannot be said ever to have been achieved.

Bibliography. Given in the article.

(P. Crone)

MAWLANA KHUNKAR. a title of the head
of the Mawlawl order of dervishes [see
mawlawiyya]. The second word is the Turkish form
of the Persian khudawandigdr , the equivalent of mawla,
which according to Aflakl (Saints des derviches tourneurs,
i, 59) was bestowed on Djalal al-Dln by his father (the

MAWLANA KHUNKAR — MAWLAWIYYA

883

derivation from Khun-kar . Persian “blood-shedder”,
must depend on popular etymology). Sami in his
Kamus al-aHdm states that the word, besides used for
“Sultan”, “King”, is applied to certain saintly per¬
sonages, in such combinations as pir khunkar or mulla
khunkar. The underlying idea of such a title is probably
that the saint has had committed to him the govern¬
ment of the world, if he choose to undertake it, an idea
elaborated by Ibn c ArabT ( Fuluhdt Makkiyya , i, 262, ii,
407), who regards such a saint as the true khalifa. The
title celebi is more generally recognised as that belong¬
ing to the head of the MawlawT order (Sami, op.cit.,
510a).

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(D. S. Margoliouth*)

MAWLAWI, Mulla c Abd al-RahIm TaydjawzI,
a Kurdish poet who composed an c Akida-nama and
a celebrated diwdn in the HawramI dialect of Guranl.
He was born ca. 1222/1807 at Tawagoz in Djawanrud
and died at Sarshata, on the river Slrwan near
Halab^ja, ca. 1300/1883.

Bibliography: V. Minorsky, The Gurdn, in
BSOAS, xi (1943-5), 94; Plramerd, Diwan-i
Mawlawi , 2 vols., Sulaymanlya, 1938-40; ‘•Ala 5 al-
DTn SadjdjadI, Mezhu-y adab-i kurdi, Ba gh dad 1952.

(Ed.)

MAWLAWIYYA, a $GfT order or tarika, in
Turkish Mewlewiyye, modern Mevlevi, which takes
its name from the Mawlana (“Our Master”), the
sobriquet of Djalal al-DTn RumT [q.v.]. Although not
called by this name, it appears that such a tarika was
formed already in the Mawlana’s time, and this view
is reinforced by the existence of a group of disciples
around the Mawlana, by his concern for their educa¬
tion and by his appointment of deputies to carry out
this task during his absences. However, like many
turuk (e.g. the Khalwatiyya [</.fl.]), this tarika acquired
its name at a later stage. There is no definite informa¬
tion that the Mawlana’s followers were called
Mawlawiyya in his own time, but it is known that
already at that time, the epithet Mawlana had
replaced the name Djalal al-Dln (see AflakT, Mandkib
al- c arifin, ed. T. Yazici, Ankara 1959-61, ii, 597), and
it is therefore probable that his followers were even
then called Mawlawiyya.

1. Origins and ritual of the order.

An attempt will be made here to demonstrate to
what extent the subsequent and relatively developed
form of the order is connected with that of the
Mawlana’s era. Such a demonstration shows that a
great part of the contemporary customs and rules of
the order also existed in the time of the Mawlana (see
Yazici, Mevlana devrinde sema , in §arkiyat Mecmuast, v
[1964], 135-59). In particular, it appears that certain
elements of the sama c [q.v. ] or musical ceremony,
which occupies an important place in the customs and
rules of the tarika, were found in the samd c gatherings
of the Mawlana’s era (Yazici, loc. cit.). It is known
that there was found a special meeting-room which
formed the nucleus of the sama c -fdidna of later
Mawlawi tekke s. It is also known that there was a
djama : at-khdna among the rooms constructed alongside
the Mawlana’s madrasa by the Saldjuk statesman Tadj
al-DTn Mu c tazz, and that the Mawlana there listened
to conversation, men of letters and the playing of the
rabab, and in all probability also conducted sama c (see
AflakT, i, 97, 125, 138, 252, 255). In the same fashion,
the madrasa at which the Mawlana taught served at
that time as the tarika s tekke, or as subsequently
named, dargah. It is highly probable that the dyama^at-
khana adjacent to the madrasa was used during the
Mawlana’s lifetime and after his death as a place to

train novices or murids, and that a shaykh was found
there. The first of these shaykhs was Salah al-DTn
Zarkub, who was followed by Husam al-DTn Celebi,
Karim al-DTn Bektemur and Sultan Walad. AflakT (i,
232) records that while the Mawlana was alive he had
two khalifas outside Konya, one at Lu 5 luwe Ma c deni,
the other called Madjd al-Din Walad-i Ca gh a in the
lands of Rum, and that he gave to them the spiritual
genealogy or shadyara of the tarika which he had writ¬
ten. However, the fact that, until Sultan Walad, none
of these appointees came from the Mawlana’s family
suggests that the Mawlana may not have intended to
found an order. For, as frequently occurs in many
orders, the successor of the founder of a tarika is
generally a member of his family. Had he had such an
intention, there was no reason why he should not have
appointed as his successor his son Sultan Walad, who
possessed all the requisite qualities of a shaykh of a
tarika.

There is a great probability that the chief principles
of the Mawlawiyya, such as sama 1 ', were already estab¬
lished in the Mawlana’s era, and that after some fur¬
ther development they took the form they bear today.

After Sultan Walad’s succession, a new centre for
the tarika was formed with the building of the tiirbe,
which survives today, by c Alam al-DTn Kaysar. At
this centre—as in a tekke —the Kur 5 an and Mathnawi of
the Mawlana were read, prayers were recited and the
sama c was conducted. At this period, as in the
Mawlana’s time, sama'' was performed individually
and collectively (AflakT, i, 356, 104, ii, 759 ff.). Such
gestures as that of salutation, which occur in today’s
sama c ceremony, were also encountered in the
Mawlana’s sama c (ibid., i, 412). This type of element
continued under Sultan Walad and Ulu c Arif Celebi
(ibid., ii, 613, 795, 892, 966).

However, none of the MawlawT sources prior to
754/1353 refers to the naH, dawr-i waladi, pust du c asi
and the organised salutation which feature in the
sama c ceremonies of later eras. In sum, at that period
there was no sama c taught in advance. Rather, music
or some event bringing a person to ecstasy was the
occasion for sama c . As is apparent from its name, the
dawr-i waladi was linked to Sultan Walad. However,
it appears that the reading of the Rur 5 an and of ghazals
[q.v.] before the sama c was established in the time of
Ulu c Arif Celebi (AflakT, ii, 846 ff.). It is most likely
that the sama c took its final form, known as mukabala,
in the time of PTr c Adil Celebi (d. 864/1460).

In the hope of showing all the characteristics of the
Mawlawiyya, an account will be given of its customs
and rules, beginning with entry or initiation to the
tarika.

Entry to the Mawlawiyya. Initial entry is as a muhibb,
and for this, application is made to a MawlawT shaykh.
Having indicated to the candidate that he will be
admitted to the tarika, the shaykh instructs him to bathe
and appear on an appointed day. The muhibb, that is,
the candidate murid, appears on the appointed day
with a sikke (a type of conical cap). He kisses the
shaykh 1 s hand and then sits on his left. With the faces
of both turned towards the kibla, the shaykh informs
him that they will read together a prayer of repentance
(see A. Golpmarh, Mevlevi adab ve erkam, 133). After
the prayer is read, the shaykh takes in both hands the
sikke brought by the candidate murid, and three
times—to the right, left and front of the sikke —reads
the sura Ifdilas (CXII) and blows upon the sikke. Then
he settles the candidate murid , with his face to the kibla,
down upon his left knee and holds the sikke towards
the kibla, and having stated that he is acting on behalf
of the Mawlana, he kisses the sikke from the right, left

884

MAWLAWIYYA

and front and places it upon the candidate. With his
hands upon the sikke he pronounces the takbir, and the
sikke is thus said to be tekbirlenmish. The shaykh then
caresses the back of the candidate, whose head is
resting upon his knee, raises him to his feet, and with
their right hands held together they kiss. Thus the per¬
son whose sikke has received the takbir acquires the
name of muhibb. The shaykh takes the muhibb to the dede
in the matbakh or kitchen, who will educate him. The
dede is a person resident in one of the cells (hudjre) of
the dargdh or zdwiya , who has fulfilled his cile (period
of trial) and been elevated to the rank of derwish.

The muhibb, who is also known as naw-niydz , is
informed of the difficulty of the path. The muhibb
undertakes to devote himself completely to this path,
and is then set for three days in the matbakh upon a
skin known as the sakka pustu which is believed to
remove the thirst of those who thirst for the tanka. The
muhibb , seated upon this skin upon his knees with his
head bent, observes the services performed by other
murids who are named djan (literally “soul”), does not
speak without need and when required to urinate, he
takes over his shoulders the khirka or gown with sleeves
of one of the djans and goes to the latrine. When the
three days are up, he is taken to the kazandji dede (the
person responsible for the murids' discipline) and if he
declares himself resolved to remain in the tarika, he
runs errands for eighteen days in the clothes in which
he has come, that is to say, he carries and fetches at
the double for the persons of the tekke. When this
period ends, the position is explained to the ashci dede.
Upon his request, the clothes of the muhibb are
removed and he is dressed in the matma c tennuresi , and
over this tennure (or long, sleeveless gown) there is
bound a belt called the elif-i nemed. Thus the muhibb
intending to enter the Mawlawiyya order ( soyunan ,
“changing his garments for work”) is delivered to the
kazandji , who explains to him the services which he
will perform (errands, floor-sweeping etc.). While
these services continue, the muhibb is also taught to
perform the sama c . The muhibb may not wear the sikke
until successful in sama c . Once his success in this mat¬
ter has been demonstrated, he is given a temporary
sikke and only after participating in the mubtedi
mukdbelesi (a sama c ceremony for beginners) does he
join in the true ceremony. While participating in the
real ceremony, he removes the tennure worn for service
(hizmet tennuresi ) and wears instead the samd c tennuresi ,
with a narrow shirt (deste-giif) over it and a khirka upon
his back.

Upon completing the service of errand-runner, the
muhibb leaves his service and undertakes the functions
of pazardjilik, that is to say, he does the tekke's daily
shopping. While performing this service he wears a
towel on his back, a chain upon his waist and tongs
upon his belt (elif-i nemed). At prayer times, he goes to
the masdjid of the dargdh or zdwiya, and in the mornings
joins the circle where the ism-i djalal (“glorious name
[of God]”) is repeated. He carries out the shopping,
sets and clears the table, does internal housework and
other services. Thus the muhibb completes 1,001 days
of service. The meydandji dede informs him when he has
completed his trial (cile), and explains that one week
later a sama c will be performed for this occasion, that
sharbat will be drunk at this ceremony and gives the
name of the murid ( djan ) who will distribute the sharbat.

One week later, having completed his trial (cile), the
derwish goes to the hammam and bathes, and coming to
the kitchen, he removes his tennure and puts on the
shalwar or trousers, while on his upper part he puts on
the derwish costume of mintan and khirka and again sits
upon the sakka pustu in the kitchen. That night a

candlestick of 35 or 70 branches is lit. After all but the
derwish performing the trial (cile) have eaten, the shar-
batci serves the prepared sharbat to those present. The
cilekesh (performer of cile) converses with the tarikatci,
the ashci dede or the dede s, and proceeds to the middle
and performs a salutation (niyaz). The tarikatci or the
ashci dede recites the giilbang (a prepared prayer) for
him (for the text of the giilbang, see Golpinarli,
Mevland'dan sonra mevlevilik, Istanbul 1953, 393). After
all have departed from this ceremony, the meydandji
takes him first to the tiirbedar and then to the kitchen
and gives him sharbat to drink and food to eat. Then
a white skin called Sultan Walad pustu is spread. The
meydandji seats the ashci dede upon the skin, and brings
the derwish who has completed his trial to him. After
praying that he may continue upon the path (reading
the giilbang), the ashci dede goes to his cell. The new der¬
wish too is taken to the cell set aside for him. The dede s
come there to congratulate him, each bringing with
him a different present. He does not leave his cell for
three days, and his meals are brought to his cell. After
this period he is taken by the meydandji dede to the
shaykh of the tekke and the ceremony of bay c at is per¬
formed (for details, see ibid., 394). The shaykh cuts
some hairs from the middle of the eyebrow and from
the moustache of the derwish and pronouncing the
takbir, he dresses him in the khirka of the derwish. He
then tells him to perform the trial of the cell (hudjre
cilesi). This trial consists of not leaving the cell for 18
days. When this period, too, has ended he is dressed
by the shaykh in the sikke. With this, he acquires the
title of derwish or simply of dede (Golpinarli, Mevlevi
adab ve erkani, 135). Thereafter, he begins to teach the
knowledge and arts (music, etc.) which he has
acquired to date to the muhibbs who come after him.
A dede, depending upon his ability, may become a
shaykh and khalifa [see khalifa. 3. In Islamic
mysticism]. The shaykhs represent the Mawlawiyya
order. If shaykhs are not sayyids, they wear white tur¬
bans; if they are sayyids, they wear turbans of a smoky
colour close to purple.

Shaykhs dwell in places called astana, dargdh or
zdwiya. A Mawlawi dargdh is composed of a haram,
salamlik, samd c -khana, tiirbe , masdjid, mayddn, matbakh
and derwish cells. In addition, a room called maydan-i
sharif is located close to the matbakh.-Muhibbs may not
enter here; the others enter one by one after the morn¬
ing prayer, the last to do so in Konya being the
tarikatci and elsewhere the ashci dede , and having kissed
the ground they sit. The dede called the tishari meydandji
gives to each of those seated a small piece of bread
from a tray. After these have been eaten, coffee is
drunk and then the murdkaba (“vigil”) is begun.
Later, the tarikatci or the ashci bashi dede reads sura CX
of the Kurban and recites the fatiha. After the fatiha has
been read together, all withdraw.

The Mawlawiyya are distinguished from all other
orders by the importance which they give to sama c .
Sama c is performed in a circular room called sama c -
khana. Its furnishings are covered with unnailed
walnut planks, and these planks appear as if polished
as a result of the periodic samd c . The room is entered
through the external main door. The sama c -khana com¬
prises the following sections: the space in which samd c
is conducted, the side sections reserved for male and
female visitors, the mutrib-khana for the musicians,
above the door opposite the shaykh and approached by
steps, or else the section where the musicians and the
tombs of the former shaykhs are located. This last sec¬
tion is separated from the sama c -khdna by a grille which
reaches to the roof. At times when the sama c is to be
performed, the shaykh's skin (sc. hide or rug) is spread

MAWLAWIYYA

885

opposite the mihrab [q.v.}\ it is assumed that a line
stretches from the edge of this skin to the middle of the
khatt-i istiwa This line must in no way be stepped
upon.

The samd c ceremony—also known as mukdbele (see
AnkarawT, Minhady al-fukara 3 , 68)—is performed after
prayers. Beforehand, the meydandji who supervises the
affairs of the dargdh or meyddn goes to the samd c -khana
on the day or night when samd c will be performed, and
takes the shaykh' s skin which is there to his apartment.
With the approval of the shaykh, the meydandji dede
stands facing the kibla opposite the location of the
cells, and summons the derwfshs to perform their ablu¬
tions and don the tennure. Afterwards he goes to the
sama'-khana and spreads the skin of the shaykh . He
emerges to tell the mu 3 a dhdh in to call the adhan [q.v.\.
After this person has called the adhan , the dede s and the
muhibbs perform their ablutions, don their tennure and
with their khirka on their backs they proceed to the
samd c -khdna. After the performance of prayer, the
shaykh sits upon his skin, and those who are to perform
the samd c also sit together with him. After all have
taken their places, the band of musicians takes its
place. The Mathnawikh w dn reads an extract from the
Mathnawi, while the shaykh reads his pust du c asi. They
then listen to the na c t performed by the musicians, and
afterwards the shaykh and the sama c -zans or par¬
ticipants all rise, striking their hands to the ground.
The shaykh , in harmony with the music of the musi¬
cians, walks very slowly to the right, and once he has
taken three steps from the skin, the person behind him
takes up a position near the skin and, bowing his head
in salutation, passes in front of the skin to the other
side without stepping upon the khatt-i istiwa 5 and
stands with his face towards the skin. The one who
follows him also passes before the skin. These two par¬
ticipants, standing opposite one another, look at one
another face to face. They then salute one another,
drawing the right hand from above the left from
within the khirka to the heart, and the left hand to the
right side. Next, one turns and follows the other who
goes in front. All the djans act in this way before the
skin. Then they walk in harmony with the tempo.
When the shaykh comes before the skin, he stops and
finds the most senior naw-niydz before him. They
exchange mutual salutations. Thus the first dawra or
sequence is completed. Second and third dawras follow
in the same fashion. When the third dawra is finished,
the shaykh goes towards his skin and at this moment a
nay or flute improvisation begins and continues until
the shaykh sits upon his skin: once he has done, so the
ceremony begins. The shaykh and the sama c -zans
salute. The sama c -zans remove their khirkas and place
them on the ground. Then, passing the right arm over
the left they link arms in a diagonal fashion, with the
right hand holding the left shoulder and the left hand
holding the right shoulder. The shaykh walks in front
of the skin, salutes, and the others perform the same
movement. Next the sama c -zans, setting off on the
right foot, approach the shaykh one by one, salute him
and kiss his hand. They then open their arms, the left
hand being a little higher, take three short steps and
begin to turn. The sama c -zan bashi or leader of the par¬
ticipants has charge of the sama c . The first to turn is
followed in identical fashion by the others. When the
salam is to be given, the shaykh, who is beside the skin,
advances and makes salutation. The sama c -zans come
together in twos and threes, touching each other’s
shoulders diagonally, and form groups. The second
dawra is then begun; this resembles the first. This
time, the sama c -zans perform a salutation before the
shaykh and kiss his hand. The third and fourth
dawras follow in the same fashion.

According to a tradition among the Mawlawiyya,
until the reign of Selim III (1789-1807 [< 7 -^-]) the
custom of the Mawlana’s era was maintained and
samd c was performed only at moments of ecstasy;
nonetheless, it appears that before this date samd c was
performed on specific days. D’Ohsson {Tableau general
de rempire Othoman, Paris 1789, ii, 304) records that
Tuesdays and Fridays were chosen for sama c
ceremonies. There is a strong probability that Selim
Ill’s frequent visits to mawlawi-khanas and the need to
perform sama c in his honour led to the ending of this
custom, and samd <i began to be performed every day.
However, the difficulty of performing samd c daily in
any single samd^-khdna was recognised, and it became
the practice to perform it in a different mawlawi-khana
on each day of the week. Yet in cities outside Istanbul,
the samd c ceremony was performed only on Fridays,
after Friday prayers. Nowadays, for reasons which are
touristic rather than religious, the sama c ceremony is
performed for one week annually in Konya between
11 and 17 December (see H. Ritter, Die Mevlanajeier in
Konya vom 11-17 Dezember 1960, in Oriens , xv, 249-70;
cf. Golpinarh, Mevland’dan sonra mevlevilik, 371-80,
and Mevlevi adab ve erkam, 77-89).

The Mawlawiyya have a further sama c ceremony,
called c ayn-idjem c ( c ayn al-djam’'). It is used in the sense
of uniting or gathering. This was often performed at
night, when the MawlawT brothers gathered in ecstasy
and love in the consciousness of unity with God. This
ceremony was performed either to fulfil a condition
set by a donator of a wakf [ q. v. J to the tekke, or for the
sake of someone who had made a vow, or upon the
personal request of an c dshik or devotee of the
Mawlana. This samd c was not performed in the sama c -
khana but in a rectangular room. If the sama c took
place at night, it was performed after the eating of a
meal and the performance of the evening prayer
(details in Golpinarh, op. cit. , 101). This ceremony
was also performed on the anniversary of the
Mawlana’s death (6 Djumada II 672/17 December
1273). For according to the Mawlawiyya, this day
marks the Mawlana’s birth into eternity. As this date
changes annually in accordance with the hidjri calen¬
dar, when the anniversary occurred in summer or
spring rush mats and rugs would be spread on the
turbe- facing side of the pond which lies outside the
mayddn odasi of the dargdh in Konya, and the c ayn-i
djem c would be performed in the open air.

The Mawlawiyya have striven to give meanings to
the sama^-khana and to the gestures made by the samd c -
zans during sama c . Thus the right-hand arc of the cir¬
cular sama c -khana represents the apparent world, while
the left-hand arc represents the unseen world of mean¬
ing within the apparent world. Similarly, the right arc
represents the descent from absolute being to
humanity, the left, spiritual ascent, maturity and the
path to God {suluk). The starting-point of the khatt-i
istiwa 3 (i.e. the place of the shaykh) is a sign of the
world of absolute being, while the point directly oppo¬
site is a sign of the rank of humanity.

The derwish who performs the sama c is called samd c -
zan. During the sama c , the samd c -zan’s hand raised to
heaven is a sign of taking from God, while his
downward-pointing left hand is a sign that what is
taken from God with the right hand is given to the
people. The sama c -zan believes that what has thus been
taken from God is given to the people, that he himself
exists only in appearance and in reality does not exist,
and that he is nothing but an intermediary between
God and the people. In this position, his arms resem¬
ble a lam-alif (y|), while the body between the two
arms is like an alif, thus giving the form of La ilaha ilia
’Udh.

886

MAWLAWIYYA

The first dawra of the sama c ceremony shows the
manifestation of God, in whom all names and quali¬
ties are found. At the end of this dawra, God is
manifested with the name (l saldm" . Thus the salik' s
knowledge of God’s unity reaches the degree of Him al-
yakin, i.e. his knowledge of God’s unity has the degree
of certain knowledge. In the second dawra , this
knowledge reaches the degree of vision {fayn al-yakin).
In the third dawra he becomes what he sees, i.e. his
knowledge becomes hakk al-yakin. The fourth dawra
represents God’s existence and being (Golpinarh,
ibid., 107 ff.).

Another characteristic which distinguishes the
Mawlawiyya from other orders is cile (trial). The
Mawlawl cile does not, as in other orders, consist of
the endurance of such hardships as eating and drink¬
ing little, remaining without sleep and the perfor¬
mance of an extreme degree of dhikr, all generally in
a closed place; instead, it consists of 1,001 days of ser¬
vice, the equivalent in abdjad enumeration of the word
rida, particularly in the kitchen of the tekke. The muhibb
or naw-niyaz fulfils his cile by assisting those who direct
the “eighteen service’’ and accomplishing the tasks
they order (for the services, see Golpinarh,
Mevldna ’dan sonra mevlevilik , 397 ff., and Mevlevi dddb ve
erkani, 45 ff.). Those who principally accomplish this
“eighteen service” are the kazandji dede, who takes
care of the discipline of the naw-niyaz, the khalifa dede
who instructs them in the customs of the tanka, the
camashtrdji dede who washes or has washed the linen of
the dede s and the naw-niyaz, the dbnzdji dede who cleans
the latrines, the bulashikci (washer-up), the siipiirudju
(sweeper), the pazardji dede who does the shopping in
the mornings, the somatci dede who lays and clears the
table, etc.

The Mawlawiyya have developed in two forms: the
Shems kolu or branch which takes love and ecstasy as
its basis and acts like the Kalenderiyya, and the
Sultan Walad kolu which strives to remain attached to
the Sharia. The Shems kolu has accepted as a princi¬
ple the Malamatiyya [q.v.]; there is thus a close
resemblance between this branch and the Bektashis
[q v.]. This resemblance derives from the fact that
both spring from a Kalender source. The 10th/16th
century Ottoman author Wahid! ranks the Shems!.
Bektash! and the Kalenderiyya together both on
account of their attire and on account of their beliefs
(Manakib-i Kh w ddja-yi djihdn ve natidja-yi djdn, fols. 65b-
75b; cf. Khatlb-i Farsi, Manakib-i Djamdl al-Din-i
Sawi, preface, p. xxi).

The Sultan Walad kolu has been more influential
upon orders which conform to the Sharia. Amongst
these the Giilghaniyya, a branch of the Khalwatiyya,
have been considerably influenced by this branch of
the Mawlawiyya. The customs of the Gulshaniyya
openly reveal this influence (cf., Shemeli-zade Ahmed
Efendi, Shive-yi tarikat-i Gulshaniyye (with the Manakib-i
Ibrdhim-i Giilshani), 509-44).

In general, the Mawlawiyya show extreme respect
and love for all that may be of use to man, whether
animate or inanimate, and in this connection they
have created a new language. For example, in place
of opmek (“to kiss”) they use goruspmek (“to con¬
verse”), in place of kapamak (“to close”) they use
sirlamak, in place of “to eat or drink something” they
use djunbiishlenmek , in place of murid they use djdn or
naw-niyaz; these aside, they employ as technical terms
ayak muhiirlemek for “to place the big toe of the right
foot on top of the big toe of the left foot”, direk for
“the samd^-zan not to turn with the left foot revolving
on its axis”, civi tutmak for “to put one’s foot down on
the spot and turn to make sama c ", etc. (see Golpinarh,
Mevlevi dddb ve erkani, 5-47).

As a result of the efforts of the members of this
order, which has enjoyed close links with literature
from its inception, a Mawlawl literature has been
formed. This has not been confined simply to them¬
selves, but has also left its imprint upon a number of
famous poets of the Ottoman Diwdn literature.
Amongst the poets of this literature, Nefu, Nab! and
Shavkh Ghalib [q.vv. ] were Mawlawls.

From the Mawlana’s era to most recent times,
music has always occupied an important place among
the members of this farika. To the musical instruments
which initially consisted solely of the nay and the rabab,
there were subsequently added the c ud, kaman, kanun,
santur, fanbur, kemence and girijt, and most recently the
piano and the violincello. The first piano brought to
Istanbul was played in the mawlawikhdna at
Kumkapisi. However, the piano and violincello have
not won much favour. It is most probable that the
musical compositions recited in the Mawlana’s time
were anonymous, but later, especially during sama c ,
the recitations were selected from the poems of the
Mawlana, Sultan Walad and Ulu c Arif Celebi. The
Mawlawis produced a number of composers (see
Golpinarh, Mevlana’dan sonra mevlevilik, 456 ff.).

In conclusion, this order took its basic principles
from the Mawlana. These principles, which rest upon
a limitless love of humanity and a moderate per¬
missiveness, secured the tanka's popularity within a
short period. To these principles should be added the
importance given to music and dance, which were not
well-viewed in religious circles, but which human
beings cannot do without. The considerable interest
which was shown by outsiders (cevre) for these reasons
further developed the order. Just as the customs and
rules of the tarika were from time to time re-ordered
on this pretext, so also new ones were added to them.
Further, the Mawlaw! tekke s partook of the nature of
schools, in order first to understand the thoughts of
the Mawlana, which are the basis of the order, and
also to be of service to society. This ensured that the
tanka' s members were in general literate, and were
qualified in one of the fine arts like literature, music
and calligraphy. For this reason, this order was
popular in intellectual circles.

Bibliography. Aflak!, Mandkib al- c arijin, ed. T.
Yazici, Ankara 1959, 1961, 2 vols.; Faridun b.
Ahmed Sipahsalar, Risdla-yi Ahwal-i Mawlana
Dialdl al-Din Mawlawl, ed. Sa c Id NafisI, Tehran
1325/1946; Thakib Dede, Safina-yi nafisa-yi
Mawlawiyyan, Cairo 1283/1867; Fayd Allah, Ishardt
al-ma c nawiya ji dyin _al-Mawlawiyya, Istanbul
1283/1866-7; anon., Astdna-yi < aliyya ve bilad-i
thaldtha ’de kdHn olan mewdjud ve muhtarik tekkelerin isim
ve shohretleri ve mukdbala-yi sharija giinleri, Istanbul
1256/1840; Rusukh! Isma c il AnkarawT, Minhddj al-
fukara 3 , Istanbul 1256/1840; idem, Risdla-yi mukh-
tasara ve mujida-yi usul-i tarikat-i ndzanin we bey^at az
dast-i yakin-i djanab-i Mawlawl, Siileymaniye
Kutiiphanesi, Halet Ef. no. 351; Mehmed Diya
(Ihtifaldjf), Yenikapi mewlewi-khanesi , Istanbul
1329/1911; idem, Istanbul ve Boghazidji, Istanbul
1336/1918, 2 vols.; Mevlevi dyinleri (Istanbul
Konservatuan ne^riyati), Istanbul 1934-9; S. N.
Ergun, Turk musikisi antolojisi, Istanbul 1942;
§ehabeddin Uzluk, Mevldnd’mn turbesi, Konya
1946; Bad! 1 - al-Zaman Furuzanfar, Risala dar tahklk-
i zindagdni-i Mawlana Dialdl al-Din Muhammad ...,
Tehran 1354/1975; A. Golpinarh, Mevldna Celaled-
din, Istanbul 1952; idem, Mevldna’dan sonra
mevlevilik, Istanbul 1953; idem, Mevlevi dddb ve
erkani, Istanbul 1963; Rifki Melul Meric, Hicri
1131 tarihinde Enderunlu $airier , hattatlar ve musiki
san ’atkarlan, in Istanbul Enstitiisii Dergisi, ii (Istanbul

MAWLAWIYYA

887

1956); Fatffl Mehmed Pasha Bosnali, Shark al-awrdd
al-musamma bi-hakd^ik adhkar Maw land, Istanbul
1283/1866-7; Awrad-i mawlawiyya, Istanbul
1282/1865-6; c Abd al-Ghani al-NabulusI, al-^Ukud
al-luHuHyya ft tarikat al-sada al-mawlawiyya, Istanbul
Universitesi Kiituphanesi, no. AY 3511, Tkish. tr.,
no. TY 2128; Esrar Mehmed Dede, Defter-i der-
wishan , nr. TY 6765; Fakfri, Ta c rifat, TY 3051;
Mehmed Celebi (Diwane), Manzum risale (explana¬
tion of the MawlawT mukabele ), Konya Miize
kiituphanesi, no. 109/49.4.17; C A1I Nutki, Defter-i
derwishan, Siileymaniye kiituphanesi, Nafiz no.
1194; Ahmed Dede (Kose£), al-Tuhfa al-bahiyya ft
tarikat al-Mawlawiyya, Istanbul Univ. Kiituphanesi,
no. AY 3905; Khalil Ibrahim (Ash£i Dede), Ashci
Dede’nin khdtirati , no. TY 78-80, 3 vols.; Wahidi,
Manakib-i Kh^adja-yi dfihan va naridja-yi dfdn, Atif
Efendi Kutiiphanesi, no. 242 (very interesting
10th/16th century survey of ten orders in the
Ottoman empire; edition prepared by T. Yazici in
the press).

For accounts of the Mawlawl ritual and organisa¬
tion by western travellers and observers, see J. P.
Brown, The dervishes , Istanbul 1868, 196-206, new
ed. by H. A. Rose, London 1927, 250-8; Cl.
Huart, Konia, la ville des derviches tourneurs, Paris
1897 (who also translated AflakI’s Manakib al-^arifin
into French as Les saints des derviches tourneurs , Paris
1918-22); V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie, Paris 1890,
832; M. Hartmann, Der islamische Orient, 1910, iii,
12; Lucy M. Garnett, Mysticism and magic in modern
Turkey , London 1912; H. C. Lukach, The city of
dancing dervishes, London 1914; S. Anderson, The
whirling and howling dervishes, in MW, xiii (1923),
181-92. (T. Yazici)

2. Relations with other orders.

Although the earlier mystics, such as al-Djunayd,
Bisjaml and al-Halladj are mentioned in Aflakls’
Manakib with profound reverence, the treatment of
founders of orders who came near Djalal al-Din’s time
is very different. c Abd al-Kadir al-Djilanl is ignored,
Ibn c ArabI mentioned with contempt, and a!-Rifa c I
with severe condemnation. Hadjdjl Bekfash is rep¬
resented as having sent a messenger to inquire into
the proceedings of Djalal al-Din and to have
acknowledged the supremacy of the latter. At a later
period, the rivalry of the Mawlawl with the Bekfashl
order became acute.

It has been shown by F. W. Hasluck ( Christianity
and Islam under the Sultans, Oxford 1929, ii, 370 ff.) that
the environment wherein the Mawlawl order
originated was favourable to Christians, and that
throughout its history it showed itself tolerant and
inclined to regard all religions as reconcilable on a
philosophic basis. He suggests that the veneration of
the Muslims of Konya for the supposed burial-place of
Plato (in a mosque which was once the church of St.
Amphilochius) may have been intentionally favoured
by the Mawlawl dervishes, or possibly their founder,
as providing a cult which Muslim and Christian might
share on equal terms. In three other sanctuaries of
Konya, one of them the mausoleum of Djalal al-Din
himself, he found evidence of a desire to provide an
object of veneration to the adherents of both systems.
It is not, however, easy to accept his inference that
some sort of religious compromise on a philosophic
basis was devised between the Saldjuk Sultan c Ala 3 al-
Dln, Djalal al-Din, and the local Christian clergy. It
appears from AflakI that the order was frequently
exposed to persecution from the fukahd' 3 in conse¬
quence of the music and dancing; and they found an
analogy in Christian services to the employment of the

former. They were credited in recent times with
having restrained the massacres of Armenians.

3. Spread of the order.

AflakI attributes its propagation outside Konya to
Djalal al-Din’s son and second successor, Sultan
Baha 3 al-Din Walad who “filled Asia Minor with his
lieutenants” (tr. Huart, ii, 262). It would appear,
however, from Ibn Battuta’s narrative ( Rihla , ii, 282-
4, Eng. tr. Gibb, ii, 430-1) that the order’s following
was not at that time extensive outside Konya and was
largely confined to Anatolia, although it does seem
that in the time of Ulu c Arif Celebi (d. 720/1320) a
Mawlawl dargdh existed in the Il- Kh anid centre of
Sultaniyya in Adharbavdjan (see AflakI, ii, 896). At
this period, zawiyas or tekkes were set up in such
Anatolian towns as Tokat, Laranda and Kutahya,
and thanks to the efforts of Dlwana Mahmud Celebi
(d. in the first half of the 10th/16th century), others
were founded in Istanbul, Rumelia and other
Anatolian towns, and in the Arab lands, at
Ladhakivva and Aleppo and in Egypt and Algiers.

The story told after Sa c d al-Din by Von Hammer
( GOR , i, 147) and others, that as early as 759/1357,
Sulayman son of Orkhan received a cap from a
Mawlawl dervish at Bulayr, has been shown by
Hasluck (ii, 613) to be a fiction. The historians make
no allusion to any importance attaching to the
Mawlawl chief when Murad I took Konya in
788/1386; but when the city was taken by Murad II
in 838/1435, peace was negotiated, according to Sa c d
al-Din (i, 358) by Mawlana Hamza, but according to
Neshrl (quoted in ibid. ) by the descendant of
Mawlana Djalal al-Din al-Ruml, c Arif Celebi, “who
united all the glories of worth and pedigree, and pos¬
sessed mystic attainments”; the rebellious vassal sup¬
posed that a holy man of the family of the Mawlana
would inspire more confidence. The same person per¬
formed a similar service in 846/1442 (Sa c d al-Din, i,
371). According to V. Cuinet (La Turquie d’Asie, i,
829) Selim I when passing through Konya in
922/1516 in pursuit of the Persians (?) ordered the
destruction of the Mawlawi-khana , at the instance of
the Shaykh al-Islam; and though this command was
repealed, the moral and religious authority of the
head of the order was gravely compromised. That the
saints of Konya were highly reverenced in the
Ottoman Empire later in the 10th/l6th century
appears from the list of graves visited by Sayyid c AlI
Kapudan in 961/1554, which commences with those
of Djalal al-Din, his father and his son (Pefewi,
Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1283/1866-7, i, 371). In 1043/1634
Murad IV assigned the kharadi of Konya to the Celebi.
Yet the first reference to “dancing dervishes” in
Istanbul which Hasluck produces is from the time of
Sultan Ibrahim (1049-58/1640-8).

Mawlawl tekkes were divided into two classes, the
astana and the zawiya, the former being considered as
more prestigious, with the cile (see section 1. above)
being performed there. During the high Ottoman
period, there were astanas , apart from the astana-yi
c aliyya called Hudur-i Plr at Konya itself, at Bursa,
Kutahya, Karahisar, Manisa, Eskishehir,
Kastamonu and Gelibolu in Anatolia, at Yenishehir
in Rumelia, and at Aleppo and in Egypt, plus the
astana which served as the fourth of the Mawlawl tekkes
in Istanbul. During this period, there were 76
Mawlawl zawiyas in towns alone (details in A.
Golpinarli, Mevlana’dan sonra mevlevilik , 335). Of Euro¬
pean authors writing towards the end or just after the
Ottoman era, Cuinet mentions three Mawlawi-fdidnas
of the first rank and one tekke of the second in Istanbul
and the neighbourhood; he gives the names of the

888

MAWLAWIYYA — MAWLAY

saints whose tombs they contain, without dates. He
mentions seven other Mawlawi-khanas of the first rank,
at Konya, Manisa, Karahisar, Bahariyya, Egypt
(Cairo?) Gallipoli and Bursa; and as the more
celebrated of the second rank, that of Shams-i Tabriz!
at Konya, and those in Medina, Damascus and
Jerusalem. To these, Hasluck adds tekke s at Canea
(Crete), founded about 1880, Karaman, Ramla,
Tatar (in Thessaly), and possibly Tempe (for one in
Izmir, see Anderson, in MW , xiii [1922], 161; for one
in Salonica, see the work of Garnett, and for one in
Cyprus, that of Lukach cited in the Bibl. to section 1.
above).

In the aftermath of the Kurdish revolt in eastern
Anatolia against the new Republican Turkish govern¬
ment in February-April 1925, which had been led by
the Nakshbandl Shavkh Sa c Id of Palu, Kemal Ataturk
decided upon the suppression of all the dervish orders
in Turkey. Hence by the decree of 4 September 1925,
all the dervish tekke s were closed, and the library of the
Mawlawi-khana of Konya was transferred to the
Museum of that town (see OM [1925], 455, [1926],
584).

4. Political importance of the order.

Reference may be made to Hasluck’s Christianity

and Islam under the Sultans , ii, 604-5, for refutation of
the stories uncritically reproduced by Cuinet and
some less authoritative writers. In these “the Shavkh
of the Mawlawl becomes first the legitimate successor
by blood of the Saldjuk dynasty, and finally the real
caliph!” Hasluck supposes these tales to be based on
the supposed “traditional right” of the Mawlawl
Shavkh to gird the new sultan with a sword. This right
cannot be traced earlier than 1058/1648, and appears
to have obtained recognition in the 19th century. It
would seem that reforming sultans used the Mawlawl
order as a makeweight against the Bektashls, who
supported the Janissaries, and then against the
c ulama 5 , who supported the treatment of the Muslim
community as a privileged community against the
dhimmis. In later Ottoman times, Sultans c Abd al-
c AzIz and Mehemmed Reshad were members of the
order. (D. S. Margoliouth*)

5. The last vestiges of the order in the
Arab world and the Balkans.

Following the suppression of the $ufi orders in
Turkey, the last Celebi (Muhammad Bakir) took up
residence in the dsitana of the Mawlawiyya in Aleppo
(L. Massignon, Annuaire du monde musulman 1954,
Paris 1955, 201). Ritual gatherings were held
regularly till the early 1950s, when the last active
shaykh of this dsitana (Muhammad Shahu) died. In the
takiyya of the Mawlawiyya in Him§ (last shaykh, Nur
c Uthman), ritual gatherings were held into the 1940s,
and in the takiyya in Latakia (last shaykh, Bakir Efendi)
gatherings continued into the 1950s.

The small but active Mawlawiyya community in
Damascus, where the dsitana dates back to the late
10th/16th century (Muhammad Kurd C A1I, Khitat al-
Sham, Beirut 1972, vi, 139), disappeared in the 1960s.
The last shaykh of the order in Damascus, shaykh Fa 5 ik
b. Muhammad Sa c Id al-MawlawI, died in 1965 (F. de
Jong, Les confreries mystiques musulmanes au Machreq
arabe: centres de gravite, signes de declin et de renaissance, in
A. Popovic and G. Veinstein, Les ordres mystiques dans
VIslam. Cheminements et situation actuelle , Paris 1986,
214). His son, Muhammad Djalal, published a new
edition of the awrdd (Awrdd al-sada al-Mawlawiyya,
Damascus 1395/1975) and tried to revive the order
without much success. In Damascus, the Mawlawiyya
played a prominent role in the religious celebrations
in which the $ufT orders used to participate (cf.

Muhammad Djawad Mashkur and Hasan Ghurawi
Isfahan!, Sufiydn-i Mawlawl dar Dimashk, in Honar va
Mardom, Tehran [April 1976], 2-6, and Munir
Kayyal, Ramadan wa takaliduhu al-Dimashkiyya,
Damascus n.d., 108, 117). The gathering in the
Mawlawiyya dsitana on the night of 27 Ramadan used
to draw large crowds (Kayyal, 116).

In Lebanon, the Mawlawiyya had lakiyyas in
Tripoli and in Beirut. The takiyya in Tripoli still func¬
tioned in the 1960s. It fell into a state of dilapidation
after the death of its last shaykh, Anwar al-TarabulusI.
In the early 1970s, the takiyya was restored ( c Abd al-
Salam Tadmurl, Ta\ikh wa-dthar masadjid wa-madaris
madlnat Tarablusfi c asr al-Mamalik, Tripoli 1974, 52-4).
In Beirut in the 1960s and 1970s, members of the
order gathered in the takiyya twice weekly to recite the
awrdd and to study mystical texts; the sama c was not
performed any more. The last shaykh of the
Mawlawiyya in Beirut, shaykh Ahmad c Ushshak, lost
his life in the Israeli bombardment of the city in May
1982. The takiyya in Jerusalem ceased to function at
the end of the 19th century (De Jong, The Sufi orders
in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Palestine , in SI, lviii
[1983], 171).

In Cairo, the samd c performed in the takiyya (dsitana)
of the Mawlawiyya after the Friday worship was a
tourist attraction at the end of the 19th and in the
early 20th century (cf. De Jong, Turuq and Turuq-linked
institutions in nineteenth-century Egypt, Leiden 1978,
170). In 1903, the takiyya was placed under the
jurisdiction of the Diwan al-Awkdj, which had the right
to appoint the shaykh of the takiyya and administered its
awkaf (De Jong, 137). The takiyya was closed in
December 1954, as were till the takaya in Egypt which
fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Awkaf (al-
Ahram, 13 Dec. 1954). Subsequently, the Ministry
also suspended the regular payments from the
revenues of the awkaf established in favour of the
Mawlawiyya to the resident dervishes, who then left
the takiyya and dispersed. Thereafter, the takiyya was
used as a primary school.

In the Balkans, the Mawlawiyya survived into the
post-Ottoman era in Greece and in Yugoslavia only.
In Greece, the tekke in Thessaloniki seems to have
functioned till the exchange of the Orthodox and
Muslim populations between Greece and Turkey in
1923-4 (Cf. B. A7)pr)Tpi<&&Ti, Tonoypa<p(a vi]<;
0e<j<7aXov(x7}c xara n)v (noxty rfc Toupxoxpocxia
Thessaloniki 1983, 386 f.). In Yugoslavia, the tekke of
Sarajevo, known as Tekija na BendbaSi, still func¬
tioned in the early 1920s. It was demolished in 1959
(cf. Dz. Cehajic, Dzelalludin Rumi i Mevlevizam u Bosni
i Hercegovini , in Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju , xxiv
[1974], 100 ff.). In 1925, tekke s still existed in the
towns of Stip, Bitola, Veles, Pec and Skopje. Cf. D.
Gadzanov, Mohamedani pravoslavni i mohamedani sektanti
v Makedonija, in Makedonski pregled, i/4 (soFia 1925),
63; and N. Hafiz, Yugoslavya’da Mevlevi tekkeleri, in
Fevzi Halici (ed.), Mevlana ve yafama sevinci , Ankara
1978, 175 IT. (also published in Qevren, vi [Pristine
1978], no. 20, 37-43). The tekke in Pec ceased to func¬
tion in 1941, and the tekke in Skopje in 1945 (Hafiz,
40).

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(F. de Jong)

MAWLAY (a.), “my lord”, an honorific title
borne by the Moroccan sultans of the Sharlfian
dynasties (Sa c dids and c Alawids) who were descended
from al-Hasan b. C A1T [see hasan!], with the exception
of those who were called Muhammad and whose title
was therefore Sayyidl/Sldl (but the form Mahammad
freely altered does not exclude the usage of Mawlay in

MAWLAY — MAWLAY IDRIS

889

front of the monarch’s name). The articles devoted to
the two dynasties considered [see c alawYs and
sa c dids] contain or will contain in general sufficient
information on the constituent sultans, but some of
these have been or will be the subjects of articles in the
alphabetical place of their name (i.e. without Mawlay
or SayyidI). These include among the Sa c dids: c Abd
Allah al-Ghalib bi-llah and Ahmad al-Mansur; and
among the c Alawids: al-Rashld. c Abd Allah b.
Isma c il, Muhammad b. c Abd Allah, Sulayman, c Abd
al-Rahman b. Hisham, Muhammad b. c Abd al-
Rahman, c Abd al- c Aziz, c Abd al-Haffz [s.v. al-
hafiz], Yusuf and Muhammad V. As the result of an
error of classification, the biographies of four other
sultans will have to appear later. (Ed.)

MAWLAY IDRIS, Zawiyat Mawlay Idris,
town in Morocco, an urban settlement of some
10,000 inhabitants situated on the west bank of Djabal
Zarhun and attached to the slopes of the Fart al-Blr.
It is a mountain city, in contrast to the ancient Roman
city of Volubilis (Walila/Walili) which stands nearby,
in the plain on the north-western side. In spite of this
contrast between the two towns, their histories are
linked and neither can be studied in isolation.

First of all, it is necessary to dismiss the belief
according to which Mawlay Idris was founded by
Idris I when he came to take refuge in the area accom¬
panied by his freedman Rashid, fleeing from the
Orient where he had drawn upon himself the wrath of
the great c Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid. This is,
indeed, the version which is given by local guides to
visiting tourists, but it is of no relevance for the
historian.

For a proper concept of the origin of the Zawiya, it
is to Volubilis that the researchers must turn. In the
view of many people, the latter is an essentially and
solely Roman town which apparently fell into ruins
with the departure of its first inhabitants. The truth is
quite otherwise: in fact, Volubilis survived not only
the departure of the Romans (early 4th century A.D.)
but also the advent of Islam, and was still in existence
at the time when Fas was founded jointly by Idris I
and Idris II (cf. Levi-Provengal, La fondation de Fes, in
AIEO Alger, iv (1938), 23-52; art. repr. in Islam d’Occi¬
dent, Paris 1948, 3-41). The evidence for the survival
of Volubilis beyond the Roman period is, in fact,
substantial and may appropriately be considered here.

The first indications of the survival of this town are
of an archaeological nature. In his work Essai sur
I’histoire du massif de Mawlay Idris (Rabat 1938), P. Ber-
thier has published 12 photographs which illustrate
very clearly, above the Roman stratum, strata of an
early period where Roman materials have been re¬
used for construction purposes; these materials
include shafts of columns, counter-weights of oil-
presses and even ornamental cornices which have
obviously been detached from their original location.
Furthermore, it is possible to observe between the
Roman stratum and the later strata a considerable dif¬
ference in base level, amounting in places to 1 m or
1.20 m.

These indications of a prolonged existence after the
Roman period are confirmed by more precise
evidence: for the first period, between the Imperial
reforms of Diocletian and the advent of Islam (early
4th century A.D. to end of 7th century, approx¬
imately four centuries), we possess three Christian
funeral inscriptions dating from the years 595, 649
and 655 A.D. (see J. Carcopino and R. Thouvenot,
in Hesperis, 1928/2, 135-45, 1935/3-4, 131-9). It is to
be noted that one of these inscriptions has been used
for a second time in a later context.

Walill, no longer known as Volubilis, continued
throughout this long lapse of time to lead an indepen¬
dent existence. This period, corresponding in the
general history of Africa to the ascendancy of the Van¬
dals and Byzantium, is one of almost total obscurity
with regard to Morocco. All that can be stated with
certainty is that this land had facing it, in the Iberian
peninsula, the kingdom of the Visigoths, and was
inhabited by Christians, Jews (N. Slousch, Hebreo-
Pheniciens et Judeo-Berberes, in AM, xiv [1908], 1-473),
and no doubt also by animists and idolators.

This strange gap in our knowledge is one of the
most perplexing features of the history of Morocco, in
view of the fact that we are relatively well informed as
to the history of other North African countries and, in
particular, of Tunisia and eastern Numidia.

With the arrival of Islam, according to the Arabic
texts, c Ukba b. Nafi c presented himself before Walill
and there routed a Berber army (cf. Ibn c Idhan, tr.
Levi-Provengal, in Arabica, i/1 [1954], 38), but he
does not seem to have entered the town, which from
this time onward began to serve as a magnet for
numerous Muslim arrivals.

It seems that the two Idris [q. vv. ] were not the first
Muslims to establish themselves on the site of the
former Roman settlement, since Muslim coinage of a
time prior to the arrival of the former has been
discovered. The tribe of the Awraba, also fugitives
from the East, apparently preceded him there. In his
Rawd al-kirtds (tr. Beaumier, 24, 29), Ibn Abi Zar c
indicates also that a mosque, of which no trace has
been discovered, existed at Walill, and it was there, he
says, that Rashid presented Idris, son of Idris, to the
people in order to have him recognised as sovereign of
the Ma gh rib.

Evidence that all these events did indeed take place
on the former site of the Roman town exists in the
form of the many coins of the Muslim period which
have been discovered there: these discoveries in fact
include not only Muslim coins originating in the East,
sometimes in the form of treasure, but also products
of other Moroccan mints such as Tudgha as well as
Walill itself, which possessed a mint of its own (see P.
Berthier, Essai, 59; G. S. Colin, Monnaies de la periode
idrisside trouvees a Volubilis, in Hesperis, 1936/2, 113-25;
D. Eustache, Monnaies musulmanes trouvees a Volubilis,
in ibid., 1956/1-2, 133-97; idem, Monnaies musulmanes
trouvees dans la rnaison au compas , in Bulletin d’Archeologie
marocaine, vi [1966], 349-64; on the entire question of
coinages, idem, Corpus des dirhams idrissites et contem-
porains, Rabat 1970-1, is extremely informative, in
particular with regard to Walill, 162-9).

Volubilis was still in existence at the time of the
foundation of Fas by the two Idris since it is known,
thanks to the famous article of Levi-Provengal quoted
above, that the two Idris participated in the founda¬
tion of this capital. To find the demise of the old
Roman town, it is apparently necessary to look to the
Almohads who, throughout North Africa, brought
extinction to towns which had, hitherto, sheltered
Christians. According to some historians, this
behaviour of the Almohads was a consequence of the
tension between Islam and Christianity caused by the
Crusades (on the massacres perpetrated by the
Almohads, see D. Jacques-Meunie, Le Maroc saharien
des origines a 1670, Paris 1982, i, 260-1).

There is thus no doubt that the Roman town of
Volubilis was the scene upon which the first stage of
the Idrisid drama was performed. It is now necessary
to attempt to discover how the events of history have
been transferred, no doubt gradually, towards the site
of the mountain known today by the name of Mawlay

890

MAWLAY IDRIS

Idris. First, it should be noted that all the Arabic texts
prior to the 9th/15th century declare that both Idris
died at WalflT and were buried there, not however
within the town but extra muros: Ibn Abi Zar c , in the
Rawd al-kirtas, says simply “near Waffli”; al-Djazna 5 !
specifies “outside the gate of Walfll”; Ibn al-Kadl,
“in a guard-tower opposite Walfll”; and al-Halabi,
“in the courtyard of the guard-tower situated at the
gate of WalTlT’’ (see M. Ben Talha, Mawlay-Idris du
Zarhun, passim).

It would be inappropriate to give an exhaustive
account of the detailed information provided by these
authors. The only fact which needs to be stressed is
that the burial of the two Idris did not take place at
Walfll but in the immediate proximity. It is therefore
logical to suppose that it took place, specifically, on
the site where the Zawiya is currently located, i.e. in
that fold of land ( al-hufra ) between the two heights of
Khavbar and Tazgha, upon which the two main
quarters of the new town were to be erected. All those
who have visited Volubilis know, in fact, that Mawlay
Idris is very clearly visible beyond the ruins of the
Roman town. This is, furthermore, the conclusion
offered by D. Eustache in his Corpus (165 n. 5). The
names of Khaybar and Taz gh a appear for the first
time in the writings of Ibn Ghazf, author in the 9th-
10th/15th-16th century of al-Rawd al-hatun, though it
is impossible to tell whether these are simple place
names or the quarters of a town in the process of con¬
struction.

The 16th century texts of Leo Africanus and of
Marmol are confusing. These two authors describe, in
fact, two different sites: Gualili and the Palace of
Pharaoh in one case, Tiulit and Cagar Faraon in the
other. But none of these descriptions corresponds
exactly either to Volubilis or to Mawlay Idris. It is
hard to understand, in fact, how these authors were
able to speak of towns situated on the “summit of the
mountain”, a description applying neither to
Volubilis nor Mawlay Idris. A further complication is
introduced by the existence of the Kasbat al-Nasranl
which seems to have been known to these authors and
which is also situated “on the summit of the moun¬
tain.” Possibly the Kasbat al-Nasrani should be
located across the Pietra Rossa or Dar al-Hamra 5 ,
terms employed by Leo Africanus and Marmol.

Amid all this confusion, which seems to prove that
these authors had a very poor knowledge of the region
or described it on the basis of hearsay, there never¬
theless emerges from a comparison of the two texts a
glimmer of light which could provide the key to the
mystery that surrounds the origin of the new city. It
may be observed that the former, the work of Leo
Africanus, mentions only two or three houses around
the tomb of the two Idris, while the latter, the work
of Marmol, who wrote a half-century after him, men¬
tions fifteen to twenty. Circumstantial evidence points
to this as the origin of Mawlay Idris, a town which
must have begun to develop around a venerated tomb
during the 1 Oth/16th century, the period of the great
maraboutic movement in Morocco.

This, then, is the time at which the town under
discussion began to develop. Obviously, there is a
long gap between the 10th/16th century and the end
of the 2nd/8th or the beginning of the 3rd/9th. The
factor which enables us to fill the space framed
between these two dates would be the cult of Idris,
since Leo Africanus tells us that his grave, at that time
separate from any urban settlement, “is venerated
and visited by almost all the tribes of Mauritania” (tr.
Epaulard, 245).

It is thus from the 10th/16th century onward that

the Zawiya developed. There is nothing surprising in
this, since it may be observed that Bu-Dja c d was
founded at the end of the same century, Wazzan at
the beginning and Mogador or al-SawIra towards the
end of the 18th century.

However, the accelerating impulse seems to have
been given during the 12th/18th century by Mawlay
Isma c fl, who ordered the destruction of an ancient
mausoleum and replaced it with the one that still
exists today; this, according to the Kitab al-Istiksa 5 , in
1132-4/1720-2. There is nothing surprising in this
initiative on the part of the great c Alawid sultan. In
fact, it conforms perfectly with his repugnance for the
independent and irreverent town of Fas and his
preference for Miknas, which he was to make his
capital and where he was to erect sumptuous palaces.
The Zarhun, to some extent, must have benefited
from the prosperity of Miknas.

It was with Mawlay Isma c fl that the Zawiya of
Zarhun attained its full dimensions and made, so to
speak, its debut in history. The best evidence attesting
to this relatively recent appearance of the urban settle¬
ment which bears this name today, consists in the
complete silence of Arab or European historians and
geographers prior to the 17th century. Here may be
added the text of Mouette (beginning of the 17th cen¬
tury) declaring that at this time there were, in the
Zarhun, only small villages forming a dispersed
habitat “here and there”, but “no town” (Mouette,
Histoire des conquestes de Mouley Archy , in Sources inedites
de l'histoire du Maroc , 2nd series, France , ii, 1924, 182-
3). On the other hand, with the start of the c Alawid
dynasty, the town entered a phase of lively prosperity.

A curious text contained in the Kitab al-Istifoa*
places it, at this early stage, alongside the most emi¬
nent Muslim sanctuaries: the Ka c ba, Jerusalem, the
Mausoleum of Sidi c Ali Sharif at Tafilalt and that of
Mawlay Idris II at Fas. Its sanctified nature led to the
following consequences: (1) all non-Muslims, whether
Jews or Christians, were excluded from its territory;
(2) this territory, and especially the Zawiya, became
an inviolable place of sanctuary for any political
criminal or fugitive from common law; and (3) its
prestige, or what might be termed its baraka , extended
over the entire range of the Zarhun.

Currently, the exclusion of Jews and Christians is
still sanctioned by the law which prohibits them from
acquiring property there. The protection of criminals
has never been other than relative, even in the most
prestigious times of the sanctuary. Some have found
there an effective refuge, for others it has proved less
advantageous. As for access to the locality for Euro¬
peans, although it was rigorously controlled before the
Protectorate, as certain travellers discovered to their
cost, all restrictions have now ceased to exist, and a
visit to Mawlay Idris is recommended to tourists
visiting Morocco.

In history, the piety of the sultans is attested not
only through pious visits but also through the care
shown for the maintenance and embellishment of the
sanctuary and the mosques (details may be found in
Berthier’s Essat). These visits sometimes take on a
political nature, as to a place of symbolic meetings,
where alliances are sealed and treaties or truces con¬
cluded. A visit to Mawlay Idris is obligatory for every
newly-installed sovereign. In the course of his cam¬
paign against Muhammad V, in 1953, EI-Glawi did
not fail to comply with this tradition, and Muhammad
V did likewise on his return from Madagascar. Such
evidence shows that the cult of Mawlay Idris has today
lost none of its prestige, and it may legitimately be
supposed that it could play a similar role in the future.

MAWLAY IDRIS — MAWLAY ISMATL

891

In the cultural sphere, it is known that distin¬
guished scholars have taught at the Zawiya. A madrasa
of some repute exists in the locality, and this has been
endowed, quite recently, with a cylindrical minaret, a
form most unusual in the Muslim architecture of
Morocco. Its decorative frieze, made of green pottery,
is inscribed with verses from the Kurban in a very
stylised Kufic script (cf. Guide bleu, Maroc , 1975, 206;
A. Paccard, Le Maroc et Uartisanat traditionnel , i, 315).

Although Idris al-Akbar has numerous saintly
rivals in the massif of the Zarhun, such as Sldi C A1I
Ibn Hamdush, Sldi Ahmad DghughI and Sldi c Abd
Allah al-Khavvat of Talaghza, in the urban settle¬
ment itself his cult is challenged only by that of his
barber, Sldi c Abd Allah al-Hadjdjam, to whom a
mosque is dedicated.

The population of the small town consists of a teem¬
ing mass of Idrlsid Shurfa and c Alawids subdivided
into a multitude of branches which the author of this
article will not attempt to enumerate.

It is necessary, however, to stress the importance
not of the moussem ( mawsim [q. v. ]) of Mawlay Idris
but of the moussems which are conducted there
almost daily at certain times of the year. The present
writer was able, in 1934, to witness a moussem of the
Sus people, a crowd of two or three thousand, climb¬
ing towards the sanctuary and chanting a curious
recitative which has been described by A. Chottin (see
his Tableau de la musique marocaine, Paris 1938).

Naturally enough, there is a vast number of
brotherhoods, ranging from the most aristocratic to
the most coarse and primitive. The disciples of Sldi
C A1T Ibn Hamdush and of Sldi Ahmad Dghu gh I
honour their founders not only on the southern slope
of the mountain where their sanctuaries are located,
but also in the town of Mawlay Idris itself, and this
seven days after the mouloud ( mawlid [q.v. ]). In his
Essai (134-5), the present writer has hesitated to assess
the influence from the Roman period which could
have stimulated the appearance in Morocco of
extravagant rites on the part of certain religious
brotherhoods. In his recent article Le Temple B. de
Volubilis , H. Morestin has prompted the present
writer to revive this hypothesis. At the conclusion of
his excellent archaeological study, Morestin indicates,
in fact, that the sanctity and the mysticisms of the
Zarhun could have preceded Islam. Was Temple B. a
temple of Saturn or was it not? Prudently, Morestin
refrains from making this identification, which does
not prevent him from declaring, in the last sentence of
his book, that “indirectly the spiritual heritage of
Temple B. could have played a role, at the dawn of
the history of Muslim Morocco”.

Bibliography: All questions concerning the
Zarhun, the Muslim phase of the history of
Volubilis, the mystery surrounding the name of
WalHI (from a Berber word signifying rose-laurel),
the history of the Zawiya, etc., have been examined
by the author of this article in his Essai sur Thistoire
du massif de Mawlay Idris , Rabat 1938; the remark¬
able preface contributed by H. Terrasse would be
sufficient, in its own right, to convey an impression
of all these issues. It concentrates, however, on the
Zarhun as a whole rather than on the town of
Mawlay Idris in particular. For Terrasse, the
Zarhun represents irrefutable evidence of pre-
Hilalian Morocco; in this, he is in agreement with
X. de Planhol in his Fondements geographiques de
Thistoire de TIslam, 148. More recently, a work by
N. Ben Talha, former director of the Museum of
Dar Djama c at Miknas, Mawlay Idris du Zarhun ,
1965, has provided a very thorough study of daily

life in the Holy City; it is to be noted that the closed
and unique nature of the milieu examined con¬
tributes considerably to the interest of this work.
Some useful material is to be found in the works of
L. Chatelain and R. Thouvenot on Le Maroc des
Romains, Volubilis and Banassa, also in the publica¬
tions of the Service des Antiquites Marocaines
(P.S.A.M.) in the time of the Protectorate,
superseded since independence by the Bulletin
d’Archeologie Marocaine. On the Zarhun in general,
recourse may be had to the doctoral thesis of M.
Belarabi, Etude de geographic rurale , Bordeaux 1980,
which merits only too well the title which the author
has given to it. (P. Berthier)

MAWLAY ISMA C IL b. al-SharIf. Abu Y-Nasr,
the second ruler of the Moroccan dynasty
of the c Alawids [see c alawIs and hasanI].

On the death of sultan Mawlay al-Rashld, the
empire of Morocco was divided. Mawlay Isma c Il,
governor of Meknes [see miknas] and brother of the
deceased sultan, was proclaimed sultan in this town.
He advanced at once on the capital Fas, which had
declared against him and seized it. He was proclaimed
thereon 11 Dhu THidjdja 1082/14 April 1672), being
then 26 years of age.

But three rivals, his brother Mawlay al-Harranl in
Tafilalt, his nephew Ahmad b. Muhriz, proclaimed in
Marrakesh and in Sus, and thirdly the guerilla chief
al-Khidr Ghaylan in the north-west, took the Field
against him. They were supported by the Turks of the
Regency of Algiers, who feared the establishment of a
solid power in the west of the Maghrib and
endeavoured to make trouble there. Muhriz Isma c Il at
First drove his nephew Ahmad b. Muhriz out of the
town of Marrakesh, defeated Ghaylan to the north of
Fas and had him put to death. But Ahmad b. Muhriz
once more raised the lands of the south and the Atlas.
To obtain peace, Isma c il had to recognise his nephew
as amir of the lands south of the Atlas and his brother
al-Harranl as amir of Tafilalt.

These civil wars, which had lasted five years, had
hardly terminated when a descendant of the
Marabouts of Dila 3 [q.v. in Suppl.], Ahmad b. c Abd
Allah (d. 1091/1680), also supported by the Turks of
Algiers, fomented a terrible rebellion in the country of
Tadla and the provinces of western Morocco. But his
Berber troops could not withstand Mawlay Isma c n’s
disciplined troops, especially his artillery. Marrakesh
fell in Rabl* II 1088/June 1677. The victorious IsmaTl
terrorised the people to keep them quiet; more than
10,000 were beheaded; thousands of prisoners of war
along with Christian slaves had to help to build the
palace of Meknes, which the sultan made his military
capital. At the same time, the plague carried off
thousands of victims (1090/1679) in the regions of the
Gharb and the Rif.

The vigorous repression of the Berber revolts and
the epidemic afforded Mawlay Isma c fl a certain
respite. He took advantage of it to raise a professional
army. He enlisted former negro slaves, gave them
wives, allotted estates to them, trained them in the use
of arms, and made of them the famous Black Guard
of the c AbId al-Bukhari (so-called because they took
their oath on a copy of the Sahih) which was to assure
him supremacy over all Morocco.

At the same time, allegedly to favour the intran¬
sigent religious party, but in reality to watch the deal¬
ings of the Turks and Europeans in the seaports, and
to counteract the influence of the corsairs, he
organised the corps of the Mudjtahidun or “volunteers
of the faith”. The latter corps, the cadre of which was
formed by several hundred carefully selected c AbId,

892

MAWLAY ISMA C IL

waged an unceasing irregular warfare against the
European possessions. They took La Mamora (al-
Ma c mura), the modern al-Mahdiyya, by surprise
from the Spaniards, and Mawlay Isma c il collected
over 100 pieces of artillery there (15 Rabi* II 1092/4
May 1681). They harassed the English at Tangiers
and the latter evacuated the town after blowing up the
mole and the fortifications (1 Djumada I 1095/15
April 1684) (cf. Davis, The history of the Second Queen’s
Royal Regiment , i, London 1883, 118 ff.). Larache (al-
c Ara 5 ish) also was forced to succumb to the blows of
the “volunteers of the faith’’ in 1689, and Asfla in
1691. But all attempts against Melilla and Ceuta
failed. It was in vain that Mawlay Isma c fl
endeavoured to get Louis XIV to aid him against
Spain. French commerce had to suffer for some time
as a result.

But the Peace of Ryswick in 1697 raised Louis
XIV’s prestige considerably above his enemies.
Mawlay Isma c il then sought his alliance against the
Turks of Algiers, who were mixed up in all the plots
hatched in the Atlas against the sharlfs of Fas. An
entente between France, the Bey of Tunis and the
sultan of Fas was then concluded. The latter even
tried to cement it by a matrimonial alliance and
demanded the hand of the Princess de Conti (cf.
Plantet, Mouley Ismail et la Princesse de Conti , Paris
1893). In spite of the failure of the latter plan, the
entente secured to France great commercial benefits
at Sale, Tetouan and Safi. Frenchmen superintended
the building of the palaces, roads, and forts of the
sultan and sometimes (like Pillet) accompanied his
artillery. On his part, Mawlay Isma c Il organised
several expeditions against the Turks with the help of
France, whose merchants supplied him with arms and
munitions. But the slowness of the Moroccan armies
did not enable Isma c il to reap the advantages
expected. He even allowed his ally, the Bey of Tunis,
to be defeated near Constantine, which enabled the
Turks of Algiers to come to fight the Moroccans in the
west in full strength in 1701 and to drive them back.

The expeditions of Mawlay Isma c Tl against the
Turks, in spite of their relative lack of success,
enabled him to pacify his frontiers where he built or
renovated the fortifications. He built the fort of Reg-
gada in the mountain of the Banu Ya c la commanding
the high valley of the Wed Sharef and the lands of the
Arab tribes of the High Plateaux. He built the fort of
c Uyun Sldl Malluk in the plain of Angad and that of
Salwan in the land of the Trifa. He thus closed the
exits on his north-east frontier. Forts built in the lands
of each tribe kept the country quiet, especially the
marabouts, the natural allies of the Turks, whose
privileges were tending to pass into the hands of the
sharifo. The latter gradually took over the direction of
the religious elements, which were organised into
brotherhoods. Isma c Il completed his system of
domination by the creation of military zones. Taza,
notably, had its walls rebuilt. This town became the
headquarters of the eastern march. A garrison of
2,500 c AbId secured the passage from western to
eastern Morocco by the pass of Taza. It also had to
keep in control the Berbers of the Rif in the north of
this ravine and the Berbers of the middle Atlas in the
south.

Apart from his constructions of a military nature,
Mawlay Isma c Il was very active as a builder in the
various towns of Morocco, and especially at Meknes,
where thousands or European slaves worked on the
erection of palaces, mosques and madrasas. In order to
raise the resources for all the expenses of the army’s
upkeep and his building enterprises, he derived

money from taxes raised brutally and regardlessly by
his agents, from continual raids on the tribes, from
custom duties, from the sixth levied on the spoils of
the corsairs, from the ransoms of captives and from
the presents, often sumptuous, given by foreign
ambassadors. The monopoly of trade, by supplying
the treasury, prevented moreover the illicit sale of
horses and arms.

Mawlay Isma c Tl was a man of vigorous character, of
adroitness and of an uncommon agility and bravery,
but these positive qualities were accompanied by an
unparalleled cruelty and sadism, many examples of
which are given by the chroniclers and writers of
memoirs. On the other hand, he gave the appearance
of being interested in the intellectual activities of his
subjects and showed himself respectful of the external
aspects of the Islamic cult; he even went as far as
engaging in proselytisation and tried to convert Louis
XIV^

In regard to foreign policy, he enjoyed fairly good
relations with Britain and France, shown by the
despatch of embassies which were more or less suc¬
cessful. The French were thus left with a free hand in
the Mediterranean, but he did not utilise profitably
this diversion of their energies in order to combat vic¬
toriously the Turks of Algiers, the aim of his North
African policy. Nevertheless, he was able to reduce
considerably the foreign occupation of Moroccan
ports. In regard to internal policy, much of his reign
was filled with the suppression of tribal revolts, which
the army was not always able to contain within
bounds, whilst his main effort was involved in con¬
solidating the makhzan [q.v.], upholding it against the
turbulent Berbers through the use of Arab and Negro
troops.

He had thus succeeded, as much by the reign of ter¬
ror which he evoked as by his own skilfulness, in
imposing peace on the internal regions of his posses¬
sions, when he died, after a reign of 55 years, on 27
Radjab 1139/20 March 1727 at the age of 80.
Amongst the several hundred children which his
innumerable wives had given him, it was Mawlay
Ahmad al-Dhahabl who succeeded him.

Bibliography: Kadirl, Nashr al-matham, Fas
1309, passim ; WafranI, Nuzhat al-hddl, ed. Houdas,
Paris 1888-9, text 308-9, tr. 504 ff.; Ziyani, al-
Tardyumdn, ed. Houdas, 24-55; Salawi, Kitdb al-
Istiksa*, Cairo 1312, iv, 31-50; Mouette, Histoire des
Conquestes de Mouley Archy et de Mouley Ismail son frere,
Paris 1683; idem, Relation de la captivite du sieur
Mouette..., Paris 1683, 2nd edn. 1702, partial re-
edn. Tours 1863, 1927; F. de Meneges, Historia de
Tangere, Lisbon 1732, 277 ff.; [Seran de la Tour,]
Hist, de Mouley Mahomet, fils de M. Ismael , Geneva
1794; Pidoux de Saint Olon, Estat de Tempire de
Maroc, Paris 1695, 60-74 and passim ; Abu Ras,
Voyages extraordinaires , tr. Arnaud, Algiers 1885,
119 f., 124 ff.; Chenier, Recherches historiques sur les
Maures, Paris 1787, iii, 362-422; Godart, Description
et histoire du Maroc, Paris 1860, 510 ff.; P. Busnot,
Histoire du regne de Moulay Ismail, Rouen 1714; Mer-
cier, Hist, de TAfrique Septentrionale, iii, 273; H. de
Castries, Moulay Ismail et Jacques II, Paris 1903; A.
Cour, Etablissement des dynasties de Cherifs, Paris
1904, 193-218; E. M. G. Routh, Tangier, England’s
lost Atlantic outpost, 1661-1684, London 1912; E.
Levi-Provengal, Les historiens des Chorfa, Paris 1922,
passim (esp. p. 403, the names of Mawlay Isma c I]’s
viziers, secretaries, etc.); Ch. Penz, Les captifs fran¬
cs du Maroc au XVII € siecle (1577-1699), PIHEM,
xli, Rabat 1944; idem, Les emerveillements parisiens
d’un ambassadeur de Moulay Ismail (janvier-fevrier

893

MAWLAY ISMA C IL — MAWLAY MAHAMMAD al-SHAYKH

1682), Casablanca 1949; W. Blunt, Black sunrise.
The life and times of Mulai Ismail, Emperor of Morocco
(1646-1727), London 1951; J. Berque, Al-Yousi.
Problemes de la culture marocaine au XVII e siecle, Paris
1958; G. Deverdun, Marrakech des origines a 1912,
Rabat 1959-66, index; M. Lakhdar, La vie litteraire
au Maroc sous la dynastie c alawide, Rabat 1971; Ch. de
la Veronne, Vie de Moulay Isma’il, roi de Fes et de
Maroc d’apres Joseph de Leon (1708-1728 ), Paris 1974.
See also the general histories of Morocco, esp. that
of H. Terrasse, Casablanca 1949-50, ii, 252-78, as
well as the Sources inedites de Thistoire du Maroc, 2nd
series. (A. Cour*)

MAWLAY MAHAMMAD al-SHAYKH. name
of three Moroccan sultans belonging to the
dynasty of the Sa c dids [< 7 . 0 .].

I. The first, Abu c Abd Allah, who also bore the
title of al-Mahdl and is sometimes known as al-Imam,
is generally counted second or third in the list of
members of the dynasty, but he may to a certain
extent be considered its true founder, since it was he
who put an end to that of the Marlnids [q.v.]. Born
probably at Tagmaddart (a district of the Dar c a) in
896/1490-1, he was the younger son of Muhammad b.
c Abd al-Rahman al-Ka 5 im bi-amr Allah, who was
proclaimed sultan in 916/1510 and died in 923/1517.
According to legend, the great destiny to which he was
called was predicted to him in his infancy when, at the
Kur’anic school which he attended, a cock came and
perched on his head, as well as on that of his elder
brother, Ahmad al-A c radj. The two young boys
received a quite extensive religious and literary educa¬
tion and were sent on the Pilgrimage to Mecca in ca.
911/1506. The lack of precision and the contradictions
in the chronology of events found in the sources make
any attempt at biography particularly difficult, but it
seems clear that al-A c radj was appointed by his father
governor of the Sus, where he too received the bay Q a
[q.v. ] in the same year (916/1510). With his younger
brother as his subordinate, he waged without much
success a holy war against the Christians established
in the region, especially at Santa Cruz, the coastal
outlet of the Sus which was to become Agadir \q.v.].
The two sharifs also profited at this time from the aid
of the Wattasid ruler [q.v. ] of Marrakesh, who sup¬
plied them with arms. Mahammad al-Shavkh was not
slow, however, to free himself from the tutelage of this
elder brother and to take into his own hands the
administration of the plain and of the southern flank
of the High Atlas, over which his authority extended
at the time that Leo Africanus [q.v. ] visited the region
(919/1513). Moreover, the entire province came

under his control on the death of al-Ka^im. Ahmad

« *

was then in power to the north of the Atlas.

Making his capital at Tarudant [q.v.] which he for¬
tified and renamed Mahammadiyya and where he
built the citadel, the great mosque, the madrasa and
sugar refineries, he was obliged to solve problems of
an economic and political, even religious nature, since
he needed to trade with the Christians in order to
obtain arms and munitions, but resented the fact that
Santa Cruz was occupied by the Portuguese, who in
addition exercised a monopoly over the export of
sugar. As a result of treaties concluded with the Por¬
tuguese rulers of Safi and Azemmour in 930/1524,
and then renewed in the two following years, and after
ill-fated expeditions against Santa Cruz, relative
peace reigned in the south of Morocco. On the one
hand, Mawlay Mahammad remained on good terms
with the influential marabout of the locality where his
family had resided, TidsT, and even married his
daughter; on the other, he attracted Christian mer¬

chants to the Sus in order to develop trade in the
leather, wax and sugar produced in the region.

In Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 930/October 1524, Ahmad al-
A c radj had taken Marrakesh from the Watfasids, and
the two brothers had made further attacks on the last
sovereigns of this dynasty who ruled at Fas; they had
also taken a large quantity of artillery with which they
were able once more to undertake an expedition
against the port of Funti [see agadir], which was
besieged and captured on 13 Dhu TKa c da 947/11
March 1541. The Christian captives were taken to
Tarudant, while the arms and munitions seized from
the enemy enabled Mawlay Mahammad to subdue
the Berbers of the region, always an unruly element.

Until this point the two brothers had, apparently,
made common cause, but a quarrel broke out between
them, the specific grounds of the rift being a dispute
over the sharing of the booty. A few months after the
capture of Funti, al-A c radj attacked and defeated
Mahammad, who was determined to avenge himself
and succeeded, in 951/1544, in taking possession of
Marrakesh, capturing his elder brother and exiling
him to Tafilalt with all his followers. Although
theoretically a vassal of his brother for a few months
more, Mawlay Mahammad al-Shavkh. henceforward
sole master of the territory controlled by the Sa c dids,
was able to contemplate putting an end to the power
of the Wattasids and unifying Morocco to his own
advantage. The outcome of the first encounter, which
took place on the Umm al-Rabi*, was favourable to
him. The treaty concluded on that occasion was, how¬
ever, soon to be broken, and the Sa c did called upon
his adversary to submit; when the latter refused, Fas
was attacked in 952/1545, and the ruler of the town,
Ahmad al-Wattasi, captured and then released. While
his son took possession of numerous towns of the
Atlantic coast, Mawlay Mahammad, who had lost Fas
in the meantime, was obliged to put the place under
a prolonged siege, capturing it on 2 Muharram
956/31 January 1549. It may be reckoned that this
considerable event marks the beginning of the
dynasty.

The following year, around the month of Djumada
I 957/June 1550, al-Shavkh sent two of his sons, al-
Harran, governor of the Sus, and c Abd al-Kadir, to
conquer Tlemcen; but this enterprise was unsuc¬
cessful and al-Harran fell sick and was forced to
return to Fas where he died a few months later.

Meanwhile, an uncle of the defeated Wattasid, Abu
Hassan, attempted to revive hostilities; he even went
so far as to appeal for aid to the Emperor Charles V
(20 Sha c ban 957/3 September 1550) and, after vari¬
ous vicissitudes, finally obtained from the Janissaries
of Algiers an army with which he returned to attack
Mawlay Mahammad al-Shavkh and to defeat him on
a tributary of the Sebou, the Innawen, in Safar
961/January 1554. Forced to leave Fas and to aban¬
don all his property, al-Shavkh rapidly returned to the
fray, recaptured the capital which had been pillaged
by the Turks and, on 24 Shawwal 961/22 September
1554, executed Abu Hassan, whose head was sent to
Marrakesh. He stayed until the end of Ramadan
962/beginning of August 1555 at Fas, where he left his
heir presumptive, c Abd Allah al-Ghalib bi ’llah [q.v.]
and entrusted the administration of Meknes to
another of his numerous sons, c Abd al-Mu^min,
before setting out once more for the Sus.

In 959/1552, the Ottoman sultan Sulayman
KanunT [q.v.] (926-74/1520-66) had written to
Mawlay Mahammad al-Shavkh on the subject of the
eastern frontiers of Morocco, but the messenger had
been very badly received by the new sultan, who thus

894

MAWLAY MAHAMMAD al-SHAYKH

condemned himself to death. Resolved to settle
definitively at Marrakesh, he left Fas, but a dozen
hired assassins, sent from Algiers to execute him,
mingled easily with his entourage which consisted
almost wholly of Turks; they performed the deed on
29 Dhu THid j d j a 964/23 October 1557 and bore his
head, so it is said, to Istanbul. His body lies in Mar¬
rakesh, among the members of his dynasty, in the hall
known as Lalla Mas c uda which contains the famous
“Sa c dian tombs”, where his epitaph may be seen as
well as a long commemorative plaque dedicated to
him (see G. Deverdun, Inscriptions, nos. 123 and 85,
pp. 125, and 82-6); another marble plaque bearing a
fairly long inscription (ibid., nos. 127-8, pp. 131-4)
extols the merits of the sultan’s Berber wife, Mas c uda,
who gave birth to Ahmad al-Mansur [q. v. ] and her
name to the hall.

Diego de Torres has left a portrait of Mawlay
Mahammad al-Shavkh from which it emerges that he
had a round and pale face, large and vivid eyes, a long
grey beard, curly hair and two teeth of great size; of
modest stature, but robust, he was unscrupulous by
nature, but a bold and valiant fighter (Histoire des
Cherifs, apud Marmol, iii, 212). He was also, accord¬
ing to the least sympathetic Arab sources, a man of
piety. He was furthermore a scholar, knowing by
heart the Diwdn of al-Mutanabbl, and it was he who
founded the library of the great mosque of Tarudant
and expanded the faculties of hadith and of fikh
(teaching the Sahth of al-Bukharl, the Risala of al-
Kayrawanl and the Mukhtasar of Khalil b. Ishak).

When he was in Fas, he attended certain courses
himself, but he did not refrain from inflicting cruel
punishment on those fukahd 5 whose only crime was to
have served the preceding dynasty, such as al-
WansharlsT [gui.], put to death in Dhu ’1-Hidjdja
955/January 1549, al-Zakkak and Sldl C A1I Harzuz.

From his life in the south, he had retained simple
manners, and many sources recall, not without irony,
that a former vizier of the Marfnids, Kasim al-
Zarhunl, and the matron of the harem ( c arffa ) of Fas,
were engaged in educating the numerous members of
the court in refinement and instructing them on such
topics as etiquette, dress, cuisine and even
administration.

From an economic and financial point of view,
Mawlay Mahammad al-Shavkh caused some
problems as a result of the weight of taxation that he
levied, but he was at pains to increase the wealth of
the country and to develop both the cultivation of cane
and the manufacture of sugar, constructing seven
refineries at Tarudant in 951/1544. In addition, he
had ambitions to take possession of the salt mine of
Taghaza situated approximately midway between the
estuary of the Niger and the bend of the Dra c (Dar c a);
he called upon the ruler of Gao to surrender it to him,
but the latter sent 2,000 Touaregs to seize the posses¬
sions of the Sa c did as a gesture of defiance. In the year
of the sultan’s death, his troops killed the governor of
Ta gh aza and pillaged a caravan of salt, and he himself
undertook an expedition to the Sudan, but he was
forced to turn back and it fell to his grandson, Ahmad
al-Mansur al-Dhahabi [q.v.], to conquer the land of
gold.

Bibliography : The earliest sources are
Diego de Torres, Histoire des Cherifs, vol. iii of
LAfrique by Luis de Marmol Carvajal, and vols. i
and ii of this latter work (the whole, composed in
Spanish, was first published in French translation
by N. Perrot d’Ablancourt, Paris 1667). As regards
the Arabic sources, see Fishtail, Mandhil al-safa
ft akhbar al-muluk al-shurafa > , ed. C A. Djannun,
Tetouan 1384/1964; I bn c Askar, Dawhat al-nashir,

ed. M. HadjdjT, Rabat 1396/1976; IfranT
(Oufrani), Nuzhat al-hadt, ed. and tr. O. Houdas,
Paris 1888-9; Sa c dl, TaMkhal-Sudan, ed. and tr. O.
Houdas, Paris 1913-14, 2nd ed. 1964; Chronique
anonyme de la dynastie sa c dienne, ed. G. S. Colin,
Rabat 1934; Leo Africanus, Description de I’Afrique,
tr. A. Epaulard, Paris 1956; Nasirl, K. al-Istiksa\
tr. Naciri, in AM, 1936; A. Cour, L’etablissement des
dynasties de cherifs au Maroc, Paris 1904; E. Levi-
Provengal, Les historiens des chorfa, Paris 1922; E.
Fagnan, Extraits inedits relatifs au Maghrib, Algiers
1924; Sources inedits de l’histoire du Maroc , Paris, 1st
series: Angleterre, 1918, 1925, 1936, Espagne, 1921,
1956, 1961, France , 1905-26, Pays-Bas, 1906-23,
and Portugal , 1934-53; R. Ricard, L’occupation
portugaise d Agadir, in Hesperis, 1946/1-2; P.
Berthier, Les anciennes sucreries du Maroc et leurs reseaux
hydrauliques, Rabat 1966; M. Hajji, L’activite intellec-
tuelle au Maroc a I’epoque sa c dide, Rabat 1976-7; D.
Jacques-Meunie, Le Maroc saharien des origines a
1670 , Paris 1982 (detailed study, extensive
bibliography).

II. The second, who bore the regal title of al-
Ma 5 mun, was the grandson of the preceding and
the son of Ahmad al-Mansur [q.v. ] and a negro
woman named Khavzuran. After the battle of Wadi
’1-Makhazin (or Battle of the Three Kings) which took
place on 30 Djumada I 986/4 August 1578, and the
proclamation of Ahmad al-Mansur as sultan,
Mahammad al-Shavkh II was declared heir presump¬
tive by his father who appointed him governor of Fas.
But he abandoned himself to debauchery, neglected
his religious duties and antagonised the population, to
such an extent that the sultan sent him to Sidjilmasa,
whence he was impatient to return. After the death of
his father (1012/1603), he was obliged to compete with
his brothers who disputed his claim to the throne,
raised an army which, under the command of his son
c Abd Allah, marched on Marrakesh and captured the
town, and he was finally proclaimed sultan at Fas in
1015/1606. The concession of Larache (al- c Ara 5 ish
[q.v .]) to the Spanish on 4 Ramadan 1019/20
November 1610 incited the rebel Abu Mahalll [q.v. in
Suppl.] to launch an appeal to holy war, and three
years later (1022/1613), Mahammad al-Shavkh II was
assassinated near Tetouan.

Bibliography. To the Arab historians of the
11th/17th century and to the comprehensive works
cited in the preceding article, the following should
be added: R. Le Tourneau, La decadence sa c dienne et
Vanarchie marocaine au XVII e siecle , in Annales de la
Faculte des Lettres dAix, xxxii(1960), 187-225. J. M.
Gandin, in Hommes et destins (Publ. of Acad, des
Sciences d’Outre-Mer), Paris-Aix-en-Provence, vii
(1986), 369-71, with Bibl. See also the Bibl. of the
article abu mahallI.

III. The third was the nephew of the preceding and
the son of Mawlay Zaydan and of a Spanish woman.
He had been imprisoned by his brother al-Walld,
sultan of Marrakesh, who was assassinated on 14
Ramadan 1045/21 February 1636; immediately
released, he was proclaimed sultan with the title of al -
Saghlroral-Asghar = the Young. Shortly after
this, the holy man of Tazerwalt named Sid! c AlI, who
already occupied the Sus, Tafilalt and Ta g haza, took
possession of Agadir, with the result that the territory
of the Sa c did barely extended beyond the suburbs of
Marrakesh. In 1048/1638, Mawlay Mahammad al-
Shavkh III concluded a treaty with King Charles I of
England, by which the king’s subjects were forbidden
to trade with the sultan’s enemies, but he does not
seem to have derived any great profit from it.

Meanwhile, the zdwiya of al-Dila 3 [q.v. in Suppl.],

MAWLAY MAHAMMAD al-SHAYKH — MAWLID

895

which had not recognised the sultan of Marrakesh,
had become a temporal power to be reckoned with, at
a time when, in addition, the emergence of the sharifs
of Tafilalt began to be a troublesome influence. An
important event in the reign of this sultan was the
defeat inflicted on him by the army of al-Dila 5 on the
Wadi ’l- c AbId, on 17 Djumada II 1048/26 October
1638. In spite of this reverse, he succeeded in reigning
for some twenty years and died on 22 RablH 1065/30
January 1655 (date indicated, according to an official
document, by the Ta^rikh al-Sudan , which contains
effusive eulogies on the conduct of this sultan).

Bibliography: See that of the preceding

article. _ (Ch. Pellat)

MAWLID (a.), or MAWLUD (pi. mawalid ), is the
term for ( 1 ) the time, place or celebration of
the birth of a person, especially that of the
Prophet Muhammad or of a saint [see walT], and (2)
a panegyric poem in honour of the Prophet.

1. Typology of the mawlid and its diffu¬
sion through the Islamic world.

From the moment when Islam began to bring the
personality of Muhammad within the sphere of the
supernatural, the scenes among which his earthly life
had been passed naturally began to assume a higher
sanctity in the eyes of his followers. Among these, the
house in which he was born, the Mawlid al-Nabf, in the
modern Suk al-Layl in Mecca, the history of which is
preserved principally in the chronicles of the town
(Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, ed. Wustenfeld, i, 422),
does not seem at first to have played a part of any
note. It was al-Khavzuran (d. 173/789 [< 7 . 0 .]), the
mother of Harun al-Rashld, who first transformed it
from a humble dwelling-house to a place of prayer.
Just as the pious made pilgrimages to the tomb of the
Prophet in Medina, so they now visited the site of his
birth to show their reverence for it and to receive a
share of its blessings {li ’l-tabarruk). In time, the
reverence in which the house was held also found
expresssion in its development in a fitting architec¬
tural fashion (Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, 114, 163; and see
for a description of the house in the late 19th century,
Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, i, 106, ii, 27).

Records of the observation of the birthday of the
Prophet as a holy day only begin at a late date;
according to the generally accepted view, the day was
Monday, 12 Rabf- I. The earliest mention of a special
public celebration on the occasion of the Prophet’s
birthday is found in Ibn Djubayr, 113. In his time
(late 6 th/ 12 th century), a special celebration, as
distinct from private observance, was arranged in
Mecca. The essential feature of the celebration was
however only an increase in the number of visitors to
the mawlid house, which was open the whole day, as
an exception, for this purpose. This visit and the
ceremonies associated with it {mash, etc.) were carried
through entirely in forms which are characteristic of
the older Muslim cult of saints. But just as the later
cult of the Prophet had to be raised above the
reverence shown to other holy men, so new and
special forms developed for his birthday celebrations,
which in spite of minor differences in time and place
show the same general features everywhere and are
comprised under the name laylat al-mawlid, mawlid al-
nabi, or mawlid al-nabawi.

In Fatimid Cairo, the mawlid of the Prophet was
celebrated by the court, as were the mawlids of c AlI,
Fatima and the reigning khalifa [<?.p.]. Essential
elements of these celebrations were the procession of
the dignitaries to the palace of the khalifa followed by
three sermons, each by one of the three khutaba 5 [see
khatib] of Cairo (al-Makrizi, Khitat . i, 433 ff.; cf. i,

466, for the temporary suspension of the mawlid
celebrations). These occasions were not festivals of the
common people, however, but mainly of the ShiT rul¬
ing class. This no doubt explains why—except in al-
Makrizi and al-Kalkashandi, the great historians of
Fafimid Cairo—there is hardly any reference to these
celebrations in the literature emanating from Sunni
circles.

The memory of these Fatimid mawalid seems to
have almost completely disappeared before the
festivals in which Muslim authors unanimously Find
the origin of the mawlid : the mawlid which we Find first
celebrated in Irbil in 604/1207-8 by al-Malik Muzaf-
far al-Din Gokburi, a brother-in-law of Salah al-DIn
[see begteginids] . The fullest account is given by the
great historian Ibn Khallikan (d. 681/1282), himself a
native of Irbil. Later writers base their statements
upon his description of the mawlid (Ibn Khallikan.
Bulak 1299, ii, 550 ff.; see G. E. von Grunebaum,
Muhammadan festivals , New York 1951, 73-6, for an
English translation of the account).

In Cairo, the large-scale participation of the com¬
mon people and the Sufi orders dates from at least the
7th/13th century. In a comparatively short time
thereafter, the observance of the festival spread all
through the Muslim World. We have many descrip¬
tions of the festival from various parts of the Muslim
World in different periods (see Bibl.).

In 996/1588 the Ottoman Sultan Murad III intro¬
duced the mawlid (Tk. mevlid, mevlud) celebration at his
court (cf. M. D’Ohsson, Tableau general, Paris 1787, i,
255 ff.; Von Hammer, GOR, viii, 441). From 1910,
it was celebrated as a national festival in the Ottoman
Empire. Today, the festival comprises one or more
official holidays in the Arab states and in most of the
countries where Islam predominates. In many of these
countries, an official celebration attended by the head
of government or his representatives is held in one of
the main mosques in their capitals.

In West Africa, the anniversary of the Prophet’s
birthday is sometimes associated with pre- or non-
Islamic festivals, e.g. among the Nupe in Nigeria,
where it is identified with the gani age-grade
ceremonies (F. Nadel, Nupe religion, London 1954,
217), and among the Kotocoli in Northern Togo,
where it is associated with “the festival of the knives”
(R. Delval, Les musulmans au Togo , Paris 1980, 151-3).
For some $ufi orders in this area, notably for the
TldjanT branches in Senegal (in Tivaouane, Dakar
and Kaolack), the occasion has become the principal
yearly gathering for the members of these orders.
Poems exist in Hausa, classed technically as madih and
sira , which are used as mawlids (see M. Hiskett, A
history of Hausa Islamic verse, London 1975, ch. 5), and
in Fulani (Fulfulde), are to be found several
panegyrics of the Prophet with phraseology very
similar to that of the mawlids (see J. Haafkens, Chants
musulmans en Peul, Leiden 1983, 173-216). In Chad,
the Sudan, North-East and East Africa (see below),
the feast is regularly celebrated, and indications exist
that the occasion is becoming more widely observed
throughout West Africa. The celebrations staged on
this occasion are more or less identical to the ones
known in the Arab lands.

Central to these celebrations is the recitation of a
mawlid , i.e. of a panegyrical poem of a legendary
character. These poems normally follow a standard
sequence of introductory praises to God, an invoca¬
tion, a description of the creation of al-nur al-
muhammadi [q. v. ], then proceed through various stages
and digressions (e.g. on the Prophet’s ancestry) to the
actual physical birth, which is preceded by an account

896

MAWLID

of a miraculous announcement to his mother Amina
[ q.v .] that she is bearing the Prophet. In the Arab
world, mawlid recitation became a common feature of
the celebrations in the course of the 9th/15th century
and had become universal at the end of the 12th/18th.

The origins of these recitals may be found in the
religious addresses in Fajimid Cairo and in Irbil. The
K. al-Tanwirfi mawlid al-sirady, which Ibn Dihya com¬
posed during his stay in Irbil at the suggestion of
Gokburi, was already famous as a mawlid at this
period (Brockelmann, GAL 1 , II, 310). It was not till
later times, however, that mawlids became a predomi¬
nant element in the celebration, along with torchlight
processions, feasting and the fairs in the street, ever
increasing in size. The number of the poems used at
mawlids is quite considerable. Beside the famous Banal
Su c ad of Ka c b b. Zuhayr of the older period, the Bur da
and the Hamziyya of al-BusIrl and their numerous
imitations, there is a whole series of poems regularly
employed here, some of which are intended to instruct
like that of Ibn Hadjar al-Haytaml, while others are
merely eulogistic.

One of the most widely recited mawlids in Arabic at
present is one composed by DjaTar b. Hasan al-
Barzandjl (d. 1179/1765). It is also known under the
title c Ikd al-dfiiwdhir and has been published many
times (cf. GAL 1 , II, 384 and see J. Knappert, Swahili
Islamic poetry, Leiden 1971, 48-60, for a slightly
abridged English tr.). The most popular of the
mawlids in Turkish was composed by Suleyman
Celebi (d. 825/1421). It is still recited in mosques
throughout Turkey and in mosques of the Turkish¬
speaking Sunni community in West and South-
Eastern Europe as part of the celebrations for the
birthday of the Prophet. This mawlid was recited
during the official Ottoman court celebrations (for a
full translation, see F. Lyman MacCallum, The
Mevlidi Sherif, London 1943; and E. J. W. Gibb, A
history of Ottoman poetry , London 1900, i, 232-48, for a
translation of extracts and data on the author).
Similar mawlids have been composed in Persian,
Bengali, Sindhi and other languages of the Indo-
Pakistani subcontinent (cf. A. Schimmel, Die
Verehrung des Prophelen in der islamischen Frommigkeit ,
Diisseldorf-Cologne 1981, 136), and also in Serbian
(cf. S. M. Zwemer, Islam in South Eastern Europe, in
MW x\ ii [1927], 353), Albanian (Hafez Ali, Mevludi,
Grosvenor Dale, Conn. 1332/1916, 2nd edition.
Waterbury, Conn. 1370/1950) and Swahili (cf. Knap¬
pert, op.cit., 276-341).

A mawlid of the Imam C A1I by Sulayman £)jalal al-
Dln, Mawlud-i Dianab-i c Alt, Istanbul 1308/1890-1,
seems to have had some popularity in c AlevI circles in
the Ottoman Empire in the last decades of the 19th
century.

Apart from the occasion of the Prophet’s birthday,
a mawlid recital is sometimes held as part of the
ceremonial of the rites of passage. Occasionally, the
recitation of a mawlid takes place in fulfilment of a
religious vow (T. Canaan, in Jnal. Pal. Or. Soc., vi
[1926], 55). When a mawlid is recited on any of these
occasions, it is normally followed by a dhikr [q.v. ] ses¬
sion. In some Sufi orders (e.g. in the Mlrghaniyya
and some branches of the Kadiriyya) a mawlid is
recited as part of the standard liturgical ritual [see
hadra].

The mawlid celebration as an expression of
reverence for Muhammad has found almost general
recognition in Islam, partly in consequence of the
strength of the Sufi movement. At all times, however,
there has also been vigorous opposition to it by those
who considered it to be a bid c a [q. v. ].

It is significant of the character of the opposition

that its opponents object to those very forms which
show the influence of Islamic mysticism (dancing,
samd c , ecstatic phenomena, etc.) or of Christianity
(processions with lamps, etc.). An interesting docu¬
ment concerning this feud is a kind of jatwd by al-
Suyutl (d. 911/1505, Brockelmann, II 1 , 157, Husn al-
maksidfi c amal al-mawlid) which gives a brief survey of
the history of the festival, then discusses the pros and
cons very fully and concludes that the festival deserves
approval as bid c a hasana, provided that all abuses are
avoided. Ibn Hadjar al-Haytaml in his Mawlid, and
Kutb al-Dln ( Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, iii, 439 ff.),
take the same view, while Ibn al-Hadjdj (d. 737/1336-
7), as a more strict MalikI, condemns it most
vehemently (A'. al-Madkhal, i, 153 ff.).

Although the height of this struggle was apparently
reached in the 8th-9th/l4th-15th centuries, it did not
really die down in later years. Indeed, it received new
life with the coming of Wahhabism [see
wahhabiyya]. This movement, while deriving its
arguments for their opposition to the mawlid celebra¬
tions mainly from Ibn Taymiyya, inspired the growth
of non- or anti-mystical Islam throughout the Islamic
world and of the opposition to reference to the
Prophet, including the celebration of his birthday, in
consequence. Wahhabi teaching is equally directed
against the veneration of saints (awliya^ [see wali])
and against the mawlids held in many parts of the
Islamic world in their honour. These mawlids nor¬
mally follow the Islamic calendar, but there are excep¬
tions. Accounts of such mawlid celebrations exist from
many parts of the Islamic world.

The term mawlid (colloquial, miilid) to denote a feast
held in honour of a saint is used in Egypt and the
Sudan in particular. Elsewhere, different terms are
used, e.g. mawsim [< 7 .fl.] (coll, musem) in the Maghrib
and parts of the Middle East, hawliyya (coll, holiyya) in
the Sudan and the horn of Africa, c urs in the Indo-
Pakistan sub-continent and hoi in Malaysia. Every¬
where, the characteristics of such celebrations are
more or less the same: crowds gather for one or more
days, a fair of varying size and importance accom¬
panies the religious celebrations, dhikr and/or Qur’an
reading sessions take place inside and/or outside the
sanctuary of the saint concerned, one or more proces¬
sions are held in which the keeper of the sanctuary
(often the saint’s descendant) and (frequently) Sufi
orders participate, and the cloth ( kiswa ) covering the
saint’s shrine is replaced by a new one in the course
of the celebrations. Frequently, communal meals are
staged and a centrally organised distribution of alms
takes place.

In some parts of the Sunni world, like Afghanistan,
no mawlids are celebrated, notwithstanding the wide¬
spread cult of saints in these areas; in the Shl^I world
no mawlids of the type described here seem to be
known.

In Egypt, the celebration of the numerous mawlids
(about 300 mawlids of varying size were celebrated
yearly with official permission in the 1970s) is cen¬
trally co-ordinated and supervised (by the mashyakhat
al-turuk al-sufiyya, in consultation with the Ministry of
Awkaf), so as to prevent these celebrations from
overlapping and to guarantee public order. Some of
these mawlids were or still are known for special rituals
or customs observed as part of the celebrations [see
dawsa]. During most of the mawlids , special sugar
dolls ( c ara*is, sing. c arusa ) are sold (cf. c Abd al-Ghanl
al-Nabawi al-Shal, c Arusat al-mawlid, Cairo 1977). In
Egypt, the celebration of mawlids is not limited to
Islamic saints but extends to Coptic Christian ones as
well.

The predominance of mawlid celebrations in Egypt

MAWLID — MAWLIDIYYA

897

would seem to explain why it is in this country above
all that the most abundant polemical literature con¬
cerning the religious status of mawlid celebrations was
produced. Those critical of such celebrations range in
their demands from minor reforms of ritual, such as
the prohibition of musical instruments in processions
and the staging of profane forms of amusement in the
mawlid grounds, to total abolition. Most of those who
have declared against the celebration of mawlids in
their traditional form seem to have been of Wahhabi
inspiration. Some of the most vocal and well-known
20 th century critics who deserve mention were
Muhammad Rashid Rida, Mahmud Khattab al-
Subkl and Muhammad Hamid al-Fikl. Elsewhere in
the Islamic world, similarly inspired groups and
individuals have opposed or are still actively opposing
veneration of saints.

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the article, see Hasan al-Sandubl, Ta^rffch
al-Ihtifal bi ’l-mawlid al-nabawi, Cairo 1948 (mainly
on the history of the mawlid in Cairo, with short
excursions on the celebrations in Istanbul,
Morocco and Tunisia in different eras; based upon
published sources). For descriptions of mawlid al-
nabi celebrations in different parts of the Islamic
world and in various periods, see e.g. Wiistenfeld
(ed.), Chroniken , iii, 438 ff.; Ibn Hadjar al-
Haytaml, Mawlid (see Brockelmann, GAL 1 , II,
389); Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, ii, 57 ff., 147 (for
Mecca); idem, The Achenese, i, 210, 212; idem,
Verspreide Geschriften , iii, 8 ff., 83-5; and R. A.
Kern, De Islam in Indonesia, The Hague 1947 (for
Indonesia); J. S. Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan,
Oxford 1949, 146 f. (for Omdurman), and also von
Grunebaum, Muhammadan festivals , (a general
discussion mainly derived from the article Mawlid
in £/>).

Works containing descriptions and/or other
information concerning the mawlid al-nabi and other
mawlids are e.g. T. Canaan, Mohammedan saints and
sanctuaries in Palestine , London 1927, 193 ff.;

Mustafa Yusuf Salam al-ShadhilT, Diawahir al-itla c ,
Cairo 1350/1931-2, 241; J. Hornel, Boat-processions
in Egypt, in Man, xxxviii (Sept. 1938), 145-6; J. W.
McPherson, The Moulids of Egypt , Cairo 1941;
Ahmad Amin, Kdmus al- c dddt wa ’l-takdlid wa 7-
ta c abir al-misriyya, Cairo 1953, 387-8; R. Kriss and
H. Kriss-Heinrich, Volksglaube im Berich des Islams.
Band I. Wallfahrtswesen und Heiligenverehrung,
Wiesbaden 1960, passim', M. Berger, Islam in Egypt
today, Cambridge 1970, 81-3; M. Gilsenan, Saint
and Sufi in Modern Egypt. An essay in the sociology of
religion, Oxford 1973, 48-64; P. Rabinow, Symbolic
domination. Cultural form and historical change in
Morocco, Chicago 1975, 89-94; D. F. Eickelman,
Moroccan Islam. Tradition and society in a pilgrimage
center, Austin-London 1976, 171-8; P. Shinar,
Traditional and reformist maulid celebrations in the
Maghrib, in M. Rosen-Ayalon (ed.), Studies in
memory of Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem 1977, 371-413; F.
de Jong, Turuq and Turuq-linked institutions in nine¬
teenth century Egypt. A historical study in organizational
dimensions of Islamic mysticism, Leiden 1978, 61-4
and passim ; Faruk Ahmad Mustafa, al-Mawdlid,
Alexandria 1981 2 ; de Jong, The Sufi orders in post-
Ottoman Egypt, 1911-1981 (forthcoming), chs. 3, 7,
for a discussion of the conservative versus the refor¬
mist orientations and objections concerning the
mawlids with references to the relevant polemical
literature. In addition, see C AH Mubarak, al-Khiiat
al-Tawfikiyya, i, 90-2 (an enumeration of mawlids in
Cairo at the end of the 19th century), I. Goldziher,

Le culte des saints chez les Musulmans, in Revue de
I’Histoire des Religions, ii (1891), 257-351 (for a still
valuable general discussion); and E. Sidaway, Les
manifestations rehgieuses de I’Egypte moderne, in
Anthropos, xviii-xix (1923-4), 278-96 (on Coptic
mawlids). There is no study devoted to the mawlid as
a literary genre. (H. Fuchs - [F. de Jong])

2. In East Africa.

In a region of the Islamic periphery, such as East
Africa, the desire to preserve the communal rituals
and devotional ceremonies—of which the mawlid is the
most popular celebration—is often stronger than in
the heartlands of Islam (see Annemarie Schimmel,
Mystical dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, N. C. 1975,
216-17; J. Knappert, Traditional Swahili poetry, Leiden
1967, ch. 5). For the masses of people in the fringes,
Muhammad is the personage behind whose banner
the faithful will enter Paradise. Numerous popular
tales and poems about him raise him almost to a
superhuman level of deification, and these form the
basis for much mawlid material; also, the Prophet’s life
forms the closing section of the voluminous popular
cycle on the lives of the 24 prophets who preceded him
(see idem, Swahili Islamic poetry, Leiden 1971, i, ch. 3;
idem, Islamic legends, Leiden 1985, i, 56-184; and cf.
Th. G. Pigeaud, The literature of Java, The Hague
1967, 132).

In East Africa, proper mawlid poems contain at least
some of the successive episodes of Muhammad’s life,
culminating in his death—the date of this being
popularly regarded as the same date as his birth—and
the wafat al-nabi may comprise an entire book, in prose
or verse (see Hemedi bin Abdallah bin Saidi el
Buhriy, Utenzi wa kutawafu nabii, tr. R. Allen, ed. J.
W. T. Allen, Kampala 1956; similar examples can be
quoted in Malaysia and Indonesia). Of these mawlid
texts proper, by far the most popular in Kenya, Tan¬
zania and Somalia (as also in Malaysia and Indonesia)
is al-Barzandjfs one (see section 1. above), contained
in a book—first printed ca. 1885 and noted as a red-
bound book by Snouck Hurgronje in Atjeh [q.v. ] and
by Becker in Dar es Salaam—called the MadjmaS
mawlid sharaf al-andm, the best-known single prayer
book in the Islamic world. It comprises prose and
poetic versions (nathr and nazm) of al-Barzandjl’s
mawlid (both also translated into Swahili), the Burda of
al-BusIrl and several other prayers. In Somalia, al-
Barzandjl’s mawlid composition is widely recited
during the mawlid celebrations in Arabic form,
although a Somali poetic version exists. In The library
of Muhammad b. c Ali b. c Abd al-Shakur, Sultan of Harar,
1272-92!1856-75, in Arabian and Islamic studies ...
presented to R. B. Serjeant, ed. R. L. Bid well and G. R.
Smith, London 1983, 68-79, A. J. Drewes has men¬
tioned three mawlids, including apparently Abu T
Hasan Nur al-Dln’s c Unwdn al-sharf. After al-
Barzandjfs, the most popular mawlid in Kenya and
Somalia is the Mawlid al-sharif of Shavkh c Abd al-
Rahman b. C A1I al-Dlba c I al-Zabldl; the printed edi¬
tions of this, from Cairo and Aden-Singapore respect¬
ively, contain at the end a fatwd by the mufti of Mecca
permitting the use of drums at the mawlid festival. But
the mawlid is often performed at other times too, e.g.
14 days after the birth of a child in Tanzania (see C.
Velten, Sitten und Gebrauche der Suaheli, Gottingen 1903,
ch. 2).

Bibliography. Given in the article.

(J. Knappert)

MAWLIDIYYA (a.) (or milddiyya; dial, muludiyya),
pi. -at, a p o e m composed in honour of the Prophet
on the occasion of the anniversary of his birth
[see mawlid] and recited as a rule before the sovereign

898

MAWLIDIYYA — MAWRUR

and court after ceremonies marking the laylat al-
mawlid.

A relatively large number of mawlidiyyat are extant,
drawing their inspiration from the famous Banat Su c ad
of Ka c b b. Zuhayr [q.v. ] so often imitated by ver¬
sifiers, of whom the best known is certainly al-Busirl
(608-94/1212-97) [q.v. in Suppl.], whose poems enjoy
a renown which has never diminished, especially the
Burda [g.p.] and, to a lesser extent, the Hamziyya,
which is recited in mosques and zawiyas during the
month of Rabi c I, between the maghrib and '■isha*
prayers. Among the mediaeval authors who have left
poems classifiable within the category of mawlidiyyat
may be cited al-Bar c i (5th/11th century), al-Sarsarl (d.
556/1160), Ibn al-DjawzI (510-97/1116-1200 [q.v.]),
Ibn IJadjar al-Haytami (909-74/1504-67 [q.v. ]) and
al-Barzandji (1040-1103/1530-91). Furthermore, it is
possible to gain an overall idea of this production
thanks to the four-volume collection made at the
beginning of the century by Yusuf b. Isma c fl al-
NabhanT and published in Beirut in 1320/1902.

In the Islamic West, mawlidiyyat were mainly the
work of court poets, but also of administrative officials
and viziers for whom the composition of poems of this
type constituted a part of their professional education;
some well-known personalities figure among them,
such as Ibn Marzuk (710-81/1310-79 [q. v. ]), Ibn al-
Khatib (713-76/1313-75 [q.v. ]), and above all, Ibn
Zamrak (733-95/1333-93 [< 7 -tf.]). Due to the occa¬
sional nature of this poetry, it is understandable that
a large number of poems have not been preserved; the
majority of those that survive, thanks, in particular,
to al-MakkarT (d. 1041/1632 [?.tf.]) and to al-Ifram (d.
1157/1745 [q.v. ]), belong to a relatively short period
from 761 to 768/1360-7, corresponding to the reigns
of the Marlnid Abu Salim Ibrahim (d. 762/1361) in
Fas and of the Nasrid Muhammad V (d. 793/1391) in
Granada; to be sure, al-Fishtali (956-1031/1549-
1633), himself the author of at least one mawlidiyya,
reproduced in his Nuzha (ed. and Fr. tr. Houdas, 149-
57), these poems being composed in the reign of
Ahmad al-Mansur in 999/1590.

Generally, the framework of the kasida is respected,
but adapted to suit the fundamental purpose of the
poet in the sense that, while the apology of the
Prophet is preceded by a nastb and a rahil , it is followed
in the West by a eulogy of the sovereign which is
explicable by the circumstances in which these poems
were recited.

The nasib contains the traditional recollection of the
remains of an encampment, but the author must
avoid any allusion to a woman and show the decency
appropriate to the situation. He expresses on the con¬
trary the violent passion which he feels for the
Prophet, leaving some doubt as to this love, whose
true mystical nature is not at all clear. The abandoned
encampment is situated on the route that the poet
must follow to visit the Holy Places, but, as he is very
far distant from them, he calls upon a caravan guide
or some pilgrims in order to ask them to bear his
greetings to the Prophet and describe to him the
ardour of his passion.

This sentimental and moving prologue is followed
by a brief lyrical expansion on the theme, or, more
frequently, a narrative full of details borrowed from
the traditional rahil, of an imaginary journey across
deserts as far as Medina. It goes without saying that
this general theme undergoes numerous variants
ranging from an account of the pilgrimage to Mecca
to the insertion of paranetic verses or commonplaces
on the flight of time, white hair, etc. The Spanish
mawlidiyyat are always distinguished by a large
number of descriptions.

The recollection of the Holy Places introduces the
eulogy of the Prophet, which must theoretically be
based on reality and never drift into hyperbole. The
principal themes concern the birth, foretold by earlier
prophets, the signs of prophecy visible from infancy,
his mission, etc.; next, the epithets of Muhammad are
enumerated; then come his physical and moral por¬
traits; and finally, the description of the miracles that
*he performed. In this central part of the mawlidiyya ,
the elements of the panegyric, expressed by means of
a profusion of superlatives, are drawn from the
Kurban and hadith as well as popular beliefs which
have embellished the life of the Prophet with legen¬
dary details. It may be remarked further that the
poets, idealising his image, adopt some characteristics
taken from the Gospels so as to invest the founder of
Islam with an aura of sanctity which makes him vie
with Jesus.

After the account of the miracles, the versifiers
generally express a wish to be able to visit the Holy
Places, offer supplications to their “saviour” and
invoke God’s blessing on him and his Companions.

This invocation, followed by a similar invocation
on behalf of the sovereign and mention of the laylat al-
mawlid, marks the transition to the third part of the
mawlidiyya which is often as developed as the second
and consists of the panegyric of the reigning prince.
This part offers nothing really new corresponding to
the classical madih [q.v.]. The author attributes all the
virtues to the mamduh, who is the restorer of the
kingdom and whose arms are always victorious; but
his cardinal virtue is naturally generosity, which is
appealed to more or less discreetly. After the
sovereign come the turns of the heir presumptive and
the royal family. To conclude, the poet wishes that the
prince’s prosperity may endure.

One can hardly expect to find much originality in
these compositions crammed with rhetorical flourishes
and adorned with cliches which savour of affectation
and artificiality. However, the choice of images, the
variety of stylistic devices, the subtle play on
vocabulary and the constant appeal to the religious or
literary culture of the listener, retain a certain
attraction.

As well as some poems in classical Arabic, there are
many muludiyyat in dialect which generally contain
only the eulogy of the Prophet; among those which
have been preserved—or those which are still com¬
posed today—some follow the classical tradition and
contain moreover the nastb and the rahil, but the
eulogy of the sovereign does not figure at all in them
[see malhun].

Bibliography. A. Salmi, Le genre des poemes de
nativite (mawludiyya-s) dans le royaume de Grenade et an
Maroc du XIII e au XVII e siecle , in Hesperis, 1956/3-4,
335-435._ (A. Salmi)

MAWRUR, name given to the kura of Moron,
currently Moron de la Frontera, in the province of
Seville, to the south-east of the latter and of Carmona
and to the south-west of Cordova. The Arabo-Islamic
conquest of the territory occupied today by Moron
and its dependencies must have taken place in 92/714
shortly after that of Shaduna [q.v. ] by Tarik b. Ziyad
[q.v.].

Mawrur is also the name of a hisn of the province
of Malaga (see J. Valve, De nuevo sobre Bobastro, in al-
And., xxx [1965], 142, no. 11) and of one (known by
the name of el-Mauror) of the hills at the foot of which
Granada is situated [see gharnata].

The population of the kura was constituted of Butr
Berbers, or Arabs of the tribe of Djudham. of neo-
Muslims and, to a lesser degree, of Mozarabs, The
region combined all the advantages of plain and

MAWRUR — al-MAWSIL

899

mountain. Cereals, olives and fruit-trees were
cultivated there, according to al-Raz! and other
writers, who add that the area possessed good wells
and substantial fortresses, in particular that of Carpio,
which is not easily located today but which some have
identified with the Kalb which, according to Ibn
Gh alib. al-Himyarl and perhaps other writers, was
the regional capital ( kaHda ) of the kura and the seat of
the wall and which possessed a Great Mosque and a
very busy market.

Under the amlrate, Mawrur seems to have been
nothing more than an agricultural region of which the
neighbouring territories were subjected to a raid on
the part of the Madjus [q.v.], if reliance is to be placed
on the Akhbdr madfmu^a (text, 64; tr. 51). Mawrur is
also mentioned in connection with events occurring at
Seville in the period of Ibrahim b. al-Hadjdjadj (al-
c UdhrI, 103), and with an invasion mounted by
Mutarrif, son of the amir c Abd Allah {ibid., 104). In
the time of the amir al-Hakam [q. v. , the total sum of
taxation contributed by the kura of Mawrur rose to
21,000 dinars (al-Himyari, Rawd, text, 186, tr. 227)
and the number of horsemen that it supplied for the
summer campaigns against the Christians com¬
manded by c Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad, stood at
1403 (Ibn Hayyan, Muktabis, ed. MakkT, text 272).
The fortress of Mawrur was also affected by the conse¬
quences of the rebellion of c Umar b. Hafsun [q.v.\, to
such an extent that it became necessary to send several
expeditions against these territories, which were
ultimately subjected to the authority of Cordova in
311/923-4 (Ibn Hayyan, op.cit. , text 115, 167; tr. 139,
192). During the fitna, Mawrur became the seat of the
Berber tdHJa of the Banu Dammar or Banu Nuh, until
the time when, under the third king of the dynasty,
Manad b. Muhammad b. Nuh (449-58/1057-66), it
was incorporated into the c Abbadid kingdom of
Seville [see c abbadids and ishbTliyya] and
experienced the same fate as the latter when it was
conquered by the Almoravids.

Judging by the silence of the sources, it may be
stated with confidence that no event of note took place
at Mawrur and on its territory under the Almoravids
and the Almohads. Cordova fell in 1236, and in 1240
in the reign of Fernando III, king of Castile, the kura
passed under the domination of the Christians, at the
same time as Luque, Aguilar, Ecija, Estepa, Lucena,
Marchena and Osuna, and became part of the ter¬
ritory known as Banda Morisca, to the south of the
Campina and to the west of the Nasrid kingdom of
Granada. For a period of 529 years, Mawrur had
belonged to the ddr al-Islam.

Bibliography : Besides the references cited in

the article, see c Umari, Masdlik al-absdr , tr.

Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris 1927, 228, no. 3;

E. Fagnan, Extraits , 210, 211, 213; Ibn al-Khatlb.

A c mal, 23, 32, 119; Ibn c IdharT, Baydn, iii, 113,
214, 220; Ibn Sa c Td, Mughnb , i, 232, 312, 422.

(J. Bosch Vila)

AL- MAWSIL, in European sources usually
rendered as Mosul, a city of northern
Mesopotamia or c Irak, on the west bank of the
Tigris and opposite to the ancient Nineveh. In early
Islamic times it was the capital of Diyar Rab^a [qui.],
forming the eastern part of the province of al-Djazira
[?. p. ]. At the present time, it is the third largest city
of the Republic of c Irak.

1. History up to 1900.

Al-Mawsil takes its name from the fact that a
number of arms of the river there combine (Arabic,
wasala) to form a single stream. The town lies close
beside the Tigris on a spur of the western steppe-

plateau which juts out into the alluvial plain of the
river. Close beside its walls are quarries in which the
plaster for the buildings and for the mortar is
obtained. The site of the town, almost 3 km 2 in area
and enclosed by the already-mentioned wall and the
Tigris, slopes from the old fortress gradually to the
south. To the south-east there stretch, as in the Mid¬
dle Ages, the suburbs surrounded by fertile plants. A
little above the spot where the wall joins the river on
the south-east is the bridge of boats. All the old
buildings and even the court of the Great Mosque lie,
according to E. Herzfeld's investigations, below the
level of the streets in which the accumulation of
mounds of debris from houses is a result of a thousand
years of continuous occupation.

Whether the town already existed in antiquity is
unknown. E. Herzfeld {Archdol. Reise, ii, 207, 259) has
suggested that Xenophon’s M£oiciXa, reproduces its
old name and that we should read ‘MeTtaiXa
( = Mawsil ); but against this view we have the simple
fact that this town lay on the east bank of the Tigris
(F. H. Weissbach, in Pauly-Wissowa, xv, col. 1164).

The Muslims placed the foundations of the town in
mythical antiquity and ascribed it to Rewand b.
Bewarasp Adjdahak. According to another tradition,
its earlier name was Khawlan. The Persian satrap of
al-Mawsil bore the title Budh-Ardashlranshah. so that
the official name of the town was Budh-Ardashir (Le
Strange, Lands , 87; Herzfeld, op.cit., 208). Lastly, Bar
Bahlul says that an old Persian king gave it the name
Bih-Hormiz-Kawadh (G. Hoffmann, Auszixge aus syr.
Akten pers. Martyren , 178).

As the metropolis of the diocese of Athur, al-Mawsil
took the place of Nineveh, whither Christianity had
penetrated by the beginning of the 2nd century A.D.
Rabban Isho c -yahbh, called Bar Kusra, about 570
A.D. founded on the west bank of theTigris opposite
Niniveh a monastery (still called Mar Isha c ya) around
which Khusraw II built many buildings. This settle¬
ment is probably the fortress mentioned in the Syriac
chronicle edited by Guidi as Hesna c Ebhrava (accord¬
ing to Herzfeld, “citadel on the opposite bank”)
(Noldeke, in SB. Ak. Wien, cxxviii, fasc. 9 [1893], 20;
Sachau, Chronik von Arbela, ch. iv, 48,1; Herzfeld,
op.cit., 208) which later was developed into a town by
the Arabs {Chronicle of Se c ert, at the end).

Nineveh is attested as a separate Nestorian
bishopric from 554 till the early 3rd/9th century, when
it was merged with the see of al-Mawsil, and for
roughly the same period, Monophysite bishops are
recorded for the monastery of Mar Matta and
Nineveh (later al-Mawsil) (see J.-M. Fiey, Assyrie chre-
tienne , Beirut 1968, ii, 344 ff.). The area just to the
north of al-Mawsil was known at this time as Beth
Nuhadhra, and that to the south-west as Adiabene, in
early Islamic parlance, Ard Hazza (from the village,
Syriac H c za, which seems to have been the main cen¬
tre, towards the end of the Sasanid period, for the
administrative division of Nodh-Ardashlrakan (see
M. G. Morony, Continuity and change in the
administrative geography of late Sasanian and early Islamic al-
Hrdq, in Iran, JBIPS, xx [1982], 10 ff.).

After the taking of Nineveh by c Utba b. Farkad
(20/641) in the reign of c Umar b. al-Khattab, the
Arabs crossed the Tigris, whereupon the garrison of
the fortress on the west bank surrendered on promis¬
ing to pay the poll-tax and obtained permission to go
where they pleased. Under the same caliph, c Utba
was dismissed from his post as commander of al-
Mawsil, and Harthama b. c Arfadja al-Bariki suc¬
ceeded him. The latter settled Arabs in houses of their
own, then allotted them lands and made al-Mawsil a

900

al-MAWSIL

camp city (misr) in which he also built a Friday
Mosque (al-Baladhurl, 332). According to al-Wakidl,
c Abd al-Malik (65-86/685-705) appointed his son
Sa c Id as governor of al-Mawsil, while he put his
brother Muhammad over Armlniya and al- Dj azIra.
According to al-Mu c afa b. Tawus on the other hand,
Muhammad was also governor of c Adharbavdjan and
al-Mawsil, and his chief of police Ibn Talld paved the
town and built a wall round it (al-Baladhurl. op.cit.).
His son Marwan II is also described as a builder and
extender of the town; he is said to have organised its
administration and built roads, walls and a bridge of
boats over the Tigris (Ibn Faklh, 128; Yakut,
Mu^djam , iv, 682-4). The foundation of a Friday
Mosque was also ascribed to him. Al-Mawsil became
under him the capital of the province of al-Djazira.

After al-Mutawakkil’s death, the Kharidji Musawir
seized a part of the territory of al-Maw$il and made al-
Hadltha [ q.v .] his headquarters. The then governor of
al-Mawsil, the Khuza c I c Akaba b. Muhammad, was
deposed by the TaghlibI Ayyub b. Ahmad, who put
his own son Hasan in his place. Soon afterwards, in
254/868, the c Azdi Allah b. Sulayman became the
governor of al-Mawsil. The Kh aridjls took the town
from him and Musawir entered into possession of it.
Al-Mu c tamid appointed the Turkish general Asatigin
governor of the town, but in Djumada I 259/March
873 the latter sent his son Azkutigln there as his
deputy. The latter was soon driven out by the citizens
of the town, who chose Yahya b. Sulayman as their
ruler.

Haytham b. c Abd Allah, whom Asatigin then sent
to al-Mawsil, had to return after achieving nothing.
The TaghlibI I§hak b. Ayyub, whom Asatigin sent
with 20,000 men against the city, among whom was
Hamdan b. Hamdun, entered it after winning a
battle, but was soon driven out again.

In 261/874-5 the TaghlibI Khidr b. Ahmad and in
267/880-1 Ishak b. Kundadj were appointed gover¬
nors of al-Mawsil by al-Mu c tamid. A year after
Ishak’s death, his son Muhammad sent Harun b.
Sulayman to al-Mawsil (279/892); when he was
driven out by the inhabitants, he asked the Banu
Shayban for assistance, and they besieged the town
with him. The inhabitants, led by Harun b. c Abd
Allah and Hamdan b. Hamdun, after an initial vic¬
tory were surprised and defeated by the Shavbanls:
shortly afterward, Muhammad b. Ishak was deposed
by the Kurd c AlI b. Dawud.

When al-Mu c tadid became caliph in 279/892,
Hamdan (the grandfather of Sayf al-Dawla) managed
to make himself very popular with him at first, but in
282/895 he rebelled in al-Mawsil. When an army was
sent by the caliph against him under Waslf and Nasr,
he escaped while his son Husayn surrendered. The
citadel was stormed and destroyed, and Hamdan soon
afterwards was captured and thrown into prison. Nasr
was then ordered to collect tribute in the city and thus
came into conflict with the followers of the Kh aridji
Harun; Harun was defeated and fled into the desert.
In place of Tuktamlr, who was imprisoned, the caliph
appointed Hasan b. C A1I as governor of al-Mawsil and
sent against Harun, the main cause of the strife, the
Hamdanid Husayn, who took him prisoner in
283/896. The family thus regained the caliph’s
favour.

When after the subjection of the Kharidjls. raiding
Kurds began to disturb the country round al-Mawsil,
al-MuktafT again gave a Hamdanid, namely
Husayn’s brother Abu ’l-Haydja 5 c Abd Allah, the
task of bringing them to book, as the latter could rely
on the assistance of the Taghlibls settled around the

city to whom the Hamdanids belonged. Abu ’1-
Haydja 5 came to al-Mawsil in the beginning of
Muharram 293/October 906 and in the following year
subdued the Kurds, whose leader Muhammad b.
Bilal submitted and came to live in the city.

From this time, the Hamdanids [q.v. ] ruled there,
first as governors for the caliph, then from 317/929
(Nasir al-Dawla Hasan) as sovereign rulers.

The c Ukaylids who followed them (386-498/996-
1096) belonged to the tribe of the Banu Ka c b. Their
kingdom, founded by Husam al-Dawla al-Mukallad,
whose independence was recognised by the Buyids,
extended as far as Ta^uk (Dakuka), al-Mada-fin and
Kufa. In 489/1095-6, al-Mawsil passed to the
Saldjuks.

The town developed considerably under the Atabeg
c Imad al-Dln Zangl, who put an end to Saldjuk rule
in 521/1127-8. The city which was for the most part
in ruins, was given splendid buildings by him; the for¬
tifications were restored and flourishing gardens sur¬
rounded the town. Under one of his successors, c Izz
al-Dln Mas c ud I, it was twice unsuccessfully besieged
by the Ayyubid Salah al-Din (1182 and 1185 A.D.);
after the conclusion of peace, c Izz al-Dln, however,
found himself forced to recognise Salah al-Dln as his
suzerain.

The town was at this time defended by a strong
citadel and a double wall, the towers of which were
washed on the east side by the Tigris. To the south lay
a great suburb, laid out by the vizier Mudjahid al-Dln
Ka^imaz (d. 595/1199). From 607/1210-11 his son
Badr al-Dln Lu-’lu 5 [q.v. j ruled over al-Mawsil first as
vizier of the last Zangids and from 631/1234 as an
independent ruler. In 642/1244-5 he submitted to
Hulagu and accompanied him on his campaigns, so
that al-Mawsil was spared the usual sacking. When
however his son al-Malik al-Salih Isma c fl joined
Baybars against the Mongols, the town was plundered
in 660/1261-2; the ruler himself fell in battle (van Ber-
chem, in Festschrift fur Th. Noldeke, Giessen 1906,
197 ff.).

The Arab geographers compare its plan to a
headcloth (, taylasan ), i.e. to an elongated rectangle. Ibn
Hawkal, who visited al-Mawsil in 358/968-9,
describes it as a beautiful town with fertile surround¬
ings. The population in his time consisted mainly of
Kurds. According to al-MukaddasI (ca. 375/985-6, the
town was very beautifully built. Its plan was in the
form of a semi-circle. The citadel was called al-
Aiurabba c a and stood where the Nahr Zubayda canal
joined the Tigris (now Ic-kal c a or Bash Tabiya?; cf.
Herzfeld, op.cit., 209). Within its walls were a
Wednesday market ( Suk al-Arba^a 7 ), after which it was
sometimes called. The Friday Mosque built by Mar-
wan stood on an eminence not far from the Tigris to
which steps led up. The streets in the market were for
the most part roofed over. The same geographer (136)
gives the eight main streets of the town (discussed in
Herzfeld, op.cit., 209). The castle of the caliph ( Kasr
al-Khalifa) stood on the east bank, half a mile from the
town, and commanded Nineveh; in the time of al-
MukaddasI it was already in ruins, through which the
Nahr al-Khawsar flowed.

Ibn Djubayr visited al-Mawsil on 22-6 Safar 580/
4-8 June 1184. Shortly before, Nur al-Dln had built
a new Friday Mosque on the market place. At the
highest point in the town was the citadel (now Bash
Tabiya); it was known as al-Hadba 3 “the hunch¬
backed”, and perhaps as the synonymous al-Dafa^a
(G. Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syr. Aktcn pers. Martyren,
178-9; Herzfeld, op.cit., 210), and according to al-
Kazwlnl was surrounded by a deep ditch and high

al-MAWSIL

901

walls. The city walls, which had strong towers, ran
down to the river and along its bank. A broad
highway ( shari °) connected the upper and lower towns
(the north-south road called Dark Dayr al-AHa). In
front of the walls suburbs stretched into the distance
with many smaller mosques, inns and baths. The
hospital (maristdn) and the great covered market
(kaysariyya) were celebrated.

Most houses in al-Mawsil were built of tufa or mar¬
ble (from the Djabal Maklub east of the town) and had
domed roofs (Yakut, op.cit.). Later, it was given a
third Friday Mosque which commanded the Tigris
and was perhaps the building admired by Hamd Allah
al-Mustawfi ( ca. 740/1339-40).

The site of the ancient Nineveh (Arabic Ninaway)
was in al-Mukadasi’s time called Tall al-Tawba and
was said to be the place where the prophet Yunus
stayed when he wished to convert the people of
Nineveh. There was a mosque there around which the
Hamdanid Nasir al-Dawla built hostels for pilgrims.
Half a mile away was the healing spring of c Ayn
Yunus with a mosque beside it, perhaps also the
Shadjarat al-Yaktln, said to have been planted by the
Prophet himself. The tomb of NabT DjirdjTs [q.v. ],
who according to Muslim legend had suffered martyr¬
dom in al-Mawsil, was in the east town, as was also
that of Nab! Shlth (Seth; cf. Herzfeld, op.cit ., 206-7).

The textiles of al-Mawsil were especially famed,
and from the city’s name came Eng. muslin and Fr.
mousseline , although it appears from Marco Polo’s
mention of mosolino cloth as made with gold and silver
threads that these luxury cloths differed from the
present-day thin and delicate cottons (see Sir Henry
Yule, The book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian , London
1871, i, 57-9; R. B. Serjeant, Islamic textiles, material for
a history up to the Mongol conquest , Beirut 1972, 38-9).

The Mongol dynasty of the Djala^irids succeeded
the Ilkhans in Ba gh dad, and Sultan Shavkh Uways in
766/1364-5 incorporated al-Mawsil in his kingdom.
The world-conqueror Timur not only spared the city
but gave rich endowments to the tombs of Nabi
Yunus and NabT Djirdjis, to which he made a
pilgrimage, and restored the bridge of boats between
al-Mawsil and these holy places.

The Turkoman dynasty of the Ak Koyunlu, whose
founder Baha 5 al-Din Kara c Uthman had been
appointed governor of Diyarbakr by Timur, was fol¬
lowed by the Safawids, who took over al-Mawsil after
their conquest of Ba gh dad in 914/late 1508, but lost
it again to Sulayman the Magnificent in 941/1535,
who appointed Sayyid Ahmad of Djazirat Ibn c Umar
as its governor. From the year 1000/1592 onwards, we
have lists of the Ottoman pashas of the sandjak of al-
Mawsil (for long attached to the eyalel of Diyarbakr),
whose tenure of power was usually short-lived; thus
from 1048/1638 to 1111/1699-1700 there were 48
pashas. Nadir Shah besieged it in 1 156/1743, but the
governor Husayn DjalflT refortified the city and
heroically defended it. It was at this time and
thereafter that the pashalik of al-Mawsil was fairly con¬
tinuously in the hands of the local family, originally
Christians, of c Abd al-DjalTl; Husayn b. Isma c fl held
this office on eight separate occasions, and the hold of
the Djalills was only broken in 1834, when Sultan
Mahmud II extended his centralising power over the
derebeys and other previously largely autonomous local
potentates and removed Yahya b. Nu c man al-Djalfli.

European travellers frequently passed through al-
Maw§il and mention it in their travel narratives; they
often comment unfavourably on the unclean streets
and on the sectarian strife there amongst both
Muslims and the rival Christian churches. After 1879,

the sandjak of al-Mawsil, after being attached to Van,
Hakkari and then Ba gh dad, became a separate
wildyet. There was a long tradition of French mis¬
sionary and educational work in the city, by e.g.
Carmelites and Dominicans, largely among the
indigenous Eastern Christian churches. In the later
19th century, travellers describe al-Mawsil’s mud
brick walls, with their seven gates, as largely ruinous,
and record the dominant form of domestic architec¬
ture as stone-built houses with sardabs; the population
then was around 40,000, including 7,000 Christians
and 1,500 Jews.

Bibliography (in addition to references given
in the text): al-MukaddasT, 136-8; Ibn Khurradadh-
bih, 17; Yakut, MiTdjam, iv, 682-4; Safi al-Din,
Marasid al-ittila c , ed. Juynboll, i, 84; Ibn al-Athir,
Ta^rikh al-Dawla al-Atabakiyya Muluk al-Mawsil , in
Recueil des Hisioriens des Croisades, ii/2, Paris 1876, 1-
394; A. Socin, Mosul and Mardxn , in ZDMG , xxxvi
(1882), 1-53, 238-77; xxxvii (1883), 188-222; Le
Strange, The lands of the eastern caliphate , Cambridge
1905, 87-9; M. van Berchem, Arabische Inschriften
von Mosul , in F. Sarre-E. Herzfeld, Archaologische
Reise im Euphrat- und Tigrisgebiet , i, Berlin 1911, 16-
30; Herzfeld, ibid. , ii, 1920, 203-304 (ch. vii); iii,
tables v-ix, lxxxviii-cx; Sir Charles Wilson, Mur¬
ray's handbook for travellers in Asia Minor ,
Transcaucasia , Persia , etc. , London 1895, 293-4; S.
H. Longrigg, Four centuries of modern Iraq , Oxford
1925, 35-7, 95-7, 149-52, 158, 253, 284; A. Birken,
Die Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches , Wiesbaden
1976, 179, 192, 203, 222. For the 10th/16th cen¬
tury Ottoman mufassal tapu defers for the Mawsil
liwa see B. Lewis, The Ottoman archives as a source
for the history of the Arab lands, in JR AS (1951), 149.

(E. Honigmann -[C. E. Bosworth])

2. Since 1900.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the prosperity
and political importance of al-Mawsil were evidently
waning, largely because the opening of the Suez
Canal in 1869 had occasioned an immediate reduction
in the overland trade between the city and its tradi¬
tional commercial partners, Aleppo and Damascus.
Furthermore, the development of the port of Basra
and of steam navigation on the Tigris gradually had
the effect of subordinating the economy of al-Mawsil
to that of Ba gh dad, which became the entrepot for all
the former city’s imports and exports.

The effects of the Tanzimat were even more lightly
felt in the province of al-Mawsil than in the rest of
c Irak, and there is no sign that the various
administrative changes had any particular effect in
curbing the powers of the local notables and tribal
leaders. As noted above, in 1879 the city itself became
the headquarters of a wildyet of the same name, com¬
prising the kadah of al-Mawsil, Kirkuk, Arbil and
Sulaymaniyya, but for the rest of the period of
Ottoman rule, the state’s control over most of what is
now c IrakT Kurdistan was purely nominal^ and
between 1895 and 1911, one man, Mustafa Calabi
SabundjT, was virtual dictator of al-Mawsil town, far
more powerful than any of the numerous waits sent
from Istanbul (see Hanna Batatu, The old social classes
and the revolutionary movements of Iraq: a study of Iraq’.s old
landed and commercial classes, and of its Communists,
Ba'lhists and Free Officers , Princeton 1978, 289-92).
Using Ottoman sources, J. McCarthy ( The population
of Ottoman Syria and Iraq, 1878-1914, in A AS, xv
[1981], 3-44) has calculated that the population of al-
Mawsil wildyet in 1330/1911-12 was about 828,000,
which is considerably higher than earlier estimates
(e.g., see S. H. Longrigg, Iraq 1900 to 1950 , London

902

al-MAWSIL — al-MAWSILI

1953, 7). It is even more difficult to establish an
accurate figure for al-Mawsil town alone; McCarthy
(i op.cii ., 4-1) suggests 36,500 adult males, which
accords with the estimated total of 70,000 inhabitants
given in al- c Iraq Yearbook for 1922 (Batatu, op.cit., 35).

For most of the First World War, the fighting on
the c Iraki front took place in the Basra and Ba gh dad
wilayets , with the result that al-Mawsil town itself was
relatively little affected, and was in fact only occupied
by British troops some days after the Armistice of
Mudros (30 October 1918; see A. T. Wilson,
Mesopotamia 1917-1920: a clash of loyalties, London
1931, 11). The area had been assigned to France in
the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, but Clemenceau
immediately acquiesced in Lloyd George’s request in
December 1918 that it should be attached to c Irak,
and thus to the British sphere of influence, provided
that France would be assured of equality in the
exploitation of Mesopotamian oil (see J. Nevakivi,
Britain, France and the Arab Middle East 1914-1920, Lon¬
don 1969, 91-2). Although the mandate for c Irak was
assigned to Britain under the Treaty of San Remo
(April 1920 [see mandates]), the Turkish Republican
government continued to contest the new c IrakI state’s
right to al-Mawsil and the wildyet was only finally
awarded to c Irak in 1925 after an enquiry carried out
by the League of Nations (for details, see C. J.
Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and Arabs: politics, travel and
research in North-eastern Iraq 1919-1925, London 1957).
Oil was struck in commercial quantities near Kirkuk
in 1927, and these northern oilfields, exploited until
nationalisation in 1973 by the Iraq Petroleum Com¬
pany, an Anglo-French-Dutch-American consortium,
form one of the country’s most valuable economic
assets.

Under the mandate and monarchy (1920-32; 1932-
58) the status of al-Mawsil continued to decline, partly
because the inauguration of the new state and the
establishment of Baghdad as its capital inevitably
deprived it of its importance as an independent pro¬
vincial centre, and partly because al-Mawsil wildyet
itself was further sub-divided into four provinces (al-
Mawsil, Sulaymaniyya, Kirkuk and Arbll). The city
maintained its somewhat conservative reputation
throughout the period, and in comparison with
Baghdad and Ba$ra seems to have been relatively little
affected by the independence struggles of the 1940s
and 1950s. During this period, members of the city’s
prominent families, notably the Shammar shaykhs and
members of the Kashmula, Khudayr and Shallal
families, gradually came to acquire legal ownership of
much of the land in the surrounding countryside.
Such individuals naturally felt threatened by the
avowedly revolutionary aims of the government of
c Abd al-Karim Kasim [ q.v.], which came to power on
14 July 1958, and in particular by its immediate intro¬
duction of an agrarian reform law.

In March 1959, some of the landowners and their
followers joined together with local Arab nationalists
and a number of Kasim’s former supporters in the
armed forces in an attempt to overthrow his regime,
with assistance promised (but not ultimately forth¬
coming) from Cairo and Damascus. Four days of
fighting broke out in the city between the supporters
and opponents of Kasim, in which some 200 people
were killed. The attempted coup was unsuccessful,
but the incident was to be used many times in the
future as a rallying cry for revenge on the part of
Ba c thists and nationalists against Kasim and his left-
wing supporters (see Batatu, op.cit., 58-61, 866-89).

Al-Mawsil was finally connected with the rest of the
c IrakI railway system in 1939, and served by Iraqi

Airways after 1946; the existing tertiary colleges in the
city were amalgamated into a university in 1967,
which has since been expanded considerably. In the
course of a provincial reorganisation in 1969, al-
Mawsil province was divided into two new units,
Nineveh (Nlnawa) and Duhuk. In the 1977 census,
al-Mawsil emerged as the third largest city in c Irak
with a population of 430,000, preceded by Basra
(450,000) and Ba gh dad (2.86 million). In spite of
attempts on the part of the central government to pro¬
mote regional economic development, al-Mawsil is
inevitably at a disadvantage through being some
distance from the country’s main industrial concen¬
trations, 75% of which are located around Ba gh dad
and Basra. Its principal industries are agriculturally-
based, including food-processing, and leather work¬
ing, but textiles and cement are also produced, and an
oil refinery was opened in 1976. The city retains much
of its traditional ethnic and religious heterogeneity,
and its mediaeval core still remains clearly distinct,
despite the intrusion of various unattractive
manifestations of modern town planning.

Bibliography. In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text (especially Batatu, which is
indispensable): M. Kyriakos, Fianfailles et manages a
Mossoul, in Anthropos , vi (1911), 744-84; W.
Heinrichs, Eine Karawanenreise von Mosul nach Aleppo
vom 9 Marz bis 25 April 1911, in PGM, lx (1914),
189-93, 257-59; H. C. Luke, Mosul and its minorities,
London 1925; A. Giannini, La contesa anglo-turca per
Mossul, in OM, iv (1924), 409-29; S. H. Longrigg,
Four centuries of modern Iraq, London 1925 (repr.
Farnborough 1969); idem, Oil in the Middle East: its
discovery and development, London 1954; H. E. Wilkie
Young, Mosul in 1909, in MES, vii (1971), 229-35;
P. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq 1914-1932, London 1976,
esp. 103-40; K. McLachlan, Iraq: problems of regional
development, in A. Kelidar (ed.), The integration of
modern Iraq, London 1979, 135-49; P. J. Beck, li A
tedious and perilous controversy”-, Britain and the settle¬
ment of the Mosul question 1918-1926, in MES, xvii
(1981), 256-76; R. Owen, The Middle East in the
world economy 1800-1914, London 1981, esp. 180-8,
273-86; Government of Iraq, Annual abstract of
statistics. _ (P. Sluglett)

AL- MAWSILl [see ibrahIm and ishak b. ibrahim
al-mawsilI].

al-MAWSILI, Bakr b. al-Kasim b. AbT Thawr.
philo sophical writer, is known only as the
author of an epistolary philosophical work entitled Fi
’l-nafs (“Concerning the soul”). It was written
between 278/900 and 328/950 and sent to the distin¬
guished translator and doctor Abu c Uthman Sa c ld b.
Ya c kub al-Dimashki. The author seems to have lived
in the Mawsil region, and is not to be confused with
another philosopher from that area, Ibn AbT Sa c ld al-
Mawsill. The text deals not with the soul as such, but
only with a part of it, the rational soul ( nafs natika) or
intellect ( c akl). His technique is explicitly that of
Thabit b. Kurra and Plato in analysing the character¬
istics of the definition of the intellect in order to draw
out its essence. The intellect impresses a form upon
our sense-data, and what we know can either be
acquired ( mustafad) from outside of ourselves or not.
As Aristotle put it, it is a question of whether the
intellect which forms all things is part of the soul or
rather something outside the soul—the latter being
the normal Islamic religious interpretation. Al-
Mawsill argues that the intellect does not acquire
knowledge by means of contact with a transcendent
being, but rather by reflection of the intellect upon
itself. We can indeed make mistakes (e.g. be misled

al-MAWSILI — MAWSU C A

♦

903

by imagination), but not if we reflect rationally upon
the first principles (< al-awdHl ) of logical thought, since
they are the grounds upon which the truth or falsity
of everything else depends. These universals ( al-umur
al-kuiliyya) are true, real in themselves and their own
objects, and are not equivalent to the body, but con¬
stitute a substance not susceptible to decay. Thereby
al-Mawsili elegantly tackles an Aristotelian problem
(without mentioning Aristotle) in a Platonic manner,
actually referring to the Phaedo and its doctrine of
reminiscence as the route to genuine knowledge.

Bibliography. Plato, Phaedo ; Aristotle, De
Anima , 3.4.429a, 21-22, 429b, 6 . 5.430a, 10-15;
Bakr al-Mawsili, Fi ’l-nafs, ms. British Museum,
Add. 7473, 6a-12a; S. Pines, La doctrine de Vintellect
selon Bakr al-Mawsili , in Studi Orientalistici in onore di
Giorgio Levi della Vida , Rome 1956, ii, 350-64; H.
Davidson, Alfarabi and Avicenna on the active intellect ,
in Viator , iii (1972), 109-78.

(O. N. H. Leaman)

MAWSIM (a., from the root w-s-m “to mark,
imprint”), market, festival. In this sense the term
is used in hadith , especially in connection with the
markets of early Arabia, such as those which were
held in c Ukaz, Madjanna, Dhu ’l-Madjaz, c Arafa,
etc. (al-Bukhari, Ha didi . bab 150; Tafsir, sura II, bab
34). At these markets, the worst elements of Arabia
gathered ( al-mawsim yadfma c ra c a : al-nas , al-Bukhari,
Hudud, bab 31). Advantage was also taken of these
assemblies to make public proclamations and
inquiries, e.g. in order to regulate the affairs of
deceased persons (al-Bukharl. Khums, bab 13; Manakib
al-Ansar, bab 27). As the pilgrimage was at the same
time one of the chief markets of early Arabia, the term
mawasim is often combined with it (mawasim al-ha didi .
al-Bukharl. Ha didi . bab 150; Buyu c , bab 1; Abu
Dawud, Manasik , bab 6 ). Upon this basis, the term
mawsim has developed chiefly in two directions.

First, it has acquired the meaning of a festival,
generally with a religious basis. When such a festival
signifies the birthday of a prophet or local saint, the
term more generally used is mawlid (dialectically,
mulid, etc.) [ 7 . 1 /.], but often some other event in a holy
man’s life, or even his death, may be celebrated, often
at a date which shows continuity with some ancient
nature festival or other rite. Cf. the mawsim of NabF
Musa, held between the centres of Jerusalem and the
shrine near Jericho from the Friday preceding Good
Friday till Maundy Thursday; see G. E. Von
Grunebaum, Muhammadan festivals, repr. London
1976, 80 ff. A mawsim might, however, be a secular
occasion, at least in its developed form, such as the
festival traditionally held in Cairo during August to
celebrate the rising of the Nile waters, the mawsim al-
khalijj or yawm wafa 5 al-Nillyawm dyabr al-bahr ; see
Lane, The Manners and customs of the modern Egyptians,
ch. xxvi “Periodical public festivals”.

Second, it has come to mean season. Thus in
Lebanon, mawsim denotes the season of the prepara¬
tion of silk (al-Bustani, Muhit , s.v.), whilst in India
and in European terminology referring to these parts
of the world, it has acquired the meaning of “season”
in connection with the weatherconditions special to
those regions, such as the regularly returning winds
and rain periods. Monsoon, mousson , moesson and other
corruptions of the term are found in this literature.

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the art. cf. LA, xvi, 123 ff.; Wellhausen,
Restearabischen Heidentums, 2 Berlin 1897, 84 ff., 246;
Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson , ed. W. Crooke,
London 1903, s.v. monsoon.

(A. J. Wensinck -[C. E. Bosworth])

MAWSU C A (a.), “encyclopaedia”.

1 . In Arabic.

In the sense of “a work dealing with all the sciences
and arts”, the idea of an encyclopaedia was not
expressed in Classical Arabic, and it was not until the
19th century that the expression da^irat al-ma c arif “cir¬
cle of items of knowledge” was coined, corresponding
approximately to the etymological meaning of the
word current in Western languages, and not until the
20 th that a neologism, mawsuca, emerged, which con¬
tains an idea of breadth, of wide coverage, etc. Never¬
theless, the absence of a perfectly adequate descriptive
term—although we may cite for example adab or
macarif —does not necessarily imply the non-existence
of a tendency to encyclopaedic writing, translated into
practice by the composition of general works due to
some scholars applying themselves to the acquisition
and diffusion of knowledge belonging to a wide range
of intellectual and technical disciplines. Indeed,
secular macarif [q.v. ], as opposed to c ulum [see c ilm] of
a religious nature, nourished the literary genre
designated adab [q. v. ] (pi. adab), which branched out
and became conducive to the moral, cultural and pro¬
fessional formation of the Muslims and consequently
presupposed the bringing together of a mass of dif¬
ferent notions. The definition of adab , which consists
of “taking a little of everything” (al-akhdh min kulli
shay 31,1 bi-taraf), may mean that, in the traditional and
speculative sciences ( c ulum nakliyya wa- c akliyya)
developed since the beginnings of Islam, one pro¬
ceeded to a choice which assumed, by force of cir¬
cumstances, an encyclopaedic aspect and was given
shape in works which bear witness to the level of the
average culture and the tastes of the public to whom
they were addressed. The latter consisted of those who
were particularly desirous of being well-informed, but
also of the bureaucracy, the kuttab [see katib], who
needed to possess extensive and varied knowledge,
within the limits which precisely by their nature were
to define the variable content of encyclopaedic works.

In the 3rd/9th and the 4th/10th centuries, “the
Arabo-Islamic world, under the thrust of the cultural
primacy of c Irak, showed its capacity to combine the
creation of humanism with that of encyclopaedic
activity” (R. Blachere, Reflexions , 521) and began to
be exposed to beneficial foreign influences which led
the most open spirits to inquire into the universe,
while respecting as far as possible Kur 5 anic teachings.
At the beginning of the 3rd/9th century, a similar
attitude found expression in al-Djahiz (d. 255/868-9
[q.v.]), who dominated adab in the broad sense. He
restrains himself from adopting a static viewpoint
while abstaining from explaining the point of the
information, but displays an astonishing dynamism in
indicating some directions for investigation and pro¬
posing a method of acquisition and enrichment of
knowledge by observation, experimentation, reflec¬
tion, in a huge output covering de omni re scribili ; this
collection, in which the Kitab al-Hayawan stands out,
finally assumed an encyclopaedic character clearly
illustrated furthermore by the Kitab al-TarbT wa
i.-tadwir and evidenced in our own times not only by
the indices of the works concerned, but further,
notably, by such works as al-Mawruth al-sha c bifi athar
al-Djahiz (anonymous, Ba gh dad 1396/1976) with
regard to folklore, and the Mu c djam al-Djahiz of
Ibrahim al-Samarra 5 ! (Baghdad 1982).

Given that the temperament of this author hardly
enables him to follow a methodical order, the Kitab al-
Hayawan is far from being a zoological dictionary, and
one must refer to the excellent index which accom-

904

MAWSU C A

panies it in order to locate the details relating to the
various animals presented in the body of the text. It
is quite different in the c AdjaHb al-makhlukal of al-
Kazwlnl (600-82/1203-83 [< 7 .^.]), which contains an
alphabetical series of notices concerning animals in its
section on the description of the universe dealing with
terrestrial matters. But the efforts deployed in this
field reach their culmination in the Hayat al-hayawan
al-kubra of al-Damlrl (742-808/1341-1405 [q.v. ]), a
true zoological encyclopaedia whose great merit is the
alphabetical classification adopted by the author and
the division of the entries into philological remarks,
description of the animal concerned, mentions which
are made of it in the Kurban and Sunna, whether the
consumption of its flesh is allowed or forbidden, pro¬
verbs concerning it, medicinal qualities and inter¬
pretation of dreams in which it appears. The above
details show the spirit in which this compilation was
conceived: a useful one, but deprived of originality
due to a writer of traditional training who had been
able to draw on works already founded on the mass of
texts written initially in Arabic or translated into that
language that the public did not always have the
leisure or the taste to procure. In any case, al-Damln
lived in an age when intellectual curiosity had waned
considerably and had largely lost the openness which
had marked the century of al-Djahiz and the
Mu c tazila. All the same, shortly after the death of this
latter author, the religious policy of the caliphate
brought to the forefront Muslims disturbed by the
turn taken by the rather anarchic quest for knowledge
and by the danger to the integrity of Islam that they
perceived to be posed by a curiosity which appeared
reprehensible. This resulted in according primacy to
the Islamic and Arab sciences, to the detriment of
foreign ideas already partly acclimatised. Among
those who are noted for their conservative attitude,
the most characteristic is certainly Ibn Kutayba (d.
276/889 [q.v. ]), who opposed the liberalism and eclec¬
ticism of al-Djahiz with a programme limited to the
needs of various social categories. To the secretaries of
the administration, who began to be the real
preservers of culture, he proposed a vade-mecum, the
Adab al-katib, in which he adopts the following
classification of necessary knowledge: philological
disciplines, applied sciences, techniques of public
works, principles of jurisprudence, history and ethics.
When he is concerned with the training of religious
scholars, he adds to philology and ethics the Kur D an
and Sunna, plus some rudiments of Jalsafa [q.v.\ by
way of documentation and in order to be in a position
to refute it. So much for the kalib and the fakih. There
remains the adib, for whom are intended the Kitdb al-
Ma^arif, an encyclopaedia of historical knowledge
useful to the cultured Muslim, and, especially, the
c Uyun al-akhbar , in which most of the ideas which
should be mastered are grouped under ten headings:
the ruler, war, greatness in this world, qualities and
faults, rhetoric, oratorical art, piety, how to choose
one’s friends, how to achieve one’s ends, table man¬
ners and women (see G. Lecomte, Ibn Qutayba ,
Damascus 1965, 145). The programme recommended
by Ibn Kutayba appeared not to allow any improve¬
ment or amplification.

On this point, some progress was nevertheless
achieved by his successor, the Cordovan Ibn c Abd
Rabbih (246-328/860-940 [< 7 .^.]), who remarks that
each generation leaves its gift of new knowledge and
that consequently, one should summarise and com¬
plete periodically the elements of the common
patrimony that have been accumulated. In his prac¬
tical encyclopaedia, the Hkd, which is richer and more

subtle than the c Uyun al-akhbar, the subject matter is
divided into 25 chapters, each bearing the name of
one of the precious stones of which the “necklace”
(Hkd) is made up. The list is as follows: the ruler, war,
generosity, delegations (to the Prophet), addressing
kings, Him and adab, proverbs, moral exhortations,
elegies, virtues of the Arabs, language of the Arabs,
retorts, speeches, epistles, the caliphs, Ziyad b. Abihi,
the pre-Islamic battles, poetry, metrics, song, false
prophets, madmen, misers, human temperaments,
food and drink and pleasantries. The coverage of this
encyclopaedia, whose popular character is evident,
hardly allows us to glimpse the country where it was
compiled, Spain, for everything, or almost every¬
thing, is borrowed from the Eastern tradition.

After the c Ikd, the encyclopaedic tendency appears
in a more diffuse manner, in the sense that the same
writer, when he possesses wide erudition, multiplies
the specialised treatises and abstains from proceeding
to a synthesis. It is only in the 9th/15th century that
the series represented by the < 'Uyun al-akhbar and the
c Ikd is resumed by a new popular encyclopaedia, the
Mustatraf of the Egyptian al-Ibshlhl (d. after 850/1446
\q.v.\), who, claiming to be inspired by Ibn c Abd
Rabbih, nevertheless shows a concern for edification
and manages to combine, in a manual written on a
relatively limited scale, all that a good Muslim ought
to know. It is of some value to enumerate the 84
chapters of this work: the edifice of Islam; reason; the
Kur 5 an; religious and secular knowledge; good man¬
ners; proverbs; rhetoric; retorts; oratorical art and
poetry; trust in God; advice; moral exhortations;
modesty, the sovereign; courtiers; ministers; escaping
observation; magistrature; justice; injustice; the way
of treating the people; the happiness of the people;
qualities and faults; social life; concord; simplicity;
pride; boastfulness; nobility; saints; miracles; rogues;
generosity; avarice; table manners; magnanimity;
promises kept; discretion; perfidy; courage; heroes;
praises and gratitude; satires; sincerity and falsehood;
filial piety; physical beauty; ornaments and care for
the body; youth and health; names; journeys; wealth;
kinship, the manner of begging; presents; work;
acceptance of one’s lot; changes of fortune; slavery;
early Arabs; soothsaying; tricks; animals; wonders of
creation; the djinn; wonders of the waters; wonders of
the earth; mines and precious stones; music and song;
singers and musicians; singing girls; love; specimens
of songs; women; wine; pleasantries; anecdotes;
invocations; fate; return to God; illnesses; death;
patience; the lower world; prayers upon Muhammad.
It would not be impossible to discover in this sequence
of chapters an ordering concept, an effort at logical
classification which the apparent disorder of the
arrangement belies. Besides, the adab which under¬
pins al-Ibshlhi’s work is less secular and more ethical.
For this author, the best answer for those minds who
are profoundly disturbed by the situation of the
Arabo-Islamic world is a return to the sources, a
recollection of the records of the classical period,
which represents a perfect ideal for the average
Muslim.

The authors that we are about to cite are not at all
concerned with what is happening beyond the fron¬
tiers of dar al-lslam , and the Kitdb al-Ma c arif of Ibn
Kutayba is, in this respect, characteristic, for it limits
the historical ideas that a good Sunni ought to have:
a sacred history from Adam to Jesus followed up by
means of traditions relating to the personalities of the
“Interval” [see fatra], genealogies of the Arabs, a
somewhat anecdotal history of the caliphs and some
celebrities, the religion of the ancient Arabs, sects of

MAWSU C A

905

Islam, and finally the kings of Yemen, Syria, al-Hlra
and Persia. To put it another way, this historian is
exclusively concerned—but only in a partial
manner—with the Islamised countries.

On the other hand, after the eclipse of Mu c tazilism,
openness was the feature of ShTls. If one excludes the
work of al-Barki [q.v. in Suppl.] whose Kitdb al-
Mahdsin is too mutilated to be assessed, the first author
to cite is al-Ya c kubI (d. 284/897 [q.v.\), who, in his
Ta^rikh, does not fail to devote some chapters not only
to the same subjects as Ibn Kutayba, but also to the
ancient rulers of India, Greece, Rome, Byzantium,
Persia and even China. After this attempt at a
historical encyclopaedia comes the Ta^rikh of al-
Tabari (225-310/839-934 [< 7 .^ ]), which has some of
the same character as a universal history, much more
developed, but the real successor of al-Ya c kubI is the
polygraph al-Mas c udI (d. 345/956 [q.v.]) who was led
by an extraordinary intellectual curiosity to acquire a
truly encyclopaedic knowledge which was able to
nourish a series of general works in a historico-
geographical framework, of which only some resumes
have survived, such as the Tanbih and especially the
Murudj_. Here, before embarking on his discussion of
the history of Muslim rulers also in an anecdotal
fashion (this being one of the features of adab ), al-
Mas c udl presents essential information on the out¬
standing characters of the world and reproduces lists
of kings of peoples foreign to Islam, and notably those
of France since Clovis. The encyclopaedic nature of
the Murudj. is evident from the index in two volumes
which the present author has added to his edition of
the Arabic text; it is also illustrated by the citations to
be found mainly in later encyclopaedists.

The summaries which we have reproduced above
reveal a concern for exhaustiveness which is not, how¬
ever, accompanied by a logical classification, and it is
only among the faldsifa [qv.], heirs of Greek thought,
that one can discover the first attempts if not to
establish a hierarchy of the sciences, at least to classify
them. Among them, al-Farabl (d. 339/950 [q. v. ])
covers human knowledge in a rich and diverse work
which lies outside Islam and suggests a classification
of the sciences well-known in the Western Middle
Ages, thanks to the translation made by Gerard of
Gremona ( De scienliis ): (i) Linguistic sciences
(morphology; lexicography; syntax; art of writing; art
of reading well; poetry and metre), (ii) Logic, (iii)
Mathematics (arithmetic; geometry; optics;
astronomy; music; metrology; mechanics), (iv)
Physics and metaphysics. (v) Political
science, jurisprudence and theology.

Whereas the concessions of al-Farabl to Arabism
and Islam consist merely of expressing in Arabic
terms the linguistic sciences and in Islamic terms
jurisprudence (fikh) and theology ( kaldm ), al-
Kh w arazmi (wrote ca. 366/976 [q.v. ]) divides the
branches of knowledge into two main categories in his
Mafdtih al- c ulum : sciences of the Islamic law (sharia)
and subjects connected with it (fikh ; kaldm ; grammar;
artistic composition; poetry and prosody; history),
and foreign sciences (philosophy; logic; medicine;
arithmetic; geometry; astronomy and astrology;
music; mechanics; alchemy).

Later, the respective parts of the “Arab” sciences
and the “foreign” sciences were to distinguish various
classifications, which could be illustrated by more
developed encyclopaedias than that of al-Farabl (on
the classifications of the sciences, see L. Gardet and
M.-M. Anawati, Introduction a la theologie musulmane,
Paris 1948, 101 ff.; also Abu Hayyan al-Tawhldl,
Risala fi ’ l- c ulum , by M. Berge, in BEO Damas, xviii

[1963-4], 240-98; Ibn Hazm, Maratib al- c ulum. For his
part, Ibn Khaldun (732-808/1332-1406 [q.v.])

distinguishes two main categories of sciences, the
religious and the philosophical, but confines himself to
a theoretical discussion without encyclopaedic
elaboration).

It is only right that we should regard as an
encyclopaedia the collective work of the Ikhwan al-
Safa 5 [q. v. ] who discuss in 52 treatises or epistles ( risala
[q.v.], pi. rasa^il) all the accessible knowledge of their
time (second half of the 4th/10th century).
Rationalists and heirs of the Greek philosophers, the
Mu c tazilis and al-Djahiz, they accept all that can con¬
tribute to enrich the cultural patrimony. Their
treatises (arranged as follows: 1 to 14: mathematics,
logic and ethics; 15 to 30: natural sciences (including
philosophy), 31 to 42: metaphysics; and 43 to 52:
religion, mysticism, astrology, magic, do not corre¬
spond to their own classification which figures in the
seventh risala: I. Sciences of adab (writing and
reading; lexicography and grammar; arithmetic and
commercial transactions; poetry and prosody; divina¬
tion, magic; alchemy and mechanics; arts and crafts;
commerce, agriculture; animal husbandry; biography
and history). II. Positive sciences of the Sharing
(revelation; interpretation of scriptures; Tradition of
the Prophet; jurisprudence; judgments; moral exhor¬
tations; preaching; asceticism; Sufism; interpretation
of dreams). III. Truly philosophical sciences:
mathematics (arithmetic; geometry; astronomy;
music); logical sciences (poetics; rhetoric; topoi;
apodeictic demonstration; sophistry); natural
sciences (basic principles, heaven and earth;
generation and decay; meteorology; mineralogy;
botany; zoology; medicine; veterinary skill; dressage;
agriculture; animal husbandry; crafts); divine
sciences (knowledge of the Creator; angelology;
psychology; politics; eschatology).

This encyclopaedia, written by ShrTs. is far from
having a disinterested goal, for its authors uphold
some kind of a thesis; they advocate indeed a radical
reform of Islam in order to establish an extremist
Shiism combining the Sharia and Greek philosophy
as well as the wisdom of the Indians and Persians and
ancient paganisms. It corresponds to the modern defi¬
nition of the encyclopaedia in the breadth of its
coverage and the collaboration of a number of
authors, mainly anonymous.

All the same, it was only favourably received in
limited circles of philosophers and ShlTs. and pro¬
voked in the following century a remarkable reaction
from al-Ghazali (450-505/1058-1111 [q. i>.]) who, in
his lhyd 5 c ulum al-din seeks to defend orthodoxy. For
him, there are two kinds of sciences: religious, which
are obligatory, and non-religious, which are optional,
when they are not harmful. The first comprise the usul
al-din (Kurban; Tradition; consensus omnium ; traditions
of the Companions) and the furu c (jurisprudence;
sciences of the soul), the propaedeutic sciences
(language; grammar; writing) and advanced ones (on
the Kur’an, Tradition, etc.); theology and philosophy
(geometry and arithmetic; logic; natural theology;
sciences of nature) are set in order. The second are
sometimes commendable (medicine and calculation
for example), sometimes blameworthy (notably magic
and talismans; conjuring; spells), sometimes simply
allowed (poetry and history for example). This
classification appears in the first quarter of the lhyd 3
on practices of the Islamic cult; it is followed by social
customs, causes of perdition and how to ensure one’s
salvation. It is in respecting an Islamic ethic
developed in this large work that the Muslim

906

MAWSU C A

can prepare his 'salvation in the Hereafter.

The collections that we have cited are distinguished
by a subjectivity which is opposed to the relative
objectivity of the bibliographical catalogues, which
are in effect encyclopaedic guides. The earliest, the
Fihrist , was composed in 377/987-8, hence in the
period of the Ikhwan al-Safa 5 , by the Baghdadi
librarian Ibn al-Nadim [q.v.], according to a logical
plan corresponding to a personal classification of
knowledge; generalities on known languages and
scripts, materials for writing; revealed books; the
Kurban and KuPanic sciences; grammar; lex¬
icography; history; poetry and poets; theology accord¬
ing to the various schools and sects, Sufism,
lsma c Ilism; jurisconsults of different schools; ancient
and modern philosophers; mathematics; music;
medicine; folklore; various anecdotes; conjuring;
magic; equitation; engines of war; games; moral
exhortations, maxims; interpretation of dreams;
cookery; enchantments; religions other than Islam
(notably Manichaeism, on which the Fihrist is one of
the principal sources, and the religions of India and
China); and alchemy. After Ibn al-Nadim, a number
of specialised bibliographies were produced, notably
the Fihrist of Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tusi (385-
460/995-1067 [</.y.]) who reviewed the works written
by Shfis. up to the compiling of the famous Kashf al -
zunun of Hadjdji Khalifa (1017-67/1608-57 [q.v. ]),
which marks the last stage before the modern
catalogues of libraries.

Previously, the biographical genre had undergone
considerable development, at first in order to meet the
need for knowing the life of the transmitters of tradi¬
tions in order to know whether the chains of guaran¬
tors had any gaps in continuity. The logical division
of biographies by generation had finally given way to
an alphabetical classification and resulted in dic¬
tionaries such as the Mu c djam al-udaba D (to which the
Mu c djam al-buldan was added) of Yakut (d. 626/1229
[q.v. ]), the Wqfaydt al-a c yan of Ibn Khallikan (608-
81/1211-82 [q.v.], the works of Ibn al-Kifti (568-
646/1172-1248 [q.v. ]), and many histories of towns
and countries presented in the form of biographies of
personalities who were famous in them.

All these works and many others besides, even if it
is difficult to regard them as encyclopaedias since they
only contain one specific section of information, were
to become the instruments of a new form of
encyclopaedia born of the vicissitudes of history,
particularly of the fear of seeing the disappearance of
the vast mass of knowledge accumulated over the cen¬
turies and of the concern to salvage at least a part from
the irreparable catastrophe represented by the
Mongol invasions and the fall of Ba gh dad in
656/1258. The latter events certainly provoked serious
disquiet which was translated into the composition of
enormous encyclopaedias intended to some extent to
preserve the acquisitions of preceding generations at
the moment when the Arabo-Islamic world could be
seen as despairing of achieving new progress and felt
itself threatened by the worst calamities. In the follow¬
ing centuries, the Black Death (749/1348) was further
to aggravate this feeling of insecurity.

Ibn Manzur (630-711/1232-1311 [q .^.]), who left
the most highly-developed dictionary of the Arabic
language, already clearly expresses this disquiet and
the wish to salvage whatever could be rescued from
total destruction, when he writes in the preface of the
Lis an al- c Arab: ‘‘My sole purpose is to preserve the
elements of this language of the Prophet... . I assert
indeed that, in our days, the use of the Arabic
language is regarded as a vice. The letter writers are

better in foreign languages and rival one another in
the eloquence in idioms other than Arabic. I have
composed the present work in an age in which men
boast of [using] a language different from that which
I have recorded and I have built it like Noah built the ark ,
enduring the sarcasm of his own people”.

What applies to the language also applies to the
other cultural elements and, setting aside the stylistic
clause about sarcasm, Ibn Manzur’s enterprise has
parallels in other fields. During the “Alexandrine”
period (F. Gabrieli, Storm della litteratura araba, Milan
1951, 259), the decline of Arabic culture, under the
blows of the events which seriously affected c Irak, at
that point incited the Egyptians, who benefited from
the transfer of the caliphate to Cairo, to launch a new
encyclopaedic movement whose principal actors were
the high-ranking kultdb.

The earliest is al-Nuwayri (677-732/1279-1332
[q.v. ]), whose Nihdyat al-arab Jifunun al-adab contains
all the knowledge that would be necessary for a kdtib
assuming important responsibilities: cosmography,
zoology, botany, ethics, history. The materials
gathered were summarised and methodically
arranged according to an Islamic conception of the
world, but in a form that was both literary and prac¬
tical. Then comes Ibn Fadl Allah al- c Umari (700-
49/1301-49 [q.v. ], author of the Masdlik al-absar, which
seems to be intended on the whole for men of culture
and constitutes a geographico-historical encyclopaedia
containing a cosmography and information of a
religious, juridical, political and administrative char¬
acter. In spite of evident differences, it is tempting to
liken the Masdlik to the ^AdjcFib al-makhlukdt of al-
Kazwini (see above), who describes the celestial and
earthly worlds by borrowing extensively, like ai¬
rman, from his predecessors. The last
encyclopaedist to be mentioned is al-Kalkashandi (d.
821/1418 [g.a.]), whose huge Subh al-a c sha really places
at the disposal of its users all that a good secretary
could need to know in order to be able to acquit
himself perfectly in his profession as writer in the
chancellery ( sina c at al-inshd 3 ). In his highly suggestive
article on Les classiques du scribe egyptien (in SI, xviii
[1963], 41-80), G. Wiet reproduces the classification
of the sciences adopted by al-Kalkashandi: I. Belles
lettres (lexicography; morphology; grammar; style;
rhetoric; the science of tropes; metrics; rhyme;
calligraphy; Kur’an reading). II. Sciences of the
law (Kur 5 an; Sunna; law, etc.). III. Physical
sciences (medicine; veterinary skill; falconry;
physiognomy; oneiromancy; astrology; magic;
talismans; conjuring; alchemy; agriculture;
geomancy). IV. Geometry (construction methods;
optics; mirrors; centre of gravity; surveying; water-
catchment; mechanisms for hoisting objects; water-
clocks; engines of war; pneumatic machines). V.
Astronomy (astronomical tables; projection of the
sphere on a flat surface; sundials). IV. Arithmetic
(arithmetic properly so-called; algebra, abacuses,
etc.). VII. Practical sciences (politics; ethics;
domestic economy). Although these notions did not
all undergo considerable development, al-
Kalkashandi’s encyclopaedia proves that in spite of
the reversals experienced by the Islamic world, Arabic
culture had lost nothing of its richness in books, but
it had exhausted itself since the already distant age of
its great prosperity and it was scarcely able to make
any more obvious progress. The information gathered
scarcely bears, in relation to the preceding centuries,
any new features, owing much more to the march of
history than to a calculated concern for enrichment.

Thus we have to pass over those authors whose total

MAWSU C A

907

work has an encyclopaedic aspect, as for example, al-
Suyut! (849-911/1445-1505 [q.v. ]), in order to arrive
at the Turk Tashkopruzade (901 -68/1495-1561 [fj.])
who, through his encyclopaedia of arts and letters
written in Arabic and then translated into Turkish,
aimed to put at the disposal of his compatriots a sum¬
mary of the knowledge possessed by the Arabic-
speakers.

Then we have to wait until the second half of the
19th century in order to encounter the first attempt
made in the Near East to offer the educated public a
working instrument and reference work meeting
modern scientific criteria, the DdHrat al-macarif pub¬
lished in Beirut from 1876 by Butrus al-Bustani and
continued by other members of his family [see al-
hustan! in Suppl.]. This encyclopaedia was resumed
on a larger scale, from 1956, by F. E. al-Bustani, who
enlisted the collaboration of specialists from all
disciplines; the new Da-’irat al-ma c arif is only
distinguishable from Western encyclopaedias by
language and the place legitimately occupied by the
Arabs.

Finally, we should remark that the word mawsu^a
has been used correctly to describe dictionaries of a
technical nature, such as al-Aiawsu c a fi c ulum al-tabF-a
of E. Ghaleb (Beirut 1965), and also some collections
in which each fascicule is devoted to a particular sub¬
ject, such as al-Mawsu c a al-saghira published in
Baghdad, which is a “cultural, bi-monthly series deal¬
ing with sciences, arts and letters”. For example, it
contains some studies on “philosophical thought
among the Arabs”, as well as on “the petrochemical
industries and the future of Arab oil”.

Bibliography : Apart from the El notices
relating to the authors cited, see A. Zaki, Etudes
bibliographiques sur les encyclopedies arabes , Bulak 1308
(not seen); Ch. Pellat, Les encyclopedies dans le monde
arabe , in Cahiers d’histoire mondiale/Journal of World
History!Cuadernos de historia mundial , UNESCO, ix/3
(1966), 631-58; R. Blachere, Qiielques reflexions sur les
formes de I’encyclopedisme en Egypte et en Syrie du
VllFIXIV' siecle a la fin du IX'tXV* siecle , in BEO
Damas, xxiii (1970), 7-19, repr. in R. Blachere,
Analecta , Damascus 1975, 521-40. For a comparison
with the composition of encyclopaedias in Anti¬
quity and the Middle Ages as well as in India and
China, see the issue of Cahiers d’histoire mondiale
cited above. (Ch. Pellat)

2. In Persian.

Persian writings of an encyclopaedic character
begin to appear about a century after the constituting
of Persian as a language of culture. From then
onwards they were to enjoy an important florescence
until a late date, as much in India as in Persia.
According to their contents, they can be divided into
different groups. Here, only the major works will be
mentioned; for an exhaustive examination of this
genre, including the old translations into Persian, see
the Persian manuscript catalogues (A. Munzawi,
Fihnst-i nuskha-ha-yi khatti-yi far si, i, Tehran
1348/1969, ch. 9; idem, Fihrist-i nuskha-hd-yi khatti-yi
kitdbkhana-yi Gandjba khsh . i, Islamabad 1979, ch. 10;
Storey, ii, section F; etc.). One should also consult Z.
Vesel, Les encyclopedies persanes. Essai de typologie el de
classification des sciences , Paris 1986.

The first Persian encyclopaedia of philosophy is Ibn
Sina’s Danish-nama-yi c Ala > i, composed between 414-
28/1023-37 for the Kakuyid ruler of Isfahan c Ala ;5 al-
Dawla Muhammad b. Dushmanziyar. This is a com¬
pendium of the Aristotelian speculative sciences laid
out here in an order different from that of the Shifa^

and the Nadjdt. logic, metaphysics, physics and
mathematics. The final section, which includes
geometry, astronomy, arithmetic and music, was put
together on the basis of the Arabic works of Ibn STna
and after his death, by his disciple and biographer al-
Djuzdjam. The Danish-nama, in which Ibn Slna sets
forth the hierarchy of the Aristotelian sciences and for
the first time elaborates in Persian a vocabulary of
philosophical concepts, exercised a great influence on
Persian authors (partial edn., Abu c Ali Sind, Danish-
nama-yi c Ala :> i (mantik, ilahiyydt, tabi^iyydt), ed. M.
Mishkat and M. Mu c In, 3 vols. 2 , Tehran 1353/1974;
a tr. of the whole text by M. Achena and H. Masse,
Avicenne, Le livre de science, Paris 1986, 2nd. edn.
revised and corrected by M. Achena). Another
encyclopaedia of philosophy of great importance is the
Durrat al-taa!J_ li-ghurrat al-Dibadj. of Kutb al-Din Shiraz!
[q.v.\, written between 693-705/1294*1306 for the
prince of Gilan Dlbadj b. Filshah (ed. Mishkat, 2
vols., Tehran 1317-209/1938-41). In this, the author
deals successively with logic, with the first philosophy
(alfalsafa al-ula), with physics, with mathematics (the
quadrivium ) and with metaphysics. In an epilogue, he
starts on Islamic theology, practical philosophy
(hikmal-i c amali) and Sufism. The author was a philos¬
opher, mathematician and astronomer who had
worked, between 658-63/1259-64, at the Maragha
observatory under the direction of Naslr al-Din Tusi
[q.v.\, and he devoted a large part of his encyclopaedia
to the mathematical sciences. Both these
encyclopaedias represent a compilation of the Arabic
sources for the use of Persian, non-Arabic speaking
rulers (for the relationship of the Danish-nama and Ibn
Slna’s Arabic works, see Elr art. Avicenna, xi, by
Achena; and for a survey of the Arabic sources of the
Durra, see Mishkat’s introd., i, pp. xl-xliii).

The Persian encyclopaedias of the religious sciences
are relatively numerous. In these, the Islamic
religious sciences, including Sufism, have the out¬
standing role. Following the repertoire of the tradi¬
tional sciences, the Arabic literary and linguistic
sciences and history might be joined with them, and
occasionally, the philosophical and such strictly speak¬
ing scientific topics like medicine and calculation, as
well as the occult sciences, might also figure there.
There is frequent allusion to the works of al-Ghazali
and Fakhr al-DTn al-Razi. Some authors tackle on a
wider scale all the subjects capable of guiding the
believer. As a result of this, one often finds chapters
on moral and ethical topics drawn from the Persian
cultural heritage. Two anonymous works of the
6th/12th century, the Yawakit al- c ulum wa-darari 7-
nudjum (ed. M. T. Danish-Pazhuh, Tehran
1345/1956) and the Bahr al-fawa^id (ed. idem, Tehran
1345/1956), give a conspectus of the varied contents of
this type of encyclopaedia in the Persia of the pre-
Mongol period.

The encyclopaedias of the natural sciences are
extremely varied. In general, it is a question of
popular compositions put together with a didactic
aim, for amusement or to provide a “book of
recipes”. The authors may treat of Aristotelian
physics in the wide sense, beginning with a descrip¬
tion of the heavens and ending with the three
kingdoms of nature. According to the classification of
the sciences in use in the mediaeval Persian world,
physics subsumes moreover a great number of subor¬
dinate sciences (furu c -). Hamd Allah MustawfT Kaz-
wini’s Nuzhat al-kulub (cf. Munzawi, Fihrist ... fdrsi,
689-91; Storey, ii, section D, 129-31) and Ghivath al-
DTn Isfahan! (cf. ibid ., 357-8) fall into this category.
The "books of marvels”, such as Muhammad Tusi’s

908

MAWSU C A

c Adfd*ib al-makhlukdt (see B. Radtke, in Isl., lxiv
[1987], 278-88), written in the second half of the
6 th/12th century (ed. M. Sutuda, Tehran
1345/1956), similarly adopted this structure broadly
speaking. However, sometimes only the three realms
of nature are treated, especially when it is a question
of the “special properties of things” ( khawass al-ashya 5 )
used in popular medicine and in occult practices. One
example is the Farrukh-nama-yi Djamali of Abu Bakr
Djamall Yazdl(ed. I. Afshar, Tehran 1346/1957), put
together in 580/1185 with the aim of “completing”
the Nuzhat-nama (see below). On the other hand, one
may have encyclopaedias concerned with divers scien¬
tific subjects with a high proportion of subject-matter
belonging to physics in the widest sense. A typical
example is the Nuzhat-nama-yi c Ald’i of Shahmardan b.
Abi ’1-Khayr al-RazI (ed. F. Djahanpur. Tehran
1362/1973), written between 506-13/1113-20 for the
Kakuyid ruler of Yazd c Ala’ al-Dawla Ba Kalldjar
Garshasp with the aim of amusing. Another work of
this type is the Nawadir al-tabadur li-tuhfat al-Bahadur of
Shams al-Dln Dunaysirl (ed. Afshar and Danish-
Pazhuh, Tehran 1350/1971), composed in 699/1299-
1300 for an unknown dedicatee. The encyclopaedias
of the natural sciences are very revelatory of the
spread of scientific knowledge in mediaeval Persia and
are an important source for our knowledge of occult
practices and technological questions.

The first Persian encyclopaedia in the narrow sense
of the term was that of the Ash c an theologian Fakhr
al-Dln Razi (d. 606/1210 [#.£<.]). His Didmi c al- ( ulum,
also known as the Hada^ik al-anwdr or Kitdb-i Sittini
and containing sixty sciences (for the different ver¬
sions, see MunzawT, op. cit ., 656-7; Storey, ii, 351-2),
was written in 574-5/1179 for the ruler of Kh w arazm
c Ala’ al-Dln Tekesh (facs. edn. of 1906 Bombay lith.
by M. Tasblhl, Tehran 1346/1967). Razi says
explicitly in his introduction that he has gathered
together there all the sciences of his age in order to
establish a repertoire for scholars at the court to use.
He begins his work by an exposition of the traditional
sciences ( c ulum-i nakli) in the following order: Islamic
religious sciences, Arabic literary and linguistic
sciences, and history. He links this up with an exposi¬
tion of the Aristotelian rational sciences ( c ulum-i c akli );
logic, physics, mathematics and metaphysics. A large
number of subordinate sciences figure in the
framework of physics and mathematics: the medical
sciences, the occult ones, technological questions, etc.
Then comes an exposition of practical philosophy
(ethics, politics, domestic economy). The work’s con¬
clusion is devoted to the religious practices, the con¬
duct of rulers ( adab al-muluk) and to a description of
the game of chess.

Comparable to the Djdmi c al-^ulum, but more
important in its greater size, is the Nafa’is al-funun ft
c ard :> is al- c uyun of Shams al-Dln AmulT (ed. A. H.
Sha c ranl. Tehran 1377 AH, 3 vols.). The author was
a mudarris in Sultaniyya under Oldjeytii. His
encyclopaedia covers 160 sciences and was put
together for the Indju^id prince of Shiraz Abu Ishak,
representing a real climax to the genre by the elegance
of its form and the exhaustiveness of its content.
Amull adopts the same principle for his exposition as
Razi, dealing first of all with the traditional sciences
“originating in Islam” (fulum-iawakhir) and then with
the philosophical sciences “coming into existence
before Islam” ( c ulum-i awd^il; cf. Nafd^is, i, 16). It
does, however, contain some innovations in regard to
Razi. The internal order of the two main sections is
put together differently; a chapter on Sufism appears
among the traditional sciences; and the range of the

subordinate sciences of physics and mathematics is
richer than that of the Djd mi c al- c ulum. Both these
encyclopaedias enjoyed wide popularity, and two Per¬
sian encyclopaedists tried later to imitate them:
Husayn c AkIlI Rustamdarl in his Riyd(i al-abrar, writ¬
ten in 979/1571 (cf. Munzawl, op. cit., 669; Storey, ii,
359), and Muhammad Fadil Samarkand! in his
Diawahir al-^ulum-i humayum written in ca. 962/1555
(cf. Storey, ii, 358-9). An interesting example of the
evolution of the Persian encyclopaedia is provided by
Wadjid C A1I Kh an’s Alatla c al- c ulum wa-madjma c al-
funun, written in 1261-2/1845-6 (cf. Storey, ii, 366-7).

For other types of encyclopaedic writing in Persian,
whether of a specialised nature or from the sphere of
adab works, see the catalogues of-Munzawl, Storey,
etc. But regarding the question of the originality of
this literature in relation to the Arabic models by
which it was largely inspired, this work of evaluation
still remains to be done for the majority of the texts.

Bibliography : Given in the text.

(Z. Vesel)

3. In Turkish, (see Supplement].

4. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, First
edition.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam owes its existence to the
renewed interest in Islam and the Islamic peoples
which manifested itself in Europe at the turn of the
twentieth century. The idea of such an enterprise,
however, dates from a much earlier period. Already in
1697 the French Orientalist Barthelemi d’Herbelot
had published in Paris the Bibliotheque Orientale ou dic-
tionnaire universel contenant generalement tout ce qui regarde
la connoissance des Peuples de TOrient (see H. Laurens,
Aux sources de TOrientalisme, la Bibliotheque Orientale
de Barthelemi d’Herbelot. Publications du Departement
d’Islamologie de 1’Universite de Paris-Sorbonne
(Paris IV), vi, Paris 1978). It was to be followed by
other classics like the Da^iral al-ma^arif (1876-98) of the
BustanI family [q.v. in Suppl.], T. P. Hughes, Dic¬
tionary of Islam (London 1885, 2nd ed. 1896), and W.
Beale, An oriental biographical dictionary (Calcutta 1881,
2nd ed. by H. G. Keene, 1894). But these publica¬
tions, notwithstanding their merits, could no longer
satisfy the European general public interested in
things Islamic, let alone the European scholars.

Around 1890, Messrs. Triibner in Strassburg
envisaged a series of monographs on Semitic
philology, in the same way as they had done for Ira¬
nian and Indian philology. However, the plan could
not be carried out because of the untimely death in
1892 of A. Muller, to whom the work had been con¬
fided (see ZDMG, xlvi [1892], 778).

In the same year 1892, at the International Con¬
gress of Orientalists in London (see Transactions of the
lXth International Congress of Orientalists , i, p. xxxviii),
W. Robertson Smith proposed the idea of an
Encyclopaedia of Islam. The initiative of the man who
may be considered as the auctor intellectualis of the
enterprise was accepted by the members attending the
Congress, and an international committee of twelve
members was established.

At the International Congress of Orientalists held
in Geneva in 1894, it was clear that no progress had
been made, the more so because Robertson Smith had
meanwhile died. I. Goldziher then proposed to put
the direction of the enterprise in the hands of M. J. de
Goeje. When the latter declined, the Hungarian
orientalist found himself charged with the organisa¬
tion of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (see Transactions of the
IXth International Congress of Orientalists , 1st part, 105,
1305). However, to the dismay of all those who con-

MAWSU C A

909

sidered him as the man able to realise the idea,
Goldziher handed in his resignation at the Interna¬
tional Congress of Orientalists held in Paris in 1897
(see Transactions , 1897, Bulletin no. 11; ZDAIG, li
[1897], 766).

One of the reasons brought forward by Goldziher
for his resignation was the decision, taken meanwhile,
to have the work printed in Leiden. Consequently, he
opined, the editor should reside in Holland. The
scientific advisor of Messrs. Brill, Dr. P. Herzsohn,
had already started assembling a certain number of
entries. A specimen was published in 1897 under the
title Erste Sammlung von Stichwoertern fur eine
Encyclopaedia des Islams. Adit orientierenden Bemerkungen.
Gedruckt als Manuscript, mil Vorbehalt einer hier und da noch
auszufuhrenden genaueren Verification , pp. 63, 8°.

At De Goeje’s request, Professor Houtsma, not¬
withstanding a certain scepticism, accepted to replace
Goldziher “because I knew to what trouble De Goeje
was going to realise the Encyclopaedia of Islam".

In 1897 a new international committee had been
appointed in Paris, consisting of A. C. Barbier de
Meynard (Paris), E. G. Browne (Cambridge), I.
Goldziher (Budapest), M. J. de Goeje (Leiden), I.
Guidi (Rome), J. Karabacek (Vienna), C. Landberg
(Tubzing), V. von Rosen (St. Petersburg), A. Socin
(Leipzig) and F. de Stoppelaar (Leiden).

In order to get some idea of the readiness of his col¬
leagues to collaborate, Houtsma asked several of them
what kind of articles they were ready to write, and
invited them to send one or more articles in order to
have them printed at Brill’s and to submit them to the
opinion of the experts. The answers were positive,
and in 1899 Houtsma was able to publish a Specimen
of a Muslim Encyclopaedia by a number of Orientalists. It
consisted of several monographs, arranged alpha¬
betically and written in English, French and German
by sixteen future collaborators. In the Preface,
Houtsma remarks that no agreement had as yet been
reached about the language in which the Encyclopaedia
was to be published. In the same year 1899, Goldziher
presented this Specimen to the members of the Com¬
mittee present at the xiii ,h International Congress of
Orientalists in Rome (see Acta , i, pp. clxxix ff.), who
accepted it favourably. While waiting for the resolu¬
tion of the financial problems, Houtsma and Herz¬
sohn were correcting and completing the list of
entries.

At the first session of the recently-founded Interna¬
tional Association of Academies (Paris 1901), a propo¬
sition of the Academies of Leipzig, Munich and
Vienna for the publication of an Encyclopaedia of Islam
was admitted into the working plan, after approval by
the literary section. Under the presidency of De
Goeje, a Committee was appointed in order to study
the project of the enterprise, and Houtsma was
charged with the editorship. The Committee consisted
of Goldziher, Browne, Barbier de Meynard, Von
Rosen, Guidi, Karabacek (all already appointed at
the Paris Congress of 1897), and Chauvin (Brussels
Academy), Buhl (Copenhagen Academy) and Fischer
(Leipzig Academy, Socin having died in 1899).

A smaller Committee, consisting of De Goeje,
Goldziher and Karabacek, was charged with drafting
by-laws, which were completed in 1902. The costs
were calculated at 140,000-150,000 marks for ten
years. Financial support was promised by the
Academies of Amsterdam, Budapest, Christiania,
Copenhagen, Lisbon, Madrid, Munich, St.
Petersburg, Vienna, the Academy of Saxony, the
Academic des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, the Reale
Accademia dei Lincei, the Gouvernement General de

l’Algerie, the British Academy, the Dutch Colonial
Government, the Italian Government, the Dutch
Company of Commerce in Amsterdam, the Deutsche
Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, the Deutsche Kolo-
nialgesellschaft, the Senate and municipal council
of Hamburg, the Egyptian Government, the Johns
Hopkins University of Baltimore, the Theological
Seminary of Hartford, Mr. C. R. Crane in Chicago,
the Ministere Frangais de l’Education, the American
Oriental Society, the American Committee for Lec¬
tures on the History of Religions, and the Residence
Generale de France au Maroc. In general, subven¬
tions were promised for several years, but in some
cases a single gift was granted. The amount of the
subventions and gifts was very unequal, and not all
subventions were granted immediately; some were
only allowed for 1906, 1908 or 1909, others for 1910,
1911 or 1912.

Before the actual printing could start, two other
questions had to be solved, that of orthography
and that of the language. As for the orthography of
Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other Oriental terms, it
was decided to follow broadly the one which the
Geneva Congress had deemed admissible. The ques¬
tion in which language the articles should be pub¬
lished was more difficult to solve. In the Specimen , the
articles had appeared in English, French and Ger¬
man, but it seemed undesirable to let the Encyclopaedia
have such a polyglot appearance. On the other hand,
certain subventions had been granted under the
express condition that the El should be published in
the language of the giver. One of the direct conse¬
quences of the decision to publish the Encyclopaedia of
Islam in English, French and German was that the
articles had to appear under headings in oriental
languages, generally in Arabic. Furthermore, three
separate editions would very probably triple the costs,
because the project thus was going to take much more
time than the foreseen ten years. Finally, it was
necessary to assign an English, French and German
editor to assist Houtsma, the editor-in-chief.

In 1906, M. Seligsohn and A. Schaade, who had
been meanwhile appointed, arrived in Leiden. The
first fascicule, published in 1908, was severely
criticised in England, France and also in Leiden
because of the rather low standard of Seligsohn’s
translations of German articles. Nor was the
American orthography acceptable on the other side of
the North Sea. After the death of De Goeje in 1909,
Seligsohn resigned, followed by Schaade a year later.
For the latter, R. Hartmann was appointed, but the
post of Seligsohn remained vacant: it was practically
impossible to find a qualified Orientalist who was able
to deal satisfactorily with the three languages. Only
after T. W. Arnold of London and R. Basset of
Algiers had assumed the editorship of the English and
French editions (without remuneration), did the
enterprise make good progress. In 1913 the first
volume, comprising the letters A-D, was completed.
Hartmann, who resigned in the same year, was
replaced by H. Bauer. As president of the Executive
Committee, De Goeje had been succeeded by Chr.
Snouck Hurgronje, who had been able to redress the
financial position.

As for the editorial work, Houtsma may be quoted.
“Apart from a few exceptions, my collaborators are
all Christians, and belong to quite different peoples.
It is the Editor’s task to maintain the scientific and
neutral character of the work on a high and impartial
level, and to be very careful not to entrust articles to
incompetent hands. On the other hand, a scholar
whose scientific qualities are above all suspicion, can-

910

MAWSU C A — MAWT

not be refused the right to publish in all liberty the
results of his research, even if occasionally they are
provocative. That is “why”, remarks Houtsma in a
note, “the articles of H. Lammens have been
accepted, although personally I can in no way agree
with their spirit and tendency. Therefore, from the
very beginning, every article of a certain importance
has been signed by the author, in order not to extend
the responsibility of the Editors beyond what can be
reasonably expected”.

Houtsma also remarks that he took upon himself
the editing of articles which he considered less impor¬
tant but which, on the other hand, could not be left
out. He published them without signature, consider¬
ing that the Encyclopaedia of Islam is not primarily a col¬
lection of basic monographs on a particular subject,
but should be a mirror of the progress of research, in
such a way that the Orientalist scholar finds rather an
impulse there to further research.

In 1922, Bauer handed in his resignation, and
Schaade resumed his activities for the El. At the death
of R. Basset in 1924, his son H. Basset was found
ready to continue temporarily the work of his father.
In 1924, following a decision of the Royal Academy
of the Netherlands, Professor A. J. Wensinck became
editor-in-chief. The publication of the last volume S-Z
was started, while work on the letter K was continued.
At the death of H. Basset in 1926, his task was taken
over by E. Levi-Provengal and when, in the same
year, Schaade handed in his resignation, he was
replaced by W. Heffening.

After the death of Arnold in 1929, the editing of the
English edition was ensured by Professor H. A. R.
Gibb, and afterwards the Editorial Committee
remained unchanged until the completion of the El
and its Supplements in 1939. As has been said above,
from 1924 onwards two volumes were being prepared
at the same time. Volume II (E-K) was published in
1927, volume IV (S-Z) in 1934, and volume III (L-R)
in 1936.

After 1934, the Editors also envisaged an Index
which should contain all names of persons, tribes,
clans, the geographical names, etc., which appear in
one way or another in the articles. With the help of a
few collaborators, Heffening compiled a card index,
based on the first three volumes. Unfortunately, the
1939 War put an end to his work.

A final point of the history of the first edition of the
Encyclopaedia of Islam is the Handworterbuch des Islam ,
begun by Wensinck in 1937. This compendium of
articles from the Encyclopaedia was to consist of one
volume only, containing articles which treat Islam as
a religion. However, in many cases it was necessary
to complete the bibliography. Besides, some new
articles were added while others, considered obsolete,
were replaced. After the death of Wensinck in 1939,
Professor J. H. Kramers was charged with the work
of editing. Because of the financial position, it was
decided to finish the German text first, and to shorten
some articles, without however reducing their value.
Thus in 1941, the Handworterbuch des Islam was pub¬
lished. The change of the title was justified by the fact
that quotation from two editions whose titles would
practically be identical, might lead to confusion. A
German index was added, and the differences with the
complete Encyclopaedia indicated.

Bibliography : A. J. Wensinck, De Encyclopedic
van den Islam , in Oostersch Instituut—Leiden,
Jaarverslag 1927-1928, Leiden 1929, 15-7; M. Th.
Houtsma—J. H. Kramers, De wordingsgeschiedenis
van de Encyclopaedic van den Islam , in ibid ., Jaarverslag
1941, Leiden 1942, 9-20. What are sometimes

quite personal details are to be found in P. Sj. van
Koningsveld, Orientalism and Islam. The letters of C.
Snouck Hurgronje to Th. Noldeke from the Tubingen
University Library. Abdoel-Ghaffaar. Sources for the
history of Islamic studies in the Western world, i, Leiden
1985, esp. 143-5, 163-4, 212-6; idem, Scholarship
andfriendship in early Islamwissenschaft. The letters of C.
Snouck Hurgronje to I. Goldziher. From the Oriental Col¬
lection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences, Budapest. Abdoel-Ghaffaar. Sources, etc. ii,
Leiden 1985, esp. 149-51, 180-1, 280-339, 387-92,
403-4, 407-9. (E. van Donzel)

MAWT (a.) is the term employed in Arabic to
express the actual notion of death, while synonyms
such as maniyya and its variant manun, radd , haldk,
himdm , hayn and bild convey particular connotations
and are less frequently used and regarded as more
literary. The term for death wafdt, more exactly
“accomplishment, fulfilment”, i.e. of a man’s term of
life, is in origin Kur 5 anic, and stems from the use in
the early Medinan period of the verb tawaffd for
describing how God brings to its close a man’s foreor¬
dained period of life and gathers the man to Himself;
hence the use of the passive form of this verb tuwuffiya
“his term was brought to an end [by God]” - “he
died”. The idea behind the use of this verb is closely
connected with the use in the Kur’an of other verbs
like kaddara and kada which carry the sense of God’s
predetermining a man’s lifespan or executing His
decree concerning a man’s term of life (see T.
O’Shaughnessy, Muhammad’s thoughts on death, Leiden
1969, 37 ff.). In modern Arabic, wafdt has a more
delicate and euphemistic sense than the stark word
mawt, something like Eng. “demise, decease” and Fr.
“deces”, with al-mutawaffd therefore meaning “the
deceased”. The same distinction is made in Turkish
between the bald Slum “death” and wafdt, modern
Turkish vefat, and in Persian between marg and wafdt
and such terms as fawt (A., literally “passing away,
disappearing”).

The conception of death held by the Arabs prior to
the advent of Islam was deeply rooted in the animist
beliefs inherited from their distant past. Taken to be
a manifestation of disruptive action on the part of dahr
[q.v. ] “time-destiny”, death was considered the
specific destiny of the animate world, a concept
uniting humans and animals as opposed to the
physical world, inanimate and therefore imperishable.
It was defined, in these terms, as the extinction of the
vital spirit which animates beings endowed with life,
as the separation of the body and the organic soul. As
it is known that the residences most frequently
attributed to a man’s “double” are the blood and the
breath, it may be understood how the Arabs could
believe that in the case of violent death, the double
{karina) is released through the flowing of the blood
and that, in the case of “natural” death, it escapes
through the nose; hence the expression mata hatfa
anfihi.

Furthermore, while it is accepted, as stressed by the
Kur’an, that the ancient Arabs had no conception
either of the resurrection of the dead or of life in the
Beyond, they seem nevertheless to have believed in
the survival of the dead. Two terms which evoke
wandering and thirst, hama and sadd, denote these
spirits of the dead. But, unlike other Semitic peoples,
such as the Hebrews for example (cf. A. Lods, La
croyance a la vie future et le culie des morts dans Tantiquite
Israelite, Paris 1906), the ancient Arabs did not enter¬
tain the idea of a special world of the dead, a world of
shadows and of gloom. In addition, for them it was
inconceivable that their dead might be disgraced.

MAWT — al-MAWZA'I

911

Only the spirits of the dead deprived of burial and
those whose blood had not been avenged were left to
wander, thirsting, in desert lands. To abandon its
dead to such a destiny was considered the worst
ignominy that could befall a tribe. By vengeance in
cases of murder and by the scrupulous observance of
funeral rites and of burial in particular, the Arabs pre¬
served their dead from such a fate and their society
from such a disgrace. Their essential preoccupation
was to re-affirm with respect to their dead the validity
and permanence of tribal solidarity. But, while doing
this, did they not also seek to assure themselves of the
protection of these dead?

The existence of a cult of the dead among the
ancient Arabs is a much debated question (see in par¬
ticular: I. Goldziher, Le culte des ancetres et le culte des
morts chez les Arabes, Fr. tr., Paris 1885; Lods, op.cit.;
H. Lam mens, L ’Arable occidentale avant I'hegire, Beirut
1928, 151 f.). In spite of differing opinions and the
scarcity of reference documents, it seems probable
that the Arabs did, at one point in their history, prac¬
tise the cult of the dead. But this cult, which belongs,
as Lods emphasises, to “an inferior stage of religion”,
seems, in the period immediately before Islam, to
have completely disappeared under the combined
impact of the sedentarisation of the tribes and the
emergence of polytheism. Only the rites rendered to
the deceased immediately after death (washing of
corpses, mourning and interment) were perpetuated.
The other rites, such as sacrifice or offering, were
reserved for the gods. (On the funeral rites and their
significance, see M. Abdesselem, Le thane de la mort
dans la poesie arabe, des origines a la fin du III!IX siecle,
Tunis 1977, ch. ii).

But this ancient cult of the dead has, by extending
beyond death the fulfilment of the duty of tribal
solidarity, contributed to the sanctification of blood
lineage, thus giving solid foundations to the social
system of the Arabs and perpetuating, over the
generations, the same moral ideal (cf. B. Fares, L ’hon-
neur chez les Arabes avant l’Islam, Paris, and c ird). This
ideal enables the Arab to contemplate death without
fear and to place the preservation of his honour and
the honour of his group above the preservation of his
life. This is clearly shown in the themes developed in
pre-Islamic poetry and especially in the eulogistic
nature of the dirges [see marthiya. 1].

Islam was to appeal to the Arabs to adopt a
radically different conception of death. This concep¬
tion results from a new definition of the soul and of
life. According to the Kurban, man is moved by two
distinct principles, one thinking and the other vital:
nafs and ruh (see R. Blachere, Note sur le substantif
“nafs' y , in Semitica , i [1948], 71). Nafs has the sense of
“self’ in its most conscious and permanent state. Ruh
is the principle of life which proceeds from God and
is enlivened and given substance by Him.

Birth and death are divine decrees. Parents do not
give life. Events are not the cause of death. These are
only the intermediaries through which the will of God
is realised.

This new definition of life revolutionised the
metaphysical and moral conceptions of the Arabs.
Life being no longer immanent, the opposition
between the animate and inanimate world loses all
foundation and gives way to a new conception
whereby God, the creator, source of life, is opposed to
everything that is not Him and which, therefore, is
the creation, including the physical world whose per¬
manence is only an illusory appearance.

On the other hand, by affirming that life proceeds
from God and not from the group and that “the loins

of fathers and the womb of mothers are [only] recep¬
tacles” (Kurban, VI, 98), Islam confers on the life of
the individual a new significance and on his action a
new perspective. First, the life of the individual
becomes sacred. “Except with justice, do not kill your
fellow-man whom God has declared sacred” (Kur’an,
XVII, 33). This is a new precept for the Arabs.
Hitherto, only the blood of the group could not be
spilled. Henceforward, only those who refuse to
recognise the authority of God or seriously contravene
His commandments may legitimately be killed. By
substituting the notion of the community of faith for
that of the community of blood, Islam led the Arabs
to liberate themselves from the ascendancy of the clan
and to take cognisance of their existence as free and
responsible persons. Even though the believers are
declared brothers, they are individually responsible
for their actions before their judges in this world as
well as before God on the final day of judgment.

The echoes of the debates which have brought into
prominence these notions and the place occupied by
the evocation of the afterlife and the final day of
judgement in the KuHan, show to what an extent such
a message would overturn the beliefs of the Arabs.
Death is no longer the end of life. It is only the
appointed time (adfal), decreed by God to conclude
the period of man’s testing in this world. The post¬
mortem fate of man is no longer dependent on the
solidarity of the group, but on the action of the
individual and the mercy of God. Eternal happiness
or damnation is now the question that each person is
required to ask himself and to which none can reply
with certainty. This lack of certainty led the Arabs to
experience a sentiment which had until then been
unknown to them, anguish. This was quite clearly
reflected in a new poetic genre, the zuhdiyydt [q.v.\.

Thus it was not only the beliefs of the Arabs which
were revolutionised by the Kur’anic message, but also
their attitudes and their behaviour. It may be noted,
in this context, that the funeral ceremony, the dyandza
\qv.], also underwent profound modifications. Cer¬
tainly, Islam has retained some ancient practices such
as the washing of the dead, the shroud and interment;
but is has forbidden certain pagan rites such as lamen¬
tations or offerings and, above all, it has introduced a
new obligation, the prayer for the dead which confers
upon the entire funeral ceremony a radically different
significance. This is no longer a glorification of the
dead but an appeal for divine mercy. For an ethic of
exaltation Islam has substituted a morality of
humility.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(M. Abdesselem)

MAWWAL [see mawaliya].

al-MAWZA'T, Shams al-DTn c Abd al-Samad b.
Isma c Tl b. c Abd al-Samad (d. after 1031/1621), the
author of an important independent
chronicle of early Ottoman Yemen to
1031/1621-2, particularly of the south and of the city
of Ta c izz. As his nisba, al-Mawza c I (mistakenly given
as al-Manzill in Brockelmann, S II, 550), indicates,
the family originated in the Tihama town of Mawza c ,
south of Zabld; but his residence was at Ta c izz,
where, like his father before him, he served as a
ShafiT magistrate and teacher. Being a prominent
member of the town’s Sunni c ulama and closely con¬
nected with the region’s Ottoman officials, it is not
surprising that his chronicle, al-Ihsan fidukhul mamlakat
al-Yaman taht zill c adalat dl c Uthmdn, which for the later
period is rich in precise details, is sympathetic in tone
to the Turks and hostile to the Zaydl imams. It is dif¬
ficult to determine how much, if any, of the work’s

912

al-MAWZA c I — MAYDAN

content was contributed by the author’s father who, it
is disclosed, planned a similar chronicle before his
death.

Bibliography : As al-Mawza c I’s name appears
in none of the known biographical and other source
books for the area and era, we have to rely on what
he reveals about himself in his chronicle, and this
has been summarised by Mustafa Salim, al-
Mu^arrikhun al-Yamaniyyun, Cairo 1971, 55-63. For
the mss. of al-lhsan (in particular Paris 5973), con¬
sult A. F. Sayyid, Masddir taMkh al-Yaman, Cairo
1974, 225-6. See also F. Babinger, GOW, 150-1.

(J. R. Blackburn)

MAWZUNA [see sikka].

MAYBUD, a sm all town in the shahrastan of
Ardakan [q. v.\ in the modern Persian ustan or pro¬
vince of Yazd, situated 32 miles/48 km. to the north¬
west of Yazd. The mediaeval geographers (e.g. Ibn
Hawkal 2 , 263, 287, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 260, 281;
Hudud al’ C alam, tr. Minorsky, 29, § 29.45; Le
Strange, Lands , 285) describe it as being on the
Isfahan-Yazd road, 10 farsakhs from Yazd. Lying as it
does on the southern fringe of the Great Desert, its
irrigation comes from kanats [q.v. ] (see Lambton,
Landlord and peasant in Persia ', 219). Its population in
ca. 1950 was 3,798.

Bibliography : In addition to references given
in the article, see Farhang-i dgughrafiyd-yi Iran, x,
190. (C. E. Bosworth)

al-MAYBUDI, the nisba of two scholars from
the small town of Maybud \q. v. ] near Yazd in Persia
and also of a vizier of the Great Saldjuks.

1. RASHID AL-DIN ABU ’l-FADL AHMAD B. MUHAM¬
MAD, author of an extensive Kurban commentary in
Persian, begun in 520/1126, the Kashf al-asrar wa-
c uddat al-abrar, extant in several mss.

Bibliography : Storey, i, 1190-1; Storey-
Bregel, i, 110-11; and on the nisba in general, al-
Sam c anl, Ansab, f. 547b.

2. MIR HUSAYN B. MU C ?N AL-DIN AL-MANTIKI, pupil of
Djalal al-Dln al-Dawanl .*>.), kadi and philosopher,
author of several works on philosophy and logic,
including a Mukhtasar makdsid hikmat falasifat al- c Arab
and a popular textbook on philosophy, the Hidaya,
executed by the militant ShLl Shah IsmaTl I [q.v. ] for
his strongly-held Sunni views in 909/1503-4 (Hasan-i
Rumlu, Ahsan al-tawarikh , ed. C. N. Seddon, i,
Baroda 1931, 82), pace the date of ca. 904/1498 in
Brockelmann, S II, 294.

Bibliography : Browne, Lit. hist, of Persia , iv,
57; Brockelmann, II 2 , 272, S II, 294.

3. KHATIR AL-MULK ABU MANSUR MUHAMMAD B.
husayn, First mentioned as vizier to the Saldjuk sultan
Berk-yaruk in 495/1101; then as mustawfi to Muham¬
mad b. Malik-Shah in 500/1106-7 and as vizier in
504/1110-1; and Finally as tughraH to Mahmud b.
Muhammad b. Malik-Shah in 512/1118-19, till he
was demoted to the post of a provincial vizier in Fars
to the prince Saldjuk-Shah b. Muhammad b. Malik-
Shah. Khatir al-Mulk seems to have been a mediocre
public servant. Anushlrwan b. Khalid [q.v. ] was
deputy vizier under him during Muhammad’s reign;
his relations with him became bad, and he comments
unfavourably on Khatir al-Mulk’s woeful ignorance
of the Kurban and of the Arabic language, he being a
Persian (Bundarl, 104).

Bibliography : Bundarl, Zubdat al-nusra; Zam-
bauer, Manuel, 224; c Abbas Ikbal, Wizarat dar c ahd-i
salatin-i buzurg-i saldjuki, Tehran 1338/1959, 150-4;
C. L. Klausner, The Seljuk vezirate , a study of civil
administration 1055-1194, Cambridge, Mass. 1973,
index. (C. E. Bosworth)

MAYDAN (a., pi. mayddin ), masculine noun
denoting a large, open, demarcated area, flat
and generally rectangular, designed for all kinds
of equestrian activity. Arab philologists and lex¬
icographers have differing opinions regarding the root
to which mayddn should be attributed. For al-
Zamakhsharl, this term is derived from the root w-d-n
since, as he explains (Asas al-balagha), the horses “are
flogged there severely” (tudan bi-hi). For others, this is
the paradigm faHdn from the root m-y-d with the sense
of urging and manoeuvring of horses. For others.
Finally, the same paradigm faHdn is allegedly drawn
from the root m-d-y with metathesis of the last two con¬
sonants, mayddn taking the place of madyan with the
sense of “pushing to the limit”, since the horses per¬
form there to the limits of their strength. Of these
three propositions, it seems the attribution of mayddn
to the root m-y-d is the most plausible.

According to the sporting activities which took
place there, the mayddn represented the hippodrome or
race course {halba) when used for horse races ( sibak ),
the ring or display ground for equestrian manoeuvres
and exercises, the arena or lists for mock-battles,
jousts and symbolic armed tournaments between the
mounted groups, and the pitch for the ancient and
traditional games of polo and “lacrosse”, sawladjan,
cawgan [q.v.] and djerid [^. v. ] or burdjds! birdjas. In his
Khitat, al-Makrlz! relates, with regard to the ancient
site of Santaria in the Oasis district of Egypt, that its
founder, the Coptic king Minakiyush, also founder of
the town of Akhmlm [q.v.], was the First to construct
maydans for the equestrian training of his courtiers; in
its use as a drill-ground, the mayddn soon became
indispensable for the training of cavalry, a military
clement which grew considerably in importance with
the rise of Islam.

When not engaged in military campaigns, the
Muslim trooper ( djundi) spent much of his time on the
mayddn, perfecting his skills in mounted archery,
shooting either at a target ( burdjas ) placed at the top of
a lance or at “gourd-shooting” ( kabak ) suspended
from the end of a long spar; this latter exercise, intro¬
duced by the Turks, became the object of keen com¬
petitions. Shooting of the style known as ulki (Turkish
iilkii) at a large target (hadaf tamam) placed at long
distance (mayddn tawil), and with arrows of a speciFied
pattern called maydani, required archers capable of a
range of 200 metres and more. Short-range precision
shooting (ulki kasir) was aimed at a small target at a
distance of no more than 70 metres. Pure long¬
distance shooting without a target (nidal) was practised
only at a fairly late stage by the sultans. To the north
of Istanbul there still exists the Ok Meydani “Field of
the arrow” founded by sultan Mehemmed II (855-
86/1451-81), at the end of which stand some twenty
commemorative plaques marking the record distances
achieved since this period; thus it is known that in
1213/1798 sultan Selim III shot an arrow to a distance
of almost 900 metres. It was also at a late stage that
there was practised, on the mayddn, shooting with the
crossbow, at a target, with bolts and quarrels.

All these sporting activities had, in fact, no object
other than military training, and every town with a
Muslim garrison of any importance had one or more
maydans; al-Flruzabadl mentions in this context (al-
Kamus al-muhit, s.v.) those of Nlshapur, Isfahan,
Kh^arazm and Ba gh dad. In the last-named, the First
mayddn, according to al-Ya c kubi, Buldan, tr. Wiet, 37,
41), extended along the left bank of the Tigris, near
the palace of the vizier al-Fadl b. al-Rabi* [£.».].

Under the Mamluk sultans, the construction of a
mayddn constituted a large-scale project and mobilised

913

MAYDAN — al-MAYDANI

a considerable labour-force; it was necessary, in
effect, to level a surface of sufficient size to accom¬
modate the manoeuvring of several hundred horse¬
men. Enclosures, water-conduits, shelters, stables,
studs, personnel quarters, pavilions, baths and other
amenities represented enormous expense, and every
sultan was eager to establish his own maydan, neglec¬
ting those already in existence, which rapidly fell into
ruin. Thus, in Cairo, during the period of the Bahrl
Mamluks [qv.\, the apotheosis of “chivalry”

(furusiyya [<?.£».]), there were as many as seven maydans,
all built between the 7th and 8th/13th-14th centuries.
An eighth and last was inaugurated there by the Cir¬
cassian Kansawh al- Gh awrl in 909/1503, but it was
quickly abandoned, furusiyya then being in decline as
a result of the development of firearms. Sometimes,
former maydans were transformed into public squares
or fair-grounds.

By metonymy, the term maydan (sometimes with the
plural mayadin) was applied to the exercises of
mounted formations, and works devoted to furusiyya
present diagrams of these exercises which were per¬
formed by numerous groups of horsemen according to
a well-established pattern (tartib al-mayddin). The
major western riding schools, even today, give an
accurate impression in public performances of the
likely nature of these complex and interwoven move¬
ments of squads of troopers with their colourful
banners.

In figurative usage, maydan evokes the confronta¬
tion of two parties, in the expressions maydan al-harb
(“field of battle”), talaba li \l-maydan (“challenge to
combat”), nahdr al-maydan (the day of battle). Among
the Marazig of southern Tunisia, mddan (pi. mwadin)
denotes “battle”, “fray” (see G. Boris, Lexique...,
Paris 1958, s.v.).

Alongside this limited sense, maydan is, like the
French “champ”, the English “field” and the Ger¬
man “Feld”, extended to the broad sense of “domain
of activity”, physical, intellectual or spiritual.

Finally, al-Maydan is the name of a locality of Fars
[q. v. ] in the kura of Sabur, mentioned by Ibn al-Faklh
al-Hamadhanl ( Abrege du Livre des Pays, tr. H. Masse,
Damascus 1973, 246).

Bibliography : Besides the references men¬
tioned in the text, see D. Ayalon, Notes on the
Furusiyya exercises and games in the Mamluk sultanate , in
Scripta Hierosolymitana, ix (Jerusalem 1961), 31-62;
J. D. Latham and W. F. Paterson, Saracen archery,
London 1970; L. Mercier, La chasse et les sports chez
les Arabes, Paris 1927; Ibn Hudhavl al-AndalusT-L.
Mercier, La parure des cavaliers et I’insigne des preux,
Paris 1924. (F. Vire)

al-MAYDANI, Abu ’l-Fadl Ahmad b.
Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Naysaburi,
Arab philologist, domiciled in Naysabur in the
upper part of the Maydan (square) of Ziyad b. c Abd
al-Rahman. In the cemetery of this quarter (al-
Maydan) he was buried after his death on Wednes¬
day, 25 Ramadan 518/5 November 1124. In his home
town, his teachers were the philologists and Kurban
scholars Abu ’l-Hasan al-Wahidl (d. 468/1076),
Ya c kubb. Ahmad al-KurdI(d. 470/1078), and c AlIal-
Mudjashi c T al-Farazdaki (d. 479/1086), who had seen
much of the world. Like them, al-Maydanl was less of
an original and perspicacious scholar-comparable to
his famous contemporary Abu ’l-Kasim al-
ZamakhsharT [see mathal, 1. In Arabic, iii, 13)—
than a knowledgeable adib who knew how to condense
traditional lore and to arrange it in a practical and
pleasing way.

Among the works of his which have been preserved

or are known by their titles, his great collection of pro¬
verbs, (1) Madjma c al-amthal, is outstanding. It was
created subsequent to a madflis of the katib Muntadjab
al-Mulk Abu c AlI Muhammad b. Arslan (d.
534/1139), one of the most influential men at the
court of Sultan Sandjar [q v. ] in Marw, at about the
same time as the collection of al-Zamakhshari
(499/1106). The Madjma <i has remained the most com¬
prehensive and most popular collection of classical
Arabic proverbs up to our days (Ibn Khallikan, tr. de
Slane, i, 131; Zirikll, AHam, i, 208). This is proved by
the great number of mss. and the numerous prints;
the Madjma c is also the only collection that has been
translated into a European language, to wit, into
Latin by G. W. Freytag (Bonn 1838-43; see mathal.
1. In Arabic, iii, 12; R. Sellheim, Die klassisch-
arabischen Sprichwortersammlungen, The Hague 1954,
145-51, Arabic enlarged edition Beirut 1391/1971,
209-18; further ancient mss.: Paris [de Slane] no.
3958 [533/1138!]; Chester Beatty [Arberry], no. 3017
[586/1190]; Paris [Blochet), no. 6511 [587/1191], cf.
no. 6702; Istanbul, Turk Islam Eserleri Miizesi, no.
2005 [6th/12th century]; Damat Ibrahim, no. 957
[601/1204]; Munich [Aumer], no. 643 [603/1206 ;
Tashkent, no. 1781 [628/1230]; Brit. Mus., Supp .
Rieu], no. 997 and Berlin [Ahlwardt], no. 8671, 2
631/1234]; in addition, see N. M. Qetin, in IA, viii,
178; R. §esen, Nawddir al-makhtutat al- c arabiyya, Beirut
1400/1980, ii, 458; etc.). In 532/1 137, his pupil Yusuf
b. Tahir al-Khuwayyl (KhuwT) arranged an abridged
edition under the title of Fara^id al-kharaHdfi d-amthal
wa d-hikam (Sellheim, op. cit., 145, 2 209), and in
1037/1627, from this an anonymous scholar published
an extract with annotations in Turkish, entitled c Ukud
al- c ukul (Vienna [Flugel], no. 343; cf. Cairo 1 [Turk,
mss.], 136); a third abridgement, entitled Muntakhab
Madfrna c al-amthal (Cairo 2 , iii, 389), originates from a
certain al-Mawla Ak Shams al-Dln (10th/16th cen¬
tury?), and a fourth from Kasim b. Muhammad b.
C A1I al-Halabl al-Bakradji (d. 1169/1756), entitled al-
Durr al-muntakhab min amthdl al-^Arab (Berlin
Ahlwardt], no. 8672; Cairo 2 , iii, 97; cf. Cairo 1
Turk, mss.], 136). In 1079/1668, an anonymous
Ottoman writer turned the Madjma Q into verse under
the title Nazm al-amthal (Laleli, no. 1953; a fragment
at Gotha [Pertsch], in no. 1250), and two hundred
years later, the Lebanese Ibrahim al-Ahdab (d.
1308/1891), did this also, under the title Fara^idal-la^al
fi Madjma c al-amthal (Beirut 1312/1894). A Turkish
translation by al-Sayyid al-Hafiz Muhammad Shakir
b. al-Ha^jdj Ibrahim HilmI al- c Ayntabi of 1294/1877
has survived in the autograph (Istanbul, Universite
Kutiiphanesi, TY, no. 167-70). Al-Maydani’s pupil
Abu THasan al-Bayhakf (d. 565/1169) is the author
of an original collection of proverbs which in its
explanations and comments is independent of that of
his teacher (see mathal. 1 . In Arabic, iii, 14).

(2) Sharh al-Mufaddaliyyat (mentioned, e.g., by
Yakut, Udaba 5 , ii, 108). (3) Sharh Kasidat al-Nabigha
(Paris [Blochet], no. 6022). (4) Sharh Kafiyyat Ru^ba
(Sezgin, ii, 369). (5) Munyat al-radi bi-rasaHl al-kadl, a
collection of rasa^il by the kadi of Harat, Mansur b.
Muhammad al-Azdl al-HarawT (d. 440/1048;

Brockelmann, S I, 154 f.). (6) Ma'wa ’l-ghanb wa-
mar c a ’l-adib (mentioned by Hadjdji Khalifa, s.t.).

(7) al-Sami fi ’l-asdmi , an Arabic-Persian dictionary
of common terms and words, finished in 497/1104,
classified in four categories: (a) sharHyyat (technical
terms of fikh), (b) hayawanat (animate things), (c)
c ulwiyydt (celestial) and (d) sufliyyat (terrestrial things).
They are divided up into numerous chapters, and
these, in their turn, into further not expressly

914

al-MAYDANI — al-MAYL

characterised sub-chapters, arranged, as a rule,
according to the subjects that are treated, and not
alphabetically; said to have been lithographed at
Tehran 1265/1849, 1267/1851, 1272/1856, 1273 and
1274/1857, 1275/1859, 1294/1877, n.d.; Tabriz n.d.;
India 1284/1867; numerous mss. (e.g. Bursa, Hara^-
(pzade/oglu, lugat, no. 15 [565/1169; cf. H. Ritter, in
Oriens, ii (1949), 239]; Berlin [Ahlwardt , no. 7040
ca. 600/1203 ; Chester Beatty [Arberry , no. 3028
631/1233]; Topkapi Sarayi [Karatay], no. 7556
633/1235 ; Qetin, in IA, viii, 178 f.; §esen, op. cil.,
ii, 458; Tehran, Danishgah [Danish Pazhuh], no.
1338,3 [682/1283]; Storey, iii, 81f.). For this, the
author composed a commentary, entitled al-Ibana ji
shark al-Sami ji 'l-asami (mss.: Tehran, op. cil., no.
1338,2 [ 12 th/18th century]; Leiden [de Goeje-
Houtsma], no. 107 [692/1293]), another one was writ¬
ten by As c ad b. Mas c ud b. Khalaf al- c ldjll (d.
600/1203), entitled Sharh al-kalimdt al-mushkila ji kitdb
al-S. (mss.: Topkapi SarayiJKaratay], no. 7557
[7th/13th century]; Leiden [de Goeje-Houtsma], no.
106 [692/1293]). A synopsis prepared by the author’s
son, Abu Sa c d Sa c !d (d. 539/1145; al-Sam c an!, al-
Tahbir, Baghdad 1395/1975, i, 302-3; al-$afadi. Wdji,
vii, 327; al-Suyut!, Bughya , 254, 2 i, 582; cf. al-
Sam c am, fol. 548a), in the order of al-Djawhari’s (d.
398/1008) al-Sihah , entitled al-Asma? ji 7 -asmd? is pre¬
served perhaps in Leiden (de Goeje-Houtsma), no.
108 (725/1325).

( 8 ) Kayd al-awabid min al-jawaAid , a criticism of al-
Djawhan’s well-known dictionary al-Sihah, mainly
based on al-Azhari’s (d. 370/980) Tahdhib al-lugha
(ms.: Berlin [Ahlwardt], no. 6942). (9) Kitdb al-
Masddir , a treatise on infinitives (mentioned, e.g., by
Ibn al-Kiftl, Inbah, i, 124); on this work, his pupil,
Abu Dja c far al-Bayhak! (d. 544/1167) has, perhaps,
based his Kitdb Tadi al-masadir (Brockelmann, I, 350,
S I, 513; Topkapi Sarayi [Karatay], no. 7565; RIMA,
xvii [1971], 191). The Kitdb Gharib. or Qhara^ib al-
lugha, ascribed to him by the author of the Hadiyya, i,
82, is likely to be a work of his son Sa c id of the same
title (cf. al-Safad!, Wdji, xv, 199).

(10) al-Hddi li ’l-shadi, a syntax with Persian notes
in three parts (nouns, verbs, particles), compiled after
his Kitdb al-Sami (see above, no. 7); printed at Tehran
1374/1954; mss.: see e.g. Qetin, in IA, viii, 179;
$esen, op. cit. , ii, 459 with commentary on the verses
by the author (= Leiden [de Goeje-Houtsma], no.
162 [692/1293]); Storey, iii, 148. (11) Nuzhat al-tarjji
’ l-Hlm al-sarj, a treatise on grammatical forms; prints:
Constantinople 1299/1882; Tehran 1322/1904; Cairo
1402/1982; mss.: see e.g. §esen, op. cit., ii, 458 f. (12)
al-Unmudhadlji ’l-nahw, and (13) al-Nahw al-maydani,
two grammatical books (mentioned, e.g., by Ibn al-
KiftT, Inbah , i, 124). A minor grammatical treatise on
(14) sarj (Paris [de Slane], no. 4000 [cf. Vajda, 599]),
and another on (15) dpimu c and huruj (Leiden [de
Goeje-Houtsma], no. 163; cf. Berlin [Ahlwardt], no.
7040, fol. 3a; Ibn al-Kiftf, op. cit., i, 122: al-Hddi ji 7-
huruj wa ’l-adawdt\ above, nos. 7 and 10).

Bibliography : In addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text, see Brockelmann, I, 344 f., S I,
506 f., 964 (the reference to a Kitdb Tajsil al-
nashjatayn, Carullah, no. 2078, 42v-77v, should be
applied to al-Raghib al-Isfahanl, cf. Brockelmann,
S I, 505-6, 9, no. 5; H. Ritter, in Isl. , xxv [1939],
61); Kahhala, Mu^djam al-mu^allijin, ii, 63 f.; E.
Quatremere, Memoires sur la vie et les ouvrages de
Meidani, in JA , 2. serie, i (1828), 177-233; idem,
Proverbes arabes de Meidani, in JA, 3. serie, iv (1837),
497-543, v (1838), 5-44, 209-58; see mathal. 1. In
Arabic, iii, 12; his poor biography according to

c Abd al-Ghafir al-Farisi’s (d. 529/1134) lost Kitdb
al-Siyak li-ta\ikh Naysdbur is preserved in Istanbul,
Universite Kutiiphanesi, FY, no. 695, fol. 128b.

(R. Sellheim)

MAYHANA, Mihana, a small town of
mediaeval Kh urasan, now in the USSR, situated
to the east of the Kuh-i Hazar Masdjid range and on
the edge of the “Marw desert”, the later Kara Kum
[q.v.], 40 miles/62 km. to the east-north-east of
Kal c at-i Nadir! and 60 miles/93 km. south-east of
Mashhad [q.vv.]. In mediaeval times, it was the chief
settlement of the district of Khawaran or Khabaran
which lay between Abiward and Sarakhs [q.vv. ]; by
Yakut’s time, Mayhana itself had largely decayed,
though Mustawf! describes Kh awaran as a whole as
nourishing, with good crops and cereals and fruit
(.Hudud al-^dlam, tr. Minorsky, 103, § 23.12;

Mustawf!, Nuzha , 157-8, tr. 155; Le Strange, Lands ,
394).

Its main historical fame is as the birthplace in
357/967 of the Sufi saint and thaumaturge Abu Sa c id
Fadl Allah b. Abi TKhayr, who alternated between
residence there and in Nlshapur for most of his life till
his death at Mayhana in 440/1049 [see abu sa c id b.
abi ’l-khayr: to the references there add F. Meier,
Abu Sd c td-iAbu l-Hayr (357-440/967-1049), Wirklichkeit
und Legende, Tehran-Liege 1976]. Mustawfi quotes
verses praising the Shaykh and other great men from
Khawaran. including the minister of the Saldjuk
Toghrfl Beg, Abu C A1! Shadhan, and the poet Anwar!

[?•»•]•

Mayhana is now a town situated some 14 miles/20
km. within the Turkmenistan SSR and appears on
modern maps as Meana.

Bibliography (in addition to references given in
the article): H. Halm, Die Ausbreitung der sdjiHtischen
Rechtsschule von den Anjangen bis zum 8./14. Jahr-
hundert, Wiesbaden 1974, 83; Meier, op. cit., 39 ff.

(C. E. Bosworth)

al-MAYL (a.), declination, an important
notion in spherical astronomy.

Declination is a measure of the distance of a
celestial body from the celestial equator. Muslim
astronomers tabulated either the declination and right
ascensions of stars or their ecliptic coordinates [see
matali c ]. Also of concern to them was the solar
declination, mayl al-shams. They distinguished two
kinds of solar declination, al-mayl al-awwal, the
distance Bj of the sun from the ecliptic measured
perpendicular to the celestial equator, and al-mayl al-
thdni, the distance 82 of the sun from the ecliptic
measured perpendicular to the ecliptic; see Fig. 1.

Both functions were tabulated in zidjs [see zidj],
usually for each degree of ecliptic longitude X. The
underlying formulae in modern notation are
5i(X) = arc sin (sin X sin &)

and

Bo (X) = arc tan (sin X tan t),
were £ is the obliquity of the ecliptic, called in Arabic
al-mayl al-a c zam or al-mayl al-kulll.

The obliquity of the ecliptic is the basic parameter
of spherical astronomy. Since it varies with time,

al-MAYL — MAYMANDI

915

Muslim astronomers over the centuries conducted
observations to derive the current value. Most of them
did this by means of meridian observations of the sun
at the solstices. If h m , n and h max are the solar meri¬
dian altitudes at the winter and summer solstices at a
locality with latitude 9 , then

hmin = 90° — 9 —e and h max = 90° —9 + £
see Fig. 2. Clearly, from such observations £ may be
found using

t = V 2 (h max h m j n ).

summer solstice

Likewise, the local latitude 9 can be determined from
the same observational data. The most complete
discussions of the subject were by Ibn Yunus and,
more especially, al-Blrunl [q.v.\.

Bibliography : E. S. Kennedy, A survey of
Islamic astronomical tables, in Trans. American
Philosophical Society , xlvi/2 (1956), 123-77, esp. 140;
D. A. King, Spherical astronomy in medieval Islam: the
Hakiml Zij oj Ibn Yunus, forthcoming, Part II, Sec¬
tions 11-12; Kennedy, A commentary upon al-Birum's
Tahdid al-amakin, Beirut 1973, esp. 16-90. A
valuable study which needs updating is 0 .
Schirmer, Studien zur Astronomie der Araber: Arabische
Bestimmungen der Schiefe der Ekliptik, in SBPMS Erl .,
Iviii (1926), 43-79. ~ (D. A. King)

MAYMANA, a town of northwestern
Afghanistan (lat. 35° 55’ N., long. 64° 67' E.),
lying at an altitude of 2,854 feet/870 m. on the upper
reaches of the Ab-i Maymana, one of the constituent
streams of the Ab-i Kaysar which peters out in the
desert beyond Andkhuv [q.v.\ and the sands of the
Kfzfl Kum [q. v .).

The site of the settlement seems to be ancient. The
Vendidad speaks of Nisaya, and the ? 8 th century
Armenian geography of Iran records Nsai-mianak =
MP * Nisak-i Miyanak “the Middle Nisa”, possibly
identica] with Ptolemy’s Nicosia in Margiana (Mar-
quart, Eransahr , 78-9). This seems to have been where
lay the town known in early Islamic times as al-
Yahudiyya ( Hudud al- c alam, tr. Minorsky, 107, §
23.53, cf. comm. 335: Djahudhan), indicating a
sizeable community of Jews there. Al-Ya c kubl,
Buldan , 287, tr. Wiet, 99, al-Istakhrl. 270, Ibn
IJawkal, ed. Kramers, 442-3, tr. idem and Wiet, 427-
9, al-Mukaddasi, 427-9, describe the town as a
flourishing one, with a Friday mosque, and as the seat
of the ruler of Faryab of the principality of Guzgan,
which remained independent till incorporated into the
Ghaznawid empire by Sultan Mahmud [see djuzdjan
and farIghunids]. Yakut, Buldan, ed. Beirut, ii, 194,
calls it Djahudhan al-Kubra, presumably to
distinguish it from the Yahudiyya of Isfahan.

The actual name Maymana “the auspicious, for¬
tunate town” does not occur in the 3rd-4th/9th-10th
century texts. It is possible that a form Maymand
existed by the 7th/13th century, since it apparently
occurs in some manuscripts of DjuzdjanI’s Tabakat-i
Nasin (though the latest editor, c Abd al-Hayy Hablbl,
adopts the reading Maymana for his text, 2nd ed.

Kabul 1342-3/1963-4, i, 358, 374, whereas the
manuscript(s) which Raverty used for his translation,
London 1881-99, ostensibly had Maymand, cf. i, 378,
391, 399); but the Maymand which was the family
origin of the great Gh aznawid vizier Ahmad b. Hasan
Maymand! [q.v. ] was almost certainly one in
Zabulistan, the region around Ghazna. It is certainly
the form Maymana which is henceforth used for the
town in A fgh an Turkistan.

Towards modern times, Maymana was under
Uzbek control, being one of the petty, semi¬
independent khanates (together with Sar-i Pul,
Shibarghan and Andkhuy) known as the Cahar
Wilayat, and oriented essentially towards the Bukhara
Khanate. The Hungarian traveller Vambery visited it
in 1863 and describes the town as possessing 1,500
mud-brick houses and a dilapidated bazaar. The
Afghan amir of Kabul Dust Muhammad [q. v. ]
disputed possession of Maymana with Bukhara in
1855, and only with the Anglo-Russian agreement of
1873 did the four khanates come definitely within the
orbit of Kabul; not till 1844 did the amir c Abd al-
Rahman Kh an [q.v.] secure the submission of the wall
of Maymana.

At present, Maymana, lying as it does within a fer¬
tile agricultural area, and being on the Harat to
Mazar-i Sharif road, is a flourishing town, the
administrative centre of a wilayat or province (since
1964, called that of Faryab), and with a population
(mainly Uzbek, but with some Tadjiks and Pushtuns)
estimated by Humlum at 30,000. It has an airfield
and is important for the weaving of fine carpets and
for wool and camels’-hair textiles.

Bibliography (in addition to sources mentioned
in the article): H. Vambery, Travels in Central Asia,
London 1864, 244; C. E. Yates, Northern Afghanistan
or letters from the Afghan Boundary Commission, Edin¬
burgh and London 1888, 233; Barthold, Istoriko-
geograficeskii obzor Irana , St. Petersburg 1903 =
Socineniyq . vi, 57-8, Eng. tr. Princeton 1984, 32-4;
Le Strange, The lands of the eastern caliphate, 424-5;
Sir Thomas Holdich, The gates of India , London
1910, 249; J. Humlum et alii , La geographic de
TAfghanistan, etude d'un pays aride, Copenhagen 1959,
132, 148-9; L. Dupree, Afghanistan, Princeton 1973,
index; J. Lee, The history of Maimana in northwestern
Afghanistan 1731-1893, in Iran, Jnal. of the BIPS, xxv
(i987), 107-24. (C. E. Bosworth)

MAYMANDI, Abu ’l-Kasim Ahmad b. Hasan,
called Shams al-Kufat “sun of the capable ones”,
vizier of sultans Mahmud and Mas c ud of
Ghazna [q.vv.]. He was a foster-brother of
Mahmud, and had been brought up and educated
with him. His father had been c amil of Bust under
Sebiiktigin, and apparently stemmed from Maymand
in Zabulistan; but on a charge of misappropriation of
the revenue, he was put to death. In 384/994, when
the Amir Nuh b. Mansur the Samanid conferred on
Mahmud the command of the troops of Kh urasan.
Mahmud put Ahmad at the head of his cor¬
respondence department. After this, Ahmad rapidly
rose in the service of his master, and occupied in suc¬
cession, the posts of Mustawfi-i Mamlakat (Accountant
General), Sahib-i Diwan-i c Ard (Head of the War
Department), and c amil of the provinces of Bust and
Rukhkhadj. In 404/1013, Sultan Mahmud appointed
him wazir in place of Abu ’l- c Abbas al-Facjl b. Ahmad
Isfara 3 inl. For twelve years, Ahmad managed the
affairs of the growing empire of Sultan Mahmud with
great tact and diplomacy. Ahmad was very strict and
exacting, and did not tolerate any evasion of duty or
departure from the usual official procedure, with the

916

MAYMANDI — MAYMUN b. MIHRAN

result that many of the dignitaries of the Empire
became his enemies and worked to bring about his
ruin. He was disgraced and dismissed in 415/1024,
and sent as a prisoner to the fort of Kalindjar, in the
southern Kashmir hills.

After his accession to the throne in 421/1030, the
new sultan Mas c ud b. Mahmud, whose cause Ahmad
had always favoured, wished to re-appoint him vizier
in 422/1031 in place of the disgraced Hasanak [<?.#.];
ostensibly on account of his age, Ahmad was reluctant
to accept, and before doing so, insisted on a muwada c a
\q.v. ] or contract defining his own duties and rights
vis-a-vis the sultan and other ministers. He died in
Muharram 424/December 1032, much mourned,
according to Bayhaki, by other members of the
bureaucracy.

From both his competence and learning, Ahmad
subsequently enjoyed a great reputation as a vizier
and stylist; c UtbI expressly praises him for his restora¬
tion of Arabic as the official language of the diwans,
whereas Isfara 5 inl had—no doubt, more realis¬
tically—introduced the use of Persian, so that “the
bazaar of eloquence had suffered loss, the traffic in
fine expressions and beautiful language had perished,
and there was no differentiation between incapacity
and capability”.

Bibliography : c UtbI-ManTnI, Yamini, Cairo
1286/1869, ii, 166-72, Lahore 1300/1883, 266-74;
Bayhaki, TaMkh-i Mas c udi, passim; Gardlzl, Zayn
al-akhbar , ed. Nazim, Berlin 1928, 96, 98-9; Sayf al-
Dln Fadll c UkaylI, Athar al-wuzara 3 , I.O. ms. 1569
fols. 89b-llla, ed. Djalal al-Din Urmawl, Tehran
1337/1959, 152-86; Naslr al-Din KirmanI, Nasa^im
al-ashar, ed. Urmawl, Tehran 1338/1959, 40-3;
Barthold, Turkestan , 291; Nazim, The life and times of
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna. 130-1, 135-6.

(M. Nazim-[C. E. Bosworth])
al-MAYMANI al RADJ(A)KUTf , c Abd al-
c AzIz, Indo-Muslim Arabic scholar, known by
the name Memon. His family probably came
originally from Maymana [<?.y.], but he was born at
Radj(a)kut (Kalhiyawar) in 1888 and died at Karachi
on 27 October 1978.

The major part of his teaching career was under¬
taken at the Muslim University of c AlIgarh, where he
was Reader from 1924 to 1942, then Professor until
his retirement in 1950; previously, having graduated
in Arabic and Persian in 1909, he was Lecturer in
Arabic, from 1913 onward, at the Edward College of
Peshawar, before transferring to the Oriental College
of Lahawr. A few years after the creation of Pakistan,
he made his way to Karachi where, from 1955 to
1958, he resumed teaching duties at the newly-
inaugurated University, and also directed, until 1960,
the Central Institute of Islamic Research. At various
times he resided in different Arabic-speaking coun¬
tries and, a pious Muslim, he made the Pilgrimage to
Mecca on several occasions.

Primarily a philologist, al-Maymani possessed a
perfect mastery of classical Arabic which enabled him
to edit preserved or partially reconstructed diwans
(Ibn c Unayn, Humayd b. Thawr al-Hilall, Suhaym
c Abd Bani ’l-Hashas), works of philology such as the
Thalath rasaHl (by Ibn Faris, al-KisaY and Ibn c ArabI),
al-Mankus wa ’l-mamdud by al-Farra 5 or Kitdb ma ttafaka
lafzuh by al-Mubarrad, historical texts ( Nasab Kahtdn
wa- c Adnan by al-Mubarrad) or literary texts (Risdlat al-
mala^ika by al-Ma c arrI; al-Fddil by al-Mubarrad). It
should be noted that he took an interest in the
literature of the Muslim West and that, in addition to
al-Nutaf min shi c ray Ibn Rashik wa-zamilih Ibn Sharaf
(Cairo 1343/1925), he wrote a work entitled Ibn

Rashfk... wa-tardjamat Ibn Sharaf (likewise Cairo
1343/1925) and left a highly-esteemed commentary on
al-Kall [ q. v. ], Simt al-la^dlfftsharh Amali y l-Kali, Cairo
1354/1936, 3 vols.

A member of the Arabic Academy of Damascus, al-
MaymanT contributed actively to the MMIA , and it is
typical of him that in his capacity as a corresponding
member (being of Pakistani nationality) of the
recently-created Indian Academy of the Arabic
Language, he contributed the first article to the first
issue of the Madjallal al-Madjma c al- c Ilmi al-Hindl (i,
1386/1976, 1-19), on the subject of Abu c Umar al-
Zahid, better known as Ghulam Tha c lab [q.v.], whose
Kitdb al-Mudakhalat he had published.

Bibliography : Obituary notice, by A. S.

Bazmee Ansari, in Hamdard Islamicus, ii/2 (1979),

113-15. (Ch. Pellat)

MAYMUN b. MIHRAN, Abu Ayyub, early
Islamic fakih and Umayyad administrator.
According to traditional sources he was born in
40/660-1, the son of mawalt who were captives from
Istakhr. Maymun himself evidently grew up in Kufa
where, some say, he was a mawla of the Arab tribe of
Hawazin or Azd; others say that he was the slave of
a woman of the Azd, who later manumitted him.
After winning his freedom, he remained in Kufa until
the turbulence of the Dayr al-Djamadjim [q.v.]
episode (82/701), which pitted the Trakls against the
Umayyad authorities; presumably because of his
neutral or pro-Umayyad sympathies, Maymun
moved at this time to the Djazlra, where he became
(he leading figure among the local men of religion at
Rakka. A few accounts describe him as having made
the pilgrimage to Mecca and as having visited Basra,
where he had an interview with the famous saint al-
Hasan al-Basri; but travelling does not seem to have
been his main activity, and most sources describe him
simply as the sage of Rakka.

Maymun is remembered in numerous accounts for

his religious and ethical maxims. Most of these

emphasise such themes as the dangers of wealth and

gluttony or the importance of God-fearing piety and

of good works, but they also include some which can

be considered as at least mildly anti-Shi < I. while others

suggest an effort to strike a politically non-committal

pose: “Do not speak about four things: c AlI,

c Uthman, kadar , and the stars”. Although he served

as a source of religious and ethical guidance, however,

he does not seem to have been much concerned with

the transmission of hadiths, which were just beginning

to be circulated widely in his day. As a transmitter of

hadiths he is generally adjudged reliable (thika ); but

among his maxims is one that stresses the primacy of

the Kurian over the “hadiths of men” as a source of
• •

guidance, and only about two dozen hadiths on his
authority (mostly via Ibn c Abbas or c Abd Allah b.
c Umar) are extant. A good number of these hadiths
deal with ritual law; a few deal with sectarian or
political issues, some of which are clearly mawdu c (e.g.
Abu Nu c aym, Hilya, iv, 95 on the Rafidls), and which
generally are slightly anti- c AIid in tone. Some of these
' ‘ hadiths' ’ are doubtless sayings of Maymun himself or
of his informants, which his pupils “raised” to the
status of prophetic utterances. Accounts going back to
Maymun also convey considerable information about
several central figures among the Companions of the
Prophet and their successors, e.g. c Uthman, C A1I,
Mu c awiya, Ibn c Abbas, c Abd Allah b. c Umar, Ibn
Sirin, al-Hasan al-Basri and Sa c Id b. al-Musayyab—
including several significant awa^il (e.g. Mu c awiya
was the first who sat between the two khutbas ; c Ikd al-
farid, v, 105).

917

MAYMUN b. MIHRAN — MAYMUN-DIZ

Maymun’s close ties to the Umayyads are reflected
both by the fact that he held office for some of them
and by his many accounts of the activities of c Umar
b. c Abd al- c Aziz (ruled 99-101/717-20) and some
other members of the dynasty. He is first said to have
administered the treasury in Harran for c Abd al-
Malik’s brother, Muhammad b. Marwan, who served
that caliph and his successor al-Walld as governor of
the Djazira. Maymun was then appointed by c Umar
b. c Abd al- c AzTz over the kada? and kharddy (judgeship
and tax-collection) of the Djazira—offices he
apparently held only with some moral reservations—
while his son c Amr ran c Umar’s diwan (Ibn Sa c d,
vii/1, 178). After c Umar’s death he was retained in his
post for a time by Yazid b. c Abd al-Malik. He was still
evidently part of the official establishment in Harran
under Hisham (al-Baladhurl, Ansab , Beirut iii, 100),
and is also said to have commanded the army of Syria
that went to Cyprus in 106/724-5 for Hisham (al-
Tabari, ii, 1487). Maymun appears to have been one
of c Umar b. c Abd al- c AzIz’s close confidants, and the
two were evidently bound by mutual admiration, to
judge from the many extant accounts in which one
relates anecdotes emphasising the piety and wisdom of
the other.

Maymun died, according to most authorities, in the
Djazira in 117/735-6. He does not seem to have left
behind any written works—further evidence,
perhaps, that he was primarily a fakih known for his
piety and good judgement in religious matters rather
than a muhaddith —but he did bring to Rakka a tradi¬
tion of religiosity that lived on in his pupils bearing
the nisba “al-Maymunl”, among them Dja c far b.
Burkan, Abu TMallh, and his own son c Amr b.
Maymun. The esteem in which he was held by later
authorities is aptly summed up in a statement ascribed
to Sulayman b. Musa (d. 115/733-4 or 1 19/737): “If
knowledge ( Him) came to us from the Hidjaz on the
authority of al-Zuhrl, or from Syria on the authority
of Makhul, or from c Irak on the authority of al-Hasan
[al-Basrl], or from the Djazira on the authority of
Maymun [b. Mihran , we accepted it’’ (Abu Zur c a,
TaYikh, 315 [no. 588]).

Bibliography : Abu Zur c a al-Dimashkl,
Ta^rikh, Damascus 1980, index; Ibn Sa c Id, iv/1,
121-2; v, 271-7, 280, 291-2, 296; vii/2, 177-9; viii,
95-6; Tabari, index; Azdl, TaYikh al-Mawsil , Cairo
1967, 37; Baladhurl, Ansab al-ashraf, Beirut 1978-9,

iii, 100; iv/1, 566; ibid. , Jerusalem 1936-7, iv/1, 54,
130-1; v, 75; Muhammad b. Habib, Kitab al-
Muhabbar, Hyderabad-Deccan 1942, 347, 478; Ibn
Kutayba, Ma c arif, Cairo 1969, 448-551, 577; Ibn
c Abd al-Hakam, Sirat c Umar b. c Abd al- ( Aziz , Cairo
1346/1927, 127-8; Djahshiyarl, Kitab al-wuzara? wa
’ l-kuttab , Cairo 1938, 53-4; Ibn c Abd Rabbihi, c Ikd
al-fand, ed. Muhammad Sa c Id al- c Iryan, n.p. 1953,
ii, 241; v, 13, 105, 170-1, 283; Muhammad b.
Sa c Id b. c Abd al-Rahman al-Kushayrl, Ta^rlkh al-
Rakka , Hama 1957, esp. 21-38; Ibn c Asakir, Ta'rikh
madinat Dimashk, ms. Zahiriyya Library, Damascus
xviii, fols. 329b-335a; Abu Nu c aym Ahmad al-
Isbahanl, Hilyat al-awliya 5 , Cairo 1351-7/1932-8,

iv, 92-7, gives one of the most complete collections
of hadiths related on Maymun’s authority; Ibn al-
c Imad, Shadharal, sub anno 117; Ibn al-Athlr, al-
Nihayafigharib al-hadlth, Cairo 1383/1963, i, 164, ii,
198; iii, 100; WakF-, Akhbdr al-kudat, Cairo 1366-
9/1947-50, ii, 66-7; Ibn Hadjar al- c AskalanI,
Tahdhib al-tahdhib , Hyderabad 1325-7/1907-10, x,
390-2; Dhahabi, al-Kashiffi ma c rifat man lahu riwaya
ji ’l-kutub al-sitta , Cairo 1972, iii, 193 (no. 5861).

(F. M. Donner)

MAYMUN b. al-Aswad al-KADDAH, obscure
M eccan transmitter from the Imams Muham¬
mad al-Bakir and Dja c far al-Sadik who, two centuries
after his death, gained notoriety as the father of the
alleged founder of Isma c flism and ancestor of the
Fatimid caliphs, c Abd Allah b. Maymun [<?.£>. ]•
According to the Imam! sources, he was a client of
Makhzum and a shaper of arrow shafts (yabri al-kidah).
He became a personal servant of al-Bakir and al-Sadik
in Mecca. A few traditions of the two Imams related on
his authority are contained in the canonical collections
of Imam! hadith. Al-TusI counts him also among the
companions of Imam c AlI Zayn al- c Abidin (d. 95/713-
14) (Ridjal al-Tusi, ed. Muhammad Sadik Al Bahr al¬
lium, Nadjaf 1381/1961, 101, 135, 317). He died
probably during the imamate of al-Sadik (d. 148/765).
W. Ivanow’s suggestion that he had, besides c Abd
Allah, another son called Aban (The alleged founder of
Ismaitism, 68 ) rests on a faulty isndd in some copies of
al-Kulaynl’s K. al-Kafi (see Muhammad b. C A1I al-
Ardabfll al-Ha-’irl, Diami c al-ruwat, Kumm 1403, ii,
287).

Neither Imam! nor Sunni biographical dictionaries
and heresiographies of the 3rd/9th century suggest
that Maymun al-Kaddah or his son inclined to ShlT
extremism or was involved in the sect backing Isma c Il
b. Dja c far. The earliest mention of him as a heresiarch
is by the Sunni polemicist Ibn Rizam (writing ca.
340/951) who describes him as a DaysanI dualist and
founder of a sect called the Maymuniyya which
backed the heretic Abu ’1-Khattab [< 7 . 1 ;.], teaching the
divinity of C A1I. Later anti-lsma c lll authors greatly
elaborated Ibn Rizam’s story and added to the cata¬
logue of his heresies. Akhu Muhsin (writing ca.
373/985) calls him Maymun b. Daysan, making him
a son of Bardesanes. Ibn Shaddad (d. ca. 509/1115)
gives him the kunya Abu Shakir, evidently identifying
him with a DaysanI of the time of al-Sadik notorious
in Imam! tradition. Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-
Daylaml (writing in 707/1307) calls him Maymun b.
Daysan al-Kaddah al-AhwazI al-FarisI and asserts
that he appeared in Kufa in 176/792 after having been
nominally converted to Islam by al-Sadik. All these
accounts are obviously pure Fiction.

Ibn Rizam’s story is based, however, on informa¬
tion from Karmatl Isma c IlT sources. There is clear
evidence of a wide-spread belief among Isma c llls in
the pre-Fatimid and early Fatimid age that the leader¬
ship after the disappearance of Muhammad b. Isma c U
b. Dja c far had been transferred to one c Abd Allah b.
Maymun al-Kaddah, who was not of c Alid descent.
He and his successors were not Imams , but lieutenants
(khulafa 5 ) of the absent Imam pending his return as the
MahdI. Against this, Fatimid Isma c IlI tradition main¬
tained that the name Maymun had been used in the
missionary activity for the Imam to conceal his identity
and that the ancestors of the Fatimids, though claim¬
ing merely the rank of hu djdja s. were in fact the Imams.

Bibliography : In addition to the works quoted
in the article on c Abd Allah b. Maymun, see now
S. M. Stern, Heterodox Ismfdilism at the time of al~
Mu c izz, in BSOAS, xvii (1955), 10-33; H. F. al-
Hamdani, On the genealogy of the Fatimid Caliphs ,
Cairo 1958; W. Madelung, Das Imamat in derfriihen
ismailitischen Lehre , in I si , xxxvii (1961), esp. 73-80;
A. Hamdani and F. de Blois, A re-examination of al-
MahdVs letter to the Yemenites on the genealogy of the
Fatimid Caliphs , in JR AS (1983), 173-207.

(W. Madelung)

MAYMUN-DIZ, a castle of the Isma c llls
[see isma c Iliyya] in the Alburz Mountains in north¬
western Iran, the mediaeval region of Daylam [q.v.].

918

MAYMUN-DIZ — MAYSAN

Rashid al-Dln states that it was built in 490/1097 by
the Grand Master of the Assassins Hasan-i Sabbah or
by his successor Kiya Buzurg-Ummld in the early
6 th/12th century. Djuwavnl. tr. Boyle, II, 621-36, cf.
M. G. S. Hodgson, The order of the Assassins, The
Hague 1955, 265 ff., has a detailed account of the for¬
tress’s reduction by the Il-Khan Hulegii in Shawwal
654/November 1256. The Mongols besieged it briefly
till it was surrendered by the last Grand Master Rukn
al-Dln Khur-Shah, who had latterly resided there
with his treasury instead of at Alamut [qv.]\ they then
went on to capture the latter fortress.

In expeditions of 1959-61, Willey identified the site
as an easily-defensible plateau some 1,500 ft./480 m.
by 300 ft./95 m., with extensive caverns and standing
buildings, just north of the village of Shams-Kilava in
the valley of a right-bank affluent of the Alamut-Rud,
itself running into the Shah-Rud/SafTd-Rud river
system ( contra Ivanow’s tentative identification of
Maymun-Diz with the modern place Nawlzar-Shah).

Bihliography (in addition to references given in
the article): W. Ivanow, Alamut and Lamasar, two
mediaeval Ismaili strongholds in Iran. An archaeological
study , Tehran 1960, 75-81; P. J. E. Willey, The
castles of the Assassins, London 1963, 158-92 (with
plan and photographs); B. Lewis, The Assassins, a
radical sect in Islam, London 1967, index. See also
LANBASAR. (C . E. BoSWORTH)

MAYMOnA BINT al-HARITH. the last wife
that Muhammad married. She stemmed from
the Hawazin tribe of c Amir b. Sa c sa c a and was a
sister-in-law of al- c Abbas. After she had divorced her
first husband, a Thakafi. and her second, the KurashI
Abu Rukm, had died, she lived as a widow in Mecca
where the Prophet wooed her, primarily no doubt for
political reasons, on the c umra allowed to him in the
year 7/629. His wish to marry her in Mecca was
refused by the Meccans, in order not to prolong his
stay there; the marriage therefore took place in Sarif,
a village north of Mecca. Her brother-in-law al-
c Abbas acted as her wall or guardian at the ceremony.
The question whether the Prophet on this occasion
was still in the ihram or not is a much-disputed and
variously-answered question. The bridal gift is said to
have been 500 dirhams. Married at the age of 27,
Maymuna survived the other wives of the Prophet
and died in 61/681 in Sarif, where she is said to have
been buried on the spot where she was married.

Bibliography : Ibn Hisham, 790-1; Ibn Sa c d,
ed. Sachau, viii, 94-100; Tabari, i, 1595-6; Bakrl,
ed. Wiistenfeld, 772-3; Caetani, Annali delT Islam ,
ii, 66-7; W. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina, Oxford
1956, 397; cf. M. Hamidullah, Le Prophele de
TIslam, Paris 1959, 111, 458-9. (Fr. Buhl)
MAYSALUN, a pass in the Anti-Lebanon
Mountains where, on 24 July 1920, the French
forces under the command of General Henri
Gouraud, recently appointed High Commissioner in
Beirut, defeated the forces of King Faysal of Syria and
proceeded to occupy Damascus and establish the
French mandatory authority there.

A son of Sharif Husayn of Mecca who, prompted
by Britain, had revolted against the Turks and pro¬
claimed himself king of the Arab countries in the
Hidjaz in 1916, Faysal had been allowed by the
British to occupy Damascus on 1 October 1918 and
establish an Arab regime there as a representative of
his father. On 8 March 1920, Faysal was proclaimed
King of Syria, shortly before the San Remo con¬
ference convened in April to assign the territory of
Syria and Lebanon as a mandate to France. The
French mandatory authority was forthwith established

in the Lebanese territory, which had been under
French occupation since 1918, and Faysal was anx¬
ious to negotiate an agreement with Gouraud which
would save his Arab regime in Damascus. The
French, however, were of a different mind, and as the
negotiations between the two sides faltered, Gouraud
sent an ultimatum to Damascus, while his forces
advanced against the city. Faysal’s small army, led by
his War Minister Yusuf al- c Azm, a Damascene
notable, tried to stop the advance at the Maysalun
pass, but was easily defeated, and al- c Azm was killed
in the battle. Thereupon Faysal and his government
fled Damascus, which was occupied by the French.
The British later made him king of c Irak.

Modern Arabs regard the battle of Maysalun as the
event that first awakened them to the harsh realities of
imperial power politics. The event forms the central
theme of a book by Sati c al-Husarl, a man who served
as a minister under Faysal in Damascus, called Yawm
Maysalun (“The Day of Maysalun”, first published in
Beirut in 1947). The village of Maysalun stands today
on the border between Lebanon and Syria, and a
monument marks the grave of Yusuf al- c Azma there.
Apart from its modern fame as a battlefield,
Maysalun was known in earlier Islamic times as a
horse-post relay station along the Beirut-Damascus
highway.

Bibliography : R. de Gontant-Biron, Comment
la France s’est installee en Syrie, Paris 1922; S. H.
Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon under French Mandate,
London 1958; E. Kedourie, England and the Middle
East: the reconstruction of the Ottoman Empire, 1914-
1921, London 1956; Muhammad Kurd c AlI, Khilal
al-Sham, Beirut 1970; Sati c al-Husarl, Yawm
Maysalun, Beirut 1947; G. Antonius, The Arab
awakening, London 1938; see also faysal i.

(Kamal S. Salibi)

MAYSAN, the region along the lower
Tigris River in southeastern al- c Irak. This region
is called Meaf|vr) by Strabo, Meshan in the Babylonian
Talmud, Mayshan in Syriac. Meshan in Middle Per¬
sian, Meshun in Armenian, Maysan in Arabic, and
T’iao-tche (Chaldaea) in the Han sources. The
earliest references from the first century A.D. indicate
that Meor|VTj was an ethnic toponym, the land of the
people called Mtorjvoi; who lived along the Arabian
side of the coast at the head of the Persian Gulf
(MouaocvttTjs xoXtito? in Ptolemy). Whether or not these
people were Arabian themselves, some of them lived
at Gerrha, and their land was regarded as lying along
the ethnic border with Arabs. Arabic has the nisbas
Maysan! and MaysananI, the latter from the Persian
plural for people.

Ancient Mesene lay between two branches of the
lower Tigris, but its exact extent was subject to change
and is therefore difficult to determine. Pliny explicitly
states that Mesene extended 125 miles up the Tigris
above Babylonian Seleucia to the town of Apamea
where overflow water from the Euphrates reached the
Tigris, that it adjoined Chalonitis (Hulwan), and that
the branch of the Tigris along its northeastern border
traversed the plains of Cauchae (Djukha, the Diyala
plains). Whether or not this description was meant to
reflect a brief extension of the Characene kingdom,
which was known to include Apamea, Pliny seems to
indicate that Mesene could be defined hydro-
graphically as the territory irrigated by the combined
waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Apamea in
question, however, tends to be identified with Fam al-
Silh where the Tigris and Sillas divided. Ammianus
Marcellinus, in the 4th century A.D., says that
Apamea had been called Mesene formerly, but traces

MAYSAN

919

of a more extensive Maysan survive in the Arabic-
writing geographers. Ibn Rustah calls Djabbul, at the
Tigris end of two large canals coming from Sura, one
of the cities of Maysan. Yakut describes the district of
Kaskar [qv. ] as overlapping Maysan and extending
from the lower end of the Nahrawan canal to the sea.
To the extent that ancient Mesene was identified with
Chaldaea, it bordered on Babylonia in the west and
the Chaldaean Lakes in the southwest. To the north
it overlapped Djukhu [q v.], which normally lay along
the left bank of the Tigris, probably as a result of
changes in the course of the river. It extended to
Elymais ( Kh uzistan [<7-f ]) in the east, but this border
was also subject to change. The town of Huwayza
(modern HawTza [q. v. ]) was once part of Maysan, but
by the 8th/14th century belonged to Khuzistan.

Politically, ancient Mesene was identical with the
Hellenistic kingdom of Characene ( ca. 129 B.C.— ca.
224 A.D.). The region between Babylonia and the
Gulf coast had formed an administrative division (but
not an eparchy) of the Seleucid state in the 3rd cen¬
tury B.C. called the territory of the Erythraean Sea.
Alexander the Great had settled Macedonian veterans
at a city called Alexandria which he founded above the
confluence of a former course of the lower Karkeh
River with the Tigris, 1 % miles from the coast. After
this city was destroyed by Hoods, Antiochus IV (175-
164 B.C.) restored it by 166-165 B.C., called it
Antiochia, and put Hyspaosines son of
Sagdodonacus, king of the neighbouring Arabs, in
charge of it and its territory. The latter became
independent between 141 and 139 B.C., and in 129
B.C. built new embankments to protect the flood-
damaged city, renaming it Charax Spasinou (“the
palisade of Hyspaosines”) as the capital of
Characene. In 127 B.C. he defeated the Arsacid
governor of Babylon and occupied Babylon and
Seleucia briefly, but was defeated by Mithradates II
in 121 B.C., after which he and his successors con¬
tinued as rulers of Characene subject to the Parthians.

Charax is transcribed as Karak Aspasina (KRK
5 SPSN 5 ) and identified as Karka de Meshan (KRK 5
DY MY§N) in Palmyrene inscriptions of the 1st and
2nd centuries. It was called Karkha dh c Mayshan in
Syriac and Karkh Maysan in Arabic. Its site, formerly
sought in the vicinity of Muhammara, has been con¬
vincingly identified by Hansman with modern Djabal
Kh avabir near the left bank of the Shatt al- c Arab. By
Pliny’s time, Charax was 193 km. from the coast
although the tide went upstream far beyond it. The
left bank of the lower Tigris was inhabited by
Chaldaeans, the right bank by Arabian brigands
called Attali beyond whom were nomadic Scenitae.
T’iao-Tche is described in Han sources as a hot, low,
densly populated, rice-growing region with lions,
rhinoceroses, zebu, peacocks, ostriches, and clever
jugglers. Strabo adds the production of barley, sesame
oil, and dates. By the 1st century B.C., Charax was
a major commercial centre where Indian ships met
caravans from Petra and Palmyra. In the 1st century
A.D., caravans from Petra arrived at the town of
Forat 11 or 12 miles downstream from Charax. Its site
was either near the modern town of al-Tanuma on the
left bank of the Shatt al- c Arab, or, according to
Hansman, at Maghlub, 17.4 km. (10.8 miles)
southeast of Djabal Khayabir. Apologos (al-Ubulla)
also appears as an emporium on the right bank of the
Shatt al- c Arab opposite Forat at c Ashshar, the
modern port of al-Basra, in the 1st century. Copper,
sandalwood, teak, ebony, spices and gems were
imported from Barygaza in Gudjarat through
Apologos, while Characene merchants exported

pearls, clothing, wine, purple, dates, gold and slaves.
In the winter of 115-16, Trajan occupied Characene
briefly, collecting tribute from Attembelos V, after
which it returned to Arsacid rule.

In ca. 224 Characene fell to Ardashir I (ca. 226-41),
the founder of the Sasanid dynasty, who killed the
king of Characene and made his own son, Mihrshah,
ruler of Maysan. Although it is claimed in Arabic
literature that Ardashir refounded Karkh Maysan as
Astarabadh Ardashir, this name has not been found
in Sasanid inscriptions. Under Shapur I (ca. 241-73),
his eldest son, Shapur. and the latter’s wife, Denak,
were king and queen of Mashan. A certain Atrofar-
nabag is called Meshan Shah in Narseh’s inscription
at Paikuli, and the Babylonian Talmud mentions a
governor (dstandar) of Meshan. However, Shapur I is
said to have formed a separate district called Shadh
Sabur in northwestern Maysan around the city of
Kaskar which had its own dstandar.

By the 3rd century, the formerly pagan population
of Maysan was mixed with Jews, Magians, gnostics
and possibly Christians. The priest Kartlr claimed to
have established Magians and sacred Fires there, and
the title of magopat of Meshan inscribed on a gem
indicates the establishment of the priestly hierarchy.
Jews of mixed descent were scattered throughout
Maysan, and the gnostic, baptist sect called al-
Mughtasila located there was joined by Mam’s father.
ManI [see man! b. fattik] grew up in this sect, and
Mihrshah, the governor, was one of his earliest con¬
verts and supporters. Whether or not Christianity was
carried to Maysan in the 1st century by the apostle
Marl, as legend claims, by the year 310 P c rath d c
Mayshan (al-Furat) was the sec of the metropolitan
bishop of Mayshan. By 410 there were suffragan
bishoprics at Karkha dh° Mayshan, Rlma and
Nahrgur.

Ammianus Marcellinus describes huge groves of
date palms extending from Babylon to Mesene and
the sea in the 4th century, and reports that Mesene
was included in the province of “Assyria” that
embraced all of lower Mesopotamia in the middle
Sasanid period. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, Meshan
remained a centre for the import of spices, drugs and
gems from India as well as silk and cotton cloth and
steel. Kushan coins found in Meshan also testify to
trade with northern India.

Conditions in Maysan were transformed when the
lower Tigris began to shift from its former course
below Fam al-Silh, which had gone via Badhibln and
c AbdasI to al-Madhar. During floods in the reigns of
Bahrain V Gur (420-38), Kubadh b. Flruz (488-96,
498/9-531), and under Khusraw II in 7/628, the lower
Tigris burst its banks and changed its main course to
the Dudjayla/Shatt al-Akhadhar channel (not the
Nahr Gharraf/Shatt al-Hayy as formerly thought)
which went via Kaskar into the swamps (al-Bata^ih
[q.v. ]). Western Maysan was turned into swamps,
northern Maysan and south-eastern Djukha into
desert, and Maysan was reduced to the territory along
the former, course of the Tigris below al-Madhar
called the Blind or One-Eyed Tigris (Didjlat al-
c Awra 5 ). What remained of Maysan formed the
district of Shadh Bahman and was put in the Quarter
of the South when the Sasanid empire was reorganised
in the 6th century. Al-Furat, said to have been
refounded as Bahman Ardashir I, may have become
the capital. By extension, Yakut identifies Bahman
Ardashir, Arabicised as Bahmanshlr, also called
Furat al-Basra, as the entire district (kura). The Tigris
estuary from al-Maftah and al-Ubulla to c Abbadan
was also called Bahmanshlr by the Persians, accord-

920

MAYSAN

ing to al-Mas c udT, similar to BamishTr for a branch of
the lower Karun [ q.v.]. Vahman ArdashTr is first
attested in 544 as the see of the Nestorian
metropolitan bishop of Mayshan. The bishoprics of
Rlma and Karkha dh c Mayshan are last attested in
605, N°hargur (as N c hargul) in ca. 23-5/644-6,
although Fiey has argued for the survival of the latter
two under other names. None of the late Sasanid
mint-marks ascribed to al-Furat, Karkh Maysan or
Maysan is conclusive. The subdivisions of this district
at the time of the Muslim conquest were Bahman
ArdashTr around al-Furat, Maysan, Dast-i Maysan
and Abarkubadh.

In Safar 12/633, Khalid b. al-Walld took al-Ubulla,
invaded Maysan and defeated Persian forces at al-
Madhar. After his victory at Buwayb about two years
later, al-Muthanna b. Haritha also sent forces to
Maysan and Dast-i Maysan. The actual conquest was
undertaken by c Utba b. Gh azwan in 14/635 and the
spring of 15/636. c Utba defeated and captured the
ruler (sahib) of al-Furat, took al-Ubulla and al-Furat,
conquered Maysan, defeating and killing the marzubdn
[q. v. ] at al-Madhar: Abarkubadh: and Dast-i
Maysan, defeating its marzubdn. After c Utba withdrew
to al-Ba?ra, al-Mu gh lra b. Shu c ba [q.v. ] pacified
Maysan and Abarkubadh again, killing the marzubdn
or dihkdn. The captives taken in Maysan included
Yasar, the father of al-Hasan al-BasrT [q.v. ], who was
taken to the Hidjaz, and Artaban, the grandfather of
c Abd Allah b. c Awn b. Artaban, who lived at al-
Basra. Some captives from Maysan were released at
c Umar’s order. In 18/639 al-Hurmuzan raided Dast-i
Maysan and Maysan from Khuzistan, taking captive
Abraham, Nestorian bishop of P c rath, but was driven
out by Abu Musa al-Ash c arT, the governor of
al-Basra.

Abu Musa is also credited with establishing the
Tigris districts ( Kuwar or Kura Didjla) along the
Didjlat al^Awra 5 in Shadh Bahman lard Maysan in
16/637-8, ordering a cadastral survey there and levy¬
ing taxes according to the degree of productivity. Al-
Nu c man b. c Adi collected taxes in the Kuwar Didjla
for c Umar I, who refused to let him take his wife
there. Husayn b. Abi ’1-Hurr is also said to have been
c Umar’s c amil over Maysan until the time of al-
Hadjdjadj [q.v.]. The khara^j. of the Kuwar Didjla is
given as ten million dirhams under Mu c awiya, and as
900 kurr of wheat, 4,000 kurr of barley and 430,000
dirhams by Kudama in 260/874. All four subdistricts
( tasdsidIj) of Bahman ArdashTr, Maysan, Dast-i
Maysan and Abarkubadh lay east of the Tigris,
although the entire district is said to have extended to
al-Marumat towards Wasit and to Dayr Mabanat
towards Khuzistan. Under c Umar I, al-Hadjdjadj b.
c AtTk al-ThakafT collected the taxes of al-
Furat/Bahman ArdashTr, and, in 75/695, Kuraz b.
Malik al-Sulami held combined authority over al-
Ubulla and al-Furat for al-Hadjdjadj b. Yusuf.
Although there was clearly a subdistrict ( nahiya ) called
Maysan in ard Maysan, the city of Karkh Maysan
appears to have been replaced by al-Madhar as the
most important place by the time of the conquest, and
it is often difficult to tell whether unspecified
references to Maysan in Islamic times are to this sub¬
district, to geographical Maysan, to Karkh Maysan or
even to Furat Maysan. In 38/658-9, the NadjT
Khawaridj halted at al-Madhar; the Khawaridj under
al-Mustawrid b. c Ullafa fought Kufan forces there in
43/663-4; and Mus c ab b. al-Zubayr defeated al-
Mukhtar’s army under Ahmad b. Sumayt al-NakhlT
there in 67/686. Abarkubadh (also Abazkubadh,
Tzadhkubadh. Bazkubadh and Azkubadh) with the

town of Fasa lay near al-Madhar. although it is easily
confused with Barkubadh/Arradjan. Dast-i Maysan
was the plain (Persian dasht) north and northeast of
Maysan. Its capital was Basamata (possibly also
BasamI and Basamiyya); it included c AbdasT on the
old course of the Tigris, eight stages ( sikkas , 51.5 to
64.4 km.) above al-Madhar and it stretched eastwards
to Khuzistan. In 20/641 c Umar I instructed Djaz 5 b.
Mu c awiya, governor of Dast-i Maysan and Manadhir
(on the border with Khuzistan) combined, to kill
every magician ( sdhir ) and sorceress, to separate
Magians who were married to close relatives (dhu
muhram ), and to forbid Magians to practice ritual
murmuring (zamzamd). Three sorcerers were killed
and D jaz 5 had begun to break up families of Magians
and to force them to eat without zamzama when c Umar
wrote telling him to collect djizya [q.v.] from them
instead. c Asim b. Kays al-Sulami also collected taxes
in Manadhir under c Umar I. The DShT mint-mark
on Arab-Sasanid coins from 52/672 until 67/686 may
stand for Dasht-i Maysan. Post-reform dirhams were
struck at al-Furat from 81/700-1 to 97/715-6, in
Maysan from 79/698-9 to 97/715-6, Abarkubadh in
83/702 and 96/714-5 and in Dasht-i Maysan in
80/699-700, followed by Manadhir from 81/700 until
96/714-15. By the 3rd/9th century, al-Ubulla was the
administrative centre for the Kura Didjlat, which may
be why Ibn Khurradadhbih and Yakut identify Dast-i
Maysan with al-Ubulla. The Nestorian metro¬
politanate of P c rath d c Mayshan survived well into
the Islamic period, and is first identified as the
metropolitanate of al-Basra in 174/790. The bishopric
of c AbdasT, attested in 174/790 and ca. 215/830, how¬
ever, was in the patriarchal see of Baghdad.

Some natives of Maysan, such as c Anbasa b.
Ma c dan, settled in al-Basra shortly after its founda¬
tion. They were generally called Banu T c Amm and
settled with the Banu TamTm. Maysan! origin
(accurate only in the broadest sense) was attributed to
the family of Ziyad b. AbThi [q. v. ] in a derogatory way
by the poets al-Farazdak and Ibn Mufarrigh. Al-
Akhtal used attribution to Azkubadh as an insult.
However, Sahl b. Harun [q.v.], a native of Maysan
who settled at al-Basra and was a secretary for al-
MaTnun (197-218/813-33), praised the people of
Maysan in a kind of feeling of regional shu c ubiyya
[q.v.]. The Muslim belief that God exiled Iblls to
Maysan after the temptation of Adam and Hawwa 5
(Eve) may have been related to these attitudes.

Early Islamic land reclamation and development
around al-Basra extended into Maysan. Ziyad
granted an estate on the Gulf coast north of the
estuary to Humran b. Aban, who subsequently gave
the western part of it to c Abbad b. Husayn al-HibatT,
after whom the entire estate and the town that grew
there came to be called c Abbadan, considered as the
southeastern limit of Maysan. Under Sulayman (96-
8/715-17), YazTd b. al-Muhallab reclaimed land from
the Bata^ih in Kaskar and the Kura Didjlat with
imported Indian labour (Zutt [q. v. ]) and at least 4,000
water buffaloes ( djawamis ). Under al-Rashfd (170-
93/786-809), the villagers of al-Shu c aybiyya in the
subdistrict of al-Furat turned their property, which
then became tithe land, over to the caliph’s son C A1T,
and became sharecroppers paying a lower rate than
before. A slave of al-Rashid called GhasTb is also said
to have built a fort (hisn) just west of c Abbadan at
Brim (modern Brem c Abbadan or c Abbadan al-
HadTtha). East African slaves (Zandj [q.v.]) were also
imported as labour by the late lst/7th century. In
70/689-90 and 75/695 they gathered at al-Furat, and,
joined by people from the river harbour, devastated

MAYSAN

921

the countryside. During the great Zandj revolt in the
3rd/9th century, they were again supported or joined
by the people of al-Furat and the villages of Djubba
and Dja c fariyya. In 254/868 the Zandj invaded
Maysan from Khuzistan, took Dja c fariyya and
Karyat al-Yahud, and attacked al-Madhar unsuc¬
cessfully before turning south-east to c Abbadan. In
267/880-1 al-Muwaffak, the brother of the caliph al-
Mu c tamid (256-79/870-92), established the city of al-
Muwaffakiyya on the north bank of the Shatt al- c Arab
facing the Zandj stronghold of al-Mukhtara. as a
military base to pursue the war with them. Al-
Muwaffakiyya had a treasury, a masdjid al-dfami c , and
markets, and dirhams and dinars were struck there. A
dinar of 270/883 is attested, but al-Muwaffakiyya
appears to have been abandoned after the fall of al-
Mukhtara in that year. In 287/900 the Karamita [q. v. ]
ravaged the subdistricts of Maysan.

In spite of such conflicts, in the 4th/10th century
c Abbadan and al-Madhar were small cities and palm
groves extended continuously for over 20 farasikh (241
km.) from c Abbadan to c Abdas!. A low-grade silk
brocade was produced in Maysan; dyed cloth and
cushions were exported, and Maysan! clothing was
produced at Djabbul. After flowing into the Bata^ih,
Tigris water emptied into the Didjlat al^Awra 3 via
branching channels such as the Nahr Abi TAsad, the
Nahr al-Mar^a (possibly the Bathk Shlrin) in the
vicinity of al-Madhar, and the Nahr al-Yahud. The
tide came upstream as far as al-Madhar. Nahr Djur
lay on the old course of the Tigris between c AbdasI
and Darmakan and may have extended eastwards
towards Khuzistan. The Mughtasila (now called
Sabat al-Bata 3 ih) were still numerous in the swamps
and may be the same as the Sabian sect [q. v. ] called
al-Kimariyyun that al-Mas c ud! says lived in or near
the swamps between Wasit and al-Basra. The Man-
daean sect, reputedly formed in Maysan in late
Sasanid or early Islamic times, grew out of this
milieu.

Al-Madhar remained locally important. In 329/941
the amir Badjkam [q.v. ] sent Tuzun there with an
army, where he defeated the forces of Abu c Abd Allah
al-Bandi, while Badjkam himself drove the Kurds
from Nahr Djur. In 331/943 Sayf al-Dawla [q.v. ] sent
Kha djkh adj against the Baridiyya there. In 409/1018
the Buyid Sultan al-Dawla set out from there in pur¬
suit of al-Hasan b. Dubays al-Asad!, and when Djalal
al-Dawla’s army defeated his rival, Abu Kalidjar
[q.v.], there in 421/1030, his partisans took over the
town. In about 443/1051, Nasir-i Khusraw [q.v.]
noted that c Akr Maysan (possibly Karkh Maysan)
and Mashan were subdistricts of al-Ba§ra. Mashan
was just above al-Basra and was also known as the
birthplace, in 446/1054, of the author of the Makamat ,
al-Harir! [q .». ], who is said to have died at al-
Madhar. A noted family of hadith transmitters, Abu
’1-Hasan c Al! b. Muhammad b. Ahmad b. al-Husayn
b. c Uthman al-Madhar! (516-85/1122-89), a native of
Ba gh dad, and his two brothers, was identified with al-
Madhar in the 6th/12th century. In 591/1195 Maysan
is called a subdistrict of Khuzistan ruled by Kutlugh
Inandj b. al-Bahlawan.

According to Yakut in the 7th/l3th century, the
Tigris divided into five main channels below Wasit:
the Nahr Sas! (possibly an orthographic error for
Basami), Nahr Gharraf. Nahr Dja c far, Nahr Dakla
and Nahr Maysan (possibly the Nahr Tuhyatha
according to E1- C A1!). They reunited near the village
of Matara, one day’s journey from al-Basra, where
the Euphrates joined them. Yakut defined the Didjlat
al- c Awra :) as the combined stream from Matara to the

Gulf. He describes Maysan as “an extensive district
with numerous villages and palm groves between al-
Basra and Wasit.” Its main town ( madina ) was
Maysan, and its capital ( kasaba) was al-Madhar. four
days’ journey from al-Basra. Al-Hatra, across the
river from al-Madhar. was a well-watered village on
solid ground with many date palms, fruit trees, and
chickens. Below al-Madhar. on the Nahr Maysan,
was the small town ( bulayda ) of al-Bazzaz; al-Furat lay
in ruins. The people of al-Madhar were all ghuldt
ShFls. and a splendid shrine ( mashhad) there, where
c Abd Allah b. C A1! b. Ab! Talib was buried, was the
object of endowments ( wukuf) and votive gifts
(nudhur). This shrine is located on a slight rise east of
the Tigris, within a river bend, just below modern
Kal c at Salih near the ruins of al-Madhar about 48 km.
directly north of modern Kurna. In March 1927
Streck found a domed tomb there, visible at a great
distance, standing in the southern end of an oblong
courtyard that was entered through a door in the
north wall. A descendant of the Imam Musa al-Kazim
[q.v. ] is also said to be buried at c Al! al-Gharbl. on the
west bank of the Tigris 100 km. above al- c Amara, and
a descendant of al-Husayn b. c Ali at c Ali al-Sharkl,
about 38 km. away on the east bank. At an undeter¬
mined time, most of the people of c Abbadan, having
been ShafFi, became ShF!. According to al-Kazwini,
the people of Maysan district were fanatical (tughat)
ShFls. Yakut also describes the tomb of Ezra (al-
c Uzayr) which he visited at the village of Nahr
Samura (popularly called Simmara) in ard Maysan as
tended by Jews and as the object of endowments and
votive gifts. Modern al- c Uzayr is a large village on the
west bank of the Tigris about 33 km. south of KaFat
Salih.

Abu ’l-Fida* calls Maysan a small town ( bulayda ) in
the lower part of ard al-Basra, but after the 8th/14th
century this name passed out of use. Al- c Amara [q.v. ]
was founded in 1277/1860 at a place called al-Awrad!
from the 10th/16th century onwards. Kanun no. 48, in
1969, changed the name of the c Amara Liwa 5 to
Maysan.

Bibliography : For the land and people of
Maysan, see Strabo, Geographica , ii. 1. 31; xvi. 1. 8;
xvi. 3. 3; Ptolemy, Geographica, v. 19. 1; Pliny,
Natural History, vi. 31; Yakut, Buldan, iv, 714; H.
Schaeder, Hasan al-Basri, in Isl., xiv (1925), 11-37;
Weissbach, Mesene in Pauly-Wissowa, xv, cols.
1082, 1087, 1094; S. N. Nodelman, A preliminary
history of Characene , in Berytus , xiii (1960), 106.

On its ancient extent, see Pliny, vi, 31-32;
Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum gestarum libri qui
supersunt, Cambridge, Mass. 1935-9, xxiii. 6. 23;
Ibn Rustah, 187; Yakut, iv, 274-5; MustawlT,
Nuzhat al-kulub , Tehran 1336/1958, 132;
Weissbach, cols. 1082-3, 1086-7, 1090; Nodelman,
104.

On Char ax and Characene, see Polybius,
The Histories, London, 1923, v. 46. 7; 48. 13; 54.
12; Pliny, vi. 30-2; A.-J. de Saint-Martin, Recher-
ches sur Thistoire ei la geographie de la Mesene et de la
Characene, Paris 1838; Reinaud, Mem. sur le com¬
mencement et la fin du royaume de la Mesene et de la
Characene, in JA, xviii (1861), 161-262; E. Drouin,
Notice histonque et geograph, sur la Characene, Paris
1890, repr. in Museon, ix, 148 ff.; E. Newell,
Mithradates of Parthia and Hyspaosines of Charax, in
NNM, xxvi (1925); C A. al-Hasan!, Rihla fi ’l- c Irak,
Ba gh dad 1925, 118; H. al-Sa c d!, Diughrafiyat al-
c Irak (al-haditha ), Baghdad 1927, 156; Andreas,
Alexandreia, in Pauly-Wissowa, i, cols. 1390-5;
Weissbach, Charax Spasinu, in ibid., iii, 2122; idem,

922

MAYSAN

Mesene, cols. 1085, 1093-4; J. Starcky, Inventaire des
inscriptions de Palmyre , x, Damascus 1949, 13-14, 52,
57, 65, 67; F. W. Walbank, A historical commentary
on Polybius, Oxford 1957, i, 578; G. Le Rider, Mon-
naies de Characene, in Syria, xxxvi (1959), 230-1;
Nodelman, 102, 106, 114;J. Hansman, Char ax and
the Karkeh, in Iranica Antigua, vii (1967), 21-58; Cam¬
bridge History of Iran, iii, Cambridge 1983, 40, 90,
310-4, 487, 755, 757; R. Frye, The history of ancient
Iran, Munich 1983, 275-8. The Han sources are
quoted by W. Schoff (ed.), Isidore of Charax, Par¬
thian stations, Philadelphia 1914, 41, from F. Hirth,
China and the Roman Orient, Leipzig and Munich
1885.

For the early Sasanid period, see Ammianus
Marcellinus, xxiv. 3. 12; Bab. Tal., B. Kidd. 72b;
E. Herzfeld, Paikuli, Berlin 1924, i, 81, 103, 107,
pi. 140, no. 9; J. Obermeyer, Landschaft Babylonien,
Frankfurt a. M. 1929, 91; Nodelman, 102; L.
Dillemann, Ammien Marcellin et les pays de VEuphrate
et du Tigre, in Syria, xxviii (1961), 139-41;

Hansman, 26; B. Dodge (tr.), The Fihrist of al-
Nadim, New York 1970, ii, 774; CHI, iii, 126, 594,
707-8, 731, 756-7, 965-6. For Astarabadh/
Karkh Maysan see DTnawarl, K. al-Akhbar al-
tiwal, Leiden 1912, 45; Tabari, i, 820; Ibn al-
Fakih, 198; Hamza al-Isfahani, Ta^rikh Sim muluk
al-ard, Beirut 1961, 43; Tha c alibi, Ghurar akhbar
muluk al-Furs wa-siyaruhum, Paris 1900, 486; Yakut,
iv, 257; T. Noldeke, Gesch. der Perser und Araber zur
Zeit der Sasaniden, Leiden 1879, 14, 19-20. For
Shadh Sabur/Kaskar, see Bab. Tab, B. Gittin 80b;
Ibn Khurradadhbih, 7; Hamza, 45; Tha c alibi,
494; Tabari, i, 830; Yakut, iii, 227. On the Jews,
see Bab. Tab, B. Yebamoth 17a; A. Neubauer, La
geographic du Talmud, Paris 1868, 352; H. Graetz,
Das Konigreich von Mesene und seine judische
Bevolkerung , Breslau 1879; A. Berliner, Beitrage zur
Geographic und Ethnogr. Babyloniens im Talmud und
Midrasch, Berlin 1883, 17; Obermeyer, 201; J.
Newman, The agricultural life of the Jews in Babylonia ,
London 1932, 170; J. Neusner, A history of the Jews
in Babylonia, Leiden 1970, v, pp. xix, 276. On
Christians, see J.-B. Chabot, Synodicon orientate,
Paris 1902, 34, 272; J. Labourt, Le Christianisme
dans l’Empire perse, Paris 1904, 9-17; J. M. Fiey,
Assyrie chretienne, Beirut 1968, iii, 263-4.

For the late Sasanid Tigris, see Baladhuri,
Futuh, 292-3; Mas c udi, Murudf, i, 223 = § 235;
idem, Tanbih, Beirut 1965, 53-4; Ibn Rustah, 94-5;
Yakut, i, 669; F. Safar, Wasit, Cairo 1945, 6-7; S.
al- c Ali, Mintakat Wasit, (2), in Sumer, xxvii (1971),
165-6, 169, 171, 175. For Shadh Bahman and
Bahman Ardashir, see Ibn Khurradadhbih. 7;
Kudama, Kharddi. 235; Mas c udi, Tanbih, 52; Ibn
al-Fakih, 198; Hamza, 43; Yakut, i, 770; iii, 227,
861-2; J. Marquart, Eransahr nach der Geographic der
Ps. Moses XorenacH, in AKGWG, Ser. 2, iii, 2 (1899-
1901), 8, 16, 40; Chabot, 34, 71, 272, 321; M.
Morony, Continuity and change in the administrative
geography of late Sasanian and early Islamic al- c Iraq, in
Iran , xx (1982), 34-9. On Nestorian

bishoprics, see Chabot, 213, 214, 478; I. Guidi,
Chronica Minora I, in CSCO, I, Scr. Syri, i, 34, CSCO,
II, Scr. Syri, ii, 28, Louvain 1955; Y. Sarkis,
Madlnat Bayth Rayma, in Mabahith Hrakiyya, ii,
Baghdad 1955, 103-13; Fiey, 255-7, 272, 274, 277-
82. For Sasanid mint-marks, see F. Paruck,
Sasanian coins, Bombay 1924, 157, 159-63; idem.
Mint-marks on Sasanian and Arab-Sasanian coins, in
Jnal of the Numismatic Soc. of India, vi (1944), 118; R.
Gobi, in F. Altheim and R. Stiehl, Ein Asiatischer

Staat, Wiesbaden 1954, 87-8; idem, Sasanidische
Numismatik, Brunswick 1968, 84; A. Bivar, A Sasa¬
nian hoard from Hilla, in NC (1963), 167-8.

For the Muslim conquest, see Guidi, i, 36;
ii, 30; Ibn Sa c d, vii/1, 3; Baladhuri. 341-4;
Ya c kubi, Ta\Ikh, ii, 163, 166; DTnawari, 123-4;
Tabari, i, 2021-8, 2030, 2202, 2379, 2384-6, 2534;
Yakut, iii, 861-2; iv, 468; Ibn al-Athir. ii, 445, 454,
542. For the captives, see Ibn Sa c d, vii/1, 88, 92,
114; Baladhuri. 344; Tabari, i, 2029, 2387; Ibn al-
At_hir, ii, 488; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat, Beirut 1968,
ii, 72. For the Kuwar Didjla, see Ibn Sa c d, vii/1,
91; Kudama, 235, 239; Ibn Khurradadhbih. 7, 12;
Baladhuri, Ansdb, x, Greifswald 1883, 305; idem,
Futuh, 344-5, 385; Ya c kubi, Ta^rlkh, ii, 181, 277;
Tabari, iii, 1752, 2097; Ibn Rustah, 95; Tha c alibl.
486; Yakut, iii, 227; iv, 319, 714-15; Kazwini,
Athar, 311; S. al- c Ali, Mintakat Wasit (1), in Sumer,
xxvi (1970), 241, 243-4; idem, Mintakat Wasit (2),
169-70. For Abarkubadh, see Ya c kubl, Buldan,
322-3; Hamza, 57; Ibn al-Fakih, 199; Yakut, i,
605; Marasid al-ittila c , Leiden 1862, i, 14; J.
Markwart, Sudarmenien und die Tigrisquellen, Vienna
1930, 199-200. On Dast-i Maysan and

Manadhir, see Ibn Khurradadhbih. 7; Kudama,
126; Baladhuri. Futuh, 385; Tabari, iii, 1958;
Mukaddasi, 114; Ibn Rustah, 94; Yakut, i, 574; ii,
227, 605; iv, 644; Marasid, i, 402; v, 468; Ibn
Khallikan. i, 247-50. ForDjaz 3 b. Mu c awiya,
see Abu Yusuf, Kharddi . Bulak, 1302, 129; Ibn
Sa c d, vii/1, 94; Ibn Sallam, K. al-Amwal, Cairo
1969, 44; Bukhari. Sahlh, Gudjranwalla 1971, iv,
252-3. On Islamic coins, see J. Walker, A cata¬
logue of the Arab-Sasanian coins, London 1941, pp.
xlv, xlviii, lvi, cxvii-cxviii, cxl-cxli, 69-70, 104;
idem, A catalogue of the Arab-Byzantine and post-Reform
Umaiyad coins , London 1956, 168, 185; G. C.
Miles, Abarqubadh, a new Umayyad mint, in A NS
Museum Notes, iv (1950), 115, 117; idem, Rare
Islamic coins, in A NS Numismatic Notes and
Monographs, no. 118, New York 1950, 24-5, 27; H.
Gaube, Arabosasanidische Numismatik, Brunswick
1973, 94. For Nestorian bishoprics under
Islam, see Chabot, Synodicon, 602, 607; idem, Le
livre de la chastete, in Melanges d’archeologie et d’histoire,
xvi, 228; Fiey, 257. On events at al-Madhar in
the lst/7th century, see DTnawari, 312; Tabari, ii,
44-6; Yakut, iv, 468-9; Ibn al-Athir, iii, 365, 431;
iv, 268, 277.

For settlement in al-Basra and Maysan’s
reputation, see Farazdak, Dlwan, Paris 1870,
48-9; Tabari, i, 121, 2538; ii, 160; Isfahan!, Aghanl,
Bulak 1285/1868-9, xvii, 65; xviii, 67; xix, 28, 32;
Fihrist, tr. Dodge, i, 90-1; Yakut, i, 233; iv, 715;
Ibn al-Athir, Beirut 1965, i, 37; Leiden, iii, 494;
MustawlT, Nuzhat al-kulub, Tehran 1336/1958, 30,
tr. Le Strange, Description of Persia and Mesopotamia
in 1340, London 1915-19, 46; al-Husri, Zahr al-
ddab, Cairo 1372/1953, 577; Kahhala, Mu^dfam
kabdHl al- c Arab, Beirut 1967, i, 820-1; I. Goldziher,
Muslim Studies, tr. Stern, London 1967, i, 149.

On early Muslim development, see Bala¬
dhuri, Futuh, 167-8, 368-9, 371; L ugh at al- c Arab, i
(1911), 126. On the Zandj, see Baladhuri, Ansdb,
xi, 303-6; WakT c , Akhbar al-kudat, Cairo 1366/1945,
ii, 57; Ibn al-Athir, iv, 388; Pellat, Milieu, index;
A. Popovic, La revolte des esclaves, Paris 1976; H.
Halm, Die Traditionen uber den Aufstand Ali ibn
Muhammad des “Herrn der Zanj', Bonn 1967, 59-62,
70, 79. On al-Muwaffakiyya, see Tabari, iii,
1989; Ibn al-Athir, vii, 245-6; i, Artuk, Abbasi ve
Anadolu Sel(uklerine ait iki essiz dinar, in Istanbul

MAYSAN — al-MAYSIR

923

Arkeoloji Miizeleri, viii (1958), 44-5; Halm, 110. For
the Karamita, see Ibn al-Athir, vii, 500. On
conditions in the 3rd-4th/9th-10th cen¬
turies, see Kh vv arazml, K. Surat al-ard. , Leipzig
1926, 130; Kudama, 233; Baladhun. Futuh, 292;
Ps.-Djahiz, al-Tabassur bi ’ l-tidjara , Cairo
1354/1935, 21, 32; Ya c kubl, Buldan , 322; Tabari,
iii, 1980; Istakhrl, 81; Ibn Hawkal, K. Surat al-ard ,
Leiden 1938-9, 159; Ibn Rustah, 94-5, 187;
Mas c udT, Murudf, i, 263; idem, Tanbih , 48, 161;
Dodge, Fihrist, ii, 811; Yakut, iv, 838; H. Pognon,
Inscriptions manda'ites des coupes de Khouabir , Paris
1898, 6 , 154, 224-5; M. St reck, Die alte Landschajt
Babylonien nach der arabischen Geographen , Leiden
1900-1, 41-2; al- c AlT, Mintakat Wasit (1), 260-1;
idem, Mintakat Wasit (2) 166, 169.

For the 4th- 6 th/ 1 0th-1 2 th centuries, see
Nasir-i Khusraw, Safar-nama, Tehran 1354/1975,
160; Ibn al-Athir, viii, 371, 396; ix, 306, 403, 624;
xii, 111; Yakut, iv, 469. For Mashan and al-
Harlrl, see Yakut, iv, 536; idem, Irshad , vi, 167;
Kazwlnl, Athar , 308; Abu TFida 5 , Takwim al-
buldan, Paris 1840, 296; C A. al-Hasanl, al- c Irak
kadim an wa-hadith an , Say da 1956, 194.

For the 7th-8th/13th-14th centuries, see
Yakut, i, 603, 770; ii, 553; iii, 11, 745; iv, 468,
714, 830, 840, 947; v, 838; Kazwlnl, 310-11; Abu
’l-Fida 5 , 296; Mustawfi, ed. Le Strange, 46, 207;
Streck, 40; Lughal al- c Arab, i, 126-7; iv, 377-8, 536;
J. Ghanlma, Nuzhat al-mushtak ft ta 7 rikh Yahud al-
'■Irak, Baghdad 1924, 189; al-Hasanl, c Irak, 192-4;
al- c AU, Mintakat Wasit (1), 260-1.

On more recent matters, see C A. al-
c AzzawI, TaSikh al- c Irak bayn al-ihtilalayn , Baghdad
1937-57, iv, 74, 823; vii, 129, 130-1, 136-7, 139,
168, 194; viii, 52, 266, 268, 270; The Middle East
and North Africa , 1982-83, London 1982, 450, 456.

(M. Streck-[M. Morony])
MAYSARA, a Berber chief of the Ma gh rib,
who rebelled against Arab authority in 122/739-40.
He belonged to the tribe of the Matghara/Madghara
and the historians give him the surname of a 1 - H a k I r
“the low-born’’ because he was of humble origin and
had been before his rebellion a water-seller in the
market of al-Kayrawan.

After the recall of Musa b. Nusayr [q. v. ] at the end
of the 1 st/opening of the 8 th century in North Africa,
under the influence of Kharidjite propaganda, incited
by the Arabs’ financial exactions, c Umar b. c Abd Al¬
lah al-Muradl, governor of Tangier, and a grandson
of c Ukba b. Nafi c [q.v.], Habib b. Abl c Ubayda,
governor of Sus, had received orders from the caliphal
representative in Egypt and Ifrlkiya, c Ubayd Allah b.
al-Habhab [q.v.], and were inflicting grievous wrongs
on the Berbers by treating them, as regards taxation,
as a conquered people not converted to Islam, and by
taking the fairest of their women to send as slaves to
Damascus. The general Habib having been sent from
Sus with his troops to the conquest of Sicily, his depar¬
ture was the signal for insurrection. For the first time
in Morocco, a movement on a large scale broke out;
at its head the Berbers put Maysara al-Matgharl, who
assumed the title of caliph. With the related tribes of
the Miknasa and Barghawata [q.v.], Maysara
advanced on Tangier and seized it, killing the gover¬
nor c Umar b. c Abd Allah. The Arabs tried in vain to
withstand him; the governor of Spain, c Ukba b. al-
Had j d j adj. received the order to go and relieve the
town, and after the defeat of the contingent which he
sent, crossed the straits himself; he massacred the
Berbers of the region, but was unable to retake
Tangier, where Maysara left c Abd al-A c la b. Hudaydj

al-Ifrlkl and went on to seize the Sus, whose governor
Isma c Il b. c Ubayd Allah he killed.

However, it was not long before Maysara was
deposed from the leadership and killed by his
followers. His successor, Khalid b. Hamld/Humayd
al-Zanatl, inflicted on the Arabs a bloody defeat on
the banks of the Wadi Shallf (Oued Chelif), a battle
which took place at the beginning of 123/740 and was
known as “the battle of the noble ones’’ ( gh azwal al-
ashraf). It required a great expeditionary force to be
prepared in the East to put an end, not however with¬
out considerable losses, to this general revolt [see
BALDi and kulthum b. c iyad], which had grave reper¬
cussions in Spain, where the Berbers in turn rebelled,
and in North Africa, where it provoked an intense
movement towards Islamisation.

Bibliography : Ibn al-Kutiyya, TaMkh Ijtilah
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43 ff.; F. Gabrieli, II calijfato di Hisham, Alexandria
1935, 92-103, 113-14; E. Levi-Provengal,

L’Espagne musulmane au X e siecle, Paris 1932, 10-14;
idem, Hist. Esp. mus., i, 41 ff.; H. Mu 5 nis, Thawrat
al-BarbarJi Ijnkiya wa ’l-Andalus bayn sanatay 102-136
(721-755), in Madfallat Kulliyyat al-Adab , x/1 (Cairo
1948). (E. Levi-Provencal)

al-MAYSIR (a.), a noun derived from^-i-r “to be
easy, simple’’, a root from which derives, by
antiphrasis, a qualificative of the left hand, al-yusra,
with which the hurda (cf. Hebrew h-r-s and Akkadian
harasu “decide, fix, determine’’), the equivalent of the
sadin of the istiksam [q.v ], shot arrows one by one.
Hence the term maysir could be rendered by “the
game of the left-handed”, although its present
morphological state is inexplicable.

The game consisted of dividing a slaughtered beast
into ten parts, for which the game was played: these
being the thighs and shins of both fore and rear legs,
plus two shoulders. The head and the feet were given
back to the butcher and the remaining inferior pieces
were added proportionally to the ten parts. The best
pieces were called abda? or buduT and the least
esteemed were the thighs of the two fore legs, on
account of the large number of veins which they con¬
tain. The process of the game often required the
slaughtering of numerous beasts, generally camels
(djuzur). In view of the sum total of parts represented
by the seven arrows (28), every time that the arrows
were drawn, the ten parts were soon exhausted.

Two kinds of arrows were used in this game of
chance:

(1) Seven winning arrows (ansiba 7 ), each bearing a
name and with notches {fard. or hazz ), by which they
were identified; and

(2) Three or four white arrows (ghufl, aghf af). neither
winning nor losing.

The winning arrows were named:

(1) al-Fadhdh , “the single (arrow)”, bearing one notch
and winning or losing a single part (= 1/28).

(2) al-Taw 7 am, “the twin (arrow)”, bearing two not¬
ches and winning or losing two parts ( = 2/28).

924

al-MAYSIR — MAYTA

(3) al-Rakib, also called al-Darib , “the (arrow of the)
supervisor” of the game or of the “thrower” of the
lots, bearing three notches and winning or losing three
parts (= 3/28).

(4) al-Hils or al-Halis, “the dressed” or “equipped”
or even “strong (arrow)” (cf. Hebrew h-l-s and
hemes), bearing four notches and winning or losing
four parts ( = 4/28).

(5 ) al-Nafis, “the precious” or “coveted (arrow)”
(name sometimes given to the fourth arrow), bearing
five notches and winning or losing five parts ( = 5/28).

(6) al-Mufsah , “the long and flat (arrow)”, also called
al-Musbil, “the elongated (arrow)”, bearing six not¬
ches and winning or losing six parts ( = 6/28).

(7) al-Mu c alla, “the superior (arrow)”, also called al-
Mighlak, “the (arrow) that closes”, a name also given
to every winning arrow, bearing seven notches and
winning or losing seven parts.

The white arrows bore no notches and their pur¬
pose consisted in slowing ( yuthakkil) the game and
making it more difficult. They are, in fact, “rivets”;
every time that one of them was drawn, it was
immediately replaced in the quiver; thus chances for
the successive drawing of notched arrows steadily
diminished. These were three in number, called:

(1) al-Safih , “the profitless (arrow)” (name given to
the fourth by al-Lihyanl, who puts al-Musaddar in the
first place). Considering the root, it seems that the
shooter would receive the blood of the victim.

(2) al-Manih, “the generous (arrow)”, considered to
be of good omen; its repeated return to the quiver was
a portent of success. The shooter could receive the
hide of the victim (cf. TA, ii, 234, 11. 21 f.).

(3) al-Waghd, “the scoundrel” or “(arrow of) the
miser”, particularly he who does not take part in the
game, afraid of losing; it has the synonym al-baram.

(4) Some place a fourth arrow after the first {TA) or
after the second (al-Lihyani, al-Nuwayri), called al-
Muda^af “the double (arrow).”

The players could not be more than seven in
number; when they were fewer than seven, they
needed to buy the remaining parts in order for the
game to take place. The player who bought these parts
was called al-Tamim “he who completes”. When he
won twice in succession he was called mutammim,
generously donating his winnings to his entourage,
whence the laudatory title of muthanna ’l-ayadl applied
to him, as well as to the one who purchased the parts
which had not been won to give them to the poor. It
is to this charitable act that certain commentators
attribute the term manafT “advantages”, which the
Kurban uses in speaking of maysir and of wine (II,
219).

The players of maysir were called al-aysar (sing.
yasar), and those who presided over the division of the
parts al-yasirun. The archer, called al-hurda , had his
right hand wrapped in a piece of leather or fabric in
order to prevent him identifying the arrows by touch.
A piece of white fabric, called al-midywal, was held
above his hands and a rakib or “supervisor” stood
close beside him, passing him the quiver containing
the arrows when the face of the hurda was averted.
Having taken it, the latter inserted his left hand ( al-
yusra) under the midjival, shook (yunakkir) the arrows,
revealed them to view ( nahada ) one after the other and
handed them to the rakib (for references, see Bibl.).

This is the essence of what is known concerning the
practice of maysir, the details of which had been forgot¬
ten by the Bedouins questioned in the first half of the
3rd/9th century by Abu c Ubayd al-Kasim b. Sallam
al-Harawi (d. 223/837) (cf. T. Fahd, Divination, 208,
n. 2). The reason for this forgetting lies in its prohibi¬

tion by the Kurban, which, in two instances (II, 219
and V, 90) forbids it together with wine, while
acknowledging in both certain “advantages” ( man-
dfi c ). They are seen, primarily, as a diversion from
prayer and, subsequently, a factor of divisiveness and
a cause of hostility among the faithful (v, 91). But,
being condemned along with ansab (idols) and azlam
(divining arrows), they are considered “impure”
practices {ri^s) belonging to pagan cults (v, 90), and
thus it may be supposed that the victims divided up
for drawing by lot were originally blood-sacrifices
offered to deities.

Bibliography : The present article is an
abbreviated form of the analysis of maysir presented
in T. Fahd, La divination arabe. Etudes religieuses,
sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de TIslam,
Leiden 1966, 204-13, where the reader will find
complete references to the numerous sources and
studies used, among which the following are
especially worthy of mention: Ibn Kutayba, K. al-
maysir wa ’l-kidah, ed. Muhibb al-Dln al- Kh atlb.
Cairo 1342/1923; Nuwayrf, Nihayat al-arab, iii, 114-
15 (German tr. and comm, by A. Huber, Uber das
“ Meisir ” genannle Spiel der heidnischen Araber; Arabic
text with Latin translation by Rasmussen,
Additamentum , 67/61); Zabldl (author of TA),
Nashwat al-irtiyah fi bayan hakikat al-maysir wa 7-
kidah, ed. Landberg, in Primeurs arabes , i, 29-38; see
also Divination, 212, n. 6; Freitag, Einleitung in das
Studium der arabischen Sprache , Bonn 1861, 170-83;
G. Jacob, Ramadan, Greifswald 1895, 110-13.

(T. Fahd)

MAYSUN, daughter of the Kalbl chief Bahdal b.
Unayf [< 7 -p.], mother of the caliph Yazld I. We
do not know if after her marriage with Mu c awiya she
retained the Christian religion which had been that of
her family and of her tribe. A few verses are attributed
to her in which she sighs for the desert and shows very
slight attachment for her husband (see Noldeke,
Delectus, 25). But the attribution to Maysun of this
fragment of poetry, which is in any case old, has been
rightly disputed. She took a great interest in the
education of her son Yazld and accompanied him to
the desert of the Kalb where the prince passed a part
of his youth; this temporary separation from her hus¬
band gave rise to the legend of her repudiation by
Mu c awiya. She must have died before Yazld became
caliph.

Bibliography : Given in Lammens. Etudes sur
le regne du calife omaiyade Mo^awia I, in MFOB, iii
(1906-8), 286-7, 305, 312-14. (H. Lammens)

MAYSUR [see mahisur].

MAYTA (a.), feminine of mayt, dead (used of irra¬
tional beings); as a substantive it means an animal
that has died in any way other than by
slaughter. In later terminology, the word means
firstly an animal that has not been slain in the ritually
prescribed fashion, the flesh of which therefore cannot
be eaten, and secondly all parts of animals whose flesh
cannot be eaten, whether because not properly
slaughtered or as a result of a general prohibition
against eating them.

In addition to sura XXXVI, 33, where mayta
appears as an adjective, the word occurs in the follow¬
ing passages in the Kur 5 an in the first of these mean¬
ings: XXI, 116: “He has forbidden you mayta, blood,
pork and that over which another than Allah has been
invoked; if however anyone is forced [to eat these
without wishing to transgress or sin, Allah is mercifu
and indulgent” (from the third Meccan period, since
VI, 119 may refer to this context and the appearance
of the same exception for cases of coercion in VI, 146

MAYTA

925

(cf. below) is then only easily explained in view of the
whole trend of the passage, if there were an earlier
passage, namely XVI, 116, in which it was given full
justification; cf. Noldeke-Schwally, Geschichte des
Qorans, i, 146-7; Grimme, Mohammed , ii, 26, transfers
the whole sura to the later Meccan period); VI, 140,
146: “They have said: ‘What is in the womb of this
cattle belongs to the males, and is forbidden to our
females’; but if it is mayta (stillborn), all have a share
in it ... Say: I find in what is revealed to me nothing
forbidden, which must not be eaten, except it be mayta
or congealed blood or pork—for this is filth—or a
slaughter at which another than Allah is invoked, but
if anyone is forced [to eat it] without wishing to com¬
mit a transgression or sin, thy heart is merciful and
indulgent” (of the third Meccan period; cf. Noldeke-
Schwally, i, 161; Grimme, ii, 26); II, 168: “He has
forbidden you mayta , blood, pork and that over which
another than Allah is invoked but if anyone is forced
[to eat it] without wishing to commit a sin or trans¬
gression, it is not reckoned as a sin against him; Allah
is merciful and indulgent” (from the year 2 of the
hid£ra, before the battle of Badr; cf. Noldeke-Schwally,
i, 178; Grimme, ii, 27): vv. 4-5: “Forbidden to you
is mayta , blood, pork, that over which another than
Allah is invoked, and that which has been strangled,
killed by a blow or a fall, or by the horns [of another
beast], that which has been eaten by wild beasts—with
the exception of what is made pure—and that which
has been sacrified to idols ... But if anyone in [his]
hunger is forced to eat of them without wishing to
commit a sin, Allah is merciful and indulgent” (in all
probability revealed after the valedictory pilgrimage
of the year 10; cf. Noldeke-Schwally, i, 227-8;
Grimme, ii, 28, dates the sura to the year 7).

It is quite evident from sura, XI, 140, that the mayta
was of some significance for the Meccans in the many
laws about food with which Arab paganism was
acquainted (cf. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen
Heidenturns 2 , 168 ff.). Although it is no longer possible
to define exactly the part it played (even the
statements recorded by al-Tabari from the earliest
interpreters of this passage, which moreover only
refers to a detail, reveal the complete disappearance of
any reliable tradition), it may be assumed without
misgiving that the Kur 5 anic prohibition contained a
corresponding pre-Islamic prohibition, although it
perhaps modified it. Both go back to the religious
reluctance to consume the blood of animals, and
indeed in all the Kurban passages quoted, blood is
mentioned alongside of mayta. It is unnecessary to
assume that Muhammad was influenced by Judaism
on this point, and the suggestion may be rejected
especially as the prohibition in its stereotyped form
occurs again in sura II, 168, just at the time of
vigorous reaction against Judaism, and in sura VI,
147 (Medinan, a late insertion) which contrasts the
prohibition of mayta , etc., with the Jewish laws
relating to food. The meaning of mayta is explained in
the latest passage dealing with it, v. 4: in the second
half of the verse the principal kinds of mayta are given
(with the exception of the animal that dies of disease),
which had already been mentioned in general terms;
the commentators were thus able to interpret the
single cases given as examples wrongly as being dif¬
ferent from the mayta proper. The purification (in the
Kurban only mentioned in this passage) must mean
ritual slaughter, by which, even if done at the last
moment, the animal does not become mayta but can be
eaten.

These prescriptions of the Kurban are further
developed in the traditions. According to the latter, it

is forbidden to trade in mayta or, more accurately, its
edible parts; some traditions (mainly on the authority
of Ahmad b. Hanbal) even forbid any use being made
of all that comes from mayta\ others again expressly
permit the use of hides of mayta. An exception from
the prohibition ot mayta is made in the cases of fish and
locusts; these are in general considered as the two
kinds of mayta that are permitted, i.e. no ritual
slaughter is demanded in their case (because they have
no “blood”, cf. above). While some traditions,
extending this permission by the earliest kiyas, say that
all creatures of the sea, not only fishes, can be eaten
without ritual slaughter, including even seafowl (in
this case it is said that “the sea has performed the
ritual slaughter”), others limit the permission to those
animals and fishes which the sea casts up on the land
or the tide leaves behind, in contrast to those which
swim about on the water. But there is also quoted a
saying of Abu Bakr expressly declaring what swims on
the surface to be permitted. In this connection, we
have the story of a monster cast up by the sea (some¬
times described as a fish) which fed a Muslim army
under the leadership of Abu c Ubayda when they were
in dire straits; but in this tradition and in the inter¬
pretation that has been given it (that they only ate of
it out of hunger i.e. took advantage of the Kur^anic
permission for cases of need) is clearly reflected the
uncertainty that prevailed about such questions which
were on the border line. In the traditions, we find it
first laid down that portions cut out of living animals
are also considered mayta. The way is at least paved
for the declaration that all forbidden animal-dishes
arc mayta. The regulations found in the Kurban
appear again here, e.g. the permission to eat mayta in
case of need and to slay properly dying animals at the
moment to prevent them becoming mayta.

Some traditions handed down through Hammad
from Ibrahim al-Nakha c I bring us to a somewhat late
period (in the Kitab al-Athdr ): one says that of the
creatures of the sea, only fishes can be eaten; another,
which is found in two versions, limits the permission
to what is thrown up by the sea or left behind by the
tide; ritual slaughter is not demanded in this case. The
question whether the embryo of a slaughtered dam
requires a special purification, i.e. ritual slaughter, is
raised in one tradition and decided in the affirmative.

The most important regulations of Muslim law
about mayta , which express the last stage of develop¬
ment, are as follows. It is unanimously agreed that
mayta in the legal sense is impure and “forbidden”
( hardm ), i.e. cannot be eaten, and also that fish are
exceptions to this; the Malikls and Hanbalis also
except the majority of creatures of the sea, and
according to the more correct Shafi c I view, this applies
to all marine creatures (the Hanbalis here hold the
opinion of Ibrahim al-Nakha c I. except that the two
ideas of “thrown up” and “swimming on the sur¬
face” are later overlaid and destroyed by the to some
extent synonymous phrase “slain by another cause”,
“died of itself’). The edible parts of mayta are also
mayta, as are the bones, hair etc. among the Shaft c Is.
but not the Hanafis, and among the Malikls only the
bones; the hide, when tanned, is considered pure and
may be used. Emergency slaughter (dhakai or tadhkiya\
ritual slaughter in general is dhabh or nahr ) is, accord¬
ing to the Hanafis and the better-known view of the
Shaffls (also according to al-Zuhrl), permitted, even
if the animal will certainly die, provided it still shows
signs of life at the moment of slaughter. According to
the view predominant among the Malikls, such
slaughter is not valid and the animal becomes mayta
(in contrast to Malik’s own view). The question of the

926

MAYTA — MAYURKA

embryo (cf. above) is answered in the affirmative by
the HanafTs, following Ibrahim al-Nakha c I and Abu
Hanifa (al-Shavban! himself held the Malik! view, to
be mentioned immediately below) but in the negative
by the Malikis and Shafi c !s (in this case, it is said that
“the ritual slaughter of the dam is also the ritual
slaughter of the embryo”), except that the Malikis
made it a condition that the embryo should be fully
developed (Malik himself also demanded its slaughter
“to draw the blood from it” in the case where the
embryo had been dropped). That anyone who is
forced to eat mayta may do so, is the unanimous opin¬
ion; only on the questions whether one is bound to eat
mayta to save his life, whether he should satisfy his
hunger completely, or only eat the minimum to keep
life alive, etc., is there a difference of opinion. The
Shafi c Is and Hanbalfs further demand that one should
not have been brought to these straits through illegal
action (a different interpretation of the Kur’anic
regulations).

A clear definition of mayta and its distinction from
other kinds of forbidden animal foods was never
reached. Sometimes it is separated on the authority of
the Kur 5 anic passage itself from its own four subdi-
vions given in sura V. Sometimes its validity is
extended over extensive allied fields. As is evident
from the fikh books, this terminological uncertainty
has not infrequently caused still further confusion in
the discussion of differences of opinion.

Bibliography : Lane, Lexicon , s.v.; the books
of hadith and fikh; Wensinck, Handbook of early
Muhammadan tradition , s.v.; Juynboll, Handleiding lot
de kennis van de Mohammedaansche Wet 3 , 169-70; E.
Graf, Schlachttier und Jagdbeute im islamischen Recht,
Bonn 1959; J. Schacht, An introduction to Islamic law ,
Oxford 1964, 134. (J. Schacht)

MAYURKA, Majorca or Mallorca, name of the
largest (umm) of the Balearic islands (or
eastern islands of al-Andalus: al-dja.za?ir al-sharkiyya ),
the others being Minurka (Minorca or Menorca) and
Yabisa (Ibiza). Its name figures as early as the Cronica
del Moro Rasis , ed. D. Catalan, 13. At approximately
the same distance from Ibiza to the west and from
Minorca to the east, it is situated four days’ sailing
time from Sardinia (Sardaniya) according to al-Idrls!
{Maghrib, text 214, tr. 266) and lies opposite Bougie
(al-Himyari, al-Rawd al-miHar, text 188-91, tr. 228-
31). Al-Himyari, Ibn Sa c id ( Mughrib, ii, 466) and al-
Zuhr! {K. al- Dia ^rdfiya. 177-9) differ as to the terrain
of the island. According to the testimony of this last-
named author in particular, and according to the data
supplied by Christian sources following the Catalan-
Aragonese conquest of the 13th century, the island,
which enjoyed a fine climate, was fertile and possessed
abundant resources, especially cereals, fruits, trees,
pack-animals, sheep and cattle, horses and mules, a
few goats, and also, for hunting, hares, rabbits and
foxes. Cotton and flax were cultivated there, but silk
was an imported commodity (Ibn Sa c Id, in E.
Fagnan, Extraits inedits , 23, 24). Curiously there is no
mention of the olive and the raisin, but their existence
cannot be doubted, nor that of the fig; cultivation of
these products, of little significance during the Islamic
occupation, was developed subsequently. A Flemish
document of the 13th century mentions rice as one of
the principal commodities exported from Majorca to
Flanders, but there is no evidence for the cultivation
of this product in the Islamic period. From the work
of al-Zuhr! (178) and from other sources, it appears
that the town and the island were endowed with a
good defensive system and substantial buildings.
Nothing is known of the situation of Majorca and

its dependencies at the time of the first Arab incur¬
sions into the western Mediterranean. It may
reasonably be assumed that it comprised a population
which was at first Romanised, later Christianised, of
Hispano-Roman descent, and possibly some Jews. In
the K. al-Imama wa ’l-siyasa (ed. T.M. al-Zaym, n. p.,
n.d., i, 73), in the Annales of Ibn al-Athir (33), the
M ugh rib of Ibn Sa c !d (ii, 466) and the Analectes of al-
Makkari (i, 177), there is mention of a first incursion
carried out in 89/707-8, from the direction of Ifnkiya,
by the son of Musa b. Nusayr, c Abd Allah, who—
according to one of these sources—was the fatih
Mayurka , who captured its king ( malik ) and who took
possession of a rich store of booty. Other sources,
including Ibn c Idhar! {Bayan, ii, text 89, tr. 145), who
speaks of a state of revolt and of a refusal to pay the
levies due for the years 234 and 235/846-50, give the
impression that, subjected to a treaty and required to
pay the djizya and possibly other contributions, the
Majorcans refused on more than one occasion and
lived for a considerable period of time in a state of
more or less nominal independence until the conquest
of the island in the time of the amir Muhammad I (al-
Zuhrl, 178) or until the arrival, in 290/902-3, of c Isam
al-Khawlan! who contributed to the Islamisation of
the island by constructing hostelries, baths and mos¬
ques (Ibn Khaldun. Hbar, iv, 164), all this after the
island had suffered, in 255/869, the devastating effects
of a Norman invasion. Majorca was a constant source
of difficulties for the Cordovan administration, to
such an extent that in 336/947-8 al-Nasir was obliged
to send his katib Dja c far b. c Uthman al-Mushaf! to
restore order there {Bayan, ii, text 215, tr. 356). In the
5th/llth century, there begins a new period in the
history of Majorca. Annexed to the kingdom of
Mudjahid [q.v. ) of Denia (see Clelia Sarnelli Cerqua,
Mudjahid al- c Amiri kd^id al-ustul al- c arabiji gharbi al-bahr
al-mutawassit, Cairo 1961), the islands became the cen¬
tre of intense piratical activity. After the disap¬
pearance of c All b. Mudjahid and the incorporation of
Denia, in 468/1076, into the kingdom of the Banu
Hud [q.v. ] of Saragossa (Afif Turk, El reino de Zaragoza
en el siglo XI de Cristo {V de la Hegira ), Madrid 1978,
109-14), there followed, from 480 to 508/1087-1115,
some obscure years of independence during which the
islands, having undergone a devastating attack on the
part of the Pisans and the Catalans, were occupied by
the Almoravids. The rule of the latter, continued,
after their collapse and their disappearance from the
Iberian peninsula and North Africa, with the dynasty
of the Banu Ghaniya [qv.] until the occupation of the
island by the Almohads in 599/1202-3 (see especially
al-Himyari, al-Rawd al-mi^tar, text 189-91, tr. 228-
31). The reign of the Almohads represents a period of
obscurity which lasted until the year 627/1229 when
James I of Aragon put an end to Islamic domination;
the last centre of resistance were crushed in Rabi^ I
628/January-February 1231.

Majorca was Islamised and Arabised from the 4th
to the 6th century/10th to the 12th, and under the
Almoravids and the Almohads its ethnic composition
became increasingly Berberised, a factor which has
left visible traces in the toponomy of the Baleares (M.
Barcelo, De toponimia tribal i clanica berber a les Hies orien¬
tals d ’al-Andalus, Societat Onomastica, Buttletf
interior, vii Colloqui Mallorca, April 1982, 426; A.
Poveda Sanchez, Introduction al estudio de la toponimia
arabe-musulmana de Mayurqa , segun la documentacion de los
archivos de la ciutat de Mallorca (1232-1276), in Awraq, iii
[1980], 76-100). Majorca displayed, especially from
the 5th to the 7th/l 1th-13th centuries, an intensive
cultural activity (D. Urvoy, La vie intellectuelle et

MAYURKA — MAYY ZIYADA

927

spirituelle dans les Baleares musulmanes, in And., xxxvii
[1972], 87-132). The other islands were also con¬
quered by the Catalan-Aragonese: Ibiza in 632/1235
and Minorca in 686/1287.

Bibliography : Besides the works mentioned,
see Guillem Rosello Bordoy, L’Islam a les llles
Balears, Palma, Majorca 1968, which contains fuller
references to the Arabic sources and puts into con¬
text the information supplied by the classic work of
Alvaro Campaner y Fuertes, Bosquejo historico de la
dominacion islamita en las Islas Baleares , Palma 1888.
Also see the works of Miquel Barcelo (extensive
bibliography), A. Poveda Sanchez and Richard
Soto, author inter alia of Quart Mallorca era Mayurqa,
in L } Avene;, xvi (May 1979), 25-33 and of Mesquites
urbanes i mesquites rurales a Mayurqa , in Butlleti de la
Soc. arqueologica Luliana , any xcv (1979), no. xxxvii,
114-35. On the subject of Minorca, E. Molina
Lopez, El gobierno independiente de Menorca y sus rela-
ciones con al-Andalus e ljriqiya , in Revista de Menorca,
Mahon 1982, 5-88. Also recommended is M. de
Epalza, Origenes de la invasion cordobesa de Mallorca en
902, in Estudis de Prehistoria, d’Historia de Mayurqa i
d’Histdria de Mallorca dedicats a Guillem Rosello i Bor¬
doy , Majorca 1982, 113-129 (these Estudis also con¬
tain other interesting articles).

(J. Bosch Vila)

al-MAYURKI, the nisba of several persons
originally from Majorca (Mayurka [<?.*>.]) or
residents of the island. In his Mu c dyam al-buldan , iv,
720-3, s.v. Mayurka, Yakut mentions a certain
number.

In addition to al-Humaydl [q.v.\, the best-known
person with this last nisba, one should mention the
name of Abu THasan c Ali b. Ahmad b. c Abd al- c Az!z
b. Tunayz, who seems to have led quite a lively
existence. According to Yakut, iv, 722-3, he was a
good grammarian (cf. al-Suyuti, Bughya, 327) who
was also concerned with the Kur 5 an readings; he
naturally collected hadiths at Damascus, Basra and
elsewhere. He is said to have gone to c Uman and the
land of the Zandj, where he stayed for some time
before returning to die at Kazimayn, near Ba gh dad
(rather than at Basra, in Yakut’s second version) in
ca. 475/1082. Two verses by him are cited by Yakut
and al-Suyutl, but others are preserved in the Escurial
ms. 467/2 (Derenbourg). See Brockelmann, S I, 479.

Another MayurkI worthy of notice is a Christian
convert to Islam, Fray Anselmo Turmeda, better
known under the name of c Abd Allah al-Tardjuman
[see al-tardjuman). (Ed.)

MAYY ZIYADA, pen name of Mar! Ilyas
Ziyada, pioneer writer of poetry in prose,
essayist, orator and journalist in Arabic,
French and English; translator from several European
languages; and a zealous feminist who defended the
case of Arab women’s education and freedom.

Born in Nazareth on 11 February 1886 to a
Lebanese Christian father who worked as a teacher
and journalist, and a Galilee mother from a village
near Nazareth, Mayy received a French education at
St. Joseph’s School in Nazareth (1892-9), in c Ayntura
in Lebanon (1900-4), and at the Lazarist Nuns in
Beirut (1904-8). In 1908 her parents emigrated to
Cairo, where her father was appointed as the editor of
the journal al-Mahrusa. Her first literary work was a
booklet of a collection of romantic poems and poems
in prose in French, influenced by Lamartine and
dedicated to him, entitled Fleurs de reve (Cairo 1911).
It was published under the pseudonym of Isis Copia.
Djamil Djabr translated it into Arabic as Azdhir hulm
(Beirut 1952).

In Egypt she studied various European languages
and European romantic poets and writers, and
became interested in European feminist activities. She
also came under the influence of Arabic Islamic
culture, especially through Lutfi al-Sayyid \q.v.\. She
published in al-Mahrusa novels by European writers
which she translated into Arabic, and later these were
published in book form. Some of these were from the
French: Brada’s novel Le retour du flot , which she enti¬
tled Rudyu c al-mawdja (1925); a novel by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, The Refugees , which she entitled al-Hubb
fi ’l- c adhab (1925) and from German the novel Deutsche
Liebe by F. Max Muller under the title lbtisamdt wa-
dumu c (Cairo 1911).

In 1916 she joined the Egyptian University ( al-
PiamFa al-Misriyya), where she studied literature and
philosophy. She also collected her social essays which
were published in al-Mahrusa and other Arabic jour¬
nals under the title Sawanih fatal (Cairo 1922). She
took an active part in the social and cultural life in
Lebanon and Egypt by lecturing at mixed meetings of
men and women in various clubs and societies such as
Fatat Misr, where she lectured on Ghayat al-liaydt
(Cairo 1921). She published articles in various
journals—in Arabic, al-Mahrusa , al-Muktataf', al-Hilal,
al-Ahrdm , and al-Siyasa al-Usbu : iyya ; in French, Sphynx,
Le Progres Egyptien\ and in English, The Egyptian
Mail —on various cultural subjects such as Arabic
language and literature, Arab and Eastern women
and the awakening of the Eastern nations such as the
Turkish and the Japanese. She defended the
“spiritualism of the East’’ as opposed to the
materialism of the West, but condemned the poverty,
illiteracy and illness which prevailed in the East. Her
lectures were collected in her book Kalimat wa-ishdrdt,
(Cairo 1922). Her articles on French and Arab per¬
sonalities she collected in her book al-Saha^if (Cairo
1924), and on Arabic language and literature in Bayn
al-dyazr wa ’ l-madd (Cairo 1924). Her collection of
romantic and lyrical poetry-in-prose (shi c r manthur )
influenced by Khalil Djabran [q. v. ] she published in
her book Zulumdt wa-ashi^a (Cairo 1923) in which she
expressed her pantheism.

In her essays she called for brotherhood, justice,
mercy and secular humanism. Yet Mayy did not
believe in equality in society. She expressed her ideas
on aristocracy, slavery, passive and revolutionary
socialism, democracy, anarchism and nihilism in her
book al-Musdwat (Cairo 1922), where she ended her
discussion with a play emphasising that equality in
society is impossible.

In various works, Mayy extolled the literary
achievements of her contemporary Arab pioneer
poetesses and writers such as in Bahithal al-Badiya
(pseudonym of Malak HifnT Nasif \q.v. ])_ (Cairo
1920), Warda al-Yazidyi (Cairo 1924), and c Alisha al-
Taymuriyya , published in serial form in al-Muktataf
(1923-5) and in book form in 1956.

French literary and cultural life made a great
impression on Mayy. She styled her weekly salon
according to Mme de Rambouillet. Her circle, which
exercised deep influence on Egyptian literary and
cultural life, included eminent Egyptian and Syro-
Lebanese men and women of the pen such as Malak
HifnT Nasif and Huda Sha c rawl, the poets Isma c Il
SabrI, Ahmad Shawkl. Hafiz Ibrahim, Mustafa Sadik
al-Rafi c T, Wall al-Dln Yagan and Kh alil Mutran, and
writers such as Lutfi al-Sayyid, Shibll Shumayvil.
Mustafa c Abd al-Razik, Salim Sarkis, Salama Musa,
Ya c kub Sarruf, Taha Husayn and c Abbas Mahmud
al- c Akkad. In her salon, literary and cultural ques¬
tions, and philosophical and scientific trends, were

928 MAYY ZIYADA — MAYYAFARIKIN

discussed and poems were read. Many writers said
that some of these personalities were in love with
Mayy; yet it is agreed that her great love was Djabran
whom, though she corresponded with him, she never
met in person.

Mme de Sevigne was her example for literary cor¬
respondence. Beside Djabran and the attendants of
her salon, she corresponded also with Salma Savi gh
and Amin al-Rihanl. Some of these letters were col¬
lected and published by the Lebanese Djamil Djabr in
his book Mayy wa-Djabran (Beirut 1950), RasdHl Mayy
(2nd ed. Beirut 1954) and by Tahir al-Tunnahi in
Atydj min haydt Mayy (Cairo 1974). A common fault
among Arab writers is that they have looked at Rasa^il
Mayy (1948) by Madeleine Arkash as a collection of
Mayy Ziyada’s genuine letters while, in fact, these are
imaginary letters giving advice to women on problems
of life.

Mayy’s style is influenced by Christian Arabic
liturgical literature and the French Romantics. She
treats her subjects emotionally and metaphorically,
loading them with allusions to French and Arabic
history and culture.

The deaths of her father in 1930, of Djabran in

1931 and of her mother in 1932 made her feel lonely
and deserted. Her journeys to France and England in

1932 and then to Rome did not release her from her
melancholy. In 1935 her relatives suspected her of
neurasthenia and hysteria; they lured her back to
Lebanon and she was put into a mental hospital for
nine months. The Lebanese journal al-Makshuf
defended her case with the help of her friends Amin
al-Rihanl, Charles Malik and Kustantln Zurayk and
Prince c Abd al-Kadir al-Djaza 5 irI, and she was
released from hospital. Two years later she returned
to Cairo, where she died on 19 October 1941. In 1975
Mu 5 assasat Nawfal in Beirut published all Mayy’s
works and translations, twelve in number.

Bibliography (in addition to the works men¬
tioned in the text): Y. A. Daghir, Mafddir al-dirdsa
al-adabiyya , Beirut 1956, ii, 435-41; Muhammad
c Abd al-Ghanl Hasan, Haydt Mayy, Cairo 1942;
Amal Da c uk Sa c d, Fann al-murdsala Hnda Mayy
Ziyada, Beirut 1982; Djamil Djabr, Mayy fi hayatiha
al-mudtariba, Beirut 1953; and Mayy Ziyada fi
hayatiha wa-adabiha, Beirut 1960; c Abd al-Latlf
Sharara, Mayy Ziyada , Beirut 1965; Man$ur Fahml,
Mayy Ziyada wa-raHddt al-adab al- c arabi al-hadith
Cairo 1954; T. Khemiri, Leaders in contemporary
Arabic literature. Pi. 1, in WI, ix/2-4 (1930), 24-7; I.
Kratchkovsky, Proben der neu-arabischen Literatur
(1880-1925), in MSOS, xxxi/2 (1928), 196-7; E.
Rossi, Una scrittrice araba cattolica Mayy (Marie
Ziyddah), in OM, v, no. 11 (Nov. 1925), 604-13;
Brockelmann, S III, 259-62; N. K. Kotsarev,
Pisateli Egipta, XX vek , Moscow 1975, 136-7.

(S. Moreh)

MAYYAFARIKIN, a t own in the northeast
of Diyar Bakr [<?. b.]. The other Islamic forms of
the name are Mafarkln, Mafarkln, Farkln (whence
the name of origin al-Farikl), etc. The town is called
in Greek Martyropolis, in Syriac Mlpherket, in
Armenian Nphkert (later Muharkin, Muphargin).
According to Yakut, iv, 702, the old name of the town
was Madur-?ala (read kdla < *malur-khalakh in Arme¬
nian, “town of the martyrs”). On the identification of
Tigranocerta with Mayyafarikln, see below.

1. Topography and early history.

Geography. The town lies to the south of the lit¬
tle range of the Hazro which rises like the first tier of
the amphitheatre of the mountains, the higher parts of

which consist of the summits (Darkosh. Antok) rising
to the south of Mush and separating the course of the
eastern Euphrates (Murad cay) from those of the
Tigris and its left-bank tributaries.

Mayyafarikln lies 25 miles north of the Tigris and
12 west of the Batman-Su. It is watered by a little
river (now called the Farkln-Su) which flows into the
Batman-$u 12 miles to the southeast, an important
left-bank tributary of the Tigris which drains the wild
and mountainous country south of Mush (the cantons
of Kulp and Sasun). The old names of the Batman-$u
are Nicephorius (Roman period), Nymphios (Byzan¬
tine period), Syriac Kallath, Arabic Satldama (a word
of Aramaic origin transcribed Shithithma in Arme¬
nian and explained as “drinker of blood”; Armenian
Geography of the 7th century = Marquart, Erdnsahr,
161), Armenian Khalirt and perhaps Mamushel
(Faustus of Byzantium). Some of these identifications,
as we shall see, are still uncertain.

Mayyafarikln is the meeting-place of a number of
roads from the north following the different streams
which go to form the Batman-Su: 1. Caba khdj ur (on
the Murad cay) — Dhu ’l-Karnayn — Lldje —
Boshat — Mayyafarikln; 2. Mush — Kulp — Pasur

— Mayyafarikln; 3. Mush — Khoyt — Tingirt
( = Sasun) — Mayyafarikln. Routes 3 and 4 passing
Sasun are still little known. The distance between
Diyarbakr and Mayyafarikln is about 45 miles. The
old road Diyarbakr — Bitlls, which used to run
through Mayyafarikln, now runs farther south and
crosses the Batman-Su south of Almadln (Diyarbakr

— Sinan — Zok — Weisikarani — Bitlls).

Mayyafarikln has thus lost the advantage of being

a stage on the road between Armenia and upper
Mesopotamia. Since 1260 it has no longer been a
political centre around which gravitated the interests
of the surrounding country. It retains only its impor¬
tance as a market for the produce of the mountainous
and pastoral country drained by the Batman-Su.

Ancient history. The mountains to the north of
Mayyafarikln have long sheltered the remnants of
ancient aboriginal peoples. About 600 A.D.,

Georgius Cyprius (ed. Gelzer, 48), mentions the
XoOatxat and Eocvaaouvccoct there who gave their names
to the districts of Khoyt and Sasun. Marquart (1916)
supposes there are elements of the aboriginal language
in names like *M-ipher-ket and *Ma-mushel(i) which
are, he says, formed with Caucasian (“siidkau-
kasisch”?) prefixes. According to tradition (Yakut, iv,
703), the founder of Martyropolis, Marutha b.
Layuta, was the son of a woman on the mountains,
and Marquart sees in Layuta a mutilated form of the
name of the people Urta(n) < Urartu (Handes Amsorya
[1915], 96; [1916], 126). The Marwanid Abu Nasr
(see section 2. below) was married to the daughter of
Sankharlb. lord of the Sanasuna; cf. Amedroz, in
JRAS (1903).

Lehmann-Haupt thought that he could recognise at
Mayyafarikln traces of an ancient Assyrian settle¬
ment, “eine von Haus aus assyrische Anlage” (Arme¬
nian, i, 396, 398).

Tigranocerta = Mayyafarikln (?). As early
as 1838, von Moltke had suggested that Mayyafarikln
was the ancient Tigranocerta, i.e. the new capital
founded by Tigranes II about 80 B.C., which was
taken by Lucullus after the victory won on the banks
of the Nicephorius (6 Oct. 69 B.C.) and again in the
reign of Nero by the legate Corbulo (ca. 63 A.D.); it
is regularly mentioned down to the middle of the 4th
century A.D. Other scholars had sought Tigranocerta
at Si c irt (d’Anville), Arzan (H. Kiepert, 1873), near
Kefr-Djoz (Kiepert 1875), at Tell-Armen west of

MAYYAFARIKIN

929

Nislbln (E. Sachau; cf. dunaysir), etc. Late Arme¬
nian tradition gives the name Tigranocerta to Diyar-
bakr. Moltke’s idea was taken up vigorously by
Lehmann-Haupt and W. Belck after their expedition
to Armenia in 1898-9.

On the north wall of Mayyafarikin is a multilated
Greek inscription. It was deciphered and published by
Lehmann-Haupt, who attributes it to the Armenian
King Pap (369-74), which is quite in keeping with the
known facts of the reign of this monarch. In spite of
his criticism of the details of Lehmann-Haupt’s
hypothesis, Marquart (1916) has rather corroborated
him by bringing forward new considerations.

In view of the many contradictions found in the
classical sources regarding Tigranocerta, the question
comes to be, if Mayyafarikin is not Tigranocerta,
what other unknown town existed here in the time of
Pap, unless the stones on which the inscription is
engraved and which are now hopelessly dissarranged
(“in heilloser Verwirrung”) were brought from
another place when Martyropolis was being built?

The main objection to the identification of
Tigranocerta with Mayyafarikin is that, according to
Eutropius, vi, 9, 1 and Faustus, v, 24, Tigranocerta
was in Arzanene (Aldznikh); on the other hand, the
river Mamushel seems to have formed in the 4th cen¬
tury the western frontier of this latter province. From
this fact (Hiibschmann, Die altarmen. Ortsnamen,
Indogerm. Forsch., Leipzig 1904, 473-5), it seems that
Tigranocerta ought to be placed east of the Batman-
Su if this river is identical with the Mamushel. This
last name was connected by Marquart with the name
al-Musuliyat, which al-Mukaddasi, 144, gives to one
of the tributaries of the Tigris (on the left bank) and
apparently corresponding to the Batman-Su. (A
district of Musuliya (?) still exists farther east on the
upper course of the Bidlls cay, in the area of the
ancient possessions of the Batrlk Mushallk; cf.
Kisrawl, in Yakut, ii, 551-2.)

To reconcile the statements of Faustus, iv, 24, 27,
with the position of Mayyafarikin (12 miles west of the
Batman-$u), Marquart proposes to identify the
Mamushel = Nicephorius with the Farkln-Su, while
the Musuliyat would be applied to the whole system
of the Batman-Su (Nymphios, Satldama, etc.). The
insignificance of the Farkln-Su, which rises in the hills
about 3 miles north of Mayyafarikin (Ibn al-Azrak
calls its source Ra 3 s al- c Ayn; the Diihan-numd . 437,
c Ayn al-Hawd) and does not suit the description of the
hermitage of Mambre, which, according to Faustus,
must have been on the right bank, makes Marquart’s
hypothesis less attractive. If finally we consider the
position of Mayyafarikin from the point of view of the
interests of Tigranes, one is forced to admit that
against an enemy coming from the west (Lucullus!)
Tigranocerta = Mayyafarikin was devoid of natural
defences, while in the event of an enemy coming from
the east it ran the risk of being easily cut off from
Armenia on the main road from Bitlls (the ancient
KXeiaoopa BaXaXetacov, cf. Tomaschek, Sasun in SBA W
Wien [Vienna 1895], 8). On the other hand,
Mayyafarikin from its position later played an impor¬
tant part in the defensive system of the Byzantine
empire.

In these circumstances and before a more detailed
study has been made on the spot, it is a mistake to
think that all the difficulties in the identification of
Tigranocerta have been cleared up.

Mayyafarikin = Martyropolis. The iden¬
tity of these two towns is quite certain. The Christian
sources (Syriac, Armenian and Greek) referring to the
foundation of Martyropolis are numerous. A Syriac

“history” ( tashHtha ) kept in the Jacobite church of
Mayyafarikin was translated for the historian of the
town Ibn al-Azrak and is given in a synopsis in Yakut,
iv, 703-7 and al-KazwInl, ii, 379-80 (tr. with notes by
Marquart, in Handes Amsorya [1916], 125-35).

The town is said to have been founded on the site
of a “large village” (karya c aztma) by the bishop
Marutha) (Mar Marutha) who had obtained the
authority of Yazdigird I of Persia to do so. This
ecclesiastic flourished between ca. 383 and 420 (on the
sources for his biography, cf. Marquart, op. cit. , 91-2,
125). The town of Martyropolis to which Marutha
brought the remains of the Christian martyrs of Persia
is mentioned for the first time in 410. The etymology
of the Syriac name Mlpherket is uncertain (cf. above).
In Amenian, the town is mentioned for the first time
in the Geography of the 7th century as Nphrkert (once
Nphret).

By the peace of 297 with Diocletian, the province of
Sophanene, within which Martyropolis lay, had
become part of the Roman empire. Even after the
disastrous peace made by Jovian in 363, Sophanene
remained to the Emperor. Under Theodosius II (401 -
50), the new town, situated quite near the frontier,
acquired considerable importance and became the
capital of Sophanene (= Great Tsopkh). The town
was still insufficiently fortified, and in 502 the Sasa-
nian Kawadh b. Peroz seized it and carried the
inhabitants off to Khuzistan, where he founded for
them the town of Abaz-Kubadh (Yakut, iv, 707)
Weh-Amidh-Kawadh = Arradjan; cf. Marquart,
Eransahr , 41, 307). Anastasius began the fortification
of Martyropolis but Justinian, after his accession in
527, was the first to reorganise completely the eastern
frontier between Dara and Trebizond. Martyropolis,
the headquarters of a commander under the strategos of
Thcodosiopolis (Erzerum), became one of the most
important military centres. Procopius, De aedificiis, iii,
gives a complete description of the walls of the town,
the height and thickness of which were doubled and a
full account of the system of defences (outer walls,
advanced forts etc.); cf. Adontz, op.cit., 10-12, 140-2.
In 589 the town fell into the hands of the Sasanids, but
in 591 came back to the Byzantines in return for the
support given by the Emperor Maurice to Khusraw
II. Heraclius held it still the year 18/639 (Yakut, loc.
cit. ). (The date is not given in Muralt, Chronogr. byz. , i).

The vicissitudes of Martyropolis probably explain
the fact that in the Armenian Geography of the 7th cen¬
tury (ed. Patkanov, tr. 45; Marquart, Eransahr , 18,
161) the Persian province of Aldznikh (Arzanene) is
separated from Tsophkh (Sophanene) by the line of
the Khalirt ( = Ba{man-Su) while in the description of
parts of Armenia Nphret ( = Nphrjert) figures as one
of the 10 cantons of Arzanene.

Christian legend as preserved by Ibn al-Azrak and
Yakut gives very full details of the building of the
town in the time of Mar Marutha: the arches (tikan)
of the walls in which the remains of the martyrs were
placed, the eight gates of the town, the names of which
are carefully recorded, the convent of SS. Peter and
Paul, the buildings erected by the three ministers of
the Byzantine emperor, each of whom built a tower
and a church. There is still to be seen in Mayyafarikin
the ruins of a magnificent basilica and of the Church
of the Virgin (al- c Adhra). Gertrude Bell dated the
basilica “not much later than the beginning of the
fifth century”, and suggested that the Church of the
Virgin was one of the two built by Khusraw II in
recognition of the assistance lent by Maurice; cf. Abu
’l-Faradj, Mukhtasar, ed. Pococke, 98.

(V. Minorsky)

930

MAYYAFARIKIN

2. The Islamic period.

The conquest and caliphal rule. In the
wake of the conquest of the Djazlra by c Iyad b.
Ghanm, Mayyafarikm fell to him peacefully. The
caliph c Umar b. al-Khattab had made him governor
of the Djazlra in 18/639 (al-Baladhuri, Futuh , 179).
From that time until the early c Abbasid period, the
city was ruled as part of the Djazlra, sometimes jointly
with al-Sham and on other occasions with Armenia
and Adharbavdjan. The names of individual gover¬
nors of Mayyafarikln for this period are listed by the
town chronicler Ibn al-Azrak al-Farikl and copied by
c Izz al-Din Ibn Shaddad. the 7th/13th century
geographer of the Djazlra.

During the reign of the c Abbasid caliph al-Muhtadi
(255-6/869-70), Mayyafarikin and Amid [q.v. ] were
seized by the Shaybanid c Isa b. al-Shavkh [q.v. ] (Ibn
Shaddad, ms. Oxford, Marsh 333, fol. 10a). The
Shavbanids continued to govern the area until its
reconquest by_the caliph al-Mu c tadid in 286/ 899. The
grandson of c Isa b. al-Shavkh. Muhammad, built the
minaret of the Friday mosque in Mayyafarikln in
270/883-4 or 273/886-7. His name was inscribed on it
(ibid., fol. 69a).

Hamdanid and Buyid involvement in
Mayyafarikln. Mayyafarikln fell under the sway
of the Taghlibi Arab family, the Hamdanids [q.v.\,
after the appointment of Nasir al-Dawla al-Hasan as
governor of Mawsil in 324/935. His brother, Sayf al-
Dawla c Ali (d. 356/967), ruled Aleppo and Diyar Bakr
and showed a particular liking for Mayyafarikln. Sayf
al-Dawla repaired its walls and rebuilt the old citadel,
where he stayed when visiting the city. He also pro¬
vided Mayyafarikln with a proper water supply. The
entourage of Sayf al-Dawla at Mayyafarikln included
the famous preacher Ibn Nubata [q.v.], and al-
Mutanabbl. The latter recited an elegy over c Abd
Allah b. Sayf al-Dawla, who died in the town in
338/949 (Ibn al-Azrak, B.L. Or. 5803, fol. 113b; Ibn
Shaddad, fols. 77a-78a).

During the rule of Sayf al-Dawla, the Djazlra was
under frequent attack from the Byzantines, whose ter¬
ritorial possessions extended at times almost as far as
Amid. The future Byzantine emperor John Tzimisces
besieged Mayyafarikln in 348/959, and it was on this
occasion that Ibn Nubata began to deliver sermons
exhorting the citizens to engage in djihad (al-Antaki,
774-7; Ibn al-Azrak, Or. 5803, fol. 114b). Thereafter
Sayf al-Dawla began to strengthen the fortifications of
the city (Ibn Shaddad, fol. 78b).

When Sayf al-Dawla died in 367/967, he was buried
in the Hamdanid family turba at Mayyafarikln (Ibn al-
Azrak, Or. 5803, fol. 117a; Ibn Shaddad, fol. 78a), a
detail which reveals the high esteem in which the city
was held by his line. Moreover, Mayyafarikln was the
residence of his wife and children (al-Antaki, 807).
After the death of Sayf al-Dawla, Mayyafarikln—
along with the rest of Diyar Bakr—fell to the Ham¬
danid ruler of Mawsil, Abu Taghlib al-Ghadanfar.
The sister of Sayf al-Dawla stayed on in Mayyafarikln
and in 362/972-3 completed the task of improving the
defences of the city. This was probably occasioned by
another siege of Mayyafarikm conducted by John
Tzimisces, now elevated to the purple, in 361/972
(Ibn al-Azrak, Or. 5803, fol. 118b).

In 368/978-9 Abu TWafa 3 , the general of the
Buyid ruler c Adud al-Dawla, took Mayyafarikln on
his behalf (Ibn Miskawayh, ii, 388-90). The name of
c Adud al-Dawla was recorded on the city walls (Ibn
Shaddad, fol. 69b).

The Marwanid dynasty, 372-478/983-
1085. After the death of c Adud al-Dawla in 372/983,

Badh, the founder of the Kurdish dynasty of the Mar¬
wanids [q.v.], seized Mayyafarikm (Ibn al-Athir, ix,
25; Ibn al-Azrak, ed. c Awad, 49-52). Badh’s suc¬
cessors were able to hold on to the city, making it their
capital for over a century. The Marwanid period
witnessed another cultural flowering in Islamic
Mayyafarikln. The second Marwanid ruler,
Mumahhid al-Dawla, repaired the city walls and
inscribed his name on them in many places (ibid. , 86,
163; Ibn Shaddad. fol. 70a). An inscription of his is
illustrated by Lehmann-Haupt (Armenien, 424).

The greatest of the Marwanid rulers, Nasr al-
Dawla (ruled 401-53/1011-61), was responsible for
much building activity in the city, including a new
citadel with gilded walls and ceilings which was com¬
pleted in Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 403/June-July 1013 and
which stood on a hill, the site of the Church of the
Virgin. The Christian relics were transferred to the
Melkite church (Ibn al-Azrak, ed. c Awad, 107-8).
Nasr al-Dawla also restored the old observatory (man-
zara), put a clock ( bankam ) in the Friday mosque, con¬
structed and endowed a hospital (bimaristar), planted
the citadel garden and built bridges, public baths and
a mosque in the suburb of al-Muhaddatha (ibid. ,123,
138, 141, 143, 145, 163-4, 168). The Marwanid
capital attracted prominent religious and literary
figures (ibid., 82, 144, 166); from it, for example,
c Abd Allah al-Kazarum spread the Shafirii madhhab in
Diyar Bakr (Ibn al-Athir, ix, 52). Shavkh Abu Nasr
al-ManazI, a high official at the time of Nasr al-
Dawla, collected books and established wakfs for
libraries in the mosques of Mayyafarikln and Amid
(Ibn al-Azrak, ed. c Awad, 131). Nasr al-Dawla died
in 453/1061 and was buried in the turba of the Banu
Marwan at Mayyafarikln (ibid., 177).

After this, the Marwanids held on to Mayyafarikln
until the town and the rest of Diyar Bakr were taken
by the Saldjuks in 478/1085 during the campaign con¬
ducted by Ibn Djahir [q.v.], the erstwhile vizier of the
Marwanids. Ibn Djahir had persuaded the Saldjuk
sultan Malik-Shah [tf.tf.] to authorise him to besiege
Mayyafarikln, and the vizier was able to carry off vast
treasures belonging to the Marwanids (Ibn al-Athir,
x, 86-8, 93-4; Ibn al-Azrak, ed. c Awad, 208-12).

In the brief quarter-century following the death of
Malik-Shah in 485/1092, Mayyafarikm changed
hands many times and was ruled by a succession of
Saldjuk princes and other local rulers, including
Tutush, Dukak, Kflfdj Arslan and Sukman al-Kutbi
of Akhlat.

The Artukids. After the death of the Saldjuk
sultan Muhammad b. Malik-Shah [q.v.] in 512/1118,
Mayyafarikm fell under the sway of the Turcoman
Artukids [q.v.]. According to its chronicler Ibn al-
Azrak, the town was seized in 512/1118-19 by the
Artukid Nadjm al-Dln Il-Ghazi, who had already
taken Mardin around 502/1108-9 (ms. B.L., Or.
5803, fol. 161a). Ibn al-Athir puts the Artukid capture
of Mayyafarikm three years later, in 515/1121-2 (x,
418), but this is one instance where the dating of the
local historian is more likely to be accurate.

After Il-GhazT’s death in 516/1122, his son Temiir-
tash was able to hold on to Mardin and Mayyafarikm
for thirty years and to withstand Zangi’s attempts to
extend his sphere of influence in Diyar Bakr (Ibn al-
Azrak, Or. 5803, fols. 169a, 171a; Ibn al- c Ad!m, 271;
Ibn al-Athir, Atabegs, 79). Temiirtash’s most
ambitious project was the building of the Karaman
bridge over the Satidama river (the Batman-Su) five
miles east of Mayyafarikin. The work was begun in
541/1146-7 and was completed by his son Nadjm ai-
Din Alpf in 548/1153-4. The stone arch of the bridge

MAYYAFARIKIN

931

measured more than sixty spans and was “one of the
marvels of the age” (Ibn al-Azrak, Or. 5803, fols.
171b, 179b). The bridge is described fully by Gabriel
( Voyages , 236), who notes that Sauvaget read the name
Temurtash and the year 542/1147-8 on the bridge
(ibid ., 345). A copper mine was discovered in the time
of Temurtash in the area north of Mayyafarikln (Ibn
al-Athlr, x, 215) and it is noteworthy that Temurtash
is known to have minted copper coins (Ibn al-Azrak,
Or. 5803, fol. 172b).

The Artukids held on to Mayyafarikm after the
death of Temurtash in 548/1152; but, unlike the
Hamdanids and Marwanids, they preferred generally
to live at Mardln. Continuity in the administration of
Mayyafarikm was provided by the Nubata family,
who are often mentioned as holding the office of kadi
(ibid., fols. 161a, 162b, 169b). The third Artukid ruler
of Mayyafarikm, Nadjm al-DTn Alpf, was responsible
for a major reconstruction of the Friday mosque. The
minbar and arcades of the mosque had collapsed in
547/1152-3, the last year of the reign of his father,
Temurtash (ibid., fol. 175a). According to Ibn Shad-
dad, Nadjm al-DTn Alpi pulled down the rest of the
building (fol. 104b) and it was rebuilt with substantial
changes by the year 552/1157-8 (Ibn al-Azrak, Or.
5803, fol. 175b). There is an inscription in the name
of Nadjm al-DTn Alpf at the base of the dome
(Gabriel, Voyages , 227).

The Ayyubids. After its conquest by Salah al-
DTn in 581/1185, the city walls were decorated with a
line commemorative inscription. This was discovered
by Gertrude Bell and analysed by Van Berchem (in
Diez, Baudenhndler , 108) and by Flury (Schrijtbdnder,
44-8). It is apparently the only Kufic inscription in the
name of Salah al-DTn. Minorsky (EP, art.
Mayyajarikin) stated on the authority of Gertrude Bell
that this ruler built a mosque at Mayyafarikm for
which the columns of the Byzantine basilica were
used. There would appear to be no evidence in the
sources for this. Possibly the mosque in question was
the one outside the walls, of which only the Ayyubid
minaret remains (Gabriel, Voyages, 210, 228).

Salah al-DTn entrusted Mayyafarikm to his brother
Sayf al-DTn in 591/1195 and the city was ruled by this
branch of the Ayyubid family until the Mongols con¬
quered the city in 658/1260. In addition to the literary
record, there is architectural, epigraphic and
numismatic evidence of this short-lived Ayyubid
dynasty at Mayyafarikm. Awhad Nadjm al-DTn
Ayyub (596-607/1200-10) left an inscription dated
Ramadan 599/May-June 1203 on a tower of the
eastern inner wall (illustrated and described by
Lehmann-Haupt, Armenien, 425-6) and the name of
his successor, Ashraf Musa (607-12/1210-20), is
inscribed on a tower to the north (ibid). Musa’s
brother, Muzaffar Shihab al-DTn Gh azT (617-
42/1220-44) built a fine mosque of red baked brick
with an inscription dated 624/1227 which was seen
and analysed by Taylor (ibid., 428). The inscription
on the mihrab is given by Gabriel ( Voyages, inscription
no. 124). The coins struck by the Ayyubids of May¬
yafarikln have aroused a certain interest amongst
scholars (Grabar, 167-78; Lane-Poole, iv, 122-30;
Lowick, 164-5). A series of them minted between
582/1186-7 and 612/1215-6 represent crowned human
figures. Some have long locks of hair; others are wear¬
ing caps with tassels; sometimes these figures are
enthroned (ibid.).

The Mongols devastated the area around Mayya-
farikln as early as 628-9/1231. In 638/1240-1 a
Mongol embassy reached the town and demanded
that it should surrender and that its fortifications be

destroyed. On this occasion, Muzaffar Shihab al-DTn
Gh azT succeeded in deflecting the attentions of the
embassy elsewhere. His son, Kamil Muhammad
(642-58/1244-60), defied the Mongols in a brave
stand at Mayyafarikm, but the city fell in 658/1260 to
the Mongol army of Hulegii under the command of
Yashmut and it was then that this last Ayyubid ruler
was killed (Rashid al-DTn, 77-81; Ibn Shaddad, fol.
120a).

Descriptions of Mayyafarikln in the
Muslim geographers. There is some disagree¬
ment in the classical Muslim geographical works on
the placing of Mayyafarikln. AJ-MukaddasI (137)
puts it in Diyar Bakr, al-Istakhrl (188) considers it to
be part of ArmTniyya, whilst Ibn al-FakTh (133) places
it in Diyar Rabija. Ibn Shaddad lists Mayyafarikln as
one of the four amsar of Diyar Bakr, the other three
being Amid, Arzan and Mardln (fol. 65a).

Al-Istakhrl (76, n. k ) describes Mayyafarikln as
having an encircling wall and an abundant water sup¬
ply, but he comments on the town’s unhealthy
climate. Al-MukaddasT (140) mentions the fortifica¬
tions, including battlements, an encircling wall and
ditch; he also notes that the water there is muddy in
winter. According to Kudama (246), the combined
revenue of Arzan and Mayyafarikln in c Abbasid times
was 4,100,000 dirhams. Nasir-i Khusraw visited the
town in 438/1046-7. He was impressed by the
excellent condition of its walls, which seemed as if
they had only just been completed (tr. Schefer, 24-5).

Yakut (d. 626/1229) praised the city, especially its
surrounding wall of white stone and its prosperous
suburb (rabad) (A1u c diam, iv, 703-7). When Ibn Shad¬
dad visited Mayyafarikln in the 7th/ 13th century, he
found thriving khans and markets, as well as two
rnadrasas, one HanbalT, the other Shafi c I (fol. 71a).
Both Ibn Shaddad and Yakut mention eight city gates
at Mayyafarikln, seven of which probably cor¬
responded to those of Byzantine Martyropolis
(Gabriel, Voyages, 218).

The 8th-9th/14th -15th centuries. In the
Ilkhanid period (654-754/1256-1353), Mayyafarikln
shared the fate of the rest of Diyar Bakr and was ruled
by Mongol amirs. After the collapse of the Ilkhanid
state, after 736/1336, Diyar Bakr fell into disarray and
became the arena for power struggles between rival
Turcoman (the Ak Koyunlu and Kara Koyunlu con¬
federations), Kurdish and Arab groups, before falling
victim to the depredations of Timur who attacked the
area (but not, apparently, Mayyafarikln) in 796/1394
and 803/1400-1 (Ibn c Arabshah, 65-6, 164-5).

Thereafter, Mayyafarikln was in the hands of one
branch of the mostly nomadic SulaymanT Kurds [see
kurds] until it was taken in 827/1427 by the Ak
Koyunlu leader Kara c Uthman (d. 839/1435), who
appointed his son Bayazld governor of the town and
other citadels in the area (TihranT, 95).

The Safawid and Ottoman periods. The
Safawid Shah Isma c !l I occupied the whole of Diyar
Bakr in his campaign against the last Ak Koyunlu
ruler Murad in 913/1507-8. He then allotted Diyar
Bakr to Khan Muhammad Ustadjlu (Iskandar Beg
MunshI, c Alam-dra, i, 32-3). After Isma c Il’s defeat at
Caldiran [ q.o.\ in 920/1514, Mayyafarikln was seized
by the Kurdish chief Sayyid Ahmad Beg Ruzakl. The
city fell under Ottoman control in 921/1515 after the
battle of Kosh Hisar, when the Safawids were forced
to cede Diyar Bakr to the Ottomans. In his history of
the Kurds, the 10th/16th century writer Sharaf al-DTn
Khan BidlTsT lists the governors of Mayyafarikln in his
own time (Sharaf-ndma, 270-2).

Information on Mayyafarikm in the Ottoman

932

MAYYAFARIKIN — MAYYARA

period is scanty. The Portuguese traveller Tenreyro
went there in 936-7/1529 and found it “almost

deserted’’ ( Itinerario, 406). Ewliya Celeb! (d. ca.
1095/1684) visited the town ( Seyahat-ndma, iv, 76-8)
and gave a long laudatory description of the Satidama
bridge. Von Moltke, who passed through the city in
the 19th century, while noting the well-preserved state
of its walls and towers, commented on the ruined con¬
dition of the rest of the city which he said had been
caused by Ottoman-Kurdish struggles in the area
(Lehmann-Haupt, 394, 419). Indeed, the city was to
remain de facto in Kurdish hands until the beginning
of this century.

Christianity in Mayyafarikln during the
Islamic period. The Arabic sources record little of
the transition from Christianity to Islam within May-
yafarikfn, a major centre of Oriental Christianity.
Isolated references indicate, however, that Chris¬
tianity continued to prosper after the Muslim con¬
quest until recent times. This evidence is of course
corroborated and expanded by surviving Christian
architecture in the area. Al-Mukaddas! (146) records
without comment that in the monastery of Thomas
(dayr Tuma) one farsakh from Mayyafarikln there was
a mummified corpse; it was allegedly that of one of the
disciples [of Jesus]. Ibn al-Azrak mentions the
existence of a Melkite church in the Marwanid period
and that Christians held office in the Marwanid
government (ed. c Awad, 149, 164). The Jacobites had
a bishopric in Mayyafarikln by the 5th/11th century
(Vryonis, 53), although this is not mentioned in the
detailed chronicle of Ibn al-Azrak. Ibn Shaddad does,
however, mention an incident in which a Saldjuk
governor, Kiwam or Kawam al-Mulk Abu C A1! al-
Balkhf. became exasperated by the nakus from a
monastery in Mayyafarikin and, refusing a large sum
of money offered him by the Christians if he would
leave the building intact, destroyed it (fol. 70b). The
same author records that in his own time (the 7th/13th
century) there were monasteries on a hill to the north
of Mayyafarikln (ibid.). In 936-7/1529 Tenreyro
describes “beautiful monasteries and churches with¬
out roofs, containing sumptuous monuments with
inscriptions in Greek letters. On the walls were pic¬
tures of apostles and other saints, painted in very fine
colours and gold”. He remarks that the town had only
a small number of inhabitants who were Jacobite
Christians and spoke Arabic ( Itinerario, 376).

Mayyafarikln in recent times. In 1891 the
population of the town was 7,000, divided about
equally between Muslims and Christians (Cuinet, ii,
470-2). During its occupation by the Sulayman!
Kurds, the name Mayyafarikln had been eclipsed by
Silvan (cf. EP, art. Maiyafarikin , and Minorsky’s ety¬
mology there of Silwan). According to the 1945
census, the population was 2,155. The most recent
information indicates that according to the 1980
census, the population of the administrative unit ( idari
birim) of Silvan was 43,624 ( Tiirkiye istatistikyilhgi, 39).

Bibliography (for earlier bibliography, see EI {
art. Maiyafarikin ): 1. Primary sources. Abu
Bakr Tihranl-IsfahanI, Kitab-i Diyarbakriyya, ed. N.
Lugal and F. Sumer, Ankara 1962-4; Baladhurl.
Futuh ; Ewliya Celeb!, Seyahat-ndma , Istanbul 1314-
8; Ibn al- c Ad!m, Zubdat al-halab min ta\ikh Halab,
ed. S. Dahan, Damascus 1954; Ibn c Arabshah,
c Ad^a?ib al-makdur fi nawdSb Timur, tr. J. H.
Sanders, London 1936; Ibn al-Ath!r, Kamil; idem,
Ta^rikh al-dawla al-atabakiyya , ed. A. Tulayma,
Cairo 1963; Ibn al-Azrak al-Farik!, TaPrikh
Mayyafarikin wa-Amid, ed. B. A. L. c Awad, Cairo
1959 (Marwanid section); B. L. ms. Or. 5803

(covers the early Islamic period up to 572/1176-7);
Ibn al-Fakih; Ibn Hawkal, ed. Kramers; Ibn
Kh allikan. tr. de Slane; Ibn Miskawayh, Tadfarib
al-umam , ed. and tr. Margoliouth and Amedroz,
Oxford 1920-1; Ibn Rusta; Ibn Shaddad. al-A c lak
al-khatira fi dhikr umara 5 al-Sham wa ’l-Djazira.
Oxford, Bodleian ms. Marsh 333; Iskandar Beg
MunshI, TaSikh-i <i dlam-drd-yi c Abbasi , tr. R. M.
Savory, Boulder, Colorado 1978; Istakhrl:
Kudama; Mukaddas!; Nasir-i Khusraw. Safar-
nama , ed. and tr. Ch. Schefer, Paris 1881; RashTd
al-Din. DiamF al-tawarikh , iii, ed. A. A. c Al!zada,
Baku 1957; Sharaf al-Din Khan Bidlisi, Sharaf-
nama, Arabic tr. M. J. B. Ruzhbiyani, Ba gh dad
1953; Yahya b. Sa c !d al-Antaki, Annales, in
Patrologia Orientalis, xviii, Paris 1924; Yakut,
AIiTdfam al-buldan. 2. Secondary sources. A.
Altun, Anadolu'da Artuklu devri Turk mimarisi’nin
gelipmesi, Istanbul 1978; H. F. Amedroz, Three
Arabic manuscripts on the history of the city of Mayya-
farikin, in JRAS (1901), 785-812; Gertrude L. Bell,
The churches and monasteries of the Tur c Abdin and
neighbouring districts, articles reprinted with an intro¬
duction by M. Mango, London 1982; C. Cahen,
La Djazira au milieu du treizieme siecle d’apres c Izz ad-
Din Ibn Chaddad , in REI, viii (1934), 109-28; idem,
Le Diyar Bakr au temps des premiers Urtukides, in JA ,
ccxxvii (1935), 219-76; M. Canard, Histoire de la
dynastie des H ’amdanides , i, Paris 1953; idem, La date
des expeditions mesopotamiennes de Jean Tzimisces , in
Melanges Henri Gregoire, ii, Annuaire de TInstitut de
Philologie et d’Histoire orientals et slaves , x (1950), 99
ff.; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, Paris 1891-4; E.
Diez, Churasanische Baudenkmaler , Berlin 1918; A.
M. Edde-Terrasse, c Izz al-Din Ibn Shaddad. Descrip¬
tion de la Syrie du Nord, Damascus 1984; S. Flury,
Islamische Schriftbander , Basel 1920; A. Gabriel,
Voyages archeologiques dans la Turquie orientale, Paris
1940; O. Grabar, On two coins of Muzaffar Ghdzi.
ruler of Maiydfariqln, in Amer. Num. Soc ., Museum
Notes 5 (1952), 167-78; R. Hartmann, Zu Ewlija
TschelebVs Reisen im oberen Euphrat- und Tigrisgebiet , in
Isl. , ix (1919), 184-244; C. Hillenbrand, The history
of the Jazira 1100-1150 ; the contribution of Ibn al-Azraq
al-Fdriqi, Ph. D. thesis, Univ. of Edinburgh 1979;
unpubl.; S. Lane-Poole, Catalogue of oriental coins in
the British Museum, London 1879-89; C. F.
Lehmann-Haupt, Armenien einst und jetzt, Berlin
1910; N. Lowick, The religious, the royal and the
popular in the figural coinage of the Jazira, in The art of
Syria and the Jazira 1100-1250, ed. J. Raby, Oxford
1985, 159-74; J. Markwart, Sudarmenien und die
Tigrisquellen nach griechischen und arabischen
Geographen, Vienna 1930; T. Sinclair, Early Artuqid
mosque architecture , in The art of Syria and the Jazira
1100-1250, 49-68; A. Tenreyro, Itinerario de Antonio
Tenreyro , Coimbra 1725; Tiirkiye istatistik yilhgi
1985, Ankara 1985; S. Vryonis Jr., The decline of
Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of
Islamization from the eleventh through the fifteenth century,
Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1971; H. von
Moltke, Briefe iiber Zustande und Begebenheiten in der
Tiirkei aus den Jahren 1835 bis 1839, Berlin 1917; J.
E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu: clan, confederation, empire,
Minneapolis and Chicago 1976.

(Carole Hillenbrand)

MAYYARA, Abu c Abd Allah Mahammad b.
Ahmad, Moroccan scholar and teacher, born
15 Ramadan 999/7 July 1591 at Fas, where he studied
and taught law and hadlth until his death in the same
town on 3 Djumada II 1071/24 January 1662.

He was the author of several commentaries,

MAYYARA — MAZALIM

933

notably on the Tuhfa of Ibn c Asim [q.v.], of which a
manuscript exists in the Bibl. Generale, Rabat (D
873), and on the theological poem called al-Murshid al-
mu c in of his master Ibn c Ashir (d. 1040/1631) com¬
pleted in 1044/1634-5 and called al-Durr al-lhamtn wa
y l-mawrid al-maHn fi shark al-Murshid al-muHn c ala
’l-daruri min c ulum al-din (lith. Fas, printed Tunis 1293,
Cairo 1305, 1306). In 1048, he made an abridgement
of it, Ikhtisar al-Durr al-thamin , which was lithographed
at Fas in 1292 and printed at Cairo in 1301, 1303,
1305 and 1348; it should be noted that in his commen¬
tary, he took account of criticisms raised concerning
his lack of objectivity and its lacunae (ii, 339-41; cf.
Hajji, Activite intellectuelle , 202-3). Amongst other
works of his extant, as well as the Nazm al-la'dli wa 7-
durar (mss. Rabat 855 and 3702 Z) which contains a
fahrasa [q.v.] and consequently, autobiographical
details, one might mention the Tuhfat al-ashab wa 7-
rufka bi-ba c d masa^il al-safka (ms. Rabat 989 D; cf. O.
Pesle, Le contrat de safqa au Maroc , Rabat 1932, passim ),
and particularly, the Nasihat al-mu gh tarrin wa-kifayat al-
mudtarrin fi ’l-tafrik bayn al-Muslimin (ms. Bibl. Roy ale,
Rabat 7248), composed in 1051/1641 in defence of
those Muslims of Jewish ancestry who were once
more, after the death of sultan al-Mansur al-Dhahabl
(1603) the victims of a certain ostracism by traders
and scholars in Fas. After the publication of this book,
a cabal was formed against Mayyara, who was the
object of violent attacks, but who nevertheless
benefited from the protection of Muhammad al-
Tayyib al-DilaT, who wrote a Takriz Nasihat al-
mughtarrin (mss. Bibl. Gen., Rabat 923 K, 125-8), and
from a defence by al- c Awfi, also the author of a Takriz
(in the text of the Nasiha , 126-7). Like Mayyara's
other works, the Nasiha contains interesting pieces of
historical information which would justify its publica¬
tion. On account of his Jewish ancestry, this scholar,
like al-Mandjur [q.v.], was not allowed to fill any
official post of a religious nature, although often des¬
cribed as imam , and it is said that he had to make a liv¬
ing by hiring out dresses and ornaments for ladies on
the occasion of marriage (see al-Ifranl, Safwat man
intashar, lith. Fas n.d., 140; Hajji, op.cit ., 147).

The epithet of “the Elder” (al-Akbar) is sometimes
appended to his name in order to distinguish him
from his grandson, Mahamrnad b. Muhammad (or
Ahmad) al-Hafid or al-As gh ar. also considered as
imam of Fas (d. 15 Muharram 1144/20 July 1731; see
al-Kadiri, Nashr al-malhani, ii, 235; al-Kattanl, Salwat
al-anfas , i, 167; Levi-Provengal, Chorja, 318-19; M.
Lakhdar, Vie litteraire, index).

Bibliography : Kadiri, Nashr al-malhani, i, 235;
KattanT, Salwat al-anfas , i, 165; Hudaydji, Tabakat,
Casablanca 1357/1938, ii, 64-5; Muhammad
Makhluf. Shadjarat al-nur , Cairo 1349/1930, 309; E.
Levi-Provengal, Chorfa, 258-9; Brockelmann, II,
461, S II, 299; M. Hajji, L 'activite intellectuelle a
TepoquesaSdide, Rabat 1976-7, index; Ibn Suda, Dalil,
i, 111. See also Hawliyyat al-DjdmTa al-Tunusiyya, vii
(1970), c Abd al-Wahhab’s mss. nos 241, 336, etc.
(comm._on Mayyara). (Ch. Pellat)

MAYYUN, volcanic island of ca. 14 km 2 and 400
inhabitants in the Straits of the Bab al-Mandab [q.v.],
off the coast of the People’s Democratic Republic of
Yemen (the former Aden Protectorate). Known in
classical times as AtoSapo? it became known in the
West as Perim, probably from the other Arabic term
used for the island barim “rope”, possibly connected
with the story of the chain at al-Shavkh Sa c Id [see bab
al-mandab]. Perhaps visited by the French Crusader
Reynaud de Chatillon, whose vessels were destroyed
by Salah al-Dln, the island was explored by Albuquer¬

que in 1513, who called it Meyo (after Mayyun), but
found it waterless and unsuitable for a fortress.
Occupied for a short time by the French in 1738, the
British landed there in 1799, but left because of the
lack of water. They returned in 1857 from Bombay
and established a coaling station, called Brown Bay,
which was abandoned however in 1936. In 1915,
Turkish troops made an unsuccessful attempt to land
on the island. Incorporated into the British Crown
Colony of Aden in 1937, Mayyun became part of the
People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1967.
With the coastal strip, running up the Red Sea as far
as the frontier with Yemen (San c a 5 ), the islands of
Kamaran and Socotra (Sukutra) [q.vv.], Mayyun
forms the so-called first governorate.

Bibliography : The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea ,
tr. W. H. Schoff, 2 New Delhi 1974, 23, 31, 114; A.
Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens , p. vii, 73, 76;
J. Rijckmans, La persecution des chretiens himyarites au
sixieme siecle , Leiden-Istanbul 1956, 14; Ibn al-
Mudjawir, Tafikh al-Mustabsir , Descriptio Arabiae
meridionalis , ed. O. Lofgren, Leiden 1951, i, 96; B.
Doe, Sudarabien. Antike Reiche am Indischen Ozean.
Bcrgisch Gladbach 1970, 126; idem, Southern
Arabia , London, 1970; British Admiralty, Western
Arabia and the Red Sea, London 1946 (with view from
the air and map); U.S. Hydrographic Office, Sail¬
ing Directions for the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden 7 ’,
Washington 1943. (E. van Donzel)

MA C Z ( see ghanam],

MAZAGAN [see al-djadTda].

MAZALIM (a.), a word whose sing, mazlima
denotes an unjust or oppressive action.
Closely related to zulm , it is an antonym to c adl [q.v.]
and thus signifies basically something “not in its right
place” {LA). At an early stage in the development of
Islamic institutions of government, mazalim came to
denote the structure through which the tem¬
poral authorities took direct responsibility
for dispensing justice.

Precedents for the institution of mazalim can be
found in Byzantium and, more particularly, in the
Sasanid bureaucratic office which functioned as a
jurisdiction parallel to the ordinary judiciary headed
by the mobedh-mobedhan [q.v.] (A. Christensen, LTran
sous les Sassanides 2 , Copenhagen 1944, 301 f.). It is also
suggested that the ideal of open access to tribal leaders
in pre-Islamic Arabia was carried over into the early
Islamic experience.

The establishment in Medina of the rudiments of
an Islamic polity did little to change the situation.
Muhammad combined in himself the roles both of the
traditional tribal chief and of the hakam [q.v.]. The
early caliphs and provincial governors inherited this
position, where judicial functions were not distin¬
guished from other functions of government. Only in
relation to the dhimmis [q.v. ] did caliph or governor
function as an alternative judicial authority (E. Tyan,
Histoire , 87-98).

The growth in size and complexity of the Muslim
community soon obliged caliphs and governors to
appoint kadis [q. v. ] to whom their judicial functions
were delegated. The development of the sharia [q.v.
as a distinct system of law during the 2nd/8th anc
3rd/9th centuries, its identification with the office of
kadi, and its increasing importance as a test of Islamic
legitimacy, combined to form a context in which it
becomes possible to identify a discrete mazalim system.
Al-MawardT’s suggestion {Ahkdm, 65) that the
Umayyad caliph c Abd al-Malik b. Marwan [q.v.] was
the first to arrange for the regular hearing of mazalim
petititions seems to be premature.

934

MAZALIM

The c Abbasid period. More certainty sur¬
rounds reports that the caliphs al-Mahdi and al-Hadl
[q.vv. ] ensured the regular holding of mazalim sessions.
The practice for the first several decades was usually
for the wazir [ 9 . u.] to take charge (Sourdel, Vizirat ,
640-8), and there are indications that the mazalim
jurisdiction was regarded both by them and by the
kadis and c ulama :> as a rival to the sharia jurisdiction.
Although Abu Yusuf [q.v. ] suggested to Harun al-
Rashid [q.v.] that the caliph should personally take
charge ( K. al-Kharadi. Cairo 1352, 111 f.), this seldom
happened. In the longer term, mazalim remained a
disputed institution. Following the fall of the Bar-
makids [see baramika], more influence was given to
the kadis , culminating when a series of Mu c tazill chief
kadis also held responsibility for mazalim.

The end of Mu c tazilT influence under al-
Mutawakkil [q.v.] returned mazalim to the control of
the wazirs, where it remained, until the Buyid amir al-
umara 3 [q.v.] downgraded the wazir and handed con¬
trol of mazalim to the Ithna c AsharI ShiT nakxb al-ashraf
[q.v.] (H. Busse, Chalij und Grosskonig , Wiesbaden
1969, 286-9).

From a comparatively early date, it became usual
for the wazir or kadi in charge to appoint a deputy to
take responsibility for the routine management of the
institution. On occasions, this official, variously
known as sahib or nazir al-mazalim, might also be
appointed directly by the caliph.

The jurisdiction of mazalim tended to be very wide.
Receiving and processing petitions against official and
unofficial abuse of power was an important part of its
activity, but it also on occasion functioned as a court
of appeal against the decisions of kadis. Additionally,
it is evident that, for an early stage, mazalim was often
the office through which military and civilian officials
and dignitaries applied for the allocation of ikta c s and
through which such grants might also be confiscated
and their holders fined.

Theory. Before the work of al-Mawardl [q.v.],
little theoretical consideration of mazalim is to be
found. Statements in general terms of principle were
not developed in detail. Al-Farabf’s view that the head
of the just city should “favour justice and the just,
hate tyranny and injustice, and give them both their
just deserts” ( al-Madina al-fddila, ed. Dieterici, repr.
Leiden 1964, 60), is typical.

Working in the service of the caliphs al-Kadir and
al-Ka 5 im, al-Mawardl’s object was to restore the
authority of the caliphate in preparation for the
approaching Saldjuks. His work al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya
therefore included an extensive chapter on the struc¬
ture, procedure and jurisdiction of mazalim , which is
paralleled with minor differences in Abu Ya c la b. al-
Farra^’s work of the same title (cf. Bibi).

Supervision of mazalim is the responsibility of the
caliph, his viziers and governors, or their appointed
deputies, who must have personal qualities combining
honesty, power and judiciousness. The mazalim ses¬
sion is duly constituted when the official in charge is
assisted by guards, kadis , fakihs, secretaries and
notaries (. sjiuhud ). Ten classes of cases are detailed as
coming within the jurisdiction of mazalim, falling into
two main categories, namely abuse of official powers
and enforcement of kadis' decisions.

The major difference from the kada 3 , according to
al-Mawardl, lies in the area of procedure. The sahib
al-mazalim has a wide scope for active direction and
participation in the proceedings, including powers of
coercion, admitting evidence below the standards
required by kadis' courts, subpoena of witnesses and
postponement of hearings to allow judicial investiga¬

tion. Al-Mawardi presents his discussion in terms of
a relaxation of the rules of the sharia, with the purpose
of controlling powerful officials who otherwise might
subvert the normal judicial process. Later writers link
mazalim with the concept of siyasa shar c iyya. In fact, the
theory of mazalim —as also later Hanbalf theory of
siyasa sharHyya —actually represents an attempt to
bring the current practice closer into line with the
requirement of the sharia.

Later theory reverts to the common pattern of more
general statements of principle, in terms of “helping
the weak against the strong”, a phrase often appear¬
ing in the obituaries of sultans and governors. Exposi¬
tions in detail are rare and, when they do occur, as in
al-MakrlzT (Khitat . Cairo 1270, ii, 207 f.) and al-
Nuwayri ( Nihayat al-arab , Cairo 1923-55, vi, 265-90),
are based on al-Mawardl.

The mediaeval period. In the event, the hopes
of al-MawardT and his patrons did not materialise,
and mazalim continued to develop with little reference
to theory. The main feature during this later period is
an increased bureaucratisation, a process which took
place simultaneously under the Saldjuks, under the
Kh w arazm-Shahs in Persia and Central Asia, and
under the Fatimids in Egypt. The various parts of this
development came together under the Ayyubids and
continued with little change through much of the
Mamluk period.

The first step in opening a case was to present a
petition ( ruk c a or kissa) drawn up according to detailed
formulae (described in al-Kalkashandi, Subh al-a c sha ,
Cairo 1913-19, vi, 202 f.). While the ideal remained
the personal presentation of the kissa in public session,
the vast majority were dealt with administratively. Al-
Kalkashandi (vi, 206-10) describes six different chan¬
nels through which the kissa could be dealt with, and
these procedures are confirmed by other sources.
Several different officials are to be found taking deci¬
sions, including the sultan, his deputies and provincial
governors ( nuwwab ), and high-ranking military
officials (most commonly the atabak , dawadar and
hadjib). Common to all channels of petition was the
central role of the chancery ( diwan al-inshd 7 ), headed
by the wazir or sahib diwan al-insha 3 , and from the late
7th/13th century by the katib al-sirr. Oversight of the
routine clerical work was handled by a secretary
explicitly appointed to deal with mazalim work, called
sahib (or muwakki c ) al-kalam al-dakik under the Fatimids
and katib (or muwakki c ) al-dast under the Mamluks.
From the early Fatimid period, elaborate rules also
determined the form of the decree (tawki^ or marsum)
containing the final decision in a case (Subh, xi, 127-
33). Such decrees would normally be signed by the
sultan or a high officer of state, regardless of where in
the administrative process the decision had been
taken.

The site of the public session (mad^lis) was normally
the place where the presiding official conducted his
general duties. A departure from this took place when
Nur al-DTn Zanki established a house of justice (dar al-
c adi) in Damascus soon after 549/1154, with the
specific purpose of providing a setting for mazalim.
Situated outside the citadel by the Bab al-Nasr [see
dimashk], it became more commonly known as dar al-
sa c ada when it was turned into the seat of provincial
government in 634/1236. By this time, other provin¬
cial capitals in the Ayyubid state had also acquired a
dar al- c adl. In Cairo, mazalim sessions were usually
held in a Shafi c T madrasa. Held twice a week on Mon¬
days and Thursdays, these sessions were associated
with an increasing amoung of official ceremonial, as
the sultan and his officials went to the dar al- c adl in

MAZALIM — MAZANDARAN

935

public procession ( mawkib ) [see mawakib]. To the
mawkib and madjlis was soon added an official banquet
(simat) , and the whole ceremony was known as khidma.

The khidma reached its most elaborate form under
the early Mamluks. Baybars I [q.v. ] transferred the
hearing of mazalim petitions to a new dar al-^adl in
Cairo in 662/1264, just below the Citadel, and this
also became the site for the khidma. The mawkib now
included a growing number of military officers of
state, and the madjlis widened its functions to include
most official public ceremonial, such as the reception
of foreign emissaries, the publication of government
decisions, the granting of royal favours, etc. Hearing
mazalim cases soon became a minor formality, sym¬
bolised by the continuing presence of kadis and katib
al-sirr and the new office of mufti dar al- c adl in the
official seating order (cf. Subh, iv, 44 f.). Sultan
Kalawun’s move of the khidma to his new iwdn kabir
and the demolition of Baybars’s dar al- c adl a few
decades later confirmed the position of mazalim as a
(unction of the bureaucracy.

Throughout the early Mamluk period, the identity
of mazalim as a bureaucratic process meant that there
was little definition of its jurisdiction. Al-MakrTzT’s
claim (Khitat. ii, 220 f.) that it was the forum for the
implementation of the Mongol Yasa can be dis¬
counted (cf. D. Ayalon, in SI, xxxiii [1971], 97-140).
The sources report petitions dealing with every con¬
ceivable aspect of government activity, including
requests for offices or ikta c s, the suppression of par¬
ticular c ularna 5 and their teachings, the implementa¬
tion of law and order, as well as appeals for justice and
the application of kadis' decisions. This situation
prevailed in all the provinces of the Mamluk state.

The confusion of mazalim and the general apparatus
of government was common in other parts of the pre-
Ottoman Arab world, but there were exceptions, such
as Hafsid Tunisia (R. Brunschvig, in SI, xxiii [1965],
27 ff.), where mazalim remained a more distinct
jurisdiction. Towards the end of the 8th/14th century,
measures were also taken by the Mamluks to clarify
the situation. In 789/1387, Sultan Barkuk detached
mazalim from the khidma and moved it to the Royal
Equerry (istabl al-sultan) [see al-kahira]. The term dar
al- Q adl, however, remained synonymous with the
khidma in the Iwdn. The jurisdiction of mazalim was
likewise clarified, and in the 9th/15th century a
distinction is made between petitions for justice in the
face of injustice and oppression and petitions
requesting iktd c s or official posts ( al-Sdlihi ,
Copenhagen Royal Library ms. 147, fols. 32b-33a).

Bibliography (additional to references given
above): Maward!, al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya, Cairo
1298, 64-82, and Abu Ya c la b. al-Farra D , al-Ahkam
al-sultaniyya , Cairo 1966, 58-74. H. F. Amedroz, in
JRAS (1911), 635-74, provides an extensive
paraphrase and commentary to al-MawardT’s text.
E. Tyan, Histoire de Vorganisation judiciaire en pays
d’Islam 2 , Leiden I960, 433-520, surveys the history
of mazalim with an emphasis on juridical theory. S.
M. Stern deals in great detail with the bureaucratic
processes in Oriens , xv (1962), 172-209, and in
BSOAS, xxvii (1964), 1-32, xxix (1966), 233-76.
The Mamluk period and the role of ddr al- c adl are
discussed by J. S. Nielsen, Secular justice in an Islamic
state: Mazalim under the Bahri Mamluks, Istanbul
1985. H. Ernst, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden,
Wiesbaden 1960, has published some of the peti¬
tions and drecrees preserved at St. Catherine’s,
Mount Sinai, and a basic source for Mamluk
bureaucratic procedure is Ahmad b. Fadl Allah ai¬
rman, Masahk al-absar, Ayasofya ms. 3416, fols.

138a-142a. On mazalim in Persia, see Mahkama. 3.

(J. S. Nielsen)

MAZANDARAN, aprovince to the south of
the Caspian Sea bounded on the west by Gitan
[q.v. ] and on the east by what was in Kadjar times the
province of Astarabad [q.v., formerly Gurgan);
Mazandaran and Gurgan now form the modern ustan
or province of Mazandaran.

1. The name. If Gurgan to the Iranians was the
“land of the wolves” ( vdhrkana, the region to its west
was peopled by “Mazaynian dews” (Bartholomae,
Altir. Worterbuch , col. 1169, under mazainya daeva).
Darmesteter, Le Zend-Avesta , ii, 373, n. 32, thought
that Mazandaran was a “comparative of direction”
{*Mazana-tara\ cf. Shush and Shushtar) but Noldeke’s
hypothesis is the more probable ( Grundr. d. iran. Phil .,
ii, 178), who thought that Mazan-dar = “the gate of
Mazan” was a particular place, distinct from the part
of the country known as Tapuristan. (A village of
Mesderan (?) is marked on Stahl’s map 12 km. south
of FTruzkuh!). In any case, the name Mazandaran
seems to have no connection with Tou Mocacopavou opo$
which, according to Ptolemy, vi, ch. v., was situated
between Parthia and Areia (Hari-rud) and was con¬
nected by Olshausen ( Mazdoran und Mazandaran , in
Monatsberichte Ak. Berlin [1877], 777-83) with Maz-
duran, a station 12 farsakhs west of Sarakhs; cf. Ibn
Khurradadhbih. 24; al-Mukaddas!, 351 (cf. however
the late source of 881/1476 quoted by Dorn, in
Melanges asiat., vii, 42).

The Avestan and Pahlavi quotations given by
Darmesteter, loc. cit. , show to what degree the people
of Mazandaran were regarded by the Persians as a
foreign group and little assimilated. According to the
Bundahishn , xv, 28, tr. West, 58, the “Mazandaran”
were descended from a different pair of ancestors to
those of the Iranians and Arabs. The Shah-nama
reflects similar ideas (cf. the episode of Kay Kawus’s
war in Mazandaran, and esp. Vullers ed., i, 332,
v, 290: the war is waged against Ahriman; 364,
vv. 792-3: Mazandaran is contrasted with Iran;
574, v. 925: the bestial appearance of the king of
Mazandaran).

Among historical peoples in Mazandaran are the
Tapyres (Tobrupoi), who must have occupied the
mountains (north of Simnan), and the Amardes
(’'ApapBoi), who according to Andreas and Marquart,
have given their name to the town of Amul (although
the change of rd to / is rather strange in the north of
Persia). These two peoples were defeated by Alex¬
ander the Great. The Parthian king Phraates I (in 176
B.C.) transplanted the Mardes (Amardes) to the
region of x<*pa£ (Kh w ar to the east of Waramin) and
their place was taken by the Tapyres, whose name
came to be applied to the whole province.

The Arabs only knew the region as Tabaristan
(<Tapurstan, on the Pahlavi coins). The name
Mazandaran only reappears in the Saldjuk period.
Ibn al-AthTr, x, 34, in speaking of the distribution of
Fiefs by Alp Arslan in 458/1065, says that Mazan¬
daran was given to the amir Inandj BTghu. Ibn Isfan-
diyar, 14, and Yakut, iii, 502, 9, think that Mazan¬
daran as a name for Tabaristan is only of fairly
modern origin (in Arabic?), but according to Za-
kariyya 5 KazwTnT, 270, “the Persians call Tabaristan
Mazandaran ’. Hamd Allah MustawfT distinguishes
between Mazandaran and Tabaristan. In his time
(1340), the 7 tumans of the “ wildyat of Mazandaran”
were Djurdjan, Murustak (?), Astarabad, Amul and
Rustamdar, Dihistan, RGghad and Siyah-rustak (?);
on the other hand, the diyar-i Kumis wa-Tabaristan
included Simnan, Damghan, FTruzkuh, a town of

936

MAZANDARAN

Damawand, Firrim, etc. We find a similar distinction
in Kh w andamlr. ed. Dorn, 83.

2. Geography: The actual extent of Mazan¬
daran (Rabino) is 300 miles from east to west and 46
to 70 miles from north to south. Except for the strip
along the coast—broader in the east than the west—
Mazandaran is a very mountainous country. The
main range of the Elburz forms barriers parallel to the
south of the Caspian, while the ridges running down
to the sea cut the country up into a multitude of
valleys open on the north only. The principal of the
latter ridges is the Mazarfub, which separates
Tabaristan from Tunakabun. The latter is bordered
on the south by the chain of the Elburz in the strict
sense, which separates it from the valley of the
Shahrud (formed by the waters of the Alamut and
Talakan and flowing westward into the Safid-rud).

To the east of Mazar-cub, a number of ranges run
out of the central massif of the Elburz: 1. to the east,
the chain of Nur, which cuts through the Haraz-pay;
and 2. to the south-east, the southern barrier which
forms the watershed between the Caspian and the cen¬
tral plateau. Between the two rises in isolation the
great volcanic cone of Damawand [qv.] (5,604
m./18,386 ft.).

To the east of Damawand, the southern barrier
rejoins the continuation of the Nur and the new line
of the watershed of eastern Mazandaran is marked by
the ranges of Band-i-pay, Sawad-kuh, Shah-mirzad
(to the south of Simnan), of Hazardjarib (to the south
of Damghan), of Shah-kuh (to the south of Shahrud).
etc.

The rivers of Mazandaran are of two kinds. A hun¬
dred short streams run straight down into the sea from
the outer mountains of Mazandaran. Much more
important are the rivers which rise in the interior and
after draining many valleys form a single great river
when they break through the last barrier. Such are
(from west to east); the Sard-abrud; the Calus; the
Haraz-pay, which drains the region of mount Dama¬
wand and then runs past Amul; the Babul (the river
of Barfurush); the Talar (river of c Allabad); the Tldjin
(river of Sari) and the Nika (or Aspayza) which flows
from east to west; its valley forms a corner between
the southern chain (cf. above) and the mountains
which surround the Gulf of Astarabad on the north.

Bibliography of travels: Pietro della Valle
(1618), Viaggi, part ii, letter iv, Brighton 1843, 578-
702; Isfahan-Siyahkuh (to the east of modern Lake
of Kum)—Flruzkuh-Shlrgah-Sarl-Farahabad-Ash-
raf-Sarl-Flruzkuh-Gilyard-Tehran; Sir Thomas
Herbert, Some years’ travels, London 1627, and Fr.
ed., Relation du voyage , Paris 1663, 265-311:
Isfahan-Siyahkuh-FTruzkuh- c AlIabad-Ashraf-Amul-
Tehran; Hanway, A historical account, London 1754,
ch. xxvii, i, 139-49: Astarabad-Barfurush, ch. xlii,
i, 192-8: Langarud-Amul-Barfurush-Ashraf; S. G.
Gmelin, Reise d. Russland, iii. (Reise d.d. Nordliche
Persien, 1770-2), St. Petersburg 1774, 446-72
(Amul-Barfurush- c Aliabad-SarI-Ash raf); G. For¬
ster, A journey from Bengal to England (1784), London
1798, ii, 179-210 (Bistam-Dehi-mulla-fialus-Sari-
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ch. xxiii. (Tehran - Bumihin - Damawand - Bagh-i
Shah - Firuzkuh - Asaran - Fulad-mahalla - fiashme -
C A1I-Sawar-Astarabad); Macdonald Kinneir, Geogr.
Memoir., London 1813, 161-7; W. Ouseley, Travels,
London 1819, iii. (Firuzkuh - Surkh-rabat - Zlrab-
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Perse, ii, 417-63; J. B. Fraser, Travels and adven¬

tures... on the southern banks of the Caspian Sea, London
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Am ul -1 zideh - c Allabad - Towar - Abgarm - Lahldjan;
Eichwald, Reise auf d. Kasp. Meere (1825-6), Stutt¬
gart 1834, i, ch. xi. (Mazandaran), 330-58
(Mashhadisar Barfurush); Conolly, Journey to the
North of India overland, London 1834, i, 20-7
(Tehran-Flruzkuh-Sari-A§hraf); A. Burns, Travels
into Bokhara, 1835, iii, 103-22 (Astarabad-Ashraf-
c AlIabad-Flruzkuh-Tehran); Stuart, Journal of a
residence in Northern Persia (1835), London 1854, 247-
89 (town of Damawand - Firuzkuh - Zirab - Sari -
Amul-Tehran); d’Arcy Todd, Memoranda to accom¬
pany a sketch of part of Mazandaran, in JRGS, viii
(1838), 101-8, map (Tehran - Amul - Barfurush -
Shlrgah - Surkh - rabat - Firuzkuh - Tehran - Dama¬
wand - Firuzkuh-sources of the Talar - Dlw-safid -
Shlrgah - c Allabad - Sari - Barfurush - Amul - Tehran;
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= part viii/3, Berlin 1838, 471-514 (routes through
the Elburz), 514-50 (coast region of Mazandaran),
550-95 (Damawand); Fraser, A winter’s journey,
1838, ii, 131-45 (Firuzkuh-Shamlrzade-Shahrud);
ii, 416-82 (Tehran-Lar-Kalarastak-Parasp-Amul-
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(1837), London 1839, 423-77 (Tehran - Firuzkuh -
Zirab - Sari - Ashraf - Amul); Holmes, Sketch of the
shores of the Caspian, London 1845, ch. x. (Kalaras-
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(1843-1844), in Gormi Zurnal (St. Petersburg 1846),
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Sarl-Flruzkuh; Kudjur-Tehran): Buhse, Bergreise
von Gllan nach Astarabad, in Baer & Helmersens
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- Amul - Ashraf - Astarabad - Radkan - Kurd-ma-
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moria, in Otecest. Zapiski, 1856, no. 7, pp. 123-50
(Tehran - Sarbandan - Firuzkuh - Cahardeh - Hazar¬
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Dorn, Bericht iiber eine wissensch. Reise in den
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(Ashur-ada - Ashraf - Barfurush - Mashhadisar);
Dorn, Reise nach Masanderan im J. 1860, section 1
(St. Petersburg-Aschref), St. Petersburg 1895 (with
an atlas); Melgunov, 0 yuznom berege Kaspiiskago
moria, appendix to vol. iii. of Zapiski Akadem. Nauk,
St. Petersburg 1863, 95-195, German tr. Zenker,
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some mistakes in the transcriptions); Eastwick,
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(Astarabad - Ashraf - Sari - c Allabad - Shlrgah - Zirab-
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(from Russkii vestnik), in Pet. Mitt. (1869) 98-103,
255-68 (Safid-rud- Mashhadisar-Bandargaz; Ash¬
raf; Safiabad); G. C. Napier, Extracts from a diary of
a tour in Khorasan, in JRGS, xlvi (1876), 62-171

MAZANDARAN

937

(good map: Gulhak-Gilyard-Firuzkuh-GursafTd-
Khing Rudbar-6ashma- c Ali-6ardih-ShamshIrbur-
Aspinezia - Sharud); V. Baker, Clouds in the east,
London 1876 (62-89: Ashraf-Sari-Shlrgah-Zlrab-
Flruz-kuh - Sarbandan - Bumigin - Tehran; 87-142:
Lar-Ask-Khaloe (?)- c AlIabad-Zirab-Casaleone (?)-
c AlIabad - Attene (?) - Surkada - Cashme - c AlI - Dih-
mulla - Damghan); E. Stack, Six months in Persia,
chs. vii and viii, London 1882, ii, 170-202 (Tehran-
Mount Damawand - Mashhadisar); Beresford
Lovett, Itinerary notes of route surveys in Northern Persia,
in Procs. RGS, v (Feb. 1883), 57-84 (Tehran -
6 alus- Nur- Balada- Lar-Ask-Firuzkuh- Fulad-ma-

v _

halla-Cardeh-Ziyarat-Astarabad); G. N. Curzon,
Persia and the Persian question, London 1892, i, 354-
89, ch. xii (Mazandaran and Gllan) with a sketch;
Sven Hedin, Genom Khorasan , Stockholm 1892, i,
57-69 (Damghan - 6 ardih - Djahan-numa - Astara¬
bad); E. G. Browne, A year amongst the Persians, Lon¬
don 1893, 557-68 (Tehran - Mashhadisar); J. de
Morgan, Missions scientifiques, Etudes geographiques, i,
1894, 113-208 (numerous illustrations); A. F.
Stahl, Reisen in Nord- und Zentral-Persian, in Pet.
Mitt., Erganzungsheft no. 118 (1896), 7-18

(Tehran-Kelarestak-Nur-Lar-Damawand; Tehran-
Amul; Flruzkuh- c AlIabad; Amul-Astarabad-Tash-
Cahardih - Simnan) (with a detailed map); H. L.
Wells, Across the Alburz mountains, in The Scottish
Geogr. Magazine, xiv (1898), 1-9 (supplement to
Lovett: Afca-Varasun-Kudjur-Nawrudbar-Mulla-
kal c a); Sarre, Reise in Mazanderan, in Z. Gesell.
Erdkunde(\902), 99-111 (Damawand-Amul-Ashraf-
Bandargaz); Stahl, Reisen in Nord- und Weslpersien,
in Pet. Mitt. (1907), Heft vi, 121-31 (with a map:
Barfurush-FTruzkuh); O. Niedermayer, Die Persien-
Expedition, in Mitt. d. Geogr. Gesell. in Miinchen, viii
(1913), 177-88 (Firuzkuh-Turud-Pelwar-San; Ni¬
ka - Sefiddje); H. L. Rabino, A journey in Mdzan-
daran, in JRGS (Nov. 1913), 435-54 (Rasht-Sarl);
Golubiatnikov, Petrol in Northern Persia [in Russian],
in Neftiyanoye_i slantsevoyekhoziaystvo, Moscow (Sept.-
Oct. 1921), 78-91; Noel, A reconnaissance in the Cas¬
pian provinces of Persia, in J RGS (June 1921), 401-18
(Tehran - Amul - Farahabad - Nur - Kudjur- Tunaka-
bun); Herzfeld, Reisebericht, in ZDMG (1926), 278-9
(Bistam-Radkan-Shamshlrbur-Damghan); Stahl,
Die orographischen und hydrographischen Verhaltnisse des
Elburgs-Gebirges in Persien, in Pet. Mitt. (1927), Heft
7-8, 211-15 (with a map); Rabino, Mazandaran and
Astarabad , GMS, London 1928 (itineraries on the
coast, administrative divisions with lists of villages,
Muslim inscriptions); cf. p. xx, complete list of
previous works. G. M. Bell, Geological Notes on part
of Mazandaran, in Geol. Transactions, series ii, vol. v,
577.

3. Ethnology. N. Khanykov, Memoire sur
Vethnographic de la Perse, Paris 1866, 116-17; C.
Inostrantsev, The customs of the inhabitants of the Caspian
provinces in the tenth century [in Russian], in Zivaya
Starina (1909), part ii-iii, 125-52.

4. Language. Cf. Geiger, Die Kaspischen Dialecte,
in Grundriss d. iran. Phil., i/2, 344-80, where the
literature of the subject is given (esp. Dorn’s works).

5. Historical geography. This is still full of
difficulties, although Vasmer’s very full study has
considerably reduced their number. The matter is
complicated by the fact that certain well-known names
are used in different periods for more or less identical
districts.

The eastern frontier of Mazandaran (Tabaristan)
in the strict sense, with Astarabad (Djurdjan) seems to
have always run near Kulbad (on the river Kirrind;

cf. Ptolemy’s XptvSot), where there used to be a wall
(, djar-i Kulbad) which barred the narrow strip of
lowland between the Gulf of Astarabad and the moun¬
tains; cf. Ibn Rusta, 149, who speaks of the brick wall
(adjurr) and of the Gate of Tamls through which
travellers had to pass (cf. Ibn al-Faklh, 303). To the
west, the town of Shalus (Calus) was situated on the
frontier of Daylam (Ibn Rusta, 150: ft nahw al-
c aduww) but later the valley of the Sard-ab-rud (Kalar-
dasht) seems to have been annexed to Tabaristan.
Farther west, the coast of Tunakabun was governed
sometimes with Mazandaran and sometimes with
Gilan.

The Arab geographers distinguished between the
plain ( al-sahliyya ) and the mountains ( al-djabaliyya ) of
Tabaristan (al-Istakhrl. 211, 271). The important
towns of Tabaristan were in the lowlands: Amul,
Natil, Shalus (Calus), Kala (Kalar), Mila, TardjI
(Tudjl, BardjT?), c Ayn al-Humm, Mamtlr ( = Bar-
furush), Sari, Tamisha (cf. al-Istakhrl. 207; cf. al-
Mukaddasi, 353). The principal town ( madlna ) of
Tabaristan in the time of al-Ya c kubI, 276, was still
Sariyya [q.vj, but in the time of al-Mas c udi, Tanblh,
179, Al-Istakhrl. 211, and Ibn Hawkal, 271, the prin¬
cipal town ( kasaba) and the most flourishing one in
Tabaristan was Amul (larger than KazwTn).

The mountain area was quite distinct, and its con¬
nection with the plain is not very clear in the Arabic
texts; cf. the confused summary in al-Istakhrl. 204.
Al-Tabari, iii, 1295, under the year 224/838,
distinguishes three mountains in Tabaristan: 1. the
mountain of Wanda-Hurmuz in the centre (wasat); 2.
that of his brother Wandasandjan (sic) b. Alandad b.
Karin; and 3. that of Sharwin b. Surkhab b. Bab.
Now according to Ibn Rusta, 151, [the Karinid]
Wanda-Hurmuz lived near Dunbawand. On the
other hand, the same writer, 149, says that during the
rule of Tabaristan by Djarlr b. Yazid, Wanda-
Hurmuz had bought 1,000 diaribs of domain lands
(sawafi) outside the town of Sari. These alf djanb seem
to correspond to the region round the sources of the
rivers Tidjin and Nika, which in Persian is called
Hazar-djarib. Later, the lands of Wanda-Hurmuz
included the greater part of eastern Mazandaran.
*Wandaspdjan seems to have ruled over the greater
part of Mazandaran, for his capital Muzn was the
rallying point from which expeditions set out against
Daylam. Finally, the mountain of Sharwin comprised
the south-eastern part of Mazandaran, for according
to Ibn al-Faklh, 305, it was close to Kumis.

In the time of al-Istakhrl, the three divisions of the
mountains specified are: the mountains of Rubandj,
of Fadusban and of Karin. “They are high mountains
(djibal) and each of them (dpibal) has a chief’.

Rubandj, according to Ibn Hawkal, lay between
Rayy and Tabaristan. Barthold, Ocerk, 155, emends
the name to *Ruyandj and identifies it with Ruyan.
Ibn Rusta, 149, says that Ruyan, near the lands of
Rayy, did not form part of Tabaristan but formed a
special kura with the capital Kadjdja, which was the
headquarters of the wall (cf. Kacarustak in the buluk
of Kudjur). According to this, *Ruyand = Ruyan is
to be located in the south-western part of Mazandaran
(north of Tehran). In the Mongol period, Hamd
Allah KazwinT, 160, is the first to mention Rustamdar
(on the Shah-rud). As Vasmer, op.cit., 122-5, has
shown, Rustamdar later included all western Mazan¬
daran between Sakhtasar (Gllan) and Amul. Rustam¬
dar therefore included Ruyan, without the two terms
being completely synonymous.

Djibal Karin had only one town, Shahmar, a
day’s journey from Sariyya. The local chiefs of the

938

MAZANDARAN

dynasty of Karin lived in the stronghold of FirrTm
[q.v. in Suppl.] which must have stood on the western
branch of the river TTdjin, which later flows past Sari.
The modern buluk of FirrTm is in the Hazar-DjarTb
(more accurately in its western half which is called
Dudanga). According to Ibn Isfandiyar, 95, the
possessions of the Karinids included the mountains of
Wanda-ummTd (ibid., 25; the water supply of the
mosque of Amul came from this mountain), Amul,
Lafur (on the eastern source of the river Babul which
runs to Barfurush) and FirrTm, “which is called Kuh-i
Karin’’. According to Yakut, iii, 283, the lands of the
Karinids included Djibal SharwTn (cf. above) which
Ttirnad al-Saltana, Kitab al-Tadwin, 42, identifies with
Sawad-kuh i.e. the_ sources of the Talar (river of
c AlIabad between Amul and Barfurush); the pass
leading to Sawadkuh is still called ShalfTn <SharwTn.

The Djibal Paduspan lay a day’s journey from
Sari. The district had no Friday mosque; the chief
lived in the village of Uram (Ibn Hawkal, 268, 17:
Uram-khast, Arum). As Vasmer has shown, 127-30,
this must be sought on the middle course of the rivers
of Barfurush and c AlTabad (to the north of Lafur and
near ShTrgah).

Bibliography : BGA, s.v. Daylam,

Tabaristan, Amul, Sariyya, etc. Ibn al-FakTh, 301-
14, in particular, gives very detailed information
about Tabaristan. Mas c udT, Murud^ al-dhahab,
index; IdrTsT, tr. Jaubert, ii, 169, 179-80, 333, 337-
8 (of little originality^; Zakariyya 3 KazwTnT, Athar
al-buldan (clime iv.): Amul, 190; Bilad al-Daylam,
221; Ruyan, 260; Tabaristan; Yakut, cf. Dorn,
Ausziige, 1858, 2-45, where are collected all the
articles relating to Tabaristan (but the text of
Wiistenfeld’s edition is preferable); Hamd Allah
KazwTnT, Nuzhat al-kulub, GMS, 159, 161; Dorn,
Ausziige aus 14 morgenl. Schriftstellern betreffend d.
Kaspische Meer , in Melanges Asiatiques, vi, 658, vii,
19-44, 52-92; cf. also the Bibl. to section on
History below. European works: Spiegel,
Eran. Altertumskunde , 1871, i, 64-74; Dorn, Caspia ,
1875 (a mass of rather undigested information);
Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur, 1882, index; Brunn-
hofer, Von Pontus bis zum Indus, Leipzig 1890, 73-
93: Alburs and Mazanderan (the author seeks to
explain Iranian geography from Sanskrit texts);
Barthold, Istor.-geogr. obzor Irana , St. Petersburg
1903, 158-161, Pers. tr., Tehran 1930, 289-95,
Eng. tr. Princeton 1984, 115-20; Le Strange, The
Lands of the eastern caliphate, 368-76; Vasmer, Die
Eroberung, etc.

6 . History. The local dynasties of Mazandaran
fall into three classes: 1. local families of pre-Islamic
origin, 2. the c Alid sayyids, and 3. local families of
secondary importance.

I. At the coming of the Sasanid dynasty, the king
of Tabaristan and of Padashwargar (Marquart,
Erdnsahr, 130: “the district opposite the region of
Kh w ar”; Farshuwadgar is a misreading of the name,
which is also found in the Bundahishn, xii, 17) was
Gushnasp, whose ancestors had reigned since the time
of Alexander. In 529-36 Tabaristan was ruled by the
Sasanid prince Kawus son of Kawadh. Anushirwan
put in his place Zarmihr, who traced his descent from
the famous smith Kawa [see kawah]. His dynasty
ruled till 645 when Gil Gawbara (a descendant of the
Sasanid Djamasp, son of Peroz) annexed Tabaristan
to GTlan. These families, on whom their coins might
throw some light (cf. below), had descendants ruling
in the Muslim period.

The Bawandids [see bawand] who claimed des¬
cent from Kawus) provided three lines: the first 45-

397/665-1007 was overthrown on the conquest of
Tabaristan by the Ziyarid Kabus b. Wushmagfr
[q v.\\ the second reigned from 466/1073 to 606/1210
when Mazandaran was conquered by c Ala 5 al-DTn
Muhammad Kh w arazmshah; the third ruled from
635/1237 to 750/1349 as vassals of the Mongols. The
last representative of the Bawandids was slain by
Afrasiyab CulawT.

The Karinids [q. v. ] (in the Kuh-i Karin) claimed
descent from Karin, brother of Zarmihr (cf. above).
Their last representative Mazyar [see karinids] was
put to death in 224/839.

The Paduspanids or Badusbanids [q-v.] (Ruyan
and Rustamdar) claimed descent from the Dabuyids
of GTlan (their eponym was the son of Gfl Gawbara;
cf. above). They came to the front about 40/660 and
during the rule of the c Alids were their vassals. Later,
they were vassals of the Buyids and Bawandids, who
deposed them in 586/1190. The dynasty, restored in
606/1209-10, survived till the time of TTmur; one of
its branches (that of Kawus b. Kayumarth) reigned
till 975/1567 and the other (that of Iskandar b.
Kayumarth) till 984/1574.

II. Alongside of these native dynasties, the c A lids
were able to establish themselves, principally in
Tabaristan. In 250/864 the people of Ruyan, rebelling
against the governor, sent to Rayy for the ZaydT
Sayyid Hasan b. Zayd, a descendant of the caliph c AlT
in the sixth generation. This (Hasanid) branch ruled
in Tabaristan till 316/928. The Husaynid branch
ruled from 304/916-17 to 337/948-9 (?). Another
dynasty of Mar c ashT Sayyids [q. v. ] ruled in Mazan¬
daran between 760/1358 and 880/1475. The founder
of this dynasty was Kiwam al-DTn, a descendant of
C A1T in the twelfth generation. A third family of
Murtada 3 T Sayyids Is known in Hazar-Djarib between
760/1359 and 1005/1596-7.

III. The noble families who enjoyed considerable
influence, mainly in their fiefs, are very numerous.
Rabino mentions the Kiya of Culaw (at Amul,
Talakan and Rustamdar) between 795/1393 and
909/1503-4; the Kiya DjalalT of Sari in 750-
63/1349-61; the house of Ruzafzun of Sawadkuh,
897-923/1492-1517; the DTw in the period of Shah
Tahmasp in certain parts of Mazandaran; the Banu
Kawus 857-957/1453-1550; the Banu Iskandar
857-1006/1453-1598 and the different princes of
TamTsha, of Miyandurud, ofLaridjan, ofMamtTr, of
Lafur, etc.

Besides this confusion of feudal dynasties, a series
of conquerors from outside has ruled in Mazandaran:
the Arabs beginning in 22/644, the Tahirids, the Saf-
farids, the Samanids, the Ziyarids, the Ghaznawids,
the Saldjuks the Kh w arazmshahs. the Mongols, the
Sarbadars, TTmur and the Safawids. For the detailed
consideration of the period of domination by outside
powers from the Arab conquest to the suzerainty of
the Saldjuks, during which Mazandaran appears in
the historical sources as Tabaristan, see tabaristan.

It is in the Saldjuk period, as already noted, that the
name Mazandaran reappears in historical literature.
Towards the end of the period of Great Saldjuk rule
in eastern Persia, Mazandaran was ruled by the
ambitious and expansionist Bawandid prince Shah
Gh azI Rustam I (534-58/1140-63) (see Bosworth, in
Camb. hist, of Iran, v, 28-9, 156, 185-6). It then passed
briefly, after the murder in 606/1209-10 of Shah
GhazT Rustam II, into the control of the Kh w arazm-
shahs, but in 617/1220 was devastated by Mongol
incursions under either Djcbe or Siibetey (both com¬
manders being mentioned by DjuwaynT as leading the
Mongol forces). It was, of course, on an island off the

MAZANDARAN

939

coast of Mazandaran that the fugitive Kh w arazmian
ruler c Ala 3 al-Dawla Muhammad died in this same
year [see kh w arazm-shahs]. Mazandaran in the
Mongol and Il- Kh anid periods was frequently a cor¬
ridor through which Mongol armies passed, but it and
Gllan do not seem ever to have been directly governed
by the Mongols, presumably because of their relative
inaccessibility and their uncongenial climate. Mazan¬
daran, however, often played a role as the winter
camping-ground [see kishlak] of such Kh ans as
Abaka, Gh azan and Oldyeytu, in conjunction with
Khurasan, which was favoured as a summer pasture
ground for the Mongol hordes and their flocks. In the
later 8th/14th and the 9th/15th centuries we hear of
governors appointed over Mazandaran by the Sar-
badarids and then the TTmurids, but in practice, the
local princes seem largely to have been undisturbed.
Also in the period of the Mongols and their suc¬
cessors, we know that trade was carried on across the
Caspian Sea to South Russia and the lands of the
Golden Horde from the port of Nlm Murdan off the
coast from Astarabad (Mustawfi, Nuzha , 160, tr.
156).

Shah Isma c fl Safawl had failed to take over Mazan¬
daran in 909/1503-4 from the local Shl c ! prince
Husayn Kiya £ulawl, who had sheltered fugitive
troops of Isma c ll’s Ak Koyunlu opponents. He also
sent an expedition into Mazandaran in 923/1517, but
it remained substantially independent under its native
princes (a Safawid governor ruled part of it 977-
84/1569-76) until Shah c Abbas I’s definitive annexa¬
tion in 1005-6/1596-7; he claimed hereditary rights in
Mazandaran through his family’s connections with
the Mar c ashl Sayyid Kiwam al-Dln (see Iskandar Beg
MunshI, TaMkh-i c Alam-ara-yi c Abbasi , Tehran
1350/1971, i, 518-22, 534-7, 542-3, 579-86, tr. R. M.
Savory, Boulder, Colorado 1978, ii, 693-8, 713-17,
722-3, 765-73). c Abbas’s mother Mahd-i c Ulya was
the daughter of a local Mazandaran chief who claimed
descent from the Fourth ShlT Imam Zayn al- c Abidin,
and the Shah showed a particular liking for the pro¬
vince, constructing there two winter palaces, which
formed a kind of northern Isfahan for him. Farahabad
was founded in 1020/1611 or 1021/1612, and Ashraf
in 1021/1612; they were visited and described by
European travellers like Pietro della Valle (1618) and
Sir Thomas Herbert (1627), and it was at Farahabad
that the Shah died in 1038/1629 (cf. Savory, Iran under
the Safavids, Cambridge 1980, 96-100). It was Shah
c Abbas who implanted in Mazandaran 30,000
Georgian and Armenian Christian families, many of
whom proved unable to survive the unhealthy climate
there.

Mazandaran was originally one of the mamalik , i.e.
diwam or state land provinces, but under Shah c Abbas
II (1052-77/1642-66), Mazandaran and Gllan became
khassa or royal domains. It suffered in 1668 from the
attack of Stenka Razin and his Cossacks, and in the
early decades of the 18th century Mazandaran and
Gllan were coveted by Peter the Great; this was of
course the period when the Safawid state was falling
into dissension and anarchy under pressure from the
Afghans in the east. Hence the two provinces were in
1723 in principle ceded to the Tsar by the faineant
Tahmasp II (1135-45/1722-32) in return for the pro¬
mise of help against his rival Ashraf. The plan was cut
short by Peter’s death in 1725, and the Empress
Catherine I offered to abandon the Russian claim on
the south Caspian provinces in return for recognition
of Russian annexations in Daghistan and Shirwan.
Safawid control over Mazandaran was however estab¬
lished by Tahmasp with the aid of the chief of the

Kizflbash [q. v. ] Turkmen chief of the Kadjar tribe
there, Fath c Al! Khan. The Kadjars now began to
consolidate their power in the region, despite
Tahmasp’s enforced grant of Mazandaran,
Kh urasan, Slstan and Kirman to Nadir Shah Afshar
after the latter’s expulsion of the A fgh ans from Persia,
and in 1744 the Kadjars of Mazandaran in fact
rebelled against Nadir.

Under the Kadjar Shahs, Mazandaran and Gurgan
continued to be of strategic importance against
Turkmen incursions, and were royal governorates.
The local economy seems to have flourished, with its
staples of rice, cotton, sugar, timber and the Fisheries
of the Caspian, the latter however leased in the latter
part of the 19th century to Russia in return for an
annual rent. Curzon noted that the revenue of
Mazandaran in 1888-9 was 139,350 turndns in cash,
with government expenditure on public buildings,
expenses of collection, etc., amounting to a mere
4,590 tumans (Persia and the Persian question , i, 354 ff.).
The ancient town of Sari declined in the 19th century,
whilst Amul and above all Barfurush [ q.v .] expanded
commercially; much of the trade with Russia went
from the port of Barfurush at Mashad-i Sar (later
Babul-i Sar) at the mouth of the Babul river, and
(here was a Russian consul for trade in the town. In
the middle years of the century, this district was a cen¬
tre of Babism, one of whose leaders was Mulla
Muhammad C A1T Barfurush! \q.o.\. The convention of
Badasht took place in Mazandaran, and a fortified
site near Barfurush called Shaykh Tabarsi was the
centre of the Bab! rising of 1848-9, barbarously sup¬
pressed by government forces [see babIs). The father
of Mlrza Husayn C A1I, the later Baha 5 Allah [q.v.],
was a native of Nur in Mazandaran. In 1889-90 there
was a pioneer attempt at railway-building in Persia
when a short line was built by Belgian engineers from
Amul to the Caspian coast; a road over the Elburz
Mountains from Amul to Tehran, 120 miles/190 km.
long, had already been constructed by Nasir al-DIn
Shah in 1877-8.

In the present century, with the confusion after the
First World War, Mazandaran was, with Gllan,
involved in the Bolshevik rising of 1920-1 in the Cas¬
pian provinces under Kucak Khan [q.v.] and Amir
Mu^ayyad, in the ending of which the commander of
the Cossack Brigade Rida Kh an, later Shah, achieved
prominence; he was himself a native of Mazandaran,
having been born at Elasht in the Elburz mountains
(see L. P. Elwell-Sutton, in Iran under the Pahlavis, ed.
G. Lenczkowski, Stanford 1978, 4-6). After he was
made Shah (December 1925), much of Mazandaran
became crown land ( khalisa [q.v. ]), actually in the
form of personal estates ( amlak-i shahi) of the Shah
himself; but these were returned to their original
owners in 1941 and subsequently distributed to small
proprietors under the land reform policy of Rida
Shah’s son Muhammad Rida Shah (see A. K. S.
Lambton, The Persian land reform 1962-1966 , Oxford
1979, 11-12, 120-2, 218-21).

Bibliography : On the campaigns of Alex¬
ander the Great and Antiochus III (in 209 B.C.; cf.
Polybius, x, 28-31), cf. Dorn, Caspia, s.v. Alex¬
ander; idem, Reise, 156-61; Marquart, Alexander’s
Marsch von Persepolis nach Herat , in Untersuch. z.
Gesch. von Eran, ii, 1905, 45-63; Stahl, Notes on the
march of Alexander the Great from Ecbatana to Hyrcania,
in JRGS (Oct. 1924), 312-19. On the Arsacid and
Sasanid period: Darmester, Lettre de Tansar a
Jasnasf roi de Tabaristan, in JA (Jan.-March 1894),
185-250, 502-55 (Tansar [Tusar?], the priest of the
Sasanid Ardashir I, exhorts Djushnasf to submit;

940

MAZANDARAN

the document translated from Pahlavi into Arabic
by Ibn al-Mukaffa c is given in Persian in Ibn Isfan-
diyar); Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, Marburg 1895,
430-5 (tables); idem, in Grund. d. iran. Phil., ii, 547;
Marquart, Erdnsahr, 129-36. For the Muslim
period: Baladhurl. 334-40; Tabari, index;
Ya c kubl, Historiae , ii, 329-30, 355, 447, 465, 479,
514, 582; Kitdb al- c Uyun, ed. Jong and de Goeje,
399-405, 502-16, 520-3; Ibn al-Faklh; Ibn al-Athlr,
index; as well as the local histories given below (an
asterisk marks the works which seem to be lost):
Abu THasan C A1I b. Muhammad al-Mada'hnl (d.
225/890), * Kitdb Futuh Djibal at-Tabaris tan',
*Bawand-nama (written for Shahrivar b. Karin who
reigned 466-503/1072-1109); c Abd al-Hasan
Muhammad YazdadI, * c Ukud al-sihr wa-kalaHd al-
durar; Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. Isfandiyar,
Ta^nkh-i Tabaristdn (written in 613/1216) abbr. tr.
E. G. Browne, GMS, Leiden-London 1905; the
manuscript mentioned by Dorn has been continued
to 842/1488; Badr al-Ma c alI Awliya 5 Allah Amull,
*Ta :> rikh-i Tabaristdn (written for Fakhr al-Dawla
Shah GhazI, 761-80/1359-78); c AlI b. Djamal al-
Dln b. c AlI Mahmud al-Nadjlbl RuyanI, 'Ta^rikh-i
Tabaristdn (written for the Karkiya Mlrza C A1I
before 881/1476, used by Zahlr al-Dln); Sayyid
Zahlr al-Dln (born in 815/1412) b. Sayyid Nasir al-
Dln al-Mar c ashi, Ta?nkh-i Tabaristdn wa-Ruydn wa-
Mazandaran , completed in 881/1476, ed. Dorn, St.
Petersburg 1266/1850; Dorn’s German tr. was
printed in 1885, but only a few copies are known;
Ibn Abl Musallim, * Ta\ikh-i Mazandaran (date
unknown); Kitdb-i Gildn wa-Mazandaran wa-
Aslarabad wa-Simnan wa-Damghan wa-ghayrih (Pers.
ms. of 1275/1859, cf. Dorn, Bericht); Muhammad
Hasan Khan I c timad al-Saltana, Kitdb al-Tadwin ft
ahwal Djibal Sharwin, Tehran 1311 (geography and
history of Sawad-kuh, lists of the Bawandids,
Paduspanids, etc.). Cf. also the local histories of
Gilan : Zahlr al-Dln Mar c ashl, Ta\ikh-i Gildn wa-
Daylamistdn (to 1489), ed. Rabino, Rasht
1330/1912 (Annex 476-98: correspondence of
Khan Ahmad GllanI); C A1I b. Shams al-Dln,
TaMkh-i Khani (880-920/1475-1514), ed. Dorn,
1858; c Abd al-Fattah FumanI, Ta^nkh-i Gildn (923-
1038/1517-1629), ed. Dorn, 1858; and the local
histories of Djurdjan: Abu Sa c Id al-Rahman b.
Muhammad al-Idrlsi (d. 405/1014), * Ta\ikh-i
Astarabad, continued by Ibn al-Kasim Hamza b.
Yusuf al-Sahmi al-Dur^jani (d. 427/1036) who is
the author of a Tadrikh Djurdjan or Kitdb MaGifat
g ulama 3 ahl Djurdjan. Hyderabad 1369/1950; C A1I b.
Ahmad al-Djurdjanl al-Idrlsi, TaGtkh-i Djurdjan
(date unknown). A large number of Islamic sources
relating to Mazandaran have been collected by
Dorn, Die Geschichte Tabaristans und der Serbedare nach
Chondemir, in Mem. del’Acad, de St. Petersbourg , 1850,
viii; and Auszuge aus Muham. Schrijtstellern betrejjend d.
Gesch. und Geographie, St. Petersburg 1858 (extracts
from 22 works). For Timur’s campaigns: Zafar-
nama , i, 348, 358, 379, 570, ii, 577; Miinedjdjim-
bashf (1040-1114/1630-1702), Sahd'if al-akhbdr,
Istanbul 1285/1868 (dynasties of Mazandaran; cf.
Sachau’s translation, Ein Verzeichniss d. muhamm.
Dynastien, Berlin 1923: Die Kaspischen Fiirstentumer,
3-13). Cf. further, Storey, i, 359-63, 1298; Storey-
Bregel, 1070-7. European works: d’Ohsson,
Hist, des Mongols , 1835, iii, 2, 10, 44, 48, 106-9
(Cintimur as governor in Mazandaran), 120-2,
193, 414-18 (Abaka), iv, 4, 42, 44-5 (Mazandaran
an apanage of Ghazan), 106, 124, 155, 159, 600
(Abu Sa c Id in M.), 613, 622 (revolt of Yasawur),

685 (Hasan b. Coban in M.), 726, 730 (Tugha
Timur), 739 (the Sarbadars \q.v. ]); Melgunov, op.
cit. (lists of the dynasties and governors of Mazan¬
daran); Rehatsek, The Baw and Gaobarah sepahbuds,
in JBBRAS, xii (1876), 410-45 (according to Zahlr
al-Dln, Mirkh w and and the Muntakhab al-tawariklj)-,
Howorth, History of the Mongols , index (publ. in
1927); Horn, in Grundr. d. iran. Phil., ii, 563
( c Alids); Lane-Poole, The Muhamm. dynasties, cf. the
additions by Barthold in the Russ, tr., 1899, 290-3;
Casanova, Les Ispehbeds de Firim, in A Volume...
presented to E. G. Browne , Cambridge 1922, 117-26
(the identification of Firim with Flruzkuh is
wrong); Huart, Les Ziyarides , in Mem. de VAcad. des
Inscr., xlii (Paris 1922), index; Barthold, The place
of the Caspian provinces in the history of the Muslim world
(Russ.), Baku 1925, 90-100 (Timur in Mazan¬
daran); Rabino, Les dynasties alaouides du Mazan¬
daran, in JA, ccx (1927), 253-77 (lists without
references); Zambaur, Manuel, ch. ix. and tables C
and P; Vasmer, Die Eroberung Tabaristans dutch die
Araber zur Zeit des Chalifen al-Mansur , in Islamica , iii
(1927), 86-150 (very important analysis of the
Islamic sources); Rabino, Mazandaran and Astarabad,
133-149 (lists of dynasties and governors: detailed,
but without references; idem, Les dynasties du
Mazandaran... d’apres les chroniques locales, in JA,
ccxxviii (1936), 397-474; idem, Les prefets du califat
au Tabaristan..., in JA, ccxxxi (1939), 237-74; idem,
L’histoire du Mazandaran, in JA, ccxxxiv (1947-5),
211-43. On the Russian expeditions to Mazan¬
daran, see Dorn, Caspia; Kostomarov, Bunt Stenki
Razina (1668-1669), in Sobraniye socinenii, St.
Petersburg 1903, Kniga I, vol. ii, 407-505 (Persian
sources call the Cossack chief Stenka Razin “Istln
GurazT”); Butkov, Concerning the events which took
place in 1781 at the time of a Russian establishment on the
Gulf of Astarabad (Russ.), in Zurn. Min. Vnutr. del.
(1839), xxxiii, 9; idem, Materiali dlia novoi istorii
Kavkaza, St. Petersburg 1869, index (in the Persian
sources the leader of the Russian expedition of 1781
Count Voinovic is called “Karafs [ = Grafj-
khan”). Archaeology. Bode, On a recently opened
tumulus in the neighbourhood of Astarabad, in
Archaeologia (London 1844), xxx, 248-55 (on the cir¬
cumstances of the find made at Turang-tapa cf.
idem, in Otecestvennyia Zapiski [1865], no. 7, 152-
60); Rostovtsev, The Sumerian treasure of Astarabad, in
Journ. of Egyptian Archaeol., vi (1920), 4-27; Minor-
sky, Transcaucasica, in JA (1930); De Morgan, Mis¬
sion scientifique, Recherches archeologiques, part i, Paris
1899, 1-3 (prehistoric sites of Mazandaran);

Crawshay-Williams, Rock-dwellings in Raineh, in
JRAS (1904), 551-2; (1906), 217; Hommaire de
Hell, cf. above (atlas); Hantzsche, Palaste Schah
Abbas I in Mazanderan, in ZDMG, xv (1862), xx
(1866), 186; Sarre, Denkmaler persischer Baukunst,
Berlin 1901-10, Textband , 95-116: Die Bauwerke d.
Landschaft Tabaristan (Grabtiirme von Mazan¬
daran; Amul; Sari; die Palastanlage von Aschref;
Safi-abad; Farah-abad); Diez, Churasanische
Baudenkmdler, Berlin 1918, 88 , inscription of
Radkan of the Ispahbad Abu Dja c far Muhammad
b. Wandarln Bawand of 407/1016, see Pope, Survey
of Persian art, ii, 1022-3, 1721-3. See also mar c ashI
sayyids. (V. Minorsky - [C. E. Bosworth])

7. The coins of Mazandaran. The question
whether the Sasanids struck coins in Mazandaran is
still an open one and can only be settled when the
groups of letters that mark the mints on Sasanid coins
have been properly explained. According to the so far
insufficient attempts to explain them, the letters AM

MAZANDARAN

941

found from the _ time of Flruz onwards are an
abbreviation for Amul, but this explanation is quite
without proof.

The Dabwayhids and the earlier Arab governors of
Tabaristan struck in the 2nd/8th century coins of the
type of the Sasanid dirhams of Kh usraw II; on the
obverse, with the bust of the ruler, his name is given
in Pahlavi characters and on the reverse is the fire-
altar with its two guardians and on the right the mint
Tpurstan and on the left the year in the Tabaristan era
(began on 11 June 652). These silver coins average in
weight 1.90 gr. = 29.3 grains and are hemidrachms.
Of the Dabwayhid rulers, Ferkhwan. Datburdjmatun
and Kh urshld are mentioned upon them. The coins of
the First bear the years 60-77 (711-28), of the second
86-7 (737-8) and of the third 89-115 (740-66); these
dates enable us to correct the chronology given by the
historians. On some coins with the name Khurshld.
earlier students read the dates 60-3, but this is to be
explained by the similarity of shast and dehsat in the
Pahlavi script and these coins are really of the years
110 and following. The assumption of a Khurshld I,
who reigned in the sixties of the Tabaristan era
(Mordtmann), is thus quite unfounded. As Khurshld
died in 144 A.H. = 110 Tabaristan era, and there are
coins with the names of Arab governors earlier than
the year 116 Tab. era, it must be assumed that the
Arabs continued to strike coins in the name of the
earlier ruler of the land for a period after the conquest
of Mazandaran, just as they did after the conquest of
Persia under the caliph c Umar.

It was not till after Khurshld’s death in 144/761
that c Abbasid control was established over Tabaris¬
tan, and after a series of posthumous coins in Khur-
shid’s name 110-14 Tab. era = 144-8 A.H./761-5
A.D., we get the first coins of the Arab governors,
Khalid b. Barmak (coins from 150/767, Pahlavi
legend Halit) , and then c Umar b. al-'Ala 3 (coins from
155/772, Pahlavi legend Aumr). Kufic legends appear
in 122 Tab. era = 157/774 under c Umar b. al- c Ala :> ,
and thereafter, governors’ names are exclusively in
this script (for Sa c Id b. Da c ladj, Yahya b. Mikhnak.
etc.). See J. Walker, A catalogue of the Muhammadan
coins in the British Museum, i. Arab-Sassanian coins , Lon¬
don 1941, pp. lxix-lxxx (list of c Abbasid governors
and their coins at pp. lxxiv-lxxv), 130-61. The issue
of these coins with Sasanid types ended in the year 143
Tabaristan era (794, anonymous) but we have a coin
of 161/812 on the obverse of which in place of the
king’s head—as earlier on the coins of the governor
Sulayman (136-7)—there is a rhombus with the puzzl¬
ing Arabic letters bh and on the margin al-Fadl b. Sahl
Dh u TRiyasatayn (in Arabic) is named; on the
reverse, instead of the altar with its guardians are
three parallel designs like fir branches, between them
an inscription in four lines giving the Muslim creed in
Kufic and the date and mint in Pahlavi
(Tiesenhausen, in ZVOAO , ix, 224).

The mint name of these Arab-Sasanid coins of the
Arab governors of Tabaristan appears in Pahlavi
script as Tpurstan, and the name of the_actual town is
not given. Presumably, it was mostly Amul, but may
have been at times other places, e.g. Sarl/Sariyya,
which was on occasion the capital of the province;
only on one coin of the period, a fals of 168/784-5, is
Amul mentioned specifically. It should be noted, how¬
ever, that odd Umayyad and c Abbasid dirhams of con¬
ventional type are known from 102/720-1 onwards
with the Arabicised name of the mint Tabaristan.

In the 3rd/9th century, in addition to the coins of
the caliphal governors, we begin to find coins of the
c Alid da c is, beginning with al-Hasan b. Zayd b.

Muhammad, al-Da c i al-Kablr [<?.t>.], from 253/867
onwards, and al-Hasan b. c Ali al-Utrush al-Nasir li T
Hakk [<?. v. ] and his successor al-Hasan b. Kasim al-
Da c I ila ’1-Hakk q.v. in Suppl.], who controlled Amul
at times. From 395/966 onwards, we possess coins of
the Zaydl imam Abu ’1-Fadl Dja c far b. Muhammad,
al-Tha^ir fi ’llah [q.v. ] and his son al-Mahdi, minted
at Hawsam or Rud-i Sar on the borders of Gilan and
Daylam (see S. M. Stern, The coins of Amul, in Num.
Chron., 7th ser., vii [1967), 210 ff., 269-77, and
hawsam in Suppl.). interspersed with these coins
bearing ShFTtype legends are found those of Sunni
type acknowledging the c Abbasid caliphs 1 e.g. those
minted by the Samanids, who held Amul from
289/902, and then by the Ziyarid Wushmaglr b.
Ziyar, who held it from 323/935, generally as a
Samanid vassal. With the capture of Rayy in 334/945-
6 by the Buyid Rukn al-Dawla, there began a long
period of rivalry between the Buyids, the Samanids
and the Ziyarids over possession of Gurgan and
Tabaristan, reflected in coin issues of all three powers,
sometimes with coins with more than one of them
from the same year, e.g. 341/952-3 (Samanids, and
unknown ? c Alid prince and Buyids) and 356/967 and
357/968 (Samanids and Ziyarids). Also in this period
begins the series of coins (353-mid-6th century/964-
mid-12th century) of the Bawandid ispahbadhs or local
rulers of Firrlm in the highlands of Tabaristan [see
bawand, and firrim in Suppl.], minted at first in Fir-
rim but latterly at Sari, which bear Shfu-type legends
which nevertheless acknowledge other suzerains like
the Buyids, the c Abbasid caliphs and the Saldjuks, see
G. C. Miles, The coinage of the Bawandids of Tabaristan,
in Iran and Islam, a volume in memory of Vladimir Minor-
sky, ed. C. E. Bosworth, Edinburgh 1971, 443-60. No
coins are extant of the Ziyarid amir Kabus b. Wush¬
magir [q.v. ] and his descendants (cf. Bosworth, in Isl .,
xl [1964], 25-6), and coins of the Saldjuk sultans who
replaced them only appear under Berk-yaruk from
481/1095 onwards.

After the Mongol invasions, we find issues of
Mazandaran by the Il-Khanids, Sarbardarids,
TTmurids, Safawids, Afsharids and Kadjars. In
Amul, anonymous copper coins were struck from the
10th/16th century onwards. On several pieces of this
period the mint Tabaristan occurs. As these are all
very rare, the issue must have been an occasional one.
The dates are not preserved on any specimens. More
common are copper pieces of the value of 4 kazbekl
(18-22 grammes = 280-340 grains) with the lion and
sun and mint Mazandaran, which belong to the
12th/ 18th century. During the Russian occupation of
Gilan in 1723-32, to meet the shortage of currency
provoked by the financial crisis in Russia at this time,
Persian copper coins were overstruck with a Russian
die (double-eagle) and circulated in the occupied
provinces in place of Russian money. These coins are
often called Mazandaran pieces, but this is not cor¬
rect, as only Gilan and not Mazandaran was
occupied.

Bibliography : Olshausen, Die Pehlevi-Legenden
auf den Mixnzen der letzten Sasaniden, Copenhagen
1843; Krafft, Wiener Jahrbiicher, evi, Anzeigeblal,
1844; Mordtmann, in ZDMG, viii, xii, xix, xxxiii;
idem, in SB Bayr. Ak. (1871); Dorn, Melanges Asiali-
ques, i-iii, vi, viii; Thomas, in JRAS, 1849, 1852,
1871. For the later period, see the coin catalogues
by S. Lane-Poole and R. Stuart Poole; Markov,
Inventarnyi Katalog; E. von Zambaur, in Numism.
Ztschr., xlvii, 136; R. Vasmer, in Sbornik Ermitaza,
iii, 119-32 (Russ.); J. M. Unvala, Numismatique du
Tabaristan et quelques monnaies sassanides provenant de

942

MAZANDARAN — al-MAZARI

Suse, Paris 1938; idem, Supplementary notes on the coins
of Tabaris tan, in Jnal. Num. Soc. of India, vi (1944),
37-45; Zambaur, Die Munzpragungen des Islams,
zeitlich und ortlich geordnet , i, Wiesbaden 1968, 34-5
(Amul), 136 (Sari/Sariyya), 170 (Tabaristan), 185
(Firrlm), 221 (Mazandaran); A. H. Morton, Dinars
from western Mazandaran of some vassals of the Saljuq
sultan Muhammad b. Malik-Shah , in Iran , JBIPS , xxv
(1987), 77-90.

(R. Vasmer - [C. E. Bosworth])
MAZAR [see sikiliyya].

MAZAR [see makbara, ziyara].

MAZAR-I SH ARIF, a town in northern
Afghanistan, situated in lat. 36° 42' N. and long.
67° 06' E., at an altitude of 1,235 feet/380 m. in the
foothills of the northern outliers of the Hindu-Kush
[q.v.].

The great classical and mediaeval Islamic town of
Balkh [q.v.\, modern Wazirabad, lay some 14
miles/20 km. to the west of Mazar-i Sharif, and until
the Timurid period was the most important urban
centre of the region. Previously to that time, the later
Mazar-i Sharif was marked by the village of Kh avr.
later called Khodja Khayran. On two different occa¬
sions, in the 6 th/12th century after 530/1135-6 in the
time of Sultan Sandjar [q.v.], and in 885/1480-1, in
the reign of the Timurid Sultan Husayn, the tomb of
the caliph c Ali was “discovered” here and its genu¬
ineness declared to have been proved. A place of
pilgrimage ( mazar ) at once arose around the tomb with
a considerable market; the second tomb which is still
standing (the first is said to have been destroyed by
Cingiz-Khan), was built in 886/1481-2. The mazar
does not seem to have been of any particular impor¬
tance during the time of the Ozbegs and is hardly
mentioned, although several Ozbeg sultans were
buried there. In the first half of the 19th century, the
place is usually simply called mazar by travellers, the
name Mazar-i Sharif seems only to have arisen within
the last hundred years. c Abd al-Karim Bukhari (ed.
Schefer, 4) does not mention Mazar at all among the
towns of Afghanistan; in 1832 when Alexander
Bumes passed through it, it was a little town with
about 800 houses. In 1866, the Afghan governor
Na-fib c Alim Khan, a ShI c I, chose Mazar-i Sharif as
his residence; since then Mazar-i Sharif has been the
capital of Afghan Turkistan. In 1878 it was described
by the Russian general Marveyev as one of the best
towns in Northern Afghanistan with about 30,000
inhabitants (L. F. Kostenko, Turkestanskiy kray, St.
Petersburg 1880, ii, 157).

It was the selection of Mazar-i Sharif as the
administrative capital of northern Afghanistan which
caused the town’s fortunes to rise, so that in recent
times, it has become a centre for local government as
well as continuing to fulfill its old commercial role
arising from its position on a route from Kabul to the
ferry-point of Pata Kesar on the Oxus [see amu-
darya], by means of which goods have for long been
exported to Russian Central Asia. In particular, it is
a centre for the trade in karakol fur [see kara-kol].
The visits of pilgrims seeking healing and blessing at
the shrine are still important, as are the religious
festivals there of the Nawruz “raising of the
standard” and that of its lowering 40 days or so later.
Mazar-i Sharif now has civil and military airfields, a
power station and a fertiliser plant. It is the chef-lieu
of the province ( wilayat ) of Balkh: in ca. 1959,
Humlum estimated its population at 75,000.

Bibliography : On the first discovery of the
tomb of C A1I, see Abu Hamid al-AndalusI al-
Gharnati. Tuhfat al-albab, ed. G. Ferrand, in JA ,

ccvii (1925), 145-8, and on the second discovery,
Kh w andamlr, Habib al-siyar , lith. Tehran
1271/1855, iii, 260-1. For the town in recent times,
see C. E. Yate, Northern Afghanistan or letters from the
Afghan Boundary Commission , Edinburgh and Lon¬
don 1888, 279 ff.; J. Humlum et alii, La geographie
de TAfghanistan, etude d’un pays aride, Copenhagen
1959, 132, 153-4, 327; L. Dupree, Afghanistan ,
Princeton 1973, 105-6, 631; L. Golombek, Mazar-i
Sharif—a case of mistaken identity ?, in M. Rosen-
Ayalon (ed.), Studies in memory of Gaston Wiet,
Jerusalem 1977, 335-43; L. Adamec, Historical and
political gazetteer of Afghanistan, iv. Mazar-i Sharif and
north-central Afghanistan, Graz 1979, 411-14.

(W. Barthold - [C. E. Bosworth])
al-MAZARI, Abu c Abd Allah Muhammad b.
C A!I b. c Umar, jurist of Ifrikiya who was sur-
named “al-Imam” on account of his learning and his
renown. His nisba refers to the Sicilian town of Maz-
zara {Mazar in Arabic), the native place of his family,
but it is not known whether the latter had emigrated
to Ifrikiya before his birth, which may be dated at
453/1061 since he died in Rabi* I 536/October 1141,
at al-Mahdiyya [q.v.], at the age of 83 lunar years. It
was in this last-named town that he settled after com¬
pleting his traditional studies at Sfax as a pupil of al-
Lakhmi (d. 478/1085), and at Sousse, under the
guidance of Ibn al-Sa 5 igh. These two masters, who
had left Kairouan (al-Kayrawan) after the Hilalian
invasion, transferred to the Mediterranean coast the
Ifrikiyan Maliki tradition, which was linked to the
founder of the madhhab by a continuous chain; notable
figures belonging to this chain include Sahnun, Ibn
Abi Zayd, Abu c Imran al-Fasi, etc. (see the table in
M. M. Ould Bah, La litteraturejuridique et Tevolution du
Malikisme en Mauritame, Tunis 1981, 25). Al-Mazari
perpetuated this tradition by establishing it at al-
Mahdiyya, where he became head of the local judicial
school, while representing a link in the chain which
came to its end with Khalil b. Ishak [q.v.], the
supreme authority of Maghrib! Malikism.

Although sympathetic to the doctrine of the
Shafi c Is, as well as to the opinions of the Ash c arls in
kalam, since he is said to have passed on to posterity
the Tamhid of al-Bakillani (d. 403/1013 [ 9 . 0 .]), he
founded his numerous and henceforward renowned
fatwas on strictly Maliki doctrine, without feeling
himself completely bound by the interpretations of his
predecessors; in general, he opted for what was
mashhur , applied the principle according to which “of
two evils, the lesser must be chosen”, and, in a sense,
tended towards a moderate practice of idjtihad. Al-
Mazari attracted a considerable number of disciples
and had dealings with other individuals who were to
become famous, including Ibn Tumart (d. 534/1130
[ 7 . 0 .]), whose life he saved when the latter was being
chased by the governor of al-Mahdiyya after having
broken jars of wine at a market in the town. Ibn al-
Abbar (in the Takmilat al-Sila, ed. Codera, Madrid
1887-9) mentions prominent Andalusians who
attended his lectures or corresponded with him, in
particular, Ibn al- c Arabi (Abu Bakr, d. 543/1148
[q. v. ]); the kadi c Iyad (d. 544/1149 [q.v. ]), who never¬
theless gives no biography of him in the Madarik\ Ibn
Khavr al-Ishbili (d. 575/1179 [q.v.]\ and Ibn Rushd
(d. 595/1198 [ 7 . 0 .]).

This jurist seems to have cultivated the humanities
and poetry, and to have studied mathematics and
medicine, but he does not appear to have excelled in
these disciplines, even if the Kitdb fi ’l-tibb which is
attributed to him is indeed his own work. In fact, his
name remains linked specifically to the fatwas which

943

al-MAZARI — MAZATA

may be found in the various mss. of the Djami c masa^il
al-ahkam by al-Burzuli (d. ca. 841/1438 [q. y.]), as well
as in the Mi c yar of al-Wansharlshl (d. 914/1508
\q.v.}), lith. Fas 1314-15 (e.g. ii, 192-4, 206-7, 321,
iii, 230-1, 234-6, 241-2, 244-7, 249-51, 280, vi, 212,
214, 217, 219, 226-7, vii, 154, viii, 114-5, 130-1, 205,
220, 271, 285, ix, 52-3, 417, 421, 454, x, 245, 291,
xii, 233, 243-7). His works numbered about a dozen,
but only three of them have survived and not one has
been published; they consist after all of commentaries
which nevertheless may be regarded as holding a cer¬
tain interest, since they contain a wealth of documen¬
tation and tackle various important questions; this is
especially so in the case of al-MuHim bi-fawaPid Kitab
Muslim , which appears to be the earliest commentary
on the Sahih of Muslim (see the judgment of Ibn
Kh aldun in the Mukadimma , ii, 403; tr. de Slane, ii,
475-6; tr. Rosenthal, ii, 459; on the mss. and the
sequel attributed to the kadi c Iyad, the Ikmal al-
Mu c lim , see Brockelmann, S I, 265): the other works
preserved are the Kitab Iddh al-mahsul min Burhan al-
usul, on the Burhan of al-Djuwayni (d. 478/1085 [q.v.])
and the Shark c ala Talkin c Abd al-Wahhab [al-Tha c labi\
(d. 422/1031; see Brockelmann, S I, 660).

Bibliography : Two monographs have been
devoted to this jurist, one in Arabie, by H. H. c Abd
al-Wahhab, al-lmam al-Mazari , Tunis 1955, and the
other, in French, by H. R. Idris, L’ecole malikile de
Mahdia: Timam al-Mazari (m. 536/1141), in Etudes
d'orientalisme ... Levi-Provencal, i, Paris 1962, 153-
63; see also idem, Essai sur la diffusion de l ’as c arisme
en Ifriqiya , in CT, ii (1953), 12-13; idem , La Berberie
orientale sous les Zirides , Paris 1959, index; see also
M. Amari, Bibliotheca arabo-sicula , Leipzig 1857, i,
125, 133, 522, 629, ii, 65-8; idem, Storia dei
Musulmani di Sicilia , 2nd ed., revised by C. A.
Nallino, Catania 1937-9, ii, 544-9; Centenario della
nascita di Michele Amari , Palermo 1910, i, 384-9,
390-402, ii, 92-4, 217-23, 224-44, 492-3; A. M.
Turki, Consultation juridique d‘al-lmam al-Mazari...,
in MUSJ 1/2 (1984), 691-704. Arabic sources:
Ibn Farhun, Dibadf, 279-81; Ibn Kunfudh, K. al-
Wafayat , Algiers 1939, 42; Ibn c Idhari, Bayan , tr.
Fagnan, i, 469; Ibn al- c Imad, Shadharat, iv, 114;
Makhluf, Shadharat al-nur al-zakiyya fi tabakdt al-
Malikiyya , Cairo 1350, i, 127-8.

Two colleagues of this jurist, bearing the
same kunya, the same ism and the same nisba are often
confused with him, especially since they are prac¬
tically contemporaries:

The first, abu c abd allah muhammad b. abi
’l-faradj al-mazarT, surnamed al-Zaki (d.
512/1118), who was also a native of Mazzara and an
Ash c arl, resided at the Kal c a of the Banu Hammad
[q.v.], then was taught by numerous masters of
Kairouan before going to settle in the East. He is the
author of a work on Kurianic readings, of a treatise
on physical contacts effected through error, the Kashf
al-ghita 3 c an lams al-khata ? , and of an appraisal of cer¬
tain hadilhs quoted by al-Ghazali (d. 505/1 111 [q. v. ]),
in the Ihya 3 , al-Kashf wa ’l-inba 3 c ala 'l-mulardfam bi
5 l-Ihya\

Bibliography : Ibn Nadji, Ma^alim al-iman, iii,
250-2; Amari, Storia 2 , ii, 561-2; M. Asm Palacios,
Un faqih siciliano contradictor de al-Gazzali, in
Centenario ... Amari, i, 380-2, 548, n. 3, ii, 216; H.
R. Idris, Essai sur la diffusion de l’ascarisme en Ifriqiya ,
in CT, ii (1953), 12; idem, Le crepuscule de Tecole
malikile kairouanaise, in ibid., iv (1956), 505-7; idem,
Quelques juristes ifriqiyens de la fin du X e siecle, in
RAfr., c (1956), 361; idem, Zirides , ii, 731-2.

The second, abu c abd allah muhammad b.

MUSLIM B. MUHAMMAD AL-MAZARI AL-KUR ASHi AL-

iskandaranT (d. 530/1135), who lived in Alexandria,
was also an Ash c ari, but more of a theologian
(mutakallim ) than a jurist as such, judging from the
Kitab al-Mihad , a commentary on the K. al-Irshad ila
tabyin kawa c id al-iHikad of al-Djuwayni (d. 478/1085
[?.c.]).

Bibliography : Ibn Farhun, Dibadf, 280;- M.

Asm Palacios, op.cit., ii, 216; Amari, Storia 2 , ii,

546, 548; H. R. Idris, A propos d’un extrait du “Kitab

al-Mihad'’ d'al-Mazari al-Iskandarani, in CT, ii
(1953)^ 155. (Ch. Pellat)

MAZATA, the name of an ancient and powerful
Berber people which belonged to the great tribal
family of the Lawata [q.v.]. According to Ibn
Khaldun, who makes brief mention of the Mazata in
his Histoire des Berberes, they constituted an important
branch descended from Zayr, son of Lawa, ancestor
of the Lawata. According to Ibn Hawkal {4th/10th
century), the Mazata and the Lawata belonged to the
major Berber tribal group of the Zanata. Yet another
historian of the Berbers, Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064),
considers the Mazata and the Lawata as belonging to
ihe Coptic, i.e. the Egyptian, race. This conception is
to be understood as meaning that the ancestors of the
Mazata (who were, in the opinion of the present
writer, the people known to the ancient Egyptians as
the Mashawasha) as well as those of the other Libyan
tribes (called Lebu or Libu in the hieroglyphic
sources) became intermingled, in antiquity, with the
true Egyptians. This process of fusion probably took
place predominantly in the western part of the Delta.

In considering the name of the tribe of the
Mashawasha and its identification with that of the
Mazata, it must be stated that the form of this
nomenclature as found in the ancient hieroglyphic
sources is a collective noun composed of the singular
noun Mashafwa )—which is the name of the
eponymous founder of the tribe—and the suffix -sha,
the designation of a collective in Libyan and Old
Berber. It appears furthermore that the Libyco-
Berber suffix -fia (or -ja) derives from another
language which the linguists call Aegean and which
was spoken by certain small tribes belonging, in the
13th and 12th centuries B.C., to the “Peoples of the
Sea”. It is read, for example, in the Egyptian inscrip¬
tions dating from this period that one of the tribes in
question, the Achaeans, bore the name of Akaywasha
and that the tribe of the Siculi which was later to
inhabit Sicily was called Shakalasha (or Sakalasa). The
same ethnic suffix was also used in Old Berber. Thus,
e.g. it is discovered from the writings of Ibn Kh aldun
that the descendants of a certain Dari formed the tribe
which bore the name of Darlsa, a collective
nomenclature with the collective suffix -sa. Returning
to the question of the Mashawasha (or Masawasa, i.e.
Mazata), it is to be believed that these two tribes were
identical, or rather that the Mazata were distant
descendants of the ancient Mashawasha. In fact, the
termination -ata, which concludes certain Berber
ethnic names (e.g. that of the Law-ata) is composed of
two suffixes, of which the first, -at-, which is Berber,
added to the eponymous name, makes it a collective
noun, and the second, the final -a (as in the names of
the Lawat-a and the Mazat-a) has been added by
mediaeval Arab authors to give this noun an Arabic
plural (Lawata, Mazata). In this manner, the Berber
suffix -at- has the same function as the Libyco-Berber
suffix -sha or -sa.

Initially, the Mashawasha inhabited western
Libya, in other words Tripolitania and what is now
Tunisia. At about the time of the end of the New

944

MAZATA

Empire, they took the decision to conquer Cyrenaica
and Marmarica, lands which had been occupied by
other Libyan tribes. The population of these lands
offered fierce resistance, but the Mashawasha
massacred them and subjugated them by force. Since
the conquerors brought with them their families and
their livestock, this constituted a veritable Volker-
wanderung. After the conquest of Cyrenaica and Mar¬
marica, the Mashawasha resolved to attack Egypt.
Their first attempts at conquest took place during the
reigns of the Pharaohs Sethi I and Rameses II in the
13th century B.C., and ended in failure. It was only
during the reign of the Pharaoh Mineptah that the
chieftain of the Mashawasha named Meriai, son of
Didi, achieved a degree of success. This chieftain was
assured of the support of the “Peoples of the Sea”, a
federation of tribes originating from southern Europe
and western Asia who sowed terror throughout the
Near East. With the aid of these peoples the
Mashawasha succeded, in 1227 B.C., in seizing the
oases situated on the Egypt-Libya frontier, as well as
part of the western Delta. Later however, the Egyp¬
tians struck a terrible blow against the Mashawasha
and their allies in a major battle which took place at
Pcr-Ir, to the north-west of Memphis. The soldiers of
the Pharaoh, riding in chariots, pursued and
massacred the fugitives. Among those slain on the
battlefield were thousands of Mashawagha, of eastern
Libyans and of Akaywasha, and hundreds of Tursa
(Tursha ), of Sakalasa, of Sardana (Shardana) and of
Lycians. In spite of this defeat the Mashawasha,
aided by the eastern Libyans, mounted a fresh inva¬
sion in 1194 B.C. during the reign of Rameses III.
The war was keenly contested, but the Mashawasha
were eventually defeated and forced to evacuate the
western Delta. In the year 1188 B.C., during the
reign of the same Pharaoh Rameses III, there was yet
a third attempt at the conquest of Egypt on the part
of the Mashawasha, aided by their Libyan allies, and
this too ended with victory going to the Egyptians.
But on this occasion the Pharaoh understood that it
would be impossible to subdue the Mashawasha and
the eastern Libyans, who had been driven to despair
by the catastrophic state of their country which was
becoming an arid wilderness. He therefore permitted
the Mashawasha and the eastern Libyans to settle in
the Delta, in exchange for an undertaking on their
part to supply mercenaries to the Egyptian army. In
this manner, the military conflict between the
Mashawasha and the eastern Libyans on the one
hand and the Egyptians on the other was concluded in
a kind of amicable arrangement. There thus began in
the Delta a vigorous process of intermingling between
the native Egyptians and the Mashawagha and
Libyan settlers, facilitated by mixed marriages which
became commonplace not only among the lower
strata of society, but also among the upper classes,
where the Mashawasha achieved posts of seniority in
the sacerdotal and military hierarchy. In the 11th cen¬
tury B.C. one of these dignitaries, named Sheshonq,
married an Egyptian princess of the royal family, and
his great-grandson, also named Sheshonq, who was
commander of the Egyptian army and bore the title of
“Grand Chieftain of the Mashawasha”, took over
supreme power in the country in the year 950 B.C.
and, after the death of the Pharaoh Psousennes II,
founded the XXII Egyptian dynasty. The
Mashawasha and the Libyans of the Delta and of
Libya recognised the authority of Sheshonq. It should
be added that until this moment, these two ethnic
groups had lived in complete autonomy.

Towards the end of the XXII dynasty, a prince of

this dynasty named Pedoubastis founded the XXIII
dynasty. It is interesting to note that for a period of
time the Libyan Pharaohs of these two dynasties
reigned simultaneously, and also maintained the best
of mutual relations. Thus there began the partition of
the Delta, where in 747-30 B.C. three princes claimed
the title of Pharaoh. Ultimately, a Libyan prince of
Sais, probably himself a descendant of Sheshonq I,
displaced the last Pharaohs of the two rival dynasties
and founded the XXIV dynasty, known as the Saite.
The Libyan period lasted two centuries, during which
Egypt remained under the domination of the minority
composed of Mashawasha and of other Libyan tribes.

The Mashawasha and the Egyptianised Libyans
were still in evidence in the 2nd century A.D. These
arc without doubt the Libu-Aegyptii who, according
to Ptolemy, constitute the population of Mareotis, ter¬
ritory situated in the western Delta around Lake
Mariout.

With regard to the non-Egyptianised Mashawasha.
outside Egypt, they may be identified, in all probabil¬
ity, with the nomads of Libya known as Mazues and
mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium following
Hecateus (6th century B.C.), and are to be distin¬
guished from the Maxues who were established,
according to Herodotus (5th century B.C.) in the
coastal region of the lesser Syrte. It should be added
that the Mazues were nomads while the Maxues were
cultivators. Hecateus does not specify which part of
Libya they inhabited. It is very likely that they are the
ancestors of the Mazata of Cyrenaica and eastern
Tripolitania. As for the name of this tribe, it is com¬
posed of the root Maz- (singular noun, of which
Mazata is the Berber collective form) with the Greek
termination -ues (-yes).

It also seems necessary to identify with the ancient
Mashawasha (Masha(wa)-sha) known from the
hieroglyphic inscriptions and the mediaeval Mazata of
the Arab authors, the Libyan tribe of the Mastites
( Mas-t-itae ) located by Ptolemy in the province of
Mareotis, in the region of Lake Mariout, on the
western frontiers of the Delta. In this ethnonym, the
termination -itae may probably be of Greek origin,
and the suffix -t- (in place of -at) the sign of the collec¬
tive in Libyan.

The Arab historians and geographers knew of the
Mazata at a very early date. In fact, when the
renowned general c Ukba b. Nafi c set out for the
Maghrib in 46/666-7, passing through Maghmadash
(formerly Macomades Selorum, currently Marsa
Zafran or Mcdinet es-Soltan), through Waddan (cur¬
rently the oasis of Djofra) and through the Fazzan as
far as the territory of Kawar, he made his return
journey through the town of Zawila, one of the
capitals of the Fazzan, whence he made his way
towards the territory of the tribe of the Mazata in
eastern Tripolitania. This tribe was, in the 7th cen¬
tury A.D., quite powerful and it possessed a number
of fortresses (Ar. kusur) which c Ukba b. Nafi c cap¬
tured. This account, which is known to us through the
intermediary of Ibn c Abd al-Hakam (d. 257/871), is
the earliest information available concerning the
Mazata emanating from Arabic sources, being based
on the accounts of numerous early informants, the
earliest of whom, YazTd b. Abl Habib, died in
128/746, only eighty years after the expedition of
c Ukba b. Nafi c . The other Arabic references to the
Mazata are of much later date and derive from the
period of the 3rd-8th/9th-14th centuries.

According to mediaeval Arab authors, the Mazata
were a very numerous and prosperous people, simul¬
taneously nomadic (or semi-nomadic) stockbreeders

MAZATA

945

and cultivators, whose centres of population and
pastures were dispersed throughout North Africa,
from the province of al-Buhayra (between Alexandria
and Old Cairo) to the east as far as the neighbourhood
of Tahart (Tiaret) to the west. They adopted orthodox
Islam at a very early stage, but at the time of the
Kh aridjI revolution which affected all the Berbers of
North Africa at about the middle of the 8th century
A.D., they went over to Kh aridjism. It is not impos¬
sible that they initially adopted SufrI doctrines, as did
the majority of the Berber tribes. However, some
twenty or thirty years later, they were already profess¬
ing Ibadism, sometimes following the very moderate
doctrines of the WahbT branch, sometimes the very
extremist doctrines of the NukkarT branch, which
became very popular among the Berbers from the
period of Abu YazTd [q.v.], the “Man on the
Donkey”, who rebelled in the first half of the 4th/10th
century against the Fatimid caliphate. It was only at
a fairly late date, probably about the 7th/13th cen¬
tury, that the Mazata began, little by little, to reject
Ibadi beliefs, turning to Sunnism. The written sources
supply little information on this subject. It may be
added, furthermore, that according to Ibn Hawkal
(4th/10th century), a section of the Mazata of Ifrlkiya
professed Mu c tazill doctrines.

The Mazata were divided into numerous more or
less powerful sub-tribes (Ar. kabila, fakhdh) and many
of their names are indicated by Ibn Hawkal, Ibn
Khaldun, an anonymous list from the 7th/13th cen-
(ury of eminent Ibadi personalities classified by tribe,
and finally the Kitdb al-Siyar of Abu ’l- c Abbas al-
Shammakhl, an Ibadi historian of the 10th/16th cen¬
tury. Among these texts, that of Ibn Hawkal gives a
list of the sub-tribes of the Mazata mingled with those
of the Lawata, in such a way that it is impossible to
separate these peoples. The list of the Mazata sub¬
tribes presented by Ibn Khaldun is very incomplete (it
includes the names of only six of these segments). As
for al-Shammakhi. he supplies the names of the sub¬
tribes of the Mazata and the nisbas on these names,
and they are found dispersed among the biographies
of renowned personalities mentioned in his Kitdb al-
Siyar. It should be added that some sub-tribes of
Mazata are also mentioned in other Ibadi works,
including the Kitdb al-Sira of Abu Zakariyya 5 al-
Wardjalanl (6th/12th century) or the Kitdb Tabakat al-
mashayikh of Abu ’l- c Abbas al-Dardjlnl (7th/13th
century).

The names of these Mazata sub-tribes are as
follows: — 1. Banu Matkud; 2. Banu WTslu; 3. Banu
Maduna; 4. Zamrata (this name is known only from
the nisba al-Zamratl; the Berber form of it is
Izamratan and the reading given by Ibn Hawkal is to
be thus corrected); 5. Banu Zimmarin; 6. Banu
Ardjan; 7. Banu Dadjma or Dadjama^read Dagma,
Dagama); 8. Banu Masara; 9. Banu Ilayan (in Ibn
Khaldun’s work, the incorrect orthography of this
name is found: B. Layan); 10. Banu Fatnasa; 11.
Banu Kazlna; 12. Banu Kama; 13. Banu Madjldja;
14. Banu Hamza (thus according to Ibn Hawkal; Ibn
Khaldun incorrectly writes it as Hamra); 15.
Awmasht (also Umasht); this last ethnonym seems to
be composed of the prefix Aw- ( U- ) which signifies
“son” in Berber, and of the eponymous name -mash-,
to which has been added the Berber sign of the collec¬
tive -t; it closely resembles one of the ancient names
of the Mazata, this being Mas-t-itae , which has been
considered above.

1. Egypt. The most easterly settlements of the
Mazata embraced, in the Middle Ages, the Egyptian
province called al-Buhayra [q.v.] situated on the

western borders of the Delta, between Alexandria and
Old Cairo, i.e. the same region previously inhabited
by the ancestors of the Mazata, the Mashawasha of
the hieroglyphic sources and the Mastitae of the
ancient sources. According to Ibn Kh aldun, there
were to be found in the Buhayra numerous nomadic
(or rather semi-nomadic) peoples who belonged to the
Berber tribes of the Mazata, Hawwara and Zanata.
According to him, these tribes tarried in the Buhayra
to sow their crops but, at the approach of winter,
moved to the neighbourhood of al- c Akaba and Barka.
He adds that the above-mentioned tribes paid a tax
(Ar. kharddj) to the sultan of Egypt. It is not known
which al- c Akaba is in question here, since there are
two places with this toponym, al-Akaba al-Sa gh lra
(“the small slope, pass”, Catabathmus parvus of the
ancient sources), forty leagues from Alexandria to the
west, and al- c Akaba al-Kablra (“the great slope,
pass”, Catabathmus magnus of the ancient sources),
forty leagues to the west of the former. Al-BakrI
(5th/11th century) mentions the settlements (or rather
the winter habitat) of these Mazata “at the foot of the
slope of al- c Akaba”, without specifying whether this is
Catabathmus magnus or parvus. It is on this side of
Egypt, to the east of al- c Akaba al-Saghlra, that the
place known as Rammada is to be located, a site
which according to al-Ya c kubI was inhabited by the
Mazata and other Berber tribes.

2. Cyrenaica (Barka). If Ibn Khaldun is to be
believed, the regular haunts of these Mazata who pos¬
sessed agricultural land in Egypt, in the province of
al-Buhayra, on the Western borders of the Delta, were
located in part in Cyrenaica (Barka), where this
people invariably spent the winter. Arabic sources of
information regarding the Mazata of Cyrenaica are
few in number and relatively late. The earliest
reference to the Mazata of Cyrenaica is owed to Ibn
Khaldun. According to this historian, they par¬
ticipated in the Umayyad revolt which took place in
Cyrenaica ca. 395/1004-5. Al-IdrlsI (6th/12th century)
claims that in his time the Mazata of Barka were
already Arabised. These courageous horsemen
inhabited the regions of Cyrenaica situated between
the town of Tulmaytha (the ancient Ptolemais) and
Lakka (Cape Locco or Luca on modern maps, not far
from Tobruk). Two centuries later, Muhammad b.
Ibrahim al-Kutubl (Watwat, d. 718/1318) locates the
settlements of the Mazata of Barka on a mountain
(Djabal al-Akhdar) situated to the west of the town of
Barka. An analogous reference is also found in the
Cosmography of al-Dimashkl (d. 727/1327).

3. Tripolitania. A very significant portion of the
Mazata inhabited the eastern part of what is now
Tripolitania, as neighbours of the Lawata of Barka to
the east and the Hawwara of central Tripolitania to
the west. The eastern limit of their domain was con¬
stituted, at about the end of the 3rd/9th century, by
a point situated at one day’s journey to the west of
Adjdabiya. The western limit of the territory of the
Tripolitanian Mazata passed near Tawargha
(Taouordga or Taourga), to the south of Misurata. In
the south, the habitat of this tribe extended beyond
the Djebel es-Soda, towards the frontier of the Faz-
zan, the population of which remained, in the 3rd/9th
century, in a state of war with the Tripolitanian
Mazata. The Mazata formerly constituted the
majority of the inhabitants of Waddan, ancient pro¬
vincial capital of the oasis of Djofra, where never¬
theless there are also to be noted, in this period, the
presence of two Arab tribal groups. The desert town
of Tadjrift, situated between Waddan and the town of
Surt (currently Medinet es-Soltan) on the coast, three

946

MAZATA

days’ journey from the first-named place, which may
be identified with what is now Tagrift (Tagrefet), was
populated in the 4th/l Oth century by inhabitants of
Waddan, in other words by Mazata mingled with
Arabs. The oasis of Zalha (Sella or Zella on modern
maps) also formed, in the 4th-5th/ 10th-11th centuries,
part of the territory of the Mazata, as is revealed by
a passage from the writings of al-Bakrl (Muhammad
b. Yusuf, Ibn al-Warrak). Finally, in this period there
belonged to the people of Waddan an unnamed manzil
(“station”) situated midway between Tamassa
(Tmassa on modern maps, to the northeast of Mour-
zouk) and Zalha, and apparently to be identified with
what is now el-Fugha or Fogha, a pleasant oasis and
a village with ruins probably of Garamantian origin.

In the early Middle Ages, the land of the Mazata
embraced two different districts, these being Surt and
Waddan. The district of Surt corresponded to the
coastal zone of what is now eastern Tripolitania, and
that of Waddan occupied the whole interior of this
land. The former of these districts was known, from
the year 46/666-7, by the name of Surt or ard Surt
(“land of Surt”). Later, the localities belonging to
this territory received the name of Kusur Surt
(“Castles of Surt”). As for Waddan, which appears
for the first time in the same year of 46/666-7 as a
country having its own king, it was still considered in
the 6th/12th century as an administrative district (A.
c amal, also ard , “country”) apart. It was, further¬
more, closely linked to the land of Surt. The district
of Waddan embraced, no doubt, all the places in the
interior of eastern Tripolitania which were inhabited
by Mazata and by people of Waddan, these being
Zalha (Sella), Tadjrift (Tagrift) and el-Fugha.

The Mazata of eastern Tripolitania who had proba¬
bly inhabited this land since earliest times (it is likely
that this land was the cradle of the ancient
Mashawasha, distant ancestors of the Mazata) rallied
at an early stage to the cause of Ibadism. The district
of Surt constituted a province of the ephemeral IbadT
state of the imam Abu ’1-Khattab c Abd al-A c la b. al-
Samh al-Ma c afiri (140-4/757-61). Numerous
individuals, probably members of the branch of the
Mazata which inhabited eastern Tripolitania, played
a significant role in the army of this imam. It was also
in the territory of Surt, at Maghmadas (in ancient
times Macomades Syrtis or Macomades Selorum),
that there took place in 141/759 a battle between the
army of Abu ’1-Khattab and that of the c Abbasid
general Abu ’1-Ahwas c Umar b. al-Ahwas al- c IdjlT.
After the defeat and death of Abu ’1-Khattab in
144/761, the victorious Arab general Ibn al-Ash c ath
took control of the district of Surt and sent troops, in
145/762-3, to conquer the land of Waddan. The
capital of this region was taken and its IbadT popula¬
tion put to the sword.

In spite of the defeat of Abu ’1-Khattab. Ibadism
survived for a long period of time in eastern
Tripolitania. In fact, the land of Surt appears in the
time of the IbadT imam c Abd al-Wahhab b. c Abd al-
Rahman b. Rustum (168-208/784-823) to be a pro¬
vince of the Rustumid state of Tahart. The Mazata of
eastern Tripolitania continued to profess IbadT doc¬
trines. In fact, at about the end of the 3rd/9th century,
the Mazata were still independent and governed by an
indigenous chieftain, apparently an IbadT. At a later
date, al-DardjTn! (7th/13th century) notes the
presence of encampments of Mazata in the
neighbourhood of Tripoli, in the first half of the
5th/11 th century, but he considers that the people in
question are not the Mazata of eastern Tripolitania,
but the branch of this tribe occupying the region of

Kabis (Gabes) in south-eastern Tunisia, which will be
considered below. Similarly, nothing definite is
known regarding the origin of Dunas b. al- Kh avr al-
Mazati who was the chieftain (Ar. rants') of the IbadTs
of Tripolitania under the dynasty of the Banu
Khazrun (493-540/1100-45). The sources of the
8th/14th and 9th/15th century are almost entirely
silent regarding the inhabitants, evidently Mazata
and IbadTs, of eastern Tripolitania. It is known how¬
ever that the people of Sokna, in the oasis of el-Djofra,
recall having formerly been IbadTs, which proves that
Ibadism has survived in these regions until a relatively
recent period.

Remnants of the Mazata also lived in the Djabal
Nafusa, in the hinterland of western Tripolitania.
Thus it is known, from IbadT chronicles, that people
originally of the Mazata tribe of Dadjma (Dagma,
Dagama) lived at DidjT (currently Deggui) in the
western part of the Djabal Nafusa. It is also
interesting to note that the name of the important
village of Ardjan or Arkan (currently Kherbet Ardjan,
not far from Mezzou, to the north of Djadu in the
eastern part of the Djabal Nafusa) recalls that of the
Banu Ardjan, a sub-tribe of the Mazata which has
been mentioned above.

4. Tunisia. A segment of the Mazata also lived in
the mountains of south-eastern Tunisia, alongside
tribes of the Lawata, the Lamaya and the Zanzafa,
and not far from the major Berber population of Banu
Dammar (Demmer). The Mazata, the Lawata, the
Lamaya and the Zanzafa lived in the vicinity of a
place called Tamulast, of which the exact location is
not known. It was this place which produced the great
IbadT historian, theologian and lawyer Abu ’l-RabT*
Sulayman b. Yakhlaf al-Mazatl (d. 471/1078-9
and see below). It was the regional centre of a district
called Djabal Tamulast, situated “below” the Djabal
Dammar.

Another branch of the tribe of the Mazata resided
in the vicinity of the town of Kabis (Gabes), alongside
other Berber peoples, such as the Lawata, the
Lamaya, the Nafusa, the Zawa gh a and the Zawara.
This is known from a passage of the Kitab al-Masdlik
wa 'l-mamalik of al-Bakri (5th/11 th century). It is
interesting to recall that Ibn Hawkal (4th/1 Oth cen¬
tury) mentions the Berber populations living in the
neighbourhood of Gabes as tillers of the soil. Accord¬
ing to this author, they were heretics, i.e. IbadTs. The
chroniclers call this people Mazatat Kabis. There
were also IbadT Mazata at Zarlk (Zerig el-Barraniya
on modern maps), a locality situated close to Kettana,
to the south-east of Gabes. Among the residents of this
place was the IbadT shaykh c Abbud b. Manar al-
Mazatl, the maternal uncle of Abu ’1-RabY Sulayman
b. Yakhlaf al-Mazatl.

Ibn Hawkal also speaks of the large tribe of the
Mazata living in the region of KastTliya (Tozeur?), of
Kafsa (Gafsa), of Nafzawa, of al-Hamma, of Sumata
and of BishrT (Bechri on modern maps). It is probably
among this segment of the Mazata that there were
recruited the fityan and the talamidha of Mazata origin
who lived, at about the 5th/11 th century, if al-
Shammakhl (10th/l6th century) is to believed, in the
KastTliya (here = Bilad al-Djarld). In the canton of
Nafzawa (Nefzaoua on modern maps) there lived a
segment of the Mazatian sub-tribe of the Banu
Izamratan (or Izmartan) which professed the IbadT-
WahbT faith; according to Ibn Kh aldun this group
belonged not to the Mazata, as stated by IbadT
sources, but to the great Berber family of the Zanata.
The town of Fatnasa (Fetnassa on modern maps) also
owes its name to the homonymous Berber sub-tribe,

MAZATA

947

a branch of the Mazata. Between Tawzar (Tozeur)
and al-Hamma lived the Mazata sub-tribe of the
Kazlna.

Further to the north-east of the Bilad al-Djarld and
of Kafsa (Gafsa), there were numerous Ibadl-Wahbl
Mazata on the plain of Kayrawan (called Fahs al-
Kayrawan in the IbadI chronicles). It is curious to
note that, in spite of their KharidjI faith, these Mazata
were loyal servants of the Zlrid kings of Ifrikiya. A
renowned Zlrid general had his origin in this segment
of the Mazata which bore, in the chronicles of this
scat, the name of Mazatat al-Kayrawan.

In all probability, there were formerly also IbadI
Mazata in the Djebel Ousselet, the Djabal Wasalat of
the Arab geographers, a canton situated to the west of
the town of Kayrawan. It is no doubt with this name
that there should be associated the ethnic al-Wasalatl,
applied to numerous IbadI individuals of the 4th/10th
and 5th/11 th centuries, members of the tribe of the
Mazata, including for example of the shaykh c Abd al-
Ghanl al-Wasalatl al-Mazatl, and the shaykh Fatuh b.
Abl HadjdjI al-Wasalatl al-Mazatl. According to the
anonymous list of IbadI shaykhs of the 7th/13th cen¬
tury, c Abd al- Gh anl belonged to the Mazata branch
of Awrnasht.

According to the IbadI historian Abu ’l- c Abbas al-
Dardjlnl, the Mazata of Ifrikiya were very rich (in
particular, they possessed a large number of horses)
and very warlike.

5. Algeria. An important branch of the Mazata lived
in what is now Algeria, in particular in the Zab and
the Hodna, as well as in the region north of Aures, the
Djabal Awras of the Arabic sources. The mediaeval
Arab authors mention there, among others, a segment
of the Mazata in the vicinity of Ba gh ava (Bagha'i on
modern maps), in a plain intersected by streams. In
speaking of the Berber inhabitants of this region, al-
Bakrl (5th/l 1 th century) says that they belonged to the
Berber tribes of the Mazata and the Darlsa and that
they professed the doctrines of the IbadI sect. Accord¬
ing to this geographer, they were semi-nomads; they
spent the winter in desert regions where they bred
camels. When the Ibadl-Wahbl shaykh Abu Khazar al-
Wisyanl rebelled, in the middle of the 4th/10th cen¬
tury, against the Fatimid government, the Mazata of
Baghaya, of the Zab and of the Hodna, who were very
numerous and then numbered “12,000 horsemen and
an incalculable multitude of foot-soldiers”, were
among the most fervent supporters of this chieftain.
Furthermore, the same Mazata also supported, some
years earlier, the Ibadl-Nukkarl imam Abu Yazld
(“the Man on the Donkey”). These two items of
information are owed to the IbadI historian Abu
Zakariyya 5 al-Wardjalanl (beginning of the 6th/12
century). When Buluggln b. Zlrl, chief of the
Sanhadja and loyal supporter of the Fatimid caliphs,
took the field to conquer the central Ma gh rib (in
360/971), according to the Arab historians he exter¬
minated the Mazata and other Berbers living in the
district of Ba gh ava.

Another group of Mazata lived further towards the
west, in the vicinity of what is now the town of Batna,
in a stronghold which al-Bakrl calls Billizma li-
Mazata (“Billizma of the Mazata”), on territory
known today by the name of Djebel Bellezma.
Nothing else is known with any certainty concerning
this segment of the Mazata, who were apparently
tillers of the soil.

A sizeable Berber population composed of Mazata,
of Zanata and of Hawwara, lived, in the mediaeval
period, in the town of al-Masila (Msila on

modern maps), formerly capital of the canton of the

Hodna, as well as in brushwood shacks situated in the
suburbs of this town. These Berbers were also
massacred by the warriors of Buluggln b. Zlrl in
360/971. However, the Mazata of these regions later
regained their strength, since the Arab geographer of
the 6th/12th century, al-ldrlsl, refers to this tribe as
still inhabiting the territory of al-Masila, which it
shared with the Banu Birzal, the Zandadj, the
Hawwara and the Sadrata. The Berber tribes in ques¬
tion, according to Ibn Hawkal and al-ldrlsl, were
engaged in the raising of livestock and in agriculture.
Undoubtedly, it is the same segment of the Mazata of
which Ibn Hawkal speaks, locating it between Tifash
(the ancient Tipasa) and al-Masila, alongside a
branch of the tribe of the Kutama. Ibn Hawkal also
mentions a village named Dakma (Dagma), situated
close to al-Masila, which in the time of this
geographer was inhabited by the Kutama, but the
name of which is associated with that of one of the
sub-tribes of the Mazata, this being Dadjma (read
Dagma). The same facts were repeated at a later date
by al-ldrlsl.

As for the Zab, the Mazata of this land lived, being
semi-nomadic, in brushwood shacks in the vicinity of
the towns of Tubna (the ancient Tubunae) and of
Biskra. In 360/971, they were massacred by Buluggln
b. Zlrl, but subsequently they regained their strength.
Al-ShammakhI (10th/16th century) refers to the
Mazata in question, describing various features of
their history during the 5th/l 1 th and 6th/ 12th cen¬
turies. They lived in encampments (Ar. ahyP) and
professed the Ibadl-Wahbl faith, with a certain
tendency towards Nukkarl Ibadism. They were,
among others, military supporters of the renowned
Nukkarl chief Abu Yazld, mentioned above.

The names of the Mazata sub-tribes which
inhabited the Zab are not known. It is very likely that
it is to these groups that the Maduna belonged, and
perhaps also the Awrnasht (Umasht). In fact, the
name of this latter people is found in that of the
locality, Oumach on modern maps, which is situated
midway between Tehouda (the ancient Thabudeos)
and Mlili (the ancient Gemellae).

The Mazata of the Zab and of the Hodna belonged
to very rich tribes which did not use their wealth to
support the Rustamid imamate of Tahart. The IbadI
historians state in this context, quoting the words of
one of the Rustamid imams, that the Ibadl-Wahbl
religion “exists through the swords of the Nafusa and
the possessions of the Mazata”, also alluding to the
religious zeal of the former of these tribes. Ibn Saghlr,
author of a chronicle of Tahart composed at the begin¬
ning of the 4th/ 10th century, says of the Mazata, the
Sadrata and other tribes inhabiting the Zab and the
Hodna, that they “were in the habit, in the season of
spring, of leaving the temporary lands that they
occupied in the Maghrib or other regions to come to
Tahart or its surrounding areas on account of the
pastures that they found there and other advantages
which the land offered them... When the nomads
arrived to install their encampments, their dignitaries
and leaders of groups presented themselves in the
lown where they were received with kindness and
respect (by the imams). Then they returned to their
encampments where they remained until the time of
their departure”.

Bibliography : A. de C. Motylinski, Chronique
d’Ibn Saghir sur les imams rostemides de Tahert , in Actes
du XVI e Congres International des Orientalistes. Alger
1905. Troisieme partie, Paris 1908, Ar. text, 17, Fr.
tr. 74; Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, Futuh Ifrikiya wa-l-
Andalus. Conquete de VAfrique et de VEspagne , ed. A.

948

MAZATA — al-MAZATI

Gateau, Algiers 1947, 60-7, 144, 145; Ya c kubl,
Buldan , 1892, 344-6; Ibn Hawkal, ed. Kramers, i,
68 , 70, 86, 87, 96; Bakrl, Description de VAjrique
septentrionale, Ar. text ed. de Slane, Algiers 1911, 8,
12, 13, 14, 17-18, 50, 144-5; Fr. tr. de Slane,
Algiers 1913, 13, 23-4, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 42,
107, 277; E. Masqueray, Chronique d’Abou Zakaria ,
Algiers 1878, 194-5, 230-6, 288-98; IdrTsI, Descrip¬
tion de VAjrique et de VEspagne , ed.-tr. R. Dozy and
de Goeje, Leiden 1866, Ar. text 57, 85-6, 120, 132-
3, Fr. tr. 66, 95., 141, 158, 159; Dardjlni, Kitdb
Tabakdt al-mashayikh, ed. Talla 5 !, Blida 1394/1974,

i, 87, 100, 111-12, 124, 128; Dimashkl. Cosmo-
graphie , ed. Mehren, Leipzig 1923, 234; idem,
Manuel , tr. Mehren, Copenhagen 1874, 329; Ibn
Khaldun, Berberes , i, 8, n. 2, 9, 40, 1/1, 232, 311,

ii, iii, 186; Shammakhl, Kitdb al-Siyar, Cairo
1301/1883-4, 130, 142, 143, 161, 203, 205, 260-2,
271, 290, 298, 348-9, 364, 371, 392-3, 409, 419,
427; E. Fagnan, Extraits inedits relatif au Maghreb ,
Algiers 1924, 43; J. Despois, Djebel Nefousa, Paris
1935, 137, n. 1; T. Gostynski, La Libye antique et ses
relations avec VEgypte , in BIFAN , xxxvii (1975), 472-
588; H. R. Idris, La Berberie orientale sous les Zirides,
X e -XII e siecles , Paris 1962, i, 36, ii, 430, 458, 462,
464, 476, 477, 478, 485; T. Lewicki, Etudes ibadites
nord-africaines, Warsaw 1955, 98, 122-3; idem, Les
Ibadites en Tunisie au moyen age , in Accademia Polacca
di Scienze e Lettere. Biblioteca di Roma. Conferenze,
Fasc. 6, Rome 1959, 7, n. 18, 8, 11, 13, 15; idem,
La Repartition geographique des groupements ibadites , in
RO, xxi (1957), 317-19, 333, 335.

(T. Lewicki)

al-MAZATI, Abu ’l-Rabi c Sulayman b. Yakh-
laf, famous IbadI historian, theologian and
jurisconsult. He was a member, as his nisba
indicates, of the Berber tribe of Mazata [^.b.], proba¬
bly from the branch who lived in the mountains of
south-east Tunisia beside the tribes of the Lawata and
Zanzafa. All these tribes were living around a district
which was called Tamulast but whose exact location
eludes us and which was, in all probability, the place
from which Abu TRabi* originated. It is, indeed, in
this locality that there lived his paternal uncle Islltan
(Yaslltan) and it is not far from this place, at a point
in the neighbouring desert, called Asarklm, that his
family and herds lived for some time. His maternal
uncle, c Abbud b. Manar al-Mazati, lived not far from
there, in Zarlk, to the south-east of the town of Gabes.
One should add that Abu ’l-Rabl* had a brother called
c Alr.

The date of his birth is uncertain. We know, how¬
ever, that, as a young man, in the first decade of the
5th/11th century, he studied under the famous IbadI
shaykh Abu _ c Abd Allah Muhammad b. Bakr in Tin
YaslT (Tin IslT) in the Oued Righ. He learned from
him the fundamental principles of the law. Then, he
went to study the law in Djarba \q.v. ] with several
famous shaykhs of that island, which was in this period
one of the cultural centres of the Ibatjls of North
Africa.

After having finished his studies in Djarba, Abu T
Rabi* returned to Tamulast, where he was soon sur¬
rounded by a wide circle of students whom he taught,
among other subjects, al-athar, i.e. the history of the
IbadI sect and the biographies of distinguished Ibadls.
He was already there at the time of the death of his old
master Abu c Abd Allah Muhammad b. Bakr in
440/1048-9. From Tamulast, Abu M-Rabl* set out,
before 449/1057-8, for Kal c at c Ali (also Kal c at BanI
C AH), a place situated in the Djabal Zanzafa, near
Tamulast; he lived there with his students until

462/1069-70. He felt safer in this place than in
Tamulast, through which passed the route of some
Arab tribes (notably the Banu Hilal) going from
Tripolitania to Ifrlkiya and returning to Tripolitania.
In the same year, Abu TRabP returned to Tamulast,
where he stayed for some time, always surrounded by
his students. Towards the end of his life, he went to
settle in Tunin, a desert place situated in the moun¬
tains near Tamulast, where a halka or circle of
students soon gathered around him. His students
were recruited from among the peoples of the Suf
(Oued Soul), Arlgh (Oued Righ), Wardjlan
(Ouargla), Zab and Kastlliya. Among those who were
specially interested in IbadI history and siyar, one
should mention principally the famous future
historian Abu Zakariyya 5 Yahya b. Abl Bakr al-
Wardjalanl.

According to the old Iba<jl chronicles, Abu ’1-RabP
died in 471/1070-9 in Tunin. However, the IbadI
tradition of Ouargla places the tomb and mosque of
Shavkh Abu TRabi c Sulayman al-Mazati, who is
doubtless none other than Abu ’l-Rab^ Sulayman b.
Yakhlaf al-Mazati, in this latter town.

Abu ’1-RabP travelled extensively. We have
already seen that he had passed his youth in the Oued
Righ and on the island of Djarba in order to study
there. From the Oued Righ, he went at least twice to
Ouargla, once in the company of his master Abu c Abd
Allah Muhammad b. Bakr. In 459-60/1057-60 he
visited, accompanied by his students, most of the
Wahbl IbadI groups of Tunisia and Algeria, passing
by Kastaliya (Kastlliya), Nafzawa (Nefzaoua), Asuf
(Oued Souf), Waghlana (Ourlana), Tamasln
(Temacin) and Ouargla, from where he returned to
the Djabal Zanzafa and Tamulast.

Abu ’l-RabP Sulayman b. Yakhlaf al-Mazati is the
author of three works, of which one is of particular
interest for the history of the Ibadls of North Africa;
this is the Kitdb al-Siyar , a collection of biographies of
distinguished Ibatjls of the Ma gh rib. We do not know
the date of composition of this work, which appears to
have been written after the year 450/1078-9. We know
of the existence of two manuscript copies of the Kitdb
al-Siyar, of which one, apparently complete, is in
Mzab in Beni Isguene, in a library known as al-
Maktaba al-ghanna while the other, incomplete, was
formerly part of the collection of IbadI manuscripts
gathered by Z. Smogorzewski at Lwow (Poland). This
work was lithographed in Tunis in 1321/1903-4 in a
collection beginning with the al-Radd c ala ’l-^Ukbf of
Shaykh Atfiyyash. It seems that numerous citations of
Abu ’1-Rab^ which appear in some later IbadI
historical and biographical works in the 5th/11 th cen¬
tury come from the Kitdb al-Siyar, while it is not
impossible that a part of these citations come directly
from the mouth of this historian and were noted by his
students. This applies especially to the citations of
Abu ’l-Rab^ inserted in the historical work of Abu
Zakariyya 5 Yahya b. Abl Bakr al-Wardjalam
{ 6 th/ 12 th century) who, as we know, was one, of the
students of Abu TRabI c . One also finds several cita¬
tions of Abu TRabi* in al-Shammakhi’s work.

It is curious that the Kitdb al-Siyar of Abu TRabi^
should not have been cited in the catalogue of IbadI
books composed in the 8th/14th century by al-
Barradl, an IbadI scholar who was moreover
originally from the same region of Tunisia as Abu T
RabiL Al-BarradI knows only two other works of this
historian which dealt with theology and law.

Bibliography : Abu Zakariyya 3 Yahya b. Abl

Bakr al-Wardjalam, Kitdb al-Sira , unnumbered ms.

from the collection of Z. Smogorzewski, passim

al-MAZATI — MAZDAK

949

(about 30 citations); E. Masqueray, Chronique
d’Abou Zakaria, Algiers 1878, 40, 250, 287, 299,
309, 311; Dardjim, Tabakdt al-mashayikh, ed.
TallaT, Blida 1394/1974, passim ; Shammakhl.
Kitab al-Siyar , Cairo 1301/1883-4, 212, 348, 353,
394-5, 397, 398, 411, 412, 415, 418-19, 433, 440,
491; T. Lewicki, Les historiens biographes et tradition-
nistes ibadites-wahbites de FAfrique du Nord du VIII e au
XVI e siecle, in Folia Orientalia , iii (1961), 72-5; J.
Schacht, Bibliotheques et manuscrits ibadites , in RAfr .,
c/445-9 (1956), 397, no. 139. (T. Lewicki)

MAZDAK (also Mazdak, Mazhdak), the leader
of a revolutionary religious movement in
Sasanid Iran, during the reign of Kubadh, son of
Firuz (Kavad, son of Peroz) 488-96, 498-9 to 531).
Klima regarded the name of Mazdak as a conflation
of an Iranian name, Mazdak, Mizdak, or Muzhdak
(“the justifler”), with a Semitic name, Mazdek, from
the root zdk (“righteous”). Klima also suggested that
mazdak may have been what the leaders of this move¬
ment were called rather than a proper name, or even
what its members were called (al-Mazdakan, al-
Mazadika in Arabic sources as well as al-
Mazdakiyya).

Almost everything known about this movement
comes from hostile sources. The earliest and only con¬
temporary account is in the Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-
Joshua the Stylite (ed. and tr. W. Wright, Cambridge
1882, paras, ix, xx, xxi-xxiv). Subsequent, sixth-
century, Greek accounts are given by Procopius ( Per¬
sian Wars , i. v-xi, ii. ix), Agathias ( Histories , tr. J. D.
Frendo, Berlin-New York 1975, iv, chaps. 27-30, pp.
130-4), and Malalas of Antioch ( Chromgraphia , inj. P.
Migne (ed.), Patrologia Cursus Completus , Series
Graeca, xcviii, Paris 1860, cols. 465, 633, 653).
Theophanes (Migne, op. cit., cviii, Paris 1863, col.
396) merely repeats Malalas. There are scattered allu¬
sions to Mazdak in Mazdaean Middle Persian
literature. Klima suggested that references to Mazdak
were deliberately omitted from the original Middle
Persian text of the Sasanid royal chronicle, the
Khwaday-ndmag, and credited Ibn al-Mukaffa c (d.
143/760 [q.v. ]) with inserting an account about Maz¬
dak into his Arabic translation of the Khwaday-ndmag.
References to the main Arabic and Persian accounts
of Mazdak based on this and other translations are
given by Yarshater. Ibn al-Mukaffa c also translated a
Middle Persian work of fiction called the Mazdak-
namag into Arabic. This work was also translated into
Arabic poetry by Aban b. al-Hamld al-Lahikl (d.
200/815-16 [q v.]). According to Yarshater, who iden¬
tifies the main fictional themes, this work was the
basis for the Nizam al-Mulk’s account in the Siydsat-
nama and of the poetic version in Darab Hormaz-
dyar’s Rivdydt. It was also used by al-Blrun! ( Athar ),
Ibn al-Balkhl ( Fars-nama ), the Mudjmal al-tawarikh s and
Ibn al-Athlr (Kamil). The most important source for
MazdakI doctrine is Abu c Isa Muhammad b. Harun
al-Warrak (d. 247/861), a Manichaean or Mazdaean
convert to Islam who seems to have used some
authentic Mazdaki work for his religious history
(Kitab al-Makalat). His account is al-Shahrastani’s
(468-548/1076-1153) source for Mazdaki doctrine in
his Kitab al-milal wa ’l-nihal. The Mazdaki book called
the Desnad cited in Mubadh Shah’s 1 lth/17th-century
Dabistan-i madhahib [q v. \ is generally considered to be
a fabrication because everything cited from it can also
be found in al-Shahrastani or other works, although it
could be argued on the same basis that this might have
been the name of the work used by al-Warrak. Some
of the information in the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim [q.v. ]
appears to be independent and rather neutral.

The Mazdaki movement is said to have been
founded by a certain Zaradusht (or Zardusht), son of
Khurragan, mobadh or chief mobadh of Fasa in Fars,
after whom its members were called Zaradushtakan,
Christensen identified this Zaradusht with a
Manichaean called Bundos who, according to
Malalas, appeared at Rome in the time of Diocletian
(245-313), held doctrines opposed to the majority of
Manichaeans, and left for Persia where he spread his
doctrine. His sect was called “those of the right
religion” (twv Aapia0ev£>v) from MP darist-denan), and
Malalas says that Kubadh himself was a Dmst-den (6
AapotoBevoi; for 6 AapiaOevoc) . Christensen took
Bundos to be an honorific title of Zaradusht, from MP
bwyndk (“the venerable”), and regarded Mazdakism
as a reforming Manichaean sect. However, Klima
regarded Zaradusht and Bundos as separate persons,
and Yarshater puts Zaradusht in the 5th century A.D.
According to Arrigoni, Bundos is a mistake for
Budos, therefore a fictive re-personalisation of Bud¬
dha. Yarshater suggests that the founding of
Zaradusht’s movement may have coincided with the
end of the millennium of Zoroaster, which some
calculations would put at the end of the 4th or the
beginning of the 5th century A.D. It might also have
been the doctrine combatted by Adurbad Maraspan-
dan, who underwent an ordeal by fire to refute it in
the time of Shapur II. The movement seems to have
been Zoroastrian rather than Manichaean in origin,
although it acquired gnostic features that gave it an
affinity to Manichaeism. It may have begun as an
attempt to popularise Mazdaism and to spread it in a
non-elitist form that would transcend class barriers
and appeal to the general population. Textual support
for the egalitarian sharing of wealth, women, and
wisdom exists in the extant Avesta, such as Vendidad
iv. 44: “If fellow-believers (hamddaena), brothers or
friends, come to ask for money, wife, or wisdom, he
who asks for money should be given money; he who
asks for a wife should be given a wife to marry; he who
asks for wisdom should be taught the holy word.” Ibn
al-Nadim describes the early Khurramiyya (Maz-
dakis) as a Zoroastrian sect founded by a certain Maz¬
dak the Older (al-Kadfm), who enjoined his followers
to enjoy life’s pleasures, to satisfy their desire to eat
and drink in a spirit of equality, to avoid dominating
each other, to share women and family, to try to do
good deeds, to avoid shedding blood and harming
others and to be hospitable.

In the time of Kubadh. the movement of Zaradusht
was revived under Mazdak, son of Bamdadh (“the
Sunrise”), called Mazdak the Younger by Ibn al-
Nadim. According to al-Tabari, he was a native of
which tends to be identified with al-
Madharayya, near modern Kut al- c Amara [q.v. ],
although von YVesendonk located it in Khuzistan.
Istakhr and Tabriz are also given as Mazdak’s birth¬
place. He is said to have been a mobadh and is iden¬
tified by Christensen with the Manichaean bishop
Indarazar, whom Malalas says was killed by the Per¬
sian king ca. 527. Indarazar (Indazaros in
Theophanes) is explained as andarzgar (“teacher”) by
Noldeke; Klima suggested that the proper name Vin-
darazar lies behind it and speculated that if mazdak
were an epithet, then that might have been his real
name.

A series of disasters in the late 5th century increased
distress and raised apocalyptic expectations. Iran suf¬
fered a seven-year long drought and famine during
the reign of Firuz. Defeat by the Hephthalites in 484
put the Sasanids under the burden of paying tribute
to them. The Hephthalite and dynastic civil wars also

950

MAZDAK

decimated the military nobility, undermining their
ability to preserve their privileged position. The com¬
mon interest of the monarch and the people in curbing
the power of the great nobles may haved led Kubadh
to identify himself with the Zaradushtakan. He may
have seen this movement as a potential base of mass
support against the nobles, and its programme as a
means of restoring by transforming his kingdom.
Noldeke represented Kubadh as a forceful, capable
ruler, who, for purely secular motives, favoured Maz-
dakism as an expedient to reduce the power of the
nobles and priests. Christensen argued that Kubadh
was a sincere convert and humanitarian ruler,
motivated by religious belief and a desire for the
welfare of his subjects. Pigulevskaya saw Kubadh as
a sincere MazdakT rather than a shrewd and subtle
politician. Klima rejected Christensen’s “humani¬
tarian” characterisation of Kubadh based on his
behaviour in his wars, although an Arabic source with
a hostile bias says that, as a zandik, Kubadh feared to
shed blood. Although there is no way to be certain,
Kubadh is most likely to have been motivated by a
combination of political interests and religious belief.

To the extent that doctrines ascribed to Mazdak
himself can be reconstructed from later sources, he
seems to have advocated the enjoyment of material
things in moderation and a peaceful, egalitarian and
non-competitive social and economic order.
Miskawayh says that the Mazdakiyya were called
“the adherents of justice” (al- c Adliyya), and they are
sometimes compared to the egalitarian, gnostic sect of
Carpocratians that also stood for social justice.
According to al-Tha c alibi, Mazdak taught that God
had put provisions for livelihood ( arzak ) on earth for
people to divide equally among themselves, with no
one having more than his share. But people had
wronged each other and sought to dominate; the
strong had defeated the weak and monopolised the
means of livelihood and property. It was necessary to
take from the rich and give to the poor for everyone
to become equal in wealth. Whoever had a surplus of
property, women, or goods had no more right to it
than anyone else. In FirdawsI, Mazdak is said to have
taught that wealth and women must be shared in
order to overcome the five demons of envy, wrath,
vengeance, need and greed that turn men from
righteousness. This appears to be reflected in the
refutation of a sectarian who represents sharing
women and property as a remedy for passions in
Denkart , iii. 5.

If authentic, such a positive, anti-elitist attitude
toward material possessions could hardly have been
Manichaean in origin. Christensen accepted the
Manichaean origin of the Mazdakiyya because they
are called Manichaeans in the Greek sources. They
may have been accused of Manichaeism by their
enemies in Iran, and Malalas may simply have
repeated the slander or have used the only name for
an Iranian sect that he knew. Klima’s argument that
Mazdak had to use Mazdaean terminology as a vehi¬
cle for the mass communication of his propaganda
because he was in Iran is based on the assumption that
Mazdaism was spread uniformly, socially and geo¬
graphically, in 5th-century Iran. But it is questionable
that the lower classes were already Mazdaean in the
5th century; Mazdakism seems rather to have been a
vehicle to spread Mazdaean doctrine among them.
Puech regards Mazdakism as an optimistic reform of
Manichaeism, but, as Yarshater points out, most
sources describe Mazdakism as a reform of
Zoroastrianism. What is known about Mazdak’s doc¬
trine is dualist and generally gnostic in character

rather than specifically Manichaean. The gnostic
elements that are claimed as the basis for affinity
between Mazdakism and Manichaeism include
pacifism, asceticism, fatalism, esoteric interpretation
and the antinomian rejection of ritual. The prohibi¬
tion of bloodshed appears in the context of social con¬
cord and is not necessarily either pacifist or
vegetarian. The only other basis for claiming an
ascetic element in Mazdakism is a hostile gloss to Ven-
didad, iv. 49 saying that Mazdak, son of Bamdad, ate
fully himself but subjected others to hunger and
death. This is just as likely to refer to the consequence
for the rich of redistributing property as to refer to
Mazdak’s regulations for his own followers without
additional corroboration. The alleged contrast
between ascetic and hedonistic tendencies in Maz¬
dakism is explained by Yarshater, by comparison with
gnostic movements, in terms of a self-denying elite
and wordly lay members. But this is the reverse of
what the gloss suggests, and there is no other evidence
for such elitism among the Mazdakiyya. According to
al-Shahrastanl. Mazdak’s doctrine resembled Mani’s
except that Darkness did not act of its own will and
out of choice ( bi ’ l-kasd wa ’l-ikhtiyar), but blindly and
by chance (bi ’l-khabt wa ’l-ittifak), and that the mix¬
ture of Light with Darkness was produced in this way
as will be their separation. Al-Shahrastanl also reports
that some Manichaeans believed that mixture was
produced bi ’l-khabt wa ’l-ittifak , in opposition to the
others. According to al-Mutahhar b. Tahir al-
MakdisI, the Sabians [q.v. ] also believed in mixture bi
’ l-khabt wa ’ l-ittifak . Although Sabians are sometimes
mistaken for Manichaeans, belief in a blind fate is
central to Zurvanism and thus available in a
Zoroastrian context. Regarding esoteric interpreta¬
tion, al-Mas c udI says that Mazdak was the first to
interpret the Avesta according to its hidden meanings
( batin ). Although this may have been a matter of
adjusting Mazdaean doctrine for the masses, it made
the Mazdakiyya into Zindiks [q.v. ] along with the
Manichaeans. According to the 3rd/9th century al-
Mutawakkill, Mazdak is also said to have persuaded
Kubadh to have all but the three original fires
extinguished. Rather than being an attack on cult
observance as such, Yarshater interprets this to mean
that Mazdak sought to reduce the power of the Maz¬
daean priesthood and deprive them of property held
by fire-temples. There may have been an attempt to
found alternative institutions, since the Nestorian
Chronicle of SiHrt reports that Kubadh ordered temples
(i hayakil) and hospices ( fanadik ) to be built throughout
his kingdom where men and women would con¬
gregate for adultery.

Beginning with the earliest sources, the Mazdak!
ideal of sharing women has been represented in terms
of sexual promiscuity with the resulting confusion of
paternity. According to Pseudo-Joshua, the
Zaradushtakan believed that women should be shared
and that every man should have intercourse with
whom he pleased. This text also reports that Kubadh
allowed the wives of the nobles to commit adultery,
while Procopius relates that Kubadh issued a law that
Persians should have intercourse with women in com¬
mon vopov i'ypacpev ini xotva xat$ yuvotijji ptyvoaGat
n£paa<;). Although such reports received lurid
embellishments in later literature, it is more likely,
according to Klima and Yarshater, that the Maz¬
dakiyya advocated the right of each man to have a
wife and the abolition of social barriers to marriage
between nobles and commoners. They may also have
encouraged the marriage of women outside of their
immediate families. Klima suggests that famine and

MAZDAK

951

the decimation of the nobility in recent warfare had
caused a demographic crisis in Iran, and that Kubadh
released the wives of nobles and allowed them to
marry commoners in order to repopulate the country.
How this may have been related to changes in the
legal status of women in 5th and 6th century Iran
remains unresolved, but the Mazdakiyya apparently
regarded women as a form of possession to be shared.

Land was also redistributed to new individual
owners, perhaps to help restore agriculture after the
famine. Modern Soviet scholars interpret the sharing
of property as the restoration of ancient village com¬
munes, but there is no direct evidence for this.
Whether the sharing of women and property was
intended to undermine the position of noble families
or whether matters simply got out of control,
disorders broke out and granaries were plundered at
unspecified places in 494-5. In 496 the Persian nobles
deposed and imprisoned Kubadh because of his policy
toward women and enthroned his brother D jam asp.
Christensen put the worst of the MazdakI risings
during the reign of Djamasp and described them
imaginatively as veritable jacqueries. Kubadh escaped
to the Hephthalites, who helped restore him to the
throne ca. 498-9.

The situation seems to have been stabilised with the
Mazdakiyya in control after Kubadh’s return. The
MazdakI period is generally understood in terms of
class conflict and the overturning of the social order.
Soviet scholars see the movement as one of peasant
protest and identify Mazdak’s followers as poor
farmers, although Pigulevskava notes that the sources
are not specific in this respect. Al-Tabari calls his
followers commoners ( c dmma , while al-Tha c alib!
simply calls them the poor (fukara 3 , masakin) or the
rabble (al-ghawghd*). However, some nobles were
MazdakI, such as Siyavush, who commanded
Kubadh’s army after his restoration, and Kubadh’s
eldest son, Kawus, who governed Tabaristan as the
Padhashkh w ar Shah. Kubadh seems to have favoured
the conversion of non-Zoroastrians in order to in¬
crease religious conformity. He tried to force the
Armenians to convert before he was deposed, and
after he was restored, he required the Arab ruler of al-
Hlra, al-Mundhir III (ca. 505-54 [see lakh mips] I to
adopt MazdakI doctrines. When al-Mundhir refused,
Kubadh got the ruler of the Kinda, al-Harith b.
c Amr, to agree to impose Mazdakism on the Arabs of
the Nadjd and the Hidjaz. Some Arabs in Mecca arc
said to have adopted Mazdakism ( tazandaka ) at that
time, and some zanadika are said to have still been
there in the time of Muhammad. Efforts to spread
some form of Zoroastrianism lie behind the forced
conversion of Jewish children that began under Firuz
in 474, according to Sherira. or in 477 according to
I bn Dawud. Graetz and others have seen the revolt of
the exilarch. Mar Zutra, who is said to have made
himself briefly independent at Mahoza near
Ctesiphon in the early 6th century, as a reaction to the
Mazdakiyya, although Neusner considers the entire
episode implausible.

Since the Mazdakiyya supported the succession of
Kawus, his younger brother, Khusraw. allied himself
with the Mazdaean priests, challenged Mazdak’s
influence over Kubadh, arranged for the Mazdakiyya
to assemble at the capital for a religious disputation or
for the proclamation of Kawus as successor, con¬
vinced his father that Mazdak’s doctrines were false,
and had him executed with thousands of his followers
in 528 or early 529. When Khusraw succeeded his
father in 531, there may have been a second persecu¬
tion of Mazdakites; the sect was suppressed and its

books destroyed. In reaction to thirty years of Maz-‘
dak! ascendancy, the distinction between nobles and
commoners was restored. Some indication of what
had happened can be seen in the reforms of Kh usraw
I, who confiscated the property of MazdakI leaders
and gave it to the poor. He executed those who had
taken property by force and returned it to its former
owners. Those who had damaged property were
ordered to pay for it. A child of disputed descent was
to belong to the family with which it lived. A man who
had seized a woman was to give her a marriage por¬
tion that satisfied her family; she could then decide to
stay with him or marry someone else, but should
return to her former husband if she had one. Khusraw
took personal charge of children from noble families
without anyone to care for them; he gave the girls
dowries and found noble husbands for them, and
found noble wives for the youths.

Any Mazdakiyya who survived did so in secret or
escaped beyond the Sasanid borders to Central Asia.
There may have been an early centre near Rayy. By
the early Islamic period, Neo-MazdakI groups were
scattered throughout Iran; they were called Maz¬
dakiyya around Rayy and Hamadan, “wearers of
red” ( Muhammira ) in Djurdjan. and “wearers of
white’’ ( Sapid-djamagan/A sbidh-djamakiyya or Mu-
bay yida) in Central Asia. During the 2nd/8th and
3rd/9th centuries, they broke up into numerous sub-
sects named after some leader. According to al-
Warrak, as cited by al-Shahrastani, in the 3rd/9th
century, MazdakI doctrine was based on a dualism of
Light and Darkness; Light, having knowledge and
sensation, acted intentionally, while Darkness, being
ignorant and blind, acted randomly. Both their mix-
lurcs and separation were accidental. The mingling of
the three elements of Water, Fire, and Earth pro¬
duced two demiurge-like Managers of Good and of
Evil. Their object of worship (ma c baduhu) was
enthroned in the upper world as the supreme monarch
(khusraw) was in the lower world. Four spiritual
powers (kuwd) called Discernment (tamyiz). Under¬
standing (fahm), Preservation (hijz), and Joy (surur)
stand before His throne corresponding to the chief
judge (mobadhan mobadh ), religious teacher (herbadhan
herbadh ), army commander (sipahbad), and entertain¬
ment master (ramishgar) who stood before the earthly
king. The world was directed by the four powers with
the aid of seven wazirs and twelve spiritual forces.
Anyone in whom the four, the seven, and the twelve
were combined became godly (rabbani) and freed from
religious duties. Those who knew the sum of the let¬
ters that amounted to the most supreme Name (al-ism
al-a c zam) also knew the greatest secret (al-sirr al-akbar).
Those who did not know it remained blind and
ignorant. The doctrine of correspondence seems to
reflect late Sasanid conditions, but it is difficult to tell
whether the rest went back to Mazdak himself or
whether it was the result of continuing doctrinal
development. The Mazdakiyya tend to be credited
with introducing number and letter mysticism, and
may have contributed it to the Kaysaniyya [q. v. ] ShI c I
groups with which they associated in the 2nd/8th cen¬
tury. The Neo-MazdakI groups that emerged from
this association such as the Abu Muslimiyya, Sunba-
dhiyya, Mukanna c iyya and, above all, the Khur-
ramiyya [q. v. ] or Khurramdiniyva and its subsect of
Kudhakiyya, seem to have acquired additional
gnostic content from ghulat ShI c I groups as a semi-
Islamic disguise. However, both al-Shafi c I and al-
MakdisI regarded the Khurramiyya as a category of
Madjus [q.v.]. Mazdakiyya survived in Central Asia
as late as the early 6th/l2th century living at Kish,

952

MAZDAK — MAZHAR

Na khsh ab and villages near Bukhara according to
Narshakhl. According to Yakut, they inhabited the
village of DargazTn between Hamadan and Zandjan.
The last references to Mazdakiyya occur in the
llkhanid period, although the Mazdakiyan are listed
as the fourteenth Zoroastrian sect in the Dabistan, and
a Mazdakl community called Mara gh ivva reported
by MustawfT as living in the Rudbar of Kazwin in the
8th/14th century still survived in seven villages there
in the 20th century.

Bibliography : Th. Noldeke, Geschichte der
Perser und Araber, 455-67; idem, Orientalischer
Socialismus , in Deutsche Rundschau , xviii (Berlin
1879), 284-91; H. Graetz, History of the Jews ,
Philadelphia 1894, 1941, iii, 3-5; O. G. von
Wesendonk, Die Mazdakiten: Ein kommunistisch-
religidse Bewegung im Sassanidenreich, in Der Neue
Orient , vi (Berlin 1919), 35-41; A. Christensen, Le
regne du roi Kawadh /. et le communisme mazdakite ,
Copenhagen 1925; Browne, LHP, i; G. Olinder,
The Kings of Kinda of the family of Akil al-Murar, Lund
1927, 63-4; N. Pigulevskaya, Mazdakitskoye

dvizeniye, in Izvestiya Akademii nauk SSSR, Seriva
istorii i filosofii (1944), i, 171-81; idem, Goroda Irana
v rannem sredievekov’e, Moscow-Leningrad 1956, tr.
Les villes de I’Etat iranien aux epoques parthe et sassanide,
Paris 1963, 195-230; F. Altheim and R. Stiehl,
Mazdak und Porphyrias , in La Nouvelle Clio, v
(Brussels 1953), 356-76, repr. in their Geschichte der
Hunnen, Berlin 1961, iii, 61-84; O. Klima, Mazdak,
Geschichte einer sozialen Bewegung im Sassanidischen Per-
sien , Prague 1957; idem, Beitrdge zur Geschichte des
Mazdakismus, Prague 1977; Abraham Ibn Daud,
The Book of Tradition (Sefer Ha-Qabbalah ), ed. and tr.
G. Cohen. Philadelphia 1967, 42; M. Kister, Al-
Hira, Some notes on its relations with Arabia, in Arabica ,
xv (1968), 144-5; J. Neusner, A history of the Jews in
Babylonia , Leiden 1970, v, 97, 104-5; P. Carratelli,
Genesi ed aspetti des Mazdakismo, in La Parola del
Passato, xxvii (1972), 66-88; D. Goodblatt, Rabbinic
instruction in Sasanian Babylonia, Leiden 1975, 26; E.
Arrigoni, Manicheismo, Mazdakismo e sconfessione
dell’eresiarca Romano-Persiano Bundos , Milan 1982; E.
Yarshater, ch. Mazdakism, in Camb. hist, of Iran, iii,
Cambridge 1983, 991-1024.

(M. Guidi - [M. Morony])
MAZHAR (a.), pi. mazahir , literally “place of out¬
ward appearance”, hence “manifestation,
theophany”, a technical term used in a wide
variety of contexts in aiSsm, $ufism, Babism, and,
in particular, Baha^ism, where it is of central
theological importance. At its broadest, the term may
be applied to any visible appearance or expression of
an invisible reality, reflecting the popular contrast
between zdhir and bat in. In its more limited applica¬
tion, however, it refers to a type of theophany in
which the divinity or its attributes are made visible in
human form. The term is, therefore, of particular
value in those forms of Islam in which the tension
between a wholly transcendent and an incarnate God
is most keenly felt.

In esoteric Shiism, the term is applied to the
Prophet and the imams in a variety of applications.
Thus, prophets in general and the imams in particular
are the mazahir in which the pre-existent Reality of
Muhammad ( al-hakika al-Muhammadiyya) appears; the
human soul is the mazhar of the universal Forms in the
next world; the Perfect Man ( al-insdn al-kamil) or the
hakika Muhammadiyya is the mazhar of the divine names
and attributes; and the individual imams are the
mazahir of the “eternal imam ” and of the divine
attributes. (For these and other uses, see Corbin, En

Islam iranien , index, s.vv. 11 mazhar' ’, “theophanie”,
“theophanies”, “theophanique”, and “theopha-
nismes”.)

It is the imams in particular who function as loci for
the visible appearance of the divinity. In a tradition
attributed to the fourth imam , c Ali b. al-Husayn, it is
claimed that the imams are God’s “meanings” and his
external presence within creation ( nahnu ma^anihi wa
zdhiruhu fikum, quoted in al-AhsaT, Sharh al-ziydra , iv,
269). Similarly, c Ali is reported to have said: “My
external appearance is that of the imamate (al-wilaya),
but inwardly I am that which is unseen and incom¬
prehensible” (quoted in ibid. , ii, 135).

In the work of Ibn al- c Arabi [q. v. ] the term is closely
linked to that of tadjalli or divine self-revelation; the
mazahir provide the external loci for the appearance of
the tadjalliyat emanating from the Absolute. In this
context, the word mazhar is a synonym for madjla, used
of an external attribute manifesting a divine name. In
his theory of the Perfect Man who acts as a mirror in
which the Absolute may see itself manifested, Ibn al-
c ArabF parallels the Shfn notion of the imam: man is
the place of manifestation of the divinity, huwa madfla
al-hakk. In this sense, the Perfect Man is the Isthmus
or barzakh joining the worlds of the Absolute and Crea¬
tion (See Ibn al- c ArabI, Fusus al-hikam.)

The Bab [ q.v.\ developed a complex theory of
theophanies in his later works, notably the Bayan-i
Farsi and the Kitdb-i pandi sha^n. The term zuhur
applies to the self-revelation of God to his creation and
to the period in which he is thus manifest, as con¬
trasted with butun, the state and period of his conceal¬
ment. This revelation takes place in the mazhar, a
created being in whom the Divinity manifests himself
to other created beings: “the hidden reality of the
divine unity {ghayb al-tawhid) is only affirmed through
that which is revealed in the outward aspect (zahir) of
the messenger” (the Bab, Pandi sha^n. 40); and
“God... makes Himself known to his creation in the
place of manifestation ( mazhar ) of his own self, for
whenever men have recognised God, their Lord, their
recognition of him has only been attained through
what their prophet has caused them to know” {ibid.,
125).

It is not, strictly speaking, the divine essence but
the Primal Will that is manifested to men: “That
command (i.e. the mazhar) is not the eternal and hid¬
den essence, but is a Will that was created through
and for himself out of nothing” {ibid., 31); and
“From the beginning that has no beginning to the end
that has no end, there has ever been but a single Will
which has shone forth in every age in a manifestation
{zuhur) (idem, Bayan-i Farsi. 4:6, 120-1).

This mazhar (referred to variously as a “throne”
{ c arsh), “seat {kursi), “temple” {haykaf), or “mirror”
{mir^at), or as the “tree of reality” {shadjarat al-hakika)
and “primal point” {nukta-yi uld) is an ambivalent
creature. He is outwardly mortal (“what your eyes
behold of the outward form of the thrones is but a
handful of clay”, Pandi shaM, 242), but inwardly
divine: “Look within them, for God has manifested
Himself {tadjalla) to them and through them” {ibid.).
The historical mazahir are ontologically a single being,
often compared to a single sun appearing in different
mirrors; their number is incalculable. They are
particularly identified with the chief prophetic figures
of the past and with the ShiT imams.

In the final phase of his career {ca. 1848-50), the
Bab himself claimed to be the latest mazhar of the
Primal Will, initiating a new religious dispensation
and shari^a. Beyond this, he attributed to many of his
followers the status of partial or general manifesta-

MAZHAR — MAZIN

953

tions of the divinity (see MacEoin, Hierarchy , 109 ff.).
His chief follower, Mirza Muhammad c AlI Kuddus,
is referred to in one source quite simply as mazhar-i
khuda (ibid ., 110). In theological terms, this is
explained by the concept of an infinite progression of
mirrors reflecting the Divine Will and forming a com¬
plex descending hierarchy of mazdhir. These secon¬
dary, tertiary, and subsequent mirrors appear, not
only during the lifetime of the primary mirror, but
throughout the period of butun , when he is in a state
of concealment (ibid., 117-19).

Baha 5 ! doctrine follows that of Babism very closely,
but tends to be more restrictive in its attribution of the
status of mazhariyya , which is generally limited to the
founders of the major religions. The full technical
term for such figures is mazhar ildhi (in English Baha^T
usage, ‘‘Manifestation of God”). At the same time, a
broader definition of religious truth allows Bahaas to
include among the mazdhir figures such as Buddha and
Krishna (whom they regard as the “founder” of Hin¬
duism). Baha 5 Allah [q. i\] is the latest mazhar and will
not be followed by another for at least one thousand
years. Not only is he accorded a high status with
regard to previous and future mazdhir (who have either
prepared the way for him or will function under his
shadow), but he himself often speaks in terms that are
dose to those of incarnationism. Thus he is “the
creator of all things”, in whom “the essence of the
pre-existent has appeared”; in one place, he claims
that “he has been born who begets not nor is begot¬
ten” (see MacEoin, Charismatic authority , 168).

Modern Baha^I doctrine, however, explicitly rejects
an incarnationist interpretation of the status of the
mazdhir.

Bibliography : Shavkh Ahmad al-Ahsa 5 !,
Sharh al-Ziyara al-djdmTa al-kabira* , 4 vols., Kirman
1355 sh./l976-7; H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, Paris
1971-2; J. W. Morris (tr.), The Wisdom of the
Throne. An introduction to the philosophy of Mulla Sadr a,
Princeton 1981 (see index, s.v. mazhar ); Muhyl ’1-
Dln Ibn al- c ArabI, Fusus al-hikam, ed. Abu , l- c Ala :>
c AfTlT, Cairo 1946 (repr. Beirut, n.d.); idem. The
Bezels of Wisdom, tr. R. W. J. Austin, London 1980;
T. Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism, A comparative study of
key philosophical concepts, rev. ed., Berkeley-Los
Angeles-London 1984; Sayyid c AlI Muhammad
ShlrazI, the Bab, Bayan-i Farsi , n.p. [Tehran] n.d.;
idem, Kitab-i pandj sha^n, n.p. [Tehran] n.d.; D.
MacEoin, Hierarchy, authority and eschatology in early
Babi thought, in P. Smith (ed.), In Iran. Studies in
Babi and BahaT history, iii, Los Angeles, 1986, 95-
155; idem, Changes in charismatic authority in Qajar
Shi c ism, in E. Bosworth and C. Hillenbrand (eds.),
Qajar Iran. Political, social and cultural change, 1800 -
1925, Edinburgh 1984, 148-76; Mirza Husayn C A1I
Nurl Baha 3 Allah, Kitab-i ikdn, Cairo 1352/1933; J.
R. Cole, The concept of manifestation in the Bahaf
writings, in BahaT Studies, ix (Ottawa 1982).

(D. MacEoin)

MAZHAR, Mirza DjandjAnAn (111 1-95/1700-
81), an Urdu poet and eminent $ufI, was born
in Talabagh, Malwa. He was received into the
Nakshabandi order by Sayyid Mir Muhammad
Bada^uni, and into the Kadirl order by Muhammad
c Abid Sumaml. He was shot in Dilhl by a ShI c I
fanatic in revenge for his critical remarks about the
Muharram celebrations, but though he survived three
days, he refused to identify his assailant to the
Emperor. He was—and remains—a famous religious
leader. He had many disciples and was even credited
with miracles. As a writer, however, his position is not
so clear-cut. His letters, in Persian, have been pub¬

lished together with letters addressed to him; but they
shed little, if any, light on his poetry, being mostly
concerned with religious and social affairs. In Persian
poetry, his dlwdn is his own selection of 1,000 from
20,000 verses. The same fastidious self-criticism may
perhaps explain why so little of his Urdu poetry is
extant; what remains is found scattered in tadhkiras,
anthologies and other books. Yet he has been
recognised as one of the four pillars of 18th century
Urdu poetry, alongside Sawda 5 [q.v.\, Mir TakT Mir
[q. v. ] and Dard. Sawla complained that Mazhar’s
poetic language was neither Persian nor Rekkhta
(Urdu), likening it to the proverbial “ dhobi’s dog,
neither of the house nor the river-side”. This remark
is unjust, to judge by such of his poetry as remains,
which makes us wish there were more.

Bibliography : For short accounts of Mazhar,
see Muhammad Sadiq, A history of Urdu literature,
London-Karachi, etc. 1964, 81-2 (Sawda 5 ’s

remarks will be found in Urdu verse and English
translation at pp. 74-5); Ram Babu Saksena, A
history of Urdu literature, Allahabad 1927, 49-51;
Muhammad Husayn Azad, Ab-i-hayat , 7th ed.
Lahore 1917, 137-41, contains interesting anec¬
dotes but gave offence by its account of the poet’s
relationship with a handsome young poet, Taban.
Published collections of his correspondence include
Makdmdt Mazhar! or Latadif khamsa, ed. Muhammad
Beg b. Rahim Beg, Dihll 1309/1892; Lawayih
khankah-i Mazhariyya , ed. Ghulam Mustafa Khan.
Hyderabad-Sind 1392/1972. Most of the tadhkiras
include short examples of his poetry, including
Shefta, Gulshan bekhar and Kudrat C A1I Shawk.
Tabakat al-sh^ara*, Lahore 1968, 61-4. See also
Karim al-Dln, TaSikh-i shu^ra^-i Urdu, Dihll 1848,
105-7; Sprenger, Oude catalogue , 488; Rieu, Cat. Per¬
sian mss. British Museum , i, 363a.

(J. A. Haywood)

MAZIN, the name of several Arab tribes
who are represented in all the great ethnic groupings
of the Peninsula; this finds typical expression in the
anecdote recorded in Aghdni, viii, 141 (= Yakut,
lrshad, ii, 382-3), according to which the caliph al-
Wathik asked the grammarian Abu c Uthman al-
Mazinl [q.v.\, who had come to his court, to which
Mazin he belonged: whether to the Mazin of the
Tamlm, to those of the Kays, to those of the Rabl c a
or to those of the Yemen?

The first are the Mazin b. Malik b. c Amr b.
Tamlm (Wiistenfeld, Geneal. Tabellen, L. 12; Ibn al-
Kalbi, Tab. 82); the second, the Mazin b. Mansur
(D. 10; Ibn al-Kalbl, Tab. 92) or the Mazin b.
Fazara (H. 13; Ibn Kutayba, Ma^arif, ed. Okasha,
83); the third, the Mazin b. Shayban b. Dhuhl
(C. 19; Ibn al-Kalbl, Tab. 192); the last, the Mazin
b. a 1 - N adjdjar a clan of the Khazradj Ansar (19,
24). But alongside of these, many other tribes and
clans bore this name. The Djamharat al-nasab of Ibn al-
Kalbl gives no less than seventy, of whom the best
known are the: Mazin b. c Abd Manat b. Bakr
b. Sa c d b. Dabba (Tab. 89); Mazin b. Sa c sa c a
b. Mu c awiya b. Bakr b. Hawazin (Tab. 92);
Mazin b. Rayth b. Ghatafan (Tab. 92); Mazin
b. Rabl c a b. Zubayd or Mazin Madhhidj
(Tab. 270); Mazin b. al-Azd (Tab. 1761-9). The
large number of tribes named Mazin and their
distribution over the whole of Arabia makes the
hypothesis that we have here a single tribe that had
been broken up into small sections impossible and we
are led to suppose that the name Mazin is a
descriptive rather than a proper name; since the verb
mazana means to “go away”, one might suppose that

954

MAZIN — al-MAZINI

Mazin originally meant “the emigrants’’ and was
used in a general way of any ethnic group which
became separated from its own tribe and was incor¬
porated in a strange tribe. This etymology, like almost
all those of the names of Arab tribes, is of course only
a hypothesis.

The sources give a certain number of geographical
and historical references to different tribes called
Mazin; but they are generally very scanty, none of
these tribes having attained sufficient importance to
make it independent of the larger body to which it was
attached. We have a few details about the Mazin b.
al-Nadjdjar (not cited by Ibn al-Kalbl), a fairly
important group of Medinan Khazradj (on the part
played by them at the beginning of Islam, see
Caetani, Annali, index to vols. i-ii), as well as about
the Mazin b. Fazara who took part as members of
the tribe of Dhubyan, in the war of Dahis and al-
Ghabra 3 [q.v. in Suppl., and see Agham, xvi, 27], Ibn
Mayyada, himself a DhubyanI, directed a violent
satire against them at the end of the 1st century A.H.
(Aghani, ii, 90, 102). As to the Mazin b. Shay ban
b. Dhuhl, to whom the grammarian Abu c Uthman
belonged, we know from the anecdote above quoted
that in their dialect, m (initial?) was pronounced like
b (ba^smuka for ma^smuka, what is your name?), a
peculiarity which does not seem to be recorded of the
dialect of other Rabija. Lastly the Mazin b. al-
Azd, whom tradition makes migrate to the north,
changed their name to Ghassan [q.v.], under which
they became celebrated.

It is only of the Mazin b. Malik b. c Amr b.
Tamim (Ibn al-Kalbl, Tab. 82) that we have fairly
full information. Legend, which has developed with
unusual detail around the sons of Tamim [q.v.], gives
Mazin a part in the story of his uncle c Abd Shams b.
Sa c d b. Zayd Manat b. Tamim’s fight against al-
c Anbar b. c Amr b. Tamim (cf. al-Mufaddal b.
Salama, al-Fakhir , ed. Storey, 233, and the references
given in the note), This tribe of Mazin never left the
great group of the c Amr b. Tamim to which it
belonged and dwelled with them in the lands in the
extreme north-west of Nadjd; their headquarters were
around the well of Safari near Dhu Kar (Naka^id, ed.
Bevan, 48, n. to 1. 17; Yakut, iii, 95; BakrI, 724, 1.
1; 787-8); their principal subdivisions were the Banu
Hurkus, Kh uza c I. Rizam, Anmar, Zablna, Uthatha
and Ra 3 lan. In the Djahiliyya, the Mazin followed
their parent tribe and we find them sharing in the
wars of the latter; in rotation with the other Tamlml
tribes, they held the office of hakim at the fair of c Ukaz
(Nakd^id, 438). At the coming of Islam, their chief was
Mukharik b. Shihab, also known as a poet (cf.
especially al-Djahiz, Baydn , ed. Harun, IV, 41-3; al-
Kall, Amali , iii, 50; Ibn Hadjar, Isdba, Cairo 1325, vi,
156). Without being particularly zealous partisans of
the new religion, they did not take part in the Ridda
with the other Tamlml tribes (11 A.H.) and they even
drove away the messengers sent them by the pro¬
phetess Sadjah [ q. v. and made one of them prisoner,
the TaghlibI al-Hudhayl b. c Imran; the latter waited
lor his revenge till the troubled period that followed
the murder of the Caliph c Uthman (35/656), of which
he took advantage to ravage the district of Safari; but
the Mazin met him and slew him and threw him into
the well (al-Tabari, i, 1911, 1915; cf. A gh am. xix, 145-
6, tr. in Caetani, Annali , x, 552-3; in the last passage,
the expedition against the people of Safari appears to
be independent of the events of the Ridda).

At a later date, the Mazin settled in large numbers,
like the rest of the Tamim, in Khurasan and took part
in the conquest of Central Asia; among the Mazinfs

who distinguished themselves there were Shihab b.
Mukharik. son of the chief already mentioned (al-
Tabari, i, 2569, 2707); Hilal b. al-Ahwaz, who in
102/720 slew the members of the family of Yazld b. al-
Muhallab after the defeat of the latter (al-Tabari, ii,
1912-13); c Umayr b. Sinan, who killed the Persian
chief Rutbll (Ibn al-Kalbl, Nasab al-khayl , 30, n. to 11.
3-4). We also find many of the Banu Mazin among
the kuwwad of the c Abbasid army in the time of the ris¬
ing against the Umayyads. But a no less number went
to swell the ranks of the Kh aridjls: the celebrated chief
of the Azrakls, Katarl b. aI-Fudja 3 a [g.n.], belonged to
the Mazin! clan of Kabiya b. Hurkus.

Very few of the remarkable number of poets pro¬
duced by the Tamim belonged to the Mazin. We may
note however Hilal b. As c ar of the Umayyad period
(Agham, ii, 186); Malik b. al-Rayb, poet and brigand,
contemporary of al-Hadjdjadj (Agham, xix, 162-9; Ibn
Kutayba, al-Shi c r wa 'l-shu < 'ara :> , ed. de Goeje, 205-7,
etc.); Zuhayr b. c Urwa al-Sakb (Agham, xix, 156; the
few verses that we have by him, often quoted, are also
attributed to his father, c Urwa b. Djalham. and even
to c Abd al-Rahman b. Hassan b. Thabit: cf. Mufad-
daliyyat, ed. Lyall, 249, n._y). Lastly, it may be men¬
tioned that the Mazin have given to Arab philology
two of its most illustrious masters: Abu c Amr b. al-
c Ala 3 [q.v.], d. 154/771, and al-Nadr b. Shumavl.
whose genealogies are given in Wustenfeld, Tabellen
(L).

Bibliography : Wustenfeld, Register z.d. geneal.
Tabellen, 291; Ibn Kutayba, K. al-Ma c arif, ed.
Wustenfeld, 36-42, ed. Okasha, 87-115, el passim-,
Ibn Durayd, K. al-Ishtik.dk, ed. Wustenfeld, 124-6,
171, 211, 258; Ibn al-Kalbl-Caskel, Diamharal al-
nasab. Register, ii, 405a-406b.

(G. Levi Della Vida)

al-MAZINI, Abu c Uthman Bakr b. Muhammad.
Arab philologist and Kur 3 an reader from
al - Basra.

Information about his life and works is scarce and
partly contradictory. Already discutable is the name
of his grandfather and his supposed lineal descent
from the Banu Mazin [q.v.]\ the tradition that he was
only a mawla of the Banu Mazin is more likely to be
correct. Al-MazinI uses materials taken from Abu
Zayd al-Ansari, Abu THasan al-Akhfash al-Awsat,
al-Asma c I and Abu c Ubayda [q.vv.]. Among his
disciples, al-Mubarrad (d. 286/900 (q. v. ]) is to be
mentioned in the first place. The stories—some of
which refer to his arrival in Baghdad during the
caliphate of al-Mu c tasim (218-27/833-42) and connect
him with the court of his successors al-Wathik and al-
Mutawakkil in Samarra—are not to be distinguished
by their anecdotal character and pointed narration
from the numerous comparable akhbdr of the adab and
tabakat literature. Within these traditions, judgements
and opinions about al-Mazinl’s learning and madhhab
are interspersed. Al-Mubarrad considered him, next
to Slbawayh, as one of the most learned of gram¬
marians; others suggested that he was an adherent of
the Imamiyya or MurdjPa, or else of the Kadariyya
or Mu c tazila. Even the information about the date of
his death in his home town is varying. The dates differ
by up to 19 years. Preference is to be given to the note
that he died in the same year as the caliph al-
Mutawakkil (232-47/847-61) or—as often quoted—a
little later in the year 249/863.

Nothing is preserved of al-Mazinl’s supposed works
on grammar, lexicography and metrics, of his
explanations concerning Sibawayh’s Kitab and the
Kur 3 an, books which have been enumerated, e.g. by
Yakut, Udaba 3 , ii, 388. Only one text, the Kitab al-

al-MAZINI

955

Tasrif, a very significant treatise on morphology, has
been transmitted in a riwaya, that is to say, lecture
notes. The teacher is addressing the student directly;
he starts with the question which letters can enlarge an
asl —the basic radicals of a word—and finishes his
essay treating the form ifta c ala and some of its deriva¬
tions. Repeatedly he interposes fa- c rifhd, wa-Ham , sa-
ukhbiruka, sa-ubayyinu, katabtu, fassartu , dhakartu or
bayyantu laka (cf. Ibn DjinnT’s Sirr sind Q at al-i c rab).
Occasionally he quotes his own teachers (see above) or
else he refers to the authority of al-Khalll [q.v.]. This
treatise, which is subdivided into 18 chapters, was
studied and worked on by Ibn DjinnT under the
guidance of his teacher al-Farisi (d. 377/987 [< 7 . z>. ]) in
Aleppo. Moreover, he wrote a comprehensive com¬
mentary on it called al-Munsif and enlarged it with two
appendices (see his preface, i, 1; ii, 208, 261). The
first appendix comprises additional lexicographical
explanations, including verses of reference to the
previous chapters. It is entitled Tafsir al-lugha min kitdb
Abi c Uthman bi-shawdhidihi wa-hudjadjihi wa-innamd
dhalika fi ’l-gharib minhd. The second appendix, is
called MasaHl min c awis al-Tasrif, deals with 15 specific
questions. Ibn DjinnT derives his entire material from
the madjlis traditions, referring mainly to his teacher
al-Farisi. Besides speculative topics, he inserts
numerous observations concerning the use of
language, not infrequently embedded in akhbar of
learned men. These works have been edited under the
title al-Munsif , shark Abi ’l-Fath c Uthman b. DjinnT li-
Kitab al-Tasrif H-AbT c Uthmdn al-Mazini , by Ibrahim
Mustafa and c Abd Allah Amin, 3 vols., Cairo
1373-9/1954-60.

Bibliography : Of studies, see G. Fliigel, Die
grammatischen Schulen der Araber, Leipzig 1862, repr.
Nendeln 1966, 83 f.; O. Rescher, Abriss der
arabischen Literaturgeschichte, Stuttgart 1933, repr.
Osnabriick 1983, ii, 145 ff.; Brockelmann, I, 108,
S I, 168; Sezgin, viii, 92, ix, 75 f.; J. R.
Guillaume, Le statut des representations sous-jacentes en
morphophonologie d'apres Ibn Ginni, in Arabica , xxviii
(1981), 222-41; Sh. Dayf, al-Madaris al-nahwiyya,
Cairo 1968, 115-22; Rashid C A. al- c Ubaydi, Abu
c Uthman al-Mazim, Baghdad 1969; Kh. ZiriklT, al-
AHam, Cairo 1955, ii, 44; C U. R. Kahhala,
Mu^djam al-mu^allifin, Damascus 1959, iii, 71; al-
c AmilT, A c yan al-Shi c a , Beirut 1383/1961, 2 xiv, 78-
90,. no. 2674; M. C A. Mudarris, Rayhanat al-adab ,
2 TabrTz n.d. ( ca . 1347/1969), v, 149 ff. The main
sources are ZadjdjadjI, Madfdlis al- c ulama :> ,
Kuwait 1962, index; idem, Amdll al-Z., Cairo
1382/1962, index; Abu ’1-Tayyib al-LughawI,
Maratib al-nahwiyyin , Cairo 1955, 77-80, 2nd ed.
Cairo 1974, 126-9; MarzubanT, al-Muktabas ,

Beirut-Wiesbaden 1964, 220-3; Slrafl, Akhbar al-
nahwiyyin al-basriyyin, Beirut-Paris 1936; ZubaydT,
Tabakat al-nahwiyyin wa 7 -lughawiyyin, Cairo
1373/1954, 92-100, 2nd ed. Cairo i~973, 87-93;
Fihrist, 57; TanukhI, Ta^rTkh al-^ulama^al-nahwiyyin,
Riyadh 1401/1981, 65-71; NadjashT, Kitdb al-ridjal,
n.d., n.p. [Tehran 1337/1959^, 85; al-Khatlb al-
Baghdadl, Ta\ikh Baghdad , vii, 93 f.; Sam c anl,
facs. ed. fol. 500b, ed. Hyderabad 1401/1981, xii,
26; Ibn al-Anbarl, Nuzhat al-alibba 3 , Cairo 1967,
182-7; Yakut, Udaba 3 , ii, 380-90; KiftI, Inbah al-
ruwat c ala anbah al-nuhat, Cairo 1369/1950, i, 246-
56; Ibn Khallikan, tr. de Slane, i, 264-67; SafadI,
Wafi, x, 211-16; Ibn al-Djazarl. Ghdyat al-nihdya fi
tabakat al-kurra* , Cairo-Leipzig 1932, i, 179; SuyutT,
Bughya , 202 f. (Cairo 1384/1964, i, 463-6); idem,
Muzhir , Cairo 1378/1958, index.

(R. Sellheim)

al-MAZINI, Ibrahim c Abd al-Kadir, Egyptian
writer, translator, poet and journalist
(1890-1949). He was the son of an c dlim of al-Azhar
who became a judge at the sharH tribunal of Cairo; his
maternal grandmother came originally from Mecca.

On the completion of his secondary studies, he
entered the Teachers’ Training College, since his
family was not sufficiently wealthy to enable him to
pursue any other career. Licensed as a secondary
school teacher in 1909, he was appointed teacher of
English at the Madrasa Sa c Tdiyya where he remained
for some ten years. His appointment to the same post
at Dar al- c Ulum could be considered a promotion, but
he himself well knew that he was suffering a penalty.
In fact, the Minister of Education had decided to
transfer al-MazinT as a way of punishing him for
having published in the press an article severely
critical of the poet Hafiz Ibrahim, who was a friend of
the Minister. Al-MazinI resigned his post and aban¬
doned public education in order to teach in private
schools. In 1918, his friend, the eminent writer al-
c Akkad [q.v. in Suppl.], who was then an editor at al-
Ahali of Alexandria, helped him to obtain work as a
translator and editor with the review Wadi ’l-Nil.

This was not in fact al-Mazinl’s first contact with
the press. Since 1907, he had published some poems
in al-Sufur, a review then edited by Farid Wadjdl;
subsequently—from 1911 to 1914—also some articles
in al-Diarida of Ahmad LutIT al-Sayyid and in the
Baydn of c Abd al-Rahman al-Barkukl. It was in the
latter monthly that he published in 1913 a series of
articles on the c Abbasid poet Ibn al-Ruml. The
library of the review was one of the meeting places for
Egyptian intellectuals; al-MazinT there renewed his
acquaintance with al- c Akkad, whom he had known
then for three years, and it was there that he intro¬
duced to him the poet Shukri, who had been his
fellow-student at the Teachers’ Training College.

But from 1918 onwards, al-Mazin! became a full¬
time journalist. He collaborated, successively, in the
editing of various daily papers ( al-Akhbar , al-Balagh
and al-Illihdd , which lasted for only a few issues) or
weekly publications. In 1926, he even founded a new
review, al-Usbu c . The most recent and most serious
study of al-Mazim reveals that he is credited with
more than two thousand titles “of articles, medita¬
tions and studies’’, some of which have never been
assembled in book form (H. al-Sakkut and J. M.
Jones, Ibrahim c Abd al-Kadir al-Mazini , Cairo-Beirut
1979). Since he did not confine himself to literary
questions but was also concerned with politics, and
since, on the other hand, he was a man of frank speech
and caustic wit, as a result, he became the object of
criticism and even lost his job.

Translation constituted his other major activity. By
the end of his life he had translated, from English,
eight books as well as five literary texts published in
reviews. It is appropriate to mention here that he also
worked as an interpreter, both as a press correspon¬
dent at the Military Tribunal where the proceedings
were conducted in English, and on behalf of various
societies.

It is no doubt the press article ( makal or makala
[< 7 . 0 .]) which represents the literary genre in which al-
Mazinl particularly excelled. But his activity extended
over various domains, in all of which he made an
impression with his strong personality.

Poetry. He has a place, with al- c Akkad, at the
head of the Egyptian poetic revival, of which the true
initiator was however c Abd al-Rahman Shukri. who
acquainted them with English literature and in par¬
ticular its romantic poets and its literary critics. At the

956

al-MAZINI

Teachers’ Training College, al-Mazinl had benefited
from his readings in English which enabled him to
discover Byron, Shelley, the ‘‘Lake Poets” Words¬
worth and Coleridge, and Browning. Since that time
al-Mazinl, captivated by romantic sensibility, felt the
need to express melancholy, sadness and the pain of
living, the result of which was his Diwdn (first section
1913; second 1917; third, posthumously, 1960; pub¬
lished in entirety in 1961).

However, this convinced modernist hardly sanc¬
tioned a revolution in poetical forms; his greatest
audacity consisted in abandoning the single rhyme in
favour of the alternate rhyme. This is no doubt
explained by the fact that his discovery of foreign
poetry was accompanied by a deepening of his Arabic
culture. At this time, the publication of the Arabic
classics was in progress, and al-Mazinl thus read the
poets al-Sharif al-RadT, Ibn al-RumT and al-Ma c arrf,
being also drawn to the prose-writer al-Djahiz, whose
spirit and style left their mark on him. Not all of these
published editions were perfect, and it is said that he
often went to Dar al-Kutub to consult the manuscript
of al-A g hani: it also seems that ShukrT and he spent
hours there recopying the manuscript of the Diwdn of
lbn al-RumT. He was 55 years old when, in an article
appearing in al-Mashrik of December 1944, he
announced that he had undertaken a reasoned and
systematic study of Arab literature, applying the
method which he had acquired from the school of the
English writers.

But he quite soon gave up composing poetry. In
explaining this decision, he said that he had never
been entirely satisfied with his production in this field,
even regretting that he had not had the courage to
destroy his compositions. On the other hand, his role
as a literary critic continued to command respect.

Criticism. In an article appearing in al-Mustami c
al- c arabi of 1949, Taha Husayn expressed the opinion
that for some twenty years, the Egyptian writer had
ceased to limit his horizon to his own country and had
begun to take an interest in the outside World. There
were in fact two schools of modernists: a French
school where, following Ahmad LutfT al-Sayyid, the
most distinguished figures were Taha Husayn and
Muhammad Husayn Haykal; and an English school
where, following c Abd al-Rahman ShukrT, the two
leaders were al- c Akkad and al-MazinT. This “school”
published its manifesto, al-Diwan, in 1921. To be
more exact, this was the beginning of an uncompleted
critical work. The two writers al- c Akkad and al-
Mazinl declared their intention to write ten fascicles
in which they would show, successively, in what ways
the literary celebrations of the time were overrated
and what should be the new characteristics of Arabic
poetry. Only the first two fascicles appeared, and
what is known as the Diwdn is thus limited to violent
criticism of the contemporary idols, the poet Ahmad
ShawkT and the prose-writer al-ManfalutT. To these
two targets, the two iconoclasts added a completely
unexpected third, c Abd al-Rahman ShukrT! It is even
in reference to him that al-MazinT—to whom it fell to
analyse him—uses the term “idol”. It is impossible
not to be astonished at this sudden reversal when it is
known what close friends the two men were, a friend¬
ship which rested in particular on perfect similarity of
views in questions of poetry.

Some years before the publication of the Diwdn, al-
MazinT had, for the first time, propounded entirely
new principles for the criticism of Arabic poetry, prin¬
ciples which he had drawn from his reading of Hazlitt,
Arnold and Macaulay. In a small monograph which
appeared in 1915 ( al-Shi c r , gh dydtuhu wa-wasa^ituh), he

demands of the poet that he should be sincere and that
he should not produce work in a mechanical fashion
but compose a personal poetry. The same year, under
the title Shi c r Hafiz, he reprinted articles which he had
devoted to the eminent Egyptian poet and had pub¬
lished in the review c (Jkaz in 1913. According to him,
Hafiz is a charlatan who is capable of composing
poetry on subjects which do not genuinely affect him,
which are supplied to him by the circumstances of
actuality; he is a criminal who perverts the taste of
readers, accustoms them to lie and damns them! In
order the better to pursue this vulgar versifier ( nazim
bi i-san c a ) he compares him with a true poet, a poet
of innate talent ( matbu c ) ... ShukrT in fact. His method
consists in comparing, theme by theme, the verses of
each of the two men in order to demonstrate the
accuracy of his judgment. But since certain partisans
of Hafiz reproach him for concentrating on only the
worst verses of the poet, he adduces proof to show that
his best compositions, for their part, are only
plagiarism of the ancients. It may be noted in passing
that the modernist al-MazinT falls into step with the
most traditional of Arabic criticism, since he practises
parallelism ( muwazana ) and is concerned to uncover
plagiarisms ( sarikdt ). However, the harmonious rela¬
tionship between al-MazinT and ShukrT did not sur¬
vive an article by the latter published in the Muktataf,
in which he revealed that his colleague had borrowed
many of the themes of his Diwdn —if not entire
verses—from Palgrave’s Golden treasury , an anthology
of English lyric poetry after Shakespeare. Nothing
more is needed to explain the sudden antipathy of al-
MazinT with regard to ShukrT in his two fascicles of the
Diwdn, even though, subsequently, he felt obliged to
retract his strictures and to acknowledge, in an article
in al-Siyasa of 5 April 1930, that it was to him that he
owed his discovery of the essence of poetry.

With regard to ancient Arabic poetry, he is
interested particularly in al-MutanabbT and Ibn al-
RumT, whom he studies as a priority, as does his com¬
panion and model al- c Akkad. He seeks to reconsider
the question of the scale of traditionally fixed values.
Ibn al-RumT seems to him to have been unfairly
treated, no doubt because he was of Byzantine
ancestry ( rumi ). He considers that this should be in
itself a sufficient reason for placing him above other
poets. He states: “We do not try to mock the Arabs
or to discredit their poetry. We mean only to say that
the Arabs are not the most poetic people”. According
to him, all the human qualities are to be found in
Western poetry, and he concludes by declaring
himself a fanatical partisan of the West, eulogising the
“Aryan peoples”. Western theoreticians assist him to
make progress in the evaluation of the resources of
poetry: the German Lessing enables him to verify, in
the work of Ibn al-RumT, again, that descriptive
poetry, unlike painting on canvas, creates the illusion
of movement; the Englishman Locke uncovers for
him the possibilities offered by figurative sense (mad-
jaz) and symbol ( ramz ). Through contact with Euro¬
pean works, he poses in new terms the problem of the
imagination. He tends to see here only the faculty of
establishing a new combination of given elements
from which innovation emerges. If he seems to ignore
creative imagination, this is because of his rejection of
the implausibilities which sometimes mar classical
Arabic poetry. Like al- c Akkad, he does not accept
gratuitous extravagance, the senseless hyperbole
which Arabic poetry shamelessly displays, under the
guise of poetic genius.

Al-MazinT is renowned as being a man of hard
judgment, but while he has a grasp of concise for-

al-MAZINI

957

mulae, he also possesses an immoderate taste for
digression, and it is the middle course, commonplace
assessment of the subject under discussion, which is
lacking in him, with the result that tangible elements
in his critical works are somewhat limited. It is
unusual to see him take a precise example, as in the
Diivan where he shows that a story of al-Manfalutl ( al-
Yatim ) displays well the characteristics which he
denounces: hollow and oratorical style, peevish and
effeminate writing, coincidences and implausibilities.
Most often, he speaks of everything except the book
which he is supposed to be examining. His
‘‘criticisms” of works by Taha Husayn, Mayy Ziyada
\q. v. ] and even al- c Akkad are astonishing examples of
this. Ironical posturing suits him better than demon¬
stration based on analytical argument.

Narrative fiction. When the attempt is made
to assess the contribution of al-Mazinl as a novelist, it
is appropriate to consider him in the perspective of the
time. After the first edition of Zaynab by Haykal—
which dates from 1914—few works of note appared in
the succeeding years: Thurayyd (1922) by c Isa c Ubayd
is rather a long short story, and Ibnat al-mamluk (1926)
by Ibn Abl HadTd is a historical novel. This being so,
chronologically al-Mazinl produced the second novel
which had ever appeared in Egypt when he published
Ibrahim al-katib (1931), the second edition of Zaynab , in
1929, having refreshed the already distant memories
of the first. It is also appropriate to mention that al-
Mazinl had published a version of the first five
chapters from the end of 1925 in several issues of the
review Ruz al-Yusuf. The author was already known,
was even eminent, as an innovating poet counted
among the proponents of the modern school of literary
criticism, and the role that he played in crossing
swords with Hafiz, ShawkI and others was not to be
forgotten on account of the fact that he renewed his
attacks in the columns of the press, also making a
name for himself in the discussion of social and
political questions in al-Akhbar, al-Ittihdd and al-Siyasa,
in which his vivid style and caustic tone were widely
recognised. On account of all these factors, his novel
was eagerly awaited, and it did indeed, in a general
sense, achieve real success, for three essential reasons.
The leading character who bears the same name as the
author is, in fact, his double, and nobody can doubt
that they both think, act and feel in the same way; he
is charming and impulsive, a sceptic if not a pessimist,
considering others and himself with humour. The
story related, on the other hand, does not fail to
engage curiosity, since the three women with whom
Ibrahim is romantically involved pose such fun¬
damental questions as the importance of tradition, the
role of women and the meaning of marriage. Finally,
as to the tone of the novel, its unity is maintained on
account of the fact that the narration is in the first per¬
son, facilitating the transfer from abstract meditation
to lively and satirical description or to vivid dialogue.
Al-Mazinfs first contribution to fiction would thus
appear to be entirely creditable, leading one to sup¬
pose that he would not be slow to repeat this success.
However, it was not until 1943 that he added to his
corpus, publishing four novels in the same year:
Ibrahim al-thanl, Thaldthat ndjal wa-mra^a, c Awd c ala
ba(P , Midu wa-shurakdhu. Some have tended to
attribute special significance to the first two, linking
them with the novel already discussed to constitute a
“trilogy” (cf. Taha Wadi, Surat al-maPafi 'l-riwaya al-
mu c dsira, Cairo 1973). This cannot be substantiated
except in reference to Ibrahim al-lhani, which could
indeed be taken to represent that which befalls the
hero of the earlier novel some years after his marriage,

when conjugal monotony begins to weigh upon him
and he finds himself dangerously tempted by the
young women who surround him. It is true, however,
that a certain evolution is perceptible running through
the three books in question as regards the role of the
wife. Time has passed since Ibrahim al-katib , but some
ten years more and the equality in principle of the two
spouses are not sufficient to make the life of the couple
in Ibrahim al-thani euphoric. On the other hand, the
acquisition by the wife of responsibility in Thaldthat
ridjal makes of her a character quite unique, capable
of initiatives, and the form accords with the
content—it is no longer an account written in the first
person.

During the five remaining years of his life, al-
Mazinl was not to publish a new novel. It may be
mentioned here that he published a single theatrical
piece, Ghaztrat al-mar^a aw hukm al-td^a (1930), not only
to indicate that, on the stage also, the question of
feminine rights seems to him to require treatment—
like many other intellectuals, he supported the move¬
ment for the reform of ideas initiated by Kasim Amin
at the beginning of the century—but also to tackle a
question which has taken on a particular importance
in the eyes of Egyptian critics studying the works of al-
Mazinl. The point at issue is the “borrowings” of this
writer. In itself, the subject seems predominantly to
concern Egypt, since it sets out to show that the kind
of “compulsion to remain at home” (hukm al-td c a)
which every Egyptian husband has the right to impose
on his reputedly disobedient wife is a scandalous sex¬
ual privilege, a denial of justice which should not long
be tolerated by the legislators. The literary critic of al-
Balagh revealed that, in essence, the plot and some of
the scenes of the play had been taken from a novel by
Galsworthy. It was in 1932 that there took place the
polemic between al-Mazinl and his accuser, this being
the year that Galsworthy, the famous author of The
Forsyte Saga, received the Nobel Prize. Although he did
not admit his plagiarism, our writer's protestations
were far from convincing. The opinion of scholars has
been quite united in this regard, just as nobody
doubts that al-Mazinl padded out his novel Ibrahim al-
katib (1931) by incorporating in it five pages from a
Russian novel (Sanine by Artzybachev) which he
himself had translated in 1920 for the Musamarat al-
sha^b. When challenged on this point, the author did
not deny it, contenting himself with a declaration of
his good faith (he read a great deal, retained material
easily and was ultimately unable to tell what
genuinely was his own creation!). Such disarming
naivety is perplexing, all the more so since it is hard
to understand what real benefit he could have gained
from the practice. One may also ask why—again in
his First novel—he is observed to repeat several pages
already published some years before in a collection of
his articles, Kabd al-rih (1927). In this instance he is
plagiarising himself. The answer to this question sup¬
plied by a enquirer very favourably disposed towards
him is that he is consistent in his ideas which he puts
into the mouth of his fictional hero (on this question,
cf. Mme Ni c mat Ahmad Fu^ad, Adab al-Mazinl, Cairo
1961).

If his theatre is almost non-existent and his work as
a novelist less significant than might have been hoped,
al-Mazinl remains a remarkable storyteller. He is
seen fulminating in the Diwan against the morbid,
grandiloquent and ultimately dishonest literature of
al-Manfalutl. The first fruits of Arabic narrative
writing, more credible because more in tune with
society and people as they are, appear in the short
stories of the Taymur brothers, but are also to be

958

al-MAZINI — MAZLUM

found among the many texts published by al-Mazini
himself. In fact, alongside his analysis and assessment
of works, and his literary studies, alongside his
political writings, he published a quantity of stories
which may be found today in eight collections, of
which the most notable are Sunduk al-dunya (1929) and
Khuyut al- c ankabut (1935). The bibliography of the
work by Sakkut and Jones mentioned above refers to
a further 114 “narrative works” which appeared in
periodicals, of which 76 have never been reprinted.
All these narratives, of variable length, approximate
more or less to the living tableau or short story as
such, tending rather to resemble what Anglo-Saxons
call the “essay” or “sketch”. Most often, the fiction
is minimal, the author embroidering with humour
and fantasy upon a reflection, a memory or an obser¬
vation. He also enjoys making himself a central figure
in the scene that is sketched out or making himself a
target for his own jesting, since his small stature and
the limp from which he suffered are easily evoked in
a few words. Some suppose that this constant jesting
is a means of exorcising a sense of shame which could
have become a complex. In any event, this quasi-
systematic procedure facilitates the establishment of a
complicity with his reader which al-Mazini manifestly
seeks. He does not take himself seriously, and treats
other writers, whoever they may be, with equal levity.
Much affected by reading the Bible and in particular
the Book of Job, he has a tendency to agree with the
famous line “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”. It is
noticeable that each chapter of his Ibrahim al-kdtib
bears as a heading a phrase drawn from a verse of the
Old Testament and the titles of almost all his collec¬
tions indicate the illusory nature of human existence
and of its works; already there has been observed the
illusion of writing symbolised by “the kaleidoscope”
(Sunduk al-dunya) and the incongruity of the “threads
of the spider” (Khuyut al- c ankabut), but to these may be
added the mirage of a “harvest of grass” ( Hasad al-
hashim, 1924) and the nothingness of a “handful of
wind” (Kabd al-rih , 1927). Our writer expresses
himself on a very flexible canvas, since all that he
hears is his fantasy. Malicious sketches, incidental
remarks, paradoxes, aphorisms, follow one another
for the enjoyment of the reader. To be sure, not
everything is said in a jocular tone, for he has written
moving pages describing his mother, whom he
adored, or his daughter, who died at an early age. Nor
is everything bizarre, and there are times when reality
prevails over the “nonsense”, in particular when he
evokes his childhood, giving the reader the oppor¬
tunity to imagine a Cairo home at the end of the last
century and the life that was lived there. But this is a
retrospective view conducted with a sense of the
humorous and the unusual. Humour is always in
evidence with him, even when he travels to Mecca; his
Rihla hidjaziyya (1930) contains some excellent jokes.
In the attempt to decide with whom to compare this
virtuoso of comic prose, this independent spirit hostile
to protocol and to the conventional, the names of al-
Djahiz and Mark Twain spring to mind. But al-
Mazinl was most certainly both typically Egyptian
and tremendously modern. Towards the end of his
life, he became a member the Cairo Academy and the
speech that he gave on this occasion was striking for
its anti-conformism—as might indeed be expected
from the man who nicknamed this venerable institu¬
tion “the cemetery of the immortals”.

Bibliography : Besides the references cited in
the article, see Hamid c Abduh al-Hawwal, al-
Sukhriyya fi adab al-Mazini, Cairo 1972; Muhammad
Mandur, al- Sh i c r jiMisr ba c dShawki. Cairo 1944; P.

Counillon, A propos d'une nouvelle d’al-Mazini in Bull.

Et. arabes, v (January-February 1942), 3-6.

(Ch. Vial)

MAZLUM (a.) a te chnical term of Shi c i,
especially Twelver, Islam, which nevertheless
retains its current ism maf-ul meaning from the root
zalama : someone or something “treated or used
wrongfully, unjustly, injuriously, or tyrannically”
(Lane, 1923). In Persian, a language in which a large
part of the literature referred to here mentions it, the
word means also sitam rasida (Farhang-i Anandaradj_, vi,
4042) or “injured, oppressed, seized forcibly ...”
and, consequently, “mild, gentle, modest” (Stein-
gass, 1263).

Mazlum is one of the attributes which characterise
the Imams, and it is coupled with shahid and sometimes
substituted for it. This fits in with the theological and
hagiographical vision in the time of the Imams , a
vision which claims them as martyrs, pure ( ma c sum )
victims because they are pure by definition, their role
being to bear a witness which is expressed by means
of the conscious sacrifice of their life. Thus they are
mazlum because they have for their opposites those
who are zdlim: ... man azlamu mimman katama shahadalan
c indahu min Allah... (Kur 5 an, II, 140/134, “Who then
is more unjust than he who conceals testimony which
he possesses from God?”). The testimony in the case
of the Imams becomes their shahada, their martyrdom.
The full meaning of this testimony depends, more¬
over, on the fact that they are, vis-a-vis humanity, the
hu djdia t Allah, the proof of God par excellence, i.e. the
proof that man should recognise in order to obtain his
eternal salvation.

Until now the discussion has been general, and may
perhaps be further generalised, in the sense that all the
ahl al-bayt are defined as mazlum according to a famous
hadith, for which we give here a typical reference,
KashifT, 170: nahnu kawm mazlumun, nahnu kawm
matrudun, nahnu kawm makhurun, which indicates in the
genealogy of Abu Talib, the “we” in question.

To belong to the “family” means to be ready for
martyrdom, to undergo the violence of the zdlim and
be destined for exile, as the word matrud explains; but
the root zalama also indicates in its primary meaning
“to put something in a place which is not its own”
(LA, s.v.) and ShT c i Persian literature appears more¬
over to refer to it when it adds to the attributes mazlum
and shahid that of gharib.

Mazlum has a particular significance in the case of
two Imams who are the symbol of the perfect martyr,
being ma c sum and mazlum, sc. al-Husayn b. c Ali and
C A1T al-Rida. The former is often defined as the
mazlum-i Karbala 5 (Djawharl, 138 ff.), but another
important meaning of the word is, in some way, pres¬
ent. Mazlum (or rather mazluma) is the adjective for
land where rain does not fall, or where it is difficult to
sink a well to find water (cf. the Arabic dictionaries
s.v. z-l-m). Al-Husayn is mazlum due also to the par¬
ticular manner of his martyrdom, due to thirst, since
his enemies here denied him water. However, in the
case of c AlI al-Rida, mazlum becomes synonymous
rather with gharib, the victim who chooses to die far
off, “in the East” and who makes of his “Eastern”
exile the testimony of his mission, which,
emblematically, contains all the ideas peculiar to the
Imams, whether in religious terms or in mythological
terms (B. Scarcia Amoretti, Un interpretazione iranistica
di Cor. XXV, 38 e L, 12, in RSO, xliii/ [1968],
46-52).

In present-day ShI c T thought, the word mazlum is
still in frequent use. When the martyrdom of al-
Husayn is put forward as the example to follow in

MAZLUM — MAZRA C A

959

order to be liberated in this world and to find salvation
in the next, the matter is clear enough. The history of
mankind finds in the life of al-Husayn and in
Karbala 5 its paradigm and a daily proof (hu didia
yawmiyya). And, in this sense, mazlum is a word which
also defines, in opposition to all that is zalim (law,
existing order, etc.) the man who is ma^zul, oppressed
(Shams al-Dln, 1 1 ff), who alone can become what al-
Husayn is for the ShI c I religious conscience.

Bibliography : There is no specific biblio¬
graphy on the subject. The texts drawn upon for
the definition of mazlum (the parts concerning the
Imam al-Husayn b. c Ali and the Imam C A1I al-Rida)
are the following: Ibn Babuya al-Kumml, c Uyun
akhbar al-Rida , lith. Tehran 1275/1858-9; Wa c iz
KashifT, Rawdal al-shuhada? , Tehran 1334/1962-3;
Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim al-Djawhan, Tufan al -
buka 5 , lith. Tehran n.d. As far as contemporary
literature is concerned, much has been written on
the concept of martyrdom. One may mention in
t r a n si at i o n : c All Sharl^ati, Martyrdom: arise and
bear witness, Tehran 1981; Murtada Mutahhari, The
martyr, Tehran 1980; Muhammad Takl Shar^atl.
Why Husain took stand, Tehran n.d. In Persian:
C A1I ShaiTatl. Husayn warith Adam, Tehran n.d.;
Mahmud TalikanT, Diihad wa shahada, Tehran n.d.
In Arabic: Shavkh Muhammad Mahdl Shams
al-Dln, 0 Ashura 5 mawkib al-shahada (on the occasion
of 10 Muharram 1403/1982 in Beirut).

(B. Scarcia Amoretti)

MAZRA C A (a.), mazraca , mezra or ekinlik in
Turkish, means in general arable land, a field; as
used in the Ottoman survey registers, it designates a
periodic settlement or a deserted village
and its fields. According to a regulation, to
register a piece of land as mazraca it was required that
it be checked whether the place had a village site in
ruins, its own water supply and a cemetery (Barkan,
53, 133, 190). Such a piece of land is occasionally
called matrukyer, abandoned land. In the daftars [q.v .]
we often find the following note on mazracas:
“previously it was a village, now its population is scat¬
tered and the fields abandoned (khali)”. Usually a
mazraca has fixed boundaries. A mazraca might have
gained over time a few families of settlers, but would
still be registered as a mazraca.

Every mazraca is referred to by a specific name
which often reveals its origin or first possessor. In the
province of Karaman, for example, many mazraca
names are coupled with hisar, referring probably to
abandoned Byzantine castles, or with aghil “sheep-
fold”, or having reference to a nomadic group which
used the site as pastureland. A great number of village
names in Anatolia bearing the name viran or bren must
originally have been mazracas which over the course of
time were transformed into full villages. But when we
speak of mazraca as an abandoned village we mean
basically not just the site of the village itself, but rather
its fields.

In western Anatolia and the Balkans, the Ottomans
inherited the Byzantine rural landscape with its sub¬
villages and periodic settlements. The earliest
reference to a mazraca appears in Sultan Orkhan’s
wakfiov the bridge he built at Alma-Pmarf. Under the
Byzantines, the mazraca- type lands as dependencies of
a village were known as agridia and proasteia, the
former designating partly settled and the latter
unsettled satellite land (Ostrogorsky, 1962, 149). As
was the case under the Ottomans, when the village
rented such land collectively it paid the rent collec¬
tively (ibid., 114), but this special case cannot be used
as an argument for the theory that in general village

land was subject to collective ownership under the
Byzantines.

In the survey registers, abandoned villages or eiftliks
are shown also as khali, uninhabited, or kharab, in
ruins, or khirbat (in Syria). In these registers, the
deserted or periodically settled and used lands were of
different sizes and were shown under different names.
Theoretically, the largest one was a mazraca, some¬
times with water and a cemetery, and was always con¬
sidered capable of being converted into a village, so
that all mazracas were carefully recorded. Other such
lands of smaller size are, in order, ciftlik [q.v.\, zamfn
(in Turkish zemfn), kit c a and tarla “individual field”.
In practice, the word mazraca was occasionally used for
a ciftlik or a zamfn of a few donum (1 donum equals about
920 m 2 ) or any piece of land not possessed under the
tapu system.

The abandoned land might be turned into a pasture
or a vineyard and still retain the name mazraca. From
the standpoint of land use, a mazraca is a field for grain
production as opposed to pasture, vineyard, orchard,
etc.

The hypothesis that in Anatolia the settled popula¬
tion chose to have their settlement sites on the hillsides
in order to escape malaria and all kinds of marauders,
soldiers, brigands, and passers-by, and maintained as
a satellite exploitation a mazraca down on the flat land
(i diizluk , ova) (Tanoglu, 1954, 27-8), holds true for
many areas. Hutteroth (1968, 36-53) demonstrated it
for central Anatolia, and Tanoglu gives some
examples for eastern Anatolia. While on the hillsides
viticulture, horticulture, olive growing, and livestock
breeding were preponderant, fields for grain produc¬
tion were located in the mazra < a down on the flat land.
The Syrian and Palestinian villages with vineyards,
orchards and olive groves on the hillsides and mazraca
down on the lowland or in the valleys also provide
instances of this pattern (Hutteroth and Abdulfattah,
1977; B. Lewis and A. Cohen, 1978). This village-
mazra c a pattern develops into an upper village and a
lower village when the satellite mazra ( a on the lowland
is settled. Village names preceded with zir- and bala
yukarl- and ashaghi-, or in the Balkans dolni-ldolne-
Idolnje- and gorni-lgorne-lgornje- reflect the same
process.

The fact that most of the mazracas were registered as
dependent ( tabi c ) on a village as its ekinlik, reserved
fields, can be taken as proof that the Ottoman
administration generally recognised the mazraca as an
indivisible part of village economy. Such mazracas
secured an extra source of income for the villagers and
provided land for the surplus population. Often
villagers cultivated such land without the govern¬
ment’s knowledge, arguing that it had always
belonged to them. As a result, the rule was made that
no abandoned land could be exploited without the
Sultan’s prior approval (Mehemmed the Conqueror’s
Kanun-name, Barkan 390, art. 16). Because the
benefits of such exploitation were vital for the village
economy, villagers vigorously contended against
//mar-holders or government agents who chose to rent
such mazracas to outsiders. In opposition to such out¬
siders, including members of the military elite, who
were particularly interested in renting mazracas in
order to turn them into big eiftliks, villagers often
rented them collectively.

Whether a mazraca was registered in the daftar or not
determined its status. It could be registered as part of
a village or of a tfmar or of a wakf or independently in
the register. A mazraca, being abandoned land, quite
often escaped the surveyor. When discovered it was
called “unregistered mazraca with no fixed taxes”

960

MAZRA C A

(kharidj az daftar bila riisum olan mazra c a). Such mazra c as
were rented out and their revenue collected by
government agents called kharidj emtni. Such lands
could also be assigned to a timdr- holder ( Arvanid defleri ,
no. 178). This was because the government was con¬
cerned that no arable land, however small, be left
uncultivated and without bringing in some sort of
revenue. Under the mukata^a [q.v.] system, such aban¬
doned or unregistered lands as mazraca, ciftlik, or zamin
were offered to any bidder, military or townsfolk,
Muslim or Christian, or even to a foreigner, anyone
who would guarantee to the treasury a steady revenue
from it. In 1545 in Bosnia, Venetians were able to
rent mazracas (Gokbilgin, 1964, 208). Otherwise, in
principle, the government’s policy was ultimately to
convert all such lands into villages or ra^iyyet ciftliks
[see ciftlik] under the tapu [q. v. ] system. In other
words, arable lands were basically reserved for the
exploitation of the registered peasants, ra^dyd [q. v. ],
excluding the townsfolk and the military, and such
lands, comprising the great majority of arable land in
the empire, were categorised as tapulu aradi. Under the
tapu system, the peasants were responsible for paying
regular raHyyet taxes, including ciftresmi [q.v.]. In con¬
trast, those lands not in the possession of the
registered ra c dya were treated fiscally as a separate
category under the mukata c a system, and such lands
were called mukata c alu aradi as opposed to the tapulu
aradi.

Newly-conquered and abandoned land, since no
previous record was available for its taxation, was also
treated as a mazraca and was submitted to auction in
order to achieve the highest possible revenue
derivable under the circumstances ( Kanun i Kanun-
name, i, 64). It was through an auction that the
mukata c a amount of a mazraca was determined.

The usual reference, “it is cultivated by those who
come from outside” {kharidjden ekiliir ) on mazracas and
mukata c alu ciftliks indicates a situation in which the
land was not possessed and cultivated by yerlu, the
local ra c aya , under the tapu system, but by those ra c dya
who were not registered with the land and were conse¬
quently considered “outsiders”. The latter were nor¬
mally khaymdnegdn , literally “people living in tents”,
but in practice meaning any wandering racaya who
might come and exploit the land on a temporary basis,
paying rent or tithes to the “owner”, fdhib, of the
mukata c a , the “owner” being the renter of the land. If
the “outsider” settled on a /fmar-holder’s or on wakf
land for three consecutive years he automatically
became a yerlu and then the land was given to him
under the tapu.

Thus in principle, mazracas were fiscally exploited
under the mukataca system, which consisted simply of
renting under a contract, temessuk or hii didi et. The
record of the rental in the register, which specified the
possessor and the obligation, had binding force for
both the state and the individual. The possessor’s pay¬
ment for the mazra c a consisted either of tithes or of a
fixed amount in cash.

When a mazraca was given in the way o {yurdluk (ber
vedjh-i yurdluk ), it was possessed as a hereditary
freehold property, usually on condition of sending a
cavalryman [see eshkinpji] to the sultan’s campaigns.
In some cases, this obligation was forgiven (Konya
TT40, 17).

The next question is to determine how mazracas
emerged and under what conditions their number
increased or decreased. The peasant populations
would abandon their villages, temporarily or per¬
manently, for various reasons. Natural and economic
conditions conducive to mass flight included exhaus¬

tion of the land, desertification, and epidemics. Social
and political conditions were no less important. First
and foremost, peasants left their villages en masse to
avoid being despoiled by passing troops, brigand
bands, or caravans. A particularly important cause of
flight was to avoid registration for taxes [see tahrIr]
and tax collection. The peasant’s most effective means
of getting a tax reduced or abolished was the threat of
being scattered abroad (perakende ve perishan olmak).
Assuming the character of a mass protest, scattering
became in effect a peasant strike and was frequently
resorted to. What made it more frequent was that
peasants did not own the land they cultivated under
the tapu system, and there were always other lands
available. The growing number of villages in the
forests is largely due to this situation. On the other
hand, the big landowners, and particularly wakf
lands, promised better conditions in order to attract
the registered ra c dyd of the tapu lands. Thus the rural
population in the Ottoman Empire, especially in
Anatolia and the Balkans, became quite a mobile
population, which accounts for the unusually large
number of deserted villages in the Empire.

The increase or decrease in the number of mazracas
can be taken as an indication of demographic and
economic decline or development in a particular
region; and the relative number of villages and
mazraca can be determined for most of the provinces
through the survey books (see tahrIr, and maps in
Tanoglu, 1954; Hiitteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977). In
1597 in some districts in Palestine (Hiitteroth and
Abdulfattah, 23, 24, and maps nos. 3, 10, and 13) the
number of mazra c as was two or three times greater
than the number of villages (in the sandjak of $afad
there were 610 mazra c as as against 282 villages),
whereas in the sandjak of Aleppo both the villages and
the mazracas numbered about one thousand (Venzke).
Hiitteroth (1986, 25) estimates that at the turn of the
18th century, about half of the Anatolian population
depended on the various types of periodic settlements,
and he finds it one of the most important features of
the Middle Eastern cultural area.

In the formation of mazracas conditions other than
peasant flight have also to be considered. Sometimes
the peasants used nearby marginal land for cultiva¬
tion, or reclamations were made on wasteland ( mawdt
[q.v. ]) in the forests or swamps, or pasturelands in the
yayla were used for cultivation; mazracas formed in
these ways are frequently referred to in the survey
registers. Also, conversion of the tapulu lands into
livestock ranches gave rise to mazra c a-type formations.
When the central bureaucracy’s control weakened
during protracted wars, struggles for succession to the
throne, uprisings, etc., the military’s acquisition of
abandoned lands became widespread. Those who
acquired such lands under mukataca were called ashab-i
mukataca, owners of the mukatacalu land.

Since the abandoned mazracas could be given to
anybody paying the rent, mukdta c a, including the
military, the latter used this loophole in the Ottoman
land system to enter into possession of the miri [q. v. ]
or state-owned lands, and to run the land as an estate.
As such mazracas needed a labour force for their
cultivation, the military offered favourable conditions
to attract registered ra c dya and thus caused disruption
in the mfrf-based settlements. At other times, because
of the labour shortage, they converted their mazra c as
into livestock ranches.

When mazraca owners were able to attract racaya to
their lands, they usually had recourse to the method
of sharecropping (ortakdjillk). They furnished land and
often seed, oxen, and domiciles to the sharecroppers.

MAZRA C A — MAZRU C I

961

In Anatolia, large areas of arable land abandoned by
villagers were converted into ranches, partly because
of the high price of meat in general and partly because
of the military’s difficulty in finding sufficient labour
for cultivation. In any case, the Ottoman military
class, unlike western landlords, was not capable, for
various reasons, of owning land and organising it as
big estates. In the period 1596-1610, the Djelali [see
djalali in Suppl.] depredations and insecurity in the
countryside caused a tremendous increase of mazracas
and mazraca- type land use throughout Asia Minor,
resulting in a great diminution of agricultural land
and grain production. A similar usurpation of the
small plots of peasant families by “the powerful” in
the provinces occurred in Byzantine Asia during the
10 th century, and the emperors were forced to take
radical measures against this development.

The second method used by the military to provide
agricultural labour was the settlement of war prisoners
on the land. As early survey registers demonstrate,
the first Ottoman sultans as well as the members of the
military class, the frontier begs in particular,
employed this practice quite extensively.

The sub-village periodic settlements and exploita¬
tions could increase or decrease, and thus a pasture
(caytr,yayla, klshla, or oba ) could become a mazraca over
the course of time by being converted into fields, or
vice-versa. The state took the initiative in promoting
settlement and cultivation and in restoring abandoned
villages. The grant of land as freehold, tamlfk [see
milk] is one method.

In Serbia, abandoned villages were brought back to
cultivation by the settlement of the Vlachs in the same
way that nomads or wandering peasants ( khaymanegan )
were encouraged to settle mazracas in Anatolia. The
state also encouraged dmar-holders to assemble
dispersed peasants to restore a village, promising
them promotion.

Ottoman survey registers show that, besides
belonging to villages, a great number of “vacant”,
khali, ciftliks and mazracas were registered as “depen¬
dent”, tabf , on towns within the boundaries of the
central district, ndhiye{t ) (Faroqhi, 1984, 191-266).
This situation reflects the economic dependence of the
towns on such agricultural reserve land, without
which the towns could not survive. Given the exhorbi-
tant transportation costs of the time, towns had to rely
on this hinterland for an important part of the
foodstuffs, fuel for their populations and raw
materials such as cotton, wood, and hides for their
handicrafts. The social and economic dynamics of
such villages and sub-village settlements appear to be
vivid and complex compared to that of “indepen¬
dent” rural settlements. The villages near towns were
transformed into mazracas or ciftliks probably because
the village population, attracted by better oppor¬
tunities in town, migrated there, and once deserted,
the village land was acquired under mukata c a by well-
to-do town residents and turned into a kind of estate-
ciftlik (Faroqhi, 1980, 87-99).

As far as present-day Anatolia is concerned, human
geographers (A. Tanoglu, 1954; Hutteroth, 1968, 24-
52; Tun^delik, 1971, 17-55; Hutteroth and

Abdiilfattah, 1977, 29-32) study mazracas among the
periodic settlements or small rural settlements on the
way to becoming villages—rural mahalle , yayla{k),
kishla(k), kom, oba, and diwan. Throughout eastern
Anatolia today, a great number of villages with a
small settlement and having no formal village institu¬
tions such as mukhtarllk come under the name mezra,
mezre, or mezri. Settlement of marginal lands as a
result of rural overpopulation is considered to be the

underlying reason for such settlements. In the survey
books, no mention is made of kom or rural mahalle ,
which may be local names for mazraca (cf. Tun^delik,
1971, 43).

Kom is to be found in eastern Anatolia; it differs
from a mazraca by being a kind of ranch for animal
breeding and is usually owned by an absentee
landlord. It surrounds sheepfolds and shepherd huts.
Oba is the grazing area of a nomadic household and
should be studied rather within the yayla structure
(Tun^delik, 1971, 44). When settled by the nomad
households which shift to agriculture as their main
occupation, the oba assumes rather the character of a
mazraca. The process is attested from early Ottoman
history. At the present time, all obas are of this
developed type. Divan was apparently a tribal
superstructure over the obas (Tun^delik, 47-8;
Barkan, Kanunlar , 28-32), which disappeared as settle¬
ment progressed. Some isolated ciftliks, settled by one
or a few families devoted to agriculture and livestock
breeding, are considered, like the mazraca, as a kind of
settlement liable to develop into a village (Tun^dilek,
43). In Palestine, Transjordan, and Syria (Hutteroth
and Abdiilfattah, 1977, 29-32), mazracas were “small
agricultural areas, dispersed amongst the hills, lying
within the village area but apart from the main fields
belonging to the village, as is still the case today”.
According to the regulations and survey registers
{ibid., 31), the size of a mazraca varies widely. It may
consist of only one or two ciftliks or have the size of a
village, judging from its estimated revenue. However,
as was made explicit in some kanun-name s [q.v.], the
typical mazraca is a deserted village which always has
a large area of arable land, a water source and a
cemetery.

Bibliography : Konya tapu tahrir defteri,

Basvekalet Arsivi, Istanbul, no. 40; 6. L. Barkan,
XV ve XVl-inci asirlarda Osmanh imparatorlugunda zirai
ekonominin hukuki ve mail esas lari \ kanunkar, Istanbul
1943; W.-D. Hutteroth, Ldndliche Siedlungen im
siidlichen Inneranatolien in den letzten vierhundert Jahren,
Gottingen 1968; Hutteroth and Kamal Abdul-
fattah, Historical geography of Palestine and Transjordan
and Southern Syria in the late 16th century, Erlangen
1977; Ali Tanoglu, Iskdn cografyasi, esas fikirler, pro-
blemler ve metod , in TM, xl (1954); B. Djurdjev el al.
(eds.), Kanun i Kanunname, Sarajevo, Orientalni
Institut 1957; N. 1 un^dilek, Types of rural settlement
and their characteristics , in Benedict et al. (eds.),
7 urkey, geographic and social perspectives, Leiden 1974;
Suret-i defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid, ed. H. Inalcik,
Ankara 1954; idem, ^Adaletnameler, in Belgeler, ii
(1967), 49-105; T. Gokbilgin, Venedik devlet
arsivindeki vesikalar, in Belgeler, i/2 (1965), 119-225;
G. Ostrogorsky, Commune rurale byzanline, in Byzan-
tion, xxxii (1962), 139-66; S. Faroqhi, Towns and
townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia, Cambridge 1984; M.
L. Venzke, The sixteenth century Ottoman sanjak of
Aleppo, Ph.D. diss., Columbia Univ. 1981,
unpubl.; A. Cohen and B. Lewis, Population and
revenue in the towns of Palestine in the sixteenth century,
Princeton 1978. (H. Inalcik)

MAZRU C I (Ar. pi. Mazin'-, Swa. Wamazrui), an
Arab tribe found in the Gulf States and in East
Africa, where for two centuries they have intermar¬
ried with the local population. In the Gulf States they
are found in Abu Dhabi, where they are regarded as
a section of the BanI Yas. Outside Abu Dhabi, it is
uncertain whether they are regarded as a section of
the Ban! Yas. Some are found in Dubai, in Sharjah,
and in various districts and villages of c Uman, their
centre being the walled town of al-Alaya, where the

962

MAZRU C I

shaykh recognised as head of the family resides.

In East Africa, in Kenya and on the island of
Pemba (in the present Republic of Tanzania), four¬
teen lineages are recorded, descended from three
lineages which migrated from c Uman between ca.
1698 and ca. 1800. Of these, the most celebrated pro¬
vided an almost uninterrupted succession of rulers of
Mombasa from 1698 until 1837, when twenty-five of
the principal males were banished to Bandar c Abbas
by Sayyid Sa c id of c Uman and Zanzibar, many of
them dying unaccountably on the voyage and the
remainder in prison. Other Mazru c i lineages and the
main one also provided subordinate rulers at
Takaungu and Gazi, and of Pemba Island, generally
with the Swahili title liwali, corrupted from Ar. al-
wall. In addition, the family produced a remarkable
number of men of high ability and personal distinc¬
tion, kadis and junior magistrates, lawyers,
administrators, historians, genealogists, scholars,
poets, merchants and landowners, military com¬
manders, a steamship captain and a harbourmaster,
as well as men of religion. The history of the family
from 1698 to 1835 is recounted in Shaykh al-Amin b.

c Ali al-Mazru c I, History of the MazruH dynasty of Mom¬
basa, a unique Arabic manuscript written in lead pen¬
cil on foolscap. The author was Chief Kadi of Kenya
1937-47, a distinguished Islamic scholar, jurist and
journalist. Very much other material exists bearing
upon the history of the family, in official archives in
London, Paris and Zanzibar, in printed primary
sources and also in secondary sources, of which the
most useful summary is in C. S. Nicholls, The Swahili
coast: politics, diplomacy and trade on the East African lit¬
toral, 1798-1856 , London 1971, 390-400. Shaykh al-
Amln’s work is notably impartial, and based upon
documents in family possession and some European
printed works. Nevertheless, it is restricted by his lack
of access to much other material, by an understand¬
able leniency in judging his forebears, and also by
chronological errors that sometimes lead to confusion.
Two of these arise from misreadings of epitaphs in the
Mazru c I cemetery beside Fort Jesus, Mombasa, in
which he appears to have perpetuated the errors of
European writers who were using interpreters.

The following table shows the Liwafis of Mombasa
in order of their succession, with their regnal years.

MAZRUH LIWALIS

Kahlan * date of death given on an epitaph

c Abd Allah

Muhammad

c Abd Allah

l. Nasur ca. 1698-1727,

m. Karima bt. Shaykh b.
Ahmad al-Malindl

7. Mas c ud 1754-79

Eight sons, inch
Ahmad, Kadi of
Mombasa *ca. 1830-40

Two sons 10. c Abd Allah*

1812-23

Uthman

4. Muhammad 1734-46*

8 . c Abd Allah*
1779-82

9. Ahmad*
1782-1812

OTHERS

2. Muhammad b. Sa c Id al-Ma c amm 1729-30

3. Salih b. Muhammad al-Hadram! 1730-33
5. Sayf b. Khalaf 1746-7

Zahur

lineage of Shavkhs
and Liwafis of
Takaungu

6 . C A1I 1747-54

11. Sulayman 1823-5
(deposed, d. 1839)

12. Salim Five sons
1825-35

13. Rashid
1835-7

(banished
24 June 1837)

Mbarak,

Shaykh of Gazi

According to Shaykh al-Amin, the first of the
family to come to East Africa, Nasur b. c Abd Allah,
was appointed Liwali of Mombasa at the same time
that Mbarak b. Gharlb was appointed commander of
the c UmanI forces at the siege of Fort Jesus, Mombasa
[see mombasa], in 1696-8. The actual date of appoint¬
ment is not known. His remit was as “overseer of all
the c UmanT possessions in East Africa”, an area
defined by Shaykh al-Amin as from Ras Ngomeni,
north of Malindi, to the town of Pangani, on the
River Ruvu, and including several subordinate rulers
of towns and settlements. At the successful conclusion
of the siege in December 1696, Nasur’s appointment
was by no means uncontested. The Swahili had, as
they saw it, called the c Uman!s in as allies; and an

important faction, lead by an individual with the
strange name of Sese Rumbe, rebelled against the
c Uman! determination to stay as conquerors. After
some fighting, a composition was reached by which
Nasur was recognised in office and married either a
sister or a daughter of a certain Shaykh b. Ahmad al-
Malindl, a member of the former royal family of
Malindi \q v.], which the Portuguese had installed as
sultans of Mombasa in 1592, when the Shiraz!
dynasty of Mombasa failed for want of heirs. (The
word Shaykh is used as a given name quite commonly
in East Africa.) This was a political move of profound
local significance, with precedents at Kilwa and at
Pate [q.vv.] at the foundation of both dynasties.
Thereafter, apart from Portuguese raids, Nasur’s

MAZRU C I

963

term of office appears to have been peaceable. He died
on a visit to c Uman.

No concept of a hereditary succession of governors
is apparent at this point. Nasur had recommended the
succession of his nephew Muhammad b. c Uthman,
but two other Liwalis followed in rapid succession who
were not members of the family. It is not known why
Muhammad b. Sa c Id al-Ma c amTrT was relieved after
only a year, but Salih b. Muhammad al-Hadraml was
so harsh in his dealings with the people that he was
removed from office when civil war broke out.
Muhammad b. c Uthman was now proclaimed Liwali ,
and his succession welcomed in Mombasa. He had
ruled for ten years when the Ya c rubT dynasty was
deposed in c Uman by Ahmad b. Sa c Jd al-Bu Sa c Tdi.
This was no clear-cut transition [see c uman], for chaos
ensued for several years, and c Uthman ceased to remit
taxes to Maskat. That he said “The Imam has
usurped c Uman, and I have usurped Mombasa” is a
most unlikely use of language that several writers have
placed in his mouth. Nevertheless, it reflects local sen¬
timent, in the same way that the Swahili History of Pate
speaks of Ahmad b. Sa c Td al-Bu Sa c Idi as a
shopkeeper, with every assumption of an air of
aristocratic disdain. Shopkeeper or not, Ahmad knew
how to consolidate power, and he had Muhammad b.
c Uthman assassinated, by assassins sent from c Uman,
but with the support of the faction that had earlier
opposed Nasur. One of the assassins, Sayf b. Khalaf.
was now appointed Liwali. Shavkh al-Amln’s account
at this point is by no means clear, and by mischance
there is no reliable account in any European source.
Muhammad b. c Uthman’s brother c Ali was
imprisoned by Sayf b. Khalaf and several accounts
exist of his exciting escape from the fort with the con¬
nivance of Balu^I soldiers of Ahmad b. SaTd’s that,
nevertheless, were loyal to the Mazru c T. Then, at the
critical moment, a European arrived with an armed
vessel, which by agreement with c Ali, bombarded the
fort. Sayf b. Khalaf was taken prisoner and killed, and
C A1T acclaimed as Liwali by those who had supported
his brother and uncle. An attempt by Ahmad b. Sa c Id
to install one c Abd Allah b. Dja c Td al-Bu Sa c Tdi as
Liwali was frustrated, and C A1T now ruled with con¬
fidence.

It is a mark of that confidence that was now felt in
Mombasa that in 1754 c AlI assembled a fleet and an
army to take Zanzibar from the Bu Sa c idT. It is
claimed that he went with 80 ships, but we do not
know their size or complements. Certainly, they were
enough for success to be immediate. At this juncture,
however, c AlI’s nephew Khalaf ran amok and stabbed
him in the back. Various reasons have been sug¬
gested, that he was mad, that he was possessed by
magical powers, or that he had a genuine ambition to
seize power from his uncle. Occurrences such as this
are paralleled in plenty in the annals of the Gulf
States. A son of Nasur, Mas c ud, now took power, and
led a demoralised army back to Mombasa. There is
some argument whether or not a second attack on
Zanzibar was to take place, but nothing happened.

By all accounts, Mas c ud was an astute politician,
adroit in seeking conciliation. It is in his reign that
Mombasa’s involvement in the affairs of the sultanate
of Pate begins, with a garrison sent to Pate to assist
the sultan in keeping out the Bu Sa c IdT. In 1776 the
Kilifi faction that had opposed the preceding Mazru c I
Liwalis encouraged certain persons in Pate to attack
Mombasa. It was not countenanced by the Sultan of
Pate, and amounted to no more than a raid that was
easily scotched. A rebellion now took place in Pate
against Sultan Bwana Mkuu b. Shehe, and in the

melee of his assassination the Khalaf who had
murdered c Ali b. c Uthman was himself murdered
while attempting to defend the sultan. Then in 1779
Mas c ud died. Shavkh al-Amin praises him for his
cunning—should we not say diplomacy? His days, he
says, were days of prosperity, ease and peace, in
which he was much engaged in trade. This, perhaps,
was the halcyon period of Mazru c T rule.

On his death, eleven sons of previous Liwalis con¬
tested the succession “violently”, but within the day
they settled upon c Abd Allah b. Muhammad. Shavkh
al-Amin is silent about his short reign of two years
only: “like his predecessor, he was of good character,
and far from making war”. His next brother, Ahmad,
succeeded him and now ruled for twenty years.
Shortly after his accession he had to deal with a
rebellion in Tanga. At the end of his reign, war arose
between Mombasa and Pate on the one hand, and
Lamu on the other [see pate], with the result that the
Mombasa forces were severely defeated at Shela.
Very shortly after, Ahmad died: his epitaph in the
Mazru c I cemetery describes him as malik, the only
liwali so to describe himself or be so described on an
epitaph. It is a reflection, perhaps, of the weakness in
East Africa of the earlier part of the reign of Sayyid
Sa c Id that a liwali should be able to use so uncom¬
promising a title of royalty with impunity.

Ahmad’s son c Abd Allah, the former commander of
the Lamu garrison, now succeeded him, without any
opposition, as the man with the most experience and
competence. His first action was to reorganise the
army and the administration, appointing several new
subordinate liwalis. One of these, Sa c id b. c Abd Allah
al-Buhrl, was murdered by the Digo tribe on his way
to take up his post as Liwali at Mtang’ata. (His great-
grandson, C A1I b. Humayd b. c Abd Allah, of Tanga,
was said by the late J. Schacht to be the most learned
authority on Islamic law that he had ever
encountered.) The murderer was none other than the
chief and spiritual head of the Digo, but he was
forgiven on payment of the blood price. c Abd Allah
now turned his attention to Lamu, and to Sayyid
Sa c Id, to whom he sent, as a gesture to show his
independence, a coat of mail, a horn for measuring
powder, a small quantity of powder and some musket
balls, intimating that Sa c Id could come and fight.
Here indeed was provocation, and on the monsoon of
1238/1822 Sa c Id’s uncle Hamad b. Ahmad al-Bu
Sa c TdI came with 4,000 men and thirty ships. At
Lamu, he defeated c Abd Allah’s son Mbarak, and got
possession of Pate as well. He then proceeded to
Pemba, which he took after several days’ battle. The
loss broke c Abd Allah’s heart, and he died.

His uncle Sulayman b. c AlI was now elected as a
compromise candidate. Shavkh al-Amin describes
him as “an intelligent man, decisive and a lover of
peace”; a British official document describes him as
“aged and feeble”, while Captain W. F. W. Owen,
who met him personally, described him as “an old
dotard who had outlived every passion except
avarice”. Fearing to lose Mombasa to Sayyid Sa c fd,
a delegation was sent to Bombay to ask for the protec¬
tion of the British Government. Before a reply could
arrive, a letter came to request that the British be per¬
mitted to survey Mombasa Island and to purchase
cattle. No one could read it. The Mazru c T and the
people took it as an affirmative answer, and hoisted
the Union Flag. On 3 December 1823, H. M. S. Bar-
racouta , under the command of Lieutenant Boteler,
arrived at Mombasa, as part of Captain Vidal’s com¬
mand engaged in surveying the Indian Ocean.
Boteler, joined shortly by Vidal, knew of no reason to

964

MAZRU C I

acquire for Britain an unimportant city on the African
coast that had no commercial or strategic advantages.
They fended the Mazru c I off as best they could. But
on 7 February, Captain W. F. W. Owen arrived on
H. M. S. Leven y at the very moment that a fleet sent
by Sayyid Sa c id was bombarding the Mazru c T into
submission. Owen was a passionate crusader against
the slave trade, and believing that Mombasa could be
used as a centre from which to destroy it, he acceded
to the request for a Protectorate. A treaty was drawn
up, of which Shavkh al-Amln’s version differs some¬
what, but only in detail, from British sources. It was
that:

(1) Great Britain would cause to return to the Liwali
all the territories he had ruled formerly;

(2) The Chief of the Mazru c I should administer the
sultanate which would be hereditary in his
descendants;

(3) A Commissioner of the Protecting Power would
reside with the Liwali ;

(4) Customs duties would be divided between the con¬
tracting powers;

(5) British subjects would have permission to trade in
the interior;

(6) An end would be put to the slave trade in
Mombasa.

Shavkh al-Amln claims that c Abd Allah b. Sulaym,
the commander of Sayyid Sa c Id’s forces, was
delighted with the treaty, a view wholly contrary to
that evidenced in British official documents. Sa c id,
indeed, awaited the reaction of Bombay, which, with
Whitehall, took the view that neither Mombasa nor its
use, as yet unexplored, to end the slave trade could
counterbalance the advantages of good relations with
Sayyid Sa c Td in the Gulf. Accordingly, in October
1826, the British were instructed to withdraw. Before
this had been done, Liwali Sulayman had been
deposed by the sons of Liwali Ahmad b. Muhammad,
chosing instead one of their number, Salim. Shavkh
al-Amln quotes in full a laudatory kasida written by
Shavkh Muhyl al-Dln b. al-Shavkh al-Kahtani al-
Barawl, later ShafiT kadi of Zanzibar, whose
knowledge and learning in Arabic letters was later to
be praised by Sir Richard Burton.

Sa c Id himself lost no time. A fleet was assembled
immediately in Maskat, with a substantial army, and
he advanced on Mombasa. Nevertheless, he preferred
diplomacy, and a judicious bribe led to a treaty of
conciliation. It was agreed that:

(1) Fort Jesus was to be surrendered to Sayyid Sa c Id;
he would install a garrison limited to fifty, and of a
tribe agreeable to the Mazru c i;

(2) the Liwali would live in the fort with his family as
heretofore;

(3) sovereignty should belong to Sayyid Sa c id, but
Salim would be Liwali for life, and his descendants
after his death;

(4) customs duties would be divided equally between
the contracting powers, and the Liwali would have the
right to appoint customs officials.

The fort was now garrisoned with Arabs and
Balucis, and Nasur b. Sulayman al-Isma c TlT, formerly
Liwali of Pemba, put in command. His harshness and
insulting behaviour alienated the Mazru c I, and led to
friction. Salim determined to refer the matter to
c Uman, whereon Nasur demanded the surrender of
the town to him, under pain of war. Salim then
besieged him in the fort, and starved him out, an
occasion for yet another lengthy ka$ida from the pen of
Shavkh Muhyl al-Dln. Salim returned to the fort.
Nevertheless Sa c Id was not satisfied with the Mazru c I
account of the affair, and came in force on the mon¬

soon of 1245/1829. A six-day battle ensued, in which
Sa c Id’s forces were soundly defeated. Salim then for¬
tified Mombasa with a wall, and by 1248/1832 felt
strong enough to attempt to regain Pemba. His force
was insufficient, and returned defeated. Next year,
civil war broke out between Siyu and Pate following
a succession dispute in Pate, in the course of which
Salim angered Sa c id by allying with the side opposed
to him. On his way to Zanzibar, Sa c Id bombarded
Mombasa, but without doing any more than set some
houses on fire. For the rest of his reign, Salim was left
in peace. Salim is the only Liwali known to have
minted coins, which, Guillain reports, were struck
from a bronze cannon on account of a shortage of
small currency during his struggle with Sayyid Sa c Td.
They bear no date, and only the Arabic words for 0.
“struck” / R. “in Mombasa”. They were known in
Swahili as buruzuku, which apparently derives from
Portuguese bazaruco , small change, a word already
currently used in Goa in a different form when the
Portuguese occupied it in the 16th century. An almost
identical issue was made in Lamu, Lamu being
substituted for Mombasa, but so far nothing has been
discovered about either of these issues.

In 1835 Salim was succeeded on his death by his
son Rashid, but he had gained the fort with the sup¬
port of the townsfolk while the family were still quar¬
relling about the succession. Returning to Zanzibar in
1837 from c Uman, Sa c Id first won over the opponents
within the Mazru c T family by bribery, and then,
changing sides, supported Rashid on condition that
the fort should be surrendered to Zanzibar. Rashid
was left with no choice. Sa c id then arrested twenty-
live of the family by inviting them to Zanzibar, but
instead the ship sailed to Bandar c Abbas, at this time
an c UmanT possession; and there those who had not
died unaccountably on the voyage died in prison. It
was the end of the independence of Mombasa, and the
completion of Sayyid Sard’s assertion of his
suzerainty over the East African coast.

Sa c Td did not, however, destroy the whole family.
Mbarak, who had led the siege of the fort, is not to be
confused with a younger son of Rashid b. Salim, also
Mbarak. From Gazi, where he resided, in 1850 he
attacked Takaungu, and expelled Rashid b. Khamis
al-Mazru c I, a member of another branch of the family
who had just been appointed Liwali of Takaungu, a
position held by many other members of his lineage.
Sa c id sent troops to aid his nominee, and Mbarak
returned to Gazi. Later he was forgiven, and in 1860
appointed Liwali of Gazi.

Fort Jesus, where so many of the events described
here took place, is now a Museum. From 1895 to 1958
the British Colonial administration used it as a prison,
choking the interior with cells and other buildings.
These had superseded its use between 1837 and 1895
as the barracks of the c UmanI garrison, when it was
filled with “mean huts” seen by Guillain, Owen and
others. All this was cleared and restored by J. S.
Kirkman, F. S. A., with a subvention from the
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, between 1958 and
1970. The Portuguese Captain’s House, which had
been occupied later by the Mazru c T Liwalis , was now
rid of later excrescences. Of their period there sur¬
vived what is known as the Audience Hall of the
Mazru c r, in fact a madjlis (or selamlik) normal in Arab
houses. It is decorated with inscriptions, Kur’an
verses and poems, and painted decorations surround¬
ing them on the wooden beams. The Pilgrimage to
Mecca of the fifth Liwali , Ahmad b. Muhammad, in
1208/1793, is commemorated by an inscription that
states that none of the Liwalis before him had made

MAZRU C I — MAZYAD

965

the Pilgrimage. The ornamental decorated roof is
mentioned by Owen, together with the stone benches
that still remain, and it was here that the negotiations
for the British Protectorate Treaty of 1824 took place.
Sadly, when the fort was in use as a prison, the madjlis
was used as a gaol for women, and the nearby gun
platform for lunatics.

Biographical details are lacking for members of the
family other than Shavkh al-AmTn b. c AlI al-Mazru c i,
author of the History already cited. Born in 1891, he
was brought up in the house of Shavkh Sulayman b.
C AU b. Khamis al-Mazru c I, Chief Kadi of Kenya. He
studied under him and with c ulama 5 in Zanzibar, and
then himself acquired a reputation as a teacher of
Islamic law. Among others, he taught c ulama 5 from
Lamu, Tanga and Zanzibar, among them the famous
Shavkh C A]T b. Humayd al-Buhn, the former kadi of
Tanga already mentioned. Shavkh al-Amln was
active in starting libraries and Kur 5 anic schools, and
writing religious textbooks, including textbooks for
the instruction of children. He was the first to write
religious textbooks in Swahili. In 1930 he instituted a
Swahili newspaper, dealing with political, social and
religious questions; and in 1932 an Arabic and
Swahili weekly al-Islah (“Reform”). Although he
never visited Egypt, he was immersed in the writings
of Djamal al-Dln al-Afghani, Shavkh Muhammad
c Abduh and Rashid Rida, and gave instruction in the
Mazru c i Mosque in Arabic and other subjects. More
conservative persons in Mombasa were highly critical
of his attitude, especially towards women, finding his
ideas “revolutionary”. He was appointed kadi of
Mombasa in 1932, and Chief Kadi of Kenya in 1937,
dying in office in 1947.

Bibliography : Shavkh al-Amln b. c Ali al-
MazruT, History of the MazruH dynasty of Mombasa,
ms. ca. 1944, ed. and tr. in preparation by B. G.
Martin, and ms. tr. and notes by J. M. Ritchie;
G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, East African coin finds
and their historical significance , in Jnal. of African
History, i/1 (1960), 40; idem, The East African Coast:
select documents , London 1962, 1977; idem, The
French at Kilwa Island , Oxford 1965; idem, The
Mombasa rising against the Portuguese, London 1980;
idem, with B. G. Martin, A preliminary handlist of the
Arabic inscriptions of the Eastern African coast, in JRAS
(1973); Sir J. M. Gray, The British in Mombasa,
1824-1826, London 1957; C. Guillain, Documents
sur Vhistone, la geographic el le commerce de TAfrique
orientale, 3 vols., Paris 1856, with Album , 1857,
showing views of Mombasa and Fort Jesus; J. B.
Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795-1880,
Oxford 1968; J. S. Kirkman, Fort Jesus: a Portuguese
fortress on the East African coast, Oxford 1974; J. L.
Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf 5 Oman and Cen¬
tral Arabia, 2 vols., Calcutta 1908-15; C. S.
Nicholls, The Swahili coast: politics, diplomacy and trade
on the East African littoral, 1798-1856, London 1971;
R. Oliver and G. Mathew, History of East Africa, i,
Oxford 1963; A. I. Salim, Swahili-speaking peoples of
Kenya’s coast, 1895-1965, Nairobi 1973; idem,
Sheikh al Amin bin All al-Mazrui: un reformisle moderne
au Kenya, in F. Constantin (ed.), Les voies de TIslam
en Afrique Orientale, Paris 1987, 59-71. W. H. Valen¬
tine, Modern copper coins of the Muhammadan dynasties,
London 1911, 83, illustrates the Lama and Mom¬
basa issues. (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville)
MAZYAD, Banu, or Mazyadids, an Arab
dynasty of central c Irak, which stemmed original¬
ly from the clan of Nashira of the Banu Asad [ q.v .
established in the area between al-Kufa and Hit, anc
which flourished in the 4th-6th/10th-12th centuries.

The origins of the Mazyadids, as established by G.
Makdisi (see Bibl.) pace the older view (expressed e.g.
in EI l mazyadids) that the family did not appear in
history till the early years of the 5th/11th century, go
back to the period soon after the establishment of
Buyid domination in c Irak. Ibn al-DjawzT relates that
the Buyid amir Mu c izz al-Dawla’s vizier Abu Muham¬
mad al-Hasan al-Muhallabi (in office 345-52/956-63)
entrusted to Mazyad (read rather, Ibn Mazyad or c AlT
b. Mazyad) the protectorate ( hirnaya [<?.a.]) over Sura
and its vicinity. Sana 3 al-Dawla Abu ’1-Hasan c All's
amirate must have been a lengthy one. The same
source mentions that he led a punitive expedition on
the Buyids’ behalf against the Banu Khafadja [q.v.}\
that in 393/1003 his jurisdiction over unspecified ter¬
ritories was confirmed by the Buyid governor in c Irak,
the c Amid al-Djuyush al-Hasan b. Ustadh Hurmuz;
but also that he established a pattern of subsequent
Mazyadid attitudes towards their suzerains of alter¬
nate submissiveness and defiance according to the
degree of control exercised by the squabbling Buyid
princes. Indeed, the continuance of the Mazyadids’
authority in central c Irak was always to depend on a
readiness to shift alliances with various contending
powers in c Irak, aiming at the preservation of a
balance of power there between the c Abbasid caliphs
and the latter’s would-be protectors, whether Buyid or
Saldjuk, and thereby ensuring that one element did
not achieve total political domination, an attitude
complicated at times by the fact that the Mazyadids,
like so many of the Arab tribes of the Syrian desert
fringes, were ShfTs, with their rule from al-Hilla
extending over what became the heartland of Trakl
Shiism and what already contained the two great
shrines of al-Nadjaf and Karbala 5 [q.vv. ].

The dynasty comes more clearly into the light of
history with the accession, apparently, at the age of 14
years and with the prospect before him of a long reign
like his father’s, of Nur al-Dawla Abu ’!-A c azz
Dubays (I) b. C A1I in 408/1017-8. Shortly before then,
in 397/1006-7, C A1T had acquired by grant from the
Buyid amir Baha 5 al-Dawla \q.v. in Suppl.], after its
previous tenure by the c Ukaylids [q.v. ] of al-Mawsil,
the town of al-Djami c ayn on the Euphrates. During
c AlT’s amirate, mention of al-Djami c ayn gradually
drops out of the sources by the mid-5th/l 1th century,
and what had apparently been only a temporary
encampment ( hilla ), either within or adjacent to al-
Djami c ayn, became more permanent and evolved into
an enduring town, increasing in prosperity as the
political influence of the Mazyadids grew, and being
fortified by a wall and embellished by the greatest
ruler of the dynasty, Sadaka (I) b. Mansur (see G.
Makdisi, Notes on Hilla and the Mazyadids in medieval
Islam, which should be added to the Bibl. for
al-hilla).

Dubays did not continue the policy of strife with the
related tribe of the Banu Dubays on the borders of
c Irak and al-Ahwaz which had occupied his father’s
later years. But through his brother al-Mukallad’s
designs on the headship of the Mazyadid family,
Dubays became embroiled with the c Ukaylid Kirwash
b. al-Mukallad, to whom at al-Mawsil b. c AlT had fled
after the failure of his last bid for power, and likewise
was caught up in the rivalry of the Buyid contenders
for power in c Irak, Djalal al-Dawla b. Baha 5 al-Dawla
and his nephew Abu Kalldjar al-Marzuban b. Sultan
al-Dawla [ q.vv. \ in the years after 416/1025. Dubays
supported Abu Kalldjar and al-Mukallad Djalal al-
Dawla, and in 421/1030 Dubays’s lands were overrun
by his enemies, compelling him to submit and to pay
a substantial tribute to Djalal al-Dawla. He faced fur-

966

MAZYAD — MBWENI

ther trouble from a third brother Thabit. who allied
with the Turkish commander Arslan Basaslrl [q.v.],
and from the rival Kh afadja Bedouins. During the
lighting in central c Irak which finally led to the
establishment of the Saldjuk protectorate over
Ba gh dad. Dubays now supported Basaslrl in pro¬
claiming the cause of the Shi < I Fatimids at Ba gh dad,
espousing what was in the end to prove the losing side,
whilst his enemy the c Ukaylid Kuraysh b. Badran at
first supported To gh rfl Beg. Nevertheless, after the
pacification by To gh rfl of c Irak, Dubays managed to
retain his position, dying in 474/1082 at the age of 80.

After the brief reign of his son Baha 5 al-Dawla Abu
Kamil Mansur, the latter was succeeded in 479/1086-
7 by Sayf al-Dawla Abu ’l-Hasan §adaka (I) b. Man¬
sur, who was recognised by the Saldjuk sultan Malik
Shah as lord of the central c Irak lands to the west of
the Tigris. In the subsequent struggle for power
between Malik Shah’s two sons Berk-Yaruk and
Muhammad, Sadaka at first supported the former,
but after a dispute with Berk-Yaruk’s vizier, in
494/1100-1 switched his allegiance to Muhammad, at
first making the khutba in al-Hilla for Muhammad but
soon afterwards dropping the name of both Saldjuks
from it and acknowledging only the c Abbasid caliph
al-Mustazhir. It was $adaka who, as noted above,
launched extensive building operations in his capital.
The confused situated in c Irak further allowed him to
expand Mazyadid influence over a wide sector of the
country, including Hit, Wasit (in 497/1104), al-Basra
(499/1106) and Takrlt (500/1106). Muhammad, by
now the sole Saldjuk sultan in the west, became
alarmed at the rising power of his subject; he set out
in 501/1108 with an army from Ba gh dad, defeated
and killed Sadaka at al-Nu c maniyya and captured his
son Dubays. Like others of his family, Sadaka had
been commonly accorded the title of Malik al- c Arab
“Lord of the Arabs” (i.e. of the Bedouins along the
c Irak desert fringes), Rex Arabum in Latin Crusader
sources, and contemporaries mourned his passing as
a brave and noble figure, uniting the ideals of
Bedouin chivalry and Islamic fervour, and as a
generous patron of Arabic learning.

The same sort of praise is accorded to his son and
successor Nur al-Dawla Abu ’1-A c azz Dubays (II),
whom al-Harlrl [q. v. ] refers to in his 39th makama,
that of c Uman, as an ideal figure for nobility and
piety. He was only able to regain his seat in al-Hilla
after Muhammad’s death in 511/1118, but soon
enjoyed a new authority as a consequence of the
rivalry between the two Saldjuk contenders for the
sultanate, Muhammad’s sons Mahmud and Mas c ud,
harassing both Mahmud and the c Abbasid caliph al-
Mustarshid, against whom the Shfl Dubays uttered
threats of razing Ba gh dad to the ground. During these
years, various reverses at the hands of these rulers
nevertheless sent him in temporary flight to the
Frankish Crusaders in northern Syria, where in
518/1124 he allied with the King of Jerusalem
Baldwin II in a fruitless attack on Aleppo; to his
father-in-law the Artukid Il-GhazI in Mardln; and, in
alliance with the Saldjuk prince To gh rfl b. Muham¬
mad, to the Saldjuk sultan in the east, Sandjar. The
reviving power of the c Abbasid caliphate blocked his
plans for expansion in c Irak, and he had finally to take
refuge at Mara gh a [q.v.] in Adharbavdjan with the
Saldjuk Mas c ud, who in 529/1135 treacherously killed
both al-Mustarshid and Dubays.

Dubays’s son Sayf al-Dawla Sadaka (II) supported
Mas^ud’s cause against his nephew Dawud b.
Mahmud, but lost his life in the course of this warfare
(532/1137-8). His brother Muhammad was then

recognised as lord of al-Hilla, but soon afterwards lost
the town to his brother c AlI (II), and when the latter
died in 545/1150-1, control of the town oscillated
between the c Abbasid caliph al-MuktafT and Turkish
commanders of the Saldjuk sultan Muhammad b.
Arslan Shah. The caliphal troops withdrew from al-
Hilla in 551/1156-7, but in 558/1163 the caliph al-
Mustandjid, whose power in c Irak was increasing with
the decline of Saldjuk authority, sent an army against
al-Hilla. His troops and their allies of the Banu
TMuntafik wrought slaughter amongst the remain¬
ing Mazyadids and their AsadI supporters, and
expelled those left alive. The hold of the Asad on the
town was thus permanently broken.

That the Mazyadids, coming as they did from an
untutored Bedouin background, were able to survive
for two centuries as a significant force in the intricate
politics and changing patterns of alliances in c Irak is
a tribute to the skill and sagacity of their leaders; and
it is probable that their leadership as fervent ShiTs
furthered the expansion of Shl c ism in central and
southern < Irak.

Genealogical table of the Mazyadids
Mazyad

1. C A1I I

1 -

al-Mukallad

-1-

2. Dubays I

3. Mansur

4. Sadaka I

Thabit

5. Du

bays II

Badran

Mansur

6 . Sat

Jaka II

7. Muhammad

8 . C A1I II

Bibliography : The main primary sources
are those for the history of c Irak in the Buyid and
Saldjuk periods, including Rudhrawarl, Ibn al-
DjawzI, Bundarl and Ibn al-Athlr (follows Ibn al-
DjawzI). Ibn Khallikan has biographies of Sadaka
I (ed. c Abbas, ii, 490-1, no. 302, tr. de Slane, i,
634-5) and of Dubays II (ii, 263-5, no. 226, tr. i,
504-7). Of secondary sources, see J. von
Karabacek, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Mazjaditen ,
Leipzig-Vienna 1874; M. von Oppenheim, Die
Beduinen, iii, Wiesbaden 1952, 455-6; G. Makdisi,
Notes on Hilla and the Mazyadids in medieval Islam , in
JAOS, lxxiv (1954), 249-62; c Abd al-Djabbar
Nadjl, al-lmara al-Mazyadiyya, Basra 1970; and scat¬
tered mentions in histories dealing with the period
such as H. Busse, Chalif und Grosskonig , die Buyiden
im Iraq (945-1055), Beirut-Wiesbaden 1969, and
Bosworth, in Cambridge history of Iran , v. On the
relations of Dubays II with the Crusaders, see R.
Grousset, Histoire des Croisades el du Royaume Franc de
Jerusalem , i, Paris 1934, 625 ff.; S. Runciman, A
history of the Crusades, ii, Cambridge 1952, 171-3;
M. W. Baldwin et alii (eds.), A history of the Crusades,
i. The first hundred years, Philadelphia 1955, 423-5.
For chronology, see Zambaur, Manuel , 137, and
Bosworth, The Islamic dynasties, 51-2. See also ED
arts, dubais, mazyadis, sadaka and ED art. asad.

(C. E. Bosworth)

MAZYAR [see karinids).

MBWENI, a settlement on the East African
coast. It lies on the Tanzanian coast north of Dar es
Salaam, and has a ruined Friday mosque of 14th or

MBWENI — MED

967

15th century date divided into two aisles by three cen¬
tral pillars. There is an extensive cemetery, with
tombs, some highly decorated with elaborate carv¬
ings, of the past five centuries. It includes a pillar
tomb [see manara. 3. In East Africa] decorated with
green celadon plates, of date ante 1350. A small tomb
has an inscription commemorating Mas c ud b. Sultan
Shaft* c AlI b. Sultan Muhammad al-BarawI, who died
in 1306/1888. It is the object of a cult, and numerous
pottery vessels ranging over most of the past century
are to be seen beside the tomb, having held offerings
of food and incense. The deceased was a member of
a family celebrated for its energy in disseminating the
teachings of the Uwaysi branch of the Kadiriyya.

Bibliography : G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville,
Medieval history of the coast of Tanganyika , London
1962, 168; B. G. Martin, Muslim brotherhoods in
nineteenth-century Africa , Cambridge 1976, 152,

160 ff. _ (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville)

ME’ALI, minor Ottoman poet of the First half
of the 10th/16th century, known under this makhlas
and also as Yarhisar-oghh Kosc Me^alT (whilst his
given name was Mehmed). He is one of a con¬
siderable number of modestly gifted, as yet
imperfectly known poets who share the popular
Turkish taste in choice and handling of subject mat¬
ter. (It is true, perhaps, that Me 3 aft led a rather more
libertine life than most of his peers.) He is very fond
of puns and lavish in his use of idiomatic expressions.
At times he has a candid tongue. His sense of
humour, though never subtle (and sometimes more
than crude), can show an endearing playfulness.

Me-’alT’s father was Mustafa b. Ewhad al-Dln
Yarhisari, a miiderris and later kadi of Istanbul; his
mother Fatima bint Mehmed Beg was a Fcnan. The
date and place of his birth are unknown. He became
a mulazim [?.#.] of Tadji-zade Dja c fer Celebi and of
Zeyrek-zade Rukn al-Dln Efendi and subsequently
kadi of Mrkhaftdj-Kebsud-Firt. of Filibe, and lastly of
Gelibolu, where he died in 942/1535-6.

Me^alT’s poems are to be found in the one known
(incomplete) copy of his Dlwan and in various
medfnu c as. The bulk of his Dlwan consists of 270
ghazels ; of special interest is a des/an in hedje metre and
a charming murabba c on the death of his cat.

Bibliography : Cf. the tedhkires of Schi, Lapli,
c Ashlk Celebi, Kinall-zade, Hasan Celebi, C AIT,
and Riyadh Hammer-Purgstall, GOD. ii, 214-6:
Tarlan, §iir mecmualannda XVI ve XVII. asir divan
siri, Istanbul 1948, 33-44; Kocaturk, Turk edebiyati
tarihi, Ankara 1964, 323-4; Ambros, Candid

penstrokes: the lyrics ofMr'all, an Ottoman poet of the 16th
century , Berlin 1982 (edition of the Dlwan with full
specification of the relevant tedhkires).

(E.G. Ambros)

MEASURES [see dhira c ; makayil; misaha].
MECCA [see makka].

MECELLE [see medjelle].

MECHANICAL TECHNOLOGY [see hiyal].
MED, a people who lived in Sind at the time
of the early Arab invasions. Arab historians men¬
tion the Med in their brief descriptions of the battles
which the Arabs waged in Sind but fail to furnish us
with any substantial information concerning them.
Even the form of the name is not certain: the manu¬
scripts read either m-y-d or m-n-d (cf. al-Baladhurl.
435 n./; al-Istakhrt. 176 n. c), and the article on this
people appeared in ET under mand. However, some
modern ethnographers report that the name is Med
(H. Risley, The people of India , London 1915, 145,
328); this is valuable evidence in support of this
version.

Several encounters with the Med are reported by al-
Baladhurl. Rashid b. c Amr al-Djudavdl. appointed
by Ziyad b. Abihi to rule the area of Makran [q.v. ] on
the Indian frontier, was killed by them during an
incursion into Sind (al-Baladhun. 433). An attack
perpetrated by the “Med of Daybul” [qv.] on a ship
bringing Muslim women from “the island of rubies”
(< 'ipazlral al-yakut ; this has been frequently identified
with Ceylon, but see S. Q. Fatimi, The identification of
Jazirat al-Yaqut , in Jnal. of the Asiatic Soc. of Pakistan, ix
[1964], 19-35, who suggested identifying it with
Sumatra) is given as the reason for which al-Hadjdjadj
decided to launch around 90-2/708-11 a major expedi¬
tion to Sind (al-Baladhurl. 435-6; Gabrieli, in East ad
West , xv [1964-5], 282-3; Friedmann, in M. Rosen-
Ayalon, ed., Studies in memory of Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem
1977, 312 n. 19). Muhammad b. al-Kasim, who com¬
manded this expedition, concluded an armistice with
the people of Surast (?), who were “Med, pirates of
the sea” (yakta c una fl ’l-bahr) (al-Baladhurl. 440); the
name of this place recalls Surashtra, i.e., Kathiawar
(B.C. Law, Historical geography of ancient India , Paris
1954, 297-9). In the reign of al-Mu c tasim, c Imran b.
Musa attacked the Med, killed 3,000 of them and
built a dam known as “the dam of the Med” (sakr al-
Med), probably to disturb their irrigation {ibid. , 445).
Then he resumed the campaign against the Med with
the support of the Zutt [q.v.], whom he had sub¬
jugated; a canal ( nahr ) was dug from the sea and the
lagoon ( batlha) of the Med was inundated with salt
water. Later on, a certain Muhammad b. al-Fadl b.
Mahan launched a naval expedition against “the Med
of Hind” and conquered a city of theirs {ibid., 446).

Of the geographers, Ibn Khurradadhbih mentions
al-Med both as a geographical region (56) and as a
people who lived about four days’ journey to the east
of the Indus and were robbers (62). Al-Mas c udT, who
went to India in 304/916-17 (Brockelmann, I, 44) says
that the city of al-Mansura [q. v. ] is continually at war
with the Med {Murudf, i, 378; cf. also Tanblh, 55). Al-
Istakhrl (176 = Ibn Hawkal, 323-4) says that the
infidel peoples of Sind are the Budha and the Med.
The Med lived on the banks of the Indus {shutut
Mihran [see mihran], from Multan [< 7 . 0 .] to the sea,
and occupied pasturages in the desert which stretched
between the Indus and the city of Kamuhui. Accord¬
ing to al-ldrlsl {Opus geographicum, Naples-Rome 1970-
8 , 170; tr. Jaubert, i, 163), the Med dwelt on the
borders of the desert of Sind. They were nomads
{rahhala\ Jaubert, loc. cit., seems to have read ra djdjd la
and translated “un peuplade tres brave”; cf. S.
Maqbul Ahmad, India and the neighbouring territories as
described by ... al-ldrlsl, Aligarh 1954, 33) and pastured
their flocks up to the border of Mamahal (Kamuhui?).
They were numerous and owned many horses and
camels; their raids extended as far as al-Rur (cf. Elliot
and Dowson, The history of India as told by its own
historians , London 1867, i, 363) and sometimes even to
Makran.

The town of Kamuhui, which marks the south¬
eastern limit of the area inhabited by the Med, was
identified by Elliot and Dowson {op. cit., i, 363; S.
HodTvala, Studies in Indo-Muslim history, Bombay 1939,
38) with Anhalwara, which is modern Patan in
northern Baroda (cf. EP , III, 407; Imperial gazetteer of
India 2 , Oxford 1908, xx); Cunningham {Report 1863-
1864, 290) places “Mamhal” at c Umarkot; this
would place the Med much more firmly in Sind.

Of special interest among the Muslim sources is the
anonymous Mudjmal al-tawarlkh (Storey, i, 67). A part
of this work seems to be a resume of the Mahabharata.
It begins with a chapter on the Med and the Zutt who

968

MED — MEDENIYYET

lived in Sind and are said to be descendants of Ham,
the son of Noah. The two peoples were hostile to each
other and fought a number of wars. Having become
tired of fighting, they resolved to approach king
Dahushan b. Dahran (Duryodhana son of
Dhrtarastra) and asked him to appoint a ruler over
them. Dahushan gave the country to his sister Dusal
(Duhsala), who married the powerful king Dj and rat
(Jayadratha). The country was then divided between
the Zutt and the Med (J. Reinaud, Fragments arabes et
persans inedits, Paris 1845, repr. 1974, 2-3, 25-7). The
story reflects an attempt to forge a link between the
history of the Med and the Zutt and the Indian tradi¬
tion. It must be noted, however, that the Sanskrit
original of the Mahabhdrata makes no mention of
peoples bearing these names in the passage dealing
with Duhsala’s marriage to Jayadratha, king of Sin-
dhu {Mahabharata, i. 108. 18). Moreover, the Indian
tradition does not seem to contain anything definite
about the Med, with the possible exception of occa¬
sional remarks in the dharmasastra literature about a
low caste or, according to some, untouchable people
called Meda, of unspecified geographical location or
provenance {Manusmrti 10.36, with Medhatithis’s
remarks; cf. Rai Bahadur B.A. Gupte, The Meds of
Makran, in Indian Antiquary , xl [1941], 147-9).

It seems that the Med are not mentioned in later
Muslim sources. It is noteworthy that the Cac-nama
[q. v. in Suppl.], which was written in the 7th/ 13th
century, does not mention the Med in the context in
which they appear in al-Baladhurl. In its description
of the act of piracy which is said to have caused
Muhammad b. al-Kasim’s invasion of Sind, the Cac-
nama (ed. Daudpota, New Delhi 1939, 89) mentions
a people called N-k-a-m-r-a instead of the Med.
Neither are they mentioned in the Cac-nama version of
Rashid b. c Amr al-Djudaydf s death {ibid., 81-2).
Despite their apparent disappearance from later
Muslim sources, the Med are reported in existence by
some modern ethnographers (Risley, loc. cit., Elliot
and Dowson, op. cit., i, 519-31; H.T. Lambrick, Sind.
A general introduction , Haydarabad (Sind) 1964, 209-
JO, esp. at n. 17).

Bibliography : Given in the article; see also S.
Razia Jafri, Description of India {Hind and Sind) in the
works of al-Istakhn, Ibn Hauqal and al-Maqdisi , in Bull,
of the Inst, of Islamic Studies (Aligarh), v (1961), 60-1;
al-Birunl, al-Djamahir ft ma- c rifat al-dpawahir,
Haydarabad (Deccan) 1355/1936-7, 47-8.

(Y. Friedmann and D. Shulman)
MEDAL [ see nishan, wisam].

MEDDAH ( see maddah],

MEDEA [see al-madiyya).

MEDENIYYET (t.), “civilisation”. As a term
referring to a political system, medeniyyet seems to have
been introduced into Ottoman Turkish towards the
middle of the 19th century. Before it was coined on
the basis of the old Arabic word madina, the French
term civilisation was used for a short while, and in its
French pronunciation written in Arabic letters. In
both senses, what was meant was the secular political
system believed to be common in Europe. As a polity,
civilisation or medeniyyet was contrasted with the tradi¬
tional oriental dynastic despotism.

Mustafa ReshTd Pasha used the French word in his
official writings in Ottoman Turkish in 1834. Sadik
Ri^at Pasha did likewise in 1837. Another writer,
Mustafa SamT, used the same French word written in
Arabic letters and according to French pronouncia-
tion in his account of his observations in European
capitals.

In spite of minor variations in their accounts of the

civilisation, the main emphasis of such writers was on
pointing out the superiority of the European polities
which they named civilisation or mediniyyet. They were
also in a great deal of agreement on identifying the
distinguishing features of medeniyyet, e.g. enlighten¬
ment, rationalism, freedom of conscience, the
dissemination of education and the prevalence of
literacy, the accumulation of scientific knowledge and
its role in the advancement of inventions, equality of
subjects before the law and orderly application of it by
government officials, and economic policies pursued
to promote the interests of the people. Sacfik Rifkat
attempted to go even deeper and to discern that at the
basis of these features lay a mode of thinking sharply
different from the traditional views held in the East.
He spoke of the natural rights of men as the sole basis
of legitimacy of government in civilisation, adding
that “there the governments are for the people, and
not the people for governments”.

In truth, similar ideas which may be taken as the
sign of a degree of awareness of “the emergence of a
new political phenomenon in Europe”, as B. Lewis
has pointed out, were not unknown to the Turkish
reformers even before the outbreak of the French
Revolution. Ironically, the very same revolution, with
its Napoleonic aftermath, had been responsible, at
least partly, for a violent reactionary uprising in 1807
which not only swept away all such new ideas but
brought a period of anarchy and indecisiveness lasting
until 1839, when a new era of the Tanzimat [q.v.]
reforms was opened. The reformers mentioned above
were describing the model to be emulated and were
pointing out decisively the desirability of the
appropriation of the superior {merghub) methods of
civilisation.

The shortcomings of the Tanzimat efforts of
appropriating the fundamentals of Medeniyyet were due
to a great extent to the vagueness, devoid of historical
and sociological dimensions, and the naivete
displayed in the mechanistic views of these men. A
small group of intellectuals (the “New Ottomans” or
Yeni c Othmanlar), who lived abroad in exile, saw
shortcomings in the medeniyyet current in Europe. In
their criticisms of the Tanzimat reforms they made
implicit, and sometimes explicit, distinctions between
the “material” and the “moral” parts in all civilisa¬
tions. They too lavished praises on the advancements
of material civilisation achieved in Europe, but they
were less enthusiastic about the second part.

Thus from the late 1860s onward the word
medeniyyet ceased to imply a political regime and one
peculiar only to Europe. Later years saw the rise of
much wider connotations of the term and of con¬
troversies, particularly when it was challenged by
another term, harth, coined by Ziya (Diya 5 ) Gokalp to
correspond to the much older Western concept of
culture.

Though the term medeniyyet had lost its early
political meaning, it still carried a political tinge in
1920s during the War of Independence. A poem writ¬
ten and intended as the national anthem contained a
verse cursing medeniyyet as “the monster with one
remaining tooth”—an obvious reference to European
imperialism. When Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)
glorified what he called “contemporary civilisation”,
he appears to have taken side with those who iden¬
tified medeniyyet only with enlightenment and progress,
but not with a political regime.

Bibliography: Agaoglu Ahmed, U( medeniyet,

Ankara 1928; Yusuf Akcura, c Asri Turk dewleti , in

Turk Yurdu, iii/13 (1341/1925), 1-16; Niyazi Berkes,

The development of secularism in Turkey, Montreal

MEDENIYYET — MEDINA

969

1964; idem, Tiirkiye’de cagdafapma 7 , Istanbul 1978;
Ziya Gokalp, Turkish nationalism and western civiliza¬
tion , essays tr. and ed. N. Berkes, London 1958;
Resat Kaynar, Resit Pasa ve Tanzimat , Ankara 1954;
Mustafa Kemal, Atatiirk’un soyler ve deme^leri, ii,
Ankara 1959; B. Lewis, The impact oj the French
Revolution on Turkey , in Jnal. of World History, i
(January 1953), 105-25; idem, On some modern Arabic
political terms, in Orienlalia Hispanica, i, Leiden 1974,
466-71; Akyigitzade Musa, Awrupa medeniyyetine bir
nazar, Istanbul 1897; §erif Mardin, The genesis of
Young Ottoman thought, Princeton 1962; Sacfik RiFat,
Muntakhabat-i athdr , ii, Istanbul 1844; Mustafa
Sami, Awrupa risalesi, Istanbul 1840.

(Niyazi Berkes)

MEDHI, the pen name ( makhlas ) used by a
number of Ottoman poets whose poetry is known
to date mainly through the samples found in medymufas
and tedhkire s. Judging by these, they are all poets of
secondary importance at best. Two should be singled
out.

1. Mahmud Efendi of Gelibolu (Gallipoli),

known as Kara Mahmud (or Kara Kadi-zade
according to Beyani). A mulazim of Shaykh al-Islam Abu
’1-Su c ud Efendi he first became a muderris. After

being dismissed from a position with a daily salary of
forty akce s, he was appointed in 984/1576 to the Shah
Khuban medrese in Istanbul (cf. Cahid Baltaci, XV-
XVI. asirlarda Osmanh medreseleri , Istanbul 1976, 435).
In 987/1579 he became mufti oi Kefe, in 992/1584 kadi
of Mar c ash, from 994/1585-6 until 995/1586 he was
kadi of Kiitahya, from 996/1588 until 998/1590 again
kadi of Mar c ash, from 1000/1592 until 1002/1594 and
from 1003/1595 until 1004/1596 kadi of Gelibolu, and
from 1005/1597 until 1006/1597 kadi of Tripoli in
Syria. He died in 1006/1597-8 in Gelibolu, and is
buried there in the vicinity of the Ghazi Suleyman
Pasha mosque. The tdrikh or chronogram Fatiha
Mahmud Efendi ruhina inscribed on his tombstone (as
described by Bursali Mehmed Tahir), which is by
Na c ti or according to others by Ni c metT, confirms this.
A very short passage of his Kalemiyye , a treatise in
Arabic, is quoted by c Ata : ’i. Two mss. of his Diwan are
known to exist (Millet Ktp., Emiri, manzum eserler 399,
and Husrev Pasa Ktp., Mihripah Sultan 370).

Bibliography. Cf. the tedhkire s of c Ahdf, Millet
Ktp., Emiri, tarih, 774, fol. 177a; Kinali-zade
Hasan Celebi, ed. i. Kutluk, ii, Ankara 1981,885-
6 ; BeyanI, Millet Ktp., Emiri, tarih, 757, fols. 94b-
95a; Riyadi, Nuruosmaniye Ktp., 3724, fol. 133b;
Kaf-zade Fa^idi, Millet Ktp., Emiri, manzum, 1325,
fol. 99a; also c Ata :> I, Dheyl-i Shakayik , Istanbul 1268,
415-6; M. Thureyya, Sidfill-i c OthmanI, iv, Istanbul
1315, 353; Bursali Mehmed Tahir, c Othmdnft
muPellifleri, ii, Istanbul 1333, 384-5.

2. Nuh-zade Seyyid Mustafa Celebi of Bursa
stands out because his name has come down to us also
as a medddh [q.v.]. Actually, he started a career as a
muderris after being a miilazim of Shaykh al-Islam Abu
Sa c Id Efendi. Upon his dismissal from a position with
a daily salary of forty akce s, he aspired to a career as
kadi. When, however, he was promised the kada 5 of
Corlu but the realisation of this promise was delayed,
he became a medddh. He died on 18 Redjeb 1091/14
August 1680, and was buried in Bursa in the vicinity
of the tomb of Emir Sultan.

Bibliography : Safayi tedhkiresi, Osterr. National-
bibl., H.O. 139, fol. 250a, Suleymaniye Ktp.,
Es ’ad Ef. 2549, fol. 319a (255a); Beligh, Giildeste-i
riyad-i : irfan , Bursa 1302, 531; Shevkhi. WakayT al-
fudald 3 . Osterr. Nationalbibl., H.O. 126, fol. 355a-
b, Suleymaniye Ktp., Hamidiye 941, fol. 361a:

• **

Siileyman Fa^ik Ejendi medfmiTasl, Istanbul Univ.
Ktp. Ty., 3472, fol. 61b. (E.G. Ambros)

3. Medhi is the makhlas also of a certain Dervish
Hasan, a prolific but obscure prose-writer, who des¬
cribed himself as the panegyrist ( medddh ) of Murad II
(982-1003/1574-95). To that sultan he dedicated a
Turkish translation, entitled Kissa-yi newbawe, of Abu
SJiaraf Nasih’s Persian version of al- c Utbi’s Ta^rikh al-
y - amf«f(Rieu, Cat. of Tkish. mss., 42-3; cf. Browne, ii,
471), and also a (completely fictional) Hikdyet-i Ebu
c Alt-yi Sind, i.e. Ibn Sina [q.v. ] (Rieu, 231). He served
also Murad’s successors, up to c Othman II (1027-
31/1618-22), at whose command he made a prose
translation of the Shah-nama of FirdawsT [q.v.] (see
Blochet, i, 314, with the names of other works he
claimed to have written or translated; W.D. Smir-
now, Manuscrits tuns..., St. Petersburg 1897, 82-7).

. . ( Ed -)
MEDIHI, the pen name ( makhlas ) of two

Ottoman poets whose poetry is known to date only

as far as the samples found in medfmu^as and tedhkire s

allow. On the strength of these, neither appears to be

of more than minor importance.

1. Mustafa (according to Kfnali-zade Hasan
Celebi and BeyanT, whereas c Ashlk Celebi gives his
name as Mush—or Muslu, the Turkish abbreviation
of Muslih al-Dln) Celebi of Siroz (Serres), who
lived during the reigns of Suleyman I (926-74/1520-
66 ), Selim II (974-82/1566-74) and up to the middle
of that of Murad III (982-1003/1574-95). A danishmend
of Kadi-zade Ahmed Efendi (who became kd(li- c asker
under Selim II), then a mulazim of ^Ata 5 Allah Efendi,
he served as kadi of a number of kasabas, the last being
Slroz. He came to be known in the circle of his peers
for his numerous servants and attendants and his love
of display.

Bibliography: The tedhkire s of c Ashik Celebi, ed.
G. M. Meredith-Owens, London 1971, fol. 121 a-b,
mss. in Suleymaniye Ktp., Pertev Pasa 440,
Hamidiye 1064, Asir Ef. 268, Kinalf-zade Hasan
Celebi, ed. I. Kutluk, ii, Ankara 1981, 886-7,
Beyani, Millet Ktp., Emiri , tarih, 757, fol. 95a.

2. Mehmed of Istanbul was a mulazim, then a
muderris until he attained a position with a daily salary
of forty akce s. Upon dismissal from this position, he
agreed to a career as kadi and went to Egypt (accord¬
ing to the ms. Osterr. Nationalbibl., H.O. 139, of
Safayl’s tedhkire , he was appointed as kadi to the kadad
of Burullus), where he became renowned for his
ability for story-telling and his indulgence in the
pleasures of life. He died in 1083/1672-3.

Bibliography. Safayi tedhkiresi, Osterr. National¬
bibl., H.O. 139. fol. 248a-b, Millet Ktp., Emiri,
tarih, 771, 367-8; Shevkhi. WakayT al-fudalaf ,
Osterr. Nationalbibl., H.O. 126, fol. 355b,
Suleymaniye Ktp., Hamidiye, 941, fol. 361a.

(E.G. Ambros)

MEDICINE [see tibb].

MEDINA, from Arabic madina “town”, is used in
French ( medina) to designate, above all in the
Ma gh rib, the ancient part of the great Islamic
cities, beyond which have been constructed the
modern quarters of the city. Moreover, Medina has
survived in Spain in a certain number of toponyms.
The main ones of these are: Medina de las Torres, in
the province of Badajoz; Medina del Campo and
Medina de Rioseco, in that of Valladolid; Medina de
Pomar, in that of Burgos; and also, Medinaceli [see
madinat salim] and Medina-Sidonia [see shadhuna].

(E. Levi-Proven^al)

MEDINA, town in Saudi Arabia [see al-
madIna].

970

MEDINACELI — MEDJD1

MEDINACELI [see madInat salim[.

MEDINI RA 5 I, a leader, as Ra 3 ! Cand Purbiya,
of the Purbiya (= “eastern”) Radjputs, with
tribal possessions in the Canderl [q.v. ] district and
hence feudatories of the sultans of Malwa [q.v.], who
became prominent in Malwa-Gudjarat-Mewar-Dihll
politics early in the 10th/16th century.

The Malwa succession had been fiercely contested
after the death of Nasir al-Dln Shah KhaldjT in
916/1510, who had designated his third son, A c zam
Humayun, as his heir. He duly succeeded, as
Mahmud Shah Khaldjl II [q.v.], with his elder
brothers Shihab al-Dln and $ahib Khan as active con¬
tenders for the throne in a situation exacerbated by
rival factions of Muslim nobles at court; one faction
had already compassed the assassination of the strong
and competent (Hindu) wazir and the banishment of
a second Hindu minister. The perpetrators remained
unpunished by Mahmud, and their power increased
until the leader of the second faction, Muhafiz Khan,
turned the sultan against them. They escaped to
KEandesh [q.v.] to join Shihab al-Dln, but the latter
died suddenly before any action could be taken. In the
meantime, Muhafiz Khan, now appointed wazir , had
become too powerful, and confined Mahmud to his
palace, proclaiming Sahib Khan sultan as Muham¬
mad Shah in the capital Mandu [q.v.]. Mahmud
managed to escape, chased by his brother, to Canderl,
where he received no support from the governor
Bahdjat Khan, on the pretence that he^ obeyed only
the ruler of Mandu. At this point, Radi Cand Purbiya
brought his Radjput troops to Mahmud’s assistance,
and, becoming Mahmud’s adviser, was given the title
of Medinl RaT. He pursued Sahib Khan and expelled
him from Mandu (917/1512); Sahib Khan fled to
Gudjarat, accompanied by Muhafiz Khan.

Medinl Ra 3 !, appointed wazir at Mandu,
strengthened the administration and appointed his
own Radjputs to some important posts; but there was
some opposition from Muslim nobles, increased when
Sahib Khan returned from Gudjarat without, how¬
ever, having secured any assistance from its sultan. In
918/1512 the governors of both Sat was (Nemawar)
and Canderl rebelled; Medinl Ra 5 I quelled the distur¬
bances at Satwas and then, with Mahmud, marched

on Canderl, where Bah^at Khan (not obeying the
ruler of Mandu!) had not only proclaimed Sahib
Khan as sultan but also sought help from the Dihll
sultan Sikandar Lodi, promising to read the khutba in
his name. Sikandar did temporarily annex Canderl,
but finally Medinl Ra 5 I and his Radjputs recaptured
the place in 920/1514. After this, Mahmud relied
increasingly on Medinl, who gradually built up his
own position until all administrative power was in his
hands, and the sultan virtually a puppet. Mahmud
tried unsuccessfully to have Medinl assassinated, pro¬
voking a Purbiya Radjput revolt; eventually,
Mahmud left Mandu secretly in 923/1517 to obtain
the assistance of Muzaffar Shah II of Gudjarat. The
latter led an attack on, and later a siege of, Mandu,
whereupon Medinl left the defence of the fort to his
troops and sought help from Rana Sanga of Mewar at
Citawr. Mandu fell to Muzaffar (924/1518), who
expelled the Radjput troops, reinstated Mahmud on
the Malwa throne, and left a Gudjarat! body of troops
for his protection. Mahmud then marched on Medinl
Ra 5 !, then holding Gagra 5 un, but Rana Sanga came
to MedinI’s assistance, defeated Mahmud’s army,
and took him prisoner, wounded, to Citawr; Rana
Sanga released him and restored him to his throne
after his wounds were healed (926/1520). Mahmud,
resenting the Gudjarat! bodyguard and the continuing

Gudjarat! influence, requested Muzaffar to recall it;
but after this was done, Malwa lost much of its ter¬
ritories to Rana Sanga or those under his protection,
including Medinl Ra 5 I, who was established in the
now independent Canderl. He fought with Rana
Sanga against Babur in the battle of Khanu 3 a in
933/1527, and shortly afterwards was killed in
Babur’s assault on Canderl. He was the most able of
the minor Radjput chieftains, as skilful in warfare as
in administration; he never abandoned his respect for
or courtesy to Mahmud Shah, treating him and his
family with consideration and generosity.

Bibliography : Sikandar b. Muhammad “Man-
djhu”, MiPat-i Sikandarl, ed. S.C. Misra, Baroda
1961, 174 ff.; Nizam al-Dln Bakhshl. Tabakat-i
Akbarl, Bibl. Ind. text, Calcutta 1927-35, esp. iii,
383 ff.; Kani c I, Ta\ikh-i Muzaffar Shahl, ed. M. A.
Chagtai, Poona 1947 (deals especially with Muzaf¬
far Shah’s Malwa campaign in 923/1517); c Abd
Allah Muhammad b. c Umar al-Makk! (“HadjdjI
al-Dablr”), Zafar al-wdlih (= Arabic History oj
Gujarat , ed. E.D. Ross, London 1921-8), 213;
Kaviradja Shyamaldas, Vir-vinod , i, 350 ff., con¬
firms much of the Muslim historians’ material from
the Radjput viewpoint; S.C. Misra, Gujarat and
Malwa in the first half of the 16th century, in Procs. Ind.
Hist. Congr., xvi (1953), 245-8.

(J. Burton-Page)

MEDJDI, Mehmed Celebi, an Ottoman lit¬
terateur and biographer of the 10th/16th century
known by the pen-name of Medjdl, d. 999/1591. He
was born the son of a merchant in Edirne ( C A1I, Kiinh
al-akhbdr, 1st. Univ. Lib. TY 5959, fol. 493b). He
completed his education at the Bayezldiyye medrese in
Edirne and became the danishmend (“advanced stu¬
dent”) of the Bayezldiyye miiderris Kaf Ahmed Celebi
(Medjdl, HadePik al-ShakaHk, Istanbul 1269. 503). He
served as repetiteur (mu c ld) to KaramanI Akhaweyn
Mehmed Celebi and thereafter entered the judicial
career; according to c Ashik Celebi {MeshdHr iil-
shu c ara > , ed. G.M. Meredith-Owens, London 1971,
fol. 117b) and Kfbalf-zade Hasan Celebi (Tezkiret us-
suard, ed. i. Kutluk, Ankara 1981, ii, 854), Medjdl
was Akhaweyn’s mu c ld during the latter’s tenure at the
Bayezldiyye, while New c I-zade c Ata :> I (Hada^ik al-
hakd^ik fitakmilat al-Shaka^ik, Istanbul 1268, 334) states
that he became a candidate for office ( muldzim ) under
the quota of nominees allowed Akhaweyn as a miiderris
at the Sahn, where he taught before being appointed
to the Bayezldiyye. Medjdl held a number of kaflllks
in Rumeli and reached the rank of 150 aspers’ daily
salary; he died in Istanbul in 999/1591 while awaiting
a new appointment and was buried at the zdwiye of
Emir Bukhari outside the Edirne gate.

As a poet, Medjdl was particularly influenced by
Emrl (also a native of Edirne) and by his teacher
Akhaweyn. and his contemporaries c AhdI ( Giilshen-i
shu c ard 3 , 1st. Univ. Lib. TY 2604, fols. 110 ff.), and
c Ashfk Celebi, loc. cit., acknowledged him as an
accomplished scholar and litterateur known for the
perfection of his poetic forms, his mastery of the kastde
and ghazel , and his skill in the use of fresh imagery.
Selections from his poetry are found in the tedhkire s of
poets ( c AhdI, c Ashik Celebi, Kinali-zade, locc. cit.;
RiyadI Mehmed, Tedhkire , 1st. Univ. Lib. TY 761,
fol. 119a; BeyanI Mustafa, Tedhkire, 1st. Univ. Lib.
TY 2568, fol. 79a; Kafzade Fa^idl, Zubdat al-ash c dr,
1st. Univ. Lib. TY 1646, fols. 97a-98a; c Ata 3 I, 335-6)
and in the histories of Edirne (HibrI, Enis al-
musamirln. Millet Lib., Emiri, tarih no. 68, fol. 80b;
Bad!, Riyad-i belde-yi Edirne, Bayezid Devlet Lib. no.
10392, ii, 545-6; O.N. Peremeci, Edirne larihi, Istan-

MEDJDI — MEDJELLE

971

bul 1940, 216), and his ghazels were collected in his
Diwance (Millet Lib., Emiri, manzum no. 398; for a
description, see Istanbul kitapliklan turkfeyazma divanlar
katalogu, Istanbul 1947, i, 175). MedjdT demonstrated
his ability to compose good Arabic prose with two
treatises, the Sayjiyya (Suleymaniye Lib., Esad Ef. no.
3416 2 fols. 28b-30b) and the Sham c iyya (quoted in part
by C A1T, Kinali-zade, BeyanI and c A{a 5 T, locc. cit.).

MedjdT displayed his scholarly and literary ability
in the work for which he is justly renowned, his
translation of the Shaka^ik al-Nu c mdniyya Ji c ulama ° al-
dawla al- c Othmaniyya. As previous translations and
continuations of Tashkoprii-zade’s famous
biographical work (see Katib Celebi, Kashf al-zunun,
Istanbul 1941, ii, 1057-8; B. Goniil (Necatigil), Istan¬
bul kiituphanelerinde al-§aka Hk al-Nu c mdniya terciime ve
zeyilleri, in Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi, vii-viii [1945], 136 ff.)
had been made, some scholars had added explanatory
and supplementary notes ( hashiyas and ta c lfkdl) to the
margins of the Arabic text. MedjdT, in order to make
the work more widely available, undertook its transla¬
tion into Turkish, which he completed and dedicated
to Murad III in 995/1587. MedjdT compensated for
the dry simplicity of the original with a courtly style
and ornate language, adorning his translation with
poetry, aphorisms, word plays and chronograms. He
also used the sources at his disposal to expand and cor¬
rect the work. These sources included marginal addi¬
tions to the original Shaka^ik, such as the notes made
by c Arab-zade (see MedjdT, 331, 373-4, 385, 486) and
Seyrek-zade (ibid. , 494); documents such as wakf-
names, hu didie ts and temessiiks found in the judicial
(kadillk) archives; authors such as al-Suyutl, Ibn
c Arabshah and HanbalT-zade; early Ottoman
chronicles, particularly the Hesht bihishi; tedhkire
authors such as SehT, LatTfT and c Ashfk Celebi; and
such works written by the subjects of his biographies
as he was able to see plus accounts transmitted by
their relatives and students (for an indication of the
extent of these additions, which MedjdT labels tedhyfl,
see A. Subhi Furat’s notes to his edition of the
original, es-ljekd^iku n-Nuhnaniye Ji c ulemdi ’d-devleti /-
Osmdmye, Istanbul 1985). Thus it can be said that
MedjdT’s work, which he entitled Hada^ik al-Shaka^ik ,
rather than being a translation represents an attempt
to produce a new work based on the Shaka^ik. MedjdT’s
Hada^ik, as a complement to the Shaka^ik which was of
high literary quality, became the formal and stylistic
model for later continuations, and the edition pub¬
lished in 1269/1852 is a primary reference work for
researchers.

Bibliography : Given in the article.

(Bekir Kutuko6lu)

ME DJ ELLE (a. madjalla). Originally meaning a
book or other writing containing wisdom, or even any
book or writing, the term refers in its best-known
application to the civil code in force in the
Ottoman Empire, and briefly in the Turkish
republic, from 1285/1869 to 1926.

Known in full as the Medjelle-yi Ahkam-i c Adliyye, this
covers contracts, torts and some principles of civil pro¬
cedure. It reflects Western influence mainly in its
division into numbered books, sections and articles,
as in European codes. Critics have found a number of
flaws in the work, such as the dispersion at times of
related subjects in different parts of the code. Never¬
theless, the Medjelle was extremely important for
several reasons. It represents the first attempt by an
Islamic state to codify, and to enact as law of the state,
part of the sharia (Schacht, 92). Further, the code,
while derived from the Hanaff school of law, which
enjoyed official status in the Ottoman Empire, did not

always incorporate the dominant opinions of that
school. Rather, of all the opinions ever advanced by
Hanaff jurists, the code incorporated those deemed
most suited to the conditions of the times, in accord¬
ance with the principle of takhayyur. While the
justificatory memorandum ( esbab-i mudjibe madbatasi)
submitted to the Council of Ministers, said that the
authors of the code “never went outside the IJanafT
rite” (Liebesny, 69; Berki, 12; Diistur 1 , i, 27; Aristar-
chi, vi, 15), some of these opinions had in fact
originated with non-HanafT jurists (Anderson, 17, 47-
8 ). Such eclecticism became a major feature of later
efforts at reform of sharia law and, by nature, pro¬
vided added impetus for codification (Liebesny, 137-
8 ). Finally, since the Medjelle was applied in the
secular nizdmiyya courts set up in the period [see
mahkama, 2, ii] as well as in the sharf-a courts, it
applied to non-Muslim subjects of the empire as state
law (kanun), as well as to Muslims, on whom the
code’s sharH content would have been binding in any
case (Ahmed Djevdet, Tezakir 1-12 , 64; idem,
Ma^ruzat, 200; Heidborn, i, 387; cf. Schacht, 92-3).

The decision to draft the Medjelle grew out of a con¬
troversy over whether the Ottomans should simply
translate and adopt the French civil code. The
Ottoman Council of Ministers decided instead to
commission a work based on jikh and entrusted this
task to a commission under the chairmanship of
Ahmed Djewdet Pasha \qv.], who had been the
leading advocate of this course of action. The commis¬
sion completed the sixteen books ( kitab ) of the Medjelle
over the period from 1285/1869 to 1293/1876 (Diistur 1 ,
i, 20-164; ii, 38-425; iv, 93-125; Berki, passim ;
Aristarchi, vi-vii; Young, vi). The various books were
placed in force by decrees (irdde) of the sultan, dating
from 6 Dhu ’l-Ka c da 1286/1870 (Berki, 113) to 26
Sha c ban 1293/1877 (ibid. , 422). In shar c i terms, the
Medjelle thus acquired legal force from the power of the
sultan as imam al-muslimm to order which of several
legal opinions should be followed in a given matter
(Diistur 1 , i, 29; Heidborn, i, 286; Anderson, 48).

The Medjelle opens with two sections which define
Jikh and its divisions and which state its basic prin¬
ciples largely according to the Ashbdh wa ’ 1-nazaHr of
Ibn Nudjaym (d. 970/1562-3). Following these sec¬
tions, the sixteen books deal with sales (buyu c )‘, hire
and lease ( idjara ); guaranty (kajala); transfer of debts
(hawala ); pledge ( rahn ); deposit (amdnat)\ gift (hiba)\
usurpation and property damage (ghasb wa-itlaj );
interdiction, duress, and pre-emption (hadjr, ikrah,
shuf-a)-, joint ownership and partnership ( shirka );
agency ( wakala ); amicable settlement and remission of
debt (sulh wa-ibra^y, acknowledgment (ikrar); lawsuits
(da c wd); evidence and oaths (bayyinat wa-tahlif); courts
and judgeship (kadd*) (Velidedeoglu, 190-6). The
drafting commission evidently intended to continue
its work by codifying the law on the family and
inheritance, but soon found itself paralysed by the
suspicions of the new sultan. c Abd iil-IJamld II (1876-
1909 [< 7 .£>.]) (Heidborn, i, 285; Mardin, art. Mecelle,
435).

Despite its bases in Jikh , the Medjelle differs from
traditional sharia law in several respects, including its
codification and official promulgation and its implicit
admission—necessary, given its intended scope of
application—of non-Muslims as witnesses (Schacht,
93). The Medjelle also differs from European civil
codes in omitting non-contractual obligations, types
of real property other than freehold (milk), family law,
and inheritance, as well as in including some shar c i
procedural provisions (Liebesny, 65).

The significance of the Medjelle can be measured not

972

MEDJELLE — MEDJLIS-I WALA

only from the respect that it continues to command as
evidence of the possibility of achieving its original
purpose, that of systematising the sharia so as to
obviate the adoption of purely secular law codes
(Fazlur Rahman, 29), but in a more tangible way, the
code’s significance also appears from its remarkable
afterlife. In the nizamiyya , though not the sharia
courts, the Ottoman government did replace the pro¬
cedural provisions of the Medjelle with a Code of Civil
Procedure, based on French law, in 1879 (Liebesny,
66 ; Heidborn, i, 386-7; Diistur 1 , iv, 257-317; Young,
vii, 171-225). The Turkish republic then abrogated
the Medjelle in 1926. Yet it remained in force in
Bosnia-Herzegovina after the Austrian occupation of
1878, in Albania until 1928, and in Cyprus at least
into the 1960s. In the Middle East, the Medjelle,
though never in force in Egypt, was not replaced by
new civil codes until 1932 in Lebanon, 1949 in Syria,
and 1953 in c Irak, where many elements of it survived
in the new civil code of that year. The Medjelle has
remained basic to the civil law of Israel and Jordan.
It has also continued to serve as the civil law of
Kuwayt (Schacht, 93; Liebesny, 93, 100, 109).

In terms of the approach to legal reform which it
represented, another aspect of the Medjelle'% continu¬
ing influence appears in the Ottoman Law of Family
Rights ( Hukuk-i : A 5 He Kararnamesi ) of 8 Muharram
1336/1917 (Diistur 2 , ix, 762-81; x, 52-57; Anderson,
39-40, 48-50; Schacht, 103). Enactment of this law
completed what appears to have been the original pro¬
gramme of the drafters of the Medjelle. In addition, the
new law resembled the Medjelle in combining codifica¬
tion with an eclectic approach to shar c f sources, as well
as in applying to both Muslim and non-Muslim sub¬
jects, a breadth achieved in this case by incorporating
provisions drawn from the religious law of the various
communities (Shaw and Shaw, 307). The 1917 family
law further resembled the Medjelle in that it remained
in force in various of the successor states much longer
than in Ottoman territory, where it was repealed in
1337/1919 (Shaw and Shaw, 333; Diistur 2 , xi, 299-
300). For the 1917 law “remained valid in Syria,
Lebanon, Palestine, and Transjordan (as they then
were), and is still part of the family law of the Muslims
in Lebanon and in Israel’’ (Schacht, 1964, 103).

Bibliography. J.N.L. Anderson, Law reform in
the Muslim world , London, 1976; Gregoire Aristar-
chi, Legislation ottomane, ou recueil des lois, reglements,
ordonnances, trades, capitulations et autres documents
officiels de Vempire ottoman, 7 vols., Istanbul 1873-88;
Salim b. Rustam Baz, Sharh al-Madjalla, 2 vols.,
Beirut 1888-9; Ali Himmet Berki, Afiklamalt Mecelle
(Mecelle-i Ahkam-i Adliyye), Istanbul 1982; Ahmed
Djevdet Pasha, Ma c ruzat, ed. Yusuf Halagoglu;
idem, Tezakir 1-40, ed. Cavid Baysun, Ankara
1953-67; Diistur, first series (birindji tertib), 4 vols.
plus 4 appendices ( dheyl) and a later “completion”
volume ( miitemmim ), Istanbul, 1289-1335/1872-
1917, as well as 4 additional vols. published as vols.
v-viii, Ankara 1937-43; Diistur, second series (ikindji
tertib), 123 vols., Istanbul 1329/1911-27; Fazlur
Rahman, Islam and modernity: transformation of an
intellectual tradition, Chicago 1982; W. E. Grigsby,
tr., The Medjelle, London 1895; C A1I Haydar, Diirer
iil-Hiikkdm: Sherh Medjellet ul-Ahkam, Sherh iil-KawaHd
il-Kiilliyye, 3d printing, 4 vols., Istanbul 1330/1911;
A. Heidborn, Manuel de droit public et administratif de
TEmpire ottoman, 2 vols., Vienna-Leipzig 1908-12;
C.A. Hooper, The law of Palestine and Trans-Jordan,
Jerusalem 1933-6, 2 vols.; H.J. Liesbesny, The law
of the Near and Middle East: readings, cases, and
materials, Albany 1975; Ebul’ula Mardin, Medeni

hukuk cephesinden Ahmed Cevdet Pasa , Istanbul 1946;
idem, art. Mecelle, in iA, vii, 433-6; §erif Arif Mar-
din, Some explanatory notes on the origins of the
“Mecelle", in 147, li (1961), 189-96, 274-9; J.
Schacht, An introduction to Islamic law, Oxford 1964;
S.J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the
Ottoman empire and modern Turkey. II. Reform, revolu¬
tion, and republic: the rise of modern Turkey, 1808-1975 ,
Cambridge 1977; Sir Charles Tyser et alii, The
Mejelle translated, Nicosia 1901; Hifzi Veldet
Velidedeoglu, Kanunlastirma hareketleri ve tanzimat, in
Tanzimat I, Istanbul 1940, 139-209; G. Young,
Corps de droit ottoman: recueil des codes, lois, reglements,
ordonnances et actes les plus importants du droit interieur,
et d'etudes sur le droit coutumier de VEmpire ottoman, 7
vols., Oxford 1905-6. (C.V. Findley)

MEDTIDIYYE (Romanian, Medgidia), a small
town in eastern Romania, situated in the central
Dobrudja [q.v. ], midway between the Danube and
Constanta (Kustendje), and on the site of the earlier
Ottoman settlement of Karasu, which had served as a
relay-station on the old sagh kol, the military road from
Istanbul to the lower Danube and the Crimea. The
importance of Medjldiyye stems from its being, in its
inception, a mid-19th century Ottoman planned
town, founded by the local wall, Sa c Id Pasha, in the
course of the Crimean war, to house Krim Tatar
refugees, and named in honour of the reigning sultan
c Abd al-Medjid. Within a few months of its founda¬
tion in 1854 it contained over one thousand completed
houses, a khan and a bazaar. The large mosque, which
still stands, and serves a population still 30% Muslim,
is dated 1277/1860-1. In the reorganisation of the pro¬
vincial administration of Rumeli in 1284/1864,
Medjldiyye, as a kadaP in the sandjak of Tuldja (not
Varna, as in El 2 , art. Dobrudja), formed part of the
new Tuna wilayet (Salname 1294, 432), and its prosper¬
ity was subsequently increased by the building of the
railway from Bucharest to Constanta. By the terms of
the Treaty of Berlin (art. xlvi), Medjldiyye passed
from Ottoman into Romanian possession, along with
all that part of the Dobrudja north of a line drawn
from Silistre to the Black Sea. At the time of the out¬
break of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8, the
population of Medjldiyye and its surrounding kada 5
was estimated at approximately 2,200 Muslim and
1,300 non-Muslim households.

Bibliography. Salname 1294, Istanbul 1294;
Gazette autrichienne, fev. 1855; A. Ubicini, La
Dobrodja et le delta du Danube, in Revue de Geographie,
iv (1879); E.H. Ayverdi, Avrupada Osmanli mimari
eserleri, i/1-2, Istanbul 1979, 53, 55-6; iA art.
Dobruca (A. Decei); El 2 art. Dobrudja (H. inalcik).

(C.J. Heywood)

MEDjiDIYYE jsee sikka).

MEDJLIS-I WALA, in full, the Ottoman Medjlis-
i Wala-yi Ahkam-i c Adliyye, or Supreme Council
of Judicial Ordinances.

This was created in 1838 by the reformer Mustafa
Reshld Pasha for the purpose of taking over the
legislative duties of the old Dlwan-l Hiimayun in order
to originate or review proposed legislation and
thereby create an “ordered and established” state by
means of “beneficent reorderings” (tanzlmat-l
khayriyye) of state and society, with all other legislation
being turned over to_a second legislative body, the
Dar-l Shura-yl Bab-l c Ali (Deliberative Council of the
Sublime Porte). The Medjlis-i wala hardly had a
chance to begin its deliberations when, following the
accession of Sultan c Abd al-Medjid I [q.v. ] and pro¬
mulgation of the Khatt-l Hiimayun of Gulkhane which
proclaimed the Tanzimat reform movement as the

MEDJL1S-1 WALA — MEHEMMED I

973

major goal of the new regime, it was expanded into
the principal legislative body of state with the aboli¬
tion of its sister body. Beginning its work on 8 March
1840 in a new building constructed especially for it
near the office of the Grand Vizier at the Sublime
Porte, it originated most of the Tanzimat legislation,
though its powers were severely limited by regulations
which allowed it only to consider legislation proposed
to it by the ministries or the executive. It was sup¬
planted for reform legislation by the Medjlis-i c Ali-yi
Tanzimat in 1854, but it continued to originate lesser
laws and regulations and also to act as supreme court
of judicial appeals. Conflicts of jurisdiction between
the two bodies, however, and a substantially increas¬
ing workload created such a backlog of legislation that
in 1861 the two were brought back together into a new
Medjlis-i Wald-yi Ahkam-i c Adliyye , which was divided
into departments for Laws and Regulations, which
assumed the legislative functions of both councils,
Administration and Finance, which investigated com¬
plaints against the administrative misconduct, and
Judicial Cases, which assumed the old council’s
judicial functions, acting as a court of appeals for
cases decided by the provincial councils of justice and
as a court of first instance in cases involving miscon¬
duct on the part of higher officials in the central
government. Regulations allowing it to originate as
well as to review proposed legislation, and to question
members of the executive and to try such officials for
misdeeds, greatly increased its ability to act decisively
in order to meet the problems of the time, with the
sultans interfering only rarely to veto or change the
results of its work. In 1867, however, in response to
complaints about the autocratic nature of the Tanzimat
system, the Medjlis-i Wala was replaced by separate
legislative and judicial bodies, the Shurd-yl Dewlet, or
Council of State, whose members were at least par¬
tially elected and representative, and the Diwan-i
Ahkam-l c Adliyye, chaired respectively by the famous
Tanzimat leaders Midhat Pasha and Ahmed Djewdet
Pasha.

Bibliography. S.J. Shaw, The Central Legislative
Councils in the nineteenth century Ottoman reform move¬
ment before 1876 , in IJMES, i (1970), 51-84; S.J.
Shaw and E.K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman empire
and modern Turkey , London and New York 1977,
repr. 1985, ii, 38, 76-81; Basbakanhk Arsivi, hade ,
Meclis-i Mahsus, 79; Meclis-i Tanzimat, 1, 1-3, 6-10;
Teskilat-i Devair 1/25; LutfT, TaPrikh, fol. 29a-b;
Diistur, Series 1, i, 703-5. C.V. Findley, Bureaucratic
reform in the Ottoman empire: the Sublime Porte, 1789-
1922, Princeton 1980, 172-9. (S.J. Shaw)

MEERUT [see mirath] .

MEHEDAK [see al-mahdiyyaJ.

MEHEMMED is one of the Turkish forms of
the name Muhammad which, having been borne
by the Prophet of Islam, is by far the commonest used
name in the Islamic world.

Independent of the modifications which it may
undergo from the influence of the speech habits of
allophonic groups and the phonetic structure of
languages other than Arabic, this name has
undergone, in spite of—and perhaps because of—the
veneration which it inspires, various deliberate
modifications on the part of sincere Muslims who hold
fast to what exactly respects the Prophet’s memory. If
the Turkish form “Mehemmed” may be explained
by the vocalic structure of that language, the form
“Mahammad”, widespread in North Africa and dis¬
tinguished from “Muhammad” by a falha on the first
mim or the prefixing of a purely orthographical alif
(which also serves to indicate the dialectical pronun¬

ciation “Mhammed”), is certainly in fact due to a
desire to let the persons thus named share in the baraka
[qv.] attached to the Prophet’s name without risking
letting it become profaned, above all by insults and
abuse addressed specifically by name to these persons.
On the problems posed by alterations of this kind in
the sphere of Islam and those which the name of
Muhammad has undergone in the European
languages, see G.S. Colin, Muhammad-Mahomet, in
BSLP , xxvi (1925), 109; J. Mouradian, Notes sur les
alterations du nom de Mohammad chez les Noirs islamises de
TAfrique Occidentale, in Bull, du Comite d’etudes historiques
et scientifiques de TAfrique Occidentale Fran false, xxi
(1938), 459-62; A. Fischer, Vergottlichung und

Tabuisierung des Namen Muhammad's bei den Muslimen in
Beitrdge zur Arabistik, Semitistik und Islamwissenschaft ,
Leipzig 1944, 307-39; F. de la Granja, A proposito del
nombre Muhammady sus variantes en Occidente, in al-And .,
xxxiii (1968), 231-40 (where Colin’s note, mentioned
above, is also given); see also, for an example of
deliberate alteration ( Mamad ), L.P. Harvey, Crypto-
Islam in sixteenth century Spain, in Adas del primer congreso
de estudios drabes e islamicos, Madrid 1964, 169, no. 15,
177, 1. 9.

Contemporary Byzantine and European texts
indicate that in the 9th/15th century the predominant
pronunciation of the name was “Mehemet”: F. Bab-
inger, commenting on the form “Memmet” in Die
Aufzeichnungen des Genuesen lacopo de Promontorio ... um
1475, Munich 1957, 29, n. 1 (and there, with further
bibliography, proposing “Mehemmed” as the cur¬
rent pronunciation), adduces Angiolello’s
“Mehemet”, and the and similar forms

which is regular in Ducas, Sphrantzes and
Critoboulos (for these and the other Byzantine texts
see G. Moravcsik, Byzantinotourcica, ii, s.v.
Moi>x a M-£TTj<;).

In modern Turkey, the name finally appears as
“Mehmet”, as a consequence of the general
phonological principles (J. Deny, Principes degrammaire
turque, Paris 1955) of the devoicing of a final voiced
consonant, the predilection for front vowels in loan¬
words, the assimilation (progressive and regressive) of
vowels, and the fall of an unstressed middle vowel in
a tri-syllable.

The Editors, taking the view that to employ the
spelling “Muhammad” in the Ottoman context
would be hypercorrect (and “Mehmed”, for the
earlier centuries, anachronistic) have adopted the con¬
vention that all the relevant Ottoman rulers figuring
in the Encyclopaedia shall be referred to consistently as
“Mehemmed”, whilst lesser personages shall be
referred to as “Mehmed”. (Ed.)

MEHEMMED I, Ottoman sultan, reigned 816-
24/1413-21, also known as Celebi (Turkish “of high
descent”, “prince”) or as Kirishdji (from Krytzes,
meaning in Greek “young lord”). During the period
of interregnum, 804-16/1402-13, he ruled over
Anatolia from Tokat, Amasya, and Bursa while his
brothers Suleyman (804-13/1402-11) and Musa (813-
16/1411-13) had control of Rumili from Edirne.
Mehemmed brought under his rule Bursa and
western Anatolia in the years 805-6/1403-4 and 813-
16/1410-13, and finally achieved the unification of the
two parts of the Ottoman state under his sole
sovereignty in 816/1413. He was the fourth son of
Bayezid I [ q.v .] by a slave girl Dewlet Khatun (Uzun-
garsili, in IA, viii, 496).

1. Birth and early years.

Born in 788/1386 or 789/1387, Mehemmed was
sent when he reached the ShaTi age of adolescence in

974

MEHEMMED I

Shawwal 801/June 1399 as governor over the pro¬
vince of Rum, which included Amasya, Tokat, Sivas
and Ankara, formerly the territory of the Eretna [<?.&.]
dynasty. Mehemmed’s six brothers were Ertoghrul
(died 802/1400, Zachariadou, Erlogrul, 157), Mustafa
(captured by Timur and taken to Samarkand in
804/1402; Dustur-name , 90), Suleyman (in contem¬
porary sources also known at Musluman or
Amusluman), c Isa, Musa and Kasim. In 804/1402,
Kasim, aged under 12, was in Bursa in the palace
while Musa was captured together with his father by
Timur. Suleyman, c Isa, Mehemmed and Musa
fought to get control of Bursa, still considered as the
Dar al-Saltana, and of Edirne, capital city of Rumili.

2. The status quo established by Timur in Anatolia.

During Timur’s siege of Izmir (from 6 Djumada I
805/2 December 1402 until 10 Djumada II/6 January
1403), Suleyman was given a yarllgh granting him the
rule “over all the territories beyond the Bosphorus”
(asra-yafca, Yazdl, fol. 424b). Mehemmed, whom
TTmur called to come in person to Kutayha, could not
or would not obey the order (for details in the
Manakib-name , see Bibl.).

Mehemmed’s first deeds against the Turcoman
begs in the Tokat-Amasya region, rendered in an epic
style in the Manakib-name , appear actually to have
been local clashes which evidently resulted in com¬
promises giving recognition of Mehemmed’s
overlordship in return for his confirmation of the
begs’ freehold possession of their lands (cf. NeshrT, ii,
480). In the future, these hereditary mulk timars would
create problems when Ottoman centralist control was
re-established. These local dynasts in control of Tur¬
coman and “Tatar” forces would provide the bulk of
Mehemmed’s army (cf. divisions of Tatars and
Turkmens in the battle against Musa in 816/1413;
Neshrl, ii, 512-13).

Kara Dewletshah, Kubad-oghlu, Mezld Beg and
the family of Tashan (on the family’s origin, see Bazm
u razm , 397) were all local dynasts who after the battle
of Ankara accepted Timur’s overlordship and
challenged Ottoman domination, showing his

diplomas (Neshrl, i, 372). Mehemmed, too, was wise
enough to accept Timur’s suzerainty and thus
legitimise his lordship in the region of Tokat-Amasya
(for Mehemmed’s silver coin bearing Timur’s name,
see Table, no. 3). In his fight to assert his authority
against his rivals there, he appears to have been sup¬
ported by c ulema y and urban notables (see Hiisamed-
din, iii, 157-98), while local begs, with their Tatar and
Turkmen followers, had neither the prestige nor the
legitimacy of an Ottoman prince.

In the well-established Turkish tradition, every son
of a ruler had the right to succeed his father, and his
legitimacy could not be contested since there was no
law which regulated succession (see Inalcik, Veraset).
As the Menakib-name (see NeshrT, ii, 432, 434, 446,
456, 462, 504, 508) makes clear, people at large often
told the rival princes struggling for recognition that
they had first to win the fight, which was interpreted
as a sign of God’s favour. The principle of seniority
was not decisive, although Mehemmed at the begin¬
ning recognised his elder brother Suleyman as
representing supreme authority (Anonymous chron.
Paris, Bibl. Nat. 1047, fol. 29b; ed. Giese, 47).

On the struggle among the Ottoman princes,
Celebis, the account of the Menakib-name , which is
actually a contemporary account of the events for the
period 1402-13, should be followed. According to this
source, in various encounters Mehemmed defeated
c Isa and took Bursa, although the latter secured the
alliance of the western Anatolian begs and Isfendiyar
of Kastamuni ( Menakib-name , in NeshrT, ii, 422-50;
Idris, 263-7). Mehemmed finally captured and killed
him at Eskishehir (apparently in 806/403-4;
Zachariadou, Suleyman , 283-91, believes that c Isa was
killed by Suleyman in 1403). Then, in 806 (begins 21
July 1403), Mehemmed lost Bursa and Ankara to
Suleyman (Mehemmed minted an akce in Bursa in the
same Hidjra year, see Table, nos. 3, 4). Mehemmed
had to retreat to his Tokat-Amasya base, and later
encouraged Musa to go to Rumeli (Menakib-name, in
NeshrT, ii, 474; Idris, 275-6). Accepting the
Wallachian Voyvode Mircea’s invitation, Musa
arrived by sea in Wallachia in 809/1406 (A. Dersca

TABLE

Ottoman coins minted during the period 805-822

Ruler and title

Year

Minting place

Metal

1. Amir Sulayman b. Bayazld

805

—

silver

2. Amir Sulayman Bayazld

806

—

silver

3. Muhammad b. Bavazld Khan/Demur Khan Kurkan

806

Bursa

silver

4. Ghiyath al-Dunya wa ’1-DIn Muhammad b. Bayazld

806

Bursa

silver

5. Ghiyath al-Dunya wa ’1-DIn Muhammad b. Bayazld

806

Engiiriyye

silver

6. al-Sultan al-A c zam Muhammad b. Bayazld Khan

808

Amasya

silver

7. Ghivath al-Dunya wa ’l-DTn Muhammad b. Bayazld Khan

810

Amasya

silver

8. Djunayd Ghazl/Muhammad b. Bayazld

—

silver

9. Amir Sulayman b. [.]

813

Edirne

silver

10. al-Sultan al-Malik al-A c zam Muhammad b. Bayazid

813

—

copper

11. Musa b. Bayazld

813

Edirne

silver

12. Sultan b. Sultan Muhammad

b.l

Bayazld Khan

816

Temirhisar

copper

13. Sultan b. Sultan Muhammad

| Bavazld Khan

—

Serez

silver

14. Amir Sulayman b. Bayazld

811

Edirne

silver

15. Sultan h. Sultan Muhammad fb.l Bavazld Khan

816

Edirne, Bursa, Amasya

Serez, Ayasoluk, Balat,

Timurhisar, Karahisar

silver

16. Sultan b. Sultan Muhammad [b.l Bayazid Khan

821

Edirne

silver

17. Muhammad b. Bayazid Khan

822

Edirne, Bursa, Amasya,

Serez, Ayasoluk

silver

18. Mustafa b. Bayazld Khan

822

Edirne

silver

MEHEMMED 1

♦

975

Bulgaru, Les relations, 116-17, citing Guboglu, gives
the year 1406; the date is confirmed by the details in
Manakib-name, in Neshri, ii, 478: c Ali Pasha’s death
which occurred in 17 Radjab 809/28 December 1406;
Idris, 278). His success in the eastern Balkans finally
forced Suleyman to leave Bursa for Rumili. At first
victorious at the battle of Yanbolu (13 February
1410), Musa was later twice defeated (June and July
1410, A. Dersca Bulgaru, 122, 123). Finally, by a sur¬
prise attack, Musa captured Edirne and killed
Suleyman (17 February 1411). Upon Suleyman’s
departure from Anatolia, Mehemmed re-occupied
Bursa ( Menakib-name , in Neshri, ii, 480). Not honour¬
ing his agreement with Mehemmed, Musa acted
independently, and espousing the frontier begs’
aggressive policy, he alienated the vassal states from
himself, who now sided with Mehemmed ( Menakib-
name, in Neshri, ii, 486-516; Idris, 281-8). After two
unsuccessful attempts against Musa {Menakib-name , in
Neshri, ii, 490-500; Idris, 281-4) in 814 (begins 25
May 1411); these two clashes are confirmed by Ducas,
109-110) Mehemmed finally overcame his rival and
eliminated him, thanks to the alliance of the frontier
begs and vassal states {Menakib-name, in Neshri, ii,
506-16, Idris, 286-8; Braun, 47-55) on 5 Rabi* 11
816/5 July 1413. According to the Menakib-name, in
Neshri, 88, 486, 516, 550, starting from 805/1402,
Suleyman reigned 8 years, 10 months and 17 days,
Musa 2 years, 7 months and 20 days and Mehemmed
7 years, 11 months and a few days.

The principal Anatolian dynasties, the Djandarids,
the Karamanids, the rulers of Germiyan, Sarukhan.
and Aydin in Western Anatolia, which had all been
restored to their principalities under Timur’s
overlordship, were actively involved in the struggle
between the Ottoman princes for Bursa, still con¬
sidered the principal capital or Dar al-Saltana. Their
policies were basically determined, like those of
Byzantium, Wallachia and Serbia, by their concern to
maintain the status quo established after the battle of
Ankara. Each Ottoman prince, for his part, tried to
gain their support or neutrality by showing himself
respectful of their autonomy or independence. How¬
ever, Timur’s departure made the Anatolian
dynasties realise that Ottoman power and supremacy
were still a fact, and some of them, for the sake of sur¬
vival, recognised the overlordship of whichever
Ottoman prince had control of Bursa.

Byzantium and the vassal states in the Balkans,
subjected and paying tribute under Murad I [q. v. ]
and Bayezld I, were now independent and even
recovered some of their territories (see Jorga, GOR, i,
325-77; Barker, 200-385; Zachariadou, Suleyman',
Jirecek, ii, 137-56). They played off one Ottoman
prince against another, gave refuge to and used the
Ottoman pretenders against any Ottoman prince
whenever he became powerful enough to assert his
suzerainty over them. Thus the political manoeuvres
of Mircea and the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II
strongly influenced the struggle between the Ottoman
princes. Except for Musa, who adopted the policy of
the frontier begs of recovering lost lands and engaging
in raiding, the other princes, Suleyman and
Mehemmed, involved themselves politically with the
Christian rulers, often making compromises and con¬
cessions to them. All through the Ottoman inter¬
regnum, Byzantium played a central role and
managed to keep the respect of rival Ottoman princes.
This was actually due to the fact that, after the treaty
of 1403 (Denis, Treaty, Zachariadou, Siileyman, 270-
83), the Byzantines controlled the sea passage between
Anatolia and Rumeli. Ottoman public opinion (see

Anonymous Paris 1047, fol. 29b). interpreted the
treaty of 1403 as such. When in 806/1403 Suleyman
decided to pass over to Anatolia to march against
Mehemmed in Bursa, he delivered his younger
brother Kasim and his sister Fatima as hostages to the
Emperor. Later, as part of his appeasement policy,
Suleyman also sent his son Orkhan as hostage to
Manuel 11 . Against Musa, and after his elimination,
against Mehemmed in 1413, the Emperor tried to use
Orkhan. who claimed the Ottoman throne as the
legitimate successor of Suleyman.

Mehemmed’s final success depended a great deal
on his conciliatory and even compliant attitude
towards the Emperor, whom he called father (Ducas,
iii, 114). Apparently, Musa’s harsh personality, or
rather, his centralist and autocratic policy, which the
hereditary frontier begs resented, alienated them from
him.

3. Unification and the resurgence of the Ottoman supremacy.

In 816/1413, upon his accession to the throne in
Edirne as the sole ruler of the Ottoman lands,
Mehemmed I received embassies from tribute-paying
vassal countries, including Byzantium, Serbia,
Wallachia, Yanina, the Morean despotate and the
Prince of Achaia (Athens), and sent them back with
strong guarantees of peace and friendship (Ducas, iii;
Setton, ii, 6, cf. Anonymous Paris 1047, fol. 33a).

Feeling secure in the Balkans, Mehemmed made in
the following two years a series of campaigns to re¬
assert his sovereignty in Anatolia and to punish those
amirs who had helped Musa against him, In 817/1414
he made the whole of western Anatolia submit by
defeating Djunayd, who, abandoning Musa, had
returned and revived his emirate of Izmir (Ducas,
115-19). The emirate was invaded and turned into an
Ottoman sandyak. In this campaign, Germiyan,
Menteshe, and the Genoese of Chios, Mytilene and
Phocea and the Hospitallers of Rhodes, were allied
with Mehemmed on account of Djunayd’s aggressive
acts. During this campaign, Mehemmed demolished
the fortress which the Hospitallers had begun to con¬
struct again in Izmir. The ruler of Menteshe now
recognised Mehemmed as suzerain (Wittek,
Mentesche, 97).

In 816/1413, while Mehemmed was in Rumili pro¬
ceeding against Musa, the Karamanid Mehmed II
laid siege to Bursa and burned down the quarters
around the castle (al-MakrlzI, Suluk, iv, 47a; Neshri,
141-2). Upon the news of Mehemmed’s victory over
Musa, the Karamanids retreated after a 31-day siege.
Mehemmed at first proposed a campaign against
Isfendiyar of Kastamuni, who however submitted in
time, promising to send auxiliary forces to
Mehemmed’s planned campaign against Karaman.
Germiyan, which had been invaded by the
Karamanids, was a natural ally and vassal (Neshri, ii,
516-34). Prior to the major campaign against
Karaman, Mehemmed sent an embassy with rich
presents to the Sultan of Egypt, who was considered
a protector of the Karamanids (Ibn Hadjar, iii, 518;
letter from Inegol, in Ferldun, i, 145, dated awasit Phi
1 l-H idjdja 817/February 1415). Mehemmed defeated
the Karamanids and laid siege to Konya (Muharrem
818/13 March-11 April 1415). The Hamld-ili and
Sa c Id-ili were annexed to the Ottoman state
{Takvimler, 20, 56; al-MakrlzI, iv, 51a).

With the Ottoman re-unification of Anatolia and
Rumili under one ruler and that ruler’s attempts at
reimposing suzerainty on the former Ottoman vassal
states, the Emperor increased his diplomatic activities
in conjunction with the Pope and Venice, calling for

976

MEHEMMED I

a crusade against the Ottomans (Barker, 290-353;
Thiriet, ii, no. 1592). Profiting from the Ottoman
interregnum, Venice had succeeded in extending her
control in Epirus, Albania and the Morea. Negotia¬
tion for an agreement with Mehemmed after his final
victory over his brothers dragged on unsuccessfully.
During the campaign against Djunavd in 1414, the
Venetian Duke of Naxos had not joined the other
Aegean Latin rulers in the renewal of submission. So,
in 1415, Mehemmed released the sea £&zzz"s of western
Anatolia against Venetian possessions in the Aegean,
and sent his fleet of Gallipoli (112 ships, 13 of them
galleys) under Cali Beg to strike at the Cyclades
(Ducas, 119; Thiriet, ii, nos. 1569, 1573, 1584, 1588,
1597, 1598). Venice decided to strike back. A Vene¬
tian fleet under Pietro Loredano made a surprise
attack and destroyed the Ottoman fleet at Gelibolu
(Gallipoli) on 1 Rabi* II 819/29 May 1416 (Jorga, i,
372; al-MakrlzI, iv, 66a).

Released by the Timurid Shahrukh, Mehemmed’s
brother Mustafa had arrived in Trebizond (January
1415), and his envoy began to negotiate with Venice
and with the Emperor (Thiriet, ii, nos. 1563, 1564).
Arriving in Konya and then Kastamuni, Mustafa
went by sea to Wallachia. Dj unavd. the former ruler
of Izmir, who had been appointed by Mehemmed
governor of Nicopolis, joined him there. The
appearance on the scene of Mehemmed’s elder
brother Mustafa brought back the internecine war,
coupled with a terrible social-religious insurrection
and a hostile attitude on the part of the vassal states
in Rumili and Anatolia. Although militarily sup¬
ported by Mircea, Mustafa and Djunayd failed to
attract the frontier forces and had to return to Con¬
stantinople. The Emperor this time (spring 819/1416)
sent them to Salonica (Jorga, GOR , i, 373).
Mehemmed declared war against Byzantium.
Mustafa and Djunayd captured Serres and hoped to
obtain the support of the Ottoman frontier forces
there. They failed, and Mehemmed forced them to
take refuge in Salonica again (autumn 1416, Jorga, i,
374). The Emperor finally agreed to keep them in
custody as long as Mehemmed lived and was to
receive an annual compensation of 300,000 akce s
(about 10,000 gold ducats) for their upkeep (Ducas,
125).

While fighting against Mustafa in Rumili,
Mehemmed had at the same time to deal with a
violent Sufi insurrection fomented by Shavkh Badr al-
Dln [q. v. ] in western Anatolia and Deli-Orman (sum¬
mer and autumn of 1416, Filipovic, Princ Musa;
Werner, Ketzer; Neshrl, ii, 542-6; Idris, 294). Mircea,
who had given refuge to the shaykh and actively sup¬
ported him, invaded Deli-Orman on his heels and
attacked Silistre (autumn 1416, Jorga, GOR, i, 374).
Mehemmed captured the shaykh in Zagra and hanged
him in Serres on 18 December 1416. While
Mehemmed was kept busy in Rumili, the Anatolian
begs had again become hostile. Mehemmed marched
first against Isfendiyar, who had aided the shaykh to
pass over to Wallachia (early 1417). Isfendiyar
obtained peace by recognising the full suzerainty of
Mehemmed I. Since the latter fell seriously ill in
820/1417, the campaign against Karaman was con¬
ducted by Bayezld Pasha, who captured the
Karamanid ruler (Neshrl, ii, 530-4; Idris, 289-91: in
the early Ottoman compilations, various campaigns
against Karaman are confused).

During the interregnum period, Mircea, supported
by the Hungarian King Sigismund, emerged as the
principal opponent of Ottoman supremacy in the
Balkans. Mehemmed’s 822/1419 campaign against

Mircea (for the correct date, see Ibn Hadjar, iii, 526;
and Mehemmed’s letter to Shahrukh in Feridun, i,
164: Shawwal 822/21 October-18 November 1419) is
connected with Sigismund’s plans for the invasion of
the Balkans.

Mehemmed’s Anatolian vassals, the Karamanid
and Djandarid rulers, sent auxiliary forces under their
sons to this major campaign. The Ottomans raided
Wallachia, and Mehemmed constructed the fortress
of New Giurgiu (later Rusdjuk) on the right bank of
the Danube; he then invaded “the Hungarian ter¬
ritory” and took Severin (Neshrl, ii, 536;
Anonymous, Paris 1047, fol. 34; there, the dates
817/1414 and 819/1416 for this campaign of
Mehemmed I must belong to the frontier beg’s earlier
raids, cf. Ducas, 125). According to Neshrl, the
Wallachian Voyvode (Mircea or Michael I) submit¬
ted, paying tribute and sending his three sons to the
sultan as hostage.

4. Timurid intervention , 1416-20.

The successes of the Kara Koyunlu (Woods, 56-60)
in Adharbaydjan and western Iran and the overthrow
of the status quo in Anatolia by Mehemmed presented
a challenge to the Tlmurids. Shahrukh [q.v.\, having
established his sovereignty in the east, moved to
restore Timurid control in the west. First, he released
Mustafa from captivity in Samarkand, an action
which brought back internecine war in the Ottoman
domains in 819/1416. That Mustafa’s release was
connected with a Timurid plan becomes clear in
Shahrukh’s protest against Mehemmed’s elimination
of his brothers (his letter to Mehemmed, Feridun, i,
150-1). In his reply, the latter tried to prove that he
did not support the Karakoyunlu Kara Yusuf, and
argued that the division of the Ottoman state only
helped the enemies of Islam, many places including
Salonica having been lost to Islam because of that
division. Shahrukh’s preparations for a large-scale
campaign in the west in 822/1419 caused great con¬
cern in the Ottoman capital and generated an
exchange of embassies between the Kara Koyunlu
and the Ottomans (Feridun, i, 150-7). Invading
Adharbaydjan. Shahrukh warned Mehemmed not to
give aid to Iskandar, the son of Kara Yusuf, who
might take refuge in Ottoman territory (Dhu T
Hidjdja 823/January 1420. In his reply, Mehemmed
expressed his complete submission (farman-bar ). The
Ottoman court was meanwhile following in great anx¬
iety the developments on the eastern frontier (see
Takvimler, 20, 56). Upon Iskandar’s victory over the
Ak Koyunlu Kara c Othman (Rabi* II 824/April
1421), Shahrukh entered eastern Anatolia and won a
crushing victory against Iskandar (Radjab 824/July
1421). All this time, Mehemmed was maintaining
friendly relations with the Mamluks (Feridun, i, 145-
6, 164-7), equally threatened by Shahrukh.

In his last years, Mehemmed appears to have fallen
ill. Now his great concern was to secure the throne for
his eldest son Murad without a crisis. Although
Sulayman’s son Orkhan was blinded and kept in
custody, Mehemmed’s brother Mu^afa was a serious
rival, since he had actually been recognised as sultan
by some of the Ottoman leaders and could be released
by the Emperor at any time. Prince Murad’s sup¬
porters spread the rumour that Mu§lafa had died and
that the challenger was a false ( diizme ) Mustafa. To
make sure of Murad’s accession, Mehemmed showed
himself most liberal toward the members of the ruling
elite and made an agreement with the Emperor
(Ducas, 129; for the agreement of the same nature
with Stefan of Serbia, see Braun, 56-8) that Murad

MEHEMMED I

977

would succeed him in Edirne; his other son Musfafa
would remain in Anatolia; the two minor sons Yusuf
(aged 8) and Mahmud (aged 7) would be sent to Con¬
stantinople to the custody of Manuel II, who in return
would not release their uncle Mustafa (see Inalcik,
Murad II, in iA, v, 598-9). The Emperor was to
receive a yearly sum for the upkeep of the two
Ottoman princes. When Mehemmed died (5 Radjab
825/25 June 1421) Murad [q.v. ] succeeded him on the
throne in Bursa, refusing to deliver his brothers up to
the Emperor.

5. Conclusion.

For the reign of Mehemmed I, the fundamental
question is to ascertain how the Ottoman state re-
emerged as the dominant power in Anatolia and the
Balkans under the most adverse conditions after the
disaster of 1402. First of all, it must be noted that,
despite military dissolution after the battle of Ankara,
the Ottomans continued to be the major military
power in both regions. Secondly, the Ottoman
dynasty was able to create an imperial tradition which
was considered the only source of legitimation for the
feudal lords and dynasts in this area. In 1405 and
1413, for example, Serbian princes sought the resolu¬
tion of differences among themselves through the
intervention of the Ottoman ruler (Braun, 27, 55).
Perhaps equally important was the fact that the
Ottoman military groups of sipahis,yaya and musellems ,
and the kapi-kulus, as well as the peasantry, saw that
the confirmation and legitimation of their status and
rights in the land were dependent on the existence and
functioning of the Ottoman sultan’s centralist govern¬
ment, and we have to remember that the Ottoman
survey [see tahrIr] and Umar system was fully
developed and widely applied in this period (see
Inalcik, Arvanid).

Bibliography. A book of exploits in the style of
a menakib-name has come down to us in the compila¬
tions of Neshrl, apparently most faithfully repro¬
duced in his revised version, ed. F.R. Unat and
M.A. Koymen, Kitab-i Cihannuma , i-ii, Turk Tarih
Kurumu, Ankara 1949-57, repr. 1987, i, 366-419,
ii, 422-516, and Idris BidllsI, Hasht bihisht, ms. TKS
Library, Hazine 1655; with extensive omissions in
Pseudo-Ruhl, Oxford, Bodleian ms. Marsh 313,
and Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, or. quart. 821, and in
BihishtI, Babinger, GOW: “Sinan fielebi”; V.
Menage, Bihishti, in EP\ Sa c d al-Dln, Tady al-
tawarikh, Istanbul 1279/1862, i, 191-273, follows
Idris; also Mustafa C A1I, Kiinh al-akhbar , iv, Istanbul
1285/1868, 144-94. Other Ottoman chronicles are
brief and confused; among them c Ashfk-Pasha-
zade, Tawarikh-i al-i c Othmdn, ed. Q.N. Atsiz, Istan¬
bul 1949, 146-57; for the anonymous chronicles, see
Die altosmanischen Anonymen Chroniken , ed. F. Giese,
i. Text und Variontenverzeichnis, Breslau 1922; one
good version of the latter is ms. Bibl. Nat., Paris,
supp. turc. 1047; Orudj, Tawankh-i al-i c Othman ,
ed. F. Babinger, Hanover 1925, is basically a
variant of the anonymous chronicles; see Menage,
Neshrl’s History of the Ottomans : the sources and develop¬
ment of the text, Oxford 1964; an independent
Ottoman source is Dusturname-yi Enweri ed. M.H.
Yinanc, Istanbul 1928. 90-2; for Timur and
Mehemmed, see Sharaf al-Dln Yazdl, Zafar-nama ,
ed. A. Urumbayev, Tashkent 1972, 417-31; Ibn
c Arabshah, ^AdfaPib al-makdur fi nawa^ib al-Timur ,
ed. A.M. c Umar, Cairo 1979, 203-19; for

Shahrukh’s western policy and campaign, Feridun,
Munshe^at al-selatin, Istanbul 1274/1867, i, 150-63;
Tarihi takvimler , ed. O. Turan, TTK, Ankara 1954;

J.E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, Minneapolis and
Chicago 1976; M.M. Alexandrescu-Dersca, La
campagne de Timur en Anatolie, Bucharest 1942, repr.
London, Variorum editions, 1977; A.-D. Bulgaru,
Les relations du Prince de Walachie Mircea ..., in TAD,
x-xi (1968), 113-25; R.G. de Clavijo, Embajada a
Tamerlan, ed. F. Lopez Estrada, Madrid 1943. On
Byzantium, Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina, tr.

H. J. Margoulias, Detroit 1975, 96-152; J.W,
Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus ( 1391-1425 ): a study in
Late Byzantine statesmanship , Rutgers, New
Brunswick 1969; E.A. Zachariadou, Suleyman (felebi
in Rumili and the Ottoman chronicles , in Isl., lx (1983),
268-96; eadem, Erto gh rul Bey, il sovrano di Teologo
(Efeso ), in Atti della Societa Ligure di storia Patria, N.S.,
v (Ixxix), fasc. 1, 155-61; eadem. Marginalia on the
history of Epirus and Albania ( 1380-1418 ), in WZKM ,
lxxviii (1988), 195-210; N. Jorga, Une description
grecque sur le sultan Mousa, 1407-1408, in RHSEE, iii,
8-13; G.T. Dennis, The Byzanline-Turkish treaty oj
1403 , in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, xxxi (1967),
72-88; P. Schreiner, Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken,
i-ii, Vienna 1975-7; M. Balivet, Un episode meconnu
de la campagne de Mehmed I..., in Turcica, xviii (1986),
137-46; K.M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant
(1205-1571), i, Philadelphia 1976, 370-404; ii,
1978, 1-38. On Mehemmed and the Balkans, N.
Jorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches , Gotha 1918,
i, 325-78; Lebensbeschreibung des Despoten Stefan
Lazarevic, ed. and tr. M. Braun, Wiesbaden 1956;
C. Jirecek, Geschichte der Serben , Amsterdam 1967,
139-56; M.S. Nasturel, Une victoire du Voevode Mircea
TAncien sur les Turn devant Silistra (c. 1407-1408), in
Studia et Acta Orientalia (Bucharest), i (1958), 247;
P.P. Panaitescu, Mircea cel Batran , Bucharest 1943,
292-354; Hicri 835 tarihii suret-i Defter-i Sancak-i
Arvanid, ed. H. Inalcik, Ankara 1954; E.H.
Ayverdi, Osmanh mimarisinde Qelebi ve II. Sultan
Muraddevri, 806-855 (1403-1451), ii, Istanbul 1972.
On Western Anatolia, see P. Wittek, Das Furstentum
Mentesche, Istanbul 1934, repr. 1967; Zachariadou,
Trade and Crusade: Venetian Crete and the emirates of
Menteshe and Aydin (1300-1415), Venice 1983; F.
Thi riet, Registre des deliberations du senat de Venise, i,
Paris-The Hague 1958. On the Mamluks, see
§evkiye Inalcik, Ibn Hacer’de Osmanlilara dair haberler,
in DTCFD, v/3, 189-95, vi/4, 349-58, vi/5, 517-29;
Feridun, MunshUat al-selatin, i; H. Husameddin,
Amasya ta^rfkhi, Istanbul 1927, iii; i.H. Uzungarsih,
(felebi Sultan Mehmed tarafindan verilmis bir Temlikndme
ve Sasa Bey ailesi, in Belleten, iii/11-12 (1939), 389-99;
idem, Qelebi Sultan Mehmed’ in kizi Selfuk Hatun kimile
evlendi, in Belleten , xxi (1957), 253-60; idem, Mehmed

I, in iA, viii, 496-506; Wittek, De la defaite d’Ankara
a la prise de Constantinople, in REI, xii (1938), 1-34;
Ciineyt Gokger, Yildmm Bayezid’in ogullarina ail akfa
ve mangirlar , Istanbul 1968; N. Pere, Osmanhlarda
madeni par alar! Coins of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul
1968, 59-71; I. and C. Artuk, Islami sikkeler katalogu,
Istanbul 1974, iii, 459-64. Documents: see Wit¬
tek, Zu einigen fruhosmanischen Urkunden, in WZKM
liii, 300-13; liv, 240-56; lv, 122-41; Ivi, 267-84; lvii,
102-17; Iviii, 165-97; lix-x, 201-23. On the crisis of
1416 and the insurrection of Shavkh Badr al-Dln,
see N. Filipovic, Princ Musa i seyh Bedreddin , Sara¬
jevo 1971; E. Werner, Ketzer und Weltverbesserer,
Berlin 1974; K.E. Wadekin, Der Aufstand des
Bixrkludsche Mustafa, diss., Leipzig 1950 (unpubl.);
Babinger, Scheych Bedr-ed-din , in Isl., xi (1934), 1-
106; H.J. Kissling, Das Menakybname Scheich Bedr ed-
din des Sohnes des Richters von Simavna , in ZDMG, c
(1950), 112-76; A. Golpinarli, Simavna kadisioglu

978

MEHEMMED I — MEHEMMED II

§eyh Bedreddin, Istanbul 1966; c AzIz AstarabadT,
Bazm u razm , ed. Kilisli Rifkat, Istanbul 1928;
Inalcik, Osmanhlarda saltanat veraseti usulii..., in
SBFD. xiv (1959), 69-94. (H. Inalcik)

MEHEMMED II, Ottoman sultan (reigned
848-50/1444-6 and 855-86/1451-81), called Abu 'l-Fath
or Fatih “the Conqueror”.

Considered the ultimate founder of the Ottoman
Empire, he was born in Edirne on 27 Radyab 835/30
March 1432 as the fourth son of Murad II [q.v. ] from
a slave girl in the harem, and as a youth was sent to
the governorship of the province of Amasya with his
two lalas [q.v.] in the spring of 846/1443. In RabI* II
848/July 1444, at the age of twelve, he was recalled
and declared sultan by his father, who abdicated in his
favour in order to ensure his succession against
Orkhan, an Ottoman pretender in Constantinople.
Mehemmed’s first sultanate, RabI* II 848/July 1444-
Djumada II 850/August 1448, witnessed a fierce
rivalry for power between the grand vizier, Candarli
Khalil, and the young sultan’s two lalas , Zaghanos
(Zaghanuz) and Ibrahim. While Candarli, of c ulama J
background, favoured a foreign policy of peace and
compromise, Za gh anos. who belonged to the military
faction, advocated a programme of conquest —
having particularly in mind the conquest of Constan¬
tinople — which would secure full authority to the
young sultan and his lala. Because of the youth of the
sultan and his inability to neutralise the rivalry among
the two factions, the Ottoman state could not deal
decisively with the fateful internal and external crises
facing it (the Huruji uprising in Edirne on 8 Djumada
II 848/22 September 1444 and a Crusader army
which crossed the Danube 4-8 Djumada II 848/18-22
September 1444). Everywhere in the Balkans the
vassal rulers and seigneurs set about recovering their
independence and lost territories. In panic, many
Turks began to emigrate to Anatolia. However,
Orkhan’s attempt in the summer of 848/1444 to
attract the frontier begs and to seize Edirne failed.
When the Crusader army came to lay siege to Varna
in Radjab 848/November 1444, Candarli hastened to
call the sultan’s father with the Anatolian army to
come and take command of the Ottoman forces. The
Ottoman victory at Varna (28 Radyab 848/10
November 1444) created an ambiguity about who was
really the sultan. Officially, Mehemmed II was still
sultan, but Candarli acted as if Murad had resumed
the sultanate. Finally, by secretly inciting the
Janissaries to rise, Candarli brought Murad back to
the throne in actuality (9 Djumada I 850/2 August
1446). Mehemmed was sent to the governorship of
Manisa with his lalas Za gh anos and Ibrahim.
Although deposed, Mehemmed was treated by his
supporters as still having the supreme power (see
Inalcik, Fatih devri, 102-9). Anxious to ensure his son’s
succession after his death, Murad II took Mehemmed
with him to his major campaigns in the Balkans —
against the Hungarians at Kossova in 852/1448, and
against the Albanians in the summer of 854/1450.
Murad married his son to Sittl Khatun, the daughter
of the Dhu ’1-Kadirid [see dh u ’l-kadr] ruler, who
was traditionally considered an Ottoman ally against
the Karamanids. It was only shortly thereafter that
Mehemmed received the news of the death of his
father; he acceded to the Ottoman throne for the
second time on 16 Muharram 855/18 February 1451.

In order to obtain concessions from Mehemmed,
who was seen as an inexperienced young man, the
Byzantine Emperor threatened to release Orkhan.
while the Karamanid Ibrahim invaded disputed ter¬
ritories in HamTd-ili [q.v.\. As a skilful diplomat and

statesman, Candarli appeased Byzantium and Serbia

by territorial concessions so that the young sultan

could make his first campaign in Anatolia against the

Karamanid. While Mehemmed was in Anatolia with
♦ «

his army, the Byzantine Emperor attempted to obtain
further concessions by a second threat to release
Orkhan. Mehemmed came to an agreement with the
Karamanid and quickly returned to Edirne to deal
with this new threat. Under the influence of
Zaghanos, he decided to put an end to the truncated
Byzantine empire and began to make preparations for
the conquest of Constantinople, sc. by the construc¬
tion of the Boghaz-Kesen castle on the Bosphorus.
Already agreements with Venice (13 Sha c ban 855/10
September 1451) and Hungary (25 Shawwal 855/20
November 1451) secured peace in the west and the
hire of Urban, a Hungarian expert, who would make
for Mehemmed the most powerful cannons ever seen
in order to batter the city’s legendary walls. In an
extraordinary meeting in Edirne, where the decision
for the siege was taken, Candarli drew attention to the
impregnability of the walls and the danger of a
crusade from the West, while the war party, prin¬
cipally Za gh anos and Shihab al-Dln, enthusiastically
supporting the sultan’s decision, emphasised the cons¬
tant threat which Byzantium posed to the existence
and unity of the Ottoman state. The outcome of the
siege depended on the time factor and the efficiency of
the Ottoman artillery. A long siege would give the
Hungarian and Venetian forces the opportunity to
come to the aid of the besieged. Thanks to the bom¬
bardment of the Ottoman heavy cannons, which tore
down the walls, the whole siege took less than two
months (26 Rabi* I 857/6 April 1453 until 20
Djumada I 857/29 May 1453; on the siege itself, now
see sources collected and edited by A. Pertusi). The
most dramatic moment during the siege was the
failure of the Ottoman navy to bar the entry of provi¬
sion ships into the Golden Horn. At this critical point,
defeatist rumours arose among the besiegers, and
Candarli advised the lifting of the siege. Za gh anos
and Ak Shams al-DTn [q.v. J, Mehemmed’s spiritual
mentor, emerged as strong supporters of the young
sultan, who was being blamed for lack of resolution by
the soldiery. The preparations for the final general
assault were made by Za gh anos. On 20 Djumada I
857/29 May 1453, the city was taken by assault [see
Istanbul. I] and the consequences of an c anwai con¬
quest were inevitable [see harb]. Mehemmed regret¬
ted the ruin of the imperial city, which he immediately
declared his capital. Throughout his reign, one of his
main concerns was to build and repopulate it [see
Istanbul. I.]. The Podesta of the Genoese Pera see
ghalata in Suppl.] surrendered sulh an on the same
day. Mehemmed granted an c ahd-name on 1 June 1453
which guaranteed aman [q. v. ] and certain communal
privileges for the indigenous non-Muslim population
as dhimmi subjects of the Ottoman state and capitulary
privileges for the Genoese merchants. Mehemmed’s
first acts after the victory were the arrest of Candarli
and the execution of Prince Orkhan. who had fought
against Mehemmed on the walls. Za g hanos was made
grand vizier.

By the conquest of Kustantiniyya al- c Uzma [see
kustantiniyya], as it was designated in Islamic tradi¬
tion, Mehemmed II assumed an unprecedented
charisma and claimed to be the sole “holder of the
sword of the ghaza ’ ” in the Islamic world (in his fath-
name to the Sultan of Egypt; Ferldun, i, 236). Ghaza 3
indeed became the legitimising principle of the
Ottoman sultan even against his Islamic rivals.
Muslim rulers who resisted or challenged him

MEHEMMED II

979

(Anatolian Turcoman rulers, the Ak Koyunlu Uzun
Hasan [q. v. ] and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt) were
declared to be acting against the true interests of Islam
by hindering his ghaza? activities. This assumption
would lead the Ottomans to claim supremacy
throughout the whole Islamic world in the 10th/16th
century (see Camb. hist, of Islam, i, 320-3). Also, by
declaring himself the Kaysar, the sole heir to the
Roman Empire, as the possessor of the imperial city,
Mehemmed believed that he could eliminate all the
members of the Byzantine imperial families (Ibn
Kamal, vii, 86, 113) and lay claim to all the territories
once under the eastern Roman Empire, including the
Balkans, the southern coasts of the Crimea and Italy.
Following Byzantine tradition, he claimed the
supremacy of Constantinople over Rome, and his tak¬
ing of Otranto in 885/1480 was considered a prelude
to the conquest of Italy. The conquest of Rome, sym¬
bolised as Kizll Elma , the Golden Globe, remained as
the ultimate goal for the Ottoman ghaza 5 ideology.
Mehemmed’s use of historical traditions and images
served as legitimation of his efforts at conquest.
Again, in order to legitimise his campaigns to annex
the Serbian despotate, he always cited his inheritance
rights through the marriage of his predecessors with
Serbian princesses [see bayazid i]. On the other hand,
the revival of the first Ottoman Empire as founded
under Bayazid ((791-804/1389-1402) definitely
motivated the Conqueror in his conquests (Ibn
Kamal, vii, 288).

Although his conquering activities were determined
basically by his plan to build up a centralist empire in
the Balkans and Anatolia, the course of his military
actions followed historical circumstances (Babinger’s
work, Mehmed the Conqueror and his time, is the latest
attempt to establish a chronology of events; for a
review of it, see Inalcik, Mehmed, in Speculum , xxxv
[1960], 408-27; A. Pertusi, La caduta; Inalcik, art.
Mehmed II, in L4, v, 510-12). In the last analysis,
Mehemmed’s wars appear to have been motivated by
his plan to establish his control of the Straits, the Black
Sea and the Aegean, the Balkans north to the Danube
and the principalities in the lower Danubian basin, as
well as central Anatolia and the lands west of the
Euphrates. His main interest was in the west. During
the fourteen-year period after 1453, Mehemmed
made a series of campaigns in Europe to eliminate the
Balkan dynasts: the Serbian despot (1454-9), the
Greek despots and Latin seigneurs in the Morea and
central Greece (1458-60), the Bosnian king (1463-4)
and Iskender Beg [q.v.] in Albania (1465-7). He was
not so successful against the Rumanian principalities
beyond the Danube. While Wallachia renewed its
submission (866/1462) [see eflak], Moldavia (Kara-
Boghdan [see boghdan]) under Stephen the Great put
up a fierce resistance (881/1476). Mehemmed’s cam¬
paigns in the Balkans brought him into confrontation
with two powerful rivals, Hungary, which considered
Serbia, Bosnia and Wallachia to be under its protec¬
tion, and Venice, which had extensive territorial and
commercial interests in the Aegean basin (where he
campaigned in 861-3/1457-9), in the Morea
(862/1458 and 864/1460), and in Albania (867-
84/1463-79). Constantly attempting to mobilise the
whole of Christendom in a crusade in cooperation
with the Popes, Venice and Hungary confronted
Mehemmed in Serbia (his defeat at Belgrade,
860/1456) and in Bosnia (Hungarian capture of Jajce,
868/1463). The alliance of Venice and Hungary in
867/1463 resulted in what was known as the Long
War against Venice (867-84/1463-79), and hostilities
with Hungary lasted until Mehemmed’s death (see

Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, ii, 231-363). The
Venetian Long War, which cost Venice Euboea
(Egriboz [q.v.], 875/1470) and Ishkodra [q.v. in
Suppl.] (Shkoder), as well as its trade with the
Ottoman Empire, ended in a humiliating peace for
Venice, which had to pay an annual tribute of 10,000
gold pieces (2 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 883/25 January 1479).
Mehemmed’s complete control of the passage through
the Straits, with the construction of Boghaz-Kesen
(1452), Kal c a-yi Sultaniyye and Killdiilbahr
(868/1463-4), and the fortification of Bozdja Ada
(Tenedos), which had already enabled him to force
the Genoese, Moldavian and Greek rulers to pay
tribute (858-60/1454-6), put Istanbul out of reach of
Venetian seapower. Later on, taking advantage of
anti-Genoese developments in the Crimea, he
occupied Amasra (Amastris, 863/1459), Kaffa and
Azak (880/1475), Anapa and Copa (884/1479). With
the conquest of the Greek empire of Trebizond and
the occupation of the Isfendiyarid principality, with
Sinope and Kastamoni, in 865/1461, he turned the
Black Sea into an Ottoman lake. In 879/1474 his navy
consisted of 92 galleys ( kadirgha ), 5 galleots ( kalyata ),
59 horse-transports (at gemileri) and a number of small
boats. Besides these mm ships which were based at
Gelibolu (Gallipoli) [q.v.] there were a number of
privateers. However, Mehemmed always felt that his
navy could not challenge the Venetian sea power
(Babinger, Mehmed, 448-50). In 885/1480 his fleet of
Gallipoli attacked Rhodes, and that of Avlonya
(Vlore) attacked Otranto. The siege of Rhodes
(Muharram-Djumada II 885/May-August 1480)
failed, but Otranto was captured (4 Djumada II
885/11 August 1480).

Keeping Hungary and Venice neutral with peace
talks over the period 873-8/1468-73, Mehemmed
focused his attention on central Anatolia, where the
dynastic disputes among the Karamanids had given a
pretext to the rising Ak Koyunlu (Woods, The
Aqquyunlu, 100-14) to extend their influence in the
region. The Ottoman-Ak Koyunlu rivalry developed
into an extremely dangerous crisis for Mehemmed,
since Uzun Hasan [</.*>.] and Venice attempted to
make a concerted attack and to bring together all the
small states in the Levant into an anti-Ottoman coali¬
tion (Inalcik, art. Mehmed II, in L4, v, 523-9; Bab¬
inger, Mehmed, 267-327, Setton, op. cit., 315-45).
Mehemmed’s victory at Bash-kent (16 Rabl* I 878/11
August 1473) was indeed a turning point in his whole
career and confirmed the Ottoman annexation of the
Karamanid territory (863/1468). However, it took six
years to subdue the Turcoman tribes in the Taurus
range. This also led to an open rivalry between
Mehemmed and the Mamluks, who claimed a protec¬
torate over the Karamanids and saw a challenge in
Mehemmed’s alliance with and protection of the
DhuTKadirids. It was said (Tursun Beg, Ta^rikh,
text, fols. 157b-158a) that Mehemmed’s last cam¬
paign, on which he was engaged when he died (4
RabI* I 886/3 May 1481), was against the Mamluks
rather than against the Hospitallers of Rhodes.

Mehemmed II is the true founder of the classical
Ottoman Empire, establishing its territorial,
ideological and economic bases. Territorially, he
organised under his autocratic rule the lands between
the Danube and the Euphrates as a centralised
domain which remained for four centuries afterwards
the solid core of the Ottoman Empire. Byzantine
tradition and experience taught him to endeavour to
establish full control over the Danube, the Straits, the
Aegean and the Euphrates as the natural borders of
his empire. By fortifying the Dardanelles and the

980

MEHEMMED 11

Bosphorus, he achieved a compact empire, duly tak¬
ing the title of the sultan of the two continents,
Anatolia and Rumili, and the khakan of the two seas,
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. His centralist
empire came into being by the suppression or reduc¬
tion under central control of the local aristocratic
landed families in the Balkans and Anatolia. Such
families either became regular Ottoman /fmar-holders
or were totally replaced by the sultan’s kuls [q.v.]. His
sweeping “land reform” of 883/1478, in which a
great number of the freehold ( rniilk ) and wakf lands in
the control of such hereditary landlords were turned
into state lands (see Inalcik, op. cit., at 533), con¬
stituted his major move in this direction. Also, by
emerging as the greatest ghazf, he overshadowed and
reduced the autonomy of the principal frontier beg
families who had thus far played a determining role in
the empire’s politics [see mehemmed I and murad ii].
In brief, Mehemmed II created in his person the
typical autocratic Ottoman Padishah.

In his efforts to establish a bureaucratic machinery,
the principal tool of his centralist empire, Mehemmed
employed indiscriminately experts of various origins,
Persian Azeris, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, Italians, as well
as native Ottoman Turks (rumis). In this, as attested
by his kanun-name [q. v. ] of state organisation and by
biographies of the nishanffis [q.v.] and the defterdars
[q.v.] of his reign, the c ulama :> appear to have played
a major role, as before. However, such c ulamd 3 only
made up a part of his bureaucracy, and were unable
to interfere in the sultan’s autocratic and independent
conduct of state affairs. Mehemmed appears to have
been the first Ottoman, perhaps the first Muslim
ruler, to codify state laws based on the ruler’s
independent law-making power, c urf [q.v .],
apparently inspired by a Turko-Mongol tradition.
His two codes [see kanunname] dealt with state
organisation, penal law, and the relations of the state
and the “military” class with the taxpaying subjects,
the ra c aya. The latter law code, considered as the basis
of a “just rule”, strictly defines the impositions upon
the racaya. Mehemmed’s law codes remained the core
and basis of subsequent Ottoman laws to the
11th/17th century.

With the guidance of the great astronomer c Ali
Kushdji [q.v.], Mehemmed also organised religious
teaching ( tadris, kadd 7 ) and the c ulamd 5 hierarchy (tank)
in the Ottoman Empire. It was his unprecedented
charisma as Abu ’l-Fath which enabled him, with the
help of a host of talented leaders from East and West,
to put into place a centralist bureaucratic empire
perhaps never before so perfectly accomplished in
Islamic history. His rationalistic and practical educa¬
tion under a legist, Molla Khosrew [q.v. ], his faith in
the support of God and the inspiration of his shaykh ,
Ak Shams al-Din [q.v.], his espousal of a combination
of Islamic and Roman imperial traditions, might
explain his extraordinary accomplishments. But no
less important in the foundation of the empire appears
the fact that the peasant masses, exploited by the local
rent-gathering landlords, military and religious, who
were operating free from any control in the Balkans
and Asia Minor, tacitly or openly welcomed the
restoration of a strong centralist power as a guarantee
of protection. The sultan’s edicts always professed
that the imperial power was with “the poor”
(yoksullar) against “the powerful” (kudretluler). His
bureaucratic apparatus, the land surveys [see tahrir]
and the law codes reveal emphatically the concern to
maintain peasant families in possession of small farm
exploitations, the so-called khane ba cift units.
Mehemmed’s “abrogation”, naskh, measures with

respect to the exploitative wakfs and miilks, meant
more than just a military reform. It also meant the
extension of state ownership and r closer protection
and control by the state of the peasant producer and
labourer against feudal exploitation.

On the other hand, the native urban populations,
Greeks and Slavs, and the Orthodox Church, do not
seem to have resented the establishment of the
autocratic rule of the Ottoman padishah, who was seen
as, and called, basileus or czar. But Mehemmed was
only following his predecessors, or in fact the Islamic
tradition, when he re-installed the Greek Orthodox
Church with all its traditional privileges as an integral
part of the Ottoman imperial system (Muharram
858/January 1454), while he banned all Latin
Catholic organisations, which were under the Roman
papacy, from his dominions.

Autocratic principle, which made the sultan’s per¬
son the one and only source of authority and legitima¬
tion and claimed it as the foundation of both state and
society (for this political theory expounded by
Mehemmed’s contemporary Tursun Beg, see text, 2-
17), found its full expression under Mehemmed II.
The urban economy and the conditions of craftsmen
and merchants, too, were regulated by the sultan
through his establishment of bazaars, bedestans ( baz-
zazistdn), kapans (kabban), weighing stations (kantdr),
customs and market regulations, and his periodic
issuance of new silver coins, akca, and prohibition of
the use of the old ones, which was tantamount to tax¬
ing all cash capital in the hands of individuals, thus
making a strong impact on the economy. Turning all
rice-growing lands into state-owned properties and
organising labour on them under close state control
(Inalcik, Rice cultivation, 78-113) well demonstrates his
autocratic handling of economic issues (for the basic
source on his economic regulations, see Anhegger and
Inalcik, Kanunname; also Istanbul, at IV, 531-4;
Inalcik, Turkiye’nin iktisadi vaziyeti, 676-84),
Mehemmed fully espoused the theory that the
monarch’s presuming to organise society and
economy as complementary to the state was based on
the ruler’s ultimate duties of ghazd 7 , making God’s
word, Islam, to rule over the world, and, as imam , to
guide and take care of his subjects’ well-being, con¬
duct and salvation in this and the next world. As is
repeatedly underlined in the sultan’s edicts, “the
racaya were a trust (wadTa) of Allah to the ruler.” The
Marxist interpretation, however, is that all these
superstructural and ideological assumptions were
designed to serve the exploitation of the direct pro¬
ducers by the Ottoman “feudal” state and classes
(Moutafchieva, Agrarian relations ; Werner, Die Geburt,
273-358).

Bibliography : Ibn Kamal, Tavarih-i Al-i Osman,
VII. Defter , ed. §erafettin Turan, Ankara 1954;
Tursun Beg, Tankh-i Abu ’l-Fath , ed. H. Inalcik and
R. Murphey, Minneapolis and Chicago 1978;
Feridun Beg, Miinshe 7 dt al-selatin , i, Istanbul
1274/1857, 221-89; Agostino Pertusi, La caduta di
Costantinopoli. i. Le testimonianze dei contemporanei ; ii.
L’eco nel mondo , Verona 1976; F. Babinger, Mehmed
the Conqueror and his time, tr. Ralph Manheim, ed.
W.C. Hickman, Princeton 1978; K.M. Setton, The
Papacy and the Levant, ii. The fifteenth century ,
Philadelphia 1978, 82-381; J.E. Woods, The
Aqquyunlu: clan , confederation , empire, Minneapolis
and Chicago 1976; Vera P. Moutafchieva, Agrarian
relations in the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and six¬
teenth centuries, Boulder, Colorado 1988; E. Werner,
Die Geburt einer Grossmacht — die Osmanen, Weimar
1985; H. Inalcik, Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481)

MEHEMMED II — MEHEMMED III

981

and his time, in Speculum xxxv (1960), 408-27; idem,
art. Mehmed II, in IA, v, 506-35; idem, Fatih devri
uzerinde tetkikler ve vesikalar, Ankara 1954; idem, Rice
cultivation and the Qeltukci-re^ayd system in the Ottoman
Empire, in Turcica, xiv, 69-141; idem, Tiirkiye’nin
iktisadi vaziyeti , in Belleten, xv (1951), 629-90; idem,
The rise of the Ottoman Empire, in Camb. hist, of Islam,
i, Cambridge 1970, 295-323. (Halil Inalcik)
MEHEMMED III, thirteenth Ottoman
Sultan (1003-12/1595-1603). He was the son of
Murad III \q.v. ] and his Albanian khasseki, Safiyye
[q.v.], born early in the first decade of Dhu ’1-Ka c da
973/20-29 May 1566 in the summer-camp on Bozdg
near Manisa when his father was sandjak-begi of
Sarukhan. his birth being announced to his great¬
grandfather Sulayman I [ q.v .], who named the baby,
at Pazardjik as he marched towards Hungary, on 13
Dhu TKa c da 973/1 June 1566 (Selanlkl, 22).

After his father’s accession on 8 Ramadan 982/22
December 1574, he lived with his mother and sisters
in the New Palace in Istanbul. In 990/1582 his cir¬
cumcision, to which monarchs of East and West had
been invited, was celebrated with feasting and
pageants of unrivalled magnificence (splendidly
recorded in Topkapi Museum, ms. Hazine 1344),
lasting from 6 Djumada 1-3 Radjab/29 May-24 July,
the operation being performed by Djerrah Mehmed
Pasha on the fortieth evening. The break-up of
Murad’s life with Safiyye culminated in the death of
his mother Nur Banu[^.D. ] on 22 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 991/7
December 1583 and the departure on 9 Dhu '1-
Hidjdja/24 December of Mehemmed to Manisa, the
last heir-apparent to be sandjak-begi of Sarukhan.
During his 11 years’ residence there, four of his five
sons were born; Selim in 993/1585, died 3 Ramadan
1005/20 April 1597; Mahmud in ca. 995/1587; the
future Ahmad I [q.v. ] on 12 Djumada II 998/18 April
1590; the future Mustafa I [q.v.] in 1000/1591. He
had a fifth son Djihanglr, who died young in
1011/1602, and six daughters. Upon Murad Ill’s
death on 5 Djumada I 1003/16 January 1595, in great
secrecy Safiyye sent the Bostandji-bashi Ferhad Agha to
Manisa, and Mehemmed returned to the capital for
his accession, followed by his father’s funeral, in 16
Djumada 1/27 January. The next day his 19 half-
brothers (names listed by Solak-zade, 621) were
executed and laid to rest beside their father.
Mehemmed III was the last Sultan to implement the
law of fratricide promulgated by Mehemmed II [q.v. ]
(see H. inalcik, in Cambridge history of Islam, i, 303).
Murad’s harem, his dwarfs and jesters, were swept
away, and Safiyye, as Walide Sultan, took absolute
control over her weak and superstitious son. A
donative of 660,000 gold pieces was distributed to the
Janissaries.

The reign, lying within the Long War (1593-1606)
with the Holy Roman Empire, was disastrous, torn by
civil and military disturbances, high inflation and
insecure government; there were twelve changes of
Grand Vizier, of whom three, Ferhad Pasha, Khadim
Hasan Pasha Sokolli and Yemishdji Hasan Pasha
[q. ml], were executed. During 1003-4/1595 the
princedom of Wallachia was occupied and made into
an Ottoman voivodeship, and on 1 Dhu ’l-Hidjdja/7
August, Esztergom, under the Grand Vizier Kodja
Sinan Pasha [q.v. ], fell to the Imperialists. Next year,
1004/1596, Mehemmed, influenced by his father’s
tutor Khodja Sa c d al-Dln Efendi [q.v. j and under
pressure from the Janissaries, resolved to lead the
army into Hungary, a custom abandoned since the
reign of Sulayman I. On 23 Shawwal/20 June, with
the Grand Vizier Damad Ibrahim Pasha [ 9 . ], he set

out for Egri [q.v.}, which fell after a siege of three
weeks on 19 Safar 1005/12 October 1596. On 3 Rabl c
1/25 October a great battle was fought on the plain of
Mezo-Keresztcs [q.v.], and the following evening the
Ottomans, reinforced by a Tatar army under their
Kh an Feth Giray, were victorious almost at the very
moment of defeat, thanks to the strategy of Ci gh ale-
zade Sinan Pasha [q.v.], who was promoted Grand
Vizier. The English ambassador Edward Barton was
present on the campaign; he, his successor Sir Henry
Lello, and the French ambassador Francois Savary de
Breves were playing important roles in Ottoman
policies. On the return march, Ibrahim Pasha was
reinstated as Grand Vizier at the behest of Safiyye.
On 2 Djumada 1/22 December the sultan entered
Istanbul, with great rejoicing. However, the violence
of the Djalalls [q.v. in Supplement], dissatisfied
elements who had gathered under Kara Yazidji [q.v.],
a rebellious press-gang leader conscripting for the
campaign, together with the Firarls, Anatolian sipahis
who had fled before the battle and thus had been
deprived of their timars, raged until 1603, devastating
Anatolia. Peace initiatives were rejected by the
Imperialists, who regained Raab on 21 Sha c ban
1006/29 March 1598. During 1008/1599-1600 the
deaths occurred of Sa c d al-Dln and the poet BakI
[q.v.], and the murder of Safiyye’s Jewish Kira
Esperanza Malchi on 17 Ramadan/1 April in the
course of a rising of the sipahis against the power of the
harem. A similar rising in the capital on 23 Radjab
1011/6 January 1603 took as victims two more Palace
officials, Ghadanfer Agha [see kapi aghasi] and
c Othman Agha. As the crippling war with the Empire
dragged on, with the castle of Kanizsa [q.v.] sur¬
rendering to the Ottomans on 13 RabI* II 1009/22
October 1600, in 1012/1603 the Persian Shah c Abbas
I [q.v. ] launched an offensive in the east, taking
Tabriz on 19 RabI* 11/26 September. On 27 Dhu ’1-
Hidjdja 1011/7 June 1603 Mehemmed, in a fit of
suspicious rage, ordered the execution of his eldest son
Mahmud; he lies buried, with his mother, in a
mausoleum beside the Sheh-zade mosque. Conse¬
quently, the child Ahmad was to succeed his father,
who died suddenly, probably after a heart-attack, on
17 Radjab 1012/21 December 1603. His mausoleum
is beside Aya Sofya. He composed poetry under the
makhlas c AdlI. During his corrupt reign, chronic infla¬
tion (the rate of 60 akce s to the ducat in 1580 had
trebled by 1600) undermined society, and the decline
which is evident from the latter years of Sulayman I
reached a critical stage, with the empire close to
anarchy.

Bibliography. As many of the chronicles and
documents of this reign are not yet published, for
details of mss. see M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, in iA s.v.
Mehmed ///; Hammer-Purgstall, GOR, iv; Bab-
inger. Selanlkl, Ta^rtkh, Istanbul 1281, is published
only to 1001/1593; for a summary of his account of
the reign, see M. Ipsirli, Mustafa Selaniki and his
history, in Tarih Enslitiisu Dergisi , ix (1978), 417-72.
Mehmed b. Mehmed, Nukhbat al-tawarikh, Istanbul
1276, 176-219; Pe£ewl, Ta^rikh, Istanbul 1283, ii,
163-290; HadjdjI Khalifa. Fedhleke, Istanbul 1286, i,
46-22lj Solak-zade, Ta^rikh, Istanbul 1297, 620-83;
Kara Celebi-zade, Rawdat al-abrar, Bulak 1248, 477-
96. For the contemporary publications to the end of
1600, see C. Gollner, Turcica, Bucharest 1968, ii;
for social analysis, extensive modern bibliography
and illustrations, H. inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: the
classical age, 1300-1600 , London 1973; contem¬
porary European histories, L. Soranzo., L ’ Ottomano,
Ferrara 1598; R. Knolles, The generall historic of the

982

MEHEMMED III — MEHEMMED IV

Turkes, 4th ed. London 1631, 1055-1201 (with por¬
trait). His family, birth, and early life are discussed
by E. Spagni, Una sultana veneziana, in Nuovo Archivio
Veneto, xix (1900), 241-348; S. A. Skilliter, Three let¬
ters from the Ottoman “Sultana” Safiye to Queen Elizabeth
I, in Documents from Islamic chanceries, ed S. M.
Stern, Oxford 1965, 119-57; H. G. Rosedale, Queen
Elizabeth and the Levant Company, London 1904, with
facsimiles of the report in Italian made for Edward
Barton by Salamon Usque on 2 February 1595,
after p. 18; portrait, 73. For the circumcision
festivities, the contemporary account by N.
Haunolth in H. Lewenklaw, Neuwe Chronica Tiir-
ckischer nation, Frankfurt-am-Main 1595, 468-514: a
modern assessment, M. And, Kirk gun kirk gece,
Istanbul 1959. On the Long War, A. Randa, Pro
Republica Christiana, Munich 1964; the revolt in
Anatolia, M. Akdag, Celali isyanlan , Ankara 1963.
Among the many accounts of European merchants,
travellers and diplomats, W. Foster, ed., The travels
of John Sanderson in the Levant, 1584-1602, London
1931; The diary of Master Thomas Dallam, 1599-1600,
in T. Bent, Early voyages and travels in the Levant, Lon¬
don 1893; O. Burian, The report of Lello , Ankara
1952; F. Moryson, An itinerary, London 1617. On
the Jewish Kira and her death, J. J. Mordtmann,
Die jiidischen Kira im Serai der Sultane , in MSOS As .,
xxxii/2 (1929), 1-38. For contemporary Turkish
discussions of the decline, Hasan al-Kafr, Usui al-
hikam fi nizam al- c alam, Istanbul 1278; A. Tietze,
Muftafa c All’s description of Cairo of 1599, Vienna
1975. On the inflation, 6. L. Barkan, XVI asnn
ikinci yansinda Tiirkiye’de fiyat hareketleri, in Belleten,
xxxiv (1970), 557-607. For the poetry of the Sultan
and his reign, A. Navarian, Les Sultans poetes, Paris
1936, 100-3; Gibb, Ottoman poetry, iii, London 1904,
170-204. The events of the reign inspired two works
of Mehmed Namfk Kemal [q.vf.Djezmi. Istanbul
1297, and Kanizhe, Istanbul 1290.

(S. A. Skilliter)

MEHEMMED IV, nineteenth sultan of the
Ottoman dynasty in Turkey, known as awdji
“the hunter” from his excessive passion for the chase,
reigned 1058-99/1648-87.

Born on 30 Ramadan 1051/2 January 1642, he was
the son of Sultan Ibrahim [q.v.] and Khadldja Tur¬
kman Sultan. He was placed on the throne in Istanbul
at the age of seven after the deposition in 18 Radjab
1058/8 August 1648 of the sensualist and possibly
mentally deranged “Deli” Ibrahim, at a moment
when Ibrahim was the sole surviving adult male of the
house of c Othman, but in fact, two others of his five
or six sons survived also to attain the throne after
Mehemmed, sc. Suleyman II and Ahmed II
[q.vv.].

The power in the state was at that time divided
between the court, where the old walide Kosem [q.v. ]
and Mehemmed’s mother, the walide Tarkhan, held
the reins, and the rebellious soldiery of the Janissaries
and the Sipahls. The lack of stability in the govern¬
ment at this time is shown by the fact, that, until the
nomination of the grand vizier Koprulu Mehmed [see
koprulu] in 1066/1656, there were no less than thir¬
teen grand viziers. In 1061/1651 the old walide Kosem
was strangled and at the same time the resistance of
the Janissaries was broken; the regime of the court
party that followed under the sultan’s mother did not
improve the situation. The grand vizierate of Ipshir
Mustafa Pasha (1064-5/1654-5 [q.v. ]), who at first
seemed to be the strong man needed, was brought to
an early end by his rival Murad Pasha, and in the
meantime the Cretan war against Venice was

exhausting the resources of the Empire. In Djumada
I 1066/March 1656 a military rebellion forced the
sultan to allow the execution of several of his favourite
courtiers.

The real strong man proved to be Koprulu
Mehmed Pasha (vizier 1066-72/1656-61), who
eliminated immediately the influence of the harem on
state affairs and became until his death the real ruler
of the empire. His regime began with a Turkish
maritime defeat by the Venetians at the Dardanelles,
but already in the following year he obtained as ser-
''asker successes in Transylvania and succeeded at the
same time in establishing firmly Turkish authority in
the Danube principalities; the collaboration with the
Khan of the Crimea [see kIrim] was here of great
value. In 1068/1658 and 1069/1659 he was able to
suppress rebellions in Anatolia, and in the Venetian
war a great fleet of Venetian ships and other Christian
allies did not succeed against the Turkish forces on
Crete. After his death (1072/1661), he was succeeded
in his office by his son Koprulu Ahmed Pash a.
who completed the work of his father by carrying
through the final conquest of Crete (surrender of Kan-
diya [q.v.] in RabL II 1080/September 1669) followed
by peace with Venice. In 1071/1661 the war with
Austria had begun again, where Sultan Mehemmed
took part in several campaigns, notably that of
1073/1663 in which Ujvar (Neuhausel or Nove
Zamky) was taken. In 1075/1664 took place the
famous battle of St. Gotthard-am-Raab, where the
Turks were beaten by an allied army, a part of which
was formed by French troops; still, the peace con¬
cluded with Austria in 1075/1664 at Vasvar was
favourable for Turkey. In 1083/1672 the sultan took
part in the campaign against Poland, after the Ukrai¬
nian Cossacks had invoked Ottoman aid against the
Polish king; the Polish war, ending in a peace treaty
of 1087/1676, strengthened still further the empire’s
position in the north. Koprulu Ahmed Pasha died
in 1087/1676. Though the sultan, who had developed
in the meantime a morose and capricious character,
never showed him the same deference as to his father,
Ahmed had been easily able to maintain himself
against enemies in the interior, not least by forming
new troops, the beshli and the goniillu [q. v. ], who were
far more reliable than the Janissaries and Sipahls. He
had not been able, however, to put an end to the
extravagant luxury of the court, which wasted enor¬
mous sums. The sultan had an abnormal liking for big
hunts, that were organised at enormous cost in the
environs of Edirne, which town he preferred as a
residence to Istanbul [see further, koprulu].

After Ahmed’s death the sultan did not himself take
the affairs of state in hand; he appointed Kara
Mustafa Pasha Merzifonlu [q.v.] as his grand vizier.
The latter continued in an unnecessary way the tradi¬
tion of warfare; in 1088/1677 and 1089/1678 he
obtained successes against the Cossacks, behind
whom the Muscovite power now began to gain in
importance in Turkish affairs. In 1093/1682 war
broke out again with the Austrian monarchy and led
to the second Turkish siege of Vienna (18 Radjab-20
Ramadan 1094/12 July-12 September 1683), ending
in a Turkish debacle, thanks to the intervention of the
Polish king John Sobieski. This disaster cost Kara
Mustafa his office and his life, and at the same time
the influence of the palace became again predomi¬
nant. The grand viziers now following proved une¬
qual to their task and in the years 1096-8/1685-7
nearly the whole of Hungary was lost to the Austrian
armies (Turkish defeat at Mohacs [q.v.] on 11
Sha c ban 1098/22 June 1687). At the same time, the

MEHEMMED IV — MEHEMMED V RESHAD

983

hostilities with Venice had been reopened in the
Morea [ q.v .] and in the Archipelago.

All these disasters caused a revolt of the troops in
the field; they marched on the capital in Dhu ’1-Ka c da
1098/September 1687 under Siyawush Pasha of
Aleppo. This time the sultan himself fell a victim to
them, and was made to bear the responsibility for the
defeats. To satisfy popular demands and to forestall
further rebellions, Mehemmed was deposed on 2
Muharram 1099/8 November 1687 by the kdhm-
makdm Fadfl Mustafa Pasha Kopriilii, the Shaykh al-
Islam Dabbagh-zade Mehmed Efendi and other
religious dignitaries. He is said to have accepted the
decision gracefully, and he retired to his beloved
Edirne, dying there on 28 Rabl c II 1104/6 January
1693. He was buried in Istanbul by the side of his
mother in the Yeni Djami c .

Bibliography: 1. Primary sources. These
include Na c ima, ii; Katib 6elebi, Fedhleke : Rashid.
Ta^nkh (till 1070/1660); Ewliya Celebi, Seyahat-
name ; Silahdar Mehmed Agha, Ta^nkh', c AbdI
Pasha, Wekd^-ndme\ Kara Celebi-zade c Abd al-
c AzTz, Rawdat al-abrar, Mehmed Khallfe, Ta^rikh-i
Ghilmani. These, some still in ms., are utilised by
M. Cavid Bay sun in his / A art. Mehmed IV.

2. Secondary sources. European ones include
P. Rycaut, Histoire des trois derniers empereurs des Turcs
depuis 1624jusqu’a 1677, Paris 1683; von Hammer,
GOR, v-vi; Zinkeisen, iv-v; Jorga, iv; A. D. Alder-
son, The structure of the Ottoman dynasty , Oxford 1956,
65-6 and Tables XXXVII and XXXVIII; S. J. and
Ezel Shaw, History of the Ottoman empire and modern
Turkey , Cambridge 1976-7, i, 203-19. Of Turkish
studies, see Ahmed RefTk, Feldket seneleri (1094-
1110), Istanbul 1332/1914; idem, Kadinlar saltanati,
Istanbul 1332-42/1914-24; I. H. Uzungarsih,
Osmanh tarihi, iii, Ankara 1951.

(J. H. Kramers*)

MEHEMMED V RESHAD, thirty-fifth and
penultimate Ottoman Sultan, was born on 2
November 1844, the son of Sultan c Abd al-Madjld
\q.v.}.

During the reign of his brother c Abd al-Hamid II
[q.v. ] he lived in seclusion: his very existence inspired
c Abd al-Hamid with such terror that even the mention
of the name Reshad had to be avoided in his presence
(cf. Snouck Hurgronje, Verspreide Geschriften , ii, 232).
He was a man of mild character, who owed his acces¬
sion to the throne (27 April 1909) to the victory of the
Young Turks (the Committee of Union and Progress
[see ittihad we terakkI djem c iyyeti]) over the
mutineers who had briefly ejected them from power in
“the incident of 31 March” (13 April 1909 in the
Gregorian calendar), and to their subsequent decision
to depose c Abd al-Harmd II. Mehemmed Reshad was
a pious man; he felt particular sympathy for the
Mewlewl Sufi order (Ali Fuat Tiirkgeldi, Goriip isit-
tiklerim , 123); he prized politeness and good food and
enjoyed simple pleasures. As the first Ottoman con¬
stitutional monarch, he spent most of his reign doing
the bidding of the Unionist party, which achieved
total power in January 1913. He was twice called
upon to second government policy: in 1911 he under¬
took a tour of Ottoman possessions in the Balkans, but
was unable to prevent another Albanian rising; and
after the outbreak of the First World War he pro¬
claimed the dfihad against the Allies, but did not sway
their Muslim subjects. It can be said that he exerted
no influence on the course of events during his reign.
His residence, the Dolmabah^e Palace on the
Bosporus, was as empty of visitors as the Yfldiz Palace
had been full during the reign of his predecessor

(Halid Ziya Usakhgil, Saray ve otesi , 134-6).

At the very beginning of his reign, Turkey lost her
last vestige of authority over Bosnia and Herzegovina
by Austria-Hungary’s annexation, and over Bulgaria
by its declaration of independence (5 October 1909).
The cabinets under Huseyn Hilmi (until 18 January
1910) and Isma c Il Hakki Pasha [q.v.] (until 29
September 1911) were not able to bring about a
peaceful situation in the interior (revolts in Albania
and Yaman). Hakki Pasha had to resign as a result of
the declaration of war by Italy. Under the grand
vizierate of Sa c Id Pasha [q.v.], the Italian war led to
the loss of Tripoli, confirmed by the treaty of Ouchy
(15 October 1912). Sa c Id Pasha resigned, and when
Sultan Mehemmed Reshad asked him why he had
done so, given that he had won a vote of confidence
in the Chamber, he replied “They had confidence in
me, but I had no confidence in them” (ibnulemin
Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanli devrinde son sadnazamlar,
vii, 1089). Peace was signed under the anti-Unionist
cabinet of Ahmed Mukhtar Pasha, but in the same
month the Balkan states declared war on the Ottoman
Empire. As Ottoman armies suffered immediate
defeats, Ahmed Mukhtar Pasha was forced to resign,
and his successor, the veteran anti-Unionist statesman
Kamil Pasha soon showed an inclination to conclude
a disastrous peace through the mediation of the Euro¬
pean powers (Conference of London). Then in
January 1913, a coup d’etat brought in a Unionist
government under Mahmud Shewket Pasha [q.v.].
Hostilities were reopened unsuccessfully, but the
defeat of Bulgaria at the hands of its former Balkan
allies allowed the Ottomans to recapture Edirne or
Adrianople on 22 July 1913. In the meantime,
Mahmud Shewket had been murdered (28 June) by
anti-Unionists, but this did not loosen the Unionist
grip on power; his place was taken by Sa c id Halim
Pasha, whose government signed the peace treaties
with Bulgaria (29 September 1913), Greece (14
November) and Serbia (14 March 1914). The
Ottoman Empire thus lost all its European possessions
west of the Merig [q.v.] (Maritza) river, and also the
Aegean islands and Crete.

However, it was not the grand vizier, but Unionist
leaders like Enwer Bey and Tal c at Bey [q.vv.] who
came to control the destiny of the Empire. Enwer’s
pro-German views triumphed over the hesitations of
the government, which had decided to stay neutral
when the First World War broke out. A secret treaty
was signed with Germany; the German battleships
Goeben and Breslau were given refuge in the Straits
(where they were formally handed over to the
Ottomans); and finally, the Ottoman fleet under the
command of the German admiral Souchon bom¬
barded Russian harbours in the Black Sea (29 and 30
October 1914). This led to the Allied declaration of
war, in which Enwer Pasha became Deputy
Commander-in-Chief (deputising nominally for the
Sultan), while Tal c at Pasha became grand vizier in
February 1917. Initial Ottoman offensives were
repelled (Sarikamish operation against the Russians;
Suez operation against the British), but the Turks suc¬
cessfully defended the Dardanelles (the Allied forces
which had landed on the Gallipoli peninsula were all
withdrawn by January 1916); they were at first suc¬
cessful in c Irak (surrender of General Townshend at
Kut al- c Amara [q.v.], April 1916), and fought also in
Palestine, Macedonia and Galicia. Before the end of
the war, as Ottoman armies were being gradually
worn down and while the country was prey to increas¬
ing privations, Mehemmed V died on 2 July 1918.
His last official functions were to welcome the Austro-

984 MEHEMMED V RESHAD — MEHEMMED VI WAHID AL-DIN

Hungarian Emperor Charles on a state visit to Istan¬
bul in May, and, a few days before his death, to visit
the Prophet’s relics at the Topkapi Palace. He was a
sad and ineffective figure: “Is Edirne ours?’’, he
asked after the city had been recaptured; and his com¬
ment on the effects of the Great War was “The Palace
excelled in two things: prayers and food. Both have
gone off” (Gorup isittiklerim, 269, 268).

Bibliography : The events of the reign are related
in all standard histories, e.g. S.J. Shaw and Ezel
Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman empire and modern
Turkey , ii, Cambridge 1977; B. Lewis, The emergence
of modern Turkey , Oxford 1961, and there are
references to Mehemmed V Reshad in many
memoirs, especially those of his two Chief
Secretaries: Halid Ziya Usakligil, Saray ve otesi ,
Istanbul 1965, and Ali Fuad Tiirkgeldi, Goriip isit¬
tiklerim, Ankara 1951, and of his Chief
Chamberlain, Lutfi Simavi, Osmanli sarayimn son
giinleri, Istanbul n.d. (the edition in modern
Turkish of his Sultan Mehmet Resad ve halefinin
sarayinda gorduklerim). The Sultan’s decrees appoin¬
ting grand viziers, as well as biographies and
evaluations of the latter, are to be found in
Ibniilemin Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanli devrinde
son sadnazamlar 2 , Istanbul 1966. See also P.
Mansel, Sultans in their splendour: the last years of the
Ottoman world, London 1988; M art. Mehmed Resad
(Enver Ziya Karal). (A. J. Mango)

MEHEMMED VI WAHID al-DIN (Wahded-
din), thirty-sixth and last Ottoman Sultan, was
born on 14 January 1861.

He was the son of Sultan c Abd al-Madjld [q. v. ] and
succeeded to the throne on 3 July 1918, after the death
of his brother Mehemmed V Reshad [q.v.], the
former heir to the_ throne Yusuf c Izz al-Dln, son of
Sultan c Abd al-Aziz, having died in 1916. In
November of the same year, Wahdeddln, as the new
heir, represented the Sultan at the funeral of the
Austro-Hungarian Emperor Francis Joseph. In
December 1917 he paid an official visit to Germany.
On both occasions he made a favourable impression
on his suite (on his German visit he was accompanied
by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the future founder of the
Turkish Republic [see ataturk]). Wahdeddln was
presumed to be critical of the Unionist party, in view
of his closeness with his brother-in-law Damad Ferld
Pasha \q. v. ], who was a leading member of the Liberal
party ( Ptilaf ve Hiirriyyel ) (Lutfi Simavi, Osmanli
sarayimn son giinleri , 265). Having reappointed the
Unionist grand vizier Tal c at Pasha on his accession,
Wahdeddln accepted his resignation when the collapse
of the Macedonian and southern fronts forced the
Ottoman empire to seek an armistice with the vic¬
torious Allies. He sought to replace him by the
veteran statesman TewfTk Pasha, to whom Wahded-
dTn was related by marriage and whose loyalty to the
dynasty he therefore trusted. However, as TewfTk
Pasha was unable to form a government, the Sultan
appointed Marshal Ahmed c Izzet Pasha, a veteran
soldier known for his opposition to the war. The new
grand vizier rejected Wahdeddln’s suggestion that
Damad Ferld Pasha be included in the Ottoman
delegation which signed the armistice agreement at
Mudros [see mondros] on 30 October 1918. As the
Allies prepared to occupy the remnants of the Empire,
Ahmed c Izzet Pasha fell foul of the palace and
resigned as a result of his refusal to dismiss Unionist
sympathisers from the cabinet. He was replaced first
by TewfTk Pasha and then on 4 March 1919 by
Damad Ferld Pasha, when the former was also seen
as insufficiently diligent in rooting out Unionists.

The new grand vizier encouraged the Sultan in a
policy of seeking to win the confidence of the Allies by
meeting their demands. However, the decision of the
Allies to allow Greek forces to land in Izmir on 15
May 1919 led to the growth of a Turkish national
resistance movement which opposed the policy of
appeasement pursued by the Sultan and his govern¬
ment. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who was appointed by
the Sultan as Inspector-General of the 9th (later 3rd)
Army in Anatolia, and landed in Samsun on 19 May
1919, assumed the leadership of this movement.
Having disregarded the order to return to Istanbul
and having resigned from the army, Mustafa Kemal
succeeded in cutting off Anatolia from the capital,
thus forcing the resignation of Damad Ferld Pasha on
5 October 1919. This was followed on 7 November by
the election of a new parliament in which the
nationalists were represented. The attempts of two
subsequent grand viziers, C A1T Rida Pasha and $alih
Pasha, to reach an accommodation with Mustafa
Kemal’s nationalists, who moved their headquarters
to Ankara on 27 December, came to an end when the
Allies placed Istanbul under military occupation on 16
March, and arrested a number of nationalist sym¬
pathisers. On 5 April, Wahdeddln re-appointed
Damad Ferld Pasha as grand vizier, overruling con¬
trary advice with the words “If I so desire, I can
appoint the Greek or the Armenian patriarch, or the
Chief Rabbi” (Ali Fuad Tiirkgeldi, Goriip isittiklerim ,
261). On 11 April the Sultan dissolved parliament,
which had itself decided to adjourn. On the same day,
the Shaykh al-lslam c Abd Allah DiirrT-zade issued a
number fatwas outlawing the nationalist resistance
in Anatolia (texts in Ibniilemin Mahmud Kemal Inal,
Osmanli devrinde son sadnazamlar, xiii, 2054-5).

Nevertheless, a number of deputies from the
dissolved parliament made their way to Ankara and,
together with other nationalist representatives, met as
the Grand National Assembly (Biiyiik Millet Medfhsi)
on 23 April, which selected its own government (Idjra^
Wekilleri Hey^eti, Committee of Executive Commis¬
sioners) from among its own members. However, the
Assembly sent a petition to Wahdeddln in which it
proclaimed its loyalty to the Sultan and Caliph
(extracts in Sabahattin Selek, Anadolu ihlilali, Istanbul
1963, 289). As an open clash developed between the
governments in Ankara and in Istanbul, the latter try¬
ing unsuccessfully to suppress the nationalist move¬
ment by sending troops against it and fomenting ris¬
ings in Anatolia, Wahdeddln ratified on 24 May 1920
the death sentence passed in absentia on Mustafa
Kemal. The signature by Ottoman delegates of the
peace treaty of Sevres on 10 August 1920 was
repudiated by the Grand National Assembly. After
the first major nationalist victory against the Greeks at
the first battle of Inonii, the GNA voted a new con¬
stitution on 29 January 1921 which was based on
popular sovereignty. Allied moves to establish contact
with the Ankara government led to the resignation
and departure for Europe of Damad Ferld Pasha,
drawing from the Sultan the comment “The rascal
brought the state to these straits and then left” ( Son
sadnazamlar, xiii, 2067). TewfTk Pasha, who became
grand vizier for the last time (21 October 1920),
deferred to the representatives of the Ankara govern¬
ment at the unsuccessful London conference in
February-March 1921.

The final success of the nationalists, whose forces
defeated the Greeks and entered Izmir on 9
September 1922, brought about the armistice of
Mudanya [q.v. ] (11 October 1922), to which the
Sultan’s government was not a party. A nationalist

MEHEMMED VI WAHID AL-D1N — MEHMED C AKIF

985

commissioner, ReTet Pasha, arrived in Istanbul and
warned the Sultan to confine himself to the palace and
receive no visitors, advice which the Sultan
disregarded (Son sadnazamlar, xiv, 2097-8). Matters
were brought to a head when the Allies invited the
Sultan’s government, along with the Ankara govern¬
ment, to send delegates to the peace conference in
Lausanne. Rejecting any rival government, the GNA
passed a law on 1 November 1922, separating the
offices of sultan and caliph, and declaring the
Ottoman sultanate abolished from 16 March 1920
(the date of the Allied occupation of Istanbul). TewfTk
Pasha resigned accordingly on 4 November. At his
last selamlik on 10 November, which was attended by
a handful of courtiers, Wahdeddln was given only the
title of caliph in the khutba. Believing his life to be in
danger, he asked the British commander General Sir
Charles Harington to arrange his departure abroad.
He was smuggled aboard HMS Malaya and left
Turkey on 17 November 1922. The next day, the
GNA divested him of the caliphate, in favour of his
unde c Abd al-Madjld, son of Sultan c Abd al- c Aztz.
Having gone first to Malta, the ex-Sultan proceeded
to Mecca as the guest of King Husayn. From here he
launched a proclamation to the Islamic world, in
which he maintained that the separation of the
caliphate from the sultanate was contrary to the sharia
(text in OA/, ii, 702-5). This appeal found hardly any
response in the Islamic world. The last Ottoman
Sultan left Mecca again, and went to live in San
Remo, where he died on 16 May 1926. In 1924, he
had even recognised King Husayn’s claim to the
caliphate.

Wahdeddln has been described by his courtiers as
short-tempered, pious, intelligent, but fearful, hesi¬
tant and unwise in his judgments, above all in the
trust which he placed in his brother-in-law Damad
Ferld Pasha. Throughout his reign he paid lip-service
to the Ottoman constitution, while being inspired by
a desire to secure the survival of the dynasty. He had
not studied Arabic and Persian, but was credited with
a knowledge of fikh. He was fond of music, and com¬
posed Turkish songs. His failure to grow a beard after
his accession was considered a break with tradition.

Bibliography. See the general histories of the
period, especially S. J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw,
History of the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey ,
Oxford 1961; also Lord Kinross, Atatiirk: the rebirth
of a nation , London 1964, and P. Mansel, Sultans in
splendour , London 1988. Reminiscences and
documents are to be found in Ibniilemin Mahmud
Inal, Osmanh devrinde son sadnazamlar , xi-xiv (esp.
xiv, 2095-2104), Istanbul 1965, and in the memoirs
of the Sultan’s Chief Chamberlain ( Baskmabeyind^i )
Liitfi Simavi, Osmanli sarayimn son giinleri, Istanbul
n.d., and his Chief Secretary, Ali Fuad Tiirkgeldi,
Goriip isittiklerim , Ankara 1951. See also M art.
Mehmed Vahdettin (Enver Ziya Karal).

(A. J. Mango)

MEHKEME [see mahkama].

MEHMED, MEHMET. [On the use of these
Turkish forms of the name' Muhammad in this
Encyclopaedia see mehemmed].

MEHMED C AKIF, modern Turkish Mehmet Akif
Ersoy (1873-1936), Turkish poet, patriot and
proponent of Pan-I slamism.

He was born in Istanbul of a father, Mehmed
Tahir, originally from Ipek in northern Albania
(modern Pec in Yugoslavia) and a mother of
Bukharan origin. He was educated in the classical
Islamic tongues, Turkish, Arabic and Persian, in
Istanbul, graduating from the Fatih riishdiyye or secon¬

dary school and continuing his higher education at the
School of Political Science and then the Civilian
Veterinary School. He served as a veterinary surgeon
in the Ministry of Agriculture for 20 years, travelling
extensively in Anatolia, the Balkans and the Arab
lands, whilst at the same time teaching, including lec¬
turing on literature at Istanbul University; and after
his resignation from government service in 1913, he
taught in various schools and preached in the mosques
of Istanbul.

He had already shown an enthusiasm for Pan-
Islamism at the time of the Young Turk Revolution
and during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, hence in
1915, during the First World War, when Turkey had
entered the war on the side of the General Powers,
c Akif was invited to visit Germany by the Kaiser’s
government to study and report on the state of
Muslim prisoners-of-war in that country; this trip
gave him his first contact with the West and its differ¬
ing attitudes and conditions from those of the Islamic
East. Then in 1917 he was sent by the Committee of
Union and Progress [see ittihad we terakkT
d[em c iyyeti], after the outbreak of the Sharif Husavn
of Mecca’s revolt, on a mission to the pro-Turkish A1
Rashid of Ha*il in Na^jd. He further became
Secretary-General of the Dar iil-Hikmet ul~Islamiyye
attached to the Sheykh ul-Islam' s office, but lost his post
in 1919 when he called for resistance against the
Greek forces entering Anatolia in the wake of the
October 1918 Mudros Armistice. He now threw in his
lot with the Nationalist cause under Mustafa Kemal
(Atatiirk) [q.v.], and joined the Grand National
Assembly (GNA) in Ankara in 1920 as deputy for
Burdur. In the following year, the Nationalist
Minister of Education, Hamdullah Subhl Tanriover
(1886-1966), persuaded c Akif to compose a stirring
Independence March ( Istiklal marshi), which was
immediately adopted as the Turkish National
anthem. He was still concerned, also, with religious
affairs, as a member of an Islamic research committee
(Tedkikal we tedifat-i islamiyye endfimeni) in the Ministry
of Sharia and Ewkaf. But as a devout Muslim and con¬
vinced Pan-1 slamist, he became increasingly con¬
cerned about the trend of events after the Nationalist
triumph, with the abolition of the caliphate in March
1924, the abolition of the office of Sheykh iil-Islam, of
the Ministry of SharTa and Ewkaf , and of the Sharing
itself, and of the closing of all the madrasas in the
spring of 1924. Unlike the ideologist of Pan-Turkism,
Diya 3 (Ziya) Gok Alp [q.v.], c Akif was unable to
adjust his ideas to the new, secularist Nationalist
ideals, for he had still hoped that the new Turkey
could be the focus of Pan-Islamic aspirations.

In the 1923 elections, he did not get a seat in the
GNA, and at the age of 50 was jobless and virtually
pensionless. Hence in October of that year, he left for
Egypt to stay with an old friend, the Egyptian Prince
c Abbas Halim (d. 1934), and in 1925 settled there,
teaching Turkish in Cairo, but by now, as a disap¬
pointed man, producing little of his own literary
work. He returned to Istanbul after eleven years, a
sick man, and died there on 27 December 1936.

Already as a student, c Akif had been a voracious
reader of the Islamic classics, with a particular love for
the poetry of Fudull, Ibn Farid and above all Sa c dT.
and also of French Romantic literature. He published
Turkish translations of the Persian classics in the
Therwet-i Fiinun from 1898 onwards, and his own
poetry in the Resimli Gazete from 1896 onwards. After
1904, he seems really to have found his artistic feet,
and he began to write poetry on social themes, show¬
ing a sympathy with the depressed classes of society,

986

MEHMED C AKIF — MEHMED EMIN

but was unable to publish these in the period of the
Hamldian censorship, until the Revolution of July
1908 opened the floodgates for publication. c Akif and
his friend Eshref Edib began to publish the Slrat-l
Mustakim , a conservative journal concentrating on
religious and social topics; this periodical soon began
to have a wide circulation amongst the Turkish
peoples outside the Ottoman lands, including in
Russia, and later changed its name to the Sebtl ur-
Reshad. At the same time as he put forward his ideas
of Pan-Islamism, he also acquired an interest in
Islamic modernism, studying the works of Muham¬
mad c Abduh and of Djamal al-Dln al-Afghani [ 9 . 00 .].
The popularity of new ideas, such as Pan-Turkism
and Pan-Turanianism, Ottomanism and Westernism,
in the ferment of ideas preceding the First World
War, forced him to rethink and clarify his own prin¬
ciples; but he never compromised his view that the
unity of Islam came before separate nationalisms.

From 1911 onwards, he began publishing collec¬
tions of his poetry as Safahat (“Phases”), with a total
of seven volumes, the last, entitled Golgeler
(“Shadows”) containing his work done during the
years 1918-33. In these collections, he used a simple
Turkish style, and often dwelt on such themes as the
present state and future destiny of Islam and on con¬
temporary events. In Safahat , v, Khatlralar
(“Memories”) (1335/1917), he attacked “wester-
nisers” and “progressives” who slavishly imitated
everything, good or bad, drawn from the West, and
especially the poet Tewffk Fikret (d. 1915), whose
atheistic poem Ta^nkh-i kadim (“Ancient history”) he
regarded as corrupting Turkish youth. c Akif also
engaged in translating the Kurban into Turkish, and
this remains a controversial episode in his life. The
successor to the Ministry of Sharia, the Directorate of
Religious Affairs ( Diyanet Ishleri Riyaseti) decided to
commission a new translation of and commentary on
the Kur’an. c Akif was persuaded, with some misgiv¬
ings connected with his firm belief in the basic
untranslatability of the Holy Book, to undertake the
actual translation, but after spending several years of
his stay in Egypt at the task, retracted what he had
written, fearing that his translation might be used as
part of Ataturk’s Turkicisation plans in religious mat¬
ters; the eventual fate of his translation remains a
mystery to this day.

Mehmed c Akif was thus an enthusiastic Muslim but
not a fanatic, a conservative in politics who never¬
theless openly proclaimed his detestation of c Abd ul-
Hamld II and Mehemmed VI and who joined the
Nationalist cause; nor did his conservative inclina¬
tions prevent him from appreciating Western
literature and even Western classical music.

Bibliography: Suleyman Nazlf, Mehmed Q Akif,
Istanbul 1924; ibniilemin M. K. Inal, Son asir tiirk
sairleri, Istanbul 1931, 91 ff.; M. C. Kuntay,
Mehmet Akif, Istanbul 1939; Esref Edib, Mehmed
Akif, 2 vols., Istanbul 1938-9, 2nd edn. 1962; F. A.
Tansel, Mehmed Akif, hayati ve eserleri 2 , Istanbul
1973; Fahir Iz, Mehmed Akif Ersoy, a biography, in
Turkish Studies: Continuity and Change , no. 1, Bogazigi
University, Istanbul 1987. The Introd. by Omer
Riza Dogrul ( c AkiPs son-in-law) to the roman
script edn. of the Safahat contains biographical notes
of the poet left to his friend Nevzad Ayas, see 10th
edn., ed. Ertugrul Diizdag, Istanbul 1975, pp. XI-
XXII, c Akifs private letters to Mahir iz, his stu¬
dent and friend, and Mahir Iz’s oral communica¬
tions to the author. Esref Edib’s book contains
almost complete bibliographical data on c AkiPs
poems, articles, translations, etc. (Fahir Iz)

MEHMED C ALI PASHA [see MUHAMMAD C ALI
pasha].

MEHMED c ASH IK [see c ash!k]._

MEHMED B A GH CESARAYI . surnamed
ThanaT (d. after 13 Sha c ban 1061/1 August 1651),
Crimean Tatar author of the history of Khan
Islam Giray HI from his arrival in Kaffa and his
enthronement in Baghcesarayi (1 and 5 Djumada I
1054/6 and 10 July 1644 respectively) until the spring
of 1651.

He had been formerly munshi-yi dlwdn-i khakani at
the khan’s court; the excellent Turkish of his work
may be a proof that he was educated in Istanbul and
was responsible for the khan’s correspondence with
the Ottoman court. Charged by Sefer Ghazi Agha
with the task of compiling the history of the khan’s
successful rule, he created a panegyric adorned with
his own Turkish and Persian verses, founded in the
historical part on the diaries of the three Tatar-
Cossack expeditions against Poland of 1648-9 and
other materials given him presumably by this vizier.
It was finished on 1 August 1651, but the author did
not mention even the preparations for a new Tatar
expedition against Poland which ended with the
khan’s and his Cossack allies’ defeat at Beresteczko,
28-30 June of the same year. The information about
the very origins of Islam Giray Ill’s alliance with B.
Chmielnicki of 1648 is rather unsatisfactory. The
diaries of the expeditions of 1648-9 are additionally
important sources of the now forgotten Turkic
toponyms, as much in the Crimea as in the steppes
and in the Ukraine. This work, hitherto not men¬
tioned in the history of the Crimean Tatar literature,
throws a new light on the culture of the khanate of
Crimea and on Khan Islam Giray Ill’s political and
cultural aspirations. It is preserved only in a copy
from 1092/1681, now in the British Library.

Bibliography: Ch. Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish
Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1888, 250-
1; Babinger, Geschichtsschreiber , 236, no. 206 (who
erroneously takes this work for a copy of the Ta?nkh
by Mehmed Giray); Hadzy Mehmed Senai z
Krymu, Historia chana Islam Gereja III. Tekst turecki
wydal, przelozyl i opracowat Zygmunt
Abrahamowicz. Uzupelniajacy komentarz
historyezny: Olgierd Gorka i Zbigniew Wojcik
[“HadjdjT Mehmed Thana 3 ! of Crimea, The
history of Khan Islam Giray III. Turkish text pub¬
lished, translated and commented by Z.
Abrahamowicz. Additional historical annotations
by O. Gorka and Z. Wojcik”], Warsaw 1971.

(Z. Abrahamowicz)

MEHMED BALTADJI [see mehmed pasha

BALTADJI].

MEHMED CELEBI [see ghazalL mehmed],
MEHMED EMIN, in modern Turkish Mehmet
Emin Yurdakul (1869-1944), Turkish poet and
patriot, the pioneer of modern Turkish poetry in
spoken Turkish and syllabic metre. He was born in
the Beshiktash district of Istanbul on 13 May 1869.
The family originated from Zekeriyya Koyii, a village
near Lake Terkos, in Eastern Thrace, some 30 miles
north-west of Istanbul. His grandfather Halim A gh a
was a trawler owner. His father Salih Agha, later
called Salih ReTs (Captain) when he owned a large
trawler rowed by several men, was an illiterate fisher¬
man and his mother a peasant woman from a village
near Edirne. They both possessed a rich store of oral
folk literature which they transmitted to their son.
Mehmed Emm attended a primary school and the
military secondary school {rushdiyye-yi c askenyye) in
Beshiktash, then registered at a civilian Lycee ( Hdadi)

MEHMED EMIN 987

which he did not finish. He continued his education,
as was still possible at that time, by serving, without
pay, in the chancery of the office of the grand vizierate
(i Sadaret Ewrak Kalemi). In 1888 he married Muzeyyen
Khanfm, from a notable family of Kara-Hisar-f
SharkI (modern §ebinkarahisar), in north-eastern
Anatolia, which he visited several times, sometimes
for long periods and where he enriched his observa¬
tions on the plight of the Anatolian peasantry. In 1889
he registered at the School of Law ( Mekteb-i hukuk )
which he abandoned two years later for an oppor¬
tunity of studying further in America, which did not
however materialise. While still a student in the Law
School, he published his first book (see below) and
sent a copy to the grand vizier Djewad Pasha [q.v. ],
on whose recommendation he was appointed (1890) as
a clerk of the secretariat of the Custom’s office
(Riisumal emaneti tahrirat kalemi). Two years later he
became director of the archives ( ewrak miidiri) of the
same office, where he remained for 15 years. In 1907,
he became a member of the secret revolutionary Com¬
mittee of Union and Progress (CUP [sec ittihad we
terakk! djem c iyyetiJ). The same year, he was sent to
Erzurum, in Eastern Anatolia, as superintendent of
the customs (riisumal ndziri) which, under the Hami-
dian regime, amounted to political exile. The Sultan
had become suspicious of his choice of subjects in his
poems, particularly his insistence on the poor (see
below).

After the restoration of the Constitution in July
1908, he was transferred to Trabzon with the same
office. After a short service as counsellor at the
Ministry of Marine and as governor (wall) of the
Hidjaz (1909) and Sivas (1910), he resigned and
joined in Istanbul the Turkist movement (see B.
Lewis, Emergence 2 , 343-52 and turkdjuluk) and was
made president of the Turkish Hearth [see Turk
opjAGHi] in 1911. He soon set up another Turkist
association, the Turk Yurdu (“Turkish Home”). As he
was preparing to publish the organ of the association,
with the same name, which later became famous as
the organ of the Turkish Hearths [see Turk yurdu],
he was appointed governor of Erzurum. In the mean¬
time, he expressed, in many writings, his disappoint¬
ment with the CUP and his disagreement with many
arbitrary and despotic actions of the administration.
He was retired from Government service in 1912.
Elected deputy for Mawsil (Mosul), he settled in
Istanbul and continued his literary and patriotic
activities. He witnessed the collapse of the Empire and
the occupation of Istanbul by the Allies. He joined the
Nationalist government of Ankara in April 1921,
which sent him on a special mission to Antalya and
Adana where he stayed until the end of the War of
Liberation, when he went to Izmir to join Mustafa
Kemal Pasha (Atatiirk [q.v.]) with whom he returned
to Ankara (September 1922). He was elected deputy
for Shark! Karahisar. Later, he continued to serve in
Parliament as deputy for Urfa and Istanbul. He died
in Istanbul on 14 January 1944. During the last years
of his life, he had been collaborating with the Turkish
Historical Society in Ankara (to which he donated all
his personal archives) to prepare a revised and critical
edition of his complete works (see Bibl.).

Mehmed Emm who, following the law on sur¬
names, took in 1934 the family name of Yurdakul
(“slave of the fatherland”), was known in his lifetime
as Millisha c ir or Turk shdHri Mehmed Emin (“Mehmed
Emin, the national poet or Turkish poet par
excellence ”), as he consistently wrote in the spoken
Turkish of ordinary people and used exclusively the
syllabic metre of folk poets as opposed to the Arabo-

Persian prosody ( c arud) of both old and most modern
poets of his day [see bolukbashi, rida tewfIk, in
Suppl.] and devoted all his literary work to his coun¬
try and its people, their plight, their misfortunes and
their glories, completely leaving out his own per¬
sonality and private life. He published his first book
(a short essay), while a law student in 1308
A.H./1891, Fadilet we asalet (“Virtue and nobility)”,
in which he claims that real virtue and nobility are not
necessarily hereditary but are rather obtained by a
person’s talent, diligence and spiritual maturity. As
was customary at the time, he sent the draft to several
literary authorities, who all wrote complimentary
(akrizs (presentation pieces) which were printed with
the book. Mehmed Emin’s first published poem Koyde
firtina (“Storm in the village”) appeared in Resimli
Ghazete of 5 October 1311 A.H./17 October 1895,
which was confiscated before distribution
(Akcuraoghlu Yusuf, Tiirk yill , Istanbul 1928, 387,
where the date is wrongly given as 1903); it was
reprinted in Muktebes, no. 10, 1317 A.H./1900. This
remarkable poem, with its social implications and
which contains most of the characteristics of his later
poems, with typical language, style and content, was
written as the height of the famous westernist Therwet-i
Fiinun [qv.] literary movement, which was
linguistically conservative to the degree of preciosity
and which disdained the “finger counting” (parmak
hisabi) metre of the “ignorant bards”. Although
almost all the sources, including the poet himself,
assert otherwise, it seems chronologically probable
that the young poet read this particular poem to
Djamal al-Dln al-Afghan! [q.v.], who recommended
him to continue (see below). Several poems of the
same type, published in various periodicals, including
in the Therwet-i Fiinun itself, immediately before and
during the April-September 1897 war with Greece,
particularly the one called Anadoludan bir ses yakhud
djenge giderken (“A voice from Anatolia, or Going to
war”) published previously but in the same year in
the newspaper c Asir (“Century”) in Salonica, made a
sensation in Turkey, among the Muslim Turks in
Russia and among orientalists abroad (see Bibl. ; for a
correct text of this poem, see Nuzhet Hashim, Milli
edebiyyata doghru , Istanbul 1918, 6).

Although there was a long but often ignored tradi¬
tion of simple, straightforward Turkish prose (see
Fahir Iz, Ottoman and Turkish , in Essays in Islamic
civilisation presented to Niyazi Berkes, ed. D. P. Little,
Leiden 1976, 118-39), a similar but occasional move¬
ment to write simple, pure, common or exclusive
Turkish (basil, sdde, kaba, slrf, yalniz tiirk^e) verse
always existed also (for a detailed discussion of this
subject, see Koprulii-zade Mehmed Fu 5 ad, Milli
edebiyyat djereyanimn ilk mubeshshirleri we diwan-i tiirki-yi
basil , Istanbul 1928, Roman script edition in Edebiyat
araslirmalan , published by T.T.K., Ankara 1966,
271-315). The Tanzimat writers claimed that simple,
everyday Turkish was necessary to communicate with
the public, but did not apply their principle except in
a few pieces. The revolutionary and journalist c AlI
Su c awl q.v.] and the publicist and novelist Ahmed
Midhat q. v. did write a remarkably simple language,
and their associates gave occasional examples of sim¬
ple Turkish verse. But as the famous lexicographer
and writer Shems el-Dln Sam! [q.v.], who was the
most conscious and advanced of them, admitted in an
article, greeting the publication of Mehmed Emm’s
first book of poems Tiirkdje shi c rler (“Poems in
Turkish”) (see below), “...although they (the Tan-
zimat writers) talked and wished to write in simple
Turkish, it was Mehmed Emm who carried it out, and

988

MEHMED EMIN

this book was the foundation stone of future Turkish
literature” (Sabah, 1 March 1313 Rumi/ 13 March
1899). The British orientalist E.J.YV. Gibb con¬
gratulated Mehmed Emin warmly in a letter in
Turkish of 6 June 1899, in which he said The
Turk has found his natural voice... your predecessors
imitated the Persians and the Freneh. You expressed
the feeling of your countrymen in their own
language... Six centuries have been waiting for you”
(the original letter is in the Mehmed Emin Archives,
in the Turkish Historical Society, Ankara). Like the
sporadic examples in the diwans of the 18th century
poets Nedlm [ q. v. ] and Ghalib Dede \q. v. ] and in most
of the 19th century poets, there seems to be a latent
desire to express themselves occasionally in everyday
Turkish and sometimes in syllabic metre. These
examples seem to multiply particularly in the works of
minor poets during the last decades of the century [see
Turks, literature]. However, as Shems el-Din Sami
points out in the above-mentioned article, Mehmed
Emin’s work was not a random experiment. It was the
beginning of a conscientious, systematic and lasting
movement. So much so that his colleague and
biographer Akcurao gh lu Yusuf [see yusuf, akCura]
says that A voice from Anatolia can be called the
manifesto of linguistic Turkism (Akcuraoghlu, op.
cit., 391). This current was enriched with the deeply
felt lyricism and more inspired poems of Rida Tewfik
(Bolukbashi), who, during the ensuing violent con¬
troversy between the partisans of simple Turkish and
those who supported the fashionable Mischsprache of
the leading poets and writers, became his most
enthusiastic defender (see Niizhet Hashim, op. cit., 7-
10; Akcurao gh lu. op. cit., 387-91). This “simple
Turkish” movement spread to the provinces and was
supported by several minor writers, including
Mehmed Nedjlb (see Tahir Alangu, Omer Seyfettin,
Istanbul 1968, passim) who had launched a similar
movement independently in Izmir, culminated in
April 1911, in Salonica, with the “New language”
(Yehi lisan) movement of c Omer Seyf el-Din [q.v. ]
which Diya 5 (Ziya) Gokalp [q. v. ] espoused and prop¬
agated among young poets and writers, setting up a
new literary current, the “National literature” (milli
edebiyyat dfereyam) [see Turks, literature]. Mehmed
Emin candidly admits his association with Djamal al-
Dln al-Afghanl and the latter’s influence on the
development of his ideas. The standard biographies of
the Shaykh are usually silent on his unofficial Turkish
connections (see, e.g., Nikki R. Keddie, SayyidJamal
ad-Din “al-Afghani ', a political biography , Berkeley,
1972). But this influence has been much exaggerated
by later biographers and critics. In the early years of
al-Afghanl’s second sojourn in Istanbul (July 1892-
March 1897), Mehmed Emin, then in his mid¬
twenties, was one of the many young intellectuals—
Turks, Persians and Arabs—who flocked twice a week
to the Mansion (koshk) in Nishantashi, not far from
the Imperial Palace, which the Sultan c Abd uI-Hamld
II assigned to him, giving also a monthly allowance.
Mehmed c Akif [g.y.], M. Shems el-Din (Gunaltay)
[see shems el-dTn] and Mehmed Emin were among
the more assiduous Turks. It is reported in most
Turkish sources (see Bibl.) and summarised by his
close friend Akcurao gh lu (op. cit., 374 ff. and passim)
and the noted educationist Isma c Il Hakkf
Baltadjioghlu [see isma c Il hakki in Suppl.], who
interviewed the poet six months before his death (i.
H. Baltaci-oglu, Mehmet Emin Yurdakul He konustum, in
Yeni Adam, no. 452 [26 August 1943], Istanbul) and
repeated by many later authors including Ulug
Igdemir, F.A. Tansel and Kenan Akyuz (see Bibl.),

that al-Afghanl told his young circle of friends that the
writers of the individual Muslim countries should
write with the simple vernacular of their people in
order to alert them against despotism, social evils and
foreign domination and that he (Mehmed Emin), like
most young men who frequented al-Afghanl’s house,
owed much to his illuminating conversation and to his
constant encouragement. He adds, however, “I was
mainly inspired by my own God on my own Mount
Sinai and transferred my revelations to my works”
(for al-Afghanl’s second sojourn in Turkey, see Ked¬
die, op. cit., ch. “The final years 1892-1897: Istan¬
bul”). The circumstances of the last three years of al-
Afghanl’s life (he died of cancer of the jaw, after a
long illness and three operations, on 9 March 1897)
make the close relationship, reported in the sources,
during the period when Mehmed Emin wrote his most
famous poems (April-September 1897), chronologi¬
cally impossible. It seems that a legend, based on a
confusion by the poet, has survived until the present
day.

Strictly speaking, Mehmed Emin had no literary
masters or followers. The movement which he had
started, and which was sincerely defended by Rida
Tewllk, was followed up by the latter and by the next
generation, in a new style and inspiration more akin
to the technique and spirit of the traditional folk ( saz ,
c ashik) and popular mystic (derwish) poetry. His own
work is to-day appreciated more for its historico-
literary importance than its intrinsic value.

Mehmed Emin is the author of the following major
works:

1. Tiirkdje shTrler (“Poems in Turkish”) Istanbul 1316
A.H./1898;

2. Turk sazi (“Turkish saz”), Istanbul 1330
rumi/ 1914, contains 191 poems written between
1898 and 1914, most of them published previously
in different periodicals. Two of them are taken
from the preceding. The majority of the poems
dwell upon social problems. Some are inspired by
the Pan-Turkist movement of the second decade of
the century.

The following three works contain patriotic poems
written during the First World War:

3. Ey Turk uyan (“Turk, wake up), Istanbul 1330
rumi/ 1914;

4. Tan sesleri (“Voices of dawn”), Istanbul 1331
rumi/ 1915; and

5. Ordunuh destani (“The epic of the army”), Istanbul
1334 ri7mf/1918.

6 . Turana d ogh ru (“Towards Turan”), poems written
during the last years of the First World War and
inspired by Pan-Turanism.

The following two works contain his poems written
during the War of Liberation (1919-22):

7. Aydin kizlari (“The daughters of Aydin”), Ankara
1921, 3rd edn. as Mustafa Kemal, Istanbul 1928;
and

8 . Ankara , Istanbul 1939.

Mehmed Emin’s other poems, published in various
periodicals but not included in his books, have been
collected in F.A. Tansel (see Bibl.).

Bibliography: In addition to references given in
the article, see Kopriilu-zade Mehmed Fu^ad,
Mehmed Emin Beg, in Newsal-i Milli, Istanbul 1330
rumi/ 1914, 159-61; Rushen Eshref, Diyorlarki, Istan¬
bul 1918, 157-67 and passim; RldaTewlIk, Emin Beg
we Emin Beg tiirkdjesi, in Turk Yurdu, i/4 (1912); Ulug
igdemir, Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, in Ayhk Ansiklopedi ,
no. 10 (February 1945), 321-3; Ahmet Ihsan, Mat-
buat hatiralanm , i, Istanbul 1930, 10 ff.; Kenan
Akyuz, Bati tesirinde Turk siiri antolojisT, Ankara

MEHMED EMIN — MEHMED HAKIM EFENDI

989

1970, 499-533; Agah Sirri Levend, Turk dilinde
gelisme ve sadelesme evrelert’ Ankara 1972, index; B.
Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey 2 , Oxford 1968;
Hilmi Ziya Ulken, Turkiye’de (cagday duyiince lari hi -,
Istanbul 1979, index; Fevziye Abdullah Tansel,
Mehmed Emin Yurdakul’un eserleri. I. §iirler , T.T.K.
Ankara 1969 (based on two files, prepared by the
poet himself, in collaboration with Ulug Igdemir of
the Turkish Historical Society; contains M.E. ’s col¬
lected works in verse with his own corrections and
alterations. A promised second volume, which
should contain a detailed biography, his prose
writings and his translations, has not yet
[November 1984] been published); for al-Afghanl’s
Turkish connections, see Osman Ergin, Turkiye
maarif tarihi, Istanbul 1939, passim; Osman
Keskioglu, Cemaleddin Ejgani , in ilahiyat Fakiiltesi
Dergisi, x (1962), 91-102; Niyazi Berkes, The
development of secularism in Turkey , Montreal 1964,
index; for translations from M.E.’s works into
foreign languages, see O. Spies, Die moderne tiirkische
Literalur, in Handbuch der Orientalistik, v/1, Leiden
1963, 360 ff. (Fahir iz)

MEHMED ES C AD [ see ES C AD EFENDI ; GHALIB
dede].

MEHMED GIRAY, DerwIsh Mehmed Giray b.
Miibarek Giray CingizI, member of the Crimean
Giray dynasty, probably a brother of Khan

Murad Giray (1678-83) and historian. His chroni¬
cle, Ta^rtkh-i Mehmed Giray , preserved in the unique
ms. H.O. 86, Austrian National Library, Vienna
(Flugel, Catalogue , ii, 277-8), deals with Ottoman and
Crimean history from 1094/1682 to 1115/1703, from
Kara Mustafa’s unsuccessful Viennese campaign to
Sultan Ahmed Ill’s accession to the throne, covering
the reigns of the Crimean khans from Murad Giray to
Selim I Giray (third reign, 1702-4); it was finished in
Radjab 1115/Nov.-Dec. 1703. Written in clumsy
Ottoman Turkish and being of narrow scope, it
nevertheless offers an interesting view of Ottoman
history in a critical phase by a Crimean prince; some
passages, describing events in which the author took
part, have the value of a primary source.

Bibliography : Von Hammer, GOR, vi, p. VI,
ix, 206-7; idem, Geschichte der Chane der Krim unter
osmanischer Herrschaft, Vienna 1856, 9; Babinger,
GOW, 235-6; Z. Abrahamowicz, Kara Mustafa pod
IViedniem, Cracow 1973; M. Kohbach, Der Tarih-i
Mehemmed Giray—eine osmanische Quelle zur Belagerung
Wiens durch die Tiirken im Jahre 1683 , in Studia Austro-
Polonica , iii, Warsaw-Cracow 1983, 137-64.

(M. Kohbach)

MEHMED GIRAY I, khan of the Crimea from
Dhu THidjdja 920/Feb. 1515 to Dhu ’I-Hidjdja
929/October-November 1523.

He was the eldest son, heir-apparent (ka lgh ay [q. v. ]),
and successor of MenglT Giray 1. According to Gilbin-
i khdnan , Istanbul 1287/1870, 11, the title kalghay goes
back to MenglT Giray I, who appointed Mehmed
Giray as his deputy. The relationship between the
Crimean khanate and the Ottoman Empire was at
that time still largely a corollary of the relationship
between their respective rulers. Mehmed Giray
remained khan until his death, although he was an
inveterate opponent of his sovereign, Sultan Selim I
[q.V- ], who was distracted by his wars against Persia
and the Mamluks. The rising Muscovite state under
the Grand Prince Vasiliy III (1505-33) had created a
new power among the heirs of the Golden Horde.
Mehmed Giray reacted by alternately allying himself
with Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy, and by interfer¬
ing in the dynastic affairs of Kazan and Astrakhan

q.vv. ]. He also tried to dominate the nomadic Nogay
q. v. ] tribes of the region. In 1521 he refused Sultan
Siilayman KanunI’s [q v. \ order to join him in a cam¬
paign against Hungary, and instead, led a great
expedition against Muscovy, which so far had been on
friendly terms with the Ottomans. Mehmed Giray’s
lifelong struggle for a new steppe empire remained
without lasting success. He was temporarily able to
impose the Crimean claim to the throne of Kazan
through his own brother (1521), but lost his life in a
plot which he had devised to chase the Muscovite can¬
didate from the throne of Astrakhan (1523). Aban¬
doned by the Crimean nobility, whom he had
alienated by his ruthlessness, disloyalty and dissolute
life, he was massacred by his Nogay allies.

Bibliography : The main source for Mehmed
Giray 1 is A. Bennigsen et alii (eds.), Le Khanat de
Crimee dans les Archives du Musee du Palais de Topkapt,
Paris 1978, with further references; V. D. Smirnov,
Krymskoe khanstvo pod verkhovenstvom otomanskoy porfi
do nacala XVIII veka , St. Petersburg 1887; S. M.
Solov’ev, Istoriya Rossii s dreuneyshikh vremen, iii,
Moscow 1960, s.v. Magmet-Girej , based on N. M.
Karamzin’s history of the Russian Empire.

(B. Kellner-Heinkele)

MEHMED HAKIM EFENDI, 18th century
Ottoman literary personality, statesman and
official court chronicler (wak c a-nuwis).

Born in Istanbul, his father was seyyid Khalil
Efendi, known as “Emir Celebi the knife-maker
(b“icakdjiy\ Mehmed pursued his education under
well-known scholars such as Yanyafi Es c ad Khodja
and Bursali Isma c Il Hakki, received a certificate of
competence in calligraphy from Suyoldju-zade Nedjlb
Efendi, author of the Dewhat al-kiittdb y spent some fif¬
teen years in Egypt and became an adept of Seza 5 I
Hasan Efendi, founder of the Seza 5 ! branch of the
Giilshenl mystical order (tarikat). Despite having com¬
pleted a very specialised training, Mehmed decided to
forego a career in the theological field and instead
filled successive positions as trainee (khalife) in the
secretarial bureau of the Grand Vizierate, beginning
in 1155/1742 as assistant to the chief at the Arsenal
(tersane), followed in quicker succession by posts such
as bureau chief in the treasury department of imperial
estates ( khasslar mukata^adfis’i) in 1164/1753, chief
secretary of the regiment of the armourers ( dfebedfiler
kalibi) in 1 172/1759, chief secretary of the cavalry
regiments (sipahiler kalibi) in 1174/1761, and a second
appointment as djebedjiler kalibi in 1176/1763.

In addition to these secretarial positions in the
departments of the treasury, Hakim was appointed
official court chronicler ( wak c a-nuwis) from 1 Redjeb
1166/4 May 1753, when this position was vacated
through the incumbent c IzzI Suleyman Efendi’s
resignation prior to his performing the pilgrimage to
Mecca. Hakim strove to record all the events from the
date of his appointment in 1753 until his resignation
in mid-1180/October-November 1766. Four years
later, on the night of Re gh a 3 ib 1184/25-6 October
1770, he died and was buried in the cemetery of
Ayrifik fleshmesi in Haydar Pasha (see B.
Kutiikoglu, Muvernh Vdsif’in kaynaklarindan Hakim
tarihi , in Tarih Dergisi, v /8 [1953], 70 ff.).

Mehmed Hakim’s command of both Arabic and
Persian and his ability of composing poetical and
other literary works was recognised by his contem¬
poraries (see the lists of his works in Bursali Mehmed
Tahir, < 'Othmanh muPellifleri , Istanbul 1333, ii, 142,
and Kutiikoglu, op. cit. , 74-5. See also Ruhi-i BaghdadI
lerkib-i bendine nazire , 1st. Univ. Libr. Ibniilemin 3352,
fols. I00b-l05a; the Nafhat al-dhat wa 7 -sifat, a com-

990 MEHMED HAKIM EFENDI — MEHMED KHALIFE b. HUSEYN

mentary in verse on one of c Attar’s mystical works,
Millet, Emiri manzum 940 (the autograph copy); and
the MTrddjiyye, Cambridge Or. 1268, and
Siileymaniye, Haci Mahmud Efendi 4477. For two
collective works (medjmu c a) containing poetical works
and treatises in Hakim’s own hand, see ibnulemin
3144 and Siileymaniye, Esad Ef. 3495); but it is
nonetheless chiefly through his history writing as
official court historian that Hakim gained his literary
fame. In this, written in a very ornate style and
ponderous language, Hakim gives special emphasis to
events in the capital and the palace, in particular, to
audiences with the sultan, court protocol, appoint¬
ments and dismissals, natural disasters such as fires
and earthquakes experienced in the capital and
reconstruction efforts after these disasters; but, albeit
infrequently, he also touches on developments in the
provinces, news of which reached the palace, and
reports the content of texts submitted by Ottoman
ambassadors on their return from foreign
assignments.

Portions of Hakim’s history are preserved in the
form of final revisions in the author’s own hand
itebyid) in several different locations. The events of
1166-79 are covered in the fourth revision now found
in the ibnulemin collection (ms. 2472), while the fifth
revision of vol. i covering the years 1166-70 is pre¬
served in the library of the Istanbul Archaeological
Museum (ms. 483). A continuation in rough draft
form covering the years 1171-6 is also found in the
same collection (ms. 484). A complete set of volumes
covering the entire period from Muharrem 1166 to
Djumada I 1180/November 1752—October 1766 is
found in Topkapi Sarayi, Bagdad Ko^kii 231 and 233
(fols. la-248b; autograph copy). For a description of
the Marburg ms. covering the events of 1166-70, see
B. Flemming, Tiirkische Handschriften, Wiesbaden
1968, i, 150 ff., and for a description of the Uppsala
ms., see C.J. Tornberg, Codices..., Uppsala 1849,
199.

One of Hakim’s successors as wak c a-nuvis , Ahmed
Wasif [gu;.], strongly criticised Mefimed’s work,
accusing him of failure to concern himself with ques¬
tions of historical causation and the consequences of
events through limiting his coverage only to palace
events; he branded his style as “careless” and overly
ornate, and his historical sense as lacking in both
truthfulness and reliability and precision. When
Wasif was commissioned in 1216-17/1802 to rewrite
the events of the period falling between the wak^a-
niiwis c Izzi and Enwerl, he considered that by reduc¬
ing Hakim’s history, whose style he found repellent,
to a simple index of events, he had created a new work
which could be easily utilised by everybody. How¬
ever, on comparison of the works, sc. Hakim’s
chronicle and the section of Wasif’s Mahasin al-athar
which bases itself upon it (ed. Istanbul, i, 10-280), it
becomes clear that Wasif s abbreviated version does
not provide additional clarification and a wider scope
of events, and his over-hasty attempts at simplifying
Hakim resulted in loss of useful content and at times
even in inexactitude and incompleteness; as a result of
this, his index of events was not entirely successful in
its aim of being universally understandable. It should
be further noted that some of the stylistic shortcom¬
ings in Hakim’s history were an inescapable conse¬
quence of the limitations imposed by his position as
court chronicler (see Kutukoglu, art. cit. in TD, vi/9
[1954], 91-122, vii/10 [1954], 79-102).

Bibliography : Basbakanlik Arsivi, Kepeci Tas.,

Ruus defteri, no. 261-6/61; Mustaklmzade Sa c d el-

DTn (Hakim’s disciple), Tuhfe-yi khattatin, Istanbul

1928, 408; Hiiseyin Ramiz, Adab-i zurefa 5 , Esad Ef.

3873, fols. 23a-24a, and Emiri, tarih 762, pp. 66-7;

Shem c danl-zade Suleyman, MurH al-tewarikh, ed.

M. Aktepe, i, 1976, 172, 179, iiA, 1978, 57;

Silahdar-zade Mehmed Emin, Tedhkire , 1st. Univ.

TY 2557, fol. lib; c Abd al-Fettah Shefkat, Tedhkire,

Emiri, tarih 770, p. 42; Mehmed Es c ad, Baghce-yi

saja-enduz, 1st. Univ., TY 2095, p. 106; c Arif

Hikmet, Tedhkire , Emiri, tarih 789, fol. 14a; Dawud

FatTn, Khatimet al-esh c ar , Istanbul 1271, 52-3.

(Bekir Kutukoglu)

MEHMED KHALIFE b. HUSEYN, Ottoman
courtier and historian who flourished under the
three sultans Murad IV, Ibrahim and Mehemmed IV
[ 9 . vv. ] (reigned 1032/1623 to 1099/1687).

From Bosnia, he came to Istanbul in 1043/1633-4
as ic-oghlan of Kodja Ken c an GurdjI Pasha and stayed
with him in the Balkans until the Pasha was in
1047/1637 appointed to lead an expedition against the
prince of Transylvania George Rakoczi [see erdel].
Returning to Istanbul, he probably entered Sultan
Ibrahim’s office for diplomatic missions as a seferli ,
and at some unknown date became a khalife at court.
He was also a poet, using the takhallus of Ulfetl; the
date of his death is unknown. See RefTk, biographical
introd. to the Ta^rikh-i Qhilmdni edition cited below;
Babinger, GOW , 209-10, no. 180.

Mehmed Khalife is best known for a chronicle of
his time that he called the Ta\ikh-i Qhilmdni because
it was written for the personnel of the Inner Palace. In
its initial form the work is a disorganised and
unsystematic personal memoir which does however
reflect the author’s own ideas and attitudes and
depicts vividly scenes of life in the Ottoman Palace of
the 11 th/17th century. The first version is represented
by an amateurishly-written manuscript that covers the
events of the year 1043-70/1633-60; it lacks its final
pages (Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, H.O. 82; for a
description, see G. Flu gel, Die arabischen, persischen und
turkischen Handschriften, ii, 271, no. 1068; for a fac¬
simile, see Bugra Atsiz, Das osmanische Reich um die
Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts nach den Chroniken des Vecihi
(1637-1660) und des Mehmed Halifa (1633-1660),
Munich 1977; on the value of this manuscript as an
historical source and its comparison with the final
recension, see B. Kutukoglu, Tarih-i GilmdnVnin ilk
redaksiyonuna ddir , in Tarih Dergisi no. 27 [1973],
21-40).

The Ta^rikh-i Qhilmdni was given a somewhat more
elevated literary form between 1070/1659-60 and
1075/1665 as corrections and additions were made to
this first recension; events were arranged in
chronological order, the text was divided into sections
and subsections ( babs and fasls), and occasionally
verses and chronograms were inserted. This last
recension comprises events from the accession of
Murad IV (1032/1623) until the Treaty of Vasvar
(1075/1664). Although it does not contain the
author’s biography and passages that reveal some of
his attitudes and concerns which are found in the first
recension, this final recension includes an epilogue
(khatime) dealing with the necessity of mildness in the
behaviour of rulers, the special qualities of Sultan
Mehemmed IV and the scholars and craftsmen
trained in the Enderun who were contemporaries of
the author.

Mehmed Khalife’s work, which presents the events
he experienced from the perspective of a functionary
of the inner Palace, was used by c AbdI Pasha and
Na c Ima (see Atsiz, op. cit. , pp. CXXVII-CXXVIII).
With its publication by Ahmed RefTk (Altinay) as
suppl. no. 11 to TOEM, nos. 78-83 = N.S. 1-6(1340-

MEHMED KHALIFE b. HUSEYN — MEHMED PASHA, BALTADJI

991

1/1921-2), based on a manuscript of the final recen¬
sion (Turk Tarih Kurumu Lib., ms. 509) it has also
become one of the sources most frequently referred to
by researchers.

Finally, Bursafi Mehmed Tahir, c Othmdnfi
muMlifleri , iii, 142, attributes to a Mehmed b.
Huseyin of Sultan Ibrahim’s time a translation of the
Persian history of C A1I b. Shihab al-Dln HamadanI,
the Dhakhirat al-muluk, at the command of the gover¬
nor of Baghdad, Derwlsh Mehmed Pasha [ q.v. ], in 10
babs, to which he added two further babs and called the
whole the Tuhfat al-ma^mun. This history must never¬
theless be by Muslih al-Dln Mustafa b. Sha c ban (d.
969/1561-2) (see Katib Celebi (HadjdjI Khalifa),
Kashf al-zunun, Istanbul 1941, i, 824, and from it, Bur¬
safi Mehmed Tahir, ii, 226), and this is strengthened
by the fact that the Dhakhirat al-muluk, as described in
the above two sources, is not a history but a treatise
on political ethics (see Storey, i, 946-7 n. 4).

Bibliography : In addition to sources mentioned

in the article, see L4 art. Mehmed Halije (Bekir

Kiitukoglu). (Bekir KutuKOGLu)

MEHMED LALA PA SH A (see mehmed pasha,
lala].

MEHMED LALEZARI [see lalezari].

MEHMED PASHA. BALTADJI, Teberdar
(1071-1124/1660-1 to 1712), Ottoman Grand
Vizier under Sultan Ahmed III [q.v.].

Born in Osmancik (Merzifon), as the son of
Turkish Muslim parents, he was able to enter the
outside service of the Sultan’s palace thanks to
patronage ( intisab ). He began his career in a
secretarial function. By favour and through the
patronage of HabeshI C A1I Agha and other birun aghas,
he entered the service of the Walide Sultan Khadldje
Tarkhan, attaining the rank of khalife in 1099/1687.
The prince Ahmed (the later Ahmed III) appointed
Mehmed as apprentice to the corps of the “Baltadjis
of the Old Saray”, where he became known as the
“beautiful muezzin” because of the musical qualities
of his voice. When in 1695 HabeshI C A1I became Ddr
al-Sa c dde Aghast to Sultan Mustafa II [q.v.], Baltadfi
Mehmed became personal scribe to his protector and
was thus admitted to the proximity of the sultan and
of Prince Ahmed. At the accession of the latter on 10
Rabl c II 1115/21 August 1703, Mehmed, with 9
years’ experience of confidential service and having
travelled all over the empire, was promoted to the
rank of Mir Akhiir, but his appointment as tahsildar of
Aleppo removed him from the palace service. The
Grand Vizier Kalayfikoz Ahmed Pasha promoted him
to the rank of vizier (8 Radjab 1116/6 September
1704) with the function of Kapudan Pasha. Already on
27 Sha c ban 1116/26 December 1704 he became
Grand Vizier (1704-6/1116-18). He had to maintain
his position against the rival faction led by Corlulu
c AlI Pasha and Newshehirli (Damad) Ibrahim Pasha
[q.vv.]. He made himself indispensable to his monarch
by playing upon the latter’s constant fear of revolt and
deposition. The Grand Vizier managed to free
himself from the supervision of financial affairs by
means of an intrigue, falsely accusing the Nishandfi
Huseyin Pasha of plotting a revolt and consequently
sending him into exile at Istankoy Island (Cos). The
Sultan for long tolerated his old familiar companion in
spite of his marked lack of ability in financial matters.

At last, the Sultan decided to replace Baltadfi
Mehmed Pasha by Corlulu C A1I Pasha (19 Muharram
1118/3 May 1706), his trusted intimate as well as a
competent statesman. The ex-Grand Vizier was
honourably exiled with the appointment as Beglerbegi
of Erzurum. In 1119/1707 he was transferred to Chios

(Ott. Sakiz [</.e.]), from which post he went to Aleppo
as Beglerbegi. In that city, the poet NabI [q.v. ] belonged
to Baltadji Mehmed Pasha’s salon.

On 14 Djumada II 1122/10 August 1710, Ahmed
111 decided to appoint his old companion as Grand
Vizier again. The latter actually took office in Istan¬
bul by 3 Sha c ban/27 September. By this time a “war
party,” which aimed at a renewal of the war against
Russia, had gained the upper hand. The intrigues to
that end were assisted by the King of Sweden, “Iron
Head” ( Demir Bash ) Charles XII, who had found
refuge in Ottoman territory since 1709. His Ottoman
ally was the Kh an of the Crimea Dawlat Giray II [see
giray] (second reign, 1120-5/1708-13) who came to
Istanbul in 1122/1710 to further his aims of war
against the Russian Tsar Peter. A Council was held
in the Sultan’s palace ( Meshweret-i c Azime of 28
Ramadan 1122/21 November 1710) and war was
declared on Russia. The new Grand Vizier was to
command the army. The so-called Pruth campaign
began in the spring of 1123/1711. The Tsar’s
diplomacy could not curb the Ottoman initiative and
the two armies marched towards each other, meeting
on 12 Djumada 11/28 July 1711 in Moldavia (Ott.
Boghdan [< 7 . 0 .]) near Khan Tepesi (= Stanilesti) on
the river Pruth, downstream on the road from Jassy
(Ott. Yash [q.v. ]). Nobody in the Russian army was
aware that Baltadji Mehmed Pasha was already close
by. The Ottomans, reinforced by a large body of
Tatars, Cossacks and Polish troops, totalling 120,000
men and 400 guns, were in perfect condition. The
Russian army (40,000 infantry, 14,000 horse and 122
guns) had been suffering from lack of food and forage
for three weeks. The support promised in a secret
treaty concluded in view of the Russo-Turkish war by
the prince of Moldavia Demetrius Cantemir (1673-
1723) was not delivered, for the crops had failed as a
result of drought and locusts. On 5 Djumada 11/21
July 1711, Baltadji Mehmed’s army completely sur¬
rounded the Russians and was preparing for the
general attack with an artillery barrage. The Tsar
Peter, who was with his army, realised that his forces
would be annihilated and decided quickly to sue for an
armistice and peace. For this move, he found support
not only from his Vice-Chancellor Peter Shafirov but
also from his wife Catherine. This lady’s involvement
probably gave rise to the historical legend that the cor¬
rupt Ottoman Grand Vizier gave in easily to the Rus¬
sian proposals, as these were accompanied by the offer
of the jewelry and the charms of the Tsarina to his
person. In any case, lacking insight into the true situa¬
tion of the two powers, Baltadfi Mehmed was too
easily content with the Russian proposals. He was
already satisfied with the retrocession of Azov (Ott.
Azak [q.v.]), the demolition of the newly-built Rus¬
sian fortresses at Taganrog, Kamenny Zaton and
along the Dniepr, the closing of the permanent Rus¬
sian embassy at the Porte, the evacuation of Polish
territory and a guarantee of non-interference in Polish
affairs. All Ottoman prisoners were to be set free and
the King of Sweden was to be allowed safe passage.
The Russian troops were provided with food for their
free retreat. A preliminary treaty of peace was hur¬
riedly agreed upon on 6 Djumada II 1123/23 July
1711 (O.S. 12 July), notwithstanding the protests of
Dawlat Giray II Kh an and the representative of
Charles XII, the Polish general Stanislas Poniatowski.
Baltadfi Mehmed Pasha seems to have been carried
away by his own unexpected success. It must be
realised, however, that the Janissaries had little
stomach for fighting in this desolate country and that
the Sipahls were always reluctant to face the costs of

992

MEHMED PASHA, BALTADJI — MEHMED PASHA, BIYIKLI

prolonged fighting. Moreover, the Grand Vizier’s
distrust of the political pressure group around the
Swedish King at Bender may have induced him to
come to terms before these could interfere on the spot.

The news of the victory and the peace was well
received at Istanbul at first. The Sultan, however,
became suspicious of his Grand Vizier when the latter
postponed his return to the capital because of pro¬
tracted negotiations with the Russians concerning the
implementation of the treaty. Indeed, the absence of
direct positive results of the peace caused a general
dissatisfaction with the Grand Vizier’s policy. The
anti-Russian party, joined by the leading c ulama 3 , was
able to gain the upper hand over those loving peace.
After the arrival of the army at Edirne the
Commander-in-Chief Baltadji Mehmed was
instructed to give up the seal of office. He was put
under arrest in the prison of the Bostandfibaslii. An
inventory of his possessions and money was ordered.
He himself was banished to the islands of Midilli and
subsequently to Limni [q.vu. ]. During his stay there,
he learned of the confiscation of all his possessions.
The Walide Sultan probably interceded to save his life,
but two main assistants in office, his kahya c Othman
Agha and his mektubcu. c Omer Efendi, were con¬
demned to death. Baltadji Mehmed Pasha died on
Limni, after a short illness, in 1124/1712-13. The
judgment of him in Ottoman historiography varies
between the accusation of high treason against Islam
and the Ottoman state and fulsome praise for a vic¬
torious Turkish commander. He seems to have been
a typical product of the seraglio culture, and accord¬
ing to A.N. Kurat, was a man of the pen rather than
a statesman, an Ottoman gentleman rather than a
Turkish warrior.

Bibliography : See L4, art. s.v. (A.N. Kurat),
with an extensive listing of sources and literature;
this article forms the basis of the present one; also
Kurat, XII. Karl’in Tirkiye’de kalisi ve bu sir alar da
Osmanli Imparatorlugu, Istanbul 1943; idem, Ekler I
(documents), Istanbul 1943; Ar$iv kilavuzu, 1- pi. V.
10 (facs. and summary of Baltadji Mehmed’s
memorandum to the Walide Sultan, 18 August
1711); Silahdar Findikfili Mehmed Agha, Nusret-
name, ed. 1. Parmaksizoglu, (2 pts.), Istanbul 1966-
9, ii (index); Voltaire, Remarques d’un seigneur
polonais [ = St. Poniatowski] sur Vhistoire de Charles
XII, roi de Suede , The Hague 1741; A.N. Kurat
(ed.), The despatches of Sir Robert Sutton, Ambassador in
Constantinople (1710-1714), London 1953 ( =

Camden Soc., 3rd Series, 78); < Ata :> , Ta^nkh-i c Ata,
Istanbul 1291-3, ii, 146-9; S c O, iv, 208 ff..: Ahmed
Refik (Altinay), Baltadfi Mehmed Pasha ve Buyiik Petru
1711-1911 , Istanbul 1327; idem, Memalik-i
c Othmaniyyede Demirbash Shari , Istanbul 1332 ( =
TOEM, Kulliyyati, i); Kurat and K. V. Zettersteen
(eds.), Tiirkische Urkunden, Uppsala-Leipzig 1938
(docs. V, VI, VII); Kurat, Prut seferi ve Bansi 1123
(1711), 2 vols., Ankara 1951-3 ( = Ankara Un. Dil-
Tarih ve Cografya Fak. Y. 8-9) (the definitive
monograph on the subject); idem, Der Pruthfeldzug
und der Pruthfrieden von 1711, in Jahrb. f. d. Gesch.
Osteuropas, x (1962), 13-66; idem (ed.), Hazine-i
birun katibi Ahmed b. Mahmud’un 1123-1711 Prut
seferine ait defteri (= ms. Preuss. Stsb. Or. Abt.
1209), in TED, iv (Ankara 1966) 261-426; D.
Cantemir, The history of the growth and decay of the
Othman Empire, London 1734-5, 2 vols. in 1, ii, 442-
5 n., 450-3; B.H. Sumner, Peter the Great and the
Ottoman Empire, Oxford 1949, 37-43; W. Theyls,
Gedenkschriflen betreffende het leeven van Karel de XII...
geduurende sijn verblijf in het Ottomannische gebied...,

Leiden 1721, i, 6-29 (Fr. tr., Memoire pour servir a
Vhistoire de Charles XII, Leiden 1722); M. Munir
Aktepe, Baltaci Mehmed Pasa’nin 1711 Prut Seferi ile
ilgili emirleri, in TED, i (Istanbul 1970), 131-70
(with corrections of Kurat 1951-3); A. K. Amt,
Baltaci Mehmet Pa$a ve Birinci Katerina, Istanbul 1946
(unscholarly work). (A. H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA. BIYiKLI , (“mous¬
tachioed”) Ottoman general and administrator,
d. 928/1521.

He seems to have been in the service of the Shehzad
Selim b. Bayazld II, at the time when the latter was
governor of Trebizond. There is evidence that he held
the post of Chief Equerry (amfr-akhdr-basfii) from the
time of the accession of Selim I, and he fought
alongside him in battles against the Shehzad Ahmed
b. Bayazld: near Bursa, where he commanded the
vanguard and his force was routed on 7 Safar 919/14
April 1513; then at the battle of Yenishehir on 24
April. The following year, he took part in the cam¬
paign of Caldiran [q.v. ] and, on his return to Tabriz,
was entrusted with the mission of storming the
stronghold of Bayburd, which had been unsuc¬
cessfully besieged since Djumada I 920/July 1514 by
an Ottoman expeditionary force. The conquest of this
fortress earned him the title, granted on 25 October,
of beg of the sandfiks of Bayburd, Trebizond, (Shebln)
Kara Hisar and Djanik. In the spring of 1515 he was
given the task of laying siege to Kemakh [q. v. ], and he
maintained a blockade on this Safawid-hcld town until
the arrival of the sultan, who took it by assault on 5
Rabl c II 921/19 May 1515. In the course of the sum¬
mer, Selim I appointed him commander-in-chief of an
army of considerable size (Ottoman troops,
volunteers and contingents from the Kurdish prin¬
cipalities) raised for the purpose of conquering
western Kurdistan, which was in revolt against the
Safawids and where the diplomatic activity of Idris
BidllsI [q.v.] had ensured that the territory would
affirm its loyalty to the Ottoman government.
Mehmed Pasha entered Amid on 10 Sha c ban 921/19
September 1515, was made beglerbeg of Diyar Bakr on
5 November, and completed the conquest of the coun¬
try by annihilating in Rabi c II 922/May 1516, at Eski
Koc Hisar, near Mardln, the last Safawid army still
present in the region, that of Kara Khan Ustadjalu.
When Selim I marched against the Mamluks,
Mehmed Pasha joined forces with him at Malatya,
fought on the left flank at the battle of Mardj Dablk
[< 7 .], then, at Aleppo, was granted authority to
undertake the conquest of the fortresses of Mardln
and Hisn Kayfa, still held by Kizilbash garrisons.
Shortly after this he took possession of Mawsil,
Kirkuk and Tawuk. Promoted to the rank of vizier,
Mehmed Pasha devoted the remainder of his period of
office to the establishment of Ottoman rule in the
Kurdish emirates of Diyar Bakr on the one hand, and
to the monitoring of the activities of Shah Isma c H on
the other. He died on 24 Muharram 928/24
December 1521 (of dysentery, cf. document E. 6102
of the Archives of Topkapi, and not in battle as
claimed by Mehmed Thiireyya) and was buried at
Amid, near the Fatih Pasha mosque of which he had
laid the foundations.

In spite of the important role which he played and
the relatively plentiful documentation concerning
him, little research has been so far done on Biyiklx
Mehmed Pasha. In any case, examination of the
sources gives the impression that, under Selim I, he
was one of the few senior Ottoman dignitaries—if not
the only one—who, entrusted with a considerable
weight of responsibility, enjoyed the unlimited eon-

MEHMED PASHA, BIYIKLI — MEHMED PASHA, ELMAS

993

fidence of the sultan and, in return, served him with
exemplary loyalty. This loyalty continued to be
asserted under the reign of Selim I’s successor, when,
as is shown by the still unpublished documents of the
Topkapi Archives, Mehmed Pasha remained, against
the advice of Suleyman and his advisers, the last sup¬
porter of all-out struggle against Kizllbash Iran, the
primary objective of the foreign policy of Selim I.

Bibliography. Sa c d al-Dln, Tadi al-lawdnkh , ii,
Istanbul 1280/1863, 235, 284, 289, 308-10, 329,
333, 339, 372; the “Journal” of Haydar Celebi, in
Ferldun Beg, Munshe^at al-selatm , i, 1274/1858,
464/479; Idris BidllsI and Abu Fadl Ibn Idris, Seltm-
name , ms. Bibliotheque Nationale, A. F. persan
235; Mehmed Thiireyya, Sidjill-i c othmdm, Istanbul
1308/1890-1, i, 445, iv, 109; M. Mehdi Ilhan,
Biytkh Mehmed Pasa’mn dogu Anadolu’daki askeri
faaliyletleri , in IX. Turk Tarih Kongresi bildirileri,
Ankara 1988, 807-17.

(J.-L. Bacque-Grammont)
MEHMED PASHA, CERKES (d. 1034/1625),
Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Educated in the palace school or Enderun \q. i». j, he
reached the rank of silahdar and left the palace with the
appointment of Beglerbegi of Damascus. In 1621 he is
mentioned as the fifth Kubbe Wezirl (Na c Ima, Ta^rikh,
Istanbul 1280, ii, 208). Upon the execution of the
Grand Vizier Kemankesh C A1I Pasha [q.v. J (14
Djumada II 1033/3 April 1624), Murad IV [q.v. ]
forced him to accept the appointment of himself as
successor. Cerkes Mehmed Pasha thus became
commander-in-chief of the army sent to suppress the
revolt of Abaza Mehmed Pasha [see abaza]. and to
reconquer Baghdad from the Persians. Passing
Konya, he failed to take Nigde from the hands of the
rebels. On 21 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 1033/3 September 1624,
near Kayseri, he found Abaza Mehmed’s troops in
position at the bridge of Karasu. In a bloody battle,
the Grand Vizier, thanks to his field artillery, was able
to defeat the rebel forces. Katib Celebi [q.v. ], being
among the corps of the silahdars, witnessed this battle
and gives a detailed description (cf. his Fedhleke , Istan¬
bul 1287, ii, 54 ff.). Pursuing Abaza’s fleeing troops,
the Grand Vizier was able to capture Abaza
Mehmed’s wife and daughter who were escorted by
Abaza’s commander from Nigde to Sivas. Having
come as far as Tercan, the Grand Vizier was met by
a mission from the rebellious Pasha of Erzurum with
the request for a pardon. Considering it as being late
in the campaigning season, Cerkes Mehmed Pasha
accepted this on the condition of a Janissary garrison
being placed in the citadel of Erzurum. Following
this, the Grand Vizier withdrew the army to Tokat for
the winter (December 1624). There he fell ill and died
on 17 RabI* II 1034/27 January 1625. His last days
are reported by the historian Pecewl Ibrahim Efendi,
who met Cerkes Mehmed in Tokat (cf. Pecewl,
Ta^rikh, Istanbul 1283, ii, 401). All Ottoman
historians agree on the just and incorruptible charac¬
ter of this old vizier, described as a plr-i nurani by
Na c Ima ( Ta\ikh , ii, 296).

Bibliography. See IA, art. s.v. (by M.C.
Baysun, of which the present article is a summary);
Von Hammer, HEO, ix, 42-5; S c O, iv, 150; A.H.
de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic ,
Leiden 1978, 76, 286. (A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA, ELMAS (1071-1109/1662-
97), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

He was born in Hosalay (formerly Mesed, to the
east of Kerempe Burnu) (Kastamonu), the son of a
shipmaster. As a young man (reputedly beautiful,
hence his surname Elmas “Diamond”), he was taken

into the service of the state by a chief inspector of the
Sultan’s treasury ( Bash Bdki Kulu), Divrigili Mehmed
Agha, who was appointed governor of Tripoli in Syria
in 1089/1677-8. From the service of the treasury,
Mehmed Pasha Elmas was soon promoted to the
palace service, to the Khdss Oda [q.v.] from where he
made quick career as Rikabdar, Silahdar in 1099/1687-
8 , Mir-i c Alem (Standard-bearer) and Khdzine Ket-
khudasi , leaving the palace service with the rank of
Beglerbegi to become Nishandfi in 1101/1698-90. Soon
afterwards he was made a vizier (Kubbe Weziri [q.v. ]).
Sultan Mustafa II (1106-15/1695-1703 [qv.])

appointed him Ka^im-makam at Istanbul on 23
Djumada II 1106/9 February 1695. During the
preparations for the campaign against the Emperor in
Hungary, the Sultan decided to make him Grand
Vizier instead of Surmeli C A1I Pasha [qv.], who was
executed (4 Shawwal 1106/18 May 1695). Mehmed
Pasha Elmas joined the three campaigns of Sultan
Mustafa II and was seen fighting at times. He distin¬
guished himself during his second campaign when on
27 Muharram 1108/26 August 1696 the Ottoman
army defeated the Na c l-Kiran Frederick Augustus,
Elector of Saxony, who had laid siege to Temeshwar
[q.v.], in the battle near the Bega River at Cenei
(Buldur Koyii Boghazl). During the campaign of
1697, he was again accompanied by the Sultan. In the
council of war held at Belgrade on 27 Muharram
1109/15 August 1697, the Grand Vizier and
Commander-in-Chief followed the advice of the
majority of his commanders who agreed with the
Vizier Kodja Dja c fer Pasha, and ordered his army to
march north across the Banat instead of following
c Amudja-zade Hiiseyn Koprulii Pasha’s [q.v. ] sugges¬
tion to go west in the direction of Peterwardein
(Waradin [^. z/. ]). While crossing the Tisza river
eastwards, the Grand Vizier’s army was surprised by
the Imperial army commanded by Prince Eugene of
Savoy, who had reached this spot by a forced march
towards nightfall on 11 September. This was near
Zenta [q.v.]. A frightful bloodbath was the result of
Prince Eugene’s immediate attack. The Turks lost
about 20,000 killed and 10,000 drowned. The Sultan,
who watched the disaster, fled. The Janissaries broke
into a mutiny and killed the Grand Vizier and many
officers of his staff.

Elmas Mehmed Pasha was a young and elegant
man of the palace (celebi), of a lively character,
intelligent and with experience in financial affairs, all
of which assets made Mustafa II select him for the
highest office. However, it seems that he did not make
himself popular with the viziers and the army. He left
behind a son, Mustafa Bey.

Bibliography: See IA, art. s.v. (C. Orhonlu),
with a listing in extenso of ms. sources and literature;
Silahdar Findikfili Mehmed Agha. Nusret-name, ed.
I. Parmaksizoglu (in simplified version with defec¬
tive transcriptions), Istanbul 1962-4, i, 177, 188,
esp. 277-300; Prinz Eugen von Savoyen 1663-1736.
[Katalog der] Ausstellung zum 300. Geburtstag 9. Oktober
bis 31 Dezember 1963, Heeresgeschichtliches
Museum, Vienna 1963, 32-7, pi. 4 (showing the
Seal (muhr-i hiimayun) lost by Elmas Mehmed Pasha
and now kept in the Vienna Museum of Military
History, Inv. N1 2533); L.F. Marsigli, Vetat
militaire de Tempire Ottoman, The Hague 1782, ii,
100-3; Von Hammer, HEO , xii, 374-424, 538-9;
Temeshwarfi C A1I, Ta\ikh-i Wak c a-ndme-yi Dj aHer
Pasha , ed. and tr. R.F. Kreutel and K. Teply, Der
Lowe von Temeschwar. Erinnerungen an Ca c fer Pascha
den Alteren, aufgezeichnet von seinem Siegelbewahrer c Ali,
Graz-Koln 1981 (= Osmanische Geschichts-

994

MEHMED PASHA, ELMAS — MEHMED PASHA, GURDJU (II)

schreiber, 10), esp. 161-270 (covering the years

1688-97); iA, art. Zenta (M. ilgurel).

(A. H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA, GURDJU, Khadim (I) (d.
1035/1626), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Of Georgian origin, he served among the white
eunuchs of the imperial harem under Sultan
Mehemmed III [q.v. ] (1003-12/1595-1603). He was
appointed Khass-Oda Basin by Sultan Ahmed I shortly
after his accession (2 Sha c ban 1012/4 January 1604).
Around RabI* II 1013/September 1604, Khadim
Mehmed Agha was given the rank of Third Vizier in
the Dlwan , but already on the 27 Rabl* 11/22
September was appointed beglerbegi of Egypt. He was
able to restore order in that province and punished the
rebels among the Ottoman regular troops (kul tPifesi).
Dismissed around Safar 1014/June 1605, he left
Egypt for Istanbul and was appointed beglerbegi of
Bosnia (Ott. Bosna [g.t>.]) as well as being put in
charge of the military government ( muhafaza ) of
Belgrade and the shores of the Danube. In $afar
1018/May 1609, upon appointment as serdar-i ekrem
(commander-in-chief) of the Grand Vizier Kuyudju
Murad Pasha [g. t>. ], he was made ka'immakam while
still at Belgrade. During the next year’s campaign,
Mehmed Pasha Gurdju was again left in charge as
kaAim-makam in the capital, in which function he con¬
tinued till the return from the Persian front of the suc¬
ceeding Grand Vizier Nasuh Pasha [q.v. ] (1 Sha c ban
1021/27 September 1612). During his tenure of this
office, he supported the granting of capitulations to
the Dutch Republic (6 July 1612). Remaining in the
rank of Third Vizier, he had enough support from the
palace to be able to refuse to be removed from Istan¬
bul by the Grand Vizier by means of an appointment
in a distant province; instead, he was ordered to reside
inside the Sultan’s palace. On 11 Shawwal 1022/24
November 1613, at the departure of the Sultan to
Edirne, he was appointed governor of Istanbul. The
next Grand Vizier, Okiiz Mehmed Pasha, made
Mehmed Pasha Gurdju Second Vizier and ka^im-
makam for the duration of the campaigning season
(Rabl c II 1024/May 1615). Later, he joined the
Khotin [q. v. ] campaign. In October 1619 he was
degraded to the rank of Third Vizier, during the
disgrace of Mere Huseyn Pasha, till July 1620. Before
the outbreak of the revolt against Sultan c Othman (7
Radjab 1031/18 May 1622), he was made military
governor of Edirne by that Sultan.

During Sultan Mustafa I’s second reign, the post of
Grand Vizier was given to Mehmed Pasha Gurdju on
15 Dhu TKa c da 1031/21 September 1622. At this
time of unrest and open revolt in the capital and in the
Anatolian provinces, the new Grand Vizier’s main
task was to restore order, in which he was moderately
successful as far as Istanbul was concerned, and this
in spite of the fact that the rebellious Abaza Mehmed
Pasha [q. v. ] was the son-in-law of Gurdju Mehmed
Pasha’s brother Huseyn Pasha. By Rabl^ I
1032/January 1623, he had been able even to have
executed some of those involved in the assassination of
c Othman II. The military rebels in the capital, at the
instigation of Mere Huseyn Pasha, sucessfully
demanded the dismissal of the Grand Vizier, allegedly
on account of his being an incompetent eunuch. He
was exiled (to Malkara [q.v. ] in Thrace?) till Dhu T
Ka c da 1032/September 1623, when after the deposi¬
tion of Mustafa I, the Grand Vizier Kemankesh Kara
C A1I Pasha [q. v. ] had both Mehmed Pasha Gurdju and
Kh alil Pasha (Kaysariyyeli) [q.v.] arrested on the
suspicion of collaborating with the rebel Abaza
Mehmed Pasha, since both viziers were personally

linked with the latter by family, intisab and tarlkat rela¬
tionships. Gurdju Mehmed Pasha was one of the
favourite targets of the satirical verse of the poet Nefii
[q.v.].

Soon the two prisoners were released again, and
Mehmed was made kd?im~makdm once more by the
Grand Vizier Cerkes Mehmed Pasha [q.v.] (April
1624). The lack of success of the seven months’ siege
of Baghdad by the Grand Vizier (Safar-Shawwal
1035/November 1625-July 1626) led the Janissary
and Sipahl soldiery at Istanbul to level once more
their suspicions of treason or incompetence against
Mehmed Pasha Gurdju (Dhu ’1-Ka c da 1035/August
1626). This time the probably unfounded accusations
led to the execution of the old statesman who, accord¬
ing to some sources, was 90 years old by this time.

Three water fountains ( ceshme ) were piously
founded by Khadim Gurdju Mehmed Pasha in the
KhalTdfilar, Khirka-vl Sherlf and Shehzade-Bashl
quarters of Istanbul. His tiirbe is at Eyyub in the
second courtyard of the great mosque.

Bibliography. See iA art. s.v. (F.Q. Derin), of
which the present article is a summary; i.H. Danis-
mend, izahli Osmanh tarihi kronolojisi , iii 2 , Istanbul
1972, 315, 320, 321, 329; A.H. de Groot, The
Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic, Leiden-
Istanbul 1978, 107, 119-24, 147, 170, 309, 313;
M.O. Bayrak, IstanbuTda gomulii me$hur adamlar
(1453-1978), Istanbul 1979, 48 (no. 33); iA art.
Nef-i (A. Karahan). (A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA. GURDJU (II) (d
1076/1666), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Having been a slave (but not an eunuch) of Kodja
Sinan Pasha [g. ], he entered the palace service,
beginning as an apprentice in the kitchen ( matbakh
emlnligi) department. By Djumada II 1023/July 1614,
he reached the rank of a djebedji basin. While on cam¬
paign with Okiiz Mehmed Pasha [q. v. ] in the East, he
was appointed cawush basdi [q. v. ] in Dhu ’1-Ka c da
1026/November 1617. In Rabi* I 1029/February 1620
he was made kafiidji, basht, in which function he par¬
ticipated in Sultan c Othman II’s Khotin campaign of
that year. His career was not affected by the political
upheavals of those years, and in Radjab 1032/May
1623 he became beglerbegi of Rumeli, the first of a long
series of provincial government posts in the Asiatic
and European parts of the empire.

Mehmed Pasha Gurdju saw a great deal of active
military service, both in the successful suppression of
revolts and in the Persian wars. Having reached
vizieral rank as beglerbegi of Damascus previously, he
was made beglerbegi of Diyarbekr in 1035/1626 and
member of the Dlwan in the next year, holding suc¬
cessive provincial appointments next to that office. He
joined Sultan Murad IV [q.v. ] during the Eriwan
campaign of 1635 and the Ba gh dad campaign of 1638
in various governmental capacities. After 3 Dhu T
Ka c da 1049/25 February 1640, he was a kubbe vezlri
once again till he fell out with the Grand Vizier
Sultanzade Semin Mehmed Pasha [q.v.] (Muharram
1055/March 1645). At the behest of the all-powerful
Dar al-se c ade Aghast Uzun Suleyman Agha, Sultan
Mehemmed IV [q.v. ] appointed the old and
debilitated Pasha, the oldest of all viziers at the time,
Grand Vizier on 11 Shawwal 1061/27 September
1651, in which function he lasted eight months and
twenty-three days. He was unable to turn the cam¬
paign in Crete in a favourable direction, and could
not dislodge the Venetian fleet from the Dardanelles.
Nor were his diplomatic efforts to reach an armistice
with Venice in any way effective. On the other hand,
he provided posts for his brothers, son and many

MEHMED PASHA, GURDJU (II) — MEHMED PASHA, KARAMANI

995

friends and relations. His dismissal followed on 13
Radjab 1062/20 June 1652. After a short stay in Yedi
Kule prison, he was allowed to live in his private
residence in the Eyyub quarter of the capital till he
managed again to secure an appointment as provin¬
cial governor successively of Temeshwar and Cyprus
(Kubrus and Buda (Budun [q.v. ]). It was prob¬

ably there that he died of old age before 1 Shawwal
1076/6 April 1666, when the news of his death
reached Istanbul, according to the historian c Abdi
Pasha ( WekdyT-name, ms. Beyazid, Umumi 5154 946).

Bibliography. See iA art. s.v. (F.Q. Derin), of
which the present article is a summary, which gives
a full indication of Ottoman sources; i.H. Uzun-
garsih, Osmanli tarihi, iii/2, Istanbul 1954, 402-4;
Na c Ima, TaMkh, Istanbul 1283, v, 168-76, 215-25.

(A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA. C IWAD, HadjdjI (el-
Hadjdj) (1085 or 1086-1156/1675-1743), Ottoman
Grand Vizier.

He was the son of a descendant of the Ewlad-i
Fatihan , one Nasr Allah, a timar holder at Jagodina.
Educated for state service (hence c iwad ), he served
with high-placed officials at Belgrade (1100/1689) and
at Djudda (1107-8/1696), during which period he
made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Having returned to
Istanbul just before the Patrona Khalil rebellion of
1730, he acted as Gumruk Emini , Commissioner of the
Istanbul customs house, on behalf of Yegen Mehmed
Efendi (Pasha ). Later, he served as Treasury Inspec¬
tor ( Bash-Baki Kulu). The Grand Vizier Heklmoghlu
C A1I Pasha [q.v. ] promoted him Cawush Bashl [q.v.]
(1732).

In 1735 he became a vizier and acted for a short
time as kd’im-makdm at Istanbul, after which he was
sent to govern the sandpaks of Nigbolu and Vidin.
During the war, he for two years successfully
defended his area against Austrian attacks. He was
able to retake the fortresses of Hirsova and Fethiil-
islam (the Yugoslavian Kladovo) as well as Semendire
(the Yugoslavian Smederevo), Mehadiye (the Ruma¬
nian Mehadia) and Yeni Palanka. Mehmed Pasha
c Iwad served as commander-in-chief ( serddr ) on that
front when, at the behest of the powerful Kizlar A gh asi
(.Ddr al-Se c dda Aghast) HadjdjI Beshlr Agha, he was also
appointed Grand Vizier (12 Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 1151/23
March 1739) to replace Yegen Mehmed Pasha, whose
policies he continued however along the same lines,
on the one hand by opening diplomatic contact with
the Austrians, on the other by aiming at the recon¬
quest of Belgrade. He became famous for his splendid
defeat of the Austrian army under Field-Marshal
Olivier Wallis (56,000 strong plus light cavalry,
artillery and irregulars). The Grand Vizier took up a
defensive position to the north-west of Grocka (Ott.
Hisardjik) (on 15 RabY II 1152/22 July 1739)
overlooking the road from Belgrade which went
through a defile. After fifteen assaults by the
Janissaries, Field-Marshal Wallis retreated at
nightfall, losing 3,000 killed and 7,000 wounded.
Four days later, Belgrade was laid under siege by the
Ottomans. Negotiations led to the conclusion of the
peace treaty (1-18 September) between the Sultan, the
Austrian Emperor and the Tsar at Belgrade, which
meant an important restoration of Ottoman power in
the Danube area.

In RabI* 1153/June 1740 a local disturbance in the
capital formed the pretext for Beshlr Agha and the
Walide Sultan to have Mehmed Pasha c Iwad dismissed
as Grand Vizier, relegating him to the governorship
of Djudda, from which place he soon was able to
transfer to Canea (Ott. Hanya). During the next three

years, he successively served as military governor of
Salonica, in Herzegovina (Ott. Hersek), Bosnia,
Negroponte (Ott. Eghriboz) and in Crete again. He
died while acting as military governor of Lepanto
(Aynabakhtl [q. v. ]) in Djumada I 1156/July 1743. His
elder son Ibrahim became twice Sheykh iil-Islam and his
younger son Khalil became Grand Vizier in
1183/1769.

Bibliography : Mehmed Subhl, Ta^rikh-i

WekaH c , Istanbul 1198 ( TaSikh-i Sami we Shakir we
Subhi), fols. 72-258, esp. 135, 150, 160 ff. (eye¬
witness account of the battle of Grocka, 15 Rabl c I
1152/22 June 1739; i.H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanli tarihi,
v/1, Istanbul 1956, 260, 267, 272 f., 281-96, iv/2,
Istanbul 1959 1 , 350-4; iA art. Belgrad (M.C.
Baysun); §emdani-zade Findiklih Suleyman Efendi
Tarihi Mur’i ’i-tevdrih, ed. M. M. Aktepe, i, Istan¬
bul 1976, index s.v. “Ivaz Mehmed”; Von Ham¬
mer, HEO , xiv, 417, 419, 424, 439-70, xv, 1-11,
25 f.; D. Nicolle, Armies of the Ottoman Turks, 1300-
1774, London 1983, 33 f.; L. Cassels, The struggle
for the Ottoman Empire 1717-1740, London 1966,
156-96 (based on A. Vandal, Une ambassade frangaise
en Orient. La mission du marquis de Villeneuve 1728-
1741, Paris 1887, esp. 357-91).(A.H. de Groot)
MEHMED PASHA. KARAMANI, NishAndji,
(d. 886/1481), Ottoman Grand Vizier and
historian.

A descendant of Djalal al-Dln Rum! [q.v. J, he grew
up in Konya where he received his education as an
c alim from Musannifak al-Siddlkl who introduced him
into the patronage of Mahmud Pasha [q.v.\. Mehmed
Pasha served as a clerk in the diwan of that Grand
Vizier and later became muderris in the medrese founded
by the same at Istanbul, being at the same time a
general adviser to his patron. Thanks to the latter, he
became nishandfi [q.v.] in 869/1464, which high office
he kept for about 12 years. From 4 Dhu ’1-Ka c da
862/13 September 1458, he already ranked as a vizier.
His appointment as Grand Vizier following the
dismissal of Gedik Ahmed Pasha [q.v.] dates from
Muharram 881/May 1476 (cf. Kiwami, Feth-name-yi
Sultan Mehemmed, ed. F. Babinger, Istanbul 1955,
273). In his new position, he became the main author
of Sultan Mehemmed II’s [q.v.] legislative policy.
This statesman, with his years of experience in mat¬
ters of state and administration, must be seen as the
creator of the new state institutions laid down in the
the kanun-ndme s [q. v. ] of this period (cf. the editions of
MOG , i [1922], TOEM [1330/1912] and Ozcan
[1982]). One of his lasting innovations was the divi¬
sion of the judiciary among two Kadi c askers , one for
Rumeli and one for Anadolu. A great number of wakf
and private landed properties were converted into
state property as a base of the timar system, which had
to support an increasing amount of military person¬
nel. Mehmed Pasha’s full support of the centralising
policy of the Sultan caused his unpopularity among
his fellow c ulama 5 and the old-established landowners
of the ghazi aristocracy (cf. c Ashikpashazade,
Tewarikh-i Al-i c Othman , ed. Q.N. Atsiz, Istanbul
1947, 244).

When Grand Vizier, Mehmed Pasha Karamanl
supported Mehemmed II in furthering the claim to
the succession of Prince Djem [q.v. ] against Prince
Bayezld. His personal link with the city of Konya
must have offered a special opportunity, since Djem
Sultan was governor of Karaman. Bayezld (II) [q.v.\
counted Karamanl Mehmed amongst his enemies
henceforth (cf. R.C. Repp, The Mufti of Istanbul, 21,
72, 144, 199-201). The Grand Vizier accompanied
the Sultan at the departure for the campaign of

996

MEHMED PASHA, KARAMANI — MEHMED PASHA, LALA

886/1481. Thus he assisted his monarch during his
last illness in camp at Maltepe (cf. Tursun Beg,
Ta\tkh~i Abu ’l-Fath, ed. and tr. H. Inalcik and R.
Murphey, Minneapolis, etc. 1978, 64, Ay 157 b-158
a). The Grand Vizier kept the death of the Sultan (4
Rabl c I 886/3 May 1481) a secret, but sent the news
to both Prince Bayezld and Prince Djem. His aim was
for Djem to arrive first in Istanbul and to make his
accession there a fait accompli. For that purpose, the
mortal remains of Mehemmed II were secretly
brought back to the capital by the court physicians,
and then all communication was cut between the two
shores of the Bosphorus. Mehmed Pasha moved the
c Adjem-oghlans out of town and had the city gates
closed, but his enemies intercepted his men and the
news of the Sultan’s death spread quickly. The
Janissaries managed to cross the water by private
means. Public order was utterly disturbed; Mehmed
Pasha could no longer halt the movements of the
soldiery; he withdrew to his residence, but the
insurgent Janissaries pursued him there and killed
him in his private office (5 RabI* I 886/4 May 1481).
Mehmed Pasha’s men reached Konya only on 3 May.
The accession of Djem seems to have been doomed
from the start, and Karamanl Mehmed Pasha thus failed
to bring about his late Sultan’s apparent last wishes.

Mehmed Pasha KaramanI’s importance lies in his
institutional and legal work, sc. in building up the
state apparatus of what was becoming the Ottoman
Empire. He practised his statecraft whilst also being
an accomplished master of ornate prose. His insha 5
writings include a famous letter addressed to the Ak
Koyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan [q.v.] (see Feridun,
Miinshe^dt al-selatin, Istanbul 1264/1848, i, 271 ff.). He
wrote poetry under the makhlaf Nishanl. In Arabic, he
wrote a history of the Ottoman Empire in the form of
two treatises, one dealing with the period from
c Othman I till Mehemmed II’s accession in 855/1451,
the other covering the years 855/1451 to early
885/1480, the Risala JT tawankh al-salatln al- c uthmaniyya
and the Risala JT ta'nkh Sultan Muhammad b. Murad
Khan min al c Uthman. The latter includes 10
chronograms in verses describing his own deeds:

1. the building of Rumeli Hisari (856/1453).

2. the conquest of Albania (871/1466-7).

3. the (re)construction of the ic-kaPe on the castle hill
of Konya (872/1467-8).

4. the building of the “New Seraglio’’ (Topkapi
Sarayi) at Istanbul (873/1468-9).

5. the taking of the fortress of Eghriboz [q.v.)
(Negroponte) (874/1469-70).

6 . the victory over Uzun Hasan (877/1472-3).

7. the death of Prince Mu§tafa (878/1473-4).

8 . the taking of Shark! Karahisar (878/1473-4).

9. the building of the wall containing the “New
Seraglio” (883/1478-9).

10. the building of the Imperial Stables ( Istabl-i c amire
(883/1478-9).

These chronicles seem to be a recasting into Arabic of
a simple calendar ( takwim ) to which chronograms and
ornate passages of sadjj have been added (cf. Menage,
The beginnings of Ottoman historiography). Karamanl
Mehmed’s text is one of a number of early historical
works representing a group of sources distinct from
the group of c Ashfkpasha-zade, Urudj and the
anonymous Tewankh. This group contains a different
tradition about the origin of the Ottomans which is
based on an older source than that used by the other
group of histories dating from ca. 1399 (cf. Inalcik,
Rise). Minor poets such as Kabuli and Hamid! wrote
kajfdas and other poetry in praise of the nishandji and
Grand Vizier.

Mehmed Pasha Karamanl had two wives. The first
was Musannifak c Ala 5 al-Dln c Ali al-Bistaml’s
daughter, who gave him a son Zayn al- c AbidIn C A1I
Celebi, who in his turn had a son of some renown,
“al-Mawla Mustafa b. c AlI b. Mehmed al-
Karamanl” (d. 965/1558). His second wife from 1471
was SittI Shah, daughter of the ex-Bey of c Ala 5 iyye
(Alanya), Klfidj Arslan. With the money of his second
wife, he was able in addition to his other pious foun¬
dations to pay for the building of the mosque he
wished to leave behind as a wakf, the Nishandji
Djami c i in the Kumkapl quarter of Istanbul. On the
kibla side of it stands the ornamental tomb of the
founder, called martyr of the Islamic faith, shehid, in
an inscription written by the sheykh Abu ’l-Wefa 5
(896/1491) (cf. tr. I.H. Konyali, in Osmanh tarihleri,
i/4, esp. 330-6).

Bibliography : Ia\ikh-i Nishandji Mehmed Pasha,
Istanbul 1279/1862-3, Osmanh tarihleri. H4.
Karamanh Nisanci Mehmed Pasa, Osmanh sultanlan
tarihi (Turkish tr. with extensive introd. by I.H.
Konyali, Istanbul n.d. [1949], 321-69); F. Bab-
inger, Die Chronik des Qaramam Mehmed Pascha, eine
neuerschlossene osmanische Geschichtsquelle , in MOG , ii
(1926), 242-7; idem, GOW, no. 11 (24-6); iA art.
Mehmed Pasa, Karamani (M.C.§. Tekindag), on
which the present article is based; H. Inalgik, The
rise of the Ottoman historiography, in B. Lewis and
P.M. Holt (eds.), Historians of the Middle East, Lon¬
don 1962, 1964 2 , 152-67; V.L. Menage, The beginn¬
ings of Ottoman historiography, in ibid., 168-79;
Inalcik, iA art. Mehmed II; Babinger, Mehmed the
Conqueror and his time, Princeton 1978; U.L. Heyd,
ed. V.L. Menage, Studies in Old Ottoman criminal law,
Oxford 1973, 10, 20; A. Ozcan, Fatih'in tepkilat
Kanunnamesi ve Nizam-i Alem i(in karde? katli meselesi,
in TD, xxxiii (1980-1, publ. 1982) 7-56 (new ed. of
text); S. Unver, Sadrazam Karamanh Mehmet Papa’nm
Eyup Sultan Medresesi kiitiiphanesine vakfettigi iki kitaba
dair, in Konya, 74-7 (Konya 1945); R.C. Repp, The
Mufti of Istanbul. A. study in the development of the
Ottoman learned hierarchy, London 1986.

(A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA. LALA, Melek-NihAd (II),
Ottoman Grand Vizier, who served Sultan
Mehemmed III \q.v.\ for ten days only and then died
on 19 Rabi c I 1004/22 November 1595. (Ed.)

MEHMED PA SH A. LALA, ShAhinoghlu,
BosnalI (d. 1015/1606, Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Born in Jajce as a descendant of the Bosnian
Shahinoghullari family, he was related to Sokollu
Mehmed Pasha Taken into Ottoman service as

a dewshirme \q. v. ] boy, he was educated in the so-called
Palace School [see enderun]. During those years he
was probably engaged in giving lessons in fighting to
one or more Ottoman princes, hence his surname of
Laid “tutor”. Lala Mehmed successively held the
court functions of Peshklr aghast, Kiicuk Mir Akhur and
Biyiik Mir Akhur and left the palace service holding the
post of Agha of the Janissaries (999?/1590-1 ?).

It was in this command that he served far away
from the court and the Sultan’s person on the bat¬
tlefields in Hungary during the “Long War” (1001 -
15/1593-1606). Notably, he saw service under the
Grand Vizier Kodja Sinan Pasha (1001-3/1593-5)
before Raab (Ott. Yanlk-kal c e, Hung. Gyor) in
1002/1594. Dismissed following the siege of Tata (3
Shawwal 1002/23 June 1594), he was made suc¬
cessively beglerbegi of Karaman of Anadolu and then
acted as military governor of the region of Buda (Ott.
Budin). In 1003/1595, Lala Mehmed Pasha took over
the command of the besieged fortress town of

MEHMED PASHA, LALA — MEHMED PASHA, MELEK

997

Esztergom [q.v. ] which he had to surrender to the
imperial Commander-in-Chief Peter Ernst, Count
Mansfeld (1517-1604). The negotiations were con¬
ducted on the Ottoman side by inter alios Ibrahim
Pecewl [q.v. ], Lala Mehmed’s trusted secretary, who
served him during 15 years of his life (cf. Pe£ewl,
Ta^nkh, ii, 64-6). The next year, Lala Mehmed Pasha
was ordered to come to the bridge near Eszek [q-v.] to
join the Ottoman main army and Sultan Mehemmed
III [q. v. ] in person. He was promoted to vizieral rank.
He assisted at the siege of Erlau (Ott. Egri [q.v. ]), of
which town he was made commander after its fall on
17 Safar 1005/12 October 1596. Lala Mehmed Pasha
commanded the troops of Rumeli, i.e. the right wing
in the battle of Mezo-Keresztes [q.v. ] (Ott. Hac
Owasi, 3-4 Rabl c I 1005/25-6 October 1596). In 1597
he served again on the front in Hungary. In DhuT
Hidjdja 1006/July 1598 he was appointed Beglerbegi of
Rumeli, a promotion by favour of the Sultan. Lala
Mehmed Pasha was present at the unsuccessful siege
of Gross Wardein (Tk. Warad, now Rumanian
Oradea Mare) from 1 October to 3 November 1598.
Next year, he served in the army of the new Grand
Vizier and Serddr-i ekrern, Commander-in-Chief,
Damad Ibrahim Pasha against Neuhausel (Hung.
Ersekujvar, Ott. Uywar, Czech Nove Zamky). In
1600 Lala Mehmed served in the army of the Grand
Vizier before (Nagy) Kanisza (Ott. Kanice). In
August, he was commander of the troops of Rumeli
again and military governor of Buda. He was present
at the 34 days’ siege of Stuhlweissenburg (Ott. Ustolni
Belgrad), which fortress surrendered to the Ottomans
on 17 Safar 1011/6 August 1602 (cf. Pecewl, TaMkh,
ii, 242 ff.). In November of the same year, he was
ordered to succour Buda with 2,000 Janissaries,
djebedjis and artillery against an imperial army
(Pecewl, ii, 250). The Ottoman Commander-in-Chief
was defeated at first near Pest on 4 Safar 1012/14 July
1603, but soon afterwards was victorious north of
Buda and thus able to carry reinforcements into the
besieged fortress. The Imperial Army, commanded
by the Archduke Matthias, then withdrew. Lala
Mehmed Pasha was rewarded with the promotion to
Third Vizier and the appointment as serddr. As such,
he organised the defences of Buda and the bridges at
Eszek, putting Murad Pasha, then Beglerbegi of
Rumeli [see murad pasha, kuyudju] and Djelall Deli
Hasan Pasha, Beglerbegi of Bosnia, in command. He
then sent the Anatolian troops on leave and withdrew
to Belgrade for the winter (29 Rabl c II 1012/6
October 1603). At the death inside Belgrade of the
Grand Vizier and Commander-in-Chief of the
Western front Malkoc C A1I Pasha (27-8 Safar 1013/
25-6 July 1604), Lala Mehmed took his place (cf.
Pecewl, ii, 296). During a short campaign, he was
able to reoccupy Pest and take the fortress towns of
Hatvan and Waitzen (Vac). Esztergom was laid
under siege (24 Djumada I 1013/18 October 1604).
The onset of winter made an end to warfare, since the
Janissaries were unwilling to fight. Crimean Tatar
light horse and the Aklndjis were left in Hungary.

Alongside the conduct of war, Lala Mehmed Pasha
also kept up diplomatic contact with the enemy in
order to seek a peaceful end to the conflict; Murad
Pasha (Kuyudju) played an important part in these
negotiations. Lala Mehmed Pasha left for Istanbul to
meet the Sultan in his quality of Grand Vizier and
returned to the front again on 3 Muharram 1014/21
May 1605 with instructions to end the war by means
of a treaty with the Emperor. The Grand Vizier
recognised Stephen Bocskai as King of Hungary and
invited him to join the army. A council of war was

held at Eszek. The taking of Esztergom was declared
to be the principal war aim. Parkany (Czech Sturovo,
Ott. Cigerdelen) was taken on 29 August and
Visegrad on 8 September 1605. Esztergom sur¬
rendered on conditions on 20 Djumada I 1014/3
October 1605 (cf. the eyewitness account of Pecewl,
Ta^rikh, ii, 305 f.). The taking of this famous fortress
and its surrounding places was followed by the con¬
quest of others: Veszprem and Palota, and Neuhausel
on 9 Radjab 1014/20 November 1605. The Grand
Vizier ordered a razzia of Tatar and Hungarian light
cavalry into the Austrian lands, Croatia and Styria
under the command of his nephew ‘ ‘ Sarhosh
Ibrahim Pasha, the Beglerbegi of Kanisza. At Rakos on
7 Djumada II 1014/20 October 1605, Lala Mehmed
Pasha held a coronation ceremony for Stephen Boc¬
skai, proclaimed King of Hungary. A crown had been
especially made at Istanbul for this ceremony (this is
now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, cf.
H. Fillitz, Die Schatzkammer in Wien , Vienna 1964,
133, 17). Leaving Murad Pasha in charge, the Grand
Vizier departed for Istanbul. It was his intention to
exercise the supreme command over both the western
and the eastern fronts from there. The Sultan’s
government, however, insisted on him going in per¬
son to the war in the east in the next season. The
horse-tails ( tugh [qv.\, were already put out at
Uskiidar when the Grand Vizier died suddenly on 15
Safar (or 16 Muharram?) 1015/23 June (or 25 May?)
1606. Rumours were current at the time that his rival
Derwlsh Mehmed Pasha [<y.f.] had made the Sephar¬
dic Jewish court physician administer poison. Lala
Mehmed Pasha was buried next to the mausoleum of
his kinsman Sokollu Mehmed Pasha at Eyyub.

Bibliography. See M art. s.v. (M.C. §. Tekin-
dag), on which the present article is largely based.
A main source is Pecewl’s Ta^rikh, whose author
personally witnessed the most important years of
Lala Mehmed Pasha’s career as a trusted official:
i.H. Danismend, Osmanli tarihi kronolojisi, Istanbul
1971, iii, index; C. Ballingal Finkel, The provisioning
of the Ottoman Army during the campaigns oj 1593-1606 ,
in Habsburgisch-osmanische Beziehungen. CIEPO Collo-
que Wien, 26-30 September 1933, ed. A. Tietze,
Vienna 1985, 107-23; Von Hammer, HEO, vii,
271 f., viii, 84 f., 97; c Othmanzade Ahmed Ta^ib,
Hadikat iil-wiizerd 5 , 53 f. (A.H. de Groot)
MEHMED PASHA. MELEK, Damad (1131
1216/1719-1802), Ottoman Grand Vizier under
Sultan Selim III [qu».].

He was the son of BosnaTi Khodja Suleyman Pasha,
Vizier and Kapudan-l derva in 1126/1714 and
1130/1718 till his death in 1133/1721. Born in Istan¬
bul, he followed his father’s footsteps in a naval
career, becoming commander ( Derya begi) in 1736,
Tersane ketkhudasi and Kapudan-i derya himself (1165-
8/1752-5). Sultan Mustafa III (1171-87/1757-74)
appointed him Nishandfi, and married him to the
Princess Zeyneb c As°ima Sultan, a daughter of Ahmed
III (1757) (cf. A.D. Alderson, The structure of the
Ottoman dynasty, no. 1268, Table XLI). He was then
promoted Vizier and received the title of Sandyik begi
of Yanya. From 1763 onwards, he received appoint¬
ments as military governor successively of Vidin and
Belgrade, Beglerbegi of Anadolu, Ka^im-makam (1765)
Beglerbegi of Aydin, of Rumeli and in 1767-9 Kapudan-
pasha again, during which tenure he made one tour
through the Archipelago. In 1769 he was made both
Muhassil of Morea and Ka5m-makdm at Istanbul,
which function he held during the Russo-Ottoman
War (1769-74).

After a spell out of office, he was made Kapudan-

998 MEHMED PASHA, MELEK

pasha a third time in 1774. From 1774 to 1776 he
served as commander of Khotin \q.v.\, also charged
with the exchange of the Russian and Ottoman
ambassadors. Governor of Belgrade 1776-9, he again
became Muhassil of Morea, then governor of Egriboz
[q.v.], Egypt (1781), Belgrade, Candia (Ott. Khan-
dak), Bender (1784) and Vidin (1786). Sultan Selim
111 \q. v. ] saved him from temporary disgrace, restored
his vizier’s rank and appointed him governor of Can¬
dia. On 12 Ramadan 1206/4 May 1792, Melek
Mehmed Pasha received the imperial signet as token
of his appointment as Grand Vizier. He stayed in
office for two years and five months, being the senior
of all viziers then living (Sheykh ul-Wiizerd 7 ).

He did not take part in the policy-making of the
reformers around Selim III, but loyally supported the
Sultan’s policy with the residual influence which he
still had. The reason for his dismissal must have been
extreme old age, having served the state for 59 years.
Mehmed Pasha was allowed to retire to his waterside
villa at Ortakoy on the Bosphorus, where he died on
16 Shawwal 1216/19 February 1802. His tomb is next
to the turbe of his wife Zeyneb Sultan at the mosque
founded by her at Soguk^esme near the Bab-i c Ali.

Bibliography: c Othmanzade Ta 3 ib Ahmed,
Hadikat ul-wizera 3 , continuation of Ahmed Djawid,
Istanbul 1271, 45-7; I.H. Danismend, Osmanh tarihi
kronolojisi, Istanbul 1971, v, 68; S.J. Shaw, Between
old and new , Cambridge, Mass. 1971, 369 f.

(A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA, MUHSIN-ZADE (1116?-

1188/1704?-74), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Son of the Grand Vizier Muhsin-zade c Abd Allah
Pasha (held office in 1150/1737) and born in Istanbul,
he entered the Palace service as a Kapidji Basht. In
1150/1737 he became Kapldjilar Ketkhuddsl and in
1151/1738 vizier and Beglerbegi of Mar c ash. After 10
years of provincial governmental posts he was in
1160/1747 appointed to the reorganised province of
Adana with special orders to hunt down the rebellious
elements in Anatolia. From 1162/1749 onwards in
various provincial posts in the European provinces, he
became in 1171/1758 Beglerbegi of Aleppo. On this
occasion he was married to the princess Esina 3 Sulfan
(cf. A.D. Alderson, The structure of the Ottoman dynasty ,
Oxford 1956, no. 1244, Table XLI), a daughter of
Ahmed III. There followed quickly, one after
another, the appointments as Beglerbegi of Diyarbekr,
Anadolu (at Kutahya) and Bosnia (1760), staying one
year with his wife at his palace at Kadirga (Istanbul),
before proceeding to his post. From 1175/1762 he
occupied the governorships of Rumeli and Bosnia,
twice each, before being called to the Grand Vizierate
on 7 Shawwal 1178/30 March 1765. During his
tenure of office, revolts in Arabia, Egypt and Georgia
broke out and Russian pressure increased. The Grand
Vizier did not think the Empire could sustain a war
with that power, but his opinion did not prevail in the
Diwan.

Muhsin-zade Mehmed resigned on 23 Rabi* II
1182/6 September 1768 and was ordered to reside in
Bozdja-Ada (Tenedos \q.v. ]), Gallipoli (Gelibolu
[q.v. ]) and Rhodes (Rodos [q.v.]). In 1182/1769
appointed military governor ( Muhdjlz ) of the Morea,
he was able to defeat the Russian-inspired rebellion
there in a battle at Tripolitza (Ott. TripolRe) in Dh u
1-Hidjdja 1183/April 1770, after which he restored
Ottoman authority in the main centres of Patras (Ott.
Balya Badra [q.v.]), Modon (Ott. Mupm [< 7 -p.]),
Navarino (Ott. Navarin [q. v. ]). In 1185/1771 he went
as commander of the Ottoman troops to the Danube
front. From Sha c ban/November 1771, Muhsin-zade

— MEHMED PASHA, OKUZ

Mehmed was Grand Vizier again till his death on 26
Djumada I 1188/4 August 1774. During those three
years, Ottoman arms were unsuccessful against the
Russians. The Grand Vizier opened peace negotia¬
tion again, first with the Austrians and then with the
Russians (Bucharest conference, from November
1772 to February 1773). The Russian demands,
including the independence of the Khanate of the
Crimea [see kirim] and high war indemnities were not
yet acceptable to the Ottomans, and peace was not
reached till the Russian army under the Field Mar¬
shall Peter A. Rumyantsev encircled the Grand Vizier
at Shumnu (Bulg. Shumen) and proposed negotia¬
tions again.

Muhsin-zade Mehmed Pasha accepted this pro¬
posal immediately. The negotiations between the two
delegations, the Ottoman one led by his §adaret-
Ketkhiidasi (afterwards Nishandjl) Ahmed RasmT
Efendi [q.v.] (see idem, Khulasat ixl-iHibar , cf. GOW ,
288, 309-12), were held at the Russian headquarters
17-21 July 1774 and led to the treaty of Kuciik
Kaynardja [^.». ]. The Grand Vizier became ill soon
afterwards and withdrew to return to Istanbul. On the
way near Karnobad (Tk. Karlnabad) he died on 26
Djumada 1 1188/4 August 1774. On the orders of his
widow Esma 3 Sultan, he was buried at Eyyub next to
the gate of the great mausoleum.

Bibliography: Ahmed Vasif Efendi, Mehasinu’l-
dsar ve hakdiku’l-ahbar, ed. M. Ilgurel, Istanbul 1978,
p. XXII, 92, 125, 399; §emddni-zade Findiklili
Suleyman Efendi tarihi. Miir'i-i tevdrih , ed. M. M.
Aktepe, 3 vols. in 4, Istanbul 1976-81, ii B (index),
iii, 27-8; i.H. Danismend, izahli Osmanli tarihi
kronolojisi , Istanbul 1971, iv, 42, 48, 52-3, 59; IA
art. Kiifiik Kaynarca (C. Tukin); c Othmanzade
Ta 3 ib Ahmed, Hadikat ul-wiizara 3 , cont. by Ahmad
Djawid. Ward-i mutarrd 3 , repr. ed. Freiburg i. Br.
1969, 12-16; IA art. Vasif (M. Ilgiirel); Y. Nagata,
Muhsin-zade Mehmed Pasa ve ayanlik miiessesi, Tokyo
1976. (A. H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA. OKUZ, Damad, Kara,
964?-1029/1557?-1620) Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Born in Istanbul the son of a Muslim blacksmith,
he entered the palace service in spite of the fact of his
being of Muslim Turkish origin. After about 40 years
service as a sildhddr , he left the Palace with the rank of
a Vizier and became Beglerbegi of Egypt (Dhu T
Hidjdja 1015/April 1607). Arriving there the same
year in May (Muharram 1016), he became busy with
administrative reform. He abolished the illegally-
imposed levies of fulba , kulfa and kushufiyya , which
formed an excessively heavy burden for the tax-
paying population. He was able to suppress a
resulting rebellion of the (kul) sipahi, tiifenkcis and
goniilliis of the Ottoman garrison, together with the
Mamluk cavalry corps (1017/1608). This “second
conquest’’ of Egypt gained him the epithet Kul-kuan
“Breaker of the Slave Soldiers”. Thanks to his effi¬
cient government, Okuz Mehmed Pasha was able to
send a surprisingly large sum as tribute of Egypt to
the Porte. This success brought him 1020/1611 favour
from on high. He was made Kapudan Pasha and
Second Vizier instead of Khalil Pasha Kaysariyyeli
[q.v.]. Sultan Ahmed I [q.v.] gave him his seven-year
old daughter Djawhar Khan Sultan in marriage
(1020/1612) (cf. A.D. Alderson, The structure of the
Ottoman dynasty , Oxford 1956, Table XXXIV, no.
1154 “Gevherhan”). In spite of his new status, Okuz
Mehmed Pasha was not successful in his opposition to
the granting of an Q ahd-name involving capitulations
[see imtiyazat] to the Dutch Republic 1/10 Djumada
I 1021/6 July 1612 [see Khalil pasha kaysariyyelI] .

MEHMED PASHA, OKUZ — MEHMED PASHA RAMI 999

In command of a squadron of 30 galleys, he went out
to sea in the 1022/1613 season. His aim was to attack
Maltese and Tuscan corsairs who had ravaged the
southern shores of Anatolia and had raided Agha
Limani (near Silifke). His defeat, however, by the
Spanish admiral in the service of the Viceroy of
Naples, Ottaviano de Aragon, off Samos [see susam]
brought him relative disgrace.

He was made Ka^im-makdm , but after the execution
of the Grand Vizier Nasuh Pasha [q.v.], he succeeded
to the highest office on 13 Ramadan 1023/17 October
1614. In this new capacity, he restored the members
of his faction to office again. Okuz Mehmed Pasha
was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army
formed to counter the aggression of Shah c Abbas I of
Persia [q.v. ], who had violated the treaty concluded
with Nasuh Pasha (26 Ramadan 1021/20 November
1612). In Djumada I 1024/June 1615 the Grand
Vizier left for Aleppo, too late however for action that
year. The army stayed in winter quarters in Mar c ash
(now Kahramanmaras), Malatya, Sivas and
Karaman. In April 1616 Okuz Mehmed Pasha left
Aleppo and marched towards Eriwan to confront the
Persian Shah. The Grand Vizier himself went to Kars
via Goksun Yayla and Erzurum, despatching impor¬
tant contingents of his large army in the direction of
Eriwan and Nihawand. Having ordered the
strengthening of the fortifications of Kars, he marched
to Eriwan (Ott. Rewan), defeated the Persian forces
and laid siege to that fortress. His lack of siege
artillery and the strong resistance of the garrison
forced him to lift the siege after 60 (or 44?) days,
agreeing to a settlement based on the terms of
1021/1612 accepting a reduction by half of the Persian
tribute of silk, i.e. to only 100 yuk. The Ottoman main
army then returned to Erzurum (27 Shawwal 1025/7
November 1616). The Grand Vizier wintered at
So gh anli Yayla. The accusation of neglect of duty
levelled at the Grand Vizier after this meagre result of
his campaign led the Sultan to dismiss his favourite
son-in-law (8 Dhu 1-Ka c da 1025/17 November 1616),
who nevertheless retained the rank of Second Vizier
and was ordered to assist his successor in office, Khalil
Pasha, towards the conclusion of a definitive treaty of
peace with Shah c Abbas I. Peace was at last concluded
on 6 Shawwal 1027/26 September 1618 in the
Ottoman camp in the plain of Sarab (near ArdabTl),
deep inside Safavid territory.

Sultan c Othman II [q.v. ] appointed Okuz Mehmed
Pasha Grand Vizier again in place of Khalil Pasha (1
Safar 1028/18 January 1619). In his new quality, he
sent the Ottoman ratification of the Sarab treaty to
Shah c Abbas on 13 Shawwal 1028/23 September 1619
(cf. Ghaza-name-yi Khalil Pasha , ms. Es’ad Efendi 2139,
fol. 119b; Ferldun, Miinshe^at, Istanbul 1275, ii, 325).
Later in 1029/1619, a conflict broke out between the
Grand Vizier and the then favourite of the Sultan, the
Kapudan-pasha, the Vizier Guzeldje Istankoylii C A1I
Pasha [q.v ], Mehmed Pasha once again, as in
1021/1612 in his conflict with Khalil Pasha, tried to
use the help of the ambassadors of Venice and France
against his rival, but to no avail, since the Sultan
dismissed him and made C A1I Pasha Grand Vizier
instead (16 Muharram 1029/23 December 1619).
Okuz Mehmed’s private property was confiscated and
he himself banished from Istanbul with the appoint¬
ment as Beglerbegi of Aleppo, and it was in that city
that he died not long afterwards.

A tiirbe was built inside the zawiya of Shavkh Abu
Bakr (cf. Katib Celebi, Fedhleke, i, 402). Wakfs
founded by Okiiz Mehmed Pasha included a kulliyye
in the Karagumriik quarter of Istanbul where he was

born, and a complex including a great khan and a
market at Ulukisla (in Nigde province on the road to
the Cilician Gates (Giilek Boghazi, see cilicia) (cf. A.
Gabriel, Monuments turcs d’Anatolie, Paris 1931, i, 156,
pi. LV). At Cairo, he built barracks for the Janissary
and c Azab corps and a zawiya with a row of shops for
the benefit of the Mawlawiyya [q.v.] order of der¬
vishes to which he was himself linked. Elsewhere in
Egypt and Syria he erected facilities along the main
routes to Mecca.

Bibliography. See L4 art. Mehmel Pa$a Damad
(M.C.§. Tekindag), with a full listing of sources
and literature; also, P.M. Holt, The pattern of Egyp¬
tian political history from 1517 to 1789 , in idem (ed.),
Political and social change in modern Egypt , London
1968, 79-90; S.J. Shaw, The financial and

administrative organization and development of Ottoman
Egypt 1517-1798 , Princeton 1962, 40, 89-90, 318;
A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch
Republic, Leiden 1978, 67 ff., 120, 160, 164, 314 f.;
I.H. Danismend, Kronoloji, iii, 262-4, 276; Hafiz
Hiiseyin Aywansarayl, Wefeyat-i selatln we meshahir-i
ridjal, ed. F.Q. Derin, Istanbul 1978, 75; I.H.
Uzungarsih, Osrnanh tarihi, Istanbul 1954 1 , iv/2,
367-70. _ (A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA RAMI, Ottoman Grand
Vizier and poet, was born in 1065/1655 or
1066/1656 in Eyyub, a suburb of Istanbul, the son of
a certain Hasan Agha. He entered the chancellery of
the Re^Is Efendi as a probationer ( shagird ), and
through the poet Yusuf Nab! [q.v.] received an
appointment as masraf katibi , i.e. secretary for the
expenditure of the palace. In 1095/1684, through the
influence of his patron, the newly appointed Kapudan
pasha [q.v.] Mustafa Pasha, he became duvan efendi ,
i.e. chancellor of the Admiralty. He took part in his
chief s journeys and campaigns (against Chios) and
on his return to Istanbul became re*ts kesedan, i.e.
pursebcarer to the Re-’Is Efendi. In 1102/1690 he was
promoted to beylikdyi , i.e. vice-chancellor, and four
years later ReHs Efendi in place of Abu Bakr, in which
office he was succeeded in 1108/1697 by Kuciik
Mehmed Celebi. After the battle of Zenta (12
September 1697), he became Re^is Efendi for a second
time and was one of the plenipotentiaries at the Peace
of Carlowitz (Karlofca [q.v. ]), by the conclusion of
which “he put an end to the ravages of the Ten Years’
War but also for ever to the conquering power of the
Ottomans’’ (J. von Hammer). As a reward for his ser¬
vices at the peace negotiations he was appointed kubbe
wezlri with 3 horse tails ( tugh ) in 1114/1703 and 6
Ramadan 1114/January 24, 1703, appointed to the
highest office in the kingdom in succession to the
grand vizier Daltaban Mustafa Pasha. In this office he
devoted particular attention to the thorough reform of
the civil administration, by reform of the civil
administration, through the abuses in which he saw
the security of the state threatened (cf. von Hammer,
GOR , vii, 64). “By lessening the burden of fortresses
on the frontiers in east and west, by raising militia
against the rebel Arabs, by securing the pay of the
army from the revenues of certain estates, by making
aqueducts, by restoring ruined mosques, by taking
measures for the safety of the pilgrim caravans and for
the security of Asia Minor, by settling Turkmen
tribes, by ordering the Jewish cloth manufacturers in
Selanik and the Greek silk manufacturers in Bursa in
future to make in their factories all the stuffs hitherto
imported into Turkey from Europe” (von Hammer),
he exercised a most beneficent activity, which how¬
ever soon aroused envy and hatred, and since
Mehmed Pasha Rami was entirely a man of the pen

1000

MEHMED PASHA RAMI — MEHMED PASHA, SULJAN-ZADE

and not of the sword, he was unpopular with the
army, particularly the Janissaries, and this was bound
to lead to his fall (cf. GOR, vii, 72). In the great rising
in Istanbul which lasted four weeks, beginning with
the enthronement of Sultan Mustafa II and ending
with his deposition (9 RabI* II, 1115/22 August 1703),
his career came to an end. He was disgraced, but par¬
doned in the same year and appointed governor, first
of Cyprus, then of Egypt (October 1704). His gover¬
norship there terminated as unhappily as his grand
viziership (cf. GOR , vii, 133, following Rashid and La
Motraye). In Djumada I 1118/September 1706, he
was dismissed and sent to the island of Rhodes, where
he died in Dhu THidjdja 1119/March 1707, either
under torture or a result of it (cf. GOR, vii, 134,
quoting the internuntius Talman). Mehmed Pasha
Rami is regarded as a brilliant stylist, as the two col¬
lections of his offical documents (insha 7 ) containing no
less than 1,400 pieces, distinguished by their simple
clear and elevated style, amply show (cf. the mss. in
Vienna, Nat. Bibl. nos. 296 and 297, in G. Flugel,
Die arab., pers. u. tiirk. Hss., i, 271-2). Mehmed Pasha
Rami also left a complete Dxwan , of which specimens
are available in the Tedhkire of his son-in-law Salim
(cf. F. Babinger, GOW , 272-3; printed Istanbul
1315). His poetical gifts were inherited by his son
c Abd Allah ReTet (cf. Bursal! Mehmed Tahir,
c 0thmanli miPelliflen, ii, 187).

Bibliography. J. von Hammer, GOR, vii,
passim ; the history of the Istanbul rising was written
by Mehmed Sheflk: c Othmdnli muMliflen , ii, 186;
Salim, Tedhkire , 252-8; c Othmanzade Ahmad
Ta 3 ib, Hadikat ul-wiizara 5 , Istanbul 1271, at the end;
Ahmad ResmI [q.v.], Khalifat al-ru 7 asa 7 , Istanbul
1269, 47; Sidjill-i c othmam, ii, 367; von Hammer,
Geschichte der Osmanischen Dichtkunst , iv, 26; iA , art.
Mehmed Rasa Rami (Bekir Sitki Baykal).

(F. Babinger)

MEHMED PASHA. RUM or Rum! (d
883/1478), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Being of kul status, his origins, whether Greek or
Albanian, are obscure. Sultan Mehemmed II [q.v. ]
admitted him into his intimate circle after the unsuc¬
cessful Albanian campaign of 870/1466 during which
Mehmed Pasha became Second Vizier. In 1468/872
he joined the campaign against Karaman [see
karaman-oghullari] , during which he manifested
his rivalry with the Grand Vizier Mahmud Pasha
[q.v.\. Instead of him, Mehmed Pasha was charged
with the deportation of selected members of the
populations of the cities of Karaman, Konya [q.v.]
and Laranda [q. v. ], mainly artisans, other profes¬
sionals and merchants. The older Ottoman chronicles
agree in the disapproval of the Greek’s harsh treat¬
ment of the Muslim people in question, giving a pic¬
ture of this Pasha as if he were effecting an act of
revenge for the Istanbul Greek population’s fate (cf.
c Ashfkpasha-zade, tr. R.F. Kreutel, Vom Hirtenzelt zur
Hohen Pforte, Graz, etc. 1959 1 , 201 f., 238, 240 f., see
also idem, ed. c AlI, Istanbul 1332, 143, 170, 191).

As a reward for his zeal in serving his master’s
policy of repopulating the city of Istanbul, Rum
Mehmed Pasha was appointed Grand Vizier instead
of Mahmud Pash a in 873/1468-9. The members of his
faction were given important positions too; inter alios,
Molla Mehmed Wildan became Kadi- C asker , whilst
Kh ass Murad, Gedik Ahmed and Ozguroghlu c Isa
Bey all became viziers. His continued harsh policy
towards the Muslim population of Karaman, which
included the wide-scale confiscation of freehold pro¬
perty and wakfs, caused an armed resistance organised
by the Karamanoghlu princes Pir Mehmed and

Kasim, who made themselves masters of the town of
Laranda. Mehmed Pasha’s counter-offensive was
swift. Laranda and Eregli were destroyed in
874/1469-70. All local wakf and private property was
confiscated. Moving to Alanya ( c Ala :> iyye [q.v.\), he
was unable to conquer that fortress town. Contem¬
porary sources tried to explain this lack of vigour as
due to Mehmed Pasha’s being married to a sister of
Kflidj Arslan, the last Bey of Alanya. The Grand
Vizier continued his punitive expedition by
persecuting the Warsak Turkmen tribe, who were
able to inflict a defeat on Rum Mehmed’s forces in the
Cilician mountains. Mehemmed II dismissed his
Grand Vizier for this failure (875/1470-1). Rum
Mehmed Pasha was thereupon given a command in
the expedition to conquer Negroponte (Eghriboz
[?.&.]) in Dhu ’l-Hidjdja 874 and Muharram 875/June
and July 1470. The rivalry between him and
Mahmud Pasha and Karaman! Mehmed Pasha [q. v. ]
must have been the cause of his downfall and execu¬
tion in 877/1472-3. Some sources cite Rum Mehmed
Pasha’s involvement in the repopulation of Istanbul
as an example of his talent as a Financial
administrator. He seems to have introduced the levy
of rent on houses (the so-called mukdta c a) from the
newly-settled inhabitants of the new capital, who till
then had enjoyed their new property rights free of any
taxation (cf. iA art. Mehmed II (H. inalcik)). Rum
Mehmed Pasha seems to have been an efficient instru¬
ment of Mehemmed II’s centralising policies,
especially those of turning private landholdings into
state property ( min ) at the expense of the old-
established local population, in this way creating timar
estates for the Sultan’s servants.

He was the founder of inter alia a beautifully situated
killliyye at Uskiidar, of which the mosque is still stand¬
ing, overlooking the Bosphorus: one of the few
buildings in fact left from the days of the Conqueror.
Next to the mosque stands the tiirbe in which the
founder lies buried, together with a grandson and his
daughter.

Bibliography: iA art. Mehmed Pasa, Rum
(M.C.§. Tekindag), where sources and literature
are indicated; iA art. Mehmed II (H. inalcik);
c Ash!kpasha-zade, Ta^rikh, tr. R. F. Kreutel, Vom
Hirtenzelt zur hohen Pforte, Graz, etc. 1959 ( =
Osmanische Geschichtsschreiber, 3), 201 f., 238,
240 f., F. Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and his
time, ed. W.C. Hickman, tr. R. Manheim,
Princeton 1978, 254, 292 f., 286 f., 299, 454; i.H.
Danismend, Osmanh tarihi kronolojisi, Istanbul 1971,
i, 266-7, 306-7, 313, 315, 319, 322-3, 337, 354,
377-8 (with different chronology); N. Beldiceanu,
Recherches sur la reforme fondere de Mehmed II, in Acta
Historica (Soc. Acad. Dacoromana ), iv (1965), 27-39;
I.H. Konyah, Uskiidar tarihi, 2 vols., Istanbul 1976,
i, 249-52; G. Goodwin, A history of Ottoman architec¬
ture, Londonl971, 114-15 (with wrong date), 283.

(A. H. de Groot)

MEHMED PA SH A SARI, Defterdar, Bakkal-

OGHLU [see SARI MEHMED PASHA]

MEHMED PASHA §OKOLLI, TawTl [see
SOKOLL.T, sokollu]

MEHMED PASHA. SULTAN-ZADE, Djiwan
Kapidji-Bashi, Semin (1010-56/1602-46), Ottoman
Grand Vizier.

He was born in Istanbul as the son of c Abd al-
Rahman Bey (himself a son of Semiz Ahmed Pasha,
Grand Vizier 887-8/1579-80, by origin an Albanian
dewshirme boy) and of Hiimashah c A :) ishe Khanfm
Sultan, a daughter of 6ighala-zade Sinan Pasha
[<?.y.], thus being a grandson of Princess Mihr-i Mah

MEHMED PASHA, SULTAN-ZADE — MEHMED PASHA, TIRYAKI

1001

Sultan [q.v.], hence his surname Sultan-zade (cf.
A.D. Alderson, The structure oj the Ottoman dynasty ,
Oxford 1956, Table XXX, no. 2128). Mehmed
Pasha was educated in the imperial harem and the
Khass Oda [<?•£>.]. Whilst only 19 years old, he became
a Kapidji-Bashi during the Khotin campaign of Sultan
c Othman II. Already in 1040/1630-1, because of the
highest patronage, he became a kubbe wezlri [q.v.]. In
1042/1633 Sultan Murad IV dismissed him for
reasons of incompetence in the preparation of the
campaign against Persia, and banished him to
Rhodes. In 1047/1637-8, reinstated as Second Vizier,
he went for three years to Egypt as Beglerbegi. Having
been back in Istanbul since 1050/1640, he became
wall of Oczakov (Ott. Ozu) with the task of retaking
Azov [see azak] (4 Dhu TKa c da 1051/4 February
1642). Thanks to the Don Cossacks having aban¬
doned the fortress previously, Mehmed Pasha became
master of Azak without any bloodshed. Upon his
return to the capital, the Grand Vizier Kemankesh
Kara Mustafa Pasha (1048-52/1638-43) removed him
from the centre of power by making him Beglerbegi of
Damascus (Radjab 1053/October 1643). It was there
that he received the seal of office and the appointment
as Grand Vizier (21 Dhu TKa c da 1053/31 January
1644), thanks to his collaboration with the faction of
Djindji Khodja [see husayn efendi], Sultan Ibrahim’s
[q.v. ] favourite. On 1 Muharram 1053/10 March
1644, the new Grand Vizier arrived in the capital.

Next year, he was involved in the preparations of
the war against Crete (1055-79/1645-69). He was
highly critical of the conduct of the Kapudan-i derya and
serdar , Silahdar Yusuf Pasha, whose only success was
the taking of Canea (Ott. Hanya). The Grand Vizier
lost the struggle with this rival when the Sultan
justified Yusuf Pasha in all respects, and he was
dismissed. In Dhu ’1-Ka c da 1055/January 1646 he
was in his turn appointed serdar of the Cretan cam¬
paign. Outside the Dardanelles, Mehmed Pasha’s
fleet of galleys encountered the Venetian sailing
squadron of Tommaso Morosini off Tenedos (Ott.
Bozdja Ada [q.v.]) and successfully passed the Vene¬
tian blockade (19 Rabl* II 1056/4 June). Arriving at
Crete on 27 Djumada II 1056/10 August 1646, he
decided to lay siege to the fortresses of Suda and
Aprikorno near Canea. Already ill during the voyage
thither, Mehmed Pasha died on 28-9 Djumada II
1056/11-12 August 1646 in camp before Suda. His
body was brought home to be buried next to his
mother c A 5 ishe Khanim Sultan in the cemetry of the
tiirbe of c AzIz Mahmud HiidaT at Uskiidar. A son and
grandsons of his are mentioned in S Q 0, iv, 161 ff.

Bibliography : In addition to the Ottoman and
European sources mentioned in IA art. s.v. (by
M.M. Aktepe, of which the above article is an
abridgment), see i.H. Danismend, Izahli Osmanlt
tarihi kronolojisi, Istanbul 1971, iii, 389, 391-4, 401;
Katib fielebi, Tuhfat, Istanbul 1329/1911, 120 ff.;
H.K. Yilmaz, Aziz Mahmud Hiidayi ve Celvetiyye
tarikati, Istanbul n.d. (? 1980), 69 f.; E. Eickhoff,
Venedig, Wien und die Osmanen , Munich 1970, 27 f.,
40, 42, 45 f., 52 f.; M.O. Bayrak, IslanbuTda gomiilii
meshur adamlar ( 1453-1978 ), Istanbul 1979, 49; Z.
Tezeren, Seyyid Aziz Mahmud Hiidayi /, Istanbul
1984, 23, 27, 30, 120. (A H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA. TABANIYASSl (997?-
1049/1589?-1639), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Of Albanian origin, he was taken from his home at
Tashlidja as a devshirme boy and entered the palace ser¬
vice [see enderun]. The protection of the Dar al-Sa c ada
Aghast HadjdjI Mustafa Agha provided him with a
quick career from Mir Akhur to vizier and Beglerbegi of

Egypt before becoming Grand Vizier on 28 Shawwal
1041/18 May 1632. He assisted Sultan Murad IV
[q.v. ] in suppressing opposition forces in the capital,
thus making it possible for the sultan to rule in person.
Mehmed Pasha favoured a foreign policy of neutrality
in the European wars, which implied discreet contacts
with Swedish and Transylvanian diplomacy. .While
on campaign against Persia, the Grand Vizier
wintered at Aleppo (1043/1633-4). At the end of the
season, he stayed in Diyarbekr (1043-4/1634-5) till 18
Shawwal 1044/6 April 1635 in order to meet Murad
IV at Erzurum on 17 Muharram 1045/3 July 1635,
the two of them marching together to Eriwan. This
Persian fortress surrendered on 18 Safar/3 August,
but was lost again next year (24 Shawwal 1045/1 April
1636). Before that date, Mehmed Pasha had been
already dismissed (24 Sha c ban 1045/2 February
1636). Later the same year, he was military governor
of Oczakov (Ott. Ozu). In Sha c ban 1047/January
1638 he was moved to Buda, but shortly afterwards
became KaHm-makam at Istanbul. After a short time in
disgrace again, Mehmed Pasha was jailed in Yedi
Kule prison and killed. His tomb is at Miskinler
Tekkesi.

Bibliography. I.H. Danismend, Osmanlt tarihi
kronolojisi, Istanbul 1971, iii, 354-62, 367-70, 372;
M.I. Kunt, The Sultan's servants , New York 1983,
131-3; c Othmanzade Ta 5 ib Ahmed, Hadlkat iil-
wiizera 5 , repr. Freiburg i. B. 1969; Na c Ima, Ta^rlkh,
Istanbul 1280/1863-4, iii, 110-19; Von Hammer,
HEO , ix, 184, 213 ff., 219 f., 260-4, 277, 286 ff.,
298 f. (A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA, TIRYAKf, HadjdjI (? 1091
1164/? 1680-1751), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

The son of an Odabasht (Janissary Officer) born in
Istanbul, he was himself enrolled in the Janissary
Corps, and made a career as a “civil servant”,
reaching the post of Corps Secretary ( Agha Kapist
Yazidjisi or Yeniceri Ejendisi ) in 1149/1736. He was
removed from that position because of his misap¬
propriations of pay money while serving with the
corps on campaign. In fact, he was denounced by the
“Corps Merchant”, Dawud. Thanks to the protec¬
tion of the Ketkhiida [< 7 . v. ] of the Grand Vizier, he was
appointed soon afterwards Siiwdri Mukabeledji (Audit
Officer of the Cavalry Corps of the Sublime Porte).
This new career made Mehmed Efendi one of the
chief clerks of the Ottoman chancery (Kh w ddjegdn-i
Diwan-i Hiimayun [q. v. ]). In 1739 he became
Mewkujatl , a high official in the Defter-khane [ 7 . 0 .]. In
this capacity, Mehmed Efendi served at the negotia¬
tions of the Peace of Belgrade held with the Imperial
Austrian and Russian plenipotentiaries. He remained
in and around Belgrade till 1154/1741, serving on the
mixed Ottoman-Austrian boundary commission with
Kadi Ebu Sehil Nu c man Efendi. Later, he was twice
made Yeniceri Ejendisi again. In 1745 he became Ter-
sane Emlni [see tersane] in which capacity he directed
the complete restoration and extension of the Imperial
Naval Dockyard at Istanbul after its destruction by
fire. He earned Sultan Mahmud’s [q.v.] favour and
was promoted to be “General Deputy” (ketkhiida =
kdhya ) [q.v.] of the Grand Vizier on 7 Djumada II
1159/27 June 1746. A month and a half later, he suc¬
ceeded his chief in office as Grand Vizier himself on
21 Radjab 1159/10 August 1746 (cf. Sidjill-i c Othmdnl ,
iv, 237, with wrong date). According to contemporary
sources his lifelong habit of taking drugs (tiryak) made
Mehmed Pasha often behave in an ill-mannered and
insulting way towards high officers of state and
c ulama 5 . At the same time, it must be noted, he made
a large number of changes in official appointments

1002

MEHMED PASHA, TIRYAKI — MEHMED PASHA, YEGEN

while in power (cf. Suleyman c IzzT, Ta^nkh, fols.
66a-72a).

During his tenure of office, Ottoman diplomacy
saw great events. Peace was made with Nadir Shah
q.v. ] on 17 Sha c ban 1159/4 September 1746 (cf.
s Iazif Mustafa Efendi, Iran sefaretnamesi, in F.R.Unat,
Osmanli sefirleri ve sefaretnameleri , Ankara 1968, 84 +
ill.). In 1160/1747 Mehmed Pasha rejected the French
overtures to make an offensive alliance against
Austria; the Porte had not forgotten how France
refused the Ottoman offer of mediation in 1158/1745
and remained distrustful of French motives (cf. I. de
Testa, Recueil des trades de la Porte Ottomane, Paris 1864,
ii, 178 f.). On the contrary, Mehmed Pasha had the
peace confirmed with the new Austrian ruler, the
Empress Maria Theresa, on 10 April 1747. This
agreement was followed up by a treaty of friendship
and commerce with Tuscany on 27 May 1747 (cf.
Mu^dhedat Medjmu^asi, Istanbul 1297, iii, 135 ff.; c IzzI,
op. cit., fols. 114-121).

Sultan Mahmud I (1143-68/1730-54)—following
his personal policy of maintaining his viziers only
during a limited time in office—dismissed Mehmed
Pasha himself on 18 Sha c ban 1160/24 August 1747.
As the reason for this, the imperial firman adduced the
Grand Vizier’s ill-treatment of persons in high places.
Mehmed Pasha ran into conflict with the Sheykh iil-
Islam Mehmed Es c ad Efendi; so much is certain. The
ex-Grand Vizier was banished to Rhodes. Soon after¬
wards he was given the sandjak of Icel [q. v. ] in arpaltk.
On 7 RabI I 1161/7 March 1748, Mehmed Pasha
became Beglerbegi of Mawsil, and eight months later
Beglerbegi of Ba gh dad. This latter appointment was
made during the interregnum between the mamluk
Ahmed Pasha (d. 1160/1747) and his chosen suc¬
cessor, Suleyman Pasha, “Abu Layla”, who in 1162/
1749 was to be the true founder of the Mamluk
dynasty which ruled from Baghdad till 1831. The
Ottoman central government tried to reassert its
authority in the province by sending thither
appointees of its own, but this policy remained unsuc¬
cessful. Tiryaki Mehmed Pasha was not able to
establish his authority against the will of the local
opposition. He was recalled and appointed Beglerbegi
of the eyalet of Habesh and Sheykh iil-Harem of Mecca.
He refused to accept this honour, fell into disgrace
and lost his vizierial rank and private fortune as a con¬
sequence. He was ordered to live in the provincial
backwater of Rethymno (Ott. Resmo) on Crete,
where he died early in 1164/1751. This news reached
Istanbul on 8 Ramadan 1164/34 July 1751 (hence an
error in Sid£ill-i c Othmdm, iv, 38).

The life of Tiryaki Mehmed Pasha was
characteristic of the age. It shows how an able
Janissary-born servant of the Sultan ( kul) could enter
upon a career in the chancery of the central govern¬
ment, attaining the supreme office of Sadr-i A c zam
[q.v.\ when he was about 66 years old. The Sultan’s
policy at this time seems to have been to limit the
tenure of his Grand Viziers to only a year or two, so
that dismissal did not automatically mean disgrace,
although the conflict with the Islamic religious hierar¬
chy must have shortened his tenure in the case of
Mehmed Pasha, and his refusal of office led in the end
to his complete undoing.

Bibliography. See/d, art. s.v. (M.M. Aktepe);
idem (ed.), §emdanizade Findiklih Suleyman Efendi
tarihi. Miir^i ’t-tevarih , 3 vols. in 4, Istanbul 1976-81,
1, 116, 119, 122, 124-5, 127-34, 138, 141-2, 145-6,
151-2, 156, 159; Dilawerzade c Omer Efendi, Dheyl
to c Othmanzade Ta^ib Ahmed, Hadikat ul-wiizera 3 ,
Istanbul 1271/1854-5, repr. Freiburg 1969, 73-4,

s.v. el-Hadj_ M.P. ; i.H. Dani^mend, Osmanli tarihi
kronolojisi , Istanbul 1961, iv, 32-3, v, 59; Hafiz
Hiiseyin Ayvansarayi, Vefeyat-i selatin ve mesahir-i
ricdly ed. F.Q. Derin, Istanbul 1978, 75; J.
Hammer-Purgstall, HEO , xv, 110-12, 124-42;
Suleyman c Izzi, TaPnkh-i Wekayi c , Istanbul
1199/1 784; E. Prokosch, tr., Molla und Diplomat. Der
Bericht des Ebu Sehil Nu c man Efendi iiber die
osterreichisch-osmanische Grenzziehung nach dem Belgrader
Frieden 1740/41 , Graz, etc. 1972, index s.v.; i.H.
Uzun^arsih, Osmanli tarihi , iv/2, Ankara 1959 1 ,
1983*, 363-7 (text of imp. docs.); idem, Osmanli
imperatorlugu merkez ve bahriye teskilati, Ankara 1948,
347-8, 425 ff.; idem, Osmanli imparatorlugu kapukulu
ocaklan , 2 vols., Ankara 1943-4, i, 408-9, 173, 180,
185; V. Aksan, Ottoman-French relations 1739-1768 ,
in S. Kuneralp, ed., Studies on Ottoman diplomatic
history, i, Istanbul 1987, 41-58.

(A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA. YEGEN, GumrukSu (d.
1158/1745), Ottoman Grand Vizier.

Son of a sister of the then influential statesman
Defterdar Kel Yusuf Efendi (hence the surname
“Nephew”), he was born in Antalya and began
public life as a Miiltezim in the region of his origin. He
went to Istanbul to take up a career in the secretarial
service, becoming a khadjegan. From 1140/1728 to
1141/1729 he was Commissioner of the Customs of
Istanbul ( Giimruk Emini). Around 1144/1732 he
became Kapu-Ketkhudasi of the Beglerbegi of Erzurum,
Topal c Othman Pasha, as well. In 1145/1733 he
acquired the post of Mewkufatci and later again Com¬
missioner of the Customs, leaving that position to
become Kapu-Ketkhudasi to Koprulii-zade Hafiz
Ahmed Pasha. In 1737/1150 he was appointed vizier
and got the function of KaSm-makam (23 (26?) Sha c ban
1150/16 (19?) December 1737), Shemdani-zade,
Mir^i-i tewankh, 67, 77-85: 29 Sha c ban 1150/22
December 1737). Yegen Mehmed then became
Grand Vizier. Preparing for war, he desired at the
same time the French ambassador Villeneuve to
undertake mediation with the Emperor and with
Russia. He left Istanbul as serdar on 15 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja
1150/5 April 1738 and moved the army via Edirne
and Nish towards Ada-Kal c e [q.v. ]. After heavy
fighting in that area, he was successful in the retaking
of Mehadiye, Ada-Kal c e and Semendire (26 RabI*- II
1151/13 August 1738). Having returned to Istanbul at
the end of the campaigning season, preparations of
war were mainly directed towards the reconquest of
Belgrade. The Crimean Kh an was his main adviser
on the conduct of the war against Russia at this time.
Through the influence of the powerful Ddr al-Sa c ade
Aghasi Beshlr Agha, Sultan Mahmud I \qv.\
dismissed his Grand Vizier before he could leave for
the front (12 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja 1151/23 March 1739).

Mehmed Pasha was now exiled to Chios (Ott. Sakfz
[q.v. ]) for one-and-a-half years. On 19 RabI II
1153/14 July 1740, Yegen Mehmed was made
military governor of Candia. Afterwards he received
the governorates of Negroponte (Ott. Eghriboz
[q. v. ]), Bosnia and (in 1157/1744) Aydin [q. v.]. At the
end of the same year, he was made Beglerbegi of
Anadolu and serdar , being sent to Kars and the Per¬
sian front with a large army. Thanks to the initiative
of the Crimean Khan Selim Giray II (1743-8) and his
Tatar troops, the Ottomans attacked the Persian army
in its fortified position near Eriwan (12 Radjab
1158/10 August 1745). After a week of fighting, the
Grand Vizier fell ill and could not exercise his com¬
mand any more. Disorder ensued among the
Ottoman Lewend [qv.] troops, and fighting was

MEHMED PASHA, YEGEN — MEHMED SA C ID GHALIB PASHA

1003

broken off. The Grand Vizier died on 21 Radjab
1158/19 August 1745; his body was brought inside the
citadel of Kars and buried there.

Bibliography. iA art. s.v. (by M.M. Aktepe), of
which the present article is a summary; idem (ed.),
§emddntzade Findikhli Suleyman Efendi tarihi. Miir’i-i
tevdrih, 3 vols. in 4, Istanbul 1976-81, i, pp.
XVII f., 10, 66, 69, 77-85, 87 f., 90, 96, 112 f.,
115, 118, 120, 125, 377; Hafiz Hiiseyin Ayvan-
sarayi. Vefeyat-i selatin ve m esahir-i ricdl , ed. F. Q.
Derin, Istanbul 1978, 85, 114; A. Vandal, Une
ambassade franfaise en Orient , Paris 1887, 329 ff.

(A.H. de Groot)

MEHMED PASHA YEGEN, HadjdjT Seyyid
(1 138-1201/1726-87), Ottoman Grand Vizier from 16
Ramadan 1196-25 Muharram 1197/25/August-31
December 1782. Of Janissary birth, he died as Ser-
c asker at Kostendje [q.v.] on 25 Muharram 1202/6
December 1787. (Ed.)

MEHMED RA>UF, Modern Turkish Mehmet
Rauf (1875-1931), Turkish novelist of the late 19th
and early 20th century. Born in Istanbul and trained
as a naval officer, he entered the navy in 1893, was
sent to Crete for further education, served as liaison
officer in the launches of Foreign Embassies on the
Bosphorus, retiring from the navy in 1908. Apart
from publishing various periodicals for ladies and
some attempts to carry on trade, he devoted his life to
his writing.

Already while a student in the naval college he sent
his first literary experiments to Khalid Diya 5 [q.v. ] in
Izmir, who published them in the newspaper Khidmet.
Later, he contributed to the periodical Mekteb and
various daily papers. When in 1895, the leading
westernisirtg writers formed a group for modern
literature [see turk. Literature] around the periodical
Therwet-i Fiinun [q.v.], he soon joined them and pub¬
lished most of his writings there. Through Khalid
Diya 3 , now in Istanbul, he met most of the Therwet-i
Fiinun school. Most of his novels and collection of
short stories, numbering a dozen each, are rather
superficial, over-sentimental narratives with one
remarkable exception, Eyliil “September” (1900),
which is the first example in Turkish literature, of sus¬
tained psychological analysis. This novel stands out
not only among the works of Mehmed Ra 3 uf, but it
is also one of the most outstanding prose productions
of the whole period.

Eyliil is the love story of Su c ad, a married woman
and Nedjlb, a relative and family friend. It is set
among the semi-westernised, lower-middle class
families of Istanbul at the turn of the century.
Thiireyya is the immature, sporty husband who
spends most of his time boating and swimming while
his wife tries to find consolation in music and plays the
piano for hours on end to escape her boring life. A
deep platonic relationship develops between Su c ad
and Nedjlb, who shares similar tastes with her. Entire
chapters of the novel are devoted to a psychological
analysis of the lovers, who, because of their strict
upbringing, remain faithful to the bounds of morality.
A fire breaks out in the sea-side villa (yall) on the
Bosphorus where the young married couple live, and
Su c ad, together with Nedjlb who tries to save her,
both perish in the flames.

Mehmed Ra^uf is also the author of several plays;
see Bibl.

Bibliography: L. Sami Akalin, Mehmet Rauf,
hayati, sanati, eserleri , Istanbul 1953; Sabahat
Demirkizdiran, Mehmet Rauf’un romanlannda kadin
tipleri, 1954, unpubl. thesis, Istanbul University
Library no. 2423; Ayla Altindag, Mehmet Rauf’un

hikayeciligi , 1965, unpubl. thesis, Istanbul Univer¬
sity Library no. 3756, Cevdet Kudret, Turk
edebiyatinda hikaye ve roman , i 5 ,Istanbul 1987, 267-77;
Kenan Akyiiz, La Literature moderne de Turquie , in
PTF, ii, Wiesbaden 1964, 536-7. For a study of his
plays, see Metin And in Varhk, nos. 686, 688, Istan¬
bul 1967. _ (Fahir iz)

MEHMED RE-1S, Ibn Menemenli, Turkish
ship’s captain and cartographer from an Aegean
seafaring family, author of an 81 x 58 cm chart of the
Aegean Sea, showing also Greece and the western
coast of Asia Minor (Museo Correr, Venice). Dated
999/1590 and with additional title and author’s name
in Italian (probably from the 17th century), the chart
shows rhumbs and 199 names of coastal towns or
islands noted in Turkish.

Similar to the Aegean sea-chart in the atlas of c AlT
Madjar Re^is dating from 1567, the above-mentioned
belongs to the portolan tradition. It is more exact than
the corresponding maps of Pin Re 5 Is [q.v.], although
in some cases differing from both in nomenclature.
One should note that all Turkish sea-charts of the
Aegean not only differ from the European ones in
nomenclature but are also not as standardised as
these.

Bibliography: M. Vedovato, The nautical chart of
Mohammed Rais, 1590, in Imago Mundi , viii (1951),
49; W. Brice, C. Imber and R. Lorch, The Aegean
sea-chart of Mehmed Reis ibn Menemenli A.D. 159011 ,
Seminar on early Islamic science, Monograph no.
2, Manchester 1977. _ (H. Eisenstein)

MEHMED SA C ID GHALIB PASHA, Ottoman
statesman.

Born in Istanbul in 1177/1763-4, he was the son of
Seyyid Ahmed Efendi, bash-khalfe in the mektubi office
of the Grand Vizier. After the death of his father
(1188/1774-5), he entered the same office where he
became bash-khalife in 1210/1795. He was appointed
amedfi [q.v. ] on 15 Ramadan 1213/3 February 1798
and was sent to France (April 1802) to negotiate
peace, which had been broken by the French expedi¬
tion to Egypt (July 1798). He succeeded in signing the
Treaty of Paris on 25 June 1802 (for the text of this
treaty, see G. Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes interna-
tionaux de TEmpire ottoman , Paris 1897-1903, ii, 51-4).
Back in Istanbul at the beginning of 1803, he became
biiyiik tedhkireff and was nominated reTs iil-kiittab in
September 1806. He followed the Ottoman army in
the campaign against Russia, but when the news of
Selim Ill’s deposition on 29 May 1807 reached the
army, he took refuge with Mustafa Pasha Bayrakdar
[q.v.] at Ruscuk. Meanwhile, a few days later, on 15
Djumada I 1222/21 July 1807, he was appointed
nishandji and charged with the negotiation of an
armistice with the Russians. This resulted in the
armistice of Slobosia (24 August). Ghalib Efendi was
nominated re^is iil-kiittab for the second time on 19
Safar 1223/15 April 1808. He maintained his position
after Mustafa IV’s deposition on 28 July, and
remained in charge under Mahmud II up to the mid¬
dle of 1811. Then he became ketkhiida of the Grand
Vizier. He headed the Ottoman mission in the
negotiations with the Russians, aiming at ending the
war which had been resumed again in October 1808.
Thus he concluded the treaty of Bucharest on 28 May
1812 (for the text of this treaty, see Noradounghian,
II, 86-92). He was appointed reTs iil-kiittab for the
third time on 30 Muharram 1229/22 January 1814,
but was dismissed during the ewdsit-i Radj_ab!Tl June-8

July.

Ghalib Efendi remained for the following nine
years out of Istanbul. He was charged, with the rank

1004

MEHMED SA C ID GHALIB PASHA — MEHMED YIRMISEKIZ

of wazir and the title of pasha, with the administration
of different provinces in Anatolia. His banishment
was due to Halet Efendi [q.v.], a political rival whose
influence had become preponderant at the court. He
was exiled to Konya in Ramadan 1236/June 1827,
and could regain favour only after the execution of his
rival (during the ewakhir-i Safar 1238/7-15 November
1822).

Ghalib Pasha was nominated commandant of the
European side of the Bosphorus during the ewasit-i
Muharram 1239/17-26 September 1823. He returned
to Istanbul and soon became Grand Vizier (10 Rabl*
11/14 December). The main problem with which he
had to deal was the Greek revolt in the Morea. He
charged the wall of Egypt Muhammad C A1I Pasha
[q.v.] to crush the revolt by landing troops in the
peninsula. He was dismissed from the Grand
Vizierate on 20 Muharram 1240/14 September 1824.
The cause seems to be his reluctance to agree to the
proposal of the Sultan for the abolition of the
Janissaries [see yeni-Ceri]. Appointed wall of
Erzurum and Shark ser- c askeri in Radjab 1240/19
February-20 March 1825, he tried to resist the Rus¬
sians during the war of 1828, but was not able to pre¬
vent the fall of Kars (15 July). He was dismissed on
Djumada II 1244/9 December 1828-6 January 1829
and exiled to Balikesir, where he died in
1245/1829-30.

Ghalib Pasha was an intelligent and able
administrator. His knowledge of international affairs
qualified him as the most skilful Ottoman diplomat of
his time. He is rightly regarded as the founder of
modern Turkish diplomacy.

Bibliography. Sefaret-ndme-i Ghalib Efendi, in
Edebiyyat-i c umumiyye medjmu c asl , nos. 9-13, 15;
Suleyman Fa-fik, Rhalifet iil-ru :> esd' 3 , Appx. II, 166-
70; Sidlill-i c qthmdni , iii, 615-16; Orhan F. Kopriilu,
IA, s.v.; c Asim, Ta^rtkh, ii, passim; Shanl-zade.
Ta?rikh, i, passim; Djewdet, TaMkh 1 , vi-vii, passim;
Lutfi, Ta^rikh, i-ii, passim; Zinkeisen, vii, passim; A.
von Prokosch-Osten, Geschichte des Abfalls der
Griechen , Vienna 1867, i, 226, 240, 302 f., iv,
115 f.; Isma c Il Hakkl (Uzun^ar^ih), Karesi meshahiri ,
Istanbul 1339/1925, ii, 137-40; idem, Amedi Galib
Efendinin murahhasligi , in Belleten, i, 357-410; idem,
Mefhur Rumeli ayanlanndan ... Alemdar Mustafa Pasa ,
Istanbul 1942, passim; J. Puryear, Napoleon and the
Dardanelles , Berkeley 1951, passim; Ismail Soysal,
Fransiz ihtildli ve Turk-Fransiz diplomasi miinasebetleri,
1789-1802, Ankara 1964, 329 ff, 341.

(E. Kuran)

MEHMED SALIH EFENDI (? - 1175/1762),
Ottoman Shaykh al-Islam of the second half of the
18th century. On his mother’s side he was descended
from Shaykh Husam al-DTn c UshshakI, the founder of
the c Ushshakiyye tanka, who died in 1001/1592-93,
and who is buried in Istanbul at Kasimpasha. His
father was Kfrimi c Abd Allah Efendi-zade Yahya
Efendi, who served as kafx of Ghalata and subse¬
quently of Egypt with the rank {paye ) of Edime, being
removed from the latter post on 1 Dhu ’1-Ka c da
1126/8 November 1714, and eventually dying in
Istanbul in RabF I 1131/January-February 1719.
Kfrimi c Abd Allah Efendi-zade Yahya Efendi is
buried at the Sit tekke outside Edimekapisf, close by
the Emir Bukhari Dergahf.

As yet we possess no information on the place and
date of Mehmed Salih Efendi’s birth. However, it is
known that in his youth he attracted the patronage of
Yenishehirli c Abd Allah Efendi, Shaykh al-Islam (1130-
42/1718-30) under Ahmed III, that he became his
patron’s son-in-law, and that he studied the religious

sciences. Mehmed Salih Efendi had the fortune to
make rapid progress in his career. After spending
some years in the mufettishliks of the Haremeyn and
the Bab-f Fetwa, he became kadi of Haleb (Aleppo)
with the rank of makhredy. In Muharram 1148/May-
June 1735 he was appointed to the kadillk of Sham,
and in 1153/1740-1 to the kadillk of Medina. Having
completed the term of his appointment, he returned to
Istanbul. On 27 Djumada II 1159/17 July 1746, he
was appointed to the kadillk of Istanbul. This appoint¬
ment was terminated on 1 Sha c ban 1160/8 August
1747, after he had completed the customary term. He
was re-appointed kadi of Istanbul in Shawwal
1163/September 1750, and on 3 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja
1163/3 November 1750, at the request of the Shaykh
al-Islam Sayyid Murtada Efendi, he was additionally
granted the rank {paye ) of Anadolu by khatt-i humayun
of Sultan Mahmud. On 7 Sha c ban 1167/30 May 1754
he entered into the functions of Anadolu kd(H c askeri,
and held this post until 10 Sha c ban 1168/22 May
1755. On the last day of $afar 1171/12 November
1757 he was appointed kadi c askeri of Rumeli, and
having fulfilled the normal term of the appointment,
he was made Shaykh al-Islam on 16 Djumada I 1171/26
January 1758, replacing Damad-zade Fayd Allah
Efendi. In this capacity he officiated at the marriage
of Mustafa Ill’s sister $aliha Sultan to the Grand
Vizier Kodja Raghib Pasha at the Saliha Sultan
Sahilsarayf in Eyyub. He was finally removed from
office on 5 Dhu ’1-Ka c da 1172/30 June 1759, and
given permission to reside in his villa at Kanlidja.

Mehmed Salih Efendi died on 1 Shawwal 1175/25
April 1762, the first day of Sheker Bayrami. Funeral
prayers were held on the following day at the mosque
of Fatih Sultan Mehemmed, and he was buried in the
cemetery of the medrese of Radiosker Mehmed Efendi.
The cemetery is located in the district of Kuciik
Mustafa Pasha, alongside the Fetwd-khane s of Haydar
Mahallesi, and opposite the mosque of Sinan Agha.
Mehmed Salih Efendi was a man of good character
and distinguished qualities. His son was the Shaykh al-
Islam Ahmed Es c ad Efendi.

Bibliography : Shaykh!, Muhammad Efendi,
WekdyV alfudala 5 , Istanbul Univ. Library, TY no.
3216, p. 406; Saml-Shakir-Subhl. WekayF'-name,
Istanbul 1198, ii, 180; Sulayman c Izzi, Wekdyi c -
ndme, Bulak 1246, i, 21, 27, 64, 69, 71, 106;
Mustaklm-zade Sulayman Sa c d al-Dln, Dawha-yi
mashayikh-i kibar ve dheylleri, Istanbul Univ. Library,
TY. no. 9823, 70, 129; idem, Tuhfa-yi khattatin,
Istanbul 1928, 2; RiFat, Dawha-yi mashayikh ma c a
dheyl, lith., 100 ff.; Husayn Ayvansarayl, Hadikat
al-djawami < , Istanbul 1281, i, 123; Mehmed
Thurayya, Sidjill-i c 0thmdni, Istanbul 1311, iii, 207,
268; Shams al-Dln Sami, Ramus al-aHam , Istanbul
1311, iv, 2920 ff.; c ilmiyye salnamesi, Istanbul 1334,
520, 569; i.H. Uzun^ar^ih, Osmanh tarihi, Ankara
1983, iv/2, 485; Cahit Baltaci, XV. - XVI. astrda
Osmanli medreseleri, Istanbul 1976, 597; Mubahat
Kutukoglu, 1869’da faal Istanbul medreseleri, Istanbul
1977, 28 ff.; IA, art. Tarikat XIII1, XVI; Turk
Ansiklopedisi , xxviii, 78, art. Mehmed Salih Efendi.

(Munir Aktepe)

MEHMED YIRMISEKIZ Celebi Efendi,
Ottoman statesman renowned for his diplomatic
mission to France in 1132-3/ 1720-1 and for the
account of the mission (sefaret-ndme) which he left
behind, a major contribution to the westernising
movement in the Ottoman Empire in its early
manifestations.

His biography is known only in part. He was about
fifty years old at the time of his mission. He was born

MEHMED YIRMISEKIZ

1005

at Edirne, and his father was Giirdju (“the
Georgian”) Suleyman Agha, seksondjubashi, meaning
colonel of the 71st regiment of Janissaries. He himself
followed a military career, after having, apparently,
attended the school for pages of the imperial palace,
and he belonged to the 28th regiment, hence the
nickname of “Twenty-eight” ( Yirmisekiz) which he
retained. He rose to the rank of corbadji, then to that
of muhdir agh a. But having also acquired a scholastic
education which earned him the title of efendi (and
which is illustrated by poems composed under the
name of Fa^izi, as well as by the Persian verses which
adorn his travel narrative), he was assigned to
administrative and financial responsibilities in the
army: in the role of topkhdne ndzirl , he was charged
with the management of the Arsenal. His diplomatic
role began with the negotiations over the Treaty of
Passarowitz (1718), where he was deputy plenipoten¬
tiary with the title of “receiver of taxes of the third
order” ( shikk-i lhalith defterdarl). In this role he
acquired, according to Bonnac, ambassador in Con¬
stantinople (1716-24) “a fine reputation among the
ministers of the Christian princes who were present
there”. It was as a result of this experience that he was
appointed to undertake the mission to France, raised
on this occasion to the rank of “chief accountant"
{bash muhasebedjj).

The sending to Paris not of a simple emissary as in
previous periods, nor of a permanent representative,
but at last of a specially accredited ambassador ( elci
[q.v. ]), represented a diplomatic innovation, for which
the initiative belonged entirely to the Grand Vizier,
son-in-law of Ahmed III, Newshehirli Ibrahim Pasha.
The latter’s ulterior motives were kept secret so as to
avoid disturbing foreign powers and perhaps also to
avoid friction with conservative elements at home.
Officially, the ambassador was entrusted with the task
of conveying to the French authorities (King Louis
XV, still a minor, and the regent Philippe d’Orleans)
the sultan’s authorisation of repairs to the cupola of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which the French
had requested in their role as protectors of the Chris¬
tians of the East. He was also required to discuss the
problem of Maltese piracy and to obtain the release of
Ottoman prisoners serving as slaves in the royal
galleys. But it is probable that, having experienced the
setbacks ratified by the Treaties of Carlowitz (1699
[see karlof£a] and Passarowitz, the Grand Vizier in
fact envisaged a strengthening of the Ottoman Empire
against the Habsburgs by means of a more or less
close alliance with France (though the latter had been
engaged in a system of alliances with Austria since
1718), and he also hoped to acquire information
regarding the scientific and technical advances taking
place in western Europe and especially in France. A
passage which is often quoted from the instructions
given to Mehmed Efendi, required him “to visit for¬
tresses and factories, to make a detailed study of the
means of civilisation and education and to compile a
report concerning those which may be applied”.

The ambassador’s journey, made in the company
of his son Sa < Id Efendi (himself a future ambassador
to Sweden and France, in 1742, and future Grand
Vizier) and an entourage of about a hundred persons,
lasted a year, from his departure from Istanbul on 7
October 1720 to his return on 8 October 1721.
Although dubious at the very principle of his mission,
the French authorities received him with respect and
considerable pomp, while his public appearances
excited much curiosity which is amply reflected in the
writings of the diarists and journalists of the time.
Arriving at Toulon on 22 November, he had to spend

a period of quarantine at Maguelone, and then
reached Paris by a circuitous route through the west
of the country, initially following the course of the
Canal du Midi, in order to avoid the south-east which
was then the scene of an outbreak of plaque. Arriving
in Paris on 8 March 1721, Mehmed Efendi remained
in the capital and its immediate surroundings until 3
August. Returning to Sete via the Rhone valley, he
began there on 7 September, his return journey, with
a stop-over at La Goulette.

The Sefdret-name , which is known through numerous
editions in Ottoman and modern Turkish and in the
French translation by the “jeune de langues”, Julien-
Claude Galland (nephew of the translator of the Thou¬
sand and one nights), has not yet been the object of a
proper critical edition (see Bibl.). It is known that a
first draft was composed during the journey itself, and
a version presented to the Grand Vizier immediately
after his return, followed two years later by a more
extended version; from his version, passages regarded
as excessively critical of the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, the Archbishop of Cambrai, Dubois,
were excised at the behest of the Marquis de Bonnac.
The account with which we have to do may not
perhaps respond to all possible a priori expectations of
this first discovery of France by an educated
Ottoman, this spontaneous encounter between two
cultures. But it is necessary to take into account the
limited types of experience available to an
ambassador, as well as the constraints imposed on a
report designed simultaneously to be read by senior
officials of the state and to be widely available to the
general public. Not only has the author not seen
everything, but in a more or less deliberate fashion he
refrains from mentioning everything which he
actually knows. However, his account, such as it is,
remains a no less remarkable document, notable for
the curiosity, open mindedness, descriptive qualities
and aptitude for judgment which it demonstrates and
which place it indisputably above the only surviving
precedent, the account of Vienna by Kara Mehmed
Pasha in 1665; these qualities were to make it the
example to be followed by all subsequent sefdret-ndm.es.

Mehmed Efendi pays little attention to manners,
beyond noting the curiosity of the French, the
astonishing freedom of movement of their women and
the respect accorded to them. He is also somewhat
sparing of political information, in the sense of French
institutions, the personalities of the rulers and the con¬
tent of his negotiations, which led Bonnac to remark
that this was not the account of an ambassador. On
the other hand, he writes enthusiastically and per¬
tinently concerning natural phenomena and espec¬
ially—corresponding to the object of his mission, as
noted above—the military, scientific and technical
achievements that he witnessed. He shows equal
interest and discernement in the artistic domain. He
thus provides detailed and vivid descriptions of the
Canal du Midi and its locks, the Invalides (with the
organ, the chapel, the veterans’ hospital), military
parades and manoeuvres on the field of the Sablons,
the collection of city models or city plans in relief pre¬
served at that time in the Tuileries, the royal
manufacturers of the Gobelin tapestries and the Saint-
Gobain mirrors, the “king’s garden” (the future
Museum of Natural History), the Opera, the Paris
observatory, the palaces and landscaped gardens of
Saint-Cloud, Meudon, Versailles, Marly (with the
famous “machine” drawing water from the Seine)
and Chantilly. The ambassador never explicitly
advocates imitation of the marvels of the France of
Louis XIV and of the Regency (the enormous costs of

1006

MEHMED YIRMISEKIZ — MEHMED ZA C IM

which he is always at pains to point out), but his role
as propagandist is all the more effective in view of his
oral commentaries and the numerous artefacts,
including 1,000 engravings, which the Grand Vizier
sent the dragoman Lenoir to acquire in France follow¬
ing his diplomatic mission, providing a supplement to
the information contained in the sefaret-ndme and
which were addressed moreover to a sympathetic
public, the court of Istanbul of the “Age of the tulips’’
see lala devri] , which was especially fond of
“curiosities” and artistic refinements.

The resulting French influence was manifested
most of all in architecture in a style known as alafranga
(alia franca), especially perceptible in the im¬
provements made to the residence of Ahmed III at the
Fresh Waters of Europe, known as Sa c dabad: the con¬
struction of a canal on the model of those of Versailles
and Fontainebleau along which the houses of the
dignitaries were built contiguously, with the aim of
imitating a classical disposition (a procedure called
hisdryalllari). Similarly, the two elegant fountains built
by Ahmed III have a certain rococo character. It is
not known whether the example of the Canal du Midi
is connected with the resumption under Ahmed III of
work on the canal connecting the Black Sea to the
Gulf of Izmir by way of the Sakarya (cf. A. Wa$if,
Mehasin iil-dthdr we-hakaHk iil-akhbdr , i, Istanbul
1219/1804-5, 162-3).

Another marked effect of the diplomatic mission
was the establishment, in 1727, of the first printing-
press using Arabic characters, at the initiative of
Ibrahim Miiteferrika [q.v. ] and Sa c id Efendi, who was
impressed by examples of printing seen in Paris, a fact
mentioned by Saint-Simon (ed. Boislisle, xxxviii, 201-
4) but not recorded in his father’s account [see
matba c a. 2. In Turkey].

The insurrection of 1730 brought a halt—albeit
temporary—to this trend which, despite its superficial
and even frivolous aspects, represented an important
change in attitude towards the West. Affected by the
fall of his patrons, Mehmed Efendi was nevertheless
entrusted with the task of conveying to Poland the let¬
ter proclaiming the accession of Mahmud I (Topkapi
Archives, E. 1654). He ended his career as governor
of Cyprus, where he died in 1145/1732.

Bibliography: Numerous mss. of the Sefaret-
name-yi Fransa, see Babinger, GOW, 326-7, to be
completed by F. R. Unat, Osmanli sefirleri ve sefaret-
ndmeleri , Ankara 1968, 58, and by B.N. suppl. turc.
no. 717. There exist various editions in Ottoman
Turkish, though without any scientific character:
extracts in Ta?rlkh-i Rashid, Istanbul 1282, v, 330-
67; Relation de Vambassade de Mohammed Efendi (texte
turk ) a l’usage des eleves de VEcole royale et speciale des
langues orientales vivantes, ed. P.A. Jaubert, Paris
1841; Mehmed Celebi, Sefaret-name-yi Fransa , Istan¬
bul 1283; Tacryr ou Relation de Mohammed Efendi,
ambassadeur de la Porte en France, 1720, a Ibrahim
Pacha, edite et accompagne de notes par Suavi Effendi,
Paris 1872; Paris sefaret-namesi, Istanbul 1306/1888-
9; popular editions in modern Turkish: Mehmed
Qelebi, Yirmisekiz Mehmed Qelebi ’nin Fransa seyahat -
namesi, ed. §. Rado and T. Toros, Istanbul 1970,
and Yirmisekiz (felebi Mehmed Efendi sefaretnamesi, ed.
A. Ugman, Istanbul 1975. Two contemporary
French translations of the travel narrative have
been preserved, that of Ph.J. Aubert, French
dragoman at Aleppo (Archives du Ministere des affaires
etrangeres, Memoires et documents, Turquie, xii, fols.
230-99), and the much superior one of J. Cl.
Galland published in Relation de Vambassade de
Mehmet Effendi a la cour de France en 1721 , ecrite par lui-

meme et traduite du turc, Constantinople-Paris 1757.
The author of the present article has given a new
edition of this version according to more complete
mss., annotated and complemented by contem¬
porary texts, in Mehmed Efendi, Le paradis des
infideles, un ambassadeur ottoman en France sous la
Regence, Paris 1981. Sources: in addition to the
French sources cited in the above edition, see Sami,
Shakir and Subhi, TaMkh , Istanbul 1198/1784, 1-6;
Kiicuk Celebizade c Asim, Ta^rikh, Istanbul
1282/1865-6, 339 ff.; Rashid, op. cit., v, 29-30,
213-14, 443-9; Mehmed Siireyya, Sidjill-i c Olhmdm,
iv, Istanbul 1311, 266; F.R. Unat, op. cit.,
reproduces some iconographical documents,
Studies: Marquis de Bonnac, Memoire historique sur
Vambassade de France a Constantinople, ed. Ch.
Schefer, Paris 1884; E. d'Aubigny, Un ambassadeur
turc a Paris sous la Regence. Ambassade deMehemet efendi
en France, d 'apres la relation ecrite par lui-meme et des
documents inedits, in Revue d’histoire diplomatique, iii/1
(Paris 1889), 78-91, iii/2, 200-35; A. Gaste, Retour
a Constantinople de Vambassadeur turc Mehmet Effendi :
journal de bord du chevalier de Camilly, juillet 1721-mai
1722, in Memoires de VAcademie nationale des sciences ,
arts et belles-lettres de Caen, Caen 1902, 4-141; S.N.
Gergek, Turk matbaaciligi, /: Miiteferrika matbaasi,
Istanbul 1939; E.Z. Karal, Tanzimattan evvel
garphlafma hareketleri, in Tanzimat, Ankara 1940, 13-
30; A.H. Tanpinar, XIX. asir Turk edebiyati tarihi, i,
Istanbul 1956; A.V. Vitol, Iz istorii turetsko-
frantsuzskikh svyazey (posoVstvo Zirmisekiz Celebi
Mekhmeda-Efendi vo Frantsiyu v 1720-1721 gg.), in
Narodi Azii i Afriki, iv, Moscow 1976, 123-8; B.
Lewis, The Muslim discovery of Europe, London 1982;
E. Esin, Le mahbubiye, un palais ottoman “alia franca ”,
in H. Batu and J.L. Bacque-Grammont (eds.),
L Empire ottoman, la republique de Turquie et la France,
Paris 1986, 73-86; F. Muge Gogek, East encounters
West. France and the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth cen¬
tury, Oxford 1987. (G. Veinstein)

MEHMED ZA c fM, Ottoman Turkish
historian.

All that we know of his life has to be gleaned from
his works. He was born in 1939/1532, for he tells us
that at the accession of Sultan Murad III, i.e. in
982/1574, he was 43. At the early age of eleven he
took part in the campaign of 950/1543, along with his
elder brother Perwane Agha, who at that time was
Kapudjl Bashl, to the Sanfjak Beg of Lepanto, Yahya
Pasha-Oghlu Ahmad Beg. When the latter, after the
capture of Stuhlweissenburg, was appointed Sandjak
Beg there, the brothers seemed to have remained in his
service, probably till 952/1545, when Ahmad Beg was
summoned to Istanbul, in connection with the
plundering of the Stuhlweissenburg churches. In
961/1554 when Sultan Suleyman took the field against
Shah Tahmasp of Persia, Mehmed Za c Im was a
secretary in the service of the governor of Syria, Teki-
oghlu Mehmed, and a year later he was secretary to
the powerful grand vizier Mehmed Sokollu [q. v. ] and
in this capacity compiled the official report of the
death of Selim II and the accession of Murad III
which was sent to the governors of Diyarbakr, Aleppo
and Ba gh dad. This office, to which he perhaps suc¬
ceeded on the promotion (978/1570) of the famous
Ferfdun Ahmed Beg [q.v.], he must have filled till the
death of Mehmed Sokollu in 987/1579; we hear
nothing further about it. He held a great fief (zVamet;
hence his epithet Za c im); he himself says zu c amd*-i
c atebe-i selatin-i al-i c othmaniyyeden Mehmed He miite c dref we
shehir. Friends requested him to write a history, and he
finished it within a year. He began the work in

MEHMED ZA C IM — MEHTER

1007

Muharram 985 (beginning of 21 March 1577) and
had completed it in Dhu THidjdja of the same year
(beginning of 9 Feb. 1578). The date of his death and
the site of his tomb are not known but he is said to
have left charitable endowments in Karaferia near
Salonika.

He called his book Huma-yi dyami c al-tawarikh and
dedicated it to his master Mehmed Sokollu. As his
sources, he mentions eleven historians from Firdawsf
and al-Tabari down to the anonymous Tawarikh-i
seldtin-i al-i c Othmdn and gives as his main source the
Behdyet al-tawarikh, from which, as has been proved, he
copied out whole pages without a qualm. The book,
which is not yet printed, is divided into a preface and
five large sections ( aksam , subdivided into guruhs and
then again into makalat) and concludes with an
epilogue. Rieu and others have given an account of
the contents from the manuscripts. In the fourth guruh
of the 5th kism he deals with the Ottomans, and here
alone do we have statements of any value, when the
author describes from his own experience events from
950/1543 onwards. He brought his story down to the
time of writing, and the last event that he mentions
took place in the month in which the book was
finished.

The passages in the book relating to Hungary have
been dealt with by Thury ( Tdrok tortentirok, ii, 364-89),
who also collected the above data for his life; the
earlier from 1390 to 1476 are given in extracts and the
later from 1521 to 1566 translated in full. Of the other
less valuable parts of the book, Diez ( Denkwiirdigkeiten
von Asien, i, 212 ff.) has edited a portion of the very
early history, dealing with Cain and his descendants,
while Von Hammer (Sur les origines russes , lxi, 120)
edited and translated a portion on the tribal divisions
of the Turks, where the Rus appear as the ninth
Turkish tribe. Of the later Ottoman historians,
Ibrahim Pecewl utilised and quoted from the work of
Mehmed Za c Im from the year 949/1542 onwards.

Bibliography: Babinger, GOW, 20, 98-9, 193,

where further references are given; Istanbul

kutiiphaneleri tarih-cograjya yazmalan katalogu , Istanbul

1943, 100 ff. (W. Bjorkman)

MEHTER (P.), a musical ensemble consisting
of combinations of double-reed shawms ( zurna ),
trumpets ( boru ), double-headed drum (tabl), kettle¬
drums ( nakkare, kos ) and metallic percussion
instruments. The name (P. “greater”) apparently
denotes “the greater orchestra”. Other terms are:
Mehterkhane, Tabl-khane, Tabl-u c Alem (”drum
and standard”), Mehteran-i Tabl-u c Alem,
Djema c at-i Mehteran, and Tabl-i Al-i c Othman
(“Drum of the Ottoman House”). The Ottoman
mehter was an analogue of the wind, brass and percus¬
sion ensembles used for official, municipal and
military purposes in other Islamic states. Traditions
current in Ottoman and in earlier Arabic sources (e.g.
Ibn Khaldun) link the mehter to the Turkic and
Khurasanian elements in the caliphal armies.

The Ottoman mehter was outlawed (and physically
destroyed) in 1826. Therefore, information about it is
derived from written sources, the most important of
which is the Seyahat-name of Ewliya Celebi (11 th/17th
century). Prince Cantemir’s history contains a few
important passages, and short references are found in
a variety of Ottoman and European sources. Another
important source lies in Ottoman miniatures which
frequently portray the mehter musicians. The absence
of an authentic oral tradition for the mehter is partly
compensated by the notations found in the 11 th/17th
century Medymu^a-yi saz u soz by C A1I Ufk! Bey (Alberto
Bobowsky) and the Kitab-i c ilm al-musiki c ala wedy al-

hurufat by Prince Dimitrie Cantemir (1700). A few
examples were also preserved in the Hamparsum
notation in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

In the capital, the mehter was part of the Palace ser¬
vice. The musicians appear to have been originally of
devshirme [ q.v . ] origin, but not after the early 11th/17th
century. They were trained in the Palace school. The
names of several mehter composers of the Palace have
been preserved along with their compositions, e.g.
NefTrl Behran (10th/16th century) and Zurnazen-
bashf Ibrahim Agha (11 th/17th century). It appears
that the mehteran trained in the capital were sent to the
provinces. Alongside this official mehter was another
type of ensemble called the mehter-i birun which formed
part of the urban musicians’ guilds. This mehter
received no salary, but performed at public and
private festivities. The mehter-i birun differed somewhat
in orchestration and in size from the tabl-u c alem, and
its repertoire was somewhat distinct. A well-known
composer of the mehter-i birun was Zurnazen Edirneli
DaghI Ahmed Celebi (11 th/17th century).

The offical mehter had three distinct functions: (1)
The mehter played continuously during battle. The
standard ( c alem ) was located near the mehter , so that
silence from the direction of the mehter could lead to
the Janissaries' abandoning the field. Certain battle
signals were given by the percussion of the mehter (e.g.
tabl-i asayish “the drum of repose” for the cessation of
fighting). Although the Janissaries entered battle at
the pace of the mehter music, the mehter was not respon¬
sible for regulating the movement of troops outside of
battle. The march was not a mehter genre.

(2) The sultan was greeted every afternoon by a
mehter performance which was accompanied by
prayers for the ruler and the state. In the course of the
Ottoman period, this ceremony seems to have become
highly ritualised. In addition, the vizier, provincial
governors and vassal rulers (such as the khans of the
Crimea and the voyvods of Moldavia) all had their own
mehter ensembles and were therefore referred to as tabl-
u c alem sahibi (possessor of drum and standard”). The
number of musicians in the mehter was an indication of
the status of the official.

(3) A mehter ensemble played every morning and
night from a tower within the garden of the Topkapi
Palace, from other towers in the capital and in many
other cities of the Empire. These performances occur¬
red before the morning prayer (sabdh namazT) and after
the night prayer ( Hshd 5 namdzi).

The basic melody instrument of the mehter was the
zurna , a double-reed shawm with seven holes (6 in
front and 1 behind). The official mehter used the large
instrument known as kaba zurna which seems to have
been identical to the instrument of the same name
played today in rural ensembles in central and
western Anatolia and Thrace. The mehter-i birun pre¬
ferred the smaller dyurna zurna. The kaba zurna had a
range of over two octaves and could produce all the
notes needed for pre-19th century Ottoman music.
Subsidiary to the zurna was the trumpet known as boru
or nejir. Older borus were apparently made of bronze,
but by the 10th/16th century brass was in use. The
boru had no holes and could produce five notes within
an ambitus of one and a half octaves. Pieces described
as nefir-i dem apparently employed the borus to hold the
drone.

The basic percussion instrument of the mehter was
the tabl or dawul, a rather large wooden double-headed
drum held slantwise by a strap and beaten with two
sticks of uneven dimensions and shape, thus produc¬
ing the bass dum and treble tek sounds which are essen¬
tial to the Ottoman conception of rhythm. The

1008

MEHTER — MEL1LLA

Ottoman tabl was the ancestor both of the folkloric
drum of the same name (called also tapan, kas or
bubandf in the Balkans) and of the European military
drum, which has however abandoned the bass-treble
distinction during the 19th century.

A secondary percussion instrument was the nakkare,
a medium-sized kettle-drum made of copper. The two
parts of the nakkara were tuned differently to produce
bass and treble tones, and were struck with sticks
(zahme) of uniform shape. A much larger kettledrum
was the kos , which could measure one-and-a-half
metres at the top. It was also made of copper. The kos
was taken on campaigns and played at official
occasions.

The drum of the mehter were supported by two types
of brass percussion—the halite s or zils (cymbals) and
the cewgdn, a crescent-shaped, jingling rattle with
bells.

These instruments were played in large groups,
with the zurnas and dawuls in equal numbers, and the
other instruments somewhat less numerous. In the
early 19th century, Von Hammer reports that a
vizier’s or pasha’s mehter consisted of 72 pieces: 16
zurnas, 16 tab Is, 11 borus, 8 nakkare s, 7 hollies and 4 kos.
The sultan’s mehter (called mehter-khdne-yi khdkdni or
mehter-khane-yi humayun ) was twice that during cam¬
paigns.

The mehter was conducted by the lead zurna-player
(zurna-zen-bashi), who was therefore termed mehter bashl.
The mehter normally performed in a circular forma¬
tion. During campaigns or processions (alay), the
musicians were mounted on horses or camels; the kos
was taken on a camel or an elephant.

The repertoire of the mehter was termed newbet or
fasti. Of this repertoire, approximately sixty pieces
have survived. This repertoire was related to the
instrumental suite (fasil-i sdzendegan) of Ottoman court
music. The dominant forms were the peshrew and the
semd < i, as well as the improvised taksim. The peshrews
and semaHs of the mehter form separate genres which
employed somewhat simpler rhythmic cycles and
larger melodic leaps than the contemporaneous court
music. One performance practice associated
exclusively with the mehter was the karabatak : alterna¬
tion of soft passages played by a partial ensemble with
thunderous tutti passages. The mehter repertoire is
identified in the sources by the names of individual
items, e.g. sandfak (“standard”) atlu (“horseman”),
alay diizen (’’parade order”), elci (“ambassador”), or
the term harbi (“martial”). During the 18th century,
the mehter repertoire was broadened to include
instrumental versions of the classical vocal forms
(beste, naktsh , semaH ), as well as folk tunes (ezgi, turkii ,
kalenderi).

In 1720 the Porte presented the Polish court with a
complete mehter ensemble. The gift was very much
appreciated, and soon after Russia and then Prussia
requested similar ensembles. By the 1770s, many
European courts had mehter bands, and some sent their
bandmasters to Istanbul to study the mehter. The main
musical result of this cross-cultural exchange appears
to have been the introduction of several percussion
instruments into European military bands and court
orchestras, which gradually led to the augmentation of
other instrumental sections and hence a change in
orchestral texture. Possible influence of the mehter
melodies themselves upon European military music of
the 18th century has not been adequately researched.
In addition, in the South-East European territories
under Ottoman domination or influence, the music of
the mehter was an important factor in the diffusion of
Ottoman-Islamic musical principles.

The destruction of the Janissary Corps in 1826 led
to the neglect of the mehter repertoire, which appears
to have been completely forgotten by the end of the
19th century. During the First World War, an
attempt was made to revive a version of the mehter in
accordance with the needs of the modernised Turkish
army. Hymns and marches (the latter built on a mix¬
ture of Turkish and western musical ideas) were com¬
missioned from classical composers such as Isma c fl
Hakki (d. 1927), Kazim Uz (d. 1943) and Ali Riza
§engel (d. 1953). Some private mehter ensembles were
created during the War of Liberation, but these were
not institutionalised during the Republic. In 1952, a
new mehterhane was established in conjunction with the
Military Museum in Istanbul. The costumes and
some of the performance practices of this new mehter
are largely authentic, but its repertoire is drawn
almost exclusively from the hybrid mehter music of the
First World War.

Bibliography: Sources for the mehter are few.
Almost all Ottoman (but almost no Western)
sources for the mehter are treated by Haydar Sanal
in Mehter musikisi, Istanbul 1964. Sanal’s book is the
major point of reference for any study of the mehter
and its music. In contains transcriptions of virtually
the entire authentic repertoire of the mehter found in
the works of C A1I UfkT Bey and Cantemir. Abun¬
dant references to Ottoman sources may be found
in Sanal’s book. Of these, the most important is
Evliya Celebi’s Seyahdt-name , i-v. Several aspects of
the mehter were treated by Zeki Mehmet Pakalin in
Osmanli Tarih deyimleri ve terimleri sozlugii, ii, Istanbul
1971, 444-51. See also H.G. Farmer, Turkish influ¬
ence in military music , London 1950; K. Signell,
Mozart and the Mehter, in The Consort , no. 24 (1967),
310-22. (W. Feldman)

MEKNES [see miknas].

MELILLA (in modern Arabic: Mltlya, Berber
Tamlilt, “the white”; in the Arab geographers,
Malila ), aseaportontheeastcoast of Morocco on
a promontory on the peninsula of GeFiyya at the end
of which is the Cape Tres Forcas or the Three Forks
(Ras Hurk of the Arab geographers, now Rds Werk).

Melilla probably corresponds to the Rusadir of the
ancients (cf. Rhyssadir oppidum el portus (Pliny, v. 18),
Russadir Colonia of the Antoninian Itinerary). Leo
Africanus says that it had belonged for a time to the
Goths and that the Arabs took it from them, but in
reality we know nothing of the ancient history of the
town.

It is only at the beginning of the 4th/10th century
that Melilla appears in the Muslim history of
Morocco. In 318/930, the Umayyad Caliph of Spain,
c Abd al-Rahman III al-Nasir li-Dln Allah, succeeded
in detaching from the Fatimids the famous Miknasa
chief Musa b. Abi ’l- c Afiya, who had established his
authority over the basin of the Moulouya and the
district of Taza; having seized Melilla, al-Nasir built
ramparts around it and gave it to his new ally, who
thus had at his command a base of defence ( ma c kil )
against the Fatimids of IfrTkiya and a port which made
communication with Spain easy. Later on, the
descendants of his son, al-Bun b. Musa, rebuilt the
town, which remained one of the strongholds of the
Miknasa in Morocco down to the time of the decline
of the power of the tribe, who were definitively
defeated and scattered by the Almoravid Yusuf b.
TashfTn in 462/1070.

But the Miknasa must have abandoned it before
their dynasty was crushed by the Almoravids, for al-
Bakri shows us that by 459/1067 a descendant of the
Hammudid Idrlsids of Spain had been summoned to

MELILLA — MEMON

1009

Melilla and recognised as ruler by the people of the
district.

At the period when al-Bakrl wrote (460/1068),
Melilla was a town surrounded by a wall of stone;
inside was a very strong citadel, a great mosque, a
hammam and markets. The inhabitants belonged to the
tribe of the Banu WartadI (or B. Wartarda), a branch
of the Battuya group of the $anhadja. Melilla had a
harbour which was accessible only in summer. It was
the terminus of a trade route which connected
Sidjilmasa with the Mediterranean through the valley
of the Moulouya and Agarslf (French Guercif). The
trade must have been considerable; the principal
exports were no doubt those mentioned by Leo
Africanus, sc. iron from the mines of the mountains
of the Banu Sa c Td and honey from the Kabdana coun¬
try; we may also add pearls which were taken from
oysters found in the harbour itself. Al-BakrT notes that
the inhabitants made money by granting protection to
merchants. The environs of the town were occupied
by the Banu WartadI (who also occupied the
stronghold called Kulu c Garet), the Matmata, the Ahl
Kabdan, the Marnlsa of the “White Hill” ( al-Kudya
al-bayda ■*) and the Gh assasa of the massif which ends
in Cape Tres Forcas (Diabal Hurk). All this region was
then independent and had no political link with the
kingdom of Fas or that of Nakur.

But in 472/1080 the Almoravid sovereign Yusuf b.
TashfTn took Melilla and added its territory to the
Almoravid empire. In 536/1141-2, in the course of the
Almoravid pursuit of the Almohads, a body of the lat¬
ter set out from Tamsaman to lay siege to Melilla,
which was taken and plundered. In 671/1272, the
Marlnid sultan Ya c kub took Melilla from the
Almohads, and Ibn Khaldun simply mentions it as a
fortified place. It seems in fact that these three cap¬
tures of the town had destroyed its commercial impor¬
tance to the advantage of another town on the west
coast of the peninsula of the GeLiyya, sc. Ghassasa.
also called al-Kudya al-bayda 3 , the Alcudia of the Por-
tolans; in the 7th/14th century it is this latter town
that appears as the Mediterranean port of Fas and
Taza, and it was through it that political and commer¬
cial relations with eastern Spain and Italy (Genoa and
Venice) were carried on.

Leo Africanus reports that in 895/1490, hearing
that an attack on it was planned by the Spaniards, the
inhabitants abandoned the town and fled to the moun¬
tains of the Battuya; to punish them for this the Wat-
tasid sultan had the town burned down; when in
Muharram 903/September 1497 the Spaniards
arrived, they were thus able to disembark without
resistance and occupied the town, abandoned and
half-destroyed. The occupation of Melilla enabled the
Spaniards to attack the port of Ghassasa by land and
it was taken in Dhu ’1-Ka c da 911/April 1506. The
Moroccans recaptured it in 940/1533, but the
dangerous proximity of Melilla henceforth deprived it
of importance. The commercial activity of this region
was moved farther west to the port of al-Mazimma
[see al-husayma in Suppl.], and the centre of Muslim
resistance in this part of Morocco was henceforth the
stronghold of Tazuta, which after having been the
capital of the Marlnid fief of the Banu Wattas, became
that of a practically independent leader of holy war.
After passing into the hands of the Spaniards, Melilla
was continuously besieged by the Muslims, mainly by
the forces of the leaders of holy war established at
Tazuta and at Mdjaw (the Meggeo of Leo Africanus).
Occupied by the Christians, the town naturally
became one of the places in Morocco in which
Muslims pretenders and rebels found asylum and sup¬

port against the central power, especially at the begin¬
ning of the Sa c dian dynasty. In 956/1549, it sheltered
the dispossessed Wattasid Abu Hassun, “king” of
Badis; in 956/1550 it welcomed with his family
Mawlay c Amar, “king” of Debdu. It was from
Melilla that in 1003/1595, the pretender al-Nasir b.
al-Ghalib bi’llah set out against his uncle the sultan
Ahmad al-Mansur.

Later, Melilla only appears in history in connection
with sieges which it had to suffer: sieges by Mawlay
Isma c Il in 1098/1687 and 1106/1695; siege in
1188/1774 by Mawlay Muhammad b. c Abd Allah;
Spanish-Moroccan war of 1893 (Sldl Waryash affair).
From 1903 to 1908 the region of Melilla was the scene
of struggles between the pretender al-Djflall al-Rugl,
established in the kasha of Selwan, and the troops of
the sultan c Abd al- c Az!z; defeated and receiving no
support, the latter had to take refuge in Spanish ter¬
ritory and be repatriated. Still more recently in 1921,
the same district witnessed the sanguinary battles
between the Spaniards and the Rlfans under c Abd al-
Karlm (Anwal disaster) (C.R. Pennell, A country with
a government and a flag. The Rif War in Morocco 1921-
1926 , Wisbech, England 1986, 166-70, 198). Melilla
is for Spain a “place of sovereignty” administratively
dependent on the province of Malaga, like Ceuta [see
sabta], which itself depends on that of Cadiz. Before
the establishment of the French protectorate, Melilla,
constituted a free port, was the landing-place for all
the European merchandise (cotton, sugar, tea)
intended not only for eastern Morocco but also for the
Saharan regions of Morocco and Orania. It has now
lost its commercial importance, but its population has
considerably increased: 9,000 inhabitants in 1880,
and 86,500 on the eve of Moroccan independence. It
is also the seat of an important garrison.

Bibliography: Bakrl, index; Leo Africanus, Des¬
cription de TAfrique , tr. A. Epaulard, 289-90; H. de

Castries, Sources inedites de Thistoire du Maroc, Espagne,

i, pp. i-xxviii: Melilla au XV ime siecle.

(G.S. Colin)

MELLAH [ see MALLAH].

MEMDUH SHEWKET ESENDAL [see ESENDAL
in Suppl.].

MEMON [see al-maymanT].

MEMON, the name of one of the three well-known
Muslim trading communities of Gudjarat, the
other two being the Bohoras and Khodjas \q. vv. ].
They claim to have embraced Islam around the
6 th/12th century. Their name, originally derived
from mu^min “believer”, was later corrupted to
Memon. They were converted to Islam from the
trading Lohana and Kutch Bania castes living in
Sindh and Kacch (Kutch), either by a son or a descen¬
dant of c Abd al-Kadir al-Djllanl (d. 561/1166 [q.v. ]).
They are devout Sunnis and follow the HanafT school
of law. Most of them, except those who stayed back in
Sindh, speak the Kacchi dialect of Gudjaratl. Follow¬
ing their pre-conversion practice, they do not allow
inheritance to their widows and daughters. The most
sacred shrine of their pir, after that of c Abd al-Kadir
al-Djllanl in Baghdad, is that of Kh w adja Mu c In al-
Dln Cishtl [q.v.] in Adjmer (K.B. Faridi, Gazetteer of
the Bombay Presidency , ix/2, Gujarat population ,
Musalmans and Parsis, Bombay 1899, 50-7). They
celebrate the First ten days of RabI* II by reciting the
life history of c Abd al-Kadir al-Djllanl at a religious
gathering known as ziyara madjlis (S. Edwardes, The
Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island , Bombay 1909, i,
182-3).

They were a wealthy community living in Surat
during the hey-day of the city’s prosperity. As Surat

1010

MEMON — MENDERES

sank into insignificance with the rise of Bombay
(during the 19th century), they moved to the new city,
attracted by its trade and commercial opportunities.
After the famine of 1813 in Gudjarat and Ka££h, they
migrated in large numbers and first began to do
business in Bombay by opening tailoring
establishments in Lohar Chawl. Their status pro¬
gressed steadily as Bombay advanced in material
prosperity, and they indulged in every kind of trade
from shopkeeping, broking and peddling to furniture
dealing and timber business and included among their
number some of the richest individuals in Bombay
(Edwardes, Gazetteer , i, 178). The Memon Chamber
of Commerce, established in 1929 with a view to pro¬
mote and protect the interests and rights of members
in matter of inland and foreign trade, transport,
industry, banking and shipping, had over one hun¬
dred members {Modern Bombay and her patriotic citizens ,
Bombay 1941, 110-11). With the partition of India in
1947, a considerable number of them migrated to
Pakistan, and now some of these are the leading
industrialists and the wealthiest merchants of
Karachi. They have trade relations with East Africa,
the Persian Gulf and the South-East Asia, especially
Malaya and Singapore. A conservative, revivalist
movement is currently gaining strong support among
the Memons of Gudjarat and Bombay.

Bibliography : In addition to the works cited in
the text, see S. Edwardes, By-ways of Bombay , Bom¬
bay 1912, 82-7, for a description of middle-class
Memon daily life; P. and Oliva Strip, The peoples of
Bombay , Bombay 1944, 33-4. (I. Poonawala)

MEMPHIS [see manf].

MENDERES, the name of three rivers of
Anatolia which are known in modern Turkish by
this name, usually preceded by the pertinent epithet:
Buyiik (“Big”), Kugiik (“Little”), and Eski
(“Old”). They are the classical Maiandros, Kaystros
and Skamandros.

1. Buyiik Menderes. It is part of the geological and
hydrological features of western Anatolia that consist
of latitudinal mountain chains flanking long valleys,
the latter used and enlarged by rivers that flow into
the Aegean Sea. These valleys, the mountain slopes
along them and the estuaries have in turn been an
inviting ground for habitation and economic and
cultural development. Biiyiik Menderes with ancient
Miletus, Kii^uk Menderes with Ephesus, Gediz [q.v. j
(ancient Hermos) with Izmir, and Bakir Qayi (ancient
Kaykos) with Bergama near their estuaries or courses,
are the principal ones.

The exact length of the Buyiik Menderes depends
on which one of its upper arms should be referred to
by this name (up to 529 km; drainage area of some
25,000 km 2 ). The noteworthy fact is that its head¬
waters reach into the westernmost extension of the
inner Anatolian plateau. The stream usually viewed
as the beginning of the Biiyuk Menderes is fed by
springs and brooks in the mountainous vicinity of
Dinar (ancient Apameia). As it descends from the
plateau, this river receives such tributaries as the Kufi
Qayi, Banaz Qayi and finally the Qiiriik Su (ancient
Lykos) near Saraykoy.

After Saraykoy, the Biiyuk Menderes follows the
long, widening valley almost due west, at a slower
pace, until it is deflected in the vicinity of the ruins of
Magnesia-on-the-Maeander by the south-west
oriented coastal range of Gumii§ Dagi; it then turns
south-westward and, avoiding a second obstacle rep¬
resented by the Samsun Dagi, it enters the sea some
10 km south-west of Balat [q.v.] (ancient Miletus).
The mountains flanking the Buyiik Menderes on the

south are cut by several longitudinal valleys used by
its principal tributaries from that side: the Vandalas
Qayi (ancient Morsynos), Ak Qay (ancient Har-
pasos), and Qine Suyu (ancient Marsyas). The lower
part of the middle course of the Biiyuk Menderes,
roughly between Nazilli and Soke, flows through an
alluvial plain marked by a deep and soft soil layer; this
and the mild inclination rate with the resulting
slowness of the current produces the winding course
that has made the term “meander” better known
than the river itself. The large amount of silt brought
by the Biiyuk Menderes causes the coastline at its
estuary to advance several metres each year. This is
illustrated by the fate of ancient Miletus, which in the
first millenium before our era was a port on the Lat-
mikos kolpos, a bay to the south-east of the ancient
estuary; by the 4th century A.D., the bar created by
the silt turned the bay into a lake (the present-day
Bafa Golii is a remnant of this bay) and the port into
a town on the river, but several kilometres from the
coast (a similar fate threatened in recent centuries the
Gulf of Izmir, saved only by a re-routing of the Gediz
estuary further north in 1886).

The Biiyuk Menderes seems to have been little
noticed by Islamic geographers. One exception is al-
c Umari (d. 750/1349), whose confusion, however,
stresses the unfamiliarity of Islamic scholars with this
river; he states that the “Mandarus” flows into the
Black Sea and is as large as the Nile. The river is
briefly mentioned in Pin ReTs’s portolan Kitdb-i
bahriyyc as “Mendiraz suyi” in the 927/1521 version
(Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi, Bagdat K6$kii ms. 337, fol.
22b, text; on the map, 23a, as “Balat suyi”), and as
“Ulu Mendirez” in the 932/1526 version (facsim.
ed., Istanbul 1935, 209; text; on the map, p. 190, as
“Ma 5 -i Mendirez”). Katib Celebi’s [q.v. ] Djihan-
niimd (in the addition by Abu Bakr b. Bahram al-
Dimashkl, second half of the 11 th/17th century) has a
map of Anatolia (between pp. 629 and 630) but with¬
out any trace of the river; the “Nehr-i Mendirez” is,
however, briefly discussed on p. 634 of the text, with
more detailed discussions of the general area on pp.
636-8. Ewliya Celebi [q.v.] appears to be the earliest
Islamic author who describes the area along the river
at some length {Seydhat-ndme , Istanbul 1935, ix, 148-
92). He is followed by European travellers and
scholars of the 17th to the 20th centuries; the results
are perhaps best exemplified by the field trips and
publications of A. Philippson (see Bibl.).

The importance of the Biiyuk Menderes valley,
dominated by the warm Mediterranean climate yet
also well-watered, has persisted, throughout political
and ethnic changes, since antiquity. The fertility of
the alluvial plain below and of the higher fringes along
the parallel mountains combine to yield abundant as
well as varied agricultural, horticultural and
industrial crops and products, such as raisins, figs,
olives, cereals and cotton. This productivity is
reflected in a dense agricultural as well as urban
population, handicrafts and commerce. The towns
and settlements are mostly located at a certain
distance from the river in the more salubrious
foothills, the majority being on the northern side.
That side has always functioned as one of the principal
avenues of trade and travel linking the Aegean coast
with the Anatolian interior. Miletus and Ephesus
were the chief maritime outlets in antiquity. In the
Middle Ages, Miletus, known as Palatia and
turkicised as Balat, retained some importance, as it
could be reached by smaller ships using the
Menderes. For some time toward the end of the
7th/13th century, it served as the point of departure

MENDERES

ion

for maritime expeditions of the newly-established
Beys of Menteshe [see menteshe oghullar!]. but
soon trade proved more profitable, and a treaty was
concluded with the Venetians by which the latter
opened a consulate there (by 1355; the treaty was later
confirmed by the Ottoman sultans). Venetians and
Genoese sold textiles, soap, tin and lead, and bought
such products as alum, rugs, saffron, sesame, honey
and wax, nut galls, morocco leather, liquorice, dried
raisins, wheat, barley and slaves; they also bought
Fish, in particular eels from the Bafa lake that could be
reached by fishermen (this fishing seems to have sur¬
vived to this day). Trade at Balat still existed,
although at a diminishing rate, in Ewliya Celebi’s
time, when the traveller visited the place in
1082/1671-2; he states that “the saccoleva barges, the
barges from Gallipoli and Kos, and the frigates from
Syme and Nauplia ... sail into the Menderes river and
take on merchandise at this town of Balat” ( Seydhat -
name, ix, 147). Gradually, Balat was abandoned, due
to the continuing silting up of the estuary and to the
malaria-infested climate. Another reason may have
been the rise of Izmir \q. v. ] or Smyrna, which in the
modern period became the chief maritime outlet for
the area. Thus the first railway concession in
Anatolia, granted in 1857 to a British company,
resulted in a line linking Izmir with Aydin and the
Biiyiik Menderes valley. The railway has recently
been joined by a modern and denser highway
network.

The traditional assets of the Buyuk Menderes valley
are being enhanced by modern hydraulic works such
as dams, canals and drainage systems, leading to an
elimination of malaria-infested stretches on its lower
course, expansion of cultivable areas and creation of
hydro-electric power (the latter characteristic also of
some of the tributaries, such as the Kemer Baraji on
the Ak Cay)- The valley, especially on its middle and
lower course, it thus one of the most densely
populated areas of Turkey.

2. Kufuk Menderes. Unlike the Biiyiik Menderes, this
relatively short (145 km; drainage area of 3,140 km 2 )
river does not originate in the Anatolian plateau but
among the latitudinal mountain ridges closer to the
Aegean sea, near the Bozdag just north of the town of
Kiraz (ancient Koloe). It flows south until it reaches
the valley between the two mountains chains that
separate it, on the north, from the valley of the Gediz
and, on the south, from that of the Biiyiik Menderes.
There, near the town of Beydag, it sharply turns west
and follows that course until the hills of Alaman Dag
deflect it south-westward. Having crossed the coastal
plain, it enters the sea some 5 km west of the town of
Selguk and the ruins of ancient Ephesus. The latter
city was one of the principal ports on the Aegean in
antiquity, but the river, like the Biiyiik Menderes in
the case of Miletos, brought silt that ultimately made
the coast advance to the point of leaving Ephesos
landlocked, despite the reported efforts of the
Emperor Hadrian (117-38 A.D.) to re-route the
estuary in order to save Ephesus as a harbour.

As in terms of physical geography, in those of
human geography too, the Kii^iik Menderes displays
both analogies with its larger namesake and dif¬
ferences from it. The alluvial plain of the valley, the
higher slopes along the mountains and the warm
Mediterranean climate accompanied by an adequate
water supply, make this area yield an abundance and
variety of agricultural products; this has spurred
dense habitation since antiquity, the growth of towns
and handicrafts, and a commerce facilitated by the
maritime outlets, exemplified by Ephesus in anti¬

quity, its successor Ayasoluk [q. v. ] and the latter’s
successful rival Scalanuova (Kusadasi) in the Middle
Ages, and Izmir in the modern period. The valley of
the Kii^uk Menderes, however, does not reach deep
enough into the Anatolian interior, and today as in
antiquity and the Middle Ages, the principal routes in
that direction follow the course of the Biiyiik
Menderes or of the Gediz; the modern railway in the
Kiigiik Menderes valley, an offshoot from the Izmir-
Selguk-Aydin line, stops at Odemis near the eastern
end of the valley.

3. Eski Menderes. The sources of this short river
(about 75 km) are on the northern slopes of the Kaz
Dagi (ancient Mount Ida) north of the Gulf of
Edremit. It enters the Qanakkale Bogazi [see
Canak-kal c e boghazi] at its south-western end near
Kumkale some 7 km north-west of the ruins of ancient
Troy.

Bibliography. In addition to references given in
the text, see W.M. Ramsay, The historical geography
of Asia Minor, London 1890, index s.v. Maeander;
W. Tomaschek, Zur historischen Topographic von
Kleinasien im Mittelalter , in SBWA W, Phil.-Hist. Cl.,
xcciv (1891), 34, 36, 99; G.A. Bean, Aegean Turkey ,
London 1966, 219-20, 225, 232, 245, 253; F.
Taeschner, Das anatolische Wegenetz nach osmanischen
Quellen, Leipzig 1924-6, i, 170-6; A. Philippson,
Reisen und Forschungen im westlichen Kleinasien , Gotha
1910-15 (in Petermanns Mitteilungen, Erganzungsheft
167, 172, 180, 183; index s.v. Maander in Heft
183; excellent maps in Heft 167, 172, 180); V.
Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie, Paris 1894, iii, 335-685
(“vilayet de Smyrne”); Ibn Fadl Allah al- c UmarT,
Masalik al-absar, ed. F. Taeschner, Leipzig 1929, 34
(Fr. tr. Quatremere, in Notices et extraits, xiii, 353);
Sh . Sami, Kamus al-aHdm, Istanbul 1898, vi, 4446;
R. Izbirak, Tiirkiye, Istanbul 1972-3, i, 81-2 and
passim ; D.E. Pitcher, An historical geography of the
Ottoman Empire , Leiden 1972; W.C. Brice (ed.), An
historical atlas of Islam, Leiden 1981; TAVO (Tubinger
Atlas des Vorderen Orients ), Wiesbaden 1977 ff.; Pauly-
Wissowa, s.vv. Maiandros, Kaystros, Skamandros;
iA, s.vv. Menderes, Ayasoluk, Aydin, Balat,
Denizli, Izmir, Tire; Turk Ansiklopedisi, s.vv. Biiyiik
Menderes, Ak^ay, Banaz Qayi, Qiiriik Su, Bafa
Gold, Balat, Aydin, Birgi, Denizli, Kiraz,
Kusadasi, Kuyucak, Nazilli, Odemi$, Saraykoy,
Sel^uk, Soke, as well as other towns of some impor¬
tance; The Times Atlas of the world, London 1981, ii,
plate 36; Ali Tanoglu, Sirri Ering and Erol
Tiimertekin, Tiirkiye at Iasi, Istanbul 1961, maps 1/e,
1/f and passim. (S. Soucek)

MENDERES, Adnan (1899-1961), Turkish
statesman. Born and educated in Izmir, he studied
at the Ankara University Faculty of Law, following
service in the First World War and Turkey’s War of
Independence. His political activity commenced upon
his joining Ali Fethi Okyar’s Free Party in 1930,
when he became this party’s chairman in Aydin.
When the party was closed down, he joined the
People’s Party (later called Republican People’s
Party, RPP) and was elected repeatedly to the Grand
National Assembly (GNA) in Aydin from 1931
onwards. By 1945, he was a prominent parliamen¬
tarian. He then presented to the RPP’s parliamentary
group a “Four-man Proposal”, signed by himself,
Celal Bayar, Fuat Kopriilii [q. v. ] and Refik Koraltan,
requesting liberalisation. Menderes, Kopriilii and
Koraltan were ousted from the party and Bayar
resigned; together with other breakaways from RPP,
they founded the Democrat Party (DP) [see hizb, ii]
on 7 January 1946. The DP won 62 GNA seats in that

1012

MENDERES

year’s elections; Menderes entered as member for
Kiitahya. A member of DP’s Executive Council and
second in influence only to Bayar, Menderes orated in
the GNA and throughout the country; he smoothed
over differences in the DP and was instrumental in
leading it to victory in the 1950 elections. The party
won again in 1954 and 1957, with comfortable
majorities, and ruled the state for a decade (1950-60)
with Menderes as Prime Minister, successively
heading five different Cabinets.

The DP won the 1950 electoral campaign by
representing itself as an agent of change and
Menderes began to carry our some of its promises,
including: (a) Economics and development:

Mechanising agriculture, building roads (largely in
rural parts), encouraging industry (chiefly consumer
industries), erecting dams (for irrigation and energy
production), and reconstructing the larger cities, (b)
Social services: Increasing the scope of old-age and life
insurance payments, building workers’ hospitals and
encouraging trade union activities, (c) Cultural:
Inaugurating the Aegean University in Izmir, the
Middle East Technical University in Ankara and the
Atatiirk University in Erzurum, and expanding the
scope of primary and secondary education. However,
Menderes’ appeal to private initiative (instead of the
RPP’s etatism) to finance these projects proved only
moderately successful. The United States provided
tractors and credits, which sufficed only in part; hence
Menderes opted for encouraging foreign investments
and loans, which eventually increased Turkey’s debt
and raised inflation. His foreign policies were
definitely pro-Western: he sent Turkish forces to
Korea (1950) and joined NATO (1952). However, he
was also highly aware of Turkey’s need for rapproche¬
ment with her neighbours: Turkey signed an entente
with Greece and Yugoslavia (1953), joined the
Baghdad Pact (1954) and worked out the Zurich and
London agreements on Cyprus (1959-60).

Although modernisation of Turkey continued in
the 1950s, Menderes and the DP were strongly
criticised throughout by the RPP and other parties,
primarily regarding their domestic policies: overem¬
phasis on a liberal economy and private initiative,
preference shown to rural elements and allowing the
revival of Islam. In the face of a growing political and
economic crisis, Menderes had to withdraw,
ironically, from his earlier championship of individual
and political liberties: martial law was imposed
repeatedly, rival political groups were banned or
deterred, the press was muzzled and the military
became increasingly politicised in the late 1950s. On
27 May 1960, the military intervened, arresting
Menderes and the entire DP leadership. They were
tried in Yassiada; Menderes was sentenced to death
and executed on 17 September 1961. The trials were
considered fair, but many Turks thought the
sentences too harsh: the Justice Party, set up in 1961
largely as a successor to the banned DP, took its name
from a popular demand to rehabilitate Menderes and
the other DP leaders. In the late 1980s, Menderes was
rehabilitated in Turkey; streets were being named
after him in various localities.

Bibliography. Menderes does not seem to have
written memoirs or other works, although his
speeches were printed in the parliamentary records
and the press, between 1931 and 1960. Some
speeches were collected in: Sabahattin Parsadan et
alii, Adnan Menderes: siyasi hayali ve nutuklan, Ankara
1955; A. Kocamemi and V. Ayberk, D.P.’nin
muhtesem zajeri Adnan Menderes’in 1957 sefim nutuklan
He Paris NATO konferansindaki tarihi hitabesi, n.p.

1958; §iikru Esirci (ed.), Menderes diyor ki , Istanbul
1967. For photographs, see Haydar Sonmez (ed.),
Fotografla Menderes albumix, Istanbul 1967. Personal
accounts of Menderes’ personality and career are:
Samet Agaoglu, Arkadafim Menderes , Istanbul 1967;
Celal Bayar, Basvekilim Adnan Menderes, Istanbul
1969; Cihad Baban, Politika galerisi. Bustler portreler,
Istanbul 1970, 127-237; Necip Fazil Kisakiirek,
Benim gozixmde Menderes, Istanbul 1970. Nazli ilicak
(ed.), 15yil soma 27 mayisyargilamyor, Istanbul 1975,
is a collection of documents about Menderes’ final
year in office and the 1960 military intervention.
Contemporary accounts of the period, referring to
Menderes’ activities, are: Demircili (ed.), Menderes
destani: Tiirkiyenin mucize adami, Ankara 1954; A.E.
Yalman, Turkey in my time, Norman, Oklahoma
1956: Ahmet Hamdi Basar, Yasadigimiz devrin
ifyiizu, Ankara 1960; Refik Korkud, Demokratik
sistem ve Adnan Menderes, Ankara 1960; Omer Altay
Egesel, Tarihin isigi altinda : Menderes nasil asildi?
Istanbul 1962; Abdi ipekgi and Omer Sami Cosar,
ihtilalin ifyiizu, n.p. [Istanbul] 1965, i; Nimet Arzik,
Menderesi ipe gotirenler, Ankara 1966; Metin Toker,
ismet Pasayla 10 yil, Ankara 1966-7, i-iv; Yakup
Kadri Karaosmanoglu, Politika’da 45 yil, Ankara
1968; §. S. Aydemir, ikinci adam. iii. 1950-1964,
Istanbul 1968; idem, Menderesin drami ( 1899-1960 ),
Istanbul 1969; Ahmet Emin Yalman, Yakin tarihte
gordiklerim vegejrdiklerim, Istanbul 1970, iv, 31-358;
Samet Agaoglu, Demokrat partinin dogus ve yiikselif
sebepleri : bir soru, Istanbul 1972; O. Erkanh, Amlar...
sorunlar... sorumlular, Istanbul 1973, 345-56; Sadi
Koca§, Atatixrk’ten 12 mart’a, Istanbul 1977, i-ii;
Yanki (Ankara weekly), no. 739 (27 May 1985), 12-
29; BekirTunay, Menderes devri anilan, Istanbul n.d.
The most detailed biographies are: Mustafa Atalay,
Adnan Menderes ve hayali, Ankara 1959; Orhan
Cemal Fersoy, Bir devre adini veren basbakan: Adnan
Menderes , Istanbul 1971; Miikerrem Sarol,
Bilinmeyen Menderes, Istanbul 1983, i-ii. Studies of
the DP evidently discuss M. too; the best is Cem
Erogul, Demokrat parti (tarihi ve ideolojisi ), Ankara
1970. For the chronology of events: G. Jaschke, Die
Tixrkei in den Jahren 1942-1951, Wiesbaden 1951;
idem, Die Tixrkei in den Jahren 1952-1961, Wiesbaden
1965; Halit Tanyeli and Adnan Topsakaloglu,
izahli Demokrat Parti kronolojisi, 1945-1958, Istanbul
1958-9; F. Ahmad and B.T. Ahmad, Tiirkiye’de (ok
partili politikamn afiklamah kronolojisi ( 1945-1971 ),
Istanbul 1976; Muzaffer Gokman, 50yilin tutanagi,
1923-1973, Istanbul 1973. For Menderes’ trial on
Yassiada: Mithat Perin, Yassiada ve infazlann i(yuzii,
Istanbul 1970; Tank Giiryay, Bir iktidaryargilamyor,
Istanbul 1971: Samet Agaoglu, Marmarada bir adaf,
n.p. 1972. See also: Yalman, The struggle for multi¬
party government in Turkey, in MEJ, i/1 (Jan. 1947),
46-58; B. Lewis, Recent developments in Turkey, in
International Affairs, xxvii/3 (July 1951), 320-31;
idem, Islamic revival in Turkey, in ibid., xxviii/1 (Jan.
1952), 38-48; Muammer Aksoy, Basbakamn hatalari
ve delilsiz isnatlan, in Forum (Ankara), 72 (15 Mar.
1972), 12-14; H.A. Reed, Secularism and Islam in
Turkish politics, in Current History, xxxii/190 (June
1957), 333-8; D.A. Rustow, Politics and Islam in
Turkey 1920-1955, in R.N. Frye (ed.), Islam and the
West, The Hague 1957, 69-107; Irfan Orga, Phoenix
ascendant: the rise of modern Turkey, London 1958, 191-
7; P. Stirling, Religious change in Republican Turkey, in
MEJ, xii/4 (Autumn 1958), 395-408; Sabahat
Erdemir, Muhalefette ismet inonix (1950-1959), Istan¬
bul 1959; Ozcan Erguder, Adnan Menderes, in Kim
(Istanbul), 40 (27 Feb. 1959), 7; K.H. Karpat,

MENDERES — MENEKSHE

1013

Turkey’s politics : the transition to a multiparty system,
Princeton, N.J. 1959, index; Altemur Ki!i<p, Turkey
and the world , Washington, D.C. 1959, index; B.
Lewis, Democracy in Turkey, in MEA, x/2 (Feb.
1959), 55-72; Hifzi Bekata, Birinci Cumhuriyet
biterken, Istanbul 1960; Fahri Belen, Demokrasiden
diktatorluge, Istanbul 1960; G. Lewis, Turkey : the end
of the first republic, in The World Today (London),
xvi/9 (Sept. 1960), 377-86; M. Perlmann, Upheaval
in Turkey , in MEA, xi/6-7 (June-July 1960), 174-9;
Ali Fuad Basgil, La revolution militaire de 1960 en Tur-
quie (ses origines), Geneva 1963 (also in Turkish: 27
mayis ihtildli ve sebepleri, Istanbul 1966); Tekin Erer,
On yihn miicadelesi, Istanbul n.d. [1963]; R.D.
Robinson, The first Turkish republic : a case study in
national development, Cambridge, Mass. 1963, index;
W.F. Weiker, The Turkish revolution, 1960-1961 :
aspects of military politics, Washington, D.C. 1963,
chs. 1-2; R.E. Ward and D.A. Rustow (eds.),
Political modernization in Japan and Turkey , Princeton,
N.J. 1964, index; F.W. Frey, The Turkish political
elite, Cambridge Mass. 1965, index; D.J. Simpson,
Development as a process', the Menderes phase in Turkey,
in MEJ, xix/2 (Spring 1965), 141-52; Tekin Erer,
Yassiada ve sonrasi, i-ii, Istanbul 1965; idem,
Tixrkiyede parti kavgalan 2 , Istanbul 1966; D.I.
Vdovicenko, Bor’ba politiceskikh partii v Turtsii ( 1944-
1965 gg.), Moscow 1967; Samet Agaoglu, Demokrat
parti, inonii-Menderes, series in Son Havadis, 7-21
April 1968; U. Heyd, Revival of Islam in modern
Turkey, Jerusalem 1968; A. Mango, Turkey, London
1968; Noveyshaya istoriya Turtsii , Moscow 1968, ch.
7; ismet Ciritli, Fifty years of Turkish political develop¬
ment, 1919-1969, Istanbul 1969, 80-104; G.S.
Harris, The causes of the 1960 revolution in Turkey, in
MEJ, xxiv/4 (Autumn 1970), 438-54; Metin Toker,
Tek partiden gok partiye, n.p. 1970; L.L. and N.P.
Roos, Managers of modernization : organizations and elites
in Turkey {1950-1969), Cambridge, Mass. 1971;
Meydan-Larousse, Istanbul, xviii/1972, 607-8, s.v.;
Fahir H. Armaoglu, Siyasi tarih 1789-1960, Ankara

1973, 802-19; K.H. Karpat and contributors, Social
change and politics in Turkey, Leiden 1973, index:
Furuzan Tekil, Politika aslan, Istanbul 1973; J.M.
Landau, Radical politics in modern Turkey, London

1974, index; G. Lewis, Modem Turkey, New York
and Washington, D.C. 1974; New Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Macropaedia, xiii/1974, 792-3, s.v.;
Tiirkiye 1923-1973 Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1974, iii,
1049-51, s.v.; Mu^erref Hekimoglu, 27 mayistn
romani, Istanbul 1975; Metin Tamko$, The warrior
diplomats. Salt Lake City 1976, index; TA, xxiii,
494-7; Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish experiment in
democracy 1950-1975, London 1977, 8-161; W.
Kiindig-Steiner (ed.). Die Turkei : Raum und Mensch,
Kultur und Wissenschaft in Gegenwart und Vergangenheit,
Tubingen and Basle 1977, index; S.J. and E.K.
Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and modern
Turkey, Cambridge 1977, ii, 402-16; Akkan Suver,
Dargacinda iif yigit'.Menderes-Zorlu-Polatkan*, Istanbul
1979; Weiker, The modernization of Turkey from
Ataturk to the present day. New York and London
1981, index; Mukerrem Sard and Ismet Bozdag
(eds.), 100 yasinda Celal Bayar’a armagan, Istanbul
1982; M.A. Garsatyan el alii, Ocerki istorii Turtsii,
Moscow 1983, 215-31; R.P. Kondakcyan, Turtsiya:
vnutrennyaya politika i Islam, Erevan 1983, ch. 4; F.
Tachau, Turkey: the politics of authority, democracy and
development, New York 1984, index; K.-D.
Grothusen (ed.), Turkei (= Siidosteuropa Hand-
buch, iv), Gottingen 1985, index.

(J.M. Landau)

MENEK SH E. Monemvasia, a largely deserted
minor fortress town protecting a magnificent har¬
bour on the eastern “Finger” of the Peloponnese,
situated on top and beneath an impregnable rock, on
all but one side surrounded by the sea and connected
with the mainland only through a narrow sand bank,
through which a ditch was cut, spanned by a
drawbridge; hence its name of MovepPaaioc (“Single
Entrance”). The Ottoman form of the name is a cor¬
ruption of the Greek, which was recognised as such by
Pin Re 5 is. In 16th century Ottoman accounts, the
form Benefshe was used alternately with Menekshe
and Monvasya. The town has a rich and very eventful
history. In the Middle Ages, Menekshe was an
impregnable fortress, the “Sacred Rock of
Hellenism”, the “Gibraltar of Greece” and a
notorious pirate’s nest. In Ottoman times it was the
seat of a minor administrative unit {ndhiye) and a for¬
tress, principally held because of its military
importance.

Menekshe, built near the site of the ancient town of
Epidauros Limera, was founded in A.D. 582-3 in the
first year of the reign of the Byzantine emperor
Maurice. Its great days were to come in the 13th cen¬
tury as the main point of entry of the Byzantine forces
coming from Constantinople. After the Frankish con¬
quest of the Peloponnese, Monemvasia/Menekshe
held out for more than 30 years, only to capitulate to
Guillaume Villehardouin after a siege and blockade of
three years (1246-8). Fourteen years later, the town
returned to the Byzantines as part of the ransom of
Prince William of Achaia, captured by the Byzantines
in the fateful battle of Pelagonia (near Bitola-
Monastir, 1259). From then onwards, Menekshe
became the chief springboard of the Byzantines in
their long, drawn-out reconquest of the Peloponnese
in the course of which Turkish mercenaries from Asia
Minor first set foot in the town. In 1292 the town,
prosperous through shipping, trade in the famous
“Malmsey” wine and piracy, was sacked by Roger de
Lluria, the admiral of King James of Aragon. The
population found refuge in the impregnable citadel,
leaving the apparently open lower suburb to the
enemy.

In 1381-2, during the war between the Byzantine
lords Cantacuzene and the Despot Theodore, the
town made itself independent under the leadership of
one of the local noble families, Mamonas. Theodore
regained it between 1391 and 1392 and confirmed the
town’s privileges, dating from the Comneni
emperors. Paul Mamonas briefly reoccupied the town
in 1394 with help of Ottoman troops of Yfldirim
Bayezid, than active in Central Greece. The Byzan¬
tine period came to an end in the autumn of 1463,
when Mehemmed Fatih had occupied the entire
Byzantine Peloponnese. The town had been the seat
of a Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church and had
produced two men of Byzantine letters, the monk
Isidore and the famous historian of the Turkish con¬
quest, George Phrantzes. The Metropolitan see sur¬
vived till the end of the Ottoman period. After the
disappearance of Byzantine rule, the town defied the
Ottomans and placed itself briefly under Papal protec¬
tion. At the outbreak of the Ottoman-Venetian War
of 1463-79, the citizens of Menekshe exchanged Papal
domination for that of Venice, whose fleets were vic¬
torious in the first stage of that war. The Republic
placed a strong garrison on the rock. By the Ottoman-
Venetian Treaty of 1479, Menekshe was to remain
in Venetian hands, together with a strip of land on the
Peloponnese and the castle of Vatika, from where the
ecclesiastical authorities derived most of their dues

1014

MENEKSHE

and the inhabitants had much property and where the
corn was grown needed to feed the city. The rock itself
produced nothing. During the war of Bayezld II with
the Signoria (1499 to 1502-3), the Ottomans occupied
the last Venetian strongholds on the Peloponnese,
Koron, Modon and Navarino and the coastal strip in
front of Menekshe. Only Nauplion and Menekshe
held out for some decades and were left to Venice in
the treaty of 1502-3. After that, all food had to be
imported from the Ottoman-controlled mainland.
Vatika, now Ottoman, was maintained as a
stronghold. The census register T.D. 367 of 1528 (pp.
171-3) mentions a garrison of 36 men and a Dizdar, all
Muslims, and a Greek auxiliary force of 15 men, who
were freed from djizye and ispence and the extraor¬
dinary taxes in exchange for their services.

During the treaty of 1540, which ended the
Ottoman-Venetian war of the 1530s, the last remain¬
ing Venetian bases on the Peloponnese were ceded to
the Ottomans. The Venetian soldiers, the artillery
and all inhabitants who wished to leave, left the town
on 24 November 1540. On the following day, the
Venetian Podesta Antonio Garzoni handed the town
over to the Imperial Dragoman Yunus Bey under
command of Kasim Pasha. Sandjak Begi of the Morea.
The evacuated inhabitants were settled elsewhere on
Venetian territory. Scions of the Mamonas family
went to Zante-Zakynthos, others were transplanted to
Corfu (Korfez), Cephalonia, Crete or Cyprus. Not a
few of them returned and became Ottoman subjects.
The acquisition of Menekshe is only briefly men¬
tioned by the Ottoman chroniclers, including LutfT
Pasha, who had a large share in the negotiations of the
treaty. After the Ottoman conquest, the town lost its
importance as a trading community and outpost of the
West. Its population must have been considerably
smaller than in the Byzantine-Venetian period, and
its importance largely military. The Icmal Defter
T.D. 565 (pp. 79-88) of the sandjak of Mezistra
(Mistra), from 981/1573-4 mentions a force of 104
men under a Dizdar and six gunners under a Ser-i
Topctyan. The total tax yield of the town, which was
an Imperial khass, was 28,665 akce s, of which 6,000
akce s came from harbour dues. Between 1540 and
1570 the town was part of the sandjak of the Morea but
after the last-mentioned date was incorporated in the
newly-formed sandjak of Mezistra, set up after the
disastrous Battle of Lepanto with the intention to react
more quickly against raids from overseas. In the
1570s, the town seems to have recovered to some
extent. The census register T.D. 603 from 991/1583
mentions it as one of the four kada 3 s of Mezistra, with
a total tax yield of 30,000 akce s and 320 households of
non-Muslims as well as 191 bachelors. This brings us,
together with the garrison and their families, at a total
population of ca. 2,500 people, which is relatively
large for the small inhabitable space. Seven local
Christians had a special status, delivering gunpowder
to the castle in exchange for a tax reduction. Not a
single Muslim settler is recorded. The greater part of
the tax on economic activities was collected from the
harbour dues (7,500) and market dues (5,000) leaving
4,725 akce s for all the other activities. The amounts for
flax and wine and olive oil tell us something of the
importance of these sectors. Grain had almost entirely
to be imported from the mainland. The dues on these
agricultural products tell us that the town had
regained some property on the mainland.

During the Cretan War (1645-69), Venetian forces
tried to capture Menekshe but failed (1653). The
lower town, on a low plateau on the sea shore, was on
that occasion surrounded by new walls, those which

we can still see today. Ewliya Celebi, who visited the
town in 1667 on his way to Crete, describes the new
walls with some detail, calling them the work of Sultan
Mehemmed IV. The dangerous situation created by
the war is also reflected in the increase of the garrison
of the town: 523 men according to the budget of 1079-
80/1669-70, with a group of “New Gunners” and
soldiers and gunners for the Western and the Eastern
Bulwark mentioned explicitly. The yearly expen¬
diture for this large garrison was defrayed by the djizye
of the district and the harbour dues of Menekshe
itself. The budget also mentions a repair of the walls
of the lower town. Ewliya has left a detailed descrip¬
tion of the town as it was in his time. He mentions 500
houses in the citadel and another 1,600 small stone-
built ones in the lower town, which must be a gross
exaggeration; the enclosed space measures only 4 hec¬
tares. In the citadel on the rock was the Mosque of
Sultan Suleyman, or Fethiyye Djami c , a converted
church. This is the 13th century Byzantine church of
St. Sophia, built by the Byzantine Emperor
Andronicus II and still preserved. Besides that one,
Ewliya mentions the Mosque of Derwlsh Mehmed
Agha. In the lower town were another two domed
mosques and two mesdjids, besides two medrese s, two
mektebs and fifty shops. The medrese s do not appear on
the official and contemporary list of medrese s in Euro¬
pean Turkey and must be a mistake; Islamic life was
not very developed in this outpost.

During the war of 1683-99 with the Christian
Powers, the Ottomans lost Menekshe and the entire
Morea to Venice. The town surrendered in August
1690 after a fourteen months’ siege, the last
stronghold in the Morea to give up. Two thousand
Turks came out of the fortress, 300 of them soldiers.
During Venetian rule, a large number of churches
were built in the town, which still exist today (17 of
the 25 preserved churches). The Ottoman buildings
were destroyed except the church-mosque on the rock.
The Venetian census of 1700 mentions 428 families
living in the town of Menekshe, altogether 1,622
souls. According to the same source, the town was the
chef-lieu of a district numbering 17 villages and 3
monasteries, with a total population of 2,075 families
or 8,366 souls. The Ottomans returned as masters of
the Morea in 1715, after the swift campaign of the
Grand Vizier Damad C A1T Pasha. The town sur¬
rendered again, although it had two years’ provisions.
When in 1128/1716 an Ottoman census commission
described the town, it had only three Muslim
inhabitants, of whom two were converts, and 144
grown-up non-Muslim males ( nefer ) (Kuyudu Kadime
no. 20, Ankara). The tax account shows that, on the
mainland belonging to the town, a considerable quan¬
tity of cotton was produced. Wine is no longer men¬
tioned. The town recovered yet again, remaining the
chef-lieu of a kada 3 and seat of the Greek
archbishopric. When Pouqueville visited it at the
beginning of the 19th century, it had 2,000 Turkish
and Greek inhabitants. The kada 3 produced a con¬
siderable amount of flax and olive oil for export. Mar¬
tin Leake, who visited the town in the spring of 1805,
mentions that there were 300 houses in the (lower)
town and 50 in the castle: all, except about six, were
Turkish. Before the Russian invasion of the Morea
(1770) there were 150 Greek families, but they, as well
as the Greek inhabitants of the villages in the districts,
fled after that event to Anatolia (the lands of the Dere
Beys) or to the islands. During the Greek War of
Independence, Menekshe was starved into submis¬
sion after a siege of four months (1821). It sur¬
rendered on terms. The survivors, some 500 or 700

MENEKSHE — MENEMEN

1015

people, were brought to Asia Minor by ship. After the
War and the disappearance of the Muslim com¬
munity, the town never recovered. Sir Thomas Wyse,
British plenipotentiary in Athens, counted during his
visit in 1858 no more than a hundred Greek families,
half the houses being in ruin. Nowadays, the upper
town on the rock is an empty field of ruins, whilst for
a long time the lower town was a ghost city in which
only a few families lived. The Greek census of 1961
gives only 82 inhabitants. A small fishing village has
developed on the mainland, opposite the rock.
Recently, tourism has reached the long-isolated place,
creating some sort of recovery by rebuilding the
ruined houses as holiday homes. Only the mighty
walls of Mehemmed IV and a featureless mosque in
the lower town remind one of the Ottoman centuries.

Bibliography: General accounts: W. Miller,
Monemvasia during the Frankish period, 1204-1540 in
his Essays on the Latin Orient , London 1921, repr.
Amsterdam 1964, 231-45: Konstantin E.

Kalogeras, Monemvasia , the Venice oj the Peloponnese ,
Athens 1955; idem, Monemvasia , creation oj the Byzan¬
tines, Athens, 1961 (both in Greek, patriotic); R.
Elliot, Monemvasia, the Gibraltar oj Greece, London
1971 (popular); E. Xanalatou-Dergalin and A.
Kouloglou-Pervolaraki, Monemvasia, Athens 1974;
R.W. Klaus and U. Steinmiiller, Monemvasia,
Geschichte und Stadtbeschreibung, Berlin 1977.
Sources and detailed studies: P. Schreiner,
Notes sur la jondation de Monemvasie, in Travaux et
Memoires, iv, Paris 1970, 471-5; D.A. Zakythinos,
Le Despotat Grec de Moree, 2 vols., Paris 1932, Athens
1953; V. Laurent, La Metropole de Monembasie des
origines au XVIF siecle, in Echos d'Orient, xxix, 184-6;
Dusturname-i Enweri , ed. Miikrirmn Khalil (Inane),
Istanbul 1928; Irene Melikoff Sayar, Le Destan
d’Umur Pacha, Paris 1954, 71, 78, and commentary
of P. Lemerle, L Emir at d’Aydin, Byzance et l’Occi¬
dent, Paris 1957, 83, 102 f.: A. Delatte (ed.), Les
portolans grecs, Liege, 1947; P. Schreiner, Die byzan-
tinische Kleinchroniken, in Corpus Fontium Historiae
Byzantine , Vienna 1975 (with numerous little-known
details); B. Krekic, 0 Monemvasij u doba Papskog pro-
tektorata, in Zbornik Radova, Vizantolosog Instituta, vi,
Belgrade (1960), 129-35; W. Lehmann, Der

Friedensvertrag zwischen Venedig und der Tiirkei von 2.
Oktober 1540, Bonner Orientalische Studien 16,
Stuttgart 1936 (full text of an authentic copy of the
treaty); Luigi Bonelli, II trattato turco-veneto del 1540 ,
in Centenario di Michele Amari, ii, Palermo 1901,
332-63 (preliminary treaty, the original of the text
and the receipt of “Yunus Subashi” of 23 Rcdjcb
947/23 November 1540); P. Wittek, The Castle of the
Violets, jrom Greek Monemvasia to Turkish Menekshe, in
BSOAS, xx (1957); Hadschi Chalfa, Rumeli und
Bosna, tr. J. von Hammer, Vienna 1812, 116-17;
Alt Macar Reis Atlasi, ed. Fevzi Kurtoglu, Istanbul
1935; Pin Re 3 Ts, Kitab-i Bahriyye, ed. Fevzi Kur¬
toglu and Ali Haydar Alpagot, Istanbul 1935
(popular ed. Yavuz Senemoglu, Tercuman 1001 temel
eser, Istanbul 1973); LutfT Pasha, Tawarikh-i al-i
c Othman , ed. c AlT, Istanbul 1341, 384 (the Ottoman
census registers mentioned in the text are
unpublished); Omcr Lutfi Barkan, 1079-1080
( 1669-1670) mail yihna ait bir Osmanli buttesi ve ekleri,
in Iktisat Fakiiltesi Mecmuasi, xvii/1-4 (Ekim 1955),
225-303; Ewliya Celebi, Seyahat-name, viii, Istanbul
1928, 350-5; U. Wolfart, Die Reisen des Evliya Qelebi
durch die Morea, Munich 1970; Libro Ristretti delle
jamiglie e Animi ejjectiva in cadaun territori del Regno di
Morea , Venice, State Archives, unpubl.; K.
Andrews, Castles oj the Morea, Princeton, N.J. 1953;

F.C.H.L. Pouqueville, Voyage dans la Grece, 5 vols.,
Paris 1820-1 (other details in his Landreys door
Griekenland, also in other languages, The Hague
1806); G. Finley, History oj Greece under the Othoman
and Venetian domination, Edinburgh, etc. 1856; idem,
History of the Greek Revolution, 2 vols., Edinburgh
1861; W.M. Leake, Travels in the Morea, London
1830; A. Vakalopoulos, Istoria tou neou Ellinismou, v,
Thessaloniki 1980, 393-4; Monemvasia, in The Greek
Religious and Ethnic Encyclopaedia, Athens 1953, 40-
50, with rich bibl.; R. Traquair, Laconia, the jor-
tresses: Monemvasia, in Bull, oj the Brit. School oj Athens,
xii (1905-6), 270-4; A. Kalliga Haris, / Ekklesiastiki
Architektoniki stin Monemvasia kata tin II Enetokratia kai
to Katholiko Parekklisi tis Aghias “Annas ”, in
Charalambos Bouras (ed.), Ekklesies stin Ellada meta
tin Alosi/Churches in Greece 1453-1850, Athens 1979,
245-56. (M. Kiel)

MENEMEN , a town in western Anatolia
(population in 1970: 17,514) and administrative cen¬
tre of a district ( il(e ) of the same name. The town lies
near the left bank of the Gediz [q.v. ], some 30 km
north-north-west of Izmir [q.v.], at the inception of
the alluvial lowlands formed by the above-mentioned
river. The district flanks the Bay of Izmir on the south
and that of Qandarh on the north, but it is separated
from the Aegean coast on the west by the il(e of Foga.

The earliest known mention of Menemen is found
in Pachymeres (d. 1315), who states that the

“Tourkoi” had moved into the “Mainomenou
kampos”; this term is reflected in c Ashfk-Pasha-
zade’s history as “Menemen owasi”. The

Turks, led by the Beys of Sarukhan [q.v.], eventually
controlled the area, and Menemen became one of this
principality’s possessions; the earliest dated building
in Menemen would appear to be a mosque erected by
the Sarukhan Bey Ishak (Ulu cami or Sunbul Pasa
camii, inscription dated 759/1357-8). Menemen con¬
tinued to be a possession of the Sarukhan also for
some time after the Ottoman conquest effected early
in the reign of Murad I (761-91/1360-89).

The name of Menemen was also pronounced and
written as Melemen, whereas that of the district
(kadaj appears in Ottoman documents and Ewliya
Celebi’s [qv.] Seyahat-name as Tarhaniyye or
Turhaniyye (see the latter work for the etymology
attributed to these names). Ewliya Celebi gives a
detailed description of Menemen. The kada' > ,
administered by a voyvoda, was part of the sandjak of
Sighla or Sughla; it was a khass of the walide sultan
(possibly since Suleyman’s mother Hafsa Sultan’s
time), yielding 400 yiiks annually; the town had 300
shops and a bezistan\ in summer it suffered from a
mosquito infestation that became proverbial (Seyahat-
name, Istanbul 1935, ix, 84-7). The town also had a
Bektashi tekke with the tomb of BekrT Baba.

Prior to the exchanges of the Republican era, the
population of both the town and the district was
mixed; Greeks predominated in the town itself (4,683
Rum, 3,606 Muslims), and Muslims in the kada? as a
whole (17,261 Muslims, 7,195 Rum; there were also
smaller numbers of Armenians, Jews, Catholics and
“foreigners’’ (Salname-yi wilayet-i Ay din for the year
1326 A.H., 416-17 and passim for other information).

Menemen’s importance lay in its role as an
emporium for the agricultural products of its fertile
surroundings, and for locally manufactured cloths
and rugs. Its market, traditionally held on Mondays,
was routinely visited by the merchants of Izmir. The
town’s strategic location near the convergence of the
road (and eventually also a railroad) from Izmir to
Manisa and the Anatolian interior, with the coastal

1016

MENEMEN — MENGUCEK

road linking Izmir with Bergama, must have been a
further factor. Inversely, the scala (port for coastal
shipping) of Menemen, still mentioned by Chandler
(1764) as “lively”, disappeared perhaps even before
the re-routing of the Gediz in 1886.

Bibliography. In addition to references given in
the text, see W.M. Ramsay, The historical geography
oj Asia Minor, London 1890, 108; W. Tomaschek,
Zur historischen Topographie von Klein asien im Mit-
telalter , in SBWAW, Phil.-Hist. Cl., xcciv (1891),
28; G.A. Bean, Aegean Turkey, London 1966, 42,
97; A. Philippson, Reisen und Forschungen im
westlichen Kleinasien , Gotha 1910 (in Petermanns Mil -
teilungen, Erganzungsheft 172, map); V. Cuinet, La
Turquie dAsie , Paris 1894, iii, 485-8; Sh. Sami,
Kamus al-aHam , Istanbul 1898, vi, 4454-55; Turk
Ansiklopedisi, s.v.; F. Giese, Die altosmanische Chronik
des c Asikpasazade, Leipzig 1929, 66; R. Chandler,
Travels in Asia Minor, 1764-1765, London 1971, 67;
M. Qagatay Ulu^ay, Saruhan Ogullan ve eserlerine dair
vesikalar, Istanbul 1940-6, ii, 29, 103 n. 402, and
passim', The Times Atlas oj the World, London 1981, ii,
plate 36; Ali Tanoglu, Sirri Erin^ and Erol
Tumertekin, Tilrkiye atlasi, Istanbul 1961, map le.

(S. Soucek)

MENEMENLI-ZADE MEHMED TAHIR,

minor Turkish poet of the Therwet-i Fiinun [q.v. ]
period (1862-1902). He was born in Adana, into a
notable family, the son of Hashim Habib, director of
the telegraphic department in the office of the Grand
Vizierate. He was educated in Istanbul and graduated
from the school of Political Science in 1883. After ser¬
ving as Director of Education in Adana, Izmir and
Salonica, where he also taught Turkish literature in
the local lycees, he became, in Istanbul, director of the
secretariat in the Ministry of Education and, at the
same time, he taught in the School of Political Science
and in the University. He died suddenly at the age of
forty. He collected his poems, which follow the
language and style of the Therwet-i Fiinun school, in
various booklets, the most known of which is Elhan
(“Melodies”) (1885). His Edebiyyat-l c othmaniyye
(“Ottoman literature”) is a didactic book on the rules
and technical terms of Turkish literature. Redja^i-
zade Mahmud Ekrem [q.v.\, a later Tanzimat writer
and critic, who had become the leader of young
Westernist writers, published in 1886 his Takdir-i elhan
(“Appreciation of the melodies”) in praise of
Menemenli-zade, where he severely criticised
Mu c allim NadjI [q.v. ], the leader of the conservatives,
who retorted in his Demdeme (“Angry talk”, 1887)
more violently. This famous controversy made
Menemenli-zade Tahir a well-known poet in the late
1880s.

Bibliography: Nejat Birinci, Menemenli-zade
Tahir, unpubl. thesis in the Library of the Tur-
cological Institute, University of Istanbul 1981,
with a full bibl. (see alphabetical hand-list of the
Institute). _ (FahIr iz)

MENGLI GIRAY I, one of the greatest khans of
the Crimea (Kirirn [<?.&.]).

As the contemporary sources are controversial, the
chronology of his three reigns up to 883/1478-9 can¬
not be firmly established. On the death of HadjdjI
Giray Khan I (871/1466 [q.v. ]), disputes arose among
his numerous sons about the succession. Mengli
Giray first succeeded in seizing the throne for several
months, but finally had to cede it to his oldest brother
Nur Dewlet. Mengli Giray’s second reign probably
lasted from 872/1468 to 879/1474-5, when he had to
flee to Mangub (Menkiip) or Kafa, while Nur Dewlet
and, later, two other pretenders struggled for

primacy. In 833/end of 1478 or beginning of 1479,
Mengli Giray regained power and remained khan
until his death in Dhu THidjdja 920/Feb. 1515. Since
the leader of the Shinn clan, Eminek, in 879/spring
1475 had sought Ottoman intervention in the
Crimea’s internal strife and help against the menacing
Great Horde [see batCPids], with the result that the
Genoese colonies along the Crimean shores had
passed under Ottoman control, the khanate was con¬
sidered as under Ottoman protection. In 889/1484,
Mengli Giray participated in Sultan Bayezld II’s suc¬
cessful campaign into Moldavia and was recompensed
with territorial gains on the Dniepr and Dniestr [see
budjak].

No mere Ottoman vassal, Mengli Giray generally
sought to stay on good terms with Muscovy, which he
considered an ally against the Great Horde; while for
Muscovy, the khan’s friendship meant support
against the declining Poland-Lithuania. After Mengli
Giray had subjugated the Great Horde in 908/1502,
he demanded the traditional tribute from Muscovy
and Poland-Lithuania for himself. A Crimean-
Russian confrontation, however, broke out only
under Mengli Giray’s successors. Mengli Giray, who
was also a patron of the arts, must be considered as
the real founder of the Crimean state. He also played
a role in the struggle for the throne of the later Sultan
Selim I, his son-in-law (1511-12).

Bibliography: Esp. important is A. Bennigsen et
alii , eds., Le Khanat de Crimee dans les Archives du
Musee du Palais de Topkapi, Paris 1978, with further
references; the most detailed account to 1502 is B.
Spuler, Die Goldene Horde. Die Mongo len in Russ land,
1223-1502 2 , Wiesbaden 1965. See also I. Vasary,
A contract oj the Crimean Khan Mdngli Giray and the
inhabitants oj Qjrq-yer jrom 1478/79, in CAJ, xxvi
(1982), 289-300; A. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars,
Stanford 1978 (Hoover Institution Publication,
166); S.M. Solov’ev, Istoriya Rossii s drevneyshifdi
vremen , iii, Moscow 1960, s.v. Mengli-Girej.

(B. Kellner-Heinkele)

MENGUCEK (Mangudjak), a Turkmen chief
who was the eponym of a minor dynasty which
appears in history with his son Ishak in 512/1118 in
eastern Anatolia around the town of Erzindjan [q.v. ],
but including also Diwrigi and Koghonia/Colonia-
Kara Hisar Shark!.

His territory accordingly lay between that of the
Danishmendids [q.v. ] on the west, of the Saltukids
[qv.] of Erzerum on the east, of the Byzantine pro¬
vince of Trebizond on the north and of the Artukid
principalities [see artukids] on the south; it thus com¬
manded the traditional highway for invasions from
Iran into Anatolia. Hardly anything is known of the
history of the Mengiicekids. In 1118, menaced by the
Artukid Balak, Ishak allied with the military com¬
mander of Trebizond, Theodore Gavras; both of
these were taken prisoner by the Danishmendid
GhazI, Ishak’s father-in-law, who speedily freed him.
In the middle of the 6th/12th century, the
Mengucekid principality was divided between two
brothers, the younger one receiving the little town of
Diwrigi [q.v.]. The elder branch acquired some fame
under the long reign of Bahramshah ( ca . 555-
617/1160-1220). He made Erzindjan a cultural cen¬
tre, for which evidence is provided by his proteges, the
Persian poets Nizami and Khakani [q.vv. ] and the
Arab scholar c Abd al-Latlf al-Ba gh dadi [q.v.], who
spent 12 years there. The town was, however, also the
greatest Armenian centre of eastern Anatolia, still
famed for carpet manufacturing in Marco Polo’s
time. But after Bahramshah’s death, the

MENGUCEK — MENTESHE-ELI

1017

Mengu£ekids were drawn into the complex happen¬
ings linked with Djalal al-Dln Mankubirti's [q.v. ]
invasion, and the Saldjuk Kaykubad I [q.v. ] annexed
their territory, compensating the Mengiicekids with
small iktd* s. The Diwrigi branch, known through the
remarkable mosque constructed by its members, con¬
tinued there, it seems, till around the time of the
Mongol conquest as vassals of the Saldjuks.

Bibliography: Houtsma, in EI X , s.v. and Bibl.
there; O. Turan, in iA, s.v.; Van Berchem, CIA ,
iii, 55 ff., for epigraphy and awkaf Zambaur,
Manuel , 146; Halil Edhem, Duwel-i islamiyye , 224-6;
Cl. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey , London 1968,
index; M. Mitchiner, Oriental coins. The world of
Islam, 176. (Cl. Cahen)

MENSUKHAT (a.), pi. of mensdkh “annulled”,
an expression used in the Ottoman Empire, after the
abolition of certain early Ottoman army units (yaya ,
miisellem [<?. zw. ]), in the 11th/17th century, for the
fiefs and other grants these units had previously
held. These were referred to as “annulled fiefs” ( men -
sukhat timari). The Ottoman finance department
administering these holdings, the “Bureau of the
Annulled [grants]” {Mensukhat kalemi), allotted them,
when needed, as fiefs in return for services. When the
Ottoman navy was expanded, such holdings were
attached to the Admiralty (Derya kalemi [see darya
begi] and assigned by the Kapudan Pasha [q.v.]. Some
appointments were submitted to the Grand Vizier
(Sadr-i A c zam [q.v.]) and marked off in the registers of
the naval archives. The possessors of these holdings
{mensukhat efradi) formed a unit whose duties were to
guard the coasts and serve on ships. They could pay
for exemption from duty when they were called to
serve.

Bibliography: i.H. Uzun$ar§ih, Osmanli

devletinin merkez ve bahriye teskilati, Ankara 1948, 19,
240-1, 382, 422; M.Z. Pakalin, Osmanli tarih
deyimleri ve terimleri sozlugii, Istanbul 1951, 476, 608-
11, 627-8; M. Akdag, Tiirkiye’nin iktisadi ve ictimai
tarihi, istanbul 1979, i, 40; M. Sertoglu, Resimli
osmanli tarihi ansiklopedisi , Istanbul 1958, 206; Gibb
and’ Bowen, i/1, 53-5; Marsigli, Elat militaire de
TEmpire Ottoman , i, The Hague 1732, 145, 150-1.

(F. Muge Gocek)

MENTE SH E-ELI. a region in the south¬
western part of Anatolia. It derived its name from
the Turkish Menteshe-oghullari [q. v. ] who estab¬
lished a principality there. There are, however, some
claims that the name is of pre-Turkish origin. The
region corresponds to classical Caria (today centred
on the city of Mughla). There is no doubt that, like
other western Anatolian districts, Caria also was
occupied by Turkomans towards the end of the
5th/11th century; but later, Byzantine domination
was restored there. The Turkomans in the border
areas who settled down in Central Anatolia and the
western Taurus continued their raids. Moreover, the
loss of Rum Saldjukid power in Anatolia in the second
half of the 7th/13th century after defeats suffered at
the hand of Mongols provided a gradually increasing
freedom of movement for the tribal groups who
gathered in the frontier areas, so that Turkish
pressure on the Byzantine defence line was con¬
tinuously being increased.

After 659/1261, the region of Caria which stretches
inland from the coastal areas was occupied by the
Turks. The Turkomans who founded the principality
of Menteshe and ultimately gave their name to the
region first arrived in this region by sea and occupied
the shore line. But to maintain their rule in this region
it was necessary to cooperate with the Turks who

pressed from the interior towards the shore (see P.
Wittek, Mentese beyligi, Turkish tr. 0.§. Gdkyay,
Ankara 1944, 46). When John, brother of Michael
VIII (1259-82), the Emperor of Byzantium, went on
a campaign in this region, he forced the Turks who
had settled inland to withdraw to their bases in the
mountains; but he never thought of eapturing the
ports which were held by the Turks in the south-west
corner of Caria. It is possible that the founder of the
principality of Menteshe was at that time the ruler of
the shore region of the Gulf of MakrI (Fethiyye).
Although in 1278 the Emperor Michael VIII sent an
army under the command of his son Andronicus to
Anatolia, the regions of Menderes and Caria had
already been captured by the Turks. Andronicus’s
fortification of Tralles (Aydin) was therefore rendered
useless; the Menteshe Beg who had captured Tralles
and Nyssa (Sultan hisar) had annexed the territory to
his principality. Upon the Karamanids’ siege of
Konya, Gavkhatu. the Il-Khanid ruler, came to
Anatolia in 690/1291 and punished the Turkish prin¬
cipalities which had revolted against him. During
Gaykhatu’s punitive campaign, the Il-Khanid army
entered Menteshe-eli {Wilayet-i Menteshe) and
plundered it (see Ta'rlkh-i Al-i Saldfuk dar Anadolu , ed.
F.N. Uzluk, Ankara 1952, 88, Turkish tr. 62).
Following the Byzantine Empire’s unsuccessful
attempts to reconquer the area in 1296 and 1302, the
Turks became the unquestioned masters of Caria. In
his description of the principality of Menteshe,
Muned j d j im-bashi says that the principality consisted
of many cities, namely Balat, Bozoyiik, Milas, Pedjin
(Bardjin), Mazin (Marin), Cine, Tawas, Burnaz,
MakrI, Koydjeghiz (Koycegiz) and Mughla, which
was the capital (see Munedjdjim-Bashi, DiamT al-
duwal, Nuruosmaniye Libr. no. 3172, fol. 130b; Wit¬
tek, op. cit., 172-3). The Foke (Finike) region of Lycia
was also included among these names at the beginning
of the history of the principality.

Ibn Battuta, who visited this part of Anatolia ( Bilad
al-Rum) in 732/1333, which he also designated by the
name Menteshe-eli, says that Milas [q.v. ] was one
of the most beautiful cities of Anatolia, and fruit,
gardens and water were abundant. At this time, Ibn
Battuta met with Shudja c al-Din Orkhan Beg, the
ruler of the principality. He tells us that his residence
was at Pedjin, two miles from Milas, and this city,
which was rebuilt on a hill, was adorned with
beautiful buildings and mosques (see Rihla , ii, 278-80,
Eng. tr. Gibb, ii, 428-30, Turkish tr. M. Sharif.
Istanbul 1333-5, i. 321-3). According to Shihab al-
Din al- c Umari, there were 50 cities and 200 fortresses
under the control of Orkhan Beg (see Masalik al-absdr ,
Ayasofya Libr. no. 3146, III, fols. 122a-b). Thus it is
clear that Menteshe-eli extended over a large area. In
his account, al- c Umari says that Orkhan Beg’s coun¬
try was located between Dawaz (Tawaz), Sakiz and
Istankoy. It is clear, then, that the Foke region was
also in Menteshe-eli.

Following Bayazid I’s succession to the throne in
791/1389, an alliance was formed against the
Ottomans at the instance of the Karamanids, and the
Menteshe Begs also participated in this. Bayazid I had
moved into Anatolia, and the regions of Balat and
Mughla, which were under the rule of the Menteshe
principality, soon passed into the hands of the
Ottomans. But a line of the dynasty went on to rule
in Milas and Pedjin. Following the battle of Ankara
(804/1402), the Menteshe-o gh ullari regained at the
hands of Timur their previous territories. However,
this situation did not last. In 827/1424 Murad II
annexed Menteshe-eli to Ottoman territory; later,

1018

MENTESHE-ELI — MENTESHE-OGHULLARI

Menteshe-eli came to be one of the sandj_aks of the eyalet
of Anatolia.

Bibliography: In addition to the works given in

the text, see I.H. Uzungarsili, Anadolu beylikleri ,

Ankara 1969’, 70-83; idem, art. Mentese Ogullan , in

IA; Besim Darkot, art. Mentefe, in iA.

(E. Mercil)

MENTESHE-OGHULLARI. a Turkish prin¬
cipality founded in the south-west of Anatolia.

The Turkomans who founded this principality
came to this region by sea and settled between the
shore and Denizli. However, it is quite difficult to pin¬
point the foundation of the principality and the chron¬
ology of the early Begs. The Turkomans had captured
the Caria (today Mugla) region after 1261, starting
from the shores. Menteshe, the founder of the prin¬
cipality, was perhaps the Beg of the shore regions
(Amir al-Sawahil) in the bay of Makrl (Fethiye). There
are also difficulties in establishing the genealogy of
Menteshe Beg. His father was said to be Amir al-
Sawahil HadjdjI Baha 5 al-Dln (Bahadir), who was one
of the amirs, of the Saldjuks (see Shikari, Karaman
tarihi , Konya 1946, 11 ff., and Munedjdjim-Bashi,
Djd mi c al-duwaL Nuruosmaniye no. 3172, fol. 13la).
However, in the inscriptions of Ahmed GhazI, one of
Menteshe’s grandsons, his father is mentioned as
Eblistan and the father of the latter as Kuri or Kara
Beg. This region had been given as an iktd c by the
rulers of the Anatolian Saldjuks to the ancestors of
Menteshe Beg. Although in 1278 the Byzantine
Emperor Michael VIII sent an army under the com¬
mand of his son Andronicus and the latter fortified
Tralles (Aydin), it was almost useless. In 1282
Menteshe Beg had conquered Tralles and Nyssa
(Sultan hisar) and annexed them to his territory. A
coin minted in 690/1291 at Milas in the name of the
Saldjuk sultan Mas c ud II leads us to the conclusion
that the Menteshe-o gh ullari had at first accepted the
protection of the Saldjuks (see Isma c fl Ghalib,
Takwim-i maskukat-i Saldjiikiyya, Istanbul 1309, 93).
Upon the Karamanids’ siege of Konya, the Il-Khanid
ruler Gavkhatu came to Anatolia to punish them in
690/1291, and during this campaign, the Il-Khanid
army plundered the Menteshe-eli. When Alexius
Philanthropos, the Byzantine commander, moved
south through Menderes (1296), Menteshe Beg was
already dead.

After Menteshe Beg, his son Mas c ud became the
head of the principality. But his other son Kirman
(Karman), following or perhaps opposing his brother,
continued to rule in Foke (Finike). The historical
sources do not clearly explain the relationships
between these two brothers. Although in 1300 Mas c ud
Beg had seized an important part of Rhodes, later, on
15 August 1308, the Knights Hospitallers recaptured
the island (see S. Runciman, A history of the Crusades ,
London 1965, iii, 435; other scholars give the date as
1310). Mas c ud Beg’s efforts to regain the island were
unsuccessful. His death was probably before
719/1319. Shudja c al-Dln Orkhan Beg, who inherited
the throne after his father, Mas c ud Beg, probably
secured power by removing a brother whose name
may have been Ibrahim. Orkhan Beg was unsuc¬
cessful in his struggles against the Knights to capture
Rhodes after 1320. Ibn Battuta visited Orkhan Beg in
Pedjln while he was travelling in Anatolia, and has
mentioned him as Sultan of Milas (see Rihla , ii, 279-
80, Eng. tr. Gibb, ii, 429-30, Turkish tr. M. Sharif,
Istanbul 1333-5, i, 321-2). Al- c Umari, on the other
hand, gives information about the cities and the
number of the soldiers under Orkhan Beg. He also
mentions that the Foke branch of the Menteshe prin¬

cipality was in 1330 subject to the Hamld-o gh ullari
(see Masalik al-absdr , Ayasofya no. 3146, III, fols. 98
a-b and 122 a-b). Orkhan Beg’s death was probably
before 1344, and his son Ibrahim succeeded him.

Ibrahim Beg made preparations to help Umur Beg
in regaining Izmir, which had fallen into the hands of
the Latins, but when Umur Beg fell in battle in 1348,
this effort came to nought. The Venetians, with their
fleet placed in Balat harbour, threatened Ibrahim
Beg, who prepared for a campaign against them, but
as a result of an agreement made with the assistance
of Marino Morosini, the Count of Crete, between the
years 1352-5, they were forced to disband. Ibrahim
Beg died some time before the year 1360. After his
death, his three sons reigned in various parts of the
principality. It is believed that Musa Beg ruled in
Pedjln, Balat and Milas; Mehmed Beg in Mughla and
Cine; and Ahmed Beg ruled, in the south, in Makrl
and Marmaris. After Musa Beg’s death (before 1375),
Milas and Pedjln also presumably passed into the
hands of Ahmed Beg. In 1365, as a result of Ahmed
Beg’s attacks against the ships between Rhodes and
Cyprus, the fleet of Peter I, King of Cyprus,
threatened the shores of Aydin and Menteshe. How¬
ever, the Venetians, concerned about their people liv¬
ing in Ayasoluk and Balat, intervened, and peace was
made. Although Ahmed Beg ruled in Balat for a
period, this was not for long. We see that before 1389
Balat and its environment were under the rule of
Ghiyath al-Dln Mahmud, the son of Mehmed Beg.
However, losing the struggle for sovereignty made
against his brother Ilyas Beg, he took refuge with the
Ottomans. Following the battle of Kosova (1389),
Bayezld I ascended the Ottoman throne. With the
urging of the Karamanids, Ilyas Beg and his father
Mehmed Beg entered into the alliance arranged
against the Ottomans in Anatolia. During Bayezld I’s
Anatolian campaign against his alliance, Balat and
the lands of the Menteshe principality in Mu gh la
were occupied. Mehmed and Ilyas Beg fled to
Djandar-oghlu Iskandar Beg (in the winter of 1389-
90). During this campaign, Ahmed Beg continued to
reign in Milas and Pedjln. His survival was perhaps
due to the rugged topography and comparatively
impregnable position of the region. Tadj al-Dln
Ahmed GhazI died in Sha c ban 793/July 1391. His ter¬
ritories were later occupied by the Ottomans. Wittek
(Mentese beyligi , 86) accepts that, until the Ottoman
occupation, Mehmed Beg ruled in the Menteshe prin¬
cipality, later fleeing to D j andar-o gh lu Isfandiyar
Beg.

Following the battle of Ankara, Timur, as he did
with most of the other principalities, restored Ilyas
Beg’s territories (1402). After this restoration of the
territory, Ilyas Beg continued for a time as vassal of
Timur. In the quarrel for sovereignty among
Bayezld’s sons, he made an alliance with the Aydin-
o gh ullari and the Sarukhan-oghullari, supporting c Isa
Celebi against Mehemmed Celebi. Following
Mehemmed I’s victory against this alliance, Ilyas Beg
was forced to recognise the sovereignty of the latter
(1405). Because Ilyas Beg was inflicting losses upon
the Latins in the islands through maritime warfare, in
1403 the Venetians made an agreement with him
through the aid of Marco Falieri, the Count of Crete.
But later, conflicts between the two sides continued,
and as a result of the Venetians’ actions, Ilyas Beg was
forced to renew the previous agreement with Admiral
Ser Pietro Civrano (17 October 1414). In the same
year, Ilyas Beg accepted Ottoman,rule and in 1415 he
had coins minted in the name of Mehemmed Celebi.
Moreover, he was compelled to send his two sons,

MENTESHE-OGHULLARI — MERDJUMEK

1019

Layth and Ahmed, to the Ottoman Palace. After the
death in 1421 of Ilyas Beg, his sons managed to flee
from Edirne and to take up the rule of the principality
in Menteshe-eli. When Sultan Murad II captured the
territory of Menteshe, he seized and imprisoned these
two brothers, thus putting an end to this principality.

The Menteshe-oghullari embellished their country
with many fine buildings. Among these are the
Hadjdji Ilyas Mosque at Milas (1330), Ahmed Beg’s
Medrese at Pedjln (1375), and his Great Mosque at
Milas (1378) and Ilyas Beg’s Great Mosque at Balat
(1404). The Menteshe-o gh ullari patronised scholars
and men of letters, and under their patronage some
works were translated into Turkish. For example,
under the patronage of Ghivath al-Dln Mahmud, the
Baz-nama on falconry was translated from Persian into
Turkish. A manuscript of this work, located in Milan,
was published by Von Hammer under the name of
Falkner-klee (Pest 1840). In addition to this, there is a
short medical book, the Ilydsiyye, which was also
translated under the patronage of Ilyas Beg.

Bibliography (in addition to references given in
the text): The Menteshe principality has been
studied in depth by P. Wittek, Das Furstentum
Mentesche , Istanbul 1934, repr. 1967, Turkish tr.
O.S. Gokyay, Meniere beyligi , Istanbul 1944. See
also I.H. Uzungarsili, Anadolu beylikleri , Ankara
1969 2 , 70-83; idem, Mentese-Ogullan , in I A; W.
Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age ,
Turkish tr. E.Z. Karal, Yakin-dogu ticaret tarihi ,
Ankara 1975; Fr. Babinger, Menteshe-Oghullarl , in
El 1 ; idem, Menteshe-Eli in El 1 ; O. Aslanapa, Turk
sanati, Istanbul 1973, ii, 226-30; E.A. Zachariadou,
Trade and Crusade. Venetian Crete and the emirates of
Menteshe and Aydin ( 1300-1450 ), Venice 1983.

(E. Mercil)

ME j O, a mixed Indian tribe of largely north¬
eastern Radjput stock, a branch of whom were con¬
verted to Islam in the mid-8th/14th century. Their
conversion seems to have been nominal, as they are
described as offering animal sacrifices to a mother-
goddess, worshipping at shrines of the Hindu god of
the homestead Bhumiya, and following the Pacpiriya
(Pane Plr [<7-t>.]), especially Salar Mas c ud, whose ban¬
ner was an object of their devotion at the shab-i barat
(eve of 14 Sha c ban), as well as the Kh w adja Sahib of
Adjmer (Mu c Tn al-Din fiightl [q. v. ]); they celebrated
Hindu festivals, and followed Hindu practices of
exogamous marriage and male inheritance. The
Muslim Me^o are frequently called Mewati; both they
and the Hindu Me 3 o were mostly robbers and
freebooters, causing much trouble from the times of
the early Dihli sultanates until quelled under Babur;
but there was a resurgence of their turbulence during
the decline of the Mughal empire, and in 1857 they
were described as “conspicuous for their readiness to
take advantage of disorder”. See further mew at.

Bibliography. W. Crooke, Tribes and castes of the
North-western Provinces and Oudh , Calcutta 1896, iii,
485 ff.; Alwar gazetteer, London 1878, 37 ff., 70; R.
V. Weekes (ed.), Muslim peoples, a world ethnographic
survey 2 , London 1984, ii, 517-21.

(J. Burton-Page)

MERCENARY [see djaysh],

MERCiMEK AHMET [see merdjumek].
MERCURY, pi anet [see c utarid].

MERCURY, metal [see zPbak].

MERDJUMEK, Ahmed b. Ilyas (Modern
Turkish: Mercimek Ahmed), fl. first third of the
9th/15th century, the author of a translation into Old
Ottoman of the Kabus-name , a “mirror for princes”
composed in Persian prose and occasional verse

by Kay Ka 5 us b. Iskandar [q.v.] in 475/1082.

Merdjumek mentions himself by this name three
times in his work (all references are to British Library
ms. Or. 3219): introduction (fol. lb), chapters 11 (fol.
50a) and 31 (fol. 112b). he is not referred to in pre¬
modern Ottoman biographical or historical works.
From his Kabus-name translation we can glean very lit¬
tle information (none on how he acquired his strange
designation Merdjumek, Persian for “lentil”). He
was a servant or courtier of Sultan Murad II (824-
55/1421-51), and his writing shows him to have been
well versed in the traditional religious and secular
learning of his time. We can only deduce that he was
moderate in his habits from his remark that Mer¬
djumek never indulged in the “calamitous” practice
of morning wine-drinking (fol. 50a).

In Ottoman akhlak [^.t'.j literature, the Kabus-name
held a special place in the 8th/14th and 9th/15th cen¬
turies. No less than five completely independent Old
Ottoman prose versions composed in this period have
survived, of which the latest and best is Merdjiimek’s,
completed on 23 Sha c ban 836/26 April 1432. The
translator records that while at Philippopolis in Sultan
Murad’s service, Jie found the sultan reading the
Kabus-name in Persian. When Murad complained that
an existing Turkish version was dull and unclear,
Merdjumek immediately undertook a new transla¬
tion, “complete, without omitting a word; to the best
of my ability explaining the more difficult words in it
by extended comment so that the readers might enjoy
its [full] meaning” (fols. lb-2a), the book has no
independent title; mss. of it are marked by such
headings as Kabus-name-yi Tiirki or Terdjeme-yi
Kabus-name.

Merdjumek showed much greater literary skill than
his predecessors. Unlike them, he was neither
slavishly literal nor given to cavalier omission. He
freely added explanatory comments, as he promised,
or he paraphrased, when literalism might have con¬
cealed the author’s purpose. Occasionally, he further
enlivened the text by spontaneously inserting apt
Turkish proverbs, or verses of his own composition
(e.g. ch. 32, fol. 122a-b), in addition to his usual prac¬
tice of rendering Kay Ka 5 us’s illustrative Persian
verses into his own Turkish verse.

At a time when literary Turkish was at a
crossroads, with some writers developing a complex
and bombastic high insha^ style, full of Persian literary
artifices, and reducing the Turkish lexical material to
a minimum in favour of Arabic and Persian loan
words, Merdjumek chose a manner which was essen¬
tially simple, based on spoken Turkish, and lexically
mainly Turkish. In subsequent centuries, a minority
of writers continued to favour simple Turkish, but
most Ottoman writing became increasingly high-
flown and Persianised. By the beginning of the
12th/l8th century, Merdjiimek’s simplicity of style
and vocabulary had come to be considered archaic
and uncouth, and the well-known stylist and historian
Nazml-zade Murtada (not Mustafa, as in kay ka 5 us,
iv, 815, col. 2, 1. 3) of Baghdad was commissioned to
revise Merdjiimek’s Kabus-name in accord with con¬
temporary literary taste (1117/1705).

Turkish nationalist currents of the 20th century
have enhanced the growing interest in the Turkic
elements in Turkey’s national language, and have
brought a renewed and still continuing appreciation of
Merdjumek Ahmed’s work.

Bibliography. 1. Manuscripts. — In Ankara,

Istanbul, £orum, London, Oxford, Paris, Len¬
ingrad, Berlin, Gotha, Munich and Vienna. See

listings in: [Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer

1020

MERDJUMEK — MERGUI

Kulturbesitz], Tiirkische Handschriften, Teil 2.
Beschrieben v. Manfred Gotz (= Verzeichnis der
orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Bd. XIII,
2), Wiesbaden 1968, no. 226, p. 155; supplemented
by H. F. Hofman, Turkish literature: a bio-
bibliographical survey , sect. 3, pt. 1, v. 6, Utrecht
1969, 63. Not noted in them is another B.L. ms.,
Or. 4130. 2. Editions.—(All in Latin alphabet
transcription only) (i) Keykavus ibn Iskender ibn
Kabus, Kabusname. Mercimek Ahmed (evirisi. Edisyon
kritik ve transkripsiyon. [Hazirlayan] Tipi Ak^ali
[Isikozlii]. istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi,
Turk Dili ve Edebiyati Dali, Mezuniyet Tezi,
Haziran 1966 (unpublished diss.). Based on a ms.
in Ankara Milli Kiituphane copied in 941/1534-5
and B.L. ms. Or. 3219, with occasional reference to
three Istanbul mss. Includes 15 pp. introd. study;
(ii) Keykavus, Mercimek Ahmet, Kabusname...
ne^r. Orhan §aik Gokyay, Istanbul 1944, 1966,
1974. Transcription mainly from Ankara, Maarif
Ktp. ms. j 5/37, and F. R. Unat’s ms. Includes 13
pp. introd. (iii) Keykavus, (cover: + ilyasoglu)
Mercimek Ahmet, Kabusname , hazirlayan ve
sadelestiren Atilla Ozkirimli. 2 vols. Istanbul (ca,
1974); somewhat modernised. Includes introd.
study (pp. 9-62) and bibliography (pp. 63-7). (iv)
Ahmet Cevat Emre, Ondordiincu asir yazmalanndan
numuneler : Kabusname’den, in Turk Dili Belleten, seri 2,
sayi 5-6 (1940) pp. 121-52, numbered 81-112; chs.
7-12, 14, 20, 21 only. 3. Translation (from com¬
bined texts of Merdjumek Ahmed and its revision
by Nazmi-zade) by H.F. von Diez, Buch des Kabus,
oder , Lehren des... Kjekjawus... Berlin 1811. 4.
Secondary references: E. Birnbaum (ed.). The
Book of Advice... The earliest Old Ottoman...
Kabusname/Mixtercimi me(hul ilk Tiirkfe Kabusname.
Cambridge-Duxbury, Mass. 1981, 6-7; M.F.
Kdpriilu, Milli edebiyat cereyamn ilk miibessirleri, in
idem, Edebiyat araslirmalan , Ankara 1966, 278-80;
Agah Sirn Levend, Ummet (aginda ahlak kitaplanmiz ,
in Turk Dili Arastirmalan Yilligi-Belleten, 1963,
Ankara 1964, 89-115; Nihad Sami Banarli, Resimli
Turk edebiyati tarihi, Istanbul {ca. 1950 and repr.),
495-6; Amil Qelebioglu, Kabus-name tercixmesi olan
Murad-nameye dair , in Turk Kiilturu, xvi, sayi 192,
Ekim 1978, 719-28 (an Old Ottoman mesnevi verse
adaptation, completed in 831/1427 by Bedr-i
DilsHad, who reorganised and expanded it without
acknowledging the Persian original).

(E. Birnbaum)

MERGUEZ [see mirkas].

MERGUI, the name of an archipelago, district
and town in southern Burma, on the eastern
shores of the Bay of Bengal, facing the Andaman Sea.

1. Mergui archipelago. This is a large group of
islands (said to number 804), commencing in the
north with Tavoy Island (ca. 13° 13'N.), and stret¬
ching southwards beyond Point Victoria into Thai
waters, terminating beyond Ko Chan in ca. 8° 50' N.
The indigenous population of sea nomads, known to
themselves as Moken, to the Burmese as Salon, to the
Thais as Chao Nam or Chao Lay and to the Malays
as Oran Laut (“boat people”), numbered 868 accord¬
ing to the 1884 Mergui District gazetteer, and were
classified as “nature-worshippers” (animistic-
shamanistic). Today, they are probably outnumbered
by Burmese and Chinese, even on their own islands,
and have been partly converted to Theravada Bud¬
dhism in the north of the archipelago, whilst Islam is
believed to have made some inroads in the south
(Annandale, 1903; Lebar, 1964).

2. Mergui District. This is the southernmost

district of Burma and, under the British, of the
Tenasserim Division, extending on the mainland
from the boundaries of Tavoy District (13° 28' N.) to
the mouth of the Pakchan River (9° 58' N.) and the
Isthmus of Kra in the south, and including the
Burmese part of the Mergui Archipelago. The region
is covered in dense jungle, and its economic wealth
rests on tin, coal and gold reserves, as well as on the
fisheries industry. The main townships are Mergui,
Palaw, Tenasserim, Bokpyin and Maliwun. Accord¬
ing to the 1921 Census ( 1924 Mergui District gazetteer),
the total urban population of Mergui District
numbered 25,382, of which 11.69%, or 1,679 per¬
sons, returned their religion as Muslim. This com¬
paratively low figure, although representative of the
position of Islam in the Mergui District during the
20th century, in fact belies the importance of the
region as a channel for the spread of Islam to
Thailand and northern South-East Asia during earlier
centuries.

3. Mergui Township. This is situated in 12° 26'
N. and 98° 36' E., on the Tenasserim Coast, just
outside the principal mouth of the Tenasserim River,
and protected by the small, hilly island of Palaw which
forms a good natural harbour. In 1921 the total
population of Mergui municipality was 17,106, of
which Buddhists comprised 65.6%, Muslims 14.2%,
Hindus 10.4%, and Christians and animists the
remainder. The great majority of Mergui’s Muslim
population are ZerbadT (of mixed Indian-Burmese
descent, but identifying strongly with Burma), though
there are also a number claiming Arab descent, whilst
in the rural areas, Malay Muslims form a strong con¬
tingent, numbering 4,239 in the 1911 Census (Yegar,
1972, 118).

As a port in the 20th century, Mergui has survived
on the Burmese coastal trade, exporting tin, rubber,
pearls, mother-of-pearl, salted fish, ambergris and
edible birds’ nests. In the past, however, both Mergui
and (more particularly) the neighbouring township of
Tenasserim were staging posts on an important
overland trade route between the Indian Ocean and
the South China Sea (Forbes, 1982, passim). For
several centuries this trade was to be dominated by
Muslims, and it was via Mergui and Tenasserim that
Islam first penetrated to the heartland of the Thai
Kingdom of Ayutthaya (ca. 751-1181/1350-1767).

History. The first mention of a trans-peninsular
trade route in the Mergui-Tenasserim region occurs
in the lst/7th century Liang-shu (Annals of the Liang
Dynasty), where reference is made to Tunsun, “an
ocean stepping stone” between East and West in the
northern part of the Malay Peninsula (Wheatley, 16;
Briggs, 257). During this era, the region was chiefly
populated by Mons, but trade was apparently
dominated by Indian settlers, and was not dependent
upon the local inhabitants. Arab shipping is thought
to have first penetrated South-East Asian waters
during the 5th or 6th centuries A.D. (Tibbetts, 1956,
207), and it is therefore possible that South Arabian
voyagers visited the Mergui region even in pre-
Islamic times. Early Arab geographical texts, dating
from ca. 236/850, mention several ports on the
western shores of the Malay Peninsula which might
possibly be identified with the Mergui region, one of
which, Kalah [see kalah], is described by al-Mas c ud!
(in 332/943) as being a “general rendezvous of the
Muslim ships of Siraf and c Uman”, and by al-
MuhallabT (ca. 370/980) as “a prosperous town
inhabited by Muslims, Indian? and Persians”
(Wheatley, 216-20; Tibbetts, 1979, 118-28). Another
(perhaps more likely) identification is with Kakullah,

MERGUI

1021

described by Ibn Sa c Id (d. 685/1286) as standing near
a large river “which flows down from a mountain in
the north” (the Tenasserim River? - Tibbetts, 1979,
95, 128-35). By the time of Sulayman al-Mahn, how¬
ever, this uncertainty has disappeared, for in his early
10th/16th century c Umda (Tibbetts, 1979, 229), the
master navigator identifies Mergui as the main port
for Tenasserim, and explains that from this landfall
both local people and Arabs travel overland, via
Tenasserim, to Shahr-i Naw (the “new city”, or Ayut-
thaya, capital of the Thai Kingdom of the same name,
founded by King Rama T’ibodi in 1350 A.D.).

During the first two centuries of Ayutthayan rule,
the Tenasserim trade route—which passed under
Thai control in or about 775/1373—was frequented
by Muslim and Hindu merchants from South Asia, as
well as by Arab and Persian merchants from the Mid¬
dle East. It seems certain that, after the Portuguese
conquest of Malacca in 1511, Muslim usage of the
Tenasserim trade route increased in a partly suc¬
cessful attempt to bypass the Portuguese Catholic
stranglehold on trade with the Far East. During this
period, Muslim traders from Surat, Dabul, and
increasingly, from the Coromandel Coast, came to
dominate Ayutthaya’s trade with the Indian Ocean,
supplying opium, minerals and dyestuffs, but above
all cotton cloth, to the Thai Kingdom. Exports from
Ayutthaya to the west via the Tenasserim route
included aromatic woods and gums—much of which
was destined for Yemen and the Hidjaz—spices, tin,
ivory and porcelain.

A major factor in the rise of Islamic influences over
the Mergui-Ayutthaya trade was the establishment of
the Muslim Kingdom of Golconda in the mid-
10th/l 6th century [see golkonda]. Merchants trading
from the Golcondan capital and chief port of
Machilipatanam (or Masulipatam, commonly known
in the region as Bandar or “harbour”) came rapidly
to dominate the export of Indian cotton fabrics to
Ayyuthaya, and by the time of the reign of the Thai
monarch Phra Narai ( ca. 1068-1100/1657-88), foreign
Muslims, chiefly of South Asian origin but including
numbers of Arabs, Persians and even Turks, had
attained to positions of great power and prestige
within Siam. Nor was the Mergui-Tenasserim route
used purely for commerce; Muslim emissaries from
Golconda and Iran (Ibrahim, 43-52), and possibly
from Acheh (Penth, passim ), are known to have
travelled to Ayutthaya by this route, both with the
intention of improving trade and, apparently, in the
hope of converting the Thai king to Islam (Graham,
ii, 294).

By 1679, the South and West Asian Muslim com¬
munity in Siam had become so numerous and influen¬
tial that they had their own quarter in Ayutthaya (as
distinct from the various Malay Muslim districts),
whilst an English factor of the Honourable East India
Company was able to report of the Mergui-
Tenasserim region: “The Persians and Moors ... are
now in effect masters of that part of the country as well
as the commerce ... the colonies they have planted in
those parts do almost equal the number of the natives,
but far exceed them in wealth and power” (White,
IOR E/3/40). During this period, the governors of
Mergui, Tenasserim, Phetchaburi and Bangkok were
all Muslims of West or South Asian origin, as were
the captains of Phra Narai’s merchant vessels trading
with Golconda. Indeed, during the first half of the
11 th/17th century, Thai trade with the west (that is,
with the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean littoral)
was almost entirely in Muslim hands, whilst Phra
Narai employed a succession of at least three (osten¬

sibly Persian) Muslims as phraklang, or foreign
minister (the most powerful position at the Thai
Court), and even maintained a squadron of Muslim
horse guards (de Choisy, 196).

Islamic influence at Ayutthaya entered into sharp
decline during the latter part of Narai’s reign, particu¬
larly following the rise in power of the Greek adven¬
turer, Constant Phaulkon, who came to dominate the
Thai royal court in ca. 1090/1679 (Hall, 364-74).
Phaulkon perceived the “Moors” as political and
commercial rivals, and at his behest their position and
influence was gradually diminished, whilst that of the
Europeans (and particularly of France) was cor¬
respondingly increased. During this period, the
Muslim merchants dominating the Mergui-
Tenasserim region were gradually displaced, and in
1683 an Englishman, Samuel (“Siamese”) White,
was appointed shahbandar of Mergui, with disastrous
consequences for non-European regional commerce
as a whole. Two years later, as a result of Phaulkon’s
commercial and political intrigues, war broke out
between Siam and Golconda. Shortly thereafter, in
1687, a final blow was dealt to the Mergui-
Machilipatanam trade when Golconda succumbed to
the advancing armies of the Mughal Emperor
Awrangzlb [q.v.\, and its capital was reduced to the
status of a fishing village (Alam, 1959, passim).

The Mergui-Tenasserim trade route never fully
recovered from these setbacks, although Indian
Muslim merchants continued to trade with Ayutthaya
via Mergui throughout the first half of the 12th/18th
century. In ca. 1179/1765, however, even this
diminished trade was brought to an abrupt end by the
Burmese conquest of both Mergui and Tenasserim.
Two years later, in 1767, Ayutthaya was itself cap¬
tured and sacked by the Burmese armies of King
Hsinbyushin.

Following the Burmese conquest, the entire
Mergui-Tenasserim region as far south as Point Vic¬
toria was incorporated within the Burmese empire.
The new frontier between Siam and Burma, now
much advanced in the latter’s favour, remained sealed
to trade (Low, iii, 287, 290); besides, the overland
portage route from Mergui to Ayutthaya had become
increasingly anachronistic, and regional inter-Asian
trade had come to be increasingly dominated by Euro¬
pean commerce. With the Burmese conquest of 1765,
therefore, Mergui ceased to serve as a channel for
Muslim commerce and concepts into Siam, and
became instead a Burmese backwater. It still retained
a substantial Muslim population, however, and it is
interesting to note that indigenous Burmese chronicles
possibly dating from the late 12th/18th century des¬
cribe the rebuilding of Mergui in ca. 1770, and record
the allocation of a special area (the Kakaung quarter)
to the township’s Muslim population (Kyaw Din,
252-3).

Bibliography. J. Low, History of Tenasserim , in
JRAS, ii (1835), 248-75; iii (1836), 25-54, 287-336;
iv (1837), 42-108, 304-32; v (1839), 141-64, 216-63;
N. Annandale, The Coast People of Trang, in Fasciculi
Malayenses [Anthropology , i, Liverpool, 1903], 53-65;
G. White, Letter to Bantam from a port in Siam , dated
1679 A .D., in Records of the relations between Siam and
foreign countries in the 17th Century , Bangkok 1916, ii,
202-13; original ms. at India Office Records, Lon¬
don E/3/40 (original correspondence, 1679/80);
Kyaw Din, The history of Tenasserim and Mergui , in
Jnal. of the Burma Research Society, vii/3 (Dec. 1917),
251-4; W.A. Graham, Siam , London 1924, 2 vols.;
M. l’Abbe de Choisy, journal du voyage de Siam fait
en 1685 et 1686 , Paris 1930; W.H. Moreland (ed.),

1022

MERGUI — MERKA

Relations of Golconda in the early seventeenth century , Lon¬
don 1931; E. Hutchinson, Journal of Mgr. Lambert,
Bishop of Beritus, from Tenasserim to Siam in 1662, in
Jnal. of the Siam Society, xxvi (1933), 215-18; M.
Collis, Siamese White, London, 2nd Penguin ed.
1943; L.P. Briggs, The Khmer Empire and the Malay
Peninsula, in Far Eastern Quarterly, ix(1950), 256-305;
idem, Into hidden Burma, London 1953; G.R. Tib¬
betts, Pre-Islamic Arabia and South-East Asia, in Jnal.
Malay Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, xxix/3 (1956),
182-208; Shah Manzoor Alam, Masulipatam—a
metropolitan fort in the 17th century A.D., in The Indian
Geographical Jnal., xxxiv/3-4 (1959), 33-42; P.
Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese, Kuala Lumpur
1961; U. Tin Htoo, The Mergui Archipelago and the
Isthmus of Kra, in The Guardian (Rangoon), ix/3
(March 1962), 29-32; E.M. Lebar et alii, Ethnic
groups of mainland Southeast Asia, New Haven 1964;
H.G. Penth, An account in the Hikajat Atjeh on relations
between Siam and Atjeh, in Felicitation volumes of
Soutkeast-Asian Studies presented to His Highness Prince
Dhannivat Kromamun Bidyalabh Bridhyakorn, Bangkok
1965, i, 55-69; Muhammad Ibrahim, Safina-yi
Sulaymanf, Eng. tr. John O’Kane, The ship of
Sulaimdn, London 1972; M. Yegar, The Muslims of
Burma, Wiesbaden 1972; D.G.E. Hall, A history of
South-East Asia, 3rd ed. London 1976; Tibbetts, A
study of the Arabic texts containing material on South-East
Asia, Leiden and London 1979; A.D.W. Forbes,
Tenasserim : the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya’s link with the
Indian Ocean, in Indian Ocean Newsletter, iii/1 (July
1982). Gazetteers: The British Burma gazetteer,
Rangoon 1879, ii. The Mergui Archipelago, ]. Butler,
Gazetteer of the Mergui District, Rangoon 1884;
Imperial gazetteer of India 2 -, Oxford 1908, xvii, 293-
308; G.P. Andrew, Burma gazetteer : Mergui District,
Rangoon 1912; Burma gazetteer: Mergui District,
Rangoon 1924. (A.D.W. Forbes)

MERlC, the Turkish name of a river called
Hebros in classical Greek and Maritsa in Bulgarian.
It is the principal river of the south-eastern Balkans
and, under the Ottomans, of the eydlet of the Rumeli.
Al-Idris \ (Opus geographicum, Naples 1977, 796 = 4th
section of the 5th climate) mentions it as nahr Marisu;
on his map of 1154, however, we read nahr A kh flu (K.
Miller, Mappae arabicae, Bd. I, pt. 2, Blatt V, Bd. II,
122, 126).

From its source in the north-western spur of the
Rhodope mountains south of Sofia, the Meri£ flows
eastwards through Bulgaria, forming a broad valley
that separates the Balkan mountains to the north from
the Rhodope to the south. It touches Turkish territory
20 km west-south-west of Edirne, and for 14 km it
flows along the Turkish-Greek border; after a brief
stretch inside the Turkish il of Edirne, where it is
joined by the Tunca as it skirts the province’s capital,
the Meric turns southwards, and after 8 more km it
again forms the border between Turkey and Greece.
After having received the important tributary of
Ergene, the river flows into the Aegean through a
delta, at the eastern mouth of which is the port city of
Enez.

It was the Ottomans who integrated the course of
the Meric within the Dar al-Isldm, but the region had
experienced Turkish presence long before that: the
Turkic Bulgars, then the Pechenegs and Cumans, and
finally the forays of the Aydin [q.v. ] chieftain Umur
Beg, who sailed upstream with his warships to the
level of Dimetika (Didymothike) in late 1343 (I.
Melikoff-Sayar, Le destan d’Umur Pacha, Paris 1954,
41, 101; P. Le merle, L ’emirat d ’Aydin : Byzance et l’Occi¬
dent, Paris 1957, 169). Unlike the Turks of Aydin, the

Ottomans under Murad I approached the Meric from
landwards and subsequently used the avenue
presented by the river’s valley for their further con¬
quests in the Balkans. The counter-offensive of
766/1364 resulted in a defeat near the left bank of the
Meric, during which the fleeing army sought salva¬
tion by crossing the river, a pre-dawn rout
remembered by the place-name Sirp Sfndighi “Ser¬
bian defeat” {Die Altosmanische Chronik des
<i Asikpasazdde, ed. F. Giese, 51).

Before the conquest of Constantinople, Edirne was
the principal residence of the Ottoman sultans, and
even later the Merit witnessed some of the pomp of
court life. Thus in 861 /1456-7 circumcision festivities of
th eshehzades Bayezid and Mustafa were held on the river
island Kirishciler adasi ( c Asikpasazade, ed. Giese, 141).

The broad fertile valley of the Merit was
appreciated in Byzantine times as one of the granaries
of Constantinople; this role was further increasing
during the Ottoman rule after the Turks had intro¬
duced there the cultivation of rice in the 9th/15th cen¬
tury. The river itself served as a transportation route
for these supplies by boat to Enez, from where they
were carried by sea-going craft to Istanbul (this role of
the Meric ceased only in the 1870s with the construc¬
tion of a railway from Istanbul). The economic impor¬
tance of the Meric valley in the Ottoman period was
also demonstrated by the prosperity of such cities as
Filibe (Plovdiv), Edirne and Enez, and by the creation
of Tatar Pazardjik; this town, founded in 890/1485,
was settled mainly by Bessarabian Tatars and
Ottoman sipdhfs\ its annual fair, held in July, was fre¬
quented by merchants from many parts of the empire.
The valley represented an age-old route of communi¬
cations, transportation and troop movements that
continued beyond the Meri£ to Sofia and Belgrade. In
the Ottoman postal organisation, the stages along the
Meric pertained to the orta kol system. The' effec¬
tiveness of the route was enhanced by the construction
and endowment of khans and bridges; especially
remarkable is the 10th/16th century bridge known as
Djisr-i Mustafa Pasha, with a khan on either side, in
present-day Svilengrad 40 km west of Edirne.

The Meric acquired a special political significance
in the final years of the Ottoman empire when the
question of the Turkish-Bulgarian and Turkish-Greek
borders arose. With the successful completion of the
War of Independence in Anatolia, the Turkish
demands that the British authorities persuade the
Greeks to withdraw their forces beyond the Meric
were met, and the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923)
established the river as the definitive border between
Turkey and Greece.

Bibliography: In addition to references given in
the text, see Ewliya Celebi, Seyahat-ndme, Istanbul
1314, iii, 420-1; Sh. Sami, Kamus al-a c lam, Istanbul
1898, vi, 4270-1; K. Jirecek, Die Heerstrasse von
Belgrad nach Constantinopel, Prague 1877; M. Tayyib
Gokbilgin, XV-XVI asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa livasi,
Istanbul 1952, index s.v.; D.E. Pitcher, An historical
geography of the Ottoman Empire, Leiden 1972; W.C.
Brice (ed.), An historical atlas of Islam, Leiden 1981,
pis. 30-1; Turk Ansiklopedisi, s.vv. Merit, Enez, Enez-
Midye hatti; Ali Tanoglu, Sirn Ering and Erol
Tiimertekin, Tiirkiye atlasi, Istanbul 1961, map la.

(S. Soucek)

MERIDA [see marida].

MERINIDS [see marinids].

MERKA, the official spelling of Markah (as in al-
IdrisT et alii), a settlement which lies in lat. 1° N and
44° E, south of Makdishu [ q.v.] in the Republic of
Somalia. It is mentioned ca. 943 A.D. by al-Mas c udI

MERKA — MERZIFUN

1023

among places in Africa inhabited by the descendants
of Kush [</.t>.], but the reading must be considered
doubtful because the other places enumerated are in
western Africa (cf. Murudj, , ed. Pellat, index, s.v.
Maranda). Al-Idrlsi (Climate 1, section 6) mentions it
as associated with the Hawiyya, one of the groups of
the Somali; Ibn Sa c Id ( apud Abu ’l-Fida 5 ) states that
it was their capital, and that it was inhabited by
Muslims. In so far as they can be dated by external
features, the mosques appear to be of late 18th cen¬
tury date or later. The Friday Mosque, nevertheless,
has a dedicatory inscription equivalent to A.D. 1609,
and that ofShaykh c Uthman to A.D. 1560. The grave
in this structure appears to be older, for it incor¬
porates stonework with a cable pattern that may be
compared with that in the mihrab of the mosque at
Kizimkazi [q.v.], Zanzibar, where the inscription in
floriate Kufic and other decorations are dated by an
inscription equivalent to A.D. 1107.

Bibliography. Yakut, Buldan , s.v.; E. Cerulli,
Somalia: scritti editi ed inediti, i, Rome 1957; H.N.
Chittick, An archaeological reconnaissance of the southern
Somali coast , in Azania, iv (1969); idem and R.I.
Rotberg, eds., East Africa and the Orient , New York
and London 1975; L.M. Devic, Le Pays des Zendjs,
Paris 1883; G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, Coins from
Mogadishu , c. 1300-c. 1700 , in Numismatic Chronicle
(1963); idem and B.C. Martin, A preliminary handlist
of the Arabic inscriptions of the Eastern African Coast , in
JRAS (1973); P.S. Garlake, The early Islamic architec¬
ture of the East African Coast , Oxford 1966; C.
Guillain, Documents sur l \histoire , la geographic et le com¬
merce de TAfrique orientale , Paris 1856, i.

(G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville)
MERKEZ, Shaykh Muslih al-DIn b. Mustafa,
the head of an Ottoman Sufi order and saint.

Merkez Muslih al-Dln Musa b. Mustafa b. Kflidj
b. Hadjdar belonged to the village of Sari Mahmudlu
in the Anatolian district of Ladhikiyya. He was at first
a pupil of the Molla Ahmad Pasha, son of Khidr Beg
[q.v.], and later of the famous Khalwatl Shaykh Siin-
biil Sinan Efendi, founder of the Sunbiiliyya, a
branch of the Khalwatiyya, head of the monastery of
Kodja Mustafa Pasha in Istanbul (see Bursalf
Mehmed Tahir, c Othmanli muMlifleri, i, 78-9). When
the latter died in 936/1529, Merkez Efendi succeeded
him in the dignity of Plr. He held the office of head
of a monastery for 23 years and died in the odour of
sanctity in 959/1552, aged nearly 90. He was buried
in Istanbul in the mosque which bears his name (cf.
Hadlkat al-djawdmi c , i, 230-1; J. von Hammer, GOR,
ix, 95, no. 495) before the Yehi Kapu. At the tomb of
Merkez Efendi there is a much-visited holy well, an
ayazma, to which one descends by steps. Its reddish
water is said to have the miraculous power of healing
those sick of a fever (cf. Ewliya Celebi, i, 372; von
Hammer, Constantinopolis , i, 513; idem, GOR , loc. cit. y
following the Hadikat al-djawami c , loc. cit.). Beside it is
the cell ( zawiya ) of Merkez Efendi, of which
miraculous stories still circulate among the people. He
had many pupils, including his son Ahmad, famous as
the translator of the Kamus , his son-in-law Muslih al-
Dm (cf. Ewliya, loc. cit.), the poet Ramadan Efendi,
called BihishtI, and many others.

Bibliography: In addition to the references in
the text, see Tashkopruzade, ShakdSk al-nu c mdniyya ,
tr. Medjdl, 522-3; c Othmdnli muMlifleri , i, 160;
Mehmed Thiireyya, Sidjill-i c othmam , iv, 363; F.
Babinger, GOW, 44, n. 1; Tahsin Yazici, Fetihten
soma Istanbul ’da ilk halved feyhleri , in Istanbul Enstitiisii
Dergisi, ii (1956), 104-13; idem, iA art. Merkez
Efendi. (Fr. Babinger)

MERLIN [see bayzara].

MERSIN, a se a-port on the south coast of
Anatolia, capital of the province of I^el with seven
districts (1980: 843, 931 inhabitants) and the centre of
the Berdan-Ova, where ca. 40,000 ha. irrigated fields
of cotton, citrus-trees and vegetables are cultivated.
These products are exported through an important
harbour (1980: 10,452 m 3 wood, 331,145 head of
livestock, 74,842 passengers). Beside this, there exists
an expanding industry (76 factories, 13,439
labourers) in textiles, chemical products (refinery)
and building materials. The regularly-built town,
now (1980) with 216,308 inhabitants, was founded in
1832 by Ibrahim Pasha [q v.\, son of Muhammad c AlI
[q.v.]\ its name derives from the Greek myrsini
(jjLupafvri) “myrtle”, a tree, which grows in the region.
To the north-west of Mersin is situated the Neolithic
hdyiik of Yumuktepe, which was well-fortified in the
5th millenium B.C. In Hellenistic-Roman times, the
harbour town of Zephirium lay in the neighbourhood;
not far away to the south-west, the ruins of Soloi, later
Pompeiopolis, are to be seen.

Bibliography: V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie ,
Paris 1892, ii, 50 ff.; J. Garstang, Prehistoric Mersin,
Oxford 1953; L. Rother, Die Stadte des (fukurova:
Adana — Mersin—Tarsus , Tubingen 1971; idem,
Gedanken zur Stadtentwicklung in der (fukurova ( Tirkei ),
Wiesbaden 1972. (W. Rollig)

MERSIYE [see marthiya],

MERTOLA [see mirtula].

MERV [see marw].

MERV-RUD [see marw al-rudh].

MERWARA [see radjasthan].

MERZIFUN, also Marsiwan, modern Turkish
spelling Merzifon, a town of north-central
Anatolia, lying in lat. 40°52' and long. 35°35'E.
and at an altitude of 750 m./2.464 ft. It is situated on
the southern slopes of the Tavsan Dagi, with a rich
and fertile plain, the Sulu Ova, on its south, where
fruit, vines, nuts, opium poppies, etc. are cultivated,
and with the towns of Riorum [see Corum] at 69
km./42 miles to the south-west and of Amasya [q.v. ]
at 49 km./30 miles to the south-east.

The town most probably occupies the site of the
ancient Phazemon (<J>a£ri|jLd>v) in the district of
Phazemonitis; the name is probably a development of
<Pa£ripd>v. Ibn BTbl (cf. Recueil de textes reladfs a Thistoire
des Seldjoucides , ed. M. Th. Houtsma, iv, Leiden 1902,
292, 12) also gives the form BazTmun. Little is known
of the early history of the town in the Muslim period.
It belonged to the kingdom of the Danishmendids
[q.v. ] and when in 795/1393 Bayezld I drove the ruler
of Sivas, Mir Ahmad, out of the country, the land of
“Marsvani”, as the Bavarian traveller Hans
Schiltenberger (cf. Hans Schiltbergers Reisebuch, ed. V.
Langmantel, Tubingen 1885, 12) called it, passed to
the Ottoman empire. Merzifun plays a notable part in
the history of Ottoman culture as the birthplace and
scene of the activities of learned men and authors (cf.
A.D. Mordtmann, Anatolien, 88); and it was the
family place of origin of the celebrated 11th/17th cen¬
tury Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha
Merzifonlu [q.v. ].

In Merzifun there used to be a number of dervish
tekke s (cf. Ewliya (Selebi, Seyahet-name , ii, 396 below,
where several are mentioned). The saint locally
reverenced was Plr Dede Sultan, said to be a pupil of
Had j d j I Bektash (Ewliya, ii, 396).

Monuments there include several mosques con¬
verted from Byzantine churches, including the so-
called Eski Cami, on the walls of which Christian
paintings could be seen till at least the later 19th cen-

1024

MERZIFUN — MESIH MEHMED PASHA

tury (cf. V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie , Paris 1892, i,
761); the madrasa of Mehemmed Celebi (built
817/1414 by one Abu Bekr b. Mehmed, to which an
incongruous clock tower was added in the 19th cen¬
tury); and the complex built by Kara Mustafa Pasha,
with mosque (built in 1077/1666-7), madrasa and
caravanserai (see G. Goodwin, A history of Ottoman
architecture, London 1971, 20, 362, 419).

In the 19th century, Merzifun was the centre of
American Protestant missionary enterprise in the
wildyet of Sivas (in which Merzifun was in late
Ottoman times situated), with the Anatolia College, a
theological seminary, schools and charitable institu¬
tions, proselytism being aimed mainly at the local
Armenians (Cuinet numbered the town’s population
at 13,380 Muslims, 5,820 Armenians and 800
Greeks). There were also Roman Catholic Jesuit and
Gregorian Armenian schools. Most of these did not
survive the First World War and the Armenian
massacres, with the consequent liquidation of that
ethnic element from the town, as also the Greeks (the
1927 census enumerated only 11,334 inhabitants of
Merzifun), but a small body of American missionaries
and a school were still functioning in the late thirties.

Modern Merzifon is the chef-lieu of an ilge or
district of the same name in the il or province of
Amasya, and is noted for its cotton textiles. The
population of the town was in 1970 28,210 and that of
the district 59,777.

Bibliography : Pauly-Wissowa, xix/2, col. 1909,
s.v. Phazemon-, Ewliya Celebi, Seyahat-name, ii,
396 ff., Eng. tr. Von Hammer, ii, 212 ff.; Sh .
Sami, Kdmus al-aHam , Istanbul 1315, vi, 4259; Le
Voyage de Monsieur d’Aramon..., escript par .... J.
Chesneau, ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris 1887, 68 ; J.
Morier, Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia
Minor, London 1812, 350; Petermann’s Mitteilungen,
1859, Heft 12; C. Ritter, Erdkunde von Kleinasien, i,
179 ff.; W. Ainsworth, Travels in Asia Minor, Lon¬
don 1842, i, 33; W. Hamilton, Researches in Asia
Minor, London 1842, i, 329; A.D. Mordtmann,
Anatolien , ed. F. Babinger, Hanover 1925, 87 ff.;
H.J. van Lennep, Travels in little-known parts of Asia
Minor, London 1870, i, 82; F. Cumont, Studia Pon-
tica , ii, 140; iii, 162; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie,
i, 758-62; Naval Intelligence Division, Admiralty
Handbook, Turkey, London 1942-3, ii, 572; I A art.
Merzifon (Besim Darkot).

(F. BabingerJC.E. Bosworth])
ME SH C ALE (“Torch”), ajournal published in
Turkish, of which eight numbers only appeared
between 1 July and 15 October 1928.

It had been founded by Djewdet Kudret (Cevdet
Kudret Solok), Ken c an Khulusi (Kenan Hulusi
Koray), Sabri Es c ad (Sabri Esat Siyavu^gil), WasfT
Mahir (VasFi Mahir Kocatiirk), Diya 3 c Othman (Ziya
Osman Saba) and Yashar Nabi (Ya§ar Nabi Nayir)
after the unexpected success of an anthology ( Yedi
mesffale, Istanbul 1928) of the above-mentioned
authors plus Mu c ammar LiitfT. These young writers,
the Mesjfaledjiler (Mepaleciler ), wished to combat the
general, unfavourable judgment pronounced upon
the literature of their country through the novel
expression of a literary production devoid of the
expression of the authors’ individual feeling. The con¬
trasting influences, whose action they felt, did not
reach maturity, but they certainly felt the need of a
call to order, more clearly discernible, it was true, in
other Western intellectuals, in order to give a new
response to the confused expectations of their national
revolution.

Meshfale had the aim of functioning solely in the

sphere of literature and art, but its founders were not
unaware of social cares, and a few years later, a
journal, Kadro (1932-5), was to endeavour to shape,
within Kemalism, a new political and ideological
milieu. Meshfale lived though the changes and con¬
trasts of the age, even in its external aspect, since in
the latter issues, Latin characters began to replace the
Arabic ones, and its decorative designs were always in
the style of the twenties of the West, the same elegant
and objective artistic style desired by the Meshfaledjiler
poets, whilst the prose writer Ken c an Khulusi was
closer to Symbolism.

Under the patronage of Yusuf Diya 3 (Yusuf Ziya
Ortag), Meshfale provides us with a useful panorama
of the Turkish literature of its time, and the foreign
authors presented in it confirm the French influence
on Turkish culture. That some young people, with the
help of writers already well-known, should have
endeavoured, by means of journals like Meshfale and
Kadro, to bring about a new cultural atmosphere,
shows the desire for social action on the part of the
Turkish intellectuals. In their literature, it is always
nevertheless more essential to search out the elements
of continuity and originality which lie beyond external
appearances, together with those enduring elements
of faithfulness—sometimes not discernible as such—to
tradition.

Bibliography : For the traditional view, see R.
Mutluay, Qagdas Turk edebiyati ( 1908-1972 ), Istan¬
bul 1973; a new interpretation is furnished in G.E.
Carretto, Saggi su Me$ale. Un’avanguardia letter aria
turca del 1928, Venice 1979, which develops further
two articles of 1976 and 1977. See also the special
number of Varlik (50. yilinda Yedi Mefale dzel sayisi),
no. 847 (April 1978). On Kadro, see Carretto,
Polemiche fra kemalismo, fascismo e communismo negli
anni ’30, in Storia contemporanea, viii/3 (1977), 205-
12, Turkish tr. in Tarih ve Toplum , nos. 17-18
(1985). (G.E. Carretto)

MESH(H)ED [see mashhad].

MESH(H)ED c ALI [see al-nad^af].
MESH(H)ED HUSAYN [see KARBALA 3 ].
MESHRUTA, MESHRUTIYYET [see dustur],
MESIH MEHMED PASHA, Khadim (ca. 901-
98 tea. 1495-1589), Ottoman Grand Vizier under
.Sultan Murad III \q.v.\.

Khadim Mesih made his career as one of the white
aghas in the Sultan’s private household (Enderun [ 9 . 1 /.])
at the time when their influence was still predominant
in the palace. At the accession of Murad III
(982/1574), he held the office of chief butler
(Kilardjibasht) . He left the palace service to become
Beglerbegi of Egypt. He governed that province for five
years. His successful administration brought him the
appointment as Third Vizier and the recall to Istanbul
(989/1581). When the Grand Vizier Ozdemiroghlu
c Othman Pasha [ q.v.] left the capital as Serddr (20
Radjab 992/28 July 1584), Mesih Pasha was made
Second Vizier and KdHmmakdm. Upon the death of
the Grand Vizier in 993/1585, Mesih Pasha became
Grand Vizier, then being about ninety years old.
After little more than four months in office he
resigned because of a disagreement with the sultan,
who refused to replace the Re y is iil-kuttab Hamza
Efendi by Kiiciik Hasan Bey, as was the wish of the
Grand Vizier (24 RabY II 994/14 April 1586). Mesih
Pasha retired from public life. He died three years
later and lies buried in the tilrbe in front of the mosque
founded by him in 994/1585 in the Karagumriik
quarter of Istanbul.

Bibliography : M.C. Baysun, Reis elkuttab Kiigiik
Hasan Bey, in TD, ii (1950-1, publ. 1952, no. 3-4);

MESIH MEHMED PASHA — MESIH PASHA

1025

I.H. Danismend, Osmanh tarihi kronolojisi, iii, Istan¬
bul 1972 2 ,58, 76, 79, 88, 100-2; v, 22; i.A. Govsa,
Turk meshurlan ansiklopedisi, Istanbul n.d., 159;
Hammer-Purgstall, HEO , vii, 165, 405-6, 206,
226; Mufassal Osmanh tarihi , iii, Istanbul 1959, 1390;
c Othmanzade Ahmed Ta^ib, Hadikat ixl-ivuzera?
(photo reprint ed.) Freiburg 1969, 41; T. Oz, Istan¬
bul camileri, i, Ankara 1962, 83, 104, plate 75;
Ibrahim Pecewl, Ta^rikh, ii, Istanbul 1283, 18-19;
N. Poroy, IstanbuTda gomuli papalar, Istanbul 1947,
19-20; I.H. Uzungarsili, Osmanh devletinin saray
teskilati , Ankara 1984 2 , 28, 313, 354-7.

(A.H. de Groot)

MESIH PA SH A. Ottoman Grand Vizier in
906/1501. Meslh and his elder brother Khass Murad
were sons of a brother of Constantine IX Palaeologus
(Babinger, Eine Verfigung). Apparently Meslh and
Murad were captured during the conquest of Con¬
stantinople and brought up as pages in Mehemmed
IPs seraglio.

The Greek faction under this Sultan first came to
power when he decided to conquer the Greek island of
Euboea (Eghriboz) in 875/1470. Meslh distinguished
himself for the first time during this campaign as san-
dj_ak begi of Gelibolu [q. v.\ and admiral of the navy.
But soon afterwards he offered, as Venetian
documents testify, to surrender Gelibolu, the
Ottoman naval base, and the fleet to the Venetians in
return for 40,000 gold ducats, aspiring to become
ruler over the Morea (Babinger, Mehmed, 290). Meslh
appears to have been a vizier in late autumn 1476, or
in early 1477 (see discussion in Reindl, 280). Two
documents (Gokbilgin, 138, 148 n. 153) indicate that
he was already second vizier on 19 Sha c ban 882/26
November 1477 and also in 883/1478, Mehmed
Pasha KaramanI [q.v.\ being Grand Vizier in both
cases. A contemporary source (Donado da Lezze,

112 ) states that he was a newly-appointed fourth vizier
when he was made commander-in-chief of the army
and navy against Rhodes in the spring of 995/1480.
Having failed at the siege, he was dismissed from the
vizierate (Ibn Kemal, cited by Reindl, 281), but
apparently left with the sandpak of Gelibolu as admiral
of the navy. During the indecisive period after the
death of Mehemmed II (3 May 1481) Meslh, who
belonged to the military dewshirme [q.v.\ group of
Gedik Ahmed, appeared as a vizier in the Diwan.
Bringing Bayezld II to the throne, the military
dewshirme faction had then full control of the
government.

While Gedik Ahmed, with the support of the
Janissaries, acted too independently, Meslh won the
trust of the Sultan as an opponent of Djem [q.v.
when in early summer 887/1482 Gedik Ahmed,
suspected of being pro-Djem, was imprisoned in the
Seraglio, the Janissaries invaded the palace and
threatened the Sultan, who sent a group of
dignitaries, including Meslh, to negotiate. He suc¬
ceeded in appeasing the soldiery by accepting all their
demands including the promise never to appoint
viziers outside the dewshirme (da Lezze, 179-80). This
convinced Bayezld that he was completely dependent,
for his safety on the throne, on the military faction.
Meslh, closely co-operating with the seraglio, demon¬
strated his diplomatic ability and loyalty once again
when Djem took refuge with the Hospitallers of
Rhodes. During negotiations, while Gedik Ahmed
proved to be uncompromising, Meslh achieved an
agreement to the satisfaction of Bayezld, thus becom¬
ing the architect of Bayezld’s policy in respect of the
Djem question. Now members of the military
dewshirme (Dawud, Meslh and Hersek-oghiu Ahmed)

dominated the Diwan , while Bayezld sent to the most
sensitive governorships his eunuch kapi-aghas from the
seraglio (Yahya, Ya c kub, c AlI, Khalil and FIruz).
Supported by the seraglio, Meslh managed to survive
Bayezld’s bold decision to eliminate Gedik Ahmed,
whom he believed to be a threat to his throne. After
his execution (18 November 1482), a new era, that of
the seraglio’s direct control of government, began.
Meslh was second vizier in the Diwan in 888/beg. 9
February 1483 {Anonymous chronicle, B.N. Paris, suppl.
1047, fol. 93a; also Ya c kub Pasha’s wakfiyya dated
awd^il Muharram 888/mid-February 1483, in Ep¬
stein, 290). Meslh had replaced in this post Djazarl
Kasfm Pasha, a bureaucrat famous as “the founder of
the Ottoman bureaucratic tradition”. When Ishak
Pasha, Grand Vizier and supporter of Gedik Ahmed,
had to leave the Diwan (in the summer or early
autumn 888/1483, see Reindl, 171, 236, 283), Dawud
Pasha, who was already second vizier in 887/beg. 20
February 1482, and apparently favoured by the
seraglio faction, became Grand Vizier. It is suggested
that Meslh succeeded Ishak in the grand vizierate
(Reindl, 171, 236, 283, on the authority of the con¬
temporary historian Ibn Kemal), and kept the posi¬
tion until 890/1485. But Meslh is shown in the
Anonymous chronicle , fol. 93b, as second vizier and
Dawud as Grand Vizier in 889/beg. 30 January 1484.

In 890/beg. 18 January 1485, Meslh was suddenly
dismissed from the vizierate by the sultan, who was
infuriated at something which we cannot determine
(Ibn Kemal, cited by Reindl, 283). He was first
banished to Filibe as its subashi , and then was transfer¬
red to Kaffa [q.v. ] as its sandjak begi in 892/1487
(Kaffa, like Salonica, had become an exile for
demoted viziers). The customs register of Kaffa dated
892/1487 shows that Meslh then owned a ship which
was active in the traffic between Istanbul and Kaffa
and at that time his ketkhiidd took for him slaves at
Azak. Meslh apparently left Kaffa when Prince
Mehemmed was sent as its governor toward the end
of 895/1489 (Reindl, 284). Next we find him in our
sources as sandjak begi of Akkerman (Akkerme) in
Rabl c II 903/beg. 27 November 1497. According to
the Anonymous chronicle , fols. 118b- 121a, he played a
major role in stopping a Polish army which invaded
Moldavia in 1496-7, in cooperation with the
Rumelian and frontier forces and with the Moldavian
Voyvode Stephen. Meslh took advantage of this
achievement to gain the sultan's favour, sending him
29 standards and enslaved Polish nobles.

The news was welcomed in Istanbul, and Venice
was informed as a warning (Sanuto, I Diarii, i, 845;
Fisher, 56). Meslh’s pilgrimage in the summer of
904/1499 seems to be a calculated move to go to Istan¬
bul and exploit his recent success in Moldavia.
Actually, considering his experience in naval affairs,
his knowledge of western politics and his family con¬
nections with Venice (Reindl, 279), he was a man
who would be most useful in the war against Venice,
which began in June 1499. Shortly after his return
from Mecca he was appointed a vizier ( bassa in
Sanuto, quoted by Reindl 285, does not mean
necessarily Grand Vizier). In fact, in Radjab
905/February 1500, the Grand Vizier was Ya c kub
Pasha, Bayezld II’s first Grand Vizier of palace
eunuchs, who came to this post following the death of
Candarli Ibrahim Pasha at the end of Muharram
905/August 1499. Meslh entered the Diwan as second
vizier while his friend Hersek-o gh iu occupied the post
of third vizier ( Anonymous chronicle , fols. 124a).
Eunuchs (, tawashi) were never welcomed by the
bureaucratic and military factions, but they estab-

1026

MESIH PASHA — MESIHI

lished supreme authority over government affairs and
were particularly favoured by Bayezid II. In Muhar-
ram 906/July-August 1500, MesTh was still mentioned
as second vizier (Reindl, 221-2, 354, believes Meslh
was made Grand Vizier immediately after Ibrahim’s
death in 1499), and in Ramadan 906/March-April
1501 he left Istanbul for Tash-ili in Karaman to
quell the rebellion of the Warsak tribes which were
supporting a Karamanid pretender by the name of
Mustafa. There is no doubt that in the spring of 1501
Meslh was appointed Grand Vizier for the first time
to lead this important campaign (details in Idris
BidllsI, Hesht bihisht , TKP Library, Hazine 1655).
Combining the skills of a general and diplomat,
Meslh was able to persuade the tribal chieftains not to
give their support to the Karamanid pretender. Soon
after his return to Istanbul, a joint Franco-Venetian
invasion of the island of Mytilene (Midilli [q.v. ])
infuriated the sultan, who struck his Grand Vizier
with his bow (September 1501). Soon afterwards,
Meslh was wounded attending a fire in Ghalata, and
died five days later (Djumada I 907/November 1501).
The mosque bearing his name in Istanbul was con¬
verted from a church and is at present in need of
repair. Its wakjiyya is dated Rabi* I 907/October 1501
(Ayverdi and Barkan, 142, no. 799). For the awkaf for
his mosque and madrasa in Gelibolu, see Golbilgin,
439. Its wakjiyya is dated 888/1478. The names of his
three sons, C A1I Beg, Mahmud Celebi and Bali Beg,
are known. The latter was sandjak begi of Vulcitrin in
Rabl c I 909/ August-September 1503.

Bibliography. Anonymous, Tawarlkh-i Al-i
c Othman , B.N. ms. Supplement turc 1047; Donado
da Lezze (J. Maria-Angiolello), Historia Turchesca ,
ed. I. Ursu, Bucharest 1910, 106, 112, 179, 259,
260 (Misit Bassa); Ibn Kemal (Kemal Pasha-zade),
see Reindl, 19; S.N. Fisher, The foreign relations of
Turkey , 1481-1512 , Urbana 1948; Idrls-i BidllsI,
Hesht bihisht , TKP, Hazine 1655; M.T. Gokbilgin,
Edirne ve Pasa livasi , Istanbul 1952; F. Babinger,
Fine Verfiigung des Palaologen Chass-Murad, in Aujsdtze
und Abhandlungen , i, Munich 1962, 344-54; E.H.
Ayverdi and O.L. Barkan, Istanbul vakiflan tahrir
defteri , Istanbul 1970; F. Babinger, Mehmed the Con¬
queror and his time , ed. W.C. Hickman, Princeton
1978; R.F. Kreutel, Der Fromme Sultan Bayezid,
Graz, Vienna and Cologne 1978; M.A. Epstein,
The Ottoman Jewish communities and their role in the fif¬
teenth and sixteenth centuries , Freiburg 1980; H.
Reindl, Manner um Bayezid. Eine prosopographische
Studie iiber die Epoche Bayezlds II. ( 1481-1512 ), Berlin
1983._ _ (Halil Inalcik)

MESIHI, an important Ottoman poet of Bayezid
IPs time (886-918/1481-1512), who died after
918/1512, possibly even after 924/1518 (see V.L.
Menage, An Ottoman manual of provincial correspondence,
in WZKM, lxviii [1976], 3-45, and idem, art. on Gil-i
sad-berg in Osmanh Arastirmalan , forthcoming). His
given name was c Isa. Born in Pristina, he came in his
youth to Istanbul, where he became a medrese student
and also soon distinguished himself as a calligrapher.
He was able to find favour with the Grand Vizier
Khadim C A1I Pasha, whose dlwan secretary he
became. However, his patron had frequent cause to
be annoyed with him because of his undisciplined,
pleasure-oriented life and his lack of conscientiousness
in the performance of his official duties, and is
reported to have spoken of him as a sheher oghlani
(“street arab”). He nevertheless held this position
until Khadim c Alf Pasha fell in 917/1511 fighting the
ShI c I rebels under Shah Kuli. Mesihl composed a
deeply-felt elegy on his death but, having need of a

new protector, ended with a mention of yeniceri aghast
Yunus Pasha (cf. i. Morina, Mesihi’nin Hadim Ali
Pasa’ya yazdigi mersiyesi, in (fevren , viii [1981], no. 31,
55-63). Based on the information given by c Ashik
Celebi, it was formerly accepted that Mesihl did not
succeed in gaining the protection of either Yunus
Pasha or the Nishandji TadjI-zade Dja c fer Celebi, that
he had to be content with a small fief in Bosnia and
that his attempts to gain the patronage of Selim I
failed likewise. This assumption should now be
revised insofar as Sehl’s statement that Mesihl was in
the service of Yunus Pasha has been shown by
Menage to be the more reliable.

Mesihl’s place in Ottoman dlwan poetry is that of a
highly gifted and original poet without an extensive
oeuvre. His language is relatively plain and clear, his
manner devoid of affectation. Some poems and
passages of his captivate through their lyricism. There
is wealth of charming new images, associations and
ideas. A touch of Rumelian dialect here and there is
of linguistic interest.

Mesihl’s lifework comprises: (1) His not especially
voluminous Dlwan has not yet been printed. Critical
editions in typescript form exist, however: Mine
Ozogul, The Divan of the 15th century Ottoman poet
Mesihl, Ph. D. thesis, Edinburgh University 1969,
and S. Jaber, Mesihi’nin hayati ve divanmin tenkitli melni,
Ph.D. thesis, Istanbul 1953. Best known in Europe is
his murabba c on spring which Sir William Jones pub¬
lished with a Latin translation in Poeseos Asiaticae com-
mentariorum libri sex , Leipzig 1774, and which was
thereafter repeatedly translated into German, French,
Italian, English, Russian and Serbian (cf. F.
Bayraktarevig, Mesihi’nin diinya edebiyatinda yer alan
“Bahariye”si, in Istanbul Universilesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi
Turk Dili ve Edebiyati Dergisi, xxii [1974-6], 213-9; i.
Eren, i< Bahariye”nin Fransizca, Rusfa ve Sir pea (evirileri,
in ibid ., 221-7. (2) The methnewlShehr-englz (“rouser of
the city”) is Meslhl’s most original work. It is a
humorous description of the handsome youths of
Edirne, all of whom have Muslim names and are of
the lower middle class, with mention of their or their
father’s profession. (Except for four of the total of 47,
two verses are dedicated to each youth.) Cf. on the
text, I. Morina, XV y.y. biiyuk Turk sairi Pristine’li
Mesihl (1470-1513) [«V], in (Jevren, viii (1981), no. 30,
39-56. Its language is plain, unpretentious and easily
understandable. Meslhl’s Shehr-englz became popular
and he had numerous followers in this poetic genre.
It is generally but not unanimously accepted that the
shehr-englz by Dhatl would appear to date from just
about the same time, and that it had no Persian model
(cf. Mine Mengi, Mesihi’nin hayati, sairligi ve eserleri, in
Turkoloji Dergisi, vi [1974], no. 1, 109-19; A.S.
Levend, Turk edebiyatinda sehr-engizler ve sehr-engizlerde
Istanbul, Istanbul 1958; and M. izzet, Turk edebiyatinda
sehrengizler, unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Istanbul 1936). (3)
Giil-i sad-berg (“the many-petalled rose”) is an insha 5
collection of elegant stylistic samples not without
historic interest. Only a very few mss. of this have
been reported to exist (cf. the article by Menage cited
above).

Bibliography (in addition to the titles cited
above): The tedhkire s of Sehl, LatlfT, c Ashik Celebi,
Kfnali-zade Hasan Celebi, BeyanI and RiyadI;
C A1I, Kiinh al-akhbar, Sidfill-i c Othmanl , iv, 369; H.
Hiisam al-Dln, Amasya tarlkhi , Istanbul 1927, iii,
260; Mustaklm-zade, Tuhfe-yi khattatln , Istanbul
1928, 566; Nedjlb c Asim, Mesihldlwanl, in TOEM,
i (1911), 300-8; c Othmdnli muPellifleri , ii, 410; Ham¬
mer, Geschichte der osman. Dichtkunsl, i, 297-302;
Gibb, Ottoman Poetry , ii, 226-56; Nesrin, Mesihl,

MESIHI

hayati ve eserleri , unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Istanbul
1940; A. Karahan, in L4, s.v. Mesihi.

(Th. Menzel — [E.G. Ambros])
MESOPOTAMIA [see al-djazira; al- c irak],
MESSENGER [see rasul].

MESSIAH [see masIh].

METALLURGY [see ma c din],
METAMORPHOSIS [see maskh],

METAPHOR [see isti c ara],

METAPHYSICS [see ma ba c d al-tabT c a].
METAYAGE [see khamasa; muzara c a].
METEMPSYCHOSIS [see tanasukh).
METEOROLOGY [see anwa 5 ; athar c ulwiyya].
METONYMY [see kinaya].

METRICS [see c arud].

METROLOGY [see makayil; misaha; mizan].
METROPOLIS [see misr. bJ.

MEWAR, the name given in the Indian chronicles
to the south-western region of Radjasthan \q.v.\:
approximately the region now known, from its prin¬
cipal town, as Udaypur (although the town of
Udaypur \q. v. ] was not founded until 966/1559), hilly
with considerable forest tracts, separated from its
Radjput neighbour Marwar on the west by the
AravallT hills, and bordered on the south by Gudjarat,
on the south-east and east by Malwa, on the north¬
east by the DihlT sultanate (see Map s.v. radjasthan).
The region is more celebrated for its defences against
Islamic forces than for any lasting status as a region
under Islamic rule until Babur’s victory at Khanu 5 a in
933/1527 over the combined Radjput armies under
the Mewar ruler, and Akbar's conquest of the fort of
Citawr forty years later, initiated a period of Mu gh al
sovereignty that was to last for over 200 years.

The first ruling dynasty, the Guhilot Radjputs, is
said to have entered Mewar from Gudjarat and
dominated the region in the 1 st/7th century, ruling
from the (now derelict) town of Nagda some 20 km
north of the present Udaypur from where Citawr was
conquered; a bardic account credits an early ruler
with a successful defence against a powerful Arab
general, probably al-Djunayd b. c Abd Allah \q.v.\, if
the chronology can be relied on. A descendant is said
to have joined with the Hindu rulers of Gudjarat in
resisting the expansion of the Arab caliphate of Sindh
[q. v. ] beyond Multan [q.v.\ in the 3rd/9th century.
But Mewar resistance was not only against the
Muslim powers: the Cawhans of Sambhar, the
Paramaras of Malwa, and the Cawlukyas of Gudjarat
were all powerful neighbours who more than once
made forays into Mewar. The Guhilots stood firm,
gradually gaining strength, until the Ghurid conquest
in the north broke the power of the Cawhans; Mewar
overcame the pretensions of the rival Hindu
dynasties, but met with less success against the new
Muslim power of Dihll^for Iltutmish marched on and
destroyed Nagda, and Citawr became the new Mewar
capital.

By the early 8th/14th century Mewar was seen as
the most powerful of the Radjput states, and its
independence as a threat to the prestige of DihlT; its
conquest was undertaken by c Ala ) al-Din Khaldjl.
probably partly for strategic reasons and partly in the
quest of plunder, although a later age assigned a
romantic reason, the outstanding beauty of
Ratansen’s queen Padminl/Padmavatl. (Malik
Muhammad DjavasI [^.p.], writing early in the
10th/16th century, made an outstanding love-story of
this first sack of Citawr, often interpreted as a Sufistic
allegory of the soul; though when he writes djawhar
bhain istiri, purukh bhae sangr ami pat sdhi gadh curd, citawr
bha islam “the women performed the djawhar , the men

MEWAR 1027

became warriors (sc. to the death); the king crushed
the fort, and Citawr became Islam'’, he may not be
historically accurate ( Padmauat , ed. V.S. Agrawal,
verse 651), for Amir Khusraw [q.v.], who was present
with c Ala J al-DTn, makes no mention of the djawhdr ,
the mass self-immolation of the womenfolk). Citawr
fell in 702/1303, by what seems to have been peaceful
surrender (epidemic or famine in the garrison have
been suggested as the reasons), Ratansen delivering
himself personally to c Ala 5 al-Din; Citawr was then
renamed Khidrabad and assigned to the young heir-
apparent Khidr Khan, although the administration
lay in the able hands of Maladeva, a Cawhan Radjput
in c Ala :> al-Dln’s service who was connected by mar¬
riage to the Guhilot house. Ratansen was dethroned
and the succession passed to a cadet branch of the
Guhilots, the Sisodiyas, several princes of whom died
in attempting to regain Citawr. After Maladeva’s
death in 721/1321, the sequence of events is not clear,
as the bardic chronicles present a garbled account,
often conflating events of the 8th/14th and 10th/16th
centuries in a romantic medley. The ruler who
emerged was Hammlr, in whose reign Sisodiya rule
was restored at Citawr (probably profiting from either
the dynastic change at DihlT from Khaldjis to
Tughlukids, or from the disaffections ca. 739/1338
under Muhammad b. Tughluk’s rule); his heroism
and chivalry are much extolled, but the Radjput tradi¬
tions are so much at variance with one another, none
of them being compatible with either the few inscrip¬
tions or the exiguous references in the Muslim
historians, that the chronology of Mewar until ca.
823/1420 must be regarded as obscure; but certainly
Hammlr’s successor Kshetrasingh successfully
withstood an attack by the Malwa [q.v. ] ruler Dilawar
Khan Ghurl.

Early in the 9th/15th century, the discovery of
silver and lead mines increased Mewar’s prosperity,
and many defensive works were constructed. The long
reign of Rana Kumbha, 836-73/1433-68, saw a state
at first weakened by interference from the Rathors of
Marwar in Mewar affairs (although chronologies are
again doubtful, since the bardic accounts of Mewar do
not tally with one another), and by a conflict between
Kumbha and his brother Khem (Kshema) Karan;
nevertheless, some border territories were brought
under tribute and garrisoned. Some of these lands had
previously acknowledged the suzerainty of MalwT
which had grown to considerable strength under
Mahmud Khaldjl I, and which had long annoyed
Mewar by harbouring disaffected Mewar chieftains
and courtiers; but Mewar had similarly given refuge
to c Umar Khan, the pretender to Mahmud’s throne.
Conflict between Mewar and Malwa was inevitable,
and Malwa forces (often joined by Khem Karan with
an army of Radjput followers) invaded Mewar on
many occasions with varying success (the assertion,
however, that Mahmud’s forces were routed in a bat¬
tle at Sarangpur \q. y. ] in 840/1437, and that he
himself was taken prisoner to Citawr, does not bear
examination), each state erecting a column in token of
victory over the other. The Citawr Kirttistambha
inscription, however, seems to refer more to the cam¬
paigns against Kutb al-DTn Ahmad Shah of Gudjarat;
these were occasioned both by border disputes and by
Mewar attacks on Nagawr [q.v. ], a pre-conquest site
of Islamic learning, for long under the DihlT sultanate
but by now under the rule of the descendants of
Shams al-DTn DandanI, brother of the first sultan of
Gudjarat. Malwa and Gudjarat acted jointly against
Mewar in 861/1457, but without pronounced success;
the Rathors of Marwar, and Khem Karan, added to

1028

MEWAR — MEWAT

Mewar’s difficulties by campaigning against Kumbha
at the same time. Further forays by the Muslim
armies took place over the next few years, with some
regions being overrun and laid waste, but little more,
and there were no major incursions until after Kum¬
bha’s death.

Kumbha was succeeded by the parricide Udaya,
who was poorly supported in the state and hence tried
to curry favour with his Muslim neighbours by ceding
certain border territories; then, less popular than
ever, having apparently disorganised the whole state,
he was deposed in favour of his younger brother
Rayamalla, 878-915/1473-1509, who was faced with
the task of reorganisation while contending with civil
war (a renewed attempt by Khem Karan to come to
power), further attacks by Malwa, now under
Ghiyath al-Dlh Khaldjl, and an insurrection by cer¬
tain aboriginal tribes. The Malwa army was worsted,
and Malwa invaded in its turn, Mewar occupying the
Kherwara district. A quarrel between Rayamalla’s
sons developed into a war of succession, resolved by
the eventual accession of the capable and ambitious
Rana Sanga [q. v. ], 915-35/1509-28. In his first 15
years of rule he consolidated the state; in this time the
ascendancy in Malwa of Medini Ra 5 I [q.v. ] led to
Mewar’s involvement against sultan Muzaffar II of
Gudjarat, who moved to support and reinstate
Mahmud Khaldjl II. The latter attacked Mewar in
925/1519, but was badly defeated, taken prisoner to
Citawf, and released only after the payment of a large
indemnity and the surrender of a son as hostage to the
Mewar court. Next an incident at Idar [q.v.] drew
Mewar into war with Gudjarat; but Sanga,
strengthened by having secured the support of Malwa
by releasing the royal hostage, was apparently able to
come to some conciliatory agreement with Gudjarat.
This left him free to pursue his ambitions against the
sultanate of Dihli under Ibrahim Lodi [see lodIs],
against whom he had a series of successes and was
enabled to enlarge the boundaries of his domains as
far as KalpI and Gander! [q.vv.]\ he or his vassals held
lands extending deep into Malwa; and apparently his
authority was acknowledged even by the Radjput
rulers of Marwar and Amber. His ambitions towards
the conquest of the Dihli sultanate led him to propose
to the Mughal Babur a simultaneous attack on
Ibrahim Lodi. Babur, of course, carried out his part
of the undertaking by his defeat of Ibrahim Lodi at
Panipat in 932/1526, but, contrary to Sanga’s expec¬
tation, showed every sign of remaining in India.
Sanga, by managing to secure the Gudjarat throne for
the exiled prince Bahadur, drove a wedge between
Dihli and Gudjarat, and it was accordingly against
Sanga that Babur’s efforts were now directed,
culminating in the battle of Khanu 5 a in 933/1527 in
which Sanga with a confederated Radjput army was
completely routed. Mewar as an independently acting
kingdom thus lost its power; the subsequent activities
of the region are described s.v. radjasthan.

Bibliography : The difficulty of reconciling the
various bardic accounts has been mentioned in the
text; of the many khyat , that of Muhanote NainsI, in
Hindi translation and ed. G.H. Ojha, Banaras
1982, is perhaps the most acceptable. J. Tod,
Annuals and antiquities of Rajasthan , 3 vols., ed. W.
Crooke, Oxford 1920, gives the Mewar traditions in
extenso but uncritically. A failure to assess the
Mewar histories vis-a-vis the Muslim chronicles
appears also in G.H. Ojha, Rddjputana ka itihds [in
Hindi], Adjmer 1936-7, and in H.B. Sarda’s
Maharana Sanga, Adjmer 1918, and Mahardna Kum¬
bha, Adjmer 1932. For the Muslim sources, see

Bib Is. to gudjarat and malwa; also to Idar and

medinI ra 5 !. See also babur and radjasthan.

(J. Burton-Page)

MEWAT, a generally imprecisely defined region
of India to the south and south-west of Dihli, the
broken country around Alwar, Tidjara, Bharatpur,
Dig, Rewan, Mathura and Gurga^on, ‘‘land of the
Me 5 o” [q.v.], robbers, marauders and cattle thieves.

Punitive excursions under Ututmish, ca. 620/1223,
and Balban as ndSb of Nasir al-Dln Mahmud in
646/1249 and 658/1260, had only a temporary effect,
and Mewat was not effectively pacified and controlled
until Balban’s first regnal year as sultan, 665/1267
(full account in Diya 5 al-Dln BaranI, TaStkh-i Firuz
Shahi. ed. Bibl. Ind., 56 ff.). In the following century,

a branch of the Me 5 6 were converted to Islam, and

their leader Bahadur Nahar, from his strong Kotla
near Tidjara, came to be recognised as a powerful
noble in the Dihli court; he supported Abu Bakr, a
grandson of Firuz Shah, in the succession struggles
after that sultan’s death, and was treated as a rebel by
later Tughlukid sultans, although when in 798/1395-6
Khidr Khan took refuge with him in Mewat he is des¬
cribed as the muktaS. Bahadur Nahar later opposed
Khidr when he became suzerain after Timur’s inva¬
sion, and Mewat under him and his successors (now
usually known as Khan-zadas) again became a rebel
area. The “Sayyid” ruler Mubarak Shah made
attempts to suppress revolt in Mewat in 829/1425 and
831/1428 under the twin grandsons of Bahadur,
Djalal Khan and c Abd al-Kadir Khan (“Djallu” and
“Kaddu”); Kaddu was captured and executed for
complicity with the SharkI forces of Djawnpur [q.v.],
but Djallu, after again harrying the Dihli forces, was
eventually compelled to submit and render tribute the
following year; a similar sequence of events followed
in 836/1432, and on both occasions the Mewatls pur¬
sued a “scorched earth’’ policy (fullest account of this
period in Yahyab. Ahmad Sirhindl, TaMkh-i Mubarak
Shahi , ed. Bibl. Ind., 148-230 passim). Bahlul Lodi
[q.v. ] was similarly troubled by Ahmad Khan Mewat!
both during his struggle to rise to power and after his
accession to the Dihli throne; Ahmad, compelled to
submit, was deprived of seven parganas of his iktd c and
compelled to send his uncle Mubarak Khan to
Bahlul’s court. In 872/1468 he deserted Bahlul and
allied himself with Husayn Shah SharkI of Djawnpur.
although Mewat itself remained virtually independent
of both sultanates. It remained peaceful for some
years thereafter and c Alam Kh an Mewat! served hap¬
pily under Sikandar Lodi, even in 908/1502 leading
forces against Dholpur in Sikandar's campaign
against Gwaliyar, although Mewat was not counted as
part of the Dihli sultanate; but in Ibrahim Lodi’s
reign (923-32/1517-26), when many of his own nobles
were in rebellion against him and the hand of the
Mughal Babur was about to fall upon the Dihli
sultanate, Hasan Khan of Mewat declared his
independence. He joined Rana Sanga of Citawr
against Babur’s advance (the Babur-ndma , tr.
Beveridge, 523) refers to Hasan Khan as an “impious
mannikin’’ and “the sole leader of the trouble and
mischief’’), and was killed in the battle of Khanu 3 a in
933/1527; after this Babur reduced Mewat and
entered Alwar; some parganas were assigned to Nahar
Khan. Hasan’s son, who swore allegiance to Babur,
after which Mewat seems to have had no further
power as a political force, and the strong forts of
Alwar and Tidjara were controlled by Mu gh al
officers. There is no account of Mewat! intransigence
even at the time of Humayun’s dispossession by Sher
Shah; the latter struck coin at Alwar.

MEWAT — MEWLEWIYYET

1029

Mewat seems to have remained quiet under
Mughal rule in the 11 th/17th century. Humayun had
contracted a matrimonial alliance with a daughter of
Djalal Khan, a cousin of Hasan, and another
daughter was married to Bayram Khan; Djalal is des¬
cribed by Abu TFadl as a leading zamindar of Hin¬
dustan ( Akbar-nama , ii, 48 f.). The ATn-i Akbari
enumerates 19 parganas held by the Kh an-zadas in
Alwar and Tidjara (Bibl. Ind. text, ii, 91-3). Early in
the 18th century the Djats [q.v. ] had occupied the
southern part of Mewat in their rise to power and
their assault on Agra and Dihli, as did the Marathas
[q.v.] later, and henceforth the history of the region is
largely subsumed in that of Alwar and Bharatpur
[q.vv.].

There seems to be no record of coins struck by the
Kh an-zadas. Of their few monuments in and around
Alwar and Tidjara, the tomb of Fath Djang in Alwar
is of some distinction (954/1547; inscription in the
NagarT script, which may point to consciousness of
Hindu connexions).

Bibliography (in addition to references in the
article): Nizam al-Dln Ba khsh l. Tabakat-i Akbari ,
ed, Bibl. Ind., i, 302-8, ii, 38; Ni c mat Allah,
Ta\ikh-i Khan Diahani. Dacca 1960, 81 ff.; G.N.
Sharma, Mewar and the Mughal emperors , 20-7, 37;
A.R. Khan, Chieftains during the reign of Akbar, Simla
1977, 150 f.; S.H. HodTvala, Studies in l ndo-Muslim
history , Bombay 1939, i, 393, takes kotla above as a
proper name, not entirely convincingly.

(J. Burton-Page)

MEWATI (see Me>o],

MEWKUFATCI or mevvkufatT, title given to
the director of the “Bureau of Retained
Revenues’’ {Mewkufdt kalemi) in the Ottoman
finance department. His main task was to manage the
mewkuf akce, money accruing from unused state
expense allocations, and from vacant fiefs and other
grants. The bureau under him also confiscated land
not registered in land surveys, allocated depots for
state purchases, kept records of contribution units
( c awdrid-khane [see c awarid], registered relay stations,
maintained military depots at all frontiers, allotted
food rations and forage, straw and hay rations to
soldiers in military campaigns, and provided money
to civil servants accompanying the army. In the
12 th/J 8 th century, this bureau had four departments:
(i) Kalemiyye da^iresi, which collected a 10% registra¬
tion fee ( kalemiyye) from farmed-out lands; (ii) Nawul
khalifesi, which kept the books of food depots and of
duties paid by bakers in Istanbul; (iii) Menzil khalifesi ,
which managed the relay service; and (iv) Ghanem
kitabeti which was responsible for the collection of the
sheep-tax ( c ddet-i aghnam).

The Mewkufdt emim, a commissioner from the
bureau in each sandpak \q.v.] y was assigned by the
mewkufatci to gather the yearly revenues accruing from
vacant fiefs and other grants, and from fief holders
who did not join military campaigns. The emin had
agents, mewkufcus, who went from village to village
collecting these revenues. In 1838, after the establish¬
ment of the Ottoman finance ministry, the Mewkufdt
kalemi was annexed to the bureau handling treasury
issues, Eshdm muhasebesi kalemi [see asham].

Bibliography: H. Uzun^arsih, Osmanli

devletinin merkez ve bahriye teskilati , Ankara 1948, 10,
19, 124, 336-48, 353-7, 372, 382: M. Sertoglu,
Resimli osmanli tarihi ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1958,
112, 159, 208-10, 221-2; M.Z. Pakalin, Osmanli
tanh deyimleri ve terimleri sozlugii , Istanbul 1951, 497-
8 ; M. d’Ohsson, Tableau general de TEmpire Othoman,
iv, Paris 1791,267-8; Gibb and Bowen i/1, 51, 130-

1, 151, 248; M. Akdag, Tiirkiye’nin iktisadi ve igtimai
tarihi, Istanbul 1979, ii, 78, 337-8, 385-6, 490-1.

(F. Muge Gocek)

MEWLANA KHUNKAR [see mawlana
khunkar].

MEWLEWIYYET or Mollauk , title given to
certain judicial districts in the Ottoman Empire.
i.H. Uzungarsih located the earliest reference in the
9th/15th century, when kadi [q.v. ] posts with the
highest fee of 500 akce s [q. v. ] were defined as beshyiiz
akce mewlewiyyetlen. These posts consisted of Istanbul,
Edirne, Bursa, Filibe, Salonika and Sofia. Until the
late 9th/l 5th and early 10th/16th centuries, these
mewlewiyyets were not ranked. This practice was intro¬
duced in the late 10th/16th century after the shaykh al-
islam [<7 .£c] formally became the head of the Ottoman
religious hierarchy. The kadi of Istanbul came fourth
in rank after the shaykh al-islam and the Anadolu and
Rumeli judges of the army, kadi c asker [q.v.]. The
other mewlewiyyets were unranked.

During the 10th/16th and 11 th/17th centuries, as
the empire expanded, many new mewlewiyyets were
formed. With minor exceptions, their relative ranks
did not change after the 12th/18th century. Uzun-
garsih lists five ranks of mewlewiyyets in decreasing
importance: (i) Istanbul kad iligh i . the judicial district of
Istanbul; (ii) Haremeyn mewlewiyyetleri , judicial districts
of the two Holy Cities, Mecca and Medina; (iii) Bilad-
i khamse mewlewiyyetlen, judicial districts of the Five
Cities, Edirne, Bursa, Damascus, Egypt and Filibe;
(iv) Bilad-i c ashere mewlewiyyetleri , judicial districts of
the Ten Cities, to which an eleventh was later added:
Jerusalem, Aleppo, Tfrhala Yenishehri, Galata,
Izmir, Salonika, Eyub, Uskudar, Sofia, Crete and
Trebizond. (v) Dewriyye mewlewiyyetleri, judicial
districts held in rotation by kadis of Mar c ash,
Ba gh dad. Bosnia, Belgrade, Antioch, Kutahya,
Beirut, Adana, Van, Ruscuk, Sivas and Gankin.

For a mewlewiyyet appointment, an applicant was
required to graduate from a madrasa [<?.y.], and obtain
a license, idfazet-name [see idjaza]. He could then
either teach through all madrasa grades or become a
kadi in the smallest judicial unit, kada 3 [<?.*;.], rise to
the larger judicial unit of a sandpak [q.v. j, and then go
back and teach through the highest madrasa grades. He
would then become a candidate for bilad-i c ashere
mewlewiyyetlen, which were also called makhredp
mewlewiyyetleri [see makhredj]. judicial districts whe.e
scholars just “going out” from teaching at madrasas
were appointed. Appointments were usually for a
year. Mewlewiyyet appointments were proposed to the
Sultan by the Grand Vizier, sadr-l a c zam [q.v.]. Before
the 10th/16th century, the kadi Q asker supplied names
of candidates to the Grand Vizier; after then, the
shaykh al-islam provided the list of names.

After the 10th/16th century, the term of the
appointment was extended when the number of can¬
didates began to exceed that of available posts in the
empire. The title was therefore separated from the
post itself. A candidate held the title of mewlewiyyet
payesi for a year before he was appointed to the post
itself, mewlewiyyet mansibl. Some who were assigned
these posts preferred to reside in the capital, and sent
deputies, na y ib, to represent them. During later cen¬
turies, titles given without appointments, assignments
to sons and to household members of influential
families who had not been through the educational
system, together with the sale of licenses, brought
about a deterioration in mewlewiyyet appointments.

Bibliography : i.H. Uzungar§ih, Osmanli

devletinin ilmiye teskilati, Ankara 1965, 38, 46-8, 57,
85-91, 96-102, 110, 117, 263-5, 276-80; M.Z.

1030

MEWLEWIYYET — MEAN BHIPA

Pakalin, Osmanh tarih deyimlen ve terimleri sozliigii ,
Istanbul 1951, 519-21; M. Sertoglu, Resimli osmanli
tarihi ansiklopedisi , Istanbul 1958, 45, 130-1,157-8,
194, 209-10, 264, 295; Mustafa Nun Pasha,
Netayidj iil-wuku c dt, Istanbul 1327, i, 137-8, ii, 108-
12; c ilmiyye salnamesi, Istanbul 1334, 51-5, 59-79,
154-5; M. d’Ohsson, Tableau general de TEmpire
Othoman, iv, Paris 1791, 530, 541-3, 550-1, 566-8,
573-6; Gibb and Bowen, i/1, 87, 89-91, 105-10,
124-6, 146, 151; M. Akdag, Tiirkiye’nin iktisadi ve
iftimai tarihi , Istanbul 1979, i, 402, ii, 97-9.

(F. MOge Gocek)

MEZOKERESZTES, the Battle’ of

Mezokeresztes (Turkish: Hacova or Tdbur
muharebest), the most important encounter between the
Habsburg-Hungarian and Ottoman troops during the
“long” or 15-years’ war.

This took place near a village, south-east of Eger
[q.v. ] in Hungary on 5 RabI* I 1005/26 October 1596.
Its immediate antecedent was the capture of Eger by
the forces of Mehemmed III, the first sultan who per¬
sonally took the field in war after Suleyman I’s death.
The Imperial troops, which had originally been sent
to relieve this important city under attack, now
wished to attempt the reconquest of the castle. After
some hesitation, a pitched battle was decided on. The
Habsburg soldiers were headed by the Archduke
Maximilian, but the prince of Transylvania, Zsig-
mond Bathori, also took part with a considerable
army. The number of the confronting soldiers has
been exaggerated on both sides. The most realistic
figures seem to be 50,000 for the Christian and
100,000 for the Muslim army (possibly varying to a
maximum of equal forces on both parts). Technical
superiority was on the European side, due to more
numerous infantry and more powerful artillery. After
some preliminary clashes on 22 and 25 October, the
decisive battle was fought on the afternoon of 26
October. As previously, the Christian forces seemed
to get the upper hand, but they committed a serious
fault by following the fleeing Ottomans and, in the
hope of booty, penetrated into their camp. The Turks
were thereby able to change the tide of events and in
the end secure a victory.

While Mehemmed III failed further to exploit his
favourable position, the Habsburgs were forced to
realise that no quick result could be hoped for against
the Ottomans. Consequently, warfare continued for
several more years. Further events effected the
Ottomans adversely. Since many timdr holders did not
comply with their duty to arrive at this battle, and
some others deserted, the treasury had a good pretext
for confiscating timars and granting them anew.
According to a list of deserters, some 120 zTamets and
550 timars passed into the hands of other owners in
Rumelia and Hungary (Istanbul, Basbakanlik arsivi,
Kamil Kepeci Tasnifi, 347). Replaced timariots could
well be ready to join the Djelall rebels [see djalali in
Suppl.] thus creating new and lasting difficulties for
the state.

Bibliography: The first detailed article on the
battle was written by Andras Komaromy, A
mezokeresztes i csata 1596-ban (“The battle of
Mezokeresztes in 1596”), in Hadtortenelmi
Kozlemenyek , v (1892), 28-67, 157-80, 278-98. More
critical is the study by Sandor Laszlo Toth, A
mezokeresztesi csata tortenete (1596. oktober 26.) (“The
history of the Battle of Mezokeresztes”), in Had¬
tortenelmi Kozlemenyek , xxx (1983), 553-73. An
evaluation of the Ottoman sources was attempted
by J. Schmidt, The Egri-campaign oj 1596: military
history and the problem oj sources, in Habsburgisch-

osmanische Beziehungen. Beihefte zur WZKM 13,

Vienna 1985, 125-44. (G. David)

MEZZOMORTO [see husayn pasha].

MPAN BHU 5 A, Masnad-i c AlI, the wazir and
sadr of the Dihli sultanate during the reign of
sultan Sikandar Shah Lodi (894-923/1489-1517).

He was the eldest son of Masnad-i c All Kh awwas
Khan, who belonged to an old aristocratic family of
north India. Khawwas Khan seems to have been
elevated to the posts of wazir and sadr by Sultan Sikan¬
dar at the beginning of his reign. Upon his death,
sometime towards the close of the 9th/15th century,
Mi •’an Bhu 5 a, who was also adept in learning and
statesmanship, was allowed by the sultan to take up
the combined charge of the wizarat and saddrat with the
specific order that he would retain and take care of the
old staff maintained by his late father.

Mi 5 an Bhu^a not only came up to the sultan’s
expectations but also soon began to enjoy great
prestige for his administrative talent, strong sense of
justice, and patronage of learning and men of piety.
As wazir or revenue minister, he ably implemented
Sikandar’s agrarian policy, which led to the rapid pro¬
gress of agriculture in the Lodi lands; peasants were
provided with incentives to bring virgin land under
the plough (in the words of the contemporary writer,
Shavkh Rizk Allah MushtakI, even an inch of land
was not left lying fallow) and were protected against
exploitation by the state officials, who were forbidden
to stay with them and enjoy their hospitability. Forced
labour ( begdr) was also abolished. As a result, condi¬
tions improved in the countryside, and grain and
other necessities became cheap.

Since the 9th/15th century, the sadr (minister for
religious affairs) also held the charge of the office of
kadi ’l-kudat (Chief Justice). Contemporary evidence
tends to show that there were two appellate courts in
the metropolitan city of Agra: the first was presided
over by the wazir , while the second, being the supreme
court, functioned under the personal supervision of
the sultan. Generally, the appellant moved to the
Supreme Court, if he was not satisified with the judg¬
ment given by Mi 5 an Bhu 5 a. The anecdotes contained
in the WdkTdt-i Mushtdki and Tabakat-i Akbari cast light
on the interest that the wazir and the sultan took in
dispensing justice, irrespective of creed, or birth and
status of people.

Mi 3 an Bhu ? a encouraged, in his capacity of sadr,
the scholars and intellectuals who came from abroad
to settle in Agra and Dihli on a permanent basis and
made land-grants to them for their maintenance.
Himself interested in learning, he also gathered a
fairly large sprinkling of these scholars in his own ser¬
vice and thus emulated his master Sultan Sikandar
Shah. They undertook at his instance the compilation
of works on various themes, literary as well as scien¬
tific. The Arabic and Sanskrit classics were collected
and transcribed by expert calligraphists and then
translated into Persian by capable scholars with the
help of Brahmans. Of these translations, the Ma c dan
al-shijd^-i-Sikandar Shahi, based on Sanskrit classics
such as Sasrat , Jd Deo karat, Ras Ratnako, Suangdhar,
Cintama, etc., is considered an important work on
medicine, compiled by MPan Bhu 5 a himself. The
terms and names of the herbs and plants were
translated into Persian and, if the equivalent of any
term was not found in the Persian language, it was
simply transliterated with the necessary explanation.
Indirectly emphasising the importance of his work,
the Mi 3 an says in the preface that the medical science
imported from the Muslim countries did not suit the
constitution of the Indians, due to climatic dif-

MPAN BHLPA — MIDHAT PASHA

1031

Terences, and he had undertaken the compilation of
the work with royal permission, for the Indian system
of medicine had been found more effective.

Unfortunately, other books, with the exception of
the Lahdjat-i Sikandar Shahi, compiled by c Umar b.
Yahya al-KabulT, a Persian translation of Sanskrit
classics and one dealing with Indian music, produced
by different scholars employed by Mi 3 an Bhu 5 a, have
not survived.

MPan Bhu^a, as a pious Muslim, constructed mos¬
ques and made endowments for the benefit of public;
the beautiful mosque in Dihli, popularly known as
moth ki masdjid , was constructed at his cost and is
known for its attractive features. The shape and pro¬
portion of the five main arches of the facade and the
domes, the design and grandeur of the doorway and
projecting balconies at the sides show that a talented
group of craftsmen was employed for its completion.
The evidence of the Maktubat-i kuddusi reveals that its
ample facilities included arrangements for students,
travellers, teachers and Sufi saints, all of whom got
food from the kitchen maintained with the money
endowed by MPan Bhu 5 a.

The followers of MPan Bhu^a also enjoyed prestige
in the city. The newly-recruited soldier, no matter
whether he was a suwar or a foot-soldier, could
approach any sarraf or money changer and borrow
money from him for one or two years, after showing
him the parwana or letter of appointment. According
to the custom, he was assigned agricultural land in
lieu of a cash salary. Mi 3 an Bhu 3 a is said to have had
villages and pargands of his maintenance ikta c scattered
in different sarkars around Dihli and Agra, so that it
was possible for him to assign to his retainer
maintenance-land in the village of the latter’s choice.

Mi ? an Bhu^a retained his position after the death of
Sultan Sikandar Lodi, but subsequently failed to
enjoy the confidence of the new Sultan Ibrahim Lodi
(923-32/1517-26), who ordered him to be put under
arrest and handed over to Malik Adam Kakar, one of
the confidants of the late Sultan and friend of Mi 5 an
Bhu^a; this was a mild punishment for the aged wazir ,
for many of his companions were subjected to torture
on account of the royal displeaure. Of the mediaeval
writers, Shavkh Kabir Batini says that the wazir was
punished because he did not comply with the royal Jar¬
man about the grant of money to the royal favourite,
the Ra 3 ! of Gwalior. It may be that, owing to old age,
he had become negligent of his duties and the Sultan
had become doubtful of his loyalty. This seems to be
near the truth, because Mushtaki’s reference to Mi 3 an
Bhu^a’s imprisonment implies that it occurred before
the annexation of Gwalior to the Lodi empire. On his
dismissal, the sadarat was separated from the wizaral:
Mi 3 an Bhu^a’s eldest son, Dilawar Kh an, was
assigned the wizarat , while Shaykh Farid Bukhari, an
c alim and the sultan’s teacher, took over as sadr.

Bibliography: c Abd Allah, TaSikh-i Ddwudi ,
c AlTgarh 1969, 36, 70; Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi or
TaSikh, Newal Kishore edn., 178; MPan Bhu^a,
Ma c dan al-shifd^-i Sikandar Shahi or Tibb-i Sikandari,
Lucknow 1877; Ni c mat Allah Harawi, Ta^rikh-i
Khan-i Diahani. ed. Imam al-Dln, Dacca 1960, 218,
225-7; Nizam al-Din Ahmad, Tabakdt-i Akbart,
Calcutta 1911. Shaykh Kabir Batini, Afsana-yi
shahan , British Library ms. Add. 24,409, fob 46a-b;
Shaykh Rizk Allah MushtakT, WdkTat-i Mushtaki ,
British Library ms. Or. 1929, fols. 8b, 27a, 33a-b,
45a; c Umar b. Yahva al-KabulT, Lahdydt-i Sikandar
Shahi , Preface, Madras Univ. Library ms. D. no.
518, ms. B. no. 521, fol. 6b; P. Brown, Indian
architecture (Islamic period)J Bombay, 29-30; I.H.

Siddiqui, Life and culture in the sultanate of Delhi during
the Lodi period , in IC (April and July 1982), 127-8,
181-2. (I.H. Siddiqui)

MIDAD, the common Arabic word, together with
its synonym hibr, for ink. Derived from the root m-d-
d, it originally meant “anything that is added to a
thing, because of its utility”, and therefore one of its
more specific meanings is “that with which one
writes” (Lane, Lexicon, s.v.), or “that with which the
writer is provided” (LA, r.jc). There is a single
Kur 3 anic mention of middd: “If the sea were ink for
the Words of my Lord, the sea would be spent before
the Words of my Lord are spent” (XVIII, 109).
Tradition has is that on the Day of Judgment, the ink
of scholars will be measured with the blood of mar¬
tyrs, and that both scales of the balance will then be
in equilibrium (al-KalkashandT, Subh, ii, 461).

In Middle Eastern manuscripts, two types of black
ink were generally used, both of which date from pre-
Islamic times. One was prepared on the basis of car¬
bon and oil, and the other one from gall-nuts and fer¬
rous components, the former originally being
designated as middd , the latter as hibr. Later, the two
words were used as synonyms (Grohmann, Arabische
Palaographie , i, 127). A considerable number of recipes
for ink have survived from mediaeval times, many
devised by scribes for their personal use and improved
for their purpose by trial and error. Numerous recipes
have been transmitted by al-Mu c izz b. BadTs (d.
453/1061 [q.v.]) in his c Umdat al-kuttdb, especially in
chs. 2-10. Grohmann (i, 127-131) mentions some
from other sources as well. For coloured inks and inks
used in secret writings, a whole range of natural ingre¬
dients was used, but it is often difficult exactly to iden¬
tify these ingredients from the literary sources.

As Middle Eastern manuscripts continued to be
made till well into the 19th century, it may be
assumed that in more recent times imported ink. like
imported paper, was used as well. The rise of
polychrome manuscripts in the Maghrib in the second
half of the 19th century may be explained from such
imports. A systematical chemical analysis of the inks
used in Middle Eastern manuscripts, both in
mediaeval and recent times, has not been undertaken
so far. An account of the survival of mediaeval prac¬
tices in bookmaking, including the handling of ink, in
recent times, albeit in a Christian environment , has
been given by H.S. Sergew (see Bibl.).

Bibliography: M. Bat-Yehouda-Zerdoun, La
fabrication des encres noires d’apres les textes , in
Codicologica 5. Les materiaux du livre manuscrit , Leiden
1980, 52-8; G. Endress, Handschriftenkunde, in W.
Fischer (ed.), Grundriss der arabischen Philologie, i,
Wiesbaden 1982, 276-7; A. Grohmann, Arabische
Palaographie , i, Vienna, 1967, 127-31; M. Levey,
Mediaeval Arab bookmaking and its relation to early
chemistry and pharmacology , in Trans. Amer. Philos.
Soc., N.S. lii/4, Philadelphia 1962, index s.v. Ink;
al-Mu c izz b. BadTs. c Umdat al-kuttdb wa- c uddat dhawi
al-albab, tr. M. Levey in Mediaeval Arab bookmaking ,
13-50; J. Pedersen, The Arabic book, Princeton 1984,
67-9; al-KalkashandT, Subh al-a c shd, Cairo 1913-19;
H.S. Sergew, Bookmaking in Ethiopia , Leiden 1981;
see also khatt; kitab; and kitaba in Suppl.

(J.J. Witkam)

MPDHANA[ see M ANAR a).

MIDHAT PA SH A (1822-84), Ottoman provin¬
cial governor, twice grand vizier, and father of
the 1876 constitution.

Midhat was born in Istanbul in Safar
1238/October-November 1822, the son of Ruscuklu
HadjdjT c Al! Efendi-zadc HadjdjT Hafiz Mehmed

1032

MIDHAT PASHA

Eshref Efendi. He was named Ahmed Sheflk. Having
memorised the Kurban at 10, he was then called Hafiz
Sheflk. In 1833 he moved with his family to Vidin,
where his father was an assistant judge. When his
family returned to Istanbul the next year, he became
an apprentice in the secretariat of the imperial diwan.
His talent earned him the name Midhat, which
thereafter replaced his given names. In 1835-6
Midhat was in Lofca, where his father held another
judicial post, before returning to Istanbul in 1836-7.
Midhat had already begun to study Arabic; he now
began Persian and attended courses at the Fatih
mosque while again working in the secretariat. In
1840 he was transferred to the grand vizier’s office.

The bureaucratic career on which Midhat was now
launched falls into four phases: 1840-61, increasingly
responsible posts as staff member of commissions and
councils and as special investigator; 1861-72, three
provincial governorships; 1872-7, two grand-
vizierates and constitution-making; 1877-84, exile,
two governorships, trial, exile and death. The second
and third phases show Midhat at his most influential.

In 1842-4 Midhat held a secretarial post in
Damascus. Thereafter he was secretary to one of the
“commissions of improvement” sent out to the prov¬
inces in 1845-7, first in Konya, then Kastamonu,
under Sami Bakir Pasha. During this period, he came
on the payroll of the protocol office ( madbata odasi) of
the medjlis-i wala-yi ahkam-i c adliyye , the influential
Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances, and
remained in its employ to 1859, even while undertak¬
ing special assignments. In 1848 he married. He
became chief clerk in the protocol office in 1851. For
six months, probably in 1852, Midhat was in
Damascus as commisioner to investigate a dispute
between two sarrafs over the farm of customs
revenues, and to look into alleged misconduct by
Kfbrisli Mehmed Pasha, commander of the army of
Arabia. Midhat settled the revenue question advan¬
tageously to the Treasury. He found misdeeds by
Kfbrisli Mehmed in relation to the Druze that led to
the commander’s removal from his post. When the
Supreme Council’s paperwork was split in two.
Midhat became second secretary of the Anatolian
section.

During the Crimean War, in 1854-5, Midhat was
sent as investigator to the Rumeli eydlet. Kfbrisli
Mehmed, now grand vizier, may have sent him
thither to get his revenge by putting Midhat in a dif¬
ficult situation. But Midhat, working out of Edirne,
successfully curbed depredations by bashi-boziiks and
brigands. On return to Istanbul, Midhat gave the new
grand vizier Reshid Pasha [q. v.\ a memorandum con¬
taining his ideas on provincial reform. Again in 1855
Midhat was sent out, this time to Bursa on earthquake
relief. In 1856-7, after successfully defending himself
against a false charge of illegal participation in the
farm of Istanbul fishmarkets, Midhat was despatched
to investigate administration by the waits of Silistre
and Vidin. His vigorous actions in those eyalets led to
dismissals of officials, whose friends in the palace got
a new investigator appointed. Midhat, in protest,
asked for leave, which was granted by the grand vizier
c Alf Pasha [q.v.]. He then spent six months of 1858 in
Paris, London, Brussels and Vienna, improving the
French he had recently begun to study, and finally
gaining some first-hand knowledge of western
Europe. In September 1859 Midhat became chief
secretary of the Supreme Council itself. While in this
post he served on the commission to investigate the
Kuleli affair, an abortive conspiracy in Istanbul
against Tanztmal [q. v. ] westernisation.

Midhat entered on the second phase of his career
when he was promoted to vizier and appointed wall of
the eydlet of Nish on 29 January 1861. During his three
years in Nish, Midhat displayed the energy, the brus¬
queness, the secular-mindedness, the egalitarian
attitude, the Ottoman patriotism and the honesty that
characterised his activity in all posts thereafter. His
programme of action was also characteristic. He
sought the cooperation of local notables of all creeds.
He created a gendarmerie, curbed banditry, and tried
also to curb nascent nationalism among the Bulgars.
He deferred collection of some onerous taxes. He built
roads and bridges, in part by requiring several days of
unpaid labour from peasants in the locality. He built
barracks, in part with convict labour. He started
schools. Because of his success, the Porte joined the
Prizren eydlet to Nish for Midhat to administer.

The success also led the grand vizier Fu 3 ad Pasha
[q.v.\ to bring Midhat back to Istanbul in 1864 to
draft, with him, a new plan for provincial organisa¬
tion. The wilayet system, modelled somewhat on
French practice, was embodied in a law promulgated
on 8 November 1864. It was to be tested in one sizable
wilayet , named Tuna (Danube), newly formed of the
old eyalets of Silistre, Vidin and Nish. Midhat was
appointed its governor on 13 October 1864, even
before the new system was official.

Midhat organised the seven sandjaks and 48 kada*s
of the Tuna wilayet, including the local medjliss, each
containing some non-Muslims, at each administrative
level [see Bulgaria]. He embarked on a public works
programme, which in his three years produced 3,000
km. of roads and 1,400 bridges by his count; various
public buildings, including schools, model farms with
imported European machinery, industrial arts train¬
ing schools for the poor and service on the Danube,
and harbour works at the port of Ruscuk, the seat of
wilayet government. Tatar and Circassian refugees
from Russia were successfully settled in the wilayet.,
though not without some problems. A modest
economic development was aided by such measures,
as well as by the increased security which Midhat
established through a gendarmerie and occasional use
of regular troops. Midhat started a few small factories.
He wore homespun clothes to boost local products.
The measure with the longest lasting consequences
was his creation of agricultural credit cooperatives,
menafT sandiklari, to lend to peasants at low interest
rates. Modern Turkey’s Ziraat Bankasi is a descen¬
dant. Midhat also created the first official provincial
newspaper in the Empire, the Tuna , published in
Turkish and Bulgarian and beginning on 10 Shawwal
1281/8 March 1865; Ahmed Midhat [q.v. ] soon
became its editor. Midhat hoped to win the
Bulgarians to Ottomanisrn through just administra¬
tion and mixed schools, but the developing Bulgarian
nationalism was barely blunted. Midhat dealt severely
with rebels; in 1866 he repressed a premature
Russian-financed Bulgarian revolutionary rising. On
the whole, the wilayet system had proved workable.
In 1867 it was extended to most of the Empire,
Midhat again being brought to Istanbul to consult on
revising the regulations.

When in 1868 the Supreme Council was replaced
by a Council of State (Shura-yi Dewlet) and a Judicial
Council, Midhat was appointed, on 5 March, to head
the former. Its function was to discuss and draft laws.
Under Midhat it elaborated regulations on adoption
of the metric system, on nationality, on mining and
on a real estate credit bank for small employers. Fric¬
tion arose between Midhat and the grand vizier c AlI
Pasha on both legislative and personal levels. The

MIDHAT PASHA

1033

result was Midhat’s transfer on 27 February 1869 out
of his First high national office to the wilayet governor¬
ship of Baghdad. He had already in the autumn of
1868 been sent back to Bulgaria by the sultan on an
interim 20-day mission to subdue another rebel¬
lion.

In c Irak, Midhat’s activity, although similar in
many ways to that in Bulgaria, was circumscribed by
the local tribalism. Midhat, however, was not only
tf^a/fbut also, extraordinarily, commander of the Sixth
Army. He used military force when needed to subdue
tribes, to collect taxes and to impose conscription.
Success was partial. Midhat tried to induce tribes to
settle. At least one shaykh exchanged that title for the
new one, under the wilayet plan, of mutasarrif of a san-
djak. Settling tribes was also part of Midhat’s process
for bringing land under state control. He applied the
Ottoman land code of 1858, furnishing tapu deeds that
gave freehold right to the cultivator; most such deeds,
however, came into the possession of tribal shaykhs,
city merchants or former tax-farmers rather than of
ordinary tribesmen or peasants. The marshlands of
southern c Irak, and date-palm culture, became more
prosperous with pacification and settlement. Ottoman
control was even extended over Kuwayt and,
precariously, into al-Hasa and part of Nadjd.

Midhat organised the councils of the wilayet system,
and a municipal council for Baghdad also. He
appointed a good many c Irakis to government offices.
He tore down some of the old Ba gh dad wall to allow
city expansion, introduced some paving and street
lights, procured fire engines, started a water supply
system, and built the only bridge the city possessed
before the 20th century. He started wool and cotton
mills and an army clothing factory. He established
schools, including a military school and a craft train¬
ing school for orphans, a savings bank, a hospital, and
a tramway utilising horse cars to the Kazimayn
suburb. He promoted regular steamer service on the
Euphrates and shipping in the Gulf. The first
newspaper in c Irak, the official Zawrd\ in Turkish and
Arabic, appeared on 16 June 1869 and semi-weekly
thereafter. Midhat also eased relations with Iran con¬
cerning border tribes and currency circulation.

After C A1I Pasha’s death, Midhat clashed with the
new grand vizier, Mahmud Nedim Pasha [q.v. ],
especially over the use of wilayet revenues. Midhat
resigned, starting back to Istanbul in May 1872.
Mahmud Nedim failed to get Midhat rusticated to
Sivas, but on 26 July got him appointed wall of Edirne
in order to keep him out of the capital. Midhat how¬
ever obtained an audience of Sultan c Abd al- c Az!z
[q.v. ] and, supported by other statesmen, persuaded
the ruler to oust Mahmud Nedim. Midhat was
appointed grand vizier on 31 July 1872.

Now at the pinnacle of the bureaucracy, Midhat
entered on the third phase of his career. But this
grand vizierate lasted only 80 days. From the start,
Midhat was opposed by the Russian ambassador
Ignatyev and by the Khedive Isma c Il of Egypt, who
wanted the privilege of contracting independent
foreign loans. Midhat would not grant it, but c Abd al-
c AzIz did so when bribed. Moreover, Midhat was
impolitic. He implicated the palace and sultan in
financial scandals. He once rode on horseback into the
third court of the palace, unheard of for any but the
sultan. His vigorous action on salary reform, railroad
construction, education extension and metric system
enforcement remained only beginnings. With his
foreign minister Khalil Sherif Pasha, Midhat gave
thought both to a plan for a constitution and to a plan
for federal imperial organisation respecting some of

the Balkan lands; but his enemies soon procured his
dismissal on 18 October 1872.

For nearly four years. Midhat was in office only for
brief periods: as minister of justice, 12 March to 21
September 1873; as wall of Salonika, 15 October 1873
to 16 February 1874; and as minister of justice again,
21 August to 28 November 1875. He was dismissed
from the first two posts; in 1873 this occurred because
of revelations that he and the grand vizier of the time,
Shlrwanl-zade Mehmed Rushdii, were discussing the
need for a constitution and a parliament to curb
excessive spending, the sultan’s included. But in 1875
Midhat himself resigned as justice minister, with a
memorandum to Sultan c Abd al- c Az!z condemning
the administrative confusion under Mahmud Nedim,
who was again grand vizier, the financial chaos and
default on Ottoman bond interest, and the ineffectual
military response to the growing revolt in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. During the winter of 1875-6, Midhat
was in touch with groups and individuals in Istanbul
who desired change, including members of the
c ulama y . On 9 March 1876, a “Manifesto of the
Muslim Patriots’’, probably by Midhat or his adviser
Odian Efendi, went out to European statesmen and
was circulated privately in Istanbul; it called for a
representative, consultative assembly.

As public discontent mounted in 1876, Midhat
became one of the principal movers of political
change. He may have helped to spark demonstrations
in Istanbul by so/tas or religious students on 10 and 11
May which resulted in the dismissal of Mahmud
Nedim and appointment of Muterdjim Mehmed
Riishdu Pasha as grand vizier. On 19 May, Midhat
was made minister without portfolio. Along with the
minister of war Huseyn c AwnI Pasha [q.v.] and the
military academy director Suleyman Pasha, Midhat
plotted the deposition of the erratic and spendthrift
c Abd al- c Az!z. It was effected, bloodlessly, on 30
May, and Murad V received the oath of homage.
Immediately, Midhat, who on 5 June again became
president of the Council of State, began pressing for
the elaboration of a constitution. Hiiseyn c AwnI and
others opposed him. Serious impediments arose also
from unsettling events: the suicide of the ex-sultan
c Abd al- c Az!z on 4 June, the murder by a Circassian
officer of Huseyn c AwnI and the foreign minister
Rashid at a meeting at Midhat’s house on 15 June,
the expanding war against Serbia and Montenegro,
and, above all, the nervous breakdown of Murad V,
who was never girded. Despite discussions of a con¬
stitutional draft by ministers and a medj.lis-i c umumi,
progress was minimal. The ministers finally decided
that Murad V would have to be replaced by his
younger brother, c Abd al-Hamld. On about August
27 Midhat got from c Abd al-Hamld a promise that, if
enthroned, he would promulgate the constitution
without delay. On 31 August Murad was deposed,
and was succeeded by c Abd al-Hamld II [q.v.].

The new sultan was, however, slow to redeem his
promise. On 8 October he approved a constitutional
commission of leading Muslim and Christian officials,
with Midhat as chairman. The commission con¬
sidered many models and drafts, including one by
Midhat himself. The draft submitted to c Abd al-
Hamld in late November incorporated Midhat’s pro¬
posal for a prime minister instead of a grand vizier.
The sultan was unenthusiastic, and his objections
were supported by other ministers and officials,
including Ahmed Djewdet [q.v.]. Finally, on 6
December the council of ministers approved a revised
draft by the commission, which enlarged the sultan’s
powers and restored the office of grand vizier. c Abd

1034

MIDHAT PASHA

al-Hamid accepted the constitution when a clause
empowering the sultan to exile dangerous individuals
was added. Mehmed Riishdu then resigned, the
sultan appointed Midhat grand vizier on 19
December, and the constitution was ceremoniously
promulgated on 23 December 1876.

Midhat hoped that the act of promulgation might
induce the great-power conference on plans for
restructuring Ottoman administration in the Balkans,
then meeting in Istanbul, to agree that the new con¬
stitutional regime should do it instead. He wanted the
powers not only to accept but also to guarantee the
constitution, and sent Odian secretly to London to ask
support. But the powers treated the constitution as if
it were a sham. The conference went ahead to propose
drastic changes. Because the election process for the
chamber of deputies was not nearly completed,
Midhat convened on 18 January 1877 an unusually
large med^lis-i c umumi, which with patriotic emotion
rejected the Constantinople Conference scheme.
Midhat has been blamed for pursuing a hard line with
the powers that eventuated in a Russian invasion in
late April 1877. But Midhat sought further negotia¬
tion, not war; had he remained in office, he might
have avoided war, but he was grand vizier for only 49
days. From the start he and c Abd al-Hamid were on
a collision course. The sultan rejected proposals by
Midhat; Midhat failed to carry out orders of the
sultan, one of which was to send his constitutionalist
friends Namik Kemal [q.v. ] and Diya out of the
capital. Those two and others started recruiting a
volunteer guard unit that worried the sultan. But
basically, c Abd al-Hamid feared Midhat as one who
had deposed two sultans and who might try it again.
Further, Midhat conducted himself as if he were a
prime minister answerable more to the nation than to
the monarch. The sultan also was answerable to the
nation, Midhat believed, and this view was incor¬
porated in the famous letter of 30 January 1877 which
Midhat is said to have written to the sultan, although
its authenticity is debated. The sultan may even have
believed charges that Midhat leaned to
republicanism. Hence on 5 February, Midhat was
abruptly dismissed and sent in exile to Brindisi on the
imperial yacht.

Midhat visited Naples, Rome, Marseilles, Anda¬
lusia, Paris, Plombieres, London, Vienna and
Scotland. He wrote memoranda to European
statesmen, especially British ones, supporting the
Ottoman cause in the Russian war of 1877-8. He col¬
lected funds for the relief of Muslim refugees from the
Balkans. He courted European opinion with a
pamphlet defending Ottoman reforms and attacking
Russian subversion. Because Midhat was so popular
in Europe, and because of British pressure, c Abd al-
Hamid allowed his return to forced residence. Midhat
arrived in Crete on 26 September 1878, going to live
with his family in Halepa, outside Hanya (Canea).
Probably owing to representations by the British
ambassador Layard, Midhat was soon named wall of
Syria. He was transported directly there, without
being allowed a visit to Istanbul, and arrived on 28
November.

In his nearly two years as governor of the Syrian
wilayet [see dimashk]. Midhat acted much as in Tuna
and Baghdad. He started schools, including a voca¬
tional school, built roads, built a tramway from
Tripoli to its port, created a stronger gendarmerie and
appointed some Christians to it, appointed some
Syrians to the bureaucracy, founded a theatre and a
public library, etc. He was less successful in settling
tribes and quieting rebellions. With the Druze, he

achieved a standoff; he made the Djabal Duruz into
a new kada^Wxth. its own Druze kaHmakam. Midhat felt
that he needed authority over the military and the
courts, as well as over the bureaucracy and Finance, to
be effective. But his requests for broader powers and
approval of extensive reforms were refused by the
sultan. Twice Midhat resigned, on 23 October 1879
and 30 May 1880, but the sultan refused consent.
c Abd al-Hamid was, however, receiving zhurnah from
informers stating that Midhat sought to be ruler or
khedive in an autonomous Syria and was currying
local favour to that end. Midhat in fact opposed any
Arab or Syrian separatism, but he may have
countenanced some anti-Ottoman agitation to per¬
suade c Abd al-Hamid that he needed broader powers.
The sultan evidently decided that Midhat might be a
danger in Damascus, and so ordered his transfer to
Izmir on 4 August 1880. Midhat left Syria on 31
August, and again was not allowed a visit to
Istanbul.

Midhat’s governorship of Izmir lasted less than a
year. It was unremarkable, except for warnings which
he received from friends in Istanbul that he might be
charged with complicity in the alleged murder of the
ex-sultan c Abd al- c Aziz. Midhat declined, however,
to flee to Europe. At about 2 a.m. on 17 May 1881,
troops entered his house to arrest him. Midhat
escaped through a garden gate to the French con¬
sulate. The next day, the Paris government refused
asylum, and Midhat agreed to arrest provided that his
trial were public, and such an assurance was given.
Midhat was taken by ship to Istanbul and inter¬
rogated on board by Djewdet Pasha, the justice
minister, who willingly undertook this mission to
apprehend his opponent. Midhat was confined in the
Malta Kiosk in the Yfldfz Palace grounds.

The Yfldfz trial, though semi-public, was a travesty
of justice. The case against Midhat and nine others
was built on weak testimony, presumably obtained
through torture, bribery and sycophancy. The trial of
the ten began on 27 June 1881. On 28 June, all of
them, including Midhat were found guilty. On 29
June, Midhat and seven others were sentenced to
death. An appeals court, obviously under Palace
instructions, confirmed the sentences. But widespread
Ottoman and European opinion urged leniency, as
did a minority of a special medjlis convened for review.
c Abd al-Hamid thereupon converted Midhat’s
sentence to life banishment. On 28 July 1881 Midhat
and others were hustled aboard the yacht “ c Izz ad-
Dln” without even a change of clothing, transported
to Djidda, and thence to imprisonment in a fort in al-
Ta-hf. There, Midhat suffered increasingly harsh
treatment, and in the early hours of 8 May 1884, he
was strangled by soldiers, evidently acting on c Abd al-
Hamld’s orders. His death was reported as due to a
carbuncle and other abscesses. He left two widows,
three daughters and a son, c AlT Haydar. In 1951 his
bones were repatriated to Turkey.

Midhat Pasha had proved to be one of the ablest
Ottoman administrators of the 19th century. His
energy and creativity were most effective in provincial
governorships where he had wide authority, although
some of his measures were obviously hasty and some
were superficial. His forthrightness and arrogance
hampered him as grand vizier, especially in dealings
with the palace. For his day, he was a liberal; he
shared many views with the Yeni c Othmanlflar or
Young Turks, especially on the desirability of a
parliament. Without Midhat, the constitution of 1876
would not have come into existence. Although
ambitious for himself. Midhat fundamentally acted on

MIDHAT PASHA — MIDILLI

1035

his belief that the task of a government official was to
serve the people and the fatherland.

Bibliography. The principal sources are
biographies of his father by c Ali Haydar
Midhat, each differing from the others: Haydt-i
siydsiyyesi, Istanbul 1325, i, Tabsira-yi c ibret, ii,
MiTdt-l hayret (partly based on memoirs and
documents by Midhat Pasha himself); The life of
Midhat Pasha, London 1903; Midhat Pasha’nln hayati
siydsiyyesi , Cairo 1322; Midhat-pacha, Paris 1908
(each includes documents by Midhat Pasha). Ali
Haydar Midhat, Hatiralanm, 1872-1946, Istanbul
1946, is almost half on his father. Other
biographies: L.A. Leouzon-le-Duc, Midhat-
Pacha, Paris 1877 (eulogistic); A. Clician Vasif, Son
Altesse Midhat-Pacha, Paris 1909 (by his Croat
secretary, laudatory); ibniilemin Mahmud Kemal
inal, Osmanli devrinde son sadnazamlar, Istanbul 1940-
53 (4th printing 1969), 322-414 (with anecdotes,
documents, quotations). Mehmed Zeki Pakahn,
Midhat Pasa, Istanbul 1940 (extensive quotations
from older works); M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, art.
Midhat Pasa, in L4, viii, 270-82 (fascicle published in
1958); Bekir Sitki Baykal, Midhat Pasa, Istanbul
1964 (a short life, illustrations); I.E. Fadeeva,
Midhat-Pasha, zizn i deyatel'nosT, Moscow 1977 (con¬
cise but most complete biography, of a
“bourgeois” Midhat, best part on Bulgaria). By
Midhat Pasha himself: The past, present, and future of
Turkey , in The Nineteenth Century, iii/18 (June 1878),
981-93 (same as La Turquie, son passe, son avenir,
Paris 1901; also twice published in Turkish); Feryad
vefiganlar, Istanbul 1326 (not seen; extensively used
by Fadeeva).

Based on archives, especially useful, are works
by i.H. Uzungarsih: Midhat ve Riistii Pasalann
tevkiflerine dair vesikalar, Ankara 1946: Midhat Pasa ve
Yildiz mahkemesi, Ankara 1967; Midhat Pasa ve Taif
mahkumlan, Ankara 1950. Other modern studies
based on Ottoman and European documents:
B.S. Baykal, 93 mesrutiyeli, in Be/lelen vi, no. 21-2
(1942), 45-83; idem, Midhat Pasa’nin gizli bir siyasi
lesebbusiL, in III. Turk Tarih Kongresi, ... 1943,
Ankara 1948, 470-7; R.H. Davison, Midhat Pasa
and Ottoman foreign relations, in Osmanli Arastirmalan,
v (1985); Nejat Goyiing, Midhat Pa?a’nin Nisvaliligi
hakkinda notlar ve belgeler, in IUEF Tarih Enstitusii
Dergisi, xii (1981-2), 279-316; Albertine Jwaideh,
Midhat Pasha and the land system of lower Iraq, in
St. Antony's Papers, iii, London 1963, 106-36; Najib
E. Saliba, The achievements of Midhat Pasha as governor
of Syria, 1878-1880, in IJMES, ix/3 (August 1978),
307-23; Shimon Shamir, Midhat Pasha and the anti-
Turkish agitation in Syria, in MES, x/2 (May 1974),
115-41; idem, The modernization of Syria..., in W.
Polk and R. Chambers, eds., The beginnings of moder¬
nization in the Middle East, Chicago 1968, 351-81;
Maria N. Todorova, “ Obshcopoleznite kassi" na
Midhat Pasha, in Istoriceski Pregled (Sofia), xxviii/5
(1972), 56-76.

Works by Midhat’s contemporaries:
Mahmud Djelal al-Din, MiTat-i hakikat, 3 vols.,
Istanbul 1326-7; Cevdet Pasa, Tezakir 40 - Tetimme,
ed. C. Baysun, Ankara 1967; Benoit Brunswik, La
verite sur Midhat Pacha, Paris 1877 (a tirade against
him); A.D. Mordtmann, Stambul und das moderne
Tiirkenlum, 2 vols., Leipzig 1877-8; Suleyman
Pasha, Hiss-i inkilab, Istanbul 1326; F. Kanitz,
Donau-Bulgarien und der Balkan , 3 vols., Leipzig
1875-9. Informative modern studies: M. C.
Kuntay, Namik Kemal, 2 vols. in 3, Istanbul 1944-
56, and the index to it (s.v. Midhat) by Ol^ay Oner-

toy, M.C. Kuntay'in Namik Kemal adh eserinin ...
indeksi , Ankara 1965; Davison, Reform in the Ottoman
Empire, 1856-1876, Princeton 1963; R. Devereux,
The first Ottoman constitutional period, Baltimore 1963;
Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanli tarihi, v-vi, Ankara
1954-6. Further bibliography, including references
to the standard older Turkish histories of the
period, is conveniently found in the works cited
above by Baykal, Davison, Fadeeva and Gokbilgin,
and in the EP art. s.v. (Fr. Babinger).

(R.H. Davison)

MIDILLI (Turkish form of MimXr)vr), Mytilene,
the Greek name of its capital), the island of Lesbos
in the eastern Aegean alongside the Turkish coast
near the entrance to the Gulf of Edremit [q.v. ] and the
town of Ayvalik (Aywalik [q.v. j); the straits of
Miisellim and Mytilene that separate it from Turkey
on the north and east average 10 and 16 km in width.

With an area of 1614 km 2 , Lesbos is the third
largest Greek island after Crete and Euboea, and the
seventh largest of the Mediterranean. It has a roughly
triangular shape, its broad base, ca. 70 km long, run¬
ning from east-south-east to west-north-west, while
the line from its apex in the north to the middle of this
base measures 47 km. The relatively straight lines of
its coast are interrupted by two gulfs on the south and
south-east, that of Kallonis (also known by its classical
name of Pyrrha), 21 km long, and that of Yeras, 14
km long. The island is well-watered by numerous
streams flowing from three groups of mountains, of
which Mt. Lepetimnos in the north and Mt. Olympos
in the south-east both reach the elevation of 968 m
(chart. N.O. 54380, U.S. Naval Oceanographic
Office); on days of good visibility, not only Chios to
the south, but even Samothrace and Mt. Athos to the
north-west can be seen from the former. The
geological composition of Lesbos consists partly of
volcanic elements, and the island is earthquake-
prone; it contains many springs, some hot with
beneficial mineral content; several of the latter have
been valued since antiquity. The dense oak and pine
forests that once grew on Lesbos had dwindled to scat¬
tered remnants already in Hellenistic times.

Classical Lesbos was famous for its ideal climate
and fertile soil; these assets, combined with an advan¬
tageous position near strategic commercial and
maritime routes and an enterprising population, led
to a remarkable prosperity and to political and
cultural achievements (for the island’s long and rich
classical history, see Pauly-Wis sow a, xii, 1925, 2107-
33, s.v.; Der Kleine Pauly-Wissowa, iii, 1969, 585-87,
s.v.; A. Philippson, Die Gnechischen Landschaften, iv,
1959, 233-44; I.D. Kontes, Lesvos kai he Mikrasiatike tes
perioche, Athens 1978).

The principal city and port of Lesbos, Mytilene (a
name of probably pre-Greek origin), first developed
on an islet connected with the island’s eastern coast by
a possibly man-made isthmus. The city spread to this
connecting neck and eventually also to the adjacent
coast (see the engraving facing p. 390 of J. Pitton de
Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage du Levant, i, Amster¬
dam 1718). In the Middle Ages, Lesbos came to be
known by the name of its capital as the island of
Mytilene or, through a metathesis, Melitene; this
sometimes caused its confusion with the island of
Malta or Melita (as shown by the association of the
legend about St. Paul and the serpent with Lesbos).

Lesbos seems to have escaped the attention of early
Islamic geographers, and it does not appear among
the islands of the Aegean on either of al-ldrisl’s maps.
On the other hand, Shu c ayb I b. c Umar (241-66/855-
80) of Crete (Ikritish [q.v.]) raided the island as part

1036

MIDILLI

of his forays throughout the Aegean all the way to the
Propontis (the Sea of Marmara, Marmara Denizi
[q. v. ]) to the point of making the inhabitants of
Eressos (legendary home of the poetess Sappho) aban¬
don their city and move to Mount Athos (A.A.
Vasil’ev, Vizantiya i Arabl , St. Petersburg 1910, ii, 46-
7; French tr. Byzance et les Arabes, Brussels 1968, ii/1,
53).

Lesbos came under Muslim rule for the first time in
or soon after 1089 and remained so until 1093 as part
of the brilliant but short-lived successes of the Turkish

V V

amir Caka or Cakan (reconstructed from the Greek
Tzachas), who founded the earliest Turkish maritime
power from his base at Izmir. This Turkish threat was
the principal cause of a renaissance of the Byzantine
navy, rebuilt by Alexis I Comnenos; Caka himself,
however, fell victim to Byzantine diplomacy that con¬
trived his assassination in league with the emperor’s
relative, the Saldjuk sultan Kflidj Arslan I, in 1093
(H. Ahrweiler, Byzance et la mer , Paris 1966, 184-9; S.
Vryonis, The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor ,
Berkeley 1971, 115; A.N. Kurat, Qaka, Istanbul
1936).

By the time that the Aydfn beg Umur (1334-48; see
P. Lemerle, L'emirat d’Aydin , Paris 1957; I. Melikoff-
Sayar, Le Destan d'Umur Pacha, Paris 1954; and aydjn-
oghlu) repeated and surpassed Caka’s exploits (with¬
out, however, occupying Lesbos), the growth of
Turkish and Latin power in the area made Byzantine
hold on the island, among other places, precarious.
Thus in 1355 the emperor John V Paleologus gave
Lesbos, his sister Mary’s dowry, in an act of gratitude
and as a practical solution, to his brother-in-law, the
Genoese Francesco Gattilusi. This family then ruled
Lesbos until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1462
(W. Miller, Essays on the Latin Orient, Cambridge
1921, 313-53, ch. “The Gattilusi of Lesbos”; W.
Heyd, Histone du commerce du Levant, Leipzig 1885, i,
510-12; E. Armao, II giro per il Mar Egeo con Vincenzo
Coronelli, Florence 1951, 110-11). The rule of the Gat¬
tilusi was characterised by the pragmatic, commerce-
minded goals of Latin, mainly Italian, possessions in
the Aegean. Thus when Timur [q.v. \ occupied Izmir
in 1403, the Gattilusis hastened, like the Genoese
company of the Mahone on Chios, to send presents
and proclaim their loyalty. On the other hand, these
Catholic overlords do not seem to have been fully
accepted by the mainly Greek Orthodox population,
a circumstance that may have facilitated the gradual
spread of the Turkish domination.

After the conquest of Constantinople by
Mehemmed II, Dorino Gattiluso (1426-55) managed
to conserve his possession by means of a tribute of
3,000 ducats (a sum raised at the accession of
Dorino’s son Domenico in 1455 to 7,000 ducats). In
1458 Domenico was imprisoned and subsequently
murdered by his brother Niccolo. This, as well as
irritation at the refuge which both Domenico and Nic¬
colo gave to Catalan corsairs, is often cited as the
cause of Mehemmed’s displeasure and eventual con¬
quest, but a more decisive factor may have been the
island’s economic and strategic importance. Thus in
the late summer of 1462, a Turkish lleet under
Mahmud Pasha [q.v.] anchored off Mytilene, while
the sultan set up camp on the mainland near Aywalik.
Niccolo refused to surrender, but did so alter a siege
of three weeks. The richer inhabitants were then
moved to Istanbul, a number of boys and girls were
chosen for imperial service, and the rest of the natives
were allowed to stay. The island was surveyed and the
population was recorded in Ottoman fiscal registers.
Turks, mainly Janissaries who then married local

women, were encouraged to settle in the island
(Miller, op. cit .; F. Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and
his time, Princeton 1978, 210-12, and passim ; c Ashik-
pasha-zade. ed. Giese, 156-57; Neshrl, ed.
Taeschner, ii, 280-1; Katib Celebi, Tuhfat al-kibar
ft asfar al-bihdr, Istanbul 1141, 61b). Lesbos became a
sandjak in the eyalet of Rumili, and an important link
in the framework of Ottoman maritime expansion. A
minor but significant outcome of the conquest and
repopulation of this island was the birth there of the
Barbarossa brothers, who later initiated the Ottoman
conquest of North Africa [see khayr al-dIn].

Ottoman rule on Lesbos lasted from 1462 to 1912.
It was disturbed, though not disrupted, only at the
beginning during the Turco-Venetian wars of 1463-
79 and 1499-1502, and again toward the end, when in
1905 four European powers seized its customs and
telegraph services in order to pressure the Ottoman
government to accept their financial supervision of the
vilayets of Selanik, Kosova and Monastir.

In 1434, Lesbos became a sandjak in the newly
formed eyalet of Djaza^ir-i Bahr-i Safid [q.v.\, a pro¬
vince under the jurisdiction of the commander of the
Ottoman navy [see kapudan pasha]. This eyalet was
formed at the appointment of the above-mentioned
Kh ayr al-Dln to that post. The island maintained this
administrative status throughout the history of the
eyalet —later called vilayet —until the latter’s demise
concurrent with the end of the Turkish rule on Lesbos
in 1912.

The life of the inhabitants does not seem to have
been particularly affected by the Turkish rule. The
majority remained Greek-speaking and Orthodox,
and retained their way of life and religious traditions.
European travellers who visited Lesbos during the
centuries of the “Tourkokratia” were struck both by
the island’s features identical with those mentioned in
classical sources and by some contrasts. The city of
Mytilene, which together with Ephesus, Rodos and
Corinth had had the reputation of being among the
most beautiful cities of the Greek world, is described
by Charles Thomas Newton (1852) as a “strappling,
dirty village, the houses much like those of Constan¬
tinople constructed of wood on account of earth¬
quakes, with roofs of red tile” (Travels and discoveries in
the Levant, London 1865, i, 54). The Turkish governor
resided with his garrison within the precincts of the
citadel on the rocky peninsula; this fortress of Byzan¬
tine construction and Genoese additions, on the site of
the ancient acropolis, reflected the city’s and island’s
more recent history: according to H.F. Tozer (1886),
“in the neighborhood of the entrance, at the summit
of the hill, ... a Byzantine eagle, a Frankish coat of
arms, and a Turkish inscription are built into the wall
close together” {The islands of the Aegean, repr. Chicago
1976, 135). Newton (58) estimated the city’s popula¬
tion at 8,500, of whom 2,000 were Muslims; there
were also two to three hundred foreigners, protected
by their diplomatic representatives. The presence of
European vice-consuls is already reported by
Tournefort (1700; i, 392) and Pococke (1739; Descrip¬
tion of the East, London 1745, ii, 16). According to
Newton, they resided in the “Frankish quarter” near
the isthmus; the salname of the vilayet of Djaza^ir-i
Bahr-i Safid, no. 20, for 1321/March 1905-Febr.
1906, 162, lists representatives (mostly vice-consuls
acting for their consulates at Izmir) of Great Britain,
Austro-Hungary, the United States, Sweden-
Norway, Belgium, Greece, Holland, Iran, Spain,
France, Italy and Germany. Their presence was due
both to the economic importance of the island and to
its position on crucial shipping routes. The port of

MIDILLI

1037

Mytilene, the busiest of the archipelago, consisted, as
in antiquity, of two harbours separated by the
isthmus, a northern and a southern one; the northern
harbour, protected by a long mole, was the principal
one. In 1305/March 1889-Febr. 1890 3,462 ships
called there (V. Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie Paris 1894,
i, 469). The ratio of the Greek to the Turkish popula¬
tion on the island was about 4:1; the salname, no. 10
for 1310/March 1894-Febr. 1895, 241, lists 98,882
Ottoman subjects besides a small number of
foreigners; of the Ottoman ones, 85,328 were Greek
Orthodox and 13,554 were Muslims. In the capital
itself, the Turks were, according to Newton, “a
decaying and decreasing population” (i, 57); there
were, according to him, no very rich Turks except for
the Pasha and his son, for the wealthy Lesbiots were
the rich landowners of the Greek bourgeoisie. Other
sources mention also Greek merchants and bankers.
The island’s principal source of wealth and article of
export were, throughout its history, olives and olive
oil, although the fertility of its soil could have yielded
an abundance of cereals as well; olive growing was
favoured, according to Pococke, because it required
little labour, which in turn could be done by women
and children, and grain had thus to be imported.
Nevertheless, the cultivation of wheat, famous in anti¬
quity, again expanded in the final decades of the
Ottoman rule, so that flour mills were second in
importance only to olive oil presses (Cuinet, i, 455).
Grapes, raisins and wines, as well as Figs were also
renowned; products derived from sheep and goats,
and Fishing enriched the Lesbiots’ diet; the sardines,
molluscs and shellFish of the bay of Kalloni had a
specially high reputation. Besides oil pressed from
olives and olive stones, the articles of export included
soap, valonia, pitch, leather and hides, sponges and
salt, and a delicious type of cheese popular in Istan¬
bul. Small-scale shipbuilding and coastal shipping
also occupied some inhabitants despite, and in some
respects connected w’ith the piracy and brigandage
endemic in the Aegean (D.A. Zakythenos, Corsaires et
pirates dans les mers grecques au temps de la domination tur-
que, Athens 1939). No wheeled carriages were used in
the island, transportation being done on pack animals
(horses, donkeys, but especially sturdy rnules,
appreciated for their reliability in the mountainous
terrain). A curiosity was small herds of little ponies
that lived freely in the interior and were on occasion
exported to Istanbul.

The port of Mytilene overshadowed the island's
other harbours; from among the latter, the gulf of
Yeras, called by Europeans Olivieri, had the reputa¬
tion of being one of the vastest natural harbours of the
Mediterranean. Equally favoured, but of more dif¬
ficult access, was the gull of Kalloni. The harbours of
Plomari and Sigri on the southern and western coasts,
and Molyvo with neighbouring Petra just west of the
northern tip of the island, were also active.

There was a Greek Orthodox archbishop in
Mytilene, and another in the island’s second largest
city, Molyvo (Methymna). The Turkish population
lived throughout the island in their own quarters and
in scattered villages. Numerous mosques and tekke s,
churches and monasteries are mentioned in the
salname s. Relations between the two communities
were good, and bilingualism was not uncommon. The
awareness, among the Greeks, of their history and
culture, always maintained by the ecclesiastic elite,
spread among the population toward the end of the
Ottoman period through an increasing number of
schools, some teachers receiving their training also in
Athens. Cuinet (i, 450) mentions 157 schools with

7,635 students; there were two high schools in
Mytilene, a Greek one with 97 students and a Turkish
one w’ith 40 students.

Visitors praised the fresh air of the island enriched
with the fragrance of its Mediterranean vegetation,
and the climate was salubrious. The only serious ail¬
ment w’as tuberculosis, chiefly limited to the wives,
sequestered in their women’s quarters, of the more
opulent Greek and Turkish inhabitants (Cuinet, i,
451).

In the Final decades of the Ottoman period, the
vilayet of Djaza 3 ir-i Bahr-i SafTd (which had by then
lost any connection with the office of the commander
of the Ottoman navy) consisted of four sandjaks :
Rodos q. v. ], Chios (Sakfz [q.v. ]), Lesbos and Lemnos
(Limni q.v. ]). That of Lesbos was divided into four
kadP* s: of Midilli, Molyvo (Methymna), Pilmar
(Plomari) and Yunda; the last-named, known in
Greek as Moskonesia or Kekatonesia, consisted of a
group of small islets dominated by the larger Alibay
Adasi facing Aywalik; this kada? was the only part of
the sandiak that remained Turkish at the conclusion of
the Balkan War. The title of the sandyak' s governor
was mutesarrif, while the kadPs were administered by
kaymakams , and the nahiye s by mudiirs. Lists of govern¬
ment officials in the salndmes show that majority were
Turks, but that Greeks also participated in the
administration.

Ottoman rule on Lesbos ended in December 1912,
when a Greek fleet landed troops on the island and
took control of it (Ali Haydar Emir [Alpagur], Balkan
harbinde Turk filosu, Istanbul 1932, 249-53). Greek
annexation was ratified by the London Conference in
May 1913. The Turkish inhabitants left Lesbos as
part of the population exchange between the two
countries in the 1920s.

Bibliography (apart from works cited in the
text): B. Darkot, iA, art. Midilli ; numerous Euro¬
pean travel accounts, for whose bibliography see
Pauly-Wissowa, cited in the text; numerous por-
tolan texts and charts, best discussed by E. Armao,
cited in the text; Pir7 Rc ,:> is, Kitab-i Bahriyye, Istan¬
bul 1935, 130-9, and German tr. of the first version
by P. Kahle, Pin Reals', Bahrije. ii. Ubersetzung,
Berlin 1926, 32-42; A. Delatte, Les Portulans grecs ,
Liege 1947, index s.v. Mytilene ; Ilyas b. Khfdr
(Uzun FirdewsT), Kutb-name, klssa-yi Midilli, ed. i.
Olgun and i. Parmaksizoglu, Ankara 1980; the
kanun-names listed on p. 66 of H.W. Lowry, The
Ottoman Liva Kanunnames contained in the Defter-i
Hakani , in Osmanli arastirmalan. The Journal of
Ottoman studies, ii (Istanbul 1981) (kanun-ndme s
14 264 from 1548, TT598 from 1581, TT803 from
1671, and TK 2 from 1709; the last-named was
published by O.L. Barkan, XV ve XVfwci asirlarda
Osmanli imperatorlugunda zirai ekonominin hukuki ve mail
esaslan , birinci cilt : Kanunlar, Istanbul 1943, 332-8,
and by H. Tuncer, Osmanli imparatorlugunda toprak
hukuku, arazi kanunlan ve kanun a(iklamalan, Ankara
1962, 315-19); t.H. Uzun^arsih, Osmanli devletimn
merkez ve bahnye teskilati , Ankara 1948, 420-2; Sh.
Sami, Kamus al-aHdm , Istanbul 1898, vi, 4242-3,
s.v. Midilli ; D.E. Pitcher, An historical geography of the
Ottoman empire , Leiden 1972; A.E. Bakalopoulos,
The Greek nation , 1453-1669 , New Brunswick 1976,
index s.vv. Lesbos and Mytilene-, F.W. Hasluck,
Depopulation in the Aegean Islands and the Turkish Con¬
quest, in the Annual of the British School of Athens, xvii
(1910-11), 151-81; U S. Naval Oceanographic
Office, Sailing directions for the Mediterranean, Publ.
no. 132, Sailing directions for the Eastern Mediterranean,
303-6. (S. Soucek)

1038

MIDRAR

MIDRAR (Banu) or Midrarids, minor Berber
dynasty which was established in Sidjilmas(s)a [q.v. ]
and which enjoyed relative independence until its
final collapse in 366/976-7.

The history of this dynasty can be briefly outlined,
thanks to al-Bakri [^.y.j, who lived in the 5th/llth
century and thus possessed quite recent information
in order to write the chapter that he devotes to it
(Mughrib , 148 ff., Fr. tr. 282 ff.), before Ibn Tdhari
(7th-8th/13 th-14 th century [</. y. ]), Ibn Khaldun
(8th/14th century [q.v. ]) and several historians of the
Ma gh rib and Mashrik were able to take their turn at
tackling this; but a number of important episodes of
this period were recorded in the works of the kadi al-
Nu c man [< 7 . a.] available today, in particular the Iftitdh
al-da c wa and the Kitab al-Madjalis wa ’l-musayarat, as
well as in the Autobiography of the chamberlain Dja c far
b. c Ali (see Bibl. ), although the latter sources, contem¬
poraneous with the events which they relate, express
the often biased point of view of the Fatimids.

From the start, it is difficult to date the birth of the
dynasty which, despite appearances, does not seem to
coincide with the foundation of Sidjilmasa, itself not
well established. One tradition links the foundation
with a member of the tribe of Miknasa [q.v. ], Abu T
Kasim Samdju/Samghu/Samghun (i.e. Samgu or
Samgun) b. Wasul al-Miknasi, who had adopted the
doctrine of the Sufrl [q. v. ] Kharidjites; this man is said
to have gathered hadiths , in Ifrlkiya, from c Ikrima
], the famous mawla of Ibn c Abbas, whom legend
depicts as the propagator of Kharidjism in the
Ma gh rib, a region where he probably never set foot.
The Samgu/Samgun in question, who, it is said,
pastured his flocks on the site of the future town of
Sidjilmasa, gathered around him some Sufris, and, as
soon as the group numbered 40, set out, in 140/757-8,
to build houses; the small community surprisingly
chose as its chief a negro by the name of Tsa b.
Mazyad (rather than YazTd) al-Aswad, whose father
had been converted to Islam, but his conduct so
offended those he governed that they tied him to a tree
and left him to die in 155/772; he had reigned 15 years
(al-Bakri, 148/286; Berberes, i, 261). According to the
sources, his successor was the first-mentioned per¬
sonage, Abu TKasim Samgu/Samgun, who reigned
13 years and died in 168/784-5. This tradition, which
traces back the foundation of the town and, conse¬
quently, of the dynasty, if not of the family, to
140/757-8, is preferred by our first informant, al-
BakrT (149/284); Ibn Tdhari (i, 157) and Ibn Khaldun
(Berberes , i, 261) only know of it, while the Majakhir al-
Barbar [q.v.\ (48) reports on the authority of c Arib b.
Sa c d [q. v. ] that Abu TKasim Samku ruled over
Sidjilmasa, founded in 140 by his grandfather (sic)
c Isa b. Yazid. Al-BakrT reproduces in any case a
second tradition, according to which a smith from
Cordova called Midrar, who had taken part in the
Revolt of the Suburb (in 202/818 [see kurtuba]) and
was consequently a Rabadi, was able to escape and
came to settle near the market whose site was to be
occupied by the capital of the Midrarids; while sug¬
gesting that the first of the two accounts is “more in
conformity with the truth”, this author nevertheless
asserts (149/285) that the rulers of Sidjilmasa are
descendants of the smith Midrar, since they “were
subjected to satirical insults on this subject.” The
Istibsar (204), for its part, draws on the two traditions,
which it moreover mixes; it calls Midrar b. c Abd
Allah the alleged disciple of Tkrima, and says that the
Midrar who escaped from Cordova was black, a fact
which earned for his descendants gibes or epigrams.
As for E. Levi-Provengal, he admits the Cordovan

origin of the founder of Sidjilmasa (Hist. Esp. mus., i,
170, n. 1).

This latter tradition, which appears seductive in the
form in which it is presented by al-BakrT, does not,
however, elude the problem of chronology which is
posed, for the impression is given that the town
existed as early as the end of the 2nd/ 8th century. In
fact, after 168/784-5, al-BakrT (150/286) and Ibn
Khaldun (i, 262) have a son of Samgu/Samgun men¬
tioned as reigning by the name of Abu TWazTr al-Yas
b. Abi TKasim, who was dethroned in 174/790-1 (the
date of 170 mentioned by Ibn Tdhari is to be cor¬
rected) by his brother Abu TMuntasir (sometimes
Abu TMansur, but probably wrongly) al-Yasa c , who
remained on the throne until his death in 208/823-4.
This long reign was to be quite brilliant and
beneficial, for al-Yasa c , who is said to have been of a
particularly violent and despotic character, sub¬
jugated all the Berbers of the region who resisted him,
levied the fifth on the mines of Daria [q.v. ] and had
built in 199/814-15 (al-Bakri, 148/282-3; Jacques-
Meunie, i, 201) the town wall with 12 gates in it, of
which eight were covered in iron so that the enemy
could not set fire to them. It is stated that this wall, the
lower part in stone and the upper in unfired brick (Ibn
Tdhari, i, 157), was undertaken entirely at his own
expense, and that the work force cost him 1,000
measures of grain (ta c dm ) a day. He also adorned the
town with a certain number of palaces and public
buildings, notably the Friday mosque (al-Bakri,
148/283; Berberes , i, 262; Jacques-Meunie, i, 201).

Given, on the one hand, that the total duration of
the dynasty is reckoned at 160 years (al-Bakri,
149/284; Ibn Idharl, i, 157; Ibn al-Abbar, Hulla , i,
191-2) and that, on the other hand, disregarding the
Rabadi mentioned above, the first Midrar cited is the
son of al-Yasa c , al-Muntasir, who ascended the throne
in 208/823-4 (al-Bakri, 150/286; Berberes , i, 262), it is
perhaps from this year that we have to date the birth
of the Midrarid line, in spite of the fact that, in
general, the eponym of dynasties may be the father of
the first of their members, that Ibn Tdhari (i, 157)
clearly states that it came to an end in 296 after
approximately 160 years of rule, that Ibn Khaldun (i,
260) gives it the name of Banu Wasul, which would
also take it back to the year 140, and that G.-S. Colin,
in the article sidjilmasa in EJ l , makes “the MiknasT
dynasty of the Banu Midrar” begin in 155/771-2, i.e.
with the immediate successor of the first ruler of the
town, which is in conformity with al-Bakri’s opinion
and calculation, but completely disregards the figure
of 160 years and the absence of a person called Midrar
before 208/823-4. For this reason, we will begin
arbitrarily with:

i. Abu Malik al-Muntasir b. al-Yasa c , whose sur¬
name Midrar ( = “one who produces much milk or
pours forth abundant rain”, etc.), which had no
doubt been given him as a title of good omen, served
to designate the ruling family whom al-Mas c udT
(Murudl, iv, 39 = § 1367) further named as the Banu
TMuntasir, which justifies the decision taken. This
author estimates the extent of the amir’s
dominions—one would wish to know on what basis—
at 400 farsakhs by 80 (!), and makes one Ahmad b. al-
Muntasir the ruler of the land of Astula (?) which
measured, according to him, 400 farsakhs, by 250.
According to Ibn Khurradadhbih (ed. and Fr. tr. M.
Hadj-Sadok, 9), the territory of the Banu Midrar
included the Daria, where a silver mine was located,
and the town of Zlz, i.e. it probably exceeded present-
day Tafilalt.

Midrar, a nominal vassal of the c Abbasids (in

MIDRAR

1039

Tentative genealogy of the Midrands

(1) Samgu b. Wasul
(d.'168/784-5)

(2) Abu ’1-WazIr
(regn. 168-74/784-90)

( 3 )

Abu TMuntasir al-Yasa c
(d. 208/283-4)

(i) MIDRAR
(d. 253/867)

(d. 270/882) (d. 300/913) (d. 309/921) (d. 321/933-4)

(viii) Abu TMuntasir
(d. 331/942-3)

(x) Ibn Wasul 1

(regn. 331-47/942-58) (xi) Abu Muhammad (ix) al-Muntasir

(or c Abd Allah) (331/942-3)

(d. 366/976-7)

(ix bis) idem
(d. 352/963)

whose name the khutba had been pronounced, at least
in the time of the caliphs al-Mansur and al-Mahdl,

i.e. from 140 to 169/758-85, if we are to believe Ibn
Khaldun, i, 262) may have acknowledged a certain
dependence on Cordova, but no doubt one much less
strict, as E. Levy-Provengal says (Hist. Esp. Mus., i,
281-2), than that of the Rustamids of Tahart \q.vv. ],
with whom he had moreover some affinities, since,
like them, he was a Kharidjite; he had even married
Arwa bint c Abd al-Rahman b. Rustam (al-BakrT,
150/287; Berberes, i, 262; G. Margais, 103-4; Jacques-
Meunie, i, 201). It so happens that his reign was
troubled by the rivalry of his two sons, both of them
with the first name of Maymun, born to him by the
Rustamiyya and another woman by the name of
Thakiyya (? Bakiyya in Ibn c IdharI, i, 157). After
having endured three years of dispute, Midrar, who
was inclined to favour the former, banished the latter,
but was himself dispossessed by the son to whom he
had given preference. The population of the town
then rebelled, offered the throne to the son of
Thakiyya, who refused it and gave it to Midrar, who
made the mistake of appearing firm in his intention to
entrust it to Maymun Ibn al-Rustamiyya. This time,
the inhabitants of Sidjilmasa besieged their sovereign
in his palace and gave their allegiance as chief to

ii. Maymun b. Thakiyya, called al-Armr. The
deposed dynast died in 253/867, while his son ruled
until his death, in 263/876-7, and was succeeded by

iii. his son Muhammad, who died in Safar
270/August-September 884 (al-Bakri, 150/287;
Berberes , i, 263; cf. Ibn c Idhan, who does not follow
exactly the same order).

It was not long before the principality of Sidjilmasa,
whose tranquility until then appears to have been
disturbed only by some purely internal dissensions.

entered into the general history of the Ma g hrib and
Islam, at the same time losing the autonomy that it
had preserved vis-a-vis the Aghlabids \q.v. ] of
Kayrawan and the c Abbasids of Baghdad, of whom
the Midrarids were still nominal vassals, as is proved
by the letter sent, at the time when the Mahdl c Ubayd
Allah was being sought after, most likely not by al-
Mu c tadid (279-89/892-902), as is stated by Ibn
Khaldun ( Mukaddima , i, 30; Fr. tr. de Slane, i, 40-1)
and the author of the Istibsar (204), but more probably
by his successor al-Muktafi (289-95/902-8), to the
following amir ,

iv. al-Yasa c (sometimes erroneously: c Isa) b. al-
Muntasir (or b. Midrar), son of the no. 1 above, who
occupied the throne from 270 to 296/882-909.

In fact, on 1 Shawwal 292/7 July 905 (see
Autobiography, 297), following a prediction according
to which the awaited Mahdl [q. v. ] is to appear in
Sidjilmasa, the future founder of the Fatimid dynasty,
al-Mahdi c Ubayd Allah [q. v. ] set out in the direction
of this small capital with his young son al-Kasim ( Istib-
sar, 204; Berberes, i, 263; Terrasse, i, 140; Jacques-
Meunie, i, 202). He rented a house there, the Dar Abi
Habasha (Autobiogr ., 302), succeeded in concealing his
identity for almost four years and received good treat¬
ment from al-Yasa c b. al-Muntasir, possibly owing to
the presents that he had given him. Besides, he had no
doubt been able to make friends among the flour¬
ishing c IrakF colony resident in the town (cf.
Dachraoui, Califat, 122, 311). The circumstances in
which his true identity was revealed are differently
reported by the sources. According to the
Autobiography of Dja c far b. c Ali (303-4), his son
miraculously caused a spring to gush forth in a garden
next to his house, and the secret was thus divulged.
According to the Istibsar (204), however, he had been

1040

MIDRAR

denounced by a Jew, while Dachraoui ( Califat, 123)
asserts that al-Yasa c was informed of his presence by
a letter from Ziyadat Allah [see aghlabids]. Accord¬
ing to Ibn Khaldun ( Mukaddima , i, 30, 33-4; Fr. tr. de
Slane, i, 40-1, 45), the letter from Baghdad men¬
tioned above was addressed to the Aghlabids of
Kayrawan and the Midrarids of Sidjilmasa ordering
them to close their land to c Ubayd Allah and his son
(whose genealogy, in the opinion of Ibn Khaldun, was
by this act recognised as authentic); al-Yasa c then
discovered the truth and had the two fugitives
imprisoned. Whatever the facts of the matter, at one
time or another, the Midrarid put c Ubayd Allah, if
not in prison, ( Istibsar , 202), at least under house
arrest in his sister’s house and separated him from his
son, with whom he could, however, communicate
through an intermediary, a young eunuch originally
from Aleppo called Sandal, whom he had bought
locally (Autobiogr., 307 and n. 3). Acting through a
Shfu from Kayrawan in whose company he had
travelled ( Autobiogr ., 305) and who had been

authorised to return to Kayrawan, he was able to
inform of his situation the daH Abu c Abd Allah al-
Shr c T, who had just seized Rakkada [q.v.\. This daH
was eager to recruit supporters, hence set out for the
West, subdued on his way the Rustamids of Tahart
and arrived before Sidjilmasa on 6 Dhu ’1-Hidjdja
296/26 August 909 (Ibn c Idhan, i, 159; Dachraoui,
Califat , 122). Abu c Abd Allah scarcely appeared
aggressive, and even advised al-Yasa c of his peaceful
intentions; however, as the latter had had his
messengers put to death, he finally took the town by
storm. Meanwhile, the Midrarid amir tied, but, on his
being caught after a few days, he was killed by his own
subjects or died of wounds that he had received
(Autobiogr. , 319; Ijtitah , §§ 243-52; Istibsar , 204;
Berberes , i, 263; Margais, 134; Terrasse, i, 140;
Dachraoui, Califat , 124; Jacques-Meunie, i, 202). All
the events that are summarised here are recounted in
detail in a letter which the daH is said to have
addressed to Rakkada and which is reproduced in the
Ijtitah (§§ 253-7; see also Madjalis , 214). According to
the Autobiography of Dja c far b. c Ali (312), al-Yasa c took
out of the town c Ubayd Allah, who himself gave to
Abu c Abd Allah the order to seize it, but the
chamberlain was then imprisoned, as were all the
members of the eminent Ship’s entourage; his
evidence has however no great value on this point.
Once c Ubayd Allah and his son had been rescued,
Abu c Abd Allah pillaged the town and is said to have
dealt severely with the Jews, whom he stripped of
their goods and drove out of Sidjilmasa (but he does
appear to have condemned those of them who wished
to stay to become cesspool cleaners (kannafun) and
masons (banna^un), as the Istibsar (202) reports, for al-
BakrT mentions (149/284) that the former occupation
was reserved for lepers). The rest of the population
endured a similar fate to such an extent that the daH
was able to leave for Rakkada carrying with him 120
loads of gold and precious merchandise ( Istibsar , 204;
Jacques-Meunie, i, 203).

It was in Sidjilmasa that c Ubayd Allah was pro¬
claimed Imam (Autobiogr ., 316); he stayed there for
another 40 days before departing for Ifrikiya (Dach¬
raoui, Califat , 124). Before his departure, Abu c Abd
Allah had designated as governor of the town an
officer of the Mazata [q. v. ] called Ibrahim b. Gh alib
( c Uyun al-akhbar, 24-5; al-Bakrl, 150/288; Berberes, i,
263; cf. Ibn c Idhari, i, 206), leaving at his disposal a
garrison of 2,000 Kutama; this figure, mentioned by
Dachraoui (124), appears, however, rather exag¬
gerated as, according to al-Bakrl (150/288), this

governor was massacred 50 days later, with all his
soldiers, by the rebellious townspeople. The latter
author (150/287) dates from Dhu ’1-Hid j dja
297/August-September 910 the end of the reign of al-
Yasa c , i.e. there is a difference of a whole year from
the date given by the contemporary ShiT sources,
which is perhaps more reliable; for him (150/288) and
for Ibn Khaldun (i, 263), it was in RabT^ I
298/November-December 910 that the rebellious
population put on the throne

v. Wasul, i.e. al-Fath (Abu l-Fath in Ibn c Idhari.
i, 206), son of (ii) Maymun al-Amir, who died in
Radjab 300/February-March 913 and was succeeded
by his brother

vi. Ahmad, killed in Muharram 309/May-June
921, by the governor of Tahart on behalf of the
Mahdl, Masala b. Hab(b)us, who came to besiege
Sidjilmasa, seized it and installed on the throne a
Midrarid prince who was totally devoted to his cause,

vii. al-Mu c tazz, Muhammad b. Saru (?) b.
Midrar (al-Bakn, 151/288; Berberes , i, 264; Ibn
c Idhari, i, 179, 183; Dachraoui, Califat , 151). On his
death (321/933-4), his son

viii. Abu ’l-Muntasir (al-Mansur in Ibn c IdharT, i,
206) Muhammad succeeded him and spent the rest of
his life in power; he died in 331/942-3 (cf. Berberes , i,
264) and his son

ix. al-Muntasir Samgu b. (viii) Muhammad, who
was only 13 years old, took his place, but entrusted
state affairs to his grandmother, who administered the
state for only two months, for a son of (v) Wasul,

x. Muhammad b. (v) al-Fath Wasul b. (ii) Maymun
al-Amir, seized power by force and put the incumbent
ruler in prison (Madjalis, 389).

The new master of Sidjilmasa had apparently
developed fairly close ties with the Umayyads of Cor¬
dova, since he was present in the midst of their troops
on 11 Shawwal 327/1 August 939 at the Battle of
Simancas (Levi-Provengal, Hist. Esp. mus., ii, 58).
Thus it is not astonishing that he had repudiated the
Sufri Kharidjism to which his ancestors adhered, so as
to be converted to the Malik! Sunnism in force in al-
Andalus (al-Bakn, 151/288). This decision was bound
to displease his Fatimid suzerain, who endured
Kharidjism by force of circumstances and possibly
also accepted, however dubious this may be, that the
khutba should be pronounced in the name of the
c Abbasids ( Berberes , i, 264), but was unable to allow a
more or less declared allegiance to the Umayyad
regime. It is said that he was nevertheless able to
govern his principality and to exercise justice there;
however, from the testimony of Ibn Hawkal (83/Fr.
tr. 79), who was present in Sidjilmasa in 340/951 and
had some dealings with him, “while he called for war
...], he was unable to obtain from the Berbers what
le wanted, because those whom he invited to join him
on campaign were disinclined to do so, fearing a trick
to harm them”. There is no mention of whether it was
the Fatimids against whom he was directing his
attack, but it is known that the rulers of Ifrikiya grew
very angry in 342/953-4, when he had the audacity to
proclaim himself caliph, take the title of Amir al-
Mu : minin and the ruling name of al-Shakir li-llah
(Berberes, i, 264; Jacques-Meunie, i, 203) and to mint
coins (the mathakil shdkiriyya cited by Ibn Hazm, Nakt
al- c arus, 76; see Colin, in Hesperis [1936], 122;
Brethes, 96, no. 773; Jacques-Meunie, i, 226). The
Fatimid Caliph al-Mu c izz li-din Allah, unable to bear
such a mark of insubordination, ordered the general
Djawhar [q.v.) to go and force the recalcitrant prince
to see reason. According to the Shi c i tradition
(Madjalis, 338), Djawhar. on arriving near Sidjilmasa,

MIDRAR

1041

wrote to the population asking them to surrender Ibn
Wasul, but they refused. This attitude did nothing to
relieve the anxiety of the amir, who hastened to leave
the town with his family, his treasures and supporters
to go to seek refuge in the neighbouring fortress of
Tasegdelt (?); Djawhar then entered the Midrarids’
capital, where he had coins minted to replace the
mathakil shakiriyya (Dachraoui, Califat , 232, 344). Ibn
Wasul, having left his refuge to find out what was
happening in the town, was recognised by some
members of the Matghara [q. u.] tribe, who gave him
up to Djawhar (on these events, see al-Bakn, 151/289;
Berberes i, 264; Jacques-Meunie, i, 203). Contrary to
what is said in the art. djawhar, Ibn Wasul was not
put to death, but made a prisoner (Mafdkhir al-Barbar,
4) and brought to al-Mansuriyya, together with the
amir of Fas, Ahmad b. Bakr, captured in the same
period, and some sons of notables of Sidjilmasa
(Madfahs , 483) taken as hostages. The attack on the
town and the capture of Ibn Wasul took place in
Radjab 347/September-October 958 (al-Bakn,
151/289). The arrival at al-Mansuriyya is dated by
the kadi al-Nu c man (A iadyalis, 458) to the end of
Sha c ban [348?]/November 959, but the dates men¬
tioned by this author do not always appear to be
exact. In any case, we are quite well informed on the
prisoner’s stay with the Fatimid caliph, on his intern¬
ment in a part of the castle ( sakifat al-kasr), on the
ignominious treatment that he experienced when he
was taken around in a cage, and also on the kadi s
attempts to convert him, as well as the tenor of the
conversations that took place between al-Mu c izz and
Ibn Wasul (see Madjalis , 41 1-12, 434-5, 458, 460; Ibn
c Idhari, i, 222; Berberes , i, 263; Ibn al-Athir, vi, 354;
Dachraoui, Captivile).

Before leaving Sidjilmasa, Djawhar had appointed
a governor there, but the population were not slow to
rebel again and to restore to the throne

ix (for the second time). al-Muntasir bi-llah b.
(viii) Muhammad b. (vii) al-Mu c tazz, whose father
and grandfather had not been appointed by the
Fatimid caliph, as al-Nifman (Madjalis, 388) claims,
but put in power by Masala (see above). According to
the same author ( Madjalis , 389-93), the population,
who had killed the governor imposed by Djawhar.
made their excuses to al-Mu c izz, but he did not accept
them at all and summoned al-Muntasir, who made his
way to him with 200 men. After a severe reprimand,
the caliph nevertheless sent him to govern his town. In
352/963, al-Muntasir was dethroned and, according
to Ibn Hawkal (107/104), put to death, with the help
of a group of twelve men, by his brother

xi. Abu Muhammad c Abd Allah (?) b. (viii)
Muhammad b. (vii) al-Mu c tazz, who recognised the
suzerainty of the Fatimid caliph. This situation lasted
until the year 366/976-7, when the chief of the
Maghrawa, Khazrun b. Falful [see maghrawa], who
fought on behalf of Cordova, put an end to the
dynasty of the Banu Midrar; the last prince still in
power fell on the battlefield, and his head was sent to
Cordova (Berberes, i, 264-5; Terrasse, i, 169; Jacques-
Meunie, i, 206). Levi Provcngal (Hist. Esp. mus., ii,
261), places this event in 369/980, which corresponds
better to the total of 160 years proposed by al-Bakn
for the duration of the dynasty.

The descendants of Khazrun were to be put under
the suzerainty of Cordova, to remain then at the head
of an independent principality in Arcos [see arkush|
until its annexation bv Sevilla.

We have seen that one observer interested in the
social and economic situation of the land through
which he travelled, Ibn Hawkal, was in 340/951 in

Sidjilmasa, and it is probable that he kept in touch
with the course of events that then took place. He
states (99-100/98; cf. Jacques-Meunie, i, 203) that in
the period when (vii) al-Mu c tazz reigned over the
principality, he “levied tariffs on the caravans travell¬
ing to the country of the Blacks, as well as the tithe,
the land tax and some ancient taxes on the sale and
purchase of camels, sheep, cattle, in addition to dues
on all merchandise being exported to or imported
from Ifrikiya, Fas, Spain, Sus and Aghmat, and
finally other revenues dependent on the administra¬
tion of the mint. All this amounted to about 400,000
dinars for the capital and the province’’. According to
this author, the revenue from the town and its pro¬
vince, an area of five days’ journey by three, was
equal to half of that of the whole Ma gh rib, and one
can understand the interest that the great powers of
the period took in the principality. The importance
that Ibn Hawkal attributes to the town itself is further
reflected by the fact that he calculates the distances
from it to other places (91-3/89-92). He passes very
favourable judgment on the inhabitants, upon whose
commercial activity and wealth he remarks (99-
100/97-8); and he is astonished to see “a recognition
of debt by which a merchant of Awdaghust admitted
himself in debt to an inhabitant of Sidjilmasa for a
sum of 42,000 dinars" (cf. 61/58, where this observa¬
tion is already mentioned). Reckoned at 4,06g a dinar ,
this sum represents a weight in gold of 170.520 kg
(Jacques-Meunie, i, 224). One can deduce from the
comments of Ibn Hawkal that Sidjilmasa was, under
the Midrarids, the most important caravan centre on
the route passing round the desert through the West;
the ruler of Egypt, Ibn Tulvin (249-69/863-83 [< 7 . y.])
having forbidden caravans and single travellers to
follow the routes which led directly to the western
Sudan, the eastern merchants passed by Sidjilmasa,
which also benefited from the advantages of eastern
and western civilisation, without however leaving
behind, at least in this period, the recollection of a
really intense cultural activity.

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Sadok, Description du Maghreb el de l’Europe au III 1 ’-
lX e siecle, Algiers 1949; Ibn al-Abbar, al-Hulla al-
siyard ed. H. MiLnis, Cairo 1963; Ibn Hawkal, K.
Surat al-ard, Fr. tr. Kramers-Wiet, Configuration de la

1042

MIDRAR — MIDYUNA

fare, Paris-Beirut 1964 [1965], index; Ibn Hazm,
Nakt al- c arus, Cairo 1951, 76; Ibn c Idhari, Bayan ,
ed. Colin and Levi-Provengal, Leiden 1948-51, i,
156-7; K. al-Istibsar, ed. and partial Fr. tr. S.Z.
Abdel-Hamid, Alexandria 1958, 201-5 (Fr. tr. E.
Fagnan, L’Afrique septentrionale au XI e siecle de notre
ere, in Recueil de notices et memoires de la Societe
Archeologique du departement de Constantine , xxxiii
(1899) [Paris 1900], 167-70); D. Jacques-Meunie,
Le Maroc saharien des origines a 1670, Paris 1982, ch.
iv; H. Lavoix, Catalogue des monnaies musulmanes de la
Bibliotheque Nationale , Paris 1891; Leo Africanus,
Description de VAfrique, Fr. tr. Epaulard, Paris 1956,
425 n., 429; Levi-Provengal, Histoire de VEspagne
musulmane , Paris-Leiden 1950-3, index; Majakhir al-
Barbar , ed. Levi-Provengal, Rabat 1352/1934, 48;
G. Margais, La Berberie musulmane et VOrient au moyen
age, Paris 1946; Mas c udT, Muriidj , iv, 39, 92-3 = §§
1367, 1420; al-Kadl al-Nu c man, K. Iftitah al-da c wa,
ed. and analytical Fr. tr. F. Dachraoui, Tunis 1975,
§§ 243-58 (partial Fr. tr. M. Canard, see
Autobiographie); idem, K. al-Madjalis wa ’ l-musayarat ,
ed. H. al-FakT, I. Shabbuh and M. al-Ya^lawT,
Tunis 1978, index; M. Talbi, L'Emirat agh labide .
Tunis 1966; H. Terrasse, Histoire du Maroc ,
Casablanca 1949-50, i, 140; c Uyun al-afdibdr, see
Dachraoui. (Ch. Pellat)

MIDYUNA (also Madyuna or Medyuna), an
important Berber tribe, belonging to the major
branch of Butr and descended from the family of
Fatin, son of Tamzlt (or TamsTt), son of Darts, son of
ZahTk (Zadjfk), son of Madghis al-Abtar. According
to Ibn c IdharI, Madyuna was said to be the son of
Tamzlt, son of Dari and brother of Matmafa,
Madhghara, SadTna, Maghfla and Malzuza. Accord¬
ing to Ibn Khaldun, the Midyuna (Medyuna) were
related to the Matghara, SadTna, Lamaya, Kumiya,
Maghlla, Duna, Matmata, Malzuza, Kashana
(Kashata) and Darisa.

Little is known of the history of the Midyuna. It is
very likely that the tribe is derived from the Numidian
tribe of Mideni, mentioned by Ptolemy and, if J.
Desanges is to believed, resident in Khoumiria at the
beginning of the Christian era. Judging from Islamic
sources, the Midyuna as such appear only at the
beginning of the 2nd/8th century. According to a
statement in Ibn Kh aldun’s Histoire des Berberes, all of
the Midyuna were resident, at this period, in the pro¬
vince of Tlemcen. However, from the start of the
2 nd/8th century, various segments of this tribe are
encountered, dispersed throughout North Africa,
from Libya to Morocco. The earliest mention of the
Midyuna found in Arabic sources relates to a signifi¬
cant portion of this clan which, according to Ibn
Khaldun, moved into Spain “at the time of the first
invasion of that country”. The historian no doubt
refers here to the major expedition of Tarik b. Ziyad
[q.v.], who marched into Spain in 92/711 at the head
of 12,000 Berbers and conquered the country in the
name of Musa b. Nusayr. Now, if Ibn Khaldun is to
be believed, a large proportion of these conquerors
was composed of Midyuna warriors, no doubt accom¬
panied by their families. It is for this reason,
presumably, that Ibn Khaldun states, in this regard,
that they soon became very powerful.

Further information regarding the early Midyuna
dates from the second half of the 8th century A.D. and
relates to certain sections of this tribe inhabiting
present-day Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. This is the
case of a Midyuna chieftain named DjarTr b. Mas c ud
who took part, with a detachment of the Midyuna, in
a major Berber revolt which erupted in 151/168-9 and

which was directed against the Arab governor of the
Ma gh rib. c Umar b. Hafs Hazarmard. Among the
Berber groups taking part in this revolt, one of the
most important was that of Abu Kurra al-Ifranl, at
the head of 40,000 Sufris belonging, for the*most part,
to the Zanati tribe of the Banu Ifran. The last-named
inhabited the western part of Algeria. Originating
from the same region were the 6,000 IbadTs com¬
manded by c Abd al-Rahman b. Rustam of Tahert
(Tiaret) who were among the groups Fighting c Umar
b. Hafs. Also belonging to - these troops were al-
Miswar b. Hani, another IbadI chieftain with a force
of 6,000 partisans, and < Abd al-Malik b. SakardTd al-
SanhadjT, who brought his 2,000 Sufris into this coali¬
tion. All these detachments laid siege to c Umar b.
Hafs at his headquarters in the town of Tubna. Join¬
ting the Berber rebels at a later stage was Abu Hatim
al-MalzuzT [q.v.], leader of the IbadTs of Tripolitania.
The latter succeeded in capturing the town of Tubna
in 154/771, subsequently setting out in pursuit of
c Umar b. Hafs Hazarmard, who made his way
towards the east. Abu Hatim was preceded by an
advance party commanded by DjarTr b. Mas c ud al-
MidyunT. The latter caught up with c Umar b. Hafs
at DjTdjil (the present-day Djidjelli) in the land of the
Ketama; in the ensuing battle, DjarTr b. Mas c ud and
his partisans perished, and Abu Hatim al-MalzuzT
retreated to Tripoli.

Despite the defeat of DjarTr b. Mas c ud in 754/771
and despite the emigration of a large proportion of the
Midyuna of Morocco to Spain with the troops of
Tarik b. Ziyad in 90-2/709-11, numerous sections of
this tribe survived in North Africa, at least until the
8th/14th century, if not later.

The following is the information provided by Arab
authors of the Middle Ages regarding these sections:

Morocco: Mention has been made above of the
significant group of newly Islamised Midyuna who,
taking part in the conquest of Spain by Tarik b. Ziyad
in 92/711, settled in south-eastern Spain. It is prob¬
able that the Midyuna who inhabited the Djabal
Midyuna, a mountain situated to the south of Fas,
between this city and that of Sufruy [q.v. , present-day
Sefrou], and are mentioned by al-Bakrl (5th/11 th cen¬
tury), belonged to the same clan. Abu ’l-Fida 5
(8th/14th century) mentions in his geographical work
a Djabal Midyuna situated to the east of Fas. Could
this be the same place as the Djabal Midyuna situated
between Fas and Sefrou? These Midyuna of the
region of Fas are also mentioned by Ibn Khaldun
among numerous other Berber tribes of the Ma gh rib
al-Aksa (the Bahlula, the Fazaz, the Ghiyatha, etc.) as
professing Judaism at the beginning of the 3rd/9th
century. Later, they converted to Islam, accepting
SufrT doctrines at a very early stage. In the second half
of this century, during the reign of C A1T b. c Umar, the
Idrfsid prince of Fas, a KharidjI SufrT named c Abd al-
Razzak, a native of the town of Washka [q.v., i.e.
Huesca] situated in the north-east of Muslim Spain,
settled among the SufrT Midyuna inhabiting the
mountain of this name to the south of Fas. There he
gained numerous partisans. He had courted for his
cause numerous neighbouring Berber tribes, for
example the Ghiyatha. He had also constructed on the
mountain of Sala in the territory of the Midyuna (to
the south of Fas) a powerful stronghold, to which he
gave the name of Washka, in memory of his native
city in Spain. According to the author of the Kirtas
(8th/14th century), this castle was still in existence in
726/1325-6. Subsequently, c Abd al-Razzak rebelled
against C A1T b. c Umar. After a number of battles with
this prince, he inflicted a decisive victory on him and

MIDYUNA

1043

forced him to abandon the city of Fas and to take
refuge in the territory of the Berber tribe of the
Awraba, the tribe most loyal to the Idrlsids. The
inhabitants of the Andalus quarter of Fas submitted to
c Abd al-Razzak, but those of the Kayrawan quarter
refused to heed his demands and brought in, to com¬
mand them, a son of the IdrTsid prince Yahya b. al-
Kasim, surnamed c Addam. Nothing is known of the
subsequent fate of c Abd al-Razzak and his
descendents. All that is known is that the latter
remained for a period of time faithful to Sufrl doc¬
trines and that they also bore the name of Banu
Wakil. This family lived for some time in the
Maghrib al-Aksa and governed, in all probability, the
Midyuna of the region of Fas.

If Ibn Khaldun is to be believed, the Midyuna of
the region of Fas rebelled, in 614-20/1217-23, against
the MarTnid prince Abu c Uthman Sa c Td, but they
were soon defeated by the Marlnids and pledged
allegiance to this dynasty.

Besides this fact, nothing definite is known concern¬
ing the history of this section of the Midyuna living
between Fas and Sefrou, at least as regards the 4th-
8th/10th-14th centuries. The last item of information
available concerning the Moroccan Midyuna dates
from the time of Ibn Khaldun, who mentions a sec¬
tion of this tribe, still present between Fas and Sefrou,
in the vicinity of the important Berber tribe of the
Maghfla [q. v. ] and under its protection.

Algeria: According to Ibn Khaldun, the original
homeland of the Midyuna was located in the central
Ma gh rib, in the province of Tilimsan (Tlemcen). The
Midyuna occupied the portion of territory which
extends from the Djabal Ban! Rashid (currently
Djebel Amour), in the south-east of the High Plateau
region, the east of Geryville and north-west of
Laghouat, as far as the mountain which stands to the
south of Oudjda (west-south-west of Tlemcen) and
which still bears the name of Djebel Midi'ouna. In this
early period, that is before the conquest of the central
Maghrib by the Zanata tribes of the Banu TudjTn and
the Banu Rashid, the Midyuna of this part of the
Maghrib roamed, in nomadic fashion, “the plains
and other localities of this region”. According to other
statements of Ibn Khaldun, this section of the
Midyuna was bordered, to the south-east, by the
Banu IlumT and the Banu Ifran, to the west, by the
Miknasa, and between them and the sea were the
Kumiya and the Banu Walhasa (in the neighbour¬
hood of the town of Hunayn). At the time of the con¬
quest of the central Maghrib by the Banu TudjTn and
the Banu Rashid, the Midyuna were, says Ibn
Khaldun, much reduced in number; they were also
expelled by the invaders from the countryside of
Tlemcen and forced to withdraw to the strongholds
which they possessed in the Djabal Tasala and to the
south of this mountain (to the south of Oran and to
the north-east of Sidi Bel Abbas) and also in the
Djabal Midyuna (to the south of Oudjda). A section
of the Midyuna is also found in the territory of the
tribe of the Beni Khalled (Khelled) in the region of the
town of Nedroma. In this area, a village still exists
called Dar Midiouna.

In the same region of the province of Tlemcen there
existed, in the Middle Ages, another section of the
Midyuna. It was based at Tafesra, formerly Tifsart of
the Midyuna, a town known from the Description of
Africa by Leo Africanus (first half of the 16th century).
This locality was situated, according to this author,
some 15 miles (approx. 27 km) to the south of
Tlemcen.

Another canton occupied by the Midyuna is men¬

tioned by de Slane in his Table geographique which
appears as a supplement to the French translation of
the Histoire des Berberes of Ibn Kh aldun. It was located
to the north-west of the town of Mazouna (east-north¬
east of Mostaganem). A little to the east of this region,
al-BakrT places the town of al- Kh adra 3 , surrounded on
all sides by Berber tribes, amongst which this
geographer mentions the Midyuna. Al-Khadra 5 was
situated on the Chelif, a day’s march to the west of the
town of Miliana. Al-BakrT places it in the
neighbourhood of Tenes.

Tunisia: An insignificant section of the Midyuna
probably inhabited at one time the desert of IfrTkiya,
in what is now Tunisia. In fact, the IbadT historian
and biographer al-ShammakhT (19th/16th century)
mentions an IbadT scholar named c Isa b. Hamdun al-
MidyunT al-Hawwarl who lived, during the 5th/11 th
century, in the badiya (desert) of this country. It seems
that this section of Midyuna belonged to the major
Berber tribe of Hawwara [^.y. ].

Libya: Another section of the tribe of the Midyuna
also lived in the canton of Yefren (in the ancient Arab
sources: Yafran) situated to the east of Djabal Nafusa
in northern Tripolitania. In fact, in his Kitab al-Siyar ,
al-ShammakhT speaks of people belonging to the tribe
of the Midyuna inhabiting this district in the Middle
Ages. Among these people, al-ShammakhT mentions
an IbadT WahbT shaykh Abu Yusuf b. Ahmad al-
YafranT al-Midyuni who died in 894/1488-9. The
same author also says that numerous persons belong¬
ing to the tribe of the Midyuna lived, in the 2nd/8th
century, among the Berbers of Fazzan. Among these,
al-ShammakhT mentions a certain Abu ’l-Hasan
Djanaw b. Fata al-MidyunT who was an IbadT mufti.

Spain: It has been noted above that a large
number of the Midyuna entered Spain at the time of
the first Muslim invasion of Spain led by the Berber
Tarik b. Ziyad in 92/711. Becoming very powerful
and very numerous, the Midyuna of Spain enjoyed
considerable influence there and, in 151/768, a group
from this tribe embraced the cause of the Berber
pretender Shakiya al-MiknasT who claimed to be the
grandson of Husayn b. C A1I. In fact, one of the
Midyuna amirs of Spain named Hilal b. Abziya rose
in rebellion at Shantamariyat al-Shark (Santa Maria
or Albarracin in south-eastern Spain) against the
Umayyad c Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil. After the death
of Shakiya, whose revolt lasted nine years, Hilal b.
Abziya pledged submission to c Abd al-Rahman al-
Dakhil and obtained from this amir a commission
appointing him chief of the Midyuna of Spain. His
power extended over the Berbers established in
eastern Spain and in Santa Maria or Albarracin. He
was succeeded by Nabith, one of his kinsmen.

Sicily: A section of the Midyuna settled, probably
in the 3rd/9th century, on the banks of the river called
Selinus in antiquity in south-western Sicily. In fact,
this river was later known as Modiuni , from the
ancient tribal name Madyuna or Midyuna. The rele¬
vant group here is probably that section of the tribe of
the Midyuna which was formerly resident in IfrTkiya
and which took part in the conquest of Sicily under¬
taken in 218/826 by the kadi Asad b. Furat b. Sinan.
Initially IbadTs, these Midyuna were subsequently
converted to orthodox doctrines after the death of the
Imam Abu Hatim al-MalzuzT.

Bibliography. BakrT, Description de TAfrique
septentrionale , ed. de Slane, Ar. text 75, 125, Fr. tr.
134; IdrTsT, Description de TAfrique et de TEspagne , ed.
Dozy and De Goeje, Ar. text 57, Fr. tr. 66; Ibn
c IdharT, Bayan, ed. Dozy (new edn. Colin and Levi-
Provengal), i, 66; Abu ’1-Fida\ Takwim , Ar. text

1044

MIDYUNA

ed. Reinaud and de Slane, 66, 123, Fr. tr.
Reinaud, ii/1, Paris 1848, 84, 170; Ibn Khaldun.
Histoire des Berberes 2 , Fr. tr. de Slane, i, 109, 172,
208-8, 221, 236, 250, 259, ii, 566 (Appx.), iii, 293,
iv, 1-2, 31, 511, 516 (geographical table); Sham-
makhl, Kitab al-Siyar, Cairo 1884, 191-2, 136, 382,
563-4, 579; Leo Africanus, Description de VAjrique ,
Fr. tr. Epaulard, 537 and n. 80; Fournel, Les

Berbers , Paris 1875-81, i, 423, n. 7, 424, n. a , ii, 17-
19, 26; R. Basset, Nedromah et les Traras , Paris 1901,
89; M. Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia 2 ,
Catania 1935, ii, 54 (note on p. 53); T. Lewicki, La
repartition des groupements ibadites dans VAjrique du Nord
au Moyen Age, in RO, xxi (1957), 340-1; J.
Desanges, Catalogue des tribus africaines de Vantiquite
classique a VOuest du Nil , Dakar 1962, 114, 121, 258.

(T. Lewicki)

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